The entrance to the Shibuya subway station was a mess. A ring of squad cars surrounded the station in a wide ring, with the officers doing their best to lay down suppressing fire on the Shadows pouring out of the underground. The asphalt and the surrounding buildings were cratered. Scattered fires and patches of ice lingered in the nearby shrubberies. Scents of ozone and smoke filled the air. And in the midst of it all, two costumed young women wreathed in blue fire, doing their best to stem the flow of supernatural monsters.
"Mafreila!"
"Mapsio!"
Queen and Noir cast their respective nuclear and psychic attacks, blasting another wave of weak shadows into oblivion. Noir was already starting to gasp for breath. "There's no end to them!"
"Then we should try to focus on slowing them down," Queen advised. She gunned her motorcycle-shaped persona and raced around in an arc, coming at the incoming shadows from the flank. Raising one hand, she cried, "Flash Bomb!" The resulting flash caused several shadows to stumble, and those behind them piled up behind them at the back. Noir, picking up on Queen's strategy, added, "Tentarafoo!" Now many of the shadows staggered as if drunk as the pulse of dark energy hit them, several even dropping their weapons or items. With the front line in thorough disarray and the next wave forcing the tunnel to clog with monsters, the two Phantom Thieves let them have it.
"Mapsiodyne!"
"Mafreidyne!"
Simultaneous explosions of psychic and nuclear energy annihilated almost the entire group. Only a few stragglers remained, most of whom were resistant to psychic or nuclear damage. One particularly large Orthrus was already picking itself up off the ground. "Triple down!" Noir ordered, and her Persona Lucy's massive skirt unfolded, revealing a series of massive, ethereal gatling guns. The spinning barrels opened fire, scattering bullets across the remaining shadows, splitting them apart where they lay.
The Orthrus was still alive, but the two girls could clearly tell it was on its last legs. The Shadow let out a howl of desperation and charged at Queen. Dispelling Agnes, who faded back into her mask, Queen raised her spiked gauntlets and prepared to face the monster head on.
"Persona!"
An unfamiliar sword-wielding Persona smashed into the monster head on, slashing it in two with a single monstrous strike. Queen turned. A singular policewoman was standing there, her body wreathed in tongues of azure fire.
"Detective Shirogane!?" one of the officers near her gasped. "H-how-?"
"Stand down, officer," the woman told him. "I'll explain later." She walked out into the ring, one hand still outstretched and maintaining her Persona.
"W-who are you?" Queen asked, failing to keep the surprise from her voice.
"Detective Naoto Shirogane, Special Investigations Unit," the woman answered, slashing her hand through the air. Her persona mimicked the action, slashing apart a pair of shadows that were still managing to stagger out of what remained of the station entrance.
"But, how do you have a Persona?" Noir demanded.
"An incident in the town of Yasoinaba about seven years ago," Naoto told them. "Long story. What do I call you?"
"I'm Queen. She's Noir," Queen replied.
"I assume you two are members of the acclaimed Phantom Thieves?"
"That's right," Noir happily confirmed, pulling out her grenade launcher and firing it into the tunnel.
"Pleased to meet you," the detective told them. She pulled out her revolver and reloaded it before flicking the cylinder back into place with a satisfying snap. "Now let's clean up this mess. Yamato Sumeragi!"
"Really puts things into perspective when we can run as fast as cars, right?" Skull was saying elatedly.
"Less talking, more moving!" Panther shouted back at him. The two Phantom Thieves were sprinting across the rooftops with ease while the police cars tailed them from below. Panther's motions were fluid and graceful, while Skull had the advantage in sheer velocity. The two Phantom Thieves and their trailing escorts were close to the station when they heard more cries and flashes of light.
"Over there!" Skull pointed. He looked at Panther. "You tell the cops. I'll go on ahead."
"Wait, Skull!" Panther tried to protest, but he was already gone. Panther cursed under her breath and vaulted down onto the street and began running alongside one of the squad cars, which pulled its window down when the driver noticed her.
"Something up?" the officer called to her.
"Another fight, just back that way," she reported, gesturing off to where Skull had run. "Skull's gone to check it out, I'm going to back him up."
"Roger that," the officer replied. She pulled out her radio and ordered, "Squad cars 23 and 24, with me. The rest of you continue to the station."
Meanwhile, Skull was standing on the edge of a building overlooking another costumed figure doing his best to fight off a group of shadows led by a large, horse-headed Orobas. Grinning, Skull vaulted off the roof, summoning William in a flash of blue. "Assault Dive!"
Skull landed the attack square on the skull of the unsuspecting shadow, smashing it headfirst into the ground before jackknifing to his feet. "Doing okay, gramps?" he casually asked the zweihander-wielding Persona-user.
