After taking a little while to let Shiho recover and fill her in on everything else, the group found themselves back in Mementos.
"Eep!" Rise yelped and clung to Panther's arm as the Monabus drove past a human skeleton half-cemented in the wall. Even after awakening to Leda, she was seriously freaked out by this whole place.
Viper, Jack, and the other Parisians shot their newest member a sympathetic look. It had even taken them a while to get used to, even Viper and Jack who were more used to this stuff thanks to the former's sister and the latter's brother.
"So other than XY, who's on the list?" Skull asked.
"Well, he's the only one left to deal with," Oracle informed him, "we dealt with Mitsuyo Togo and Yohei Kiritani already, and we don't have anyone else other than this guy…"
"I still can't believe his full name is Xaver Yakup Roth," Chance mumbled, "Then again, given how his dad is rich and powerful, it sort of makes sense that he'd have a fancy-sounding name like Xaver."
"But what about that middle name, Yakup?" Queen wondered.
"It's Turkish," Joker explained. "It's the Turkish version of Jacob."
"How'd you know that, Joker?" Red asked.
"Looked it up out of curiosity," the leader explained, "and I like etymology. However, that raises another question: why a Turkish name? Isn't he French?"
"The search we did showed that he's half-Turkish and one-fourth French and German, remember?" Jack piped in. "I'd bet that the fourths are from his pops!"
"Well… Bob Roth is a pretty influential man, so he's likely traveled and met a lot of people in his career," Ryūko pointed out.
"Then again, you'd think the public would have caught wind of his mother by now," Fox mused. "We did not find anything on a Mrs. or Ms. Roth, if memory serves."
"Yeah… that is kind of weird… maybe she's more a 'backstage' kind of mom?" Beat guessed.
"Well, there's only one way to find out," Queen caught their attention, pointing to another portal in front of them. "We're here."
"Everyone ready?" Mona checked.
"Very," Viper smirked, unnerving Rise and Skull slightly as the Monabus hopped into the portal.
Whatever the Phantom Thieves had been expecting from Xaver Yakup Roth… it wasn't this.
"Uh, Viper?" Panther asked, "You sure this is the right guy?"
"It's him, all right," Oracle said from inside Necronomicon, "or at least the scans say so, and I can't see how he could disable or hack into my Persona."
The hair of XY's Shadow Self was slicked back into a more manageable mullet (albeit a long one). Other than that and the lugubrious look on his face, he looked about as normal as it got for the musician.
When the Shadow spotted them, the group saw there were heavy bags under his eyes, and the gold in them that Shadows normally sported seemed almost duller.
"XY… what the hell happened to you?" King wondered.
"Perhaps the fame got to him…?" Fox wondered.
"Not likely," Chance frowned. "From what we know, he loves the limelight."
When Shadow XY noticed them, he looked them up and down, then just shrugged and looked off to the side.
"Eh? " the Shadow muttered, almost like he barely heard their conversation, " What do you mean? I've always been like this."
"Would you care to explain why you look as sad as you do, then?" Queen inquired. "The XY we have heard of is nothing like you…"
"What? You don't know acting when you see it? " the Shadow Self scoffed. "Not that I blame you… even 'true' fans of mine don't really know the real me."
"Acting?" Mona asked, somewhat dumbfounded.
"The performance? Putting on a 'big show,' as my father likes to call it?" the Shadow rephrased, "That's all the music industry is, really. It's just a cover for how miserable and stupid all singers are. We don't have any real skills, so this is the next best thing."
"...you want to break out of the business, don't you?" Viper said, still getting over the shock of the asshole who had nearly stolen his former band's work being like this .
Shadow XY tisked and rolled his eyes, "Actions and words are often two different things, you know? Like I said, there's not much we can do other than sing, dance or DJ."
"...when the hell did this happen?" Jack wondered.
"Was this after you got busted for stealing Kitty Section's songs?" Chance asked, more curious than accusatory.
"Yeah…" Shadow XY growled out, surprising the Phantom Thieves, "When he showed me everything… I can be vapid and unintelligent, and that man proved it to me…"
The Phantom Thieves looked at each other in utter shock and confusion.
"What man?" King asked innocently.
"After seeing… seeing that …" Shadow XY shuddered at a thought, "I don't like to think of him as Father, let alone Dad."
