Manic and Little John's Hideout, Geno City

Evening

After Akira and Johnny eventually found their opportunity to leave Shōga Street, they promptly took off and stealthily headed on over to the hideout. Stopping at the entrance.

"Hey Akira?" Johnny turns to the wolf. "I appreciated having you with me over there. Felt nervous a lot the whole time I was in the lion's den and that beating Anton gave to Tod was something else."

"Admittedly, it was kind of nerve-wracking for me. Having to masquerade as someone else and not getting found out by Anton's goons while I'm in their domain... Doctor more or less helped me keep my head cool through all of that. That and resisting the urge to sock Hud in the mouth every time it opens."

"Make that two of us mate." Johnny chuckles with a faint grin. "In all seriousness, having you with me really helped me keep it together at their hideout. Thank you."

"You're welcome and I could say the same for you."

"Well, that's what friends are for. Helping each other brave the elements together. If we're going to continue working together on the same team, then it's only fair that I help teach you the tools of the trade as well as helping you realising your potential and nurturing it into something exceptional."

"I don't know, I might not be much..."

"You don't know what you're capable of til you try it or uncover yourself. What one's potential could be and where it goes is never truly set in stone as my brother would always say..." The rabbit extends a hand out to Akira. "Even I'm still learning about my own potential and how I bring out it's benefits for practical gains. Wouldn't you agree?"

"If you really think I got potential, then I'd like to see it through..." Akira reaches out for Johnny's hand. "You watch my back, I watch yours."

"I watch your back..." Johnny says as Akira grabs his extended hand and shakes it. "You watch mine."

"I am thou, thou art I. Thou hast acquired a new vow. It shall become the wings of rebellion that breakth thy chains of captivity. With the birth of the Magician Persona, I have obtained the winds of blessing that should lead to freedom and new power..."

The Magician: Rank 1

"With that settled..." Johnny said after letting go of Akira's hand. "We should head on in or they'll be wondering what's keeping us."

"Well, we ain't off to see Big Mama. That's for sure." Akira remarks and the two laughs before heading on into the hideout. Eager to share their intel to the others as well as hearing about Manic and Cortez's recent mission into Anton's Palace.

'...Me and Johnny would relay everything we heard or seen from the Hooligans' turf to the others including the stuff said about Jean...'

"...Well, it does make sense now why she joined for the money." Little John commented after drinking a glass of water at the table with the others. "I just didn't think the environment with her friends were that toxic. Then again, I should have known it to be the case with how some of them treated her back then..."

"You mean she always got bullied like that?" Akira questioned him. Amazed at the fact.

"Never to the same extent as what you're telling us but yeah, she had her fair share of mistreatments back then. Always quick to use "we're just bantering" as an excuse every time we and that included Tatiana step in to tackle their bullying." Little John shakes his head in disappointment. "They always go back to picking on her after a while. You'd be right to say we had some toxicity going on in our gang and we weren't doing enough to stomp it out."

"Hindsight's fifty-fifty. Every response you made only made them be more careful on not doing it around you guys." Johnny shared his take on the situation. "What I saw there is them being in their element and not having you to police them about their bad behaviours. Hard to believe you rode with those people once upon a time. Not surprised if it was that easy for Anton to convince them to jump ship in exchange for letting them do what they want. I've heard some real vile stuff being said in those walls. Pure degenerate shite if I ever heard one."

The brown hedgehog nodded. "Tatiana once got one of the guys in an arm bar that nearly broke it for "jokingly" saying that with a fat ass, it's no wonder Patty's mother put her out on the streets which and he wasn't long apologising to an upset Patty afterwards. He got called a wimp little bitch by his "bros" for tapping out to a chick. Patty used to come from a decent home when her father was still alive and loved him dearly but the mother's a real demon towards her because she wanted a son rather instead of a daughter. Once her father died of a heart attack, she got abusive with her til Patty got kicked out of the house one day."

"That's illegal to do." Akira pointed out. "She'd be done for it."

"Well, this is Cyber City we're talking about. It's a messed up city with mobian logic about as dead as a dodo bird. The law is a mere suggestion for people like her." Little John replied solemnly. "You know the whole deal with Monica already."

"If Tatiana had stood up for Patty over the comment, then why doesn't the latter remember it?" Cortez spoke up.

