Gravitational Force
Dark Lord of Creativity
The three Phantom Thieves Portia, Feste, and Horatio stared at the door leading to the Treasure they'd come to steal and reflected on what had brought them to this moment.
Christina Adams, Victor Dziedzic, and Travis Forrester hadn't known each other before, each of them finding their own way to a jail cell awaiting trial in front of Court of Common Pleas Judge Mitchell Giles. He was known to be "Tough on crime" by sentencing anyone who ended up in front of him to lengthy imprisonment in juvenile detention centers.
Their belongings had been taken from them, but one of the teens had managed to smuggle in their smart phone. As they hopelessly searched through their Apps in an attempt to ward off their rising panic, they discovered the Meta-Nav App. Clicking it pulled up the image of an eye. Hearing the guards returning, the teen hid their phone. The phone's voice recognition software still heard "Mitchell Giles" "court house" and "train."
The teenagers vanished, whisked into the Metaverse. There they found themselves inside a train station where a horrifying-looking train had just pulled in.
The train seemed to be built out of the parts of the courthouse and human body parts, with most of the cars being jail cells. Locked inside were children with coal instead of heads (the Judge's Cognitions of the defendants who appeared in front of him), their faces visible through the barred windows of the train. As the teens watched in horror the children were marched to the train's furnace by shovel-brandishing Shadows and shoveled in to fuel the train's engine. They were unable to help though as the path to the train was obstructed by a 10-ft high fence.
Milling about in the train station itself were the Judge's cognitions of the prison owners and others who profited from inmate labor, proclaiming themselves to be "Reformers of Corrupted Youth." The Judge's cognition of the prosecutor was the train's engineer, cackling to himself over all the fuel he provided for the train and how well he kept the engine running.
The "Reformers" each had a golden ticket that they explained would gain them entry into the luxury cars. The train would take everyone on it to "Justice," a land where the evil were punished and the good prospered. From what the "Reformers" were describing though it was obvious that those deemed "evil" were just those caught in circumstances outside their control while the "good" were those with the money to exploit the "evil." The Judge's visualization of the railway to Justice was as twisted and warped as his heart.
The teens tried to fight their way through the gate, but were caught by the Shadow attendants (in the form of ticket-takers) who demanded that they produce their tickets to be stamped. Since they had no tickets they were dragged to the train's Conductor, only to find themselves in front of a distorted version of Mitchell Giles in a golden conductor's uniform.
The Judge's Shadow laughed in their faces, gloating that it didn't matter whether they were innocent or guilty or if they deserved imprisonment. The fact that they were in front of him meant they were worthless except as fuel to propel society's worthy to more glorious destinations. He gleefully explained that he got a kickback for every child he sent to a detention facility and was using the money to fuel his luxurious lifestyle.
As the teens tried to figure out what to do, a small figure burst into the room. She resembled a anthropomorphic crow and after firing a slingshot into one of the Shadow attendants, smashing the head of the other with a cartoonishly large mallet.
As the teens gaped, their animal savior called out to them.
"Come on, are you going to let this stand?!"
Each of the teens clutched their face as a personal voice echoed in their head:
Christina:
A bandana forms around Christina's face as she hears a feminine voice in her ear:
"You wear the garb of rebellion but yout do not commit. why do you hold me back? ... That's it cast the fear away, feel the true power you hold inside... Qui vivra verra ("she who lives, shall see"), cherie! Let my blade loose on them and let me sing once more!"
Victor:
A gold visor forms over Victor's face.
"So another young man seeks to become a torchbearer? Very well, I am thou, and thou art I. Yours is a heart clouded by uncertainty, but yet a light shines at its depths. Will you kindle it, or will you allow it to fall silent? You know what to do, don't you? Remove the mask, and together, let us illuminate this world gone dark."
Victor then pulls the mask off and is enveloped in a pillar of light, but after several seconds he slices through the pillar with his sword, revealing him now decked out in his armor suit. Victor brings his sword to his right side before closing his eyes and saying, "I sense it... you are a tortured soul whose heart has become twisted. The darkness that infests your heart..."
Victor then brings his sword up in front, clutching it with both hands. His eyes fly open, and he shouts, "...I shall rend it asunder!"
Travis:
"Ah, you finally came to your senses my boy."
Travis' eyes shot open which now glowed a golden hue, as his head like it was being ripped asunder. Travis grabbed either sides of his head and clenched his jaw tight as if trying to contain all of this pain within in himself as he let out a whimper in pain. But the pain only got worse as he fell to the ground doubling over from the pain and could only let out weak whimpers as the voice kept talking with an ever intense manner.
