Reaching Greater Heights (Boss)

[David Moore]

Damn, it's cold. Dave pulled his black jacket tighter around himself. He hadn't explored this area much, but he had decided to come here for his next foray into the unknown. He could sense something here, something powerful. He wanted to fight it. If I get into to trouble I can run, no big deal. His persona allowed him to be self-sufficient. He could attack and heal, so he should be able to manage just fine. He could feel the powerful presence come close. Check it out for a bit, and if it's too strong: run fast. He felt a sense of deja vu. He was, again, walking into a situation that might be complete suicide for the sake of power. He casually activated his taser gloves and readied his evoker for the coming fight.

[Takeda]

"Get some sleep. I'll take the shift tonight."

Takeda was immediately regretting his decision to take over for Seiji that night, as he emerged from the manhole and onto the streets of the ruins of West Mosaic. Cold and ruthless, the wind nipped at his face the very moment that he pulled himself up onto the asphalt. Dusting himself off, he once more found himself nearly blinded by the absurdly thick fog that seemed to always permeate this part of town. After his first real foray into combat against the monstrosities in the lobby, Takeda was feeling slightly more confident in his abilities to utilize his persona, yet...there was still a sense of dread that managed to fill him as he walked down the lonely, deserted streets of this once thriving part of the city. Tonight was going to be different, despite the chill of the wind, despite the creatures that dwelt deep in the darkness of that tower. This time, Takeda came prepared, or at least, as prepared as he could be, considering his relative lack of formal training. Extra clips of ammunition jingled in his jacket's pockets, and his flask was filled with a bit of one of the local energy drinks, in the hopes that steadying his mind could keep him from making crucial mistakes like before. Truth be told, he didn't know what to expect with these things...hell, his last encounter had him getting along by the skin on his teeth. As he followed the landmarks mentioned before him, and once more found himself gazing up at the massive tower, he made a mental checklist of what he had carried with him once more. Of course there was the gun, plenty of ammo, something to keep him on his toes...what was he forgetting? Red hair being blown every which way by the cold breeze that stung his face, he squinted his eyes, and moved for one of the windows that had been broken in ages ago.

Pulling himself over the windowsill, he pointed his pistol into the darkness of one of the ground floor offices, and then it hit him..."I left the fucking flashlight." Smacking himself in the face once, Takeda collected himself, and scrounged the offices for a few basic supplies. Something about tonight just didn't feel right. In his haste to scramble through the meager things the building had that interested him, Takeda (As he predicted), found no intact coffee maker on the ground floor, but there were some knick-knacks here and there. A red stapler, some scrap electronics, basically enough to keep Seiji and him eating for a day or two. After scouring much that half of the bottom floor, he found himself eventually kneeling over an old briefcase, before he thought he heard something coming from the lobby...now, the phrase "Curiosity killed the cat" did of course come to mind, yet Takeda found himself heading for the lobby anyway, pistol up. With a few quiet curses muttered to himself for being such an idiot, he moved out into the darkness of the lobby, holding the pistol tight. His hazel eyes squinted to see better in the darkness, and he steeled himself for whatever was to show itself. Sweat dripped down the side of his face, and the tension was near palpable for him...he wasn't afraid of these things, but he was definitely on edge. In Japanese, he uttered something to the effect of "Well, if you gotta die..."

[Seiji Dalton]

(Sorry in advance for da poor quality of dis post, despite campaigning for dis boss I was ironically out on the day it pops up.)

Sitting in the solitude of his home, Seiji found himself suddenly restless as he gazed out into the darkness of the night. His brother had decided to explore the stratums while he stayed at home that night. Usually, Seiji took this as a welcome chance to rest so he could go to school the next day and attempt to have something approaching a normal social life. Tonight though...tonight was different. Something was pulling him to go out and explore, to stand by his brother's side. Something powerful was calling to him from beyond the safe, warm circle of normalcy that the citizens of Mosaic City had been given. He was already in his PJs, laying down and resting would be so easy...

But instead, he jumped up, hastily taking the medicine cabinet down and grabbing his bastard sword from its hiding place. Attached at the pommel was a keychain he'd been given by someone dear. Ever since the keychain had fallen into his possession, his spirit had been invigorated. Sir Gareth's attacks with his sword had seemed stronger. His own sword was effective in a totally different way with its electrical charge. Quickly changing, he slipped on his school uniform and headed out the door. The streets of the shopping district were never crowded at night thankfully. Picking up the manhole below him, he slipped into the sewers with his flashlight and followed the usual path towards his destination.

