The Phantom Thieves, once known throughout the world as chivalrous vigilantes, have decided upon one last heist for the greater good. However, this is no longer the Metaverse, and any false moves could put an end to their group forever. The last thing they could have ever expected comes to be, and even their leader Akira Kurusu himself will have to figure out what in the hell just happened.
(From the Perspective of "Joker".)
April ???, 9:02 pm
???
—Music: Recall ~ Hint - Persona 5 —
One by one, I can see the lights within the building shut off. I can hear the echoes of loud, metallic clicks as the breakers somewhere within are flipped, shutting off power to various utilities.
This is just what I've been waiting for. I'm careful to make no noise as I crawl out from under the nearby brush. Only a few more moments until my best shot at pulling this off.
The final lights shut down with a clank. The building is as dark as the night surrounding it, only barely illuminated by proximity to the intense street lights pointed downwards at the parking lot taking up the perimeter. In addition, the building's outside security lights still glow strongly, as do the same type of outside lights lining the top of the warehouse next to the main building. The first big obstacle will be making it inside without being spotted while still visible under the outside lights.
I can hear my teammates clearly from the communicator in my ear. "Now's your chance, Joker!" Mona excitedly encourages, giving me my cue.
Skull is practically giddy. "MAN, it is SO cool using our old codenames, again!"
I can't help but smirk. It's good to be back.
I tap my fingers to the ground and lean onto the fronts of my shoes, ready to make an explosive sprint across the parking lot. Three, two, one...
"Be careful not to overdo it, Joker!" Queen cautions, "It's been years. Your body may not be able to handle what it used to do."
"No way," Skull interjects, "I know this guy better than anyone, and there's no way he hasn't been practicing his running. We made a promise, right?"
As I race as fast as my legs will take me, a million memories of seasons past flood my subconscious, bringing me a deep warmth. Combined with the exertion and adrenaline, this emotional mixture has me feeling on top of the world. I cross the entire length of the parking lot in a matter of moments.
"Skull is right," Panther agrees, "This IS our leader, we're talking about. If anyone can pull this off, it's him!"
"Eyes on the prize, guys," Oracle speaks, getting us back on track, "You're coming up on the first checkpoint now."
The name of the game's the same: yet another infiltration. But things are different, this time. The methods, the stakes... it's a new ballpark. Even my clothes, regrettably, lack the style I was so used to having. Dark clothing with a backpack and a beanie hat just don't have the same flair as the image that my inner rebel used to. But now is neither the time nor the place.
"The secret path is open exactly where we planned it, right, Joker?" Fox questions.
"Great work, arranging for the food delivery tonight, Noir," Queen praises, both impressed by the resources of our ally as well as confident in the continuing success of the mission as it progresses.
No infiltration would go smoothly without a concrete plan, and I have my team to thank for this one. We all put our minds to work coming up with a thorough means to get inside the building. Sure enough, I can see my target: a delivery truck parked along the nearest side of the building, courtesy of Okumura foods. As I near the end of my sprint, I drop down and slide across the ground right under the vehicle, safe and out of sight for the moment. With the truck parked at this specific spot, I can climb atop it and reach the roof above the auxiliary building next to the museum. I wait down underneath, as I can hear workers chatting and unloading the contents of the truck. I'll have to wait for them to go inside before I can keep going.
"I didn't do much," Noir replies, humble as always, "My company already supplies the food court here on a regular basis, I just altered the delivery schedule."
"Either way, you got us our in," Mona praises, "I couldn't be more proud of my prodigies! I taught you all so well!"
I hear the noises of the workers trail off in the distance. I emerge from my hiding spot, and move as quickly as possible. An eighteen-wheeler is rather tall, and scaling one isn't as simple as it sounds, even for me. But, in a lot of ways, I feel like I'm riding a bike. I jump and plant my leg against the side, push myself up with a kick, and grab onto the top edge of the trailer. Before I even realize it, my body is moving on its own, and I combine my momentum with the strength of my arms to pull myself up with a roll, and with that I'm on top of the truck.
From the trailer of the truck, it's an easy climb to reach the top of the roof. This warehouse--though spacious--is only one floor, unlike the much larger museum it accompanies. Naturally, the food delivery truck had been parked next to the delivery reception area, which leads into cold storage for the food and other things. On the far side of the roof, I can see a giant metallic cocoon housing a large fan. The fan is undoubtedly above an aperture leading into the air ducts of a ventilation system.
