He pretends to think about it, trying to make the moment feel suspenseful. Crow held his hand to his face as he tilts his head, seemingly to be pondering in thought before smiling widely and flat out saying "No".

Joker frowned at hearing the reply.

Crow felt so proud that he got one over Joker.

"Hmm, well let's do trial run first then with Ca Ong since you're planning on taking it down anyways," he suggested.

"You don't like taking no for an answer do you?"

"Don't be such a grumpy wart!" He avoids answering the question.

'G-grumpy what?!' He was outrage. Was this guy trying to recruit him or piss him off because he's doing a wonderful job with the latter!

"Yup, you got to be adventurous, try new things, be with new people." He winks at the last sentence.

"If you don't say yes, I'll just keep stalking you and bugging you about it~"

"So you do admit that it's called stalking!" Crow barked out.

"I'm just speaking in your language." He said as he shrug his shoulders.

"It's what everyone agrees on the definition of stalking!"

Did he get transported into an alternative reality? Did the term get changed without him knowing? Akechi knows that there were people who idealize creepy obsessive behavior nowadays with the recent books and movies, Dusk, Different Shades of Grey, and Phantom of the Musical, but this was ridiculous. He doesn't want anyone following him, looking into every little action that he does. He works with Shido, if someone was going to track his movements, they might notice something odd eventually. While he made sure to erased any potential evidence linking him to any suspicious activity, aka the psychotic shutdowns, it would be strange to see that the person he followed around eventually goes psychotic a few days later. Not to mention, he has to summon Loki to cast the spell. It would be hard not to notice the tall big Persona near him...

Akechi mentally cringed, he isn't completely sure if Joker would be the stalker type or not, but he doesn't need to deal with that shit on top of his other stuff.

And why were they arguing about this anyway? It was kind of sad how easily Akechi gets riled up around this guy.

Akechi closed his eyes as he sighed. "Fine, we can...try it."

Joker laughed, sounding pleased.

Crow still found him intolerable, but he couldn't help but to feel a wave of happiness on the inside as he closed his eyes to concentrate on the sound.

' He really does sound like Quatre.'

Quatre usually looks serious, but always puts on a smile when he talks about his family. Crow has never heard him laugh or chuckle before.

' So this is what he would sound like if he laughed.' He thought as he smiled unconsciously.

Crow felt something grabbed his hand and immediately tried to jerk his hand back as he opened his eyes.

He saw Joker tugging on his hand. ' Oh hell no am I letting him kiss me again!'

"Why are you holding my hand?" he asked as nicely as he could as he tried to pull away.

"To give you a handshake silly, we're going to be in an alliance. We got to shake on it."

"...oh." Crow stopped resisting and let his hand hang limp from Joker's grip. Crow felt kind of bad that he always assume the worst of Joker. This might have been the third time where he accuse of Joker being more perverse than he actually was.

"It's only temporary!" He countered.

"Ha ha. It'll be fun working alongside with you Crow." Joker said as Crow enclosed his fingers around Joker's hand and they properly shook.

"Yes...I'll be looking forward to working with you…" He said professionally.

As Joker grinned, all Crow could think about was, ' what did I get myself into?' as he weakly smiled back in reply.

Bounty hunters receive an interesting item when they first register to become one. The bounty hunter bracelet. Physically it looks more like a smartwatch. The straps were made of leather and the watch was made from some kind of metal. It was able to take pictures and record.

The recording application was necessary since after a Shadow is defeated, the body disappears so people are unable to show physical proof that they defeated it. This is one of the reasons why people like putting together a crew when facing strong enemies, someone could be focus on recording the battle while everyone could focus on attacking or defending one another.

Not everyone has phones, Japan was the first to develop that technology and only a few islands have caught on to how useful it was. The only problem is that they only started putting electric lines in the major cities so the signal is pretty bad elsewhere making it not an appealing item to have for adventurers. And the bracelet is free, so why not.

Crow now took the time to take pictures with his bracelet. Joker offered to give him his kills too, which he glared in response. He doesn't need anyone's charity. He replied Joker could take that offer and shove it up his ass, but in a nicer way of course. He doesn't hate the guy; he just feels a strong amount of annoyance towards him.

He looked at the Guard-X, thinking on how to split that reward. He suggested for both of them to take a picture and tell Siero that two people took it down. Crow didn't do all the work by himself and it didn't feel right to claim it as his own.

Joker nodded as he held his bracelet up.

Crow wanted to explore the whole place. He wanted to be certain that the whole area was cleared of guards so he told Joker that they need to hit all three floors. Joker agreed and Crow led the way around the place.

They hid behind corners, listening for any kind of noise, and peek their heads out when they didn't hear anything.

He felt ...somewhat like a thief. He didn't want to tell Joker that though.

