Fandom Persona 5: The Meta War CLOSED

[Maeve Valor]

As the two thieves attempted to make their escape, Countess scoffed in dismay as her eyes stayed focused on where they went, but she was still entertained. After being ordered to follow she only haughtily responded with an off-putting giggle sprinkled in her words, "No worries, I love nice morsels that play a good cat and mouse game. Come Phoenix, let us catch those delicious little mice!" She then let him carry her to them all while she playfully moved her feet and head as if she had a merry song in her head, obviously gleeful about the chase.

Just when Shiro tried to keep her hold around Masami, she tried her very best to keep from letting go. After swinging through the now broken door, she slipped at the last second, tumbling to the ground of the long hallway they found themselves in. She knew it wouldn't last long before they caught up, so she got back on her feet and began to make a run for it, but as expected, the Metamercs followed the duo with great speed by flight. When the person referred to as Phoenix with Countess in tow got in between them and the exit, Masami stopped in her tracks only to run into one of the feathers that landed on her arm leaving a burning sensation. With a hiss, Masami pulled her arm away to brush it off annoyed. After Phoenix spoke, another unfamiliar voice spoke obviously to combat his statement. She looked back briefly in the direction to where the voice came from just in time to see a person clad in green with a hat, fall from above to intercept the other two Metamercs. From the way he spoke, though grandiose, he appeared to be helping. Curious as to why, inquiring of his intentions needed to be something that would have to wait. For now, she averted her attention back to the two people who had pursued them while thankfully the other two were preoccupied.

"I don't know about all that but... beauty has never been a hallmark on my identity anyway. I am called Swan after all." Masami then unlatched her Chakrams from her sides. "So all this talk of it means nothing to me. Especially since this former ugly duckling is gonna kick your ass. Matarukaja!" A circle of orangish-red light sprung up around her and Shiro as she charged in towards Phoenix. She gripped onto her weapons as she swung arms trying to slash at him, leaving trails of red with each swing with her enhanced weapons.

In the meantime, Countess was getting quickly bored with everyone speaking and all the interruptions, but thankfully she didn't have to wait long for the fight to come to her when what looked to be a shadow cat approach the group and turn into a bus of all things, aiming to run over her. She was a little intrigued to witness such a thing so much that she almost forgot to dodge out the way, letting her shoulder clip the side of the bus. To most others, this would have dislocated their shoulder, Metaverse or not; But upon contact, she did not even flinch as the area glow brightly before subsiding back within her. This was not the same type of effect as one would have if they were resistant or even immune to what was inflicted, but it was more like the physical damage was absorbed. She watched as the cat-bus drove all the way over to Hardshell trying to do the same to him and then it made its way coming back toward her.

"HAHAHAHA A cat-mobile! How adorable, but I wonder..." Countess jumped high up when Morgana reverse-charged at her and she landed on top of the vehicle. "... how far will I need to cut into you before I find out if you spill oil or blood!" She then jabbed her long claws into the hood of the the bus before sliding down and cause large slashes. From there, she performed a clean somersault, rolling back onto her feet with ease before she got back up and heard the cat's suggestion. She assumed that Thrud was the girl with the visor's persona.

"Let's see how well you can command that persona of yours while under pressure then, shall we?" Once again the Countess ran up to Shiro, attacking with her appenages in an upward motion before quickly following up with a myriad of slashes one right after the other.

Nellancholy That Weird girl TreasureSniper Azurian Dream

 

[Nellancholy]

Beauty this, beauty that. It was truly all these men could assume, even before they saw her face.

Of course, there were far more pressing issues to address, like the sudden increase of temperature in the hall. "Ghk!" Shiro braced herself, the impact of the fall still stinging her back as she braced her lance, as if it would help her against the rising heat while Phoenix and the newcomer faced off. Ann and Masami could take the heat, literally...but her and Thrud, not so much.

The rest happened annoyingly fast, as the Countess arrived on the scene, that repulsive, bloodthirsty woman, soon followed by Morgana and his clumsy efforts at mowing the mercs down. He couldn't get more than a graze in on them before Countess struck, her blades striking like shards whipped up by a storm. Shiro couldn't withstand that on her own, and-

"Dammit...T-Thrud..."

With another flicker of blue light, Thrud burst forth again, a screech like that of a wounded animal reverberating from within her armor. Knowing only fear, she did not strike with the same strength and precision she had supposedly attained alongside Shiro. Her gauntleted arms clawed desperately at the air, at the woman that could have been stained with the blood of Shiro's sisters. Thrud's wild movements may have entangled Countess for a split second, but she got in Shiro's way just as much, leaving her no opportunity to attack.

And the Countess' blades in turn swept across Thrud like the wind, leaving deep scratches in her armor. That was more than most Shadows so far could speak for. A single firm blow from her could pierce right through and leave a nasty wound...

How could Shiro get her back under control?! A question that she could maybe just answer if they survived the next few seconds...

There was no time even to breathe now. The heat was rising.

If she couldn't rely on that, then...

Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out one of the leftover Arc Magatama the Baron had handed them in their last mission. One way or another, she would have to take the hit. Shiro's fist clenched, and the magatama's power flowed into her gun...

With a squeeze of the trigger, a few shots rang out with thunderclaps behind them, arcs of lightning coursing through Thrud's armor. In such close range, the Countess would likely be hit as well. Or a stray bolt or two might even reach Phoenix...

Maeve Valor TreasureSniper That Weird girl

 

[TreasureSniper]

"How presumptuous..." Phoenix replied to the girl's taunt by setting himself ablaze. The merc would dodge the first strike with a graceful shift of his body, before disappearing in an explosion of flames. A wall of flame surrounded Masami, separating her from the rest of the group. "You're no ugly duckling. Your ugliness....is from the inside..." A second later, Phoenix would reappear in front of Masami, getting her head smashed by a shield bash. If the blunt force strike wasn't bad enough, the shield would leave a lasting burning sensation upon impact. Phoenix followed it up with a flaming leg sweep, knocking the girl to the ground. Its no secret that Masami was currentlly the weakest member of the Phantom Thieves, with only a threat level of 33. Even if Phoenix wasn't the strongest merc on the field, the gap in power was still noticeable. "It's over. You're fried." pointing his fist toward her, charging up an attack for the coup de grace. The great Swan would have been fried, had phoenix not been shot by a few stray electrically charged bullets hitting him, temporarily paralyzing him. "Damned valkyrie!" With that, an opportunity presents itself for a getaway, or perhaps...a counterattack.
Hardshell was more mesmerized than anything else by the cat bus suddenly doing donuts around him. Eventually, when the vehicle turn around again to ram him, the rhino-like merc stood his ground. As soon as they made contact with each other, the cat mobile could not move any further, it was like it had just hit an immovable object. The merc gripped the catbus's front and eventually lifted him up and off the ground. Spinning him around a few times, the merc would eventually toss the strange vehicle toward Shiro, trying to flatten her with it.

Meanwhile, Fixer was cautious with their move. They had no data on this newcomer, they assumed that he was the one that contributed to the distraction from earlier. His entrance certainly gave him an air of confidence, however, upon actually scanning him, he could see that he had a threat level of 41, about the same as Fixer, and only slightly stronger than Hardshell. "Hardshell, go help the other two, I'll handle this joker." he told the merc to go help his other allies who are in greater need of assistance. Hardshell merely nodded and complied with the command while walking toward the thieves.

Fixer brandished his bat before lightly tapping it over his shoulder, as he walked towards this mystery man. Summoning Al-Capone, the gangster pointed both of his guns at the green interloper to unleash a hail of bullets. While this was happening, Fixer calmly took out a metal ball from his pocket. Tossing the ball upwards, Fixer swung his bat at the descending ball, striking it with great force and sending it flying to the wall at an angle, causing it to violently ricochet off the wall and towards the green boy. After impacting the green man, the ball would bounce on another surface and home back onto the target. Fixer would take out two more balls and repeated the process, saturating the boy's entire area with a stream of bullets and ricocheting metal balls, making it impossible to get out unscathed. The ball's momentum and velocity seemed unnatural, seemingly not slowing down, despite having bounced back numerous times already. "Danger, you wouldn't know it if it hit you on the head, which it probably will."
That Weird girl Nellancholy Maeve Valor Anthem accursedjobber Azurian Dream

---

Shadow Masami eventually made it to the control room of the palace, where the ruler sat down on his throne. Kamoshida's shadow had greatly evolved from the last time Baron had visited him. From a mere king, now looked like an evil tyrant emperor of a galactic empire, complete with large golden armor, a long red cape with embroid hearts, and a golden laurel around his head. The Shadow Masami knelt down before her master before finally speaking. "The thieves have engaged the mercs, should we send in reinforcements?" the shadow meekly asked her master.

"No. I paid good money for them. They should do their job well enough. " Kamoshida calmly stated before patting his lap signaling to Shadow Masami. The girl's eyes lit up with glee as she quickly approached her master to take a seat on his lap, snuggling onto him with a happy look on her face. "For now, let's just enjoy the show." The ruler spoke as a screen lowered from the ceiling showing a fight between two powerful opponents happening outside the compound.

---

Outside the castle walls, the two fighters finally had a chance to duke it out, without any distractions. The destruction that has been caused so far was unparallel, killing countless amount of peasant shadows around the castle. Not that it matters. The opponents would go through houses and people alike as if they were cardboard and paper mache. With each clashing strike, a shockwave would be released, destroying a large part of the environment, and leaving nothing but rubble. There was a brief respite between the two fighters, as both of them distance themselves from each other.

Baron perched himself on top of a ruined tower, looking down on his opponent from high above, contemplating his next move. Since just about everyone else was already inside the palace, he shouldn't have to worry about any peering eyes. It's been a while since he fought anyone that force him to do this. "The cycle continues, come forth once more. Aion." Baron mask disintegrated revealing his visage while a silhouette of a humanoid dragon slowly formed behind him. Its skin was metallic, looking like it was made from different types of metal colored matte black, magenta, and shiny chrome metal for its wings. As the body finished forming, parts of its limbs and eyes would glow a bright magenta, before the persona came to life, letting out a roar that shook the heavens.


From inside the palace, both thieves and mercs alike could feel the ground beneath suddenly shaking, accompanied by an unnatural roar. But apart from that, they couldn't see anything else from where they were.

The ruler shook in fear upon seeing the monster on the screen. It was much bigger than the other persona they had seen so far. To say that it was intimidating was an understatement. "I want every weapon we have to fire on that monster!" He commanded, immediately shifting the base into battle station mode, revealing numerous hidden gun batteries.

Despite the hostile environment, Baron paid no heed to the palace, as there was a much bigger threat in front of him. "Jormungandr!" the merc chanted, summoning his own persona, that was even bigger and longer than Baron's. It took the form of giant purple cobra with large spikes. And so the battle of the titans had begun.

Spoiler: roar

 

[Anthem]

Not hearing a proper response from either Shiro or Masami, Imato would start to worry if they had been taken down just like the distraction was almost. Stopping in his tracks he would start to think of what to do in this dreadful situation before he heard the roar shaking the whole palace. "What is it now... That's it-" Looking at the wall he had stopped at, the thief gained a determined look on his face as he cracked his neck. "I'll tear this damned palace down to reach them... Heed my call, LOKI!" Imato yelled as he started to dash at full speed this time, upgrading from his walking pace from earlier. Loki would laugh before using nuclear spells to blast the walls to bits, allowing Imato to go as fast as he wished. The explosions would echo throughout the palace as they grew more frequent and rapid, shaking the ground like the mysterious roar just a moment ago had done.

