Characters / Phantasy Star Online 2 - The Profound Darkness

Main Page | ARKS (Guardians | Council of Six | Classes) | Earth | Omega | Other Planets | The Profound Darkness | 2es

A list of characters from Phantasy Star Online 2 that centers around the Profound Darkness and individuals associated with it. These include the Falspawn, specifically the Dark Falz, and later on the Photoners introduced in Episode 6.

WARNING: Late-Arrival Spoiler for events up to Episode 1-3

---

Falspawn

In general

A race born out of corrupted photons known as F-Factors. They spread across the universe like locusts, infecting and mutating the creatures and planets they encounter into becoming one of their own. While they can be killed by conventional weaponry, this does not destroy their cells and merely causes their corruption to spread further. The only known way to permanently eradicate the Falspawn is through the use of Photons, which the members of ARKS are trained in the use of.

While most Falspawn are mindless beasts who only seek to devour and kill, there exists a special breed of intelligent Falspawn known as the "Dark Falz". They act as the source of the Falspawn and are beings of pure malevolence that feeds on hatred and negativity. There was thought to be only one Dark Falz known as Elder the Gargantuan, who was defeated sealed away on the planet Naverius by the Three Heroes forty years prior to the events of the game. However, this was proven wrong by the emergence of multiple "Dark Falz" at the end of Episode 1. Each Dark Falz is unique, some of them requiring hosts in order to thrive.

---

• Dub Name Change: In Japanese they called Darkers with their corrupted photons called Darker Factor. The official English translation also gives the Dark Falz titles based on their kanji names.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Being very dark and evil, they're all weak to Light, save for some unique exceptions such as the rare variants. Additionally, they're weak to one additional element. Insect Falspawn are weak to fire; Aquatic, lightning; Avian, wind; and Toy, ice.
• Fusion Dance: Esca Falspawn which is a hybrid of Aether and F-Factor
• Horde of Alien Locusts: They have one purpose only; to devour and kill all life in the universe. The Falspawn under Apprentice's command basically play this straight with what being actual insects.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Their primary color scheme is a combination of black and red, with other colors thrown in depending on the type of Falspawn. Insect Falspawn are mostly black or gray to start, Aquatic Falspawn are associated with purple, Avian Falspawn are associated with gold, and lastly the Toy Falspawn are the most bright and colorful of the bunch to go along with Gemini's childlike nature.
  • Esca Falspawn and Anga Fundarge invert this, former uses white and blue while the latter uses more white purple and gold.
• The Virus: Thanks to the very nature of the Falspawn as beings born of corrupted photons, many more of them can be spawned simply by infecting other species.

Dark Falz

Persona the Masked

Persona the Masked

Voiced by: Hiroshi Kamiya (Episode 1), Ryōhei Kimura (Male - Episode 2 onwards) and Yōko Hikasa (Female - Episode 2 onwards), Daisuke Ono (Episode Oracle)

A masked Dark Falz who frequently opposes the Protagonist. Everything about them is unknown; even the name "Persona" is nothing more than an alias. The only things that can be said for certain is that Persona fights like a Hunter and Fighter would and wields the Coated Edge D and the Coated Doubliss D as their signature weapons.

As hinted at in Episode 2 and formally revealed in Episode 3, Persona is none other than an alternate timeline version of the Protagonist who failed to save Matoi from the Profound Darkness. Agonized by their failure, they transformed into a Dark Falz and, through their time travel ability, travelled back into the past in order to figure out a way to change the future. However, their repeated failures eventually drives Persona to the conclusion that Matoi's fate is immutable and that it would be better to give her a merciful death rather than prolong her suffering any further.

The Protagonist eventually convinces them otherwise however, and at the end of Episode 3, Persona finally figures out a way to save Matoi by sacrificing themselves instead and using their time travel ability to trap the Profound Darkness in a time loop. However, this is only a temporary solution at best...

---

• Always Save the Girl: Initially the case. Persona wanted to use their time travelling to find a way to save Matoi's life, but their inability to do so eventually led to them giving up and seeking to give Matoi a Mercy Kill instead. It's not until the Protagonist reminds them that if they couldn't save her on their own, then they should just work "together" instead that they bother give the idea of saving Matoi one more chance.
• Anti-Hero: Unlike the other Dark Falz, Persona is only mildly antagonistic at best and actually works to serve the greater good (though mostly for Matoi's sake) even if it puts them on a path against the Protagonist themselves.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Persona's outfit is basically a suit with a long coat. It also comes with a high collared variation.
• Badass in Distress: By the end of Episode 3, Persona is not actually dead. Just sealed away in a time loop of their own making in order to trap the Profound Darkness. Knowing this, Xiao takes time off from leading ARKS in order to find a way to rescue him while keeping the Profound Darkness in check. They eventually do so at the beginning of Episode 5, but circumstances go awry which leads the main plot of the episode.
• Badass Normal: Compared to the other Dark Falz who all showcased the ability to transform and control legions of Falspawn specific to them, Persona is unique in that they're the only Dark Falz who isn't shown to have either ability and relies entirely on their sword skills and experience to be a threat.
• Big Damn Heroes: Does this in Episode 2 for Elder when he's being overwhelmed by Maria and company's sudden arrivl to save Zeno from his "death". He later does the same with Matoi during her fight with Apprentice in AP 228, though it's subverted as he moves to try kill her himself soon afterwards.
• Black Knight: Fits the trope to the letter.
• But Now I Must Go: Together with Xion at the end of Episode 3 after having finally saved Matoi from her fate. For Persona, it's to make sure that the Profound Darkness stays trapped within the time loop they create until ARKS finally figures out a way to permanently end them.
  • In Episode 6, he does this along with the other 4 Dark Falz hosts who were absorbed by the protagonist
• Cool Mask: Persona is easily identified by the distinctive black mask that they wear. After saving Matoi, they more or less ditch it afterwards. They are still seen with it in cutscenes in Episode 5 and 6, though the colors match more of the other of the Dark Falz Collective who joins with the protagonist matching the change they have gone through.
• Dark Action Girl: If the Protagonist is female, then the Persona they encounter by Episode 2 will also be one as well.
• Death Seeker: The bad ending of Episode 3 shows that Persona is this, having been worn down so much by their quest and repeated failure to save Matoi from her fate that they welcome death with open arms.
• Despair Event Horizon: Crossed it long ago when the Matoi that Persona knew died which transformed them into a Dark Falz. They're hit even harder when they realize that nothing they do, no matter what changes they make to the timeline, nothing can save Matoi from her fate of becoming the host of the Profound Darkness. This hits them so hard that Persona eventually decides to give Matoi the Mercy Kill she desires.
• Dueling Player Characters: Fights against the Protagonist on several occasions. Especially notable if Protagonist is fighting with a Hunter Sword or a Fighter Double Saber which makes it a sort of Mirror Match though Persona uses skills unique to them.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Persona attacking the Protagonist at the beginning of Episode 1 doesn't make much sense when one considers that Matoi is their prime target. Episode Oracle rectifies this issue by having Persona attack after Matoi herself appears in front of Ash.
• Enemy Mine: Forms one with the Protagonist in Episode 3 after Matoi becomes host to the Profound Darkness. Depending the route taken, this will result in Persona fighting alongside you to kill Matoi which leads to the bad ending or Persona allowing the Protagonist their shot at trying to save Matoi.
• Evil Counterpart: To the Protagonist who Persona is an alternate version of. They're a stark reminder of what might happen to them if they ever gave into despair.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Persona's voice is noticeably deep, with an echo effect similar to other Dark Falz in the game which makes it sound even more deeper.
• Evil Twin: Being an alternate version of the Protagonist, this allows them to fool others into thinking that they're them as seen when they do it with Matoi in A.P. 228.
• Final Boss: Of Episode 3 as the Profound Darkness.
• Foreshadowing: They not only fight with weapons and attacks similar to a Hunter class, but seem to appear in places that have some sort of plot relevance for one reason or another, such as where Matoi would awaken, or for the pieces of the Clarissa. Episode 2 lays it on even thicker when, after using a voice modulator but distinctly sounding male previously, they also suddenly match your gender with new voice actors to boot, making it clear to players at the time that they were tied to you in particular.
• Future Badass: Initially to the Protagonist. Persona served as an example of what they could potentially become with enough experience, going from rookie ARKS operative to a powerful Dark Falz.
• Good All Along: Despite their actions, they're still this even after having transformed into a Dark Falz. Their only desire is to save Matoi and prevent the Profound Darkness from becoming a threat. The only reason they're antagonistic is because they see no other way for Matoi to be saved other than through her own death.
• I Hate Past Me: Hates how idealistic the Protagonist is in their belief that they can save Matoi no matter the odds as Persona believes its that same sentiment that causes her suffering to increase.
• Heroic Mime: Subverted, in that Persona speaks quite vocally compared to the Protagonist being this. They also gain a female voice from Episode 2 onwards to reflect a female protagonist. This gets used in the final battle against Shiva as Persona directly voices each line the Guardian says, showing both of them in perfect mind and sync.
• Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of Episode 3, Persona realizes that in order to save Matoi they have to use themselves as a catalyst instead. To that end, they use what remains of Xion's power within Clarissa to absorb the F-Factors from both Matoi and the Protagonist and proceeds to trap the Profound Darkness within a time loop where it and Persona remained ever since.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: They're this throughout the Oracle Saga. Their antagonism towards the protagonist and Matoi aside, Persona's true motives remain a mystery even amongst the other Dark Falz as they have no idea who he is or where he came from. It's only at the end of Episode 2 and further explored in Episode 3 that Persona's true motives come to light, wherein they're revealed to be an alternate future version of the protagonist who seeks to kill Matoi in order to prevent her from becoming the Profound Darkness.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Persona dies in the Bad Ending of Episode 3, sacrificing themselves so that the Protagonist can kill Matoi.
• Loophole Abuse: Since Persona is the Protagonist from an alternate future, they possess the same affinity for photons and including being a potential host for the Profound Darkness. Realizing this, the true ending Episode 3 has them use Clarissa to absorb all the F-Factors from Matoi and the Protagonist, resulting in Persona becoming host to the Profound Darkness instead. Being a Dark Falz with time travel abilities however, Persona uses what little control they have to send the Profound Darkness into a time loop effectively serving as its seal. However, as Xion and Xiao point out, this is only a temporary solution.
• Meaningful Echo: Persona's last words towards Matoi in the true ending of Episode 3 are basically the same words she utters to them in the bad ending timeline, but this time towards her after she's finally been saved.
  Persona: Don't cry. Smile.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Persona can block with a Double Saber, and return a Counter-Attack if you strike its guard. Players can do neither of these things.
• Secret Test of Character: To their younger selves, both by challenging them repeatedly to make sure they're capable of continuing on the timeline as needed, and later to see if they really have what it takes to actually back up their refusal to kill Matoi. The Protagonist succeeds so well on the latter that it helps Persona realize they can Take a Third Option.
• Shaped Like Itself: Persona's kanji, 仮面, or "kamen", which means "mask". As in, the mask it wears.
• Split-Personality Merge Sort of. Assimilating the other Dark Falz avatars over the course of Episode 5 brings Persona back into the player character's mind.
• Stable Time Loop:
  • In killing Matoi, the Protagonist becomes Persona. They then go back in time to prevent it, but give up and seek to kill her or convince their younger self to do it instead. Whatever the choice, Matoi dies and the then version of the Protagonist becomes the next Persona who again tries to save her only to fail. The cycle only ends once current Protagonist finally decides against killing her and sticks with it until the end.
  • Even before the Profound Darkness, Persona is seen acting to retrieve the pieces of Clarissa as well as bailing out Elder when Maria was about to kill him. Turns out they're not so much acting maliciously as they are trying to get all the things into place so that Gettemult steals the Clarissa and the protagonist inevitably fights Elder to keep the timeline on track, likely in ode to Xion's attempts to make a better future. The events ten years prior are also a part of this, intentionally invoking Matoi nearly being corrupted into the Profound Darkness so that Xion through Clarissa will warp her into the future so Persona's past self encounters her, while doing it in front of their "present" self to shape their experiences and knowledge going forwards.
• Take a Third Option: Matoi is fated to become the Profound Darkness no matter what, so either the protagonist fails to save her in despair and everything is theoretically doomed, or they kill Matoi and seemingly end the Profound Darkness, whereupon they'll hit the Despair Event Horizon, become Persona and start it all over again. When one timeline has the protagonist refuse to perpetuate the cycle, Persona recalls one very helpful fact: the protagonist is as much as a viable host for the Profound Darkness as Matoi, something Persona exploits in their own Heroic Sacrifice to finally save her.
• Time Travel: Being an alternate version of the Protagonist, they have this as well thanks to Xiao. Compared to the Protagonist however, dialogue from Persona that they have used this ability extensively in trying to save Matoi from her fate.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Persona's Heroic Sacrifice was a great idea on paper to completely and utterly Screw Destiny - but in the end they also ended up causing the Profound Darkness to inherit their Time Travel abilities that Xiao had originally given to them as the Protagonist. The result is Persona having to make their own new Stable Time Loop, trapping the otherwise-unkillable Profound Darkness in a constant defeat to the protagonist because there's no other way to actually stop it for good yet, and over the course of the two-year Time Skip it manages to summon itself through time anyway, creating a constant threat that continuously haunts ARKS and the universe.
  • In the attempt to save Persona from the Profound Darkness at the beginning of Episode 5, this causes the Omega dimension to be opened on the other side of a black hole - which is seen destroying entire star systems. Even worse, this leads to the long-term awakening of Shiva. Persona's sacrifice really doesn't catch a break on the consequences it all caused.
• Vicious Cycle: As mentioned in Stable Time Loop, Persona's entire existence is this. They're effectively brought into existence the moment Matoi dies which can brought about by a version of Persona from another timeline. Best seen in the bad ending where Persona laments being finally free of their fate, only for the Protagonist themselves to become the next Persona.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Wishes to save the universe and spare Matoi the pain of becoming the Profound Darkness by murdering her prematurely. The Protagonist manages to break the Vicious Cycle by refusing to go along with this.
• Villainous Breakdown: Briefly undergoes one after fighting the Protagonist when they refuse to kill Matoi in the true ending. Enraged, Persona points out that they're a living example of the Protagonist's failure and urges them to reconsider, but again the Protagonist refuses. Persona can only lament how stubborn they used to be.
• Vocal Dissonance: Can be invoked if the Protagonist has a face that does not suit Persona's voice, resulting in the latter having the same face as well whenever they take off the mask.

