JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure:
Steel Shadows
Chapter 0 -> 10
Story By; Sakusha Rei
Art By; Lukama
Poster Image: Captain Jack
Additionnal art by;
Potato_TheFirst (Radiohead)
Ultimate Rico (Bastille)
Contents Table;
- PROLOGUE: Invited By The Shadow
- CHAPTER 1: Acid Rain
- CHAPTER 2: Radiohead
- CHAPTER 3: Crazy Train (1)
- CHAPTER 4: Crazy Train (2)
- CHAPTER 5: Crazy Train (3)
- CHAPTER 6: An Unexpected Encounter (1)
- CHAPTER 7: An Unexpected Encounter (2)
- CHAPTER 8: An Unexpected Encounter (3)
- CHAPTER 9: Fort Bastille (1)
- CHAPTER 10: Fort Bastille (2)
PROLOGUE: Invited By The Shadow
Darkness. A giant empty hall. Endless rows of benches. Tall stained glass windows where no light ever shines through. Shadows decorating the walls, pierced by the light of an occasional torch. Like a church in hell itself.
Slowly the scene started moving forward, down the hall longer than any church could be. Not able to stop, or go faster. The sounds of rusty gears crushing dust as they turn. A faint light appeared in the distance. Several shadowy figures became visible around the light. Still moving forward, slowly. The closest figure started slowly turning around, as to face what was slowly closing in on them.
Suddenly, a blinding bright light.
England – 2016
Joachim awakened. The sun outside shining directly at his face through his window. He hated this, but at the same time it worked as a pretty reliable alarm clock during the summer. Still in cold sweat, he wondered what he had just seen. It all seemed strangely real. When he wanted to move his blanket he noticed he was holding something in his hand, some sort of black card. He doesn’t know where it came from, but he’ll have to figure that out later. He must have cut himself on the card’s sharp metal edges because his hand began to hurt and there was blood on his bedsheets. Right before he got out of bed, he spotted some kind of bird flying away from his window in the corner of his eye. He didn’t think much of it.
Joachim got cleaned up and put on some fresh clothes. He went downstairs and greeted his mom.
‘Good morning, Mom’, said Joachim.
‘Good morning, Joachim!’
Joachim lived alone with his mother since long before he could remember. His parents got divorced not long after he was born. He isn’t that affected by it, after all he barely knows anything about his father, or any family on his father’s side. His mother also keeps next to nothing of her husband in the house. He doesn’t know for what reason his parents divorced, he never asked. But he doesn’t need to know.
As they were eating breakfast, his mother noticed the band-aid on Joachim’s palm.
‘It’s only a little scratch I got when getting dressed, it’s nothing to worry about’, he said.
His mom didn’t ask anything more of it. She is a nice and caring person, but doesn’t get too worried about Joachim, she knows he can handle himself well.
After breakfast Joachim went back upstairs to get his backpack and leave for the last day of school before summer break. When he went into his room, he saw the black card laying on his desk. He took a closer look at it and saw a reddish outline on the front of a slightly humanoid looking thing. He turned the card around, on the back was a big number “2”.
‘What is this thing… and where did it come from?’, he asked himself.
He decided to take it with him, to ask his friends about it, maybe they knew something.
Suddenly he noticed the pain in his hand was gone. He peeled the band-aid off to see that the wound had already fully healed.
A lot of bizarre things were starting to happen. And a lot more are to come. Far beyond what 17 year old Joachim Jovi could ever imagine.
Joachim left the house, jumped on his bike and left for school. The sun was shining bright and temperatures were reaching almost 30 degrees Celsius. It was the final day of school before the summer vacation started. An important day for every student. When he arrived he went straight to the place he and his friends always waited for each other, the big tree in the middle of the school property.
‘Yo, Corey!’, Joachim yelled.
Corey turned around and walked towards Joachim. Corey was the only one of the three present at school right now. Nikola still had to arrive, even though school would start in five minutes. Joachim was a bit worried, Nikola was normally always the first to arrive.
‘Good mornin’, JoJo’, said Corey while shaking his hand.
‘Oi, Corey, you know where Nikola is?’, Asked Joachim.
‘No idea actually’, replied Corey. ‘Maybe we should try contacting him’.
‘I’ll send him a message’.
The bell rang, signaling the start of the school day. The day went by as usual, except without Nikola. Joachim checked his phone. No reply from Nikola yet.
During lunch break, Joachim showed Corey the black card that mysteriously appeared overnight.
‘Be careful, it’s damn sharp on the edges’, warned Joachim. He turned the card around, and the same “2” was still there. Then Corey turned it around once more and instead of showing the reddish outline, it now showed a map with a location marked with a red dot. No country name, city names, or even street names were visible, just a map without any text and a red dot.
‘This… is just a playing card, what are you talking about?’, asked Corey worryingly. ‘Are you going crazy? maybe you overworked yourself these last couple of days’.
‘N- No… I swear this is… it’s not just a playing card! It has a big 2 on it and a map, and it has 3 sides and, and…’, Joachim paused for a second, ‘You can’t see it can you? You must think I’m crazy right?’.
Corey looked at him as if Joachim had just announced he was a prophet of god.
‘Man, you need some good sleep’, suggested Corey.
‘He definitely thinks I am going crazy’, thought Joachim to himself.
The day slowly came to an end. The black card was still very real as he held it in his hand. Once again he checked his phone, still no reply from Nikola.
At the end of the day, Joachim decided to drop by at Nikola’s house and check up on him. Nikola’s house wasn’t too far from school so he asked if Corey wanted to come as well. He refused.
‘I gotta pack my bags, I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow morning, sorry man’, apologized Corey.
‘No problem’, answered Joachim. Corey’s parents were always like this, rushing to leave the country as soon as they could.
Alone, Joachim biked towards Nikola’s house. He entered Nikola’s street and noticed something bizarre, a rain cloud that hung over Nikola’s house, and only his house.
CHAPTER 1: Acid Rain
Joachim parked his bike outside of Nikola’s house property. The rain over his house was getting pretty heavy. Thinking it could get worse the longer he waited, Joachim ran through the rain to the front door. The door was roofed in, so it was dry there. When he reached for the doorbell, Joachim wondered, ‘what exactly am I doing at this house?’. Joachim thought it was one of those moments where you enter a room and forget what exactly it was you came to do there. He went back into the rain onto the street.
Thinking the rain could get worse the longer he waited, Joachim ran through it to the front door. Again Joachim forgot just why he was at this door, again going back through the rain to the street. Completely forgetting he went to the house and back in the first place.
After some time, Joachim realized something.
‘Wait, I am already wet, yet I don’t remember ever going through that mysterious rain. Something strange is happening here’, he thought out loud.
An impossible idea came to his mind.
‘This rain… What if it makes me forget what I do when I go inside it? How many times have I gone to the house and back already?! This seems way too far fetched, But with all the strange things happening recently, it might as well be true!’
Joachim went to grab his backpack he left with his bike, and put it over his head to shelter him from the rain. Holding his backpack above his head, he dashed once more to Nikola’s house. When he arrived at the doorstep, he remembered why he came here.
‘So the rain does make me forget things when it hits me. I hope I didn’t forget anything else, it seems like I should be ok for now.’
He rang the doorbell. No one came to open the door. Then Joachim noticed the door was left open and let himself in.
‘Nikola! you there?!’, shouted Joachim down the entrance hall.
The floor in the entrance hall was wet. Nikola must have tried to go outside time and time again. Joachim followed the water tracks to the living room, where he found Nikola. He was completely drenched, sitting on the equally drenched sofa, with his hands in his hair, elbows on his knees.
‘Nikola?’, asked Joachim gently.
‘STAY AWAY FROM ME!’, shouted Nikola.
It scared Joachim to see Nikola react like this. Nikola is always calm and reserved. Now to see him panicked and distressed like this… is weird.
‘Wow wow wow, calm down, it’s me! Joachim!’
‘I don’t know who you are, get out of my house!’
‘Wait, how many times have you gone through the rain?’
‘Rain? What rain?’
Joachim realized just how bad the situation was. Nikola must have gone through the rain dozens, if not hundreds of times. He must have forgotten pretty much everything!
‘Ok, Nikola, I’m gonna need you to calm down and listen to me carefully’, said Joachim. Nikola seemed to relax a bit.
‘Look outside, there is rain surrounding this house that somehow is deleting people’s memories. You have tried to go outside so many times, most of your memory is gone.’
While explaining, Joachim noticed a black card laying on the dinner table. He was not the only one with one of these cards?
he ran towards the table, needing to see what was on Nikola’s card. Maybe it yields some more information to try and explain what is happening.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Nikola with a distant look in his eyes.
Joachim looked at the card, it had a similar red outline on the front. He turned the card around and it showed the number “7”. One more turn revealed a map, completely different from Joachim’s card’s map, with a different location marked by a red dot.
‘Where did you get this card?’, asked Joachim.
‘I don’t know anything.’
Of course he didn’t. Aside from having most of his memory wiped, why would he know where he got it and Joachim did not?
‘All I remember is this weird scene of some cloaked men standing around in the rain…’
A dream. Joachim also had a similar dream. It was slowly fading though. The rain outside was getting stronger and stronger. Nikola began grunting in pain.
‘Give me that card…’, he whispered.
‘GIVE ME THE CARD!’
As Nikola yelled to hand over the card, a dark blue humanoid creature appeared behind him. It stood hunched over Nikola, no, it floated. Its robotic joints were constantly leaking water, and so were its open, unmoving mouth and yellow-green eyes. The big trident shaped hole inside its chest allowed Joachim to look inside its mechanical body. It was filled with water. The thing reached out to Joachim, to Nikola’s card.
‘WHAT THE…!’, yelled Joachim.
Joachim dodged the first punch thrown by the blue creature. How could it have just suddenly appeared there? The next one however, he couldn’t dodge. Joachim fell to the floor. The blue creature grasped him by the neck. Water was slowly pouring from the creature’s arm onto Joachim’s neck and he could feel his memories fade, as if being washed away. Nikola slowly walked toward him, still leaving a trail of water behind him.
‘I don’t know who you are, but you should leave… NOW!’, demanded Nikola.
He seemed unphased by the creature choking his friend. The rain outside was reaching almost hurricane levels of downpour.
‘Niko- la, It- It’s me! Jo- Jo… ahg’, Joachim had trouble speaking. The blue creature’s grasp did not budge.
‘Get… off… ME!’, yelled Joachim as he punched the creature on its side. It didn’t hurt the thing much. But something appeared where Joachim punched. A gear. The gear started turning and the creature flew off of Joachim at high speed, thrown into the wall opposite of Joachim. Nikola fell to the ground, as if he felt the same pain the creature felt.
Joachim slowly got up. But so did Nikola and the creature. This was all too weird, Joachim couldn’t keep up with all this anymore. Perhaps if he punched Nikola hard enough, he would regain some memory.
He grabbed the closest blunt object he could find, a stool, and threw it at Nikola. Again a turning gear appeared on the stool, and it flew in the direction Joachim threw it, seemingly unaffected by gravity. The stool hit Nikola straight in the head and he went down. The blue creature also disappeared.
‘Oh shit, I’m sorry Nikola!’, Joachim apologized to an out-cold Nikola.