"...Mr. Roth? What happened?" Rise questioned.
The Shadow Self seemed to stiffen, then clutched his head, panic and stress on his face. "No… don't make me remember!"
With that, he transformed into a new Shadow. Reminding all but Jack, King, Red, Rise and Ryūko of the Humanoid Half-Ruminants in Lila's Palace, the Arrogant Aulete had a rather thick beard reminiscent of those seen on some Greek statues, and he held a sharp-ended oboe in each hand. Horrifyingly enough, parts of his skin were flayed off.
"Just leave me alone!" Shadow XY snarled. "I don't want to be reminded - not when I'm already reminded every day I see his face!"
"Okay, something else is going on here," Queen said authoritatively, "but we'll figure that out later!"
"Right, we need to take him out!" Joker nodded.
"Leave me alone!" the Arrogant Aulete screamed, whispering an Ominous Words at Viper. He'd been transfixed ever since the last time he spoke, so for once it was Chance tackling him out of the way.
"Thanks, Melody," Viper nodded once they'd gotten up, before readying his scimitar.
"Mind if I have the first shot at him?" Rise asked, a small smirk on her face.
"Go on ahead," Beat grinned. "Let's beat some answers out of him!"
"Really?" Oracle muttered underneath her breath as Shiho took off her mask, summoning Leda.
"Leda, Kougaon!" Rise called. The Bless attack drilled into the Arrogant Aulete; while he didn't resist the attack, he took it rather well.
"He's got a lot of health!" Oracle called to the team, "Whatever's been causing him this agony, he must've built up a lot of tolerance."
"Perhaps too much tolerance…" Viper murmured.
"We need to lower those resistances!" Chance called. "Anyone have any ideas?"
"Just watch me!" Skull grinned, "Seiten Taisei - Elec Break!"
"Nice!" Jack smirked, "Ryūko!"
"Understood!" the dragon-themed thief smirked, before removing her mask. "Jingū Kōgō, Ziodyne!"
Jingū Kōgō's attack did far heavier damage than the Kougaon had, but the Arrogant Aulete got up, looking like he could take plenty more.
"Oy vey," Red whistled, "Any weaknesses we can strike at?"
"Let's find out!" Jack said. "Wenet! Freidyne!"
A Nuclear spell shook the room. Once the smoke cleared from the blast that was launched at Shadow XY, the Phantom Thieves' faces lit up at the sight of him on his back.
"Come on! Before he gets back up!" Joker ordered.
Quickly surrounding the Shadow, the group was once again shocked to see him looking more scared than angry or agitated.
"Just… stop!" he whimpered.
"...now I sort of feel bad," Beat murmured.
"Well, he's not going to hold back if he transformed into a Shadow," Mona noted, "If you want, we can apologize when he's not going to try and attack us."
"...yeah, okay, we can do that," the DJ relented before everyone charged forward, tearing into their foe with an All-Out Attack. When the smoke cleared, the Arrogant Aulete was barely standing.
"Please… mercy…" Shadow XY whimpered.
"Soon, honey," Panther said softly, feeling rather bad herself. "Hecate! Agidyne!"
With a howl of pain, the Shadow was thrown back once more by the attack. He did not get up, instead returning to the normal form of Shadow XY.
"Did you get that out of your system?" Joker asked, but there was no heat in his tone.
The Shadow was still shaking, but made no further moves against the group.
"Now, XY… or do you want to be called Xaver?" Panther asked in an attempt to be less threatening.
"X-Xaver is fine," Shadow Xaver said after hesitating a few seconds.
"Okay, Xaver," Panther nodded, "So… what you were saying earlier, about your dad. Do you mind telling us what happened? Maybe we can help."
Xaver sighed. "It's too unpleasant to talk about… if you can access this world, you probably can do some digging into my father."
"The guy's pretty open with his lack of consideration for others…" Red mumbled. "There's something else he's managed to keep under wraps, isn't there?"
"I think I understand…" Ryūko nodded along. "My guess is Roth attempted to get you to join him in this hidden business, but you found it to be too much for your liking. Am I correct?"
"Are we sure we're thinking of the same Bob Roth?" Viper wondered. "The same one who admitted he stole Kitty Section's songs on live TV without bothering to look and make sure he wasn't on air?"
