"Avdol! Find the meat half of this guy! The Stand's mine!"
With that, instantly, you're gone. One swap with Tre and you're hanging in the air two meters above the ground outside the hotel window. Tre and Quattro spend a split-second scanning the environment, and then you're on the ground in place of Uno. She's still too damaged to get into a head-to-head fight, but moving around and swapping is no problem.
From your new position, your girls fan outward, passing through walls with no more difficulty than air, scanning the inside of buildings invisibly in the blink of an eye, and when there's no sign of an evil doll running for its miserable life, you're instantly seven meters forward to scan further.
In your opinion, people tend to misuse that word, "instantly." Stands are fast. Incredibly fast. Flashdance is pretty sluggish compared to a truly fast Stand like Star Platinum or Silver Chariot, and yet the speed of sound is absolutely no barrier for them, who buzz around independently faster than a modern fighter jet.
Not only can you see through their eyes, but in turn, their speed applies to your own perception. To you, a speeding bullet passing through your field of vision has no more urgency than the halfhearted buzzing of a lazy bumblebee. But flashdance's movements aren't "instant." From their own accelerated perspective, they move about as quickly as a human would. If anything, in such a time-sensitive moment, their motions feel agonizingly slow.
No, what's instant is the swap. To say you can chance places at the speed of thought would be to give thought credit. You don't even need to truly form your intention to change places before you've found yourself in a new location. All you need is the extreme front end of that decision, the very first push towards changing places, and by the time you've finished that choice, you're only beginning to recognize that you're already where you'd aimed to go. In the time it takes Quattro's lighting-fast jab to move a millimeter, you could swap places with her a half-dozen times, though you couldn't possibly think quickly enough to do so.
Earnestly, there is not a drop of doubt in your mind- Einstein was wrong. Because in leaping from one place to the next, though you've never even imagined a way that you could test it, you are certain beyond any hesitation that you leave light itself choking in your dust.
And it's with that speed, the power of instantaneity, that you now hunt down that doll. A few seconds after you first shouted to Avdol, though you haven't even twitched a muscle in your physical body, you and your girls have shot a full kilometer down the street, and in that time they've scanned every building, every alleyway, every car, every room of every home and hotel and shop.
In those moments, to those normal civilians who can only see your physical body, you're a ghost. You, who only stays in one place for the minutest fraction of a second at a time before vanishing into thin air, appear only as an instant's colorful flickering out of the corner of their eye, invoking fear and caution out of an animal reflex they can't explain.
He didn't come this way.
You've only searched for a few seconds, but he couldn't have possibly outrun you if you actually followed behind him. The only explanation for not having found him yet is that you initially set off in the same direction. You're not sure of your cardinal direction, but if you initially set out north, your next path is southeast, choosing arbitrarily which side of your previous path you'll backtrack past.
You don't even have to turn on your heels to shoot back in the opposite direction you came. Flashdance has no mass, no inertial, so when the girls choose to about course their acceleration simply instantaneously inverts, from outpacing sound in one direction to doing so in the other- as for you, you weren't moving at all, only standing still as you're swapped around.
It's only seconds later that you pass back by the hotel in which you and Avdol traded mission-critical intel and deep personal secrets in equal measure, all right into the waiting ear of whatever bastard you're chasing now.
Catch him.
You have nine working eyes, and each one of them scans its own respective environment with a speed and fidelity afforded to those obsessively, singularly focused. Later on, you'd be shocked at how quickly and naturally you swapped from the state of half-drunkenly conversing with Avdol to hunting an unknown enemy with a degree of concentration you'd never experienced before. You'd wonder at how just a few battles had squeezed the panic and indecision out of you like air being choked from your lungs.
Not now. Right now, there is no past. There never was a panicky, indecisive Marta. Hell, you couldn't even name the bastard who tore out you eye, nor your brief friend from Egypt who all of this started for- no, right now, only two places and moments in all the past, present, and future exist- the areas you're scanning for the enemy now, and the areas you will be scanning in a fraction of a second if you don't find him.