Elder the Gargantuan

Elder the Gargantuan

Voiced by: Nobuo Tobita (JP), Ben Lepley (EN)

The first incarnation of Dark Falz to appear within the story, and master of the aquatic-type Falspawn. In A.P. 198, he was engaged by ARKS in a conflict now known as the Elder War; an event which led to a resounding victory of ARKS as they and the Three Heroes destroyed Elder. In truth however, Elder was merely sealed away on the planet of Naverius. Decades after his defeat, he was revived by the ARKS operative Gettemhult, who Elder proceeded to take over as his host.

In his humanoid form, he can become the powerful Falz Hunar. After he merges with the corpse of his body embedded within Naverius, he becomes a planet-sized monstrosity called Dark Falz Elder.

---

• Adapted Out: His Falz Hunar form makes no appearance in Episode Oracle throughout the span of Episode 1. Any time he fights is in human form or his true form.
• Adaptational Badass: In the game, aside from the relevant EQ being set among the ruins of destroyed ARKS Ships, there was no real indication that Elder did any meaningful damage to the Oracle fleet, and any aftermath from the battle is never addressed. In Episode Oracle, Elder is clearly shown wrecking Oracle Fleet ships en masse and actively threatening millions of lives by merely existing, and the only way ARKS manages to defeat him is by crossing the Godzilla Threshold and using the Mothership as a Wave-Motion Gun, sacrificing over a hundred Ships in the process.
• Background Music Override: In "Mining Base Defense: Despair", a Mining Base mix of Hunar's theme shows up just in case you weren't already aware that he was here and ready to clean house.
• Battle Theme Music: The Falz Arms have four theme tunes (Falz Arms -1st Engage- all the way to Falz Arms -Last Engage-) which change depending on how close the Ship is to their clearing target. Dark Falz Elder has IDOLA da Sledge of Destruction.
• Blood Knight: He loves to fight, and keeps challenging the ARKS because of it. This trait was inherited from Gettemhult, though he also implies that he was already this before possessing Gettemhult’s body, noting that he was happy to find a host who shares his love of battle.
  • His Blood Knight tendencies can probably be chalked up to the fact that original Photoner who became Elder was Oracle's version of Schreger, and if that guy was anywhere near as big of a Blood Knight as Omega counterpart, then that explains a lot.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Elder is evil, knows he's evil, and lets ARKS know he's evil as loudly as he can, albeit without ever dropping the personality of a real Blood Knight.
• Cool Sword: Elder Pain, a giant, crescent shape BFS that Elder wields with a single hand to launch furious slashing attacks that send out Sword Beams. It's obtainable as both a 9* weapon and a Weapon Camo. His Omega version, Schreger, also drops Elder Pain Omega, a 15* version of it with greatly improved stats.
• Determinator: Nothing stops him, not even defeat. He'll just keep coming back to attack the ARKS because he loves a good fight. The only thing seemingly capable of putting him down is a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Disc-One Final Boss: The climax of Episode 1, right before The Reveal that there is more than one Dark Falz.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Possesses a weakness to Electricity and Light. The former makes him drop his arms, allowing the multiparty to attack the upper arms, whereas they would not be able to reach them otherwise.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He's less than impressed by Gemini's cowardly tactics and generally dislikes them. Considering that his host, Gettemhult, also has a history with Gemini as they're responsible for the original Melfonseana's death, this likely further fuels Elder's antagonism towards them. It eventually comes to ahead when Elder decides to take Gemini on together with the Protagonist and other ARKS operatives after he's finally had enough of them.
• Evil Hand: His personal minions, the Falz Arms, which take the form of gigantic arms with a tiny version of Elder's head on top. While Elder can summon a large quantity of them at will, each Falz Arm summoned subtracts from his total body mass. When enough Falz Arms are defeated, Elder has shrunken down to a size where the players can feasibly challenge him face-to-face. Or in the case of Episode Oracle, blast him to pieces with the Mothership.
• Evil Sounds Deep: He has an incredibly deep, echoing, practically demonic voice that's appropriate for an Eldritch Abomination.
• Final Boss: Of Episode 1.
• Hades Shaded: Gettemhult's fair skin turned dark when he was possessed by Elder.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: As Falz Hunar, once you deal a decent amount of damage, he'll pull out his Elder Pain, and he'll show you why it's called that.
• Good Is Dumb: Every time he fights you, he transforms into a more powerful form like Falz Hunar. The one time he DOESN'T transform to fight is when he fights alongside you, and he inevitably ends up getting killed.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Though he can pull out a sword whenever he wants, his preferred method of attack is bashing his opponents in with his fists much like Gettemhult.
• Graceful Loser: He doesn't mind losing repeatedly to the ARKS; he's happy as long as he has powerful opponents to fight.
• Ground Punch: Falz Hunar can do one. It sends out plumes that spiral out across the ground, and if one hits you, you become afflicted with Injury.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Lets himself be consumed by Gemini in an effort to protect Melrandia and your party.
• Killed Off for Real: Despite his resilience, he dies after sacrificing himself to save Melrandia and is consumed by Gemini as a result. To drive this point home, he's also the only Dark Falz among the original five that doesn't come back as a sort of spirit advisor to the Protagonist in Episode 5 as Gettemhult serves the role instead.
• Leitmotif: Violent Dynasty ~ Falz Hunar, as Hunar. "IDOLA" da Sledge of Destruction as Elder the Gargantuan.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Outside of Persona, he's this to the other Dark Falz. Despite being thoroughly dangerous and quite willing to assault ARKS out of revenge for his defeat years ago, Elder is nowhere near as dangerous as some of the other Falz such as
• Maximum HP Reduction: As Falz Hunar, he's one of the few Falspawn-class enemies who can do this.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Gettemhult's drive for battle was so great, Elder has since forgotten his original objective and now only thirsts for combat. It's also implied that having Gettemhult as a host is what spurs his hatred for Gemini, as Gemini killed Gettemhult's girlfriend Melfonseana.
• Mythology Gag: The way he was sealed and the place it was done is basically a Call-Back to the original Phantasy Star Online.
• Physical God: The Three Heroes weren't able to defeat him in their battle 40 years ago, only seal his body away to prevent him from wreaking havoc. Even while gravely weakened upon reawakening, he's still more than powerful enough to create a new body from Naverius' crust, forming a colossal titan that thrashes many ships of the ARKS fleet. By the time you catch up to him, the space around him is littered with wrecked ships.
• Power Palms: As Dark Falz Elder, most of his attacks utilize the Falz Arms to deal close and long ranged attacks simultaneously.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: He was sealed away in a shrine located within the heart of the Ruins Area. That is, until Gettemhult and Melrandia bust him out.
• Shielded Core Boss: As Dark Falz Elder, the red bit at his center is his weak point. If you manage to force him into his 2nd phase, he'll move his lower hands and open it up so you can attack it directly.
• Starter Villain: He is the climatic boss of Episode 1, and the emphasis of the war against the Falspawn to the point that the Three Heroes couldn't even kill him. He's also only one of several Dark Falz who get introduced immediately after his defeat, and as it turns out he's one of the easier threats the Guardian triumphs over compared to what follows after him.
• Sword Beam: Falz Hunar's got them once he unleashes his sword, and he's not afraid to assault you with them. And if that weren't enough, he gets his own version of Over End, too.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Once his health drops below the 25% threshold, IDOLA da Sledge of Destruction is replaced by The whole new world.
• This Cannot Be!: One of Elder's few cases of genuinely getting enraged and freaking out is when the Protagonist travels back in time to save Zeno and he gets thrashed by Maria in the aftermath. He drops all pretenses of his usually calm and arrogant demeanor because he realizes that he's far less powerful than he realized after reawakening, and about to get put down before he's even had a chance to do anything. Persona bails him out at the last second.
• Turns Red: A special case of it. If the players manage to break off all of Dark Falz Elder's arms except the two bottom ones, he'll pull out a fresh batch of more arms and soup up his previous attacks, and throw in some new ones as well.
• The Unfought: Very rarely, this can occur if the entire Ship is unable to clear the Falz Arms Quest a certain number of times within the 30-minute time limit. If this occurs, the entire campaign is cut short and Dark Falz Elder is unable to be battled.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: What he does in Episode 2 Chapter EX after losing to you, due to disliking the environment, of all things.
• Villainous Rescue: When Gemini gets the jump on your party in the Quarry, Elder appears after Zeno executes a Big Damn Heroes and helps in the ensuing fight against Apprentice and Luther the Fallen Clones. After the battle, Elder invokes Heroic Sacrifice to allow your party to evade Gemini.
• Your Size May Vary: When he drags his way out of Naverius he's half the size of the planet itself, but in the climactic boss fight with him he's not nearly that size. This is because the Falz Arms phase of the assault weakened him considerably and greatly reduced his size, thus enabling them to take the fight to Elder himself. Apparently, all the hands he summons before the final confrontation dissipates portions of his body with each usage.

Apprentice the Vernal

Apprentice I

Apprentice the Vernal

^{Click here to see Apprentice's original human form} 

Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (JP), Erika Harlacher (EN)

A Dark Falz who takes the form of a dark-skinned woman in her late 20s. She commands the insect-type Falspawn. She was a key figure in the Falspawn invasion of Themis in A.P. 228, an event instigated at the behest of Luther. She was defeated by Klariskrays II, Matoi, and attempts to survive by finding a new host body in Euclyta, Afin's sister. However, the possession process is interrupted when Apprentice I is ambushed by Gemini, who consumes her.

Dark Falz Apprentice also serves as the main antagonist of EPISODE 0, which focuses on alternate version of the events that lead to Falspawn Invasion of Themis that occurred ten years prior to the main story.

