Persona 5: Daywatch

Sunday, 24 July 2016
Morning
Kanda Catholic Church

As the people shuffled out, Akira searched the departing crowd for the tiny splash of bright color in the hair of the most graceful girl he ever met. He scanned through the thinning congregation for the red omamori-style knot since she wasn't in her usual spot in the second or third row.

It was only a passing glance at the entrance which caught her trudging out before she disappeared into the dissipating crowd.

"Togo-san!" Akira crowd-ran with as much dexterity as he could muster to cut between the throng of people between them.

She stiffened at the threshold, surprise and a number of other expressions flashing over her face as she spun around, before withdrawing behind a tired but cool expression. "Akira-kun. I'm sorry I haven't responded this week. Mother took my phone." Her deep emerald gaze fell and she let out a huff. "I had an interview. It was as bad as that exposé I already told you about earlier. They never even asked about shogi. They asked how long I spent on makeup and what brands I used. They asked about Papa, but only how sick he was. They asked about Mother, but only how long she spent working two jobs to keep the home afloat. They asked about cousin Rumi, but only about the burglary." A tremor passed through her gaze, but she refused to give up that defiant, regal posture.

Akira reached out a hand, brushing it along her arm.

She closed her eyes and let out a slow breath, some of the stress lines fading from her face and neck. "I… snapped at him." She leaned against his touch and his heart jackhammered. "I know. Mother's taught me for years the worst thing you can do in front of others is lose control. But…" She crossed her arms. "Mother stepped in, but it wasn't to defend me. She just brought up more of the things my family's had to suffer. As soon as we got to the privacy of my room backstage, she flew into a rage. When I tried to say the interviews were becoming inappropriate, she yelled. At me. Yelled that we'd never have the power to quash those rumors without more… force of audience behind us." She rubbed her arms under the opaque sleeves of her checkered dress.

"Excuse me," an old woman said from behind them.

The two high schoolers descended the steps and took to the side. Akira stepped closer, misjudging the distance and bumping into her.

Hifumi's arms slipped around and she pressed against him. "I just want them to be happy. It's the first time Mother's been happy since Papa was first hospitalized."

Akira's arms wrapped around her even before his mind could finish telling him he was too close. "You should be happy, Hifumi."

Her voice was so low, even though she spoke against his shoulder, he had to strain to hear, "How can I be happy when everyone around me is miserable?"

Akira tightened his arms against her, though in the summer heat it already felt uncomfortable. "You're too honest and not selfish enough."

"I'm so tired of people saying I'm an airheaded idol. Or some conniving vamp." She sighed against him. "And online… it's disgusting. But I can't just cloister myself off. This is my world, and I still want to live in it, not locked away from it like Papa." Her arms tightened around him. Were it not for the heat of her body adding to the already suffocating summer, he would have savored the sensation of her curves pressing against him. "Do you know why I practice at church?"

Akira loosened his arms – part to give himself some relief from the heat, and part so he could look her in those gorgeous green eyes he could drown in.

"Nobody else will play." The muscles around her eyes tensed, an agony she couldn't hide behind her natural regal countenance. "Papa isn't well enough to play most days anymore, and my shogi associates don't even want to be in the same room with me." Her gaze dropped. "Maybe I should give up this childish dream and get a real job. If I don't have to play the idol, journalists can't hurt—"

He tightened his arms around her. He wanted to tell her he'd be there, but the whole world was chewing her up and spitting her out. What could one person do against the whole world? "You should do what you love. What you're good at. You pour your sweat and tears into shogi."

A nervous laugh crawled out of Hifumi's throat, the kind which reminded him of Milgram's Experiment. "I guess that's true, but in this weather, I work up a sweat just breathing. Ick." She pushed him away, then tugged out at her dress, where some of the creases from them pressing together were sticking.

His heart fluttered at the loss of her firmness against him, but everything else was glad to subtract that body-heat compounding the already stifling humidity. "Let's go somewhere."

She withdrew her arms and gave a gentle smile which made his knees feel weak.

Noon
Van Quy Soup House

Behind a nook concealing the restaurant's water heater, Akira slurped down chilled udon-style noodles.

Sitting across the two-person table from him, Hifumi swallowed a tidy bite of thin-sliced grilled pork spotted with fish sauce, before resuming her recount of the week. "I've even been practicing online for the exhibition match. Mother's been reminding me every day I'll be the first woman to reach the pro ranking league. My record may not have any losses yet, but he has so many hundred more matches I can't help it." She poked at her rice. "It's been keeping me up every night this week."

Akira scanned her, not just for her flawless skin and graceful curves, but to try to divine why she was so nervous about a match in what had to be the specialty of the smartest person he ever met. She relished the challenge, it was one of the things which lit a fire in him. Nobody else was excited by the hope of a close match like him before. He jabbed his chopsticks in his cold soup. "In a contest between two people of equal skill, it can come down to luck."

She gave him a nervous smile, though the muscles around her eyes remained tense. "You've become very wise since we first met. Were you keeping that under wraps?"

His hand reached for his chopsticks, but instead of closing his fingers on them, he kept his focus on her. "You're avoiding something you actually want to talk about." A few possibilities came to mind, but as much as he disliked the tricks he learned from his old bastard, silence was more effective than torture at getting people to volunteer the truth.

