Good Day Readers! Obviously, I do not own anything connected to the Persona series in general or Persona 5 specifically, I DO own Chiba Natsumi and Anais Ouvrard, along with Natsumi's immediate family members and the original Personas that will be showing up on occasion.
I would appreciate any responses that you have, please enjoy.
Chapter 41: - Vast Distortion
We quickly made for the doorway that would take us onwards; we emerged into the hallway and Joker's team darted on ahead of us with them needing to jump and then crawl which indicated infrared lasers were up ahead, once they cleared the second laser set, I had my group start moving forward. We ended up in some kind of storage area and ended up in another fight which we managed to get through easily.
After looking around and getting a Hiranya from a treasure chest, we proceeded to distance ourselves once more and head down another hallway carefully sneaking around the corners and getting passed a nearby Shadow that was patrolling. We reached another storage area and came across another of the female shaped Shadows, a quick ambush revealed a single female Shadow. It was a tall and grizzled woman with tanned skin, dark brown hair and green eyes. Her physique was incredibly muscular and bore some scars. An outfit that looked to be made of fur and hide covered her body and she carried a simple looking spear.
"Atalanta," I identified. But before I got much farther, I felt something I hadn't felt since Ouvrard's Palace; it was a sense of familiarity and similarity much like I had felt towards Pygmalion. I was so surprised and distracted by this sudden return that I almost got hit by a Skill that was coming for me; thankfully someone pulled me out of the way before the attack could successfully strike me.
"Amazon! Are you okay?!" Joker demanded. I shook myself out of whatever had clouded my thoughts so suddenly and focused on Joker, I nodded my head. However, it seemed that Joker wasn't satisfied with my answer and quickly checked me over before pulling back once he was satisfied with my condition. "What can you tell me about it?" Joker softly asked. I quickly saw the others were hiding behind metal frames to avoid any attacks.
"She's Resists Physical Skills, Earth and Ice. But she's Weak to Fire and Gravity," I answered. Joker nodded his head and darted out to face the enemy. Inugami surrounded her with flames and Atalanta tumbled to the ground, barely supporting her weight with her spear. At Joker's order we immediately executed a hold up. Atalanta glared at Joker, although her eyes flittered to me on occasion.
"Ah, it's a shame. If I had taken this seriously from the start, I wouldn't be in this sorry state," Atalanta commented. Somehow, I believed her, she was a woman raised in the wilds of ancient Greece with the skills of a hunter even though she was born a princess; this woman could have been a dangerous enemy if she had been a savage Shadow.
"Are you making excuses?" Joker asked. Surprisingly Atalanta barked a laugh at this question, throwing her head back as she let out the sound, everyone exchanged looks in surprise at her response to Joker's question since we'd never known any Shadow to laugh during a hold up before. Atalanta proceeded to lower her head and gaze at Joker with an interested gleam within her eyes as she looked at him.
"I like you boy, you're the second man to actually make me consider leaving my true home," Atalanta admitted. She had lost a race to be with someone she genuinely cared for, though that had apparently involved divine meddling, but she seemed to really love the man from her words just now. "But I have to wonder, what if I ripped your body apart? What blood would come pouring out?" Atalanta wondered. A feral grin on her lips, though that was probably appropriate for a woman raised by bears.
"Red. What else?" Joker answered. Atalanta's grin seemed to get even bigger at hearing those words and she used her spear to push herself up from the knelt down position she had ended up in. Everyone tensed up as we watched the wild woman for any signs that she might attempt to attack Joker or the rest of us.
"It is so strange, but speaking to you made me feel as if we are more alike than I thought. I shall gladly give you my power," Atalanta agreed. In that moment I felt the chains of the Palace completely shatter and the sense of similarity I possessed towards her flare stronger. "I am Atalanta, let us hunt our enemies together," Atalanta declared. And with that she turned into a mask and joined Joker's other Personas. I breathed a sigh of relief and started to look around the store room, allowing me to notice something rather interesting.
"Look," I pointed out. I moved over to what I had seen and knelt down, I pulled out the two canvases to reveal two versions of Sayuri, one was missing its' branch and the other had blue shirt instead of a red one. "More fakes of the Sayuri," I commented. I felt a presence appear at my side and a quick turn of my head reveal it was Fox who was gazing intently at the pictures.
"Indeed, they are fakes. But apart from the obvious, how did you know they were fakes Amazon?" Fox wondered. It was certainly a surprise for me to realise that I could see through the illusion of what these paintings were when they had been in the metal framework; I'd seen the figure of the woman in Sayuri but in that instant I knew they weren't real either.