In one of the rooms, there were half assembled weapons on the benches and Crow spotted an interesting gun in the middle of it all. It was already put together. He picked it up and scanned it. It doesn't seem to have a magazine. How would he be able to put in cartridges? He doesn't see anywhere that he could put bullets in individually either. Hmm, what a mystery. There is no way the Empire would develop a weapon that doesn't work. Perhaps...it uses magic?

Crow aimed at the wall and charged it up with his magic, the top part of it glowed, and he then pressed the trigger and a thin white light exit the barrel and pierced the wall.

Woah.

That was amazing! This was a real life ray gun!

He was a fan of Celestial Wars and to see a weapon being replicated in real life blew his mind. Crow was always proud that he was able to use light magic, when he infused his magic into his sword, it looked just like he was using a lightsaber.

Crow might have been fanboying over his new weapon, but only just a little, as he snapped out of it when he heard a chuckle.

"...what?" he said childishly as he held the gun closer to him. He wasn't going to let Joker have it.

"You were just talking to yourself about the gun. It was cute."

Crow flushed hotly as he mentally cursed, he thought he had gotten rid of that habit! His excitement must have made him unconsciously revert back to it again. This is so embarrassing! Not only did he do it in front of someone, but to a practical stranger!

"Don't tell anyone."

"Don't worry, it can be our little secret. " There's that wink again.

' Why does he have to make it sound dirty?' He mentally groaned.

"Fine. Let's just check the rest of the rooms before we leave this place."

They continued on their journey of exploring the rest of the area. There was nothing else worth noting in the other rooms and they didn't find anymore guards. He guess all of them heard the siren when the first one was defeated and ran towards them.

As Crow left the building with Joker, he noticed that the sun has already set.

"Now the real mission starts!" Joker declared as Crow sighed in response.

They looked around to see where Ca Ong was and finally spotted it a few miles away from them.

"Okay. Let's just attack and see what it can do, I doubt we can defeat it that easily so we should retreat after we get the general idea of how it attacks and then plan our real battle." Crow sighed. He knows that he was the one who suggested this plan, but that means he has to stay afterwards and talk to Joker about their next attack. Talking to Joker... it's going to be great.

"Sounds like a plan, but first Arahabaki!"

"?!" Akechi was not prepared for that. Joker was facing him as his mask disappeared, revealing his face and he was exactly who Crow suspected.

' Is he an idiot?! Now I know who he is and can easily capture him when we go back to Tokyo." Crow can't tell if he's cocky or just a plain idiot.

"Makarakarn!" A thin transparent shield appeared in front of Crow and quickly faded just as quickly. He casted it once more for himself. Crow wanted to grimace, this guy was unexpectedly nice. He was willing to show his identity just to help Crow, an enemy at the end of the day.

'Idiot.' Crow mentally categorized.

"Just in case, we don't want to be caught unaware. This shield only repels one magic attack though so be careful." Joker warns as he fixes his gloves.

"Thanks, let's split up and attack it from different sides. We can meet back here."

He gave a nod and they parted, running through the trees to get into a good location to attack.

Crow stopped after a few minutes of running. He climbed a tree to get himself in a better spot to use his magic against Ca Ong. Hmm, now that he thought about it, they didn't go over what kind of signal they should give to show that they finished preparing and that they were going to start attacking. Woops. Usually Crow does a better job on planning all the minor details, but today, he just wanted to hurry and get out of Joker's presence.

He felt kind of giddy about using his new weapon, he held his ray gun and charged it before shooting it straight up into the sky.

' He should be able to see that. Looks like I'll be the one attacking it first.'

"Robin Hood! Kouga!" His Persona shot an arrow of light towards Ca Ong. Now doesn't this feel like deja vu?

He didn't wait for any response before calling out "Debilitate". As the second arrow landed on the Shadow, it exploded into a shower of light, casting its spell. This spell was unique, either all three debuffs: attack, defense, and agility down can land or they all miss. Usually when a multiple debuff spell is used, one can still land while the rest can miss. So this spell was a high risk, high reward.

Crow was able to tell that the spell landed because the tiny sparkles of light remained on the Shadow's body.

' Nice!'

It looked at him and a small wave of water appeared in front of the creature and headed straight towards him.

Crow jumped off the tree and took off towards a different one. While he does have a shield against magic attacks thanks to Joker, he doesn't want to waste it if he was able to easily dodge the attack. While the water missed him, he felt his magic being sealed.

' ?! Even though it missed, the aura of the attack still managed to debuff me? This Shadow really is something…'

This means that Robin Hood can only use physical attacks, which the Shadow is too far for any of those attacks to be used, and the ray gun is now temporarily useless. Thank goodness he brought his normal gun.

