Well. He had their fucking attention. On the list of things that he thought he’d see today, a flying pizza slicing off a man’s arm wasn’t one of them. Bile rose in the back of his throat, sending cold chills shooting down his spine. The pizza bots, eerie already, had just climbed a notch on the threat scale. They were [i]more[/i] than wrong, they were [i]unnatural[/i]. Anger comes from a lotta places. Righteousness. Retribution. Pain. [i]Fear.[/i] People think fear makes you stand still, scared too shitless to move. Usually true. Fear usually makes you weak. Makes you too weak to act. But there’s a spot, a little different for everyone, where fear becomes a [i]catalyst[/i]. When it pushes you too fucking far, and fear turns into pure, unadulterated, adrenaline-fueled [i]action[/i]. It makes you [i]angry[/i] instead of weak. And anger makes you act, whether it’s stupid or not. When fear becomes a matter of life or death, the strong get tougher. Some people’d call it stupid, when you’re facing down odds you can’t beat. Daisuke’s opinion on bravery and stupidity was pretty well known. But when you’re that scared, and your back’s to the fucking wall, what else are you gonna do? He was fucking scared. Sixty plus evil fucking pizza delivery bots, and he couldn’t seem to do a goddamn thing. Nothing seemed to put them down. The pole helped, but he could only do so much damage. And there were so fucking many. He didn’t doubt, now, that there was something wrong. They shoulda just been delivery bots. Even if they’d gotten turned on by accident they’d just have tried to deliver shit. But they were evil. Actively evil. And nothing seemed to fucking stop them. So yeah, Daisuke Miyamoto was scared. [i]"But bro-" "Relax. 'Sides," He grinned. "What kinda boogeyman could take me?"[/i] Which meant he was fucking pissed. Face of a demon. That’s what he was looking in, but that’s not all it was. It was what [i]Daisuke[/i] was, too. It was what he had become. When he’d gotten too sick of being pushed around, of setting that kind of example, he pushed [i]back[/i]. Pushed back so they wouldn’t push him again. So they wouldn’t push his sister again. So they wouldn’t fucking dare bother someone. He got enough split lips doing it. Older he got, the more damage a fight’d do. Bruises, split lips, scraped knuckles. And when you were the biggest guy around the rest’d try and put you down to prove their point. You get in a lot of trouble. [i]”Daisuke, why do you keep doing this? You can’t keep getting in trouble.” “... I don’t like bullies, Dad.”[/i] But Sachiko wasn’t scared anymore. She wasn’t scared to walk to school when he was around, and she wasn’t trying to hide the money for her lunch. She wasn’t scared, because her big brother was a badass. Because she believed nothing could stop him. Her big brother was looking out for her. Made it worth it. If having the face of a demon was what it took to preserve the smile of the angel, he’d take it happily. Split lips and all. And you know what? That’s what these metal bastards were. Bullies. Rolling up to scare the people who came to help. Their sickly yellow eyes, the way they revved their motors, it was all to [i]scare.[/i] And whatever piece of shit ghost, or demon, or fucking Satan himself was having a good old laugh at Daisuke. At the other delinquent kid. At Kimiko. And that would [i]not[/i] fucking stand. [i]“Shouldn’t put your thumbs in your fists.” “What?” “Thumbs. You’ll break ‘em if they’re in your fists.” He gestured with his free hand, while he finished punching in the order with his right. She was staring, now, and he knew how it probably looked. Scrapes on his knuckles. Split lip that was still stinging. He’d lied to the boss, said he had a mishap on his bike, but she knew better. Still let him work. Now he’d drawn attention to it. He forced a wider smile, biting his lip a little to numb the twinge. Maybe he’d look less like a delinquent. “... Thanks.” That was one customer alienated.