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Of chemo, Chia, and Cantus.
Well, I think it's about time I checked in here again. Everything's been going pretty well here - Jaime's WBC count is very low at the moment, so we're pretty much housebound, but on the plus side, his nausea's pretty much gone. He has a PICC line in his right arm at the moment, but he's scheduled to get a port installed in his chest sometime this week. Once he's got that and his counts come back up, he should be pretty much a normal guy until the next arm of treatment. I'm looking forward to it more than I can say.
Our first trip to Moffitt started on the first. We weren't sure whether or not he'd start treatment up there, but we packed just in case. Thank goodness, since they pretty much pounced on him. We didn't realize it until the PET scan results came in, but his lymphoma's rather advanced. Nothing too dire, but not a great situation to be in either. His assigned doctor at Moffitt is Sokol, a wiry guy with an upbeat attitude and an accent so thick I wouldn't have been able to understand him if I hadn't spent four years deciphering the lectures of TA's in the same cadence. During the exam, Sokol palpated various spots on Jaime, eventually rounding to the enlarged lymph node that started it all. He felt it, laughed, and went to find something to measure it with. 13 x 10cm on the surface. The first nurse we saw after he was admitted described it in her notes as being "softball-sized". Fucking a', dude. The PET scan was even creepier - I swear, the thing looked like it took up his entire shoulder internally. Very very not cool.
So to summarize a whole bunch of lengthy and complicated stuff, they put him on HyperCVAD and admitted him to start treatment that first night. He was admitted by 8, given pre-meds by 9, and on chemo at 1am. That night was our first encounter with Brad, a brutally awesome night nurse who took care of Jaime 3 out of the 4 nights he was there. I'm a horrible guesser when it comes to age, but he seemed pretty young, and has some seriously rad hair - all flippy behind his ears and stuff. The first night wasn't too bad. Jaime got a touch nauseous, but the meds they gave him fixed it pretty quick, and other than that, he tolerated it well. Day two, on the other hand, was rough.
For starters, day two was packed. He got chemo for three hours every twelve hours, so at 1pm, he got his second dose. He also got some chemo via lumbar puncture and had his PICC line installed, as one of his drugs is a vesicant and so is safest given directly into a large blood vessel. I'll be frank - it was a terrible day until the afternoon. I honestly wasn't sure how we were going to be able to cope with everything.
Then Lloyd knocked on the door.
Lloyd plays double bass for patients that feel up to it. He picked Jaime's door at random and asked if we'd enjoy some music. Many people may not know this about Jaime, even if they know him well, as he's a rather tightly shut book 90% of the time, but he's a true music lover and an audiophile. There couldn't have been a better treatment for him that day than live music. And boy, did Lloyd deliver. He played us four or five songs, all different styles, all goosebump-inducing, and Jaime could not have looked more peaceful. Lloyd noticed too - he mentioned that he was scheduled to be filmed for a news segment (something about the Mayor's hour or some such?) the next day, and that they wanted to include him playing for a patient and interview said patient afterwards. He said he typically asks patients he knows well about these things, but Jaime just struck a chord with him, just seemed to love the music, and he asked if Jaime would be interested. Jaime said yes.
The rest of that day was pretty uneventful. Jaime got chemo again at 1am. I slept barely three hours, and in the morning of day three, I suckerpunched myself with massive quantities of fruit to ward off any illnesses. Y'see, if I get sick, I have to quarantine myself away from Jaime, due to his weak immune system. I'm having none of that. Up until about 2pm, the day was pretty normal. Some people came by asking about therapy dogs, but we ended up not being able to see them since they made their rounds about the same time Lloyd came by for the interview.
I ended up crying my eyes out. Lloyd played so beautifully, and Jaime was so enthralled. At some point during Jaime's interview, the news guy (who was really quite nice and seemed taken off guard by the emotion of the whole scenario) asked him how he met Lloyd. I can't remember exactly what Jaime said, but it was something like, "He didn't know it at the time, but I'd been having a really rough day. He knocked on my door, and I get like twenty or thirty knocks a day, so I was expecting another nurse. Instead, it was this friendly looking guy with a big bass who asked if I'd like some music. And I was just like... 'Yeah. Yeah, I'd love some.' And it was beautiful; he's so good. It made my day so much brighter."