She gave a shy smile and seemed to steady at his silent stoicism. "You know me so well, Akira-kun." She picked up a glob of sticky white rice, but stared at it instead of raising it to her mouth. "Things have been getting more tenuous with Papa's health. And Mother shocked me even more than when she yelled at me for the first time last week." She lowered the rice. "She told me to lose."

Akira's fingers clenched on his chopsticks. "If anybody can make this game, Hifumi-san, you can."

She gave him a pitying smile, the lines in her neck growing taut. "Your support is gratifying, but she didn't say I might lose. She told me to lose."

He'd thrown games of shogi against his mother while he was trying to convince her to take him away from his father, but the idea of the smartest, most honest person on Earth doing so made his gut clench. Even so, a pack of idiots couldn't have raised the brilliant girl sitting across the small table from him. "Why?"

Hifumi took up another bite of rice, her jaw clamping down on it with more force than steamed rice deserved. She swallowed, then spat, "Fame."

Akira picked up his chopsticks and ate a slice of carrot. "If Ip Man and Kagawa Teruyuki taught me anything, it's that audiences sit on the edges of their seats to see how the underdog climbs back up from defeat."

Hifumi nodded, her lips thin and the lines in her neck sharp. "By rebounding from a public failure, I can become a symbol for strong women refusing to be held down by men. And with my photos already attracting legions of men…"

"Your popularity will skyrocket. Magazines and websites which don't even care about shogi will clamor for you." His chopsticks creaked in his hand. "I should've expected something that cunning from someone who raised such a smart queen."

She jammed her chopsticks into the Com Tam still on her plate. "She even thinks I can win and wants me not to! It's so infuriating! And even worse, it would probably work. She has such a knack for mass media."

Akira loosened his grip on his chopsticks, but resisted the urge to reach across the table and take her hand. He fished out another slice of carrot and ate it, but his heartbeat still pounded in sympathetic anger. "There's a lot of things you might be willing to adapt to, but you've got too much integrity to throw a match."

Hifumi breathed out, her shoulders slumping just a little. "I've disagreed with her in the past, but… our fight this time was… vigorous." She bit her lip, shrinking in on herself just a little. "She couldn't even understand. She told me I was wasting time with shogi when I could make all the money I'd ever need from my looks." She let her chopsticks fall and clasped her hands on her lap. "Sometimes I wonder if I was deluding myself from the start about her support. If the only thing she cared about was money and ratings…" She sucked in a breath, looking so defeated. "I love shogi as much as my parents. I can't abandon either of them!"

His hand took leave of his brain and reached out to take hers. "Hold on, Hifumi-san. We're… we're working on saving another heart right now, but we will save your mother's." And yours, he couldn't make himself say.

She squeezed back, and any hope he had of speaking was dashed.

Sunday, 24 July 2016
Afternoon
Yongen, Back Streets

Akira slipped through the streets, the noise of traffic less oppressive than the first time he set foot in the sleepy residential community. Few pedestrians disturbed the concrete walkways at this time in the late afternoon, so it only took him a moment to find Makoto and the runner under the covered entry space of the defunct local theater. "Hey," he called to announce his presence. "Any luck on that last keyword?"

She shook her head. "Ryuji and Ann still think they can guess it, but I'm so stumped I've given up on anything but your dictionary method. Leash."

"Condition has not been met."

The runner shifted his lean against the defunct theater. "So whaddya here so early for? I thought you worked on Sundays."

Akira handed over water bottles fogged with condensation. "Some dude robbed the store with a baseball bat. Between the cops and cleanup, they're closed until the evening shift."

Ryuji stretched out from the other side of the door the class president slouched against. "Man, how hard could it be to figure out what a shut-in thinks her house is? A prison?"

"Condition has not been met."

"Leather," Makoto said.

"Condition has not been met."

Ryuji whined, "Why can't Ann or Yusuke be here to help us out?"

"No need for everyone to be together until we can get inside," Akira said. He opened his own insulated steel thermos, filled with ice water and took a gulp. "Mishima's not here, either."

Ryuji grunted. "Uh, he doesn't even have a Persona, dude." He looked down at his phone, the Metaverse Navigator staring up at him. "What's the name of that maze thing with the weird monster in it?"

Morgana blinked, his ears angling askew. "What?"

Akira took off his glasses to wipe the lenses clear. "Like a labyrinth?"

"Condition has not been met."

She shot him a hooded glance. "I tried that one five minutes ago, Ryuji. Leave."

"Condition has not been met."

Akira pulled out his own phone to check his dictionary app, then joined the others in the shade for the scant good it would do. "You sure we can't just give Mishima the app and let him do this brute-force word search?"

"Leaves," Makoto said.

"Condition has not been met."

Morgana growled, the low sound thrumming from the team leader. "I don't like it either, but each time the Nav is used around other people, that's another person carrying the keys to a dangerous world." He stepped closer inside the shade and gave a vigorous shake to try to cool off. "Though I've started to wonder if we're on the wrong track with thinking of involuntary shut-in. Some people hide away because they feel the outside world is dangerous. Maybe she thinks of her room as an oasis?"

"Condition has not been met."

"Jail?" Ryuji asked, only to get the same negative. He cringed. "Right, we already tried that one." He looked at the four assembled Phantom Thieves, his eyes stopping on the transfer student. "Ain't there some special bad place in Catholic church?"

"We already tried hell," Akira said, unsure where the dyed-blond was going.

"Condition has not been met."