"My Second Sight, it's more versatile than I realised," I admitted. Perhaps because they were created from the mind, but I couldn't entirely be sure if that was the case, either way it was a bit of a fascinating revelation; a hand gently gripped my shoulder and I lifted my head to find Joker giving me a concerned look.
"Just don't strain yourself. If we come across any of those paintings again, we'll need your eyes to get us through them," Joker pleaded. I nodded my head in agreement with his words and quickly put the paintings back, with that done we kept moving and hopped up into a large metal area that took us behind a barricaded area of the storeroom and down to a lower level.
"I'm sensing something, one of those doors must be nearby," Mona revealed. It would be good for us to get a hold of the second Will Seed and hopefully get another ring, the Ring of Attachment would be incredibly useful once I could use Maestro's Mastery, the Soul Power cost would be worth the effect if we came upon a powerful enemy or had to face down a transformed Ruler again.
"Yeah, it's right there," Skull pointed out. We all looked over to see the door was right in front of us but sealed behind a shutter, we proceeded to split up and start looking around, a grinding sound came and I looked over to see the shutter was opening as footsteps slapped the ground ahead of me. Joker came around the corner tossing a Bead into the air before pocketing it, with a soft shake of my head I followed after our resourceful leader and into the Will Seed's perimeter.
Fox, naturally, got a little spooked when he heard the ominous thoughts of his teacher. But he relaxed fairly quickly upon realising that none of the rest of us were bothered by those words as Joker cut through the cording and pushed opened the door, we drifted over to the Will Seed, Fox getting much closer than the rest of us as he stared at it with wide eyed amazement. Joker pocketed it and we turned to leave.
"What is this… this sinister-looking object? It's so abhorrent… and yet, also so compelling!" Fox exclaimed. We quickly filled him in on what the Will Seeds were as we walked towards the doorway opposite the Will Seed chamber; the door was opened and we stepped through, but the moment that happened I felt something different in the air, like the space was somehow different than the rest of the Palace which immediately set me on edge as we moved further along.
I soon got a reason for my concerns, as the moment we stepped beyond the short corridor that had linked us to the door I saw how disturbed this new area was. It was as golden as the rest of this infernal Palace – and I'm starting to think I'll hate that colour forever at this rate – with paintings dotted about, but the twisted stairs, almost blinding white light at the edges of my vision, glowing blue doorways, empty doorways, and the objects hanging in mid-air baffled me.
"Shit… what the hell is up with this place?" Skull asked. An appropriate question to make since this place was so much more twisted than any other location I had seen, in this Palace and the others along with Mementos; even that constantly shifting room in Kamoshida's Palace hadn't been anywhere near as bad as this place.
"There's so much gold! It's hurting my eyes," Panther moaned. I couldn't blame her there, with so much gold it was hard to make out some of the details of this place and I swear the light that was present was constantly reflecting off of the gold portions which would definitely not help our eyes in any way as we tried to get through this place.
"Something is wrong with this place, I can sense it… like it's one breath away from falling apart," I admitted. The very air itself felt off and I was convinced that just like the shack it would likely collapse at the first wrong step any of us took; it was such a terrible feeling to have pressing down on one's shoulders and I really wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.
"She's right. The distortion is especially bad here… it's barely holding up. Plus, it's not even on our map," Mona admitted. Well, that shot down the escape as quickly as possible unless we went backwards, which would just be a pointless endeavour since it wouldn't get any further into the Palace where the Treasure should be located. To learn there was a place that the map completely missed was highly disconcerting.
"So, we must ascertain the truth through our eyes alone," Fox commented. We'd have to be observing every possible thing we came across then, the paintings and fake Sayuris showed that we wouldn't be able to trust our eyes alone, well unless they were mine but that could just wear me out faster, we'd need all our senses to keep ourselves moving through this massively distortion space.
"Which means we move ahead with caution; we all stick together this time! Amazon, we'll need your eyes so up front with me! Skull and Mona, I want you two at the back to cover us! Fox and Panther, cover the sides!" Joker ordered. We assumed our position as two lines of three walking alongside each other, up one set of stairs only to jump down and climb a different set.
It was at the top of these that we saw Shadows were present here, although this one was on a different raised area than the rest of us. We jumped down and investigated the lower area but with no way forward we were forced up to the same area as the Shadow. Once that was dealt with, we descended down the stairs only to find a 'wall' in front of us. Shadow Madarame might have thought it was a clever trick, but we didn't even need my eyes, Skull let out a huff when we got close as Joker gripped the left edge of the fabric, which had been slightly away from the rest of the wall and pulled it down. This revealed a blue doorway.
"I thought I'd seen everything there was to see of this distorted world. But to think it would conjure up such a bizarre place," Fox muttered. All of us agreed with his words, it didn't seem like the doorway led away since I could see nothing beyond the blue glow that filled it, instead it seemed more like it was some kind of portal.
