Saved by the Bell [Full Moon]

[Nisha Dovickssen]

Nisha noticed the chaos around her. Reinforcements were being summoned, and tentacles were again attacking and restraining her allies. However, both issues were quickly addressed. Everyone was working together well. Well, for the most part. She smiled slightly before willing for another attack. Shango again readied his arm before lunging in and utilizing Mustard Bomb once more. So long as her attacks proved useful, she would continue to carry on with her assault. She couldn't heal or support. All she could do was destroy. Of course, destruction could be utilized to protect, as well. She wasn't too bothered by the fact that she could not assist in other ways. So long as she was useful, she was fine.

Action: Mustardo Bombu daiyo

[Alouette Pendleton]

Napping was a wonderful experience, especially when one needed it. Ally had only just gotten done a exploring round before coming here. Needless to say, the girl would have liked a nap. Though, it wasn't like she was trying to sleep through this fight. She couldn't help it. Snoring slightly, a large slimy tentacle managed to wrap around her as she slept and lifted her in the air. Unsurprisingly, she didn't notice a thing.

The girl simply snored away as the tentacle swung her around through the air a bit. It wasn't until some boy managed to cut her free that she finally fell to the ground; still asleep. Or, at least for the time being. Not a moment later, she began to stir once more. Only this time, she actually opened her eyes and looked around sleepily. She was up, but certainly not ready!

Action: Girls are preparing. . .

[Sayu Nakano]

The tentacles had not come back to strike her. More than that, she was not attacked at all. In other words, Sayu's body was safe from further defilement. It did not, however, change the fact that she constantly felt violated by the Shadow-germs or Shadow-cooties that she knew were crawling over her clothes and skin. She knew they were there. She could feel them. And it made her sick. She wanted to hurl. She wanted to shower. More than that, though, she wanted the Shadow to be punished. It needed to be purified and purged. For the time being, her indignation far outweighed her disgust.

”Again, Tamamo! Agidyne. Burn it down, raze it, leave nothing!” Her passionate desire for the Shadow's destruction only seemed to get louder, despite the fact that it all came from the phone. In the meantime, the kitsune did, indeed, fire off another massive burst of fire at the Shadow.

Action: Agidyne

[Rikki Hisako]

Rikki watched as two more girls were caught in the shadow's grasp. Thinking back to the last two caught; was this shadow specifically targeting cute girls? Rikki managed to not stare at the girls too much, figuring that they would be saved not a moment later. (They were, of course.) He chose to stick with what he was doing already since it was working so well. Alright, Throne! Agilao again! The large cloaked angel began to spin its wheel once more, producing more flames that it could hurl at the shadow. One by one, small bursts of flames began to fly at the shadow where they would undoubtedly explode on impact.

Action: Agilao in the face

[Luka Kurokawa]

Luka readied herself to cast Tarukaja once more, allowing her to move onto the offensive. She was really looking forward to trying her new attack on this thing, since it was looking like it would be effective. Readying Hel to begin using Tarukaja again, the girl blinked as something slimy touched her body. Looking down, the girl narrowed her eyes in annoyance. Not again.

Why did tentacles like to grab her so much? Why? Luka felt her body being squeezed under the pressure of the shadowy appendage. She winced in pain as she tried to struggle free. The only time she stopped trying to free herself was to look at Akira who had decided to tease her. Just wait till you get caught then! She barked at the boy as her body was slowly being squeezed in so many different ways. She didn't actually know what she would do if Akira got caught. All she knew was that it wouldn't involve helping him though.

Bringing her focus back to the tentacles, the girl helplessly tried to break out. If she wasn't already embarrassed enough from the weird feeling of being squeezed while more than a dozen people watched, the girl had worn a skirt to this fight. In other words, the girl was desperately trying to hold her skirt down as the tentacle flailed about. Luckily, it wasn't long before she was freed by a familiar face; Isolde. Dropping to the ground after being freed, the girl nodded to Isolde and adjusted her skirt accordingly. Thank you. Then, with a deep breath she recalled Hel to cast one last Tarukaja. Hopefully that would be the last tentacle mishap for a good while.

Action: Tarukaja

[Tristan Carter]

Tristan could do naught but be amazed. It seemed to him that everyone (except that one guy who didn't seem to have a Persona) was a lot stronger than he was. Not only that, but it seemed everyone else knew how to work as a group. There were those who were strengthening everyone, those who were weakening the giant, those who seemed hellbent on blasting away at the beast, and those who kept using spells that seemed would refresh him if he had gotten hurt. Everyone had a part to play, and he seemed out of place to himself. He suddenly felt self-conscious about his capabilities.

