Phantom Thief dance party

Futaba crouched by the entrance of the Leblanc cafe, as she usually did when she was waiting for someone. She was currently wearing a green tank top, which made her black sports bra easily visible, a pair of shorts, showing off her legs and a pair of sandals adorned her otherwise bare feet. She cleaned her glasses again for the dozenth time in the past hour. She felt a vague tension in the muscles of her legs and butt, like she could spring into action at any second at the slightest provocation. The slightest provocation being the music of that gold boombox.

Futaba sighed and tried to go through a mental checklist of symptoms of withdrawal to try and say for certain if she was addicted to the boombox’s music. However, her train of thought left the station without her; Futaba was on guard against her brain gremlin sabotaging her mental efforts. The gremlin was quiet, however, not even letting out a mischievous giggle. The fact that it wasn’t doing anything added to Futaba’s anxiousness and impatience. She really wanted Haru, Makoto and Ann to be there now so she could really get started.

Futaba grabbed the stem of the lollipop she was sucking on and yanked it out of her mouth with an audible pop. She had been sucking on the sweet because she wanted to stimulate her brain with some sugar, or at least that was the story she was sticking to. It had nothing at all to do with the need she felt to have something in her mouth to suck on, or so she told herself. She looked at the sweet, frowning at how it was nearly gone. She finished it off in a single bite and tossed the remaining stem into a nearby trash can with a flick of her wrist, giving a fist pump in celebration when it easily went into the can. Futaba then settled back down, wondering again how long it would be before the other girls got there.

Futaba let out a discreet sigh of relief when she spotted Ann, Haru and Makoto turning the corner into the alley where the café was. Futaba bounced to her feet, her leg muscles letting go of a tiny fraction of their tension. Futaba gave them a little wave.

“Hey, gang! I talked to Soujiro, so we’ve got the place to ourselves for a bit.”

“Hello, Futaba-chan, I’m glad to see you’re doing well.” Haru’s hair was just as fluffy looking as ever. She wore a pink, sleeveless sweater dress, with black leggings and pink shoes.

"You didn't make it sound like it was a problem, but is it really safe to leave something like that in a residential area?" Makoto asked in concern. Makoto wore a white, thigh length dress with shin length black pants and black shoes.

"Well, you said it's an object, right?" Ann said nonchalantly. "It's not like infiltrating a palace or a prison." Ann wore a simple red t-shirt, skirt and shoes.

"You really need to see it work to understand. Come on in and we'll get this party started." Futaba opened the café door.

"A pity that Sakura-san isn't here. " Haru sighed. "I would have loved to get his thoughts on my latest coffee brew."

"I may not be an expert myself, but I've picked up a few things. But maybe it wasn't pops you wanted to consult, but Ren?" Futaba gave a mischievous grin.

Makoto sighed in exasperation as Haru tried to stammer out an explanation. She placed a hand on Futaba's back and gently pushed the girl inside the cafe.

The quartet went to the second floor, a former storage room used as a bedroom for Ren during his stay, as well as a sort of base of operations for the Phantom Thieves. Futaba had moved some things around and had ultimately set the boombox and her laptop on a table next to the couch there.

"Wow, that's... gold." Ann concluded looking at the boombox.

"It certainly looks like something we would have found in the Metaverse." Makoto gave the boombox an analytical look.

"Okay, okay, no touchy!" Futaba grumped, shooing Ann away.

Haru sat on the couch next to Futaba while Ann and Makoto pulled up chairs to sit in front of them.

"If it was just an ordinary machine, I'm sure you would have just sold it like we usually did, so there must be something weird about it. Where did you get it?" Makoto asked.

"I'm not actually the one who found it. Teach... uh... Kawakami-sensei found it in a classroom. The music... uh..." Futaba started to struggle with her explanation, just voicing the concept out loud made it seem ridiculous. "It makes you dance." She concluded a bit lamely.

"Dance?" Ann asked incredulously.

"Yeah, I know, it sounds ridiculous. You really need to experience it for yourself. And then there's this." Futaba said, suddenly standing up.

Futaba turned around and pulled her shorts down, baring her butt to the girls. Futaba's behind jiggled slightly, a bubble butt that looked a bit out of place on her otherwise slender body.

"Look! Look at all this junk!" Futaba exclaimed indignantly, slapping her ass for emphasis. "And it's in my trunk!"

"My... that is... ummm." Haru started, she had a hand to her mouth, uncertain as to how to react. "Quite a bold pair of underwear."

