Everything is white, but quickly the colors coalesce down into a more muted yellow, the color of the light pouring in from the windows. My point of view is of a small table set up in the center of a yellow bricked house. There seems to be no other furniture at all in the house, and the floor seems to be made of some kind of yellowed concrete or stone clay. 

 

There are three men surrounding the table on their knees or sitting on the cooler floor. They're all playing cards.

 

"All in!" One of the men says, putting down his set of cards. But it's hard to tell if that's what he truly said. It doesn't seem to be in an a language I can really understand. But he's got a smile on to melt a room, something smug and ready to be challenged.

 

"All in this early, brother? Don't you feel like you're being a little bit risky?" A voice comes pouring out from beneath my eyes. I don't feel any movement but somehow, the thing that I must be is talking. He sounds sure of himself, ready to back up his brothers bets with more of his own.

 

"I don't know!" The first man says again, shrugging. "What if we don't have a lot of time?" The end of his sentence being punctuated by the blowing out of a nearby wall. It throws everyone in the room around as light and dust and sound and fire come flooding the place all at once.

 

My point of view is shot out a few feet down a hallway, rolling across the floor and impacting a wall on the far side. A heavy groaning sound could be heard.

 

Then in march the army men.

 

Four men in yellow and dusty light brown fatigues come storming into the house, guns drawn. From the other side of the hallway, I can see the three other men I was originally sitting with being mercilessly gunned down on the floor. Little jolts of their still bodies and splashes of bloody gore for each accompanying light flash, all with an accent of pink clouds.

 

Those are Americans! What? Why? These guys were only playing cards! 

 

My POV stands up, picking himself off the floor and slinging a rifle around from his shoulder. It was previously hidden. This man is a soldier too!?

 

He slides the rifle into his arms in a steady position as the closest soldier finally thinks to turn around. 

 

His body is riddled with five shots. It's a righteous, burning sensation.

 

Payback!!!

 

The man rocks to the floor, going down like a ton of bricks as the other soldier men jump in startled surprise. They go to aim their weapons but it's no use, my POV has turned and ran, already down the rest of the hallway and out through a back door of a house. We come out into a bright and hot world of wrecked buildings and colonialist destruction. There are fifty of them, equally the same, in all directions.

 

My POV dives for the ground, sliding into the dirt behind a parked car with broken windows. There are bullet holes all throughout the metal.

 

Two more army men come flying out the back door, covering each other's angles. The one facing this way spots us, but it's too late as the leveled and supported rifle propped up against this car starts firing away at full auto. Barely any recoil at all with the backing of almost full body weight.

 

The looking man's head jolts back, his neck breaking and his throat being torn apart.  His inner throat is suddenly visible from a gap in his uniform, an anatomical examination of the human body,  as the buzzing bees of metal splatters through his skull and into his brain. The helmet meant nothing, as if it was just meant for show.

 

All the bullets fired are caught in the first guy when POV runs out of his magazine ammo. The dead man slumps over his partner before rolling off and hitting the ground. It gave enough cover for the man behind him to turn and fire. 

 

A bullet goes through POV's shoulder. It tears almost part of the right arm off, exposing bone and muscle. 

 

My vision goes flat to the ground behind our back, looking up at the bottom of the car while two hands struggle to try and fit a new magazine into the gun. It slots in place just in time for a man to come running around the side of the car with his gun aimed and ready.

He's shot to bits. Red, green, and brown.

 

Too fast on the trigger was Mister POV, a luck unmatched finding him. He unloads the gun, taking all of the recoil into his injured arm, tearing another exposed nerve connection. I imagine it must have been excruciating. But it's not like I'm feeling anything, these memories clearly are not mine.

 

The army man goes sprawling to the floor, his two shots missing and embedding into the wall nearby. 

 

POV clutches his arm, blood seeping out from beneath his fingers, pooling into his hand and down his arm. 

 

But everything seems to be okay until the fourth and final man comes strolling around the corner of the vehicle, just as ready to fatefully avenge his fallen comrade’s lives as POV was for his. He's holding a pistol, and it fires thrice into POVs chest, bursting blood out like a comparatively modest fountain. The arms in my vision drop limp to his sides as darkness starts to swirl around the world.

 

There's a pulling feeling within me, starting to tear me away from these phantom memories. It's a signal that they're coming to an end.

 

The final army man in front of me takes off his own mask. Beneath it is a familiar face, one looking confused and shocked and almost appalled. Like he can't believe he just shot this man. 

 

He reaches forward and bends down to meet POV. Reaching for his eyes as the last of the world goes completely dark.

 

…

 

…

 

…

 

The sky fractures from yellow and dry to blue and wet, the feeling of a moist earthy ground hitting splat to my back as I fall over backwards. "Woah!" Escapes my mouth when I hit the ground. I must have been a few feet in the air!

 

"『User』!!" I hear a familiar shriek. Arms go wrapping around me instantly. "Where did you go!? You vanished!! You were gone! I saw you for one moment and you were gone in another! What happened, where did you go!?" My stand whines, squeezing me hard, making sure to never let me go.

 

"I don't, I don't really know where I went." I tell her. "I'm not sure what just happened."

 

"What did you see?" She asks me, frantically. She sounds so anxious.  "What did you see while you were gone?"

 

"Memories, I guess?" 

 

But that's really all it is. Just a guess. 

 

We're left both shocked and nervous for almost a minute straight until finally, the man at the very end of the memory comes stepping out from behind a nearby tree, and our heads snap in his direction. 

 

It's the blind veteran from earlier.

 

…

 

"Sixteen years." He says, stepping into full view. The clearing in the trees is only enough room for maybe two people at most. It makes me feel cramped and in danger. "Sixteen years since I've taken that memory. And yet it's the one that always seems to be floating back to the top. History seems to have a way of repeating itself like that. The things you see in others seem to define you." 

 

A chill runs down my spine. "What was that! What do you want from me!?" 

