"We don't have a choice, then."

Paladin walks closer to the crown.

"Heal up and re-energize, take the crown, and be ready for a brutal fight?"

"Yeah. I think we've got no other choice."

Joker pulls a energy bar from her pack, and eats. No sense in using the one she has if she'll just have to replace it.

Panther strips off the wrapper of her own bar and eats as well, watching the massive crown.

Paladin does the same, leaning close to Panther.

As do Mona and Skull.

When he finishes his bar, Skull looks up at his teammates. "We ready?"

"Yeah. I expect all hell's about to break loose, but let's grab it. I think three people can manage it - Mona obviously can't, so would the rest of you do the honors?"

Ann approaches the massive crown, and grabs hold.

Skull grabs the side as well.

So does Paladin. They're really doing this.

It's a struggle, fighting their way back down the castle with the cumbersome crown weighing down more than half the Thieves. Lone guards keep trying to run off and alert the king, and Mona and Joker have to chase them down and destroy them before they can.

So far, so good, though. She's burnt through another energy bar with how many times she's cut off a shadow's escape by calling Julie, but things seem to be just barely under control.

When they get down to the ground floor, there's a platoon of thirty guards patrolling in front of the vent room.

"Shit. Can we take that many?"

"Fuck, to have a target who doesn't think they deserve an infinite supply of mooks."

Joker frowns. "I don't think so. We tore through twenty pretty fast last time, but we had Paladin's awakening to shatter them. And proper weapons. Thirty, with no guns... probably not possible. Getting this thing through the vent is also going to be a huge pain. I think it'll just barely fit, but we have to get there to know."

Joker pulls out the castle map and searches for any way around the mass of guards.

It looks like if they double-back and pass through that side corridor, they'll make it to the main entrance hall, which looked deserted when they passed by earlier.

March it right out the front door? 

It's audacious, but if their exit's been rumbled it might be better to go that way. They could also be being herded. She wouldn't put it past Kamoshida to be that sick in the head, to give them a chance to steal it just so so he could snatch it back. 

It's still a better shot than a straight fight with thirty guards. 

"We're doubling back," Joker says. "Vent room's closed off, so we're going to try and take it out the front entrance. It's ugly, but that looked deserted earlier."

"I don't like it, but I don't like that swarm of guards, either. Let's go."

Skull shrugs as best he can while carrying his side of the crown. "I trust you."

Joker nods firmly, then moves, scouting ahead of the crown, doing her best to sniff out anything suspicious along their forward route. 

There are the usual pockets of guards along the way.

And then they get to the entrance hall. It's framed by an enormous statue of a woman: her legs bracket the exit, her torso is the ceiling, her breasts hang over the door they entered through, and her arms bracket that door.

As they make their way through the room, though, suddenly a volleyball spikes the crown out of the Thieves' hands.

When they look up, they see Shadow Kamoshida landing from jumping to spike the ball, and then he summons the crown to him with a sneer. It shrinks as it flies into his grasp.

Cognitive Ann struts up alongside him and rests her hand on his chest.

"I won't let anyone take this. This proves that I am king of this castle — it is the core of this world!"