Duty of the Weak [Boss]

[Brynhild]

Her attack worked out splendidly. It always felt nice to know that at least one of her specialties was effective. The Thinker burst out with a flash of light, which explained why darkness hurt him more. The blast burned her pale skin, but the lack of gaping wounds meant she had to continue.

“You don't have worry about me” she said under her breath. The boy had a special talent for irritating her. Why was the weakest person here standing the closest to the Shadow? Even if it worked out, this seemed like the worst idea. Still, Brynhild was not about to point this out. The frustration would make it easier to use the spell that may keep him alive.

This first round of attacks from the enemy did not hurt too badly, but there was no reason to put off healing. A second wave take one of them out. Five shadows might appear out of nowhere. She couldn't bring anyone back from death, so keeping everyone near full was the better option. Knowing how this would play out ahead of time, she felt obligated to warn them. “This might sting; you'll have to trust me on this one.”

The warrior Persona was noting if not consistent. She swept her arm out in an arc as five darts appeared (so glad they weren't knives this time.) One needle pointed at each individual member of the team, filled with some sort of healing drug. Or just magic. Instead of trying to figure it out Brynhild launched all of the darts. Upon reaching their target, they quickly dissolved into energy. A green aura spread across any injuries, recovering the damage.


Action: Media

[Aegyo Cho]

It was impossible for him to predict what sort of attack would come from this shadow, but at least ice had not been resisted. Sure it wasn't all that super effective, but it did something. It was all he had to go on when it came to pass that slash would not work, so he'd rely on that to get by, that is at least until the shadow made it's move.



It would be his luck that the shadows strength was his own weakness. He saw it coming as the creature began the attack, but there was little time to do much about the fact. he'd just have to endure it and hope for the best. The raised arms had his own raising to shield his face from the light that would strike upon them. Though his small voice raised in pitch as he cried out in the pain that washed over him as that attack hit them. Aegyo felt his legs getting weak and he dropped to one knee, the injuries upon his arms and legs were the most obvious as he took in harsh breaths, trying to maintain his strength and his consciousness. He didn't want to go down so quickly, he couldn't give up, but that hit had hurt and it was obvious that it had a strong effect upon him. He felt foolish for coming so unprepaired at that point.



The dart, he was most thankful for despite the way it shot an additional pain through him at first impact, it's warm magic spread over him and the injuries he sustained felt as though they were being drawn away. His breath exhaled heavily as he regained his feet, he'd have to remember to thank her properly after this was over, if not for her he'd have surely been out of the game before they'd even got anywhere. "Lets keep it from doing that again." he stated through a strained tone. He was certain he was going to feel this later, but right now the concern was defeating this creature before it could use such a painful move again. "Claudia! Cool it off!" he declared before declaring another wave of bufu upon it.





Action made: Bufu

[Shadow-Senpai]

The shadow looked up to see that not only was its attacks extremely effective on many of the intruders, but they had the unfortunate capability to heal themselves. Then the humans had the audacity to attack again, dealing some more damage to his weaknesses, Strike and Dark. Ice still did neutral damage, though.

The statue stood at its full height and looked over those who dared intrude on the sacred works that were influenced by the Muses. They needed to be dealt with, but how? What would send them all into the abyss?

The statue contemplated to it's next plan of attack, but it realized something. Why not focus on them one at a time? Take out one of the defilers, and they all would lose a large portion of strength... The only question was, which one?

The statue looked over his enemies before finally deciding on Tatsuma. He the swung down, dealing Moderate Strike Damage! The statue smiled, then sat again. It needed to think on how to continue with the battle....

[Kaitou Nagano]

Thankfully, punching the statue didn't hurt much more than punching a man in the chest-- it stung, but The Thinker would be hurting a lot more than Kaitou after the attack. He turned back to the group to face a large syringe flying at his arm. Before he could avoid it, he was pricked, but instead of taking damage, the liquid it injected rejuvenated him. The brunet resisted the urge to make a face. First there was Ran's tentacle tail, and now Brynhild's giant needle... Were all healers this morbid?