"Travis, my boy. You are better than this. You let everybody walk all over you and boss you around out of some misguided attempt to be 'useful' but you seemingly forgot your worth. Have you?"
"N...no..."
"THEN LETS PROVE IT MY BOY! USE THE FLAMES OF REBELLION AND BECOME THE REAL SON OF A BITCH YOU ARE TO THESE FINE HAIRED SON OF BITCHES!"
Travis screamed out in pain which melted away mere moments as there was a brown and black domino mask. His mask. Travis stood back up with confidence and power and a slight pant. He regained control of himself once again. "Got it, come, Black Bart!"
In a monumental flurry of fury and screaming of pain Travis ripped off of his domino mask. With blood dripping down his face as he is surrounded in flames which soon dissipates as a giant reptilian figure emerges from the flames as well as a new get up for the young smirking Travis.
"I've labored hard and long for bread. For honor and riches. But on my corns you tread too long. You fine haired son of a bitch will face true justice!"
As the teens ripped off their masks, costumes appeared on them and strange beings came into being behind them. The masked crow did the same, summoning a Persona resembling a rainbow hurricane holding a massive hammer she called "Gideon." Seeing that he was outnumbered and overpowered, Judge Giles's Shadow used an emergency lever to eject them from the train and sent the train moving in reverse away from the station. This left the three teens and crow stuck on the train tracks as the "Arrival Time" sign on the train station reset one week.
Introducing herself as Eliza, the crow explained the nature of the Meta-verse as Humanity's collective unconscious, how it worked, and what they could do (Shadows, Personas, Palaces, stealing hearts etc.) to the teens. Hardened by their determination to right the wrongs they had experienced and that were spread throughout society, they banded together as the Phantom Thieves.
Appearing back in their jail cell, the teens learned that their cases had been postponed a week due to the judge being sick and nobody being able to fill in. Using that time to infiltrate the Judge's Palace (managing to forge a ticket into the luxury cards by stealing a letter from the local prison to the Judge and then bringing it into the Metaverse) and find his Treasure (having defeated the Engineer, battled through the ticket takers, and broken into the Engine), the Phantom Thieves only had one thing left to do: send a Calling Card and steal the Judge's Treasure.
The local paper reported the letter that had been mailed to the judge and attached to every surface near the courthouse not watched by security cameras.
Written on red and black paper with cut out letters from magazines, the letter read:
"Two-faced Sinner of Avarice Mitchell, your corruption ends here. You sell kids like property and rob them of their future with no regard for them as people. You take advantage of others under the guise of justice. We will show you that judgment is not truly blind. We, the Phantom Thieves will steal your heart and make you confess your crimes with your own mouth."
While it didn't get much attention outside the city, it did get enough attention to be a topic on social media right when the Phantom Thieves broke in to the Palace to break out with the Treasure.
When they arrived at the station the train was already leaving it. Thinking quickly the Thieves managed to reroute the train onto an unfinished track and off a cliff. From their they climbed down through the cars.
Making their way to the Treasure in the engine car (an opulent space easily the size of a courtroom with tacky expensive furnishings and the Judge's seat on top of the massive furnace), the Phantom Thieves went to seize the Treasure (a massive, solid gold conductor's cap) when it was snatched out of their hands by Judge Giles's Shadow.
"You little shits don't get it, do you? You're society's waste, only good to fuel the truly deserving like me along the fast track to riches! THAT is Justice! Accept your fate and feed the furnace! I DECIDE ALL THE DESTINATIONS! GET OFF MY TRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The Judge slams his fist down on a button on his podium, and the Phantom Thieves are sent flying out of the compartment yet again. Feeling confident they can just go back down again, the Thieves are shocked as a massive metal hand slams down on the edge of the cliff and starts dragging the rest of it up. The train has twisted itself into a new monstrous shape that towers over them with murderous intent.
MITCHELL MOLOCH EXPRESS NON-STOP PUNISHMENT MECHA Of ULTIMATE JUDGEMENT!!!
The furnace pumps steam through pistons with a sound like a mechanical heart in the middle of the monster's chest. Train cars make up the limbs with shadows oozing to form hands (each holding a massive gavel) and black sludge flowing from the 'feet'. Where the head would be is the engine car, with the Judge's Shadow inside piloting the mecha. At its feet the coal-children are still being pushed forward by the Shadow ticket takers in a coal-cart.
The Judge's voice booms out over the train mecha's speakers: "FEAR THE WRATH OF THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! "
(ARE YOU READY?!)
Eliza calls out to the other Phantom Thieves: "We've got to take that thing down. The furnace looks like the weak point, but we've got to take out his fuel first and it's covered by the other limbs. Take out the coal carts, cripple the limbs, and then shut down that furnace! Let's go! Blow them away Gideon!"