Everyone in the room kind of held their breath. Lloyd said in voice soft with awe, "That right there, that you said that, makes my whole week." After the news people left, Lloyd stuck around for a while and played more - we must've heard at least a dozen songs from him that day, all intricate, beautiful, mesmerizing, like the sway of the bass, the stroke of the bow, as he played. And when the music stopped, Lloyd stayed a while and talked with Jaime. They chatted about music, mostly, which was fascinating to listen to. I threw in nods or "mmm"s every once in a while, but for the most part I just scrubbed at my eyes and tried not to bawl out loud. Jaime made a comment about music that resonated with Lloyd. I'll do my best to reproduce it here - Jaime, feel free to throw in corrections. Once it's satisfactory, we can write it up nicely and give it to Lloyd when we go back.
"Lots of things are just something. Watching TV is something, reading a book is something, but there's something very human about music, especially live. Recorded music has a part of it too, and again, it's something, but live music is stronger. When you play it, it's like a part of you comes out that you can't reach otherwise, and hearing it, it touches you. A part of the human soul is music. And live music, especially when it's played well, with feeling, speaks for that bit of soul and lets the listener's soul speak out just by hearing it."
That evening, there was an art night down on the fourth floor. Jaime was ambulatory, though still hooked up to IV, so we ate dinner, let the nurses know we'd be out, and we wheeled out to the elevators. We in this case was Jaime, me, Mary (Jaime's mom), and Chris (Mary's brother). I stayed in the hospital with Jaime, so I was there pretty much every second of every day, and Mary and Chris came for the daytime and stayed in a hotel at night. Jaime and I convinced them they should come to art night, though, so they stuck around a bit later than usual. Lloyd played outside of the art room - hearing more music was Jaime's biggest motivation for going - and inside, they had inks set up for water marbling, a corner area with couches piled high with poetry and binders of similar stuff, and a table with stacks of hand-painted paper for folding cranes. We tried out marbling first, which was pretty freaking sweet. You dip sticks in ink and dab it into water, then rake around the colors with combs of your choice. When you're satisfied with your design, you float a piece of rice paper on top, and it sucks up the pattern. We're planning on getting our papers framed. They turned out quite pretty. After we'd done that, we went to fold cranes. The guide at that table was a USF student with dark curly hair named Kristin, who, we discovered over the course of the evening, is a Chem E. and in her fifth year of Japanese. She and I hit it off pretty well. For his part, Jaime was unnerved. He did chat quite a bit, though. Our engineering trifecta had some good stories to share. I hung my finished crane beneath Jaime's, which he hung from his IV rack. When he got tired and we said goodbye to everyone, they told us to call the art department and let them know when we're back. Definitely planning on doing that.
That night was the one night we didn't have Brad. Instead, we had a sweet gal in white scrubs who reminded me of Paula Deen. To be honest, I can't remember much of the fourth day. I was getting pretty exhausted, and everything had gotten repetitive. It's a bit of a blur. I do remember a bitchy bitch bitch nurse that left Jaime hanging for over fifteen minutes after he paged her, then sassed Mary when she asked her to take Jaime's temperature, leading to a verbal smackdown courtesy of a stonecold Mary. There may or may not have been mention of not having to take this shit and demands to know when she got off work. At the time, I was flustered and doing my best to hide between my cot and the closet, but in retrospect, it was pretty badass.