Wolf gave a sigh. "I thought you guys were over calling me that."
Skull cast Mazionga at the Shadow horde before swaggering over to Wolf's side. "What are you doing here though? I thought you lived in Kyoto."
"Still do. I was just here for a meeting when all of a sudden this happened." Wolf gestured to the Shadows. He was very clearly irritated.
"I was in the middle of eatin', so I feel ya there," Skull replied. "Panther'll be along in a minute-"
He was interrupted by a blaze of fire cutting through the remaining shadows. Panther vaulted over to Skull and Wolf, three more squad cars moving in as well.
"Nice of you to drop in, gorgeous," Skull japed. Panther punched him in the shoulder. "Ow!"
"Don't you dare ditch me like that again!"
"Okay, okay! Sorry, geez."
The Orobas finally picked itself up with a terrible roar. A massive arm swung like a baseball bat, casting a massive fireball their way. The officers behind them shrieked and cowered, but Panther only rolled her eyes and held out one hand. Only inches away from her hand the fireball burst apart as though it had slammed into an invisible barrier. The resulting tongues of fire danced around Panther for a few seconds before fizzling out.
"MY turn!"
Lashing her whip, Panther slashed the crimson coils through the air, beating back the remaining lesser shadows before catching the Orobas around the neck and yanking it out into the open. "Megido!" came a cry from Wolf, unleashing his Persona, Valjean. The burst of non-elemental magic annihilated the last of the lesser Shadows.
"You with me Skull?" Panther called to him.
"You bet!" he answered back.
"All-Out Attack!"
Then the two Phantom Thieves were a blur of bodies and weapons, attacking the Orobas again and again before finally landing back to back and posing to Wolf and the officers as the Shadow behind them burst into darkness.
"Woooo!" Skull whooped. "The Phantom Thieves are back in action!"
"Gloat later! We need to get moving!" Panther scolded.
"Do you two have any idea what's going on?" Wolf demanded.
"Not a clue," Panther replied. "The Shadows just showed up suddenly after the earthquake, and I was suddenly able to use my Phantom Thief powers. Most of the Shadows seem to be coming from the Shibuya underground, so we should head there before Queen and Noir run out of stamina."
One of the officers approached the three of them nervously. "U-um, Inspector Hasegawa, sir?"
"It's Wolf," the older Phantom Thief told him, shouldering his zweihander. "At least while I'm in this getup."
"V-very well, Wolf sir," the man stuttered. "Are these two really the Phantom Thieves? And how…?"
"How are we able to use magic and other supernatural powers?" Wolf finished. "We've all awakened to something called a Persona, though I have no clue how it all works."
"But yeah, we're Phantom Thieves," Skull bragged. "I'm Skull and that's Panther. Now we've got a lot of Shadows to clean up, so let's get moving."
Wolf dispelled his Phantom Thief attire, returning to his suit and slacks in a flash of blue fire. "Agreed. Prepare to move out. We have to move before the city's overrun with these things, and only Persona-users stand a chance against anything much stronger than a jack-o-lantern."
Another police car suddenly roared up to them from the direction of the Shibuya station. A young, gray-haired man in a police chief's uniform burst out of the car.
"Police Chief Sanada!" Zenkichi blurted, clearly surprised.
"Inspector Hasegawa," he nodded to the older man. He turned to Skull and Panther. "I assume you two are members of the Phantom Thieves?"
"Yeah. Not going to try to arrest us are you?" Skull demanded.
"Skull! Don't provoke him!" Panther chastised him.
"On the contrary," Sanada told them. "I need your help. The government has issued a state of emergency. The order's been sent to call in the armed forces. If we don't get the city under control and fast, the entirety of Tokyo could end up becoming a war zone. After I heard about the Phantom Thieves running around again, I bet on your group being Persona-users and came running myself."
"Waitwaitwait," Skull interrupted. "You know about Personas!?"
Sanada confirmed, "I've had my Persona for the last decade. But we don't have time for this. Most of the other members of my old team are scattered or dead, and the Phantom Thieves are the only ones I can turn to."
"Well, we were already planning to group up around Shibuya Station, and that's where the Shadows seem to be coming from," Panther said dryly.
Sanada blinked at the implication. "Oh, am I holding you up? Sorry, sorry. Let's get going." The police chief dashed back to his car.
"Didn't see that comin'," Skull remarked. "Ah, well." He and Panther moved to take off after Sanada's retreating car.
"Wait, you're planning to run there?" Zenkichi objected.
"We're faster as Phantom Thieves, remember?" Skull called back. "Try to keep up, old man!"