---

• Affectionate Nickname: In Episode 5, she's referred to casually as "Mar", an abbreviated version of her original name, "Margareta", inside the Guardian's head. She doesn't like this.
• An Arm and a Leg: In EPISODE 0 Quest 2, Matoi rips off Apprentice's right arm with a bolt of light to save Melfonseana. She regenerates it later, but the experience is no less painful nor any less horrifying for Melfonseana who bore witness to it.
• Beam Spam: Omega Falz Apprentice loves shooting out beams en masse, whether they're more straightforward lasers or line-shaped energy projectiles from her claws. Even her Wave-Motion Gun is a pattern of multiple lasers instead of just one big one.
• Berserk Button: Don't call her old.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: As the source of the Insectoid Falspawn, Apprentice's true form is a massive butterfly-like creature with six wings. She also spawns swarms of bee-shaped Falspawn to attack you.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: Falz Apprezina echoes her human form's use of Twin Daggers by performing slashing attacks with her arms.
• Battle Theme Music:
  • "Resonant Catastrophe" is the background music for "Mining Base Defense - Ending", where you dive into Lilipa's depths to face Apprentice's true form.
  • Resonant Dynasty plays when battling her Hyunal form, Apprezina after Elmir has Apprentice possess Margareta.
  • Resonant Nightmare is her battle theme when facing her complete form on Omega.
• Butt-Monkey: Out of the Dark Falz introduced, the first Apprentice is by far the one treated with the least respect. Matoi constantly dealt her humiliating defeats when they fought, she got consumed by Gemini just when was about to take over Euclyta, gets called out on her poor fashion sense by Omega Margareta, and after both were absorbed by the Protagonist, Gemini calls her an old hag.
• Dead All Along: The Apprentice seen in the present day was just the young Euclyta with a minor influence of her power, Brainwashed by Gemini to think she was Apprentice; the real deal had been killed shortly after her fight with Matoi ten years prior, by Gemini themselves at that for her failure. What the player is really fighting is her remnant power Matoi had sealed into Lilipa which was gradually unsealed with time as a violent and mindlessly destructive Empty Shell.
• Dual Wield: Wields Twin Daggers in human form.
• Empty Shell: Dark Falz Apprentice Zia is a manifestation of Apprentice's power separated from her mind after her death and driven solely by the instinctual desire to regain its lost "essence".
• Enemy Mine: In Episode 5, she doesn't mind letting the Protagonist absorb and use her power if it means getting revenge on Elmir who tried to manipulate her.
• Flunky Boss: When her health drops below half, she begins to periodically summon Predicahdas to fight with her. As Falz Apprezina in Omega, she summons two insect Falspawn that heal her and grab you. As Omega Falz Apprentice, she'll summon El Ardas to trip you up as she assails you with Beam Spam before summoning swams of bee-shaped Falspawn to attack you.
• Giant Flyer: The massive Dark Falz Apprentice is flight-capable, but is pinned underground beneath tons of rock, so you only fight the top half. Omega Falz Apprentice breaks out when exposed and flies towards the Epyk palace, requiring the ARKS in pursuit to engage Dark Blast [Luther] and take the fight to her before she arrives.
• Hades Shaded: Margareta's skin was significantly lighter pre-corruption, as can be seen after she is absorbed by the player, as well as on her Omega counterpart.
• Hartman Hips: Her Dark Blast form is extremely curvy below the waist.
• Insect Queen: The sole woman (If the protagonist is male) among the Dark Falz is the one in charge of the insectoid Falspawn, fits given her true form is that of a giant bug which can be seen in her full splendor during the Omega Urgent/Trigger Quest, only half of her could be seen during the Mining Rig Defense Quest on Lillipa
• Irony: Apprentice is arguably the most prolific of the Dark Falz, influencing five of the six Episodes as an antagonist in some fashion or another, even if by unofficial legacy, and being a major influence on Matoi's and Euclyta's pasts, as well as being something of an Attention Whore as per her original host's vain mindset. She also was technically Dead All Along thanks to Gemini consuming her before she could finish possessing Euclyta, is the weakest of the bunch by far on her own in terms of conscious usage of her power (though her Empty Shell in its transformed state is a different story), and not only gets next to no respect as the story progresses but also might as well be an afterthought in terms of genuine plot importance past the two she specifically influenced. The entire Epyk arc might as well be a Lampshade Hanging on her raw deal for how superfluous it was.
• Ma'am Shock: Hates being reminded of her age.
• Meaingful Appearance: She has a beauty mark on the left of her lip to go with her seductress persona.
• Mind Control: Capable of it and uses it to great extent during her battle against Matoi aboard Ship Themis in A.P. 228, using controlled ARKS operatives as weapons and shields to prevent Matoi from fighting at her full potential less she harm them.
• No One Could Survive That!: It's revealed in the The Stinger of the final chapter of Episode 2 that the original Apprentice somehow survived that Ilgrants assault from Klariskrays II. Barely alive, yes, but just alive enough to attempt to transfer her essence to Euclyta. Gemini offs her before the process is completed.
• Other Me Annoys Me: Prime Margaretta and Omega Margaretta do not get along.
• Physical God: Although she appears to be the weakest of the Dark Falz, her command over the Insectoid Falspawn means that she's an incredibly dangerous threat able to overrun entire planets with thousands upon thousands of Falspawn. When her true body reawakens after her seal is loosened, the shock of her revival causes massive seismic activity across Lilipa. It's telling that ARKS' go-to method for suppressing her is a massive Wave-Motion Gun powered by an entire team of ARKS operatives, and when that fails, it takes Itsuki and co. using the Stargazer Photon Art to form a massive Laser Blade to cut her in half, which the players repeat at the end of their battle with her on Omega. And this is after they use Dark Blast [Luther] to whittle her down with the power of another Dark Falz.
• Proud Beauty: Because of her hosts' Aurora and Margareta's obsession with their own beauty, Apprentice is incredibly vain and is outraged when Matoi's attacks on her drain her until she suffers Rapid Aging.
• Rapid Aging: Undergoes this when Matoi tries to purify the F-Factors within her which reduces her overall power. By the end of it she looks like she's in her 80's. Luther is able to help restore her, but it happens again after she's defeated during the Battle of Themis.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Apprentice's true body, and with it the vast majority of her power, was sealed within Lilipa. That's why she's constantly poking around there. It eventually does get unsealed, but by that point Apprentice herself has been killed, resulting in the Empty Shell faced in the story and in Urgent Quests.
• The Smurfette Principle: Among the Dark Falz, Apprentice is the only actual female member of the group.^* Persona's gender is determined by the player's avatar. As for Gemini, they were originally male before becoming a Dark Falz resulted in them splitting into male and female twins
• Spell My Name With An S: The ARKS-Layer translation patch spells her true name "Margareta", with one "t".
• Stripperific: Averted with her Dark Falz outfit. It actually shows little skin outside of some cleavage and her legs. Her original human outfit somewhat played this straight.
• The Unfought: Out of the Dark Falz introduced in Episodes 1-3, the original Apprentice was the only one that the Protagonist doesn't actually fight. Instead, Matoi was the one who filled the role of fighting her instead. It's not until Episode 5 that this is finally averted when she takes the form of Omega Apprezina.
• Tsundere: Believe it or not, she acts this way in Episode 5, where she's very insistent that she's only lending the player her power as a matter of convenience and absolutely not because she's taken any sort of liking to them.
• Vain Sorceress: Her preferred hosts are girls in their young teen years. She does not like being reminded how old she really is.
• The Vamp: Seductive and obsessed with beauty.
• Would Hurt a Child: As proven with Sarah, Apprentice has no qualms of hurting children if the mood strikes her. She even tried to force Euclyta into becoming her new body and would have succeeded had it not been for Gemini's interference.
• Zerg Rush: Her specialty lies in spawning thousands upon thousands of Falspawn to overrun her opponents. Even with half her power sealed in the depths of Lilipa, she's able to continually produce insectoid Falspawn to plague the entire universe. The opening cinematic for Episode 2 has her take the field while conjuring a Fal Vibras into existence as countless other Falspawn rush towards the ARKS operatives guarding the mining base.

Apprentice II

The Second Apprentice

Voiced by: Mariya Ise (JP), Dorothy Elias-Fahn (EN)

A Dark Falz who takes the form of a young woman in her late teens. Like her predecessor, she commands the insect-type Falspawn. In truth, she is actually Afin's older sister, Euclyta, who was brainwashed into thinking that she's Dark Falz Apprentice after an incident with the original Apprentice led her to being kidnapped by Gemini.

For more info on her, see Euclyta's entry in ARKS.

Apprentice III

The Third Apprentice

The third incarnation of Apprentice, this time having possessed a human girl from Earth called Rina.

For more information, see Rina's entry in Earth.

Gemini the Duplicate

Gemini the Duplicate

Voiced by: Rie Kugimiya (JP), Brandon Winckler (Male - English), Michelle Marie (Female - English)

A pair of twins who seem to share the same mind and serve as the main antagonists of Episode 3. Compared to the other Dark Falz, they have the unique ability to consume anything and then use it as cloned minions. When entering battle they transform into the monstrous Falz Douran and Falz Dourill, who can fuse together into Falz Dourumble. After being consumed by the Profound Darkness they turn into the colossal Dark Falz Gemini. They control the toy-type Falspawn.

Compared to other Dark Falz, Gemini is the only one who actually works to revive the Profound Darkness. To that end, they're more than willing to come into conflict with their fellow Dark Falz and use them as tools. They eventually succeed in their goal when they come into contact with Protagonist and Matoi, deeming them suitable vessels to become the Profound Darkness and work to corrupt them.

---

• Absolute Xenophobe: If their sheer disregard for life and monstrosity weren't enough, they wiped the entire Nightfaller race off the face of Harukotan and replaced them with mindless clones to go to war with the Daybreak Province.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Not in Episode 3, especially after their mass genocide on the Nightfaller half of Harukotan and their attempts to resurrect the Profound Darkness, but once the cast come to understand Gemini's circumstances, they can't help but feel sad for Florent after what he went through. Gemini isn't vocal about their regrets, but it's implied by their record selves that they're at least trying to make amends with their help to the Guardian.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Starts off as shifting orbs in its legs, which upon destruction stuns them and reveals their real weak point - their tongue - for a few seconds. Destroying the orbs on all six legs reveals their tongue permanently, although they can no longer be stunned from here on.
• Big Bad: Of the entire Oracle saga in general. While the other Dark Falz are all threats, most of them are self serving and/or failed in their goals. Gemini on the other hand actually works to try and revive the Profound Darkness, and unlike his fellow Falz they actually succeed at accomplishing their goal. Xiao even considers them the worst of the Dark Falz.
• Blood Knight: While mostly working from behind the scenes, their reaction to Matoi saying she's going to kill them is that it's the single most exciting thing they've heard since they were born; they relish the opportunity to finally get their hands dirty.
• Battle Theme Music:
  • The fast and frenetic "Chaotic Dynasty" plays when battling Falz Dran and Falz Daril. A remixed version plays while facing them on Omega.
  • "Twins" plays when fighting their final farm during the "Corruptor of All" Urgent Quest and at the climax of Episode 3.
• Break the Cutie: Florent Used to Be a Sweet Kid before his loneliness twisted him into a Dark Falz. We get to see his Omega counterpart undergo this in Episode 5.
• Cheerful Child: Post Heel–Face Turn, Florent and Fleur are adorable.
• Climax Boss: After all the crap they've done, you finally get a crack at them at the end of Episode 3.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Gemini's true form is duplicated an unimaginable number of times to form a barrier around the Profound Darkness, but each Gemini is far weaker than any previously encountered Falz before it. While still a formidable force, they no longer possess their planet-destroying capabilities as a Physical God, allowing normal ARKS Operatives to help break through the line to allow the protagonist and Matoi to confront the Profound Darkness.
• Creepy Twins: The fact they're Falz incarnations just makes it even more unsettling.
• Dark and Troubled Past: While the other Falzes were some degree of evil, vain, selfish, or stupid in their past lives, Gemini (ironically the most evil of the Falzes) outright suffered. Originally a Photoner boy named Florent, his unique powers caused the other Photoners to keep him isolated for research, with his only contact being Clarissa, the woman whom Xion would base her appearance off of. His strong desire for companionship was only amplified by the isolation, and his resentment towards the Photoners caused him to become a Dark Falz.
• The Dreaded: Xiao, a being with omniscience dwarfed only by Xion, is flat-out terrified of Gemini and outright labels them the worst of all the Dark Falz. He feels the need to underscore this by showing the player one of their recent ventures in crushing an entire planet like an egg.
• Dual Boss: Their "Hyunal" form is actually two separate Falspawn, Falz Dran and Falz Dril, that are fought together. However, they have a shared health pool, and when that runs out, they combine into a single entity, Falz Dranble, for phase two.
• Dub Name Change: They are renamed from Double to Gemini^note a flowery interpretation of their kanji name, which literally translates to "twins" in the official English translation. Their original names, Flo and Fraü, get a literal flowery rendition in the same translation—becoming Florent and Fleur.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Appears as early as the end of Episode 1, but doesn't become relevant until the end of Episode 2 and beyond.
• Empty Shell: Their mass-cloned true forms do a lot of giggling, but are a lot less talkative than the real deal.
• Enemy Summoner: They can summon a copy of any creature they have consumed. Considering that Gemini has consumed a countless number of worlds, this makes them very dangerous. They can even create clones of other Dark Falz as well, which are powerful enough that Council of Six are troubled by them and have to sit out the action during the finale of Episode 3 after dealing with them.
• Enfant Terrible: Gemini takes the form of young, fun-loving twin children, but are easily the most powerful, wicked, and capable of the Dark Falz.
• Floating Limbs: Zig-zagged with Gemini's true form, which can either attach to their castle-legs as a hexapod, or disconnect them and have their legs and body hover freely.
• For the Evulz: Xiao makes it clear that Gemini can and has annihilated entire worlds in mere minutes, but they enjoy playing with their food first. Nearly every appearance they have in the story has them Kick the Dog somehow, and it's heavily implied that before the player character actively started fighting against them, they've been doing this with no real opposition for decades, if not centuries. This inclination to "play games" is an extremely twisted manifestation of Florent's wish for the childhood he was denied.
• Fusion Dance: Their combat forms start out separate, but combine when enough HP is depleted. This is also their reason for absorbing the other Dark Falzes, as they state combining all of their negative photons is how the Profound Darkness will come to be.
• Giggling Villain: They giggle constantly in their boss battles, especially in their true form. The English dub, however, goes for Laughing Mad instead.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Anything not traced back to Luther is likely Gemini's doing.
• Half-Identical Twins: One twin is a boy and the other is a girl, but they look so similar that without hearing their voices you'd be hard-pressed to tell which is which. It's justified because they're not really twins at all; rather, the girl Gemini is a clone created by Florent to ease his own loneliness.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: Of all the Dark Falz, who are following their own selfish interests to different extents, Gemini seems the most dedicated to what it calls their "original purpose" and is willing to backstab the other Dark Falz to accomplish it.
• Horror Hunger: Gemini is compelled by a desire to "play" with anyone and everyone that suits their fancy, inevitably devouring them once they fail to keep up and are killed. They devour every single resident of Nightfall Province during one of their games, creating an army of Nightfallers to sicc on the residents of Daybreak Province. They repeat this with Ys Artia in Omega, devouring every last man, woman, and child until the entire country is devoid of life.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: All Florent ever wanted was to play and have fun with friends like a normal kid. Unfortunately, his powers prevented him from ever getting the chance, and the resulting loneliness and resentment gave rise to his corruption.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • Don't let their Alexander-esque true form fool you, Gemini hits really fast and really hard. They're also completely invulnerable anywhere that isn't a weak point.
  • Even their Dourumble form moves very fast, attacks extremely aggressively, and has a sizable amount of HP to run roughshod over an unprepared ARKS op.
• Living Structure Monster: Their true form is a gigantic (and colorful) castle, with its six towers acting as rocket-powered legs that allow it move a lot faster then one might expect. Its attacks have an amusement park theme to them, including weaponized fireworks displays, a killer toy Falspawn boat that tries to run down the opposition, and a orbiting carousel of Bonta Bearadda.
• Meaningful Name: While "Gemini" refers to the fact that this Dark Falz manifests as a pair of twins, it also refers to their replication abilities, including Power Copying, Clone Army, and Self-Duplication.
• Monster Clown: Their combat forms resemble some very twisted-looking jesters. It gets worse when they combine.
• Mouthy Kid: Florent is blunt and honest in all of his interactions, having never developed a brain-to-mouth filter.
• My Little Panzer: They summon toy-themed Falspawn, including jack-in-the-boxes, sentient cars with comical sound effects, and even a house on legs wielding an oversized lollipop. A cutscene in Episode 5 reveals that the Falspawn are shaped as such because they were originally toys left for the original Florent to play with during the Photoners' research and experimentation on him.
• Near-Villain Victory:
  • Had it not been for Clarissa's power and Luther's guidance, the story might have well ended with the Protagonist and Matoi being consumed and spending eternity within Gemini's pocket dimension of a stomach. The ending of Episode 3 in general is this, as no matter the timeline they always succeed at reviving the Profound Darkness through Matoi which is only stopped by the actions of the Protagonist and Persona.
  • The Omega Version of Gemini is the only one the Guardian isn't able to defeat on their own because of Gemini's simple refusal to stay down and their ability to constantly push the Guardian back with an endlessly replenishing army of Falspawn. They're only done in when their memories of the original Clarissa take form to comfort Florent with a Cooldown Hug long enough for the Guardian to run them both through.
• No Ontological Inertia: Gemini's clones form a barrier to prevent you from reaching the Profound Darkness. Destroying a clone breaks a hole in the barrier for you to get through.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Unlike the other Dark Falz and even Persona, there's no information given on who Gemini's host bodies were pre-Demonic Possession. At least until Episode 5.
• Opposite-Sex Clone: Fleur was created by Florent so they'd never be alone again.
• Physical God: Gemini appears to be the most powerful of the Dark Falz overall, casually destroying entire planets for their own amusement. Even Sukunahime, the Good Counterpart to the planetbreaker Magatsu, is only able to briefly banish them from her domain, and even this doesn't keep them away for long. They also consume Elder, Apprentice, and Luther in their quest to revive the Profound Darkness, making them even more powerful than when they first appeared.
• Pocket Dimension: The things they "consume" are actually stored within a pocket dimension that breaks them down into corrupted photons. They have been hoarding a massive amount of corrupted photons this way.
• Power Copying: They're capable of a limited form of Mega Manning when they consume other Dark Falz; for example, Dourumble can grow Hunar's back plate spikes and throw the Elder Pain, which explodes into damaging plumes, just like Hunar's Ground Pound attack. It can also sprout Angel's wings and toss one of its fans, which bursts into a gravity effect that draws players toward a diamond of lightning strikes.
• Self-Duplication:
  • During the final battle with the Profound Darkness in Episode 3, a massive army of Dark Falz Gemini clones show up to block ARKS from reaching it. Whether these clones were made by Gemini before their demise and kept in reserve, or simply made by the Profound Darkness itself, is unclear however.
  • Episode 5 reveals that the female "twin" is actually a copy that the male made of himself, out of a desire for company.
• Thanatos Gambit: After being defeated, Gemini makes a last-minute gambit after realizing that both the Protagonist and Matoi were prime candidates to become the Profound Darkness themselves. They then fire off a massive amount of negative photons they've been absorbing in the direction of Matoi but the Protagonist takes it instead. Gemini doesn't mind however as it doesn't matter who takes it as both will become the Profound Darkness either way.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Due to their mindsets being that of little children, they don't (or can't) properly express anger, but they make it clear during their second confrontation after you escaped their Pocket Dimension that they are not happy with you.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Falz Dourumble can throw the Elder Pain as an attack. Omega Dourumble, predictably, throws the Elder Pain Omega instead.
• Too Many Mouths: Those silly faces on their arms? Those actually are faces, and their mouths are real; it's how they consume F-Factor. They can also extend into a titanic set of jaws to consume something wholesale.
• Twin Banter: They engage in it, but it's a lot more sinister and evil than Patty and Tiea's.
• The Usurper: Gemini killed the lord of Harukotan's Nightfall Province and replaced him with a clone, instigating the planet's civil war.
• Villainous Harlequin: Their combat form resembles this.
• Villain Teleportation: Other than the typical Falspawn warping, one of Gemini's bodies can vanish and pop out of the other body without warning. Never assume they are alone.