He replaced his gun with the ray gun from his holster and prepared to shoot the Shadow. Crow used the rest of the bullets from the cartridge before removing it from the gun. Hmm, he should use his Vohu Manah point bullets since he was unable to use it earlier.

As he loaded his gun with the cartridge, he noticed that Ca Ong stopped paying attention to him and was concentrating its attacks on a different area of the forest.

'Looks like Joker's keeping it distracted.' Crow thought as he took aim.

He unloaded a few bullets into the Shadow's head, trying to assess the damage. He was surprised by how beneficial using the element the enemy was weak against actually was. The Vohu Manah bullets did twice the damage compared to his normal ones. If he only had room to carry them all, he would purchase all four of the main elements bullets.

Ca Ong let out a loud roar before diving into the ocean and usings its powerful tail to splash the whole forest.

Crow's eyes widened. It looked like a huge tsunami was coming towards him. Luckily he was already on high ground so it didn't hit him, but he felt kind of bad for the wildlife that was living there. Their fight was destroying the homes. He mentally apologize as he waited for the Shadow to re-appear from the ocean. He doubt that it would chose to retreat so easily.

And Crow was right. As it rose above the ocean again, he noticed that his debuff was gone and a layer of water was surrounding the creature. Crow grimaced, ' was that another type of attack, a barrier, or both?'

As felt his magic returning to him, he let out a grin.

Well he could always just debuff it again he thought as he summon Robin Hood to cast Debilitate. The arrow hit its mark as it went through the barrier and collided with the creature. Crow think it was effective...it was kind of hard to tell with the water barrier disorienting his vision.

He casted Kouga on the enemy, but the barrier surrounding the creature lessened the damage.

' Shit is it trying to make me waste my magic? I'm so thankful I bought a few elixirs with me, but I'm not sure if I want to use it for a trial run...whatever, when I turn in my bounty, I will have enough to buy more.'

"Eiga!" His control over dark magic is weaker compared to light. It won't make as much damage and costs the same as using Kouga, but at least dark magic blends better with its surroundings at night time, giving him a better easier time hiding from the Shadow. Well, as long as he hid underneath the thick branches of leaves of the trees. Crow downed one elixir before he went back to his original task, making Ca Ong take down that barrier!

He casted one after another until finally Ca Ong let out a long wail as it flew over the forest and let down its barrier. The water changed into small droplets of blue light and it fluttered down all over the forest. It reminded him of snow with how pretty each droplets look.

As the magic washed over him, his shield disappeared, absorbing the damage he would've normally taken by the attack. He mentally thanked Joker for his quick thinking even though he didn't like the guy. His shield managed to help him out once again.

As the whale glide through the skies, Akechi looked closely at the creature at how much damage they conflicted with their attacks. It looked slower than normal, the creature had bad burnt marks and bullet wounds. They might actually be able to down it if they wanted to, but Akechi is already tired due to fighting from earlier that day and he didn't want to accidentally destroy it and not be able to record the final hit. How could he proved that he was the one who took it down if he had no proof?

He felt like his magic was running low after casting so many spells, he rather avoid using any more elixirs now since he felt like he's got enough information to plan a good strategy to take down the Shadow now. Now, they just have to retreat.

Crow switched his normal gun to his ray gun again, charged it and shoot a great distance away from the Shadow, hoping to catch Joker's attention.

He saw from the corner of his eye, a dirty looking smoke quickly rushing towards the Shadow and enveloping the Shadow. It looked pretty gross now that he was standing farther away from the spell.

Then the Shadow stopped attacking and drifted slowly in the air.

' Guess Joker managed to cast sleep on it again.'

He quickly fled the scene after he confirmed that the Shadow won't be moving any time soon.

' I wonder if Joker's Stagnant Air is that effective, if his innate success rate with debuffs that high, or he's just lucky two days in a row.' Crow wondered as he ran towards safety. It was disturbing how similar he was to Quatre. They both use daggers, have an easy time debuffing an enemy, quick on their feet, and have similar voices. Is that why he felt a bit at ease when fighting with him?

Crow panted heavily when they managed to successfully escape the Shadow. While he does try to keep himself in shape, he doesn't run often as part of his exercise and especially not long distances! He was annoyed that Joker barely looked phased by their escape as they met up again in front of the abandoned weapons site. He was tempted to smack him or something, just so it looked like he was suffering alongside Crow too.

"So did you find anything interesting when fighting the Shadow?" Joker asked as Crow's breathing went back to normal.

"Yes, this battle was very insightful. It's magic attacks can also debuff the enemy, seal their magic, so we have to carry specific items. The shield it casts reduces a significant amount of damage from all types of attacks. Do you have a spell that can dispel the enemy's buffs?"