"Well, he is pretty charismatic," Chance pointed out, "I mean, we fell for the ruse in the first place. We didn't realize it was fake until we saw XY performing a ripoff of the song. Plus, when I was making Jagged Stone's Rock God album, Roth originally tricked me into making the cover look similar to something more his son's style."
"Really?" Jack asked. Everyone knew that Marinette had made that cover, but she had never heard about that part.
"Yeah. Fortunately, Jagged gave me a second chance because he knew that Roth had put me up to it, but still…"
A plan formed in Rise's head. She turned towards Shadow Xaver and said, "Would it help if we stopped your father?"
"Go ahead and try…" Shadow Xaver said as he faded away, "but there's not much anyone can do and get away with it. He covers his tracks too well…"
The Phantom Thieves looked at each other awkwardly for a few seconds afterwards. Eventually it was Skull who spoke first.
"Dammit!" the ordinally-third Phantom Thief snarled. "We coulda gotten more info out of him!"
"Well, fortunately he's not our sole source," Mona pointed out, "I'm sure if we look hard enough, we can find more dirt on this Bob Roth guy."
"...Anyone else kind of spooked, too?" Beat asked, "I mean, I've seen XY a few times in real life, both onstage and off, and he's never acted like that."
"With a clouded, broken heart like that…" Joker mused. "It's no wonder his songs are shit. No offense meant to the guy, but…"
"This could be good, though; maybe this is what he needs to actually start making some original stuff," King puffed out his chest. "I mean, come on! The song he stole from Kitty Section was about rainbows and unicorns of all things. It's not really his style…"
"I honestly think anything can be made into an art if you know how to do it properly and for the right audience," Red admitted. "An example of things that made Xaver suck is when you pander to them at the cost of your original visions."
"It could be that he had dreams in the music industry," Fox agreed, "but he became disillusioned."
"And his dad likely had a hand in it, too," Rise scowled. "You guys said you were looking for another big target, right? This might be it."
As everyone nodded in agreement, Panther couldn't help but catch the look on her girlfriend's face. "Shi?" she asked, breaking the codename rule for a pet name.
"That look on his face…" Rise muttered, "I have a bad feeling about what we're going to find in his Palace."
"...let's talk about this later," Joker suggested. "I've been meaning to train us on the Shadows in Mementos for a while. Let's do that and discuss this more tomorrow when we're not all tired from a Metaverse trip.
"Maybe you can see if Jagged knows something, Chance," Viper suggested. When he saw the offended and shocked look on her face, he quickly amended himself. "Not to say he's involved! Even so, he and Bob used to work together before he moved to another record company, right?"
"I have a meeting with him tomorrow," Chance said, "It's for him to try on his suit for the PMA. After that I just need to adjust it and finish it."
"Cool!" Skull exclaimed before the team parted, "Let us know how it goes!"
"Wow… I honestly wasn't expecting that of all things," Nino muttered as the group trudged out of the alleyway and down the main street.
"Yeah… I mean, we've had first-hand experience with Bob Roth already, so I'm scared to see what else we're going to find out," Marinette nodded. "Well, if we decide to go after him, that is."
"If his own son can be reduced to what we saw in there, it must be bad," Kagami said.
"And Shadows are the 'real self' of the person, so we know we aren't being lied to," Nathaniel added.
"Poor guy…" Kim mumbled.
"I feel like everything I've ever known about the guy has been flipped on its head," Luka quietly said, still rather shaken.
"Anyway, Akira's right, let's rest for now and then-"
"AAAAAHHHHH!" a shrill scream immediately made the group snap to attention, ready to bolt at the first sign of the akuma. Luka's eyes went nearly bloodshot.
But their apps never went off.
If this wasn't an akuma… what was-?
"NO! PLEASE, LEAVE ME ALONE! GO AWAY!"
Before just about anyone could process what was happening, Luka took off in the direction of the nearest alley, giving the place a quick once-over before transforming into Kobra and taking off.
"...that was fast," Kagami said.
"What are we waiting for?" Marinette said, switching into Ladybug Mode, "Let's go, everyone!"
Following Kobra's path, the group hid in the alley and transformed before following after the Snake Miraculous wielder. None of them expected what they found when they'd caught up with him.
AN:...Yikes!