"I'm not that old!" Zenkichi yelled at them before sprinting for the nearest squad car.
Upon reaching a quiet corner, Oracle only had to blink before she was standing in her Phantom Thief gear. Her night vision goggles vanished as the triangular shape of Al-Azif appeared over her head and beamed her up into its interior. Performing a quick scan, Oracle quickly determined that the Shadows were mostly still confined to Shibuya, with two powerful signals she recognized as Queen and Noir and a third she didn't recognize wiping them out in droves as they tried to break out of the subway.
East of them, Oracle caught four more signals moving fast in the direction of the station. Again, she didn't recognize one of them, but two were clearly Panther and Skull, and while the fourth was muted, indicating he wasn't in his Phantom Thief attire at the time, it was clearly the old man from last year's incident, Zenkichi. A fifth signal was holding out on its own on the other side of the station from them, and Oracle barely recognized Violet due to the distance. Fox was closest to Oracle; he was just on the edge of the park, about a mile from the station. So naturally, she tracked him down first.
Fox was clearly panting with exhaustion when she tracked him down. Working quickly, she directed her Persona to re-energize him with an Active Support buff. Fox felt his exhaustion wane and looked up at Al-Azif. "Much thanks, Oracle!"
"Give 'em hell, Inari!" she said teasingly as a new wave of lesser shadows began to close in.
"Hmph. Small fries." Fox flashed across the intervening space almost faster than she could blink, slashing each shadow apart with incredible swiftness and grace. Two seconds later, Fox had sheathed his katana, and the entire horde dissolved into puddles of black.
Fox looked up at Oracle's Persona. "Panther got in touch with me earlier. The Shadows seem to be centered around Shibuya station."
"I know," Oracle reported. "Queen and Noir are already there, and Skull, Panther, and somehow Wolf are also headed in that direction, but I'm also catching a couple other Persona-users I've never seen before."
"Roger that," Fox stated before sprinting off, and Oracle followed overhead. "Any sign of Violet, Mona, or our leader?"
"Violet's west of the station. She seems to be holding her own. No sign of Joker or Mona yet though. Either way, we'd better hurry. I'm picking up a particularly strong Shadow still underground. I can't get a clear reading, but I bet it's the first boss!"
By the time Fox reached the entrance to the Shibuya underground, most of the remaining shadows had been taken care of. Queen and Noir had clearly moved to supportive roles, Queen healing and Noir focusing on countering the Shadows' attacks with a well-timed Tetrakarn or Makarakarn while Skull, Panther, and Wolf continued to hold off the outpouring Shadows alongside the two new Persona-users neither Fox nor Oracle recognized. Fox leapt down into the fray, cutting apart several Shadows before unleashing his Persona.
"Gorokichi!"
A wave of ice sprayed out from his Persona's outstretched arm, encasing several shadows in ice and blocking the entrance to the Shibuya underground. Fox sheathed his katana and his mask reappeared on his face.
"Fox!" Noir greeted him eagerly.
"Apologies for my tardiness," Fox addressed the group. "That won't hold them for long."
"Then we should take this time to refresh," Queen urged.
A high-pitched voice blared from above as Al-Azif flew into range. "Nobody fear, Oracle is here!" An emerald light flashed from the bottom of the UFO-shaped Persona, and everyone felt their energy recharging. Taking the opportunity, the other Phantom Thieves began to cast spells of their own.
"Matarukaja!" Skull canted, and everyone felt their strength increase.
"Dekaja!" Panther directed at the shadows beyond the ice, washing away any magical buffs on the shadows within.
"Masukukaja!" Fox toned, and everyone felt their agility increase.
"Marakukaja!" Queen chanted, and everyone felt their defense increase.
Then the shadows broke the ice and the air was filled with battle cries.
In twenty seconds, all the shadows were dead and the tunnel was empty. Panther and Fox were bent over with exhaustion, but Skull was still raring to go.
"Hell yeah!" he whooped. "Now that's what I'm talkin' about!"
"Watch out, you guys!" Oracle's voice came from above. "The boss is coming! Wait-what is-!?"
BOOOOOMMM!
A single shadow in the shape of a golden woman astride a red horse was blown out of the tunnel and collapsed at the feet of the Persona-users outside. The Valkyrie was already dissolving, and a second later, it had vanished in a splatter of jet black. Footsteps echoed down the tunnel as the group waited for whoever had defeated that monster to come out.
Red gloves. Silver knife. White mask. And a long black coat.
Joker, leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, stepped out into the morning light of Shibuya, and after looking around at his teammates and all the police officers gathered there, he asked,
"Am I late to the party?"