The rain outside had also settled down. Joachim took Nikola and laid him down on the sofa.
About half an hour later, Nikola started grunting again. He was slowly regaining consciousness. Joachim dashed to him to check up on him.
‘I have… A bursting headache’, complained Nikola.
He looked at Joachim. ‘JoJo?’
‘Yeah it’s me, I’m here. Do you remember what happened?’, asked Joachim.
‘I had the strangest dream…’, he looked at Joachim, then around his house, then back to Joachim. ‘It wasn’t a dream, was it? My father is gonna be so pissed when he gets home next week…’
‘It was not a dream, no, although I wouldn’t mind waking up now to see that everything actually was a dream…’
‘Was the stool really necessary?’, asked Nikola disdainfully.
‘I am so sorry about that, man. But you should’ve seen yourself… At least you seem to have all your memories back’, apologized Joachim, again.
‘Look, strange things are happening, I need to get to the bottom of this’, said Joachim.
‘I noticed…’
‘Do you want to help me to try and explain all this mess?’
‘Sure, I guess. I’m curious about what these… ‘powers’ are too.’
‘Then how about we start our little investigation tomorrow?’
‘Why do I feel like ‘little’ is not the right word… But ok, I’m in.’
CHAPTER 2: Radiohead
The day after the rain incident at Nikola’s place, the two friends met up there again to clean everything up as best as they could, and to brainstorm about the strange happenings. Joachim explained to Nikola everything he knew already. The strange things happened after the black cards appeared, and they appeared for both of them on the same morning. Strange things including but not limited to; people who didn’t ‘receive’ a card can’t see them and the cards seem to hold a connection to the strange powers they have now.
‘So the cards have multiple sides, right?’, asked Nikola, ‘how many?’
Joachim thought for a second, actually he has never turned the card more than three times. In unison they turned their cards. Once, the numbers 2 and 7 are still there. Twice, the different maps showed up. Thrice… another map, very similar to the last one, but this time it was identical to the map on Nikola’s card. A fourth time revealed the reddish outline again.
‘So what can we get from this?’, asked Joachim.
‘First there’s the numbers. Perhaps it’s the amount of cards that appeared, so… at least seven of them’, concluded Nikola.
‘The first map probably wants to set each of us in the direction of the marked location. Then the second… Since it’s the same on our two cards, maybe we should go there together?’, continued Joachim.
‘We’ll somehow have to find out where it is, which will be hard since there are no names marked whatsoever’, said Nikola.
Joachim turned his card a few times to reach the map they have in common. He noticed a few parallel black lines. The red dot was placed right beside them.
‘Look, Nikola, these black lines, they are probably train tracks, right?’
Nikola nodded in agreement. ‘But there are a million possibilities of what train station it is.’
Just that moment, Nikola’s phone rang.
‘Unknown number…’, said Nikola to himself. He answered his phone. ‘Hello, this is Nik-’.
He couldn’t even finish his sentence and his expression turned blank. He stumbled over to his computer with a vacant expression and booted it up. He opened several programs, like he was trying to hack into his own PC.
‘Nikola? Are you ok?’, asked Joachim, concerned. He had already seen his friend lose himself the day before. But this was different somehow.
Nikola turned to him and said; ‘I am not Nikola, not right now.’ After a short pause he added; ‘What? Are you going to knock him unconscious again?’
‘You… Who the hell are you?’, asked Joachim.
‘Worry not, I will introduce myself soon enough, I am almost done.’
Joachim noticed the person possessing Nikola was still doing stuff on the computer while talking to Joachim.
He opened a screen on the computer and a young boy appeared. He couldn’t be much older than twelve.
With a shock, Nikola came back to his senses, confused at what happened. He looked at Joachim.
‘I don’t know, ask him’, said Joachim while pointing at the boy on the computer.
‘Let me properly introduce myself. My name is Darwin Yorke, I apologize for using your body so suddenly, Nikola. As you noticed, strange things have started happening around here nowadays. I am also one given a black card and an ability’, Darwin showed his card, with the number “6” on it. ‘I did some research around the internet and found some information on these abilities that we were given. They are called Stand Powers, mine has the ability to take control over any machine I can connect to using my phone, and also take over people if I call them and they answer, which you saw happen just now. It’s called Radiohead.’
‘Wow wow, this is all going a bit fast. How did you find all this out in the first place?’, asked Joachim. Nikola was silent.
‘I have been stuck in my room since I was little, due to…’, Darwin paused for a second and then continued. ‘Thing is, I learned how to hack my way across the internet long ago. It was the only way for me to learn about the outside world, and this ability truly is a blessing’, said Darwin with a huge smile on his face.
‘So I assume you have been watching and listening to us since the beginning, am I right?’, Joachim asked.
‘Correct, a little bit of hacking got me eyes and ears pretty much anywhere.’
‘Oh, great’, said Nikola. Exactly what Joachim was thinking as well.
‘I heard your conversation about the map that would lead you to a certain train station, and that it’s the same on both your cards? I wanted to lend you my help, since I can find the location in an instant!’, declared Darwin.
‘That would be greatly appreciated, Hacker Boy’, said Joachim grinning. He was secretly pretty proud of that nickname he just came up with.
‘Can you just hold the image of the map in front of the web-cam for a second? I’ll do the rest!’, asked Darwin.
‘Hold on. Don’t you have a card with the same map? Why do you need us to show it to you?’, asked Nikola, skeptical of the boy’s intentions.
‘I do have a card too, but the second map is not the same for all of us. Mine does not even show a map at all. Whoever gave us these, knows I can’t move in my current state’, answered Darwin.
‘Well, alright then’, said Nikola as he turned his card a few times and held the station map in front of his screen. ‘There you go.’
‘Radiohead!’, Darwin called out.
A silvery phone with a robotic face on the back flew up beside him. He grabbed the phone and started fiddling around with it, his fingers dashing all over its screen. Seconds later an incredibly detailed map to the station appeared on Nikola’s screen.
‘All done! One more tip, calling out the name of your stand can help you to summon it better and faster, you’ll get the hang of it soon enough.’
‘Wait, Hacker Boy, can’t you come with us? We could go together’, suggested Joachim.
‘Sadly, as I mentioned before, I am… unable to leave this room…’
He probably has a good reason. Joachim decided to not question it any further.
‘But I’ll always be connected on your phones’, Darwin said with a smug smile on his face.
‘Ok, but no more using my body. Or any of our bodies at that’, said Nikola, kind of pissed off still.
‘I’ll try my best’, Darwin seemed to get even more smug.
‘But anyways, thanks for your help, Darwin’, thanked Joachim.
‘You can call me anytime you like!’
And with those last words he disappeared from the screen.
‘Guess we will have to go looking for that train station sooner or later’, said Joachim to Nikola.
‘He uploaded it onto my PC. I hope he didn’t… you know… see everything that’s on it’, said Nikola.
‘I think he could very well do that if he wanted.’
‘Yeah, thanks, that sounds very reassuring.’
Joachim laughed. ‘Let’s first clean up this mess that is your house’, suggested Joachim.
‘Agreed.’
After a lot of work cleaning up Nikola’s house, Joachim decided to stay over.
‘We’ll go to that train station first thing in the morning, sounds good?’, asked Joachim.
‘Yeah, sure why not.’ agreed Nikola, with a slight grin Joachim could barely see in the dark.
‘Have you thought about naming your ‘Stand Power’ yet?’.
‘Not really. To be honest I’m kind of hesitant to use it in the first place. You’ve seen what it can cause.’
He had a point, his Stand was a pretty crazy one, he doesn’t have much control over it yet.
‘How about… ‘Acid Rain’? Because it melts memories away, get it?’, Joachim laughed.
‘You know what, why not, Acid Rain it is’, Nikola laughed too. ‘Then yours should be… ‘Fistful Steel’. Because your punches make steel gears, how ‘bout that?’
‘It’s great! Fistful Steel’, Joachim agreed.
After that conversation they both went to sleep, to prepare for the trip ahead of them. Hopefully they will be prepared enough for the journey that awaits…
CHAPTER 3: Crazy Train (1)
The next morning the two friends woke up early. It was Saturday morning, there wouldn’t be that many people out and about. They looked around how they could best get to the station on Darwin’s map. Then Nikola noticed there was another added file with directions. Turns out it’s only thirty minutes by car. It’s the train station in Oxford. Joachim called his mother to pick them up and bring them there, saying they were ‘going on a day trip to London’. After some discussion, Joachim’s mother agreed to bring them.
‘Ok, let’s go over everything and see if we forgot anything’, said Nikola.
‘Money, check. Identity cards, check. Snacks and drinks, double check!’, Joachim said while holding two bags filled with any snack he could find.
A few minutes later, Joachim’s mother arrived and off they went to the train station.
Half an hour later they arrived at the station.
‘Have a fun trip! Don’t be home too late!’, said Joachim’s mother as the two boys exited the car.
‘Yes yes, mom!’, yelled Joachim back at his mother. ‘Thanks for bringing us and letting us go!’
‘No problem, son, love you!’, she said cheerfully. Joachim was a bit embarrassed after hearing that. He looked at Nikola as if he was waiting for Nikola to mock him about it. But Nikola just said; ‘come on, what are you waiting for? let’s go.’
‘Well actually, assuming we need to take a train from here, how do we know which one?’, asked Joachim.
‘Good question…’
*DING DING* *DING DING*
‘ALL PASSENGERS USING THE LIMITED TIME BLACK TICKETS, TRAIN CR451 WILL DEPART FROM PLATFORM 2!’
The voice announcing this seemed way too happy while announcing. As if he was introducing an audience to the finale of his favorite sports game.
‘I guess that’s our train…’, said Joachim.
‘Something… no, everything is fishy about that’, answered Nikola. ‘Is train “CR451” even an existing train that passes by here?’ He added.
‘All the more reason to take that train. At this point, what is strange anymore?’
‘You got a point there for sure…’
While going to platform 2, Joachim looked around him. No one else seemed to be heading there specifically. Were Joachim and Nikola the only ones who had found the station? maybe others have found it before they did, maybe some still needed to find it.
Nikola and Joachim arrived at the platform. Not long after they did, they were approached by three people roughly the same age as them. They had been on the platform since before Joachim and Nikola arrived.
‘Hey, you two, I see you found this station too! Would you mind showing me your cards? You know the ones’, said the tall guy at the front, trying his best to sound friendly.
The other two seemed to hide a bit behind him, he looked to be a few years older than the others present.
‘And why would you need to see them?’ asked Nikola, snarling at the guy.
‘To verify our theories. Look, we are all in the same boat here. No need to be so hostile’, he replied. He seemed kind of nice actually, even though he looked like he came straight from a death metal band. Maybe it was not all an act.
‘Ok, let’s slow down a bit and start with introductions’, suggested Joachim. ‘You know, while we wait for the train that might take us God knows where.’
‘I like that idea. My name is Isaac Draiman, the girl behind me is Marie Way and the shy guy here is Max Araya. He doesn’t talk much.’
Marie said a cheerful ‘Hey there’ and Max waved his hand a bit with a very silent ‘Nice to meet you’.