The sound of rumbling brought him out of his thoughts as the Shadow rose to full height, raising a fist and striding bast Kaitou to squarely hit Tatsuma. That looked pretty painful, but Brynhild would be able to take care of the guy's injuries. After its attack, The Thinker returned to its aggravating pondering stance, signaling the Users to attack it once more.

"Rrgh...!" Once more did he run at the sitting statue, pulling back his fist before releasing it to punch the damn thing in the jaw. He couldn't break its teeth, but it'd be feeling the pain regardless.

---

Action: Level 1 (Minor) Strike attack on The Thinker

[Tatsuma Kirihara]

Tatsuma was pleased to see their attacks hitting the Thinker harder. Darkness and strike attacks were really effective, it made sense, he supposed. People who were more intellectual didn’t like the darkness clouding their mind when they were looking for the ideas in the light, and sure as hell didn’t like being punched. If only every shadow’s weaknesses made so much sense.

"Huh?" He heard the girl’s call before seeing the dart flying at him, and Tatsuma’s first instinct was to jump away, but it was faster. It sting, but he barely noted it actually wasn’t an attack, but a healing process. Best ever, sarcasm fully intended. "Holy shit, don’t tell me you heal with syringes!" It wasn’t really his place to complain, really, he had no use to heal himself, but why does it have to be a syringe?! If the shadow won’t kill me, the healing will.

After their round of attacking, the Thinker turned to him and aimed a good punch. He shielded his head as Behemoth materialized and took the monumental fist, but it affected Tatsuma’s own health anyway. He fell on one knee from the strength of the attack. Thank God--- oh wait, not god, he wasn’t religious, damnit! But anyway, it was fortunate he had a good endurance to stand up to that attack directed at him. And he was glad the Thinker decided to attack him and not one of his allies. Who knows how any of them would have taken it.

"Okay, it was only me this time. No need to mass heal right now, keep attacking instead!" He would actually prefer to be healed, of course, because the next wave could easily wipe him out if he wasn’t prepared. But he really didn’t want to be healed by that syringe again. Needle phobia wasn’t a nice add-on to have right now. Brynhild, as Kaito called the girl, has a good strike attack to use on the boss, so maybe it would be better for her to attack, unless she wanted to heal them anyway. He wasn’t able to see into the hearts of the other users in the end. He had some little say in this, considering he was the only one injured this round, right?

He called out Behemoth again, the beast still more eager to attack than actually revert to a supporting role, but Tatsuma kept true to his word. With a howl, raising their attack one last time, he would be ready to attack next round as well.

---

Action: Getting freaked out by syringes Tarukaja

Tarukaja 3x in effect

[Aegyo Cho]

The shadow's movements were something he wished he could predict, but he'd never encountered this type of shadow before. So far they had a handle on what the thing's weakness was, that they could rely on, but he himself had no attack that would do great damage on the creature. Not like the woman known as Brynhild could with her attack. Or any of the others for that matter, but he didn't feel he was useless. No, he'd prove his worth and he wasn't going to let his team down.  Especially when there were civilians doing far better than he was at this.  No matter, he'd get stronger, he'd show everyone he was capable.  For now, he couldn't focus on that fact though. If he did he might slip up, then who knows what could happen to him. 

He felt his strength remaining steady thanks to that woman's healing, but his attention was drawn by the attack made upon Tatsuma. "Loo--" he was about to shout toward the other man, but it was to late to do so as the creature already attacked him. Sighing in relief as it seemed the other man was still standing. "Don't hit me for this later..." he pleaded as he drew his hand to cover his own mouth. With a kiss to his hand his arm moved outward in Tatsuma's direction. Blowing him a kiss that manifested to impact to the other male's cheek to spread a healing light through him. Whatever you wanted to call it the act was done, it wasn't nearly as strong as the warrior's healing, but it would give some help so that the warrior could attack this round he hoped.

