Joyce Joestar's life in England is miserable. But all that is thrown into chaos when a sudden change of fate befalls her. Will her new ability be enough to save herself from the fate it inadvertently thrust her into?
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 10: Ideal Escape
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Joyce Joestar’s Alkatraz
Rain blasted down upon the wintry English countryside, the rolling orange hills filled with grass and miserly flowers with buds trapped shut soon turning to a dull, brackish quagmire. The worst kind, mud so soft yet so thick, your boot penetrates up to your knee and then the swamp doesn't let go.
Brandish Regalia had never been so disgusted. This bus was driving her insane. The breeze constantly cut into her face, the heat from the engine was pulsing down onto her, she could practically feel the sweat coming from the other passengers and yet the wind cut yet more into the humidity. There was no order! No consistency! What the fuck kinda shit show was this bus company running?!
Her hand clenched inside her pants, she had a knife. Threatening everyone to open their damn windows and shut up about the cold was possible. She'd prefer equilibrium but… total cold and dryness was better than nothing. Better to stagnate, than to teeter. Better to hold the line than fork the push.
Then the bus came to a rolling close, outside a singular signpost making up a bus stop. Brandish Regalia eyed the stranger making their way onto the bus. They had a red baseball cap on, the brim was speckled with embroidered needles, scalpels, callipers and other medical tools. Their hair was bunched up under the hat and they were wearing a facemask and sunglasses. Someone didn't want to be seen.
Eyes trailing down their body, their frame was obscured by a large, brown overcoat, buttoned up at the front, pulling out a small wallet, their hands were covered in black silk gloves too, they placed two coins on the bus drivers tray, and in a muffled voice, she caught a soft whisper to the driver. "However far this'll take me."
Brandish Regalia had very good hearing, after all. She could hear the man three rows back itching his dick, she could hear the growl of the dog at the front with the yawning stomach, she could hear the sound of frogs hopping through the swamp. If she got close, she was sure she'd be able to hear the masked persons heartbeat; and then she would know if they were her target.
They walked up the aisle of the bus, their steps growing louder, soon accompanied by a rapid beating. They were nervous, a nervous person hiding their face… she had enough evidence now. This was her target. This was Joyce Joestar.
Then, Brandish Regalia spoke two words, two words that would bring Joyce Joestar to their knees.
"San Fermin."
————————————————————————
<— Three Days Earlier…
Racks of CDs, instruments, speakers and headphones lined the walls of the shop, with a range of brown cardboard pricetags ranging from cheap to ludicrous. A teenaged girl held one in her hand, a brown tag tied with a loop of string, scribbled on in a felt tip pen is a price. "£24"
The girl holding the tag was wearing a red baseball cap and had long brown hair that reached the bottom of her shoulder blades. Her visible clothes were simply a long brown coat and a pair of hard, pointy white boots with gold buckles.
"Oi… What are you saying?!" Joyce slammed her hands on the counter of the store.
"We have a no returns policy." The uncaring shop attendee droned at her, soullessly.
"It was your shitty headphones that broke before I even got home!" She pointed at the cheap plastic headphones on the countertop, they were snapped clean in half along the headband. "I don't want to return them, I want a refund! If you sell a substandard product, I should get compensation!"
"We have a no-refunds policy too." They droned back, mildly.
"Hey… Hey hey hey hey hey… do you know how the 'law' works? You give me a product, and I give you legal tender. That is the foundation of the economy that fuels modern society. Your product didn't work, so I need my money back. This is the idea of an 'exchange' and your product failed to last for even twenty minutes!" She thrust out a finger. "So gimme my money back, you shitty bastard!"
"…" The employee paused. His name was Kenny G. He wasn't important, but he was working this dead end music store job to gain experience working, more than anything else, but there was a point where his indifference moved into exhaustion. However! This tiresome brat wouldn't so easily exhaust his professional pride!
"Oi. You talk so easily of 'exchanges' and the 'law.' Well guess what you cocky rat?!" He pointed back. "Your exchange is over! You got your headphones and we got our money! So shove off, you insufferable kid!"
"All right fine, fine, I don't need a full refund… I'll take two-thirds back! Two-thirds!" She placated, grinning with hands spread.
It was the best he'd get. He placed eight two-pound coins on the counter. The girl snatched them up, and the snapped headphones. Hm.
Her enamel boots clomped across the pavement, as she stepped away from the shop.
"Alkatraz."
With a sound like scissors cutting through a tendon, a figure suddenly loomed over Joyce. It was clad in elbow length yellow rubber gloves, its exposed upper arms were made of two parallel metal rods, connected to its torso by cream coloured ceramic ball joints. The ball joints were guarded at the top by pink triangular shoulder padding with rounded edges which led into a cream coloured torso that was shaped like an inverted triangle.
There was a stethoscope attached by the bell to a pink heart shaped engraving on the right side of its chest, the ear tips of the stethoscope were attached to the head of the being, it wore a face mask , and on top of its head was a bouffant cap. Apart from two protruding lenses, it had no facial features.
Set into the bottom of the triangle, rather than legs was a hard metal sphere with eight holes. Set into these holes were long mechanical arms. At the end of these arms were medical instruments. A bonesaw, a scalpel, a needle, medical scissors, a roll of surgical thread, a pair of forceps, a retractor and bone chisel.
"Heeeeh… heheh!" She laughed, grinning, as she held both ends of the headphones and the left side suddenly jolted over to the right, the headphones fusing into one untouched piece of hardware.
"This is seriously perfect! I got both my headphones and some of my money back! That dumbass just sold me headphones for eight pounds!" The girl exclaimed to herself, as she put the headphones back on and placed the money in her wallet.
The sound of Fleetwood Mac in her ears was damn sweet, and this peculiar phenomenon she had suddenly manifested was crucial to maintaining her newly free lifestyle.
She had to be careful though. These businesses might catch onto her, and it wouldn't do to be rumbled so soon, she'd have to buy new outfits-all ever-so inconveniently torn before she made it home of course, to continue her scam.
This strange power that had granted her an ultimate freedom she named after a diabolical prison. Her ability: Alkatraz.
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Stand Profile: Alkatraz
Power: C
Speed: A
Precision: A
Durability: C
Range: D
Learning: D
Ability: When one of Alkatraz's tools cuts through something, it is not broken, and Alkatraz can then, at a later point cleave the object in two, along where it was originally cut. However, when something is cleaved, the object retains all connections, even when separated, a hand that is cleaved off can still be manipulated and sensed through, a cleaved cable will still power things and a cleaved bag will retain all of its contents without them falling out. Objects can also be restored, when they are restored, it is always the smaller part of the object that returns back to the larger part.
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<—One day earlier…
"What's this supposed to be again?…" Joyce grimaced, eyeing the tacky golden statue that sat in the front room of the Jamiroquai Gallery. The statue was of a nude, muscular man with a short crop of curls. Its facial features were supposed to be handsome but were thoroughly indistinct. It was pointing down at a red spot of the floor with a bow and arrow. The spot on the floor was demarcated by a large red plus sign
Her mother answered back in a familiarly snooty tone."It's meant to be the Joestar family guardian angel! I've told you a thousand times now, you need to start paying attention!" The woman fixed her black sunhat and sundress.
"Right, right. But why's it shooting the floor?" She asked, putting on her dumb voice. A small revenge.
"It's not shooting the floor, you stupid girl! The arrow is symbolic of being chosen!" Joyce knew. But her mother was too shallow-minded to really understand sarcasm.
"Uh-huh." A one-word response. She'd have been incensed if she didn't have to quickly put on her good face as the doors to the party hall opened.
"Ah, yes hello Nathaniel, yes yes I know the merger is very important, yes I do agree-"
That sorta thing. This was how parties went. Joan would go and schmooze with the other socialites and Joyce would not cause any trouble when "socialising" with the other business kids. She hated this. The fakeness. The horrible clothes. The trappings of so-called polite society.
"Weeeeeell!~ Look who's finally arriiiiived!" A blonde teenager with a squeally voice and hook nose cried.
"Joey Valence." Joyce remarked.
"I've been waiting for you!~ Ah I've been poooooositively squirming with excitement in waiting for you to arrive my darling!" He smiled, wrapping his arm around Joyce. Joyce afforded him a thin sneer back.
"I'm certain you have, Joey. And as usual, your advances are appreciated but not reciprocated." She gently grabbed his wrist and slid it off of her shoulder.
"Oh you saaaaaay that every time! And eeeeeevery time I can't help but feel there's a spark there!~ Is it your mother? Is she asking you to reject me in hopeless of marriage with another?" The greasy immature twerp pouted and Joyce sucked air in between her teeth.
This was a dangerous situation, she had two options here. She could be truthful, and risk upsetting her mother. Or she could lie. And… risk upsetting her mother.
