Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Giorno had always considered himself to be a fairly competent man.

To most people, competent was an understatement; a blatant example of unwarranted modesty. From the members of Passione who had witnessed his growth as a leader firsthand to the rival gangs across the globe he had crushed underfoot to the kind old ladies he always offered help to, competent didn’t even come close to expressing Giorno’s natural ability to adapt to and overcome any obstacle that stood in his way. Even before having been blessed by the power of Requiem and thrust into the position of mafia boss at the ripe old age of 15, everyone had considered him to be wise beyond his years, complimented by street smarts and a silver tongue. Yes, competent was usually a perfectly acceptable way to describe Giorno Giovanna.

So it only made moments like this, where Giorno felt so completely incompetent, all the more embarrassing.

He still had a hard time believing that such a thing had happened right under his nose. A childish part of him prayed that none of this was real, that it was a nightmare or some kind of twisted joke set up by Mista as vengeance for putting him in a team of four on his last mission. The embarrassment of being so incompetent was already bad enough, but the potential ramifications for this one error were far more daunting.

Someone had stolen the arrow.

An uncomfortable, almost itchy feeling coursed through Giorno's body at the thought, like a snake slithering up his back and threatening to bite his neck. He fluffed the pillow behind him, swatting at it. This was wrong. It was all wrong. The room inside Coco Jumbo was supposed to be a place of cozy isolation, a place where he could relax and decompress between missions, not a place for him to have a borderline panic attack in. He hadn't felt this way since he was a child, hiding under his bead from his stepfather's screeching threats and leather belt. Although, no amount of privacy could spare him from the shame he felt. Nor should it, the arrow was Giorno's responsibility after all. It was his duty to get it back.

Besides, he wasn't completely alone.

Whilst Giorno sat on the couch fluffing pillows, Polnareff paced around the room's exterior. The cheap prosthetic legs that adorned his stumps never failed to catch Giorno's eye. It just looked strange for him to be walking around on them, like they ought to give out under the weight of the rest of his body. In lieu of the usual cheeky "my eyes are up here" response Giorno usually got for staring, he only got the faint sound of his footsteps clanging against the floor. Slight as it may be, the metallic sound of each step made Giorno's stomach turn. If only I got there sooner, he thought, if only I had gotten to the colosseum before Diavolo that night, I might've been able to restore your legs. If only I had got there sooner, you might still be alive and not chained to this room.

Even through his unkempt hair, wrinkled suit, and heavy bags that weighed his eyelids down, Giorno admitted that Polnareff undoubtedly looked worse than he did. All of his frustration was laid bare on his face; his brows arched upwards, eyes unfocused yet brimming with inner conflict as he surveyed the room, the occasional vexed sigh escaping his lips. Considering everything that Polnareff did in order to keep the arrow away from those who would misuse it, his reaction was justified. Additionally, when considering other recent revelations, Giorno figured that he would be just as distressed as Polnareff were he in his prosthetics. Tired of pacing around the same four corners, the Frenchman flumped into one of the armchairs and laid his head in his hands.

"Would you like to go over everything again?" Giorno asked mostly because the useless silence between them tired him. "Now that we've had the chance to sleep on it, we may discover something we had overlooked before."

After taking a deep breath to steel himself, Polnareff lowered his arms but did not look up to meet Giorno's gaze. "That sounds like a good idea," he responded.

Nodding in approval, Giorno began to sort through the mess of documents laying on the coffee table. The regretful, lingering stare Polnareff kept on two of the papers that had been brushed to the side did not go unnoticed as Giorno attempted to line up all of the relevant files in front of them.

“So,” Giorno began, “Tuesday, May 19th, 2009.” He shook away the self-reproach clawing through his thoughts. It had already been three days. “At 3:47 AM, a suspicious man was seen loitering outside of our base of operation. Tall, pale skin, mint green hair. Armed with a Desert Eagle.” In one of the images taken from the security footage, the man sneered at the camera, cigarette clenched between his pearly whites. Giorno couldn’t help but scowl his cheekiness. “He stayed outside the building, standing at the corner of the sidewalk by himself for eight minutes. At 3:55, two other individuals joined him, both wearing dark blue masquerade masks and hooded robes. Both are shorter than the other man, but given how tall he is, that doesn’t narrow anything down.”

He slumped back into the sofa. “It bothers me that only two of them made an attempt to disguise themselves,” he commented, “The fact that he got there first seems to suggest that he’s either their leader or a decoy. Given what ended up happening, I’d say it’s the latter, but,” Giorno glared at the knowing look that the man had flashed at the camera, “I have my doubts.”

He looked up at Polnareff, waiting for his consigliere to give his thoughts. About six seconds of silence passed before Giorno cleared his throat to summon Polnareff’s attention away from the stray documents. It took another moment or so after that for him to register that Giorno expected his input, after which he sat up a bit straighter and finally let his eyes scan over the other papers.

“He could’ve just been full of himself,” Polnareff added, his stare wandering back to those same two papers, “not every man is as committed to keeping themselves hidden as Diavolo was.”

“But you would think that he would at least be someone we knew if that were the case,” Giorno rebutted, “like someone from a rival gang or someone with the government. If he was someone new who wanted to make himself known, he did a laughably poor job.” Giorno grabbed an autopsy report from the table. “We have this man’s corpse but not so much as his name.”

Polnareff sighed. “That is also true,” he said, his voice tired.

“Either way, I had Sheila E use her Stand on the street corner the three of them waited at, as well as the rest of the area to see if they talked about anything. Unfortunately, it seems that they were prepared for that.” Giorno rested his thumb and pointer finger on his chin, deep in thought. “That alone is enough to raise suspicion. And, along with the fact that they knew exactly where the arrow was hidden, then as much as I hate to say it, at least one of the perpetrators could be someone from within Passione.” The very thought of a traitor within their ranks brought about a suffocating tension to the room. Giorno could practically hear Diavolo’s mad laughter ringing in his ears; how ironic that both of them would be undone by one of their underlings.

“We shouldn't forget that we've taken precautions in order to make sure that’s not the case.” At this point, Giorno was all but talking to himself. “It could just be that whoever we’re dealing with is very cautious. Even within Passione, most of our members don’t know the Stands of those outside their own teams. Sheila and her teammates are my bodyguards, if I can trust anyone, it’s them.” He hoped so at least, especially given that Giorno had left Mista in charge of affairs in his absence. “Their alibis are also—”

A sudden bump in the road caused the room to jolt. The papers on the table scattered on impact, turning the organized mess into a more standard one. Shaken from his trance, Polnareff nearly jumped out of his own ethereal skin from the unexpected force. Giorno sighed and began to reorganize the papers. After taking a moment to gather his bearings, Polnareff assisted him.

"Giorno," he said, putting some papers back in their folder for known suspects, "I understand we're traveling incognito, but we really should consider taking more comfortable means of transport in the future."

Giorno laid the timeline out once again and grabbed the basket of fruit that sat on the end table. "This was the best I could get for us under such short notice." He began to lay out the fruit on top of the papers, giving them extra weight to pin them in place. "I don't need to tell you that traveling via plane in these types of situations is a bad idea."

Polnareff observed Giorno take the two papers that called for his gaze and place them in his coat pocket.

Before he could interject, Giorno continued speaking. "Now then," he said, brushing some stray curls behind his ear, "at 4 AM sharp, our building lost power. Our security cameras, smoke detectors, laser grids…all of it shut down. We were the only building in the area to experience a power outage. Sometime soon after, the thieves blew a hole through the side of the building, about two meters tall and two meters wide, and broke in. Shards of glass were found near the scene even though all of our windows remained intact through the ordeal."

Giorno returned his attention back to the timeline. "From this point on the details are a little fuzzy, but we do know a few things for certain." He removed the apple weighing down the stack of autopsy reports, simultaneously taking the papers and a bite from the apple. "Eleven of the twelve guards on duty were killed via electrocution. The only guard who survived, his name was Mente Vettore, shot the green haired man four times in the head, just outside the hidden room where we keep the arrow. He died on the spot and never even removed his gun from his holster."

He took another bite of the apple. "Vettore fired two more shots, hitting the wall and a chair, but he didn't seem to hit the other two assailants. He would've had four more shots left, but there’s no evidence to suggest he fired any more bullets. Around the same time, another hole was blown in the wall, revealing our hidden vault. Just like with the other hole, shards of broken glass were found by the impact. The vault we kept the arrow stored in was also destroyed. At 4:15, the power came back on, and the two masked assailants were already long gone. Vettore has also gone missing. We arrived at the scene ten minutes later."

Giorno picked up the profiles of the two masked assailants they had drafted up. "From what I can tell, the power outage must've been caused by a Stand. That same Stand is probably what electrocuted the guards. My guess is that it's a Stand with the ability to steal electricity, store it, then channel it somehow. I don't think it's what blew holes in the walls though. I think a different Stand did that, and it's likely linked to the broken glass in some way." He placed the profiles down and retrieved an autopsy report. "Interestingly enough, the man with green hair doesn't seem to be a Stand user. We couldn't gleam anything else of note from his autopsy. His fingerprints have been sanded off, his blood and face don't match up with any on record, we couldn't even discern where his clothes are from."

Trading the autopsy report for a mission log, he choked down yet another bite of the apple. “I had Murolo send All Along Watchtower out for reconnaissance. He spotted the arrow yesterday just outside of Orléans, carried by another masked individual. We don't know if they're one of the thieves or someone else. They were headed north towards Paris, which is where we’re on our way to now.”

Taking a final bite of his apple, Giorno looked up to his consigliere. "So," he said, "do you have anything to add, Polnareff?"

He took a moment to examine the mess of papers, reorienting himself so he faced them head on as he ran a hand through his column of silver hair. Polnareff still seemed unfocused, perhaps even more so than before, though Giorno noticed that he made an obvious effort to hide it.

"We should've kept the arrow in the turtle," Polnareff quipped.

Giorno shook his head. "It would've been a bad idea to keep it here. It was starting to affect the turtle. We wouldn't have felt those tremors earlier if we had never put the arrow in here. This would've been the perfect hiding place for the arrow, but it's not worth risking sacrificing you over."

Staring at the ceiling, Polnareff groaned with uncertainty. "I guess," he muttered.

For a while, the two of them just stayed like that, with Polnareff's sights fixated upwards and Giorno looking back at him with concern. Only the faint sound of the engine and the occasional cluck of a chicken bleeding into the room from outside accompanied them. Though he normally strived for this quiet, almost contemplative atmosphere, Giorno figured it wouldn’t do to leave off the conversation like this. It was time to address the elephant in the room.

"There's also the subject of your family…"

Polnareff instantly locked eyes with Giorno, ready and alert. Chuckling at his immediate shift in attitude, Giorno pulled the two papers from his coat pocket, reading the names at the top.

MARYLOU POLNAREFF, NÉE DELON (DECEASED)
MICHELLE POLNAREFF (AGE 17, STATUS UNKNOWN)

"I can't believe you hid the fact that you have a wife and daughter for eight years," Giorno commented, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Had,” Polnareff interjected. His voice was hushed and quavered as he spoke, shaking like leaves in a storm. “Marylou…she’s gone now, and Michelle probably doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. Assuming she’s not gone too.”

It never failed to baffle the two of them how a ghost was able to cry. He turned away and shut his eyes as soon as he felt tears begin to well up behind them. They were hot and scalded against his pupils, just like they did when he was alive. How could he let this happen? His family, whom he had sworn to protect and cherished above all else had once again been splintered, and it was all his fault. The one thing he promised himself he’d never do—abandon them when they needed him most—Polnareff had done without a second thought. Now they were gone for good, and he had no one to blame but himself.

He took a few deep breaths, inhaling through his nose and exhaling through pursed lips, trying to ward away his sadness. The tears boiling his retinas simmered down, chilling until he could hardly feel them. The heartache did not cease, but it was bearable. When Polnareff opened his eyes, the sight of his boss crouched next to him with his hand placed on his shoulder greeted him.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Polnareff wondered if Gold Experience Requiem gave Giorno the ability to read minds.

Though he had no good answer to that question, Polnareff tried to find one anyway. “I wasn’t sure if I could trust you. I’ve never been sure, to be honest. At least not with my family’s wellbeing. I never wanted them to get involved with Passione. I had every intention of going back home after defeating Diavolo, but that was before…well,” he lifted his shirt to reveal the gaping wound in his chest that had done him in, “before he got me first. And then I got stuck in the turtle, so I couldn't go home without you finding out about them. I only brought it up now since our enemies are in France anyways, so I figured it was now or never.”

Giorno withdrew his hand from Polnareff’s side. “I understand."

“I should’ve gone back,” Polnareff lamented, “this…I never wanted this for them. I never wanted this for me. I can’t bear to imagine how hard me leaving the way I did was on them. For all these years I’ve been trying to keep them safe, but…wow, I really am an idiot, huh?”

“You’re not an idiot.” Sacrifice was a part of life, a fact that Giorno knew all too well, so to agree with Polnareff’s statement would make him a hypocrite. “Your wife died of pneumonia. You couldn't have done anything even if you were there.”

“You don’t know that,” Polnareff sulked. “Are you sure you weren’t able to find anything else on Michelle? Anything at all?” Desperation plagued his voice. “Anything that proves she’s still alive?”

Giorno did a once-over of her file before speaking. “The last record of her, both public and private, is that she attended Bégaudeau Secondary School in 2006. There’s nothing on her after that. No record of employment, no bank accounts, no medical reports, nothing.”

Though he knew Giorno was right, Polnareff snatched Michelle’s file from his hands and read it himself, just to make sure.

“I could ask Murolo to send All Along Watchtower out to search for her, if you’d like,” Giorno suggested.

Were the circumstances different, Polnareff would have laughed at the offer. Aside from Giorno, nobody else in Passione knew about his family, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to place his daughter’s safety and security in the hands of a wild card like Cannolo Murolo. Though, sending out a search party for her, even if only to locate her corpse, sounded like an enticing offer.

“I’ll consider it,” he mumbled, ghosting his fingers over her picture. Even though she was 15 when it was taken, she was just as Polnareff remembered her; with her mother’s gleeful brown eyes, the same warm smile Sherry used to wear, and long silver hair framing her face in the neat plaits he had taught her to do many years ago.

Having let his eyes wander over to the paper, Giorno noticed something missing from Michelle’s profile that he ought to know. “Is your daughter a Stand user?”

Polnareff nodded. “She was able to see my Stand, so she must be. I used to let Chariot give her piggyback rides while I was working.” He chuckled at the memory. “It scared the shit out of my wife the first time she saw. Marylou wasn’t a Stand user, so to her, it just looked like Michelle was floating around the house. I always had fun using Chariot to catch her off guard like that. I got away with a lot of teasing.”

“What does Michelle’s Stand do?” Giorno interrupted Polnareff as soon as he stopped to take a breath.

Any warm feeling of nostalgia Polnareff dared to indulge in faded in an instant, Giorno's question piercing him like an arrow. “I…I don’t know,” Polnareff confessed. His eyes began to water again. “she only ever showed it to me once, right before I left for Italy. God, what kind of a father am I?”

Giorno stood up and returned his hand to Polnareff’s shoulder. He put on the most consoling face he could muster, attempting to soften his brows and warp his mouth into a warm smile, though his other hand remained locked in a fist “The kind who prioritized his family’s safety before his own happiness. The kind who cares for his child deeply. The kind who can still make amends."

Had it been anyone else standing before him, Polnareff would have rolled his eyes. “You’re just telling me what I want to hear,” he commented, nudging his boss’s hand away. “We don’t even know if she’s alive.”

“Think of it this way,” Giorno pointed out, “there are no obituaries for her or anyone matching her description. We don’t have concrete evidence of her being dead or alive.”

“Speaking of obituaries,” Polnareff interjected, “I’d like to visit the cemetery and pay my respects before we formally start our search. As luck would have it, Marylou's buried at the same cemetery as my mother and sister.”

“Is it on the way to Paris?” Giorno asked.

“Yes. I still have the address memorized, actually.” Polnareff grabbed a pen and promptly scribed it down on a spare sheet of paper. "I could probably still navigate that place blindfolded, mind you. We don't have to stay long."

“Then I don’t see a reason why not, so long as we don’t stay too long.” Giorno gave a smirk at the small sigh of relief Polnareff made as he passed the address off to him.

“Merci, Giorno,” Polnareff thanked as Giorno put the piece of paper in his coat pocket.

The boss nodded to his consigliere, reaching down to grab his messenger bag (the leather one that Mista and Fugo insisted was a purse). “I’ll go inform our driver,” Giorno stated, extending his arms upwards while looking to the ceiling.

Coco Jumbo’s room vanished from Giorno’s sight, and he almost instantly bonked his head against the top of the small cage the turtle was locked in. His head and shoulders contorted to fit the tight space. Though his breath fogged the glass, he could still make out his surroundings. Gone was the calm and refined room within the turtle, having been replaced by the drab and smelly interior of a trailer. Cages containing animals of all shapes and sizes choked up the area, with no rhyme or reason to how they were stacked atop each other. Coco Jumbo’s cage was perched atop a group of chickens clucking at the anaconda directly beside them, and beneath a chinchilla that somehow managed to stay asleep despite the commotion happening around it. They sat almost exactly at the center of the trailer.

True, smuggling Coco Jumbo in with the cargo of an exotic pet salesman inbound to Paris certainly wasn’t an ideal way to travel, but Giorno doubted that anyone would look for him here.

He nudged his shoulders upwards, trying to pry open the top of the cage. It did not budge. Once more, this time with a little bit more force. It still remained locked in place. Giorno groaned. Useless, useless. Requiem’s arm summoned forth and blew the lid off of the cage, sending the poor chinchilla above him hurtling into the nearby cage of a ferret. The sound of them both crashing to the floor made Giorno wince. To add insult to injury, the entire horde of animals began to gawk at the mess. They called out louder than ever before, the various barks and squawks echoing off the trailer’s walls. Even Coco Jumbo, who was usually apathetic to the multitude of life-or-death situations he often wound up in, poked his head out of his shell to see what all the fuss was about.

Giorno let out a sigh of exasperation. “Great job, boss,” he grumbled as he shimmied his body free from the turtle. Perhaps it would be wise to take Polnareff’s advice and consider looking into other, less crowded means of emergency transport. His Stand hooked its arms under Giorno’s own and lifted him up, finally pulling Giorno free from the turtle with a POP!, and gently placed him down in a narrow bit of empty space. The other animals shifted their focus to him. Seeing a human looming over them made the surrounding zoo of creatures fall silent, save for a few whimpers. The animals closest to him flinched away when he began to move. Giorno paid it no mind and reached down to fetch the two cages he knocked over, neatly setting them back to where they once were.

“My apologies,” he told them. They quirked their heads in response, but Giorno disregarded them and turned away. The trailer reeked. Even though all the animals were in cages, their collective stink permeated the air. Though he hadn’t eaten much in the last few days, Giorno felt like he was going to hurl. The sooner he got out of there, the better. Careful not to step on anything, he strode through the mess of cages and made his way to the front of the trailer. He snatched Coco Jumbo along the way and stowed him securely in his messenger bag.

Requiem palmed the trailer wall. The feeling of cold steel that echoed on Giorno's own hand soon faded away, being replaced by a warmer, leafy sensation. Green, pulsating tendrils spread from the base of Requiem's hand and reached up to the ends of the wall. Before long, the front of the trailer had morphed into a wall of thick vines. The air outside whipped through them as the truck drove forwards, howling nearly as loud as the wheels that veered through the dirt road. It blew the vines back into his face and sent a chill throughout the trailer. Undeterred, Giorno walked forward. He balanced on the thin hitch connecting the trailer to the truck as it sped and swerved as if he was walking on solid ground. Once again he let out his Stand and had it place its hands on the back of the truck, and once again it transfigured into a thicket of vines. Giorno walked through them and hopped up to the driver's seat, interrupting the driver's off-key belting to the radio.

"What the…who the hell are you? Get out of my truck!" The driver roared. The truck came to a screeching halt, skidding across the ground and into the grass.

Giorno paid no mind to the driver's confused protests as he smoothed down his jacket and hair. Honestly, it was bad enough that he let someone—a complete stranger, no less—see him in such a disheveled state, he didn't need to be yelled at as well. "Good afternoon," Giorno greeted as Requiem restored the backs of the trailer and truck, "I've been stowing away with your cargo for this entire trip. I'm sorry I didn't notify you of this sooner. Do you mind if we—"

"You some kind of cop? You here to report me?" The man obviously had no sense of common courtesy, Giorno decided, for interrupting him like that.  "Because I got licenses to be handling every single one of them critters. You, on the other hand, are trespassing. Or…wait no, wouldn't it be loitering? No, wait…"

"You're transporting these animals to Jubilee Exotics, correct? The pet shop located in the basement of Lola Noire Drinking Club? It's a bit of a long story, but I'm actually your boss' boss. I could have you fired from your job or worse in a manner of seconds. It would be a shame if these animals never reached their destination." It felt dirty for him to resort to rank like that, but frankly, Giorno didn’t have the energy to be polite. "I have a request," he pulled the address from his pocket, "could you please make a stop at Cimetière de Belleville? It should be en route to your destination. I have an address here if you need it."

It took him a moment to process what Giorno had said, but the driver's jaw dropped when he realized exactly what he was implying. "You're with Passione, aren't you? And you want me to drive me to a cemetery? J-Just what are you planning on d-doing with me?" The poor bastard looked like he was about to cry. "Look man, if you want money, I can give you what I got, but it ain't much. Just please don't kill me!"

"So long as you drive me to my destination, I won't lay a finger on you," Giorno insisted, "you have my word."

The driver gulped. "Alrighty then," his voice trailed off, and he started the truck up again. "Anything else I can do for you?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact," Giorno said, buckling his seatbelt and resting his eyes, "turn off the radio."

"Yes sir." It flickered off as soon as Giorno finished speaking.

From then on out, neither of them uttered a single word as the white noise of the engine and rocking of road lulled Giorno into a well-deserved nap.

~~~~~

By the time they finally arrived at their destination, it became obvious that Giorno had never been to a public cemetery before; only the small, private one that his former teammates were buried in. Though he wasn't sure what he had expected, it certainly wasn't what he got. Contrasting to the seclusion and gloominess he associated with cemeteries, Cimetière de Belleville was located on the side of a busy road right across from a pizzeria. Even well into the graveyard, the noise of the city's hustle and bustle still carried through the air like music playing from distant speakers. Yet it was almost vacant, with only a handful of youths loitering near the entrance and the odd mourning widow here and there. Then again, it was odd to visit a cemetery on a Friday afternoon. At the very least Giorno didn't have to worry about anyone harassing him for bringing a turtle to the property.

The cemetery loomed much larger than Giorno had expected, and had as many graves as possible cramped into the space allotted. Even with Polnareff there to guide him, the two found themselves getting lost as soon as they got there.

"It's to the left, I believe," Polnareff guessed. His upper torso had popped out of Coco Jumbo's key, and he scoured the area as best he could while Giorno held the turtle up. "It's hard to say. I haven't been here in a long time, and it looks like they cut down that old tree they used to have in the center."

"Polnareff, we just came from the left," Giorno pointed out, "I think you're just walking us in circles."

The ghost huffed and crossed his arms. "Then why are you asking me which way to go? Go to the right!"

"I do believe you said, and I quote, that you could 'navigate this place blindfolded,'" Giorno teased as he turned to the right, "perhaps we should try that out, we'd probably get better results. Do you recognize any of these graves?"

Polnareff frowned as his eyes scanned over the names engraved on each tombstone. "No, I'm not so sure we're in the right...attendre! They're up there!"

He gestured at a pair of simple graves near the edge of the cemetery, a bouquet of lilies placed in front of each. Giorno walked between the tight opening of the set of graves blocking his destination. Now that he was closer to them, he could tell that the flowers were fresh—they must've been purchased recently.

"Take comfort in the fact that they've been well attended to in your absence," Giorno reassured his consigliere as he set the turtle down in front of the tombstone. His words went unnoticed, as Polnareff was already transfixed on the grave. A sad, apologetic smile crept up on his features. He reached out and rested his palm against the tombstone.

Giorno took the scrap of paper Polnareff had written the address of the cemetery on from his pocket again and turned it into a white rose. Carefully, he laid it down between the two graves and took a moment to pay his respects.

ANNETTE POLNAREFF—1939-1973
SHERYL "SHERRY" POLNAREFF—1968-1985

"Is your father still alive, Polnareff?" Giorno blurted out, then chastised himself for not breeching the question with more emotional nuance.

Thankfully, Polnareff seemed unfazed by his bluntness. "Nope. He kicked the bucket in '88." He was unusually level-headed, despite talking about his father's death. "Fat bastard died of a heart attack while I was away. He's not buried here, he always thought that this sort of stuff was a waste of time and money. He even left it in his will that no one was allowed to host a funeral for him."

"Then who..." Giorno caught himself. "I understand."

"Would you mind giving me some space for a bit?" Polnareff turned around to face Giorno for a moment, the sadness in his eyes evident. "I need a minute with my family."

"Given the circumstances, I don't think that would be a good idea. We need to stick together." That being said, Giorno was almost itching to ditch the cemetery and get a move on. The longer they spent here, the further the arrow got from them. "As far as we know, our enemies could be hiding in this very graveyard."

Polnareff sighed. "Right, of course. Then could you...uh, maybe turn around then?"

Giorno glanced down at his watch. 4:36. It was getting late, but there wasn't much he could do about it now. Resisting the urge to huff out irked snort, he spun around and faced the opposite direction. Standing guard against anyone who may dare approach them, his hands folded behind his back and his shoulders became stiff and rigid. For the first time in all his life, Giorno felt compelled to tap his foot in impatience. This useless sentimentality got them nowhere. They needed to be on the road, investigating and interrogating. Grieving over family members who had been reduced to underground skeletons was a waste of time at best and made them sitting ducks at worst. He focused in on Polnareff's voice, hoping to hear a goodbye of some sort. Though he spoke in a hushed, intimate whisper, and he could barely understand him speaking in his native language, it was obvious they weren't leaving anytime soon.

Another minute or so passed, and Polnareff spoke up in a language Giorno could understand. "Alright, I've had my moment." He coughed a couple times to mask the grief still present in his voice. "Now, let's find my wife."

Giorno turned around and picked Coco Jumbo up from the ground. "Of course. I don't suppose you have any idea where she is?"

"Not a clue," Polnareff said, "let's go on over there and see if we see her grave along the way." He pointed at the far-left corner of the cemetery, at the opposite end of the entrance. "I don't think we got to that part of the cemetery when we were looking for Mom and Sherry."

"Sounds like a plan," Giorno responded, and he began his trek towards the edge of the property.

Polnareff turned around to face his mother and sister's graves one last time before moving on. "Au revoir, Maman, Sherry. Je te verrai prochainement."

Giorno chuckled to himself. He didn't need to understand French to know what Polnareff said.

"Don't you laugh at me," Polnareff pouted, "I've seen how emotional you get when you visit Bucciarati's grave. I've earned some quality time with my family."

"Of course, I'm not saying you haven't. I think it's sweet," Giorno noted as he scanned the names on each tombstone he passed. "It's nice seeing your sentimental side."

"Well, we're not done yet. If Marylou's vengeful spirit doesn't rise from the grave to give me shit for leaving her and Michelle," Polnareff let out a wry chuckle of his own, "consider me surprised."

Giorno gave a small pat on the turtle's shell. "Don't be so hard on yourself."

"You didn't know her," Polnareff added. "If there's anyone who could do such a thing, it'd be her."

"How did you meet her by the way? I must admit that I'm...not great with romance, and now's not the time or place for it, but," Giorno rubbed his neck. It really was the worst timing imaginable. "I would love some advice."

Polnareff's eyes wandered into the distance, staring at the clouds passing by. "We knew each other since we were kids. She and I were neighbors. Sherry used to go over to her house and play with her old dolls." Still staring up at the sky, he rested chin on his palms. "After we graduated high school, she left to study abroad in America. We sort of lost touch after that. I'd like to imagine that it was fate that we bumped into each other at that café the day I got back from Egypt."

"That's nice," Giorno agreed, and he redirected his focus to finding her grave.

Though the cemetery was certainly far from the biggest one even in Paris alone, walking to its border was no easy task. Being slowed down checking the name on every tombstone didn't help, either. More than once, Giorno had to stop and double check whenever he saw a name even phonetically similar to Marylou. Even Polnareff had gotten tired of looking after a while, and retreated back inside the turtle either out of boredom or to prepare himself for the possibility of seeing the vengeful spirit of his wife. Mary, Madeline, Maryanne...but no Marylou. At the very least, the relative vacancy of the cemetery meant no one blocked his view of the tombstones, save for one girl holding a bouquet of lilies...

Wait a second.

At first, Giorno autopiloted past her without a second thought. He realized his mistake when he turned around to get a better look at her, and he nearly dropped Coco Jumbo to the ground in shock.

Giorno knew exactly who this girl was. Better yet, he had found Marylou's grave as well.

She was pale, almost deathly so—had he not been living with one for the past eight years, Giorno may have suspected her to be a ghost. Her long, silver hair almost seemed dark in comparison, having been pulled back into a long ponytail that reached the belt loosely slung across her waist. Giorno knew her expression all too well; mostly blank, but with the slightest bit of sadness behind her brown eyes. A pair of bracelets adorned with large, glassy broken halves of a heart clung to her wrists. She stood tall and held the bouquet outwards as if she were knighting the tombstone with it.

With nary a second to lose, Giorno brought the turtle close to him and spoke into the gem on its back. "Polnareff," he hissed, "look who beat us to it."

When Polnareff popped out of the turtle frowning and grumbling to himself, muttering something about not being able to have two seconds worth of peace. That changed the instant he laid eyes upon her. He gasped, bringing his hands up to his mouth. His eyes began to water again, but unlike before, he let his tears freely stain his cheeks. And his cheeks, they were raised upwards, clear evidence of a smile under his palms. Giorno couldn't remember seeing his consigliere so happy.

"My little Chelle Belle's all grown up," Polnareff sniffled, lowering his hands to make his bright smile visible to the world, "look how big she's gotten..."

"That explains who left flowers for your mother and sister," Giorno commented, "What do you want to do now?"

It was mostly a rhetorical question; Giorno expected Polnareff to demand he take him to her so he could talk to her once again, so he could hug his daughter and beg her to give him forgiveness for abandoning her. Yet, he hesitated. Polnareff's euphoric smile fell as the gravity of the situation gradually weighed down upon him.

"I..." Polnareff started, but the words caught in his throat. "She..." Once again, he couldn't bring himself to finish his thought. He wiped the tears from his eyes and turned away for a moment, staring off into the distance as he cleared his thoughts.

"You...you need to talk to her," he settled on, "make sure she's safe. Try to find out where she's living right now. Don't tell her I'm here. I...well, I'm sure she's not my biggest fan, after I abandoned her and all. Now's not the time for reunions." He turned to face her again, grinning slightly just looking at her. "I'm just happy to see she's alive."

Giorno nodded his head in agreement. "Do you think she speaks Italian? I hate to admit it, but I'm far from fluent in French."

"I doubt it. She should speak English, though," Polnareff replied. "Please be gentle. She was always so shy as a kid."

"I'll do my best." With that, Giorno stuffed Coco Jumbo back inside his messenger bag. Trying his absolute best to seem personable, he stepped closer to Michelle and stood beside her.

Michelle didn't react to Giorno's presence save for a cursory glance in his direction. The gloominess behind her eyes vanished almost on que as she did so. Other than that, she seemed unfazed.

"Good afternoon," Giorno greeted.

Michelle glanced back at him and nodded as if to greet him back. A peculiar response. Polnareff did say she spoke English, didn't he? As if she were ignorant of Giorno's presence, she laid the flowers down in front of the tombstone.

"Who's buried here?" The question seemed innocent enough, and Giorno hoped that it would be enough to get her to speak to him.

Alas, she just pointed to the names engraved on the shared tombstone.

MARYLOU POLNAREFF—1965-2004
JEAN-PIERRE POLNAREFF—1965-

Giorno flinched at the sight of Polnareff's name on the headstone. They really never knew he died. "I'm sorry for your loss," he comforted.

Michelle only shrugged in response. A moment passed, and she took a small step away from him as she brought her hand up to thumb at the pearls on her necklace.

Frustration began to bubble up in Giorno's core. This wasn't going anywhere. How was he supposed to find out how the hell she had avoided any and all public record of her existence for so long if she wasn't going to even say a single word to him? They were wasting time. He had half a mind to just order some Passione members to follow her for a while to make sure she stayed out of trouble and move on. Damn his moral conscience for preventing him from going behind Polnareff's back.

That being said, there didn't seem to be an easy way to get her to talk without coming off as dubious in his intentions. Giorno weighed his options. She is a Stand user, he thought to himself, perhaps I could bring out Requiem and see how she reacts? If nothing else, it would spark up some conversation. She doesn't strike me as someone who's met a ton of Stand users. Or...maybe not. She might take it as a threat. He looked to the sky for a moment, hoping for inspiration. It had been so long since he'd been forced to be gentle with someone. I need to get a better read on her personality.

"Are they your parents?" Giorno feigned ignorance, testing to see if she would lie to cover up her tracks.

Much to his surprise, she nodded.

"If it's any consolation, I understand how you must feel. My father died before I was born and my mother died of Parkinson's when I was six." That wasn't true at all, but Giorno knew that those driven by their emotions got offended if a "worse" situation challenged their own grief. If Michelle was anything like her father, she would speak up.

She didn't respond. No signs of irritation or indignation. She just stood there, her blank stare locked on the tombstone while she fidgeted her necklace. They may as well have been on other sides of the globe from how much she contributed to the conversation.

Even though he knew it was rude to do so in the middle of a "conversation," Giorno pulled out his watch. Despite himself, he groaned when he read the time. 4:48. They had been here for an additional 10 minutes. Who knows how much ground those thieves had covered in the time they wasted here? Though, it wasn't like he could do much about it. He couldn't talk with her, he couldn't taunt her, he couldn't even threaten her. She was an immovable object in his way.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, he thought to himself, I know I probably shouldn't say this, but this might be the only thing I have that could provoke a reaction from her.

"I actually knew your father." It was a risky gambit to be sure, but it was all he had left in his arsenal. For someone as sentimental as her, spending her Friday afternoon at a cemetery, maybe a story or two about her estranged father would turn the tides. Giorno paid close attention to Michelle as the words spilled from his mouth, eager to see her reaction.

She reacted, just in her own subdued way. Her eyes widened and her lips parted for a moment, as if she was about to say something, before she forced it back closed, locking her jaw in place. The hand playing with her necklace froze solid for a moment before dropping to her side. Her breathing quickened, the rise and fall of her chest more pronounced and erratic.

But still, she said nothing.

"He was the strongest and bravest man I've ever met," Giorno continued. "He served his ideals vigilantly until the very end. Surely, you must know that—"

Before he could say anything more, Michelle turned around and bolted towards the exit.

"Wait!" Giorno hollered after her as he gave chase. "I still need to talk with you!"

Though she had a decent head start on him, Giorno ran faster and caught up with her in no time at all. He reached out and tried to grab her arm, his fingers brushing against the wool of her sweater dress. Michelle flinched at his grazing touch. Though the noise of boots slamming against the pavement and the jangling of their accessories, he could have sworn he finally heard her say something: "Stay back!"

A third arm popped out of her left shoulder—it was translucent, snow white, wearing iron gauntlets with glowing fingertips—and reached out to him. As soon as he saw it, Giorno recognized it as part of a Stand. He summoned Requiem and prepared himself for an incoming attack. He anticipated a punch, a strike of some kind. Giorno couldn't help but grin. Knowing his own Stand's ability, he had just gained the upper hand.

However, Michelle's Stand tapped his wrist, then vanished into the air.

That's it? Giorno thought to himself, baffled. She just touched me? There's no damage to her attack either, otherwise Requiem would have activated. Maybe it already activated? No...something's wrong. I need to follow her and...

At that moment Giorno realized something was wrong. His body suddenly felt completely and utterly unresponsive. "Numb" or "frozen" didn't come close to the sensation that washed over him, but he suspected it was a mix of the two. The subtle pressure of the clothes against his body, the slight breeze that blew a leaf into his mouth, the gravity that ought to be weighing down his leg as it hovered mid-step; Giorno felt none of it. As he continued to eat Michelle's dust, he tried to force himself to follow her, to call out her name, to take a single step, but it was all in vain. Even his Stand remained locked in place next to him. His consciousness screamed at him to just move, but his body failed to respond. 

Giorno wouldn't budge.

His messenger bag rustled for a moment before Coco Jumbo peeked his head out, Polnareff along with him. "Well, that's just great. You scared her away! Does 'be gentle' mean nothing to you?"

Unable to move his mouth, Giorno's retort literally caught in his throat. The leaf drifted deeper into his mouth, nudging against his uvula. He didn't even realize that it was there.

"Hey, Giorno! I'm talking to—"

Suddenly, the glorious feeling of the outside world graced Giorno again. Any momentum from his chase against Michelle vanished as gravity once again weighed himself down, and he quickly bent his knees to stop himself from tumbling to the ground. He coughed, hacking up the leaf lodged in his throat.

"Her Stand," Giorno said as he sucked in air, "she used her Stand against me. Stopped me completely. I couldn't move." He regained his posture and brushed down his suit, though it wasn't damaged or dirtied. The leaf he had spit up now laid on the ground in front of him. He gave it a good stomp before pulling the turtle back out of his bag. "And I was delicate, for the record."

Polnareff turned to face his daughter's escape route. "Well, she can't be too far ahead of us. We need to go find her!"

Nostrils flared, Giorno put the turtle back in his bag. "No. She's not important right now." He marched to the cemetery's exit; his hands balled into fists. "We know she's alive, is a Stand user, and has a habit of not reciprocating others when she talks to them. That's more than enough information for us to track her down later. What's important now is finding out where the Stand arrow is."

"My daughter is scared and alone in the biggest and currently most dangerous city in the country," Polnareff exclaimed. "That's what's important right now. Stand users attract other Stand users; if our enemies are in Paris right now, they could find her before we do!"

"Someone as timid and reclusive as her?" Giorno's suggestion caught him off guard. He didn't often talk back with such blatant disregard. "If she's avoided public record for nearly three years now, I'm sure that she's learned to take care of herself. Also, if she does become involved with our enemies, then we'll cross paths again eventually."

Giorno stopped in his tracks at the exit as a lightbulb popped in his head. Their enemies...

Why was Michelle so tight lipped in the first place? Sure, Polnareff had said that she was shy, her behavior went above and beyond standard introversion. She may as well had been a mute. He supposed he could chalk this up to her supposed isolation from society, but then why did she get scared and flee when he mentioned her father? Was the implication that he had some sort of connection to her too much for her to bare? Why?

A Stand that stores electricity and a Stand that leaves bits of glass in its wake...Michelle's Stand didn't seem to match up with either of those. However, she had made herself untraceable, just like that bastard with the green hair. Just like everyone else involved in this little heist, he realized. Though, "little" probably wasn't the best way to describe it. No, without a doubt, this was a larger scheme. Like an irritating rash, the possibility that someone from the famiglia was involved sprung back to his attention. What if it wasn't her father's name that she feared, but rather the identity of Passione's consigliere? What if she ran because she had been seen without her mask?

The gears in his head continued to churn as he stepped out of the cemetery and onto the street. He never could have expected it, but Polnareff's daughter may have been the key to busting this whole operation wide open.

"I assume you've found a lead?" A very annoyed Polnareff interrupted his train of thought.

"I'm sorry?"

"You seem lost in thought. Surely you must have an idea of what to do now."

Giorno considered his options. On one hand, Michelle was the only lead he had, and he wasn't about to disregard her. But now that he had openly stated that he planned to redirect his focus to the arrow, it would look suspicious if he brought her up again. She obviously wasn't going to cooperate either, and Polnareff would probably have him executed if he dared "interrogate" his precious Chelle Belle. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't go after her now.

"Not particularly," Giorno lied. "I say we start by investigating some of the landmarks here. They came to Paris for a reason, if they're doing some sort of trade, it would be best to do it in a public area where they can blend in with the crowd of tourists and hide in plain sight."

Polnareff rolled his eyes. "Sounds like you just want to indulge in some tourism yourself," he grunted.

Giorno took it in stride and just kept walking. Where to, he wasn't so sure, but he did know one thing: If she's involved with our enemies, then we'll cross paths again eventually.

Chapter Text

That was a close one.

Michelle's heart thumped against her chest as she fled the graveyard, its echoing beat drowning out the city's hustle and bustle that she usually had to make a conscious effort to ignore. The ivory pearls on her necklace matched the color of her knuckles as she squeezed her hand around them. Every few seconds, she jerked her head back to make sure no one was following her. No one trailed behind her every time she looked. She still felt paranoid though; what if that was what he wanted her to think? If only to not draw attention to herself, her hasty sprint melted into a nervous speed-walk. Gradually, her erratic heartbeat soothed into a more mellow rhythm. For once in her life, she was thankful to have ended up in such a big city; even if this part of Paris wasn't as populous as the more touristy locations, she could still sink into a crowd to better avoid detection.

I could have died back there, she thought, without a doubt, that man was there to kill me! Someone chatting to me in the cemetery? No big deal. Someone with an Italian accent? No big deal. Hell, someone I don't know who knew my father? Even that I could deal with! But all of those things at once? That's just a recipe for disaster!

A cluster of teenagers emerged from the pizzeria on the other end of the street. They spoke in a mishmash of a choir, each one of them interrupting each other with a grin on their faces. Without missing a beat, Michelle skipped over from the other side of the street to join them. The lot of them didn't even seem to notice or care that an outsider had pushed her way into their mob. Though they smelled like cigarettes and spoke like megaphones, Michelle decided they were the best cover she could find for now.

I bet that guy thinks he's so smart, trying to butter me up like that, Michelle reflected as she gave the cemetery one last cursory glance. I see right through you. How dare you say you knew my father? You're probably the one who killed him! The very thought sent a surge of adrenaline through her body, and she gripped her necklace even tighter. And now you're back to finish the job!

Realizing that her expression laid her worry bare, Michelle blinked and held her eyes closed for a moment longer than she normally would. When she opened them, they were once again devoid of the emotion she nearly lost herself to.

Calm down, Michelle told herself as she lowered her hand from her necklace, resting it at her side. That Italian bastard probably isn't here alone. No doubt he's brought some friends with him. If I can just make it back to the apartment without anyone following me, I can lay low for a couple of days until they think I've left the city. Then again, if they know I'm here in Paris, then they might already know where I live, too! Ugh, think Michelle! What would Dad do at a time like this?

One of the teenagers elbowed her side and interrupted her train of thought. Acting on instinct, Michelle backed away and raised her arms. She shot her would be attacker a glare, though he didn't see it. He didn't acknowledge her at all. Instead, he playfully roughhoused with his companion as their group begin to pile into a car parked on the side of the road. One of them would try to worm their way into the back seat, then the other would yank them out and try to push their way in instead. The girls already in the car egged them on and chanted for one or the other to come out on top. The other boy, the one that hadn't elbowed her, was clearly getting frustrated; he wasn't laughing like the others, he snarled with every motion he took, he shoved with more raw force than his counterpart's good-natured jabs. All at once, Michelle witnessed him grab his supposed friend by the collar of his shirt then toss him to the ground. She stepped away as he slammed face-first on the pavement.

As the girls poured out of the car to help him stand up and the other boy took his well-earned spot in the backseat, Michelle kept her hands by her side and kept walking. The answer to her question was obvious: He would use his Stand.

As much as she loathed to admit it, her memories of her father's Stand had begun to fade with time. She remembered its sharp sword he always kept tucked away when she was near and the cold touch of its armored body, but not much else. Those distant memories all consisted of Chariot playing with her while her father worked in his office (or the few times she had spied on them training in the garage or backyard at night), but Michelle was certain that her father had used it to directly incapacitate his enemies. But he was also strong, confident, and assertive—everything she wasn't. Could she bring herself to do the same?

She looked back at the boy who had been knocked to the ground. Though he looked a little dizzy, he had gotten back on his feet just fine and willingly hopped into the truck of the car. He was fine.

If I had used Iron Maiden to break his fall, Michelle told herself, he would've wound up dead.

The engine of the car roared a few times before the teenagers drove away. Tires screeched against the ground as they swerved into a puddle, splashing a nearby pedestrian who walked right into the carnage. Michelle walked right past him as profanities spewed from his mouth. Not my problem, she thought. Getting a little wet is better than being cursed to die.

More groups of tourists became visible as Michelle turned the street corner. They clogged the streets like hair in the drain, slowing the foot traffic whenever one of them just had to stop and take a picture of an authentic Parisian store. She persevered through the mass of bodies, forcing her way downtown to her apartment. Through her stone-cold expression, her own ranting thoughts deafened most of her other senses.

Is it really worth it to try to get to the apartment? The tactical side of Michelle's brain whirred as she pondered her options. If I get there before anyone else does, I can grab everything I need and find somewhere to hide out for a few weeks. But, if I get there and they're already waiting for me…I don't think I can fend off multiple people at once, let alone other Stand users. And they probably are Stand users. On the other hand, I can take them all down as long as I sneak up on them. But is that really worth walking into the jaws of death for? That guy at the cemetery is already going to die, am I really going to end up condemning a bunch of other people too?

She stopped at a sidewalk and decided that she had to make a decision before continuing onwards. Leaning against a pedestrian signal, she did a quick survey of the area before relaxing her body a little bit. Most of the people on the street passed her by without a second thought, and the only people who stayed in her general vicinity was a small group of tourists loitering at the intersection. One of them—a girl a little older than her that wore her ginger hair in short pigtails—chattered to her compatriots, talking circles around them as she gestured to seemingly random parts of the map that one of them held. The city didn't usually generate echoes, but this girl's American accent, of course she was American, bounced off the buildings. Michelle couldn't think properly. How was she supposed to focus with this girl practically jabbering in her ear?

The girl paused for a moment and, just before Michelle could thank the gods in the sky for some solace, pulled a camera out of her knapsack and shoved it into one of her friend's hands. Frolicking on over to the edge of the sidewalk, she struck a plethora of poses while her friend snapped pictures.

Michelle groaned. Well, at least she's stopped talking.

The photographer leaned down towards the pavement and directed the girl back towards the street. She of course complied. Pose after pose, angle after angle, shot after shot, Michelle decided that she may as well have wandered into a studio. They didn't even seem to be good shots either. Despite the girl's efforts to chew the scenery, the scenery lacked in flavor; nothing but lines of miscellaneous shops topped by dirty, faded white apartments, with a dash of passerby cars. The girl backed up just a little closer to the road and extended her thumb out like a hitchhiker, oblivious to the car uncontrollably speeding towards her…

It all happened in a fraction of a second. Michelle rushed over to the girl before the car could crash into her. She reached out to pull her out of the way, but was just shy of grabbing onto the collar of her shirt. Then, Iron Maiden's arm extended out from her and tapped the girl on the shoulder, locking her in place. The car veered towards them and slammed into the girl's side. Michelle winced as the car went spinning and crashed into another car parked on the other side of the road. As the driver swung the car's door open, the girl regained control of her body. She and Michelle locked eyes for a second, the former's face full of awe as dread swept over the latter.

Body as rigid as wood, Michelle turned tail and fled. Shit, shit, shit! Why did I do that? She now moved on autopilot and headed towards her apartment. That car wouldn't have killed her. She may have ended up in the hospital, sure, maybe even lost her hand, but she probably would've been fine. Ugh, what’s wrong with me? I go almost three years without an incident and now this happens?

The slight click of her heels reverberated in the narrow street she had meandered into. And to make matters worse, I've wasted too much time standing around doing nothing. No doubt that guy from the cemetery is still close behind me! Although…

She stopped in her tracks for a moment to take a good look at her surroundings. Parked cars bordered the sidewalk, but she didn't see anyone else there. A run-down boutique on her left, a seedy liquor store on her right. No noisy tourists, no well-dressed Italians, no carless drivers. Just Michelle and a street of vacancy. This was the Paris she loved. A small breeze blew by, her ponytail swaying in the wind. The beginnings of a smile crept up on her face, and she pressed forward with new resolve.

Maybe this is a blessing in disguise, she thought. If that guy from the cemetery knows where I live, that's where he'll go to next. No shit it's a bad idea to go to the apartment right now. Why did I even consider that to be an option? I need to just wander around the city for a little while. That way, they might think they've got the wrong address and try to find me somewhere else. Besides, how are they supposed to track me if I don't even know where I'm going?

Somewhere in the back of Michelle's mind screamed that this was a bad idea, but she ignored those thoughts and pressed onwards. A small café came into view as she exited the alleyway and turned the street corner. The smell of fresh bread and warm coffee intermingled as they wafted out the door. Her stomach growled. Without a second thought, she entered the café.

A sigh of relief passed through her lips as the door shut behind her. Really, this place had everything she needed right now: the selection of pastries on display made her mouth water, the quiet ballad playing from the mounted radio soothed her to the core, and the table near the door gave her easy access to the window while hiding her from outside view. Best of all, the place was empty save for the barista, who snapped awake at the sound of the shopkeeper's bell. Michelle ordered a decaf and croissant and sat down at the table. This was advantageous, after all, if the man from the cemetery expected her to run, he would search the streets, not the restaurants.

Such respite only lasted about a minute. The shopkeeper's bell rang again and someone pulled out the chair adjacent to her. Michelle opened her eyes.

You've got to be kidding me.

Sitting across from her was the girl from before. Though slightly obscured by her visor, her sapphire blue eyes beamed back at Michelle. Her mouth curled up in a giddy smile that would have looked forced on anyone else, but the rosiness of her dimples and the eagerness of her eyes made it seem inviting. Almost frightfully so.

"Howdy!" Her voice had the sweetness of honey and the bite of a jalapeño. 

Michelle locked eyes with her for moment, then feigned staring out the window. If I just ignore her, she'll go away eventually, she reasoned.

"Lovely weather today, wouldn't you agree?" She followed Michelle's line of sight and frowned when she realized she was staring into blank space. Leaning over the table, she waved a hand in front of Michelle's face. Though her eyes struggling to adjust to the outside sun continuously leaving and reentering her field of vision annoyed her, Michelle ignored it as best she could.

"My name's Sara. I'm a tourist from America," the girl continued. "The menu here's written in French and I'm having trouble finding what I want. Could you help me out?"

It's a café, you dunce. Michelle fought the urge to roll her eyes. Just order a coffee and leave.

Sara leaned back in her chair examined the area. "So, a real French café, huh? This place is so cute! We don't really have places like this back home. Oh, do they have any fancy French coffee here? Or smoothies? I love smoothies! Do you like smoothies?" Suddenly, she was back in Michelle's face again, elbows resting on the table and head resting on her hands as she eagerly awaited a response.

If I just ignore her, she'll go away eventually, Michelle reminded herself as she took another sip of her coffee.

Noticing Michelle's indifference, Sara recoiled. "Uh, guess not. Smoothies aren't all that great, anyways." Kicking her legs up and down under the table, she reached under the brim of her visor and itched at her scalp. "I'll just have whatever you're having. Is that decaf?"

Yes, Lord knows you could use some. Michelle glanced down at her cup, fingers circling the edge. Were this girl just a tad bit louder, a tad bit more obnoxious, a tad bit more persistent, she'd splash the coffee in her face and walk away like she owned the place. Really let her taste that decaf. Wait, that's it! She felt a light bulb go off in her head. Gently, she scooted her cup towards Sara, offering it to her. There. Now take it and go away! Don't you realize that you'll die if you spend any more time with me?

Sara tilted her head at the gesture. She looked at the cup, then back at Michelle, furrowing her brow. Eventually, something seemed to click, and a smile returned to her face. "Oh, are you giving this to me? Thanks but no thanks. I don't really like eating other people's food. Or, uh, drinking other people's drinks in this case." She pushed it back over to Michelle, failing to notice her annoyed scowl. "I'll order some of my own though! Say, do you know any cool places to visit while I'm here? Not just the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre or all those other places that everyone always goes to, like some real, authentic and cool places to go see. God, the crowd around the Eiffel Tower was huge. I've never seen anything like it! And I've gone to Hollywood for Pete's sake! Well, I visited. I wasn't in a movie. At least there isn't as much…"

Michelle covered her ears, attempting to drown out Sara's voice. If I just ignore her, she'll go away eventually. The incessant chatter of the woman opposite of her penetrated her defenses. Her muscles tensed with each syllable babbled from her mouth. Shut up shut up shut up shut up...

"...and what's the point of all of that, am I right?" Sara reached over and shoved Michelle's shoulder. The touch was light, but it felt as though it bruised her skin—the same as every other time someone unexpectedly made physical contact with her. Michelle recoiled and scooted her chair back. "So that's why I'm glad I'm on the road. Besides, I've never been to Europe before, so better now than never. I won't lie, it has been kinda rough, but I wouldn't trade this experience for the world! I'm thinking of going to Belgium in a few days. I don't really know what there is to do in Belgium, but like, there must be something. Or at least there must be some comfy hotel to rest at. I dunno, maybe we'll go to Italy next? I'm not sure. Then again, Italy is super touristy, and I'm hoping to..."

"Êtes-vous heureux de vous asseoir là et de pépier comme un oiseau?"  Those words started as a quiet mumble, but became louder and more assertive when Michelle realized she was talking out loud and not thinking to herself. They locked eyes once again, her face screwed up in an angry glare that she hoped would ward Sara away.

Seeing the way Sara's giddy smile fell into surprised disbelief made Michelle's shoulders loosen. She'd definitely leave now. "Oh. Oh." The realization weighed on her. "You really don't speak English. Well, this is kind of awkward…wait!"

Enthusiasm spread on her face once more and she turned around and began to shuffle through her knapsack, flashing the giant smiley face embroidered on the back of her denim vest. Enthusiasm was rife through her outfit: a white visor with miscellaneous pins attached to the brim, a bright yellow jersey with a "01" emblazoned on the front, and capris that were cut in a way that exposed more of her thighs than covered them. She stood out in a crowd, that was for sure. Finally, she finished digging and turned back around, presenting a pamphlet.

The title read, "English-French pocket dictionary." Michelle wanted to rip her hair out.

"Ok, here goes nothing." Sara opened the booklet up and cleared her throat. "Bonjour. Jay m'apple Sara. Uh…" she flipped through the pages. Michelle could tell from the way her eyes darted around the page that she was just skimming through. After a few seconds, Sara settled on a page and continued reading. "Jay swees la pour les vaykanches." She scrunched up her nose as soon as she said that last word. "Or wait," she mumbled to herself, "that's not right. How do you pronounce that?"

Being trapped with a tourist stumbling through French like a drunkard on an icy road...Michelle wondered if she had been sent to hell. "Stop. Just stop." She grabbed the top of the book and lowered it to divert Sara's attention. Anything to end this torture. "If you have a French dictionary with you, then why did you bother asking me to help you read the menu in the first place?"

A sly smirk spread on Sara's face. "So you do speak English! Well, guess I don't need this." She threw the pocket dictionary behind her, and it slapped onto the tile floor. "In case you missed it, my name's Sara," she continued. "Wait...I think I said that already. Oh, well. I guess it doesn't really matter. Now you have two opportunities to remember it! What's your name?"

"Why are you talking to me? There's an open table over there if you want to sit down." Michelle gestured to the opposite end of café where another lone table sat. "If you need help reading the menu, I'm sure the barista will help you."

The barista, too engrossed in the novel he was reading, gave a disinterested grunt in acknowledgement.

"I don't like eating alone! It makes me feel awkward," Sara pouted.

Michelle couldn't help but scoff as she took a sip of coffee. "Then why are you here all by yourself?"

"Well, I'm travelling with two guys. They're just not here with me right now," Sara retorted. "We were all going back to our hotel, but I wanted to try and meet you! They didn't want to come, unfortunately. So, here I am!" She mocked an exacerbated sigh. "I tell ya, traveling with them is fun and all, but it gets kind of tiring. 'Sara, it's not safe to go off by yourself.' 'Sara, we have somewhere we need to be, you can't just stop and harass the locals.' Like, to hell with that! I'm an adult, I can do what I want!"

Whatever deadpan reply Michelle had planned flew from her train of thought when Sara's exact words hit her like a bullet.

Not safe by yourself. Somewhere we need to be. I wanted to meet you. Michelle swallowed hard. How foolish of her to assume that the only other people trying to hunt her down would be waiting for her at her apartment; this girl was clearly an accomplice to the man from the cemetery! She chastised herself for not seeing it coming. In fact, since she had wasted so much time hiding with that crowd of rowdy teenagers, that gave her would be killer plenty of time to catch up with Sara. After all, she did say that she was travelling with two boys, and Michelle had seen both of them back at the street corner. But, what did they look like? The first one, the one who had been taking Sara's picture, definitely wasn't the same man she met at the cemetery—she remembered him as tall with dark skin, a far cry from the Italian man, who was pale and shorter. But the other boy...what did he look like?  He mostly kept away from Sara's photoshoot, his face buried in an oversized map. The perfect cover, Michelle realized. What better way to disguise murderous intent that by pretending to be a clueless tourist?

Michelle thumbed at the pearls on her necklace to the tempo of her quickening heartbeat. Dammit, I should've known better than to stop and get food. I don't want to have to kill her too, but if Sara follows me, she stood up from her chair and rigidly stepped out, I may have to.

She got as far as opening the door before Sara stood up to object. "Hey! I never got your name!"

Drowning out Sara's call with a proper SLAM! of the door, Michelle trudged onwards without looking back. Don't act like you don't know what's going on, she thought as she walked a little faster, I know you're here to kill me.

The sound of the shopkeeper's bell ringing once again set Michelle's body on high alert, and before she knew it, she felt someone grab her forearm. "Wait!" This time, Sara's voice was right by Michelle's ear. She spun around to face her, nearly whipping Sara with her ponytail as she did so. Before Michelle could do anything else, Sara kept talking. "I saw what you did before I got hit by that car. That arm that popped out of your body and touched me. That was you, right? You saved me from getting hit by that car! I never got the chance to thank you."

Though it was still pounding in her chest, Michelle felt her heart skip a beat. "You saw that?"

Sara grinned. "I've got a special ability, just like you!" She raised her other hand close to her head. For an instant, a crochet of light covered it, then faded into a white glove with black padding on the fingertips and ridge of her thumb. She jazzed her hand around a bit, showing off the golden engravings on the back of her hand. "Pretty cool, huh? Could you show me yours again?"

She's a Stand user, Michelle realized. Shit! I'm under attack! In a desperate act of fight or flight, she drove her knee into Sara's chest. Sara's palms opened on impact. They both staggered back a bit, Sara hunched over and coughing profusely. Michelle wasted no time and ran off.

God dammit, just how long am I going to keep running today? I'm not made of stamina; I can't do this forever! Michelle's tired breaths came out as quick huffs as she darted down the street, not sure where she was going. Cars, stores, people, scenery of all kinds passed her by, and they all seemed suspicious. Every car a surveillance machine, every store a secret base, every tourist an assassin. She forced herself further and further into the heart of Paris, carrying her exhausted body through force of will alone. The city park passed her by. Was it safe to hide there for a bit? No. Just keep running. Honking horns orchestrated across the street as traffic built up. Michelle covered her ears as she continued to speed along, desperate to drown out the noise.

"Hey," a familiar voice rung near her ear, barely muffled by her hands, "you never finished your coffee and croissant."

Michelle stopped dead in her tracks. How the hell did that girl catch up so fast? A nervous sweat drug its way down her body as she lowered her hands. She spun on the tips of her heels to face her attacker...but saw nothing. No one was behind her. No one even seemed to pay her any mind, either—all the other pedestrians minded their own business as they walked past. Sara's neon color pallet was nowhere to be seen.

She wiped her brow. It really has been a long day. I'm starting to hear things.

"Did I say that right? Croissant?" Michelle almost jumped out of her own skin. Once again, Sara's dulcet tones screeched in her ear. She sounded nearby yet also filtered, as if she spoke through crinkled paper. "Is that one of those things that Americans always mispronounce? Either way, you should come back here and finish eating. You're wasting perfectly good food."

Backing away from the crowd, Michelle paced in broad circles. Though Sara's voice had quieted down some, echoes of her ramblings still drifted around her. She stopped focusing on what she said and instead focused on the volume of her voice, desperate to find its source. The outside world became an unfocused blur as Michelle spun her head every which way. She faced north, east, south, west, but in each direction, Sara seemed just as loud as the last. A frustrated groan passed her lips. Sara had to be talking from somewhere, after all, her voice did seem to slightly fluctuate in its distance, but where from?

Michelle leaned over the fence to the park and inspected the bushes. Leaves, stems, an old candy wrapper (that Michelle pressed against her ear just in case, but it didn't make a sound), nothing out of the ordinary. She took a few steps back and smoothed back her hair, tightly gripping handfuls of it when Sara's voice seemed to get louder. How? Where? A nearby tree caught her eye and she leapt over to it, running her hands up and down the grooves of the bark as her laser focus stare tried to find something, anything that explained where her voice was coming from.

"Excusez-moi, mademoiselle," a new voice called out from behind her, "avez-vous besoin..."

Michelle whipped her body back when she felt a hand graze her shoulder. "Don't even bother speaking French," she snapped. "If you're trying to lull me into a false sense of security, it's not going to work, got it?"

The poor man in front of her sunk back away from her, eyes wide and hands tucked under his chin. He looked like a timid child who had just been told off by their parent. As he backed away, Michelle became acutely aware of the attention she had gained; some passersby quirked a brow at the scene as the trekked onwards, while others had circled in a small crowd around her, muttering to each other as they gave her dirty looks. Gritting her teeth and shielding her face from prying eyes, she continued walking.

"Oh, and no hard feelings about you kneeing me in the chest," Michelle heard Sara say.

This is bad, Michelle thought. This Sara girl...she's a Stand user like me. That much I know for sure. Me hearing her voice no matter where I go and what I do is probably part of her ability. So there must be a way to fight it. She stopped for a moment and rubbed her temples. What was it that Dad used to say? 'Only a Stand can beat another Stand?' How is that supposed to help me if I don't even know what I'm supposed to be fighting?

She squinted off into the distance as she thought back to her encounter with Sara outside the café. Her Stand manifested as a glove on her hand, but she didn't really do anything with it. At least, not that I noticed. Shit, that means I have to go back there and fight her directly, don't I?

A small public restroom stood on the side of the road. Desperate for somewhere, anywhere quiet to form a plan of attack, Michelle walked inside. Luckily, it wasn't particularly dirty—the sinks had a tad bit of gunk under the drain and one of the mirrors had a small crack in the top left corner, but the tile floor shone like new and there didn't seem to be any vermin hanging about. Michelle kicked all three of the stall doors and each one of them swung open. None of them were locked, and there wasn't anything in the stalls but unoccupied toilets. She was alone. Good. If there's a fight coming, the least I can do is distance myself from everyone else, she reasoned. Locking the stall door in front of her, Michelle perched herself on the back of the toilet nearest to the door.

"You still haven't told me your name, by the way." Sara's voice rang much louder than before now that it was isolated.

Though she tensed up upon hearing Sara speak again, gripping the sides of the toilet and pulling her knees closer to her chest, Michelle remained stone faced. Her heart started to beat faster as she anticipated someone suddenly storming in and kicking down the stall door...then what? What was her counter play? Call the police? No, getting anyone else involved was the last thing she wanted. Use her Stand and keep running? Yeah, like that worked so well the last couple of times. First thing's first, she needed to find out where Sara's voice was coming from.

I wonder if this is how Dad felt when he went to Italy, Michelle thought. Some stray strands of hair fell in her face, tickling her cheek. She brushed them aside and tucked them back into her ponytail, also taking some time to smooth down her dress and adjust the straps of her...

Wait, what was that?

Attached to the underside of her right forearm was what looked like a small black cannon the size of her middle finger. It connected to a swivel and base that appeared to melt into her arm, small black veins stretching in a small diameter around it. The cannon rotated back and forth as the swivel extended outwards like a security camera surveying the area. Michelle felt a wave of panic come over her when it pointed directly at her and locked on her for a short while. She snapped to her feet and bent her arm back so it was forced to face the wall in response.

She mentally berated herself. Has that been there the whole time? How did I miss that?

Luckily, the cannon didn't attempt to right itself after being forced to point away from her. "I could try guessing your name." Isolated from any other noise, Michelle could say for certain that Sara's voice was coming from the cannon.

Flipping through old memories like pages of a scrapbook, Michelle tried to recall everything her father had told her about Stands. Only a Stand can beat another Stand...when did she hear that? What was the context of it? Was it an absolute, or only her father exaggerating Silver Chariot's power?

With a gulp, she summoned Iron Maiden's left arm forth. It hovered over the cannon for a moment, glowing pointer finger outstretched and just centimeters away from contact. Michelle pinched her eyebrows together and bit her lip, a cold sweat washing over her. This would make it the third time in a single day she had used her Stand. In public, no less. Sure, she was alone now, but the fact still remained. Her Stand's arm backed away and vanished as she lost her nerve.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, inhaling the public restroom fumes as if they were flowers. "I have to do this," she whispered.

Snapping her eyes back open, she exhaled and summoned Iron Maiden's arm once again. Careful to not touch it with the tips of its fingers, it grabbed the cannon and attempted to yank it off of her. It didn't budge. She narrowed her eyes. Pull harder. The feeling of the cannon's rubbery texture dug into her hand as Iron Maiden's grip tightened around it. Her Stand's might finally outmatched her own, and it ended up dragging Michelle's arm through the air by the cannon. With an annoyed huff, she held onto her wrist with her free hand to keep her arm in place. She clenched her teeth as her Stand gave the cannon one last tug, pulling her arm down so that Iron Maiden and her forearm were in a game of tug-of-war with the cannon as the rope. A sudden, sharp pain dug into her arm, right where the cannon was attached. It felt as if a thousand tiny needles stabbed into her at once.

This tactic obviously wasn't working. Michelle called back Iron Maiden and pondered her options. Her Stand granted her no advantage here, as it lacked the raw power to rip out the cannon entirely and using its other ability was out of the question. She had to rely on herself and her surroundings for this. But only a Stand can beat another Stand. I couldn't even cut this thing off with a knife if I wanted to. Am I really just completely outclassed by this tiny cannon?

Sara, who had been uncharacteristically quiet this whole time, decided to chime in again. "I've got it! You're totally a Catherine, right? That's your name? You seem like a Catherine to me."

You're trying to confirm my identity, Michelle realized. You want to hear me say my name is Michelle Polnareff. But why? You clearly already know who I am if your other "friends" are on their way to my apartment right now. What do you have to gain from me saying it out loud?

Her stall door creaked ajar, silencing Michelle's internal monologue. Her pulse shot through the roof. Someone's here. She pressed herself against the wall and balled her hands into fists, bracing herself for a fight. No doubt that it was Sara herself behind the door, or, even worse, the man from the cemetery. Or both. She shuddered at the thought. The seconds felt like years as she waited for the door to open further, for someone to spring out and attempt to abduct her, for anything to happen.

More seconds passed. The door creaked open further, revealing nothing behind it.

"Was I close?" Sara's voice still sounded filtered.

Michelle glanced at the floor. No one else was there, or else she would've seen a pair of feet through the bottom of the stall. It did make sense that her stall door's hinges were old. This was a public bathroom after all. She let her body relax a bit, dropping her fists and moving away from the wall and reached out to close the stall door again. The cannon stood out as an ugly blot in her peripheral view as she closed the door. It started to spin around again, causing Michelle to retreat her arm back.

Although...

Cautiously, Michelle brought her arm forward. Bending it at a 45° angle so that the cannon faced away from her, she inched closer to the edge of the stall and positioned her arm so that the cannon was in the path of the door. Iron Maiden's arm popped out again to grab the stall door; she didn't want to risk accidentally moving by using her free arm. Of course, I could try to use Iron Maiden to stop me in place, but...Michelle shook those thoughts away. What a ridiculous thing to even consider. She eyeballed the positioning of her arm once more and adjusted to be parallel with the stall.

Sure, only a Stand could beat another Stand, but it was also true that Stands shared damage with the user. Michelle wasn't sure what part of Sara's body a cannon translated to, but whatever it was, this was going to hurt if it worked. She squeezed her eyes shut as Iron Maiden slammed the door on the cannon. Thankfully, it didn't feel like her arm had been severed off in the crossfire, so that was a plus. Though, nothing else had changed, either. No cries of agony from Sara on the other end of the door, no feeling of the cannon's weight detaching from her arm, no sounds of the cannon being triggered to fire, nothing. Somehow, that made it seem all the more menacing.

She called back Iron Maiden and let the door fall open on its own. Her fears were realized: the cannon phased through the door. It hadn't moved an inch.

"So I'll take that as a no," Sara continued, ever oblivious to the situation.

Water. Michelle had an epiphany. Maybe that'll short circuit it or something. Or at the very least, drown out her talking. She turned around and gazed into the toilet in front of her. Her stomach churned at the thought of what she was about to do, but if this was the path forward, then so be it. After taking off her bracelet and pinching her nostrils closed, she got down on her knees and leaned over the toilet. As she readied her arm to be submerged, she gagged. It didn't even smell particularly bad, especially now that she had plugged her nose, but every instinct in her body told her no. She considered herself lucky that she was already in front of a toilet, because she knew that if she went through with this, she was going to vomit. Tears welled up in her eyes as she sunk her arm down just a little bit further and she felt her fingertips brush against the surface of the water. The drain was just a little bit further, and beyond that...

Pure and genuine disgust forced her arm to recoil back. What am I doing? I can just use the water in the sink. She rose to her feet. Now more than ever, she was glad that no one else was in the bathroom with her. Sauntering over to the sink and slipping her bracelet back on, Michelle washed the tips of her hands with all the soap left in the dispenser before proceeding. After keeping her hands under the water for much longer than she needed—thank goodness this wasn't one of those sinks that automatically turned off after a couple of seconds—she let the it keep running, even as she dried her hands. They were still damp, but it didn't really matter. They'd dry on their own. At the very least, she felt cleansed of the sin she had almost committed. She returned to the sink and dunked the cannon under the faucet.

Just like the door before it, the water didn't even acknowledge the cannon's presence and flowed through it like nothing was there. Michelle sneered. She rose her arm up and pressed it against the faucet. Though water splashed off of her arm and ricocheted onto her dress, the cannon remained unaffected. In fact, it clipped through the faucet, its nozzle peeking out from the steel pipe. It swiveled around a few times, eventually settling on facing the mirror. With a heavy sigh, Michelle turned off the sink and backed away, and the cannon pulled back with her.

I don't know what else to do, she solemnly accepted as she slogged back over to the toilet. Perching herself back up on the back of the seat, she rested her forehead in her hand. This forced her bracelets, cut in the same pattern as the earrings her father always wore, back into her field of view. Crushing shame filled her heart. He would've skewered this thing off in an instant with Chariot's sword and had been done with it. I'm nothing compared to him.

"How about Hellen? That's my second guess," Sara said, her voice filling the empty space. "I once had a friend named Hellen, and you kind of remind me of her. Very quiet. One time, she..."

I give up. "What the hell did you do to me?" Michelle's question came out as a dejected statement. Against her better judgement, she raised her arm to speak into the cannon like a microphone.

"Oh, I probably should've told you about this earlier. Not everyone has the same type of special ability, you know. This one's mine!" The cannon spastically rotated around as Sara addressed it, bobbing up and down all the while. "I call it Out of Touch. Did you see those small sticky-bits on the fingertips of my gloves? They detach and turn into guns when I touch something."

Michelle facepalmed. Gloves. As in, plural. That explains how the cannon got attached to me, she mused. When she summoned her Stand outside the café, she summoned it on both of her hands. Including the one that was already grabbing my arm. She dropped her hand back to the edge of the seat and glared at Out of Touch, the cannon strapped to her arm. Something still didn't sit right. Why refer to her Stand as a "special ability?" 

"Wait," she interrupted her own thoughts, "you attached a gun to me?"

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna shoot you!" As if to prove her point, Out of Touch rotated so that it faced the ceiling. "They can also be used as like, walkie talkies with unlimited range. It's a much more practical way to use it, if you ask me."

"Très bien," Michelle replied. "Now get it off of me."

"C'mon, don't you wanna talk? We both have special abilities. That's cool, isn't it?"

Michelle groaned. So much for being subtle. "I don't know how else to make it clear to you that I do not want to talk. You need to get as far away from me as possible. If we keep on chatting, you're going to die."

"Why? Do you have a stalker or something?" Sara obviously failed to see the irony in her question. "A super clingy boyfriend? Well, don't you worry about me. I can take care of myself. In case you forgot, my special ability is a gun."

"The only stalker I have right now is you," Michelle stated.

An airy giggle sounded from Out of Touch. "Fair enough." Michelle could hear the smile in Sara's voice. "Ok, I’ll cut you a deal. I can't get that gun off of you without firing it, and if I fire it, I'm gonna blow up most of the skin on your arm. But one of the guys I’m traveling with can remove it. If you let me see your special ability one more time, I’ll have him get it off you. Then I’ll leave you alone. I promise."

"That still seems suspicious to me."

"Well, if that’s how you’re gonna be, you’ll just have to get used to hearing my voice," Sara said, her voice trailing off into a disinterested whistle.

Resting her hands on her thighs and hunching forward, Michelle weighed her options. The nagging, paranoid part of her brain screeched in agony: "this is a bad idea." She could picture it now: Sara taking her by the hand, escorting her to some dark, desolate alley, all with the promise of her "friends" trying to "help" her. Then, once they'd reach their destination those friends would come out from the shadows, led by none other than the man from the cemetery, and they'd all take turns getting hits in until she was nothing but an unrecognizable clump of skin, left to rot alone. A shiver crept up her spine at the thought.

I can't take her up on her offer, Michelle contemplated. But what else could she do? Take refuge in some random hotel until the whole thing blew over? Not only was that economically unwise, but it forced her back into the public. She couldn't get anyone else involved in her affairs—she hadn't spent the last three years anonymous and isolated for nothing. Above all else, getting Out of Touch off of her arm took priority; she was a sitting duck until then. Was risking her life by trusting a clingy stranger the best thing for her to do? Though, if Out of Touch did indeed function the way Sara described it to, she had every opportunity to shoot Michelle in the head with no witness, but that didn't make her trustworthy. Iron Maiden had already enacted its curse upon her as well, so Sara already lived on borrowed time, though Michelle didn't want to be around when it happened.

High heels clacking against the tile floor caught Michelle's attention. Someone's here. Actually here, this time. She slammed the door to her stall shut. As her fingers fumbled against the lock, she heard running water come from the other side of the wall. Then the squeak of the soap dispenser, then the crunch of paper towels. The water stopped running. Yet Michelle heard no footsteps leave the bathroom. Aside from the occasional cough or shuffling of fabric, the next few seconds passed in silence. She peered down the gap at the bottom of the stall. Sure enough, a pair of verdant four-inch stilettos met her gaze. Not Sara's high tops, at least. She also faced away from the toilets and towards the mirror. If she was just a random person from off the street stopping at a public restroom, why wasn't she using the restroom? Why stop in front of the sink for so long?

She's the enforcer, Michelle realized. Sara whistled a little bit louder. I really don't have a choice here.

"Stop whistling," she whispered to the cannon. "Fine...I'll go with you. But I'm not going to show you Iron Maiden again. It's for your own safety."

"So you named your special ability too?" Sara asked as Michelle tiptoed out of the stall. "Well, that gives me some validation. One of the guys I'm travelling with just, like, refused to name his for whatever reason, so me and..."

Michelle mentally silenced Sara's story as she shifted her focus to the other woman in the bathroom. She had her face pressed up close to the mirror, her steady arms applying mascara. A handful of other beauty products rested at the edge of the sink. Michelle rolled her eyes. A likely story. Made even more suspicious by the maroon masquerade mask she wore. Already something one wouldn't usually wear, but why bother with mascara if your eyes were already mostly covered?

Even more peculiar, she seemed to be confused by Sara's voice. From her reflection in the mirror, Michelle could make out her focused stare at her reflection fall into a frown from underneath the mask, and she paused for a second as Sara's monologue became more emotionally charged.

As she reached out to grab a paper towel to finish drying her hands off on, Michelle brought Out of Touch closer to speak into. "I'm not sure what you're going off about, but," she noticed the woman lock eyes with the cannon, her eyes suddenly wide, "whatever it is, it's weirding out your friend here."

The cannon quirked to the side. "Friend? Both of the guys I'm travelling with are at the hotel right now. Where are you?"

Michelle felt her heart sink. "Then who..."

"Bad Sneakers!"

Michelle instinctively jumped backwards. Her body rammed into the wall as she lost balance and landed on her rear. Looking up, she met eyes with what would certainly be her doom; a full body, humanoid Stand loomed over her, its leg lodged into the wall right by where Michelle had just stood. It had glossy, lime green skin with black stripes running down its legs that blended into its feet, which were coated in a spiky, translucent cover. The four, ring shaped eyes (or at least, Michelle assumed they were eyes) that adorned its face stared pure malice into her soul. The woman in the masquerade mask glared down at her as well, protected by her Stand.

Shit! It's an enemy Stand user!

Chapter Text

When Michelle left her apartment earlier this morning, she expected to visit the cemetery, buy groceries, and be back home in time to watch reruns of Baoh before heading back to sleep. Now she wasn't sure she would even make it back home alive.

The Stand that towered over her—its user referred to it as Bad Sneakers—may as well had been the grim reaper, come to collect. Despite its eyes being rigid and unemotive hoops, she felt hatred behind them. Perhaps part of what made it so horrifying was the fact that neither it nor its user looked her in the eyes, rather just to the side of them. Bad Sneakers seemed to have gotten its foot lodged in the wall after its attack. A pale yellow liquid seeped from the area of impact, fizzling out as it dripped to the floor. It reminded Michelle of pineapple juice. As the Stand's leg wiggled around to try to break free, Michelle backed away from the wall and rose to her feet. Neither Stand nor user broke their slightly off-center eye contact with her as she circled around them and rose her arms above her head.

"We don't have to fight. Je me rends," Michelle clarified. Though she tried her best to stay calm, the way her arms nearly vibrated as she kept them above her head gave away her fear. "I said I'll go with her. I promise I won't attack you if you don't attack me."

The irony of her declaration was not lost on her. Iron Maiden's only offensive option brought certain doom to everyone around her, and she'd rather not have to use it three times in one day. She could either indulge in complete overkill or run away like a coward, and the former required her to get dangerously close to her enemy. It was like using a nuclear bomb to kill a rabid bear. But when all you have is a hammer...

Either way, her opponent didn't need to know that.

Out of the corner of her eye, Michelle noticed Out of Touch pivot around and face her. She zipped her head down so it was outside of the cannon's firing range. "What's going on over there? You mentioned that someone was there with you," Sara commented. "Are you ok? Is someone harassing you? What does 'juh may rund' mean?"

You're either a very dedicated actress or a total fool, Michelle thought. Before she could chastise Sara's butchered pronunciation, Bad Sneakers screeched, then yanked its foot free from the wall and threw a roundhouse kick at her in one fluid motion. The attack scraped past her arm as Michelle sunk to the floor. The momentum of the kick carried the Stand's foot back into the wall. Michelle grit her teeth and squeezed the area of impact with her free hand—damn, it hurt. The hot, moist blister felt as if scalding water had singed the skin just below her elbow.

Staying low to the floor and covering her head, Michelle scuttled underneath the sink, heading towards the toilets. The bathroom's exit passed her peripheral vision. She could make a break for it if she wanted to. Really, it was the most optimal play; the bathroom didn't offer her any sort of weapon that the city didn't have in spades. Yet she shimmied away from the exit. I can't get innocent civilians involved: the thought replayed through her brain like a broken record.

Bad Sneakers' spare foot stomped the ground in front of her, nearly squishing off her fingers. The ground sizzled underneath its feet. Its foot rose to stomp at her again, the yellow liquid dribbling from its soles like water from a showerhead. Michelle rolled out of the way as Bad Sneakers struck the ground beside her. A sharp pain engulfed her back as she smashed against the edge of the stall. The Stand pulled its foot from the wall and lunged at her. Michelle covered her face with her hands, the cacophony of screams coming from both Bad Sneakers and its user drowned out by the thumping of her heart. Was she really going to die in a place like this? 

No. She put her hands down and sat up straight. It's life or death, Michelle.

Just before the kick connected, Iron Maiden's arm popped out and grabbed onto Bad Sneakers' ankle. The Stand stopped in its tracks, becoming as firm as marble under Iron Maiden's influence. Even the liquid leaking from its feet held in place. Michelle stopped for a second to steady the pounding of her heart. Bad Sneakers' charging foot was just inches away from Out of Touch's cannon. It clicked in her head: She's wasn't going for me. She was going for the cannon. That's why she wasn't looking me in the eyes; I'm not her target! She got back on her feet and stood face to face with Bad Sneakers' user. The woman's stance was rigid, mouth locked ajar from when she had been screaming. Though it could've just been too much hairspray, her hair stayed frozen in place, too. Michelle gave her cheek an inquisitive poke. The skin did not bend around her finger in the slightest—it nearly felt like hardened marble. A feeling that Michelle knew all too well.

Whatever happens to the Stand happens to the user, Michelle realized as she backed away into the handicapped stall. Huh. I didn't think it would stop her too.

Michelle locked the stall door and pressed herself against the wall. If the door was to swing open, it would give her enough coverage to prepare a sneak attack. The muscles in her body began to tense up, tendons going stiff as her heart struggled to keep beating. This wasn't from fear; she knew exactly what was going on and freed Bad Sneakers from Iron Maiden's influence as soon as she realized it was happening. Iron Maiden can continue to cancel out the force acting on an object for as long as I like, Michelle mused, but it can only keep it up for around five seconds before it starts to weigh down on me. Now, if only I could cancel out its side effect...

"Hello? Hellooooooo? Bonjour?" Michelle tried to slap her hand over Out of Touch's nozzle once Sara started speaking again, only to be reminded that she had no affect over the Stand. "What's going over there?"

Goosebumps rose on Michelle's arms when she heard the click of Bad Sneakers' user's heels against the tile of the floor. This time, she did go stiff from fear. "Cette femme masquée...er, I mean," those words had spilled from her mouth without thinking, and she knew better than to let Sara consult her pocket dictionary again. "There's a masked woman here who's also a Stand user and she's trying to kill me." The sound of the woman trying to force the door open rattled Michelle to the bone. "Or r-rather, she's trying to attack your Out of Touch that's stuck to my arm."

"Stand user? What's a Stand?" Sara's question was slightly drowned out by Bad Sneakers screeching from behind the door.

"Bordel de merde," Michelle exclaimed as she heard a CRASH! against the door, followed by some of the spikes on Bad Sneakers' feet protruding from it. "Our special abilities! My Iron Maiden, your Out of Touch, her Bad Sneakers; they're all Stands!"

"Hey, hey, hey. Let's backtrack for a second," Sara advised. "You said a masked woman. Is it like, a sort of dark red party mask?"

Michelle frowned. "Yes, why?"

"Oh...oh. I think I know what's going on," Sara said. "Where are you? These masked dudes can be really tough and really scary. I can help you deal with her."

"I don't need any help," Michelle insisted, though she knew it was a lie. Sara was going to die regardless, and she'd rather not be around when it happened. "Stay out of this."

"Really? That's nice to hear! You must have a really strong special abili...I mean, Stand," Sara responded in a chipper voice.

"Well, I wouldn't say that..."

A foul odor wafted through the air, one that smelled like moldy fruit being put in an oven. Michelle nearly gagged as the stench hit her nostrils. A bubbling hiss emitted from beside her. As if to brace herself for what she might see, she slowly turned her head to see what had happened. Bad Sneakers' foot was no longer ledged in the door, it was sticking through the middle of it! The door had partially corroded, bits and pieces of it dripping to the floor in squelching globs. Yellow liquid continued to ooze from the Stand's foot. Droplets of it hit the chunks of melted door on the ground, boiling on the surface before forming small craters.

It's an acid, Michelle realized. That liquid's an acid. It'll melt through anything that stays in contact with it for too long. She massaged the burn on her arm. It's a good thing she didn't try to go for my head.

Out of Touch phased through her hand as she gingerly rubbed her wound. "Did you say something just now?" Sara sounded like she had food in her mouth. "Sorry, I'm still at the café. I took your advice and decided to ask the cashier guy for help ordering something to eat. So, how tough is your Stand if you can take care of this psycho all on your own?"

The sizzle of Bad Sneakers' acid overlaid Sara's dialogue. Though its mephitic scent made her wish that she had never been cursed with the sense of smell, it blessed Michelle with a plan. Cautiously, she stepped closer to the door. Only a Stand can defeat another Stand, Michelle reminded herself as she extended her arm closer to the carnage. Iron Maiden doesn't have the power to destroy Out of Touch. Bad Sneakers, on the other hand, just might do the trick. I hope that Sara's fingers don't burn off from this.

Michelle kept her eyes locked on Out of Touch and she placed her arm beneath Bad Sneakers' foot. The acid flowed in a way that made it difficult to line up a direct shot to the cannon, so it burned into her skin just the same as it did to Sara's Stand. It hurt like hell; Michelle had to chomp down on her lower lip to keep from screaming in agony. But she couldn't back away, especially not after seeing Out of Touch start to warp from exposure to the acid. She half expected to hear Sara wail out in pain as the damage done to her Stand reflected on her own body, but no such response came. Maybe Out of Touch had been mangled to the point that the connection had been lost? A lump of liquified door collided with her wrist before she could give the idea too much thought, scorching the delicate skin as it slid to the floor. She felt her eyes begin to water. Michelle squeezed them shut, waiting for the hot tears that had welled up to subside. It was then that she realized that her whole body was shaking—were someone completely uninvolved to walk in on her, it would have been easy for them to make the assumption that she was shivering from the cold. However, the burns on her arm and the sweat on her forehead said otherwise. She slowed her breathing to steady herself. In, out. In, out. Innnnnnnnnnn, oooooout...

Much to her relief, the pain began to subside. The cool air covered her rashes like an ice pack. Her body had stopped shaking, her eyes had stopped watering, her arm had stopped burning; all was well. For a moment, Michelle felt blissful. It was as if her surroundings had evaporated into the air, and she was alone anywhere and everywhere she could have wanted to be. Her room, the library, maybe even her old house near the lake.

Except that couldn't be right. What happened to the sound of acid sizzling out on the floor or its rancid smell? Michelle's eyes were fraught with dread as she opened them and glanced back at the door, her heart starting to pound in her chest once again. Bad Sneakers' foot was no longer poking through the door. She pulled her arm back to her body and inched her way to the door. Warily, she looked through the hole.

Four glowing, ring-shaped eyes stared back at her. Michelle quickly hid Out of Touch behind her back as Bad Sneakers stuck its face through the hole and roared at her. She could see the murderous intent in its eyes, rage boiling behind. The user's arm reached through, emerging from the Stand's head, and unlocked the door. It swung open and slammed against the wall. Both Bad Sneakers and its user marched forwards, the former leaving burn marks on the floor as it stomped towards its prey. With every step they took, Michelle took a step back to stay out of range.

The somewhat chalky feeling of the wall pressed against Michelle's back as she found herself backed into a corner, both figuratively and literally. Bad Sneakers howled in her face and raised its foot, ready to strike, a trail of acid emerging from it. As it brought its foot down, Iron Maiden's arm was summoned in its path to stop the attack—only for Bad Sneakers to curve its trajectory and dodge at the last second. On instinct, Michelle turned away and attempted to block her face with her arms.

She expected to feel acid burn up what little skin remained on her arm and scald the parts of her body she failed to cover, or perhaps feel Bad Sneakers' foot stab into her skin and make her body melt from the inside out. Instead, she felt nothing. A loud CLANG! rang above her as Bad Sneakers' stench drifted closer to her nostrils. The rabid Stand screeched once again. She felt her breath catch in her throat. What blocked Bad Sneakers' attack?

Michelle opened her eyes to see Iron Maiden's full form standing before her, covering her with its shield. It had been so long since she had fully summoned her Stand, she had almost forgotten what it had looked like. The Stand was covered in white satin from head to hips, trailing off into what appeared to be a flowing ballgown with a slit down the middle. On its legs the satin appeared torn, revealed metallic obsidian skin. A black ruff wrapped around its neck, thin but tall enough to stretch past its neck and cover the Stand's entire chin. Dark, intricately patterned armor decorated its form with a delicate tiara as the cherry on top, and it carried a heater shield that was almost half as tall and nearly as wide as she was.

Wait, was the shield always that big? Michelle scoured through her memories. Didn't it used to be a buckler about the size of her head? I remember it being smaller.

Whatever the case may be, Michelle was thankful for the shield's extra bulk—Bad Sneakers' acid had no effect on it. The liquid poured onto Iron Maiden's shield and cascaded down it, not even leaving a stain behind before fizzling out on the floor. Bad Sneakers' user sneered at her as her Stand kicked at her once again. Iron Maiden parried the attack, the spikes on its heels ricocheting off of the shield. Before it could prepare another kick, Michelle took a step forward and rammed Iron Maiden's shield into Bad Sneakers. Both it and its user staggered back towards the wall. Michelle took the opportunity to duck in front of them so she was in the stall's entryway, facing the wall rather than being backed up against it.

As her opponent regained her footing, Michelle pondered over her next move. I can defend myself with Iron Maiden's shield. That much is good. The woman opposite her cracked her shoulders back and stood up straight. But it's only a shield. How am I supposed to take someone out with just a shield? Bad Sneakers and its user took a step closer. Michelle stepped back. It's still a part of my Stand, so it's not like I could throw it around. Iron Maiden isn't strong enough to use it as a battering ram. The pieces of melted door squished under Bad Sneakers' user's stilettos as she exited the stall. Her Stand was practically foaming at the mouth. Iron Maiden held its shield closer to its (and Michelle's) body. Not to mention that I'm stuck in a bathroom of all places. What am I supposed to do, give her a swirlie and hope her hair gets stuck in the drain? 

She raised her thumb to her chin and eyeballed the toilets. Actually, I might have something there. But how am I supposed to...

Michelle looked back just in time to see Bad Sneakers strike at Iron Maiden. She ducked down to spare herself from the acid flung at her face, but Iron Maiden failed to parry the attack in time. Fresh burns transferred onto Michelle's shoulder. She winced as they rubbed against the sleeves of her dress.

There's no way I can do this on my own, Michelle realized. If I get too close to her, she's just going to attack me again. "I'm at the public restroom near Square Monseigneur-Maillet," she squeaked into a very deformed Out of Touch. "Please help me!"

The cannon sputtered in response, the deformed nozzle jittering upwards for a moment. For once, she wished she could hear Sara's booming voice or shrill whistling. The sound of clanging metal echoed near her eardrums. Michelle instinctively shoved her hands over her ears and looked up to see Iron Maiden flinch backwards, almost walking through her. Bad Sneakers' leg extended at a 90° angle, a fresh trail of sizzling acid on the floor beneath it. As Michelle and her Stand regained their balance, Bad Sneakers pointed its foot to the ceiling.

"FFFFRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOUUUUUGHHHH!" The bloodcurdling cry emitted from the Stand.

One kick. Then another. Then another. Acid flew everywhere as Bad Sneakers unleashed its barrage of attacks. Michelle lifted her arm in front of her face and mindlessly backed away to protect herself. Iron Maiden darted its arm around in a desperate attempt to block the blows. It only barely succeeded; many kicks grazed the edge of its shield, droplets of acid dropping down it and onto the Stand's hand. Michelle exhaled through gritted teeth as more blisters transferred over to her. The loud clanging noise from every clash of foot versus shield started to sound more like an aggressive drum solo rather than individual strikes. She wouldn't last long—she could feel it in every ache in her body. Iron Maiden's shield was still unaffected by the acid, but the energy needed to block to array of attacks left her feeling drained. Each kick sent them another step backwards. Another step closer to the exit. She felt the midday sun begin to warm her back. It was usually a calming sensation, but now it only served to terrify her.

"Non, non, non!"  Michelle planted her feet firmly in the ground. "You're not leaving this place!"

Iron Maiden thrust its shield forwards with everything it had as the next kick connected. Rather than toppling over like it had when she had bashed it with her shield earlier, Bad Sneakers grabbed the sides Iron Maiden's shield—the first time this whole fight it had used its arms for anything. It lifted the shield, dragging the rest of Iron Maiden along with it, and hurled it to the floor. Michelle felt the wind get knocked out of her as her Stand hit the concrete, and she doubled over in pain. The metallic taste of blood stung the roof of her mouth. Bad Sneakers and its user advanced forwards, now fully emerged from the bathroom. The dark mask that adorned the woman's face bathed her eyes in shadow as she and her Stand hunted down their prey. As Iron Maiden hastened back to protect its user, Bad Sneakers raised its leg and pointed its foot. The acid leaking from its soles glistened in the sun.

Michelle couldn't bring herself to run. Maybe it was because she was still recovering from Iron Maiden being thrown to the floor like a ragdoll. Maybe she was still tired from running away from Sara and the man at the cemetery. Maybe she'd just rather turn over and accept defeat if it meant no one else got hurt. Whatever it was, she stayed locked in place as Iron Maiden knelt in front of her, shakily keeping its shield up. Michelle squeezed her eyes shut and prayed that it would be over soon.

BANG!

An agonized scream sounded above her, followed by the thump of something hitting the ground. Michelle opened her eyes and peered over Iron Maiden's shield to see her opponent curled up and laying on her side, clutching her leg as blood poured down from a fresh bullet wound on her calf. The wound was deep—for a moment Michelle could've sworn that she saw through the hole on her leg. She inched away as the puddle of blood on the pavement expanded towards her.

"How's that for a dramatic entrance?" A familiar voice called from across the street.

Michelle turned her head to see Sara, the sun casting a shadow over her body. She stood proud, confident, and relaxed—not the sort of posture one would expect from someone who just shot a woman in the middle of the street. There was a noticeable indent in the wall of the building she was standing by. It was clearly new, too; some stray dust hung in the air around it, almost as if part of the wall itself had exploded.

From her peripheral vision, Michelle saw Bad Sneakers' user attempt to stand up, only to topple over the instant she propped herself from the ground. Her cries of pain turned into quiet sobs as she reverted to fetal position.

Poor thing. I kind of feel bad for her. Which is bizarre, considering she was trying to kill me a minute ago. "Was it really necessary to shoot her?" Michelle directed her question to Sara.

Sara shrugged. "What? You were the one who wanted help," she said as she sauntered over to Michelle. "I only shot her in the leg. She'll be fine as long as long someone calls an ambulance." She narrowed her eyes and darted her head around for a few seconds. The motion reminded Michelle of how Out of Touch would swivel around on her arm. Eventually something caught her eye and she locked onto it with wide eyes. "See?" She pointed to a couple of onlookers, one covering her mouth as the other pulled his phone from his pocket. "Looks like someone's already on it."

She extended her hand out to Michelle, seemingly as an offering to help her off the ground. Yet Out of Touch adorned it, the gold pattern on the back of the glove sparkling in the sun. Highly suspicious. Michelle batted Sara's hand away and stood up on her own.

"Wow, your Stand looks so cool!" Sara ogled Iron Maiden, who was still at its user's side. "That's the second humanoid one I've ever seen. Wonder if they're less common or if I've just been meeting the wrong people?"

Michelle's face flushed red. She hadn't realized her Stand was still active. "T-thank you for your help," she said as she retracted her Iron Maiden. "Now, could you please remove your Stand from my arm?"

Sara huffed and put her hands on her hips. "I told you, I can't take Out of Touch off of something once its attached. We're gonna need to meet up with a friend of mine to remove it."

"It's your Stand, can't you just call it back and it'll go away on its own?"

"It doesn't work like that! I've tried it before. Watch;" Sara raised her hands to be level with her head. Out of Touch dematerialized from them, the gloves flashing the same croquet pattern it had when Michelle initially saw it being summoned before vanishing. Michelle glanced down at her arm and indeed, the cannon was still there. "See?" The gloves rematerialized on Sara's hands. "Geez Louise, what the hell happened to Out of Touch? What the hell happened to your arm?"

"Let's just say that I underestimated my opponent a bit," Michelle responded, folding her arms.

"Don't worry! This friend of mine can fix you up too," Sara cheered as she started walking east. Michelle reluctantly followed and scanned the area, anticipating to see someone following them. "He's got this super freaky magic stuff called Hamon. It's like...I dunno, from the way he describes it, it's like, sunlight breathing kung-fu, but I've got a hunch that it's just part of his Stand. But he can use it for a lot of different stuff! It's mostly a bunch of party tricks, but the healing thing is definitely legit. Apparently you can also use it to manipulate others to an extent; I tried to convince my friend to use it on our hotel concierge to have him willingly give us a few dollars, but he was like, 'Sara, this ability of mine is my honor and sworn duty and I refuse to use it for my own gain even though we're almost broke.'"

"That is illegal, though," Michelle interjected. "That's stealing."

Sara chuckled and playfully slapped the back of Michelle's shoulder. "You two are cut from the same cloth. Pretty sure he said the same thing. Could you really consider it stealing if they gave it to you?"

"If they were hypnotized into doing so, yes."

"Well, to each their own," Sara said with a sigh. "Besides, everyone's done something illegal at one point or another. Even you, I'd bet."

Michelle felt her heart stop for a moment and froze in place. Oh god, she knows. She stared ahead with wide eyes as Sara continued walking, seemingly unaware that her companion had stopped. Fresh sweat dribbled down Michelle's forehead as brought a hand up to squeeze her necklace, the smooth curvature of the pearls digging into the base of her fingers. How does she know? She certainly doesn't seem like the type who would investigate that sort of thing. I doubt she's old enough to be part of the government, but stranger things have happened. Maybe she knew Luca?

"What?" Sara snapped Michelle back to reality, staring back at her with a nervous smile. "I mean, even jaywalking is technically illegal. Or at least it is in the United States, I dunno about France."

The hand that had been toying with her necklace moved up to pinch the ridge of her nose. Michelle let out a sigh of relief. Obviously, she was overthinking it. Acting like it was a big deal would only make her look suspicious. "That's another crime on your list then," she commented as she caught up to Sara. "You were basically using the street as a runway before that car crashed into you."

"Well, it was the best runway in all of Paris," Sara exclaimed, tossing her head back. Michelle fought the urge to groan at her comment—she really was the culmination of every tourist mindset that she hated. "Oh, and thanks once again for saving me back there, uh..."

Sara's voice trailed off as she narrowed her eyes at Michelle, studying her face. It was clear that she had gotten a latte at the café earlier, she could smell it on her breath as she stuck her head closer to her to better examine her features. Michelle looked the other way and brushed her face off. Perhaps she had gotten dirt or blood on it from the fight against Bad Sneakers?

"We've been talking this whole time, and I still don't know your name!" Sara's voice boomed right next to Michelle's ear. "I'm Sara. Did I say that already? I think I said that already."

"You've also said that you think that you've said that already," Michelle scoffed.

"Damn," Sara mumbled. "I promise my memory is still a lot better than this. Well, let me make up for it and say that my full name is Sara Smile."

Michelle raised a brow. "Your last name is Smile?"

"Yup! It's not my birth name though," Sara clarified, "I changed it. Wanted to remind myself to always stay positive."

The wide-eyed stare and expectant grin did not leave Sara's face, even after she stopped talking. Though she had only known her for an hour at most, Michelle understood that Sara's silence spoke volumes—she was waiting for her to say her name in response. Michelle bit her lip and stared at the pavement. This was it. If she told Sara her name, there was no going back. Could she get away with using an alias? Maybe then she would think that she had the wrong person and leave her alone. Her brows furrowed at the thought. No, that's a bad idea. Either she already knows who I am and has been keeping up an incredibly convincing act this whole time, or she really is just an overbearing tourist who just happens to be a Stand user. Either way, if I use an alias, it might come back to bite me later.

Eventually, she removed her gaze from the ground beneath her and sharply exhaled through her nose. It was unavoidable; better to rip the Band-Aid off now. "I'm Michelle. Michelle Polnareff."

"Michelle, huh?" Sara leaned back, finally showing some respect for personal space. "Wow, I was way off. Hmm..."

Now it was Sara's turn to be lost in thought as she peered into the distance, pursing her lips together. Her pupils shifted around as if she were reading. Michelle groaned. "What now? I told you my name, what else do you want?"

Sara's eyes widened as she jerked her head back. "Nothing, nothing!" She waved her hands in front of her as if to further prove her point. "I was just trying to think of a nickname for you."

"A...nickname," Michelle repeated.

"Yeah! Everyone deserves a cute nickname," Sara exclaimed. "Hmm...Michelle, Me Kell, My Shell, she sells seashells by the seashore...shell, tell, well, bell...I've got it! How about Chelle Belle?"

"No," Michelle blurted out. "Absolutely not. Please never call me that name ever again."

Her comment smacked Sara's cheery expression from her face. She threw up her eyebrows in shock, her mouth slightly agape. For a moment, the only sound between them was their footsteps knocking against the ground. Embarrassed, Michelle turned her head away.

"That was what my Dad used to call me," she confessed. "He's...gone, now."

"Oh. Sorry about that." Out of the corner of her eye, Michelle saw Sara reach out her arm. She flinched away before it could come in contact with her shoulder. "I totally get where you're coming from. My dad died of pancreatic cancer about a year ago."

In that moment, Michelle felt emotionally stunted. What was she supposed to say? She hadn't given anyone emotional comfort in a long time, in fact, she wasn't sure if she ever had. "I'm sorry for your loss," she settled on.

"Don't be. He was a jerk anyways." Michelle looked up to see a relaxed smile on Sara's face. Perhaps not as big or bright as what she usually wore, but it still seemed natural. Was she really unfazed by her father's death? "How about Chelly?" She piped in before Michelle could even consider asking.

Michelle sighed. "Chelly's fine."

Chapter Text

Even before she started isolating herself from society, Michelle made it a point to avoid hotels. She had no business in them, yes, but the same could be said about liquor stores and telephone booths, which she passed by without a second thought. Hotels, on the other hand, always had tourists that orbited them like bees surrounding their hive. Staying in the vicinity of one too long always resulted in being pulled aside and asked for directions or to take a picture. Yet another drop in the bucket of her distaste for tourists; they never knew when to leave her alone.

So now that she was in a hotel elevator being led by a tourist to a group of other tourists, Michelle couldn't help but appreciate the irony.

Beside her, Sara idly tapped her foot and whistled something tuneless. The way she rested her hands on the back of her head made Michelle nervous; she wouldn't put it past her to attach a cannon to her scalp without realizing it, and she still hadn't taken off her gloves. Everything about the situation made her worry, but if Sara was malevolent and ended up blowing off her own head, it was one less person for her to deal with. Though she'd rather not be there when it happened.

And it's going to happen soon, Michelle reminded herself. She saw Iron Maiden. She's cursed now. And the longer she spends time with me, the quicker it'll happen. I need think up an alibi for myself in case the worst happens.

Ding! The elevator doors opened, revealing a hallway with bland white walls and a line of wooden doors. Sara stopped whistling and moseyed on out. "We're room 324," she said, walking to the right. "That's like, three doors down?"

"Ten, actually." Michelle pointed to the door in front of them: Room 314.

Sara threw her hands up as she continued walking. "It feels like a lot less! Guess walking around the big city for so long makes everything seem closer together than it really is."

Michelle shrugged. That wouldn't surprise her; even though she was within walking distance of everything she needed to get by, all of the buildings and people made the distance from her apartment to places like the grocery store and the library seem a lot larger than they actually were. This vacant hallway was downright miniscule by comparison. But that still didn't change the fact that there were clearly more than three doors between their starting point and destination.

As the two approached room 324, Sara took off her knapsack and began to shuffle through it. The bag seemed to swallow her arm as she sifted through its contents. "Oh!" Sara's face lit up. She pulled out a small lump wrapped in napkins and shoved it into Michelle's hand. "Here, this is your croissant. You never finished it, and it'd be a waste to just throw it out, yeah?"

"I suppose so," Michelle replied. She grimaced at the object in her hands—she didn't even want to think about what else Sara had bouncing around in that bag of hers. Hardly a sanitary place to store food. It crossed her mind that she could have poisoned it on her way to defeat Bad Sneakers. As Sara continued to rummage through her bag, Michelle disposed of the croissant into a nearby garbage can. She'd lost her appetite, anyways.

"Aha!" Sara triumphantly pulled a small, white card from her bag. "It was hiding at the bottom. You ready to meet the guys?"

No, but let's get this over with, Michelle thought. She nodded in response. Sara inserted the card into a slot on the doorknob. The small green light on the knob lit, and she kicked the door open shortly after.

"I'm back!" Sara called out as she shrugged off her knapsack and tossed it aside. It landed with a loud THUNK! next to the door to the bathroom, like it was full of bricks. Though Sara ambled into the room, Michelle opted to stand near the door. Better to be closer to the exit in case things went wrong.

Though she had never stayed at a hotel before, the room was exactly what Michelle expected. A small bathroom to the left of the entryway and a closet to the right, two queen-sized beds taking up the bulk of the room, and a TV mounted atop a dresser facing opposite of them. A beige armchair sat right next to the bed closest to the door. The bulky air conditioner that lay under the window let out a constant churn of white noise, creating a slight breeze that tickled the bottom of the drapes.

Sitting on the two beds were a pair of boys, both holding a hand of playing cards. A clump of a deck sat on the nightstand between them. The boy on the bed closest to the door, Michelle recognized him as the one who Sara forced to take her picture, grinned and let out a hearty laugh as soon as he made eye contact with her. Dark ringlets framed his face in a wild mullet. His clothing mixed between far too tight—like his tank top that exposed his midriff—too far too baggy—like his loose-fitting jacket and big-flared jeans.

"Well well well," he chuckled, throwing his deck of cards down, "looks like Sara's brought back another kidnapping victim."

Kidnapping victim? Michelle took a step back. I knew this was a bad idea. Why would he say it before restraining me though? Are they that confident that they'd beat me? Just who are these...

The boy on the other bed, whom Michelle deduced must've been the one with the map, let out an exacerbated sigh as he laid his cards on the nightstand. "Cab, please," he spoke in an accent that she could not quite place, "that's not a polite way to greet someone you've only just met." He tucked a stray lock of chestnut hair back into his braided crown. Whereas his companion's clothing varied in weight, his varied in color; his shirt and breeches were a plain white and black respectively, while his socks (tights?) were striped in a sunset gradient and his long scarf was a vibrant orange.

A groan escaped from the other boy; Michelle believed she heard his friend call him Cab. "Hey, new girl," he continued, ignoring his friend, "would you say that Sara kidnapped you?"

"Umm..." As much as Michelle wanted to say "yes," she figured it was a bad idea to get on her bad side now that she was on her home turf. "By definition, it's not a kidnapping if she lets me go freely."

"You say kidnapped," Sara pointed at Cab, "I say befriended," she jabbed a thumb into her own chest. "Besides, neither of you two would be in this fancy Parisian hotel if I hadn't 'kidnapped' y'all. All's well that ends well, yeah?"

Cab brought his legs up to sit crisscrossed and rested his chin in the palm of his hand. "Well, I suppose if she's here now, then you couldn't have scared her that much with your stalker tendencies."

Rolling her eyes, Sara grabbed Michelle by the wrist and yanked her into the room. As Michelle almost lost her balance, Sara turned back around to face her. "That bozo over there is Taxi Cab and that nerd over there is Rumor Mill," she said, pointing at the each of them as she called out their names. "And this right here is Chelly." Michelle tensed up as Sara wrapped her arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer. 

"That's not my name," Rumor Mill said with a sigh. "'Rumor Mill' is the nickname you insist upon calling me. Please, just call me Rumor. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." He bowed his head slightly. "I take it Sara has not come up with a nickname for you yet. Consider yourself lucky."

Not a nickname? A ghost of a smile blessed Michelle's face. Good. No need to tell anyone else my real name. "Y-yup," she muttered, running her fingers through her ponytail, "Chelly. That's my name."

"Actually, her real name is Michelle and her last name is Polnareff," Sara loudly interrupted. "Chelly was the best I could come up with."

Michelle snorted and jerked away from Sara's arm. There went any chance of her remaining anonymous.

"I for one don't mind if you call me Taxi Cab or whatever," Cab added. "Just don't call me late for dinner."

The camaraderie between the group made Michelle's insides churn. How presumptuous of them to assume she'd be staying long. "So, which one of you has the Stand that can get this thing off of me?" She extended her arm in front of her and bent her wrist back to give the two of them a better view of Out of Touch.

Both boys sighed upon seeing Sara's Stand attached to Michelle's arm. Cab's shoulders fell back and he stared at the ceiling in vain while Rumor just facepalmed. "You did it again, Sara?" Exasperation littered Cab's tone.

Sara forced a smile and tugged on the collar of her jersey. "Not on purpose! I was just holding her arm and then she like, had a sudden panic attack or something and kneed me in the chest and it just sorta...happened."

Cab and Rumor both raised a brow at her. From what little she knew of Sara, Michelle felt tempted to do the same.

"To be fair," Sara continued, "it's been almost two weeks now since the last time this happened. I'm getting better!"

Two weeks? Michelle's jaw unlocked but didn't fully drop. Only two weeks? This is common for you? How can you be irresponsible enough to consistently use a dangerous Stand like yours on accident?

"It's nothing I can't fix," Rumor said, almost as if he had read Michelle's mind. Which was a definite possibility. She made a mental note to keep her thoughts more in check for the duration of her stay. "But you must learn to improve your control." He beckoned the two of them to come closer. Even if somewhat disgruntled, Sara approached him with the same pep in her step she always had and plopped down on the bed next to him. Michelle hesitated—not only because getting too close to either of them could lead to a knife in her back or a wet rag over her mouth, but because if that wasn't the case, he was asking her to sit on the bed with him. Sweat collected on her palms. She had never done anything so scandalous in her whole life. With a gulp, she cautiously strode over.

Cab let out a low whistle as Michelle passed him. A light blush burned her cheeks. They couldn't be holding her captive for that, right? She shot a piercing glare at him, only to see that his eyes were locked on the cannon and nowhere else. "Seems like you did a real number to it, too." As he lifted his gaze to meet her eyes, Michelle wrenched the animosity from her face. "You ought to be proud of yourself, Michelle, even my own Quiet Riot can barely make a dent in those things. And punching stuff is kind of his thing."

She nodded and sat on the bed between Rumor and Sara. Denying it would be dumb, even if it wasn't true; making Iron Maiden out to be stronger than it actually was would only discourage them from attacking her. Not to mention that Sara had only caught a glimpse of her Stand, so she couldn't rebut her on it this time.

"Yeah, Chelly's special ability is like, super cool," remarked Sara. "It's another human looking one like yours, Taxi Cab!"

An amused smile took shape on Cab's face. "Ha! And here I was thinking I was the only one. Maybe you did have a point in bringing her here after all."

"I just want to get this thing off of me and be on my way, thanks," Michelle quickly added.

"Of course." Rumor grabbed Michelle's wrist; she fought off the instinct to nudge her arm away. "Cab, would you please open the window?"

"Is there really not a better way to do this?" Cab folded his arms in objection.

Michelle felt the color drain from her face. Were they going to chop off her arm and throw it out the window? Or worse—were they going to toss her whole body out? "Why do you say that?" 

"Because he is quite the contrarian." Rumor gave Cab a dirty look as he spoke. Cab returned the gesture with a snide grin. "If you have a better solution in mind, then by all means, enlighten me. Unless you'd rather attempt pulverizing the cannon again and risk shattering or ripping off Michelle's arm in the process. I do believe it was you who claimed to barely be able to make a dent in the thing."

"That's not what I meant either but..." his scowl weakened, and a few seconds later his shoulders slumped in defeat, "ugh, whatever." Cab rose from bed and stomped on over to the window. "Don't say I didn't warn you if you end up killing a pigeon along the way," he warned as he yanked the drapes open and pushed up the window pane. A cool breeze blew in, reminding Michelle just how bad a fall from this height would be.

She shifted to the edge of the bed. "Should I be worried about this, or..."

"It'll be fine," Sara reassured. "Rumor Mill's done this to me a bunch of times. It's kinda tingly, but other than that, you won't feel a thing."

Her tone wasn't reassuring, but at this point, Michelle couldn't find a way out of this. "If you say so."

Something new brushed up against her hand. It was smooth and not particularly hot or cold; as if lukewarm water had bubbled and solidified and now ran up her arm. Michelle looked down and saw what looked like a mix between a translucent chain link and a double helix strand wrap up and around her arm. It slithered past the cannon, leaving it uncovered, though it bandaged all the blisters that Bad Sneakers had left behind. Soon, Michelle's whole arm had been encased by it.

"This is my special ability, The Chain." Rumor proclaimed. "Now, Michelle, please lift your arm so that the cannon is pointing out the window."

Michelle nodded. Though Rumor's Stand swathing her arm left it stiff, she slowly raised her arm as more of The Chain whirred out from his wrist.

Rumor turned to Sara. "Are you ready?"

"Just tell me when," she brought her right hand up with a flick of the wrist. For the first time, Michelle noticed that the tip of the glove's pointer finger was missing the black padding that the rest of her fingers had.

"Ok." Rumor's eyes fluttered closed. His stern expression faded; his eyebrows relaxed and his slight frown melted as his lips pursed. His breathing, on the other hand, became more pronounced as he inhaled through his mouth. Michelle felt his grip on her wrist tighten through The Chain's bindings. "Three..." Cab bolted away from the window and settled back on his bed, "two..." Sara curled her fingers down so that they were hovering just above the ridge of her thumb, "one..." Michelle gave a silent prayer to not die. "Now!"

Sara pressed her pointer finger down against the black padding on the base of Out of Touch's thumb, and simultaneously, the cannon on Michelle's arm fired and exploded with a loud BANG! For just a moment, the same sharp pain from when Iron Maiden attempted to yank the cannon from Michelle's arm returned tenfold. A quick look down at her arm confirmed exactly what had happened; The Chain did nothing to stop the damage from Out of Touch being fired, and the area where it was attached had been reduced to a bloody crater of raw muscle tissue. It looked as if a very large dog had taken a very large bite out of her arm. She curled her toes and inhaled through gritted teeth. Did something go wrong?

The pain in her arm subsided just as soon as it began, being replaced by a warm, staticky sensation. Golden sparks flickered around The Chain. A ringing sound, not unlike a tuning fork being struck, reverberated from the Stand. Fresh skin coated over Michelle's wounds; both the crater in her arm where Out of Touch was once attached and the several blisters left by Bad Sneakers' acid. She was being healed before her very eyes. Even after the golden sparks dissipated and Rumor summoned back The Chain, she continued to stare at her arm, dumbfounded. The skin looked as fresh and clear as a model's. No scar tissue whatsoever. If someone had told her that she had received multiple scald wounds less than an hour ago and nearly had her forearm blown up less than a second ago, even she wouldn't believe them.

"That was Hamon," Rumor stated. "Though it seems that only I can channel it through this special ability of mine, it is an art that anyone can learn. As you just witnessed, it..."

"Uh, yeah, hate to cut you off," Sara dismissively waved her hands, Out of Touch vanishing as she did so. Michelle did not fail to notice that the black padding had returned to the Stand's right pointer finger. "But I already gave her the rundown earlier. She knows what it is."

A dry laugh emerged from Cab. "Did you mention the part about it killing vampires?"

Michelle's eyes widened. "Excusez-moi? Vampires?"

"Yeah," Cab said with a light smile, "we've got a certified Van Helsing with us."

Rumor sighed and set his shoulders back. "I know it is hard to believe, but it's true. Vampires do exist. Hamon is controlled by a specific breathing pattern, but it creates an energy identical to the rays of the sun. Channeling it correctly creates the perfect counter for those vile creatures of the night."

"Or you could just cover yourself in cloves of garlic," added Cab.

"Vampires are now nearly extinct," Rumor continued as if Cab had said nothing, "just the same as Hamon practitioners like myself. However, it is my duty to wipe them off the face of the Earth for good." His hands clenched into fists and his brow furrowed, as if he was glaring down death itself. "Even if just one of them remains, I will roam the earth until I have tracked down and eliminated them."

"Yeah, Cab," Sara grabbed the remote to the TV from the nightstand and playfully chucked it towards him. It missed him by several feet and collided with the wall. "Rumor Mill's just trying to protect us from the evil, bloodsucking menace. Show a little respect!"

Michelle snorted and rested her hands on her lap. Good to see that both of them are just as crazy as she is, she thought, but now that I've gotten that cannon off of my arm, I can finally...

Her thoughts were interrupted as Sara grabbed her by the ear and pulled her closer. "I don't believe him either," Sara whispered, "but I figure that it's harmless to humor him."

"Well, it's been nice chatting with you three," Michelle stridently said as she stood up and sped to the door, "but I should get going. I'd hate to take up any more of your time, and the sun's starting to set, so I really must be off."

"Hold on a second!" Sara's biting tone kept her from grabbing the doorknob. Michelle turned around and saw her staring eagerly back at her. "You need to show the guys your Stand!"

Rumor scratched the top of his head. "There's that word again. 'Stand.' I assume you are referring to our special abilities?"

"That's what they're called," Michelle answered. "Everyone's is different, but I guess as a..." she paused for a moment and stared at the ceiling, trying to figure out the best word to use, "...species," she decided on, "they're referred to as Stands."

"Doesn't sound like a fitting name if you ask me," Cab said as he picked the TV remote up from the floor, "Is that the French word for them or is it universal?"

"I don't know, that's just what my dad called them."

"And what makes your dad the authority on that?"

Pique bellowed up in her core, but she forced herself to stay quiet before she unleashed her fury. He has a point. Where did Dad get the name from anyways? "He was friends with a bunch of other Stand users from different parts of the world and they all called them that, too," she realized, her thoughts pouring from her mouth as she postulated them. "At least it's an actual title and not just 'special abilities.'"

"Yeah, but why Stand? " Cab tossed the remote around in his hands. He wasn't even looking at her. "Why are they called that?"

Michelle shrugged. "Why's a banana called a banana?"

Cab failed to catch the remote and it bounced off the pillow and onto the floor. "Fair enough, I guess." He laid back down. Evidently, he couldn't be bothered to pick the remote back up again.

"It's a more apt title than 'special abilities' anyway," Rumor chimed in.

"So Chelly," Sara cheered as she clapped her hands together, "care to give the guys a demonstration?"

"I'm not bringing out my Stand again." This time, Michelle made no effort to disguise the irritation in her voice.

Sara folded her arms and pouted. "Come on, what's the big deal? You've seen mine and Rumor's and..." her voice trailed off for a moment, then she shifted her focus to Cab. "Taxi Cab, show her your Stand real quick."

"Alright." Though Cab attempted to sound nonchalant, the way he rose his chin and pulled his smile to both corners of his face gave away his glee. A humanoid Stand—one that was just as tall and muscular as Cab himself was—appeared behind him. It had an indigo body with thin maroon strings running along its arms, torso and thighs. A metallic plate covered the top of its face and wrapped down around its cheeks and jawline, tapering up into a glossy mohawk at the top of its head. Bulky compasses were imbedded into its hands and feet. They spun around a bit as the Stand hovered by its user. "I call him Quiet Riot. Been with me for as long as I can remember." Quiet Riot's grin mimicked its user's as it flexed its biceps. "Pretty cool, right?"

"See?" Sara pointed at Quiet Riot as Cab recalled it. "It's no big deal."

"You don't get it," Michelle groaned. "My Stand is...different. It's dangerous. And the longer we stay near each other, the more likely it is that you'll die, Sara."

Sara shrugged. "It can't be that bad. I mean, my Stand creates gun bomb things," to emphasize her point, she summoned Out of Touch and grabbed one of the playing cards from the nightstand, sticking four cannons to it. She passed off the card to her other hand and pressed all four of her fingers to the ridge of her thumb. All four cannons fired out the window, leaving the card in shreds. "Rumor Mill can melt someone from the inside out," she sat behind Rumor and drummed her fingers in midair above his head, the same way one would do when telling a scary story. Rumor covered a hand over his braided crown and used the other to push her off the bed. "And I'm pretty sure Taxi Cab could shatter a person's skull in one punch." Sara shimmied over to Cab and flicked his arm. "Does that mean that our Stands are only capable of harming others? Of course not." She walked over to Michelle and rested a hand on her shoulder, though the gesture was quickly nudged away. "It's how we use them that matters. From what I saw, you seem to have good control over yours."

Pinching the ridge of her nose, Michelle exhaled. Sara didn't understand. But the three of them had already seen Iron Maiden before, so what was the harm in showing them again? So long as she didn't use its stopping touch, nothing bad should happen, right? "If I show you, will you leave me alone?"

"Sara? Leave someone alone?" Rumor chuckled and sat up. "No guarantees."

"I'm being serious," Michelle emphasized.

"Yes. If you show me your Stand one more time, I'll leave you be." She didn't flinch or hesitate as she said that, looking Michelle in the eye and extending her hand out to her. Though her lips were still curled up in a smile, now it was slight, barely noticeable even—probably the closest to a serious face Sara could muster. This was her being sincere.

Michelle didn't shake Sara's hand. Not because she didn't trust her, but because she was still wearing Out of Touch and she'd rather not risk getting another cannon stuck to her flesh. She nodded instead and summoned Iron Maiden, scooting to the side to give them a better view. Their jaws dropped within seconds. Michelle, on the other hand, clenched her teeth. Just about the only thing I inherited from Dad, and it's a monster I can't control. 

"Woah, you weren't kidding about the humanoid part," Cab commented. "And she looks totally different than Quiet Riot!"

As Michelle opened her mouth to say that humanoid Stands weren't uncommon, Rumor stood up and pranced over to Iron Maiden, staring down its features. "A Stand wearing armor...fascinating." He bounded over to the dresser, yanked open the top shelf, and snatched a small notebook and pen from it. "Does it protect you from receiving damage that your Stand takes?"

"I'm not sure, actually." She averted her gaze and thumbed at her necklace. Heat began to pile up in her cheeks; the way that the three were staring at her made her feel like an exhibit at a museum.

"Interesting." Rumor began to frantically scribble into the notebook. "How durable is that shield of yours? If it were to break, would it remain broken or would it regenerate over time?"

"Umm..."

"Do these engravings on the shield hold any significant meaning to you spiritually or emotionally?"

"I don't know what that..."

"Can you see through Iron Maiden's eyes? How durable is the rest of its body when compared to yours? Why does it lack a mouth?"

Cab threw the remote at Rumor's back. "Rumor, buddy, you're starting to freak her out."

Freak me out? How would he know that? Does his Stand give him some sort of mind control abilities? A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead. Michelle shakily rose her hand to wipe it away. Shaky? I'm trembling, she realized, and forced her body rigid and her face taciturn. No shit he figured that out. How could I be more obvious? Damn me for forgetting myself like that.

The clap of Rumor shutting his book nearly made her jump. "My apologies. It was not my intention to frighten you." He laid the book down on the nightstand and tucked the pen behind his ear. "I only desire to gain a deeper understanding of these special abil...Stands," he corrected himself as he sat back down on his bed.

An excited grin sprung up on Sara's face again. "If you really want to see something worth writing about, she can like, stop things in place and make sure that nothing can ever move them. Remember when that car crashed into me?"

One of the boys muttered "How could we forget," but Michelle did not recognize whose voice it was. Perhaps it was both.

"Well, I was completely fine thanks to her Stand! Chelly, you've got to give the guys a demonstration." Sara eagerly rubbed her hands together.

Frustrated, Michelle balled her hands into fists. Unbelievable. It was almost as if the girl wanted to die. "No. That wasn't part of our deal." She called Iron Maiden back and swung the door open. "Now, if you'll excuse me." With that, she marched out the door, not even bothering to shut it. A sigh of relief breathed from her lips as she loosened her shoulders. Finally, sweet freedom. She felt like skipping in pure joy. Now I can go home, make some dinner, and decompress. It's been a long day. The elevator was in sight. From Michelle's point of view, it was just as well the gateway to paradise.

"Remember, no guarantees that Sara won't continue stalking you," Cab's voice emerged from behind her.

The statement skidded her gleeful frolic to a halt, as if someone had tied an anchor to her legs. He had a point. Sara had been relentless in following her ever since first seeing Iron Maiden, Rumor's psychotic fascination with transcribing all of her abilities only enabled her, and she didn't trust Cab to try to stop them from continuing to do either. How long were the three of them staying in Paris, anyways? Michelle cursed herself for not thinking to ask. They could just as easily leave the next day or the next month. If it was the latter, she honestly didn't know if she had the mental fortitude to endure the three of them stalking her for that long, and that was without considering the Italian from the graveyard and masked woman that apparently wanted her head or the fact that all three of them were already cursed. True, Sara had given her word, but what was that worth?

She stomped back to room 324. As much as she had wanted to avoid it, she needed to explain herself. Thoroughly. They'd never learn otherwise. All eyes were on her as she entered the room again, as if they had been expecting her to come back.

"Listen," Michelle opened with. "There is a reason that I won't...can't show you my Stand. It's for your own safety." She stared at the floor, not wanting to see their faces fall with despair at what she had to say next. "Iron Maiden is cursed; people that see it always wind up dying an early and tragic death. Including the three of you. I recommend that all of you wrap up any unfinished business that you may have, because you don't have much time left to live. I'm sorry." That last part she said quietly, more to herself than any of them. "I shouldn't have used Iron Maiden on you, Sara. You would've been better off just getting hit by that car."

Michelle folded her arms over her chest and started to inch her way towards the door. Now that the horrible truth was out in the open, she felt like retreating to some far-off cave and never emerging again. "I'm sorry," she repeated.

"Well, that's just silly talk." Michelle looked up to see Sara staring back at her with a creased brow. Cab looked similarly displeased, while Rumor's eyebrows shot up in disbelief and was visibly shaking. "I'd be in the hospital right now if you hadn't saved me."

"That's better than being dead."

"I just don't get it. How could something like that end up killing me?"

Was there nothing that could convince her? Michelle bit her lip. As much as she wanted to close her mouth and never speak again, Sara needed to understand. "Maybe it would be better if I explained it to you." She walked further into the room and took a seat in the armchair. "There's a lot to cover so please, bear with me."

"We won't interrupt you until you're done," Sara said.

Before she did anything else, Michelle closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. She hadn't opened up about any of this to anyone, let alone a group of tourists. How would they react? Would they call the police? Would she be able to disclose it all without bursting into tears? No, she stopped herself as her hand rose to fiddle with her necklace again, remember why you're doing this. She opened her eyes and looked back at her audience with determination.

"My dad was a Stand user, too," she began. "His Stand's name was Silver Chariot. It had unparalleled speed and precision with its sword; he used to boast that he could cut a bullet out of the air. I was always able to see Chariot, long before I first summoned my Stand. But when I did first summon Iron Maiden, mon dieu, he was so proud of me." She leaned back and chuckled at the nostalgia. "I showed it to him as soon as I could. He was the only Stand user I knew, so he was the only other person who saw it. Then, I think it was a few days later, he went to Italy for some important business trip. He never came back." She swallowed the lump that began to form in her throat. "I don't want to believe it, but deep down in my heart I know he's dead."

She took a deep breath. Stay strong. You can do this.

"My dad was not a pushover. When he said he could slice a bullet out of the air, he meant it," she clarified. "I don't believe that he would've gone down easily. So I don't know what else could've...whatever the case may be, before he left he said that he'd teach me how to use my Stand when he got back. I waited for him." Michelle sighed, staring off into the distance. "And waited, and waited, and waited; and eventually I figured that if he was coming back, I might as well impress him with how I learned to use it all on my own. But at the same time, I had no idea where to start. I didn't want anyone to see me mess up and think I was weird or incompetent. Not even my mom knew. The next 'person' to 'see' Iron Maiden was actually my dog, Pop. I used to keep the ball suspended in midair when we played fetch. On my 10th birthday, I took him out to the dog park. He was attacked by a Rottweiler."

She blenched as the memory of her puppy being brutally mauled resurfaced. The feeling of Pop's bloody fur as she carried him away buzzed on her fingertips, the sight of her bloody hands as she grazed his neck to inspect the damage reflected in her eyes, and the sound of his quiet whimpers echoes in her ears. "We ended up having to put him down."

To ward the memory away, Michelle pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them, the light touch rooting her back in reality. She was suddenly very aware of the three faces staring back at her. "I'm sorry...I don't talk about this stuff," she sniffled. "I don't know if I can get through it all."

"You've come this far. I have every faith that you can finish," Rumor reassured.

"T-thanks." I have to get through this to make sure they leave me alone for good, Michelle reminded herself. "Where was I, again?"

"At you putting your dog down," Cab bluntly said.

"Oh, right." Michelle dropped her knees and sat up straight. "My dog definitely wasn't a Stand user, but he saw me use my Stand. Multiple times, too. And because of it, he died a cruel and early death."

Cab rolled his eyes. "That's correlation, not causa..."

"A little while later," Michelle said quickly, eager to not lose her nerve, "I finally told my mom about Iron Maiden. I remember that she was a little confused as to why I didn't tell her for so long, but other than that she was happy that I had a Stand of my own, just like dad had one. One of the first things she did after finding out was give Iron Maiden a hug, even if she couldn't see or touch it. After that, I started to use it a bit more casually, like during chores and to get things I otherwise couldn't reach." she shook her head. How foolish she used to be. "I didn't know what I was doing back then. When I was 13, Mom got pneumonia. The doctors said it would go away and that it wasn't that bad, but it just kept on getting worse and worse until it...killed her."

Shame scalded her soul as tears began to roll down her cheeks. How pathetic. Here she was, sobbing in front of a group of strangers at the undeniable truth. The pneumonia didn't kill her. I did. 

New tears coated over the trails of the old ones that Michelle wiped away. She sharply exhaled and stared off into space for a moment, waiting for her eye's natural dam to barricade anymore tears that threatened to spill. "After that," she eventually continued, "I started to live with my grandmother at her apartment in Paris. She was never really close with me or my parents growing up, but she was the only family I had left. I never told her about Iron Maiden. She wasn't a Stand user and I doubt she knew my dad was one, so I didn't see the point. Honestly, I was scared she might've called me a freak and threw me out on the streets." A mirthless smile formed for just a moment. Not like it mattered much in the end, anyway. "I had to enroll in a completely new school, too. I never really connected with anyone I met, so I mostly kept to myself. Probably for the best. Though eventually, word got out about my talent for mimicking other people's signatures, and..."

Sara quirked her head to the side. "Wait, what?"

"Sara, please don't interrupt," Rumor sternly scolded.

"I'm sorry, but could you please elaborate on the whole 'mimicking other people's signatures' thing?"

Michelle shrugged. "I've always been good at copying signatures," she bluntly answered.

"Seems like a weird skill to have," Sara commented.

An agitated puff blew from Michelle's nose as she folded her arms. Was she really expected to detail her entire backstory today? "When I was really little," she elaborated, "I wanted to be a Disney princess at one of the theme parks. After I found out that they all had to learn the same signatures for each character so that they were all consistent, I started to copy all the signatures I had in my autograph book. Then I started copying my mom's signature, then my dad's, and it just sort of took off from there. Actually, ever since I was in primary school, I've run a sort of 'black market' where I would sign off other kids' report cards or misbehavior slips for their parents if they gave me a signature to copy. So once word got out about that at my new school in Paris, I started up that 'business' again."

Cab snickered. "Not very princess-like of you."

"Is that why you froze up when I said that you had probably done something illegal? Because if so, that's really no big deal to me. I think it's super cool that you were able to make money off of it!" Sara flashed an understanding grin.

Rumor massaged his temples and sighed. "Not everyone's done something illegal, Sara, you're just a kleptomaniac."

Sara's nostrils flared. Without losing her smile or breaking eye contact with Michelle, she stomped on Rumor's foot. He let out a pained yipe. Muffled giggles came from Cab's direction.

"Well," Sara implored as if the boy sitting next to her wasn't gingerly massaging his toes, "am I right?"

"No, not exactly," Michelle answered. "Outside of my little business, I never really talked to the other kids at school. But even despite that, when I was 15, a boy named Luca asked me out."

An excited squee from Sara filled the room. "Ooh, you've got a boyfri-"

"We went on one date to the movies," Michelle groaned. "Honestly, I don't remember what we saw, but it must've been long; by the time it was over, it was already dark out. Somehow, we didn't finish all of our popcorn. Neither of us had a car or could even drive yet, so my grandma offered to drive him home. I tripped on my way to the car and nearly dropped our leftovers. Iron Maiden came out and stopped the popcorn from falling. Right there, in front of both Luca and my grandma. I don't know what I was thinking. I hadn't used my Stand in public for years. Luca's house was a ways from the city. I honestly don't know why he went to our school when he lived so far away and out in the middle of nowhere. But during the car ride home..."

Her body seized up as she was consumed by the thought of the crash. It felt like she was still back there, stuck in a capsized car, her body wedged between the back of the driver's seat and the window. The strap of her seatbelt secured her in place like a harness after her own seat fell out beneath her. The cacophony of metal colliding and glass shattering, a strangled scream beside her, then only the sound of various alarm systems sputtering in and out rang in her ears all at once. She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt her eyes water again.

"...there was an accident," she grimly finished. "My grandmother's neck was snapped, and Luca went flying through the windshield. The guy in the other car was dead on impact as well. Me? I got away with only a few bruises."

The small gasp that Sara made pulled Michelle back to reality, the memory of the crash fading back to her subconscious. A shaky sigh passed her lips. Was she still crying? It hardly mattered at this point.

"We were out in the middle of nowhere. I was completely alone. Even the birds had flown away from the wreck. Rather than panic in the capsized car, I took a second to think. My father. My dog. My mother. And now, my would-be boyfriend, my grandmother, and some random civilian. All of them had died not long after seeing Iron Maiden, specifically after seeing it use its ability to cancel out force on an object. It was in that moment, as I was strapped to my seat within an arm's reach of my grandmother's corpse, that something dawned on me." She sat up straight and stared the group down. "My Stand is cursed," she declared with vigor. "Cursed with the ability to prematurely kill those that witness its ability. Stand user or not, related or not, human or not, it doesn't matter. And now, it had become strong enough to pull people completely unrelated into its trap. I made up my mind; I would not rope anyone else into my life."

She clenched the fabric of the chair and stared at the floor. Should she continue? This was all that needed to be said. No, she realized, they're going to start asking questions if I don't answer them now. Better to get it over with.

"I broke free from the car, then had Iron Maiden hull my grandmother out." Her voice was low and hushed. "I suppose I should consider myself lucky; the crash happened right by a lake, and my grandmother had always said that she'd like to be buried at sea. I stuffed some rocks down her clothes, threw her in the water, and prayed to god that no one would find her body. When the police came, I told them that I had stolen the car while my grandmother was out of town."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sara cover her mouth with wide eyes and Cab slowly reach out to the phone on the nightstand. Rumor was apparently either on the edge of his seat or frozen with fear. Clearly, she needed to justify herself.

"If the government found out that my guardian was dead, they'd place me in a foster care system where I'd have to bounce back and forth between a whole bunch of foster parents." She bounced her right pointer finger off of her left palm, mimicking a paddle ball, to better visualize her point. "A whole bunch of people who could potentially be exposed to me and my Stand. I was not going to let that happen. I even dropped out of school. For almost three years now, I've been acting as my deceased grandmother. Legally, she's still alive. All of her taxes, all of the bills, everything; I've been signing them as her. In this day and age, it's surprisingly easy to do."

She leaned back and rested her elbows on the armrest of the chair. "So yeah. That's the illegal thing I've done, Sara. I've committed forgery of government documents, identity theft, and unlawful disposal of a dead body. A bit more drastic than stealing some spare change from the bellboy or helping my classmates hide their failing math grades. I'm not proud of any of it, but it had to be done in order to keep everyone else safe. That brings us to now." Finally, I'm almost done talking. "All three of you saw Iron Maiden when it protected Sara from the car, and Sara has seen its full body since. That's why I can't stay or show you my Stand's ability again, even if I wanted to. The longer I'm here, the quicker you all will die. It's destiny."

"Destiny my ass," Cab spat out. His entire demeanor changed; gone were his slumped shoulders and apathetic grin, he now sat up straight and stared daggers directly at Michelle.

Sara palmed her forehead and sighed. "Oh boy, you said the d-word. Here we go again."

"Now now Cab," reasoned Rumor, "it would be unwise to dismiss Michelle so quickly. Why don’t we let her…"

"Don’t listen to them." Cab never broke eye contact with Michelle. "Hear me out on this, ok?"

She retreated back into her seat a bit. "I’m not sure I understand what…"

"You will," he reassured. "Now, let’s say I’m walking down the street, on my way to get a bite to eat at my favorite restaurant." He extended his right hand out and pointed two fingers down, miming a person walking with them. "The route from my house to the restaurant is one that I’ve walked several times in my life, so many times that I could even walk it blindfolded. It's my favorite restaurant, after all. I pulled an all-nighter the night before in order to study for my math final. So I’m tired, half asleep even, and I’m not really paying attention to what’s in front of me."

Sara rolled her eyes and mouthed along to Cab's speech.

"Now, some guy’s rushing past me on my left." Cab's left hand mimicked his right. "Unlike me, he overslept. His wife, who usually acts as his personal alarm clock, was out of town to visit her twin cousins for their birthday. So now he’s late to work, and he’s running past me. He’s not paying attention to where he’s walking either. The two of us bump into each other." He walked his hands into each other. "Would you consider that destiny, or just a coincidence?"

"Uh..." Michelle's eyes wandered to the side. What did this have to do with anything? Did he not understand the danger that he was in by continuing to talk to her? He huffed and blew at some stray hairs. Couldn't hurt to humor him. "Destiny?"

Cab grinned in satisfaction. "It’s actually a trick question. It’s neither. Us bumping into each other was the product of our choices. That’s the way the world works. It’s like chemistry: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Whatever you want to call it; destiny, fate, karma, luck; none of it's real. Everything in life is decided by our choices. Do you see what I’m getting at here?"

If I just smile and nod, maybe he'll let me go, Michelle realized. Would that satisfy him though? She eyeballed the ceiling and slowly tapped her foot in contemplation. Probably not. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. Her foot stopped tapping and she shook her head in response.

"Well then, let’s go back to me bumping into that guy on the street." He brought his left hand up again and walked it over to the deck of cards on the nightstand. If that guy lost his balance and fell face first into the chest of a woman walking by on her way to meet with her boyfriend and then she called him a pervert," he tripped his fingers onto the deck of cards, causing a few to go tumbling off the nightstand, "as crazy as it sounds, it was a product of all three of our choices. It’s no one’s 'fault,' since none of us intended for that outcome, but we all contributed to making that interaction happen. Now instead, let’s say that right as I bumped into him, an earthquake happened." Cab slammed his fist against the nightstand. The remaining cards toppled over to the floor. "Just because we bumped into each other right as the earthquake started doesn’t mean that we made it happen. It was the cause of years of tectonic activity, not two strangers bumping into each other on the street. That’s correlation, not causation."

He shifted his attention back to Michelle and pointed at her. "Your 'curse' can’t be real because the way you describe it implies that your Stand can directly influence other people and phenomenon into reality without the proper cause and effect. Your dog didn’t die because it saw your Stand, it died because it did something to piss off the dog that attacked it. You didn’t get into that car accident because you stopped that popcorn from falling, you got into it because your grandma wasn’t paying attention or the guy driving the other car was drunk or something."

"Cab, do mind your manners," Rumor chastised as he picked up the cards from the floor and shuffled them. "That’s an awfully calloused thing to say, isn’t it?"

"Yeah, it is," responded Cab. "But the world’s an ugly place. Buttering up the truth with ideas of fate, like we’re all pulled in by gravity to some predetermined result no matter what we do, doesn’t make it any better. Your Stand can’t doom people to die because to do so would imply creating fate itself."

"And who's to say it can't?" Michelle frowned and folded her arms. "Stands aren't chemistry. A simple touch really might be all that Iron Maiden needs to doom someone. How do you know you're right?"

Sara pounded her fist on the bedframe. "It doesn't matter who's right!"

The others diverted their focus to her. She stared straight ahead with a scowl on her face. Michelle was taken aback—until now, she thought Sara was incapable of losing her temper.

"Sorry." She cleared her throat and took a few deep breaths. With each one, a bit of her frown melted away and a bit of her smile took its place. "As you can probably tell, Chelly, Cab has had this conversation with me and Rumor before. I'm not as...um, dedicated to the ideology as he is, but I do agree with the sentiment. And I don't think that Iron Maiden is a curse. How could something that saved my life and literally has a giant shield be dangerous?"

Michelle groaned. "You don't understand, it's..."

"But," Sara lifted her finger, "if you really do believe that and aren't ready to open up to us yet, then I'll respect that. You can go. I promise I won't follow you."

The boys simultaneously rose their brows at her in disbelief. The sentiment was shared by Michelle, who just blinked at her.

"What?" Sara nervously laughed. "Did you expect me to like, tie her up and force her to come with us? That's just weird. She can go if she wants to."

"In any event," Rumor stood up and walked over to Michelle, kneeling in front of her chair so that they were face-level, "there's something that you need to know, Michelle."

"What's that?"

"There's a group of Stand users that Sara, Cab and I have decided to label as 'Masqueraders," he exclaimed. "If undisturbed, they'll behave normally—they don't even seem to realize that they're wearing a mask. However, the very instant that they see a Stand, they'll become aggressive and unresponsive to verbal cues. They will try to attack the opposing Stand until it has been withdrawn or until they have been neutralized." He quickly fetched his notebook from the nightstand and began to flip through its pages. "They're all identified by a dark red masquerade mask. I'm almost certain that the masks themselves are a Stand in and of themselves." Rumor presented a sketch of the masks in question to her. Michelle's eyes widened. It matched with the mask that Bad Sneakers' user had been wearing. "People without Stands cannot see them."

"Oh yeah, you told me that the lady you ran into in the bathroom was wearing a mask," Sara commented. "Was it one of those?"

Michelle slowly nodded.

"Oh dear." Rumor scratched the back of his head as he put his notebook aside. "They're spreading."

"What do you mean spreading?" Michelle's voice came out as a timid squeak. She didn't hear it; her ever increasing heartbeat deafened most of the noise of the outside world.

"I met Sara and Cab in Spain," Rumor explained, "and before that, they were traveling together in America. I've been running into Masqueraders on my own for a while now, and their first encounter with one was at the Denver International Airport. However, this is the first time I've seen or heard of one in France. I was hoping that they were only localized to Spain and Italy with the one straggler in Denver, but it seems that's not the case." He glanced at the ceiling and tapped his foot. "Although, I suppose it does make sense that there would be a lot here as well," he mumbled. "France does connect the two after all."

"You mean that there's probably more of them here?" She felt her hand raise up to fiddle with her necklace once again, her body moving on its own.

"Most likely, yes."

"Under Rumor's working theory that these masks are all part of a Stand, whoever that Stand's user is needs to physically put the masks onto people, so they need to be where the masked people are," Cab added. "Apparently there was a whole shitpile of Masqueraders in Italy, and the three of us ran into five of them in Spain. Doesn't it seem weird that only one person in the country's biggest city would be masked, even when there's clearly more Stand users out there?"

Michelle gulped. As much as she didn't want to admit it, they were right. Paris wasn't safe anymore. "I guess, yeah..." 

"So far, these masked individuals are passive unless provoked, and you clearly don't seem like the provoking type." Rumor rested his hand on Michelle's knee. "But I must implore you to..."

As soon as the feeling of Rumor's hand on her leg registered in her brain, Michelle rose from her chair. "C-can I stay with you guys for a while?" She asked much louder than she should have.

Sara's already elated smile shone just a bit brighter and she clapped her hands in delight. "Oh yeah, absolutely! Finally, we get another girl with us. These guys are great and all, but you have no idea how..."

"Hey, wait," Cab interrupted. "Just a second ago you were about ready to leave because you think your Stand has some kind of curse or whatever. Now you want to travel with us. Why the sudden change of heart?"

"If there really are more Masqueraders here in Paris, I can't risk getting attacked by them. If I have to bring my Stand out in public, the results could be catastrophic." She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. I wouldn't have to rely on a bunch of strangers if my Stand weren't a walking disaster magnet. "I hate to ask this of you guys, especially considering that we just met, but I need to have other Stand users to rely on." She turned to Rumor. "You said that you ran into a shitpile of them in Italy?"

Rumor pinched the ridge of his nose and sighed. "Cab said that I ran into a shitpile of them," he clarified, "I do not use such vulgarities. But yes, I ran into so many that I eventually stopped counting how many there were. My current hypothesis is that Italy is where these Masqueraders originated."

"I think I know who their leader may be," Michelle proclaimed. "The Master of the Masquerade, if you will."

All three of them shot their eyebrows up in surprise, though Cab lowered his into a quizzical frown. Rumor gasped and reached for his notebook, while Sara triumphantly placed her hands on her hips and scoffed.

"See, another reason that I was right for 'stalking' her, as you so delicately put it," she commented.

Rumor bit the tip of his pen. "That's a serious accusation, Michelle. What makes you say that?"

"I was visiting the cemetery earlier today, before I bumped into you guys." Michelle nearly laughed. The whole thing felt like it happened a whole lifetime ago. "That cemetery is usually pretty quiet, and even when there are other people there, they usually mind their business. But today, someone who I've never met before talked to me while I was visiting my parents' graves. Someone with an Italian accent and a sinister aura who claimed to know my father. My dad's been dea..." the word caught in her throat, "gone for almost ten years now. Why would he show up now, of all times? At first, I thought that he might've been his killer. But the fact that I ran into a Masquerader just a few minutes after meeting him? That can't be a coincidence. He's not only who killed my father, but he's the leader of the Masqueraders!"

Cab's lips twisted into a sly smirk. "Oh, the man who killed your father? So you admit it wasn't your Stand's 'curse?'"

Sara shot him a quick glare. "Cab, don't be a dick for like, two seconds. She has her reasons."

Actually, Michelle realized, didn't the man at the cemetery see Iron Maiden too? If he did, he couldn't possibly be dead yet. Otherwise, all of the masks would vanish along with him. If they are a part of his Stand, that is.

"I don't quite see your train of thought," Rumor confessed, "but that's a better lead than anything we've got. What did he look like?"

Michelle tapped her chin as she tried to recall his face. "Well, he didn't really look Italian, despite the fact that he had an Italian accent. Blond hair, blue eyes, but he looked vaguely Asian as well. A little bit taller than me." She motioned her hand about an inch above the top of her head. "He was wearing a super fancy suit with ladybug accessories, so whoever he is, he comes from some serious money. Oh, and his bangs were curled like..." she paused. How was she supposed to describe them? They looked like someone had stuck three donuts to his hairline. She swirled her fingers in circles on her upper forehead, hoping that it got her point across. "He also carried a purse with him. I think I saw him talk into it before he approached me. Maybe it's how he commands the Masqueraders?"

I hope it's that, because I don't want to think about all the horrible things a man like him would carry with him, she postulated.

"I see," Rumor commented as he began to jot down the man's description in his notebook. "It's impossible to say for sure whether or not he's the mastermind behind all of this, but I will admit that his behavior does sound awfully suspect. I will keep an eye out for him."

"For what it's worth, I haven't run into anyone like that before," added Sara. "But that's our guy, huh? The Master of the Masquerade?"

Michelle nodded. "I'd put my money on it."

The three of them looked back at her and nodded back, even Cab, who seemed almost reluctant to do so. Maybe it was the sight of the sun setting outside the window, maybe it was the fact that they were the first and only people to know her secret, maybe it was the fact that too damn much had happened today, but Michelle sensed a genuine bond beginning to form between her and them. At the very least, the warmness of their smiles seemed inviting.

Even to a recluse like her, it was evident that this was the beginning of a voyage.

Chapter Text

BEEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEP!

Michelle groaned at the sound of her alarm clock. It couldn't possibly be morning; it was far too early for that. Her eyelids still felt heavy, her mattress too comfortable. Hardly a wink of sleep graced her the night before. How could she sleep when her mind was still racing from everything that had happened? Not only had she agreed to travel with a group of fellow Stand users, but her father's killer had returned with an army of masked, mind-controlled lackeys at his command.

BEEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEP!

On top of that, she had agreed to meet back up with them in the wee hours of the morning: 9 AM. "The early bird gets the worm," Sara had told her before she left the hotel for her apartment, "and you're treating us to breakfast." Her alarm had been set for 8:15—she needed time to pack her things and get ready, after all—but there was just no way it was that time already. She rolled over on her other side and faced the window, only to be blasted by the morning sun peeking through her curtains.

BEEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEP!

"Five more minutes..." Michelle grumbled as she sandwiched her head between her pillow and mattress. "Be quiet, you stupid clock..."

BEEEEEEEEEEP! BEEEEEE—

SLAM!

The sound made her heart jumpstart. She tossed her pillow to the side and sat up in bed, her eyes wide and anxious. What the hell was that? Endless possibilities played through her mind—someone could have broken in, another Stand battle could be happening right outside her door, or maybe the person living in the apartment on the floor above her collapsed. Maybe even all three!

She turned around to see Iron Maiden perched over her nightstand, its shield wedged inside her now shattered alarm clock. It emitted a few more weak beeps before the LED numbers blinked off. Bits of wires and plastic crumbled to the floor as Iron Maiden lifted its shield.

Michelle sighed and rose from her bed. "Well, I'm up now," she yawned as she withdrew her Stand.

Apprehensively, she reached over to inspect the damage done to her alarm clock. When she grabbed it, half of the clock dangled below the rest, being held together by a few stray wires. Said wires snapped as she tried to pull its plug from the wall. Michelle rolled her eyes. This is the second time this week that Iron Maiden's come out without me directing it to. Usually I'm in more control than this. She chucked the broken clock into the trash can by the door, missing it by an inch or so. I wonder if it has something to do with that Italian mask guy I met at the cemetery?

From the part of her window that remained unobscured by her curtains, it seemed to be a nice day out. The sun shone radiantly in the sky, there were just enough clouds to trap in the heat, and best of all, there didn't seem to be many people out today. She smiled and stretched her arms. Perfect weather to start travelling with a bunch of strangers on the run from a cult of masked Stand users.

Something clicked in her head mid-stretch. I'm going to be travelling with Sara and the others for a long time, aren't I? Her face went white as some of the things she said to them replayed through her head.

"Are you happy to sit there and chirp like a bird?"

"I don't know how else to make it clear to you that I do not want to talk."

"That wasn't part of our deal. Now, if you'll excuse me."

"I've committed forgery of government documents, identity theft, and unlawful disposal of a dead body."

She lowered her arms and stared at the ground. I didn't make the best first impression. Regret brewed inside of her as she shuffled over to her closet. For a moment, she wondered how she would react to someone who told her she sounded like a bird and that they had indirectly murdered their whole family. Honestly, I'd probably find the first excuse to get as far away from them as possible, she realized as she dressed into fresh clothes, but that's more because I'm a damn coward. She swung her closet door open further and dug through shoes and old boxes she never bothered to unpack after moving in with her grandmother. Will those guys even bother to stick around? What if they've reported me to the police?

A dry chuckle rumbled in her stomach. Either way, she thought as she tossed an old yet unused suitcase from her closet, I need to start packing.

Dresses, coats, underwear, boots; Michelle dumped about a quarter of her wardrobe into her luggage. Only time could tell how long she'd be gone, and she had to prepare clothes for every occasion. Pearl-studded belt? Can't live without it. She added it to the pile. Knit cardigan? Oh, absolutely. She flung it behind her. Heart bracelets? She paused. Yesterday must've really tired her out—For two years now, her daily routine had been to leave them on her nightstand. How'd they end up in her closet? Without a second thought, she slipped them on her wrists.

Looking back at the mountain of garments she had amassed, she felt her heart sink. It was stacked taller than the suitcase itself. How could that be? She had only just begun packing. If she couldn't even fit her clothes in the bag, how could she possibly fit in everything else she needed? Books, snacks, hair-care supplies; all of the essentials, really. She wouldn't be caught dead travelling without a hairdryer.

Undeterred, Michelle placed two hands on the top of the pile and pushed down, as if she were giving her clothes CPR. They hardly budged.

She crossed her arms and snorted. Well, if you're so eager to come out, Michelle thought with contempt as she summoned her Stand, then you can at least help me out. As directed by its user, Iron Maiden laid its shield down on the pile of clothes and thrust downwards. The pile still resisted.

Michelle groaned, suddenly thankful that she had never traveled much in the past.

