Anton's Palace, Metaverse

Afternoon

The group eventually reaches the third floor after some battles along the way while disabling another trap and O.V.I's observation reveals that each set of floors are named after each of Anton's siblings in ascending order. Floor zero where the cells are located is labelled as the Tod Level which made them think about the metaphorical meaning of that one.

Regardless, they're past both of the Hud Levels and on the first of the Mad Levels. The floor featured fish tanks built in the walls with exotic fishes swimming around in them, light-shades up on the ceilings, tile-floor linings and design graphics of Sagittarius shows up once again.

"Jeez, he's got a private aquarium too?" Sly grimaces. "God, he's really full of himself."

"Don't we know it..." Seeker shook his head. "Has he ever seen any office building in real life? I don't recall any of them having a fish or shark in them aside from Corporate Sharks that is."

"Except real sharks in the seas aren't as ruthless as those people in suits." Rogue chimed in. "I'm not sure if I've ever come across a literal corporate businessman that happens to be one though..."

"Probably not relevant to this but I know a fellow college student who's been going to clown school." Avatar spoke. "Doing well at it from what I hear."

"Was she having potato mash dinner when her family around the table were singing a circus tune before she suddenly stood up and said; 'That's it! You people have stood in my way long enough, I'm going to Clown College!' to them?" Seeker asks with a smile.

"If that's how it went down, I'd be saying; 'I don't think any of us expected her to say that' to the others at the table."

"Who knows?" Sly said with a shrug. Rogue stopped at a door and went to check it as it was not locked, finding it to be a mail room.

"Something up?"

"Found a mail room. There's boxes and shelves here full of letters." Rogue replied, checking through the boxes. "Let's check for intel."

"Way ahead of you."

The other two helped out to check for anything suspicious or noteworthy enough to catch their attention. Sly began sifting through some mail and files in a cabinet.

"Any of these names seem familiar to you?" Avatar would find a list of names from a drawer belonging to a red file cabinet, handing them to Sly to examine it. "Looks to be a staff manifest from the looks of things."

Sly looked the list over, looking for any names familiar to him.

"Well?"

"A few of the members of my old crew are on here. Tatiana too."

"Must be an employee transfer manifest. Probably seen as "assets" from a competing company or one whose contracts they acquired after the "liquidations" took place."

"Considering his involvement in the drug dealing trade and other street-related monetary-led crimes, he must be seeing his own gang as employees of his "company" with him as the chairman of the board. Viewing himself as a business tycoon." Rogue said while nosing around. "It would explain the appearance of this Palace. Still doesn't explain why the rest of Cyber City looks like a wasteland to him."

"If I'm to hazard a guess, he sees Cyber City as something to be mined until he milks it dry and abandon it. Views his own building as a tall-standing temple amongst the rest of the city and only his' is allowed to be touching the skies." The wolf theorises "A bit like a distorted take on the Tower of Babel except instead of God punishing the Babylonians for their arrogance by making them unable to understand one another, Anton would demolish other buildings that were either as tall as his' or taller. That's my guess on the matter."

"That is fucked man..." Sly said in exasperation, shaking his head. "This guy needs to be stopped as soon as possible."

"The longer he's on the streets, the less safe everyone else tied to me will be. I had to talk someone out of going after Migu today because I feared what the Verucas' retaliation will look like if Anton's quick to figure out who's responsible since he saw them with me yesterday..." Avatar sighs. "They could destroy their future dreams and do it without remorse when Anton convinces them to handle them for him."

"Has Anton and Migu ever actually destroyed another person's life if I may ask?" Seeker asks Sly.

The masked hedgehog's face took on a depressed frown. "A friend of mine, a trans girl. Her and I were friends for a while, we met during the brief time I attended middle school which was only for like one year before I dropped out. She eventually came out and most had mixed reactions to the news. Anton? He was probably the most vicious to her than he ever was to anyone else."

"For some reason, he really laid into her and one day; she didn't come to school. I drew the short straw to come see if I could go get her. When I got to her house..." Sly was quiet for a moment as if trying to stop himself from breaking out into tears when he recounts it. "When I got there, she had hung herself from her ceiling fan. I found out later that Anton had said something to her that was so vicious, so gutteral that she... It caused her to take her own life... It's like... There's nothing that Anton wouldn't take away from me. I guess you could say the same about Krouch but Anton takes extra delight in causing me hardship."

