The Masks Shatters

Chapter Serious

"Humanity can be ever so boring... Why don't we take a glimpse into an alternate reality...?"

Editor's Note

Hi... Ummm... So... PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU READ THE TRAINWRECK AHEAD!

The past month was dedicated two things: This chapter, which is to be released on midnight exactly of April Fools day, and getting ready for an audio drama reading of the story.

Yeah. That means what it means. This is an April Fools chapter. Written by the normal editor, Frozen Foe. Nope. NOT ME, COCONUT OF DOOM, the NORMAL author. Him. He wrote this, and I edited it instead. Decided to switch it up this time. Nothing in this chapter is canon. Nothing in this chapter reflects what's going to happen later in the story. We didn't even use codenames or describe outfits because we wanna keep it a secret what is gonna become of canon Arthur.

The second part? I'll elaborate in the post-note.

Without further adie... Fuck it, just... Forgive me for allowing this to happen...

My inbox is also available for flaming if need be. I'll completely understand.

It was a warm day in Tokyo, Japan. The type of day that wasn't worth mentioning was hot but was hot enough to not wear layered clothing of any kind. You know the kind. Arthur was making his way to Leblanc, the Phantom Thieves Official Hideout. Though despite the supposed secrecy of the group and that the Phantom Thieves strived for anonymity, it didn't stop Ryuji from accidentally posting about the Phantom Thieves meeting 7 times this month. If Futaba chose not to hack into his several social media accounts and delete the GPS location on the posts, they would have been arrested weeks ago.

Arthur checked his phone while he walked to the Leblanc Café after leaving the station. It wouldn't take more than 10 minutes tops to walk to the café at this pace, sure Arthur was 20 minutes late but he liked to arrive late since he was super cool like that. Scrolling through his notifications he needed to make sure he was up to date on everything, aside from the 20 messages he "accidentally ignored" from Haru. No, he didn't want to hang out at the movies with her, maybe if she asked when he wasn't asleep at midnight he would be more interested. Regardless, he proceeded to mark all of her messages as "read" when he heard someone calling for his attention behind him.

"Heya Arthur!" A voice he quickly realized called out to him. He turned around and noticed those wavy blond pigtails that stood out anywhere you could go.

"Oh, evening Ann, showing up late to the meeting, too?" Arthur smiled.

Ann giggled and put her index finger on her cheek in an attempt to play off her lateness.

"Yeah, I had a shoot today and had to stay a bit longer than I should have, they gave me a coupon for a buy-one-get-one free crepe at the store that was close by as an apology!"

"Stonks!" Arthur proclaimed, he was jealous, he never received a buy-one-get-one free coupon in his entire life….

"I know right?!" Ann pumped up her fists as she said it. It was great being a model sometimes. Both of the foreign teens stuck together the rest of the way, making small talk as they approached their destination. Soon enough the short walk was over as Arthur reached for the door and pulled it open to walk into the cafe. As soon as Arthur pulled the door open, a small swarm of rats pooled out of the door opening, startling Arthur, but causing Ann to mentally freak out!

"Aaaaahhh! R-Raaaats!"

She screamed as she jumped into the air, luckily, Arthur caught her and held her over the swarm below bridal style, she was completely shivering as the rats completely ignored the two teens while they flooded out of Leblanc and into the sewer gutters nearby. As soon as all the rats were out of sight, Sojiro swung the door open carrying a giant net as he frantically looked about.

"Who?! Wha-wha?!" He gasped, eyes wide as he searched for the little rodents. Upon noticing the two Americans, he held the net low and sighed deeply. "Geez, you guys couldn't have shut the door before you let them all out?"

Arthur slowly lowered Ann as she regained her footing on solid ground when she finally felt safe but not before Arthur could get a quick sniff of her hair as compensation for "protecting" her from the rodents.

"Aaah, Vanilla" Arthur thought to himself. "Totally worth it."

"Were sorry Boss…" Ann said as she bowed her head in shame.

"Y-yeah, we didn't know what was happening, we were in shock" Arthur said.

Sojiro sighed as he opened the door for the teens to enter, motioning for them to come in. The two obliged as they walked in. "It's alright, you didn't know, I'm just not gonna be able to sell my special curry for the rest of the day now that my secret ingredient is gone."

As Sojiro proclaimed out loud the sound of someone's fork dropping suddenly onto their plate followed by a fit of coughing as he rushed into the restroom. On his table was the curry Leblanc was most famous for if not its coffee.

