"Right before I woke up in Doc Mitchell's office," Akira continued, glad to be almost done with the recap, "I was intercepted by the real Igor in the real Velvet Room. He told me that he can send me back, but I need to… gather all my friends, basically. Since Morgana is made out of humanity's hope, Igor can use him to find my original universe and send me back."
"Aaaand you lost me," Sunny said.
Akira chuckled in response. "That's the part that lost you?"
"Okay, there were many parts like this," she admitted. "That whole story sounds like a tall tale."
"I believe every word," the courier commented. "I didn't see this exact type of weirdness out there, but I've seen plenty of mad science and other pre-War bullshit. The whole shebang with a mad god doesn't sound that unbelievable."
"Hm." Sunny was unsure. As ridiculous as that sounded, the kid looked so out of place that it might've all been true. "So, you've gotta find your friends and a magic talking cat. What on earth is a cat anyway?"
"It's an animal you can keep around like a pet." Akira pulled out his phone. "I have photos." He navigated to the gallery, and showed his screen to the other two. It displayed a photo of Morgana posing on Akira's desk with a smug smirk.
"He looks like that critter on the Vigor-Tester machine," Sunny remarked. "On the picture for Luck."
"He looks cute," the courier added. "I've seen some live ones back on the West Coast, but none in the Mojave. He'll stick out."
"I hope he won't stick out too much," Akira winced a bit, putting his phone away. "I'd prefer him to not get assaulted by the locals or the wildlife."
"Speaking of," Sunny unholstered her varmint rifle, "you ready to go hunt geckos?"
"Right, that thing." Akira showed her a few of the now-loaded magazines in response. "Let's do it."
"It's down to the southeast," she said, marching away. Her dog and the other two followed. "If you're some sorta sneaky thief type like you claimed, we might get a jump on them."
"You don't have to go if you don't want to though," the courier commented, chambering a round in his 9mm pistol.
Akira put one mag in his Tokarev and holstered it. "Everyone keeps telling me this world is dangerous." He pulled out the rifle and loaded it as well. "I'll have to adjust, and a quick hunting expedition with you two is the closest I'll get to training wheels."
Morgana was clever.
Not as clever as he thought, but clever nonetheless.
When he materialized in the middle of some unknown territory, his first instinct was to duck for cover in a dark corner near some barricade assembled from billboards. A few people noticed him in the corner of their eyes.
"[ジッド ユ シ ダット?]"
Morgana didn't speak English – and unlike Ryuji and Yusuke, he didn't know the English alphabet either.
When whoever noticed him shrugged and moved along, Morgana allowed himself to collect his thoughts. He had been fighting the Demiurge alongside the other Phantom Thieves, he banished them somewhere, and now he didn't know his location.
He peeked out of his hiding spot a little bit. In front of him was a large building, around ten stories tall, decorated with neon signs depicting silhouettes of attractive ladies. There was a sign on it, with some fire burning on top in a controlled manner. In front of it, a few skimpily-dressed ladies danced for a small crowd of soldiers and civilians.
Opposite said building was something Morgana assumed was a casino – it was a tower shaped like the top thingie on a roulette wheel, and from where he was he could see the sign on the front, reading "[Something] 38", adorned with a roulette wheel. In comparison to its neighbor it seemed oddly still, with no people exiting, entering, or standing in its vicinity. It didn't even seem to have an entrance.
A worn down two-lane road led towards a massive steel gate, guarded by… were they robots?! Intimidating-looking machines, each on one wheel, with bulky chassis reminding him of muscular torsos, and arms long enough to touch the ground. They all had screens on the front, displaying a drawing of a stern-looking policeman.
But at the time, Morgana found all that secondary to a more important fact: his friends were nowhere in sight.
He felt nervous. He was stuck alone in an unfamiliar land, the chatter he was picking up from other people was in a language he didn't know, and while he was confident in his ability to avoid human detection, he was not going to risk getting in sight of a robo-
"[シス スカイスクレーパー イン]"
That threw him in a loop. The word, overheard from one passerby, whatever it meant, seemed to… resonate with him, in a way he couldn't understand. It seemed… familiar, somehow?
"[ユ シンク ハウス イス ア ロボット]"
Another one. He could feel his whiskers twitch, sensing something beyond senses. It felt like… a Treasure? Was there a Palace nearby? These must've been keywords he was able to innately sense despite the language barrier. Two outta three, he just needed a third one and he'd be able to access a random Palace. Sure, it wouldn't lead him closer to reuniting with his friends, but it seemed better than waiting for a miracle in an unfamiliar land.
The third keyword took a moment to come up. Finally, one of the random Securitrons said something to a random civilian staring at the "38" tower:
"[セ ラッキー セルチ エイト イス ナトー オープン]"
"[Jackpot,]" Morgana purred, as he felt himself cross the barrier between the real world and the Metaverse.
The fade was different than he expected. It felt like a sandstorm visually enveloping him from all sides. When it subsided, he found himself in the middle of the night, standing in front of a skyscraper, towering over a dark, destroyed city.