"There might be more walls like this up ahead, let's keep an eye out," Mona warned. A fair warning and we'd have to be on our toes if we wanted to avoid getting tricked by the attempted deception; thankfully it seemed this highly distorted section Madarame's Palace wasn't as solid in its' deceptions given the little flick up that the 'wall' had possessed to reveal its' glowing portal. We quickly stepped into the blue section which caused a chill to rush over my body.
"Woah! Did we just warp!?" Skull exclaimed. Fox pointed out that the paths were as distorted as this place probably was, we descended the steps and then some more stairs to reach another portal; this one took us to another area and we moved down the stairs, only to stride passed two Sayuri paintings. I paused and turned to look at them, furrowing an eyebrow when I realised that one was a replica of the blue shirt Sayuri I'd seen in the storeroom while the other was more convincingly real.
"Why is this painting here?" Panther wondered. It was an oddity to come across the paintings so suddenly, especially after having seen two fakes shortly before entering the room, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of the paintings' presence, but it almost seemed like Madarame was unhealthy obsessed with this singular painting despite all the others he'd gained since presenting it to the world.
"It's probably some kind of illusion. We're in a Palace, after all," Mona pointed out. That was the most likely answer, but even so that just raised the question as to why the painting was such an intense fixture within Madarame's mind. "But I guess the painting itself might be correct though," Mona admitted. That caused Panther to look down at our healer with a frown marring her lips.
"You say 'correct' but aren't they all counterfeit? Although maybe the real one's here too," Panther acknowledged. Given the distinctions between the two, if any it was likely to be the painting to our right since that Sayuri was the one that looked most like the Sayuri that Fox had showed to us; but I'd leave that distinction up to Fox, since he was the closest thing we had to an expert on Sayuri.
"This one," Fox stated. He clapped a hand on the red shirt Sayuri which at least proved that my suspicion had been correct. "This is the real one," Fox explained. None of us could argue with him, especially when he seemed incredibly sure that he was correct in making the choice he had; all we could do was nod our heads in understanding.
"Either way, the fact that this is here might mean it's connected to this space in some way," Mona revealed. Based on that thought, I started to gaze about with my Second Sight even though the strain was starting to press against my eyes; with a small groan and pulled back and rubbed at my eyes to try an alleviate the pressure that was forming on them.
"It's like a key, the real Sayuri might open the correct path for us," I explained. That was what my eyes had shown me, there was some kind of link between the doorways and the Sayuri that Fox had claimed was the real Sayuri; hands gently pulled my own away from my eyes and I felt something cool and slightly damp quickly spread across my eyelids before I opened them right into the concerned face of our leader.
"Which means we look for them, you've used your eyes too much lately, let them rest for now," Joker insisted. I nodded my head, albeit a little reluctantly, at least Fox was here to cover for my aching eyes; Joker pulled away and looked at the paintings. "If we need the real one, then of the two it has to be this one as Fox said," Joker stated. He tapped the Sayuri with the red shirt.
"Indeed, it was rather obvious which of the two was real, but I suspect further in the forgeries will get better," Fox warned. That was worrisome, if the forgeries got good enough that Fox ended up having difficulty telling them apart then there might not be much chance of my eyes doing that same and that could lead to us being trapped in this mess of maze.
"In which case we'll be relying upon your skills to identify them Fox," Mona insisted. The painting proceeded to turn into a ball of golden light and it flew towards the blue doorway that had been directly opposite the one we'd entered instead of the one down below. I gaped after it, trying to process the craziness that I had just seem.
"What the!? It flew away!" Skull exclaimed. We quickly recovered and chased after it which meant heading through the doorway which brought us to a cube of darker gold in an area that Panther acknowledged as being somewhere new. I looked around slightly and spotted that a short distance away from us was another set of paintings, this time made up of four of them.
"Seeing passed the false image has opened a path to the truth… hm, this golden place filled with counterfeit work is a prime example of the alchemy of Madarame's brain. And here, just as in reality, he entraps those who cannot see through his lying façade," Fox theorised. Since Madarame had based almost his entire career on a lie, then it makes sense that illusions would be a kind of security measure.
"You might be right… no wonder the distortion is so strong here," Mona admitted. That was just a little terrifying to know that someone so focused on something could cause a section of the Palace to be so massively warped when compared to the rest of it; I just hope that the Treasure wasn't located within this disturbed section of the Palace, otherwise it would be exceptionally tricky to locate.
"Hey, so… what does that mean?" Skull wondered. I looked over at Panther and saw that even she looked a little perplexed by what had just been discussed so at least Skull wasn't alone in the confusion department; but it seemed that me and Joker had understood what Mona and Fox were getting at with their words, this place was insane and chock full of illusions and lies.
