Conversion Bureau: The return of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.

by ClearlyNotTremor230

Chapter 20: The Heart of Twilight Palace: Fears and Failed Experiments.

Author's Note:

Sorry for the insane long wait, as Drako can testify, I had a serious case of Writer's block once reached the half-way point of this chapter, I only had lots of fragmented ideas and no clue how to connect them all.
sorry again.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the material I use, please support the official releases and owners. Thank you.

No images this time...I can't seem to make them work.
The monsters are "Obscura" and "Guardian" from Evil WIthin 2 and a Zombie Dragon...

Sorry.

Twilight’s Palace – Underground operating rooms Area -

In the wide area leading to two separated operating rooms, with a giant heart hanging from chains form the ceiling, the Phantom Thieves were fighting for their lives against a monstrosity looking like a mass of living molten wax.

“Nothing you do is useful! Nothing you say is smart! You just waste everybody’s time with your failures!” the thing roared while forming dozen of tentacles from its main body to try and gab the Phantom Thieves.

“Oh! Hi, dad! You here too?” Ann said with a mocking tone while dodging the attack.

“Remind me to punch him when we have done here.” Akira answered, shooting the tentacles trying to grab him and tearing them apart.

“I’ll help!” Ryuji added, and just like Akira, he used his shotgun to blast the tentacles to pieces, only to see the broken particles of the thing move back by themselves to rebuild the appendages.

“Thanks, guys! But my mom already remarried with a WAY BETTER guy!” Ann answered, with her expression turning displeased at seeing the Monster being immune to fire.

“Focus! This thing is regenerating too fast!” Rarity hissed, and needing Haru’s help to dislodge her rapier from deep inside the Fear’s stomach area.

“Immune to fire!” Ann said.

“Lightning does next to nothing!” Ryuji added.

“Wind cuts but this thing heals fast!” Morgana added, watching in dismay the DEEP cuts he and his Persona made close in a matter of seconds.

“Bless seems to work normally, but I register no physical damage because of the Shadow’s semi-liquid body.” Sophia declared.

“This leaves-out Curse and Ice!” Futaba answered.

“AH! Ice works wonderfully!” Makoto answered, she had punched part of the monster that Yusuke had frozen solid hard enough the frozen area exploded, but even after that, the Fear did not regenerate nor recovered the lost mass.

“This means you and Joker will be the front-line fighters! Let’s go!” Haru answered.

From there, they fell into a sort of rhythm, Akira or Yusuke would summon their Persona and pelter the thing in Ice attacks until the thing froze, followed by the more heavy hitters, like Ryuji, Makoto and Haru, zeroing on the weakened part to smash it to pieces.

“You do nothing right! You make everything difficult! Why you must be such a waste of space! Failure! Failure! Failure!” The Fear roared deafeningly.

“Hi, uncle. Glad to see you here too.” Haru answered, rolling her eyes.

“Do you all have family issues?!” Rarity asked, appalled.

“...Yeah, pretty much. Among other problems.” Ryuji answered after a short pause of thought, the others too nodded along, even Sophie.

“My own mother tried erasing me!” The AI Girl actually added, showing a smiling emoji on her Phantom Thief mask.

“Good Heavens! Done with Celestia, I am dragging you all to my Psychologist! You people need to talk with a specialist!” The mare Thief answered, eyes wide.

“We kind of had one in our school, but Dr. Maruki didn’t last long.” Ann answered, grimacing.

“Uh? What happened to him?” Akira asked.

“A week before you arrived a car ran him over. It was not an accident since the culprit drove the car over and over again over his body, then the driver dismounted and pissed on the corpse, spat on it and then drove away.” Ryuji answered, gagging at the memory.

“...WHY?!” Rarity asked, horrified.

“Nobody knows, the culprit was never caught, so we don’t know why he did it.” Makoto answered.

“STOP IGNORING ME, YOU FAILUUUURE!” With a new shriek of rage, the monster broke into four smaller copies of itself and attacked the Thieves

“You are a disappointment! My greatest failure!” one of the copies said.

“Been there, heard that. My dad was worse. NEXT!” Ryuji answered with a bored tone while either shooting the human-sized ball of goo attacking him and Makoto, or hammering it down with the sledgehammer in his hands.

“Honestly, we should really consider some counseling, we DO have lots of issues.” Makoto admitted while summoning her Persona Johanna and explode the thing with a ‘tiny’ nuclear bomb to watch heavy droplets of wax-like Shadow rain all around her.

“OOOF! Later! Now focus on fighting!” Joker answered, grunting in pain when one of those tentacles grabbed him and painfullyslammed him on the floor.

“AH! Son of a-” Ann’s curse went eclipsed right after by her small uzi pelting the goo clone with a shower of lead in retaliation for the hurting of her man.

“Need some help here!” Rarity asked once seen her Persona attacks and Sophia’s own being not exactly effective.

“Hn! Hn! Ah!” All the while the AI Girl kept most of the tentacles at bay thanks to the bladed yo-yo in her hands.

“We are here!” Haru answered, giving both a moment of respite when her grenade launcher blew-up the full frontal half of the clone fighting them.

“Mabufu!” Yusuke chorused behind her with a wide area Ice Attack that managed to freeze solid most of the chunks their various attacks had blow off.

“MEEEEEEOW!” This in turn gave Morgana the signal to jump in the air and turn into their van to squish those frozen fragments under his wheels, and just like before those broken fragments evaporated instead of returning inside the main body.

“AAAAAAUH-AAAAAAAH! KYAAAAAAAH!” The Fear shrieked in agony at the lost pieces, recalling the clones to reform its original appearances, only with a noticeable difference in sizes.

“I believe that if we break this thing into pieces too small, it won’t be able to regenerate,” Futaba suggested.

“Good enough for me!” Ryuji said, cracking his knuckles.

“Finally a good strategy,” Makoto added.

“GYAAAAH! You failures must die! Disappointments do not deserve to live!” The Fear shrieked with a hysteric voice.

“Oh, Shut it! You are annoying!” Morgana answered, hissing like a normal cat would.

WAAAAAAAAAAAA-OOOOOOH!

When the thing seemed ready to pounce again on the Thieves, a creepy loud siren started blaring everywhere, and that particular sound somehow caught the Fear’s attention making it turn towards the busted door it came from.

“GYAAAAAH!” With a blood-curling scream the thing launched itself against the grate of a air duct, and disappearing inside it in a chorus of disgusting wet squelching noises, until it was gone and silence returned in the underground room.

“...That thing was disgusting.” Akira admitted once sure the battle was really over.

“Urk! Yes, really.” Rarity admitted, gagging.

“That Shadow was strange, it was way too different,” Morgana admitted with narrowed eyes.

“By the readings, that was some kind of Cognition, more than a Shadow. A literal physical manifestation of a concept.” Futaba answered.

“A concept? Like, perhaps, a fear?” Yusuke asked.

“Very likely, and by its talking like a broken record about us being failures, Fear of Failure seems like a proper way to call it.” Makoto answered, sighing.

“And that recording talked about fears, plural. Maybe there are more monsters like that one roaming about,” Haru added.

“How great…” Ann muttered in dismay.

“Effing wonderful! Not only we have to deal with Shadows, traps, puzzles and shit! But with her Fears too!...Sorry about that.” Ryuji answered with a growl, only to then notice and apologize.

“It’s okay, I understand the annoyance. And I am sure Twilight too would understand.” Rarity answered.

“Any clue what other fear we may find?” Morgana asked while the group finally had the freedom to pass through the ruined giant door to move deeper into the Palace.

“Not really. I can understand fearing Failure considering Twilight’s perfectionism and fixation for minor details...The only other one I can think off is abandonment.” Rarity answered.

“Abandonment?” Akira asked, confused.

“Mostly about being left behind, I believe. Twilight rarely talks about her past, but from the snippets she and Spike left slip-out, I think Twilight didn’t have many friends before getting to Ponyville, and I believe she...Latched...To her group of friends a lot once learned what is like to actually have some. There have been times where I saw her panic at the idea of losing her friends, same going when she thought Celestia was looking for another student. I think she is deadly afraid of being left behind, or even substituted. More than maybe even she herself believes.” Rarity answered.

“Daamn, that’s harsh.” Ryuji muttered with a grimace.

“And yet nothing we have not seen before,” Haru answered.

“...We are being watched.” Sophia said suddenly.

“By who!?” Ann asked, looking everywhere frantically.

“I don’t know, I just feel we are being watched, like “DUUUUUUUUH!”. You know? Watched!” she answered with a cute smile and her head reclined to the side.

“I missed your sound effects.” Akira admitted, smiling.

“I missed you too, Joker!”

“Quiet! I need to understand who is spying on us!” Futaba hissed, managing to summon her flying-saucer Persona in the corridor, even if it was a tight fit.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

“EEEEK!” When the Persona appeared, a loud clanging noise came from the ceiling, as if something hurried away with heavy steps, unfortunately with how little lighting there was, nobody could see what was lurking in the shadows above them.

“You okay?!” Haru asked, startled like everybody else at Makoto’s high-pitched shriek.

“No! I am not okay!” she answered.

“Whatever it was, it’s gone. We are no longer being watched! Hmmm-Hmmm!” Sophia declared, humming a small tune right after.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” Rarity admitted.

“There is another elevator, let’s go.” Joker answered, and pointing at the BIG platform acting as elevator and the simple ‘Up / Down’ control panel.

“Coming, coming…” Ryuji said, sighing.

GROOOOOOOOOH!

Heavy machinery grumbled to life as the platform slowly descended deeper and deeper underground.

