JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure:
Steel Shadows
Chapter 11 -> 20
Story By; Sakusha Rei
Art By; Lukama
Poster Image: Captain Jack
Additional art by;
Ultimate Rico (Linkin Park)
Contents Table;
- CHAPTER 11: Distrust
- CHAPTER 12: Blink Of An Eye (1)
- CHAPTER 13: Blink Of An Eye (2)
- CHAPTER 14: Ptolemy
- CHAPTER 15: Linkin Park (1)
- CHAPTER 16: Linkin Park (2)
- CHAPTER 17: Linkin Park (3)
- CHAPTER 18: Pursuit
- CHAPTER 19: Cobras And Sickness (1)
- CHAPTER 20: Cobras And Sickness (2)
CHAPTER 11: Distrust
As Joachim held the stack of blank black cards in his hand, he glanced over to Isaac and Nikola. They did not say anything and could not keep their eyes off the thing that they had just uncovered. The cards were the exact same as the ones they had been given.
‘What does this mean?’, asked Joachim rhetorically, because he knew none of the ones present knew the answer to it, not even the person that was guarding it.
‘Great discovery you made there’, said Vinci, still tied up in Isaac’s chains.
Everyone ignored his comment, as Vinci snickered to himself.
‘So… what do we do with this?’, asked Marie.
‘First things first, we need to find Wilhelm and get out of this place. Chances are reinforcements could be on their way here’, reasoned Isaac.
‘We should report this to the guy who sent us here too’, said Joachim, ‘I’ll take a few of these cards as proof.’
Joachim carefully put about five or six empty cards in the right pocket of his jacket and put the lid back onto the safe. It automatically shut close.
‘Ok, now let’s get away from that creep’, said Nikola, glancing over to Vinci.
Joachim stood up and moved the Armillary Sphere back into its original spot.
Vinci’s expression changed from smirking to panic as he realised he was being left behind.
‘W-Wait! You can’t leave me here like this! The order will-’, Vinci was cut off by Marie, of all people.
‘Have a great day at the museum, Mr. Vinci Sir! I’m sure your Order will tolerate your little blunder, no hard feelings!’, she said in a cheerful way, yet with a dreadfully mean undertone. It sent chills down Joachim’s spine. There was a lot more to this girl that he did not know yet.
‘NOOOO!’, Vinci cried out as the group left to go back to the front entrance.
Once they reached the entrance they found Wilhelm standing amongst a group of people. They all looked… dazed?
Marie shouted out to Wilhelm; ‘Hey! Wilhelm! Where have you been?’
Wilhelm quietly rejoined the group, excusing himself for getting split off of the group.
‘No, it’s our fault, we should have realised. At least you didn’t get caught up in that mess Vinci created’, said Joachim to comfort the boy.
‘But where do we go now?’, asked Nikola.
‘I suggest for now we go back to the small hotel we were staying at’, replied Isaac.
‘Agreed’, confirmed Joachim.
After the short bus trip back, they arrived back at the hotel, where someone was waiting for them.
Joachim instantly spotted one of the Mafia Boss’ henchmen.
Isaac had recognized him too, and looked over to Joachim. Once their eyes met, he knew what needed to be done.
‘Let’s go to our rooms’, said Isaac, pulling the group along. Yet Joachim stayed in place.
After they left, Joachim approached the man.
‘Hey’, he said.
The man turned around, his eyes sharp and fixated on Joachim, ready for a counter attack if necessary. Joachim noticed the man firmly held on to something in the right pocket of his black, checkered pants.
‘Oh, it’s you’, he said with a sigh. ‘The Boss wanted me to stay here and await your return.’
‘So… where is he now?’, asked Joachim.
‘He awaits you in the Boboli Gardens’, the man said. ‘Also you don’t have to come alone, the Boss requested all of you to join him in the park.’
‘When should we meet him?’, asked Joachim. Joachim noticed he felt at ease around this guy. He didn’t feel threatened at all, in fact. Still he knew to be careful around anyone involved in Mafia business.
‘I’ll take you guys there, whenever you are ready.’
‘Alright, let me talk to them, they deserve a bit of rest after what just happened.’
‘I’m sure they do, kid, but our situation could get harsh any moment. Rest wouldn’t even be an option anymore.’
‘Um… sure’, said Joachim, not so sure. ‘I understand.’
‘Now go get them.’
Joachim left the man behind and left for the guest rooms. He felt as though he had been talking to a father, or rather, a superior. Like that man was a senior student and Joachim a freshman.
Joachim entered his room, where Nikola lay sleeping on his bed. Joachim’s bed. He put his hands on Nikola and shook him to wake him up.
‘H-Hey? What’s going on?’, he asked as he slowly came to his senses.
‘This is my side, my bed’, said Joachim.
‘Aah, that? Does it matter that much to you?’, he grunted.
Joachim thought about it. Does it really matter? A bed is a bed right, as long as you get to sleep it should be fine.
‘Yeah, it does’, said Joachim after all. He pulled on Nikola, who stood up and went to his side of the room.
He was more comfortable with things being this way, Joachim thought. Just to keep everything a bit organized.
Joachim said down on his bed and glanced over to the clock on the wall. The hands showed it was half past twelve in the afternoon. That would explain why Joachim was getting hungry.
‘Are you hungry?’, asked Joachim.
As if on cue, Nikola’s stomach made a rumbling noise. ‘Yeah, we brought some snacks right?’
‘Do you plan on just eating snacks?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well I’m going to get some real food.’
Joachim stood up and went to the door. When Nikola did not react at all, Joachim left the room. He went up to Isaac’s room to check if the others wanted to get a bite as well. He knocked on the door and Isaac opened up a few moments later.
‘Hey, JoJo’, He said, ‘I assume you are here to ask me about lunch, correct?’
Perceptive as he is, he was spot on. Joachim expected no less. But most likely, Isaac was just hungry too.
Joachim glanced over to Isaac’s right hand. He had bandaged it already, but it still looked pretty bad. Joachim was amazed how little Isaac was bothered with his broken hand, and the fact that he had the resolve to break it himself!
‘Exactly’, said Joachim, still looking at Isaac’s hand. ‘So are you guys coming along?’
‘Where’s Nikola?’, he asked. ‘Also, no need to worry about my hand, it’s ok now.’
‘Oh, alright. And don’t mind him, he wanted to sleep and eat some snacks we brought along.’
‘At the same time?’, Isaac laughed. ‘Well, alright then. We will meet you downstairs, I will get the others.’
Soon, all but Nikola gathered in the cafe and had lunch together. Joachim saw the Mafia guy still sitting at his table in the corner. He seemed to be fiddling around with something, but Joachim couldn’t see what.
After a bit, Nikola decided to show up too, with a bag of chips in his hand. The whole group looked at him as he approached their table.
‘What?’, he said playfully.
He picked up a chair and joined them.
After most of the group had finished the sandwich they ordered, Joachim decided to discuss the matter at hand with the group. He cleared his throat.
‘So, uh, the Boss is waiting for us in Boboli Garden’, he said. The others turned their attention to him. He could clearly see all their separate reactions to his sudden statement.
Isaac immediately understood. Marie however seemed a bit lost, not that it mattered to her, she would get to go out again and explore a new place. Max was completely silent, as usual, but had his attention focused on Joachim. Wilhelm just looked at Joachim, not understanding at all. And Nikola… was obviously preparing a sarcastic comment.
‘So we officially work for him now? When did I agree to join the Mafia?’, Nikola said.
Joachim ignored him and continued the explanation.
‘The guy over there at the table in the corner will take us there when we are ready.’
‘Who is he?’, asked Marie.
‘One of his bodyguards, I assume. Or a right hand man.’
‘So do we just head straight over? Without a second thought?’, asked Nikola.
‘I don’t see why not’, answered Isaac, ‘If everyone is ready.’
‘Hey! This guy blindly threw us in a dangerous situation, just like that! How can you trust them so easily?!’, shouted Nikola at no one in particular.
‘We don’t trust them, Nikola. It’s just…’, started Joachim.
‘They are our only option right now, and I don’t think we will be able to find any better ones soon’, Isaac filled in.
‘Only option? What about the option of going back? Our lives are at stake here, for what? Some cult we have nothing to do with? We should just turn back while we still can’, argued Nikola.
‘I am afraid that that moment has long passed’, a familiar voice said. ‘Is all this ruckus really necessary? There’s no time to fight amongst yourselves.’
‘You, what do you guys want from us, for real?’, asked Nikola.
Agitated, the man said; ‘You better calm down boy, or you will actually get yourself killed.’ He turned his attention from Nikola to the entire group. ‘Of course we don’t expect all of you will trust us from the very start, but you can believe it when I say this is all for everyone’s good. By the way you can call me Mista, Guido Mista.’
Isaac stood up and reached out a hand to Mista, who accepted.
‘Pleasure to meet you, Mista’, he said as he shook the man’s hand.
Isaac proceeded to introduce everyone to Mista in turn. Joachim was amazed at how easily Isaac was able to lighten the whole conversation. Even Nikola seemed to have calmed down.
‘So, shall we go to the gardens then?’, asked Joachim.
‘The van is waiting for us outside, we are ready to leave whenever’, answered Mista.
They all went back to their respective rooms to grab some stuff, and they met again in the lobby ten minutes later.
As the group got outside, the van waiting for them was nothing less than suspicious. It was one of those big, armored, black minibuses. As expected from an organization such as the Italian Mafia…
Mista had already stepped in the minibus at the driver’s seat. Isaac took the passenger’s seat and the other five seated themselves on the two back rows of seats.
Mista started up the car. With a deep growl the vehicle started moving. Then they were off to a secret meeting with the Mafia Boss on a cloudy Sunday afternoon in some beautiful Italian gardens. What could possibly go wrong?
CHAPTER 12: Blink of an Eye (1)
Everyone stayed silent the entire time it took to get to the Gardens. Luckily, the ride there did not take too long. Mista parked the car along a low iron fence, with lush gardens on the other side of it. This must be the place.
‘We’re here’, announced Mista. He stepped out of the car, and everyone followed him.
Not too far from where the car had been parked stood a big iron barred gate, with two stone pillars on each side, equally as tall as the gate. On top of the pillars stood a statue of some sort of animal, vaguely resembling a goat.
Mista opened the gate for them, and they all entered the garden’s grounds. The park itself was huge. Grass, trees and flowers for as far as the eye could reach. Broken down into different sections, separated by gravel pathways.
The group walked for a bit, Marie occasionally making a comment on things she saw. There were all sorts of structures in the park, several fountains, a Roman temple looking building, a huge mansion in the distance… They even passed an amphitheatre and a coffee shop.
Eventually it dawned on Joachim that there weren’t as many people present as he would’ve expected. The coffee shop was completely empty. Then again, it was looking like it could be a rainy sunday afternoon, so maybe people decided to stay inside. But still, something felt… off.
Suddenly, Mista stopped and turned to the group that had been following him.
‘Joachim, you come with me’, he said. ‘The others, it would be best if you stick together and wait here.’
Mista turned back around, to continue walking. But he was stopped by Nikola.
‘Hey! What’s this about, wait here? Why does only Joachim get to go? Aren’t we all like your “special forces” team?’, he protested.
Mista looked over his shoulder, taking out something shiny out of his right pocket. Was that… a gun?
‘Boss’s orders’, he simply said.
The sudden change in mood was unexpected. Mista felt way more menacing than ever before and scared Nikola into shutting up, again.
Mista started walking and Joachim followed him, staying alert with every step. The others stayed where they were, as if nailed to the floor. As mista turned the corner of the coffee shop they entered a small secluded area among a large amount of low trees. It gave a sort of tunnel-like feel to the path.
On one of the benches along the path, they found the Mafia Boss. Mista went to stand next to him, almost like he was a loyal dog.
“Better not say that out loud, if I want to keep living…” thought Joachim.
After a bit of a pause, Joachim approached them too. The Boss signaled him to take a seat beside him. Awkwardly, Joachim sat down next to what might be the most dangerous man in all of Italy.
‘So, how did it go in the museum?’, he asked.
Joachim didn’t know where to start. Vinci and his connections to the Order? The cards he found at the scene?
‘You uncovered something right?’, he tried again, to get a response from Joachim.
‘Yes’, Joachim replied, ‘We found a ton of these blank cards in a safe there.’
He pulled out the few blank cards out of his pocket as he told the Boss about it. He handed them over to him so he could inspect them.
‘I see…’ he said, staring intensely at the cards in his hand. ‘The fact that they were hidden away in a safe must mean they are important to the Order in some way.’
‘Maybe. They were guarded too, although by a person just recently invited by them’, said Joachim.
‘A rookie huh? Maybe they are not as important as I thought…’
‘How so?’
‘You see, these being blank possibly means they are still unused. Somehow, these cards allow a person to obtain a Stand Power’, speculated the Boss, still inspecting every side and corner of every card. ‘Their whole existence is still a mystery, but I am confident it is the key to finding out what the Order wants. That’s the reason they guard these.’
‘Should we test them out?’, asked Joachim. ‘To confirm our theory?’
‘Doing that would confirm some theories, yes. However it is much too dangerous. We don’t know enough about how they function. Chances are they could be lethal.’