I also remember Jaime getting a different chemo drug that night. It was bright red. Like vibrant, maraschino cherry, Jolly Rancher, BRIGHT red. Brad hooked up Jaime's premeds and hung around while they ran, half-watching Adult Swim with us. We snarked at a LifeAlert commercial, which lead to Brad telling us about his two favorite holiday commercials: Chia Pets, and The Clapper. He came up with the brilliant idea of Chia facial hair, specifically a Chia Fu Manchu, which I swear I will make happen. Just gotta get a Chia head, rough up the right patches, and apply the stuff there too, yeah? It'll be sweeeeeet. Anyway, then Jaime got the chemo meds of awesome Kool-Aid-red-osity. I tell you, that stuff running through his tube looked like something out of a cheesy mad scientist movie. Brad said they have another med that's bright blue. I'm really hoping I'll see someone wheeling around with that sometime.
On the fifth day - Saturday the 5th, conveniently enough - we checked out and headed home. He's had some subsequent out-patient treatments, both at Moffitt and here in town, but he's not checking back in for another round until the 23rd. I'll probably take my laptop up with me next time, so I'll be able to chat with people while Jaime's napping or being a grump or whatever.
Oh! And! At his latest checkup at Moffitt, Sokol couldn't even feel the underarm lymph node anymore! He said he felt some scar tissue, but not the lymph node itself. With Burkitts-like Lymphoma, they'd expect a 50% reduction after the first treatment, he said, so since the chemo's being so effective, we're like 99% sure it's actual Burkitts. Doesn't change the treatment, but it's just kind of interesting to know. Here's hoping the treatment keeps going as well as it has thus far. Knock on wood. Whatever you guys have been doing, keep it up!
And now, the other feature I promised: my strategy for beating Panthera Cantus. This set-up worked for me on Ultimate - I imagine it'd work on lower difficulties as well, but I didn't find this level of prep to be necessary. Hard probably would've been a lot nicer if I'd worked this out before that, though.
To follow this strategy, you have to use Joshua. The principal could work with Shiki or Beat, I think, but it'd take a lot more focus and significantly better timing. Joshua's the best choice. You also need to have in your deck a barrier pin, a pin that you can keep an enemy out of commission with (such as knocking them into air so they can't attack), and a healing pin. I'd also recommend using something to speed up rebooting. The deck that I used was:
1. Tigris
2. Crackle Pop Barrier
3. Righty Cat
4. Brainy Cat
5. Lefty Cat
6. Visionary Blend
Hopefully, you've consumed some food to boost your drop rates. This battle's a lot easier if you can set your people to their maximum level. The more HP you have, the better your odds of survival. I'd suggest going for it at the highest level you can, even if the drop rate's less than 100%. It gets damn tricky to do if you can't survive a couple hits to Joshua, which can take about 1100 each.
Battle Strategy - Bottom Screen: Your goal for the bottom screen is to not take damage. I used Tigris to sprout icicles underneath Leo and knock him up into the air, and then kept tapping rapidly to juggle him up there and render him useless. When that ran out, I immediately switched to pressing Neku to activate his barrier. By the time that ran out, thanks to the Cat pins' speed boost, Tigris was reloaded, and so I started the cycle over. This is all you want to do on the bottom screen. You won't deal much damage, true, but you won't take much either. Trust me, Joshua can handle the damage-dealing by himself pretty well.
Battle Strategy - Top Screen: Your goal up here is primarily to not take damage. "But wait," you cry, "that was the goal on the bottom screen as well!" There's a slight difference. Down there, you just want to avoid damage. Up here, you prioritize not taking damage, BUT. You also throw in attacks frequently. Here's how: Tigris's main attack is to shoot out a tiger as she switches to another location. She can be left or right, up or down. If she's up, put Joshua on the ground. If she's down, make Joshua float. This way, you can dodge the tigers that fly out pretty easily. Forget about Joshua's attack paths; whichever side she's on, mash that way. You'll get a lot more stars than you'd think. If she switches to a different height level, stop attacking immediately and switch Joshua's stance. It's more important that you avoid her attacks than that you finish your combos.