Luther the Fallen

The Last Photoner

^{Luther the Fallen} 

Voiced by: Takahiro Sakurai (JP), Billy Kametz (EN)

The fourth incarnation of Dark Falz to appear in the story. He is the former Oracle Overseer and the head of the Central Research Department of the Oracle Fleet known as Void. He is the last surviving Photoner, an ancient race that preceded the Humans, Newmans, CASTs, and Deumans. When he enters combat he can transform into the six-winged Falz Angel, and after fusing with the infected Oracle Mothership, becomes the colossal Dark Falz Luther. He rules over the avian-type Falspawn.

In the past, Luther had been possessed by Dark Falz long before the events of Episodes 1-3. However, Luther's strength of personality and desire for omnipotence was powerful enough to imprint upon the Dark Falz completely, essentially turning it into a replica of himself. As Dark Falz Luther, he seeks omniscience by consuming everything in the universe. Following his battle with the members of ARKS, Luther the Fallen is soundly defeated and hobbles back onto the Mothership's deck, where he is finished off by Regius. However, Gemini consumes his body which gives them the ability to replicate Luther and his abilities for future battles.

In Episode 3, after being consumed by Gemini, the Protagonist and Matoi would later encounter Luther, who survived his physical death and manifested within Gemini's miniverse. Having nothing better to do, he aids the former two in their escape as he stays behind in order to gain knowledge of all the things that Gemini has consumed.

