Persona X TWEWY X Kingdom Hearts
Summary: Trapped in an unfair game? Fighting against society? Changing the hearts of evil adults? Save the world? Discovering oneself? Nothing out of the ordinary for these teenagers.
Chapter Fifteen:
Within Sight
*Dungeons*
Skirting around a torrent of psych fire blasted towards her, Kairi rushes towards the shooter with Asura by her back. With a swing of her masamune from an upper-swing, she throws an arc of light at her attack that splits the earth beneath their feet.
The teen rolls to the side to evade being severed in two, his friend jumping in with glowing brown energy and began to shoot a barrage of stone at the girl. Kairi easily sliced her way through the stones with just three swings her of blade, then she leaps into the air and calls for Asura. Together with her Persona hovering from above, she performs a quick draw with blinding speed her swinging arm looked like a blur.
The next thing the two players knew, their bodies homed several non-life-threatening injuries that certainly put them out of the fight. With one final flip, she lands on her feet and watched Riku easily dominate the third player through sheer might alone, his dark blade decimating every projectile the predictable player threw at him.
The player attacking Riku slammed his hand down on the ground and from below sprouts up a long line of barbed wire coated with lightning. Riku jumps in the air to evade the attack, allowing the player to then fire several purple bubbles at him. Once again this attack was quickly dealt with by Riku and Odin's combined superior might. He aimed his free hand and shoots a shotgun-like burst of darkness that easily swallowed the bubbles and nearly contacted the player. The player uses another pin to erect a barrier to protect himself.
The blast's force knocks him off his feet and into the stone table, luckily for him the barrier absorbed most of the impact, but it breaks easily thanks to the combined might of both Riku's counterattack and the force he produced. Slumping on the ground, the player weakly raised his head to see he was on the end of Riku's blade, the dark knight glaring at him with intensity and silently warned him the price of resistance.
Their leader fares even less than his compatriots, his attacks are being swept away with barely any effort thanks to Sora and Bahamut's power. Not only is Sora outpacing him with moving so quickly it was as if he was at three places at once, but his power outclassed the players. Their leader tried freezing him with spiky pillars, only for Sora to evade them before he even planned where they would raise, tries to shock him yet even lightning couldn't catch him and when he went for broke by trying to pummel him, Sora just expelled force from Bahamut.
"Bahamut! Impulse!" Sora commands, calling his Persona. The mighty dragon king roars as four balls of dark energy form corners of a square, and with one swipe of his giant claws, the king throws them at the player. They scattered around the player, detonating around him but keeping some of the blast impacts within range of harm. He was bounced around the explosions like a ball in a horrible four-way game of pong.
He is then thrown aside like all the others, losing this one-sided conflict.
The leader groaned in pain as the Phantom Thieves stand over the defeated players, eyes fixed for any attempts to play dirty. Another beep echoes through the church and the victors take their phones out to see a purple skull painted in graffiti upon the screens before a message came through, notifying the group.
"The Phantom Thieves have won against the Shark-Colars! Talk about a trash mob, hope the rest of the team can make up for these snoozers…what?" Kairi says, shaking her head, "What is going on here?".
"Hey! What the hell is all this?" Riku asked, turning to the leader, now looking crestfallen. He shook his head, muttering "it's over" under his breath as his friends start to panic and pleading for invisible faces to help them or give them a do over. "We lost…" he laments. The thieves look at each other, then Sora stepped towards them and kneels before the leader, kindly asking: "What do you mean? You lost one fight, you can always make up next time, right?".
The leader looked at Sora, surprised by the gentleness and even ignorance of the stakes they were facing. It might have dawned on this teen that their ignorance wasn't for show…
"You…have no idea what we're talking about, do you?" he asked.
"No we don't, but you do. So tell us! What's this game you're talking about?" Sora pleads. All he got from the leader is a sympathetic smile and a look of acceptance as his friends began to weep for another shot, and finally says: "…lose the game, and this is your future". Suddenly his body glows, as well as the other players, in white light before their bodies turn into static like before ultimately disappearing into nothingness.
Stunned and horrified, Sora fell back on his rear while Riku and Kairi could only watch on in horror for what they witness. "W-What just happened?" Kairi asked, then panicked and says: "Wait a second! Erasure…does that mean they're…they're…".
"Dead…" Riku finishes, looking at where they once sat, nothing remaining. He looked at his phone again, looking back at the messages they got while Kairi shakes her head, unable to believe what she just witnessed. "N-N-No…we…we didn't…" she stammered, pacing and almost close to tears while Sora got to his feet, shaking his head and trying to just accept this. He frowns and looked down, thinking about the "game" they went on about.
"The game…lose and face erasure…" he thinks, then looked at his left hand and for a single moment, he almost sees a faded graffiti-drawn timer on it. "Wait a second…" he says.
"Players get mark with the time limit. And this Game, I can't afford to lose".
The very words Neku said to him when they first met back during his exam, a game where losing was fatal and potentially your final moments of life. Those teens called them reapers, players, and had the same abilities Neku and the others possess. "The game…Riku!" he says, turning back to him, "This is the game Mr. H told us about! The one Neku and the others played back in Traverse Town!". The master turned him, before recollection washes over his eyes and then he frowned.
"Yeah…I remember now…" he assured, cupping his chin, "But damn it…I didn't think the penalty for failure was death…".
"What are you two talking about?" Kairi asked, lost.
