Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rednal

If anybody had been watching her, Yidhra's fierce, primal grin might have been a slight giveaway. As those users who'd bothered to sit down and talk had found out, Persona weren't just mindless manifestations of power. They could definitely have their own thoughts and opinions, and the way Yidhra felt about Rednal was pretty much a replication of what he felt about others. Fiercely, overwhelmingly protective, and quite willing to hurt others if that was what needed to be done. Parts of her hair (if that was an accurate term for the... appendages...) wrapped around Rednal to provide a layer of defense, sapping her attack's power a fair bit before it could reach him. It did reach him in the end, of course, slamming directly into the boy and ripping open quite a few new wounds as he gasped both in pain and to try and get some air into his lungs. It hurt, all right. It hurt. But probably not nearly as bad as the spell he'd just hit Amelia with... if she was managing to stand up after that, did she really believe that hitting him with a weaker attack was going to bring him down? Him, the boy who didn't give up until the culmination of his injuries forced him to? Rednal staggered forward, his free hand pressed over one of his worse wounds, as he shakily aimed Regulus. That was her cue, perhaps, because Yidhra gently reached out to steady his hands. Whatever was going through the boy's mind, it was clear that the mask he used to face the world approved of his choices.

The light that erupted out of his weapon wasn't in the same league as Nuclear Winter when it came to range, power, or effect. But then, it probably didn't need to be, either, considering the power still flowing through his body...

Rednal

"I never knew I could hate anyone this much. And you call yourself my teammate? Why are we fighting, again? Oh, right. I hate your guts."

As lightning came blasting toward Rednal, Yidhra's eyes flashed, and the air around Rednal shifted. For the brief moment the electricity was heading towards him, it passed through a place where left was purple, right was fifty decibels, and the more you went towards something the further you were away from it. The jagged lightning still went forward... but somehow, forward had become something else. It kind of hurt to look at, really, so it was probably a good thing for all involved that it was over as quickly as it had started. Yidhra's power didn't extend only to shielding Rednal, protective though she was... the attacks of enemies were less accurate, too, thanks to the power she emitted. Rednal exhaled heavily, but a wide, slasher's smile slowly crept across his face. "So you're determined to keep standing up even after I've pummeled you, huh? ...I can actually respect that. But if you're not afraid of me yet, then you know what? You're going to be." A wave of force shot out of his body, clawing towards Amelia and seeking to rip straight into her mind and infuse her with the proper state of mind for the situation that she was in. A state of sheer, howling terror and and a desire to escape... as if he'd let her. One way or another, before too long... this'll all be over.

Rednal

"We're supposed to lean on our friends and comrades... hah! What a joke! You always act like you can shoulder everything yourself, but you don't fit in with the team at all. Nobody likes you, nobody trusts you, nobody looks at you as anything but a disposable weapon! I bet even your girlfriend would dump you in a heartbeat if someone else asked her out! Nobody thinks you're important, least of all your 'friends'!"

Rednal's head was knocked back a bit as the girl bludgeoned him... but her strike was weak. Even with enhancements for magic, a basic blow like that was weak, only taking away part of the health he'd restored throughout the battle thus far. As the girl shook him back and forth, though, one of Rednal's hands managed to reach up between their bodies (not that there was very much room... at this range, it was a bit of a tight fit) and grabbed for her throat. Anger continued to blaze in his eyes; he wasn't simply fighting against a friend, he was furious with everything she'd done. Months upon months of treating other people like dirt, and now every word that came out of her mouth was just another insult towards everyone he cared about and mockery of all that they'd accomplished. It was only fitting, after all, that backwater country bumpkins would do the grunt work while the people who actually counted as people got on with living their lives, right? The farmers farmed so the rich could eat, the painters painted so the rich could decorate, the industries thrived so the rich had something to own. It was all about her, all the time...

And yet...

