Hearts and Minds

by The card holder


Briefing

"Come, we have much to discuss," Celestia said, ignoring the shocked reactions as she turned around and started walking out of the hall.

Finally letting down their guard slightly, Akira shrugged before following her down the hall, his hands planted in his pockets. After a moment of confused and partially worried looks, the others went after him.

The Thieves could feel the uneasy gazes from the guards on their backs as they passed, but did their best to ignore them, with varying degrees of success. They didn't move from their posts, however, leaving Celestia to lead them alone.

It wasn't long before she brought them to her intended destination, and levitated the door to her study open. "I'm going to have to apologize, there aren't enough seats for all of you. I did not anticipate that there would be... well, so many of you."

Her magic got some concerned and confused looks, but no one said anything about it. Instead, they simply followed her inside the room, where another winged unicorn was already at the table in the center of the room, nose buried deep into a book and surrounded by more.

Celestia smiled upon seeing the room's other occupant. "I see you're hard at work, Twilight."

Twilight let out a quick gasp and lowered her book. "Sorry, Celestia, I didn't hear you come... in..." She trailed off as she looked over who was following the princess. "Um... who are they?"

"They might just be the solution to our problems," Celestia said.

Twilight gave her a questioning look, while the Thieves did the same.

"What problems do you mean?" Morgana asked.

"For the past couple weeks, there have been more than a few instances of, shall we say, 'altered reality'," Celestia explained. "That is, small areas where a pony's dreams seem to be manifesting on top of reality."

"Their... dreams?" Ann asked, putting a hand to her chin in thought.

Futaba caught onto her line of thought. "So, in other words, their desires?"

Celestia paused. "I suppose that is one way of looking at it, yes."

Makoto stepped forward. "And what are the exact nature of this 'altered reality'?"

"We have yet to figure out the exact mechanics of this phenomenon," Celestia said, "but a large portion of that is the fact that the guards I send to investigate have no recollection of any distortions. To them, it apparently appears that nothing is wrong in the area, as well as most of the locals."

"So how do ya know something's wrong in the first place?" Ryuji asked, idly kicking his shoe softly against the carpet.

Celestia fidgeted slightly. "It is hard to explain, but when I, my sister, or Twilight here observes the areas in question from afar, we can feel a definite magical anomaly coming from there, albeit a very faint one." She glanced up at her horn. "Not only that, but for one reason or another, certain locals in the area are able to feel the same way, reportedly."

"So, desires being the basis for a change in reality..." Morgana looked up to Akira. "That sound familiar?"

"Just like the palaces..."

"Palaces?" Celestia asked, tilting her head, Twilight doing the same behind her.

"It's... complicated," Makoto started. "But based on what you're telling us, this is almost identical to circumstances we faced in our own world."

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, and a guard's voice came through. "Princess Celestia, it's almost time for day court."

Celestia sighed. "Well, I suppose I'll have to receive explanations later. For now, I fully trust you and Twilight to get to the bottom of this."

Twilight jumped slightly. "Me?"

"Of course. You're going to take them to Ponyville to meet with your friends, so the both of you can be more effectively informed on the specifics of the situation."

Twilight looked over all the books she gathered, then looked back at Celestia. "Can I... borrow these books, at least?"

Celestia smiled. "Of course. Now, farewell, Phantom Thieves."

As the door shut behind her, Twilight immediately started levitating her chosen books into a set of saddlebags.

As this was going on, Akira felt a small nudge in his side. Turning, he saw that the source of the nudge was Ryuji. "Dude, is any of this making any sense to you?" he asked.

"Not any more than usual."

"Yeah, at this point, a world full of little horses is close to normal," Futaba whispered. "Probably 'cause Mona already took away the initial 'talking animal' shock."

"I'm not an animal!"

"Okay, everything's packed!" Twilight announced, cutting off any further conversation. "I suppose we shouldn't waste any time, so let's get to the train station. We can talk more on the way to Ponyville."

She led the way out of the room, and the group followed, Akira at the front as usual.

It wasn't long before they made it out of the castle, and the Thieves couldn't help but stare at the view that awaited them.

Yusuke, in particular, seemed ecstatic. "My word, the colors, this landscape...!"