"Back when we first met Neku and the others, they were Players for the Game," he explained with some pauses. "If I understand right, they had timers on their hands, have missions to complete, failing to do so…well, you can see the cost".
"But why all of a sudden now?" Kairi asked, cupping her chin, "Where are those players suddenly coming to the metaverse?".
"Mr. H did say the time would come for the game…but never mentioned the penalties for failing a mission…" Riku replied, shaking his head before turning to the ball of darkness. He approached it and lifts his hand towards the ball, slowly the darkness evaporating around it and perishing into nothingness. It leaves behind a skull with glowing blue lights within its sockets, letting Riku pluck it from the air with confusion.
"…not the kinda treasure I was aiming for…" he commented as his friends join him. Kairi and Sora look at it, equally confused and a touch disturbed by the morbid item. Riku twists and rolls the item in hand, trying to gauge its significance yet couldn't fathom any worth this thing could possess. Kairi couldn't even trace magic from it, claiming it could be just electricity powering the lights for all she knows.
"Those players died for this?" Riku sighed, stuffing it in their pocket dimension, "A waste of time, and wastes of lives".
"Maybe Mona knows something about the skull," Kairi offered, "But we should ask Reaper and the others about the Game later". Her boys nodded and when Sora suggests they go back to the others, Kairi stopped him. Before they returned to the rest of their guild, she had a suspicion about security. Worried that chances of confronting Kamoshida were slowly becoming more likely with each passing moment, the man wouldn't be stupid enough nor arrogant to think he could take on all the thieves at once and will have no issue calling in back up.
"We should see if he's got back up down here, and if he does, how they could reach the surface quick enough to save their king," she suggested.
"No sense in wasting a chance to get a leg up on our enemies, lets go look around then," Riku agrees. The three-headed on with their journey, unaware of a referee watching them go on. A sinister smirk appearing on his face as he calculates the odds…
*Second floor*
Throwing another book into the pile of discarded books, the former players slowly empty the shelves of books in their search for weaknesses to Kamoshida. "Damnit!" Beat growls as he throws a book to the wall, "We've gone through like HUNDREDS of these shitty books and ain't found jack!".
"I've never looked at so many books in my life…I think I'm getting dizzy from all the texts…" Shiki whined as she dropped another useless book to the ground, "Seriously…nothing here is telling us anything about how we can hurt him more or even give us an idea about the castle".
Neku sighed in agreement, chucking another book into the pile while scanning the place. Until he came to a small journal hidden further in the back. It had a layer of dust on it but the state of it told him something. The leather had lost the pristine look to it, several tears around the frame and he sees an old featherless quill near it, so he reached in and grabbed the journal. After a quick flick through the pages, he smirks and says he might have found something worth their efforts.
Placing the smaller journal on the table, they let Rhyme read a few paragraphs thanks to her quicker reading skills. She mutters some words to herself before stopping and reads an entry look. From what she read, to nobody's surprise, Kamoshida's sexual abuse did not start at Shujin Academy. Instead, during his early years as an athlete, he had made some advances on another girl but the biggest shock to the gang was he WANTED to report it and take responsibility.
"What? You tellin' me that pervy asshole wanted to do the right thing?" Beat asked. Rhyme confirmed it, gesturing he wrote how horrified he was and even attempted to go to the police over it but was convinced by managers and people in power not to. "So he was talked into it, and got away with it…" Neku huffed, "What's next?". Rhyme reported after a quick read that pretty much history repeated, except this time he wrote it like it was a small thing. He "lamented" that he did it again but the entry was full of excuses and justifications.
And then the third entry, he did it again and this time acted like he is today. "All because jerks allowed him to treat someone like an object and covered his ass," Shiki huffed, "No wonder he kept it up! Nobody would stop him!".
"It also didn't help when he came to Shujin," Rhyme says, moving forward with entries, "He wrote about how thanks to the principal's favoritism towards him and his reputation helping Shujin's, he never felt more alive there". She points out the amount of garbage he had been able to get away with, the list of victims, and even regarding Ann and Ryuji. The satisfaction of destroying Ryuji's dreams, how he described to be a slut who craved him like an addictive drug, the sheer audacity he possessed made the gang livid.
"And look, he's even added us to his entries," she says with a look of dread. He made no secret he despised Neku for his blatant disregard for the "king", constantly aloof and indifferent to him like he was trash. "He isn't wrong," Neku taunts with a smirk. Beat was just Ryuji with a more punk look but hated him more because he was smarter than the boy whose leg he broke because he shows the teacher he neither cared nor feared him in the slightest. A rat who dares challenge the king but can walk away without his majesty being able to punish him? That was too much for him.
"Looks like he was trying to come up with ideas to get rid of Beat…look, I remember this! He tried to pin a bullying situation on him!" Rhyme points out. Beat growled at the memory, promising he was going to break the teacher's legs when he gets the chance. She reads more of the journal and finds that the pervy teacher was eyeing herself, Shiki and Eri for a long time, but wrote Rhyme was too high a target for him and he wrote a long excuse why he didn't go after Shiki and Eri.
"Translation? Eri scares him," Neku remarks. They all agree wholeheartedly. "Bottom line, this is an entire document on his life as a creep…we can use this…".
"How yo?" Beast asks.
"Kamoshida is as vain as they come, and his ego is fragile. If we attack it by reminding him of his flaws followed by how the only reason he lasted this long is that he had protection," Rhyme remarked, "So if we throw that in his face, it might cause him to panic or spill something".