“A heavy duty lift, one big enough to carry even vehicles big as trucks, I wonder what Twilight uses this for. Can’t be for the aesthetics only,” Yusuke wondered aloud as barely-illuminated walls of steel soon surrounded them on their way down.

“There are many desiccated stains of blood, so it’s easy to assume a lot of corpses have been transported with this, among other cargo.” Sophia answered.

“...Honestly, that is an answer I could have easily made without.” He admitted, grimacing.

“Sorry, Inari.” The girl muttered with a sad tone.

“It’s okay, Sophie.” he answered, immediately brightening the girl’s mood.

“Slow is slow, but damn if we are going down,” Ryuji admitted.

“We are descending a lot, meaning that unless we find a Safe Room soon we’ll be in trouble should we walk into a trap.” Morgana answered.

CLANG!

The giant elevator touched ground with a thundering sound, and to the Phantom Thieves’ surprise what appeared in front of them once the doors opened was a futuristic lab still in pristine conditions, the perfect opposite of the nightmare above them.

“So the upper floors are what Twilight sees the real hospital as, while this is her personal lab?” Futaba asked.

“Probably her belief she can do it better than humans helped shaping this. There have been quite the uncouth talk about humanity in the more ‘Sophisticated’ circles of Canterlot…” Rarity answered with a scrunched nose.

“Uh-hu?” Joker asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, why am I defending them! They all are racist morons, plain a simple! Many seem to see you others as an inferior race even! My Gosh, and here I am trying to become part of THAT High Society, pfe! Disgusting. And they even got their clutches on poor Twilight!” Rarity answered.

“We had a couple of those in our History too, unfortunately they were not just talking about so-called Inferior Races, the most deranged ones actually got so low to take action to kae their beliefs reality.” Yusuke admitted with a frown.

“Oh, they aren’t doing just talking in Equestria either! Blueblood is getting quite vocal in his displeasure towards humanity, and his cronies happily parrot his words to the masses...All of them are conveniently forgetting that we too have some rotten apples, Ponykind doesn’t smell of roses either! But if you heard them, the problems are all coming from ‘The Others’: Griffins are brutish! Yaks are dumb! Merfolk are rude, Changelings are BORN Evil and Kirin are savages...I met some unpleasant ponies in my life too, so I KNOW bad people come in every shape. A Revelation that instead others seem to conveniently forget.” she answered, ashamed of her own kind.

“Blueblood, uh?” Joker asked.

“Another name on the list, yes. His rallies are gaining everyday more friction and followers, at a frightening high speed at that.” Rarity said.

“We’ll deal with him too and...W-W-What the hell is that?!” Makoto started answering, before the first big window in the long corridor they were traversing came into view and she had the bad idea to look inside.

“What are you talking ab- THE FUCK IS THAT?!” Rarity shrieked in horror as soon as she and the others looked as well inside that room.

Legs.

Dozens of Pony and human legs that had been sewed off and attached to electrodes were running nonstop by themselves on giant hamster wheels while instruments registered everything.

“W-Why there are severed legs in there?” Ann asked, looking ready to vomit.

“Guys! Look at this shit!” Ryuji, face ashen, said while pointing at whatever was inside the room right in front of the ‘Legs room’.

“...What in the world is Twilight doing here?!” Yusuke asked while taking a step back and covering his mouth to not get sick.

In that room there were dozens of rows of severed human arms with electrodes sprouting from the stumps of where once stood their shoulders, and thanks to those cables the arms hanging from the ceiling could pass along a bright-red rubber ball to each other back and fort, each row had its own rubber ball to pass to the hand behind them, and then to the one in front once the thing reached the end of the row and restarted the circle.

“She is studying them. How we work and how ponies work.” Joker said with a low voice.

“My God, it’s horrible.” Futaba whispered while looking away.

“There are pony heads here.” Sophia said, pointing at the next window.

Hundreds of severed Unicorn heads were neatly displayed in rows, every head paired by colour of the fur and horn length with the others around it, each resting on a table with a rubber ball in front of their dead eyes, and randomly, the machine they all were connected to sent a jolt to a random head making its horn light-up in magic in a way that made the rubber ball levitate of a couple of inches, before the small spark of life ceased and the ball fell back into its support while the head died again.

“Knowledge is the One true Goal. She wrote it on top of every room,” Makoto hissed in disgust.

“What is happening?!” Rarity asked in shock.

“We are seeing how a Palace twists and Corrupts somebody’s thirst of knowledge. Let’s continue, we need to snap Twilight out of this.” Morgana answered.

Room after room, the terrifying and morbid spectacle of Twilight’s Researches became more and more twisted and depraved.

Severed Pegasus wings flapped continuously by themselves with no body to lift, sometimes so fast the bones snapped and burst out of the skin, other wings instead were forced to go against artificial wind currents too strong for that flesh to withstand without getting literally torn away from the bone, in both cases the wings that went mangled were dropped into a pile of similarly-broken wings for a new pair to be brought in and connected to the machines by a Scientist-dressed Shadow.

Entire walls of human hearts beating in unison in a soft, twisted melody as they all went forced to beat at random speeds to test their resistance, and whenever one got burst, a new one was brought in to take its place.

Hundreds of Earth Pony legs forced to buck blocks of concrete over and over so to see how they took the shock, some of which already reduced to bloody stumps as the hooves cracked and broke under the unrelenting strain and the vibrations.

When the Thieves reached a room full of Ponies and Humans that had been vivisected and emptied of every organ just to see if machines could take the place of flesh, they could not open the door fast enough to leave that cursed corridor behind them as soon as possible.

“I can see a Safe Room down there. I say we take a pause to calm down a bit.” Morgana suggested, sighing.

“Maybe we should, you all register as Highly Stressed.” Sophia added.

“Yes, just...Just five minutes. I need to clear my head from what we saw.” Ann muttered in answer with a tired voice.

“I think the sa-” CRASH!

“…” Makoto’s own answer went eclipsed by the loud sound of glass shattering coming from the room they had just left.

“…” In the silence that followed the poor girl slowly fell on her knees and turned deathly pale.

“I am not going to check!” Ryuji said immediately.

“Somebody has to!” Makoto, face unhealthily ashen, answered.

Bump! Bump! Bump!

“…” Akira watched in zero amusement as Ririty’s back hoof kept gently pushing him towards the door while she looked away.

“You are the newcomer, you are coming too.” He finally said with a deadpan tone.

“WHA?!” The mare shrieked.

“Yep! Newcomers have to gain experience!” Ryuji answered with a WIDE smile while pushing Rarity towards the door.

“I PROTEST!” She shrieked.

“See it as a wonderful learning experience!” Yusuke, he too pushing her, added with a similar wide traitorous smile.

“GOSHDARNIT! NOT YOU TOO! GIRLS! HELP ME!”

“We believe in you, Jewel! Gambarre!” Haru answered with a cheerful tone.

“Kick their ass!” Ann added with a thumbs up.

“TRAITORS!” Rarity yelled, THEN her eyes fell on Morgana.

“...Nooo.” The cat said, slowly.

“Yes!” She answered, dragging him behind her with her Magic.

“MEEEOOOOOOOOOW!” The Cat Thief shrieked with his nails leaving deep marks on the floor while he was forced to follow her and Joker towards the door.

“On three...THREE!” Joker said while kicking the door open…

And seeing nothing besides the windows being broken and few body-parts lying around the corridor.

“...Uh! Fancy that, the Culprit left already.” Futaba said.

Wiggle...Wiggle wiggle wiggle!

“...Why those legs are moving?” Makoto asked with a weak, high-pitched tone.

“Oh no…” Joker muttered in dismay as the other pieces of ponies and humans started wiggling around as well.

Splat! Splat! Splat! Splat!

It was as if an invisible force came to life among those pieces as those body-parts went pulled towards a single point until the all slapped together to form a tight ball of flesh...Then the pieces started moving around to form a new monstrosity standing on four legs, two human legs on the front and two pony legs on the back, the human torso was leaning backward at an unnatural angle under the weight of the security camera the thing had for a head, while the various Pegasi wings haphazardly and unevenly shoved on the thing’s back flapped chaotically; the human left arm was reaching forward while the right mangled pony hoof kicked-out randomly.

“KRYAAAAAAAAAH!” the thing shrieked deafeningly, and the various unicorn horns on its front lighted-up in various colours, exploding the other windows and the lights and making the floor, ceiling and walls crumble around it like paper.

AWOOOOH! AWOOOH! AWOOH!

“

Attention to all Personnel! A Fear has been detected in the upper floors!

Attention to all Personnel! A Fear has been detected in the upper floors!

This is not a drill! Seek safety and do not be hit by its flashes!

This is not a drill…”

As soon as the monster finished assembling itself, a recording of Twilight’s voice blared from several speakers along a loud alarm.

“Do we have to fight it?” Akira asked.

FLASH!

As if to answer him, the creature projected a blinding cone of yellow light from the lenses of its security camera head, and once found the source of the alarm, the cone of light turned red and a flash of light similar to a camera taking a picture erupted from its head to completely erase the alarm speaker and a good portion of the wall around it.

“KRYAAAAAAAAH!”

“THAT’S A 1-HKO ATTACK! RUUUUN!” Futaba yelled, already running ahead towards the Safe Room.

“WAIT FOR US!” Makoto yelled while the other Thieves too started running away.

“KRYAAAAAH!” Offended by its preys escaping, the strange chimera of body-parts gave chase, each step echoing loudly behind them while the borrowed Unicorn horns sprouting from the heads composing its front kept pulling away pieces of floor, ceiling and walls in front of the Phantom Thieves to knock them down or trip them.