"It's not. I'm just not interested in you."
His smile grew an inch. "…Ooooooooh? You're not? Well thaaaaat's a shame!" His arm slid away from her and he slinked off, Joyce let her face fall, hidden snarl falling to a worried grimace.
————————————————————————
Joyce approached the party balcony to get some air, it was approaching the end of the night so soon she could leave.
She stepped out onto the balcony and leaned against the railing, slumping over it. Nobody came out here, it was the height of December after all.
"Nice niiiight?~"
She gasped and turned, there he stood. Joey Valence, smiling as wide as he ever did arms placed behind the back of the hideously green suit.
"Oh. Joey. Hey listen, I didn't mean what I said earlier-"
"So you AAAAARE interested then?~"
"Well-No, but I didn't mean to sound so-"
"Which is it then?! Are you interested?! Or not?!" He suddenly yelled, pointing the arrow from the foyer at her. He held it with both hands near the fletching. "Daaaaamn it!~ You need to be fucking precise! Yes! Or! No!"
He levelled the arrow at her. Joyce felt her throat tighten at the sharpened stone projectile. The thing was old and brittle but it was sharp. But Joyce was happy, after all, he gave her an excuse to be honest.
"No! No I'm not interested in you, you fucking creepy asshole!" She roared back. "You're a disgusting little rat shit! I hate you! I hate you! I hate-" He stabbed her through the chest with the arrow.
Her world burst open into pain and colours as the arrow inside of her burned… then her voice cried out.
"ORA!"
Joey Valence was shot across the balcony, landing slumped over the other side. She pulled the arrow out of her chest and ran into the main party hall, clutching a hand over the bleeding wound, surely her mother couldn't ignore this, surely she had to do something! That feeling of hope lasted as long as it took Joan to grab her by the ear.
"What are you doing?" She hissed into Joyce's ear, "You're spilling blood all over the carpet! Get back out there and cover that eyesore before you ruin this night even more!" It is normally at this moment, where someone would explode. Any normal person would have blown up at Joan Joestar by now! But Joyce was nobody ordinary. Joyce was patient, in her revenge. Joyce would burn cold for the hours at a time it took for her plan to take effect, and then she would strike, like a storm.
Knowing this, Joyce Joestar merely retreated to the balcony, prepared for Joey to make another attack… but he was gone. And so was the arrow.
It was a Joestar family relic, but that was Joan's problem, she'd take her joy in not telling her and say she just forgot.
Yeah, a little negligence was just the thing to piss of Joan, arrow wound notwithstan-the wound was gone, leaving nothing but a red streak down the front of her dress. How truly bizarre.
————————————————————————
<—Three Days Later…
Joestar Manor. An imposing three-story building made of brick and mortar. There was a plaque somewhere around the front gate that told the date of construction, but Joyce knew it was slightly deceitful, the manor burnt down after a freak accident and was rebuilt sometime ago but the plaque still denoted the original date of construction.
Joyce didn't care for it really, it was just another small lie. She entered the foyer of Joestar Manor with a flourish. The foyer was barren, black and white tiling decorating the floor, subtly newer in a small square where the guardian angel statue once stood before it was donated to the Jamiroquai Gallery. Tax deductible, of course.
"Joyce." Joan's voice cut in, waspish and severe as ever.
Joyce couldn't hide her grimace. For some reason, Joan had been taking unusual interest in Joyce since the gala. It struck Joyce as unnerving, the woman was typically content to hide Joyce away and pretend she didn't exist.
"Hm?"
That would end the conversation, she always hated one-syllable responses, so for some reason, Joan stopped talking to her when she gave one, as if she cared enough about Joan's words for that to be a punish-
"Come with me, there is business to discuss." Joyce blinked, that wasn't right. Joan never wanted anything to do with her.
She was taken to the office room, which was a small renovated closet, barely fitting a desk and a bookshelf. It was where the Joestars kept the bookkeeping for the less… strictly legal side of things.
The Joestar family were cunning. If there was money to be made, they'd extend out a feeler before ruthlessly outcompeting everyone by funnelling in money to make their product the best and cheapest on the market… until competition ran dry, and they had a monopoly. Then they'd hike the prices. This philosophy was one that could be extended into the world of elicit business, or so they felt.
"At the gala, Mr. Valence came up to you, didn't he?" Joan sat in the only chair, it was wooden, the feet were furnished into talons and the armrests into claws. It was terribly uncomfortable.
"Yeah, Joey did, so what?" Joyce folded her arms, levelling a sharp, even look at Joan.
"Did he stab you with an arrow?"
Joyce tensed, the only reason Joan would ask a question so specific, so unnervingly accurate, was if she knew that he had already. So Joyce made the logical decision.
"…No, no he didn't, why do you ask?" She lied, coolly.
There come points in people's lives where they feel a coin in the air. A basketball circling the hoop, a volleyball on the top of the net. Moments in people's lives were everything hands in the balance, moments determined by fate, seconds of immeasurable tension that tick agonisingly by… and then, suddenly, they are determined.
"I see. Alright then, that was all I wanted to know."
Joyce removed her gaze from the spot of dust on the third shelf of the bookcase and back to Joan, with muscles now slightly looser. That was until she noticed the small gremlin-like creatures crowding the chair. They were around 2-feet tall, and covered in charcoal grey scales, each creature was identical in form, with beady red eyes, tan underbelly and ornate silver chest adornment, it was a silver piece of metal that draped off of the creatures shoulders with a small ruby in the centre of the piece.
"What the?!-" Joyce yelled out, causing Joan to smile.
"I knew it. You were lying about having a Stand." Joan preened, scratching the head of a single goblinoid creature in her lap.
"What the hell's a Stand?" Joyce grimaced as she looked over and around the cluster of gremlins, she could guess of course, but she was still trying to act… unawares.
"A Stand. The ability that manifested after you survived the arrow. I know you're a Stand User, only a Stand User can see a Stand, like my Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" She gestured at the scaled creatures surrounding her throne. 13 of them in total.
"…Okay, so let's say you're right, what does that mean? Are you here just to… inform me?"
"No. I want you to return the gesture, it's only polite."
Joyce sighed, she couldn't crawl away from this any longer. She summoned her… Stand, Alkatraz.
The thick lenses that made up its eyes were levelling on Joan, through them Joyce could see every pore and hair on her skin, could see the sheen of sweat start to rise out of her sweat glands in spots, it was a nauseating experience, feeling her sight split like that.
"Hm. Your Stand… it's very different to mine, yours appears to be close range and power based, whereas mine is automatic and long-range. What's it's ability?"
"Ability?…" She blinked.
"Yes, yes, each Stand has a unique ability, what's yours?" Joan sneered impatiently, as the goblin pod creatures faded into dusk.
And so, Joyce explained, she regaled the woman she had been birthed from with lengthy explanations of her ability, and a handful of ways she had found to use it. But one thing stuck out to the Joestar heiress.
"So, why did you even bring me here?"
"Well, I didn't think you were resolved enough to survive the arrow and become a Stand User. Now that you've proven yourself not as much of an oaf as I once thought… you could maybe be of some use. You will be groomed into the Apatia mob family to strengthen our ties, at once."
"…What are you saying?… Hey… What the hell are you saying?!" Joyce suddenly burst, her body wracked with sheer terror.
"I'm saying that your position as a Stand User affords you some privileges, and your position as a prestigious young woman affords you yet more, I will not waste this opportunity to turn you into a worthy resource, you will accept your lot in life, and you will be grateful. We all have to make sacrifices for the betterment of our family."
Joyce's blood ran cold. This was really it, wasn't it? This was her mothers intent, the rug pulled out from under her, her birth mothers plan. She was to be used as a chip to consolidate power.
"…I am going to my room now." Joyce hissed, as she turned around, and left the room.
She didn't hear Joan cut in at all, so she was hopefully not going to read into it, but of course, Joyce was planning. After all, she described her Alkatraz as a perfect ability for escape.
Joyce couldn't be too cautious however, she'd start packing her vital things over the course of the night.
————————————————————————
<— Midnight…
Joyce grabbed the small suitcase. She was prepared to leave, and just waiting for a moment of auspicious timing. It was a small ritual of comfort in a time of great stress.
00:00
As auspicious as any, with a sound like a tendon being cut clean through, Alkatraz appeared behind Joyce, brandishing it's bonesaw as it struck her bedroom wall.
"ORA." The surgeon boomed, as quietly as it could.
As the saw cut a large hole through the window, it remained intact. As she placed her foot against the wall and suddenly, the hole cleaved, creating a large circular board that was soon to begin falling. Joyce climbed onto the board with her case and moments before it would touch the ground, activated Alkatraz's second part, the cutout arresting all momentum before beginning to shoot back upwards, by the time it was accelerating in reverse, Joyce had stepped off.