"Attacking his pride might cause him to be distracted, then take a hit…yeah I think that could work," Neku agreed, "But that all the journal has for us?".
"Looks like it and judging on how scarce any other sources of info we found here tells me that's about all we're going to get," Rhyme sighed. They leave the room and before they reunite with Ren's team, the four inspected the other rooms in the hope of finding more intel or something else that can aid them in a battle against the king. Each room was a near replica of the first one, but the fourth one had three missing book slots on the shelves.
Rhyme had a theory and returned the slave, queen, and Kamoshida books. Once she slotted them in, another wall slowly descended and reveals another room for them to explore. They all stared in disgust, plastered all around the room were pictures of Suzui, each one from a different angle. Shiki and Rhyme show disgust while Beat growls in disgust, cursing the pervy king. Neku however approached a bookshelf and spotted what looked like a medal, close to an Olympian one judging from the quality.
"Hmm…now why would you go through all that trouble to keep this hidden?" he asked himself, before a malicious smirk appears on his face, "Unless it's something important that you'd rather not let someone else get a hold-off…". Below the medal was another part of the map, and when he handed it to Rhyme, who took out the other map, she overlooked both of them, and then a joyous grin plasters on her face. She shows the team that according to the map, which is now completed, the treasure wasn't too far off from their location, much less for Ren's group.
"Booya!" Beat cheered, "Looks like we're gettin' closer to that dick head's treasure!".
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's regroup with Ren's group and get going!" Shiki cheers. As she does, suddenly Neku grabbed her and tossed her aside. When she falls on her back, Neku is suddenly blasted by an invisible force that throws him out of the Shiho room and even through the bookshelf with a loud boom and a burst of dust. The trio cried for his name, Beat snapping his head back to the attacker and finds it to be a shadow.
Except as the red inks seeps away, it towers over the teens like a giant, taller than even the most built athlete with hulking muscles, its biceps alone rivaled Rhyme's head. It was a gargoyle with a body made of stone with clear veins of steel, arms the size of an oak tree with a single brown loincloth, a long tail that slammed into the ground like a bag of heavy stones. Claws so sharp they could have been mistaken for daggers, teeth bared with piercing yellow-shadow eyes, two horns like a demon, and large grey wings. On its stone chest is a carved emblem of the heartless.
It howls at the teens and swipes its giant claws at them, Rhyme quickly raising a barrier to hold back its attack. Instead, it demolishes the barrier like it was made of fragile glass and smacked the girl in the shoulder and tosses her aside like a toy, her yell of pain silenced by the force of the attack. It turned on Shiki and Beat, who roars with rage and charged towards the giant without a single cost of thought to his well-being.
He lunges towards the giant and shoulder-tackles it directly into its stomach, pushing it against the wall and pinning it there. Then he reeled back his fist and swung, only for the gargoyle to catch his attack with its giant talon and keep him there. Before it could take a bite from his head, it was suddenly on the receiving end of a vicious beat down from Mr. Mew, slashing its stone skin face with its razor-sharp claws to prevent Beat from losing his head. While it was dealing with the furball, Beat calls his Persona.
"Spartacus!" he bellowed, calling the legendary gladiator to his aid, "Smash!". Spartacus slammed his gladius blade upon the shoulder of the beast, the force made its feet sink two inches into the stone ground beneath it and cracked its stone shoulder. It relinquishes its hold on Beat's hand which lets the punk leap back and calls his Persona again to attack. Spartacus performs several swings of his blade on the monstrosity, hacking away its stone body.
The gargoyle howls in rage, the sheer volume of its screech forces Spartacus to fade while the two remaining teens covered their ears. Its screech started to leave cracks in the walls and even caused a slight tremor in the whole room. Then it swoops on Beat and backhands him with far more force than it did with Rhyme and Neku, bashing him aside and through another wall, leaving only Shiki to battle the beast.
It swings its claws at her, but without its sonic screeching to debilitate her, Shiki dodges its mighty swipes with all the grace of a cat. Like the feline, her agile body and smaller size made it difficult for the creature to get a hit in as she ducked, skipped, and even leaps over its oak sized arms with the bare minimum effort, and while telepathically commanding Mr. Mew to attack its back, it seemed like she was more of a challenge then Beat was.
She slides underneath it and jumps further away from it while Mr. Mew was pummelling the monster, but when it turned around it grabbed Mr. Mew during a combo. It slammed the plushie into the ground with enough force to shake the room, then leaped towards Shiki with another screech. Before it reached her, Neku appears from a small line of psych energy and aimed his hand at the monster. "Sanada Yukimura!" he commands his Persona. As the crimson samurai appears above the boy, his body glows in red light as two spheres of psych form in his right hand.
They manifest and enlarge themselves into the size of cannonballs before he fires them both at the gargoyle. Upon impact they both detonated in a burst of fiery energy, forcing them both to cover their faces with their arms from how close they were to the actual explosion. Through the smoke, however, the gargoyle soars towards them and pinned them both against the wall with its hands, entrapping them both. They struggle to escape while it snarls at them, rearing its head back to take the head off one.
It went for Neku but collides with another green barrier that repelled its ugly head with a loud bang. It snapped its head to Rhyme, who had one hand on her knee while an eye was closed from pain, her outstretched hand glowing green. She then closes her hand and the barrier morphs into a thin line that pierced the beast's torso, the pain shocking it enough to drop the two thieves it previously held as dinner. Once their feet touched the ground, Neku fires a bolt of lightning from his right hand and Shiki slammed both palms of her hand against the gargoyle's chest.
