Aren

## Leitmotif

Another freshman at the National Academy who joined shortly after Monika did, **Aren** is a rowdy young girl with a somewhat unhealthy obsession of the corps's combat squad.

Unlike Monika who joined due to the corps's cause of promoting peace, Aren joined because she is a huge fan of the senior members. She has always adored the powerful fighters of AMCC and has been studying their fighting techniques for a long time, especially the sword arts of Han.

At first, Han was opposed to the other captains who told him that Aren is a prodigy. He was reluctant on letting her join full time since according to him, *"This girl is annoying and she's here for the wrong reasons".*
After she displayed her skills however, Han was convinced that Aren harbors a great potential and reluctantly let her join the corps.

Currently, she follows Han around like a hamster much to his chagrin. When Han is not around, she clings on to other seniors and studies their technique in depth.

There have been talks that Aren is groomed to be Phoenix Corps's next leader after Han. Among the new members, Aren shows to be the most promising one skill-wise, aside from Toby for obvious reasons.

## Appearance

Aren is a short girl, perhaps the shortest in the corps, who often sports the academy uniform or similar "long-sleeve shirts with combat ready skirt" combo as her choice of clothes. She has a puffy bobcut hair which she often plays with on her own.

Her short stature combined with her babyface gives her a very childish look, which sometimes can get her mistaken as a primary school kid by the general public. When asked about her height, she often retorts with, *"I'm still growing!"*

Another notable feature aside from her short height is her wide, and sometimes annoying, grinning face. However, it seems that recently the corps have warmed up to her smile.

## Personality

Hyperactive young girl that is so unnecessarily chatty she might grate on your nerves. Likes to cling on to other people and blabbers on and on about topics that she has interest in, especially blabbering about fighting techniques to the seniors. She can talk about the same topic for days, eg. regarding applications of certain techniques, and sometimes pester the seniors for sparring sessions.

Even though most people find her liveliness to be too much, the atmosphere are just not the same without her around. The corps got so used to her presence that things seem so quiet when she is not around.

Beneath her outgoing persona full of optimism however, she hides a fragile self.

## Fighting Style

Aren has an uncanny talent of mimicking the moves of her seniors, especially Han. This mimicking talent of hers enables her to essentially act as a mirror image of her mentor, opening possibilities to ungodly combo acts such as perfectly timed offensive assists or symmetrical double teaming. Obviously since Aren is a melee combatant, the possibility only extends to other melee characters.

In battles, she operates in an eerily similar fashion to Han, being a bumblebee who buzzes throughout the battlefield. However, unlike Han who lacks burst potential and relies on sustained damage over time, Aren is able to devise her own burst damage from the mimicked moveset of her various seniors.

Her signature ultimate is "Hissatsuwaza. Houyokusen (Phoenix Wing's Flash)" a derivation of Anthony's Hissatsuwaza, a combination of Anthony's burst, Gill's party buff, and Han's multihit debuffs.

### Strengths

* Amazing level of weapon proficiency, being able to wield numerous weapon classes and partial access to their skills -unlike Gill-.
* Good synergy with physical heavy teams and perfect as a backup character to replace certain members (in case of route splits).
* **Mimic**: Aren's unique skillset, a variation of other characters' unique skills with her own twist. Restricted to physical skills which weapon she has access to. Her ultimate is a combination of Han, Anthony, and Gill's skills.
* Plays almost exactly like Han, with uncanny natural reflexes and Sword Arts that lowers enemy HIT rate.
* Due to her Mimic, she has access to decent burst damage skills like Anthony's Hissatsuwaza and Althea's Blade Dance, unlike Han who exclusively serves as a character to soften and distract opponents.

### Weaknesses

* Unlike Han, she has no Dragon Install to help her pump her damage output and evasion rate.
* Relying only on her high evasion, Aren has even lower health and defense than Han, making her one of the most fragile characters.
* Poor magic options, having only access to the most basic party buffs.