Joachim looked down at the floor, ashamed that his idea was refused, although for good reason.
‘Oh?’, suddenly the Boss sat upright.
Joachim looked over to him, and saw what piqued his focus. The stack of cards he was holding was slowly disappearing, slowly melting away and evaporating. The Boss let go of the cards, dropping them on the floor as they continued to melt away.
‘What is this?! What’s happening to them?’, asked Joachim.
‘Perhaps some sort of defense mechanism?’ suggested the Boss
The entire time, Mista was on edge too.
‘Giorno, we are not alone here. I feel a strange presence’, said Mista. ‘We should leave here now!’
Mista took out his revolver and aimed at the trees towards the entrance of the green tunnel. He fired a single shot and the bullet dashed all over, going through any trees it could find, but not hitting anything. But it did draw out movement inside the trees. Joachim couldn’t see what it was, it was too fast and hidden in the brush.
A dark shadow moved over Giorno’s face. ‘Fool. Do not use my name in public.’
‘Whatever, our location has been compromised! We need to go, now!’, shouted Mista.
Giorno stood up and faced Joachim once more. He simply said: ‘We will meet again.’
Just that moment, a noise distracted Joachim. He looked to where he heard the noise, not finding anything. He looked back to Giorno, but before he could say something, he noticed that Giorno had disappeared, together with Mista.
It took him a while to realise they had left him behind, alone, probably facing huge danger that could strike from the shadows anytime soon. He decided to make a run for it and return to the group that was waiting back at the coffee shop.
Joachim had barely started running or something, or rather, someone dropped out of the trees in front of him. so silent and so suddenly, she was just there, hanging upside down from a tree branch above, looking Joachim straight in the eye.
It was such a strange surprise, he did not know how to react. Her purple scarf, masking her face, and long purple hair bound in a pony-tail reached the ground. Her eyes burned into Joachim’s very soul as she stared at him with wide open eyes. She had strange arrow tattoos next to her right eye.
Then, barely a few seconds later, she was gone. Startled, Joachim even began to doubt what he had just seen was real.
As Joachim tried to take a step, he noticed a stinging pain in his right leg. He turned to look at the place where he felt the pain and noticed his calf had been cut.
‘Wh- What?!’, shouted Joachim.
The cut was deep, but not deep enough to seriously wound him. However, it would make it more difficult for Joachim to run.
Did that girl do this? But how? When?
Joachim put up his guard and spun around, scanning his surroundings. There was no sign of the girl anywhere.
‘Where are you?! Stop hiding!’, he shouted down the tunnel of trees.
He waited a bit for a response from the mysterious girl. But nothing seems to be happening. Did she leave after making herself known and striking Joachim just once?
He heard more rustling of leaves to his left. Joachim turned around as quickly as he could, reading his fist. The gears in Joachim’s head were working overtime, as he tried to think of a way to defeat his unseen enemy. Fistful Steel won’t be of much help right now, there were no loose objects nearby to move around, other than some small pebbles.
Maybe he could lure her out somehow?
Figuring that she stopped his escape before, he tried to do the same a second time.
Like before, she dropped out from the trees to block his escape route. Now standing in front of him, Joachim saw how tall, slender and athletic she was. The girl wore a complete ninja-like outfit. A black top with one long sleeve on her right arm and fishnets covering her left. To make the look complete and even more ridiculous, she wore black baggy pants with a moon motif.
Just like last time, she vanished again before Joachim could properly react, let alone attack her.
And again Joachim felt a rush of pain, going through his left leg this time.
Now irritated and helpless, Joachim’s eyes darted all over the place, checking every leaf of every tree to find her. To no success.
If she wanted to capture him, like Vinci, she could have done so by now. Joachim couldn’t understand what the girl’s objective was. Is she just toying with him?
Joachim was starting to struggle keeping himself upright. He grasped his leg, trying to stop the bleeding, but it just stung harder and made it even more painful.
‘Hey!’, he shouted again. ‘What do you want from me?’
After a pause with no answer, Joachim felt the pain rise again in his legs.
It was like the ground fell down from underneath him, but in reality it was the girl kicking him in the legs, bringing Joachim to the ground.
She appeared before him and said in a quiet, but high pitched voice; ‘Nothing.’
Joachim noticed she was holding two knives, one in each hand. The knives themselves looked very strange, as if they were made out of black paper.
‘Who are you?’, asked Joachim.
The girl just stared at him, with her wide blue, almost purple, eyes.
‘Sukiba’, she said.
Right then, next to her, her stand appeared. A vaguely humanoid stand, made out of the same black and magenta paper as her knives. The origami look made the stand look sharp edged everywhere, especially the arms and legs, which ended in sharp blades instead of hands or feet. It had four strands of braided hair, starting out from the right side of its sharp head, ending in arrows, like the tattoos on Sukiba’s face.
‘You better stay where you are now’, she said. And right before disappearing again, she added; ‘And don’t try calling your friends, they left.’
Was what Sukiba said true? Did they leave, just like Mista and Giorno did? Or did they get attacked before she came after Joachim?
Again alone in the tunnel, Joachim felt defeated. He saw no way out. The only thing he could do was wait.
CHAPTER 13: Blink of an Eye (2)
“There is no point in just sitting around”, thought Joachim.
He set his mind straight and started thinking.
Was Sukiba an Order official? No, she looked way too young for that. She was however fighting on the Order’s behalf, that was a fact. But why? Her looks and ability make her very ninja-like, but in this day and age… Maybe she actually is an assassin sent after Joachim. But in his last encounter with the Order, it was clear they needed him alive. Then there is the fact that if Sukiba was meant to kill him, she could have perfectly done so by now, yet chose to leave him immobile instead. It’s as if she is waiting for someone else to show up…
“Wait… That’s it! Sukiba was most likely sent after us, to track us down after the fight at the museum. Now that she has successfully found us, she just needs to keep us here until the Order arrives!”, thought Joachim. “Which means I need to get out of here, quick!”
But how was he going to get away from Sukiba? She said his friends were no longer nearby too. But why should he believe that? It’s a very convenient lie.
Joachim decided to test it.
‘HEY, HELP ME!’, he called out as loud as he could.
He took another breath and tried again.
‘HEL-’
But before he could finish the second call, someone grabbed him from behind and covered his mouth. It took Joachim by surprise.
But it was exactly what he hoped for. Her action meant that, if Joachim called out for help, her mission would be in danger. So that means help was nearby, his friends.
‘Joachim!’
He heard Marie’s voice call out from the entrance of the tree tunnel. Joachim turned to look. She was alone.
Marie came dashing toward him and Sukiba, but Sukiba’s stand blocked her path.
Joachim tried to get Sukiba off of him. With a backwards elbow blow to the gut, Sukiba faltered as a gear appeared on her stomach. Fistful Steel appeared by Joachim’s side and spun the gears on its fist. Sukiba looked at the gear in surprise, as it spinned and slammed her into a nearby tree.
It didn’t faze her that much, as a split second later she disappeared again. And so did her stand that was in front of Marie. She was under its effects too now.
As both Sukiba and her stand disappeared, Marie and Joachim joined forces.
‘Marie, please tell me your stand can do something about her’, Joachim said.
‘I’m working on it’, she said.
‘Then bring out your stand! Where is it?’, asked Joachim nervously.
‘It is out, now shut up and let me focus.’
‘Wait, do you know what she can do?’, asked Joachim, to which Marie gave him a very irritated “shhhhh!”
Joachim stopped pushing Marie any further, and decided to just trust her.
After they stood around for a few seconds, Marie pushed Joachim forward while shouting; ‘Above!’
Joachim stumbled and fell.
Sukiba’s power had something to do with striking them from a blind spot. The only one she could find was from above.
As Joachim looked back, between him and Marie, there was no one.
‘Behind!’, shouted Marie this time.
And again Marie was correct. Turning around again, Joachim was just in time to dodge Sukiba’s stand’s attack. Its bladed arm pierced the ground beside him.
Somehow Marie had countered Sukiba and was now holding her by the arm.
‘You can’t use your ability when I hold you, can you?’, asked Marie.
‘How do you know Blink-182’s ability? How did you know where I was?’, Sukiba asked, irritated.
‘Perhaps I will tell you after you let us go’, offered Marie.
Sukiba however was not too pleased with that. She cut Marie’s arm with the kunai in her free hand, to get away from her grip, and disappeared into nothingness again.
‘Joachim, everytime you blink, she and her stand can teleport to any of our blind spots!’, Marie said.
‘So no blinking, got it!’
Before Joachim even realised, both Sukiba and Blink-182 appeared behind Marie. He wanted to shout out to her to be careful. But, as if she already knew, she perfectly dodged both attackers.
Joachim decided to take a gamble, Marie, quick as she was, would not win a hand to hand fight against two enemies. Thus Joachim purposefully blinked, to make himself the prime target, and help Marie out. As he expected, Sukiba vanished. But Blink-182 stayed behind with Marie.
No time to think. One on one is better than two. By this time, Sukiba must already be behind him.
Joachim spun around as fast as he could, and sure enough, Sukiba was there ready to strike.
Doing his best not to blink, he motioned Fistful Steel to attack Sukiba. Fistful Steel reached out and punched Sukiba. The attack was a hit, but she was able to block it with her arms.
Joachim could not hold out any longer and blinked. Sukiba vanished out of sight once again. But she left something behind. Sukiba had dropped her two kunais when defending herself from Joachim’s attack.
He looked back towards Marie, seeing that she was safe and Blink-182 had disappeared. Both stand and master were gone again.
‘Marie are you ok?’, Joachim asked, worried.
‘Yes, I am fine’, she assured him. ‘This is a very annoying stand to deal with. maybe even more so than that jerk Vinci.’
‘You are right on that one.’
Joachim started looking around again for any trace of Sukiba, without success. but suddenly, something lashed out at him from a brush nearby. He realised it must be her, but he couldn’t stop a blink reflex and prepared himself for the incoming hit. After this, everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
When the hit did not come, he realised his mistake. Looking away from Marie. As Marie was inside of Joachim’s blind spot, Sukiba could easily target her instead.
Joachim opened his eyes and already saw Marie getting ready to dodge another attack. But a few things felt… off. Sukiba was still unarmed and Blink-182 was missing.
Again something lashed out at his face, from behind. not meaning to strike, but to startle. It was Blink-182, forcing Joachim to blink.
Using that blink, something unthinkable happened. Marie, who was preparing to counter an unarmed Sukiba, now faced the razor sharp blade of Blink-182. And just as Sukiba made place for her stand, she appeared behind Joachim and grabbed hold of him.
Right when Blink-182 was about to cut Marie in half, Joachim shouted; ‘Fistful Steel!’
Blink-182 flew backwards, straight into a tree stem. Joachim could feel Sukiba’s reaction to the damage as she almost let her grip go.
Joachim had placed a tiny gear on Blink-182, back when the stand first tried to attack him, just in case. Joachim was glad he did.
Marie immediately turned to the stand to look straight at it without blinking to keep it in place. Fistful Steel’s gear was keeping it pinned against the tree for now. But something needed to be done about Sukiba. Joachim was restrained by Sukiba, and Fistful Steel couldn’t attack her while keeping Blink-182 in place.
Then a swift bird flew out of the trees, heading straight towards Joachim and Sukiba. It was a small bird of prey, a buzzard perhaps? But it had strange light-blue and pink markings on its wings and body.
The bird had its claws spread out for an attack. Joachim grasped Sukiba, making sure neither of them could get away. He felt Sukiba struggle.
The bird struck Sukiba in the face and clawed at her, leaving some nasty wounds.
‘Aaaagh, what is this bird…!’, Sukiba cried out.
As if on cue, Marie pulled out a feather.
‘That is a Honey Buzzard. They left Italy just recently to migrate to colder breeding grounds in the northern sides of Europe. The one that attacked you just now is my stand, having copied a Honey Buzzard. It has been watching every move of yours from the very start, with its prey seeking eyes’, Marie explained.
‘So that’s how you knew…’, Sukiba growled furiously, trying to escape Joachim’s hold on her.
After flying off, Marie’s stand made a U-turn and came back at them at an even higher speed. But this time before the bird hit, it morphed into a tall humanoid.
The stand had a pink body, its arms and legs made of intertwining ropes of blue and pink, forming DNA spirals. At the end of the arms and legs were claw-like hands and feet, ending in sharp light blue tips.
After morphing into its true form, it hit Sukiba in the face at top speed, knocking her out. As Blink-182 faded away, Marie approached Joachim, who was now sitting on the ground, dumbfounded at what just happened.
‘What…’, he started as he looked from Marie to the mysterious stand and back to Marie, ‘Is that?’
‘I believe you are not acquainted with my stand yet’, Marie answered, while she helped Joachim back on his legs.
‘What in the world does it do?’, Joachim asked.
‘I’ll tell you on the way back. We need to get out of here, before she wakes up’, said Marie gesturing to the knocked out Sukiba. ‘Can you walk?’, she asked as she looked at Joachim’s legs.
Joachim nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’
Joachim struggled to get up, and made a few very uncomfortable steps before Marie came towards him to offer help.