"My guess is that after years of torment from the punks with Anton enabling it and Tatiana being passive to it for reasons we're not sure of yet, she comes to resent Tatiana for a lot of things. Even for stuff from before Manic's juvenile hall sentence." Johnny theorised. "The fact she sounds surprised when I made her realise the grass ain't greener on the other side for Tatiana should tell you tell you something. They've gaslit her enough to feel like Tatiana is the enabler."

"I just don't get why Tatiana's still hanging around with Anton and his family when she described him as an animal with no sense of center or how she's basically treated like a trophy wife with him controlling everything she does for bragging rights over us..." Little John sighs as he breathed through his nostrils. "Fucking hell... Anton's a real expert at ruining everything he comes into contact with and the company he has are no better either."

"Anton has a talent for bringing out the worst in people and he attracts the lowest of the low like flies..." Manic pitches his brow. "If he ever went into politics and succeeds in the elections, I'd be scared out of my mind. But if we're successful in this venture, we won't have to worry about that as much. In any case... Cortez, you wanna start filling these two in about our half of the outing?"

"Were you both able to get into the lift?" Akira asks Cortez.

"We did once you and Johnny affected the change in Anton's cognition. A cognition copy of Patty had the ID cards we needed. It was just a matter of Manic swiping them off her and up the lift we went once we got in."

"Any fighting involved?"

"There was this one annoying Shadow we ran into up on the top floor but we got it taken care of and we got to the Safe Room on the first Anton Level floor without too much hassle. We should be able to proceed onwards from there the next time we enter his Palace. A first for me, Johnny and O.V.I here. You know of the previous problems with the past Palaces before this."

"With O.V.I and Johnny recording a good chunk of what happened at the Hooligans' hideout including real evidence of Krouch being aligned with Anton, having two of our former homies willing to testify against him, knowing of the illegal goods they're storing and the other miscellaneous stuff we're doing including gathering statements from Anton's victims... We could have a big slam dunk on this one if we pull this off right." Little John smiled, feeling very optimistic. "Maybe get lucky and even kill two birds with one stone by indicting that crooked asshole as well for covering up Anton's activities."

"And in turn help finally clear Jean's name of false criminal charges when Krouch's superiors in the department or internal affairs conducts an investigation into his activities. Therefore, rooting out his cronies too in the process." Akira finished. "Making one of them squeal against the rest to score a plea bargain when they can't worm their way out of it."

"People of Cyber City will finally know what a real crook he is and the Verucas' activities would be put under serious scrutiny by the law at long last. Plus it would give those good for nothing marks some much overdue attention."

"Yeah..." Manic nods. "About damn time they got theirs, that's for sure..."

He made a fist, then looked down at it; "I've been waiting for a chance to get justice for myself, my father and Jean... And now, I may finally be able to get it."

"Yours' and everyone else." Akira added with a nod. For the first time in three years, he feels like he's actually making a real difference on the world.

"Let's make sure we gather everything vital we need against Anton first and we still have the matter with Jeck's extortion to tackle as well." Cortez reminded them before asking; "Also, is there anyone in the police department who we can entrusted the evidence to?"

"There is one named Detective Keilee and was one of her friends at work before she lost her job. Guy's another reason Krouch hadn't already away with her years ago because he's got a brother high up that he can call on to start looking into his business should he do something to justify the action." Little John replied, holding his chin. "Krouch doesn't know that he knows about the whole dirty business that happened with Jean and Keilee wants to keep it that way while he works to bring him down himself. So far, it's been slow going."

"Then we'll get the evidence to him once we have enough." Manic agreed. "After we do that, it's just a matter of getting everyone to speak up."

"Should be easy enough and despite what Tatiana says, we can do it. By changing Anton's heart in theory, the guy would confess to his crimes along with the evidence to corroborate them." Little John says. "Though I think upon giving it some thought; you guys should leave that as a last resort lest we risk affecting the validity of the evidence."

"Shit, never thought of it that way." Johnny admitted. "Don't know why we never thought of it ourselves."

"Maybe because Big Mama was occupying your thoughts?" Akira remarks with a smirk.

"As if she's ain't occupying yours. Don't think I didn't notice your face when you were trying to come up with a mental image of her." Johnny retorted with a head-shake, hand covering his laughing mouth. "You were probably thinking naughty stuff there too."

