Hearts and Minds

by The card holder

Daring Do and the Phantom Thieves of Hearts

The next day, the convention hall was bustling like usual, but the crowds were a bit more confused than usual.

"What's going on? Is this a prank?"

"Did A.K. Yearling do something wrong?"

"Sounds like somepony's taking their fanfiction a bit too seriously."

"Hey, at least this logo looks pretty cool."

Among the crowd, a particular pony went unnoticed as she stared, wide-eyed, at one of the many letters that had been distributed across the entire convention hall.

To A.K. Yearling, the author consumed by greed,
You have made profit off of the deception of others for too long. We know that your fame is not of your own making, and is actually the fruit of someone who was close to you. We have decided to make you confess your crimes with your own mouth. We will take your distorted desires without fail.
From,
The Phantom Thieves

Yearling whirled her eyes around the con, quickly crumpling up the letter she held. Who were these people? How did they know?!

First thing's first, she had to find Cabelleron and explain that, whatever this was, the plan would still proceed as normal.

As she disappeared into the crowd, she failed to notice a certain rainbow mane flying above her, before they returned to the ground.

"Yeah, I'd say it affected her," Dash told the others. "She was sweating."

"That's good, then the calling card worked," Morgana said, smiling. "And it's all thanks to Panther's idea!"

"It wasn't that complicated," Ann said. "Twilight was the real MVP for teleporting all the cards into the convention center."

Twilight smiled sheepishly from the praise. "So, what now?"

Akira took the lead. Though his posture was still relaxed, Twilight could see that familiar edge in his eyes.

"Now, it's show time."

The others agreed, and started to leave behind the cosplayers and fans. As they made their way back to Yearling's house, Morgana explained the situation in more detail.

"We can steal her treasure now, but that doesn't mean it will be easy. Her palace is going to be on high alert, and I'm almost certain that Yearling's shadow is going to put up a fight for us."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Ryuji gloated while cracking his knuckles. "Let's kick some ass!"

The group didn't even slow down upon reaching the house, Akira seamlessly taking out his phone to gain access to the palace, the others following in his wake.

Just like Mona said, the palace was on full alert. Search lights lit up the entire compound, as well as the air above it, and an alarm was regularly sounding off.

"Come on, there's a clear path we can take to get back inside the building," Oracle said, pointing it out to Joker. He nodded, and he and the rest of the Thieves sprinted across the courtyard, barely managing to evade the searchlights scanning the ground.

They immediately went for the safe room in the lower levels, only pausing long enough for Joker to write in his notebook, before heading back towards the main hangar where the treasure was.

Unlike last time, there were shadows patrolling the lower halls, as the alarms and emergency lights gave the area a more menacing red glow.

"Don't waste time with them, just head for the treasure!" Queen said.

Everyone agreed, and they ran right past the guards.

"Halt, intruders!"

"Stop!"

Their cries went unanswered, and they were able to outrun them with ease. It wasn't long at all before they made it to the central hangar once more. However, it, too, was no longer empty, as a massive airship was now parked where the treasure was once located.

"Woah... Don't tell me that's the treasure?!" Skull remarked.

"The treasure is on board!" Oracle said. "Quick, let's-"

Suddenly, the ceiling started to open up, revealing the unnatural purple sky above. At the same time, the airship started to shake as it roared to life.

"It's taking off!"

Joker wasted no time before he started sprinting to close the distance.

"Everyone hop on!"

With agility that wouldn't be possible in reality, the humans (and Mona) all leapt onto the tail end of the ship just as it was starting to leave the ground. The ponies had a much easier time of things, simply landing next to them once everyone was safely on board and accounted for.

"Alright, no time to waste," Mona said. "We should get inside and-"

"Hold on!" Oracle interrupted him. "She's here!"

They all turned to where she was pointing, and saw Yearling's shadow walking towards them from the interior of the ship. Her eyes seemed brighter than the last time they saw her, and there was a small amount of shadow distortion around her hooves.