Coming up to street level, he was once again greeted with ominous, howling winds, a thick fog, and a strange purple sky. The dark tower that Seiji had dedicated his nights to exploring was looming in the distance. Finding his way through the fog proved easy considering his destination was always visible above him. A shiver ran up his spine from the coldness of the night. Seiji had to get to that tower. Breaking into a sprint, he walked through the entrance to the tower with his hand on his bastard sword and a surprised look on his face when he found Takeda so quickly. With a heavy heart, he said, "Whatever happens, I've got your back."

[Boss-sama Desu]

Beware, MALWARE has been detected!

Shadowflame NT4000

Skills

Firewall
System Shock
Update
Virus
Network

Resists: Fire, Strike, Ice
Weakness: Electricity



Stirring from the depths of the building, there was a certain piece of technology that noticed activity on its intrusion detection subroutines. The entity was a computer that had been infected by a Shadow. Normally, something like that was impossible, but technical details could burn in hell. Propelled by tendrils of oily darkness, the possessed computer tower drew in on the building presence within its domain. Popping through a certain doorway, the tower slammed itself upon the ground. Conveniently right in front of Takeda and Seiji. The third presence was nearby, but this Shadow preferred quantity over all else. With a tendril poking into a nearby monitor, the Shadow gave life to the screen and created an expressionless mask upon the surface.

There was no escape. This was the boss of the floor, and it was prepared to clean its domain.

[Seiji Dalton]

Before Seiji and Takeda were even given the chance to have a proper bro moment, the monster that had drawn them both together appeared. Out of instinct, he jumped so that Takeda was behind him. Drawing his sword, it whizzed to life with stirring sparks of electricity. Despite being faced by a truly monstrous foe, he stood his ground. He had to act fast if he wanted to make the creature back off long enough for him to summon his Persona. Assuming the strange computer-creature would focus on him if he struck first, he lunged forward and attempted to slash the creature with his electric blade. Sparks whizzed, lighting up the building just a bit for a few solitary moments. Backing off after the slash was given, he continued to stay his ground.

Perhaps his foolishness valor in the face of a mighty foe was part of the reason his inner self manifested as a member of the knights of the round. Cupping the sword in both hands, he waved it threateningly while (hopefully) his brother did something smarter than striking the shadow-computer-monster with a sword.

TL;DR: Seiji attacked the computer-shadow with a sword modified to deal Zio damage.

[Takeda]

Had it not been for the appearance of the strange mixture of shadow and machine, Seiji most likely would've seen Takeda point a gun at him, followed by the typical spiel of "Why in the hell did you follow me here? I told you to stay at home, or, I'm fine, go back." No, no, when the computer managed to plop right before them, the first words spoken by Takeda were not to chastise his brother, or plan some sort of battle strategy...they were quite simple, really. Reverting back to Japanese out of instinct, Takeda found himself saying loudly, "You have got to be fucking kidding me." Gripping his pistol in both hands, the clerk took aim at the tower core of the computer before Seiji leaped between him and his intended target. There was no time to curse Seiji, and in a way, this opened up a much better alternative to old fashioned lead. Whilst Seiji was in the midst of slashing the corrupted computer, Takeda was holding his hand out expectantly, and was met with the vision of his Persona's card descending to his hand, before it shattered.

 In a flash of blinding light, Faust emerged over his shoulder, in all of his ghastly glory. With a deep breath, and focused intent, Takeda took aim with his pistol once more, only his finger was off the trigger. The persona gathered energy in it's hand, a swirling vortex of darkness that seemed to develop more mass as Faust held it. Gun at the ready, Takeda whispered the word "Go.", and with that, Faust unleashed the very same dark beam that it utilized to defeat some of the shadows in from his past foray into the lobby, directed at the very point that it's user had aimed at, the core of the computer. As his persona shot out the intense beam of dark energy, comprised of what appeared to be screaming human faces, Takeda glared down the computerized monstrosity, unable to shake the sense that something was wrong...this thing seemed stronger somehow than the other shadows the half-brothers had faced down before. "As if things couldn't get any worse, we get bootleg Shodan shat out in front of us." He muttered, moving to a position to the right of his half-brother...this thing wasn't gonna be happy if they hit it.

[David Moore]

Dave heard the sound of fighting and quickly turned the corner. He was met with the sight of some sort of... You've got to be kidding. It looked like some sort of computer monster from a generic B-grade movie. He glanced to the left and saw two other people engaged in a fight with it. One of them used a persona and Dave saw a familiar dark magic used as an attack by the red-headed one. The other one was attacking it with a sword. That thing is clearly not a joke like the other shadows, I need to maintain a distance. If I have to, I'll resort to keeping these guys alive while they take the beating.

