DxD: Ascension - Redux

Chapter 52: Drowning Our Stress

persona 3 reload music? In a persona 5 fanboy's story? Preposterous! enjoy <3

CW: underage drinking, nsfw implications

Queens, New York (BGM: Persona 5 - Suspicion)

Sona shifted awkwardly in her seat on the subway, which was mostly empty. The only passengers were herself, Zach, a sleeping homeless woman, and a menacing-looking man sitting across from she and Zach. Every time she'd looked in the man's direction, he'd been glaring back at her. Zach didn't seem to notice, but he hadn't let go of Sona's hand since getting to the station.
"Stand clear of the closing doors, please," the automated subway voice said pleasantly.
Sona looked back at the other passenger. Sure enough, he was staring right at her. He didn't even seem to register that she was looking back at him. What's his deal? she wondered to herself. Is he on something? Or... no, it couldn't be. Is he a Khaos Brigade soldier? Did we get followed here? Starting to panic, she tried to think of a way to communicate with Zach without the man noticing. Please know Morse... she thought as she tapped out a message on Zach's hand: Strange man across. Watching me. Ideas?
Thankfully, Zach almost immediately tapped a message back, still looking absently out a window at the darkness of the tunnel: I'll handle it. Stay calm. Without so much as a spoken word, he looked back at the strange man, who immediately turned to look down at the ground, a small shiver going through his body.
Sona looked at Zach's face as he looked at the stranger. She'd seen him angry before, but this expression sent a message clear as day: No matter how dangerous you think you are, I'm worse, Zach's scarlet glare seemed to convey. Sona breathed a sigh of relief as the man got off the train at the next stop. "Thanks for that," she said, finally breaking the silence as the train continued on its way to Manhattan.
"Of course." Zach's face returned to its normal state as he smiled at Sona. "That guy didn't have any magic or anything. I can only assume he was a random thug who thought we'd make easy targets because we're young. They're usually smarter than to just stare at you constantly, though."
"Guess he was a special kind of stupid, then," Sona guessed.
"So, not to be nosy, but where exactly are we going?" Zach asked. "You still haven't told me, other than that we're headed to a speakeasy."
"This one's called Please Don't Tell. I think it's in the East Village, whatever that means."
Zach nodded. "I know that part of the city well. Heard of this place before, I think. You need a reservation to get in, and those are hard to get."
"I managed to get us one for..." Sona checked the time on her phone. "We have a little while. How long will it take to get there from our stop?"
"Well, this train is headed to Penn Station, right? Should be... quite a walk, to be honest. Not quite an hour, but getting there."
"So we should arrive right on time, then. That's convenient. You know where this place is exactly?"
"More or less. Got hot dogs at the front-facing restaurant once," Zach recalled. "So I guess I found it by accident."
Sona crossed her legs. "Front-facing?"
"The hot dog joint is the front of the business. The entrance to the bar is hidden somewhere inside, if this is anything like other speakeasies."
"Interesting choice of cover business. You said this isn't your first time doing this. When was your first?"
Zach smiled as the memory came back to him. "Few weeks after I got freed from the Heart of the Multiverse. We were in Miami at the time, but it was similar enough in concept. Get past the bouncer, do club things, leave, hopefully avoid the law. It didn't go well."
"Oh, boy," Sona said with a small chuckle. "What happened?"
"Well first up, we had the genius idea to pregame before going out, so the four of us were already tipsy when we got there. Makes things more fun, but only if you're not trying to cleverly get in underage. It made our lives that much harder. First of all, we're getting stared at in line to get in since we're obviously drunk teenagers, then when we get up to the bouncer he literally cuts our fake IDs in half in front of us. IDs we paid $50 each for, by the way. So we do the next best thing: use magic on him. It takes like five tries for Maddie to get her spell to work, but eventually we get in, and she casts a mass persuasion spell on the entire neighborhood by accident instead of just the club workers, making everyone think we were 25 or something like that. Every time Maddie and I weren't dancing or getting drinks together, a new random middle-aged man would try to ask her to dance, or worse, just grab her hand and start spinning her around or something."
"I'm sure you weren't happy about that," Sona guessed.
"I think I sent four grown men to the hospital that night and got seven kicked out," Zach recalled. "Oh, this is our stop."