Futaba, confused, felt the waistband and the fabric that should have been covering her butt. She blushed bright red when she realized her panties more resembled a thong with the fabric wedged between her cheeks.

"See! See!" Futaba exclaimed. "It was a normal pair when I put it on!"

"Uh... Futaba, your eating habits aren't the best, y'know. You can't blame it on weird stuff." Ann said in exasperation.

<Oh no you di'int! Shots fired! Prepare a counter-attack!> The gremlin cackled in Futaba's mind. It had been quiet all this time, but apparently didn't like Ann talking that way to Futaba. Futaba didn't like it either.

"I know it, unf, would be hard for you, unf, to notice if your ass suddenly, unf, ballooned out, little miss I-can-eat-my-weight-in-sweets!" Futaba struggled to pull her shorts over her badonkadonk. "But a butt doesn't become a dumper in less than a week! I'm supposed to be petite, not dummy thicc! I'm supposed to be unseen! It's a problem if the clap of my ass cheeks alerts the shadows!"

Ann was struck speechless, and the gremlin cackled.

<Direct hit to the broad side! Nyehehehehehehehe.>

"Okay, that's enough." Makoto sighed in exasperation, rubbing her temples. "You must have had a reason to keep that boombox around though, Futaba?"

At first, Futaba had been fascinated by the idea of the boombox; she wanted to know how it worked and why it existed. Now, however, she couldn't imagine getting rid of it; the very suggestion caused her to tense up.

"So I know it isn't following the usual behavior of Metaverse stuff. Hearing the music compels girls to dance in a specific way. It's not at all like a change of heart or having your desires stolen, but it is showing an influence on behavior that is clearly unnatural. I did some digging and there is a niche kink for this very thing online. Since there is a psychological presence, it could be just the tip of the iceberg to a new incident. So, I hooked it up to my metanav-"

"Hold up, metanav?" Ann interrupted.

"I thought the navigation app was gone?" Haru asked calmly.

"It was gone, but... I've been trying to make my own." Futaba replied sheepishly.

"Futaba!" Makoto sighed in exasperation.

"Come on, we might need something like that. The two times where Metaverse shenanigans happened we were given exactly what we needed to connect. Can we really rely on luck? This thing here is proof that we need some way of accessing the newest iteration of the Metaverse." Futaba looked to Makoto.

"It is true that we have been lucky on a lot of counts..." Makoto agreed hesitantly.

"Right? This is something I've been working on for years, but it never worked before. There's so much about the metanav that we never saw, so I could only do so much with it. I hooked the boombox up with an audio analyzer and then fed that data into my metanav and knida sorta got a hit."

"What do you mean 'kinda sorta'?" Ann glared over at the boombox and laptop.

"I get an error, but the nav shouldn't do anything. I have two different recordings of the boombox; one is when it was just me listening to it and one was Kawakami-sensei and me. The data is slightly different in both cases. My hypothesis is that people act as a kind of metaverse signal booster and the more listen to it, the clearer the signal becomes. So, if all of us listen to it, then the metanav can lock onto a proper destination. I think."

"So we'll be having a little dance party!" Haru giggled.

"I'm getting a bad feeling about this." Ann whined. "If you need more people to listen, why not get the guys here too?"

"It doesn't work on guys. I tried it with Soujiro and nada. And believe me, you don't want the boys here for this." Futaba walked over to the boombox and booted her laptop. "So.... Queen, mission dance, dance agogo or no go?"

Makoto looked at Futaba and the boombox. It didn't sound bad by itself, not harmful, at least. The thought of them not being in control of themselves, of being made to do something, that made her anxious. Futaba seemed fine, despite having been exposed to the boombox's effects. It sounded like this was their only way to go about things, but did she really have enough information to say that for sure?

"Okay, Futaba, do it." Makoto said after considering the options.

Futaba let out a salacious grin that the others didn't see as she pressed the play button on the boombox. The music started, a calmer techno song but you could feel the thrum of the synthetic bass and drums throughout the room. Futaba started swaying her hips and lightly working the muscles in her legs, calves and hips. This was just a light warmup for her. She glanced over at the other girls, noting they too were affected. Their movements were slight, the simply shifted in their seats like they were trying to get comfortable, but it was in time to the beat.