"If rabbit women are your thing like how caramel-toned elf chicks are for white guys, we ain't judging. That shows culture." Little John added playfully. "I mean Sally Acorn is seeing a blue hedgehog and all. Interspecieal romance is in style these days—"

"We're getting off-track here." Akira curtly reminded the table what topic they should be on.

"Right, right..." Little John puts his hands down on the table. "Let's leave the change of heart as a last resort if all else fails. We want to see the son of bitch get his comeuppance all the same no matter the method."

"We should make copies of the evidence we have and hide them in a safe place just in case." Akira suggested. "Avoiding what happened to Jean happening to us. Assuming she hasn't stored away copies or extras of the evidence that got destroyed three years ago and her refusal to give out their location even to us paired with the drugs is stopping us from tracking them down."

"I doubt the possibility she kept copies of her evidence..." Manic admitted. "But like Akira said, I don't think she'll tell us about them so easily. Plus with the drugs, it makes asking her a little more difficult and a bit of a safety risk."

"If they exist and she knows where they are, why isn't she trusting you enough to share their location to you or L.J?" Cortez crosses his arms.

"Perhaps she got burned badly enough by what she went through three years ago that she struggles to really put her trust in anyone else?" Little John said with a shoulder shrug. "A bunch of her other work friends wanted nothing to do with her after she got slapped with the charges."

"She sleeping?" Akira asks Manic.

"Little John and I put her to bed earlier when Cortez and I came back. I suppose if there are copies, she'll probably only tell us if she trusts us enough and even then with how badly she got burned by her own; she probably has massive trust issues."

"Those alleged copies are about the only things stopping her from ending up at the you know what or worse..." Little John shook his head. "Imagine your lives perpetually hanging on a thread like that."

'Like mine...' Akira spoke up. "If we can't get Krouch when we bring down Anton, then we're making him our next target. He'll be a problem for us should we leave him alone."

"Let's hope we're not ending up climbing the societal ladder til we're taking out foreign despots with each target we face." Cortez joked. "All from just wanting to uncover the Metaverse."

"The likelihood of such an occurrence in our current circumstances are unlikely." O.V.I said, the A.I's device casing placed on the table by Johnny to play recorded audio from the Hooligans' hideout for the others to hear including Anton's beating of Tod. "The odds of it happening are low."

"What do you think of all we've been talking about?" Little John asks the A.I.

"I think the rationale behind making the change of heart as a last resort is a very sound one. It's best we pursue the case with provable evidence for his crimes as it is statically less likely to be dismissed in court of law than a forced change of heart." O.V.I replied. "I suggest doing some prep work for the next trip into Anton's Palace. My hypothesis suggests that Shadows will be tougher than those in the first half of the Palace and possibly more difficult to traverse the floors safely."

"Luckily, the cash from the items I managed to sell off to other channels should be coming in pretty soon and we can buy the supplies we need." Little John nodded, turning his head to Johnny; "How's the construction on those grappling hooks been going?"

"The three of them should be good to go for use alongside the pre-existing fourth one and crafting some throwable items to be used against the Shadows."

"Any good at crafting new weapons and new armours?"

"Unfortunately, that's out of my wheelhouse of skills I'm afraid. We'll have to find people who specialises in those areas."

"Then we'll keep an eye out for anybody who fits the bill." Akira nodded. "It is Cyber City after all."

"I'm certain if we look, we'll find people willing to do that sorta thing." Manic added. "We'll probably have to shell out a lot of mobiums for it, though."

"Until we can ones for the job, we'll just have to make do with what we've got and what we can get our hands on."

"Yeah."

"Mmm..." Little John looks to the others. "Who's up for a takeaway?"

"I sure could do with one." Johnny replied. "What about the rest of you?"

"Same here." Cortez nodded. "Didn't get nothing from when me and Manic got back."

"Yeah, I'm down with it." Manic replied, nodding, "May as well, right?"

"Right." Akira looks between them. "Which takeaway will it be?..."

'...We treated ourselves to a takeaway and hung out together as a group of friends while Johnny took the time to teach me the basics of crafting the infiltration tools before I eventually headed on home for the night...'

West High Resort, Westropolis

Night

With the sudden and shocking death of the Director of the Mobius Mint the other day, Team Dark were busy combing through a list of known counterfeit organisations. They're still looking into the other cases they were originally looking at prior to Thursday 9th but the investigation of a possible counterfeit-related conspiracy took greater priority.