~~~~~

After what felt like hours of nonstop packing, Michelle busted through the door to her apartment with an additional suitcase in tow. The situation she found herself in was oddly sentimental; standing in front of an open door with a pair of suitcases in tow. Just like when I moved here after Mom died, she recalled. Her heartbeat quickened, and she turned around to give the apartment one last look.

The rows of potted plants that sat by the kitchen window, all of which she had named and often ranted to about her day. Her computer, the bulky monitor sitting on the living room, often the only way she interacted with the outside world. Even the bathroom, her personal, private bathroom—if yesterday had taught her anything, it was to be wary of public restrooms. All of those subtle comforts had been engrained in her daily routine for years now. She could still remember moving in for the first time, the memory of her grandmother showing her around tugging at her psyche. Was she really about to give all of it up to travel with a bunch of tourists?

She shook her head. What am I thinking? It's not like I'm leaving this place for good. Whether it's a month or just a few days, I'll be back home once this Masquerader thing blows over. It'll be like none of it ever happened.

Lugging her suitcases through the doorway, she took the first step of her voyage. She locked the door behind her and plodded towards the exit, not daring to look back. The dull whir of the suitcases' wheels drowned out the little voice in hear head saying no, turn back now while you can, this is a bad idea. Her light steps turned into hearty stomps in an attempt to silence that voice. Don't look back. As she turned to exit the building, one of the suitcases teetered off-balance and toppled over. Michelle deeply exhaled at the realization that she'd have to carry these around with her as long as she was on the road.

Leaning down to assess the damage—thank goodness none of the wheels had fallen off—Michelle noticed Sara, Cab, and Rumor all waiting outside through the glass door of the apartment complex. Cab and Rumor were chatting amongst themselves, or perhaps arguing, from the way Cab threw his hands in the air and Rumor left his planted on his hips; while Sara snapped pictures of everything around her. Her camera locked with Michelle, and for a brief moment, the two of them froze in place. Michelle froze like a deer in headlights when the lens zoomed in on her. Sara snapped one last photo before lowering her camera and waving at her new companion.

"Hey, Chelly! Michelle! Hi!" Her voice was muffled through the door, but it still carried through as clear as ever. "It's me, Sara! And Cab and Rumor are here, too! You didn't forget us, did you? We totally haven't been waiting out here for like, five minutes. You're on time, don't worry! But you need to show us a good place to get breakfast! We're hungry!"

Michelle let Sara continue rattle off her demands as she stood up and walked out the door. "You really thought I'd forget about you?"

Sara paused mid-sentence, her entire body froze like a statue as she processed what had just been said. Michelle flicked her gaze over her shoulder to make sure she hadn't accidentally activated Iron Maiden again. Sure enough, it wasn't there, and Sara's stance relaxed itself.

"No, of course not," she said, "but like, you were taking a while to come out and then Cab joked that I scared you off and you had run away on your own, and I was like, 'oh my god, what if I did?' Then I was like, 'maybe she ran into a Stand user that wiped away her memories and she needs our help!' I dunno, you were just taking so long and—"

"Sara, it's only been five minutes since we arrived here," Rumor noted, staring down at his watch. "We agreed to convene with Michelle at 9:00. It's 9:03." He pulled his sleeve back over his watch and sighed. "Patience is a virtue that you must learn to possess."

"I'm plenty patient," Sara rebutted, "you were the one that insisted we got out of bed because you woke early and wanted food."

Michelle giggled as Rumor's face turned beet red. Flustered, he pulled his scarf over his face. "That is beside the point."

"No, she's right," Cab added, playfully slapping between his shoulder blades, "you interrupted our beauty sleep, man. And now look where it's gotten us! You rushed poor Michelle. Really, you ought to apologize."

Pulling his scarf back down, Rumor furrowed his brow and snorted at Cab. His expression softened when he turned to Michelle and said, "my apologies if our arriving early caused you any stress."

"Um, actually," Michelle interjected before either of them could continue, "I think that um, I need to apologize."

As the three of them shifted their attention to her, she stared at the ground. Self-conscious thoughts bubbled up in her skull. Shit, do they think I'm weird or something now? They probably already do. Dammit, dammit, dammit, I shouldn't have told them everything yesterday. But if I don't say anything now, they're gonna think I'm even more weird, so...

"I-I'm sorry for my behavior yesterday." She paused to clear her throat, then stared at them head on. "I wasn't very kind to you guys. Especially you, Sara. Like when I, uh, kneed you in the chest and stuff. That wasn't very nice of me."

Sara dismissively flicked the back of her hand. "Don't sweat it. You've got nothing to apologize for. Cab and Rumor just about killed each other when they first met, and now look at them!"

Michelle recalled to about a second ago when Rumor looked ready to shoot Cab in the head.

"So compared to them, you kneeing me in the chest is no big whoop," she continued. "Besides, you had your reasons."

"And you didn't skip out on us," noted Cab, tilting his head to the suitcases. "You sure that's all you want to bring? You're traveling fairly light."

"Light?" Michelle's brows shot up. Just about half of her wardrobe had been crammed into two tiny suitcases, how on Earth was that light? "How much luggage do you guys have with you?"

"I have three suitcases, Rumor's only got a duffle bag, and Sara has..." he narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips together, as if he was trying to spot the exact number somewhere in the distance. Eventually he gave up his search and shrugged. "Too many to count," he admitted.

Sara folded her arms and proudly lifted her head. "Seven in total."

"Sept?" Michelle's jaw dropped. "Seven?"

"Yup!" She flashed a grin. "All my stuff is in there."

Cab snickered. "Yeah, maybe all the stuff you've stolen."

The prideful and confident demeanor left Sara in an instant, and she spun on her heels to face him with righteous indignation. "I'm not a thief! Why do you keep saying that?"

He mockingly tapped his finger to his chin. "Hmm, I don't know. Maybe something to do with a certain white Renault?"

"You stole that car just as much as I did!" Sara punctuated her point by prodding his pec.

With widened eyes, Michelle pulled her suitcases just a bit closer to her. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Let the record show that I wanted nothing to do with it," Rumor claimed.

"Ok, so," Sara explained, "back in Spain, we stopped at some random bar before crossing the border to France. Absolutely wild that the drinking age in most of Europe is 18, by the way. Means I can drag these two to get drinks with me. Anyways, this guy came up and started hitting on me. Not even the sweet, kind of earnest type of flirting that you just take with a smile before telling them to hit the road, this dude was actually a creep. He started feeling me up and I saw him put something in my drink. Then I called him out for it, and he was like 'I don't know what you're talking about, go on and have a sip babe.' So I splashed it in his face. Then the douchebag grabbed a knife and started slashing at me! Luckily for me, Cab stepped in and..."

Despite the passion she put into telling her tale, the speed at which Sara spoke was dizzying. Michelle's brain went into overdrive as she attempted to translate and process everything that was said. She found herself mentally racing against Sara's superfluous sentences, but just as she had crossed the finish line against one, another was already halfway around the track. It was as if someone had accidentally sat on the fast-forward button on a TV remote. But asking her to slow down would be rude, right? She nodded along to mask her anxiety.

Michelle tensed up as something smooth and airy brushed up against her hand. She flinched and darted her eyes down to see what had touched her. The culprit was a folded piece of paper, one that looked like it had been hastily torn from a notebook. Golden sparks rippled around it as it hung suspended in midair, the same golden sparks that had overlaid The Chain when Rumor had healed her arm. Even as she lifted her hand away, the paper was drawn to her like a magnet, and continued to hover by her.

Just as Rumor had said, Hamon was indeed a versatile energy.

She snatched the paper from the air and opened it. A message had been scribed inside, written in French. Interesting, Michelle thought, I didn't think he was multilingual.

If Sara's ramblings ever become too grating, the message read, you can ask me or Cab to silence her. I understand that her garrulous nature can be intimidating at times, so if you ever feel overwhelmed, I will not hesitate to discreetly get her to stop. Also, you have my sincerest apologies if we rushed you at all this morning.

The slightest of smiles blossomed on Michelle's face as she crumpled the paper up in her hand. She briefly shifted her attention to Rumor, who was eagerly staring at her like a child asking their mother for candy, and nodded. His posture laxed somewhat as he returned the gesture.

"...and yeah, I shot at him, but we're the only ones who can see Out of Touch, so it's bullshit that we got kicked out! So, we got back at him by stealing his car," Sara finished. "Perfect timing to get sexually harassed. I was getting tired of carrying all my luggage around."

Just as Sara paused to take a breath, Cab stepped forwards and spoke over her. "Speaking of which, I'll take your stuff to the car for you, Michelle."

Michelle rolled the handles to her suitcases in her hands and thought over his offer. If their car is stolen, is it a good idea to place my stuff in it? Maybe it would be a good idea if I just carried all my stuff with me. She prepared to reject his offer and pushed the suitcases a little bit further away from him, only to be reminded of how heavy they were.

"Yes, please," she responded without second thought.

Quiet Riot's arms popped out of Cab's shoulders and pilfered the two pieces of baggage from Michelle, lifting them off the ground and bringing them over to its user. Michelle almost rolled her eyes. Showoff.

Dragging the suitcases behind him like they were featherweights, Cab turned around and strolled away from the group and down the street. "You guys go on ahead and get food," he called out, "I'll catch up in a bit. Wouldn't want Rumor to get any crankier."

Rumor's hot-blooded scowl returned and he flung a pen at his ally. Quiet Riot grabbed it out of the air just as it was about to nick its user's ear, Cab not even bothering to turn around. The Stand spun the pen around in its hands for a moment before holstering it in one of Cab's oversized pockets. Rumor growled and flipped his scarf. The display reminded Michelle of a peacock displaying its plumage. "I am not cranky!" Though his words were directed at Cab, at this point he had walked out of sight. "I am just...a tad famished is all."

"Don't worry Rumor Mill, we're going to get food soon." Sara comforted him by rubbing his shoulder. Given the way Rumor backed away and straightened down his sleeves, the gesture was not appreciated. "So, what'd you have in mind Chelly?"

"Oh, um," Michelle suddenly wished that she had written down her options the night before, "usually I just make myself something for breakfast. But, um...Café Bleu is only a few blocks down the street from here, and they make really good brunch. It's only, uh," she drew an angular C in the air with her finger, starting at the bottom, mimicking the path to the bistro, "a block or so away from here."

Sara beamed at Michelle and clapped her hands together. "Sounds great!" She leapt over to Michelle and looped arms with her before doing the same with Rumor. "Let's get going!"

Michelle couldn't help but feel like she was on the Yellow Brick Road as Sara cheerfully sashayed down the street, whistling a tune she didn't recognize. Maybe that was an accurate metaphor for her situation, with Sara as her Scarecrow and Rumor as her Tin Man, setting out on the path to someplace spectacular. Though I suppose that would make me the Cowardly Lion, she realized, but would that make Cab our Dorothy? 

"Merde," she whispered to herself. The swear went unheard over Sara's whistling. That's right. Cab. I didn't tell him where we're going to eat. Looking over at her companions, Sara seemed to be lost in her own concert while Rumor sped down the street, clearly leading the charge. Both were obviously eager to get food. Careful not to disrupt them, Michelle slipped her arm free from Sara's and began to tread backwards.

"Did you forget something?" Just as Michelle was about to turn her back on the group, Rumor stopped in his tracks to address her. He sounded somewhat annoyed. Sara in turn ceased whistling and snapped her head back to Michelle.

"I never told Cab where we're going to eat."

Sara lightheartedly scoffed. "No biggie. Taxi Cab's a total compass-head, I'm sure he'll be able to find us on his own."

~~~~~

Down the street, make a right turn, then turn left at the intersection. Rue des Lilas; Rumor had said that meant Lilac Street. Cab did not need to consult the notes that Sara insisted they write down whenever they parked the car, he knew how to get there by instinct. Despite being a former boxer who had taken several blows to the head, his sense of direction remained unparalleled.

"Compass-head;" among the plethora of nicknames Sara had thrown his way, that one had to be his favorite just for the irony of it. She'd called him that even before learning about his "special abilities." Cab snickered at the memory of her seeing Quiet Riot for the first time; the Stand's hands and feet were literally made up of giant compasses, yet she failed to appreciate the irony in it. Maybe she was just being polite. Maybe she was just disappointed that Quiet Riot didn't have a compass on its head like her nickname would have suggested. Or most likely, she was just blinded by the excitement of finally meeting someone else like her.

Playfully swerving Michelle's luggage around as if they were ice-skaters doing figure-eights, he took in the Parisian sights. While Sara was the type of person who liked to preserve every moment in a photograph, Cab more enjoyed to stay in the moment. Though a trail of cigarettes perpetually lined the street gutters no matter where in Europe they went, Paris in particular hide them the best, mostly under the lines of parked vehicles that formed a barricade separating the streets from the road. Trees sprouted here and there from small circles of dirt amidst the pavement, most of the shops and apartments he passed by had some sort of floral display by their doors, even stray leaves littered his path rather than plastic.

He stopped for a moment and deeply inhaled, taking in the citrusy smell of flowers and grainy smell of bread that wafted from a nearby bakery. A guy could get used to a place like this, he decided.

The serene moment was interrupted by the door of the bakery swinging open, nearly conking him in the face, and a middle-aged man being thrown out. From inside, he heard a woman hollering at the man, and though he knew next to no French at all, Cab could tell that they weren't particularly kind words. As the door slammed in their faces, the man stood up, brushed himself off, and walked off in the opposite direction as if it was a completely normal day.

Cab blinked as if the man might vanish from his field of vision if he closed his eyes. I changed my mind. Doesn't matter where in the world you are, there's always gonna be psychos.

Continuing onwards, he took the left turn at the intersection. The Renault came into view, with only a tiny yellow Fiat separating him from the car. Cab released Michelle's luggage to fish the keys out of his pockets. Old packets of gum, a stray pen, crumpled up receipts; just about anything that wasn't his keys. He grumbled. Were his life beliefs different, he'd call it bad karma for making fun of Sara for keeping so much crap in her knapsack. Quiet Riot emerged from behind him and held onto the bags, just in case someone got the funny idea of taking them from him while he was preoccupied. He absentmindedly treaded forward on his own, towards the car and away from the suitcases. Eventually, his fingers brushed against something metallic, and he yanked it out. Sure enough, it was the key.

After triumphantly twirling the key ring around his index finger like a hula hoop, Cab pointed the key at the car to unlock it. He paused, however; something was in his way. Or rather, someone.

Standing in front of the driver seat door was a short, scrawny kid—he couldn't have been older than Michelle—with frizzy strawberry blond hair hanging over his eyes and a mauve duffle coat with "ADAM" tailored on the sleeves in big, blocky letters. He fiddled with the handle with what looked like a type of screwdriver, basically stabbing the keyhole with it. His left foot jittered as he twisted his tool into the door, his free hand occasionally slapping his thigh. The kid looked like he had just downed a gallon of Red Bull from the way he was shaking.

Cab put his keys back in his pocket and approached him. He disinterestedly leaned up against the side of the car; now that he was closer, he could tell that he was around a foot taller and likely over 100 pounds heavier than the little car thief. This wouldn't take long; poor kid would probably be scared off just from the sight of Cab's six-pack. Cab unlocked the trunk of the car, Quiet Riot ready to load Michelle's bags inside. "Adam," apparently too caught up in his own work, failed to notice either of them.

"Hey, Adam," he tapped the kid's shoulder, "what the hell are you doing to my car?"

A shrill screech sounded from Adam's lungs as he dropped his tool. It clattered against the pavement, landing under the car. The hairs on the back of his neck stood upright, his body still as a statue. Slowly, he turned around and sized up Cab, his eyes just about bulging out of his head. Tremors shook through his body as if the ground below him was vibrating. He took two steps away from the car. Cab, in turn, took a step closer to him and cracked his knuckles.

Right about now, he's gonna piss his pants and hit the road, anticipated Cab. A few feet back, Quiet Riot tossed one of the suitcases his way. It somersaulted through the air like a spinning top, but just as it was about to fly past him, Cab extended his arm out and caught it out of the air by its handle. He mustered up the best evil grin he could and chuckled lowly; a finishing touch to his menacing aura.

If I was this kid's age, I'd be shitting my pants just about now. Getting busted for stealing by some buff guy who can catch a flying suitcase out of the air? Even with Quiet Riot, I wouldn't stick around. Cab's expression intensified, his brow knit tighter while his grin curled up higher on his cheeks. Any second now.

But Adam wasn't looking at him. Adam was looking at Quiet Riot.

Something shifted in his demeanor. Rather than cower over in fear at the sight of Cab's mighty Stand, he stood up straight and brushed his hair out of his eyes, determination boiling under his baby blues. A fierce glare was shot Cab's way, and if Cab hadn't had to deal with Rumor for the last month or so, he might've been intimidated by it. Ready for a fight, Cab set the suitcase back on the ground.

So you can see Quiet Riot, huh? All right creep, show me your Stand, Cab thought as he brought up his fists. Quiet Riot mimicked the action, hovering closer to its user.

With a flick of his wrist, Adam snapped his fingers at Cab's feet. His hair fell back over his eyes and he meandered back to the car.

Cab frowned, confused. "Hey, don't turn your back on me, asshole," he called out to him. "Whether you speak English or not, I know you know I'm talking to you." Quiet Riot loomed over the kid and balled its hands into fists. "I don't know if you can see this guy or not, but you're in for an ass whoopin' if you don't back away from my car right now."

"You can't hurt me," Adam spoke in the thickest French accent one could imagine as he fished his screwdriver from under the car. Though he had the nasally lilt stereotypically expected of a coward, the low timbre of his voice gave Cab the opposite impression. It was like the kid's balls had dropped on the spot. "You? A tourist? Battre an innocent kid like moi in broad daylight?" The boy sneered at him. "Ne me fais pas rire."

Though he couldn't understand a word of that last sentence, the way Adam rose his nose at him like he was fresh dog shit on the side of the road conveyed the message to Cab well enough. He blew at some stray curls that fell over his face and returned the gesture. Adam ignored him and turned back to the door. Just as he was about to stick his tool back in the keyhole of the door, Quiet Riot dropped Michelle's suitcase and took hold of the boy's hand, forcing his wrist back. Any further and he'd snap his bones like a twig.

"Last warning," Cab threatened as Quiet Riot shoved its face into Adam's, "back away from the car or the hand comes off."

"Oh yeah? Why don't you call off this ghost friend of yours and fight me yourself, grand homme."

Cab considered himself to be a level-headed guy when the subject of fate wasn't involved. Yet here he was, being taunted by a little kid. Slighted, he clenched his jaw and drew his brows together. Quiet Riot flung Adam to the ground, sending him slamming into the car, before hovering a few paces away from the boy. He stomped towards him, dust puffing out from under the soles of his shoes as they slammed against the pavement. "Don't go crying to your mommy when I—"

Despite having taken a step forward, he moved backwards, almost as if he hadn't moved at all. Cab frowned. What the hell was that? I'm sure I took a step forward just now. My shoes hit the ground. Taking a few deep breaths, he clenched a fistful of hair. If he can see and identify Quiet Riot as a 'ghost,' then this kid must be a Stand user as well. So where is his damn Stand? He surveyed the scene in front of him. Nothing was hiding inside the car, nor was there anything abnormal reflected in the windows. Adam's form had not changed, nor had anything grown on his body. Cab padded himself down to confirm that nothing had been attached to him; and he felt nothing but the fabric of his clothes and the muscles they covered.

Without even thinking, Cab took another step forward, and was once again met with the disorienting sensation of being lurched backwards into place. Nails dug into his scalp as he gripped his hair tighter. Frustrated, he slammed his fist against the suitcase. It staggered backwards and hit the pavement with a THWUMP! Cab couldn't bring himself to care and continued to search for the Stand.

The feeling of something tapping his toes interrupted his search. Frustrated, he threw his head down to see what it was. He just about gasped; it was the handle of Michelle's suitcase, disconnected from the rest of the bag behind him. A magenta glow surrounded where the handle had disconnected from the bag, and it hovered in the air as though something still held it up. Cab swung his head back. The edge of the suitcase's handle was still intact, but part of it had been cut off by the same pink glow.

It's a portal, Cab realized. The handle is sticking out the other end, by my feet, because it passed some kind of invisible barrier. He redirected his attention to the floor. Hundreds of tiny, magenta spikes were arranged in a circle around him, almost like a bear trap. The ones directly under the handle glimmered brighter than the others.

"Enjoy my Heart-Shaped Box," Adam said in a snide tone. He swung the driver seat door open, tossing his tool inside the car. "Au revoir."

Quiet Riot locked the boy in a chokehold before he could take another step. That self-assured attitude vanished in the blink of an eye as Adam writhed against his captor's hold on him, violently swinging his legs around as Quiet Riot lifted him off the ground. If he was trying to say anything more, the only thing that came out were muffled coughs as he gasped for air. Strong muscles squeezed down on Adam's neck just a little bit tighter, his face starting to go blue from lack of oxygen. Quiet Riot took its free hand and peeled his bangs back so they could see eye to eye. That same fiery resolve hadn't left him.

"Hold on," beseeched Cab, "You're not wearing a mask. Why are you attacking me?"

"What the hell are you talking about? I've been able to trap people like this for as long as I've been alive," Adam choked out, "I don't need a mask or anything fancy for it to work. All I need to do is snap my fingers et voila! You are stuck where you are."

Cab scoffed. Jeez, did we really sound this dumb to Michelle when we met her?

Still struggling to put air in his lungs, Adam shakily threw his hand into his pocket. He grabbed something Cab could not yet identify, its sturdy outline visible through the thick material of his coat, but paused before he could fully pull it out. Pride had abandoned him for a moment, his haughty scowl weakening as he bit his lip. He squeezed his eyes shut and whipped his hand up.

Cab felt his heart stop. Adam was pointing a gun at him.

He snapped his fingers with his free hand before Quiet Riot could swat the gun away. Heart-Shaped Box vanished from underneath Cab's feet and reformed under Adam's, its edge just overlapping with where he was held in place. He swung his body forwards, sending it careening through the edge of Heart-Shaped Box and out the other side, freeing him from Quiet Riot's grasp. He toppled over into the driver's seat and hastily buckled his seatbelt. Though he wanted to pummel the kid into next week, Cab hesitated to give Quiet Riot an order—with Heart-Shaped Box separating them like this, Adam had effectively created a barrier between them. Running into it now would just be walking face first into a trap. Cautiously, Cab stepped forwards.

"You shouldn't play with firearms," he warned, "you could blow your foot off. What's a random French kid like you doing with a handgun?"

Clearly, Adam wasn't listening to him—judging from the way his constricted pupils bobbed around his eyeballs like a pinball stuck between two bumpers, Cab would've been surprised if he could even see him properly. A grin formed on his face. Now's my chance. He darted towards the rear door of the car and whipped his keys back out of his pockets. As his arm extended out to unlock the car, it teleported behind him, being cut off by a magenta glow. Cab pulled back and turned his head; Heart-Shaped Box had vanished from under the driver seat door. He didn't need to look down to know that it had been placed back under his feet.

Before Cab could command Quiet Riot to do anything, Adam clenched his gun tight and pulled the trigger. Quiet Riot slapped it out of Adam's hand just after it fired, sending it to the ground. Cab shielded his head with his fists as he heard the loud BANG! echo across the street. Surprised shrieks erupted in a chorus from the civilians around the area.

The kid was shaking like a leaf, however, and missed by several feet. Cab lowered his hands to see the bullet stuck inside Heart-Shaped Box in a loop, flying into the edge of the Stand and out the other, whizzing in a straight line inches away from his ear.

"My père is a policier," Adam said, finally answering Cab's question. He reached down to pick up the gun from the ground. Quiet Riot crushed it underfoot just before he could swipe it, reducing it to shards of polymer. He wrinkled his nose and climbed back into the car before Quiet Riot could do the same to him.

Through the window of the car, Cab saw him fiddle with the lock cylinder with the screwdriver. If he was able to break into the car in the first place, it's safe to assume he can get it running as well, Cab pondered. He took a step away from the bullet as he summoned Quiet Riot closer. Just now, he summoned Heart-Shaped Box under his own feet. Its barrier didn't activate until his body had fully entered the circle. So therefore...

Quiet Riot inquisitively stuck its finger inside of Heart-Shaped Box. The spikes underneath it didn't light up, nor did its finger start glowing. It levered its hand further into the Stand's boundaries. Similarly, no reaction occurred. It nudged its head in, and still nothing happened. It wiggled around a bit. Nothing. Quiet Riot pulled itself out all at once, and sure enough, it exited Heart-Shaped Box's barrier completely rather than teleporting to the other side.

So, you're only stuck once your whole body has entered the trap. Cab backed away from where the bullet was still continuously looping and brought Quiet Riot back inside of Heart-Shaped Box, making sure to keep half of his Stand outside the barrier. Good; makes what I'm about to do a whole lot easier. Quiet Riot's never had to punch something as fast as a bullet before, but there's a first time for everything.

Cab squinted his eyes as he focused in on the bullet's path. At a first glance, it looked like a barely detectable blur, but as he narrowed his vision, he could make out short instances where he saw the bullet on its own as it warped around, like watching a race car swerve past. Quiet Riot brought its fists up and readied itself as Cab exhaled through pursed lips.

"HI-DEE!"

Quiet Riot's fist smashed into the side of the bullet. Normally, if one were to punch a bullet in such a way, it would simply whizz past and take a good amount of skin from your knuckles in the process. Luckily for Cab, Quiet Riot could hardly be called "normal."

The compass on its hand spun around so that it pointed north; simultaneously, the bullet rotated so that it pointed upwards. It shot up, its path making a sharp 90-degree angle. Cab scooted out of the way as the bullet flew back down and landed on the concrete below. He rolled his shoulders back and paced in place. Hot damn. For a second there, I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull that off. Wish that the others were here to see that.

A car engine's roar caught his attention. Cab turned around to see the Renault's headlights on and gas pumping out of the emission, and through the window of the driver's seat, Adam trying to decipher the mechanisms of the gear shift with his tool lodged inside of the lock cylinder. Quiet Riot picked the bullet from off the ground and lightly tossed it at the car. It chinked against the side of the door and fell back to the ground. Adam nearly jumped out of his skin as he looked out the window, the sight of Cab cheeky smile turned him sheet white. He rolled down the window.

"How did you," he stammered, "the bullet was..."

Cab chuckled. He didn't need Adam to finish his thought to answer him. "Quiet Riot can change the trajectory of anything it punches."

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Adam rolled the window back up and resumed his task. As he stomped on the gas, the car lurched backward, slamming into the Fiat behind it. Muffled curses emitted from through the window. The car then jolted forward, nearly rear-ending the Volkswagen in front of it. Cringeworthy as the sight was, Cab was thankful that the gunshot from earlier had scared everyone off.

Well, kid, if you need some help backing out of that parking spot, Cab snickered as Quiet Riot psyched itself up, we'd be happy to lend a hand.

Just before the car could demolish the poor Fiat behind it again, Quiet Riot swung its foot into the back tire. The entire car veered to the left under the Stand’s influence. Tires screeched against the concrete as the car traveled perpendicular to how it normally would, heading side-first on a crash course towards Cab and Heart-Shaped Box. On the other side of the door, Adam yanked his mock-key out of the lock cylinder and stomped on the brake in vain. Cab snickered and popped his tongue out the side of his mouth. I’ve got you right where I want you.

As the front of the car skidded towards him, Cab reached his arm through the far edge of Heart-Shaped Box. He saw where it emerged on the other side through the driver’s seat window—right besides Adam. Though the boy batted the disembodied arm away, Cab overpowered him, grabbed him by the collar of his coat, and yanked him through the other side of the barrier. The compasses on Quiet Riot’s feet steered themselves south just before the car crashed into the two, and likewise, the car curved around them and landed in a perfect parallel park on the other side of the road.

Cab called back Quiet Riot and balled his free hand into a fist. “You were saying something about wanting me to fight you myself?”

Something warm and wet rolling down his knuckles silenced him before he could make another threat. He darted his eyes down. Small droplets dribbled onto his hand from off of Adam’s face. Cab’s heart sank; though the boy’s thick bangs shielded his eyes from view, it was obvious that Adam was crying. He loosened his grip on his collar as Heart-Shaped Box deactivated.

“Just get it over with,” he sobbed, his body limp, “not like there’s anything left to live for anyways.”

“What are you—“

“Tu gagnes! Just hurry up and kill me already!”

Cab loosened his fist and shoved it over Adam's mouth. Thank goodness for that gunshot earlier; at least no one was there to see this kid have a suicidal meltdown. “Now hang on a second. I never said anything about killing you. I'm not that type of guy." He let go of Adam's jacket and fetched Michelle's suitcases from the middle of the road. "I don't know if you're being genuine or your hormones are getting the best of you, but there's something you need to understand." He hunched over so that they were level with each other and pulled Adam's bangs back. "You don't want to die. Got it?"

"Tu ne comprends pas!" Adam stomped his feet in frustration as he whipped his head away from Cab's hand. "This was my one chance to start over. I just want to get out of the masure I'm stuck in and have a big, nice car all to myself. But non non non, I can't even have that. I can't have anything! I don't have any friends, all the girls at school think I'm étrange, and mon père calls me a poule mouillée. It doesn't matter what I do, I'm stuck living in my own personal hell where everyone hates me. It's like I'm cursed."

An annoyed groan escaped Cab's lips. He couldn't help it—what was it with French people and their damn curses? 

"Read my lips. I am not going to say this twice," he warned. "You're not cursed. Nobody is. You think your life is hell? Then do your best to improve it yourself and don't waste time complaining. Whether or not you actually mean what you're saying, you need to get some help. Right now. You've got your whole life ahead of you, and you're just willing to throw it away for what? A car?"

Adam sneered as he dried the tears from his eyes. "Why do you care? I'm just some random morveux who tried to steal your car."

Cab rolled his eyes. Did he really need a reason to try to talk someone out of being suicidal? "Let's just say that I've seen someone in your position before." He did his best to soften his expression, raising his brow with concern. "There's a lot of bad people out there who are after people like us. People with 'special abilities.' Stands. You need to stick around people you can trust. Avoid anyone wearing a party mask. Is it safe for you to go home?"

Adam took a moment to stare at his shoes. Nasally sniffles sputtered out from him as his tears dried up. Anxiously bouncing up and down on the ball of his heel, he looked back up at Cab. "Oui," he murmured.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." This time his tone was more assertive.

Cab pointed down the street. "Then get out of here."

He didn't need to be told twice. Cab blinked, and when he opened his eyes, Adam was nowhere to be seen. The only evidence of him ever being there were the sounds of his boots striking the pavement as he hotfooted as far away from him as he could. Now, where was I? Cab's hand returned to his pocket as he dug for his keys.

"Taxi Cab! Hey!"

A familiar exuberant voice boomed behind him. Cab turned his head to see Sara sprinting towards him, with Michelle trailing not far behind. When they stopped in front of him, the former stood upright while the latter was hunched over and gasping for air.

Cab rested his elbow on one of the suitcases' handle. "What are you two doing here? Where's Rumor?"

"He went off on his own," Sara explained. "He was super hungry and really wanted food, so we let him go on ahead. Chelly never told you where we were going to eat, so we ran back here to tell you!"

"You ran," Michelle huffed, "I was fine with walking, but you insisted that we make it a race."

"And I won!" Sara fist pumped with a hearty laugh. "But yeah, we just came over here to let you know that we're getting brunch at Café Bleu."

"Ha! I assume you're just humoring her." Cab pulled the keys out of his pocket for the final time and unlocked the car. "I would've been able to track you guys down."

Michelle muttered to herself something in French as she stood upright. "Who was that you were just talking to?"

"Another Stand user," he answered as he rolled the suitcases over to the back of the car. A wall of suitcases greeted him as he popped open the trunk, with Sara's neatly stacked bags threatening to avalanche to the ground. "Crazy kid tried to steal the car," he stuffed Michelle's luggage inside. They nearly toppled out as he slammed the trunk shut.

Sara clapped her hands together and squeed. "Another Stand user? What was their ability? I want to meet them! Which way did they go? If we're quick, we can—"

As Sara talked circles around them, Michelle and Cab exchanged an annoyed stare. The kind that said "no way are we letting her drag anyone else along with us." Even if Adam wasn't an underage nutcase, he couldn't let Sara drag him along purely because they were running out of room in their car. At this rate, he'd only let Sara add someone to their posse if they were either fabulously rich or owned a bigger car. Cab walked towards Sara, hoisted her off the ground and over his shoulder, and kept going.

"What the hell? Cab!"  She pounded her fists against his shoulder and flailed her legs. "Put me down right now! You son of a bitch, carrying away a girl when she hasn't even—"

"If I put you down, you have to promise me that you won't try to hunt down that kid." His brow was furrowed, his voice stern. "He's got issues."

"So? All of us have issues, too."

"I'm serious."

Sara folded her arms and pouted. "Ugh, fine. I just want to meet more people like us, you know."

Chapter Text

TWO YEARS AGO...

As she was the CFO of a successful marketing company and he was almost always out of the house at soccer practice or a training session with his boxing coach, Cab often had little time to spend with his mother. That being said, they were as close as a parent and child could be—being a single mother often had that effect on their sons.

Though what little free time they had together was often made up of one or both of them being exhausted from the rest of their day, they always set time aside just for the two of them. Whether it be a simple game of chess or a going out to lunch or the rare occasions she would convince her son to get a pedicure with her; they always made sure this time was well spent.

Hiking was usually Cab's preferred way to spend time with just about anyone, including his mother, and she thought it was a great source of exercise. Naturally, they ended up traversing forested trails often. The two of them usually filled the air with idle banter, with him rambling about school, sports, and spicy schoolyard secrets while she would complain about cussed coworkers.

On that day, however, he was completely silent.

He didn't mean to be. There was a lot to talk about, after all. It was his senior year of high school—finals were rapidly approaching, he needed to make a choice about where he would be going to college, and find a cute girl to ask out to prom. Yet all of those issues were dwarfed by his main concern: he didn't feel passionate about sports anymore. It was what he was good at, it was what he was expected to do; but whenever he scored a goal or landed a knockout lately, he didn't feel the same rush of adrenaline and pride in himself that he used to. He only felt apathetic to it all.

Besides, the only reason that he was good at either of those things was because he had special abilities that no one else had.

"What's bothering you?" She asked the question after about 15 minutes of hiking in complete silence.

Pulled from his thoughts, Cab suddenly became aware of the world around him; underneath his feet were crunching leaves, blowing past his body was the chill of a faint breeze, and above his head were the birds chirping in the trees. He turned to his mother and mustered up the best lie that he could.

"Nothing's bothering me," he asserted.

His mother folded her arms at him and raised a brow. "Cab. I know you better than that. If you're being this quiet, then something's on your mind." They each took one big step up a small incline and brushed back some stray leaves that stuck out from the shrubs in front of them, revealing a cliff with a breathtaking view of the rest of the forest. This was nothing new, they had hiked this trail several times before, but seeing the murky pink sky over the trees as the sun fell below the horizon was enough to ease his mind just a bit. "You know you can tell me anything, right? I'm your mother."

Cab groaned and sat down next to her, the flaky dirt sticking to his jeans. No point in continuing to hide it. "I don't know if I want to keep doing sports," he confessed.

The loud gasp that his mother responded with made him want to rip his hair out. "What do you mean you don't want to keep doing sports? You've been doing them your whole life. Why stop now?"

"I don't know," he sighed with a shrug. "I just don't really have fun doing them anymore. There's no challenge in it."

"That's because you're so good at them." She leaned over and pinched his cheek. "Is it soccer or boxing that you don't want to keep doing?"

"Both."

She tilted her head to the side. "What ever happened to wanting to be the heavyweight champion? You've been going on since you were a little kid that you wanted to be the next Buster Douglas."

Biting his lip, Cab carefully considered his words. I win every fight and every match because of Quiet Riot. There's no challenge in it anymore. I'm just going through the motions. That was what he wanted to say, but how the hell was he supposed to explain Quiet Riot to her? Oh, I've had this compass ghost follow me around for as long as I can remember that no one else can see or touch. He scratched his neck. Maybe he could give her a demonstration of Quiet Riot's ability? How would she react then? Would she panic and run? Call him a freak of nature? Just the thought made Cab feel nauseous.

"People change, Mom," he responded, "and I just don't think that soccer or boxing would make good career paths. What about when I'm 40? Or 50? I need to find something more financially stable than being a sports star." That was the best excuse he could muster up, and he was quite proud of it. With her being a businesswoman, surely she could sympathize with it.

"Well, you know how I've always felt about boxing." They both recalled the days of his youth, when she would scold him for sneaking out of the house on weekends to beg regulars at the local gym to teach him how to fight. One day, she finally relented and signed him up for private lessons after one of said gym regulars followed him back to the house and refused to leave until they gave him some booze. "But I don't think you should give up soccer. If you do well at the game next week, I really think you could get a full ride scholarship to college. You've got one hell of an aim with your feet. It's like it's your destiny to play soccer." She affectionately nudged him. "You're destined for great things, Cab."

Cab rested his head in his hands. She could have a point. It wasn't like everyone had their own Quiet Riot that could help them aim their shots.

"Speaking of the game tomorrow," she continued, "are you nervous? Excited? I'm excited! I'm sure you'll do great, honey." She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. "Are you inviting your father to come?"

"Why would I invite him?" Cab rolled his eyes. "I haven't spoken with him in years now. You know that."

"I know, I know. I just figured that you might want him to come, considering it's going to be one of your last big games before you go off to college."

"It's just another game," he replied with a shrug. "He cheated on you and walked out on us. I don't see any reason to keep in contact with him."

"He is your father," she justified. "No matter what any of you do, that will never change. For what it's worth," her face lit up like a candle, the tone of her voice suddenly much lighter, "I certainly wouldn't mind seeing him again."

"Stockholm syndrome," Cab muttered under his breath. Gazing out to the sky, he considered her words. Sure, he was his father, but why did that matter? The man hadn't done anything fatherly for him since he was 10. It had been longer than he could remember since he had received any letters from him, the ones that used to ask him how he was doing in school or when his next game was, worded so eloquently that he always assumed that his mistress had written them out of pity. The crescent moon peeked out from the trees, the sun barely visible anymore. He pulled away from his mother's embrace and stood up. "Come on, let's start heading back. It's getting late."

She nodded and pushed off from the ground as she attempted to stand up. Clumps of grass and dirt crumbled beneath her hands and collapsed from the cliff into the forest below. Having lost her balance, she lurched forwards, carried by the force she had put in her hands. She threw her body back and tried to grab onto the ground, but it only collapsed under her weight. A panicked scream left her lips as she fell off the cliffside.

Cab outstretched both his and Quiet Riot's arm out in an attempt to catch her, but she had already fallen out of reach. A few seconds later, he heard a loud THUD! somewhere very far below him. He felt the color drain from his face.

"MOM!"

~~~~~

THREE MONTHS LATER...

"Martin..."

That was the only word that Cab's mother had uttered since she entered her coma, and it was the name of her ex husband.

Not once did she mutter Cab's name, and she barely responded to any input from him. Even after he stopped attending school and skipped out on all his other commitments just to be with her (to the chagrin of his teammates), the only reaction he got out of her were occasional eyelid twitches, her pupils shifting under them when he spoke to her. Even as he squeezed her hand in his through her full-body cast and tearfully babbled out "I love you, you're going to wake up soon, everything's going to be okay," on repeat for hours on end, she never said anything else aside from his father's name.

Cab didn't need to be a relationship expert to know that she was still in love with him, even if he had fallen out of love with her long ago. He couldn't see why; not only had he cheated on her, but he was rude, argumentative, and self-absorbed. Having him out of the house had only improved their lives. Gone were the noise complaints from neighbors when he would scream at them just to show off how loud his voice was, the disdained grumbles when he overheard Cab listening to his favorite songs on the radio, and the long nights of his mother sobbing herself to sleep when he spent the night at another woman's house. The day that he packed his bags and left was one of the best days of Cab's life.

Yet, as she fell closer and closer to death's door, she called out the name of her emotionally abusive ex-husband and not her baby boy.

She didn't have much time left—the way that her doctors always avoided eye contact with him told him that much. The turning point came when one of them tapped him on the shoulder and said: "don't get your hopes up," on their way out the door. The doctor kept his eyes focused ahead of him, rather than on the grieving son below.

If she really wanted her last moments to be with him, then so be it. So it was how Cab found himself in front of his father's home.

It was a dingy place, really. One story with a flat roof covered in leaves, a bland gray paint job that had begun to chip off, the garden so overgrown that Cab couldn't see his own feet as he walked to the door. Surely this couldn't be the address of his prideful father. He double checked the address. Had he really spent months digging through phone books and real estate listings just to get the wrong house?

No. There couldn't be two idiots named Martin Cavazo. Not to mention the orange Pontiac Firebird, his pride and joy, that was parked in the driveway.

Cab pounded on the door. "Hey, Martin! It's me, Cab. You know, your son? I need to talk to you about something."

The door creaked open under the force of Cab's fists. Whatever obscenity he had lined up to say caught in his throat. Why had the door been left unlocked? Martin was a lot of things, but forgetful wasn't one of them. Cab vividly remembered being scolded by him whenever he failed to unlock the door after coming home from school. As eager as he was to add "hypocrite" to his father's long list of toxic traits, he proceeded through the door, closing it behind him.

Though he wasn't sure what he was expecting from the inside of the house, it certainly wasn't this. It somehow looked smaller on the inside than it did on the outside. Only a dirty kitchen with flies hovering over half-eaten plates of steak to the right; a living room in the middle with only a broken recliner, bulky CRT, and numerous empty beer bottles strewn about the floor; and a couple of doors to the left. One was halfway open and lead to the bathroom, while the other Cab assumed went to the bedroom. Dust hung in the air like pollen in spring, coating just about every surface in the house. It nearly made him cough up is lungs as he entered the house. Something to the left reeked worse than anything Cab had ever smelled before. He would've assumed that it was coming from the bathroom, but whatever it smelled like, it didn't smell like feces. Maybe a dead rat had gotten stuck in the plumbing?

Obviously, the house looked abandoned, or at the very least like it had not been maintained in a long time. Cab's shoulders fell at the prospect of another dead end. No way in hell he'd leave his house like this, he reasoned as he walked forwards, dust rising from the floor with every step he took, he must've skipped on the bills and had no choice but to jump ship. But if that were the case, why would he leave the Firebird out in the driveway?

Since the house was so small, Cab figured that he could gleam just about everything about the kitchen and living room just from his initial impressions of them. They were filthy and cluttered with trash, but he doubted that he could find any clues under piles of beer bottles and dirty dishes. He turned to the left and surveyed the two doors in front of him. The door to the bathroom was slightly ajar, and through it he couldn't see anything peculiar. Just a sink with an old shaving razor resting on the countertop and the edge of a toilet. There was still the smell, however, and if there really was a dead rat or something similar clogging the drains, he'd rather investigate it as a last resort.

The second door, however, was firmly shut, revealing no details about the bedroom. That was probably the best place to start his search. Hell, maybe Martin was passed out drunk on the bed, too lazy to get off his ass and maintain the house on his own now that he didn't have a woman to do it for him. Cab gently opened the door.

"Dad, are you in—"

The last thing he remembered seeing before fainting was Martin's limp body laying on the bed with a bloody crevasse in place of a head and a shotgun in his lap.

~~~~~

Cab hadn't remembered how much time had passed since that day. He could still see his father's decaying corpse in his mind's eye like it was still in front of him. His rotting flesh had forever burned into his nostrils.

Even after what must've been more than a year now, the turn of events felt surreal. First his mother fell off a cliff and fell into a coma, then he quashed his opportunities at a college scholarship by wasting three months of his life trying to track down his ghost of a father, only to find his actual dead body and to be told not long afterwards that his mother had passed while he was away. Despite legally being an adult at that point, Uncle Roger had offered to look after him until he could get back on his feet. Cab didn't even know if he was still there or not. He never left his room long enough to find out.

How could something so horrible happen to a kid like him?

That was all he could think about since that day. Could this be some sort of cruel punishment? Some justice for an evil deed he had committed? But what, Cab wondered, have I done that could possibly deserve this? His entire life played through his mind at a snail's pace. There was that time when he was five when he pulled down his neighbor's pants at the park. There was the time when he was nine when he made fun of his substitute health teacher so badly that she nearly threw her shoe at him. There was the time when he was fifteen and stole the car one night to go to a party then wrecked it on the way home. And of course, that said nothing of the countless other boys he had Quiet Riot demolish in the ring. Was all of that combined really the equivalent to watching his mother fall to her doom and walking in on his father's suicide?

No, he realized, that can't be it. There are men out there much eviler than I am who haven't endured half the amount of pain that I have.

Then what? Was it just bad luck? Some malevolent God out there who deemed him to be a worthy punching bag? He scoffed at what his mother told him: "you're destined for great things, Cab." Like what destiny had ended up giving him was some great reward.

You're wrong, Mom. He stood up and opened the window, letting the crisp outside air blow against his face. This wasn't my destiny. This wasn't anyone's destiny. We chose to go hiking on that trail that day. Dad chose to kill himself. There isn't any outside force controlling us. We're all victims of our own free will.

After all, how could fate be real when it had dealt him such a bad hand?

It wasn't fate. He hadn't landed where he was now because of some karmic destiny. His mother hadn't fallen off a cliff because some unknown force had pushed her there, outside of her own control, but because she had decided to sit down on an uneven, unsupported cliffside without thinking about it. That was her choice. She died of her own free will. His father hadn't died by God's hand, he was too much of a coward to accept the life he had made for himself and wanted out. The only reason that he had stumbled on his dead body was he was the only person who cared about him enough to seek him out.

Cab stared at his reflection in the window. Heavy bags weighed his eyes down, matted curls hung over his face, his once bold muscles nearly deflated. He hardly recognized himself. If "destiny" was so keen to make him this way, then why should he bend over and take it?

I'm choosing to be miserable, he decided. Without a second thought, he set his shoulders back and fully opened his eyes. Not anymore. I'm going to find myself.

The next morning, he packed his bags and left, determined to do just that.

~~~~~

IN THE PRESENT...

I remember that she was a little confused as to why I didn't tell her for so long, but other than that she was happy that I had a Stand of my own.

Among the waterfall of bullshit about curses and fate that spilled from her mouth the day before, that was the one line from Michelle's monologue that Cab connected to. She had the guts to tell her mother about her Stand, despite the fact that her mother wasn't a Stand user. Now Cab could only dream about having the same opportunity. No matter how much he told himself that it's different, her dad was a Stand user too, it didn't change the regret that simmered in his heart as the sentence played over and over again in his head like a broken record.

Staring at her now, as she begrudgingly played tour guide to Sara on their way to Paris' border, he couldn't help but feel jealous.

"Hey, Michelle." He meant to address her more delicately, but it came out as more of a statement than anything.

Jaw clenched after hearing the assertiveness in his voice, she turned her head to him.

"What was it like to have a mom who knew you were a Stand user?"

Michelle furrowed her brow at the question, studying his face like a map. "Why do you ask?"

He bit his lip and rubbed the back of his neck. "No particular reason."

Chapter Text

Michelle hadn't been in a car since the accident. That was almost three years ago now. Not like she ever needed to get in one; city life had blessed her with all of her necessities being within walking distance, and Paris' bus system covered anywhere that her legs couldn't take her. She never even got her license. Buying a car would only be a waste of time and money.

Though she'd never admit it, part of it was because that crash had left her more than a little amaxophobic. Needless to say, her first car experience since then being an hours long road trip wasn't the best way to ease her back into the swing of things.

She drummed the fingers of her right hand against the glossy broken-heart charm of her left bracelet, staring out the window at the grass and trees in the road verge. Night had already fallen; Sara spent the whole day dragging the three of them through Paris and insisting that she show them every nook and cranny, even places that she herself had never been to. At the end of it all, when Michelle felt so drained that she was ready to retreat into her room and never see another soul again, she was whisked into the car and informed that they were on their way to their next location. She wasn't sure where they were going. Maybe someone had told her, but if they had, she was too exhausted from playing tour guide to remember where.

The car ride had turned her fatigue into boredom. Everyone else had something to do but her: Cab was focused on the road ahead of him as he drove, occasionally pointing out license plates from other countries to no one in particular. Sara had her feet crossed on the dashboard and was whistling along to the pop song blasting through her headphones so loudly that Michelle could hear it from the backseat. Rumor pulled out his notebook when he first got in the car and had been writing in it ever since. Michelle huffed and toyed with the window switch, letting the cool air blow in her face. There was nothing to do.

Maybe talking to one of them would help? She weighed her options. At the volume Sara was listening to her music at, she doubted that even an atomic bomb would disrupt her. Cab seemed like a good option—he did ask her about her mother earlier, only to back out of the conversation when she asked him why—but it was probably for the best that she didn't disrupt him while he was driving. Rumor was still utterly entranced by whatever he had been scrawling down in his notebook for hours on end, his eyes wide and shifting around the page in time with his pen. The last thing Michelle wanted was to disrupt his train of thought.

She creased her brow and stared at him. What was he writing, anyways? From her seat, she could only see the edge of the paper, barely making out the letters scribbled in the margins. They were written in cursive, the letters prim and compact. A far cry from the rough chicken scratch on the note he had given her earlier. Without even realizing it, she inched her head closer to him and leaned forwards, trying to make out more of what was on the page.

....though I am unfortunate enough to have yet to find a lead on any vampire sightings. I remain undeterred in my search, and while getting closer and closer to the heart of the Masqueraders is a worthy quest on its own, I cannot help but feel anguished.

Michelle stifled a giggle. Of all the things she expected him to be writing about in his little black book, keeping a diary wasn't one of them.

The first entry of this journal is dated January 6th, meaning that I am fast approaching my five-month anniversary of being out on my own. Ever since I started traveling with Sara and Cab, the days have passed in what feels like the blink of an eye. Michelle seems to be a worthy addition to the group, she leaned in closer upon reading her name, though I wonder if she'll be able to fend for herself should we

He paused midsentence and sighed. "It is impolite to snoop in on other people's business, Michelle."

Michelle felt her heart stop. She instantly recoiled back to her seat and looked back out the window, the subtle sound of Rumor closing his book boomed in her ears like an explosion. Why did I do that? She almost felt like crying. Great job Michelle, you were spying on him while he was writing in his diary. That's just plain rude! I'd be mortified if someone did that to me. Now he probably thinks I'm a gossip brewer with no sense of personal—

"Did you need something?"

Michelle turned her head back to see Rumor staring at her. He didn't seem disgusted or annoyed like she expected him to be, rather, his face was neutral, brows relaxed and jaw loose. The only indicator of emotion on his face was a light blush on his cheeks. Ugh, I embarrassed him. 

"Oh, uh, I was just," she stuttered, "do you think you could lend me a piece of paper from your diar...journal? And maybe a pencil as well?"

"Of course." Rumor opened the journal back up and ripped a page out from the back, slowly so as to make a clean cut. A purple pen was then procured from his pocket. He handed both of them to Michelle. "I apologize, all I have are pens. Were you going to draw?"

She nodded. "I don't know what, though. I feel more confident when I have a reference image of some kind."

"Why don't you ask Sara if you can borrow her camera? She hasn't gone a day since I've met her without taking a picture."

"She seems," Michelle's eyes wandered over to Sara, who was air-guitaring along to an energetic solo, "busy right now."

"Hey, Sara," Cab called out from the driver's seat, his eyes still locked on the road ahead of him, "let Michelle borrow your camera."

Somehow, Sara's iPod beat out Cab's naturally booming voice, and she continued to strum along on her imaginary instrument as if he had never said anything. Cab groaned and reached an arm out to jostle her. Broken from her trance, Sara gasped and removed her headphones.

"Huh? What?" She withdrew her feet from atop the dashboard and sat up straight. "Are we there yet?"

"We're about five minutes away from the Belgium border," Cab replied. "Michelle wanted to—"

If Cab continued speaking, Michelle wasn't paying attention. The word "Belgium" echoed in her brain so loudly that she couldn't hear anything else around her. No wonder they had been in the car so long, they were driving all the way to another country. How could she have missed that? It certainly put a wrench in things; she had expected for them to guard her against the Masqueraders until the curse inevitably kicked in and killed them. If she was all the way in another country when they kicked the bucket, how on Earth was she supposed to get back home? Michelle bit her lip as the car accelerated just a bit faster.

"I don't have a passport," she divulged.

The car screeched to a halt. Everyone lurched forward in their seats, Michelle squeezing her eyes shut and clutching to the piece of paper in her hand as the seatbelt dug into her shoulder. Memories of the crash flooded her thoughts, Luca's pained screech as his body was flung through the windshield drowning out every other sensation. Please don't crash, Michelle silently pleaded. So wrought with anxiety, she failed to notice Cab pull over to the side of the road and park the car. She opened her eyes to everyone in the car fixated on her, Cab and Sara now sitting backwards in their seats.

"You don't have a passport?" Cab's question came off as more of a weary statement.

"N-no," Michelle reiterated.

"No as in 'I forgot it' or no as in 'I don't have one?'"

"I, um," she avoided eye contact as she thumbed at her necklace, "I don't have a passport."

Cab furrowed his brow and pinched the ridge of his nose. "Did Sara not tell you that you'd need one?"

"I did too!" Sara folded her arms at the accusation. "I told her yesterday before she went back to her apartment. Didn't I, Chelly?"

Michelle gulped. If she had, it was buried so far underneath Sara's plans to have her show them around Paris that she didn't remember it. Rolling the now crumpled up piece of paper in her hand, she considered asking Rumor to convert his notebook into a planner for the group.

Before she could respond, Cab turned around and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. "We've been on the road for almost three hours," he grumbled as gripped a wad of dark curls, "I am not turning around and driving all the way back just because she doesn't have a passport."

Great, Michelle thought, I'm stuck several kilometers from home whether I cross the border or not.

"What do you want to do then? Kick her out here in the middle of nowhere?" Sara flicked at his temples. "Real courteous of you, Taxi Cab."

Light chuckles suddenly sounded from the right side of the car. Michelle and Sara turned over to see Rumor with a confident smirk laid bare on his face as he opened his notebook back up. "You lot are making a big deal out of nothing," he noted. "Unlike in America, border control here is tremendously lax. I'd bet there's no one even at the border to check our passports."

"I'd rather not take the chance, if it's all the same to you," Michelle stated.

"There is no chance that you'd be taking." He looked up from his notebook to look her in the eyes. "France and Belgium are both part of the Schengen Area, so a passport check here would not only be improbable, but illegal as well." He turned to the front seats, staring at Sara and the back of Cab's head. "Think about it: we were not stopped at any point when we crossed the border from Spain to France. I seem to recall us having this exact conversation then, as well. In fact," he flipped to an earlier page in his notebook, "I'm certain of it. May 17th, 2009—my journal entry from that day chronicles your surprise at the non-existent border control." He shut the notebook and set it down on his lap. "Therefore, we have nothing to worry about."

Cab rose his head from the steering wheel and sat up straight, resting his right hand on the gear shift. "I guess you've got a point there."

"Yeah...yeah!" Sara fist pumped as her smile reformed. "See, Chelly? Everything's gonna be fine. So don't worry about it, kay?"

The enthusiasm didn't reach Michelle. It couldn't be that simple. These were two separate countries they were talking about, how did either government know that they weren't any prison escapees sneaking over or human traffickers delivering their cargo or illegal drugs being smuggled over? Whatever the Schengen area that Rumor was talking about was sounded like fake news. "But..." she paused to think of a reasonable objection, "but the car's stolen! They could pull us over at any time just for that!"

"We've made it this far without getting pulled over," Rumor pointed out, "haven't we?"

"But...but..."

"Don't overthink this," Rumor instructed as Cab started up the car again. "You're going to be fine."

Michelle pulled her knees to her chest as they merged back onto the road. There was just no way that crossing the border was as easy as Rumor described it to be. Slumping down in her seat, she peaked her head out the window. Any second now, a group of highly trained border control agents would emerge from the shadows, identify their stolen vehicle, and lock all four of them away in a cell, with her being in maximum security for being an illegal alien guilty of identity theft and tax fraud. Cold sweat dripped down her forehead as a rusty sign that read WELCOME TO BELGIUM entered her field of vision.

They drove past the sign without so much as a bump in the road in their way. Rumor grinned as the other three collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

"See? Nothing to worry about."

"Other countries aren't nearly as generous, believe me," Cab huffed. "We're gonna need to get you a passport ASAP."

~~~~~

They arrived at their destination not long after crossing the border: Mons, a large and historic city with a tall belfry near its center. Signs written in both French and Dutch lined the streets, displaying two names: Mons and Bergen.

"Mons is the French name of this city, as well as its name internationally," Rumor clarified. "However, in Flemish it is referred to as Bergen."

"Flemish?" Sara kept her headphones off as Rumor introduced them to their new location.

"Gesundheit," Cab said under his breath.

Rumor rolled his eyes. "Flemish isn't a sneeze. It's the Dutch dialect they use here."

Among the facts that Rumor listed when they entered the city was that it had been the site of a major battle in World War 1, where the British were forced to retreat against the force of the Germans. The thought made Michelle shiver. Dead soldiers had likely lined the ground below them just shy of 100 years ago. Despite Sara's protests for a nighttime photo shoot at the belfry with all the British ghosts, Cab made a beeline for the nearest hotel along with the statement that ghosts weren't real. Michelle was convinced that she was somehow the only person to catch onto his sleepy agitation.

The hotel that Cab chose for them was small, with only three floors a brick exterior. He reasoned that it was likely much cheaper than its contemporaries, they could afford two rooms if they all pooled their money together, which meant no one would have to share a bed. They marched inside and asked for two rooms for two nights.

"€436," the hotel receptionist rang in their total. "If you all want to pay individually, it's €109 each."

Michelle had her (grandmother's) credit card at the ready before they even got to the door. She expected everyone else to follow suit and pull out their wallets now that the price had been named, but they all just stared at her with pleading eyes. "Aren't we splitting the bill?"

"I'm broke," Sara shrugged.

"A Stand user stole my wallet at the airport," Cab testified.

Ever the gentleman, Rumor took €10 from his pocket and handed it to Michelle. "This is all the money I have to my name."

As the four of them rolled their luggage to their rooms, Michelle couldn't help but wonder if they had only brought her with them to be used as a living bank account. At least it's for a good cause, she supposed as she unlocked the door to her and Sara's shared room. They'd have to sleep in the car otherwise. That or steal money from someone else. Not like I'm hurting for cash, anyway.

The room was laid out identically to the one at the hotel in France, albeit smaller and without any of the appliances. A bathroom to their left, a closet to their right, and two twin-sized beds decorated with plaid comforters and pillows ahead of them. An ugly wool rug with red and khaki stripes covered the floor, clashing against the brick walls. Whereas the other hotel had a wood nightstand between the two beds, this one had a glass end table with a noticeable crack down the middle. The room did, however, have a small balcony and a marvelous view of the city, which their previous hotel lacked.

As Michelle secured her suitcases inside the closet, Sara awkwardly clonked her way through the entryway, four of her seven bags in tow. Three of them were suitcases—a pair of bright red plastic ones and a tall leather one—while her fourth piece of luggage was strapped around her back, its neck continuously bonking into the side of the door as Sara struggled to find the best angle to enter from.

It was time to address the elephant in the room. Michelle sighed and brushed some stray hairs back. "Sara, why do you have a guitar case with you?"

"Because there's a guitar inside," she answered as she finally managed to enter the room, "duh. Why else would I have one?"

Well, that was as good a reason as any. "Do you play?"

"Nope!" She flung the item in question near the bed furthest from the door. "I want to learn, though. Now's as good a time as any, right? I'm not getting any younger."

Michelle frowned. "Let me get this straight," she probed, "you brought, along with six other suitcases, a guitar that you can't even play all the way to another country just because you thought that now was a good time to learn it?"

"Pretty much!" Sara flopped onto the bed, leaving her three suitcases strewn about the room.

"Tu es fauché and you're hauling an instrument with no value to you halfway across the globe."

"It doesn't have no value to me! It's mine and I want to learn how to play it. Also, I don't know what 'too is foochey' means."

"Why not just leave your guitar at home then learn how to play when you get back? Then you wouldn't have to carry it around with you."

Wasn't that the million-dollar question, Michelle supposed. It seemed pointless to carry around that much junk from country to country. Was it really as Cab implied and all of her suitcases were stolen? Or were they really all hers like Sara insisted? The former Michelle could chalk up to kleptomania, but if it was the case of the latter, what reason would Sara have to carry around what must've been near everything she owned? That wasn't even factoring in the fact that she was penniless. With the right buyers, she could easily make a small fortune off of everything she had.

Sara's smile dropped at the question. No frustrated frown, petty pout, or sarcastic scowl replaced it; the corners of her mouth lowered to a neutral position and stayed there. She lowered her head slightly so that the brim of her visor covered her eyes. For the first time, Michelle saw Sara with a blank expression.

"I have to use the bathroom," she proclaimed, rather than answering the question. As she walked past her on the way to the toilet, Michelle caught a glimpse at her eyes: pupils pulled so far up that they nearly vanished underneath her eyelids and brows pinched together ever so slightly.

The door to the bathroom slammed shut behind her, the sound causing Michelle to jump a little. Whatever response she had expected Sara to give couldn't have been further from what she got, in that Sara hadn't given her a response at all. Whatever happened to her drawn-out monologues? Michelle bit her lip and stared at her shoes. That felt like a natural question to ask. Did I offend her somehow?

"Chelly, you won't believe this," Sara hollered from the bathroom. "The soap here is lavender scented. How cool is that? I never realized how much I liked lavender until just now. Such an underrated smell. Makes me want to buy out every room just so I can steal all the bars of soap they have."

Michelle made a noise halfway between a sigh and a laugh. Though she couldn't see her face, she could picture Sara's expression just from the cheeriness in her voice. She had gotten her smile back. Whatever the reason behind her reaction was, it couldn't have upset her too much.

"I don't know if I'd call that a selling point," Michelle objected, "I have some lavender scented soap back home."

"Speaking of which, you ever think it's weird how all these hotels look the same?" Sara referred to "all these hotels," implying that Michelle had been in more than just two. "Like, this hotel is basically the same as the ones in France and Spain and everywhere else back home in America! Even the bathrooms are all the same."

"I'm sure that's to accommodate tourists like yourself," concluded Michelle. "Besides, a toilet is a toilet. I assume they're fairly standard no matter where you go." She bit her cheek as soon as she finished her sentence. That wasn't true, and she knew for a fact it wasn't. "Although," she giggled, "my dad told me that this one place in India had a pig living in the toilet."

High-pitched laughter exploded from behind the door. "A pig? What the hell? Was it, like, there willingly? Did they have to call an exterminator or something?"

Though Michelle opened her mouth to respond, no words left her mouth. How did the pig get there, anyway? She pressed her fingertips to her forehead as she ran through the story in her head. Ok, so, Dad was in India, and he was at a...where exactly was the toilet? A hotel? A restaurant? Dammit, where was the damn pig toilet? Through her mind's eye, she could see herself hearing the story for the first time—she and her parents were seated at the dinner table, scarfing down the pork tenderloin that her mother had prepared. Her father turned a shade of green when his wife informed him exactly what kind of meat he had been shoveling down his throat. When she demanded an explanation as to why he refused to take another bite, the green disgust in his cheeks turned to red embarrassment as he confessed to having almost shit in a live pig's mouth. Laughter ensued, but Michelle fed her scraps to Pop.

She could still vividly remember that moment in her head, so why couldn't she remember the story itself? There was a pig in the toilet. That much she was sure of. Why was it in the toilet, though? And where was the toilet in the first place? Hell, it might not have been in India at all; her father traveled a lot before and after she was born, it could have easily been in Saudi Arabia or Egypt or any number places he had been.

"I don't know," she admitted.

A solemn sigh passed her lips as she admitted defeat. Resting her chin on her fist, she gazed out the window. India, Egypt, Italy—he went just about everywhere. Now here I am, all the way in Belgium. I wonder if he'd be proud of me for making it all the way out here. Or maybe he'd be disappointed that I didn't fight off that guy at the cemetery when I had the chance; or that I dropped out of school; or that I killed him and mom and everyone else.

Another sigh, this one longer and deeper. She never asked for this. Never in a million years would she have chosen a to live on the run from a lunatic Stand user and his masked henchmen, laying low with a group of tourists she had only just met. As much as she'd like to fantasize about a life where none of this was happening and things were normal, like they had been so many years ago, that was the reality she was stuck with. No amount of imagination or nostalgia could ever bring her back to a time where her father was alive, her mother was healthy, and she was still in school like she was supposed be.

That didn't mean that she couldn't indulge herself, though.

She lowered her hand from her chin, brought her wrists in front of her, and twisted her bracelets so that the heart charms were at eye level. Digging her nails between the small fold in the jagged edge of each heart piece, she pried them open. These "charms" were actually lockets, the picture inside of it being...

"Ooh, who's that?"

Sara's voice was so close that she was almost breathing down Michelle's neck. Rattled, Michelle jumped over to the other side of the bed and snapped the lockets shut.

"No need to be embarrassed!" Sara threw her lavender-scented hands up. "I already saw a little bit of the picture, anyways. Are those lockets? I've never seen a locket bracelet before."

Michelle sighed. Better to tell her now than for her to pester her about it later. "Yeah, they're lockets."

"Soooooo," Sara scooted closer to her, excitedly rubbing her hands together, "who's picture you got inside them?"

As she felt her cheeks heat up, Michelle understood how Rumor must have felt seeing her read his diary. "M-my parents."

"Oh." Sara laid her hands down.

The corners of Michelle's mouth turned up in a warm grin. "Yeah, see," she swiveled her body so that she was facing Sara and presented her wrists, "my mom's on my left wrist, and my dad's on my right. Then, when you bring the pieces together," she pressed her wrists together, aligning the jagged edges of the bracelet so that they fit together and made a full heart. Now that they were side by side, it was apparent that the image inside the lockets had originally been the same image, now split in two. "Isn't that neat?"

"Yeah, that's, uh, really something," Sara mumbled, her eyes unfocused as she rubbed the back of her neck.

"This picture's from their anniversary. The fifth one, I think," Michelle rambled. "Dad took mom out to Bordeaux to go wine tasting all day. Bordeaux's the wine capital of the world, in case you didn't know."

"I'm aware."

Engulfed by her nostalgia, Michelle missed the opportunity to be shocked that an American tourist like Sara knew a city in France besides Paris. "I was just a toddler at the time, so I didn't come with them, obviously," she continued. "Mom always loved to tell stories about that trip, though. Apparently, Dad was so sure he could tell all the wine apart that he tried tasting them all blindfolded. He got all of them right, but confessed to my mom later that night that he just made lucky guesses on all of them!"

While Michelle absentmindedly giggled to herself, Sara sat with her legs crossed and stared out the window. Her expression was unreadable.

"Actually, I think that was the last anniversary of theirs that I wasn't a part of. Usually the three of us would all go out to a fancy restaurant or something like that," Michelle prattled on. "When I was six, I tried making them breakfast in bed, but I almost burnt my hand on the stove. That freaked them out, let me tell you. My grandma always thought it was weird that I did stuff with them on their anniversary rather than them just doing stuff together, but I think my Dad just felt guilty that he was always travelling. I never blamed him though. I knew that whenever he left, it was for something important."

As Michelle's smile turned bittersweet, Sara rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath that went unheard.

"He always seemed like he had life figured out. A pillar of confidence in everything he did, no matter how the odds stacked against him. That always inspired me. I wish I could be more like how he was," Michelle confessed. "The lockets help. Dad always used to wear a pair of earrings just like these, so they remind me of him. Mom got them for me for my birthday, before she..." Michelle closed her eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. "Sometimes, when I miss them a lot, I open the lockets up, look at their pictures, and try to remember all the time I spent with them and all the stories I've heard about them. Maybe even wonder if they'd be proud of me."

"I'm proud of you, Chelly! And you should be proud of yourself, too." Sara reassuringly patted her back. Her eyes drifted back down to Michelle's lockets for a moment before she quirked her head to the side. "Wait, that's your dad?"

Michelle nodded.

Her eyebrows shot up. "Holy shit, your dad's buff as hell."

"Um," Michelle had no earthly idea how to respond, "thanks?"

"Didn't you say he was a Stand user, too? Its name was..." she bit her lip and stared at her forehead, "Silver Chariot," she recalled, emphasizing the name with a snap of her fingers, "right?"

"Yes, why?"

"What did it look like? Was it humanoid like Iron Maiden?"

"Yeah. If I had to describe it, Chariot looked like a robot knight. It had tubes for a waist and spiky shoulder plates."

"What did it do?"

"Uh..." she rested her chin on her fist. What couldn't it do? She remembered Chariot being capable of just about anything. Fast, precise, strong; but at the same time, she couldn't pick out anything truly "different" about it, at least compared to the Stands of her new companions. "It had a sword."

Sara blinked in surprised and twitched her head back. "That’s it? Nothing like, ‘when I slice something with my sword, I can steal its soul and put it in something else?’"

Michelle shrugged. "I vaguely remember seeing Chariot take off its armor once. Then it started to move around so quickly that it left afterimages. But…I’m not sure. That was a long time ago. I don’t remember it very well." She sighed, gazing down at her father's photo smiling back at her. "I don’t remember a lot of things about him very well anymore. Or mom. I'm worried that I'm starting to forget."

Unable to bear the sight of their faces anymore, she clicked the lockets shut and huffed air through her nose. Michelle redirected her gaze out the window. Even with just a sword, Silver Chariot had been much more capable than she could ever dream of Iron Maiden being. What was the point of having a Stand that caused senseless, uncontrollable death with just the tap of a finger? It may as well be a walking time bomb. The least she could indulge herself in was some fond nostalgia of a time before she had this nightmare attached to her very soul, but as time continued to tick forward, it became more and more difficult to do. What good was she if she couldn't even keep her memories of them alive?

"Is that a bad thing?" Sara's question snapped her from her trance.

The question made Michelle quirk a brow. "Of course it’s a bad thing. I don’t want to forget my parents. My memories are all I have left of them."

"But you also can’t keep living in the past," Sara pointed out. "Why worry about old memories fading with time when you can instead focus on making new memories?" She rested her hand on Michelle's shoulder. To Michelle's surprise, she didn't feel the urge to nudge it away. "The past is behind you, Chelly. You just gotta keep your head up high and look forward to tomorrow."

"Tomorrow rarely brings anything good," she rebutted. "The past is solid. It's comfortable."

"Well, yesterday's tomorrow was today," Sara tracked the passage of days with her finger, bouncing them from the left to the right then back to the center, "and today you're all the way out in Belgium with your new group of friends! I'd call that something good."

Michelle would've told her that she just doesn't get it, but something Sara said stuck out. New group of friends. She had known her for barely over a day, and she already considered her a friend? Without knowing why, she smiled at the thought. Did Cab and Rumor consider her a friend, too?

She forced her smile to fall into a neutral expression as soon as she realized it was there. No way. You don't become someone's friend after just a day, she decided on. For all I know, they could still be trying to stab me in the back. Sara's just trying to be nice. Michelle told herself this, but it didn't rid the warmness from within her that she hadn't felt in a long time. 

Still didn't change the fact that she just didn't get it. "And you guys are cursed to die any second now," she stated. "Maybe not tomorrow, but soon."

Sara groaned and stood up from the bed, ripping off the Velcro from the back of her visor and placing in on the end table. "I'm telling ya, Chelly, it's all in your head," she reaffirmed. "I'd bet you that the arrow of fate is pointing your way!"

"Don't tell Cab that," Michelle giggled.

"He's not here," Sara pointed out as she shimmied off her vest. "I can say the f-word as many times as I want." She kicked over one of her suitcases and unzipped it. Her vest was tossed inside as she rummaged through the various t-shirts and shorts, all of which having been folded into neat little squares. "Fate, destiny, luck, karma...am I forgetting any?"

"I assume you'd know better than me. English is your first language, not mine," Michelle said. "What’s with the sudden interest in my dad’s Stand in the first place?"

Sara shrugged. "Just curious. I haven’t seen a ton of Stands, let alone humanoid ones like Iron Maiden and Quiet Riot." She pulled out an oversized t-shirt with polka dots on it and a pair of tie-dyed shorts then zipped the suitcase shut. Michelle assumed them to be her pajamas. Made sense, even without a clock in their room, the nearly pitch-black sky outside was evidence enough that it was nearing bedtime. "I just want to learn more about it all, y’know?"

"You’re starting to sound like Rumor," Michelle commented.

"Maybe that’s a good thing!" Sara tugged at the elastic holding her left pigtail in place. It did not budge. Biting her lip, she sat down on her own bed while she tried to yank her hair free. "Rumor’s a lot wiser than I am," she continued through gritted teeth. "More organized, too! Even if he's a little quirky."

Michelle scoffed. Only Sara would refer to a man who could alter his breathing to perform miracles, insisted on vampires being real, and wore a heavy scarf in the middle of May as only quirky. Not like either of them were much better. "What about your parents? Are either of them Stand users?"

As the word "parents" left Michelle's mouth, Sara froze in place. The fingers laced under the red elastic remained there, starting to go red themselves as the rubber band cut into her circulation. She released her lower lip from her teeth, her eyes widening as if she just witnessed a cockroach scuttle over her shoes.

For a moment, she remained locked in that position. The only evidence she hadn't been swapped out for a statue was the rise and fall of her chest as she took slow, deliberate breaths.

"Sara?"

Hearing her name seemed to snap her back to reality. She blinked a few times before untwining her fingers from the rubber band, leaving it in her hair. "I’m sorry, did you say something?"

"I, um, was just wondering whether or not either of your parents were Stand users," Michelle stammered. "I always assumed it was hereditary, so who'd you get it from?"

"I don't think it works like that," Sara asserted, shifting her gaze towards the wall. "Cab's told me that his parents weren't Stand users and I get the feeling that Rumor's weren't either."

"Then neither of your parents had Stands?"

"My mom couldn’t see Out of Touch, so she didn't have one."

"What about your dad?"

Sara forced a laugh that reverberated off the walls, one that was seething with pessimism. Her lips curled up in a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "How am I supposed to know? I never met the bastard."

Michelle frowned. That wasn't right—she recalled Sara mentioning that her father had died of cancer after she shot Bad Sneakers' user in the leg. Did she only find out after the fact? "I thought you said your dad—"

"Stepdad," Sara corrected. "I only ever knew my stepdad. He's the one who I said died of cancer a year ago. And frankly, I wish I never met him, either."

"Is that why you're traveling around the world? You're trying to track down your real dad and see if he's a Stand user like you?"

Sara bit her cheek and balled her hands into fists. The pattern of Out of Touch seemingly rippled on her hands as it formed and dematerialized in a flash. She turned her whole body around so she was facing away from Michelle. "Whoever that man is," she answered, "he's not my 'real' dad. I don't have a 'real' dad. And why would it matter if he's a Stand user? You're a Stand user, I'm a Stand user; Cab, Rumor, hell even that kid who tried to steal the car this morning are all Stand users. I don't care either way. It doesn't matter to me." She turned her head to look Michelle in the eyes. A nasty scowl was plastered on her face. "Stand user or not, the first thing I’d do if I ever met my 'real' dad would be to punch him in the face."

None of that's true, Michelle realized. Less than a minute ago, she was asking all about Chariot's form and abilities purely out of curiosity. Hell, the only reason that Sara had even latched onto her in the first place was because she wanted to learn more about Iron Maiden. Unless she had ulterior motives, of course, but every second that passed made it harder to believe that she was anything more than a simple tourist. It was obvious that Stands intrigued her, so why lie and say that meeting new Stand users didn't matter? Especially one that was related by blood, their Stands could potentially be comparable. Why cast away a father that she had never even met when she could learn so much from him?

Michelle wished she had the luxury of regarding her own father so casually.

"Then why are you traveli—"

"Isn't it a lovely night out tonight?" Sara snapped to her feet and strode over to the balcony, swinging the door open. Michelle shivered as the cold air brushed against her skin, but it was Sara's attitude that gave her goosebumps. "So many pretty clouds." She pointed to the sky, though Michelle couldn't discern at what. "That one looks like a pony, don't you agree?"

"Why do you keep changing the subject? Why don't you want to talk about your fami—"

"For Pete's sake, Michelle, would it kill you to shut up?" Michelle's eyes widened as Sara snarled and turned around on the balls of her feet, rage swimming underneath her ocean blue eyes. "Sorry I didn't have the wholesome family life that you had. It's none of your business, but they don't matter to me anymore. I'm moving on. So can you just drop it already?"

Michelle bit her lower lip before it could drift open. Never in her life had she expected to see Sara so angry. Guilt brewed inside her as she turned around to face the wall. Sara was right. It was thoughtless of her to keep on pestering her about a topic she obviously didn't want to talk about.

"I'm sorry," Michelle heard Sara say, a slight quiver in her voice, "that was uncalled for. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that."

An uncomfortable pause hung in the air like smoke from a cigarette, threatening to choke them alive. Neither one of them possessed the bravery to look at each other head on. Michelle only gave her a wayward glance. She had turned around, staring down off the balcony. Maybe it was just the wind, but she could've sworn she heard her crying. Michelle felt her heart shatter; she was the one who ought to apologize.

But Sara spoke first.

"I'm going to go outside," she announced, speaking faster than usual, "get some fresh air. I promised myself that I'd take a second to get a good whiff of the air in every country I visited on this trip. Belgium is such a pretty country; it makes sense that the air would smell nice. That makes sense to you, right?" Sara's question was directed at Michelle, though Sara herself avoided looking at her directly, still preoccupied by the clouds in the sky.

"Oui, I suppose that makes sense."

Sara's motormouth started blaring before Michelle could say anything else. "Yeah! I knew you'd get it. You appreciate the smaller things in life." Sara turned around to face Michelle again. She had regained her cheerful glow, cheeks rosy and eyes beaming. "Cab keeps telling me that I need to do that more and live in the moment, so I'm going to take his advice. Don't tell him though, ok? I'd hate for him to know he got one over on me. But I feel like if you were there getting your first whiff of Belgium with me, it'd ruin the experience. No point in learning to appreciate the smaller things in life if you have someone to walk you through the process, right? So, I'm going by myself. Are you ok here alone for a while?"

Michelle folded her arms at the display. What was with the sudden shift in attitude? "Of course I'm alright by myself, but—"

"Great!" Sara clapped her hands together and sauntered back into the room, not bothering to shut the door behind her. "You look like you could use a little 'me time' anyways. I mean, today was exhausting, right? I'm totally exhausted, too. If you do get lonely, Cab and Rumor are down the hall. I'm sure they haven't gone to sleep yet. Well, maybe Rumor, but definitely not Cab. Now then," she snatched the room key from off of Michelle's bed and sped to the door. "I'm out of here."

Sara slammed the door behind her as she left, leaving Michelle to gawk at where she last stood with wide eyes and an ajar mouth.

What the hell was that all about?

Chapter Text

Despite being a smaller country surrounded by more famous neighbors, Belgium had made a name for itself through its food. Chocolate, waffles, even french fries (despite the moniker) all had Belgian variants considered superior to the original, or were the originals themselves. Michelle knew this just as well as anyone else. What she did not expect was the portion sizes.

Just about every pastry, cheese, and fruit she knew was laid out on their table, the plates so many that Michelle's dangled over the edge and was ready to fall into her lap. We didn't buy breakfast, she convinced herself, we bought a god damn buffet. Her stomach felt nearly as empty as her bank account as she stared at the array of food. Their sweet and savory scents mingled together to create a delectable mix that made Michelle's mouth water, yet she remained frozen in place. Where to even begin? The buttery brioche toast, the rich cheese platter, the bowl of ripened berries; all of them just looked too good to eat.

Looking at the way Rumor was stuffing his face, though, she knew that she needed to make a decision quick before all the food was gone.

It was remarkable, really, and far from what Michelle expected from him. His trademark aura of refinement had vanished as he devoured pastry after pastry, crumbs flaking onto his scarf. He hadn't even picked up his utensils, so his hands were coated in butter and berry juices. Even some of the other patrons at the restaurant stopped their own meals to watch him inhale the plate of food in front of him.

"Avez-vous été élevé dans une grange?" Michelle shoved a cinnamon roll in her mouth as soon as she realized she was mumbling to herself.

"You know, Rumor, for someone so skinny, you eat one hell of a breakfast," commented Cab as he chomped on a piece of bacon.

Rumor looked up, his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk's. "Ah haf uh heawfy appehite."

"You say that, then you're not going to eat a single thing for the rest of the day." Cab flashed an apologetic smile to their waitress as she glared them down. As soon as she left, he leaned back in his chair and fanned himself with the collar of his tank top. "And what the hell are you still doing with that scarf on? It's almost 80 degrees outside, aren't you roasting?"

"It's only 26 degrees."

"Fahrenheit, smartass."

"Well, you know what they say," Sara chimed in as she took a sip of her smoothie, "when in Rome, right? Just about everywhere overseas uses Celsius. Maybe we should try to use it while we're here, too."

Michelle scoffed. "I hope you know that if I ever end up going to America, I'm not using Fahrenheit."

Sara giggled and playfully shoved her. "Don't knock it till you've tried it!"

"It's not that, I just have no idea how to convert the two."

"I don't know how to, either. We could learn together!"

Michelle absentmindedly nodded, but wasn't paying as much attention to what Sara was saying so much as how she said it. She was just as bubbly and enthusiastic as she ever was, yet her outburst from the night before still stuck out in Michelle's mind. Was this a coping mechanism of Sara's? Though she wasn't quite sure when she fell asleep, it wasn't for a while. Adjusting to a new bed was difficult. Even then, Michelle was sure that she was out cold long before Sara came back to their room. When the sound of Rumor pounding his fist on the door the next morning woke them up, Sara was sound asleep in her bed, facing away from Michelle and out the window. Her hair was still up in pigtails. Just how long had she been outside?

"A simple way to convert the two," Rumor informed as he swallowed, "is to multiply the degrees in Celsius by two then to add thirty. It's not foolproof, but it works most of the time."

"Speaking of numbers," Michelle pulled her right knee to her chest and reached down the leg of her boot, "do you guys want to exchange phone numbers?" She retrieved her cell phone. "If any of us get separated from the group, we can just call each other and—"

"Wait, Chelly, hold on," Sara interrupted. "Did you just pull your cell phone out of your boot?"

Michelle nodded. "I've sewn small pockets into all of my boots for me to put my phone and wallet in. That way I don't have to carry around a purse all the time."

Sara placed her hands on the side of her face and gasped. "That's so smart! It's like a fashion revolution!"

The waitress handed them the bill, wedging it between two plates. Sara goggled at Michelle as she took her wallet out from the other boot. Evidently, the display was not as impressive to Cab.

"You know," he commented, "there's these wonderful little things called 'pockets,' and they can store your phone and wallet for you."

"Most women's clothing don't have pockets," the two girls retorted together. Sara high-fived Michelle under the table.

"Anyhow," Michelle continued, "what are your cell phone numbers?"

Sara and Cab stared at Michelle blankly, as if she were speaking another language. For a moment, Rumor did as well, then resumed feasting. Michelle bit her tongue. Had she accidentally spoken in French? Maybe her accent got in the way?

"None of us have cell phones," Cab stated. "Or at least, not with us. Do you have any idea how expensive international data plans are?"

Michelle lowered her phone. "Oh." She hadn't considered that. What phone plan did she have in the first place? It must've said at some point on the bills she forged. Cab had a point, and at the rate she was spending her money, she'd be broke by the end of the month. She turned her phone off and slid it back inside her boot.

"I can still give you my number if you want," Cab offered, "I just don't have my phone with me."

"Regardless," Rumor added as he finished up the cheese platter, "it would be wise to exchange contact information. I'll jot down everyone's numbers in my notebook." He smacked his lips together as he started working on the fruit bowl. "In a moment, of course."

~~~~~

After Rumor's appetite was quelled and phone numbers were exchanged, the group decided to poke around in the city's main square. Most of the buildings there were reminiscent of the hotel: historic brick houses, each about three stories tall, with long windows and pointed rooftops. Flags from Belgium, France, Germany, and even the United States hung from the balustrades. Though they all stood shoulder to shoulder with each other, neatly compact on the street, leaving the square open and spacious. It was illegal to drive a car through the area as well, making it look much bigger than it likely was. Or perhaps that was due to the lack of people outside. Aside from Michelle and her companions, most of the civilians were either gathered around the fountain in the square's center or absent entirely. Maybe it was due to the scorching heat and everyone had decided to take refuge inside their air-conditioned homes. Maybe it was just because it was a Sunday afternoon, and everyone had better things to do.

Or maybe it had something to do with all the police tape surrounding city hall.

The building was wrapped up like a birthday present in the stuff, with cops positioned near the edges to shoo away onlookers. None of them looked pleased to be there. Naturally, Sara couldn't resist snapping as many pictures as she could of the scene. The building itself was pristine, without so much as a cracked window or splatter of blood on the side to be seen.

"Well, that's one hell of a first impression," Cab mused as they walked past. "Bet the election campaigns here are real interesting."

Rumor surveyed city hall, staring it up and down. "I doubt it's a robbery or some sort of political protest," he concluded. "You'd think that there would be more exterior damage if that was the case."

Those words made sense, but Michelle could think of a host of things worse than property damage. What if there had been a hostage situation or a fire? She shuddered at the thought. "I hope everyone's okay," she mumbled.

"You mean you haven't heard?"

The group turned around to see a man in his late thirties carrying a leather briefcase approach them. He sped down the street with a bouncy gait, his sunglasses bobbing up and down over his eyes in time with his steps. Sweat stained the collar and underarms of his dress shirt and stunk the air around him.

Sara dropped her camera, letting it dangle off of her neck by its strap. "Haven't heard what?"

"Mayor Dixie was murdered last night," the man answered.

Whatever she had been talking about dropped dead in Michelle's throat. A murder. Someone had died there. And recently, too—she couldn't recall seeing any police activity the night before when they drove into town. She bit her lip and took a step away from the group. What if Iron Maiden caused this? What if this is my fault?

She clenched her fist. No. Don't go there. I haven't even brought out my Stand since we got to Belgium. Unless I've been using it in my sleep again...

"Craziest thing, too." He took off his sunglasses as he continued, rubbing the lenses with the hem of his shirt. "Died from a bullet to the head, except there's no bullet in his head! It was all over the news this morning."

Cab put a hand on his hip and raised a brow. "I dunno, man. That sounds like some sensationalist baloney to me. Seems like a bullet would be the first thing an autopsy or investigation would look for."

The man shrugged and put his sunglasses back on. "That's what I'm here to find out. I'm the detective on the case."

Just as he resumed walking towards town hall, Sara latched onto the cuff of his sleeve. The look in her eyes was one that Michelle recognized all too well: giddy excitement paired with an insatiable wonder, her lips pursed in a small, open-mouthed smile. It was the same look she had given her when she saw Iron Maiden for the first time.

"You're a detective? That's so cool!" Sara punctuated her words by swinging his arm back and forth like a jump rope. "Do you have an assistant? Can you carry a gun around with you? Do you only work in Belgium, or are you some Interpol type guy? Do you ever have to chase down the bad guys? Who do you think shot the mayor? Why do you think they did it? Can I take a picture of you in front of the crime scene?"

Sara's questions weren't even directed at her, but Michelle felt her head spin just from their sheer number and the speed she delivered them. The detective's eyes widened with each question, his lips locked in a grin but his brow pinched together. Obviously, he felt similarly. "Sara, I think you're—"

She was interrupted by Rumor's hand covering her mouth. Michelle looked over to him and saw him ogling the scene, notebook open and pen in hand. Rolling her eyes, she batted his hand away.

The detective pulled away from Sara's grasp before she could ask another question. "I'm sorry, but that's confidential information," he replied before turning around, stepping over the police tape, and entering city hall.

Sara folded her arms. "Well, poo," she huffed. "I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he was in a hurry."

"Either way, I fear that we'll be fined if we stay here for much longer." Rumor marched forward and motioned for the others to follow. "Let's go."

The three followed, but Michelle's eyes were stuck on the crime scene even as she walked away from it. Something just didn't sit right. "It's weird that the mayor was killed in his own office." she thought aloud.

Cab shrugged. "Who knows? That report sounds like a political coverup, anyway. 'Died from a bullet to the head, except there's no bullet in his head?' What's that even supposed to mean?" He shoved his hands in his pockets and gave the place one last look. "Usually, I'd want to peek around myself, but Rumor's right. We can't risk any trouble with the cops right now."

Michelle looked away from the building and thumbed at her necklace. That was partially her fault, wasn't it? "S-sorry. I need to find out how I can get a passport."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Rumor consoled as they took a left turn off of the city square. "In the meantime, where would you all like to go? There's the belfry, of course, but there's also an art museum nearby, a host of gardens, the Saint Waltrude Collegiate Church is a phenomenal piece of gothic architecture—"

"Which place has the best air conditioning?" Cab tore his jacket off and tied it around his waist, his exposed skin shiny from sweat. "I'm sweating up a storm over here."

"Same here," Michelle added. Even though she was wearing a flowy sundress, she felt about ready to melt as well. Some strands of hair had fallen free from her ponytail and clung to her forehead, the sweat acting like glue.

"Sara," Rumor called out to his friend as he untied his scarf, letting it wrap around his neck like a towel, "do you have any preferences on where we go?"

To everyone's surprise, Sara didn't respond as soon as her name was called, leaving the faint tapping of their shoes against the sidewalk the only noise between them. Even the conversations of the handful of other pedestrians they passed were louder than her. They all whipped their heads back, first Michelle, then Cab, then Rumor. The former breathed a sigh of relief—Sara was still there, trailing behind them, and hadn't been seized by the murderer lurking the streets. Her wrist was pressed to her ear, narrowed eyes gazing to the side as if she were focusing in on something.

"Sara?" Michelle asked again.

No response. Rumor sighed and pulled some hair from his head. The severed strands sparked with Hamon, faintly ringing, then stiffened like needles. He flung the strands at her wrist. A startled yelp sounded from her mouth as she retracted her hand. The rest of the group gasped at the sight of Out of Touch adorning Sara's hands, its golden patterning sparkling almost in tune with the Hamon-infused hair that punctured her. Sara glared up at Rumor before noticing the path his eyes had taken, then hid her hands behind her back. "Yes?"

Rumor raised a brow. "Was that Out of Touch?"

"What? No! Of course not."

He pulled out another few strands of hair. Inhaling through gritted teeth, Sara threw her hands up in surrender before he could infuse them with any Hamon.

"Okay, you win." She yanked the hair needles from her wrist, letting them go limp. "I didn't stick a cannon to anyone's body, though! I just stuck one to that detective guy's shirt."

"How daft can you get? You shouldn't use your Stand out in public," chided Rumor. "What if a Masquerader saw you? And now you've endangered someone entirely uninvolved as well."

"He's right," Cab added, folding his arms. "I for one don't give a shit if a Masquerader sees Quiet Riot and attacks me, but you can't just attach a cannon to everyone you meet."

"Oh my god, it's not that big of a deal," she groaned. "Besides, all of the Masquerader attacks have been in big cities. Places like Paris, Madrid, Denver, not somewhere like this. We'll be fine! Plus," she pointed at Michelle and Cab, "you guys said it yourselves that the whole thing sounded fishy. So, I'm just doing some snooping in! You can thank me later."

Michelle jutted her chin back at the gesture. For what reason would Sara have to stalk the detective? He clearly wasn't a Stand user, and Sara didn't express the slightest interest in the case before the detective revealed his profession. The building itself was more fascinating to her than the crime that had been committed inside of it. Not to mention how out of character it was for her to listen in on her own and not announce it to the group as soon as they were out of earshot of the detective. Michelle rested the knuckle of her pointer finger against her lips. A bullet in his head, with no bullet in his head.

Just what had Sara been up to while she took in her first few breaths of Belgium?

"There were several Masqueraders scattered all throughout Italy, not just in Rome and Naples." Rumor's lectures snapped Michelle out of her thoughts.

"Yeah, but that was in Italy," justified Sara. "Chelly said that their leader was Italian, remember? That guy with the donut hair. So I'm pretty sure that's like, their home base."

Whatever happened, it doesn't seem like the boys are involved, at least, Michelle pondered. But what if this road trip of Sara's is just her checking off the boxes on a hitlist? For what reason would she have to kill the mayor? She gulped. What if I'm on that hitlist too? What do I do then?

Michelle realized that Sara was staring at her with pleading eyes, hoping to back her up. "You still shouldn't use it unless you have to," she said. "You could hurt someone."

Sara's face fell into a scowling pout. "I'm not hurting anyone, see?" She lifted her hands up in the air and waved them around. "Look at me, everybody! I'm a Staaaaand user! Except no one else knows what that is, and no one can see what's on my hands!"

Cab and Rumor rushed over to her and tugged on her upper arms, trying to force their hands down. She ducked under them and somersaulted between their legs, emerging through Cab's jeans like curtains, before standing upright again and running in circles around the city. While Rumor continued to chase after her, Cab's gaze locked onto something in the distance. Michelle followed his line of sight; someone was running towards them. Fast. "Sara—"

"Hey everybody! Look at my hands! Isn't it cool how there's nothing on them? Aren't my friends just paranoooooid?"

"Sara—"

Lowering her hands, Sara skipped back over to them. Rumor dizzily stumbled behind. "See? No Masqueraders. Everything's—"

"Sara, for the love of God," he raised his fists near his chest as the man drew closer, "call back your Stand!"

"Don't be such a worrywart! There aren't any—"

A loud THWACK! just in front of her cut her off. The man that had been charging at them—he looked to be in his early 50s and had crow's feet eyes and gaunt hands, yet sported a spikey mohawk, layers of bedazzled necklaces, and a sheer top with a deep V-neck—had summoned his Stand and prepared to strike her, only to be blocked by Quiet Riot's fists. The Stand was humanoid, yet had no body. A glowing, cyan grid-like outline of a muscular frame stood before them instead. Underneath the grid stood a mechanical skeleton, with a spine that ran all the way up its head and branched off into a pair of goggle eyes. For a skeleton wrapped in glowsticks, it certainly packed a wallop. Its strength pushed Cab and Quiet Riot a few steps back.

None of them were focused on any of that, though. Their eyes were locked with the scarlet masquerade mask that covered the man's bloodthirsty scowl.

"...Masqueraders out here."

Quiet Riot circled around them and swung at the enemy Stand's jaw. It weaved away into Cab's blind spot before the hit could connect. Perceptive as ever, Cab turned his body in time with his opponent. Before it could strike again, Quiet Riot punched the Stand in the gut. Compass-fist swiveling south, both the enemy Stand and its user launched in a smooth arc backwards and to the sky, crashing into the upper window of the building behind them. A loud, feminine gasp sounded from the wreckage.

Cab rolled his shoulders back and grinned. "That walking midlife crisis was no match for me," he quipped as he called back Quiet Riot. "Now let's get the hell out of here."

As the group moseyed away from the broken window, Rumor sighed and pinched the ridge of his nose. "Cab, must you be so uncouth in your methods? The very least we should do is apologize to the woman whose window you wrecked." Some shards of glass cascaded to the pavement, turning to even tinier shards that glinted in the sun. "Additionally, Masqueraders are common, but they're not a dime a dozen. Were you to apprehend that man rather than launch him through a window, I would have had the opportunity to interrogate him. It's plausible that he's involved in the mayor's assassination as well."

"If you want to go up there, be my guest," Cab invited. "So long as he's down, it's all the same to me. Unlike you, Sara and I didn't come all the way out here to beat up a bunch of masked weirdos. If I wanted to fight people, I'd still be in the ring."

You still launched a brainwashed killer into an innocent woman's apartment, Michelle thought, rolling her eyes. Let's pray she's not a Stand user, too.

"You know what? I may do just that," Rumor grumbled.

"If you want my opinion," Michelle piped up before Rumor could walk away, "I don't think he was involved in the mayor's assassination. Think about it: a bullet in his head, but there was no bullet in his head. That was a close ranged Stand, and it didn't look like it had any body parts that could shoot any projectiles." Michelle narrowed her eyes at Sara. "You should withdraw Out of Touch, by the way."

Sara let out an annoyed groan and folded her arms. "We just dealt with the Masquerader, didn't we? Now there's no more bad guys. Everything's fine!"

"At least fire the cannon you attached to the detective's shirt."

"Ugh, y'all are no fun." She pressed her middle finger to the ridge of her thumb. Moments later, a fresh black pad grew back onto the fingertip.

Michelle shrugged off the accusation. Was Sara really the one who killed the mayor? The notion was hard to believe. Even if Out of Touch would've been the perfect Stand to get the job done, what reason did an American tourist like Sara have to assassinate a random Belgian mayor? It couldn't have been for money, Michelle still had to pay for their breakfast on her own, and it couldn't have been for any political reason if she didn't even know the local dialect.

She doesn't have a reason to kill him, she concluded, and she's not the type to attack someone unprovoked. The mayor was killed in his own office, so it's not like they could have bumped into each other on the street.

A coppery aroma drifted through the air as they turned a corner. Michelle wrinkled her nose at the smell, she didn't have to waste a second to figure out what it was: blood. With wide eyes, she scanned over her body. No blood in sight, but that made sense. She didn't feel injured. So where was the smell coming from?

It only took a cursory glance at the ground to figure out—a fresh trail of blood streaked the sidewalk, seemingly coming from Cab's shoes.

"Cab, are you bleeding?"

Turning around, Cab tilted his head at the question. "No, but I think my hand's starting to fall asleep. Why?"

Michelle pointed at the blood he was stepping in. He stepped aside, and now that his massive frame no longer obstructed their view, it was evident that the trail of blood hadn't been coming from him—it wrapped around the sidewalk both in front of and behind them. A scarlet puddle a few paces back marked where it began. It smeared forwards and past them, before eventually disappearing behind a corner that led to an alleyway. Both Sara and Rumor has stepped aside to examine the trail as well.

Rumor's eyes lit up with passion and resolve. "Fascinating. This may be exactly what I'm looking for." He grabbed Sara's camera and took a photo of the scene. "A trail of fresh blood? Clearly, this is the work of a vampire."

Snatching her camera back from him, Sara followed the blood in a sprint. "Last one to the vampire's a rotten egg!"

"Sara! It's dangerous to go alone! A vampire is no laughing matter!"

The three of them chased after her. Whether it was due to his natural athleticism or the possibility of a vampire at his destination, Rumor caught up to her with ease and surpassed her not long after. Cab scurried not far behind. Michelle, on the other hand, ambled at a leisurely pace, her heart rate much faster than her feet. If there really was a vampire in that alleyway, she was in no rush to meet them.

She took a second to peek over the corner to the alleyway. Luckily, no vampires greeted her on the other side. Just a dirty old dumpster, caked in grime and filled with trash. The rooftops of the two buildings the alley was sandwiched between nearly overlapped with each other, creating a natural shield from the sun. Sara, Cab, and Rumor all huddled around the edge of the dumpster, the former perched on her heels staring at where the bloody trail ended. A pair of leather cowboy boots stuck out from their point of interest.

Cautiously, Michelle tiptoed into the alleyway and joined her companions, peeking over Rumor's shoulder to see what they were all looking at. A man, around the same age as the Masquerader from before, was passed out near the dumpster, his arms extended in front of him as if he were diving. His attire hardly matched the climate; a wide brim leather hat, a heavy poncho with a geometric pattern, and fringed chaps with blue jeans underneath. He looked like he had walked right out of an American Western movie. Blond locks cascaded over his face, falling out of its ponytail. A used cigarette lay just inches away from his open jaw.

"Yeehaw," snickered Sara. "You sure this guy's a vampire, Rumor Mill?"

Rumor snorted in response. "Check for vitals," he suggested. "Where's he bleeding from?"

Calling back Out of Touch, she pressed two fingers against the man's neck. A sickening squelch gurgled against her touch. Sara's nose scrunched up. She pulled her fingers back, both slick with blood. "That answers that." With her clean hand, she removed her knapsack and fished out a box of tissues. First, she wiped her own fingers off on one, then pressed another against the man's wound. "He's got a pulse, and the wound's not super deep. He should be A-OK."

Michelle emerged from behind Rumor's back to get a closer look at the man. "What kind of injury is it?"

"Stab wound maybe? I dunno," Sara put the tissues back in her bag and strapped it back on her shoulders, "I'm not an expert on this type of stuff. Rumor should be able to heal it up, no problem."

On cue, Rumor leaned down to assess the damage himself. "You know, when I vacated Air Supplena almost five months ago, I never would have expected to end up healing an aged guttersnipe dressed as John Wayne in the streets of Belgium." The Chain began to slither out from his wrist. "Then again, I never would have expected to get wrapped up in some global conspiracy of masked cultists."

"Uh, guys?"

The group turned their heads back at Cab's faint whimper, Rumor withdrawing The Chain as he did so. Cab presented his right hand to the group, his left hand holding it up. The same cyan grid that composed the Masquerader's Stand now wrapped around his own flesh, covering his hand and wrist.

"That Masquerader's Stand must've attached this to me when we were fighting earlier," he hypothesized. After taking a few moments to look both ways as if he were about to cross the road, Cab summoned Quiet Riot's left arm and used it to flick his affected pinky finger. It snapped upwards for a moment before falling back down, limp. "Anything that happens to a Stand happens to its user, right? I can't feel my hand." He lifted his arm and waved it around like a bird flapping its wings. The grid remained firmly in place on his hand as it waggled around. "They're so damn cold, too..."

Rumor rose to his feet and examined the grid. "A Stand is only effective when it's within range of its user," he thought aloud. "Our enemy has a humanoid Stand, much like you and Michelle, which typically only have a range of about one to two meters. They're likely still nearby. We have two options: engage in combat with the Masquerader directly or attempt to escape his Stand's range. Ordinarily, I'd love nothing more than to chase him down, but seeing as you're all but useless without your fists," Cab glared at him for that remark, "and the Stand's permeable build would make it difficult for Sara to land a shot on it," Sara opened her mouth to object, but Rumor continued before she could get the words out, "I suggest that we attempt to put distance between ourselves and the Masquerader. Perhaps then this...thing will dissipate."

Cab quickly nodded in agreement. "Sounds good to me."

"What about cowboy here?" Sara grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him out from behind the dumpster. Letting his hat fall off behind him, she parted his hair and lifted his face by his cheeks. Three faded scars dotted his forehead and he had a scruffy five o'clock shadow, but other than that, he seemed innocent enough. "He's hurt, we can't just leave him here behind a dumpster. For all we know, whoever killed the mayor might be trying to kill him too!"

"One of us will just have to stay behind and watch over him, then," suggested Rumor.

The suggestion almost made Michelle laugh. Sara's naivety never ceased to surprise her. "Ne comptez pas sur moi," she blurted out. "For all we know, he could be the one who shot the mayor."

"Oh, come on. He looks completely harmless! He's like someone's dad on Halloween." She placed his hat back on his head and laid him back on the ground. "But I'll stay with him if no one else wants to."

"Okay then," Cab said, pacing in place, "let's go!"

"Wait! Chelly," Sara called out before they could take a step, "come here for a sec."

Michelle sighed when she saw Sara summon Out of Touch back on her hands. She tapped the side of the dumpster, forming a cannon there, then slipped off the glove and handed it to Michelle. "If you don't want to use Iron Maiden, then you at least need something to defend yourself with. Rumor Mill may think it's not very effective against the enemy Stand, but it's better than nothing, right?"

It took a moment for Michelle to process Sara's request, but her brows shot up when she realized exactly what she meant. "You want me to use your Stand?"

"Mhm! That way, we can talk to each other too." Sara pointed at the cannon she had set up. "They're like walkie talkies, remember? Out of Touch has a super big range, so you don't have to worry about that, either. Just speak into the cuff of the glove if you want to talk to me."

Michelle nodded and picked up Out of Touch by her thumb and pointer finger, handling it like it was radioactive. As much as she didn't want to use Out of Touch—after all, how could she be expected to properly handle someone else's Stand when she couldn't even manage her own—Sara was right. Without a Stand to defend herself with, she was dead weight. Careful not to touch the padded fingertips, Michelle slipped the glove onto her left hand. "I'll tell you if the Stand dissipates from Cab's fist."

"When, not if," Sara reassured. "Good luck!"

With that, the three of them exited the alleyway. Cab led the charge, pacing at a hearty jog. The group's pupils constricted in unison as they reentered the sunlight. Unlike the city square, the street they had emerged onto was bustling with people, the numerous cafes and shops packed with tourists and locals alike, likely because it was further away from where their mayor had been shot in the head. The crowd was loud, too, their voices creating a white noise of chatter. It almost made Michelle feel like she was back in Paris.

She tugged on the strap of Cab's tank top. "Feeling any better?"

"No," he blurted out, his tone irritated. "Shit, my whole arm feels numb."

He stopped for a second to catch his breath, flexing his affected shoulder while his forearm dangled uselessly at his side. The movement reminded Michelle of a ragdoll or marionette.

Rumor gasped. "Good God, it's growing!" He motioned up and down his forearm, where the grid had spread to. "When you showed it to us earlier, it was just on your hand. Now it's nearing your elbow!"

"What the hell?" Quiet Riot lifted Cab's arm up to be at eye level. His eyes just about bulged out of his skull at the sight of the stretched out grid, which had wrapped around his arm like a long glove. Quiet Riot's own arm mirrored its user's. "We're supposed to get it to go away, not get bigger!"

"In retrospect, putting distance between ourselves and our enemy wasn't the brightest idea when we haven't the foggiest idea where said enemy is." Rumor creased his brow and ran his fingers through his scalp. "We need to figure out a way to remove it before it spreads even further."

With worried eyes, Cab staggered back a few steps, walking into a vacant table situated outside of one of the cafés. "Since we're not in a big hurry to get a move on, can we sit down? Maybe it's just the heat but I'm..." he wiped some sweat from his brow, "starting to feel light-headed."

"Of course." Rumor pulled up a chair out from the table, which Cab flumped into. Michelle took the seat beside him.

"Any suggestions? I'm down for anything." He hoisted his arm onto the table. "Just don't cut off my arm."

"Well, if push comes to shove..."

"Phenomenal moral support, Rumor."

Michelle quirked a brow at him. He wasn't being serious, right? Were they really about to chop off Cab's arm in the middle of broad daylight? "A-are we really going to do that?"

Rumor flashed a self-assured grin. "Fear not, I have a plan. Michelle, I'm going to need your help."

Her heart skipped a beat. "Me? Why?"

"I need Iron Maiden," he exclaimed. "This grid may be stuck to Cab's arm, but it's still a Stand. It's an independent entity from Cab. Ergo, if you have Iron Maiden touch the grid, it should bind it in place, leaving Cab able to move freely. He should be able to—"

"You're joking, right?" Michelle couldn't find it within her to hear him out, especially not when his request was so ludicrous. "You want me to use Iron Maiden in the middle of a busy café? In case you forgot, my Stand is cursed. You'd be sentencing everyone here to death and shortening your own already reduced life spans!"

Cab slammed his fist against the table before she could make another objection, causing her body to go rigid. "I don't have time for all this crap about a damn curse, Michelle! This thing's gonna wrap around my entire arm if we don't act quickly!"

"I assure you," Rumor said, bending his knees a little to be at eye level with her, "it's all in your head. Cab and I will be fine, as well as everyone else in the vicinity." He attempted to take her hands in his, but she jerked away and held them close to her chest. "I'm terribly sorry for putting this all on you, but we don't have much time to waste here."

She gulped and began to fiddle with her necklace, staring at nothing in particular with labored breaths. Use Iron Maiden to save someone? Not to mention that Rumor had seemed the most terrified when she had first shared her tale with them. Now he was encouraging her? The faint sound of Cab drumming his fingers against the table sent tremors down her spine. She flitted her gaze at him, only to see a slightly annoyed and impatient frown on his face, nostrils flared as he waited on her. Turning her head away, she considered her options. If he and Rumor didn't hate her then, they certainly did now. Was their friendship really worth Cab's life?

I don't want to disappoint them. Iron Maiden's hand flickered just above Out of Touch. She darted her eyes around her, hoping to find a blind spot where no one could see them. At every angle, though, someone was there, an unknowing pedestrian whose fate was in her hands. Whether it was the other people at the café or tourists on the street, they all surrounded her like walking land mines. If they were to give Iron Maiden a cursory glance, they were as good as dead. Her heartbeat was like a hummingbird, breaths erratic and her vision beginning to blur. There must've been dozens of people around her, and using Iron Maiden around them would be putting them all in the line of fire. They couldn't even retreat back to the alleyway—what if the man there woke up and saw her Stand?

No. There must be another way.

"What about Out of Touch? Maybe we just need to blow up the grid," she blurted out. "Or shoot it. Either works."

Cab abruptly stopped drumming his fingers and bit his lip. "I'd rather not get shot in the arm today."

"We can use the same technique that Rumor used at the hotel to get Out of Touch off my arm. He can use Hamon to heal you." She turned to Rumor. "You can do that, right?"

Wrapping his scarf back around his neck, Rumor nodded. "It's worth trying."

"If you wanna try it, then try it," requested Cab, tapping his foot. "Just get it off me before it gets any bigger!"

Rumor sighed as he pulled up a chair and sat down. "Just a moment ago, you proclaimed that you had no desire to be shot in the arm. Now you're impatient because we haven't shot you yet." The Chain slithered out from his wrist and began to wrap around Cab's arm. "What ever happened to that boxer's intuition of yours? Staying calm in the heat of battle?"

"Yeah, let's attach this thing to your arm and see you stay calm," Cab retorted, The Chain now up to his elbow. "Maybe if you were calm enough to help me fight that guy off when he first attacked us, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place."

"I was merely out of breath from chasing Sara down the street."

"Uh huh. So much for that 'increased breath control' from your special sunlight kung-fu training."

Though Michelle expected Rumor to toss another Hamon-fueled hair at him, he only exhaled heavily. The Chain paused its ascent up Cab's arm, stopping about halfway up his forearm. Rumor gestured to his other companion and said, "Michelle, if you would do the honors?"

She reached out to attach a cannon to Cab's arm, but hesitated. What if the grid was contagious? Cab had gotten infected because Quiet Riot had punched the enemy's Stand, what if it ended up sticking to Out of Touch and transferring to Sara? Better not to risk it. Michelle quickly tapped the table, the padding on the glove's fingertip suctioning onto it. Starting out as an amorphous blob, it made squeaky, rubbery noises as it contorted itself into a cannon. The process was much slower than when Sara had done it before. Could it be amounted to Out of Touch being further away from its user? Did she do something wrong?

"I assume it doesn't matter whether it's attached to your arm or not," she justified as the cannon's veiny roots grew into the table. "I don't want to risk it spreading to me and Sara, too."

"That's fine." Cab nudged his paralyzed arm closer to the cannon with his other elbow until the cannon was pressed up against it.

"Wouldn't it be more effective to use the explosion rather than...oh, never mind." The Chain continued to snake up Cab's arm as its user dismissed himself. Eventually coiling up to Cab's shoulder, it stopped and parted a small hole for the cannon to shoot through. "On the count of three."

Michelle nodded. Cab squeezed his eyes shut and turned away as Rumor began to take deep breaths through his mouth.

"Un..." Rumor's French accent wasn't terrible, but needed work, "deux..." Michelle took some deep breaths of her own as Hamon's characteristic hum rang from The Chain, "trois!"

The cannon fired, shooting a hole clean through Cab's arm and partially severing the grid. Before any blood could drip onto the table, Hamon crackled around the wound. His skin tissue rippled as it pulled itself back together. As life energy coursed through Cab's arm, the grid zapped up his body and spread to his neck. Michelle tented her hands over her mouth and gasped.

"Merde! What happened?"

Cab's head lurched back over to face them. The grid had climbed all the way up his face, up to his forehead and tickling his scalp. Eyes lidded, his lips twitched for a moment as he tried to speak. Only a slurred moan sounded from him before face planting onto the table, unconscious. Some of the café's other patrons gasped and a waitress dashed over to their table. Rumor shooed her away before she could say anything.

Heart pounding in her chest, Michelle eyed Rumor and waited for a response. He was in awe as well, jaw dropped and hands shaking.

"I'm...I'm not sure." He withdrew The Chain, letting it snap back to his wrist. "This isn't good. Now we couldn't have him slip out of it even if we wanted to." He flipped Cab over so he way laying on his back, his rear slouching out of his chair.

"This is my fault! I must've applied Out of Touch incorrectly." That much Michelle was sure of, as it would explain the cannon's delayed transformation. She should've at least risked her and Sara getting infected by attaching the cannon to his arm. True to form, her presence only made things worse for others. "I should have stayed with the cowboy."

Rumor shook his head. "I'm sure it's not that."

"Then what do you think happened?"