‘Nice to meet you too!’, said Joachim. ‘My name is Joachim Jovi and my rude friend here is Nikola Sanders.’
‘Hey! Wtf man… And how can you be so chill with these strangers anyway?’, asked Nikola, kind of pissed off.
‘It’s as Isaac said. We are all in the same situation’, Joachim turned to Isaac and the others, Isaac nodded. ‘Anyways the cards.’
All at the same time, though with a bit of hesitation from Nikola, they took out their black cards and showed them to each other. Isaac had the number “1” on his card, Marie had “4” and Max “13”.
‘So, all theories still stand about these cards’, said Isaac looking at Joachim’s and Nikola’s cards.
‘What other theories have you come up with?’, asked Joachim, curious.
‘First, tell me what you know already.’
Joachim explained everything they had already figured out. He also mentioned Darwin and his stand Radiohead.
‘I see, I see’, said Isaac after the explanation. ‘So you also know about the stand powers.’ After a short pause he explained his part. ‘First of all, we have an idea of who we are dealing with, thanks to Max here. It’s a bit of a sensitive story for him, so I’ll explain it quickly. In your dream you saw several dark figures right?’
‘Wait, how do you know about my dream?’, asked Nikola. Understandably, he still doesn’t want to trust them.
‘Because we all had a similar one the night we received the card. Mine, for example, consisted of me being held in chains surrounded by them, the dark figures’, explained Isaac. ‘Anyways, Max has been in contact with them since before. He got his card a few months ago. You could say he was a “test” for them. But he managed to escape their “experiments”.’
‘Ok, slow down. Who are “they” anyway, and what experiments?’ asked Joachim.
‘We think they are some kind of cult organization. They experimented with stands on Max and I reckon he is not the only one. Due to his time with this “cult” his stand got pretty… messed up’, he said silently.
‘Ok this does not sound like a good idea anymore…’, said Nikola.
Talking about all their theories, they didn’t notice that a train was arriving.
‘No backing out now’, said Isaac. ‘Look, whatever they need us for, we are all already deep into their plans. Whatever they are doing, it can’t be good. And we can put a stop to it, to prevent others ending up like…’ Isaac stopped talking. ‘I’m sorry.’ he apologized to Max. To which Max just shifted his gaze to a different part of the floor.
The train arrived and slowly came to a stop. The voice from before yelled into the speakers again.
‘ALL ABOARD, TRAIN CR451 HAS ARRIVED!’, He still sounded way too happy.
All the automatic doors opened simultaneously. The train itself looked like any normal train, aside from the strange graffitied bright-colored arrows stretching out all over the train and the automatic doors. But something had to be going on here, thought Joachim to himself.
‘It’s time I guess…’ said Joachim. He saw that Nikola was hesitant to continue.
‘I don’t think this is a good idea JoJo’, said Nikola, worried.
‘Well I’m not forcing anyone to come, but my cause is clear, I need answers. And revenge for Max’, said Isaac. He boarded the train followed by Marie and Max.
Nikola looked at Joachim. ‘You want to help them don’t you?’
‘Yes, the more help they get, the better their chances are at achieving their goals. Besides, I want answers too’, said Joachim.
‘Ok, I guess. Let’s follow them then, before they depart without us’, agreed Nikola. ‘Besides, I can’t let you go in alone’, he added with a sarcastic tone.
‘Thanks, Nikola!’, Joachim smiled.
Joachim boarded the train first. He looked around the train. It was completely empty and he saw no trace of Isaac and the others. Maybe they entered a different wagon? Joachim waited for Nikola to enter. But he didn’t show up. The automatic doors closed. Joachim started panicking slightly. Did he decide to not follow them in the end? Either Nikola didn’t board the train, or something very strange was going on. Joachim ran towards the door to the next wagon to the back, to find Isaac and the others. But he was met by another empty wagon. Maybe they went to the other wagon, to the front of the train. The train slowly started moving. Joachim went back to his original wagon and then to the next. When he arrived in that wagon, there was still no sign of Isaac. He noticed a tear in one seat. the feeling that he had seen it before lurked deep in his thoughts. He went back to the original wagon, and sure, the tear was there on the same seat in the same spot. What was going on?
CHAPTER 4: Crazy Train (2)
Now, still alone in the wagon and the train in full motion, Joachim said to himself; ‘I should have known this kind of thing would happen, to expect the unexpected. Nikola and the others should still be somewhere in this train, otherwise they wouldn’t send us all here… We will have to wait and see what is truly going on here.’
*DING DING* *DING DING*
The voice cleared his throat.
‘WELCOME TO ALL PARTICIPANTS!’, he shouted as if he was a researcher and they were his experiments.
‘My name is Ozzie and welcome to my CRAZY TRAIN!’, Ozzie said. ‘Please enjoy your ride’, he quickly added.
Few seconds after he spoke those words, the same bright-colored arrows he had seen on the outside of the train appeared on the floor, walls and chairs of the wagon. As arrows started slithering around, as if they were alive, the interior of the train shifted around with them. Seats moved to the side, windows closed themselves and the doors became sealed with iron bars. Almost as if the train was a living thing. The wagon was now one long, spacious corridor.
Joachim suddenly realized something. ‘Could this be Ozzie’s stand? Does he control this train and everything in it?’ He thought for a second. ‘No… This train… is the stand itself! It has to be!’
Several tubes came out of the wagon’s walls and started releasing smoke, quickly filling up the entire space.
‘What now?!’, said Joachim startled.
At the same time, in another wagon, Nikola was also being engulfed in the same smoke. Confused by what was going on, he went to the back of his wagon and entered a defensive pose. He boarded the train right behind Joachim, and when he did, Joachim was already gone. He knew something was up with this train. Expecting the unexpected was key, they don’t know what they could be dealing with.
The smoke filling the train was now getting so thick that Nikola couldn’t even see the other end of the wagon. He coughed while lifting up his shirt to block the smoke as best as he could, so he was able to breathe properly.
Nikola squinted his eyes, to try and see through the thick layer of smoke. He could make out four figures in the smoke.
‘Joachim, is that you?’, he asked. But no one answered.
He smashed the nearest window, so the smoke could escape the wagon. Yet, only seconds after he did that, one of those arrows appeared again. It moved upwards over the open window, creating a new one until it was whole again. He has to get rid of the smoke somehow, before he suffocates in it.
The figures in the smoke started moving faster towards Nikola. One of them threw a punch at him. Nikola was able to dodge the attack in the nick of time and the figure hit the wall behind him. His punch left a remarkably deep dent in the wall. If one of these were to hit Nikola… it would not be pleasant.
Now the figures were closer, Nikola saw that they were not human, they were a whirling mass of smoke in a humanoid form.
‘Shit’, said Nikola. Backing into the wall wasn’t a very smart move after all. He was now stuck, pinned down against a wall, surrounded by hostile smoke people.
‘ACID RAIN!’, shouted Nikola. Acid Rain appeared by Nikola’s side and attempted to punch the closest smoke guy. However, his fist went right through it, like punching air. Nikola jumped up and dashed through the smoke people, as he suspected he could walk straight through them, although they gave a bit of resistance.
Nikola got to the other side of the wagon. He ripped off a piece of his T-shirt and made it wet using Acid Rain’s water that is leaking from its arms. He bound the wet piece of cloth around his head, over his mouth. It became easier to breathe now. Suddenly Nikola realized the water would delete his memories again, since it came from Acid Rain. As Nikola waited a few seconds, nothing happened to his memories, not that he realized. The fear of having his memories deleted again slowly faded away. His stand no longer affected himself. Now that he knew what it was and what it did, he was able to control it.
The smoke people were getting closer again. Nikola was trying to think up a plan of surviving this situation. He can’t make it rain inside the train. He tried it and it rained outside for a second or two, then the train got past the rain cloud and left it behind. How can he fight something he can’t touch?
Nikola noticed something that wasn’t consistent here. Smoke guy number one was able to physically damage the wagon’s wall! But how? Logically, the smoke would just disperse. To cause such damage, the smoke would have to be almost solid in one spot, its fist. Nikola came up with a plan.
Meanwhile, Joachim was fighting in the smoke as well. Not against smoke people, but smoke alligators.
‘What the f*** is this madness?!’, shouted Joachim distressed. He had been able to avoid the alligators for a while now, but they are barely even visible, blending in with the rest of the smoke. He tried kicking them, to no one’s surprise, it didn’t affect them in the slightest. One of the alligators leaped at Joachim, and this time he couldn’t dodge in time. The smoke reptile’s jaw gripped his leg, it felt as if his leg was being crushed. Since it was still just smoke, it couldn’t pierce his skin, and Joachim was able to pull his leg out of the bite’s grip.
‘This god damn smoke has to go away’, said Joachim to himself.
Just as Nikola did, Joachim tried breaking windows. Only to find out they “grew” back. The next most logical thing would be making a strong air current to blow away the smoke. But how can he make one?
‘FISTFUL STEEL!’, yelled Joachim. Fistful Steel appeared beside Joachim. He had not seen its true form yet, aside from the few gears in his fight with Nikola. It was a silver humanoid, but even more robotic than Acid Rain. Countless gears made up its body, every little joint. It looked like a very complicated human piece of clockwork. Its lower arms, legs and everything from its shoulders up was covered in a silver metal casing. The clockwork inside its head was visible through its open eyes. It was wearing what looked like headphones, gears covering each ear instead of soft ear cups.
Fistful Steel started punching one of the seats, taking it apart and removing a tray stand from the back of the seat. He threw it in the air and punched it twice, putting a gear on both sides. The gears started spinning, rotating the tray stand at high speeds. Slowly it blew away all the smoke around it, creating a smoke free space. Now the only thing to take care of were these alligators. He broke apart another seat and used its tray stand to throw it at the three alligators standing before him. This tray flew into the middle alligator and right before it would hit the ground, Fistfull Steel activated the gears. It spun so fast it took all three alligators apart pretty quickly. After the smoke animals disappeared, the smoke began to thin out, and then the smoke disappeared entirely.
‘Well that was something’, said Joachim with a big sigh.
Nikola and Acid Rain approached the smoke figures. Two of them answered his approach by throwing a punch in his direction. Nikola dodged to the side, and got in between all four of them.
His plan included taking a big risk. If it didn’t work out, he would be done for. As Nikola expected all four of them were going to attack him at the same time. If they wanted to make an impact on him, the smoke and dust particles would have to be highly concentrated to the point where it was almost floating sand or gravel. Nikola aimed his hands up, at the ceiling of the wagon and Acid Rain did the same. Acid Rain then released a blast of water from its wrist joints with the strength of a geyser, creating a wall of water that came down beside him. It isolated him from the smoke. The four smoke people, unable to stop their move to attack, punched the huge amount of water and dispersed inside of it.
Acid Rain stopped spouting water. As soon as all the water came down, little smoke was left inside the now drenched wagon, and there was no sign of the smoke guys anywhere.
For both Joachim and Nikola, the steel bars in front of one of the doors in the wagon retracted back into the floor, and the seats moved back into their original position. How this was even possible was still an enigma. The now free door opened, inviting them to enter. As both went through the door, they entered an empty wagon. Joachim entered from the front side of the wagon and Nikola from the backside.
Joachim sprinted towards his friend and grabbed him.