Wrong way again.
Instantly, you shoot off to the "west" relative to your initial search vector. By now, you may be too late. If its speed is at all comparable to you, two wrong turns may have been two too many. If it's the sort to hide, it may have been able to lock itself away in some place you don't have time to check in your frantic chase. But you don't consider those possibilities- you can't. It's not that you're certain it can't get more than about a kilometer from its master, it's not like you're certain you'd notice evidence of it hiding away if it did, it's not like you're certain that it hasn't already found some way get its report into DIO- no, it's not as though any of those things are definitely true or even most likely true.
They simply must be true. If they aren't, you have no recourse but to rely on Avdol, who may well be too slow, or worse, on a fool's errand wasted in advance to begin with. No, those options are not true. They are not allowed to be.
It's only moments after that last turn that your faith is rewarded. Quattro's keen eye spots a small shape you might under other circumstances have mistaken for a squirrel running across a power line a few blocks down the road. He's fast. Really fast. The only reason he hasn't been able to get away is that presumably that doll is a physical object like the ape's Stand and thus has to contend with the inconveniences of the laws of physics, obstacles, and "choosing a route."
His loss.
You travel through the inside of buildings adjacent to the street so your enemy can't spot you. Even moving at your blinding pace, it's a struggle to gain on the doll- now that it's moving in a straight path across the power line, it's clear its speed is comparable to Flashdance's, if not superior. You only actually manage to close the distance when it has to slow to leap from one line to another or to change directions, something you can do much more quickly without sacrificing acceleration.
You're not sure where it's heading. You've lost track of your position relative to Avdol. Is it just making wide circles to stay within the range of its master?
Whatever. If it actually does have some goal it's making for, stopping it is obligatory. Even if it doesn't, stopping it is still the plan. After agonizing seconds in this supersonic chase, it's this bastard's turn to be surprised.
In a flash, Due shoots up into the doll's path, swinging a chop that it's forced to skitter to a stop and leap into a backflip to avoid.
"Damn! You must be the bitch's Stand! I knew she'd fall for that obvious taunt!"
Only a fifth of that bitch's stand, asshole.
Without announcing her presence, Quattro had moved into position as silent as ever, before thrusting a lethal knife-hand at the back of the doll's head. She only stabs air, though- the doll easily weaves, lifting an arm before catching her wrist in its armpit- despite only being a third of her size, it seems the doll is Flashdance's superior in physical strength.
"I know you're just a traumatized schoolgirl playing at being a vengeful hero, but are these boring surprise attacks the only tactic you know? Let me guess, you offered your daddy with one of these and called it 'good enough,' right?"
"You've got a point, you son of a bitch," you say, suddenly in Due's place on the power line, precariously balanced but not worried about falling for obvious reasons, "I shouldn't be going for moves that give you a quick death."
The doll grins, smugly and sadistically. "You really do just fall for every taunt, huh!?" Quickly enough that it's a blur even to you, he pulls something like a sewing needle from his little doll outfit, releasing Quattro's wrist to hurl it at you like a dart. Instantly, Quattro is in your place to catch the projectile- indeed, a sewing needle.
"Nice dodge!~ But now you're right in my ra-"
The doll shuts up as it realizes it needs to dodge at its top speed. It's not you behind it, but Tre, who chops quickly enough to tear its ratty knitted jacket as it leaps out of the way. As per the usual, this arrogant prick underestimated you. Yes, you did initially swap with Quattro and thus end up behind him, but swapping with Cinque's unconscious body, who you left on the ground, and then her with Tre all happened so quickly you didn't even catch a glimpse of his back with your own eye before Tre was attacking.
Before the doll, so cruelly subject to the laws of gravity, can land to gain traction on the cable again, Quattro is already on the attack, sending another deadly blow from the front while Tre attacks in sync from behind. It should have been unavoidable for the doll, which couldn't fly and was only mildly faster and stronger than each of the girls at best, but things don't always work out as you plan.