His silence spoke volumes—Rumor always had an answer for everything, and now he had nothing to offer up. This time, she didn't need an answer. It was already obvious what was happening.

Iron Maiden's curse was starting to take effect.

Chapter Text

"Michelle? Rumor? What's going on over there?"

Sara sat on her knees in front of the cannon, hoping to hear something from the other end. She gnawed on her knuckles with anxious eyes. Even if it was just Rumor lecturing her about being impatient or Michelle yelling for stressing her out, any kind of response was better than being left in anticipation. Only muffled squeaks of panic played from the cannon. She punched the side of the dumpster in frustration. Were it not for the man next to her, she would have ditched her post and chased after her friends as soon as she heard Cab lose his temper.

Then again, I guess he's the only reason I'm still here in the first place, she thought to herself. I can't just leave this guy here when there's a killer on the loose. Resting her back against the dumpster, she whistled an improvised tune to herself. It echoed off the alleyway's walls but stayed within them, the melody going unheard by everyone but her. She pulled her knees to her chest and silenced herself. What a horrible thing, to be alone.

Well, alone wasn't entirely accurate, but an unconscious dumpster diver didn't make for the best company. That had to have been his deal, right? Then his neck wound probably came from a territorial raccoon. She made a mental note to tell him to get checked for rabies when he woke up. If he woke up. But if he is a dumpster diver, she wondered, then why's he dressed like that? His clothes were worn in, with some scuffs on his boots and some tears in his hat, but not to the point where they looked like he had fished them out of someone's trash. He reeked of cigarette smoke, but he didn't smell like he hadn't bathed in weeks. He wasn't homeless, that much she was sure of, but hiding behind a dumpster was an odd way to beat the heat to say the least.

As she surveyed his clothes, something caught her eye—a swede wallet poking out from the pocket of his jeans, dipping onto the pavement. Her lips curled up in a greedy grin as she snatched it from him. A low chuckle rumbled in her belly; if only he had the foresight to keep it in his boots like Michelle did. It's not stealing if he doesn't need it, she reminded herself. He was old and worn out, and she was young without a dime to her name. Of the two of them, she needed the money more. Eccentrics like him usually carried around a lot of cash, too. Nearly salivating, she licked her lips as she snapped the wallet open.

Her expectant smile instantly fell into a puzzled frown. The wallet was empty. Not so much as an old receipt was inside, let alone a dollar for him to spare. Undeterred, Sara unzipped the coin pouch. Nothing there, either, and no credit or debit card in the card slots. The ID slot, however, was occupied, but not by any standard form of identification. Instead, a faded tarot card with THE EMPEROR emblazoned on the bottom was sealed inside.

"Come on," Sara grunted, "who the hell carries around a wallet with no money or ID in it?" She turned the wallet upside down and shook it. A small key emerged from a compartment she must've missed and clanged to the pavement. Her brow furrowed as she picked it off the ground, examining it with narrowed eyes. It was too small to belong to a car or a house, yet its ridges were too intricate for it to be a charm or toy. 

Without even thinking about it, she slipped the key into the pocket of her vest and tossed his wallet back at him. It bounded off the wall and smacked him in the side of the face, pushing him just far enough that his head rolled away from his hat. Sara rolled her eyes and leaned down to place it back on his head. As her hand grazed the hat's brim, a small gust of wind carried it behind the dumpster. It caught on the edge of a shiny vinyl briefcase. All of the dirt and grime of the dumpster were seemingly repelled by it, the chrome latches so clean that Sara could see her reflection in them. A small, locked keyhole sealed it shut.

And Sara knew exactly how to open it.

Plugging her nose with one hand, she fished the hat and briefcase out from behind the dumpster. She dumped the hat back onto his head and retrieved the key from her pocket. Her heart soared when it fit like a glove. Of course, she could always just use Out of Touch to blow a hole in the lock, but that would be a waste of a perfectly good briefcase. The lock clicked open as she turned the key, the latches popping up ever so slightly.

Sara's jaw dropped at the briefcase's contents. While she wasn't quite sure what she was expecting, it wasn't this. Not in her wildest dreams, and certainly not after seeing the man's empty wallet. She slapped herself in the face to make sure she wasn't dreaming, but the briefcase's contents didn't vanish.

Wads of cash filled the briefcase, stacked in neat piles and piled up to the point of straining the top. American dollars, too. There must have been at least 20k in total. Sara breathily chuckled with a wide, open-mouthed smile. She hit the jackpot.

She threw off her knapsack, propped it up in front of her, and shoveled as much money as she could hold inside of it. Not like he would notice if he was missing a few hundred dollars, and she certainly benefitted from having some extra bucks to throw around. Some stray bundles of bills leaked out the top of the knapsack, her bag so full already that it couldn't take any more. She frowned. There had to be something in her bag she could part ways with, right?

As she shoved her arm into her bag to do some spring cleaning, a raspy grunt sounded from behind her. Her heart sank. Levering her head to the side, she saw him awake and sitting up. Her panicked blue eyes met his confused blue eyes. They both froze in place for a moment, and she swallowed hard. Reality settled in for both of them when he whipped out a gun from somewhere and pointed it at her, his jaw clenched and sight locked in on her.

A few of the stolen bills ran down her arms as she threw her hands up in surrender. "I'm so sorry!" Her voice came out as a loud, high-pitched squeal. "It's not what it looks like, I swear! Please don't shoot me, Mr. Emperor! I...um..." she paused for a moment to think up of an alibi but kept her eyes locked on his, "I just saw you passed out behind the dumpster and was taking some money to use to buy a bandage for that cut on your neck! Yeah! I didn't mean to steal from you or anything!"

He furrowed his brow and lowered his gun. "Now, just hold on a sec—"

"My friend is hurt and I don't know what's going on over there, either." Sara clasped her hands together and held them in front of her face, her eyes beginning to water. "Please, you can't shoot me! Think of them! And think of me! I'm too young to die! There's so much I haven't—"

He scooted forward and placed his hand over her mouth, silencing her. "Put a sock in it," he demanded. A cold sweat rolled down her spine when he raised his gun again. "You can see my gun?"

Sara quirked a brow as he uncovered her mouth. "Of course I can see it. It's a gun." Her eyes darted over to the weapon in question as the man twitched his wrist. Yes, gun was just about the only way she could describe the thing. Not that Sara knew a ton about firearms, but his looked unlike one that she had ever seen—with the head of a pistol, the body of a revolver, and other miscellaneous parts that she couldn't identify. All topped off by a glossy, silver polish. She swore she saw her fearful expression reflected in the barrel.

Whatever she mistook for her reflection on the gun faded as the gun began to fluctuate between being opaque and translucent, the palm of his hand becoming visible through it. "Um," Sara continued, nudging her head towards the gun, "is it supposed to be doing that?"

His confused frown turned to an embarrassed flush as he noticed his gun phase in and out of existence. Tilting the brim of his hat down to hide his face, he let his gun fade away completely and fished a cigarette from his pocket. "Well, if you can see my gun, that means you must be—"

"Wait!" Sara snapped her fingers as a metaphorical lightbulb lit up behind her head. "I get it. You're another Stand user, aren't you? And that's your Stand? Oh, wait..." she bit her cheek and sighed. "You might not know what Stands are. You see, people like us, we have 'special abilities,' and—"

"Hate to cut you off, darlin', but," he fished his lighter out of his other pocket and lit his cigarette, "I know damn well what a Stand is. You don't gotta educate me on it." He took a draw from his cigarette, blowing smoke towards the dumpster.

Sara wiped her forehead and let out a relieved sigh. "Well, that makes this all much easier to explain. See the thing is, I'm a Stand user too." Out of Touch's spare glove materialized on her hand. "See this glove on my hand? It's my Stand. So's the cannon on the dumpster." She pointed at it, and the man gave it a cursory glance before turning his attention back to her. "Well, there's actually two gloves, but—"

"So then you're with Sting on this too, ain't ya?" This time, he blew the cigarette smoke right in her face and sat up a little straighter. "Y'all are in it for my piece of the pie?"

"Pie? No!" Sara's face went pale and she frantically waved her hands in front of her. "No, no, no. This has all just been a big misunderstanding. My friends and I were running away from a Stand user, when…wait, you mentioned someone named Sting?"

"Yeah, what's it to ya?"

"Was he an old guy, maybe about your age, spikey mohawk, wore lots of necklaces?"

The man scoffed. "I ain't old, but yeah, that's him."

"Being old isn't a bad thing," Sara reassured. "The last time you saw Sting, was he wearing a party mask?"

He paused just before taking another huff of smoke. Tilting his head slightly, he rested the cigarette between his pointer and middle finger. "What're you gettin' at?"

"Well," Sara began, taking a deep breath, "to make a very long story short, there are these Stand users wearing masks that try to kill other Stand users. We call them Masqueraders. This Sting guy attacked my friend because…" she paused and fanned herself with the collar of her shirt. That really was her fault, wasn't it? Well, he didn't need to know that. "...because he was dumb enough to bring his Stand out in public. Can you believe that? Anyways, whatever Sting's Stand is, it attached itself to my friend and it doesn't sound like it's coming off. Do you know anything about it that could help us?"

He didn't miss a beat. "Sting's Stand, Fall Out Boy, is a weird one. That grid is like a plant. It can only keep existin' long range by feeding off the sun and whatever it attaches to," he explained. "So when it sticks to a person, well, their skin becomes the 'soil' and their blood becomes the 'water.'"

"Okay. How do you get it off?"

"You remove one of those two factors; either cut open the part of the skin it's attached to or get out of the sun." Placing his cigarette between his lips, he pulled down the collar of his shirt peeking out from under his poncho, exposing his wound. "That's what I did. Can't let that shit spread to your head, so I had to stab myself with a pocket knife when I noticed it on my neck."

Sara winced at the thought. "What happens when it reaches your head?"

"It feeds off your blood," he stated, as if the connotations were the most obvious thing ever. "That cuts off blood flow in that part of your body, which causes it to go numb. Could probably give you hypothermia, too. If it reaches your head or your heart, then," he paused to puff out some smoke, "well, I'm sure you can imagine how that'd work out. I'd reckon you'd only get somewhere 'round two minutes left to live if it got that far."

"But as long as you get it out of the sun, you should be golden, right?"

"Yup. That's why I'm back here in this alleyway. It's in the shade." He readjusted his hat and sighed. "Can't believe the son of a bitch attacked me in the first place. Known him for how long, basically got him his first gig, and he pays me back like this after a job well done?"

"You might've accidentally left your Stand active," Sara reasoned. "Happens to the best of us. The Masqueraders only attack people when they see one."

"He was fine last night, though." The man locked the briefcase shut and dumped the key into his boot. "Then again, I guess he wasn't wearing that mask last night, either."

Does that mean that the guy Chelly met at the cemetery is here, too? Sara bit her cheek as she pondered over the possibility. Is he following us? If he really is trying to kill Chelly, then why not just attack us directly? It's not like we're trying to stay hidden. Maybe he's not so bad after all?

"Something up?" The man's breath, riddled with tobacco, tickled her nostrils. "You look deep in thought."

"Oh, it's nothing," she lied. "Who is Sting, by the way? How do you know him?"

"Up until about 15 minutes ago," he answered as he stood up, "he was my partner."

Partner? Sara's mind swirled with possibilities. What strange terminology. Not a friend, sibling, or even an acquaintance—a partner. She'd say a business partner, but neither of them were dressed well enough to fit that definition. What other type of "partners" were there?

Sara giggled as the realization hit her. "Oh, I get it. Partner. That explains why you're here in Belgium with all that money. You're on that side of the fence." Her grin widened as she rose to her feet, causing him to raise a brow. "Well, you don't have to worry about me. I support you all the way! When's the reception? Can I come?"

"What in the hell are you—ugh." He pinched the ridge of his nose. "No. Not that kind of partner, darlin'. I don't swing that way. He's more of a...coworker."

"Uh huh," she replied with a wink, nudging his side with her elbow. "So, what's your name? Mine's Sara Smile."

"Call me Hol Horse." He tipped his hat to her.

Though he hadn't extended his hand to her, Sara grabbed his from his side and shook it. "Nice name! It suits you. I have no idea how to make a nickname out of it, but I can work with it!"

"Make a what—"

Whatever he was about to say went ignored as she turned around and bounded over to the dumpster. "Hello? Chelly?" She held the cannon in her hand as if it were a microphone. "I've got some info that will help you guys!"

Chapter Text

On the long, long list of Michelle's pet peeves, unwanted attention ranked fairly high. For nearly as long as she could remember she had been avoiding it—from the loud and rowdy kids at the park that her parents pressured her into befriending as a child to the tax agents constantly breathing down her neck asking why isn't your grandmother here to sign these forms herself with their hands hovering over their phones. Not to mention all the damn tourists. Despite Sara's theatrics, traveling in a group had actually lowered the attention she usually got from walking the city streets alone. A welcome exchange, even if it came at the cost of Sara's blabbermouth.

So why did everyone have to watch them now of all times, with Cab passed out and dying on the table?

All of the cafe's patrons had diverted their attention from their food to his limp body. Even some of the random pedestrians walking by stopped for a moment to glance over to them, their faces contorting with either confusion, disgust, or pity for a moment before they went back on their way. One couple even left the café altogether, leaving their leftover food behind as one of them mumbled something about food poisoning under their breath. Michelle was fleetingly grateful that Sara was not there to harass them for leaving behind uneaten food. As Rumor hunched over Cab, his fingers ghosting over the grid stuck to his face, she pulled her knees to her chest and tried to make herself look as small as possible, rocking herself back and forth.

This is all my fault, she thought as she fiddled with her necklace. I did this. I killed him! Iron Maiden's curse is catching up to him. Sara's probably dead too. I never should have come with them. Now I'm forced to sit back and watch them die in an entirely different country! A tear leaked from her eye, mixing with the sweat stuck to her face. Maybe I should have just let that guy at the cemetery kill me instead.

Rumor's continuous poking and prodding of Cab's body didn't ease her anxiety, either. With every touch, she half expected the grid to duplicate and attach itself to his body as well. What would happen then? How would she explain two people suddenly dying right next to her to the authorities? How would she get home?

"He hasn't died," Rumor stated as he pulled Cab up by his hair, sitting him upright in his seat. "I can still feel his heartbeat, though his pulse doesn't seem to reach his neck. The grid isn't contagious, either." He emphasized his point by poking part of it attached to Cab's cheek, causing his head to sway to the side. "However, his arm has grown frigid, and his face and neck are quickly following suit. Not to mention," he turned over in his chair so he was facing Michelle and lifted up his affected hand. The tips of his fingers had started to shrivel up, turning a deep shade of purple. "I haven't the foggiest idea what this grid is doing to him, but clearly it's not good."

Michelle let herself breathe a sigh of relief. At the very least, he wasn't dead yet. She relaxed her shoulders and rubbed her eyes. "What should we do now?"

"I'm sorry to let you down, but your guess is as good as mine." Rumor rhythmically tapped his foot against the pavement, his gaze drifting to the side. "The grid's spread too far for him to slip out of at this point, even if you were compliant in using Iron Maiden on it. I'm admittedly a bit nervous on using The Chain again, given what happened last time." Running his fingers through his hair, he stopped tapping his foot and groaned. "Although, since this grid is still supposedly part of that Masquerader's Stand, we could try to—"

"Hello? Chelly? I've got some info that will help you guys!"

Sara's chipper voice ringing through Out of Touch so close to Michelle's ears was almost like a bomb going off right in her face. Adrenaline spiked through her veins as she shot her hand outward, bending her elbow so that the cuff of Out of Touch pointed at her. Rumor huddled closer to her to listen in. "Yes, Sara?"

"You're not gonna believe this. I hit the mother lode!" Even through a staticky speaker, Michelle could hear the smile in Sara's voice. "You know the guy we found passed out by the dumpster? The Masquerader was his partner. He knows how to get the grid off! Oh, and apparently the Masquerader's name is Sting and the grid-Stand is named Fall Out Boy. You see, the grid is like a—"

"Sara," Rumor interrupted, "Please get to the point."

"Ok, ok." She cleared her throat. "You just need to get him out of the sun. The grid should go away on its own after that."

Michelle sat up a bit straighter in her chair and blinked. "Really? That's all there is to it?"

"That would explain why the grid spread so rapidly after I used Hamon to heal his arm." Rumor rested his thumb on his chin as he eyed his forehead. "Since Hamon exudes an energy identical to the rays of the sun, it must have produced an inverse reaction."

"Oh! And you can't let it reach his head," Sara added. "Otherwise, he'll die."

Feeling her heart sink to her stomach, Michelle slowly turned to Rumor with worried eyes. He did not look back at her, opting to lift up Cab's wrists to feel for a pulse instead.

"When you say, 'die,'" Michelle's voice cracked, "do you mean instant death or 'you have five minutes left to live' kind of death?"

A short pause followed before Sara answered the question. "Actually, I'm not sure! Let me ask him." Some muffled rustling followed. "Hey, uh, Horseshoes," her voice was now distant, "How long does it take for someone to die after the grid reaches their head?"

Another voice, this one Michelle assumed belonged to the dumpster cowboy—"Horseshoes"—said something in response, but he was too far away for his voice to be picked up by Out of Touch. All that came through were low, raspy grunts. Whatever he said, Sara hmphed and rebutted with, "Everyone deserves a nickname! Besides, horseshoes are like, lucky charms, and..."

Her dialogue became broken, fading in and out as Sara no doubt talked and walked in circles around him. Groaning, Michelle lowered her wrist and returned her attention to Rumor. "Are you sure he's not dead?"

Rumor nodded. "He still has a pulse, but only in his left hand. I have an inkling of what's happening—the grid is somehow interfering with his circulation. That is precisely why it reaching his head is so dangerous; after all, the brain is perhaps the most vital part of the body. It receiving no blood flow for an extended period of time can have disastrous side effects." He dropped Cab's wrists, letting them flop onto the table. "For now, he's likely just comatose. Still, we must move with haste."

He turned Cab's chair so that it was facing away from the table. Looping his arms under Cab's armpits, Rumor grit his teeth and hoisted his friend out of his seat. He grunted as he heaved him away, the backs of Cab's shoes scraping across the pavement, but only got a few steps away before stopping to catch his breath.

"Could you please assist me in carrying him inside the café? It would be wise to get him out of the sun."

Michelle couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes. Evidentially the Hamon training he prided himself in didn't prepare him to face such an arduous task on his own. "Rumor, Cab's probably at least 30 kilograms heavier than both of us; he'll be dead twice over by the time we're able to lug him inside," she reasoned. "Also, I'm pretty sure the staff will call the police if they see us carrying him around while he's unconscious."

Suddenly, Rumor became very aware of all of the people staring at them. "Fair point," he mumbled. "If that's the case, we'll just have to improvise."

Rather than sitting him back down in his chair, Rumor hauled Cab under the table and attempted to rest his head against the table's base. Cab's unresponsive body, however, refused to cooperate, swaying to the side and onto the ground every time he attempted to stabilize him. Eventually Rumor untied the jacket from Cab's waist and covered his head with it, using the sleeves to tie him to the base of the table. His long legs stuck out from under the table like a bookmark peeking out from a book.

Out of the corner of her eye, Michelle noticed that the wrinkles on Cab's fingers had spread, his entire hand now looking like it belonged to a corpse. She could only pray that wasn't the case. He was in the shade now, right? Shouldn't he be getting better? The grid didn't look like it had weakened at all, though he had only been there for a few seconds. Apprehensively, she reached down and touched his hand, only to wince and withdraw a second later. Rumor wasn't kidding, he was freezing to touch.

"Ok, so that protects him from the sun," Michelle thought aloud, "but what about his skin? He's still cold to touch, and it's only getting worse. If we don't heat him up somehow, he's going to get hypothermia in the middle of a heatwave!"

"Not to worry," Rumor assured, standing up. "As luck would have it, my Stand should be able to help him."

She squeezed her necklace as he once again summoned The Chain. Didn't they just do this, and it ended up backfiring? Maybe the reason Rumor keeps a journal is because his memory is that bad otherwise. "But you just said that your Stand was what caused the grid to spread in the first place."

"No, I said that my Hamon was," he clarified as he stood up. "The Chain is an excellent conduit for Hamon, but that is not its primary ability."

"Then what is its primary ability?"

With a smirk on his face, Rumor turned around and retrieved a half-drunken cup of coffee from the table behind them—the same one that the couple had been sitting at before they left in a disgusted rush earlier. Such a pity that they had left, too. The coffee was still piping hot, steam still rising from the cup. It did beg the question why one of them was drinking a cup of hot coffee in the middle of a heatwave, but after seeing Rumor's breakfast habits, Michelle figured she couldn't question those types of things anymore.

Rumor rolled his wrist, The Chain emerging from it. "Watch."

He draped his wrist over the cup, letting his Stand descend down into the coffee. Part of it piled down just enough to make the coffee rise, but not enough for it to spill over. As Rumor extended The Chain and pulled his wrist closer to Cab's arm, the end submerged in coffee began to glow neon red, spreading up to the rest of it. The once clear Stand now looked like a lit up lava lamp. Still attached to his wrist, Rumor coiled The Chain up Cab's arm and around his neck.

"I don't understand," stated Michelle. "What's happening?"

"Touch him now, and you'll understand."

Crooking her finger to find a patch of skin unoccupied by the grid and uncovered by The Chain, she poked his arm. In just a few short moments, his skin had warmed considerably. Were it not for the still present wrinkles on his hand, she would have assumed that nothing was wrong with him.

"My Stand has the ability of heat transference," Rumor explained. "I'm simply transferring some of the heat from the coffee to Cab's arm. That, at the very least, should prevent him from developing hypothermia like you suggested."

After looping The Chain in a knot around Cab's neck, he clapped his hands. Rumor's Stand disconnected from his wrist, now an independent entity from him. The red glow evened out and calmed to a duller salmon hue. 

Michelle could only stare stupidly at Cab's wrapped up body as Rumor scooted backwards and attempted to shuffle his friend's legs under the table. "So then, that's it?" She tugged at where he wrapped The Chain around his neck so it wasn't wound up so tightly. Accidental asphyxiation was far from the top of the list of ways she'd like to see Iron Maiden's curse enacted. "Now we just wait for the grid to go away and for Cab to wake up?"

"We've saved Cab from falling victim to the grid, yes," he stood up and dusted himself off, having given up on dealing with Cab's legs, "but there is still work to be done. In case you forgot, a Masquerader is running rampant somewhere in this city as we speak. I won't waste this opportunity; I'm going to interrogate him and get to the bottom of this case."

"Rumor," she shot to her feet, bonking her head against the side of the table in the process, "I hate to break it to you, but I don't think that he's still in the apartment that Cab punched him into. He could be anywhere in Mons right now."

"Right you are. However, I should be able to narrow down his location fairly easily."

A series of chain links emerged from his wrists and even his ankles, each of them snaking out in different directions. Some slithered up buildings and through windows, some clung low to the ground and went around the various street corners, one traveled in an S pattern on the sidewalk and caused a woman to trip over it. Rumor's face had screwed up with concentration, his eyes shut, brow pinched, jaw clenched. It almost looked as if he was meditating standing up.

One strand of The Chain quirked out from his ankle and tickled her leg. Michelle squeaked and kicked it away. It resumed its course, running under the table and past its brethren wrapped around Cab. "Please don't tell me that you're baiting him into attacking your Stand then lassoing him back here."

"Of course not," Rumor responded, his eyes still shut. "The Chain isn't precise enough to wrap itself around something I cannot see. Not that I would ever resort to such barbaric tactics in the first place. No, the wonderful thing about having a Stand like this is that I can detect heat signatures even from far away."

"So? How are you going to find him just from his body heat?"

"Masqueraders always become enraged and aggressive when they see a Stand, without fail. So much so that they lose their capacity for rational thought. The angrier someone gets, the warmer their body becomes. I just need to find a sudden spike in temperature."

"How do you know that the 'sudden spike in temperature' isn't from a car or oven?"

He broke his concentration for a moment to chuckle. "You really are quite the worrywart, Michelle."

"You aren't? It's life or death right now!"

"I can feel the difference. It's not something I can succinctly describe. When you got squeamish and kicked away The Chain just now? I felt that," he explained. "After so many years, I've just become attuned with my Stand on a level beyond our physical senses, almost as if its become a distinct sense of its own. It's the same for Cab, with his strong internal compass and all, and Sara is..." he bit his cheek, "working on it. Is it not the same for you and Iron Maiden?"

Michelle's shoulders dropped. Why ask something he must've already known the answer to? She couldn't even remember the size of its shield. "No, it's not."

"I see. Well, I—"

He cut himself off, eyes snapping open.

"There. I felt it." All of the strands of The Chain retracted back into his wrist save one. It trailed down the street, going as far as the eye could see back in the direction that they had come from. Maybe he was still in that apartment, after all. "Whether Sara has responded or not, contact her and tell her to find Cab outside of the café. You and I are going after Sting."

She nodded and pulled up Out of Touch. "Sara? Can you hear me?"

Some brief susurration of an ongoing conversation resonated in the background before Sara responded. "Yup! What's going on over there? Is Cab okay?"

"He's fine. Rumor's tracked down the Masquerader and is off to go fight him. Go find Cab, he's outside this café called..." Michelle glanced at the sign painted on the café's window, "Folie à Deux under one of the tables."

"Rumor's going to try to fight the Masquerader?"

"Oui."

There was a brief pause before Sara responded again.

"Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, ok? Sometimes he's a little too...overzealous for his own good." She cleared her throat. "And remember: you have Out of Touch with you. I still think that you should learn to rely on your own Stand, but you can use mine if need be!"

Michelle dropped her hand for a moment and huffed. Though it doubled as a long-distance communicator, she didn't need to be reminded that Out of Touch was essentially a series of guns mapped to her fingertips. The wailing screeches of Bad Sneakers' user after being shot by it that still haunted her eardrums was the only reminder she needed. Typical American mindset, she thought to herself, just shoot all your problems away. Lifting her hand back up to respond, she muttered "I'll keep that in mind."

No response came from Sara except for what may have been a hushed grunt of approval. She had, however, reengaged in conversation with whoever "Horseshoes" was, the dark timbre of his voice standing out next to Sara's lively chatter even through a filtered speaker. Their words were so muddied that it was no use trying to eavesdrop, and Sara obviously didn't have any more important information to reveal. Michelle lowered her hand and looked up to Rumor, awaiting further instruction.

He was gone. Far down the street, she caught a glimpse of his multicolored socks turning the corner.

"Hey! Rumor!" She chased after him in a hearty jog. "Attendez-moi!"

~~~~~

When Rumor had initially described Mons as "large," Michelle had written him off, assuming that it couldn't have been any bigger than the Paris she knew like the back of her hand. Though in that case, it was only imperative to do so in order to know what parts of the city to avoid in order to stay out of the line of sight of any tourists. The fact that she lived there for almost five years helped, too. Paris had stopped feeling big to her. What was a city like Mons compared to that?

Still big, she realized, as she chased Rumor down the streets. Not once did she have the opportunity to stop and appreciate her surroundings or get a sense for where she was, her attention was solely fixated on Rumor as he consistently remained in the corner of her vision, speeding in the direction that The Chain directed him to. Whether he even realized she was so far behind from him was anyone's guess. When he finally came to a stop, Michelle took a few more big steps to fully catch up with him before dropping to her knees to catch her breath.

If the last couple days had taught her anything, it was that she desperately needed to improve her stamina.

Where had they even ended up? Hunched over and forcing herself to take deep breaths, Michelle only saw a field of well-maintained grass beneath her boots. When she looked up and followed Rumor's line of sight, the answer was obvious: standing in front of them was the very belfry that had greeted them at the city entrance. The Chain had wrapped around its tower like a vine and extended all the way up into one of the top windows.

"I've found him," Rumor announced, marching forward.

"What," Michelle panted, still trying to catch her breath, "what do you want me to do?"

"Not to sound insensitive, but I doubt you will be of much help to me in battle." Now at the bottom of the belfry, Rumor clapped his hands, disconnecting The Chain from his wrist. "Though I would greatly appreciate it if you could keep the tourists away. One of them may call the police, which I'm sure I don't need to tell you is a bad idea."

Grabbing onto The Chain, Rumor kicked off the side of the building and began to climb.

He's insane, Michelle decided. At least now she understood what Sara meant by "not doing anything stupid." Just looking at the belfry's massive stature made her stomach turn, and he was going to climb up it? Before he could get too far, she grabbed onto his foot. "Hold on. You're not seriously going to go up that way, are you?"

"Why not? I suspect he's seen my Stand by now, chances are he'll be too busy punching it to notice me climbing up. Besides, if I go up through the belfry, it could put uninvolved civilians in danger."

"Have you done this sort of thing before?"

Smirking, Rumor wrapped his legs around The Chain and let go of it, flipping his back over to face Michelle suspended a few feet off the ground. "I do not wish to sound arrogant, but I've been doing things like this since I was nine years old," he boasted as he levered himself back up and gripped The Chain again.

"If you're going to climb up there," Michelle said before he could start climbing again, "then at least let me set a cannon somewhere on you so you can keep me posted."

"Smart idea." He slid back to the ground and presented his arm to her, deploying his sleeves to become weaponized. Pinching the fabric with her spare hand to distance his shirt from his arm, Michelle set up a cannon where his sleeves met his neckline. As he wrapped his legs back around The Chain, his brows shot up with an idea. "Oh!" He pulled his notebook from his pocket, a pen tucked behind the cover, and handed it to Michelle. "If you notice anything interesting about Fall Out Boy, would you mind jotting it down?"

"On what page?"

"Use the next blank one." He responded without looking back at her, already continuing his climb.

Michelle cupped her hands over her mouth and called out to him, "Good luck!"

Whether or not he heard her was anyone's guess. Legs clamped around The Chain, he almost looked like he was jumping up rather than shimmying his body around like a snake. He was probably more than ten feet off the ground by the time her words of encouragement reached him. Not like she could blame him for not responding, no doubt it took a lot of focus and force of will to continue a climb that gargantuan. In fact, she almost could have killed him by enticing him to look down and let go. Feeling guilty, she covered her mouth with Rumor's notebook.

Right. I have a job to do. Unclipping the pen from the cover, Michelle opened Rumor's notebook down the middle, to an entry dated May 12th. Near photorealistic sketches of Quiet Riot greeted her—including three full body ones viewed from the front, back, and profile, with detailed close ups of its compass hands and feet drawn on the side. At the bottom of the page was a brief summary of its abilities and properties, as well as some notes bullet-pointed in the margins:

• Appears to give Cab an innate sense of direction.
• Continued contact with fists/feet could cause its target to vibrate (?)
• Expressive even when Cab is not, could give away tells.
• Capable of shattering The Chain, unaffected by Hamon. Must look into potential counters.

She didn't know whether or not to find that last bit concerning or amusing. Whatever silly rivalry Rumor and Cab had going on, the former obviously took it much more seriously than the latter. Flipping through sketches of Stands she didn't recognize and diary entries she was too embarrassed to read, she stopped on the entry for her own Stand. Similarly, a series of sketches of Iron Maiden covered the page, with added illustrations of its shield separate from its body (despite the fact that Michelle herself had no idea if the shield even was removable) on the next page. However, the notes Rumor had made for it caught her attention first.

• Armor is purely cosmetic (?)
• Humanlike-eyes that Michelle can see out of (?)
• Potential curse of unavoidable doom, likely all in Michelle's head.

The side of the page crumpled under Michelle's tightened grip. Of course the only absolute truth he wrote down was a lie. All in her head? Big talk for someone she had accidentally marked for death. Brandishing her pen, she crossed out "potential" and "all in Michelle's head," scribbling "REAL" in its place. Despite her anger, she did her best to mimic Rumor's studious cursive.

"Hey, look!"

An obnoxiously loud tourist caught her attention before she could make any more corrections to Rumor's flagrant lies. The man was pointing at Rumor, who was now just a blot in her vision halfway up the belfry. Michelle felt her stomach turn as he pulled out his camera.

Shit, I'm supposed to be getting the tourists away from here, she reminded herself. I'm used to avoiding them, but getting them to leave a certain place? If I could do that, then Paris would be a ghost town by now! Think, Michelle, what am I supposed to do?  More civilians began to gather around, some setting up for a picnic in the grass while others were led by a tour guide inside the belfry. Both parties took a moment to stop and squint at the figure climbing up the tower. The tour guide rushed his visitors inside, only to call someone on his phone. His nervous scowl could be read miles away. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, Michelle felt the color drain from her face. If the police showed up, it'd be all over for them and especially her.

Her feet carried her inside the belfry before her mind could think up a plan. Dozens of footsteps echoed off the stone walls, clopping in a cacophonous riot. A long, spiral staircase led to the top, swirling around a large elevator. The group of tourists waited at the bottom of the stairs, standing beside a pair of security guards. Their guide was still on the phone. As he opened his mouth to speak to whoever was on the other side of the line, Michelle shouted as loud as she could.

"Hey!"

Everyone in the belfry turned to her. Lips dry and heart pounding in her chest, she continued.

"He's here! The man who killed Mayor Dixie!" She waved her arms around in the air to draw more attention to herself. "Le tueur est dans le bâtiment! He's an older man with a mohawk! Everyone, get out of here now!"

A chorus of gasps preceded a symphony of screams as everyone fled from the belfry. The tour guide's jaw went slack, dropping his phone to the floor, before following them. They stampeded through her, pushing Michelle along with them as they funneled out the door and into the garden. Some of them parroted her words, alerting the picnic goers, who quickly followed suit. In less than a minute, she had sent a frenzied mob to the city. Not even the security guards were still there.

Dusting herself off, Michelle sat down on the abandoned picnic blanket and helped herself to a platter of grapes. A pair of binoculars had been left in the grass beside her. She picked them up and looked into them, zooming in on Rumor as he climbed inside one of the windows.

"So," she questioned into Out of Touch, "do you see anything?"

"I see a carillon, but not much else. He doesn't seem to be in here," Rumor responded. "By the way, I heard a bunch of horrible screams down below. Did something happen? Are you hurt?"

Michelle rubbed the back of her neck. "Uh, I kind of, um," she faked a cough, "told everyone that the guy who killed the mayor was in the belfry."

"Forgive me if this startles you, but you may not be that far off."

"What?"

"I have a sneaking suspicion that Sting is the one who killed the mayor," Rumor theorized. "Or at the very least, he was involved in his murder. The sudden death of a political figure followed by a Masquerader popping up out of nowhere? That seems a tad dubious to me. His own partner was shocked. You said that the man you ran into at the cemetery, our working Master of the Masquerade, was a rich man in extravagant apparel. Men like that often have political connections."

When he only received an anxious squeak of agreement from Michelle in response, Rumor shifted his focus from the cannon to his surroundings. Even if he had been led to a dead end, he wasn't disappointed that The Chain had taken him here. Unlike the rest of the belfry, which had shown some wear, tear, and repairs from years of being a tourist attraction, the carillon and the room it was hung in was untouched. No trash lining the floor, no information panels plastered on the walls, just a set of large, beautiful bells and an invisible magic heat chain link wrapped around them. Not to mention that from where he stood, he could look over the entire city, the rows of buildings almost looking like majestic mountain ranges. He could even see Michelle waiting for him on an empty picnic blanket.

"Strange," he thought aloud as he surveyed the room, "you would think that this room would be closed off to visitors, and yet..."

The sound of glass shattering underneath his shoes silenced him. Hesitantly, he took a step back. What Rumor could only assume was once a glass pane separating the room from the rest of the belfry and sectioning it off to tourists laid in a mess of splintered fragments, crinkling down the stairs. A series of footprint-shaped indents in the pile lead into the room. The carillon wasn't just there for show, and the bells were still active, so someone had to regularly come up and do maintenance on them. That meant that the shattered glass had to have happened recently.

Despite the fact that it was vacant, someone must have been in the room with him.

Steadying his breathing and channeling Hamon through his fists, Rumor swung his whole body forward, ready to fight. With the exception of the bells, the room was empty. Neither of them had anywhere to hide. So where was his foe?

He only caught a glimpse of Sting hiding inside one of the bells, holding onto it by the clapper, before the Masquerader summoned his Stand and dropped down. Fall Out Boy swiped at Rumor's cheek, only barely nicking it, as he dodged out of the way. Sting landed on his feet, his back hanging behind him as if his spine had been removed. Slowly, he rolled his shoulders forwards and sneered at his opponent.

A strange coldness pinpricked at Rumor's cheek, making his heart sink. Part of the grid had been attached to him as well. He plugged his nose, trying to halt his breathing—the last thing he needed was another inverse reaction from his Hamon.

"What just happened?" Michelle's concerned tone whispered through the cannon. "I heard a crash."

"Sting got the drop on me." He somersaulted away from another punch in his direction. "Quite literally." He leapt over a leg sweep. "I'll be fine, I just need to—"

Rumor didn't have enough time to react to Fall Out Boy punching him square in the chest, sending him flying out the window. He flailed his arms around until he took ahold of The Chain, still dangling down from the side of the belfry. His fingers crushed against his Stand as he broke his fall. Now out in the sun, the chill of the grid spread even further down his face, running along the side of his mouth and tickling over his Adam's apple. His breaths became labored, his windpipe partially blocked by the grid. The light breeze that blew threw his hair reminded him just how high up he still was. Sting peered down at him from the top. Even though they were several feet apart, Rumor could still see the malice behind his mask.

"Michelle," he groaned, pressing the side of his face against the wall of the belfry, trying to shield the grid from the sun, "may I ask of you to call upon Iron Maiden to break my fall?"

"Are you kidding?" That was the only answer Rumor needed, but she kept talking. "I can't just use my Stand like that! I mean, it probably won't work, and who knows if—"

"Forget I said anything," he interrupted as he summoned another tendril of The Chain, wrapped it around the tendril he clung to, and tied it off on his other wrist. "Just continue taking notes like I asked you to."

As Rumor wrapped his legs around The Chain and braced himself for the climb up, Sting jumped out the window. Fall Out Boy extended its arm and attempted to grab Rumor by the shirt. Its fingers brushed up against the fabric of his scarf when Rumor swung his body forward and kicked its user in the chest, sending them both of balance. They caught onto The Chain several meters below. Without missing a beat, Fall Out Boy began to scale the belfry while Sting held on below. Rumor's heart skipped a beat. Palms shaking, he wrapped his legs back around his Stand and locked his eyes on the window, focusing on his goal as he climbed as fast as he could. Stay alive, Rumor. Get to the top. Do not let go.

The light breeze from before turned into a powerful gust of wind. As The Chain rocked from side to side, Rumor tightened his grip and shifted his body with the breeze. This tactic proved to be ineffective, as another flurry sent him the opposite direction. His palms opened on impact, only held up by the strand of The Chain wrapped around his wrists. What on Earth was that? Wind patterns generally don't change direction that quickly, he thought. Unless that's not wind I'm feeling...

Against his better judgement, Rumor looked down. He had to stop himself from gasping—it wasn't wind that was shaking The Chain. Sting was rocking it back and forth like a child on a swing, making it sway around in the air. Fall Out Boy continued its climb unaffected. As much as Rumor wanted to summon another offshoot of The Chain from his ankle to tie the rabid Stand up with, connecting it to him would be a bad idea. Cab had gotten infected after Quiet Riot clashed fists with Fall Out Boy, it wasn't out of the question that the same would happen to him.

Regardless, the grip of both Stand and user was impressive. Even several dozen meters in the air with only a chain link to hold onto, both Sting and Fall Out Boy remained fastened to it as if they were held up by a harness. Perhaps the grid that composed Fall Out Boy's body had partially grafted itself to The Chain? Feeling lucky that he had thought to separate this strand before his initial climb, Rumor wrenched his head towards the cannon on his shoulder. "I have some notes for you, Michelle," he began. "I believe that Fall Out Boy can—"

A stabbing chill corroded his throat, silencing him. He didn't need a mirror to look himself over in; that familiar feeling was the only confirmation he needed. The grid had spread further, covering most of his neck and creeping its way up to his eyelids. Realization clicked in his head: Sting hadn't been rocking The Chain to try to get him to fall, he was trying to expose Rumor to the sun. He flubbed his lips as he attempted to finish his sentence, but nothing came out. His vision began to blur, the belfry becoming a grayish blot standing in front of a sky blue background. He used the last of his strength to yank his scarf over his head and shield it from the sun. His neck, however, was now fully exposed. The grid shot down it and robbed him of his breathing. Shaky and delirious, Rumor took in one last breath before loosening the grip on the strand of The Chain wrapped around his wrists and descended to the ground.

The separate tendrils of The Chain made a horrible grinding noise as they grated against each other. This evidentially caught Sting's attention; he stopped swinging around and looked up at his target, only to be greeted with said target colliding into both him and his Stand, knocking them both off The Chain. Fall Out Boy caught its user by the collar and swung down The Chain in time with its target.

Rumor, on the other hand, only just regained consciousness as he slammed against the ground. It would've knocked the wind out of him, if there was any wind to knock out in the first place. He tugged his scarf back over his neck and rolled over so he was face down in the dirt. Without sunlight to sustain it, the grid vanished, the numbness in his face and neck receding. 

Through the ringing in his ears, he made out Michelle calling out his name and her footsteps scrunching against the grass as she rushed over to him. Next thing he knew, he was flipped over and dragged away.

"It was crucial that I let go," he confessed in a choked up mumble. "With him swinging me around like that, I was unable to cover up the grid fully. Really, I feel blessed for my Hamon training gifting me with proper breath control." His vision started to return, the blurry mesh in front of him reforming into Michelle's worried face. Dusting off his shirt, he sat up. His back hurt like hell, but the fall hadn't broken any bones. 

"I didn't think you were actually going to let go!" Michelle brushed some dirt from his hair. Somehow, she was even shakier than he was. "You were at least 30 meters off the ground, you could have died."

He lifted his hands and presented the strand of The Chain wrapped around his wrists. "I broke my fall. It was more like I was levered down." The makeshift handcuffs unwrapped itself and retracted back inside its user.

Michelle opened her mouth to respond, but slammed it shut when Sting landed back on the ground. That menacing sneer still plastered on his face, he strode to them while his Stand tugged at The Chain, attempting to snap it into pieces. Michelle's eyes widened with each step he took towards them. She hoisted Rumor to his feet and stood at his side. "What do we do now?" Her voice was a hushed whisper.

"You've no reason to fret, Michelle," he reassured, confidently folding his arms. "The battle's won. He made the fatal mistake of grabbing onto my Stand."

"What?"

"Do you recall how I was able to transfer the heat from that cup of coffee to Cab's body?"

"Yes, but..."

Her voice trailed off as she noticed The Chain being pulled with Sting as he walked forward. Still attached to the belfry, it wrapped around his hand and began to glow bright red. Sting stopped in place and frowned, then lifted his wrist. The Chain pulled taut, lifting Fall Out Boy (who was still trying to crush it in its hands) off the ground. A single CLANG! rang from the belfry above them. Brows furrowed, his eyes followed the glow as it skyrocketed up the chain link. He wailed out in agony and fell to his knees when it reached the top. Shivers wracked down his body, even standing a couple meters away from him, Michelle could see him shaking. Fall Out Boy flickered out of view, its user to weak for it to remain active.

"The Chain is tethered to one of the bells in the belfry, to which his body heat is now being transferred to." Rumor snatched the notebook from Michelle's hands and marched over to Sting's writhing body. "Karmic, isn't it? That Stand of yours has the capability to render a body hypothermic, and now you're suffering the same fate. Frankly, I'm disappointed in you. At least Quiet Riot had the strength to rip The Chain into pieces."

He flipped open his notebook as The Chain constricted around more of Sting's body, wrapping around his neck and pulling him closer to the belfry. Rumor followed him as he was pulled away. "Now, I have a few questions for you." He brandished his pen. "That mask you wear; how and when did you acquire it? Did an Italian man with blonde hair give it to you? Why are you attacking other Stand users?"

The only response Rumor received was a strangled screech. In a last ditch effort, he summoned Fall Out Boy one more time and swung a punch at Rumor. It didn't come anywhere close to landing, and the Stand dematerialized a second later.

"If you insist upon staying silent," Rumor threatened, setting down his notebook and summoning another strand of The Chain, "then I'll just have to force you to see the truth."

This new strand fastened itself to the mask on his face. As Sting jittered his arms up to try to pull The Chain off of his face, Rumor stomped on his chest. Two additional strands slithered out from his ankle and tied Sting's wrists together, locking him in place. With his shoe still planted on the man's chest, Rumor yanked at The Chain, attempting to pry to mask off. He only pulled Sting's head up along with it.

Rumor flared his nostrils. Of course it wasn't going to be that easy.

"Do you want any help?" Michelle piped up from behind him.

"That won't be necessary. I can handle this on my own." Another tendril summoned out of his wrist, sending the end of it burrowing to the ground and stretching it out over Sting's head, just below the ridge of his nose. After shaking his arm around for a bit to draw more of The Chain out, Rumor clapped his hands, severing the strands still attached to his wrist. He shoveled the end of the second strand into the ground. Now, Sting's head was restrained.

"Let's try this again," he thought aloud as he gripped the strand connecting to Sting's mask.

He tugged at The Chain again. With his new restraints in place, Sting's head remained locked on the ground, but the mask still wouldn't budge. It was almost as if it had been grafted onto his skin. Rumor, however, remained undeterred, gritting his teeth and yanking at it with even more force. After all, these masks were all just part of a Stand, so there had to be some way to dislodge them, right?

Suddenly, a small click emitted from the mask, as if Rumor had triggered some kind of mechanism. Sting's eyes went wide with horror.

Rumor dropped The Chain and knelt closer to him. "Now are you ready to—"

He didn't have a chance to finish his question before Sting's head imploded in on itself. His skull crunched down as if being stomped on in all directions before the skin on his face pinched up and swirled inside the mask. His eyeballs shot out of his head, landing beside Michelle's feet, before the mask exploded and took Sting's skin with it. Where his head once was laid a pile of blood, bone, and brain tissue. The metallic smell of fresh meat rose from his remains.

Michelle promptly fell to her knees and vomited.

"Ah." Rumor picked up his notebook, shaking some blood off the cover, and took notes. "Those masks seem to be thoroughly attached to their host."

"Thoroughly attached? Thoroughly attached?" Michelle would've repeated herself again were she not dry heaving. "Tu viens de tuer quelqu'un!"

"In my defense, I wasn't trying to." Rumor pinched his nose as rotten smell of Sting's exposed cranium wafted towards his nose. "That mask was fitted much closer to his face than I initially anticipated. I suppose I should thank you for convincing everyone here to flee."

Wiping some of the barf off of her chin, Michelle stood up and sped away from the scene. "Let's just get out of here."

Chapter Text

TEN YEARS AGO...

Growing up, Rumor only ever considered himself to be perfectly ordinary. His life was just as mundane as every other kid his age: he went to school and got average grades, had a host of friends that he didn't feel all that close to, and applied himself to a bunch of interests that he wasn't all that talented at. If anything, when he was left alone with his thoughts late at night with only the Liverpudlian rain to lull him to sleep, he wished that he could be more extraordinary. Even that desire, though, was nothing out of the norm.

To most children, however, seeing flowers rapidly bloom on trees as they climbed them would definitely not be normal. Rumor thought nothing of it, though, nor did he think much of the ripples that formed in his glass before he'd take a sip of water. How could he, when this sort of thing had happened around him for most of his life? It was as natural to him as breathing. Besides, a few flowers by his feet and some waves in his lemonade didn't make a significant impact on anyone's life besides his own, so why did it matter?

Even as his parents sent him away to live with a group of strangers, he still didn't understand what all the fuss was about.

It's just like a summer camp, Rumor thought to himself, repeating what his mother had told him. He had never actually been to a summer camp, but he had seen movies and cartoons about it. Visions of lakes encased by pine trees, incompetent councilors, and marshmallows roasting on a campfire with friends played behind his lidded eyes as he approached the gate to his airplane, only carrying the duffle bag his mother had packed for him and the ticket for his flight. The morning sun only barely peered over the horizon through the windows of the airport, mostly obscured by planes and other terminals. He yawned as his father shoved him into line to get on the plane. Where were they even going, anyways? Through sleepy eyes, he squinted down at his ticket.

PASSENGER: FLEETWOOD, RUMOR
FLIGHT: AA735
DEPARTURE: 6:30 AM
DEPARTING FROM: MANCHESTER
ARRIVING IN: VENICE

Venice? No wonder they were at the Manchester airport and not the Liverpool airport. His parents trailed behind as he made his way to the front of the line. As the flight attendant checked his ticket, Rumor turned his head to see his parents sitting in the next to vacant gate behind him, his father reading a newspaper while his mother was snoring on his shoulder.

"Mum? Dad?"

Rumor's father shoved his newspaper down and scowled at his son, his wife still sound asleep.

"The plane's about to take off," Rumor pointed out. "Aren't you coming?"

"No, we aren't coming." He picked his newspaper back up and continued reading. "Someone named Tangerine will pick you up in Venice. Have fun, son."

Before Rumor could say anything else to him, the flight attendant checked his ticket and escorted him through the gate. Too tired to object, he followed her lead, his bag feeling much heavier now than ever before.

Unbeknownst to him, that was the last time he would see either of his parents.

~~~~~

The plane ride over had riddled him with anxiety. Luckily enough, the seat next to his was vacant, so he had ample room to pace around as his thoughts consumed him. Some of the other passengers surrounding him stopped and stared at him, whispering among themselves about why a nine-year-old was on a plane to another country. The middle-aged woman two seats behind him even tried to comfort him. However, Rumor brushed off all attempts at human contact. He had too much on his mind. Why were his parents sending him off to Venice of all places? Why weren't they coming with him to wherever in Venice they had sent him to? Who was this Tangerine person that his father had sent him off to see?

They're probably a nanny or something, Rumor eventually concluded. Or perhaps a chaperone. Mum and Dad wouldn't just hand me off to some random adult, right?

Whatever he was expecting Tangerine to look like, he was the exact opposite. A tall, muscular man greeted him at the baggage claim, holding up a sign with his name written on it in giant cursive letters. His stoic, stern expression contrasted against his flamboyant clothing—two sashes adorned with tessellated triangles that crossed over his chest and drooped down to his hips covered a bright red tank top; his pants, clearly a size too big for his already large frame, split below his spiked kneepads, exposing his calves; his gladiator sandals running all the way up to his knees. His auburn hair was tied back in a long, braided ponytail that reached down to his hips, a pair of sunglasses shielding Rumor from his thousand-yard stare.

His personality even clashed with his appearance. It didn't even take a full conversation for Rumor to realize that he was not the chatty type, mostly because he could barely even get him to converse. As soon as the two of them entered his car—a sleek maroon convertible with leather seats—Tangerine's lips were sealed, save for the cigarette dangling between them.

"So..." Rumor said as they drove out of the airport, "Where are we going?"

No response.

"Will there be other kids there?"

No response.

"Can I turn on the radio?"

Tangerine glared and shook his head.

"Your name is Tangerine, right?"

He nodded.

"How long did it take you to braid your hair this morning?"

No response.

Defeated, Rumor slumped in his seat and stared at his nervous visage reflected in the window. Maybe he just doesn't speak English very well, he reasoned. After all, he was probably just the chauffer. No doubt he drove hundreds of people back and forth from the airport every day. His parents had only said that he would be picked up by a man named Tangerine, they said nothing about anything past that. Surely he would drop him off at the fun summer camp that his parents had told him about with a group of welcoming, talkative adults that he'd feel safe and secure around. His parents wouldn't have dumped him off to some stoic stranger all by himself.

Right?

~~~~~

After a drive that felt much longer than it actually was and a trip on a private ferry, they arrived at Air Supplena Island. Though "island" may not be the best way to describe it. The complete antithesis to the warm and open Venice, where the water seemed to sparkle, Air Supplena was more like a giant, gothic castle with one prominent tower in the middle built on top of a cliffside. It just so happened that said cliffside was surrounded by the Adriatic Sea, which grew murkier the closer they got to the island.

Rumor felt his heart clench up at the realization that he was almost certainly not going to a summer camp.

"H-hey, I think there may be some mistake," he stammered as Tangerine parked the car in a dank underground garage. He exited the vehicle and marched towards a long, spiral staircase. Rumor fumbled with the lock on his seatbelt before following him. "I-I'm supposed to be at a summer camp right now. I don't know who you are or what's going on, but I—"

Tangerine spun on his heels to face Rumor, his arms folded behind his back. "You are Rumor Fleetwood, correct?"

"Y-yes, but—"

"Starting today," Tangerine spoke, his commanding voice silencing the boy in front of him, "you begin your formal Hamon training. I will be your tutor, mentor, and coach. From this moment forward, you will only address me as Master Tangerine. Any questions?"

Questions? Was that some kind of joke? Rumor could only pinch himself to confirm that this wasn't some weird dream. Unfortunately, he didn't wake up. This was really happening. Taking a deep breath, he catalogued all the questions he had; who are you, where are we, why am I here, but the one that came out was:

"What the hell is Hamon?"

His response did not come verbally. Rather, Tangerine extended his pinky and jabbed him in the chest. Rumor lurched over and coughed. It was only his pinky, but the blow carried the weight of a full punch. Thousands of tiny, golden shockwaves rippled from his body on impact, lingering on the pavement even after he caught his breath. They carried a distinctive ring to them, as his body was a tuning fork that had just been struck.

"That," Tangerine gestured to the sparks at their feet, "is Hamon. Or to be more precise, Hamon is a form of energy that is functionally indistinguishable from the rays of the sun. In order to generate it, most people need to learn and adapt to an advanced breathing pattern. It takes years, even decades, for most men to master it, even with a special apparatus to control the rhythm of their breaths. You, on the other hand," he took off his sunglasses to look Rumor in the eye, "you are capable of generating Hamon without even trying. Without even knowing. All on your own, as well. You are a one in a million chance, Rumor."

"I don't care!" Rumor stomped his foot. "What's the big deal with Hamon anyways? Who are you?" Tears began to burn behind his eyes. "I want to go home! Whatever this 'Hamon' is, I—"

He was interrupted by a slap to the face. "Go home?" Tangerine's thick Italian accent echoed off the walls and silenced the crackling Hamon ripples below them. "Tell me, what do you think waits for you back there? A warm bowl of soup and hugs from your parents? They abandoned you here. You should feel grateful that I'm taking you under my wing," he explained. "When I spoke with them, they used some choice words to describe you. Freak was among the tamer ones. Your mother thought you to be possessed by the devil himself. In fact, I only reached out to them after their inquiries about your Hamon had reached my ears, all the way in Italy."

Shell-shocked, Rumor's eyes widened. He had to be lying. What reason would they have to say such things about their own son? "I don't believe you," he whispered. "If I didn't even know Hamon existed, how could they know that I could generate it?"

"Have you ever noticed flowers blooming on tree branches after you touch them? Or stood perfectly still in a lake and have ripples form around your feet in the water?" Tangerine put his sunglasses back on and took another huff of his cigarette. "I'm assuming you have, because your parents certainly did. And it frightened them."

"No," Rumor denied, though the hateful scowl his father had shot at him before he boarded the plane still burned into his memory, "that can't be...it isn't..."

"It is, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you'll find inner peace." The soles of his sandals clanked against the stone staircase as he ascended them. "There are horrors in this world that most dismiss as fantasy. Monsters lurking in shadows that humanity is too ignorant and stubborn to look into. Every day, these monsters grow stronger, preparing for a war that we have no hope of winning as things are. The vampires."

"Vampires aren't real! You're insane!"

"You only want to believe that." Tangerine stopped in place at the top of the stairs, looking down on Rumor. "You and I are different. It is our fate to ward off these monsters before it is too late. Still, I am not a heartless man. If you'd rather cower with your tail between your legs, then I will send for someone to deliver you back to your parents. Where they send you from there is beyond my control. Climb these stairs, however, and I will guide you on the path to your destiny."

With that, Tangerine opened the door at the top of the stairs. Sunlight bled into the dreary garage and created a backlight behind him. "I await your decision."

He slammed the door shut behind him, leaving Rumor alone with his thoughts.

Palms shaking and heartbeat deafening his surroundings, his eyes locked on the staircase in front of him as if he was drawn in by gravity. On all accounts, agreeing to train his Hamon with Tangerine (whatever the hell that implied) was a bad idea. Not only had they literally just met, but being dragged off to a secluded island off the coast of another country without a word between them and then being slapped in the face made for a poor first impression. Even to a child like Rumor, it was obvious that behind flamboyant clothing and darkened lenses, there was something very wrong with his would-be tutor. It almost made him wonder whether or not he was one of the monsters that he had described.

What other choice did he have though? As much as he didn't want to admit it, Tangerine was right—his parents had abandoned him. Shipped him off to some stranger with little regard for how he was treated or when he would return. His mother hadn't even been awake to wish him safe travels. Would they even give him the time of day if he told them about what Tangerine's "summer camp" entailed, or would they be too busy trying to find another way to get rid of him?

He always had wished his life had been more exciting, and now he was getting that excitement whether he truly wanted it or not.

Swallowing hard, he followed Tangerine's path up the stairs.

~~~~~

ONE YEAR LATER...

The weather had cleared up, clouds parting to make way for the sun's rays. Rumor couldn't tell, however. All he noticed was the air around him grow a little warmer, the oppressive shadow cast by the giant pillar in front of him alleviating. Light peered in from the balcony some twenty meters above him and stung his eyes. Running his oily hand over his face, he sat up, using the little strength he felt he still had in him. Dizziness wracked over his body upon moving. His stomach growled.

How the hell had things come to this?

Rumor's first year on Air Supplena had been lax, with Tangerine spending the mornings and afternoons coaching him on various breathing techniques and basics of a martial art called Sendo, then spending the evenings lecturing him on whatever educational topic caught his fancy at the time. Breaks were few and far between while food was only offered in the mornings, though he was always served enough to keep him energized throughout the day. Rumor felt less like he had been sent to a summer camp and more like he had been warped into a kung-fu movie. Every morning he woke up half expecting to wax Tangerine's car.

What he was not expecting was to be shoved into a shallow pool of oil 24 meters below surface level with a pillar as his only means of escape.

Sometime before being shoved in, while Rumor was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Tangerine had called it the Hell Climb Pillar. The name was an understatement. Were Rumor alive during its construction, he would've added a few more adjectives to the title to better sell its challenge. "Deadly," "horrible," "unfair," and "stupid" all seemed like easy candidates.

"You have been under my tutelage for a year now," Tangerine had told him. "Consider this your first test. Tales have been told of a man who conquered the Hell Climb Pillar with nary a day of training under his belt. You are more than prepared."

I'd wager that he wasn't only ten, Rumor had silently objected.

How long had he even been stuck at the bottom of the pit anyways? The only indication he had to go off of was that it was sunny when he started, then he heard rain hammer down on the ceiling a couple dozen meters above him, then the rain stopped and sun snuck in through the balcony to greet him once again. It must've been at least a few hours, if not a whole day.

It wasn't like he hadn't tried—the way out was painfully obvious. Oil gushed down the pillar from a series of pumps near the top, coating it in a thin film of the stuff. Of the many tidbits on Hamon that Tangerine had drilled into him over the course of a year, none were as strange to him as the various liquids that conducted Hamon well. Oil, blood, even soap.

"Laugh if you wish for a beating, Rumor," Tangerine had threatened when his disciple stifled back giggles, "but my uncle kept a thin layer of soap on his clothes at all times just to create Hamon-infused bubbles to fight with."

Rumor rubbed his cheek, reminded of how hard he had been slapped when he erupted into laughter at the word "bubbles."

In a strange way, he was grateful for being hit, because now he remembered that lesson as clear as day. Of all of the conductors, oil was the most adept, both for storing and channeling Hamon. With gallons of it cascading over the pillar like a waterfall, the way out was as simple as channeling Hamon through his fingers to stick to the oil and climbing up the pillar like a spider.

Easier said than done. On his last attempt, Rumor only got seven meters off the ground before running out of energy and losing his grip. Ever since then, he laid at the bottom of the oily pool and prayed that Tangerine would fish him out eventually.

The fresh rays of the sun gave him new determination. Standing up, he readied his breathing, feeling Hamon flow through his body in weak ripples. Light sparks crackled on the tips of his fingers as he redirected his energy towards them. Still warn out and slightly delirious, he cupped his hands and stuck his fingertips to the pillar. Kicking off the ground and reaching his hands up higher, he restarted his climb.

"I'm getting out of here," Rumor reassured himself as he gently rolled his hands, dragging them further up the pillar. "Even if I have to chain myself to the top, I'm getting out of here."

A vein burst on his forehead as he continued to climb. Sweat began to dribble over the oil he was covered in, rubbing into his eyes and blurring his vision. He squeezed his eyes shut. Not like he needed to see; muscle memory was all the sense he needed. Something tugged at his wrist as his fingertips drug his body up with him, but he couldn't bring himself to check what it was. Probably just exhaustion taking its course.

As he readied his left hand to trudge up the pillar again, a smooth surface brushed against his thumb. He snapped his eyes open. A foothold perhaps? A relived grin plastered itself on his face as he grabbed onto it before looking. When his eyes caught up with his hand, he furrowed his brow.

Rather than a foothold or crevasse, Rumor had grabbed onto what looked like a mix between a translucent chain link and a double helix strand.

He bit his cheek. What the hell was it supposed to be? Curious, he gave it a small tug. His opposite wrist yanked along with it, knocking him off balance. He careened a few meters down before the mystery object he had grabbed broke his fall, somehow securing him to the pillar. His wrist burned now, almost like someone was trying to rip his hand off, his knuckles white from grabbing onto whatever he could. Now he was sure that something was wrong. Twisting his head, he stared at his wrist.

Though he remained confused, it didn't take long for him to realize what was going on. Coming out of his wrist was that same chain, seemingly emerging from his blood vessels. No cuts or gaps had marred his skin, nor were there any lumps from where it surfaced from—instead, The Chain looked like it had phased through him.

Color drained from Rumor's face as he recounted his lessons with Tangerine. No matter how hard he scratched his brain, he couldn't remember one that mentioned a chain coming out from a Hamon user's body. What was this? Was he manifesting it somehow?

It was best not to question it too much, because whatever it was, it was the only thing keeping him suspended several meters off the ground. He shifted his balance so that his weight was centered then refocused on his breathing. Some stray droplets of oil sprayed into his mouth as he did so. A year ago, he would've gagged at the slimy taste as it stuck to his tongue. Now, he was able to brush it aside and push through it, his attention dedicated to each inhale and exhale.

That familiar buzz on his fingertips returned but much weaker than before. Rumor groaned and slouched his shoulders, darting his eyes to his hands. What was wrong now? Golden sparks of Hamon energy still danced on his fingertips, still clinging tightly to The Chain, but it didn't reach the oil parallel to them. Instead, it spread along The Chain, channeling through it from both hands. 

Incredible, Rumor pondered, this...whatever it is, it's conducting Hamon flawlessly. Could it be due to the oil from the pillar? Or maybe...

Before he could think up of anything else, The Chain skyrocketed up the pillar and drug him along with it. He shut his eyes and turned away as oil splashed in his face, his knees scraping against the stone pillar. The Chain carried him higher, thrusting him into the air above the pillar. Rumor opened his eyes again for just a moment, only to see himself fall face first onto the landing platform.

Tangerine, sitting beside where he landed on a chaise lounge, promptly dropped his jaw and the glass of wine in his hands.

"That...was amazing!" He lifted a dazed Rumor off the floor by his shoulders and beamed at him. "I've never seen anyone ascend the pillar like that. What's your secret? You simply must tell me."

Those words didn't reach Rumor, who processed them as a garbled mesh of noise spoken by a blurry outline of what might be his teacher. His head felt light, his stomach tied in knots. The only thing keeping him rooted in reality was the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed in and out, in and out, in and out...

He blinked a few times, Tangerine's outline solidifying. He was smiling—a first as far as Rumor was concerned—and holding him up by his shoulders. "What," Rumor staggered, "what was that?"

Tangerine's smile fell as he shoved Rumor onto the chaise lounge. "That's what I'd like to know. From what I saw, it was like you channeled your Hamon in a circle around the pillar, then..."

"No, that's not what I mean." Rumor lifted his wrist, dragging The Chain up with it. "What's this? This chain thing?"

Tangerine tilted his head to the side and removed his sunglasses. "I'm afraid I don't understand what you're asking me."

"This!" He waved his hand around for emphasis, wobbling The Chain back and forth. "This thing coming out of my wrist! What is it?"

"Rumor." Tangerine furrowed his brow. "There's nothing coming out of your wrist."

A cold wave of shock seized up Rumor's body. Tangerine was many things, but a liar was not one of them. He really couldn't see it.

Then, as if on command, The Chain reeled up back inside his wrist and vanished.

"Either way," Tangerine continued, "do you realize what this means? Rumor, you're the youngest person to ever complete the Hell Climb Pillar!"

Though his teacher—cold, stoic, borderline abusive Tangerine—was lauding his success and toasting to him with his shattered wine glass, Rumor couldn't bring himself to soak up the praise. It seemed that fate had blessed him with another special ability, one that was bizarre even amongst the bizarre.

~~~~~

NINE YEARS LATER...

During his first year of training, Rumor would often spend his brief break periods napping or aimlessly strolling around the island. After his first challenge against the Hell Climb Pillar, his breaks were spent restlessly trying to figure out what the hell The Chain was.

One thing that he was certain of was that it was unique to him. Air Supplena's library had a section dedicated to documents on Hamon users throughout the years, chronicling everyone from the originators of the craft to Tangerine's soap-wearing uncle to a British noble who mastered his Hamon within a week only to die months later on his honeymoon. Not one of them mentioned something even comparable to The Chain. If several centuries worth of Hamon masters couldn't muster up a way to conjure what he did by accident when he was only ten, then it couldn't be something that was learned. Not to mention that Tangerine couldn't even see the damn thing.

With time he learned some of its other properties. He could summon it on command, but only out of his wrists and ankles. After multiple attempts to try and summon it from other parts of his body (including his elbows, knees, and the inside of his mouth), he came to the conclusion that his wrists and ankles were the only parts of his body that they could come from. That stunt he had pulled on his first attempt at the Hell Climb Pillar wasn't inherent to The Chain, but rather a reaction from the Hamon flowing through it colliding with the oil dripping from the pillar. The individual strands could be separated from his body by either clapping his hands or clicking his heels. Its range, Rumor eventually decided, was incalculable, as it was capable of stretching across the entire island several times over, albeit very slowly. Perhaps the strangest quality of The Chain was its ability to transfer heat from one object to another, an ability that he had discovered by complete accident one frigid winter morning while training. Not like he was complaining; Tangerine had insisted that he train in nothing but his underwear that day.

That had been many years ago though. Age had mellowed his once heartless teacher considerably; when Rumor first arrived on Air Supplena, he would be whacked in the back of the head as punishment for failing a Sendo maneuver or answering a question incorrectly during their tutoring sessions. One time, he was even denied breakfast for sloppy handwriting, a mistake Rumor was sure to never repeat. That behavior faded with time, his slaps getting weaker, punishments less severe. Usually, Rumor could get away with just a lecture. Lack of punishment never dulled his fear of failure, though. Ten years of training, and Rumor still flinched whenever Tangerine would lowly exhale in the way he always did when he was disappointed.

Not like he had anything to be afraid of. Tangerine had not aged gracefully; his once youthful visage had melted away to a pruned old man with gray hair and frizzy mustache in only a few years. His once vibrant and gaudy attire had been traded in for a simple beige cloak and baggy pants held up by a particularly boring leather belt. 

"Hamon will keep you young so long as you do not fall out of practice," he explained. "However, it does not last forever. I'd wager I'm old enough to be your..." he tapped his finger against his chin, "Rumor, how old are you now?"

"Eighteen, sir. My birthday is in a little over two months." Had Tangerine ever gotten him a birthday gift? Or even celebrated his birthday before? He couldn't remember.

"I'm old enough to be your grandfather." He chuckled, his laughter eventually trailing off into a low cough. "I was already in my fifties when I picked you up from the airport that day. I was quite the looker back then, wouldn't you agree?"

Rumor did not agree. He never found anyone to be particularly attractive, least of all his teacher. "Of course, sir," he said. "Shouldn't we go inside? You're bound to catch a cold if you stay out here for much longer."

Tangerine shook his head. "What I have to say won't take long." He sighed and gazed up at the sky. "Besides, I enjoy sitting under the starlight."

Exhaling slowly, Rumor followed his teacher's line of sight. A host of stars greeted him, dotting the sky to the point where he saw more twinkling white than he did the cold blue sky. A rare sight this time of year, when the gray clouds of January usually shielded the sky. It was still chilly though. Rumor didn't mind the cold—not when The Chain was wrapped around his torso and attached to the coals of the toasty fireplace waiting for them inside. He would've offered the same comfort to his teacher, but although he couldn't see The Chain, he could still feel it. Having it slither up his legs and wrap around his body would only irritate him.

"These last ten years," Tangerine continued, "I've watched you mature from a squeamish child to a proud warrior. There is nothing left for me to teach you. It's time." He stood up from his chair and moved it aside, revealing a wooden box underneath. Tangerine started to kneel down to pick it up, groaning and grunting as his knees cracked, before Rumor picked it up himself.

"Time for what?" He weighed the box in his hands. The box itself was much heavier than whatever was inside it, and even it didn't weight much. Rumor put his ear to the box and jostled it around a bit, hoping to find out what was inside. Something thumped from side to side; small, light, but not hollow.

He was interrupted when Tangerine put his hand on his shoulder. Rumor flinched away. No doubt he was about to be reprimanded and smacked. How careless of him to get carried away like that, shaking around a present like a child on Christmas Eve. "My apologies, Master."

"You've nothing to apologize for, Rumor," Tangerine reassured. "It is time for you to leave this island. Tomorrow, I'll send for a boat to take you to Venice. Where you go from there is up to you. I would come with you, but I'm in no condition to travel anymore. Your skill with Hamon is without rival, and you exhibit a talent for strategy on the battlefield. Not to mention that I've never seen nor heard of anyone conquer the Hell Climb Pillar on several occasions, let alone with a different strategy each time."

Rumor clenched his hands into fists and bit his lip. Of the eight times he had successfully conquered the Hell Climb Pillar, only one of them had been with Hamon alone. All of his other climbs had been the result of him experimenting with The Chain. It was no wonder that he hadn't seen anyone climb it in the ways he had. "Yes, sir."

"I have two tasks left for you to complete," Tangerine instructed. "The first is to track down the last of the vampire scum that still roams the Earth and eliminate them. Bring me their heads as a trophy, if you can manage."

"Of course, sir." Rumor lifted the box in front of him. "What's this for, then?"

"Open it."

Rumor slid the lid off and tucked it underneath the box. Inside were two items: a long, orange scarf and a small black notebook.

"That scarf is specially made," Tangerine explained as his student took out the objects and examined them. "It is woven from Satiporoja beetles, so it will conduct 100% of your Hamon even without a conductor. And, since you'll be out on your own for the first time, I figured you might desire a journal to document your experiences in."

"I'll treasure them always," Rumor said, wrapping the scarf around his neck. "What is the second task you wanted me to complete, sir?"

Tangerine hobbled back over to his chair and sat down. "Will you watch the stars with me one last time before you leave?"

~~~~~

IN THE PRESENT...

Four months on his own, and Rumor had just killed someone for the first time in his life.

It hadn't been intentional, of course. All he was trying to do was remove Sting's mask; how was he supposed to know that it would cause his head to explode? He wasn't a murderer. Even if he was, he only ever resorted to violence against evil. Vampires and other creatures whose entire existence was violent and malicious. While Sting wasn't inhuman, he was still a monster. All the Masqueraders were. They attacked fellow Stand users without warning or reason and refused to so much as consider a more peaceful resolution. Violent, killing machines; no different than the vampires he had been engineered to destroy.

If it hadn't been torn off and crushed to a bloody mess, Rumor would've considered delivering Sting's head to Tangerine as a trophy.

The fact that a man laid dead by his hand near a known tourist attraction was no longer of any concern to him. Rumor was more worried about finding his way back to the café where he left Cab. On his way to the belfry, he had only focused on the path The Chain lead him on, not bothering to note the path he took or any other landmarks he passed. For once in his life, he wished that Cab and his compass-head was with him to offer up some direction.

"So, um," Michelle stuttered, eyes still wide from seeing Sting's face rip clean from his head, "what was up there at the top of the Belfry?"

"Well, it is a belfry," Rumor bluntly responded. "So, bells."

"That's it? Nothing else?"

"What, aside from the masked lunatic trying to kill me?"

Michelle huffed out her nose and folded her arms. "You know what I mean."

A small chuckle rumbled in Rumor's belly. "If you're expecting some grand cathedral or hidden passageway, then I'm sorry to disappoint. There was a certain beauty to it though, as if decades of industrialized tourism all but stopped once you reached the room. Not to mention that the view. You could behold the entire city from there. Honestly, if I had the time, I'm confident in saying that I could locate where we stashed Cab away from up there."

"Oui, I'd bet," Michelle responded. "Sounds like a good place to watch the sunset, right? Then maybe watch the stars afterwards."

Rumor felt his heart clench. He hadn't watched the stars since the night he left home. It wasn't out of a distaste for it, far from it, but clouds followed him from place to place no matter where he went and he was often fast asleep by the time they parted. Truly, his last day at Air Supplena must have been preordained. The only day of clear skies for an entire month, and it was when he bid farewell to his teacher? Fate always did have a tendency to favor him after all. Now if only it could point him in the direction of a vampire.

For only a moment, he worried if Tangerine would think him a failure for not finding one already.

"Don't be ridiculous," he responded to Michelle. "The windows are too narrow to see the sky from."

Chapter Text

He just killed someone. Holy shit, he actually killed someone.

Michelle did as best she could to hide her distress from Rumor but knew she was failing horribly. Even her usual tactic of keeping her face low and staring at the ground proved ineffective, as it forced her to look at the splatters of blood on her boots. She had to burn them as soon as she could. After all, the blood could connect her to the crime, which could then end up with her being brought in by the police, and after that, Pandora's Box may as well have been opened. It was just too big of a risk to take.

Really, she just felt plain gross. A nice, cool shower sounded like paradise just about now. Not only to cleanse herself of the figurative blood on her hands, but the literal sweat on her forehead. It had been a long time since she was last forced to endure weather like this, let alone while chasing down some masked madman through a city she had only arrived to the night prior. She could only be thankful that her body odor had overwhelmed her nose to the point that she could no longer smell the gory puddle that was once Sting's head.

Despite the heat, she shivered at the thought. Corpses were, unfortunately, nothing new to Michelle, but she hadn't quite desensitized herself to them.

After a while of Rumor walking them in circles around the garden, the two of them reentered the city. Some clouds had settled themselves in front of the sun, cooling the air to more a bearable temperature. Tourists came out of the woodwork and left the sidewalk congested. Each one of their footsteps drummed loudly in Michelle's ears, like marching soldiers come to apprehend her. She buried her face in Rumor's shoulder as he led them back to the café. If any of the pedestrians was one of the tourists she had shooed away from the belfry, all it would take was a cursory glance at her bloody boots and a return trip to the belfry for them to connect her to Sting's death.

Ugh, and these were my favorite pair, too, she silently pouted, breathing in the spicy cologne stuck to Rumor's scarf. I guess I could take off my boots now then toss them into some street corner when no one's looking. Problem solved! For a moment, she popped her head up from and tugged at the top of her left boot, but stopped herself before she could go any further. I guess it'd be even more suspicious if I was walking around barefoot though. Frowning, she leaned against the wall of a nearby building as she readjusted her boot. I'll wait until I get back to the hotel.

"Are you alright?"

Just as her foot nestled its way back into the boot, she looked back up to see Rumor, just a few steps ahead of her, stopped with a brow raised.

"Yeah. I just stepped in something," she fibbed. After all, Rumor didn't need to know she was planning to ditch her boots. That would make him a witness to tampering with evidence from a crime scene, and she didn't trust him enough to lie for her. She skittered over to him and dug her head back in the fabric of his scarf. "Let's keep going."

Without a word, he continued walking, dragging her along with him. "I'm surprised to see you like this," he commented after they turned a few more corners.

Michelle chewed on her lip. See her like what? What was he implying? Could it be that he thought that the Sting's blood was a pathogen and that the stray splatters on her boots had infected her, beginning the process of turning her into a new Masquerader? That was Michelle's first assumption, anyways. "What do you mean?" Her question was somewhat muffled by his scarf.

"You don't strike me as the kind of person who enjoys being touched," Rumor answered. "Even when we first met, you always backed away as soon as Sara signaled that she was about to hug you or rest her hand on your shoulder or anything of that nature. Now here you are, with your head pressed so tightly to my shoulder that I'm worried it will leave a mark."

She lifted her head in a moment of clarity. He was right—she hated being touched. Even light brushes against her skin made her tense, occasionally even making her feel physically hurt. For as long as she could remember she had been like that. Why was she not panicking not only at the fact that she was almost hugging the very same man who had just killed someone, but that she was the one initiating it? To test that it wasn't just a fluke, she flung her head back down in his shoulder. No nausea, no goosebumps, nothing. Just the soft fabric of Rumor's scarf rubbing against her forehead.

"It's because I'm hiding my face from everyone," she justified, but even she was unconvinced by it. "You were so high up the belfry that no one who was there will recognize you. But they'll recognize me."

"I'm sorry to say, but I don't think that hiding your face will do you much good. Your hair and ensemble give you away just as much."

"That...yeah, that actually does make sense." She lifted her head up again. "Let's make sure to get back to the café quickly, then."

After spending far too long getting thoroughly lost in Mons' maze of streets, they eventually turned a corner and arrived back to the street where Folie à Deux was located. They didn't even need to reach the café to know they were in the right place—Sara's bombastic voice greeted them from across the street as she energetically waved her arms.

"Chelly! Rumor Mill! Welcome back!"

From where she stood at the other end of the street, Michelle could make out two other people at their table. The first was Cab, who sat upright in one of the chairs, swinging his arms back and forth. She let out a sigh of relief. He was awake and moving. In other words: not dead. The other person there was a man with a brimmed hat standing just behind Sara. Even from far away, she recognized him as the man from the dumpster. The café's other patrons all turned their heads at Sara, some of them scowling at her noisiness. Michelle couldn't blame them, were she a patron there, she probably would too. Cheeks flushed, she lowered her head and shielded her face with her hand as they returned to their table.

"So," Sara, now speaking at a respectable volume, continued as Michelle and Rumor sat down at the table's spare chairs, "how'd it go?"

Michelle rested her forehead in her hands and groaned. "Vous ne voulez pas savoir."

"It didn't go quite as expected, to say the least," Rumor added. "I'll inform you of the details later, but I did make a breakthrough discovery on how Masquerader masks function."

Sharply exhaling, Michelle stifled an exasperated laugh. Breakthrough discovery, he says. She could only feel grateful that neither him nor Sara had pressed any further. At least not yet. Better to change the subject now before it was too late. She redirected her attention to Cab, sitting next to her, slowly flexing the fingers on his formally affected hand. The tips of his fingers were still somewhat pruned. "How are you feeling?"

"Stiff," he complained. "And nauseous. Like I was doing a one-armed handstand for half an hour." Yawning, he shook his hand around. "My face feels fine, but my hand's still a little numb."

Her heart sank. What if the damage was permanent? Because she didn't have the nerve to use her own Stand, she had caused a former athlete to lose full use of one of his hands. "I'm sorry, this is all—"

"All good," Sara spoke over her. "Everything worked out fine. Cab's back to normal and Rumor got to learn more about the Masqueraders. I'd call that a win win!"

Rumor cleared his throat and flipped back his scarf. "I'd like to add that, although Cab was unable to fully defeat the Masquerader on his own, I was." Resting his chin on the back of his hands, he leaned forward in his chair and smirked at Cab. "I believe that makes us even after you bested me in Madrid, don't you?"

"So, you're keeping score? Are all our fight records kept somewhere in that diary of yours," Cab pointed at Rumor's journal, placed on the table, "or do you just have them all memorized?" He tapped Rumor's forehead. "Oh, and I've beaten three Masqueraders on my own, so make sure those are all tallied off on there too. May as well throw in my boxing records, while you're at it."

"Actually, yes." Rumor picked up his notebook and began flipping through its pages. "I have all of our fights recorded right about..." he dragged out the word as he searched for the correct page, "here." Standing from his chair, he presented the open notebook to the rest of the group, pointing at a table.

MASQUERADER MELEE MARKS:

Rumor: III
Cab: III
Sara: II
Michelle:

Even though beating up strangers, Masquerader or not, was nothing to be proud of, Michelle couldn't help but feel inferior for her lack of tallies. Still donning a confident grin, Rumor pulled out his pen and added another tally to his name. "Tell me, Cab," he continued, "do those three wins include the Masquerader that stole your wallet, or is there another one that I am still unaware of?"

As Rumor clapped his notebook shut with his left hand, still smugly smiling, Michelle and Sara turned their attention to Cab, waiting for whatever smart-mouthed rebuttal he had in store. The usual relaxed, somewhat cocky expression that he usually wore was all but gone; instead, his eyes were wide and his jaw was loose, lips slightly parted.

Said expression stuck for only a second before his lips raised in a big, closed-mouth grin that just barely suppressed a sea of giggles.

Folding his arms, Rumor frowned. "What?"

Cab erupted into a fit of loud, boisterous laughter, slamming his fist against the table.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing," Cab got out between chortles, "just...oh my god, I didn't think you were actually keeping score." He wiped some tears from his eyes. "That's adorable."

Baffled, Rumor's jaw dropped. "Are you implying that my desire to document our..."

Sara and Michelle cut him off and filled out Cab's chorus of laughs with some high-pitched giggles. Even though their rowdiness made them more than liable to get kicked out for all the commotion they had caused, Michelle couldn't bring herself to care. Damn Cab and his infectious laughter.

Besides, it was kind of silly.

Now red with embarrassment, Rumor placed his hands on his hips and glared at them. "Oh, so now you lot have a problem with my documentation as well?"

"No! There's nothing wrong with it," Sara chuckled. "It's just...Cab's laughter is contagious. That's all."

"Y-yeah, that," Michelle agreed, forcing herself to stop laughing. "To be honest though, it's a little creepy that you record everything like that..."

Rumor shoved his notebook back in his pocket and slumped back in his chair, his lips curled in a frustrated pout. Still giggling, Sara gave him a few reassuring pats on the head.

Just as Rumor opened his mouth to say something else, the dumpster cowboy puffed some smoke in his face. "Well, I don't mean to interrupt y'all," he said, "but I got places to be. Mind telling me where Sting ran off to?"

Leaning over to Michelle, Sara whispered, "That's his fiancé," with a certain type of giddiness that she had somehow not heard from Sara before.

Michelle shot Rumor a wide-eyed stare as he fanned the smoke from his face. What were they supposed to tell him? He'd probably call the cops for the truth. Maybe even try to exact his revenge. "He's near the base of the belfry," Rumor responded through gritted teeth, tugging on the collar of his shirt, "but I don't suspect that you want to see him in the state we left him in."

"First thing's first, let me make one thing clear." Dumpster cowboy pointed his cigarette towards Sara. "Anything she tells you about me and Sting is a bunch of baloney. And trust me, whatever you kids did to him, I'm sure he can—"

"He's dead, sir," Rumor interrupted. "When I tried to remove his mask, his skin tore off his face as his skull imploded in on itself."

The dumpster cowboy paused mid-smoke, his eyebrows shooting up. "Oh." His voice cracked slightly.

Rumor bowed his head. "Please, forgive me. I had no idea such a reaction would occur."

"Try not to worry about it. Man was a bastard, through and through." Though he tried to act nonchalant as he fidgeted with the cigarette in his hands, the frown his hat just barely covered told a different story. He scrunched his nose and stared off into the sun. If anything, he seemed more annoyed than melancholy. "World's probably a better place without him."

Cab scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, because as we all know," he sneered, "being a bastard is worthy of the death penalty."

"If you take issue with how I handled the situation, you were free to deal with it by yourself," rattled Rumor.

"Uh, hello? I was kind of passed out and dying?"

"Excuses."

"Wait," Sara thought aloud, "so the masks kill the person wearing it if you try to take them off?"

The pessimistic scowl Rumor bore at Cab melted away at Sara's question. "Unless there was some other trigger I activated by pure mischance, yes. That, or the Master of the Masquerade was nearby and manually caused the mask's destruction."

Michelle shook her head. "That can't be it though. I shooed everyone away from the belfry, remember?"

"They could've had a separate vantage point where they viewed the scene from," he suggested. "Or, alternatively, the masks could give their user the ability to see out of the eyes of whoever wears them, just like how Sara can hear whatever is spoken into Out of Touch. Remember, these masks are most likely part of a Stand. The mask could have detonated for any number of ways."

Every possibility he proposed made Michelle's face grow paler and paler, her heart sinking ever deeper into her chest. If any of Rumor's theories were true, then that meant that the Master of the Masquerade—the man with the donut hair she met at the cemetery—was not only in Mons, but that he was more than likely following her. Undetected, too. She couldn't recall a single car trailing behind them when they crossed the border or any shadowy figures trailing behind them as they toured the city. A cold shiver drug up her spine. He must really want to kill me after all, she thought.

"Oh! Speaking of which," Sara extended her hand out, jazzing her fingers, "can I have Out of Touch back, Chelly?"

Still unnerved and drowning in anxiety, Michelle slipped the glove off of her hand and tossed it in Sara's general direction, the rest of her body still as a statue. It landed on Sara's forehead, slowly dragging down her face.

"Either way, the result was the same," concluded Rumor. "I attempted to pry the mask off of Sting's face, and his head exploded. Whether or not it was knowingly activated by the Master of the Masquerade doesn't matter. Even if he does dwell in Mons, we have no way of tracking him down without running the risk of attracting even more Masqueraders."

"Yeah! Besides, we've all fought plenty of Masqueraders before now and nothing bad has happened outside of the fights," Sara chimed in. "Aside from Cab's wallet getting stolen, I guess. You'd think they would've shown their hand by now if that were the case, right?"

"I mean..." Michelle muttered, "it does matter a little, but..."

Before she could better articulate her point, the dumpster cowboy interjected as he stubbed out his cigarette on the table. "Well, if y'all got some issues with some homicidal Stand users, then I got a proposition for ya."

Sara's eyes lit up. "Yeah?"

"I'm a Stand user myself," he said with a tip of the hat, "and it just so happens that dealin' with other Stand users happens to be my specialty. And let's just say that I got connections. Chances are that I'll have at least heard of anyone who gives y'all trouble. I just finished up my last job, so I got nothing on my schedule. Why not let me partner up with y'all and let me watch your backs?"

"Really?" She gasped and clapped her hands together. "You want to travel with us?"

"Wow, Sara, you've gotten much better at kidnapping people," Cab commented. "You didn't even have to stalk him for a day."

Maintaining her smile with a sharp exhale, Sara turned to the dumpster cowboy. "Is it safe for me to slap him, or should I wait until he fully regains feeling in his body?"

"Go for it."

With a smug grin that just screamed "punch me," Cab stood up and mugged in Sara's face. She lunged at him, but before the punch landed, Quiet Riot's arm popped out and smacked her fist. Her body swiveled around and she ended up hitting Rumor in the face.

Cab cackled as Rumor rubbed his cheek. "Ooh, so close!"

"Please, forgive my cohorts for their unprofessional behavior," Rumor said, rolling his eyes. He stood up and extended his hand to the dumpster cowboy. "I don't believe we've been formally introduced."

"Oh god, right! This is your first time meeting everyone!" Nearly smacking Rumor in the face a second time, Sara whirled around so she was standing next to the dumpster cowboy. "Well, at least while you're conscious. Guys, this is Hors—"

"Hol Horse," he interjected, shaking Rumor's hand. "Please, just call me Hol Horse."

"Yup!" Sara kicked Cab and Michelle's chairs out from under them, forcing them to their feet. Michelle tumbled to the ground first, while Cab stood up and walked towards Hol Horse before she could strike his chair. "And this is Rumor Mill, Taxi—"

"My name is Rumor," Rumor reaffirmed as he let go of Hol Horse's hand and shoved it over Sara's mouth. With his free hand, he grabbed Cab's wrist and pulled it towards Hol Horse, forcing them to shake hands. "Rumor Fleetwood. I'm sure you've picked up on Sara's habitual nicknaming by now, as well as how annoying it is."

"I for one don't mind if you call me Taxi Cab," Cab stated.

"Do not encourage her." Rumor shoved Cab, breaking the handshake. "His name is Cab Cavazo, and hers," Rumor took Michelle's hand, helping her off the ground, and forced it into Hol Horse's, "is Michelle Polnareff."

Hol Horse's previously lax grip tightened like a tourniquet upon hearing her last name. His shoulders tensed, eyes just about bulging out of his skull. His reaction did not go unnoticed by Michelle. Her eyes similarly went wide when the realization dawned on her.

This guy knew Dad.

"Pleasure's all mine," he stammered, maintaining his vice grip.

Sara took his unoccupied hand and aggressively shook it, distracting him for just long enough for Michelle to pull away. "Welcome to the group, Horseradish!"

He sighed and fished a lighter and another cigarette out of his pocket, but his nervous posture didn't leave him. His hands trembled slightly as he struggled to get a light, grumbling something to himself that Michelle couldn't quite make out.

Yup. This guy definitely knew Dad.

"Uh, Sara," Michelle whispered, tugging on her friend's ear, "can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Yeah, what's—ack!" She choked as Michelle jerked her away from the table by the collar of her shirt. "What's up?"

"I don't think bringing cowboy here with us is a good idea."

"Why not?"

"Why not? Are you kidding me?" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "You really want to bring along some random guy we found passed out behind a dumpster to travel with us? That doesn't, I don't know, set off any red flags to you? Also, when Rumor introduced me just now, he tensed up when he heard my full name. He obviously knew my dad. He could be involved in this too. Maybe that's what he means by 'connections' to other Stand users."

Sara wrapped an arm around Michelle's shoulders and turned them away from the group's prying eyes. "Chelly, let me level with you," she said in a hushed tone. "He doesn't look it, but this dude is loaded. Like, insanely, ridiculously, magnificently loaded." Her voice got louder and giddier with each adjective, her blue eyes green with greed. "That briefcase he's carrying is stuffed with money. Do you really want to keep paying for our hotel rooms and food and gas? He's got us covered. You'll never have to spend another cent. And if he is working with the Masqueraders, who cares? There's one of him and four of us. Then Rumor will get his chance to interrogate someone, then it's all positives from there! Come on Chelly, don't you want to meet more people like us?"

"I'll spend my entire inheritance if it keeps me safe," Michelle proclaimed, worming her way free from Sara's one-armed hug. "I just don't think that we can trust this guy."

"Not everything revolves around your dad, Michelle," Sara spat out, putting her hands on her hips. "Who knows, it could've been Cab's name he recognized and not yours. He was a big time boxer not that long ago, after all. Or it could be something else entirely. Not like y'all are the only Polnareffs around, right?"

"Well..." though Michelle had never met another family with the last name Polnareff before herself, she knew the name wasn't too uncommon back in France, and his American accent did make it easier to believe that he recognized Cab rather than her, "I guess, but—"

"Great!" Sara waltzed back to the group, dragging Michelle along with her. While Cab and Rumor eyed both of them with quizzical frowns, Hol Horse was mostly passive to the situation, aside from the dagger-like glare he maintained on Michelle. Sara didn't seem to notice, however, and began to ramble at him. "So, were you headed anywhere particular? Because, like, the four of us have just been going wherever we feel like. If you've got any plans, I'd hate to put a wrench in them."

He shrugged, prying his eyes away from Michelle. "I'm just a drifter. You tell me where to go, and I'll follow."

"Neato! So, have you been to Belgium before? There are some places here in Mons that we wanted to go to, but after that we're just kinda...moseying along. I don't know. Are there any big locales you'd recommend?"

"To be honest, there's not much in Belgium that I'd recommend," he confessed. "It's about as bland as Europe gets. Some old castles, if you're into that sort of thing, but I've lost my shine to them. Brings back old memories." He paused, taking another drag of his cigarette. "If you want to stick around in Belgium, you could drive up to Bruges; at least it's got some decent beaches. But if it were me, I'd hit the road and head out to a different country. If tourism is your angle, of course. I have no preference either way."

That clearly wasn't the answer she expected out of him. Sara's standard ear-to-ear grin receded in disappointment. Despite the fact that his perspective was jaded from his age and she was partially stringing him along as a walking wallet, the last thing she wanted was for him to be bored or annoyed with where they went. He said he had no preference, but did he really mean that or was he just trying to be polite? "Well, when you put it like that..." Sara bit her cheek. What was the best way to satisfy everyone? "Say, what's the best beach in all of Europe?"

"Navagio, hands down," he responded with no hesitation. "If you've seen a postcard of a beach on it, chances are the picture was taken there. There's nothin' like seeing it for yourself, though."

"Cool, where is it?"

"Greece."

The very word made Michelle want to scream. Greece? Sure, at least it wasn't Italy, but it was almost as bad. She wasn't even mentally prepared to visit France's next-door neighbor, let alone travel halfway across the continent. Sara's bright eyes as she stared at her forehead, drumming her fingers on the table told her that she didn't really care about her so called "friend's" predicament.

"Hey, Rumor," she eventually said, "how far is Greece from Belgium?"

"Approximately 2,500 kilometers."

"Ok, and in miles?"

"Approxima—"

"Ok," Michelle interrupted, "and how many of those miles would require us to travel through other countries? I still don't have a passport. That Shenanigan Area or whatever it's called can't stretch out throughout all of Europe."

"It's called the Schengen Area," Rumor corrected.

Do these so-called friends have no sympathy for my situation? "It's called the 'I get arrested on sight the second I leave it' area."

"That may be a bit of a stretch," Hol Horse said, demonstrating his complete lack of understanding. "But if it's a passport you need, then I may be able to help."

Guiding her forward by the small of her back, Hol Horse lead Michelle away from the table and back onto the streets. The rest of the group followed, Sara practically skipping up to them while the two boys cautiously trailed behind.

~~~~~

Well, I'll be damned. Polnareff managed to get laid.

Hol Horse lead the group down the street, eyeing Michelle as she struggled to maintain her cool façade. There couldn't be two idiots named Polnareff that could produce a kid who looked like that, and he knew for a fact that Polnareff didn't have any siblings to do it for him. The stick-straight silvery hair, the pronounced cheekbones, hell, the two of them even dressed similarly. No doubt about it, this was Jean-Pierre Polnareff's daughter.

Which only made him all the more desperate to ditch the group as soon as possible.

Of all the people in the world to get stuck with, why, why did it have to be her? He would have rather ended up with Polnareff himself. At least then, he could draft up some pretty little lies, beg for some sympathy, then stick with him until some other Stand user that he could partner up with came along. But this was his daughter. Hol Horse had been around the block long enough to know what happened when fathers caught men like him traveling around with their little girls, no matter how innocent their interactions actually were. If Polnareff was dedicated to anything, it was family—bastard spent three years traveling the world just to avenge his sister. That wasn't something that mellowed with age. Even worse that he could actually be here, in Mons, hiding just out of view. A bunch of kids, not one of them supporting the local accent, travelling in Europe without an adult to pay for their amenities in this economy? Hol Horse wasn't buying it. Who was to say that Polnareff wasn't waiting for them back at their hotel?

If it was still 1988, I'd have no problem fightin' off Polnareff, Hol Horse mused to himself. Guns beat swords, after all. But Emperor just ain't what it was back then, and neither am I. I'm in no condition to fight him one-on-one, let alone with a group of kids supporting him. Hell, this was my first gig since Cairo and I only pulled it off by the skin of my teeth.

He couldn't just go off on his own, either. Not with the Masqueraders—that was what the little redhead had called them, right?—running amok. Even if he was still in top condition, being alone with that type of threat lurking about was like walking blindfolded through a mine field. Above all else, he needed to keep any potential friends close in case his enemies got closer. Finding some partners took priority. If that included Polnareff's daughter, then so be it.

One thing did ease his mind, however: Michelle's lack of a passport. Though she poorly (and from what he could tell, intentionally) hid it, she had just as strong of an accent as her father and had even slipped into speaking in her native tongue. French was spoken in Belgium as well, particularly in the south where they currently were, but not with her dialect. There was no way she was native to Belgium.

So then why was she here with no passport and a group of kids who clearly weren't from either Belgium or France?

True, border control between the two countries was incredibly lax, but it was odd for a teenager to wander from country to country without at least a passport handy. Maybe she wasn't expecting to travel so far from home with this posse of hers. Maybe an overbearing family had caused her to run away for a taste of freedom. Maybe her father had been killed by one of the Masqueraders and now she was running for her life.

Whatever her reason is, he thought as their destination came into view, I'll find out all about it soon enough.

Chapter Text

Compared to the classical buildings that lined Mons' city square, Rest Aria Art Gallery's contemporary stylings stuck out like a sore thumb. While most of the buildings in Mons were made of brick, Rest Aria was solid concrete with a paint job whiter than the clouds overhead. It was almost double the width of the buildings it sat adjacent to, but as if to compensate, only one story tall. Not a single window graced the exterior, just a single black door with a sign plastered above it. It looked more like a prison than anything else.

For an art gallery, Michelle figured, the architecture is exceptionally bland.

Then again, it was probably unfair for her to hold any judgement over the place, being a Parisian. Comparing a cultural landmark like the Louvre to a tiny art gallery like this was like comparing the Cullinan Diamond to a piece of fake jewelry bought from a costume store. As they passed by the gallery, though, she couldn't help but chuckle at the irony of a place meant to showcase beautiful art being so dull from the outside.

Whether due to some avant-garde sensibilities that Michelle couldn't even begin to comprehend or just wanting to encapsulate every place they stopped at on their trip, Sara didn't seem to hold the same opinion. Her camera was out, the shutter firing off like a machine gun. After getting what must have been a good twenty pictures, she stopped in place, letting Cab and Rumor pass her, then shoving them into her line of fire. "Happy faces, boys!"

Michelle assumed they would walk past Rest Aria and she'd forget it even existed by dinnertime. Said expectations were dashed as Hol Horse turned and ambled to the door. She lingered behind and raised a brow. "I'm getting a passport in there?" 

"Yes and no," Hol Horse responded. "We're going to, uh..." he paused, scratching at his stubble, "commission someone here to make you a passport."

She took one last glance up at the giant white box looming in front of her and considered exactly what she was getting into. "Why do we have to commission some two-bit artist to make me a passport? Shouldn't we just go to an embassy or town ha—oh."

"Yeah. Not easy to go to town hall when it's surrounded by pigs, is it?"

"I still don't understand why we're at an art gallery."

"It's like I said; I got connections, darlin'."

There was that word again. Connections. Just hearing it made Michelle tense up and reach for her necklace. Endless possibilities whirled through her mind as he opened the door. Maybe Rumor's theory about the Master of the Masquerade being in Mons was true, and this was where he was hiding? After all, both he and Hol Horse were two foreigners who somehow knew her father, and the latter of which clearly knew more than he was willing to share.

Of course, there was the possibility that he and Sting were just rich, quirky tourists who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. That would explain their unusual attire and the heavy briefcase Hol Horse lugged around with him. The wealthy were bound to have all those connections, even outside of their home country. However, living in Paris for so long had cursed her with the ability to pick out rich socialites out of a crowd, if only so she would be able to avoid them entirely and take refuge in her apartment until they left her part of town. Hol Horse was perhaps as far removed from those types of tourists as possible. On top of all that, there was also the fact that both of them were Stand users—one of them a Masquerader, even.

Safer to exercise caution, anyway.

She glanced behind her to check on her support. Sara still had her eyes glued to camera, directing a dynamic Cab and static Rumor to pose around Rest Aria. When the latter refused to move a muscle aside from slowly inching his way out of the shot, Quiet Riot's arm popped out and slapped Rumor's limbs, forcibly positioning them to where Sara wanted.

Though she ought to feel more anxious at her friends' lax attitude when Hol Horse was clearly up to no good, she felt more annoyed than anything. "Guys, could you stop goofing off and—"

Hol Horse interrupted her by lightly shoving her back, pushing her inside of Rest Aria. His hands may as well have been made of scissors, as his touch felt like it pierced her flesh and left a bloody gash behind. Seemed as though she wasn't as used to being touched as she thought. The door lazed on its hinges, remaining half open but blocking her friends from sight.

Somehow, Rest Aria was even blander on the inside than the outside. Rows of walls were stationed in neat lines in front of them, each one colored the same milky white as the building's exterior. An ugly chandelier lit up the room from the center of the ceiling, one of the lightbulbs on it dimmed and crackling on and off. Paintings adorned the walls, though Michelle was reluctant to call any of them "art;" most of them were crudely sketched portraits or almost blank canvases with some blots of paint randomly splotched about. A handful of them were genuinely beautiful, but even Michelle's untrained eye recognized them as reprints or forgeries of other pieces. Price plaques hung below each piece, each one more ridiculous than the last; the cheapest one listed was more expensive than their hotel rooms. That price may have been reasonable for a painting made by a talented and established artist, but not a single thing in front of her had any artistic merit to it.

Or maybe she just didn't get the meaning of it. Modern art is, after all, deep. Each piece probably symbolized something so abstract that her tiny high school dropout brain couldn't even begin to understand its intricacies.

Another set of expensive items that caught Michelle's eyes were the plethora of security cameras that hung from every corner of the ceiling. They locked in on her and Hol Horse as they entered the gallery. Since no one else was in the building, the churning of their gears rang much louder than they probably should have.

The spurs on Hol Horse's boots jangled as he stepped forward, moseying down the hall. The cameras followed his movement. He only got to the third line of paintings before realizing that Michelle wasn't following him. Nonchalant, he rested against the wall and pulled out a cigarette, gesturing forward with it like a pointer. "Ladies first."

Michelle folded her arms and furrowed her brow. "No. I'm waiting for Sara and the others to finish taking pictures. I trust them."

"Believe me, darlin'," he reassured, shoving the cigarette back into his pocket, "it's within my best interest to keep you safe. Rest easy, ok? I'm on your side." His lips pinched into a lopsided smirk, and he pulled his hat back to uncover his ocean blue eyes. They were wide and compassionate, not entirely unlike the expression Sara would have when convincing her into an uncomfortable situation.

Before responding, Michelle carefully assessed the situation she was in. Though he tried his best to brush it aside with false flattery and a sunny smile, Hol Horse couldn't erase how he behaved back at the café. The way he tensed up upon hearing her name, the piercing eye contact he kept on her while they walked to Rest Aria, his insistence on being on her side; all of it pointed towards him knowing something about her. While she had no way to prove it, it didn't take a modern art appreciator to figure out that said something was a connection to her father.

The only question was whether or not he was on good terms with him or not.

It wasn't like he only had enemies that she should be wary of—in fact, from what she understood, he had friends in high places. He used to always go on about how he got their house as a wedding gift from some wealthy real estate tycoon, after all. What was his name again? Wasn't he an American? Michelle brushed her hair out of her face as she tried to recall anything about him, but she wasn't sure if she had ever met the guy who bought them their house, let alone whether or not she had heard his name. Whatever his name was, it definitely wasn't Hol Horse. I would've remembered a name like that. Even when ignoring his more well-off comrades, her father had backpacked around the world in his youth. It was only natural that he would have made some friends along the way.

But if Hol Horse was one of those friends, why not just come out and say it? Why did her name make him so obviously uncomfortable back at the café, only for him to double down on acting sincere and trustworthy now? Even the Master of the Masquerade had the courtesy of revealing his connection to her father, in his own subtle way. That may even be why Hol Horse was tightlipped about it, despite his initial reaction. Not like she could ask him about it herself, either. It would be easy for him to just lie his way out of it.

Come to think of it, she still hadn't seen his Stand. As much as the theory made sense to her, she technically had no proof that the man from the cemetery was indeed the Master of the Masquerade. It could just as easily be Hol Horse himself. However, it wasn't safe to call him out on it while they were alone, and she couldn't risk turning her back on him for long enough to open the door. If he summoned his Stand on her, she'd be outwitted—Iron Maiden could only stop one target at a time. She needed backup.

"I'm waiting for Sara and the others to finish taking pictures," she repeated.

Groaning, Hol Horse stood up straight and looked her in the eye. "You can wait all you want, but it doesn't matter. They can't come with anyhow."

"Why not?"

"Only you and me are going in to meet our guy. He's not a people person as is, and we're droppin' in unexpected," he explained. "I'll be able to worm a passport out of him, I'm sure, but not with that little redhead making a ruckus while we negotiate."

"Her name is Sara." As if she needed any more evidence that it was her name that bothered him, not anyone else's. "I'll be blunt, I don't trust you. I'm not going anywhere with you by myself."

"C'mon. Am I really so bad?"

"It's nothing personal," she lied through her teeth. If he was involved in her father's death, then it was indeed very personal. "If you were me, a teenage girl with no way to defend herself, would you trust going into a shady art gallery with some creepy old guy you just met?"

Hol Horse opened his mouth to respond, but bit his lip before he could say anything. Shoulders slumping, he rubbed his chin. "Fair point," he mumbled. Shaking his head, he walked back over to her and bent his knees slightly so they were at eye-level with each other. He attempted to rest his hand on her shoulder, but Michelle took a step back and glared at him before he could touch her. "Listen," he said, his smoky breath hanging off his words, "those friends of yours want to travel, with or without you. I see that look in Sara's eyes. Reminds me of myself when I was her age. If you trap her in one place for too long, she'll go stir crazy. She's got those boys by the balls, too, whether they want to admit it or not. If you don't get a passport, eventually they'll ditch you without thinkin' twice about it. If you want to stay behind and miss out on all the fun because you don't trust me, then I get it. You can just go back home and sit on your hands all summer." He stood up straight and walked past her, opening the door. "Nothing personal, right?"

As much as she didn't want to admit it, he had a point. Sara had been supportive of her at every turn up until now, but at the same time, their goals had never collided. Who was to say that she wouldn't just ditch her if she wanted to venture outside the Schengan Area? Michelle had witnessed firsthand what happened when Sara's patience was tested, and it wasn't pretty. At the end of the day, she was more baggage to them than the literal baggage Sara lugged around with her.

Michelle clenched her fists and swallowed hard. "D'accord." She attempted to sound decisive, but the crack in her voice gave her away. "I will...rely on you. For now. Let's get that passport."

Without missing a beat, he turned around on his heels and strode back through the gallery. "I'm glad you've had a change of heart, darlin'," he said with a tip of the hat.

"Stop calling me that."

Heels clattering against the floor, she followed him to the back of the gallery. Each painting they passed grew plainer than the last, going from fuzzy shapes to one that was nearly blank save for a single red stripe in the middle. Street graffiti had more talent behind it. Then again, maybe she just didn't get it.

At the far corner of the building, circled by a group of security cameras, was a long tapestry that dangled to the floor. Instead of a price, the plaque directly above it read NOT FOR SALE. A shame, really. While not stunning, it was easily the best piece of art on display. Multiple scenes were woven into it—a rising sun reflected against a lake, a pair of lovers embracing under a willow tree, and a trio of snakes guarding a barren hillside. Some of the seams were coming undone and the colors had started to fade, but its aged, rustic aesthetic made it a stand out next to the other pieces on display. After looking both ways the same way one would check for oncoming traffic, Hol Horse lifted the tapestry. A wooden door stood behind it.

"Before we go in, there's one more thing you need to know," Hol Horse warned as he fiddled with the doorknob. "Whatever you do, do not lie to him."

"Why not?"

"He's not a Stand user, but his office is rigged with a Stand," he explained. "That thing's a livin' lie detector and then some. You're as good as gone if you set it off, no ifs, ands, or buts. It ain't gonna give you a second chance."

The explanation was ironic, because it sounded like a huge lie in and of itself. For all she knew, he could just be trying to pull some elaborate scam on her. "Good to know," she responded.

Hol Horse nodded back at her then, with white knuckles peeking out of his fingerless gloves, twisted the doorknob. At first, he only creaked the door open, gesturing for her to stay back as he peered inside. Michelle held her hands close to her chest. What could possibly be so horrible behind the door that he'd have to sneak a peek first?

Lowering his hand and loosening his grip on the doorknob, he swung the door open. The room behind it was perhaps as different from the rest of Rest Aria as possible. Rather than plain white concrete, the walls were plush, red velvet. Mosaic tiles overtook the flooring, cut apart by a couple of wool rugs that laid under matching leather sofas. To the far left was an old bookshelf with enough dust lining it that it was unlikely that any of the books stacked inside had ever been read. A strong, mint-like scent escaped from the room with the open door. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the room was the massive painting that hung on the wall—rather than blotchy shapes of watercolor or an incomplete sketch, a horde of screaming acrylic faces set in front of a flaming background stared back at them. Their wide eyes, seething with terror, pierced into Michelle's soul. Some of them even looked like they were trying to claw their way out of the painting.

In other words, it was what Michelle considered to be a real piece of art. A well-polished plaque hung above it with the caption POLICY OF TRUTH.

An oak desk with a glossy finish sat on the floor, the painting looking down upon it. Stacks of paper and wads of cash had been pushed to its far corners, nearly falling off the table, in favor of several lines of a fine white powder that Michelle prayed to whatever god was listening was just sugar. A man was hunched over the desk, his long, greying hair looking like a mop over his head. He dragged his face across the desk, snorting the white powder—please, for the love of God, just be sugar—up his nose, unaware that he was being watched.

Michelle didn't need to spend a single second to assess the situation; her consciousness was screaming at her to book it. Before she could will her body to move, though, Hol Horse wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her inside. Their boots clopped against the tile floor, alerting the man at the desk. His head shot up, blowing up a puff of white powder with him, with furious eyes. "Where the hell is my coffee, Ike?" His shout was somewhere between the growl of a Doberman and the command of a lieutenant.

The rage in his eyes evaporated after a moment or so as his wide-eyed glare turned into a confused squint. Not breaking eye contact with them, he opened a drawer on his desk and shuffled through it until he pulled out a pair of square glasses. Upon putting them on, he settled into annoyance with an exacerbated groan. "Oh, it's you."

"Depeche!" Hol Horse jovially waved at him. "You old bastard, you. I see you're gettin' your fix for the day." Still keeping Michelle by his side, he journeyed deeper into the room and took a seat on one of the sofas. "If this, uh, 'Ike' is runnin' late on gettin' you something to drink, maybe I could—"

"What do you want, Hol Horse?" The man at the desk—Michelle assumed his name was Depeche—disinterestedly leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the armrest. "I paid you, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did. A generous amount, too." He lifted his briefcase for a moment. "But pal to pal? Off the record? I've got a favor I'd like to cash in."

"Favor?" He scoffed and rolled his eyes at the suggestion. "I paid you and Sting in cash. And a lot of it too, you damn penny pinchers. So unless you'd like to hand that briefcase back over to me, I don't think so."

"Come on. We've both been in this game long enough to know that's not how this works." Leaning back into the sofa, Hol Horse pulled a cigarette and lighter from his pocket and lit it as he spoke. "I reckon you haven't stepped outside yet; town hall is littered with pigs, and none of 'em have a single lead on ol' Dixie's killer. Come to think of it, Dixie tried to buy one of your pieces off you, didn't he? How much did you sell it for?"

As Hol Horse took a draw from his cigarette, Depeche's face turned as red as the walls. He matched the cowboy's knowing grin with a scrunched nose and sealed lips.

"It's just a question, Depeche," Hol Horse resumed. "Unless, of course, you've got—"

"Don't play stupid with me," Depeche barked, slamming his fist on the desk. "You know just as well as I do that this whole building is one big money laundering scheme. How was I supposed to know that someone would actually want to buy this shit? We pick up the worst art we can find and turn it into a circle of profit and tax deductions. Not like the street artists are complaining; they get to say that their work is displayed in the most exclusive art gallery in Belgium. One goody-goody comes along and buys a piece in circulation, and the whole thing falls apart." Sighing, he rubbed his forehead and leaned back in his chair. "So yeah, I refused to sell."

Sitting up straight, Hol Horse let out a loud, pronounced gasp. It was hardly a convincing one and everyone in the room knew it was forced. "You refused to sell? I'd bet after that, Dixie started getting real suspicious of this place." He lolled back in his seat and rested his hands behind his head. "Of course, he's dead now, so I guess it doesn't really matter. Wonder what would happen if someone reminded the pigs just what Dixie was up to in the weeks before he bit the big one?"

"You're trying to blackmail me?" Depeche started out the sentence fuming with rage, but his tone mellowed out by the time he stopped to take a breath. He brushed down the lapels of his jacket before continuing. "That's too cute. I wasn't the one who pulled the trigger."

"Could you really blame a soldier for following his commander's orders?"

"Don't flatter me. I could just as easily turn you into the police."

"Seems we're at a stalemate, then. Either you help me out, or we both go quietly with our hands above our heads."

Each exchange between the two made Michelle's stomach do somersaults. She didn't need to be a detective to read between the lines—the implication behind their exchange was as clear as day. It made perfect sense too. He was a Stand user, and although she hadn't seen what it was, she had a decent guess as to what it could do. A bullet to the head, except there was no bullet in his head. Rumor had even guessed as such back at the belfry. How had she been so stupid to overlook it?

The man sitting next to her had shot the mayor, and the man sitting in front of them had paid him to do it.

In retrospect, it was smart of him to keep the others from joining them. While he hadn't lied—Depeche obviously had a bit of a temper, one that Sara would only aggravate—making sure that no one else got wind of his little secret was the best move he could have made. Even if she were to come forward and tell the others about it, there was no way they'd believe her. Hol Horse probably had a million and one alibis already lined up, and Sara was already convinced of his innocence.

"Fine, I'll bite," Depeche responded. "What do you want me to—"

The door swung open and banged against the wall before he could finish his statement. A man with a long neck and brunette buzz cut rushed through, panting heavily, a steaming cup of coffee in his hands.

Depeche didn't seem to be too bothered with his presence, luckily enough. "Where the hell were you, you worthless little gutter snipe? I'm not paying you to lay in bed and jerk off all day, you know. I asked for a latte hou..." his face went pale for a moment as he stopped mid-word, "I mean, a while ago."

Michelle's ears perked up at his near slip. The change of word was deliberate, but why? Hol Horse had mentioned something about a lie detector, but why would he have to worry about it, especially over a simple figure of speech?

"I'm sorry, Mr. Mode," the man heaved in a heavy Dutch accent. "That café that you like, Folie à Deux, was slow today. Apparently the staff was too busy dealing with some guy that had a heatstroke at one of the tables."

Wait, that's where we stopped at to deal with Fall Out Boy's grid on Cab's arm, Michelle realized. Shit. That's him this guy's talking about, isn't he?

"Does it look like I care? How hard can it be to get a damn latte?" Depeche reached out to snatch the coffee from his underling's hands, but just as his fingers brushed against the cup, he hesitated. "You did get it the way I like it, right?"

The man's face turned sheet white, and he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Uh...I mean, you're a man of such exquisite tastes, so I think you'll be able to appreciate—"

"Yes or no question. Is that a large nonfat mocha caffe latte with extra cream and whey powder?"

He gulped and stared at his feet.

"Well, is it?"

"Yes, sir, it's—"

His body went stiff before he could finish his statement, standing perfectly upright as though he'd been afflicted with rigor mortis. Fingers splayed, he dropped the latte to the floor and let it soil the carpet. Some of it sprayed onto Michelle's boots and gave her a twin stain to pair with Sting's blood. She brought her knees to her chest. Using her thumb, she tried to rub the stain off, though all it did was smear it across the instep of her boot.

Her attention was forcibly drawn back to the man as his ear-piercing screech filled the room. His eyes were wide with panic and fear, and yet his body remained motionless. Hol Horse pulled his hat over his eyes and looked the other way. Obviously, he knew what came next, and didn't want to see it.

When Michelle noticed what was happening, she couldn't blame him.

Fleshy globs dribbled from his form and congregated into a puddle at what was once his feet, but now was only a goopy melt of skin and leather boots. His head sagged, ears raining off his head as his scream sputtered into a frothy gurgle. The rest of his body warped as more of it liquefied to the floor. Within just a couple of seconds, the only thing left of him was a puddle of ooze and the cup of spilled coffee on the floor.

The ooze slushed its way across the floor, slithering under Depeche's desk and up the wall before being absorbed by the painting. A new screaming face formed to the far left, near the frame. A long-necked, buzz cut sporting face.

Michelle had to cover her mouth to stop herself from gasping. On the other hand, Depeche was unfazed. He stood from his chair and lolloped over to the spilled coffee, got down on his hands and knees, and licked it off the floor.

"Hmm. He forgot the cream," he decided, then threw himself back in his chair.

With clammy hands, she grabbed Hol Horse's ear and spoke in a nervous whisper. "What was that?"

"A Stand, like I told you," he whispered back. "Obviously that little intern messed up his order."

"The painting is the Stand?"

"Yup. As the story goes, Depeche tricked its original user into lying and trapped 'em inside his own Stand." Giving Policy of Truth a cursory glance, he tipped his hat and sighed. "Just another screaming face."

"And if you can say that without triggering it, then it must be true."

"So, now you know I ain't bluffing. Do not lie while you're in this room."

She released her hold on his ear and ran her fingers through her hair, deep in thought. Something didn't sit quite right. "If he's not a Stand user," she blurted out, "then how does he even know that the painting is there? Shouldn't he not be able to see it?"

Instead of giving her a straightforward answer like she expected him to, Hol Horse paused mid-smoke to jut his chin back and raise a brow at her. He folded his arms and flicked his eyes back and forth between her puzzled face and the painting.

"What?"

He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Nothing, nothing. Listen, whatever rules you may have heard about Stands, how they work and all, none of it's set in stone. Hell, I don't even know what the hell they really are. Some Stands, like that painting, can be seen even by non-Stand users."

Nervously, she nodded. Her lips felt very dry as she processed what was at stake. The last few years of hiding out in her grandmother's apartment had made her no stranger to dealing with inquisitive adults in the form of tax agents and old friends getting up in her face and asking who are you, where's your grandmother, why are you here all by yourself and not in school, but they had been easy enough to deal with. All she had to do was tell them what they wanted to hear, a couple measly lies and they'd be out of her hair for a short while.

Now, she was speaking to someone much, much worse than the most cautious of bankers and nosiest of neighbors. He was a criminal who saw the assassination of a political figure as only business. Who benefitted from it. There was no telling what he could do to her if he got ahold of any of her personal information. What he could uncover.

Either she'd be forced into killing someone on his behalf or locked away in a dark cell somewhere for the murderer she already was.

Chapter Text

Time felt like it became physical in that moment, further pressurizing the room with each tick of the grandfather clock that sat by the door. Lazy and disinterested, Depeche rested his cheek on his right hand and stimmed the fingers of his left hand against his desk, acting as if his intern turning into a pool of paint and getting absorbed into a painting was something normal that Michelle shouldn't be alarmed at in the slightest. He looked as if the whole thing was boring, maybe annoying at worst.

Eventually he glowered back up at his guests. "Who's the bimbo?"

Michelle's jaw dropped, a hot fury rising in her chest. "Bimbo?" How dare he? She clenched her hands into fists and rose to her feet, but before she could throw any insults back his way, Hol Horse stood up with her and firmly placed his hands on her shoulders. Righteous indignation distracted her enough for her to ignore the fact that he was nearly squeezing her in place.

"Sorry about her," he offered with an apologetic smile. "She's a little...well, she's little." Titling his head down to speak directly to her, he continued. "This is Depeche Mode. He and I go way back. Mind tellin' him how old you are, sugar? Just so he knows not to push any boundaries?"

Just for a moment, a sly, knowing look peeked out from his polite professionalism. Michelle's eyes went wide—she knew exactly what he was doing. With Policy of Truth monitoring their conversation, she had no choice but to tell him every dirty little secret she had if he only asked her to unless she wanted to end up like that poor intern. This was just him testing the waters. It's not Depeche Mode I should be scared of, she realized, it's him. Depeche has no idea who I am, and Hol Horse knows exactly what questions to ask to clue him in. If I don't answer them, it'll only make me look more suspicious.

"I'm 17," she answered through gritted teeth.

"That's ok, I can work with that," Depeche said, dismissively waving his hand. "The whorehouse up north accepts girls 16 and up."

Whether from rage or embarrassment, she couldn't quite say, but Michelle's cheeks turned bright red. "Excuse me?"

Hol Horse pulled her to sit back down on the sofa with him. "That's not really what we had in mind," he informed Depeche. "I need you to make a passport for her."

"Passport?" Depeche scoffed at the idea. "Why in the hell would you come to me for a passport?"

"You're pals with...oh, what was his name," Hol Horse chomped down on his cigarette and snapped his fingers, trying to summon a name out from the reaches of his memory, "well, I don't remember his name, but that guy who made a fortune off of selling fake passports to refugees? Sent 'em just about anywhere in the world they wanted. Solid guy, breakin' the law to help others live their dreams."

"Oh, him? Yeah, he's a friend from college. We were roommates, if you can believe it," Depeche confessed. "He might be able to whip something up for you, but I need to know more about you first, young lady."

Michelle nervously shifted in her seat. Anything but that. "Me?"

"Hol Horse is efficient and available, but he's also a notorious opportunist. For all I know, you could be some member of a rival gang trying to rat me out. Passione in particular has been breathing down my neck lately, what with my," he gestured to the white powder still lined up on his desk, "lucrative exports. And I know for a fact that they've got a habit of making Stand users out of kids like yourself."

She tilted her head. Aside from his lucrative exports, she hadn't the slightest clue what he was talking about. Passione? As in passionate? Passionate for what? "I...don't know what you're referring to when you say Passione," she admitted.

"What about the other part of that accusation, huh? Are you a Stand user?"

Staring at her feet, she began to fiddle with her necklace. Already, her heartbeat was ringing loudly in her ears, but not loud enough to deafen her anxious thoughts. This is bad. Really bad. Hell, it was already bad when Sara started asking about Iron Maiden. This guy, on the other hand? Much worse. So, so much worse. This is probably the worst situation imaginable for me to end up in. He could force me to use Iron Maiden's curse as a walking nuke! Just the thought made her lightheaded. She scooted over to the edge of the sofa and nestled against the armrest. It smelled vile, a mixture of sweat, that same mint scent the rest of the office was full of, and something yeasty she didn't recognize; but at least she had something to brace herself against whether or not she could answer his question.

What else was she supposed to do, though? It wasn't like she could just tell him she wasn't a Stand user, and even if she somehow did, Hol Horse would probably find a way to correct her. He hadn't asked her what her Stand could do, either, just whether or not it existed. Taking a deep breath, she answered him. "Yes. I've been able to summon it naturally since I was a little kid."

"I admire your honesty, if nothing else." He grabbed a sheet of paper off the stack on the edge of his desk and brandished a pen. "What can it do?"

She almost blurted out "you don't want to know," but he clearly did; he was even ready to annotate it. His eyes were about as wide as the dark bags that weighed them down would allow them to be, eagerly awaiting her response. Even Hol Horse had shifted on the sofa, turning his head so that he was facing her. Both of them waited for her response with bated breath while she was struggling to breathe. Whatever she did, she couldn't let Depeche learn about Iron Maiden's curse.

Except she didn't have to tell him that, did she? Depeche had only asked her what it could do, not everything that it did. If he asked her what she could do, she could just as easily answer that she could walk from the cemetery to her apartment blindfolded, not that she could forge any signature she wanted to. Which, given his little rant about the true nature of Rest Aria's "art," was probably just as dangerous of a skill to cue him into.

After all, Iron Maiden could do more than just mindlessly kill people.

"It cancels out all acting forces on any object it touches," she explained. "Including gravity. You know the metaphor of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object? My Stand creates the immovable object."

When she said it like that, she almost felt proud of Iron Maiden. It was a neat ability, wasn't it? Too bad it was attached to an unstoppable death curse. Depeche didn't need to know that, though. With a somewhat disappointed hum, he transcribed what she said onto his sheet of paper. "I see," he mumbled, pushing up his glasses. "What's your name?"

Any momentary happiness she may have had was overtaken by familiar fear. If there was ever anything that she shouldn't tell him, it was this. She felt Hol Horse's eyes on her, staring into her soul out of his seemingly nonchalant sideways glance. He knew her name, her real name, and had damn good reason to believe that it was such. Even without Policy of Truth's presence, he'd probably correct her if she told Depeche differently.

But she had to take a risk and try anyways. There had to be some way to work around Policy of Truth, right? After all, a "name" was all in the eye of the beholder. It wasn't like he had specified, "the name on your birth certificate." To Sara, Michelle's name may as well have been Chelly. For years, everyone at school would refer to her as L'ange à L'encre with a hushed whisper when someone needed to avoid having to send a note to their parents. She fought back the grin that threatened to break her stoic visage as a plan formed in her head.

"Which one? I go by many." Poising herself with confidence, she sat up straight and looked him dead in the eyes. "Do you want the name my friends call me or the one I sign my paperwork with?"

He raised a brow at her. "Are you sure you're not from Passione?"

"If that's another whorehouse, then no."

"Well then. The name you sign your paperwork with."

The corners of her mouth briefly twitched upwards. Somehow, that worked. After all, she hadn't signed her own name on a single bill or form in several years. "Genevieve Delon." Her grandmother's name was uncommon, but not unique. Maybe he wouldn't find a teenager with her description when he searched up that name, but there'd be enough names to sift through that it'd be like trying to pull a needle out of a haystack. Too much work for him to go through.

"Alright, Genevieve," he pushed the piece of paper he had in front of him to the edge of the desk, "I need your signature. For your passport, of course."

"The name I sign my paperwork with?"

"What the hell else would I mean?"

She didn't have a good answer for that, so she just gave an apathetic shrug. Luckily, he seemed to accept that as her response, albeit with a raised brow and crossed arms. She rose from her seat and signed the sheet of paper he had pushed her way with a messy, scribblier version of her grandmother's signature, so it was still technically the name she signed, but distinct enough to not be a perfect match in case he tried to look for it. Depeche snatched the pen and paper from her as soon as she finished.

Her heart just about stopped when Hol Horse sat up straight and furrowed his brow as she sat back down. He removed his cigarette from between his lips and opened his mouth as if he was about to correct her, but he regained his affable stance before he spoke. "You know," Hol Horse commented, flicking his cigarette into the ashtray on Depeche's desk, "you're awfully young to be doing your own paperwork. And just as young to be needin' a fake passport. Where are your parents in all of this?" He gave her a knowing smirk. "Surely you've got an old man who can worry about all this stuff for you."

There it was. Proof, actual proof that Hol Horse knew her father specifically. Why else would he specifically ask her about her father with that look on his face? He may as well have rose from his seat, stood on the couch, and announced "I knew your father" at the top of his lungs, loud enough that even Sara and the others outside would hear him. Alas, he wasn't so bold. The subtlety behind his words would only be understood by the two of them. Not even Depeche, sitting just a meter or so away from them, truly understood what he was saying.

If he did know her father, though, why not just ask her about it normally? Hell, why even ask her at all? Shouldn't he already know that he was dead? Unless, of course, he was uninvolved in his death, which made a lot of sense now that she thought about it. Why else would he drag her out to an overreactive lie detector to ask her if he was still alive? That, or he just wanted to hear her say it herself, for whatever reason.

Still, none of that meant she had to tell him. "Why do you care? Seems a little late to be asking that question when we're already here."

"Is it so wrong for me to worry about a, in your own words, 'teenage girl with no way to defend herself' in a city she's clearly not from? I'll have you know that I respect women. I'd hate to see anything bad happen to you."

Despite Policy of Truth's existence, she couldn't help but feel like that last part was a lie. "How do you know I'm not from Mons?"

He chuckled. "You're not foolin' anybody here with that accent of yours."

"You sound French," Depeche added. "Like, French French. Like you grew up in the middle of Paris French."

A twinge of disappointment made her bite her cheek and frown. Years of strict drilling from her mother on suppressing her natural French accent when speaking English had failed her. Actually, it was more of the other way around—she had failed her mother. Not like it was the first time that had happened, what with the curse that killed her and all.

"So, back to the question," Hol Horse said. "Where are your parents?"

She almost laughed that he said parents; plural. As if he gave a rat's ass about her mother. No, this was all about her father and wanting to know if he was dead. Or perhaps he wanted to know if she knew he died. I can't dance around the question forever, she thought. He's just going to keep asking and asking, and there's nothing I can do to stop him. Now I know how Sara felt last night when I kept bugging her about her parents.

"Dead. Both of them," she admitted. "First my father, then my mother. After she died, my grandmother took me in."

Somewhere, deep down in the darkest pit of her heart, she wished that Policy of Truth would activate upon hearing her say those words. While she had watched her mother die and be buried at the cemetery, her father had died away from home and his body was never found. For years she had stayed up late at night and stared up at the moon and stars in the sky, praying to each one of them that he was still out there, somewhere, alive and breathing and trying to get back home. Now she had proof that her prayers had been in vain.

She blinked away a few tears at the realization that her father really was dead.

Sitting next to her, Hol Horse breathed out a noise that lilted from a relieved sigh to a mirthless chuckle. His shoulders relaxed for the first time since they'd found him passed out behind the dumpster as he sank into the back of the sofa, a satisfied smile flush across his face. This lasted for all but two seconds before he caught himself, faked a cough, and sat up straight with a solemn expression. "I'm sorry for your loss," he consoled.

Michelle glared at him. Yeah, right.

"Well, the accent should be no matter," Depeche commented, oblivious to the reality of the interaction that had just taken place. "Most countries you'll need a passport to get to won't be able to tell the difference. It's all the same to them. But, as a personal manner, I'll need to know where you're from."

Her throat felt dry, yet she still somehow gulped. "Where I'm from?"

"Yes. Where do you live?"

What was with this guy? Couldn't he just make the damn passport already? What's your name, where do you live...was he planning on stalking her afterwards? Probably. She had already given him her grandmother's name, giving him her grandmother's address was all he needed for her years of forgery and anonymity to come undone. From there, he'd learn who she really was, which was out of the question. She may as well just shoot herself now. But if she could work around her name, she could work around her home.

"France, like you said."

She hoped that maybe he'd take it as a joke and move on, but instead of cackling with laughter, Depeche rolled his eyes and tapped his pen on his desk. "France is a big country, kid. I'm gonna need specifics. Let's start with a city."

At service level, telling the truth didn't seem like that bad of an idea. Paris was the largest city in France by a large margin, after all. It seemed like the ideal city to get his investigation of her lost in. The only problem was that she actually had lived there for the last four, almost five years; the first two of which being before she had sworn by her anonymity. Not only was she sure that there were records of Genevieve Delon taking residence in Paris, both legitimate ones and her forgeries, but there were likely records of her that he could dig up alongside them. Records with the name "Michelle Polnareff" headlined onto them.

Paris was out of the question. What else did she have to work with? "I...I'm from Maintenon," she settled on. "Born and raised there."

She made sure to enunciate from as clearly as possible, so much so that her forced English accent almost sounded like a different person speaking when clashed against her traditional pronunciation of Maintenon. That single word was the key to making her statement a truth. Indeed, that was where she was from—Maintenon was where she lived before moving to Paris. Born and raised there, true to her word. In her mind's eye, she could still picture herself there; still picture that colonial house with the creaky floorboards that they never got around to fixing, still picture her father training his Stand in the backyard, still picture her mother coming home from work with a warm smile on her face.

Life seemed so much simpler back then.

At least there was very little chance of him finding a Genevieve Delon living there, or at least finding anything about her grandmother. For reasons Michelle never understood, she hated the damn place and refused to set foot there, even for the holidays.

"Maintenon, huh? That's nowhere near the border," Depeche commented. "Now, what's a little girl like you doing all the way here in Mons, so far from home without a passport? Your grandmother must be worried sick."

The way he spat grandmother out put her even more on edge than she already was. Could he somehow already know that she was dead? No, that was impossible. He would have called her out on it if that were the case. Unless, of course, he already knew who she really was and was in on it with Hol Horse and the Master of the Masquerade. Or, perhaps they wanted to know exactly what family she had left before they killed her, so they knew who would call the police to report her disappearance. After all, Hol Horse and the Master of the Masquerade knew her father, and this was her maternal grandmother. They very likely did not know that she was actually dead.

What am I supposed to do, just tell them that she's dead and that I tossed her body in a lake instead of reporting it to the police? Forget Depeche, I don't even want Hol Horse knowing that, she thought to herself. And my living situation back home hinges on the fact that she's still alive. They'd both sell me out for a Rolex if they learned the truth.

"Well?" The tempo of Depeche tapping his pen against the desk quickened.

Shit, shit, shit. "Well..." she cleared her throat, attempting to buy herself just a split second more to think of something to say, "I've paid for all my own hotels until now," she managed. "That should say a lot about my situation."

Depeche chortled at the vague testimony. "That just tells me that you're traveling, nothing more." He gave Hol Horse an aside glance before continuing. "Though, I'm shocked that you're not paying for her amenities, 'Mr. Gentleman.'"

"Hey, I just got paid this morning," Hol Horse replied before Michelle had time to panic about him having to speak for her. "Maybe next time, you should pay me upfront."

"What kind of dumbass do you take me for? We both know that you'd just take the money and run."

Hol Horse just grinned and took another drag of his cigarette.

"Anyways," he cranked his gaze back towards Michelle, sending a shiver down her spine, "give me the details."

"I...uh," where should she even begin? The last few lies had been about superficial blots of her life, one-word responses that drew from her past experiences. Now, she had to come up with an entirely new lifetime on the spot, one that was somehow true. The tick of the clock seemed to grow louder and faster as Depeche's cold stare remained locked on her. Michelle stared off to the side and avoided eye contact with either man in the room, instead keeping her sights locked on the plush red wall. Rubbing her necklace, she gulped. "I've been on the road for a long time. The situation with my grandmother is complicated, but to make a long story short, she's not in any position to...uh, have any authority over me. And, you know, she—"

"You're hiding something," Depeche accused her, and Michelle felt her heart stop for a moment, "I can tell. I don't take well to liars, Genevieve. So why don't you just make this easier on all of us and spit it out already?"

"Uh..." she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, "it's just that it's a bit of a long story, and..."

"Long. Story. Schmong. Shtory!" Each word was punctuated by his fist slamming against the desk, and by the time he got to the final word, he threw his hands up and sprung from his seat. "You know what you need to say," he asserted as he paced back and forth in the space behind his desk, "so stop wasting my time and just tell me already."

Clamping down on her pearls with one hand and digging her nails into the armrest of the sofa with the other, Michelle forced a scowl at his temper. Did he act this way around everyone who refused to divulge their whole life story, or was it just her? Though she still couldn't bring herself to look him in the eye, she spoke with newfound assertiveness. "Frankly, sir, my familial situation is none of your business. I came here for a passport, not to—ouch!"

Something smacked her head, just above her ear. Gingerly rubbing the bruise that was beginning to form, she found it within herself to turn back and face Depeche. He was boiling with anger, complete with steam coming out from his ears and a scalded bright red face. One hand was clenched into a fist so tight that Michelle was sure he was drawing blood from his palms, and in the other, a dusty old book that he had plucked from the bookshelf. 

On the floor, just below Michelle's feet, was a book that was similarly dusty and old. Did he just throw a book at me?

Hol Horse inched closer to Michelle and kicked the book to the side. "Depeche? Might want to settle down a—"

"Zip it, Hol Horse!" He thrust his finger at him, his posture stiff and elbows locked at a 90-degree angle. Ever eager to follow orders, Hol Horse did as he was told and kept his mouth shut. Depeche slowly lowered his hand and turned back to Michelle. "None of my business, you say? Who do you think you are, waltzing up in here and telling me what I can and can't do? I'm already being generous enough to you as is, so don't you dare treat me with such vulgarities, you uptight little bitch!"

Michelle receded further into her own skin with each angry word he barked at her, hands clenched into fists over her chest and shoulders raised to her ears. She looked on at his seething form with wide, terrified eyes. Sure, she had dealt with persistent and intimidating people plenty of times in the past, but they had at least been calm and composed. Depeche, on the other hand, was like a steaming teapot full of propane. Just the slightest spark and he'd likely explode. "I'm sorry if I offended you in some way," she mumbled, "I just don't get—"

A vein popped on Depeche's forehead as chucked the book in his hand at her head. Michelle turned away and shielded her face behind her hands, bracing herself for impact. Please don't hit me. Rather than feeling something bash against her head and give her twin bruises, she felt nothing, but heard something clang against metal before hitting the rug with a quiet thud. Perhaps he had missed; Depeche didn't strike her as the type to practice pitching books in his spare time. She peeked out from behind her hands to see what poor antique he had hit.

Instead, she was met with Iron Maiden's arm popped out of her shoulder, blocking her view of the rest of the room with its massive shield. Depeche's aim really was spot on, but her Stand had blocked the blow before it could land.

Slowly, Michelle directed Iron Maiden to lower its shield, giving her a better view of Depeche's face. He was still bursting with rage and had somehow found the time to reload with two new books in his hands, but thankfully seemed unaware of the Stand directly in front of him. Hol Horse, on the other hand, had certainly taken notice. His eyes trailed down Iron Maiden's arm, down to its fingerless gauntlets, and around each swirl engraved into its shield with big, wary eyes. He scooted away from her to the far corner of the sofa.

Michelle's heart sank, and she reeled her Stand back in as soon as she could. Though she knew it was likely a fruitless effort; both of them had seen Iron Maiden, so naturally, both of them had been cursed. At least Iron Maiden had summoned its shield to stop the book, rather than using its touch, which gave them both a small sliver of hope for being spared. Sure, she didn't like either Depeche or Hol Horse, but that didn't mean she wanted to call a grim reaper on them. Especially not Hol Horse, who from the looks of things, was going to stick around for a while. I really need to learn how to control this thing, she reminded herself.

"I'll tell you what you don't get," Depeche threatened, his voice now low and monotone. "Until you tell me why the hell you're all the way out here, you don't get a passport. Sound fair to you?"

"Oui, but..."

She gazed down at the book that would have hit her, deep in thought. No matter how I slice it, there's no way I can answer his question without lying, she pondered. If I tell him about my grandma, I put my identity at risk. If I tell him about Sara and the others, I put them at risk since he doesn't seem to know that they exist. And if I put them at risk, then I put myself at risk. We all have to keep our stories straight. If I tell him about the Masqueraders, there's no telling how he'll react. He's not a Stand user, that's for sure, but that doesn't mean he's not involved with them somehow. Furrowing her brow, she rested her hands on her lap and toyed with the fabric of her dress. I just have no idea how I can spin a narrative that's somehow true without tipping him off to any of that. This would be a walk in the park if I could just stop Policy of Truth. But what am I supposed to do? It's a Stand, it can only be beaten by...

Her eyes lit up with an idea. Can only be beaten by another Stand, she finished, staring at her hands. With new confidence, she clenched them into fists.

Standing up from the sofa, she summoned Iron Maiden once again, its form hovering just behind her. When was the last time she had willingly summoned her Stand? She couldn't remember. Even when she fought Bad Sneakers, she was moving on instinct. Iron Maiden only came out then to spare its user from being melted. Now, Michelle was the one in control.

If Hol Horse and Depeche weren't cursed already, what she was about to do would assuredly seal their fates. The devil on her shoulder told her that that alone made this a bad idea, but she couldn't be bothered to listen to it. This was her Stand, and for once in her life, she had to use it properly. Not like there were any innocent bystanders to see Iron Maiden, either. It was still a gamble, but one she was willing to make.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Hol Horse shaking his head at her. Dread was written all over his face, from the way his brows shot up to the way he kept his lips glued together to stop himself from saying anything. He was clearly trying to tell her NO without alarming Depeche of another Stand in the room, but she couldn't find a reason to heed his warning. Policy of Truth could only hurt her if it caught her telling a lie. Depeche wasn't a Stand user, so he couldn't see Iron Maiden—that much was obvious now, as he continued to glare at Michelle and paid no attention to the ghostly figure floating just behind her.

She marched towards Depeche and circled around him so that Iron Maiden was just a breath away from Policy of Truth. His eyes followed her, his rage shifting into curiosity. "Ok, I'll tell you," Michelle whispered in his ear, voice still fraught with nerves.

Her eyes fluttered closed as she took a deep breath. This is it.

Iron Maiden touched Policy of Truth.

"My grandmother abused me," Michelle lied. "Have you ever seen Cinderella? It was like that. Do you have any idea what it was like, living with that woman? She'd sit on her ass while I scrubbed the floors again and again, tired and out of breath. She had the audacity to move into my house and sleep in my parents' bed then start ordering me around like she owned the place. So you know what I did? I killed her. Nothing made me happier than stabbing her with her own kitchen knives."

She felt awful for speaking ill of her grandmother, but given how reluctant she had been to tell him anything about her, it was necessary for her to resort to slander. Each lie that poured from her mouth sent a cold shiver down her spine. Her eyes kept steady on Policy of Truth, expecting something, anything to happen, be it a flash of light or the screams of the people trapped in the painting ringing in her ears.

But nothing happened. The clock ticked forwards a few seconds, and all Michelle felt was her muscles tense and heartbeat begin to stagnate in that familiar way that told her that she was overexerting Iron Maiden's freezing touch. She took another deep breath as she commanded Iron Maiden to release its hold on Policy of Truth. Her heartbeat smoothed and her body relaxed. Calling back her Stand, she skittered back to the sofa and tried to contain herself from whooping to the sky.

She had lied to Policy of Truth's multiple screaming faces and got away with it. Hol Horse, still sitting on the sofa, had to pick his jaw off the floor. It was lucky that his cigarette had already just about burnt out, as it fell from between his lips and onto the sofa.

Well, that would've been nice to know, Michelle mused to herself as she sat back down. I could've saved myself from having to give away any details about myself. For the second time that day, she found herself wishing she had used Iron Maiden's touch earlier. 

Depeche threw his hands up and collapsed back into his chair, unaware that he had been duped. "There. Was that really so hard?" He juggled the books in his hands around, now more occupied by them than anything else she had to say. "I'll admit that I didn't see that coming, though," he absentmindedly continued. "Didn't think you had it in you."

"A lot of people are dead because of me. And I—"

The rest of her sentence caught in her throat and stayed there. Suddenly, her body felt stiff, almost numb, as though her bones had overtaken her skin, muscles, and nerves and made her body one solid, unfeeling entity. She tried to force herself to continue speaking—though she couldn't make out his expression through her now blurred vision, Depeche must have been suspicious that she stopped talking—but even her tongue felt petrified. This couldn't be the work of Iron Maiden, could it? No, she had called it back just a moment ago. Just to be sure, she summoned it again and tried to release whatever hold on an object it may still maintain. Nothing changed.

Before she could summon back Iron Maiden, the stiffness in her body was traded for a warm, wet feeling; as if her skin had been replaced by hot fudge. She attempted to continue speaking, but thick, sticky saliva pressed down on her tongue and against her throat, so no noise came out. Panic began to wreck its way through her. What's happening to me? After darting her eyes down her body, she felt lucky that her vocal cords had been blocked off so she couldn't scream.

Her skin had begun to sag and melt, just like how Depeche's henchman's did a moment ago.

With strength she didn't know she had, Michelle lunged off of the sofa and nearly slammed her head against the bottom of Depeche's desk. Her heart, though rapidly beating, felt slushy in her chest. She was only vaguely aware of her surroundings; the scratch of the wool rug against her legs and the cold tile against her head began to fuzz out of her senses, her vision so far gone that what she saw was something that Depeche might proudly display in Rest Aria. Some muffled voices, probably Hol Horse or Depeche calling out to her, sounded from somewhere very far away. None of that mattered as she pushed Iron Maiden closer to Policy of Truth, bringing it to the very edge of its effective range and then...

Her Stand made contact, pointer finger just barely skimming the painting. Michelle's senses returned to her at once. She gasped for air in long, heavy breaths, her heart still pounding in her chest. Her vision was still a little blurry, but only from the beginnings of tears and not from her eyeballs melting.

After deactivating Iron Maiden and taking a moment to recollect herself, she sat back up to look at Hol Horse and Depeche both staring at her dumbfounded.

"...I don't really like talking about my grandmother's death, as you can probably tell," she concluded, returning to her seat. "I'd like it if you kept this all a secret."

"You said it yourself that you liked doing it," Depeche pointed out. "If you're proud of murder, be proud of murder! I could...the world could use more people like that these days."

He continued to spout out some nonsense that Michelle stopped paying attention to. Instead, she stared down her hands, arms, legs, any part of her skin that she could see. She gave herself a few inquisitive pokes around her body, but all she felt was the same old smooth skin she had always had. Any signs of the fact that she had nearly melted just a second ago had vanished.

Somehow, she had set off Policy of Truth. But how? All I said was that a lot of people were dead because of me, she recollected. Which is true. Willingly or not, I have cursed a lot of people to die. So why did it trigger? Brow furrowed, she fiddled with her necklace as she tried to think of what lie could possibly be hiding behind that statement. Maybe I wasn't specific enough, she concluded. It was Iron Maiden that cursed everyone, not me.

A scourge and curse it may be, but just now, Iron Maiden had proved itself to be very useful for her current situation. Since she could use it to stop herself from getting trapped within Policy of Truth mid-lie, it had effectively become a truth detector, and could even pick up on truths that she wasn't even aware of. That was infinitely more valuable to her—she didn't need to have a near death experience to know whether or not she was lying. On the other hand, she had a lot of questions that she could get some definitive answers to.

After ten years of waiting, it was finally time to figure out how her father died.

She stood up and paced in front of Depeche's desk, pulling Policy of Truth back within Iron Maiden's effective range. "My father's death, on the other hand, is a story worth telling. He was murdered while working in Italy." Running her fingers through her hair, Michelle carefully considered her next words. She could stop herself from being absorbed by Policy of Truth, yes, but she'd rather not endure the process more than she needed to. It was best to go with the most likely scenario. The one that she figured to be true ever since leaving that graveyard two days ago. "Murdered by another Stand user."

She made sure to continue running her fingers through her hair even after she finished her thought. Policy of Truth first paralyzed its victims before melting them, so moving as much of her body as she could was important. If it did go off, she'd have multiple warning signs before her skin started to melt again.

Even after proclaiming her father's murder, her hands still ran through her hair like silk. Policy of Truth hadn't activated. The usage of Stand user, rather than just Stand also quelled any doubts that it may be referring to Iron Maiden's curse. Sure, the curse may have pulled him towards his killer, but someone still made a conscious choice to kill him. Now, she had proof that that was exactly what had happened.

That donut-haired bastard from the cemetery, the Master of the Masquerade, really had done him in. Now all she had left to prove was whether or not he had followed her to Mons, and where within he had taken refuge.

"A Stand user that is somewhere in this city, following me as we speak," she finished.

Her pacing skidded to a halt as her hands stopped in place, fingers forcibly unweaving from her hair as her joints pulled taut. Her momentary petrification lasted only a second at best before Iron Maiden slapped the painting and reverted her back to normal. Michelle frowned—she hadn't expected it to go off that soon. She had a whole list of things to say planned to narrow down where the Master of the Masquerade was hiding, but none of it was usable if he wasn't actually in Mons. He must have been following her, right? That was his goal from the start; to kill her so no trace of her bloodline remained?

The fact stood though that she had claimed that her father's killer had been following her and Policy of Truth deemed it a lie. I guess he's not following me after all, she realized with a sigh of relief. Thank God. At least that disproves Rumor's theories of the Masqueraders' masks destruction needing to be activated manually. Unless the Master of the Masquerade and my father's killer are two separate people, of course. More importantly...

On her way back to the sofa, she studied Hol Horse's relaxed expression. That also proves that whoever Hol Horse is, he's got nothing to do with any of this, she concluded. Returning her attention to Depeche, she finished her brief monologue. "Poetic, don't you think?"

Depeche looked like her story would have bored him to sleep were he not too annoyed at having to sit through it. He tapped his foot to the beat of the ticking clock, his eyes glued to his forehead. "Look, I don't care if it was a Stand user that did your old man in or if he choked on a chicken bone. Dead is dead. What do any of us have to gain from a corpse? I said I'll get you the damn passport, so you can shut up about it. But in exchange," he redirected his attention over to the man sitting next to her, "you need to do something for me, Hol Horse."

Sitting up straight, Hol Horse grinned at the offer. "Name your price."

"I'd like to talk with you about this privately." Depeche turned to Michelle and flicked the back of his hand like he was swatting at an invisible fly. "Why don't you enjoy the fine art I have on display, kid?"

She didn't need to have to be told twice. Michelle shot to her feet and bowed her head slightly, giving Depeche the smallest amount of gratitude possible before she made a beeline for the door. Lifting up the tapestry and releasing herself back into the art gallery, she couldn't help but feel conflicted about the whole conversation.

For the first time, Iron Maiden had actually saved someone's life rather than cursed it to end early. Even if that life was her own insignificant one.

Chapter Text

Hol Horse couldn't quite remember how long he'd known Depeche, let alone how long he had Policy of Truth tucked under his belt. Given the gray hairs sprouting from both of their heads, it was probably longer than either one of them cared to admit. He was, however, sure of the fact that for as long as he'd known him, Depeche always gave those that he caught lying to him their just deserts. Most people—Hol Horse included—would spend months creating fake truths for themselves in order to avoid getting caught with their pants down, Policy of Truth or not. Not like he could blame Depeche, every crime boss needed their quirk to keep their henchmen in check, and that was his. Lord knew that Hol Horse had dealt with much worse, anyway.

Yet Depeche had just been bested by a "defenseless" seventeen-year-old girl.

Genevieve Delon—that was the alias Michelle had given herself. While she had obviously tampered with Policy of Truth during the latter half of her conversation with Depeche, she had told him that that was her name straight-faced with no interference from her Stand. Somehow, there must have been some truth behind it. Were the circumstances different, Hol Horse would have been inclined to believe that Genevieve was her real name and that Michelle was just an alias. Too bad for her, she looked way too much like her old man to fool him. He did get her to fess up that Polnareff was dead, at the very least. That alone made whatever Depeche wanted him to do in exchange for the damn passport worth it.

No matter what "Genevieve's" origins were, they could wait. With her out of the room, he was there on business. "So, what do you have in mind? I'm gonna guess you don't want me to getcha some coffee."

"You're an assassin, Hol Horse. I pay you to kill people," he said bluntly. "If Ike couldn't get my coffee order right, you sure as hell can't."

Hol Horse scoffed. Not if you're gonna be a wuss and ask for extra cream, he thought.

"You're always in the loop on everyone and everything." Depeche sat back down and rested his hands on his desk, keeping them clasped together as he stared into Hol Horse's eyes. "I assume you've heard of the situation going on at Passione right now."

"I haven't, actually. Don't really know much about 'em to begin with. Only that they got a bunch of Stand users and don't do contract work, and I'd rather not be chained to Italy 'til I croak."

"They don't just have a bunch of Stand users. They make a bunch of Stand users." Depeche leaned forward in his chair and beamed a big, toothy grin. His tone was eager, like a child regaling how they managed to trick their parents into letting them have an extra cookie. "I don't know how, but they do. Other gangs get taken over by Passione, and the few bastards that make it out alive all become new recruits with Stands. And if I can say all that without this painting going ballistic, then it's true."

Hearing all that made Hol Horse pause for a moment, his cigarette wedged between his fingers and hovering just a hair away from his lips. They've got an arrow, he realized.

While he had only seen them a handful of times, and they were always either closely guarded by Enya or close enough to Dio that he didn't dare get anywhere near them, Hol Horse knew exactly what the arrows were and what they were capable of. He recalled being in Egypt, some twenty years ago, tasked with protecting Enya while she "recruited" new Stand users (as if the old hag had anything to worry about with the power of her Stand). They'd wander the streets of Cairo late at night, their only light being the rows of lampposts providing brief spotlights to step into. A bow was slung behind her back as she used the arrow like some sort of compass. When it found someone it liked, it would point their way, and after that their only chance of survival came if they agreed to work for their new "Lord."

Hol Horse furrowed his brow. If Enya had ever told him where she got the arrows from—unlikely as it was, crazy bitch was so secretive that she never bothered to tell him my son killed Polnareff's sister and had to sit through J. Geil boasting about the experience in vivid detail—he had long since forgotten what she told him. He knew that she had more than one, and that the others had been sent to Dio's servants around the world, but whether or not one had ended up with an Italian mafia was beyond him. It seemed like something they'd do, though, both Enya and Dio. Was Passione still loyal to Dio, twenty years after his death? Hol Horse shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough that he was stuck with Polnareff's kid, he didn't want to be anywhere near anyone or anything even remotely associated with that vampire son of a bitch.

When Depeche cleared his throat, Hol Horse was lifted back to reality and out of his thoughts. The ticking of the grandfather clock made him realize he hadn't spoken in a while. What had Depeche asked him? Something about Stands, he guessed. "I'm a born Stand user, if that's what you're askin'," he offered.

"No, not that." Depeche dismissively flicked his wrist. "A few days ago, someone busted into Passione's headquarters. Looks like they made out with a bunch of loot, too. Valuable loot. Loot that could be used as bargaining chips. Loot that could give me the in that I need." With each descriptor he added to the loot, he lowered his voice and leaned closer to Hol Horse. "I want my own Stand, and they're going to give me one."

Valuable loot; that sounded like an arrow alright. Were anyone else to ask Hol Horse to steal an arrow for them, he would've flatly said "no" and been on his way. He had done that song and dance before and knew it was more trouble than what it was worth. Luckily, Depeche was not most people. It wasn't that Hol Horse trusted Depeche not to misuse the arrow—far from it, power hungry criminals with anger issues were probably the worst types of people to give it to. However, he knew that the arrows themselves had to be the ones to choose who they pierced, not the other way around. Those who were shot with the arrow that lacked potential ended up dead. Depeche would definitely die if he used it on himself. "What do you want me to do about it?"

Depeche picked up a file from the mess of documents hanging off his desk. "According to my sources," he explained as he withdrew a photo from the file, "this man was one of the thieves. I have no idea who the hell he is, though. No name, nationality, allegiances; trying to learn anything about this guy always draws up a blank. Whatever they stole, he should know what and where it is. All I want you to do is get him cough up whatever was stolen from Passione then put a bullet between his eyes."

He rested the photo on the desk and pushed it forward. Hol Horse rose from his seat to get a better look at it.

The picture was blurry, obviously taken in a rush, but the features of the man in it were as clear as they needed to be. The first thing he noticed about him was his hair; a wavy, bangless bob with a striking mint green hue. Hol Horse would've assumed that it was dyed were it not for the fact that his bushy eyebrows and frizzy soul patch were also the same color. The man looked to be in his late twenties, with sharp features and a strong chin. His dark eyes stared at the camera from the side, and behind the collar of his jacket, Hol Horse could make out a lopsided smirk.

Briefly, he wondered how someone with such a distinctive appearance could be so hard to track down.

"This picture was taken yesterday," Depeche continued. "You ever been to Saxon? It's just about the only airpark in the country. Way out in the middle of nowhere up north. He was there this morning, on a flight to New York. So, how about it? Think you can track this guy down for me?"

"Of course. Have I ever let you down?" Before Depeche could answer that question, Hol Horse took the photo, rolled it up, and stuffed it in his cigarette case. "You just need to get that little girl her passport first. Can't be lugging an illegal alien around with me, yeah?"

"I'll make sure it's ready by tomorrow night."

No more words needed to be said; both of them knew this. Hol Horse tipped his hat to Depeche before turning around and making his way towards the door.

"Oh, before you go," Depeche called out. Hol Horse didn't turn around. "Let Sting know that I'm not paying him shit for this."

Oh, right. Sting. Hol Horse had almost forgotten that the bastard was dead. "You know, somehow, I don't think he'll mind."

Which was true in that he couldn't possibly mind it when, from how that skinny kid with the scarf described it, he didn't have a mind or a head left to get worried about getting paid over.