"You just don't know when to quit, do you?!" she shouted to be heard over the ship's engines.

Indy got to the front of the group, next to Joker. "We know what you did, Yearling! How could you steal work from your friend like that?!"

Yearling winced as if she was struck. "Don't you DARE lecture me about Wisp! Do you know what it's like to lose somepony so close to you, do you?!"

Without missing a beat, several members of the Thieves stepped forward, as well. "Yeah, we do!" Skull shouted back. "But at least we didn't go publishing their life work like it was ours!"

Yearling snarled. "If I didn't, somepony else would! I made sure her dream was realized, even in death!"

"By taking all the credit?" Fox spat back. "People like you give a bad name to artists everywhere."

"Shut UP!" Yearling screamed, the distortion around her growing more intense. "That's it, I'm gonna bucking kill you all!"

At that moment, the floor between the Thieves and Yearling opened up, and a large tank was raised to the airship deck. Yearling was quick to hop inside.

"Holy shit, a tank?!" Skull yelled. "Where did she come up with that?"

"We've taken down worse!" Ann said. "Right, Joker?"

He nodded in agreement, before immediately going for his mask.

"Vishnu!"

His persona shot out gusts of wind, but they seemed to have little effect on the tank.

"You'll have to try harder than that!" Yearling taunted, speaking through the tank's radio.

Noir answered by pulling out her grenade launcher and firing it at the tank, the explosion visibly rattling it. It wasn't nearly enough to stop the tank, though, and it quickly adjusted its turret to aim towards the center of the group.

"Everyone, dodge!" Oracle yelled out, using her own persona to fly alongside the ship and stay out of the fight.

They were just a bit too slow, however, and the tank fired, the explosion managing to hit almost everyone in the group. Mona was quick to use his persona to heal everyone back up, and then Indy used her own persona to hit the tank with lightning.

"Think about your fans!" she yelled out. "Why would you spend this much time lying to them?!"

"Fans are only as good as the money they'll spend on you!" Yearling countered. "Otherwise, they're just drones to be exploited!"

The tank suddenly surged forward, trying to run over Joker. He saw it coming, though, and managed to roll out of the way.

"Trumpeter!"

As his persona played its song, the tank became slower, its main gun taking noticeably longer to turn back around to face the Thieves.

"Now's our chance!" Mona shouted out, using his slingshot to land a few surprisingly effective hits.

Panther and Queen did likewise, their personas' magic hitting the tank with red and green projectiles. While they clearly did damage, it still wasn't nearly enough to end the fight.

"Bastards! Why won't you just sit still and die?!"

"Boy, if I had a paycheck every time I heard that, I wouldn't need to be a thief," Skull remarked.

In response, Yearling fired a shell directly at him. While everyone else was able to get clear in time, he took the full force of the explosion, and was sent rolling across the deck of the ship.

"Skull!" Mona quickly bounded over to tend to him, while the rest of the Thieves focused on the tank.

"I don't think we're doing enough damage to it," Queen said. "Any ideas, Joker?"

After thinking a bit, he nodded, and reached for his mask.

However, instead of summoning a persona, he brought up his gun and fired at the tank. Though the shots didn't seem to do much, it did bring attention to himself.

"Cocky little punk," Yearling said, before once more driving the tank towards him.

Joker smirked as he simply stood in place. This was what he was hoping for.

Just before the tank would've ran him over, Joker's persona materialized, stopping the tank dead in its tracks. With ease, his persona, Rangda, managed to not only stop the tank, but proceeded to use its momentum against it, flipping it on its back as Yearling just grunted.

With their target now defenseless, Joker waved the group forward.

"Strike now!"

Everyone hopped into action, hitting the overturned tank with as much force as they could. Lightning, fire, and many other types of magic hit it in its most vulnerable spot, until the entire tank was sparking and up in flames.

