[center][h3]Photo Finish Finale! F1 > F2
3/5/2015 Sunday[/h3][/center]

The treant shadows were taking physical hits pretty well, but Matt immediately followed up with a Maragi, setting them on fire, and clearing out the other smaller shadows in the process, with Leiko creating a zone of control. This was Noboru's cue to try again, who immediately did so and shattered the shadow instantly with a barrage of punches from his Persona Atlas. The previous strikes only served to push one of them back, but now he was able to deal discernible damage. Rui went right after the other one, slashing right at it. First taking it's arm as it swung towards him, before a cross slash, one horizontal and then right up, before his Persona appeared to deal the finishing blow.

As the treant shadows fell and turned back into black ash, Megumi informed the team.

[color=magenta]"Looks like the door is open, those two shadows seemed to be guarding it"[/color], she stated. The team turned around to see the thorn covered door now no longer covered in thorns. The door had the words "stairs" on them, like an office building's emergency stairs. Rui looked at the two statues again, hoping maybe he can recognize it this time, but to no avail. He could hear some dialogue as he walked towards the exit,

[i]"Mum! Look at what I made! Isn't it pretty!?"
"Huh?! I'm busy! Go annoy your father!"
"Daddy! Can you-"
"Damn it! Just get away! I don't have time for you!"[/i]

[color=slategray]"That was... New... Well, let's keep moving"[/color], this could be something fairly deep, the previous dungeons didn't have this kind of thing, in any case the team moved onto the next floor.

The previous floor seemed to have some life to it, at least the roses were in full bloom, and there were some lush colours amongst it despite the thorny overgrowths, but this floor was filled with death. The roses wilted, or turned eerily black, and pavement was dirty, the grass was a sickly yellow and black...

As the party progressed, nothing seemed to happen, until they reached the middle of a wilted hedge maze... Which wasn't much of a maze, since they could see through it all, but it was a large clearing, and if anyone's played enough RPGs, they would know this was some kind of cue. They were right.

[i]"Come here you ungrateful brat!" 
"Don't you run away! You deserve this!" [/i]

The exits to the clearing were suddenly blocked by vicious thorns covered with blood red roses. A large shadow began to form at the centre of the clearing.

[i]"NO! GET AWAY! DON'T TOUCH ME! IT HURTS!",[/i] the sound of sirens began to fill the room briefly.
[i]
"You shouldn't spend your life moping because of what happened, put that beautiful face to use and show the world who you are!" 

"Nana... Who I really am..." [/i]

The gigantic shadow took full form, a preying mantis, roses for eyes, masks at the joints of it's sickles, it's body seemed to have a beautiful effect where it would be a different colour from different angles, black, green and red. Though large, it immediately showed it was also incredibly quick, striking down at the party before anyone could properly react, forcing everyone on the back leg. Rui immediately went for a counter-attack with Cleave, but the mantis did what looked like a teleporting dash backwards. There was no way any of them had the means to strike quickly enough with that kind of speed...

[color=magenta]"Wow it's fast! I'll get to scanning it to see if I can find some opening, just hang in there"[/color].