To Yusuke’s horror, not only Rarity was pulling ahead of him, kind of expected since she was a horse, or Ryuji that was still a former Track Team member, thus better trained, but Akira and Ann and Makoto as well were starting to leave him behind!

“Am I really that out of shape?!” The Artist yelled in shock.

“That’s why I told you I wanted to pay your Gym subscription! Now run!” Haru answered, pulling on his arm to make him run faster.

“KRYAAAAAAH!” The Fear shrieked as a yellow cone of light went projected by its head.

“The Cognition is charging-up its Death Flash! Can I suggest somebody to come up with some countermeasure?” Sophia said, ahead of the group like Rarity but behind just enough to keep Akira in her line of sight.

“YOU GAVE IT A NAME?!” Ryuji asked while wheezing in fatigue.

“It’s a good name! It goes FLAAAASH! And then we die! Like...BLEH!” she answered.

“SHUT UP AND SHOOT IIIIT!” Makoto yelled, and even gaining extra speed out of hysteric strength.

“AH!” As the one with better aim, Joker turned around and used his gun to shoot the Fear right in the security camera head’s lenses, making it snap back on the notes of the thing’s pained roar.

“Did it work?!” Morgana, sitting on Rarity’s back asked.

“KRYAAAAAAH!” The Fear shrieked in fury while showing the big hole on the broken lenses that was rapidly repairing itself.

“Only temporarily!” Sophia answered.

“GODDAMNIT! LEAVE US ALONE! PERSONA! ZIO!” Ryuji roared in anger, and with a furious snarl he summoned Captain Kidd to deliver a fast lightning attack that caught the Monster fully.

“KYAAAAAAH!” To the Thieves’ relief the thing was apparently weak to that Element as it released an ear-piercing shriek of pain and actually tumbled on the floor, something that bought time for the Thieves as its mismatched legs meant the thing needed time to fully get back up.

“OKAY! Lightning works super well! Food for thought!” Futaba declared.

“LATER! THAT’S THE DOOR TO THE SAFE ROOM! DIVE IIIIIN!” Morgana yelled, with the Phantom Thieves pretty much falling inside the room as a pile in their haste to enter.

“KRYAAAAAAH!” Joker had to dive for the door to close it just an instant before the Fear could try entering as well.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

The Thieves stood in silence while hearing the loud noise of the Fear slamming its entire body on the section of the wall it had seen the teens disappear into, it may have been unable to perceive the Room’s existence, but it could still tell somewhere in that wall there were its preys.

FLASH!

They even heard the thing trying erasing the wall with its flash in order to find them, and Morgana was fervently HOPING that Shadows and Cognition won’t try breaking the rules and make even those rooms Unsafe.

“Kryaaaaah!” With a last roar of anger, the teens heard the monster rapidly walk away with its four mismatched legs stomping about until silence finally returned and even the alarm stopped ringing.

“...I think it’s gone.” Ryuji said with his ear glued to the door.

“Okay...WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD WAS THAT THING?!” Ann shrieked.

“A Fear, the Alarm recognized it as one of the ones that escaped containment,” Sophia answered.

“Fear of what, though?” Akira asked, opening the door and walking deeper into the lab, through the sterile-clean corridors of the high-tech hospital/lab Palace.

“Are we continuing?” Makoto asked.

“It’s scary, but we can’t waste time, we still have a lot of exploring to do.” He answered.

“You can wait for us here if you want,” Ryuji asked, uncharacteristically gentle.

“No...No, I can do this. I won’t stay behind out of fear and leave my friends down. Let’s go!” Makoto answered, walking forward to match Joker’s pace.

“That’s our Queen! Let’s go steal this Treasure!” Ann answered with a proud voice.

“Yes!” The others answered as one.

Meanwhile – Real World – New Island HQ of the Resistance -

When Zenkichi first heard about the small island, he wracked his head thinking about what small island he knew off the coasts of Japan big and far away enough to work as a suitable base of operations, when he arrived instead he saw an actual floating island similar to the Fragments of Equestria that had first appeared in his world when the ponies arrived.

“Nice, isn’t it? Some fragments of the original islands detached after their arrival here and drifted off on their own and then fell into the sea, took a bit for Starlight, Sunset and Sunburst to locate them and fuse those pieces together, but they managed, then it was just a matter of applying the same spell that makes the original islands float and we got our own flying island.”

“Sure it’s not big or fancy like Canterlot, the Crystal Empire or Ponyville, but it gets the job done.” Lyra added, joining the Detective and his daughter together with the only other humans present.

“Glad to see you alive, Zenkichi.” Makoto’s sister welcomed both with a smile of relief.

“Miss Nijima. Thank you again for the help, I could not risk Akane to be Converted by some nutjob.” He answered, sighing.

“Come, we are camping not to far away, got a nice cup of coffee if you want.” Iwai answered, pointing with a thumb to the small circle of camping tents on a far side of the small island.

“Oh, God...Some coffee would be so nice…” Zenkichi answered with an exaggerated slumping of his shoulders.

“Dad, don’t make a scene, please.” Akane begged with a groan.

“You must be young Akane! Makoto told me a lot of great things about you,” The Woman said with a gentle smile.

“I am not...That great,” Akane answered with a shy whisper.

“OH! New friends?! HIIIII!” It was then, as they were walking towards the tent, that Pinkie and the others as well surfaced from their tents to greet them.

“NO FREAKING WAY! HERE IS WHERE THE ELEMENTS ARE HIDING?!” Zenkichi yelled.

“Is he always that over the top?” Sojiro asked with a sigh, he, Akira’s father, AJ and Spike were sitting in a corner and fishing in silence from the sea under the floating island.

“He sounds like somepony very bad at keepin’ tha head straight.” AJ commented.

“Sorry if I am surprised to see the most wanted ponies on the planet all chilling together on a floating island!” the Detective answered.

“It’s okay...No harm done…” A half-asleep Dash muttered while lying on a cloud that lazily floated next to the man’s head.

“Looking at you one would think you are on a vacation…” The man said dryly.

“Until the others come back, it’s not like we have much to do.” Fluttershy answered while helping Pinkie and Akira’s mom to bring more wood for the fire.

“And if they are seen, you can be sure entire platoons of soldiers will try to drag them back to Celestia.” Iwai added.

“We all would be dragged to her. This entire island is inhabited by Traitors, remember,” Storm answered, and gladly accepting her own mug of coffee.

“Honestly, running a guerrilla operation is more stressful than what appears on TV.” Lyra commented, sighing.

“Wait...You lack a pony…” Zenkichi said after a rapid head-count.

“Ya mean Rarity?” AJ asked.

“Yes!”

“Tch! She got to join the Phantom Thieves….GOSHDARNIT! I SHOULDA HAVE BEEN CHOSEN!” Dash roared in defiance.

“She joined them!? THEY WERE LOOKING FOR APPLICANTS?! WHERE!? WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED?!” Akane asked immediately.

“OH, HELL NO! You are not joining them! They have Zero Safety Protocols, Odd working hours, bad pay, ZERO health insurance and Skull’s and Inari’s jokes are atrocious! Honestly, the only good things about them are the Uniforms!...Okay, and Joker’s coffee and Curry Rice.” Zenkichi answered immediately.

“You talk as if you were one of them, dad.” Akane answered, scoffing.

“I-”

“Why would they even let YOU join them? Aren’t you too old? You would probably crack your back while stealing Hearts!” she then said, cutting him off.

“WO! WO! WO! Watch that tongue, young lady! I am not old! I am Hip! I got Swag!” The man answered, appalled.

“...Eh! Six out of ten .” The ‘Fishing Team’ answered as one.

“NO COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY!” The Detective shrieked.

“Whatever.” the kid answered, huffing.

“You’ll see, hn !” Zenkichi answered, huffing as well, and it was hard to say who between the two was the most childish.

“Let’s just set your own tent up, okay?” Takemi offered, shaking her head at the sad spectacle.

With the Phantom Thieves – Underground Facility – Palace -

Whatever that Camera Monster represented, it seemed to like blasting random things with its Killer Flash as the Thieves kept finding random perfectly-spherical holes on walls, ceiling and floor while they traversed a long series of ramp of stairs to the lower levels, finding various waiting rooms and even a cafeteria for the Shadows acting as staff of the place.

“Lucky Punch!” the Bugbear yelled while trying to punch Rarity’s skull open.

“MISSED!” the mare answered, dodging the attack by a hair to plunge her rapier in the living toy’s eye.

“KYAAAAH!” the thing screamed in pain while taking distance, bumping against its two companions and unwittingly joining them in the range of Ryuji’s AOE Lightning attack.

“Hell yeah, 3x1! Captain Kidd: MAZIONGA! ” He yelled in glee and blasting the three Bugbears in a single, wide lightning bath that incinerated two and left the third one close to death.

“Zorro!” Luckily Morgana was already in position to use his Persona and cut the Shadow julienne.

“…”

“Okay, that was the last,” Joker said, returning a chair upside to asses the damages the had brought to the big Cefeteria.

“It had been a while since we had to face multiple enemies at once,” Yusuke admitted, fixing a chair for himself to sit on.

“To be honest, I like our battles when they are on the Mosou Side of things, it’s more lively.” Futaba admitted.

“That because you just watch, direct and sometimes buff/heal. We do all the work.” Ryuji answered.

“Those are just silly unnecessary details.” The Hacker answered.

“Small talks aside, how deep do you think we need to go?” Rarity asked.

“Hard to say, Jewel. Each Palace develops in its own way,” Makoto answered, sighing.