That didn't mean he wouldn't keep doing what little bit he could. He tried paying attention to what the thing was doing, but it appeared to just be attacking at random. Then he heard the bell ringing. As the beast started slashing away and sending tentacles every which way, smaller shadows wearing a guy's uniform came to the auditorium. Some were heading towards a girl who was seeming to cast spells that were either empowering the people or weakening the thing, others were heading in Tristan's direction. He grabbed his scythe, preparing to try to cut them down, when someone with a knight Persona blew them away. Tristan looked at the guy, relief and gratefulness evident in his eyes, when he turned back at the big thing. I'll have to thank that guy sometime... After this, if everyone lives.

With a wry smile at this thought, Tristan concentrated on bringing Pyro Jack into being. "If this thing is wasting time on me, that's less damage done to the important people," he said aloud, mostly to himself. "Let's keep this beast busy, shall we?" With that, Pyro Jack sent another small burst of flame at the creature. Tristan started to move away from the others, just in case it did start to come after him.

[Pyxis]

That...was not good. Pyxis could tell from the moment the shadow had slashed their main healer that it had been considerably more damaging than any single attack so far in the fight. She did one quick glance back around, to make sure that the rest of the present Persona-users could handle the current situation. The girls trapped by tentacles were already freed, the new shadows that had come pouring in were dealt with, and everyone who could deal decent amounts of damage to the shadow were still taking shots at it. That left Pyxis with enough time to break away and deal with the girl who had been hit.

She leaped away from the battle, easily clearing out of the way of the other fighters as she approached the girl. She'd already done a decent job of healing herself, Pyxis could tell, but even if she could still fight there was no telling if she could survive another hit. "Here," she said, summoning Pandora. A light shone from within the box, spilling out as a wave of healing energy. It wasn't much but, then, after managing to heal herself despite taking such a massive hit the girl probably wouldn't need much. "Don't hesitate to retreat if it gets to be too much. We'll cover you."

[Jaelyn Callahan]

Jaelyn watched the shadow's tentacles ensnare two more girls: Luka and...what the hell? Was that girl seriously sleeping? In the middle of a fight? After seeing what had happened Jaelyn starting to feel embarrassed that she'd managed to sleep through something like this before, so how was this girl even managing it here? Did she have no sense of self-preservation?!

Well, fortunately, they were saved soon after. And a bunch of other shadows showed up but they were also quickly dealt with. Which meant there wasn't much left to do but keep attacking the freaky cleaver girl shadow. Jaelyn summoned Andras again, commanding it to use Agi once again. Andras obliged, generating another fireball and launching it at the shadow. This time, Jaelyn noted, it was even stronger than before. Had whoever was empowering all of them done it again? Who was doing it?

[Za Bossu!]

The shadow could only smile as the humans continued to fight her off. They were persistent; that much it could say. But some of these guys were truly annoying. Of course, the converse could be said about a few of them. The first attack that came to her next was a powerful slash at her. With a smirk, the shadow lifted its cleaver and completely nullified the attack. When the second slash attack came, the same thing happened as well. Meanwhile, most of the other attacks hit for a decent amount of damage as well; especially the flame based ones.

Notes: Debilitate x3

[Wiggle Clench] x 2

With a giggle, the shadow sent a few more tentacles out into the crowd and scooped up a few people at random.

Another pair of tentacles goes for Sayu and Chidori! They now have to be freed to act again!

[Winter Chill] x 2

With a large breath, the shadow begins to turn light blue before sending out a few ice based attacks at nearby humans.

Isolde and Amane are hit for major ice damage!


[Cleaver Fit]

Slinging the cleaver over its back, the shadow swings down and hits Ally for severe slash damage! Or at least. . . if it actually hit. It didn't.


With a gleam in its eye, the shadow begins to feel a slight change in the atmosphere. . .

[Ayakura Alisa]

Blade against blade as the sounds reverberated around the room; the Shadow raised her cleaver and simply deflected my attack, it appears while I didn't get hurt, the Shadow was completely impervious to slash-based attacks. Sigh. So much for that! I should've stuck to frying it with electricity. That said, I noticed that the tendrils returned again, it kept on targetting the girls... Again, one of the girls who had been grabbed earlier was grabbed again, but it seemed self-aware in its targetting, for this girl had been consistently hitting the Shadow with threatening and immense amounts of flame-based damaged. However, the other one... It was Chidori!? Cursing under my breath I dropped any pretense of hurting the Shadow with electricity and charged to Chidori's aid, and as I ran to her side, I noticed Pyxis was there as well, it seemed she had healed Chidori when she was struck hard by the Shadow's attack.