He switched off his gloves before pointing the Evoker at his head and firing. The familiar pain rocketed through his head as his Persona came free form his mind. We'll try light since the other guy used Dark. His persona took action and launched a Hama spell towards the Shadow, a light filled the area as the attack closed in on the machine and Dave took the opportunity to appraise his apparent allies.

One seemed pretty typical, long brown hair, average height, holding a sword. Nothing altogether interesting about it. He looked at the other one. Red-hair, he had noticed it before. He was clearly older, but still youthful and... Goddammit, why now? This isn't the time for this, Dave! He quickly ran over to where the brothers were, sliding ducking down and sliding through the gap between them.

"I'll cover you guys, focus on attacking it." He said it as he was right behind him and stepped back a few paces. He would fulfill the role of healer, only helping the others while not being directly involved. It was a role he was used to.

[Boss-sama Desu]

Now, this computer was a bit sturdier of a rig than your typical tower. With the three-pronged assault of a thunder blade, plus light and darkness, it would not have been shocking for your typical computer to break down. Not this badass, though. Nope. Nosiree. Of course, that blast of lightning hurt. Like a cyberbitch. Now? Now all three of its targets were together. It was a good move to focus on the larger group, it seemed. Of course, what kind of computer lacked the means of erasing junk from its vicinity? A crappy one. And this was not a crappy computer.

Flashing a grin on the monitor, the tower ran its first line of offense. Three tendrils shot from the tower's USB ports. Each one fired at a member of the human team. This? This was its attempt at offloading a virus converted for organic destruction. It would deal minor pierce damage to all of them, while having a chance of poisoning its targets.






(Note: Apparently, our RNG dice code is not currently functioning. Or it didn't when I posted this. So I rolled on random.org. Virus has a 25% chance of poisoning victims. David is safe. Both Takeda and Seiji, however, are poisoned.)

[Seiji Dalton]

The brothers soon found that they weren't alone in their fight. An unfamiliar voice called out as twin beams of light and darkness shot out and hit the machine. In combination with Seiji's seemingly devastating attack with his bootleg thunder bastard sword, the computer seemed to take some bruises in their first 'round'. Unfortunately, it seemed to take them well. Tendrils shot out and one hit Seiji first as he was the closest. The sharp tendril pierced deep into his body, causing him to tighten up as something foreign, something ugly spread throughout his body. Huffing but standing his ground, he opened his mouth to call out to the others but it seemed to be too late.

"Takeda!" Seiji hollered with a surprising amount of emotion. It was surprising that the computer hadn't done anything to actually attack him directly. Instead, it was focused on all of them equally. Gritting his teeth, Seiji decided to go onto the offensive more aggressively. His sword had electricity, their opponent was a shadow computer. The last lightning strike had apparently harmed it more than the other two attacks. He had to keep that up. Sir Gareth's physical attacks weren't augmented with an additional effect, seeing as how hard summoning a Persona in the middle of a chop shop to have its sword modified would be hardly practical.

Closing the short distance between himself and the computer, Seiji started to savagely hack at it with his sword, unleashing another barrage of electric damage onto the mainframe. Unfortunately for him, whatever the computer had done seemed to be spreading. At the moment, he just seemed more fatigued than he normally would considering the fight had just began and he hadn't even utilized his Persona, but the unnatural feeling running through his body hinted that it would get worse over time. At least they had their mysterious ally to heal them. Due to focusing on the shadow, the fool didn't get a look at him, being too focused on his melee with a giant malevolent computer. At least if it tried to swat him away, it'd be too busy to attack the others. Then again, it apparently had the means to attack them all at once. At least his electric attacks would prove effective no matter what the computer did next.

[Takeda]

Whatever satisfaction Takeda would've taken from striking the computer's tower was swept away the moment he saw that another blast of opposing energy was striking at the tower from the flank. Surprised, Takeda gazed at the direction from which the blast of light had originated from, and saw that the caster of the aforementioned blast was heading for the vacant space between him and Seiji. Upon seeing the well-dressed man slide in as if he was playing baseball, the red-headed clerk drew his attention away from the fight for but a second to speak to their newfound ally, speaking in plain English, "Dunno where the hell you came from, but sure!" And as he turned his attention back to take aim at the beast, he found himself hit by a sudden burst of indescribable pain, which seemed to emanate from his stomach. Turning his attention to his wound, he swatted the tendril away from the impact point, but it was no use...the damned thing had managed to get him in his gut with that freaky appendage. His stomach muscles tightened involuntarily, either in response to the pain, or whatever that thing had just injected him with. Faust seemed to be feeling it too, as the spectral mage seemed to seize up for but a moment, recoiling from an apparent hit at the exact same time that Takeda sustained his injury.