It only took another hole through the fence before Joyce was a free woman.
<— To Be Continued…
Brandish Regalia had never been so disgusted. This bus was driving her insane. The breeze constantly cut into her face, the heat from the engine was pulsing down onto her, she could practically feel the sweat coming from the other passengers and yet the wind cut yet more into the humidity. There was no order! No consistency! What the fuck kinda shit show was this bus company running?!
Her hand clenched inside her pants, she had a knife. Threatening everyone to open their damn windows and shut up about the cold was possible. She'd prefer equilibrium but… total cold and dryness was better than nothing. Better to stagnate, than to teeter. Better to hold the line than fork the push.
Then the bus came to a rolling close, outside a singular signpost making up a bus stop. Brandish Regalia eyed the stranger making their way onto the bus. They had a red baseball cap on, the brim was speckled with embroidered needles, scalpels, callipers and other medical tools. Their hair was bunched up under the hat and they were wearing a facemask and sunglasses. Someone didn't want to be seen.
Eyes trailing down their body, their frame was obscured by a large, brown overcoat, buttoned up at the front, pulling out a small wallet, their hands were covered in black silk gloves too, they placed two coins on the bus drivers tray, and in a muffled voice, she caught a soft whisper to the driver. "However far this'll take me."
Brandish Regalia had very good hearing, after all. She could hear the man three rows back itching his dick, she could hear the growl of the dog at the front with the yawning stomach, she could hear the sound of frogs hopping through the swamp. If she got close, she was sure she'd be able to hear the masked persons heartbeat; and then she would know if they were her target.
They walked up the aisle of the bus, their steps growing louder, soon accompanied by a rapid beating. They were nervous, a nervous person hiding their face… she had enough evidence now. This was her target. This was Joyce Joestar.
Then, Brandish Regalia spoke two words, two words that would bring Joyce Joestar to their knees.
"San Fermin."
————————————————————————
<— Three Days Earlier…
Racks of CDs, instruments, speakers and headphones lined the walls of the shop, with a range of brown cardboard pricetags ranging from cheap to ludicrous. A teenaged girl held one in her hand, a brown tag tied with a loop of string, scribbled on in a felt tip pen is a price. "£24"
The girl holding the tag was wearing a red baseball cap and had long brown hair that reached the bottom of her shoulder blades. Her visible clothes were simply a long brown coat and a pair of hard, pointy white boots with gold buckles.
"Oi… What are you saying?!" Joyce slammed her hands on the counter of the store.
"We have a no returns policy." The uncaring shop attendee droned at her, soullessly.
"It was your shitty headphones that broke before I even got home!" She pointed at the cheap plastic headphones on the countertop, they were snapped clean in half along the headband. "I don't want to return them, I want a refund! If you sell a substandard product, I should get compensation!"
"We have a no-refunds policy too." They droned back, mildly.
"Hey… Hey hey hey hey hey… do you know how the 'law' works? You give me a product, and I give you legal tender. That is the foundation of the economy that fuels modern society. Your product didn't work, so I need my money back. This is the idea of an 'exchange' and your product failed to last for even twenty minutes!" She thrust out a finger. "So gimme my money back, you shitty bastard!"
"…" The employee paused. His name was Kenny G. He wasn't important, but he was working this dead end music store job to gain experience working, more than anything else, but there was a point where his indifference moved into exhaustion. However! This tiresome brat wouldn't so easily exhaust his professional pride!
"Oi. You talk so easily of 'exchanges' and the 'law.' Well guess what you cocky rat?!" He pointed back. "Your exchange is over! You got your headphones and we got our money! So shove off, you insufferable kid!"
"All right fine, fine, I don't need a full refund… I'll take two-thirds back! Two-thirds!" She placated, grinning with hands spread.
It was the best he'd get. He placed eight two-pound coins on the counter. The girl snatched them up, and the snapped headphones. Hm.
Her enamel boots clomped across the pavement, as she stepped away from the shop.
"Alkatraz."
With a sound like scissors cutting through a tendon, a figure suddenly loomed over Joyce. It was clad in elbow length yellow rubber gloves, its exposed upper arms were made of two parallel metal rods, connected to its torso by cream coloured ceramic ball joints. The ball joints were guarded at the top by pink triangular shoulder padding with rounded edges which led into a cream coloured torso that was shaped like an inverted triangle.
There was a stethoscope attached by the bell to a pink heart shaped engraving on the right side of its chest, the ear tips of the stethoscope were attached to the head of the being, it wore a face mask , and on top of its head was a bouffant cap. Apart from two protruding lenses, it had no facial features.
Set into the bottom of the triangle, rather than legs was a hard metal sphere with eight holes. Set into these holes were long mechanical arms. At the end of these arms were medical instruments. A bonesaw, a scalpel, a needle, medical scissors, a roll of surgical thread, a pair of forceps, a retractor and bone chisel.
"Heeeeh… heheh!" She laughed, grinning, as she held both ends of the headphones and the left side suddenly jolted over to the right, the headphones fusing into one untouched piece of hardware.
"This is seriously perfect! I got both my headphones and some of my money back! That dumbass just sold me headphones for eight pounds!" The girl exclaimed to herself, as she put the headphones back on and placed the money in her wallet.
The sound of Fleetwood Mac in her ears was damn sweet, and this peculiar phenomenon she had suddenly manifested was crucial to maintaining her newly free lifestyle.
She had to be careful though. These businesses might catch onto her, and it wouldn't do to be rumbled so soon, she'd have to buy new outfits-all ever-so inconveniently torn before she made it home of course, to continue her scam.
This strange power that had granted her an ultimate freedom she named after a diabolical prison. Her ability: Alkatraz.
————————————————————————
Stand Profile: Alkatraz
Power: C
Speed: A
Precision: A
Durability: C
Range: D
Learning: D
Ability: When one of Alkatraz's tools cuts through something, it is not broken, and Alkatraz can then, at a later point cleave the object in two, along where it was originally cut. However, when something is cleaved, the object retains all connections, even when separated, a hand that is cleaved off can still be manipulated and sensed through, a cleaved cable will still power things and a cleaved bag will retain all of its contents without them falling out. Objects can also be restored, when they are restored, it is always the smaller part of the object that returns back to the larger part.
————————————————————————
<—One day earlier…
"What's this supposed to be again?…" Joyce grimaced, eyeing the tacky golden statue that sat in the front room of the Jamiroquai Gallery. The statue was of a nude, muscular man with a short crop of curls. Its facial features were supposed to be handsome but were thoroughly indistinct. It was pointing down at a red spot of the floor with a bow and arrow. The spot on the floor was demarcated by a large red plus sign
Her mother answered back in a familiarly snooty tone."It's meant to be the Joestar family guardian angel! I've told you a thousand times now, you need to start paying attention!" The woman fixed her black sunhat and sundress.
"Right, right. But why's it shooting the floor?" She asked, putting on her dumb voice. A small revenge.
"It's not shooting the floor, you stupid girl! The arrow is symbolic of being chosen!" Joyce knew. But her mother was too shallow-minded to really understand sarcasm.
"Uh-huh." A one-word response. She'd have been incensed if she didn't have to quickly put on her good face as the doors to the party hall opened.
"Ah, yes hello Nathaniel, yes yes I know the merger is very important, yes I do agree-"
That sorta thing. This was how parties went. Joan would go and schmooze with the other socialites and Joyce would not cause any trouble when "socialising" with the other business kids. She hated this. The fakeness. The horrible clothes. The trappings of so-called polite society.
"Weeeeeell!~ Look who's finally arriiiiived!" A blonde teenager with a squeally voice and hook nose cried.
"Joey Valence." Joyce remarked.
"I've been waiting for you!~ Ah I've been poooooositively squirming with excitement in waiting for you to arrive my darling!" He smiled, wrapping his arm around Joyce. Joyce afforded him a thin sneer back.
"I'm certain you have, Joey. And as usual, your advances are appreciated but not reciprocated." She gently grabbed his wrist and slid it off of her shoulder.
"Oh you saaaaaay that every time! And eeeeeevery time I can't help but feel there's a spark there!~ Is it your mother? Is she asking you to reject me in hopeless of marriage with another?" The greasy immature twerp pouted and Joyce sucked air in between her teeth.
This was a dangerous situation, she had two options here. She could be truthful, and risk upsetting her mother. Or she could lie. And… risk upsetting her mother.
"It's not. I'm just not interested in you."
His smile grew an inch. "…Ooooooooh? You're not? Well thaaaaat's a shame!" His arm slid away from her and he slinked off, Joyce let her face fall, hidden snarl falling to a worried grimace.
————————————————————————
Joyce approached the party balcony to get some air, it was approaching the end of the night so soon she could leave.
