Persona 5.5: Reign of Terror

The moment that thug lunged forward, despite his compatriot's wishes, and struck his target, knocking them unconscious, I bit my lip for not acting sooner. Wasting no time, I activated my MetaNav to drag these thieves into the dry and dusty plains of the otherworld Manifestos.

"Okay, come on, who activated that App our Boss gave us? Sheesh, show some restraint... oh wait" one of these Thieves, now clad in a domino mask and dark-and-gray gear that covered his skin entirely, said before he slowly turned his head around and saw me. "What the- hey, this is our turf lady! Oh wait, some rival Thieves sent you to try muscle us outta here?".

"I represent no authority higher than myself" I shot back at them. "I ask you, how can you perceive yourselves as heroes only to gang up on the defenseless?".

At my words, this pack of Thieves could only laugh. "Real cute, you think we're just some no-good gang. We're The Ascendants, ya little toad, it's everyone else in this criminal-run town that's corrupt, we're the only force of Justice there is!". He then ahem-ed and said "Anyway, since we're so nice in actually helping to clean up this town, we were just asking for a little reward from our here client. I mean it's only fair ain't it, after we've sacrificed so much?".

I should've snarled all the more at that comment, but instead I just laughed "Hah, you think you're the lone good guys in a sea of bad? How naive, little thieves, that was exactly what I once thought myself".

These Thieves thinking themselves Superheroes, the 'Ascendants' they called themselves, all hesitated at that remark. "Atom Smasher, if you'll do the honors..." the talkative one hissed to his compatriot.

"Gladly" growled the most thuggish of them, now clad from the waist-up in glowing, mushroom-cloud emblazoned robotic armour. "You stand in the way of Justice, we beat you to a pulp like all the other bad guys! Ajax" he roared out.

In a flash of sickly green, his armour morphed into a giant, pulsating shield, with a mechanical head and arms on top of it. That shield-Persona about to crash on top of me, I called out that name I hadn't in years.

"Alice!"



In flashes of white and red, my own Persona after all this time emerged and halted this Ajax with her croquet mallet. At first it made barely a dent in the Atom Smasher's Persona, but nibbling on a mushroom she had, my Alice was able to grow bigger and bigger until she finally knocked the irradiated shield aside.

"Like I divined, you, the little girl in black, could break the chains upon on your mind and whack back, ya dig?" that scratchy voice said, as the raven that'd spoken to me before flapped down beside me.

"What? How? Who knocks aside the Atom Smasher?" the Ascendant screamed out.

"By the by, tag's Baudelaire, dig?" this out-of-nowhere raven introduced himself somewhat to me "Course, a melody is kinda sparse without some rhythm and harmony backing it up, so allow me to get a hit in. Childe Harold, take this 'hero' down to zero".
Baudelaire then summoned a Persona of his own, a knight and horse made up of paper then clad in armour made of ink. This riding Persona leapt up and sent down bursts of darkness at the Atom Smasher from its hooves. Yet as Childe Harold readied to trample on him, Ajax reactivated and knocked him away.

"Sheesh, this square's a tougher costumer than I surmised" Baudelaire muttered as his Persona was launched backwards.

"The Atom Smasher shall blast away all evil!" roared the strongman Thief "The Ascendants will obliterate and rebuild this whole city to cleanse it of corruption!".

"Hey Smasher, don't go givin' away our end-goal. Who d'ya think we are, villains?" the more smooth-talking of the Ascendants spoke up again.

Well, at least with Baudelaire now I had back up, even a poetry-spouting bird with an ink Persona was something. This Atom Smasher may look tough, but I doubted he had any idea of tactics beyond just ramming us.
I knew I couldn't fight just with Alice, lest I mentally exhaust myself, so I reached down and grabbed the weapon on my belt, you tended to at least start with one cognitive weapon in the Metaverse...
[ ] A sword-cane.
[ ] A trident.
[ ] A war-scythe.
[ ] Sickles-on-a-chain.
[ ] A dual-swords combo.
[ ] Write-in.
(QM's Note: Your side-arm gun will be decided a little later.)