The boy still smiled. In the midst of madness, a world that didn't make sense, where a friend was suddenly going crazy and screeching at him for all she was worth... he smiled. "That... is not dead..."

Rednal

As the girl thrashed in his hands, it was hard to say what was going through Rednal's mind. Most people, when faced with somebody who was clearly terrified, would probably feel pity, concern, maybe a bit of protective instinct. If it was a cute girl, the strange concept of moe might have been involved, too, but otaku of that type were kind of weird in the way they viewed things. Yet... what? All that mockery before, but now she'd succumbed to his powers, and he was suddenly supposed to feel sorry? It wasn't a natural fear at all. It was simply a magical effect that messed with the target's mind, and whatever sort of illusion this was, it had been vulnerable to Yidhra's power. "...Which can Eternal Lie." Rednal finished softly. Back where Amelia's Persona had pinned down Rednal's own, something about the psychotic little loli spirit changed, and one hand pierced straight through Fulgora's chest. Hundreds of mouths and eyes suddenly appeared throughout Yidhra's hair as it wrapped around Fulgora like a spider weaving an instant cocoon around its captured prey. Of course, spiders didn't also bring to mind a school of piranhas, many little bites consuming their prey in mere moments.

Fulgora was a Persona. She'd be fine the next time she was summoned.

That did, however, sort of require the human whose mask she was to be able to do some summoning. Eyes and mouths disappeared as Yidhra's hair reverted to its normal state. The name of Rednal's technique came from a certain quote associated with her mythos, and it was an extremely direct reference to her capabilities. Regardless of how powerful an offensive spell was, any opponent could endure it if they had the health and defense to withstand the blow. In that sense, when one thought about it, any offensive magic was ultimately imperfect. Even if, as in Rednal's case, the spell's power was multiplied straight out of the status of reasonable and into the realm of just plain silly. The same could not be said of her most powerful technique. It was something almost never used, generally because the foes they fought were powerful enough to resist it. It simply wasn't practical to waste time with this kind of thing when it was more efficient to use that previously-mentioned silly level of offensive power. There were, however, rare occasions in which it could be used against an enemy. The criteria was fairly simple. At times, enemies became afraid of Yidhra, and her special power was such that when someone feared her, then no matter how powerful they were, she could bring them down.

"...Remember, no killing." Rednal said softly. Yidhra nodded, just a bit, and pounced.

The collision was inevitable. While most dangers could be dodged somehow, if you were fortunate, this wasn't one of them. Yidhra's hair began to move again, and parts of it shot out to wrap around Amelia's limbs and hold them outstretched as the girl was pulled away from Rednal's grip and pushed high into the air. A position of complete and utter vulnerability, at a time when she was faced with inhuman terror. She could try to run, but there simply was no escape. Not from the Dream Witch, Yidhra, when she hunted those plagued by the nightmares she sent out. "...And now you're afraid, aren't you?" Rednal asked quietly. "With that big mouth of yours, and all the talking you do? This is the difference between us." All the while, as he spoke, one of the largest mouths in Yidhra's hair slowly approached the girl. It was open wide, revealing quite a lot of long, razor-sharp teeth. Yet where there should have been a throat of some kind, there was instead a vision into Yidhra's home realm, a place where none of the laws of the universe applied. A land of complete and utter insanity where everything lost its meaning. Color, shape, distance, direction, even self ceased to mean a thing. "...Now do you see the sorts of things I feel? The monsters we fight absolutely terrify me, and way too often, I'm just as vulnerable to them as you are to me. And despite all I've done, you still climb up on that high little horse of yours to preach at me and yell that I'm wrong. When I'm facing monsters to protect you and the stupid high-society stuff you like so much. Like they say, all that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Well, I'm not one of those people who can just sit back and let it run free because someone else doesn't have the guts they need. Until you're willing to take my place and do whatever you have to in order to fight evil, you have no right to judge my actions." A bit of saliva dripped down centimeters from Amelia's nose; the mouth in question was now opened wider than she was tall, ready to swallow her mind and bring her down, and not a single scrap of the power and energy Amelia possessed could stop Yidhra from doing anything she wanted to Amelia's body.