[/i] He swung hard, hitting one in the side hard enough to tip it over. It was pissed, whirring loudly at him, but it couldn’t get back up. Take his victories where he could get ‘em. Daisuke whirled and attempted to plunge the pole’s ragged point through the sensors of the one trying to flank him, grimacing when it barely broke the rather rugged surface. A whack across its front wasn’t nearly as successful at knocking it over, like he had its brother. They [i]were[/i] bullies. Smug little rolling fuckers, and they were supposed to be scared. When he thought about it, it was almost fucking funny. If they weren’t trying to kill them all, despite not having the means to do it. How awful would that be? Killed by rogue delivery bot. Because that’s what the headlines’d be, not demons. People don’t believe that stuff. Labeled a ‘tragic failing of AI’, get some media attention, and everyone’d move on. But he’d still be the guy that got killed by a pizza delivery machine. No, no, fuck that. What would people think? How the fuck would Aloha-kun play that off? What would [i]Kimiko[/i] think? What would [i]S a c h i k o[/i] think? No. No way he was going down that way. He had fucking work tomorrow, and he wasn’t missing a shift. His boss’d kill him. He wasn’t going without proving he could be more than a McDs worker, either. No. Yellow-Eyes had another fucking thing coming. Miyamoto Daisuke despised bullies, and he had a lot of practice fighting them. Practice had had tried to step away from, forge a more respectable existence for himself. Prove he could be better than what he fought. But it was still there. Years of practice, and years of stubborn refusal to buckle. Yellow-Eyes hadn’t realized, but he soon would. Daisuke had covered it up but he still had the face of a demon. And if he wanted to win… Well, he’d have to beat Daisuke at his game. No one had yet. He’d have to have the tenacity, the presence, the sheer force of will to put down the eldest Miyamoto son, the brawler, the fighter, the best fucking worker McDonalds had. And he didn’t have that. If he did he wouldn’t be pussyfooting around with his little toys. And it didn’t [i]exist[/i], because he would never let it. Because his sister thought he was invincible. And he wasn’t going to prove her wrong. [sub][i]Persona…[/i][/sub] The bots, no, whatever was controlling them, could fucking bring it. All they wanted. The now-familiar whirring of one charging up its primary offensive weapon met his ear, and he jumped right to evade the flying disc of death. A second whir caught his attention, and a third. Different directions. He sidestepped the first preemptively, whirling to slap the other out of the air with the end of his pole. He couldn’t win this way. But he wouldn’t lose, either. Which meant something had to give. And deep down, when he saw the card appear before him, he knew it had. [i]Persona…[/i] Daisuke grabbed it without thinking, or considering [i]why[/i] he did it. He just knew. He felt the rush of energy he usually associated with adrenaline, magnified onto another scale altogether. It filled every fiber of his being, driving him to feel as though he could conquer the world. [i]Know[/i] that he could handle that which lay before him. [i][b][url=https://youtu.be/8ABHFWlmAG4?list=PLADDF1BB845E32BB0]Persona.[/url][/b][/i] He felt vindication in his belief, a reaffirmation of his conviction. He [i]could[/i] fight this monster. His hand balled into a fist, crushing the card in his grasp in the process, and the feeling spiked. The card glowed intensely as though on fire, reflecting the inferno beginning to rage within his chest. His hand closed around it instinctively, as if trying to capture that intensity for himself. The space behind him flared a deep, dark blue that bathed the entire area, including the sickly yellow-glowing robots before him, with its azure hue. The yellow became islands in the sea, resisting the overwhelming presence leveled against them. Daisuke knew with the light intensifying, emanating, and crescendoing behind him, and the sheer feeling of [i]strength[/i] contained within his limbs that it had arrived before he ever saw it. No, that [i]he[/i] had arrived. It was alien, beyond question, but it was him. On ever level it was [i]him[/i], and he could [i]feel[/i] that before he laid eyes on it. A large hand rested on his shoulders, and he looked back over his shoulder to the tall, proud and regal, its opposite hand resting on the haft of its naginata. “Benkei.” It took its hand off his shoulder, bringing its naginata down into a ready position, one mirroring the way Daisuke held his own improvised spear. A sign, one he could understand, that it understood. That they were on the same page. “... Yeah.” “Let’s take ‘em down together.”