Eh screw it. I'm gonna try to continue this!

Also, my younger sister decided to try and get in on the whole writing action, so she's gonna make an appearance too in this and shall be joining me on this drug induced adventure!

God, I need to get all these references out of my head...

Chapter 2

Jail

The day is July 25th, a Tuesday, and after discussing to my new comrades our plan of action, we have decided the best plan of action possible, without the help of EMMA, who would for sure be trying to backstab our asses, so we're gonna try to use her as little as possible for this.

Step 1 would be for me, Ryuji, and Morgana to infiltrate the Jail and try to save a few of the people from having their desires stolen since things will get shitty for them otherwise. And no better way to do that than to infiltrate the Jail and make Alice think we're under her control.

However… I had my own personal agenda to try and fulfill as we enacted out plan.

"Okay, so any moment now, Alice will come and we'll get invited to her 'Wonderland'?" Ryuji asked again as me and Morgana walked up to him, though Morgana was just in the bag.

"Yep," I told him. "However… lots of things could go wrong too, like we don't get a card, or the event could also not happen, since there are a lot of variables that could go wrong since I have technically breached the natural flow of when you guys would know some of the things I'm telling you, and since I'm kinda like an Isekai character who was from the real world and I know everything that's gonna happen in the video game I'm playing, and so-"

"We get it! You love to ramble on about how shit could wrong," Ryuji interrupted.

"No, my author mind is just reminding me on how one thing could fuck over the whole world, just like how one decision in writing can fuck the whole story over," I replied.

"Wait, you're an author?" Ryuji asked.

"Not… really," I admitted. "I'm more or less a spin-off guy. I write spin-offs of stories. That basically is my hobby."

"Oh, so you're not really important or anything? No big-shot author or nothing?" Ryuji asked.

"Nope!" I said. "Just a fanfic writer!"

"The hell is that?" Ryuji asked, before we heard squealing, and we looked over and saw that the event I had mentioned the day before, the opening of a clothing store that sells some of Alice's clothes or whatever, was going on now. "...I still don't trust you."

"I didn't want you to," I replied. "Because I might as well just be a stranger."

We walked up to the crowd and we waited, and I saw Alice and I got to admit. Seeing her in front of me, she was indeed cute. But then again… she's a sadistic bitch who takes joy in ruining the lives of others. I also kinda don't like her. But even still…

Alice droned on about the whole, 'Gateway to Wonderland' bullshit, and started handing out invitations. She finally was down to the last three, and I kept my eyes out for the last one. At the same time, the back of head began to itch. I decided to scratch it, before she walked up to me.

She had given me the invitation, and was about to leave, before I said to her, in a quiet tone, "I know everything. And I'm sorry… I want to talk to you." She looked at me surprised. "What they did was wrong. She shouldn't have hated on you back then. So come find me. I want to talk." I began to walk away with Ryuji and Morgana, and the two were just as confused as Alice was.

I sat down by the station, or right where I met up with Ryuji, and I waited. "What the hell was that about man?" Ryuji asked.

"...each Monarch has trauma, and is part of the reason why they are the way they are now," I explained. "I just hope she'll come and talk to me. I don't want to settle this with violence."

"Trauma?" Morgana questioned.

"A motive, if that makes sense," I said. "For Alice… actually, I'll explain everything later." We waited for a good minute, and literally a minute, but she didn't show up. I sighed before pulling out Joker's phone, and looking at Ryuji and Morgana. "Everybody ready?"

They nodded and I I putted the code. However, it was right at that moment I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Alice — at least I thought it was her — was coming towards us. I tried to get EMMA to stop but we were already in the Meta-Verse.

Damn it… she might've saw that… That's not good. But regardless, we had a duty to preform.

I looked around, and I saw three of the guys we saw earlier being surrounded by Shadows. "Showtime," I whispered to myself. But no matter how much I wanted to move…

I was scared again. I couldn't move. I couldn't move to act.

Ryuji and Morgana had already gone ahead and dealt with the Shadows, but I simply watched. I was a coward, and I couldn't even do anything. I looked down. Damn it…

"Alright! We need to get these guys out of here!" Ryuji said as the guys ran up to me with the three innocent guys.

I nodded. "Y-Yeah," I said, before more Shadows surrounded us. "Oh no…"

"We're surrounded!" Morgana said.

"What are these things?!" One of the guys questioned.

"Welcome to the Meta-Verse," I said. "I'm Joker, skull masked guy is Skull, and the talking cat raccoon thing is Morgana. And that's all I can really explain since we don't need so many people to know about this since you could actually die here and yadayadayada…" A few Shadows came running towards me. "Oh shit."

I didn't really know what to do, so I just held my hands out and had my knife out towards the Shadows. "I have a knife and I'm not afraid to use it!" I shouted, trying to sound menacing.