"If we want to get out of here, we need to find the real Sayuri," Joker explained. Skull and Panther both seemed to relax at hearing that we had a solution to escape this mad place. "Which means we need to find the real one from these four," Joker stated. Fox immediately got to work examining them as Joker leapt across to tear down another fake wall and open a chest.
"It's neither of these two," Fox informed. We quickly jumped over to the remaining two and Fox immediately stopped to face the third portrait from the door we came through. "This one," Fox decided. It had been a little obvious again, but only because the branch in the background wasn't missing like in the other three; our pathway opened and we rushed through.
We emerged into another new area and found four paintings set up down some stairs, a brief look around showed that there was another one down the side of where we stood. Fox jumped down to investigate that one while the rest of us descended the stairs to the group of four, we quickly eliminated all but one of the paintings due to the blue top or missing branch. But all of us remained gathered in front of the painting we had left.
"It looks like it… but so did many of the others so I can't say," Skull admitted. Since he hadn't seemed all that fond of artwork in general, he'd mostly helped by tossing the fakes into an area they wouldn't get in the way when the rest of us had pointed out that they were fakes; actually, he seemed quite happy to go about tossing them far into the seemingly bottomless pit that constituted the area around the stairs.
"Skull's right, it does look like Sayuri," Panther agreed. That was the difficult question that we had to answer; the painting was exceptionally convincing of being the real one; it had all the right markers as well, but we didn't know the consequences of potentially choosing a false painting, Mona jumped up slightly and looked at the painting with a deeply concerned look upon his face as he stared at the canvas.
"But how certain are we?" Mona questioned. That was the thing we needed to answer, with Fox preoccupied I knew there was one swift way for us to get the answer that we needed to I proceeded to open my mouth in order to suggest that we simply use my eyes to answer that question… only for a red gloved hand to shoot across it and completely block my words before I could even voice them.
"No using your eyes Amazon!" Joker ordered. I clacked my mouth shut and gave the ravenette an unimpressed look, but he didn't turn to look at me, instead focusing on the painting that had us all puzzled. "We'll just have to wait for Fox to come back," Joker insisted. Footsteps echoed towards us and we dropped into stances as we faced it, only to relax upon realising that it was Fox and not a Shadow.
"That one down the side is a fake," Fox admitted. Not the best news but that least that narrowed it down to the painting we had found, Fox's gaze then zeroed in on the painting we gathered around. "As is that one," Fox informed. I felt like screaming when he said those words as Mona slumped down in shock while Joker's gloves let out a creaking sound as if they were made of leather instead of fabric.
"For real! But there aren't any others around!" Skull exclaimed. A small sort of sound escaped Panther as she started to look around, as if some answer would jump out at us; I started to do the same, hoping to find some sort of sign that the painting we needed would be located somewhere. A delighted sound echoed and I looked over at Panther to see she was pointing down some steps that were nearby.
"Actually, there are four more down there," Panther chimed. Fox, Joker and Mona shot off to check them while I kept looking around just in case, Madarame had hidden the real Sayuri behind a locked door, who's to say that he didn't do the same thing here. Frowning slightly, I moved over to the wall behind the four paintings and saw the same gaps that the other fake walls had at the edges, reaching my hand out to grip one end, I pulled sharply which brought the whole thing down.
"All of those are fakes as well, it feels like we're at a dead end," Fox stated. Behind the curtain I had found another painting alongside a chest; I called out our newest member's codename and stepped aside to reveal the painting that I had found, Joker shot for the chest while Fox approached the newly discovered artwork. "You did it Amazon, you found the real Sayuri," Fox congratulated.
"All the versions on display were fakes while the real one was hidden the whole time," Panther muttered. Just like in the physical world, it was amazing the way the contents of the Palace ended up reflecting the actual events that happened in the physical world; the painting turned into light and shot over the edge before dropping straight down, we all moved to the edge and leaned over it as safely as we could.
"Huh? Where the shit did it fly off to!?" Skull questioned. We jumped over the side to reach the paintings Panther had spotted and through the blue doorway, which warped us back to where we found the first set of paintings. "Arghhh, goddamnit! What the hell's goin' on here!?" Skull exclaimed. A fair question to pose since we seemed to have just gone in circles instead of escaping from this place.
"We have seen all of the fake images. Something must have changed somewhere," Fox admitted. The only question was what, we hadn't seen anything on our way here that could have possibly been altered and the orb had disappeared before we actually managed to see what it was meant to have affected.