Within seconds, one of the walls of the room the infiltration squad was fighting the Meta Mercs within would crack before exploding just like the other ones before it, creating a veil of dust and smoke that concealed who had made their way to the brawl. "What do we have here...? A brawl without me? How sad..." Imato said from within the veil of dust before looking at the Meta Mercs there. "Now, who will get beat down today..?" His figure could now be seen as he started to point to each merc, seemingly counting or something similar before finally stopping on Hardshell. "You..!" With a quick spin, Imato's grappling hook shot past Hardshell and stuck onto something in the environment close by which the thief used to propel himself at Hardshell at top speed.

Using his momentum and melee weapon, Imato would bring Hardshell to the ground. "Let's not waste any time, shall we?" The boy said before pulling out the chill grenade he had received from Baron, stabbing the explosive onto the spike on the merc's mask before pulling the pin. Imato would jump high into the air after pulling the pin to the grenade, pulling out another item and his ranged weapon as the chill grenade exploded directly on the merc. "Freezing, isn't it? Now what would happen if I add some more... Oomph to it?" Imato said with a psychotic smile as he crushed the second item he had pulled out. The item had been an Atom Match, and the Nuke energy that was within the item had transferred else where... specifically to the thief's gun. "Now... Perish." The boy chanted before pulling the trigger more than once, unleashing multiple shots from his weapon that would explode upon impact due to the nuclear charge within it now.

After unloading, Imato landed with a surprising amount of elegance and as he readied his melee weapon and peered around. "So, who will be next..." The boy grinned, confident in the damage he did to Hardshell, perhaps a bit overconfident. Nonetheless, the thief wanted more, he wanted to continue battling until these mercs were out of their hair so they could take down the bastard king in the heart of this palace.

 

[Nellancholy]

Things were pretty much falling apart around them. Outside, some other Personas (or Shadows?) had manifested with immense size, immediately brawling and beginning to lay waste to their surroundings. If the great king Kamoshida expected this fortress to remain as a monument to his glory after he had left, he would be sorely disappointed. If that was what it took to defeat him...maybe it would be worth it.

Adding to that, that showoff Tragedy had leapt in, going all out on Hardshell. Whether or not he could withstand it, that furious assault would surely give him pause and hopefully keep him from throwing any more things...like the one flying straight at Thrud.

If these were the usual circumstances, Shiro would have just commanded her to grab that ridiculous-looking animal and set it back down, none too gently. But she was barely in control of the armored Persona as it were, and it was all she could do to keep Thrud pointed in the general direction of the Countess. But as had been the case since the start of this mission, Thrud moved mechanically but with surprising smoothness, ducking and rolling like a boxer and allowing Morgana to crash land some distance past them.

Despite having weathered that attack, the situation of Shiro and Thrud had not improved much despite the presence of a couple more allies. The new intruder was tied up with Fixer, who in turn had focused much of his attention on him, restricting his movements with the bouncing balls. And while Phoenix was still standing strong, his flaming attacks had faltered for the moment. Shiro could only hope that Masami could follow up...

And the greatest threat of all was still before her. The lightning strikes that had conducted through Thrud barely harmed her, as Shiro had calculated. But had the Countess been affected enough by them to create an opening?

"P-please...hold on." Shiro muttered to Thrud. A thin barrier flowed over Thrud as she tried to invoke a defensive spell, the flowing energy patching up the gashes in her armor with a layer of what looked like hissing static. If she could withstand even one more hit...

Setting her lance again, she thrust it forward, barely missing Thrud's side and aiming straight at the Countess...

TreasureSniper That Weird girl Maeve Valor

 

[That Weird girl]

Morgana crashed into a wall causing some rubble to fall on top of him. The cat was pretty much done for and felt like he was dying from when Countess scratched his windshield drawing shadow blood to leak from the mobile. Morgana slowly shapeshifted back and laid in a pool of his own blood. Zorro stood over him with a disappointed look in his eyes. He knew that Morgana wasn’t dead or was he? Was that silly stunt enough to kill him?

“Come on Morgana ,” Zorro said to his host trying to get him to wake up, “your teammates need you.” Morgana wasn’t responding and Zorro was beginning to get worried about the kid and didn’t know if he was alive or not. The one thing that would wake Morgana up and get him going was treasure and the promise of Kamoshida’s treasure was too good.

The cat began to slowly wake up with the power of Willpower and got up to his feet. He had a huge gash on his forehead that was still dripping blood. Morgana attempted to cast a Garu at Countess to give Shiro more of an opening to Pierce her with her Lance. He was aware of Tragedy fighting the merc who had thrown him into the wall. He didn’t really appreciate that but he wasn’t going to risk his life and fight up close.

“Oi Cryptic!” Morgana spoke into his comms, “where the hell are you and Panther? We are dying here!” The cat was wondering where Isao and Ann were.

Maeve Valor Nellancholy accursedjobber

 

[Maeve Valor]

After Phoenix dispersed into flames, Masami took a step back to immdiately go on the defensive since she did not know where he would show up next. It surprised her when the row of flames came to life, blocking her from her allies. While distracted, he appeared before her immediately attacking with his shield. She barely had enough time to turn as the side of her head was hit by the flaming shield as her hair miraculously didn't catch on fire. Another burning sensation followed soon after at the back of her legs when she was tripped.

Seeing that Phoenix became fortuitously paralyzed by Shiro's quick-thinking attack, she sprang into action. Even though Masami knew she in over her head taking on this MetaMerc one on one, she refused to back down. There was only one way to get stronger and that was to push herself to her limits. She threw out both of her chakrams as her and her weapons still glowed from the effects of Matarukaja as she ran up to him. The two flew out and once they hit him they spiraled upward diagonally sawing as they occasionally crossed over each other. When they both reached his shoulders, by this time Masami had approached him and was able to grip both her chakrams that had embedded themselves into his armor. She used the weapons as if they were conductors while she let the vile feeling of dread and anguish flow from her to Phoenix, engulfing the both of them in this aura. "Take this, Eiga!" She of course would remain unharmed from her own attack, but she hoped this would at least damage him somewhat.

She then backed up, pulling her chakrams with her as she put them away to take out her gun to use the revolver portion of it. The glow from her matarukaja began to fade as she took a couple of shots at him before she heard a few roars from what seemed like outside the palace. She didn't like the sound of what was going on so she silently hoped that this battle would end soon so they they can continue onward. Not too long after that, Tragedy made quite the entrance coming in to help them and took on Hardshell.

From not that far away, Countess toot a moment to admire the work she had done to the cat saying, "Ha, guess that answers my question." when Thrud had attacked with reckless abandon, all that Countess had to do was dodge and take a few steps back to avoid getting hurt. This meant she had to stop tearing at the girl, but she knew she would get another chance to inflict more pain before long. The way her persona moved was very strange to say the least, it seemed very stifled in its movement, but Countess just chalked it up to this possibly just being how they normally moved.

The Countess' confidence was soon struck though when she had used a Arc Magatama which proved to have done some damage but was not super effective against her defenses. She still jolted from the pain though, leaving a brief moment of anger in its wake. An annoyed smile was revealed as the white part of her helmet folded up so that she could speak more freely to her opponent. Just the fact that she felt that she had to use an item was enough for her to be even more suspicious of the state that her persona was in. She had been a Metaverse user long enough to know something was off here. "Nice job, but now you've made me mad. What's the matter? Don't trust your persona to get the job done? How's about you meet a persona that can actually finish a task! Bathory!" Suddenly blazing next to her appeared a frightening persona clad in black with bright red eyes and wielded a fan made up of blades. The first thing that the person did upon entering the battlefield was emanate a feeling of despair to all who opposed.



When she was about to command her persona to do something she heard a loud explosion come across the room to see what she assumed was a Phantom Thief member with a horned mask. The expression he wore was that of a person who was unhinged, hungry for battle as the last of his explosion lit up the area behind him, letting his coat flutter past him. She stopped in her tracks as she tilted her head curiously at this new person. Her interest only grew more after seeing what he ruthlessly did next to Hardshell charging at him and then firing multiple shots at him all with a look of enjoyment that she could certainly relate to.

"Oh... how fun," she commented with an impressed smile, at this point having stopped what she was doing completely, leaving her open and it was then that she was hit by a gust of wind from the cat as she seemed to take just as much damage as she previously had with the arc magatama. As she shielded her face from the slashes of the wind, she did not see the oncoming attack of the lance. But it did not seem to make much of a difference since as soon as the weapon made contact with her, all the cuts from the wind attack she just took healed in response to the physical attack dealt as she slumped in her shoulders acting actually relieved with receiving that 'damage'.

"That jab probably wasn't worth what you were expecting huh? So... who's your friend over there?" She asked weirdly chipper about the whole exchange.

Nellancholy TreasureSniper Anthem That Weird girl

 

[accursedjobber]

Once more Isao was on the verges of conscious and the void, waking from the rumbling ground beneath a battle that Isao should really get away from. Escalation was clearly in effect and the farther Isao was away from this clash the better, there's little point in remaining here except if the urge to become roadkill was allure. Operating on the scraps in his spotty memory that the other's moved on already, Isao dusted himself off and stood for once from his past 1-star napping spot among the debris. Having only the slight problem of not understanding where to go through thankfully solved by the intercom's reminder of its existence

"Yep, cryptic here, sorry me and Panther got caught in the splash zone of an exploding volleyball mech, will try to hurry up. On the plus side I can feel the right side of my face."

Still the idiocrasy of his decision making was the reason for this, even more reason to ignore that throbbing pain and push to rectify this mistake and live to not repeat it, so aiming at the nearest hole to get out of here he pulled the trigger of the grapple hook gun in a way that would hopefully alleviate putting pressure on any injuries as he decided to attempt to follow the hole out of here and attempt to make his way over to where the others were.

Upon landing Isao discovered that grapple hooks aggravated the remaining aches, "Roger I'm on my way" this path of destruction was Isao's best marking of where the thieves were, though even as he made his way there was an intrusive thought as he smashed into another wall to steady himself on the recollection.

'I feel like I'm forgetting something'. This was dismissed and Isao carried on. Panther being forgotten thanks to blunt force trauma.

 

[TreasureSniper]

Phoenix was caught offguard by the sudden offensive attack from Masami, he had read as the type of person to either take the hits or run away. The chakrams struck Phoenix with deadly precision, digging deep into his armor, much to his anger. As if the first hit wasn't bad enough, she had the gall to strike him off all people in melee range, despite the intense aura of heat he had, which only intensified as she got closer to him. "You dare sully my armor with your~" his complaint was cut off by the blast of dark energy, knocking the bird merc backward but he soon quickly recovered with a flap of his flaming wings only to be shot by the girl multiple times by her high-powered pistol, pushing the merc back even more.