She stepped out onto the balcony and leaned against the railing, slumping over it. Nobody came out here, it was the height of December after all.
"Nice niiiight?~"
She gasped and turned, there he stood. Joey Valence, smiling as wide as he ever did arms placed behind the back of the hideously green suit.
"Oh. Joey. Hey listen, I didn't mean what I said earlier-"
"So you AAAAARE interested then?~"
"Well-No, but I didn't mean to sound so-"
"Which is it then?! Are you interested?! Or not?!" He suddenly yelled, pointing the arrow from the foyer at her. He held it with both hands near the fletching. "Daaaaamn it!~ You need to be fucking precise! Yes! Or! No!"
He levelled the arrow at her. Joyce felt her throat tighten at the sharpened stone projectile. The thing was old and brittle but it was sharp. But Joyce was happy, after all, he gave her an excuse to be honest.
"No! No I'm not interested in you, you fucking creepy asshole!" She roared back. "You're a disgusting little rat shit! I hate you! I hate you! I hate-" He stabbed her through the chest with the arrow.
Her world burst open into pain and colours as the arrow inside of her burned… then her voice cried out.
"ORA!"
Joey Valence was shot across the balcony, landing slumped over the other side. She pulled the arrow out of her chest and ran into the main party hall, clutching a hand over the bleeding wound, surely her mother couldn't ignore this, surely she had to do something! That feeling of hope lasted as long as it took Joan to grab her by the ear.
"What are you doing?" She hissed into Joyce's ear, "You're spilling blood all over the carpet! Get back out there and cover that eyesore before you ruin this night even more!" It is normally at this moment, where someone would explode. Any normal person would have blown up at Joan Joestar by now! But Joyce was nobody ordinary. Joyce was patient, in her revenge. Joyce would burn cold for the hours at a time it took for her plan to take effect, and then she would strike, like a storm.
Knowing this, Joyce Joestar merely retreated to the balcony, prepared for Joey to make another attack… but he was gone. And so was the arrow.
It was a Joestar family relic, but that was Joan's problem, she'd take her joy in not telling her and say she just forgot.
Yeah, a little negligence was just the thing to piss of Joan, arrow wound notwithstan-the wound was gone, leaving nothing but a red streak down the front of her dress. How truly bizarre.
————————————————————————
<—Three Days Later…
Joestar Manor. An imposing three-story building made of brick and mortar. There was a plaque somewhere around the front gate that told the date of construction, but Joyce knew it was slightly deceitful, the manor burnt down after a freak accident and was rebuilt sometime ago but the plaque still denoted the original date of construction.
Joyce didn't care for it really, it was just another small lie. She entered the foyer of Joestar Manor with a flourish. The foyer was barren, black and white tiling decorating the floor, subtly newer in a small square where the guardian angel statue once stood before it was donated to the Jamiroquai Gallery. Tax deductible, of course.
"Joyce." Joan's voice cut in, waspish and severe as ever.
Joyce couldn't hide her grimace. For some reason, Joan had been taking unusual interest in Joyce since the gala. It struck Joyce as unnerving, the woman was typically content to hide Joyce away and pretend she didn't exist.
"Hm?"
That would end the conversation, she always hated one-syllable responses, so for some reason, Joan stopped talking to her when she gave one, as if she cared enough about Joan's words for that to be a punish-
"Come with me, there is business to discuss." Joyce blinked, that wasn't right. Joan never wanted anything to do with her.
She was taken to the office room, which was a small renovated closet, barely fitting a desk and a bookshelf. It was where the Joestars kept the bookkeeping for the less… strictly legal side of things.
The Joestar family were cunning. If there was money to be made, they'd extend out a feeler before ruthlessly outcompeting everyone by funnelling in money to make their product the best and cheapest on the market… until competition ran dry, and they had a monopoly. Then they'd hike the prices. This philosophy was one that could be extended into the world of elicit business, or so they felt.
"At the gala, Mr. Valence came up to you, didn't he?" Joan sat in the only chair, it was wooden, the feet were furnished into talons and the armrests into claws. It was terribly uncomfortable.
"Yeah, Joey did, so what?" Joyce folded her arms, levelling a sharp, even look at Joan.
"Did he stab you with an arrow?"
Joyce tensed, the only reason Joan would ask a question so specific, so unnervingly accurate, was if she knew that he had already. So Joyce made the logical decision.
"…No, no he didn't, why do you ask?" She lied, coolly.
There come points in people's lives where they feel a coin in the air. A basketball circling the hoop, a volleyball on the top of the net. Moments in people's lives were everything hands in the balance, moments determined by fate, seconds of immeasurable tension that tick agonisingly by… and then, suddenly, they are determined.
"I see. Alright then, that was all I wanted to know."
Joyce removed her gaze from the spot of dust on the third shelf of the bookcase and back to Joan, with muscles now slightly looser. That was until she noticed the small gremlin-like creatures crowding the chair. They were around 2-feet tall, and covered in charcoal grey scales, each creature was identical in form, with beady red eyes, tan underbelly and ornate silver chest adornment, it was a silver piece of metal that draped off of the creatures shoulders with a small ruby in the centre of the piece.
"What the?!-" Joyce yelled out, causing Joan to smile.
"I knew it. You were lying about having a Stand." Joan preened, scratching the head of a single goblinoid creature in her lap.
"What the hell's a Stand?" Joyce grimaced as she looked over and around the cluster of gremlins, she could guess of course, but she was still trying to act… unawares.
"A Stand. The ability that manifested after you survived the arrow. I know you're a Stand User, only a Stand User can see a Stand, like my Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" She gestured at the scaled creatures surrounding her throne. 13 of them in total.
"…Okay, so let's say you're right, what does that mean? Are you here just to… inform me?"
"No. I want you to return the gesture, it's only polite."
Joyce sighed, she couldn't crawl away from this any longer. She summoned her… Stand, Alkatraz.
The thick lenses that made up its eyes were levelling on Joan, through them Joyce could see every pore and hair on her skin, could see the sheen of sweat start to rise out of her sweat glands in spots, it was a nauseating experience, feeling her sight split like that.
"Hm. Your Stand… it's very different to mine, yours appears to be close range and power based, whereas mine is automatic and long-range. What's it's ability?"
"Ability?…" She blinked.
"Yes, yes, each Stand has a unique ability, what's yours?" Joan sneered impatiently, as the goblin pod creatures faded into dusk.
And so, Joyce explained, she regaled the woman she had been birthed from with lengthy explanations of her ability, and a handful of ways she had found to use it. But one thing stuck out to the Joestar heiress.
"So, why did you even bring me here?"
"Well, I didn't think you were resolved enough to survive the arrow and become a Stand User. Now that you've proven yourself not as much of an oaf as I once thought… you could maybe be of some use. You will be groomed into the Apatia mob family to strengthen our ties, at once."
"…What are you saying?… Hey… What the hell are you saying?!" Joyce suddenly burst, her body wracked with sheer terror.
"I'm saying that your position as a Stand User affords you some privileges, and your position as a prestigious young woman affords you yet more, I will not waste this opportunity to turn you into a worthy resource, you will accept your lot in life, and you will be grateful. We all have to make sacrifices for the betterment of our family."
Joyce's blood ran cold. This was really it, wasn't it? This was her mothers intent, the rug pulled out from under her, her birth mothers plan. She was to be used as a chip to consolidate power.
"…I am going to my room now." Joyce hissed, as she turned around, and left the room.
She didn't hear Joan cut in at all, so she was hopefully not going to read into it, but of course, Joyce was planning. After all, she described her Alkatraz as a perfect ability for escape.
Joyce couldn't be too cautious however, she'd start packing her vital things over the course of the night.
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<— Midnight…
Joyce grabbed the small suitcase. She was prepared to leave, and just waiting for a moment of auspicious timing. It was a small ritual of comfort in a time of great stress.
00:00
As auspicious as any, with a sound like a tendon being cut clean through, Alkatraz appeared behind Joyce, brandishing it's bonesaw as it struck her bedroom wall.
"ORA." The surgeon boomed, as quietly as it could.
As the saw cut a large hole through the window, it remained intact. As she placed her foot against the wall and suddenly, the hole cleaved, creating a large circular board that was soon to begin falling. Joyce climbed onto the board with her case and moments before it would touch the ground, activated Alkatraz's second part, the cutout arresting all momentum before beginning to shoot back upwards, by the time it was accelerating in reverse, Joyce had stepped off.
It only took another hole through the fence before Joyce was a free woman.
<— To Be Continued…
Brandish Regalia’s San Fermin
Joyce Joestar staggered onto the public bus, she hadn't slept, and she'd walked all night to get out of city limits before boarding the bus, she didn't know the numbered routes but they were more likely to be inter-city if they were outside of a city, obviously, and this one was going her way, so that was her best bet. She'd catch some sleep on the bus.