‘I knew you would board the train! You got me scared there for a second!’, said Joachim, overjoyed that Nikola did not leave him behind.
‘Yo, let go of me man’, said Nikola, annoyed.
Joachim did as he asked and apologized. He just now noticed that Nikola was drenched.
‘Did you use Acid Rain? Were you also fighting smoke alligators or something?’, asked Joachim.
‘Smoke alligators? What are you talking about? I did fight smoke people though…’, answered Nikola. He wasn’t even surprised by this anymore at this point.
‘I see… OH! The memory deleting effect, are you ok? OH! Shit I got water on me too!’
‘Calm down, JoJo. First of all, Acid Rain doesn’t affect me anymore, and it’s not even active right now, so it can’t affect you either.’
‘Ok, thank god’, said Joachim. ‘Anyways, I’m glad you are fine Nikola.’
‘I’m glad you are fine too, JoJo’, said Nikola.
‘I guess now we wait.’
‘Wait for what?’
‘You know, for the other three, for the train to arrive wherever it wants to bring us and for the next bizarre event.’
Nikola grinned and took a seat. ‘Well then let’s sit here for a bit.’
Joachim joined him.
CHAPTER 5: Crazy Train (3)
Not long after Joachim and Nikola sat down in the train, Isaac entered the wagon, closely followed by Marie and Max.
‘Hey! Look who we have here’, said Isaac. ‘If it ain’t Nikola and JoJo!’
He sat down on the seats across the aisle from Nikola and Joachim. The other two joined Isaac.
‘Glad to see you all here, now we are all back in one place’, said Joachim. All of the others nodded silently in agreement. ‘I guess we all went through the same crazy… train stuff?’
‘Most likely so, yes’, said Isaac.
Then Marie asked full of excitement; ‘What smoke animals were you fighting?’ She stared at Nikola and Joachim, eager to get an answer.
‘Ummm, I fought alligators…’
‘And I just fought humans,’ added Nikola in a kind of sarcastic tone.
‘Interesting…’ said Isaac to himself, thinking about something.
‘What do you have in mind?’ asked Marie.
‘So, Nikola fought humans, JoJo fought alligators, Marie fought tons of spiders and I fought a pack of wolves’, summarized Isaac, ‘I can conclude that the smoke manifested the creature we, perhaps unknowingly, fear the most.’
Subconsciously, Joachim looked at Nikola, who dodged eye contact and looked outside immediately.
‘So… what did Max encounter in the smoke?’ asked Joachim. Max was still absently looking outside.
‘He… doesn’t want to tell us’, said Marie, looking at Max as if she expected a specific response.
‘Anyways, we have to assume that there is one, or perhaps there are multiple stand users behind this’ said Isaac.
Just as he finished his sentence, the train went dark for a moment as it entered a tunnel. The lights in the wagon switched on and Ozzie spoke once more:
*DING DING* *DING DING*
‘ATTENTION DEAR PASSENGERS, WE ARE APPROACHING OUR DESTINATION SOON’, he announced. ‘WE ARE THANKFUL FOR YOUR RIDE WITH US AND YOUR ASTOUNDING PERFORMANCES ON THIS CRAZY TRAIN!’
Soon after that, the train exited the tunnel and was filled with warm sunlight. After his eyes were adjusted to the bright sun, Joachim looked outside. To his surprise the landscape was completely different. Instead of the expected outskirts of London, he saw farmland and vineyards on the sides of high mountains. He saw small villages of colorful limestone houses. It was a beautiful sight.
‘Um, guys? Any idea where we are? this does not look like London, at all’, asked Joachim.
‘I don’t know, it looks mediterranian to me, but that’s impossible… right?’, answered Isaac.
‘Haven’t you learned that anything is possible now?’, said Nikola. It’s gonna take a while until he can get along with the others, thought Joachim to himself.
*DING DING* *DING DING*
‘WE ARE SOON ARRIVING IN FLORENCE, DON’T FORGET TO CHECK ALL YOUR LUGGAGE BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE TRAIN’, said Ozzie. ‘WE WISH YOU ALL A GREAT STAY IN FLORENCE, ITALY!’
‘FLORENCE? Italy? But how is that possible, we have only been on this train for…’ Joachim looked at his wristwatch, ‘twenty minutes?’
‘There is more to this Ozzie’s stand then we know’, said Isaac.
‘Should we go find him?’, asked Marie.
‘I think it would be better if we don’t’, answered Nikola.
‘He might have some answers though, or directions’, suggested Joachim.
‘I’m with Joachim on this one’, agreed Isaac. ‘Any piece of info we can get is worth the risk. Besides I don’t feel any malicious intent in this Ozzie person anyway.’
The train slowly came to a stop in Florence’s train station.
‘I guess here’s where we have to get out’, said Joachim, ‘no turning back.’
Joachim went to the train’s automatic door, which was already opened. The others followed him as he exited the train. They looked around the platform if anyone else got off the train. And some did. At the back a short looking guy exited, alone. At the front of the train, three guys stepped out of the train and started approaching the group.
‘Guys’, whispered Joachim while poking Nikola with his elbow to get his attention. They spotted the three men immediately too. They did not have to look far.
Now standing less than two meters away from them, the man in the middle, a guy in train conductor uniform, long hair and weird sunglasses, spoke;
‘I’m glad you could all make it safely to Florence. I hope the train ride wasn’t too… crazy!’ He laughed loudly as if he just made the best joke the universe has ever heard. No one else laughed though.
Joachim recognized his voice immediately as Ozzie’s. Ozzie stopped laughing with a sigh and resumed what he was saying.
‘You all are very lucky to be chosen, and with great stand abilities at that. I’m sure he will like the five of you. You’ll make it far, for sure!’
‘Um, sir… Ozzie? We have no idea what you are talking about’, said Joachim, kind of nervous.
‘Oh, don’t worry kid, you’ll understand soon enough’, said the guy to the right, as he took his cigarette out of his mouth. He was pretty tall, in a straightened brown suit, his hair so full of gel it was basically glued to his head.
‘You don’t know him yet’, said Ozzie, ‘Actually let us introduce ourselves properly. My name is Ozzie O., leader of the Crazy Train trio!’, he proclaimed, laughing maniacally again. The other two let out a sigh, as if they knew this was gonna happen again. ‘My stand is, well, you were in it until a few minutes ago, Crazy Train!’
‘Oh shut up Oz, no one cares’, said the man left of Ozzie. This man was the shadiest looking guy Joachim had ever seen, wearing a black coat, sunglasses and a black fedora, almost like in a comic. He kind of reminded him of the ‘men in black’ too.
‘Aaah, don’t mind these two mood killers. Too serious for their own good’, said Ozzie. ‘Barman and Goril are my teammates on the Crazy Train, together with our stands we create a perfect challenge to test the Order’s candidates! The confusing, changing interior of the train and teleporting rooms caused by Barman’s stand, Architect, followed by the scary smoke ability of A.Z. Goril’s stand, Feel Good Inc.!’
‘The Order?’ asked Isaac as he stepped forward. ‘Are those the people who gave us these strange cards and stand abilities?’
He showed his card to Ozzie.
‘Yes yes yes!’, said Ozzie. ‘These cards are invitations, the Order saw great potential in you, so they want to add you all amongst their ranks!’
‘Do you work for them then? Are you part of the order?’
‘N- No, not officially…’, said Ozzie, way less cheerful now. Maybe he got a little intimidated by Isaac. He probably saw his stand ability and knew what he was capable of. Joachim never actually thought about it, but now he started getting curious about Isaac and the other’s stands.
The boy who left the train at the back approached them, looking kind of lost.
‘E- Excuse me? I want to go back home… I don’t know why I am here…’, he said.
Ozzie turned to him.
‘Sorry little guy, Crazy Train isn’t going back anymore. Perhaps you could go with these nice people and explore Florence?’
‘Is he one of the ‘chosen ones’ too? He doesn’t look competent at all’, said Nikola.
‘Oh, Nikola, trust me when I say, he is full of potential, as are you!’, said Ozzie. ‘I’ll give you a hint to the first step as to how to unlock that potential. Not only yours, but all of yours!’
‘A hint?’, asked Marie curiously.
‘Yes, dear, a hint. It’s all on the cards! Just follow the maps, and you’ll meet your destiny soon enough.’
Joachim started getting scared of Ozzie’s mysteriousness even though it sounded very cheesy coming from him. His cheerful personality was not making it better. He could be playing games with them all.
‘ANYWAY!’, shouted Ozzie suddenly, waking Joachim from his thoughts. ‘I gotta go now! I have to pick up the last few candidates!’
He turned around and went back to the front of the train. The other two followed him in silence, leaving Joachim and the others behind.
‘So, where do we go next?’, asked Joachim.
But no one had a clear answer to that.
‘Ok’, said Joachim after a short silence. ‘Ozzie said it’s all in the cards, which can only mean one thing.’
Joachim took his card out of his pocket. He turned it to the number side, still saying “2”. Turning it around again, the unique map was still there too. Again and the station map was… no longer the station map.
‘It changed!’, shouted Joachim. The others who were looking also took out their cards with only one thing in mind: verifying if it had changed for all of them.
which it did.
After comparing the six cards they have now, they noticed it was once again the same map, with the same marked location on every card.
‘I guess we found where to go next’, said Nikola.
‘I’ll contact Darwin, he can give us an accurate map and proper directions’, suggested Joachim.
‘Oh no, not that freak again’, sighed Nikola.
‘So it was Darwin who helped you too then?’, said Isaac.
‘He did indeed, and now he’ll help us again then’, answered Joachim.
Joachim took out his phone. Before he could enter Darwin’s phone number, he got a call from Darwin himself.
‘I guess he already knows what needs to be done. Well here goes nothing’, said Joachim as he answered the phone. Almost immediately Radiohead took over Joachim’s body.
It was a very strange sensation. He was awake and aware of his surroundings, but he had no control. It might be comparable to switching a plane to auto-pilot. But in this case, the auto-pilot was a boy called Darwin, and the plane Joachim’s body.
‘Oh hey Isaac, Marie, Max! I see you found Nikola and Joachim’, said Darwin through Joachim.
‘Nice to see… well hear you again too, Darwin’, replied Isaac.
‘Hi again!’, said Marie cheerfully.
‘So, what seems to be the situation? Another map?’, asked Darwin.
‘Yes, if you could kindly search where it wants us to go, that would be great’, said Nikola.
Darwin looked at Joachim’s card, took a photo of it with Joachim’s phone and sent it to himself. Mere seconds later he received a message on Joachim’s phone with an accurate map and directions.
‘There, done’, he said proudly. ‘The map wants you to go to a small church in the outskirts of Florence.’
‘Then that’s where we shall go’, said Isaac determined. Joachim was curious why he was so determined to find this “cult”. Maybe there was more to it than just getting justice for Max. Because, in the end, Isaac just got to know Max, didn’t he? Maybe he had another, more personal reason to go after them.
‘Thanks again for your help, Darwin’, said Marie. Max nodded to say his thanks as well.
‘Anytime’, said Darwin. ‘But now I probably have to give Joachim his body back.’ He laughed, ‘See you all next time you need my help!’
With those words Joachim regained control over his body.