Having had enough of being damaged, the bird man finally summoned his persona. Manifesting itself as a colorful humanoid bird with an equally colorful flaming aura. "No more! You don't deserve a graceful death!" Phoenix yelled with great disdain in his voice, as the Suzaku's flame aura intensified, allowing everyone in the area to feel a drastic increase in temperature. The flames of Suzaku eventually consumed the persona, turning his once vibrant colors into ash grey, before flowing back to his master, repairing his armor as well as changing its color to a vibrant red and forming feathers behind him that resembled that of a peacock. In contrast to the red of his body, the tails were ash white, with only a deep red coloring in their eye-like pattern. Upon completing his transformation, Phoenix wasted no time in attacking the girl, immediately dashing close to her and pinning her to the wall by grabbing her by the neck.

A second later, the red merc would throw the girl upwards, in preparation for his next attack. The wings on his back acted-like thrusters, allowing him to fly at great speeds. Phoenix made numerous passes on the girl, striking her upwards with either a kick or a punch. Upon nearly reaching the ceilling, Phoenix performed a finishing strike, opening the talons on his foot to grab Masami, and turning his thrusters downwards before activating their full might. The bird merc would land on the ground with great force, using the poor girl as a cushion to soften his descent back onto the ground, landing right in between Shiro and Countess.
Maeve Valor Nellancholy


On Imato's side, the avalanche of attacks he delivered to hardshell was nothing to scoff at. With his strength and speed, he was able to get the drop on the rhino merc, who could take hit after hit. The freezing grenade was effective in its purpose, freezing the merc in place and allowing the nuclear energy attacks to be as effective as they can be. The first shot would shatter the layer of ice encasing him, while also knocking him backward. The second shot would knock him back once again, though seemed a lot less effective than the last one. Though with enough shots, he was eventually knocked down, seemingly unconscious.

As the boy turned his back on the down merc to celebrate and taunt, Hardshell slowly and silently got back up, none worse for wear. Hardshell approached Imato from behind and
grabbed the boy's leg and lifted him off the ground with a single arm, to slam him onto the wall. But he wasn't done just yet. Hardshell, still holding onto the boy's leg would repeatedly slam him into the ground before dragging him across the floor and throwing him towards Morgana with great disgust. From there, he equipped his rhino-head-like weapon and slowly walked toward the cat and the boy, presumably preparing to finish what he started.

As if things weren't bad enough, the whole palace began shaking again, but the vibrations came from within the palace itself. Suddenly, a countdown from a computerized voice could heard from the announcer. "T-minus 30 seconds till lift off, all vital personnel is advised to enter the ship immediately." The speaker's volume was online rivaled by the sound of numerous thrusters throughout the complex coming alive. It seems that they have spent too long messing around with these merc's instead of taking care of the actual palace.

"Team. Report! Whats going on in there?!" Baron's voice spoke into the Phantom Thieves' comlinks with a noticeably concerned tone in his voice. "The palace is getting ready for take-off, you have to find a way to stop-" His sentence was cut short by an unknown variable. But any attempts to contact him at this point would be in vain.

Anthem That Weird girl

---

While chaos ensued from within the palace, nothing could compare to the devastation caused on the outside of the palace, which looked like it was halfway complete to becoming a complete wasteland. The two opponents continued to trade blows with one another, while their large persona's also fought in the background with absolutely no care for the surrounding area, after all why should they? From inside the palace, all the mercs and thieves would be able to see is the giant silhouettes of a dragon and a large snake duking it out with one another. While this was happening, the palace fortifications continued to fire whatever ammunition they could on the dragon, recognizing it as the true threat to the two.

Baron would soon notice parts of the palace were beginning to transform, while certain parts retracted back into the core structure, others were being pushed out, finally shifting their shape into their final form. Baron and the merc at this point were fighting on the roof of a spaceship, repeatedly clashing blades, not giving each other a moment of respite. After one paticularly nasty strike from Baron, the merc was thrown off the roof, finally giving him some time to contact his teammates.

"Team. Report! Whats going on in there?!" He said into his comms, while still looking out for possible counter-attacks from the merc who he has completely lost sight of. "The palace is getting ready for take-off, you have to find a way to stop-" His explanation was swiftly cut short by a sneaky snake merc that had managed to catch him from his blindspot. "Aww isn't that nice! You're actually concerned for these people?" The merc taunted him only to be knocked back by a buster sword strike. But it was too late, the venom was already inside his body. "Tch..forgive me my tricksters...but this fight will be your own.." Baron raised his sword in a defensive stance, now uncertain about how he was supposed to win this fight, while also helping his allies. Whether he liked it or not, he had to believe in their abilities to complete this mission.

 

[Anthem]

Pain.

Pain writhed through Imato's body as he laid on the ground after recieving the brutal beatdown from Hardshell. His body wanted to succumb to the pain and accept defeat, but his mind and heart knew that was unacceptable at this point, giving in would be worse than dying... at least that's what he thought. And when the palace violently shook, the speakers revealing that they were taking off in short time, it really felt like now more than ever that it was do or die. So despite his body screaming out in agony, Imato wearily rose to his feet to continue the fight, not caring about his bloodied injuries or his broken body. Only about the opponent right in front of him.

Almost like he had tunnel vision, Imato's focus was on defeating Hardshell if it was even possible, not the battle on the outside, and not getting to Kamoshida to stop this madness. The theif's mask would disappear with a blue flame, and Loki was summoned to his side, looking as maniacal as ever. ". . ." Staying eerily silent, Imato pulled out a Hell Magatama to imbue his melee weapon with fire damage and the ability to burn whomever he attacked with it. The boy would then change the weapon into it's chained state, his glare never leaving his primary target, Hardshell.

That infamous, crazed grin would streak across Imato's face once again as he started to walk towards Hardshell, his flame-embued chain weapon grinding against the ground. The walk quickly evolved into a run as the distance between the merc and the theif diminished rapidly. Imato would show some rather surprising proficiency with the weapon as he started to rapidly attack the merc with precise spins of the flaming chain. While it seemed Hardshell had high defenses, especially when it came to melee attacks, though elements seemed to work well against him. Imato planned to use that (not confirmed) knowledge to his advantage.

"Hope you can handle this one." Imato smirked as another plan of his had come to light. Imato and Loki worked as one, trying their damnest to break through Hardshell's defenses. The thief would use his mobility to his advantage and constantly stayed moving while attacking Hardshell with the molten chain. Loki stayed back and casted Nuclear spells to create some heavy hitting technical attacks, combining Fire and Nuclear. Imato fought with all he had left in him, ignoring the screaming pains from his body and the heat of the area rising, draining his stamina even more.

Would this attack actually work? There was no telling now, all Imato could do was pray as he fought.

 

[Nellancholy]

"No..."

Shiro felt fear creep up her back again as the burns that the lightning bolts inflicted on Countess' armor vanished before her eyes. Countess was far from invincible, but against the strength of Shiro and Thrud? There was nothing they could do to her. It was as if mentally, in spirit...she was able to strike perfectly at Shiro's weaknesses and leave her defenseless.

It took all she had to grip onto her lance, staring her down. Was this the end of her, against a foe that was not only merciless but bloodthirsty? Who would destroy not only her, but all she had left in the real world...

Shiro's moment of doubt was interrupted as Phoenix, in his anger, crashed down amidst the exchange between Shiro and Countess, with Masami in his grip. Heat flared up, the kind that warped the air around it and gave rise to mirages in the blazing desert. The heat that flowed into Shiro's muscles and brought her mind back to focus even as sweat filled her helmet.

Ogawa was here, fighting for her life just as much. Morgana and Tragedy had arrived too, and she knew, out of everyone, Ann would come.

They were allies...no, friends. Even if she wasn't too sure of that word, she had to hold on to it. If she just trusted them and protected them in return, she'd have nothing to fear.

At that realization, she clenched her fist. More sensation filled her hands, as she felt the connection between her and Thrud strengthen again. She wasn't sure if she could fly or use her defensive abilities again, but there was one thing she could do.

"Unhand her at once, miscreant." Shiro stared down Phoenix with a snarl.

Thrud turned, bending low.

"ORAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Letting out a furious battle cry, Thrud leapt upwards, her metal fist rising in a fierce uppercut. She could barely stand the heat, and concentrated fire would damage even her armor. But perhaps that one blow would be enough to knock Phoenix clear and give Masami room to recover.

Maeve Valor TreasureSniper

 

[That Weird girl]

Being Buried under all that rubble was definely quite an experience for Ann to say the least. She had been attempting to push the rubble off of her, thanks to Carmine she wouldn’t have to worry about her injuries as she was healing Ann with Dia. Her friends mattered more than her in this moment so Ann pushed the rubble off of her with big gust of strength coming from her muscles. Nothing was in her mind except helping her friends and she was afraid that they were almost dead.



Ann got up and ignored the brunt trauma for now. She got out her grappling hook and used it to get over the wall and headed into the palace looking for where her friends could be. Well it was not hard to find them as the battle was getting pretty heavy and it looked like the thieves were running out of energy but they were some tough customers Ann gave them that. She decided that she did not need to make her presence that big yet because one hit from that rhino merc and it might be over.



“Carmin! Media!” Ann shouted and suddenly the femme fatal would appear pulsing out healing magic to the thieves. Carmin first appeared by Shiro and healed her and Thrud as best as she could which was a little bit. She then appeared next to Imato and healed him a little. She then healed Masami a little too and looked at Phoenix’s persona and was quite interested in him and smiled at him. She giggled at him and shot a firebolt at him and was going to play hard to get with this persona. But it seemed like Carmin could not play the field right now so she summoned a flame separating the mercs from the thieves, if the thieves crossed they would not be hurt but the mercs would be another story. “Lets have a little fun,” Carmin giggled as Ann smirked and pulled out her submachine gun and unloaded it onto Hardshelll and the bullets were flaming because it passed through the wall at him.



“Whats wrong darling?” Carmin asked taunting the mercs, “think I am just a pretty Face?” The persona then smiled rasing her team’s defense and attack power. Ann would not push past the flaming wall because she didn’t think that she would survive and the mercs were not the type to fall for a pretty girl or else they would have for Shiro or Masami. Using her body for combat was a good strategy and she hoped that Roadkill would not mind. She didn’t think that any of the mercs could be seduced.



“Damn Panther,” Morgana said as he watched this happen and smirked bringing up his comms to contact Baron, “Baron? Baron?!” Morgana was going tell him that they were going to stop Kamoshida in time but nobody was there and the cat was beginning to get worried for their leader.



“You’re looking pretty handsome today Loki,” Carmin said in a flirting matter, “I gotta say I am one for the madness look.” Carmin held up the flame wall as longs she could for her team. There was nothing flirting with her teammates personas.

@tresuresniper Maeve Valor Nellancholy Anthem accursedjobber

 

[Azurian Dream]

TreasureSniper Collab
...........................................................................................................

The Green Stranger/Prophet Vs Fixer​

“Hm, by all mean fire away,” the green stranger chuckled mimicking Fixer’s movement moving closer as the meta-merc man summoned his persona a massive quadruple-armed gun-toting gangster entity. The gun arms seemed to be a twist on the Tommy Gun from the prohibition days of U.S.A history. The Green Stranger kept moving forward with no signs of prepping to dodge as the bullet spray began to not pierce but instead deflect off of his body leaving small visuals of some sort of barrier deflecting every bullet that tried to go through his body… it would become drastically clear to Fixer that this new player had a unique immunity.