"Like the other doorway," Panther suggested. At that, Joker's expression lit up and he quickly darted down the stairs, we headed after him and followed him around the corner, finding the door was glowing gold just as Panther had suggested, we moved through it and emerged somewhere else in this md place. "Oh, isn't this somewhere new!?" Panther cheered. Hopefully, we would be getting closer to the end.
"Just be careful, okay? The distortion is growing much stronger the deeper we go," Mona warned. We moved down the stairs and Joker opened a chest, while we looked through a doorway, but there was no blue glow shrouding what was beyond, instead there was a doorway at the other end, hopefully that was the way out of this insane labyrinth. It was and I breathed a sigh of relief along with everyone else that we had finally escaped that place, though the colour gold was still horrifically present at least it was more muted and there were other colours present.
"A-Ah, that is!" Fox exclaimed. We all jumped at the sound of Fox's voice and turned to look at the boy who was staring off into a distant area; we quickly followed his gaze only to find that Shadow Madarame was standing in the room a short distance away from us, in front of an infrared cage which contained a hazy object but the Palace Ruler covered most of it preventing me from properly identifying what it could be. "Just as I expected… Madarame!" Fox hissed.
"Then is the Treasure behind him?" Panther asked. Unfortunately, given Shadow Madarame's position and our location, we couldn't actually see if the hazy thing was the Treasure; it was highly likely that it was the Treasure given the appearance, Shadow Madarame's presence and the very large cage of lasers surrounding it.
"It's kinda hard to tell from here. Let's get a closer look!" Skull insisted. We moved closer and pressed ourselves against the edge of the wide doorway that led to the area beyond; Mona confirmed the hazy object was indeed the Treasure, which was a relief that we'd found it but that just presented us with a brand-new problem to overcome.
"I wonder what form it will take," Fox mused. A good question to pose, but it wouldn't do us any good to speculate about such a thing – although Skull suggested it could be a self-portrait – especially since we needed to reach it. "The source of what distorted Madarame's reality this much," Fox commented. He seemed intensely focused upon what form would be taken by the Treasure once materialised.
"So, what now? Think it's safe to say we got our route set?" Skull asked. Absolutely not, not with that cage surrounding it, we didn't even have a Safe Room nearby to warp to and I didn't want to have to go through that massively distorted world again even if we knew the way out; we couldn't afford to leave yet.
"I don't think so. We know where the Treasure is, but we can't exactly reach it with that cage and the Shadows around it," Joker answered. I was glad that Joker had realised that we couldn't leave yet, we needed to locate a nearby Safe Room – at least I hope there's one – and find a way around the current blockade we had come across.
"Joker's right, our route isn't secure yet, let's keep looking around and see if we can find a way to reach the Treasure," Mona insisted. We pulled back from the doorway in order to have a proper discussion about the situation; Panther commented that us needing to find a way to steal it the Treasure ended up making this Palace tougher than Kamoshida's.
"We just need to find the last puzzle piece," I stated. There were two pathways and we moved down the left hand side, finding a Safe Room and logging it in our minds; we left the room and moved towards the end of the hallway finding a sealed door with a panel beside it that contained a red light, Joker pressed it to open the door and we found a control room on the other side.
"Think we can turn them lasers off here!?" Skull suggested. We proceeded to move over to the laptop that would control it and I had never heard such a loud sound of relief come from each of us. "Hey, we don't need a password for this one! Whaddya wanna do?" Skull asked. The options were shutting down power, turning off the lasers and opening shutters so we did have a variety to choose from.
Joker wisely decided to shut down the lasers, but as we all looked out the window that looked into the Treasure Room, we saw that the lasers didn't turn off. Even worse was that an error message came up on the screen saying that only Madarame could access that particular choice due to a maximum security protocol that was engaged.
"The heck? There was no point in even comin' here then!" Skull complained. Joker proceeded to try the other two options, but we couldn't see the shutters that were supposed to have been opened and when Joker tried the turning off of power, it only lasted for a few moments due to a back up generator and the lasers never went off.
"We need to move! Madarame likely sent someone here after shutting down the power," Joker ordered. We turned to the door, but a guard ran through it before we could escape, I quickly sprung at him and slammed a kick into the Shadow's mask. The guard stumbled backwards, allowing the rest of us to pour out into a much more open room for the battle.
"Hm!? So, you're the ones who tampered with the electricity!" The Shadow snapped. He quickly twisted in on himself and emerged as another paper figure – there's a lot of those this day – but this one was shaped like a wolf with grey colouring and its' head hanging over its' neck area. We could have done without this fight but oh well.
