Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: A New Universe
Chapter 168: Father and Daughter
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The kid in the Cubs' uniform kept looking at Jolyne. "You can't see that man tomorrow... Or something even worse than death will happen." He then seemed to disappear. "What the hell?," Jolyne asked. "Okay, we all saw him," Gwess noted, "So that was no hallucination. So how did he just disappear like that?" "He must have a Stand of his own," Rainbow suggested. "More importantly," Jolyne said, "How did he know I'm meeting someone tomorrow?"
"Wait, so you really are?," Rainbow asked. Jolyne nodded. "That phone call from my father our first day here? He said he was stopping by to check up on me. And he'll be here tomorrow at noon." Gwess freaked. "You didn't... Tell him about our little altercation... Did you?" "I did," Jolyne admitted, "But I also told him you were more or less under our thumb after that, so I doubt he'll do anything to punish you for hurting his little girl." Gwess gulped. She had heard all about Jolyne's father, Jotaro Kujo. If even half the stories Jolyne told about him were true, then her best bet was to beg for mercy.
Rainbow slipped the guard a little extra cash to let her and Gwess infiltrate the meeting. "Why are we going in there?," Gwess asked. "Because I've seen that kid hanging around more and more since yesterday," Rainbow explained, "Clearly, if Jolyne goes in there alone something will happen to either her or Jotaro. Still, this was expensive. Twenty dollars to pretend the room was empty for each of us, another thirty to have the cameras disabled for 'routine maintenance'."
She turned to Gwess. "So remember, if they try to come in close use Goo Goo Dolls to shrink them down, and let either Jolyne or her father do the rest. And if they have any projectiles I'll just merge with I'll Fly. It's field seems to cause things to float to allow for unobstructed flight. I haven't tested it on bullets yet, but most larger projectiles don't seem to be a problem. And since only the guards are allowed to have guns, that minimizes that risk."
Rainbow went in first, then after a few seconds Gwess was let inside. She was caught off-guard when Jolyne made an uncharacteristically girly screaming sound. But it was clear it was just because she was happy to see her father again, judging from the way she was hugging him. 'I never would have pegged her for a Daddy's Girl.' "Listen, I know this is impromptu," Jotaro said, "But someone dangerous is lurking in the prison. I know you intended to serve out your sentence, but right now it's more important to get you out." Gwess quickly used her powers on the guard before he could ask questions.
Meanwhile in the male ward of the prison, there was one lone man in the showers, listening as the guys outside complained about the wind picking up. As the man got dressed, he muttered, "They only found fifty-one cards on the ground, the other one is stuck in one man's boot." Sure enough after some squabbling the prisoners outside found the last card in one of their boots. The man finished his shower and got dressed. "Excuse me," a guard said as he entered, "Just wanted to let you know someone next door has a visitor." The man turned in the direction of the female ward. He turned to walk, but the guard stopped him. "Your, uh... Pants are on backward." The man looked confused.
"So she has a Stand," Jotaro noted as Gwess stuffed the guard in a peanut can Rainbow had been saving for this situation. "Yeah, she got scratched by the arrowhead kept in my locket," Jolyne explained, "Rainbow has one too, but her's is natural and was just latent until recently." "Reminds me of your grandmother," Jotaro noted, "Except she still hasn't learned how to summon it yet, so it's still just latent. Still lets her see other Stands, though." He got out a picture of a man. The girls didn't know it, but it was the same man that was just in the showers in the male ward.
"This man is Johngalli A," Jotaro explained, "Painstaking recreation of the crime scene from the murder of the man you supposedly ran over shows him to be the real murderer. It's suspected that he intended to frame you for murder, and we know he's here in the prison, having plead guilty to an unrelated shooting." "What's with the glassy eyes?," Rainbow asked. "He has severe cataracts," Jotaro explained, "It's caused his eyesight to suffer. Despite this he's a veteran sniper who can somehow hit his targets even through twenty meter wind speeds."
"So who was the guy he killed and threw into Romeo's car?," Jolyne asked, "Some random hitchhiker?" "Possibly," Jotaro said, "The full details aren't known. I was informed by an old friend that a public defender was kept on retainer for you, one who could bend the law to his will for the right price. Unfortunately, that plan was ruined due to our family's personal lawyer, who is far more scrupulous." "His plan still worked to an extent," Jolyne pointed out, "Me and my ex wound up hiding that poor sap's body and got saddled with five years as a result. But why go to all this trouble in the first place?"