"Yeah, it seems that that barrier can't be dispelled."

"Hmm, it can't be dispel and doesn't seem to be time based either. My bet is that casting and maintaining that shield prevents it from attacking so it doesn't want to hold it up for a long time..."

Crow continued talking about his observations to Joker, making Joker feel awed at the amount of details his partner managed to find as they fought. He would make a great addition to the Phantom Thieves...if only he would accept.

'Eventually.' He vows.

Joker really feels like he would be able to get along well with the other guys (and girl), but he would still be satisfied if they only hunted bounties together too. He is interested in knowing more about Crow. How did he get his Persona? Was there also a corrupt adult in his life that made him feel frustrated with his life situation? That made him want to rebel? Was he still struggling? Is that why he became a detective? There were many questions that Joker wanted to ask, but knew Crow wouldn't want to answer because he seems to be a private person. Well, he has time and patience to break down those walls.

"-unfortunately we don't have anything that can cause paralysis on the enemy, I might need to invest in bullets that can either blind or charm it...are you even listening Joker?" His eyes narrowed at him.

Joker might have not have been paying full attention to Crow. Heh heh. Woops.

"So you just need paralysis? I know a guy who can help." Joker said casually.

"! You do?! You're not lying right?" Crow's face was suddenly so close to him. Well, as close as he could be without his mask piercing Joker's face.

"Yup, so we just need to formulate a plan so we can take the Shadow down."

"Do you know how long the paralysis lasts for?"

"30 seconds give or take."

Crow backs up and put his hand on his chin as he thinks. Joker kind of missed when they were standing near each other. Seeing Crow's passionate eyes up close made him feel excited too.

"The best time to paralyze Ca Ong would be...after it gets rid of its annoying shield."

"Why not at the beginning?"

"We don't know if this Shadow can get immune overtime to the spell, so it's better not to risk it. I also don't think it can re-cast that ridiculous shield that quickly after it dispels it. The best time to cast the spell and take advantage of its defenselessness is after it releases the shield. We can use physical attacks too since it will fly over the forest to release its shield so we can save our magic for a while. Even if it manages to get out of the paralysis spell, we can still attack it with our full power without worrying about it's shield for awhile. It's better if you cast your Stagnant Air too, just so your friend has an easier time paralysing it. I could cast Debilitate also to bring down its defense so we can take it down faster. How fast can your friend come here?"

' In a few minutes.' Joker didn't tell him that though. He wanted to keep Crow all to himself for tonight. He feels like Crow might try to put on his public persona if he was surrounded by a lot of unknown people. He doesn't want that. While his teasing might be a little too much, Joker likes seeing Crow's hot-temper, something he knows for sure Crow wouldn't want to show in public. He wonders how many people has gotten the privilege to see more than the detective prince persona he displays in public.

"I'll bring a few people here tomorrow night. One person can be recording the battle, that way we can attack freely without worrying about recording the last attack."

Crow hid his grimace. While he didn't want other people to see his Persona and associate it with Akechi Goro, however, what Joker said does make sense...actually, he didn't know if Joker told the other Phantom Thieves about his identity already. Why would he bother worrying about it if Joker already revealed his identity? If he did, then he would just beat the shit out of him after their battle with Ca Ong. He would wait until his teammates leave so he could kick his ass privately.

"You didn't tell anyone about my identity did you?" he said accusingly at Joker.

"Nope, I was waiting for you to tell them yourself when you join us."

"I'm not going to join you!"

"Yet." He piped in.

"It's not happening."

Joker's eyebrow raised as he smirks at him.

Crow just threw his arms in the air as he walked away, deeming this conversation over. "Okay, conversation is done. I'll see you tomorrow at 7 o'clock in the evening."

"Hey, I need your contact information before you leave."

"No." He said stubbornly. Crow knows that it was a childish response, but he just wants to get away from Joker before he blow a fuse and attacks him for being so ANNOYING!

"Ha ha well I need it just in case I'm running late or something unexpected happens."

Crow growled. Why does Joker's points on the serious matters have to be very logical! He want to respond no again, but doesn't want to seem immature. He thinks about it for a moment before deciding that, no, he wants to be that jerk.

"Well I guess that just shows how punctual you are." He sneers. "See you tomorrow."

"Aww, see you later! Sweet dreams my prince!" Joker yelled.

He shivered in disgust. He can't wait for this to be over.

Author's Notes:

I had to fight Ca Ong just to remember how it's attacks look like and omg it was painful. It was only me and someone else attacking, one person paralyze and left and we had 3 leechers… We succeeded, but it took 15 minutes. I change how certain moves work and when because it flowed better this way.

Joker was fighting the whole time the battle happened, he was far though so Crow wasn't really concentrating on him.