//------------------------------//
// Infiltration 
// Story: Hearts and Minds 
// by The card holder 
//------------------------------//

The next day, the Phantom Thieves returned to Equestria, immediately grouping back up with Dash and Twilight. After some discussion, it was decided that Pinkie would instead stay behind, and keep tabs on Yearling as she roamed the convention hall. The humans doubted her ability to go unnoticed, especially with her color palette, but Twilight insisted that it would work out, although she admitted that she couldn't hope to explain how.

"So, tell me if I got this right," Twilight said, scribbling some notes onto a piece of parchment. "You go in, find Yearling's 'treasure', and then stealing it will change her heart and destroy the palace?"

Makoto nodded. "That is correct."

"Don't forget the calling card, that's the best part!" Ryuji added.

Twilight tilted her head. "Calling card?"

"We'll explain later," Morgana said, bounding forward and turning towards the group. "For now, we should focus on infiltrating the palace. Joker?"

Akira nodded, pulled out his phone, then stepped through the front door, the others following through the rippling portal that appeared.

The inside of the palace was how the others remembered it, including the hole in the fence that they made the first time.

Just like before, the Thieves had been changed into their outfits, with little reaction among them. This time, however, Twilight was the only one unchanged, as Dash was once again wearing her own new outfit.

"Woah, that's pretty cool," she commented, looking herself over. "I could get used to this."

"Oh right, we almost forgot!" Noir said. "She needs a code name, too!"

Dash raised an eyebrow. "Code name?"

"We can't exactly go calling out your real name while in the palace," Oracle explained. "Plus, it fits with the whole 'phantom thief' thing."

"Hmm, makes sense," Dash agreed. "I can't think of anything, though."

"How about 'Fast Horse'?" Skull suggested, only to get hit by Panther. "Ow, hey!"

"That won't work, you idiot!" she chided. "It needs to be at least a little clever!"

"Perhaps 'Spectrum'?" Fox said.

"Nah, doesn't seem right," Skull said. "Plus it's too close to her actual name."

"Any ideas, Joker?" Mona said, poking him in the shin.

After a moment of thinking with a hand to his chin, Joker nodded and snapped his fingers, getting the attention of everyone else.

"Indy."

The others looked at each other, waiting for any objections to be raised, but none came.

Oracle giggled. "Oh, I get it. Clever."

Twilight just shook her head. "I don't get it..."

"Hmm, I like it. Alright, I'm Indy, from now on!"

"What about Twilight?" Noir asked. "Shouldn't she have one, too?"

"But... I don't have a persona," Twilight protested.

"Same principle applies," Mona said. "Although it'll be harder to come up with one without an outfit to base it on..."

"What can you do, anyway?" Skull asked, blunt as ever.

"I mean, I know quite a bit of magic, both offensive and defensive," Twilight said. "I'm not sure how helpful it will be, but..."

After some more thought, Panther spoke up. "Maybe 'Magician'?"

"Better than I'd come up with," Skull admitted.

"It is fitting," Queen added.

Joker just nodded.

"Then it's decided," Fox said. "You are now Magician."

"I... guess it works."

"Alright, enough talk!" Indy said, flying to the front of the group, pointing a dramatic hoof at the compound before them. "Let's get in there and get that treasure!"

"Hell yeah!" Skull cheered.

Joker just chuckled as he retook his position at the head of the party, the others following him through the fence.

Time to get to work.



After a quick detour to the warehouse they visited last time to pick up that map of Equestria, at Magician's insistence, the group started heading deeper into the base, aiming for the main building in the center of the area.

It was easy to find the front door, but it took a bit more time to find a more subtle entry that wasn't constantly watched by shadows. Thankfully, Oracle was able to spot a way in, in the form of a window that Joker was able to pick open.

Once the coast was clear, everyone slipped inside, finding themselves in a small storage room. Seeing nothing of interest inside, Joker cracked open the door, before waving for the others to follow as he started jogging through a hallway.

"So, Oracle, we headin' up or down?" Skull asked.

Despite her running, she was able to pull information up around her just fine. "Looks like... the treasure is below us!"

"Shouldn't we check out the top of the building, first?" Indy suggested. "I mean, there might be something else that's useful up there."

"It would be best to head straight to our objective," Queen replied. "The longer we're in here, the more chances of something going wrong."

"Actually, I think Indy might be right," Noir added. "After all, I'm sure we're going to run into some kind of barrier at some point. Perhaps the upper floors might have some way to get past them?"

"We should focus on finding a map, first, Mona said. "We can decide a course of action then."