Eliza's Persona appears and blasts the coal cart with a mini tornado, mildly damaging it.
Christina Adams, Victor Dziedzic, and Travis Forrester hadn't known each other before, each of them finding their own way to a jail cell awaiting trial in front of Court of Common Pleas Judge Mitchell Giles. He was known to be "Tough on crime" by sentencing anyone who ended up in front of him to lengthy imprisonment in juvenile detention centers.
Their belongings had been taken from them, but one of the teens had managed to smuggle in their smart phone. As they hopelessly searched through their Apps in an attempt to ward off their rising panic, they discovered the Meta-Nav App. Clicking it pulled up the image of an eye. Hearing the guards returning, the teen hid their phone. The phone's voice recognition software still heard "Mitchell Giles" "court house" and "train."
The teenagers vanished, whisked into the Metaverse. There they found themselves inside a train station where a horrifying-looking train had just pulled in.
The train seemed to be built out of the parts of the courthouse and human body parts, with most of the cars being jail cells. Locked inside were children with coal instead of heads (the Judge's Cognitions of the defendants who appeared in front of him), their faces visible through the barred windows of the train. As the teens watched in horror the children were marched to the train's furnace by shovel-brandishing Shadows and shoveled in to fuel the train's engine. They were unable to help though as the path to the train was obstructed by a 10-ft high fence.
Milling about in the train station itself were the Judge's cognitions of the prison owners and others who profited from inmate labor, proclaiming themselves to be "Reformers of Corrupted Youth." The Judge's cognition of the prosecutor was the train's engineer, cackling to himself over all the fuel he provided for the train and how well he kept the engine running.
The "Reformers" each had a golden ticket that they explained would gain them entry into the luxury cars. The train would take everyone on it to "Justice," a land where the evil were punished and the good prospered. From what the "Reformers" were describing though it was obvious that those deemed "evil" were just those caught in circumstances outside their control while the "good" were those with the money to exploit the "evil." The Judge's visualization of the railway to Justice was as twisted and warped as his heart.
The teens tried to fight their way through the gate, but were caught by the Shadow attendants (in the form of ticket-takers) who demanded that they produce their tickets to be stamped. Since they had no tickets they were dragged to the train's Conductor, only to find themselves in front of a distorted version of Mitchell Giles in a golden conductor's uniform.
The Judge's Shadow laughed in their faces, gloating that it didn't matter whether they were innocent or guilty or if they deserved imprisonment. The fact that they were in front of him meant they were worthless except as fuel to propel society's worthy to more glorious destinations. He gleefully explained that he got a kickback for every child he sent to a detention facility and was using the money to fuel his luxurious lifestyle.
As the teens tried to figure out what to do, a small figure burst into the room. She resembled a anthropomorphic crow and after firing a slingshot into one of the Shadow attendants, smashing the head of the other with a cartoonishly large mallet.
As the teens gaped, their animal savior called out to them.
"Come on, are you going to let this stand?!"
Each of the teens clutched their face as a personal voice echoed in their head:
Christina:
A bandana forms around Christina's face as she hears a feminine voice in her ear:
"You wear the garb of rebellion but yout do not commit. why do you hold me back? ... That's it cast the fear away, feel the true power you hold inside... Qui vivra verra ("she who lives, shall see"), cherie! Let my blade loose on them and let me sing once more!"
Victor:
A gold visor forms over Victor's face.
"So another young man seeks to become a torchbearer? Very well, I am thou, and thou art I. Yours is a heart clouded by uncertainty, but yet a light shines at its depths. Will you kindle it, or will you allow it to fall silent? You know what to do, don't you? Remove the mask, and together, let us illuminate this world gone dark."
Victor then pulls the mask off and is enveloped in a pillar of light, but after several seconds he slices through the pillar with his sword, revealing him now decked out in his armor suit. Victor brings his sword to his right side before closing his eyes and saying, "I sense it... you are a tortured soul whose heart has become twisted. The darkness that infests your heart..."
Victor then brings his sword up in front, clutching it with both hands. His eyes fly open, and he shouts, "...I shall rend it asunder!"
Travis:
"Ah, you finally came to your senses my boy."
Travis' eyes shot open which now glowed a golden hue, as his head like it was being ripped asunder. Travis grabbed either sides of his head and clenched his jaw tight as if trying to contain all of this pain within in himself as he let out a whimper in pain. But the pain only got worse as he fell to the ground doubling over from the pain and could only let out weak whimpers as the voice kept talking with an ever intense manner.
"Travis, my boy. You are better than this. You let everybody walk all over you and boss you around out of some misguided attempt to be 'useful' but you seemingly forgot your worth. Have you?"
"N...no..."
