personavelvetroomdr | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

a. Shibuya

Sumire's been meaning to expand her wardrobe for a while now, both here and at home. Kasumi chose everything for the both of them, so she only has the vaguest idea of what she's doing.

But! She has a - a date sometime soon! With a cute girl! So surely that means she needs to be able to dress to impress.

She's wandering around various clothing stores, occasionally consulting a packet of paper with labeled illustrations of various cuts of clothing. Sharp eyes might recognise the handwriting as Ann's, but the artwork decidedly is not. Even with that guidance, though, she... could use some help.

b. Tartarus

If Sumire's going to be any kind of use in Midnight-san's Palace, she needs some practice, and it's far better to get that practice with other people than to try to go into a cognitive space alone. Since there are regular Tartarus runs, she's opting to get in on one of those.

Even if the Dark Hour setting in and the high school exploding upward into a giant tower is... kind of alarming.

In proper Phantom Thief tradition, her outfit does change when she steps into the tower, but if anyone was expecting her to match the Violet they know, they're in for a shock. She's still wearing a leotard and long boots, but the leotard and its bolero jacket are a deep greenish-black, and the boots, more obviously green, have a faint snakeskin pattern. Sumire's gloves are blue-violet, and her hair pulls itself back into a bun, emerald-studded pins holding it in place.

She may be new to Persona combat, but she's ready to give it a go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Oh! I wasn't expecting anyone to already be in here." Not that Sumire minds seeing Hamuko again - quite the contrary.

(She only would have minded during her shopping expedition because she wants her outfit choice to be a surprise.)

Hamuko perked up - people were visiting to get some training in, but it's a pleasant surprise seeing her new dorm-mate (and absolute cutie) Violet showing up.

Before she said anything, though - Hamuko's gaze looked up and down the costume. Wow, that's bold! In a good way!

"The green looks amazing on you, Vi. Did you wanna come train? I was waiting to see if I could lead anyone through!"

"I - thank you?" The leotard itself doesn't bother Sumire, not when she's been in gymnastics most of her life. The compliment and the fact that Hamuko is obviously checking her out... that does have her blushing.

Gods, this girl just does things to her.

"I did, yes. I don't really have any practical experience so far, and it's apparent I'll need it."

"Perfect - then let's party up, I'm pretty familiar with the place and the Shadows in it, and I can help bail us out of an emergency," she reassured, standing up from her perch on the stairs.

Adjusting her equipment belt to ensure her evoker and fanny pack were secured, Hamuko hung the naginata on her shoulder.

She'd always gotten a good sense of her party members' skill levels, but even when new arrivals showed, she could usually carry them until they really caught their stride. Giving Vi a thoughtful look, she turned to the teleporter, kicking the strange thing on. "I thiiiink we should be able to handle the upper floors of Tziah. It's gonna be really bright and gold for a while. That part always messed with my day-night cycle."

"All right. I'll try not to slow you down too much." (She'll probably be fine, especially once she gets used to the flow of things.)

"Well, I guess that's no stranger than anything else a cognitive world wants to do."

Sumire's not sure what to make of the teleporter, but she's ready to follow Hamuko's lead (and since it means not having to climb a hundred or so flights of stairs, she's not about to complain).

"I still have to check more of those out! I've only hopped in the TV so far," she chuckled, offering her hand if Vi wanted to take it to step on the platform. But either way, it can teleport them to a floor in Tziah. And she wasn't joking about the look of it - ornate gold, red carpets, strange light filtering in, and an unsettling green haze over everything.

"Alrighty. I've climbed this tower WAY too many times, so don't worry too much about me - I'm your backup tonight! Does your Persona have any weaknesses? I can plan around that," she explained, tapping the toes of her shoes a bit to adjust their fit before starting a steady jog through the halls.

"'Hopped in the TV.' That just sounds... so strange out of context." Sumire does take Hamuko's hand, blushing.

"She's weak to Water."

At least keeping up through their surroundings won't pose her any trouble.

"Water?" Hamuko repeated back, pausing before they rounded a corner to listen for any Shadows. After a beat to make sure it was clear, she looked back at Violet. "Do you mean weak to skills like Bufu...?"

"No? I mean Water. I don't remember what Shiho-senpai called the spell."

It was definitely not Bufu-anything, though.

"Huh! Well. Good news is that I don't think that element pops up at all in Tartarus," Hamuko laughed, a little befuddled. "I don't know why my experience didn't include all these other elements... but I guess we can use that to our advantage. We were familiar with three damage types - slashing, strikes, and piercing - as well as four basic elements and Light and Dark."

She explained as she went, checking corners, keeping a mental map of which directions they've taken so far... after a moment, she nodded down a stretch of gilded hall. "First target spotted!"

"Light and Dark - you mean like Bless and Curse?" It's weird that they'd have different names, but really no weirder than anything else about this kind of stuff. "I know melee attacks and gun attacks are two different things, but we don't really split up the categories like that, either."