"Holy shit..." Rogue said in a shocked tone, appalled by the story. "I know that type of unpleasant treatment happens with other people but that... Fucking hell mate, that's just monstrous..."

"...Did he ever apologise over it?" Avatar asks, reeling from that horrid recollection. "Even he has to have some kind of empathy in him even if he isn't with any of us or at least pretending to show regret around other people."

"Not publicly. He isn't the kind to make himself look vulnerable by apologizing to people in front of everyone else. If he did apologize, it was probably privately and probably a very insincere back-handed apology one. Likely involves money being paid to keep it quiet."

"What about her family?"

"I don't know... I haven't talked to them since... I kinda kept my distance because I knew that if I pushed in, Anton would go after them next. Especially when Caitlin's other friend confronted him the next day and Anton must have made a grave threat to him or his family because he'd back off the following day."

"..." Avatar nodded in silence, getting more of an idea on what sort of person Anton is and liking him less each time the more he learns of him. They all quietly left the office to proceed onwards to continue trekking through the floor.

"...Someone check the map to tell us where to go..." Sly spoke up. "I honestly wanna forget about Anton's bullshit for the moment."

Rogue nodded and checked through O.V.I for the map.

"...Do you both live in Cyber City or just travellers?" Avatar asks the blue badger.

"Travellers. We would have been travelling from city to city individually before we started going together after finding out we both can access the Metaverse through an app like yours. Joh—Rogue can explain the rest later when we're finished here."

"I look forward to that."

"Hey, we found another Safe Room." Rogue called out as he points to a semi-transparent door fading in and out of existence like the one on the first floor. "We can take a break there."

The four made a stop in the Safe Room based on a room in the building's real world counterpart.

Sly sat down on one of the chairs in the room, breathing a sigh of relief from finally being able to sit down for a moment. "How far in are we right now?"

"We're up on floor three and we're on the first of Mad Levels." Rogue answered

"So not far, I assume."

"Tod has one level, Hud has two, Mad has three and Migu has four before we reach where the other half of the building would start at. The map we got only depicts one half of it."

"Oh, so we're halfway through. That's good."

"We're only a third of the way in and we are only on floor three out of nine in total. Ten when we include the Tod Level that's floor zero."

"Jeez, we're gonna be at this for a while. Aren't we?"

"Yep."

"Well, it's not too bad. At least we got something to do in our off hours."

"Til we hit an eventual roadblock."

"What're the odds of that happening, right? Heh."

"Pretty high actually. The Palaces we had went to had this same problem where we can't go any further." Seeker explained to Sly and Avatar. "Each Palace has a security measure that we cannot get past unless we affect the person's cognition in the real world."

"So none of you has ever gotten to a Treasure Room where the heart of the Palace is held in." Avatar remarks. "Correct?"

"We could never get far enough in the other Palaces to even come across a Will Seed we've heard about. Didn't have the manpower for it."

"So then, how would we change that?" Sly rubs his eyes. "Surely, there'd be some way to affect the person's cognition in the real world."

"There is. It's just figuring out what the Ruler considers impenetrable within their cognition is the hard part." Seeker replied with a confirming nod. "That means interacting with the Ruler in the real world and performing actions to open the barriers."

"I see... I guess we'll need to get creative then."

"It's a risky one because depending on the cognition, the barrier may be open permanently after the cognitive change or you have to go and switch it off to stop it from closing again within a certain window of time. In the case of the latter..." Seeker shook his head. "One team has to be in the real world initiating the change in the Ruler's cognition while the other team goes in to make sure the barrier doesn't close again or secure a point on the other side and fighting Shadows with less party members to back you up if they happen to be in the way."

"Ah, I getchya."

"The cognitive change is the most risky part for obvious reasons, especially when Anton is the Ruler in question."

"If we're done here, then we should get going." Avatar says to his group as Rogue got up from his chair. "The sooner we get most of this half of the Palace done before we hit our exhaustion points, the better. Conserve your energies whenever possible..."

The four would resume their trek through the first floor on the Mad Levels. Sly's mind still wandering back to Anton and the things he's done.

They soon encounter another Enforcer and proceeded to take it down as Avatar's Third Eye shows it to not be too dangerous to fight. During the fight, Seeker gets struck by one of the Shadows via a Curse spell. When they took down the last Shadow, Avatar went over and used Pixie to cast Dia. A light healing spell to restore a little of Seeker's health he had lost to the Shadow.

"Thanks." The badger thanked him.