"Oh yeah?" One of them questioned.

"Oh yeah!" I said.

"Joker, use your Persona!" Morgana said. Great idea!

"Um…" Fuck, how do I use that? Do I just concentrate and it appears? Screw it. I'm gonna get fucked over at this rate. "I summon Arsène in attack mode!" Luckily, my mask burned off and behind me I felt Arsène appear. "Use Eiha!" Arsène did just that, and I smiled as we defeated several Shadows. "I did it!" Wait, the civilians shouldn't know that. "For a moment, I thought I couldn't use my Persona. It has been awhile, so it makes sense."

My mask returned and I felt on top of the world for a moment, before we defeated all of the random Shadows that had appeared. We began to run with the civilians to try and get them out, before we made it to the exit point. I looked at the three of the guys we saved. "Okay, you have had your first run-in with Shadows. Congrats! Don't tell anyone what happened in here."

"Why not?!" One of them questioned. "We need the police to know about this!"

"Would they believe you?" I asked. "Because this isn't exactly easy to believe. You'd have to see it to believe. And I also don't want anyone else to try and get hurt because of this, so no one should be told about this." I crossed my arms. "We'll deal with this situation ourselves. That's our duty as Phantom Thieves."

"Wait, you're the real Phantom Thieves?!" The second guy asked.

"As real as we can get!" Ryuji said. "But seriously, you guys should get out of here. It's really not safe here."

"R-Right!" They all said, before they left.

I sighed. "That was… good." I looked down at the square by 705, and I began to think back to the fight. It was way easier to fight them playing the game then actually fighting them myself. If it wasn't for the fact I used Arsène, I would've lost miserably. Maybe even captured, though that's what we were gonna do anyways. Get captured.

"So, what do we do next?" Morgana asked. "What would happen next in the story?"

"We would try to storm her Palace," I said, not telling them we'd get captured.

"Alright, let's do this!" Ryuji said. "I'm ready!" I nodded, before we began to run towards the Palace.

As soon as we began running, around a good thirty seconds later, which is way later than what I would last if I actually ran, we got spotted by a bunch of spotlights, and a bunch of Shadows appeared.

"Ambush!" Morgana shouted.

"Well shit," I said, before we got covered by a net. "Double shit!" I looked up before I hit smacked with a baton, and boy did that hurt. I had blacked out shortly after, already knowing what would happen next.

As soon as I had woken up, I was told to walk, and I was shoved roughly toward a door, the one to Alice's throne room. Nothing odd entirely, except for the fact my butt felt like it was on fire, probably from being dragged.

As soon as we entered Alice's throne room, I saw Alice's Shadow, and I stared at her. Boy, did she look weird as hell. Especially the eyes… Actually, the design was good, it was just the eyes on the back of her head I didn't really like. Why the hell were those even there?! Even Natsume had a better design than this!

"What's this?" Shadow Alice asked.

"They were thieves and they came trying to storm the castle. We caught them but we couldn't steal their desires so we brought them to you, your majesty," one of the Shadows said.

Shadow Alice hummed before walking up to me. "You look like a real cutie…"

"Funny, concerning how I wanted to talk to you, and now I can," I began, which made Shadow Alice confused. "You said you wanted to be a beacon of hope for the people, people who had lived just as shitty and even shittier than you did. But then you have into this?" I looked at her more with more concern. "What happened Alice? What did that bully do to you?"

"H-How do you know about that?" Shadow Alice asked, looking surprised.

"I know a lot," I answered. "And I know how it feels to feel like shit. I do…" I looked downs. "I never had friends. And when I think of my past… I don't see anything to be proud of back before I went away from all of the places I've been. Before I lived away from what we call society. All I see is an embarrassing story of a coward who couldn't even be useful when it mattered." I looked up. "My only friends are online, and even then, they don't know the real me." I tried to make eye contact with her. "So tell me, do you really think this was the way? The way to get back at them?!" I tried sounding more serious. "Do you think this makes you any better than them?! Do you think you're being a pillar of hope for the people who need it?! Because people are doing bad things for you! They are accepting illegal loans, they are hurting innocent people who have done nothing wrong and who don't really care about your line of fashion or aren't your fans, and they are ruining their own lives, not even caring about their relationships!" I'm hoping she's starting to feel guilty at this point. If not, I just wasted a lot of my time. "Now tell me…" I scooted a bit closer. "Why are you doing this?"

"Shut up!" And then I met a staff to my face.

"Fuck!" I shouted as it stung, and I felt tears come forth to my eyes.

"Joker!" Morgana exclaimed as I hit the ground.

"You don't understand! So don't bother trying to act like you do!" Shadow Alice said. "I've been treated like shit my whole life! And you don't have friends?! Then who are these guys?! The ones you know online?! Your colleagues?!"