‘Wow, this feels hella weird’, he said.
‘Yeah, tell me about it’, said Nikola.
‘So, let’s see what Darwin gave us’, said Joachim.
‘The church just outside Florence’, answered Marie. ‘I guess we can go by foot.’
Joachim nodded. It won’t be a short walk, but they couldn’t really get a taxi or something since none of them actually speak Italian.
‘Um, what just happened to him?’, asked the boy who unexpectedly joined their group. Everyone suddenly looked at him, they had completely forgotten he was even there. He got shy and shuffled back a bit.
‘Well, our friend Darwin has a stand ability that lets him ‘hack’ into people’, said Marie to the boy. The boy let out an almost impossible to hear ‘oh, ok’.
‘Hey kid, what’s your name?’, asked Isaac.
‘M- My name is Wilhelm…’ He replied.
‘Ok, Wilhelm, you wanna come with us?’
Wilhelm nodded. He really didn’t have any other choice.
And thus the group of 6 left the station, and went on their way to find a certain church outside of Florence, where their destiny would change… for better or for worse.
Crazy Train: END
CHAPTER 6: An Unexpected Encounter (1)
After walking through Florence’s streets for a while, the group started to get a bit hungry, it was already two in the afternoon after all. They decided to enter the first pizzeria they found, they are in Italy now so might as well try out real Italian pizza. Everyone was a fan of that idea. They could really use a break now.
After eating their fill and resting out a bit, they left the restaurant and went back on their way.
The day continued on without much special happening. They were just like a small group of tourists, checking out shops and taking pictures. Marie especially seemed to be having a great time.
Eventually, right as the sky above was gradually becoming darker and darker, they arrived at the church Darwin pointed them towards. The church was old and run down, it looked rarely ever used.
‘Now this looks like the place to be at night, following a cult around’, said Nikola sarcastically.
Joachim looked at the group with one question in mind. He saw that the much younger Wilhelm was nervous, maybe scared even. The others had an uncertain look on their faces.
‘So…’ Joachim started, ‘Do we just go inside now?’
‘What else can we do? It’s not like they gave us a specific time to arrive at’, replied Nikola.
‘Most likely, they already know we are here’, said Isaac.
After Isaac said that, everyone shuffled around a bit, looking over their shoulders just to make sure.
As curiosity again took the better of him, Joachim approached the tall wooden double door at the front of the small church. Suddenly, he remembered his dream, the one he had the night before all this madness started. Could this be the church he saw in that dream?
With a loud creaking noise, Joachim pushed the right door open. There was little light inside the church, aside from a bunch of candles at the altar. He could feel the eyes of the others on his back, waiting for him to tell them if the coast was clear. Joachim looked over his shoulder at Nikola. Nikola nodded at him as if to say; ‘Go on, go inside’.
Joachim set foot inside the church and looked around. When he saw the person sitting on one of the benches towards the back of the church, he was startled and literally jumped.
‘Joachim! What happened? What’s in there?’, asked Isaac, alarmed.
‘Probably some weird statue he saw scared him’, said Nikola.
‘Nikola, this is serious, something bad could happen any moment’, said Marie, clearly nervous that something is gonna happen. ‘Can I… wait outside, please?’
‘There is… A guy sitting inside…’, said Joachim silently.
Isaac stepped towards him and looked over Joachims shoulder. ‘Could he be the guy we are supposed to meet here?’, he asked.
The mysterious man stood up. He was exceptionally tall and wore all black clothing. His long coat and black hat made him look like some sort of professional personal detective, or an american mafia boss.
Without turning around he spoke; ‘Come on in, no need to be so scared, I don’t wish to harm you. We don’t have much time.’
Cautiously the group entered the old church, leaving the door to close behind them. Marie stayed together with Wilhelm as far back as possible. Max seemed a little more on edge than usual, perhaps Max knew this man from an earlier contact with the order, thought Joachim.
‘Good you are all here’, said the man. as he turned around and walked towards them. He sat down on a bench closer to the group.
Before the man could say anything else, Isaac spoke up. ‘Who are you and what do you want from us?’, he said in an aggressive tone.
‘Calm down’, he paused for a second, ‘Isaac.’
‘How do you know my name?’ Isaac asked, startled.
‘I know all your names, your powers, your past… your future’, said the man.
Now everyone was on high alert. What the man said was nonsense, but they knew he was not messing around.
‘Look, if you all could loosen up for a minute and let me explain my part, that would be great’, the man said.
After everyone settled down a bit, the man commenced his explanation.
‘My name is Pythagoras. I am the leader of the Order’, he started off, ‘I’m sure you have lots of questions for me, but we don’t have time for all of them. There resides a conflict within the Order. Our original goal was to heighten our knowledge of Stand powers and use them for the world’s betterment. We invite people around the world with Stand potential to join our cause. But slowly all of that will change. I have known ever since he joined. I have been preparing to change what would happen, and now that time has arrived. We- I, am not evil, but others are, and I will be severely outnumbered. I will need your help to stop him.’
as they were listening to Pythagoras, trying to make sense of what he was saying, the church slowly seemed to fill itself with mist.
‘He is already here. We must make haste. Joachim…’, said Pythagoras nervously.
Joachim approached the man, he didn’t exactly know why he did that without question.
Pythagoras took his hand and placed a small pin in his palm. It looked like a skull with a single bat-like wing on the right side.
‘Joachim, this pin will change the future, your future. You mustn’t ever take it off. This is the last of my power, my stand, a Little Piece of Heaven’, Pythagoras said, almost panicking now. Joachim wondered why he was getting this upset.
He turned to Isaac, as to say something to him too.
‘Lead them well, Isaac’, he said. Isaac himself just stared at the man, unresponsive.
Pythagoras turned to Joachim again and closed Joachim’s hand around the pin, and as he did that, Pythagoras’ heart was impaled by a long, thin, lance-like object. It all happened extremely fast. Joachim’s mind could hardly keep up.
Just before he collapsed he whispered; ‘Don’t stay in the mist. be careful out there… my son.’
Time seemed to slow down around Joachim. Everything felt distant. Who is this man? Who is Pythagoras? Why did he call him his son? An endless array of questions plagued his mind.
He was shocked out of his thoughts by Isaac.
‘Joachim, we have to leave! Now!’, he yelled at a dazed Joachim while holding the heavy door open.
Joachim dashed towards Isaac, taking one look back to Pythagoras. In the corner of his eye he saw a shadow float through the mist, as if it was swimming. The creature looked like a fish. It had a long body ending in a fishtail, but with a long horn at the head.
Joachim forgot about it and looked forward. Taking Isaac’s stretched out hand, he ran outside the church, into the night.
The group had successfully escaped the church, and the ambush. They ran back to the city, putting as much distance between them and the church as possible. They stopped at an inn and decided to spend the night there.
Joachim shared a room with Nikola. Max and Marie had a room for themselves and Wilhelm stayed with Isaac in the room next to Joachim’s.
The room wasn’t that pretty, it was quite cramped and old looking. But it had two separate beds and that’s all they needed. Joachim threw his jacket on a little bench to the right of the door and closed the door behind him. Joachim and Nikola immediately jumped in their beds, exhausted.
After a while Nikola asked; ‘Is there still time to turn back? Leave all this madness behind?’
Joachim was already drifting off into his own thoughts and didn’t hear Nikola’s question.
‘Oi, JoJo. You there?’, Nikola asked, a bit louder than before.
Joachim came back to his senses once more. ‘Oh… I… I’m sorry. I got… so many things on my mind right now. Did you ask something?’
‘No problem, I bet we all have dozens of questions right now’, said Nikola. ‘What I want to say is that, if it was up to me, I would go back home and leave all this madness behind. But I probably won’t be able to convince you, will I?’
‘You are completely right, Nikola. But I fear we are already too deeply involved. They will definitely follow us back home. It’s as Pythagoras said…’
‘What did that man, Pythagoras, even say to you there, before he… before he got killed?’
Joachim pushed himself up, until he sat upright. Nikola did the same.
‘He gave me this weird looking pin’, said Joachim while grabbing Pythagoras’ pin out of his pocket. ‘He said it would change the future, my future.’
‘Sounds super suspicious to me, man. Maybe we should better get rid of it. We can’t trust him, in fact, we can’t trust anyone.’
‘He said one more thing…’, Joachim paused for a second. ‘He called me ‘“son”, there is no way this Pythagoras guy is my father, right?’
He looked at Nikola, waiting for him to say that it was all a dream, that nothing was real. But Nikola only said; ‘Why am I not surprised’, in his usual sarcastic tone.
A few seconds later, someone knocked on their room’s door. Joachim stood up to open it. It was Isaac.
‘Hey, Joachim, Nikola. Are you guys doing alright?’, he asked, concerned.
‘I’m… fine, yes. Thank you’, said Joachim.
‘Let’s get some good rest, ok? How about we meet up at 9 or 10 AM at the inn’s cafe, for breakfast?’, proposed Isaac.
‘Yes, that’s a good idea’, replied Joachim.
‘Well, see you both tomorrow morning then.’
‘See you tomorrow’, said both Joachim and Nikola.
And with that, Isaac left the room. Not too long after, Joachim and Nikola went to bed, even though it wasn’t even 9 PM yet. But Joachim had a hard time falling asleep. For him, it would be a long night, alone with his thoughts.
CHAPTER 7: An Unexpected Encounter (2)
After a painfully long night, the sun finally rose above the horizon and sunlight flooded their cheap inn room. Joachim had barely gotten any sleep. He drifted away for about an hour and during that time he had the worst kinds of dreams. He saw the events in the church play over and over, until he woke up in cold sweat. It somewhat reminded him of the events that all started this craziness.
Joachim reached out to the night-stand next to his bed to grab his phone and look at the time. “6:10”, the screen displayed. Another three hours before they are supposed to meet up with the others.
With a loud creak of the old bed, Joachim sat upright. He looked over to Nikola’s bed. He was still fast asleep. “Good”, thought Joachim, “Would not want to wake him, he deserves some sleep as well.”
Carefully, Joachim stood up from the bed and walked silently to the bathroom to refresh himself. He looked in the mirror and thought; “Man… I look like a recently reanimated corpse.”
His silver hair was all over the place, huge bags under his eyes and the most tired looking expression he had seen in his entire life.
He stumbled back onto his bed and sat there for a good while, staring at the blank gray walls.
After a while, he heard knocking on the door to their room.
‘Who is that so early?’, he mumbled to himself as he stumbled over to the door.
Slowly, he opened it and looked into the hallway. Waiting for him there were Max and Isaac.
‘Good morning’, greeted Joachim then, with a dead voice without intonation.
‘You did not get much sleep, did you?’, asked Isaac.
Joachim didn’t even know what to answer to that, or what excuse to give. Isaac obviously already knew what was going through his head.
‘Come with us, there is someone waiting for you. Says he wants to talk to you privately.’
‘Umm, ok?’, said Joachim unsure. He was still very tired, thinking is hard when you are tired. He had not the slightest idea of who would want to speak to him privately and all mysterious here like this.
Isaac and Max turned around and walked towards the staircase to the inn’s cafe. Joachim followed them.