~~~~~

For as long as she could remember, Michelle had been someone who dealt with things in absolutes—a trait she was proud to say she inherited from her father. Sure, often times it took her a while to reach those absolutes, but once she reached them, she rarely backed down. Growing up, she had been absolutely sure that she wanted to work as a princess at Disneyland. As a preteen, she had been absolutely sure that she was allergic to olives based on how vile they tasted to her. As a teenager, she had been absolutely sure that her hair was impossible to curl no matter how many curlers and hair products she threw at it.

And now, for nearly three years, she had been absolutely sure that her Stand brought nothing but sorrow. If that was the case though, why did she feel so damn proud of using it to pull one over on Depeche?

She sat with her knees pulled to her chest and her face nestled in her knees by Rest Aria's exit as she tried to piece it all together. Though she ought to rush out the door and regroup with the others so she could tell them who Hol Horse really was, right now she needed to be alone with her thoughts. Which was easier said than done when she could hear everyone crystal clear on the other side of the wall, Sara still bossing the boys around as Rumor moped about whatever nonsense she was making him do while Cab teased him for being a spoil-sport. Their collective noise became white static in the back of her head while she focused on what was really important.

Iron Maiden was a curse, that much was obvious. How else could she explain the misfortune that had plagued her since she learned she could summon it? This wasn't something she should be proud of. That was disrespectful to everyone who had died because of her, damn what Policy of Truth had to say about it.

Today's been weird, Michelle thought. First, I feel totally normal letting Rumor touch me on the way back to the café. Or me touching him, I guess. Now I actually feel...happy? Just because I used Iron Maiden? What's wrong with me?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door to Depeche's office creaking open and Hol Horse's boots clomping out. By the time she lifted her head from her knees, he was standing in front of her with an amused smile.

"Well, Genevieve, seems like you've lived a pretty darn interesting life." He extended his hand out to her, offering to help her up.

Michelle snorted and batted away his hand. "My life is none of your business," she stated as she rose to her feet. "And I could say the same of you, murderer."

"It's just a job, darlin'. If I didn't do it, Depeche would've just paid some other sap to off Dixie." He maneuvered around Michelle so that he stood in front of the door, blocking the exit and forcing her to hear him out. "Think of it like this; he was destined to die. It's fate you can blame, not me. I'm just the guy who delivers the latte. Could you really blame me for that?"

As much as she would have liked to spit out yes and be on her merry way, she couldn't bring herself to disagree with him. Stands did have a tendency to spring fate into action, after all. Something she could personally attest to. That didn't change the fact that he was a killer...that they were both killers. Sure, he had been more proactive in doing so, but Hol Horse had used his Stand as an agent of fate to kill the mayor just as much as she had used Iron Maiden's curse as an agent of fate to doom her family. 

Assuming the curse was real, of course. Which it absolutely had to be.

She pushed him out of the way, her palms shaking a little. "I know at least one person who wouldn't take that excuse sitting down," she assured him as she opened the door.

Any sort of vulnerability she may have felt left the second she looked outside. Just as she suspected, Sara was still directing a photoshoot...except it wasn't of any of the boys. Instead, her camera was pointed at a massive statue of a scythe, about half the size of Rest Aria, composed entirely of orange slices. Faint golden sparks—Rumor's Hamon—crackled about where each slice connected to the next. A thin line of orange slices branched off from the "handle" of the scythe and connected to Rumor's scarf, which he had untied from his neck and kept balled in his fist. He had an annoyed scowl on his face and kept his arms folded. While Sara snapped photos of the statue, Cab sat beside her with a brown paper bag in his lap that was overflowing with oranges.

How and where they acquired that bag of oranges, Michelle didn't want to know.

With her eyes stuck behind her camera, Sara jabbed her thumb to the right. "Move a little! You're still in the shot."

Rumor shuffled away from the statue and let his scarf untwine from his hand. "You know, usually I welcome your artistic pursuits, Sara. I must ask, however," he groaned, "is this really necessary?"

"Of course!" Her camera flashed once, then twice, then Michelle lost count. "I mean, when are we gonna get this many oranges again? Besides, we gotta hurry before that old lady gets back."

"Bordel de merde," Michelle mumbled, facepalming. "You guys are impossible."

Cab, still sitting down looking as relaxed as could be, was the first one to notice that she and Hol Horse had returned from Rest Aria. Had any of them realized they left in the first place? "Michelle! Uh," he paused for a second and narrowed his eyes at Hol Horse for a moment, rhythmically patting his knee. "Horse guy! Welcome back."

Upon hearing their names, Sara jolted and lowered her camera, her eyes alert and aware. She took a moment to scan her surroundings before locking onto Michelle and Hol Horse standing in Rest Aria's doorway, then waved back at them with a smile. Rumor took his opening and fled from the statue. The orange slices, still bound to Rumor's scarf, came undone from their shape and dragged behind him in a straight line as he stomped over to Cab. He gave a half-hearted wave to Michelle and Hol Horse before whipping his scarf in front of the paper bag, flinging the orange slices back inside.

Sara didn't seem too bothered by the fact that her photoshoot had been cut short or had otherwise just gotten distracted from it. "Hey guys!" She skipped over to Michelle and Hol Horse while the latter trudged outside. "So, how'd it go? Did you get your passport?"

"It'll be ready by tomorrow," Hol Horse answered. "And change of plans. I do have a place I gotta go to."

"So does that mean you got a new job?"

"That's the long and short of it, yeah."

Michelle's eyes widened. That was news to her. Any type of job that Depeche had lined up for Hol Horse was one she didn't want to be a part of, destiny be damned. That wasn't even factoring in the location. At least Greece was still in Europe and the beach he had recommended to them was beautiful.

"So," Sara bounced on her tiptoes, "where are we going?"

"Yeah," added Michelle, "where?"

As if he wanted to make the wait as unbearable as possible, he took a long drag of his cigarette before answering the question.

"New York."

Chapter Text

Rain had overtaken the sun and dampened more than just the grass. It didn't take long for Sting's body to be found by the police, and with its discovery, gossip about a serial killer flooded the streets. The locals, everyone from small children splashing in puddles outside to old grannies knitting sweaters on their porches, shared their conspiracy theories on the matter, all while giving any tourist that passed by the cold shoulder. Police had fortified the belfry and prowled the city at all hours. Many tourist sites had temporarily shut down, not wanting to risk becoming the stage to another murder, much to Sara's displeasure. She pouted and glared at every CLOSED sign that stood in her path.

After an agonizing two days spent mostly cooped up inside the hotel with Sara's motormouth, Michelle's passport had finally been made and was ready to be picked up. Where exactly they were picking it up at was a mystery. Hol Horse had met up with them in the lobby the morning of the third day, muttered an address, and the next thing Michelle knew she was in the car sandwiched between Cab and Rumor. The bare skin of Cab's biceps rubbed against her shoulders while Rumor's scarf swished against her arm, leaving her both flustered and horrified. Any attempt to distance herself from one of them just brought her closer to the other. Just how long was she supposed to stay in the car like this, with the two of them constantly touching her? If she was quick, she could possibly try to make a break for the passenger's seat, but that would risk offending them.

At least she had the foresight to grab a book from one of Sara's bags to keep her occupied during the drive. She hoped that it was gripping enough to keep her distracted, but it only took a single glance at the cover—a woman and a shirtless man embracing each other on a sunlit cliffside—for her to lose hope.

"Where exactly are we going?" Michelle asked as Hol Horse stuck the key in the ignition, Sara still outside trying to wedge her guitar case back into the trunk. Thank goodness he traveled light, otherwise they'd need to find a bigger car to steal.

"Depeche calls him Lovestrong. I don't know his real name," he responded. "He's got your passport. After that, we're headin' off to the airport. We just gotta get out of Mons lickety-split before the pigs start crawling out from the woodwork."

"The pigs," Cab repeated. He lightly chuckled rested his hands behind his head. "I like him already."

Michelle partially hoped that Hol Horse would say the address again so she could suggest that Cab drive them there instead in case he had any ulterior motives. Ordinarily, she'd be more cautious about getting in a car with a known assassin, but the unfortunate fact was that he was the only one who knew where her passport was. Even if she did somehow convince him to let Cab drive (and she'd probably have to convince Cab as well), that would just place him in the backseat with her instead. The stench of his cigarettes was bad enough at a distance, she didn't need it blowing directly in her face. There was nothing else she could do but trust that he wouldn't take the opportunity to drive them off a cliff.

A loud THUD! rumbled from the back of the car as Sara slammed the trunk closed, the mountain of bags in the trunk threatening to spill over into the backseat. Whistling, she skipped into the passenger seat, carrying Hol Horse's briefcase and a worn-out duffle bag in addition to the knapsack hanging from her shoulders. All three bags were tossed beneath her seat, occupying any leg room she may have once had. She compensated by resting her feet against the dashboard.

Rumor leaned forward in his seat and attempted to get a better look at the two bags that Sara had brought up with her. "Is that my bag?"

"Yeah, it wouldn't fit. Neither would his briefcase," she pointed at Hol Horse as answered she answered his question, buckling her seatbelt. "You guys should really pack lighter, y'know? So, I brought them back up with me."

He put his hands on his hips and sat up even straighter than before. "You're telling me to pack lighter? Everything I own is stored in that duffle bag; I'll have you know. Additionally, I returned it to the car long before you even woke up. I believe I saw you attempt to cram that guitar case of yours back into the barricade of your luggage just now. Wouldn't it make more sense to have brought that back up with you instead?"

"I don't know about you," Hol Horse piped up, "but I'd much rather have my bag where I can see it rather than risk it getting crushed under whatever the hell y'all got back there."

"Yeah! Excellent point, Horsetail. Now you have easy access to all your stuff!"

The roll of Hol Horse's eyes could practically be heard as he backed the car out of its parking spot. "Hol Horse," he reminded her.

"Unless Rumor's got something in his bag that he doesn't want anyone else to see," Cab mused as he lightly tapped his foot against the back of the driver's seat. "Am I right, Rumor Mill? You got some nudie mags hidden in that bag?"

Laughter rang from all corners of the car as Rumor's face turned the same shade of his scarf. "Don't even suggest that! Would you really presume that I would possess something so positively perverse?" He snorted as everyone else's laughter simmered down. "I'd rather be caught dead than with something so repugnant."

"Yeah, yeah, that's fair. You're too duty-bound to care about sex." Cab added, mimicking Rumor's accent. "But what about you, Michelle? I didn't peg you as the type to read those types of books."

"Huh? What are you—"

Suddenly, the novel in Michelle's hands felt heavier than the loaded trunk behind her. While Rumor's face had flushed with embarrassment, she turned sheet white and attempted to hide the book behind her back. Quiet Riot's arm popped out from behind Cab, snatched it from her with blinding speed, and delivered it to its user. "The Scarlet Sunset," Cab read the title aloud, "and just look at this cover! Guess that stereotype about the French being horndogs was right, oui, ma cherie?"

Through the rearview mirror, Michelle noticed Hol Horse open his mouth to say something but bite his tongue before any words came out. Good. She'd probably tattle for his little foray into political assassination if he provoked her right now.

Cab didn't even attempt to resist as Michelle yanked the book back from him, only giving her a small giggle. "This is not my book! It's hers!" She threw the book in the front seat where it struck Sara's foot. She let out a small squeak that was more surprised than injured and lifted the book up. "Also," Michelle added, glaring Cab down, "your accent is mauvise."

"It's Sara's? Looks like her thievery's rubbed off on you."

Sara twisted in her seat and chucked the book back at Cab. It only missed when Quiet Riot slapped it midflight and redirected it back to her.

"For the last time," she hollered, "I am not a thief!"

Raising a brow at her, Hol Horse backed out of the parking spot. "I don't know about that, darlin', but y'all ought to keep yours voices down. Callin' out anyone for any kind of crime right now would be like yelling bomb at an airport." He fetched a cigarette from his pocket before shifting the car into drive and getting on the road. "Besides, nothin' shameful in reading your fair share of smut."

"Smut? Me? I've never seen this book in my life," Sara spoke faster than usual as she unzipped Rumor's duffle bag and shoved the book inside. "You'd think if it was my book, I'd recognize it, right? Or it'd be doggy eared or something. But I, like, never even really read in the first place. I really should though. Hey, Rumor, you got any books you can recommend?" Though Rumor attempted to answer her question, she kept talking and drowned out anything he might have said. Her face reflected in the rearview mirror; a light blush dusted over her cheeks. "Where'd you find this book, anyways, Chelly?"

Michelle rolled her eyes. "Gee, I wonder."

~~~~~

With her only form entertainment robbed from her, Michelle had no choice but to look out the window and listen to the raucous music Sara blasted through the car's speakers. It was some Asian rock song—probably Japanese, but she couldn't say for certain—that constantly bobbed between upbeat electric guitar riffs and melancholic acoustic solos with the singer's tone changing appropriately to match. The song did not come from a local radio station, but from Sara's iPod, which she had plugged directly into the car.

Listening to such a frantic song was a strange match for Hol Horse's driving. It couldn't be more obvious that he wanted to get out of Mons as he zipped through traffic, speeding up at every yellow light and never allowing anyone to pass him. Michelle shrunk down in her seat from secondhand embarrassment at every angry horn that came with each person he cut off. Whenever they passed by any of the multitude of police cars, however, his attitude shifted on a dime. His laidback posture would clench with anxiety as he pulled down the sun visor, despite the fact that the skies were grey and cloudy, and angled it so that it hid his face from the cops. Instead of frenetic lane shifts, he instead tailgated the car in front and strummed his fingers against the steering wheel until the cops were out of sight.

Not like she could blame him. After all, he and Rumor were technically the killers that they were looking for.

After ten minutes skirting around the police in the city and five minutes zipping down the motorway, with Michelle having to endure the full fifteen rubbing up against Cab and Rumor in the backseat as Sara's music blared in her ear, Hol Horse turned into the parking lot of a gym on the side of the road. A row of red flags with the gym's logo emblazoned on them proudly faced the street, a string of water dripping from them from the rain. A bronze statue of a Buddhist monk kneeling rested centered in the parking lot. The gym itself practically shone, having obviously been renovated recently. A shelf of trophies glittered just behind the window.

The parking lot itself was nearly vacant, save for a couple cars parked in the "employees only" section. Rather than pulling into one of the numerous open spaces, Hol Horse pulled up directly in front of the statue of the Buddhist monk and parked the car. He unbuckled his seat, exited the car, then held the backdoor open for Michelle.

"Alright, Pol...Michelle," his near slip made her fold her arms, "you're up. The rest of y'all can wait in the car. This shouldn't take long."

Maintaining her glare on him, she unbuckled her seatbelt, climbed over Cab, and hopped out of the car. Hol Horse shut the door behind her, then pulled a cigarette and lighter from his pocket. As he fiddled with his lighter, Sara and Rumor, still in the car pressed their faces to the windows, spying on the two, while Cab kicked up his legs and rested them against the headrest of the driver's seat.

As Hol Horse continued to struggle to get a light, Michelle turned away from him and scoffed. "J'espère que toutes ces cigarettes te tueront," she snidely remarked.

"I know enough French to know what you're sayin'. I've been smokin' for longer than you've been alive, and I sure as hell ain't gonna call it quits any time soon. My lungs can take another thirty years or so. Besides," his cigarette finally ignited, "it's something of a calling card."

Rather than taking a huff from his cigarette, he instead held it between his fingers and walked towards the statue. Hunching over so he was on level with it, he waved the cigarette in front of the statue's face, no doubt dragging the trail of acrid smoke along with it. Michelle scooted away from the scene. Surely, this was considered sacrilege to some cultures, and she'd rather not wind up invoking the wrath of a scorned god.

Suddenly, the statue's nose twitched. "Malboro Light," it deduced, speaking in a deep, guttural voice.

Turquoise eyes snapping open, the statue rose to its feet and yawned. It...he then brushed down his robe, a cloud of soot dusting off from them, and stepped off of the podium he had been kneeling on. Hol Horse too stood up straight, and the two shook hands. It was then that Michelle realized that the "statue" was actually a man coated in bronze-colored makeup and clothes, no different than the street performers she'd often find roaming about Paris to get a rise out of tourists. Though, he was a large man—now that they were level with each other, she could tell that he was easily a head taller than Hol Horse.

She took a step closer. As soon as her heels clicked against the pavement, the living statue cracked his neck in her direction and locked eyes with her. "You're..." he pulled a large envelope out from his robe and read from a sheet of paper taped to it, "Genevieve?"

"Y-yes, that's me." Michelle treaded towards him and stopped next to Hol Horse. "Are you, uh, Mr. Lovestrong?"

"No. I'm his representative."

Whoever he was, he tore the sheet of paper from the envelope, ripping off a good portion of the envelope along with it, and handed the envelope to Michelle. The tear the sheet of paper had left behind was large enough for her to see the envelope's contents; only a small, crimson booklet with PASSEPORT written on the bottom in bold, golden letters.

Michelle didn't mean to smile, but did anyways. Even if it had been obtained through unconventional means, to say the least, she had finally obtained her very own passport. She'd never considered getting one in the past, not seeing the need for one when she was mostly cooped up in her apartment, but a sense of freedom pulsed through her body now that she held one in her hand. I should thank him, she thought. The words caught in her throat as she lifted her head. The living statue had shifted his attention to Hol Horse, scrutinizing the features of his face as he smoked his cigarette.

"You," he said, pointing at him. "You look familiar."

Hol Horse shrugged. "I've just got one of those faces," he claimed. "Anything else you'll be needing from me? We're in a bit of a hurry."

As if to check, the statue glanced down at the piece of paper that was formally attached to the envelope. "You're...Hol Horse. Blond American dressed like a cowboy with a penchant for smoking Malboros," he read from it.

"That'd be me. I don't gotta pay you, do I? Mr. Mode said this would all be in exchange for a—"

The statue slugged Hol Horse square in the nose before he could get another word out. He and his cigarette flew to the pavement, Hol Horse landing on his back and his cigarette landing a few feet away from him. As he sat up and rubbed his nose, which had a steady stream of blood leaking from it, Michelle briefly hoped that Sara had recorded the event. She looked over to the car—while Sara's face was pressed against the window, hand over her mouth in shock, she unfortunately didn't even seem to have her camera on her.

"Damn!" Hol Horse pinched his bleeding nose shut as he wobbled back to his feet. "What the hell was that for?"

"For sleeping with my sister. And this..."

Just as he regained his footing, the statue kicked Hol Horse in the chest, sending him back down to the pavement.

"...is for sending her postcards for five years after the fact," he finished. "You're a real piece of shit, you know that? And it's my job to deal with pieces of shit."

Whatever comeback Hol Horse tried to throw back initially came out as raspy coughs. He sat up straight, now seemingly unfazed by his bloody nose, and rubbed his temples. "Ugh...c'mon, what's wrong with a fella checkin' up on his girls every now and then? How bad could a guy be for sending postcards?"

"Let's just say her fiancé wasn't exactly happy about it," the statue asserted.

"Oh." He coughed again as he stood up, this time clearly fake, and took several steps away from him. Michelle, not wanting to get caught in the middle of another attack, followed suit. "Well, good for her. Tell her I said howdy and..." he paused, scratching at his chin with a furrowed brow, "...and that she's the only woman I've ever truly loved," he settled on, the tone of his voice lilting between singsong and sensual.

"I don't lie to my family," the statue said, cracking his knuckles, "and she will want me to bring her your head."

"Well, look at the time," Hol Horse raised his wrist to check a watch that wasn't there before wrapping an arm around Michelle's waist and guiding her back to the car. "We'd best be off. Wouldn't want to miss our flight!"

Before she could object, offer up a quick thank you to the statue, or pry herself free from Hol Horse's grip, he opened the door to the backseat and nudged Michelle forward. They climbed into the car in unison. Everyone's eyes zeroed in on Hol Horse as he slumped into the driver's seat, holding his still bleeding nose. Rumor's arms were crossed, his nose wrinkled in disgust and disappointment. Cab snickered quietly, covering a thin smile with his fist to keep himself from laughing. Sara kept her smile fixed on her face, but her pinched brows gave away her uneasiness.

She was the first to break the silence. "Looks like you're real popular with the ladies, Horseshoes!"

"You're damn right I am." Hol Horse's free arm moved on its own to pull a cigarette from his pocket. He didn't even bother lighting it and just kept it wedged between his lips. "I got girls all over the world."

"Girls just like that guy's sister?" Cab didn't move his hand from over his mouth, still on the cusp of laughter, so his words were muffled.

Hol Horse turned around and shot him a glare. He adjusted his hat and opened his mouth, clearly prepared to retort with something equally smart, only for his nose to start gushing again. Drops of blood stained onto his poncho. Wincing, he pinched his nose shut again and leaned back in his seat. "Any of y'all able to patch me up? Bastard just 'bout broke my damn nose."

"I could," Rumor offered, "but healing a rotten philanderer such as yourself would go against my morals. Go back out there and apologize to him on his sister's behalf and I may consider it."

With an exaggerated groan, Sara tilted the rearview mirror so that it reflected her eyes to the three sitting in the backseat. "Oh, come on. Don't be such a hardass! One-night stands are...uh," her eyes trailed off to the right as she scratched the back of her head, "well, they're certainly a thing, but it doesn't seem like it drastically affected either of them too much. If she's got a fiancé now, she's obviously moved on and is doing well. It's not like anything bad came out of it, right?" She tilted the mirror to the left so that Hol Horse's could respond.

"Yeah, hit the nail on the head." His voice carried much less conviction than Sara's. He unbuckled his seatbelt and turned over, now leaning on the console of the car, giving Rumor easy access to his nose. "Now, fix me up, doc."

Rumor huffed, crossed his arms, and stared out the window as The Chain emerged from his wrist and slithered up to Hol Horse. Whatever botched Hamon recovery he had in mind, Michelle didn't want to watch him perform it. She pulled her knees to her chest. If he ended up blowing Hol Horse's nose from his face, she'd rather not have it get all over her shoes. Least of all when she just had to trash a perfectly good pair of boots for more or less the same reason.

Instead, she redirected her attention to the envelope and small red booklet in her hands. Before now, she wasn't sure if she had ever seen a passport in person before, only in movies and TV shows. Maybe she had seen Sara's once or twice. Besides her fake identity, what was even written in it? Curious, she removed the passport from the envelope, tossing the latter behind her into the backseat. The blockade of luggage walled it out and it drifted back down into her lap.

She flipped it open. The fake persona she had concocted in Depeche's office, along with a surprisingly high-quality photo of her, stared back. Her signature was transcribed on the opposite page.

SURNAME: Delon
GIVEN NAME(S): Genevieve
NATIONALITY: Français
DATE OF BIRTH: 07 21 1987

RESIDENCE:
340 AV. DU MARÉCHAL LECLERC
28130 MAINTENON
FRANCE

The address, at least, made her breathe a sigh of relief. It wasn't the address of her childhood home; in fact, from what she remembered of Maintenon's geography, it was on the other side of town. For all she knew, it could even be completely fake. At the very least she could rest easy knowing that Depeche hadn't managed to dig up anything about her actual childhood home. Pity for whoever lived there, though, assuming the address was real.

Just about everything else about the passport, however, confused her. While she'd never revealed her birthday to Depeche, she had told him that she was only seventeen. The birthday he had given her placed her at twenty-one, almost twenty-two. Why lie about that? Was it a mistake? Some elaborate ploy to get her into one of his whorehouses? She took a moment to look up and stare at her reflection in the window. Though she had made a conscious effort in the last few years to make herself seem older than she actually was—that way, she'd get less adults asking her shouldn't you be in school right now—her round eyes and big ears knocked her back down a few years or so. She'd never pass as twenty-one.

"He got my birthday wrong," she mumbled to herself.

"You're welcome," Hol Horse chuckled with a freshly healed nose as he started up the car.

"What do you mean 'you're welcome?' I don't look old enough to pass as 21." She looked up to look him in the eyes through the rearview mirror. "They're gonna realize it's a fake."

Cab, who had been lazing against the car door, sat up and furrowed his brow. "Wait, what?"

"My passport." She passed the item in question off to him, pointing at the error. "They have my age listed as 21."

After reading it for himself to confirm her accusations, Cab's eyes just about popped out of his skull. His lips parted slightly in a shocked smile.

"When did Depeche take this picture of me, anyways?" Michelle continued. "I'd expect it to be grainier or be at a weird angle if it came from one of his security cameras."

Hol Horse shrugged as he drove out of the parking lot. "I borrowed the SD card from Smile's camera and sent some pictures of you Depeche's way."

Her blood turned ice cold for a moment. "What?"

"Yeah, I have to agree with Chelly," Sara added. "What?" She pulled her knapsack out from under her seat and began to dig through it. After retrieving her camera, she opened the SD card slot only to find it empty.

"It's in my briefcase, if you're lookin' for it." Still keeping his eyes on the road, Hol Horse pulled his wallet from his pocket and took a small key from the coin pouch. Sara snatched it from him, then wrenched his briefcase out from under Rumor's duffle bag. Laying it down in her lap, she placed the key in a small keyhole, and with a small click, the briefcase opened. Even from the backseat, only being able to get a good view over Sara's shoulders, the wads of cash tightly compressed into the suitcase caught Michelle's eye right away. Neither he or Sara had been lying; he really was that rich. Even Rumor raised his brows in surprise. Cab was too busy flipping through her passport to notice.

Sara ignored the money and instead reached for the tiny plastic bag laying on top of it. Sealed inside was an SD card with "Sara" written in faded orange Sharpie across its front.

"Figured it wouldn't be a big deal," Hol Horse continued. "He needed a photo, and you happened to have lots of 'em. Not like anything bad came of it, yeah?"

"That's..." Sara chewed on her lip as she stared down at her recovered SD card, her brow furrowed slightly, "that's true, I guess." She shrugged and slid the SD card back into its slot in her camera. Any inner conflict she may have been feeling vanished, her cheery smile taking its place. "Just ask me next time you need to borrow something, ok? Oh, and don't worry about the age thing, Chelly. Most airport attendants won't pay any attention to it. You just need to make sure you mem—"

"You have got to get me one of these!" Cab loudly interrupted Sara, leaning forward in his seat and shoving Michelle's passport in Hol Horse's face. "If she can pass for 21, I sure as hell can! I'm only a half a year away from my 21st birthday, so I'm basically that old already."

"Not happening, kiddo." Hol Horse groaned and batted the passport away.

"Please? C'mon, I'm sorry for giving you shit earlier. Just stop the car for a sec and I can ask that guy myself." Cab summoned Quiet Riot to grab Sara's camera from her just as she was about to put it back in her bag. "I've been travelling with Sara for twice as long as these two, I'm sure there's plenty of pictures of me in here to choose from! If I ever get my wallet back, I'll even give you a hundred bucks!"

"Cab?" Michelle placed her hand on his shoulder. "Trust me. You do not want to go through the process of getting one of these. Besides, why would you want to be labeled as older than you actually are?"

"L'âge légal pour consommer de l'alcool aux États-Unis est de 21 ans," Rumor answered quietly. His sudden shift to French caught her off guard; truth be told, she had nearly forgotten he could speak it. Given the light chuckles that came from the driver's seat, Hol Horse understood enough of what Rumor was saying to be in on the joke as well. Cab ceased his begging to fold his arms and shoot Rumor a look of confusion and spite.

Michelle wasn't sure why she was surprised that Cab's motive was alcohol or why the Americans were so prudish as to make their legal drinking age so high, but plucked her passport back from him with a sigh regardless.

"Don't worry, Cab," Sara consoled, "I can buy you drinks when we get back home."

Chapter Text

Despite the building being something of a passion project for him, Depeche had to admit that he didn't enjoy staying cooped up inside Rest Aria. Not only was it tiny, his hidden office smaller than his home's closet, but the countless security cameras constantly leering down upon him were a double-edged sword. Sure, they helped him monitor anyone who happened to poke their nose where it didn't belong, but standing by in a building where he too was always being watched day in and day out had made him uneasy on his own property. Not to mention the fact that surrounding himself in intentionally bad art didn't make for a great view.

He much preferred his luxurious mansion on the outskirts of Mons, anyway.

Located in the valley west of the city, the mansion stood at a proud five stories with 14,000m² of interior living space. Ten bedrooms, six baths, an assortment of supplementary rooms, and both an outdoor and indoor pool. The front yard, a neatly trimmed grass lawn, stretched out for so far that the iron gate boxing it in could only barely be seen out the mansion's windows. Similar to the many of the classical buildings in Mons, the mansion's exterior was made of brick, with long windows with a pointed rooftop. The interior was stuffed with all the gaudy furniture, electronics, and artwork Depeche could get his hands on. Even through the inclement weather, the lawn and ornately trimmed shrubberies near the entrance glimmered, shining with perfection.

While he was a bachelor, Depeche wasn't alone in his miniature castle. Live-in maids occupied most of the guest rooms. They maintained the house just fine, but like most of Depeche's belongings, they were there more for decoration rather than anything practical.

Though, even while sipping a cosmopolitan in a jacuzzi larger than his entire office back at Rest Aria with a pair of maids hanging off him, all the luxury in the world couldn't keep him from work. He kept his cellphone wedged between his shoulder and the side of his face while his girls giggled and played with his hair. The steam rising from the hot tub fogged his glasses and blurred his vision. Not like it mattered. He didn't need to see to talk on the phone, drink his cocktail, or feel his maids' tits press up against his sides.

"So, you delivered it to him, yeah?" His commanding voice echoed off the natatorium's walls.

"I wish I hadn't. If I realized who Hol Horse was ahead of time, I wouldn't have," the man on the other end of the phone responded. "Though, it was worth it to break the son of a bitch's nose."

Nostrils flared, Depeche pulled his phone from between his cheek and shoulder so he could yell directly into it. "You'll do what I tell you to do, you hear me Lovestrong? I call the shots around here, not you. Remember that!" Alarmed by the sudden change in his tone, the two girls retreated to opposite ends of the jacuzzi. Depeche couldn't find it within himself to care and took another swig of his cocktail. "And don't you get all high and mighty, acting like the people you usually do business with are any better."

"He slept with my sister and sent her postcards after walking out on her."

"He's done that with everyone's sisters, it's nothing personal."

"I wouldn't expect you to understand. Oh, and don't call me Lovestrong on this line. I'm Lovestrong's assistant," Lovestrong insisted. "Unlike you, I make an effort to cover my tracks."

"If the mayor is anything to go by, I don't need to cover my—"

At the other end of the room, a woman groaned. "Ugh, are you two done yet?"

Depeche nearly jumped out of his skin as he spat out his drink. He dropped his phone, letting it dive into the jacuzzi. As soon as he heard it splash into the water, his blood boiled. A brand-new smartphone, ruined in a matter of seconds. With his glasses as fogged as they were, he couldn't even see where in the jacuzzi the phone had fallen into. Growling with anger, he tossed his cocktail glass against the room. It crashed into a wall and shattered into a million pieces. On opposite ends of the jacuzzi, the maids gasped and covered their chests.

"Who's there?" While Depeche kept a mostly female staff and never bothered even trying to tell any of them apart, whoever had so rudely interrupted him couldn't have been one of his maids. He'd have remembered a voice like hers: high pitched and nasally, almost like she spent her whole life sucking helium.

His pride blocked him from cleaning off his glasses himself. This was his favorite room of the entire mansion, after all. He could navigate it blindfolded, and that was with the two giant bodies of water occupying most of the space. Squinting, he tried to make out his surroundings. The turquoise walls and cyan curtains all blended together in a fuzzy mess, while the white pillars erected from the floor only vaguely served to break up the space. In front of one of the pillars, the one directly to the left of the window, sat a blob of various shades of pink, black, and white.

As he waded over to the edge of the jacuzzi, one of the maids had the common sense to fetch him a towel to clean off his glasses on. Depeche accepted it with pride. After all, he didn't even need to ask for it, yet she still brought it to him. He defogged his glasses and, now able to see clearly, reinvestigated the blob.

The blob was actually a woman, somewhere in her early 20s, sitting upright on a stool while she scrolled through her smartphone. With her dark attire set against the marble pillar, it was no wonder she stuck out even with his glasses fogged. Both her top—a sleeveless turtleneck with bulky magenta rhinestones sewn on and evenly spaced throughout—and her skirt—a frilly, multitiered tutu—were pitch black. She had even added black streaks to her platinum blonde hair, highlighting her side swept bangs. A magenta purse resting against the stool broke up her color pallet, but only because it sat in front of her black platform heels and fishnets. Blowing her bubblegum, she dropped her phone into her purse, swiveled on her seat to face Depeche directly, and played with the tie loosely slung from her neck.

"Hi, I'm Fergie," she introduced herself, popping her bubblegum. "What's the Wi-Fi password here?"

"Where did you come from? Get the hell out of my house, you gothy hooker!" With a nasty scowl on his face, Depeche aggressively pointed towards the door.

"Oh, believe me, I would kill to. I was supposed to wait for you to get off the phone, but like, you were taking way too long to hang up. Now," she stood up from her stool and strode over to the jacuzzi, stopping halfway with a thoughtful expression on her face, "uh, you two may want to leave right about now." She pointed at the maids, circling her finger between them. "Shit's gonna get ugly, girls."

With silent fear written on their faces, the maids exited the hot tub and bolted out the door. The BOOM! of the door slamming shut behind them echoed off the walls and made Depeche rise from the water, seething with rage. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, brows furrowed and lip curled. He adjusted his speedo and let it snap against his love handles as he stomped towards Fergie.

"Um, eww. Someone call the fashion police," Fergie commented. "You're wearing a speedo? Yikes. You'd need to be about six inches taller and thirty pounds lighter to pull that off."

Steam rose from Depeche's ears, burning hotter than the jacuzzi behind him. "I'll wear whatever I god damn please! Who are you? How did you—"

Something clamped down on his neck and choked the remaining words out of him before he could finish his sentence. What would have been Depeche's baffled questions and furious threats fumbled into pathetic wheezes for breath as he tried to claw against whatever had constricted against his throat. It was almost as if an invisible hand had grabbed onto it with a vice grip, digging its claws into his skin. Something coarse floated past his body, but he was only vaguely aware of it. Still fuming, Depeche attempted to march past it with the stubbornness of an ox. The iron grip of whatever held him in place kept him from advancing towards Fergie.

His pigheaded temper withered into genuine fear as the invisible hand slowly lifted him off the ground. 

What limited breath was allotted to him came out in quick, panicked huffs. He flailed his legs, attempting to kick at whatever invisible force had hoisted him into the air. His menial attacks never landed, only kicking up sand around him.

Wait, Depeche stopped writhing for a moment and blinked, sand?

Even after adjusting his glasses, the tiny grains of sand hovering around him didn't fade away. They drifted through the air, carried by a warm steam that tickled his bare skin. Most of it congregated directly below him, around his belly, and drifted from there in multiple directions. With a furrowed and focused brow, Depeche locked onto this mysterious source of sand and attempted to kick it.

The cloud of sand seemingly absorbed his leg as he kicked at it. Depeche nearly gasped as he pulled his leg back. Just a moment ago, flesh and body hair had composed his leg, the same of any other man. Now, it was made up of glass, transparent enough that he could see his tibia and fibula through the flesh-colored tint. The natural curve of his leg had been replaced with jagged, angular edges, his knee more or less a pointy pyramid protruding from below his thighs.

With worried eyes, Depeche surveyed the rest of his body. More sand had attached to his skin, creating various glassy splotches all over him. Alongside his leg, these parts of his body felt incredibly stiff, as if the muscles within them had petrified. Which, in all fairness, was probably not too far off from what was happening. The same rigid feeling carried over to his neck and under his chin.

She's a Stand user, Depeche realized. A cold sweat racked down his spine. Though he had sicced Stand users like Hol Horse off on his enemies multiple times and even managed to trick Policy of Truth's original user, Kaleid, into effectively giving him his Stand, it had never even dawned on him that he'd end up with a Stand user sicced on him. For the first time all day, he wished he was back at his office. Policy of Truth would have stood a shred of a chance against Fergie's Stand. He attempted to turn his head towards the door to see if any of his maids were still loitering by and signal them for help. His neck, however, refused to cooperate. The glass that had fused to and replaced his skin grated against the still fleshy part of his body, like rusty gears grinding against each other. His glass leg similarly became rigid, his bent knee refusing to straighten.

While Depeche couldn't see what was going on and was absolutely horrified, Fergie could see it all in vivid detail and was bored senseless by it. Her Stand, a scrawny humanoid with lilac skin wearing an absolutely massive coat made of diamonds, had lifted Depeche off the ground with one hand and choked him. A giant, maroon crystal had popped out from its chest, leaving a rhombus-shaped cavity where it once was. Said crystal had already begun to evaporate, bits of sand and trails of steam rising from it and blowing directly towards Depeche. Lame. She treaded back to her stool, picked up her purse, and pulled a nail file from it. Her Stand tightened its grip on Depeche's neck as she evened out her pedicure.

"Since you hired one of your goons to take a picture of Boney, I'm gonna make a wild guess that you know what Stands are," she commented. "Honestly, super helpful that he's such a camera hog. It makes tracking you guys down way easier. If you ever end up sending a bunch of cameramen after me, it'd probably be in your best interest to keep it away from the press." She blew on her nails. "Are magazines, like, still a thing in Europe? I don't know. Either way, my dad will sue your ass right out of that speedo if he finds out you used my image without my consent. Just send any headshots to me, and I'll mail them off to my agent, 'kay?"

Depeche uncharacteristically failed to react to being challenged in such a manner. His once bloodshot eyes had turned completely pink and his mouth hung open, dry as a desert. Heaving in ragged breaths, he sputtered out, "How...what are you..."

With a pronounced groan, Fergie rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't even pretend you can't see Shatter Me choking you out right now. What are you waiting for?" A dangerous glare crept up her face as she lifted a blood red masquerade mask from her bag. "Are you gonna fight back, or just shit your speedo like a little baby?"

Even though she and her "coworkers" had gone out of their way to keep a low profile, word of mouth about aggressive masked Stand users had already spread like wildfire throughout Europe. The arrow heist no doubt helped. She and her partner were both masked during the whole escapade, after all. An exciting night of thrills that had shaken the most powerful gang in the country to its core, and she could barely remember it.

The last Stand user she had managed to mask—a woman with a Stand that melted everything it kicked—must have had some vague idea of who they were and what those masks did. Fergie recalled the look on the woman's face as she backed her into a corner, crimson mask brandished while Shatter Me pinned the woman's Stand in place. Her brows had pinched up in fear, tears welled up in her eyes as she cowered in the corner of her Parisian villa. Absolutely priceless. Fergie remembered sleeping well that night. The masks weren't even part of her Stand, and she still couldn't help but feel proud.

She had expected Depeche to react similarly. Instead, he narrowed his eyes on the mask in confusion, tilting his head as far as his glassy neck would allow him to.

"I'm..." he choked out, "I'm not..."

Fergie folded her arms and huffed air out her nose. Why wasn't he scared? By now, she'd expected him to either summon his own Stand to defend himself or to attempt to scream and cry and beg for his life. To have some kind of fight or flight reaction. So far, he'd only weakly kicked at Shatter Me and tried pry his neck free from its grip. He should know that he couldn't defeat a Stand on his own, right? All he had done was speed up the process of glass spots replacing his skin. The glass that had taken form around his neck had spread upwards, stopping just under his cheeks. His teeth and skull could be seen through the glass' rough edges. Shatter Me had even begun to affect the area around him, the floor and surrounding pillars morphing into glass. Why let it spread that far without activating his Stand?

"Wait," Fergie realized, "you're really not a Stand user?"

She paused, waiting for him to respond in any meaningful manner. He only wheezed a couple times and continued to claw at where Shatter Me held him up.

"Guess not. Ugh, what a let down. Everyone else gets all these cool missions while I'm stuck choking some fat guy in a speedo." Sighing, she spat out her gum and stuck it to the pillar behind her. "Ok, you've pissed me off, so I'm gonna make this quick. Where's that picture of Boney?"

"I don't...I don't know who..."

"Wow, you don't pick up on stuff well, do you? The guy with green hair. Has a stupid little soul patch and a constant shit-eating grin? Ring any bells yet? Some little crackhead took a picture of him, and that picture got handed up to you. Where is it?"

Figuring that he'd probably need to breathe to form an articulate response, Fergie silently commanded Shatter Me to loosen its grip on Depeche just enough so that he could breathe comfortably. He gasped in several long breaths of air before responding.

"I don't have it, I swear! I handed it off to a bastard called Hol Horse," he confessed. "Blond American who dresses like he's a cowboy, you can't miss him. He's travelling with some big-eyed teenager named Genevieve, and both of them are on their way to Saxon airpark as we speak. They're both Stand users. Please, just let me go!"

Fergie shrugged. "Careful what you wish for."

Just like he asked, Shatter Me released Depeche and dropped him to the floor. The glass bound to his leg, neck, and chin shattered upon impact with the tile floor, decapitating him. Shards of glass scattered in all directions. Blood oozed from the remaining fleshy bits of his freshly made corpse, the top of his head streaking the floor as it rolled away and splashed into the jacuzzi. His greasy mop of hair peaked out from the water's surface and floated along the current of the bubble jets, trailing a stream of red behind it. Without skin to secure it, his jaw dislocated and drifted to the bottom of the water.

Standing from her stool, Fergie stretched her arms up and called back her Stand. Another job well done. The remaining sand dissipated as Shatter Me vanished, though the shards of glass from Depeche's body remained. Some had rocketed in her direction when his body hit the floor, creating a small pile of shards around her purse topped in a thin layer of blood. Wincing, she kicked them aside and picked up her purse. She fished her phone from it before marching off towards the door, stomping over Depeche's body. One hand twirled her tie in her fingers while the other scrolled through her lengthy contact list. She stopped in place when she reached the lower half of the B section.

BONEY M.

She gulped. If it were anyone else, she wouldn't have even considered calling. Why bother? He'd just tell her to do something she didn't want to, which was her least favorite thing in the world. Boney, however, was another beast entirely. Through her foggy memories of being masked, she recalled seeing a live demonstration of his Stand's ability during the arrow heist. As much as she hated taking orders, she feared Boney's Stand more.

Taking a deep breath, she pressed the call button. The receiver rang three times before he picked up.

"I didn't expect to hear back from you so soon," Boney responded in his slight Russian accent. "Did you get the photo?"

"No, the guy pitched it off to some cowboy-looking dickweed. He's not a Stand user, so I killed him." She kicked away some more shards of glass from under her platform shoes. "We didn't need him, right?"

"Fergie, my dear, didn't your socialite of a mother ever tell you it's rude to leave dead bodies strewn about?"

"That's rich, coming from you."

"Guilty as charged," he confessed. "Then again, as spoiled as you are, your family would probably take the liberty of stowing away all the dead bodies you've left behind in their closets while you'd be out filling your own closet with the tackiest clothes imaginable."

"It's called fashion, Boney. Might wanna look it up," she snarked, leaning against the marble pillar closest to the door. "So, am I done here? Belgium is honestly, like, so boring. Can I go back to Italy? At least the guys there were cute."

"Now, why would I let one of our most trusted agents scamper back off to Italy when we just finished cleaning house there? Passione's probably bordered off most of the country, and I don't think you'll be able bribe them with American dollars and pictures of your flat ass. The Grand Marshal and I have been gracious enough to grant you autonomy. If you want to use it to continue acting like a whore, that's fine, but I'm afraid I'll have to draw the line where it compromises our own affairs." His voice lowered before continuing. "See to it that you don't give me a reason to take your autonomy away again."

Were anyone else to call her a whore and insult her financial status, Fergie would have retaliated with an army of passive aggressive remarks and follow up with some slanderous gossip that would ruin his name. Unfortunately, Boney M. was on the other end of the phone. She bit her lip and glanced down at the maroon mask still in her hand.

"Whatever," she retorted, forcing herself to stare at the wall while she shoved the mask back into her purse. "Was there still something you wanted me to do, or do you just get off by being a dick?"

"This 'cowboy-looking dickweed.' Did Mr. Mode tell you where he is?"

"Yeah, he's driving up to some place called Saxon."

"Oh. How fortunate for us." He chuckled to himself; the low, rumbly kind of chuckle that felt much louder than it actually was. "It would appear that our little Western friend is on his way to track me down. You said that Mr. Mode wasn't a Stand user, yes? If I had to guess, he must've hired the cowboy to steal the arrow from me so he could use it for himself. Foolish thinking, really."

He paused for a moment and hummed. In her mind's eye, Fergie could see him next to her, hand on his hip while he thoughtfully stroked his soul patch.

"Change of plan," he continued. "You're needed back at base. Book yourself a flight at any major airport, I don't care which. Keep a low profile. I've already planted one of our own at Saxon in case of this very scenario."

One of our own? Fergie furrowed her brow and twirled her tie around her finger. As far as I know, no one else has been sent over to Europe since the arrow heist. I don't think anyone else has been demasked either; just me and Little Miss Sleepless In Seattle, and Boney would never let her on a plane. So that must mean that Boney sent...

"Wait, him?" Fergie's face lit up as she rushed towards the door. "I haven't seen my little chickadee in what feels like forever! What could be more romantic than blowing a cowboy and his posse into next Tuesday? Give me the address for Saxon now."

"Oh, I could. If you do choose to go, however, you'll no doubt be caught in the carnage and killed along with the cowboy. You know that he's not exactly...precise in his targets." Boney stated. "Not to mention that he's not actually there, just his Stand."

"Where is he, then?"

"Why don't you return to base and find out?"

"Ugh, fine." The oversized doors to the natatorium creaked open as she exited the room. Though the wool rug lining the floor ought to have muffled her footsteps as she clomped across the hallway, each step made a loud THUMP that reverberated through the nearly vacant mansion. "Think we could like, relocate? It's already raining in Belgium, I wasn't really looking forward to—"

As Fergie turned a corner, two older women blocked her path. She recognized them as the maids from the jacuzzi, though they had traded in their scanty bathing suits for plain white dresses. Fluffy towels wrapped around their wet hair, some loose strands still sleek with moisture hanging out and dribbling drops of water onto their shoulders. They both took a step back as soon as Fergie approached them. Fergie, meanwhile, walked past them as if they weren't even there. The maids were evidently used to this behavior and cleared the hall to make room for her.

"As I was saying, Boney, can't I just—"

"Excuse me," one of the maids called out from behind her, "is Depeche, um, is he..."

Fergie slumped her shoulders and covered the speaker to her phone. "Dead? Yeah. I killed him," she responded, turning around to face the maids. "What are you two gonna do about it?"

Instead of fleeing with tears in their eyes or perhaps calling the police like Fergie expected, the maids looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief. Grateful smiles formed on their faces, their brows raised with hands over their chests.

"Oh, thank you! You have no idea how much you've helped us out," the maid to the left said.

"Depeche was a right bastard that either overworked us or treated us like eye candy. The pay here's not even that great. Once you start working for him, though, you can never really leave for good. But I swear, if I had to run my hands through his greasy head one more time, I would've killed him myself," the maid to the right added.

They both moved from their spots at the edge of the hallway and moved closer to Fergie. "Can we get you something? We've got wine, beer, just about any kind of liquor under the sun," one of the maids offered.

Lowering her phone, Fergie considered how her day so far had gone. Boney had asked her to infiltrate Depeche's mansion with the promise of a duel against a fellow Stand user. Just wait for him to reveal where he sent the picture off to, then she was free to do whatever she wanted with him. instead, she ended up waiting for several hours in that natatorium, the only room in the entire manor where she was sure she'd have the advantage over whatever Depeche could throw at her. Having to endure watching his maids coddle up to him, sit through his never ending conversation on the phone, and wait as the steam from the jacuzzi ruined her makeup. In the end, Depeche didn't even give her the thrilling battle she was promised. Now, Boney had ordered her back to their dreary old base.

If there was anything she was thirsty for, it sure as hell wasn't a drink. Having one wouldn't hurt, though. She plastered the fakest smile imaginable on as she responded. "Sure! I'll take whiskey on the rocks. Can you two handle that?"

Their faces lit up. "One whiskey on the rocks, coming up!" They responded in unison before marching past her, presumably toward the kitchen.

Fergie held her phone back to her ear and followed them. "Hey, Boney?"

"Yes?"

"There's no one here that we need to keep alive, right?"

"No," Boney confirmed. "Mr. Mode was a common criminal, I'm sure he's got no one remarkable under his thumb."

Her plastic grin morphed into a devious smirk. "I'll call you back in a sec."

As she hung up on Boney and put her phone back in her purse, Shatter Me materialized and created a menacing shadow over the maids in front of her.

Chapter Text

Ever since he first whipped out his journal and started interrogating her about her Stand, Rumor had struck Michelle as not just naturally curious but also frenetically documentative. The type of person to transcribe an entire lecture in real time, his pen racing to keep up with the speaker, then ask a thousand questions about it afterwards. She figured he'd make for a great historian one day, if he ever outgrew the whole "vampire hunter" thing.

She also figured that, in retrospect, it was shocking that he had gone two days without pestering Hol Horse about his Stand.

"So, you've named your Stand Emperor," he noted, captioning the page in his journal. The bumpy road gave him poor support to write on, leaving his usually pristine letters slightly wobbly. "Would you kindly summon your Stand for just a moment?"

"Ain't a good idea to do that while I'm driving," Hol Horse responded. "Not to mention that it's awful rude to—"

"He showed his Stand to me, so I can tell you what it looks like!" Sara enthusiastically clapped her hands together and turned around to face Rumor. "It's a gun. It's got, like..." she paused, bit her cheek, and stared at her forehead while she mentally drafted out the proper description, "uh, there's the revolver bit, and the hammer, and the slidey thing on the barrel..."

Eventually, she gave up trying to describe it with her words and attempted to draw out Emperor's shape in the air. Eyes still glued to her forehead, her left hand traced out the rectangular shape of the barrel while her right drew out a large circle near the hammer. She lowered her hands, satisfied with her "description." Rumor met her cheerful gaze with a narrow-eyed glare, his arms folded across his chest. With a nervous giggle, she gave an awkward smile and reclined back in her seat.

"Astoundingly punctilious description, Sara." Rumor clapped his journal closed and sighed. Something seemed to click in his brain as he ran his hands through his hair, his previously tired eyes widening for a moment before he furrowed his brow. "You know," he commented, sitting up straight and drumming his pen in the palm of his hand, "the report of the mayor's death that ended up rolling into circulation claimed that he died, and I quote, 'from a bullet to the head, except there was no bullet in his head.' Your Stand's appearance being reminiscent of a gun would imply that it would fire bullets as well. I also have reason to believe that the mayor's killer was a fellow Stand user associated with Sting, the same as you."

Hol Horse shrugged. "Weird coincidence, don't you think?" Faking a cough, he opened the window of the car and flicked his used cigarette out it. "Trust me, Sting was a fella who made the rounds, especially in this part of the world. You get together all the Stand users from 'round these parts, and I'd reckon that most of 'em will know him. Plenty of Stands out there fire bullets of some sort, too. Take Smile, for example." He gestured in Sara's direction. "The two of us are as different as night and day, and from what she showed me, she can fire bullets just the same as Emperor. It's the set-up that makes 'em different. Come to think of it, I reckon I've encountered more Stands like that than I have full bodied ones like hers," he concluded, gesturing at Michelle.

Though she should've been eager to jump at the chance to call out Hol Horse for the criminal he was, their conversation went in one ear and out the other for Michelle. Her thoughts were solely occupied by the passport in her hands. As they drove past monotonous grasslands, the only break in scenery being the occasional neighborhood or small farm, it dawned on her that she had never actually been on a plane before. Cars were one thing—a sort of necessary evil for cross-country travelling—but planes? Every news story and disaster film involving planes horrifically crashing midflight played in her head, making her muscles tense.

Iron Maiden's curse could affect technology, she reasoned. It just takes one touch, one moment where I accidentally summon my Stand, and I could bring the whole plane down! I'll need to be careful. Assuming the curse is real, of course. Which it absolutely must be.

Staring down at her passport, she fiddled with her necklace. Anxiety brought about by the media was one thing, but her forged passport was another matter entirely. What if Saxon's security realized it was a fake? After all, she hadn't left the best first impression on Depeche. It was both within his power and character for him to ask Lovestrong to make her an intentionally shoddy passport as a form of revenge. Her clearly fake age alone was enough to raise eyebrows. While Sara had reassured her that it wouldn't be an issue, her judgement also wounded up recruiting an assassin into their ranks, one currently chauffeuring them to some mystery airport out in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say, she was too optimistic for her own good. Is it too late for me to compare my passport to all of theirs to see if there are any other discrepancies? Could I do that discreetly without them noticing?

Something lightly tapped her hand. She jerked away, then turned her head to see Cab looking at her with concerned eyes. "Something bugging you?"

Michelle's breath hitched. Indeed, something was bugging her, but how did he know that? Lowering her hand from her necklace, she gave him a small shrug before looking away. Her wariness was none of his business. No doubt discussing her paranoia of their plane crashing would just annoy him, anyway. That or he'd end up lecturing her for her superstitious attitude again.

"Don't just shrug at me," Cab chortled. "Something's obviously up. You're doing that necklace thing again. Why not tell me about it? Or, uh," he paused and nudged his head towards Hol Horse in front of them before hushing his tone, "if you want to wait until he—"

"No, it's fine." Michelle slumped in her seat; if Cab had already picked up on her being wary of Hol Horse, then she really had no reason to keep this a secret from him any longer. "I'm just a little worried about flying is all," she confessed. "This will be my first time getting on a plane."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense." He leaned forward and rested his chin on his palms, his seatbelt stretching out with him. "Believe me, whatever campfire stories or urban legends or curses you're worried about, they're all made up and are the least of your concerns. The real endurance test isn't actually flying, it's the airport. They're always noisy and full of people; the lines for everything go on forever, so good luck trying to get anything to eat; and there's always a crying baby somewhere behind you. Or, my personal favorite: being 'randomly' chosen for additional security checks." He groaned and rolled his eyes. "Ugh. It's like they go out of their way to make travelling as stressful and irritating as possible."

Whatever attempt at empathy Cab aimed for missed its mark. Feeling her blood go cold, Michelle swallowed hard and shifted in her seat. If anything, she felt more anxious than before. Just what were these "random security checks" that Cab had so ominously referred to? She dreaded having to go through a single check as is, the possibility of having any more sprung up upon her left her on pins and needles. Belgium was the home of natural security, after all. No doubt these airport security officers were highly trained; if any of them tugged at some inaccuracies in her passport, her entire web of lies would come undone. Hell, the police could be waiting for her with her entire permanent record in hand. Every forged document, every bit of withheld information, every broken law; all come to stab her in the back all at once.

She didn't give Cab a response. Instead, she just nodded and cranked her head away from him.

Sara turned around in her seat and shot him a glare. "Cab! Don't freak her out," she scolded before turning to Michelle. Her expression softened, creased brow raising and scowl lifting into a small, closed-mouth smile. "For what it's worth, I don't think airports are all that bad. Think of them like cities—no two are alike. It'd be crazy to compare Paris to...to...uh," she trailed off, gaze falling to the side for a moment, "another city in France," she settled on. "So, just like how some airports are cramped and noisy and have long lines everywhere, others tend to be less crowded and more relaxed. Not to mention that with a group as small as ours, we shouldn't have many—"

"Woah, hold up," interrupted Cab, waving his hands back and forth in front of him. "As small as ours?"

"Yeah?"

"Sara, there's five of us now. That's not a small group to travel with."

"What are you talking about? That's small." She put her hands on her hips as if to challenge him, only to lower them a second later to rub her chin in thought. "Ok, maybe it's pushing small, but—"

"Two or three is a small group," Cab claimed. "What makes you think that five is small?"

"Anyways, small group or not, an airport's nothing to worry about! That passport of yours could fool a trained professional, I'm sure of it," Sara inspirited. "Just make sure you memorize the birthday on it if it's not your actual birthday. The takeoff and landing process of flying can make you a bit nauseous and pop your ears, but other than that, flying in a plane is just like being in a car. A fancy car, too. Most planes these days will let you watch a movie during the flight! Oh, and there's always a bathroom at the back of the plane, so you don't need to hold it the whole time if you don't want to. I have some gum you can use to pop your ears with if you need to. Don't overthink this, Chelly. Flying's easy!"

Though the rapid-fire reassurance ought to have lifted Michelle's spirits, the breadth of information dropped on her all at once made her head spin. Ears popping? She wasn't quite sure what that meant, probably some English figure of speech she didn't understand, but it sounded painful. Everything Sara said afterwards didn't register fully; she spoke too quick for Michelle to keep up. Once again, she responded with a half-hearted nod.

"If there's time available to do so, I strongly suggest that we eat before boarding the plane," Rumor suggested. "At a proper restaurant, preferably. I'm neutral in my stance on airborne travel, but the food they serve on most commercial flights is atrocious. If they even have the decency to serve food at all, that is. I'll not be sustained on peanuts and undercooked spaghetti."

"Oh, yeah. I bet you're getting kinda grouchy since we haven't had breakfast yet," Sara thought out loud. "Ok, here's the plan. We'll find a place to go and eat, and then we drive off to what I'm sure will be a wonderful, spacious airport; where the security is light and the crying babies are minimal. Right, Horseradish? Oh, you have our flight tickets printed out, right?"

From the way she saw his line of sight shift between the road and whoever was talking at the time in the rearview mirror, Michelle could tell that Hol Horse had been drifting in and out of focusing on their conversation. He was on full alert when Sara called out his nickname, though, eyes perking up as he sat up straighter. As if to ponder her response, he briefly hummed to himself then took his cigarette from between his lips, rolling it between his fingers.

"Yeah," he mumbled, "somethin' like that."

~~~~~

Whatever Sara and the others had hyped up the airport to be like, Saxon ended up being the exact opposite.

They had described a large building complex surrounded by dozens, if not hundreds of planes parked at the ends of several runways running parallel to each other. A piece of land people constantly funneled in and out of, their mess of cars locked in a perpetual traffic jam. The sort of place where the roar of a plane's engine as it took flight felt quieter than the chaos inside the airport itself, with every second of it monitored by an inquisitive and bigoted security staff eager for a chance to make headlines with a proper arrest. A central hub for policemen, criminals, and tourists alike.

Basically, Michelle's worst nightmare.

Instead, a series of metal, dome-like garages nearly double the size of the houses attached to them comprised Saxon. A long, straight road comprised of patchwork concrete split Saxon in two, the houses on the left of the road all painted red and the ones on the right painted beige. Not a soul greeted them there; no pedestrians on the sidewalk, no children playing outside, no mailmen making deliveries. The few residents present kept to themselves, their garages open only to allow more room for toolboxes and other miscellaneous parts while the homeowners tinkered with their planes. The first occupied house they drove past had a smaller red biplane tucked inside, while the next had a sleek jet peeking out. Said planes were also Michelle's only hint that they had arrived in Saxon and weren't simply driving through another small town.

Under different circumstances, Michelle would have been relieved to avoid the hellish airport conditions Cab had described earlier. However, the fact that Hol Horse had driven them there only made her more anxious.

"Well, Sara, you were right about the minimal security from the looks of it," Cab quipped. "Jury's still out on the crying babies until we get out of the car."

Rumor kept his eyes peeled as he stared out the window, scribbling something down in his notebook without looking at the page. "Given all the aircrafts stowed away in these houses, I'll assume this is Saxon," he noted. "Are all airports in Belgium this...unorthodox?"

"Airpark," Hol Horse corrected. "Belgium's loaded with plenty of good old-fashioned airports. An airpark is sorta like a neighborhood for folks who are really into planes. They're more of an American thing; I'm pretty sure I remember hearin' that Saxon is damn near the only one in Belgium. I didn't choose to fly out of here, but it's probably cheaper." He readjusted the rearview mirror so that he could indirectly address everyone in the backseat. "Y'all were gettin' riled up about security? Nothin' like that here. I reckon you still need to show your passports, though, so keep 'em handy."

Peering over Rumor's shoulder, Michelle stared into one of the open garages and the plane housed inside it. Compared to most commercial aircrafts, this one was only about half the length, but had a longer nose and rudder. Mounted on the wings were twin propellers near the cockpit and a set of floats protruding near the edge. A man wearing coveralls and an aviator hat—Michelle presumed him to be the pilot—sat perched upon the top of a small ladder, his back hunched over the right wing. He held a paintbrush in his hand, decorating the plane with a design too small to make out from the car. More concerning, however, were the words UNITED STATES NAVY emblazoned on the side of the plane in chipped paint.

Given Saxon's casual, almost suburban nature and near complete vacancy; she doubted that it was some sort of U.S. military base or anything similar. But what if that was exactly what they wanted her to think? After all, she could only assume that the houses were empty. For all she knew, they could be crawling with trained U.S. soldiers, Masqueraders, or even trained U.S. Masqueraders! The alternative, of course, was that the plane was no longer in use by the United States Navy and had likely been acquired illegally.

"Uh," Michelle cleared her throat, "airparks are legal in Belgium, right?"

Hol Horse scoffed as he, much to Michelle's horror, pulled into the house's driveway and parked the car just a few meters away from the likely stolen military plane. "I got no idea," he confessed.

He hopped out of the car, everyone else following suit shortly afterwards. Michelle dragged her feet as everyone else approached the pilot. As usual, Sara lead the charge and skipped over to him just as he turned around to face the group.

"Hello! This your plane?" she stood on her tiptoes to meet his eyes at the top of the ladder.

"She's a real beaut, isn't she?" He leapt down and tucked his paintbrush behind the flaps of his hat. Now that they were closer and his back no longer blocked the view, Michelle could clearly see what he had been painting onto the plane: an unfinished doodle of two smiling stick figures, both wearing aviator hats. "I call her Little Miss Magic, and she's a Grumman Albatross. Same type of plane that Jimmy Buffett used to own. Back in the day, they used to use these babies in the United States military, if you can believe it. Everywhere from the Air Force to the Navy. Got this old girl at an auction about ten years ago. You can't tell it from here, but..." he stopped himself midsentence upon noticing everyone absentmindedly staring into the distance, "...oh, dear, I'm sorry. I tend to get a little carried away about this kind of stuff. Is it safe for me to assume that one of you guys is Hol Horse?"

"Yup, that's me," Hol Horse responded with a tip of the hat. "Depeche Mode sent me over. You're Ashford, yeah?"

"No, I'm Simpson. Ashford is my brother," he clarified. "Strangest thing, Ash was supposed to handle any paid flights this month, but he went missing a few days ago. Flew someone over from here to New York and no one's seen him since!" Reaching into the pocket his coveralls, he pulled out a small photo and showed it to the group. Both Simpson and another man who looked just like him smiled in the picture, each one of them flashing a thumbs up. "You wouldn't happen to know where he is, would you?"

"Can't say that I do, sorry. Though it's funny you mention that, since I was gonna ask you somethin' similar." Hol Horse took a cigarette case from his pocket, from which he pulled out a photograph of his own. Handing the it off to Simpson, he continued speaking. "You recognize him? This picture was taken a few days ago here in Saxon. From the way you tell it, looks like he was your brother's last customer before he went missing. You know anything about him?"

"Nope, never seen him." Just as soon as he had been handed the picture, Simpson handed it back. "I've been in Chicago all month up until two days ago, so I wasn't here when Ash flew him over. He called me before taking off, he always does that, but I don't think he mentioned anything about the passenger. Just that he was very particular about his luggage and didn't like having it handled for him. Don't know if that helps."

After rubbing his chin in thought for a moment, something clearly clicked in Hol Horse's head. His eyes widened, shoulders tensed, teeth clenched as he sharply inhaled. The photo in his hands crumpled around his now much tighter grip as he stuffed it back into his cigarette case. Then, just a moment later, he cleared his throat and regained his previous personable expression.

Michelle frowned. He did the same thing when Rumor told him my name, she realized. Why is Hol Horse looking for this guy? Why would his luggage be important? Who is he? If it's someone he's looking for, he would have shown it to us first. Unless this is something new, meaning he would have gotten it sometime between visiting Depeche and...oh. Her heart sank as she connected the dots. Depeche met with Hol Horse privately after he talked with me about my passport. The guy in the picture is probably someone he's paying him to kill. 

Her hands clenched into fists. Some delivery boy for fate he was, going around killing people without even knowing their name.

Unaware of the teenager staring daggers into the back of his head, Hol Horse adjusted his belt and continued his conversation. "That helps plenty. So, is she ready to fly?"

"Of course! Refilled her this morning. Just as soon as I finish this," Simpson retrieved his paintbrush and used it like a pointer to gesture towards the stick figures, "we can get to the skies."

"Quick question," Sara interjected, raising her hand. "How much room does the plane have for luggage?"

"I'm sure I've got plenty of room to store everything you've got."

Cab snickered and folded his arms. "Yeah, we'll see about that."

~~~~~

Their combined fourteen bags only barely fit inside the plane. While everyone else's fit snugly in the various storage compartments, Sara's seven suitcases presented a challenge. Several alternatives were discussed; strapping a cargo container to the plane, wrapping The Chain around all of her suitcases and dangling them all in the air, even having Sara go through rapid-fire spring cleaning before takeoff. The most practical suggestion came from Simpson, who offered to mail the leftover luggage back to her home. Despite his generosity and how much easier it would make their lives, Sara strongly objected. Eventually, everyone else ended up hoisting one of her carry-ons onto the plane along with them. The remaining three—two suitcases and her guitar case—were carried aboard by Sara herself.

"Hold on," Simpson stopped them at the top of the stairs, the plane's entrance just in sight. "Before anyone boards, I'm gonna need to see your passports. Not that I don't trust you guys, but I can't get in trouble for smuggling illegal aliens out of the country."

Just like that, Michelle's heartbeat skyrocketed. This is it, she thought. While Sara dug through her knapsack to find her passport and everyone else took theirs from their pockets, Michelle clutched hers in her hand tighter than before. Rumor, the first in line, handed his off to Simpson. Ok, Michelle, relax. It's just one person you need to get through. He doesn't seem particularly intuitive, either. What if that's exactly what he wants me to think, though? I don't buy that he just randomly got this plane at an auction. You get paintings and vases at auctions, not entire planes...

After scanning it up and down a few times, Simpson nodded and handed Rumor back his passport. Everyone took a step forward as he boarded the plane. Hol Horse, now at the front of the line, passed Simpson his passport.

...That doesn't mean he's gifted in spotting passport forgeries, though, Michelle continued to reason with herself. Didn't Hol Horse mention Depeche by name? So that means this guy must know who he is and what he's getting himself into. Or maybe it was his brother who handled affairs with him. Or maybe Depeche has them all convinced he's just your run of the mill art collector...

Simpson returned Hol Horse's passport to him and welcomed him aboard. Cab and Sara stepped up the stairs while Michelle stayed locked in place, unaware that they had moved while she fiddled with her necklace. Cab tossed Simpson his passport, who caught it just before it hit his face.

...If he does realize the passport is a fake, what happens then? Will he just refuse to let me board, or does he have any right to arrest me on the spot? Maybe I can get away with convincing him that someone swapped my passport, if that happens. Or maybe make a getaway to the car. At that point, it won't matter that I don't have my license, I just need to find a way to get out of here...

Returning the gesture, Simpson threw Cab's passport back at him after thoroughly inspecting it several times over. His aim was atrocious, however, and the passport flew past Cab's shoulder. Quiet Riot's arm popped out just in the nick of time, plucking the passport out of the air and bringing it back to his owner. Either ignorant or unaware of the Stand, Simpson tittered out of embarrassment for nearly throwing the passport away and let Cab onto the plane. Just in time, too, as Sara finally retrieved her passport from her knapsack and opened it up for him.

...But then what? Do I roam around Belgium as a nomadic outlaw for the rest of my life? If this fails, I need someplace safe to stay. Even without a passport, could I convince someone else here in Saxon to fly me back to France? If I do, then what? There's no way of knowing whether or not it's safe to go back to the apartment. The Master of the Masquerade could still be there, or at least have a Masquerader wait for me in his place. So that's off the table...

Though he had long since finished reviewing her passport, Sara's extra luggage meant she had problems actually squeezing through the plane's thin door. She entertained Simpson with lighthearted banter as she attempted to position herself in a way that let her two suitcases and guitar case enter unobstructed. After a couple attempts at this, she settled for handing her bags off to Simpson one by one, then having him hand them back to her after she was already inside.

...Then again, most of these houses look deserted. If I'm extra careful, surely no one would notice a squatter, right? Do these houses even have food and working electricity? If they don't, maybe I could stow myself away in one of the planes and wait for someone to fly me away! Though, if I end up in a country where no one speaks French or English, I'm in big trouble. Unfortunately, we can't take off without him. I have no idea how to fly a plane, and I doubt anyone else fares much better. Hol Horse, maybe? Dammit, I should've asked before we arrived. How was I supposed to know, though, especially since he neglected to tell me we were going to this airpark and not a normal airport? Ugh, I should really think these things through more in the future...

The sound of Simpson clearing his throat snapped her back to reality. She blinked a few times and threw her hands away from her necklace before looking up at him, trying her best to suppress the fear no doubt shaking behind her eyes.

"Why don't you come on up? I don't bite," he tempted. "I just need to see your passport, then you're good to go."

Michelle nodded and ascended the stairs. Her shoes clonking against the metal stairs with each step echoed in her ears, reverberating through her brain like an exploding bomb. Just about rigid by the time she reached the top of the stairs, she reluctantly extended her hand out to hand him her passport. God, Jesus, Buddha, my guardian angel, Flying Spaghetti Monster; whoever can hear me, she silently prayed as he took the passport from her, please, I'm begging you, let me get through this in one piece.

Her heart almost stopped as he opened the passport to her ID page. Simpson stared it down for a moment, his eyes darting across the page, before he looked back up at her. Then back to the passport, then back to her again.

Shit, a cold sweat wracked down her spine, what was my birthday listed as again?

Before Michelle had time to panic about forgetting her birthday, Simpson shut her passport and handed it back to her. "Ok! You're good to go." He stepped to the side, his open palm welcoming her aboard the plane. "Happy travels!"

Moving on instinct, she nodded and walked forward, lugging Sara's spare suitcase along with her. That was easier than I expected, she mused.

Now that she had boarded, Michelle could tell that Little Miss Magic's interior had gone through several renovations. It was separated into three "rooms;" the cockpit up front, the passenger area in the middle, and a bedroom overflowing with Sara's bags in the back. Rather than the rigid rows of small seats that Michelle had anticipated, the passenger area had been decorated as if it were a small apartment. Twin sofas made up the main seating, each one screwed to the floor and adorned with a puce floral pattern. Separating the couches from the bedroom laid a kitchen area, complete with a stove, sink and microwave. Even a thin pantry had been added, stuffed to the brim with miscellaneous snacks from all over the world. On the other end of the right couch sat a small desk, complete with pen and paper.

"Help yourself to anything in the kitchen, just don't use the stove while we're flying," Simpson said as he entered the cockpit. "Bathroom is next to the bed if you ever need to go."

Everyone else had already seated; Sara and Hol Horse on the left couch and Cab and Rumor on the right. Notably, Sara still had her guitar case with her, cradling it on her lap. Rumor and Hol Horse retained their neutral expressions, Sara her trademark smile, but Cab had an awestruck, open-mouthed smile spread wide across his face; a far cry from his usual shit-eating smirk. He eyed up every feature of the plane with barely suppressed excitement.

"I feel like I'm flying first class," he thought aloud as Michelle wheeled her last remaining bag over to the bedroom. "Did the plane come like this, or did you and your brother have to refurbish it yourselves?"

"Ash and I did everything to spruce the plane up, yeah," Simpson called back from the cockpit. "Took around three years, but hey, when you fly as much as we do, why not make it more comfortable?"

Cab let out a low whistle as his expression softened. "Badass."

"Yeah, this place rocks!" Sara chimed in, snapping some pictures of the plane with her camera. She even snuck in a shot of Cab's awestruck face without him noticing. "No seatbelts, too! I wonder if we can use our phones during takeoff?"

"Ne teste pas cela, s'il vous plaît," Michelle responded after stuffing the final suitcase into the bedroom. Though she had never flown before, even she knew using electronics on a plane was a horrible idea. Why exactly that was, she wasn't sure, but she'd rather not test it out for no reason.

"Sara, none of us even have any cellular devices with us," Rumor reminded her. "Unless Hol Horse does and he has yet to inform us."

Hol Horse shook his head. "Don't need one. I gotta say, though," he turned to Sara "I'm a little shocked that you've got seven damn bags with ya and not one of them's got a phone in it."

"I used to have one, but I ditched it," Sara justified with a shrug. "I mean, who needs phones, am I right? I've got an iPod, that's plenty for me. It basically does the same stuff, and you can't get any unwanted phone calls on it!"

"Actually, she's got a whole suitcase of stolen phones in there," joked Cab. "She doesn't use any of them because she can't remember their numbers."

"That's not true, and you know it!"

Cab just placed his hands behind his head and smirked.

Their banter left Michelle feeling exhausted already, and she had barely even participated in it. She took a seat next to Rumor on the sofa, rested her head against the desk next to her, and awaited takeoff.

~~~~~

When the plane began to accelerate down Saxon's runway of a road, Michelle instantly understood why most planes came with seats facing towards the front rather than leaning against the side like Little Miss Magic had. She suspected that, had the plane had a more traditional layout, that takeoff would have been much like a roller coaster as it sped across the tracks just before dashing up a lift. That feeling of g-force pushing her back into her seat, minus the extra wind whipping her hair back. She hadn't dreaded that part of the flying experience—in fact, she quite enjoyed roller coasters. So long as the plane didn't explode on its way off the ground, she had no complaints.

Instead, as soon as the plane caught its initial burst of speed, their orientation and lack of seatbelts sent everyone tumbling down the sofa. Cab, sitting at the end of the couch, slammed against the back of the kitchen pantry before Rumor barreled into him and Michelle barreled into Rumor. Their heads all conked against each other on impact. While Michelle rubbed her now aching forehead and profusely apologized, Cab summoned Quiet Riot with a groan and flicked the other two off of him.

Hol Horse, apparently used to planes like these, had the foresight to latch onto the sofa's armrest during takeoff. Sara harmlessly slid across the sofa and only lightly bumped against the sink next to her.

Aside from their less than graceful ascent, the plane ride initially fared much like a trip in the car. Despite Little Miss Magic's various amenities, she lacked a TV, so an in-flight movie was off the table. Everyone settled into their activities quickly—Michelle borrowed Sara's camera and attempted to copy the picture of the orange-scythe onto paper, Rumor cast aside his notebook in favor of meditation, Sara brought out her guitar and mindlessly plucked at strings, Cab attempted to distract Sara from her dreadful guitar playing by striking up conversation and offering snacks from the pantry, and Hol Horse stared out the window and bounced his leg. No doubt he was desperate for a smoke.

"So, Horseradish," Sara piped up sometime after Cab convinced her to put her guitar away, "who was that in the picture you showed the pilot?"

"Great question, Sara," Michelle added, deadpan. She didn't even look up from her sketch as she spoke. "Why ever would he of all people carry around a picture of someone he doesn't even know?"

Hol Horse abruptly stopped jittering and froze like a statue. He swallowed hard, loud enough that Michelle could hear him across the plane and over the slight hum of the engine. Sitting up in his seat and resting his chin on his fist, he turned over to look at Sara, his eyes narrowed and brow furrowed. For a moment, he scanned her up and down as if she was an equation he couldn't quite solve. He briefly looked over at the opposite sofa and gave everyone else a similar look.

"I suppose there's no use in being secretive 'bout it now," he eventually sighed. "Y'know how I said I got a new job back at Rest Aria? Well, the fella who got Michelle her passport wanted me to track down the guy in the picture in return. That's part of the reason why I dragged y'all out here to Saxon rather than just flyin' out of any standard airport; I was hoping to get a lead on him. The picture was taken in Saxon sometime before he left for The Big Apple. So, I'll ask again," he paused to pull his cigarette case out from his pocket again, and out from it the now wadded up photo. After straightening it out a bit, he presented it to the group. "Have any of y'all seen this man before?"

Everyone paused their current task to examine the photo (though Cab had to nudge Rumor a few times to break him from his meditation). Michelle's only glanced at the photo for a moment before continuing to draw. Her primary concern was still the blond, svelte man she had encountered at the cemetery; the man in the picture, with his frizzy green hair and a bulky figure, looked nothing like him. Or anyone else she had ever met, for that matter. So long as they weren't on a collision course for the Master of the Masquerade, she didn't care who he was so long as Hol Horse didn't kill him.

The rest of the group came to the same conclusion not long afterwards, all of them simultaneously shaking their heads. "Sorry, no," Sara spoke for her compatriots. "You don't know who he is?"

"Nope. Nothin' about him. Even my boss didn't know who he is." Hol Horse crammed the picture back into his pocket, not even bothering with the cigarette case anymore.

"If I may be so bold," interjected Rumor just before he resumed meditating, "why are you searching for him in the first place?"

"Well...let's just say that he's got somethin' that my boss wants."

They all expected Hol Horse to say more, but after that, he just turned in his seat to look away from them. His leg started to tremor again, somehow more violently than before. 

"So, what does he want?" Sara scooted closer to Hol Horse, orienting herself on the couch so she faced him head-on. "Did the guy in the picture kidnap your boss' girlfriend or something? Ooh, or maybe he stole some tragic, one-of-a-kind keepsake from him! Like how Chelly's got those bracelets or Rumor has his—"

Upon hearing her name, Michelle's head shot up to glare at Sara. "Sara! Ferme ta bouche!" Sure, her bracelets weren't exactly a closely guarded secret, but she'd rather not clue Hol Horse into thinking he could manipulate her with them. "Besides," she commented, returning to her drawing, "you're grossly misunderstanding what kind of person this man is."

"Well, why else would he send us all the way to New York? You can get stuff like money and other valuables anywhere else in the world, so it must be something super special if we're going all the way to another continent for it," she reasoned.

"I got a hunch on what it could be," Hol Horse mumbled under his breath.

"Aaaaand?" Sara leaned her head closer to him, resting her chin on the backs of her hands.

"And what?"

"What's your hunch?"

"Don't you worry your pretty little head off 'bout it." He forced a smile and patted her head a couple times, accidentally pushing her visor over her eyes. "You leave that part to me."

"That just makes me more curious!" She clapped her hands together and bounced in her seat, causing Hol Horse to sharply exhale and rub his forehead from under his hat. "If it's something that your boss wants, shouldn't we know what it is so we can help you find it? You can trust us, we won't—"

"I said no, darlin'," he reaffirmed. His voice was stern, tone more assertive than any of them had ever heard him. "Frankly, what it is ain't your business, so just drop it. I'm not telling y'all any more than I already have."

He maintained his hardy glare on her for a good couple seconds before giving an exasperated sigh and turning around in his seat. Sara, clearly taken aback by his attitude, scooted back over to her side of the couch. Her smile faded as she brought up her knees and bent them over her guitar case.

Perceptive as ever, Hol Horse detected her change in mood without even needing to turn around. He did so anyway, though, wearing the same affable face he always did when negotiating with someone. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle ya like that. I'm just tryin' to be professional. My boss made it clear that he didn't want anyone to know the details of this job, and as Michelle can attest to, he's not the type of fella you want to piss off."

Michelle didn't look up from her drawing—she could smell his lies as clearly as the cigarette smoke still clinging to his body. You're not sorry, you just don't want to get on her bad side, she thought.

Though Rumor was meditating, eyes shut and legs crossed, Cab elbowed his shoulder and whispered at him anyways. "I bet it's weed."

Close, but not exactly, Michelle mused, remembering the fine white powder Depeche had been snorting when she first met him. Hard drugs were unquestionably what Depeche was after. The whole thing made her stomach churn; from what she had deduced, Depeche had sent Hol Horse off to kill a man that neither of them knew just for some drugs. Whether those drugs ended up being used for profit or for recreation by Depeche didn't really matter, the fact stood that he had placed a bounty on someone's head just to get more of a narcotic that he had plenty of already.

Then again, she pondered, Hol Horse is only doing this to pay off my passport. So in a way, this is my fault too. Her pen froze on the paper as her body went stiff. In a way, Iron Maiden's curse had ended up activating, but now it ended up dooming a random drug dealer instead of Hol Horse or Depeche. All because she had to spare herself from Policy of Truth.

"It's fate you can blame, not me. I'm just the guy who delivers the latte"—that was how Hol Horse had described his profession. Maybe he was right, after all.

She rose from the sofa, now lightheaded. "Je dois aller aux toilettes," she mumbled, stumbling her way towards the bathroom.

The group gave a half-hearted nod of acknowledgement as she walked down the narrow hallway to the back of the plane. No door partitioned the bedroom from the kitchen, so all of Sara's luggage spilled out from the conspicuously door-shaped entryway. Michelle kicked as much of it as she could out of the way, paving a trail to the bathroom.

Unlike the rest of the "rooms" in the plane, the bathroom did have a door. Without even thinking, she grabbed the metal handle and swung the door open.

She screeched upon seeing the inside of the bathroom.

Slumped over on the toilet on the other side of the door sat the same man from Hol Horse's picture, naked. A bullet-sized hole laid lodged in his forehead complete with streaks of dried blood running down his face, the remnants of a puddle caked onto the floor.

Chapter Text

Flying several thousand meters in the sky sat a corpse on a crapper, and all Michelle could do was scream.

No doubt about it, in front of her sat the man from Hol Horse's photo and he was definitely dead. If the giant hole in his forehead wasn't enough proof, the way his body limply jittered to the plane's movements as it entered a bit of turbulence definitely did. He seemed less like a person and more like a puppet with its strings cut, limbs showing no sign of muscle tension while his lidded eyes stared blankly at the floor. Russet clumps of dried blood stained his mint-green hairline and soul patch. Though she tried to avoid staring between his legs, she noticed that the water in the toilet ran red.

Had witnessing Sting's face get torn from his skull before exploding just days prior not desensitized her to blood and gore, Michelle was sure she would've fainted on the spot. Her breathing went spastic as she staggered backwards, tripping over Sara's luggage and onto the bed. Though her vision had begun to blur from the shock of suddenly seeing a dead body in front of her, she couldn't pry her eyes away from the corpse.

Could it be that Iron Maiden's curse caused this? She hadn't even known of this man's existence until just a couple minutes ago, much less shown him her Stand. Then again, she had never met the man from the car crash that killed Luca and her grandmother, and the curse claimed his life, too. Policy of Truth had proved that the curse stretched beyond illness or accidents the moment it confirmed that her father had been murdered by a fellow Stand user as well.

This was all assuming the fact that the curse was real, of course; and that Hol Horse had, whether consciously or otherwise, dragged this green-haired man into it. That still didn't explain how he died, though. Curse or no curse, wounds like that didn't just appear out of nowhere.

A bullet to the head, except there's no bullet in his head, she recalled as she steadied her breathing, forcing herself to inhale through her nose and exhale from her mouth. That's what happened to the mayor back in Mons, and Hol Horse shot and killed him with his Stand. I think I remember him telling Rumor its name is Emperor. Did Hol Horse somehow kill this guy before we took off? If he did, then why ask us about him at all? What does he have to gain out of killing him here, in a plane, presumably far away from anything Hol Horse could possibly want to steal from him?

She covered her eyes. And more importantly, why the hell is he naked?

Behind her, a flurry of footsteps stomped her way. Everyone poured into the bedroom with Sara leading the charge. "Chelly, what happened? I heard you scream!" She trudged through the lake of luggage, careful not to step on anything, before taking a seat next to Michelle on the side of the bed. The boys all clumped together by the entryway to the bedroom.

Slowly, Michelle moved her hand from her face and pointed a shaky finger towards the bathroom. "Assis s-sur le toilette..." she stammered out, her voice a hoarse whisper, "il... il est mort! There's a d-dead body in the bathroom!"

Sara's face went blank for a second, her widening eyes being the only part to show any emotion. A timid smile crept up after a few seconds. "A dead body," she repeated in a nervous chuckle as her line of sight followed Michelle's outstretched finger. "Chelly, we're the only ones on this plane. If there was a dead body here, I'm sure we'd..."

Now staring directly at the nude corpse sitting just a few feet away from her, she abruptly silenced herself and froze in place for a moment. Her optimistic smile still clung to her face even while her eyes widened with fear and her breaths came out in horrified puffs. When she blinked, that smile was ripped apart by a trembling lip as she hurtled herself to the back of the bed.

"Holy shit!" She shrieked. Even after pressing herself firmly against the wall, she still attempted to back up further, kicking at the sheets until they bundled up behind Michelle. "G-guys! There's a...a..."

"Dead body? With a bullet wound through the head? Yeah, we can see it too." Cab's voice cracked as he finished her sentence. His face blanched as he swallowed hard. "I...I need to sit down for a sec," he announced, wobbling his way back to the couches. "Say, uh, Hol Horse? I think we found your guy."

"Oh my god. Oh my god!" Sara covered her mouth in shock. "You're right. That is the guy from Hol Horse's picture!"

"What?" Hol Horse furrowed his brow and pushed his way towards the bathroom. He stopped for a moment and shuffled through his pockets, looking for the picture. He looked up for a moment to give the body a wayward glance, only to audibly grimace upon being met with the nude man. With a sharp inhale, he walked away and resumed his position near the door.

"Yup, that's him alright," he announced, the brim casting a large shadow over his eyes.

Michelle crossed her arms at the display. Hardly the reaction she'd expect from him. After all, if he had killed this man at some point earlier, then he should have been prepared to see him naked, right? The look on his face though; with a wrinkled nose as he avoided eye contact with the dead body, suggested otherwise. Maybe he was just acting; feigning disgust to avert suspicion from himself. Or, even worse, maybe his Stand had somehow killed him by complete accident.

She shuddered thinking about the latter.

Rumor thoughtfully drummed his fingers against his leg as his eyes narrowed in on the bullet wound. "Now, that's a bit puzzling..." he thought aloud.

"Puzzling?" Michelle wasn't sure why she was surprised, nor why she expressed said emotion by throwing her arms in the air. This was the same man who had only shown mild surprise after committing involuntary manslaughter. "Which part? The fact that there's a corpse in the bathroom, that he just so happens to be the person cowboy over here was looking for, or that he's naked?"

"No, none of that." He shook his head as he stepped over Sara's luggage and into the cramped bathroom. "Michelle, do you recall the scene of Sting's death?"

"Comment pourrais-je oublier?"

"Allow me to be more specific. Do you remember the smell reeking off his remains after his head imploded in on itself?"

"The...the smell?"

Though Michelle had tried for the last few days to repress that memory, it was easy to place herself back at the bottom of the belfry just after Sting died. Blood oozing out of his headless neck, seeping into the dirt; the now disembodied eyes peeking out from behind the grass; fragmented bits of bone and clumps of brain tissue scattered across the ground. And...the smell. Of course, how could she forget the smell? A mix of iron and rotten meat contaminating the once fresh air. She recalled the car crash that killed Luca and her grandmother smelling similar, though masked by gasoline.

"I'm sure I don't have to inform any of you that blood has a distinct scent to it," said Rumor. "That applies even more so to events such as this, where there's a surplus of exposed blood involved. However, scents don't linger forever. They will inevitably go stale and fade away. Now answer me this." He accentuated his words by pointing a finger in the air. "Do any of you smell blood in here?"

Sara sat up straighter and inched her way back towards the front of the bed. "Come to think of it," her nose twitched as she sniffed the air, "I don't smell anything."

Likewise, Michelle took a few deep breaths through her nose. She could smell Sara's perfume, those sugary artificial strawberries; the slightly less artificial cinnamon in Rumor's cologne; a hint of old cigarette smoke from Hol Horse; but no blood. A small pool of the stuff laid only a couple meters from her, yet Michelle couldn't catch a whiff of it in the air.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that doesn't mean much of anything right now," Hol Horse objected. "Take a look at the hole in his head. All that blood around circled 'round it is drier than a desert. That scent would've gone stale ages ago."

"And that means...oh, eww." Sara's face went pale. "Eww! He's been dead for a while now!" She shot to her feet, nearly tripping over one of her bags as she did so. "We need to tell the pilot, now!"

"Hold for a moment, Sara," Rumor advised. "I agree that Simpson needs to be informed, but consider this for a moment. Let's hypothesize that this man died long before we boarded the plane. The average human body starts to decay around 24 hours after death, and looking at how dried the blood around the wound is, I'd say he's well past that point. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't see any signs of deterioration on the exterior of his body. In fact, if you just..."

Bending his knees slightly, he covered up the wound with his hand and tilted the man's head back.

"He almost looks alive, doesn't he?" This did nothing to change the fact that his eyes were dim and lidded, the spark of life long since vanished. Or that dried blood caked a good chunk of his hair and body. Or that he was naked. He did have the pale complexion expected of a dead person, but it lacked the sag or rot characteristic of a long dead corpse.

"Then this must be the work of an enemy Stand user! That's the only way all these inconsistencies add up," concluded Sara. "There's a Stand loose on the plane! D-do you think it's hiding in the toilet? Or maybe it's under the bed! Who knows, it could be even be outside the plane! Stands can d-do that, right, Hol Horse? I wonder who the user is. Can't be the pilot, he's too nice. Maybe it's—"

"Utilise ton cerveau, Sara," Michelle stood up, speaking over her friend before her volley of tangents put a figurative bullet in her head. Besides, she wasn't going to sit idly by knowing who the real killer was. "The murderer is right here!" She jabbed Hol Horse in the shoulder. "A bullet to the head, with no bullet in his head. Sound familiar? Who else do we know with a Stand that's like a gun?" 

Both confused and offended by the accusation, Hol Horse frowned and backed away from her. "Don't you go pointin' fingers at me, darlin'. Her Stand fires bullets too, yeah? It could just as easily be her." He spoke loudly, warding off Michelle before she could say anything else. "Besides, why the hell would I show y'all a picture of him if I already knocked his lights out?"

"Not to mention that we don't have any solid evidence that this was the work of a Stand," Rumor interjected. "However, you do bring up a good point, Michelle. There's no exit wound out the back of his head, so if he was shot by a regular pistol," he rolled up his sleeves and advanced towards the body, "then the bullet should still be lodged somewhere inside his head."

One strand of The Chain, this one smaller and slimmer than the ones he usually summoned, whirred out from his wrist and grew to around a half a meter long. Standing square with the corpse, Rumor flicked his wrist and whipped The Chain towards the dead man's head, smacking him in the nose. It then slithered up his forehead and entered the bullet hole. Wet, sloshy sounds squelched out as it maneuvered its way through his head, loud enough that Michelle could hear it even from the other side of the cramped room.

For once in her life, she felt grateful to have Iron Maiden as a Stand. At least Rumor wouldn't pester her to have it investigate the insides of a dead man's head. Hopefully, anyways.

Sara obviously didn't share the same sentiment and flinched away in disgust. "Rumor! Gross! Get your Stand out of the dead guy's head!"

Too engrossed in whatever he was trying to do, Rumor ignored her and stepped closer to the body. Tipping the corpse's chin up, he pressed his wrist flush against the wound and sent The Chain all the way inside, rubbing the base of his wrist against the bloody opening. Sara objected with another sickened screech.

Footsteps rattled against the metal frame of the plane, stomping towards the bedroom. Already on edge, Michelle's heart jumped. She jumped and turned around, only to see Cab casually leaning against the doorframe. His heavy shoes clanked against the floor as he tapped his foot. Michelle let herself breathe a sigh of relief.

"Alright, I'm feeling a bit better now," Cab said, rolling his neck. "So, what..."

When he caught eye of Rumor circling his wrist against the corpse's forehead as if he was massaging the bullet hole, Cab closed his eyes, pinched the ridge of his nose, and exhaled heavily.

"Rumor, why are you like this?"

Unfazed by Cab's snark, Rumor's eyes lit up as he stood up straight again "Aha!" He reeled The Chain back, flicking off tiny drops of blood as it reentered his wrist. Attached to the end of the strand was a used bullet, no bigger than Michelle's thumb. "Behold, there was a bullet in his head, in fact!" He detached it from The Chain and presented it to the group, holding it between his thumb and pointer finger. "From this, we can deduce that this wasn't the work of a Stand user. Someone must have killed him with a standard handgun of some sort."

"That, or the Stand connected itself to the bullets somehow," Hol Horse suggested. "Not entirely unheard of, I've met my fair share of folks with Stands like that. That bullet looks like a .50ae, though, so the gun that shot him was probably some type of Magnum. Desert Eagle, if I had to bet on it."

Michelle groaned and rubbed her temples. "Does any of that explain why he's naked? Bordel de merde, did the Stand eat his clothes or something?"

"Maybe it shrunk them," snickered Cab as he surveyed over the corpse. "I mean, looking at certain parts of him, it wouldn't surprise me. Hey, cowboy," he nudged Hol Horse, "you wouldn't happen to know any Stand users that can shrink body parts, would you?"

Rumor sighed and folded his arms. "Really Cab, of all times to make unamusing quips, I think now is likely the least appropriate."

"It's a coping mechanism, smartass. At least I'm not the guy who just shoved my Stand inside someone's head. Maybe show some respect for the dead, yeah?"

As the two of them began to bicker, Michelle felt a headache come on. She pulled her knees up to her chest and grabbed two fistfuls of hair, pressing her wrists up against her ears in a fruitless attempt to drown out their noise. "Ugh...this is the second time in a week that I've had a bad encounter like this in a bathroom," she grumbled to herself. "Forget the pig, I bet Dad never had to—"

An incoming transmission from the plane's intercom interrupted her hushed complaints. Everyone went silent and listened to the staticky gibberish playing from the speaker mounted on the wall above them. Muffled behind layers of white noise, Michelle swore she could hear someone speaking to them. The voice sounded masculine, but not like anyone she knew.

Just a few seconds after the transmission began, it ended. Still staring at the speaker, the group remained silent for a moment as if to wait for a relapse. A few more seconds passed, and the intercom didn't make a sound.

"What the heck was that?" Sara blurted out what was on everyone's mind.

"Sounds as though the pilot was trying to transmit a message to us," Rumor reasoned. "Not surprising; no doubt he heard you and Michelle screech your lungs out earlier. If I had to guess, he probably wants to know if everything's alright back here."

"Well, if he's trying to tell us something, then we should go back to him! Not like this guy's gonna get any less dead the longer we stay here." She stood up and marched out of the bedroom and towards the cockpit, kicking aside some of her bags to carve a trail. When no one else followed her, she turned around motioned for them to come. "C'mon, let's go!"

The boys were both quick to follow, Cab and Rumor's argument from just moments prior already forgotten as they hurried up to Sara. Hol Horse trudged not far behind, his boots heavy as he cautiously examined the room around him, leaving a buffer of space between him and everyone else. No doubt he had eyes bulging from fear hidden under the brim of his hat.

Not like Michelle could blame him. Something was off; she could feel it in the pit of her stomach. That voice from the transmission couldn't have belonged to Simpson like Rumor hypothesized—even masked behind static, she could tell that the two voices just didn't match up. Simpson spoke with a tenor lilt, not the deep baritone that the speaker tried to play. No one else was onboard with them, though, and Michelle doubted that a transmission sent from elsewhere would broadcast across the entire plane. Not to mention how oddly convenient it was for it to arrive as soon as they found the dead body in the bathroom.

Still, whether it was a lure or enemy Stand or anything else out to kill them, she couldn't sit and watch everyone else die in the cockpit while she twiddled her thumbs in the back of the plane. There had to be some way she could help, even if she had to use her Stand. Besides, Iron Maiden had saved her from Policy of Truth. What was the worst that could happen? With a deep breath to steel herself, Michelle stood up, marched past Hol Horse, and rejoined with the others at the cockpit.

Though the rest of the plane had been refurbished and customized to be as homely as possible, the cockpit remained untouched in Ashford and Simpson's renovations. Rather than a couch or comfy recliner, two steel chairs affixed to the floor sat in front of the dashboard, which housed two steering wheels on either side, a host of buttons and switches, and a radio situation in the middle. Simpson sat in the left chair hunched over the plane's radio with the wired microphone slung around his neck like a scarf. He gave a brief look of acknowledgement to the group before returning to fiddle with the radio's control knob. The radio itself looked dead, the LED symbols on it glitching between numbers as Simpson turned the control knob every which way.

The cockpit was also tiny, only a little wider than the front seat of the Renault they had been traveling in. The two pilot chairs took up most of that space and left just enough room for one person to stand behind. Sara filled the void and rested her elbows against the empty chair. "Hey, were you trying to say something over the radio thing?"

"That's what I'd like to know! Damn thing started acting up on its own for no real reason." He gave the radio a frustrated smack before leaning back in his chair. "None of you were using your phones, were you? Ugh, I really don't want to have to pay someone to fix this thing again..."

"Really?" Cab attempted to squeeze his way into the room, hands on his hips in disbelief. "You didn't hear the bloodcurdling screams from these two just now?"

"Oh, believe me, I heard them, but I've been flying people around long enough to know to never disturb the clientele. Even if—"

He was cut off by the radio springing back to life, a quiet Ding! playing from the console before more static blared from the intercom. With a frustrated groan, Simpson got up from his seat and squatted between the pilot chairs so he was even with the radio. He turned around for a moment to shoo Sara out of the cockpit. As he continued to tinker with it, the static fizzled out and the voice behind it became clearer.

I'm fin—*KZZT*—in, Aki—*KZZT*—is your St—*KZZT*—ally this worthl—*KZZT*

"You think that's another plane trying to send out an SOS?" suggested Sara.

"Around here? I doubt it." Simpson untangled the microphone from around his neck and pressed the button on its side a few times, only to be met with no response from his end. Instead, the voice on the intercom grew louder.

*KZZT*—promised, you ca—*KZZT*—midate th—*KZZT*—aking my mas—*KZZT*—not disappoint m—*KZZT*

The last of the voice's words were drowned out by the static returning in full force, blasting louder than the plane's engine or the twin propellers spinning outside some meters away from them. The plane lurched forward from a bit of turbulence. Everyone staggered in place except for Simpson, who returned to his chair and pressed the power button on the radio. It refused to turn off, the static only getting louder and louder by the second.

At that moment, Michelle saw sparks sputter out from the radio. It wasn't energy from Rumor's Hamon—these sparks were smaller and lacked Hamon's distinctive ring. Which meant one thing: raw electricity was crackling out from the plane's dashboard.

Michelle's heart sank as she backed up. "Everyone, get back, now!" Iron Maiden's arms popped out from her shoulders, grabbing Cab and Rumor by the back of their shirts and yanking them towards her, away from the cockpit. Sara pulled Rumor along with her.

Simpson turned around in his chair just as a burst of sparks erupted from the radio. Iron Maiden lifted its shield to protect its user just as the sparks intensified and filled the cockpit with an intense flash of light. Even hiding behind her Stand's shield, Michelle felt blinded by the sudden flash. White noise had ceased playing from the speakers, leaving only the thunderous frizzle of electricity in its place as sparks continued to dance about the cockpit. After a few seconds, the light dimmed. Michelle cautiously lowered Iron Maiden's shield to see what the hell just happened.

Sitting in the pilot's chair was Simpson's corpse, covered in soot with most of the skin singed from his bones. Sitting atop the plane's dashboard was a golden creature with the head of a duck and the body of a small raptor, sparks of electricity fizzing of its form. Armor, the same color as the rest of its body, adorned its chest and pelvis. It stared back at her with a pair of human eyes, crazed red ones, with its beak curled up in a sadistic smirk.

As soon as she saw it, Michelle knew she was staring directly at another Stand. Summoning Iron Maiden fully, she balled her hands into fists and stood her ground. After everyone else was done rubbing their eyes from the flashbang and saw the Stand for themselves, they did the same. Quiet Riot in particular struck a pose and growled lowly at its foe.

"Haha! Man, that took forever!" The Stand leapt off the dashboard and hovered a few feet off the ground. Its voice was nasal and pitchy, speaking in a thick Japanese accent. A far cry from the voice that had played over the speakers, oddly enough. "Travelling wireless is such a hassle!"

"What the—you glowing little prick, you killed our pilot!" Fury boiled behind Cab's tone. "Who the hell are you?"

The Stand remained unfazed by Cab's aggression. "The who doesn't matter. This is my Stand, Red Hot Chili Pepper, and it's going to zap you all out of the air! I've fended off Stand users twice as powerful as you runts, so you—ack!"

While Chili Pepper was busy monologuing and listing off threats, Sara had used Out of Touch to set up a cannon on the wall, aimed it at the Stand, and fired. Just as the cannon exploded and dented the wall it was mounted on, Chili Pepper zapped from side to side in the cockpit in a flash. The bullet missed its target and instead hit the already fried dashboard.

"You're awful talkative for a Masquerader," Sara noted. "Or at least, that's what I assume you are. Wish the rest of you guys were like this. I understand if you don't want to share with us who you are, but if you're gonna run your mouth, then I got some questions for you. What do you want with us? Why do y'all keep attacking other Stand users? Who's the dead guy in the bathroom?"

Chili Pepper raised its chin and quirked a brow. "Masqueraders? Is that what you guys are calling us? Hmm...I like it! I'll have to tell the Grand Marshal about our new band name." It closed its eyes and chuckled to itself.

Cab took a step forward to attack with Quiet Riot, but just as soon as he did, Chili Pepper's eyes snapped back open and it darted towards him, stopping centimeters away from Quiet Riot's face. With gritted teeth, Cab took a step back, but not before Quiet Riot threw out a punch. Chili Pepper zapped out of the way and now hovered in Iron Maiden's face. Though she tensed in surprise, Michelle continued to stand her ground. "Did you guys expect not to have a fight on your hands after finding a corpse aboard? Ugh, it's no wonder Boney M. doesn't clean up after himself. You people really are that dense!"

"So, this 'Boney M.,'" Rumor calmly examined. "Was he the one to shoot the man on the toilet?"

"Huh?" With wide eyes, Chili Pepper recoiled away from Michelle for a moment. In that split second, the fiery bloodlust burned into the Stand's eyes cowered into stressed panic, as if he had just been caught lying on trial. It blinked and shook its head before zipping over to Rumor, the mania back in its stare. "Mind your own damn business! All you need to know is that anyone who sees a picture of Boney ends up dead!" The Stand jabbed Rumor's chest with its pinky before floating back towards the cockpit. As much as I'd love to fry you all here, I need to conserve energy for the flight home. So, I'm doing this the long way!"

Before anyone could fire another question or bullet at him, electrical currents rose from the floor, magnetized towards Chili Pepper. The electricity condensed into two orbs hovering from the Stand's hands. Stray bolts sparked off them and struck the walls of the cockpit. Not wanting to be fried, everyone backed away from Chili Pepper. Iron Maiden raised its shield once again. Even if she had no idea if it would work, Michelle was ready to parry back the balls of lightning if Chili Pepper threw them at her.

She tensed up as Chili Pepper raised its hands. However, the Stand threw the electric orbs back at the ground instead of at her. Shockwaves of electricity bounded from the impact, surging across the floor, walls, and ceiling of the plane for a moment before fizzling out.

"Have a nice fall!" Chili Pepper gave the group one last maniacal laugh before it disappeared back into the plane's radio.

"Hey! Get back here!" Cab darted into the cockpit and had Quiet Riot strike the radio, shattering it in two. It was too late, however; Red Hot Chili Pepper had already escaped from the plane.

"Shit, he got away," Sara lamented. "Well, it looks like he was all talk and no game, anyways. So much for 'zapping us out of the sky,' am I right?" She elbowed Michelle's side and gave an awkward chuckle. "I thought for sure he'd—"

The lights flickered off as she spoke, the sunlight peering in through the windows now the only thing illuminated the plane. Silence swept across the cabin as the hum of the engine ceased churning. The plane lurched once again; Michelle's stomach did somersaults as the front of the plane began to tip downwards. She staggered in place a bit, but only from above the ankles. Oddly enough, her feet felt anchored to the floor even as she felt the plane struggle against the wind outside.

Or at least, that's what she prayed was happening, but she knew better than that. The lights going out right after Chili Pepper's "attack" was a bad omen in and of itself, and now the plane was lurching? She shuffled on over to the cockpit—her feet feeling oddly heavy as she did so—and surveyed out the windshield.

Upon seeing the twin propellers on the wings, she nearly fainted. Neither of them were spinning. Worse yet, the plane was definitely pointing downwards and losing altitude. Fast.

"His attack," Rumor pointed out, breathless. "Didn't you see it? Those sparks of electricity all rose from the plane. The engine's no longer functioning." he nodded his head down towards the floor. Several strands of The Chain had loosened from his heels and pooled up in one big clump on the floor, "Moments ago, before Red Hot Chili Pepper made its escape, I could feel the warmth of the engine. I...I can't feel it, not anymore. Not since that Stand attacked us..."

"T-the propellers outside aren't spinning anymore, either," Michelle added on in a quiet squeak.

"He's not even gonna bother fighting us," concluded Cab. "He's just gonna crash our damn plane!"

"He accomplished that as soon as he killed the pilot," Rumor noted. "None of us here are capable of flying a plane. So...so, why then...why would he..."

As his voice trailed off, Michelle's heart skipped several beats. All of her fears of the plane crashing from the car ride over had come to life, intent on killing her before they could even land. Or, even more likely, the landing would be what would kill her. Images of her being forcibly ejected from the plane as it crashed against the side of a tree or mountain or building, shredding the plane to bits as she hurtled through the air and landed in a bloody splat on the ground. To die not just in another country, but another continent separated by the ocean, and likely be buried six feet under foreign soil, never to be reunited with the rest of her family...

Michelle covered her hands with her ears and squatted on her heels, huddling up in the corner of the cockpit next to the singed body of Simpson. Was the room spinning? Given their situation, she couldn't ignore the possibility. "Non, non, non, non," she babbled out. "Ça peut pas nous arriver...ça NE PEUT PAS nous arriver!"

Through her vision no doubt blurred by tears in her eyes, she could make out Sara rush over to her—though, the way she walked was odd, her feet never seemed to rise off the floor—and hunch over next to her. "Hey! Hey, let's all calm down." Out of Touch dematerialized from one of her hands, allowing her to rest it on Michelle's shoulder. No doubt she intended to calm her, but Sara's shaky palms made for poor reassurance. "We're gonna be fine! Obviously, the plane's gonna crash, and that's..." she swallowed hard, her voice quivering in tune with the nervous tremors swinging down her body, "that's bad, but we can handle this! We...we've got...umm..."

"Parachutes? Yeah, they're all up here."

After rubbing the tears out of her eyes, Michelle looked up to see Hol Horse at the back of the plane, right by the entrance to the bedroom, under an overhead bin stuffed with bulky red backpacks. He took one down and fastened it to his back, his poncho awkwardly bunching up underneath the straps. After tying the loose chinstraps dangling from his hat under his chin, he shuffled towards the group, the bottom of his boots scraping against the floor of the plane.

"I'm opening up the emergency escape," he continued as he shambled past Rumor and towards the metal door they entered the plane through. His hands hovered over the handle as he adjusted his parachute and hat one more time. "Hold onto somethin', y'all."

Given their situation, it took Michelle longer than it normally would have to process that Hol Horse was about to open the plane door midair. The moment it clicked in her head that this was a horrendously bad idea, she bolted upright and shuffled on over to him. "Are you crazy? You can't just open—"

He didn't give her the courtesy of finishing her sentence before prying the door open. Ice-cold wind flooded the plane, howling in her face and whipping her hair to the side. Oxygen masks dropped down from the ceiling and hung over the sofas. Instinctively, Michelle grabbed onto the side of the desk with a white-knuckle grip. Goosebumps rose from the chilled air now storming against her skin, but the adrenaline pumping through her veins as she clung to the desk for dear life boiled her blood to the point where she didn't even notice them. She turned around and saw her friends react similarly; Cab had taken hold of one of the pilots' chairs and had summoned Quiet Riot to bearhug Sara in place. Rumor had lassoed a strand of The Chain to one of the sofas, the strands coming from his ankles still rooted to the same spots on the floor. Everyone's eyes locked onto Hol Horse as he stood in the doorway. The wind had long since blown his hat off the top of his head and left it to dangle by the chinstraps. He shuffled his feet in place, the tips of his shoes skirting around the edge of the plane.

"What the hell are you waiting on? Just jump already!" Cab hollered.

"I'm trying, dammit!" Hol Horse turned around to yell back at him, throwing up his arms in frustration. "Something ain't right. I can't get my damn feet off the floor!"

Michelle furrowed her brow. Couldn't lift his feet off the ground? He was standing in front of an open door while on a plane falling out of the sky; by all accounts, he should've gone flying out the door ages ago. Come to think of it, Sara's feet never left the floor when she ran over to me earlier, she recalled.

"Try walking backwards," Sara suggested. "Maybe your body is involuntarily trying to keep you on the plane!"

Though the idea made Michelle roll her eyes, Hol Horse seemed to like it. He nodded his head, closed his eyes, and slowly exhaled before practically moonwalking out the plane. His boots still refused to detach themselves from the floor, but eventually, he had shimmied out of view. No doubt he had already long since opened his parachute and was already sailing towards solid ground.

Rumor let out a sigh of relief and shuffled over to the door. He kept The Chain roped to the sofa as he trudged forward, more of it dragging out from his wrist. "Alright, well, with him taken care of, I'll close the door again while we get some parachutes of our own. Luckily, I've used one before so I know—"

Now standing in the doorway of the plane and ready to shut the door, he stopped midsentence as his gaze trailed down, staring at something on the plane's belly that no one else could see. Whatever it was, he looked at it, then back at The Chain, then back to the plane's belly. Michelle could catch the confused look on his face from his profile, brows pinched together with his lips pursed. He clapped his hands, disconnecting The Chain from his wrist and leaving it to dangle from the sofa, and turned around to face everyone else.