 

He goes on, blatantly ignoring my input like it doesn't matter. "Can you imagine what it must have been like for a moment? The last one left in my squad after all the others were shot dead, my life on the very cusp of being ended.. And yet, when I killed that man, the first one I've ever killed, all I could feel was pure confusion! How could something like this happen, you know? These were just ordinary men fighting for a cause that was different from mine…. The memory haunted me for ages… I spilled blood with my own hands! I felt his skin and everything! The guilt was enough to shake a building." He leans back, looking up towards the treetops, a contemplative look that grows somber yet unabashedly prideful a moment later. "Until the church found me. And from there they showed me the truth. That we are all born equal men, and it is what we do with the gift of life that defines us. The only quality between us all, is Justice. My killing of that man was Justified, and righteous, for the good of the world. I prevented so much more harm by stopping him there. And no longer did I feel bad, the truth was all that mattered to me going forward."

 

Rosegold's arms tighten around my body, slipping into blurriness where she holds me so tight we begin to melt together. She does not like where this is going. 

 

"What does that have to do with me!?" I shout at him, terrified and confused. "What were those visions!?" A spectral head leans in next to my ear, whispering as though this blind man can either see or hear her. "This guy sounds like bad news, we have to do something about this, quick! I can knock him out, and he won't even see it coming!"

 

But I shush her. "Not yet. He hasn't said anything bad enough yet. Wait just a little longer, I want to make sure he's a real threat first before we do anything. He's still just a blind man, after all." Though I said the words, something about him seems awfully intimidating up close.

 

The man regards me for a moment, going quiet with his voice. "When the Church found me, I was on the brink of suicide. My life had all but completely deteriorated, and all that was left for me to see was memories of memories, repeated over and over again, ad nauseam. But they found me, and they took me in, and they told me that what I had done for our country was righteous. A sacrifice for the greater good. But then they told me that my sacrifice wasn't over yet, that I needed to do more in order to fully redeem myself. That I could win my way back into heaven, the same opportunity given to every man. So long that I was willing to do anything in order to maintain the righteous order of things. Maybe even kill.” He smiles wickedly. “Then they offered me a gift no mortal man could ever turn down.” He steps forward a few steps, menacingly. 

 

"Are- are you some kind of murderer!?" I shout, pulling back on the ground to scoot backwards, dragging myself through the mud. But Rosegold stops me from cowering away too far. A hand held on my shoulder to make me rest. When I look up at her, she has a look that signals her protection. She looks determined. My heart rate slows, and my breathing steadies. I remembered I have a guardian angel. And she's completely invisible.

 

He LAUGHS! A mocking bark that catches me off guard, I almost jolt. "A murderer!? Ha! That would imply I have ever killed in bad faith. But you'll find yourself sorely mistaken. It was Justified every single time."

 

"Oh yeah? So what about me then, you know I'm just a kid, right?" I bark back at him, almost feeling defensively angry. I push myself to my feet, I won't take this lying down.

 

"Like I said." The man repeats. "It's what you do with the gift of life that defines you. And you, clearly, have thrown that opportunity away, boy. No sense in prolonging it, and just waiting around for your sins to spread." He spits the words out like they’re insults. But it rolls off of me painlessly, like rainwater. I don't know what he possibly could be implying by all that. "Prepare to face judgment, your truth will be brought to light. You cannot escape, no matter how ugly your soul is." 

 

My nerves steel. It's just what I’ve been waiting to hear. It's probable cause, maybe I’ve secretly wanted to do this the whole time. “It's self defense, then.”  Raise arm, and point. “『Rosegold』! ”

“Ha Ha Ha Ha!”

My stand slams through the air, a blur of gray bursting at sonic speeds. The air snaps around her lithe body, she cuts through it like a knife through butter. Her right fist winds and slams into his shoulder, the resulting crack is loud and reverberates off all the wet trees around me. It's a solid hit, one that makes him barely stumble. The force of her punch seems almost meaningless, having done very little to him.

“Really, you would swing first to hit a blind man? Really goes to show the merit of what you’re made of.” His white pure gaze turns to look at Rosegold directly. He sees her floating there, her mouth gaped, scared.  How can he see her!?

For some reason, my 『Stand』hasn’t moved her arm back yet. She struggles with it, pulling and yanking in jerky motions, but her fist is stuck to his shirt! There's a phantom feeling of worms slowly wrapping around my hand, as a spectral green rotted hand comes slowly oozing out of his shoulder, gripping hers tightly. Rotted flesh into rotted flesh, wrapped in barbed wire. A freakish zombie, a flowing green translucent slime that forms into the air between them. Handcuffed together with a long metal shackle between each wrist. An army man, something reminiscent of a video game enemy, rotted out and wounded. Wrapped completely in a rusty barbed wire. It's a freaky sight to see, and extremely overly dramatic.

“『Fortunate Son.』” 

 

There's a slight rumble in the air as the words are spoken. Almost like an incantation. The monster ghost rears its arm back, a slow thuggish pull, and crashes its thick green fist straight through Rosegold’s outstretched arm. It explodes out in a single shot, right through the elbow. Rosegold’s arm is instantly destroyed. Severed jaggedly in half, Rosegold goes stumbling backwards in the air, still trying to pull herself back. But now, all that's left from the elbow down is empty air. The hand still attached to the other piece goes falling to the forest floor with a wet slap.

And all at once, all the feeling in my right hand goes dead.

I gasp, slightly surprised from the fuzzy sensation. My eyes hesitatingly track over to the hand I was just pointing with. And it's gone. Everywhere from my elbow down is lost, broken off at a jagged angle right in the same mirrored place.  What!?!

“Surprised to meet another『User?』Let your first lesson be that you are never going to be safe from Righteous Wrath. He is always watching, as am I. Retribution is always just around the corner, and I will see exactly what you’re made of.” Taking advantage of our shock, the blind man reaches out and grabs Rosegold straight from the air, tugging her light body over to him, and grasping aimlessly at her eyes. Yet she hasn’t any. His grippy little fingers are met with nothing but blank canvas. It seems to confuse him for a moment. “What, no eyes?” 

She panics, winding back and punching him right in the face. 

His head goes rocketing backwards, and his nose is instantly smashed. It crumples in at the bone, crackling beneath his skin. It's like he forgot she had a second arm left still or something. He thought he’d just won, just like that. He was wrong.

Blood goes pouring from the site, all over Rosegold’s fist and hand as he goes slumping over backwards. His limp body hits the ground with a thud.

Then, there's a disgusting inflating sound off to the left as the visage of 『Fortunate Son』suddenly starts swelling and swelling and swelling. Like a hose of air was stuck right into his (its?) mouth. Filling up up up until the rotted skin snaps apart, and the whole thing pops like a balloon. Little flecks of spectral ooze sparkle into non-existence in a shimmering display. The 『Stand』is un-summoned.