Steadying himself, a look of pure anger seemed to spread across Takeda's face, much like the virus that was slowly spreading through his frame. In that anger, Takeda took careful aim with his pistol, and pressed his finger to the trigger...if the damned thing wouldn't budge from getting hit with the dark, or light, or the incessant hammering of his half-brother's blade against it's frame, it seemed like a bullet wouldn't do much either. Buuuuut...fuck that. With his hands steadied, the week-end soldier squeezed the trigger, his shot aimed purely for the computer's core. Now, Takeda was no expert on computers, but he did know that if you kick a computer hard enough, or if you pour enough water on it, the damn thing would short out, and god dammit it would go down. Hearing Seiji's cry, he focused his attention and merely yelled out, "I'm fine! New guy, you know what to do, alright?!" Gun smoke filled the air as his shot rang out, and brass made a faint clinking noise against the floor...whatever OS this thing was running on, Takeda at least took solace in the fact that it wasn't running some Matrix bullshit, even as his body began to be wracked with pain.

[David Moore]

Dave saw the tendrils lash out at the other two. He was already readying himself to cast Dia to heal their injuries. He was so focused, in fact, that he didn't notice the other tendril arcing towards him. He felt a pain in his shoulder and immediately swiped at it, ripping it from his shoulder. It had hurt, horribly. He let out a strangled cry of pain. The attack had bitten deep, and his eyes were watering form pain. He couldn't stop there. He readied himself to cast Dia yet again, but noticed something odd with the other two. They seemed to have taken the attack in a much different way than he himself had. Did it just drive in deeper. Red Guy looked like he had been hit with a sore spot, but they both had a similar way about their body. Red Guy's Persona had reacted as well. They had both been affected with something else and for whatever reason, Dave had resisted the effects even if he had sustained a heavy hit. He had to use this in some way.

The other two were the ones dealing damage, so he had to keep them both alive, but he would only be able to heal one in time for the next attack. It was either sword-guy or red-guy. Sword guy seemed to be the one dealing the most damage with his electric sword. The only logical way of proceeding was to heal sword-guy, but that meant red-guy was left out to dry, and Dave had a feeling he wouldn't take the next attack well in his condition. It was basically a choice of who would live and who would die, and Dave felt his heart begin to race. He had trouble deciding whether he wanted Waffles or Pancakes in the morning; he couldn't make a decision like this now.

His body made the decision for him. He found himself moving, subconsciously commanding Shimon to heal sword-guy with Dia. He ran over to red-guy as he fired a bullet at the computer. Dave grabbed him by the collar once he had completed the shot and pulled him backwards, moving his own body in front of red-guy. His mind had finally caught up. "Whatever that thing did, didn't get me right, I'll take your next hit. Keep attacking it." He cursed at himself, blinking back the tears of pain. This wasn't the time to be getting all sentimental with people he had never met. It would all just end up like before.

[Boss-sama Desu]

Bet you wish your college laptop was rugged like this bastard. Taking the electric bugaloo from the sword, as well as the gunshot, the tower wobbled a little. It was still good to go, but the damage was accumulating. After a little more wobbling, part of the tower fell off- it was the cover protecting those sensitive inner par- . . . well, what used to be sensitive inner parts. The inside of the tower was like a black void of squirming naughty things. That can be left to your imagination, for the sake of children everywhere.

It was time to launch another offensive! On the monitor, the phrase “Komodo Protocol: Launched” flashed for a second before pixelated flames danced on the screen. Then, suddenly a red dot appeared out of nowhere. Then it spread, becoming a wall. Finally, it just launched right at the crew. The attack would hit all of them for minor fire damage.

[Seiji Dalton]

Their blows seemed to hit true. A bullet whizzed past Seiji's head and hit the computer where it hurt, or maybe that was just his electrical strike. All of the effort that lead up to these moments seemed to be paying off. After both his brother and he attacked, he felt pangs of pain run throughout his body. Something was terribly wrong and it had nothing to do with the night in Pompeii that his brother always hinted at. Cringing and holding his chest, he felt a sharp pain that quite suddenly went away with a flash of green light. He felt reinvigorated, able to fight again for now. Looking back, he saw the stranger and nodded at him in thanks. Seiji was going out on a limb and assuming that the shadow didn't understand what they were saying. If it did...it'd just be their pisspoor luck.

