NOTE: The cover image in a nod to the fact that Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable release on all platforms next week.

Log 25: A Bro-splosive Mall Trip (Part 2)

Cover Image: The Tennysons and Investigation Team members sat in front of a TV with a game console hooked up to it; on the television was the main menu screen for Persona 4 Golden. Ben held the controller in his hand ready to start the game.

Inside of the Rustbucket, Max and Kenji were relaxing while the kids explored the mall. Kenji bit into the exotic squid tentacle with delight. "Ah~! Maxwell, your cooking hasn't gotten worse with age at all." He complimented his friend.

Max smiled appreciatively at his old friend. "Makes me happy to hear that." He took a bite out of his share of the food. "Just wish I could get the kids more into it. Never hurts to expand your tastes."

"Maybe, try your clam worm stew? It was always a favorite of mine on our missions back in the day." Kenji said.

Max thought about it for a moment, then agreed with his friend. "Sure, might awaken their taste buds to savorable cooking. Heaven knows Ben eats too much junk food anyway." Both ex-plumbers laughed at the little joke.

Heartbeat, heartbeat, it keeps on pounding~

Heartbeat, heartbreak, you tell me goodbye~

Kenji reached for his cellphone, seeing that his granddaughter was calling him. "Naoto? I wonder why she's calling." He answered the call, putting the phone up to his ear. "Naoto?"

"Grandfather! Where are you and Max-san, right now?"

"Inside of the Rustbucket. Why?"

"Can you put the call on speaker?" Kenji did as he was told, so that Max could hear the call too. "The mall's being raided by an organized criminal gang at the moment! The girls and I are in route to assist Gwen, apparently the leader is a criminal named Rojo!"

"Rojo!?" Max exclaimed, shocked to hear that the biker woman had returned.

"You know her?" Kenji asked.

"Yeah, she attacked us before in an attempt to steal from a truck loaded with money. She was also corrupted by a drone created by Vilgax and tried to steal the Omnitrix from Ben. Seems she busted out of jail." Max explained.

"We can also assume she's not working alone, since the grunts under her are also male. It would be best to contact the police and help get any civilians out of the mall as fast as possible." Naoto said.

"Naoto, you and the girls focus on getting to Rojo. Max and I'll focus on helping as many people get out of the mall as possible." Kenji ordered.

"Understand."

Max realized someone was missing from the equation. "Wait, Naoto! Where's Ben!?"

"He's currently with Senpai and with all the chaos going on, I'm certain that the two of them are busy as well. Rise is currently using her Persona to search the mall for them. She'll get in contact with you as soon as she locates them."

"Understood. You all stay safe, okay?" Kenji asked them.

"We'll be fine, Kenji-san!"

"We Investigation Team girls are tougher than you think!"

"The same to you, Grandfather."

Naoto ended the call after the girls finished speaking, allowing the old men to grab their own gear. "And people used to tell me that retirement was easy." Max jokes.

"Who told you that lie? We old people are too busy worrying about this new generation to ever be taking it easy." Kenji added.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the little smart mouth." Rojo grinned maliciously as Gwen stood across from her.

"And if it isn't the wannabe punk, are you gonna play the 'I'm a girl' card again or are you gonna toughen up?" Gwen shot back. Her jab at their previous encounter had the punk snarling like an animal.

"Keep talking, brat! I'm going to enjoy beating you into a pulp! Then, I'll be going after the transforming brat and that prissy princess too!" Rojo declared. Her gauntlets roared with energy, she punched her fist into the ground, creating an earthquake that shook the mall.

"Wuaaah!" Gwen cried, trying to stabilize herself.

"Aaaahhh!" Kenny kept his head down to protect himself.

Rojo smirked at Gwen's lack of defense. "Ladies, light her up!" Rojo ordered. Her grunts pointed their blaster rifles, unleashing a torrent of attacks at Gwen.

Luckily the sorceress wasn't as unbalanced as she thought, Gwen quickly activated a shield to protect herself from the blaster bolts. Rojo raised an eyebrow, not recalling Gwen's ability of doing that before. Gwen took a deep breath as she concentrated her abilities. "Let's give this new spell a shot! Statuea!" Gwen yelled, releasing a shockwave of magic that was directed at the gang of punks.

"Get down!" Rojo yelled at her subordinates. Unfortunately for her, most of them were too slow to respond and were frozen in place like statues. Rojo hissed at this, pissed that most of her forces were so easily stopped in place. "Damn, brat! When the hell did you learn how to do this!?"