The doll counters Due's knife-hand with a kick, sending a jolt of pain down your fingers as he successfully shoots himself into the air and out of the way of Tre's own attack, throwing another kick at the back of her head before landing.
"I'll give you credit, that swapping ability is trickier than I expected, but in terms of fighting skills, you're an amateur! You're oh-so-scared of being a devil, but you've just run into the real deal! I'm Ebony Devil, of the Devil card, and I'll be killing you today!"
As though drawing a sword, the Stand, which, grimly ironic as it seems, is named Ebony Devil, pulls out a kitchen knife nearly the length of its body from its ratty jacket. Upon close examination, both the doll and the knife seem to radiate a subtle lethality- you have a bad feeling that they'll both be equally capable of damaging Flashdance.
With the help of the still somewhat-incapacitated Uno, whose reactions are much too slow for direct combat at the moment, you and Cinque's body make it to the roof of a nearby building. With this, all five of your girls and you are within 7 meters of the power line, meaning Due, Tre, and Quattro can all attack Ebony Devil at once without concern of reaching the edge of your range.
"Hey, bitch… you realize with all the kids running around up here, you've got nowhere to escape to, right?"
"You've got it backwards," you hiss. "You're the one bragging about being trapped in a 6 vs 1. Let's find out if it's stuffing or guts in there, girls."
They didn't need the verbal command, but they act upon it nevertheless. As Quattro and Tre move in from the left and right, Due reapproaches from behind. They all enter the melee at once in a flash of limbs.
You hate to admit it, but this bastard's good. If you had to give your best guess, if Flashdance had "100 speed" and "100 strength," he's got 120 and 150 at best. Nonetheless, despite being outnumbered three to one, the doll keeps up through sheer superior combat ability alone. Each attack is skillfully parried or evaded, and it's all your girls can do to keep from being seriously maimed by his precise counterattacks with the knife.
He was right about one thing without a doubt- you're an amateur in battle. In terms of real fights, you've been in, what, four in your life? And this is your first ever 1vs1 with an enemy Stand-user. In comparison, he's obviously seasoned in both fighting and killing, with hard-earned skills from a lifetime of the sort of skullduggery that makes one an attractive servant to DIO.
What he's wrong about is that that isn't good for him. He has years of battle experience, whereas you have a sum total of what, half an hour? Of course he's better than you now, but every second of this battle is enormously more meaningful experience for you than it is for him.
Each parry teaches you how he's forced to move in order to maintain his balance and not fall from the wire. Each time he jumps into the air, you learn more about how he can and can't contort to adjust his trajectory. With each swing of his knife, your knowledge of his effective range goes from vague eyeballing to an increasingly-instinctual picture of the danger zone around him.
He's better than you, yes, but all that extra skill is only a stopgap that lets him just barely keep up with the diabolical 3v1 your girls are delivering. Each second you get better in meaningful ways where he's run out of room for improvement. If this fight goes on much longer, it'll be his loss.
And he knows it. Unluckily for you, despite your growing confidence, the guy whose Stand is called "Devil" isn't the type to run low on tricks. When calculating his effective range with the knife, you'd only taken into account his normal solid grip on the handle. Thanks to that, when he slides it almost out of his hand, he surprises you and just barely manages to pierce Quattro's wrist.
The particularly shocking part is still to come, though, as he twists his arms, launching himself like a pole vaulter using his knife in Quattro's wrist as the pole and flying directly towards you at blistering speeds- despite all you made of Flashdance's ability to defy conventional rules of movement, you hadn't considered this because you never thought about how grossly disproportionate Ebony Devil's strength was to its weight.
"Bad luck, bitch! When I'm done with you, I'll cut off your tits and make a new kind of doll with 'em!"
Gross, and mostly just concerning that you let this happen. Still, the freak underestimated you again, too. When he's just an infinitesimal fraction of a second from cleaving your skull open with his knife, Due is in your place, catching the blade between her hands.
"Oh shi-"
Before your enemy can consider his misplay, Due swings a brutal kick into his side, hard enough to force him to let go of the knife and go sailing nearly off the side of the building.
