The Fool's Gambit

Chapter 3: Mari Meets The Shadow Ops

It's been a week since Mari left Hero's house, and she wasn't having much luck finding any persona users in Faraway.

Mari was also plagued by the chilly February of Connecticut, she usually was able to weather the relatively middling temperatures with a sweater, but unfortunately, she had no money. She didn't want to take a risk by sneaking into her house and seeing if they still had her clothes. She also couldn't risk asking Hero because that would require waiting for another day when both of his parents were gone from the house while Kel was at school.

Mari observed her friends and little brother while she snuck around Faraway by sneaking around and spying on them.

When Mari first saw Aubrey, she was elated to find out that Aubrey had made good on their promise to dye their hair, but she was disappointed once she found out that she was now a bully. Mari had followed her for a bit, finding out that Aubrey now had possession of Basil's photo album and that some of the pictures were blacked out while some were clean. Mari had also seen Aubrey cleaning the photos with vigor.

When she first saw Kel, she saw him being his usual self, but after Sunny, Mari knew better than to look at things at a surface level. She could tell that Kel was just trying to be strong for everyone else, and Mari found out that Aubrey had taken that as Kel forgot about Mari and left her behind when Mari witnessed a fight between the two.

Hero had begun to go back to school, and Mari was glad that she was able to get him out of his depressive state.

When Mari first saw Basil, she was worried for him. Sure, she was upset with him because she hung her body, making everybody think she killed herself, but it was still hard for her to see Basil act so strangely. He was so happy and confident before she died, but now he's just so sad and jittery. Mari had also seen Basil begging Aubrey for his album back, which Aubrey denied, shouting something like "Not after what you did to it!" Mari put two and two together and guessed that Aubrey saw Basil blacking out the photos in his album.

The only person that she hasn't seen do much was Sunny, who seemed to spend most of his time asleep at home. She hadn't seen him leave the house, but she knew that her mom still lived there since she saw her leave the house to buy groceries.

Mari's stomach growled; thinking about groceries made her hungry, and she had hardly eaten anything over the last week. Mari couldn't even get a job because she would have to give her employer the details of a dead woman, and she would also face the problem of getting recognized since it was such a small town.

Mari had been hanging around the strip mall with the Othermart in her cat form since the fur gave her extra warmth. It was also so she could optimize the chance of a kind stranger handing her food or even better, fish!

Mari felt something once a certain stranger passed by. He was an Asian man, he was an average height, around 5'9" or so. He had a strange contrast of gray hair and a young face, he looked like he was in his late 20s. He was shirtless even though it was the middle of February, although he did wear a pretty beaten-up red cape with a hood. He wore red, fingerless gloves, and had on a pair of brown pants and red boots.

"This feeling. He must have a powerful persona," Mari comes to that conclusion immediately, since she's gotten a feeling like this from anyone in faraway, "I've gotta follow him,"

Mari began to follow the man in her cat form, who walked into the forest. Mari followed him regardless, hiding in the trees until "You can come out now, I know you've been following me," The man called out to her, causing Mari to walk out from behind the tree and transform into her human form.

"Whoa, can't say I expected that," The man commented, causing Mari to laugh.

"Sorry for following you, I couldn't exactly confront you while I was a cat and I didn't just want to transform out in the open. I was trying to see when you would be alone," Mari apologized, "No need to apologize to me. You were following me because you sensed something in me, right?" The man was spot on, shocking Mari.