“And Palaces do not follow Laws of Physics or Nature, so it can grow and develop however it wants following its owner’s wishes and necessities,” Morgana added.

“Drats,” The mare hissed in contempt.

“We left behind the area of the minor laboratories, where should we go next?” Haru asked, she was standing in front of a set of signs hanging on the wall in front of the Cafeteria’s entrance.

Cafeteria

← Labs

Offices →

Relax Area →

Waiting Room 6 →

Guards Room 3 →

Stairs →

“I say to avoid any Guards Room, the less attention we call on ourselves, the better.” Morgana answered.

“Stairs is a given, what about the Offices?” Akira added.

“You hope to find a clue to where the Treasure is kept?” Sophie asked.

“Twilight is very organized.” Their Leader answered with a shrug.

“Sounds unlikely.” Ann answered with a scrunched nose.

“That if Twilight is in a normal frame of mind, but this place is making her already borderline-obsessed attention to detail become extremely off-putting. I am with Joker on this, we may actually find a small mention to the Treasure. IF things are as bad as I believe,” Rarity answered.

Sigh! “Let’s try the Offices th-”

TAP! TAP! TAP!

“WHO’S THERE?!” Haru’s words went interrupted by soft steps as something small ran away.

“It ran away! Chase it!” Futaba yelled while running towards the source of the noise.

“Why?” Ann asked while the rest of the group still gave chase.

“That’s no Shadow, by the readings, that’s a Cognition, a projection of whoever Twilight knows in real life, and whoever it is, they are running away for a reason, and we need to stop them!” Futaba answered.

TAP! TAP! TAP!

“Over there! They are running towards the offices!” Yusuke said.

“You’ll never get into the Main Lab!” The mysterious Cognition yelled.

“Why that voice sounds familiar?” Yusuke asked.

Slam!

The small shadow had just the time to try close itself inside one of the offices, unfortunately that was not a good strategy as Ryuji and Akira’s combined shove forced it open all the same, and the Phantom Thieves saw a copy of Spike standing on top of the desk clutching a plastic key-card pressed tightly against his chest.

“A Spike Clone?” Rarity said.

“I am not a Clone! I am the real one!” The tiny dragon yelled in answer.

The Phantom Thives though could see his scaly skin being pale and sickly-looking compared to the Original, he was also covered in stitches covering his body in a random crisscross of lines, as if his entire body had been built from scratches.

“That is a very strange way for Twilight to see her assistant,” Joker whispered.

“I guess that a Corrupted Twilight sees everypony as Test Subjects, even Spike.” Rarity whispered in answer.

“Come on, little buddy...Give us that card…” Ryuji said while very slowly nearing Copy-Spike.

“NO! You won’t stop Twi! She wants to learn everything, and it is my mission to help her!” The small dragon answered, eyeing the door.

“That key must be important, my friend. Do you mind if we give a look to it?” Yusuke said, slowly.

“You will never have it! HEEEELP!” Copy Spike yelled in answer.

“Intruder!” And in answer, a Shadow rushed into the same office to attack the Phantom Thieves by turning into a small group of Slimes.

“Damnit!” Ann cursed at seeing the small Dragon run away using the cover of the attack.

“Grab him!” Makoto yelled.

“SELF DESTRUCT!” the Slimes said in chorus.

“WE KNOW!” The Thieves yelled in answer, ducking out of the office uncaring of the explosions demolishing the office and the rooms around it.

Down the stairs, past rows of small labs that were more similar to slaughterhouses filled in opened up humans and ponies hanging from the ceiling for scientist-dressed Shadows to tear apart to study them.

Across corridors full of horrifying pictures of vivisected Test Subjects of both races with Twilight working on them treated as works of art.

“FOR SOMEBODY WITH SUCH TINY LEGS, HE CAN RUN!” Yusuke yelled, huffing in fatigue.

“Can’t you grab him, Jewel?” Morgana asked.

“He keeps zigzagging! Twi is the Combat Magic user! I am the artist of the group!” Rarity answered, her own bolts of Magic missing Copy Spike of a hair.

“Enough!” Haru yelled.

“NOIR! NO!” Makoto yelled with wide eyes.

"NOIR YES!"

BOOOOOM!

The young Heiress had grown tired, and with impressive accuracy, she had shot a grenade from her launcher above Copy Spike head and right in front of the small dragon, and the explosion shoot him to the ground with both legs obliterated.

“There, he can’t run now!” Haru said with a satisfied smile.

“…”

“Aaah...Must...Protect...The Key…” Copy Spike groaned in agony while dragging himself forward, one claw holding the key-card, the other dragging forward his mangled body.

“Good God, woman! Learn restraint!” Ryuji said with wide eyes.

“We’ll deal with that later, let’s recover the key now bef-” Boom!

Haru’s words went eclipsed by something blasting its way through the wall, a something almost three meters tall and walking on hind legs made of human and pony legs sewn together, just like the rest of the body of the vaguely-humanoid creature.

“I HATE YOUUU!” The towering golem screamed in hatred and ‘pointing’ at the Thieves with a malformed arm composed by several human and pony arms culminating in a mass of hands and hooves unevenly stuck together.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” Makoto asked with a shriek.

“I believe we are seeing another Fear,” Yusuke said, tense.

Thump! Thump! Thump! WHAM!

Walking heavily on the ground, the giant thing kicked the wounded Clone Spike against a near wall, uncaring of the loud crunching sound of the small guy’s bones cracking to pieces when he almost went through the concrete.

“WE ARE NOT FRIENDS! GO AWAY! WE DON’T WANT YOU!” several voices, coming from the many heads and faces that composed the Monster’s head and chest, moaned as one in an angry howl.

“At least it’s honest about it,” Sophie said.

“Now is hardly the time for jokes.” Morgana said, slowly.

“GO AWAY!” The Monster bellowed, slamming down both malformed giant fists and destroying the entire floor, making the Thieves, the barely-alive Clone Spike and the Fear Monster pummel to the floor below in what looked like being an arena-like operating room with a tiny bed in the middle of a wide circle of seats.

BOOOM!

The landing of the Thieves, Monster and ruins of demolished floor and ceiling above for an instant covered everything in a thick cloud of dust, the perfect cover for Joker and the others to take some distance from the Fear Monster.

“Cough! Cough! Cough! W-Where are we?” Joker asked, still coughing from the dust in the air.

“Is this an arena?” Ann asked as well.

“No, this looks more like a sort of classroom for a med school,” Makoto answered.

“Indeed!” A voice boomed in answer.

“Twilight!” Rarity yelled with wide eyes, completely overcome by horror at seeing the deranged mockery of her dear friend Corruption and Distortion created.

The Distorted form of Twilight fully mirrored her Depravity in her search of Knowledge: A pale-looking mare with balding spots on her fur, with her body covered in overly-precise surgical stitches, dark bangs under her eyes from countless sleepless nights of studies helped by her wearing a metal contraption on her head forcing her eyes open, she was even wearing a lab coat completely caked in stains of blood, old and new.

It was clear that the insane mare had operated even on herself in her mad search for who knew what secret Knowledge she was looking for.

“T-T-Twi…” The extremely wounded Clone Spike said with a weak voice.

“Yet another failure,” The Ruler of the Palace, Shadow Twilight, said with a sneer from the hole in the ceiling connecting the two floors.

“WE HATE YOU!” the Fear roared while glaring at Twilight.

“The feeling is mutual.” Shadow Twilight answered, glaring at the beast in hatred.

“I must thank you, Intruders! When I first removed these pesky Fears that were holding me back, I had no idea where to put them since they were basically Concepts, thus not something I could kill for good. But recent events Helped them break free and they surprisingly used the left-overs from my experiments to give themselves a physical body...But that STILL left me with no way to deal with them...Until you arrived and broke your way in, that is.” The Distorted and Corrupted version of Twilight said with a sinister smile as the white molten-wax-like Fear and the Security-Camera-headed one entered the same room under her from side doors.

“KYAAAAAH! You do nothing right! You Failuuuure!”

“KRYAAAAAH! FLASH!”

Both monsters hissed and yelled to their prey on the floor above, looking up at Twilight as if daring her to get down and fight them.

“Disgusting. But as I said having Intruders force their way in has just become a blessing in disguise…” Distorted Twilight said with a crazed smile as several Scientist-Dressed Shadows appeared around her.

“What are you planning now?” Rarity asked in disgust.

“I found a way to utilize ALL my failed experiments to deal with you Intruders and those Fears. I just need to add some more Mass to my new project, though. Dump Them.” Shadow Twilight ordered, and every Shadow around her turned around to grab something they then threw down the hole in the room below…

“My God…” Ann muttered in horror.

Hundreds of dead copies of Spike rained down to the floor in a sickening chorus of splattering bodies, they all looked exactly like the original small dragon, soon forming a pile of dead dragons.

“They...They…” the wounded Clone Spike said with wide eyes.

“They, just like you, are just mere copies of my Original Assistant. Copies I made to experiment and study, all in the name of finding a way to turn him truly Immortal, just like my other friends. As an Alicorn, my life-span will cover millennia just like normal beings live through mere minutes, and I won’t risk something as silly as Death or Old Age to get in the way. I will gift MY friends Eternal Life and Youth, sure I will need to disassemble and rebuild their bodies a couple times, but at the end of the day, they will thank me. That is why I am using background characters as Test Subject. Until the procedure won’t be PERFECT, I won’t risk MY friends health. It’s only a small sacrifice in the name of both Science and Friendship.” Shadow Twilight explained just as the few last dead Spike Clones went dumped into the room.

