Well, lemme me try my hand in something a bit different...
Ren Amamiya had seen
some shit. And that was certainly a way to describe the Metaverse.
Still, the whole "universe crumbling down on your head" thing?
Yeah, that certainly was a different type of "some shit".
He wasn't even sure if that was Yaldabaoth's fault. That would be the easiest assumption, but it somehow didn't quite fit in his head, considering how cocky he was. The Thieves barely beat down the final guardian before that happened.
He woke up out of the Metaverse and saw himself surrounded by many people...and bipedal animals, just like Morgana. But, unlike his feline companion, he felt they were no creations of the Velvet Room.
And then the robots started attacking and everything was chaotic. Some people pulled weapons and began firing while others ran away, covered by those soldiers - G.U.N, or Guardian Units of the Nation, as he would come to learn later, who repelled the advances of some big red ogre beast that wouldn't be out of place as a Persona.
Joker wanted to stay and fight, but, as it was, he couldn't do anything: all he had was his knife and model gun - things that would do nothing to help and could, in fact, make him get on the way. So, he focused on helping the retreating people into safe places. Nevermind that this could get him on the spotlight and likely to get arrested, he could worry over how he would deal with that later.
Well, not really. Because nearly no one in this "Christmas Island" seemed to recognize him. And, unless
some moai were hidden
, Joker didn't recognize the place either.
And things were already messy before the Yakuza took over.
Now, Joker wasn't well-versed in such matters besides his time with Iwai and having to handle one or two Yakuza as enemies in the Metaverse, but he felt he would have heard of a Kyohei Jingu in his world - that was before he realized how
fucked things were - considering he seemed to hoard riches like some hungry hippo. He, with his lackeys, took things over swiftly - oh, sorry, Ren misspoke. He "offered" that his guard force became the new maintainers of order in the region and "kindly," asked the positioned G.U.N soldiers to either join him or "dispose" of their weapons and equipment to enhance his militia - er, "security group".
Under such circumstances, the G.U.N members who refused either order were forcefully disposed of. No one ever found their bodies.
Thus, under the heel of Jingu and his ally - one Masato Arakawa - they proceeded to "bring peace" to the island. That is, they eliminated whoever tried to oppose them and annexed the lands in their criminal empire.
Disgusting. Infuriating. That made Ren's blood boil. Not even Kaneshiro was ever that blatant with his vile deeds, yet those two men trampled over everyone else with little to no care under the pretense of being guardians of peace. They somehow were worse than Shido.
And it wasn't only Christmas Island. From glimpses Ren heard, this world was filled with such tyrants, and this angered him. A world where people with evil wishes in their hearts triumphed...
"Barman, one more!"
The teenager looked at his client and let out a wink.
"Coming right up, a hot one!" he said, making the coffee.
As it was, Ren couldn't do anything...yet. Mostly because he was looking for his friends through the island, hoping to hear rumors about a blonde guy causing a mess out of things in some place or remarking they saw a black and white cat with a green collar. But nothing. No sign of the other Thieves. Nor his Confidants.
Not even a sign from the Velvet Room. Could it have been subverted by Yaldabaoth or some other force he was unaware of? Ren didn't know.
Thus, he waited. He opened a little cafe. Cafe Le Blanc. He would deal with copyright issues with Boss later, but this should hopefully help sign to people he knew of where he was...so long he could make it a popular spot anyways, and in this economy, Ren also had to take a bunch of side gigs to help sustain himself.
How did Sojiro do that for so much time?
As he served his new client and prepared curry for the next request, he took a glance at his phone, where the Metaverse app still resided. The other reason Joker didn't do anything until now is that Mementos was seemingly gone, not popping up again on the search bar. Again, Ren was unsure if it was a Yaldabaoth maneuver to avoid confrontation or if the place simply collapsed with the clash of universes, but the leader of the Phantom Thieves hadn't been able to get either there or the Palaces of Jingu or Arakawa - he simply didn't have enough resources to figure their keywords, nor the luck to get them.
So, the thief waited, patiently. Waited for his time...for the time of Phantom Thieves to fly again.
For there was rotten people to take down.
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