Labrys

Labrys is a 5th Generation Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon from Persona 4 Arena.

Appearances

 * Persona 3 Drama CD: Moonlight: Mentioned
 * Persona 3 Manga: Cameo
 * Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight: Auto Partner, Playable Character (DLC)
 * Persona 4 Arena: Playable Character
 * Persona 4 Arena (Manga)
 * Persona 4 The Ultimate in Mayonaka Arena Stageplay
 * Persona 4 Arena Ultimax: Playable Character/Navigator/Protagonist (Episode P3)
 * Persona 4: The Ultimax Ultra Suplex Hold Stageplay
 * Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight: Playable Character (DLC)

Design
Labrys is a mechanical maiden with pale skin, very long blueish gray hair tied into a ponytail and piercing red eyes similar to Metis, dressed in Yasogami High's summer uniform which covers some parts of her mechanical body. One of the most interesting features about her design is her head piece which resembles a medieval helmet. There is also the large battle axe, for which she is named, which also double as attachable-thrusters to allow her to fly. The thrusters on the axe are propelled independently to give extra controllable momentum to her swings.

Labrys was perceived as being rather strikingly beautiful or "sexy" by other characters, particularly when they thought she was human. One of the first things that Chie in particular noted when she first came face to face with "Miss President" was that "even [she] could tell" how much of a "beauty" she is.

Personality
Due to her larger Plume of Dusk, Labrys' personality developed quicker than the other mechanical maidens. She is a caring individual who doesn't want to hurt, let alone kill, anyone she cares about. When she thought she was the human student council president, she was serious, strict, and responsible.

The growth of her ego can be observed within Labrys' thoughts. Moments after her first activation, Labrys' thoughts are extremely simple to understand and consist of the usual technical statements. The more Plumes of Dusk she absorbs, Labrys becomes increasingly eloquent and starts to develop emotions, eventually culminating in her friendship with Unit #024. Even more interestingly, this does not apply to her speech that much since she speaks with an accent directly after her activation.

Persona 4 Arena
Labrys was originally Unit #031, one of the many models of Anti-Shadow Weapons created by the Kirijo Group to gather test data on Yakushima. Due to her larger than usual Plume of Dusk, #031 began showing signs of emotion upon activation and developed her ego at a quicker rate than the other units. In between being forced to kill her sister units for combat data and inheriting their memories, #031 and the other units were let outside to mingle amongst themselves. Here, #031 meets and befriends Unit #024, an older unit who was more emotionally developed than the others, who serves as #031's only friend alongside Snowy, a white dog that #024 found and cared for. Eventually, #031 is dubbed "Fifth Generation Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon Labrys" and is ordered to destroy the other units in an attempt to bring out her Persona through mental stress, despite Labrys' protests. Prior to this, #024 told Labrys about her personal goal to find a certain someone, and gave Labrys an archive with orders that she was not to open it until it was all over. Labrys is eventually forced to fight #024, but her attempts to disarm her and spare her life are thwarted when the scientists directly hijack #024's body and force Labrys to kill her. Labrys inherits #024's memories and notices an unusual voice, later revealed by #024's archive to be the girl whose personality was used as the basis of the personality of the early Anti-Shadow Weapons, and that #024 wanted to meet her and thank her for loving them.

After overhearing one of the scientist mention about deleting her 'sentimental memories', Labrys attempts to fight her way out of the facility and escape the island, but only manages to make it to the pier on the beach. Seeing the ocean for the first time, Labrys makes a wish that one of her successors would stand on this pier and find the person they are searching for, and that they would be able to go where she could not. Labrys then willingly surrendered and, due to the damages she inflicted upon the facility, was deactivated instead, but like her sisters, her memory was transferred to all later units, such as Aigis.