“You are just another shitty Psycho! Just talking as if you were a saint!” Ryuji spat in blind fury.

“I am about to have a breakthrough that will push ponykind forward and uplift it! I don’t expect an Idiot to grasp my vision! Conversion, Change of Heart, Desires Manipulation, these will be the keys I need to uncover the secrets of Soul and Mind of both human and ponies! With those and my Immortality Operation, I WILL CREATE AN UTOPIA! ETERNAL PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP! NO MORE AGING, ILLNESSES, WARS, FAMINES AND DISCORD! I WILL CREATE A PARADISE!” Distorted Twilight yelled with wide eyes, Madness just a euphemism when describing the depths of her depravity.

“You are tearing innocents apart! That’s what you want to do to achieve your Utopia?!” Rarity asked in disgust.

“I am not tearing Innocents apart, you foolish mare! Only my friends and family deserve eternal happiness! Everybody else is just Cattle, guinea pigs only good enough to act as source of knowledge for me to gain. Once done collecting the Knowledge I need and deserve, I will select the worthy ones to become the next step in ponykind evolution, but until then...I will keep tearing them apart, cracking them open, operating and experimenting on them until I am satisfied...There are still many, many questions I need to answer…” The Distorted Mare answered, smiling in a deranged way while lifting a purple vial with her Magic.

“And one of these Questions is: What happens when I use a mountain of dead dragons as a base to create new life? With my Solution of Failure acting as glue, Cadaver Golem of Abandonmentgiving it motion and Oculus of Judgment giving it sight, once added to it a Spike’s loyalty and absolute obedience...The final result should be quite interesting!” At those words the vial of purple goo went shot at the Wax-Like Fear.

“YOU WILL FAIL! AS ALWAYS!” The thing roared in disgust and using a gooey tentacle to smash the vial in mid-air, splattering itself with the content as a result.

“Not this time. Be reborn as a success from that pile of Failures! I christen you Amalgamatiel: Essence of Fear!” Shadow Twilight answered, and on the notes of her mad laughter, the Wax-Like Fear turned purple and exploded outward in thousands of tendrils.

“DOWN!” Joker yelled, tackling Ann to the floor just in time to not be pierced by the living goo.

“YEUCK!” Rarity shrieked in fear as she and the other as well, threw themselves on the floor barely an instant before being skewed alive.

Under their shocked eyes, though, that mutated Fear of Failure pierced the other Monsters, the barely-alive Spike Clone and the mound of dead Clones, then pulled them all together towards itself where they went swallowed by the purple sludge creature.

CRUNCH! CRUNCH! SPLAT!

And as bones broke and rebuilt and flesh went torn apart and forced to get glued together anew, a giant, rotting undead monster vaguely Dragon-like in appearances was born right in front of the Phantom Thieves.

“He...Help...Me…” The Spike Clone begged weakly a last time before getting buried under the flesh of the giant undead dragon, now glaring at the Thieves with two mismatched eyes: one dull and lifeless, the other a mass of rotten flesh around a rusted security camera.

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” the giant monstrosity roared in hunger as soon as its birth was complete, and flapping the torn, goo-covered bony wings on its back.

“Fascinating, isn’t it? I can even turn a sad mountain of failures into a single, giant triumph! Speaks volumes of my genius! HAHAHAHAHA! Now...Either Amalgamatiel kills you and I get the perfect Guard Dog for my lab, or YOU kill it and I can finally say farewell to some useless Fears, in either case, I win! Hahahahahaha! You others collect as much data as you can, I have Experiments to run.” Distorted Twilight ordered before leaving.

“GYAAAAH!” The Undead Dragon gave a loud roar, opened its half-rotten wings wide and showed the Phantom Thieves the long rows of uneven and sharp fangs it possessed.

“Attack incoming!” Sophia alerted them, just in time for the teens to scatter and avoid the purplish flames the monster vomited towards them.

“Ouch! Okay, that fire is no joke! Try to see if it kept the weakness to Lightning and Ice like its components or if it gained new ones!” Futaba instructed while boarding her Persona to float out of the way during the fight.

“No shit!” Ryuji yelled, only sparing a glance to the long row of wooden desks now reduced to ashes behind him.

“Captain Kidd: Zio!” The young man then moved on to attack the dragon with a weak lightning attack to test the waters.

“Guuh!” And gaining just an annoyed grunt from the giant beast that now moved to glare at him.

“Doesn’t look very weak to it! SHIIIT!” Ryuji shrieked, barely avoiding a wide swipe of one of the Dragon’s giant claws in retaliation to the small shock.

“Then I guess next is Ice, Freeze him, Goemon! Mabufu!” Yusuke tried next, parrying a tail swipe that still sent him flying while his Persona covered most of the Monster’s body in a thin layer of ice, but besides annoying it further, nothing suggested its weakness to Ice was higher than Normal.

“INARI!” Haru yelled in horror.

“I-I am fine, bruises aside. But Ice Resistance too has been improved.” The man answered.

“THEN LET’S SEE IF NUCLEAR ATTACKS WORK! JOHANNAAAA!” Makoto answered with a roar, summoning and mounting her Persona and revving it to full throttle as soon as she straddled the summon, running it along the Dragon’s spine from tail to head and launching herself up in the air in a back-flip to meet the eyes of the Monster.

“FREILA!” Makoto screamed, launching her attack as soon as she went upside down and landing back on solid ground at the same time the strong Nuclear-Element explosion made the Dragon stagger with its head whipping back from the force of the explosion.

“GYAAAAH!” And as an added bonus, small flames started burning all over its body.

“Weak to fire! Use that!” Futaba confirmed the weakness with a victorious cry.

“That’s my job then! Carmen: Agilao!” Ann answered, immediately jumping in range, avoiding a claw swipe by sliding under it and summoning her Persona to hit the Dragonin a big explosion of fire straight inside the Monster’s mouth to turn its roar of anger in a wailing of anguish.

“Holy Faust!” Rarity yelled in surprise almost misfiring the crossbow she was holding up with her Magic.

“Yeah, we usually kick things up a notch during Boss Fights. Zorro!” Morgana answered to the awed look by running on all fours up that dragon’s claw to reach its face and unleash a flurry of attacks on its snout with both his cutlass and the rapier in his Persona’s hand.

“I tend to forget that!” The mare admitted, still not used to her new Job as Phantom Thief.

“You shouldn’t, it’s where the fun is! Right, Joker? Pandora! Kouga!” Sophia answered, landing on the Dragon’s back after having used her giant Yo-Yo weapon to grab onto the Monster’s wings to swing her way up and blast it’s spine with a strong Bless-Element attack.

“Bless works well too!” She then chirped happily.

“It’s undead, makes sense. Lamia: Agilao!” Akira answered, he too using a similar Fire Skill to Ann’s to blast one of the Dragon’s wings to pieces.

“You know? It may be just too effing creepy, but Fusing Persona like you do to gain new ones is a life-saver!” Ryuji admitted while pelting the Monster in bullets from his shotgun once seen Lightning being not really useful.

“GUAOOOOOOH!” And gaining a LOUD howl of pain from the Dragon that started trashing around the room violently, enraged to the point of madness.

“Okay! It’s official! That thing is VERY WEAK to Gun attacks, second place Fire, then Bless, Lightning, Wind and Ice do slightly less damage than normal and Curse is useless! You know what to do!” Futaba instructed them, sending a wide-scale healing and attack boosting skill their way from her flying-saucer Persona.

“Then I guess I will be joining the fire squad, then!” Yusuke said, taking a hold of his own gun to join Ryuji and Haru in showering the Monster in lead.

“GUAAAAAAH!” in answer, the Monster opened its maw wide and literally vomited out a true river of purple sludge smelling of decay and melting everything it touched.

“Oh, for God’s sake! Can it get any more disgusting?!” Rarity shrieked in horror and almost puking herself in disgust.

“Dodge that stuff! Don’t let it touch you!” Makoto yelled while dodging left and right madly the wide sprays of acid sludge.

“Keep shooting it!” Akira answered while dodging a acid shower himself to retaliate with more Fire-Element Skills.

“Roger! I’ll give it my all! Milady: TRIPLE DOWN!” Haru answered, aiming her grenade launcher while her Persona elegantly lifted its dress to show the demonic mechanical mouth hiding under it and the insane arsenal it contained to rain destruction on the Monster in a cacophony of explosions.

“GUIIIH!” With a low whirling sound, the camera eye plopped slightly out of its socket.

“IT’S CHARGING-UP THE DEATH FLASH! STOP IT!” Futaba screamed in horror.

Flash! Flash! Flash! The three preparatory flashes bathed the shooting squad in yellow light, signaling who the Dragon wanted to try disintegrate first.

“SHIT! SCATTER!” Ryuji shrieked with wide eyes.

“ONI: SNAP!”

“CARMEN: AGILAO!”

“CENDRILLON: KOUGA!”

Just an instant before the red light of the Death Flash could actually hit the three Thieves, three other voices screamed at the same time, and the combined strength of the Gun Skill, Fire Skill and Bless Skill hitting the same time, destroying the camera eye in a burst of rotten-smelling blood and mechanical parts flying everywhere from the exploded eye-socket.

“GUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” The Dragon reared its head back in agony, so much it momentarily stood on its back legs and throwing Sophia away from its back as a result, luckily the AI girl managed to scamper away before the Monster could fully fall on its back and sqush her under its immense weight.

“IT’S ON ITS BACK! ALL-OUT ATTACK, NOW!” Morgana yelled.

“How do I-” Rarity asked.