Once the man pulled the metallic ball out the green stranger finally enacted a sense of urgency dashing forward only to barely block the first metal ball with his shotgun surprisingly being pushed back by the force as he felt the side of his gun dig into his gut forcing him a step back as the ball unnaturally ricocheted off the barrel. He was indeed going to hear back from Futaba on this. The second would ram into his left shoulder unbalancing his footing a step back as he kept an eye on the trajectory of the first two. The third would not meet its mark as the stranger swung heavily with his Kilij sword swatting it to the left as he rushed forward again. While Fixer probably expected to overwhelm his opponent with gunfire, and his unnatural attack the bullets ricocheting off his body started to deflect the heat-seeking metal balls left, and right. Though the balls would definitely get in hits here and there the distance was finally closed.

“Would you,” The green stranger taunted rather scuffed up by the blitz of chaos yet now clearly ready to return the favor. In response to Fixer's line on danger, his mask flared in flames as Rasputin made his entrance wasting no time slamming his sheathed blade in front of his user blocking all three balls at once before swatting them away straight into Al-Capone's head. The stranger had changed their projection so Rasputin could pull that off… he had calculated their movements by taking the damage he was able to read their pattern of projection. Though damn did those things hurt.

“Huh? Bulletproof? That's a rare trait.” Fixer spoke, in response to seeing his opponent tanking his onslaught of lead. While physical resistances were uncommon enough with mercs, it was rare to have someone that was completely immune to it. No matter, he had more tricks up his sleeve anyways. The gangster persona stood his ground, not in the slightest bit worried by the oncoming projectiles. At this point, Al-Capone had stopped shooting and winding up his own bat. With a natural aptitude for predicting the trajectory of these balls, he delivered a powerful singular swing, sending the balls back toward him with almost double the force.

Fixer would then present his own bat to Al-Capone, prompting him to turn his guns towards the weapon. The gangster blasted the long piece of metal, and yet the weapon was not damaged whatsoever. However, it did gain an intense, blue aura around it, almost like it absorbed all the kinetic energy onto the weapon. “How about one more?” Fixer muttered, taking out another ball. Taking his sweet time, like a golfer setting up for a perfect shot, he waited for the metal balls to converge onto the boy before sending him another one. But this one was noticeably different. When it was struck by the bat, the menacing aura from the weapon transferred into the ball, empowering both its speed and strength before sending flying toward its target with a noticeable “boom” sound. “Think fast!” The merc jokingly warned the boy, knowing full well it was impossible to completely dodge this supersonic ball.

It was immediately apparent getting hit by any of these attacks was not an option this time around from the very aura coming off the attacks. In addition, this bruiser was starting to pick up his pace. It was time to respond, it was time for the green stranger to stop calculating, and strike with precision. The green holy-garbed man jumped back as Rasputin took a knee back finally unsheathing his blade while holding the sheath in his nonblade hand. The blade oozed off psionic energy as the dark purple gleam of the blade showed a master's craft. In the quick session the stranger sacrificed a tenth of his health to activate a Negative Pile, Rasputin lunged forward piercing between the three balls of the first attack with enough force to shatter them upon impact scattering the remains in all directions.

“A game of tricks it shall be,” The stranger started running forward at the sight of Fixers building up a second attack.

“FLY,” The stranger weirdly yelled as he jumped up his feet planting onto Rasputin sheath that the persona had lunged forward with before flipping it up into the sky sending the stranger high up before being shot backward as the mad monk was hit by the powerful blue aura sphere. The stranger could feel the mental strain, but he would have to power through he wasn’t strong enough to desummon and resummon Rasputin multiple times as that was a heavy cost each time on the mind. Even if equal in level with this Meta-Merc that required a higher level to do constantly.

Mid-air the stranger’s sleeve device triggered as he pointed his left hand, not at Fixer which would be the expected target, but instead right at Al-Capone. The device shot an Agi grenade orb straight into the persona’s face as he stabbed his kilij blade straight into its stomach. The flames burning brightly kept the persona from being able to locate him immediately. Turning back he pulled it out by kicking off Al-Capone and building heavy inertia force with a downward head swing upon Fixer. The stranger was no longer going to let the Meta-merc have the advantage of distance. In the background, Rasputin could be seen finally halting in movement as he fixed his position pushing off to close in with a terrifying laugh as it sent out Ominous Words strike upon Al-Capone aiming to cause despair on the Persona to slow it down on helping its master.

Seeing the balls shatter with a single slash was not too surprising, considering his threat level was similar to his of course this stranger would put up a fight. He wasn’t sure what the bastard was up to, so he preemptively cast the “Power Charge” increasing his next physical strike’s power tremendously. The stranger’s flame grenade did its job to mask the next attack and even managed to cause some damage to Al-Capone, though it was nowhere near enough to take him down. The sword stab would meet its back going right into the persona’s belly. But despite this, there was only a brief grunt of discomfort. “Hehe…that kinda tickles kiddo” The persona merely commented on the attack before allowing the stranger to pull out and kick off him.

Fixer merely looked up at the stranger, as he performed a downward strike on him. He shifted his head slightly to the side, avoiding any impact on his cranium while allowing the sword to strike his shoulder instead. They made contact with the fixer’s body and yet it did not seem to cut through his precious white suit. Based on the sound the sword made upon failing to cut through Fixer, it’s safe to assume that it was reinforcement with some armored mesh. Before the stranger could break away from him, the fixer immediately grab hold of the stranger’s sword handle and slammed the tip of his bat onto his gut, pushing him back and separating him from his precious weapon. That simple strike from his bat was unlike any physical attack the stranger had felt thus far. Even after he was struck, the impact zone would still feel as if there were echoes of the attack reverberating from within his body.

Fixer commanded his persona to let out another stream of bullets, but this time the attack was directed at…himself. The bullets would impact the white suit with great force, only to simply fall down to the ground like they were nerf darts. Eventually, Al-Capone was successfully struck with a despair ailment, forcing the persona to stop firing. Fixer seemed satisfied enough simply dismiss him, returning the robotic mask to his face. “It’s over….I am all charged up now.” Fixer set aside the bat as he held the blade in front of him, inspecting its unique shape before casually snapping it in half with his bare hands. His body was enveloped in this blue aura, indicating he was in a charged state. Fixer taunted the stranger with a beckoning hand gesture, knowing full well he couldn’t go toe to toe with him in a straight-up physical confrontation.

Much like Slayer everything the stranger threw at this man seemed to amuse him more than anything else. Even Fixers Persona was more so amused than phased overall… except for one moment where the fire grenade clearly did some damage. His descending attack met the Meta-Merc’s shoulder dodged overall by a well-timed head movement. What followed next was a brutal blunt parry to his gut as the Meta-Merc not only jammed a baseball bat into his gut but broke his grip on his sword costing him the weapon. Abruptly flung backward into a crushing course with the ground Dascal was forced to roll about before catching his footing as he came to a halt with a few rough skid marks from the rubber of his shoes now coloring the ground.

For a moment it was like the stranger's whole body was shaking violently like a stricken bell. His blade hadn’t even left a single scratch on the asshole's clothes it seemed. The sensation of meshed armor clearly hidden underneath that suit shaking on his hands. As the stranger stood back up he was made to watch as his blade was split in half with little to no effort after Fixer's persona seemed to charge him up with that same blue aura. From his connection to Rasputin, he could tell that stuff was heavily bad news in the overall calculations of it all. Yet with all the shattering perspective of fear Fixer was clearly trying to install upon him with his looming threat of it all being over the holy green garbed stranger as Fixer clearly expected him to come rushing at him in a desperate attempt.

“Ohhh on the contrary the games not over yet,” the stranger twisted to the left as a Psio spell came dangerously close passing by and ramming straight into Fixer’s chest granting him the same grand treatment to eat asphalt that he had just given him not even a minute ago. In session to watching Fixer get a taste of being tossed around, he reloaded his arm device with a Zio grenade and pulled out his tri-barrel shotgun opening it up as he charged up the bullets with the last of his grenade supplies charging one bullet with Kouha, another with Bufu, and the last with Garu. Flipping his shotgun closed he knew Fixer had recovered, and probably had quite the rage incurred. Rasputin had caught up, but before he could do any more the stranger gave him a wave off causing the dark entity to laugh. “Alright give a good show,” Rasputin laughed as he ceased to exist.

“Final warning,” the stranger spoke in fairness, giving the man one last chance to retreat. Fixer’s persona sang it all; this man was a physical juggernaut, but he had no magic immunity to his name. With that said it would make more sense to overpower him with Rasputin’s psionic might, but quite frankly he owed these meta-mercs a thrashing all of Fixers lackeys wouldn't soon forget. Courtesy of Mr. Slayer’s hospitality.

“Are you waiting for an invitation Mr. Fixer Upper,” the stranger kindly asked to further the taunt.

Fixer was blown away by the Psio attack, while he wasn't weak to it, he didn't have any resistance to it either. Quickly getting back up, he dusted himself off with mild annoyance before pointing to the stranger with his bat and making an important announcement.

“Tch. It's time for a home run!” Fixer taunted back at the stranger while slamming his bat into the ground. While there was no immediate impact, a few seconds later, a strong upward force pushed the stranger upward, almost as if they had just stepped on a landmine.

Fixer immediately took out three more metal balls from his pockets and swung each of them towards the now airborne stranger. Each ball hit with enough force to propel him upwards once more, while also immediately ricocheting back to fixer only for him to swing at it once more. With each successive swing, the balls would go faster and faster and faster. Essentially he had created a perpetually repeating and accelerating combo of pain. After a few more rotations. Fixer would catch all three of the balls, absorbing all the built-up kinetic energy from it for one final blow. Summoning his persona one more time, he cast Godhand, summoning a golden fist from a divine entity and sending it flying downwards on the stranger, intending to squash him once and for all. “GO HOME."

In a rather rude fashion, the stranger was quickly met with a brutal onslaught as while the Psio spell had indeed done damage it was clear Fixer's ticked-off meter was full. Case, and point after his little baseball quip the man pulled off something the stranger was not ready for... a combat personal ability. Flung into the air with the vicious intensity it felt like the stranger's legs had just imploded off a landmine. Before he could do anything in response the stranger was repeatedly pelted with those metal balls again battering, and bruising him all over each worse than the last. At the end of it, all the stranger felt like a deflated pincushion as he was so high up in so much pain that all he could do was concentrate on the Phantom Thieves... and they unfortunately were no better off.

Something drastic needed to happen or things would only get worse for all of them... as the air stopped pushing him up he could feel himself start to be pulled down now twisted to where he could see what Fixer was up to. The Meta-Merc had absorbed all the kinetic force from the baseballs that had repeatedly bruised him to the extent of torture... seemed the Meta-Mercs overall were very into that. Except for this time they weren't going to get their way. That was when the whole stadium violently shook out of control as an announcement decreed Kamoshida's departure to the stars in under 30 minutes. Not wanting to let a piece of human trash who stepped over others get away as Fixer enacted his finale... the stranger finished composing his.

"1...," the stranger called out as his mask burned away in blue flames a smile of one who had come up with an insane idea plastered upon his lips. Yet strangely there was no sight of Rasputin that Fixer could see... a sudden gush of wind from a persona summoning passing behind Fixer would warn him and Al-Capone too late as the stranger tormented his own body by siphoning off what little health he had left to allow Rasputin to slam his sheathed sword into Al-Capones back sending it flying via a Terror Claw attack right below the stranger. With a tilt of his body, he pointed his gun at the large persona.