13 years later, Labrys would be rediscovered by the Kirijo Group under Mitsuru Kirijo, though after receiving Labrys' "container" from Yakushima, the plane Mitsuru was on was hijacked and Labrys was stolen and taken to Inaba, where she was thrown into the TV. During this time, Labrys dreams of the ill girl she and #024 wanted to meet, and from her gets the idea of becoming a student council president. A voice appears in Labrys' head and shows her an image of Yasogami High School, offering her the chance to go to school and be the student council president. Labrys is brainwashed by the malevolent entity into thinking that she is the human student council president and that the school she is in is the real Yasogami High School.

In reality, the fake school and the Midnight Arena are actually Labrys' dungeon in the TV World, created by her fabricated desire to be understood and accepted as a normal girl and her trauma over being forced to kill her fellow Anti-Shadow Weapons. This caused her dungeon to take the form of Yasogami High School and the P-1 Grand Prix, and allowed her to become the president of the student council of the fake school. In reality, this was merely a false memory implanted by the Malevolent Entity, who seeks to manipulate the persona users to fight each other so their Personas regress into Shadow Selves, in which he absorbs to create a body that lets him burn the world into ashes.

She runs into Elizabeth, who attempts to open Labrys' eyes to the truth, and while Labrys fights her off, she is haunted by her words and is reminded of her promise to #024. Once the other Persona users arrive in the Arena and start causing a ruckus, Labrys attempts to stop them, but to no avail. Eventually, Mitsuru and Aigis realize who she is, but she is captured by "General Teddie," actually the Malevolent Entity in disguise, who goads her into rejecting it and fabricated an artificial ego of her to break the Persona user's Personas and absorb them.

After the Shadow is defeated by the player, Labrys accepts her flaws with the help of both the Shadow Operatives and the Investigation Team and receives her own Persona, Ariadne. Despite the incident being seemingly resolved, Labrys' mind is suddenly hacked for a moment by the human culprit outside the TV, and is controlled by the culprit/ordered by the Malevolent Entity to attack the player, before being freed by either Fuuka or the player fighting off Labrys. Seeing this has failed as well, the Malevolent Entity impersonates the player's current character and fights them. During the epilogue, Labrys joins with her sister Aigis and the Shadow Operatives, vowing to find whoever did this to her and the others, though she and Aigis also vow to find the girl she and #024 wished to meet. Aigis also reveals that Labrys' wish came true as Aigis met the hero of Persona 3 on the same pier, being able to leave the island.

Play Style
In terms of gameplay, Labrys is quite similar to Akihiko. She is a heavy offensive character that operates based on momentum. Unique to Labrys, she gains more power based on her axe tiers that increase the more she attacks with her axe, blocked or not. When it reaches red, all attacks utilizing the axe cause Fatal Counters (even when not on counter hit) and do the maximum amount of damage with which even her auto combo can reach extremely high damage. Her persona can also help in that regard setting up traps and gives her a small zoning gain. But while her attacks can do heavy damage, they are typically slow and has a lot of recovery. Fortunately, like Akihiko, Labrys does not rely too much on her Persona, making Persona Breaks not much of a problem for her. Also, because of the nature of her axe mechanic, she does not want to be put on the defensive as it causes it to cool off losing some potential damage.

Her leitmotif is "Spirited Girl." The OST disc adds small extra instrumental emphasis to the theme.

Score Attack
Labrys is the 12th and penultimate character the player faces in Score Attack. Labrys will always be in the maximum axe tier and thus her damage output will always be extremely high.

Persona 4 Arena Ultimax
A desperate Labrys, along with Mitsuru's maid, Kikuno, as well as Detective Kurosawa, requests Yukari and Ken's assistance after her sister, Aigis, is captured alongside Fuuka, Mitsuru and Akihiko. Upon arriving in Inaba via helicopter, Yukari and Labrys watch in horror as they witness the town become engulfed in a mysterious red fog.

At the beginning of P3 Story mode Labrys is being repaired in a Kirijo owned base. It is revealed that she was designed with a sub network within her mind, which Fuuka theorizes was in order to incorporate her sister units into her after they were killed. This allowed her other self to continue existing by residing in the sub network. Her mind is also revealed to only view things as data if it is downloaded into her. Only by explaining things to her can she understand it.