By this point, Yearling had crawled out of the tank's hatch, and managed to jump clear of the tank just as it exploded. Idly spitting a bit of black fluid onto the ground, as if it was blood, she adopted a combat stance towards the Thieves. "Alright, guess I gotta do it myself, then."

"Yearling, listen to me!" Magician pleaded, stepping forward. "What would Wisp think about what you're doing?"

For a brief moment, it looked like her words had an effect, as Yearling looked to the ground. It quickly passed, however, as her face filled with rage again. "You don't get to talk about Wisp like that!"

Suddenly, the airship shuddered violently. The exploding tank had managed to set the balloon above them ablaze, and it was starting to spread more and more.

"Guys, it's coming down!" Oracle called out. "You gotta get out of there!"

Yearling just huffed as she took flight. "Not the death I had in mind for you all, but it'll do."

With that, she flew off, but not before punching several more holes in the ship's main balloon, causing it to shake even more violently as the Thieves were thrown to the deck.

Mona managed to spring back into the air quickly, and used the time to turn into a van. "Everyone who can't fly, inside!"

The humans did as he said, stumbling over each other as the shaking continued. Indy and Magician helped them get inside as much as they could, before they also flew clear of the airship, hovering alongside Oracle inside her persona.

Shoving herself behind the wheel, Queen quickly stepped on the gas, sending the van towards the edge of the deck. "Everyone hang on!"

They all screamed as the van became airborne, roughly landing in the middle of the base; shaken up, but unharmed.

Once they were far enough away, Queen pulled a 180 and everyone pulled themselves out, before Mona changed back. At the same time, the ponies and Oracle landed beside them, and they all turned to watch as the flaming airship fell to the ground, completely demolishing any structures it landed on.

They shielded their eyes from the ensuing dust cloud, and once it was clear, they looked up to see that the entire base was now in ruins, the wrecked airship setting the whole area ablaze.

"Man, that's effing cool," Skull commented.

"In a highly destructive sort of way, yes," Queen reluctantly agreed.

They didn't get to enjoy the scenery for long, however, as Yearling's shadow chose that time to land in front of them, still poised for combat. "Still alive, huh? Guess it would've been too easy any other way."

The Thieves adopted combat stances again. "Just give up, already!" Skull said. "We already wrecked your operation here!"

Yearling chuckled. "True, but I can always rebuild somewhere else."

"Then we'll keep following you and wreck that place too!" Indy shot back. "It's over, Yearling."

Yearling laughed as the distortion around her grew even more intense. "It'll only be over when I'm digging shallow graves for all of you!"

With that, she charged forward, hitting Skull with a punch that sent him flying backwards. Queen was quick to retaliate, slamming one of her brass knuckles into Yearling's face.

The fight proceeded as a slugfest, blows being traded between Yearling and the rest of the Thieves, Mona occasionally breaking away to heal the group.

While Yearling was clearly starting to hurt, her own attacks only got more and more deadly, as she grew more desperate.

Seeing a chance to end the fight, Joker stepped back as they brawled it out, and summoned another persona.

"Vishnu!"

His persona cast a wave of ice towards Yearling, which she didn't see coming until it was too late. The attack didn't knock her down, but it did freeze her solid, leaving her eyes the only thing able to move as she started panicking.

Heavily bruised, Skull walked up, brandishing his bat. Adopting a batter's stance, the group just watched as he wound up and struck Yearling as hard as he could, breaking her right out of the ice and sending her flying several feet away.

She tried to pull herself up on landing, but fell back down, finally too beaten to go on.

As the Thieves surrounded her, Yearling finally broke down. "I... I just didn't know what to do. Wisp was my only friend, and when she died, I... I had to keep her memory alive somehow. I didn't mean to get so famous off her work!"

Indy just snorted. "Then why did you never come forward, then? If you really wanted Autumn Wisp to be remembered, you wouldn't just sit there and soak up all the fame!"