Akira rubbed his chin, eyes narrowed in thought. "Purgatory."

"Condition has not been met."

"Sanctuary?" Morgana tried.

"Condition has not been met."

The transfer student leaned against the wall next to Makoto to check her progress on the word list. "Legislator."

"Condition has not been met."

"Leisure," Makoto tried.

"Condition has not been met."

Ryuji growled. "Man, we ain't got nearly enough clues to figure this out."

Ear twitching, Morgana groused. "If only she could tell us directly."

Ryuji closed the Nav and put his phone away, a grimace on his sweaty face. "Well why the hell ain't we askin' her, 'steada playin' twenty questions out here where it's hot as eff?"

Makoto rounded on the track star, her hair plastered to her sweaty skin. "And how do we get in, Sakamoto? You think the door's going to be unlocked every time we want to go somewhere?"

Morgana shook as if he could cast the heat out of his fur. "Don't forget how dexterous my paws can be, even in this world. If I can open that padlock to Madarame's stash, I can open an old house's front door."

Makoto fidgeted. "What about Boss? I don't want to sour things between him and Akira-kun."

Akira slipped his phone into his pocket. "I'll figure it out, just like I always have. I managed life before him. If necessary, I'll manage life after. Futaba may be trapped in her trauma, and Medjed's too important to get caught up on little things along the way."

Ryuji nodded, puffing up his chest a little. "Effin' right!"

The class president held a cringe. "You getting kicked out of Leblanc would not be a little thing. Not for you, and not for us."

He could almost hear Hifumi tutting at him. Akira adjusted the satchel on his shoulder, its straps not feeling right with Morgana's weight absent. "I shouldn't have started fatalistic like that. Boss is a workaholic, he'll be at Leblanc until evening. We shouldn't need to worry about him."

Ryuji smirked. "Listen to your boy, Makoto. We'll get this, we just gotta go after it."

Morgana sighed. "Can we just get to it before I turn into fried cat? Judging from the agreement to back-hack Medjed while we change the target's heart, Joker's already got some rapport, so we won't be starting from square one."

With no argument from the assembled group, they proceeded to the Sakura house and, after a short lock-picking session, inside and to the upper floor. Caution tape on one door framed a poster with a star field, a translucent A with a circle above it in the center. "Hey, it's Earth's point of origin."

"Whazzat?" Ryuji leaned in, clapping a heavy hand on Akira's shoulder before he gave up. The runner looked down at the team leader. "You sure this is the right place?"

"Yes," Morgana snapped.

Makoto cleared her throat. "Futaba-chan? I'm sorry I startled you the other day. I wasn't prepared when the lights went out."

Ryuji growled and wiped his forehead. "Man. Gettin' into Palaces sucks."

Makoto whacked him in the arm. "Sakamoto!" She brought up her phone's contact book.

Akira felt his phone buzz in his pocket the instant before the wind and string instruments of the theme song for the Goa'uld floated out. Makoto's ID spread over the incoming call window.

Makoto huffed. "Sorry, I meant to call Ann."

An instant later, Akira's chat app buzzed with the mysterious Alibaba. He reversed course immediately. "Futaba?"

The hacker's text read, [Why are you here?]

Morgana hopped up onto the transfer student's shoulder to spy on his text app. "Why'd she only react now?"

Closing the president's call, Akira pursed his lips, trying to get his mind into what a girl would be thinking. He wasn't having much success. "Hearts are hard to get into. We need to know more if we are going to have any chance of success."

Makoto stepped closer to read his screen in the dark, narrow hallway, her breasts pressing against his arm. When Akira jerked aside, she realized and stepped back to the door. "I know you may be more comfortable with Alibaba, but Sakura Futaba is the only one who can answer the questions we need."

[What do you need?]

Akira let out a short breath of air that the hacker was keeping the line of communication open this time. "Living in this house has a special meaning for you. What is it?"

[Pain.]

Scratching his scalp, he angled his screen so the class president could see. When the upperclassman shrugged and sent a strained look at him, Akira looked up at the door. "Is that Buddha? Life is suffering?"

Silence suffused the hallway for long seconds. Ryuji turned on the transfer student. "Dude! We're tryin' to get what her keyword is, an' you're quotin' religion?"

"I'm trying, okay?" Akira looked back to his chat app. "Faith is important to some of us." He bit his tongue, trying to think. [If this place is painful, why don't you leave?]

A beat passed before the Sakura girl responded, [This is where I die.]

That comment made his heartbeat clench in his chest. His teeth ground and his hands trembled.

Makoto sucked in a breath, her hands covering her mouth as she stared at his phone screen with wide eyes. She whispered, "I thought you already tried grave."

Morgana scratched at his collar as he peered down from the transfer student's shoulder. "Isn't that where people are buried long after they're dead? This looks like a place where people are laid to rest. Maybe a tomb?"

"Input accepted. Searching for route to destination."

Akira backed his phone to the main screen and looked up to the others, his gaze steely. "Call the others. It's showtime!" He turned to the door and raised his voice to be heard through it. "We've got it, Alibaba… I mean, Sakura. You take down Medjed, and we change your heart."

[I remember our deal. Just work quickly.]

Makoto put her phone away. "Ann and Yusuke are on their way. Ann's already at the train station."

Akira just gave a nod.