“JUST FOLLOW OUR LEAD!” Haru answered.

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” The Dragon shrieked in agony as the wild flurry of attacks pushed it back on its back as soon as it tried to stand back up and covering its massive body in countless wounds along destroying its remaining wing.

“Well done! The Camera Eye is already regenerating, but at least for a bit it won’t be able to use its Death Flash! Keep pushing, we have almost won!” Futaba informed them as soon as they took distance from the creature after their all-out attack.

“Thanks, guys!” Ryuji said in relief as the Teens regrouped.

“I barely had enough Yen to just Summon the Oni Persona instead of fusing it, but the Gun Skill made it worth it, that until I will be able to control stronger ones like in the past.” Akira admitted.

“Dude, she makes you pay for summoning extra Persona? I thought they loved you!” Ryuji said.

“Panther would have hated me for using the other Payment Method.” Akira answer.

“Other...Oh, those three little Whor-”

“Instead of arguing, help me!” Makoto interrupted Ann’s screech just as the dragon tried returning to its feet, annoyed by the young woman’s bone-shattering punches and Nuclear-based Persona attacks.

“Grrrrr!” Finally the thing returned to its feet, and it glared at the Thieves with its remaining sane eye in absolute hatred.

“It’s mad!” Sophia said.

“GUAAAAAAH!” And in answer, the thing charged forward with its head low.

“It’s very mad!” Rarity yelled in answer, gladly letting Akira grab her under his arm to be helped avoid the attack.

BOOOOM!

An entire section of the wall went turned into a fine cloud of dust under the assault of the colossal Dragon, a hit that only slightly staggered it, before it shook its head and turned around to face the Thieves with purple fire already surfacing from the depths of its maw.

“FIRE BREATH! DODGE!” And again Futaba alerted them, giving the teens just enough time to fan out and avoid a new sea of fire that incinerated everything in front of the Monster.

“GRAAAAH!” It was clear the monster was now out of control.

“TAIL ATTACK!” Futaba yelled.

“PANTHER!” Akira yelled, pushing the girl away but catching the attack himself before he could dodge as well.

“JOKER!” The girl yelled in horror at seeing him being sent flying and crash-landing on the few desks remaining in an explosion of splinters.

“CENDRILLON: VORPAL BLADE!” Rarity countered with a physical attack of her Persona, and biting down the pain it caused her as well, so to distract the Dragon before it could attack their Leader further.

“Somebody heal Joker! I’ll keep this thing occupied!” The mare yelled while barely dodging the fireball the Dragon spat at her in retaliation.

“I’ll help you, Jewel!” Sophia said, she too pelting the monster in energy bullets from her gun to anger it into focusing on her.

“YOU WANT TO DIE, FUCKER?! BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOU CHOOSE TO DIE! CARMEN! AGI! AGI! AGILAO!” Ann herself was now mad, and the way she used both her Persona and gun to assault the Dragon was both awe-inspired and terrifying.

“Leave some for me too! Johanna!” Makoto added.

“Zorro: Diarama! Stay with me, Joker. We have a Treasure to steal!” Morgana in the meantime had neared the downed Akira and summoned his Persona to heal his friend in a whirlwind of green wind that made most of his wounds fade away.

“I am going nowhere, promise.” The young man answered, staggering a bit to his feet.

“That’s good to hear, we can only reach our goals together, nobody is left behind. Here!” Yusuke added, throwing a small bottle to Akira.

“God bless our Doctor and her miracle medicine…” He answered, downing the entire thing and returning to full health.

“All good?” The cat asked.

“Yes, sorry for worrying you,”

“A good friend always worries if their friend gets hurt and needs help, there is nothing to be ashamed of, let’s join the others now, I am sure they will appreciate some extra help!” Yusuke answered.

“Yes! Lamia: Agilao!”

“Zorro! / Goemon!” both Morgana and Yusuke followed Akira’s example and summoned their Persona to announce their return into the fight grandiosely enough the other eye of the Dragon as well as part of its jaw exploded into a thick cloud of gore and smashed teeth, and interrupting the creature’s new puking of corrosive sludge as an added bonus.

“Joker! Are you okay?!” Ann asked once seen her boyfriend return to her side.

“Yes, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, you dummy! Just help me kill this thing!” She answered with a wide smile.

“Of course!” He answered.

“So! Good news: only the Camera Eye can regenerate since it is now functional again, meaning you can kill this thing...Bad news… THE EYE CAMERA IS BACK! DODGE!” Futaba yelled, she too driving her Persona out of the way since now the light was covering a wider angle than before.

FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! The three preparatory flashes covered the room almost entirely.

“SHOT THAT THING!” Haru shrieked while taking aim and pulling the trigger to her gun as fast as she could.

“AAAAAH!” The other Thieves answered with a similar “Brave” scream as they all emptied the clips of their weapons on the thing’s face without too much care about taking aim.

“GYAAAAH!” The thing shrieked in pain and whipped it’s head around, shooting the Death Flash against an empty section of the wall and erasing a giant portion of it to form a perfect circle connecting that big classroom to the room right next to it.

CRUUUUMBLE!

What remained of the wall went soon covered by deep cracks going all the way to the ceiling above, forcing the Shadows still observing the fight following Twilight’s orders to scamper so to not fall down as big chunks of the ceiling above started falling down.

“SHIIIIT!” Ryuji yelled while barely jumping aside and avoid a chunk of ceiling twice his sizes about to squash him.

“Careful! This place is falling apart!” Makoto warned him.

“And maybe we can use it,” Yusuke said with narrowed eyes once checked the sorry state of the room’s ceiling.

“...I think I understand. If we trick that thing into charging against one of the walls, maybe we can bring the ceiling down on it, there should be enough concrete still to really hurt it.” Morgana answered.

“Like we did with Nightmare Rarity?” Rarity asked.

“That was my inspiration, yes.” Yusuke answered.

“Let’s hope it will work as well...OVER HERE, YOU IDIOT!” Makoto answered, summoning Johanna and sprinting under the Dragon’s belly, blasting its stomach with a weak Nuclear Attack andcontinuing moving away while ignoring its roars of pain and anger.

“Mona!” Joker said.

“On it, Meeeow!” Morgana answered, turning into his Van form and sprinting away as soon as Akira took the wheel and the others jumped on top of him.

“Ay-Ooooh! Over here, shit-breath!” Ryuji yelled while shooting the very few bullets still in his possession on the Monster’s half-destroyed snout.

“GUAAAAAAAH!” The Dragon roared in fury, once again trying to burn them alive with its fire breath.

“Not the fire, you moron! Charge us! God, you are just as stupid as you look!” Ann answered by insulting the creature and taking pot-shots at its forehead with the few bullets remaining in her dual Uzis.

“Grrr!” As the Thieves kept taunting it, something almost therapeutic, surprisingly, they kept dodging its claw and tail swipes.

“What? You hate being called stupid, you fool?” Haru asked with a cutesy giggle.

“Really, you prove how bad Twilight is at creating monsters, she is a real incompetent.” Yusuke added, sighing in exaggerated dismay.

“GRRRRRR-GUAAAAAAAH!” That seemed to finally be too much for the Monster that finally rushed forward to stop over the Phantom Thieves under its four massive feet.

“You really are a Moron! Cendrillon: Kouga!” Rarity said, tutting mockingly.

“Very silly! Pandora: Kouga!” Sophia said, giggling, and using the same skill.

“GRAAAAAH!” Momentarily blinded by the duo of Bless Skill that destroying the still regenerating Camera Eye, the blind dragon could not see the Thieves dodging at its sides to watch the dragon slam headfirst against the only sane wall remaining from the battle, and almost demolishing it as well under its rage-empowered charge.

CRRRRRRUMBLE!

And luckily, as Yusuke hoped, the additional damage proved to be too much for the ceiling above the room as all of it came falling down, and while the Phantom Thieves managed to avoid being submerged by several tonnes of concrete of the above room crashing down on them thanks to the hole the creature created with its flash, the Undead Dragon instead for an instant disappeared from view thanks to the giant cloud of dust.

“Is it dea-”

“ROAAAAAR!” To answer Ann’s question the massive head of the Dragon emerged from the smoke with what remained with its maw stretching wide open to swallow them all…

Boom!

Only for the Monster to die mid-jump and collapse right in front of them at an inch from actually swallowing them and just lying there, slowly melting into a sludge of rotten flesh as its body broke down into a puddle of molten dead matter.

“…”

Ping! The sound of the key-card Clone Spike defended to his very last breath falling to the floor in front of them once the dragon’s flesh evaporated leaving behind just a malformed skeleton almost went unregistered by the Thieves, even if that was the only sound heard in the complete silence between them.

“…”

“...I think I peed myself a little…” Finally, after a couple minutes of stricken silence, somebody talked, and it was Ryuji admitting his small incident with a very squeaky, high-pitched voice.

“Me too…” Rarity admitted.

“Same…” Makoto squeaked as well in answer.

“That was the mother of all Jump-Scares.” Futaba said with a weak voice once banished her own Persona to join the others.

“What’s important is that we have this key, now we only need to understand where to use it.” Makoto said, recovering the key-card from the ground and looking around for any suggestion about where to use it.

“Let’s explore this floor first, just in case.” Haru suggested, unsure.

“Okay!...Uhm! That way!” Sophia answered, and dashing forward right after.

“You just choose a random direction! Wait!” Rarity yelled while chasing her.

“Ah, yes. She doesn’t know Sophie,” Morgana commented, chuckling.

“She never led us wrong, though,” Joker answered.

“Nope!”