"Hoo Boy, guess the secrets out." He let out his dad smile as he reached into his apron pockets, retrieving an inconspicuous, fully loaded glock. Looking over at the bathroom, he motioned with the pistol upstairs. "Go on ahead, everyone else is up there, including that delinquent… I got some business to take care of." He said while The Godfather theme began playing out of nowhere. Ann gulped while Arthur nodded. Quickly raising their hands, they slowly made their way through the store and upstairs all the while looking around the café to find out where the soundtrack was coming from, away from the impending crime scene. Luckily they weren't his victims. Not this time.

As they both walked upstairs they could hear the idle chatter of everyone else that had gathered here on time no doubt.

Yusuke was the first to notice their presence as he brought his head down from painting Makoto in a red bikini whilst holding a chainsaw for some goddamn reason. "Ah, you've finally arrived Arthur." He said in his usual nonchalant tone as he sat aside his brush. "Ann." He greeted the blonde. Upon hearing Yusuke, everyone else in the room turned their heads and smiled.

"Arthur!" They all said, excited that he finally made it, they didn't even seem the least bit upset that he arrived so late. Arthur waved as he made his way to the gang.

"Greetings everyone!" He raised his arm to say hello, Makoto quickly turned away to change back into her normal clothes as everyone else greeted him.

The sound of a sudden gunshot was heard from the ground floor. Immediately followed by the sound of a struggle and cursing along the lines of "Motherfuck!" and "Bitch!" and then a couple more gunshots. A sudden thud was heard and then silence.

"Looking cool Arthur." Morgana said as he leaped onto the table so he could be closer to Arthur. Ren, in the back of the room, glanced angrily at Morgana who didn't seem to notice his death stare. Ren looked like he wanted to say something but it looked as if he stopped himself from doing it. Everyone was officially here now. Their mission can officially begin.

"Alright, here's the plan today guys." Morgana began the meeting as the group had finally found their seats. All the girls wanted to sit next to Arthur but it was Wednesday so Futaba got her turn today, next week was Ann and the week after would be Haru. Makoto had her turn last week so she didn't even argue with the rest of the girls. Morgana continued the meeting, "Since Shido received his calling card yesterday, we're officially ready to steal his heart no later than tonight. But first we have to go through the basic Phantom Thieves traditions for good luck. So first we have our memorial service for our second best member, Akechi, at four-thirty PM, next we have tea time with the exotic biscuits Haru brought today, lastly, at six-fifteen We have show and tell today, and finally we enter Shidos Palace and have a boss fight which will probably take thirty-four minutes to beat or just ten if you play on Safe mode and use Messiah Picaro exclusively. Any questions?" The room was silent as everyone was ready for today. This was it, it was time to prove Arthur's, I mean…. Ren's innocence and save the whole country from Shido becoming the next President of the United States.

The memorial was over and done with fairly quickly, Ryuji couldn't stop himself from crying as the candles surrounding the eight foot tall Akechi statue were all lit and the Halo One theme music played on a ghetto-blaster by a foreigner that Makoto managed to hire for this special occasion. It was okay though, everyone else had cried at least once for these services, except for the foreigner, who just plays on his smartphone until it's over.

Arthur could have sworn he almost saw Ren shed a tear today, but he respected why he almost did.

After the tea and biscuits (which were delish BTW) the show and tell was to begin. Morgana went first showing his stolen "Get Smoked" hat he snatched from some crying kid at the arcade. Futaba showed off her collection of everyone's personal data and passwords for all their online accounts. Ryuji showed his brand new wheelchair the doctors told him he would need to use when he reached his 20's on the count of his not fully healed legs from the Kamoshida incident that would, in all honesty, never fucking heal and will be with him for the rest of his life….. For real….

It was blue with red flames painted on it. Totally cool. Ann showed a complete list of all the boys she shot down that confessed to her. It was in the triple digits. Yusuke showed off a selfie of himself biting into a sandwich which was made of only bread and ice cubes between the slices. He titled it "The Struggle Sandwich". Haru brought the certificate she bought with the company's funds showing that legally, she owned the Sun. Makoto showed off her high heels that concealed a knife at the tip that extended out when she clicked her heels twice. And Arthur brought his mental issues. It was no contest that he won in a landslide vote, since no one wanted to piss off the crazy person.

As everyone was cheering Arthur for winning the show and tell contest for the third week in a row, Ren sulked in the corner as he placed his Captain Badge he won from Big Bang Burger away in shame. The very same one that he earned with two blue-clad, otherworldly lolis.

After some chugging of his victory soda, the gang was fully prepared to take down Shido.