The team soon rallied at what served as the front court of the Sakura house. The upperclassman said, "Everybody ready to go in? This will be the first Palace since Madarame, and if I've learned anything from them since Kaneshiro, it's that each one is different."

Yusuke nodded. "Very practical caution."

"Aaand… off to crazyland." Ryuji, leaning next to the door, activated the Nav, and the world bled red.

Monday, 25 July 2016
Early Afternoon
Yongen, Sakura House, Futaba's Room

Futaba tensed, hunched on her computer chair as the Phantom Thieves argued outside her door. Her heart jackhammered in her chest at the prospect of strangers being so close.

The beautiful, haunting notes of the Goa'uld theme flowed both through the door and the bug on Kurusu Akira's phone. One of the girls said something, but that music cut through Futaba's panic and triggered that sense of need. A question which had to be quenched. She yanked herself around and her fingers trembled as she scrabbled for her phone. She could have initialized a virtual terminal on one of her computers, but her phone already had a virtual node which would erase itself from the telecom network after she closed it. Her fingers trembled as she typed a text into the text messenger. [Why are you here?]

A cat meowed on the other side of the door.

She watched the bug displaying everything on his phone screen as he closed the call from the girl. He raised his voice to be heard through the door. "Hearts are hard to get into. We need to know more if we are going to have any chance of success."

The girl who was alternately sniping or swooning at Akira called at that same raised-to-talk-through-the-door volume, "I know you may be more comfortable with Alibaba, but Sakura Futaba is the only one who can answer the questions we need."

Futaba's heart jackhammered in her chest and it felt like her throat closed up. Was she asking the impossible of them? Maybe her heart was too twisted to be saved after all. She swallowed and typed, her hands starting to shake again by the time she sent, [What do you need?]

She brought open Akira's camera and saw him chew on his lip a moment, before he said, "Living in this house has a special meaning for you. What is it?"

What was her life? That was the easiest question in the world to answer. [Pain.]

The bugged phone shook as Akira angled it towards the girl standing against him. Strange… they were so close, but she didn't sound like the one who cried with him a week ago, so close Futaba bugged her phone too. The short-haired girl gave a baffled shrug and looked back at Akira, then he shrugged and looked up at the door. "Is that Buddha? Life is suffering?"

The idiot snapped, "Dude! We're tryin' to get what her keyword is, an' you're quotin' religion?"

"I'm trying, okay? Faith is important to some of us." Akira scrunched his face for a moment before typing, [If this place is painful, why don't you leave?]

Futaba felt the calm of certainty wash over her as she sent, [This is where I die.]

Akira's phone shook.

Makoto covered her mouth, her eyes wide in the dark hall. "I thought you already tried 'grave'."

The cat meowed.

"Input accepted. Searching for route to destination."

Akira canceled the Metaverse Navigator app and returned to his phone's home screen. All trace of hesitation left as he commanded, "Call the others. It's showtime!" He called through the door. "We've got it, Alibaba… I mean, Sakura. You take down Medjed, and we change your heart."

A tear dripped down one cheek at the promise of release. [I remember our deal. Just work quickly.]

As they walked back outside, Makoto said, "Ann and Yusuke are on their way. Ann's already at the train station."

Cloth shuffled, though what motion the transfer student made, Futaba couldn't guess. Despite her promise, she felt glued to her screen as she strained to hear anything else from the bug. Minutes later, the other girl and the weirdo who had to be from another dimension joined them in the miniscule space serving as the front court outside, just underneath her room.

The upperclassman said, "Everybody ready to go in? This will be the first Palace since Madarame, and if I've learned anything from them since Kaneshiro, it's that each one is different."

Yusuke nodded. "Very practical caution."

Ryuji drawled out, "Aaand… off to crazyland."

The world around Futaba bled red, every line twisting in on itself. Her eyes blinked, and opened not to stained carpet, but polished marble. She looked to her left and right and saw the polished stone steps descend to a huge room she'd recognize anywhere. The palatial command center of a Goa'uld Ha'tak. Maroon tapestries hung around the perimeter of the room, edged in wing stylings and bearing the symbol of the ankh. A pair of masked Jaffa in avian-styled trooper plating looked up to her, then bowed to their knees. "My Lord!" Then they looked up past her, and repeated it in confusion.

Behind Futaba, on the ostentatious gold throne of the Pel'tak, sat a beautiful woman with all the intimidating countenance of her mother. The eyes were yellow instead of hazel, and the hair was the brilliant red of copper she wanted back when she let Kana dye her hair. It wasn't until she took in the regal white linen and matte bronze scales that she realized it looked more like an adult version of herself.

The eyes flashed with gold light, and her adult doppelganger waved a lazy hand at the weird masked Jaffa. Her voice reverberated, "Leave us. Gather everyone in parade formation before the landing temple."

Futaba squawked in terror, her smart phone tumbling from her fingertips before she fell from her crouch, backwards down the short stairs to the polished marble floor.

Her double stood and took a step to scoop up the fallen phone, before kneeling down next to the fallen and hyperventilating younger self. The eye-glow receded, but the irises retained the unnatural hue. Her eyebrows pressed together and sadness twisted her face as she held out the phone with one word, as hushed and ordinary as any whisper, "Live."

Breath caught in her throat, Futaba reached a trembling hand to take her phone. On it sat a terrifying app, a bleeding eyeball staring straight at her, though she saw Exit on it and mashed it with her thumb.