"I actually don't really know them since I'm kinda like an Isekai Anime character, and I've been reincarnated into Joker, soooo… yeah, they're more like my colleagues," I explained.

"Oh really?!" Alice said. "Then what is your name?"

"Lego," I said.

"Like the children's toy?" Alice questioned before laughing.

"Yes…" I had a blank look on my face. "Like the children's toy… I got to honor the younger me somehow."

"You're cute," Alice said.

"I'm literally 14, so don't try to do anything to me," I told her. "Otherwise, I'm suing you and your stripper ass."

"Really? A 14 year old trying to level with me?" Shadow Alice questioned. "You know what, throw him out. His buddies too."

"Alice wait! You don't understand!" I began. "This isn't the way! You're just being used as a pawn in a giant game of chess!"

"Me? A pawn?" She scoffed. "Yeah right."

"You are being used as a pawn!" I told her. "It's not coincidence that EMMA can make certain people into monarchs and that you can brainwash people! EMMA was made to make people like you do things like this!" I began struggling as the Shadows grabbed me. "Alice! Please! WHAT HAPPENED TO BEING A BEACON OF HOPE?!" I was getting dragged away by them now. "ARSÈNE!" I summoned my Persona and defeated the two Shadows who were dragging me away. "ALICE!" I stood up and looked at her. "PLEASE STOP THIS!"

More shadows came, and I gritted my teeth before I got socked in the stomach by a Shadow and I got dragged away. We were then dumped down into a garbage dump. I had landed in Ryuji, but I still felt the pain from the drop and it hurt like Hell.

"Ouch…" Ryuji mumbled.

"Tell me about it," I said, before standing up.

"So…" Morgana began before looking at me. "You knew everything about Alice's past?"

"Yeah," I said. "It's not pretty."

"Dude, you have no friends?" Ryuji asked. "You make it sound like you're Oracle."

"I pretty much am," I said. "Except not as smart and stuff." I shrugged before I stood up and yawned. "I'm getting tired…" I looked around before I remembered something.

She's here…

I began walking down the path, before I came up to a giant box. "Come to papa," I said. "No homo…" I touched the box, before it glee, and Ryuji and Morgana came running up.

"What in the world?!" Ryuji questioned before she appeared.

I was silent for a minute. Everything looks the same. "Who are you," I asked her, knowing the answer she would give.

"Where am I?"

"Okay! Something is wrong!" I said. "That is not what you should've said! You should've said, 'I'm Sophia, humanity's companion!' and not that so something is clearly wrong, and I think I just fucked over the whole timeline! But to answer your question…" I pointed at the trash. "We're in a trash land. And on a side note, welcome to Persona 5 Strikers!"

"Wait- We're in Persona 5 Strikers?!" The person in Sophia, Humanity's Companion, questioned.

"So… do you know her?" Ryuji asked me.

"Well she's from my world, so that's a key indicator," I said. "And I don't. At least, I don't think I do." I looked at the person again. "Okay, who are you?"

"I'm Sophia." Okay, so female, in Sophia, named Sophia.

"Yep, I give up," I said. "I'm really confused and I really think I fucked up somehow." I looked at Ryuji and Morgana. "Well… we might as well bring Sophia here with us back to the real world. Though it's a shame that I don't know who she is…" I walked up to her. "So, how much do you know?"

"What do you mean? I know a lot!" Sophia smiled brightly.

"How much do you know about the game?" I asked. "Cause… I don't want to have to explain everything again, from the Monarchs, to the final boss, to… well…" I gestured to her body, which wasn't really her own body. "This…"

"Wait, did you know we'd meet her here?" Ryuji questioned. "Did you know we'd get ambushed?!"

"Busted…" I whispered to myself.

"Uh..pretty much all of it," Sophia shrugged.

"Well great…" I said, before I walked passed her, and then patted her on the head. "Now, be like a good civilian and don't get killed while we try to escape."

"DON'T PAT MY HEAD!" Sophia screeched. I stopped before looking at her. I went silent, before I poked her arm. "STOP!" Sophia screamed, getting really annoyed.

"...does the nickname Phi-Phi mean anything to you?" I asked rather randomly.

"Actually it does… My close friends call me that," Sophia said while she nodded slowly.

"Any family? Like… a brother?" I asked.

"Mhmm, my family call me that too!" Sophia smiled brightly.

I was beginning to get skeptical, before I asked, "So, how's Agent Weebs going… Phia?" I looked at her all seriously, even deciding to strike a Jojo's pose for extra measure.

"YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?!" Sophia questioned. "Well It's going okay? I forgot to split it into chapters- Why are we focusing on that! Let's get out of here!"

"Yep, it is safe to confirm I know who this is," I said as I turned to Ryuji and Morgana who were confused about our conversation. "I believe this is my sister, Sophia."

"WHAT?!" They questioned.