Before he can, though, Tre is in his path, performing a half-dozen completely unnecessary pirouettes before connecting with a roundhouse kick that sounds more like a major league batter landing a home run hit and sending him straight back at Quattro, who's ready for the killing blow.
She swings her hand in a chop aimed to split the doll in half, but Devil manages to barely catch the roof with his foot, changing his momentum enough that Quattro only slashes at his side. Still, relative to a full-sized human, it's as though he was cut deeply with a knife- if Ebony Devil reflects damage equally back to its master, he's hurting badly right now.
The doll lands, one hand gripping its side as though to keep stuffing from falling out. Due, Tre, and Quattro approach from three angles. He just took three serious direct hits and is slowed substantially, not to mention now missing his weapon, which Due is holding instead. It's over.
Hey, wait, actually.
Why's he laughing?
More pertinently, why does your chest hurt?
Reflexively, all your eyes turn to Due, who, inexplicably, appears to have impaled her chest with the enemy's knife. No, that's not right- it was the knife itself that stabbed her, she only happened to be holding it while it happened.
It's Quattro who first realizes focusing on Due means taking your eyes off of Ebony Devil and snaps back to attention far too late. The doll is sprinting at Due, somehow even faster than before, hand outstretched to grab his knife- shit!
You're in check. None of your girls are holding an object they can use to swap with the knife, so your options are either for Due to swap places with a healthy Flashdance and drop the knife for Devil to grab, or not swap and let him grab it while he's impaled, no doubt slicing her in half in the process of retrieving it.
Well, lesser of two evils. Quattro swaps into Due's place, the knife falling in slow motion as the body it's imbedded in vanishes. Quattro attempts to kick the knife out of the way before the doll can grab it, but as if of its own volition it halts its own momentum and stabs at her. She parries it at the cost of a glancing blow to her fist, but immediately Ebony Devil is upon her, regrabbing the knife and swinging it in a deadly arc.
Quattro dodges, the blade just grazing her mask, and for a moment, her eyes and the doll's meet, sharing some sort of lethal solidarity between miniature murderers. The moment only lasts a fraction of a second, though, before they're immediately in a ruthless melee.
The doll is actually somehow even faster and stronger than before, not to mention the knife suddenly moving of its own will, leaving even haphazard attacks to hone in relentlessly on Quattro's vitals.
Somehow, though, she's gotten sharper too. Part of it is certainly that her objective has changed- rather than moving with aggression to kill Ebony Devil, she's retreating and evading while attempting periodic counterattacks- but it's not just that. Perhaps in response to the damage he dealt to Due, Quattro's own attacks are also more precise and deadly.
"Don't tell me you actually thought the doll was special, girl?" With a mocking laugh, Ebony Devil picks up his pace, cleaving off the tip of one of Quattro's fingers and sending a shock like lightning through your equivalent. "The power of Ebony Devil is hate! The hatred I feel towards my enemies… my grudge against you for hurting me! I can imbue them into any object! Everything I touch can become a murderer boiling over with killing intent for you personally! And the more you hurt me, the more enemies you'll have! Ahaha!"
Quattro moves in for an attack midway through his cackling laugh, elbowing the knife away from her so that she can aim a chop for his neck- if the Stand-user's "grudge" increases from the Stand taking damage, than the trick is just inflicting an instantly, lethal wound.
Ebony Devil shifts its weight and shoulder-checks Quattro, throwing her off-balance and moving to flank her. As he does so, you feel an emotion rise up in your chest through Quattro, one you've never experienced the like of from her before- panic. Is she checkmated!? Tre hasn't moved in yet since Quattro was only stalling- was that a mistake? Is it already too late for her to get in and bail Quattro out?
In the course of the next half second, it seems a dozen things happen all at once. Quattro's panic dulls your ability to come up with a coherent plan to get her out of this mess, and Ebony Devil's knife sails downward uninterrupted- sinking directly into Uno's torso, splitting her nearly in half.
Oh. Oh, of course.
