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"Haruko? Haruko! Do you mind not burning this park down? Focus on the whale! Everyone, get ready to take cover if you can, it's going to get messy!"
Maki rears up to drive a powerful series of punches into the Zoanthrope,, hoping she can take it down before Haruko turns the park into the latest recreation of the reactors at Chernobyl.

Or the sushi parlor she liked downtown before it was closed down for repairs.  Both of them had looked exactly alike after Haruko had finished.

Thunderbolt Barrage
[[6] 2 [6] 2 5 5 4 6 2 4]

[Now Playing: Astalos Battle Theme]

A lot of things happen in the second that the Zoanthrope prepares to charge Maki and Viv, Viv bracing herself by picking up a garbage can lid from.....somewhere and holding it out in front of her like a shield and Maki preparing to pounce out of the way. Yui refreshes you all with some more speed from her music.

The Zoanthrope charges a little bit forward.

A burst of searing plasma smashes into the Zoanthrope directly, as Haruko's blast hits the barrier dead-on. The barrier flickers intensely, clearly damaged by Haruko's attempt to stall the Zoanthrope, but it doesn't seem to have stopped it or even slowed it at all, though it has set fire to quite a fair portion of the wooden debris, so go figure. It still seems hellbent on charging down Viv and Maki, the very ground shaking beneath its feet and the debris of the stage cracking and crumbling beneath its charge.

It's not far from Maki and Viv now. Amelie's trying to get there as fast as she can, but the Zoanthrope is closer to both of them than she is. She might not-

Or she wouldn't, if the mother of all cabinet floods hadn't suddenly appeared, along with all sorts of ball bearings, banana peels, nails, caltrops and what have you, started pouring out onto the Zoanthrope's path. Like, if you opened up a dozen overcrowded cabinets full of random junk from the hardware store, packed to the brim, and combined all the resulting piles of anti-foot hazards, you still wouldn't quite get close to the level of how much random junk that Juliet just threw at it, skating right between Maki, Viv and the Zoanthrope.

It slows it down for a few moments as the combination of the heavily damaged, but intact barrier and the sheer weight of the Zoanthrope simply crushes the obstacles beneath its feet like so much cereal beneath a car tire.

It does buy Juliet and everyone else a few moments, however. Just a few.

Enough for Maki, suddenly very aware of its trajectory and speed courtesy of Taro (though the information is still rather garbled, as you might expect from a guy who just suffered the mother of all hangovers without being drunk), to leap out of the way. Enough for Amelie to yank Viv out of the way with some gravity, pulling her to safety.

Enough for Juliet to instinctively attempt to defend herself before the ground starts rumbling, the Zoanthrope still charging at her, Juliet now the new target of its rampage-

And then the earth straight up opens underneath it.

As Agatha musters an immense effort, the ground opens beneath the gargantuan Zoanthrope, attempting to swallow all of it. The Zoanthrope, of course, is large enough to even resist the massive maws, continuing to charge ahead as the maws close around the barrier-

And the barrier breaks as a burst of magic, courtesy of Hecate, explodes upon it, and the maws clamp around its rear end.

The Zoanthrope screeches in pain as the maws clamp onto its behind, rearing up and slamming its head into Juliet as its momentum is suddenly arrested, the maws cracking open the side that Maki already damaged as the black polymer making up the outside of its body cracks into uselessness, revealing a massive area of inflamed grey flesh. Though it still hurts to be rammed by a giant armored whale, the main thing Juliet suffers is being knocked back by its charge. On the plus side, the Zoanthrope is now trapped for the moment, as it thrashes around, front limbs and head flailing around like a wounded animal, though it won't be held for very long, as the maws are beginning to crack.....

---

"And if you should fall, I shall simply be, as you say, 'krumped' again. Besides, it would be amiss of me to not lend a friend my aid."

Get the hell out of the way. Pretty simple thing; Maki wasn't stupid enough to think she could charge the giant armored whale head-on and win.

Alteration: 4 instead of 6
[6 2 6 [4] 2 5 5 4 6 2]

[Now Playing: Astalos Battle Theme]

Not very much happens after your initial charge.

Maki's fist is the first thing to land on the Zoanthrope, hitting it right in the sensitive spot she opened up. The Zoanthrope screeches really loudly and almost keens over, as you might expect when the equivalent of an armored car coursing with enough electricity to kill an elephant rams itself into the equivalent of a massive graze on your side, only the car is the size of a teenage girl and the elephant is big enough to crush an actual elephant by falling over on it.

The spot Maki manages to hit, for the most part, cracks open a little more, bits of the external hide flaking off like terrible plastic kibble from those old transforming toys, revealing greyish bits of flesh beneath. It tries to hit her right back with a body check, but between Yui's sudden save with her defensive song protecting everyone and Maki's barriers, Maki barely even feels being hit....

.....only to get barely escape being grazed by Haruko's misfires, as the crow girl continues spurting hot plasma around with reckless abandon. That tends to happen when you spit plasma around like a broken fire hydrant. She manages to hurt herself a little for her trouble, and does absolutely nothing to the Zoanthrope except piss it off a little more as the burning projectiles practically slide off whatever material the hide is made of, though it's a lot worse for wear and clearly heat-damaged, so go figure. Whatever it is, you're going to need concentrated bombardment to start opening it up.

Suzu, deciding that bombarding it from above is better left to Haruko, decides to pull off an impromptu pincer movement and stab the Zoanthrope from below, shadows impaling it from below. That does have an effect, as the shadows manage to crack the hide in one hit from below, unlike Maki's sustained attack to the side or the back. The Zoanthrope rears up- as you might do when stabbed in the stomach- and swings over to change positions, the ground shaking and the (burning) tree trembling with each step.

Of course, Suzu and Haruko making the thing panic makes Viv's job harder to do. The cartoon girl struggles to stay on and stab the thing in the weak area, redrawing her arm and landing the blow just in time to avoid being splattered by plasma. Just like Maki's blow, the spot that Viv hits starts cracking harder, bits of damaged hide flying off to reveal bits of grey flesh beneath.

This seems to be the final straw for the Zoanthrope.

With a mighty, ear-piercing screech, the Zoanthrope stomps down on the ground hard enough to crack the pavement beneath it, before a sphere of rapidly-expanding red energy throws Maki, Viv and anyone else within range of the thing back off of it, Viv landing next to Maki, who manages to evade her just in time. With a wounded keening roar, the Zoanthrope stands firm as the energy sphere stops in mid-air, lingering there like a translucent, tangible barrier, Haruko's projectiles seeming to just bounce off it like so many rubber toy balls.

Taro sits and concentrates for a moment, his mind's eye focusing on the weaknesses, but the chaos of the battle seems to be getting to him before-
For his troubles, Taro gets staggered with a crippling headache. Turns out, processing so much information at once tends to give you sensory overload, which apparently feels like the world's worst hangover.

Everyone else fumbles around like a bunch of idiots except Sato and Amelie, who manage to stand their ground. Amelie does her healing thing, as Sato recovers from being winded by the beast. Juliet gets into position and almost trips herself into a pair of bricks, and Agatha definitely clocks Haruko on the back of the head with a rock, not that it does much else except lightly irritate her.

Also, the Zoanthrope is now glaring at Maki and Viv. Judging by the way that it seems to be pawing the ground, it's probably going to charge at you. And it's going to hurt. A lot.

9-15, heal Martyn, canto to 6-15

"Wait up! I need to heal you. And me-Ow!"
Kanade limps along behind as she uses Lenore to heal her own and her team's wounds.