Afternoon
Futaba's Palace, Dunes

The Sakura house vanished in the blink of Akira's eye, the chaotic concrete jungle replaced with endless sand dunes. Somehow even the yellow sun felt menacing. Akira shielded his eyes against the glare and waited until his eyes adjusted.

Yusuke held his hand to his brow to shield his eyes and stared out. "It is a desert."

Makoto wiped at her forehead and glanced at the others, then down at herself. "Shouldn't we have done that… 'Poof, Phantom Thief!' thing as soon as we got in here?"

Morgana shook his head. "Alibaba… I mean, Futaba wants us to steal her heart. The Palace Ruler has to perceive you as a threat."

Ann gazed around the sandy expanse, then paced up to look over the dune for a moment before returning to the group. "This place feels so… bleak. It's so weird after as populated as Kaneshiro's bank was. Or tidy as Madarame's museum was." She gazed out at the sandy expanse. "Maybe Futaba-chan thinks the world is a desolate place she has to defend herself from?"

Akira looked down and couldn't decide if he was glad he was still in his civilian attire or not. Shielding his eyes, he looked across the horizon for signs of civilization. "Hey, Morgana, shouldn't we be seeing Tokyo?"

The catboy side-stepped into Ann's shadow. "The Metaverse is a cognitive reality, remember? If the Ruler doesn't know or care about Tokyo, it wouldn't exist in her mind. This desolate place could be what she thinks of the wider world as."

Something tickled at his ear–a familiar sound which picked up in volume until it resembled the rumbling scream of a machine. Akira's eyes bugged out and he dove. "Everyone, down!" All but Makoto hit the hot sand. He reached up to snag her wrist and pulled, but his angle ended up tripping her and they fell in one tangle of limbs.

Before he could act embarrassed about a girl falling on top of him, two crescent-shaped craft with plasma cannons slung under their tips roared overhead. They came down to an altitude of about thirty meters, one falling into position behind the other as they zoomed low across the sky.

Ryuji rose to his knees and spotted the upperclassman on top of Akira. "Heh. Not like I don't get it, but there's gotta be better places to get it on than a Palace."

She shot to her feet with an 'Eep!', and for a moment, Akira felt a pang of loss at the absence of softness against him. He stood, shielding his eyes, and took the lead. "This way, guys. The Death Gliders looked like they were lining up for landing at a hanger, which means we've got to be close."

Brushing sand from his sleeves, Yusuke said, "Those did not appear to be gliders to me. They definitely seemed like heavier-than-air—"

"It's just a name," Akira said. The others fell in behind his run, and after only a few minutes, they came to the crest of a large dune. Three men and one blonde woman in green fatigues hustled down the trough between dunes, all members of both groups coming to a halt as weapons came up. Akira's breath caught in his throat for a moment when he recognized them even without having to see their shoulder patches. "Colonel O'Neil!" He fought the urge to dance at coming face-to-face with the heroes of his favorite TV show. "Major Carter, Teal'c, and Doctor Daniel Jackson. We're here to help. We're on a mission to steal an artifact from the System Lord."

Ryuji stared at the transfer student. "Are you fangirling?"

Akira held out his free hand at the cognitions. "They're SG-1! I watched the show for years!"

Teal'c held as steady as his imposing figure always did on the show. The big, brawny, dark-skinned man with the golden crest of Apophis on his forehead glanced to the gray-haired man in fatigues beside him. "They do appear to be dressed in the garb of the Tau'ri, O'Neil."

The grizzled, white-haired man looked up from behind his black firearm, something heavier than any rifle the track star had carried. "You with the NID?"

Morgana kept his crossbow trained on the burly man holding a staff trained on them. "Who's that?"

Akira searched his memory. "Uh… covert operations group on Earth. Stole any tech they could get their grubby little hands on and nearly broke the alliance with the Asgard." He lowered his sub-machine gun and looked at the white-haired man still braced behind his weapon. "We're here to help."

The short-haired blonde woman in fatigues lowered her weapon and glanced to her side. "I'm pretty sure no NID would broadcast that little screw-up, General."

Morgana looked up to the transfer student still in street clothes. "They're not Shadows, but cognitions aren't necessarily safe either. Are you sure about them, Joker?"

Akira let his weapon drift down to his side. "If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that SG-1 are the good guys." He looked back to the four adults in green fatigues. "I'm not sure what your mission is, but whatever it is, I'm sure we can help each other."

O'Neil grit his jaw and looked at the weapons in the thieves' hands. "Kids shouldn't be playing with guns."

A spark went off in his mind as he remembered Hifumi bringing his own pieces against him in their games. Mercenaries followed different rules than the sworn-to-death landed samurai. He could exploit the same excuse here. "We're not Tau'ri. We're mercenaries contracted by… the Lucian Alliance to steal a critical component which will destroy the System Lord's Ha'tak."

The other three in military fatigues looked to O'Neil before he sighed. "Ah, for cryin' out loud! Always gotta be a snag. Brass is gonna need to hear this." When he lowered his weapon, Teal'c snapped his staff weapon shut, and the Phantom Thieves lowered their weapons with relieved breaths. "Sam, Daniel, take point. We're checking back in to base camp." He slung his weapon and looked into the transfer student's grey eyes. "Since your intel's obviously outdated, I'm a Brigadier General now, and Sam was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel more'n a year ago."