Tre, who'd been sailing in to support Quattro, is replaced with Quattro herself, who shoots you a jolt of momentary surprise before instantly locking back in.
You get it now. You get why the girls are all so different from one another. Not just spiritually, or philosophically, but practically.
Uno intentionally raised her arms before she was slashed, letting the attack pass under her guard and directly into her ribs, but in the process preserving her arms so that the moment the attack stops she can grab the knife and Ebony Devil's hand, holding him still.
"What the fuck-!? You weren't even- wait, no!!"
Due and Quattro are your best fighters, obviously. In that sense, in this journey so far, you'd relied on them heavily, to the extent that you'd caught yourself wishing they could all be like those two. But that's not right, is it? Yes, Due's emotionless detachment allows her to react the quickest of all the girls, and Quattro's violent urges make her a peerless killer among them, neither of those are actually all that you need, are they?
Quattro throws a knife hand at Ebony Devil, ignoring her partially decapitated finger in the process. The doll barely parries, only managing to lower the blow from the neck to the torso, piercing deeper in his side than her previous chop had gone.
Because of that very same emotional detachment, Due had had barely any reaction to being stabbed by the knife, deferring the reaction to everyone else and giving Ebony Devil time to ambush you. Quattro is a relentless fighter, but when she was conclusively outplayed, she froze, not being able to see the options in front of her aside from combat. Even you had managed to forget your own ability by narrowing your focus onto the direct fight, in which swapping hadn't proven useful aside from protecting your own body.
"You think you've won!? Fuck you!? Do you even know who I am!?" Ebony Devil pulls his knife from the now-collapsing Uno and turns to swing it at Quattro, but he's in an awful position and is too slow. Quattro kicks off the ground, copying the doll's own movements from earlier, and delivers a bonecracking knee to its fluffy chin, which you imagine does much less cutesy damage to the Stand's owner.
The one who actually dragged your sorry ass out of this situation was Uno, who you'd practically ruled out of this entire fight due to her current damage and sluggishness after having her skull split open by Dark Blue Moon. She'd swapped places completely of her own volition, something only she'd ever done before- and of course only she could. She's the leader, after all.
"DEVO!!! I'M DEVO THE CURSED!!! YOU CAN'T KILL ME!!!" He cleaves downward with his knife, fruitlessly. Quattro weaves inside his range, taking advantage of the knife's long reach to get too close for it to cut her. The doll's eyes go wide, and despite its incredibly ugly patchwork face, Quattro knows fear when she sees it. At point blank range, she can't effectively throw her preferred knife hand blows, but one of her hands shoots to the doll's neck while the other grabs his wrist, simultaneously strangling him and keeping the knife at bay.
Even in her limited state, Uno was the only one who'd been able to observe the extremely fraught situation, determine a good (albeit perhaps not the best) battle plan, and put it into play almost immediately, even if it meant making a few tough decisions (sacrificing not only herself, but also your health as well- it's only been a few seconds, but you already know you're hurt pretty bad from that stunt.)
Ebony Devil has much more physical strength than Quattro, no doubt only further widening the gap due to these new wounds, but it doesn't matter how quickly he can break from her grip- it's not fast enough. Tre finally arrives from behind (she'd been swapped to Uno's place by your side) with another monstrous roundhouse kick hard enough to blast dust off of the doll's face, and quite probably snap the user's neck, considering this was all happening while Quattro was still strangling it.
The girls don't just have personalities of their own for kicks- they each serve important roles distinct from how efficiently they can stab someone to death. Uno is brave, decisive, and capable of making decisions for the other girls as if she were in your place. Due is detached, quick to react, constantly level-headed, able to act when the rest of you would all be too off-guard to respond. Tre is flexible, unbound by preconceived notions, constantly optimistic, able to take angles of attack no one else would think of. Quattro is brooding, violent, and takes pride in almost nothing but her ability in combat. She's unmatched in stealth and direct battle.
Cinque is Cinque. You're still working on figuring that one out.