Whenever they were narrowing down the list to a handful through process of elimination and currently working on narrowing it down further to just one, Agent Topaz mentions that they'll have to call up the people handling the cases for the individual organisations in question. Suggesting that they could do with their help on the counterfeit matter.

Topaz had a work laptop set up on the coffee table in the main area of the hotel room, sifting through files on various counterfeiting syndicates while Rouge was making calls to people who were handing the cases for many of the other organisations. Omega was currently resting in power nap mode.

Shadow himself had gone away earlier attending to matters aka making his own enquiries his way to help progress through the mental cases with whatever lead he has to go off on. As his female colleagues worked away, he made his return to the suite through Chaos Control with his green Chaos Emerald and got right down to asking his colleagues; "Any success on your end?"

"I've narrowed our search down to about eight if it helps." Topaz reported.

"And I put in requests for copies of files from the C.I.A." Rouge added. "Should hear back from them soon."

"Make that half. I've scored us four likely trails with my new findings." Shadow said with crossed arms. "What are the eight on the list we have now?"

"Five small fry organizations, three big fish ones." Topaz looked up from her laptop. "Two of which are local to this continent."

"And those would be?"

"The Garcia Crime Family and the Vastas."

"My findings points to them plus the Downtowns and the Nasty Hyenas. Yes, the latter's the same ones that tried to eat Antoine D'Coolette once."

"Which would mean that places us at four possible organizations being the culprits."

"Correct and one of them would have ties to someone who'd have inside knowledge regarding the plates. Has anything come up regarding the former Mint Director's last known movements?"

"Nothing we can go one yet but you'll be the first to know if I find something."

Shadow nodded with an impassive expression before walking off to the kitchen, passing by the TV. Said TV showing the news.

"...Now more then ever, we need to have unity among ourselves as members of the human race in these troubling times." A man on the TV was speaking on a stand at a rally, addressing his speech to a decent-sized crowd. Camera flashes could be seen on the news broadcast.

"In the Ancient Greek myth, Zeus gave Prometheus and Epimetheus the important task of populating with various lifeforms in the sea, land and air. The lion, the whale and the eagle were just some of the creatures they conceived with Epimetheus giving them incredible gifts but yet when it was mankind's turn to be made, there were no more allotted gifts to spare... The animals got all the advantages while man was left with none on the wilderness of the Earth..." He goes on. "So for mankind to even stand a chance against their predators; Prometheus had to steal fire from Olympus and give it to them to survive the cold, dark dreary winters of their new home..."

The man clenches his fist; "For his act of kindness to his children of clay, Prometheus was punished by Zeus and his peers while his forethought brother got off scot-free for the whole mess. They even let loose all the evils stored in Pandora's Box onto us all for the actions of one!"

"In a world where the Chaos Emeralds exists and a few mobians being able to wield their power, what'll become of the Humans? We had firsthand of their destructive power in Station Square only three years ago..." He unclenches his fist as he continues on his speech. "Imagine that power on a grander scale and we, mankind being unable to do anything about it while we fall behind the other dominant species of this world. Mobians becoming the advantage and us the disadvantaged with us hoping for a gift to stand a fighting chance. How long will it be before us, humans are punished by our betters for the actions of one once again?"

The man then punctuates the end of his speech; "I say this as a human because I want my people to be able to continue prospering for many countless years to come and stand up to the challenges this world will throw at us. I, a member of the Overlander Party asks you fellow men to find unity amongst each other as brothers and sisters in these uncertain times. Good night to you all my beautiful people and this is Charlemagne signing off!"

The audience on the TV erupted into a sea of cheers as the man named Charlemagne walks off the stage before the news broadcast cuts to something else entirely. Topaz scoffs, having been watching the speech footage alongside Rouge when it was on. "I thought we were past that after the Great War. I guess the more things change, the more things stay the same."

"Hon, I was more focused on the bit of food stuck between his teeth." Rouge said with a shrug. "Does that guy even know how to floss? I'm surprised all his supporters in the crowd didn't see that."

"Talk about selective sight..."

Author's Note: Some backstory is explored, new insights are made about our characters, setting up the vibe of the antagonist's life outside of his own Palace and doing some more world-building.