As they entered the cafe, it was completely empty, aside from one table far in the back. There was a man in luxurious black clothing with golden accents, his blond, almost golden hair fell over his shoulders from underneath his black and golden hat. He sat alone at the table with his back towards Joachim. Two men stood behind him, facing Joachim. Bodyguards perhaps, although they didn’t look that tough and were seemingly unarmed. Their clothes were also not that conventional, it almost seemed funny to Joachim. Like, come on, the left one was wearing a crop top and some weird cap, and the right one had holes all over his getup and three bangs of blond hair were almost covering his eyes.
The two bodyguards stepped aside, to make way for Joachim.
‘You can go, they are not our enemies’, assured Isaac him. ‘He only wants to speak to you specifically… for some reason.’
‘Or so they say… How do they know me anyway?’, asked Joachim.
‘I don’t know, maybe ask him instead’, said Isaac as he gestured in the mysterious men’s direction.
Joachim nodded towards Isaac and Max. And as they nodded back, Joachim approached the strange trio.
The two strange bodyguards showed him to the chair across from their boss. Joachim nervously sat down. For some reason he couldn’t look straight at the man, it felt as if he would commit a crime just by looking at him.
‘Good morning Joachim Jovi’, said the man suddenly. He spoke English, although with an obvious Italian accent. ‘Would you like a coffee?’
Joachim managed to get a heavily stressed “ummm, hey… yes” out.
‘No need to be so uptight, we are here as friends, or rather… family.’
‘F- Family?’ Joachim asked, surprised and confused.
‘Let me introduce myself. Let’s say you are a… far cousin of mine. I would like to explain more… however, I run a pretty important group, therefore I can not reveal any details about myself. Doing so might put me in a disadvantageous position, let alone in danger. This goes for you and your friends too’, said the man.
‘So… why did you come here? Did we do something wrong? How did you find us?’, asked Joachim nervously, still intimidated by the man.
‘Wow wow, calm down, one question at a time. I have eyes and ears everywhere kid, it was not too hard to find you. And not to worry, you did not do anything wrong. The reason I came here… it is to warn you. I know who you are dealing with. This… Order. You are on a dangerous mission and I am here to guide you, in the name of the Italian Mafia.’
‘Wait, you are with the Mafia? Then… can’t the Mafia deal with them? If you know about them, then…’, Joachim stopped talking, scared to anger the man sitting in front of him, sipping from his coffee.
‘Look, first of all, our info is limited and I know you interacted with them. Secondly, if we make a move against The Order, it will start an all out war over not just Italy’, he said. ‘The deal is, I want to unofficially recruit you and your friends to deal with them from the inside. We will share our info and resources to take them out. This way no innocent people will get involved. In return we will cover any expenses you need, such as food, transportation, hotels and so on.’
‘So we have to do it by ourselves anyways? You can send some men with us, right?’
‘Joachim’, he said as he looked Joachim dead in the eye. ‘Do not underestimate your newfound powers. These are what they are after, and they will not stop until they have it for themselves. I will be supporting you, albeit from the shadows. I will lead you the way.’
‘You know about stands?’, asked Joachim.
‘Of course I do, I have one too and so do all of my best men. If worst comes to worst, we will enter the scene as well.’
Joachim looked at the man, then at his bodyguards. How strong would their stands be if they have gotten to this position? Joachim knew only one thing; he did not want to get on their bad side.
‘Ok, I agree with your… plan’, said Joachim.
‘Good’, he said as he looked at his golden wristwatch. ‘Our time here is running out. I’ll tell you where you should go next. We have intel on a hidden meeting place of some kind in the Museo Galileo here in Firenze. I want you to go there and investigate it, as agreed we will pay the entrance fees.’
Joachim looked at the man and nodded.
‘Oh, and one more thing’, said the man, ‘Avoid speaking of this conversation to your friends. Chances are high there is a spy among them.’
‘What?!’, shouted Joachim.
The man put his index finger on his lips to signal Joachim to be quiet.
Now at a way lower volume, Joachim asked; ‘A spy in our group? Who is it?’
The mysterious man stood up as he finished his coffee. He put the cup down and said; ‘That, I do not know. But now our time today is up. Good luck… JoJo.’
And with that the Mafia boss turned around and headed towards the Cafe’s exit, followed by his bodyguards. They left the Cafe with the ringing of the door’s bell.
Joachim stood up and saw the man had left an envelope laying on the chair. He reached out to it and picked it up. On the front there was only a calligraphy of big golden letters saying; GG. Out of curiosity, Joachim opened the envelope to find it was stuffed with at least a thousand euros worth of cash. He quickly closed the envelope and hid it away immediately. He anxiously looked around him and then left towards the bedrooms to reunite with Isaac, Max and the others. How will he explain all this to them while also keeping it secret?
After the strange meeting with the boss of the Italian Mafia, Joachim headed back to his room. Nikola was still sleeping, he has always been a heavy sleeper causing him to run late to school at least once a week.
First thing Joachim did when he got back was hide the envelope in his jacket. That thing has too much value to just walk around with.
He went back to his bed once more to contemplate a bit on all the things he had heard from the Mafia boss.
About an hour later, Nikola awoke. He sat up in his bed and looked around, dazed, while rubbing his eye.
‘Good morning’, said Joachim.
‘Mornin’ JoJo’, Nikola yawned, ‘So it was not some crazy dream?’
‘It certainly still is not a dream Nikola…’
Nikola looked on his phone.
‘Damn is it still this early in the morning? I thought it would be almost noon, judging by the amount of light’, said Nikola.
‘What time is it then?’, asked Joachim.
‘A little past eight…’
‘Should we head down for breakfast already?’
‘Nah, no need to hurry, I will just lie down for a bit longer.’
‘Alright, let’s do that then.’
After about half an hour of doing nothing and getting ready for the day, Nikola and Joachim headed downstairs, where all the others were already waiting for them.
Joachim and Nikola each took a seat at the table and greeted the others a good morning. Everyone still seemed either tired out or lost in thought. In silence they ate breakfast from a small selection of bread and cereals.
‘So…’, said Marie to break the awkward silence. ‘What’s on today’s planning? More madness and bizarre events, I guess?’
Isaac looked at Joachim. He knew that Joachim had an answer to that question.
With a silent, shy voice, Wilhelm said; ‘I… want to go home… Can we go home now?’
‘I am guessing that is not a possibility… right, Joachim?’, asked Isaac.
‘Great!’, said Nikola and Marie at the same time. One full of irony, the other almost excited. Joachim did not understand why Marie seemed to be the only one enjoying this situation.
Joachim cleared his throat. ‘A man came to see me this morning’, he started. ‘He offered to help us deal with this weird cult.’
‘Wait, who is he? This sounds way too suspicious!’, asked Nikola, alarmed.
‘It’s fine, I think we can trust him’, answered Joachim.
‘You think?’, asked Marie.
‘Ok fair enough, we should still be carefull. He offered to pay for our stay here and everything else’, annoyed, Joachim raised his voice a little to get everyone’s attention. But Max just kept focus on his now almost empty bowl of cereal. ‘In return, we will investigate this cult or order or whatever they are.’
At the mention of the Order, Max looked up from his cereal. Now he got his attention.
‘Ok, so what does this guy want us to do?’, asked Isaac.
‘He told me to investigate a museum, the… Galileo museum or something’, said Joachim.
‘Museo Galileo…’, mumbled Max to himself. ‘It’s not too far from here…’
It was the first time Joachim heard Max speak. He has a rather soothing voice.
‘What about the maps on the cards, shouldn’t we follow those?’, asked Nikola.
‘We don’t know who is making these maps, it might be the cult themselves trying to pull the strings’, reasoned Isaac.
‘That, and the second map has not changed since we went to that church and almost got ourselves killed’, added Joachim. ‘I don’t really feel like going back there.’
‘Look, If Max knows the place, then we should definitely go there. I’m sure it’ll give us some answers’, said Isaac as he stood up.
‘Then it is decided, let’s go visit a museum!’, said Marie, still strangely cheery.
CHAPTER 8: An Unexpected Encounter (3)
Joachim and Nikola went back to their room after breakfast to gather their stuff and leave the inn. Joachim had left his phone there while he had breakfast. He picked it up and saw he had a missed call. The person who called was his mom. He had a little panic attack right then and there.
Nikola noticed and asked; ‘Hey, something wrong?’
‘My mom called’, answered Joachim, ‘I completely forgot! And how do I explain why I am not home yet? I am in God damn Italy!’, he said, panicking even more.
‘Just tell her you stayed the night at my place’, suggested Nikola.
It was a fairly decent excuse, it would not be the first time something like this happened. But his mom will want him to come home soon enough, and they don’t know how long they’ll be stuck in Italy, fighting off an unknown, dangerous cult.
‘Do you think she will believe it? I am so bad at lying’, said Joachim.
‘She will believe it, at least for now’, reassured Nikola.
With a moment of hesitation, Joachim called his mother. She picked up her phone pretty quick.
‘Joachim Jovi! Where are you, I’m worried sick!’, she said, not too happy about the situation. Joachim was not used to her being angry, let alone calling him by his full name.
‘I… uh… stayed the night at Nikola’s place…’, said Joachim, stumbling over his words.
‘Why did you not let me know sooner?’, she asked.
‘I’m sorry mom, I… completely forgot.’
‘How did you get back from the station?’
The questions started rolling in as she wanted to know exactly what’s happening. And Joachim has to answer them all, making his lies as believable as possible.
Joachim looked at Nikola for help. Nikola made a gesture with his index and middle finger, imitating a person walking with his two fingers being the legs.
‘We, uh, walked here from the station’, said Joachim.
A brief moment of silence.
‘Ok then…’, she finally said.
At that moment someone knocked on their door. Isaac opened the door and let himself in. ‘Are you guys ready?’, he asked.
Nikola put his finger on his lips to tell Isaac to be quiet.
‘Oh, ok’, whispered Isaac.
Joachim then said: ‘Ok, uh, I will call you back, I got to go now.’
‘Wait, JoJo, when will you be back?’, she asked finally.
Joachim could not bring himself to answer this question.
‘Sorry mom, bye, talk to you later!’
And with those words, Joachim ended the call.
A short awkward silence followed.
Isaac finally broke the silence after what felt like an eternity.
‘Your mother, huh…’, he said, avoiding all eye contact.
‘Yes’, replied Joachim.
Just then a thought crossed his mind. Nikola’s parents are away on a business trip in Germany, if Joachim remembered correctly. It’s not the first time and definitely not the last either. But due to it, Nikola grew up a very independent person and his parents are probably not bothered with what he’s up to.
But the others… What about their parents?
‘Are your parents informed about all this?’, asked Nikola bluntly. He most likely wondered the same thing as Joachim did. But he couldn’t read the negative energy in the room, mostly coming from Isaac who was prepared for this question to come.
‘I’ll tell you where we come from. Keeping secrets can only hurt our group in the end’, Isaac paused for a few seconds, as if to make a final decision whether he actually wanted to tell them his secret. He walked over to Joachim’s bed and sat down with a small sigh. Joachim and Nikola sat across from him, on Nikola’s bed.
‘I have lived together in a boarding school with Marie for as long as I can remember. She has become a sort of little sister to me. I took care of her and a couple others the last few years, being one of the oldest ones and all.’