"Makami, it Nulls Gun, Earth and Bless, Strong against Wind and Nuke but weak to Electricity and Gravity," I warned. Skull cracked his knuckles and proceeded to unleash a quick blast of Electricity upon the creature. But it was fast, easily curling away from the attack. It then started to exert energy that I was familiar with and very scared of. Fox seemed to realise what was coming and quickly used Goemon to boost my speed. This allowed me to easily dodge the multi-target Nuke spell that had been coming.
A few of the others dodged it as well, but others got hit including Fox. My lips thinned at how Fox had risked himself to save me from my weakness. I used Gry on Makami, easily knocking it to the ground and we dove in to strike it down. Once it moved, we pulled back and Mona quickly acted. He proceeded to heal all of us of any wounds. Joker quickly pulled off his mask, using Ame-no-Uzume's Zio spell to send it to the ground and letting us unleash an All-Out attack on it.
After pulling back Panther proceeded to use Dormina on Makami, but once more it dodged the attack. Fox lashed out with his Skill which managed to hit. Makami howled before diving down to bite onto Joker. Our leader dodged one attack but got blindsided by the other one. That didn't stop him from slamming the Shadow with a Zio Spell. Or at least trying to since the Shadow dodged again.
Fox used Goemon's Spell to boost Panther's speed. This allowed her to successfully hit Makami with her Sleep Spell this time. Skull took advantage of its' exposed nature to use his magic to knock it to the ground. This All-Out Attack successfully weakened it and it was finally defeated once I used my Gravity Magic on it again to send it down for the final All-Out Attack.
"Phew… that was a surprise," Panther admitted. Skull complained about the only thing we had actually managed to achieve, we proceeded to leave the control room and head back to the entryway to the Treasure Room and down the only unexplored pathway; this at least caused Mona to sense the location of the final Will Seed.
We found a vent that led to a chest, the armour inside immediately attached itself to Joker's outfit, and the armour he had previously been wearing appeared in his hands. Turning to Fox, Joker held out the armour which caused that to fuse with Fox's outfit, we stepped out onto a balcony that overlooked the laser cage but there was no way for us to reach the Treasure from here. Luckily, we did find a grapple hook that let us shoot into the rafters, we were fairly high up and I crouched down slightly.
"Amazon, what are you thinking?" Joker asked. It wasn't exactly the best place for me to suddenly stop moving but what I had noticed was something that I couldn't just ignore despite the awkwardness of us standing so precariously; I proceeded to stretch my hand out to point towards the cage that surrounded our goal.
"We're high up here… maybe not from this area, but if we can find a similar place, we could use the height to reach the Treasure, there's no lasers over the top of it after all," I pointed out. Everyone proceeded to look at the area I was indicating and saw the rather glaring obvious hole in their security, it was pretty bad to have such an opening even if it couldn't be so easily reached.
"A fine plan, but we definitely do need another area to implement it," Fox agreed. We hopped along the ramshackle pathway that existed in the rafters until we reached another vent, crawl through it led us to an area we could drop down through. That brought us to a sealed door but one quick push of the button beside it opened the shutter that had closed it off, allowing us to pass through it and find another Safe Room. We returned to the hallway we had dropped down into as there had been a stretch of hallway behind us, this led to the final Will Seed door, and another enemy.
"What the- they got Shadows here too!?" Skull panicked. We pulled back and Joker quickly handed out some more coffee for us to down while I passed out the Soul Drops that I had on hand; I turned back to look at the Shadow with my Second Sight and confirmed the suspicion I had, that the Shadow was of the same strength as the last two Shadows barring the third Will Seed.
"That's the final Will Seed, there was an enemy in Ouvrard's and Kamoshida's, it's likely a theme of Palaces to have a strong enemy guarding the deepest Will Seed," I commented. It was certainly annoying to have to face down such powerful enemies but the worth of the Crystal would outweigh the risk presented to us. We proceeded to dart out into the vision of the Shadow who jumped slightly at our appearance.
"How did you all- know what? It doesn't even matter, now that you've seen this place, you won't be leaving alive!" The Shadow declared. We had no intention of perishing against this Shadow and with six of us gathered together, I'm certain that we'd be able to overcome it with more ease that the previous two enemies.
"Hmph, this room will only be your end. We'll be passing through!" Fox declared. The Shadow was not happy to hear such words coming from Fox and quickly shifted its' shape into something that looked like a blue statue of a humanoid but with bulbous shoulder area, arms and legs as well; red eyes glared down at us.
"Don't use Skills! Arahabaki Reflects both. It also resists Bless and Curse! Luckily it's Weak to Psy and Nuke!" I warned. With a quick pull of my mask, Joker's magical attack was raised. Unfortunately, Arahabaki unleashed a very concerning aura that twisted around all of us. Freakishly, it had a very similar feeling compared to what I felt during my counselling session but much weaker. All it took was a brief mental humming of the Velvet Room song and it lost all effect.