Once rejoined those two, the Phantom Thieves kept scanning the floor, room after room, but besides other two giant Classrooms with their rows of desks and the solitary metal table for operating on corpses while teaching, they only found mortuary rooms or other small labs, besides the ramp of stairs leading back up to the floor above or to the one under and a small office belonging to Twilight herself.

“…” And that posed a problem, because besides a new Safe Room right next to Twilight’s personal Office, the floor under it was the last one, and that was just a single giant room occupied only by an enormous incinerator and hundreds of abandoned body bags still full and, for the Teens’ horror, randomly wiggling or moaning softly at random times with a very weak and faint voice.

That and many, MANY, FAR TOO MANY Shadows roaming the place either as Security Guards or “Escaped Patients” still clad in straitjackets or hospital gowns, all of those missing body-parts or with either Pony and Human pieces mixed together to create gangling, moaning mutant freaks thanking Twilight for their Uplifting or loudly and fanatically offering themselves to Twilight as Test Subjects for more experiments.

Akira and his friends felt like they were actually doing an act of mercy when fighting them, freeing them from the hellish existence of endless pain, a way to liberate them from the miserable role the Palace forced them to take.

“Okay, this makes no sense, even for Palaces’ standards. There MUST be a Room where the Treasure is kept. I can FEEL the Treasure is here somewhere...But where?!” Morgana hissed while sitting on one of the plush chairs in front of Twilight’s desk.

“Maybe we missed it?” Makoto asked while studying the grotesquely-detailed books of Pony and human anatomy in the office’s book-case, before hastily putting one back in disgust.

“Nu-uh! The Treasure is close now! Before now it felt way far away!” Sophia answered, she was sitting on the desk proper and kicking her feet a bit.

“The Treasure of the others were well hidden as well?” Rarity asked.

“Not really, kinda.” Ann answered, sighing and plopping down on the other chair in front of the desk.

“Kinda?”

“Well, they had some protection, or gimmick, if you would.” Haru answered, humming.

“Like what?”

“Excluding Fluttershy whose Palace was still forming, so in its Infancy and lacking the usual nuances of a proper, Complete Palace, all the others had a very specific sets of requirements to reach them.” Yusuke answered.

“Pinkie needed you to collect special tickets from the rides in her Lunapark and then know in detail how her favourite play played-out to reach the Treasure.” Makoto said.

“Dash had it hidden in her Super Hero Secret Base and then she had a secret key-code to open the safe holding it.” Ryuji added.

“AJ needed you to blind yourself to see the world like she did and enter her secret orchard nobody but her and her guards could enter.” Haru said.

“And Nightmare Rarity had a special Guardian AND a pass-code keeping Intruders out of the treasury she had hidden hers in.” Rarity added, sighing.

“…” It was then that all of them frowned in sync.

“...Am I the only one seeing a pattern?” Akira muttered.

“Secret Rooms and secret codes...And we got a Key-card a Cognition was determined to its very death to keep away from us.” Makoto said with narrowed eyes.

“Or that it stole from Twilight just to keep it safe. It seems like sometimes a Cognition can act on their own without waiting for directives from a Palace Ruler.” Futaba added.

“Twilight has always been overly-focused on details, so while the others did that just to be on theme with their Palaces...She may have fully thought this out as an actual security measure.” Rarity said, humming while looking at the lone computer on the desk.

“And she is fascinated about Human Technology…” She then said.

“Let me check that then,” Futaba answered, and while she sat at the chair behind the screen, Sophia stood behind her to act as Equestrian Language Expert for support.

“...So?” Akira asked once seen both girls work on the thing for several minutes with the rapid-fire Click-Clack! Of the keyboard filling the room.

“Just notes after notes of the Experiments she ran in this God-forsaken Palace, all enriched by the goriest pictures I have ever seen, and I do like Splatter Movies...Bleah.” Futaba answered with a scrunched nose.

“Anything else?” Rarity asked.

“Uhmm…” Sophia answered, taking momentarily the lead and writing on the keyboard at super-human speed for an instant before whooping in triumph.

“New Audio Log!” She then said with a wide smile.

“Play it, hopefully there may be a clue for the Treasure.” Morgana said.

“Okay!”

Experiment Log n.3337.

Subject: Myself.

I don’t understand...Ever since I removed my heart and switched it with a mechanical one, Something has appeared in my own personal lab…

“Wo! Wo! Wo! Something?!” Morgana said with wide eyes.

Whatever that thing is, it defies logic...I can’t even understand my subconscious attachment to it! What even is its Value?! It has no shape, no weight or mass, it’s just pure, incorporeal light! Then why I am filled with longing whenever I see it?! Why I INSIST in referring to it as Treasure?! Why I want nothing and nobody else to touch it?!

I need to get to the bottom of this...

“Okay, we got a clue on the Treasure alright, but I don’t like how she talks about it.” Ryuji said.

“She wants to Experiment on her own Treasure without knowing how dangerous that is,” Yusuke added.

“Must be the Influence of the Corruption they took from Equestria, bot forms of distortion are clashing…” Futaba guessed.

“There is another Audio Log, do I play it?” Sophia asked.

“Please do, this is getting out of hand fast and we need more details.” Haru answered.

Experiment Log n.3338.

Subject: Myself.

WHY ANSWERS ELUDE ME!? THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!

KNOWLEDGE BELONGS TO ME! IT’S MINE!

I keep operating on Test Subjects to find other examples of Treasure to further study this phenomenon, but there are none! Is it in the Blood? In the Brain? In the Bones or in the Hearts?! I tear them all apart, I smash them open and pull them out but no other Treasures come out!

“My God...she sounds…” Yusuke tried saying.

“Effing Insane?” Ryuji suggested.

“Indeed, a depth of Depravity I never thought possible.” the other answered.

“Oh, Twilight…” Rarity muttered, eyes already clouded by tears.

There must be an answer to all this, and it must be mine!…

I decided, I will operate on myself again, there must be something I am missing…

If it is really connected to me only like I believe, following the feelings of possessiveness that overcome me whenever I am close to it...Maybe I will get a proper reaction if I remove the right body-part…

“This was the last one!” Sophia said.

“Okay, what did we learn?” Akira asked.

“Besides this Twilight being damn insane, you mean?” Ryuji answered.

“Yes.”

“We know for certain that this Distortion of Twilight loves to Experiment and Operate on everybody, even herself, just for the sake of learning...Well...Everything.” Haru answered.

“This until one day, following this Palace’s Plot, she removed her own Heart to switch it with a mechanical one. Probably wishing to have something more efficient than her own. And just to not waste it, she somehow used it as a Lock for the innermost labs of the Palace.” Futaba added.

“This in turn made the Treasure “Appear” in her personal laboratory...How does this actually work?” Makoto asked.

“A Palace Ruler is not really aware of the existence of a Treasure. They can feel their connection to it, and can subconsciously tell it is important and that they must protect it, but in the end a Treasure to them is just another object that belongs to them, not really something essential.

Just like we saw in the Palaces last time, for them a Treasure it’s just there, nothing more, contrary to the Desires the Rulers of a Prison stole that instead become something they need like a drug addict.

Twilight instead has a completely different problem: she started to question her attachment to her Treasure due to her own Distortion making her obsessed with knowing EVERYTHING, so accepting something being important “Just Because” is never going to make it, she needs to know WHY, at the cost of destroying herself. And we need to stop that.” Morgana answered.

“That’s good and all, but unless we find this personal lab of hers, we won’t be able to do a thing!” Ann said.

“Right. Is there nothing about it in the computer?” Haru answered.

Sigh! “Nothing really, there is a prompt for a key-card reader program, but the computer itself has not the slot to insert it.” Futaba answered once she and Sophia checked.

“You know what this means…” Ryuji said, smirking and moving his arm around as a warm-up.

“Tear the place down to find the card reader, got it.” Yusuke declared.

“A bit uncouth, but indeed this Palace hardly deserves the foal gloves.” Rarity answered with her horn lighting-up in Magic.

It took barely five minutes for the to destroy and upturn everything inside the room except computer and desk, until finally Sophia stumbled on the small, barely-noticeable slot of a card reader hidden well behind a picture on the wall of Celestia herself.

“Should have known, Twilight has always loved Celestia a bit too much.” Rarity admitted.

“What’s important now is seeing what that is for, hopefully some map or secret door for that Lab.” Makoto said.

“I wonder...If we have the key-card, how does Twilight reach that?” Haru asked.

“Maybe we are using her spare key or something, don’t really care.” Ryuji answered, shrugging.

“Oh, me neither! Just curious,” she admitted.

“Whatever. Put it in, Joker.” Futaba commented while waving the two off.

“Yes.”

“...Okay, the computer recognized the key, I am starting the program!” The Hacker said with a wide smirk.

Groooooooooo!

“Holy crap!” Ann cursed.

“Okay, no secret elevator, the entire office acts like one!” Morgana commented in surprise as they all could feel the entire small room move downwards.

Grooooooo-Boom!

With a heavy lurching sensation, the elevator touched ground heavily, making the Thieves stumble slightly at the sudden stop, then the door opened by itself towards a giant room filled in tubes, three of which broken while the others were filled in greenish water with several malformed ponies and humans floating lifelessly in.

Then there were numerous operating tables covered in stains of blood old and new, rows and rows of surgical instruments filling the walls, some of which twisted and cruel-looking version of the normal instruments seen in Operating Room s in the real world.

And finally, occupying the wall at the opposite side from the door to the office, a really enormous empty glass tube with a shapeless mass of light silently floating up and down inside it.

“The Treasure!” The Phantom Thieves yelled as one in surprise.