"Get ready to cut off the power to cold storage in a few seconds, Oracle," Mona instructs.
"No problem," she replies, "Get ready, Joker. I'm turning the fan off... now."
Without sharp, metal blades spinning rapidly, I'm able to climb into the system and slide right past the fan and into the tunnels below. The tubes I'm within are wide enough for me to crawl through on my stomach. However, as the system regulates a freezer of some sort, the metal feels unbelievably cold to the touch, and my whole body feels numb by the time I reach a ventilation shaft to drop down through.
I can hear the fan above restarting, and I can feel the beginnings of an intense wind pushing through the tunnels right before I'm able to get out. I drop down from the ceiling and land right in the center of a room so cold that its freezer doors seem to be iced over.
I hear talking and footsteps, and immediately find a place to hide behind some boxes. Even the Okumura delivery staff have no idea that they've provided a way for me to get inside, which unfortunately means I can't even be spotted by Noir's own company workers. It's not like she can just tell her employees that she's aiding a Phantom Thief, after all.
The men and women pass by, none of them suspecting a thing. Now that they are out of sight, I'm free to move again, and I briskly exit the freezer. The immediate warmth is refreshing, and I feel much more comfortable as I head through a narrow hallway leading into the main building. As use of the building had just ended, this hallway was unlit and perfectly dark. Perfect time for me to put on the night vision goggles that I had Oracle modify. With these, the rest of the team will see what I see through an installed camera, as well.
"This plan is going great! Thanks again, Noir," Skull compliments, "Climbing onto the truck and entering through the roof worked perfectly!"
"If anything, we should be thanking Fox," Noir returns, shifting the focus, "It's incredible he was able to paint a piece so beautiful that the museum put it on display immediately."
I hear Fox's signature chuckle and can practically see his face, with his eyes closed and his smile filled with zen. "It so pleases me to receive compliments from someone with as refined a taste as yours," he thanks.
"She has a point," Queen agrees, "Without getting personally acquainted with the curator, you wouldn't have been able to investigate inside of his office earlier."
As usual, Oracle vies with Fox for attention, and their psuedo-rivalry is almost charming. "What about me, huh?! Without my camera tech, we wouldn't even be watching with Joker! Praise me, too!"
"Grow up, you guys," Panther warns sternly, "We're distracting him."
"Tsk," Skull spits, irritated. "This pisses me off. We should be out there with him."
"Agreed. It pains me, standing behind a computer screen while Joker places all of the pressure on his own shoulders..." Fox laments.
"There's no real way around it," Mona confirms with chagrin, "It just isn't feasible for a stealth mission to have so many people all breaking in. We'd be caught immediately."
"Still. It doesn't feel right," Queen argues. I can truly tell how much my friends are worried about me. That's just one more reason I can't let them down.
The conclusion of the hallway I'm in is a door leading into the ground floor of the museum itself. Naturally, it's locked from the inside, and it will take a bit of thievery skills to get in.
I'm better with treasure chests than doors, but I'm able to accomplish my goal regardless: after loosening the mechanisms with my toolkit, I'm able to slide one of my cards down the narrow gap between the door and the wall, and I can feel the card connect to the metal piece holding the door shut. By sliding the card at a good angle, I slowly push the mechanism back into the door, allowing it to open.
"Creative!" Fox praises, "Who knew that the skill cards I made could be used in such a way."
I enter the building, and I make sure the door closes quietly behind me. I seem to be smack dab in the middle of one of the tour paths.
"So, what are we on the lookout for?" Skull asks, with a mixture of excitement and unease, "Guards walking in intricate patterns? Guard dogs? Armed guard dogs?!"
Mona chuckles. "This is a museum, Skull, not a bank or a prison. They don't have the money or even the need to hire security like that. I'd wager that there's a single guard off in a room somewhere watching a screen of monitors, at best."
"And that won't be a problem, either, correct?" Queen questions for clarity, "Oracle, you've definitely gotten into the camera systems, right?"
"Aye, aye, Queen," she confirms, "I'm actively looping the recording footage in whatever room Joker is in, so they'll never see him. If something goes wrong, I'll go in and delete all the footage on the server, too."