Then silence meets us, nothing but the sound of air rustling through orange oak trees, and the wheezing breath of an old man through a shattered nose.

…

“Holy shit! W-What the fuck was that!” I scream. “There are other 『Users!?』”

“There are other users!”  Rosegold echoes back, panicked. “Grab your hand, let's get out of here!”

I agree, diving for the floor and tearing up all the leaves in a hurried search. It feels strange reaching out with both of my hands to help my search, but finding again that I only have one.  A curdling feeling of fear wells in my stomach.

Tink!

The fingernails of my left hand make a delicate noise as they clink off of the strange rock below, obscured underneath dirt and leaves. My eyes widen, and I hasten my search, pulling away at all the bits to reveal a curled hand. Broken off, just as it was. But harder now, feeling heavier in my hand than it should be. I feel nothing when touching it, except that it's cold and smooth. It's become porcelain.

“Woah.” My 『Stand』says, having floated over to me in the time I spent examining it.

Yeah.” I agree with her, noticing that she also found her own severed hand in that time.

“What should we do?” She asks me, but I’m pretty much just at a loss for words.

“Lets, let's leave before he gets back up!” I pick myself back up to my feet, clutching my own hand tightly in my other. Not even turning back to look, I start to run out of the clearing towards the edge of the forest. If we can get out of here and back into the park, there's no way this guy will follow us into crowds! Right?

Choosing not to turn back was a mistake. The man who I thought was knocked out ends up muttering something quietly underneath his breath, his white eyes wide open.

“Minefield.”

My foot connects with a hidden object buried in the ground, kicking it up into the air for a moment to reveal a  bright silver twinkle. An eye makes contact with mine, a trap.

The fade to white is harsh and instant.

…

…

…

…the blade end of a knife pulls itself free from his chest. Blood goes gushing onto my hands as it goes in and out and in and out repeatedly. “Bastard!!!!” The voice is shouting, clearly full of rage. The man sitting in the old wooden chair in front of me drains of color quickly, hardly putting up a fight. It didn’t seem like he was expecting whatever just went down.

“I’ll have you for this, you bastard!!!!” My POV shouts again. “You’ll pay for what you did to her!” He keeps stabbing and stabbing, the little kitchen knife going blunt and dull after the thirteenth thrust hits a rib, displacing it and instead stabbing into muscle. “Bastard!! Bastard!” He shouts again, the knife slipping sideways out of his hands when he tries to stab again. It clatters on the floor in a puddle of wet blood. But the man’s rage isn't nearly cooled. He picks his fists up and starts beating the limp corpse until his knuckles start to break. “You let this happen! You let this fucking happen!” He trails off after that, slumping to the floor in a heap and beginning to openly weep.

His sadness is obvious, and his sorrow is deep. His hands come up to cover his eyes as his tears flood through his red fingers, painting his face in blood. Choked little words barely come through in his voice. “You let this happen…. Those drugs… You let them kill her….” But the rest is unintelligible.

He stays on the floor like this for ages, bawling through his hands and occasionally gagging from the smell of rot-iron draining out the man's chest. It makes me feel sick just to watch. But eventually his sorrow slows and he picks himself up from the mess. A stray golden twinkle catches from the corner of my eye. He turns to look at it for a moment. It's a police officer's badge on the table.

My heart lurches in my chest. This guy killed a cop!?! He killed a cop!? But, my mom!

“So much for justice.” The sorrowed man says as he turns to leave. But he stops the moment he gets to the door,  almost immediately falling over backwards. There's a man standing just outside,  he's visible through the glass part of the houses front door, his face pressed right to it.  

 

"Shit!" My pov exclaims, quickly trying to dart backwards. His foot lands in a puddle of slick blood, slipping out beneath him and sending him sprawling straight to the floor,  helpless to watch in horror as the doorknob to the front door just falls off.  Detached out of nowhere,  the doorknob clatters to the carpeted floor, and the front door slowly pushes itself open to reveal the Veteran. The door isn't being pushed by his hands,  but it opens all the same. 

 

"Well well well,  what do we have here?" The veteran asks like some kind of movie supervillain. "Jacobsen warned me something like this could happen.  It's a shame you let your anger get the better of you." He says,  slowly walking into the house to survey the damages. His eyes are clear. No damage to be seen, just like in the last memory. He said his eyes deteriorated over time, right? How old must this one be, then?

"He- he brought this on himself! He stood there and did nothing when Carol was dying! Nothing,  nothing! That was my daughter!" The man I'm currently inhabiting screeches.

 

"I know." Says the veteran.  "In another world, I would be right by your side for this.  But…." He trails off.  There's a shimmer in the air floating just behind the Veteran. "But the truth is all that matters here,  and the truth is that… There is no justice in heaven for a cop killer.  Unforgivable,  no matter the circumstance."

 

"But-" the povs words are cut off as his throat suddenly collapses in on itself, punched in and crushed by a completely invisible force.  He goes rocketing backwards,  sliding through the puddles of blood as he chokes and gasps for air.  But no air comes,  and the last of his sight before it goes dark is the visage of the veteran man standing overtop him. 

 

His eyes are pulled from his head. 

 

…

 

…

 

…

 

Sounds,  colors,  and noise come crashing back into my senses.  Chewed up and spat back out into the real world.  My feet hit the ground with a thud. 

 

"Gotcha!" A familiar gruff voice calls out. A moment later my body is slammed into the side of a tree from a punch so strong you’d have thought it was from a car. All the wind is knocked out of me at once. He was waiting just for that moment.

Bone aching pain radiates throughout my upper body, and I slump to the forest floor with a groan onto something strangely shaped and hard. My vision swims with the nauseating green sparkles of his zombified stand. That's what must have hit me.

Footsteps approach me, crunching through leaves. A shadow overtakes my body. “What do you want from me!?” I choke out through almost shut lungs.

“Isn’t it spectacular?” The man says, crouching over me. “Even good people like that can be pushed into doing bad things in the name of righteous causes. I even saw it for myself, through his memories. Our boys in blue refused to enter a scene and help his dying daughter. There were just too many ways they could have gotten hurt. And by the time they got there, she had passed." He stops for a moment,  considering me. "The way he responded was sickening. Tell me, have you done anything like that? Used your power in terrible ways?” He asks me in a tone as though he is chastising a child.