‘You clearly can not!’, she said as she took Joachim’s arm over her shoulder to support him. Feeling awkward, Joachim thanked her and they made their way out of the small lane.
As the pair headed back to their group, Joachim asked; ‘Is it fine to leave another one behind just like that?’
‘What else are we supposed to do with her?’
‘True…’, Joachim paused, ‘Where are the others by the way?’
‘They got bored just standing around, especially Nikola, he just wandered off.’
‘Why does that not surprise me. And let me guess, Isaac went after him, followed by Max and told you to stay behind.’
‘Exactly right!’, Marie laughed out loud. ‘So, yeah, Isaac told me to keep an eye on you.’
‘And how did you do that, Mista basically ordered you to not follow.’
‘I used this, remember’, she said as she pulled out the brown feather again.
‘You used your stand in bird form to spy on us, I see!’
‘It sounds bad when you put it like that, but yes, and it saved your ass.’
‘Thanks Marie’, said Joachim awkwardly. ‘So what else can it morph into?’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’ she answered. ‘Wait, I’ll show you! Sit back and watch.’
Marie’s stand appeared beside her, touched the feather and started morphing. mere seconds later, the bird that had attacked Sukiba was sitting on Marie’s shoulder.
‘This is my stand, Chemical Romance!’, she announced cheerfully. ‘It can change into anything as long as it comes into contact with a creature’s DNA.’ she explained. ‘So I found this feather of a Honey buzzard when we entered the park and kept it.’
‘Wait… did you foresee this would happen?’, Asked Joachim, baffled.
‘Nah, I just like birds’, she said playfully, as her stand dissipated.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, birds are pretty fly you know.’
Both of them laughed at the awful pun. Joachim realised how close he had already gotten to everyone in their group.
‘Our little group has been together for, what, not even three days? But we already know each other so well…’, said Marie, she seemed to be thinking the same thing.
‘It’s crazy what a few life or death situations can do to a group of people…’, said Joachim.
CHAPTER 14: Ptolemy
Marie said that Isaac had told her to meet up at the amphitheater they passed by before. And sure enough, as Joachim and Marie approached the amphitheater, they saw Isaac, Max, Wilhelm and Nikola, sitting together on the marble seats. Wilhelm spotted them first. They saw him turn to the others and point in Joachim’s direction. All four of them stood up and descended down the marble steps to regroup with Joachim and Marie.
Isaac was the first to run towards them, to check up on the injured Joachim. As they joined together, Isaac asked Joachim if he was fine.
‘It’s not as bad as it looks, just a pretty mean cut’, answered Joachim.
‘I’ll fix him up later, we best get out of here quick’, said Marie.
Nikola, Max and Wilhelm joined together now as well.
‘They did you pretty badly there JoJo’, said Nikola mockingly. Expecting no less from his long time friend, he fired back at him. ‘Glad to see you are doing just fine’, he said, in an overly sarcastic tone. Nikola, instead of getting mad, gave him his trademark grimace.
‘C’mon, we got to go’, said Isaac.
All six of them started making their way over to the exit of the gardens, where, luckily for them, someone was waiting to pick them up. Another one of those black vans was parked outside the gates. The driver sounded the horn to grab their attention, and opened the door, signaling to them to get in the car. It was the other bodyguard Joachim had met before. The one in the weird suit with holes in it.
When all six of them made it into the mini-van, the driver introduced himself as Pannacotta Fugo. He started the car and drove away.
‘Where did Mista and the boss go?’, asked Joachim. But Fugo stayed silent.
‘So we do work for the mafia now, great. A better question right now would be, where are you taking us?’, asked Nikola.
Without addressing the first part of Nikola’s remark, Fugo answered; ‘I’m taking you to your new residence. You can’t stay in that inn forever.’
‘Some of our stuff is still there though’, pointed Marie out.
‘Don’t worry, we already picked up your things and paid the inn for your stay’, Fugo answered.
‘That’s a relief’, said Marie.
‘So, Joachim’, started Isaac, ‘What exactly happened in there?’, he asked.
Joachim glanced over to Fugo, who was concentrating on the road ahead.
‘First, you can call me JoJo’, he said. ‘Secondly, the Boss was…’, Joachim paused to make sure he picked the right way to phrase it. ‘… not able to give clarification on the cards… yet.’
Isaac had his eyes firmly locked on Joachim, as if expecting a longer story, it made Joachim sort of nervous.
‘The black cards… they melted and seconds later Mista discovered we were being spied on by someone…’, he continued.
‘Someone other than me, he means, of course’, clarified Marie.
‘We were ambushed by someone we think was also invited by the Order. Luckily, Marie was there to help me out’, he continued.
‘So we can conclude they are onto us faster than we expected’, said Fugo suddenly. ‘which is why we’ll be taking you elsewhere, where we can more easily keep an eye on you.
‘I see…’, mumbled Isaac.
About ten minutes later, they arrived at their destination, a sole apartment building at the edge of the city. The building looked equally as ancient as the rest in the old city center and was four stories tall. As they went inside, Fugo informed them that they had the entire apartment to themselves and that they’ll be staying here from now on. Without much more info, he gave Joachim a bunch of keys and left not too long after.
Joachim sat down on the first sofa he found, to not put too much strain on his still hurting legs.
‘So now we are alone here?’, asked Marie.
‘Do we even have food in here, or so we have to go shopping as well?’, asked Nikola in turn, as he walked over to the fridge. He opened it and was, to his surprise, greeted by a full fridge. ‘Well nevermind’, he said, ‘maybe this is not so bad after all.’
‘All you need is food, isn’t it?’, said Joachim.
Wilhelm started rummaging through closets and cupboards as well, until he found some snacks he settled on eating. The others noticed they were getting quite hungry too, as it was almost 7PM now.
Isaac suggested he would cook them dinner using whatever he found in the kitchen. Literally everyone paused and stared at him in surprise.
‘You can cook?!’, asked Nikola.
‘Yeah, I learned a few tricks’, he replied, ‘you know what, come here and I’ll teach you.’
‘Maybe some other time…’, said Nikola, hoping he wouldn’t have to go through with it. But Isaac insisted.
‘Oh come on, food tastes even better if you made it yourself, didn’t you know?’
‘Ok, fine!’, Nikola sighed.
While Isaac tried to get Nikola and Max, who somehow got involved too, to learn how to cook, Marie approached Joachim.
‘Yo, JoJo. I can call you JoJo right?’, she asked.
‘Hey, uh… yeah, of course!’, Joachim was a little nervous with only Marie around. Even after the whole fight that happened only a few hours ago. ‘What’s up?’, he asked as she sat down beside him.
‘Let me see those wounds on your legs again’, she said.
‘they’re fine, no need to worry.’
‘You know it’s pretty obvious you are sitting here because standing is still painful to you, right?’
‘O- oh, uhm… to tell the truth, yeah they hurt quite a bit still…’, he said as he held up his right leg.
‘I’ll help you take care of that.’
Joachim rolled up his jeans to expose the wound. Marie reached out to and touched the wound. It gave a small shock of pain to Joachim.
As she inspected Joachim’s wounds, Marie summoned Chemical Romance. With its sharp fingers, it took a sample of Joachims blood.
‘Using this sample, I can copy your DNA and create cells to quicken the healing process of your wounds’, she explained, as Chemical Romance wove the new cells into Joachim’s wounds with extreme care and precision.
‘I see’, said Joachim, ‘so this is how Isaac’s fist healed so fast as well?’
‘Exactly right!’, she confirmed.
Once Joachim’s legs were better, they all gathered at the dinner table. Isaac had made spaghetti bolognese for everyone, together with Nikola, who helped at least a little.
After they ate, they divided the rooms and all of them took plenty of time to get tidied up and to rest out. Having the whole building to themselves, everyone had their own room now too.
It made Joachim a little nervous, knowing they were all separated and targeted by some evil organization. Yet again he had a hard time falling asleep. He spent a lot of time thinking again, about their encounters with the two other stand users and the Mafia Boss, what was his name? Mista only mentioned it briefly… “Oh, yeah… Giorno…”, thought Joachim. Why did he feel a weird connection to that name?
Eventually, Joachim did fall asleep, and other than a strange dream, none of the things Joachim was worried about would happen that night.
He found himself stepping into a dark room. All around him stood all kinds of aperture, recording huge amounts of data at once. He was greeted by an unknown old man. He was significantly smaller than him, and wore some sort of black gown, he couldn’t see it clearly.
‘Ptolemy, I’m glad you came’, he spoke in a heavy German accent, as they shook hands.
‘I hear Socrates made some interesting progress, Plato?’, Ptolemy responded.
‘Why yes, he did. In fact he is currently executing the last steps of the procedure’, said Plato, as he pointed behind him.
Ptolemy followed Plato and looked over where he pointed him and was blinded by bright lights coming from the room to his right. Through a long glass window, they were now looking into a surgery room. A white robed figure was handling the unconscious body of a young man. He lay almost completely cut open on a table, being operated on. Ptolemy couldn’t really see what the man in dark clothes was doing to the boy, nor could he keep his eyes on them for any longer. The scene wasn’t exactly nice to look at.
‘I know, I do feel sorry for people invited by number eight, they always end up like this, some way or another’, said Plato, surprisingly calm about it.
‘When will the procedure be complete?’, asked Ptolemy, ‘That is, if he makes it out alive.’
‘So far, young Bennington has proven to stay very stable. We think this time we’ll succeed, for sure’, answered Plato.
‘Don’t let it self-destruct immediately this time’, said Ptolemy critically. ‘You are playing with a lot of lives here.’
‘Oh, trust us Ptolemy, we made sure to take all intel of our last subjects into account. We believe this one to have a 99% success rate!’
‘Make that a 100% and then we’ll talk with the leader about repeating the process on the others.’
‘WHY MUST YOU BE SO STUBBORN!’, shouted Plato suddenly in a fit of anger.
The white robed man turned around briefly to check on the commotion.
Plato instantly stiffened up and quieted down. ‘Ahem- pardon me. We will do as instructed.’
‘Good.’ said Ptolemy unphased. ‘About my question from before, when will the procedure be complete?’
‘Ehm… eh… we plan on having young Bennington do a “test-run” in two days’, replied Plato. ‘We plan on using him to destroy one of Giorno’s residences we believe he currently is staying in! It will be glorious!’, he continued, full of himself. ‘You know, the big white villa at the end of Via de Ferruzzi in Fiesole?’
‘Yes, Plato, I do. I expect good results then’, said Ptolemy.
‘Of course, of course…’, Plato assured, tapping the tips of his fingers together rhythmically.
As Ptolemy turned around he glanced over to the boy on the operating table one more time. Then he set course to return to where he came from as the light from the surgery room slowly faded into darkness.
Joachim woke up in cold sweat, once again. Another way too realistic feeling dream in such a short span of time. This time he did not wake up to any weird items or wounds, though. He sat upright and looked through the window across the room from him. The sun was already shining bright outside. He noticed the curtains were opened, though he was sure he had closed them before going to bed. When he walked up to the window, he caught a glimpse of some sort of bird flying from his window to a nearby tree. It was strangely green… maybe he should ask Marie about it later.
With his dream still fresh in mind, he put on his clothes and jacket and headed to the largest apartment downstairs, which they had decided on would be their “main living space”. He was greeted by Isaac and Marie who were already there, preparing breakfast together.
‘Good morning JoJo!’, said Marie. ‘Look, they have chocolate spread here!’
‘Glad to see you are still in high spirits, Marie’, said Joachim.
‘Did you sleep well, JoJo?’, asked Isaac.
‘No, not quite’, he replied as he took a seat at the table. ‘I’m thinking about a lot of stuff all at once and then there was this really strange dream…’
‘A bad dream?’, asked Marie curiously, preparing herself a sandwich with chocolate spread.
‘I don’t even know… It just felt so… realistic’, said Joachim vacantly staring at his breakfast.
‘What did you see in the dream?’, asked Isaac.
‘I saw a… thing, wearing black robes, operating a boy about our age. His body was completely cut open. It was horrifying’, he explained.
Marie stopped eating her sandwich for a second to imagine the scene Joachim just described. Her face contorted as a cold shiver went through her body. ‘Ewww, just imagining it is… too much’, she said.
‘And then there were these two men, discussing the whole situation like it was just an ordinary work day for them’, Joachim continued. ‘Talking about experiments and wanting to use the boy to assassinate Giorno’s residence in Fiesole…’
He realised the rest didn’t know Giorno’s name yet. Now he had even more explaining to do.
From behind him he heard Nikola’s voice, who had just arrived as well.
‘What is going on here, and who the hell is Giorgio?’
CHAPTER 15: Linkin Park (1)
When everyone woke up and was eating breakfast, Joachim explained his dream to Wilhelm, Nikola and Max too. Isaac figured that, if the dream was actually a real event, the people he saw in his dream might be connected to the Order. Joachim and Isaac had hoped Max would be able to give more insight if that was the case. But Max stayed quiet, with an especially worrying look on his face the entire time.
‘So that’s about the gist of it…’, said Joachim after finishing his explanation again.
‘You still haven’t answered my questions, though’, said Nikola. ‘Who is this Giorno, why is he so important to assassinate?’