---

Action Taken: Dia on Tatsuma

[Brynhild]

The last round seemed to do more damage than the first. Even though she paused to recover their health, the attack buff provided by Tatsuma made the attacks substantially more powerful. He didn't appreciate the manner by which the healing had been delivered. “If you prefer, I'll switch over to axes instead.” No sarcasm entered her voice, as she most likely couldn't repeat the needles if she tried. The concentration required to pull that off was better spent elsewhere. It was a miracle she even figured out how to heal before coming here. She needed more time to understand the exact mechanics behind this.

The Shadow gave up on attacking the whole and attacked an individual member. Brynhild felt obligated to help, but didn't want to waste any energy. The single target spells always hit one person, so of course the group heal must only work on everyone. Tatsuma bravely insisted that she ignore him for now

”Not you too, kid.” she whispered, unable to keep the thought inside. Regardless of what he told her to do, she never planned on healing the boy. None of the people here had the authority to boss her around. She had the opportunity to ignore them, but continued to follow anyway. Their advice at least made sense. Perhaps this is just part of working as a team that happens to everyone.

“Morning star!” She did not call out the name of the attack, but commanded her Persona to create a specific weapon. The Berserker listened for once and created a decent sized mace to strike the Shadow. Which he did.


Action: Assault Dive

[Crux]

The focus of the enemy was concentrated onto only one person in the group for now, which might have been unwise. The 'Thinker' might have been overthinking this one. It may be more effective to take down two at once. It seemed to not matter in either case, as there were healing spells being sent out from some to others. They took the most unusual forms, one of them being needles and another, just now, firing out from a kiss.

It was... unprofessional? But, one couldn't say that when they were revived by a succubus spraying mystery fluid on their face. Making sure that it wasn't the case now, Crux put a finger on his face. It was all clear and not covered in stickiness. Thank the gods. What a horrible experience that was.

Momentarily radiating with green restorative energies and then a red empowering aura, Tsukuyomi raised his sword in the air. Darkness poured into the blade from all over. It seeped from the katana, and before it all escaped, he pulled his blade to his side and sliced the air in an upwards-diagonal manner. Yet another black crescent flew towards the Thinker, aiming to make more than a deep gash on his surface.


[Action: Mudoon on The Thinker]

Confusion Roll (1 to hit myself):

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1-2

[Shadow-Senpai]

The Thinker realized that his attack didn't have an overly desired attack. However, the User's Strike and Dark attacks were super effective. Again. The shadow was starting to succumb to anger. These humans seemed to think they were writing their own story! Didn't they realize that nothing was uninfluenced by Fortune and the Muses?

They needed to pay. But how? What would be so dastardly so as to force these pitiful would-be heroes to acknowledge the greater powers of Luck at work? What would show them the beauty of the Muses' arts? Suddenly, the statue had an epiphany. It knew that many of the Users were weak to light, why should it not exploit that?

Now, it just had to choose a victim. It scanned the Users before selecting his target and dealing Moderate Light damage to Aegyo. The shadow stood at its tallest now, seeming to almost try to intimidate the Users.

[Kaitou Nagano]

Another score against The Thinker. Though it was but an animated statue, Kaitou could see that their attacks were beginning to grate on its nerves. Once more did it raise its arms, gathering an intense light in the dim gallery's halls. This time, it would concentrate its attack on one person: Snowy in the back who had just taken the time to heal Tatsuma in the most tame manner he'd seen yet. Judging by his words from the last time the party had been struck by light, it was probably one of his weak points. Great. On top of that, the damn thing was hovering over them as if to strike fear in their hearts from one measly attack. Please.