Joker, Panther and Skull also seemed to be fine. But one look at Fox and Mona proved that they weren't if the glowing pink within their eyes was anything to go by. Arahabaki didn't give us much of a chance to be concerned for our friends and it quickly unleashed another attack upon us. At least this one was a physical attack which allowed us to dodge it even with the attempt to steal our sight from the bright flash that follow it. Yet neither Fox nor Mona made any move and thus got hit with the attack.
"Why'd you guys stay still?" Skull questioned. That didn't seem to be the right question to ask, as the moment he did, Mona moved. Mona leapt at Skull with a vicious yowl – I vaguely heard something about Panther but not much – and swung his sabre at Skull. The blonde yelped and swung his weapon down to stop the attack. This allowed Joker to grab Mona and restrain him. "What the hell?!" Skull asked.
"Panther! Restrain Fox! Now!" Joker ordered. Panther did as instructed, quickly tangling the boy up. I quickly rifled through my pockets and pulled out some gel, I tossed a sample to Skull and motioned for him to head for Fox. I went over to Mona and smeared some of the gel over the cat. The effect was instantaneous as the pink colouring faded from Mona's eyes and he stopped struggling.
"It took control of our minds!" Mona exclaimed. Well, that was terrifying, but not much we could do now. We all climbed to our feet and Joker immediately used Kodama's Psy to knock the entity down. Mona looked ready to dive in to attack along with Fox, but Joker never gave the signal for us to move in. "Err… Joker, we can attack now," Mona pointed out.
"Not after that, we need to play it smart," Joker decided. He used Kodama again, but this time to weaken its' defence. Panther nodded her head and proceeded to reduce its' offense. Skull quickly passed out healing items and more of the same gel from Mona's pack. Fox boosted Mona's speed while Mona healed us. I quickly boosted Mona's magic, hopefully this would be enough.
Arahabaki got back to its' feet and unleashed another physical attack against us. Most of us managed to dodge it and Panther quickly used Dormina. It only just managed to catch Arahabaki. Skull quickly used his Electricity after getting a speed boost from Fox. The attack sent it down and we quickly moved in this time; hacking, slashing and hammering as much as we could. Once we pulled back, Arahabaki attempted to use that same mind control on us once again.
We all dodged it this time and Mona didn't give our opponent long to rest. Instead, he slammed it with a Frei Spell that seemed more powerful than normal. One All-Out Attack later and Joker was using Kodama to send our opponent back down for another beating. Arahabaki got up and seemed to be shivering with barely restrained rage at being beaten so much by us. It unleashed the same blinding Skill as before, but this time it seemed to hit properly. Not only did I feel it hit me, but Panther suddenly started to stumble about with her eyes seemingly crossed as she tried to stay up right. Arahabaki used the opportunity to charge over and send the girl flying across the room.
"Panther!" Mona cried. Said cat darted over and immediately healed the girl of her wounds. Skull let out an angry yell, but smartly used his Spell to attack it. I called upon Phantom's power to unleash a hail of rocks upon Arahabaki, deeply wishing I could drop magical defence, but no such Spell existed. A quick glance showed a furious Fox glaring at the demented statue as he utilised his Ice Spell.
I looked over at Joker who was glaring with such venom it was actually quite chilling to look at. He tore off his mask and had Ame-no-Uzume bombard it with a Nuke Spell. He successfully knocked it down but gave no order to move in. Instead, he moved over to Panther. I kept a sharp eye on the enemy if it decided to move with Skull also glaring at it. Thankfully Panther was okay and she took the opportunity to weaken its' attack once again.
With everyone back on their feet, we started to get back into a rhythm. I boosted Mona and Joker's magic. Fox improved their speed. Skull and Panther handled healing while the four of us peppered in attacks when possible. As for Mona and Joker, they used Nuke and Psy Spells with a Baton Pass between them to knock it down. We dove in for an All-Out Attack and successfully defeated it.
Each of us breathed a heavy sigh of relief, but we were also pretty exhausted after that battle which was not helped by all the battles prior to this one. Joker recovered himself and cut apart the ropes, we stepped inside to find the final Will Seed which Joker quickly plucked and it immediately started to glow along with the other two that Joker had collected. They slammed together into the Crystal of Vanity which had an interesting ability.
"We'll need to take this to Jose to draw out its' full power but for now, it's ability to nullify weaknesses is pretty useful," I acknowledged. We made our way back to the Safe Room and out onto the balcony area behind it, which allowed us to swing across to the balcony area on the opposite side via grappling hooks. We quickly dealt with the Shadows that were there and raided the chest in that area.
