Persona (Concept)

A Persona is a manifestation of a person's personality in the Heroton series (Which in Turn originated from the Persona Series), referred to as a "mask" for an individual to use to face hardship. A Persona is similar to a Shadow-self. Shadows are malevolent manifestations of one's inner thoughts, while a Persona is a manifestation of the same feelings but tamed and trained. If an individual takes up a resolution in their heart, the Persona will undergo a metamorphosis into a stronger form. While the summoning sequences of a Persona differs from one installment to the next, a tradition that later adaptions follow is that blue-ish fogs are always released when a Persona is invoked. A fight using Personas weighs the user's mind and spirit. Continuous uses of Persona will eventually devour the strength and stamina.

Throughout the Heroton Group Series, and sometimes unbeknownst to the characters, The idea of Persona has always been around, as anyone with spiritual energy could be a potential user. However, depending on the time period, their usage, name and even abilities both vary and change either slightly or Drastically.

"Spirit Weapons"
In the beginning of the Series

"Persona (After Years II Onwards)
Due to the Universe merge caused by Vaati, The Powers and rules of Persona change drastically. While Personas still somewhat represent a person's other self, they also can have personalities of their own, and might even betray the user should they be too mentally weak to control them.

New Persona Rules
The concept of and rules governing the new Personas have been summarized by Eggman, who discovered how they work after the awakening of his Persona, Deus Ex.
 * Due to needing the User to survive/continue to exist, it does everything to protect its user, Like a guardian. Due to this self preservation, it sometimes uses their powers without direct orders in order to protect the user, and by extension, themselves.
 * While a Persona can only have one Persona (With the exception of the Wild Card users), it may Transform, Evolve, or Split into separate beings (Such as Xero 's Albion )
 * As Before, A Persona is part of its user, and damage is reflected between the two. Usually, if a Persona's leg is cut off, its user will lose their leg as well. Certain aspects of some Personas, such as the multiple Limbs of Aliéné's Hariti, are immune to this effect.
 * While Personas can still only be seen by other Persona users, Some are bound to Physical structures, and can be seen by everybody.
 * The further a Persona is from its user, the weaker it becomes, no exceptions.
 * Usually Personas are Human Shaped (Or Shaped like their user, like Arthur with Nero), But some can take any shape of form that they wish, so long as they still represent the user's True Self. They also might not take a physical form at all, and exist within the User's Body (Such as Nathaniel 's Persona, Tenhou Gensui ).
 * As Personas are the defeated Shadow-selves of the user, they have no personal goals, serving their master without question. Persona who don't have users will generally go wild, due to them reverting into something worse than a shadow, such as ???. Some Personas show personality, speaking to others besides their master, but most still serve their master without question.

While Personas in After Years II have changed in terms of how they work, they are still based named after mythical creatures and deities.