"It seems like we're fighting mostly Randos." Sly murmurs. "You think we'll fight a floor boss soon?"

"More than likely."

"I hope so. I'm itching for a proper fight."

The group went up to the next level and came upon two Enforcers conversing with each other, silently going over to eavesdrop on them.

"Jeez Louise, you'd think we'd be able to find these intruders huh?" One of the Enforcers said to their colleague.

"If we don't, we'll get docked in our salaries. The Boss expects results. He already wasn't pleased with how Wednesday had turned out when they got away and he made us know about it."

"Yeah, seems that way. Hopefully this set of floors will get them... Hopefully..."

"Stupid bastard gets paid more than we do and we're the ones doing all the hard work here!"

"Yeah, it sucks ass... But a job's a job, am I right?"

"Aye."

"I mean to be honest, I'd rather be hangin' around that Tatiana girl th' Boss keeps close to himself. Ya gotta admit. For a girl from the rough side of Geno City, she is pretty hot."

"Want your skull kicked in by him for saying that out aloud?" The other Enforcer growled harshly. "You know what he did to that guy trying to make moves on her that day. Had to be rushed off to ER afterwards."

"I guess you're right. She's still smokin' though. I'd tap that puss."

"Was there anyone in the real world who got rushed off to ER for that?" Seeker whispers to Sly.

Sly whispered back. "One of Anton's lackeys, a real sleaze-bag put the moves on Tatiana. Anton then beat him up very badly to the point of needing six stitches on his forehead and having to have a bruise on his left eye drained."

"Only he's allowed to have her in his eyes..." Rogue murmurs.

"I'd certainly like to show her my "charming snake" if you catch my drift~"

"I've heard enough of this." Sly pulls out his gun once Avatar gave the go-ahead and blasts one of the Enforcers in the back with it before the rest of the team hopped out of cover to take care of the Shadows that emerged from their shells. The last one done in by Avatar.

"I got a new move!" Rogue told them. "John can use Mazan now!"

The group had gained a new skill each including Avatar gaining access to Maragi with Doctor Omega as another of his Agi skills when they were going through the Hud Levels. A process Seeker explained as being akin to working up one's muscles, gradually getting stronger over time.

"Nice!" Sly said with a grin. "That was like some super-cool hitman shit right there Avatar!"

"They were in the way and had to go. Plus we need more practice before we deal with the head of this floor."

"Yeah, I could agree with that." Sly agreed with a nod. They went back to exploring the floor, founding a few more mail rooms before sighting a pair of oddly normal looking mobian lizards dressed in executive suits in the hall from around a corner. Speaking to each other with their backs to them.

"...I suppose planning for this office party might not be too bad..." One of the two mobian lizards said. "After all... When it comes to office parties, the Boss is easy to plan for."

"I should know a thing or two about that as I'm his brother after all." Said the other lizard dressed in a blue suit. "They brought in a pack of strays for Feline Chinese New Years yet?"

"Of course. Plus we got the catering and entertainment all set up too."

"Feline Chinese New Years?" Avatar looked to Sly. The latter shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, signifying he didn't know either.

"Man. Seeing that stray running around in circles with a sparkling firework shooting out of its' ass from the last party will never not be funny." The blue suited lizard chuckled to himself. "Looking forward to seeing one with the Big One rocket and seeing it fly hehe..."

"Heh, that shit will be hilarious. Maybe we could stick a few Roman Candles up one of them's asses and see them spit out fireballs from their mouth."

"Animal cruelty and Anton thinks it's funny..." Avatar murmured darkly with a furrowed brow. "Let's eviscerate them all."

The wolf revealed himself to the two lizards. "It's time for you punishment Mad Veruca!"

"Huh!?" The blue-suited alpine green lizard turns his head to him. "You! My big brother's been talking you thieves for a while now and it looks like you four are eager to die here. Also that's Director Mad Veruca to you!"

"Funny that…" Sly smirks. "I'd normally say that your name's Mad after we're done with you but it seems your mom took half of that work away from me and frankly, I feel like I've been cheated."

"One's name is mud." Seeker added.

"We're going up these floors and you can't stop us!" Rogue says to the lizard. "Your brother will be answering for his crimes in time!"

"Hah!" The blue-suited lizard scoffs as the other lizard merges with him and then the Shadow transforms into a larger, more deformed dinosaurish-looking version of himself. "You will not get past me that easily!"