Battle Strategy - Overall: Of course, the main concern with this battle is keeping track of your hit points. Panthera Cantus hits hard and fast, and you can get wiped out really quick if you slip up. It's important that you have a healing pin for this battle, as you can't be certain that you'll have a fusion attack ready when you're in need of help. I set Joshua up to boost his starting stars, and the first time I got low, I let the Visionary Blend pin take care of it for me. The next time I needed healing, Visionary Blend hadn't rebooted yet, but I was in luck - I'd earned a level 3 fusion attack that wiped out Panthera Cantus entirely. If I hadn't, I would've used whatever fusion attack I'd had ready to heal me some, and tried to hold out until Visionary Blend could fix me up completely. If you do find yourself hurting and unable to heal until a pin reboots, stop attacking with Joshua and focus instead on just keeping him up if she's down, down if she's up, and shift your attention towards Neku a little bit more to make sure he's not taking too many hits. Hopefully, that tactic should hold you over until your pin's ready for action again. One other issue I faced was being low, but not quite low enough to trigger Visionary Blend. In that case, keep on dodging with Joshua, but let Leo get a couple hits in on Neku. Don't let him grab you, as that'll mess you up too much - let him kick you a few times. The quick hits he does deal far less damage than Tigris's big hits, and you should be able to get down low enough to trigger Visionary Blend without falling so quick you get wiped out entirely.
So! That's how I beat Panthera Cantus on Ultimate. It wasn't an easy battle, even with my preparations, but it was definitely doable. One last note - I spent almost an entire playthrough feeding Neku and Joshua boosting foods to max them out and get their HPs high before I even attempted this. Well, I did try it once before, right after beating the game for the first time, and I got owned in a matter of seconds. I don't think that counts as an actual attempt. Anyway, it's probable that I could have done it with lower stats than what I had, but why bother? No use making a hard battle even harder, right? For the record, at the time I beat it, my stats were as follows:
Aaaaand, that's that! I'm planning on writing some memoir-type pieces about a couple little things I witnessed up at Moffitt. I don't want to get started down that mindtrack right now, but it's... my world is so changed. I mean, I'm still me. I still love video games, and write sappy fanfic and weird stories, and draw stupid comics. But there's been a fundamental change in the way I view the world around me. It's a big, crazy, random, frantic place out there. But hey - we all have to make our way through it. May as well be together.
Our first trip to Moffitt started on the first. We weren't sure whether or not he'd start treatment up there, but we packed just in case. Thank goodness, since they pretty much pounced on him. We didn't realize it until the PET scan results came in, but his lymphoma's rather advanced. Nothing too dire, but not a great situation to be in either. His assigned doctor at Moffitt is Sokol, a wiry guy with an upbeat attitude and an accent so thick I wouldn't have been able to understand him if I hadn't spent four years deciphering the lectures of TA's in the same cadence. During the exam, Sokol palpated various spots on Jaime, eventually rounding to the enlarged lymph node that started it all. He felt it, laughed, and went to find something to measure it with. 13 x 10cm on the surface. The first nurse we saw after he was admitted described it in her notes as being "softball-sized". Fucking a', dude. The PET scan was even creepier - I swear, the thing looked like it took up his entire shoulder internally. Very very not cool.
So to summarize a whole bunch of lengthy and complicated stuff, they put him on HyperCVAD and admitted him to start treatment that first night. He was admitted by 8, given pre-meds by 9, and on chemo at 1am. That night was our first encounter with Brad, a brutally awesome night nurse who took care of Jaime 3 out of the 4 nights he was there. I'm a horrible guesser when it comes to age, but he seemed pretty young, and has some seriously rad hair - all flippy behind his ears and stuff. The first night wasn't too bad. Jaime got a touch nauseous, but the meds they gave him fixed it pretty quick, and other than that, he tolerated it well. Day two, on the other hand, was rough.
For starters, day two was packed. He got chemo for three hours every twelve hours, so at 1pm, he got his second dose. He also got some chemo via lumbar puncture and had his PICC line installed, as one of his drugs is a vesicant and so is safest given directly into a large blood vessel. I'll be frank - it was a terrible day until the afternoon. I honestly wasn't sure how we were going to be able to cope with everything.
Then Lloyd knocked on the door.