Groggily, she spilled a handful of coins onto the tray. "However far this'll take me." She mumbled through the mask, and dragged herself to an empty seat on the bus. She sank into it, the big brown coat and hat giving her shade enough to rest.
————————————————————————
The bus juddered to a sudden stop, jolting her awake, end of the line? No. They were still in the middle of the countryside, nothing but grassland out here for miles.
So why wasn't the engine running? A breakdown? The driver left the cabin and started to force the bus doors open.
"What the hell is going on?" She groused, walking up to the bus driver.
"…" He didn't answer, and instead just continued to try shoving the doors open.
"Hey!" She yelled, getting in close and snapping. "I asked what's going on?"
"…The bus stopped. I'm checking out the engine." He called back, finally wrenching open the doors.
Meanwhile, Joyce simply sat down, tucked down the brim of her cap, and prepared to go back to sleep, it'd resolve itself, either way or the other.
But Joyce was soon broken out of her somnolence "A-Ahhhhh!! A tree! Th-there's a tree in the engine!"
She staggered out of the bus, along with a handful of other, more lively passengers to look at what on earth the fuss was.
Joyce wasn't exactly sure what she expected, it probably should've been a tree sticking out of the engine. But it was clearly more than that, there wasn't an engine anymore, it had been turned into a small ecosystem, a copse of bonsai-sized mangrove trees, the kind found in the swamp with elevated roots. The trees themselves were in a small mossy patch of some kind.
"What… what the hell is this?" Joyce asked herself, sweating. Was this a Stand? No. Joyce couldn't be so doubtful, she had to be resolute. This WAS an enemy Stand. It WAS attempting to isolate her. She wouldn't let that go.
She felt a creeping dread as a hand grasped her shoulder. "Hey." The voice called out, it was feminine and gruff. She turned her head to look at her assailant, she was tall with a scar up her smirking lips. She wore big baggy yellow pants tucked into wellington boots and a baggy, dark green shirt that draped off of her body with symmetrical pyramid-shaped pins through the belt-loops of her pants.
"Pretty fuckin' odd, huh?" The woman leaned in, gesturing at the former-engine, her body was warm and it caused Joyce's skin to crawl, for some reason.
"Yeah." Joyce grabbed the woman's wrist and pushed it off of her, backing away. "It's weird, but back off."
That caused her smirk to shift, to a full grin.
"Hoho? Sure you can make me, little girl?"
"Sure you can stop me?" Joyce pulled her face mask down, returning the grin with a snarl, the woman out her hands up, defensively.
"Woah woah woah! I'm not trying to start nothing here, just testing ya. You passed by the way! Didn't take my shit none." She grinned, hands up, before they slowly slid down into her pockets.
"…Okay? And you're still talking to me because?"
"Oh, to distract you. Sorry." She shrugged, matter-of-factly, Joyce didn't get a chance to ask for clarification before a baton cracked across the bridge of her nose and flung her a few feet back, her glasses lay on the floor, smashed as Joyce suddenly cracked against something hard. She clutched her nose and attempted to stand but was blocked by something hard, as she realised that she must have been launched almost halfway through a mangrove tree as she was buried in its roots.
The woman began to pull a gun out from her waistband and Joyce tried to roll out of the mangrove tree but was met by a tugging feeling.
"A-Ah! The roots!" Joyce looked behind her back. "I've been impaled by some roots that were sticking out!" Surely enough, with each time she tried to pull away from the tree, she was met with resistance from the roots and the barrel of the gun was now level with her eyes. She had one opportunity as the gun was fired.
"Alkatraz!"
The surgeon appeared in front of Joyce, its scalpel and bonesaw twitching minutely. The muzzle flashed and time seemed to run into slow-motion, but Joyce couldn't move her own body, just Alkatraz, as the bonesaw curved up to deflect the bullet away from its user.
The bullet ricocheted off of the flat of the saw and time returned to normalcy. Or rather, Allkatraz's perception of time, things didn't slow down at all, this wasn't an ability, merely the only way to truly utilise the incredible precision that Alkatraz held.
"Hooh, impressive." She said, passively, before firing another seven shots. Alkatraz angled its body, its lower half pointed at the bullets as a flurry of steel redirected the shots into the dirt.
"So, what's your name, before I beat the shit out of you?" Joyce glared, as Alkatraz snapped off the roots from the tree, freeing her.
The woman tilted her head back and forth, like the question was a wine she was tasting. "Brandish." She unloaded the magazine and replaced it with another. "Brandish Regalia, and this is the power of my Stand; San Fermin."
She held the pistol out at a 70° angle and closed one eye, then seemed to shift weight off of her left foot, as she placed the right one far behind her, bending her legs down. "A pleasure."
Joyce rushed Brandish, but her footfall was suddenly not meeting the floor, almost as if she'd broken through the solid dirt, but that wasn't right-no, no it was correct! Her footfall met brackish swamp-water, due to the algae floating on top, it had been indistinguishable from moss at a glance!
Looking up, Joyce saw a sudden change in scenery, mangrove trees began sprouting out of the dirt around and about her, one of them began to lift Brandish up, into the thick canopy layer. Even with Alkatraz's sight, the most impressive thing about it was the incredible magnification capability, it wouldn't be useful for discerning Brandish from amongst the tree layer.
Joyce began to wade out of the bog, Alkatraz roaming its head around on a swivel, searching for any incoming fire. Three shots fired out from a tree canopy. Two it deflected and one it sliced in half.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Brandish called, as Joyce began to step out of the swamp-water. "It'll only get worse for you if you take that step, I can guarantee it. The Woods is about ready to change."
Before she could get a word in, the cold, damp water shifted, to granular, golden sand, the trees around crumbling into dust. This form of terrain was a lot flatter, allowing Joyce to see. Patchy terrain seemed to stretch on over the rolling hills, clusters of mangrove trees, and sand dunes. Each patch was identical, for "The Woods" it was a circle of mangrove trees hemming in what looked like moss, and for this… other one, a large pyramid, three flat dunes and a rocky pit she couldn't see into. A pit that she was on the edge of, in the case of the terrain she was in.
"Q… Quicksand…" She mumbled, looking down the pit, to the churning liquified sand below, but that wasn't the only issue, her right leg. She was stuck up to the knee in sandstone, the early warning may have saved her from sudden death, but she was still in grave environmental peril.
"Yes, quicksand!" Brandish affirmed, from the top of the pyramid, firing a shot that dug into the stone beside her.
"…Why did you warn me?" Joyce grimaced, her white-marked lips turned into a frown
Brandish's smile never faded, as she hung onto the pyramid, pausing for a second. "You know what really… really annoys me? When things change. And then after the change don't even give you the decency to let you settle into the change… it's bullshit. Truth be told, I hate The Woods. And I hate the other part, Cairo. But this is all for… an ultimate end." She gestured with her gun around the field. It was true, in small splotches and patches, there was just… blackness, patches of void spilling out into the space around.
"That's what I live for! Nothingness. You know that feeling when the bathwater is the exact same temperature as your core body temperature, so you can barely even feel it as you slip into the bathtub? I crave that feeling. A seamless, undetectable transition. Perfection."
"…You're insane." Joyce stalled, right hand clenched tight.
"Insane? Maybe. But this small quirk here isn't harmful, I'm perfectly capable of regulating it and it's something deeply important to me, so why shouldn't I take pleasure in it?"
Joyce didn't have an answer for that, she was too busy calculating.
Four more shots, four more deflections-no. Three. one of the shots was bounced, but not enough, the hot steel grazed through the top muscle of her left shoulder. She winced but didn't reach out with her right hand. It was too far away to help now.
"Bullseye! Your Stand isn't as powerful as I thought it was. Couldn't quite get that last one, ah?" She dumped the magazine onto the floor.
"You're wrong… I was… tsah… lining up my shot." She held out her left arm, making an L shape and closing one eye, then held out her right arm, to do the same, to make a frame shape…but there was no hand attached to her arm. Just a warbling purple stump.
Before Brandish could ask what she meant, half of a bullet cracked through the air and through her right arm.
"See… I cut that one bullet in half on purpose. I didn't do it because I had no other choice, and I didn't do it to style on you… I did it for ammunition." Then, as the gun knocked down the pyramid, with a sudden gust from behind Brandish, Joyce's right hand reattached to her wrist, completing the frame shape. "I sent my right hand with half of that bullet to crawl up the pyramid and position it so it'd rip itself through you in trying to return whole. Sadly… you look like you're gonna keep fighting."
Brandish stared down at her ruined right arm, a long canyon of torn skin starting in-between her second and middle fingers and only ending at her shoulder. She should've been in enough pain to cripple her, but she just snarled and clenched her fists tight.