The whole building had a vaguely art-deco-y feel to it. The walls were covered with sandstone-coloured tiles. The main tower had three tiers, like a wedding cake; the bottom one was a cuboid a few dozen meters long and over a hundred meters high, the middle one was half as tall and two-third as wide, and the top one was half as big as the one below it. In total, it must've been somewhere around two hundred meters tall – two fifty, if you added the spire at the top. The top edges of each tier were adorned with symbols of playing card colors, carved in limestone and marble. In each corner of the main tower stood a smaller sub-tower, half as high as the first tier, with a flat roof and similar detailing as its big brother. Morgana thought the whole arrangement reminded him of a rocket about to take off.
He circled the building looking for an entrance. The sides of the building were illuminated, each with its own pattern – one side had a top-down view of a roulette wheel, one had the four playing card colors arranged two-by-two in the middle, one had three columns of moving symbols, resembling a slot machine in action, and one had a silver casino chip spinning around on it. None of the sides had a visible entrance.
"[Man,]" he mewled. "[Already a dead end?]"
"[Not necessarily.]"
Morgana did a one-eighty, startled, and found himself staring at a vaguely human being, about the size of a child. She was wearing a dark blue dress, and a matching headband keeping her long platinum blonde hair in check. Her arms were covered by a pair of black long gloves, and she was carrying a thick serious-looking tome under her shoulder. Morgana knew her - she was Igor's assistant. "[Lady Lavenza!]"
"[Welcome,]" she smiled. "[My master wishes to speak with you.]"
She moved aside and a door materialized behind the spot she had stood; not the cell door he had expected, but saloon-style swinging ebony doors, reaching all the way down to the floor. They did not resist as he pushed them inwards, but they did slap him in the butt as he entered. Igor was waiting for him inside, sitting by one of the tables with his fingers tented. "[Greetings. Come closer,]" he beckoned him.
After some hesitation, Morgana trotted up to the table he was sitting by and jumped on it. "[W-what's going on, sir?]"
"[In brief, the usurper banished you and your friends to a different world,] Igor explained. [Details will be filled in shortly, but if I am allowed to ask… how did you manage to enter the local equivalent of the Metaverse?]"
"[I'm not sure,]" Morgana replied. "[I think I picked up Palace keywords from bystanders talking, but I don't understand their meaning.]"
"[Hm.]" Igor slowly reached into his suit's inner pocket and pulled out a shimmering card, and put it face-down on the table. "[I want to try something. Would you kindly pick it up?]" he asked, pushing it towards Morgana.
He laid a front paw on it and it disappeared, as he felt a shiver going through him, as if a locked off part of his mind was now opened.
"Promising so far," Igor remarked, in English. "Do you understand my words?"
"I…" Morgana's eyes widened. "I do! I speak the language now!"
"Fantastic," Igor said, tenting his fingers again. "[Now, what do the keywords mean?]"
"[Skyscraper, house, Lucky 38,]" Morgana recited. "['Skyscraper' is the current Palace's form, 'Lucky 38' must've been the name of the casino I was in front of, and that leaves House, sorry,] House, [as the name of the Palace owner.]"
"[Aren't you clever,]" Igor remarked, with a hint of pride in his voice. "[Now, with that out of the way – your friends are scattered around the area. Mr. Amamiya – 'Akira', or 'Joker' as you would call him – is trying to gather them all in one place. Should he succeed, I will be able to send you back to your world to finish what you started.]"
"[Do you know where he is?]" Morgana asked. "[I gotta find him!]"
"[I would advise against that,]" Igor said. "[In the real world, you're unfortunately limited by your form, and this world is much more dangerous than what you're used to. And my ability to return you to your universe hinges on your survival – you are born of your universe's humanity, I will not be able to track it down without you.]"
"[Ah,]" Morgana lost some steam. "[But I gotta get to him somehow anyway, otherwise he'll waste time trying to find me.]"
"[I can contact him when he rests,]" Igor offered. "[It is the least I can do after everything he has done for me. In the meantime, you can relax here or further inspect the Palace of Mr. House.]"
"[It's locked off for now, so I can't do much.]" A thought appeared in Morgana's head. "[How do Palaces work here?]" he asked. "[Is there, like, another prison that we banish Shadows to, ruled by some malevolent overseer?]" He panicked a bit. "[Is there another Demiurge we have to worry about?!]"
"[I do not believe so, no,]" Igor said, calmly. "[At the very least, not in the part of the world you ended up in; the population here is less dense and not as interconnected as your world was. Should you hypothetically steal the Treasure from a Palace, it would simply cease to exist, with no harm done to the real person.]"
"[So there's no Mementos analogue?]" Morgana continued. "[No place for minor Shadows not distorted enough for separate Palaces?]"
"[This is not an exact science,]" Igor replied, "[but I believe Shadows like that could show up in Palaces of more distorted individuals, if there is any form of connection between the major target and the minor one.]"
"[Fascinating.]" After a beat, Morgana added: "[So, uh, is there anything I can do to pass the time until Akira hits the hay?]"
"[Are you hungry, perchance?]" Igor offered. "[Lavenza could prepare you a meal.]"
He perked up a bit. "[Do you have something with fatty tuna?]"