Chapter Text
Beast and Circuit. An odd pair wouldn't you think? Well, the game has selected the former as a player, his contract has been signed, and he has already met the master of the Velvet Room, well, enough with the exposition, let us begin our story.
Beast hated how he entered the Velvet Room. He loved the benefits it gave him for his bounties, don't get him wrong, but, if he could enter in any other way, he'd take it. Some random nights he'd wake up in the Velvet Room, sounds simple enough right?
Well, it would be perfect.
If he didn't wake up headfirst in the toilet of his cell.
"HRMPFH! BLRPPH!! GAH!!!" Was usually the sequence of sounds he made as he pulled his drenched head out of the toilet. As he breathed heavily, he heard his warden, "My master wishes to speak with you, inmate." After shaking off the water from his hair, Beast looked to the loli little girl he called a prison warden. "Hey, Justine, nice to see you again." "Thank you for greeting me, but as I said, my master wishes to speak with you." The bounty hunter looked to the center of the Velvet Room to see Justine's master, Igor. He always sat with a commanding presence, "Hello again Bridge, it seems you've started to stagnate in your hunts." Igor spoke, Beast always felt uncomfortable a slight bit whenever he did. Igor's voice was deep and gravelly, almost as if it shouldn't be his, but it was, so he got used to it, "Well, I've been doing the same thing for what, two, three years, not much I can do." "Please await further explanation by my master." Justine calmly asked him. "It's to my understanding that you've recently found a hotspot of distortion, correct?" Igor questioned Beast. He wasn't wrong, recently Beast had found a way to enter a place with a ruler, like a mini or personal Mementos. "Yes, that was you I'm guessing. I don't know what I did exactly, I was near that school after bumping into one of its teachers, he was a real prick too." "Those are what we call a palace," Igor told Beast. "These palaces will further aid your rehabilitation, in the circumstance that you find another alike it, all you need to do is have three keywords, the name of the palace ruler, what the palace is, and what they see as the palace," Justine explained how to enter palaces to the boy. "So that's why, I guess I did explain to Circuit what happened while saying, 'That bastard Suguru Kamoshida, or whatever the fuck', 'He 'prolly thinks he rules a castle', and then I said that 'Shujin Academy' might have some good bounty." Igor chuckled, "You never fail to seize an opportunity to collect money Bridge, but you always neglect to make bonds to aid your rehabilitation apart from your sibling." Beast looked down. He knew Igor was right, that he only cared if he and his brother survived, they were a two-person pack, they didn't need anyone else, "Why do you always call me 'Bridge', it never made sense to me." Justine knew Beast too well, after being his warden for almost three years, she knew he didn't like to let anyone near him or his brother, "Hm, that nickname is what you're questioning, well all I can tell you is, you are the bridge between two worlds, two ideals, you are meant to connect people in your own way." Igor answered the bounty hunter. Beast had a stoic look on his face, he can never figure out Igor's riddles, "The rise of the sun is almost at hand dear bounty hunter, soon you shall meet the third player in this game, the trickster." Beast looked at Igor, "Wha- Trickster? What do you mean 'third'!? Are you talking about me and Circuit!?" Igor chuckled, "After observing your rehabilitation for this long, I've noticed it's hit a stalemate, you must use the gifts I've given to you now to further push your rehabilitation, the executions, your heightened sense of smell and hearing by your Persona, and the ability to use your cognitive powers in the real world as well, on top of your wild card, this is all I can do for you." The bell which signaled Beast's return to the real world went off, "Our time is up Beast, return to the minimal sleep you'll gain." Justine told Beast, he had more questions, but he usually wouldn't get them from these two. Beast laid down on the bed and closed his eyes.