Grabbing out her baton and a knife she levelled the weapons at Joyce. She rubbed at her nose sorely and her eyes fell on the discarded pistol… if she could grab that… she'd have the fight won. She had Alkatraz saw through her trapped leg and detached it, making a mad, three-limbed gait after it. But suddenly, it exploded into a micro-scale ring of trees.
"First the engine… then this pistol. And come to think of it, it's midday, the sun was beating down on the field… could it be… your ability, that… The Woods thing… is triggered by heat?!" She accused, clutching her shoulder. Brandish simply turned her focus to a grin.
"They said you were sharp. An astute observation! Yes. It quite is. When an area is below my current body temperature, it turns into the heats of Cairo, to raise up the temperature… and when it's above my body temperature, it becomes The Woods. To cool things down. And of course, you can guess what comes of equilibrium." Joyce resisted the urge to take a second glance at the patches of nothing.
————————————————————————
Stand Profile: San Fermin
Power: A
Speed: B
Precision: E
Durability: A
Range: A
Learning: E
Ability: San Fermin has three modes: The Woods, Cairo, and Nothingness. After the user activates San Fermin, in a 100 metre radius around the user, the terrain shifts into one of the three modes, dependant upon the user's body temperature.
————————————————————————
"So your ability… it's a trap." Joyce realised, blinking.
"You lull people into believing your Stand isn't impressive for a 1 on 1 fight, and then you stall until you can activate Nothingness." Brandish grinned as Joyce realised.
"Correct… and I'm on top of a pyramid. A perfectly defensible position. And you only have the one leg to traverse up here. I have no need to rush on down and duke it out with you." She preened, ignoring the long bleeding gash with abnormal ease as she lowered herself into a laying position.
Joyce looked up, eyes alight as a surgeon sawed through her torso in a V-shape, leaving her torso as a triangular limbless object attached to a head. She had her arms grab the torso-piece and lob it ungainly, up the pyramid. The legs and arms then fell into a many sliced pieces, enough that as she gave the order for her ability to reconvene, her torso was the largest piece.
"ORA!" Alkatraz screamed in catharsis, as it's glove-clad fist connected with Brandish Regalia's cheek, then again. And again. A vast flurry of attacks rattling down upon her form.
"ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!!" Howled from behind the clinical faceplate and surgical mask of Alkatraz, as the pummelled body of Brandish was blasted away from the pyramid.
She crashed down into soft sand, bruised, battered but still conscious. "Th-this… fucking sucks… but it seems that… your tricks… aren't anything… compared to the fated path of my victory!"
Then the ground turned into Nothingness, and then soft-echoes spilled out, her sense of touch was filled with a fuzzy tingling all across her body… and she was moving lethargically, like wading through molasses at half the speed… she could at least return her leg now.
It has been freed from the sandstone and just needed a pull… it lazily swam through the air and rejoined to the main-mass in time for Joyce to begin running. It was hardly worth the expenditure, she'd run so slowly, and tire so quickly… it… almost suited her to collapse and embrace the darkness.
Joyce pushed forward, her breathing laboured and slow. The fight was catching up with her, she just wanted to sleep. The area was warm and it was starting to make her drop.
…
No.
It was like she had told herself, she would be resolute, she would be strong.
Brandish Regalia was having a phenomenal day. She had been shot, sure, and she'd need a new gun, her Stand only deactivated if she fell unconscious, but she was finally feeling it; Nothingness. Her Stand. The one part of her Stand she adored, the feeling of… slowness. It was incredible, she hadn't ever been cleared to allow herself to submerge so deep into her own Stand, but they'd understand if she used it to capture the target.
"Hey… Regalia." Said target called out, it was hardly more than a whisper due to Nothingness, but she heard it still.
"Hm?"
"You said… that the ability only affected as long as the surroundings were… your core body temperature?"
Brandish frowned. "Yes, I did. But it's hard to gain or lose energy into this system, it… stays in this way without a pretty massive shock."
"Or… if the changed area was pretty minute, right?" She shakily lifted a lighter, and flicked it on, scorching the inky floor beneath her. Causing the floor in a circle to bubble and erupt, into a small ring of trees and a pond. The pressure started to lift from the target, her lungs suddenly erupting, going up and down, in great, greedy breaths.
Brandish couldn't help but twist her lips into a snarl. This little… oaf thought it could change HER perfection?! She smoothed out her expression, stomping down the irrational hatred that suddenly flared up.
"Well. I commend you. You've bought yourself some time, but I fear you don't realise what you've done. Objects move slower when within Nothingness. Or, to put it simply… air is flowing out of The Woods quicker than it's flowing in! You've bought some time, but not nearly enough, the air around you will start to depressurise, like you're stood on a mountain. Whether you enter or whether you leave, you're still doomed."
"I wouldn't say that, exactly…" Joyce trailed off, burning another patch of The Woods into Nothingness.
"You won't make it to the end like that. It's too far and that lighter will run out of fluid eventually." Brandish felt sweat bead on her forehead. What was she missing?
Joyce's lips splitting into a grin only cemented this lack of information, as she had that stand of hers, what did she call it… Alkatraz?… She summoned it behind her, and had it cut off her nose, the organ fell to the ground and she placed it in the newly created The Woods and started to sprint. The nostrils flaring with each bound she made across Nothingness.
Joyce Joestar grinned, her nose was pumping metres away but she could still breathe. It seemed her ability, as hypothesised worked on the connections between different parts of the same object.
She was reaching the edge of Nothingness now, she could break free. She reached out a hand to the edge, desperate to escape, she felt her hand stretch around a thin, bubble-like film. This membrane stretched, before finally letting Joyce go, falling out of Nothingness and down, into the soft sands of Cairo. Then released her nose, letting it swim out of Nothingness and rush forward, reattaching to her face.
"ok-k…ay." A broken-up, staticky tone came through the haze of Nothingness. "No-ottt… ba-a-aad. Bu-t! Yo…u d-'t s..em to -otice, my sta-and, San Fermin, will contin-n-nue to gr-r-row until everythi-ng within i…ts rad…ius is eve-tually Nothin…gness! I wi-i-i-ll win!" Brandish cried out.
Joyce clicked her tongue. "That's where you're wrong." She pointed up at Brandish. "You're exhausted, and you're not strong enough to leave San Fermin. Now, all I have to do is wait for you to pass out. That's when I'll have won."
"…You're r-ight. Oh yo-o-u're s…o ri-ght. Hah… I'm d-ne for, it's tr-ue. No gun, on…ly a kni-fe and a bat-at-aton, I've truly trap-p-ped my-s-s-self li-ke a fly. Maybe… stagnat-ion isn't the w-ay to go. …Or maybe my ab-b-bility isn't st-ong. Hah… seeee-eee, my Sta-d CAN affe-e-ct objec-ts, but they have to be… out of a certa- ra…ge of pe-ple. Like my gun. Or the eng-ine. If it d-d-didn't have t-at… limitititiat-on -or oth-ers, and you….r cl-thes would bec-me… Nothingness, maybe, I'd h-ve w'n. But… that's not how the fight went. I lost. I wa-n't… -ng en…gh."
Brandish Regalia collapsed onto the floor in slow-motion.
<— Brandish Regalia: RETIRED!
The plane of space returned to normal, and Joyce's eyes widened. The bus. The passengers! She whipped around to where she remembered it was, the bus looked as though trees had smashed through the windows at some point and a number of passengers were unconscious, but… it could've been worse. The engine was fine again. They could set off.
Joyce grabbed the pistol from where it had been discarded first and any spare ammunition on Brandish. Seemed she had about… 21 shots left. Joyce stowed them in a pocket and returned to the bus driver.
"Hey. The bus should be working again, now. I've dealt with it." Joyce grimaced, her nose and shoulder suddenly at the forefront of her mind, and throbbing with pain.
"O…Okay. Wait! What about all these other passengers??"
"Load 'em back on, they should get better, soon enough… oxygen deprivation, I think. Just keep them breathing clearly and on the bus or something."
She didn't let the driver speak again as she shuffled onto the bus and flopped down, tucking her brim down and pulling her coat up. She had earned a nap.
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<— In Another Place…
"Did Fermin let slip where the end of the line for that bus was?" A grave, male voice grunted into the video call.
Some papers being hurriedly shuffled around made itself known, it seemed nobody wanted to keep the owner of this voice waiting.
"Yeah. Supposed to stop off in Manchester." A rough, punkish voice cut through the sound.
"Up there? Tsk. The only courier we can get up there on short notice is… urgh. Ladies." A third voice cut in, female, harsh and waspish.
"Now now, my friends…" An old man's voice cut in, he had an Italian accent and spoke calmly, as though the world held no meaning to him. "I'm sure Mr. Fleetwood Mac can get our lost asset back."