"Would the three of you come here for a moment? You've no reason to brace yourselves against anything. I don't suspect we're getting off this plane anytime soon."

Michelle bit her lip as she apprehensively approached Rumor. She made sure to be slow, almost tiptoeing as if she'd be ejected from the plane if it noticed her move. Sure, Rumor had told her it was safe and him nonchalantly standing in the doorway holding onto nothing was proof enough that she'd be fine, but she wasn't willing to take any chances given that she would likely die in the worst way possible if something went wrong. Cab and Sara followed, the former calling back his Stand to give the latter room to move around.

Peering over Rumor's shoulder, she saw Hol Horse standing perfectly upright upside down on the underside of the plane. He folded his arms and frowned at the group as his blond locks blew in his face.

"It's like I told y'all, something just ain't right!" He shuffled back inside and shut the door behind him.

"Wait! I think I understand what's happened," Rumor announced. "You see, under normal circumstances, if we were standing in front of an open door on a moving plane, all of us would be sucked outside due to the difference in pressure. But that's not what happened, rather, the opposite occurred. To make matters worse, we can barely even move. I've noticed everyone's been shuffling their feet since Red Hot Chili Pepper left. Do you remember what it did before it fled? It drew in electricity from the plane into itself..."

He raised his hands in the air, mimicking Chili Pepper's movements from the attack.

"...then sent that electricity back into the floor," He concluded, arcing his arms down to his sides with his palms splayed open.

"Électrostatique," Michelle blurted out loud. The color drained from her face as she realized exactly what that entailed. "Static electricity. Bastard used static electricity to keep us stuck to the plane like a balloon to the side of your head! We really are just sitting ducks; we can't jump even if we wanted to!"

Chapter Text

Though she'd been the one to blurt it out loud, Michelle still struggled to wrap her head around her current situation. Within the last week or so of traveling with Sara and the others, she'd survived bouts with lunatic Masqueraders, lying to a hot-tempered mob boss, and working with a known assassin who could have easily killed her whenever he wanted to if someone asked him to pull the trigger. Over the course of her life, her curse had manifested through assault, illness, and accidents to claim her loved ones' lives. Death's most hideous forms had stared her down time and time again, and she walked away unscathed every time.

Now, she and her friends were about to be done in by static electricity, of all things. She wouldn't even have the honor of knowing her killer's face before her untimely end, just his runty little Stand. At least Bad Sneakers, Fall Out Boy, and Policy of Truth were all at least physically intimidating, Red Hot Chili Pepper's short stature made it almost feel embarrassing to lose to. A damn painting had more menace than the midget bird man that had ambushed them moments ago.

Yet it held all the aces here. Michelle could almost hear its nasally laughter as it zipped through radio waves, returning back to its user waiting safely on land for them to crash and burn. Almost, of course, since the metallic creaking of the plane as it crashed through clouds and wind streams deafened everything else around her, up to and including her thumping heartbeat. It may as well have been the timer to a bomb, ticking to their inevitable doom.

This clearly hadn't gotten through to Sara, who just folded her arms and raised a brow at the suggestion. "Static electricity? Don't be ridiculous, Chelly. Red Hot Chili Pepper just...um, must've just fried the engine. W-we can ditch this plane at any time!" She finished her remark with a nervous chuckle, hands now rubbing down the fresh goosebumps on her arms.

"Do you have a better explanation for Hol Horse standing upside down on the underside of the plane just a second ago?" Michelle challenged, her voice hoarse.

Though Sara's thin smile still remained plastered on her face, the pinch of her brows and the way her eyes nervously jittered around told Michelle that she understood the danger more than she wanted to admit. "Uh...maybe it's got something to do with his Stand? Emperor, right?" Hol Horse opened his mouth to respond, but Sara continued to babble over him. "There's no way this is actually happening. Look, I'll jump off the floor right now and prove you wrong!"

Sara bent her knees, as if performing a quick squat, then straightened them at once. Smile still secure on her face, she tried again, then another time after that. The color drained from Sara's already pale face with every failed attempt to jump, her confident grin crumbling into a nervous frown. Tiny sparks, just barely visible, rose from under her feet and latched onto the soles of Sara's high tops whenever her heels rose ever so slightly, magnetizing them back to the floor. Hol Horse's eyes widened and Rumor's jaw dropped at the sight.

Seeing the fear written plainly across their faces, Michelle's pounding heart nearly stopped dead. Of everyone in the group, the two of them were the most likely to know how to escape a falling plane while stuck to the floor. If they don't know what to do, she realized, what chance do the rest of us have?

Cab, on the other hand, just scowled and clenched his jaw. "To hell with that! Like I'm gonna let some god damn static kill all of us. This plane's not going down any time soon," he proclaimed, summoning his Stand. "Quiet Riot can redirect the direction of anything it punches. So, if I just keep punching the hull of the plane, we should stay airborne." He cracked his knuckles in unison with his Stand, a cocky grin on Quiet Riot's face. "Fasten your seatbelts, everyone, it's gonna be a bumpy ride."

Knowing that taking his advice would likely end in her butt being stuck to the couch, Michelle opted to grab onto Rumor by the edge of his scarf. "Uh, Cab, have you ever had to redirect anything as big as a plane before?"

He shrugged as his Stand balled its hand into a fist. "First time for everything."

As he readied his Stand, Cab radiated stubborn confidence—shoulders back, chin held high with a tightened jaw, eyes wide open and locked on his target. The slightly shaking floor as turbulence crashed into the plane outside could not falter his stance. In a weird way, seeing him so sure of himself gave Michelle a shred of hope to cling to. She nodded and matched her posture to his.

"HI-DEE!" Quiet Riot swung its fist in an uppercut. A net of electricity jolted to life around the plane's ceiling just before the Stand struck it, shielding the plane and zapping Quiet Riot's fist. Cab reeled backwards just as the electric currents fizzled out. 

"Shit, oww!" He grit his teeth and shook his hand, frenzied eyes still glued on the ceiling of the plane. "Did that do anything?"

"Doesn't seem like it," Rumor responded with a shaky voice and narrowed his sight on where the electric net had once been. "I felt no adjustment in our positioning or acceleration."

"Ugh, damn! It's this stupid static! It's electrocuting my Stand before I can even get a good hit on it!"

Undeterred, Quiet Riot attempted to strike the plane again, this time with its other hand and against the floor. The electric net resurfaced once again and shocked Quiet Riot's fist. Its compasses spun like windmills, but the plane's course remained unchanged as it continued to sink through the clouds. Cab's own hand—the right one, still slightly purple from enduring Fall Out Boy's grid days prior—smoked slightly from the electric shock transferred to it. The burnt scent carried throughout the cabin. Something in his attitude had shifted; the sturdiness of his stance had crumbled, knees racking with every failure to get a hit on the plane. Michelle swallowed the lump of fear in her throat and gripped onto her necklace.

None of them needed to explain what was going on; seeing Cab's attempts to get a hit on the plane showed them all they needed to know. The static electricity coursing through the plane reacted to Stands, shocking any that got to close to the plane. Shit, shit! That means that there's nothing that Iron Maiden can do here, either, Michelle realized. If it could just touch the plane, that would at least cancel out all the velocity we've built up. Although, then we'd just end up plummeting straight down once I'd deactivate it. I could've just timed it before we hit the ground, but that doesn't do us any good if I can't even touch the plane to begin with!

Scowl of determination still sewn into his face, Cab turned to Hol Horse. "I don't suppose your Stand would be of much help here?"

Hol Horse shook his head. "Not unless y'all want me to make this quick by shooting you in the—"

"Forget I asked," Cab interrupted. Quiet Riot tried to kick the wall of the plane before receiving the same electric shock. "Oww!"

"Mindlessly assaulting the plane isn't going to accomplish anything," yelled Rumor.

Cab turned around and had Quiet Riot lift Rumor off the ground by the collar of his shirt, just high enough for electric coils to rise beneath him and pull him to the floor. "I'm the only one here who's even trying to save our asses from dying, you pompous little shit!" he retorted, jabbing Rumor in the chest. "I don't see you trying to help, so by all means, Hamon us up a miracle!"

"I'm thinking, alright?" Rumor summoned a strand of The Chain and whipped Quiet Riot's wrist. The Stand dropped him instantly, wincing in pain while Cab didn't flinch. "Forgive me if supernaturally induced electromagnetism was not a part of my training! If I had enough raw organic material, I could conjure us up some gliders, but those would be about as helpful to us now as the parachutes currently are. Not to mention that the plane automatically electrocuting any Stand on impact negates any assistance either Iron Maiden or Out of Touch could provide us..."

"Well, think faster, because all we—"

"Wait, I've got it!" Sara snapped her fingers as a figurative lightbulb turned on behind her eyes. "I used to get static electricity in my clothes and hair all the time back where I used to live, so I bought a humidifier for my room to get rid of it. Humidity gets rid of static electricity!"

Rumor nodded. His anxious eyes narrowed as he turned to Hol Horse, who had an unlit cigarette in his mouth while his clammy hands clicked down on his lighter. Michelle rolled her eyes at the sight—he had already given up and just wanted one last smoke before going down in flames. Just as he managed to get a flame burning, Rumor snatched the lighter from his hands and shuffled over to the kitchen, keeping it turned on. Part of The Chain still stuck out from his wrist from when he attacked Cab earlier, and now it had grown out long enough to hover just above his heels. As soon as Rumor reached the kitchen, he connected the end of The Chain to the lighter, turning the Stand bright red. He then clapped his hands to disconnect it from his wrist and attached the other end to the kitchen sink. Hot steam poured from the faucet with a sharp hiss as soon when Rumor turned the sink on. Some water erratically sputtered out along with it, the same way it would out of a sink that hadn't been used in years. The window directly behind the sink fogged up almost instantly as the steam rose around the kitchen.

After breathing a heavy sigh of relief and brushing his bangs out of his face, Rumor turned around to face the group. "So long as The Chain links Hol Horse's lighter to the faucet, the heat of the flame will instantly evaporate the water in the sink into steam. This makeshift humidifier should dispose of the static electricity shortly. From there, we can jump."

As the air grew thick with moisture, Michelle felt her tense muscles loosen slightly. Her heart hadn't quite gotten the memo and still quaked in her chest. Was it really that easy? Curious, she jogged in place for moment, attempting to raise her knees as high as she could. A strong, magnetic force materialized underfoot and latched onto the soles of her shoes, keeping her stuck firmly to the floor. The steam billowing out from the sink hadn't completely enveloped the plane, though, so Michelle figured that it would just take some time to deactivate the static electricity.

But would it be too late by then?

Sara seemingly didn't think so and burst out in applause, softly tittering as she brushed some tears from her eyes. "S-see, guys? Everything's gonna be just f-fine. We're all good!"

"Okay, great, hooray." Cab gave some unenthusiastic jazz hands and rolled his eyes. "We're still falling to our death." He shambled on over to the kitchen and had Quiet Riot punch the wall behind the sink. The electric net materialized once again to jolt the Stand. "Damn, this shit just doesn't go away! Anyone want to suggest something that will help keep us in the air?"

Even though Michelle agreed that it was too early to celebrate—they weren't truly safe until they were back on solid ground—the steam slowly rolling a humid cloud over them was their best bet at survival. Why would Cab be so quick to dismiss it? "We just have to be patient and wait for—"

"We don't have time to be patient!" Cab barked at her. "Even if this thing lands in the water, we're as good as dead if we just sit here and do nothing! Unless a big ass gust of wind blows out from under us or those damn propellers up front start spinning again, I'm not going to be patient!"

The moment he finished his sentence, Cab's curled lip and frantic eyes blinked off his face, his eyes now alight with an idea and paired with a small, open-mouthed smile. Michelle squeezed onto her necklace even tighter, fearing whatever he had in mind.

Without saying another word, he strode over to the plane door. Quiet Riot hovered close behind him. "If Hol Horse was able to stand on the underside of the plane with no problem, then there's no reason I shouldn't be able to do the opposite," he reasoned. "If those propellers won't spin on their own," Quiet Riot rose its hands up, flashing the compasses embedded into them, "then I'll make them spin."

Before Cab could reach down to open the plane door, Rumor abandoned his post by the sink, sped over to Cab, and grabbed him by the wrist. "Are you mad? Your plan is to stand outside on the front of a moving plane several hundred kilometers in the air?"

"You got a better idea?"

If Rumor had a retort planned, it caught in his throat before he could spit it out at Cab. He released his wrist and glanced back at the steaming sink, then out the cockpit window. Michelle caught fear flash on his face for a split second before he sighed and made his way back to the sink. "No," he said through gritted teeth, summoning another strand of The Chain, "but the least I can do is help keep you warm. No doubt you'll be chilled to the bone out there otherwise, especially in that crop top of yours."

Rumor removed his scarf in one quick tug and set it down on the kitchen counter, right next to the lighter. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath through pursed lips. Hamon's distinctive ring echoed throughout the cabin as golden sparks crackled on his fingertips. Opening his eyes, he chopped his scarf. The golden sparks on his hand transferred over upon impact, rippling across the fabric.

Then, without so much as batting an eye, he grabbed the lighter and set his scarf ablaze.

Before Michelle or anyone else could even think to panic about an open fire on the plane, the Hamon embedded into the scarf crackled, its chime resounding louder. The sparks pushed the flame upwards until they burned atop the Hamon energy itself. It didn't spread to the countertop, either, and remained within the confines of Rumor's scarf. Not a single fiber of it had been singed. Gently, Rumor brought his wrist over the flame and reeled out The Chain. Once his Stand was wrapped tightly around his scarf, he strode back over to Cab and continuously flicked his wrist to fling out more of The Chain. By the time he returned to Cab's side, it all laid in a big clump on the floor. The Chain glowed bright red as Rumor swaddled it around Cab, covering his body like a protective suit. There were only a few gaps in the wrapping around his eyes and mouth for him to see and breathe out of.

"There. That should at the very least ensure you don't catch hypothermia a second time," Rumor assured him, clapping his hands to disconnect the Stand from his wrist. "Make sure you're quick to exit the plane. Otherwise, you risk leaking out some of the steam."

Sara rushed over to him before he could turn around to open the door. "Oh, and here!" She summoned Out of Touch to her hand and formed a cannon atop of The Chain, right under his chin. "That way we can still talk while you're outside."

"Okay, great," Cab said, nodding. "I'll holler if I need anything."

With that, Cab yanked the plane door open. Some of the steam hanging about the cabin was sucked out. Thin, frigid air took its place, but no one shivered against it. All Michelle could do was feel nervous that they were forfeiting some steam to keep them in the air longer. Cab hustled out the plane, the multiple layers of The Chain bundled around him turned his usually confident stride into an awkward waddle. He shuffled around the plane's underside for a moment before walking along the side of the plane just above the windows. Rumor slammed the door shut behind him. With the plane closed off again, the air almost instantly began to feel thicker again as steam continued to leak from the sink. Everyone followed Cab's movements from the inside of the plane until they reached the cockpit. Cab stood on the windshield, his Stand readied at his side.

Quiet Riot struck the right propeller with a hearty, open-palmed slap. Its signature "HI-DEE!" could be heard muffled from the inside of the plane. The propeller sparked to life, spinning like a windmill in a tornado and causing the plane to rock to the side. Michelle, Sara, Rumor, and Hol Horse all lurched with the plane and crashed into each other. Cab then darted over to the other side of the windshield. Quiet Riot slapped the left propeller as well, causing it to spin just as vigorously as its twin. The plane leveled itself out, and miraculously, gained some altitude. As Quiet Riot continued to strike the propellers—shouting "DEE! DEE! DEE!" with each hit—the plane's nose tilted upwards, pointing towards the clouds rather than the ground. Michelle felt the floor slightly push against her feet as the plane rose in the air.

Hol Horse let out a sigh of relief and tipped his hat back to wipe his brow. "Son of a bitch is actually doin' it."

"Yeah! You can do it, Cab!" Sara fist-pumped as she spoke into Out of Touch. "Come on! Punch, punch, punch!"

"So, let me make sure we're all on the same page," Hol Horse said. "Eventually that homemade humidifier is gonna get rid of all the static electricity, and he's gonna keep us in the air until then?"

Rumor nodded. "That's the gist of it."

"Well, in that case, y'all better make your peace with your luggage," Hol Horse suggested. "Soon as that humidifier kicks in, ready your parachutes and jump for it."

As Hol Horse adjusted the straps of the parachute still slung across his back, Michelle's brows shot up and her heart sank. She didn't want to admit it, but deep down she knew he was right. Cab could keep them in the air, but she doubted he could steer them towards the ground. Not only because she doubted that Quiet Riot had the finesse to safely land them, but also because nothing they could do would turn the power back on. Vital components of the plane like the landing gear had likely been permanently disabled. Besides, that was why they were filling the cabin with steam, right?

Doing her best to ignore the anxiety of having to learn how to use a parachute seconds before or even potentially as she jumped from a plane, Michelle felt a twinge of glumness at having to ditch her luggage. Not like she could get to it with it being stored in the cargo hold. She regretted having as packed as much as she did; half her clothing, and all of her hair care products...

Sara was more indignant on the matter. "What?"

"Your luggage is at least up here with us," Hol Horse stated. "I suggest you go through your bags and see if there's anything you wanna keep that's small enough to carry with you."

"You don't understand! That's all my stuff! I did not carry seven suitcases all the way to Belgium just to dump it all in the ocean!"

"Consider it a learnin' experience on travelling light."

"Forgive the intrusion," Rumor interrupted, "but isn't your briefcase located in the cargo hold with the rest of our luggage? You know, the one with all the money that Sara's told us about. Are you willing to part ways with that as well?"

Hol Horse went stiff for a second, his eyes bulging with realization. He grumbled to himself and folded his arms. "Point taken," he griped, "but I'd be willing to throw away a couple grand if it meant saving my ass."

Right, I almost forgot about that, Michelle thought, brushing some hair out of her face. The steam now enveloped most of the plane in a thick fog that moistened everything inside it, making all the loose strands of hair turn damp and stick to her forehead. Which is kind of incredible, considering that's the only reason Sara convinced me to let him to tag along. Now look where that got us, we're going to have to jump out of this god forsaken plane! Then what after that? We'll likely end up stranded with the middle of nowhere with no luggage, no food, we'll have lost all of Hol Horse's money, and I don't have any American dollars. Thank God I had to have my passport checked before boarding. At least I have that with me. She huffed out her nose, rubbing her necklace as she prepared herself for it all. But no one else here is eager to leave their luggage behind, either. Of course, our survival comes first, but I can't help but wonder if there's another way to do this.

While she pondered over the situation, something hit the windshield with a loud CLANG! Everyone's sights shot back up and out the window. Cab stood on the windshield, hunched over and panting for breath. His exhausted wheezes played loud and clear in the cockpit through Out of Touch. He stood upright again and darted back to the left propeller, dragging Quiet Riot along with him. This time, when his Stand struck the propeller, a deep gash materialized on his hand and splattered some blood on the windshield. Only then did Michelle notice that the few parts of his hands uncovered by The Chain were covered with fresh scratches and lacerations.

Michelle grabbed Sara's wrist to speak into Out of Touch directly. "Cab, this isn't working! Come back inside now before you cut your hand off!"

"I'm fine!" The breathiness of his voice as he gasped for air betrayed his terse rebuttal, revealing just how exhausted he really was. "If my hands could shake off Fall Out Boy's grid and come out in one piece, they can deal with this just fine!" Looking about ready to collapse, he trudged over to the right propeller. "I just need to hit a little harder, and we'll be in the—"

Quiet Riot threw its entire body with its attack as it hit the propeller again. This proved to be too much for it, as the propeller tore from the plane, spinning uncontrollably as it plummeted to the ground below. Cab let out a low growl in frustration, and Quiet Riot instinctively rushed over to the other propeller and kicked it like a soccer ball. Said propeller also went flying off the plane like a soccer ball, sharing the fate of its twin.

Rumor took Sara's hand from Michelle. "I'm pulling you back inside," he announced into Out of Touch.

"Don't sulk about it! We got a little more time thanks to you," Sara reassured as Rumor walked over to the door. "The plane is so humid now that I feel like I'm in Florida. Have you guys ever been to Florida? We should go to Florida! If we, uh, well, survive this, but anyways!" She cut herself off and spun around to face the kitchen. "The static electricity must be gone by—"

As soon as Sara fell silent, Michelle knew that something was wrong. Dreading what she might see (and half expecting something like the dead man on the toilet on his feet and plodding towards them like a zombie), she slowly turned her head to see just what had happened in the kitchen.

Her heart sank into the pit of her chest right away. The sink was no longer running. Nothing emerged from the faucet save for a few stray drops of water and the fizzle of steam that had once lingered throughout the plane as background had fallen silent.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Michelle's shoes clanged against the kitchen floor as she bolted towards the sink. This couldn't be happening. What good was the extra time Cab had bought them if their trump card had been snuffed out? With shaky hands, she turned the faucet knobs every which way. The sink failed to turn back on. She fetched Hol Horse's lighter off the kitchen cabinet and shoved it up the faucet, but only extinguished the flame burning on it. "What happened? It's been working just fine this whole time, why did it have to stop now?" Her damp hair hung over desperate eyes while she tried to get the fire going again. The lighter slipped out of her hand and landed on the floor, nearly pulling The Chain connecting it to the faucet taut. With a frustrated groan, she slammed a fist against the kitchen counter. "Dammit, we were so close!"

So overcome by panic, Michelle barely registered Sara and Hol Horse approaching her, their footsteps clattering against the floor. Sara startled her when she entered her periphery vision, making her jump back as she went to investigate the sink herself. "Did you try turning it off and turning it on again?"

"Of course I tried that! I'm not an idiot!"

"The sink ain't busted," Hol Horse pointed out, picking his lighter off the floor. "Planes aren't connected to any sort of plumbing, obviously, so all the water that the sink can use is stored in a tank somewhere aboard. It can only pull from a limited supply. We've just gone and used up all the water the plane had to spare. The plane is as humid as it's ever gonna get."

"Wait a sec!" Sara hushed Hol Horse by putting a finger over his lips. "You were able to pick your lighter off the floor just now, Horseshoes."

He frowned at her while attempting to untangle The Chain from his lighter. "I'm not sure I see what you're gettin' at," he responded, gently pushing her hand away from his face.

"Why didn't the static electricity make the lighter stick to the floor like our shoes?"

Hol Horse dropped the lighter back to the floor as soon as he realized what she was implying. The Chain unraveled around it, leaving the lighter to fall and bounce against the metal floor. It bounced, rising off the floor a few times before landing and staying stationary. The three stared dumbfounded as the scene played out before their very eyes. A few seconds later, Sara jumped off the floor to confirm what all of them had been thinking. Michelle nearly gasped when Sara leapt off the floor with no resistance; no struggle, no electric coils attempting to pull her back to the floor, nothing.

"No way! It worked!" Sara jumped again, this time just for the fun of it. "The static electricity's all gone! Look!" She jogged in place, raising her knees up as high as they would go. A joyous smile had formed on her face as she stopped to rub her forehead. "Okay, we can get through this. Everything's gonna be okay!"

"It seems to be just contained to the kitchen for now. The rest of the plane remains unaffected," called out Rumor from across the plane. He gestured out the window to Cab, still standing sideways on the plane's exterior. Rumor attempted to raise his own feet off the ground from where he stood, over by the door, only for the electric coils to raise from the floor and latch back onto his feet.

"Wait, did I hear that right?" Cab's voice played through Out of Touch as Rumor swung the door open. "The static electricity is gone in the kitchen?"

"Yeah! Now your strategy from earlier should work!" Sara pointed the cannon attached to The Chain out the plane and fired it as Cab stepped back inside. The explosion from the cannon firing shattered the bit of The Chain it had been attached to, bits and pieces of it splintering off before fading into nothing. With the connecting pieces destroyed, the segments of The Chain wrapped around Cab's neck and head fell off and flopped to the floor like wet spaghetti. He got to work untangling the rest of The Chain from his body as Rumor slammed the plane door shut.

The moment Cab had shrugged most of The Chain off of him, leaving most of it piled up around his ankles, he strode towards the kitchen. He dragged the many long strands of The Chain along with him as they stubbornly clung to his ankles. Looking closely, Michelle could see the very moment Cab exited the range of the remaining static electricity as his clunky shuffle turned into a purposeful march. He stepped out of The Chain and summoned Quiet Riot once more. The Stand bashed its fist into the ceiling of the plane just above the sink.

Instead of knocking the plane higher into the air, Quiet Riot blew a fist-shaped hole into the fuselage. Michelle braced herself as the ice-cold air from outside stormed the plane again. The rest of the steam still hanging about the cabin was sucked out of the plane in an instant. Without the static electricity securing her to the floor, the force of the plane depressurizing made her feel as though she stood directly below a vacuum, threatening to tear her off her feet and into the cold, empty sky. As he rushed over to the kitchen, Rumor tore a cushion off one of the sofas and threw it to the kitchen. It flew up towards the hole and clogged it shut.

"Try it again, but a bit more gentle this time!" Sara suggested.

Cab shook his head. "That won't work. For something as big as this plane, I need to hit it hard in order to get it to stay airborne. Little love taps aren't gonna do anything."

"To hell with the plane, then," Rumor exclaimed as he shook his scarf out, extinguishing the flame burning atop it. "If the static has dissipated around the kitchen, then you should just be able to cave a hole in the wall that we can jump from."

"I second that," Hol Horse said with a nod.

"Are you kidding?" Michelle interjected, speaking quickly, before Sara or Cab could even think to pipe up. "That's an awful idea! The static electricity was the only thing keeping us stuck to the plane when we opened the doors earlier, if we blow a hole in the plane that big, we'll all just be sucked out before we can ready our parachutes!"

"That..." Rumor's tone started off sharp, before his voice trailed off. He pursed his lips and snorted out his nose. "That is a good point, but we have no other options. We are simply out of time."

"No. We can..."

Michelle paused to consider her situation. Static electricity still coated the area of the plane by the door, so they couldn't jump out from there. The entirety of the plane's exterior was almost certainly still electrified, so they couldn't just walk around on the underside of the plane until they found a safe spot. She didn't even want to think about opening her parachute in that situation—worst case scenario, the static electricity would rip her legs off and she'd bleed out before reaching the ground. Assuming she could even figure out how to work a parachute in the first place. Not to mention that if they all parachuted separately, one stray wind current could send them all spiraling into different directions, separating from each other. Michelle gulped. Run the risk of stranding herself in the United States with nothing but a phony passport and used parachute to her name? Yeah, no. There had to be another way.

Her thoughts were interrupted as one of Sara's suitcases toppled over in the bedroom, its handle tapping down against Michelle's foot. She nudged it away. There's also all our damn luggage, she bemused to herself. This plane's going down, no doubt about that now. But is there any way to save ourselves without ditching all our luggage?

The suitcase leaned over once again and poked Michelle's foot. That one touch made Michelle reach her boiling point, her lips pulled up in a frustrated snarl as she spun around and kicked it back into the bedroom. It knocked into the rest of Sara's luggage and sent the pile tumbling down, even more suitcases spilling out over the doorway. The way they fell on top of each other made Michelle think of a pile of bricks at a construction site, heavy and unorganized, but knowing they were meant to be stacked on top each other like they had been in the trunk of their car.

Wait a second...

Even if they did end up using their parachutes, they didn't have stable ground to jump out from. Blowing a hole in the fuselage would only risk sucking them out prematurely, and they couldn't just walk out the door. Besides, they could all end up landing several kilometers apart from each other if they used their parachutes normally. It was like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

But what if they weren't the ones strapped into the parachutes? What if they didn't jump from the plane, but instead strap themselves in even tighter?

"Sara, get all your bags and stack them all side by side with each other," she ordered. "Rumor, connect them all together with The Chain. You two, get the parachutes. I have an idea."

~~~~~

Travelling through radio waves was like being trapped underwater for Red Hot Chili Pepper. Swimming through anything less than pure electrical currents made its movements sluggish, noises from the outside sounded deadened and garbled, and it could almost drown in the vast emptiness of radio frequencies. It was enough to be suffocating at times. Now was not one of those times, however. It didn't have time to fear getting lost in the depths. The only thing that mattered was returning to base. It surfed from wave to wave, retreading the same agonizing route it took to get to the plane in the first place. The trip was, what, six, maybe seven hours each way? Somewhere around thirteen hours total? That made an entire day wasted just to fry a handful of Stand users. Damn its destination for being at the other end of the country.

Oh well. Whether it took half an hour or half a day to reach its target, it couldn't help being satisfied with its work. The ends of Chili Pepper's beak curled up in a self-assured grin. Even if that lot of Stand users somehow managed to deactivate the static electricity, it still left them stranded on a falling plane. There may have been parachutes aboard, but none of them seemed the type to know how to properly use them. They could even be dumb enough to let the falling plane crash into them! Just the thought made Chili Pepper feel giddy. What better way to celebrate its success than to watch its enemies pick their poison? Go down with the plane, or get tangled up in their own parachutes?

Still swimming through the radio waves, Chili Pepper looked back at the plane as it crashed through the clouds. No sign of any jumpers yet, unfortunately. And didn't the plane used to have propellers? Yes, of course it did...Chili Pepper could still hear their infernal buzzing ring in its head from when it tried to establish a connection with the plane's radio. So then, what happened to them?

Just when the Stand was willing to chalk it up to a side effect of the static electricity, a hole blasted through the fuselage near the back of the plane. A big one. Parts of the ceiling blew off in big chunks, but none of them went flying up into the sky like they should have. Instead, the debris all flew sideways and tore into the edges of the hole, sharp metal hacking through the plane and cutting even more of it to pieces. Puzzled, Chili Pepper narrowed its eyes on the sight. A pair of giant, spherical compasses with fingers, vaguely resembling fists, punched through what little remained of the plane's ceiling.

As soon as the entire ceiling of the plane had been pulverized, what looked like a small raft rose up from the hole. It was a lumpy, misshapen thing, somewhat rectangular but with awkward corners and a barely even distribution of mass. While the center of the raft was thin, its edges were bulky and extended downwards. From a distance, Chili Pepper could have sworn it looked like a set of suitcases were fastened to each end of the raft, wheels sticking down like the landing gear on a plane. One part in the middle resembled a guitar case, too. A set of handles stuck out from the corners of the raft as well, not unlike that of a carry-on, each with a red backpack attached to them...

Chili Pepper's jaw dropped as it realized exactly what it was looking at. It wasn't a raft at all, it was just a bunch of luggage strung together by some invisible thread!

At this point, Chili Pepper had stopped entirely to figure out exactly what the hell it was looking at. As the Stand inched closer to the "raft," it identified the string holding all the suitcases together as a mix between a translucent chain link and a double helix strand. A Stand, no doubt. Along with the suitcases, the chain Stand tied five people to the raft, the tops of their heads poking out from under the piles of chain links securing them to the suitcases. The entire contraption hung in the air even while the rest of the plane continued its descent to the ground. While the suitcases themselves lurched against their restraints, some of the ones on the edges swinging around, the chain link holding them all together did not budge. After a few seconds, the chain links attached to the red backpacks on each corner of the raft were yanked free, and the raft began to fall. Parachutes opened up from the red backpacks, ballooning outwards as they caught wind and allowing the raft to safely glide through the air.

Before the Stand had a chance to even consider approaching the raft, a naked body sporting very familiar frizzy green bob ejected from the plane below it. It plunged through the sky, limbs flailing about like a ragdoll in a tornado. Chili Pepper grit its teeth and groaned. Unfortunately, it couldn't spare any stray volts to zap that homemade aircraft into oblivion, and that was assuming it could find an electrical device aboard to manifest from.

"This is the fruits of that new technique you had mastered, Akira?" The Stand spoke in a deep voice with a slight Russian accent, a voice that did not belong to its user. "What a waste. You should have just electrocuted them all then and there like I suggested. Sure, that would probably drain Chili Pepper of all its energy and leave it stranded and powerless, but what can I say? Even in that state, you'd be as much use to me then as you are now, Mr. Rockstar. I'll never remove your mask at this rate."

Begrudgingly, Chili Pepper turned away and resumed its flight back to base.

~~~~~

Earlier that day, Michelle had been reluctant to board a former United States military aircraft for fear of it malfunctioning mid-flight. Now, she found herself strapped to a series of suitcases sewn together by a slew of psychic shackles and kept aloft by four parachutes, one suspended to each corner of the makeshift raft. The Chain wrapped around her body tightly, almost feeling more like a straightjacket than a seatbelt. Room aboard the raft was cramped; if she even inched in any direction, she'd either roll on top of Sara or off the raft itself. While the air was cold and thin, it wasn't unbearably so—the time it had taken them to assemble the raft and plow through the plane to reach the rest of their luggage in the cargo hold lost them a good amount of altitude, bringing them closer to breathable air.

Just a week ago, Michelle couldn't see herself in this kind of situation in her wildest dreams, much less be the one suggesting it. The raft was all her idea, not anyone else's. Though, they were all crazy enough to go along with it. Even after deactivating Iron Maiden, she still found it hard to breathe, taking deep breaths but barely drawing any breath. Whether it was caused by nervousness or being so high up in the air, she couldn't say. She just had to be absolutely sure that it would help them land safely. It had to. They didn't have any other choice.

A cannon from Out of Touch attached to The Chain, situated just below her chin and pointing at her head. Wind thrashed through her hair as they steadily glided through the air, blowing in her face and getting in her mouth as she tried to speak into the cannon. "Everyone ok?" Because of the way everyone had been strapped onto the raft, Michelle could only barely move her head to the side to see Sara next to her.

"Splendid, given the circumstances," Rumor's candid voice rang through the cannon. "Cab, can you gauge what direction we're headed in from up here?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Michelle saw Quiet Riot's arm extend out from Cab's shoulder, arm bent over his face as if he was checking the time on a watch. "We're heading south, approaching southeast," he announced.

"Keep us sailing due west. That should ensure we land on solid ground rather than in the ocean."

"Gotcha."

Michelle heard a faint "HI-DEE!" to her right before Quiet Riot struck the raft. The several layers of The Chain holding their suitcases together suddenly all spun clockwise, orienting them so that they all faced away from the sun rather than towards it. Sealed tightly in their wraps, the suitcases and passengers spun alongside The Chain, lurching against it like loose change in a coin pouch. A wave of nausea hit Michelle as the clouds circled above her.

"Ugh...okay, okay," she groaned "we're heading west...now, don't spin the raft anymore, s'il vous plaît. I'm gonna throw up if you do."

"If it makes you feel any better, Chelly, this was a great idea!" Sara extended her arm out and awkwardly batted at Michelle's shoulders in a failed attempt to pat her on the back. "Who else would've thought that the best way to ditch the plane and secure our luggage would be to make a plane out of our luggage? Well, not a plane, exactly, but you know what I mean. Flying thing. Great on you for thinking on your feet like that!"

A small blush formed on Michelle's cheeks. It wasn't that smart of a plan, was it? Rumor probably would've thought up of something similar if he wasn't so quick to let go of their luggage. They weren't out of the woods yet, either. Not until they landed safely. "T-thanks."

"Still, I'm a bit worried about all our stuff," Sara thought aloud. "Are you sure our suitcases aren't gonna just fall apart entirely when we reach the ground?"

"Oh, they almost certainly will," Rumor quickly responded. "At least, the ones acting as our 'landing gear.' But the bags can be replaced if need be, and the contents inside them are not particularly fragile. Our more delicate wares, such as your guitar and Hol Horse's briefcase, are all secured in the middle of the raft where they're less likely to face intense damage. I'll dangle a strand of The Chain down off the raft from my ankles so we'll know when we're close to the ground, and then Cab can use Quiet Riot to attempt to slow us down. That should at least minimize the damage."

"You'd best be sure to try and find some level ground to land on, then," Hol Horse added. "Ideally some empty highway. Steer clear from any cities, I reckon a crowded sidewalk makes for a poor landing strip."

A low, regretful sigh passed through the cannon. "Not gonna lie, I still feel bad about wrecking that plane, even if it was to save our asses," admitted Cab. He sighed again. "Such a waste. Maybe one day, I'll go get my pilot's license and customize a plane with a kitchen and bedroom and shit."

"Go for it! Sounds like a fun goal to have!" Sara's voice was chipper as she cheered him on. "Then all of us can fly anywhere in the world we want, even without our passports!"

"You can color me surprised if he actually went through with it," Rumor scoffed. "The finances needed to accomplish such a venture would make Cab faint on the spot."

"Hey, don't discourage him! Watch your tone, Rumor Mill, or I'll fire your cannon off right now."

"No, I hate to admit it, but he's probably right," Cab begrudgingly agreed.

If only to pull the conversation away from the possibility of flying in another plane again, Michelle spoke up. "Uh, Cab? I have a question."

"If you tell me you forgot to include something in the damn raft, I'm coming over there and pushing you overboard."

Michelle felt her face turn pale. He wouldn't actually do that, would he? She thought she had worked out everything with the raft, but there was always the possibility that something had slipped her mind. "N-no! The raft is fine. It's gonna work," she said just as much to herself as she did to Cab. "I'm positive. Absolutely sure of it."

"You better be. So, what's your question?"

"When you used Quiet Riot to punch through the fuselage of the plane, I noticed that it redirected some of the sheets of scrap metal before they fully disconnected from the plane," she recounted. "How'd you do that?"

"What do you mean? I just used my Stand like how I normally would."

"No, I mean, shouldn't Quiet Riot have redirected the entire plane rather than just the individual bits off the fuselage?"

"Oh, that. It's all about focus, I guess. It's kind of hard to explain." He paused for a moment, his quiet hum playing through the cannon as he tried to put his thoughts to words. "It's like...I'm linked to my Stand, obviously, so I can feel the weight of whatever Quiet Riot hits. When I redirected the scrap metal, I just sort of focused in on the weight from that part of the plane specifically. It's like the difference between taking one thing out of your pocket versus dumping out everything you have in there. Which, you know, focusing in on something as small as that when Quiet Riot's fists go as fast as they do isn't easy, but I'm just that awesome. You should probably be able to do something similar with Iron Maiden."

"I never considered that," Rumor blurted out, "but your hypothesis has merit. If Quiet Riot can affect isolated parts of the plane like that, then there's no reason that Iron Maiden couldn't do something to that magnitude with its own ability."

"Doubt it." Michelle said. "I'll never be anywhere near as synced with my Stand as you two are with yours."

"That's just not true, Chelly!" The cannon seated in front of Michelle swished back and forth with Sara's words, giving Michelle the impression of a wagging finger. "Back in Paris, you used it to save me from that car before any of us even realized it was coming. Hell, even just now, Iron Maiden helped us get safely in the air. That's got to count for something, right?"

No refute came from Michelle. Sara was right, no matter how much she felt she had to deny it. Ever since she encountered that blonde haired man at the cemetery—the man who came to kill her, that much she could say without a doubt—Iron Maiden had proved itself to be indispensable to both herself and her allies. Without it, Sara would have been reduced to road kill and she would have been either melted to a bloody pulp by Bad Sneakers or a fragment of a painting by Policy of Truth. Not only had Iron Maiden's curse not killed anyone yet, but it had saved the lives of at least two people.

Michelle furrowed her brow at the warm feeling in her chest. This is exactly how I felt after the meeting with Depeche Mode, she recalled. Why does this keep happening? I shouldn't be proud of any of this. Sure, I stopped Sara from dying then. That doesn't mean the curse won't kick in eventually. No matter how much I don't want it to...

Straining her head against The Chain's restraints, she looked over to Sara at her side. She tried to picture Iron Maiden's curse activating, to see her dying in the worst way imaginable. That was the fate that awaited her, after all. That awaited all of them. Best to prepare for it so it wouldn't hurt as much when it happened. Even still, she just couldn't bring herself to picture such a thing. Not for Sara, Rumor, or Cab. How could she wish death upon her friends?

Curse or no curse, she vowed to do her best to keep them safe. It was like Cab said; nothing good could come of just sitting down and letting fate run its course.

"We're approaching the ground," Rumor announced. "Prepare yourselves."

Carefully, she turned her head to the left to stare off the side of the raft. Below them stood a small town that was more trees and foliage than it was buildings. Clusters of deciduous trees bunched up on the sides of the road, all of them full and leafy. Some stray buildings dotted between the trees; a carwash here, a Chinese restaurant there, and some houses in between. Most important to them, however, was the one long road running through the middle of the town. Almost like an airplane runway. She saw a sole car meander down the road; a tiny white Volkswagen.

"Hey, Chelly, you should use Iron Maiden to cancel out the forces acting on the raft," Sara suggested. "That way, we won't risk our suitcases falling apart when we hit the ground!"

"Pas bien. That would just cancel out the forces acting on the raft, not on us, and Iron Maiden can't stop more than one target at a time," Michelle explained. "And to bring out a walking bad luck charm at a time like this? No way in hell."

"Hold on now," Hol Horse interjected, his voice tense, "what was that about a walkin' bad luck charm?"

"It's a load of shit, don't listen to her about it." Cab answered his question before Michelle could find the words to respond.

"Cab, bring us over to the left a bit," requested Rumor.

The whole raft suddenly shifted to the left, pushing them to be level with the road. Michelle squeezed her eyes shut, her heart pounding against her chest.

"Alright, now," Rumor's sharp inhale played through the cannon, "brace yourselves!"

Michelle felt the suitcase she was strapped to slam against her back as they made contact with the road. They rolled down the road at breakneck speeds, the wheels of their makeshift landing gear screeching against the pavement. Even their four parachutes still hanging high in the sky did little to slow their momentum. The suitcases rumbled violently against the force acting upon them.

"Shit, shit, car, that's a car in front of us!" Hol Horse suddenly yelled.

Michelle snapped her eyes open to see a massive truck looming in front of them, honking its horn as they helplessly skidded down its path.

"HI-DEE!"

As Quiet Riot's punch flung them to the other side of the road, Michelle heard something crack to her immediate left and a metallic snap to the other side of her. All at once, the wheels on their landing gear gave out and broke off the suitcases while the several layers of The Chain began to unravel, having been shattered from Quiet Riot's strike. The suitcases all began to disconnect from each other as Michelle was flung off the raft and sent tumbling down the road. Pavement scraped against her skin, covering her in blisters. She tried to extended out an arm to stop herself, only to yelp out in pain as it was crushed between her head and the concrete.

With a pained grunt, she yelled out "Iron Maiden!"

Her Stand appeared at her side and tapped her back. She froze in place, curled up on her side and facing the sky. Iron Maiden released its hold on her the next moment. Michelle took labored breaths as the world continued to spin around her, crawling off the road and onto the grassy terrain to the side. Ordinarily, Michelle would have scrunched up her nose in disgust at the prospect of sticking her hands in mud, but as slogged through the damp grass, feeling the wet earth slog against her palms, she let out an uneasy laugh.

"Nous...nous l'avons fait..." she mumbled to herself as she rolled over, lying flat on her back. Somehow, she was still alive. Her pounding heart finally began to calm.

The sound of leather grinding against concrete caught her attention and pulled her out of her brief moment of relief. Still on high alert, Iron Maiden instinctively darted towards the person barreling down the road and grabbed them by the wrist. They...he, it unfortunately was Hol Horse, stopped instantly in a faceplant. His hat fell from his head and blew in Michelle's direction, landing near her feet. With a groan, she called her Stand back and released its hold on the cowboy. He rose to his knees as she picked up his hat and tossed it towards him.

"Thanks, darlin'," he panted, putting his hat back on. "I reckon the apple fell far from the tree with you, huh..."

Michelle rose a brow as she stood up. "What was that?"

"Nothing, nothing."

Dusting herself off and wiping the mud from her hands, Michelle surveyed her surroundings. Cab and Rumor both landed at opposite ends of the road, the former crouched under a tree trunk and the latter lassoed to a lamppost by a segment of The Chain still attached to his wrist. Each of them were bruised, but otherwise not seriously injured. The suitcases had been thrown about the area; she spotted one of hers in the bushes with the wheels broken off, Rumor's duffle bag laid next to him on the road, and Sara's guitar case ended up right behind Hol Horse. The boys both rose to their feet as Sara, the only one still attached to what remained of the raft, cruised down the road and gently rolled to a stop just ahead of the rest of the group.

"Woohoo!" She laughed and pumped both her fists up, still laying on one of her suitcases. "Let's do that again!"

"No. Absolutely not," Michelle responded as she went to fish her suitcase out of the bushes. "I'm never getting on another plane again."

Chapter Text

Just about everyone who ever met Depeche Mode agreed that he was a shady man and did little to hide it. Ironic, of course, given his deep-seated hatred towards liars. He'd spent the latter half of his life masquerading as a simple art trader with complex connections, yet no one ever dared question how he afforded his multi-million-dollar mansion or host of live-in maids. Maybe everyone was just unobservant. Maybe they just didn't care either way. Maybe the decades long history of missing persons cases attached to his name simply intimidated anyone from sticking their nose somewhere Depeche didn't like.

Giorno Giovanna, however, was both very observant, very difficult to intimidate, and didn't need either of those traits to know that Depeche's career as an art trader was nothing but an elaborate façade. In fact, due to all their shared connections, Giorno was well aware of his real profession as a crime lord. The two stood in natural opposition to each other—Giorno had spent much of his tenure as Passione's leader cleaning up the plague of drugs infecting Italy's streets, while Depeche in turn had made his fortune distributing heroin, LSD, cocaine, really any illegal substance he could find. They had a mutual understanding to not step on each other's turf; none of the Stand users on Depeche's payroll were any match for even a lowly Passione grunt, and Giorno simply had more important things to do than worry about some Standless drug peddler all the way in Belgium.

Never in a thousand years did Giorno expect to find himself driving to the man's gaudy mansion on his own. Never in a million years did he expect Depeche to be a prime suspect for the arrow's theft. He did, however, expect to see the mansion's once sturdy brick exterior converted into a thin sheet of glass. That much had made it to the papers. The building looked less like the traditional neoclassical mansion in the photograph Giorno had stuck to the car's sun visor and more like an angular ice sculpture replica of the real thing. He swore he could see the foliage on the other side of the house as he drove through the mansion's open gates.

He also expected to find the man's corpse somewhere inside.

Yellow police tape fenced the mansion off from the rest of the world. A single cop stood guard...sat guard, lounging and gently snoring on a foldable chair with a book over his head. When Giorno drove closer, the gentle hum of the car's engine made him snap awake, sitting up straight and causing his book to fall into a puddle of mud at his feet. Upon seeing the vehicle in front of him, the cop grumbled, kicked the book aside, and marched towards the car as Giorno parked just a few meters away from the police tape. Giorno paid him no mind and exited the car, messenger bag slung across his shoulder.

"Hey!" The cop barked at him as Giorno strode towards the doorway. "Civilians ain't allowed to be here right now. Can't you see the tape, dumbass? Whoever you think you're here to visit, I can assure you—"

Still walking, Giorno pulled out a €100 note from his pocket and placed it in the cop's hand. The cop's demeanor instantly changed upon realizing what he had been given, his angry scowl pulling up into a sleazy grin. "Right this way, sir," he said with a bow as he lifted the police tape high enough for Giorno to walk under it.

"Grazie, signore," Giorno thanked, still not stopping to look at him directly. At least the police in Belgium were just as easily bought as the ones in Italy; if the man had more of a spine, Giorno would've had to force his way past him. Not that it would take much effort, just a few small blows from Requiem would make sure he'd never be a problem again, but Giorno would rather spare himself the hassle.

Not like the cop would keep the money he'd been bribed with, anyways.

Just after the cop pocketed the cash in his vest, it turned into a monarch butterfly and flew out of his pocket. Giorno extended a finger for the butterfly to roost on as he approached the mansion's doorway. Requiem's hand was overlaid atop his own, so as soon as the butterfly landed on Giorno's finger, it morphed back into the €100 note. He shoved the money back into his pocket and swung the mansion's door open.

The mansion's interior looked just like its exterior (though given that he could see through the walls like windows, Giorno knew this well before letting himself in). Glass had overtaken everything in the mansion, from the giant stairway in front of him to the pair of giant vases stationed by the door, and morphed them to be angular and geometric. A chair sat at the bottom of the stairs, almost entirely made of transparent as well save for feathers stuffed inside the clear cushion. Several blank canvases hung from the wall. Giorno suspected they used to be paintings, but in their current state, they functioned like mirrors, reflecting his stern gaze back at him. He took a step forward and the floor crunched underfoot. Quickly stepping away, Giorno looked down to see shards of the entryway rug beneath his shoes.

His brow furrowed as he pressed himself to the wall and shimmied past the glass rug. I have no doubt in my mind now, he thought. This is the work of one of the arrow thieves. 

Those shards of glass found at the crime scene always struck him as odd, given that none of the windows of Passione's headquarters or the surrounding buildings had been broken. He'd always suspected the shards were tied to a Stand somehow, but now, waltzing down a literal hall of mirrors, he was sure of it. One of the arrow thieves had the ability to turn its surroundings to glass, and they had used that ability to weaken the wall of the building enough to blow a hole through it without causing enough noise to wake anyone up or alert the guards. The transparent wasteland of a mansion he found himself wandering through was that ability used to its fullest.

My guess is that they didn't use their ability like this at the raid because they were worried about damaging the arrow if they did, Giorno reasoned. What does this say about Depeche's involvement in the arrow's theft, though? If one of the thieves did this to him, to his home...did he just not pay them enough? Or was he not involved in the heist, and then tried to steal the arrow from the thieves once he got wind of it? He was pigheaded enough to try to do something like that, I suppose. Makes sense that he'd feel more confident trying to steal from thieves than from me directly.

Brow still furrowed, Giorno closed his eyes and sighed at the thought. If he was right, that meant that the rest of the criminal underworld knew that he'd been robbed. Whether or not they knew just what had been stolen didn't matter, only that all the rival gangs of the world knew that he'd been knocked down a peg. Plus, if they were indeed after the arrow now that it was on the move, letting it end up in anyone else's hands would be catastrophic whether they knew what it was or not. It's an arrow, you shoot people with it, anyone who got ahold of it would find out what made it so special eventually.

Those masked thieves certainly knew what they'd gotten their hands on, though, a fact that continued to annoy Giorno to no end. No one outside of Passione knew about the arrow besides Trish, so how had these thieves learned about it? It couldn't have been a mole—Giorno refused to believe that. He'd made sure that everyone below him both respected him and stayed in line. Besides, no one left Passione alive once they got a Stand.

He entered the kitchen, which he guessed was about twice the size of Coco Jumbo's room and thrice as lavish. The counter, sink, stove, everything else one might expect to find in a kitchen and even a damn grand piano sitting in the corner had all been turned to glass. Some empty cans laid littered near the fridge, all of them having been turned to glass with one still half full of beer. All the food still inside the fridge was completely unconverted.

Something else not made of glass also rested by his feet. Or rather, someone.

A woman laid face down on the floor in front of him, just in front of the kitchen counter. Soft flesh still clung to her shoulders, neck, and head. Her dark hair hung around her head like a halo. A dried puddle of blood separated her from the rest of her body, a glass shell encasing her skeleton and organs with a hole blown into her back. Her exposed innards stuck out from the cavity, some converted into glass while others remained organic. Her lungs were stuck in an awkward in-between stage, the back of them composed of glass spikes that dug into her ribcage while pink membrane still made up the front. The loose vertebrate of her spine laid strewn about the puddle of blood between her head and body.

Giorno gently nudged her head over with his foot. It rolled over to the side so her profile faced him, rigor mortis having set in and locked her face in a permanent horrified expression. Her jaw was locked open; Giorno suspected that she died screaming. Patches of her skin had turned a vile mix of green and purple, sagging off her face as it decomposed. The stench of rotting meat suddenly assaulted Giorno's nostrils.

Before Giorno could investigate anything else surrounding the corpse in front of him, a playing card—the seven of hearts—fell from the ceiling and landed just above the woman's ear. It jumped up and down with its stubby legs and waved around its tiny arms at Giorno, obviously trying to grab his attention.

The moment he saw the playing card in front of him, Giorno opened up his messenger bag, took out Coco Jumbo, laid him on the kitchen counter, and jumped inside the key on his back. Now inside the turtle's room, he brushed down his suit and strode to the small cage tucked away in the corner of the room, picking up a small key from the end table along the way.

Polnareff shot up from his chair as soon as he saw Giorno reenter the turtle's room. "Murolo sent you a card?"

"Yes," Giorno responded. He knelt down in front of the cage and placed the key inside its locked door.

"Which one?"

"Ace of clubs," Giorno lied as the cage door unlocked. Inside were a group of snakes, all of them coiled up and sound asleep. With a wave of Requiem's hand, they all transformed back to their original states. One turned into Polnareff's laptop, the same bulky white one equipped with the facial recognition software that he had used to initially make contact with the rest of Passione; another into Giorno's cell phone, a purple flip phone with a ladybug keychain dangling off the bottom; and the rest into folders of miscellaneous documents unrelated to the arrow's theft. He removed the former two from the cage and brought them over to coffee table, laying them atop the documents still messily webbed across the surface.

Ever since learning that one of the arrow thieves had a Stand that utilized electricity, Giorno made sure to use technology sparingly. Only once per day, in fact, and for no longer than ten minutes. Otherwise, he ran the risk of turning his laptop and cell phone into either readily detonatable bombs or open pamphlets of information for his enemies. He didn't even get to choose when those ten minutes occurred—that was decided by Murolo and his Stand, All Along Watchtower, even though Murolo himself was still stationed back in Italy. Whenever Giorno saw a playing card dance across his feet, he'd drop everything he was doing and get back to work.

He and Polnareff had even made a game out of betting which card would show up. As luck would have it, Polnareff did actually predict the seven of hearts the night before, but he made the fatal mistake of never asking to see the cards himself. "You owe me twenty euros," Giorno informed him.

"Ugh, dammit," Polnareff huffed as he flumped back down in his armchair. "I've never had the best luck with bets..."

"It's all Passione's shared income, anyway. The money we're betting technically belongs to both of us."

"That's not the point! It's about pride, Giorno." He huffed and folded his arms. "How do I know you're not just lying about what cards show up so you'll win every time?"

Giorno lightly chuckled, the only tell of his otherwise solid poker face. "I would never lie to you. Besides, it's just a silly bet." He turned his cell phone on. After sitting through the boot-up jingle, he instantly checked his voicemail.

THREE NEW MESSAGES
3:52-Pannacotta Fugo
4:04-Guido Mista
4:37-Pannacotta Fugo

Giorno's brows shot up in surprise. That's strange, he thought to himself. It's Fugo's job to keep me updated on everything going on back home. His reports are always extremely well organized. He's not the type to forget to mention something. So why do I have two new messages from him, one sent over a half an hour after the last? He thumbed the phone's arrow keys, moving back and forth between the voicemails. Then there's Mista...he knows I haven't been using my phone and not to call unless it's urgent. Even then, he would've told Fugo first. So why did he call me?

Polnareff's expression turned stern as soon as he caught Giorno's surprise. "Something wrong?"

"Three new voicemails, including one from Mista. I'm worried something may have happened while we were gone."

"Hmm. Weird." Polnareff stood up from his chair and migrated over to the sofa, now sitting next to Giorno. "You think maybe he forgot he's not supposed to call you? He can be a bit scatterbrained, I wouldn't put it past him."

Considering the possibility, Giorno leaned back into the sofa and rested his thumb against his chin. "Not with Fugo and Sheila E there to keep him in line," he decided. "Either way, no way other way to find out than to listen. Fugo's up first."

After taking a moment to look out the top of the key to make sure no one was watching them, Giorno selected the first voicemail from Fugo and turned on his phone's speakerphone.

"Good afternoon, boss." Fugo's voice was calm and composed, no different than any other report he'd heard from him. "You'll be pleased to know that things have been going smoothly here. Murolo tells me that there have been some rumors going on about your disappearance, but I wouldn't place too much stock in them. No one other than him, your bodyguards, and the information squad know about the arrow's theft."

Hearing Fugo say that, Giorno couldn't help but feel anxious. He knew that people outside of Passione were aware that something had been stolen from him, arrow or otherwise. Otherwise, Depeche wouldn't have been killed by one of the thieves. He grabbed a pen and scribbled down "Inform Fugo about arrow leaks" in the margins of one of the many files on the table.

"Speaking of which, we've made a new breakthrough in the investigation." There was some shuffling of papers in the background of the call. Giorno pictured Fugo sitting at his desk, browsing through the massive filing cabinet by his feet. "Upon thoroughly reviewing the security footage, we've been able to identify the footwear of the female thief: a pair of Belafonte platform shoes that haven't yet been publicly released. So, whoever these thieves are, they must have some kind of tie to the Belafonte fashion brand, or at least the girl. I'd say that probably makes them American, given that's where the brand is from, but they've recently been doing sponsorships with bands and musicians from across the world. Of these sponsorships, I've only found three that are currently touring: Denise Denaro, The Nightingales, and Akira Otoishi."

Giorno felt his heart leap in his chest. Finally, some good news. Polnareff let out a loud sigh of relief and fist pumped at the information. "Pause it," Giorno commanded his consigliere. Too preoccupied digging through the mess of papers on the table to find a blank sheet, he didn't actually see Polnareff pause the call but noticed that Fugo had stopped speaking.

"So, the Belafonte brand is involved in the arrow's theft? Given that no one seems to know who the hell that green-haired bastard is, I never would have suspected that some high-profile name like that would be attached to all this," Polnareff mused.

"Maybe, but we also should consider that they are thieves," Giorno pointed out as he picked out a blank piece of paper from the pile and transcribed all the details Fugo had given them onto it. "She could have just as easily stolen the pair of shoes from one of those sponsors Fugo mentioned."

"Don't you think that would've made headlines though? I mean, that's not exactly the type of news we've been staying up to date on, but all those musicians are all pretty damn famous. What would anyone have to gain over stealing a pair of shoes, then wearing those shoes to another heist?"

The frantic movements of Giorno's pen grinded to a halt. "Good point," he admitted, setting down the piece of paper and leaning back into the sofa. "Resume the voicemail."

Polnareff pressed the play button on the phone.

"I'll tell Mista to call Trish and ask her if she knows more. This seems up her alley. I'd call her myself, but we've never really gotten along," Fugo fought the embarrassment in his voice, "and discrepancy is of the essence here. I'll make sure he's subtle. At the moment, he's on his way to the coroner's office. No one's claimed the body of the man with green hair, as we suspected, so there's just some paperwork that needs to be filled out. We can't keep him there forever, after all. That's all for now. Take care and good luck."

A quick, high-pitched tone beeped from the phone before it went back to the list of voicemails.

"Okay, so, we're making progress," Polnareff commented. "That lead into Belafonte should narrow things down a lot. Do you know if Depeche Mode had any connections to the brand? Ever went to any of their fashion shows? The thief is a young woman, too, so that would only strengthen his connection to all of this." His tone lowered, hands clenched into fists. "Piece of shit runs a dozen brothels up here in Belgium, he probably forced this all on some poor girl he pimped out."

"I don't know anything about Belafonte, much less if Depeche did. What I do know is that us Europeans generally don't wear American clothing," Giorno stated. "I doubt the two are connected. We can look into that later. For now," he picked the phone back up, "let's see why Mista called me."

He pressed play on Mista's voicemail. Right away, Giorno could tell something was wrong; before Mista even began speaking, he heard panicked yelling from an older woman in the background of the call. Try as he might, he couldn't make out anything she was saying, just the fearful tone of her voice.

"Uh, hey, Giorno? I know I'm not supposed to call you, but...sorry man, I have to," Mista himself sounded nervous, which nearly gave Giorno chills. He was a stone-hearted mafioso, what on earth could possibly leave him so shaken up? "So, you know that green-haired guy we performed the autopsy on? Well, it's been more than a week now, and...uh, the body hasn't decayed. Like, at all."

Whatever relief or excitement Giorno may have felt from Fugo's report vanished in an instant. That couldn't have been true. Bodies started to decay after just a day or so, and the man had been dead for over a week now. The woman Giorno found in the kitchen couldn't have been dead for more than twenty-four hours, and even she had begun to show signs of decomposition. Well, her head at least. Giorno could have chalked it up to a side effect of a Stand...except for the fact that the man hadn't been a Stand user. His autopsy had revealed that much. The glass Stand certainly didn't have the ability to preserve bodies, and he doubted the electricity Stand could either.

Next to him, Polnareff snatched the autopsy report off the table and reviewed it with wide eyes.

"The coroner's kinda freaking out about it," Mista continued. "I'm sure you can, uh, hear her right now. You didn't use Gold Experience on the body at any point, did you? Maybe it's like what happened with Bucciarati. That's the only thing I can think of right now. You sure the autopsy said he's not a Stand user? How would you even test for something like that, anyway? Ugh, probably shouldn't question it. You're not a doctor, you probably don't know either. The coroner made a report of the whole thing, I'll email it to you as soon as I get home. Don't worry about Fugo and everyone else, I'll tell them about it too. Ok, uh, best of luck to you over there."

"There! Right there," Polnareff spoke over the phone as Mista said his goodbyes, pointing at a part of the autopsy report, "it says he wasn't a Stand user. There's no way in hell his body hasn't started decaying!" He passed the report onto Giorno and began to rub at his temples. "He couldn't be a vampire, could he? No...there's no way. The sun would've killed him by now if that was the case. Merde, what the hell is going on here..."

Vampire—Polnareff using that word so damn casually made Giorno go pale. It must have been seven years now since Polnareff had told him all about Dio Brando, his birth father, who happened to be a vampire himself. He swallowed hard; it had been a bitter pill then, and continued to be a bitter pill now. In Giorno's youth, the man had always been a symbol of hope and strength, the picture of him he'd gotten from his mother practically oozing raw power. He used to keep it in his wallet, for crying out loud. Now he knew that the man had been a monster, through and through.

Polnareff had also told him that he used to have a flock of followers at his beck and call, both Stand users and other supernatural allies. Could the green-haired man have been one of them? No, he looks too young for that, Giorno reasoned. Dio died two decades ago. This man looks like he's in his late twenties at best. Even if he went around hiring children, any bond the two of them might have had would have flickered out by now. Not to mention that he would have had no way of knowing about me. The way Polnareff tells it, I don't think Dio himself even knew that I existed.

"Let's listen to Fugo's last voicemail," Giorno suggested, trading the autopsy report for his phone. "Maybe that will help clear things up."

He played the final voicemail.

"Good evening boss. I'm sure by now you've heard Mista's message." Fugo spoke through gritted teeth, sounding very agitated. Hearing the news from Mista must have killed his good mood. "I don't have anything else to add to his report, but I want to reassure you that our doctors are 100% positive that the man with green hair is not a Stand user. He showed no signs of carrying the Greenland Virus characteristic of both inherited Stands like yours and Stands awakened by the arrow like mine. You should be able to find that information on the copy of the autopsy report you brought with you."

Both Giorno and Polnareff stared daggers into the very section of the autopsy report Fugo was referring to. The latter grabbed a pen and circled over it several times as Fugo continued to talk. 

"I would ask the Speedwagon Foundation to run their own tests and verify that with us, but I'm aware that our relationship with them has been..." Fugo paused, clearly trying to find the right word, "strained as of late," he settled on, "and that's ignoring all the layoffs and downsizing they've done to their Supernatural Research Department."

In the far background of the call, Giorno heard Mista's voice grumble out a remark at Fugo. Though Giorno couldn't quite discern what he said, Fugo obviously did, and quickly responded. "Yeah, well, I don't see you coming up with any better ideas!" Even though Fugo was yelling, he sounded quieter than before. He must have set down his phone to address Mista. "I've been working my ass off to make sure everything runs smoothly while he's away, so yeah, when something like this pops up, I'm going to consider every possible angle of attack! That's my job, Mista, so don't get lippy with me!"

There was a brief pause before Giorno heard Fugo clear his throat. "If you're willing to reach out to them right now, please email me and I will call them on your behalf." He had resumed speaking into the phone and sounded just as annoyed as before. "Alternatively, if you'd like me to discretely dispose of the body with Purple Haze, just tell me and I won't hesitate to do so. That's all for now. Take care and good luck."

After the beginnings of a tired sigh from Fugo, the voicemail ended. Giorno shut off his phone as soon as it went back to his voicemail inbox. Requiem took the phone from his hands, transformed it back into a snake, then delivered it back to its cage.

"So, what do you suggest we do? I wouldn't mind reaching out to the Speedwagon Foundation, personally," proposed Polnareff. "Even with their cutbacks, they probably have a lot better equipment for this sort of thing than us."

"No. Under no circumstances are we to reach out to the Speedwagon Foundation," Giorno sternly rebuked. "They still don't know we ever had a Stand arrow in our possession, so if they were to find out, let alone that we had ours stolen, they'd probably start an independent search for it. That's the last thing we want right now. Given how our last collaboration ended, I don't want any more bad blood between us. Doubly so if they have new management."

Giorno fought back the frustrated groan that threatened to rumble out from between his lips. If he was being honest, he did want to ask the Speedwagon Foundation for extra help with reclaiming the arrow. The more allies on his side, the better; especially considering that he still wasn't sure exactly who he was up against. They probably would have been inclined to help on his terms if he asked a few years prior. All their previous collaborations had gone smoothly, and aside from rumors of the respectable Speedwagon Foundation working with the Italian mafia, both sides respected the other and were content working together.

It just so happened that the last job they had cooperated on went about as badly as it possibly could, and now the entire Foundation had written off Passione as either power-hungry or incompetent. Yet another blemish on his otherwise perfect record—just the thought of it made Giorno want to rip his curls clean off his head.

"Before we make any choices about what to do next," he continued as he opened up Polnareff's laptop, eager to change the subject, "I want to review the coroner's report that Mista emailed me."

After the computer finished booting up and Giorno logged on, a notification popped up on the desktop and blocked the rest of the screen, punctuated by a loud droning noise blasting from the laptop's speakers. Polnareff recognized the sound almost instantly and sat up and alert. Giorno only caught a glance of the notification's text before Polnareff gripped onto the sides of the screen and angled the laptop to face him.

FACIAL RECOGNITION DETECTED
ONE MATCH FOUND

"Well, would you look at that," Polnareff crowed. "I knew putting that green-haired menace into the facial recognition software would pay off. We might not even need whatever Mista emailed us."

"That," Giorno said, prying the laptop back from Polnareff, "or the autopsy report made it into some kind of online database."

Giorno had never been sure exactly how Polnareff had obtained such an advanced piece of software, let alone on such an outdated laptop. He had never seemed tech savvy enough to build it from scratch. He did know that it worked—it had been how the two had initially gotten in contact with each other, after all—and Giorno sure as hell wasn't going to question it when it had saved his ass on a number of occasions. He clicked on the notification.

What the software pulled up made both of their eyes bulge out of their skulls.

Instead of a picture of the green-haired man, they were greeted by a picture of Michelle and what appeared to be a scan of a passport. Curiously, the passport was addressed to a woman named Genevieve Delon, but Giorno had no doubt that this was indeed Polnareff's daughter that he ran into at the cemetery. Same long, silver hair; same freckled, pale skin; same nearly blank brown eyes, though she did seem a bit startled, as if the picture had been taken by surprise. Giorno had no idea who the hell Genevieve Delon was, but this was definitely Michelle Polnareff.

Polnareff obviously recognized her too and stifled a gasp. "Wait, that's—!"

"Genevieve Delon," Giorno finished. "I'm not surprised or upset you entered Michelle in our facial recognition software, Polnareff. When did you add her in?"

"The day after we met her at the cemetery," Polnareff confessed. "I mean, we can search for more than one person simultaneously, so I figured it couldn't hurt to try."

"Why do you think she'd use an alias on her passport? That is her, right?"

"That's her, I'm sure of it," Polnareff confirmed with a nod. "Genevieve Delon was my mother-in-law, Michelle's grandmother. And...mon dieu," Polnareff's face went pale, "that even kind of looks like her signature. Michelle used to copy our signatures and handwriting when she was little, but I never would have suspected she'd do this..."

"If that is an alias, then there's no way this passport is legitimate," Giorno thought aloud.

"Yeah, but what on earth would Michelle need a fake passport for? Why not just get a real one? And why would a fake passport show up on one of our databases?"

That was a good question. The facial recognition software tapped into a bunch of different sources, but a majority of them were databases either publicly available online or privately owned by several world governments. A counterfeit passport wouldn't show up on either of those, meaning that it had to have been found on a private server that Passione, specifically Polnareff's laptop, had been connected to in the past.

Giorno quietly gasped in shock as the pieces clicked together in his head.

"Mista and I had to get fake passports when we visited Japan on business last year," he realized, then cleared his throat to keep his composure. "Our computer must still be connected to the database of the forgers who made our passports."

And I remember exactly who made them, Giorno pondered to himself. It wasn't an organization, it wasn't a group of forgers, just a single man named Lovestrong. He had been reluctant to help us in the first place, not just because we're Stand users, but also because Passione is a business rival of his employer. A business rival to...he took a moment to glare out the translucent ceiling and into the glass mansion, Depeche Mode and his gang.

Folding his arms, Giorno leaned back in his seat and went over all the facts of the case in his head.

Somehow, someway, Depeche Mode had come into contact with the arrow thieves and did something to prompt one of them to kill him. Whether or not he had organized the arrow heist himself was irrelevant—either way, it meant the arrow couldn't be anywhere in or near the mansion. That didn't mean it wasn't worth still investigating the rest of his estate, but it did mean that his current target was no longer nearby. Going off of Fugo's new lead, they had likely gone to America. Michelle had received a phony passport sometime between the arrow's theft and Depeche's death. She had to have gotten it recently, otherwise it would have set off the facial recognition software in Polnareff's laptop earlier. 

The fact stood that shortly before Depeche had been killed by one of the arrow thieves, Michelle had commissioned a forger working under him to make her a passport. She had likely been one of the last people he had contact with before he bit the big one. That couldn't have been a coincidence.

No matter how much Polnareff insisted that she was just shy, Michelle's behavior at the cemetery still bothered him. She hadn't just been shy; she had run off as soon as he mentioned he knew her father. Why? It couldn't be that she didn't want anything to do with Polnareff. After all, she had brought flowers for his grave. A seemingly ordinary civilian like her would also have no way of knowing about her father's position in the Italian mafia. That is, unless she already had some sort of connection to the criminal underworld. There was also the fact that she had completely evaded any and all concrete documentation of her existence for almost three years. Now here she was, running around with an illegally obtained passport obtained just days, maybe even hours before the man she almost certainly got it from died.

Giorno furrowed his brow. Say he had legitimately scared her enough at the cemetery to prompt her to flee the country. Why go out of her way to get a fake passport from a Belgian forger rather than a legitimate one from France? Why even get a passport in the first place, when most countries in Europe didn't require one to pass between borders? Hell, why go through the trouble of hiding her identity with an alias at all, let alone using the name and signature of her grandmother? Something just didn't add up.

"Something on your mind?"

Giorno sat up straight upon hearing Polnareff address him. The two locked eyes for a moment; Polnareff struggling to look at him head on as his daughter's face on the computer screen fought for his attention. Giorno exhaled heavily out his nose. Whether either of them liked it or not, every action Michelle took just made her more of a suspect. He'd been willing to brush her aside when she had fled from him at the cemetery, telling himself that if she was involved with his enemies, they'd cross paths again eventually. Now, he felt as though their reunion was inevitable.

I can't tell him I think Michelle's involved, Giorno reasoned. If I do, he might try to steer the investigation in another direction to protect his daughter. I can't risk that happening. 

"I was just thinking about our next move as soon as I'm done investigating Depeche's mansion," Giorno answered. That much wasn't entirely a lie, at least. "As strange as it is, there's nothing we can do about the green-haired man's body refusing to decay. Unless there's something in the coroner's report that jumps out at me, I'm going to tell Fugo and Mista to discreetly move the body to a secure location. Not our base, obviously, but somewhere away from public eye."

"And after that?"

"We pursue Fugo's lead. He mentioned that the Belafonte brand has been doing sponsorships with musicians, right? We should start looking into each and every one of them, starting with the ones originating from or currently touring the United States. It is an American brand, after all, it would make sense to start looking there."

Also, if there's anywhere in the world Michelle would need a passport to get to, it's America, Giorno silently reminded himself. He rigidly set his shoulders back, allowing purpose and determination to overcome him. Polnareff, I hope you'll be able to forgive me if I have to go through your daughter to get to the arrow back.

Chapter Text

As the heels of her platform shoes stomped down the sidewalk, Fergie was reminded just how much she hated this city. Why Boney had decided to set up a base here, she'd never know. All it did was make him look stupid for choosing such a horrible locale. Yeah, her uncle had bought the building for them, but Boney still chose here and not literally anywhere else in the world.

Steep hills made up the landscape, making even a casual downtown stroll feel like a hike through the mountains. The smell of fresh fish from the market mingled in with the usual city stank, a combo that made her stomach churn with every breath. Hobos and beggars cluttered the street corners and alleyways at all hours, and occasionally, they had the audacity to look her in the eyes and try to solicit money.

One of them took it a step further and grabbed her wrist as she turned a street corner. "P-please, miss, even just a dollar," his putrid breath ran down Fergie's neck, "Or maybe you could let me—"

That was all he managed to get out before Shatter Me socked the man in the stomach. He reeled backwards, coughing profusely and gasping for air, before tripping over his own cardboard sign and into a dark alleyway. Shatter Me's eyes seemed to glow as Fergie followed him, hands clenched into fists.

"Don't even think about touching me, you piss stain!" Fergie slammed her foot down on the man's face, knocking out a tooth and flattening his nose under her platform shoes with a sickening CRUNCH! "If you really want money so bad, then why don't you just, like, get a job! Ever think of that, you lazy bum?" She kicked him again, this time punting his shoulder. His wails of pain only made a bloodthirsty grin form on her face. Oh, what a beautiful sound. She drove her foot into his chest and reveled in the breathy scream that came out the man's lips. "Or maybe the reason you don't have one is because no one wants to hire your sorry ass! Figures; broke, ugly bastards like you totally don't contribute anything to society."

Shatter Me stood guard while its user continued to beat and trample the poor man. Luckily, it was late into the night—2:18 AM specifically—so no one else was around to hear the man's pained sobs or Fergie's crazed laughter. By the time Fergie exited the alleyway, now with a lot more pep in her step, the man had a broken jaw and six missing teeth. He laid huddled up on the ground, resting against the building next to him, convulsing violently as he coughed up blood. Fergie left behind a red footprint on the pavement with each step she took.

If the police here were even remotely competent, they would be able to trace her bloody footprints back to her shoes, and her shoes back to her. Fergie couldn't bring herself to care, though. What were they going to do? Arrest her? Yeah, right. She'd gotten away with much worse and much more damning evidence against her for her entire life. One call back home and it was like the whole thing never happened. At least the hobo was still alive. Probably. Maybe. Debatably. Whatever, not her problem. The most the cops here could do was get mad that she made brutality look sexier than they ever could.

After about ten more minutes of walking, she finally arrived back at base. The air felt crisp and heavy as soon as the elevator Fergie rode down opened up. A musty basement hallway awaited her on the other side. Dim fluorescent lights hung from the metallic ceiling, illuminating the basement with all the effectiveness of a torch in an old castle dungeon. Their faint buzz echoed in the empty space, making the claustrophobic corridor feel much larger than it had any right to be. Clumps of mold festered on the plaster walls, seeping into every crack and crevice while lining the corners like a mossy green glue sandwiched between the walls and ceiling. Several doors dotted the hallway, each one locked and made of reinforced steel. Fergie had never seen what laid beyond most of them. Ordinarily, locked doors meant nothing to her no matter how durable they were. Shatter Me could reduce anything that stood in her path to a pile of brittle glass shards within a matter of minutes, after all. She could investigate any locked off room whenever she wanted.

Could, not would. Fergie knew exactly who she'd answer to if she ever stepped out of line, and Shatter Me wasn't exactly subtle. Pissing off Boney just wasn't worth whatever laid on the other side of those doors.

The lights flickered slightly as she stepped out of the elevator. Strange as it was, the sight made her heart soar. Flickering lights, glitchy electronics, fuzzy radios...they all usually meant that Red Hot Chili Pepper was there, watching over her like a guardian angel. After all, Boney had cajoled her into returning to this hellhole only because by suggesting he was here. It only made sense her little chickadee would want to surprise her at the front door!

She tilted her head to the side and rested her cheek on the back of her clasped hands. In a singsong tone, she called out to her lover. "Oh, Akiraaaaa? Is that you, babe?"

No response came. The lights refused to flicker again, steadily lighting the path in front of her. After a few moments, Fergie exhaled sharply, threw her hands down, and marched down the hall and towards the only room she was allowed in; the fourth door to the left. The soles of her shoes banged against the metal floor with each step and continued to track bloody footprints into the base.

It was such a drab room, too. If she was only allowed in one part of the base, it could at least be one of the torture dens she suspected Boney had lying around. Instead, this one reminded Fergie of a waiting room at a hospital, if said hospital was in an underground bunker. It was small; Fergie suspected that her closet at home was bigger than the room she found herself in now. One old, wood table sat in the center of the room with groups of old newspapers and magazines piled atop it. A group of metal chairs laid scattered about—some lined against the wall; some circled around the wood table; and a few laid next to each other with pillows and blankets on top of them, forming a makeshift bed. Two doors stood on the opposite side of the room. Fergie wasn't allowed past either of them, either.

A man in his early thirties, tall and lithe with russet skin, sat hunched over the table with a newspaper in his hands. Long, ratty dreadlocks hung down over his face, just barely obscuring the patch over his right eye. His right arm was covered in a sleeve of tattoos with a large skull on his shoulder and a flock of birds flying up his forearm and bicep. Without moving his head, he shifted his gaze towards Fergie when he heard the door creak open.

"You're back sooner than I expected," he commented, his voice carrying a thick Italian accent.

Fergie kicked the door behind her closed. "Did you, like, actually expect me back at all?"

"Not really," he responded with a shrug. "To tell you the truth, after Boney decided to demask you, I thought you'd stay in Italy and end up getting captured by some Passione stronzo. I bet his end game was to get you killed without pissing off—"

"Oh, kiss my ass, Bufala!" Her shrill voice echoed in the small room as she stomped towards him. "I'm way stronger than any lame-o Passione could throw at me. That includes you." She punctuated her point by jabbing him in the chest. "You mafia dickweeds all got your Stands from an arrow. An arrow! I was born with Shatter Me, so that like, makes it better. You think that sheet ghost jellyfish thing you call a Stand is any match for Shatter Me? Pfft, as if! I could kill you blindfolded."

Bufala set the newspaper down on the table and stood up from his chair. "I seem to have angered you. Mie scuse," he apologized. "But let me clarify a few things."

"Not listening, don't care." Fergie sashayed over to the makeshift bed, laid down, and wrapped a pillow around her forehead so that it covered her ears. She crossed her legs and propped her feet up atop the chair in the back. "Do you know if Akira's here? Because if not, then I really have no reason to be here."

"First of all, let me remind you that I am no longer part of Passione's famiglia. I burned that bridge long before the two of us even met," Bufala insisted. "Second of all, don't overestimate yourself or become conceited. You're a talented woman, Fergie, and with a bit more discipline you'd make for a great mercenary or assassin. But as is, you're a reckless exhibitionist who relies too much on her Stand and kills for sport. If you keep living like that, eventually it's gonna come around and bite you in the ass."

With an annoyed groan, Fergie sat straight up and tossed her pillow at Bufala. It missed him by several feet and landed gracefully on another chair. "You of all people don't get to tell me 'murder bad.' For all you know, I could have turned over a new leaf." Pressing the back of her hand against her forehead, she flumped back down onto the makeshift bed. "Oh, woe is me! I have seen the light, and I want to change. Alas, a certain green-haired loser keeps sending me out to steal things and kill people!" Her voice dripped with faux melodrama, borderline Shakespearian in her delivery. The quality of her acting reminded Bufala of something he might find in a shoddy sex tape. "I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, Bufala. There's, like, nothing I can do about it!" She finished her little monologue by dramatically kicking her leg upwards.

Bufala folded his arms and sighed. "You're not fooling anyone with that act. There's fresh blood on the bottom of your shoes," he pointed out, retrieving his newspaper from the table. "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that it wasn't from an enemy Stand, otherwise you'd be gloating about it by now."

"Once again, you don't get to judge."

"The difference is whenever I kill, it's done with purpose. With precision. I plan it out months, even years in advance. You don't even kill in self-defense, you do it on impulse," Bufala lectured as he walked towards her, kneeling down so they were at eye level with each other. "I don't mean to come off as heavy-handed, I just want to help you. Because your carelessness..."

He flipped his newspaper around so that Fergie could read the cover story. Aside from a few French keywords in the article—"château," "verre," "mort,"—all of it was gibberish to her. She did recognize the photo paired with the story, though. Depeche's mansion, now made completely of glass and surrounded by police tape, graced the newspaper's cover.

"...is bound to get you in trouble eventually," Bufala finished.

Rolling her eyes, Fergie batted away the newspaper. Whatever Bufala was going for wasn't working. She felt nothing but pride looking at that picture. "You want to help me? Make yourself useful and tell me whether or not Akira Otoishi" she spoke his name in staccato, enunciating each syllable to make sure he knew exactly who she was talking about, "is here so I can get out of this grody basement, that'd be great."

"He's on tour right now," a familiar, husky Russian voice called out from behind her. "Why on Earth would he be down here?"

A cold sweat trickled down Fergie's spine as she heard the voice. She shot to her feet, kicking the chairs back, and turned around to look behind her. Bufala didn't stand up with her, instead opting to return to his seat in front of the table to pick out a magazine from the pile.

Standing in front of one of the now unlocked doors was Boney, his lips curled up in a smug, barely perceptible grin. He stood casually, one hand in the pocket of his baggy pants while the other combed back his green curls. Such a posture would have been unremarkable on anyone else, but on him, with the shadows of the doorway cloaking him in darkness while his piercing stare surveyed the room in front of him, it made him look like a dangerous beast in its natural habitat. A purple mask donned his face, one with a black trim around the edges and a long, curled eyelash running down his cheeks.

"I could barely manage to smuggle him to Italy for the night, let alone keep him here for any longer than that," he continued. His hands situated themselves behind his back as he marched towards the pair. "Honestly, I'd expect his number one dick rider to remember that. You lose IQ points every time we speak, I swear. Not that you had many to begin with, but I digress. If you're really so curious to find out where he is, though, I could show you." He took off his mask, holding it between his pointer and middle finger, and extended it out towards Fergie. "Want to give your little boy-toy's pathetic Stand a drive?"

Fergie swallowed the lump in her throat. The small flame of anger kindled by Boney's insults burning in the pit of her stomach went ignored as her eyes zeroed in on the mask in front of her. The purple ones were more or less harmless (to the person wearing them, anyway), but just thinking about wearing another one of those damn masks again made her skin crawl. She forced a cough, pretending to clear her throat, then folded her arms and turned away from Boney.

"Pass. Believe it or not, I'm not stupid enough to let you trick me into wearing one of those masks again," she claimed.

"Don't sell me short. I never had to resort to any tricks." Boney responded, placing the mask into his pocket. "Besides, I believe it was your dear uncle Day-O who initially...recruited you, let's say. And you in turn recruited that Japanese punk, which I'm realizing was a horrible mistake."

"I'm not sure I follow you. Akira did wonderfully at the arrow heist," Bufala commented, barely paying Boney any attention as he flipped through an old issue of Vogue.

"He's only a usable pawn when someone actually competent is controlling him. The second he's allowed to make his own choices, everything falls apart," Boney clarified. "'Let me attack those people looking for you, Boney!' I've been working on a technique that's perfect for this situation, Boney!" He mimicked Akira's nasal voice and put on an exaggerated Japanese accent. "'It's pretty advanced, you won't be able to do it yourself. You can control Chili Pepper in the radio waves, just let me do all the hard work!' Ugh." He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "So, like an idiot, I gave him his moment in the spotlight, which I'm sure is all that showboat really wanted, and what do I see while piloting his Stand back to his body? A giant suitcase raft, floating through the air by a couple of parachutes and carrying the people he was supposed to kill. You know, Fergie, for someone who goes through more men than chewing gum, and you do chew a lot of gum, you could at least try to screw someone with a better Stand."

"Hey! You don't get to talk about Akira that way," Fergie snapped. She was fuming, steam almost blowing out from her ears. "At least he actually, like, uses his Stand to fight people. I bet you feel like a real man with those masks, parading around a Stand that isn't even yours."

Any other retorts she had planned caught in her throat when Boney simply scoffed and folded his arms in response. She wanted to continue, wanted to call him out for his borderline racist impersonation of Akira, wanted to praise Akira for finding new and creative ways to kill people with his Stand, wanted to tell Boney to stop calling her a slut, but her heart momentarily stopped when he narrowed his gaze on her. Daggers were in his eyes as he challenged her in a low voice. "Would you care for a demonstration of mine?"

He took a step towards Fergie. She took one, two, three steps back until she tripped over a chair behind her and landed hard on the metal floor. While Boney chuckled at her fear and clumsiness, Bufala set down his magazine, stood up from his seat, and walked over to Fergie. He extended a hand to help her up, which Fergie promptly batted away with a sharp glare.

Having been born into a family with a few other Stand users in it already, Fergie considered herself something of an expert on Stands, at least compared to some of her newfound coworkers who had received theirs only a couple months or years ago. Well, not any of the boring stuff like where they came from or what they really were, but definitely what made a powerful Stand and what made a weak Stand. For years, she had felt assured that her Stand was one of, if not the strongest Stand around. Every victorious battle she fought only helped prove her point and inflate her ego.

She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she had zero chance against Boney's Stand. Though she'd seen him activate it several dozens of times at this point, she'd only ever seen the effects of it once during the arrow raid. Even through her jumbled, hazy memories of the event, she knew exactly what his Stand did and just how horrifying it was. What was that poor security guard's name again? Vettore, or something like that? Poor bastard probably would have preferred to have Shatter Me turn him into a glass statue rather than what Boney did to him. The last thing she wanted was to end up like him.

As Fergie rose to her feet and dusted off her fishnets, Boney sneered, obviously aware of the effect he had on her. "That's what I thought," he gibed. "Oh, and to answer your question, Mais, whoever she stampeded through on her way here was..."

He paused for a moment to sniff at the air, thoughtfully stroking his soul patch with a furrowed brow. "...an O-negative," he decided on. "That's the blood type of a universal donor, you know. Just look at how much valuable blood you've wasted, Fergie." He gestured at the faint bloody footprints on the floor. "Tsk tsk."

"Please call me Bufala, Boney," Bufala requested as he returned to his seat by the table. "Mais is my first name, and you'll earn the right to call me by it when our mission is complete. Speaking of which, do you have the arrow?"

Boney rolled his eyes. "Oh no, we all just went sightseeing when we went to Italy. I enjoyed some of the local cuisine, Fergie enjoyed all of the local men, and you sat in the corner the whole time grumbling to yourself about revenge," he snarked. "Of course I have it. Don't tell me your IQ is starting to drop too, Mais."

Before Bufala had the chance to correct him again on his name or react at all outside of a sharp exhale of annoyance, Boney pulled out a remote from his pocket, about the size of an average TV remote but covered in twice as many buttons. He pointed it at the ceiling and pressed one of the center buttons twice then a button on the bottom left corner. A squealy BEEP! emitted from the remote with each press of the button. When he finished inputting the code, a valve descended from the ceiling, revealing a glass container with a Stand arrow inside it. This one looked different from the ones Fergie had seen in the past; with a golden mold of a beetle sitting on the arrowhead.

"I'm glad I had the foresight to have this installed in the base. Now I don't have to keep lugging it around with me while we wait for the second part of the package," Boney commented as he inputted the code into the remote again, causing the arrow container to rise back up into the ceiling. "We usually have our Stand donor ready by the time we get our hands on an arrow. Kudos to you though, Mais, for supplying us with both. I'm thrilled you have absolutely no qualms with selling out your former gang for the sake of your own selfish goals."

"Bufala, and let me reassure you, I've never considered myself a part of Passione. They're an insult to mafioso everywhere. When this is all over, I hope Giovanna and his cronies all burn in hell," Bufala insisted in a dark, gravely tone. "The Grand Marshal needs another Stand arrow, and I knew where Passione kept theirs. Our interests align with each other. It's not any more complicated than that."

"Yeah, speaking of which, we didn't steal that thing for you, Boney," Fergie absentmindedly commented. "Shouldn't this Grand Marshal guy be here to pick the arrow up? Also, like, Akira and I did all the hard work to steal the arrow in the first place, so..."

She silenced herself as soon as Boney shifted his focus to her. "Are you suggesting I give the arrow to you two? Don't make me laugh. I'm pretty sure the last people I'd trust this with would be an amoral musician and his personal glory hole," Boney jeered. "Tell me, Fergie, what would you even do with it?"

Suddenly put on the spot, Fergie stared off to the side and twirled her tie in her fingers. "I dunno, uh, like, use it to make a bunch more Stand users for me to fight or something? Akira said he had an arrow once and shot a rat with it, and the rat started melting a bunch of other rats into cubes. I wanna fight something like that."

Boney sighed and shook his head. "Mhm, I figured as much. You know, despite the amount of arrow hunting I've been doing for the last however many years, I still haven't grown attached to them. Thank God for the Grand Marshal, because the masks are a much better weapon and tool. Apparently, people have taken to calling the Stand users we've masked as Masqueraders. I like it. A fitting name for my slaves. These arrows...they're too emblematic of the folly of powerful men. Do you know what that is?"

"Nope, don't care," Fergie stated, inching towards the door. "If you're not gonna tell me where Akira is, then I'm—"

"Greed," Bufala answered. "The folly of all powerful men is greed."

"Exactly!" Boney snapped his fingers and happily pointed at Bufala. "Good to know I'm not the only one in this room with a brain. Any man worth his salt will seek out power eventually, but their greed makes them endlessly pursue more strength for themselves. Give a man a dagger, and he'll want a sword. Give a man a sword, and he'll want a claymore. Eventually, though, he'll just end up with a weapon too heavy for him to lift. And, well, the bigger they are..."

He drew his pistol, a Desert Eagle, from his pocket and fired at the leg of the chair Bufala was sitting on, the loud BANG! of the shot exploding off the walls of the small room. The chair gave out in an instant, causing both it and Bufala to crash to the floor. His chin smacked against the edge of the table on the way down. Fergie would have laughed at him if Boney was not holding a gun in front of her.

"The harder they fall," Boney concluded, blowing the smoke from his gun. "The truth is, real power isn't obtained by making yourself stronger. You get it by making everyone else around you weaker. Take away a man's dagger while he's busy wishing for a sword, and he's truly left with nothing."

He put his gun back in his pocket, trading it for a red Masquerader mask. Fergie went stiff at the sight of it and instinctively brought a hand up to cover one of her eyes.

"These red masks are a better tool for power than the Stand arrows could ever hope to be. Put one on a Stand user, and they lose the ability to summon their Stand. Unless, of course, they encounter another Stand, which provokes them to attack. They become so overcome by blind rage that they lose all sense of reason until the enemy Stand or its user is gone. But I doubt they'll be winning many battles like that. If someone besides the Grand Marshal tries to take the mask off of them, their head caves in on itself," Boney exposited. "These masks force their wearers into a state of complete suppression. Not only have you taken away their daggers, you've strapped a bomb to their face if they ever try to get them back." He let out a blissful sigh as he put the mask back in his pocket. "I couldn't ask for any more power."

"If you love those red masks so much, why don't you go and marry them?" Fergie muttered to herself.

"Mind repeating that, Fergie?"

"I-I was just saying that you should stop using the mind control masks. You know, like the one that you have Akira wearing right now."

"Unfortunately, his trashy music has made him a public icon. Keeping his Stand suppressed isn't enough, I have to keep him in line, too. That's what this is for." He pulled out the purple mask from his pocket just far enough for Fergie to see it. "I don't prefer the blue and purple masks to the red ones, though. Being able to control someone else's Stand doesn't do much if their Stand is a pile of shit already."

"Regardless of the Stand's ability, it's more than a bit bizarre to control a Stand that isn't yours," Bufala added, having moved to another chair and still gingerly rubbing his chin. "Speaking from experience. It's like relearning how to walk. Not to mention disorienting;" he tapped his eyepatch, "I'm not used to seeing out of this eye anymore."

"Anyways, now that both of you are here, I have jobs for you," Boney announced. "Since Akira somehow failed to kill the people looking for me, both of you are going to help me find them and do the job he could not. I doubt they'll be actively pursuing me after seeing the present I left behind in the plane's bathroom, but we can't risk anyone interfering right now."

Ever vigilant, Bufala nodded and rose to his feet. "What do they look like?"

"I caught a glimpse of them when I made Chili Pepper leave the plane. One of them is an older man, probably somewhere in his fifties, tall with blond hair and wearing a wide brim hat and poncho. He's definitely the 'cowboy looking dickweed' Fergie described earlier, meaning he's the person Depeche Mode hired to track me down. I suspect he's been hired to kill me which, well," Boney chuckled to himself, "that won't end well for him. The rest were a bunch of kids in their teens or early twenties; two girls, two boys. I'll send both of you a more detailed description of their appearances later."

Bufala furrowed his brow. "What's an assassin doing hanging around a bunch of kids? Much less one that Depeche Mode would hire."

"Who knows? Maybe he's pimping out the girls," Boney speculated. "They're not as important, the cowboy is our main target. By now, the two of you know the drill. You two investigate the west coast while I look for them on the east. I'm sure you've noticed a certain someone isn't here, and I've already sent her off to the midwest. Understood?"

"Understood," Bufala repeated.

"So am I allowed to, like, kill these guys without Mr. Killjoy over here giving me shit for it?" Fergie elbowed Bufala in the ribs.

Boney dismissively flicked his wrist. "I don't care who you two kill as long as you don't kill each other."

"I'm in."

"You don't have a choice in the matter either way, but your lack of resistance is a nice change of pace. Now then," he drew his gun once again, resting the muzzle against the side of his head, "I have places to be."

Confident smirk still wrung proudly on his face, Boney fired the gun. The bullet tore through his skull, blood and brain matter gushing from both holes left behind by the shot. Blown back by the force of his gun, his body collapsed to the floor so he was lying on his side in a pool of his own blood. A cloudy haze fogged up his pupils as his muscles went limp.

Fergie and Bufala both stared deadpan at the dead body in front of them.

"I wish he'd be less messy when he does this," commented Bufala.

"I wish he'd let me kill him myself," commented Fergie.

Bufala put a hand on his hip and turned to the psychopath next to him. "Do you want to risk Bad to the Bone activating on you?"

A brief pause settled between them as more blood leaked from the bullet hole in the corpse's head, filling the air with a distinctive metallic scent. Eventually, Fergie walked up to the body, pried the gun from his hands, and shot him twice more in the head for good measure. She left the gun behind on the table as she waltzed out the door.

"Whatever," she mumbled.

Chapter Text

To say that Michelle's arrival in the United States had been unorthodox was an understatement. Instead of the stuffy, sterile airport with overactive security guards around every corner Cab had described in the car, she found herself standing in overgrown grass on the side of the road of some small town in what she presumed to be the middle of nowhere. By the time everyone had gotten their bearings, the sun had begun to set, resting just above the horizon. The lampposts dotted around the side of the road were dim, providing barely more light than the pocket flashlight Sara whipped out of her knapsack. At least the air was cool and heavy. Compared to the thin air she had been forced to suck down while aboard the flying raft, each breath Michelle took felt like heaven.

Maybe Sara wasn't wrong about savoring the first breaths in a new location after all.

As nice as it would have been to land inside a plane, Michelle was just thankful that she, her companions, and their luggage were all in one piece. For the most part, anyway. Rumor's Hamon made quick work of the road rash they all received after the raft gave out, but neither that or any of their Stands could reattach the wheels back to Michelle's suitcase.

"Hamon only works on organic material," Rumor explained as he inspected the damage himself. "However, it would be rather inefficient to carry your bag around like a cardboard box packed to the brim with fragile plates. Allow me to offer up the next best thing;" he sent out two segments of The Chain from his wrists and attached them to the sides of the suitcase, forming straps like a backpack. "Until the opportunity arises that we can replace your bags, this is the best I can do."

Michelle nodded in appreciation and slung her suitcase on her back. Regret exploded inside her as soon as she did—damn, her bag was heavy. Rolling it around on its wheels had been easy enough, but carrying it on her back? Its sheer weight forced her to hunch over, knees bent and barely standing. Maybe she could ask Cab or Hol Horse to carry the suitcase for her? Michelle shook her head. No. I'm not helpless. The wheels were already about to give out even when I first left the apartment. This was bound to happen eventually, she recalled. I can do this.

She took only two steps before her legs gave out under the weight of her bag, causing her to trip and land face first in a pile of mud. As Sara, Rumor, and Hol Horse helped her back to her feet (Michelle refused help from the latter), Cab took the suitcase off her back and carried it himself. The incident was never spoken of again.

On the bright side, the town they had landed in had a used car dealership within walking distance from where they had landed. Shady, yes—many of the cars on display in the lot had rusty exteriors and smashed windows—but the group unanimously agreed that whatever hunk of shit the salesman could scam them with was better than nothing. Doubly so since the only place in town they could rest at was a dusty old motel that somehow looked even more suspicious and decrepit than the car dealership. After about ten minutes of haggling and negotiations with the salesman, Hol Horse walked away with keys to a Mercedes in surprisingly good shape with a large enough trunk to fit all their luggage inside. Cab joined in towards the tail end of the Hol Horse's conversation with the salesman and not only managed to drop the price by a couple hundred dollars, but also got him to throw in a map for good measure.

"Never would've pegged you as the bargaining type," Hol Horse commented as he stepped inside the driver's seat.

"What can I say? I'm a charming guy," Cab chortled, reclining his seat while Quiet Riot's hands rested behind his head. No one dared take the passenger's seat from him, he had earned shotgun and everyone knew it. Even Rumor didn't object as Cab shoved his seat back and stole most of his leg room. "Well, that and my mom was really good with money. I mean, it was her job after all. She was a CFO. Guess I kinda picked up on that stuff somewhere along the way."

"So, where to? Where even are we?" Sara yawned and slouched over in the backseat. "I dunno about you guys, but I'm pretty hungry. And sleepy," she yawned again. "Maybe we should stop and get some dinner then find a place to spend the night? If we're stranded, I don't mind sleeping in the car."

"Answerin' your second question first," Hol Horse opened up the map the car salesman had given them and pointed at a circle drawn on in bright red marker, "this is where we are right now. Damn town is so small, it doesn't even show up on the map."

With the map presented to her, Michelle was able to confirm where they had landed. The map itself was of New York—seems they had just about reached their destination by the time Red Hot Chili Pepper showed up—with the marked in circle located towards the southeast of the state. Or at least, Michelle assumed so. Given that the map was both labeled in miles rather than kilometers and more detailed than any map of Paris or France she had ever seen, properly reading it proved difficult.

Hol Horse rolled the map back up and handed it off to Cab. "Luckily, I know someone in Scarsdale who'll take us in for the night. Maybe a few more, if we're lucky. We can rest up at her place then figure out where we're goin' next in the morning."

"Scarsdale?" Cab opened up the map again, studying the route from the red circle to the location in question. "Jesus, that's the wealthiest neighborhood in the whole state. You weren't kidding when you said you have connections." Disbelief crept up on his face in the form of narrowed eyes and pursed lips. "What makes you so sure that she will take us in uninvited? Y'know, considering how the guy who gave Michelle her passport broke your nose for—"

"Wait," Sara interrupted, half awake and leaning on Rumor's shoulder, "can I see the map again?"

"Yeah, sure." Cab passed off the map to her. "Let me know if you need help reading—"

Before he could even finish his sentence, Sara shot up straight, eyes wide open, and squealed in delight. "Hold the phone! We're not that far from New York City!" She held the map close to her chest and happily hummed to herself. "I've always wanted to go to NYC! Besides, that was where we were originally supposed to go, right? There's gotta be thousands of hotels there, we must be able to find one that won't burn a hole in our wallets! Ooh, and then we can find a nice little pizzeria, or maybe stop at the big Hard Rock Café they have at Times Square..."

Hearing Sara list off her planned itinerary made Michelle bring her knees to her chest and thumb at her necklace. Not New York City. Anywhere but New York City. She figured it was inevitable after Hol Horse announced that they were going to New York the state, but she needed at the very least more time to emotionally prepare herself for the veritable hub of American tourism. Visions of crowded sidewalks, pushy street vendors, and ignorant pedestrians attacked her consciousness. How could she possibly hope to get any semblance of rest in the city that never sleeps?

Thankfully, from what Michelle could see of him in the rearview mirror, Hol Horse seemed to have a similar reaction. He took a particularly long draw from his cigarette, rubbing the scars on his forehead. "Listen, darlin', I promise I'll take ya to the Big Apple later during the trip." His soft smile carried a level of charisma that completely buried the lack of commitment in his words. "Just not tonight. All of us are pretty worn out from the ride over, including you. I can see it in your eyes. Wouldn't you rather crash some place nice and quiet instead of a sterile old hotel room?"

"No," Sara answered flatly. "I want to go to the city."

"Pas moi," Michelle mumbled under her breath. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Hol Horse."

"I'm indifferent on the matter," Rumor said with a shrug.

"I've been to NYC plenty of times before, and I'm in no rush to go back right now," Cab commented, taking back the map. "Sorry, Sara, but you're outvoted. If we somehow end up skipping it on this trip, the two of us can visit another time. I'll even take you to a Broadway show, your choice. I should have enough money to pay for that much if we ever find the time to stop at the bank."

"Assuming whatever thief purloined your wallet hasn't splurged your life savings away already," Rumor snarked.

Without missing a beat, Cab adjusted the rearview mirror to stare down Rumor's confident mug with his own cocky grin. "Oh yeah? Let's throw you against a Masquerader whose Stand is a bunch of sticky yellow goop that eats you alive. What are you gonna do, lasso a gelatinous blob? I just had my wallet stolen; you probably would've bit the bullet."

Hol Horse's eyes went wide with surprise upon hearing Cab's description of the Masquerader's Stand. He opened his mouth for a moment, clearly about to say something, before shaking his head and starting up the car. So he knew the Masquerader that stole Cab's wallet, too, Michelle concluded. That makes two Masqueraders Hol Horse knows.

Before she had a chance to question his reaction, Hol Horse's eyes locked onto the road and the topic of the conversation changed entirely. Even Sara, no longer fueled by the adrenaline of going to New York City, occasionally chimed in while drifting in and out of sleep.

The long drive gave Michelle plenty of time to ponder over Hol Horse's reaction. They must have been on the road for at least an hour and a half, if not longer, before they reached Scarsdale. True to Cab's word, the town even looked wealthy, perhaps artificially so. Neatly trimmed bright green grass surrounded by white picket fences adorned the lawn of every home, all cute little two-story houses painted in a fresh coat of creamy white. The town reminded Michelle of old advertisements about "the American Dream" from the 1950s. They even drove past a country club on the way to their destination.

Hol Horse parked the car in one of the many driveways, the house attached to it indistinguishable from its neighbors. "Now, I'm gonna go up there by my lonesome and greet her. It's been a while since we've seen each other last, so we might take a minute to catch up. I'm sure she'll want to know what I've been up to for the last..." his voice trailed off as he stubbed out his cigarette on the car's dashboard, "err, however long it's been. When you see me wave at y'all, that's your cue to come in. Her name's Lindy, she's a midwife. Act like y'all have heard a lot about her from me when you come inside."

With that, he shut the door behind him and walked up the driveway. The porchlight switched on as he approached the entryway and rang the doorbell.

"Ten bucks she slams the door on him," Cab wagered.

"The only one of us with money to gamble with is Michelle, and I doubt she'll raise you on that bet," Rumor pointed out.

Michelle shrugged. She wasn't interested in any American dollars Cab could scrounge up, but the bet sounded like fun. "Twenty says she'll stomp on his foot beforehand."

The car rumbled with Cab's hearty chuckle. "You're on. Sara, you awake back there? Get your camera ready."

Still half-asleep, Sara clumsily dug her camera out from her knapsack and pointed it out the windshield.

After a few more seconds of waiting, a woman in a bathrobe about five to ten years younger than Hol Horse opened the door. He tipped his hat, obviously about to greet her, before she promptly slapped him in the face and slammed the door shut. Cab burst out in a fit of laughter the moment her palm struck Hol Horse's cheek. Michelle followed suit with quiet, borderline smug giggles. Sara's camera flashed just a moment too late, capturing Hol Horse's bewildered expression as the door closed on him. He just stood there for a moment, unmoving, even after the porchlight switched off. Eventually, he stood up straight and began his walk of shame towards the car. Rumor glared at him the whole way back.

"Casanova's karma," Rumor mumbled, transcribing the event into his journal.

Tense silence swept throughout the car as soon as the driver's seat door clicked open. Hol Horse slid into the driver's seat, well aware of the eyes on him, and rested his forehead on the steering wheel.

Michelle considered feeling sympathetic for him, if only for a moment. But he honestly probably deserved it.

"Okay, so maybe I had it comin' for sending postcards to that statue fella's sister after she got engaged," he eventually commented, sitting upright and rubbing his slapped cheek, "but I don't think I deserved that."

Everyone else in the car exchanged a look that said "yes, you definitely did."

Sara hid her camera behind her back and attempted to change the subject. "Can we go to New York City now?"