After passing through the café, witnessing Sojiro mopping up the floor from a bad spill of tomato juice (at least they hoped it was tomato juice) while covered in dirt and holding an entrencher, they made their way into the Palace to find their way into the end of the ship sailing through the water surrounded by buildings floating in the distance that honestly was hinted at way too fucking early and not a single person would fucking get it when playing through the first fucking time. (You fuckers at Atlus are godly). There was no need to talk, they knew what they were doing at this point. The air was filled with danger as they rushed into the building, passing through several of the people wearing masks. Most of them simply ignored their presence while some only gave a slight glance before going back to their dumbass conversations. They quickly made their way to the opened doors, as soon as they got close they heard someone call out to them.

"Halt, trespassers!"

The gang stopped in their tracks as they glanced behind them, three guards were there wearing SWAT outfits with rifles pointing at them. The one on the left side put his finger to his ear. "We found them, send reinforcements to the main lobby immediately." Almost as soon as he reported in, a flood of shadows emerged from the hallways trapping them from one side.

"Dammit, we've been caught." Morgana exclaimed as the Phantom Thieves readied their weapons in anticipation for battle. Arthur smirked and made a small laugh, surprising the group.

"They can't attack us, they're too scared." he says as he moves to the front of the group facing the shadows, there were at least 50 of them, but he didn't care.

"Grrr, how dare you insult our brilliant leader, Shido!" The SWAT shadow yelled as he rushed ahead of all the other shadows, catching even the other shadows off guard. He rushed at Arthur alone, dropping his weapon and drawing a combat knife. The SWAT guard made it halfway and arched himself to slice into Arthur. But Arthur only smiled in response as he raised his hand to the shadows.

"You fool, you activated my trap card!" he yelled as he pulled up his duel disk and flipped one of the facedown cards on it. Flipping it revealed the trap card "Mirror Force", the shadow suddenly halted, fearful of what was going to happen. "Mirror Force destroys all shadows on your side of the field when you attack!"

All the other shadows gasped and flinched in fear. It was over for them. In almost an instant, all the shadows surrounding them were destroyed in a mere few seconds, including the one that was close to attacking him. The group was in awe as they were amazed how cool Arthur was and not Ren. "Woah, for Real!?" Ryuji shouted as he saw the empty hall.

"Way to go Arthur!" Futaba said as everyone else was patting his back and giving him praise, even Ren had to admit it was pretty cool what he did. As the team celebrated their meagre shared experience points for 20 seconds, a smaller group of shadows made their way to the group.

"Hold it right there Phantom Thieves!" A shadow said, the group surrounding them was smaller but still a big group. "Now that you don't have a trap card anymore we can attack you for sure!" Another shadow from the group said. "You wont get past us!" A third one taunted the stout American who for some reason is a badass in this chapter. The gang readied their weapons again, this time for sure.

"Are you sure about that?" Arthur said as he pulled up his duel disk again, one of the facedown cards on it was on full display on the disk. The shadows stopped their trash talking and held still in place. "Lets go guys, we're safe as long as I have this, they won't follow us. Everyone was silent but nodded and made their way forward to Shido. As the gang rushed through the doors, and Arthur was the last to walk out, his hand ready to activate his facedown as the group closed the doors behind him. All the while the shadows dared not move an inch, they knew what would happen if they did. Yusuke and Makoto locked the doors behind them and sighed in safety as they put their backs to the door.

"Amazing job Arthur!" Ann said in relief, "You saved us with those Mirror Forces!" The team agreed as they knew they were safe.

"I'm glad it worked out, but to be honest…." Arthur said as he flipped his facedown card. It wasn't a mirror force but a pot of greed.

"For real?" Ryuji exclaimed.

"You were bluffing the whole time!?" Morgana shouted in amazement. Arthur scratched his head and gave a small smile.

"Yeah, I mean, I would have used it sooner but I still have no idea what this pot of greed card does…" Arthur slowly puts his duel disk away along with his deck. No Mirror Force would save them from Shido when they fight him. Something told Arthur Shido was the type of duelist who would use Mystical Space Typhoon before he declares attacks.

As the gang made their way through the rows of desks they found Shido in the center.

"I see you Phantom Thieves have finally arrived" Shido's back was facing them, he took a quiet peak over his shoulder to make sure they were actually there this time, (he had rehearsed their entrance and what he would say to them the night before).

Ren spoke up, "Your reign of terror is about to end Shido!" The bald man chuckled as he turned his body to face them properly. He fixed his glasses with one hand as he prepared his comeback.

"Fools! Do you really think that you can stop m-" Before Shido could finish his sentence. He was shot with an explosive round from Haru's gun. As the smoke from her gun barrel dissipated she smirked as she tilted her hat downward.