"2...," he let loose the Garu-infused shell creating enough concussion force off Al-Capone that the stranger was flung backward harming himself with the wind attack towards Fixer as Al-Capone was bombarded with its own God Hand an attack which would have surely killed him. Outstretching his hand as best he could with his trajectory Rasputin flung his own hand out as the stranger caught his blackened sleeves. In a laugh of pure madness and excitement, Rasputin spun dropping low as the stranger line up right with Fixer... with a point-blank shotgun.

"3...," the stranger pulled the trigger pinning Fixer with a point-blank Kouha-infused shell round sending the meta-merc careening into a crash course with a still-existing Al-Capone. As the stranger finally touched his feet to the ground he dropped to his knee's in extreme pain before grabbing his mask, and violently breaking it causing Rasputin to laugh madly with exciting intent lifting his non sword hand up before clenching his ominous fist as a dozen of Psio spell's pooled around in one intense display of a Mapsio all around Al-Capone, and Fixer.

"...Your out," the stranger decreed as the spells exploded on the targets unleashing a heavy wave of psionic energy that would no doubt catch not only the Phantom Thieves' attention but probably the Meta-Mercs as well if the God Hand explosion hadn’t. It was at this point the green stranger suddenly coughed out quite a bit of blood from all the inertia, and bruising that had taken place. Catching his breath for a moment in the wave of disruptive coughs he noted his broken Kilij surprisingly next to him. Then he paused at the sound of movement laughing painfully as he forced himself back up grabbing the handle with half a blade still attached as he holster his shotgun.

"Ah... the extra inning," the stranger laughed painfully amused as he could see Fixer had survived all that and seemed raring to go yet just as bloodied in damage as himself.

Fixer wasn’t too happy about how hard it was to kill the stranger. He likened him to that of a cockroach. No matter what he did, this guy always seemed to have an answer. Al-Capone was sent upwards by a cowardly attack from the back. To think we would have access to such strong firearms, was absolutely detestable. And here he thought this bastard was just a slightly more experienced greenhorn.

The Garu blasts succeeded in its purpose of repositioning Al-Capone, sending him into a crash course towards his own attack, the God's Hand. The gangster, seeing the golden arm of a greater being flying towards them, instinctively raised his gun arms, not only blocking the attack but also deflecting it upwards, into the ceiling.

Everything was moving fast, Fixer himself was used to opponents that would simply duke it out with him, instead of whatever the hell the stranger was trying to do. His methods were unorthodox, tricky, some would even say dishonorable. But all is fair in love and war. Seeing the shotgun lining up with him, Fixer would position his bat in between himself and the stranger, allowing it to tank the second shot and negating any damage he would have taken from it.

His bat shattered upon receiving the shot. It seems all that wear and tear from his own attacks had finally gotten the better of it. This left him and his persona open to receive the full brunt of the psionic attacks. Fixer took significant damage from that, highlighting his weakness was his lack of any elemental resistance. But he wasn’t done yet. He still had one last trick up his sleeve.

Fixer raised his arm to the sky, while his persona dispersed and returned to his master, the golden arm finally descended from the heavens-shattering ceiling as it entered the arena. The fist would circle Fixer a few times before aligning itself onto his raised arm, fusing itself onto his limb. Fixer was on his last legs, but if nothing else, he would get the satisfaction of putting this guy six-foot under. “So… what's your name?” He clenched his golden fist as he winded up for one final attack. With each passing second, the fist seemed to absorb what little vitality Fixer had left. He should at least know his codename before sending him to merciful oblivion.

So this was indeed the finale it seemed as Fixer infused his God hand attack into his literal hand... seemed he still had a lot to learn about Persona combat this fight had been rather enlightening to how the stranger could better fight in the future rather than relying on the same tricks he could add new ones... if he survived this that is. Fixer had impressively negated quite a few of his attacks, but in the process, the stranger had broken the meta-mercs bat along with overwhelming him with his last attack. It seemed both parties were rather depleted and very ready to end this as Fixer asked for his name.

"...," the stranger mulled over that part he hadn't exactly partaken to the whole codename thing that these fellow metaverse users played. Yet at this time it seemed strangely appropriate to resolve that now. A particular word hilariously came to mind as he rolled down his sleeve removing the Zio grenade he had loaded into his arm device. As he infused his broken blade with the Zio element he desummoned Rasputin barely having much energy left to cast another spell anyways as he finally built enough strength to talk again.

"One who seeks revelations... you can call me Prophet," his synthesizer voice answered no more, and no less as with that little energy left he mad dashed for Fixer.

“Fixer, the guy you call when you have problems that need to…disappear.” The merc had a newfound respect for this opponent, even if this is likely the last time they will be facing each other.

Whether the meta-merc did the same did not matter as Prophet threw his broken sword ahead to Fixer's left side causing a flash of Zio to erupt attempting to force Fixer's left side wide open. As Prophet closed in he could feel the overwhelming might of Fixer's fist coming in panic strangling Prophet to let fear take over. Yet as the almighty attack neared to end Prophet's life once only a few feet apart Prophet's right hand grabbed and fired his shotgun from the hip using the force to twist abruptly to the right lacing Fixer with Bufu pellets aiming to slow the meta-merc's momentum down shattering almost immediately as Fixer clearly was not about to surrender to such a tactic. However, what movement it halted seemed to do the job as Prophet was enacting on one rumor amongst the shadows he had interrogated as he sent his left hand like a knife straight for Fixer's heart.

As Fixer winded up for his final punch, the sudden rumbling from the palace momentarily threw off his footing, causing him to narrowly miss his killing blow leading to the giant fist to instead brush against his opponent’s face, knocking the large hat off. He could feel it, the coldness of the Bufu pellets finally catching up to him, the paralyzing electricity from the Zio spell but nothing could compare to the hand of his opponent plunging into his heart.“Heh...Good..fight…” Fixer whispered to his opponent, as the power which he so treasured slowly fades away. The once brilliant shining golden fist begins to rust before disintegrating.

There was silence as Fixer spoke his final words to this life. The Prophet felt no animosity towards the man… but the decision to fight to the end had been Fixer's and Prophet would respectfully see it through.

"Even though you won't remember this version of you I promise I'll never forget it," Prophet thus spoke, committing this man's end to memory as he pulled back his hands as he ripped a baseball-sized brilliantly emerald jewel. The gleam of it was shining intensely as Prophet caught his falling hat before shattering the gem to pieces in his grip.

 

[Maeve Valor]

It was like a war zone with how everything sounded and shook from each battle taking place, inside and out. The explosions, the gun shots, the shouting, the crackling of flames from Phoenix as she took consecutive hits from the MetaMerc. Yet even with all the din of the battlefield, it all seemed to fade after she received the final blow in her ascent from the attacks. Just when she thought she couldn't hurt more, the impact from when she was slammed to the ground reminded her that she could hurt more as she was pretty sure that she now had at the very least one fractured rib.

As she laid in agony, her body threatened to send her into unconsciousness, until she heard Shiro yell and Thrud streaked pass her to leap towards Phoenix. Following that, she felt the familiar feeling of rejuvenating energy help her condition slightly as she saw Carmen briefly come into view above her before she moved onto somewhere else, she presumed to help another ally. It was painfully evident by this point that relying on her strength alone would not win this battle. Now was not the time to test her own capabilities, especially with the countdown to liftoff was ever imminent. She needed to summon her persona and bring everything she had to offer, in order to help make a difference. Aside from that, she needed to choose a different target since Phoenix proved too strong for her to handle.

Around Masami formed a pitch black circle with a wind of energy that came along with it making a portion of the fire wall break away momentarily as she took off her mask. Out from the pool of darkness it came up and took shape in the form of Scheherazade as she helped Masami back to her feet. Once she was back up, she immediately made full eye contact with Hardshell unmasked as she decided that she would help out trying to take him down. While the wall of fire started to fill the empty space Scheherazade took this chance to take out her claymore with imbued cursed aura and jump through the opening to attack Hardshell. After hitting him, the blade would disperse to become the red visual for curses as it whisked around him violently and sporadically.

Suddenly Countess yelled out in disbelief, "Fixer?!" Masami averted her attention to where Countess was looking and saw that the stranger in green had actually won solo against the MetaMerc. Though he did not seem to obtain victory unscathed. He too looked to have gone through the ringer to beat his opponent. Just who the hell was this person? It was a mystery, but for now she was thankful he was on their side since they now had one less threat to worry about among the many they faced. Such as the blood-crazed woman that looked shocked her ally was disappearing before them.

On the other side of the flames, Masami saw that she was going to charge and attack the stranger so she preemptively tried to stop her. "Don't you even think about it and stay right there! We're your opponents here for the time being!" She then threw down the first grenade she could get a hold on quickly and it ended up being a bless grenade. In response, the Countess yelled and her persona gave an inhuman shriek as she shielded her face with an arm.

This seemed to greatly damage her as Masami glowed and felt that she could pass along this boost in power to another person and took this chance to yell to Tragedy, "Tragedy! Hold off Countess, Panther and I will take care of Hardshell!" She held out her glowing hand signalling to Tragedy that he could attain the power-up like they all had practiced in Momentos in the past as Ann continued to rain bullets with her machine gun at Hardshell.

Anthem TreasureSniper Nellancholy Azurian Dream That Weird girl

 

[accursedjobber]

Well, they weren't called the Phantom thieves for their subtlety. The large array of explosives and general mayhem made the task of reversing Isao's direction to the actual location of the thieves bearing witness to quite the amorphous sight as he entered through one of the many holes/craters, before taking a moment to catch his breath weakly excusing his own performance with a equally weak excuse to himself "Why would a palace built of the mind not just replace stairs with escalators"

Sure Isao felt like he took a tumble in a tumble dryer but Internal damages never stopped the depths of the mind, moving his persona from it's past usage as a Icebag for one of the many bruises present. Seeing as all the others seemed to choose the targets he decided to go for the birdman(phoenix) as judging from the accuracy of his peers he decided relying on magic for once would be beneficial in favor of skeet shooting, pointing once in a dramatic fashion trying to embolden himself with bravado for his entrance.

"Mothman, cease your insolence!"

Casting a spell of Bufula at Phoenix as he attempted to actually help, hoping to freeze extra weight to the winged hussar to remove aerial superiority while trying to keep at range not wanting to risk catching the hits of any of the unknown figures present such as that suspicious green fellow, better to shuffle closer and regroup then attempt to throw stones in a stormy pond to put it simply as well as the harsh realization that his only ranged weaponry were bombs.

'Too much thinking' it was action time , no use thinking things through so Isao resorted to practice with a cling as he attached one end of the handcuff to his hand, if the Mothman wanted to act like a savage then he'll just keep them rooted as Isao started his attempt to get to a close enough range to enact a handcuffed brawl, plus it's every cryptozoologists dream to hold a interview with the Mothman himself and this figure sort of fitted the description of a creepy figure with wings or Bagat or maybe even the Brosno dragon.

Isao vaguely recalled Baron mentioning 'something something take-off', but already the feeling of excitement enveloped him and giddiness as he decided to enact his rather foolish plan, calling it out as he upped his pace mixing in whistles he attempted to transcribe from cryptid books in a attempt to gain it's attention.

