This choice: Meanwhile, as Elizabeth goes after Joker to force Lavenza into punishing Theo... • Go Back... (Author's Note: So, I've been wanting to work this scenario with Joker into the interactive ever since the DLC announcement came out, and this seems like the best opportunity to do it. I apologize for the even more self-indulgent crossover than usual, and promise to keep it confined to this chapter.)
Having left Theodore in Lavenza's room, Elizabeth sat at her favorite table, consulting her tarot cards in an effort to find the key to making sure her youngest sister gave Theo the punishment he so richly deserved.
"Now then," Elizabeth said in a sing-songy voice as she flipped the first card, revealing the Fool. "Where oh where can I find this 'Joker' dear Lavenza cares for so much..."
She flipped the second card and frowned in confusion. This was not a typical part of the Tarot Deck. Rather than one of the Arcana or a number of cups, swords, coins, or wands, it was a flaming circle with two perpendicular lines crossed through it.
After a long moment, the strange card's meaning became clear, and Elizabeth laughed out loud.
"Oh my! This Joker is certainly having an... eventful... life compared to his fellow Wild Cards. This should be quite an entertaining expulsion... excursion? One of those."
As she retired her cards to her compendium and stood up, a brief moment of doubt flickered through her. If her own Wild Card were still alive in the conventional sense, and someone had pulled what she was about to do on him in order to coerce her, she would likely Megadolaon the perpetrator until they stopped moving forever, then cast Megadolaon another twelve or thirteen times just for good measure.
She dismissed the thought shortly after. Surely Lavenza wouldn't dare raise a hand or spell against one of her older sisters. This would go exactly as Elizabeth planned.
She summoned a door out of the Velvet Room to near the location of her soon-to-be hostage and stepped through with no hesitation.
---
Joker hid under the rocky terrain of the ruined temple that was his battleground. He winced in pain as he crouched in the shadows, barely evading the notice of his enemies as they scanned the area. In spite of how non-threatening they were in appearance and how nonsensical most of their attacks were, the duo had done a number on Joker, and he was probably only one solid hit away from defeat.
The fact that he was having severe communication issues with his teammate didn't help.
"Okay," Joker said to the creature next to him. "For as well as they move in the air and as hard as they hit, they're both pretty light. I'm going to summon Arsene and put pressure on them. You sneak behind them and do that... thing where you fall asleep and they explode somehow."
The creature tilted its head. More accurately, it tilted its entire body.
"Jiggly?"
Joker's eye twitched beneath his mask. "Do you understand anything I'm saying?"
"Jigglypuff!"
Joker sighed, then nodded resolutely. "I'm going to take that as a 'yes.' Okay, let's win one for the Red Team! On three! One... two..."
As Joker and his round companion leapt from their hiding place, they were blinded by a sudden flash of light. Joker blinked as his vision returned, the growled in frustration as he saw that his surroundings had drastically increased in size. Again.
"How do they keep getting that stupid lightning bolt?!"
"Hat-CHA!"
That battle cry was the only warning Joker got before a giant pink meteor slammed into him, sending him flying in a flurry of hearts and vaguely peach-scented pain as he bounced off the walls and ceiling of the cave he was just hiding in before collapsing on the ground in a heap of pain.
"That is the second or third worst thing that has ever happened to me..." Joker groaned. He staggered to his feet as his assailant, a giant princess with long blonde hair and a fluffy pink dress, skipped towards him with an innocent yet menacing smile. She held a large turnip in her hands. Joker had no desire to find out what she was planning to do with it.
"Jigglypuff! Now!" Joker cried. "Do the thing!"
"JIGGLY!"
After a lengthy wind-up, Jigglypuff rolled towards the comparatively giant princess at death-defying speed, only to miss as Peach effortlessly dodged to the side. Joker watched helplessly as his teammate, unable to stop her own momentum, sailed harmlessly off a nearby cliff.
"Player Three Defeated!" a voice that sounded eerily like Joker's own echoed through the battleground.
"Jigglypuff, that wasn't the thing!" Joker cried in anguish. He paled as a shadow overcame him. He looked up to see his other opponent: yet another princess, this one with brown hair and a yellow dress with a daisy-shaped emblem. She grinned down at Joker, a golf club in her hands at the ready.
"I hate you both," Joker spat venomously.
"YEAH!" Daisy cheered in a voice capable of breaking glass as she smacked Joker head-on with the golf club, launching him away from the battleground.
"GAME!" The announcer shouted.
"Oh!" Peach clapped her hands excitedly. "Did we win?"
---
Joker regained consciousness in the lobby he always found himself in between fights in this new hellish tournament he'd found himself in. The fact that he was still tiny was concerning, but he'd assumed the lightning just hadn't worn off yet.
"Well..." he grunted. "That was completely humiliating."
A chuckle echoed from above as a large blue boot slammed down near him. Akira craned his neck up to see a giant woman with a white bobcut, yellow eyes, and a uniform that reminded him vaguely of Lavenza, Caroline, and Justine.
"Oh, don't worry, little Wild Card," the giantess giggled ominously as she reached for him with a gloved hand. "It's about to get much, much worse..."
---
"I can't believe she shrank you, dear brother!" Lavenza said in concern as she poured tea into a tiny thimble she'd provided for Theodore to drink from.
"She keeps insisting I stole her flan!" Theodore whined. "I don't even LIKE flan! She KNOWS I don't like flan! She's just being difficult at this point!"
"I'm so sorry I can't reverse it myself," Lavenza said sadly. "Once Margaret returns from visiting her wild card, we must make sure she punishes Elizabeth properly for this."
"I appreciate it, sister," Theodore sighed. "Thank you."
"Now this is exactly what I was afraid of," Elizabeth said, clucking her tongue in disappointment as she suddenly appeared in the room.
"Elizabeth!" Lavenza snapped. "You grow poor Theo back right now!"
"Not until he's been properly punished," Elizabeth retorted firmly. "Which I expect you to do, sister."
"I'm not bullying him for you," Lavenza said, turning her nose up in the air.
"Yes you are," Elizabeth insisted. "There are several cruel and humiliating things I wish you to subject him to. And if you don't, I will have to assume you don't understand- you are quite young, after all- and will need to demonstrate..."
Elizabeth pulled a shrunken, trenchcoated figure in a mask out of her pocket and held him up between her thumb and forefinger.
"...using him!"
"Trickster!" Lavenza gasped in shock.
"Hey, Lavenza," Joker waved, not sure of what he'd just become involved in, but more annoyed than scared at the moment.
"Well, Lavenza?" Elizabeth taunted. "What's it to be? Do I have your coronation?"
"Cooperation," Joker corrected.
"Hostages do not speak, Joker-kun."
Lavenza glared at Elizabeth for a long moment.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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