Joachim and Nikola stared at him as he unveiled his past. Joachim had a strange feeling he already knew where this was going.
‘The boarding school is owned by an orphanage. We… no longer have parents, or never had them.’
‘What about Max?’, asked Nikola.
‘Max only came to the boarding school about a year ago or so. Strange kid, he was… still is’, Isaac grinned for a split second, before going back to being serious. ‘The boarding school wasn’t the best place for him, but, wherever he came from before, was way worse. He brought part of it with him.’
Isaac was no longer looking at the other two boys. He was vacantly staring outside the window to his left.
Joachim didn’t know what to say. Neither did Nikola.
‘Did something happen at the school when all this started?’, asked Joachim.
Isaac snapped out of his little trance and looked at Joachim. He did not answer the question, but Joachim knew now that there was more to his story.
Instead of answering Joachim, Isaac stood up and put his hand on Joachim’s shoulder.
It’s a sort of thing fatherly figures do, thought Joachim. He wondered if his father was ever like that, before he… disappeared. It filled Joachim with a strange sense of determination.
‘Come on, the others are waiting downstairs, we have a mission to complete’, he said. His mood shifted from serious and depressing to his usual, leader figure-like behaviour. Joachim was still amazed and confused how Isaac, as rugged and edgy he was, was still such a caring person. He instantly took the lead over the group when Joachim explained the whole Mafia Boss situation. He was really thankful for that. Joachim was glad he wouldn’t have to carry this weight on his shoulders all by himself.
Isaac stepped out of the front door, followed by Nikola and then Joachim, who turned around at the last second, almost forgetting to bring his jacket. That would have been quite an issue…
They arrived at the lobby a few moments later, where Marie, Max and Wilhelm were waiting for them.
‘Everyone ready for some sight-seeing?’, asked Marie.
‘Yes, but don’t forget our objective here, Marie’, Isaac replied.
‘Yeah, yeah…’, said Marie, slightly annoyed.
Joachim took the lead and headed towards the exit.
‘Ok, let’s go then’, he said.
The others followed him outside. They headed towards the nearest bus-stop that stopped at the museum. Luckily it was only a ten minute walk or so. At the bus stop they all bought a ticket and boarded the first bus that arrived.
The bus was full of people, but they managed to get a few seats. Nikola and Isaac chose to stay standing in the aisle so the others could have a seat. The bus ride itself wouldn’t be that long anyways.
‘So, what exactly are we supposed to find in this huge museum? Some sort of underground temple?’, asked Nikola suddenly.
‘Could be’, said Marie. ‘Or maybe a sacrificial altar or a vault filled with riches…’
She was counting the options on her fingers, as if she had many more to follow up with.
Joachim cut her off. ‘It could be anything, but they won’t send us straight into their den, right? My guess would be a small hideout of some sorts.’
‘A small hidden room for refuge or storage…’, said Isaac to himself. He turned to Max and asked; ‘Max, if you don’t mind me asking, do you know what’s inside the museum?’
He did his usual “staring blankly outside the window” thing for a while, to simply answer; ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Great’, said Nikola. ‘guess we’ll just have to head in there blindly and find out.’
The entire group looked towards Nikola, except Max. But Nikola just turned his head. It might have come off a bit rude, but Nikola was right. Deep down they all knew it.
‘Hey, we’ll be okay, we will find whatever is in there’, said Joachim to try and comfort the group.
The group was silent for most of the ride afterwards. It was normal to be nervous. This was not a situation a bunch of normal teens should be thrown into. They all stepped out of the bus at the stop closest to the museum, together with a few dozen other tourists. It would be a busy day at the museum, judging by the amount of people headed towards it.
Finally arriving at the museum a few minutes later, they stood before a five story tall old sandstone building on the corner of a street. Other than looking classical, there wasn’t anything particularly special about it. Joachim wondered what kind of stuff they had on display.
The group entered the museum and bought tickets with money from their newly acquired “sponsor”. With a hint of hesitation, everyone followed Joachim as he went inside the building of their enemy’s supposed hideout.
Everyone except…
CHAPTER 9: Fort Bastille (1)
Inside, the museum was a string of spacious rooms filled to the brim with ancient devices, all inventions that preceded modern technology. Wooden constructions to engines and telescopes…, you name it. There were endless glass cabinets with clocks, measuring instruments and displays of intricate mechanisms.
It was a museum named after the famous inventor Galileo after all.
The group followed the mass of people filtering through the rooms in the museum, literally dragging Joachim along with them.
Joachim couldn’t help but stop and stare at every other invention that was on display. When he was a child he developed a passion for building and constructing things. The only toys he would ever ask for were the newest Lego sets. Up until this day he has made a massive collection of constructions he designed himself, not only made out of Lego, but out of cardboard or wooden parts he shaped himself. He took great inspiration from the old inventors for this, such as Galileo.
It was only when they arrived in room three of the museum that they noticed the visitors in front of them had disappeared. They must have fallen behind on them when dealing with Joachim. But there was one other thing even more suspicious… The people who were behind them vanished too! It was as if they were suddenly entirely alone in the museum.
Joachim was too occupied to notice what was happening around him. Dead center in the room, fenced in by a low steel rail, stood a majestic four meter tall, golden, sphere-like mechanism.
‘Joachim!’
‘Hey Joachim!’
‘JoJo!’
Joachim woke from his trance. His friends sounded distant, but close at the same time as they called out his name to get his attention. It was almost as if they were in a tight, closed room, instead of a spacious museum exhibition.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’, Joachim said, and immediately after he asked; ‘What’s going on?’
‘What even is this huge ball? Why are you so obsessed with it?’, asked Nikola.
‘It’s an Armillary Sphere… It’s like a map of the universe, every single ring follows the position of a heavenly body, with the Earth at its center. It not only tracks the sun, moon and planets, but also star signs and other things we have been able to find out there. It was originally designed by Aristotle himself. I’ve never seen one this big…’, monologued Joachim.
‘Ok, that’s interesting and all, but more importantly…’, said Nikola
‘All the visitors disappeared’, continued Isaac with a calm voice, finishing Nikola’s sentence.
Joachim looked around him. It’s true, there was no-one around except the five of them… Wait, five? Something was missing, or rather someone. All of the others seemed to realise the same.
‘Where is Wilhelm?!’, asked Marie, alarmed.
The boy was so silent they all forgot he existed. Joachim started to feel really bad for him.
‘We should go look for him!’, shouted Marie as she ran back to the second exhibition room. But she was stopped dead in her tracks. She bounced off of something in the doorway. Something invisible.
She brought her right hand up to her forehead with a silent “ouch’”.
Isaac went to check on Marie and after having confirmed that she was not injured, he placed his hand on the invisible wall.
‘Strange…’, was all Isaac said, moving his hand around, searching for a possible opening.
Nikola joined Isaac’s search as well with a firm kick to the invisible wall. To no one’s surprise, it didn’t budge.
‘You won’t be able to leave this room like that’, a mysterious voice said from the other side of the room.
No one saw him enter, the sphere blocked their view on the exit towards room four.
‘And who might you be? What have you done to this room?’, asked Isaac, approaching the newcomer.
With an over the top thinking gesture, looking at the ceiling while stroking his chin, he thought for a few moments, clearly to annoy the guy standing in front of him. compared to Isaac’s big posture, this guy was a small fry, but somehow had enough confidence to try and piss off someone like Isaac.
‘You can call me Vinci, and well… what I have done to the room does not concern you, I just put up a few barriers’, Vinci said with a wide smile. ‘Oh and before you try, this exit is sealed off too!’
‘What do you mean “does not concern us”?’, asked Nikola aggressively, ‘You trapped us here, didn’t you?’
Vinci looked over to Nikola with disgust and didn’t even waste any words on him.
Joachim clearly saw that this got Nikola beyond just being angry. Nikola wanted to lash out at him but Joachim could hold him back just in time.
‘Do you work for the order? Heck, how do you even know us?’, asked Joachim, still holding back Nikola behind his left arm.
‘Man, you guys have a lot of questions, don’t you? I am only doing as I am told’, Vinci said. ‘I am like you, but I just chose a different path.’
While he said that he pulled out a card from the pocket of his dark grey puffer jacket. He held it up like he was police, showing his badge. He flipped it around and it showed the number “11”.
‘So you are one of the invited people too, huh’, said Isaac, still standing right in front of Vinci, towering well above him. ‘But it doesn’t change the fact that you have already chosen a side, in your case, the wrong one.’
‘I say we get rid of him’, said Nikola as he pushed Joachim’s arm away.
Nikola charged in, head first. Joachim realised Vinci must have a Stand power. And that they didn’t know yet what he might be capable of.
‘Nikola wait!’, shouted Joachim, but he was too late.
Vinci held out his hand towards Nikola, as his skin started to transform. Realizing Nikola’s mistake, Isaac cautiously jumped back towards Marie and Max, to protect them from what might come.
Nikola landed his full force punch on another invisible wall. While Nikola’s fist bounced off of the wall in what looked like a pretty painful collision, Vinci’s skin began transforming all over his body. It almost looked like it grew around his body into some sort of suit, an exoskeleton. Could this be… a Stand?!
Nikola finally got some distance between him and the unknown Stand user in front of them. But even that distance wouldn’t be enough. In this relatively small exhibit room, hiding away was not an option.
Vinci bent through his knees and the next moment, he had jumped to Nikola’s location with extreme speed. The exoskeleton must be helping somehow.
Nikola summoned Acid Rain and fired water at Vinci from both arms. With one punch from his exosuit, all of Acid Rain’s water bounced back in Nikola’s face.
‘Another invisible wall?!’, shouted Joachim. No, not just the wall. the water that had hit Nikola back was… solid? Almost like fresh ice, but it did not melt. It knocked Nikola out.
Right then, Isaac jumped into action. He threw a punch on Vinci and managed to actually land it. But to no effect. He had hit the exoskeleton and Vinci was completely unphased by it. Vinci blew it off as easily as if had been hit by a slight breeze instead of Isaac’s fist.
This armor, these barriers… It’s almost an ultimate defense!
‘You really think a simple punch can get through Bastille’s armor?’, Vinci asked.
‘If my fist can’t get through, I’ll just pin you down instead!’
Isaac threw all his weight into grabbing Vinci, but he was too slow. Isaac fell to the ground. Using his superhuman speed from his exoskeleton, Vinci dashed over to the other side of the Armillary Sphere where Marie and Max were. Vinci then ran a circle around the two scared teens, punching, but without actually hitting them.
Joachim saw it all happen before him, while trying to get Nikola to wake up. As Vinci came to a stop, Marie scaredly opened her eyes. When she tried to stand up, she bumped into something overhead. When she tried to crawl barely half a meter towards Joachim, Nikola and Isaac, she bumped into another wall. She shouted at them, but they heard nothing but a muffled scream. Marie shook Max, but he was as unresponsive as ever. Using her hands to feel her way out of her entrapment, she fell to despair when she found none.
Vinci, as if he had already won, declared; ‘They are trapped in an airtight box. If you tell me who gave you information about this place, I might just let them go.’
Marie looked at Joachim with the expression of a trapped puppy begging to be let outside.