The two groups hiked for what felt like an hour before reaching a small cluster of beige camouflage tents. About a dozen assorted men in close-cropped hair and the same green air force fatigues as SG-1 guarded the camp. The four members of SG-1 slipped into the largest tent, a rectangular arrangement with two central tent peaks.

After a few minutes, their archaeologist and language expert ducked back out. "General Isshiki's agreed to see you, but don't get your hopes up about joining the search and destroy mission."

Inside, a long folding conference table held an array of closed binders full of papers at one end, and computers at the other. Blinky light units whirred beside the latter. A woman wearing the blues of an air force officer's dress uniform stood up and brushed her straight, black hair away from her glasses. She glanced at O'Neil. "Thank you, General, that will be all."

"Understood, General Isshiki." He flashed a quick salute and left, Sam and Teal'c following after.

Akira almost dropped his weapon at the sight. Despite a uniform fitting the American Air Force, he'd know that face anywhere. Isshiki Wakaba, Director of Blue Cove. "Director Isshiki really was Futaba's mother?"

The black-haired woman's eyes snapped to him and she gestured to the three stars at her collar. "That's General Isshiki." Her eyes flitted over the Phantom Thieves. "So you claim you're here to destroy the System Lord's Ha'tak?"

Makoto edged closer to the transfer student and leaned to whisper, "What exactly is that?"

Akira whispered back, but maintained no illusion she couldn't either read his lips or hear anyway. "A mothership. The seat of a System Lord's power. The throne ferrying them across the stars and deploying their armies."

Director – no, the cognition of General Isshiki clasped her hands behind her back. "So you know what a Ha'tak is, but where are your naquada charges? You don't have a battleship, and those weapons wouldn't even be a serious threat to the contingent of Jaffa guarding the Ha'tak."

Makoto blinked. "What do cakes have to do with guards?"

Akira squared his shoulders. "Every vessel carries its vulnerabilities. The reactor and computer cores can both be sabotaged to turn it into a useless hunk of metal."

Isshiki spat a laugh at them. "You must have grown up under the gods. You are expecting a miracle." She waved them out and raised her voice. "We don't need your help to destroy the System Lord for her crimes against nature and humanity. Stay out of my teams' way, and I don't care what mercenaries do with their time. The System Lord will be destroyed."

Akira's fists clenched, his black gloves straining. "But—"

Morgana hopped onto the transfer student's shoulder. "She's made her decision, Joker. As long as we don't have to worry about these cognitions interrupting our mission to steal the Palace Ruler's Treasure, it shouldn't matter." He looked out at the others. "Come on, everyone."

As soon as they were out of sight of the Stargate force's camp, Morgana turned on the transfer student. "Okay, I didn't want to say anything in front of them because you did talk us through one layer of Palace defenses, but how did you know all of those things? Did you sneak in before?"

Akira shook his head, then wiped at his forehead with the back of his gloved hand. "Stargate SG-1 is a TV show. Somebody left the box set for the fourth season in Blue Cove's administration staff break room years ago, and I've been hooked since." He shielded his eyes with his hand and scanned the horizon. "Futaba'd have to be obsessed with it for the show to be the theme and foundation of her Palace. Anybody remember which way those Death Gliders were heading when they lined up?"

Makoto glanced around, then down, changed the angle of her feet a bit, then scanned the horizon dominated by undulating dunes and long stretches of cracked dry wash. She gave one short nod, ending in a droplet of sweat falling from her chin. "That way."

Morgana transformed into the minibus, and they raced over the cracked ground. Stale, hot air leaked from the vents, but none of the windows would lower, so the team had no choice but to sit in the catbus and sweat. Minutes passed, the water ran out, and the desert stretched on.

Ann tugged at her sweat-soaked shirt to try to let some cooler air at her skin. Even her lacy purple bra was soaked with sweat.

Ryuji leaned forward. Yusuke followed suit.

The gleaming point of the landed pyramid ship rose up above the undulating dunes sprawling around it like protective berms. His excitement ran ahead and Akira stood up as much as he could in the minibus, bracing one hand on the back of the model's chair as he pointed with his other finger at the gold superstructure rising up out into view as they drew closer. "Look, it's the same upgraded design Apophis was constructing before SG-1 blew it up."

Instead of looking forward, Ann looked up at him… then glanced down at the sweat-soaked white shirt she was still tugging away from her chest in an attempt to cool off. "Perverts!" She swung a quick punch into Akira's cheek, knocking his skull into the still gawking Ryuji, who knocked into the artist also leaning forward. All three smacked into the side of the catbus.

Morgana swerved left. Sand slid out from under the tires as the dune they were driving along started to collapse, tipping the catbus. Their Metaverse guide and transportation popped back into his catboy form, and the deluge of sand crashed over all of them.

Ryuji, wearing shorts and ankle-high-socks, was the first to burst out of the sand-a-lanche with a cry of pain. "Fuck, that's hot!"

While Ryuji helped extricate the artist, Akira and Ann helped Makoto dig herself out from the sand burying her up to her neck. She stumbled to her feet, minus one shoe, but by the way she brushed herself off didn't seem injured.

With the artist out and brushing away his sand, Ryuji spun on the team leader. "Is everythin' you do half-assed? I thought you said you had AC."

The half-pint catboy hopped in rage. "I was doing the best I could! This Palace isn't exactly optimal for any of my abilities! It's almost unpopulated, hot, and big."

Ann stepped in, her voice just a little too heated to bring things down.

