Shadows and Subway Sandwiches [Mission]

[Deleted]

Having been entrusted with the task at hand, she had arrived at the terminal. Well, it was something about ghostly passengers at the terminal, so to speak. She looked around for any signs of danger and for her partner, that Indian girl who could cure poison. She hoped that she'll be here soon. It was chilly tonight and it was a good thing she had worn her dark purple coat along with a white cravat and black gloves to better protect herself from the cold. For now, she just stood there and waited for her partner to arrive at the terminal.

[Layla Amare]

The subway terminal was quickly becoming a regular destination for Layla's various adventures. It was only natural, being the only (or at least easiest) way past the blockade and into the outer circle, but between the junk dealer and mission board it was more than just a point of transit. And today, the mission board had brought her into the terminal for another task. Apparently, ghosts of some sort had started appearing ever since the defeat of a large shadow in the area, and she was tasked with keeping them from escaping.

Strange. She had always been open to the idea of supernatural things like ghosts, gods, and demons existing, in one interpretation or another. But actually seeing them herself was a different matter. Then again, regularly fighting formless shadowy creatures by manifesting an avatar of a Buddhist Wisdom King was hardly less unusual. Besides, she had also experienced some form of spatial distortion on her last mission, something she had also dismissed to the realm of things humans would never encounter.

Ghosts, by comparison, seemed positively normal.

After accepting the mission, she went back home to prepare herself, and came back in a white coat heavy enough to easily conceal several of her training weapons under it. She easily caught sight of her partner, the ornately-dressed woman from the battle under the full moon and following party. Her name...escaped Layla. Actually, had she heard it at all that night? "Good evening," she said, giving the woman a nod.

[ChromaticTruthsayer]

Arriving at your destination, you don't notice anything too out of the ordinary. Just a few weak shadows walking around aimlessly. But it isn't long before you notice what you were probably sent to take care of.

Ghostly Entity

• Hamaon
• Assault Dive
• Soul Break

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Dark
Ghostly Entity

• Hamaon
• Assault Dive
• Soul Break

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Dark
Ghostly Entity

• Mudoon
• Cleave
• Tentarafoo

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Light
Ghostly Entity

• Mudoon
• Cleave
• Tentarafoo

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Light

[Deleted]

"Good evening, miss." she responded as the Indian girl had walked up beside her. There were a few weak Shadows about, but there was something odd about the terminal. All of a sudden, four ghostly entities had manifested and she could tell that those things were hostile. "Our targets are here. You take the third and fourth one and I'll do the first and second." she spoke as the iron-masked queen manifested by her side, having been awakened by the mere presence of danger. "Bufula!" she ordered as Penthesilea had summoned a medium-sized ice crystal to encase the first ghostly entity which inflicted some damage to it. Another Bufula was casted on the second ghostly entity and the first one responded with an Assault Dive on her which did some damage to her. Another Assault Dive had managed to connect and deal the same amount of damage. She sensed that she had sustained some wounds, so she commanded the iron-masked queen to heal her with Dia, breathing heavily as she was surrounded by a green light.

She commanded Penthesilea to cast another Bufula spell. Another ice crystal encased the first ghostly entity in ice and dealt moderate damage to it and another Bufula was casted on the second ghostly entity which dealt the same amount of damage as the first one. The first entity responded back with a Hamaon spell which dealt moderate damage to her. Another Hamaon spell was thrown at her like fastballs in a baseball league. Commanding the iron-masked queen to once again heal her wounds with Dia, but at the cost of sheer exhaustion. She then dealt the final blow with yet another Bufula at the first one which encased it in ice and thawed out, leaving trails of dark energy. Another Bufula followed soon after which encased the second ghostly entity in ice and thawed out, leaving a second trail of dark energy. However, the battle was not over yet as they had yet to deal with the other two which her partner would handle in the midst of the fight.

[Layla Amare]

Amidst several shadows barely worthy of notice, a few stood out. Ghostly entities, four of them in total, appeared after a few minutes of searching, and turned hostile upon noticing the two humans. The regally-dressed woman at her side suggested that she take out the last two to appear. Layla nodded. "Got it," she said, approaching the two and cutting them off from reaching her partner or the other two entities. Wanting to finish this as quickly as possible in case there were more of them, Layla summoned Yamantaka on what was quickly becoming a honed instinct to hit both of them with a flare of light. Their reaction, violently recoiling as the light hit them, said it all. It was an increasingly familiar reaction that told her that the shadows (were they shadows? They seemed like shadows despite their ghostly appearances) were weak to light. That automatically made this fight easier, just so long as they couldn't hit back too hard.

The first of the shadows struck back in opposite form, hitting Layla with a wave of darkness. For a second, her vision went black, and it felt like whatever magic went into the attack was eating away at her...then it was gone. Must have just been an effect of the skill. The other tried to hit her with a small but bright flash of light with shifting colors, but it didn't have whatever effect the entity was hoping for. Other than a few after-images in her vision, Layla was unharmed. And so, it seemed, was her partner. Satisfied with this, Layla summoned the Terminator of Death for a second run, hitting both ghostly entities with a flare of light from below. They took it badly, with their ethereal forms seeming to flicker into transparency, then back again, then settling somewhere in between. They were nearly finished. They had to be. All that was left was to-oh they were still solid enough to slash at her. With a surprisingly coordinated attack for their current state, both ghostly entities manifested bladed arms and swept past her, cutting as they went. Breathing heavily and raising her arm with more difficulty than before, Layla summoned Yamantaka a third time. Finish them off first, then heal, she thought, commanding the many-armed persona to use Mahama one more time. A flare of light erupted from the ground underneath both entities, burning them away into trails of shadowy particles.