‘Giorno is… the Mafia boss’ name’, Joachim confessed. He realised Giorno told him to hide his identity as much as possible. But by now, it was safe to say the Order was already onto that.
‘So, if this vision you had is true… What will you do next?’, asked Isaac.
‘We should go there and warn him, just in case. The people in my dream said they would attack in two days. We can prepare for them’, said Joachim.
‘So, they mentioned Fiesole. Anything else?’, asked Marie.
‘They mentioned the street too, and that it’s the last house down that street’, answered Joachim.
‘Sounds like they gave us all we need, not suspicious at all’, said Nikola sarcastically.
‘I know, I know. But what else are we supposed to do?’, confessed Joachim.
‘A trap…’, whispered Max.
‘What was that?’, asked Nikola, who didn’t quite hear what Max said, nor did anyone else. But Max just looked away from them, without elaborating further.
‘I just want this Giorno person to take us home again’, said Wilhelm pouting, as he ate from his bowl of cereal.
‘If we go warn him, maybe he will. Giorno can probably take care of himself, but this is also a great opportunity to catch the Order redhanded’, reasoned Isaac, to comfort Wilhelm and end the discussion between the rest of them.
‘Then it is decided’, he continued after a short silence from the others. ‘When shall we leave?’, he asked, the question directed at Joachim.
‘I’d want to go as soon as possible’, answered Joachim.
‘Aah, can’t we just give this guy a call instead?’, grunted Nikola.
‘No, he didn’t give us a phone number…’, said Joachim.
After they all finished their breakfast, they got ready to visit Giorno’s residence.
‘I don’t wanna go…’, said Wilhelm.
‘Me neither bud’, agreed Nikola.
‘I’ll stay here with Wilhelm then, we can’t leave him alone’, proposed Marie.
‘Alright, then me, Joachim, Nikola and Max will go to Fiesole’, concluded Isaac.
‘Sounds good to me’, agreed Joachim.
‘HEY!’, shouted Nikola, annoyed. ‘What about my opinion?!’
‘I need you to be there, Nikola’, said Joachim. ‘And not just for your ability.’
Nikola quieted down and sighed. ‘Ok, whatever, no need to get all sentimental.’
‘Ok, so it’s decided then, if you end up needing back-up, you can give me a call!’, said Marie.
‘Alright! Take care of little Wilhelm there!’, said Isaac as he stepped outside.
‘Hey! I’m not little!’, the boy struggled. Isaac responded with a smile and a thumbs-up to Wilhelm.
Max, Joachim and finally Nikola too followed Isaac outside. They decided to go on foot, it wouldn’t take too long to get there. The apartment they were given was either close to Fiesole by chance, or by choice of Giorno to have them live nearby to his residence.
The walk itself took about thirty minutes, which was a bit longer and more difficult than they had anticipated, especially because Fiesole is situated on the side of a hill. The extremely hot summer temperatures in Italy did not make it any easier either. Nikola was nagging at them for basically the entire way, saying he was thirsty.
When they finally arrived at the street in question, they stood before closed gates. The entire street was blocked off by a small, black iron barred gate, maybe fit for one car to fit through. To the sides of the gate was a wall, about two meters tall, just high enough to not be able to look over it.
‘More gates…’, said Nikola.
‘Must be a private street or something’, thought Isaac out loud.
‘As expected… from a bunch of… rich bastards’, said Nikola, still trying to catch his breath.
‘Should we just climb over it?’, asked Joachim.
‘Maybe there is some sort of intercom around. If so we could use it to call Giorno to let us in’, said Isaac.
Max pointed to his right, a bit further down the wall he had found one such intercom. Joachim went over to it. It had a decent amount of buttons accompanied by a name and a speaker. But there was no Giorno mentioned, Joachim kind of expected that.
‘No Giorno on here’, he announced.
‘Do we know the house number?’, asked Isaac.
‘No, just the fact that it’s the furthest house in this street… and it’s white.’
‘Well, climbing over the wall it is then’, concluded Nikola.
‘I guess so…’, said Joachim, as he placed his hands on the wall to start climbing over it.
He hauled himself on top of the wall and jumped down on the other side. Nikola followed him shortly after.
‘This better not set off any alarms…’, said Nikola worried, sitting on top of the wall.
‘It’ll be fine’, Joachim said, ‘If one does go off, we just run away’, he continued, laughing from the thrill of it.
Nikola jumped down as well, while Isaac gave Max a hand to get over to the other side as well. Now all four of them had successfully invaded a rich Italian neighborhood, great!
They found the street again and followed it down to find the house they were looking for. The road was slightly uphill and lined with a ton of expensive looking villas on both sides.
‘So, a white villa at the end of this street, right?’, asked Nikola when the villas went over into a forest. ‘I don’t see any white ones nearby, just a beige one and a red one’, he stated.
‘This is not the end of the street, perhaps, let’s continue further up’, said Isaac.
About 200 meters further, they came across a high hedge with a single entrance gate on the right side of the street. Through it, they could see a big, beautiful and probably very expensive white villa. Compared to the other ones, it was very modern looking too.
‘This must be the place…’, said Joachim in a quiet voice, as he peeked in through the white barred gate to the estate.
‘Looks like it yeah…’, said Isaac, mimicking Joachim. Max also nodded, adding a quiet ‘hmhm’.
‘Why are we whispering?’, asked Nikola, also whispering.
‘I don’t know, to be honest’, replied Joachim, still whispering.
‘How do we get in?’, asked Nikola.
‘Good question, since, once again, there is no doorbell or anything of the sorts by the looks of it…’, said Isaac, inspecting the marble pillars that held the gate in place.
‘Well, we can’t just go in through this gate here, right?’, Nikola asked as he gave the gate a little push. But to everyone’s surprise the gate just fell open with Nikola’s slight push. ‘Never mind’, he said.
Nikola pushed the gate open further, until they could all fit through and enter the estate. They followed the slim gravel path that led to the front door.
‘Let’s hope at least the front door will have a doorbell…’, said Joachim.
On their way to the front door they saw the garage of the house was opened and the light was on inside. However they continued to the front door.
Joachim found that, again, there was no doorbell. Probably because, if people can’t get beyond the first gate at the front of the street, they won’t get here either. Giorno must not expect that many visitors. Heck, he just noticed there isn’t even a mailbox or a housnumber either.
‘Let’s just knock then…’, said Joachim, bringing his hand to the door.
He knocked three times in quick succession. But there was no answer.
‘The garage was opened, someone must be here… maybe he didn’t hear the knocking over there’, said Isaac.
‘Alright’, said Joachim as he turned to walk to the garage. The others followed him.
Before Joachim could turn the corner, Max put his arm up to block him, without saying anything. He peeked around the corner.
‘What’s up Max?’, asked Joachim.
It took a while before Max responded. ‘Bad feeling’, he whispered.
He was right, they should act with caution, Giorno’s house or not, they were still intruders on very shaky intel they got from a dream of all things.
Max deemed the coast to be clear and he turned the corner walking inside the garage. Joachim and the others followed him inside. The garage itself was huge, it could fit at least four or five cars. There was but one weird thing. There were two dark red cars inside, each on the opposite end of the room. They were identically the same car.
‘Why would anyone have two of the same car?’, asked Joachim out loud.
‘Rich people things?’, replied Nikola. ‘Maybe he really loves this particular car.’
‘Sure…’
As they continued further in, they arrived at the door that connected the garage with the rest of the villa. Max, surprisingly still taking the lead, slightly opened the door to spy inside.
‘You see anything, Max?’, asked Isaac.
‘Nothing’, Max whispered back and he opened the door wide.
The door led to a huge living room, equally as big as the entire garage. The room was incredibly well lit by huge windows that raised from the floor up to the roof.
Joachim started noticing more and more cases of seemingly duplicate items all over the villa. In the living room he saw an uncanny amount of cushions spread out over the sofa and floor, two tv screens hanging on opposite sides of the room, he saw the same decorative plants on two different places, which wouldn’t have been strange if the plants didn’t have the exact same amount of five red flowers and two budding ones. Further in, Joachim saw the same paintings from the living room hanging in the kitchen, among many other examples. The person living here was either some weird collector, or something was happening inside this villa. Joachim saw on the others’ faces they had noticed it too.
‘Anyone else seeing this or do I see double?’, asked Nikola.
‘No, it’s definitely not just you…’, replied Joachim.
When they entered the big, open kitchen next to the living room they encountered a boy about their age, sitting in a chair, playing with a kitchen knife. He had messy dark blond hair, like he hadn’t showered since last year. He wore a white overall with a slight blue checker pattern. It looked like a medical lab coat with a few pockets here and there. The chest piece was zipped open from top to bottom. Clearly visible through the opened overall was a nasty scar reaching from his forehead all the way down to his stomach. Besides the awful scar, he was in perfect condition, so perfect in fact that he looked like he basically lived in a gym, the amount of muscle on him was almost uncanny.
‘It’s him!’, said Joachim startled, ‘The guy from the dream, Bennington!’
Max, Isaac and Nikola instantly assumed an alert, defensive position.
‘Well, well, well, seems like I’ve got myself some unwanted company…’, he mumbled, inspecting the knife he was holding. He looked up to Joachim. ‘Calling me by my surname, how very gentleman-like of you.’
‘Hey, whatever they did to you at the Order, don’t you hate them for it? We can help you get back on them!’, tried Joachim.
‘Help me get back on them? Why should I want to do that?’, he asked before letting out a spotting laugh.
‘I clearly saw them operating… experimenting on you! That was you on the operation table right?! Look at that scar they gave you!’, shouted Joachim.
‘Oh this?’, he said, slowly running his hand over the scar. ‘I chose this, I’m thankful for it, even!’
‘Thankful? For what exactly?’, asked Isaac.
‘For making me powerful! For making me feel alive! For making me see the truth of everything around me!’, he said as he stood upright. ‘Want me to show you?’
Bennington proceeded to throw his knife at the party of four.
‘Get back!’, Isaac shouted as he jumped behind the dinner table. Joachim followed Isaac, while Max and Nikola hid behind a kitchen counter. The knife grazed just beside Joachim, and hit a kitchen cabinet right behind him. The knife stuck to it with its point. Almost instantly after hitting the wooden boarding, the entire cabinet exploded, spreading wood and glass splinters all over, some hitting the unexpecting Nikola and Max.
‘Aaagh, what?!’, grunted Nikola.
‘Boom’, said Bennington casually.
Joachim stood up and shouted; ‘Why are you doing this?! We should fight the Order together!’
‘I, Amadeus Bennington, shall personally hand you over to them instead!’, he exclaimed. ‘Oh, by the way, you can just call me Adam’, he added.
CHAPTER 16: Linkin Park (2)
Adam stood up from the wooden chair he was sitting on, casually walking around it and leaning on the backrest with his arms crossed. He looked at them, waiting.
‘So, what’s his ability? Throwing knives?’, asked Nikola.
‘No. That feels too straightforward’, said Isaac.
‘What about exploding knives?’, added Joachim.
‘Are you mocking me?’, asked Adam. ‘Maybe you’ll get it if I…’
Adam grabbed the chair by the backrest. He easily lifted it up and threw it in Joachim’s direction.
‘Here comes another!’, shouted Isaac.
Joachim dodgerolled aside as the chair hit the ones he was hiding behind. Once again, the object Adam threw exploded. The explosion was just big enough for Joachim to feel the intense heat from the blast, which threw him into a wall close to the passage towards the living room. When the dust settled he saw Isaac was thrown into the wall on the other side of the room.
‘Shit, this guy is serious trouble’, said Nikola. The two explosions had set fire to the cabinets and tables inside the room. Summoning Acid Rain, he put out the fires quickly, while also scanning to get a hit on Adam. However, sensing danger, Adam swiftly ran across to the living room, dodging the blasts of water.
‘Try and hit me with moves that slow, idiot’, he said, to taunt Nikola. Which worked.
Nikola flared up in anger, yelling, as he pushed more power into Acid Rain’s attack. Joachim had to dodge again, but this time it was Nikola’s blind rage.
‘Nikola! Stop!’, shouted Joachim, to no success.
Max then grabbed him by his arm, urging him to stop. Confused, Nikola stopped attacking Adam.
‘We gotta keep our cool. Remember Vinci? I don’t want the same to happen again’, said Joachim, this time getting through to Nikola.
Nikola turned his eyes away from Joachim. ‘Okay okay, I get it’, he said.
Meanwhile, on his way to the living room, Adam had picked up a painting off the wall. He threw it at them as if it was a frisbee. Calculating its trajectory in the heat of the moment, Joachim saw it was going straight at Isaac. Joachim turned to warn Isaac, but he seemed to be out cold. He must have been hit harder by the explosion than Joachim was.
If that painting was going to explode just like the knife or chair, Isaac would be in serious danger. Nikola didn’t notice what was happening in time, as he was looking in the other direction, and Max… Joachim wasn’t sure if Max would be of any help stopping the painting. He had to do something himself.