Suddenly, Joker put up a hand, telling the others to stop. Just ahead of them, a shadow was starting to come around the corner, though it hadn't noticed them yet.

"In here!"

Moving quickly, Joker shoved open a nearby door, the others following his lead.

On the bright side, the room looked like a small security room, which would no doubt prove useful.

Unfortunately, the room was already occupied by a shadow, who noticed their entry immediately.

"Intruders!" it called out, before dissolving and reforming into a large manticore. Despite being at the front of the group and the closest to danger, Joker just smirked.

"Damn, no choice but to fight!" Mona said, jumping into a combat pose.

"You say that like it's a bad thing!" Indy retorted, her mask already starting to dissolve as she summoned her persona.

A bolt of lightning was sent out by her persona, but the manticore saw it coming and managed to jump out of the way just in time.

"Let's go, Captain!"

However, it was too slow to also avoid the bolt of lightning sent out by Skull's persona, which easily knocked it to the ground. Wasting no time, Joker immediately waved for the others to strike, with Mona being the first one to react.

"Time for some bloodshed!"

The ensuing flurry of blows was almost completely unreadable to Magician, and she was only able to catch up to the action once they stopped, leaving the manticore much worse off, but not quite finished.

Suddenly, before any follow-up attacks could be delivered, the door to the room was busted open, and the shadow from the hall burst in, before transforming into another manticore.

"Stay sharp, there's another one!" Queen cautioned.

Joker didn't respond to her, instead deciding to deliver his own attack.

"Persona!"

That same skeleton with a trumpet appeared behind him, but this time it fired a set of projectiles from the instrument, which struck the shadows multiple times. In fact, the new arrival was especially devastated by the impacts, and was knocked back entirely.

Instead of pushing his newfound advantage, Joker instead waved for someone else to deal another blow.

"Indy, go!"

"On it! Knock 'em down, Hurricane!" Once more, she fired off a bolt of lightning, and this time it hit its mark as one of the manticores was finished off.

Now back to only one opponent, the thieves closed in quickly, with all of the non-pony members holding up the last survivor with their firearms.

"What, you want something from me?" the shadow asked, almost mocking. The others stayed silent as Joker spoke.

"Lend me your power."

"Yeah, as if!" The shadow said. "As if I'd betray Commander Yearling for-"

It didn't get to finish, as Joker fired his gun right in front of the shadow.

The threat seemed to work. "Actually, now that you mention it, I think I remember now."

The shadow got back to its feet, but no one else made any movements. "I'm not from here, I live in the heart of ponykind. I'm Manticore, and now I'm part of you, too."

With that, the shadow dissolved into a soft blue glow, which then gathered into Joker's mask, before the glow faded with one last flash.

"Alright, that's all of them for now!" Oracle reported. "Nice work, everyone!"

"What did you do at the end there?" Magician asked. "And what did it mean, 'I live in the heart of ponykind'?"

"These shadows don't belong to any one person," Mona explained. "Rather, they're part of the collective unconsciousness. They're attracted to palaces like this, where they fall under control of the palace ruler." He patted Joker on the leg. "They can also be turned into personas by this guy."

"Anyway, let's get lookin' for that map," Skull interrupted, starting to rifle around the room.

"Hey, careful, Skull!" Oracle shouted, trying to stop him from damaging anything.

"Wait, do these monitors actually show anything?" Queen asked, walking to the front of the security room. Sure enough, the few monitors there that were turned on simply kept flipping between static images of generic rooms around the base, with no special landmarks in sight, or even any movement from shadows.

Oracle also checked them out, her holograms flashing to life around her. "Hmm, you're right. These aren't actually connected to anything."

"But why would Yearling have a security room that doesn't actually do anything?" Indy asked.

"Perhaps it's a projection of her own mind," Fox theorized. "Maybe she keeps up the illusion of security around her house, when in reality it's just a red herring?"

"That... makes sense," Queen admitted. "But that doesn't mean we can take it easy just yet. There are still shadows all over this building." She turned to Skull, who was still tearing the room apart. "Find anything yet?"

"Bingo!" Skull shouted out, yanking a piece of paper from a file cabinet before setting it down on the table the monitors were suspended above.

Oracle started to scan over it, both with her eyes and with her holograms. "Well, we were right about the area below us being blocked off. There's a security door listed on here by the east end of the first floor."

"And this map is only the part that's above ground," Panther added, pointing to the map. "So we should probably head to the top floor, for now. There's a command room up there, see?"

"Good idea, Panther," Mona said. "We might find a way into the lower levels from there."