---

• Abusive Precursors: Luther and those like him among the Photoners were this to the Oracle universe in general due to their pursuit of omniscience, their actions resulting in the creation of the Profound Darkness which comes to plague the universe for years. Luther himself is a notable case as callously treats everyone in ARKS as tools and has no qualms of killing off the entire Oracle Fleet as he sees everyone but himself to be inferior.
  • Episode 6 reveals he wasn't always this way. In fact, he believed that using the Oracle Hariette's body to house and seal away the Profound Darkness was an incredibly bad idea as he believed his fellow Photoners were being too hasty in trying to find a solution to their problem. His fears are proven true when Hariette's vessel, now named Shiva, finally returns in Episode 6 and begins wreaking havoc once more.
• Adaptation Expansion: The anime has him taking a much more active role in Episode 1 than in the game, including monitoring Ash regularly and using Gettemhult as an Unwitting Pawn.
• Affably Evil: He's a jerk, and during Episode 2 veers straight into Faux Affably Evil, but from then on he clearly enjoys messing with people without anywhere near the same level of maliciousness.
• Ambiguous Situation: From Episode 3 onwards it's never clarified whether his access to the Akashic Records really filled him in on the same level of knowledge as what Xion knew. When he joins the Dark Falz Records within the Guardian by Episode 5, he prefers to play the enigmatic helping hand rather than let on to what he really may know about everything, even though he explains what's going on better than anyone else, though at least some of this is his own prior knowledge of the distant past.
• The Bad Guy Wins: He succeeded in his plans on fusing with Xion, and temporarily got access to the Akashic Records - for about the span of a minute or two. Then the Protagonist finally catches up to him and it's all downhill from there.
• Battle Theme Music: Majestic Dynasty and Imperial Dynasty for Falz Angel, and la L’inno per il IDOLA for Dark Falz Luther (in – Persona di Onnipotente -, – Vortex dell’inferno -, and – Ala di immortalità - variants).
• Big Bad Wannabe: As dangerous as he is, being able to manipulate members of ARKS with ease, he's rather easily taken down once Xion sacrifices herself to prevent Luther from gaining her powers. He's also eclipsed as a threat by Gemini and later the Profound Darkness.
• Black Eyes of Crazy: It's not always easy to see because of the bangs, but the sclera of Luther the Fallen's right eye is black.
• Body Snatcher: Luther looks like a Newman, but that's because he has the ability to possess other bodies. His current body is actually Casra I, who was the original subject for Luther's cloning experiments but was discarded after he proved difficult to control.
• Creepy Crows: The Falspawn he controls are bird-like and black. Notably, Dark Falz Luther himself is avian-like too.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: This guy has much, much, much more HP than Elder, and can take a good multi-party at least ten minutes to kill. Not to mention he packs more than a fair share of One-Hit Kill attacks and crowd-hitting attacks (his time-stopping attack being both), and he shields his weakpoint.
• Deadpan Snarker: His appearance in Episode 3 is rife with this even if he may not quite be intending on it, and it goes up to eleven when it comes to arguing with the other Falz in Episode 5.
• Deal with the Devil: After the players beat the tar out of him, Luther, bruised and battered, emerges from the Mothership's core and gets confronted by Regius. Luther proposes resurrecting Alma, the first Klariskrays, in exchange for his own skin. Regius doesn't buy it and cuts Luther in half.
• Death by Irony: In pursuit of his goals, Luther possessed others against their will, treated everyone on Oracle as disposable pawns, and engaged in illegal cloning experiments with the intent of creating a brainwashed army. His eventual fate: to become Dark Falz Luther, and then turned into a series of disposable clones under the thumb of Gemini, solely created to keep the ARKS distracted for a while.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Possesses a weakness to Wind and Light. The former is fundamental in taking him down, as it opens the clock at his core, allowing the multiparty to attack his weak point.
• Energy Weapon: Falz Angel has one. He can pull it out unexpectedly fast, and if you aren't doubled down on HP, face, meet floor.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: In the Japanese version, the kanji for "Loser" in Dark Falz Luther's name, "Dark Falz Loser" is 敗者, or "haisha", which means... "loser" (though it is phonetically identical to "Loser").
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In spite of everything he's done, it's shown in Episode 5 and 6 that Luther still has the capacity to care for others as best shown in his devotion to Hariette, making a point to tell the Protagonist that if they fail to protect her then they can consider their agreement to work together to be null and void. Episode 6 goes into further detail about this and reveals that Hariette was originally Luther's creation whose soul arrived in Omega after it was ripped out of her body in order for it to be used as a sacrifice to seal away the Profound Darkness. It's more than implied this was what truly catalyzed his eventual turn to darkness, as he believed there could have been a better way had the Photoners not been so hasty to find a solution.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In Episode 6, both he and Hariette imply that he believed that the creation of Shiva was an incredibly short-sighted idea that would come back to bite everyone in the rear, and that his fellow Photoners were too hasty in their desire to seek a solution to the problem of the Profound Darkness instead of seeking out a better one. In this instance, he was completely right. Considering his willingness to consider the long-term, he also probably didn't have a high opinion of his colleagues just casually throwing away failed copies of Xion, either, which also ended up causing problems later on.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: For all his intelligence, Luther fails to comprehend the Protagonist and ARKS desire to stop him nor does he understand why others don't really care for omniscience. This leads to his eventual downfall as Xion, through working together with ARKS and the spirits of past Photoners, end up unravelling his plans which leads to his death at Regius' hands.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Luther is a Mad Scientist who subjects people and creatures - Falspawn included - to all manner of experiments just to see what will happen. This culminates in unwittingly becoming Dark Falz Luther. Averted however as Luther's ego was so strong that he basically remained himself rather than becoming possessed like the hosts of Elder and Apprentice.
• Fatal Flaw: His pride and arrogance. His inability to see past his supposed greatness and the inferiority of ARKS is what eventually leads to his downfall in Episode 2.
• Fallen Angel: Has this theme going on alongside his Falz Angel form, with his six wings associated with seraphim. It's even doubled-down in English title, "the Fallen".
• Final Boss: Of Episode 2.
• Good Costume Switch: Like the other Dark Falz that the Protagonist absorbs, Luther's Dark Falz outfit becomes sports blue inner colors over red after the Protagonist absorbs him.
• Gravity Master: Played with. Luther can manipulate all of the artificial gravity on the Oracle, which gives him this property so long as he's in the Mothership. In battle, his only attack is smashing you against the ground with gravity.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: How Regius finally takes him down in Episode 2, using the unsealed Yonohate to bisect Luther from the waist.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • After serving as the primary antagonist of Episode 2, Luther reappears in Episode 3 to help guide the Protagonist and Matoi out of Gemini's pocket dimension. Though this is less out of the goodness of his heart and more like he has nothing better to do.
  • After being absorbed by the Protagonist in Episode 5, he bestows the power of Dark Falz Luther to them and decides to simply observe events from the background within their mind. Margaretta accuses him of using the Protagonist for his own personal gain, but any form of plotting is both impossible and ambiguous.
• I Choose to Stay: After getting stuck in Gemini's Pocket Dimension, he ultimately decides that a world without Xion is a world not worth returning to. There's also the fact that it's impossible for him to leave under normal circumstances.
• Ironic Hell: Luther sort of gets what he wants after being absorbed by Gemini, but finds out that an infinite amount of knowledge means nothing if you have no-one to share it with. He actually starts to empathize with Xion after comparing his fate to her prior existence.
• Jack of All Trades: As a Guest-Star Party Member, this is his niche. Unlike many other Partner Forces and Techers, Luther doesn't have a specialty and fights with every element.
• Killed Off for Real: By Regius in Episode 2. It's then subverted as Episode 3 revealed that Luther still exists, but is trapped in a purgatorial state within Gemini's pocket universe after his body was consumed by them.
• Last of His Kind: He's the last of the Photoners.
• Last-Second Word Swap: When arguing with Gettemhult in the Guardian's mind, he starts a sentence about how much of a waste of space the former is, but pauses to swap out "ass" for "mass", if only to keep his formality.
• Light Is Not Good: Despite being a Photoner, he selfishly desires omniscience. This falls apart once he becomes Dark Falz Luther.
• Logical Weakness: Luther takes on this form after absorbing Xion and becoming one with the ARKS Mothership and Xion's former body after the latter is killed. So how do you beat an all-seeing being? You blind them. Inflicting blind on Luther's clock will force it wide open, creating a weak point for a party to whale on.
• Lost in Translation: The pun in Dark Falz Luther's name in the Japanese version, "Dark Falz Loser". If you don't know much about the Japanese language, you may not get that in Japanese, "Luther" is pronounced the same way as "Loser".^note ルーサー, or "ruusaa", for both. The American translation attempts to shift at least some of the more overt references and wordplay to his moniker, "the Fallen".
  • There's a second pun in the name of "Falz Angel": thanks to Japanese Ranguage, "angel" is phonetically similar to "anger". Appropriate for the massive temper tantrum he throws at the Protagonist and ARKS for foiling his plans.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Towards Ash in the Episode Oracle anime as Luther was the one who created him in an attempt to understand Xion better after she created Matoi. This still partly applies in the game canon, seeing as Xion used his cloning projects that birthed Shiva to create the Guardian as well.
• The Man Behind the Man: Not only is the "Central Research Department" a cover for his unethical experiments, but he orchestrated the founding of ARKS and secretly controls it from the shadows.
• Manipulative Bastard: The main reason why he's considered such a big threat is that he manipulates everyone to his advantage, and he's damn good at it too. Unfortunately for him, once confronted for real his grand scheme quickly falls apart.
• Meaningful Name: His theming as a fallen angel and, in the English localization at least, being called "Luther the Fallen" all symbolize his fall from grace in his search for the "forbidden fruit" of the Akashic Records. Meanwhile being referred to as "Loser" in Japan beyond the Punny Name actually fits his Sore Loser nature combined with gaining the Dark Falz title after all of his plans went up in smoke and he was all but dead to rights at that point.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Luther absorbs Xion to become The Omniscient. Unfortunately for him, it also lets Xion manipulate him to a degree, allowing Xion the chance to urge the Protagonist into killing her to prevent Luther from keeping his newfound power. This eventual leads to Luther's own demise as he never considered failing in his objectives.
  • Long, long before the story began, his cloning projects with Xion as part of Shiva's creation eventually weren't to his satisfaction (and, to a degree, his despair) and he abandoned the whole thing. Unbeknownst to him, Xion picked it back up to create the protagonist because she knew they would triumph, meaning Luther laid out the blueprint for his own eventual defeat and was completely unaware of it.
• No Kill like Overkill: When he wants someone dead, he will proverbially throw everything and the kitchen sink into the plan to make sure it gets done. From allowing Falspawn to attack an entire ARKS city ship just to kill Ulku for the sake of recruiting an insane Theodor while turning the entire surrounding area into a massive death trap, to watching the protagonist secretly since at least Episode 1 to be able to force Regius to call a Code ABYSS order and get all of ARKS on them as a distraction to access Xion's core, and then finally when all of his plans start to fall apart, trying to set the ARKS fleet to self-destruct as one huge middle finger of spite. But for all of his intent of using this trope, ultimately his uses of this still fell short, thanks in great part to Xiao, and also because the Protagonist had abilities beyond what he was expecting.
• Not So Omniscient After All: Luther's entire bid for power was to become omniscient, which he claims he did... for all of a few minutes. For all his boasting, Luther certainly didn't foresee his untimely death and subsequent absorption.
• Precursors: Luther is a member of the long-lost race of Photoners, and a major antagonistic force in Episode 2.
• Recurring Character: Thanks to his popularity, Luther returns several times even after being dealt with in Episode 2, serving as a Guest-Star Party Member in Episode 3 when the Protagonist and Matoi are stuck within Gemini's pocket dimension. His Omega dimension counterpart also as a major supporting character in Episode 5, with the prime Luther himself finally returning as well.
• Shielded Core Boss: As Dark Falz Luther, the clock on his chest shields a massive weak point. The party can open the clock face for a short time by inflicting Blind upon it, whereupon they can attempt to shatter the interior and keep the weakpoint exposed for the rest of the battle. If they open the clock three times but fail to break it, it remains closed permanently.
  • The XH version of Dark Falz Luther raises the stakes, as the party must additionally break both of his arms or he will regenerate the clock.
  • An additional weak point is on his throat. It becomes vulnerable for a limited time when you break one of his arms, but to expose it permanently, you need to destroy his beak and every gemstone on his headdress.
• Sore Loser: After being defeated by the Protagonist and ARKS, what does Luther try to do? Proceeds to try and take down the entire Oracle fleet with him. The only reason he fails is because Xiao comes in at the last minute and hijacks control of ARKS from him with a spare Mothership of his own.
• Stalker without a Crush: He's obsessed with Xion, wanting to merge with her in order to gain her power of omniscience. In the Episode Oracle anime, his creation of Ash is even tied directly with wanting to understand Xion better by replicating her creation of Matoi with his own.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Luther teleports when you get close to him so he can avoid getting hit. Every three teleports, Xion manages to bind him, allowing you to go to town.
• Theme Music Power-Up: After he crosses the 25% HP threshold, the music switches to an ominous mix of The whole new world for the final push. That being said, that doesn't mean you're close to done.
• Time Master: Time gimmicks feature prominently in his boss battle, including sped-up time (faster attacks), slow time (uses it on himself to create delayed explosion effects), and stopped time (almost always a One-Hit Kill attack).
• Time Stands Still: Dark Falz Luther can halt time, freezing players in their tracks unless they can dodge just as time stops or they can free themselves by mashing the move buttons fast enough.
• Turns Red: It's subtle, but Dark Falz Luther gets a little angry once his health drops low enough. He gets several new attacks, introduces slight changes to preexisting ones (including a much faster version of the time stop), and occasionally dips his torso underneath the stage so players can't attack his clock.
• Unishment: After being consumed by Gemini, he becomes trapped in a purgatorial state within Gemini's Pocket Dimension. This doesn't bother him as much as you would assume. Gemini has consumed and stored centuries upon centuries of history, providing Luther with plenty of new information for him to digest at his own pace. He's happy to share what he's already learned with you, if partially because he has no-one else to talk to.
• Villainous Breakdown: Once Xion dies he completely loses it, proceeding to try and kill everyone in ARKS for the slight and preventing him from reaching omniscience.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: There was a time where Luther was actually working for the betterment of all, until everything went to hell in the wake of the Profound Darkness.^note In fact, he actually had a significantly better head on his shoulders when it came to how to deal with the Profound Darkness than his peers, but it seems his objections were ignored. A large part of his initial cloning works were to try to do something about the Photoners having been wiped out by their own creation, but soon enough started focusing more on living forever and Xion's access to the Akashic Records, abusing his research to control and manipulate to get his way.
• Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Being stuck with a title like "Loser" in the Japanese version is rather unfortunate. Ironically, he's one of the toughest raid bosses in the game. Averted in the North American version and official subtitles of the Episode Oracle anime where the pun is dropped outright in favor of "Dark Falz Luther" and "Luther the Fallen".
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: He offs his willing subordinates within Void once he's ready to move on to the final stages of his plan, having no intention of sharing Xion's power. He also did this to Sarah in the past, as well as the original Casra.

The Photoners (Episode 5 and 6 Spoilers!)

Shiva

The Goddess of Annihilation

Voiced by: Megumi Han (JP) Faye Mata (NA)

The main antagonist of Episode 6. A mysterious woman who appears before the Oracle Fleet following the closure of the black hole leading to Omega. The self-proclaimed "Goddess of Annihilation", Shiva is revealed to be the Oracle universe's version of Hariette, and was the individual that the ancient Photoner race sacrificed as a method to seal away the Profound Darkness long ago. Thanks to the Protagonists' actions on Omega, she was recently awakened and later paid them a visit aboard the ARKS Ship to thank them.

However, angered by her fate as a sacrifice, she sets about destroying everything in the universe in retaliation which puts her into conflict with ARKS and the Oracle Fleet.