‘ISAAC!’, shouted Joachim. He got up and quickly placed his foot against the wall to give himself a boost in getting over to Isaac, all while summoning Fistful Steel. His stand’s range wasn’t too great, so Joachim had to get closer to Isaac first. When he did get close enough, Fistful Steel reached out to Isaac and tapped him on the shoulder, placing a gear. He used the gear to move Isaac out of the way as fast as he could, in the direction where Nikola and Max were, who were alarmed by Joachim’s shout. Joachim just saw it for a split second, but, was that blood on Isaac’s head?
The painting hit the wall above Isaac, where another painting hung. It exploded, but not as hard as the chair had. After the dust had settled a bit, he saw Nikola had caught the unconscious Isaac before he could hit yet another wall. The only thing left behind by this explosion was a hole in the wall and two paintings less.
Joachim looked back at Adam, who just stood there, waiting for the dust to settle as well. Joachim saw he was irritated, but not at the fact he missed yet again.
‘Tch, not real, of course it isn’t’, he grunted, talking to himself.
‘Feels pretty real to me’, said Joachim back.
‘Oh, you are still struggling?’, said Adam.
Joachim was starting to hate Adam more with every second that passed.
‘What did you mean by “not real”?’, asked Joachim.
‘I guess you can’t see it…’, he replied, ‘allow me to show you then.’
He stepped over to a gray and white patterned cushion lying on the sofa and picked it up.
‘This cushion… looks pretty real right? Feels real, smells real… Here catch’, he said as he threw it to joachim.
Instantly, Joachim dodged the cushion, expecting an explosion behind him when it hit the ground. But nothing happened, the cushion dropped to the floor with nothing more than a soft thud.
‘Come on man, I told you to catch it’, Adam said, laughing.
Joachim decided to ignore his comment and carefully picked up the cushion. He inspected it, but found nothing out of the ordinary about it. Joachim looked back at Adam to see what he was up to, and saw he had crossed the room to pick up another cushion, one with the exact same gray and white pattern.
‘Hmmm, here, how about this one’, said Adam as he threw another cushion.
Instinctively, Joachim tossed the cushion he was holding back at Adam. Which seemed to surprise him, by the look on his face.
Mid air the two cushions met and flared up in a fiery explosion. Afterwards not a trace was left of the cushions, not even a single piece of fluffy filling.
‘Man, who said you could throw it back? Anyhow, the cushions never existed, now you see’, said Adam.
‘What are you talking about, you freak?’, asked Nikola, who got back up again.
‘These objects are fleeting, they merely touch and disappear’, he explained, ‘there is no value in things like that. Things you will lose someday.’
Nikola glanced over to Joachim, his expression speaking for itself. Something along the lines of; “do you understand him?”
‘What I’m looking for is permanence’, Adam continued. ‘I was born to a rich British family, I’ve had everything I ever wanted since birth. But all of it, everything eventually faded.’
A cold aura appeared around Adam as two nearly identical robotic creatures appeared beside him, one red, one blue. They had long leg-like protrusions, starting at the shoulders. In between those, in the open chest area, there floated a single black orb. On their faces was only a big circle, crossed by a horizontal line on one of them, and a vertical line on the other. They were not much bigger than Adam’s upper body.
‘But these… these powers… They are truly mine, only mine, and permanently mine’, he said as he held the two robots in his arms, lovingly. ‘The Order granted them to me, and called them “Linkin Park”.’
Now Adam was positively creeping Joachim out.
‘Ok, I’ve had enough of you’, said Nikola, as he once again summoned Acid Rain. ‘Max we could really use some help though, Isaac here is still sleeping.’
Joachim also summoned his stand, when several other cushions were rapidly thrown at him. There were more than the couch held before, somehow.
‘Where did he get all of those?!’, shouted Joachim as he ran out of the way.
They moved in weird ways, like magnets being attracted and repelled by each other. Whenever two met, they exploded, setting off a chain reaction.
Nikola used Acid Rain’s water to dampen the explosions and put out the fires. But amidst the chaos the blue twin of Linkin Park sneaked up on Joachim, and grabbed him by the neck with its pincer-like legs. Joachim tried to get it off, but it held on tight, even after being punched by Fistful Steel. It did however seem to affect Adam, as he recoiled and lost his footing.
‘Max!’, shouted Nikola. But Max refused to act.
The black orb started to flare up with white light, and after a few seconds, the blue robot let go of Joachim and zoomed back to Adam. Through the smoke he saw the red version glow. Looking closer, he saw the red Linkin Park was quickly 3D printing an item… it looked like headphones.
‘Are these important to you?’, asked Adam, while swinging the identical replica of Joachim’s headphones around. ‘You never take them off do you?’
It was true. These headphones were always clenched around his neck. He cherished them, not just because he liked to listen to music while working, they were a gift from his mother when he turned 15.
‘You know what’ll happen to these if they come into contact with the originals, right?’, Adam continued, still taunting him.
Anger started swelling up inside Joachims body and mind. What stood before him was a natural-born, self-centered, spoiled bully. There was no hope in getting him to their side. A lost cause.
Adam was over-dramatically preparing to throw the headphones at Joachim.
‘I’d take those off if I were you… unless you want your neck to blow up along with your precious headphones’, Adam said, followed by a cackling laugh. ‘Oh, how I do love erasing people’s mortal possessions from reality, it gets me all excited! It feels way better than just stealing them!’
He finally threw the headphones’ copy at Joachim. Joachim quickly reacted by taking off his own, and passing them over to Nikola.
‘Nikola, hold on to this’, he said, with a serious tone, even Nikola was surprised. He was able to take them off right on time, but as he threw them to Nikola, the fake pair followed, as if it was a magnet.
Joachim caught the fake headphones before they could catch up on the real pair and smashed them into the ground, instantly breaking them.
Dumbfounded Nikola passed the headphones to Max. ‘Here at least you could hold on to this then’, he said, as the headphones fell into Max’s hands.
Meanwhile Adam had already copied a bunch of items and threw them all in Joachim’s direction.
Joachim however, slowly walked towards Adam, fury in his eyes. While walking, Fistful steel placed gears on all items, directing them away from each other, so they wouldn’t explode.
‘Your ability is actually very simple, isn’t it?’, said Joachim. ‘I would say those copies of yours are made out of antimatter, am I right?’, he asked.
Adam looked startled by the sudden change in the tide. His throws became more frantic, as he started to run out of things to copy. But Joachim simply redirected them all using Fistful Steel’s gears.
‘So I am. It explains the explosions. When matter and antimatter atoms come in contact, they annihilate each other resulting in a burst of heat and energy. They are also slightly attracted to each other, they seek each other out, so to speak’, Joachim explained. It was simple physics, his best field of study.
‘H-How do you know so much?!’, asked Adam.
‘You basically explained it to us, without even knowing it’, replied Joachim.
Just as Joachim was about to get in the punching range of Adam, the ground suddenly shook. It only lasted for a few seconds, like a small localized earthquake.
‘I won’t let you get to me that easily, mister know-it-all’, he said, grimacing.
Adam turned around and made a run for the front door, but was shot down by Acid Rain’s pressurized water. But he got back up straight after, slipping on the wet floor.
‘Huh?’, Adam looked confused, ‘Why was I running away from the fight?’, he asked himself. Little did he know Acid Rain’s ability had erased that memory from his mind.
‘Joachim… Nikola… this is bad… I don’t think he was running away from us… rather, something else’, said Isaac as he carefully got up, supported by Max.
‘Isaac!’, exclaimed Joachim.
‘We need to go’, stressed Isaac.
‘At least let me punch this guy once’, offered Joachim.
Adam turned around to face Joachim and the others again, but was met with a harsh series of steel fists to the face, which knocked him to the ground.
‘There, all settled’, said Joachim. He joined the others as they went towards the Villa’s front door.
Max walked up to Joachim with his headphones, to give them back to him. Joachim awkwardly thanked the silent Max, who simply nodded and returned to Isaac’s side.
The ground shook again, and Joachim noticed the tiled floor was slightly breaking apart. Even getting slightly raised up on the west side of the building, creating a slope.
‘We need to hurry’, said Joachim.
The four of them found their way to the front door and went outside the villa.
‘No… N-No…’, Adam struggled to get up. ‘I need to get out, I’ll lose everything!’, shouted Adam. He let out a desperate laugh. ‘I’LL DIE!’, he yelled.
Joachim looked back at Adam. Isaac noticed it and said; ‘Forget about him, JoJo’
With a strange pain in his heart, Joachim listened to Isaac and decided to ignore Adam’s struggles.
Outside, beyond a now destroyed hedge, they noticed another white villa, which was suspiciously similar to the one they were in seconds ago.
‘You’ve gotta be kidding me…’, said Nikola.
CHAPTER 17: Linkin Park (3)
Adam awoke to blinding lights, laying on a cold steel table. His face and chest felt itchy all over. He tried to reach and scratch the itches, but he couldn’t move his arms. He was bound to the table at the wrists, ankles and even his neck.
He looked around the room, but due to the single bright light pointed at his face, he couldn’t make out anything in the darkness surrounding him. There seemed to be no one around, though he could’ve sworn he saw some sort of shadowy figure standing in the corner. It creeped him out.
He remembered why he was here. Some admittedly shady people had picked him up, making all their promises to improve his condition and more. Adam was born frail, by the time he was six years old, he had already broken his arms at least four times. He loved sports and activities, especially of the dangerous kind, but was never allowed to participate in any of them. But even then, he went to practice them behind his parents’ backs whenever he could. He would’ve lied if he said he didn’t want his physique to improve, in fact, he would do whatever it took.
Now, whatever it is they did to him, it was over. He didn’t feel particularly better in any way, but not worse either. At least he was alive.
He heard the steel door to the room open, and several men stepped in. He could not see their faces, but there were about five or six of them.
‘Sir, he is ready’, said a voice with a rural American accent.
‘I see’, said a second voice, he sounded French.
‘He made a very quick recovery, we have complete faith this one will succeed!’, said a voice with a German accent.
Adam did not realise they were on a global scale with all these nationalities. He might have gotten himself into something actually bad here. But as long as he could play along, and they kept their promise, everything was fine with him.
‘When will he be ready for the test?’, asked the fourth voice, clearly Italian.
‘Soon. We’ll give him another day to recover, just in case’, said the American.
‘Good’, concluded the Frenchman.
Soon after, all the men except the American left the room. Talking amongst each other, but Adam couldn’t pick up on what they were saying. Something about a rebellious group, and a boy called “Joachim”.
‘I’ll undo your shackles, Bennington, we have a room prepared where you can recover in a proper fashion’, said the American as he loosened his bounds.
Seeing him up close, he looked like a very friendly man in his early forties. He had kind eyes and a warm smile. He wore a light blue lab coat with several pens clipped to his chest pocket and around his neck hung two stethoscopes. He must have been the doctor that executed the procedure.
When the bonds were all loose, Adam sat up and looked at his bare chest. What he saw almost made him puke. The nasty scar ranging from his stomach up was not a great thing to look at first thing when you wake up. It was still red and bloody around some parts. He couldn’t see the other end of the scar, so, even though it hurt, he followed it with his hand, only to find out it continued up to his forehead. Aside from the scar, he also noticed the quite large amount of muscle he got. Though he never worked out, he was jacked now. He didn’t care about the details, he was happy to have some actual muscle. Adam laughed to himself in satisfaction.
‘Get up’, said the doctor, when he threw Adam some sort of coverall.
Adam had been laying there in only his underwear for who knows how long. He felt a little ashamed that the shady men had to see him like that.
Adam put on the coverall, but when he tried to close the upper part, the feeling of the cloth against his scar stung so bad, he decided to leave it open.
He stood up from the operation table, and followed the man outside. The hallways the doctor led him through were dark and quiet. Like a hospital but worse. The dark walls and steel doors they passed seemed to go on forever, making a turn every now and then.
At last they arrived at their destination. The doctor used a key card to open one of the dozens of identical steel doors and signaled Adam to step inside. The room was somber, no windows, a bed, a table, a tiny kitchen and a small bathroom with a toilet and shower. It just nearly covered all basic needs.
‘You can stay here, for now. Tomorrow we will pick you up for some further tests’, the doctor said with a kind smile, before slamming the door shut.
After an excruciatingly long time of doing nothing, he heard a beeping noise coming from the door. For about an entire day he was stuck in this tiny, dark and cramped room. There was no clock, not even a window to tell whether it was day or night outside. So all Adam did was try to get some rest, which proved to be more difficult than he thought.
The door opened and the doctor stepped inside, together with his much older German colleague.
‘Good morning, Bennington’, the doctor said. ‘We’ll be taking you with us to run some tests now.’
Adam tried to say something back at him, but the old man immediately shut him up.
‘Oh no no no, now is not the time to ask questions’, said the old man. Something about the way he was dressed seemed very… religious in a way. He reminded Adam of a priest in casual clothing, but more somber. He had a cross on a necklace as well, with the cross hanging upside down. That couldn’t mean anything good.
Adam found himself following the doctor through the same identical hallways as the day before. The old priest walked behind him to keep him in check. This no longer felt like a short trip to a hospital to get checked up, he was a prisoner, an experiment.
When they arrived at a big elevator, the doctor signaled Adam to get inside. He did, followed by the doctor and the priest.
The doctor pressed a button, the one with a zero on it. Adam noticed on the elevator’s display that they were on the third basement floor, though the elevator had no such button.