Lloyd plays double bass for patients that feel up to it. He picked Jaime's door at random and asked if we'd enjoy some music. Many people may not know this about Jaime, even if they know him well, as he's a rather tightly shut book 90% of the time, but he's a true music lover and an audiophile. There couldn't have been a better treatment for him that day than live music. And boy, did Lloyd deliver. He played us four or five songs, all different styles, all goosebump-inducing, and Jaime could not have looked more peaceful. Lloyd noticed too - he mentioned that he was scheduled to be filmed for a news segment (something about the Mayor's hour or some such?) the next day, and that they wanted to include him playing for a patient and interview said patient afterwards. He said he typically asks patients he knows well about these things, but Jaime just struck a chord with him, just seemed to love the music, and he asked if Jaime would be interested. Jaime said yes.
The rest of that day was pretty uneventful. Jaime got chemo again at 1am. I slept barely three hours, and in the morning of day three, I suckerpunched myself with massive quantities of fruit to ward off any illnesses. Y'see, if I get sick, I have to quarantine myself away from Jaime, due to his weak immune system. I'm having none of that. Up until about 2pm, the day was pretty normal. Some people came by asking about therapy dogs, but we ended up not being able to see them since they made their rounds about the same time Lloyd came by for the interview.
I ended up crying my eyes out. Lloyd played so beautifully, and Jaime was so enthralled. At some point during Jaime's interview, the news guy (who was really quite nice and seemed taken off guard by the emotion of the whole scenario) asked him how he met Lloyd. I can't remember exactly what Jaime said, but it was something like, "He didn't know it at the time, but I'd been having a really rough day. He knocked on my door, and I get like twenty or thirty knocks a day, so I was expecting another nurse. Instead, it was this friendly looking guy with a big bass who asked if I'd like some music. And I was just like... 'Yeah. Yeah, I'd love some.' And it was beautiful; he's so good. It made my day so much brighter."
Everyone in the room kind of held their breath. Lloyd said in voice soft with awe, "That right there, that you said that, makes my whole week." After the news people left, Lloyd stuck around for a while and played more - we must've heard at least a dozen songs from him that day, all intricate, beautiful, mesmerizing, like the sway of the bass, the stroke of the bow, as he played. And when the music stopped, Lloyd stayed a while and talked with Jaime. They chatted about music, mostly, which was fascinating to listen to. I threw in nods or "mmm"s every once in a while, but for the most part I just scrubbed at my eyes and tried not to bawl out loud. Jaime made a comment about music that resonated with Lloyd. I'll do my best to reproduce it here - Jaime, feel free to throw in corrections. Once it's satisfactory, we can write it up nicely and give it to Lloyd when we go back.
"Lots of things are just something. Watching TV is something, reading a book is something, but there's something very human about music, especially live. Recorded music has a part of it too, and again, it's something, but live music is stronger. When you play it, it's like a part of you comes out that you can't reach otherwise, and hearing it, it touches you. A part of the human soul is music. And live music, especially when it's played well, with feeling, speaks for that bit of soul and lets the listener's soul speak out just by hearing it."
That evening, there was an art night down on the fourth floor. Jaime was ambulatory, though still hooked up to IV, so we ate dinner, let the nurses know we'd be out, and we wheeled out to the elevators. We in this case was Jaime, me, Mary (Jaime's mom), and Chris (Mary's brother). I stayed in the hospital with Jaime, so I was there pretty much every second of every day, and Mary and Chris came for the daytime and stayed in a hotel at night. Jaime and I convinced them they should come to art night, though, so they stuck around a bit later than usual. Lloyd played outside of the art room - hearing more music was Jaime's biggest motivation for going - and inside, they had inks set up for water marbling, a corner area with couches piled high with poetry and binders of similar stuff, and a table with stacks of hand-painted paper for folding cranes. We tried out marbling first, which was pretty freaking sweet. You dip sticks in ink and dab it into water, then rake around the colors with combs of your choice. When you're satisfied with your design, you float a piece of rice paper on top, and it sucks up the pattern. We're planning on getting our papers framed. They turned out quite pretty. After we'd done that, we went to fold cranes. The guide at that table was a USF student with dark curly hair named Kristin, who, we discovered over the course of the evening, is a Chem E. and in her fifth year of Japanese. She and I hit it off pretty well. For his part, Jaime was unnerved. He did chat quite a bit, though. Our engineering trifecta had some good stories to share. I hung my finished crane beneath Jaime's, which he hung from his IV rack. When he got tired and we said goodbye to everyone, they told us to call the art department and let them know when we're back. Definitely planning on doing that.