"Right away, darlin'." He started up the car.

~~~~~

Part of Hol Horse had hoped that the night before had been a bad dream and that he'd wake up to cute little Lindy hanging off his arm like in the good old days. Alas, the sound of garbage trucks and rowdy street vendors woke him up instead. With a stiff back and sore shoulders, he pulled himself out of bed and drew his window curtains open.

The Five Boroughs. The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. Hol Horse had been to New York City many times over the course of his life, but he wasn't exactly thrilled to be back, which he couldn’t help but feel surprised at given that it had been his stomping ground when he was in his prime as an assassin. In fact, he’d almost gotten nostalgic when Depeche had told him his next job was in New York. Due to the city’s size, bounties were abundant and often paid handsomely. Few other Stand users were around back then to give him competition, and he often found himself teamed up with the ones that were. The plethora of sad, desperate actresses dreaming for a shot at Broadway that always made for easy lovers was also a bonus.

As the years ticked on, however, Hol Horse began to see New York City for what it really was; a loud, dirty metropolis that prided itself on artificiality. Private headquarters for faceless corporations dominated the city landscape in the form of tall, dark skyscrapers. Electronic billboards stacked upon electronic billboards constantly flashed advertisements for products that most common folk had already bought, rendering them as little more than a showy annoyance. For every seedy, tucked away bar or nightclub that Hol Horse would frequent in his youth, there was an even seedier corporation presenting itself out in the open with a blinking neon display.

The Speedwagon Foundation regional headquarters standing just a block away from the hotel was not helping.

After drawing the curtains closed again, he fetched his clothes from where he’d laid them out on the empty bed opposite his and began to get dressed. It was only a matter of time before Sara came knocking on his door and asked him to come sightseeing with her, after all, if only because he was the only one in the group with any money. He wasn’t complaining; though he loathed the in-your-face marketing of Times Square, visiting places like the Statue of Liberty or Museum of Modern Arts every now and again was fun. It did leave him wondering what else he was supposed to do, though. After all, he’d been sent here on a job by Depeche, but he’d already found his target dead in the plane bathroom. Unfortunately, the job wasn’t just to kill him; Depeche was more concerned with finding whatever that green-haired fellow had stolen from Passione. Hol Horse considered just ditching the job entirely, but Depeche would probably have his head if he even considered shirking out of their deal.

The hotel phone rang just as he finished getting dressed, topping off his outfit with his hat. Probably Sara checkin' to see if I'm awake, he reasoned as he strode over to the nightstand and picked up the phone. He laid back down in bed as he answered. "Yello."

"Is this Hol Horse?"

Subconsciously, Hol Horse sat up a little straighter and frowned. That deep, guttural voice didn't belong to any of his travelling companions, but damn it sounded familiar. He couldn't quite place from where, though. Whoever his caller was, they certainly weren't the hotel staff. "Who's askin'?"

"I'm calling to tell you that Depeche Mode is dead."

Hol Horse's furrowed brow shot up in surprise. Sure, he was no stranger to people in his line of work popping up dead here and there, but he had seen Depeche just a few days ago. Lines of coke aside, he'd been as healthy as ever, and none of his known adversaries were the type to knock him off so quickly. Who the hell would want him dead?

Wait, of course. Passione. The last job Depeche had given him—and by extension, probably the last job he'd given anybody—was to dig up a bargaining chip to use against a powerful criminal organization chalk full of Stand users. They probably found out what Depeche was up to and but a bounty on his head in retaliation. Were it not for some choice dialogue from Chili Pepper, he would've been inclined to believe that they had shot his green-haired target, too.

Which meant that he, the one that Depeche had assigned to seize Passione's stolen goods, was probably next.

He slowly exhaled. Well, shit.

"Hang on. I recognize that voice," he realized. "You're that fella who gave Michelle her passport, ain't ya? Lovestrong's assistant?"

"I also broke your nose. When I told my sister about our encounter, she told me I should have cut off your—"

"Hey hey hey hey hey." Hol Horse rose from bed, dismissively shaking his free hand. "I don't reckon you're callin' on your sister's behalf, so let's let bygones be bygones. Depeche kicked the bucket? I take it you're calling me because you think I pulled the trigger on him. Because if that's the case, I've got an alibi that's airtight."

"No, I know you didn't do it. I'm calling you because Depeche left you something in his will."

Hol Horse jut his chin back in disbelief.

"He did what now?"

For as much as Hol Horse sucked up to him to stay on his good side, he and Depeche weren't exactly buddy buddy with each other and both of them knew it. Now he'd left something for him in his will? Hol Horse hadn't even been awake for more than ten minutes, and now all of a sudden he was on one of the weirdest phone calls in his entire career. Still didn't top being recruited to work for a vampire, though.

"It wasn't in his legal will," his caller explained, "but both of us know that he wasn't the type of man to do things legally. Everyone on his payroll got something from him. Including me. I'm here in New York to deliver your share."

Everyone on his payroll. Interesting. The person calling him right now, the same man who had delivered Michelle's passport, was supposed to be Lovestrong's assistant. Supposedly, Lovestrong would be paying him, not Depeche. Aside from a few main lackeys and a host of oblivious interns, Depeche had lived and died by his contract workers, up to and including Hol Horse himself. He hadn't been some esteemed mafia don with an elaborate chain of operations. So, the man on the other end of the line must have been none other than Lovestrong himself.

As nice as that was to know, it didn't answer what the hell Depeche would have left him. He doubted it was a job of some kind if multiple people were getting a cut. "If it's drugs, then I ain't interested."

"It's not drugs, I've already checked," Lovestrong reassured him. "Actually, I'm not sure what the hell it is. Two of Depeche's henchmen dropped off both of ours at my doorstep and told me to give you yours, since I'm the last person who saw you. From what I can tell, it's not money either. I was hoping you could shed some light on the subject."

"Just what makes you think that I would know any more about it than you do?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure. Call it a hunch."

Pinching the ridge of his nose, Hol Horse let out an exasperated sigh. A phone call from someone that unabashedly did not like him telling him his employer was dead and to meet up with him for some unknown reward? This had trap written all over it. Unfortunately, there wasn't much he could do about it; Lovestrong had called his hotel number, meaning he knew exactly where he was. If he didn't confront him directly, Lovestrong would just find an opportunity to ambush him instead. Of course, that was all assuming he was or had teamed up with a Stand user, which Hol Horse had no way of confirming over the phone, but it never hurt to be careful. Especially given Emperor's condition.

And on the offhand chance that he was genuine about Depeche leaving him something in his will, he knew it would eat him up inside if he didn't figure out what the hell the bastard had left him.

"Alright, fine," Hol Horse relented. "On two conditions. First of all, you meet me down at Times Square, not at my hotel. Second of all, you punch or kick me again and I blow your brains out. Sound good to you?"

For as much as Hol Horse didn't like Times Square, the large crowds constantly swarming the place made for a solid defense system. Ranged Stands would have trouble locking in on him from afar in the sea of bodies, and one missed attack was all he needed to get the upper hand. For as unreliable as it was, Emperor could still hopefully handle a close quarters Stand. When it came to support, however...

Well, he wasn't traveling alone for a reason.

"You have yourself a deal," Lovestrong said. "I'm currently just a block or so away from Times Square, so I should get there before you. I'll be in disguise."

"I take it you're gonna be doing that livin' statue shtick again?"

"No, but you'll know me when you see me. It's a personalized disguise. Just for you."

"Alright then, give me 'round ten minutes." Hol Horse lowered the phone back to its base, but caught himself at the last second and brought the phone back up to his ear. "How in the hell did you even find me here, anyway?"

"Your 'girlfriends' all have big mouths, womanizer," Lovestrong snidely responded.

With that, he hung up, leaving the phone to replay the same droning beeping noise with no one on the other end of the line. Hol Horse placed the phone back down on its base and rolled his shoulders back. He needed a plan of action.

First thing's first, I gotta figure out who I'm gonna have tag along with me for this, Hol Horse thought. In a way, he was almost thankful for the plane crash—now he knew the Stands of everyone in his little party. Bringing just one of them with him was the best option, lest he risk the four of them distracting each other in the big city. He ruled out Sara on this principle alone, and their Stands were too similar to properly support each other anyways.

Michelle came to mind next. He took no pleasure in forcing a woman into combat, but Iron Maiden provided a nearly unbeatable defense, and Michelle had proven herself to be both observant and cautious enough to use it well. Like night and day, her and her old man, Hol Horse mused to himself. Unfortunately, she didn't seem particularly eager to use her Stand, at least not in public. Hol Horse wasn't sure what exactly she was going on about with that "walking bad luck charm" nonsense back on the suitcase raft, but she clearly had some kind of hang-up about using her Stand in most situations. He rolled his eyes at the thought. Kids just don't realize what they've got until it's gone. 

Cab, on the other hand, seemed all too eager to use his Stand, even in casual situations like using its hands as a headrest. A close quarters combat Stand didn't make for an ideal partner—he preferred Stands that could keep his enemies at bay, not one that would dare them to come closer—but if Quiet Riot had the strength to punch a hole through the fuselage of a former military plane and keep said plane afloat by spinning its propellers, then Hol Horse certainly wasn't complaining. He just wished all that power had a bit more range and versatility to it.

Luckily, Rumor seemed to excel at both range and versatility. Not only could he summon multiple strands of The Chain at once, not only could he disconnect them from his body and have them act as separate entities whenever he wanted, not only could they stretch out stupidly far, not only could they transfer heat between object, but Rumor was also a Hamon user. That added a whole bunch of bullshit Hol Horse didn't quite understand to his arsenal, but most importantly, healing. That was the best perk to have on any partner, hands down. Rumor being a Hamon user did make Hol Horse question whether or not he was connected to the Joestars, which made taking him out in New York City of all places risky, but Rumor's lack of concrete evidence for his vampire obsession dispelled any concerns he may have. Anyone even remotely connected to the Joestars would have brought up Dio by now. Thank god he hadn't. Worst case scenario, Hol Horse would have to check his shoulder for a birthmark.

Hotel key in one pocket and cigarettes in the other, Hol Horse left his hotel room and marched down the hall. They hadn't been able to get three rooms right next to each other, but at least they were all on the same floor. Cab and Rumor were a few doors down in room 603. As he knocked on the door to their room, Hol Horse swore he heard running water on the other side of the door.

Cab opened the door. "What's up, cowboy? Don't mean to rude, but please make this quick. I'm kind of in the middle of something." He stepped to the side and gestured at the bedroom TV broadcasting a soccer game.

With the door open, the gentle hiss of water grew louder—Hol Horse could say without much doubt that it was coming from behind the closed bathroom door. Rumor was also nowhere to be seen. A man with a lesser poker face would have groaned in frustration; he really hoped he hadn't walked in on the kid taking a shower.

Instead, Hol Horse just put his hands in his pockets and maintained his light smile. "Oh, no problem. I'll be out of your hair in just a second. Where's your buddy Rumor? I was hoping I could borrow him for something."

Cab snickered. "'Buddy?' Feel lucky he can't hear us. Sorry, but I don't think you're gonna be dragging him out of there any time soon." He ambled over to the bathroom and partially opened the door. Hol Horse followed him and peaked inside.

Exactly as he worried, Rumor was in the shower sitting upright with his eyes closed. The edge of the shower's embedded bathtub shielded his lower half, but Hol Horse imagined him sitting cross-legged with his hands resting on his knees. His hair had been freed from its braided crown and hung over his face and shoulders. Not a wisp of steam hung in the bathroom air, and both the shower's sliding glass door and the bathroom mirror were unmarred by any mist or smudges. Hol Horse couldn't help but shiver; that water must have been ice cold. Golden sparks faintly crackled off of Rumor's body and rippled down his torso.

Notably, his shoulders were also clean of any birthmarks.

"He does this meditation thing every other morning," Cab explained. "Something about purifying his Hamon, I think? I dunno. Trust me, though, you can't wake him when he's like this. Watch."

Cab swung the bathroom door all the way open and marched over to the shower, purposefully stomping his feet as loud as he could against the tile floor. Kneeling down to be on level with Rumor, he slid the shower door open and poked his cheek. Rumor failed to react, his blank expression stone solid upon his face. Hol Horse half expected a jolt of Hamon to zap Cab's finger, but not even that happened. Cab withdrew his finger, inched his head into the shower just far enough that some stray drops of water splashed onto his scalp, and let out a quick, shrill screech directly in Rumor's face. Halfway across the room, Hol Horse flinched from the sudden noise, but Rumor sat as still as a statue.

"See? Dude's got crazy focus, I'll give him that. I'd be convinced that he just straight up falls asleep in there if it weren't for the fact that Rumor is a loud snorer," Cab commented, standing back up and closing the shower door. He strode out the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and plopped onto the messier of the two beds. "So, sorry, but whatever you need him for, you'll have to wait a bit. Even when does wake up, you're not gonna get him to do much of anything unless you get him some breakfast first. I assume it's not urgent. You're not here for him to heal you on account of you being, y'know, uninjured. But you're free to watch the game with me until he's done."

Hol Horse shook his head. "No can do. I'm meetin' up with somebody down in Times Square and need one of y'all to watch my back. All of us are pretty worn out from that plane ride, the last thing I want is a Masquerader after any of us without backup. You don't seem to have much going on. Why don't you come down with me instead?"

"Sorry, not happening," Cab responded quickly, his eyes glued on the TV.

"C'mon, don't be like that. To me, it just looks like you're watchin' an old soccer game right now." Hol Horse walked forward and stood in front of the TV. "Surely that's not so important to spare a few minutes of your time?"

"I said no," Cab repeated with a scowl. He summoned Quiet Riot and, before Hol Horse had a chance to panic or backpedal, used it to lift him off the floor and set him down away from the TV. It dematerialized soon after. "Believe it or not, I actually used to play on the same team as that goalie when we were in high school. I missed a bunch of his games while traveling, and I'm not gonna miss my opportunity to catch up just because you're too scared to go downtown by yourself."

"You can record the game, can't you?"

"Not on a hotel TV."

"I'll take you anywhere in the city you wanna go afterwards if you come down with me, no matter how expensive it is."

"Nice try. My mom took me up here every summer until she died. I saw every landmark and tourist trap this city has to offer by the time I was twelve. You couldn't convince me even if you had front row tickets to Phantom of the Opera hidden up your hat."

"Do it for a drink?"

"Oh, I am not that desperate for some booze," Cab rebutted, putting his hands on his hips. "If you really want someone to go with you, take Sara. I'm sure she'd love to go sightseeing."

"I usually don't like bringin' gals with me to stuff like this out of principle, though, so you're bendin' my morals here."

Cab took a moment to raise a brow at him before responding again. "Morals? You? Okay. Don't worry, Sara's a big girl. She can take care of herself, and Michelle's fine in the hotel room by herself for a few minutes. In fact, she might actually thank you for getting Sara out of her hair for a while."

Sharply exhaling, Hol Horse turned his head to the side and chewed on his lip. Clearly, trying to recruit either of the boys wasn't working out. He supposed he could resort to threatening Cab to come with him, but then he risked getting his ass handed to him on a silver platter by Quiet Riot. He'd seen the kind of damage Stands like that could deal to a person—he always had been thankful he never had to tango with Jotaro or Star Platinum—and he'd rather not be on the receiving end of that kind of beatdown. With a defeated sigh, he turned around and trudged to the door. "Have fun watchin' the game."

"I will," Cab responded with a dismissive flick of the wrist.

Hol Horse left the room and closed the door behind him. Selfish little shit, he thought as the lock clicked shut. How dare Cab value a promise to an old teammate over a phone call Hol Horse had received that morning? The nerve on that kid.

Dragging his feet, he slogged down to the girls' room a few doors down. Convincing Michelle to come with him wouldn't be easy, especially with Sara there to give moral support and insist that she come along instead, but he figured that having a reluctant partner was better than not having one at all. Ignoring the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging off their doorknob, he gave the door three rhythmic knocks. After a few moments, the door creaked open. Sara poked her head out and beamed at him.

"Hi, Horseshoes!" Uncharacteristically, she spoke barely above a hushed whisper.

"Howdy," Hol Horse whispered back. "Uh, why are we whispering?"

"Oh, Chelly's still asleep. I don't wanna wake her up."

She opened the door just far enough to give Hol Horse a view of the bedroom. A head of long silver hair poked out from under a large pile of blankets on the bed, resting on a stack of pillows and facing away from the door. 

"The concept of time zones has hit her like a ton of bricks," she continued. "Guess that happens to people who don't travel much. I don't think she slept well last night. She's doing her best to hide it, but I think she's still pretty rattled from the plane crash. It's probably for the best to just let her sleep as long as she needs to. She's earned a breather. So don't wake her up! Especially not you. I don't think she likes you. I dunno, it's stupid, some bullshit about how she thinks you knew her dad..."

Hol Horse gulped. Damn, she was perceptive. Admittedly, he hadn't done the best job at hiding the fact he knew Polnareff, but he didn't think a few slipups here and there would be enough to warrant her suspicion. He only hoped that she didn't know how he knew him.

"...but I hardly see why any of that matters!" Still ranting on in a quiet whisper, Sara threw her hands up in frustration. "I mean, she's not her dad, right? So it really shouldn't affect her. And her dad is dead! She's just too stuck in the past to move forward. I think she'd be a whole lot happier if she tried to let go of all her emotional baggage. Like me! That's what I did, and I feel so much better now that I have!"

When she paused to give a few awkward, tittering laughs, Hol Horse could tell that she wasn't being entirely honest with herself. She quickly cleared her throat and dropped the subject. "But yeah, if you specifically try to wake her up, she'll probably toss you out in a big plastic bag and leave you for the garbage collectors. Anyways, what's up?"

"Well..." Hol Horse's voice trailed off. He'd struck out three for three on his would-be partners, but he sure as hell wasn't about to walk into danger headfirst by himself. How bad could teaming up with Sara really be? "I was lookin' for you, actually," he lied. "Thing is, I'm meetin' up with an old pal in Times Square pretty soon, but I reckon going by myself is a bad idea. After all, with all these Masqueraders running around like dogs without leashes, any of us going out alone is just asking for an ambush. Care to come along and watch my back?"

Blue eyes alight with excitement, Sara clasped her hands together under her chin. "Oh, hell yeah! That sounds like tons of fun!"

As soon as she realized she was no longer whispering and had, in fact, shouted very loud, Sara slapped a hand over her mouth. In the room behind her, she and Hol Horse heard the rustling of blankets as Michelle stirred, grabbed a pillow, and squished it over the back of her head. Sara lowered her hand from her mouth, cracked a guilty smile, and crept back into the room.

"Just give me a sec to leave behind a note for Chelly in case she wakes up before we get back," she said, whispering again. "I'm worried she'll have a panic attack if I'm just flat out gone with no explanation. I mean, that's probably how I'd react if I was her. Oh, and let me get my camera, too!"

Before Hol Horse could say no, please do not bring your camera, Sara shut the door on him. A thread of dread wove its way into his psyche. If anything went wrong today, she was the only thing protecting him from certain doom. He took a step back and rubbed his forehead. She's a sweet girl, he thought, but damn if she ain't a handful. I reckon it'll be nothing short of a miracle if she keeps it together long enough to make sure Lovestrong doesn't stab me in the back.

Trap or not, this was bound to be an eventful meeting.

Chapter Text

Sara emerged from her hotel room mere minutes later, camera hanging from her neck and knapsack slung across her shoulders. Her bright, infectious smile lit up the hallway as she practically bounced over to the elevator, babbling on to herself about all the stuff she was eager to see and do in the city. Hol Horse smiled and nodded along, but every word out of her mouth just made that feeling of trepidation grow stronger and stronger. There was no way in hell she'd concentrate on keeping him safe like this.

By the time they left the hotel and got outside, she was practically vibrating with excitement. "I still can't believe we're actually here! New York City!" She brandished her camera, looking through it like a pair of binoculars.

"Look!" She pointed up at some tall, nondescript buildings directly in front of them. "Genuine New York skyscrapers!"

She snapped a picture.

"Look!" She pointed to her left at a food cart selling pretzels and hot dogs. "A genuine New York street vendor!"

She skipped over to the food cart and snapped a picture.

"Look!" She pointed directly in front of her, at some trash bags lining the sidewalk opposite them. "Genuine New York trash bags!"

Without even looking both ways, she walked out into the street, ready to take pictures of literal garbage. Hol Horse grabbed her by the collar of her vest and yanked her back to the sidewalk before she could get very far. A couple passerby tourists flashed judgmental looks at them, but the locals and bellhops standing outside the hotel hardly noticed a thing. God bless New York. Securing his hands to her shoulders, Hol Horse turned her around so that she was facing him and forced a grin to conceal the annoyance simmering in the pit of his stomach.

"Remember, darlin', I'm here on a job," he reminded her. "Before we get carried away, let's—"

"Ooh! Let's take a picture together!" Sara ducked under his arms and emerged at his side, standing next to him on her tiptoes. She pointed her camera at them and did a peace sign with her free hand. Instinctively, Hol Horse tipped his hat back and smiled as she snapped the picture.

"Alright, now that you've got your jitters out, we should—"

"Wait!" She shushed him by extending her hand towards him, palm out like she was commanding him to stop. "I promised myself that I'd take a deep breath of air in every new place I visit on this trip. Just gimme a sec."

She closed her eyes and deeply inhaled. The next second, her nose scrunched up in disgust and she began to loudly cough. "Well..." she opened her eyes and cleared her throat, "you'd certainly like it here, Horseshoes!" She gestured down at the cigarette he'd pulled out from his pocket.

"Yup, everyone in New York's a smoker. To tell you the truth, I damn near can't smell it anymore," he admitted as he wedged his cigarette between his lips. Him being nose blind to cigarettes didn't stop the city from smelling horrible. Noxious fumes danced around all the trash bags on the street as if the Rockettes were flinging up shit with every kick. "So, Times Square is somewhere 'round twenty minutes from here on foot. What do you say we take the subway instead? There should be an entrance a few blocks down."

"Sure, that sounds like fun! I've never ridden a subway before," Sara said. "I mean, there were tons of trains in Europe, but that's not really the same, right?"

"Nope. They're as different as night and day." Hol Horse strode forward. If memory served, the subway station was a straight shot ahead. "Stay close, though, the last thing I want is for you to get lo—"

When he looked behind him to make sure Sara was paying attention and not off in her own little world, snapping pictures to her heart's content, he instead saw that Sara had effectively vanished. Not a trace of her was left on the sidewalk; no knapsack thrown on the ground or cannons attached to a wall. This being New York City, there were tons of people on the sidewalk with him, but Sara was nowhere among them. Hol Horse bit back a frustrated groan and darted his eyes between both ends of the street.

"Dammit, where'n the hell did she—"

"Hi!"

Hol Horse yelped upon hearing Sara's chipper voice call out from right behind him, making him cough out his cigarette. He turned around again, and this time, saw her looking up at him, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. Curiously, she had swapped out her sports jersey and visor for a black "I ♥ NYC" baseball hat and shirt, the latter of which was clearly two sizes too big for her. It almost looked like a dress on her frame. She'd also somehow found the time to fuse her pigtails together into a ponytail sticking out the back of her hat.

Hol Horse raised a brow at her. "Did you steal those, darlin'?"

The word steal made Sara's cheeks turn bright red. Looking to the side, she began to fidget with the material of her clearly stolen shirt. "What? No! Me? Never! I'm not a thief!"

"I could care less, so long as you weren't caught," Hol Horse reassured, stubbing out his fallen cigarette with his boot. At the very least, he was impressed by her speed. Whoever she stole the clothes from probably hadn't realized they'd been taken yet, even if Sara had pilfered them right off their body. Still, if she ran off again, she could end up never coming back. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, keeping her close at his side, and continued his route towards the subway station.

"So, anyways," Sara thought aloud as she absentmindedly snapped more pictures, "you said we we're going to meet an old friend of yours?"

"Yup. He's just here to deliver me somethin', so it shouldn't take all that long," Hol Horse said. "Apparently, he's gonna be in disguise, but I don't have the slightest clue what getup he'll be wearing. He said that it's just for me, whatever the hell that means. Keep your eyes open for anyone that might match that description."

"Mhm." Sara barely acknowledged him, too busy focusing her camera on a street of local restaurants. "Then can we poke around the city? I mean, we're going to Times Square, that gives us a great starting spot. Ooh, maybe we could do one of those bus tours!"

Those damn bus tours, overpriced and artificial, were perhaps the bane of his existence. Not like he could outright say no without making her upset, but he was sure he'd be able to sway attention towards something else before it was too late. "Sure, whatever you want, darlin'."

"Is your friend a Stand user? Maybe he can come with us."

"Well, see, that's the thing. I actually don't know if he's got a Stand," Hol Horse confessed. "In fact, I've got a feelin' that this whole meeting is a setup of some kind, and he's just fixing to get the drop on me. Course, that's what you're here for. You're my number one, so I'm countin' on ya. With you here to watch my back, this should all go down like clockwork." He pulled her just a little closer and gave her shoulder a few light, reassuring pats; he figured the sentiment would make her more willing to come to rush to his aid should the need arise. "Either way, though, he's not really the type to stick around. I don't reckon he'll want to go sightseeing with us."

"Not with that kind of attitude! If he's your friend, then he should want to..." she paused, lowered her camera, and pointed ahead. "Hey, Horseradish, is that the entrance to the subway?"

Ahead of them laid a set of stairs leading underground, bordered by a green fence labeled "Subway" by a black sign with blocky letters. The stairway was cordoned off by a pair of very stern looking NYPD officers and a chain link extended from railing to railing, supporting yet another sign.

SEWER LINE BURST
SUBWAY CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE UNTIL 6/1/2009

Hol Horse groaned. Just his luck. Whatever had happened down there must have been bad too, given how the putrid scent in the air grew stronger and stronger the closer he stepped to the subway. In a rare moment of respect for law enforcement, he found himself wondering how the police officers had the mental fortitude to sit there all day and not vomit. Then again, this was New York City. Their closet-sized apartments probably smelled just as bad.

Taking a small step away from Hol Horse's grip, Sara stuck out her thumb towards the road. "Wanna take a cab instead?"

Reluctantly, Hol Horse moved away from the blocked off subway. "Great idea, darlin'."

Taxi cabs constantly flowed through every street of New York City at all hours, so they only had to wait a few minutes until one came cruising their way. Hol Horse announced their destination the moment he swung the door open, before the driver had a chance to ask himself or even greet them. Traffic was a nightmare, because of course it was, and often forced them to park and listen to a choir of honking horns. Every red light they stopped at made Hol Horse curse whatever had caused that damn sewage pipe to burst. If they were walking into a trap, every second they wasted in the car gave Lovestrong more time to set it up. Meanwhile, Sara spent the whole ride with her head out the window, happily taking pictures of whatever she could.

Times Square, by the time they finally arrived, was just as Hol Horse had remembered it. Massive skyscrapers, all so close together that they may as well have been one large structure, looked down upon hordes of tourists that hogged every spare inch of sidewalk. Most buildings were outfitted with giant electronic billboards promoting everything from fashion brands to Broadway shows to gaming consoles. The only ones that didn't have these displays were all shops, restaurants, and fast-food joints, but they too coated their logos in dazzling lights that coaxed everyone to stop inside and buy, buy, buy. Street performers of all kinds battled for the attention of the masses; Hol Horse spotted a woman playing the cello, a man juggling live hamsters, and a plethora of people wearing unlicensed mascot costumes all patrolling the plaza. Indistinctive chatter created a sort of white noise for the city, similar to radio static or a particularly loud air conditioner.

A young couple hailed their taxi as soon as it parked to drop them off, leaving Sara and Hol Horse to exit the vehicle in tandem with the couple entering. It sped off the next second. While Hol Horse paused to scan his surroundings, looking for someone matching Lovestrong's description, Sara gazed up at the rows of billboards with a dumbfounded look on her face, eyes wide and lips slightly parted. It took her a solid fifteen seconds to remember the camera in her hands.

The diverse mob of tourists in their natural habitat was both a blessing and a curse; they provided ample cover from any ranged Stand attacks, but also made actually finding Lovestrong a pain in the ass. No one stuck out to Hol Horse as wearing a disguise that would be "just for him" from what he could see. He nudged Sara, who was standing on her tiptoes and trying to take a picture anything without a sea of heads blocking her way.

"Well? See anyone that might be our guy?" He didn't even look her in the eye while talking too her, too busy trying to find his figurative needle in the haystack of people.

"I don't think so..." Sara's voice trailed off as Hol Horse followed her into the crowd, "but with so many people here, it's hard to pick out anyone individually. What does he look like?"

Shit. Hol Horse had no idea how to answer that. The thick, bronze makeup Lovestrong had coated himself with during their last encounter didn't exactly highlight any notable features. "He's...tall, I guess."

"That doesn't really help. Everything here is tall! Jeez, I don't think I've felt shorter in my entire life. These buildings are all gigantic! How long do you think it took to build all of them?"

"Empire State Building took a little over a year if I remember correc—let's stay focused, okay darlin'? Sightseeing later."

"I can multitask! If you're thinking my camera is narrowing my vision, you're wrong. I can get a much better look at individual faces in the crowd by zooming in on them." She said this, yet her camera was solely focused on the skyscrapers on the horizon.

"Then maybe try keepin' your sights on the people yeah?" Hol Horse reached out from behind her and tilted her camera down, pointing it at the people on the street and not the buildings. "I don't think he's waitin' for us on top of any of them billboards."

"Ooh, that gives me an idea! I should totally ask Rumor Mill if he could use his Stand to climb—" she suddenly stopped in place and lowered her camera, staring directly ahead of her. "Uh, Horseshoes?"

"Yeah?"

"Is that him, right in front of us?"

"There's a lot of people 'right in front of us,' darlin', you're gonna have to be more specif—"

He cut himself off when he saw someone easily a head taller than everyone else, standing in front of a McDonalds much larger than any McDonalds had any right to be. He wore a rubber horse head and a matching velvet, a brown jumpsuit with a white belly and a horse's tail sticking out the back, and black gloves and short boots. Hooves, Hol Horse figured they were supposed to represent. Additionally, the horse man kept a large envelope tucked under his arm.

"Oh, for the love of..." Hol Horse pinched the ridge of his nose and slowly exhaled. "Yup, that's him alright."

The spurs of Hol Horse's boots faintly jangled as he plodded over to Lovestrong. Sara followed, walking backwards while she took pictures of everything behind them. Lovestrong approached them as well, and they all met each other halfway.

"Just for me. I get it," Hol Horse said dryly. "Funny joke there. I reckon you would've dug yourself a hole to sit around and wait in if you had the time, huh?"

An annoyed groan rumbled out from underneath the rubber horse head. "Your name is Hol Horse."

Shows what you know, Hol Horse thought with a scoff.

Before either of them could say anything else, Sara jumped out from behind Hol Horse snapped a picture of Lovestrong. "Hi! I'm Sara. What's your name? Are you Hol Horse's friend? How'd you two meet? How's New York so far? You been here before? Why are you wearing a rubber horse head? What are you two meeting for? Did you know that he was in Belgium earlier to get mar—no way!" Sara interrupted herself, turned on her heels, and snapped a picture of a short man in a Spider-Man costume heckling a family to take a picture with him. "A genuine New York City Spider-Man!"

The moment Sara took a step towards the poor costume actor, Hol Horse anchored his hand into her shoulder to keep her from running off. She didn't seem to mind though, and continued to take pictures from afar. Lovestrong put his hands on his hips. "That's not the same girl you had with you last time," he noted. "What did you do with Genevieve?"

Hol Horse furrowed his brow. "Genevieve?"

"The French girl with silver hair."

"Oh, right. Her." Ironically, Hol Horse had almost forgotten about Michelle's own alias. "She's back up at the hotel, sound asleep. Don't get it twisted, I'm travellin' with a whole bunch of folks right now. This little redhead was just so eager to get out and see the city that I decided to bring her along with me. That ain't so bad, is it?"

"This is the second woman young enough to be your daughter that I've seen you with in the span of a few days," Lovestrong pointed out. Even from behind the rubber mask, Hol Horse could feel Lovestrong's ice cold glare stare him down. "Don't get any ideas."

Releasing Sara from his grip, Hol Horse folded his arms and rolled his eyes. Bastard forged government documents for a living and somehow thought he had the moral high ground. "So, are you planning on lecturing me till the cows come home or are you gonna show me what you've got in in that there envelope?"

"This is what Depeche left you." Lovestrong practically shoved the envelope into Hol Horse's hands. "Tell me if you have any idea what it is."

Even though Hol Horse's curiosity was about ready to eat him alive, he took a moment to inspect the envelope itself before tearing it open, feeling through it the same way a child might shake their Christmas presents to get a sense for what might be inside. It weighed practically nothing; he was almost certain that the envelope itself was heavier than its contents. The object inside was thin and firm, comprised of jagged edges forming a shape Hol Horse didn't recognize. With bated breath, Hol Horse opened the envelope.

Right away, he recognized exactly what Depeche had left him.

In his hands laid a fragment of a canvas, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Painted onto it were several screaming faces surrounded by flames. Interestingly, the faces cut off by the edge of the canvas appeared to be bleeding, creating a red line of paint around the whole thing.

Hol Horse was holding a shard of Policy of Truth. Instantly, he turned white as a sheet, feeling as though the warm, smoggy air of New York had turned ice cold around him.

"Damn!" He shoved his inheritance back inside the envelope. "Jesus, man, what the hell're you thinkin', bringing this out here in the open?"

Lovestrong took interest, tilting his head down to look into the envelope. "I take it you know what this is, then?"

"Of course I do! You knew Depeche better than I did, and you're tellin' me you don't?"

"All I see is part of a blank canvas."

Hol Horse jut his chin back. "Blank?"

Slowly, he inched the shard out of its envelope. A lot of words could describe what he was looking at—gothic, morbid, gruesome—but blank certainly wasn't one of them. Half a dozen screaming faces stared back at him, clear as day. If Lovestrong genuinely couldn't see it, that could only mean that he wasn't a Stand user. Interesting, Hol Horse mused to himself. I never considered that normal folk couldn't see the people in the painting.

He rolled the shard between his fingers, thoughtfully chewing on his lip. So long as Policy of Truth still worked even after being cut up into tiny bits, Depeche given him a very, very strong Stand, easily covering for Emperor's weaknesses. If it still worked. Chuckling to himself, he looked up at Lovestrong with a sly smirk. "Say, who did you say you were again?"

"I'm Lovestrong's assistant," Lovestrong claimed.

Nothing changed in Lovestrong's stance after he uttered those words. He stood tall and firm, but not rigidly so the same way that Policy of Truth's victims did before turning to paint. Hol Horse jot his eyes back down to the shard. The eyes of the faces on the painting briefly lit up and glowed like flashlights, but other than that, nothing happened. A crumpled napkin blew by their feet like a tumbleweed.

Hol Horse pursed his lips together in disappointment, then tucked the shard back inside the envelope. "Alright, that's what I thought. Just double checkin'."

"Tell me what that thing is," Lovestrong demanded. "You obviously recognize it from somewhere."

"You ever been to Depeche's office in Mons?" Hol Horse paused for a moment; obviously Lovestrong had, but he doubted he would admit as much while incognito. "Well, actually, I figure you haven't on account of being Lovestrong's assistant and all, but did Lovestrong ever mention that painting Depeche kept framed behind his desk?"

Lovestrong nodded. "Is this a fragment of it?"

"That'd be my guess. I'm not sure if word ever got out 'bout this, but that wasn't no ordinary painting. Functioned as a sort of living lie detector that was always a little too trigger happy, which is why I freaked out a bit when you gave it to me."

"Oh." Something in Lovestrong's tone darkened, carrying a mix of disgust and disappointment. "I take it that the painting was a...Stand? I think that's what they were called."

"Yup. Surprised you know what a Stand is."

"I wish I didn't," Lovestrong bluntly admitted. "Depeche was always fascinated by them, but I could never trust someone or something like that. They're all a bunch of freak shows. Dangerous freak shows. I don't care if they make for strong assassins, the world's better off without that kind of nonsense."

The amiable smile Hol Horse kept plastered on his face didn't waver. He'd heard some variation of that speech more times than he could count. Freak show, what a classic. Lovestrong didn't like him, that much was obvious, but his candid words gave Hol Horse the impression that he didn't say all that just to get under his skin. Hell, he probably didn't even know he was a Stand user. Everything Lovestrong had just said was genuine.

Some things never change.

"I know exactly what you mean," Hol Horse responded, feigning agreement.

Even though Hol Horse had been called a freak or monster or just ain't right enough times to become numb to them, he figured that Lovestrong's pernicious speech had probably hit Sara hard. Cheerful as she was, she was obviously hiding some unsorted emotional baggage. Hol Horse wagered that her angst wasn't related to her Stand—otherwise she'd be more reluctant to use it the same way Michelle was with hers—but if she was emotionally fragile, hearing that would definitely rock her world. That wouldn't do. How could he rely on her to watch his back if she suddenly stopped wanting to summoning her Stand?

If she heard it, anyways. Hol Horse looked over his shoulder.

Sara was nowhere to be seen in the stream of bodies flowing through Times Square.

"If you're looking for the girl, she ran off a while ago," Lovestrong informed him.

Balling his hands into fists, Hol Horse turned back to face Lovestrong. "And you never thought to tell me?"

"Any woman running away from you has good reason to do so."

Hol Horse bit his tongue before he could say anything else that made him look even worse. Besides, what did he really have to be frustrated about? The meeting with Lovestrong went off without a hitch; he clearly wasn't a malevolent Stand user and would likely be caught dead before teaming up with one. Hol Horse had nothing to worry about anymore. He didn't need a partner to watch his back. Sara would likely hit some kind of paywall before reaching any of the famous landmarks she wanted to see, and stealing wallets was harder than merch or souvenirs. Eventually, she'd come running back to him or the hotel, if only for some money. Whatever trouble she ran into along the way wasn't his problem.

"Well, now you know what the thing Depeche left us all is," Hol Horse addressed Lovestrong, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "What you do with your piece now is up to you. So, if there's nothin' else you—"

Seeing a small cannon attached to his pack of cigarettes made the rest of Hol Horse's words catch in his throat. That was a Stand. Sara's Stand. Out of Touch, Hol Horse remembered her calling it. His heart skipped a beat when it pivoted on its base and pointed directly at him.

"Hi, Horseshoes!" Sara's voice broadcasted from the cannon.

Quicker than his draw at high noon, Hol Horse holstered the pack of cigarettes back inside his pocket. Most Stands could only be seen by fellow Stand users, yes, but there were exceptions and he certainly wasn't about to risk letting Lovestrong see the cannon. After taking a moment to make sure the cannon wasn't pointing towards his body, Hol Horse nonchalantly put his hands in his pockets and looked back up at Lovestrong with a thin, uneasy smile on his face. He was pretty sure Sara wouldn't fire at him, but that was still a gun in his pants and he wasn't happy to see it.

Lovestrong folded his arms at the display. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing. Now, what was I sayin'?"

"Your goodbyes. I'll say mine; I sincerely hope I never see you again."

With that, Lovestrong shoved his way past him, purposely bashing his shoulder against Hol Horse, and disappeared into the sea of bodies in Times Square. Well after he left, Hol Horse snorted and flipped the bird in his general direction. Good riddance, jackass, he thought with a scowl on his face.

Something nudged against Hol Horse's thigh just then. He looked down to see the cannon poking out of his pocket and swiveling from side to side as if it were scanning the area, trying to lock onto something. Dropping the tension in his shoulders, Hol Horse sighed, pocketed the envelope, and took out the pack of cigarettes. Holding the cannon up to his mouth like a microphone, Hol Horse said, "Listen, darlin', I dunno if you're aware, but you attached your Stand to my pack of cigarettes and it's pointing right at me. So, whatever you do, don't fire, alright?"

"Oh, I didn't set up that cannon to shoot you! I just wanted to make sure we could stay in touch while I," she stopped for a moment and raggedly panted, "while I track this guy down. So, did everything go okay with your friend?"

Hol Horse thoughtfully frowned. She sounded like she was jogging, no, sprinting, constantly taking in short and deep breaths. Listening closely, he could even hear her sneakers slam against the pavement with each step she took. "Track what guy down? Another Masquerader?"

"No!" The cannon swung back and forth as if shaking its head. "At least, I don't think so? I can't really tell; he's wearing a helmet..."

"Helmet?"

"It's nothing like that though! It's 'cause he's got a..." she stopped and excitedly gasped. "Yes, he's finally parking! I gotta go for now. Let's meet back up at Central Park, okay? That sounds like another fun place to hit up. Think we can do a carriage ride there? Get it, because you're Hol Horse?"

"Darlin', you are aware that Central Park is 'round a half hour from Times Squ—"

"Okay, see ya!"

Out of Touch went silent. Not a peep sounded from its muzzle and its previously emotive movements went still. Hol Horse figured that Sara was no longer consciously influencing her Stand, letting it remain passive on his cigarette pack. Those cannons are all tied to a pair of gloves, right? She probably went and called back those, he assumed.

Considering his options, Hol Horse took out a cigarette and rolled it between his thumb and pointer finger. He had promised to take Sara sightseeing after meeting up with Lovestrong, and there were certainly worse places to start than Central Park. Ditching her would just end up making her upset, which he obviously didn't want. Keeping her happy would keep her compliant. Besides, he'd be lying to himself if he said that he didn't at least kind of want to go down to the park.

Hol Horse stepped out from the heart of Times Square and meandered northwest, past the giant billboards he loathed so much. Whether by taxi or by foot, Central Park would be his next destination.

Chapter Text

For as naïve as she tended to be, Sara was at least self-aware enough to recognize her faults. Running off by herself in goddamn New York City wasn't the smartest move ever, but that was a Kawasaki ZZR 250 that had just driven by. A ZZR 250! The same motorcycle Uma Thurman rode in Kill Bill! The same motorcycle her stepbrother promised he'd buy her before...Sara shook her head. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts. The same motorcycle on the Purple Rain album cover! That didn't sound exactly right, but she didn't really care. It looked custom, too—she had never seen a ZZR 250 in such a deep purple. Like hell she was about sit back and watch it just drive off into the horizon. She only wanted some pictures, and maybe if the owner was nice they'd let her take it for a quick drive...

Besides, she was fairly confident she could handle any delinquent or street thug that New York threw her way. Dirty glares and angry threats were thrown her way as she forced her way through the hordes of people clogging the sidewalk, all of which she halfheartedly apologized to, but ultimately ignored. Even if someone tried to start a fight with her, she had a Stand. Eight portable cannons with exceptional range that doubled as both small bombs and walkie talkies. Against ordinary bystanders, she had the edge by default. Besides, The Big Apple had enough worms infesting it that a Masquerader picking her or Hol Horse out of the crowd would be next to impossible.

She wasn't quite sure what street she ended up on by the time the biker finally pulled over and parked their motorcycle on a public bike rack near a hotel that looked much nicer than the one she was staying at. Sara trailed to a stop; panting, lightheaded, and ready to pass out. Keeping her eyes fastened onto the ZZR 250 gave her more than enough energy to power through. She approached the biker as he finished fixing his bike lock to the motorcycle.

"Hi!" Sara's voice was devoid of any evidence that she had ran several blocks to catch up with the biker as she greeted him.

"Uh, hi?"

No longer speeding down the streets, Sara could accurately size up both the bike and biker in front of her. His voice was definitively masculine, carrying a slight Japanese accent to it and heavily muffled by his indigo full-face helmet. Though Sara was sure the helmet added an extra inch or so, he looked taller than Rumor but shorter than Cab. He wore a cropped leather jacket, a gray jumpsuit, and a ribbon-like belt that loosely flowed off his hips. The calves of his jumpsuit were lined with a distinctive X pattern.

Unfortunately for him, Sara was too busy ogling his bike to pay attention to his looks. Its purple paint sparkled against the morning sun, its wheels were pumped to perfection, it even had a full tank of gas! Sara felt her mouth water just looking at it. The ZZR 250 even had custom decals: the words HIGHWAY STAR were sprayed across the sides of the motorcycle in blocky white letters.

"That's a ZZR 250! I've never seen one in person before," she blurted out, already taking as many pictures of it from as many angles she could. "So cool! Ooh, did you customize it yourself?"

"Well, I didn't customize it, but I had a buddy in Tokyo do it for me. And if you're going to take pictures," the biker mounted his bike again, sitting backwards with widespread legs and resting his elbows on the handlebars, "then at least get me in them, too." 

Sara eagerly nodded and continued to flash her camera. Man, she wished that her friends were as willing to do impromptu photoshoots as this guy she had literally just met. He modeled with trained perfection, knowing exactly how to angle his body and position his limbs to best each angle Sara shot him from. It was as if he read her mind, whenever she was about to suggest an adjustment to his pose, he would do it before she could get the words out of her mouth. Just where did guys like this come from, anyways?

"Wait, Tokyo?" Sara's camera abruptly stopped flashing, and she looked at him with genuine interest. "Wow, you must really take your bikes seriously to ship yours all the way to Japan just for some decals."

"Oh, no, I'm from Japan," he clarified, now sitting casually on the side of the bike and facing her.

"You're from Japan? Man, you guys must have much better language programs than us. Your English sounds perfect!"

"Funny story. There's actually a guy from my hometown who can..." he dismissively flicked his wrist. "Actually, it's probably better if I didn't tell you. You're right though, I take my bikes very seriously. Cost me a small fortune to ship my bike here and make sure they didn't scratch the shit out of it, but it was worth it. I wouldn't even consider parking it on a public bike rack normally, but I'm only gonna be gone for a few minutes to fetch my girls."

"Your girls?"

"Reiko, Yoshie, and Akemi." His voice carried a slight, seductive purr as he listed out the three names. "They're still getting their beauty sleep in the hotel. Just don't tell them we talked, otherwise they might get jealous."

"Nice! I'm travelling with a guy who says he has a lot of girls too, but they mostly just hit him in the face. Yours seem to like you, though!" She put down her camera, letting it hang off her neck, and sat down next to him on the bike. God, even the cushioning on the seat felt perfect. "So, what brings you to America?"

"Oh, a lot of things," he hummed. "Believe it or not, I've actually got a modeling gig in Los Angeles about a month from now. They're filming the next season of America's Next Top Model there, and for one of the shoots they're hiring male models from all over the world to pair with the girls. One of those male models is yours truly."

"Get out of town!" Sara playfully smacked his arm. "A badass bike, a modeling career, and a bunch of cute girls? You've got it all. I'm jealous! But wait, LA is on the other side of the country. Why are you in New York? Just sightseeing?"

He froze for a second. Though the darkened lens of his helmet made it difficult to see his face, Sara could feel his once jovial smile fall just from the way he slumped his shoulders. "Well...there's more to it than that," he confessed. "You see, someone from my hometown went missing a few months ago. His old man is from New York City, so I thought that this would be a good place to look. I actually just tried visiting where he lives to see if I could talk to him. At least, where I think he lives. But when I asked to see him, the building's staff told me to hit the road."

"I'm sorry to hear about your friend," Sara consoled, patting his back. "What's his...ha!"

"What?"

"I was just about to ask for your friend's name, but I never even asked for yours! My name's Sara Smile." She stood up from the bike and extended a hand to him in greeting. "What's yours?"

With a slight chuckle, he rose from his bike.

"Yuya Fungami."

The two of them shook hands, Sara perhaps more enthusiastically than Yuya.

"Nice to meet you!" As soon as the handshake ended, Sara stepped to the side and snapped one more picture of the ZZR 250 without Yuya on it. "Can I take a ride on your bike?"

"Ha! Oh, that's funny." He strode past her and towards the hotel, twirling his keys on his finger before tucking them away in his pocket. "Don't even think about touching it while I'm gone. Feel lucky I'm even letting you take pictures. That bike's just as much of a model as I am, most people pay to get good shots of it."

As Yuya walked away, Sara slowly lowered her camera and stared at the motorcycle in confusion. If people really paid to get pictures of the bike and he himself was a professional model, then why would he actively insert himself into her amateur photoshoot? Not that she was complaining, of course, but wouldn't a professional model have contracts and clauses that prevented them from...she shook her head. That wasn't important. What was important was making sure those keys didn't walk out of her life forever. She darted towards Yuya just as he passed through the hotel's revolving door. "Oh, come on! Just for a couple blocks?"

"No way," he reaffirmed as they entered the lobby. Even the lobby looked nicer than anything inside their hotel; Sara could swear she saw her face reflected on the squeaky-clean granite floors.

"Hey, why are you still wearing your helmet? You got off your bike a while ago." Sara's question was innocent enough, but deep down she hoped that, by keeping the conversation going, she'd find an opportunity to change his mind and let her ride on that damn ZZR 250.

"Oh right, almost forgot about that." Yuya stopped in front of the elevators and began to fiddle with his helmet's chin strap. "This might sound weird, but my sense of smell is so strong that being in New York is pretty much sensory overload for me. The helmet helps filter some of that out. Though I suppose it would be a crime to hide this gorgeous face, wouldn't it?"

He took off his helmet and cradled it in his arm. With his face revealed, any doubts that Sara had over the legitimacy of his modeling career vanished without a trace. With a face like that, he couldn't not be a model. A strong jaw, narrow eyebrows, and gorgeous baby blue eyes. The sides of his wavy hair were partially shaved, almost making them look like a different color. A tattoo emblazoned his chin, reading H☆S in big, swirly letters. Diamond studs adorned his ears, and Sara half expected to see a matching nose ring.

"Just how strong of a nose are we talking here?" Sara challenged, raising a brow at him.

His demeanor changed in an instant; the once self-assured smirk fading away in an instant as he tilted his head up and sniffed at the air. With eyes narrowed in deep focus, he faced the closed elevator door, stood on his tip toes, and deeply inhaled. Sara could've sworn she saw something worm its way through the elevator door's miniscule gap, but quickly shook it off as her imagination.

"There are three...no, four people in the elevator right now," Yuya claimed, still facing the elevator. "Two of them are eating something really sugary, probably donuts if I had to guess, and another one of them is really pissed off."

The elevator's hall lantern lit up with a small chime the moment he finished his prediction. Yuya stepped away from the elevator as the doors spread open, making way for a mother, her two sons happily chomping away at the donuts in their hands, and a seemingly unrelated businessman screaming at someone on his cell phone. As the four of them poured out of the elevator and into the lobby, Yuya turned around and flashed a smug, triumphant smile; arms folded and chin raised.

"Impressed?"

Sara stared dumbfounded at the now empty elevator, jaw slightly ajar. He could tell who and what was going on in another room on another floor through smell alone? Talk about impressive, if not potentially insanely creepy. If he could determine all of that through layers of steel and concrete, she didn't even want to think about what he could sniff out on someone in front of him. On her. If there was one thing she hated, it was people who pried a little too far into her privacy, and he could do that with just a breath of air if he really wanted to. She gulped and nodded in agreement, keeping a somewhat uneasy smile on her face.

"Speechless, huh? Well, there's more where that came from." He started to sniff at the air again, this time directly facing Sara. "Hmm...there's an old banana in that backpack of yours. It's gotta be rotten through by now, you should really consider throwing it out. If you have trouble finding it in all the stuff you got in there, it's under..." he got another few good sniffs in, "the lavender soap."

Lavender soap—Sara went pale. She had no idea whether or not there was a banana rotting in her bag, but she knew for a fact that there was some lavender soap rummaging around in there. Luckily, Yuya hadn't determined that she had taken it from that hotel in Belgium, but she wasn't about to sit back and wait for him to sniff that out.

"Really? Wow, I guess I better take that out, huh," she responded, her voice bright yet shaky. She swung off her knapsack and began to dig through it. She tossed layers of clothes, half-eaten snacks, and miscellaneous souvenirs to the floor until she reached an unopened bar of lavender soap, and directly under it, a banana bruised completely brown. Yuya's already cocky grin grew just a little bit wider the second he saw it. Before he could sniff anything else out (or see the French text on the soap wrapper), she stuffed everything back inside her bag, banana included. 

Keep talking, she reminded herself. "That's quite the sniffer you got there! How the heck did you train your nose to sniff out such little details like that?"

"If I told you, there's no way you'd believe me," Yuya claimed. Sara felt her heart sink as he started to sniff around again, this time pointing his nose directly at her. "Hmm...you masturbated this morning, didn't you?"

Sara froze in place as her cheeks flushed bright red. 

"Ha! I knew it," Yuya continued. "You washed your hands afterwards, but your fingers still—"

That was the last straw. Sara shot to her feet and shut him up with a slap to the face. Yuya's once smug smirk snapped away in an instant, replaced by that same bewildered expression that Hol Horse had after that woman slapped him the other night. Some of the hotel's other patrons gathered around at the sound of Sara's palm clapping against Yuya's cheek, the concierge in particular letting out a pronounced gasp. Sara couldn't bring herself to care for making a scene and grabbed Yuya by the collar of his jacket.

"That's none of your god damn business!" She stomped on his foot then threw him back against the elevator door. "Screw this, I'm out of here!"

With that, Sara plucked her knapsack off the floor and stormed through the lobby. Out of Touch faintly rippled on her fists, balled so tightly that her fingernails dug into her palms. She was well aware of the eyes on her as she kicked open one of the side doors and marched down the sidewalk. One of the donut boys even snickered and whispered something to his brother. They could stare all they wanted; it wasn't her fault that Yuya had no filter. God, weren't Japanese people supposed to be super polite? Though, Sara supposed that his tattoo and undercut marked him as a delinquent of sorts. Bet he was lying about that modeling gig, too, she thought.

Well, an eye for an eye. If he insisted on being a tactless hoodlum, then she had no reservations over screwing him over.

Now casually strolling down the sidewalk, Sara loosened up the tension in her shoulders and took a deep breath. That dreadful, smoky New York air filled her lungs, but as she exhaled, her trademark smile formed on her face. If anything, it's probably better that he was an asshole, Sara reasoned. Now I don't feel guilty for doing this.

She opened up her fists. Rested in her right hand was a pair of keys with a charm of a purple foot dangling from the keyring. Obviously, convincing Yuya to let her ride his motorcycle had been a lost cause lest she risk him blurting out any more embarrassing tidbits about herself. Unfortunately for Yuya, though, Sara wasn't the type of person to take no for an answer. Not anymore. if he could afford to stay in a big, fancy hotel like that and ship his motorcycle all the way from Japan to New York, he could simply afford another motorcycle. Whistling to herself, she twirled the keys on her finger and skipped down to the ZZR 250.

After unlocking the bike lock, Sara planted herself down on the bike seat and stuck the key in the ignition. Pleasant shivers ran down her spine as the engine sprang to life and faintly rumbled. The motorcycle even sounded perfect. It had been a long time since she had been on a motorcycle—three years, if she remembered correctly—so just the cushy leather seat and vroom vroom as she cranked the engine brought back a wave of welcome nostalgia.

Grinning like a madwoman, she backed up and drove down the street.

~~~~~

Sara must have spent at least twenty minutes just aimlessly driving in circles through the streets of New York City before she finally reached Central Park (and ten of those twenty minutes were spent waiting in traffic). Truth be told, she had almost forgotten that she had asked Hol Horse to meet up with her there, too distracted by the feeling of the wind blowing through her hair as she sped from street to street. One of the electronic billboards she stopped by during a red light had an electronic clock on it, though, reminding her just how long she had been out. From there, she stopped to ask directions from a taxi driver on a smoke break, then drove off.

Since biking of any kind was banned inside the pedestrian area of the park, Sara was forced off her newly obtained ZZR 250 and back into photographer mode, rolling the motorcycle next to her. Before even formally entering, she snapped a few pictures of the massive Plaza Hotel looming over the park, then stopped to bombard one of the many horse-drawn carriages making its rounds with an impromptu photoshoot, much to the chagrin of the coachman. After he shooed her away, she strolled down the brick walkways into the park, absentmindedly taking pictures of whatever caught her fancy. Having to drag the motorcycle with her every step of the way, Sara found herself wishing that she had a humanoid Stand like Iron Maiden or Quiet Riot that could wheel it around for her.

Just a few minutes after arriving in Central Park, Sara already decided it was her favorite place she'd visited so far in New York. Compared to the concrete jungle of the rest of the city, the park had a decidedly different vibe. The various street performers and merchants ensured that the nonstop energy trademark to New York remained intact, but comparing it to the chaos of Times Square was like comparing freshly squeezed lemonade to the kind you'd get at a food court soda fountain. Both tasted good, but something about Central Park just felt more...genuine. The park's open, grassy fields and gorgeously carved bronze statues dotted throughout certainly helped.

I wonder if I can convince Rumor to recreate some of these statues using his Hamon, Sara thought as she snapped a picture of a statue of a pair of eagles digging into a mess of sheep.

She eventually wandered down to a large, two-layered water fountain with an angel perched at the top, situated between a muddy lake and a series of stone staircases connected to a historic looking terrace. Sara didn't recognize the fountain by name, but was sure she had seen it before in a movie. Seems that she wasn't alone on that front, either, as the small area was packed. Several photographers had stopped in front of the fountain to get pictures of it, some using dedicated cameras like her while others just used their phones. Two street musicians stood at opposite sides of the fountain; a woman playing the violin and a man on the saxophone. While the competitive glares they shot at each other suggested they were rivals, their duet proved to be so alluring that many of the photographers stopped to record their performance. A lone figure stood away from the fountain, instead choosing to lean over the stone parapet bordering off the lake. Staring off into the distance, he slowly took a drag of his cigarette and adjusted his wide-brimmed hat...

The moment she recognized him, Sara snapped a quick picture of Hol Horse and darted over towards him. Resting the motorcycle against the parapet, she stood on her tiptoes and tapped his shoulder. He went stiff and whirled around, but his expression and posture softened upon seeing her face.

"God damn, darlin', you gotta stop sneaking up on me like that," he said.

Sara pouted and put her hands on her hips. "Well, last time I said 'hi,' and you got scared anyways. You're too high-strung! Even Chelly's not as much of a scaredy-cat as you can be sometimes. You could really stand to loosen up a bit." She playfully jabbed his chest. "I mean, we're in New York, for crying out loud! Biggest city in the country and all that? Who the hell would bug you here besides me?"

Hol Horse's lips tightened into a thin smile as he stared back out at the lake.

"Oh, by the way," Sara continued, "how'd you know to find me by the fountain of all places? I mean, Central Park is huge, I figured I'd have to talk to you with Out of Touch for a while before we found each other."

"My hunch was that you'd wander down here eventually. Bethesda Fountain's a huge tourist draw, as you can no doubt tell," he gestured at the loads of photographers surrounding the fountain. "Besides, the view here ain't half bad. I don't suppose you've ever..."

His voice trailed off as he eyeballed the motorcycle resting next to Sara. Raising a brow, he looked back up at her.

"Tell me, darlin', do I even want to know the story behind that?"

"Well..." Sara shuffled in place for a bit. As much as she wanted to tell him all about how much of a creep Yuya had been and why that made it totally justified to take his motorcycle, she decided against it. It wasn't any of Hol Horse's business what he had sniffed out. "You said you didn't care so long as I didn't get caught, right? So, don't ask, don't tell." She brought her lips together and dragged her pinched fingers across them, as if zipping them shut.

"I also said you should learn how to travel light. You ready to lug that thing around with you while we go sightseein' all day?"

"Yup! I carried seven suitcases with me all the way from Boise to Belgium. Compared to that, a motorcycle is nothing!"

A blank stare remained transfixed on Hol Horse's face for a moment, going back and forth between the bike and Sara's optimistic smile. Eventually, he slowly exhaled and patted her shoulder.

"Well, as long as you're sure." He walked past her, ambling about the fountain, still steering clear of any cameras.

Sara followed him, quickly darting over to him with the motorcycle in tow. "Before we go sightseeing, though, we should stop by the hotel and pick up everyone else. The last thing I'd want is for them to feel left out! I don't think we need to hurry, though. I mean, neither of us have been in Central Park for more than like, ten minutes, why skedaddle now when we just got here? That doesn't make much sense, does it?"

"Nope, not one bit."

"Glad you agree," Sara commented, removing one hand from the motorcycle's handlebars to grab her camera and take pictures.

The two of them continued to meander past the fountain, walking at a slow and steady pace until they reached the gorgeous lower level of the terrace. Slack-jawed in awe, Sara parked the bike halfway through to fully brandish her camera, spinning herself circles to get pictures of everything. The terrace's upper level was supported by a series of sandstone arches, carved like renaissance statues and still seemingly spotless despite their age. Ornate murals decorated the spaces underneath the arches running along the walls, matching the golden tile ceiling. Sara almost felt like she had walked headfirst into an ancient cathedral, or perhaps even the Roman colosseum.

"Man, New York's got everything," she mumbled to no one in particular.

Even though her awestruck words weren't directed at him, Hol Horse still heard them and responded. "Yeah, the architecture down here sure is a sight to behold. You might wanna consider movin' out of the way a bit, darlin'. Not that there's many people down here right now, but it's best to be cautious."

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Sorry."

Sara lowered her camera for just a second and moved off to the side, closer to the western wall. Something strange caught her eye as she did—a window and wooden door, tucked away in the corner and nestled under a wall arch. They stuck out like a sore thumb next to everything else around her, feeling like they had been designed in a different century than the rest of the terrace. Maybe it was an addition they added later on? No, that didn't seem right. If that had been the case, they would've at least blended in with the murals on the walls. Curious, Sara took another step closer, just enough to peep through the window.

The room on the other side of the window was exceedingly plain; a wood floor and beige walls with barely any furniture inside. A red dresser sat at the center of the room, against the far wall, with a matching red wardrobe to the left. On the right, parallel to the window, rested a red reclining chair, occupied by someone whose features Sara couldn't quite make out. Who the hell would be there, of all places? Sara took another few steps closer to the window, the camera dangling from her neck forgotten.

Her heart nearly stopped dead when she saw the man sitting in the chair.

Dark brown hair, neatly parted to the side with a slightly receding hairline. Matching brown eyes, slightly droopy. A long nose, square jaw, and singular gold hoop earring on his right side. God, she even recognized his clothes, that damned flannel button-up clouding her thoughts with a miasma of old memories.

Sara recognized the man in the chair right away as her stepfather.

Her hands clenched into fists as she felt anger boil inside her. He died months ago. Sara still vividly remembered the day her weepy mother brought back his remains in an urn. Seeing him now, casually resting in a recliner inside a goddamn wall in New York City of all places, enraged her to no end. How dare he just sit there like nothing had happened? Like he hadn't died a slow, painful death from cancer, begging for his wife to pull the plug on him the whole way through? Like his corpse hadn't been burned to ashes and reduced to a shelf decoration? Like she, his "daughter," (to use the term loosely) wasn't standing right in front of him? Like he had nothing to answer for?

Part of Sara wanted to walk away; act like she hadn't seen anything and move on. She was in New York City, Central Park even. There were so many attractions and activities within a stone's throw of where stood, so why waste her time here being angry or miserable? After all, she had ditched her "real" last name in favor of Smile for a reason. Just stay cheerful and ignore the hardships of the past! How hard could it be?

At the same time, though, she couldn't bring herself to look away from her stepfather's profile on the other side of the window. Just seeing those eyes, those damn brown eyes, made all the bitterness she felt towards him resurface and dominate her thoughts. Out of Touch flashed back onto her hands. Her thumping heartbeat assaulted her chest, ringing so loudly in her ears that she couldn't see or hear anything else around her, not even her own furious scowl reflected on the window. Just hate, hate, hate. 

Her body moved on its own, marching forward. With heavy breaths, she kicked open the door to the room hard enough for it to slam against the wall. 

"Hey, dad," she spat. "Funny seeing you here and not in the jar mom left you in back in Idaho. You got some—"

She went silent when she realized that the recliner was empty, with not a shred of evidence that anyone had ever sat in it before. She blinked in disbelief, stifling a gasp as her raging heartbeat only slightly slowed. I'm sure I saw him sitting here, she thought. How the hell did he just vanish like that? He wasn't a Stand user, I'm positive, and the only Stand user he ever knew was me. That I know of, anyway. He did have a habit of keeping secrets from me...her fists clenched even tighter. So, what's the alternative? He's a ghost? Yeah, that's rich. I should run back up to the hotel and give Rumor another supernatural goose chase to follow after this. Though I guess if he was a ghost, he could just vanish at will...

"Hey!" She yelled out, swinging the door shut. A closed door probably wouldn't do much to trap a spirit, but she figured it couldn't hurt. "If you think you can just hide out in here by turning invisible, you've got another thing coming, old man! Show yourself now before I blow you back to Hell where you belong!"

The wardrobe began to shake at her threat, something strong and heavy banging against its doors. Carried by her anger rather than her logic, Sara stomped over to it and swung its doors wide open.

She gasped as a horde of disembodied feet, their color and size reminding her of sliced ham, burst out from the wardrobe and stuck to her body, pinning her to the floor. As the wind was knocked from Sara's chest, Out of Touch vanished from her hands. Struggling back up into a sitting position, she leaned against the side of the dresser in the center of the room and tried to pry the feet off her body, starting with the ones digging into her thighs. Her trembling hands phased right through them.

Her previously pounding heart skipped a beat as Sara realized she was being attacked by an enemy Stand.

Some of the feet stuck to her body floated off of her and stacked on top of the pair clinging to her back, piling up until they formed a humanoid form. The Stand's body was purple, the same shade as the ZZR 250, with a diagonal checkered pattern covering it from head to toe. Its bangled hand tilted her neck back, making Sara's breath hitch. She found herself staring back at a pair of mechanical, yellow eyes.

"You're a persistent little thief, aren't you?" The Stand spoke in a deathly cold voice, monotonous but clearly angry. Sara managed to shake free from the hold it had on her neck, but couldn't quite free herself from the feet still wedged into her back. "When I said I take my bikes seriously, I meant it. I have that motorcycle's scent memorized. It doesn't matter where you try to hide it, I will always track it down. I've been on your trail from the second I realized the bike had been stolen, waiting for the opportunity to strike. And now that you've entered this room, I have your scent as well."

"Wait, your bike? Does that mean you're Yuya's—"

Sara's question died on her lips when the Stand dug its feet inside her back, sending a sharp sting pulsing throughout her entire body. She winced in pain and toppled over to the floor again. Her skin turned translucent with the beat of her heart; now reduced to a weak, rhythmic tap in her chest. Sara stretched her arms out in front of her, trying to worm her way to the door, but...with every passing second, she felt weaker, almost as if the Stand was draining her of her energy...

"Highway Star." The purple figure stuck to her back corrected. "It would've been a tactical disadvantage to attack you out in public. That might've enticed someone else to steal my bike before my user came to pick it up, and it would have been a problem if people saw a seemingly self-driving motorcycle out in broad daylight."

"Are you...another...Masquerader?" Sara's voice was weak and raspy, just a decibel louder than a whisper.

"Masquerader? I don't know what you're talking about."

Another sting wracked down Sara's spine. She went limp on the floor, wrenching her head back to look at her attacker. Standing on top her with its feet stuck in her back, Highway Star lifted its head and thoughtfully sniffed around the room the same way Yuya had back at the hotel.

"You don't have the motorcycle with you," Highway Star realized. It knelt down, letting its hands and knees seep into Sara's skin as it did so. "Tell me where you left it, and I'll consider letting you live."

"Out there...it's...he dresses like a cowboy..."

"Hey, darlin'?" As if on cue, Sara heard Hol Horse call out from outside the room. "Where'd you run off to?"

Highway Star tilted its head up to look out the window. A devilish smirk crept onto the Stand's face. "I see. You left the bike in his care." It rose a hand and snapped its fingers. The door to the room swung open as Highway Star lowered its head and whispered in Sara's ear. "Go ahead. Call out to him. He can take your place."

Choking back tears, Sara shook her head. "Please...don't hurt him...I stole your bike, let me..."

"Neither of us are going anywhere until my motorcycle is back in this room."

Through blurry vision, Sara peered out the window. Hol Horse stood facing away from the room, the bike at his side and holding something up to his ear. She squinted. What the hell was he holding? As her vision slowly regained its focus, she made out the object in his hand as his pack of cigarettes. When he jerked it away from his ear, the tightness in his posture suggesting frustration, a black cylindrical object attached to the top of the pack came into view.

That's right, I set up a cannon on his cigs so we could talk to each other even after I ran off, Sara recalled. My Stand is still there...it's still active, even though I feel like all my energy is being sapped away. I can do this...I can get out of here...I just need to summon Out of Touch...

With a sharp, ragged breath, Sara squeezed her eyes shut, grit her teeth, and focused on summoning her Stand. Her deflated muscles tensed up, stringing her entire body so taut that it was bound to break if Highway Star so much as flicked the back of her head. White, translucent gloves weakly shimmered onto her hands. Sara's grit teeth briefly formed into a victorious smile. Out of Touch at the ready, she tried to push up off the floor, throwing her head up to look out the window again.

This time, Hol Horse stood right in the doorway with the bike in one hand and pack of cigarettes in another. His wide eyes stared directly into the room, lips pressed together in an unreadable expression.

"Hol Horse...please," she coughed and lost her balance when Highway Star pushed just a little bit further into her skin, "help me..."

Even with her vision turning fuzzy with every pulse of pins and needles Highway Star sent through her body, Sara could see the sweat trailing down Hol Horse's face and follow the path of his eyes. He stared down at her, then up at Highway Star, then back down to her, then back up at Highway Star. Swallowing thickly, he pocketed the cigarettes, mounted the motorcycle, and donned an apologetic grin.

"Awful kind of you to take the heat for me!" He tipped his hat to her as his shaky hands fumbled to start the motorcycle. "Don't worry, your sacrifice won't be in vain. I'll keep on livin' just for you, darlin'!"

Sara blinked a few times in disbelief. "What...what are you..."

"He's running off with the motorcycle," Highway Star proclaimed, realizing the truth before she did.

"No...he wouldn't do that..."

Tears began to roll down Sara's cheeks. He wouldn't really abandon her, right? Sure, they had only known each other for a few days, but in those few days they had shared laughs, traveled far, and defied death. He'd even called her his number one after they left the hotel that morning. Didn't that make them friends? 

Highway Star groaned and leaned down further, speaking directly into Sara's ear but still keeping his sights on Hol Horse desperately trying to start up the motorcycle. "Your friend was able to see me, even though I'm inside your body and not his. That must make him a Stand user. Have you ever seen him use any special abilities? Anything you couldn't explain?"

"You...you wanna know if he's got a Stand...well, here's a little secret for you..."

Narrowing her eyes on the cigarette pack sticking out of Hol Horse's pocket, she angled the cannon forward. It creaked in accordance to her mental commands and pointed inside the room.

"I'm a Stand user, too!"

She rammed her pointer finger into the ridge of her thumb, firing the cannon. Bits of paper and tobacco went flying as the pack of cigarettes detonated on Hol Horse's hip. The cannonball whizzed past Sara and shot Highway Star straight through the shoulder, momentarily knocking it off of her as a gush of blood shot out from the wound. Sara gasped at the feeling of Highway Star exiting her body as if she had been underwater for ten minutes and just come up for air. Before the Stand could regain its footing, she crawled on her stomach as fast as she could out of the room, breathing heavily. Feeling spent, Out of Touch vanished from her hands just as her fingertips brushed against the motorcycle's leather seat. She clung on for dear life and tried to pry herself up, trying to ignore the fact that Hol Horse barely even noticed she was there.

The motorcycle finally sprang to life, the roar of its engine almost deafening as it sped off.

Chapter Text

If being in the career of life and death for over thirty years had taught Hol Horse anything, it was to never fight a losing battle. He'd seen enough men die young and gruesomely to know that fortune didn't actually favor the bold, that Davids rarely ever triumphed over their Goliath adversaries. Those that did were either lucky or, as was usually the case for him, had a partner to back them up. Some would call it "the power of friendship," but Hol Horse knew it was just pure pragmatism. No matter the power difference, fighting someone two-on-one always gave him the edge. If nothing else, it gave him a decoy to hide behind.

Besides, it wasn't his fault if something bad happened to his partners. They chose to be stupid, they chose to throw their lives away in battle, and he couldn't be held accountable for someone else's choices. That went for all his girlfriends that had bailed him out at the last possible moment, too (though he did respect their devotion to him). If anything, the person at fault would be his employer for sending him and his partner into a fight they couldn't win.

So when Hol Horse saw Sara halfway dead on the floor with a Stand submerged in her body, he couldn't say he had many regrets about leaving her behind.

Her fault, not his. Stand users were dangerous, Masquerader or otherwise, and Sara knew that just as well as he did. She chose to wander off and enter that strange room under the terrace that had clearly been put there by some supernatural hocus pocus. Seriously, what kind of person wandered into random, unmarked rooms completely uninvited? Curiosity killed the cat, and at that point she was basically knocking on death's door. It was entirely on her for getting ambushed.

That being said, it did put him in a bit of a bind. Michelle, Cab, and Rumor would probably kill him if they found out Sara died on his watch, so going back to the hotel was out of the question. Aimlessly wandering through New York with a killer Stand on the loose wasn't a good idea either, though. Maybe he could track down an old business partner and hang low with them? After all, this was New York City, he reckoned he'd stumble across a familiar face in no time if he looked in the right places. With a bit of stealth on his side, he could go back to the hotel, pick up his briefcase, and finally get Polnareff's daughter out of his hair for good.

With sweaty palms, he tightly gripped the motorcycle's handlebars as he sped away from that phantom room where the enemy Stand had Sara pinned to the ground. Whatever complaints he had earlier about her stealing the bike were long forgotten. Thank god she had, now he had a getaway vehicle. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw some tourists curse him out as he drove past the fountain. They looked like they were shouting something at him, probably that motorcyclists weren't allowed in the park, but he couldn't hear them over his heartbeat still pounding in his ears. If some pig decided to pull him over and slap him on the wrist with a speeding fine, then so be it. He preferred that over whoever had their Stand plunged knee deep inside of Sara deciding to attack him too.

Brain still fuzzy with adrenaline, he drove to the upper level of the terrace up the winding, sloped path to the side of the stairs. He was only really aware of what was directly in front of him; namely, the clumps of tourists loitering in his path and the route he needed to drive to weave through them. It wasn't until he caught sight of the long, paved road running through Central Park—where bikes and vehicles were allowed, thank god—that his fight or flight instincts dulled and his periphery senses began to kick back into place.

The first thing he noticed was something round and firm, probably a head, pressed against his back and something else circled around his waist. He glanced down and saw two pale arms wrapped around him, slender fingers clutching into his poncho. The faint outline of white gloves undulated on her hands for a brief moment before a ragged breath groaned out from behind him and the gloves faded away entirely. Behind him, he heard light sobbing over the sound of the engine.

Hol Horse didn't need to look over his shoulder to know who had hitched a ride with him. It sure as hell wasn't the enemy Stand, at least.

"Good...good job, Horseshoes!" Sara's voice was hoarse and weak, almost sounding more like a string of coughs than legible speech. "You managed to...distract Highway Star long enough for me to get away." There was a long pause before she spoke again as she heaved and gasped for air. "And you got the motorcycle running just in time for me to climb on! I couldn't have planned it better myself."

Still focused on driving and weaving through the other bikers on the road, it took Hol Horse a minute to process what she had said. He furrowed his brow at first, confused, but a moment later, the pieces all clicked together in his head and a sly grin crept up on his face instead. To her, he had run away so they could both safely escape from Highway Star, the enemy Stand. This had all been a gambit in her mind. She didn't believe for one second that he had every intention of abandoning her.

He whistled out a sigh of relief. Sara's tendency to assume the best of people would probably get her killed one day, but damn if it wasn't convenient for him. At least now he didn't have to worry about finding a new partner somewhere in the city.

"Of course, darlin'. You know I've got your back," he reassured her, despite the fact that she was the one literally clinging to his back. "How come that Stand went and attacked you? Another Masquerader attack?"

He felt her shake her head no against his back, her face rubbing into the scratchy weave of his poncho. "He's not...that's not what this is about. The user's name is Yuya Fungami, he's a Japanese tourist staying at the Hush Hotel. I met him earlier...saw his face, he's not wearing a mask."

"Why do you suppose he attacked you, then?"

"I...um..." Sara paused. The way her voice trailed off was different this time; she didn't stop to refill her deflated lungs, instead, her voice sounded hesitant and guilty. Eventually, she lowly exhaled and confessed; "This is his bike..."

Hol Horse's heart sank as he fought the very, very strong urge to slam on the breaks. He quickly swerved over to the side of the road and parked the motorcycle instead. Breathing out a disappointed sigh, he pushed up his hat to run his hands through his hair. The Stand user that had attacked Sara back in the room was the same person Sara had stolen the motorcycle from, this Yuya fellow. Hol Horse knew it'd be a lie to say that he had never stolen a bike, car or mount before, but at least when he did so, it was with good reason. And not from someone who could kill him. He looked at Sara over his shoulder, a stern frown firm on his face.

"Just what made you think it was a good idea to steal from a Stand user?"

Sara's nose scrunched up in frustration, slightly tightening her grip on his poncho. Though still slouched against his back, she tilted her head up to shoot him a misty-eyed glare. "Look, he was a jerk, okay? I didn't even think he was a Stand user when I met him, just some weirdo with a really strong sense of smell! You were fine with me taking the motorcycle earlier, so don't turn into a goody two-shoes about it now!"

"I was fine with it before there were other Stand users involved. You do realize this shit is life and death, right?"

"I know! I appreciate you looking out for me, but I'm not stupid!"

Her indignant sneer crunched into a pained wince before she could say anything else. A few small tears leaked down her face as she doubled over and pressed her face into Hol Horse's back. "Shit...he's probably not happy that I shot him in the shoulder," she thought aloud, her voice muffled against Hol Horse's poncho. "He got my scent when I went in the room...it was sniffing around the room, I don't think it can actually see. You're lucky, Horseshoes, it probably won't attack you..."

Hol Horse was of two minds. On one hand, he had an injured and distraught woman clinging onto him; it would be downright rude not to comfort her in this state. Just seeing her on the verge of tears made him want to take her in his arms and reassure her everything's gonna be alright, darlin'. You and me have this all under control. Girls dug that sort of sappy talk, he'd used that one dozens of times in the past and it always worked like a charm.

On the other hand, though, he couldn't bring himself to say the words after hearing her rambling thoughts. All sorts of alarms went off in his head, particularly that last bit—it probably won't attack you. Only probably. As if it was still a plausible threat to them right now. If she had managed to pull herself up onto the motorcycle before he drove away from the terrace, that meant she had to have dealt with Highway Star already, right?

He awkwardly bent one arm back to rest a hand on her shoulder while the other revved the engine, ready to drive off at the drop of a hat. His sights were firmly on the road ahead. "What are you goin' on about, darlin'? Did you take that thing down or not?"

"I..." Sara gulped, "I don't know..."

"What do you mean you don't—"

The sound of a stampede down the road behind him cut him off. Hol Horse shot his head back, looking over his shoulder. Off in the distance, a pack of disembodied maroon feet charged towards them, stomping down the road faster than every bike and car in its path. Just as they were about to close the distance between them and the terrace, Hol Horse swallowed hard and started the motorcycle. It sped off at 30 mph. Hol Horse tilted the left side mirror out in order to keep an eye on the angry mass of feet toeing at their wheels.

In the second that it took for him to merge back onto the road, the feet caught up to them with ease. The united horde split down the middle, half of them running to the left of the motorcycle and half of them to the right. Before Hol Horse could properly react, a pained shout yelped out from behind him. He checked the side mirror and saw that one of the feet had leapt off the ground and stuck onto Sara's thigh. Then another two, one on each side, jumped up and stuck to her calves. She held onto him tighter and began to rapidly flail her legs back and forth, trying to shake them off.

"Shit! Hol Horse, gun the damn bike!"

He didn't need to be told twice. A roar rumbled from the engine as Hol Horse sped up, the motorcycle now speeding at a clean 40 mph. Sara tucked her legs in as a few more feet lunged at her, but they missed their mark and tumbled onto the pavement. The feet already attached to her legs peeled off, apparently done in by the increased speed, and eventually crashed back to the ground. They quickly rebounded and continued to chase after the motorcycle in one pack. With each THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! of feet slamming against the road, Hol Horse expected them to catch up again and try to lunge at them again, but they stayed behind them. Each passing second only increased the distance between them. Hol Horse gauged that whatever the Stand's top speed was, it was just shy of 40 mph.

That was still well over Central Park's speed limit, though. They practically flew down the road in their escape from the enemy Stand. Cars on the other side of the road going half as fast as they were honked something fierce at them as they raced by, because of course they did. This was New York City, after all.

Pressed against his back, Hol Horse felt Sara's previously tense shoulders loosen with a relieved breath. "Just like I thought...he's not just after his bike now, he's after me."

"Fortunately for you, looks like we've got those feet outpaced for now." Hol Horse veered around a particularly slow bicyclist. "They're persistent little shits, though. You figure this is the same Stand that attacked you earlier?"

"It is. He can switch forms...the feet all stack on top of each other like a deck of cards to turn into the purple guy..."

"How come you didn't just blast those feet away with your cannons when they stuck to your legs just now? Don't you still have one attached to my cigs?"

"N-no. I fired that one to get away from Highway Star," she confessed. "Sorry..."

Hol Horse wrinkled his nose in irritation. There went a perfectly good pack of smokes.

"In the room...when Highway Star sunk underneath my skin, it started to drain me of all my energy," she continued. "I got away before it killed me, but...I'm not in great shape. As is, I can barely even sit upright, and it's all I can do to even hold on to you. Even if I did feel strong enough to reliably summon Out of Touch, if I let go of you for even a second, I'm gonna fall off the motorcycle."

"I don't think I'm gonna shake Highway Star off our tail any time soon," Hol Horse pointed out, maintaining the motorcycle's speed as he passed a line of bicyclists leisurely wheeling down the road. "We need a plan of attack, and fast."

"Your Stand's a gun, isn't it? The Emperor? Just shoot the feet from here," Sara suggested. She pulled her face out from behind his back, lulling it to the side to look at the road under his arms. "I'll tell you if you're about to run into anything, you just focus on sniping the feet!"

Hol Horse choked down the lump in his throat. He was worried that she'd say something like that. Not like he could blame her; were their roles swapped, he would probably ask her the same thing. As he took a deep breath to ready himself, he mentally chastised himself for not waking up Michelle and bringing her with them as well.

Turning around and honed his sights on the stampede of feet behind them, Hol Horse removed one hand from the motorcycle's handlebar and extended it in front of him. A look of uncertainty graced his face as Emperor summoned out from inside his hand. It settled in his grip, flickering in his hand for a few seconds before finally staying somewhat opaque. Hol Horse maintained his focus on the barrage of feet as he pulled back the hammer on his gun. Just a straight shot, dead ahead. Focus, focus...

He pulled the trigger. The bullet stayed on their intended path for a second, then sharply swerved away from the feet, curving to the side and shooting the wheels of one of the other bicyclists on the road. Hol Horse bit back a groan of annoyance as the bicyclist crashed and took out his companions with him. Lip curled in frustration, he fired two more shots. The bullets fizzled out of existence before even coming close to their target. With an exasperated groan, he fired a fourth shot. This one curved backwards, circling around Hol Horse and threatening to shoot him in the back of the head. He momentarily tensed up and willed his Stand back, calling back both Emperor's gun and the bullet about to hit him. Dejected, he turned back around to face the road again, both hands firmly on the handlebars. In the side mirror, he could see Sara's confused face looking back up at him.

"Listen..." he knew he had to explain himself, but frankly, had no idea where to start. Now felt like a bad time to tell her anyway, what with the rabid Stand chasing them down. "It's a long story, but my Stand is long past its prime. We can't rely on it at this range."

Sara's eyes lidded and her brows slightly furrowed, revealing disappointment no matter what she said. "That...that's okay! There's gotta be something else we can do, right? Just give me a bit, and I can try to summon Out of Tou—"

Sirens blaring behind them drowned out the rest of her game plan. Hol Horse adjusted the side mirror to see a motorcycle with NYPD emblazoned on its side speeding towards them with flashing headlights. Highway Star's sprinting feet followed not far behind.

"Hey, you on the motorcycle!" The cop called out at them. "You're going forty in a twenty-five zone. Pull over immediately!"

Twenty years ago, Hol Horse would have just pulled out Emperor and shot the pig then and there. Unfortunately, with his Stand being the way it was, he couldn't reliably do that without either wasting time or risking shooting himself in the process. But if he let the pig pull him over, the Stand would catch up to them in no time flat and take Sara out. He grit his teeth, cold sweats trailing down his spine. Dammit, what do I do...

"Highway Star's right behind us," he heard Sara mutter. "Do you...do you have any ideas, Horseshoes? We can't let the cop pull us over..."

Feeling Sara's arms fasten tighter around his waist, Hol Horse considered the situation he was in.

Highway Star wasn't after him, not really. He was just collateral. The feet had never made an effort to stick to him or the bike, it had only targeted Sara. That thing's user was just mad at her for stealing his motorcycle, and he wanted to both reclaim his property and punish the thief that stole it. Sara had mentioned something about it getting her scent earlier, too, so it was also possible that it could literally only target her. Either way, it amounted to the same thing; the Stand wasn't his enemy, just Sara's. After it took her out, it'd probably secure the motorcycle for its user, then that would be the end of it.

I don't have much to lose if I stop and ditch this motorcycle right here and now, Hol Horse thought to himself. Well, aside from getting a speeding ticket from this damn pig.

Strategically speaking, it was the smartest play. By distancing himself from the Stand's real targets, Sara and the bike, he ensured his survival. None of his shots had landed on Highway Star, so it had no ill will towards him. He couldn't imagine that it would try to attack him after he dismounted from the motorcycle, and he'd probably have enough time to flee the scene while it sucked Sara dry anyway. From there, things could go how he originally planned them to—go back to the hotel, pick up his briefcase, and find someone else to stay with until this Masquerader situation boiled down. The maneuver would cost him an escape vehicle, yes, but it was better than nothing.

Although...

Sara's sobs grew louder, no doubt she was feeling the desperation of the situation as well.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't just toss a woman crying and clinging to him for dear life aside like that, because he respected women. It had been her fault to thoughtlessly kick down the door of the illusion room back at the terrace, no different than the countless girls who had thrown themselves in the line of fire to provide him time to escape. That was their choice, their actions, and he couldn't fault anyone for that, least of all himself. Now, she was literally holding onto him for dear life and clearly regretting what she had done. If he stopped the motorcycle now, it would be just as bad as him literally smacking her aside. That just wouldn't do; he'd swore to never hit a woman. He could sleep easy on a woman getting hurt on their own volition, but not on something he actually did.

There had to be something more they could do.

"We gotta take down that pig, for starters," Hol Horse thought out loud. "Until we do that, he's just gonna get in the way. You feeling up to settin' up a cannon, darlin'? Could be on anything; the motorcycle seat, my poncho, even either of our hats if that'll give you better aim."

Her sobs subsided with a few shallow breaths. "I've been trying to this...this whole time," she informed him. "It's like...my soul's trying to push them out, I can feel it, but I can't really feel the gloves on my hands..."

Hol Horse quickly darted his eyes down to see what she meant. Out of Touch strained to stay visible on her hands, fading in and out of existence every few seconds. It was, however, more solid than it had been when he first realized that she had climbed up on the motorcycle with him. Any progress was good progress, he supposed.

"Hey! Cowboy! I'm talking to you!" The cop, still hot on their trail, sounded much angrier than before. "Pull over your vehicle now!"

Hol Horse paid him little mind and quickly flipped him the bird. That would prompt the pig to shoot at him in any other part of the world, but Hol Horse knew that he knew better than to open fire in Central Park. If the cop reacted in any way, Hol Horse didn't see it as he was too preoccupied with Sara. "What's blocking you from bringin' your Stand out?"

"I just...I feel so weak," Sara explained. "It almost feels like I'm about to starve to death. Part of me wants to say it's like he almost sucked my soul right out of me, but I know it's not it..." he felt her shake her head against his back, "no, I don't want to think that's it. Stands can't do that, can they?"

Furrowing his brow, Hol Horse mentally recapped every Stand he had encountered before as he zipped past another biker in his way. The D'arby brothers could steal souls, but their Stands left their victims comatose, not weakened. That junior priest fellow that followed Dio around like a lovesick girlfriend could do more or less the same thing and left his victims in a similar state. Wild rumors about a Stand that went berserk in Rome and swapped the souls of a bunch of people had been floating around for a few years now, but that clearly wasn't what was happening with Sara, either. 

"I'm sure your soul's just fine," Hol Horse decided. "If I were a bettin' man, I'd say the bastard just went and left you badly malnourished."

From what he understood about Stands, that checked out. He'd heard all about what happened with Nena (and to this day didn't know how to feel about it, just that he never wanted to find himself catfished by another Stand user ever again), including that Empress nearly did in Joseph Joestar by attaching itself to his arm and eating whatever it could find. Yellow Temperance could grow in power and size by absorbing organic matter. Even Fall Out Boy could only function long distance by feeding off of blood and sunlight. Aside from its automatic tracking, Highway Star wasn't much different from any of those. Sara's ailment wasn't anything metaphysical, Hol Horse figured that the Stand had literally sucked all of the vitamins and nutrients out from her.

"Know what I think? You just need to snag a bite to eat." Hol Horse proposed. "We're in Central Park, so I figure it won't be hard to find a street vender 'round here."

"It's worth a shot!" There was a hint of a smile in Sara's voice.

"Great. Keep your eyes open for any—"

"Pull over your vehicle now!" The cop hollered, repeating himself.

To Hol Horse, who had experienced his fair share of high-speed escapes and shootouts with the law, the pig's incessant screeching had become nothing but background noise. Sara, however, clenched her hands into fists and turned around to shoot the cop a glare. "Eat shit, asshole! Fall off your bike!" She called back at him in a tired, gravelly yell.

"No, bad idea," Hol Horse hissed as she turned back around, hunched over and lightly wincing in pain. "Taunt the cop, flip him off, but never talk to one during this type of encounter. That's just askin' for trouble. Keep it down and keep your eyes open for a—gotcha."

Far off in the distance, Hol Horse spotted a man on the sidewalk holding a hot dog wrapped in tin foil. At the speed the motorcycle sped down the road at, they would reach him in no time flat. Perfect. 

"Okay, darlin', new job for ya," Hol Horse announced. "There's a guy on our left carrying a hot dog. On my signal, I want you to reach out and take it from him. Think you can do that?"

"I can try," Sara replied.

Feeling a cold sweat trickle down his brow, Hol Horse merged onto the other side of the road. His sights were firmly locked on their target, damn whatever else may be in front of them. If Sara failed to grab that hot dog, he'd have to try and pick up her slack. Luckily, the hot dog man seemed unaware of his surroundings, standing idly by and staring at the clouds. Hol Horse wondered if he was even aware of the hot dog in his hand.

Once they were about a foot away from their target, he began to shout the signal, but Sara cut him off with a shrill screech.

"Hol Horse, look out!"

He jumped at the panic in her voice and jerked his head to look straight ahead. A horse-drawn carriage galloped directly in their path, just a hair's breath away from crashing directly into them. The coachman frantically pulled at the reins as the horses whinnied and reared. Inside the carriage sat a group of teenage girls, all of whom were screaming and covering their eyes. Even the man with the hot dog let out a particularly high-pitched scream (though he did stay put, bless his heart).

Just before the wheels of the motorcycle skidded onto the horses' hooves, Hol Horse forced the bike to take a sharp turn to the left, nearly driving under the reared horses and onto the sidewalk. He leveled the bike out before they could crash into the man with the hot dog, wedging themselves perfectly between the carriage and the pedestrian. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Sara reach out and snatch the hot dog from his hand. Not a moment later, Hol Horse zipped behind the carriage and back onto the road.

The police officer speeding behind them attempted to make the same maneuver on the other side of the carriage, but cut his turn too close and ended up wiping out. His motorcycle nearly went sideways as he flew off of it and rolled a good distance on the road. Before he could get up, the horde of Highway Star's feet stomped on top of him like he wasn't even there as they continued their pursuit.

Hol Horse realized that he had been holding in a breath and sharply exhaled. "Well, that deals with the pig," he said. "Unfortunately, looks like that little detour ended up givin' Highway Star enough time to catch up with us. Better start chomping away at that hot dog, darlin'. You're gonna need your Stand sooner rather than later here."

"That...that was some great driving though, Horseshoes!" Sara's voice was somewhat muffled by something in her mouth; Hol Horse assumed it was a bite of the hot dog.

"Yeah, I used to own a Harley back in the day. Would you believe me if I told you the thing got wrecked by a bunch of zombies?" That was more of a private joke to himself, because Hol Horse didn't wait for an answer from her. "Whenever you're feelin' ready to use your Stand, just say the word."

"Blech, gross," Sara exclaimed with a swallowing noise. "The hot dog's got mustard on it."

"Unless you're severely, and I mean severely allergic, I don't wanna hear it."

"I'm just saying," she said, her mouth full again. "I'm not allergic to mustard, luckily. I am allergic to shellfish, though. Which is weird because—"

"Not the time, darlin'," Hol Horse cut her off. "I betcha anything that Highway Star's got more endurance than this bike's got gas, and it's only gonna be a matter of time before another pig pops out from the woodwork. We gotta end this, once and for all."

"I think I have an idea," Sara mused, her mouth still half full. "So, Yuya...his whole thing was his smell. He could smell people in elevators and food in my bag and...other stuff. Even back in the room," she swallowed another bite, "Highway Star didn't realize right away that I didn't have the motorcycle with me. It had to sniff around the room first before finding that out. It said it memorized the motorcycle's scent, but that wouldn't really matter if it could just see it, right? Highway Star tracks people by smell, but I don't think it can actually, like...see, even if it stacks back up into its normal body."

She swallowed her last bite of the hot dog and wrapped her free arm back around Hol Horse's waist. The tin foil the hot dog had previously been wrapped in flew from her hand, drifting to the ground. 

"You're sayin' the Stand is blind?"

"I think it is, yeah."

"Does knowing that do us any good? I'd wager we can't hide from it, it'd just sniff us out in due time." Hol Horse pointed out. "Are you feelin' well enough to summon your Stand now that you've got some food in your system?"

Sara barely suppressed a giggle. "Why don't you look down and see for yourself?"

At this point, Hol Horse knew better than to tell her I have to keep my eyes on the road and flitted his sights down to the arms wrapped around his waist. Sure enough, a pair of white gloves with golden embroidery on the back stayed firmly on Sara's hands. Slightly transparent, yes, but they stayed that way and didn't faze in and out of existence.

"Well then, what are you waitin' for?" Hol Horse lightly elbowed her side. "Blow that herd of feet off the map!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know!" Her hands left his waist. Hol Horse felt a slight tug on the collar of his poncho as Sara readjusted herself, now sitting sideways on the motorcycle with her knees tucked up to her chest, holding onto him by the back of his clothes. "Just let me...uh..."

As soon as her voice trailed off, Hol Horse adjusted his side mirror to get a better look at her. Her arm had reached around her back, patting at her knapsack until her hand found the hole. She stuck a hand in and pulled out the first thing on top—an old, brown banana. A cannon from Out of Touch formed on the banana's curve as soon as her fingers made contact with it. Its placement reminded Hol Horse of a scope on a sniper rifle. Her hands then changed positions in the blink of an eye so that the hand that had set up the cannon was now holding onto the back of his poncho. With her other hand, she held out the banana like a gun. The cannon twitched slightly, locking onto its target.

Still holding onto the back of Hol Horse's poncho, Sara pressed her pointer finger to the ridge of her thumb. The cannon fired with a loud BANG! Chunks of banana flew in all directions with the explosion, leaving behind just a stump in Sara's hand. Hol Horse, watching the shot through his side mirror, felt a wave of relief wash over him. It flew on a collision course for the foot leading the pack.

Then suddenly, right before the shot was about to land, the feet all sidestepped out of the way. The cannonball collided with the pavement and left a giant crack in the concrete.

Sara's growl of frustration was audible over the motorcycle's engine. "Ugh, dammit!"

She attached a cannon to what remained of the banana and tossed it off the bike. The feet parted around the thrown banana, running past it like a car driving around a cat lazing on the road. With the banana now behind the feet, Sara fired the cannon. All of the feet in the shot's path leapt into the air before the cannonball could hit them, forming a sort of wave around it for a short time. The cannonball whizzed past the motorcycle, just barely nicking the fringe on Hol Horse's chaps.

"Easy there," Hol Horse called out, "you almost took us out!"

"I had him! Highway Star shouldn't be able to see Out of Touch, so there's no way it could just dodge around my shots like that!" Sara groaned and shifted herself so she was sitting forward on the bike again, now resting her hand against her cheek and her elbow against Hol Horse's shoulder. "Unless...it can smell my bullets coming. I fired Out of Touch at him while I was in the room. It's got my Stand's scent memorized, too!"

"Any chance that slowin' down to close the gap between the Stand and your cannon will help?"

"Not unless you want to steal another hot dog when they stick to my legs again," Sara scoffed. "But, I don't think we'll have to resort to that. I have an idea."

Scooting forward on the motorcycle, she leaned over and whispered her plan in Hol Horse's ear. First his nose wrinkled in disgust, but after a short while, his expression shifted to one of contemplation. By all accounts, it was far from a safe strategy. If anything went wrong or they didn't understand Highway Star as well as they thought they did, Sara would be left defenseless and practically begging for the Stand to suck the rest of her nutrients out of her. Not to mention that it was just plain gross. Was it risky? Absolutely. But Hol Horse figured that it was just crazy enough to work.

Besides, Sara was the one sticking her neck out, not him. The only thing that was on the line for him was a trip to the cleaners and a long, cold shower.

"Sounds like a plan. I just hope you don't expect me to do much sightseeing after this," Hol Horse relented.

With that, he took a sharp turn left, exiting the Central Park and merging onto the main road bordering it. They were greeted by a cacophony of honking horns as they zipped through traffic for a brief few seconds before they merged onto the sidewalk. Sara hollered "Out of the way!" at the pedestrians in their path, causing them to panic and scatter. Highway Star followed not far behind, stomping past all the oblivious bystanders in its way. After a minute or so of driving on the sidewalk, Hol Horse spotted their destination—an entrance to the subway, still chained off and monitored by a pair of cops. Sara set up a cannon on her stolen t-shirt and fired at the chain link cordoning off the subway entrance. The shot landed, causing the chain to shatter and fall to the ground in two halves.

"Hold on tight, darlin'. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."

They sped through the subway entrance before the pigs guarding it could so much as bat an eye. Like Hol Horse said, the drive down was rough, with the motorcycle awkwardly bumping down the long set of stairs leading underground. Highway Star nearly caught up to them in the short time they were stuck on the steps, but Hol Horse cranked the gas the second they got down and left the Stand to eat their dust. The subway itself wasn't much to note, not much outside dirty white walls and concrete floors, but Sara didn't even have time to admire that much as they sped through the station, past the closed down ticket booths, and through an opened gate that was probably reserved for staff only. As they drove deeper into the subway, they had less and less light to show their way forward. They soon only had the motorcycle's headlights to illuminate their path. A foul stench grew stronger and stronger the further they went. They flew past another short set of steps and landed at the vacant platform.

Just as they had been warned earlier, the abandoned subway tracks had become a river of raw sewage. A dark, thick liquid that smelled like a mountain of rotten fruit and dirty diapers sloshed through the deep indents in the floor, filled about five feet high. Hol Horse and Sara simultaneously put their hands over their mouths to stop themselves from vomiting.

Which made what they were about to do that much more gross.

"You sure about this, darlin'?"

"We've come this far. If we back out now, we're done for."

Hol Horse would've taken a deep breath to ready himself, but was fairly sure he'd pass out on the spot if he did.

Out of Touch flashed back onto Sara's hands as she gave the signal. "Now!"

Sara threw her knapsack to the floor, as did Hol Horse with his hat. The next instant, Hol Horse slammed on the breaks. The pair launched off the bike and dove into the raw sewage ahead, landing with a mighty splash.

Chapter Text

Cab wasn't sure how long Sara and Hol Horse had been gone, but he was sure that the soccer game he'd been watching ended well over ten minutes ago. When he heard the gentle fizz of shower water coming from the bathroom be traded in for the shrill buzz of a hairdryer, he knew that they had officially been gone for too long.

Still sitting on the bed, he spun the TV remote on his hand with a thoughtful expression on his face. He knew the very second that Hol Horse had taken him up on his suggestion to take Sara out from the sound of Sara bounding down the hallway, excitedly chanting to herself as she skipped past his door. He hadn't heard anyone come down the hall since, much less her. She and Hol Horse should have been back long before Rumor finished his shower.

Sara was definitely the type to get completely distracted and whisk Hol Horse away to hit up every tourist attraction New York had to offer, but to do it without the rest of them? Without him? New York was cool, but it wasn't that cool. While she did have a tendency to wander off on her own, she had always spent the first day in a new location sightseeing with everyone else. She'd done that for as long as they'd been travelling together, and he'd been with her longer than anyone else in the group. Hol Horse didn't make it sound like they'd be gone long, either.

Something was off, and Cab wasn't about to just sit down and wait for whatever trouble Sara had stumbled into go away on its own. He set down the remote, rose from the bed, and strode over to the bathroom. With two loud knocks on the door, he called out, "Yo, Rumor."

The hairdryer's whirr turned off. "Do you need anything? I must warn you, I'm not yet clothed," Rumor responded.

"Just letting you know that I'm gonna leave for a bit to check up on the girls. Sara and Hol Horse left while you were in the shower, and I'm pretty sure they haven't come back yet. If Sara's not back with Michelle in their room, I'm gonna go poke around Times Square for a bit and see if I can find them."

"Would it be wise for me to come along as well? I can go out with my hair wet, and it will only take me a moment to get dressed."

With pursed lips, Cab considered the offer for a moment. It would be nice to have backup if a Masquerader was involved, even if it meant having Rumor nag in his ear the entire time. "No, you should stay here," he decided. "I'm pretty sure Michelle's still in her room, so someone else should stay behind with her. I would say that we should just bring her with us, but she'll be a liability if there's a Masquerader situation going on. We're in friggin' New York City, there's no way in hell she's gonna use Iron Maiden here of all places.

"Ah, that makes sense. Well, best of luck to you. Try not to get ambushed on your own." The hairdryer turned back on, but just as Cab opened the door to the hotel room and readied himself to leave, it switched off again. "Oh, and don't even consider getting breakfast without me," Rumor added.

"Whatever you say, old buddy old pal." As Cab left the hotel room and shut the door behind him, he plotted to stop by the Starbucks in Times Square and buy as much merch as he could afford. Just not any actual food, but he was sure Rumor would jump to conclusions.

He walked a few paces down the hall and knocked on the door to the girls' room. Though he doubted that Sara had somehow returned to her room without alerting the entire hotel of her return, it was still worth a shot. On the other side of the door, he heard some rustling fabric, then some heavy footsteps plod their way towards the door. Michelle, wearing a set of fuzzy pajamas with little bunny rabbits on them, opened the door. Tangles riddled the long hair hanging over her face. She rubbed her eyes, clearly half awake.

"Tu as oublié tes clés ou autre chose..." Michelle groggily slurred out. As soon as she realized that the person standing in front of her was not Sara, her eyes went wide and her posture rigid before she slammed the door in Cab's face.

Cab almost laughed in surprised. "What the hell, Michelle? It's just me!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know it's you!" Michelle called out from the other side of the door. Cab heard the creak of another door inside the room opening—probably the closet—and then the flump of what was probably her suitcase hitting the floor. "I'll be out in just a minute!"

"Are you...okay? You're not hurt, are you?" He struggled to muster up a reason why she'd shut the door on him like that. "Hol Horse isn't with me, if that's what you're worried about."

"I'm fine." There was some rustling of fabric from inside the room.

"Then why'd you shut the door on me?"

"I...uh..."

"Use your big girl words."

A few more brief seconds of pause. Cab folded his arms and began to tap his foot in impatience, hoping he was loud enough for Michelle to hear and get the message. Through the rustling of fabric, Cab heard Michelle mutter something, probably in French, but he couldn't quite make out what she had said.

"What was that?"

"I said," Cab could practically see her roll her eyes from her tone of voice, "I'm still in my pajamas, as you clearly just saw." 

"So? It's not a big deal."

"What are you talking about? Of course it's a big deal! I've never had a boy see me in my pajamas before!"

This time, Cab rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, those bunny rabbit PJs are so scandalous. Does the top have a little hood with ears on it?" he snarked. "If it makes you feel any better, I've seen Sara wearing less."

There was another pause from behind the door, and Cab realized that he probably should've worded that differently.

"It really doesn't," Michelle responded.

"Look, if you don't want to come out, that's fine. I just wanted to ask if Sara was—"

The door suddenly swung open. Michelle stood casually in the doorway, now dressed in her usual attire while she brushed the knots out of her hair. "You wanted to ask if Sara was what?"

"Is she in there with you?"

"No. She left me a note saying that she went into the city with Hol Horse a while—"

Suddenly, the implications of Sara still being gone dawned on her. Her hand stopped midway through her hair, and her eyes slightly widened. A subtle reaction on her otherwise expressionless face, but Cab still picked up on it. "Yeah. They've been down there for too long," he pointed out. "I'm gonna go into the city and see if I can find them. Rumor's still in our room if you need anything."

Assuming that was the end of their conversation (and knowing that Michelle didn't like to talk much anyways), Cab began to shut the door on her. However, when it was about halfway closed, she stepped forward. "Wait!"

Cab opened the door again. "What's up?"

Silence hung over them. Michelle kept her eyes locked on his for a moment, her posture tall and confident with her lips drawn in a thin line. That confidence seemed to waver when her hand instinctively reached up to her neck to fiddle with a necklace that wasn't there. After a few seconds, her gaze fell and her shoulders slouched.

"Never mind," she said. "You go on without me. Try not to get killed out there."

"Will do."

With that, Cab closed the door on the crestfallen Michelle and made his way towards the elevator.

~~~~~

Deep within the bordered off subway, Highway Star's stampeding feet came to a screeching halt when it abruptly lost track of Sara's scent.

The Stand's keen sense of smell gave it an almost sonar-like view of its surroundings, complete full 360° awareness even x-ray "vision." While the overwhelmingly putrid air enveloping the subway did warp its perception a bit, almost like looking at the world through a funhouse mirror, even that couldn't stop it from locking onto Sara. No matter how far or fast she sped away, Highway Star could always pinpoint the exact location of that little thief and her Stand. 

So how had she just vanished from its radar like that? Highway Star knew from the moment they entered the subway that Sara was trying to use the flood of sewage to try and disorient it. A laughable attempt, at least until she had vanished into thin air. Around the same time, the echoing coo of the stolen motorcycle's engine went silent as well. Highway Star could teleport, but that only worked if it had a rough idea of where its target was. If she and her friend had run out of gas or crashed, then they couldn't have left the subway. If that was the case though, why couldn't it smell her anywhere?

Highway Star reformed its mess of feet back into a humanoid body as it entered the area it had last sensed Sara. It took a few deep breaths, trying to get a better sense of its surroundings. The sound of the Stand's low, measured inhalations echoed in the abandoned subway. To its right seemed to be a wall, and to its left an even thicker layer of miasma that it couldn't smell through. The Stand could only assume that it was close to whatever sewer line burst. Interestingly, though, was what laid just in front of the barricade of stench. It was faint and fuzzy through the subway's odor, but Highway Star recognized that smell. It sure as hell wasn't Sara, though...

Cautiously, it approached the smell with outstretched arms, ready to scatter into a horde of feet at the drop of a hat. Something firm and metallic grazed its fingertips. It gently drummed its fingers against the surface as Highway Star drew its head lower to get a closer whiff of the object.

Its eyes involuntarily widened in surprise. Exhaust mixed with metal and sterile paint. That was the smell of its bike. Its bike, innocuously parked all alone in the middle of a desolate subway. Not quite convinced of what it smelled, the Stand rubbed its hands up and down the object to confirm that this was, in fact, its bike. It circled around to the other side of the bike as it felt up the seat, then dragged its hands up and twisted the rubbery handlebars, then down to the side and traced over the letters for HIGHWAY STAR decaled on.

No doubt about it, that was the stolen motorcycle. If Sara had just left it out in the open like that, though, did that mean she was trading it back in exchange for her nutrients? If so, where had she fled off to?

Completely unnoticed by Highway Star's radar was a knapsack and old cowboy hat, sitting just off to the side of the motorcycle. The Stand also failed to realize that the thick stench bordering off the left side of the room was a deep pool of raw sewage. Highway Star stood dangerously close to flooded tracks, heels just barely dangling off the edge, but it didn't notice the faint ripples bubbling atop the surface of the sewage right below it.

Then suddenly, a strong, masculine hand wearing translucent white gloves shot out of the sewage and grabbed Highway Star by the ankle.

"What the?" Highway Star gasped out, rattled. While it definitely felt whatever had ahold of it...over everything else in the subway, it couldn't properly smell what it was. The Stand of Sara's friend, perhaps? Before the Stand could turn around and try to identify what had popped up behind it, the hand lifted him off the ground and flung it into the river of sewage. Highway Star, still unsure of what that foul-smelling blockage was, frantically disassembled into a mass of feet and braced itself for impact.

Bad idea. The feet all individually fell into the sewage, the resulting splashes spraying sludge everywhere. They all desperately tried to kick back up to the surface, but the heaviness of that horrible stench they were buried under weighed them down. Reforming its body would make it easier, but with the feet all separated like this, that proved to be impossible.

That girl is going to pay for this, Highway Star vowed as it slowly but surely dug its way up.

~~~~~

Somehow, after everything Hol Horse had endured—carnage and bloodshed, death and destruction, heaven and hell—he was certain that this was the grossest thing he'd ever done. The only thing that came remotely close was him stumbling upon the dried-up corpses of Dio's leftovers back in the day. He'd dove into dumpsters to keep himself alive before, but this was the first time he'd ever had to cannonball into a sewer. Piss and shit soaked him to the bone, and everything around him smelled worse than a million outhouses. He was fairly certain that some of it had gotten in his mouth, too. Even his hands were covered in grime through two layers of protection; his own fingerless gloves and Out of Touch on top of them.

Oh well. A shower and trip to the dry cleaners would wash it all away in a manner of minutes. 

He surfaced as soon as he heard Highway Star go under in multiple small splashes. There was barely any light inside the abandoned subway, so he couldn't see much in front of him, but he heard Sara pop up beside him a second later, hacking and wheezing. Squinting to see in the dark, he took a moment to look over her. She was somehow still smiling. The two wasted no time and waded over to the edge of the subway tracks, dry heaving in between their labored breaths.

"So, darlin'," Hol Horse asked as he propped himself up on the edge of the platform and pulled himself up, "not that I'm upset that your crazy plan worked, but are you sure this was all really necessary?"

Now kneeling next to the motorcycle on the platform, he extended a hand out to Sara to help her out of the sewage. She took it without complaint, and he lifted her to her feet. "Of course it was! We got Highway Star in the sewage. It shouldn't be able to smell anything over itself now! Yuya said that he liked wearing his helmet to avoid getting sensory overload, so dunking Highway Star in the sewage has got to be like, sensory overload times a billion. And besides—"

She stopped midsentence to retch, misty eyes wide as she covered her mouth. Moving on instinct, Hol Horse hurried to her side and rubbed her back until her throaty grunts subsided with a pronounced swallowing noise. "...See, I told you eating that mustardy hot dog was a bad idea," she joked through raspy breaths.

Hol Horse stared back at Sara deadpan as a chunky piece of sludge dribbled down his forehead and splattered to the floor. "Somehow, I'm not so sure that's why you're feelin' queasy all of a sudden."

"Try to think of it this way." She moved over to pick up her knapsack and his hat off the ground. After putting her knapsack back on, she held out his hat, offering it back to him. "You got to grab onto an enemy Stand and throw it around like a ragdoll! That's pretty cool, don't you think?"

The logical part of Hol Horse's brain wanted to tell her she shouldn't base her strategies off of what was "pretty cool," but he couldn't help but agree with her. That was the first time he'd ever actually touched a humanoid Stand, let alone body slammed one into a river of sewage. Leave it to her to find the positives in a crappy situation.

He chuckled and took his hat back from her. "Damn right it was cool," he agreed, trying to ignore the wet squelch his hair made as he put his hat back on.

"I kinda wish I got to do it myself, but I wouldn't have been strong enough to pull it under running off of only a hot dog. I'm just surprised you were able to grab onto it like that with no trouble! Guess you really are lucky, Horseshoes!"

"I dunno about that," Hol Horse responded as he wrung out some of the noxious liquid from his ponytail, "but both of us are on the edge of blowin' chunks, and being down here sure as hell ain't helping. Let's hightail it on out of here before that thing comes up for air."

"No! We can't leave yet!" Sara protested. "That asshole tried to kill me, and he's not even a Masquerader! Set up some cannons on the wall. I wanna shoot that Stand where it hurts when it comes back up for air. We can last down here for a little while longer. Even if we don't, a little vomit never killed anybody! Especially when we're covered in shit already."

Hol Horse snorted and crossed his arms. "Darlin', trust me on this. You do not wanna get caught up in the mindset of an eye for an eye. It never works out well. We're alive, and the longer we stay feudin' with that menace, it gets more likely for that to change. This all just ain't worth it. I say we let him have his bike back and get the hell out of dodge without getting caught by the cops."

"Oh c'mon!" She threw up her hands in frustration. "Maybe I would've let that asshole off the hook for what he said back at the hotel, but not for what he did back at the terrace. I don't know how he did it, how he knew to do it, but..." she wrinkled her nose and grit her teeth for a moment before shaking her head into a more neutral expression. "Just give me my Stand back, and I'll do it myself!"

Before Hol Horse could even ponder whether he should give her Out of Touch back or keep it out of reach to coerce her to follow him, a flurry of pounding footsteps reverberated off the subway walls, getting louder and louder as they approached them. These weren't the same meaty slaps against the floor that Highway Star had made while it was chasing them down; Hol Horse could hear the heaviness in their stride. It sounded like more than one person, too, so he doubted it was Highway Star's user. The only other people that would even think of going down inside the subway right now would be the police.

Quickly, but with light feet, Hol Horse darted over to one of the benches bolted to the wall and hid under it. Sara raised a brow at him and opened her mouth to say something, but when she saw a survey of flashlights light up the ground just below the stairs, she went silent. Quickly and with heavy feet, she darted over to join Hol Horse under the bench. Their hiding space was cramped, with Sara nearly laying on top of him and their limbs sticking out in all directions. Both of them prayed that the darkness of the subway would cloak them from sight.

"Don't make a sound," Hol Horse instructed her.

Sara's chin knocked against Hol Horse's shoulder a couple times as she nodded in agreement.

Both of them held their breaths as two cops stepped down onto the platform, their flashlights illuminating the floor ahead of them. Thankfully, neither one seemed to notice Sara and Hol Horse's obvious hiding spot and kept their sights firmly at eye level. Aside from the standard uniform, both of the cops wore thick face masks, protecting their mouths and noses from the stench.

"You sure you saw a motorcycle go down here, Moretti?" The first cop spoke with a booming voice as he wandered past the bench, nearly stepping on Hol Horse's elbow.

The second cop, walking a few paces ahead of his partner, stopped and groaned. "No, Valensi, and that chain blocking off the entrance to the subway just spontaneously split in two," he sarcastically remarked, his voice a nasally whine. "You saw it too! You were there! They must've shot the chain somehow, even though I didn't hear a gunshot. I can't even begin to think why anyone would want to be down here right now, but I've seen stranger things happen in this city."

"Hey, look!" The first cop, Valensi, shone his flashlight on the motorcycle. "You were right after all!"

"See? Told you so," Moretti tutted.

They both approached the bike, looking it up and down like a pair of wolves eyeing a fresh piece of meat. "Custom decals, too," Valensi commented. "Wait a minute, this is the same motorcycle that was reported to the station in Times Square a minute ago! We were supposed to keep an eye out for it."

"Reported?" Sara thoughtfully repeated, speaking just below a whisper.

Moretti let out a snickering laugh. "Would you look at that! Practically fell right into our lap."

"Y'know, it is a really nice bike. I can see why Officer Casablancas was complaining about the owner being hysteric about it. Though the guy must've made quite the racket to annoy a guy like Casablancas," Valensi mused. "You don't think anyone would notice if I took it for myself and stashed it away in some garage outta town?"

"Great idea! Except it's mine to take," Moretti insisted. "I was the one who said we should go down here and investigate after that motorcycle came flying down the stairs, so I get keeps on it."

"Hey, no fair! I saw it first!"

The pair continued to bicker, obviously unaware of Sara and Hol Horse watching from under the bench just a few feet away from them. Slowly, like a snail steadily trudging its way up a mountain, so slowly that Sara barely even noticed him move, Hol Horse fully extended an arm outwards and tapped four of his gloved fingers against the floor. Four cannons spawned as he inched his hand away. Sara watched the cannons intently as they aimed themselves at the cops' legs.

Lightly elbowing her, Hol Horse raised his hand slightly so that it was level with Sara's line of sight. "When I fire," he whispered, "get out from under here and book it."

"Go for the bike," Sara ordered.

Hol Horse bit back a frustrated groan. Whether she just wanted to get back at Highway Star's user or she just really liked that damn bike, her obsession with it was doing more harm than good. Unfortunately, he didn't have the luxury of arguing with her in this situation. Hol Horse reluctantly nodded. At least having a motorcycle handy would let them get to the dry cleaners faster.

He pressed all four fingers to the ridge of his thumb, firing all the cannons simultaneously. Blood gushed from the cops' legs as the shots ripped through their flesh. As they let out agonized cries and collapsed to the floor, Sara and Hol Horse rolled out from under the bench and dashed towards the motorcycle. This time, Sara took the driver's seat while Hol Horse sat behind her. He wrapped an arm around her wait as she started up the motorcycle and sped down the platform. Neither of them paid any mind to the two cops they had left behind.

"So, Horseraddish," Sara called out, "you still wearing Out of Touch?"

"Yup."

"Good! Because this isn't over just yet. Those cops said that Yuya reported his motorcycle to the cops in Times Square. So, that's gotta be where he is right now," she reasoned. "That means we can get the jump on him!"

"I'm not too sure 'bout this, darlin'," he sighed, regretting not being the one driving. "You want to charge into a cop station just to beat up one punk? Not to mention that you went through all the trouble of gettin' us nice and disgusting so that Highway Star couldn't track us, and gettin' on the bike again kinda kills the point. It's blind, not deaf. Why don't we just park the bike somewhere by the entrance and call it a draw?"

"Highway Star's probably gonna kill us anyways just for gunking up the motorcycle with our sewage-covered butts," Sara responded with a light chuckle. "The real challenge here is gonna be finding the exit to Times Square before it does."

"And how do you plan on doin' that?"

"Relax, would you? I've got a plan. Out of Touch is much more versatile than you probably think it is."

"Trust me, I know these gloves are plenty versatile," Hol Horse reassured. "I'm more worried about whatever crazy scheme you've got bouncing 'round in that head of yours."

Sara responded with a giggle. "I promise I won't fling us into any more sewage."

~~~~~

The river of sewage rippled for a moment, then a single foot of Highway Star leapt out and onto the platform. Another foot followed shortly after, then another, then another, until the entire horde emerged like a school of carp jumping out of the water. Once all of them landed firmly on the platform, they fused back into its humanoid body, leaving behind a mass of dirty footprints. Even in a different form, sewage still covered the Stand from head to toe; it dripped from its limbs and marred its purple body with smudges of dark brown. 

Sewage. Raw sewage. That was the extra layer of stench had been. Wonderful.

Highway Star didn't feel disgusted or nauseous from the substance coating it. It would have loved to just take a moment to revel in repulsion and then get right back to chasing Sara down, but the sewage had overwhelmed and clogged its sense of smell to the point that it could no longer "see" right in front of it. The Stand's internal radar came up pitch black, with no indication of what was around it. It didn't hear much of anything either, save for the lonely ambience of the abandoned subway. Panic swept through Highway Star's body as it stumbled around and sniffed at the air in deep, rapid breaths; desperate for something, anything to latch onto and direct it forward...

A hint of iron crept into its senses, coming from right below him, coupled by a pained, masculine grunt. That's blood, Highway Star realized. The Stand lunged towards the smell and sunk its arm into its source. It successfully submerged itself inside a body—a human body from the feel of it, so it hadn't just been some sewer rat. Plentiful Nutrients began to flow into Highway Star in an even rhythm. In fact...they were too plentiful. It had left Sara nearly dead back at the terrace, there was no way she had refilled herself so quickly. Could it be her friend, the man driving her?

Whoever it was, it was just wasting time by draining their nutrients. The Stand yanked its arm out of the now deflated body, which, unbeknownst to Highway Star, was one of the cops that Hol Horse had shot in the legs earlier. I can't afford to stay here and try to orient myself, Highway Star thought. The more time I waste in one place, the further Sara gets away from me. It gave the air one more sniff. And the motorcycle, from the looks of it. I could smell that thing from halfway across a New York City, block; if it was still here, I could smell it over all this sewage.

With a frustrated grit of its teeth, Highway Star fell apart into a mass of feet and scattered throughout the subway. Some darted back up the stairs from which it came, some treaded even down the platform, and a few nearly walked right back into the sludge again. In this form it could cover more ground even if it couldn't hear as well over the constant THUMP THUMP THUMP of itself hitting the ground over and over again. There was a very real chance that Sara had left the subway already, so it needed to find her as soon as possible before it was too late.

The pack of feet venturing down the platform split in two, with one half taking a sharp turn up some stairs. Not long after, Highway Star heard bits and pieces of a conversation floating through the air over its heavy stomping against the concrete. It was distant, so much so that Highway Star doubted it would still be able to hear it if there was even one more soul in the subway, but it was something. Highway Star locked in on the source of the noise and continued its pursuit.

"It's—fault—the—cycle—out!"

Just about every other word of the conversation had been drowned out by Highway Star's stomping, but it could recognize that sugary voice anywhere. That was Sara. Bingo. All of the other feet spread out throughout the subway teleported back into one shared cluster to pursue her voice, frustrated and yelling out with no abandon. But about what? Highway Star slowed down for just a moment, if only to better hear her. If she was planning something, it would be better to find out what first than to charge in headfirst.

"You should've just let me drive, darlin'. I told you that turn was too sharp, and now look what you've done! What happened to that plan of yours, huh?"

Highway Star's toes curled in apprehension. That was a second voice, this one deep and gravely with a hint of a Southern accent; no doubt belonging to Sara's friend. His choice of words, though...from the sound of it, Sara hadn't just driven the motorcycle, she had crashed it. Hot rage flashed through its system. If being shot at and thrown into a pile of shit wasn't reason enough to drain her of all her nutrients until she was nothing but a withered husk, this was. Highway Star rushed towards the voices faster than ever before. It ran up another set of stairs that, unseen by the Stand, lead to a spacious central hub. Multiple stairwells ran through it, some leading up to the surface while others descended down to the subway platforms. Posters advertising different TV shows, fashion products, and political causes hung on the walls in glass frames.

More critically, Highway Star ran right past a small, rubbery cannon attached to the wall that followed its movements like a security camera.

"Don't—like—you—so—cent! I—died—to—here!"

Now running at top speed again, Highway Star couldn't hear Sara's words in full anymore. Her voice was louder, so it was definitely going in the right direction, but the echo in her voice was much more pronounced than before. It almost sounded like she was yelling from the bottom of an empty well. Given that Highway Star had just ran up a set of stairs, she was probably another story down. It continued stampeding towards her voice until it reached a railing circled around a set of stairs leading back down to the subway platform, it toes teetered on the edge. Without thinking twice about it, Highway Star leapt down, its feet raining down onto the set of stairs and landing in a series of claps against the floor.

Another cannon, this one attached to the railing, witnessed their descent.

"Well, you got us in this mess, so I reckon you oughta get us a way out of it."

The echo in Sara's friend's voice sounded less pronounced now that Highway Star had landed on the lower level of the subway, his words crisp and clear. Perfect; it was getting warmer. The Stand wagered that they were all probably in the same room now. It hopped down the rest of the stairs, hungry for nutrients, into a room lined by ticket kiosks with an information booth in the middle of the open space.

”Just gimme a sec, okay?”

Even though it was stomping against the floor at top speed, Highway Star was close enough now that it could hear Sara in full just fine. It charged forwards, and unbeknownst to the Stand, ran right into a vacant information booth. A canon rested atop the open door, following its movements closely.

This was it. This was the source of Sara’s voice. She couldn't have been further than a breath away. The feet reformed into its humanoid form with a slasher grin bare upon its face. It could've just attacked her as a mob of feet, but with this body, it really got to feel the life fade from its victims. Already it could practically taste the nutrients on its fingers. Highway Star swiped at the air in front of it, expecting to grab Sara by the neck.

All it felt, however, was empty air. Highway Star tensed as Sara’s voice rang out from all around him. “Bullseye.”

Attached to all corners of the information booth were a bunch of cannons, all of them locked onto Highway Star. The Stand felt itself gasp in shock just seconds before all of the cannons fired.

Chapter Text

Bullseye—that was the cue Sara had given Hol Horse to fire. It was simple, borderline cliché, but it got the job done. Highway Star's pained yelps rang out from the cuff of the glove the millisecond after he set off the cannons. Those shots better have killed the user, or at least drove him out of the police station and into a hospital. Even with a few holes blown through the Stand's body, Hol Horse doubted that he and Sara had the upper hand in a direct fight; Emperor was just about useless, and though she did a good job of hiding it, Sara was clearly running on her last bit of energy. He could tell as much from the way Out of Touch felt on his hands and her vibrating shivers as he held onto her at the back of the motorcycle.

Even through her fatigue, Sara looked over her shoulder and flashed a smug grin, just barely visible in the darkness of the subway. "See, told you I had a plan."

Hol Horse threw on a quick grin and nudged her head forward. "Eyes on the road," he reminded her. "Don't want you actually crashing us now."

"Speaking of, great job acting your part! Rumor would've totally blo—AGH!"

She swerved out of the way of a support beam just as Hol Horse redirected her sights forward. Hol Horse held on tight, one hand wrapped around Sara's waist while the other held onto the seat of the motorcycle, as their wheels screeched against the floor. The squealy noise made him cringe. Bad news if they hadn't just put four bullets inside of Highway Star. The motorcycle straightened out before they could crash into the wall and continued to drive through the subway. Breathing out a sigh of relief, Hol Horse loosened his grip on both Sara's waist and the seat of the bike.

The subway's desolate corridors were surprisingly spacious without any people there to get in their way, but it clearly wasn't made with motorcycles in mind. Corners were tight and forced them to make extremely narrow turns, and they didn't have the luxury of slowing down. At least the upper level of the subway was better lit than the platform, with pools of sunlight bleeding in from the many stairways leading back to the surface. Signs hung from the ceiling and labeled every subway exit. Hol Horse eyed them down as Sara drove past them, if only to get a better sense of where they were.

"I doubt Highway Star's gettin' up after that. I'd reckon that Stand's down for the count." Hol Horse claimed, reassuring her as much as himself. "Meaning you're the winner here since you got your revenge in full. Now, let's go back up to the hotel and wash all this gunk off of us."

"What, did you hit your head earlier? This isn't over until we find Yuya. He's at the police station, remember? I still have some questions for him."

Hol Horse closed his eyes and slowly exhaled. He knew she'd say that, but he figured it couldn't hurt to try to pull her out of the fight one last time. "The police station is just south of Times Square, on 42nd street. There's an exit somewhere that should spit us out right in front of the police station, but anything on 42nd should get us close," he told her; having never forgotten all the spots of New York to avoid. 

"Gotcha."

They continued to speed through the subway in silence, save for the white noise of the motorcycle's surprisingly quiet engine. As each sign they passed marked them closer and closer to 42nd street, Hol Horse thought over his options going forward. Part of him wished that he had lied to Sara about where the police station was to get her to drive in circles until she passed out from exhaustion, but that would just give Highway Star more time to heal and catch up with them. They would probably just run into some stray pigs while driving, anyways. If he had things his way, they'd ditch the motorcycle now and go back to the hotel, but Sara obviously wasn't about to let that happen. He supposed he could just jump off the motorcycle now and go back by himself, but what would he tell Michelle and the rest of their little party? It wasn't like he could just sneak past them anymore now that he was covered in shit.

No way in hell was he stepping one foot inside the police station, though. If Sara was really that hellbent on charging into the lion's den (or, more fittingly, the pigpen) headfirst, well, that was on her. He wasn't about to put his life or freedom on the line for some petty vendetta. However, if Sara was killed or arrested, then it wouldn't take long for him to follow suit, especially since they had already been caught together on the stolen motorcycle. Like it or not, he had to nut up and go into the pigpen with her.

Well, if they were really about to do this, they might as well keep their faces covered. Hol Horse brought a knee up, scooped some sewage out from the inside of his boot, and smeared it over his face. He got a couple of wet stripes down his cheeks before remembering Sara's knapsack, the hard edges of whatever was inside it poking his torso. "I don't suppose you've got a mask or bandana of sorts in that knapsack of yours?"

"Uh...probably? I dunno, I've got a little bit of everything in here," Sara commented. "Don't go digging around it in, though! I don't want to get all my stuff dir—hey, look!"

Sara pointed at the sign they were fast approaching, just barely illuminated by the light peeking in from atop the stairs. As they drove closer, the text written on it became well lit enough for him to read.

Times Sq-42 St Station
SNQR
1237

Hol Horse swallowed hard, his muscles tense. This was about to be the stupidest thing he'd ever done, and he wasn't even getting paid for it. Sara hadn't asked for Out of Touch back, at least. He tapped Sara's shoulder, setting up a cannon on the tattered sleeve of her shirt. "I've got a cannon on ya, darlin'. They've probably got the exit bordered off in some way, so I'll fire when we get close."

"Nice thinking! I totally forgot about that, if I'm being honest," she confessed. "Good thing you're here to watch my back, huh?"

Knowing damn well that he had every intention of leaving her to die back at the terrace and had been tempted to abandon her after Highway Star started chasing them, Hol Horse gave her a smile and a pat on the shoulder. So long as you've got mine, he thought.

The motorcycle veered through the exit and up the flight of stairs leading to the surface. Hol Horse and Sara both squinted against the sun shining in their faces, having gotten accustomed to the darkness of the subway. The single chain link stationed at the top the stairs nearly sparkled in the sunlight. With a press of his finger, Hol Horse fired the cannon on Sara's shoulder. The chain's center splintered into pieces just as they reached the top of the stairs, its broken halves smacking Hol Horse's arms as they flew past.

Dozens of skyscrapers and billboards greeted them to the right, along with a crowd of gasping tourists standing nearby as they drove out of the closed subway covered in sewage. To their left sat an uncharacteristically short and squat building made of thick glass walls and a long, flat roof. The words POLICE were painted on its walls in blue paint, and the roof had a bunch of big, blinking letters that read NEW YORK POLICE DEPT upon it.

As Sara popped a wheelie on the motorcycle to quickly turn it around so it faced the pigpen, Hol Horse regretted not giving her a fake address.

"Shoot the police station's windows, Horseshoes!" Sara called out just as the motorcycle's front wheel hit the ground.

Forgetting all about the gloves on his hands, Hol Horse summoned Emperor and fired at the police station with reckless abandon. Some of his bullets fizzled out of existence before hitting anything, but enough of them hit their target that most of the wall of the building came down in a clattering of broken glass. Thank god Emperor still worked well enough point blank—that was how he managed to take out the mayor of Mons, after all. Another series of gasps sounded out from the tourists behind them, these ones sounding more panicked than surprised, as Sara charged into the police station through the hole in the wall. Hol Horse expected to hear the tires pop from driving over broken glass, but before that could happen, the front wheel crashed into the intact base of the building. The motorcycle came to an abrupt stop and Sara and Hol Horse were flung off of it and into the pile of broken glass lying on the floor of the police station. An instant later, the bike flipped over and landed between them, the front wheel whacking Hol Horse's back. He winced, the wind knocked out of him, and tried to get on his feet.

The inside of the police station was about what Hol Horse expected; not much aside from a couple of glossy wooden desks pushed to the opposite wall of the building, a waiting area made up of a sofa, coffee table, and water cooler, and a tall potted plant situated near the actual entrance of the place. A pair of pigs cowered behind the desks while four people sat on the sofa—three women, all sporting different colors of long wavy hair and holding baseball bats, huddled up to a man wearing a gray jumpsuit and a tattoo on his chin.

He didn't need an introduction; the way he gaped at the motorcycle, and only the motorcycle, said it all. That was Yuya Fungami, Highway Star's user.

Glass clattered to his side, and Hol Horse looked over his shoulder to see Sara rise to her feet. She stood shaky and uneven, her breaths were halfway between a wheeze and a chuckle. "Found you, asshole," she taunted, wiping some of the grime off her face.

"My bike! You just totaled my bike, you bitch!" The horror on Yuya's face only grew as he stood up from the sofa, his girls letting go of him as he did so. "The shards of glass have punctured the tires, and...oh god," he gagged as their acrid smell finally assaulted his nostrils, "what the hell are you guys covered in? You sat on my bike covered in all of that?"

"You filthy rednecks!" One of the girls, the redhead, stood up with Yuya and scowled at Sara.

"Do you have any idea how much work it took for Yu-baby to ship that thing here from Japan?" The blonde stood up with a glare.

"Yeah! We were all gonna go on a big drive together, and you just ruined it for us!" The brunette chimed in, pointing her baseball bat at Sara.

"Consider it payback for the fun we had in Times Square," Sara said, limping over to Hol Horse. She knelt down and took his hand, but before Hol Horse could try to pull himself up one more time, she yanked Out of Touch from his hand and slid it back onto her own. Resting her gloved hand against the wall to balance herself, she rose back up to her feet. "Heh. Yu-baby. Props to you, girls; I couldn't have picked a better nickname myself. Because I'm gonna have you crying like a baby once I'm finished with you!"

Before Sara could take a step closer to Yuya, the two pencil-pushing pigs popped out from behind their desks, guns in hand and aimed directly at Sara.

"Freeze!" The first one commanded.

"Don't take a step closer!" Added the second one.

Without even so much as giving them a cursory glance, Sara pulled her hand back from the wall, revealing two cannons. She fired them as soon as they appeared, leaving behind two small holes in the glass wall they had been attached to. They shot right through the barrels of the cops' guns and sent them flying out of their hands. The cops flinched back a second after the fact, having been unable to see the cannons that had shot their guns nor the gloves that formed them. Sara flashed a tired smile at their dumbfounded stares.

"You two are good at your job, I'll give you that," she commended. "Most cops would've just fired at me already for breaking the window. Err...wall. Glass thingy. But I've had a long day, and it's not even lunchtime yet. This doesn't concern you, so put a sock in it!"

The cops went rigid and ducked back under their desks with a pair of short, fearful shrieks. With a deep, raspy breath, she shifted her sights back to Yuya. He matched her cocky grin with a confident smirk as she wobbled towards him, casually sitting back down on the sofa. His girls followed suit, still giving Sara a death glare.

"So, you managed to shake off Highway Star. I'm not sure how you did it, but I can make a few assumptions since the two of you look like you rolled around the inside of a dirty toilet," he thought out loud. "You found a way around my sense of smell, but let me ask you this; are you absolutely sure that you know all of Highway Star's abilities?"

Sara froze in place. All of Highway Star's abilities? What else could she have possibly missed? It could suck the life right out of its victims, deform into a pack of feet, track down its prey by their scent, set up illusion rooms that Sara had plenty of questions about...what else could there be that Yuya was so confident about? Did he have some sort of trump card that she'd overlooked?

No, he's bluffing, she reasoned, taking another step closer.

Over the ringing in his ears, Yuya's monologuing, and the general cacophony of New York City, Hol Horse managed to hear a faint noise coming from outside that sounded like an electronic bass playing in reverse. Then he heard it again. And again. And again...though he was still pinned under the wheel of the motorcycle, Hol Horse pried his head up and looked out the open door.

His heart sank when he saw the horde of feet teleport back into view one by one, stationed just outside the door to the police station. The commotion of him and Sara crashing through the police station on a motorcycle had warded off all of the passerby tourists, leaving nothing between them and Sara.

Yuya's smirk widened cheek to cheek as he saw his Stand warp into view. "Once Highway Star gets ahold of someone's scent, they can't escape, no matter what," he continued. "It can teleport wherever I command it to, and you just entered my line of sight, you idiots!"

"They're behind you!" Hol Horse called out. "Get under the desk now, darlin'!"

Sara whirled around just in time to see the full mob of Highway Star's feet darting towards her at top speed. Her breath hitched as she stumbled over to the desks with shaky legs, only getting about halfway there before tripping over the coffee table and falling to the floor. Sure, that would provide her cover, but with Yuya now acting as Highway Star's eyes, the Stand would be able to find her in a heartbeat. Out of Touch could probably defend herself from some of the feet, but not all of them at once...

Before Highway Star could take a step inside the police station, a flurry of punches from another Stand struck the mass of feet from behind the police station's open door. Though its arms moved so quickly they looked like nothing but a blur, both Sara and Hol Horse could both make out the compasses on the Stand's hands.

"HI-DEEDEEDEEDEEDEEDEE!"

The feet recoiled from the strikes for an instant before redirecting towards the potted plant sitting next to the doorway. They all stuck to the plant in one big pile, the impact making the pot spin in place. Hol Horse and Sara could tell from the way Highway Star's toes curled around the plant and the steady drying of its leaves that the Stand had instinctively begun to suck out its nutrients.

Yuya's smug grin fell off his face as he shot back up to his feet in disbelief. "Huh? What the heck was that?"

As if to answer his question, a certain someone with flared out jeans and a dark curly mullet stepped out from behind the door, his Stand hovering beside him. His hands were in his pockets as he ambled into the police station, glass crunching underneath his shoes as he took in everything around him with a low whistle.

"I come down here looking for a missing person, and what do I find but the missing person in the middle of a Stand fight? You really do have a knack for getting into shit, Sara," Cab rambled. One of Highway Star's feet managed to peel itself off of the potted plant, but before it could get very far, Quiet Riot kicked it back into place. 

Sara beamed at Cab and rose to her feet. "Taxi Cab!"

"So, let me guess. Masquerader?" He plugged his nose as Sara staggered over to him. "I assume that's why you guys are covered in...uh...all that." He gestured up and down the sewage dripping off of Sara's body.

"Nope, not a Masquerader," Hol Horse clarified as he managed to free himself from underneath the motorcycle and get back on his feet. "And believe me, whatever you think this is, it's much worse."

"But, it was all a part of my plan! See, while Horseshoes was meeting up with one of his old friends, I ran into this asshole," Sara gestured back at Yuya, "and he's a Stand user too, but he used his Stand to—"

A loud, popping THWACK! suddenly filled the air, smacking the smile off of Sara's face and knocking her to the floor. Out of Touch dematerialized from both her hand and Hol Horse's as she grit her teeth. Yuya's girlfriends stood over her, rage on their faces and baseball bats in their hands. Sara propped herself up on her elbows, but one of Yuya's girlfriends, the redhead, whacked the back of her shoulders before she could stand back up. She crumpled back to the floor and spat out some blood.

"You don't get to call Yuya an asshole after stealing his property, you little bitch!" The redhead spat as she hit Sara again.

"Anyone who even thinks about hurting our Yu-baby has to get through us first!" The blonde added, striking Sara's back.

"Yeah!" The brunette called out as she pummeled Sara's head. As her cohorts continued to beat Sara to a bloody pulp, she shot Cab and Hol Horse a furious look. "And you two better not intervene. If you guys hit a bunch of ladies like us, you'd never be able to live with yourselves! Right, Yu-baby?"

Yuya, who had been standing in front of the sofa the whole time, just stared at the three women with a blank look on his face. After taking a moment to process what the brunette had said, he proudly folded his arms and chuckled. "Yes, of course!" He strode over to the reception desk and casually leaned against it, now staring down Cab and Hol Horse. "Well, you two heard them. Best to walk away now, because no real man would beat up three women in order to save one. You'd never be able to look at yourselves in the mirror again after that!"

While Cab shot Yuya a glare and punched another one of Highway Star's runaway feet back onto the potted plant, Yuya dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a wad of cash and set it on the desk. Hol Horse guessed it was a little over $200 just from eyeballing it.

"Hey, coppers," Yuya said, now gazing at the bottom of the desk from the corner of his eye. "Let's keep this whole thing on the down-low, alright?"

A shaky hand emerged from behind the desk, snatched the money, then quickly retreated back to safety.

Though a part of Hol Horse did want to help Sara—especially as her attempts to stand back up grew weaker with each hit, the ferocity in her eyes dimming as she struggled to keep her sights focused on anything—he couldn't help but agree with Yuya. Fending off these three ladies wouldn't be as simple as tossing them aside; he'd probably end up having to fight off all three of them in Sara's place. He couldn't rely on Cab for help, either, since Highway Star would just pin down both of them the second the kid diverted his attention from it. If he got into a fistfight with not just one, but three women, none of which were even Stand users, he'd end up spending the rest of the week feeling awful about it. He'd sworn to never hit a woman, after all. None of that erased the sickening crunch of the baseball bats beating down on the already exhausted Sara though, nor her wailing groans that followed each hit...

With a deep breath, Hol Horse closed his eyes and took a step away from the carnage. Not my fight, he reminded himself. All of this was her fault, after all. She had chosen to hunt down Yuya, even after throwing Highway Star into a river of shit. She had chosen to stay in a losing fight. He wasn't about to risk invoking the wrath of Highway Star over someone he'd met less than a week ago, even if it was a woman. Especially so since the Stand was stuck to the potted plant just a couple feet behind him, just barely kept in check by Quiet Riot.

Cab, however, just smirked at Yuya's threat. "You wanna bet on that?"

Quiet Riot threw another flurry of punches at Highway Star, and with a spin of its compasses, pulled all of the feet off of the potted plant. Hol Horse ducked as they launched at him, past him, then landed squarely on the backs of all there of Yuya's girlfriends. Each of them let out a quick gasp as the Stand's toes dug into their skin, their baseball bats clunking to the floor as they collapsed next to Sara. Yuya went tense and screamed in shock. Highway Star vanished as Yuya rushed over to the fallen girls, gently rubbing their backs while staring red hot death into Cab's eyes.

"You bastard! What kind of monster are you?" He spat at him.

"As far as I'm concerned, if someone's hurting my friends, then whether or not someone's a woman or a kid or whatever else is irrelevant," Cab explained with a shrug. "In fact, Yu-baby, I'd say that making your girlfriends fight for you makes you even less of a man than me for fighting back. Rumor will be able to heal up Sara when we get back to the hotel, anyways. I won't lose any sleep over this."

Though he looked like he had another retort planned, the fury in Yuya's eyes melted when his girls whimpered and wormed their way onto his lap. His brows drew together with concern as he pulled all four of them into a group hug. "Are you alright, my lovelies?"

Wait, four of them?

Bloody and beaten, Sara rose to her knees with a ragged, throaty noise and grabbed Yuya by the neck, kicking the rest of the girls away from Yuya. The brim of her hat cloaked her eyes in shadow, leaving only her victorious smile visible on her face. Yuya's eyes went wide as he tried to back away from Sara, scooting across the floor and dragging her with him. A breathy laugh escaped Sara's lips when Yuya's back with the armrest of the sofa.

"Remember this? Highway Star grabbed onto me just like this back at the terrace," she reminded him. "It also showed me something...something that you're gonna answer for now. If you don't, then you get to pick...beaten to a bloody pulp?" She tilted her head back at Cab, standing menacingly behind her. "Or bullet through the head?" She titled her head back at Hol Horse, who matched Cab's confident posture as soon as he realized he'd been addressed.

Yuya's wide-eyed panic pinched into a confused frown for a split second. "You smell awful—"

He choked on his words when Sara squeezed his neck tighter, threatening to leave small welts on his neck. Yuya grabbed her wrist and attempted to yank away her hands, but couldn't overpower her surprisingly strong grip. 

"That room that Highway Star set up back at the terrace," Sara elaborated, her voice quiet enough so that only he could hear her. "I saw something...someone in there through the window, but when I went inside, he was gone. You're gonna tell me all you know about him and why you put him there."

"I don't know! I swear I don't know!" Yuya's voice came out in sputtering gasps. "Highway Star's illusion room targets people's subconscious, I have no say in what it makes!"

Just as Yuya felt Sara's fingers dig deeper into his skin, he threw his leg up and kicked her in the chest. She released his neck and tumbled back to the floor as Yuya rose to his feet. He gagged between his heavy panting, a pair of dirty handprints left behind on his neck. Cab rushed to Sara's side, but she pushed him away before he could help her up. Instead, she rolled over so that she was leaning against the wall and used it to balance herself as she stood with shaky legs, leaving behind a smear of blood and sewage on the glass. Sara kept her head held high and smirked at Yuya, hobbling towards him.

"Look, please don't hurt me! I literally can't afford to get any scars or bruises right now with that modeling gig coming up!" Yuya touched his chin and backed away from Sara until he found himself standing on top of the sofa. "I-I'll give you anything! You want cash, I've got cash!"

He reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out another wad of bills, and threw them at Sara. They landed on the floor in front of her. Without even checking to see how much money he'd thrown at her, Sara stepped over them and closer to Yuya. When Out of Touch faintly sparkled back onto her hands, Yuya scrambled to the other side of the room, now pressed against one of the reception desks.

"T-tickets to Phantom of the Opera?" He pulled out four tickets from his pockets and waved them in front of him, an uneasy smile brightening the nervous sweat rolling down his face. "It's a matinee show, but they're front row seats!"

Out of Touch became solid enough that he could no longer see Sara's hands through the gloves. Still leaning against the wall, she tapped the water cooler. The resulting cannon took a few seconds to form, starting out as a rubbery blob before it squished and squeaked into its proper shape, aimed right at Yuya's head. Yuya shrieked and leapt over the desk, using it as a shield. After a few seconds, his hands inched up from behind the desk, holding a set of tickets and cards.

"I've got four tickets and backstage passes to an Akira Otoishi concert! It's in California, so it's a bit of a commute, but it's not for another few weeks, so you'll have plenty of time to drive—"

As if someone had flipped a switch in her brain, Sara's entire demeanor shifted. Her predatory smirk brightened into a jubilant smile, shaky posture straightening out as she clapped her hands together in glee. She squealed in delight and skipped on over to the desk, eyes locked on the tickets and cards in Yuya's hands.

"No way!" She snatched the tickets from him. "You got tickets to an Akira Otoishi concert? These have been sold out for six months! How'd you get ahold of these?"

"W-we used to be neighbors," Yuya piped up. "Plus, he owes me a favor."

"I'm his biggest fan!" She proclaimed, pocketing the tickets inside her knapsack. "He's basically the modern king of guitarists, and he's got a nice singing voice to boot. I've been listening to his new album, Blizzard in Death Valley, for like, a whole year now! It's some of the only music on my iPod that I actually bought and didn't just torrent off of the internet. Man, I always wanted to see him live, but he never toured anywhere near where I used to live. This is a dream come true!"

Yuya's head slowly rose from behind the desk, looking more confused than relieved as he stepped out and cautiously approached Sara. "So, do we have a deal? You get the tickets and I keep my face?"

"You bet your ass we've got a deal!"

She withdrew Out of Touch and eagerly shook Yuya's hand, even though Yuya's hand had been resting at his side. He accepted the handshake nonetheless, all of the tension leaving his body with a sigh of relief. After Sara let go, however, his lip curled in disgust at he brownish smear left behind on his hand. He sped over to the water cooler to wash it off as Sara turned around and faced Cab and Hol Horse, smiling with her hands on her hips despite the blood and grime caked onto her body and clothes.

"Well, I don't know about you two, but I'd say we get a move on! California's at the other end of the country, so no matter what city the concert's in, we've got one hell of a road trip ahead of us," she said, parading on past them with a confident, peppy stride. Basking in the sunlight shining through the shattered wall, she turned around on her heels to look her companions in the eye once more. "Not that I'm complaining, though! First New York City, and now a concert in California? An Akira Otoishi concert? This is the best day of my life!"

And then just like that, like a puppet whose strings had just been cut, Sara fainted onto the capsized motorcycle. The excitement and adrenaline fueling her body all faded away in an instant, her limbs limp and heavily hanging off the motorcycle. Her head lolled to the side, a blank, sleepy expression on her face in lieu of her usual optimistic smile.

"I didn't do anything," Yuya preemptively claimed, his hands up by his ears.

After raising a brow at Yuya, Hol Horse took a few steps closer to Sara, surveying her up and down. "She's breathin', at least," he noted, seeing the subtle rise and fall of her chest. "My bet's that she's just plain exhausted. You weren't here, on account of that soccer game being so damn important," Cab rolled his eyes as Hol Horse addressed him, "but she's been pushing herself past her limits for a good while now. We oughta take her back up to the hotel."

Cab narrowed his eyes at Hol Horse as he walked towards to Sara. "I could do without the passive aggressiveness, you know. Something tells me that all of this happened because you didn't have the spine to stand up for her when she needed you to."

Hol Horse sharply exhaled, his lips drawn together in a thin line. I could do without your attitude, boy, he thought.

"Either way, I can tell that both of you have been through a lot today. I'll carry her back up to the hotel," Cab suggested. Glass shattered under his heavy footsteps as he drew closer to the motorcycle. He bent at the knee, wrapped one arm under her back and the other under her knees, and lifted her into his arms. After taking just a few steps, he retched, punctuated by some watery sewage dribbling down from her ponytail. Head turned away and nose lifted in the air, he gently set her down on the floor in front of Hol Horse.

"Actually, no. You carry her," he ordered him. "I'm gonna throw up if I get any closer to you guys. Jesus, what the hell happened to you two? You guys don't even smell like shit, you smell like the entire asshole."

As Cab backed away, fanning the air in front of him, Hol Horse stared down at Sara passed out at his feet.

She was a sweet girl; spunky, charming, and energetic. Thank god she and her friends had found him underneath that dumpster, otherwise Sting probably would've finished him off back in Mons. Her enthusiasm for him joining their little posse also gave him cover for this whole Masquerader situation, even if she was likely just keeping him around as a living wallet, and her good faith in him had managed to at least partially sway Michelle's suspicions of him. For that much, he was grateful.

But damn if her recklessness and naivety wasn't annoying. Hol Horse hadn't wanted to partner up with her from the beginning, and now he felt vindicated for not wanting to bring her out with him. He preferred partnering up with people on a similar wavelength as him; maybe a bit more assertive and powerful than he was, but still strategic and calculating. Someone who knew when to pick a fight and when to walk away. Someone who had the common sense to not steal a motorcycle for no reason, let alone one belonging to a Stand user. If she hadn't done that, he wouldn't be standing in the middle of a vandalized pigpen, soaked in shit. She'd still be awake, active, and dragging him along to every tourist attraction on the map. Somehow he knew that she hadn't learned her lesson from all of this, especially not after netting herself backstage passes to her favorite rock star.

Although, she had managed to survive and win a Stand battle despite spending most of the fight sapped of all her strength. He and Cab had helped her out, but he never would've dreamed up any of her crazy tactics. Hell, he'd just about forgotten about the flooded subways when Sara reminded him they existed. Not that he would've needed any crazy tactics though, because he was smart enough to not steal the motorcycle in the first place.

He silently vowed to never partner up with her again. Her recklessness would be the death of him one day, he could feel it.

Hol Horse knelt in front of her, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and looped his arms underneath her thighs before lifting her up onto his back. Her head rested on his shoulder as he stood back up, her soft breaths whistling in his ear. It had been a long time since he'd given anyone a piggyback ride—in fact, he wasn't sure if he had ever given one—but something about it just felt right with Sara.

It was probably just to help divert attention away from them on the way back to the hotel.

Chapter Text

Hol Horse desperately wished that he still had some cigarettes for the long, long walk back to the hotel. Damn Sara for blowing up his pack when he needed them most; the best way he knew to unwind after a tense Stand encounter was to choke down some good old-fashioned tobacco, and he definitely was in the mood for some. If having shit plastered to his face wasn't motivation enough to get back to the hotel as soon as possible, feeding his nicotine addiction certainly was.

No taxi would drive them there on account of him and Sara both being drenched in raw sewage, and riding the subway obviously wasn't an option. The nearest bus didn't stop anywhere near their hotel, and Hol Horse refused to sit around and marinate just to be turned away by the bus driver. He wouldn't board himself in his current state if he were the driver, anyways. Thankfully, the waves of people flowing through New York City's sidewalks didn't pay them much mind. A majority of them were smokers, too, so at least the many clouds of secondhand smoke provided him a temporary high.

Whether out of a genuine desire to help or because he couldn't stand hanging out around his rancid companions any longer, Cab offered to save some time by taking the pair's soiled clothes to the cleaners while they proceeded to the hotel. Hol Horse agreed, eager to ditch his soiled clothes. Besides, Cab could catch a taxi whenever he wanted, something he and Sara didn't have the luxury for. He stripped down to nothing but his jeans, undershirt, and boots; feeling particularly naked without his hat. Cab offered to take Sara's clothes, too, but neither he nor Hol Horse offered to actually remove them. It was a wonder the stolen clothes had remained intact at all though; the sleeves of her stolen shirt in particular had been reduced to nothing but a few threads stubbornly holding together.

A host of confused stares from the front desk staff greeted Hol Horse and Sara when they got back to the hotel. Their eyes followed the duo from the moment they entered the hotel until they stepped into the elevator. Hol Horse could still feel them staring at him even as the elevator doors closed on him. God bless them for not calling security on him, though, and thank god no self-righteous jerk offs were there to bark at him for having a woman passed out on his back.

The hotel elevator opened with a small chime on their floor, Sara still knocked out and hanging off of Hol Horse's back. His wet boots squelched against the carpeted floors and trailed dirty footprints behind him as he strode over to her room. Something awkwardly rubbed against his thigh with every step he took, hard and jagged but not quite sharp enough to cut him. He glanced down and saw an envelope sticking out from the pocket of his jeans, dripped in sludge like chocolate syrup on an ice cream sundae.

That's right, Policy of Truth, he recalled. Truth be told, Hol Horse had nearly forgotten all about Lovestrong and his inheritance from Depeche, even though that was the reason he had dragged Sara out to Times Square with him in the first place. Getting caught up in a heated Stand encounter tended to have that effect on people. As luck would have it, it didn't look like any of the sewage had seeped in through the envelope, so the shard of Policy of Truth went unstained. Good, he thought, tucking the envelope deeper into his pocket. This damn thing better end up being worth all the trouble it ended up putting me through.

He approached Sara's door and gave it a few knocks. God knew how long they'd been gone at this point, Michelle must've been awake by now. Michelle...this was her door, too, he realized. She wasn't going to be happy to see them like this, that much Hol Horse knew for certain, but he knew that taking Sara back to his room instead would just give everyone the wrong idea. Light footsteps pitter-pattered from inside the room before the door creaked open, Michelle standing in the doorway with a stony look on her face.

"Mon dieu, Sara, don't tell me you lost your room—"

Her voice trailed off upon fully opening the door to Hol Horse standing in front of her with an unconscious Sara slung over his back. Hol Horse flashed an affable grin as her eyes went wide, cracking through her otherwise blank expression.

"Miss us, darlin'?"

That signature slight frown graced Michelle's face upon hearing him talk, her wide eyes narrowing with her creased brow. She put her hands on her hips and opened her mouth, looking ready to shoot some snide remark his way, but ended up gagging on his stench before she could get any words out. Hol Horse took his opportunity to enter the room and walked past her and into the bathroom.

"Yeah, we smell like shit. I would advise not gettin' too close to either of us at the moment. I'm on my way to wash all this off as soon as I'm done here. You'd best make sure she takes a shower when she wakes up, or else she'll be stinkin' up the place all day." He opened the shower door, shimmied Sara off his back and onto his shoulder, then laid her down in the shower with her head resting against the wall. "I figure Rumor will be able to fix up her injuries once she's clean. Don't wanna mess up the kid's fancy breathin' when he gets a whiff of us, y'know?"

While Hol Horse took off his fingerless gloves and rinsed them off in the bathtub (which proved to be woefully inefficient at actually washing them), Michelle's eyes were locked on Sara's dirty, beaten body. He carefully studied her face; that annoyed grimace had been wiped clean and replaced by blank stare. Hol Horse could tell from the stiffness in her posture that she was fighting the urge to show more emotion, but she still gave him little tells here and there. Her straight arms and tight fists showed her anger while every slight twitch of her eyebrows revealed her concern. Something else stewed behind those brown eyes of hers, too, something Hol Horse sensed more than he saw. Regret, maybe?

It didn't matter to Hol Horse, whatever that third emotion was. He shook his gloves dry in the shower, stuck them in his empty pocket, and turned off the faucet. "Well, I'd best be—"

Michelle's stoicism crumbled as soon as Hol Horse took a step out of the bathroom. Disgust and frustration trumped over whatever other emotions she had been suppressing and twisted into a pronounced scowl. She stomped over to him, shooting a slew of French curses his way. Though Hol Horse couldn't understand a word she said, especially not through her thick accent, the way she threw her hands into the air before shoving him out of the room conveyed her message well enough. If you let my friends get hurt again, you murderer, I'll make sure you regret it. Ironic, considering the whole escapade was Sara's blunder to begin with. She had her fists on her hips and issued one last threat, her glare razor sharp, then slammed the door in his face.

Hol Horse chuckled mirthlessly and made his way down to his hotel room. Michelle didn't carry herself as being particularly spirited the same way Sara did, but she certainly did have her moments. There was something awfully familiar about her scowl just now, too. Guess she's more like her old man than I thought, he mused.

~~~~~

Cab returned long before either Sara or Hol Horse got out of the shower, clean clothes and extra soap in hand. Even though they were tarnished beyond all belief, Sara insisted on washing her stolen NYC merch and left them to soak in the sink while she cleaned herself off. Brown stains had completely ruined the sink by the time she got out of the shower. After everyone had been fully bathed and healed, the group stopped for breakfast at the small bar and restaurant built into their hotel. The place was mostly empty, save for a handful of people at the bar finishing up their morning coffee, and gave Michelle the impression that it wanted to look fancier than it actually was. She heard the squeaky clean wood floors creak underneath her feet, and the bar's marble countertop was chipped at the edges.

Michelle hardly noticed her stomach growl as they sat down in a booth in the far corner of the restaurant, the cushions of which were definitively not cushy to sit on. Part of it was due to her intentionally ignoring it—this was about to be her first time eating American food, after all. She'd been dreading this moment ever since Hol Horse announced that they were going to New York and not Greece like he initially recommended. The other part of it was because Sara had gone full motormouth ever since she got out of the shower, so Michelle had to devote all of her energy to keeping up with her breakneck pace of speech. If she concentrated on anything other than translating for even a second, she knew she would never be able to catch up with everything Sara said.

Ordinarily, Michelle just tuned Sara out whenever she initiated "story time," especially this early in the morning. Not today, though. As awful as New York City no doubt was, she refused to believe that Sara had been knocked unconscious and covered in shit just from a casual stroll through Times Square. Sure, Hol Horse had been just as filthy as her, but at least he didn't have blood mixed in with the rest of the grime on his body. Respect women her ass; he did something to put Sara in harm's way and she was determined to find out what. Michelle would have glared at him if she wasn't so focused on listening to Sara.

She also couldn't help but feel guilty, knowing that Sara probably wouldn't have gotten hurt if she went down in her place.