“I'm not a killer! I haven’t done anything wrong!” I shout back at him, picking my eyes up to see his menacing glare just above me.

“Really now? Not in that coffee shop? Nor the park earlier, tormenting the guests there? Not a single thing wrong?” He delivers, and my heart stops dead. Just how much does this guy know? “You think you’re invisible, but I see right through you. You’re an accident just waiting to happen. If not now,  then later. Make this easy for me, or hard for you. Hand me your eyes, let me see the truth of what you are.” The man reaches out towards my face, getting just into the right distance. “I promise I’ll give them back when I’m done, honest.”

I lean forward as well, and smash my hand into the side of his head. My porcelain solidified fist, held like a rock, and impacting just like one too. I was hiding it just under the leaves when I fell down. He didn't see that one coming.

He goes toppling over sideways, another splatter of blood landing on my fists from the impact site. “Grrrrehhh…” He groans, spitting a tooth onto the forest floor. “You bitch.”

It feels oddly flattering. But what feels even better is the sparkly warm sensation on my skin. My eyes quickly track to the place it's happening, to see little specks of red dripping down the porcelain fist. “Rosegold!” I call out for her.

There's a whooshing of air as my 『Stand』finds me. “User!! You were gone again! I was looking everywhere! I searched every wall up and down but I couldn't see you anywhere!” She comes darting down to me, terrified expression on her lips. But she notices something important. The blood on my hands. It changes her look into one of care.

“Oh, I can help!” She chimes, hovering down to me and taking my hand in hers. “Watch. Remember this.” She tells me, quickly. One of her slender gray fingers traces a line down the back side of it, a phantom sensation of warmth mirrors alongside, as the red is pulled across toward the wound. And the moment the blood reaches the threshold, it sparkles into bright life! A brilliant shining as it flourishes into light. Turning to a golden flow, a glue, molten gold that my 『Stand』uses to stick the two pieces back together. Good as new. 

 

Huh,  well that's gonna come in handy again later.

She starts to help me to my feet, but we’re quickly stopped by a ghastly green hand on her right shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going!? This isn't over yet!” The injured man says, crawling up from the ground.

“Yes, I think it is.” And with a flick of my finger, Rosegold slams a fist onto the fingers, crushing the green hand on her shoulder in an instant. The fist impact makes a strong sound, and the blind man howls in pained anger. The zombie soldier thing yanks his hand back instantly, backing out for a moment just before being recalled. Back on the offensive!

“『FORTUNATE SON!!』” He screams, and his stand moves in towards us.

“『Rosegold!』” I scream back, the two stands meeting in the middle, picking their fists up respectively. Fortunate Son goes for a right hook, it's a heavy sound that cuts through the air in a deep fwoom. Sounds like it has fifty pounds of weight behind it.

She dodges out of the way, spinning like a pirouette, and the thuggish fist goes flying past her. But another one quickly follows, and another! Her fists still up, she bobs and weaves back and forth out of the way of each shot, just barely scraping by. But she’s much faster than him, able to read his movements with ease. Speed beats power, yeah! Back and forth, until an opening is noticed, and she moves in to throw a pointed jab into the monster’s face. Crack! My fist stings with pain as hers connects to something much harder than expected. He feels like cement! But that's one point for us!

The shot throws him back for a moment in a stun, his arms uselessly raised. Exploiting the moment,『Rosegold』hisses, a scratchy noise of pure rage, and throws punch after punch after punch into the ghost’s stomach! Rocketing over and over and over again like a gray jackhammer. Until a final SLAM! That sends both the stand and the man backwards, skidding across the muddy floor but still resolutely upright, still standing.  He seems almost relatively fine in comparison, and the sight of his smirk makes me furious.  He’s just too tough to punch straight through!

“Your 『Slave-Spirit』is quite the feisty one, isn't it? And noisy too. Why don’t you be good and shut that thing up.” He says, dusting off his shirt as though nothing is wrong.

“She is not my slave.” I spit back at him, bitterly. The thought alone of treating Rosegold in that way makes me feel physically sick.

“Of course it is! And you are its owner. To think of them in any other way is giving humanity to something inherently inhuman. And just by the way yours sounds is more than enough to show that. They’re creatures, they are hellspawn, they are property for man to use.  They are made to be crowned over. It's a simple fact of life. And the way you treat it makes me question what kinds of other perverted things you must get up to with it.” This man disgusts me, everything he says makes me more and more sick of him. I swear I’m at the breaking point.

He suddenly puts his zombie between us again, shielding himself away behind it. It's clear that the wide open eyes of his『Stand』carry no life behind them whatsoever, despite their appearance as otherwise. Truly something dead and lifeless. “Who controls who, huh? Do you live up to the name 『User?』Or are you its toy to play with? Like some kind of filthy dog.” He gestures angrily at me, compelling his torture captive to go. In response, the zombie groans something wet and gurgling, a hollow cry, and moves in to fight us once more.

Rosegold moves up to post, ready for round two, but as she goes up there, it reveals something shocking out from behind her. The 『Enemy Stand』having blocked my view of the other combatant in the ring until now. The blind man was winding into a pitcher's pose, arm locked back and ready to rocket a silver eye marble all the way to me. I should have been paying attention, there are two combatants!

He throws, and it's a deadshot that hits me center-on.

Que flashbang.

…

 

…

 

…

 

The world opens up to me, unfolding into my vision like a flowering headache. The room is the first thing that comes into focus after the requisite vertigo trip. Full of colorful tiles and big bright tapestries. Wooden chairs and tables, and with a beautiful moon view pouring in from the outside. It's a cloudless night

This point of view is much shorter than the average person, in fact. They’re maybe only four feet tall, and with small hands that reach up towards the edge of the counter table.

This memory is from the perspective of a young child.

A feeling of total, sheer panic invades my mind, spiraling out of control the moment I understand where the view is coming from. But I'm unable to close my eyes or block out the view at all. I can’t control any of this, it's all a playback. I feel myself desperately trying to pull away, run away as far back into my mind to escape watching. But I can’t, and for some reason.

A memory like this seems familiar.

The front door of the house slams inwards, and a slender woman comes backing into the house entrance in haste. Her hair is long and black and wavy. She has wrinkles around her eyes and looks to be in her thirties. This must be the kid’s mom.