‘What have you done to them?’, asked Joachim as he got up.
‘What I have done to them? Nothing’, Vinci said. ‘All I did was solidify the air around them.’
‘Solidify the air around them? How is that even possible?’, Asked Isaac as he slowly got up too.
‘It’s my Stand, Bastille’s power! It can harden and solidify anything I touch instantly and it becomes as hard as a steel vault wall!’
When he got no reaction other than Joachim gritting his teeth, Vinci continued; ‘So what’s it gonna be? Tell me who gave you information and I’ll let them go! It’s simple really.’
Isaac looked over to Joachim.
‘I…’, Joachim felt guilt rising up inside him. ‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Tell him Joachim! He’ll let them go!’, shouted Isaac. He was slowly losing his composure.
‘I can’t Isaac! There must be another way’, said Joachim.
‘Beat the shit out of him, I don’t care how many walls he spews out.’
It was Nikola, He came by just in time. With his face full of bruises, he stood up. Joachim saw in Nikola’s deep green eyes that he hadn’t learned his lesson and was about to charge in recklessly once again. This uncontrollable anger… Even Joachim wouldn’t be able to stop him, and neither would Isaac.
CHAPTER 10: Fort Bastille (2)
Just as Joachim had predicted, Nikola took a deep breath and charged head first into another confrontation with Vinci. Acid Rain followed him closely, arms at the ready to drench his enemy in amnestic water.
Before Nikola could even support his punch with a battle cry, Vinci swiftly hit Nikola in the chest. Vinci’s punch itself wasn’t hard enough for Nikola to fall to the ground, but what the punch caused inside of him sure was.
Vinci just stood there, watching Nikola gasping for air like a goldfish outside of its bowl. He looked at Joachim, desperately trying to say something but not a single sound got out of his mouth. He fell to his knees holding on to his throat and clawing at his chest.
‘Vinci! He… He solidified the air in Nikola’s lungs?!’, realised Joachim.
‘We have to get rid of him, NOW’, shouted Isaac.
‘Fine, I’ll tell you…’, Joachim couldn’t finish his sentence.
‘You think just that will satisfy our needs now? Heck, I already have a pretty decent idea of who is helping you’, said Vinci.
‘We have no time for this now’, said Isaac. He ran over to Marie and Max’s air prison and smashed his fist into it with the force of a train. It must have shattered his knuckles, because blood was now floating on top of the invisible wall.
Vinci, now further away from the cage after Nikola’s attack, laughed.
‘What are you doing? It’s useless, I already told you! You can punch however hard you like, you won’t make a dent’, he smirked.
‘I’m doing this’, said Isaac, looking Vinci dead in the eye.
Four chains of dark steel with pointy hooks on the end of them manifested around Isaac. The chains turned to point at Vinci and with immense speed they launched toward him. Vinci punched the air in front of him with his right hand, to create yet another barrier.
Isaac’s chains stopped at the wall, as if they were darts thrown at a bull’s eye.
No, they did not stop. Joachim looked closely. The chains were slowly but surely piercing through. He saw Isaac concentrating all his power into the chains.
‘Vengeful… One…’, He grunted. A figure started manifesting behind Isaac, as shadows danced around him. His stand looked like a hooded shadow person with two piercing red eyes and a grim smile full of sharp teeth. Ragged clothes bound together with rusted, black chains hung all over its ethereal body.
A rush of power went through the chains to Vinci’s last line of defense. The chains must almost be through the wall, because Joachim saw Vinci breaking sweat. Indeed, not too long after, all four chains flew through the wall into Vinci’s right fist that he was still holding up. Only then did Joachim notice Vinci’s fingers and the underside of his arm were not protected by his Stand. He was too late to harden his own skin further, as the four hooks embedded themselves in his hand.
Following the chains, shadows were transferred towards Vinci and not too long after, both he and Isaac were enveloped in a swirling mass of shadows.
After a few seconds the shadows dissipated and revealed that both had disappeared. As Nikola still lay in his arms, losing consciousness, Joachim slowly descended into despair.
Isaac did not hesitate for even a second. After arriving in Vengeful One’s separate realm, he immediately lunged out at Vinci. Vinci was too slow to realize his surroundings had disappeared and made place for an open place of darkness and shadow.
Isaac’s punch hit him straight in the face. As he stumbled to the right, he fought to maintain his balance. If his face wasn’t protected by Bastille, he would have been knocked out already. This guy has some serious force.
Wait… how did he move past the air barrier?
‘What is this place, how did you…’, said Vinci. Before he could finish his sentence, he felt a tug on his hand. The chains from Isaac’s stand were still lodged in his fist.
He flew forward and saw Isaac had reeled him in by pulling the chains. His stand, menacing and more frightening than anything Vinci had ever seen in his life, evaporated his resolve with one intense stare. It must have been at least twice as big as it was before.
Isaac’s face was dark, with no expression, and no mercy. As he covered his face with his bloody right hand, Vengeful One attacked. This one, single punch was enough to completely shatter Bastille’s protection.
Vinci’s world shaked on it’s foundations as the fist of darkness hit his stomach. It must have broken a few ribs, because Vinci coughed up blood.
Bastille disappeared as Vinci lost consciousness. Such a terrifyingly quick end.
Nikola violently gasped for air as the shadows returned. He slowly sat upright, bringing up a hand to his head. This was a good sign, right? As quick as they came, the darkness disappeared once again, this time bringing back a victorious Isaac and unconscious Vinci.
Marie stood up and ran towards Isaac, hugging him. It took a while for Isaac to react and hold her too.
‘Isaac… what was… that?’, asked Joachim.
He let go of Marie and turned to Joachim.
‘My… Stand, Vengeful One’, he said. ‘Is Nikola alright?’, he asked.
Joachim nodded. ‘I think so… How about you, though?’
Isaac ignored the question and went over to max, who was also standing up again.
‘I assume you are also ok, Max?’
Max nodded, once. Ever silent and calm, even after all this. That boy is a mystery too.
‘Ah, my head…’, grunted Nikola. ‘That bastard, where is he so I can p-’
Then Nikola saw Vinci laying on the floor.
‘Is he… like… dead?’, he asked.
‘No’, answered Isaac, ‘just unconscious.’
‘What do we do with him now?’, asked Marie.
No need to answer that question, as Isaac called upon his stand again and tied up the unconscious Vinci in chains.
Not too long after, Vinci woke up, clearly still in pain. Joachim wondered what Isaac had done to him, though he was sure Vinci had deserved it.
Leaving hardly any time for Vinci to catch his breath, Isaac lowered himself to his level and asked him; ‘So tell me, what are you guarding here, number 11?’
Vinci jumped at the sight of him as fear covered his sorry face. Joachim was not familiar with this side of Isaac. He even was getting scared of him himself.
Vinci hesitated and looked away from Isaac. Isaac did not appreciate this. He grabbed him by the chin, turning his head to face him.
‘I know you were put here to protect something. What… is… it?’, he left long spaces in between those last three words as if to give Vinci some time to think.
‘The sphere’, Vinci said hastily. ‘They’re in the sphere.’
‘Joachim’, said Isaac, while keeping eye contact with Vinci. Joachim knew immediately what he had to do, search the sphere from top to bottom. Was there some hidden combination somewhere? A certain alignment of the circles surrounding earth that would open up a secret room of some kind? Joachim began rotating all the planetary orbits to align them all, that seemed most logical, right?
Isaac looked over his shoulder to see if Joachim had made any progress.
‘He is laughing’, said Nikola. Everyone turned to look at Vinci who now had a slight grimace on his face instead of his fearful expression from earlier. ‘Even in the situation he is in now, he is laughing?!’, continued Nikola.
‘What, it’s not like I lied or anything…’, he said with a mischievous tone.
One intense stare of Isaac later, Vinci’s smile ran away from his face.
‘Ok, ok, I get it. It’s underneath the sphere, just be careful you don’t break it while moving it. It’s pretty heavy, and expensive’, said Vinci. He hadn’t lost his nerve to talk back to Isaac yet, and he would soon regret that.
‘We’ve heard enough, shut up now’, said Isaac. Vinci was silent after Isaac’s remark.
‘So how do we move it?’, asked Marie.
‘Let me handle it’, said Joachim.
Joachim called upon his Stand, which soon after appeared. He let Fistful Steel place its hand on the side of the sphere and almost immediately after lifting up the hand, a gear appeared where it had touched it. Making a turning gesture with its hand, the gears on Fistful Steel’s dorsal side of the hand started turning. In tune with those, the gear on the Armillary Sphere started moving too. It gently moved the mechanism over the wooden flooring of the museum, without friction.
The open gap left underneath the Armillary Sphere revealed a small safe, not much bigger than a lunch-box.
The lid of the safe had a small electronic code lock, with numbers from zero to nine. The possible codes to unlock it were basically endless.
‘Hey bastard, could you kindly give us the code as well?’, asked Nikola in a not so friendly tone.
‘You honestly think they give that to me? I’m just a random pawn they picked off the streets in France’, Vinci snared at Nikola.
‘I think he is telling the truth on this one, Nikola’, said Joachim. ‘It wouldn’t make sense to already give this guy the key to whatever is inside this safe.’
‘I mean… If it is something super important to them, I would’ve expected more guards than just this guy’, replied Nikola.
‘He was a pretty formidable opponent, but you do have a point, Nikola’, said Isaac, who had returned to his calm self, thank god.
‘Then, how do we get this thing open?’, asked Joachim, to no one in particular.
‘Oh! Maybe Darwin can do something!’, suggested Marie.
‘Actually not a bad idea!’
Joachim reached into his pocket and took out his phone. He called Darwin.
‘Why hello Joachim!’, he said cheerfully. ‘That was one rough battle, I’m glad you are all ok’, he said right after, with a more serious tone.
‘Of course you saw all of it.’
‘Indeed I did. So, you need to get that safe open, right? I was actually just about to call you myself!’
‘Yes, if you please.’
‘I’ll handle it. Just, let me take over your phone for a second.’
Without waiting for Joachim’s reply, his phone turned into the Stand he had seen once before through a screen. Radiohead took over his phone and a small silver cable extended out of the side of it. Strangely enough, it plugged itself into the safe, although it had no such port. A few seconds later the safe clicked open with a high-pitched beep.
The cable retracted and Joachim’s phone returned to normal.
‘There you go! Glad I could be of help again!’, said Darwin overjoyed.
‘Thanks a bunch, Darwin’, thanked Joachim.
‘Oh, and you know where to find me next time for all your technological troubles!’, added Darwin, and then he was gone.
‘He seems awfully cheery…’, said Isaac, with a slight smile.
‘He does, yeah…’, agreed Joachim. They didn’t go further into the subject. There was an important task before them.
Joachim reached out to the handle of the safe’s lid. He cautiously opened it. The whole group watched over his shoulder as he did, even Max.
Inside the safe were stacks upon stacks of… black cards?! How? What does this mean? Who do these belong to? Hundreds of questions stormed through everyone’s minds. Even Vinci gasped in surprise as Joachim carefully lifted out a stack of cards. There must be hundreds in here… but they all had one thing in common. They were all… blank.
Continued in JJBA: Steel Shadows Season 2!
nice story i read so far . Ill try to read as far as possible