‘What we are about to test is an ability of yours, called a stand’, said the doctor when the elevator came in motion.
‘A stand?’, asked Adam.
‘If all went well, not only your body has improved, your stand will have done so as well’, continued the doctor.
‘This… stand you keep talking about, what does it do?’, asked Adam.
‘You haven’t discovered it just yet, it seems. Do you remember this card, perhaps?’
He held up a black, steel bordered card, with the number “8” on it. It looked ominous to Adam, though he didn’t get why.
‘I do’, he replied, ‘That’s the card I got from you guys the day you took me in, right?’
‘That would be correct indeed’, said the doctor, handing it over to Adam.
‘Man, it was so sharp I cut myself on it when I took it the first time.’
‘You see, this card has the property to awaken stands in those cut by it. Most of the time, though, it would result in the death of that person, so we pick our candidates carefully’, explained the doctor, looking at the closed elevator doors.
‘And a very intriguing one at that’, added the old man.
‘How does that even work?’, asked Adam.
‘That’s information that I cannot disclose, unfortunately.’
The elevator reached its destination with a shrill “ding”. The elevator doors opened halfway before getting stuck.
‘This f*cking old thing!’, shouted the doctor, losing his temper. He kicked the door so hard there was a dent left behind. It did however do the job and the doors resumed opening.
‘Socrates, my boy, please contain yourself’, said the old man, grinning.
‘Shut your mouth, Plato. You ain’t much different, you old snake!’
‘I am only 74’, chuckled Plato.
Socrates closed his eyes and took a deep breath, to regain his composure. Adam had shuffled as far back against the wall as possible, just in case.
‘Excuse my unprofessional behavior’, he said, ‘Please, go ahead’, said Socrates, allowing Adam to leave first.
The ground floor of the facility looked like the reception hall of a small-scale hospital, or more accurately, a “has-been” hospital. It was empty and run down, being abandoned for a good while now. The withered white paint was peeling off the walls and trash covered the floor.
The two men guided Adam outside the building. Narrowing his eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight, he looked around him to pinpoint where he was. It seemed to be very early in the morning.
The man called Socrates could see Adam’s confusion. ‘Welcome to Italy, mr. bennington’, he said.
Italy? How long was he out for? Last thing he remembers was taking a train back in England.
‘Don’t worry about the details, young Bennington, we are almost at our destination’, said Plato.
The destination being a white Villa at the very end of an enclosed street. Without much effort they got inside the building. No one seemed to be home.
‘Now let’s see what this stand is capable of’, said Plato in anticipation.
‘What exactly do you want from me? What do I need to do?’, asked Adam nervously.
‘Nothing much’, said Socrates, passing a marble at him. ‘There, hold it in your right hand. Focus on creating a copy in your left.’
‘I’m… not sure if I can…’, stuttered Adam. The intimidating presence of both of them was overwhelming since yesterday, but now it has gotten even worse. He had expectations to meet.
‘Focus!’, said Socrates, raising his voice.
Scared, he did what was asked of him. Adam closed his eyes, holding both his hands open in front of him. Suddenly he felt a cold touch on his left hand. When he opened his eyes again, he was holding two identical marbles.
‘Did you…’, Adam started.
‘Good, that was step one’, said Socrates. Plato was still watching closely, Adam could see a strange sparkle in his eyes. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
‘Step one?’, Adam asked. He put the two marbles together in one hand, but right after he did, they exploded. Adam screamed out in pain as the small but powerful explosion tore off the skin of his left palm.
‘Ah, yes, that happens when you join both together. Now, let’s move on to something bigger’, said Socrates.
‘Couldn’t you have warned me?’, asked Adam trying to cover his wound.
‘How about a chair?’, suggested Plato as he grabbed one from the kitchen.
Adam was completely ignored. Were they even listening to him?
‘Sounds good’, agreed Socrates.
Adam hesitated, but in the end he went over to the chair to test his ability further.
‘And don’t try anything funny, Bennington. We gave you this ability and more, we can take it away too’, threatened Plato.
Only for a split second had he thought of using his new found destructive power against them. But what they said was true. He was still indebted to them.
A few trials passed, and Adam was getting more and more used to his ability, maybe a bit too much. He was experiencing a little bit of a power trip, copying more and more, bigger and bigger items.
Until Socrates stopped him.
‘Bennington. Your mission, the reason we brought you here, is to apprehend a few eyesores, alive if possible. They’ll be arriving here soon enough’, explained Socrates.
‘So all I have to do is eliminate them?’, Adam asked.
‘If absolutely necessary, yes.’
‘How about we try this…’, said Adam. He kneeled down, putting his hands flat on the floor and focused on the building he was standing in. The entire thing. He summoned Linkin Park, as the two sea angelfish-like robots slowly grew larger and larger, the two Order officials watched on in astonishment.
‘This is…’, started Socrates.
‘…magnificent!’, shouted Plato, turning his astonishment into excitement.
Linkin Park was now big enough to grasp the entire building. And so it did, Linkin Park copied the entire villa.
Plato and Socrates sprinted outside to see it with their own eyes.
‘Mein Gott… truly… magnificent’, repeated Plato.
‘This is well beyond my expectations…’, said Socrates, holding back a chuckle.
Adam’s body was hurting all over. He was surprised he got off with only a few broken ribs and a whole lot of bruises. If he got beaten like this before his surgery, his bones would have been turned to dust.
‘I need to get out of here…’, said Adam as tried to get up, ‘I’ll teach that silver punk a lesson.’
Something felt heavy on his back when he tried to push himself up. They were chains, hooked into his flesh, they were keeping him bound to the floor, like a captured animal. Adam pulled on the chains to get them loose. He pulled and pulled, but it would only cause the hooks to dig into his flesh deeper. He tried copying them, to destroy them, but nothing seemed to work. The more he struggled, the tighter the chains wrapped around him.
‘No… nonono… NOOO!’, he cried out, getting more desperate by the second.
The ground was still shaking, more violently than before. It wouldn’t be long before…
‘JOJOOOOOO!’, shouted Adam, desperately.
Joachim stopped running and turned around.
‘What’s wrong JoJo?’, asked Isaac.
‘Nothing, must have been my imagination’, said Joachim.
‘I’m sure he’ll be able to wurm his way out of there before anything happens, don’t pay any mind to that scumbag’, reassured Isaac.
They reached the end of the street, noticing the front gate was opened. They saw an old man wearing a black robe of some kind, stepping into a long black car. The vehicle itself looked like something in between a hearse and a limousine and it had an upside down red cross on the rear.
‘Never have I ever seen anything more suspicious than that limo right there’, said Nikola.
‘That old guy…’, mumbled Joachim to himself.
Joachim recognised the old man from the dream he had. Plato.
When the car drove off, a huge explosion was heard from behind them, as the two identical houses finally crashed into one another.
Small tribute to:
Chester Bennington (Singer of Linkin Park)
1976 – 2017
CHAPTER 18: Pursuit
Even from the other end of the street, Joachim could feel the impact of the explosion. It felt like a wave of warm air, pushing into his back. It even slightly threw him off balance. He regained his balance and looked back at the huge cloud of smoke that now raised from the building they were in just a minute ago. Joachim faced forward again, seeing that the limo had turned into the next street already. He started running in an attempt to chase the vehicle, but it was to no avail.
‘JoJo?!’, shouted Isaac, surprised at Joachim’s sudden dash.
‘We have to get to him! He is the one responsible for all this!’, Joachim shouted back. ‘Or he has deep ties to it at least!’
Joachim came to a halt at the cross section with the main street and sighed. The old man was gone. It only lasted for a brief second, but he was sure he made eye-contact with the priest through his rearview mirror.
The others caught up on him in no time.
‘Come on, we can’t chase a goddamn car on foot, we should first return, I’m tired’, said Nikola.
‘But…’, stared Joachim.
‘He is right, JoJo, we should regroup and find a way to contact Giorno’, said Isaac.
‘Fine, you’re right’, replied Joachim with a sigh.
The four boys then set out on their way back to the appartement, where Marie and Wilhelm were waiting for them to return.
It was when they arrived that they found out the door to the otherwise empty appartement was locked.
‘Well, Marie must have locked it, did we bring a spare key?’, asked Joachim, with his hand on the doorknob.
Isaac and Nikola searched their pockets but weren’t able to come up with any keys. Joachim searched too, but found nothing either.
Meanwhile, Nikola had already used the doorbell to alert Marie. There was no response, even after waiting for several minutes.
‘Something is off for sure’, said Joachim, ‘we need to get inside.’
‘Let’s break in here as well, we are professionals by now’, said Nikola.
‘I guess we are left with no choice’, agreed Isaac.
The door itself wasn’t anything special, just a wooden door, with a rather old lock to it. Joachim summoned Fistful Steel and with one swift punch broke the door’s doorknob and lock system.
The four of them entered the building and found it to be awfully quiet. Even though they were repeatedly calling Marie and Wilhelm’s names, there was no response, only eerie silence.
They reached the top of the staircase to the floor they were staying on. Slowly, sensing a possible danger, Joachim opened the door to the small living room. To his shock, he saw Marie passed out on the couch. She just sat there, staring blankly at the ceiling, hands twitching every now and then. He rushed towards her, closely followed by the other. Shaking her shoulders to wake her up, Marie regained consciousness.
‘Wha- What happened?’, she asked, confusedly looking around at everyone.
‘Oh thank god’, Joachim said, dropping down onto the couch.
Isaac let out a relieved sigh too. ‘You had us scared there for a second’, he said.
‘Please tell me you were just napping’, Joachim asked.
‘I don’t know man, that’s a very strange way to be napping’, noted Nikola.
‘I- I don’t know’, sighed Marie. ‘It feels like a weird fever dream… there was this tune, I don’t quite remember, and then everything just went black.’
‘At least you are okay now’, said Isaac. ‘Where is Wilhelm though?’
Panicked, Marie darted around the room looking for the boy.
‘Don’t tell me…’, said Isaac worriedly.
The five of them proceeded to search the entire building, but brought up no trace of Wilhelm.
‘Did you see anyone suspicious? Did anyone enter the building?’, asked Nikola, attention focused on Marie, who was still quite confused about the whole situation.
Stressed out, she didn’t know how to reply. ‘I… No, I didn’t see anyone!’
After a while they found themselves sitting at the table. Breaking the silence, Joachim asked; ‘You think the Order is behind this?’
‘What other option is there? Wilhelm went home on his own?’, said Nikola.
‘Hey, this is serious ok? We literally just found out about the Order doing human experiments!’, shouted Joachim.
Nikola stood up from his chair and walked away. ‘That boy always seemed weird to me, who knows what he’s up to?’
‘Human experiments?’, repeated Marie.
‘The guy we met at Giorno’s villa, he confirmed everything Joachim saw in his dream. About the trap they set for us, about the Order giving him his ability…’, Isaac explained.
Marie pulled up an eyebrow. She shook her head and returned to the matter at hand. ‘Whatever happened there, I assume you didn’t see that Giorno fellow? Maybe he knows more?’
‘We didn’t see him, no…’, said Joachim.
‘What now then?’, asked Marie, leaning back into her chair.
Mere seconds later, the doorbell rang. The group all looked at each other, silently asking each other the same question. “Who?”
Joachim was the one to stand up and walk downstairs, backed up by Isaac following him. They opened the front door to none other than Giorno and Mista.
‘Giorno?’, exclaimed Joachim.
Giorno nodded. ‘Can we come in? There is a lot we need to discuss’, he calmly asked.
Joachim uncomfortably stepped aside to let them in. Quietly he led them upstairs to the others.
Giorno took a seat at the head of the table, where Isaac had been sitting before. If the tension hanging in the air wasn’t already enough, now it was searing through everyone’s skin. Someone was going to have to do some explaining.
‘Now then’, Giorno started. ‘Tell me.’
While Marie tended to Isaac’s wounds, Joachim explained everything that had happened this morning. About his dream, the attack on Giorno’s residence… about Adam and the Order’s doings. Up until how they encountered Marie and a missing Wilhelm.
‘Ah, I see’, he said after Joachim’s explanation was as good as over.
‘So… what do we do now?’, asked Joachim.
‘First of all, that villa is not one of my residences. This was a trap set up to catch you. The Order clearly know what they are doing’, said Goirno, putting his elbows on the table, resting his head behind folded fingers.
‘So my dream…’, started Joachim.
‘It wasn’t a warning. It was a lure. However I do not know where these dreams come from, or who’s doing it is. In any case, they work in favor of the Order’, Giorno theorized.
Isaac rejoined at the table. ‘If we could be able to find the car we spotted at the end of that street…’
‘A car?’, asked Giorno, directing his focus to Isaac.
Joachim had forgotten to add the part of the suspicious limo they saw.
‘Of course! We saw an old man get into a black limo after escaping from the place. It was the old man I saw in the dream, I’m sure of it! He has to be behind all this’, Joachim said, to fill Giorno in.
‘Black limo, vaguely looking like a hearse as well? Upside down cross at the back?’, asked Mista to confirm.
‘Yeah! Exactly!’
‘Quite the important detail you forgot about, Joachim’, said Giorno, softly smiling at him.