"Heh. That's our navigator, for you," Queen chuckles, "We're definitely going to succeed."
—Music: Disintegration - Persona 5 —
If my memory of the layout serves, this hallway is part of an exterior network of halls to help the staff to get around the ground floor faster. The hall from cold storage leads straight to the food court area, but it has many auxiliary pathways which leads into various points in the museum. The location of the door I open just happens to be within the military history tour. The walls are lined with old photographs, and the glass cases house old torpedoes, rifles, and informational displays. I need to keep moving, because I'm still far away from the objective.
It's pretty eerie, seeing full military suits on mannequins, and I almost feel like I'm being watched by the displays. It's as if there were actual eyes underneath the gas masks and aviator goggles, carefully observing.
The stretch of the tour is long and uncomfortable, but I finally exit the expansive exhibit. From here, it seems to be a hub area leading to a variety of other exhibits. The only path which interests me is the staircase leading up to the higher floors.
I run up two flights and enter the third floor. Much like the floors below, this hub area has a variety of hallways and paths leading to whichever tour or exhibit museum guests could choose to go on. I recall that my ultimate goal is the enormous atrium in the center of the museum. The trick from here on out is finding the quickest path to get there. I open the door on that path and head inside.
I find myself almost bumping into a person standing right in front of me. Everyone and everything goes silent.
—Music End—
I smirk, and walk right past the figure.
"Good. You've made it to the wax museum section," Mona narrates, "Be careful not to break any of the statues."
Much like the other tours, the path I take is predetermined. The inside of the wax museum is almost labyrinthine, with dozens of detailed models of all types of people lining the walls. I proceed slowly and carefully, just to be sure I don't accidentally damage any of the sculptures. By the time I near the end of the tour, I'm so accustomed to the quiet and motionlessness that it almost makes me jump to hear the doorknob jumble open. Someone's here, damn.
—Music: Sweatshop (Another Version) - Persona 5 —
A door at the end of the tunnel creaks open at a snail's pace, but I can see the illumination of a flashlight creep through the crack and expand as the door opens wider and wider. A head and an arm extend into the room and look around, aiming the flashlight at various locations. "Is anyone there?" a man calls, half with authority but half with nervous reservation. From the cover of one of the wax statues, I'm able to hide from sight. The guard doesn't seem to make any attempt to enter the room, or move from the door at all. I can't blame him, it'd probably feel creepy to walk through a wax museum like this by the light of a flashlight.
He scratches his head, and speaks softly to himself. "I could have sworn I heard a door close."
He holds his ground for a few more moments, swiping the flashlight towards various targets before finally lowering the light and sighing. I can barely hear him mumble to himself something along the lines of, "I should have listened to the boss when he insisted I take the night off."
"So, there were still guards making patrols..." Noir points out..
"Aren't you watching the cameras, Oracle?" Mona asks, surprised.
"We're still overriding them and looping the stock footage so Joker doesn't get caught," she explains.
"Be extra careful, Joker!" Panther cautions.
I give it some time to make sure the guard is long gone before I continue, and I exit through the same door that he had come in from. The only way to go is forward, now.
I find myself in a curved hallway, one which I can tell surrounds a circular center. Just a little further, now...
"Good work, Joker," Fox praises, "You've reached the atrium."
"I can hardly believe how huge it is..." Noir comments in awe.
Sure enough, the atrium is the main attraction of the museum. While the rest of the museum is neatly organized by subject matter into convenient tour paths, the atrium houses literally everything else, though primarily artwork. It is a vast, rounded circle of a room, three stories tall. The atrium floor itself is only on ground level; the higher stories are in fact simply balconies clinging to the rounded perimeter of the room, and the topmost of which is where I find myself standing. The balconies have pedestals and picture frames showcasing a variety of artwork and oddities, but the primary design focus is the idea that anyone standing on any floor of balcony can see a full, uninhibited view of the entire ground floor and all of the wonders it contains.
Even the empty sky above the ground is sparsely populated with quite a few hanging displays, such as airplanes, chandeliers, large pieces of modern art, and other various lighting fixtures. The ceiling is completely crystal clear glass, letting the full light of the moon passionately caress the interior. Even a baseball field would look and feel small compared to the sheer size of this room.