"We'll see about that." Avatar retorted, getting his knife out and bringing out Omega The battle commencing soon after.

"Alright, who wants first up?" Sly said with a grin, got into a battle stance and drawing his weapon.

"Whatever hurts him the most."

"Right, I'll go first then." Sly said, sending a Magna attack at Shadow Mad first.

Seeker comes in afterwards to do a few quick blade strikes before backing off from Shadow Mad whom casted Magaru wind spells at them for attacks. Sly would take damage from the wind attack, though he didn't get downed by it.

Avatar casted Rakunda on the big Shadow to lower his defences before Doctor Onega threw a physical attack at it, dealing some damage. Sly attacked the Shadow with a physical attack next and doing some damage as well.

Rogue attacked with his spells following Sly's attack, the elementals getting in a bit of damage on the Shadow. Shadow Mad suddenly casted a spell on Avatar which made the wolf suddenly attack it aggressively with physical attacks but leaving himself exposed to be struck by Shadow Mad's tail-whip attack, sent flying back onto the floor.

"What the hell? Yo Avatar, chill out!" Sly fired a round at Shadow Mad. "You're leaving yourself open to Repticon Mark II's attacks!"

"He was using the Taunt spell on him, makes anyone afflicted by it feel berserk at everything like a bull!" Seeker helped Avatar up to his feet while Rogue was busy with Shadow Mad. "Didn't think he was able to do that!"

"Ugh..." Avatar summoned Pixie to cast Dia on himself before getting back into the battle. "If he can cast that, then there's no telling what the other Verucas can cast as well."

"I guess then we oughta be careful..." Sly nods in agreement. The three helps Rogue in dishing out damage against Shadow Mad before Sly got him in a daze.

"You got it where you want it. Finish it off." O.V.I told the four.

"Right..." Seeker knew what's coming next. "Let's do this!"

All four of them proceeds to do an All-Out Attack on Shadow Mad. Attacking him from multiple angles as a bunch of fast-moving streaks punctuated by the sounds of heavy physical blows.

The All-Out Attack would finish Shadow Mad off at which point, Sly struck his after finisher pose. He threw a few excited air punches before doing the rock and roll hand gesture, then said; "We run these mad streets and you should kiss the ring son!"

"Now that we got him out of the way, we can go on up to the next floor." Rogue said to the others as Avatar knelt down at the spot where Shadow Mad was and picks up a key.

"This has to be for the next floor." Avatar said, showing the others the key. "Likely to his office or something else."

"Noice!" Sly said with a grin. "Man, I needed that today. Like don't get me wrong, today was only minimally alright for me but this moment pretty much was the best moment of the day for me."

"Partial-Catharsis is what you're feeling right now." O.V.I said to Sly. "It was Anton's bother or rather a cognition of him that made you feel that way."

"Yeah, I guess so. Still feels great."

"Here." Avatar hands out bottles of water from his coat pockets to the others.

"Thanks." Sly replied, taking a long gulp from the bottle of water, "Damn, that has to be the best sip of anything in my life."

"We still have a long way to go before we're done. May as well take some water while chug along on through the Palace." Avatar drank his water. "Hud or Tod were't about in any of their floors I've noticed."

"I've noticed that too."

"It's probable that we'll meet them eventually and likely having to fight them too." Avatar said as they finish up on their short break before heading up the stairs towards the third Mad Level.

"When we do, I call first hit."

"Understood."

"And, I get to do my pose from earlier."

They'd soon reach floor five where they'd see a patrolling Enforcer in the hall.

"What do ya think, leader-man?" Sly whispered to Avatar. "Stealth takedown approach or loud charge?"

"Ambush." Avatar replied, peering from behind a cabinet in the aquarium based hallway. "And since when did I become the leader here?"

"I dunno. You kinda have a leaderly look to ya."

"A leader wouldn't be dressed like a satirist..." Avatar whispered back. 'And they wouldn't have a death wish either...'

The wolf rushes over to the Enforcer and tore his mask off with the others joining in on the ambush to take it down. Making short work of the Shadow, Seeker picking up an item dropped by it and pocketing it.

They would go to check out another mail room but this was different compared to the ones found on the other floors as this seemed to be ones where they're sending out the letters rather than receiving them and the letters they checked were addressed to people either Sly knows or currently living in the city. Most damning thing about this mail room is that most of the letters are organised into two rows.

Bribery. Letters to be sent out to persuade folks with money or other under the table exchanges.