Right, my next plan of action was to-
[ ] Leap up on a tree, then attack the Atom Smasher from above.
[ ] Blind him by kicking sand, Manifestos was dry and dusty enough for it.
[ ] Slide under him and attack from behind.
[ ] Slide under him and hold that smooth-talker Thief hostage.
[ ] Distract him, take their victim then run off back to the real world, not gonna let these guys make me late for class.
[ ] Write-in.

I scooped up and slung as much of Manifestos' gritty, scorched earth as I could and threw it right in the face of this costumed crusher. It seemed to somewhat stun him, by making the brute pause for long enough to try and shake all the grit from out of his armor and circuits. Seizing the opportunity, I sprang up onto his head, split my jeweled cane in two to unsheathe the shimmering blade within, and sliced downwards along any lines I could see in his power plant-like armor.

The slash sent him stumbling over, almost right on top of Baudelaire. For a second I thought the raven was truly 'for the birds', so to say, but he instead had his Childe Harold Persona fire its shots of darkness from below, launching the Atom Smasher back up into the air.
"Alright, now catch the wave while the tide is high" the raven spoke up at me, and I quickly reacted by sending Alice with her mallet up to try juggling the Atom Smasher in the air with each strike.

As Atom Smasher eventually crashed into the ground, which sent more sand flying up around himself than I ever could, that domino-masked member of these 'Ascendants' came back in and walked over to his compatriot's now-prone self.
"My my, Atom Smasher down, seems like this girl's got some experience when it comes to Personae," he stood laughing over a struggling, groaning Atom Smasher "Eh, 's not too much of a shock though, Smasher here was mostly all intimidation" he then tossed that remark down at his badly-beaten comrade.
"Guess I oughta be introducin' myself, since you seem worthy of the honour" domino-mask gave a mild chuckle at me "Psyphon's the moniker I've chosen, and who knows, maybe us Ascendants could actually use a girl like you, someone at least more, er, 'normal' than the girl we've got now. 'Sides, what with you already looking like a Phantom Thief enough...".

I did nothing but glare at him, and even Baudelaire spoke up at him with "Hey man, cool it, what's got into your brain that makes you think this cat wants a thing to do with your crowd?".

Psyphon briefly tensed, but soon shrugged that remark off and said "Listen, us Ascendants just want the same thing you do, same thing anyone does really. To correct society, take its reins and make it into how it should be! Ahem, so I hope you'll be a nice girl and not write us off so quickly, hmm? Ha, I know, me and mine will give you some space, for now, while you decide what you should really be using your powers for. Say, till the end of the school week, that fine by you?"

"Oi Atom, time to vamoose ya hear?" Psyphon glanced down and kicked his fellow Ascendant. Not that I could intervene, as already I felt the connection to my MetaNav fading as I again found myself standing in front of my new school, any trace of these 'Ascendants' nowhere to be seen.

Not that everything had returned to the way it was though.
"Yo, your ears and brainwaves still tappin' into these words I'm sending to ya?" Baudelaire's raspy voice spoke to me. My eyes slowly went up as I spotted a raven in the same tree as before, though a far less exaggerated-looking one than my unexpected ally in Manifestos.

"Take it you've gotta be gettin' into that education machine of yours while the sun's high, so how 'bout I reconnect with you come this afternoon, give you the download on things?" the same raven rasped, proving that I really was looking at Baudelaire.

"Oh hey, Sarah, whattya doing out here?" a familiar voice piped up as I could see Amelia leap off her skateboard and run my way "Man, thought I was late enough, as lame as it is for me to say we gotta be getting to class pronto, don't want that Truant Officer after us".

Remembering this was my first day, I blinked then nodded, and made a dash with Amelia up the stairs. I did give one look back at Baudelaire before I entered the school, and gritted my teeth to myself.
I really did think I'd be free of all this...