"Because Johngalli is a remnant," Jotaro explained, "Of DIO's forces." Jolyne gasped. "You're kidding me... I thought you and your buds killed all of DIO's goons on your way to Egypt!" "We killed most of the assassins he sent after us," Jotaro clarified, "But we all knew there was no way we killed all his followers. Still, they sure took their sweet time emerging from whatever dark cracks they slunk off into after his death. Not to mention there was one man we never encountered that we knew was working for DIO, a slimeball fortune teller named DeKurliss."
Jolyne slumped against the wall. "I never thought I'd miss the happy fun times in Morioh so much... Someone beam me back to that awesome Rock, Paper, Scissors game with that Ken kid!" Gwess suddenly noticed a lit cigarette on the table. "Uh... Does anyone in here smoke?" The others looked at the cigarette and got concerned. Just then, Rainbow saw something float near her. "Is that... A bullet?" Her wings had been out the entire time to project her flight field. Jolyne then started spurting blood as a small hole appeared in her neck. Jotaro grunted. "Star Platinum!"
Time froze in an instance as he went to check on his daughter, but he breathed a sigh of relief as she was in less danger then he thought. She had already sensed the incoming shot and used Stone Free to weave a bulletproof vest around her body with her strings. "You've really mastered your Stand over the last dozen years," he noted as he had Star Platinum flick the bullet away, letting time resume. Jolyne still wound up coughing from the impact of the bullet.
"We need to put out the cigarette," Jotaro said, "He can somehow track our movements." "But how did he infiltrate the female ward?," Gwess asked, "No amount of money is gonna let you do that, or else the guards lose their control of the prisoners. He must have fired from outside somehow, but that means getting the bullet through barred window, and somehow ricocheting the bullet across the hall to hit us in this tiny little visiting room. Not even Deadshot could pull that off!"
"Unless they were using a Stand of some kind," Rainbow pointed out. Jotaro inspected the bullet. "Looks like a standard rifle shell, meaning it wasn't part of a Stand." "But how could he sneak a rifle in here...?," Jolyne asked as she tried to recover from her throat injury, "They don't even let you have ballpoint pens in here." "He probably had the gun disassembled and smuggled in," Jotaro suggested, "The barrel in some ham, the stock in a bottle of shaving cream... It would have taken months but eventually he'd be able to reassemble his primary weapon to attack."
"So the only thing we have to reliably stop that bullet is my flight field," Rainbow noted, "Hey, Mister Kujo, how'd you get that bullet away from Jolyne so fast?" "My Stand, Star Platinum, can stop time for a few seconds," Jotaro explained, "Fluttershy had me practice with it a little bit over time as I got older. At best I can stop time for five seconds, but the trick is knowing when to stop it. That rifle is obviously silenced. It'll make some sort of noise, but we'd never hear it from way over here."
Jolyne then got out a small bone. "Where did you get that?," Gwess asked. "That kid stopped me at the trash can before I came in here," Jolyne explained, "He gave me this when I insisted on meeting Dad." "That looks like the sacrum from an adult female's pelvis," Jotaro noted, "Judging from its appearance, it seems to have been melted with some kind of acid." He narrowed his eyes as he looked outside. "More importantly, I think I found our enemy Stand."
He pointed to a small satellite-looking object hovering just outside the meeting room. It soon flopped down on the ground, but then shot back up again. It seemed to wobble as it got close. "It's wonky right outside this room," Jolyne realized, "Rainbow, didn't we estimate your flight field's range to be around ten meters, give or take?" Rainbow nodded. "I get it. And it looks like it's moving in response to the cigarette smoke. So this Stand can move in response to air currents. But my flight field creates a constant updraft perfect for lift while flying, so it makes it impossible to properly read when contrasted against the air outside the field."
Jolyne nodded. "He only knows about three people in the room, me, Dad, and the guard. His Stand is as blind as him, so he didn't know who he was aiming for, just that someone was in front of his Stand, which is acting like a relay. Rainbow was in the back for the first shot, her Stand's flight field only covering half the room. When we saw the bullet I moved to check it out and was targeted next. But when I heard about our enemy being a sniper I thought I had to protect myself. Guess I got lucky."