Blackmail. Letters to to be sent out to folks to make them help the author of the blackmail by force under threat of exposing damaging information on them if they don't abide by the terms.

"Shit…" Sly said upon reading some of the letters, "Hey! One of these is addressed to Sofiya!"

"Sofiya?" Seeker and Rogue turns to Sly.

"She's someone he knows. She's the daughter of the drugstore owner that we saw getting extorted last night we told you about briefly earlier." Avatar explained to the two. "The extortionists told her father that they'd sell her to a brothel in exchange for lowering the payments he makes to them. More like threatened him to sell her to one if he doesn't keep up on the payments."

"Are they even allowed to do that?" Rogue was not pleased at that. "That'd be considered mobian trafficking."

"According to Sly, her family's citizenship is in a legal grey area when they came into the country."

"How come they didn't call the police?"

"The extortionists threatened violence against them if they talked to the police. I had my suspicions about them being from the Hooligans but didn't have anything to link the two together til now."

The wolf turns his head to Sly. "What's the letter about?"

"It's from Tatiana. She's offering Sofiya a position at a BDSM brothel downtown as a gimp... She also said to consider the offer lest she and her family get deported..."

"There's a lot wrong with that one sentence you just read out loud." Rogue commented.

"Yeah. Especially the fact that Tatiana would never say this and wouldn't even think of something this messed up... Not the Tatiana Tiger I know."

"Shows you what he knows about her..." Avatar tutted in disgust. "This letter confirms that those two extortionists we saw last night are Anton's guys. If they aren't, then Anton has to be aware of her family's status at the very least."

"Yea..." Sly said, looking down in sadness.

"Anything else you found?"

"That's the only major one I found."

"It's something at least. Mad's office would likely have more damning information on his psyche than this room had shown us here."

"I'd imagine so, yeah."

"You two found anything?" Avatar asks Seeker and Rogue.

"More letters addressed to people." Rogue replied when he held up a few letters. "Sly would know who these people are better than we do. Either they're being threatened or he's making under the table payments to people but they seem to be low to mid-tier folks, not important enough to be key people to him."

"They're likely for people on Soucie Street." Sly told them. "I know most of them by name."

"Probably trying to get a foothold over there." Seeker theorises, seeing what he's up to here. "It's never enough for him, huh?"

"Crime and greed goes hand in hand..." Avatar led the group out and travelled a litter further before the wolf found another trap, stopping the others. Having a gut feeling, he grabbed a piece of loot in the form of a fancy lighter from his pocket and threw it across the hall over where the gold spaces between the wall aquarium tanks were at.

Suddenly, a rectangular pillar above that spot came down on that floor the moment the lighter entered the space and looking like a new wall had appeared in front of them before rising back up into the ceiling. Leaving a throughly broken crushed and flattened lighter in it's wake.

Sly was left wide-eyed from the trap. "...How do we get past this?"

"There's no electric box to shoot out and that thing would flatten us quicker than us outrunning it..." Rogue analyses the predicament. "We'll have to find another way around it."

"I see a door over there on the other side." Seeker pointed to a door across from them on the other side of the hall. "If we find the nearest office to it, we can go outside from here and on over to there through the windows."

"Question is, where is saidticular nearest office?" Sly pointed out.

"Over there." Rogue pointed behind Sly at a door a few steps away from him. "Also saidticular isn't a bloody real word mate."

"Oh come on, you know what I meant." Sly responded sharply, blushing with embarrassment.

"Not to people whose first language isn't english. Anyhow, we shouldn't waste time here."

Avatar checked the door to see if it's unlocked and found that it is, the four going into a generic looking office to step over to the window view. Rogue would bring out a bunch of items, putting them on the table including a cutting tool of a custom design.

"Neat gadget you got there." Avatar commented.

"O.V.I came up with these designs. Me and Seeker had just crafted them at a workbench with whatever materials we could get ahold of. We hope to upgrade them someday." Rogue replied, holding up a cutting tool. "Want to do the honours?"

"Sure. I did D.I.Y classes back in high school and know a thing or two on using a cutting tool." The red wolf replied with a nod, taking the offered tool from his hand. Proceeding to fire it up.

"Alright 'Gadget', we'll leave you to it." Seeker grinned. "Just keep it timely, okay?"

"Will do." Avatar goes to the window with the custom tool and knelt in front of it before beginning the process of cutting the glass.

"That's a pretty nifty tool there…" Sly commented, watching Avatar work. "Can I get one?"