<— To Be Continued…
Groggily, she spilled a handful of coins onto the tray. "However far this'll take me." She mumbled through the mask, and dragged herself to an empty seat on the bus. She sank into it, the big brown coat and hat giving her shade enough to rest.
————————————————————————
The bus juddered to a sudden stop, jolting her awake, end of the line? No. They were still in the middle of the countryside, nothing but grassland out here for miles.
So why wasn't the engine running? A breakdown? The driver left the cabin and started to force the bus doors open.
"What the hell is going on?" She groused, walking up to the bus driver.
"…" He didn't answer, and instead just continued to try shoving the doors open.
"Hey!" She yelled, getting in close and snapping. "I asked what's going on?"
"…The bus stopped. I'm checking out the engine." He called back, finally wrenching open the doors.
Meanwhile, Joyce simply sat down, tucked down the brim of her cap, and prepared to go back to sleep, it'd resolve itself, either way or the other.
But Joyce was soon broken out of her somnolence "A-Ahhhhh!! A tree! Th-there's a tree in the engine!"
She staggered out of the bus, along with a handful of other, more lively passengers to look at what on earth the fuss was.
Joyce wasn't exactly sure what she expected, it probably should've been a tree sticking out of the engine. But it was clearly more than that, there wasn't an engine anymore, it had been turned into a small ecosystem, a copse of bonsai-sized mangrove trees, the kind found in the swamp with elevated roots. The trees themselves were in a small mossy patch of some kind.
"What… what the hell is this?" Joyce asked herself, sweating. Was this a Stand? No. Joyce couldn't be so doubtful, she had to be resolute. This WAS an enemy Stand. It WAS attempting to isolate her. She wouldn't let that go.
She felt a creeping dread as a hand grasped her shoulder. "Hey." The voice called out, it was feminine and gruff. She turned her head to look at her assailant, she was tall with a scar up her smirking lips. She wore big baggy yellow pants tucked into wellington boots and a baggy, dark green shirt that draped off of her body with symmetrical pyramid-shaped pins through the belt-loops of her pants.
"Pretty fuckin' odd, huh?" The woman leaned in, gesturing at the former-engine, her body was warm and it caused Joyce's skin to crawl, for some reason.
"Yeah." Joyce grabbed the woman's wrist and pushed it off of her, backing away. "It's weird, but back off."
That caused her smirk to shift, to a full grin.
"Hoho? Sure you can make me, little girl?"
"Sure you can stop me?" Joyce pulled her face mask down, returning the grin with a snarl, the woman out her hands up, defensively.
"Woah woah woah! I'm not trying to start nothing here, just testing ya. You passed by the way! Didn't take my shit none." She grinned, hands up, before they slowly slid down into her pockets.
"…Okay? And you're still talking to me because?"
"Oh, to distract you. Sorry." She shrugged, matter-of-factly, Joyce didn't get a chance to ask for clarification before a baton cracked across the bridge of her nose and flung her a few feet back, her glasses lay on the floor, smashed as Joyce suddenly cracked against something hard. She clutched her nose and attempted to stand but was blocked by something hard, as she realised that she must have been launched almost halfway through a mangrove tree as she was buried in its roots.
The woman began to pull a gun out from her waistband and Joyce tried to roll out of the mangrove tree but was met by a tugging feeling.
"A-Ah! The roots!" Joyce looked behind her back. "I've been impaled by some roots that were sticking out!" Surely enough, with each time she tried to pull away from the tree, she was met with resistance from the roots and the barrel of the gun was now level with her eyes. She had one opportunity as the gun was fired.
"Alkatraz!"
The surgeon appeared in front of Joyce, its scalpel and bonesaw twitching minutely. The muzzle flashed and time seemed to run into slow-motion, but Joyce couldn't move her own body, just Alkatraz, as the bonesaw curved up to deflect the bullet away from its user.
The bullet ricocheted off of the flat of the saw and time returned to normalcy. Or rather, Allkatraz's perception of time, things didn't slow down at all, this wasn't an ability, merely the only way to truly utilise the incredible precision that Alkatraz held.
"Hooh, impressive." She said, passively, before firing another seven shots. Alkatraz angled its body, its lower half pointed at the bullets as a flurry of steel redirected the shots into the dirt.
"So, what's your name, before I beat the shit out of you?" Joyce glared, as Alkatraz snapped off the roots from the tree, freeing her.
The woman tilted her head back and forth, like the question was a wine she was tasting. "Brandish." She unloaded the magazine and replaced it with another. "Brandish Regalia, and this is the power of my Stand; San Fermin."
She held the pistol out at a 70° angle and closed one eye, then seemed to shift weight off of her left foot, as she placed the right one far behind her, bending her legs down. "A pleasure."
Joyce rushed Brandish, but her footfall was suddenly not meeting the floor, almost as if she'd broken through the solid dirt, but that wasn't right-no, no it was correct! Her footfall met brackish swamp-water, due to the algae floating on top, it had been indistinguishable from moss at a glance!
Looking up, Joyce saw a sudden change in scenery, mangrove trees began sprouting out of the dirt around and about her, one of them began to lift Brandish up, into the thick canopy layer. Even with Alkatraz's sight, the most impressive thing about it was the incredible magnification capability, it wouldn't be useful for discerning Brandish from amongst the tree layer.
Joyce began to wade out of the bog, Alkatraz roaming its head around on a swivel, searching for any incoming fire. Three shots fired out from a tree canopy. Two it deflected and one it sliced in half.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you!" Brandish called, as Joyce began to step out of the swamp-water. "It'll only get worse for you if you take that step, I can guarantee it. The Woods is about ready to change."
Before she could get a word in, the cold, damp water shifted, to granular, golden sand, the trees around crumbling into dust. This form of terrain was a lot flatter, allowing Joyce to see. Patchy terrain seemed to stretch on over the rolling hills, clusters of mangrove trees, and sand dunes. Each patch was identical, for "The Woods" it was a circle of mangrove trees hemming in what looked like moss, and for this… other one, a large pyramid, three flat dunes and a rocky pit she couldn't see into. A pit that she was on the edge of, in the case of the terrain she was in.
"Q… Quicksand…" She mumbled, looking down the pit, to the churning liquified sand below, but that wasn't the only issue, her right leg. She was stuck up to the knee in sandstone, the early warning may have saved her from sudden death, but she was still in grave environmental peril.
"Yes, quicksand!" Brandish affirmed, from the top of the pyramid, firing a shot that dug into the stone beside her.
"…Why did you warn me?" Joyce grimaced, her white-marked lips turned into a frown
Brandish's smile never faded, as she hung onto the pyramid, pausing for a second. "You know what really… really annoys me? When things change. And then after the change don't even give you the decency to let you settle into the change… it's bullshit. Truth be told, I hate The Woods. And I hate the other part, Cairo. But this is all for… an ultimate end." She gestured with her gun around the field. It was true, in small splotches and patches, there was just… blackness, patches of void spilling out into the space around.
"That's what I live for! Nothingness. You know that feeling when the bathwater is the exact same temperature as your core body temperature, so you can barely even feel it as you slip into the bathtub? I crave that feeling. A seamless, undetectable transition. Perfection."
"…You're insane." Joyce stalled, right hand clenched tight.
"Insane? Maybe. But this small quirk here isn't harmful, I'm perfectly capable of regulating it and it's something deeply important to me, so why shouldn't I take pleasure in it?"
Joyce didn't have an answer for that, she was too busy calculating.
Four more shots, four more deflections-no. Three. one of the shots was bounced, but not enough, the hot steel grazed through the top muscle of her left shoulder. She winced but didn't reach out with her right hand. It was too far away to help now.
"Bullseye! Your Stand isn't as powerful as I thought it was. Couldn't quite get that last one, ah?" She dumped the magazine onto the floor.
"You're wrong… I was… tsah… lining up my shot." She held out her left arm, making an L shape and closing one eye, then held out her right arm, to do the same, to make a frame shape…but there was no hand attached to her arm. Just a warbling purple stump.
Before Brandish could ask what she meant, half of a bullet cracked through the air and through her right arm.
"See… I cut that one bullet in half on purpose. I didn't do it because I had no other choice, and I didn't do it to style on you… I did it for ammunition." Then, as the gun knocked down the pyramid, with a sudden gust from behind Brandish, Joyce's right hand reattached to her wrist, completing the frame shape. "I sent my right hand with half of that bullet to crawl up the pyramid and position it so it'd rip itself through you in trying to return whole. Sadly… you look like you're gonna keep fighting."
Brandish stared down at her ruined right arm, a long canyon of torn skin starting in-between her second and middle fingers and only ending at her shoulder. She should've been in enough pain to cripple her, but she just snarled and clenched her fists tight.