However, I have to keep focused on the sole reason I'm here: the museum curator's office is in a room connected to the third floor balcony, right where I am now. "Joker, look!" Queen points out with a soft voice, but sharp urgency.
There is a person on the opposite end of the balcony, walking away from the office, heading towards the stairs which will lead them down to the second floor and beyond. I'm lucky they haven't noticed me, but it's such a gigantic room and it's so dark that perhaps I'd be surprised if they did.
"Who is that?" Skull asks.
"It's probably the curator. He must have stayed to work late," Queen reasons.
"Joker, I can't really see from here; is he carrying the briefcase?" Oracle presses with urgency.
"It doesn't look like it," I whisper back.
"He may have left it in his office. With him leaving without it, this may be the perfect opportunity!" Oracle cheers.
That it is. With the balconies carpeted as they are, I can run full speed without making too much noise. I'll be in and out of the office with the goods long before anyone notices.
It's a long run, but I finally find myself standing in front of the office door. Anyone who had been here shortly before was now long gone. I couldn't ask for a better opportunity. I take out my lock picking tools once more and begin chipping away at the mechanism. The door lock clicks, and it slowly slides open from its own weight.
I go right into the room without wasting a moment, and my eyes are already on my next objective: a second door in the office, protected by a keypad.
"There's that door, again," Fox announces, "How long will your code-breaker device take to work, Oracle?"
"It depends on how long or complicated the code is. It may take a minute or two..."
"Do we have that much time to spare?" Panther questions.
I take off my night vision goggles and focus intensely on the keypad as I use my third eye. With this ability and my own intuition, I'm able to glean important items or information unseen to normal people. From the darkness, a few of the numbers on the pad light up with bright fingerprints. I can tell which number keys on the pad have been pressed now. So all that's left is to figure out what order they need to be pressed in.
Wait a second... the only keys that have prints on them are 1, 2, and 3. Don't tell me...
I tap them, in numerical order. The light above the keypad blinks green, and I hear the door unlock. Wow. Talk about an easy passcode.
"You're amazing, Joker!" Skulls praises, "How'd you do that?!"
I hear the muffled echoes of loud shouting from somewhere below. "What in the heck was that?" Mona probes with shocked concern.
—Music: Illegal of Destiny - Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies —
"No time for praising just yet!" Mona warns, "Those voices mean the curator is still in the building, so you need to hurry and steal the treasure and get out of there!"
"Whatever is going on down below, it can't be good," Noir cautions, "You need to move quickly!"
Absolutely. I rush inside what looks similar to a bank vault. There are lots of compartments lining the walls. "Just keep an eye out for that briefcase," Oracle reminds me.
With my goggles back on, I scan the room. Lucky for me, there it is, laying idly on a table near the back of the room.
This is it. I cross the room and open up the briefcase to check my prize.
Everyone is silent as the lid is lifted.
"What the... it's empty! What the hell?!" Skull gripes.
"Have we been tricked...?" Panther worries.
Noir draws attention to something else. "No, look... there's a card there, with a picture on it!"
I pick up the card and hold it closer to my face. The others can surely see it clearly through the night vision camera in my goggles.
Mona seems to have his mind blown completely. "Guys, this is bad, look... this is a calling card, like ours. Another thief got here first!" he shouts, both angry and confused.
The card has a symbol of a mask, what I presume to be a name, and the message "SALUTATIONS" in English.
"Who is... Mask☆DeMasque?" Queen questions.
—Music: The Stolen Turnabout (Latter Half, starting at 0:37 seconds in) - Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations —
A grandiose voice echoes laughter from outside of the office, coming from the atrium. "Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!"
I storm back outside of the room, and I see the source of the voice to be a caped person with their arms outstretched... flying??!
"Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Who could have expected, another thief! I'm afraid I have a better use for this than you, so I'll be borrowing it, if you don't mind!" the figure booms with a disturbingly polite and charming voice.
"This is preposterous...!!" Fox protests.
"Joker, is there any way you can catch him?!" Mona panics.
"Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha... farewell, and better luck next time, fellow thief! I'm certain we shall meet again!" the figure continues.
I hear a crash from below, and then another crash after it. The museum alarm begins blaring loudly. Great.
The other thief flies through the atrium glass, out into the open sky, and disappears with the light of the moon at their back. "Ahaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha..."
To be continued...
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