A moment ago, the image of Ebony Devil fighting your girls 1vs3 had been like that of a relentless, terrifying little demon, skittering around his oversized enemies with a feral battle instinct. Now, he struck a rather less impressive figure. He managed to force his way out of Quattro's grasp with a knee to her guts that leaves you bowled over, but he, too, falls to his felt knees. Tre is untouched, and follows her previous kick with another, sending the doll rolling. She flies after it, but rather than attacking the fallen Ebony Devil, she targets the knife, coming down on it with a pro-wrestling-style double knee-drop so brutal it hurts you, but is nonetheless effective in snapping the blade in two.
"One hundred and nine! I've killed one hundred and nine miserable losers, but every one of them was smarter and more worth my time than you! I won't even make it 110! You aren't even worth being on my list!"
Ebony Devil raises to his feet, staggering back as his beady eyes bulge almost out of his head. He counters Quattro's next incoming strike with a downwards punch so hard he dislocates her wrist. Instantly, she drops her hand down at her knee, snapping it violently back into place. Fuck! That hurt worse than when he hit it in the first place!
"There's something you should know before you die, bitch!! Justice prevails over evil! That's the way of the world!! For people like me, we relish the time we have because we know we'll eventually lose!"
He continues screaming as Quattro's relentless offensive keeps him moving back towards Uno's unmoving body.
"But fate doesn't apply to you, does it!? Because you're a 'devil,' right? So what does that mean to you, idiot!? It means that when you're around, evil might very well prevail! Your very existence is putting your little friends and their embarrassing righteous quest in danger!"
It seems like it was slow for almost everyone to notice it, but there's a heat radiating from Ebony Devil, the fibers on his extremities are slowly curling and turning black, and a foul-smelling dark smoke is slowly beginning to simmer off of his body. It seems Avdol is having luck just like you are.
"KILL YOURSELF! THE ONLY WAY TO HELP THEM IS TO KILL YOURSELF! KILL YOURSELF, KILL YOURSELF, KILL-"
He stops as his ankle bumps into Uno's body- but of course, it isn't Uno. He'd written her off earlier after impaling her, but despite a sword-hole in her chest, Due's brain and all her major muscle groups are still intact. She's still in (reduced, granted) fighting shape, and despite the ever-increasing heat rising from the doll's stinking body, she doesn't hesitate to grab it in a full nelson, holding it in place for one last attack.
Quattro doesn't need orders from you to act with her characteristic decisiveness, and this time she doesn't leave any room for non-fatal blows. Her knife-hand enters the doll's body in the stomach just above the crotch, and in one movement, heralded by a horrible ripping sound, her hand bursts out of its lower jaw, sending it flying, practically in two pieces, off of the roof.
"K-kill… yours…"
"You… first… asshole…"
It's over. Thank fucking god. You've had enough uncomfortable revelations about yourself already, and you haven't even properly processed that shit he was saying there at the end. At the very least, you're certain you've learned some actually important things during this fight and-
"Kill….. you…"
Oh no. Oh, fuuuuuck off.
"Kill… you!"
Slowly, inexorably, despite your complaints both verbal and internal, Ebony Devil drags its way back onto the roof. Your first question would be "how the fuck is he alive," but the first actual sight of the doll makes you believe he may actually just be a zombie.
"Kill… YOU!"
Making an educated guess, the doll must have fallen directly into a dumpster or maybe a few recycling crates, imbuing everything it touched in there with its no-doubt truly biblical portions of hatred for you. Its left hand is bursting with rusty screws like claws, the right bristling with broken glass from its knuckles that reminds you of some American comic book character. Around its split-open neck is coiled a metal chain that freely slithers around him like a snake in defensive posture, and, almost inexplicably, a metal ring (a silver wedding band, perhaps?) floats over his head like a halo.
Surely, even if damage to the doll didn't reflect to the user, Avdol is nearly done with him by now, right? So it's just a matter of time until this thing drops dead? Right? Right??
"KIIIILLL YOUUUUU!!!"
Well, maybe a plan B could come in handy, juuust in case.
[] Write in…