---

• A God Am I: Shiva calls herself the Goddess of Annihilation.
• Alternate Self: She's the Oracle universe's counterpart of Hariette — or rather, Hariette was Omega's counterpart of her.
  • Well, not quite, as Hariette later explains - Hariette was always the same entity in both Oracle and Omega, it just so happens that she gained a new body in Omega. Shiva, on the other hand, is basically The Profound Darkness inhabiting her body and given intelligence.
• Artificial Human: As Hariette's original body, she was not naturally born. Luther had originally designed her body in the midst of his cloning and body creation research during the heyday of the Photoners, resulting in a body that somehow managed to grow its own soul as Hariette - which was forcibly removed to make room for turning her body into the seal for the Profound Darkness. The sense of self that replaced Hariette was none too happy about this, though considering Shiva is basically the Profound Darkness with a Photoner vessel and a mind of her own, chances are she'd be evil regardless of motivation.
• Attack Drone: In combat, she has the ability to deploy small flying bits that shoot lasers at players. She will often have them spin around her to catch players trying to approach her or have them spray the area in a spider web of lasers to pummel those who get too close.
• Ax-Crazy: Beneath the showmanship and intentionally hamming it up as a villain to make a show of things, Shiva wants to destroy all life because it's the same goal as the Profound Darkness, because she basically is the Profound Darkness. Her first real fight inside the Mothership demonstrates this by blowing up and killing an entire squadron of ARKS casually before making a game of who can kill the most between her subordinates and self.
• Beam Spam: She makes gratuitous use of her Attack Drones to spray the area around her with a barrage of lasers to make it difficult to even approach her. Her attack speed with these drones is so high that it's entirely possible to tank it all by mashing Etoile's Soaring Blades' weapon action.
• Benevolent Boss: Arguably Shiva's only redeeming quality is that she respects Mitra and Varuna enough to be subtly angered by their falls, enough so in the former case to nearly wipe out the Guardian and Matoi in seconds flat. When they mess up, she does not scold or reprimand them, and even confers to them for advice and aid. If her effectively being the Profound Darkness in human form is anything to go by, despite its genocidal nature this implies that it takes care of and gives at least some semblance of a damn for its own kin.
• Big Bad: The main antagonist of Episode 6, establishing herself as such during Episode 5's stinger.
  Hear me, universe. I am Shiva, Goddess of Annihilation. Long ago, I was sacrificed for the world. But listen well. This time, you will be sacrificed for me.
• Cold Ham: While she lacks the sheer grandiose gestures of Elmir, Shiva monologues to her allies and opponents alike, displaying a cool apathy as she announces her plans to wipe out everything in the universe.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Is this to Elmir from Episode 5. Elmir preferred to manipulate others into fighting his battles and only fought the Protagonist at the very end, whereas Shiva prefers to be more hands-on when given the opportunity and her first act in the story is to fight against the Protagonist, Matoi, Regius, and Maria at the same time. Elmir is also considered relatively weak threat compared to what the Protagonist has faced in the past, whereas Shiva is considered the strongest threat that ARKS has faced to the point it takes them pulling out all the stops and then some to stand a chance, and even then they can barely scrape by.
• Counter-Attack: One of her most infamous and devastating moves has her use her Soaring Blades to erect a barrier for a few seconds. If attacked by a player while in her counter stance, they will be impaled by blades and frozen, and Shiva will break out a BFS and smash all affected players (and those nearby) with a single strike; those directly targeted are immediately terminated without sufficient mitigation or a Last Chance Hit Point, while those caught as collateral damage take large (yet survivable) amounts of damage.
• Curbstomp Battle: Nearly every fight she's engaged in is heavily skewed to her favor. Her only loss is after becoming trapped in a barrier with the player and Matoi that neutered her powers, though that was Mitra impersonating at the time.
• Energy Absorption: She has the ability to absorb Photons, which she can also bestow as a "blessing" upon others. All of ARKS' weaponry is Photon-based. This alone makes her a nigh-insurmountable threat.
• Establishing Character Moment: She's introduced waiting for you on the ARKS Ship, calmly reading from a storybook and revealing herself as the narrator of Episode 5. Although she treats you with geniality on the surface, there's a clear sardonic and unnerving tone to her voice as she "thanks" you for freeing her from her long slumber. She's perceptive enough to notice Xiera undoing the ARKS Ship limiters behind her back, allowing you, Matoi, Regius, and Maria to draw their weapons and attack Shiva all at once, only for Shiva's subordinates to intercept you before Shiva effortlessly swats you all aside. This introduces her outrageous power, her unflappable calm, and her ego that makes her look down upon those weaker than her.
• Evil Counterpart: To Hariette, Matoi, Mother, and the Guardian.
  • In regards to Hariette and Matoi, Shiva is essentially what either of them could have turned into had they both given into their fates as hosts of the Profound Darkness. She particularly serves as a dark reflection of Matoi, as both are artificial beings dressed in white and red who would end up being sacrificed for the sake of the many. The difference is that Matoi was able to escape her fate through the actions the Guardian, Xion, and Persona whereas Shiva wasn't able to and was thus fully corrupted into what she is today.
  • In regards to Mother, both were creations of the Photoners meant to replicate Xion, but whereas Mother was a failed copy and was thus abandoned, Shiva is a successful one but was sacrificed in order to seal away the Profound Darkness. This caused both to become angry at their fates, but whereas Mother simply directed her anger towards the Oracle Fleet and was otherwise a good person at heart who was eventually convinced to stand down, Shiva directed her anger towards the entire universe instead and lacks any form of morality whatsoever.
  • As for the Guardian, both they and Shiva are considered the two strongest individuals in the universe. However, whereas the Guardian uses their powers for good and serves as an extension of Xion and the Akashic Records' will, Shiva uses hers for evil and serves an extension of the Primordial Darkness' will instead.
• Evil Is Angular: Her dress is covered in diamond-shaped spikes and all of her attacks come out in almost pixelated blasts of energy.
• Exotic Eye Designs: Her, Varuna and Mitra's eyes have not only white pupils, but white bars running vertically across the irises.
• Evil Learns of Outside Context: She is intrigued when she meets Phaleg Ives, a warrior who is able to briefly force her back without the use of photons. In response, Shiva deploys an entire Photoner fleet to besiege Earth.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Early in the game a specific plot point of a Photoner child being used to seal the Profound Darkness away was mentioned. It's later revealed that Shiva was that child and seeks revenge against the universe over her fate.
  • And at the end of Episode 5, she reads off a different ending from what occurred, one where the Guardian seemingly never interfered with the Omega dimension at all and a Downer Ending resulted. This all but spells out that she has Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory. Episode 6 reveals that this is indeed the case, as Shiva has memories of every time loop that has occurred from the moment the Guardian defeats her and when they go back in time to become the Akashic Records which is where she gains her memories from.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Revenge over being a sacrificial can for the Profound Darkness is as deep as her motivation gets. And even that is skewed, considering she is basically the Profound Darkness itself given intelligence, so she's just pissed that she got sealed period.
• Gone Horribly Right: Hariette was created with a natural ability to absorb all photons, but eventually gained a will of her own. The Photoners in their infinite wisdom decided to strip the soul from the body to use it to contain the Profound Darkness. It worked, but history repeated itself and the new Hariette also gained a will of her own — a very angry will because of what the Photoners did to her, which took on the name of Shiva. All the Photoners did in the end was give their monster a functioning mind and a motivation to wipe them out efficiently instead of instinctually.
• Humans Are Bastards: Holds this belief due to her own experiences as a sacrifice by the Photoners and thus seeks to annhiliate all life in turn. Shiva even uses this to tempt the Guardian and Matoi to her side, pointing out that if either became powerful enough that they would also be abandoned by ARKS at some point such as when they almost did with Matoi after she got possessed in Episode 3.
• Invincible Villain: Shiva is a Physical God, being able to No-Sell the Applied Phlebotinum that the heroes run on and can easily swat away even the strongest that ARKS has such as the Guardian, Matoi, Regius and Maria at the same time. Nearly every single encounter against her forces the heroes to pull out all the stops just to avoid getting instantly vaporized while Shiva barely lifts a finger and merely toys with them while still outstripping them in sheer power. The one time she takes a loss, it was Actually a Doombot, further rubbing salt in the wound.
• Kamehame Hadouken: She annihilates an ARKS strike force, ships, AIS, and all, with a massive beam of energy.
• Light Is Not Good: It comes with the territory of being a Photoner. She and her cohorts dress primarily in white, and her minions are called Luminmechs, but make no mistake, she's a malevolent destructive force.
• Lightning Bruiser: Even while seated, she can easily keep up with ARKS' latest AIS units fitted with even more powerful thrusters and casually bats away a Humongous Mecha-sized BFS with her bare hands. In combat, she abuses Teleport Spam and assails you with lightning fast, hard-hitting attacks.
• Man of Kryptonite: As a being that is meant to contain the Profound Darkness, Shiva absorbs and consumes Photons endlessly. This effectively makes her immune to anything that ARKS can throw at her as the vast majority of ARKS weaponry and combat techniques runs on Photons, an already massive problem made infinitely worse when she can use that power to decimate entire ARKS fleets on a whim.
• Mirror Match: Many of her moves are inspired by the attacks of the Scion Classes, such as Hero's Twin Machineguns, Phantom's Rod PAs and Bits, and Etoile's Full Connect and counterattack.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Shiva is named for the Hindu Destroyer Deity and is referred to as the "Goddess of Annihilation"^note "Goddess of Demise" in the original Japanese. Her end goal is to eradicate all existence.
• Narrator All Along: For Episode 5, with the book shown for the narration of the story belonging to her as well.
• No-Sell: The biggest reason why Shiva's such a threat is thanks to her ability to negate any and all photon based attacks that come her way by absorbing the energy into herself. A majority of Episode 6 is spent trying to work around this ability including using non-photon based weaponry. ARKS eventually does find a solution through using Sukunahime's sealing techniques and having Hariette use them from Omega to cut off Shiva's ability on a universal scale, and to top it off, converts all the photons of everyone in the Oracle Fleet to power up both the Guardian and Matoi to finally even the odds.
• Orcus on His Throne: Subverted hard. Despite often being on a floating throne due to her arrogance in her power, it's well-deserved since not a single person that uses Photons can even hope to touch her, and she can still devastate ARKS from a seated position without breaking a sweat while being unhindered in mobility. Once she gets off the throne to fight, things get a lot worse.
• Physical God: She's this as the true vessel of the Profound Darkness, possessing raw power equal to all of ARKS combined, the Six and the Guardians included. The only person who's capable of somewhat going head to head with her is fellow Physical God Phaleg.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: She, her subordinates, and the Luminimechs all fight with energy blasts of red and black energy.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In contrast to Hariette's blue eyes, Shiva's are a distinctly unnerving pale red with white pupils. She shares this characteristic with her underlings.
• Theme Naming: Shiva and her followers are named after Hindu deities.
• The Reveal: The end of Episode 5 reveals her to be the narrator of its story, and that she's none other than Hariette's Oracle universe counterpart. It's further revealed that she's the Photoner child that was used as a sacrifice to seal away the Profound Darkness and thus becoming it again once she awakens once more.
• Revenge: Her entire motivation in Episode 6 to destroy the universe amounts due to her anger at being used as a sacrifice to seal away the Profound Darkness. The first time she also gets even remotely serious is when the Guardians kill Mitra, upon which she immediately takes out Matoi and goes for annihilating the Protagonist with an enormous mass of energy. It takes the reformed Dark Falz, Persona, and Phaleg interfering to save the day.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Acts one for the original Profound Darkness. Despite Luther's misgivings about the situation, Hariette's body being used to seal away the Profound Darkness was able to keep it at bay for a while in subspace. However, as Luther predicted, it was only a temporary measure at best as the resulting fusion between Hariette's body and the Profound Darkness gave rise to Shiva. Shiva would then go on to plan her escape from subspace, an act which was accelerated by the Guardian's actions on Omega in Episode 5.
• Sinister Geometry: Her power manifests as shining red octohedrons.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: She speaks very politely and, indeed, softly, yet very clearly takes great pleasure in wreaking destruction and inflicting suffering.
• Thanatos Gambit: Almost exactly like Gemini, Shiva realizes her card's been punched once she's finally defeated - and decides for a Taking You with Me by forcing the Profound Darkness into the Guardian, who is still a viable vessel with the implication that Shiva knew this might be the inevitable conclusion. In the normal ending, this succeeds and forces the Guardian and last-ditch help from Xion's remaining power to wipe their existence by returning to the beginning of time, becoming the Akashic Records in a Stable Time Loop.
• This Cannot Be!: Her response when Sukunahime traps her inside a force field that renders her vulnerable to Photon damage is the first time she displays legitimate anger and surprise. Unfortunately, the real Shiva was never inside the barrier to begin with. Her shock is more legitimate when Sukunahime later gets the drop on her for real.
• Unskilled, but Strong: When it comes down to it, it's implied that for all of her power Shiva is merely a god-like being off of channeling the Profound Darkness. Her skill in battle isn't actually all that practical, using sheer overwhelming force and her immunity to photons to annihilate her enemies without repercussion. So when Phaleg manages to counter her, Shiva is both surprised and impressed to no small amount, and when Sukunahime and Hariette team up to disable her photon-resistance, Shiva gets crumpled by the Guardian and Matoi, who by this point are used to fighting god-like entities for breakfast and needed this one opportunity to seize the win.
• Villainous Breakdown: Sukunahime showing up at a critical moment and bestowing the heroes with the power needed to defeat her drives her over the edge.
• We Can Rule Together: After carving a scrap-laden path through hordes of Luminmechs, the Guardians are offered this by Shiva out of respect for their strength; naturally, both refuse.

Varuna

The God of Justice

Voiced by: Natsuki Hanae (JP), Bill Rogers (NA)

A member of the Photoners and one of Shiva's trusted aides. He originally appeared on Omega where he served Hariette under the guise of Varuna La Shiec in order to observe the situation on the planet and await his true master's awakening. Once Elmir is defeated and the black hole is sealed, Varuna appears before the Protagonist to congratulate them on their victory and proceeds to introduce them to recently awakened Shiva.

---

• A God Am I: Shiva refers to Varuna as the God of Justice.
• Arc Villain: Of Episode 6 Chapter 2 when the Protagonist and company head to Amduskia to find a way to restore Xiao. He shows up to impede their progress and nearly succeeds if not for Xiao's timely awakening.
• Becoming the Mask: After being defeated on Omega, Varuna eventually comes to admit that he did treasure the time he spent on Omega as Hariette's aide. This is later ends up being the catalyst to his Heel–Face Turn as mentioned below.
• Cool Sword: He wields a kickass white and red sword called Eschaton Rivaleta that the same flowing space-like visual effect as Cosmogenic Arms like Regius' Blade of Genesis. It's also strong enough to go toe-to-toe with the Cosmogenic Arms and even pierce the Etoile class' nearly impregnable Deflector Shield.
• Dual Boss: He and Mitra are one of the potential final bosses of the Divide Quest.
• Heel–Face Turn: Once defeated, Varuna is reincarnated back into his Omega self during the true ending of Episode 6, where he pledges his loyalty to Hariette and informs her that the Protagonist needs help.
• In the Back:
  • He perishes when Risa shoots him in the back with Hariette while he's busy trying to breach the Deflector Shield the Guardian put up to keep him from destroying the Anima Thread required to create the barrier to seal Shiva's powers. Even Risa admits that it's one of the least satisfying kills she's ever gotten.
  • One of his own attacks has him forcibly break any lock-ons you have on him before instantly appearing behind you to shoot you in the back.
• Lightning Bruiser: He gleefully abuses Teleport Spam during his boss fight and assails you with lightning fast charges and projectiles. In-story, he's strong enough to take on Regius and push him back single-handedly. He later fights the Guardians, Quna, and Klariskrays at the same time, easily brushing off their attacks and knocking them across the room.
• Master Swordsman: He's able to take on Regius one-on-one and match him blow for blow.
• Mirror Match: Varuna uses some of the Etoile's Photon Arts as attacks, such as Saber Destruction.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Varuna's sword, Eschaton Rivaleta, is named after Eschaton, aka The End of the World as We Know It.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: When acting as Hariette's adjutant, his eyes are blue. As the Photoner and Shiva's right hand, Varuna's eyes are a startling red.
• The Reveal: The end of Chapter 5 reveals he and his Omegan counterpart are one and the same, but he was simply in disguise waiting for the resurrection of his true master.
• Storm of Blades: Can summon multiple energy swords to attack his opponents.
• Teleport Spam: He abuses this to break your lock-ons and hit you in the back as well as in cutscenes, forcing even the Council of Six on the defensive until Xiao develops a countermeasure to help you predict his movements to keep up with him.
• Undying Loyalty: To Shiva, despite knowing that she wouldn't grieve over his death.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Despite having the heroes on the ropes, once confronted by the successfully-revived Xiao, whose resurrection he had been sent to prevent, he decides to cut his losses and flee the scene.

