Blood of the Innocent

File 21: Antidote

"Timo," explained Lettuce, as he walked through the colosseum, "The gang leader of Sicario Gang #7. Uses Poison Magia, allowing you to use weapons and tools that relate to poisoning another person. Rumor has it that if you're killed, your antidote will die along with you. I wouldn't want to test that rumor, so I'm calling off Wraith. Stand down, Wraith."

Wraith appeared behind Lettuce, coming out of his dimensional phase in disappointment.

"Lettuce," whispered Wraith, "If we're going to defeat this guy, how will we do it? From the looks of it, he's the type of guy to hide and wait for an opportunity to strike."

"Just head on back to the van with Exodus and Inferno to help take care of Minny and Dante. Persona can help assist me in this match."

As Wraith left, Persona came to Lettuce's side, also asking him questions.

"How are we supposed to fight this guy?" asked Persona in the same manner as Wraith.

"Look here, Persona," replied Lettuce, frustrated, "This isn't the time for any fucking games. We're in a life-death situation here. If any of those poison darts hit you, you're gone for good. You've seen what it did to Minny, right?"

"Yeah. It completely knocked her out and almost killed her."

"If you get hit with a poison dart, it's not like you'll be conscious enough to restore yourself. It doesn't matter how fast your Restoration Magia is. This goes the same for me."

"What? How so?"

"If I get hit by that poison dart, I'll be knocked unconscious even if you do restore me. That will add the burden to our mission, making us need more of the antidote. At this point, Timo must be keeping at least one antidote on him to keep letting us fight him. Using that, he can just pick us off."

"So we can't get hit by a poison dart or it's game over."

"I told you that this isn't a fucking game, Persona. Anyways, I don't know if you've noticed, but all of my statistics listed in my records are pretty subpar. Most of them are composed of C's and I only have two factors that stand out. I'm the only team member so far that doesn't have a D or an E, so that's a good benefit. Not to mention that I have an A in range. If only I can target him, we could end this fight quickly, but I don't know where he is. Second, I have a B in precision. It isn't too powerful, but I could at least stop some darts from hitting us. We should still be careful because—"

Suddenly, Lettuce turned to stop a dart in the air using his Magia.

"Woah!" gasped Persona, "He's already attacking!"

"Finally," whispered Lettuce, "I was waiting for him to strike. I even had to think up of a long monologue to make it seem like I was distracted."

"Do you really think the plan would work, Lettuce?" asked Persona, hiding his laughter from the cleverness of Lettuce's plan.

"Failure isn't an option."

Persona tipped his fedora and began to stand still. Lettuce stood still as well, awaiting for a strike.

"Are you guys seriously just gonna stand there and wait for me to attack you?" yelled Timo.

Suddenly a giant tree from outside the colosseum was hurled onto the voice, ready to destroy.

"You thought I would give my position just like that?" laughed Timo, "I've already set up radios all over this place, waiting for you to come in and attack them! You'd just be destroying equipment! I've got you in my trap!"

"I didn't plan for this," said Lettuce, "He could be anywhere in the colosseum. Who knows if his attacks could be real?"

Persona began to walk around and explore until he suddenly found a mine! Lettuce pulled Persona back using his Telekinetic Magia just as the mine exploded into purple fizz, possibly poison.

"You better watch where you're standing or else you'll get poisoned!" laughed Timo.

Suddenly, his laughter had stopped. He felt a chill on his spine as Lettuce looked at him talking into the radio from behind. In Lettuce's hand was the antidote vial, safely secured.

"W-What.." asked Timo, "How are you here?!"

Lettuce restrained Timo to the ground with his Magia before explaining:

"My plan started before we even initiated battle. Right when Dante was shot with your dart, he wasn't really shot. In reality, I stopped the needle with my Telekinetic Magia so that he wouldn't get pierced. Knowing my plan, Dante pretended to become unconscious.

While Dante was carried out, he conjured multiple demon chameleons into the colosseum, camouflaging to imitate my appearance. Dante's a really good leader apparently, having commanded the chameleons to move almost like a human as they copied my look. From there, I quietly roamed through the colosseum ruins alongside Dante, who would sniff out of there was a mine nearby.

While that was happening, Persona and the chameleons made a little act which seemed like I was with Persona. Obviously anyone could see that the chameleons wasn't me, but in the dark night, that's a different story. While they were talking, I made sure to pay attention to them and stop any attacks from reaching them, further simulating my appearance.

It was up when Persona figured out that there were bombs in the stadium that made the chameleons a little scared. I knew we had to find you quickly. It also meant that my theory that you had mines inside the colosseum was correct.

And now, after all of that. I've managed to find you, evade your mines, and fool you right before your very eyes. You thought you had control, but in reality, you were the rat finding the cheese in a maze."

Persona walked past Dante and Lettuce, holding a familiar object in his hand. It was the poison mine that was set off earlier.

"How do you have that without it exploding?" asked Timo in panic.

"I restored it to its original form," smiled Persona, "It takes a little while to activate, but once it does, the people near it will be in big trouble!

Now open wide."

—

After Persona had shoved the mine into Timo's mouth, the gang returned to the van with the antidote.

"You talk a lot," commented Persona.

"It's called a monologue," replied Lettuce, annoyed, "Its what people do when they win."