Their combined might manages to push back the creature and give them some space, which Neku takes advantage of by using another pin from his deck. He starts to unleash a barrage of psych energy like a mad man, each one exploding upon the impact of the beast and staggered it enough to force it back from the gang. Shiki rushes in and grabbed the poor plushie and rushes out of the way for Neku to coat his right arm in dark psych energy, slowly taking the form of a massive drill. He charges forth towards the gargoyle.
Instead, the creature swipes its tail against him and smacked Neku up to the ceiling. He cursed in pain before he falls back down to the floor with a heavy thud. The gargoyle raised its foot to crush him but is stopped by Beat. He darts in front of the foot and catches it in time before it could crush his friend. Even with clear signs of pain in his body, the ferocity in his eyes and gritted teeth disturbed the beast. Beat roars, throwing the foot aside as the tail came for another swipe.
It manages to hit Beat in his side, but the gladiator grabbed the tail with both arms and planted his feet down hard into the ground. Shiki rushes in with her claws and slices the tail off, debilitating the monster and cutting off its chances of victory. The shadow snarls and reaches for the two, but Rhyme uses her Persona to encase the giant in a dense cloak of frost. It struggles for a while before eventually, its frigid form stills its movement.
Beat hoists Neku over his shoulder and makes a run for it with Shiki as the gargoyle's prison begins to break apart with ease. Just as they reached Rhyme, its howl shatters the icy prison and with livid eyes, it turns on the four. It charges again, Rhyme erecting a barrier in time and this time using her full might, she holds back the beast. While it didn't break the barrier on the first hit, the shadow was far more patient than the average beast and started to pummel her barrier with its mighty fists. Each hit shook the ground and Rhyme showed clear signs of struggling.
She falls to one knee as the cracks in her will and barrier start to grow. One final punch destroys her barrier and made Rhyme fall on her back, whimpering and clutching her head in sheer agony. As it bellowed, the gargoyle stomped towards them and thrusts both fists at them. Matching its volume with sheer rage, Beat punched its fists, and they entered a deadlock of fists between them. Even with the massive difference in height and muscles, Beat held it back with gritted teeth and even slammed his head against the monster.
Then the creature lifts Beat upward and slammed him into the ceiling, then slammed him flat on the ground before tossing him aside into a wall. Beat bounced off the wall and falls onto his hands and knees before tragically he collapsed entirely. Shiki stares in horror at her friends' state before snapping her angry eyes on the beast, pulling its fist back, and then throwing it at her. Shiki quickly throws Neku out of the way and slides underneath it, dodging the punch. She got to her feet and slashed its back with her claws.
Her claws do little other than leave marks on its stone form as she kept dodging its slow but lethal attacks. Leaping over it and landing on its shoulders, she wrapped her legs around its neck and began to pummel/stab into its head with all her ferocity of a tiger. The clinking noise of her steel against its stone skin rings out through the room as it thrashes around, stomping as it tries to grab the girl or punch her off its head. She swerved and sways around its clumsy hand as she tries to break open its stone skull.
When she sunk her claws finally into its skull, she retracts her claws and goes for what she hoped is the final stab. But as her arm rose, it was grabbed by its hand. Shiki pales as it yanked her off its neck and then slammed her back first into the ground. She screamed in pain as blood escapes her mouth and is then tossed into a bookshelf. She smashes through it and lands on the ground outside the room. She couldn't even amass enough strength to feebly attempt to get up, the pain was beyond anything she had taken in the Game.
The gargoyle howls over its defeated prey, then snapped its head to Neku getting to his feet. He spat out blood and faces the beast with raw determination in his eyes as he glows with psych energy. Slowly the energy cackles like flames engulfed the boy, his fist carrying the pin gauntlet begins to glow with immense power. The gargoyle stomped over to the boy as he pulled his fist back with shakes afflicting his weary body. The gargoyle swings a punch as Neku, with both rage and desperations blending in a cry, throws his hand at the monster.
He fires a shotgun-like blast of uncontrollable psych power with such intense light it brightened up the room as a flashbang had gone off. The blast tears through the stone body of the gargoyle, eating its torso in five seconds as the blast consumes it whole. As the blast fades, Neku witnessed the destruction he had wrought upon the monster. The entire ground before him was incinerated into rubble, the wall was gone and there were traces of psych energy in the air.
Neku chuckles dizzily before he falls to his knees and nearly throws up, coughing. The thief looked at his fallen teammates with despair, tries to force himself upon his feet to get them to a safe room or somewhere safe for them to recover.
"Reaper!".
He looks behind him to see Sora and Riku immediately rush into the room while behind them Kairi is tending to the unconscious Shiki. Sora is immediately kneeling by his orange-haired friend while Riku checks on the others.
"W-What the heck happened here?" Sora asked, grabbing his shoulders. Neku stares at his friend with exhaustion in his eyes and muttered incoherently at him before he fell against him.
*Ren's Group*
Looking warily at the new device given to him by the furball, Ren looked at the goat head with the hoop in its mouth. Currently, his team has managed to climb their way closer to the highest point in the castle and managed to get by despite a few skirmishes here and there with the patrolling guards. Ryuji did take a pummelling from a few shadows and Morgana nearly caught fire thanks to those pumpkin-headed little freaks.