Sword held in both arms as its wall of fire emerged, his eerie calm stayed even in the face of a massive wall of flames. "We take this and we try to finish it off...its core was exposed, there's a mass of shadows inside. I know exactly what I want to do." He could hold off the pain but not forever. If and when this thing was defeated, he felt like he'd need a doctor. Either a professional one or the weird lady who liked buying and touching his junk. "Takeda, you have that healing spell. Stranger, you as well. Stay back and heal yourselves then focus on me after its counter-attack if it isn't dead." It was a risky plan, but Seiji was tough. Since he began channeling Sir Gareth, he felt more physically capable (which probably had to do with the Persona's ability.)

He saw the ever approaching wall of flames and he ran, charging and jumping through through. Flames licked at his body, causing searing pain as his body flinched. Finding himself on the same side of the wall as the computer, he continued his charge and somehow managed to avoid giving a warrior's roar as he tried to drive his sword deep within the exposed shadow's naughty...bits. The electricity would take over from there as he struck deep into the mass of shadows.

[Takeda]

Before the well dressed stranger stepped up to try and valiantly take whatever blow was soon to come from the mechanical menace, Takeda saw his bullet strike true against the core of the machine, alongside Seiji's swings. With a smirk on his face, Takeda cried out to his half-brother, "Fuck yeah! Knocked it loose, now hit that bitch where it hurts!" And as if brought on by the karma gods, he too felt something hurt, his virus infected guts. Whatever it was that the computer shadow had shot into him, it burned like cheap sake, except that Takeda could take a shot or two of that before passing out...this stuff hurt bad. Woozy from the pain of what felt like someone deciding to grill his stomach, he looked at the man who jumped in front of him, and moved to get beside him, rather than let the stranger take a blow for him. "Don't be stupid, dammit. I can fight, just focus on Sei-" And with that, what should appear coming from the machine? A wall of god damned fire. As it approached, Takeda steeled himself for the worst, and tried his damn hardest to make a jump through the flames to minimize the damage. After catching the sleeve of his coat ablaze, this stopped seeming like a good idea fairly quick. With the hurried speed of a madman, he attempted to pat out the fire before finding that the faux leather coat was not capable of being saved. Throwing it to the ground, he stomped on it in his weary state, now standing in the cold air in a white discount t-shirt. Whatever this thing was, it had honestly pissed him off now...his hand was scorched up pretty bad, no boils, but fuck did it hurt to even move. During his movements, he had completely ignored Faust, who stood stoically over him, though, the mage did seem to be in more pain.

His vision blurring with every single move, Takeda looked at the stranger, then his brother...he hoped to god that this'd work on someone else, otherwise this was about to get awkward. As best he could, Takeda focused on the stranger and placed his hand on his shoulder, as Faust extended out his hand in a similar manner, with green light balling up in his own palm. A brilliant flash of green light occurred, as Takeda cast something that he hoped would ease the stranger's pain. (Dia.) Fading in and out, he gripped his gun and leaned forwards, unable to steady his hand for another shot, and barely managing to stand, he dropped his pistol to the floor. "Get Seiji. NOW!" There was an unexpected amount of emotion in the clerk's voice...he seemed genuinely concerned for the child. "Heal my fucking brother, dammit!"

[David Moore]

Dave heard red-guy's complaint and was ready to push him back again. The guy was in no condition to take another attack. A flash of light, and all of a sudden a wall of fire was advancing toward the three of them. "That's so fucking cheap, It's not even fair. The wall of fire hit Dave and he felt the pain rip through him, painfully cauterizing his open wound. The attack had hurt. Dave felt his consciousness slipping away. One more. It was almost all he could do to keep standing. He began to make the command when he felt a hand on his shoulder and a wave of energy rush into him. The pain in his shoulder dissipated considerably, but he could still feel the pain. He felt red-guy fall away and turned to help him.

Red-guy screamed at him to heal his brother. That must have been sword guy. But sword-guy had told them to heal themselves. Red-guy was clearly in no condition to keep goin. He looked pretty bad, as if he might die at any moment. The heartfelt cry they both had given. He couldn't take it. His thoughts began to fall apart as the pressure weighed in on him in that instant. If he didn't heal red-guy, it was almost certain that he would die. If he didn't heal sword-guy, there was a chance he could die. Logically there was only one choice, to save the one that was more likely to die. But that cry.

Dave felt tears in his eyes as he directed his Persona to heal sword-guy. He didn't waste anytime, He shoved red-guy onto his back and began lifting his legs. He knew a couple of emergency first aid tactics. Red-guy might survive. Sword-Guy needed to finish it or they were all dead.