Kaitou took a moment to gauge the situation. Tatsuma had amped the party's attack power to its peak point by now and was probably more than ready to wail on the Shadow. Brynhild could take another moment to heal, but it would be a waste of energy to use an area spell for just one person. As for Crux... the tin can didn't seem to be paying attention to the rest of the party at all. Whatever. Although it would make more sense for him to keep beating on The Thinker (Snowy over there didn't seem to be able to produce Strike or Dark attacks), he didn't want to risk it targeting the other boy and possibly incapacitating him. So, would he continue to beat on their enemy or help ensure his teammate's safety?

You are the only one here that aspires to greet Death with open arms. Your companions have other ideas.

'The hell was that?' The brunet looked around, searching for the source of the deep voice that had just spoken out. It didn't seem like the others had noticed its presence... Was it in his head, then? And what was it trying to tell him with such a loaded statement? 'Feh... There's no time to think about it right now! Focus!'

Having chosen a course of action, Kaitou turned around and ran over to Aegyo, pulling out a bottle of medicine from his jacket before unscrewing the cap. "Here, drink up. And try not to gag-- this shit's terrible." Without waiting for a response, he gently cupped the other's chin and pressed the bottle to his lips, tipping the syrupy fluid in.

---

Action: Administering Medicine to Aegyo

[Aegyo Cho]

A smile played on his lips after he'd done his part to heal his teammate the best he could. He was starting to feel better about this battle. For the most part, the thinker hadn't seemed to care about his existence. After all, he was weak and was not causing nearly as much damage as the others were. However, those thoughts came crumbling down as he saw the shadow's attention turn toward him and he saw that familiar attack being directed right noward him. His heart sank as his arms went up to cover his face again, his sleeves sliding down his forearms, exposingt hem to the light which struck him moderately.

Aegyo cried out much more audibly this time. The wounds dancing across his skin had pain shooting through his body and it felt as if his pale flesh was on fire, though it was not, and he couldn't tell whether what hurt more--flesh or pride. He dropped to his knees, huffing out a breath as moisture slid down his cheeks, his fingers trembling from the pain. Crap. He wasn't supposed to break down this way. Focus. Hold it together. Don't give up now. Don't do it. You have to be strong. Nobody likes a weakling. he told himself as he fought back the feeling just to close his eyes.

It was then he heard that vaguely familiar voice of one of his teammates. The image of the man split before his eyes for a brief moment before he pulled his focus together with the cupping of his chin. He felt his milky white skin coloring with his surprise, but the pain made it hard to really do much else. The sudden feel of that syrupy lquid sliding into his mouth nearly made him spit it out all once. Any sort of expression he'd had before was now replaced with one of horror as his hand rose to cover his mouth. It took a great deal of willpower not to vomit at the taste but he managed to choke it down the best he could. "T-thank you" He stated as he felt the medicine's effects coursing through his own body. A shaken breath escaping his lips as he ran his hand over his arms. The wounds there seeming to draw into better condition rather quickly. The pain subsiding and he took in a deep breath, "There's still fight left in me, let's teach this thing a lesson about what happens when you mess with life." He stated as he wiped at his own eyes.

There was no time to waste lingering on the floor and whining about how much it had hurt. No, the shadow was still alive and still a threat. With a smile given to Kaitou his eyes would turn back toward that shadow. "I'll make you pay !" he declared though the wear of the battle was clear in his tone along side that of his determination. He wasn't going down without a fight and with open arms he struck with Claudia, spilling another wave of ice over the shadow, hoping that it would be enough to help weaken it further for the other's attacks. It was strange, when the battle had begun it had been more about him proving himself than anything, but now it was different. Now it was about keeping everyone alive, about riding of something that wished to end lives, perhaps his motive had changed but in the end the result would be the same regardless--right?