She swings into the room, rounding out and away from the door to lie in wait, body pressed flat up against the wall.  The kid gasps, putting their arm down. Surprised, but not scared. “Mom?” A little girl.

The woman draws her shoulder back just as another man comes storming up to the open door. Breaching the doorway in a moment, with a gun drawn.

But the moment he peeks his head in, he's struck by seemingly nothing. The black haired woman leans her shoulder forward for just a moment, and the guy's entire head blasts into pieces. The wall behind where his head would be was blown out as well, a large crumbling hole appearing out of nowhere alongside a cracking of air and an invisible exchange. Only a pink mist remains. “Out.” She growls under her breath. It's an incredible shot.

And this is clearly a stand fight.

The little kid squeaks, surprised at the sudden action. But she can't seem to see anything. Just the rustling of wind all around her.

“Look away, Mari, please! This is not good for you to see, honey, turn around!” The mother calls to the child, who promptly does so, putting their arms up around themself and hugging tightly in fear. 

“What's happening? Who are these people?” She asks, fear in her voice.

“Horsemen Of The Church.” She says. “Bad people that mommy has to stop from getting to us. I have to do some… Difficult things right now, and there's going to be a lot of loud noises coming up so just… Don’t be scared, and when I tell you to run out the back door, you do it, okay?” The mother tells her, coming up from behind and wrapping her arms around the girl's shoulders in paradoxical yet very real warmth. It's clear she's struggling to maintain control of herself, but she still puts up a glossy sheen for her daughter.

The kid tries to take calming breaths to slow her heart rate too. I imagine it must be racing. This is a terrifying situation to be in.

“How did they find us? Weren’t we far enough away from the cities?” The little girl asks, sounding more and more worried.

“I… I thought we were. I thought this stead should have been far enough away. I have no idea how they tracked us out of the country.” She trembles, looking up and over her shoulder again towards the door, instinct on high alert. “I haven’t heard from your father recently, either. And he’s the only one who's ever seen us here. We should be completely off-grid!”

“Did they do something to him?” The girl asks, terrified. 

 

“No, honey. No way. Your father is very very strong. He could take down thiiiirty men at once if he wanted to!” She says, holding the syllable for extra effect. It seems to calm the girl down a little bit. And when the mother pulls her back into another hug, the girl seems to agree with her.

“You’re right, mom! He is strong! He’s invincible!” She exclaims, her mood picking up a little more.

“That's right! No one can stop him!” She says, giving the little girl a little push towards the back door. “Now, sweetheart, if you can do something for me…”

“Yes?” She says, worrying up again.

“I-”

There's a knock at the front door. Three quick raps. It cuts the mother’s voice off mid word, and she stands up to face the entrance just in time, muttering a name underneath her breath. A summoning spell; a calling card.

And then the door starts filling with holes. Like somebody is stabbing a pencil through paper, perfectly round holes start flooding the front door. All in silence, but at the same time, her mother steps forward to meet the oncoming barrage. Her shoulders are square, she sets, and points towards the doorway.

There's a loud whooshing sound from right in front of her, and the tapestries in the room start to shake and clatter with force. The distant sound of crackling can be heard from nearby. Snapping and popping like little jolts of arcing electricity. I imagine she’s doing something to block whatever is coming. Though it's muffled and hard to completely discern. Like it's coming from somewhere else, somewhere the girl shouldn’t be hearing.

“MARI, RUN!” She shouts, and the kid falls backwards over herself. Landing on the floor with a pained yelp. Immediately she starts pushing with her legs, sliding towards the other direction, still watching the scene unfold before her. She ends up pushed up against a wall with her back pressed flat, terrified of the invisible battle going on just in front. Helplessly watching.

The crackling in the air starts to slowly clarify, getting louder and louder. The whooshing in the air gives way to nearly imperceptible outlines of something there, something in the air making the noises. Shapes. But it's not quite visible. Not yet, at least.

The front door is fully torn to shreds, and the moonlight starts pouring in. There's a man standing where the doorway once was, holding a similar pose to the mother’s, commanding something to wreak havoc on this poor household. Bits and pieces of the walls start crumbling to the floor as everything deteriorates around them more and more. And the crackling just keeps growing and growing, until something slips and a few holes start to end up passing by the mothers guard, hitting the walls closer to the terrified girl.

She yelps in fear, renewing an effort to crawl across the floor on her hands and knees away from the battle scene. Little holes keep spattering the wall, now sounding almost like paintballs splatting on wood. She keeps crawling, not stopping to examine them. Good! Keep going!

The little girl makes it almost all the way to the doorway at the end of the house just as a decisive change is made. Something happens, and there's a strong ripple in the air from behind her, and a visual fuzzy shockwave goes rolling over the room like a scanning wave. The little girl is pushed further down the house all the way to the door, bumping against it with an “oof!”

In fear for her mothers safety, she makes one more check to see what caused that burst to see that the man that was just attacking is in tatters. He’s almost smeared across the tan dirt just outside. It's a viscous display. But whatever just happened, the mom won. She leans over to double check his flatlined state before turning around to see that her daughter was still there, watching everything.

“M- Mari, honey!” The mother coughs, clearly running out of breath after such an exchange. “I told you not to look, you have to go, please!”

The little girl rapidly nods, picking herself up from the floor and fumbling with the handle of the door with sweaty palms. Her little hands sliding off the doorknob with every attempt, but finally, it catches, and she swings open the door to reveal an expansive landscape. A hilled, mountainous land with tanned dirt and cactus everywhere. An arid landscape with stars above and a moon shining brightly over the desert. This is Mexico, and somewhere incredibly remote. The girl darts out of the house and across the warmed sand for a few seconds before pausing.  No, don't go back!

 

She turns and goes back,  ducking just outside the door to watch, making sure her mother stays alive.

“You!!!” There's a loud and gruff voice calling out from behind her.  The kid peeks around the corner just in time to see her mother get slammed by some invisible force when she wasn't looking.  Too devoted to watching her daughter's escape to see the man I'm all too familiar with step into the house and into punching range. 

 

A twinkle, something shimmering and blue. 

 

There's a crack in the air with the strength of a cannon,  two blue arms,  the shade and color of  a beetle, form sparkling in the air. They cross over each other in a block,  just in time to catch a rotting green fist right in the center.