Gwen smirked. "Don't really feel like explaining it. You can, however, sit and think about it back in your jail cell."

Rojo hummed for a moment before pointing the blaster on her gauntlet at Gwen. "NAH!" The red beam bolted towards the young girl. Gwen put up a shield, reflecting the blast into the air, which gave Rojo the perfect chance to close the distance between them. Her gauntlet charged up with power connected with the shield, shattering it and blasting Gwen back a few feet.

"KYA!" Gwen cried as she rolled across the ground. She slowly climbed to her knees as the armored punk strolled over to her.

"Heh, seems even with that weird power of yours, I'm still too much for you." Rojo complimented herself. "C'mon, brat. Where's the smug talk? The smart comments? Pretty sure your cousin wouldn't have shut up regardless of if he was getting his butt kicked-KYAH!" Rojo screamed as she was suddenly blasted in the back. "The hell!?" She turned around to see Kenny holding a fallen rifle one of her grunts dropped.

"Get away from my sister, ugly!" Kenny prepared to fire another shot.

"Ugly!?" Rojo was more upset at the insult than anything. "Have you seen me!? I give the word 'hot' a literal definition!"

"Let me help you with that then."

Rojo only had a split second to realize what was happening before the fireball crashed into her, blasting her into a hotdog cart. Kenny blinked in surprise and looked over to see Yukiko and Naoto approaching. "Yukiko! Naoto!"

"About time you guys got here…" Gwen groaned, still a bit groggy. "Though, I could've taken her on my own." Kenny hurried over to help Gwen stand up.

"Well, we appreciate you guys showing up anyway." Kenny said. He then noticed the lack of a bubbly idol. "Wasn't Rise with you guys?"

Yukiko's face visibly darkened at the mention of Rise, the idol's loud declaration still replaying in her head.

"I'm gonna go help out Senpai and Ben! You two will be fine on your own!"

Naoto decided to answer since Yukiko looked as if she was going to commit a criminal act. "She ran off to help Ben and Senpai. She ran off in a hurry before we even had a chance to stop her, so here we are."

"Ugh…"

The Tennysons and Naoto looked over to see Rojo, slowly getting up from the destroyed hotdog cart. Multiple hotdogs had been shoved into her mouth, muffling the punk's angry shouts.

"Pfft! Hahahahaha!" Yukiko laughed; the sight of the humiliated Rojo had brightened her mood. The punk growled in anger, coughing out the hotdogs, and glaring hatefully at them.

"You goddamn, princess! I'm gonna kill each one of you!" Rojo yelled.

Kenny groaned. "Oh man… I hope the others are having a better time."

SHATTER!

CRASH!

"Guh…" Yu groaned, getting up from the floor. He had been kicked through the glass railings of the second floor, a few cuts and bruises were on his body. The Fool didn't expect the weird punk to be so physically exceptional at first, figuring that all of his strength came from his boots. "Damn… this might not be as easy."

"You're still alive, bro?" Fistrick landed on the floor in front of him. "Seems you haven't been slacking on your strength training, bro."

"Trust me, I've taken worse hits than that." Yu replied.

Fistrick smirked, getting into a boxing stance. "That just means that I gotta hit you even harder, bro." Without missing a beat, the punk bullet fast jabs at the Fool. Yu used his sword to block each jab, hoping that his reflexes would keep up with Fistrick. Suddenly, Fistrick dropped down and sweep kicked Yu's feet right from under him.

"Crap! Persona! Thor!" Yu summoned a different Persona just as Fistrick landed another kick to his chest. The punk had to pause, because he felt something off after that kick, especially when Yu got up without a scratch.

"Woah, bro. How come my brosome kick didn't hurt you?" Fistrick asked.

"Let's just say that physical attacks won't be doing much to me anymore. Get ready for my counterattack! Ziodyne!" Thor came to life behind Yu and unleashed the bolt of electricity at the punk. Fistrick jumped out of the way of the attack, giving Yu the chance to close the distance between them. "Deathbound!" Thor's hammer came crashing down Fistrick, bashing the weirdo punk into the mall's floor. "How was that?" Yu asked as smoke and dust clouded his view of Fistrick's downed form.

