A Thief's Passion

Time to Explore Part 3

Even though he was exhausted, Joker decided to be a masochistic bastard and take on a strong-looking shadow. It looked like a giant white and red paper person.

"Hmm... This one's called Shiki-Ouji, if I remember right... Uh... Mona, try to use Lucky Punch to knock it down"

The shadow laughed at Mona's feeble attempt to knock it down.

"Fuck, it blocks physical. Riff, it nullifies physical attacks" Joker growled.

"Null Phys, got it"

"Skull, use your electricity!"

"Roger that! Whoop 'em, Persona!" Skull cried.

Even though it hit, it didn't seem like it was resisted or the weakness, so Joker said "Riff, it's neutral to electric! Panther, use your gun!"

Riff wrote down the electric affinity, and then wrote down that it nullifies gunshots after Panther's failed.

"Shit... Guys, I'm switching! Make sure I don't fall!" Even though Joker sounded like he knew what he was doing, one look on his face told Riff that he was scared.

"You got it, leader!"

"Come! Koppa Tengu! Frei!"

Joker, thankfully, found its weakness. His attack was weaker than normal, but he should be fine, right? The Shiki-Ouji got up only a short time after, and attacked Panther. She was low on health, and even though Joker was able to act again for some reason...

"Panther! Here, take this!" Joker frantically worried, healing her with some medicine"

It barely helped, only a little bit of her health was restored.

"J-Joker, you should've attacked it again...!"

"I'm not gonna let you get hurt-"

The Shiki-Ouji tried to inflict her with rage, but missed. Mona's turn was next, and he used his wind skill since Lucky Punch wouldn't work. Riff took note that wind was neutral, too. The same with Panther's fire. Skull used electricity again, just to do damage, then it was Joker's turn. He used Frei again, thankfully not having any issues with damage output, and knocked it down.

Once he did, it was an immediate decision to use that synchronized attack. But, despite it being a powerful attack, it didn't finish off the shadow, so Mona had to use another wind attack.

Joker was panting after battle. Riff looked at him and wanted to help, but not here. A shadow could hear. Joker ended up finding a treasure chest after (narrowly) avoiding another shadow. They managed to loop back around to the safe room's area, too.

Further in, there was a control room of sorts. However, it didn't look like it would open from the outside. Joker took them into the next room. The group was about to progress, when...

"H-hey, wait a second! You're just gonna ignore that golden sheen?" Mona squeaked, then sounded like he just found the best thing ever "Mmmm... Look at that luster... I know it might be tough to take with us, but don't you think it'd sell for tons?"

"Wait, Mona, don't-!" Joker attempted to warn the cat, but he was already up on the display to grab it.

Skull groaned "C'mon, we didn't come here to- Hold on, you're stepping on something!"

"Everyone, get back!" Joker screamed, but he was the only one with fast enough reflexes to jump out of the way before a whole cage-like mechanism of infrared wires appeared.

Riff was panicking, trapped in her little red prison box. And yet she still snapped "Great going, cat! You fuckin' made the lasers come on!"

"Hey, I'm not a cat!"