"I'm gonna try and take down the Mothman, none of you have it dibbed it yet, right?"

 

[TreasureSniper]

Hardshell was taken aback by the aggression from Tragedy, despite how much of a beating this person had taken, he just couldn't stay down. But then again, a cornered animal is ready to fight to the death. The multiple flame-empowered slashes were able to push Hardhshell back, leaving behind multiple glowing gashes onto his armor. This, in addition to another attack made by Masami. Admist all the Chaos, Hardshell was able to get a small glance of the face that hid behind the mask of Swan, temporarily stunning with bewilderment. "You." Was all Hardshell thought to himself before he was forced to brace himself against the combo attack between Tragedy and Swan.

The fusion of the two elements and the additional attack from Masami was taking a toll on Hardshell's armor, however Hardshell himself remained silent and relatively healthy. His namesake wasn't just for show. With his armor sufficiently shredded, he was about to retaliate by running his spike through Tragedy's chest, only to be interrupted by the sudden appearance of a barrier of flames, separating the two groups. A second later, a stream of flaming bullets would come through that would impact Hardshell on his chest, penetrating whatever was left, and finally damaging the merc. If things weren't bad enough already when he turned around to see what was happening to the others, he watched in horror as he saw that the team captain had already been defeated.

Fixer's metaverse outfit began to fade away, revealing an aged man who was long past his prime. "Forgive me..... old friend..." he muttered to himself as his body collapsed to the ground. He closed his eyes, knowing that he will never see this world again, he only wished he could have done more, but unfortunately, this is where his tale ends. Out in the distance, from far from the palace they were in. A humanoid black crow watched over the event transpiring in the palace. And yet, it did not intervene, simply serving the role of an observer.

Phoenix turned his head to face the fading merc, not knowing what to think of the situation. But before he could say anything, he would swiftly be struck by a powerful uppercut from Thrud, knocking him across the room and into a wall and allowing Masami to briefly retreat. The raging fires within Phoenix would immediately flare up upon being struck being Ann's flame bolt as well as in response to the demise of their captain. "YOU SCUM! ALL OF YOU!" Pulling himself out of the wall, his peacock tail would open up, revealing the numerous "red-eyes" patterns around it. These "eyes" would begin glowing red, preparing to launch a powerful attack, only to be immediately frozen by a Isao's bufula. Even from within the frozen shell he was covered in, his rage continued to boil when this newcomer referred to him as...mothman.

Meanwhile, the launch sequence of the palace went uninterrupted. The whole palace would begin rumbling as the powerful thruster beneath the large structure roared to life. Many of the support platforms were forcefully detached from the main body of the ship, rising up from the depths, revealing the full size of the ship. After the initial rumbling, the palace thruster began to stabilize sending it skywards at incredible speed.

The rumbling had distracted both Hardshell and Phoenix for a brief period but once the ship had stabilized, they had decided to continue the fight. If nothing else, they owed that much to Fixer. Phoenix would eventually break out from his icy prison with an explosive wave of flames that not only instantly melt the ice but also evaporated the water particles that were left behind. The breakout from the ice took a lot out of the bird merc which is noticeable due to how discolored his armor was. But thankfully, there was a good power source just right in front of him. Phoenix took a deep breath, inhaling the flames in front of him, completely consuming the flame wall created by Ann, rejuvenating himself, and returning his armor to a beautiful vibrant red.

"Whats taking you all so long?" A voice boomed from one of the speakers with a voice from the lord of the palace, sounding exceptionally ticked off that these people have not done their job yet. "What's the point of hiring people if you can't get the job done!" He yelled out in disdain at the lack of results. "Get off your asses and-" The audio from the angry ruler of the palace was swifly cut off by Phoenix blasting the speaker to smithereens with a well-placed ball of fire. "Forget the client! This is now a personal matter." Phoenix announced to the group. He didnt care about his duties anymore at this point. These people are clearly a threat to their lifestyle and must be dealt with here and now. Splaying out peacock tail once more, the flaming feathers began flying towards each and every one of the phantom thieves, acting like small homing missiles with a fire-based payload. Other each individual feather wasn't strong on its own, the sheer volume being launched at them was more than enough to take care of them if they weren't careful.

The now weakened Hardshell charged forward toward Masami, frantically trying to gut her with a huge spike weapon. His movement was a lot less controlled than before, almost like there was some personal anger behind them and yet, his silence still remained. His focus was unshakable, seemingly ignoring all other targets apart from her.

That Weird girl Nellancholy Maeve Valor accursedjobber Azurian Dream

---

At top of the roof of the ship, the two veterans were still duking it out, with Baron on the losing side, having received many more puncture wounds from his opponent's venom-tipped spikes. however, upon the ship's take-off, the cobra merc decided that it was just about time to end this fight. Baron's breathing was heavy, the venom was finally having an effect on his body. Even after taking a dose of the antidote, the pain and fatigue wouldn't immediately disappear. "You know...you were always his favorite. You had a good thing for you, but you just had to ruin it." Cobra mused to his downed opponent as he turned to see the destruction that both of them caused. The giant snake and dragon were still fighting on outskirts of the palace, but he could see that dragon was slowly faltering in strength and power. Veno sighed and combined his weapon once more, switching back to the rifle, and pointed it towards Baron. "Don't you sometimes wish you could go back to the good old days?"

Baron, sensing the impending threat to his life, set aside his buster sword and brandished his own guns, combining them into it's signature rifle mode. A rich golden energy began to flow into his own gun, powering up immensely while on the flipside, the snake merc had a malice-filled purple aura that flowed into his own weapon. But both of them could pull the trigger, the sudden and rumbling shaking of the ship managed to destabilize both of their footings, causing them to just barely miss each other with their weapons. Baron wasted no time rushing towards the merc to deliver a few powerful punches and grappling against this powerful foe. Even as most of the structures around them continued to crumble, and the palace began to gain altitude, the two continued to roll around the roofings. "Even now, you are still unable to regain what the Allfather had taken from you!" The merc continued to taunt Baron., finally managing to break his hold and preparing his gun for another shot.

"Just shut up and die!" Eventually, Baron manages to catch a break by reappearing in front to land a powerful kick that would send the merc a good distance away from the now airborne palace. But even while falling 50 meters from the air, the merc couldn't help but spite Baron one last time with a final shot from his rifle, unleashing a powerful projectile that pierces Baron's body. While falling down, the merc gave him a condescending salute while also bidding him farewell "Hahahahaha! Ciao~!" He continued to fall until he was nothing but small dot from Baron's point of view.

With this battle done, Baron briefly closed his eyes and recalled his persona. With a heavy breath, he spoke into the comlinks once more. "Team....what is your status? Have you...found a way..to disable the engines?" From the brief pauses between parts of his sentences, it wasn't hard to tell that he has been heavily injured. "The...control room....there should be a control room...in the middle..." Based on his knowledge of scifi ships and the layout of the initial palace, the control should be in the dead center which is also in the throne room. Baron pounds his fist on his chest, trying to keep himself conscious. He reached out for a healing bead from his pouch, but it was then he remembered he had given it to Imato.

 

[Anthem]

"Hahaha!" Imato couldn't help but laugh as his emblazed attacks left noticeable gashes with Hardshell's armor, it was a surprise though not an unwelcome one in a battle like this. The thief's assault continued and was assisted by a solid strike from Masami's persona, which allowed the hellish combo to go further than expected, to actually cause decent harm to the merc's defenses. And before the merc was allowed to get what would have been a fatal blow upon Imato, Ann's persona saved him by raising walls of flame to separate the thieves from the mercs. Upon being given a small break from battle, Tragedy was able to see that the unknown person had ended up killing one of the mercs, while the thief didn't trust the stranger his opinion of the fellow was a bit more positive after that.

Though at this point the break they had been given due to the walls of flame had been cut short due to another merc seemingly... eating the flames? Nonetheless it was time to get back into action, Imato was about to start attacking Hardshell once again until Masami called out for him to switch out and start taking on another merc, Countess. Reluctantly, he agreed to this and gave Swan a high-five which completed the transfer of power. "If you get the chance, kill him." Imato said before starting to walk over to his next opponent during this fray, who had already been decently damaged from the looks of it. Seeing the damaged merc reminded Imato of something rather important that he had forgotten up until this point, the beads he had taken from Baron. Before entering combat once more, the boy swiftly took the beads out of his pocket and shattered them in his hand which sent out energy to all the thieves, healing their wounds and restoring their physical stamina.

After healing up, Imato then heard Baron's voice coming through their communication systems, speaking of the control room to stop the palace that had taken off. "Mona! You've gotten the will seeds in the past. This time we need you to get to that control system, the thieves slyest can do that... right?!" He called upon Morgana's help for this, encouraging the cat and feeding into his ego in an attempt to make sure Morgana leaves without much rebuttal. Imato's gaze would then turn to Countess, having become much more cold and crazed then when he was looking at his allies. "Another merc, another to shred to little pieces..." Without many over words than those, Loki had been summoned to Imato's side and would start giving off a spine-chilling aura as the two smiled and started to laugh maniacally once again. To those who could easily recognize the spells personas may have, it was clear that this was 'Evil Smile'... with some added flare to it via the maniacal laughter.

The two would then start their assault upon Countess, Imato running forward first in attempt to use the little bit of time left he had with his weapon being imbued with the fire element. The thief would wildly slash at Countess without much regard for form or sustaining his recently recovered stamina, he just wanted to deal as much effing damage as possible. When the imbue finally faded away, Imato jumped back which allowed Loki to take their turn which started with a quick cast of 'Triple Down' to get some quick gun damage in before exploding the Countess with a blinding 'Freila'. Loki would quickly disappear afterwards to ensure that no damage would be inflicted upon them, but onto Imato instead since he could take the hits... or at least a few.

"Already losing one of your allies must be frightening to say the least... Why don't you just give up while you have the chance, or I might have a little too much fun with this battle." Imato said to taunt his opponent, grinning as waited to see just how Countess would retaliate.

 

[Nellancholy]

So they were indeed human after all, beneath those ridiculous shells they wore. But that didn't mean they had hearts. At least...not hearts that had anything worth saving in them. Even so, she couldn't help but look at Fixer's aged form for a moment amidst the chaos as he collapsed, wounded "fatally". Was this temporary? Or like Matriarch Suzuki, would his power be gone forever? And with it, his memory...

The compassion that Shiro held in her hard heart moved, but only slightly.

These were all people that chose a path of violence for its own sake, the worst kind of people. And all of that on behalf of an Allfather whose motives were inscrutable but no doubt nefarious. Who else could command such loathsome folk as this?

Phoenix gave himself to anger, unleashing the full extent of his power to expel a flaming rain over the arena, seemingly without regard for himself or his team. In truth, the rest of the Thieves were already very much beaten up, alongside their Personas. Shiro had used less of Thrud's strength, not that there was much to call upon at the moment. Under any other circumstances, Thrud would have thrown herself in front of the reckless attack without hesitation. But if she took a few too many and fell here...would the rest of the Thieves prevail?

In a grim twist of fate, the dilemma seemed to resolve itself in a split second, as Hardshell decided to launch a desperate attack in person. Whether Masami had time to recover or not...she had better not take that hit.