Mitra

The Goddess of Deceit

Voiced by: Melissa Fahn (credited as Joie Marlowe) (NA)

A member of the Photoners and also one of Shiva's aides. She is known as the "Goddess of Deceit", earning her title through her ability to impersonate others and use their abilities.

---

• Actually a Doombot: Mitra disguises herself as Shiva to take the fall for a well-planned trap by Sukunahime. She receives mortal injuries from the player and Matoi in the ensuing battle and dies shortly after.
• Dual Boss: She and Varuna are one of the potential final bosses of the Divide Quest, with Mitra taking Shiva's form during the battle.
• A God Am I: She calls herself the Goddess of Deceit.
• Facial Markings: She has triangle-shaped marks above and below both of her eyes.
• In the Hood: Her outfit features one.
• Paranoia Fuel: Invoked. She describes her own powers as such, telling the ARKS that she's seen many a foe destroyed by suspicion; having a shapeshifting enemy means you can't really trust any of your allies to truly be your allies.
• Power Copying: She is able to perfectly imitate anyone and use their abilities, attacking Zeno with a copy of Labrys that leaves him critically wounded. But according to Zeno, her imitations may not be utterly perfect despite her assertions to the contrary, but this may have simply been bravado and taunting on his part.
• Spell My Name With An S: Mithra or Mitra? The official translation goes with the latter.
• Stone Wall: While imitating Shiva, Mitra never gets up from Shiva's throne, which blocks 66% of all incoming damage except from the front. This forces you to fight from the front or strike her with homing attacks like Ilgrants or attacks that strike from above like Ranger's Satellite Cannon.
• Super-Strength: Even without her imitations, she's strong enough to shatter Nanaki.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Gemini. Design wise, Mitra's outfit is somewhat similar to theirs and her ability to impersonate others and use their abilities is similar to Gemini's own ability to duplicate others and their abilities as well. Both are also the youngest looking members of their respective groups.
• Undying Loyalty: Like Varuna, she's incredibly loyal to Shiva. Unlike Varuna, she ultimately dies loyal whereas he undergoes a change of heart after his defeat.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: She can take the form of anyone she pleases, mimicking not just their appearance but their abilities.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Up to this point, unless one did story content as soon as possible, both of the previous episodes didn't exactly pose a high challenge even in Hardcore. Mitra pretending to be Shiva is a nasty awakening that the lead Photoners are nightmares in the story, highlighted by how she is above the level cap at the time of the content's release. It's an uphill battle from there.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Aside from breaking Nanaki and mildly inconveniencing the heroes, Mitra has barely any on-screen development before her untimely demise.

The Profound Darkness (Unmarked Spoilers)

The Profound Darkness

A mysterious entity said to be the ultimate source of Dark Falz and the Falspawn. It was brought into being at the height of the Photoners' power and decadence, and despite having been sealed away for years, its influence continues to leak out across the universe. According to Xiao, the Falspawn will continue to exist so long as the Profound Darkness does, making its destruction the final goal of ARKS.

In Episode 3, Matoi attempts to save the universe by becoming the Profound Darkness so she, and it, can be killed. However, Persona saves her by using the Clarissa to absorb the corrupted photons from her and becomes the host of the Profound Darkness in her stead. It is ultimately defeated by ARKS in an ensuing large-scale battle, the battle itself weakening its possession of Persona enough that the latter can use their time travel ability to bring the Profound Darkness back to its awakening and defeat by ARKS, effectively sealing it away in a time loop.

However, this is merely a temporary measure. Knowing this, the Oracle Overseer Xiao begins research into ways of defeating the Profound Darkness for good while also saving Persona.

Official material later confirms that this version of the Profound Darkness is not the original, but a copy brought forth by fusing the collected F-Factors of the Dark Falz together along with the F-Factors collected unwittingly by the Guardian and Matoi.

---

• Arc Villain: For the Oracle Saga in general, being the main threat that ARKS has to overcome by the end of it once the Profound Darkness awakens.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Like the Gemini fight before it, it comes attached with a Weak Bullet Jammer gimmick, preventing Weak Bullet from creating hyper-effective weak points and reducing its effectiveness to about +50% additional damage. In terms of actual weak points, however, the orb on its bottom, much like Anga Fundarge, is its primary weak spot.
• Battle Theme Music: Opens its battle with the iconic Ooze from Phantasy Star IV, then once the ARKS have plowed through half of its health, it freezes time and transitions to a full remix of IDOLA the strange fruits from Phantasy Star Online Episode 3: C.A.R.D. Revolution. And at the final climax, it becomes the whole new world -Code:SINEN-.
• Big Bad: Every problem in the series comes back to the Profound Darkness, whether because it created the Falspawn that ended up trapping the ARKS made to fight them in a Forever War, its capability to cause those wracked with despair and absolute rage to become Dark Falz by corrupting their photons, or its eradication of the Photoners that sets Xion and Luther on the paths that define all of their actions. Despite various smaller antagonists, post-Episode 3 it is the lingering threat over the heads of the cast for the rest of the game.
• The Bus Came Back: This is the first game in which the Profound Darkness has appeared since debut back in Phantasy Star IV.
• Chest Blaster: In its advanced version, triggering its stun cycle in the second phase causes it to reveal a big red core in its chest. One of its new attacks is a Wave-Motion Gun from said chest core that pulverizes players.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: The final phase has you in a one-on-one fight against the Profound Darkness' host, Persona, who is later replaced by the player's avatar after completing the story mode to a certain point. However, despite being equipped with souped-up versions of every Photon Art, he/she deals a small fraction of the damage that the main body deals. Furthermore, Persona eventually dies anyway from your teammates' attacks, because the game is still tracking cumulative damage from all players, even though it's showing you fighting alone. Granted, dying to Persona here is possible if you run out of time (the whole party gets annihilated with a 999,999 damage attack if they take too long), but if the group is halfway decent this should never happen.
  • The advanced version soups it up a little to make it significantly more threatening, including giving its XH version the same damage as its Solo XQ variant. This means that its lower damage threshold is typically around 300 to 400 per hit, and its Over End is, in most cases, a One-Hit Kill.
• Deflector Shields: As Viel/Dio Hunar, it gains Anga Fundarge's shield, granting it high resistance to damage to its body. Players must attack the gems on its arms to remove the shield.
• Desperation Attack: In its advanced version, after defeating Persona, it pretends to enter its last stun cycle before revealing a core in its face, which then proceeds to make one last stand by firing a large Wave-Motion Gun that it proceeds to sweep around the arena to kill as many players as possible.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Defeating the Profound Darkness in battle is this, as it's the greatest and most powerful threat that ARKS has ever faced and source of all Dark Falz and Falspawn in existence. Especially notable if players do it through the special solo version of the Urgent Quest to defeat it.
• Duel Boss: In the final phase of its battle, Persona emerges to duel you once more. Your entire party temporarily vanishes for this battle. If one has completed Chapter 7 of Episode 3, Persona emerges as an identical copy of the player's avatar instead of wearing his/her usual costume.
• Energy Weapon: Enjoys them as much as the Dark Falz. Which is to say, a lot.
• Final Boss: Serves as one to Episode 3.
• Fusion Dance:
  • Appearance wise it somewhat resembles a combination of all four Dark Falz. Makes sense as its through combining the F-Factors of the Dark Falz that results in the Profound Darkness coming to life.
  • The EP6 Materials Collection also clarifies that the Profound Darkness that ARKS fights and defeats in Episode 3 is not the same Profound Darkness that the Photoners created during the height of the Photoner Era. The Profound Darkness fought in the modern day is a version created by the combination of the four Falz essences brought together by the efforts of the Guardian, Matoi, and Gemini, meaning that it is not the "real" Profound Darkness. It is, for all intents and purposes, essentially the same thing however, in that it has the same end goal as the real Profound Darkness and is just as capable.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: The Profound Darkness was created when the Photoners attempted to create their own biological supercomputer modeled after Xion. However, as photons react to emotions, their rampant vice corrupted their creation into what became known as the Profound Darkness.
• It Can Think: Perhaps partly due to inhabiting living vessels, it's clear that the Profound Darkness is sentient to a degree, even suffering a wordless Villainous Breakdown the further you beat it back. It's likely why it can understand Persona's Time Travel powers to undo its own defeat repeatedly.
• Killed Off for Real: At the beginning of Episode 5. This was the last time this incarnation of the Profound Darkness would manifest as it fails to regain its full form after Elmir's defeat and afterwards it's replaced by Shiva and the original Profound Darkness, the Primordial Darkness, as the main threat of the story.
• Light Is Not Good: For the ultimate embodiment of darkness, it has a surprisingly bright color scheme in its Hunar form, consisting primarily of white with splashes of red. Even its final form is decked out in gold.
• Mana Drain: As Viel/Dio Hunar, it possesses an attack where it saps the PP of all players in an extremely wide radius, which is then condensed into a ball of energy and fired at players. Upon contact, the ball explodes and deals extremely high damage to players inside the blast zone.
• Morphic Resonance: Its two Hunar forms are different because it takes on different visual traits based on who its host is. Viel Hunar sports antennae on the back of its head that highly resemble Matoi's hair, while Dio Hunar has Persona's mask embedded into its face and obtains a bit of Persona's costume with it.
• Mythology Gag: Its role in the plot and its backstory is rather similar to its original appearance back on the Genesis. It's a being comprised of nothing but hatred and negativity that acts as a counterpart to a good being. It was also sealed away, and spawned multiple Dark Falz whose original roles were to resurrect the Profound Darkness. Its battle format is also reminiscent of its original Final Boss fight, starting as a monstrous being that eventually transforms into something more humanoid in design in its second phase.
• Omnicidal Maniac: It seeks to eradicate all life forms that rely on Photons — which is to say, all life forms.
• Rare Random Drop: Comes packed with its fair share of 12★ and 13★ weapons, but special mention goes to the Class Stickers, which are special Stickers that drop from fighting it in the Solo Extreme Quest. As if getting to it wasn't already hard enough, you have to contend with both it and the RNG if you intend on grabbing this Cosmetic Award.
• Reality Warper: The Profound Darkness reawakening on Naverius drastically changes the ecosystem and surrounding areas just by being present within Matoi, and it inhabiting Persona made it capable of creating an utterly massive distortion of space and photons over the planet. The form it creates is outright altering the empty space around the arena as you fight it, with the implication being that had Persona not been Fighting from the Inside, it would be far, far more destructive.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: Within Matoi when it finally awakens thanks to Gemini. It's later transferred into Persona in a bid by the former to save the Matoi and they later seals both themselves and the Profound Darkness away within an infinite time loop to prevent it from wreaking havoc. This unfortunately isn't enough to keep it at bay however, as the Profound Darkness breaks out regularly which requires ARKS to deal with it and allow Persona to reseal it again once its weakened.
• Sentient Cosmic Force: The Profound Darkness doesn't really have a consciousness the way the Dark Falz do: it's more like a natural disaster.
• Shadow Archetype: It's this to Xion, Xiao and Mother by way of being a Xion clone corrupted by decadent Photoners. It stands to reason that if any of them got Drunk on the Dark Side and decided to kill everything in their paths, they would effectively be another Profound Darkness, as Mother shows when she can't fully control her own Falspawn equivalents and becomes an entity extraordinarily similar in her own right.
• Staying Alive: Thanks to the nature of it being a collection of F-Factors given semi-consciousness, the Profound Darkness is all but impossible to kill as it just reforms itself afterwards and finds a new host to carry out its will. It finally meets its end in Episode 5 when the Guardian defeats it with powers imbued from Hitsugi's Ame-no-Murakumo which allows the user to sever connections in both aether and photon particles. Episode 5 focuses on Elmir trying to revive it once more, but it ends in failure thanks to the Guardian saving the day.
• Sword Beam: Viel/Dio Hunar can shoot crescent sword beams at players with a blade of its own making. It highly resembles Falz Hunar's own Sword Beam attack when he uses the Elder Pain.
• Total Party Kill: If you somehow manage to screw up the fight with Persona, it will deploy a field-wide attack that is an unavoidable One-Hit Kill. Hope you had a Photon Blast in reserve!
• Theme Music Power-Up: As with Elder and Dark Falz Luther, The whole new world plays when the Profound Darkness is at critical health, except this time, add drums and electric guitar!
• The Unfought: In the Episode Oracle anime, via Adaptational Alternate Ending. Ash's final confrontation is against Viel Hunar, and although the Profound Darkness appears, it is instantly repelled after Persona intervenes, with Persona sealing it away for the foreseeable future.
• Wave-Motion Gun: The advanced version goes absolutely trigger happy with these. When it enters any stun cycle in phase 3, it reveals a core that throws out powerful beams regularly, all of which can deal immense damage.
• You Will Not Evade Me: As Viel/Dio Hunar, it can generate a ball that pulls players near it to a single point. It tends to follow this up with its spear attack, which has a pretty decent chance to kill you if you aren't going anywhere due to the vacuum. It retains this attack in its true form, but scaled up to an absurd degree.

The Final Adversary (Episode 6)

The Primordial Darkness

The original Profound Darkness. Having first manifested during the era of the Photoners, it is the true source of all Falspawn and Dark Falz. It was originally a clone of Xion meant to help the Photoners expand their rule across the universe, but after having its photons corrupted by their decadence, the Primordial Darkness seeks nothing more than the absolute destruction of all life. After Shiva is defeated and the Guardian is saved from becoming its next host by Matoi, Hitsugi, and Hariette, the Primordial Darkness appears to confront the Guardian in one final showdown to determine the fate of the universe.