---

Action: Bufu

[Tatsuma Kirihara]

First syringes, and now... a kiss. However nicer it seemed to be healed by such an act than needles or slimy tentacles, Tatsuma was dumbfounded when the boy blew him a kiss in the middle of battle. He was staring dumbly at the white haired guy and was about to voice his troubles, but by the time he found his voice, the Thinker attacked. Yet again, it decided to aim at only one of them, and incidentally, it turned out to be the boy who healed him. Kaito rushed to the boy’s side already, and seemed to give him medicine for the super effective attack. He was weak to Light. Damn, this could be bad.

Tatsuma jumped forward and in between his two teammates and the Thinker to call out Behemoth. The beast appeared, and rushed forward to envelop the shadow in darkness as it called for the Mudoon spell. It would be best to draw the attention of the shadow until the boy was healed and the other two could focus on the battle again. It would be devastating if the Thinker launched an attack while they were trying to right their lines. Behemoth was standing guard as well, growling at the shadow while Tatsuma glanced back behind him. Both were back in action, and the boy released his ice spell toward the enemy.

Tatsuma allowed himself a wide grin and nodded toward Kaito and Aegyo before turning back to the Thinker. "Thanks for the healing, by the way. All of you." He didn’t only mean Brynhild’s party heal with syringes and Aegyo’s awkward blown kiss, but Kaito’s medicine given to the white haired boy as well. However makeshift they were, it seemed like most of them were able to act like a team. He liked that.

---

Action: Dumbfounded by kiss Mudoon

[Brynhild]

Underestimating the enemy usually led to defeat, but for something that imitated the Thinker, this statue did not act intelligently. The idea of taking them out one at a time made sense. Brynhild failed to understand why he would switch targets. So far white haired boy wasn't as much of a threat. The Shadow should be trying to stop the person doing the most damage. Afterward, the four left behind would be easier to clean up.

Not about to offer the opponent battle advice (that he probably wouldn't understand anyway), she continued attacking. A faint glow surrounded her as the next weapon hadn't been selected yet. Growing impatient, Berserker fabricated the most basic club imaginable. As in, the kind often seen in the hands of cavemen. The club swung for the giant's legs; odds are he'd stay standing, but trying made her feel good no matter what.


Action: Assault Dive

[Crux]

Finally, the Thinker decided to take action instead of sit on his little spot, overthinking every aspect of the battle. This would prove to be an interesting match-up, with the Shadow finally involving itself more with eliminating the Users. Yet, there was an obvious outcome that was expected to come out from all of this: the death of the giant man. 'The bigger they are, the harder they fall', many have said as they encountered their own large enemies.

Oh yes, this was what Crux strived for. The fall would be gloriously loud, and the silence afterward sounded incredibly delectable. Animalistic desire overcame him as he swiped his hand down. Tsukuyomi, standing beside him, mimicked the action with his blade, casting the same spell as before: big, dark crescent blast. "Rah...!" Restraint was necessary to keep himself from losing himself over something that would only take two of him to destroy.

His vision and senses returned briefly to take a look at what everyone else was doing. Camaraderie between all of them was satisfying to watch, but he still felt that they should cease their involvement. Speeches later, slicing and dicing now.

[Action: Mudoon on The Thinker]

[Shadow-Senpai]

Although the human had distracted another to heal him, the Thinker was still being accosted on all sides. The Dark attacks were still overly effective, as was the Strike attack. Still, Ice only dealt Neutral damage. The shadow looked over its adversaries, unsure of why they simply wouldn't oblige. After all, it was just trying to show them the beauty of the Muses work. Sadly, the humans continued to resist, causing even more problems for themselves.

The shadow was starting to wear down, and cracks in its structure were started to become prominent. Realizing it's weakness, the shadow looked over the users before deciding on the android. The statue looked into the eyes of Crux before trying to speak, somehow confusing the poor guy. However, it wasn't done this time. Oh, no. The shadow struck the floor, sending out a shockwave that dealt minor Strike damage to the entire party.

The shadow then stood in an aggressive stance, trying to show a bit of strength to cover its weakness. It was determined not to show weakness in its final moments as the Muses' worker.