During her story mode, Sho Minazuki reveals himself as the "Eerie voice" who hacked Labrys via the use of her old manual control remote in Arena. He attempts to do so again, only for it to backfire when Shadow Labrys reawakens and usurps control from him, destroying the remote and driving him off before returning to sleep, content that her real self is finally free from the Kirijo Group's control and having come to respect (or at least not hate) Mitsuru.

She is the one who defeats the Malevolent Entity and saves Sho during the P3 Route. (In the P4 Route, Yu and Adachi cooperate to kill it instead.) During the ending she visits the grave of the girl who her personality is based on. There she meets a boy who suffers the same illness as her, who was able to live thanks to the experiments she endured. Labrys asks as she looks upon the grave if she could call her mom.

Etymology
Labrys' name is a term for from Crete in Greece. This is the form her weapon takes. In addition, some variations on Athena's birth story tell that the goddess was born from Zeus' forehead when cleaved with a Labrys. This version of the myth also holds that Athena was born from a headache Zeus incurred after consuming Athena's mother, Metis. This myth has likely been applied to reflect the relationship between the three anti-shadow weapon girls of the same names in Persona 3 and The Answer.

Furthermore, the word "labyrinth" is derived from the word "labrys" due to the double-axe motifs in the architecture of the maze-like Knossos Palace on Crete. This temple served as the inspiration for the Greek legend of the Labyrinth, the maze in the story of Theseus, who was given a sword and a ball of red wool by Ariadne. The antagonist in this story is the minotaur, who also serves as Shadow Labrys' Persona Asterius in Arena.

Persona 4 Arena

 * "Time For some educational discipline!" (When selected in Character Screen)
 * "I'll protect the public decency of Inaba!" (at the start of her Arcade Mode)
 * "No way am I losing against you." (beginning battle)
 * "Let's end this quick!" (beginning battle)
 * "I may not look it, but I can fight!" (beginning battle)
 * "I won't be able to go easy!" (beginning battle)
 * "Ain't my fault if you end up crying." (beginning battle)
 * "I still have to fight someone...?" (beginning battle vs. Shadow Labrys)
 * "Coming in!" (While performing Brake)
 * "Ready or not!" (While performing Guillotine Axe)
 * "Stretch strings!" (While performing Weaver's Art: Sword)
 * "Ariadne!" (Weaver's Art: Inquisition Instant Kill)
 * "I've had it with you!" (Instant Kill)
 * "Looks like you need punishing!" (Instant Kill)
 * "Hey, don't stress yourself out!" (Non-final round victory)
 * "Well, don't say you didn't try." (Final round victory)
 * "I win! Well, see ya later." (Final round victory)
 * "Damn... I lost." (Continue?)
 * "It's not over yet, I'm just getting started!" (Retry)
 * "It seemed like we'd make a pretty good team! Come back again, okay?" (Arcade Mode quote)

Victory Quotes
General Character Specific
 * "Looks like I won this time. And I'm gonna win the next one too!"
 * "You know why I won? 'Cause I'm the student council president, and you're not! Heheh, just kidding!"
 * "I might not look like it, but I was built to fight, y'know? If you come at me all half-assed like that, you'll get hurt."
 * "Seein' who's stronger... Haha! This kind of fight ain't so bad after all!"
 * Yosuke Hanamura: "You're so fast, Yosuke-kun. Hey, why don't we have a race next time?"
 * Yukiko Amagi: "I wonder if it's okay for a machine to go in the hot springs. Am I waterproof...? What do you think, Yukiko?"
 * Teddie: "Haha, you gotta be tougher than that, Teddie. You're gonna be my knight, right?"
 * Aigis: "Whew... You were strong. You are two generations ahead of me, but I still won't lose! I'm your older sister, after all!"
 * Mitsuru Kirijo: "You were a student council president back in high school!? Huh! I should follow your example!"
 * Akihiko Sanada : "Those were some crazy punches. It went like... this? Oh no, my hand flew off!"
 * Shadow Labrys : "She was born from me... I have to accept that fact..."
 * Labrys: "Fighting someone that looks like me... I gotta say... It reminds me of that one time."