Ann nearly had a broken arm after a knight shadow slammed its shield into her, and as for Ren, he was nearly turned into a pancake. Sadly that was the note-worthy injuries that required their short supply of medicine, they've endured a few surprises in the form of ambushes from the shadows or traps Kamoshida laid for them in waiting. The struggle with a smaller team was no joke, and Ren worried for the others as they made their way through the castle.
Currently, they were inside a tower and just beneath the next floor, which has a staircase that goes around with a large chunk of the first set of stairs demolished and unusable.
"Mona…you sure this is safe?" asked the leader, looking at his new toy. It's a silver wrist with a long wire inside the ring-shaped device. According to Morgana, it was a more stylish rope for any Phantom Thief after Ryuji suggested using rope to climb. This was sort've a grappling hook, except the moment Ren's wire attached to something, he'd have to be quick to react when it came to landing on the ledge. Sure he didn't discredit its potential uses and would have praised Morgana for his foresight…he just doesn't feel comfortable being the first (and potentially last) person to use it for the first time.
"Trust me, it'll be fine!" bragged the cat, "Now hurry up!". With a roll of his eyes, Ren flicks his wrist and shoots the wire at the hoop. It attached to the hoop and reels him in like a fisher bagging a rare fish. He closes in and performs a quick flip before he got a face full of stone and lands on the not so broken stairway. Nearly falling back he quickly straightened himself and gave his friends a wave, signaling he was okay.
Until he frowned with a sudden question in mind.
"Uh Mona…you did make enough for the others to get up here…right?" he asked, looking down at the cat.
Morgana went silent, confirming Ren's worries. "…Skull toss me the rope," he sighed.
One rope climbing session later, the four proceeded with their investigation and search for their target's treasure. Navigating through the halls, dealing with trash mobs here and there with speed and skill, they managed to reach another floor of the castle with minimal headaches and even less strain on their slowly fatiguing bodies. Stepping through a door, Ren's group comes to a very wide room with severe pews stretching throughout the room with several hanging roses plants above. A long red carpet stretching from beginning to end where there is a large statue of Kamoshida, holding what must be a volleyball like it was a beacon.
Once the team stepped in and stood in front of the statue's view, the whole room shimmered and temporarily shifted into the school gym, spooking them. Ann, new to the distortions, asked if she lost her mind for a moment but Ryuji said: "Nah, the gym is kinda like a holy place for him. He's a god there".
Closing in on the statue, Ann grunts: "I can't believe it. How could he still think like that…especially after what he did to Shiho". Ryuji spits on the ground with resentment, cursing Kamoshida and his ego while enforcing his promise when they get their hands on him. But Ren then draws his dagger in alarm, quipping they're about to have company. True to his word, a knight suddenly leaped down from the rafters and stands before the group, commenting on how waiting around had paid off.
"Hmm…you're not the ones who tampered with the library then…but it doesn't matter!" they said, snapping to them, "Just as that ape says, this place is sacred ground for our great King Kamoshida! It is preposterous for miscreants like you to waltz in like this!".
"Sacred ground? Don't make us laugh," scoffs Ren, "This place is much as a façade as every other "holy ground" that narcissist has!". His teammates draw their weapons as he aimed his back at the knight, saying: "The nerve he has to still claim to be this divine king after what he's done in that place is laughable, and you trying to enforce that is even more ridiculous!".
"You will pay for your foolishness and transgression towards the king! With your worthless lives!" it roars before its grey armor burst into another geyser of crimson and births a new knight. Hovering above the thieves with crimson angel wings while wearing chain-mail armor and an open knight helm, carrying a long sword. It stares down the thieves with contempt, then brandished its sword and swoops down upon them.
Ryuji leaped at it, blocking its way towards Ren, and swings his pipe at the monster. The angel warrior spins under Ryuji's sweep and then kicked the boy aside with its armored foot. Ryuji crashes through three pews before smashing into a pillar while the angel swings at Ren. The Trickster gracefully jumps over the angel during a swing of its blade, landing a few steps behind it and letting Ann and Morgana aim with their firearms.
Ann fires a hail of bullets upon the monster while Morgana pelts it with his slingshot, but their bullets were denied harming the shadow when its wings closed in front of the torso and shields it from pain. When it opens its wings, it shoots a powerful gale that shook the dust from the ground up and blinds the two thieves, forcing them to shield their eyes. Then the angel brings down its sword onto the two with speed rivaling the thieves, nearly cleaving them in two had Morgana not push himself and Ann out of the way.
Ren fires two shots at the monster's back, getting the two shots in and even harming it enough to warrant a response. The angel aims its hand at the boy and called out an attack name that Ren missed, but he sees an orange glow beneath his feet and it was enough for him to just about evade being turned into dust. A large blast of energy boomed from beneath and leaves a sizable crater in the floor whole sending the rug aflame. Ren backflips twice and stands beneath the statue as the angel charges in, stabbing at the boy rapidly.
Ren dances around the stabs with grace and nimbleness he had never known he possessed, narrowly evading being penetrated by steel. His dance isn't perfect however as he feels several slashes making a home onto his body and just barely evades a stab to his cheekbone, save for a slash. As the angel lifts its sword for a cleave, Ann quickly wrapped her whip around its wrist to halt its attack. It turned to see a torrent of fire slithering along with the leather whip and encase its hand in fire. The shadow howls in pain as Ann grits her teeth and dug her heels into the ground.