"Very well then. Since we now have a plan, shall we be off?" Fox asked, resting a hand on the hilt of his katana.

Joker adjusted his glove as he turned back to the door.

"Let's get moving."



The convention hall was packed with ponies of all sizes and colors, many of whom were trying to match a particular pony's colors.

Somehow, Pinkie Pie managed to slip in and out of the crowds with no second looks, despite her striking colors. She was also able to keep perfect track of Yearling within the crowds, which should not have been possible for a number of reasons.

Regardless of the exact method, Pinkie expertly tailed Yearling, always managing to duck out of sight before she got spotted. She wasn't sure what she was expecting to catch her doing, but it was still her role to fill, and so she would do it.

That being said, Yearling was being a very boring pony to tail so far. All she had been doing was stopping at the various stands throughout the convention, buying a not-insignificant amount of merchandise and stuffing the items into her saddlebags. Yearling also never said anything more than some usual pleasantries when talking with the ponies running the stands.

Eventually, just when Pinkie was starting to grow bored of her "assignment," another pony started walking alongside Yearling. Pinkie could tell that it was a stallion, but couldn't make out any other details underneath an Ahuizotl costume.

"Is everything ready for the end of the convention?" he asked, making Yearling jump sharply in place as she turned slightly towards him, not breaking her stride.

"Jeez, don't sneak up on me like that!" she whispered, just loud enough for Pinkie to overhear. "And I told you, minimize contact at the con!"

"Apologies, but my underlings are growing anxious."

Pinkie thought she could hear a slight accent on his words, but she wasn't entirely sure.

Yearling let out a sigh as she turned forward again, trying to look casual. "Anyway, everything's fine on my end. The announcement should go as planned."

The stallion nodded. "Also, I hear that you've been visited by Princess Twilight and her rainbow friend again. Is this true?"

Yearling hesitated slightly. "Yeah, but don't worry about it. They don't know a thing, and it'll stay that way."

"Very well, I trust your judgement."

With that, the two of them split up into the crowd again. Pinkie thought about tailing the stallion for a bit, but decided to stick with Yearling. She'd just have to make sure to tell the others about what she overheard.



"Go, Milady!"

"'Effin' nice one, Noir!"

"Indy, watch out behind you!"

"I see 'em, don't worry!"

Magician just watched as the Phantom Thieves did their work against the shadows scattered throughout the hallways and rooms they entered. It was quite impressive how they were able to so effortlessly fight alongside each other. Even Indy was able to fit into their odd choreography just fine, despite being a new member.

Of course, it wasn't an entirely flawless operation. On several occasions, one or more of the group would be hit with either a blast of magic or a direct attack from a shadow, but as soon as they were in the clear the injuries were almost instantly fixed up by one of the others' personas.

Even though Magician said she would try and help, so far the only thing she actually had to do was project a shield for herself once in a while. It didn't quite make her feel useless, but rather that she was out of her element.

Despite the semi-constant fighting, the group made steady progress through the facility. They had ascended two staircases by now, and according to Oracle the command room was now on the opposite end of the current floor.

Before they made much progress on the floor, however, Oracle stopped them. "Hold on, it feels like there's a safe room nearby."

Indy tilted her head. "Safe room?"

Mona explained as he walked up to a door that was slightly shimmering in place. "Areas in palaces where the effects of cognition is lower than usual. Because of that, shadows won't go inside at all, which gives us time to plan and regroup."

The interior of the room was a nondescript office, but everyone could see how it would occasionally fade into a view of what looked like a room in Yearling's actual house, before the palace scenery faded back in.

"Woah... This is trippy," Indy commented.

"Oh, nice, they got vents in here, too!" Oracle said. "We should be able to get back here with little issue from the outside."

"We don't have much time to rest," Queen cautioned. "We should get moving again soon, Joker."

After he finished writing something down in a small notebook, Joker put it back in his pocket and nodded, before leading the group back out into the hall.

Curiously, as they got closer and closer to the command room, the number of shadows started to drop dramatically. It got to the point where they were able to easily slip past the few shadows that were there entirely, without a fight at all.

It wasn't long at all before they made it to the target. Just as he had for most of the excursion, Joker took the lead and opened up the door, slipping inside as the others did the same. 

Perhaps "command room" was a bit of a mislabeling on the part of the map. In reality, it was little more than a mildly spacious room with single large desk at one end, flanked by a pair of bookshelves. One wall was almost entirely taken up by windows, showing an impressive view of the base below them.

Much to their relief, the room was entirely empty.