Normal Type
General Character Specific
 * Well, I'll be goin'! But I wonder when my Prince Charmin' will arrive...?
 * You don't hafta do this, ya know. I'll play with you whenever you want!
 * Ha, I won. If you want a rematch, feel free to come at me!
 * I feel like a new lady thanks to this maintenance I got done! There's no way I can lose now!
 * I gotta fight again? After what happened just the other day? Well, least this time I got friends on my side!
 * Oh... My arm fell off... If it keeps fallin' off like this, it'd be like I'm doin' it for laughs?
 * Yu Narukami: No wonder you're their leader. You've got skills! But we ain't gonna fall behind neither!
 * Yosuke Hanamura: Um, Yosuke-kun? You alive? Yikes, did I smack him a little too hard?
 * Yukiko Amagi: I didn't think I'd be seein' ya again so soon! I love the grace you bring to a fight!
 * Naoto Shirogane: You got great aim, Miss Detective. I wonder if it's be good for me to get a gun or somethin' too.
 * Mitsuru Kirijo: Thanks for treatin' me so well. I believe gettin' stronger is the best way to repay you, so I'll keep doin' my best!
 * Yukari Takeba: I dunno how to put this, but you've got, uhhh... A pretty different look goin'. Is that what's in fashion these days?
 * Junpei Iori: Baseball seems like fun. You should teach me sometime!
 * Ken Amada & Koromaru: An animal usin' a Persona? Now I've seen it all... And your owner's strong, too!
 * Shadow Labrys: I ain't gonna be rattled anymore. Even if you are me, I'll accept you as many times I gotta.
 * Sho: You might be tryin' to use me again, but it ain't happenin'! I ain't alone anymore!
 * Minazuki: I'll protect everyone! I've had enough of people gettin' hurt!
 * Marie: Umm... I-it's nice to meet you! You're a friend of Yu-kun, right? Why're there so many odd people here...?

Shadow Type
General Character Specific
 * You all just want my power. You just wanna butter me up and use me, huh?
 * How frail... Are you broken already? C'mon, let's play a little more! Ahahahaha!
 * You weren't much of a fight at all. You never woulda lasted where I come from.
 * In the end, I'm a thing that don't belong with you all... You get that from our fight, right?
 * You wanna say that everythin' was my fault from the beginnin', right? I don't give a damn anymore!
 * Bonds? Hmph, if you let that make you lose, then there is no point. Weaklings ain't worth nothin'!
 * Nothin' feels better than seein' the faces of losers all twisted up with regret!
 * Yu Narukami : I ain't gonna put up with you waltzin' in outta nowhere and actin' like I owe you! I'm free now!
 * Mitsuru Kirijo : Do you think what you did to us can be forgiven? Sayin' it's your duty and that crap is beyond selfish!
 * Labrys: This power I have now oughtta be used properly. Revenge... that's what it's there for.

Trivia

 * It is explained that she uses an axe opposed to firearms (like that of 7th Generation Aigis) due to her regulatory system being inadequate.
 * It is revealed in P4U that Labrys' Kansai dialect comes from the memories of the young girl who spoke in Kansai dialect.
 * In the Japanese version of the game, Labrys speaks in the accent of the Kansai region. In the English version, since there is no definite equivalent to a Kansai accent in English, a Brooklyn accent is used to emulate it although her backstory is not changed at all to "accommodate."
 * During story mode in the English version Labrys quotes the movie Rush Hour when questioned about her accent with the line "Do you understand the words comin' outta my mouth?"
 * Labrys has special win quotes against Yosuke, Yukiko, Teddie, herself, her Shadow, Akihiko, Mitsuru and Aigis.
 * Her entire story mode includes only one fight against Elizabeth and without a Persona for Labrys.
 * In her electrocuted sprite, the Plume of Dusk is visible in her chest.

Appearances in Other Media

 * BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle : DLC Playable Character