Also there are a lot more than four elements at the Phantom Thieves' disposal, but that's going to have to wait until after they deal with the... blob thing crawling around the floor.

Eaaaasy peasy... Hamuko sidesteps and lunges, striking to take the Shadows off guard - striking the blob splits it into two imposing Order Giants.

Right... she'd have to ask Fuuka for the full breakdown, but she remembers these pretty easy.

"Sturdy against physical attacks, weak to Ice!" Hamuko called out, pulling her Evoker out and pressing it to her temple. With a click and a BANG, the diamond shards of psyche blew out the other side of her head and beckoned forth Sandalphon, casting the Skill Marakukaja to boost their defenses.

Sumire has never seen Shadows that look quite like this before.

She has also not seen an Evoker in action yet, so she can't help gasping when Hamuko puts a gun to her head - but then everything's fine. "...Aragaki-san was right. Whoever designed those had... some problems."

(That is definitely not a direct quote. The direct quote was 'designed by sick fucks.')

Right. There's a battle to deal with. She doesn't have any Ice attacks, so unless Hamuko can cover that there's no striking these things' weak point, but that doesn't mean she's helpless.

Her hand goes to the mask on her face, and she rips it off, and - well, if the green skin is anything to go by, her Persona is very definitely the Wicked Witch of the West, which may go some way toward explaining the Water weakness. Then she drops a Makouga on the Giants.

Hah! She can already picture Shinji saying that in the more crude terms - and he wasn't wrong. The pulling off of the mask - that's much more elegant, that fits in the theme of what a Persona is so well - so it just has Hamuko laughing.

Even if the Light spell... does damage, rather than attempts an instakill.

"You keep surprising me, Vi!" Hamuko cheered, her Persona blocking a Giant's attempt to swing its blade down on her - the other was too stunned to move. Even if the stone creature resisted physical attacks, she honed in on the stunned one, delivering a critical with a few wide, long and devastating swings of her blade, bowling over the creature with the move and giving it a few extra stabs and slashes once it was down. "Cute persona!!"

Sumire's just relieved that pulling it off this time wasn't quite as harsh as the first time. It still stings a little, but it's not the same bone-deep 'rip your face off, get blood everywhere' feeling.

"Really?" It's both a reaction to Hamuko's surprise and to the compliment. Elphaba's just... just Elphaba.

"Other than that, I'm down to physical attacks, which won't help us much right now." And a heal, but they don't need that yet.

"The Light attacks work great!" Hamuko encouraged anyway. But she'll swap to Alilat, and blast that surviving Giant dead. It's a hefty chunk of SP, but she's got plenty to spare this early in the night.

"Hehe. How're you feeling? Confident? I think we'll be able to work up a sweat tonight pretty easily."

"All right!" She'll... keep that in mind for next time, since Hamuko's power seems to work like Akira-senpai's.

"Well, it's only one battle, but I think things are going well so far. And the company's great."

It's so calmly stated, Vi doesn't realize how cool she is! Hamuko giggles, waving her hand dismissively, pink flushing to her cheeks. "Aww, you flatter me! Don't worry, I'll look out for us tonight. Let's keep going!"

She'll lead the way again!

...wait what, why is Hamuko blushing--

..................oh gods she said that out loud.

Sumire goes bright red, and follows Hamuko's lead.

Hehehe.

Hamuko guided Violet through the floors - she focused on healing or knocking enemies down, letting them power through shadows at a reasonable clip.

For her, it was a drain on SP more than anything - the Skill "Salvation" handily kept them clean of any status and kept their HP near cap even if it was pretty darn pricey. In a floor with a teleporter, Hamuko paused to get a drink from her bag, wiping sweat from her brow and sipping at some canned tea.

"Phew... that's almost two dozen floors in one go. How're you feeling?"

"That really is quite a workout, isn't it?" Sumire says that, but she barely even sounds winded - but then, she's an athlete who just might have the chops to go professional.

(Kasumi certainly did, and Sumire still feels like all she's ever done is struggle to keep up... but her coach's advice has never once implied that she can't do it.)

"Tartarus is always such a drain... you're in such good shape, though, I bet you could conquer Mt. Fuji easily!" Hamuko laughed lightly, digging in her bag for another tea and offering it to Sumire.

"That's - that's a different kind of workout entirely." It's true that Sumire would have an edge on starting that kind of training, simply because she already does work out quite a bit, but climbing a mountain and doing gymnastics are very different things.

She does accept the tea, though. Anything to keep energy up in a time like this.

"There's no exact measurement but... Tartarus does stretch up so high into the sky that I think the highest floors are so exhausting half because of the atmosphere. And half because the Shadows are a huge pain in the ass," she laughed lightly, rubbing sweat off of her neck with her sleeve.

"Because the higher you go, the stronger they get?"

But by the same token, if climbing this thing was a regular experience, surely Hamuko and her friends adjusted to the grind.