"Alright, let's get diggin'," Skull said. "We gotta find a key or something in here, right?"

"Hold on, there's something here," Panther said, walking over to the desk. There, another map of Equestria was set out, with South Equestria circled, just like the map that Magician had taken.

"Wait, it says something else..." she said, levitating the map towards her to read what it said. "It's just one word, underlined... 'reclaim'."

"But what could it mean?" Fox asked.

"Whatever it means, Yearling definitely has plans for Southern Equestria," Queen theorized. "I'm sure that we'll find out more as we get deeper into the palace."

"Let's just find a way to get into the lower levels," Mona directed, hopping on top of the desk. "Now, where would she hide a key..."

Joker looked behind the desk.

"The bookshelves?"

"It would make sense," Indy nodded. "A lot of her stories involve something hidden inside a book."

One by one, the group starting taking books off the shelves and flipping through them, before throwing them aside when they didn't find anything of interest, much to Magician's annoyance.

"What the eff? Most of these are blank!" Skull complained, tossing another book behind him.

"And the ones that aren't are just copies of her books," Indy added, being notably more careful with those books compared to the others.

Meanwhile, Noir instead searched the drawers on the desk, finding them to be annoyingly empty.

At least, until she opened up the last one.

"Guys, I think I found something!"

Everyone immediately stopped their search as she held up a battered notebook. The others gathered around as she set it on the desk and opened it, but the contents were less than favorable.

"Dude, where are pages?" Skull said.

"Looks like they've all been torn out..." Mona added, somewhat downcast.

"Well, back to the shelves," Panther lamented.

Indy, however, held a determined look on her face. "Hey, someone tear out a blank page for me."

The others gave her confused looks, but Skull went ahead and obliged. "If you say so..."

Joker, meanwhile, caught onto what she had in mind.

"Fox, do you have a pencil on you?"

"Of course," he replied, pulling one out of his pockets. "What kind of artist do you take me for?"

Joker didn't answer as he snatched the pencil from his grasp at the same time that Indy aligned the paper with the back cover of the notebook. He quickly scribbled down the entire page, revealing a rather large amount of undecipherable writing, as if it was all layered over itself. By the time Joker finished, however, there was a single piece of writing at the bottom of the page that was legible.

"'Autumn Wisp'," Oracle read out loud. "Wonder what it means."

"It sounds like a name..." Magician thought out loud, putting a hoof to her chin in thought.

"Do you think it's important?" Panther asked.

Joker was also lost in thought, before he looked up at the others.

"Maybe it's a password?"

"You know, that could be it," Mona said, nodding. "In any case, we should hold onto this."

Nodding in agreement, Joker pocketed the paper.

"So, uh, are we going back downstairs now?" Indy asked. "Because, I gotta be honest, I'm starting to feel kinda beat."

"Yeah, same here," Skull added. "Think we should call it quits for now?"

Looking over the other members of the team, who were all showing varying amounts of fatigue, Joker sighed.

"Let's pull back for now."

With that, they headed back to the safe room, before slipping their way back outside and to the entrance of the palace.



When they made it back to the convention, Pinkie was quick to break off her observation of Yearling and join her friends. "Hey guys!"

"Hey Pinks," Dash returned the greeting, before glancing around her and lowering her voice. "Find out anything about Yearling?"

"Mmhmm." Suddenly, Pinkie was all business. "She talked with some stallion on the convention floor. Couldn't see who it was, they were in costume. All I could tell is that they were working for her, and that Yearling was going to make some kind of announcement on the last day of the convention."

Twilight started thinking out loud. "South Equestria... Autumn Wisp... and now an announcement from Yearling..."

"Whatever it is, I doubt it's good," Ryuji commented.

"So that means we got until this Sunday," Dash said. "That's the last day of the con."

"Well, everyone did really well today!" Haru beamed. "At this pace, we'll be done in no time."

"We should still be careful," Twilight said, before glancing at her saddlebags. "I'll try and dig up as much info as I can about what we found. Hopefully, I'll be able to find something by tomorrow."

"Thank you, Twilight," Makoto said. "As for us, I believe it's time to go home for now."

Akira agreed, before walking off while taking his phone out. Once the rest of the humans (and cat) were with him, he activated the nav, and they vanished back to their own world.

"I'll never get used to that," Dash commented. "Well, I'm gonna hit the hay."

"Me too!" Pinkie said, hopping alongside Dash. "Being sneaky is hard work!"

Without a word, Twilight instead went in the other direction, heading for the local library.

She had some work to do, after all.