"And Horseshoes' friend was dressed like an actual horse! Though, it wasn't a very good costume. He had on one of those rubber horse heads you can buy at joke shops for like, ten bucks," Sara monologued. "Which, y'know, I thought was kinda weird. Horseshoes made it sound like his disguise would be more elaborate than that, at least. Maybe he's just low on cash? It was pretty funny though. Totally unexpected!"

This went on and on for some time, with Sara only taking a break when their waiter arrived to take their order. Michelle requested an omelette, figuring that something like that would be extremely difficult for even an American to mess up. She didn't pay much attention to what the others ordered and was extremely surprised when the waiter returned with plates of waffles drizzled in jam and maple syrup, stacks of fluffy pancakes topped by a little tuft of butter, and enough bacon to recreate an entire pig, then placed them all in front of Sara instead of Rumor. Everyone else's plates came in separately (though, Rumor had ordered a sizable helping of waffles). Michelle slowly munched away at her omelette, which was...decent. For an American restaurant, anyways.

Still recalling her little adventure to the rest of the group, Sara gorged her food in record time, starting with the stack of bacon directly in front of her. "Woo! Man, it feels great to get some food in me. I don't think I've ever been more hungry!" Sara exclaimed, her mouth half full. "Well, that's probably Highway Star's fault. It had me trapped inside this mystery room, and while I was there, it transformed into a bunch of feet thingies that stuck onto me and sucked the nutrients right out of my body! So, that's why it's important for me to eat now. All I've had today is a hot dog, which was nice and all, but it had mustard on it. Yuck. But it's important to get those vitamins in my belly now!"

"If that's the case, your caloric intake would benefit greatly from a more varied diet," Rumor chimed in, sitting with his elbows on the table as he uncharacteristically prodded his food with a fork.

"Dude, you've got no room to talk," Cab snickered, eyeing up and down the extra syrup on his waffles.

Rumor merely shrugged and stared off into the distance.

Something about his attitude worried Michelle; he was never like this at breakfast; especially not a late breakfast like this one. He should be shoveling food into his mouth, begging Sara for more notes on Highway Star, chastising Cab for calling him "dude," anything other than just sitting there and poking at his food. With a utensil, no less!

Sara continued talking before Michelle could give it any more thought. "So anyways, I'm there, in the room. Highway Star wants the bike back, and I'm like 'no way Jose!' Jerks like him don't deserve nice things. I mean, I don't care how good your sense of smell is, it's rude to just go up and say 'hey, I know where your hands have been.' Plus, if he's really a pro model, he's probably rich enough to just afford another motorcycle. Not to mention what he..." her face briefly darkened, her eyes narrowing as her lips twitched into a spiteful curl. She blinked the look off her face, and her smile returned like it had never left at all. "Well, what's important is that Horseshoes showed up! He gave Highway Star the slip, and I managed to climb onto the motorcycle just before he drove away. The two of us didn't even need to communicate the plan to each other, we were just that synced up! After that, we..."

After that point, Michelle stopped paying attention to Sara. She'd heard all she needed to hear. Swallowing another bite of omelette, she shot a knowing glare at Hol Horse. He shifted his gaze to the side and took a sip of coffee just before they could make eye contact with each other.

Yup. There it was. Though Sara made it sound like it had all been some brilliant plan on Hol Horse's end, Michelle had no doubt in her mind that he had intended on leaving her to die at the hands of Highway Star then and there. Her lax grip tightened around her fork. Sure, Sara had gotten into that mess of her own accord, but that gave him absolutely no excuse to just run away when she needed his help the most. After all, if not for Sara, Hol Horse probably would have bled out behind that dumpster in Belgium. That, or he would've just been hunted down and killed by Sting anyways. She had his back, so he should have had hers. Hell, Michelle wouldn't be surprised if he had unsuccessfully tried to kick her off the bike sometime after that, too.

But was he just a coward, or had he been planning on killing Sara all along? After all, he was the one who wanted to go down to Times Square in the first place. What if this enemy Stand user had been a plant all along, intent on luring Sara away and picking her off in a way that wouldn't convict Hol Horse of any wrongdoing? Michelle gulped. What if she was next? She chugged down her glass of water, desperate to satiate her dry throat.

"Wait, Sara, rewind a bit," Cab interrupted Sara, who had moved on to something about a hot dog. "You said that Highway Star got your scent after you wandered into some room it generated. Why did you go in there in the first place?"

Sara froze in place. Her smile fell, and Michelle recognized that blank, wide-eyed look that took its place from when she asked her about her parents. After a second, Sara forced a closed-lip smile and turned to Cab, her hands innocently clasped together near her cheek. "Do I need a reason to go into mysterious rooms that are just begging to be explored?"

"I mean, kinda. At least in New York City. Just about everything here is a crack den if you look closely enough."

That comment earned a small chuckle from Hol Horse. "Well, you ain't wrong 'bout that, I suppose."

"But seriously, Sara," Cab continued, "what made you wanna go look in that room in particular? I'm sure Rumor's gonna ask you about it later once he's out of whatever funk he's in right now, so you might as well tell us now while it's still fresh in your head."

Eyes slightly bulging, the corners of Sara's tight smile briefly twitched in place. Her shoulders rose with a long intake of breath. From the corner of her eye, Michelle noticed Hol Horse shift his attention from his coffee to Sara, eyeing her intently. Apparently, not even he was sure why she went in that room.

"Nope, nothing in particular," she responded with a sharp exhale. "But anyways, who cares about any of that? What's important is that we got a bunch of backstage passes to see Akira Otoishi live in concert in California! We've got a little over two weeks to get all the way from one side of the country," she pointed diagonally above her head, "all the way to the other," her hand trailed downwards to the other side of her body. "I guess we could buy plane tickets, but..."

"Non," Michelle quickly interjected. "No. Over my dead body. You are not getting me on another plane."

"Most plane rides aren't like the one we had last night, Chelly," Sara giggled. "We just got lucky!"

"Whatever her reasons may be, I agree with Michelle," Rumor added, finally taking his first bite of waffle. "Think about it; Chili Pepper already ambushed us on a plane once, what's to stop him from doing it again? The consequences of us being attacked aboard a commercial flight are simply too grave for us to consider it as an option." He swallowed his bite and rhythmically tapped his fork against his plate, deep in thought with his eyes narrowed on the ceiling. "Although, I suppose the only reason Chili Pepper was able to locate us at all is because Boney M.'s corpse was stowed away in the bathroom..."

Sara raised a brow. "Boney M.?"

"Yes, Boney M. You haven't forgotten what Chili Pepper said before it electrified the plane, have you?"

"To be fair, I've almost died twice since then. Wanna run a refresher by me real quick?"

Rumor sighed and chomped down another bite of his waffle. "First, he identified the green-haired man we found in the bathroom as Boney M. My hypothesis is that he was left there as a beacon of sorts for Chili Pepper to locate and infiltrate the plane we were travelling on. That's the only plausible explanation I can think of as to why he was left there in the bathroom. Now, why he was there in the nude is beyond my deductive reasoning. Although, if I'm being honest, I suspect that Boney isn't actually dead."

All of Rumor's theorizing checked out to Michelle before that part. "T-that's not possible," she said, trying to convince herself as much as she was him. "He was dead for a while when we found him. You did pull out a used bullet from his head, in case you forgot."

"I know, it sounds like a loony suggestion. It's been bothering me since we landed, if I'm being honest," Rumor swallowed his bite and turned to Michelle. "Take a moment to really give it some thought, though. Chili Pepper made Boney out to be an important member of their ranks; anyone who saw so much as a photo of him would end up dead. So why place what was seemingly his corpse aboard a plane that was doomed to crash from the moment we boarded it? Doubly so since Chili Pepper never once made an effort to salvage the body."

"That might be because we were blocking the way," suggested Cab. "It never tried to attack us directly, either, even though it seemed strong enough to take us all out without using its static electricity trick."

"Yes, I presume that's a factor, but I would think that Chili Pepper would simply avoid us through the radio speakers. If it emerged through the radio in the cockpit, I see no reason why it couldn't do so from the speaker in the bedroom. Yet, it didn't, nor did it ever try to. Why? Wouldn't the body be important to preserve? Especially considering the fact that the bugger didn't decompose." Rumor absentmindedly dumped another helping of maple syrup onto his waffles as he shared his thoughts. "The pilot also mentioned that Boney had flown on that plane before us and had been rather particular about his luggage. Said piece of luggage then went missing after he seemingly died aboard to a gunshot wound along with his clothes and the other pilot."

"I said it before, and I'll say it again; he probably had drugs in his bag," Cab speculated. "I bet the pilot found them, they fought over it, he shot him and then ran off."

"That does little to explain why Boney's body didn't decompose afterwards."

Michelle half-expected to hear some cheeky comment from Cab, but he stayed uncharacteristically quiet. His brows were furrowed and his chin hung low as he thought over what Rumor had said. After a few seconds, he sighed and rested his head in his hands. "I don't know, man. I never thought I'd end up being wrapped up in all this crazy Stand user bullshit. Not like this, at least." Another sigh. "Honestly, I'm still bummed about the plane crash. Just...everything about it."

"I wonder where the plane ended up landing," Sara thought aloud, shoveling bite after bite of pancake into her mouth.

"It landed in some field in the middle of nowhere. I saw it on the news while you were out," Cab answered. "It was a wreck, too. Such a waste of a sick ass plane like that."

"Well, it sounds like it didn't crash into anything, so that's a relief," Sara said.

"Chili Pepper also mentioned something about a Grand Marshall," Rumor recalled. "I've been wracking my brain about who that could possibly be. It didn't sound like it referred to this Boney character, at the very least. Perhaps it's the leader of the Masqueraders, that man that Michelle encountered at the cemetery?"

Michelle felt her heart stop halfway through another bite of omelette. Not him. Anyone but him. Who else would it be, though? A title like Grand Marshall was not to be thrown around willy nilly. Assuming that Italian bastard was the ringmaster behind everything, the Master of the Masquerade, he would certainly warrant a moniker like that. Forcing down the piece of omelette in her mouth, she brought her knees to her chest and began to thumb at her necklace.

"Come to think of it," Rumor continued, "the only reason we travelled to America in the first place is because Hol Horse had a job to track down Boney. Have you learned any new information about him since then?"

"Nope, nothin'," Hol Horse blurted out. "And, err, I wouldn't worry too much about that job if I were you. Let's just say that my employer is no longer interested in huntin' him down. So, I'm all free for the time bein'. After all, y'all need someone to look out for any dangerous Stand users on your way to California, right? We can all lay low together for a little while longer."

Still fiddling with her necklace, Michelle found the energy to pause her anxiety long enough to roll her eyes at him. "Yeah, like you've done such a good job of that already."

The next second, her overactive thoughts and relentless anxiety returned with full force. Did I just hear Hol Horse right? Depeche Mode is no longer interested in having Hol Horse track down Boney? That doesn't sound right. I only got my passport because Hol Horse agreed to do this job for him. Well, he blackmailed him too, but that's neither here nor there? Why would he lose interest in tracking him down just like that? Is it because Boney's dead? No, he'd just give Hol Horse another job if that were the case. Something must have happened to him, she reasoned.

Michelle went pale remembering what Chili Pepper said. Anyone who sees a picture of Boney M. ends up dead. Depeche had given Hol Horse the picture in the first place. That meant...

She glanced at him over her shoulder, trying to seem calm. "Any particular reason he's lost interest?"

"Don't you worry about it, darlin'." Hol Horse spoke quickly, almost talking over her. "Just feel lucky we got your passport upfront."

A chill wracked down Michelle's spine. If Hol Horse was that dismissive about it, then something must have happened to Depeche Mode. "Likable" was the last word she would use to describe Depeche, but she couldn't help but feel mournful knowing he had likely been killed by another Stand user, if not by Iron Maiden's curse (which was absolutely, positively real, even if Sara and the others hadn't died from it yet). Death wasn't something to celebrate no matter how repulsive Depeche had been, and she knew she ought to feel at least somewhat grateful that the man had gotten her a passport, even if he had to be blackmailed into doing so.

Michelle shrunk into her skin a bit, shoulders hunching inwards as she rested her chin on her knees. 

"On that note, it'd probably be best if we got outta New York as soon as possible," Hol Horse suggested. "What Sara didn't tell you 'bout this morning is that we've probably got a day or so to stick around before the cops start lookin' for us. Besides, driving all the way from New York to California is gonna take us a long time. Better to start now than later, yeah?"

"Yup! That means we've gotta do everything we can here now before it's too late," Sara pointed out. "Is there anywhere in particular you guys wanna go before we leave?"

Cab shook his head. "I've been here plenty of times before, I don't need to see anything."

"I wouldn't mind paying a visit to the Museum of Modern Arts," Rumor chimed in.

Michelle lifted her head and lowered her knees. There actually was one place in New York City that had caught her interest, even if not for the reason it probably should have. Should I even say anything? Hol Horse did mention something about the cops looking for us. If that's the case, then we shouldn't waste anymore time here than we need to, she reasoned. Plus, the others will probably laugh at me...New York is all about glitz and glamor and Broadway and skyscrapers, not...uh, this.

"Actually, um..." Michelle, still not sure whether she actually wanted to speak up or not, spoke in barely above a mumble.

Despite her hushed tone, barely audible over the general clatter of the city behind them, Sara heard Michelle right away and turned towards her. "Yes, Chelly?"

"Um..." Michelle felt her cheeks heat up as she ran some of her hair through her fingers. "You...you said that you guys went to Central Park?"

"Yup! It was so cool. There were all these statues and street vendors and this really cool fountain and even horse drawn carriages!"

"Were there any dogs there?"

Sara jut her chin back and giggled. "Dogs?"

"Oui, chiens. Dogs." Michelle sank even further back into the booth, slouching so far her hips were hanging off her seat. Her cheeks were burning now; she didn't need to look up to know that everyone's eyes were on her, staring and probably judging. Here she was in New York City, one of the most eventful places in the world, home to countless landmarks and attractions, and all she wanted to do was pet some dogs. An anxious lump formed in her throat and dried out her mouth. I shouldn't have said anything, I shouldn't have said anything, they think I'm weird, Hol Horse now knows a weakness of mine; stupid, stupid Michelle...

She swallowed hard and peeped back up at Sara, who was humming thoughtfully as she tapped her finger on the table. "Dogs, dogs...I think so? Probably. Horseshoes, do you remember seeing any dogs?"

"Not that I recall, but I didn't exactly have my eyes out for 'em." Michelle didn't need to look up to know that Hol Horse had an amused grin on his face, she could hear it well enough in his voice. "Central Park is bigger than a spider in Australia, I'm sure you'll find some puppers if you look hard enough."

"People walk their dogs all the time in Central Park," added Cab. "There's also a little pond thing with a lot of turtles that tend to come near shore, if you're into that kind of thing."

"Great!" Sara cheerfully clapped her hands together. "Do you like dogs, Chelly?"

Sitting up straight again, Michelle nodded. "Little dogs. Big dogs can be a bit too much for me. I started distancing myself from dog parks and stuff like that after Pop died; and I've always been worried that if I adopted another dog, Iron Maiden would just end up cursing them. But..." she fiddled with her necklace. It had been a long time since she had done anything like this and she wasn't quite sure how safe it was to do so, but she also didn't want to let this opportunity pass her by. She cleared her throat, and looked Sara in the eye. "I'm ready to be around animals again."

Sara beamed back, pride gleaming through her blue eyes. "That's great news! I'm so proud of you, Chelly!"

Michelle flinched upon seeing Sara raise her arms and move them towards her sides. She knew that motion well—Sara was going in for a hug. She really never learns, Michelle silently bemoaned. All this time and she still doesn't know I hate being hugged? Michelle attempted to scoot away, but stopped in her tracks when she realized that she'd end up crawling onto Hol Horse's lap if she moved any further. She went tense. Her escape route was blocked off. Sara's arms were barely a millimeter away from digging into her skin. Michelle squeezed her eyes shut and braced for the inevitable.

Time felt like it slowed to a crawl the moment Sara's hands made contact with her back. They gently wrapped around her sides, settling on her back just above her shoulder blades. Sara pulled Michelle in close so that her head was resting on her shoulder. Her pigtails tickled her forehead. To Michelle, this was the worst sort of physical contact imaginable short of getting punched in the face. She knew her body ought to be screaming in pain, instinctively writhing free from Sara's grasp.

Yet, she didn't.

She didn't feel any pain. Her body didn't lock up nor did it try to wiggle out of Sara's hug. That sudden, sharp discomfort that came when others touched her simply never surfaced. In fact, having a pair of arms wrapped around her almost felt nice, like being swaddled in a blanket fresh out of the dryer. Michelle's tense frame relaxed as she exhaled out a breath she didn't realize she was holding in.

It wasn't great—Sara made it difficult to breathe from how tightly she was squeezing her—but it was...manageable. Michelle didn't know whether to feel relieved or horrified. Just what kind of spell had she been put under? How long had it been since she had been hugged and didn't instantly want to explode out of her own skin? Well, she had willingly buried her face in the crook of Rumor's neck after Sting died, but that was different. At least then, she had initiated the physical contact, putting her in control of the situation. This was the opposite. This was different. So why didn't it feel that way?

Michelle sighed and gently pat Sara's back in return. A few moments later, Sara released her from the hug and turned back to the whole group.

"Y'know what? To hell with everything else in New York! We're spending all day in Central Park looking for some dogs," Sara announced, excitedly pointing at the ceiling for extra effect. "I've already seen my fair share of the city, and I'm sure that I could find anything else I'd be interested in here on a postcard. If we don't find any dogs in Central Park, then we'll go to a local pound! If Chelly doesn't get to pet at least five dogs today, then...then...then I'll eat Rumor's scarf!"

Cab, who was midway through taking a sip of his drink, loudly guffawed. Milk shot out his nose and sprayed onto Rumor's waffles. Rumor didn't even notice, too baffled from Sara's self-imposed penalty. He turned her way, his brows pinched and teeth clenched in discomfort.

"I beg your pardon, Sara?"

"Please don't make it weird," requested Michelle. Whatever could be constituted for "warm fuzzy feelings" from the hug had long since faded away.

"I'll...disregard that last comment for now." Rumor sighed and shook his head. "I did request that we visit the Museum of Modern Arts, you know."

"I wouldn't mind going there, either," Michelle added.

"Yeah, but we have to celebrate Chelly growing as a person! This is important stuff, guys!" Sara punctuated her words by dramatically waving her arms about. "Besides, we could all probably use the fresh air before a long road trip. New York is great, but it is kinda..." she turned to Hol Horse, her eyes darting down to the cigarettes sticking out of her pocket, and wrinkled her nose, "...muggy."

A road trip. Ugh, I guess we are gonna be in that damn car for a while. America is much bigger than most countries in Europe, after all, Michelle realized. She sighed, resting her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. What she would give for a train or a bus or anything other than a cramped car. It's better than a plane, I guess. 

Another realization dawned on her—Sara said that the concert was in a little over two weeks. Michelle's birthday was in a little less than two weeks. She'd almost completely forgotten about it, since she barely even celebrated it anymore. In less than two weeks though, she'd be 18. No longer a child, but an adult. In the eyes of the law, anyways. And she'd most likely be with her new friends (and Hol Horse, unfortunately) when it happened. Assuming the curse didn't catch up to them by then, at least.

Michelle couldn't remember the last time she'd enjoyed being hugged until now. In that regard, she did feel like she had grown. Somewhat. Assuming this wasn't all the result of some stealthy Stand that had activated on her, which was very much a possibility. Regardless, Michelle felt that maybe, just maybe, being forced out of France hadn't been such a bad thing after all.

~~~~~

Riding in a taxi always made Giorno feel relaxed, no matter how dire the circumstances outside the car were. It reminded him of his youth; before Passione, before Gold Experience, before the blond hair, when he was just a lowly scam artist acting as an overpriced airport chauffer. A spring breeze of nostalgia blew through his heart from the moment he stepped out of the New York City airport and saw a line of yellow cars clogging the curbside, drivers heckling the unsuspecting tourists walking by. It was just like the good old days, even though he was now technically the one being scammed. Or at least he would have been if Gold Experience hadn't already returned the money he had paid his driver with back to him.

The warm sentimentality did nothing to thaw out the cold, thick ice that the arrow thieves had frozen over his heart, though. He leaned against the car door and stared out the window, gawking at the way the sunset lit up the historic brick buildings and modern concrete skyscrapers outside. New York City was big, and he had a lot of ground to cover in the next few days for his investigation. Traffic had been surprisingly light so far, at least, putting him on a steady pace to his hotel. Good—if there was one thing Giorno hated, it was uselessly waiting around on factors outside of his control.

"How much longer until we reach the Plaza?" Giorno sat upright to speak to his chauffer.

"With how traffic's been so far? About five minutes," the driver, a kindly old man, responded. "Don't bet on that, though. Things change at the drop of a hat in this city."

That's what I'm counting on, Giorno thought. He nodded his head at the driver and rested his head up against the window.

A beat up Mercedes passed by him on the other side of the road, exiting the city as Giorno drove deeper into it. Driving the car was a blond cowboy blowing cigarette smoke out the window while a brunet Hamon warrior sat in the driver's seat, scrawling something into a small black notebook. Three people occupied the backseat; a girl with ginger pigtails plucking random notes on her guitar, a muscular man with a dark, curly mullet trying (and failing) to help his friend play her instrument properly, and a girl with a freckled face and long silver hair, absentmindedly looking out the window while she brushed some stray dog hair off her dress. Had their cars been moving just a tad slower, she and Giorno would have locked eyes before driving off in opposite directions.

However, this would not be the last time their paths would cross.

Chapter Text

Gales of wind howled underneath the moon outside, just barely peeking out from a thicket of clouds. Sleeping Ben Luff, almost seven years old, tossed and turned in his racecar bed, wrapping himself up like a burrito in his blankets. Sweat glued his mousy brown hair to his face, the entirety of which was screwed shut; lips drawn tightly together with his eyes pinched closed.

Nightmares had a way of turning the mundane into something ominous. Something to be feared. 

Outside, wind blew the branches of the tall oak tree in the backyard against his window. Inside, they could be heard scratching against the glass with sharp, rhythmic taps. Within the confines of Ben's subconscious, though, the curt knocks against his window turned into the rattling of a horde of skeletons chasing after him. The cold sweat stuck to Ben's skin became the musty chill of the dank room his nightmare had consigned him to, full of twists and turns that led to more twists and turns with no exit in sight. Not that he could see much in his dream world to begin with, as the dim lights hanging above just barely gave him enough light to see his own shadow. Screechy, maniacal laughter from the skeletons echoed in his ears as Ben frantically darted from turn to turn. 

His heart pounded in his chest. Who knew just what those monsters would do if they caught him? Walking skeletons were never good news! Ben turned another corner, but this time his feet didn't meet solid ground. His heart rate sunk from a hundred to zero in an instant, leaving him with the horrible sensation of falling forever and ever...

He snapped awake, his quick breaths fanning hot air onto his chin. Unlike the pure darkness of the basement maze, a small nightlight in the corner of the room illuminated the area around him with a gentle blue hue. He saw his many crayon drawings taped to the sky blue walls, the pile of unfolded clothes sitting in front of his closet, and the little basketball hoop hanging off the door to his room. When Ben shifted slightly, he became aware of the plush blankets swaddling him and the cotton pillow pressed against his cheek.

Tears welled up in his eyes as his breathing calmed. It was all just a dream, but it had been a horrible dream. Even as his heart and lungs began to settle, adrenaline still pumped through Ben's veins. There was no way he'd fall asleep on his own now, especially not with the branches of the tree outside still banging against his window, reminding him of those scary skeletons. Sniffling, he shimmied his blankets loose and checked the small clock sitting on his nightstand. It was 4:38 AM. Mommy was almost certainly asleep by now, but he figured she wouldn't mind if he crawled in bed with her.

Ben yawned and rose from his bed, half-awake. Luckily, his parents' room was right across from his, so he didn't need to walk very far. As soon as he stepped out of his room, though, he realized something was wrong. Moonlight poured in from the window at the end of the hall, casting a spotlight onto Mommy and Daddy's room. The open door gave Ben a clear view of their big and notably empty bed. Daddy wasn't there, but that was to be expected. He had left on an important business trip to New York City yesterday, after all. Where was Mommy, though? Ben's lip trembled as a few stray tears rolled down his cheeks. He knew it had just been a nightmare, but...what if the skeletons had gotten her?

Just when Ben was ready to retreat to his room and hide under his bed for the rest of the night, the floorboards downstairs creaked. The kitchen floorboards—Ben knew his house well enough to distinguish between all the different creaks and groans it made. He turned his attention towards the stairs at the other end of the hall. Bright, electric light rose up from the lower story of the house, intermingling with the faint moonlight shining in from the window. The floorboards creaked again. Ben breathed a sigh of relief. Mommy had probably woken up in the middle of the night too and went down to the kitchen for a glass of water. That was why she left the door to her room open and wasn't in bed. After all, a skeleton wouldn't weigh enough to make the floorboards creak when it moved.

Well, if Mommy was awake, all the better! Then she could tucked him in and sing him a lullaby. Those always helped him sleep. Ben rushed through the hall and down the stairs, squinting as the harsh light from the kitchen overpowered the gentle moonlight from the upstairs window. The faint tick, tick, tick of the kitty-cat clock mounted on the wall near the stove reminded him just how late it was.

"Mommy? I had a nightmare," he whispered as his feet came in contact with the hard kitchen tile. "C-could I sleep with you toni—"

Ben went silent as soon as his eyes fully adjusted to the light of the kitchen. He turned rigid, feeling like something was squeezing his skin against his muscles and bones.

The person standing in front of him was not his mother.

In place of a shorter woman in her late 30s was a tall, muscular man who looked about ten years younger. His wavy green hair drooped down to his strong jawline, and he had a weird beard that looked like someone had ripped off a wisp of hair from his head and glued it to his chin. He stood with the elbow of his left arm propping him up against the kitchen countertop while he held a smartphone in his right hand. His bushy eyebrows were furrowed in frustration as he jabbed at the screen with his thumb.

What stuck out to Ben, however, were the man's clothes. A long, flowy tiered skirt draped down his lower half, definitely meant to fully cover his legs despite his chiseled and hairy calves sticking out of the bottom. His broad shoulders strained the low collar of the blouse on his torso to its limit. Tatters of the shirt's sleeves hung off his arms, with the seams around his muscles torn to shreds. A diamond ring glittered on his finger and dug into his skin.

The wind howling outside drowned out Ben's squeaky gasp. That was Mommy's shirt. That was Mommy's skirt. That was Mommy's wedding ring. Even the phone in the man's hand had the same crack across the back as Mommy's.

A chill colder than anything the wind outside could possibly muster up assaulted Ben's spine as the man raised his dark eyes from the phone. His demeanor changed in an instant, his furrowed brows laxing as a wicked smirk spread across his face. "Just what I need. Hello, little boy." The man spoke in a deep, smooth voice, his eyes locked on Ben as he towered over him. As much as Ben wanted to run away, terror locked him in place. "We wouldn't happen to be in New York City, would we?"

"W-who are you?" Ben stammered out.

"That's hardly important," the man replied, still brandishing that sly grin. He made a show of taking a step closer to Ben, practically kicking his leg into the air. "I just need you to answer a few questions for me. Now, once more. Are we in New York City? Don't make me repeat myself."

Ben found the courage to shake his head no. His stomach churned when the man frowned and folded his arms; the movement causing the already torn sleeves of his shirt to rip even further.

"Where are we, then?"

"W-what did you do to Mommy? Why are you wearing her clo—"

The rest of Ben's question died on his lips when the man in front of him tensed up, standing up straight as a furious snarl devoured what remained of his smirk. He tossed the cell phone aside and raised the back of his hand, looking ready to strike. Ben shook like a leaf as he cowered to the floor, wincing as his knees hit the hard tile below him. Tears began to gush out of his eyes and trailed waterfalls down his cheeks. He covered the sides of his head with his hands and braced himself for the imposing man to beat down on him with all his might...

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Even as the clock continued counting each second that passed, Ben never felt the force of a large man's palm smacking his head. Quivering, he parted his fingers just enough for him to peep out from behind his hands. The man in front of him had barely moved an inch, still stuck standing completely upright with a raging sneer on his face. However, he had lowered his hand just enough so that it was level with his face. His fingers curled as he slowly tilted his hand around, his eyes transfixed on it as if the sight of his own skin had bewildered him. Gradually, the man's shoulders dropped, tension leaving his body. He turned around and began to rummage through the kitchen cabinets.

"Why are you whining? I don't plan on laying a finger on you. And if you know what's good for you, you won't touch me, either. I don't have time for that." he called out over his shoulder, keeping his back turned to Ben as he continued to look through drawer after drawer. "God, I'd say this kitchen needs a woman's touch, but your mother clearly has no sense of organization. I mean really, who keeps their plates there? Where the hell is...aha!" He paused in front of the silverware drawer. Metallic clinking gently rang as the man pulled something out and closed the drawer. "Now, before you answer my question, stand up and come over here."

The voice of reason inside Ben's head screamed at him to run, to grab his mother's phone off the kitchen counter and make a dash for the front door while the man had his back turned. Unfortunately, his pounding heart reverberating in his ears had drowned out said voice of reason. All Ben could think to do was to not make the intruder angry. He wobbled up to his feet and took slow, deliberate steps towards the man. The floorboards creaked with every step.

Ben stopped right behind the man, looking up at him like a deer in headlights. "Y-yes, sir?"

The man violently whirled around and Ben felt something hard and blunt pierce his shoulder. Pain coursed through the area of impact as Ben staggered backwards, crying out with an ear-piercing scream that rang off of the kitchen walls. His legs gave out beneath him as he toppled back to the floor, landing on his rear as the back of his head hit the drawer beneath the sink with a loud thud. Blood gushed out of the wound and stained down his white shirt. Ben clutched his shoulder with shaky hands, remembering what his mother had told him about applying pressure to stop cuts from bleeding from when he wouldn't stop picking at his hangnails.

That devilish grin had returned to the man's face as he brandished a bloody spoon. With a snicker, he popped it into his mouth and sucked it clean with a small hum, as if he had just had a spoonful of ice cream on a hot summer's day.

"Mmm...B negative," the man declared as he set the spoon down. "Pity. You would've been easy pickings if you weren't such a shrimp. Now, I do believe I asked you a question earlier, and I never got a response. Am I going to have to repeat myself again?"

Ben could barely hear the man over his pained wails and racing thoughts. The kitchen had melted into a blur around him as he grappled with the fact that he'd been stabbed, with each stinging throb of his shoulder disconnecting him from reality even further. He barely even registered the hot tears pouring out from his eyes. How had this all happened? Within the span of five minutes, he'd been woken up from a nightmare, encountered an intruder wearing his mother's clothing, and now he had been stabbed. The sickly metallic stench of his blood steamed around his nostrils as his damp, bloody shirt clung to his body.

He snapped back to reality when, out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw the fuzzy outline of the man's feet take another step towards him. "W-we're in A-Addison," he squeaked out.

The man folded his arms and rolled his eyes. "Do I look like a map? I don't have the slightest idea where 'Addison' is. From what I've heard of your accent through your irritating little whimpers, you're an American, but that hardly narrows—"

"Illinois! Addison, Illinois!" Ben clarified in a pitchy yell. "It's close to Chicago I think. Please don't hurt me again!"

"There, was that really so hard?" The man chuckled and walked right past him. "I have one more question for you before I go."

Ben's view slowly began to sharpen again as the man hastened to the other side of the kitchen counter. The wind outside picked up as he returned, cell phone in hand. Ben tried to worm away from him, crawling on his hands, but ended up literally backing himself into a corner when his back hit the spice cabinet. The green haired man chuckled at the display and presented the cell phone to Ben, holding it upside down so that the center button was on the top rather than the bottom. He didn't seem to be aware of this error, judging from the way he still confidently smirked down at him. The phone wasn't even on to begin with.

"How do I call someone on this?" he inquired. "I know a girl whose nose is always buried in a device just like this, and she calls it a phone, but I don't see any buttons on it. Since I'm not where I'm supposed to be right now, I have a very important phone call to make. I don't see any landline phone around here, either. Honestly, you Americans really are quick to jump from one fad to another, aren't you? Just having a phone isn't enough, no, it has to fit in your pocket and have a bunch of other garbage thrown into it, like shit clogging a perfectly functional drain."

Had his shoulder not been a bloody mess, Ben would have laughed. It was a cell phone. Everyone knew how to use a cell phone. Even he knew how to use Mommy's phone, and he wasn't even allowed to use it! Ben wanted to think it was a joke, but from the way the man's dark, unblinking eyes stayed locked on him, he knew it wasn't supposed to be funny. Clearing his throat, Ben rose to his feet, wincing as he had to lift himself up with his injured shoulder.

"Well...it's easy," Ben mumbled as he hobbled over to the man. "You need to turn the phone on first, and—"

"This sorry excuse for a phone must be broken, because I pressed this button in the center multiple times and nothing happened," he snorted, demonstrating his point by rapidly clicking the home button.

"T-that's not the power button. The power button is on the side," Ben informed him, pointing to the button in question.

The man quirked a brow upon hearing this, but with a sharp exhale, pressed the button Ben had pointed out to him. Almost instantly, the phone turned on.

"Honestly, what idiot designer decided to make that the power button?" The man rolled his eyes and leaned back, resting his elbows on the kitchen counter.

Ben swallowed hard when he saw the wallpaper on the lock screen—a picture of him on his last birthday, smiling in front of a cake. It really was Mommy's phone. At this point, though, he knew better than to question the man on why he had it in the first place. The date and time were displayed on the top of the screen, while the text SWIPE TO UNLOCK flashed at the bottom. Ben pointed at the latter.

"Okay, now you need to—"

"I speak 23 different languages, fluently, including some languages that died centuries before you were even a sperm cell in your father's nutsack. I am fully capable of reading basic English," the man loudly interrupted. Ben wasn't sure what a "sperm" or "nutsack" was, but the harsh bite in the man's tone got his message across.

With a swipe of the thumb, the man unlocked the phone. The lock screen vanished, and the phone's home screen took its place. Apps of all kinds filled the screen. Ben knew exactly what most of them were (even though he wasn't allowed to actually use any of them), but from the way the man next to him groaned and wrinkled his nose, he guessed that he didn't know what any of them did.

"Alright, now what? I don't see any numbers. How am I supposed to dial someone with an icon of a bird and an old television?"

"N-no, those are apps. You don't call someone with those. There's a little icon of a phone in the corner there, see..."

"A phone icon inside a phone? How redundant." The man sighed and pressed the phone icon, bringing up the phone's contact list.

The man rolled his eyes and scrolled through the contacts. "Ah yes. How could I forget such wonderful numbers as Ryan Shafterson and George Hernandez? I remember learning all about those in math class when I was your age."

Ben tensed up, subconsciously taking a step away from the man. "P-press the little thingy in the corner there."

The man sharply exhaled and pressed the icon in question. A digital keypad popped up, causing the man to sigh in relief. He ambled past Ben, took a seat on one of the stools pulled under the kitchen counter, and dialed a number. By the time Ben got the idea to see who he had called, the man already had the phone pressed to his ear (having somehow flipped it upside down again along the way).

"Ugh, quite the hassle just to call someone," the man mumbled. "I swear, if you're not awake right now, you of all people..."

For a second or two, the man just sat there, slightly hunched over holding the phone to his ear. Ben could tell the second the person on the other end of the line picked up from the way his posture straightened.

"Yes, hello, it's Boney," he talked into the phone. "Slight change of plans. Somehow, it seems that I've ended up just outside of Chicago rather than in New York City. I don't know how that happened, I planned it all perfectly, but you know. When life gives you vermin, call an exterminator. Has Mais mailed me my things yet? If not, then—"

The man—Boney, Ben assumed his name was—silenced himself as the person on the other end of the phone presumably started talking over him. His brows furrowed as he leaned forward, resting his chin on his fist and his elbow on the kitchen counter. A smile forced its way onto his face before he responded.

"Of course. I would never let you down. As soon as I get back from New York, I'll make a stop there."

The gears in Ben's brain began to churn when Boney paused again, oiled by the dull pain in his shoulder and the sight of the man wearing Mommy's clothes in front of him. Boney had gotten everything he wanted from Ben, so after he finished his call, what was he going to do to him? Would he actually stay true to his word and leave him alone? Or would he stab him with that spoon again?

Neither option mattered to Ben. His hands clenched into fists, looking at the man sitting just a few feet away from him. He did something to Mommy. I know he did. That's why she's not here and he's wearing her clothes and using her phone, he thought, feeling a heat he had never felt before burn behind his forehead. I can't let him get away with that! I'm going to hurt him, just like how he hurt me! This is my chance. I have to get him while he's still on the phone.

Without looking away from Boney, Ben crept backwards to the silverware drawer. As he creaked it open from over his back, Boney started speaking into the phone again, looking more agitated than he had before.

"With all do respect, I think it's more important to get ahold of our Stand donor first," Boney responded through gritted teeth. "I've set the bait, he should be in New York right now. What's a handful of Masqueraders compared to that, hmm? If I spend time elsewhere, even if it is for our noble cause, we might lose him. I also have some...personal business to attend to in New York, but that shouldn't take very long at all."

Ben felt behind him until he pricked his finger on the tip of a sharp steak knife. He'd only ever held a knife like that once before, and Mommy had taken it away from him in a huff the second she saw him holding it like a sword. His heart pounded in his chest as he slid his hand down from the blade to the handle of the knife, picked it up, and pushed the drawer closed. What he was about to do was probably the exact reason Mommy didn't want him holding a knife like this to begin with.

"Yes, I know my chances of finding him in New York of all places are slim," Boney continued. "But what better place for a miracle than New York City? I'm sure there are hundreds of movies about just that. Besides, I don't even have any masks with me right now..."

...Ben got on his hands and knees, staring at Boney until his visage became obscured by the kitchen counter. Luckily, he didn't seem to notice anything amiss as he continued blabbering into the phone. Knife in hand, he crawled towards the intruder, feeling like his heartbeat had turned into the booming drum of a marching band...

"...Oh no, you don't have to come here. You have to stay out of harm's way, you know that. I shouldn't be in New York longer than a couple days..."

...Ben circled around the feet of the chair, glancing up at Boney's stern expression to make sure he hadn't been caught. He still didn't seem to recognize that he had moved at all, let alone that he was crawling behind him with a knife in his hand. That, or he just didn't care enough to react to it, still looking more frustrated about his phone call than anything else...

"...I don't think they have a mailing address..."

...Slowly, Ben rose to his feet, now facing Boney's back. His toned shoulder blades peaked out from underneath the collar of his blouse, of Mommy's blouse. Gulping, he clutched the knife tighter in his hand...

"...Well, if you insist. Tell Mais to mail me my Desert Eagle too, while he's at it..."

Taking a few deep breaths to ready himself, Ben used all his strength to plunge the steak knife into Boney's back. He heard the man's bones splinter on impact along with blood gurgling out of punctured veins. But the man didn't bleed, not yet. Ben's breaths came out in heavy pants as his shaky hands let go of the knife. The entire blade was wedged deep in Boney's skin, the handle sticking out from in between his shoulder blades like a tombstone in the earth. Blood slowly but surely began to weep out from the wound, red droplets hitting the floor in small plit, plit plits. Victory swelled in Ben's chest. A triumphant smile rose on his face. Heart still pounding in his chest, he burst out into a fit of overwhelmed laughter.

That is, until Boney nonchalantly turned around and glared at him. He lowered the phone for a moment and said, "Would you keep it down? I'm in the middle of a conversation."

As Boney turned back around, Ben felt his heart sink into his stomach. His shoulders dropped as he fell to his knees. He had submerged a knife into his back, it was probably stabbing into his spine, and the man hadn't even flinched at it.

"...Alright, well, goodnight." With that, Boney turned around in his chair again to face Ben. He held out the phone to him once again, the screen displaying the upside down keypad. "Now, how do I hang up on this god forsaken device?"

Ben failed to react. His face was blank as he stared down at the floor, taking in shallow breaths. Somehow, the pain in his shoulder stung harder now than it did when he had actually been stabbed.

Boney waved the phone in his face to get his attention. "Remember what I said about making me repeat myself? Still applies, kid," he reminded him as he pulled out his chair, beginning to stand up. "What's gotten you so bent out of—"

He paused when the knife's handle bumped into the side of the chair. Furrowing his brow, Boney patted up his back until his hand came in contact with the knife. He yanked it out effortlessly with one mighty tug, easily as cracking open a can of soda. A stream of blood spilled out from his back as he drew the knife close, but he barely seemed to notice it. As Boney took in the way the blood glistened in the kitchen light, he brandished his smirk at Ben once again.

"I see. Trying to kill me while I'm on the phone? Sorry, but if you thought that would be enough to do me in, you'd be sorely mistaken," Boney chided as he stood up. "But what's done is done. Here, let me show you how a real man stabs someone."

The last thing Ben felt was something sharp stab through his forehead, only barely hearing the crunch of the knife penetrating his skull before he lost consciousness forever. His eyes were still wide open as he slumped to the floor.

Chapter Text

A drive from New York to California takes approximately 41 hours, assuming traffic is agreeable and the driver never stops to sleep, eat, or use the bathroom. Nearly two days' worth of nonstop driving; that's what Cab had told the group after finding an internet café and punching in the numbers himself.

When Michelle heard that estimate, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of driving for two days straight. It took a quarter of the time to drive all the way from one end of France to the other. She wasn't sure she'd ever been in a car for more than a few hours straight, much less a few days. Surely, Cab's calculation had to be incorrect, right? America was big, but there was no way it was that big. Just because the internet said they'd be on the road for two days straight didn't automatically mean they would be.

By the fourth day of driving, Michelle felt like her brain had turned to mush.

She sat slouched over in the backseat of the Mercedes, despite the soreness in her back from sleeping on nothing but cheap hotel beds every night. A frazzled yet deadpan expression stayed locked on her face as she stared straight ahead. Her seatbelt felt like it sanded off her skin with every slight movement she made. The way her knees awkwardly knocked against the back of the driver's seat felt like she'd been placed inside a hydraulic press. Hol Horse's perpetually smoky aroma had forever tainted the car, even with all the windows rolled down. Sara had plugged her iPod to the car and kept Akira Otoishi's music blasting for four days straight, and while Michelle didn't find his music to be half bad, hearing the same songs over and over again had begun to wear thin on her patience.

There was also the fact that his nasal, slightly raspy vocals sounded infuriatingly familiar, but Michelle couldn't quite place from where. An ever-growing part of her just wanted to accept that Sara playing the same handful of songs over and over again had driven her insane.

More than anything, she chastised herself for still not having found something to do in the car. She'd already read through all of the books Sara had lent her, and the five of them could only play I Spy or Twenty Questions so many times. Everyone else was preoccupied on their own, anyways. Rumor sat in the opposite window seat, journaling as usual, while Cab sat hunched over between them with an old Game Boy in his hands. He held it low and open, unlike how Rumor kept his nose pressed to his notebook. Michelle eyeballed the handheld out of the corner of her eye, watching the game he was playing.

Some of onscreen text caught her eye right away and made her furrow her brow. "C'est un nom stupide," she mumbled to herself.

A guilty blush crept up on her face as Cab glanced away from the Game Boy at her comment. She didn't mean to say that out loud. "Wanna run that by me again in English?" Cab asked.

Michelle sat up straight and cleared her throat. "Nothi—"

"She said 'that's a stupid name,' though I can't fathom what she'd be referring to," Rumor translated, not raising his head from his notebook.

"Mhm." Cab set the Game Boy down, letting it rest on his lap. "What's a stupid name?"

Michelle sharply exhaled and flashed a small glare at Rumor, though he was still preoccupied by his writing. Traitor, she thought. Since when have you been on his side? Scooting a bit closer to Cab, she picked up the Game Boy and pointed to the text in question. "I assume that's a nickname."

Cab chortled upon realizing what she was referring to. "Bulbasaur? No, that's not a nickname," he answered as Quiet Riot's arms popped out and returned the Game Boy to its owner. "That's...just what it's called. You've played Pokémon before, right?"

"I have. Bulbasaur is a horrible name for Bulbizarre," Michelle stated.

"I'm sorry, for what?" Cab jut his chin back a bit.

"Bulbizarre. That's its name in French," Michelle clarified. "Why would you call it Bulbasaur? It doesn't look anything like a dinosaur, so why name it after one? If anything, it's more of a..."

Her voice trailed off. Crapaud; that was the creature she had in mind. Michelle felt a chill sweep through her chest at the realization that she did not know the English word for crapaud. She could see the creature in her head, clear as day—large, brown, covered in warts as it stared down flies with squinty eyes. Frog was close, but she knew she couldn't call herself French if she got a grenouille and a crapaud mixed up.

Dammit, what's the word again? I know this, I know I know this. It's on the tip of my tongue, she thought. The hum of the engine punctuated the dip in the conversation, making Michelle acutely aware at the way both Cab and Sara stared at her as they waited for her to finish her sentence. She slouched down in her seat again. Will they think lesser of me if I don't know what a crapaud is called in English? Would Cab tease me for that? Would Sara get out her pocket dictionary again? Not that, anything but that...

"...big frog," Michelle felt part of her die on the inside as the words left her lips.

When Cab set down his Game Boy and looked down at her droopy form, Michelle fought the strong urge to curl up in a ball and hide her face. Not that Cab could tell she didn't know the word for crapaud (hopefully), but the shame still coiled in her gut. "Michelle, I'm sorry, but Bulbizarre is really lame."

"Oh, like Bulbasaur is so much better?"

"Mhm. Damn right it is," he said, picking up the Game Boy again. "I mean, Bulbizarre? Really? Why would you put bizarre in the name? That's, like, begging kids not to pick it. It makes it sound like a wizard from some shitty 80s fantasy movie or something like that."

Michelle rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, Bulbasaur sounds like a Jurassic Park reject," she rebutted. "Bulbizarre is closer to the original Japanese name, anyways."

"Krabby is literally just called crab in Japanese, so not all of the original names are winners," Cab added, having returned his focus back to the Game Boy.

Peeping back down at the screen, Michelle caught him nickname the Bulbasaur JURASSCPRK.

A weird, thin-lipped smile crept up on her face. Despite the flippancy of their responses (and the fact that Cab was just plain wrong, opinions be damned), Michelle couldn't deny that she strangely enjoyed their conversation. Their time spent in the car had been full of similar interactions between the five of them; brief, usually a bit snarky, but somehow ultimately endearing. A few weeks ago, Michelle would have been up to her knees in annoyance. Now, the back and forth between her and her friends felt comforting.

Friends. It still felt like such an alien term.

Still, she was itching to be able to straighten out her legs sometime soon. Michelle shimmied herself upright and glanced out the open window. Much to her shock, she saw a city rather than a packed freeway or desolate rest stop. A real, proper city; not just a handful of strip malls stitched together. Towering skyscrapers and office buildings stood to her left, and to her right, surprisingly, flowed a long river that managed to stay still despite the hustle and bustle of the city. More buildings stood on the opposite end of the river. Small trees were planted both on the river's bay and in the middle of the sidewalk, their bright green leaves an iridescent neon in the warm sun.

The river in particular made Michelle feel nostalgic, reminding her of the Seine flowing through Paris, but overall the city reminded Michelle of a cleaner, less chaotic New York City. Same urban environment with similar architecture, but no flashing billboards plastered every which way, less cars blocking up traffic, and best of all, zero trash bags randomly laying around. Good; she'd been worried that leaving trash out like that was an American custom.

For a while, she just kept her head out the window, admiring the view. That lasted for all but five minutes before the fact that she actually had the time to admire the view caught her attention. Hol Horse had been an extremely lax driver for the last few days, speeding through cities in as much of a straight line as he could unless they needed to stop for food or a toilet. Now, though, he drove at an even pace, treading just under the speed limit rather than just over it. He frequently took turns and even stopped to examine the street signs on occasion, as if to confirm exactly where in town they were. Through the rearview mirror, Michelle could see gears churning behind his eyes.

He was taking them somewhere. Somewhere specific.

Exactly where to and for what reason, Michelle could only guess. With that type of look in his eyes though, he obviously had some kind of plan. For what, though? Was he about to sell them out to a bunch of Masqueraders? Or maybe even just straight up sell them into human trafficking? He did used to work for Depeche and had almost left Sara to die. It wasn't like such matters were beneath him. She began to shudder at the thought, but shook her head to dispel the wild theories from her head. No, don't go there. Think about this logically, she reminded herself. I trust Hol Horse as far as I could throw him, which isn't very far at all, but he must know that if he ever tries to do something like that to us, he has a four-on-one fight on his hands. That's not his style at all. Still, I'm getting a bad feeling from this...

"Where are we now?" Michelle inquired, innocent enough.

"Chelly, we just got to Chicago, like, ten minutes ago," Sara responded with a small giggle, turning down the volume to the Akira Otoishi song blasting through the car's speakers. "I even told you as soon as we got here! You really need to learn to pay more attention when someone starts talking to you."

More like talking at me, Michelle silently responded, though she did regret not paying attention. Chicago did vaguely ring a bell in her head—she recalled hearing about a musical named after the city, though she never ended up seeing it—but that didn't do her any good. As far as she knew, Chicago could've been the seediest, most dangerous city in the country. "Let me rephrase; are we going somewhere, or are we just passing through?"

"Actually, I happen to know a little place in town we can stay at for a while. We're makin' good time, so it won't hurt us none to take a day or two off and relax," Hol Horse confessed, adjusting the rearview mirror to look Michelle in the eye. That thoughtful, pursuing look on his face vanished, replaced by an affable grin that Michelle knew not to trust. "It's real exclusive. I figure we'll be safe from any Masqueraders and the like there."

Cab quirked a brow. "How do we know it's not just the house of some girl that'll just slap you in the face and turn you away at the door?"

Thanks to the adjusted rearview mirror, Michelle got a perfect view of Hol Horse's annoyed eye roll. "All of my girls that you've seen or heard about so far have been flukes. I'm great with women. But no, that's not what I got up my sleeve for now."

"How do you plan on getting us into this 'real exclusive' place, then?" Michelle challenged.

"Come on, darlin'," Hol Horse took a moment to look over his shoulder and look at her directly. Him taking his eyes off the road only made Michelle more nervous. "I've got plenty of connections, you know that. I'm sure y'all are gonna love it."

While Sara beamed at the prospect of a surprise, whatever Hol Horse was going for had the opposite effect on Michelle. She scooted as close to the car door as she could, thumbing her necklace and staring outside. In the event that he dumped them off at some Masquerader den or human trafficking ring or, god forbid, an airport, it would be wise for her to memorize her surroundings. Up until now, he's been really upfront about where he takes us, so why isn't he now? Michelle pondered. He's hiding something. He has to be. He would tell us where we're going otherwise. But...what am I supposed to do about it? I can't just call him out, he'd probably be able to find a way to talk around it. Or worse, that might prompt him to try to separate me from everyone else first. I can't let anyone else get in danger on my watch.

She resigned herself to silence, watching as they drove out of Chicago's metropolitan downtown area and into an older, less developed part of the city. The tall buildings became squatter and more spread out with every mile, going from office buildings to schools to a shabby little church that looked like it hadn't been touched in well over a decade. Even the road went from dark, smooth concrete to flaky, bumpy pavement the further out they drove. Rumor groaned in frustration and set down his notebook after they drove over what must have been a pothole, causing his pen to scratch all the way to the other side of the page.

Eventually, they reached an empty, fenced off field composed mostly of dead grass. A long, dirt driveway snaked through the field, leading to an old, rundown shack coated with more rust than visible paint. On its pointed roof rested a sign that read ROYCE in letters equally as rusty as the rest of the building. Strangely, the building didn't have any windows or even a door that Michelle could see—she would have just assumed it was a random hunk of metal were it not for the distinctive silhouette that the rooftop gave it. Stranger still, she spotted someone sitting outside the building in a lawn chair, even though the building looked completely abandoned.

Just seeing it brought the phrase "murder den" to mind. It looked more cursed than Iron Maiden was. Michelle was half surprised she didn't see a film crew shooting a horror movie there.

Then, all of sudden, she felt like she had entered a horror movie as soon as Hol Horse turned and started to drive down the dirt driveway.

"W-we're turning around, right?" That was just about the only explanation she could think of anyone driving towards that death trap.

"Nope," Hol Horse nonchalantly responded, puffing out the last bit of smoke from his cigarette. "This is our stop."

"You're joking."

"Serious as a heart attack, darlin'."

Her gaze narrowed. "I am not going in there."

"Don't you worry none. It's just a car wash."

Michelle gave the corroded building and the dried patches of grass surrounding it another look.

"I don't believe you," she stated, folding her arms.

"Yeah, I'm with Michelle on this one. I feel like I'm gonna get tetanus just from looking at that rust bucket for too long," Cab added. "Why did we drive all the way out to the middle of nowhere just for a dingy old car wash, anyways?"

"Relax," Hol Horse said with a hint of a sigh. "I ain't let y'all down yet, have I? I know it don't look like much right now, but trust me on this one. All y'all gotta do is just stay buckled up in the car for a few more minutes, then we'll be in paradise."

"Yeah, guys," Sara turned back in her seat to address her friends, a look of sternness on her face that Michelle could tell was mostly just for show. "Don't knock it till you've tried it! I'm sure whatever it is, it'll be great. Maybe it's a novelty thing where it's super fancy on the inside. There's a lot of places in Vegas like that. Hmm..." she paused, turning back in her seat to size the building up as Hol Horse parked the car. "I wonder what the theme of a place like this would be?"

"Chainsaw Massacre, if I had to hazard a guess," Rumor suggested, putting his notebook back in his pocket.

Hol Horse chuckled and unfastened his seatbelt. "Oh, I can't wait to see the looks on your faces in a few minutes."

He exited the car and marched up to the front of the building where an old man, short and pudgy, sat on a three-legged lawn chair. The man rose from the chair as Hol Horse approached him. His shabby suit and wide-brimmed fedora made it difficult to discern any of his features, but the shakiness of his gait gave Michelle the impression he was a senior citizen. Hol Horse bent at the knees slightly to talk to him and gave a brief introduction, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Michelle expected to see him take out some money next, but to her surprise, he instead pulled out a card too large to be a driver's license or other form of ID.

Weird, I wonder what that is, she thought.

He put it back in his wallet before she could come up with any theories. The elderly man shambled away and around the side of the building while Hol Horse sped on back to the car. A screechy CREEEEEEEK groaned out from the building as he opened the door and climbed back into the driver's seat. Michelle covered her ears against the sharp ring of metal grinding against metal as the wall of the building rose like a garage door until the wall had fully folded under the ceiling. Despite the sun shining brightly in the sky, the building's interior was pitch black. She couldn't see a damn thing inside.

"Alrighty," Hol Horse started up the car again, not even bothering to put his seatbelt back on, "we're good to go."

Michelle gulped as they drove into the abyss. Hol Horse rolled up all the windows at once from the driver's seat, removing her one escape path. She elbowed Cab in the ribs, causing him to look her way. "If we get out of this alive, I want you to drive the car from now own," she whispered.

"Michelle, we managed to escape a falling plane we were literally magnetized to virtually unscathed, thanks in no small part to Iron Maiden and your own quick thinking. I'm pretty confident that there's nothing this place can throw at us that we can't handle," he pointed out, thankfully returning the hushed tone.

"You're starting to sound like Sara."

"Hey, that's not always a bad thing," he responded with a smirk. "But I will try to handle more of the driving from here on out. We're not gonna die, but I don't like this any more than you do."

The Mercedes' headlights and a faint trickle of light from outside lit up the car wash, which felt like little more than a dark tunnel. It stretched much longer than any car wash had any right to, and though the poor lighting and grime caked onto the windows made it difficult to see much of anything, Michelle couldn't find any pumps or wipers or anything that a car wash should have. Just hints of tarnished walls boxing them in.

A loud BANG! suddenly boomed out behind them and echoed throughout the car wash. With a jump, Michelle turned and craned her neck to look out the window. The door behind them had slammed shut, cutting off what little light had made its way in from outside. Simultaneously, the hum of the car's engine softened as Hol Horse slowed the car to a stop. Michelle flared her nostrils in frustration and turned to face out the windshield again.

Before she could even think to ask Hol Horse why he'd stopped the car, a creature dropped down from the ceiling and landed on the ground in front of them with a loud thud. It resembled a giant tarantula, probably as long as she was tall, with saggy, blood red skin. Spiky black hairs stuck out from its legs. The shape of its head and eyes resembled that of a robin, complete with white splotches around its eyes, but in place of a beak was a small muzzle mostly obscured by the massive doglike tongue lolling out of its mouth.

It took every ounce of restraint in Michelle's body to not scream in terror. Sara, on the other hand, screeched as soon as it hit the ground and scrambled to grab Hol Horse's arm. Cab jumped in place in his seat, and Rumor stared it down with an unreadable expression. Hol Horse, apathetic as ever, just rolled down his window far enough for him to stick his head out. He put a hand in his mouth and whistled to get the creature's attention. Michelle went stiff as the creature's beady eyes locked with the car.

"Howdy, Meatloaf!" Hol Horse called out, seemingly addressing the monster in front of him. "Man, I can't believe you're still around. Figured you would've kicked the bucket years ago."

The creature—Meatloaf, Hol Horse had called it—gave out a throaty chirp in return. It scuttled on over to the car, dragging its tongue along the floor with it.

Rumor was the first to object. "Am I to believe that you've allied yourself with the likes of a chimera?" His expression had changed, now definitively glaring at Hol Horse and sitting up as straight as a line. A quiet chime rang off of his hands as they crackled with Hamon energy.

Hol Horse brought his head back in the car and looked back at him, puzzled. "A what?"

"For Heaven's sake, doesn't anyone ever listen to me? A chimera," Rumor repeated. "They're zombified amalgamations of two or more different species of animals, and as far as I'm aware, they can only be created by vampires."

"No, Meatloaf ain't anything like that," Hol Horse shook his head, then inquisitively narrowed his eyes at the beast a second later. "...At least, I don't think so. Actually, I'm not sure what the hell Meatloaf is. I hope it's not anythin' like that."

"It's not," Cab interjected, arms resting behind his head. "Is this your first time hearing about Rumor's weird vampire fixation? Don't indulge him in it."

Rumor faced Cab with a huff. "Is it within your nature to be this ignorant? Proof that all of my claims are true quite literally fell into our laps, yet you still refuse to believe me?"

"Wow. A freaky monster thing; we've never seen anything like that before." Cab jeered, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, you're supposed to be the smart one here. That thing's probably a Stand, not a vampire or whatever."

A brief wide-eyed flash of panic crossed Hol Horse's face. Michelle sat up straighter in her seat. Whatever Meatloaf was, even she wasn't willing to entertain the idea that it was vampiric. Why did it look like Hol Horse considered it a possibility? Surely, he of all people wouldn't believe in Rumor's wild assertions.

Cab and Rumor continued to bicker as Meatloaf took its first steps onto the front hood of the car, its long, wet tongue squeaking against the Mercedes' bumper. Rumor put his hand over Cab's mouth and watched with intense eyes as Meatloaf crawled up the windshield and onto the roof. Its tongue swayed back and forth across the windshield like a fleshy wiper. All of the dirt and grime stuck to the windshield rubbed off in a manner of seconds, leaving thick, sticky saliva in its wake.

"What precisely is it doing, Hol Horse?" Rumor questioned, still keeping his hand pressed against Cab's mouth. That lasted for all but two seconds before Cab bit down on his thumb, making him recoil with a fierce glare.

"This is a car wash, remember?" Hol Horse reminded him. "It might not look it, but that tongue is the best sponge you'll ever see."

"Oh! So it's a helpful giant spider thing!" Sara realized as she let go of Hol Horse's arm. "Who's a good monster? You are! Yes, you are!"

"Unlock the car," Rumor demanded, unbuckling his seatbelt. "I'm going to smash that thing."

"No," Hol Horse reached back and grabbed Rumor's wrist. "Whatever you do, stay in the car. I don't know what the hell Meatloaf is, but I do know that its got one hell of an appetite, and this place here? This is its breakfast table. The car's too big to wrap its mouth around, so you're safe as long as you stay in here. The second you get out, though? It'll gobble you up faster than you can say Hamon."

"For Heaven's sake, look at that thing!" Rumor aggressively gestured at Meatloaf's tongue as it finished the windshield and began to wipe its tongue across the driver's seat window. "Aren't any of you at the very least curious about what it is? While I'm positive that it's a chimera, on the off chance that it isn't, that's an entirely undocumented species! Just seeing how it reacts to Hamon would tell wonders about its true nature!"

Hol Horse seemingly ignored Rumor and rolled down his window just a pinch, picked up a used cigarette from the driver seat's cupholder, and stuck it out the window. Meatloaf must have smelt the tobacco residue, because just as its tongue began to slither over to Michelle's window, it whipped back to Hol Horse's door and slurped up the cigarette. Hol Horse rolled his window back up as Meatloaf coiled its tongue back in its mouth and audibly swallowed. Its tongue drooped back down in front of Michelle's door a second later.

Defeated, Rumor rested his head in his hands, his thumbs rubbing small circles into his temples.

"C'est vraiment étrange," Michelle commented, staring down Meatloaf's tongue as it finished cleaning off her door and swiped over to the trunk's backdoor.

"Oui, Michelle," Rumor groaned out.

For a while, they all just sat there in silence as Meatloaf cleaned the car. Michelle could picture it spinning in place atop the roof as its tongue made full laps; cleaning off the backdoor, swabbing down Rumor's door (Rumor went from rubbing his temples to grabbing fistfuls of hair as the tongue squeaked closer to him), then starting all over again at the windshield. More and more saliva coated the windows with every flick of its tongue. By the time Meatloaf had finished its third lap, Michelle couldn't even see clearly out the windows anymore. After that, she heard the tapping of Meatloaf's feet against the rear of the car as it crawled off the other side. Another throaty chirp called out from behind them as Meatloaf scurried into the darkness.

Michelle blankly stared out the windshield at where Meatloaf had first dropped down. Just what the hell was it? A Stand? Maybe, but she'd never seen one look so organic before. Meatloaf really, truly felt like it was actually there and not a ghostly apparition. If it was a Stand, who would that make its user? The old man Hol Horse had greeted? The car wash itself? Someone else, waiting on the other side? She couldn't say for certain.

What other option did that leave, though? A chimera, like Rumor had suggested? That was a ridiculous notion, to say the least. Rumor had described chimeras as being a mishmash of two different animals, and while Meatloaf did have traits of other creatures, Michelle was quite certain there were no spiders that grew to be that big. Besides, entertaining the notion of vampires was utterly ridiculous.

Maybe Meatloaf is just...Meatloaf, she pondered. Maybe it's just something else entirely.

With Meatloaf gone, they proceeded slowly through the car wash. The car lurched over a small bump in the floor, which caused a showerhead above them to spring to life and spray them down with hot water. All of Meatloaf's sticky saliva washed off the car in an instant, leaving behind a glossy finish that made the Mercedes sparkle. Another loud CREEEEEEEK emitted from in front of them, with the exit opening up the same way the entrance had. Michelle squinted as blinding light poured in from outside. They exited the car wash, turned a corner, and...

Michelle couldn't believe her eyes.

Instead of the desolate, dying field they had entered the car wash in, she found herself driving down a picturesque beachside boardwalk. Several shops and surf shacks dotted the sides of the road with a massive resort hotel sitting at the end. The hotel looked like it was made out of pure gold, bright and shiny, and was broken up into three chunks; the actual "hotel" part in the middle with several rows of windows lined across it, and two protruding additions on either side of the hotel. A topiary blooming with roses and cut into the shape of a dove stood right in front of the hotel's entrance.

Even the beach behind the hotel seemed almost too good to be true. The sand looked soft and fine, with nary a pebble in sight, and there were hardly any waves in the water (Ocean? Sea? Lake?). Almost too good to be true, of course, what with all the tourists choking up the view.

"Welcome to Chicago IX," Hol Horse announced. "Anyone can come here if they're in the loop and got the dough for it, but most folks here are fellow Stand users. Been like that since I was your age. I doubt a Masquerader would last long in a place like this, so we should be safe from any Stand attacks. Provided that y'all behave," he turned to Sara as he finished his spiel. 

Unfortunately for him, Sara had already gone triggerfinger with her camera. "We're on the beach, too! Are we really still in Chicago? I mean, I know that Chicago is on a lake, but like, wow! I feel like we just teleported to Hawaii! You think the waves are big enough to go surfing here? I've always wanted to go surfing. Do they have a little tiki bar that serves lava flows? They're like piña coladas with strawberries in them."

As Sara continued to ramble on, a realization dawned on Michelle—she hadn't packed a swimsuit. Despite the fact that it was nearly summer, the idea of them going swimming together hadn't ever crossed her mind until now. Michelle chewed on her lip. The consequences of waiting to pack until the last minute.

"You know what, cowboy?" Cab spoke in a breathy chuckle. "Hats off to you. I can genuinely say I didn't see this coming."

Like Sara with her camera, Rumor already had his notebook at the ready. "How exactly did we get here, anyways?"

Hol Horse shrugged. "All I know is that the car wash spits you out here. How? I ain't got a clue. I don't really care how any of this shit works, just that it does. I'd wager that's why the car wash is such a wreck, though. Keeps out anyone who ain't comin' here."

They drove down the boardwalk and circled the topiary before Hol Horse stopped and parked the car in the porte cochere in front of the hotel. A valet stationed behind his podium instantly flashed a bright smile that would make even Sara jealous as they exited the car. He gave the group a small wave as they approached him. Hol Horse had an arm on Sara's shoulder the whole time—probably to keep her from wandering off.

"Hello! Welcome to the Chicago IX Resort," the valet greeted. "Are you checking in today?"

"Yup," Hol Horse responded.

"Alright," the valet's voice trailed off as he typed away at a keyboard Michelle couldn't see behind the podium. "Would you like standard or deluxe parking?"

Hol Horse raised a brow. "Deluxe? That's new."

"Yes, we introduced deluxe parking to the resort about five years ago."

"Does it cost extra?"

"That depends. Are you a User or a Lonely?"

"User."

"Alrighty." The valet typed away at his keyboard for a few more seconds. "Are you a part of SEES?"

"Have been since before you were born, probably," Hol Horse pulled out his wallet again and retrieved the same card he'd shown the car wash attendant earlier. Michelle caught a glimpse of the card's face before he handed it off to the valet. She recognized it in an instant: that was a tarot card of The Emperor, old and faded. Her eyes involuntarily widened.

Dad used to have a card like that, too, she recalled. It even looks like it's from the same type of deck. I never really thought about it until now, but both Dad's Silver Chariot and Hol Horse's Emperor are named after tarot cards. She folded her arms as the valet analyzed the card as if he were inspecting a potentially counterfeit dollar bill. Am I really supposed to believe that's just a coincidence? But...Dad named Chariot when he was little, he told me that much when I first summoned Iron Maiden. This guy knew Dad, I'm sure, but there's no way their connection runs that deep.

The valet finished his inspection of Hol Horse's card and handed it back to him. "Great! You're eligible for deluxe parking for free."

"So, what does that get me?" Hol Horse asked as he put the tarot card back in his wallet.

"I'll show you. Could you please remove all of your luggage from the car?"

"Uh," Cab raised his hand, "that may take a while. You sure we won't be holding up anyone?"

"No worries, sir."

Hol Horse pointed the car key at the Mercedes and pressed the button to unlock the trunk. The second the door inched open, their luggage (mostly Sara's) all fell out of the trunk and collapsed onto the ground like a house of cards that had been knocked over. Despite his cheery disposition, Michelle could sense the valet's impatience from his clenched jaw as everyone rushed over to pick up their bags.

As soon as everyone had claimed their bags and wheeled them off the road, the valet stepped away from his podium with something clenched in his hand. "Alright, everyone please step away from the vehicle for a moment."

He held out the object in his hand, revealing it to be a strange computer mouse with a scanner on the front and a curled-up USB plug in the back. Two little bumps adorned the top of the scanner, resembling mouse ears. The valet pointed the scanner at the car and left-clicked on the mouse, causing a green, holographic light to burst out of the scanner and shine directly onto the car. A second later, the car dissolved into a patchwork of green zeroes and ones. Soon, the only thing left in its place was a green shadow of where it once stood. When the valet stopped pressing down on the mouse, the light vanished, and the car along with it.

Everyone expectantly turned to the valet, who held it up with a chuckle.

"Don't worry, your car is fine," he reassured. "The staff has been using these around the resort ever since we changed management. Everywhere, too. From parking to general inventory. It's a Stand called Random Access Memories. It can scan inorganic objects and turn them into code, which is then stored in the Stand's cyberspace. Once you need your car again, we'll just..."

He held out the Random Access Memory again and this time right-clicked on the mouse. A translucent, green-tinted hologram of the car shone from the scanner. He released the button, and the car popped back onto the road, with the same freshly cleaned windows and glossy exterior. It was like the car had never left at all.

"These things are little miracles," the valet explained as he strode back to his podium. "We actually ended up demolishing our second parking lot and used the empty space to add a mini mall to the resort."

"I take it that's not your Stand, though?" Hol Horse questioned.

"Oh, no. I'm a Lonely, I don't even have a Stand," the valet answered, writing EMPEROR onto the Random Access Memory with a bright red marker. "Luckily, these things can be seen and used by anyone. I've heard rumors that this is the owner's Stand, but I wouldn't know. I'm just the valet. But, you're all set for parking, so why don't you go and check in?"

"Yup, thanks for everything," Hol Horse responded with a tip of the hat.

"Oh! Before you go," the valet bent at the knees and fished out another Random Access Memory from the lower shelf of the podium. He right-clicked it, pointing it between them and the entrance to the hotel. A luggage cart materialized as soon as he let go of the button.

"Looks like you've got a lot of stuff with you. I assume you'll be needing that," he pointed out. "Enjoy your stay here Chicago IX Resort!"

"Thanks!" Sara waved at him as another car pulled into the porte cochere, redirecting the valet's attention.

"Please don't bother with the pleasantries, Sara. I'm sure he hasn't got the time for it anyways," Rumor told her as he hauled his duffle bag onto the luggage cart. "Most of these bags are yours, so help us get it onto the trolley."

"Oh! Right. Sorry." Sara began to help load up the trolley as well.

"Oh, and before we check in and get all cozy," Hol Horse said, standing idly by, "I'd like to talk to someone at the front desk about the new management. Privately. Shouldn't take more than a minute or so. Let's get inside, but why don't y'all get out your bathing suits and head on out to the beach without me? I'll catch up soon enough."

"I didn't pack a bathing suit," Michelle blurted out.

Sara, flabbergasted, dropped the suitcase in her arms and stared back at Michelle with her jaw agape.

"What do you mean you didn't pack a bathing suit? We're on a road trip and it's almost June!"

Michelle shrugged. "Je ne sais pas. I just didn't think to bring one."

"But like, most hotels have pools and hot tubs and stuff!"

"How exactly was I supposed to know that? I'd never even stayed at a hotel before this trip. Besides, the hotel in New York didn't have a pool or hot tub or other stuff."

"Yeah, well, New York is weird," Sara said, putting her hands on her hips. "Wait...you know how to swim, right?"

"Of course I know how to swim," Michelle responded with a roll of her eyes. "I just didn't expect to go swimming on this trip."

"If you need a bathing suit," the valet called out from behind them, "there's a bunch of shops and boutiques inside the resort where you can buy one. Just turn left at the lobby, you can't miss them. If you want my recommendation? Go to a place called One Size Fits All."

"Well, there you have it! We can just buy you a new bathing suit," Sara proclaimed. She turned to Cab and Rumor while the former stacked the last bag to the top of the baggage cart and the later wrapped the whole thing up with The Chain to make sure none of the bags fell off. Both of them had their swimsuits in their hands. "Are you guys okay to go to the beach without us? I wanna stick with Michelle and help her pick out a bathing suit."

"Sounds good to me," Cab responded.

Rumor nodded in agreement.

"Don't I have any say in this?" Michelle asked. If Hol Horse truly was being honest about the resort being safe from any Masqueraders, which she guessed he probably was just from the valet's helpfulness and usage of Random Access Memories, then she had no worries about going and buying a swimsuit on her own. She was used to being on her own. Sara's kleptomania, along with a certain twinkle in her eye, made Michelle wary of going shopping with her.

"Nope!" Sara linked arms with Michelle, who sighed in defeat. "Now, c'mon, let's get moving!"

With that, the five of them ventured through the hotel's automatically opening doors. Cab and Rumor proceeded directly forwards to the beach, Hol Horse talked up woman at the front desk on the right, and Sara dragged Michelle to the lines of shops down the left hallway.

~~~~~

From the moment she and Sara entered One Size Fits All, Michelle could tell that it wasn't an ordinary clothing store.

The shop itself wasn't very big, as to be expected from a store in a mini mall, but that added to the tropical charm the place was going for. Eucalyptus logs lined the store's walls, while the wood floor looked glossy and void of any scratches. Pictures of beautiful women and handsome men smiling under palm trees hung above the display racks. Calming, tropical music played from the speakers mounted subtly on the walls. All of the clothes for sale sat neatly folded and untouched on the store's various shelves and tables.

There was just one problem: the selection of clothes.

One Size Fits All, indeed. Every article of clothing in the store—from the sundresses hanging on the walls to the T-shirts folded on display tables—were all the same grayish-brown and small enough to fit a toddler. Michelle and Sara stood bewildered in the store's entryway, surveying the place up and down. Suspicion brewed in Michelle's head. Their valet had recommended this place by name, and he didn't seem the type to send them off to a bad store as a practical joke. Was this part of a trap? Maybe, but for what? What would the valet have to gain by sending them to a place like this?

An uneasy smile found its way onto Sara's face as she walked up to the bikinis on display and picked up one of the tops. The cups were smaller than her fists. "Umm...maybe it stretches out in the wash?"

Michelle pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "First of all, clothes shrink in the wash, they don't stretch out. Second of all, I'm not wearing a bikini. And third..." she sped over to Sara and lowered her voice. "This place looks like a scam. Remember that art gallery Hol Horse and I went into to get my passport? It sold bad, overpriced artwork as a money laundering scheme. The owner himself admitted it. I bet this place is the same."

"Oh, don't be so negative. Why would they put a fake store in a big fancy resort like this? Besides, it's not selling stuff at a high enough price to be anything like that."

Sara pointed at the price tag on the bikini top: $15. While Michelle wasn't exactly sure what the American dollar was worth, that seemed pretty cheap for a bikini.

"I'm sure there's some...decent...clothes somewhere in here," Sara continued, setting the bikini top back down. "But I mean, it's not like we have to buy something here. There's also a lot more stores in this little shopping center. What do you say we ditch this place and look around until we find something you like? We've got all day to look around and shop."

On some level, Michelle did agree with Sara. One Size Fits All obviously had something fishy going on with it, and she knew that it almost certainly wasn't anything good. On the off chance the place was legitimate, it had, without a doubt, the worst selection of clothing Michelle had ever seen in a boutique. And that was without even considering the fact that none of the clothes seemed to fit her.

Still...something about the store had nabbed her curiosity and refused to let it go. Sara did have a point—this was a very exclusive and presumably very expensive resort. Why would Chicago IX, with its perfect beaches and cyberspace parking, have a store like this connected to it? Anyone with half a brain wouldn't shop here. They were just wasting space by keeping it open. Maybe it was a tax write off thing? Actually, now that I think about it, I get the feeling this resort in a little pocket of land guarded by a spider monster thing isn't super concerned about taxes, Michelle realized. Lucky bastards. I wish I didn't have to worry about taxes for the last three years. 

"I want to stay here," Michelle stubbornly admitted as she wandered deeper into the store.

Sara sighed and began to walk over to the exit. "Okay, that's what I thought. Let's hit the..." she stopped in place on the store's entry mat and whirled around, "wait, what?"

"You can look in some of the other stores by yourself if you want to. If you see something there that you think I might like, come back here and find me."

"Chelly," Sara rushed over to Michelle and put a hand on her shoulder, "I mean this in the best way possible; I don't think this store is gonna have anything you'll look good in. Much less something that will fit you. Besides, don't you wanna go shopping together?"

Michelle shrugged.

Brows creased, Sara removed her hand from Michelle's shoulder. Her smile began to fizzle out for a second, but it quickly came back in full force. "Oh, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. We can cover more ground if we split up! Good thinking." She took two bills from her pocket and shoved them into Michelle's hand. "Here's thirty dollars if you do find something you like here. Which, y'know, I don't think is likely, but hey! Who knows? I mean, you're being optimistic right now, so I guess anything could happen."

A small blush formed on Michelle's face. "I-I'm plenty optimistic."

Sara quirked a brow. "Well, if the beach brings out that side of you more, then I'm even more glad we came! You'll have to thank Horseradish for it later."

Over my dead body, Michelle thought.

"There's a convenience store right next to us, I'm gonna check out that place first," Sara announced, already inching backwards to the door. "And remember: you don't have to buy anything here! No one's gonna think any lesser of you for looking at the other stores."

"I know, Sara."

"Okay, you have fun!"

"Make sure not to steal—"

By the time Michelle looked back up at the store's entryway, Sara was already gone. Michelle sharply exhaled. If there was any place that she needed to keep her kleptomania in check, it was here. She'd barely survived one encounter with a Stand user she'd stolen from, Michelle didn't even want to think what would happen to her if she had to face off multiple at once.

Well, nothing she could do about it now. Michelle ambled through the store, leisurely taking in each stacked rack of dull clothes. Just a few steps in and she wandered past a desk with a Random Access Memory sitting atop it along with a laptop and small pile of candy wrappers. A man, who Michelle had not noticed until now, sat behind the desk with his feet kicked up atop it, staring down at his phone in his lap. She could almost hear whatever video he was watching blasting through his earbuds. He wore a loose shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals so old and beat up it was a wonder they stayed together at all. A necklace with chunky beads hung off his neck, and he had a pair of sunglasses propped atop his head of long, messy hair.

Michelle scoffed. Not only did the only employee in the store look uninterested in selling his merch, but his schlubby clothes made her wonder why someone like him was working at a boutique at all. The floorboards lightly creaked underneath her boots as she took a step past him.

"Looking for a bathing suit, kid?"

Michelle turned back to see him looking up at her with green, catlike eyes. She caught a glimpse of his nametag underneath the collar of his shirt: it read FIREWORK. He yanked the earbuds out of his ears, set his phone aside, and stood up. His poor posture made him look shorter than he actually was. "One piece, right?"

"I don't think any of the ones here will, uh..." she spotted a small table with a pile of one piece bathing suits behind her, all of which looked to be around the same size as her head, "...fit."

Firework dismissively flicked his wrist. "Don't worry about it. Just find one you like and lay it down on the counter. I'll take care of the rest."

Something about the absurdity of his promise and the dryness in his voice made Michelle raise a brow. This was no ordinary clothing store, that much was obvious. But what was the catch? Was he a Stand user or something? That did make sense, given that the resort had already showed a willingness to use Stands like Random Access Memories for business purposes. But an individual using their Stand like that, in a store where that was clearly the only way he would ever make a sale? Michelle already hated showing her Stand to her friends, she couldn't imagine having to do that as a job.

It's probably got something to do with the Random Access Memory he's got with him. Maybe there's more to it than what the valet showed us, Michelle thought. She turned around, picked up a bathing suit from behind her, and laid it down on the counter.

Firework cracked his knuckles and cleared his throat. "Okay, let's get to work."

A whirring hum, not unlike the type a washing machine would make, sounded out from behind Firework along with a quick flash of multicolored light. The flash solidified into a tall humanoid figure, standing over a head taller than Firework with even worse posture. Its body was almost entirely made of yarn, all of it tangled and loosely wrapped around its frame in a rainbow mesh. Some strands sagged off its joints and fingertips. Big, googly eyes held attached to its face by springs, and it wore a large top hat and bowtie.

Michelle tensed up. She was right, he did have a Stand! Instinctively, she backed away from the counter. Another small wave of dread washed over her when Iron Maiden sprung to life, standing with its shield up between her and her would be enemy. She recalled it as soon as she could. Ugh, be reasonable about this, Michelle! He's not going to hurt me, I can't risk cursing him, she thought. At least, I hope he's not going to hurt me. You can never be too careful...

"Ah, so you're a User too?" Firework plopped back down in his chair as his Stand trailed the yarn dangling from its finger down the bathing suit. "Weird. I got Lonely vibes off of you and your friend. Well, whatever. Don't worry, I'm not looking for a fight."

"Why'd you bring your Stand out, then?"

"Well, I don't think I need a reason to bring it out, but I'm just doing my job. Puttin' on the Ritz can turn that into something wearable. You want this bathing suit to fit you, right?"

Michelle stayed where she was, stone-faced with Iron Maiden buzzing on her fingers. She wasn't about to risk her life for a bathing suit. For once, she cursed not having Sara with her—if Puttin' on the Ritz did try to attack her, it'd be nice to have some backup.

Though, every passing moment made it harder for her to believe that she was truly under attack. Puttin' on the Ritz wasn't even looking at her. Its eyes stayed locked on the bathing suit as it picked it up off the table, holding it with one hand between its thumb and pointer finger. The Stand's movements reminded Michelle of a ragdoll. Firework, meanwhile, had kicked his feet up on the desk and looked back at her halfheartedly, resting his elbow against the desk and his cheek in his hand.

"You know your measurements, kid? I can eyeball it if you don't," he queried.

With a long, defeated exhale, Michelle stepped closer to the register. The loud, paranoid voice screeching like a banshee in the back of her brain had finally surrendered. Perhaps Firework was secretly out to get her, but if he was, he'd need to be in with it with the valet, who could have just as easily killed her by dropping the car on her with the Random Access Memory, be unconcerned about potentially losing his job, and have a good reason for not attacking her the second she withdrew Iron Maiden. It was much, much more likely that he was being honest this really was how he did his job.

An anxious little leech still gnawed at her thoughts, keeping her on guard. Now standing closer to the desk, she shook her head no, she didn't know her measurements. That prompted Firework to stand up straight in his chair. Popping his tongue out the side of his mouth, he stared her down intently, hands outstretched with his fingers framing her in his vision like a camera. As he did so, Puttin' on the Ritz held its spare hand up to the bottom of the bathing suit, cupping its crotch. Strands of yarn slithered out from its fingers, seamlessly weaving themselves into the bathing suit.

Michelle's eyed widened. The more yarn Puttin' on the Ritz injected in, the longer the bathing suit became. It changed shape before her very eyes, growing longer and forming a slight hourglass figure that looking strikingly like her own. Despite the bathing suit's nylon and Puttin' on the Ritz's yarn looking like staunchly different materials, Michelle couldn't find any noticeable seams or breaks in the bathing suit's fabric. It was almost like the yarn morphed into the bathing suit's nylon as soon as it entered it. It did impact the bathing suit's color, however, turning it from a grayish-brown into a tie-dyed mess. Michelle squicked—she couldn't see herself wearing that, even if she had a gun to her head.

"What type of one piece do you want?" Firework spoke up as Puttin' on the Ritz laid the bathing suit back down on the table. "Plunge, strapless, monokini...?"

Michelle blinked a few times. She had no idea what any of those were.

"Basic, got it," Firework answered for her. "What about colors? Patterns?"

"Uh...blue, I guess?"

Rolling his eyes, Firework gave a pronounced sigh. "Blue, she guesses. Don't worry, I'll make you something better than 'blue, I guess.'"

This time, Puttin' on the Ritz pressed both its hands down onto the bathing suit, palming it as if it was giving it a massage. Different shades of blue string slithered down its arms and out its hands, worming their way into different parts of the bathing suit based on color. The navy blue strands of yarn all congregated at the bottom, reaching up to the bottom of the chest, a handful sky blue strands wove into a line wrapped underneath the bosom, while white strands enveloped the chest.

Once all of the strands of yarn finished leaving its body, Puttin' on the Ritz smoothed out the bathing suit then handed it to Michelle. "So," Firework piped up, "this look good?"

Michelle nodded. It looked better than she expected. She almost couldn't believe that, less than five minutes ago, the bathing suit had been a completely different size, shape, and color. 

"Alright, that'll be eighteen dollars and fifty-three cents," Firework proclaimed, grabbing the Random Access Memory off the table.

Michelle handed the $20 bill crumpled in her hand to Puttin' on the Ritz; the act of which, handing money off to a Stand, felt so completely alien to her that she had no idea how to feel about it. The Stand then handed then placed the money down on the table before disappearing behind its user. Firework scanned the money with the Random Access Memory, absorbing it. He then took the Stand's USB tail and plugged it into his laptop. While Michelle couldn't see what was on his screen, she could see the faint green glow coming off his screen as he scrolled down with the computer's actual mouse. After a few clicks, he unplugged the Random Access Memory and right-clicked. Her change—one dollar, four dimes, a nickel, and two pennies—shone out from the Random Access Memory's and onto the desk. Michelle picked up the change and put it in the pocket of her boot.

"Have a nice day, kid." Firework waved goodbye as he picked his phone back up. "We've got changing rooms in the back if you wanna put it on now."

Though that ought to have been the end of their conversation, Michelle just stood there, occasionally shifting her eyes between Firework and her bathing suit. Nothing about this felt right. He was a Stand user, for the love of god. Weren't they supposed to fight or something? That's how all of her Stand encounters had went her entire time away from home. Sure, Sara and the rest had been casual about using their Stands around themselves and her, but that was different. They were friends, and that had always been their aim with each other. Firework was a stranger. After she walked out the door, she probably wouldn't see him ever again.

What gives? Does this guy just show his Stand to every customer he gets? That...how does he do that? Michelle wondered.

Firework peered up from his phone. "What's wrong, you got a better suggestion than 'blue, I guess' now?"

In any other scenario, Michelle would have just shook her head and left the store. Now, though something inside her compelled her to talk to him. "Is this your store, or do you just work here?"

"My store," he answered. "A couple of handymen come in every once in a while to help with inventory, but I do everything else. Sales, designs, management...all me. What, do I not look like I could run this store by myself?"

Michelle noted a discolored stain on the collar of his shirt and a tear in the bottom of his shorts.

"You don't strike me as the type to be very invested in fashion," she admitted.

He shrugged. "I don't care about what I wear, as long as it's comfortable. It's not like I ever get to look at myself outside of pictures and mirrors. Other people, though? I have to look at them all day long, not myself. That means that I gotta make sure everyone else looks their best. By the way, you'd look much better with your hair out of that ponytail."

"Duly noted," Michelle shot back, crossing her arms. "So, whenever someone comes in and buys something here...you have to use your Stand?"

"Yeah. I turn it into a magic show for the Lonelys. Sometimes that encourages them to buy more, too."

"That doesn't...bother you?"

"Sometimes the magic show gets me hecklers, but—"

"I meant using your Stand out in public all the time like this."

"Well, working here has its perks. I hate being a SEES member, but it gives me special protections that keeps me from getting picked up and exploited by a brand like Belafonte. Besides, with a Stand like mine, they wouldn't send me out to do anything too crazy anyways," he explained. "Oh, and I would hope that the Speedwagon Foundation has the common sense not to mess with this place."

Michelle set her shoulders back. Belafonte, the fashion brand? Speedwagon, the oil and medical research company? What did they have to do with Stand users? Suddenly, Michelle felt very, very grateful she had never bought anything at the Belafonte store in central Paris.

Still, none of that cleared up her confusion. "Doesn't it feel...weird to use your Stand all the time, though?"

Firework's previously neutral, slightly tired expression hardened. He put his phone down and stared at her with stern, serious eyes, his brows knitted slightly. "Why would it be weird?" He asked.

Michelle gulped and took a step back. That had been an innocent enough question, right? Surely innocent enough to not warrant that kind of reaction from him. Feeling like she had said something horribly wrong, she forced a shrug and began to fiddle with her necklace.

"Stands aren't some freaky psychic witchcraft, despite what some Lonelys will try to tell you, and they aren't imaginary friends. We are our Stands. Puttin' on the Ritz is me," he explained. "I see no reason why I should have to hide that, especially when I could be using my Stand to help other people like I do in the shop."

The tension in Michelle's shoulders dropped in tune with her eyes, her gaze drifting down to her feet. She'd never thought about it like that. It didn't come off as psychopathic rambling, either. In a weird way, she understood what he meant. She'd seen it in other Stand users. Her father had never had to direct Chariot to do things. That conversation never happened, because it simply never needed to. Chariot acted as an extension of himself. Quiet Riot was the same with Cab. Puttin' on the Ritz was obviously the same with Firework, and he had even made a successful business out of it.

Iron Maiden, she realized, was the same with her. It never acted to please her, it simply acted according to what she wanted. It was her. So many years spent, actively suppressing Iron Maiden as a curse...

Under Firework's line of thinking, what did that mean for herself?

"Hey, keep your chin up," Firework's now gentle voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Puttin' on the Ritz's long arm extended from his shoulder and lightly ruffled her hair, which Michelle wrinkled her nose at. "Why don't you go try on your bathing suit? Here, take this."

Firework kicked up a tote bag from underneath the desk and set it down on the counter. He then stood up and darted to the shelf labeled RETURNS behind him and grabbed a flowy, translucent white cardigan that looked about one size too big for her. He threw it behind him, and miraculously, the cardigan landed perfectly into the tote bag.

"On the house," he said as he sat back down in his chair. "If it doesn't fit you right, you just tell me, okay kid?"

"O-okay." Michelle picked up the tote bag. "Thank you."

With that, she wandered off to the changing rooms with a lot more on her mind than she had anticipated when she entered the store.

Chapter Text

As Michelle admired her reflection in the changing room mirror, she half-expected the threads of yarn Puttin' on the Ritz had inserted into her bathing suit to come out and strangle her. Or asphyxiate her like an evil corset. Or maybe even inject themselves into her skin and slowly poison her.

Sure, Firework seemed nice and his little soapbox speech about Stands had given her a lot to think about, but it never hurt to have a little caution. After all, just about every other Stand user she'd met had tried to kill either her or one of her friends. However, that pessimistic and overanalytical part of her brain had been all but silenced; stuffed away like her clothes folded up inside the tote bag.

The only thing she cared about was her new bathing suit—somehow, it fit her perfectly! She wasn't sure if Firework got her measurements just right through his Stand or if he really did just have that good of an eye for it, but she couldn't argue with the results. It felt perfectly snug, not too tight but not too loose, and the straps were thick enough that they didn't dig into her shoulders. The different shades of blue made her brown eyes really pop, too, much more so than when she wore her usual monochromatic outfit. Even the cardigan, which was big enough to wear like a dress over the swimsuit, paired well with it.

With a small smile on her face, she finished looking herself down in the mirror and sat down on the small stool inside her changing room to put her boots back on, as they were too big to fit inside the tote bag. She knew she looked ridiculous wearing her tall and chunky boots with a swimsuit, but she didn't really mind. The style mishmash had its own kind of charm to it, anyways. Firework would probably chastise her for it on her way out, though, and maybe even try to sell her some sandals or another tote bag. Enticing as the offer was, she'd have to decline. She'd probably end up with more bags than Sara had suitcases if she did continue shopping here.

Oh right, Sara! I almost forgot about her, Michelle realized. I need to go and find her as soon as I can. I'm sure she'll be head over heels for this place now that she understands its gimmick. She definitely won't be able to shoplift from a place like this, too! The last thought made Michelle lightly chuckle.

Her bracelets caught her attention as she slipped on her second boot. Sitting crisscross, she opened her lockets, looking back at the smiling faces of her parents.

"Are you proud of me, guys? I've made all these new friends, and we're all road-tripping together here in America. Just like how Dad used to go backpacking with his friends when he was younger! Though..." she shifted her gaze more towards the picture of her father, "I'm still not sure if I trust Hol Horse. Hell, you're probably rolling in your grave at me even considering it. But hey, he hasn't killed us yet, and this resort is pretty nice. What's this SEES thing people keep mentioning, though? Hol Horse used a tarot card just like the one you used to have to verify that he was a member. I...I wish you were here to tell me what that means."

Resting her cheek on her fist, Michelle sighed. Desperately, she wished that her father would come out of the picture, tell her that he loved her and was proud of her and not at all mad that Iron Maiden's curse might have...that it absolutely did end up killing him. Because the curse was real. Obviously. That, and for him to answer all her burning questions. Who was Hol Horse, really? Why did he carry around an old tarot card, too? What did that have to do with SEES? And the Masqueraders...would he have known what they were, too? What about Boney and the Grand Marshal?

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. No. No use going there. I'm talking to a goddamn photo, not him. He's dead, whether I like it or not. Dad can't answer any questions six feet under, and he wouldn't want to talk to me anyways. She snapped her lockets shut, picked up the tote bag, and exited the changing room.

The floorboards lightly creaked underneath her heels for a few steps until suddenly, they went silent as Michelle stopped, frozen in place.

Someone else had entered One Size Fits All while she was in the changing room, and it wasn't Sara.

He stood casually leaning against the cashier desk as he chatted with Firework. Michelle recognized him right away. That was the man from Hol Horse's photo. The green haired man she'd found dead in the airplane bathroom. Boney M.

Michelle staggered back a bit in shock. Rumor's theory was correct—he wasn't dead. Somehow, being left to bleed out in an airplane bathroom for multiple days before falling several thousands of meters out of a destroyed plane hadn't killed him. But how could that be? And why was he here? Was he looking for them? Goosebumps rose on Michelle's skin. All of the anxiety she had bottled away while trying on her swimsuit exploded out, like Boney was a Mentos tablet dropped into a bottle of Coca Cola. She reached up to her neck to thumb at her necklace. When her fingers grazed her bare skin, reminding her that she had put her necklace back in her bag, her already thundering heartbeat hammered even louder in her chest.

He's here for us. He's here for me. Those thoughts played in Michelle's head over and over again. That had to be why he was there, right? It wasn't like he was dressed for the beach. He wore a beige undershirt beneath a long, black tunic that had a deep V-neck extending down to his waist. His baggy pants, covered in strange, fuzzy white growths that resembled fungus roots, were tucked into dirty black combat boots. Those weren't the clothes someone wore when they were going to the beach. Which, of course, might have been the reason he was in One Size Fits All to begin with, but Michelle sincerely doubted that he was talking to Firework with the goal of buying a swimsuit.

She nearly fainted when she saw the distinctive red edge of a Masquerader mask poke out from his pocket. Boney must have sensed her eyes on it, because he momentarily pulled his focus away from Firework to look her way. His eyebrows shot up as a devilish smirk formed on his face.

Michelle's heart seized. Without sparing a single thought, she bolted out of the store, running along the wall furthest from Firework's desk until she burst out the front door. Seeing the convenience store on the other side of the hall made Michelle's muscles tense. Sara's still in the mall somewhere, she realized. She has to know. I need to tell her. Boney's here, and he's probably going to kill us.

Footsteps, barely audible in reality but banging out like grenades in Michelle's ears, sounded from behind her. That was Boney. That was Boney leaving the store, casually strolling out like he wouldn't need to exert the slightest bit of effort to take her down. The corners of Michelle's vision went white. She bolted down the hall, away from both One Size Fits All and the convenience store across from it. I can't look for Sara. I can't waste time looking for Sara. I can't risk him finding Sara. I can't defeat him. I can't I can't I can't...

Michelle's feet moved on their own, carrying her out of the mini mall, into the general lobby, then down the hall to the right of the receptionist's desk. Her tote bag banged against her leg with every step. Could she still hear Boney's footsteps after her? It was hard to tell over the sound of her heels slamming against the tile floor. Were those really her feet, or were they the spasms of her heartbeat? She couldn't tell. She couldn't hear anything over her panicked pants for breath. Everything around her felt like an unfocused blur as she ran through the entrance of a closed off dinner theater. She was vaguely aware of the multiple round tables spaced out below a small, elevated stage, but none of them registered in her head. Michelle just kept running.

Her feet slammed up a small flight of stairs, shoulders shoved their way through some curtains, and she just kept on running until she found another door to hide behind. This one had a lock—thank god. She clicked it shut, then hobbled over to the far corner of the room and hid behind a small curtain. Her knees gave out, and she collapsed to the floor with her eyes screwed shut and her hands pressed against her ears, as if the thoughts racing through her head were somehow coming from outside.

He's here to kill me.

Is this why Hol Horse brought us here?

Sara and the boys are doomed.

Did he know Dad too?

Is he a part of SEES?

He's here to kill me.

How did he survive getting shot in the head and falling out of a plane?

Is the Grand Marshal here too? Is that why he had a Masquerader mask with him?

How many other Masqueraders are here?

Was Firework in on it, or did I leave him to die?

He's here to kill me.

I'm going to die.
I'm going to die.
I'M GOING TO DIE.

"I don't want to die," Michelle whispered in a choked out sob, fighting the tears burning behind her eyelids. "I'm not ready to die. Not ready to face everyone...please, don't let me die..."

She couldn't hear the words spilling out of her mouth, even as she said them. Thoughts aside, her heart pounded too loudly in her ears. It looked like it was trying to break out of her skin, from the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she forced herself to breathe. The sweat stuck to her body made her feel both burning hot and freezing cold at the same time. Anxious shivers quaked from inside her, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. The light shining inside whatever room she'd hidden inside was too bright, even with her eyes squeezed as tightly shut as she could keep them.

Michelle wasn't sure how long she sat there, frightened and overwhelmed. Time stopped feeling real. It felt like it could've been anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to a few hours. Eventually, though, the world stopped spinning, and her senses calmed to the point where she could process the world around her again. Sniffling, she opened her eyes.

While she wasn't quite sure where in the resort it was or how she had gotten there, Michelle recognized the room she'd locked herself in as a dressing room. Mounted on the wall on the other side of the room was a row of mirrors, each one framed by a dozen or so lightbulbs. A small counter with bags of makeup dumped atop rested underneath the mirrors. Right next to her stood a rack of clothes, all kept in transparent garment bags. Were Michelle's mind not still clogged full of hyperactive thoughts, she would have blushed seeing the costumes hung inside them. Most of them didn't have anything to cover up the chest, though they were clearly meant to be worn by women.

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, Michelle realized that she almost certainly wasn't allowed in this part of the resort. This was a place for performers of whatever venue she'd taken sanctuary in to get ready, not for patrons to have panic attacks in. She could get in serious trouble if she got caught here.

But she couldn't bring herself to care. This was life and death. Whoever Boney was, whatever he was capable of, she knew he wasn't someone to be trifled with. After all, even if she could defeat him on her own, what good would that do when she'd already seen his dead body once before? If he could come back from that, he could definitely do it again.

Her body tensed up again as she heard the clatter clatter of footsteps coming from the other side of the door. Something was off, though. Firstly, Michelle could swear she heard two pairs of feet rather than just one? Could that be Firework with him, or maybe even the Grand Marshal? Both were a possibility, but the sound of the footsteps made it hard to believe. They sounded like the clopping of high heels, not the even thud of combat boots, sandals, or dress shoes. Unless Boney or his partner had found the time and reason to change into a pair of stilettos, that couldn't possibly be him.

She swallowed hard. Right?

Arms quivering, she pulled the curtain she sat behind closer to her, obscuring more of her body. As much as she wanted to make a break for it and bolt out the door, she knew she couldn't do that without getting spotted by whoever was about to enter the dressing room. The best thing to do for now was hide until she found an opportunity to leave.

Michelle heard a pair of voices bickering at each other as the clattering heels drew closer. Both feminine, unsurprisingly, and one talking much more than the other. Sadly, even from just hearing them from the other side of the wall, Michelle could tell that neither voice belonged to Sara. Their footsteps stopped at the door for a moment as the lock snicked open. The two women burst into the room right after.

"I still can not believe you lost it! That lipstick was sixty dollars and made out of pure Egyptian beeswax!" The first woman, the leader of the conversation, walked with a certain sway in her hips that beguiled her age, moving with the grace of a ballerina in her prime despite looking well over forty. Doubly impressive, considering her high heels that essentially forced her onto her tiptoes. She wore a plain, sleeveless black dress with a slit running up the thigh and yellow headscarf that did a woefully poor job at covering her frizzy purple perm. Her most defining feature, however, were her pair of giant buckteeth, prominent enough that Michelle could see them clear as day from behind the curtain. The woman marched up to the bags of makeup on the counter and started to dig through them.

"Wow, is that why it tasted so bad?" The second woman, who had apparently lost a sixty dollar stick of lipstick, ambled inside and plopped down onto a chair on the opposite end of the room, sitting open-legged. She looked to be in her early twenties and had the body of a supermodel, fit and long-legged, but a boyish face with thick eyebrows and short, spiky hair. Whereas the older woman had the body language of a dancer, the younger woman had the attire of one. She wore a sparkly leotard with the sides cut around her waist and sheer harem pants cut entirely around her upper thighs, staying attached to the leotard only by some metal rings. Veils made of the same material as her pants covered her chest and forearms. "Why do I need to wear lipstick, anyways? It's not like anyone's gonna get a good look at my face when I'm performing onstage."

"You're performing in the amphitheater today, so the audience will be a lot closer to you than they would be on a normal stage," the older woman explained. "That's not the point though! You're a dancer, Cascada. A performer. You have to wear makeup."

"Yeah, but why?"

The older woman threw her hands in the air and faced Cascada. "You just have to! Feel lucky that men these days like your tomboy look, because otherwise I'd have you wear even more than you already do."

"Mhm, because that's what I want. More men ogling me onstage."

"Oh, be quiet. You wouldn't be complaining if it was a bunch of women ogling you."

A smirk crept up on Cascada's face. "Well, you got me there," she admitted. "Seriously, though. I like dancing, but I was kind of expecting...more out of this SEES thing? With a name like 'Stand Extravagance Experience Society,' I got the vibe of travelling the world in fancy private jets with caviar and shit."

"That comes later." The woman pulled some blush out from the makeup bag and powdered Cascada's face as she continued talking. "Try to think of SEES like...an agency. The resort manages our contract work, so if someone's looking for a Stand with your particular skillset, then they'll give you a call. You just need to make a name for yourself in the agency first. And yes, for you, that means dancing. Feel lucky. They put me right into hitman duty when I was your age."

Cascada winced as her mentor pounded makeup onto her face and batted away her hands. Eventually, she rose from her chair and walked to the other side of the room, out of Michelle's view. "See, I'd almost rather have that," Cascada said. "At least you probably wouldn't make me wear pounds of makeup for it."

The older woman put her hands on her hips. "Makeup or otherwise, you should keep better track of the things I lend you. Especially when they're expensive!"

"Ugh, don't get your granny panties in a twist. I'm sure that lipstick is in here somewhere. I remembered to lock the door, didn't I? No one broke in and stole the weirdly expensive lipstick and nothing else."

Listening in on their conversation, Michelle's heart sank. The door hadn't been locked before; otherwise she would never would have been able to break into the dressing room in the first place. If the stick of lipstick was really as valuable as the older woman made it out to be, then it was possible that someone had indeed come in and stolen it. She clenched her jaw at the possibility of being trapped in the dressing room with the two of them for a long time.

"Here, maybe I left it behind the changing curtain," Cascada suggested.

Pins and needles pricked at Michelle's skin as she heard the gentle tapping of Cascada's bare feet approach the changing curtain. Eyes wide, she backed up as far as she could until her back hit the wall. There was no way they'd take too kindly to her presence there. What was she supposed to do? Make a run for the door now, while she still could? Maybe, but she didn't know for sure if the door was still unlocked, and she was just asking for trouble if it wasn't. Use Iron Maiden to lock the changing curtain in place? The thing was just on a rack, it wasn't an actual stall. Cascada could just walk around it. Besides, she didn't want to risk cursing them. The worst thing, however, would be to just sit and do nothing...

Cascada pulled back the curtain before Michelle could come up with a solid strategy on what to do. Michelle could tell the very instant she'd been spotted from the way Cascada jumped a place a bit in shock. Her mentor, on the other hand let out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a shriek.

"B-bonjour." Michelle put on the most welcoming smile she could muster and awkwardly waved at the two of them.

The older woman's shock quickly turned to anger as she stomped on over to the curtain. What looked like a metallic blob with a face rose from the ground next to her and quickly slunked up to her hands, morphing into a harpoon gun. It shone like the grim reaper's scythe as she pointed it at Michelle. "What are you doing here? This is for staff only!"

Cascada held her arms out and stepped between the two of them before Michelle had the time to process that she had a gun pointed at her. "Midler, would you calm your tits for two seconds? You can't just shoot someone wandering backstage. She looks scared out of her mind!"

"Well, of course she does. She got caught in a restricted area!" Michelle caught Midler shoot a glare down at her from over Cascada's shoulder. "Well, were you planning on hiding there to catch a peek of Cascada changing? Is that it?"

"N-no, it's nothing like that!" Michelle scrambled to her feet; pulling herself up by the clothes rack next to her and knocking off several hangers and costumes in the process. With her eyes still locked on the other two women, she backed up towards the door, blindly feeling around behind her until her hand found the brass of the doorknob. "I'm sorry for coming back here. I promise I won't bother you again."

Midler kept the harpoon aimed at her. "Give me a good reason why I shouldn't shoot you now and call security!"

Michelle went stiff just as she managed to unlock the door behind her. Harpoon aside, Midler was right—she had every reason to call security on her, a would-be Peeping Tom in a restricted changing room for a dinner theater that wasn't even open yet. That wouldn't change even if she ran out the door. What would security for this place even look like? More giant spiders? Midler was obviously a Stand user, and judging from their earlier conversation, Cascada almost certainly was one too. Iron Maiden could handle a measly harpoon gun on its own, but alongside whatever Cascada's Stand was? They didn't even need security, they could just as easily kick her out of the resort themselves. 

Her stomach tied into a knot. She was used to living on her own, sure, but not in the middle of a foreign country she'd never been to with nothing but a bathing suit, a tote bag, and some spare change in her boot. She had nothing. Even her counterfeit passport was away with her bags. Not to mention that outside the resort, Boney would probably have an even easier time tracking her down, and she couldn't run forever...

Michelle wasn't aware of the tears welled up in her eyes until she felt them run down her cheeks.

"There was...there was a strange man following me," she confessed. "M-my friend and I were shopping, I bought this bathing suit, and I got out of the changing room...and...h-he was there. In the store. I've seen him once before, but...but I thought he was dead! And he gave me this look, this horrible sneer, and I...I just...I ran, I think he was following me, and I knew I needed to hide somewhere..."

The lump growing in Michelle's throat blockaded the rest of the words trying to force their way out her mouth. Her hand fell from the doorknob and wiped away the tears rolling down her face. This was pathetic. She was pathetic. Every muscle in her body fought to stay composed, to stop crying, but her shot nerves refused to listen to her.

She willed her head up to at the very least maintain eye contact with the two women she was trapped with. Surprisingly, the shocked and angry looks on their faces had all but left. Both of them stared at each other with an unspoken understanding of concern. The harpoon gun had even vanished from Midler's hands.

"Oh, dear..." Midler spoke up as soon as her eyes flickered back to Michelle. "I'm so, terribly sorry for my behavior earlier, darling."

Wiping her nose with her arm, Michelle shrugged. "'salright..."

"Your bathing suit looks like something Firework would make," Cascada noted. "You bought this at One Size Fits All, right? That's where this man found you?"

Michelle nodded.

"What did he look like? Do you know his name?"

Just thinking about Boney made Michelle tense up. "H-he's tall, probably just shy of two meters...um, he's got green hair, shoulder length...a little goatee thing...I think his name is Boney, but I'm not sure."

"I'm going to call security." Midler grabbed a phone mounted on the wall and punched in some numbers. "The last thing we need is some pervert here stalking little girls."

An excited grin popped up on Cascada's face as she flitted over to Midler, putting a hand on the phone before she could finish dialing security. "Hey, how about instead of that, I find this creep and kick him out myself? What's a security guard gonna do to him that I can't?"

Michelle felt like someone had knocked the wind out of her. Not that. Anything but that. Someone needed to kick Boney out of the resort, not try to fight him. "Non, non! N’essaye pas de l’affronter! You can't defeat him!"

Cascada and Midler both stared back at her, brows raised and obviously confused. Michelle bit her lip. Just how much should she tell them about Boney? She barely knew anything concrete about him herself, just theories and hearsay. Spreading misinformation about him would only cause trouble later. Hell, she didn't even know for sure if he was a Stand user or not. She couldn't think of any other explanation for him surviving a fall from an airplane, but she didn't have any explanation for anything about Meatloaf, either. What if Boney was the same? 

Never mind a fall from an airplane, Boney had been shot in the head by a standard pistol. Compared to that, what good was Midler's harpoon gun? Whatever Cascada's Stand was, she assumed it couldn't take down Boney either if she hadn't been instantly placed into "hitman duty" (Michelle shuddered at the mere concept) for SEES. She couldn't let any of them fight a losing battle against him.

Setting her shoulders back, Michelle cleared her throat. "He's...he's stronger than he looks," she explained. "I'm sure you are too, but...please, I don't care if it's you or a security guard or whoever, try to get him out of the resort without attacking him. I...I thought I saw him die once. Bullet to the head and everything. If he could survive that, then fighting him would just make him angry."

"We'll see what we can do. Besides, she has a performance to get to," Midler shot Cascada a look, which Cascada rolled her eyes at. "Security will take care of it, don't worry. Chicago IX has the best in the world."

Michelle nodded. She could only hope that was the truth.

While Midler finished dialing security, Cascada opened up a drawer underneath the counter, pulled out a slightly squished granola bar, and held it out to Michelle. "Want this? I find that food usually helps calm me down when I'm feeling scared or nervous. It's chocolate chip flavored."

The expiration date on the wrapper instantly caught Michelle's attention: 11/22/2008. That granola bar was a half a year out of date. Michelle wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

"Suit yourself," Cascada said, opening the wrapper and taking a bite out of the bar. "What brings you to Chicago IX, anyways?"

"Just travelling with some friends. One of th..." Michelle paused, reluctant to include Hol Horse in with her group of friends, "...someone else we're travelling with knew about this place, so we decided to make a stop here."

"That's nice. How do you like it so far? I mean, aside from this pervert stalking you."

"It's...interesting."

Midler loudly clicked the phone back onto the wall before Michelle could elaborate on that. "Alright, that's taken care of. Security will make sure to kindly escort him out the building," she reassured. "In the meantime, Cascada, unless you can find the lipstick you lost in the next five minutes, we really ought to get going."

With a huff, Cascada set down the granola bar on the counter and began to dig through the drawer again. "Not like it would really matter either way, but, y'know..."

"And before we go," Midler continued, now addressing Michelle, "I'd like to look through your bag to make sure you didn't take anything while you were in here."

Cascada slammed the drawer shut, flashing Midler a look of disgust. "Dude!"

"I'm not saying I don't believe her, but I've met actresses much better than this before."

"It's alright, I have nothing to hide," Michelle stated as she picked up her bag from behind the curtain. "You can look through my bag as long as I watch you do it."

Midler chuckled. "Fair enough."

Michelle opted to hold out the tote bag rather than place it on the counter. That way, she could control the placement of the bag—Midler couldn't tilt it to the side and sneak in some tiny, malicious Stand to come out and attack her later. For as wary as Midler seemed of her being a thief, Michelle was just as wary that she wasn't somehow working with Boney, and that this whole conversation had just been some long con to stall for time while he and the Grand Marshal set up something else in the resort.

She kept a close eye on her as Midler stuck a hand into the bag and began to rummage through its contents. It didn't seem like she had any ill intentions, only patting down a dress here and pulling out a necklace there. She never stayed on one piece of clothing for too long and always put everything back where she found it. After a few moments, she sighed and withdrew her hand from the bag.

"Alright, doesn't look like you've stolen anything..." Midler's voice trailed off as her gaze shifted slightly the left, off of the tote bag and onto something else. Her eyes narrowed until she was almost squinting.

Following her line of sight, Michelle realized two things. First, that Midler was staring directly at her wrist. Her bracelet, more specifically. And second, that the locket's hinges had come loose, the cover hanging open and revealing her father's picture.

"Those are very unique bracelets you have on," Midler pointed out.

Michelle's eyes widened, alarms going off in her head. Did she just recognize Dad? She asked herself. That's not good. That is the opposite of good! Why would some random lady in the United States who was on "hitman duty" in the past know Dad? Michelle quickly snapped the bracelet shut. "Oui, merci."

"Hey!" Cascada's voice boomed out from behind them and pulled Midler out from her trance. She blinked a few times then turned over her shoulder at her protégé. Cascada waved around a stick of lipstick, black with a bright orange cap. "Found the lipstick. It was right where I said it would be."

"Oh, that's nice." Midler nodded at her a few times before turning back to Michelle. "Is that a locket, or—"

"I'm heading out. No need to stick around for any longer now that we've found this piece of crap, and kiddo here seems like she's doing much better now. Besides, I'm supposed to go on in ten minutes." Cascada pointed at an LED clock positioned above the mirrors. "Think we should call and tell 'em I'll be late, or...?"

Midler pried her eyes away from Michelle and stared back up at the clock, her eyes darting back and forth like she was reading something only she could see. Eventually, she sighed and shook her head. "No, no, of course not," she answered, then returned her attention back to Michelle. "Now, what did you say your name was again?"

"Genevieve," Michelle lied.

"Well, Genevieve...Cascada is about to perform at the Tiffany Amphitheater down on the beach. Why don't you come down with us? On behalf of the resort, I'll let you in for free as apology for that horrible man stalking you."

Michelle took a step back. Getting that offer now, right after Midler obviously recognized her father? She couldn't be more suspicious. "Th-thanks, but I really should try to find my friend first. I ditched her at the mall, I'm sure she's worried sick."

"I can give her free entrance too, if you'd like," Midler offered.

"Non, non, it's fine," Michelle reiterated, shaking her head. "Um...do you mind if I stay here for a little while longer? I...I need a little bit more time by myself."

"That's fine. You take as long as you need," Cascada answered. "Right, Midler?"

Midler crossed her arms and glared at Cascada.

"Right," she answered through gritted buck teeth. "Well, we'll be on our way then. Don't stay in here for too long."

Michelle nodded as the two of them walked past her and out the door. As the door shut behind them, Michelle felt all the tension leave her body in one fell swoop. She slumped back to the floor. Whatever energy she'd been using to stand up had completely dissolved from her body. She kept her head propped up against the door and took deep, slow breaths.

This was the second person on the trip so far that had recognized her father, as well as the second one to belong to SEES. An organization which, evidently, had some type of "hitman duty." That was no doubt where Hol Horse fell in their ranks, too. What did that mean? What was their connection? Why didn't anyone ever just come out and say that they knew her father like the man at the cemetery had?

More importantly...Boney. What the hell was she supposed to do about Boney? Getting thrown out by security would be little more than an inconvenience to a man like him, a red light in an empty intersection. He would inevitably spring back like he had never left at all. Would she have enough time to gather up everyone and tell them the situation before he did? What if he had gotten to Sara or the boys already?