Yearling shakily stood up, nodding. "Yeah. I... I see that, now. All this time, I've just been burying her memory for my own profit, and even the fame wasn't enough for me..."

Fox stepped forward. "If you were able to continue the series after her original drafts, then you clearly have some artistic talent within you. You're not beyond saving, but you still must atone for your crimes."

Magician nodded. "He's right. You have to come clean, tell all of your fans the truth."

"...okay. I promise. I'll do it for... Wisp."

They could see that Yearling's shadow was smiling softly, before she started glowing in a yellow light. Soon, she was gone, leaving behind a bundle of papers, which Mona was quick to snag.

"Alright, mission accomplished, team!" he said, holding the papers over his head. "We got her treasure!"

"So, now what?" Indy asked.

At that moment, it felt as if the earth beneath them was shaking apart.

"Now we get the hell out of here!" Skull said, already running for the fence. The rest of the group followed, and one by one they crashed back into reality.

Once they were all back, Akira brought up his navigator and pointed it towards the house.

"The destination has been deleted. Thank you for your service."

"So... that was something," Twilight commented. "What do we-?"

"Shh! Hide!" Dash suddenly said, pulling Twilight and the nearby Yusuke into the bushes with her. The rest followed them, and watched as Yearling suddenly flew in, quickly entering her home before slamming the door shut.

"Ouch... she looked messed up," Dash commented. "Did... we do that?"

"Removing a palace removes a person's distorted desires," Morgana explained. "But the crimes still remain. In almost every case, this results in them being overtaken with guilt."

"Will she... be okay?" Twilight asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Don't worry, what we told her shadow will stick with her, subconsciously," Makoto said. "She'll probably decide to use tomorrow's announcement to come clean."

"Nothing to do but wait, then," Futaba said. "Oh yeah, what was her treasure?"

Morgana looked to the bundle of papers he was still holding. Twilight looked over them as well, before letting out a small gasp.

"It's... the first draft of the first Daring Do book. By..."

She didn't need to finish her sentence, as everyone could now clearly see Autumn Wisp's name.

"Wait, shouldn't we give this to Yearling?" Dash asked.

"This is just a copy," Makoto said. "Yearling still has the real thing."

Twilight took hold of the papers in her magic. "We should hold onto this, then. Wouldn't want a copy of this to complicate what's going to happen."

Dash nodded in agreement, before facing the rest of the group. "So... now what?"

"Oh, can we go by the convention again?" Haru asked. "Now that we have some free time, I was wondering if there were any souvenirs we could pick up."

"Eh, after all that, it would feel a little weird," Dash said. "But I guess it wouldn't hurt in the long run."

Joker just adjusted his glasses as he took his place at the front of the group again.

"Then let's get going."

Author's Note:

After 9 months in development, hopefully it's worth the wait.

Comments

[WalkinOnTheSun]

Yay! Can't wait for the next chapter and this arc's conclusion.

[Starlight Nova]

Who's Naoto Shirogane? Also, didn't this used to have a sex tag?

[The card holder]

9431217
1. Character from a previous Persona game so basically just added fanwank
2. I'm 99% sure I never put that tag on the story.

[Perception Filter]

My favorite class is the spy.

[Fluffy-Boi]

Yay!

[E3v3E]

Was reading old chapters sees the in more chapters then usual reread + new chapter equals win and the new chapter was awesome

[Jlargent]

Update?

[Heartdrop]

What happened next

[SuperSmashShane]

I'm definitely interested in where this is going so far. But what about Akechi or Yoshizawa? Are they going to have a role to play as well?

[son_of_heaven176]

I saw this story, but I also saw your recent blog post. Sorry to see that this velvet in fanfiction is being canceled, but I do applaud what was written so far. Hopefully some brave soul manages to pick this up and complete what you started... And be sure to credit you for the foundation, as opposed to what A K. Yearling did, publishing Autumn Wisp's work as her own.