He rapidly turned in circles, framing various bits of scenery within his fingers, before a firm hand from Haru stopped him. "We're drawing some weird looks, Fox..."

"I mean, we're kinda already doing that, Noir," Ryuji countered. "Pretty sure we're the only ones around walking on two legs."

"Skull's right, for once," Morgana said. "We'll have plenty of time to play tourist once we're up to speed on the area."

Twilight just remained silent as the group bantered among themselves, doing her best to think up what she would ask them once they were on the train. They said they were from another world, so that alone should provide her with ample questions to ask...

Before they knew it, they were at the train station. It wasn't too crowded at this time of day, and Twilight was easily able to secure a car all to themselves, no doubt thanks to her princess status.

However, having an entire train car all to themselves was quite the welcome sight for the Thieves. "This is effin' great! I can sit down and stretch my legs at the same time!"

"That doesn't mean you have to, though," Makoto said, rolling her eyes.

"Come on, Queen, relax a bit!" Ryuji shot back. "It's good for you!"

As the group bickered from their seats, Twilight quietly took notes on a spare parchment she brought with her, mostly to try and keep track of everyone's names and apparent personality traits, as well as to draft out potential questions. Curiously, through all of this, she noticed that 'Joker' was almost completely silent as the others talked, only giving occasional nonverbal answers, or the occasional brief statement. Still, the way the others talked to or about him, they seemed to hold a great respect for him...

After about a minute, the train started leaving the station, and the Thieves gathered around the window to get an even better look at the landscape.

"It's so... colorful!" Ann exclaimed.

"Those trees are so vibrant!" Haru added.

"Must... capture this!" Yusuke mumbled, furiously looking between the window and a sketch pad he was scribbling on.

Twilight gave them a few more moments to enjoy the view, then softly cleared her throat to get their attention. Once they were all focused on her, she took a quick glance at her notes before smiling. "So, I hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions about... well, the nature of your 'work'?"

Ryuji shrugged. "Whaddya want to know?"

"I guess I'll start with the big one: what exactly is this 'palace' you mentioned?"

"A palace is essentially an alternate world, stemming from the distorted desires of an individual," Morgana explained. "The person who is the source of the palace often views the world around them in a greatly distorted manner, which manifests as a distortion of a real location." He put a paw to his chin in thought. "Although we never dealt with palaces that were 'on top of' reality like Celestia mentioned. At least, not in such a focused and controlled way..."

"So, what did you do in these palaces?" Twilight asked.

"We were able to go inside palaces, and change the heart of the one who manifested it," Yusuke said. "In almost every case we dealt with, this led to the person changing their worldview drastically, and they almost always confessed to their crimes afterwards."

Twilight stopped in her writing long enough to look up. "Crimes?"

"We targeted mostly criminals," Makoto pushed on. "Specifically, people who were abusing their positions of power, but could not be targeted by other means."

"Except for me," Futaba chimed in, raising her hand.

Twilight nearly broke her quill in her magic as she snapped her eyes onto Futaba. "You had a palace?"

"Yeah. Long story," she replied, idly kicking her feet. "We'll tell you later."

"Okaaay..." Twilight finished writing her current sentence, before something occurred to her. "Wait, you say that you can 'change people's hearts' with these palaces," she started, "and make them confess their crimes. But... isn't that technically brainwashing?"

"I mean, if you wanna be broad about it," Ryuji said. "But trust me, everyone we targeted deserved it." After a pause, he hastily added, "Oh, except Oracle, she asked us to do it."

"But... how could they deserve it?" Twilight asked. "Surely there had to be another way?"

The Thieves looked at each other. After a moment of unspoken debate, Ann leaned forward.

"Everyone we targeted was completely unforgivable in one way or another, and they also directly worked to make at least one of our lives a living hell."

Ryuji let out a short chuckle. "And no one knows that better than this guy," he said, giving Akira a slap on the back. "Go on, tell her the shit you got put through."

"Do we have time?"

"It's about an hour and a half trip to Ponyville," Twilight replied. "I have to admit, I'm curious."

Feeling everyone's stares on him, Akira sighed.

"So, I was walking home from school one day..."