"Not bad, bro." Yu's eyes widened when Fistrick stood back up, hurt from his attack but brushed it off. "Guess, it's time that I finally got serious here." Fistrick cracked his neck before doing a few stretches. "Time for my brotacular muscles to work up a sweat!" He sprinted at Yu, forcing the Fool to put up his guard. Which was exactly what Fistrick wanted as he grabbed the Fool's arm, swinging him around and slamming him into the floor.

Fistrick noticed Yu's sword on the ground and picked it up. "Since my physical attacks can't hurt you, then I'll just have to equip the bro-sword!" The punk held the bladed weapon over Yu's downed body and brought it down to pierce through his chest.

"Not on EYE watch!" Fistrick was blasted by a green beam and was blown through the glass of a shoe store window.

"Ugh… did you really have to try making an eye pun?"

"What!? It's a must whenever I'm Eye-Guy!"

"Speaking of Eye-Guy, I can see why he's called that. Can you please turn into something else?"

"Hey! No dissing any of my aliens!"

Yu groaned, looking over he saw Rise and Eye-Guy standing over him. "Ben? Rise?" He sat up with the help of Eye-Guy. "When did you get here?" He asked the idol.

"I was on my way over to you guys when I got jumped by some thugs, but luckily Ben was there to save me." Rise explained.

"Which explains where you were the entire time." Yu said to Eye-Guy.

"Yeah, and just in time to get back to kicking this guy's butt!" Eye-Guy and the teens turned back to Fistrick, who was exiting the store.

"Not very sportsmanlike, bro. Real bros don't sneak attack other bros." Fistrick said. He still had Yu's sword in his possession.

"Then it's a good thing EYE'm not your bro. Because it's Hero Ti-"

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

FLASH!

The teens waited for the red light to die down before looking at Ben. He stood there awkwardly now that his transformation had ended. "Uh… my bad?" He laughed nervously.

"KYAAA!" Rojo screamed as she dodged a massive blast of fire. The punk heaved heavily as she kneeled on the floor, she glared at Yukiko. "Dammit! Are you trying to freaking kill me!?"

"Are you stupid?" Yukiko asked.

"Who the hell are you calling stupid!?" Rojo snapped back. She would've retaliated but the clicking of a gun caught her attention and was her only warning to dodge the blast of light.

Naoto clicked her tongue. "Tch. Gonna have to readjust my aim."

"What the hell even was that-GAH!" Rojo was blasted from the back again. She hissed at Kenny, who was prepping another shot. "Goddammit! Can't you kids let me get another word in-KYAAAAAA!" She screeched as Gwen shocked her with a powerful bolt of magic.

"Honestly you've been talking far longer than you should." Gwen said.

Rojo struggled to get up, she tried to activate her gauntlets, but before she could Yukiko was already on her. "Maragion!" She shouted. Two balls of fire were blasted at the gauntlets, blowing them up, and sending Rojo flying across the hall. The female punk was left defeated on the ground; her armor was useless without those gauntlets.

"And that takes care of that little problem." Yukiko said.

"Okay, but what about all of the goons running around?" Kenny asked.

"No need to worry about that, kids."

The Tennysons and Naoto turned around to see Max and Kenji walking over to them. "Most of the criminals were either taken down in here or were apprehended by the surrounding police officers outside." Kenji explained.

"Which mostly leaves whatever Ben and Yu are doing. And knowing Ben…" Max sighed.

"We better go find them." Yukiko and Gwen finished.

"Can't you hurry up and transform!?" Rise shook Ben's wrist.

He wretched it away from her. "I can't if the watch is still red!"

The two were hiding behind a bench as Yu was fighting Fistrick, the Persona user doing his best to avoid getting cut by his own sword. Fistrick was proving to be a problem as the punk had realized that in order to use his weird abilities it had something to do with his hands. "C'mon, bro! No need to be difficult!"

"I kinda do when you're trying to cut me in half!" Yu dodged another swipe.

"Can't you just sense out his weakness or something!?" Ben argued back.

"It's not like he's some weird creature or anything. I doubt he has some elemental weakness we can take advantage of…" As soon as she said that an idea popped up in her mind. "Or we could take advantage of a very normal weakness."

"Like what?" Ben asked. When Rise told him her idea, he grinned very evilly.

"Ziodyne!" Yu commanded his Persona. Fistrick saw the attack coming and rolled out of the way of the attack. He would've launched back into the fight, but Rise popped up right in front of him.

"Uh? Can I help you, lady-bro?" Fistrick asked.