That night was the one night we didn't have Brad. Instead, we had a sweet gal in white scrubs who reminded me of Paula Deen. To be honest, I can't remember much of the fourth day. I was getting pretty exhausted, and everything had gotten repetitive. It's a bit of a blur. I do remember a bitchy bitch bitch nurse that left Jaime hanging for over fifteen minutes after he paged her, then sassed Mary when she asked her to take Jaime's temperature, leading to a verbal smackdown courtesy of a stonecold Mary. There may or may not have been mention of not having to take this shit and demands to know when she got off work. At the time, I was flustered and doing my best to hide between my cot and the closet, but in retrospect, it was pretty badass.
I also remember Jaime getting a different chemo drug that night. It was bright red. Like vibrant, maraschino cherry, Jolly Rancher, BRIGHT red. Brad hooked up Jaime's premeds and hung around while they ran, half-watching Adult Swim with us. We snarked at a LifeAlert commercial, which lead to Brad telling us about his two favorite holiday commercials: Chia Pets, and The Clapper. He came up with the brilliant idea of Chia facial hair, specifically a Chia Fu Manchu, which I swear I will make happen. Just gotta get a Chia head, rough up the right patches, and apply the stuff there too, yeah? It'll be sweeeeeet. Anyway, then Jaime got the chemo meds of awesome Kool-Aid-red-osity. I tell you, that stuff running through his tube looked like something out of a cheesy mad scientist movie. Brad said they have another med that's bright blue. I'm really hoping I'll see someone wheeling around with that sometime.
On the fifth day - Saturday the 5th, conveniently enough - we checked out and headed home. He's had some subsequent out-patient treatments, both at Moffitt and here in town, but he's not checking back in for another round until the 23rd. I'll probably take my laptop up with me next time, so I'll be able to chat with people while Jaime's napping or being a grump or whatever.
Oh! And! At his latest checkup at Moffitt, Sokol couldn't even feel the underarm lymph node anymore! He said he felt some scar tissue, but not the lymph node itself. With Burkitts-like Lymphoma, they'd expect a 50% reduction after the first treatment, he said, so since the chemo's being so effective, we're like 99% sure it's actual Burkitts. Doesn't change the treatment, but it's just kind of interesting to know. Here's hoping the treatment keeps going as well as it has thus far. Knock on wood. Whatever you guys have been doing, keep it up!
And now, the other feature I promised: my strategy for beating Panthera Cantus. This set-up worked for me on Ultimate - I imagine it'd work on lower difficulties as well, but I didn't find this level of prep to be necessary. Hard probably would've been a lot nicer if I'd worked this out before that, though.
To follow this strategy, you have to use Joshua. The principal could work with Shiki or Beat, I think, but it'd take a lot more focus and significantly better timing. Joshua's the best choice. You also need to have in your deck a barrier pin, a pin that you can keep an enemy out of commission with (such as knocking them into air so they can't attack), and a healing pin. I'd also recommend using something to speed up rebooting. The deck that I used was:
1. Tigris
2. Crackle Pop Barrier
3. Righty Cat
4. Brainy Cat
5. Lefty Cat
6. Visionary Blend
Hopefully, you've consumed some food to boost your drop rates. This battle's a lot easier if you can set your people to their maximum level. The more HP you have, the better your odds of survival. I'd suggest going for it at the highest level you can, even if the drop rate's less than 100%. It gets damn tricky to do if you can't survive a couple hits to Joshua, which can take about 1100 each.