"Parry this you fucking casual".

As Shido rose up from the explosion, he coughed and dusted himself off as he pulled another pair of glasses from his suit and put them on as the last pair was ruined. "What the fuck you stupid bitch?" Shido yelled. "I was in the middle of talking! You know how goddamn rude that is?!" He angrily shouted at her. "I mean, fuck! I might be an asshole, but at least I have the common decency to let other people finish talking! Look at the blond asshole over there!" He pointed at Ryuji. "He blabbed and annoyed the fuck outta me while at one of my election speeches in Yongen-Jaya the other day, but I let him finish. Show some decency, you Dark Souls Two, Lucatiel-lookin bitch!"

Everyone was silent for a moment, quiet as the truth Uncle Shido spoke fell upon them.

Futaba shook her head at Haru. "Seriously Beauty Thief, that was uncalled for, he may be a maniacal power hungry dictator who killed countless numbers of people to get what he wants, but that doesn't mean he can't finish a sentence. Fair's fair." Haru looked around as the rest of the thieves looked at her disapprovingly.

"But, he killed Akechi..." Haru said with a tear rolling down her eye. Suddenly as they all remembered that Shido did in fact kill Akechi, they all pulled out their weapons and turned toward Shido in anger. No one harms the best Phantom Thief and gets away with it.

"Blah Blah Blah, I wanna take over the world, generic end game bad guy speech, and also I'm not really the final boss of the base game so fight me!" Shido rips off his expensive suit (he probably should have just taken it off instead of ripping it, suits are costly these days) and shows his pathetic weak body with scrawny arms and thin muscles. (What, did you expect a pencil pushing politician to be ripped or something? Okay crazy reader, whatever) Arthur steps in front of the group and rips of his mask to fight Shido.

"Come Goku!" As the blue flames from the mask rose off of his face, Goku wearing his usual orange training gei and ripped muscles appeared, he was ready to fight.

"Wait a minute, I recognize you now..." Shido suddenly announced out of nowhere as he stared down Arthur. "Last year, on that street with that woman in some shitty town, you interfered!" He accused the young man, causing a simple rise in his brows.

Arthur shook his head in disbelief. "Wait what? I wasn't even in Japan at the time…."

"Oh, well…" Shido stumbled, scratching his head trying to remember who was there last year (It was hard to remember people on the count of his Alzheimer's). Ren in the back of the team was furious. His hands were clenched and shaking, he couldn't believe Shido actually forgot HE was there, not Arthur.

He opened his mouth to speak: "It-"

"Ah, I remember now!" Shido grinned evilly as he pointed at Arthur. "Last week at Big Bang Burger, I saw you take the last ketchup packets from the lady at the front counter! I was behind you in line so I know it was you! You took all the ketchup and ruined my fries so I couldn't dip them in it!"

Arthur smiled, offering Shido a two-finger salute "Long time no see Shido, looks like you like those fries...salty" Arthur pointed a finger at the bald man. "Go Goku!" without needing anything else, Goku charged forward and raised his fist to punch the old guy. But as soon as Goku threw the punch, something blocked it from hitting its intended target.

Something evil….

Something unholy...

Everyone gasped as they witnessed exactly what opposed Goku.. Shido let out a loud belly laugh as he crossed his scrawny arms. "Fool, I have the most powerful stand, I mean persona of them all!" He gloated as the gang watched in terror. One hand caught Goku's fist of justice, and it was a terrifying sight. It was a woman wearing her short blond hair, a leopard print skirt with white pearls on the necklace.

Her expression was one of absolute bitchiness.

"Make them suffer, Karen!" Shido shouted in glee.

Karen opened her mouth and spoke the words "Let me see your manager!"

The blast from her shouting caused not only Goku to fly back, but the rest of the gang were caught in the sheer windfall of the demand..

Everyone tried to stand up but the shout was too strong. Yusuke managed to speak up first

"She's just too entitled.."

Ryuji spoke after. "For real…."

Makoto tried to get up but her feet gave out way too easily and she landed on her knees. "How can we stop Shido now? She said, truly scared of Karen. Arthur was quick to get up and stay on his feet, amazing everyone. "Don't worry, I know what I must do."

Arthur threw his glasses aside. He heard them crack on the floor which probably wasn't a smart move all things considered (glasses are costly these days). With an epic pose he takes off his mask and Goku appeared before him and starts to shine.