Morgana quickly rushes towards the angel with his amusingly oversized blade and engaged it. The shadow curses Ann before it spun around with a sudden surprise of power and pulls Ann off her feet and towards it. She collides into Morgana just as he was a foot away from the angel, and together they were smacked aside with the angel's arm and together smashed into a wall on the right of the cathedral.
The shadow tosses aside Ann's weapon and when it turned onto Ren, a golden bolt of light falls from the sky and struck the angel. The angel curses in pain, snapping its head to see Ryuji with his Persona out and showcasing their combined might. While the angel was encased in a cloak of lightning, Ren takes this chance with Arséne to unleash their vengeance. Together with his dagger and Arséne's clawed hands, the two rebels slash and cut the monster while pushing it back. One flashy slash from his dagger, Ren kicked off the shadow with a backflip and while upside down, he fires the remnants of ammo from his gun.
Each bullet pelts the shadow with dark energy enhanced by Arséne. The shadow's shoulder slump and it looks close to hunching over in defeat, and when Ryuji stands beside Ren while Morgana and Ann got to their feet, the angel stood up properly. The monster raised its sword and then called out: "To me!". Suddenly the door where the thieves had come from explodes open and in comes rushing in are more knights of Kamoshida in near horde numbers. Many gathered up near the shadow as a safeguard while the rest surround the thieves, covering the entire floor with knights. Ann and Morgana luckily managed to join the two boys before they could get caught.
"Crap, we're surrounded!" Ryuji growled, clutching his pipe with baring teeth.
"Slay them all! For the glory of King Kamoshida!" the archangel commands, aiming his sword at the four.
Some knights charged at the thieves while many of them burst into other forms of shadows, likely to overwhelm the thieves with both numbers and versatility. Two of them had turned into eilgors and charged towards Ren while a few silkies began to swarm Morgana and Ryuji. Ren challenged the charging horsemen with Arséne at his back, leaping toward them while he rips his mask off. "Arséne! Cleave!" he commands. With his clawed limbs enlarged and sharpening, the wicked Persona rips apart horse and man with a single swipe, laughing haughtily.
Ren plunged his dagger into the neck of the other eligor and uses its recent deceased form as a platform to jump into the air above the squabble. He is chased by berith, leaping into the air with its horse and spear in tow. Ren flips over its spear that nearly pierced his back, grabbing the polearm just below the tip of the blade. With Arséne, Ren slips down the spear and dropkicks the knight in the face with both legs, taking them both down to the ground.
Nearby, Ryuji goes to town with the jack-a-lanterns, smashing the pumpkin heads into nothing while backhanding several others aside. He curses the ones who got a few hits in and even set his foot on fire at one point, forcing him to rely heavily on his only good leg to stay up and moving. Another berith charges at him and had Ryuji not being so focused on preserving himself he may have gotten a spear through his skull.
He shocks the attacker with Captain Kidd's power and smashes the body of a pixie trying to sneak up behind him, but as its body disappears into nothing he is tackled by a bicorn, shoulder smashing into the boy and knocking him into the air. Ryuji growled in pain but before he could register a counterattack, he is blasted by four jack-a-lanterns fireballs, which detonated the moment they hit him. Like a rag doll, he falls to the ground with a thud and barely moves, his clothes smoking, and even small particles of fire were spotted around his back.
"Skull's hurt!" Morgana calls out, leaping over a mandrake tackling him, "Someone get to him quick!". Ann quickly skips towards the boy as he was being surrounded by two eligors, quickly summoning her weapon again and whips around their necks. She slides between them and once she stands, she roughly yanks her whip and forces their heads to collide with each other hard enough that their helms rang out like bells. Disorientated, they were helpless to protect themselves, leaving Ann to incinerate them with Carmen's power.
Two hedge-sized walls of flame engulfed the knights and startled the other shadows long enough to stay back. Ann quickly checked on Ryuji's still form and helped him sit up, pulling out one of Takemi's medicine. Before she could administer the medicine, however, Ann was suddenly hit by a bolt of lightning that shocked her entire form. She screams in surprise pain and throws the medicine unconsciously from her hands, caused by an agathion.
She slumps onto her knees as she and Ryuji were being swarmed by pixies, attacking them with hit and run tactics. Morgana called their codenames out and tries to rush in to save Ann…and maybe Ryuji, but he is being overwhelmed by the jack-a-lanterns unending barrage of flames. Ren sees his companions and quickly kicks off from a pillar he was using as a vantage point and dives for the two fallen thieves. With an elegant spin, he slashes and splits the pixies into ribbons with dark slashes, killing them, and just as he stands up, he calls for Arséne once more for aid.
He picks up Ann's tommy gun and with Arséne's powering his attack, he spins around unleashing a barrage of dark bullets upon his enemies. Like a dancer of death, Ren's hail of bullets combined with his speedy spin struck down nearly the entire horde of shadows. Only a scant few knights remain, shields held high to shield themselves and the archangel, and the moment they hear the click of Ren's empty gun they lowered their weapons. Ren rushes at them, slightly dazed by his spin after ordering Morgana to watch over the two.
The knights charged at him, one yelling that only he was the threat. Morgana watches the Trickster dance around the shield bashes and elegantly leaps and flips around the attack as if he were an ice skater performing. Even with his injuries and excessive use of his Persona's power, the wildcard seemed to be an unstoppable force of nature against the oppressive knights. When he side-stepped the final knight and backstabbed it, leaving his dagger in between the shoulder blade, he kicked the knight into the group and snapped his masked face towards the archangel.