Once done, we made our way down the hallway and reached the end which had a doorway, it was pushed open and we stepped inside. It was a large room with what looked to be some kind of computers sealed within bookcases, a large opening was at the other end diagonally across from us, tables of wood with different apparatus scattered across the surface. A large window filled with a blue light was near the opening and a lever was slightly underneath it with a cable running away from the lever and out the opening.
"Huh? Is this some kinda security room too?" Skull wondered. It didn't look to be that sort of room since there weren't any obvious computers present like in the previous security rooms, plus none of them were filled with what seemed to be miscellaneous items either; whatever this room was its' purpose was different to other rooms we'd come across.
"No, it is most likely where all the mechanisms in the exhibition hall are controlled from," Fox theorised. That seemed likely what with the cable attached to one part of the wall. "Given the number of hanging works, it would make sense to have a room dedicated to controlling them," Fox added on. Panther compliment Fox's observational skills while a small hum escaped from Joker.
"Hanging… and we're pretty high up," Joker muttered. He suddenly darted to the other side of the room and jumped through the opening there, exchanging looks with each other we followed after him until Joker came to a stop crouched down at the end of a wooden platform. "And we're right above the Treasure here," Joker commented.
"This is quite a large hole in their security… but what do we do? Jump down to retrieve it?" Fox suggested. While his observation was an obvious one, I really did not think it was such a good idea for us to just casually toss ourselves down into a cage to grab the Treasure; the drop wasn't the problem and instead it had to do with something else entirely.
"Bad idea, we'd be caught instantly with no way back up, the rope we've got certainly isn't long enough to reach," I stated. Even with such an easy way to access the Treasure, without anyway to escape it was basically suicide and the moment we sent the Calling Card to achieve materialisation, the Security Level would automatically disable any attempts to travel by Safe Room if we tried to get out and even if we tried to use the Goho-M.
"But it's plenty if we use that. Look up," Mona insisted. We did and saw a large hook hanging from the ceiling right over the opening that would likely be capable of reaching the Treasure. "The controls should probably be around here somewhere," Mona stated. Given the hook's proximity, they were likely close by which would make it easier to find.
"I think I spotted 'em back in that control room, there was a lever right next to some twisted rope," Skull pointed out. Skull then darted back in and must have found it because in a few moments the hook lowered down, it kept going and going until it got very close to the hazy form of the Treasure; but that also meant that it was getting close to all the Shadows.
"Stop! Stooop! They'll notice if you keep that up! Get back up there! Go, go, go!" Panther panickily warned. The hook stopped and then started to retreat and we all gathered back in the room where Mona immediately claimed this was useful, which was quite true since it opened up the possibility of a plan that we could use.
"Do you plan on descending on that hook? Would they not spot you the moment you lowered down?" Fox questioned. Fox's warning did make sense since the hook had almost been within eye reach of the guards before Skull managed to stop it; but it seemed like Fox was forgetting something we had experienced recently that would be able to mitigate such a danger.
"Not necessarily. There's something you guys can do to make sure that doesn't happen," Mona answered. A coy smile on his lips as he looked at us, Panther and Skull seemed confused as to what Mona could possibly be getting at, while Fox was frowning deeply and seemed to be in thought; thankfully the expression on Joker's face meant that he understood what Mona had been getting at.
"Kill the lights, it's only for a short time, but it'd be enough for you to reach the Treasure and be pulled back up, so long as you were here before hand," Joker suggested. The faces of the other three quickly lit up once they realised that the killing of the lights would protect Mona from being instantly discovered as Mona smiled brightly at our leader understanding the plan.
"That's right Joker. We split the tasks and work together to pull this off. One group shuts down the power and the other will lower the crane, while I grab the Treasure," Mona explained. It was a good plan, but there was one thing that could make this all go south if we weren't careful about it; after all no plan was safe without an escape route.
"We should also have someone guarding our backs, just to make sure it doesn't get blocked by guards," I warned. Joker and Mona both agreed with me, if our route out got cut off then we'd just be trapped in here and would have quite the trek to get out of the Palace with the Treasure which would lead to a lot of unnecessary fighting.
"You sure that's gonna work? Seems like they'd realise what's goin' on at some point," Skull wondered. He sounded slightly worried about the risk that was present, not that I blame him since this was quite the risky move to take; but it was the only move for us to take since we had very limited options since the lasers couldn't be turned off.
"Sometimes bold moves have the greatest pay out. Unless someone has a better idea?" Mona answered. We all looked at each other, concern apparent on our expression but no one opened their mouths to say anything which indicated that none of them had any better ideas about ways to get the Treasure out of the cage.
"This plan sounds good, let's do it," Joker insisted. With our route secured, we decided it was best to leave the Palace.