Battle Strategy - Bottom Screen: Your goal for the bottom screen is to not take damage. I used Tigris to sprout icicles underneath Leo and knock him up into the air, and then kept tapping rapidly to juggle him up there and render him useless. When that ran out, I immediately switched to pressing Neku to activate his barrier. By the time that ran out, thanks to the Cat pins' speed boost, Tigris was reloaded, and so I started the cycle over. This is all you want to do on the bottom screen. You won't deal much damage, true, but you won't take much either. Trust me, Joshua can handle the damage-dealing by himself pretty well.
Battle Strategy - Top Screen: Your goal up here is primarily to not take damage. "But wait," you cry, "that was the goal on the bottom screen as well!" There's a slight difference. Down there, you just want to avoid damage. Up here, you prioritize not taking damage, BUT. You also throw in attacks frequently. Here's how: Tigris's main attack is to shoot out a tiger as she switches to another location. She can be left or right, up or down. If she's up, put Joshua on the ground. If she's down, make Joshua float. This way, you can dodge the tigers that fly out pretty easily. Forget about Joshua's attack paths; whichever side she's on, mash that way. You'll get a lot more stars than you'd think. If she switches to a different height level, stop attacking immediately and switch Joshua's stance. It's more important that you avoid her attacks than that you finish your combos.
Battle Strategy - Overall: Of course, the main concern with this battle is keeping track of your hit points. Panthera Cantus hits hard and fast, and you can get wiped out really quick if you slip up. It's important that you have a healing pin for this battle, as you can't be certain that you'll have a fusion attack ready when you're in need of help. I set Joshua up to boost his starting stars, and the first time I got low, I let the Visionary Blend pin take care of it for me. The next time I needed healing, Visionary Blend hadn't rebooted yet, but I was in luck - I'd earned a level 3 fusion attack that wiped out Panthera Cantus entirely. If I hadn't, I would've used whatever fusion attack I'd had ready to heal me some, and tried to hold out until Visionary Blend could fix me up completely. If you do find yourself hurting and unable to heal until a pin reboots, stop attacking with Joshua and focus instead on just keeping him up if she's down, down if she's up, and shift your attention towards Neku a little bit more to make sure he's not taking too many hits. Hopefully, that tactic should hold you over until your pin's ready for action again. One other issue I faced was being low, but not quite low enough to trigger Visionary Blend. In that case, keep on dodging with Joshua, but let Leo get a couple hits in on Neku. Don't let him grab you, as that'll mess you up too much - let him kick you a few times. The quick hits he does deal far less damage than Tigris's big hits, and you should be able to get down low enough to trigger Visionary Blend without falling so quick you get wiped out entirely.
So! That's how I beat Panthera Cantus on Ultimate. It wasn't an easy battle, even with my preparations, but it was definitely doable. One last note - I spent almost an entire playthrough feeding Neku and Joshua boosting foods to max them out and get their HPs high before I even attempted this. Well, I did try it once before, right after beating the game for the first time, and I got owned in a matter of seconds. I don't think that counts as an actual attempt. Anyway, it's probable that I could have done it with lower stats than what I had, but why bother? No use making a hard battle even harder, right? For the record, at the time I beat it, my stats were as follows:
| Neku | Joshua | |
| BRV | 999 | 999 |
| ATK | 100 + 106 | 100 + 79 |
| DEF | 100 + 113 | 100 + 121 |
| Samurai Helm | Angel Feather | |
| My Phones | Iron Maiden's One-piece | |
| Pi-Face's Coat | One Man, No Equals | |
| Maid Costume | Pi-Face's Cap | |
| HP | 7055 + 3148 | |
| Level | */* | |
| Sync | 100% |
Aaaaand, that's that! I'm planning on writing some memoir-type pieces about a couple little things I witnessed up at Moffitt. I don't want to get started down that mindtrack right now, but it's... my world is so changed. I mean, I'm still me. I still love video games, and write sappy fanfic and weird stories, and draw stupid comics. But there's been a fundamental change in the way I view the world around me. It's a big, crazy, random, frantic place out there. But hey - we all have to make our way through it. May as well be together.