"Rrrgh..." Growling under her breath as she focused her will, Shiro commanded Thrud to move again. The armored figure shifted from her punching position, lunging forward and grabbing Hardshell's arms firmly. A pained gasp escaped Shiro's lungs as his weapon perforated Thrud's armor near her stomach, though nowhere near what Countess was capable of. If she could hold this position, she could effectively tie him up for a finishing blow...and if he had just a little more strength, Thrud would not come out of this intact.

As the second part of the defensive maneuver, Thrud took just two steps to the side as she grappled with Hardshell...placing him between herself and the hail of flames.

TreasureSniper Maeve Valor

 

[Maeve Valor]

Countess' mild annoyance in having Phoenix get in between her and her opponent only grew when she found out that their team leader had been defeated. Even though they didn't always see eye to eye, Countess always had a certain level of respect for Fixer due to his strength and leadership. As such, it angered her to see that he had fallen at the hands of some newcomer that wasn't even a Phantom Thief, he was a nobody! At this mere fact and seeing as the though the person Fixer was up against was badly wounded, she wanted to down the threat while he was still in this state. But when she got into a stance to charge at him, the girl known as Swan made her falter and hold back her attack with a grenade that exploded bless elemental damage as the bright light momentarily blinded her. While she tried to recover from the attack, she heard the girl known as Swan order someone named Tragedy to target her.

When her eyesight came into focus she saw that her new opponent was the Phantom Thief who had the horned mask who had also now summoned his persona, Loki. As she witnessed the two laughing crazily, a chill ran down her spine as she felt a familiar type of fear that was only cause by certain abilities used in the Metaverse. Even so, she stood her ground and even reveled in the feeling since it had been far too long since she had felt fear such as this. Once they had stopped laughing, he immediately followed up with successfully slashing at her while the fire imbued into the attack helped and even scorched her. The gun shots seemed to also have left some damage on her, leaving deep dents in her armor. With Tragedy's last attack using Freila, Countess tried to block with her claws crossed in front of her, but slid back along the floor as around her some debris from the explosion was thrown back. By this point, her armor was battered and she was even bleeding from some flesh wounds a few stray bullets was able to accomplish.

At first glance among the rubble, the MetaMerc looked to be shaking as her head hung low as she stopped her defensive blocking stance. She threw head back to reveal that she was really shaking with laughter. The thrill of the fight and the pain she has received quickly had changed her mood from anger to excitement. "HAHAHAHAHA Give up?!"

A pool of blood began to form around Loki as The blood then hardened and shot up like deadly stalagmites erupting from the ground. This was Bathory's version of the bloodbath ability as it exuded fear as well, but not as pronounced like Loki had just displayed. Regardless of the fear effect not as strong, the physical damage done made up for it. Bathory then separated her fan into knives and threw a few of them at Loki as Countess charged at Tragedy to suddenly wrap her clawed weapons around him as if he was in a makeshift cage out of them. "Funny AND cute. I like that in a man almost as much as I like one that knows how to make a girl bleed."

She then pulled an arm back about to slash, but she then recoiled in pain as her shoulder began to seep said red liquid from it. She backed up, to assess what she should do next with using up so much energy. She knew that if she went on fighting like this, it might end up being a closer call than what she was comfortable with. On the other hand, she wanted to continue playing with her new play-thing, Tragedy so this was quite the conundrum for her until her eyes landed on Phoenix. He was still relatively close by so Countess swiftly moved in front of him, "Since this has become so personal for you, I don't suppose you'll mind sacrificing a bit to help me out, would you?"

With that being her only warning, she used her bladed appendages to pin his armor down so that he couldn't go anywhere. Before he could react to her she leaned down and bit his conveniently exposed neck hard as a large violet aura formed around her as she greatly drained his life force in order to regain much of hers. Once she felt satisfied she pulled back with an elated sigh and stood up as blood dripped from her mouth. "Now, where were we Tragedy dear?"

Phoenix hunched over for a moment before a glowing golden hue formed around him, healing all the physical damage done to him before he rubbed his neck and cracked it. "Would you at least give me a warning beforehand ever?" he asked annoyed with Countess as if this had been done many times before in the past.

Anthem TreasureSniper
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Masami thought for sure that she was going to get hit by Hardshell. His movements were unpredictable and wild. Just when she was about to slip up and get stabbed, Shiro thankfully jumped in to assist. It was at this time she heard Baron over the comms ask for the team's status and notify them of the location of the Control Room. Right after that, was when Tragedy asked Morgana to go to the Control Room. While Thrud had Hardshell grappled, Masami had Scheherazade reassemble her blade so that she could to an overhead swing at Him. As she was doing that, she responded to Baron, "We haven't found a way yet, Mona is being sent out to get to the Control Room and do that now..." Masami took out her gun and enchanted it with Eiga before shooting at Hardshell. "...We were stopped by four MetaMercs. There are three of them now, due to an unknown assailant in a green robe." She threw one of her cursed chakram at the MetaMerc.

After a moment to think about the situation, Masami realized that the Control Room might have some strong enemies there to protect it. When she had this thought she followed up by saying, "I'm going to help Mona. Stand by for further updates."

"Heartbreak! Think you can handle things here while I go back up Mona?!" she yelled to Shiro over the sounds of battle.

That Weird girl Nellancholy

 

[Azurian Dream]

The defeat of Fixer had done its damage the Meta-Mercs had the sense of control ripped from their grasp as Prophet got a front-row seat to what happened when you successfully untethered a metaverse user from their persona. Many of the meta-mercs seemed caught off guard but as the professionals they were it didn't last long yet the Phantom Thieves proved themselves abled taking the distraction to lay down some damage, and groundwork. Two new Phantom Thieves had, in particular, jumped in laying out suppressive fire, and heavy-hitting tactics... it seemed the Phantom Thieves were indeed capable of everything he had heard.

Unfortunately, nothing, in particular, would blossom tonight for Prophet for his part in it all. He could feel his knee buckle as he dropped down onto his left. That's when he noticed Phoenix's attack... shit. Yet before the flames could reach him the room would rumble and shake as the upper walling near a flight of stairs ripped apart with a literal UFO fluorescent with lime green symbols and a notable gargoyle statue on the top. Flying in releasing a sound equal to what at anyone's best guess sounded like an enraged gremlin as the UFO got between Prophet, and the attack tanking it as it passed by with Prophet now not where he was initially.

"Oracle... we will discuss this later," Prophet sighed at first sounding mad at her appearance, and then being rather grateful for it as he was holding onto a tentacle emitting out from its underside. Rather unexpecting of the save from the persona Necronomicon Prophet looked over that battlefield the new kid called Cryptid with the bufu alignment was now concentrating on the Phoenix. The Frei aligned called Tragedy now laying heavy devastation on the equally destructive blood-soaked Countess. The wild cat girl with the flirtatious person called Panther was laying out suppressive fire on all enemies currently. The heavy hitter called Heartbreak was using her persona to wrestle Hardshells lance from his grips... and the cat Mona, and the last one Swan of the Phantom thieves needed a route to the control room. Prophet's ears perked up at the chatter that Oracle had cracked into from an apparent other Phantom Thieves. Pulling himself up into the Persona he spoke.

"Get them an opening, and then a tactical retreat," he coughed laying down inside the UFO as Oracle mumbled a bit yet used the loudspeaker function of her persona.

"CAT THING AND BIRD CHICK FOLLOW US," Oracle's voice echoed as the UFO went out of the very hole she had created revealing a direct line of sight, and route to the spaceship as Necronomicon neared the massive rocket a bunch of symbols started to emit off the strange vehicle persona appearing right next to the shuttle door somehow forcing it to release compressed air slamming it wide open for Mona, and Swan to utilize.

"YOUR WELCOME WE OUT AHAHAHAH FU META-MERC'S WE RULE," Oracle taunted as the UFO seemed to literally fade out of existence as it raised into the atmosphere out of attack range. Inside the spaceship, a rather aggressive virus started to invade the ship's inner controls messing with the launch sequence and giving the cat-bird duo a little more time to rush for their projected goal. The virus popped onto the screen as a metaverse user dressed sorta like a frog girl giving a stink eye, and sticking out tongue in taunt as no shadow would be able to do anything about the hostile program wrecking the controls of Kamoshio's space rocket.

Anthem TreasureSniper Maeve Valor Nellancholy accursedjobber That Weird girl

 

[That Weird girl]

The principle of Shunjin academy in shadow form was at the control panel, “Mr. Kamoshida thank you for working at this school and making it a better place for everyone-“ he stopped when the wall exploded and he saw a weird cat thing and a girl with a bird mask on. “What the fuck?!” The principle tried to radio Makoto and the others but nothing but static happened over the radio.

“Thanks weird frog lady,” Morgana said to Futaba and went in to face the principle guarding the controls. “Swan, isn’t that your principle?” The principle looked at Swan and pointed at her, “you are expelled! Pack up your things and leave this school missy!” Then the principle transformed into a mild level Samurai on a horse with a golden katana.

“Oh just shut up already,” Morgana said with an eye roll and sent a garu at his direction. However it did little damage to him and he did a slash on Morgana causing the cat to be pummeled into a wall. Morgana got back up and attempted to hit him with his sword which did more damage but not by much. The principle pulled out a musket and shot Morgana in the head making him unable to move because the musket was a stagger weapon.

“You stupid cat,” the principle said, “I think the school shouldn’t allow animals…they just get in the way of learning!” He turned to Swan and glared at her, “you…you are not wearing your uniform! Gah!” The shadow charged at Swan trying to stab her with his katana.

Maeve Valor

 

[Anthem]

'She's... laughing?' Imato's mind seemed to have trouble processing the hysteria Countess was going through after receiving such damage and fear. It seems this merc wasn't only a threat in battle, but it showed that battle even aroused her. The thief was unsure if that meant she was just down right insane or an actual threat that shouldn't be underestimated... maybe both answers were correct. Either way, this battle would require all of his attention if he wished to potentially win against this bloodthirsty merc.

Sudden discomfort shot through Imato's brain as Balthroy's Bloodbath struck Loki, though the feeling of fear never seemed to have crossed his mind which was probably for the better as this battle had just begun. Loki would surprisingly recover quick from the brutal attack, using his polearm to deflect a couple of the knives that Balthroy had thrown before catching the last one with his open hand. "Missing something? Allow me to return it to you, M'lady." Loki taunted by spinning the knife on his finger for a moment before throwing the blade back at Balthroy, taking the chance to start an assault of his own against the enemy persona. A familiar aura formed around Loki as he had increased his own attack before rushing in head first with multiple casts of Freila, an explosive way to decimate an opponent indeed.

Imato wasn't able to start attacking again like his persona had, due to being trapped almost immediately by the bladed extremities Countess wielded. 'Like to bleed? That I can accomplish...' The thief was prepared to take whatever attack Countess had prepared in order to retaliate with his melee weapon or some point-blank shots from his gun, though that wasn't needed at the merc instead retreated to the embrace of her ally. Imato admittedly smirked a bit when Countess had started draining Phoenix to replenish her own life force, thinking that it would leave the bird-merc out of commission but that proved to not be the case as Phoenix seemed to be more annoyed than anything.

"Now, where were we Tragedy dear?"