 

SLAM!

 

The sound is immense, and her mother slides across the floor, back bumping into a nearby wall.  Her block was perfectly timed. A second later and she would have been pummeled.

 

"You." The voice says again,  the veteran man comes stepping into full view. His eyes are pristine and clear. 

 

"Joshua! You don't have to do this!" The mother calls out to him,  pleading. 

 

There's a cloud of vomit green that trails in just behind him. Shapeless and just out of focus.  "Oh but I do. You first came to us with such worries. Money,  protection,  and security.  We provided you everything you needed and more.  We gave you your Stand. And this was how you repay us? You're an apostate. A traitor to our cause.  We can't just let you keep standing after what you did."

 

The mom growls,  pulling herself off from the wall and steadying. "I will never let you people have her!" She screams.  "If they knew your real plans,  no one would stand with you.  No one."

 

"You see that's just where you're wrong.  The path to human ascension is bright and colored in gold. If they knew what we were after,  what we were truly going for,  no one in the world would stand in our way." The veteran man pauses for just a moment.  Joshua… "You could have helped bring about the saving of humanity, and the true second coming.  You know the seals are broken by now. But you chose to die a sinner. And you condemned your bloodline too."

 

"There is no such thing as God. And if there was,  a real God would never ask for my first born daughter as a sacrifice." The woman says coldly and bitterly. Then her shoulders are set and stone. "Grand Funk Railroad."

 

"Fortunate. Son." The two of them summon theirs respectively, and step up to bat. 

 

The first punches are almost deafening. Cracks in the air,  the sound of whips snapping, and stone impacting stone. Mari my POV puts her hands to her ears as she ducks away into cover just outside the door.  Shrouded in shadow, but she keeps watching, still having ignored her mothers request to run.  What are you doing,  girl!? Go!

 

Shimmering shining sparkling sight, two stands slowly come into prefect clarity,  fighting in the foray of the house.  A blue beetle, a strong, shining, and tall chariot of protection.  A muscular woman in oil-spill-blue colored armor trading blow after blow with the disgusting and green Fortunate Son. Their fists meet each other in the air,  punch after punch,  with devastating effect. Cannon shots of power impacting each other at point blank time and time again.

 

Until the mother misses a shot,  a feigned blow that has her extending just too far into range.  A hook lands her across the right cheek of her stand, and the impact sends her flying.  Her body ragdolls, soaring several feet across the house and crashing into a nearby home mirror.  The shatters of reflective glass go pouring over her body.  And she lets out a worrying groan filled with pain. 

 

"You and your husband have no idea the troubles you've caused us.  Do you know how much money the Church had to spend in order to get him down? And now you? You are soldiers of Satan. I will be glad to see your end, same as his." Joshua says coldly,  slowly making his way across the house towards the woman on the floor. 

 

She picks her head up and views him with eyes full of rage.  "What did you do to him!? The police should have you dead!"

 

He laughs,  so mocking, so cruel.  "You would think that,  wouldn't you? But dirty cops come cheap in a land like this. It's like they're made for it, of another breed to us. They accepted our money and gladly let thirty of their men die in order to take your husband down.  And take him down they definitely did." What!? I thought this guy loved cops!

 

"You sick freak!" She shouts and stands.  "GRAND FUNK RAILROAD!! I'LL HAVE YOUR HEAD FOR KILLING MY HUSBAND!"

 

Stand combat commences again,  with Railroad immediately overtaking Fortunate Son in terms of strength.  Righteous rage has fuelled her blows.  The knuckles of the zombie stand are crushed to bits just trying to block,  until they're struck so hard by an uppercut made of diamonds that both his stand and he himself are thrown backwards in a stun.  The mother points and mutters something. "Heart Breaker".

 

The armor of the beetle warrior starts swimming in blue colors,  shifting and churning so fast it goes blurry.  The stand,  with beautiful blue beetle horns on its head,  puts its hands together into the shape of a heart,  and the force equivalent of a bomb goes off. Dead center.  An invisible shockwave of force that barely misses the hiding girl in its strength,  but whose full force slams Joshua in a direct line of attack. A sapphire blue jewel of destruction.

 

His body goes flying, crashing loudly straight through the main glass window of the house and at least thirty feet into the distance beyond.  A shot like that should have killed any man.  And she seems to have expected that it did, too. Breathing out a sigh of painful relief. 

 

But because this is a memory,  I already know how it will turn out. 

 

The mother clutches herself,  her stand fading away into the air in a cloud of multicolored oil spill.  Her breathing is labored and she's clearly injured in pain. A little trail of blood peeks out her mouth. 

 

And she catches the eye of the little girl still hiding in the shadows.  Her eyes go wide.  "Mari! Maria! I told you to run,  girl,  you have to run!!" The mother shouts to her daughter,  but the little girl stays resolute. 

 

"I couldn't just leave you, mommy! I needed to know you were okay! Those monsters were so scary!" She cries, almost collapsing to the floor as her mother painfully drags herself to her feet and crosses the house to reach her daughter. And she has the most terrified look on her face for it.

 

"Honey,  what do you mean monsters? What did you see just now?" She places her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Tell me. "

 

"There was a blue person! And someone green!" The little girl shouts. 

 

The mother starts shaking. She's in fear.  "No… nononono…. It can't have started already, now,  could it?" She mutters, going pale and shocked.  "What they might do knowing you unlocked your Stand…." She trails off.  "Mari,  honey,  you need to leave right now.  If these people catch you, they-" 

 

And just like that, she was gone. 

 

The place the mother just was now left with nothing but empty air and a little silver eyeball that falls to the floor. It clatters a metallic sound as it bounces twice and rolls away. 

 

"Well well well. A little Mariah. Isn't it quite the sight to see you here today." The veteran man says, stumbling into view. He's incredibly injured, with blackened bruises lining his body, and a clearly very broken left arm and right leg. He's barely standing, using the wall for support.

 

"What did you do to her!?" The little girl screams, falling backwards into the dirt outside as he starts to push further and further inside before stopping just before the place the mother last was. 

 

"Oh, nothing. She should be back very soon. And right abouuuut…" A green must coalesce into the shape of a rotting green army man. A hand raised up like a karate chop. "Here. "

 

The mother reappears, with TV like static covering her eyes that clears away in a flash. Right in the spot she just left from. Right in the line of fire. 