“Okay! We finally found it. What now?” Rarity asked.

“As usual I say we look for an escape route, it never worked, but I want to believe that one day we will manage to steal a Treasure without needing to fight the Palace Owner.” Morgana answered.

“One may call it wishful thinking, but I too hope for such a miracle to happen, one day.” Yusuke admitted.

“We are probably in one of the deepest floors of the Palace, I don’t think it will be easy to escape from here since there seems to be only that lift as an entry point.” Ann said.

“Not really!” Ryuji answered.

“Uhu?!”

“There is a drop hole for the incinerator we saw before, I bet Twilight uses this to dump into the thing the bodies once she finished working on them. I say we turn that shit off, clear it and once stolen the Treasure we slide down from here to there and run away from the Palace.” He explained.

“…”

“...What?” Ryuji asked, unnerved by the silence.

Sniff! Sniff! “And here I thought you were a disappointment, Skull! Instead you have finally started thinking like a proper Phantom Thief!” Morgana answered with loud and exaggerated sniffs.

“Oh, screw you, cat!” The young man answered, scoffing.

“Kids, be nice.” Akira said with an uncaring tone while checking inside the chute.

“Sorry, Joker!” The two answered in chorus, smirking, making him chuckle.

“By size alone, I think it can work...This if the Treasure is as small as the others were before.” Makoto said.

“Good.”

“I hope none of you put up any extra belly before now, because that seems to be a tight fit.” Haru added.

“...Oh Goodness, I don’t think so?” Rarity said while checking herself.

“Me neither...I think?” Ann added, doing the same.

“For now let’s go clean that incinerator, just in case we’ll make it run for a few minutes to make sure nothing is clogging it, then I say we use one of these poor souls to see if we will go down smoothly when it will be our turn to slide down, last thing we need is for us to remain stuck midway down a dark and tight chute,” Yusuke said.

“Thanks for the lovely image, buddy…” Ryuji said, he and the others paling considerably at the idea.

“Oh...Oh...Sorry! I didn’t meant to!” He answered.

“It’s okay, Inari...It’s okay.” Akira answered, sighing.

Later that day – Real world – Floating Island -

It was with baited breath that Shadow and Lyra watched the flying ship they left the Phantom Thieves use as moving base landed at the dock.

“Holy crap a real flying island!” To their relief Ryuji showed how everything was still okay with his cheerful comment.

He and the others were still wearing hoodies and copies of their Phantom Thieves masks, just in case, but the people close to them still recognized them…

“OH MY GOD! YOU ARE THE PHANTOM THIEVES!” All of them, Akane comprised.

“Oh! It’s Akane!” Haru said, happily.

“Eh! Surprise!” Zenkichi said, smirking.

“GRANPS!” Ann yelled with a wide smile.

“Glad to see you are okay,” Akira said.

“Don’t underestimate me, Joker.” Zenkichi answered, shaking the young man’s hand for just an instant before pulling him into a hug.

“Ugh!”

“God, I thought they got you all!” The poor detective said with an exaggerated whine.

“Meeow!”

“Oh, shut-up! We are friends, of course I worry!” he answered to Morgana’s teasing.

“RARE!” Fluttershy yelled while hurrying to hug her friend.

“I am back, I am back, it’s okay.” Rarity answered, chuckling, and hugging her back.

“So? How’s Twi? Is she bad?” AJ asked.

“She is in a very bad shape, girls...I saw her...My Goodness, we need to save her fast!” She answered.

“Ya will, just like they saved us. That’s what a Phantom Thief does, yeah?” Dash said, unsure.

“We’ll save her. Promise.” Akira answered.

“Thank you,” Fluttershy answered.

“We’ll need to hurry, though. In a week Celestia is going to force Twilight back inside her castle. Our latest raid against the Conversion Potion has severely damaged and slowed-down her plans, and Twilight is still the only one able to produce great quantities of the thing in a short amount of time. Celestia will need Twilight inside her primary production line to cover for that loss of Potion doses.” Lyra said.

“Good thing we located the Treasure and prepared an escape route then,” Makoto answered, sighing.

“That’s good to hear! But tell me, is there room for one more?” Zenkichi asked.

“So you want to join us again?” Makoto asked.

“You sure? Will your back last, old man?” Ryuji asked as well.

“Oh! You youngsters think to be big shots?! I’ll show you how Wolf is still in the game!” Zenkichi answered.

“Glad to have you back, then.” Akira answered, nodding.

THUD!

“AKANE!” Zenkichi shrieked once seen his daughter faint.

Sigh! “I guess there were too many surprises for that poor girl,” Haru commented, sighing in dismay.

“Akane, baby, wake-up!” Her father begged in tears, making the others sigh in dismay at his excessive reactions.

“Joker! Joker!” Sophia said from inside Akira’s phone.

“Yes?”

“Did you know that that girl has a folder in her Cloud Storage full of Fanfictions about you? She wrote at least 20 where she herself is paired with you, five where you are paired with Panther and over thirty where she turns Panther in this Cuckquean thing. What does that term mean?” Sophia asked aloud, for everybody to hear.

“...Oh, God…” Akira muttered in horror.

“AKANEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Zenkichi shrieked in horror loud enough the young girl did wake-up, and had A LOT of questions to answer.

And while this small moment of levity happened, at the same time the real Twilight went briefly overcome by the same fears she believed to have defeated, like her fear of failing and disappoint Celestia; and unknown to her, her Distorted Self too inside the Palace fell victim of those fears she believed to have defeated, the only difference was she did not cower, she turned furious and blamed it all on those same Intruders she had unleashed them on.

“FIND THEM! I WILL TEAR THEM OPEN! I WILL GOUGE OUT THEIR ORGANS! BRING THEM TO MEEEEEEEE!” Her screams echoed in every corner of the Palace, sending the Shadows there into a mad frenzy.

Omake – Who did it? Who killed Maruki? -

I did it.

What? You mad? I don’t care!

I did it because Maruki added NOTHING to the plot of the game besides a Villain with a lame excuse, lots of angst and WAY TOO MUCH bitching.

(P5 Strikers did it better with its Villains)

Even Obito Uchiha made a better case while doing the EXACT SAME THING!

And that is nothing to be proud of!

Eh! Whatever.

The only good thing about the DLC was Sumire…

Comments

[Jlargent]

“OH, HELL NO! You are not joining them! They have Zero Safety Protocols, Odd working hours, bad pay, ZERO health insurance and Skull’s and Inari’s jokes are atrocious! Honestly, the only good things about them are the Uniforms!...Okay, and Joker’s coffee and Curry Rice.” Zenkichi answered immediately.

He isn't wrong.

[Hexan Tronic]

............Well fuck. Yep, she's gone off the deep end. Execute Operation: You Know Nothing! This crazed bitch needs to have her mind reset! Anyway, glad to see how things are going for the team, and now they have their dedicated ALMIGHTY user back in the group. THAT will be useful, for sure.

[Windy0]

So, the next chapter will be Twilight finally being freed? It's about time. Please get it up soon.

[Draco fox]

Nice man glad I could help with this LOL Akane is so gonna ask 50 million questions heheh now it's the boss next

[PirateLord93]

“Did you know that that girl has a folder in her Cloud Storage full of Fanfictions about you? She wrote at least 20 where she herself is paired with you, five where you are paired with Panther and over thirty where she turns Panther in this Cuckquean thing. What does that term mean?” Sophia asked aloud, for everybody to hear.

That's another for Ann's kill list.

[Error_404_EntityNotFound]

Well, this chapter took quite the interesting turn. I look forward to the conclusion.

[Saiyan of the North Star]

KO awesome chapter, they found the treasure and now all that is left to do is send the calling card to get Twilight’s attention though the future battle against her maybe more for the Phantom Thieves, but they won’t back down!

[BlueClover407]

“A week before you arrived a car ran him over. It was not an accident since the culprit drove the car over and over again over his body, then the driver dismounted and pissed on the corpse, spat on it and then drove away.” Ryuji answered, gagging at the memory.

JESUS CHRIST.

[Error_404_EntityNotFound]

Just checking in on things; hope you're doing well.

[nightshroud96]

I still haven't read this yet sadly
But I wonder if Spike will gain his own Persona too?

[nightshroud96]

9409139
So Spike won't be joining the fights nor getting his own Persona.?

[ClearlyNotTremor230]

11624405
No. 😞 sorry

[nightshroud96]

11624621
But why.?
It doesn't seem fair that any of the Mane 6 got a Persona(according to the TV Tropes, Rarity) but Spike is sidelined.
Like wouldn't it make sense that Spike steps up since the Mane 6 were basically being antagonists?

[Inkpot1]

Hey you doing ok we are well passed the pandemic now and I'm just worried both for you and this beautiful work of art fanfiction you've made.

[ClearlyNotTremor230]

11633351
I am OK, don't worry XD

It's just a period of block, I am sorry about it

[Inkpot1]

11635488
Ohh good.
Well since you're going through writer's block I think there are only two major cures for that issue one is to reread your story from the beginning to the latest chapter and the only other one is to start talking with fans from both communities and see what you can squeeze out basically going lore hunting and seeing what you can find

[Nico kevin]

When comes the next chapter

[kamenmaster]

Geez, tell us how you really feel about Royal.

[Nico kevin]

Author did you forgot about this fanfic

[ClearlyNotTremor230]

11696592
Soon.

I restarted to write.

[Nico kevin]

11697385
Okay

[ClearlyNotTremor230]

HEYO!

NEW CHAPTER ALMOST READY!

Thank Drako, the ladies helped me a lot