[ChromaticTruthsayer]

Well, you seemed to have calmed down the majority of the spirits. Only, as the ones you bring down disappear, many more start to appear in larger numbers. A few of them seemed a bit stronger too! Perhaps you're making the problem worse? Possible. Might be too late to ponder over this right now though.

Vengeful Entity

• Hamaon
• Assault Dive
• Soul Break
• Auto-Taru
• Auto-Raku

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Dark
Vengeful Entity

• Mudoon
• Cleave
• Tentarafoo
• Auto-Taru
• Auto-Raku

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Light
Ghostly Entity

• Hamaon
• Assault Dive
• Soul Break

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Dark
Ghostly Entity

• Hamaon
• Assault Dive
• Soul Break

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Dark
Ghostly Entity

• Mudoon
• Cleave
• Tentarafoo

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Light
Ghostly Entity

• Mudoon
• Cleave
• Tentarafoo

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk: Light

[Layla Amare]

Layla nodded again, and...wait, did she mean both of the angrier, stronger-looking ones?  Was that even a good idea?  Before Layla could stop her though, her partner had already started fighting them, and was holding her own well enough.  Meanwhile, the three she had not started attacking seemed to recognize Layla as her opponent and rounded on her.  Right then.  Calling on Yamantaka, Layla healed herself, then waited for the inevitable.  Two of them struck with weak slashing attacks, doing minor but bearable damage.  The third charged up for a second, then a flare of light erupted from under Layla.

...Wait, what?

Had she not been so caught up in her own fight last time, she might have noticed the Hamaon-using entities in the fight before.  But instead, she had only noticed two seemingly uniform entities fighting her, and when these two started using similar attacks she had thought the third would work the same way.  But instead, it had just done something completely different.  Something that Layla would have been completely unprepared for if not for the fact that she had a natural resistance to light-based skills.  In theory, the third entity would too as well, but with two other shadows weak to it, she couldn't exactly waste time experimenting.  Summoning her persona again, Layla brought forth a flare of light from the ground beneath all three of them, badly damaging two of the shadows, and...oh.  The third one didn't look like it resisted it at all.  While it wasn't as badly burnt and thrown off as the other two, it also wasn't just shrugging it off the way Layla usually did.  Which meant that just continuing to use Mahama would be just fine.  At least, until she ran out of energy.  The paired shadows attacked her again, this time with blasts of darkness that clouded Layla's vision and briefly felt like they were eating away at her until the third slammed headlong into her.  Any illusion of an incorporeal form was shattered as it made direct contact, staggering her for a second until she found a pillar to brace herself against.

With some effort, she managed to summon Yamantaka again for another shot of Mahama.  Once again, the light easily burned through two of the ghostly entities, while the third was...certainly damaged, but nowhere near as badly.  But this time, a third strike wasn't necessary against the two weak against it, as they burned all the way into particles and dispersed into the air.  She was not so fortunate with the third, as it slammed into Layla again, knocking her right back against the pillar she had just managed to push off of.  This time, she was ready for it thought and, after making sure she didn't hit her head, pushed back off of it to strike at what she hoped was a vital part of the ghostly entity's body.  No such luck, though.  Her strike didn't seem to damage the entity any more than her light attacks did.

But it was still doing enough.  She could finish it like this, just so long as it didn't find a way to finish her first.  Layla lunged toward the ghostly entity again, pushing through another flare of light from it to strike one more time.  This time, the entity's ethereal-looking body broke apart where her weapon hit, then dissolved as well.

Layla dropped to one knee as the last of the entities dissolved.  "We can't keep this up," she said between heavy breaths.  "Or at least, I can't.  If we have to fight too many more of them we're going to have to try something different."

[ChromaticTruthsayer]

Again, you clear the wave of enemies that appeared before you. Just how many of them were left? From a quick look around, everything seemed to be clear. At least, at that moment. All at once, a large horde of spirits rises out from the ground and begins to slowly make their way over towards you. Their numbers are out of counting range as far as you can tell.

Spirit Horde

• Trample (No really, they're just gonna run over you.)

Absorb: Repel: Null: Rs: Wk:

There doesn't seem to be anything you can do at this point except get out. You can probably slow them down by firing a few attacks back on them, but other than that they seem more than capable of plowing straight through you.

You can sense the energy from them starting to fade, thankfully. Perhaps this is their last ditch effort? All the more reason to avoid getting squished.

[ ] Get the hell out.

[Layla Amare]

Layla didn't need to be told twice. She wasn't sure she could get through another round like they had fought so far without exhausting herself beyond the point of being able to make her way back after she was done. Fighting a horde like what was appearing before them was completely out of the question. They didn't seem to be that strong...in fact, it felt like they were getting weaker with each passing second, but there was no way that they would run out of energy before trampling Layla and her partner. "A fighting retreat it is, then," Layla said, summoning Yamantaka again. While fighting them off was completely out of the question, slowing them down might still be possible. The moment her persona raised its vajra high to strike at the head of the horde, Layla made a break for it, running after her partner toward the exit. She heard the lightning strike and felt the ethereal figure of her persona fading, but didn't look back to see how effective it was. They could look back when they were out of the horde's path.

[ChromaticTruthsayer]

As you escape the horde of spirits, the begin to chase you rather desperately. They don't manage to catch up to you. In fact, they seemed to eventually stop chasing after you altogether as soon as the front row of enemies fall over. One by one, the rows of spirits trip over each other until they completely block off the back rows from proceeding. The backs rows begin to push through with force, causing quite a bit of rumbling in the terminal. Looking back, you noticed part of the terminal collapse on the spirits, squishing them completely. Well then. That's one way to take care of them.

Mission accomplished!

You received your reward: Level 2 weapon, 1,000 FP