Meanwhile, Johngalli was resting in front of a window overlooking the female ward. He waited until a guard passed, then folded his metal walking cane and reassembled it into his sniper rifle. "Muscles can't be trusted," he muttered to himself, "When skin is exposed to the wind, muscles become stressed and begin to subtly expand and contract. The body can't control these movements. Better to use bone to support a rifle, since bones can sense the stability of the ground and unify the gun with it."
He didn't know that Rainbow and Gwess had bribed their way into the meeting room. His Stand, Manhattan Transfer, could only make out three people, due to Rainbow's I'll Fly messing with his readings and the guard being shrunk down with Gwess' Goo Goo Dolls. He took to listening to a fly buzzing nearby. "Meteorologists say the wind is unpredictable. Honestly, I agree with that assessment. But that doesn't make the wind unreadable. This fly senses the scents and flow of the air as it flies."
He dropped a bullet down in such a way that it crushed the fly, right near a dozen other such flies. "So far I've hit one of the three people in the room. Judging from the height of the throat, I can surmise it was Jolyne Kujo. But something cushioned the bullet enough that it wasn't a fatal injury. The real issue is my first bullet. Somehow, it didn't hit anything. I was told that Jotaro's Star Platinum can stop time, but it would still be difficult to pull off the timing. You robbed my heart of its support, and for that I will end your bloodline once and for all!" His eyes then widened when Manhattan Transfer's movements started to become erratic.
The reason for this was because Jolyne had used Stone Free to send a lighter up to the fire sprinklers, causing them to go off and tripped the fire alarm. "That should confuse it," she said with a grin. "Not yet," Rainbow said, "We just kept it from keeping a lock on us. Look, it's even able to dodge each individual droplet of water." Just then, a voice from outside called out, "Listen carefully! Kick the rock! Underneath that pillar!" Jolyne carefully peeked out the door to see the same kid from before.
Jolyne looked to see the pillar he was talking about, then kicked at it, revealing a gap in the floor. "Rainbow, Gwess!," Jolyne called out, "This way!" "What about the kid?," Rainbow asked. "I'm going to help him," Jolyne said, "That satellite Stand vanished, so I'm guessing it's going after him now..." Rainbow grimaced. "I'm going too. I've got little to fear from Johngalli thanks to my Stand." Jotaro sighed as they left the room. "Gimme a break... She got that kindness from her mother."
It was a good thing Jolyne headed after the kid, because Johngalli was indeed tracking him. "That hole Jolyne opened leads to a ventilation shaft. I can't let that child lead Jotaro and Jolyne into it, it might hide them from my bullets." He grimaced as he reloaded. "I won't lose sight of them again! But first I'll take out the small one... It will only take fifteen seconds!" He grunted as he felt something through his Manhattan Transfer. "That damn anomaly in the air again... What's causing it?"
Out in the halls, the guards were running in response to the fire alarm. They didn't notice Rainbow, who had clung to the ceiling, or Jolyne, who had managed to find a hole in the wall hidden by a compartment for a fire extinguisher. Rainbow waited until the guards were past before following her. "What is this?," she asked, her wings folding in around her body. "I'm not sure," Jolyne admitted, "I think it's how the kid got away." The hole lead to a machine room, where the kid was found crawling around the pipes, Manhattan Transfer following him.
The kid must've suspected that something was following him, because he quickly hid inside a sewage pipe. "Clever kid," Jolyne noted, "If his body's in water he can't create air currents, and this room has no windows, only doors. There's no way Johngalli can spot him now!" Unfortunately, what happened next disproved her assertion. Bullets came flying through the air vents, redirecting through Manhattan Transfer and hitting the bolts on the pipe. "Crap!," Rainbow called out, "It's not just meant to read air currents and act as a relay! Johngalli also uses it to trick shoot!"
She immediately leapt down, using her wings to slow her hasten her descent before deftly landing. The gambit worked, as Manhattan Transfer swerved around, trying to see past Rainbow's flight field. From his perch, Johngalli became confused. "That inexplicable burst of air again... Some sort of sphere of concentrated updraft. It confused me back in the meeting room... Wait... Was I mistaken? If Jolyne's power was whatever cushioned her... Either the guard is a Stand user, which is unlikely, or someone else snuck their way inside." He the gasped as the sphere seemed to expand.