Makoto noticed the transfer student creeping up the sand dune and followed him up to the crest. Whatever complaint she had for him died on her tongue when she got high enough to see more than the circular gold superstructure extending out of the enormous pyramid center of the Ha'tak.

The high dunes receded into packed earth around the base of the pyramid ship's landing site. A limestone temple poked up from in front of it. At least a hundred men in breastplates and holding long staffs gathered in a perfect parade formation in front of the temple. From behind, Akira couldn't tell much about the cognitive Jaffa gathered, so he looked up to the one standing on the steps of the stone temple. His armor looked more extensive, with plate pauldrons and bracers instead of the leather and mail on the arrayed masses.

Akira backed down from the crest of the dune. "Makoto, you bring any binoculars?"

"Of course, this is our first visit to a strange Palace." She pulled open her purse, then grimaced. "Geez, there's sand everywhere." She pawed through it for a few seconds, a quarter of it filled with grit, then pulled out a tiny set of plastic binoculars, shook at it to knock some off, then handed it to the transfer student. "What are you looking for?"

Akira blew on the lenses, then crept back up to the top of the dune. "There's probably a ring room through a passage in that temple, but we'd have to get through that army. We'll save that in case the Ha'tak takes off."

"Takes off!" Morgana's voice hissed as he bounded up the dune to peer out between them. "What's that mean?"

Akira pointed at the gold ring structure extending out of the pyramid. "I already explained it back at the Stargate camp. That pyramid is a landed space ship." He peered through the binoculars and continued to explain, keeping his voice low, "The good news is there's more than one entrance. There's no sign of a water source here." He scanned the Jaffa on the temple steps, bellowing at the guards below. With the magnification, he could make out avian styling of the cognition's armor. That made him think of Horus, but the black symbol stamped on his forehead didn't look like any he'd seen on the show. A cross with a loop on top… an ankh, was it? "I've never seen that on the show, so I have no idea what tactics they'll use. And that guy's just a black stamp instead of gold, so he's not the First Prime. That means there's still a really strong commander somewhere in there."

On the far side of the pyramid, a shadow from the flapping of a sand-brown tent betrayed a watch post near a break in the far sand dunes.

"Fuck," Ryuji's declared as he joined the others, spying out the camp at the front of the enormous pyramid ship. "I'm gonna need a bigger gun. Maybe I should'a got that SG-43."

Akira backed down from the crest of the dune. "There's a tent, maybe a supply camp, on the opposite side of the pyramid. It's our best bet for a stealthy entrance."

Morgana looked over the Phantom Thieves standing there in sandy civilian clothes. "Well, you heard the man. No fighting this time. At least it's less than ten kilometers."

Futaba's Ha'tak, Supply Camp

Akira peeked around the corner of Egyptian-styled crates and boxes under a sand-colored tent. No Jaffa or apparent Shadows guarded the area and it felt like a trap. Though back entrances had been left un-guarded on the show before. A short stretch of wind-blown sand separated the supply tent from a ramp extending up into a small door in the underside of the landed pyramid ship.

Ryuji strode up behind the transfer student with his aluminum bat over one shoulder. "This place is hot as eff." His eyes followed the ramp up. "So whaddya think's in there?"

Sheathed katana in hand, Yusuke came to a crouch next to the transfer student. "A pyramid is the tomb of a pharaoh, correct? The physical housing from which he would rise to a physical afterlife."

Makoto crouched to one knee, keeping her shotgun in hand. "It makes me wonder exactly what her distortion meant. During my first year at Shujin, a guest speaker mentioned the theory the pyramid is a device to revive the dead."

Akira finished screwing his silencer onto his sub-machine gun and joined the others looking at a small ramp leading up into a door in the bottom of the huge pyramid-ship. "That would be the sarcophagus. It was capable of mending wounds and returning the dead to life. Ra brought back Daniel Jackson before torturing him for information about Earth."

Morgana tilted his head. "Ra?"

"God of the sun," Yusuke said, glancing left and right for any sign of cognitive Jaffa. "He was the head of the Egyptian pantheon." He held out his arms, making a frame with his fingers. "At first, I thought the gold ring disrupted the perfect golden ratio of the pyramid, but from this side I can see a symmetry to its construction. It must look marvelous from above."

Ann wiped at her forehead. "Well, let's get in there and find out whether Futaba's Shadow is all about the death or revival part."

Morgana nodded and turned to the transfer student. "You seem familiar with the setting, and all I can sense is the Treasure lay somewhere up inside that pyramid."

"Sure, Goa'uld architecture isn't very complicated. If the Treasure's high in the Ha'tak, that strikes the engine room and possibly the computer core. It could be up in the Pel'tak, guarded by the First Prime. Keep your weapons ready, we can't assume these Jaffa will all be as incompetent as Apophis' serpent guards."

Yusuke swallowed, perspiration beading his skin but showing no other outward sign of discomfort. "Fascinating to hear so many words strung together in a way that makes no sense, Joker. Your powers of comedy are significant."

Akira rolled his eyes, and led the team's rush across the open road to the ramp into the bottom of the huge pyramid ship.

Beside him, Ann slowed to a plodding walk just short of the entrance where cold air blew down. "Thank god, AC!"

Makoto clenched her shotgun, but even she angled her face into the chill currents. "Was it really that unbearable outside?"