 

It's a deadshot hit.  He had seen the exact place she left from, and aimed accordingly.

 

The hand of the beast goes slicing through her upper body in one fell sweep. With clear eyes like his, he was able to catch her perfectly. The strike severs her shoulder clean off and her mouth fills with blood. "Run." She chokes out before falling to the floor.

 

The little girl screams in terror, turns, and runs. Straight from the back door into the sandy world beyond. With dry air and little or no cover of safety. 

 

She runs and runs and runs as hard as she can, trying desperately to get away from the man now pursuing her. She's just fast enough to outpace him because of his injuries, though their difference of height doesn't make this an easy task. 

 

All until her little pink shoe catches a rock in a way that it's not supposed to, and goes twisting out from under her. She yelps and trips into the dirt, hands first, catching herself before falling any further. Mari tries to pull herself to her feet again but it's useless. Her ankle was too far bent and it couldn’t handle her weight right now. She cries and falls back down after several more attempts.

 

Culminating into a scream when the rotted hand of a zombie, still covered in wet red blood, grips her shoulder harshly. It pulls her around to face it swiftly. Barbed wire and chains are all lining its body. 

 

"Ohohoh…" Joshua the veteran laughs. Coming up to her with a look of nothing more than innocent curiosity. "Tell me, little one, exactly what do you see?"

 

She screams again, trying to pull herself out of the grip of the zombie, but its strength is overwhelming.

 

"Daughter of two of the most powerful stand users on this side of the globe." He says, gaining the final distance needed to reach her.  "Of course she would unlock her stand eventually.  Exactly as is fit for a bloodline of your stature."

 

Joshua crouches over the little girl, looking sincerely intimidating. "What does it do, pre tell? Do you even know yet? Why don't you show it to me? Your soul."

 

The little girl shouts, struggling and trying still to pull away. But it's useless,  the grip on her shoulder increases so much I can almost hear her bones crack.  

 

"No no no, you aren't getting away that easily. You're going to show me exactly what you're made of." He says, leaning into her closely before backing away. His eyes draw up to the place just behind her. "Butterflies? Here?"

 

The world slowly and peacefully starts to glow all around them. A soft blue color that lights up the world with a gradual fade in. The air starts to swim with pretty blue colors shining brightly into the air as though someone pulled stars from the heavens. A flock of ghostly blue butterflies swarm all the way around them. 

 

One even lands right on the zombie's finger, twinkling blue wings in the twilight. Under the moon,  the mirage of butterflies starts to really swim in the air all around them. Joshua pulls himself away from the little girl as more and more start fluttering into existence out of nowhere. Ten, then twenty, then forty, then a hundred. A roving veritable wave of blue flying gemstones; butterflies that swim in the air in an effortlessly hypnotic pattern. Joshua is helpless to look as all of his full attention shifts away from the girl in his hands to the sea of blue all around them. 

 

"What's…. What's going on?" He asks, his voice almost dreamlike. Pulled into a swirling vortex of thoughts and memory. "They're so beautiful." He says, leaning back completely starry eyed. "So it's true then, huh? That stands born from anguish truly are the most powerful. This is a sight no one could ever hope to forget. It's the true shape of everything."

 

He turns his face back towards the girl. "Stand users truly deserve the world. The things we can do will change history for the better. In another time, you could have helped us so much with a power like this. But…" He trails off,  trying to make eye contact with the girl,  but his eyes have gone pure white. The beauty of the sight has blinded him. "I know that if I choose to leave you alive tonight, you'll just come back to kill. Vengeance always begets vengeance. I'm sorry, Mariah. But you'll be with your mother soon."

 

He reaches out towards her direction with blinded eyes, unable to truly see the horror he was about to commit. "Truth means everything. I can never let myself forget that."

 

A blood chilling scream and a flash of green mark the bitter end of the playback.

 

It's utterly haunting. A memory that will last forever, even when the visions stop. 

 

I could lose my eyes,  but I'll never forget what I've seen. 

 

…

 

…

 

…

 

…

The world comes crashing down around me, and the third times the charm. Clarity comes far faster than any of the other times before, and the first thing I think to do when I regain control…  is duck.

 

FWOOM

 

A ghostly green fist goes flying past where my head just was, storming through the air like a cannonball. It would have crushed my head like a watermelon if it struck. 

 

"What!?" I hear someone exclaim behind me. He doesn't know why he missed. But I know your tricks now, old man. I remember what I've seen before and I never fail twice.

 

"Rosegold!" I call her name. 

 

"STOP TAKING HER AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!!!" My doll screams, pulling her clawing hands out of a nearby tree.  Every single one in the area has these deep gash marks in them, like she went a little crazy without me around for that long. My anger having translated through her,  but with no direction to go in but out. 

 

Well, truth be told, anger really is a powerful vice. 

 

Rosegold comes flying straight at me, a dive bomber cracking through the air at supersonic speeds. The air actually parts around her as if to make way for her righteous fury. But she's coming right at me! With no room to slow down!!

 

Swish.

 

Rosegold effortlessly passes through my body as though it wasn't even there, phasing through me like she's not made of solid matter. Her right fist speeds where my heart would be: an uppercut that passes straight through with nothing but a twinkle and a flourish in my heart. It skips only a beat. 

 

Her porcelain solid fist cracks right into the dead center of Joshua's stomach, harder than she's ever tried to punch before, causing hairline cracks to form across my knuckles from the single shot alone. And she was hitting human flesh, not even his stand. The power behind that swing must rival a professional baseball player at their strongest, or a small meteor at its weakest.  

 

"Gwougghh!" All the air is punched right out of his guts in a single shot. Along with plenty of bile and enough blood to show me that she must have shattered his ribs. 

 

Good girl. 

 

"HISSSSSSSSS!!!!" Rosegold cries, throwing the man back into a nearby tree and proceeding to lay into the motherfucker like crazy. She starts throwing blurry gray punch after blurry gray punch after blurry gray punch... Faster and faster and faster, all with the same level of power she gave to the first one, but with her speed exponentially increasing. Laying punches into him that sound like a machine gun of stones striking stones. Her glossy fists slamming against the boney green forearms of a stand halfway formed out of its User, trying to protect his body. Holding an X shaped block with his hands, Joshua attempts to tank every round she's putting into him. But she keeps getting faster. Her fists pounding into his hard exterior with such power and speed that it starts to leave after images.