She drew in another breath. Whatever the case may be, she was in no position to deal with it now. Her hands still hadn't quite stopped shaking. She needed a moment of calm to prepare herself before storming out to track down everyone else on Chicago IX's tourist-infested beaches.

~~~~~

The music from the opening act bled into the green room backstage as Cascada sat in her makeup chair with a puzzled look on her face. Two makeup artists poked and prodded at her with brushes and applicators, smearing on foundation and eyeliner and lipstick and everything in between. A hair stylist stood behind them and blew a hairdryer way too close to her skin, making it feel cracked and dry while pulling at her short hair.

Cascada usually hated being fussed over by this many people, but none of that bothered her. The only thing on her mind was that something was off about her mentor.

Under any other circumstance, Midler would've continued chastising her for making them late to a performance by almost losing something so expensive. Even if they had the lipstick from the start, Midler would've spent the time drilling her on the dance of the night. She'd stride around the room like she owned the place, bumping into the makeup artists and then acting like it was their fault for being in the way. Day or night, rain or shine, public or private, Midler always had that bombastic energy to her. Now, though, she sat in a chair at the other end of the cramped green room, staring off into space with a thoughtful expression.

Whatever had afflicted her had rubbed off on Cascada, too. This wasn't right. Something had been wrong ever since they left the dinner theater dressing room. Hell, something had been off even before then; Midler had barely even acknowledged her when she found the oh so important Egyptian beeswax lipstick.

Cascada spoke up as soon as all her stylists left the room. "Ok, seriously, what's going on with you? You're never this quiet, especially not before a performance. You're not still hung up about the guy that was stalking that little girl, are you?"

"That girl, that Genevieve...her bracelets were like lockets, and the picture in one of them looked so familiar, but I can't quite place my finger on where," Midler responded through gritted teeth, still not looking Cascada head on.

"I mean, that's not surprising," Cascada commented as she rose from the makeup chair, smoothing down her outfit. "It's not like a ton of people know about this place, and you've been working here with SEES forever. He's probably stayed or worked here before."

"No, it's not that." Midler shook her head. "I think...I think he used to work for Dio."

Cascada chuckled as she did some practice stretches. "Your crazy vampire ex-boyfriend that everyone won't shut up about?"

That got Midler to shoot Cascada a fierce glare. Good, at least it brought her back to reality. "He was more than a boyfriend or a lover! He was..." her voice trailed off, her expression softening with nostalgia, "everything."

"Mhm. Why's that bothering you?"

"Well, if I'm right about who I think I saw, he turned traitor and tried to kill him." Midler stood up and sped over to Cascada as she talked, adjusting her pupil's headband. "That girl, too...she looked like him, was French like him. I wouldn't be surprised if they were family. I just didn't get that close of a look at the picture to make sure if it was him, though, and I can't picture him ever coming to a place like this."

"So, say he is here. What are you gonna do if he is?"

"I...I don't know. I feel like I'd have a better idea if I knew for sure whether it was or wasn't him. Ugh, I regret not just dropping High Priestess in her bag and calling it a day."

"Why not just summon it now and have it bring the bracelet back for you? She's probably still in that dressing room."

"I just might, if it keeps bothering—"

"Wait, I know!" Cascada's face lit up with an idea as she spoke over Midler. "Instead of you sending out your Stand to get the bracelet, why don't I summon my Stand to do it?"

Midler folded her arms and met Cascada's eager, excited smile with a cold, hard stare of disapproval.

"No." She grabbed Cascada by the wrist and dragged her out the green room. "Now come on, your cue to go onstage will happen any minute now."

Rolling her eyes, Cascada yanked her wrist back. "C'mon, why not? What about all that talk about making a name for myself to SEES earlier? Multitasking with a Stand would be the perfect opportunity for that! I bet you anything that girl's a Lonely. She didn't sound like she knew what was going on with the guy stalking her, and from what I can tell, he's a Stand user. What's she gonna do against me? Besides," she smirked and put her hands on her hips, "think of all the praise you'll get when someone finds out that your SEES apprentice managed to use her Stands in two places at once."

That was the coup de grâce—Cascada could feel it from the way Midler's lips turned up in a slight grin for a split second. If there was anything that would sink through her tough exterior, it was the promise of praise from her superiors. Besides, Cascada was ready to send her Stand out no matter what her mentor told her, and she knew that Midler knew that. The only real question was whether or not it'd have a fight with High Priestess along the way. After a couple more seconds, Midler looked off to the side and sighed.

"Okay, fine." Midler just missed a triumphant fist pump from Cascada. The second her eyes returned to her pupil, she stood at full alert. "But if it distracts you from your performance, even a little bit, then call it off. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Okay," Midler strode out of the green room, her heels clicking against the hard floor backstage, "summon Moon River."

"With pleasure."

Pointing her toes, Cascada extended a leg out and traced a circle with her foot. A trail of water, shallow and a saturated blue, followed the movements of her leg, as if she'd formed a river floating in midair. Faint waves rippled upon its surface. Viscous bubbles rose from the water and floated around Cascada, dissolving after a few seconds.

Now standing with a ring of water around her, a creature—her Stand, Moon River—burst out from the water and stood at Cascada's side. It had the figure of a mermaid, with a humanoid form and a long, swishy tail. Gray and white scales covered most of its body, with midnight blue accents on its tail, chest, and elbows. Sickly yellow talons adorned its fingers. Atop its head drooping over its eyes was a tall headdress that resembled a beehive hairdo made entirely of sea shells.

Moon River made a graceful sweeping motion with its hands. The ring of water around Cascada's feet slowly expanded outwards, flowing behind Cascada in a set path as she stepped out of the circle. It flowed towards the makeup chair, hovering there for a while, then jetted all the way to the door at the other end of the green room. The faster the water streamed, the more intense the waves on its surface became. As soon as the thin trail of water managed to squeeze itself underneath the small gap between the bottom of the door and the floor, Moon River dove into the water. Those viscous bubbles splashed everywhere, but not so much as a drop of water speckled onto the floor. Moon River swam through the midair stream as the waves continued to push it forward.

It would reach the dinner theater dressing room in no time at all.

Chapter Text

After she had wrangled her shaky hands into calm submission, Michelle found a new opponent: the dressing room door. It felt like a proverbial dam, barricading her from everything out to get her inside the rest of the resort. Of course, it was still just a plain wooden door, anyone could kick it down whenever they wanted to, but it was still one extra layer of defense against whatever may come looking for her. Boney, the Grand Marshal, maybe even a masked Firework, the possibilities were endless. It was comforting, at least. Kind of like being back home at her apartment in Paris. Just her own little secluded part of reality.

But she knew she had to leave the room eventually. Otherwise, Boney would get the chance to come back and kill everyone else. She couldn't let that happen.

I can't leave this room without a plan, Michelle reasoned. The most important thing for me to do right now is find Sara and the boys, but I don't know where any of them are. Hell, I don't even really know where I am! How'd I end up in this backstage dressing room, anyways? She rolled her eyes and sighed. Damn her for not being more observant whilst running away from a seemingly immortal green-haired stalker.

She furrowed her brow and rested her hips against the dressing room counter, not quite sitting but not quite standing. I don't even have any way of contacting them since none of them have a cell phone. Seriously, you'd think that a chatterbox like Sara would have a phone in her hands at all times. But nope! I guess not. She rubbed her temples and sighed. Oh, well. They're probably not all in one place anyways. I could just start searching the resort top to bottom, but...

Boney's footsteps echoed in her mind, drowning out that idea before it could fully form. Michelle's fingers dug into the nylon of her bathing suit.

Nope. Nuh uh. Not happening. I definitely need a plan, she reassured herself. But who knows where they all are right now? This place is huge, so if they're not all together, then I'm in trouble. Sara's probably by herself right now, at least. Ugh, if only there was some way I could get them all to come to me instead. Where's one place that at least one of them would inevitably go to?

A lightbulb switched on in her head just as the thought crossed her mind. Of course, they were at a resort. Bells and whistles aside, Chicago IX was still just a fancy hotel. Hol Horse had probably checked them into their room by now (unless something had gone horribly wrong, which was entirely possible, but Michelle did her best to ignore that possibility), so she could just hide there and wait for everyone else to come to her. Even better, none of them had eaten yet, and Hol Horse's briefcase had been wheeled up to their room with all their luggage. Food at the resort probably wasn't free, so they'd all need to stop by their room at some point to get money to pay for a meal.

That is, if she could find a key to their room. And the room number. Sure, she could just go up to the front desk and ask, but the dressing room offered her a better option.

Michelle scooted towards the wall-mounted phone. A small, laminated sheet of paper was taped on the bottom of the phone's base, yellowed with age and with the text written on it slightly faded. Tentatively, Michelle ran a finger down the list of numbers written down. Fire department, security, Tiffany Amphitheater...

"Front desk!" Michelle triumphantly blurted out loud. She dialed the number, humming along to each beep the phone made with every button she pressed.

As she held the phone to her ear and propped herself up on the counter, the dressing room door slowly creaked open. It opened just a hair, barely wide enough for someone to stick their wrist through. Michelle, usually on high alert, failed to notice—she had her back turned to the door, and the subtle groan of its hinges were drowned out by the phone's loud ringing. A stream of water flowed into the room, ultramarine and floating about three feet off the ground. Small waves crashed along its surface, shooting up bubbles about the size of an eyeball from the water to hang in the air around it. With every wave, the stream moved, steadily slithering closer and closer to the still oblivious Michelle.

A weight lifted from her shoulders when Michelle heard a woman on the other end of the phone. "Hello, Chicago IX front desk. How can I help you?"

"Bonj—uh, I mean," Michelle cleared her throat, "hello. I'm travelling with a man named Hol Horse; we just checked in a little while ago and we've already lost our room key. He's too stubborn to admit it, but we need a new one. Can I stop by the front desk and pick one up?"

The stream of water seemed to notice Michelle's presence. The moment she shifted her head to get a better view of the room, the stream ducked below the counter to remain undetected. Now hovering a few inches off the floor, it slunk underneath Michelle's feet, nearly slicking the soles of her boots. For a second, it just stayed there, still as the night while Michelle lied through her teeth to the attendant at the front desk.

"Oh, of course! There is a small fine with losing your key, but that can just be charged to your bill at checkout," the woman at the front desk explained. "I'll prepare a new key for you. Could you please tell me what your room number is?"

Michelle tensed, feeling her skin turn cold for a second. Room number? She didn't know their room number, that's why she was calling the front desk in the first place! Wasn't Hol Horse's name good enough for her? Unless, of course, Hol Horse had checked in using a different name, a fake name...or maybe Hol Horse was his fake name, and he had checked in with his real one...

The once gentle waves on the stream became taller and faster. Stormy waters propelled it forward, bending at a 90° as it rushed higher off the ground and emerged from underneath the counter like an upside-down waterfall. It skirted around Michelle's peripheral vision, just barely missing her legs as it ascended higher—some stray bubbles ghosted the top of her thighs, speckling onto the hem of her bathing suit.

Suddenly, Michelle felt the light dribble of water against her skin, not unlike the first drops of rain. She jumped a bit and stared at the ceiling. Maybe there was a leak? She didn't see anything that would suggest that though; no holes, no discoloration, nothing. Michelle sighed and ran her fingers through her ponytail. Her anxiety must have gotten the better of her. How the hell was she supposed to get to the front desk to give her a room key without having Hol Horse there with her?

"Uh...I don't remember off the top of my head," Michelle stammered out. "The room should be for a man named Hol Horse. He's a SEES member, if that helps. Can you check what the room number is for me?"

"I'm sorry, I can't do that without his consent. Can you please put him on the line?"

The stream of water had hidden behind Michelle, gently floating out of her field of view as a liquid ribbon. Once she started talking again, it snaked up her back, tracing the curvature of her spine a safe distance away from her skin. The stream's rolling waves stopped entirely once it became level with Michelle's shoulder blades, leaving it to hang in the air behind her. Free of any rising tides or messy ripples, the water turned still and glassy. The glossy charm of Michelle's bracelet reflected in the stream every time she brought her wrist up to the top of her ponytail.

"He's in the bathroom right now," she lied.

"Well, could you please call back when he gets out? Or, you could just bring him directly here, and we can get your keys sorted out for you," the woman suggested.

Michelle pursed her lips. This woman certainly isn't making things easy, she thought. She itched the space underneath her ears and tried to think. "Did he give a list of names of people he's travelling with? He could have already signed a form or something to give me...uh...room rights. You guys have room rights, right?"

"Room rights? I've never heard of that."

"Oh, well," Michelle dismissively flicked her wrist, "it's just some legal thing. Most hotels these days have them."

She prayed it wasn't instantly obvious that she had stayed in her first hotel around a week ago. They're gonna sue me for this, Michelle dreaded.

"Yeah, right...let me check on that for you."

Behind Michelle, a hand emerged from the stream. Water drizzled down its long, graceful fingers and overgrown yellow talons, droplets joining the sweat rolling down Michelle's shoulders. The hand reached out, squeezing its way into the narrow space between Michelle's neck and ponytail, currently draped over her shoulder. The talon on its thumb strayed dangerous close to scratching her skin, inching steadily towards the curve of her neck. Just before the razorlike nails could stab into her, it stopped itself, hand balling up into a fist. Its elbow stuck out from the water as it continued to worm its way out from behind Michelle's hair. Now past her neck, its fingers unfurled and swished in the air. The talons pointed themselves at Michelle's right wrist as it rested beneath her jawline.

In a sudden burst of speed, the hand rushed forward and grabbed the charm of Michelle's bracelet.

Michelle felt something on her wrist.

She yanked her hand down and slammed it against the counter, dropping the phone in shock and leaving it to dangle by its cord. That sensation—dull and light enough to bruise—had undeniably been someone, something touching her wrist. Her heart stopped for a moment. Something was in the room with her. But who? And how? There couldn't have been anyone else in the dressing room...right?

A new sensation tickled her wrist before Michelle could get a better view of her surroundings. Her bracelet suddenly felt unusually damp and slippery as it strangely itched her skin, not unlike the feeling of having a stray hair unexpectedly slide down her back. That sensation undulated against her wrist over and over again in a consistent, rhythmic pattern. Goosebumps prickled on her body as she rose her arm.

Her eyes bulged. A thin layer of liquid had enveloped the bracelet, highlighting it in a saturated blue hue. Hundreds of tiny waves gently sloshed about on its surface. They were just barely perceptible—Michelle noticed them more from the watery way the light rippled on the bracelet's charm than by directly seeing them. Their tempo matched the strange tingles on her wrist. She could even hear the faint sound of the ocean coming from them.

Michelle shot to her feet. Obviously, this had to be the work of some kind of Stand, further cementing the idea in her mind that someone had been in the room with her. Her first instinct was to say that this was Boney's Stand, as he had been actively following her earlier. She hadn't actually seen his Stand in action yet, either. Chills ran down her spine at the thought. But something about that didn't quite sit right with her, either. Boney's Stand had seemingly revived him from the dead. What did that have to do with water?

Maybe it's a Masquerader he sent after me, she thought. He got kicked out of the resort, so he sent someone else out there to do his bidding! She chewed at her lip and pinched her brows together. Shit, now what? I don't want to destroy this bracelet, but...

Something else crossed her mind. Michelle's expression softened.

This liquid isn't hurting me either, she realized. In that case, why should she destroy the bracelet, or even remove it? If it really was out to attack her, it absolutely would have done so by now. Maybe it'd boil her skin off like Bad Sneakers or freeze her blood like Fall Out Boy. But it hadn't. She had been completely oblivious to the presence of a Stand in the room with her for god knew how long, and she was still completely unscathed. Michelle doubted that someone like Boney would be so merciful.

If that were the case, then whose Stand had caused this?

This isn't the work of some random Masquerader Boney sent out after me, otherwise I'd already be dead by now, she pondered. The only Stand users I've met at Chicago IX so far are Firework, Midler, and Cascada. Puttin' on the Ritz isn't anything like this, and from what I saw of Midler's Stand, it doesn't seem like it's hers, either. That thing turned into a harpoon gun, not a bubble of water. Meaning that this has to be Cascada's Stand. Her brows furrowed into a determined frown as she made up her mind. Midler recognized Dad's picture in the bracelet, but why—

Her racing thoughts were deafened as the liquid on the bracelet burbled louder and louder. She didn't hear a calm, serene beach anymore, she heard a rumbling typhoon. Her look of determination melted as she anxiously eyed the bracelet. The waves had grown considerably, now about the size of a fingernail, running towards Michelle's hand and breaking along the curve of the bracelet's charm. Each wave pushed the bracelet further down Michelle's arm, wetting her skin. It slid all the way past her wrist, along her hand, and finally past her fingers until it was left floating in midair.

Dumbfounded, Michelle blinked. Her bracelet was now floating in front of her like a balloon.

The waves continued to push it away from her, slowly carrying it towards the changing curtain on the other side of the room. Michelle took a step forward and tried to grab it, but stopped just before her fingers came in contact with the charm's aqueous surface. Now that the liquid was "active," who was to say if it was safe to touch? She lowered her hand and continued to creep closer to the bracelet. Despite the storminess of the waves urging it to move forward, the bracelet seemed stuck in place, forced to dance in front of the changing curtain.

I should grab it, Michelle thought. Who cares if I get hurt? I'll heal. Rumor can heal me. That's my locket. This bracelet's got Dad in it! I can't just let it float away and—

As if on cue, the bracelet then rushed out the door.

"Hey! Wait!" Michelle called out, despite knowing damn well the bracelet couldn't hear her. She bolted out after it, picking up her tote bag along the way.

The heels of her boots clattered against the hardwood floor as she slammed the door behind her. Dust kicked up underneath her feet as she ran through the backstage corridor. Small, sporadically spaced pockets of light from low hanging bulbs lit up the bracelet as it fled from her—otherwise, they were both moving in complete darkness. Michelle occasionally shoulder bashed against the side of the velvet curtain to her right, but she wasn't focused on finding her center.

I get it now, she thought, panting as she followed the bracelet around a corner into a fancy dining area, nearly tripping on her own feet down a flight of stairs along the way. That water isn't there to attack me or even damage the bracelet. Cascada is stealing the bracelet for Midler! She recognized Dad, that much I know. Why else would she only steal the bracelet with his picture in it and not both of them at once? But what does she want with Dad's picture? Report the presence of his daughter? Use it as blackmail? The sky's the limit with what another Stand user here could do with a picture of Dad.

She curled her lip and picked up the pace. Whatever she wants it for, I won't let her have it. That's the last good thing I have left of him.

The bracelet snaked its way around the many round dining tables scattered across the floor, heading towards the exit. Despite the fact that it was already floating a good half a meter above the tables, it never tried to float over them; opting to take the long way around instead.

Both Michelle and the bracelet fast approached a table near the exit of the dining area. As the bracelet circled around the table, Michelle jumped as high as her legs could push her off the ground and landed on top of it. Her knees slammed into the hard surface, not at all cushioned by the silk tablecloth. Just as the bracelet finished curving around the table, Michelle shot out her arm and grabbed onto it.

She let out a short, tittering laugh and held onto the bracelet even tighter, hearing the liquid squelch in her grip. Crisis averted. Her whole body relaxed, save the iron grip she kept on the bracelet. Now I just need to find everyone else, she thought. Hopefully Hol Horse will know what to—

All of a sudden, Michelle tensed as the bracelet continued to push forward, dragging her (and the tablecloth) along with it. Her eyes widened just in time for her to fall to the floor flat on her stomach, knocking the air out of her lungs. She bit her tongue as her chin knocked against the floor. Her tote bag landed next to her with a small thunk. Wincing, she stood up and instinctively dusted herself off, looking herself down to make sure she hadn't gotten any bruises.

Her skin flashed cold when she saw her open palms. Shit, I dropped it!

She shot her head up just in time to see the bracelet exit the dining area, turning behind the door. A small trail of water droplets marked the path it had taken.

"Hey! Wait up!" Michelle called out. She threw her tote bag over her shoulder and sprinted forward, feeling the floor beneath her stomping feet shift from firm wood to plush carpet to hard tile as she left the dining area and arrived in a long corridor. The walls around her were beige with rectangular gold trimming; the same color as the walls in Chicago IX's lobby. A few yards ahead of Michelle, the bracelet floated at a fast and steady pace. With a frustrated grunt, she picked up the pace and ran even faster.

Michelle reached the end of the hallway only a couple of seconds after the bracelet did, following it as it turned to the right. She recognized where she was now the moment she turned the corner—the lobby. The door to the parking area was to her left, the hallway to the mini mall was right in front of her, and the sliding glass doors to the beach were to her right. Michelle's jaw clenched as she darted past the front desk, noticing the woman she'd likely been talking to earlier sitting behind the counter, still on the phone. Embarrassed as she was, she didn't pay it much mind. Her razor sharp gaze stayed locked on the bracelet.

It turned to the right, heading towards the beach. Michelle snorted as the bracelet chased the yells and cheers of obnoxious, Stand using tourists on the other side of the door.

No, wait. This is actually a good thing! she realized. Unless the bracelet changes course again, it should end up getting stuck ramming into the door. It shouldn't open automatically, since the bracelet isn't touching the floor. Then I'll be able to grab it! Now, if I can just think of a way to get the water off of the bracelet...

Just as she predicted, the bracelet clanged against the door, sounding like someone had thrown a rock against a window. The waves on the bracelet surged higher, splashing against the glass in a fruitless attempt to push through it. Michelle grinned. This time, she'd be able to grab it and...and then what?

Use Iron Maiden to try to free it from the Stand's influence?

She gave a fleeting glance to the woman at the front desk. No. Bad idea. The resort doesn't need any more bad luck with Boney here already.

Michelle's manic run slowed into a deliberate stride, inching towards the bracelet in slow, even steps. Her eyes flicked between her target and the entrance mat in front of the door—she didn't want to open it by accident. She crept closer, closer, until she was three meters away from the bracelet...two meters...one meter...

Just as Michelle reached out her hand, the glass doors suddenly swung open and a couple in swimsuits rushed through the lobby and to the elevators behind her. The bracelet charged out the door, leaving Michelle to grab the air.

For a second, Michelle just stared at her empty palm, deadpan except for her bulging eyes. She cranked her neck to the side, shooting a glare at the couple as they stepped into the elevator. Bastards, she thought. Bet they're in on it too. Who knows, maybe Cascada's got this whole damn resort out to get me!

She shook her head at the thought. As far as she knew, the only people after the bracelet were Cascada and Midler. She had no reason to believe that anyone else was involved. Michelle set her jaw and followed the bracelet to the beach.

Somehow, the beach was even prettier up close than it had been from afar, gazing at it from out the window of their car. The sand beneath her feet was more of a creamy white than a sandy yellow, so fine that she almost would've believed it was snow instead. A light breeze blew through the air and tickled her cheeks. The water stretched out forever into the horizon and perfectly reflected the afternoon sun. Michelle was more of a garden person than a beach person, but she could easily see herself getting used to a place like this.

If it weren't for all the people clogging up the view, anyways. Most of them were tourists, either resting on shade lounges or playing around in the sand. Surprisingly, not many people were actually swimming in the water. Chicago IX employees, all wearing the same purple uniform with a Random Access Memory sticking out of the front pocket, filtered throughout the traffic of bodies.

As much as Michelle wanted to find a quiet place and soak in the view, getting the bracelet back took priority. She spotted it zoom past an unsuspecting tourist, nearly slashing off her ear in the process. Michelle locked her sights on it and charged forward. The sand beneath her feet was soft and uneven, making it difficult to get proper footing to run in, especially in her heeled boots. As she slugged forward, every step felt like the ground might give out beneath her and leave her flat on her stomach. The bracelet kept on going straight, nearing the ocean (that's what it looked like to Michelle, despite the fact that she was fairly certain they were in a landlocked state). Michelle felt her heart sink. What if the bracelet was headed towards the ocean, trying to drown the bracelet somewhere Michelle couldn't see or reach?

Before those thoughts could linger, they were instantly resolved as the bracelet turned to the left, nearly smacking some tourist in the face along the way. He gingerly rubbed his cheek, eyeing the strange bracelet as it floated away from him. Michelle pushed her way past him just as he got his bearings.

"Sorry," she mumbled as she trudged towards the bracelet. Strangely enough, all the tourists and everything going on around them on the beach had proven to benefit Michelle rather than hinder her. The bracelet seemed to only be able to travel in a set path, even if that meant it would run into something along the way. It slowed down just the slightest bit with every person and beach ball it collided with, wasting precious seconds as the obstacle in its path moved out of the way. Before long, Michelle had gotten within grabbing distance of the bracelet.

Except this time, she wasn't going to grab it.

Michelle dashed forward in a half-sprint, half-tumble to get ahead of the bracelet. She held her tote bag out in the bracelet's path, positioning it sideways until the bracelet flew right into it. The second went inside, Michelle tied the handles of the bag together into a bow, trapping the bracelet inside.

Michelle lowered the bag and smiled. Success!

It's not going anywhere with all my clothes blocking the way. Can't move forward if there's nowhere to move to, she reasoned. Now I just need to find everyone else and see if they know a way to get the water off the bracelet. Maybe Rumor can—

Her tote bag suddenly yanked itself upwards, pulling on her arm and nearly knocking her over. Her whole body lurched as the bracelet snug inside the tote bag carried her forward, feet clumsily plodding along the exact path it wanted her to go in.

"Non non non non. You stay right there," Michelle shouted at the bracelet. She dug her heels into the ground, hopelessly kicking at the sand as it parted around her feet like the wake behind a boat. Gritting her teeth, she pulled back on the tote bag as hard as she could to no avail—it felt like the bracelet was magnetized forward. Michelle felt her cheeks turn bright red as she noticed the baffled stares the other patrons on the beach flashed her way. Looking around for something, anything to hold onto, she gave the tote bag one final tug.

Michelle felt like she could die of shame and frustration when she heard the bottom of the tote bag split open with a loud RIIIIIIIIIIP!

Her clothes and necklace came spilling out as the bracelet rushed forward, faster than ever before. Anxious shivers wracked over Michelle's body. The bracelet continued to fly further away, but she couldn't bring herself to run after it. Not with her clothes sprawled out on the sand. Her gaze flitted between the two. What was she supposed to do, just leave them there? But the bracelet...she needed to go after the bracelet...but that wouldn't do her any good if she was distracted by the thought of her clothes being stolen by some tourist...

Unleashing a breath she didn't realize she was holding in, Michelle fell to her knees and started to scoop her clothes back into her ruined bag. After all, it should just take a second, right?

"Chelly! Hi!" A familiar voice called out to her, not terribly far away.

Michelle looked up to see Sara speed-walking towards her, wearing a bright yellow bikini. None of the boys seemed to be with her, meaning that either Sara hadn't caught up with them yet either or she had wandered off without them. Knowing her, either could've been the case. Michelle continued to fretfully eye the bracelet as it became harder to harder to see, piling her clothes into the tote bag as Sara stooped in front of her.

"I thought I heard some kind of commotion going on out here, and here you are!" Sara's usual chipper tone made it clear that she was completely oblivious to Boney being at the resort. Michelle couldn't decide if that was a good thing or bad thing. "Nothing too bad though, right? Just another quirky Chicago IX Stand?"

I need to tell her about Boney, Michelle thought. He was a threat to all of them, he should be the priority here. But she just couldn't bring herself to say it. Telling Sara about it now would just waste too much time. She could tell her after she got the bracelet back.

There's something wrong with me, Michelle realized. Someone's here to kill us, and here I am worrying over a bracelet.

Except it wasn't just a bracelet. That was her father in there, and she wasn't about to just let him go.

"Oh, need help with that?" Michelle was vaguely aware of Sara fiddling with something in her hands above her but didn't pay attention to what. "Here, allow me!"

Just as Michelle was about to finish stowing her clothes inside the ruined tote bag, a neon green light shone from above her and encompassed her lap. She backed away and jumped to her feet, leaving her clothes and the tote bag in the sand. Just as Michelle regained her footing, they (alongside a large chunk of sand) turned into holographic code of zeros and ones before disappearing altogether.

Michelle looked back at Sara to see her holding a Random Access Memory. Strangely, its USB tail had been cut in half, with frayed wires sticking out the end of it.

"Before you ask, no, I didn't steal it," Sara continued, swinging the Random Access Memory around on her finger by its tail. "I found it in the sand near the tiki bar back there. Dunno what happened to its tail, though. So, Chelly, where'd you go after—"

Seeing the Stand gave Michelle an idea. I can use that Random Access Memory to absorb the bracelet into cyberspace, she realized. Before she could think twice and get cold feet, she snatched the Random Access Memory from Sara's hand and bolted after the bracelet before it could slink any further away from her.

"Hey, wait!" Sara called out as she ran after her. She was obviously in better shape of the two of them; it took her no time to catch up. "Why are we running? What's going on? What ripped open your bag just now?"

"Have. You. Found. The. Boys. Yet?" Michelle's words came out between her labored breaths, eyes still locked on the bracelet as it trailed in and out of view.

"Oh, uh, yeah. I actually went to them because I couldn't find you back at the mall. Why, do you—"

"Get. Them." Michelle became more and more winded with every word. "Stay. Together."

Before she could get any farther, Michelle felt figurative pins and needles on her wrist as Sara grabbed her, anchoring her in place. Michelle whipped her head back to see Sara look back at her, not smiling, but concerned.

"Michelle, what's going on? Are you in trouble? Are you hurt? What are you running from right now?"

Despite Sara's best attempts to help, Michelle could barely hear her. A squealy ring blared in her ears, growing louder each second. It was hard to say what caused it; the cacophony of noisy tourists around her, the bruising feel of Sara's hand wrapped around her wrist, the stress of the bracelet and Boney and Midler recognizing her father and everything else in between.

One thing was certain: all of it was just too damn much. It hadn't been long since she had been sobbing in a dressing room, feeling the grim reaper's boney finger slide down her spine. Now, she felt like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She needed to focus on one thing at a time, not let all of it come crashing down on her all at once.

"I don't have time for this!" Michelle yelled, yanking her hand free from Sara's grasp. With her clothes tucked under one arm and the Random Access Memory held in the opposite hand, she turned back around and kept running, following the path she thought she saw the bracelet take. Somewhere far away she swore she heard Sara call out after her. Michelle paid it no mind. She couldn't afford to dawdle.

Frantically, she scanned the area to find the bracelet somewhere in the sea of bodies. She checked her right, towards the beach. Nothing there but cabanas and the ocean. She checked her left, back towards the hotel. Nothing there but a solid wall lined with beachfront patios. A steady stream of tourists parted around her both ways. She looked directly in front of her. Nothing there but a closed tiki bar. Sweat rolled down Michelle's forehead. Even though she was surrounded by other people, she knew she couldn't have missed the bracelet among them—small as it was, no one could overlook a floating bracelet covered in a deep blue liquid.

Breathing heavily, Michelle staggered backwards. "I lost it," she whispered. "I lost the bracelet."

It could be anywhere by now, in anyone's possession. What was she supposed to do now? Was it already too late? No, I can't give up yet, she told herself. I have a plan. I have Random Access Memories with me. I just need to find it. There must be a way to search the entire beach at once, right?

She eyed the roof of the tiki bar ahead of her. I bet I could see over everyone from up there, she thought.

Michelle bit her lip. Even though it hung low, the tiki bar's roof stuck out too far for her to jump onto from the countertop. The roof itself was made entirely out of bamboo reeds, dangling down like a hula skirt. Theoretically, she could use them as makeshift ropes to climb up on, but she didn't trust their integrity enough to do so. For a split second, she considered having Iron Maiden stop one of the barstools in midair to create a makeshift bridge; but immediately discarded the thought. Using Iron Maiden in a place like this was entirely out of the question.

Luckily, I have another Stand with me, Michelle realized, rolling the Random Access Memory around in her hand.

She darted over to the tiki bar and hopped over the countertop, landing on the bar's stone floor. Instantly, she aimed the Random Access Memory at the ceiling, right above the counter, and left clicked. A green light burst out of the Stand's scanner, engulfing a small chunk of the ceiling. She adjusted slightly, one eye closed as she inched to the left, careful not to scan any of the building's foundation. The dead bamboo reeds caught in the Stand's light peeled away into mere strings of code, and when Michelle released the button, vanished entirely. A square hole had formed in the ceiling, more than large enough for her to climb through.

Even though she felt a little guilty, vandalizing public property for her own gain, the resort probably had thousands of dollars to spend on repairs and they likely had some Stand user there that could do it for free anyways. She hopped onto the countertop and jumped through the hole onto the roof. Staying on all fours and making sure to stay aligned with a support beam, Michelle surveyed the beach. 

Not a second later, she found it.

There was no denying it. That strange, flying blue object was definitely her bracelet. Now she realized why she hadn't been able to see it earlier; it had gone well past the tiki bar and was currently floating down a steep, cement stairway that led off the beach. What exactly laid at the bottom of the stairs was anyone's guess. A staff only area, perhaps? She certainly hoped not—there was no way she could blend in as a Chicago IX employee, and security could probably eat her for lunch.

No sense in wasting more time thinking about it, though. Michelle scurried to her feet and jumped off the roof. She landed on her side in the sand, but before the sting of the impact could travel through her arm, twisted herself into a somersault and ended up right on her feet. With a newfound destination right ahead of her, Michelle dashed forward. As she got closer to the stairs, she heard the beat of a drum, pounding in a quick and jazzy tempo; the low, full notes of a flute-like instrument Michelle did not recognize, and the cheers of an audience. Music wasn't just playing from down the stairs, there was a live concert going on.

Whatever and whoever was performing down there was none of her concern. All that mattered was getting that bracelet back. She just prayed that she wouldn't have to go onstage for it. Anything but that. The thought of barging in on a live performance completely unprompted, interrupting a hardworking, talented musician as a bunch of onlookers stared at her, only to be yanked away by security...Michelle could think of few experiences she'd rather endure.

If there was a ticket taker or guard blocking the stairs, Michelle ran right past them. The stairs led directly to an amphitheater, with rows of cushioned seats elevated in a circle around the main stage. Stampeding down the stairs to the beat of the drum, Michelle kept her eyes locked on the bracelet as it weaved through the audience. It didn't take long for Michelle to realize that most of the audience members were men, the majority in their thirties with a small but notable chunk being well into their sixties. Some were clad in formal business attire, others wore swim trunks with their hair still wet from the ocean. All of them whooped and cheered towards the stage.

A lot of pieces suddenly clicked together in Michelle's mind when she noticed both who they were cheering at and the glittery sign above her reading TIFFANY AMPHITHEATER.

Cascada danced onstage, with only a small platform separating the two of them. Her features were illuminated by the spotlight shining down on her. A small band played to the side of the stage, but the audience had their eyes distinctly set on her. She occasionally winked to no one in particular in the audience, maintaining a rosy smile on her face. Her style of dance was unlike anything Michelle had ever seen—her arms and legs flowed with the practiced grace of a ballerina, beautifully sweeping and twirling around the stage, while her hips swayed with the distinct bravado of a belly dancer to the exceptionally fast beat of the drum.

More impressive than all that, though, were the small trails of water that followed her hands and feet with every move she made, not unlike a ribbon dancer with a baton. Much of her dancing seemed to revolve around drawing shapes in the air with the water, be it curling rings or a two-handed heart. A liquid halo hovered around her hips, spinning on beat with the music. Small bubbles, more like watery orbs than anything else, rose from the liquid ribbons, basking in the glow of the spotlight. Though brightened by the stage lighting, all of the liquid took on a familiar blue hue.

I get it now, Michelle realized. Those ribbons of water are following Cascada's past movements. That's how she's able to make those shapes. She traces them out with her hands and feet, then the water follows the path. That explains why the bracelet never flew over the tables in the dining area earlier; this whole time, it was following the path that Cascada took to get back here! She must have somehow stuck her Stand onto my bracelet after she left without me noticing. So if it's following Cascada's movements, then that must mean...

She felt her heart sink as she noticed the bracelet sink behind a guard standing in front of a door in the far corner of the amphitheater. Just above the man's head, Michelle made out the text CHICAGO IX STAFF ONLY labeled on the door.

Part of Michelle wanted to give up, throw in the towel and let Cascada and Midler claim her bracelet. After all, there was no way she could sneak backstage undetected, especially not with a guard standing right in front of the door, and she didn't have the time to create some kind of disturbance to make the guard leave. But she hadn't run halfway across the resort for nothing. She ran all the way down the stairs and turned towards the backstage entrance. All she needed was a way to get past the guard, a distraction, brute force, anything...

The guard set his shoulders back as he noticed Michelle approach him. "Sorry little lady, but this is a restricted—"

Michelle felt her muscles turn taut upon hearing his voice, but drive and instinct carried her forward. Sweat rolled down her forehead as she closed the gap between them. Her skin felt like it was buzzing. What was she supposed to do now?

I need to get him to stand down, she told herself. I need to get him to stand down. I need to get him to stand down. I need to get him to...

The instant Michelle stopped in front of the guard, Iron Maiden's shielded arm popped out from her shoulder and bashed into the guard's chin. Michelle faintly heard the cracking of bone under the deep, reverberating GONG! that rang out on impact, coincidentally perfectly timed to the music playing onstage. The guard slammed into the door behind him, knocking it open as he crashed to the floor. He stayed flat on the floor with blood dribbling out his nose and agape mouth.

Michelle gasped, instantly withdrawing her Stand and clasping her hands over her mouth. "Je suis vraiment désolé!" she lowered her hands to squeak out. Gingerly, she took one step forward, slightly bending at the waist to inspect his body. His eyes had rolled back into his skull. Michelle turned white as a ghost.

Did...did I just kill him? Is he dead? She doubtfully prodded the side of his head with her boot. It limply lolled over to the side. Before she could panic anymore, though, the guard's fingers twitch beneath her. Whether or not she feared that he would try to grab her by the ankle or was comforted by the notion that he was still alive, Michelle sprang back to life and darted backstage.

Just like the dark corridor behind the dinner theater from earlier, Tiffany Amphitheater's backstage area didn't have much in the way of proper lighting. Only the natural light bleeding in from outside guided Michelle forward. It also made her acutely aware of the entrance to the main stage, just to her left. Michelle gulped as she sped past it, further into darkness. She stepped into some rubbery wires taped to the floor along the way.

Luckily, her bracelet had turned the opposite corner and headed towards what looked like a green room; in the darkness, Michelle could faintly make out the outline of mirrors and makeup chairs past the open door in front of her. The waves crashing on the surface of the bracelet grew smaller the closer it got to the green room, slowing it down considerably. Michelle took a deep breath. This was it. No one was there to get in the way. She readied the Random Access Memory in her hand and aimed it at the bracelet.

If this doesn't work, I don't know what will, she thought.

Her heartbeat drummed in her ears as her finger hovered over the button. She was nervous, frightfully so, like the Random Access Memory might stop working or spit out some kind of security measure or something if she activated it. Still, she remained steadfast; standing up straight and composed with her eyes focused on the bracelet.

The moment she pressed down and activated the Random Access Memory, a human hand popped out from behind the green room door, blocking the green light that burst from the Stand's scanner. Michelle lowered her hand and ran forward.

"Stop!" She ordered. "Don't touch that, that's—"

Michelle fell silent when she found herself standing right in front of the piercing glare of Midler.

The bracelet continued to move forward, headed towards one of the makeup chairs. Midler followed it, keeping her eyes locked on Michelle. Michelle glared back and did the same. The clopping of both of their heels were in perfect sync.

"My, now isn't this a surprise," Midler commented. "I don't know how you got back here or how you got your hands on one of those," she gestured towards the Random Access Memory still in Michelle's hand, "but consider me impressed. I didn't think you had it in you to make it this far."

"Is this all just a game to you, then?"

"A game? Oh, no. Not quite. I would've sent out my Stand if it was," Midler commented. "Good thinking on snagging a Random Access Memory, by the way. If you were a little quicker, or maybe more decisive, that might have worked. Unfortunately for you..."

Suddenly, Michelle felt something slither up her leg, warm and thin. She jumped back, standing on her tiptoes and leaning away from where she had felt the sensation. One of the wires stuck to the floor had risen up and snaked up her leg, reaching her thigh before shooting up and lassoing around the Random Access Memory in her hand. Michelle held onto it as tightly as she could, but it wasn't enough—with one firm tug, the wire yanked it from her hand.

Then, the wire disentangled itself from the floor and melted into a familiar metallic blob, reforming as a small creature with a pale face reminiscent of a shaman mask, muscular arms with green claws, and wild brown fur that looked like a geisha's hair had been electrocuted. Strangely, it lacked any teeth. It configured itself perfectly around the Random Access Memory, holding it in its hands and delivering it to Midler.

"...I'm still one step ahead of you," Midler finished, flashing an overly toothy grin. "Didn't you know? My Stand, High Priestess, can transform into any inorganic object. Feel lucky I set it up in the wires instead of the floor itself." High Priestess dropped the Random Access Memory in Midler's hand, then desummoned. "Now, where was I..."

Michelle panicked as Midler sauntered over to the bracelet. What was she supposed to do now? Run up and tackle Midler herself? Right, then she'd just get impaled with a harpoon. Report Midler and Cascada to security? They wouldn't believe her over them, two established SEES members. Besides, by then Midler would've probably retreated somewhere else in the resort with the bracelet. Michelle couldn't let that happen.

Use Iron Maiden?

She swallowed hard, feeling her Stand buzz on her fingers. At this point, she had nothing else left at her disposal; her tote bag couldn't stop the bracelet, she'd lost her Random Access Memory, and she no longer had Sara with her to provide backup. She was out of time and options. Midler was just a few footsteps away from the bracelet.

In all this time, this whole chase, Michelle never found out what exactly Midler planned on doing with the bracelet, why Cascada had gone out of her way to steal it in the middle of a show. Asking her wouldn't do any good, because Midler could always just lie or not give her the time of day. She would do the same, if she was in Midler's comically tall stilettoes.

Michelle set her shoulders back. That was her bracelet, her father. It'd been strapped to her wrist for the better half of a decade. Like hell she was just going to sit back and let some mystery woman take it.

It was time to take the initiative herself.

She blitzed forward. Midler flinched as she ran past her, bending her arm back in surprise. Iron Maiden's full form summoned at Michelle's side and smacked its fingers against the bracelet, freezing it in place. Michelle's heart pounded, her breathing heavy as she watched what happened next.

Even though the bracelet had been anchored in place, the water continued to flow forward. It moved with some resistance, like the waves still wanted to magnetize themselves to the glossy charm, before finally bubbling off with a satisfying POP! The liquid maintained the shape of the water for a few split seconds before falling apart, sputtering off into a puddle on the makeup chair.

Michelle cupped her hands underneath the bracelet and unlocked it from Iron Maiden's ability. A big smile formed on her face as it landed gently in her palms. The hinges of the locket had loosened again, swinging open and flashing her father's smiling face back at her.

For a moment, it felt like he too was proud of her for saving him.

"It's...it's just as I thought!" Midler's shrill voice sounded right next to Michelle's ear, making her jump. "That's—"

When Midler reached down to pluck the locket right out of Michelle's hands, she tensed up and backed away. Iron Maiden, still active at Michelle's side, instinctively shot its arm forward to stop Midler in place. It ended up poking her dead in the middle of her protruding front tooth.

Midler's eyes went wide for a moment, stumbling over her stilettoes. Her feet gave out beneath her, knees bending so far down that she didn't look like she should still be able to stand up. But, she did, the balls of her feet flat on the floor with her heels sticking out. Her cheeks puffed up like she'd eaten a bee. It was like she was only being held up by something in her mouth.

Apprehensively, Michelle backed away. Iron Maiden was supposed to stop someone entirely, no matter what part of their body she touched. Yet, Midler was still moving. The rise and fall of her chest prominent, and she had dropped the Random Access Memory to claw at her jawbone. Iron Maiden had activated on something—she could feel it buzz on her fingers. So what was going on?

Then, Midler stumbled backwards and landed on her rear. Her lips puckered and wrinkled as if she had eaten something exceptionally sour. A giant, drooly pair of dentures hung in midair where she once stood.

Michelle backed away further, slipping her bracelet back on as she headed towards the exit. Iron Maiden released its hold on the dentures and dissolved back into Michelle's skin, letting the dentures clink! back onto the floor. She hadn't meant to use Iron Maiden on Midler, much less her dentures. Oh well, she'd already seen the touch once, it wasn't like it would hurt her a second time.

Though given the enraged glare Midler shot back at Michelle, it seemed that her pride had wounded her much more than any curse could.

"I-I'm sorry," Michelle choked out as Midler shoved the dentures back in her mouth, "I didn't mean to!"

Midler threw her heels off and rose to her feet. "Why, you little—!"

High Priestess reappeared in Midler's hands again, materializing directly as a harpoon gun. Michelle's heart sank into her stomach when she saw Midler aim directly at her. Midler fired the gun, just barely missing Michelle as she rolled out of the way. As the harpoon retracted back to the gun, Michelle noticed the Random Access Memory laying on the floor out of the corner of her eye. She lunged for it just as Midler fired at her again. This time, Iron Maiden's shield popped out from her shoulder and blocked the attack. Michelle picked up the Random Access Memory and bolted out the door. Midler followed her.

The area directly outside the green room was much better lit, with light filtering in from onstage. Michelle turned around to get a perfect view of Midler's furious expression, framed in shadow. The harpoon remained locked on Michelle. Midler took one step forward; Michelle took one step back. But she wasn't scared. She wasn't backing up to run, just keep her distance. This time, she had a plan.

Midler pressed down on the trigger, firing the harpoon gun at Michelle again. It launched towards her, coming dangerously close to stabbing her in the chest before Michelle shot her arm out and scanned the harpoon gun with the Random Access Memory. In an instant, the Stand melted into holographic strings of code, then vanished entirely.

"What the—" Midler stared at her hands for a good, long second, then glared back up at Michelle. "Give me back my Stand!"

"Not if you're going to keep shooting at me!" Michelle continued to back into the light, away from Midler. This time, she was afraid. "Let's just talk about this. Are you working with the Grand Marshal?"

"Grand Marshal? Who the hell is that?"

"Okay, then why did you and Cascada try to steal my—"

Michelle's heel caught on another wire taped to the floor before she could finish her sentence. She tripped over it, staggering backwards a few steps before landing on her back. Massaging the back of her head, she sat up and rubbed her eyes, adjusting to the light suddenly surrounding her again.

When she realized what that meant, Michelle wanted to throw up. Reluctantly, she peeled open her eyes to see that she had landed onstage.

Her face turned bright red, looking out at all of the men applauding in front of her, and she instinctively hid her head behind her hands. Peeking out from behind her fingers, though, she realized that everyone in the audience wasn't staring at her, their focus instead being off to the right. Michelle glanced over and saw Cascada standing center stage, watery ribbons dancing behind her wrists as she bowed. The music had momentarily stopped, too. She must have just finished a number, Michelle realized. Luckily, she hadn't landed too far onstage, so she should be able to scuttle back offstage before the next dance if she hurried. She dusted herself off, shot back to her feet, and—

"Oh, there you are! I've been expecting you, kiddo!"

Michelle's face blanched when she heard Cascada call out her way. Surely, she wasn't talking to her. Right? There could've been thousands of other "kiddos" onstage in her general direction. Michelle cranked her neck to look over her shoulder, confirming that Cascada was, indeed, staring directly at her. Not only that, but she was motioning for her to come onstage, too. Michelle gulped, awkwardly waved back, and attempted to shimmy offstage.

Cascada put her hands on her hips, rolled her eyes, and scraped her foot against the floor before kicking it up behind her. Following the movement of her leg, a fat stroke of water summoned underneath Michelle, knocking her off her feet and carrying her center stage. The liquid fizzled out beneath her, and Cascada took Michelle's hand and raised it in the air. This forced Michelle on her tiptoes, given how much taller Cascada was.

"Everyone," Cascada announced to the audience, "say hi to my friend Genevieve!"

Michelle's head shrunk into her shoulders as the audience clapped and cheered for her, suddenly very grateful she gave Cascada a fake name. Cascada let go of her hand, instead opting to wrap her arm around Michelle's shoulders.

"I see you got the bracelet back," Cascada commented just loud enough for her to hear. She maintained her showmanship, smiling and waving for the crowd.

"Uh, yeah, about that—"

"I feel whatever happens to my water, you know. Every breaking wave, every ripple, all of it. Including the part where the bracelet just fell out of it." She dropped her theatrical façade for a split second to look Michelle in the eye with a stern, serious look. "You're a Stand user, aren't you?"

"Umm..."

"How'd you do it? How'd you get the bracelet out of the water? I've never run into a Stand that can do that."

"It's really none of your business," Michelle responded with a stiff upper lip. "Why did you try to steal it to begin with?"

"I'm hoping the big guys at SEES will give me a different job if I can prove Moon River can be used for more just special effects. I mean, I like dancing, but look at this audience."

Cascada's gesture towards the crowd of leering men fluidly transitioned into a silky wave towards them.

"The way I see it, you beat me when you got your bracelet back," she continued. "I'm down one to zero. Let's even the score, shall we?"

Cascada backed away from Michelle with a small twirl, now standing at the opposite end of the stage. She bent her right leg by her knees, stood on the tiptoes of her left, and raised her left arm over her head. A trail of water followed her hand's movements, and out of it sprung a tall, mermaidlike Stand wearing a tall, pointy headdress made of seashells over its eyes. The Stand swam around Cascada, creating a spiral of water around her.

Michelle could only stare blankly ahead, brave enough to blink just once.

"What do you say? You and me, Stand battle, right here, right now," Cascada challenged. "I'm gonna show the crowd I'm more than a pretty face by roughing up yours."

Chapter Text

Michelle had never been in a fight before. Sure, there were Masqueraders, but they were less combatants and more like rabid animals, attacking anything they saw with little sense of right and wrong. Terrifying, no doubt, but this was different. This was serious. Michelle had made a habit of wandering into trouble over the course of this little road trip, but now someone had actually challenged her to a fight.

The stage lights sweltered against her skin as she continued to gape at Cascada on the other side of the stage. Michelle waited for her to start laughing and say it was just a joke, waited for security to escort her offstage, waited to wake up in a hotel bed to Sara throwing a pillow at her and that everything about Chicago IX was all a bad dream. Each second was punctuated by her heartbeat booming in her ears. It wasn't beating quickly, just loudly, like a wartime drum. Even, steady, but damn near deafening and foreboding a battle.

Forget the fact that she had a snowball's chance in hell against someone like Cascada, she couldn't afford to get into a fight now of all times, not with Boney still on the loose in Chicago IX or somewhere nearby. While she didn't have faith that security had done away with him, if they did, she had a hunch that he wasn't the type to cut his losses and hit the road. Right now, wasting time was not an option. She needed to regroup with Sara and the others as soon as possible. Sticking around to fight Cascada put her friends' lives at risk.

Plus, she was sure that she would faint if she stayed onstage any longer. Partially from the heat from the stage lights amplifying her exhaustion from chasing her bracelet across the resort and partially because she just couldn't stand being stared at by that many strangers. And in her swimsuit, no less! She tried to wrap her cardigan around her torso like a bathrobe.

Michelle bit her lip. Should she tell Cascada about what was going on? Was there even time for that? Would she even believe her? Cascada and Midler both seemed confident that security would take care of Boney, but Boney was far sturdier than your average Stand user. He'd taken a bullet to the head, died, had his corpse ejected from an airborne plane, and still managed to come back none the worse for wear. None of that sounded remotely feasible, more like something out of a cheesy action series that anything else. Besides, telling Cascada any more about Boney than she already had might put her in his line of fire, too.

It wasn't like she could just dart back offstage and make a run for it, either, at least not with a very angry Midler waiting for her on the other side. Or worse, more security guards. What if they tossed her out of the resort along with Boney? Michelle glimpsed over her shoulder at the parted black curtains she had tripped through. The consequences on the other side were probably much, much worse than getting her shit kicked in by Cascada.

As Michelle pondered her situation over, Cascada twirled on the balls of her feet, ribbons of water spinning around her as she glided back to center stage. She rose her arms in the air as she came to a stop, facing the audience with her hands on her hips.

"How about it, folks? You guys ready for a Stand-off?"

Cascada coyly put a hand to her ear as the audience whooped and cheered at the notion. Some had given the idea a standing ovation, rising from their seats to shout "Stand-off! Stand-off! Stand-off!" Even some of the other guests at the resort passing by had enthusiastically ran down the stairs into the amphitheater's auditorium, feverishly looking for an open seat. To Michelle's abject horror, the audience's chant only got louder and louder. "Stand-off! Stand-off! Stand-off!"

Stand. Stand. Stand. Michelle's eyes grew wider each time they said it. My Stand is cursed, she reminded herself. Cascada wasn't just challenging Michelle to a street fight, she was inviting her to hex a steadily growing audience.

"I'm not going to fight you," Michelle announced. Thanks to her naturally quiet voice and the audience's enthusiastic yelling drowning her out, only Cascada heard her speak.

Still facing the audience, Cascada quirked a brow and side-eyed Michelle. "C'mon, Genevieve. The people are begging for a fight!" Luckily, Cascada was speaking quietly enough that the audience couldn't hear them. "We're not here to kill each other, we're just...have you ever played Pokémon? It's like that."

"You don't understand. I can't fight you," Michelle repeated. "My friends are in danger and my Stand is cursed. You will die if you see it. It's bad enough that your mentor already saw Iron Maiden, you don't need to see it too."

Cascada's graceful façade cracked for a second as she stifled a laugh. "Cursed? Pssh. Yeah, right. If that was true, you would've had SEES recruiters or the Speedwagon Foundation up your ass years ago, kiddo. I certainly did, and I don't have any 'curse.' Nice try, but you can't sweet talk your way out of this one."

Michelle scrunched up her nose. Why did no one ever take her seriously when she brought up Iron Maiden's curse? Sara didn't take it seriously, Rumor didn't take it seriously, Cab really didn't take it seriously, she was pretty sure even Hol Horse thought she was full of shit. Sure, all four of them had seen Iron Maiden multiple times, and none of them had died yet...in fact, Iron Maiden had even helped save their lives when they were escaping the plane...

She shook her head. Nope. Don't go there. The curse is real. It must be.

Clenching her hands into fists, Michelle strode downstage. Forget the fight, forget the crowd, forget everything. She just needed to get the hell out of there. At least by jumping off stage and into the audience, she got a decent head start before Midler or a security guard could see her leave. Luckily, the stage wasn't that high off the ground, so she could just hop down with no issue. Itchy anxiety prickled on her skin and screamed in her head at the thought of walking directly into the rabid audience—a rabid audience that wanted her to show off her Stand and fight, no less—but at this point, she needed to get her priorities straight. Especially after spending as much time as she had chasing her bracelet.

"I need to go help my friends." Michelle cast her head over her shoulder as she called out to Cascada, ready to jump down into the audience. "Au revoir."

She turned her head back around just in time to see a tall swipe of water block her escape route. Arms shot up in a defensive position, she jerked back, nearly losing her balance. As she stumbled her way back to center stage, a giant ring of Moon River's saturated water wrapped around the stage's perimeter. It stood about a meter and a half tall and about half a meter wide, just barely hovering over the floor. The way the water fenced them in reminded Michelle of the ropes of a boxing ring.

Michelle gulped. This wasn't good. She turned back towards Cascada, only to see her marching towards her with a stern look on her face.

"Listen," Cascada pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "I know it's been a rough day for you, what with that stalker and all."

"And having to chase down my bracelet after you decided to steal it," Michelle added.

"Yeah, I'm getting to that. I'm not gonna deny that I tried to steal that from you, because I totally did. But I only did that to impress my mentor," Cascada clarified. "See, Midler's got me pinned down as nothing more than a pretty little showgirl. To her, Moon River is just, well," she jazzed her fingers around by her head, causing little waves of water to ripple out around her hands, "it's just a fun special effect. A quirky little light show. Nothing more, nothing less. She doesn't even let me sign up for any Stand-offs, because she's too scared I'll get some scar or injury that will mess with my career as a dancer."

"Sounds pretty reasonable to me."

Cascada rolled her eyes, unimpressed. "Ugh, not you too. My Stand is so much more than that. I'm so much more than that. I like dancing and all, but it's not all I'm worth as a Stand user or as a woman. Seriously, you really think I wanna keep doing this for the rest of my life? Looking cute and sexy for a bunch of men old enough to be my dad? Sometimes grandad? Eww. No thanks. But she doesn't see that. And since she doesn't see that, the bigwigs calling the shots at SEES don't see it either. I am not spending the rest of my life at the bottom of the Stand user food chain."

"Whatever issues you have with Midler are your problems. Not mine," Even though she still felt shaky from the nonstop emotional whiplash she'd endured all day, she tried her best to keep her voice level and her posture firm, pointing an accusing finger at Cascada. "I'm not a SEES member. Don't get me wrapped up in all this."

"Don't you get it? One good Stand-off is all it takes to get the ball rolling! Midler usually doesn't let me get involved in this kind of stuff. This could be the last opportunity I'll get for something like this in a long time," Cascada responded. "Besides, your Stand must be pretty killer if it was able to get your bracelet out of Moon River's recall stream. Not even High Priestess can do that."

"Yeah! Killer! As in killer curse! You're putting innocent lives at risk here, including yours!"

"Still not buying it."

"But—!"

"No buts! I'll give you a second to prepare yourself, but then it's go time." Cascada struck the same pose as before, springing one leg up and standing on her tiptoes with the other, arms flourished above her head. The walls of the giant water ring lowered slightly, just enough for the audience members to peep over the top of it but not short enough for Michelle to confidently jump over. "Like it or not, Genevieve, you're not leaving this ring without a fight. So make it one for the history books!"

A cold sweat ran down Michelle's spine, desperately wishing she still had on a necklace she could thumb at.

Oh my god, this is really happening, she realized, eyes transfixed in a thousand-yard stare. She shook her head as she came back to her senses. This can't be happening! I can't fight someone! I'm barely even wearing any clothes! A bathing suit does not constitute for good battle armor!

She took a deep breath, steeling herself. I need a way to end this, and fast. Iron Maiden did knock out that guard by shield bashing him in the face, but I can't be confident that something like that would work against someone who's actually expecting an attack, especially another Stand user. Who knows what Moon River is capable of? I mean, if this arena is anything to go by, it looks like she can create these floating streams anywhere she damn well pleases now that its back in range. So not only do I need to knock her out as soon as I can, I need to make sure I don't get killed along the way.

"Un arbitre!" Michelle blurted out. "Don't we need a referee?"

Cascada quirked a brow. "A ref? For a Stand-off? You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm not kidding!" Michelle assertively folded her arms. "How do I know that you're not gonna kill me in here or chop off my legs or something?"

"Uh, how about because murder is still illegal?" Cascada scoffed and placed a hand on her hip. "It's like I said, kiddo, I'm not out to kill you. It's like a sporting event. Martial artists don't kill each other when they duke it out, it's the same thing here."

Michelle threw her arms up in frustration. "What kind of sporting event doesn't have a ref?"

"The kind where games like 'the floor is lava' can end up being a lot more literal than usual."

Begrudgingly, Michelle snorted and brought her arms back down to her chest. She had a point. Could Moon River do that, though? Turn the floor to lava? It seemed wildly out of its skillset, so Michelle assumed not, but she braced herself for the possibility. Just in case.

A whirlpool of water spiraled up by Cascada's side, quickly dissipating to reveal Moon River inside it. The Stand outstretched an arm, pointing a finger Michelle's way. Seeing how sharp its talons were made her stomach churn. One stray drop of water, large and bulbous, hung off its finger.

"Once that hits the ground," Cascada nudged her head towards the drop of water, "all bets are off. We're not here to kill each other, but I won't be holding back. You'd better not, either."

The words I don't want to fight you continued to dance on her tongue, but Michelle knew that saying them would be in vain. Rattling off excuses just wasted time, and every second she wasted trying to get out of the fight was a second that Boney had to hunt down her and her friends. It almost made her feel like a toddler refusing to eat its vegetables, only to end up eating them anyway after they got all gross and soggy. She was just delaying the inevitable.

Heart still pounding, Michelle nodded. It was just a Stand fight. Just another little Stand fight. She'd gotten into a lot of those lately. Bad Sneakers, Red Hot Chili Pepper...at least this time, she wasn't in a bathroom or falling plane. Just an amphitheater with a packed audience...

A quick glance towards crowd of spectators below her made her stomach churn, their enthusiastic reflections distorted through the ring of water. Part of her would've preferred the falling plane.

Would Cascada let her leave if she just didn't do anything and let her wail on her for a while? Probably not. She had to put her best foot forward. At least this ring of water she's got me trapped in makes it harder for the audience to see us and our Stands, Michelle realized. Perseus was immune to Medusa as long as he only saw her reflection, right? I wonder if the same can be said for Iron Maiden.

Eyes locked on the drop of water hanging off Moon River's finger, Michelle took a deep breath and readied herself into a fighting stance. Iron Maiden's power resonated just underneath her skin, ready to burst out at a moment's notice. For a short moment, Michelle rested a hand on top of her bracelet—the same bracelet she had just fought tooth and nail to get back—before she closed her eyes and deeply exhaled.

"Watch over me, Dad," Michelle whispered, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he could hear her. When her eyes snapped open, they were locked in a determined glare.

Just then, the drop of water finally dribbled off Moon River's finger. Michelle's eyes followed its descent. It barely made a sound as it splashed to the floor, but to the two girls onstage, it rang like a boxing match's starting bell.

Cascada trampled over the small wet mark the drop of water had left on the stage and charged at Michelle. Moon River followed just behind her. Her training as a dancer had clearly left its mark; she still moved gracefully even while stampeding towards her opponent. Her stride was long and pronounced, like a prancing gazelle, and her feet always hit the ground toe-first to avoid any ugly or distracting stomping sounds onstage. Considering Cascada's more casual body language back in the dressing room, it was almost like her subconscious was still dictating her to perform.

Regardless, Michelle had no time to appreciate her form. Her eyes darted up just in time to see Cascada close the gap between them. The dancer pointed at her target.

"Go! Moon River!"

With a rush of speed, Moon River swam out from behind its user and raised its arm to strike Michelle, talons glistening in the sun. Michelle raised her arm into a defensive position, watching intently as her view of the Stand become obscured by Iron Maiden as she summoned it forward. Iron Maiden mimicked its user's pose and held its shield up. A chorus of swishy clangs echoed through the air as Moon River repeatedly swiped against Iron Maiden's shield. Michelle stood resolute and silently directed Iron Maiden' shield forward in time with each strike. Even with Michelle's vision obscured by the giant shield, Iron Maiden successfully parried every attack Moon River threw at her. Unlike a Masquerader like Bad Sneakers, whose attacks were wild and spastic, Cascada's followed a rhythmic beat that was easy to get a feel for.

But that raised the question: what next?

"Giant shield, huh?" Michelle just barely heard Cascada speak over her Stand's continued assault. "Neat. Looks like you've got me totally blocked from the front."

The clanging against Iron Maiden's shield abruptly stopped. Michelle caught a quick glance of Moon River swimming around her as a trail of water blurred behind the Stand. Iron Maiden swung its shield to smack the Stand out of the air, but Moon River was too quick and dodged the shield.

"If only I could attack from two places at once!" A voice called out from behind Michelle, sounding almost identical to Cascada's save for its ghostly echo. Moon River's voice.

Michelle sidestepped just barely too late to avoid Moon River's attack. The Stand's daggerlike talons swiped down her back, sprinkling out speckles of blood as they cut shallow gashes into her skin. Michelle sucked in air through gritted teeth. Man, did her wounds sting. It felt like she'd just gotten four of the world's longest papercuts down her back. She spun around, locking eyes with the enemy Stand. Iron Maiden moved in sync and swung its shield towards its foe. Suddenly, just before it could land a blow, Michelle heard a swoosh of water rush past her ear and felt a visceral pain gut through her shoulder. Her battle-ready scowl blew off her face as she pinched her eyes shut. She crumpled down on one knee, clutching the fresh wound as blood waterfalled down her arm. Michelle wrinkled her nose at the stench of iron. This wasn't a shallow cut like the ones Moon River had made, this one had left a deep, gory laceration. 

Dammit, what just hit me? Michelle felt Iron Maiden waiver beside her. Moon River couldn't have done that, it was on the other side of me! Then that means...

She snapped her eyes open just in time to see Cascada knifehanding towards her chest. A trail of water flowed out from her fingertips, thin and highly compressed. The water she'd been dancing with earlier had reminded Michelle of ribbons; these looked more like curved blades. Iron Maiden blocked the attack just before Cascada could land the blow. A quick series of clatters banged out against the shield, sounding like a chainsaw attempting to hack through metal.

Shit! This isn't good...it doesn't matter how well I block Moon River's attacks if Cascada can just use that as an opportunity to attack my blind spot! Michelle winced as her shoulder continued to throb in pain. And those jets of water she can summon are no joke. They're like those high pressure water jets people use to cut metal with. Does that mean it could potentially crack through Iron Maiden's shield too? What am I supposed to do if that happens? 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something whizzing behind her. Already on her knees, Michelle rolled out of the way just in time to avoid another swipe from Moon River. A pained grunt rumbled behind her lips as she had to put weight down on her injured shoulder, leaving a smear of blood behind on the stage. She scrambled back to her feet as Cascada leapt towards her, arms raised for a two-handed strike. Michelle turned her head away as Iron Maiden blocked the attack.

It was then that Michelle got the first good view of the deep gash on her shoulder. Sure, she knew that she was bleeding from the second Cascada had carved it into her, but actually seeing the ripped skin, the hints of exposed muscle tissue, the blood rushing down her arm and dribbling off her fingertips (so much for the bracelet she had just gone out of her way to save), the red stains on her bathing suit made Michelle's heart drop. Probably for the best—the less blood being pumped out her shoulder, the better.

I-I really hope she was being serious about the whole "no killing" thing, Michelle prayed. Rumor's patched up worse than this, but I'd rather not be julienned into a bunch of fleshy ribbons!

Obviously, just standing there and having Iron Maiden tank hits for her wasn't getting her anywhere. After all, Cascada was a trained athlete, and Michelle had spent most of the last three years cooped up in her room. Cascada had the stamina to outlast her by sneaking in potshots through her defenses. Michelle needed to act on the offensive.

Just as it blocked another swipe from Cascada, Iron Maiden swept a leg up and attempted to kick her in the gut. Cascada pirouetted around the attack without much effort. Moon River burst out from the swirls of water Cascada had trailed behind her, talons outstretched and ready to claw at Michelle's side. With Iron Maiden too busy tracking the twirling Cascada, Michelle jumped back to avoid the Stand's attack. Undeterred, Moon River curled around and lunged at her again. Iron Maiden blocked its attack this time, shoving the other Stand back with its shield. With her front now wide open, Cascada threw out a watery chop towards Michelle's collarbone. Michelle barely had enough time to leap back. Cascada and Moon River continued to put pressure on Michelle, effortlessly spinning and diving around her as they threw out attacks. Michelle desperately searched for an opening, a blunder, anything that she could use to her advantage, but she was no match for Cascada's flow.

After a particularly hefty blow against Iron Maiden's shield sent Michelle and her Stand sliding on her heels, she heard loud, raging waves blare out behind her. They weren't coming from Moon River, at least not directly; this sounded more stationary that the water that had been flowing behind Moon River like pixie dust. Michelle realized that she had been pushed all the way back to the edge of the stage and now had her back to the water ring. She briefly considered trying to push her way forward and reclaim center stage, but stopped herself before she could take a step forward.

Wait. Maybe I could use this to my advantage, Michelle considered. With my back to a wall like this, neither Cascada or Moon River can attack me from behind. This is perfect. Now I don't have to deal with two of them attacking me at once! Probably. Maybe. Hopefully. She glanced back at the ring of water behind her. Actually, couldn't Moon River just dive in and attack me from the ring itself? Maybe this isn't such a good id—

Too distracted thinking over her strategy, Michelle failed to notice Moon River attempt to strike at her again. Though Iron Maiden still had its shield raised, it was unprepared to parry the attack. Moon River thrust its palm forward, slamming into Iron Maiden's shield hard enough to knock it and Michelle back a few paces. She hunched back, just far enough for the curve of her back to submerge inside the ring of water behind her. Suddenly, she felt what seemed like millions of wet razors slash against her back. The cacophony of shredding fabric and snapping elastic cracked out amidst the rushing waves. She let out a pained screech, straightened her posture, and jumped forward.

While Iron Maiden braced itself for Moon River's next attack, Michelle took precious milliseconds to inspect the damage around her. Her cardigan had been torn to shreds, bits and pieces of the torn fabric littered around her feet and leaving her back almost completely exposed. Warm blood had begun to leak out from her upper back and fill the new tears in her bathing suit. Thankfully, the shoulder straps and lower half of the one piece had fared better. Her ponytail had also been sliced open, letting her hair cape over her new wounds. A few locks stubbornly fell forward and curled over her forehead.

"Aww, come on! Don't just camp me out in the corner!" Cascada taunted while attempting to get a hit through Iron Maiden's defenses. "You're better than that, Genevieve. Besides, with how fast the current of the water behind you is moving, let's just say you're not in for a leisurely swim if you ring out, so to speak."

Hearing the rushing water still roaring behind her, Michelle felt herself go pale. She hadn't blocked off Moon River from attacking her by backing up towards the water ring, all she had done was corner herself. Now she absolutely had to get back to center stage. But with Cascada standing just a couple meters away from her, her constant attacks as fluid and effortless as a practiced dance routine, her path was blocked. Darting to either side would just cause Moon River to go after her. Somehow, she needed to push forward.

Michelle glimpsed at Iron Maiden's glowing fingertips. She chewed on her lower lip. Looks like this is my only option, she thought. Iron Maiden parried one of Cascada's blows, and just as it did, lowered its shield and attempted grab Cascada's arm, ready to use its stopping touch. Cascada threw her arms back and elegantly bent back at the waist long before Iron Maiden even came close to touching her. Moon River blitzed in over her and sliced open the back of Iron Maiden's hand. Michelle winced as the wounds echoed on her own hand, blood spurting out. She quickly withdrew Iron Maiden.

Dammit! The one ace up my sleeve, and I can't even land as much as one touch on her! Michelle shook her hand in an attempt to ease the pain, flinging blood everywhere. This is impossible! I could just give up and let her win, but at this rate, I'm going to black out from all the blood I've lost! Besides...

Cascada shot Michelle a cocky smile as she straightened out her back, standing up straight once again. Michelle bared her teeth at her.

...I won't go down that easy! Michelle felt newfound resolve fill her. Damn whatever the rules for a Stand-off were; if she could just escape the ring, she'd consider that a win against Cascada. The only problem was that she had no idea how to do that. Cascada made the fight effortless by staying in constant motion, treating the fight like a dance. Iron Maiden should've been a perfect counter to that, but not if she couldn't land a single hit on her. If only I could move the way she does, Michelle thought. But how am I supposed to do that? Iron Maiden is no Silver Chariot. I'm not a speedster like Dad was. But if I could just stay on the move and not get attacked, I might have a fighting chance to either beat her or get out of this damn water ring.

Then it hit her. Michelle's eyes lit up. The water ring...

She took a deep breath. This would be risky, but it was the only thing she could think to do.

Michelle recalled Iron Maiden and leapt into the air as high as she could, bringing her knees up to her chest. She didn't jump very far, getting less than a meter off the ground and getting nowhere close to clearing the ring of water behind her. Even with her silvery hair falling all over her face, Michelle made sure to shoot Cascada a fierce glare on her way up. Not just to try and intimidate her, but to carefully watch her every move.

Cascada scoffed. "Think you can dodge me just by jumping? Nice try! You're a sitting duck without your Stand!"

A stream of water burst out from underneath Cascada and curved up towards Michelle. Moon River rushed alongside the stream and swung its arm up in an uppercut. Michelle narrowed her eyes at the sight. Perfect. That was exactly what she was looking for. As the Stand swung at Michelle, she bent one arm in front of her and summoned Iron Maiden's shield—and only its shield. Michelle braced herself as Moon River hit the shield directly in its center. With all her might, she pushed down against the impact. The resulting force sent Michelle flying even further into the air, just barely over the ring of water.

As she descended, Michelle swung her body forward so that her shield was facing the ground. She blinked for the first time in what felt like ages. While her eyes were closed, she landed with a loud splash. The ground didn't feel quite solid and slightly bobbed beneath her as she landed. Next thing she knew, the wind was whipping through her hair, slightly stinging her still bloody wounds.

When she opened her eyes, Michelle saw she was effectively shield surfing atop the ring of water. The ring's rapid currents naturally pushed her around the top of the ring at high speeds, forcing Michelle to squint to avoid the air drying out her eyes. She let out an exasperated sigh of relief. All according to plan, but damn if it wasn't nerve-wracking to pull off.

"Merci beaucoup!" She called out to Cascada.

Michelle threw an arm out to the side, balancing herself as she raised to a crouch. Unfortunately, Iron Maiden's shield was still attached to Michelle's arm, forcing her to stay in an awkward sitting position with her arm bent against the back of the shield. Theoretically, she could try to disconnect it from her arm and let it be its own entity—Rumor did that all the time with The Chain, after all, and it couldn't have been much different from just summoning her Stand normally—but what if the shield faded away? It was simply too much of a risk.

Now that she had gotten out of the battle arena, the next step was to jump off the ring and out of the fight. Landing somewhere that wouldn't snap her neck or give her a concussion would also be preferable. Initially, her plan had been to jump out into the audience, hoping she'd land on the ground or in someone's lap, but...

Michelle's knees felt wobbly as the ring of water spun her in circles. She knew those currents must've been fast in order to slice her back the way it had, but she'd severely underestimated how fast they really were. While she could track Cascada inside the circle well enough, the outside was another story. The rows of spectators in the audience, the curtains bordering the dark corners leading backstage, and the glittery backdrop from Cascada's dance routine; all of them blurred together in a mess of colors and sound, making it impossible to discern where she'd land if she jumped. Michelle felt her head begin to spin at the same speed as the water currents beneath her. Feeling nauseous, she squeezed her eyes shut. Landing backstage was the worst case scenario, because then she'd have to deal with either Midler or security, and smacking face first into the back of the stage didn't sound any more appealing. Iron Maiden's stopping touch didn't work on water either, so even if she wanted to try that, it wasn't an option.

What to do...Michelle groaned, trying to think.

"Gee, great plan, kiddo." Michelle barely heard Cascada's voice over the rushing water beneath her. "You just turned your only line of defense into a surfboard!"

Opening her eyes, Michelle turned around to look at Cascada. With less going on inside the water ring than on the outside, it was easier to keep an eye on her. Strangely, Moon River was no longer by her side.

"Doesn't look like you're fairing any better!" Michelle cupped a hand around her mouth to make sure Cascada heard her. 

"Me? Oh, I'm on the offensive right now," Cascada proclaimed. "Didn't you realize that Moon River completely vanishes into the water whenever it goes for a swim?"

Michelle's eyes widened in horror. No, she hadn't realized that. Before she could even think of just testing her luck and jumping, Moon River erupted from the water in front of her. Water streamed out from the tips of its claws. Michelle screamed as the water ring's currents sent her on a crash course for the enemy Stand. She used her free hand to cover her face, bracing for the worst. Stop, stop, stop!

Just then, Iron Maiden's own hand overlaid her own for a second before its arm extended, fingertips held forward. As Moon River prepared to attack Michelle, Iron Maiden's hand brushed against Moon River's head. The Stand froze solid in an instant, unmoving. Unfortunately, the shield definitely was still moving, speeding across the water currents. Michelle tried to tilt the front of the shield down to slow down, but still slammed into the paralyzed Stand. She catapulted off the shield and into the air. Her torso smashed into the rafters above the stage, knocking the air knocked out of her lungs. For a moment she hung over the metal pipes and wires, stomach curled over them with her legs dangling off the edge. Michelle scrambled onto the rafters. Iron Maiden appeared beside her to help its user up.

As she settled onto the rafters, Michelle felt a seize and tension in her heartbeat. Iron Maiden's still active on Moon River, she realized. She looked down and saw both Stand and user frozen in place, with Moon River still parting the water around it. Michelle released Iron Maiden's hold on them. Moon River instantly dove back into the water ring, vanishing inside it, while Cascada stopped whatever she had been doing and studied over her arms and legs, inquisitively shaking them out.

While staring down at her opponent, Michelle realized just how high up she had gotten. She gripped the metal beam she was perched atop even tighter.

Forget that though, I used Iron Maiden on her! Michelle realized. Shit, shit, shit, first Midler and now her? Ugh, stupid Michelle, stupid!

"I-I'm so sorry," Michelle attempted to call out, but it came out as more of a whimper. "I didn't mean to do that!"

If Cascada heard her, she seemed too transfixed on testing to see if her body could move again to ask what she meant. "Woah...okay, that explains a lot. That's what you used to free your bracelet from Moon River's influence, right?"

Michelle nodded.

"Figures. So even if you stop something with your Stand, Moon River's streams keep flowing forward. Good to know."

As Cascada mulled it over, Michelle anxiously scanned the rafters and looked for a rope or ladder or something to climb back down onstage on. She only narrowly fit in the small space between the top of the rafters and the amphitheater's ceiling, so she couldn't readjust herself to look behind her, just to either side. Microphones and stage lights were evenly scattered around her, suspended to the rafters, but nothing that could help her get down. Their wires were all too tightly strung for her to swing down on them. But there had to be a way down, right? Michelle barely knew anything about the performing arts; did people ever go up into the rafters?

Taking in her surroundings more, she figured that it was more than likely. All the multicolored stage lights were massive, Michelle guessed that they must've weighed at least 50 kg each, and more importantly, expensive. Someone had to come up and do maintenance on them from time to time. There's probably a ladder behind me. It'd be weird to have one onstage in the middle of a performance, she reasoned.

Michelle shimmied backwards, making sure not to look down. All she had to do was keep Cascada distracted. What had she been talking about earlier? Her Stand, or something? "Y-yeah," Michelle tittered, "that is interesting..."

The rafters creaked and groaned as Michelle began to sink into the shadows of the backstage. Cascada pointed an accusing finger at her, frowning. "Hey! You're not trying to run away, are you?"

Her words made Michelle's heart sink. She stopped in place and gulped. "I...uh...I just...uh, how could I ever fight you from all the way up here?"

"Nah, you stay put. I'll come up to you," Cascada informed her. "This whole arena thing was more of a guideline, anyways."

Cascada leapt into the air, getting much further off the ground than Michelle had earlier. It wasn't particularly graceful, with her arms outstretched and her knees folded against her chest. Michelle couldn't tell if that was a good or bad thing. Moon River's arms popped out from Cascada's shoulders. Stand and user moved in opposite directions, with Cascada arcing her arms over her and Moon River curving its arms beneath her feet. Ribbons of water trailed from their hands, forming a ring around Cascada. Water instantly filled in the space between the ring, enveloping Cascada in a floating bubble of water. Submerged inside, Cascada began to swim upwards, pushing the water bubble up with her. The crowd ooh'd and ahh'd when she turned around and struck a quick pose.

Just like the crowd, Michelle was awestruck, but in a way that inspired more dread than wonder. What the hell? Now she can fly? What can't this Stand do? Hands shaking, Michelle crawled back even further on the rafters. When she felt the back of her foot hit something, she whipped her head around to see that she had backed up into one of the stage lights, effectively walling her off from going any further.

She turned around to see Cascada in her water bubble right beneath her, somehow managing to smirk up at her as she held her breath. Now up close, Michelle could see Moon River's silhouette in the water with her—seemed the Stand wasn't quite invisible in the water. She watched as the Stand rose from the water to the point where only its tailfin was still submerged.

"Don't you get it? The more you run, the more you corner yourself," the Stand challenged. "So stand up and fight back!"

Moon River slashed towards its target. Michelle pinned herself to the rafters, ducking under the attack. She heard the Stand's talons clang against something, along with the sound of tearing metal. Propping herself back up, she saw that a large gash in the metal rod securing the stage light to the rafters. Moon River must've ended up hitting it instead of her. Some creaks and groans rumbled from the rod as the tear began to shred open further on its own, tilting the stage light ever so slightly off balance.

The only other things supporting the stage light were a handful of flimsy looking cables and wires sticking out the back. They were taped to the rafters, but Michelle didn't put much faith in their strength. If that thing snaps in two, the stage light's gonna fall to the ground, she realized. Michelle glanced down and saw that Cascada was hovering right underneath the stage light, oblivious to the danger she was in.

If the stage light fell, it would crash into Cascada and crush her underneath it once they hit the ground. Or worse, fall into her water bubble and electrocute her like a toaster in a bathtub. Either way, she was about to die. Michelle felt the color drain from her face. Enemy Stand user or not, she didn't want to kill Cascada or be partially responsible for her death.

Before she could question if this was Iron Maiden's curse at work, Michelle lunged forward and tapped the side of the stage light right when it ripped off the metal rod, Iron Maiden's hand overlaid atop of hers. As soon as she tapped down on the stage light, freezing it in midair, she doubled over in pain. The damn thing was heavy, and she felt the force of it in her gut. It felt like a hydraulic press had pushed down on her heart and lungs, simultaneously putting a dull ache on her insides and knocking the wind out of her. She took deep, staggering breaths, willing herself to keep the thing in place as long as she could.

Unfortunately, this just gave Moon River a perfect opening to attack. Michelle hollered out in pain as the Stand sliced through her exposed back, cutting even deeper into her previous wounds. Her nails scratched against the stage light as she curled her fingers. Hopefully, the longer she kept her hand on the light, the longer she could keep it in place.

"Oh, come on," Moon River's ghostly voice groaned. "You're not even bringing out your Stand anymore! Don't just roll over and play dead. This fight's gotta be a big one!"

"Cascada!" Michelle managed to shout between breaths. "You need to move. Now."

"Uh, what? You're completely cornered. If anything, you're the one who needs to move!"

Iron Maiden just barely managed to shield Moon River's next attack. The second it withdrew, Michelle felt her entire body begin to seize up. Her muscles, her throat, her heart—all of them momentarily spasmed in her body, then went completely stiff. The deafening pulse that had been blaring through her ears the whole fight suddenly went silent. Michelle's vision began to blur as she clutched her chest, fighting to stay conscious.

She was only vaguely aware of Moon River continuing to threaten her, the Stand's voice muffled through her ears. "What's your plan here, anyways? Wait me out until I drown? Because that's not..."

If Moon River said anything after that, Michelle was no longer lucid enough to process what the Stand was saying. All she could process was the insurmountable pressure squeezing against every muscle and organ in her body. The steadily drying blood stained down her arm and back felt blisteringly warm against her now ice-cold skin. Just a few seconds ago, she'd been sucking down deep breaths of air like she'd been trapped underwater for an hour, eyes wide and frantic. Now, her breathing was as shallow as the thin ribbons of water Cascada and Moon River had been slashing at her, and her eyes were growing glassier by the second.

But this wasn't the result of Cascada thrashing her around, no. Michelle was certain of that. This was entirely from keeping the stage light from killing her opponent. All of this was self-inflicted. How long had she kept the thing airborne, anyways? Ten seconds? Fifteen? New record either way. Especially impressive considering the weight of the object she was holding up. Fleetingly, she wondered if that was the type of thing that Rumor would keep note of in his journal. Part of her regretted not giving him a demonstration earlier.

At this rate, if she kept the stage light up any longer, the toll her body was taking from it would kill her. Michelle would've chuckled at the irony if she had the space in her lungs to do so.

Though her body begged for her to release Iron Maiden's hold on the stage light, her mind stayed adamant on her goal. Above all else, she couldn't let Cascada get hit by the stage light. It'd be easier if she could just convince her to move out of the way, but Cascada hadn't heeded her warning earlier and, if the blurry blue orb in Michelle's vision was still Cascada in her bubble, she didn't seem to be in any rush to move. Michelle couldn't physically force her out of the way either, especially not with her still stuck on the rafters. One wrong move and she'd take a nasty fall. Even dropping the stage light in favor of going after Moon River wouldn't work, both because she knew her body couldn't handle the strain of freezing two objects back-to-back like that and because she had no way of reliably catching Moon River to begin with.

She was out of time and options. Her blurry vision began to dim, strokes of lights and colors replaced with blotches of darkness.

But somewhere inside her, a heated resolve began to burn through the icy pressure weighing down on her body. She couldn't die here. If she did, Iron Maiden would die with her. The stage light would fall and Cascada would die anyway. All this work, this strain, it would've been for nothing. Besides, she was tired of letting death follow her around with a leering grin. Was she just about to roll over and let two people die? Hell no! She was a Polnareff, for crying out loud!

The time for thinking and planning and drowning in anxiety was over. It was time to act. Without a second thought, Michelle used her last remaining strength to roll herself off the rafters. As soon as she no longer felt the rafters beneath her, she released Iron Maiden's hold on the stage light. Iron Maiden thrust out from behind her, holding its shield high. The stage light collided with Iron Maiden's shield right as Michelle splashed into Cascada's bubble. She braced herself as she slammed into the other Stand user, clearly catching Cascada off guard and knocking the air from her lungs. With Cascada having lost her focus, the water bubble began to plummet to the stage below. Iron Maiden fell along with its user but kept its shield held high, propping up the giant stage light and keeping it from entering the water. The bubble burst as soon as it hit the floor, water exploding outwards like a popped water balloon. Luckily, it managed to cushion the two girls inside it well enough to brace their fall.

Feeling her back against the hard stage floor, Cascada groaned, eyes still shut from the fall. She never could've predicted Michelle jumping into her bubble like that. As she tried to sit up, she felt a slight weight against her waist. She opened her eyes to see Michelle crouching over her, eyes squeezed shut, teeth grit, and shaking like a leaf. Her Stand stood behind her, a fallen stage light balancing atop its massive shield. Heavy breaths puffed out from her nose for a few seconds before Iron Maiden tilted its shield back. The stage light slid off it and landed on the floor with a hefty BONG!

All at once, Cascada processed what had just happened. When Michelle (or Genevieve, as Cascada knew her) had told her to move, she wasn't telling her to stand down. She was trying to warn her about the stage light that Moon River had broken off. The poor girl had been straining herself to keep the thing afloat. That's why she wasn't keeping her Stand out.

"You...you saved me..." Cascada muttered.

Cascada attempted to wiggle her way out from under Michelle, but Michelle sensed her trying to escape. Her brown eyes snapped open, wild and crazed like a cornered animal. Iron Maiden swung its shield forward until it hung right above Cascada’s face, the tip posed down towards her neck. Cascada gulped.

"Laissez-moi partir," Michelle breathed out. "Let. Me. Go."

At this point, Michelle wasn't too sure what Cascada would do. With her shield held above her like this, she was wide open to attack. Unlike her, Cascada wasn't injured. She absolutely had the energy to keep the fight going. All it would take was one swing of her arm, a graceful stroke towards her neck, and it would all be over. And frankly, Michelle didn't actually want to drive Iron Maiden's shield into Cascada's throat.

She lowered her guard a bit when Cascada suddenly burst out laughing.

"Man...what a fight!" She threw her head back, resting her palm against her forehead. "Here I am thinking I'm ready for the big leagues, only to get my ass served by some total noob. You won this one, fair and square."

When the ring of water dissolved, melting into tiny droplets that faded away before they could rain down on the stage, Michelle felt herself finally, finally relax. She pulled back Iron Maiden, letting the Stand fade back into her skin. Cascada wormed her way out from under Michelle and rose to her feet, but Michelle stayed put, giving herself a moment to catch her breath.

Said moment came and went instantly, interrupted by the sound of roaring applause assaulting her ears. She turned around and saw that not only had the audience nearly doubled in size, pulling in a much more diverse crowd than before, but that they were going absolutely wild after the fight. Most were giving a standing ovation (partially because there weren't enough seats there to hold them all), and she even spotted a few exchanging money between themselves.

Michelle felt herself grow red in the face. Was it possible to experience stage fright after curtain call?

A familiar voice called out to her from offstage, somehow audible over the cheering crowd. "Chelly! Holy shit! That was amazing!"

Michelle looked to her right and saw Sara darting towards her from offstage. How she'd managed to sneak past security, Michelle decided not to question.

"I'm just...you were just...wow!" Sara excitedly waved her hands around as she tried to find the right words to say. Taking advantage of Sara’s rare moment of silence, Michelle attempted to lift herself back up to her feet. She didn’t even get halfway off the ground before Sara grabbed her by the arm and yanked her up the rest of the way. The giant gash in Michelle’s shoulder began to sting.

"Oww! Oww oww oww..." Michelle winced, pushing away from Sara.

"Sorry! Yikes, that still looks tender." Sara tilted her head to the side to get a better view of the injury. "But don’t worry, that’s nothing Rumor can’t fix. More importantly, you were so cool up there! Talk about a big finish! The way you stopped that light from falling onto her, like a superhero saving a civilian from collapsing rubble...it was awesome!"

"Don't be weird. It was just my Stand."

"Well, what else would you call that? For what it's worth, Out of Touch definitely couldn't pull off something like that. That's what makes Iron Maiden special. Your Stand helps people!"

Michelle almost rolled her eyes and dismissed her. Almost. Maybe blood loss had made her delirious, but she stopped to consider Sara's words.

She stared down at her hands, bringing out Iron Maiden's arms to overlay on top of them. Superhero. Once upon a time in a far away land (quite literally, she was a long ways away from France now), she had considered Iron Maiden like that. Not like a curse, not something to hide in shame from, but a gift. It had been so long since she'd thought of Iron Maiden positively, like something other than a burden she had to bear in silence. Maybe superhero was actually an apt term for Iron Maiden...for herself. After all, most superheroes left behind major collateral damage in their wake, but at the end of the day, they were righteous, good-hearted, and always helped others in need.

How many lives had she saved since she met Sara and the others? Well, she'd saved Sara's to start with, or at least saved her from a nasty trip to the emergency room from that speeding car. She'd saved her own life from Policy of Truth, for what it was worth, then everyone else's lives when Iron Maiden helped them all flee from the falling plane. Now, she'd saved Cascada's life, a complete stranger who had challenged her to a duel. Twice, even; first when she'd used Iron Maiden to hold the stage light in place, then when she knocked her out of the way from when it was about to topple on top of her.

Iron Maiden saving lives...what a concept. A fond smile crept up on Michelle's face.

"My Stand...helps people..." she mumbled.

Sara pulled back in disbelief. "Huh? What was that? Could the great Michelle Polnareff actually be agreeing with me? Man, somebody pinch me."

Michelle couldn't blame her. If she had heard someone tell her that even a week ago, she either would've told them off or slapped them in the face. Of course, it didn't entirely rule out the existence of the curse. Absolutely. Probably. Maybe. She figured she could work out the details later.

Brushing her hair out of her face, Michelle looked back up at Sara. "So what if I did?"

Chapter Text

Were she not still slightly doozy from the fight, Michelle would've thought to ask Sara whether or not she'd ever caught up with the rest of the group. That was what she had told her to do earlier, after all. If Sara was here, then where was everyone else? Before she could think to ask, the answer came when Michelle heard yet another familiar voice call out to her.

"Yo! Michelle!"

She turned around and saw two boys approach her from offstage. One of them was Cab, wearing sandals, a pair of blue swim trunks, and nothing else. Some stray specks of sand dusted his hair, made extremely visible in his dark ringlets. Michelle didn't recognize the other boy with him. His swim trunks were bleach white, almost iridescent against his sunkissed skin. Though he wasn't quite as tall or buff as Cab, he still had a lean, athletic build with the slightest hint of a six-pack. His long, chestnut locks blew behind him as he rushed her way.

Was that...Rumor?

Michelle's heart fluttered. If that was Rumor, he gave off a much different aura now than he normally did. Usually, his braided crown, slightly baggy shirt, and long kneesocks gave off the impression of someone formal, studious, refined. But like this, looking much more relaxed and casual, he looked...nice. In a way Rumor normally didn't. That was the most decent way she could phrase it. Especially with his wavy hair draped over his shoulders, the ends tickling the skin just above his...

She turned away as she felt her face turn bright red. No. Stop. That couldn't be Rumor. Rumor was a skinny beanpole of a nerd who practically kept his scarf sewn to his neck at all times, no matter the weather. To even consider him without it in any context, even the beach, felt like a betrayal to his character. Did Rumor even own a swimsuit? Probably not. Definitely not. Absolutely not! Therefore, that couldn't be him. Rumor's hair was much shorter than that, too. Sure, she'd never seen it out of its braided crown before, but it couldn't possibly be that long...right?

While Michelle mentally flipped through scenarios where Cab could've located this handsome stranger and where Rumor could've ended up, Cascada, still onstage next to her, inquisitively quirked her brow.

"Wait, Michelle? You said your name was Genevieve," Cascada pointed out.

If Michelle did have a dreamy look at her face (which she definitely didn't), it cracked away the instant Cascada said that. She stood up stick straight and slowly turned towards her. "Uhh..."

The boys reached her before she could say anything, calling her attention back to them. "That was kickass! I can't believe you had it in you," Cab praised. "Y'know, if it was me, I would've let the stage light fall on her just a little bit. Maybe nick her ankles or something."

Cascada put her hands on her hips. "I'm still here, you know."

Cab quirked a brow at her in response. "Okay, and? We're talking here, you know."

Quiet Riot appeared in front of Cab, directly facing Cascada, and lightly flicked her shoulder. The next thing either of them knew, Cascada had zipped to the other end of the stage. As Cab withdrew Quiet Riot with an amused smirk, Michelle anxiously chewed on her lip. Hopefully, Cascada wouldn't take that as an invitation to challenge Cab to a fight next.

"Anyways," Cab continued, "that thing with the stage light was actually pretty genius. You even managed to stop it twice, too!"

"I wish I didn't have to stop it in the first place," Michelle confessed.

"No, seriously. It's a good style for you." Cab rested a hand on her non-bloody shoulder. "It's kinda funny, actually. I used to see this kind of thing all the time back when I was doing boxing. A lot of people think winning a fight comes from landing as many blows as you can, but the best boxers just need one perfect hit to score a knockout. That's what you just did. You took hit after hit from this chick, but no matter how bad they looked, you walked away from them every time. Something tells me if you let that light land on her, she wouldn't have been walking at all."

One perfect hit? Michelle supposed he had a point there. Having grown up watching Silver Chariot's breathtaking speed, she always thought of combat with Stands as a matter of who could swing their sword or throw their fists the fastest, who could score the most hits in a single breath. But Cab was right. None of the smaller blows that Cascada had landed on her held a candle to the potential of the stage light falling on her. And if Michelle really wanted to, she probably could've found a way to sever it on her own without Moon River's assistance.

Michelle wobbly walked forward, ready to head offstage. "M-merci, Ca—"

She grew more and more lightheaded with each step she took, the world blurring around her. Just how bad were her injuries, anyways? She'd been fine just a second ago. Did Moon River's water have some kind of poison interlaced with it? If only Rumor was there to heal here. She took two and a half steps forward before her knees gave out, sending her tumbling down. However, instead of slamming shoulder-first onto the ground, Michelle felt someone catch her in a pair of warm, sturdy arms. Those same arms supported her back and lifted her knees, guiding her into a sitting position. With a tired groan, she subconsciously leaned into their...his chest. He had a very distinct scent: strong and spicy with a sweet undercurrent.

"You've lost quite a bit of blood. Let me help you," she heard him say. He sounded familiar, but Michelle's tired, overworked mind couldn't pull out who it belonged to, if anyone. She had interacted with so many people on the trip already, let alone in the last day. It could've been anyone talking to her.

Still, heal? "Wha...?" She blinked her eyes open, vision still blurry, and squinted against the intense stage lights shining down on them. "Etes-vous un docteur?"

Her vision cleared just enough for her to see his green eyes narrow in confusion.

"Goodness, you're in worse shape than I initially thought." His voice, more specifically his accent, suddenly sounded a whole lot more familiar. "It's me, Rumor. You haven't forgotten that my Stand can heal wounds, have you?"

"Ru...mor?"

Rumor?!

No...there was no way. No way! That other boy with Cab couldn't be Rumor! He just...couldn't be! She gasped, drawing in a long breath of air. It was then that she realized exactly what that smell was: cinnamon cologne, the same that Rumor's scarf had reeked of when she buried her head in it after the fight against Sting. As if some trickster god was taunting her, her vision finally started to straighten itself out, giving her a better look at the boy's face. Sharp green eyes, pointy chin, long nose, thin lips. Even his bangs were a perfect match.

She couldn't deny it anymore. That was definitely Rumor.

Holy shit.

Michelle felt her soul just about leave her body when she realized that she had collapsed onto Rumor's exposed chest. And nuzzled into it! In front of everyone! The horror! How the hell had she just walked away from the bloodiest fight in her life right into a scene out of one of Sara's smutty romance novels? She pushed away from Rumor and shot back to her feet. Cab and Sara snickered at the scene, whispering something amongst themselves.

"N-non, merci! I'm fine! D-don't worry about me."

Rumor folded his arms. "Michelle, the wound on your shoulder alone would be cause for alarm. You're positively red all over with all the blood caked to your skin." That comment made Michelle cover her face with her hand, trying in vain to not look like a blushing mess. God, that fight with Cascada had really messed with her head. "You need me to heal you."

Yes, healing. What she needed was healing. Maybe Rumor's Hamon could purify whatever drug Cascada had obviously snuck into Moon River's water. And truth be told, she did feel a little dizzy from standing up too fast. "Yeah, you're right," she responded, hand still covering most of her face as she avoided eye contact with him.

She saw Rumor nod in response out of the corner of her eye. A wave of nervousness coursed down her body as Rumor took her hand—oh my god oh my god he's holding my hand—to inspect the large cut Moon River had left behind. She prayed that he couldn't feel the sudden spike in her pulse. Unlike her, though, Rumor remained professional and composed, lightly humming to himself as he inspected each injury.

"I would recommend we head offstage to heal, but given the severity of some of your injuries, I'm going to fix them now before they get any worse," Rumor commented. "You don't mind, do you?"

"N-no, that's fine..."

"Good. Now, hold still. This may take—"

Rumor was interrupted as a crowd of strangers stampeded out from backstage and shoved their way past him, knocking him off balance and sending him tumbling to the floor. They had Michelle surrounded in a giant mob before she could try to help him back up. Most of them wore fancy, high-end suits, glamorized from head to toe with ritzy makeup and kitsch accessories.

As he pushed himself off the ground, Rumor shot the crowd a sharp glare. "Excuse me—!"

The men either didn't notice or didn't care about Rumor and spoke right over him. "Excellent work in that Stand-off! My name is Gordon Nancy," the first one introduced himself, clad in a striped pinstripe purple suit with a tie that stretched down over his crotch. "I work with the Stand Extravagance Experience Society. Would you be interested in an internship?"

"Trust me, you don't want a SEES internship with him," the man on her other side reassured her, wearing a snappy yellow blazer over a shiny red jumpsuit. "You want one with me. I'll make a star out of you, little girl."

Another wave of dizziness crashed over her. It was hard enough to keep up with Sara's incessant talking half the time, having to deal with a crowd of pushy strangers shove their cheery first impressions down her throat had worn her out in the span of a few seconds. The blood loss from her still sore injuries did nothing to help. They had no sense of personal space, either, with the closest of them all but shouting in her ear. Brows pinched together, she attempted to weed her way out of the crowd of SEES recruiters, weakly trying to ram her way past their defenses. She needed to get out of this horrible crowd, needed to have Rumor heal her, needed to just get the hell off the stage.

A camera flashed right in her face before she could get too far, temporarily blinding her. It wasn't Sara—the brightness of the flash far outshone anything her camera could muster. Michelle reflexively shielded her eyes with her forearm as the photographer, an androgynous person wearing a floral-print kimono robe and boots with giant faux leaves sewn on the side, shoved his way to the front of the crowd, directly in her face. "Show me some pearly whites, hon! You should feel lucky it's been a slow news week. You'll be a frontliner for sure!"

Michelle tried to back away, but everywhere she turned, she just ended up bumping into someone much taller and stronger than she was. A nervous sweat ran down her forehead. Constantly being shoved and pushed around somehow put her even more on edge than when she'd been fighting Cascada. A vindictive part of her hoped that the blood from her injuries had smeared all over the SEES recruiters' tacky clothes and left a permanent stain. She darted her eyes around, desperate for an escape. Maybe, if I can get them to focus on something else for a second, I can crawl underneath their legs while they're all distracted, she thought.

Before she could implement her exit strategy, a loud, southern drawl cut through all the other voices heckling her. "Hey, hey, hey. If anyone wants to partner up with her, they gotta talk to me first."

The disgruntled crowd parted, revealing Hol Horse on the other side. He had also changed into a pair of swim trunks, having ditched everything else from his usual attire except for his hat and the cigarette between his lips. Various scars of all shapes and sizes littered over his arms and torso. Surprisingly, he wasn't anywhere near as toned as Cab or Rumor and even had what looked like the beginning of a beer gut. Sara and the others walked alongside him as he approached Michelle.

None too pleased, one of the SEES recruiters stormed over to him. "Oh, really? And who are you to say so?"

Hol Horse tipped his hat. "Well, I'm—"

"He's a traitor!"

All heads whipped over to the opposite side of the stage at the sharp accusation. Midler stomped out from the shadows, her oversized dentures now resembling barred fangs as she marched towards Hol Horse. Meanwhile, Cascada stiffened like a board as Midler passed her, inching her way offstage in a pseudo-moonwalk. Before she could get too far, Midler grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her forward. Michelle caught Cascada quickly roll her eyes as she slouched over in defeat.

"You! What were you thinking?" Midler angrily shook her hands by her head as Cascada folded her arms and stared at the ceiling. "A Stand-off? Really?"

"Yes, really," Cascada shot back, imitating Midler's distinctive voice. "I can't—"

"Green room. Now." Midler pointed behind her, directing Cascada backstage. "We'll talk about it later."

Cascada scrunched her nose up in frustration, shoulders dropping as she sharply exhaled. Flippantly, she put on a cheery smile and did a quick bow for the audience, eyeing Midler out of the corner of her eye the whole time. After shooting her mentor one last glare, she stormed offstage. Michelle awkwardly waved goodbye as she left.

As soon as Cascada turned a corner backstage, Midler turned on her heels, swinging her pointing finger forward towards Hol Horse. Brows creased and eyes blown wide, she took slow, deliberate steps towards him, shaking with anger. "And you..."

Michelle frowned. Wait, Midler knows Hol Horse, too. Just like how she apparently knew Dad. Just like how Hol Horse definitely knew Dad. She crossed her arms and glared up at Hol Horse. I guess it could be a coincidence since Midler and Hol Horse are both SEES members, but them knowing each other and knowing Dad? Was...Dad a SEES member too? No, that can't be it...

She studied Hol Horse's face very carefully as Midler approached him, looking for any cracks or tells that would indicate that he did not want to run into her. He didn't seem to react to the the indignant, wrathful look on Midler's face, at least not in the way Michelle thought he might. In fact, it didn't look like he recognized her at all. His eyes were narrowed, staring her up and down. "Midler?" he questioned, mumbling to himself. That seemed to light a bulb in his head, as his brows instantly shot up, face lit up in an affable smile. "Midler! Man, I ain't seen you in—"

Hol Horse fell silent as Midler grabbed his ponytail, yanked him down to her level, and kneed him hard in the groin. He spit out his cigarette as a muffled fleshy sound popped through the air. When Midler withdrew her leg, he lurched back a few steps, hunched over in pain. Though, honestly, Michelle couldn't help but find it impressive that he was still standing up at all. Half of her wanted to feel bad for him; the other half wanted to burst out laughing. Knowing Hol Horse, whatever this was for, he probably deserved it.

As Hol Horse began to regain his composure, Michelle felt something slither up her arm. She squeaked and drew her arms together beneath her chin. Her posture relaxed when she saw that it was just The Chain, slowly wrapping itself around the gash on her shoulder. Quiet footsteps tapped against the stage as Rumor approached her.

"Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before something like this happened." The Chain jangled underneath his wrist as Rumor gestured towards Hol Horse and Midler. "Now stand still and let me heal you."

Michelle nodded as The Chain slunk up her body, watching Hol Horse and Midler like it was the climax of a Hollywood blockbuster. She had a feeling that Midler wasn't just another one of his bitter exes.

After letting out a few more pathetic grunts of pain, Hol Horse straightened out his back just enough to look Midler in the eye. "Ugh, god dammit...what the hell'd you have to do that for?"

"That's for trying to shoot Lord Dio, you son of a bitch!"

Everyone in the amphitheater gasped at the allegation save for Michelle, Sara, Cab, and Hol Horse; though the latter did stand up straighter upon hearing it. The audience and remaining SEES recruiters onstage all began to whisper among themselves, muttering things like "Dio? You mean that Dio?" and "This guy really tried to shoot him?" Even Rumor let out a quick gasp, momentarily halting his breathing and causing all the Hamon sparking around The Chain to sputter out, leaving Michelle's more severe injuries not completely healed. He shook his head and refocused his breathing.

Michelle furrowed her brow and turned towards Rumor. She could understand why Midler and all the regulars at Chicago IX would know someone Hol Horse once tried to execute. Why would Rumor? "Dio? Who's Dio?"

Rumor had turned pale, mouth agape in shock. "I-I...well, I suppose it could be a different Dio, especially if Hol Horse and this woman knew him, but—"

"You...you know about that?" Hol Horse's voice pulled Michelle's attention away from Rumor.

Midler threw her hands up in frustration. "Of course I do! We all did!"

"That was 20 years ago. Why do you still care?"

"Well, you obviously do, considering you're babysitting for the enemy. You know who she is, right?"

As Midler gestured towards her, Michelle felt her heart stop.

Rumor unwrapped The Chain from her body and withdrew it back into his wrist, having finished fixing her wounds. Michelle didn't process the feeling of it sliding down her skin, nor the high-pitched whirring sound it made as the multiple strands snapped back inside Rumor's wrists and ankles. Nothing else around her mattered anymore. In her mind's eye, the bright and colorful stage lights turned monochrome, the crowd of SEES recruiters steadily retreating backstage moving in slow motion. The only thing that still felt real to her was that idiot cowboy and everything he'd been hiding from her.

Babysitting for the enemy. Midler hadn't gestured towards Cab or Rumor or even Sara. She had definitively waved her hand towards her. After all, why wouldn't she? Midler hadn't had her apprentice steal Sara's camera or Rumor's journal or anything like that. No, she had Cascada steal her bracelet. The one with a picture of her father in it.

Babysitting for the enemy. Michelle knew from the second she'd been introduced to Hol Horse that he knew her father, and yet, he never once said how or why he did. That had always struck Michelle as off. She'd started this trip running away from one man she was fairly certain played a role in her father's death. Now, here she was with another who actually had a confirmed kill count under his belt. Perhaps there was once a miniscule fraction of her subconscious that held out hope that maybe it was all just a misunderstanding, that maybe there had never been any animosity between Hol Horse and her father, that maybe everything truly was all in her head. Those hopes were snuffed out the second Midler said those four little words.

Babysitting for the enemy.

Suddenly, everything was starting to click.

This was it. Definitive proof of every paranoid fear she had had about Hol Horse since the beginning. He absolutely knew her father, and they absolutely weren't on good terms. Now, she had a third party vocally supporting her claims. He couldn't just ignore that and walk away from it, and she wasn't going to let him if he was stupid enough to try. Her hands balled into fists, her whole body shaking. Iron Maiden's latent energy surged through her body as she marched forward and forcibly inserted herself into Hol Horse and Midler's argument.

"Who I am?" she repeated.

Hol Horse jumped back a little at Michelle's firm words. He'd probably forgotten that she was even there after getting his balls kneed up into his stomach. For a moment, he just stared down at her, wide-eyed, then he flit his eyes back to Midler. A nervous laugh escaped his lips, forcing a smile on his face that neglected the panic in his eyes. Just as both women opened their mouths to say something more, Hol Horse swept his arm over Midler's shoulder, turning his back on Michelle. He shook his head, lowly chuckling to himself.

"Midler, Midler, Midler. I still remember when you let me call you Rose." He traced his thumb down Midler's jawline, stopping once he reached her chin, and smiled down at her with a smoldering grin. "How about you and I talk about this later over a drink?"

Thankfully, Midler didn't fall for the act and instantly pushed him off of her. "Oh, you lecherous little—!"

"Easy, now. I didn't mean it like that." He defensively raised his hands. "I got a policy against goin' after Stand users after what happened to Nena."

"What, like her? You do know who she is, don't you?"

Hol Horse shoved a hand over her mouth before she could say anything else and dragged her to the other end of the stage. The stage curtains just barely obscured them from the audience, but Michelle could still see them plain as day. Head held high, she followed them and continued to listen in on their conversation.

"Of course I know who she is," Hol Horse answered in an urgent whisper. "Look at her. I ain't blind. She looks just like him."

Midler grabbed Hol Horse's wrist and threw his hand off her face. Unlike him, she spoke in anything but a whisper. "Then tell me why exactly you're out here with Polnareff's daughter?" 

Upon hearing her family name, Michelle's white-knuckled fists clenched together so tightly that her fingernails dug into her palms. Her heartbeat felt like a series of bombs going off in her chest, blaring louder and louder in her ears with each word the two of them spoke.

He knew. He knew the whole time, and he never said anything. Michelle could only assume the worst.

Hol Horse slapped his hand back over Midler's mouth. "Midler, please, I know you're mad at me, but you need to—"

"That's it!"

They only had a split second to react before Michelle forced herself between them, summoned Iron Maiden's shield, and slammed it against Hol Horse's chest. Her muscles were tense with rage. She desperately wanted to take Iron Maiden's shield and beat him to a bloody pulp. The one thing restraining her was the need for answers—he couldn't tell her what she wanted to know if he was dead or comatose. Iron Maiden's blow shoved him away from Midler and back towards center stage. Michelle withdrew her Stand and strode towards him, glaring him down. For every two steps she took his way, he took one step away from her.

"I am so sick of this! Babysitting for the enemy? Who the hell are you? How do you know my father? How does everyone here know my father?" Michelle's voice already felt hoarse just from a few seconds of screaming at him. "You've been keeping this from me this whole time, and I, like an idiot, have just been going along with it! And I'm sick of it! You hear me? Sick!"

Hol Horse eventually found himself backed up into the fallen stage light, nearly tripping over it. He regained his composure somewhere in the middle of her ravings and calmly rested a hand on her shoulder. "Darlin', I need you to calm down and—"

"No!" She smacked his hand off of her. "Don't you darlin' me! Je te déteste, putain de cowboy stupide! Je sais que vous avez aidé à le tuer! I am not going to calm down until you answer me!"

When she felt another pair of hands on her shoulder, the hairs on Michelle's neck stood upright. She wasn't about to let someone pull her away from him. With her teeth grit, she swung around and prepared herself for a fight. The way she was feeling, no security guard or SEES user would dare mess with her. Iron Maiden's arm popped out of her shoulder...only for her to see that it was Sara behind her. Cab and Rumor stood next to her. Michelle hesitated, calling back her Stand, but kept her battle-ready scowl locked on her face. Uncharacteristically, Sara wasn't smiling at all, instead keeping her lips pressed together with concern.

"No, Michelle, he's right," she reaffirmed. "You need to take a chill pill here." 

"Take a...were you listening to them just now? Why are you defending him?"

"I'm not," Sara firmly stated. "You were right about Hol Horse from the beginning, and you have every right to be upset right now. You can say 'I told you so' as much as you want later. But right now, I need you to take a deep breath and calm down, okay? Rumor's healed your injuries, but you're in no state to deal with any of this right now. I'm not sure what went on between Hol Horse and your dad, but I'm sure he has a perfectly good explanation for all of it. Yelling and arguing won't get either of you anywhere. You need to calm down and be able to listen to him."

"Plus, you could get us all kicked out by security if you keep screaming like that," Cab added. "Honestly, I'm surprised that they've let us stay onstage as long as they have."

Cab's words made Michelle's fierce expression falter, reminding her of how she'd ended up in this mess to begin with. Her eyes widened in horror. "Ugh, bordel de merde! I can't believe I..." Michelle squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed fistfuls of hair, her nails digging deep into her scalp. "Boney's here! The green haired man from the plane!"

The whole group let out a small gasp and simultaneously exclaimed, "Wait, what?"

"He...I saw him while I was shopping for bathing suit. And he...he was following me! He knows us now!" Michelle's knees gave out beneath her, hair still grasped tightly in her hands. Tears leaked out from behind her shut eyelids. "I...I ran into those two and they called security and got him thrown out..." she gestured at Midler, completely forgetting that Cascada had left the stage a while ago, "but he could...I know that won't be enough to stop him...I was trying to get you all in one place so I could warn you when my bracelet..."

Anything else Michelle wanted to say was blocked out by the evergrowing lump in her throat. Her grip on her hair loosened as she took in deep, sobbing breaths, tears freely staining down her cheeks. Anxious shivers plagued her from head to toe. God dammit, why did all of this have to happen in one day? Having to face that giant spider beast thing guarding the entrance to Chicago IX had been more than enough excitement for one day. Now, she'd been stalked by this undead being intent on killing her, had her bracelet stolen right off her wrist, was forced into a Stand battle that nearly killed both her and her opponent, and now Hol Horse's web of lies was coming undone right in front of her. It was all just too much.

"Oh my god, you're not still on about him, are you?" Midler's annoyed voice cut through the miasma of stress clouding her mind. "I got a call from security before the show started. They've already dealt with him. Do you even know what our security system here is? Our lead security guard has a Stand that can trap people in an endless void through the security cameras. I don't care who he is or why he was following you, he's not getting out of something like that."

"Well, that's a relief," Cab sighed out. "I don't know how anyone could get out of that, even someone like him. Don't steal anything while we're here, Sara."

Michelle resisted the urge to scream. Okay, sure, fine. Security had trapped Boney in the void. But he had already come back from the dead. If he could do that, then he could get out of an interdimensional Stand prison just fine, right? Sure, she had no idea how  he had come back from the dead, but it couldn't be that hard for him to get back to the resort. Maybe his Stand made duplicates of his body that he could all control simultaneously...no, if he could do that, then he absolutely could've cornered her while she was running away from him. Maybe his body had a sort of "reverse death" effect on it, and he would eventually revive himself after taking fatal damage...but how would that serve him in escaping the void? Maybe he...he...

She flinched when she felt a hand on her back, shooting her eyes wide open and instinctively jumping away from the touch. Sara, now knelt down at her level, stared back at her. Her outstretched hand slowly retreated until it rested on her knee. She instead opted to give Michelle a small, comforting smile.

"Everything's okay now," she reassured. "We're okay. You're okay. Boney's gone. Try to think of it like this: you did manage to get us all together using that Stand-off! It was like a beacon to lure us all in. Good thinking."

Wiping some tears from her face, Michelle nodded in agreement. Obviously she hadn't planned on that happening, but she was willing to take any win she could.

"Michelle, I recommend we go up to the room for now," Rumor suggested. "Rest will do you a world of good, and if someone is still following us, then they'll have no way of knowing which room is ours so long as we make sure we aren't followed on the way up. We'll be safe there."

"Oh, and the rooms we got here are much nicer than all the rinky-dink motels we've been staying at," Cab added. "Didn't you say something about having trouble sleeping? If those beds don't help you catch some Z's, I don't know what will."

"But...Hol Horse needs to tell me..."

"Later," Cab firmly interjected. "He'll tell you after you've gotten some sleep and a balanced meal. Won't you, Horseshoes?" He looked up at Hol Horse and shot him a cocky smirk. "I gotta say, even I'm curious now."

Hol Horse merely set his jaw and grumbled something to himself.

"We'll see you back in the room." Cab spoke in a mockingly singsong tone and sauntered past Hol Horse with a cutesy little wave. "Just remember that your briefcase got lugged up there with the rest of our stuff. You can't ditch the resort without paying us a visit."

"Technically there's nothing stopping him from doing exactly that, he'd just be leaving here empty-handed," Rumor pointed out, ignoring the pronounced eyeroll Cab responded with. He shrugged and followed Cab offstage. "Oh well. His only options are to tell Michelle the truth or leave us with a million dollars. We stand to benefit either way."

"Wait, a million? Is that seriously how much is in there?"

"It was only a figure of speech, Cab."

As the two boys left, Sara inched closer to Michelle. "Are you good to walk, Chelly? You've had a rough day; I can always go and get the boys to carry you if you need them to. I'm sure Cab or Rumor wouldn't mind."

Michelle's cheeks turned warm at the thought of Rumor whisking her off the ground and carrying her in his arms all the way to their hotel room, no doubt with a bunch of people watching them the whole way up. Rapidly shaking her head, she rose to her feet and quickly shuffled offstage. Sara seemed to get the memo and trailed behind her.

"Hold on!" Both girls stopped in their tracks at Midler's shrill voice. Michelle turned around on her heels to see Midler speeding towards her, high heels clacking against the stage. "You aren't going anywhere until you give me High Priestess back!"

"I...what?" Michelle honestly had no idea what she was talking about.

"Ugh, don't you remember? Earlier, you absorbed my Stand into that Random Access Memory you had with you. Give it back!"

Oh, that's right. I can't believe I forgot about that, Michelle thought. With how crazy fighting Cascada was, it almost feels like that happened months ago. 

Where had that Random Access Memory ended up, anyways? The last time she remembered having it was when she absorbed High Priestess into it. Then she tripped and fell onstage, and almost immediately after that Cascada challenged her to a Stand-off. She knew for a fact that she never had the Random Access Memory with her during the fight, and if she did, it almost certainly would've been ripped to shreds by Moon River. Maybe she had dropped it when she fell? Michelle stood on her tiptoes and attempted to peek over Midler's shoulder, staring at the other end of the stage where she had fallen over.

At the slight shift in her balance, she felt something on the inside of her boot rub against her ankle. It wasn't her phone or wallet—the pockets of her boots had been empty ever since they left Belgium. Lightly tutting to herself, she reached down fished the offending item out of her boot. An amused smile formed on her face when she realized that it was the Random Access Memory she was looking for. It must've fallen in her boot when she tripped, and she simply never noticed until now.

This would've been really useful during the Stand-off, Michelle bemoaned to herself, rolling the Random Access Memory around in her hand.

But she hadn't really needed it, had she? Iron Maiden had dealt with everything Cascada threw at her all on its own. She didn't need help from it or Out of Touch or any of the other Stands she had come to rely on throughout her journey. Nearly blacking out from holding up the stage light aside, Michelle figured that she'd probably feel worse about herself if she had to rely on the Random Access Memory throughout the Stand-off. Like she was a burden, dead weight, helpless on her own, no better in a fight than any of Sara's suitcases. Now, after proving herself in battle, she knew that wasn't true. All Iron Maiden needed was one perfect hit, and she was more than capable of holding her own.

Her moment of personal reflection was broken when Midler snatched the Random Access Memory out of her hands and right-clicked it, summoning High Priestess (still stuck as a harpoon gun) by her side. The Stand melted into an amorphous blob before shimmering out of view. Midler shoved the Random Access Memory back into Michelle's hand and stormed off in the opposite direction.

Michelle realized that, besides the three of them, the stage was completely empty at this point and the audience had all left. Hol Horse must have darted off while she was looking for the Random Access Memory. "Hey!" she called out to Midler before she could leave the stage.

Placing her hands on her hips, Midler turned around and stared back at Michelle. "Oh, what now?"

"I'm sorry for locking your Stand inside of this thing earlier." Michelle waved the Random Access Memory by her ear. "In my defense, you were trying to shoot me."

"Why are you apologizing if you're just going to defend your actions anyways?"

Michelle frowned and folded her arms. So much for being polite. "Never mind. Look, whatever everyone's deal with my father is, I want to hear it from Hol Horse first. He owes me that. But if I suspect he's still lying to me, I want to hear your side of the story to see if it lines up with his. Can I count on you for that?"

"There's really not much to say, we just...oh, what the hell, fine." Midler dramatically flung her arms in the air before turning around and walking away. "I may not be on speaking terms with your father, but you did save my apprentice from her own stupidity. I suppose I owe you for that much."

Something about Midler's response didn't sit right with her. Or her whole demeanor, really. She, Hol Horse, and her father obviously had some history together, but if Midler openly referred to her father as "the enemy," why would she antagonize Hol Horse as well? Wouldn't they be on the same side? Granted, it didn't take much to give a woman a reason to knee Hol Horse in the crotch, but there was clearly more to it than just a lover's quarrel. Most of their tension seemed to originate from someone named Dio—Midler had called him a traitor, after all—and everyone had recognized that name. Even Rumor, who had no business recognizing anyone associated with Chicago IX. Michelle exhaled a quick puff of air. Who was this Dio guy...?

Sara lightly tugged on the straps of Michelle's bathing suit before she could give it any more thought. "C'mon, Chelly, let's just go," she suggested, tilting her head towards the exit.

Sighing, Michelle nodded and followed Sara offstage. No matter how much her psyche screamed at her to ponder over every possible history Hol Horse and Midler may have had with her father and prepare for any possible countermeasures they had against her finding out (because why would they be so secretive about it otherwise?), deep down she knew it wouldn't get her anywhere. Sara and the others were right; she needed a breather before hearing the truth, and Hol Horse couldn't leave the resort without going back up to their room first. Forget the money, his clothes were probably up there, and she was fairly certain Hol Horse wouldn't drive out of the resort in nothing but his hat and a pair of swim trunks.

Maybe Hol Horse had killed her father. Maybe he had helped the Grand Marshal and his stupid donut bangs do the deed. Maybe Sara was right, and that this was all just a huge misunderstanding. One thing was for sure, though—if Hol Horse did play a part in her father's murder, she knew she was more than well equipped to exact her revenge on him.

Chapter Text

Instead of going directly to the lobby though the sliding glass door by the pool, Sara led Michelle back inside the hotel through a side door near the back of the building that connected to the mini mall. Michelle realized as she walked through the door that, since One Size Fits All sat in the small corridor right next to the lobby and Boney had ambushed her before she could check out the rest of the area, she had never seen the mini mall in its entirety.

Calling it "mini" felt like a gross understatement. The mini mall occupied a spacious, circular area of the building with a giant skylight for a roof. Dozens of exotic potted plants laid scattered throughout the area, which, combined with the sun streaming in through the glass ceiling, made the area feel like a giant greenhouse. The walls were stacked with different shops and venues. An electronics store stood next to a candy store, which stood next to a small gym, which stood next to what Michelle could only assume was, given all the paraphernalia on display, a marijuana dispensary. None of them were any big brands that Michelle recognized—maybe all of them were personalized to the owner like One Size Fits All was for Firework.

Firework. Michelle stopped outside of One Size Fits All as they approached the boutique. It was pitch black inside the shop with a CLOSED sign hanging off the door. Michelle furrowed her brow. None of the other stores in the mini mall were closed. She could've dismissed it as Firework closing the shop early for the heck of it, but the image of Boney casually leaning over the cashier desk, mask visibly sticking out of his pocket hung in her mind. He had to be the reason the shop was closed.

"Something wrong, Chelly?"

Michelle turned around and saw Sara standing just a few paces ahead of her.

"Did you happen to see the guy behind the register here again at any point after you left the shop?"

Sara pursed her lips and stared at her forehead, thinking over the question. "No, I don't think I did," she said. "Why? What's up?"

"This is where I ran into Boney," Michelle confessed. "After I left the dressing room, I saw him talking to the cashier with a Masquerader mask sticking out of his pocket. He's a Stand user too. That's how I got this bathing suit."

"Oh...oh. Got it." Sara's face fell. "He's...probably fine. You'd think there'd be some kind of commotion if a Masquerader fight broke out, right? If he did get masked, we would've heard about it by now. With Boney out of the picture, we shouldn't have to worry about anyone else getting masked, either." A confident grin popped back on her face. "Maybe he's just getting lunch or something. Heck, maybe he closed the shop early to watch your Stand-off!"

Michelle rolled her eyes. Somehow, she doubted that, but Sara did bring up some good points. By now, a Masquerader had plenty of time to go out and wreak havoc. If Firework (or anyone else, for that matter) had gotten into a fight, it would've attracted a crowd or security. That definitely would've turned some heads.

Still, it didn't sit right with her. What if Boney had done something else to him? What if Firework had been conspiring with Boney all along? She knew she couldn't forgive herself if the former was true, and she absolutely needed to change back into her regular clothes in the event of the latter. There was still a very real possibility that the fibers Puttin' on the Ritz had injected into her bathing suit could come out and strangle her.

In either scenario, she couldn't do much without putting Sara and herself in even more danger. Michelle gave One Size Fits All one last wistful look as she followed Sara to the lobby.

Cab and Rumor greeted them by the elevators. Once they arrived on the 14th floor, Michelle recalled Cab saying something about their room being "much nicer" than any of the cheap hotels and run-down rest stops they'd stayed at the last few days, but that wasn't exactly a high bar to clear. As long as she had her own bed, she was good.

Michelle quickly realized what he meant once he opened the door to room 1413.

It wasn't a hotel room, it was a god damn suite. An entire living room stood across from her, with a moderately sized kitchen to her right. The living room had a pair of leather sofas, a reclining armchair, coffee table, widescreen TV, and even a fireplace. A few geometric paintings hung off the dark oak walls, complimenting the shag white carpet adorning the floor. The perfect view of the beach was the cherry on top, with a sizable balcony tucked away behind the sliding glass door at the end of the living room. Even the kitchen looked well-stocked. The coffee machine was stacked with different blends and creamers, a bunch of bags of chips littered around the countertop. Either the staff at Chicago IX had been expecting them, or they had all made a grocery run on their own.

Thinking about that made her frown. "Where's our bags?"

"Oh, we dropped them off in the rooms." Cab pointed towards a hallway by the living room that she had somehow missed.

Michelle kicked off her boots and ambled into the hallway, the others following close behind. Four doors greeted her, two on the wall across from her and one at either end of the hall. The door at her left end was open, revealing a toilet and what looked like the edge of a bathtub; the bathroom.

"We took the liberty of picking who got what room while you were away," Rumor said. "You and Sara have the one closest to the bathroom, Cab and I have the one next to that, and Hol Horse has the master bedroom at the end of the hall. I assume that selection would be to your liking."

So Hol Horse got the master bedroom? Michelle scrunched up her nose. No, that was not alright. What had he done on the trip so far? Lie, lie, lie, nearly get Sara killed back in New York, then lie some more? So what if he had gotten them into the resort and paid for their room? She had tons of inheritance money just lying around in the bank, she could've paid for it on her own if she wanted to. Not to mention that she was the one who had to put up with being chased by Boney and being forced into a Stand fight today, not him.

She strode down to her and Sara's shared room (which was like fancier version of all of the other hotel rooms they had stayed in so far), grabbed her suitcase, and carried it over to the master bedroom. Hol Horse's briefcase and clothes sat atop a giant king-sized canopy bed inside. Setting her own bag down, Michelle grabbed Hol Horse's stuff off the bed and tossed it out of the room, thudding onto the floor by Sara's feet.

"I've earned this," Michelle announced.

Nobody objected as she closed the door.

After changing back into her regular clothes, leaving her necklace, bracelets, and the Random Access Memory on the nightstand, Michelle plopped down onto the bed and rested her eyes. The tension in her shoulders loosened up, her whole body feeling comfortably tired and weightless as she sunk into the mattress. Cab wasn't kidding, the beds were amazing.

Hol Horse is going to be so pissed when he sees that I stole the bedroom from him. Good. He deserves it, Michelle thought, rolling over on her side. Soon, though...all of the lying will end. By the end of the day, I'll know the truth about everything. No more reading between the lines, no more staying up at night because I don't know if I can trust him or not. She yawned. Dad, if he did kill you, I'm sorry I've stuck with him as long as I have. I'm sorry I ever considered trusting him. She nuzzled deeper into her pillow. Were you watching me today? You said you and Chariot used to get into Stand fights all the time. I think I did good. Like a superhero. I hope you're proud of me...

Those were her last thoughts before she dozed off into a well deserved nap.

~~~~~

Michelle stayed in bed long after she woke up, reveling in the way the soft duvet wrapped around her like a cocoon. The memory foam mattress was so plush and perfect that she was tempted to take a page out of Sara's book and store it inside of the Random Access Memory so she could take it with her back to Paris. Now she knew what Sara meant when she said she needed this. Sure, she could get up, but the door was all the way over there! Staying in her bed would do just fine.

That was, until a small knock rasped against her door.

"Chelly?" Sara called out. "He's here."

At that, Michelle's sleepy smile melted away. With a placid look on her face, she got out of bed, grabbed her bracelets off the nightstand, and swung the door to her room open.

Someone had opened the sliding glass door to the balcony, filling the living room with the humid summer air. Hol Horse, now back in his regular clothes with his briefcase at his side, sat on one of the balcony's foldable chairs with a lit cigarette in his mouth. Cab and Rumor sat in the living room. Michelle fastened her bracelets snug on her wrists and strode through the living room, taking a seat on the edge of coffee table to face Hol Horse head on. Sara followed her in and sat down next to Cab on the sofa.

"You've been gone a while," Michelle pointed out.

"You've been asleep a while," Hol Horse deflected. "I had somethin' I had to take care of."

"Like what?"

"SEES stuff. Bunch of paperwork. Nothin' to do with you."

"Your clothes were up here when we got back. Were you filling out paperwork in your swim trunks?"

Sara cleared her throat again. "L-let's all be civil with each other..."

Michelle folded her arms and snorted. Civil. Right. The whole reason everyone made her go up to the hotel room to begin with was to get her to calm down, let her rest and recharge so she was ready to listen to whatever alibi Hol Horse had cooked up for himself. That was probably what he had been doing this whole time; practicing whatever story he had made up to cover his ass. Had she not just taken a nap on the world's most comfortable bed, she would've gone up and shield bash his skull harder than Midler had kneed his balls.

She settled on just wrinkling her nose at him. "Fine," she conceded. "Midler's already agreed to tell me her side of the story after you tell me yours. Whatever her role in all of this is, she seems way more open about it than you do. Your stories better line up with each other."

"I figured you'd say somethin' like that." Hol Horse flashed a confident smirk. "Luckily, I got just the thing to make you believe me."

He pulled two things out of his pocket: a pen, and a torn scrap of canvas with jagged and frayed edges. Michelle stifled a gasp. She only needed a quick glance at one of the screaming faces painted on the canvas to recognize what it was.

Somehow, Hol Horse had gotten his hands on part of Policy of Truth. "Where did you—"

"Watch."

Hol Horse set down the Policy of Truth shard on the floor in front of him and held out the pen. Its royal blue hue matched the color of his eyes.

"This pen is red," Hol Horse stated.

The eyes of all the painted faces lit up like tiny flashlights. Michelle's heart sunk. She couldn't risk Hol Horse killing himself before he told her what she wanted to know. Iron Maiden sprung up behind her as she shot up to her feet, but the moment she stood up, Policy of Truth stopped glowing. Hol Horse hadn't been petrified, nor had he begun to melt into paint. He just sat there and took another drag from his cigarette.

"This pen is blue," Hol Horse stated.

Policy of Truth didn't react. After all, that was the truth. The Stand still functioned like normal, but whatever it seemed that whatever had torn up the painting had crippled its effects as well. Lucky for them, although Iron Maiden could already cancel out Policy of Truth's ability to begin with. Michelle withdrew her Stand and slowly sat back down, moving in time with Hol Horse setting the pen down on the floor.

"Now, you sure you wanna know how I knew your old man? This ain't a short story," Hol Horse warned.

Michelle cocked a brow. "Are you saying that you knew him?"

Hol Horse's eyes narrowed slightly as he sharply exhaled.

"Yes. I knew your father," he admitted.

Michelle flitted her eyes down to Policy of Truth. It didn't light up. The corners of her mouth twitched, threatening a smile on her face. Damn did it feel good to finally hear him say it. One sentence into his confession and she already felt vindicated.

Still, they were far from done. "How did you know him?"

Hol Horse turned away from her and rubbed the back of his head.

"I reckon you've gathered this by now, but SEES members all get assigned to certain...divisions when they join," he explained. "Say you've got a Stand that can transfer knowledge from your brain to someone else's. A Stand like that'd make someone a great private tutor, right? Whenever SEES gets a new recruit, the folks in charge give 'em a job based on their Stand abilities and individual talents. When someone with the right connections or a big enough wallet starts lookin' around for someone with that job, they act as a middle man to get you hired."

"Merveilleuse. Something tells me that they didn't make you a tutor."

"You're right. I've been an assassin for SEES since I was sixteen years old."

For just a second, Michelle couldn't help but pity him. Sixteen. Only a year younger than she was now.

"Back then, it was just the Stand User Agency," Hol Horse continued. "Guess that name didn't roll off the tongue as well. We didn't have any of this 'extravagant experience' bull when I first joined. It was just a job. This whole resort was just an office building and some apartments. I was born in the sticks and grew up wantin' to see the world. One day some older fella that went by Gray Fly came along and said he could give me some work that'd get me out of my hometown, and I signed up soon as I could."

Though she could only see his profile, Michelle quickly noticed the nostalgic twinkle in his eye. Honestly, she was surprised that he had already shared this much with her instead of just opening with something like yeah, I helped kill your father, what are you going to do about it? He probably just wanted to dodge the topic.

Well, if he wanted to delay the inevitable, the least she could do was get him to fess up to more of his crimes in front of everyone else. "What was your last assassination job?"

"That's got nothin' to do with your old man," Hol Horse retaliated.

"Neither did any of that. Answer my question."

Hol Horse sighed and took another huff from his cigarette, anxiously tucking his hair behind his ear.

"Chick Dixie, the Mayor of Mons," he mumbled out. "I got the assignment 'bout a month ago, and I finished it up last week. Though funnily enough, that had nothin' to do with SEES. It was more of a personal favor for an old buddy of mine."

Bingo. If whatever Hol Horse was about to reveal about her dad didn't put everyone on her side, Michelle was sure that this would. She stood back up and turned back towards the rest of the group. "See? I told you he shot the mayor! I tried to tell all of you back on the plane, but did you listen? Non! He's a murderer! They pay him to kill people! We let a murderer tag along with us for god knows how—"

Rumor held out his hand. "I hate to interrupt, Michelle, but I've suspected that he was the culprit behind the mayor's death for a while now."

Michelle stopped midsentence on account of her jaw dropping to the floor.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, same here," Cab admitted. "It clicked in my head after we left New York."

"Doesn’t that bother you?"

"It does, believe me, but stop and think about it for a sec. Do you really think it’s better to just let him loose?" Cab sat up straighter on the sofa as he articulated his point. "At least if we hang around him for the time being, we can get in the way if he does try to kill someone. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Cab's justification left Michelle speechless. Her mouth traced the shapes of different syllables, but it took a hot second before any words came out.

"Y-you can’t be serious, right? We absolutely do not have to babysit this assassin just to make sure he doesn’t kill anyone else! Why don’t we call, oh, I don’t know, the police?! It’s their job to deal with people like him, not ours!"

"Oh, yeah, that’ll go well. ‘Lock this guy up, he's got a magic psychic gun!’ I don’t know what law enforcement looks like in France, but over here that kind of story will get a laugh at best and a trip to the psyche ward at worst, and that's assuming Hol Horse wouldn't just buy out the pigs faster than they could get off their asses to lock him up."

"And what if he tries to kill us, hmm? What then?"

Sara rose from the sofa and stood between the two of them. "Michelle, stop! This isn’t getting us anywhere! Why would he try to kill any of us?"

"Actually, we can deduce that right now," Rumor pointed out. He turned towards Hol Horse, a thoughtful look on his face. "Do you want to kill us, Hol Horse?"

"No, I don’t," Hol Horse said bluntly. The shard didn't light up.

"What if it paid well?" Cab challenged.

Hol Horse hesitated, keeping his lips pressed together for an uncomfortably long couple seconds.

"Right now, no one would put a bounty high enough to buy me on any of your heads," he said.

The shard didn't light up at that either, but Hol Horse's words didn't put Michelle at ease. In fact, she felt incredibly disappointed in everyone in the room. Hol Horse more or less admitting that he would at least consider killing any of them if someone paid him enough was one thing, but what of her friends? Not a damn on of them seemed to care that Hol Horse was an assassin, a murderer. To hell with keeping your enemies close, they didn't need to keep someone like him around with them!

With a vexed groan, Michelle pinched the ridge of her nose and sat back down. She noticed Sara return to her seat on the couch out of the corner of her eye. "Let's get back on track. How do you know my father?"

Hol Horse readjusted himself so that he was facing her directly. He mostly kept a stern look on his face, but something in his eyes almost looked concerned. Not scared for himself, but worried for her. Michelle couldn't decide whether it was genuine or a very convincing act.

"You sure you wanna know?"

"Ask me that again and I'll take that chunk of Policy of Truth and shove it up your cul," Michelle threatened. "I'm going to keep asking until you tell me."

"Alright, don't say I didn't warn you. How do I put this..."

He leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on his knees. The brim of his hat covered his eyes, but Michelle could practically smell the pensive look on his face from the way he hummed to himself and fiddled with his cigarette.

"Let's just say that at one point in time, the two of us were both workin' for the same guy and had the same target," Hol Horse revealed.

Michelle's eyes widened. That couldn't be true. Hol Horse was an assassin. Her father was a part-time translator. That was why he left on business trips all the time...right? She knew he'd trained Chariot for combat and had used it to at least incapacitate his enemies, but he'd never actually kill someone. Even if he did, the only type of person that would ever find themselves on the pointy end of Chariot's rapier would be someone like Hol Horse. The father she knew wouldn't be caught dead working with him!

She quickly looked down to Policy of Truth for confirmation. Her heart stopped when it didn't light up. Hol Horse was telling the truth.

"I...that's not..." Michelle stuttered out, "are you saying that my father was an assassin for SEES as well?"

Hol Horse shrugged. "Not necessarily. SEES is an international thing, but your old man didn't strike me as the SEES type. Besides, if he was, I'd probably know 'bout it by now." He side-eyed her with the slightest hint of a smirk on his face. "I actually helped save his hide once, y'know. So if you really think about it, without me, you might've never had a chance to be born."

"Why was he...working a job like that, then?" The words were like bile in Michelle's mouth. Even entertaining the idea of her father being a hitman made her feel sick to her stomach. "Why did he have the same...target as you?"

At the second why, Hol Horse's demeanor changed. He sat up straighter and avoided eye contact with her as he took another drag from his cigarette.

"It's hard to—" his voice cracked midsentence. He forced a cough before continuing. "It's hard to say. All of us had different motives. Some were in it for the money, others were in it for the...other benefits. Maybe I knew what everyone was gettin' out of it at some point, but it's been so long that some things have just slipped my mind. As far as I know, your dad could've been doin' it for anything."

Policy of Truth lit up. Both Hol Horse and Michelle shot to their feet. Iron Maiden's arm emerged from Michelle's shoulder and readied a fist at him, a battle-ready scowl marred on her face. Hol Horse kicked his chair to the side and took a step back, defensively keeping his arms up. 

"Hey, hey. Easy now," Hol Horse acquiesced. "I'm sorry; no more stretchin' the truth. But you gotta let me share my side of the story first, alright? And don't say I didn't warn you about all of this."

Michelle stood firm, her shoulders rising and falling with her breath. As much as she wanted to smack him in the face with Iron Maiden's shield for lying to her, he wouldn't be able to speak if she broke his jaw. Iron Maiden vanished as she sat back down, but her vicious sneer remained.

"Fine," she relented.

With a relieved sigh, Hol Horse set his chair back in place and sat down again. He took a moment to stare at the roof, Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed heavily.

"It was the summer of...what was it...'88?"

He looked to Policy of Truth. It lit up at the inaccuracy.

"No, '87," he corrected. "I was hidin' from the feds at some chick's apartment in Idaho after a job gone wrong. Damn those pigs. They just didn’t know when to throw in the towel. I needed out, and fast, but I didn't have another job lined up or anywhere else to go. Eventually, I decided to go and call a SEES rep to see if they had any work for me. Turns out, they managed to snag me a gig in Cairo. I didn't listen to their offer twice. Soon as I could, I booked it towards the closest airport I could find and took some two or three flights to get to Egypt."

He disapprovingly shook his head and took another drag from his cigarette.

"The whole thing was weird. They didn't even give me a name or an address, just a picture of the building I was supposed to meet my client at," he continued. "Some washed up old mansion on the outskirts of the city. Must've taken me a whole day's work just to find the place. The entire time I remember thinkin' to myself, 'who in the hell am I workin' for here?' At that point, I'd been a hired gun for every kind of person you can imagine: politicians, warlords, mafia kingpins, hell, even petty ex-lovers. None of my other jobs started off like that."

Once Hol Horse started rambling off all the different types of clients he'd worked for over the years, Michelle glanced down at Policy of Truth. It never lit up. Her stomach churned—he wasn't bluffing, he really had worked for every example he listed off.

"All that work, all that walkin', and it turned out I was hired by some old lady named Enya," Hol Horse divulged. "Tiny little thing. She greeted me outside the mansion and invited me in. It was an...interesting place. That's one way of puttin' it. Cobwebs everywhere, dark as hell. I ended up using my lighter as a flashlight half the time I was there. But everywhere you looked, there was some priceless artifact just lyin' around. A one of a kind painting here, an antique vase there. One time I walked in saw a bunch of gold coins just scattered on the floor. Along with..."

His breathing suddenly turned erratic and heavy, like the words had been punched out of his lungs. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shook his head and took another hit from his cigarette.

Before Michelle could ask exactly what else was scattered on the floor of that mansion, Hol Horse kept talking. "Anyways. I chatted with Enya for a bit after she invited me in the mansion, showed her what Emperor could do, then she led me to...the boss."

Michelle folded her arms. "The boss?"

"Th-the boss."

"Did he have a name?"

Hol Horse pressed his lips together in a thin line and started bouncing his knee. "H-his name's not important."

"Really? Then why won't you say it?"

"You've got quite the mouth on ya, don't cha, darlin'?"

"Je suis sûr que mon père serait fier. Name, please?"

He brought his cigarette back up to his lips, but frowned when he saw that the end had been burned through. With a sigh, he stubbed the cigarette out on the armrest of his chair and faced Michelle.

"His name was Dio," Hol Horse admitted.

Michelle sat up straighter. There was that name again. Dio. Just who was Dio? Everyone in the amphitheater had freaked out when Midler mentioned him earlier, including—

Rumor eagerly stood up.

"Yes, about that," he interjected. "I was shocked to hear that older woman bring him up after Michelle and Cascada's Stand-off. I learned all about a man named Dio Brando from my Hamon instructor back on Air Supplena, but from what I was told, he was slain in battle back in the late 1800s. You don't suppose that the Dio you worked for and the one I've heard about could be the same person, do you? After all, it's certainly not a common name."

"You're one to talk, Rumor," Cab scoffed.

Rumor spun around on his heels to face Cab, hands planted firmly on his hips. "Says you, Mr. Taxi Cab. You'll rue the day you first spoke against me if Hol Horse's answer is what I suspect it is."

"I'll rue the day...?" Cab snickered and shook his head. "Okay, buddy."

"Anyhow," Rumor sighed out. "Hol Horse?"

Hol Horse narrowed his eyes at Rumor. "Who'd you say your Hamon coach was?"

"Tangerine Zeppeli."

"Oh, thank god," Hol Horse sighed in relief.

"Now, if you don't mind answering my question."

Hol Horse turned away and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not exactly sure what you're askin' me, boy."

Policy of Truth lit up. Hol Horse groaned and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Shit," he sighed.

"Uh," Sara raised her hand. "I'm lost. Weren't we supposed to be talking about Chelly's dad?"

"This should clear some things up." Hol Horse sat up straighter in his chair. "What Rumor's gettin' at is true. Dio was...a vampire."

Michelle gasped and looked down towards Policy of Truth. It didn't light up. Hol Horse was...telling the truth? This Dio guy was a vampire? He had worked for a vampire? Her father had worked for a vampire? Vampires were real?

While Hol Horse's words made Michelle's face contort with dread, Rumor looked all too pleased to hear to hear them. He fist pumped and did a giddy little dance, the proud smile on his face practically beaming with excitement. 

"I know I must sound off my rocker right now, but I'm tellin' the truth," Hol Horse continued. "I don't know how you ever heard of Dio or who told you he died way back when, but whoever they were obviously didn't get the full scoop."

Rumor snatched Policy of Truth off the floor and practically skipped over to Cab, holding the shard right in his face. Cab groaned and looked the other way.

"My apologies, Hol Horse, but would you mind repeating yourself? Specifically the part about Dio being a vampire. Oh, and where can I find him? Make sure to clearly enunciate your words." Rumor jeered at Cab with a self-satisfied smirk.

Cab pushed Rumor away from him. "Dude, can you get out of my face?"

"Not until you admit that I was right and you were wrong."

"Yeah, and we should totally trust anything Hol Horse says. He's definitely not just saying that to rope you in with him," Cab sarcastically pointed out. "So we know that...scrap of paper thing is a lie detector. How picky is it? 'Oh, he was a vampire,' just like how I was a vampire for Halloween when I was thirteen. I'll believe in vampires when I see one with my own eyes."

With that, both of them started to bicker. Rumor peppered in Italian insults as he berated Cab, while Cab peppered in small flicks from Quiet Riot that spun Rumor around in a circle. Hol Horse facepalmed at the display. Michelle clenched her hands into fists. This was supposed to be about her father, dammit! How could Rumor seem so handsome and charming one moment and then completely idiotic the next?

Just as Michelle opened her mouth to tell them off, Sara cut her off by slamming her hands down on the coffee table. Cab and Rumor both fell silent and stopped in place, Rumor gripping the collar of Cab's jacket and Cab pulling on the end of Rumor's scarf. Even Hol Horse looked frightened.

"Both of you, shut up!" Sara yelled. "Chelly still needs to learn more about her dad, so you two need to zip it and start being more supportive of her right now! You can argue about vampires or fate or whatever later!"

Cab and Rumor stayed petrified for a moment, wide-eyed and stiff like they'd just been caught shitting themselves. After a few seconds, their postures relaxed and they let go of each other's clothing. Rumor set Policy of Truth down on the coffee table and took a seat next to Cab on the sofa.

"Sorry, Michelle," Cab mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

"My apologies," Rumor seconded.

"Great!" Sara clapped her hands together and smiled back at Hol Horse. "Now, where were we?"

"He was working for a vampire," Rumor answered. "Why on earth would a vampire hire an assassin, though? I mean, I'm not sure if any of you have been listening to me, but—"

Cab cut Rumor short by shoving a hand over his mouth and nodded towards Hol Horse. "Continue."

"Right," Hol Horse said. "Enya hired me as a guard, initially. Or, I guess us. I wasn't the only SEES member she pulled. Midler was there too. So was Gray Fly, funnily enough. Enya even pulled in some Stand users from outside SEES, too. For the first couple months we mostly just kept an ear out to see if anyone nearby wanted to go snoop around the mansion. It was mostly a bunch of nothin' for a while. Half the time, I was out romancing girls from some of the wealthier families in the area. Dio had this crazy bird that'd skewer anyone that so much as looked at that mansion the wrong way, so most of us didn't take our jobs seriously. Eventually, though...someone did start to go lookin'."

Hol Horse leaned forward in his chair and gently massaged his forehead through his hat.

"Some old geezer and his grandson. From what I could tell, they had some old blood feud with Dio. Family enemies, 'you killed my grandfather,' that kind of thing," he explained. "They ended up recruitin' a bunch of other Stand users and set out on a crusade to hunt Dio down in Cairo and kill him themselves. After that cat got out of the bag, Dio and Enya sent each and every one of us out after them."

"What's your point in all of this? What does any of this have to do with my father?" Michelle pointed out.

"What I'm tryin' to say is that I had never even heard of your old man when I got there," Hol Horse reaffirmed. "We have no prior connection each other. We just so happened to be on the same side for a while, that's all."

"I don't believe you. You've been on edge around me ever since you heard my last name. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you two were just...coworkers? If that were the case, then why didn't you tell me any of this to begin with? Why was my father working for a vampire like Dio?"

Hol Horse looked away again and got out his lighter and cigarettes. He pulled out a cigarette from its case, but it ended up falling from his shaky hands. With a sigh, he returned both items to his pockets.

"Rumor, did your Hamon coach ever teach you about somethin' called flesh buds?" Hol Horse asked.

Michelle looked over towards Rumor. He obviously knew whatever Hol Horse was talking about, judging from the way his face hardened and posture stiffened.

"Y-yes. They're parasites made out of a vampire's own cells that can influence a victim's thoughts by penetrating their brain through their forehead," Rumor explained.

"Dio stuck one of those into anyone he took a likin' to that he couldn't charm or buy out," Hol Horse elaborated. "He even made us watch him do it to some Japanese fella. Makin' an example out of him, I figure. I know four people Dio put a flesh bud in. Your old man was one of them. He had one long before I even got to Egypt."

"Hold on, that doesn't add up," Rumor refuted. "If given enough time, flesh buds will eventually devour the victim's brain. I'm not exactly sure how long that timer is, but Michelle told us that her father was alive and well years after this all took place. How can that be if he had a flesh bud implanted in his brain? They aren't exactly easy to remove."

"Your guess is as good as mine. Policy of Truth didn't go off, so that's how you know I'm not bullshitting," Hol Horse pointed out.

Michelle considered that angle for a second. Hol Horse's story made a lot more sense if her father was only working for Dio under mind control. He was a man of honor, values, and conviction; if Dio wanted to get him on his side, he couldn't do it through charisma, bribery, or intimidation. Chariot was a powerful Stand, after all, so it made sense that Dio would go after him. In fact, something about Dio's flesh buds kind of reminded her of the Masquerader masks. Especially the "not easy to remove" part.

Still, something wasn't right. If Dio had set up base in Egypt, why would he target her father all the way in France? How would he even know about him, let alone get close enough to him to plant a flesh bud in his head? Also, if Hol Horse was telling the truth and her father had only been working as an assassin under mind control, why didn't Hol Horse tell her when he blew his cover as an assassin all the way back in Belgium?

"Why...was my father in Egypt to begin with? He told me he went backpacking around the Middle East in the 80s, but I can't imagine him and Dio just bumping into each other if Dio was so secretive about his mansion to begin with," Michelle reasoned. "Did Dio seek my father out on his own?"

Hol Horse shook his head. "From what I heard, it was the other way around. He went lookin' for Dio."

Policy of Truth lit up. Hol Horse scrunched up his nose and groaned.

"Mother...alright, he wasn't lookin' for Dio specifically," he clarified. "He was lookin' for someone else that was workin' for him."