Joachim shuffled in his chair. ‘I’m… sorry.’
‘Worry not, I think I have a plan’, Giorno said, self-assured. Everyone’s eyes flared up and stared at Giorno.
‘It’s a person of interest we’ve had our eyes on for a while now. Up until now we have been tracking that car’s movement to the best of our abilities and have found a few hot-spots of activity. Recently he was spotted in Fiesole, near an abandoned hospital’, Giorno explained.
‘So it’s not surprising they would lure us into the neighborhood to catch us’, suggested Nikola.
‘Unless it’s a diversion’, added Isaac.
‘It’s hard to think of it as a diversion, nor do I think they were trying to catch or neutralize you’, said Giorno.
‘I mean, the guy was literally planning to kill us!’, opposed Nikola.
‘But the old man wasn’t. He was… observing…’, thought Joachim out loud.
‘Good, Joachim, you noticed. The Order’s objective here was to test, both you and their little experiment. And if I had to guess, it was successful’, said Giorno. ‘Now, whoever is behind this has not been particularly careful about secrecy. If you feel ready for it, the abandoned hospital is most likely where they are hiding according to our intel.’
‘Let’s go give them another test and save Wilhelm!’, shouted Marie.
‘You seem to be up for some action, Marie’, said Isaac, laughing softly.
‘Keep in mind, the people you may encounter there, they pull the strings at the Order. They will be a powerful foe’, warned Mista.
‘Can you really not do more to help than that, dropping off some information?’, asked Nikola.
Mista and Giorno’s expressions darkened. ‘We cannot, no’, said Giorno.
‘Why?’, asked Nikola persistently.
‘Reasons that don’t concern you. These matters must be solved from the inside out’, said Mista, to save Giorno from having to explain.
‘Whatever, let’s go beat their asses’, said Nikola, arrogantly.
‘Y-yeah, we can’t let this wait any longer, we need to find Wilhelm’, said Joachim, through the tension Nikola had created. He wondered how Nikola was able to do this, rebel against all forces before him.
‘Good’, said Giorno, ‘We expect them to be at the building, but beware, they might be expecting you as well’, he warned.
‘We should at least rest a bit’, suggested Isaac.
‘You expect me to just sit and wait until you all feel fit enough again?’, Nikola asked angrily.
‘God dammit, Nikola, now is not the time’, shouted Joachim. Nikola immediately quieted down and left the room, clicking his tongue.
‘Ok, let’s catch our breath, we’ll go out there later this afternoon’, said Isaac. Everyone present agreed.
‘Then, I wish you all good luck. And, don’t do anything rash, if the situation looks bad, focus on escaping’, said Giorno.
That evening, before darkness settled over Italy, all set out on a rescue mission to find the vanished Wilhelm. Again on their way to small Fiesole, none were aware what they would face, or what they would come to learn, both about the Order… and about themselves.
CHAPTER 19: Cobras And Sickness (1)
It was not long after that, that Giorno and Mista left the appartement. They also said they would leave behind a car, at which point Isaac promptly revealed he has a driver’s license. Isaac received the car keys from Mista.
‘You have a license already? Cool!’, Joachim had shouted, excited.
‘Are you working on yours?’, Isaac had asked.
‘I only a temporary one so far…’, he had to admit.
Joachim, as fascinated by mechanical and technological advancement, had jumped on the opportunity to get a driver’s license as soon as he could.
When all were rested and ready to go, they headed downstairs and out to the street. The car Giorno had left wasn’t anything as fancy as his own. Not at all in fact. Parked in front of the building stood a bland, uninteresting, light gray, four person city vehicle. At least it could help in moving unnoticed. Unlike a certain black limo.
Isaac stepped into the driver side of the car, Marie followed suit and took the passenger’s seat. Joachim, Max and Nikola ended up in the back seat, Joachim in the middle, squished between the other two guys. The ride wasn’t long, but very awkward in its silence.
Isaac parked the car somewhere along the small street, not far from where Giorno had told them the abandoned hospital was.
‘We’re here’, he said, killing the car’s motor.
One by one they stepped out looking around to find the building.
‘This way’, said Joachim, taking the lead.
He led the group a bit further up the street to a big apartment block made of weathered yellowish sandstone. The building was about three stories tall, the lower parts decorated in unartistic graffiti and many of the windows were smashed out.
‘Yeah, this place has been dead for a while’, remarked Nikola.
‘You think they are still active here? The building looks like it is about to come down any day now’, said Marie.
‘Who knows…’, replied Joachim. ‘Guess we are about to find out.’
They entered the premises through a rusted, already open gate.
A small path of overgrown gravel led up to a porch with two glass double doors, one of which was entirely shattered. They entered the building through it and found themselves in the lobby, or rather what used to be a lobby. Bad graffiti decorated the cracked and peeling walls, heaps of random trash were scattered in the corners of the large space and the sun was still shining brightly through holes in the walls, roof and broken windows.
‘This place is… disgusting’, noted Marie, keeping a hand over her nose to shield her from the stale smell hanging in the air.
‘Yeah…’, agreed Joachim, ‘Let’s split up and investigate some’, he suggested.
‘Really? Split up is your first idea?’, asked Nikola. ‘I’ve seen enough movies to know where that will end up going.’
‘I gotta agree with Nikola here, we should stick together’, Isaac added.
Ashamed, Joachim pulled back a bit. ‘Oh, yeah, of course, sorry’, he apologized.
Marie looked at him with pity. ‘Hey, it’s fine’, she said. ‘No worries!’
A short awkward silence later, Isaac took the lead.
‘Come on, let’s check out this place, it seems bigger than you’d think, we’ve got no time to waste here’, he said as he walked towards the corridor right of the lobby desk.
They proceeded through the right wing, checking door after door, only to find the rooms behind it littered with rubble and in the same state of disrepair as the rest of the old building.
‘Ok, this is, in my book, a waste of time’, said Nikola after checking the last door in the corridor. ‘There is literally nothing here.’
‘No, he’s here, I’m sure’, said Joachim.
‘Then where is he hiding? Huh?’, Nikola replied frustrated, stepping up to Joachim.
Nikola had been acting up lately, increasingly hostile even. Joachim was getting scared of him, and couldn’t reply. He feared their friendship was walking on increasingly thin ice.
Max came to his rescue. ‘Underground’, he simply stated.
‘Where now?’, asked Nikola.
‘They might be… underground’, Max repeated.
‘There were only stairs going up to higher floors…’, noted Isaac.
‘There was a pretty beat-up elevator in the lobby, maybe that one goes down!’, speculated Marie.
‘Good, we should check that out’, concluded Isaac.
Joachim added a weak ‘ok’ before they turned around and headed back to the lobby.
Nikola was the first one to head back. Mumbling something to himself along the lines of “sure an underground super facility makes sense”.
While walking back, Joachim debated catching up to Nikola, who was way in front, to talk. Even still if he decided to, what would he say?
“Hey, Nikola, you’ve been acting weird and angry all the time? Is something wrong?”
No, that would only make him more angry. Deep down, Joachim knew why he was like this.
Halfway down the corridor Joachim heard a blood-curdling scream. It came from behind him. Marie.
He turned around as fast as he could and saw Marie crouched down, gripping her angle. Isaac stood beside her.
Joachim ran towards them as fast as he could. ‘What happened?!’, he asked.
‘I… I don’t know, something bit me’, said Marie
She removed her hand from her ankle and looked at it. There was blood all over her hand.
‘We have to bind it’, said Isaac.
As soon as Isaac said that, several tiny snakes appeared seemingly from the shadows in the corridor behind them. Like a little slithering army they approached the group.
‘Guys? Snakes! We have to go, now!’, shouted Joachim.
Isaac helped Marie get up. Trying to run on her own, Marie almost stumbled and fell. She had trouble standing on her right leg, because of the wound, though the bleeding seemed to have stopped…
Joachim was already a rock’s throw ahead, almost rejoining Max and Nikola. More blood-red snakes appeared between Marie and Joachim. They held up their malformed heads and hissed at him. Were those… some weird kind of cobras?
‘Go!’, shouted Isaac, ‘I got her!’
Isaac wrapped an arm around Marie and fled upstairs, taking her along.
Right before they turned the corner, Joachim noticed why the bleeding had stopped. Marie’s wound had crystalized shut in bright red gems.
Joachim turned around and ran towards the other two guys.
‘Please be okay’, he said under his breath.
Isaac helped Marie up the stairs as quickly as he could, as every step grew more difficult for her. On the next floor, atop the first flights of stairs, Isaac decided to seat Marie down on a stray chair in the hallway. He looked at the wound as Marie tried to catch her breath, and was shocked with what he saw.
The sports leggings she was wearing were ripped apart around the wound by sharp red crystals, and they were spreading as he watched on.
‘Marie, this is bad, very bad’, he warned her.
‘What’s going on?’, she asked.
‘These are not just some regular snakes, they are a stand.’
Marie curiously looked down to her leg too, to get a grasp on her situation. Though she couldn’t hold her eyes on it long.
‘Shit’, she said, diverting her eyes upwards.
Their rest was cut short by hissing coming from the stairwell. Isaac looked over his shoulder and saw the cobras quickly arrive up the last steps.
‘Marie’, he said as calmly as he could, ‘we need to go now!’
‘I… I can’t feel my foot’, Marie said, gasping for air in quick successions, clearly panicked.
Isaac thought quickly, grabbing Marie by her legs and back, to carry her. He felt a sting in his right arm, piercing his skin. The red crystals had already moved up to Marie’s knee.
One of the cobras got close enough to lunge at Isaac’s leg, but just in time, Isaac started to run down the corridor with Marie in his arms, escaping the creature’s fangs.
Isaac quickly looked behind him, and to his surprise, the snakes had stopped chasing him down. He kept running anyway, to get Marie to a safe spot, as he felt his own wound crystallizing shut.
When he got to the end of the hallway, he turned the corner and stopped in fear. Before him stood another threat, halfway down the hallway. A white clad, bird faced, dark ages plague doctor.
The three bigger cobras started giving chase to Joachim. They were about twice as big as the ones chasing Isaac and Marie, almost reaching three meters in length.
He rejoined Nikola and Max, and shouted, ‘Come on, let’s go!’
Nikola, instead of turning and running, to meet up with Isaac and Marie, summoned Acid Rain and took aim. He fired a quick blast of water, but the cobras moving in and out of shadows and rubble were easily dodging it and approaching him.
Joachim tugged on his arm, repeating his call to get out of here.
‘What the hell man?! We dealt with worse than snakes up ‘till now’, Nikola said.
‘Doesn’t matter, we need to find Marie!’, Joachim shouted.
Nikola finally started to run with them, but as they reached the lobby, two even bigger cobras were awaiting them from the corridor of the left wing. These were at least six meters long.
‘Fuck!’, exclaimed Nikola.
They were faced with a couple of options, escape the building through the front door, the door behind the desk in the lobby or fight. They were surrounded by giant snakes, so Joachim made the decision to run through the doors behind the desk. ‘Go go go go!’, he said to the other two boys, while holding the door open.
They found themselves in a central gardan, a court area.
And front of a broken down stone fountain, stood the old man Joachim recognized all too well.
About half as tall as Joachim but twice as intimidating, he held up his scrawny arms in some sort of gesture to welcome him.
The army of snakes, even the ones who had been chasing Isaac, slowly slithered it’s way into the courtyard, not attacking, but pushing them closer to the old man.
‘Joachim, dear boy’, he said, cackling while speaking, ‘welcome.’
The white plague doctor slowly approached Isaac, step by step, crushing any rubble under its feet to dust. Out of its long feathered sleeves came two almost birdlike claws, with nails like incision tools.
Frozen in place with Marie still in his arms, he watched as the thing rose one arm, and pointed at them.
‘You… are… sick’, it spoke with a very slow and deep tone.
‘Who… what are you?!’, yelled Isaac.
‘I… must… cure… you…’, it continued, making more steps toward them.
‘I don’t trust anything about that… being’, said Marie. Her wound, the crystals, had now spread beyond her knee, and up her leg.
Isaac realised he was slowly losing strength in his right arm.
‘This thing, it must be another stand right? This place is crawling with them? Where are their users?!’, asked Isaac, knowing he would get no answers.
The only reply he got was the stand moving faster and faster towards them. Its speed seemed to rise exponentially. Isaac realised he would no longer be able to run, not from this monster.
‘I’m sorry, Marie’, he said as he seated her down, back against the wall.
‘Isaac? What are you doing?’, she asked worriedly.
‘I’ll fight, and find this fucker’s user, he can’t be too far’, he said confidently.
He stood with his back towards the unknown stand, waiting for the impact. When he felt the stinging pain of its claws reaching across his back, he summoned Vengeful One. Four pointed chains almost instantly pierced the white stand’s back and pulled him to Vengeful One’s shadow dimension.
‘ISAAC!’, he heard Marie yell as darkness enveloped him.
When he was alone with the enemy in his dimension, Isaac realised something.
‘Wait, how is this possible?’, asked Isaac to himself.
He had expected the chains to seek and find the stand’s user, but instead they took the stand itself. He decided not to crack his brain over how or why.
‘Doesn’t matter, as long as I beat you up here and now’, he said, regaining his confidence.
