A Thief's Passion

Beauty and Vice

-Sunday, May 22, Daytime-

"Ann, Morgana, we're countin' on you" Ryuji expressed "The rest of us're banned from goin' there, so all we can do is wait here"

Akira shook his head "No, we need to go in the palace and make the door stay open"

"Sounds good. I'll wait here" Melody added.

"No no, you need to be there with the notebook. You're vital for the weakness tracking"

"Oh- Uh, okay! Thanks"

"And, here..."

Akira handed Melody a mask.

"Uhh... Whas'is?"

"A mask. Y'know, to conceal your face in the Metaverse"

"Hm. Good idea. Thanks"

———

"They seriously gonna be able to pull this off? She was saying stuff like, 'I'll just seduce him with my acting,' but that sounds out of her league..." Skull groaned.

"We just have to be patient... I trust them. Madarame'll be home soon, so he'll see it. And if they go inside, he'll have no choice but to explain. And that's our in. We only have a small window" explained Joker.

Riff sighed, tapping her pencil on her sketch pad and saying "...Glad I brought my drawin' book... 's borin'..."

"Be on your guard"

After a few more minutes of waiting, the doors flung open and the infrared lasers switched off.

Skull got hyped up and exclaimed "They seriously did it!"

Joker chuckled and said "Tol'ja. Now let's go turn this off for good"

"Yeah! Let's go! ...It's just gonna be me and you if we run into any enemies. You good?"

"Yeah. I'll be okay. Let's kick some tail, Skull!" cheered Joker.

"Yeah, I'll be countin' on you!"

"And I'm countin' on you, too!"

Immediately after they ran in, a strong shadow was face-to face with them.

"Wh-whadd're we gonna do?!" Riff squeaked.

"Same thing we always do, Riff. Kick ass, take hearts"

They started the battle, the shadow yelling about how the got past the security and how they won't lay a finger on 'Lord Madarame'. Come to think of it, they haven't seen Madarame's shadow self yet.

After the battle started, Skull got bonked on the head with a weight. Joker swapped personas and struck the security shadow with...

"Ame-No-Uzume! Agilao!"

It was a heavier fire attack than Ann's. After the shadow was knocked down, he struck it with fire again.

"Skull, it's weak enough to smack with Lunge!"

"Alright!"

Once he did, the shadow went down. Joker grinned and high-fived Skull.

"Hell yeah, that was great!"

Skull laughed and said "That thing was no match for us! Let's get that security system off!"

Rushing into the security room, Joker tapped away on the only computer that was on to disable the security protocols for the courtyard.

"Hey! Who's there?!" a guard yelled in the distance.

"Fuck...!" Joker whispered "Run!"

On their way back to the safe room, the group heard Panther screaming and falling. And yet, Yusuke came down too, somehow catching her. ...At least until Mona came crashing down upon his head.