My brains have emptied, so I went to the 2009-2023 generator and generated prompts until I hit something that inspired me, the something being inspiration for yet another Persona 5 fanfic. The prompt used: It was true her name was Alice but that was about all they had gotten right. by JenniferKArt (Year 2012).
Spoilers for Persona 5. This fanfic is brought to you by the boss battle featuring Alice in Persona 5 The Animation and intothefrisson’s Persona 5 fanfic Oh Alice, There’s no Reflection in the Looking Glass.
“Alice, huh? She’s adorable,” Panther noted at the end of the battle as Joker’s latest fusion cleared the battlefield with a Maeigaon.
Crow had his hand on his chin, appearing to be pondering the new addition to their leader’s Persona roster. However, Joker knew better than that; his rival was clearly making a threat assessment. Probably planning how to get a drop on that with Robin Hood’s Bless attacks while avoiding the heavy Curse attack he had just witnessed.
“Will she be useful, though?” Navi wondered as she looked at the numbers. “Alice’s level is much higher than anyone else’s but you’ve already got more focused coverage for both Almighty and Curse, plus instakills are kinda meh. You’ve said yourself that they’re not particularly useful. Our cognition might even screw the odds up even more against us in a rigged casino like this.”
Joker shrugged. “Yeah, I know she’s not the best, but I like her. So, she’ll do for now.” If he noticed how Crow’s eyes narrowed a little in barely masked suspicion, he did not show it.
Maybe he could mess with his rival a bit even though showing all his cards at this stage was a risk, as much as showing off was in character for Joker the Phantom Thief. He soon concluded that he might as well show off; if he was to die before he could/would retire from being a Phantom Thief, it was going to happen deep underground, not within the cognitive world. (Besides, he still had that kickass Izanagi-no-Okami in his Compendium in case things started to look extra bad in a way that could be solved with an Almighty attack; if he survived, he could grab him into his roster for the next infiltrations and catch Crow off-guard with a Myriad Truths if a Metaverse confrontation happened. Navi might even make some more “INO supremacy” memes after that. That would probably make Joker feel better. Maybe. It depended on how that entire confrontation would go.)
Anyway, when the next battle came and their opponents laughed at Alice, Joker grinned. “Die for me!”
Alice’s innocent smile turned wicked. As she pointed at the enemies, a group of teddy bears with bombs strapped to their backs rushed forward, exploded and cleared the opposite side in an instant. Joker twirled his dagger, faking bravado, and looked at his aghast teammates. If he paid extra attention to Crow, who seemed to be struggling with picking what emotion to show, he did not show it.
Once the rush faded away, Joker sort of regretted showing off; it was kind of a declaration of war… or it would have been, had Crow assumed he had any chance of surviving beyond their current mission or that he might already suspect the upcoming betrayal.
Oh well. He might as well bask in the admiration of his teammates while he still could… and hope for the best, come the end of this mission.
WindySilver 