---

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: By all means, the Primordial Darkness isn't some natural god or native entity to anywhere; it's the final artificial recreation of Xion after many attempts. Except whereas Xion had been allowed to cultivate her sentience in isolation before meeting the Photoners, this thing was exposed to their corruption, societal decay and hatred as soon as it was born. Needless to say, whatever traces of a mindset similar to Xion's it may have had are long gone.
• Acid Attack: In it's first and third form it winds up vomiting out a white miasma that does damage upon contact, it becomes a whole sea protecting its body in the third form, receding only when the Primordial Darkness takes enough damage.
• Air-Aided Acrobatics: When Sodam is using wind, a giant cyclone appears in the middle in the stage that tosses players in the air if they get close to it. It's useful for dodging the widest, harshest attack it has in that form.
• Barrier Change Boss: During the Urgent Quest, Sodam uses a unique mechanic where it periodically rotates to a random set of weapon weaknesses chosen from the list of 17 weapons; weapons that it's weak to deal 20% more damage (Summoner Pets have an always-active 10% damage bonus), and hitting it enough with weapons it's weak to triggers a stun phase that resets the field and renders it open to attack. In Divide and Ultimate, it instead uses traditional elemental weaknesses that change based on the element of the field (Ice Weak for fire field, for example), with combination fields giving two weaknesses.
• Battle Amongst the Flames: Fire-wielding Sodam has a scorched stage with roaring flames surrounding it and meteors falling up. When it begins combining elements, the stage is instead a burning glacier.
• Battle in the Rain: Sodam's lightning-charged stance has comes with a stage in the middle of a purple-hued thunderstorm. The lightning-wind hybrid form adds tornadoes into the background.
• Braving the Blizzard: Sodam's ice form can unleash devastating blizzards. The player must hide behind the stage's giant ice crystals to avoid immense damage.
• Bishōnen Line: Downplayed with its second form. It goes from a giant, hulking monster to smaller and more humanoid, but still eldritch, form.
• Breath Weapon: Its final form can shoot out a large column of miasma that takes up a large portion of the field you are on.
• The Blank: Sodam has a hole where its face would be.
• Call-Back: Sodam is basically a supercharged nod to the Hyunal-style forms the Dark Falzes, the Profound Darkness, and Deus Esca all have. To drive the point home, it mimics Falz Hyunal's spinning shockwaves in its fiery form and Deus Hunas' bursting cyclone attack when wielding wind.
• Color-Coded Elements: Doesn't quite follow the game's usual colors. While Fire is still bright orange and Ice is whitish-blue, Lightning is represented by purple and Wind is represented by yellow.
• Dark Is Evil: Unlike the Profound Darkness, the Primordial Darkness looks the part of a being of pure darkness. Even the Dark Falz have overall more vivid color schemes.
• Desperation Attack: True Profound Darkness isn't done yet after you clear all the miasma and dogpile on its core. The Sodam component will repeatedly unleash shockwaves that deal heavy damage (enough to One-Hit Kill less armored characters) if not dodged.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Primordial Darkness Gomorroth first appears in Quest 22 of Episode Oracle during an Info Dump by Luther explaining the origins of the Profound Darkness and its ties to the Photoners.
• Eldritch Abomination: The best way to sum up this boss, with the first form Gomorroth being the biggest monstrosity in the entire game that only barely has fingers and a mouth, covered in hellish Extra Eyes. Sodam on the other hand goes above and beyond the most monstrous yet alien in the franchise, vaguely humanoid but lacking arms as it summon large external limbs from solid orbs of darkness, lacks any sort of face, and seemingly uses the tendrils around its "waist" as cognizant appendages.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Sodam during the Urgent is one of the few bosses in the game to ignore this. It instead has weapon weaknesses. Played straight in Divide Quest and Ultimate Quest, but it doesn't have a traditional Light weakness.
• Evil Is Bigger:
  • Possibly the single largest foe in the game in terms of sheer size. Its appearance in Episode Oracle suggests that it's even larger than what is seen in-game, and the fight against Gomorroth is merely against a fraction of its full size.
  • Subverted by Sodam, who is so small in comparison to Gomorroth that it's basically its version of Bishounen Line (at least, as far as an Eldritch Abomination can take that trope). While it has a great wingspan, it's not much bigger than an A.I.S.
• Evil Counterpart: :To Xion. It was designed by the Photoners as a man-made counterpart to Xion, but an immense influx of negative emotions towards its completion caused the Photons possessed by it to become corrupted, transforming it into the embodiment of humanity's sloth and hatred hellbent on the destruction of the universe.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Gomorroth sprouts eyes on the sides of its limbs.
• Feather Fingers: Sodam uses the wings on its hips as hands in some gestures and attacks.
• Final Boss: Of the PSO2 story as a whole, being the original Profound Darkness. It also serves as one of the possible final bosses in the third Challenge Quest, "MISSION: Cataclysm". If your party performs extraordinarily well, you can even fight its Urgent counterpart as a True Final Boss, who is much more difficult and grueling than normal.
• Final Solution: Due to being driven by hatred, its twisted state of mind has lead it to believe that in order to end all negativity in the universe, it should just kill the universe.
• Fusion Dance: In the Emergency Quest version, the final phase involves Sodam merging with Gomorroth by returning to the eye it came out of. True Profound Darkness' melee attacks gain elemental effects, it radiates a miasma that instantly kills players if they stand in it long enough, and the Sodam component unleashes shockwaves of heavy damage when seemingly stunned and barely hanging onto its life.
• Greater-Scope Villain: For the game as a whole, its very existence leading to the creation of the Falspawn and Dark Falz which caused untold amounts of trouble for the Oracle Fleet throughout the years.
• Hailfire Peaks: After Sodam's phase change, the stages' appearances also change to reflect the mixed elements of its new forms.
• Made of Evil: It's a being of pure F-Factor without a host to inhabit, as its last one had help in forcing it out and and its last successful host was destroyed. It only knows destruction and hatred, pursuing universal annihilation with single minded fury.
• Mighty Glacier: Most of Gomorroth's attacks are slow. But they hit a large area and deal heavy damage. Some are strong enough to destroy the platforms you stand on.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Played straight with Gomorroth. Inverted with Sodom, who has no arms but can grow appendages out of its portal-like upper wings.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Unlike other Emergency Quest warnings that show warnings, diagrams, and/or the boss' impending approach, this one shows nothing but Shiva's Mothership. The same picture appears for the pre-quest cutscene (with no music for good measure)... before crimson tendrils tear open a rift in space-time. Then the camera peers into a void growing in the pure white expanse and brings you face-to-face with Gomoroth's glaring eye.
• One-Winged Angel: Inverted at first, but played straight for the Emergency Quest. For the second part of the battle, it shrinks down to a speedier form. Said form is humanoid enough to almost cross the Bishōnen Line. In the last phase, Sodam merges with Gomorroth and becomes the True Profound Darkness.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Its two forms are known as Gomoroth and Sodam, fitting for ultimately being the product of a society fallen to vice.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: The Photoners originally sealed the Profound Darkness away within a single person. That person was Hariette, whose soul was extracted from her artificial body to make room for the Primordial Darkness - the resulting fusion of which created Shiva.
• True Final Boss:
  • You need an S-Rank on the previous story mission to face the solo version of this boss. Also the case for it in general, as its the final boss of the Grand Finale for PSO2.
  • Hatred Primordial Darkness is the very last Urgent Quest ever released for the game and was made with the explicit intent of being as difficult as possible. You're on a 22:22 time limit, with only one free death allowed, and Sodom gets an extra phase that hits incredibly hard and powerful. Its HP is also set high enough that the time limit is much shorter than it looks, and on top of that its base stats (save HP) are even higher than before. If you can beat it, however, it drops the best loot in the game bar none, including multiple otherwise rare weapons, units, Weapon Camos, and materials, as well as oodles of S-Grade Augments.
• Walking Spoiler: Not even the Emergency Quest warning gives any hint of what they are or what they look like. The announcer simply refers to it as "the final battle."
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Sodam has six forms: four representing four elements (Fire, Ice, Lightning, and Wind), and two more that combine two of those elements (Fire-Ice, and Lightning-Wind).

Others

Dark Falz Persona

The true form of Persona that attacks ARKS after the black hole is sealed. Despite appearing sentient, Dark Falz Persona is nothing more than a mere shell, having lost the essence that sustains it. It isn't clear on how or why it suddenly breaks into the Oracle dimension, but it is speculated that it could potentially be looking for something, possibly its essence.

---

• All Your Powers Combined: Dark Falz Persona possesses the powers of Elder, Dark Falz Luther, Apprentice and Gemini thanks to Elmir's assimilation of their factors within the Akashic Record. Its initial forms each emulate one of the four individually, but upon entering its final phase it takes on a form that combines all of the others into one massive monstrosity that draws abilities from all four of the previous Masks.
• Attack Its Weakpoint: Weak points are the only places to harm it aside from its mask. In the first and second phases, these come in the form of cores that will stun Persona if they are all destroyed, while in the third phase, its chest acts as a core. Its mask will also act as a weak point if the mask over it is broken.
• Beam Spam: Loves doing this. Especially when it wears the Apprentice Mask.
• BFS: It gains this in the last phase on higher difficulty settings.
• Dash Attack: Much like Dark Falz Gemini, Persona can ram the stage at high speed when it wears the Gemini Mask or Persona Mask.
• Death from Above: Upon donning the Elder Mask, it attacks by raining its giant arms onto the stage like meteors.
• Desperation Attack:
  • When its health drops low enough, it flies into the background before summoning a giant orb in the center of the stage. If it is not destroyed, it unleashes a devastating attack that inflicts fatal damage to all players onscreen. However, if it's destroyed, Persona summons a second, larger orb that also must be destroyed to avoid a devastating attack. If the second orb is destroyed, Persona becomes stunned for a brief period of time.
  • Upon dropping to extremely low health, it teleports to the center of the stage and unleashes a final attack that hits extremely hard. However, doing so breaks its mask and renders it crippled permanently, allowing players to wail on it until it dies. In the Trigger Quest or Ultra Hard versions, it instead Turns Red after this attack.
• Empty Shell: Like Apprentice Zia, Dark Falz Persona is nothing more than the remnants of Persona's power given form, futilely seeking to reunite with its fallen host.
• Final-Exam Boss: Unlike ESC-A Falz Mother, Dark Falz Persona more straightforwardly copies the tactics of the previous Dark Falzes. Each mask also gives him that Falz's weakness (or former weakness in Gemini's case) and status effect vulnerability.
  • Elder Mask is all about slow but powerful hits. Those who repeatedly detonated Zondeel on Elder can also do it here to stun him. The player must target weak points on the backs of his floating hands to most efficiently weaken him.
  • Luther Mask can also stop time (more frequently but with less danger of a Total Party Kill) and his hands must be broken first. Like with Dark Falz Luther, judicious use of Zanverse or other Mirage-inducing techniques can stun him for a moment (though it doesn't open up a weak point this time.)
  • Gemini Mask's phase is a cocktail of Call Backs to both Dark Falz Gemini and the Profound Darkness. He loves ramming you just like them; the attack is sometimes telegraphed like in Gemini's fight and other times spontaneous like the Profound Darkness. He repeatedly creates spinning carousels of damage for you to avoid. Lastly, the cores to break in this phase resemble the ones that leave the Profound Darkness vulnerable when destroyed (though they don't shoot lasers this time.)
  • Apprentice Mask draws more from the Omega Falz Apprentice fight than the battle with Apprentice Zia. Once more, the player must break the wings and dodge patterns of lasers.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Unlike other Episode Final Bosses, it has very little relation to the main story and its presence is barely elaborated upon.
• Ground Pound: Slamming the ground is fairly common when it uses the Elder Mask.
• Kill It with Fire: Persona is vulnerable to Fire while using the Apprentice Mask, potentially getting stunned if inflicted with a burn.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Persona uses both his arms and Elder's arms during his final transformation.
• Sequence Breaking: During Persona's final transformation into a conglomeration of the all the Dark Falzes, it's possible to stun him mid-transformation by spamming Nagrants at the base of his body, allowing you to whale on him in the time that would have been spent in the cutscene.
• Time Stands Still: Much like Dark Falz Luther itself, it can use a time stop attack when it wears the Dark Falz Luther Mask. It also gains this attack with the Persona Mask, and can combine it with its other attacks.
• Turns Red: In the Trigger Quest version, it becomes enraged after using its "final" attack, indicated by the background turning blood red. In this state Persona becomes incredibly violent and hammers players with repeated, hard-hitting attacks, giving players one last struggle before it dies.
  • A later update upgrades this phase and adds it to all Ultra Hard versions of the fight. He instead channels (symbolized by a split-second donning of) the Elga Masquerade mask and reveals a sword, becoming even more dangerous than his previous Turns Red and causing meteors to fall and swings that create waves of darkness.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Persona can spit out a giant beam when it wears the Gemini Mask. It can also do so with the Persona Mask using a different firing pattern.