Grabbing out her baton and a knife she levelled the weapons at Joyce. She rubbed at her nose sorely and her eyes fell on the discarded pistol… if she could grab that… she'd have the fight won. She had Alkatraz saw through her trapped leg and detached it, making a mad, three-limbed gait after it. But suddenly, it exploded into a micro-scale ring of trees.
"First the engine… then this pistol. And come to think of it, it's midday, the sun was beating down on the field… could it be… your ability, that… The Woods thing… is triggered by heat?!" She accused, clutching her shoulder. Brandish simply turned her focus to a grin.
"They said you were sharp. An astute observation! Yes. It quite is. When an area is below my current body temperature, it turns into the heats of Cairo, to raise up the temperature… and when it's above my body temperature, it becomes The Woods. To cool things down. And of course, you can guess what comes of equilibrium." Joyce resisted the urge to take a second glance at the patches of nothing.
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Stand Profile: San Fermin
Power: A
Speed: B
Precision: E
Durability: A
Range: A
Learning: E
Ability: San Fermin has three modes: The Woods, Cairo, and Nothingness. After the user activates San Fermin, in a 100 metre radius around the user, the terrain shifts into one of the three modes, dependant upon the user's body temperature.
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"So your ability… it's a trap." Joyce realised, blinking.
"You lull people into believing your Stand isn't impressive for a 1 on 1 fight, and then you stall until you can activate Nothingness." Brandish grinned as Joyce realised.
"Correct… and I'm on top of a pyramid. A perfectly defensible position. And you only have the one leg to traverse up here. I have no need to rush on down and duke it out with you." She preened, ignoring the long bleeding gash with abnormal ease as she lowered herself into a laying position.
Joyce looked up, eyes alight as a surgeon sawed through her torso in a V-shape, leaving her torso as a triangular limbless object attached to a head. She had her arms grab the torso-piece and lob it ungainly, up the pyramid. The legs and arms then fell into a many sliced pieces, enough that as she gave the order for her ability to reconvene, her torso was the largest piece.
"ORA!" Alkatraz screamed in catharsis, as it's glove-clad fist connected with Brandish Regalia's cheek, then again. And again. A vast flurry of attacks rattling down upon her form.
"ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!!" Howled from behind the clinical faceplate and surgical mask of Alkatraz, as the pummelled body of Brandish was blasted away from the pyramid.
She crashed down into soft sand, bruised, battered but still conscious. "Th-this… fucking sucks… but it seems that… your tricks… aren't anything… compared to the fated path of my victory!"
Then the ground turned into Nothingness, and then soft-echoes spilled out, her sense of touch was filled with a fuzzy tingling all across her body… and she was moving lethargically, like wading through molasses at half the speed… she could at least return her leg now.
It has been freed from the sandstone and just needed a pull… it lazily swam through the air and rejoined to the main-mass in time for Joyce to begin running. It was hardly worth the expenditure, she'd run so slowly, and tire so quickly… it… almost suited her to collapse and embrace the darkness.
Joyce pushed forward, her breathing laboured and slow. The fight was catching up with her, she just wanted to sleep. The area was warm and it was starting to make her drop.
…
No.
It was like she had told herself, she would be resolute, she would be strong.
Brandish Regalia was having a phenomenal day. She had been shot, sure, and she'd need a new gun, her Stand only deactivated if she fell unconscious, but she was finally feeling it; Nothingness. Her Stand. The one part of her Stand she adored, the feeling of… slowness. It was incredible, she hadn't ever been cleared to allow herself to submerge so deep into her own Stand, but they'd understand if she used it to capture the target.
"Hey… Regalia." Said target called out, it was hardly more than a whisper due to Nothingness, but she heard it still.
"Hm?"
"You said… that the ability only affected as long as the surroundings were… your core body temperature?"
Brandish frowned. "Yes, I did. But it's hard to gain or lose energy into this system, it… stays in this way without a pretty massive shock."
"Or… if the changed area was pretty minute, right?" She shakily lifted a lighter, and flicked it on, scorching the inky floor beneath her. Causing the floor in a circle to bubble and erupt, into a small ring of trees and a pond. The pressure started to lift from the target, her lungs suddenly erupting, going up and down, in great, greedy breaths.
Brandish couldn't help but twist her lips into a snarl. This little… oaf thought it could change HER perfection?! She smoothed out her expression, stomping down the irrational hatred that suddenly flared up.
"Well. I commend you. You've bought yourself some time, but I fear you don't realise what you've done. Objects move slower when within Nothingness. Or, to put it simply… air is flowing out of The Woods quicker than it's flowing in! You've bought some time, but not nearly enough, the air around you will start to depressurise, like you're stood on a mountain. Whether you enter or whether you leave, you're still doomed."
"I wouldn't say that, exactly…" Joyce trailed off, burning another patch of The Woods into Nothingness.
"You won't make it to the end like that. It's too far and that lighter will run out of fluid eventually." Brandish felt sweat bead on her forehead. What was she missing?
Joyce's lips splitting into a grin only cemented this lack of information, as she had that stand of hers, what did she call it… Alkatraz?… She summoned it behind her, and had it cut off her nose, the organ fell to the ground and she placed it in the newly created The Woods and started to sprint. The nostrils flaring with each bound she made across Nothingness.
Joyce Joestar grinned, her nose was pumping metres away but she could still breathe. It seemed her ability, as hypothesised worked on the connections between different parts of the same object.
She was reaching the edge of Nothingness now, she could break free. She reached out a hand to the edge, desperate to escape, she felt her hand stretch around a thin, bubble-like film. This membrane stretched, before finally letting Joyce go, falling out of Nothingness and down, into the soft sands of Cairo. Then released her nose, letting it swim out of Nothingness and rush forward, reattaching to her face.
"ok-k…ay." A broken-up, staticky tone came through the haze of Nothingness. "No-ottt… ba-a-aad. Bu-t! Yo…u d-'t s..em to -otice, my sta-and, San Fermin, will contin-n-nue to gr-r-row until everythi-ng within i…ts rad…ius is eve-tually Nothin…gness! I wi-i-i-ll win!" Brandish cried out.
Joyce clicked her tongue. "That's where you're wrong." She pointed up at Brandish. "You're exhausted, and you're not strong enough to leave San Fermin. Now, all I have to do is wait for you to pass out. That's when I'll have won."
"…You're r-ight. Oh yo-o-u're s…o ri-ght. Hah… I'm d-ne for, it's tr-ue. No gun, on…ly a kni-fe and a bat-at-aton, I've truly trap-p-ped my-s-s-self li-ke a fly. Maybe… stagnat-ion isn't the w-ay to go. …Or maybe my ab-b-bility isn't st-ong. Hah… seeee-eee, my Sta-d CAN affe-e-ct objec-ts, but they have to be… out of a certa- ra…ge of pe-ple. Like my gun. Or the eng-ine. If it d-d-didn't have t-at… limitititiat-on -or oth-ers, and you….r cl-thes would bec-me… Nothingness, maybe, I'd h-ve w'n. But… that's not how the fight went. I lost. I wa-n't… -ng en…gh."
Brandish Regalia collapsed onto the floor in slow-motion.
<— Brandish Regalia: RETIRED!
The plane of space returned to normal, and Joyce's eyes widened. The bus. The passengers! She whipped around to where she remembered it was, the bus looked as though trees had smashed through the windows at some point and a number of passengers were unconscious, but… it could've been worse. The engine was fine again. They could set off.
Joyce grabbed the pistol from where it had been discarded first and any spare ammunition on Brandish. Seemed she had about… 21 shots left. Joyce stowed them in a pocket and returned to the bus driver.
"Hey. The bus should be working again, now. I've dealt with it." Joyce grimaced, her nose and shoulder suddenly at the forefront of her mind, and throbbing with pain.
"O…Okay. Wait! What about all these other passengers??"
"Load 'em back on, they should get better, soon enough… oxygen deprivation, I think. Just keep them breathing clearly and on the bus or something."
She didn't let the driver speak again as she shuffled onto the bus and flopped down, tucking her brim down and pulling her coat up. She had earned a nap.
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<— In Another Place…
"Did Fermin let slip where the end of the line for that bus was?" A grave, male voice grunted into the video call.
Some papers being hurriedly shuffled around made itself known, it seemed nobody wanted to keep the owner of this voice waiting.
"Yeah. Supposed to stop off in Manchester." A rough, punkish voice cut through the sound.
"Up there? Tsk. The only courier we can get up there on short notice is… urgh. Ladies." A third voice cut in, female, harsh and waspish.
"Now now, my friends…" An old man's voice cut in, he had an Italian accent and spoke calmly, as though the world held no meaning to him. "I'm sure Mr. Fleetwood Mac can get our lost asset back."
<— To Be Continued…