"You have to build one if you want one like it. Doesn't come cheap though with some of the parts needed for it." Seeker told Sly.

"I see Well, at least I got my lockpick multitool."

"...There, I got it cut." Avatar told them. Rogue handed him a suction lifter tool to carefully remove the cut glass from it's place and setting it aside elsewhere. They could feel the breeze of the air from the height they're at.

"Now what?" Avatar says to Rogue and Seeker.

"We use these." Seeker pulls out the suction pads. "We're climbing across."

"Dude, I've used those before." Sly eyed the suction pads. "I used them while doing a B&E on a loft apartment once."

"B&E?"

"Breaking and Entering. What, did ya think it meant 'Bacon and Eggs'?"

"No. I was thinking of something else there..." Seeker replied, handing out the climbing equipment to the rest of the group. He himself putting the suctions on and go out first, sticking onto the windows outside before slowly climbing over across to the window of the office they need to get to with the others following his lead.

The badger would shatter the window to the office with a pistol shot to allow them inside.

Avatar would go out last and he began feeling his anxieties bubble up inside of him when he sees how high they are above the streets and they're only on the fifth floor no less. For Sly, climbing along the side of the building was second nature to him given his normal activities. Although even after getting to the other side before Avatar, he watched the wolf with concern all the while being ready to catch him from falling if need be.

The wolf would eventually reach the office despite battling his own anxiousness over heights. Secretly hoping that's the last time he has do that.

"Ya gonna be alright?" Sly asked him, looking at Avatar worriedly.

"...Yeah, I'll be fine." Avatar replied after dusting himself off and handing the suction equipment back to Seeker. "Outrunning that crusher in the hall would be suicide."

"I'm not gonna lie, that thing looked like a trap from a really bad adventure game." Sly points a thumb at where the crusher is.

"That's more like a hydraulic press machine used to crush a car into a cube."

"I mean, I've seen those hydraulic press machine videos on Mobiutube before. Those things can fuck shit up."

"My point exactly."

Avatar led the group from the office after finding a hidden to disable the hallway trap and on out into the other side of the hall where the trap would have stood between them. They made their way forwards before shortly finding a locked office with 'Executive Director' written in a shiny gold plaque on it.

"We found his office." Rogue commented, turning to Avatar. "Wanna try the key on it?"

"I'm wanting to test that theory anyhow..." Avatar took the key he got from Shadow Mad earlier and inserted it into the door. After twisting it, a click was heard from the door lock.

The wolf turns the door handle open and they were treated to a fancy office befitting an executive director in a company. Being a lot more decorated and higher class looking than the other offices they've searched so far, bordering on nepotism.

"This entire room just screams 'my brother got me this job.' Tsk." Sly looks around the office in disgust. "Not to mention most of this decor is so tacky..."

"It's a bloody eyesore. That's what it is." Rogue picks up a gold trophy with a rail nail through it off a cabinet shelf. "It's what a nutter would come up with."

"I know, right? It's like a fourteen-year-old's first time with 3D modelling and built whatever hellishly-decorated custom house they can come up with."

Avatar searched the office desk drawers while Seeker checked out the file cabinet after breaking it open to hoke through it.

"The previous floor had standard bribery and blackmail letters..." Seeker murmurs before pulling out a sheet of paper. "This office must be where the important letters are stored in plus executive orders sent down to from the top brass."

"Executive orders?" Avatar raise his right brow. "What's that about?"

"Must be the cognitions of Anton's orders to his gang in the real world. Look." Seeker shows the three the paper. "This one's for him issuing a payment towards Krouch to have a key member of a rival gang arrested in exchange for one-hundred fifty thousand mobiums. Citing that he considers the gang member a problem for his expansion plans."

"Well, that certainly seems in-character for him..." Sly went around the room and messing with random objects. "No surprise there that's for sure. He'll be a dead man if they find out he's behind their arrest."

"Looks like he has the police in his pocket. Must be how he's been getting away with a lot of his crimes..." Avatar goes to check the file cabinet himself and pulling out a piece of paper as he goes to read it. His face souring a moment later.

"Sly... You need to read this..."

"What is it?" Sly asked, setting down a model of a pearlescent white 1956 Chevy Convertible and quickly hurrying over to look at the piece of paper.

"It's about another shop, probably a shop that's being extorted..."

"...What does it say?"

"To seize the owner's daughter and sell her off to a brothel when her father's been stiffing them on the payments lately. It's not Sofiya though."