The plague doctor started moving towards him, unphased. Mumbling in its unnaturally deep voice about a “cure” and “sickness”.
‘Ok buddy’, Isaac said. Then he unleashed the force of a more than double sized Vengeful One.
Uncountable punches hit the plague doctor over its entire body. Isaac saw how the unimaginable power of the punches broke the stand’s arms, legs and even dislocated its entire head.
But the shadow dimension did not dissipate, nor did the stand.
‘What is this?! Why is nothing working as it should? Weren’t there any rules to this “stand” thing?!’, yelled Isaac into the void, faltering for a short while.
The doctor lay on the floor, mutilated, however it was moving again. Using its broken and dislocated arms, it somehow pulled its own body together again. Finishing with standing up and twisting its head back into place.
‘What- What are you?!’, Isaac screamed terrified.
‘Sickness… Unto… You…’, it spoke, when resuming its march forward.
CHAPTER 20: Cobras And Sickness (2)
‘So, Joachim, what brings you here, right into our hands, on this fine evening?’, asked the old man.
Answering his question with one of his own, Joachim asked; ‘Are you the one behind everything that happened today?’
‘Hmmm, I see, you stood in awe at our resources and have finally decided to join us’, he replied, smirking.
‘What?! No way in hell I would!’, Joachim shouted back at him.
He was about to summon Fistful Steel when the old man clicked his tongue and said; ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you, unless you don’t value your friends back there.’
Joachim turned around, he didn’t hear a thing, but the snakes had somehow merged together into two huge cobras that now held Max and Nikola in a tight grip, fangs at the ready.
‘You…’, started Joachim, turning back to the old priest.
‘Shhhh, I’ll need you to shut up and listen for a bit. My name is Plato, I am an officer in the Order, bearing the number 5’, Plato said. He started walking around Joachim, continuing his monologue.
‘Our little experiment you were part of… was a little more of a success than we anticipated. But don’t get us wrong, we’re not trying to kill you, or your friends’, he gestured to Nikola as the cobra around him hissed. ‘It’s just, young Adam, was a little bit of a loose cannon. The thing is, Draco wants you all alive, he needs you for our noble cause!’, he said, putting extra emphasis on “noble”.
‘Who is Draco?’, asked Joachim.
‘Oh, no worries, you’ll meet him soon enough, no matter how you continue your little rampage’, Plato said, waving his question away.
‘Because, frankly, we’re not sure why you are fighting us like this, I mean, what did we ever do to you? We gave you powers beyond comprehension and offered you a place amongst our ranks!’
Plato stood still, he paused for a bit. ‘Oh… oh yes, that must have been it… your father’, he said in just the right way to provoke Joachim.
‘We’ve all made sacrifices, Joachim. You know how I got to this position? It might come as a surprise but, I haven’t been the big number 5 for that long yet’, he laughed, reminiscing some sort of memory.
‘Can you stop talking and tell us what you’ve done to Wilhelm?’, Joachim threatened, trying not to lose his temper. Overall, Joachim was well in control of his emotions, but right now, he was balancing on the edge of snapping on Plato.
Plato instantly turned to face him and both cobras around Max and Nikola hissed and tightened their grip on both boys, Max grunted in pain.
‘I said QUIET!’, Plato yelled in Joachim’s face.
‘Let me tell you a little story’, Plato said, calming down his voice straight away. ‘About a year or six ago now, when I was still only 68 years young, Draco approached me and granted me this awe-striking stand called “Cobra King”. You know what the first thing I did with it was?’, he asked Joachim.
Joachim didn’t reply.
Plato sighed. ‘I killed all my followers I had assembled over the years. They were a fine sacrifice, and were happy to be one with Cobra King’, he laughed. ‘You know what I did next?’
Still, Joachim refused to reply.
‘I killed the previous Plato, and took her place in the order. I became rich, powerful… respected’, he mused. ‘I’ll always be grateful to Draco. Now, in your case, it doesn’t have to go this way, but I’m sure you’ll come to be thankful of us too, in time’, Plato had returned to the fountain and spread his arms wide open once more.
‘So what will it be Joachim?! Join us? Or keep fighting until your eventual deaths?!’, he preached.
Joachim stood silent.
‘The blue one’, Plato said, ‘he is your best friend, right? I imagine you would rather not lose him.’
Plato lifted a single arm towards Nikola, pressing his middle finger and thumb together.
‘Don’t you dare touch him’, Joachim said.
‘That decision is yours, dear boy!’
‘I won’t do whatever you guys want. I’ve seen what you sick people do.’
‘Then your decision… is made’, Plato said as he snapped his fingers.
The oversized cobra holding Nikola hostage bit in his shoulder as Nikola screamed in pain.
‘Nikola!’, Joachim yelled out as he dashed towards his friend.
Max looked on in shock, his eyes darting from Cobra King’s last victim, to Joachim, to Plato, and finally to the snake hissing in his own face.
‘Now you’ve done it Joachim, another beautiful sacrifice will be made soon enough’, Plato mused.
‘Stop this!’, shouted Joachim.
‘I can’t do that, boy, now Cobra King’s venom is slowly coursing through his veins, crystalizing his blood as it circulates, and soon, those crystals will reach his heart’, Plato said, feigning a sad voice as he held his hands over his heart. ‘Just like the others’, he added.
Isaac knew another flurry of attacks would only lead to the same results, yet he took his battle stance once more. Though he felt his infected arm slowly go numb.
Now at full speed, the stand before him charged to make its next move. At that moment, Isaac thought of a plan. If timed well… this could work.
The stand readied its incision tools, ready to strike any second. And Isaac waited ‘till the very last.
Right when the stand was up in his face, Isaac launched an immensely powerful left hand punch. As soon as Vengeful One’s fist had plenty hit, he disabled his stand, causing the shadow dimension to disappear.
A few of the stand’s blades scratched the surface of Isaac’s face and chest, as it flew into and through the well to the right of them, into the courtyard below.
Isaac took a moment to come gather his bearings. He looked over to where Marie was still sitting, clearly suffering as the crystals almost reached to her hip now.
He took her into his arms again, finding it to be very difficult with his own right arm failing him.
Together with Marie he stepped towards the hole in the wall and looked down in surprise at the scenery he saw below.
The first thing he noticed was Max and Nikola being held captive by two gigantic cobras. Then he noticed Joachim was facing the old man they were after, but did not seem to be fighting anymore. With the two of them held hostage, the situation was awfully clear.
All of them below stood in surprise from another stand crashing into the open space. The white clad stand had dropped into the stone fountain behind the old man, completely smashing it to pieces. Still apparently unable to take any significant damage, the stand was already getting back up.
‘This looks bad’, Isaac stated.
Max was the first to notice Isaac and Marie on the second floor, tracking down where the stand had come from.
‘Joachim, up there!’, Max said, surprising pretty much everyone, who first looked at him, and then the direction he was looking, even Plato.
Isaac wished he was able to help, but from up here, not much could be done, especially not with Marie’s or his wounds.
‘Haha… ha… hahahaha’, Plato slowly started laughing. ‘Your friends up there don’t look too good either, especially the girlie there. And if it isn’t Isaac Draiman himself’, Plato taunted, as if Isaac was some sort of celebrity, ‘I have to give credit where credit is due, I’m surprised they were able to hold their own against Sickness Unto You. Their stands must be pretty powerful, as expected from the next number 1!’, he cheered.
‘What do you mean by that?’, Joachim asked.
‘By what?’, asked Plato, confused.
‘Isaac being the next number 1’, Joachim clarified.
‘Boy, what do you think you were invited for? He will be the new Pythagoras! Chosen by the last one’, Plato paused, ‘awww, are you jealous your father didn’t choose you?!’, Plato laughed out loud.
Sickness Unto You had meanwhile stood up and started his march towards Nikola.
‘You… sick…’, it spoke in its slow, deep, distorted voice.
But that was not the only thing that happened while Plato was distracted. Max had quietly summoned his stand too. When Plato noticed, even he stood in awe at the creature floating above Max.
Joachim turned away from Plato to follow his gaze. He was met by a bright shining silver and gold gowned angel. It had no wings, no big halo and its eyes were concealed, giving it a sense of “humanity”. Even still, its presence was massive, as of the sun rising at dawn, and though the real sun was just about to set, so felt a second presence on the angel’s left chest. Protruding from its rib cage was a deep red demonic face with a single, long, bending horn. Green cracks running over the angel’s skin originated from the demonic face as it corrupted it.
‘Angel Of Death’, whispered Max. Joachim could barely make it out, but the words held a huge weight behind them.
Angel Of Death held up its right arm and Joachim could now clearly see the three bright glowing halos around it. In one swift swing of its arm, one of the halos flew over Joachim’s head towards Marie and Isaac.
In barely a few seconds, the halo had hit its mark, and Cobra King bit into Max’ flesh. Max yelped in pain as the fangs nestled in his neck. Joachim looked back to Plato, expecting some sort of reaction, but he was only met by the scared look on the old man’s face, now covered in sweat.
Joachim didn’t even bother to ask what was going on. Then again if he did, things were happening way too fast anyway.
Suddenly a dark green aura spread itself across his leg as he felt a tingling pain rising.
‘I’m sorry’, he heard Max say behind him, followed by an ominous laugh that could only have come from the demonic face.
The tingling pain made place for a piercing pain he had never felt before. When the green mist dissipated, he saw his leg had been taken over by the same crystals Marie had. He fell down on one knee as he lost all sense in his right leg, crushing the crystals beneath his knee against the paved path. Joachim screamed out in pain.
Marie stood gawking at Max’s stand, finally laying eyes on the thing he has kept hidden for so long. She could see the beauty in it, but also the terror and tragedy.
The halo Max had thrown looped around her infected leg now. It shrunk down to a bracelet on her leg and a bright shine later, her leg was completely healed. Marie gasped as she stood on her own again. She stretched her leg and with her newfound strength, she summoned Chemical Romance.
But her relief came at a cost. She heard Joachim scream out in pain. To her surprise, her infection was somehow transferred to him.
‘Isaac! Use your stand to take out the old geezer! He has clearly hurt you so you can tak-’, Marie said, slightly panicked.
‘No’, Isaac simply said, cutting her off, ‘I can’t. He’s out of my range. I would be able to climb down but…’, he looked at his own arm. The infection had spread almost up to his wrist and shoulder. He couldn’t even lift a finger like this.
Marie brought her hand in front of her mouth and gasped.
She looked down to the situation below and saw that Nikola too was struggling with crystals slowly spreading up his neck. Another thing she noticed was Sickness Unto You, who was halfway between Plato and Nikola, changing targets, as if completely forgetting about Nikola.
Marie wanted to yell at Max to ask what was going on, or to save Joachim and Isaac and Nikola, but instead she took a deep breath, and thought of a plan.
‘I think I’ve figured this guy out’, said Marie.
‘What guy?’, asked Isaac after a short delay. He also seemed to struggle to completely get a grasp on the situation.
‘The white stand. See how he is going for Joachim now, and completely ignoring us and Nikola? I believe he goes straight towards the nearest infected or injured person to…’, Marie stopped her sentence there. During her explanation, Chemical Romance had already transformed into a rat and jumped down into the courtyard.
‘Anyway, we still have time to save him, all we have to do is infect that creepy old guy with something. If my theory is correct, the stand should shift targets’, she explained.
‘Great reasoning, but how will we do that?’, asked Isaac concerned.
Along the way Marie had found various dead animal remains, mostly of the rat kind. These didn’t just die of any normal cause.
‘There’, Marie pointed at the nimble creature running unnoticed towards Plato, ‘that rat Chemical Romance turned into is infected with some nasty diseases.’
The rat reached Plato and bit his leg underneath his gown. ‘Got him!’, Marie exclaimed.
Plato jumped up and cursed at the rat running away from him, back to Marie. But Sickness Unto You didn’t seem to change course. It was already closer to Joachim now, and speeding up.
‘JOJO!’, shouted Isaac off the top of his lungs during the commotion, ‘Get the doc over to the old dude!’
Joachim seemed to struggle, but at least he heard Isaac loud and clear.
With his last strength, Joachim summoned Fistful Steel and was able to land one punch in time before getting hit himself, to put a gear on the plague doctor and launch it towards Plato.
Sickness Unto You crashed down into the garden next to Plato, as the gear that was placed on it faded away. Plato looked behind him, afraid, now that he was aware of their plan.
Sickness Unto You stood up as expected. It stepped slowly toward Plato. Speeding up with every step. Everyone stood still awaiting the result of their plan. But the stand quietly passed by Plato.
He burst out in laughter. ‘What, you thought that would work? Obviously it does not deem me sick! Because I am not!’, he declared, even though he clearly looked afraid for a moment. ‘Not yet at least…’, he quietly added.
‘It didn’t work?’, asked Marie to no one in particular.
‘Shit’, Isaac added.
‘I was scared for a moment when that Araya boy here summoned Angel Of Death, but it seems he is not prepared to use it to its fullest power. This battle is over’, Plato said, as the three boys before him suffered from the spreading Cobra King venom, and Sickness Unto You resumed its march towards them.
Continued in JJBA: Steel Shadows Season 3!