The idol smiled sweetly at him. "You can… I couldn't help but admire your athletic ability. It's very… bro-like!" She complimented the punk. "A young innocent girl like me wouldn't be able to dream of being as brosome as you unless… you wouldn't mind teaching me-" She stopped when Fistrick's hand was pushed right up to her face. "Eh?"

"Sorry, lady-bro. Fistrick has a rule to not fall for such feminine charms. His purpose for his broportions and gains was to reach the pinnacle of bro-ness. Not for women." A heavenly light shined down on Fistrick as he gave his speech.

"W-what…?" Rise was dumbfounded.

"Now if you want to gain a brotacular body like mine? Fistrick has got the game plan for you!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long sheet of paper. "With Fistrick's workout plan, your weak little skimpy body-"

"Skimpy body!?"

"-Will be transformed into the pinnacle shape of brosomeness!" Fistrick explained, excitedly. "What do you say!?" He grinned down at her.

The idol had a large cartoonish tick mark pulsating on her head. "Ben? Please do it."

"Thank you! I was tired of waiting!"

"What-GAH!" Fistrick cried as he was blasted in the back, releasing Yu's sword. Behind him, Ben had been fiddling with one of the blasters left by Fistrick's thugs. Fistrick turned around, glaring at Ben. "Enough with the sneak attacks, little bro! Didn't anyone teach you about honor!?"

Ben snorted. "Please! I have two cousins who could tell you that I'm the last guy to ever play fair! Besides, you have more important things to worry about other than me."

"Like, what!?"

"Me."

CRACK!

A pained squeal left Fistrick's throat after Rise's foot found its way between his legs, landing a painful kick into his groin. His knees buckled and he gripped his crotch in pain, but even still he refused to go down. "N-n-n-n-not enough… t-t-to stop me, b-b-bro."

"Then this will." Yu crushed his tarot card. "Izanagi! Ziodyne!" Izanagi came to life, raising his sword and bringing down a blast of electricity on Fistrick. The punk was sent flying through the air and crashed down on the floor; his body burnt.

"N-n-n-not c-cool… bro." He lost consciousness, ending the fight with the heroes' victory.

Ben huffed. "Yeah, well, you're pretty annoying, bro."

Rojo hissed angrily as she and Fistrick were loaded into police vans. "I can't believe you lost! What happened to the 'Invincible Bro, Fistrick'!?"

"Turns out that those two bros and the lady-bro were smarter than Fistrick thought." Fistrick replied.

"Never trusting you again!" Rojo exclaimed; the punk then turned her eyes to the Tennyson family as they stood in the back. "And I'll get my revenge on that damn family too!" It was her last angry thought before the doors were closed on them both.

"Welp, that trip was a bust." Ben was at the back of the Rustbucket, reading a comic book. "Though, I was surprised to see Rojo was there. Rather had fought her than that crazy 'bro' guy."

"Was it really that bad?" Kenny asked.

"Yes, it was." Yu answered.

"And he insulted me too! He said I have a 'skimpy body'!" Rise huffed. "Can you believe that!?"

"Yes, truly a tragedy." Naoto said sarcastically, she didn't bother looking up from her book.

"Thank you, Naoto-kun!"

"I was being sarcastic…"

"Well, it's not like he would be wrong…" Yukiko muttered. Unfortunately for her, Rise was close enough to hear.

"I'm sorry, Yukiko-senpai, did you say something?" Rise asked, a cartoonish tick mark on her forehead.

"Yes, Rise-chan, I did say something." Yukiko smiled back at her with a cartoonish tickmark herself. The heiress and idol were sending heated glares at one another as everyone else tried to ignore them.

"Is she still mad about Rise's decision?" Gwen asked.

"Yes." Naoto answered.

Max sighed happily as he drove them back into the city. "Ah, kids these days."

"Yes, though I'd wish they'd be a bit quieter though." Kenji sighed.

Log End

NOTE: I hope you all enjoyed. I just want to make it clear that Rojo didn't have the advanced tech suit she has in "Negative 10", so she was not going to be able to take all of them on. She would've been tough for just one, but taking on Yukiko, Gwen, Naoto, and Kenny was too much. The suit she'll have in "Negative 10" will be much stronger.

Fistrick is a tough dude, but just like all men, he shares that ultimate weakness.

I went a more comical route with their defeats, because I find it fun for these kids to be seen as their own brand of dangerous.

Have a great day!