"ARSÉNE!" cried the Trickster as his Persona roars to life. He pulls his gun out from his coat and shoots: "ONE SHOT!".
His arm is covered in dark energy and with one pull of the trigger, the Trickster fires a single shot from his gun that sounded like he fired a full-powered caliber rifle. The large dark bullet rips through the archangel like it was made of paper, a giant hole in its torso as the ammunition pierces the wall behind it. The commander of this small army clutched its chest before it faded away into oblivion. Ren turns back to the remaining knights with his gun raised, only for his body to shake and suddenly the weight of his gun was too much for him. He drops his firearm and falls to his knees, hacking and utterly spent.
"Q-Quickly! Kill him now!" the knight shouted. With gritted teeth and a burning glare, Ren faces down the knights as they all rush him.
A song of steel rings throughout the whole cathedral and then the knights all fall to the ground like a group of puppets losing their strings. As they fade away, to his relief, he sees Sora and Kairi standing with weapons out and Personas just returning to where they came from. Quickly Kairi rushes to Ryuji's group while Sora goes to Ren and helps him to his feet, throwing an arm around his shoulders.
"What…took you two so long?" Ren says with strain in his voice and exhaustion clear in his tone. He can barely raise his face to Sora's worried look, his body feels so heavy and weary it feels as if he had gained a hundred pounds yet barely feels any strength in his limbs. Sora adjusts him and carries him to the others, saying: "We just managed to get here after Nightmare took Reaper and the others". Ren grunts out a "what" and Sora replied: "Reaper and the others fought something earlier before we should up. They were barely alive".
"Damn it…so that's two teams down now…and Nightmare's still with them, right?" Ren asks. Sora nodded as they stand near the others, Kairi handing Ann medicine while Morgana uses some of his Persona's energy to heal Ryuji. "Sorry about only having just the droplets of the medicine," Kairi apologizes, "Tzu and Tigress were in a rough shape". Morgana laments that Ryuji and Lady Ann were not exactly in pristine condition, and one look to Ren only worried him deeper. "Joker, you look horrible".
"Thanks…want me to lie down so you can kick me some more?" Ren asked with a little bit of spite in his tone. Morgana frowned at his sass as he and Sora sat down, the leader groaning in pain. Morgana sighed and revealed he wasn't just running on fumes of his Persona's energy, but he had taken way more hits than he was showing. Kairi frowned and compared him to Ann and Ryuji, but Morgana explains that Personas can give you another option to get their help instead of energy, mana essentially to the guardians.
"Those tricks you used didn't require energy like all the others, but in exchange, you take some knockback from it. Kinda like detonating a bomb as a closer range," he says, "And judging by you? I think the best way to compare it is you sat on the bomb!".
"Oh…that explains it…" Ren groaned. He shook his head and relayed the information Sora told him to the others, which made Morgana groan. "And the treasure is SOOO close now…". Kairi bites her inner cheek, and then says: "Well what about you, Mona? Are you in any shape to keep going?". The cat assured her apart from some bruises and a bit of exhaustion from healing Ryuji, he was able for more. "Then Joker can take Skull and Panther to the safe room, and meet up with Nightmare and the others while we go find that treasure," Kairi decides.
"Huh? How's the saferoom going to help?" Ann asked.
"Scarlet had an idea about the saferooms, and we found a way to transport to each one we found," Sora explains, going into detail about visualizing the room outside the saferoom of their location. The example he gave was going from the dungeon saferoom to the one before they met Ann, how after their exploration they tried this out and found themselves exactly where they wanted to be. "So…if we just think about the first-floor saferoom, we'll transport there and rendezvous with Nightmare…" Ren hummed, "Heh…not…a bad idea…".
"Yeah, and sooner we find the treasure the better," Morgana comments, "Then if King and Scarlet are willing to keep going, then I'll guide them".
The two named thieves nodded in agreement as Ann helps Ryuji to his feet and Ren stubbornly stands up, placing two fingers to his earpiece. "Nightmare, Joker here…we're on our back, where are you?" he asked.
"I'm at the drawbridge with Reaper's team. Head saferoom on the ground floor and I'll meet you there," replied Riku. Ren agrees and bids his team a regretful "see you" before he and the other wounded members of the party stumble away. Kairi frowns with worry but Morgana assures the girl the others will be fine so long as Ren doesn't do anything stupid. This made the girl suggest they just watch them in case, considering what Ren did earlier and Sora even offered to bodyguard them until they were safe.
The trio resumes the exploration with Morgana in tow.
*Hours later*
With a smaller group and one of which was already on fumes, the trio of thieves reluctantly stuck to the shadows and only used their stealth kills as sparingly as they could, thanks to the number of guards patrolling the castle. They have slipped up a few times thanks to the castle's lack of hiding spots and the number of guards, forcing Kairi and Sora into battle more often than evading them, taking some hits, and using their limited reserves of power against either trash mobs or even some elite tough guards.
The higher they climbed the castle however the more distortions appeared. When they reach the near second last level of the castle tower, it looked like the entire place was trying to become the next Giant's Causeway. Dark energy surges around the entire floor and more heartless were prowling around like they entered the safari zone, making stealthy approaches even more difficult. They did find another skull like the ones the guardians had found a while back, Morgana explaining it was a Soul Seed, but promised he'd explain more about it later.