I spent this time to try and help Chidori out of the shadowy tendrils, hacking away at any tendrils that still came at Chidori with my knife, assisting her in breaking out of the strangely sinewy binds. "Chidori, you'll be alright..!" and then, I turned to Pyxis, wondering if she'd already went in another direction. "...And thank you, Pyxis!" I felt guilty for attacking with a useless maneuver, so this time I'd go and help out someone who could contribute more right now. I wanted to make sure Chidori was alright as well. Even after healing like that, I wondered if she was truly able to power through the realization of what had happened to her.

(( Helping Chidori out of the tentacly stuff! ))

[Takeda]

"Sunday nights..."

The cold water from his chipped sink did very little in the way of soothing the unease that had crept so steadily into Takeda's mind over the past few days. Money was tight, the situation was getting dimmer day by day as he had come to terms with the fact that the plan that he and his brother had concocted so very long ago was ultimately pointless. Every time the dark hour rolled around, every time they went out into West Mosaic, every time they tried to do practically anything to make it known to the outside world what was going on, hell, to verify that there still was an outside world for them to go back to if things ever did clear up around here...they were stonewalled harder than a healthcare bill. Now things had changed even more, with Takeda heading out almost more than his brother when he was permitted to leave the festering hellhole known as his job. (Apartment not withstanding.) Leaning over the sink with both of his hands gripping the worn porcelain surface, he found himself looking up into the mirror. It was his job to act carefree, like none of this was getting to him, because it certainly wasn't going to ever get to Seiji...he was failing at it. Now...hell, he had no idea what to do. Worse than any sort of failings on his part, the mini-fridge was now completely devoid of any form of alcohol, and suffice it to say that meant that something had to change. Cash from the junk lady seemed to be a viable option, so did doing the little missions that popped up on the board now and again when he checked. With a deep breath, he moved to remove the ear ring from his ear before he was hit with a genuine feeling of deja vu. A sense that deep down, something was wrong, more than usual.

Slowly making his way out of the bathroom, trying his hardest to keep from bumping into the cot where he presumed his brother laid in the jet black darkness, he reached into his pants, pulling out a cigarette, and striking it alight with an old lighter he managed to find laying around the old office building he had hit up alongside Whitey and the biker. Leaning up against the wall, he had thrown his jacket, and one of his old shirts onto the sofa...part of him couldn't stop looking down at the scars that had recently been put on his abdomen, because he had to admit, they looked a bit badass. The faint orange colored  glow of the lit cigarette provided just enough illumination for him to see around the old place, as he tried his hardest not to step on any beer cans, pizza boxes, or whatever laid under the perpetual carpet of filth that littered his 'home'. That feeling just didn't want to die, like a cockroach, it just writhed whenever he tried to cut it's head off, with the nicotine not calming him enough to quite execute it. Stepping over to the window, he found himself strangely not surprised...the sky was purple. Through those old wooden, dust covered blinds, he could see it plain as day, the sky was purple again. Dark Hour. Looking down at his sleeping brother with the cigarette still held in his mouth, he grabbed up his clothes, hastily putting them on before rushing into the bathroom. In a flash, he had already put his pistol in his waistband and made a move for the door. After all was said and done...well, Takeda felt a need to see this one himself. Seiji was a sound sleeper, he wasn't, Seiji headed out into the abysmal hellhole known as West Mosaic, he didn't, well...some things had to change. Times definitely were, especially with shadows pushing into the city.

No junker to cart him around, carrying an old 9mm that had only put down a printer and some mayas so far, Takeda made his way down the streets with the same thoughts as usual going through his head. Should he have brought Seiji along on another of these little suicidal missions? What if he didn't show up in time, and some poor schmuck got hurt? Hell, what if he had left the sink on?! All of that became secondary as he rushed towards the place everything seemed strongest at...oh fuck. The School. Secretly, a part of him had hoped that the pudgy little rent-a-cop had opened the kitab-al-azif, but hell, it was time to get serious...first major outing other than the executive building wherein something big could be crawling around in those sprawling corridors. Pulling his pistol from his waistband, the sounds of combat could be heard even from the outer grounds of the school, just like he had thought, he wasn't alone in this, but he was much later than the rest. Fashionably late they called it. Or Monday mornings. Whichever. All the electronics in the school were out, that went doubly for the cameras...so, Takeda did the one thing he had absolutely hoped to do in school. Busting out a window with a large rock he found on the grounds, he climbed on through and sprinted down the hallways towards the auditorium. Opening up a pair of double doors, it looked like the gang was all- "What, in the fuck, is that?!" Tentacles. A schoolgirl uniform. Various people being groped by the tentacles...for an instant Takeda wondered if this was just some elaborate set-up for a gangbang. Familiar faces had shown up from the bar scene, alongside a few people that were only distant blurs from battle previous, but this wasn't the time to say hi, or try and remember names, it was time to set this bitch on fire. In an instant, his card appeared only to be shattered by a bullet for the sake of speeding things the hell up...in a flash, the spectral mage emerged from whatever dark void had spawned him, raising his towering figure up above Takeda as his cold breaths filled the auditorium. Nary a command had to be issued, no aiming, no fancy tricks. Gathering a single ember in it's hand, Faust cast forth a swirling, cohesive, basketball sized ball of flame that the phantom intended to deliver to that horrid abomination's face.