 

She has two fists, starting to use the rebounded energy from each strike to power the next.  Then it seems almost like she's punching him with four, going so fast her hands almost clone themselves. Then eight.  Then sixteen. Then so many that it's an uncountable flurry of gray rage. 

 

This is a stand rush.

 

"HISSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Her shrieking hiss breaks into a full out screeching scream as every part of his upper body is nailed once, twice, three times a second, rocketing over and over and over again as indents of her knuckles start to form on the old man's real flesh, just behind his stand. Ribs carved into organs, muscles crushed to failure. 

 

And then. Pop!

 

His stand vanishes, revealing two silver eyeballs held in each palm of his hands. He was hiding them in the onslaught, covering them behind the arms of his stand just out of view. He swipes forward with them both, a crossfire attack that narrowly misses, striking Rosegold instead with both at the same time. The air cracks away from his body as though the swipe would dispel his lasting damage. Throwing it all off of him in a strike he's sure to hit.

 

 But she's way faster than his human hands are, able to detach herself away and dart backwards just out of range. The silver edges of the eyeballs nearly scrape by. 

 

She pulls back and floats into me slowly. I feel her rage, and we look at him with disgust. 

 

"Good…. Hack! Hack! … Shot…" the old man manages to cough out behind punctured lungs.  This can't take too much longer. 

 

"You're a dirty hypocrite and a liar." I spit at him. "You say you know what evil is, you're a liar. And I hate you for it." My teeth grind against each other in pained anger. "Child murderer."

 

"Look." He says, trying to prop himself back up against the tree behind him. "It had to be done.  Her parents were serial killers. And everyone knows that kids like that are bound to be killers too,  in the future. They always follow in their parents footsteps. The road to human ascension will not be stopped, not even by a little girl." 

 

"What the fuck do you mean by that?" I ask him, bitterly. "What is ascension? Tell me! What are you planning, you sick fuck!"

 

He laughs, a coughing, broken lunged laugh of a man on his final moments. "It was a good dodge." He says. "I missed when you came back here, you were expecting my trick in waiting." And then he looks up at me with a sickening smirk. "But are you expecting this?"

 

A rocket of pain slams right into the center of my back, a green fist of a stand summoned just behind me.  A point blank shot at full force. Dirty cheater. He knew I wasn't looking.

 

The wind is knocked out of me in an instant as I fall forwards. Rosegold shatters into pieces and vanishes away from me as my crumpled body slams into the ground face first. My body,  landing on relatively soft dirt, bounces once, then twice, just to be met with the heel end of a rustic army boot slamming into my spine again and again and again and again. Kick kick kick kick kick! Over and over again, he stomps my back into the dirt. It hurts so much, I can feel my skin tearing and my bones threatening to break,  until…

 

Crckkckk. All the pain stops at once. 

 

Oh no… I'm cracking apart!

 

Lines of shatter start dancing across the surface of my skin like silken spiderwebs, breaking my body further and further into little bits. Rosegold attempts to reform herself out of me, lifting out and away from my body but she's forced back inside when a single final strong kick cracks the whole right side of my stomach clean off. A jagged break, right through my ribs and intestines, freezing them in a bloodless way,  but breaking me apart nonetheless. I have a hole now, all the way from where my top right rib would be to just above my hip. Gone. Missing. A fuzzy feeling of nothingness that doesn't even hurt. 

 

Joshua leans down above me, still catching his breath after the attack. "You did great in this fight, I'll give you that. But your one mistake was not finishing me off when you had the chance.  What, were you just too much of a pussy to kill me?" 

 

"Not…. Evil!" I groan out, my body writhing in pain. Rosegold finally crawls out of me, pulling herself out of my body and forming into existence bit by bit, clawing at the ground to help pull her out like some kind of spirit crawling out of her crypt.

 

But she's broken. Damaged just like I am. Shattering lines that threaten to break her whole body apart. She's covered in faults and spiderwebs, rolling out onto the dirt beside me but unable to do much more than to just look me in the eyes. "I- I'm sorry… I wasn't strong enough." She whispers to me just before my hair is ripped back to expose my face. My neck strains, being brutally yanked upwards to face my ending sight. Almost like the moments before a beheading.

 

Joshua now looks me dead in the eyes, standing over me with a rueful smirk. Two pearly white orbs staring right at me. 

 

Then he goes and rips my eyes from my head. 

 

…

 

It's a pulling sensation, almost painless at first.  Like there's a rope connecting the front of my irises all the way to some anchor point at the base of my neck. He's tugging on it, pulling it out of me until the line finally breaks, and he removes all my ability of sight.

 

Pain blossoms through my head like fire,  threatening to make me throw up from the pressure and the agony alone. A floodgate was opened, one that he himself uncorked. From my eye sockets, now probably empty, comes pouring out all my vision. The sense itself of course is gone. But then further and further, more keeps pouring from the open wounds like blood.

 

First the memories of things I've seen that same day. They're pulled from me like handkerchiefs. Then the memory of sight from times before are lost too. Like I still have the memories inside me, but as though I had my eyes shut for everything. The vision is just gone. 

 

But the pressure keeps mounting,  and more of my ability to see is pulled straight from my brain. The images of everything I had ever seen are quickly snatched. Replaced by an emptiness of afterthought like they were never even there to begin with. All the way until the very end of the rope is pulled right out, completely detaching from my mental anchor point, and slipping right out through my eye sockets. 

 

It's not just as though I can't see anymore. It's like I've never seen. I've never been able to see. I can't even imagine things visually, as though my body was born from the very beginning without sight. There's just a hole there where a tooth is supposed to be. Just an empty space left behind, a mental indent where vision and color and depth once were. A crater that I can't stop licking over, still searching for a tooth that isn't there. 

 

Rosegold, still somewhere next to me, shrieks a blood curdling scream. The voice of a hurting child. Someone unbelievably helpless, in deathly  pain, unable to do anything else but claw and claw at the indents where her eyes would be if she ever had any. "OUR EYES!!!!" She screams her heels digging into the ground and her pelvis pushing up towards the air in a writhing visage of pain.  Pieces of her broken body detach and fall to the floor. Crumbling away into nothingness. 

 

"WHERE ARE OUR EYES!?"

 

(End Of Chapter Five)

 

←To Be Continued.