Further on, they came to a bridge where there were swinging guillotines swaying back and forth. Morgana deduced quickly they needed to just find the off switch and proceeded to explain that likely the guards, one of them must be carrying it. However his explanation was cut short when Sora picked him up and with Kairi, they just zoomed through the swinging axes without breaking a sweat and landed on the other side with ease.
And when Morgana nearly whined about the others getting through, Kairi smirked and just counted down from three to one and then several flashes of light beamed from the handles of the axes, and down they went into the darkness.
Finally, after their long journey, they reached the throne room. After climbing another long flight of stairs and Kairi complaining about the number of stairs this palace has, they came to a large door leading into the room. They all pressed their ears to the door and could faintly hear the king going on about noise and junk, affirming the gang he was here. "Much as I'd like to kick his butt here and now…not exactly liking our odds at the moment," Sora says with a huff.
"Yeah, sticking to the shadows looks like our best bet for now," Kairi agreed, then turned to the statue near her, "Let's use this…". The statue in question was more pillar-shaped like a woman's torso and thighs to their knees. Kairi groans in disgust, yet amused by the metaphor on Kamoshida's views on women being objects being presented to them like this.
"I'm still going to knock out his teeth when we fight him," she swears as the trio climb (and apologizes) the statue and finds themselves on the second level of the throne room.
They sneak their way closer to the back room, but Sora halts their march and gestures to the ground floor. There he sees Kamoshida near his throne addressing the knights within. "How have you NOT captured those intruders yet!?" he bellows. He gets a meek apology from one soldier but then goes on about how incompetent and useless his men were if they can't even catch a single thief yet while the three go forward.
"Imagine how stupid they'd feel if we just announced we were here?" Kairi whispered/giggles, "Bet you five-hundred-yen Kamoshida would wet himself".
"Much as I'd pay for that, we need to keep moving before he wises up and searches the throne room for us," Morgana says.
They reached the door and after quietly entering it, the thieves find themselves in another small room where before them is a large sturdy door. Kairi rubs her hand eagerly while Sora grinned excitedly. "Big sturdy door? Behind the king's throne? And with guards on the outside? What do all these things have to say for themselves?" she asked with a coy tone.
"Treasure is just ahead~" Sora chirped with a grin.
"And just to add the icing on the cake," Morgana says with a large cat-like grin. He pushes open the door, boasting: "A king so arrogant he doesn't even bother locking away his treasure".
The contents of the room earned the name treasure room, because before these rebels is a horde of golden coins with several treasure chests overflowing with riches. Barrels containing the finest wine, pots, and vases that would likely sell for thousands at an antique store. There was barely any ground not touched by gold, and by Kairi's roughest estimation of the number of riches here, she could BUY Shujin and still have enough to build a palace of her own. Yet floating above the horde of gold is a strange cloud orb with rainbows shimmering within the greyness.
Jumping on an overfilled vase of gold, Morgana braggingly laughed and confirmed to the two this floating grey thing was indeed the treasure they have been searching for. "Huh? This is Kamoshida's treasure? A cloudy…thingy?" Sora asked, gesturing the said thingy with disbelief. Kairi frowns while crossing her arms, admitting she was expecting something more lewd or disturbing than a cloud. Morgana rolls his massive eyes at their blindness to the real treasure. "I was planning on telling Joker this when we got this far, but there's more to finding the treasure and just taking it".
"See, just finding it is only the start of changing Kamoshida's heart. We have to make it materialize first before we can steal it," he explained.
"Materialize it? What do you mean?" Kairi asked.
"Desires don't have a physical form by nature. That's why we need to make the real person aware that their desires are a treasure," Morgana says, "Once they're conscious that their desires may be stolen, the REAL treasure will finally show itself".
"So what? Are you saying we gotta TELL Kamoshida we're gonna take his treasure? Won't that just make things worse?" Sora asks, lost. Then Kairi snapped her fingers. "No, no…I think I see where Mona is going with this,".
"If I'm right, we need to inform him but as thieves. Like say a calling card?". Sora tilts his head, confused but Morgana praised the girl for her foresight. "Exactly! We're gonna send him a card telling him "we're gonna take your heart", warn them essentially", Morgana says. "And that means his shadow form will be informed too since he knows us and thus, the treasure should appear…I think".
"Good to hear you're not even a hundred percent sure it'll work…" Sora sighed sarcastically, "But how knows, it's probably our best shot to change his heart after all". "Guess we've secured our infiltration route now, right?" Kairi asked. Morgana nodded and told them the next step is to put out their calling card.
And like wraiths in the night, the trio of thieves leave the castle as if they were never there. Their first heist was about to reach its end…
A/N:
We're in the end game of the Palace folks! I'm sure a lot of you are sick of Kamoshida so just a little longer and we're free of pervy mc no pants! Sorry for skipping the last portions of the castle.
Three things:
First regarding Kamoshida's past, I swear I read about him doing this before he became a couch but for the life of me I can't find anything regarding it. So whether I dreamed it up or it was on another site, hope you liked that little background.
Second, yes I am aware chapter 14 has no title chapter. Oops!
Third, regarding Neo TWEWY cast. I AM thinking of including them…thoughts?
QUESTIONS:
Q1: Thoughts?
Q2: The actual fights?
Q3: Reapers game?
Q4: Did you catch potential cameo?
Q5: Excited for next time?
Q6: The use of Personas?
As always everyone, thanks for reading! Stay awesome but more importantly stay safe!