"If not Sofiya, then... Wait... You don't mean..."

"It's someone else's kid they're going to take."

"Who? Avatar, tell me!"

"Here."

Avatar hands him the paper. Sly lifts up his mask to read the paper of interest and went wide-eyed "...This is for Jeck's granddaughter... Karmen..."

"Has he ever made any mention or hint of his store being targeted for extortion?"

Sly shook his head. "I guess he kept it a secret. This is the first time I'm knowing about it.

"There's a date on that paper as well. Looks like it ain't due until February." Avatar looked through the other executive order papers in the office.

"Then we gotta get this guy before then." Said Sly, a determined expression on his face.

"First, let's check through the other executive orders. I doubt extortions and kidnappings are the only things he's got going on for with his gang." Avatar gets out a notepad and pen, handing them to Sly. "They could make good leads in the real world when we get back. Any you see, write it all down and neatly so we can read the notes later."

Sly nodded and began taking notes of the orders and other clues they gathered, even going as far as to copy the information on his phone's notepad app since that is one of the few apps to work in the Metaverse. Doing so as a precaution in case they lose the physical notes.

Once they got what they needed along with a quick looting of the office and prompts from Rogue to get a move on in case a Shadow decides to show up, they made off with their findings. Heading up the stairs after trashing an Enforcer in the way and Avatar getting a new Persona out of it via negotiations.

As they proceeded and even through the occasional battles, Sly's mind would wander back to Jeck. How he had kept up his facade of cheeriness to hide the fact that he was being extorted.

The fact Anton's gang are having business in Soucie Street is a new development for him since he hadn't indicated anything to his recollection in having an interest in it. Additionally, some of the executive orders seems to refer to intimidating people through violence or scaring them into compliance. That in of itself bothered Sly the most because they all involved people he was friends with, those he often helped out through charity and whatnot.

"...I thought the Hooligans was some common street gang with a sizeable territory but it doesn't appear to be the case with these executive orders." Rogue murmurs, carrying his staff in one hand. "I'm getting a better understanding of why Sly doesn't like him."

"If he had a mental shutdown now, it'd probably be met with applause by everybody." Seeker slung his great sword over the shoulder. "He's terrorising the city for years through his gang and a pretty greedy gang leader when it comes to territory. It's as if he wants a monopoly on the rough side of Cyber City."

"The matter in which he's dealing with his rivals seems to very much suggest that theory." Avatar concluded. "He sees himself as a business man, not a gang leader. The Hooligans are just his security force."

"...How do we handle him then?" Sly wondered. "Or how do we do so without giving him a mental shutdown? Because if I helped cause that in him, it would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Nobody deserves that, not even him."

"According to O.V.I's hypothesis, every Palace that exists has a Treasure as it's core we call the Treasure Room. The keystone to the world their Rulers see." Seeker informed Sly. Explaining more Metaverse lore as they went along.

"So then... What if we just steal it altogether? And not only that... What if... Hey so, Palaces are basically the cognition of a person's mind, right? Something like that?"

"The Treasures are the ultimate manifestations of the Ruler's distorted desires and stealing them would in turn affect their hosts in the real world..." O.V.I said from Rogue's pocket. "In theory that is. I have not encountered a case of that nature yet to give you an assessment on wether that's a positive or megative."

"So then if we stole the Palace's Treasure and maybe even did some 'convincing' to the Palace Ruler. Perhaps we can get them to confess their crimes in the real world?"

"Maybe." Rogue assumed, rubbing his neck. "We've just never done it nor have we seen what the Treasures actually looks like. Hell, we only call them Treasures because of how difficult and elusive they are to get to. We only know this because of O.V.I."

"Well, maybe we can give it a shot?"

"We need to get up to the Treasure Room first and we have to deal with whatever obstructions we'll undoubtably encounter. Anton's Shadow included."

"Well, that's the real trick isn't it?" Sly mused, giving a confident smile.

"We don't know what it'll actually happen when we do steal the Treasure." Seeker noted with a solemnly expression "Either he'll be purged of his warped desires or he'll have a mental shutdown. If it's the latter, that's one less worthless specimen to populate the planet.

"Only one way to find out."

"Come on guys, we need to cover as much of this building as possible before we all call it a day." Rogue says to Seeker and Sly while they're traversing up the stairs. "Especially when we've got someone to save and a prat to put in his place..."

To Be Continued...