The music paused for a brief second and then started blaring out the boombox's speakers as though someone had put the dial to eleven. The music had become this heave, quick paced techno stomp, the speakers vibrated with sound and the boombox seemed to pulse and bounce to the beat. Haru gave a squeak of surprise as she bounced to her feet and began moving her hands all over her body, her cheeks flushed pink. Her breasts jiggling with every motion. Makoto and Ann simultaneously shoved their chairs back with a violent jerk of their butts and stood up, both facing forward and doing some sort of hip thrusting routine. They weren't quite able to match Haru's moves, but still managed to move pretty well.

Ann and Makoto turned their backs to each other and started smashing and grinding their butts together to the beat.

"Sooo... still think we should have called the boys too?" Futaba chuckled.

"Ugh, Ryuji would never let me hear the end of this." Ann moaned as her end slammed into Makoto's again. It almost looked like they were competing with each other. "H-how much longer do we have to do this?"

"Uhh... well... Maybe until the next song? Oh, whoopsie, missed the chance." Futaba was sort of sorry, but not really, as the song switched to a new one.

"What?" Ann was outraged.

"Can't do anything else but shake mah groove thang right now. But I have a controller in my pocket that can mute the sound, if you want to try." Futaba bent over slightly, wiggling her ass at Ann.

A loud slap echoed through the room as Haru smacked Futaba's ass hard. Futaba clenched her teeth so as not to let an aroused moan escape her lips. To her, the sharp sting felt like Haru had hit her bare butt, even though her shorts should have provided some protection.

"Oh, I-I'm so sorry." Haru stammered her apology as she shimmied and swayed behind Futaba. "I just thought Futaba was being a bit mean and..."

Haru raised her hand and slapped Futaba's ass again. Futaba let out a little gasp as she stood up. Haru murmured out another apology.

<Nyeheheheh! Jokes on you, I'm into that shit!>

Futaba settled into a belly dance with a quick movement to try and match the tempo of the music. Through countless hours of watching CG dancing animations, Futaba found those movements particularly alluring. There was something about the minute muscle control and how the body showed off that movement that she found fascinating, almost hypnotic. She wanted to show off her flexibility to Ren, to show off her body to him.

Another song started, Ann muttering her disapproval.

"Oh hey, this is new." Futaba exclaimed as she heard lyrics come out of the boombox.

These were actual words sung by a real voice and not a synthetic voice making sounds that could be mistaken for words as the boombox had previously done. Not that it made a difference, since they were in English, which only one person in the room would understand.

"Hey Ann, what is it saying? This could be important." Futaba looked over to Ann.

Ann may have been about to reply honestly, she might have been about to scold Futaba; what came out of her mouth instead was:

"Walked in this place surprised to see

A big girl gettin' busy, just rockin' to the go-go beat

The way she shook her booty sho' looked good to me

I said, come here, big girl, won't you rock my world-" Ann sang with the boombox before slapping a hand over her mouth.

Futaba was surprised at first that Ann had enough control to do that. But listening to the muffled moans coming from behind her hand and watching her wriggle and shake while holding herself somehow seemed more erotic than simply singing the lyrics and rocking her booty. Makoto, or whatever drove her now, must have felt the same because she slipped behind Ann and ran her fingers along Ann's stomach and waistline, tracing the contours of Ann's body.

<Naaargh! We should have set up a camera! Thief babes go wild! The missed opportunities! The lost super chats!> The gremlin lamented.

The way Makoto's hands were playing with the waistband of Ann's skirt made Futaba think that Ann would be flashing her panties soon. She glanced over at Haru who was now squatting and twerking. Futaba observed the fabric of Haru's sweater dress stretching over her rump, giving the impression that Haru had a much bigger butt. The vague and funny thought that she was watching the rise of three bakeries floated up in Futaba's mind.

Futaba's hands moved from her head, down her body and flitted about her stomach and waist. She felt that things were getting out of hand, a little too hot and heavy too soon. As long as she kept her hands close to her pockets, she would be able to grab and use the remote at the first opportunity, she thought. The second the song stopped, Futaba grabbed the remote and muted the boombox.

Makoto and Ann practically jumped apart, their faces bright red. The completely avoided looking at each other.

"What the hell?" Ann moaned angrily. "Ugh, I am so glad no one saw that."

To Futaba, it looked like Ann was moving restlessly, like she was dissatisfied. Futaba could sympathize, since she too felt that the party hadn't go on long enough.

"That was... umm... certainly something." Makoto said, embarrassed. She held her blushing face with one hand and tugged at her dress with the other.

"It was rather invigorating, I thought." Haru said cheerfully. She stood, smoothing out her dress in the front and then the back, her hands lingering on her behind.

"Futaba, this had better have been worth it!" Ann growled.

Futaba looked over at her laptop.