It was this same, exact feeling that Rednal confronted all the time. Knowing he was weaker than the enemy, that he was probably going to lose, that they could inflict incredible harm on him and nothing he did was going to be able to stop them from doing that... but day after day, foe after foe, he still rose up to fight them. He was not a pure person, not some kind of saint who'd never been corrupted. He'd stared straight into the abyss, and when it stared back and waved hello, he'd made friends with it and welcomed it into the very depths of his soul. That was Yidhra, the Dream Witch, Goddess of Madness and Paradoxes, for whom the laws of physics were basically an ongoing joke the universe was trying to tell her. She just laughed. Even Nyarlathotep, among the greatest foes they'd ever fought, had been unable to reach far enough to overcome Rednal's own inner darkness. The madness that threw away self-preservation in favor of protecting others.

"...Let her down." Rednal said quietly. The enormous mouth snapped shut, then a long tongue came out of it and licked Amelia's face, getting saliva all over her cheek and into some of the hair on that side of the girl's head. The tendrils that had stretched Amelia's limbs out began to shorten as they brought the girl back down, and they withdrew completely once her feet had touched the ground. "I think she gets the point now. And if not... You know what to do." It had been like the unstoppable force of a glacier; the girl, healthy and powerful and righteous, completely vulnerable and at the mercy of a badly-injured, probably-insane boy who couldn't even walk straight at the moment. It was like a bad joke, or maybe a terrible soap opera. The boy in question was, however, very good at not shutting up. It was often a particular source of annoyance for those who didn't like him, and he was okay with that. Actually, it made him feel sort of warm and fuzzy inside to know that he could reduce their enemies to a human emotion (rage), and in so doing bring them down from the realm of gods and turn them into just very, very powerful men. One who was truly above humanity wouldn't care.

It was probably a gamble, letting some sort of illusion... or whatever it was... move forward. But he wasn't much good at playing by the rules of others anyway. His eyes drifted towards the announcement television for just a moment, then he sat down, took out several bottles of pills, and swallowed a few of the pills whole. Good pills, mind you. Prescription and everything.

Amelia M. Heartilly

The voice from the monitor sounded nothing but buzzing and muffled sounds in her ears, Amelia still unmoving from her spot. The only thing she was able to pick up was that Rednal was the winner. After that, she tried to tune everything out. ...This was pathetic, perhaps, being crumbled down to this low of a level, looking like the very thing that she denied to be. Looking like something she refuses to be. It sickened her. Rednal started to go on about how the decision of him being declared the winner was wrong, the whole thing being a sort of oddity if it was seen by outsiders. A stubborn, flailing boy who won saying that he lost, and a young woman on the floor in a crumbled, defeated mess being told that she was the one who was supposed to win. But it's obvious... It was stupidly obvious who won this match.

"...It was because you beat me." she said quietly, Amelia still keeping her head down and eyes closed. "There's nothing biased about it..." Who was Rednal kidding? The girl held herself tighter, shoulders ceasing their trembling then she finally opened her violet eyes, the water that was trapped from her lashes soon falling down her cheek. There was something she kept in her pocket, a small item her slim fingers took out and soon remembered Soji giving this to her before they all went off into this world. ...A sign of their friendship, this little odd object? ... Odd or not... it was still special. She traced her thumb against the metal, the bitterness still in her chest but..the more she thought on it, the more she remembered something.

"No matter what the circumstance, you're never alone." That what he would say, right?

"You're not alone. We'll go through this together, alright?" and that's what Minori would say, too... Amelia curled her lips inside her mouth then let them go, looking over towards Rednal.

"... You didn't mean what you said, did you?" she asked in a weak voice. "...That I'm a damsel? ...I'm more useful being a pretty accessory in the background?"