"THEN LETS PROVE IT MY BOY! USE THE FLAMES OF REBELLION AND BECOME THE REAL SON OF A BITCH YOU ARE TO THESE FINE HAIRED SON OF BITCHES!"
Travis screamed out in pain which melted away mere moments as there was a brown and black domino mask. His mask. Travis stood back up with confidence and power and a slight pant. He regained control of himself once again. "Got it, come, Black Bart!"
In a monumental flurry of fury and screaming of pain Travis ripped off of his domino mask. With blood dripping down his face as he is surrounded in flames which soon dissipates as a giant reptilian figure emerges from the flames as well as a new get up for the young smirking Travis.
"I've labored hard and long for bread. For honor and riches. But on my corns you tread too long. You fine haired son of a bitch will face true justice!"
As the teens ripped off their masks, costumes appeared on them and strange beings came into being behind them. The masked crow did the same, summoning a Persona resembling a rainbow hurricane holding a massive hammer she called "Gideon." Seeing that he was outnumbered and overpowered, Judge Giles's Shadow used an emergency lever to eject them from the train and sent the train moving in reverse away from the station. This left the three teens and crow stuck on the train tracks as the "Arrival Time" sign on the train station reset one week.
Introducing herself as Eliza, the crow explained the nature of the Meta-verse as Humanity's collective unconscious, how it worked, and what they could do (Shadows, Personas, Palaces, stealing hearts etc.) to the teens. Hardened by their determination to right the wrongs they had experienced and that were spread throughout society, they banded together as the Phantom Thieves.
Appearing back in their jail cell, the teens learned that their cases had been postponed a week due to the judge being sick and nobody being able to fill in. Using that time to infiltrate the Judge's Palace (managing to forge a ticket into the luxury cards by stealing a letter from the local prison to the Judge and then bringing it into the Metaverse) and find his Treasure (having defeated the Engineer, battled through the ticket takers, and broken into the Engine), the Phantom Thieves only had one thing left to do: send a Calling Card and steal the Judge's Treasure.
The local paper reported the letter that had been mailed to the judge and attached to every surface near the courthouse not watched by security cameras.
Written on red and black paper with cut out letters from magazines, the letter read:
"Two-faced Sinner of Avarice Mitchell, your corruption ends here. You sell kids like property and rob them of their future with no regard for them as people. You take advantage of others under the guise of justice. We will show you that judgment is not truly blind. We, the Phantom Thieves will steal your heart and make you confess your crimes with your own mouth."
While it didn't get much attention outside the city, it did get enough attention to be a topic on social media right when the Phantom Thieves broke in to the Palace to break out with the Treasure.
When they arrived at the station the train was already leaving it. Thinking quickly the Thieves managed to reroute the train onto an unfinished track and off a cliff. From their they climbed down through the cars.
Making their way to the Treasure in the engine car (an opulent space easily the size of a courtroom with tacky expensive furnishings and the Judge's seat on top of the massive furnace), the Phantom Thieves went to seize the Treasure (a massive, solid gold conductor's cap) when it was snatched out of their hands by Judge Giles's Shadow.
"You little shits don't get it, do you? You're society's waste, only good to fuel the truly deserving like me along the fast track to riches! THAT is Justice! Accept your fate and feed the furnace! I DECIDE ALL THE DESTINATIONS! GET OFF MY TRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The Judge slams his fist down on a button on his podium, and the Phantom Thieves are sent flying out of the compartment yet again. Feeling confident they can just go back down again, the Thieves are shocked as a massive metal hand slams down on the edge of the cliff and starts dragging the rest of it up. The train has twisted itself into a new monstrous shape that towers over them with murderous intent.
MITCHELL MOLOCH EXPRESS NON-STOP PUNISHMENT MECHA Of ULTIMATE JUDGEMENT!!!
The furnace pumps steam through pistons with a sound like a mechanical heart in the middle of the monster's chest. Train cars make up the limbs with shadows oozing to form hands (each holding a massive gavel) and black sludge flowing from the 'feet'. Where the head would be is the engine car, with the Judge's Shadow inside piloting the mecha. At its feet the coal-children are still being pushed forward by the Shadow ticket takers in a coal-cart.
The Judge's voice booms out over the train mecha's speakers: "FEAR THE WRATH OF THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! "
(ARE YOU READY?!)
Eliza calls out to the other Phantom Thieves: "We've got to take that thing down. The furnace looks like the weak point, but we've got to take out his fuel first and it's covered by the other limbs. Take out the coal carts, cripple the limbs, and then shut down that furnace! Let's go! Blow them away Gideon!"
Eliza's Persona appears and blasts the coal cart with a mini tornado, mildly damaging it.