Beast felt something licking his face when he woke up, he opened his eyes to see Fenrir but sized down to the height of an actual wolf, "Another visit to Igor my puppy?" The fifteen-year-old nodded, "Where's Circuit?" Fenrir answered Beast's question by pointing his snout towards the sleeping figure of his brother being watched over by Robitron, who asked, "Do you require me to awaken him Beast?" Beast got up and stretched, "If you could." Robitron nodded, he had his hand retreat into his arm, which reemerged as a siren, "ROBITRON NO!!!" Fenrir called out to his fellow Persona, but it was too late. The sound of a siren played as Circuit jolted awake, as soon as he covered his ears Robitron stopped the sound. After a minute of silence, Beast spoke, "Well, thank you for waking up and possibly destroying the eardrums of my brother and navigator Robitron. Anyways, let's get some food and stock up for some bounties." Circuit nodded as he rubbed his ears, the nineteen-year-old knew he'd have to cast a Dia on himself once he was in the Metaverse, or when he put his mask on, Beast and Circuit quickly loaded up and stepped out of their little shack into the sunlight of Japan, Fenrir and Robitron followed behind, Beast was so thankful that they could only be seen by him and his brother. They quickly hid in an ally near a shop, "We're kinda low on supplies, and my recent bounties haven't had a lot of gain, so here's what we're gonna do bro, we are going in that castle again, y'know why, it's a castle so..." Beast stretched out the 'so' so that his brother can finish his sentence, "So there will be some good stuff in there?" "Exactly Circuit! But that being said, since we're low on yen, we're gonna have to shoplift." Circuit looked down, he did understand their situation, but he always wanted to do what's right, "But-" "I know you want to follow the law bro, and don't worry, once we have enough yen, we'll pay them back, with our cloak up of course." Beast's words put a smile on Circuit's face. Beast continued, "Alright so here's the plan, I'm going to go in, with my mask up, grab some stuff quickly, and run out! So remember what we always do before a mission?" Circuit thought for a second, "Mask up?" "Mask up." What Beast and Circuit were referring to was the ability that Igor gave him, which let him have his Metaverse outfit in reality, as well as let him use Fenrir, his hook and chain, and his sniper rifle if he ever needed to. What Igor also mentioned, was that he could teach that ability to others, it took a while, but Circuit eventually caught on to it. Beast and Circuit snapped their fingers and blue flames shortly covered their bodies while illuminating the alleyway briefly, leaving their Metaverse outfits on them. Fenrir and Robitron disappeared into their master's masks, leaving them to only be able to communicate with sound. Both brothers tapped their wrist, which caused a blue holographic line to scan them up and down, resulting in them being completely invisible. Thanks to a scanning feature the cloak had, both brothers could see each other, in fact, THROUGH each other, like a pair of wraiths, they truly lived up to their namesake, Circuit saw Beast smirk through the jaws of his mask, "Let's do this."
Things spiraled out of control pretty fast. Beast had gone into the store and picked up some stuff, and with his reputation of 'the Wraith Hunter', people saw the floating objects and started causing a ruckus and recording, which brought the attention of the cashier who tried to tackle Beast, who was quickly able to dodge, so he started running out of the store, but what he hadn't realized is that it had started raining, 'ohfuk' Beast knew he wouldn't have long before his cloak would start to malfunction, same for Circuit who was still hiding in the alleyway, it really sucked that the cloaking tech they had worked on common cognition of machines, just a little bit of water and it's out of commission. Without much of a choice, as he didn't want pictures of himself in his Metaverse outfit on the internet so that it would be easier for Black Mask to find him and his brother, Beast dropped his mask at the risk of his face being seen, which also came the fact, that's he's supposed to be dead, and if he got caught, that would be an issue. "Hey, that wasn't really the Wraith right, I thought he was some myth!" Beast heard from behind him a gruff voice of one of the cashiers. He quickly looked behind him to see them run in the other direction, he smirked in victory.
Too bad that was short-lived.
Beast ran into someone who said, "Hey, what the hell man!? Watch where you're goin'!" As Beast and this, 'Vulgar Boy', as Beast would describe him, got up from their tumble, he caught the scent of his Arcana, as well as the guy's next to him, 'Hm, a common Chariot, makes sense that he acts like that. And his is...' Beast looked at the guy with black frizzy hair and glasses, Beast felt like he was looking into a mirror since he had a mop for hair and glasses as well. But what really piqued his curiosity, was the scent of the guy, 'That scent, that Arcana... I've only ever smelled it once before... On me...
He's a Fool.'
Fenrir spoke to his master, "We have no time to dwell on the matter my puppy, you need to return to your brother and the robot quickly, only Odin may know who will find him in that alley." Beast quickly shook himself out of it and spoke to the two teenagers while he picked up his 'belongings', "Sorry for that, completely my fault, but I can't stick around, I gotta go find my brother, see you around Blondie n' Frizz." Beast ran off quickly without waiting for a response, "Huh, well that guy was weird." Ren said to himself, the blonde that he just met said something as well, "Eh, people in this city are like that, anyway, back to Kamoshida-"
Beast quickly found Circuit hiding from the rain with a cover he had made from his Metaverse outfit. Beast was kinda jealous that Circuit's suit had nanotechnology, he could make literally anything from it, "Hey bro." Circuit quickly greeted his younger brother before standing up, "Hey, let's head into that castle, must have some good loot in there, let's get hunting."