Running in guns blazing wouldn't work if Countess could just forcefully take down her allies and heal with little to no consequences of doing so, so Imato quickly started thinking of an appropriate way to respond to this that would lead to minimal problems... hopefully. "Oi, Cryptic. Put the moth in another block of ice would ya? It'll do the world some good if he's below zero." The boy quickly called upon his ally to deal with the bird so that Countess wouldn't have anything to easily drain nearby. He would then turn his attention back to Countess with a smile on his lips, having made his decision on what he was going to do next. "Well then, love. I believe we were about to become a little more... intimate." Imato would play along with Countess calling him 'dear', just a little bit of fun in the dialogue of battle.

Pulling out the last Atom Match from his repertoire of items, the thief enchanted his melee weapon once again but this time aligning it with the nuclear element to add a distinct bite to his attacks. Imato would then make a break towards Countess as he changed his weapon back to it's normal state where it would inflict blunt damage along with the nuclear sting added to it. Instead of attacking Countess though, he would instead start hacking away at her bladed appendages in an attempt to get rid of them, using the nuclear enchantment of his own weapon to chip away at the extremities that were used to trap him moments ago.

"These... things will only get in the way of our bloody dance. Don't you agree, love?" Imato smirked as he continued to hack away at the appendages in an attempt to completely destroy them so they wouldn't be a worry in the future.

 

[accursedjobber]

Isao's Tentative position was threatened as the rumbling of the ground and he slumped against the nearest piece of solid outcropping he could as he rid out the rumbling transformation of the ship along with witnessing the subsequent showing from the remaining metamercs in response to the new developments such as loss of number's advantage, which was always a positive even if one of the reinforcements appeared to be loose cannon with a dubious moral compass from first impressions, which Isao did have to admit could be extended to at least half of the other thieves and they turned out to be- fairly competent so far.

Phoenix's flame swallowing show's output being a hail of anti-personnel feathers customary of a Mothman, though Isao's certainty in it's classification as a Mothman was waning from it's display of human speech(Isao ignoring the fire and brimstone) but if it pissed them more he was willing to oblige, after all 'Entrapment is just speeding up the paperwork and catching the bad guys faster'.

So with a crass order and willingness to trade his abundant mental resources for his own admittly poor frail status quickly ordered with a swipe of his hand, as he felt the burning of his head as he ducked under the newly formed jagged edges of the ice wall in front of him, proceeding to splinter, shatter then sizzle as the feathers took their toll on the barrier of ice instead of puncturing the bloodbag called Isao.

Checking with a brief pat-down that he wasn't stabbed and a glance at his compatriots to see if any required assistance especially mystery man, ignoring the cackling of that madwoman in favor of the jolly concept of helping- 'Did a UFO just talk and fly' Isao let out a brief bout of laughter as the ridiculous thought even crossed his mind from what he witnessed, shaking his head in disapproval before whispering to himself "What sort of idiot believes in aliens" as he moved on to set his eyes on lovely revenge.

"Right on it, I'll deal with the universal donor" Following Tragedy's line of thinking that what ever Countess did was probably a bad thing to let happen. So Once again with a command issued the Count's hand trembled as it's compatriots made of ice revealed themselves hovering besides it in the air and pursued the Mothman again, Bufula's drain warning Isao that he was probably in the final half of his uses for it being a indication that Isao should attempt to avert from being a one-trick pony in the coming actions.

 

[TreasureSniper]

Phoenix's onslaught of flaming feathers circled around Hardshell, navigating themselves around their allies before implanting themselves into the one known as heartbreak and detonating in bright orange flames. Meanwhile, the other feathers that were aimed at the other phantom thieves would explode right in front of them, creating a smokescreen for the merc's counterattack. Hardshell was one of the first to take advantage of this. While his armor may be sufficiently damaged from the attacks earlier, his greater physical strength remained, allowing him to eventually overpower the persona, lifting it up off the floor and using her as a shield to guard himself against Masami's attacks. When he was done using his "shield", he slammed the persona back into the ground with impressive force. Stomping the persona's face into the floor, he refocused his attention on a new target, one that was seemingly willing to get in his way, despite all odds, Shiro.

Why was this person so desperate to defend her? Is she just a concerned teammate? It doesn't matter. The only thing Hardshell understands is that this person needs to be dealt with if he wanted to get to her teammate. Stepping over the downed persona to get to Shiro, Hardshell discards his ruined armor before dashing forward towards Shiro at much greater speeds, revealing that without the armor, he was actually quite fast. In one swift motion, Hardshell pushed the palm of his hand onto Shiro's face, dragging her across the floor and planting her into the wall. Hardshell continued his momentum, using Shiro's face to scrub the walls clean before bringing her head in front of his face, so he could get a better look at his opponent. His gaze briefly turned to Masami who at this point had already left the area, much to Hardshell's frustration. The merc forcefully held the girl up by her head before delivering a head butt to knock her back onto the ground. "Tell me." Hardshell finally broke his silence, with an unexpectedly calm and gentle voice. "Why are you protecting that swindler?" The merc questioned while inspecting his weapon. There were dangerous implications being made with this statement, but nonetheless, the merc known as Hardshell remained still, waiting for an answer from the brutalized Shiro. While he was aware there was still a few thieves unaccounted for, namely panther, he didn't feel that they were much of a threat to him. At least, not right now.
Nellancholy

To say that Phoenix was frustrated was an understatement. Not only did he have to deal with being siphoned by his own ally, but he also finally had to fight someone with an element that he was exceptionally weak to. The barrage of ice was strong enough to sufficiently weaken the firebird's flaming armor. While it was still hot, it was in no way as vibrant as before. Phoenix was panting as he got back from the previous attack. "Feel the power....OF THE SUN!" raising both his hands upwards, the merc would release an extremely bright blinding light towards cryptic, temporarily blinding him. By the time his vision recovered, he would feel his body being lifted up in the air as well as the piercing grip of flaming talons. The flaming bird merc would swing panther, using cryptic as a makeshift wrecking ball to bludgeon her.

Overall, based on what the thieves could observe, both Hardshell and Phoenix are in a much more vulnerable state than before, providing them ample opportunity for another counterstrike to turn the tide. The only one that was still standing strong was Countess.

accursedjobber That Weird girl

---

Meanwhile, in the control room. Kamoshida was somewhat panicking with the recent developments. The mercs he hired were unresponsive, and he had no communication with them ever since. And despite already taking off, heading towards a space station-like structure, this mysterious Baron fella was still causing havoc on top of his ship, no matter how many shadows and defenses he threw at him. "How hard is it to kill one piece of garbage!?" He yelled out in rage while watching one on-screen continue to tear the top of his ship apart.

If things weren't bad enough, the sudden appearance of a monster cat on his bridge had sent him to the edge, much the concern of the bridge crew shadows. Among them was a shadow Kasumi, who was also wearing a similar bunny girl outfit to Masami. "May I be of use to you Lord Kamoshida? Perhaps I can-" She spoke timidly. "Why yes...just keep polishing my trophies!" He yelled back, in annoyance. Just like in real life, he would often force this young girl to do trivial chores, not wanting her to get too far ahead in her training. He wouldn't want her to steal the spotlight, from his volleyball team. But if nothing else, the twisted pervert thought she would make good eye candy in the meantime.

"As for you..why don't you deal with it, my dear." Shadow Kamoshida, kissed the green bunny girl's hand, before allowing her to leap forward toward the cat. "I won't fail you, my lord!" She announced, seemingly happy to be given a chance to prove herself. With the bunny girl eager to fight the cat, the rest of the crew scrambled towards the control panels and consoles, trying their best to shoot down this mysterious lone warrior on the roof of the ship. While Kamoshida tried to put up his usual confident and smug demeanor, slouching on his throne, he couldn't help but worry that his days of being the top dog were numbered. His eyes stared intently at the screen as the grit his teeth.

Either way, the group was running out of time, as the space station resembling a large sports stadium was already visible. Although the ship itself still had quite a distance, the engines seemed to get stronger and stronger. It's only a matter of time before he will reach his final destination and ascension.

Unbeknownst to both the Phantom and the shadows of the palace, behind the scenes, the virus was wreaking havoc on the essential systems of the ship. Slowly but surely, the crew slowly lost control of the ships propulsion and defenses.

From all over the ship, shadows began to report to their superiors about how they were gradually losing control of the ship. And if that wasnt bad enough, the cooling system had just shut itself off. Leading the various propulsion systems to overheat, until eventually...

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Numerous explosions could be heard and felt throughout the ship, as one by one the thrusters began to fail and destroy themselves. Right now, only about half the thrusters were functional, nowhere near enough to escape earth's gravity. And now, ships begins its descent back to the planet, its outside shell began to heat up exponentially as he reentered earth's atmosphere.

Yet strangely, Kamoshida seemed more worried about the enemies that were still inside the ship. "Sir the ship going back down! What do we do?" The bridge shadow yelled. "Forget the ship! Just get rid of the scum first! We can always build a new one." The shadow ruler tried to keep a steady composure, but deep down he was scared out of his mind.


Maeve Valor Azurian Dream

 

[Nellancholy]

Well, that didn't go as expected. At least she wasn't dead just yet.

Her clever (or frankly, desperate) maneuver had saved Masami from further wounds at the cost of her own safety, allowing her to pursue their true target. Thrud's vice-like grip had caused Hardshell some pain, perhaps, though not yet enough to incapacitate. And the flames that she had hoped to be spared nevertheless showed some intelligence, evading Phoenix's comrade and searing holes into Thrud's armor instead.

Taking advantage of the unabated fire, Hardshell had thrown Thrud aside and launched a counterattack on Shiro in turn. She had never been more thankful than she was now for her helmet; while it may or may not have been unbreakable while she prevailed in the Metaverse, it protected her from the worst. But being thrown and dragged around was no treat either as her skin and muscles were torn by the force.

Cryptic, Ann, and Tragedy had better hold out, so that Masami and Morgana could pull out a win against the odds. And who knew what the man in green and the UFO were actually planning?


Finally, finally...the merc deigned to ask her a question, as if he had any form of reason or any moral high ground he could hold over her. Shiro narrowed her eyes at him through her visor, choking on her breaths. Spitting would be ill-advised, as much as she wanted to. How much did he really know, to be able to call Swan a swindler? How much did Countess know, to be able to attack Shiro on both fronts? More likely, she was the type who simply couldn't resist preying on those who appeared to be weak, regardless of any connection or mission...

With that in mind, she answered Hardshell. "Why? Why? Because...she changed. Because people can change..." She panted. "When I first found her, I put her to the test. And she passed. She proved she could leave her past behind!" Whatever reasons Hardshell, or Countess, or that old man Fixer had...if those reasons put them at odds with Shiro and her friends, so be it. "And if you would stand in her way..." She just needed to land one clean hit on him, buy Masami more time... "...I shalt strike you down with all that I have!"

With a simple declaration of resolve, Thrud rose to her feet. Her engines sputtered to life, hurling herself towards Hardshell at top speed. Her gauntlets clenched, her arms coiling to deliver a furious axe handle to the top of his head...

Shiro hoisted her lance with the last strength she could gather as Hardshell stood over her. If only it was a weapon with more precision, like a dagger that could strike at the gaps in his armor...but she had what she had. Leaping upwards, she shoved it with all her might at his chest.

Between her and Thrud, she bet it all on just one hit.

TreasureSniper accursedjobber Anthem