Not only was it probably molesting people, but the sheer image of what this thing...was, the fact that it was practically a living embodiment of the one thing Takeda had absolute hatred for in this world, that was what seemed to fuel the malice filled look on his face. Strangely enough, by entering through the doors he had gone through, he found himself in relatively close proximity to the same young 'woman' that he had ran into at the previous encounter...huh. Now that malice filled little grimace had also been the subject of a few strengthening buffs...whole thing was in full swing. Speaking in Japanese, he looked up at the monster and spoke, "To think I nearly missed a chance to kill something as fucking disgusting as you!"

(Agilao powers, activate, form of YOU SMELL LIKE BURNING.)

[Holly Mason]

"Looks like slash attacks are no good either!"

That wasn't that surprising considering its strongest attack was a slash attack and both shadows and personae tended to resist what they could use.  It looked like they had hit the shadow with every kind of attack now and fire was the only thing that was particularly effective.  Too bad.

For once, Holly wasn't quite sure what to do.  She had already weakened the shadow completely, Luka had already empowered them completely, she knew no other buffs, the healers were keeping on top of everyone's wounds just fine, and her own ability to attack was pretty bad...Granted, she would probably still hit harder than some of the weaker users here.  She would probably be better off attacking than the ice users would, so rather than help the girl with the powerful fire attack, she once again directed the girl in the diadem to so since it looked like Ringo was a little occupied with the sleeping girl.  

With that, she summoned Anaisa Pye and had her attack with her wind spell for all the good it would do.

(Action: Garu on the boss)

[Vice Ysal]

Another set of buffs, another set of attacks, and more people getting shadow-handled with tentacles of varying shapes and sizes. Vice was just pretty damn happy that the thing didn't bother calling out more reinforcements this round. Too many attacks would have been wasted if they had to keep splitting their attention between the main body and the rest of the team.

Fortunately for the team, everyone was still going strong even after a few bumpy as fuck hits. The constant flow of healing, and empowering spells was finally showing a difference. When the doors had burst open, Vice had already readied himself to fire off a Getsu-Ei at it but at the shock of red hair and the same face that told him 'don't fuck with me' made the guy hold up on summoning Arondight.

Heh, looks like Takeda finally made it. Vice was wondering where the hell some of the major players from the last fight were. Surely having them up in here's gonna make a damn difference. Turning back into the battle, with the boss preoccupied with the others, Vice himself once more called forth for his persona to fire a destructive Mudoon again. Slash attacks had been proven useless, which meant a third of his battle capacity was made useless. With that said, megido took some time to use and Mudoon was left.

Logical choice? Drown that thing in darkness.

[Ringo Shiro]

Ringo was relieved to see the fact that the sleeping girl was saved...what did not calm him down was the giant shadow charging at them with a cleaver. Quickly looked over at the girl to see that the sense of urgency did not wake her at all. He quickly placed the sword away and then started to pull the girl away from the cleaver. Ringo swore that he was going to have a heart attack by the end of all this. He started to lightly shake her and progressive shake harder as he attempted to get her away.

"Come on! Please wake up!!" Ringo was constantly looking back at her and back at the shadow. This isn't exactly the most ideal of situations at the moment.

Note: Pulling Ally away from the clever

[Amane Mana]

The shadow was smiling. If it wasn't in any apparent pain than clearly their attacks were only doing scratches on it. It seemed like slicing it apart won't do either. Amane finally took a look over at her allies. She was a bit relieved to see Ran though but the entire group is quite frankly confusing her. One is quite frankly a robot and one is napping! Amane started to attempt to construct a strategy however it seems like the shadow finally took the time to notice her.

Amane was caught off guard in the small window of time she was thinking. She was right away pelted by ice blasts from the shadow. If it weren't for the fact that her persona resisted ice and the defensive spell that Ran placed over everyone then she would've been unconscious. Amane started to get up. She crushed the card once again as Silky appeared to heal her wounds. Come to think of it...now what was up with Ran's persona? This was her first time seeing it and while she is thankful for the defensive buff, she can't help but to question it. Amane shook her head. Why was she thinking about that now of all times. Amane looked down hoping her wounds would close up sooner.

Note: Amane is using Dia on herself...jerk