His Saiyan was enveloped completely into light as Arthur's persona evolved. Shido looked a little scared as he witnessed the transformation in progress. He began to shiver in fear (and because it was a bit colder than he expected it to be in this room.) "Come to me! Persona! Tres Leches!" the light exploded off of his persona revealing a floating slice of Tres Leches fitted with grapes, strawberries and a pineapple slice on top of the whipped cream.

"B-Big deal i still have my persona! Karen, attack!" With that demand, Karen once again opened her mouth

"Let me see your manager!"

The shockwave was more powerful than before to the point that Ryuji was flung out of the window, and far away from the boat. His last words echoed as he screamed. "Fooooooooooooorrrrrrrrreeeeeaaaaaalllllllll!"

Arthur shook a little but he didn't fall down because he was a badass. But the blast didn't seem to affect his persona at all. "Silly Shido, looks like you forgot, You can't yell at my persona! It's a literal dessert!"

Shido gasped, so did Karen. The one thing they couldn't yell at, because it was a delicious dessert. "Go! Tres Leches!" Arthur yelled.

The delicious cake lunged at Karen and Shido. Both of them screamed as it made its super powerful move.

30 minutes later after the fight. Everyone was at Leblanc eating slices of Tres Leches at the tables at the café. Everyone was celebrating, even Ren who ate his cake alone in the back as everyone was crowding around Arthur and his table.

"I can't believe we defeated Shido!" Ann said.

"Does this mean we're done being the Phantom Thieves now that we assassinated a soon to be minister?" Makoto asked.

"We'll wait it out and see what happens, but it's hard to prove we murdered anyone inside someone's mind don't you think?" She smiled as she nibbled on the fruit..

"Well in any case, I'm glad everything worked out, good job guys! We did amazing work today!" Morgana as a cat jumped onto the table

Yusuke pulled himself off his seat and raised his refilled cup of plain water! A toast to our best heist ever and the second best Phantom Thief next to Akechi!" Everyone else raised their drinks in happiness to join the toast.

Except Ren who officially gave up and left already to go to sleep early. No one would miss him anyway so he had no reason to enjoy the party. Everyone bumped their drinks together in celebration of how great Arthur was.

"Cheers!"

*click* *ddddwwwwwnnnnnnzzzzzz*

With a click of the remote and the powering down of the TV. Igor sat alone on his desk and looked at the blank screen he just shut off.

"Well….that was…...interesting I suppose…..not sure how any of that was even possible, even for someone with my immense knowledge of the

Unknown…"

As Igor rubbed his eyes from the developing headache he received from watching the stupidity he just witnessed. Ryuji walked over to Igor with a bit of nervousness in his voice.

"U-Ummm excuse me,...sir….Where am I…..a-a-and how did I get here?"

Post-Chapter Editor's Note

Written by A Cold Opponent

Edited and reviewed by A Maniacal Nut Of The Doom Variety

You mad? I understand. Like I said, my inbox is available for flaming. Call me anything you want. You all get one free pass after reading this.

Let me make it clear that I enjoyed reading, editing, and posting this. I was very adamant about everything in the beginning to clear things up so no one got confused as to what the fuck was happening in this chapter.

So. Yeah. Happy April Fools everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I did editing it and reading over it like four times to make sure everything was perfect. I even added a fuckton of my own jokes in there. You might be able to find them just by looking at the quality of how certain things are worded... Sorry, Frozen. But that was a dig at you. :3

So, I'll just go ahead and tell y'all what y'all wanna hear: So firstly, I just wanna say me and my mod team has disbanded. Life got too hectic these past four months (as said in the last chapter's author's note) that I decided to end the team. RIP The Court of Kvatch. Many people stuck around in the discord however in case I decided to do anything they could help with. Well, I decided - after having done something similar before and therefore knowing how easy it is - to commission an audio drama reading of this entire fanfic and going forward. Casting began a few days ago and right now we have an Arthur, an Ann, a Maruki, Real Igor, Fake Igor, beloved Ichisake, enemy male shadows, and everyone's favorite - disembodied narrator! Prologue is just about done, but we won't release until chapter 1 is done! Look forward to that!

So, yeah. Progress on the story shall continue as normal now. I hope to push out ONE chapter a MONTH at LEAST. Keep an eye out!

And, now, a word from the writer of this chapter, Frozen Foe.

Author's Note

Tres Leches is a really yummy dessert, like seriously, im sure Ann would loves this if it was in Japan. And before you ask, yes, this is all 100% cannon. Hope you all enjoyed this wacky little experiment and we hope to see you next chapter for a bit more serious and a bit more realistic look into Arthur's life. Till next time!

-The one time and probably last time author for this kind of chapter, Frozen Foe