"The only major weather in Finland was winter." Ann paced inside the cargo storage room, the flicker of flame passing over her and leaving the model in her sexy leather Phantom Thief state. The others all changed as well as soon as they crossed the threshold. Long boxes and crates in pseudo-Egyptian styling crammed the room about twice as big as a metal shipping container. She glanced at the team leader taking to the top of a stack. "Any sign of the Treasure?"

Morgana's crossbow dipped a little as he closed his eyes and breathed deep. Then he hopped down. "It's quite a ways up. Joker?"

Akira nodded and led the team inwards, zipping from support pillar to support pillar. Almost a minute in, the rhythmic stomping of metal-plated boots marched over the stone floor. The Phantom Thieves jammed themselves into the nooks behind the angled structural supports jutting out at regular intervals in the halls.

Two rows of five burly men each, all in that light breastplate with avian styling, marched past, each bearing a face-plate mask decorated as a bird. Trailing the formation tromped a man standing a full head taller than the other Jaffa. His polished golden armor glinted in the hallway mood lighting, colorful bird motifs covering the plates on his pudgy chest, upper arms, and legs. Instead of the almost flimsy mask worn by the others, a full hawk-like helm peered out, the citrine-orange gems where the helm's decorative eyes perched glistened with their own light.

The marching echoed in their ears for long moments after the group passed the Phantom Thieves.

Ryuji, who'd been pressing against the longcoated teen to keep hidden in the shadows, let out a heavy breath as he stepped away. He whirled around on the transfer student. "Whadda those masks mean?"

Morgana bounded from the back of the group. "They're Shadows. Remember that all Shadows drawn into a Palace-Ruler's domain are encapsulated by the shell dictated by the Ruler's cognition."

His heart still hammering in his chest, Akira called to the others in a hushed tone, "Come on, ring room's this way." They rushed after him and the longcoated Thief keyed in the open sequence into the control panel next to the door. The thin stone door slid up and he ducked inside, where nothing but a ring in the floor broke the bland, octagonal room. He pointed at the two-meter-wide ring in the floor. "Okay, everyone inside."

The thieves complied, though Yusuke held his rifle close. "Is this some manner of elevator?"

A grin split Akira's face. "Yeah. Some manner." He keyed in the sequence to take them to the top level in the control panel on the side of the room, then rushed into the ring with the others.

A mechanical hum thrummed through the room before the circle in the floor snapped away, and a set of rings rose up from the floor until only slits of the room around them were visible. A low, warbling whine shot through his ears, and white light blazed. When it faded, the rings zipped down into the floor and the circle in the floor snapped closed.

Ann pointed her gun up, taking timid steps out of the circle. "Wasn't that supposed to take us to a new floor?"

Akira grinned, his heart racing from the nostalgia and excitement of walking around in the manifestation of his favorite show. "It did." He advanced to the door. "Everyone ready?"

Morgana looked distracted, like he was trying to listen to something far away, but Ryuji kicked him to get the catboy moving.

Akira tapped the door unlock, and a narrower hallway accented by hanging maroon drapes lay before them. The transfer student led them around two corners to a narrow door in the same stone style as the all others on the pyramid ship, bearing the same ankh symbol as the Jaffa had on their foreheads – or masks, in the Shadows' case. Akira tapped the open sequence and the door slid to the side. The opulent command room sprawled before them. Polished marble stretched across the floor, with gold accents everywhere. Green and maroon fabrics hung from the walls, several of them bearing the ankh. Stone and dark fabric jutted out from the back of the command room, and he wondered what equipment lay within. "I wonder if that's a secondary computer core."

Morgana stepped out of the corner, his readied crossbow in both hands. "The Treasure should be here, guys."

Lips pressing together, Akira wondered where else something of critical importance could be hidden on a Ha'tak. The ship was huge, and searching it room-by-room would be impossible if it was heavily guarded. "It's too dangerous to just go wandering around. Maybe the computers can give us an idea."

Morgana nodded and paced to the team's right to guard the other entrance at the back of the command room.

Akira paced to a pair of golden pillars rising from the middle of the floor. A gold bridge connected them, with a white, crystalline pyramid perched on the center. He reached out a hand and the crystal lit a bright white. The main viewscreen occupying the entire forward wall blinked, then displayed black with lines on lines of green code text. Dramatic bass music from the show poured out of the ceiling. "Oh, now you're just taunting us, Futaba."

At the same time as the music began, both doors at the back of the command room opened, the thudding of dozens of metallic boots rushing in. The zap of their stun weapons crackled through the air, downing Morgana and Makoto. Jaffa in heavy breastplates styled with bird wings aimed their staff weapons at the thieves. The dark curtains in the back rose, the stone projecting a U-shape into the square room folding back into the wall to reveal a gold throne. On it sat a young woman in polished gold and showy white linen. Long, copper-red hair spilled over her shoulders.

Akira snapped up his sub-machine gun and let loose a quick burst.

The bullets hit a translucent, cylindrical shield around the throne. The attractive, thirty-something woman in Egyptian regal dress laughed, the sound deep and echoing. She held a casual hand at them and her eyes flickered with a golden glow, before she spoke with a deep, reverberating voice, "Cast down those toys and bow before your god, Isis."

AN: This is one of those chapters where a lot is happening and it's difficult to find a great dividing line between rapidly-changing scenes. I hope you all enjoyed it, and thanks for leaving your thoughts.