But it wasn't Rainbow somehow expanding her flight field. Jolyne had also started descending, breaking the gas pipes as she did. Jolyne smirked. "If just ten meters of an alternate air current can fend you off, I figure a bigger field can entrap you. Stone Free!" A net made from Jolyne's strings appeared and successfully contained Manhattan Transfer, which was too confused from the alternate air currents to get out of the way. Stone Free manifested its physical form before smashing into the satellite, damaging Johngalli.
The kid watched as the Stand fell apart. "So kid," Jolyne said as she joined Rainbow, "Just who are you? And how can you move about the prison so easily?" As she slid down the pipe, she winced as her hand got cut on it, some of the blood getting on the bone in her pocket. As she looked down, she spotted a familiar face in the water that spilled from the pipe. "Rainbow! Johngalli's here in the room!" Rainbow looked around and spotted Johngalli ducking behind some pipes.
"Something's off!," Rainbow noted, "How did he get from the male ward all the way over here!?" Jolyne blinked. "Hey, yeah. There must be dozens of steel bars between the male ward and us, and he's legally blind. How could he have gotten here in half a minute?" She then looked around, and realized they were no longer in the machine room, but back in the meeting room. And things were very different. She was holding onto the bone which got blood on it, and there was strange goop all over the place.
Rainbow, Gwess, and Jotaro were all covered in the stuff. Jolyne then noticed that she was also covered in the goop. They were mostly asleep, but Jolyne was starting to wake up. "What's going on...?," she said groggily. She noticed the can with the shrunken guard in it, and the picture of Johngalli. 'I see... So most of what happened was a dream. Probably created by this goop... And the cigarette! It's been here the entire time, and we never figured out why it was here!'
She then realized the pain she thought came from the pipe was really her grabbing the bone unconsciously and squeezing it, the pain waking her up. Unfortunately, the goop seemed to be dissolving the group slowly. Grunting, Jolyne managed to launch a string that wrapped around her father's head. The gentle tugging got him to wake up. She launched another string around Rainbow. It took a few tries, the string dissolving quickly, but she finally managed it.
Rainbow, when she came too, took in the situation and opened her wings, the field launching the goop in all directions away from her. "That's better... Still need to stick to hovering, my limbs feel a little stiff." She flew near the three others, the goop or acid or whatever it was flying off as she did. "So," Jotaro said, "Your Stand works on anything that can impede flight." Rainbow smirked. "It's called I'll Fly for a reason." She grabbed Jotaro and Jolyne and dragged them out, Jolyne managed to get Gwess and drag her out too while Jotaro grabbed the can with the guard in it.
Gwess finally woke up as they left the room. "Wha... How did I get back in the prison...?" "It seems Johngalli isn't our only enemy," Jotaro noted, "That acid had nothing to do with his sniping ability." Just then, the alarms starting blaring about a situation outside the meeting room. "Okay, we're definitely back in reality," Jolyne noted. "We don't have much time," Jotaro said as he got out a map, "I borrowed a UUV from the Speedwagon Foundation. It can only hold two people, however."
"Like I'll need it," Rainbow noted, "These babies can probably carry me for miles. Just look at this wingspan!" Jotaro smirked and got out a blueprint. "Alright, this is a blueprint of the prison. We're here at the X. This window and the area below it faces the sea, and the security level around here is only for the general public. From the beach, we'll get in the UUV, which is easier to operate than a motorcycle, and escape to the outer sea." "What about Gwess?," Rainbow asked, "She wanted to get out, so..."
Jolyne shrugged. "We'll just leave her to make her own way to the city when we're out." "Oh, thanks!," Gwess said sarcastically. None of them noticed a figure just outside the meeting room, the source of the illusion-inducing acid. "So they actually escaped... This will make things interesting." As the quartet made their way through the hall, Jolyne noted something odd. "Hey Dad, why did you bring that can with us?" "A better question is," Jotaro said, "Why did Gwess here feel the need to use her Stand on him?"
"Huh?," Gwess said, confused, "You guys were talking about getting out, right?" "Yes," Jotaro admitted, "But did you not consider that the guard might be in on it?" Gwess got a blank look on her face. Rainbow sighed. "That guard works for Speedwagon, doesn't he?" "No," Jotaro clarified, "But he is a friend of the family." Just then, they heard a gunshot, and whirled around to see Johngalli dressed as a guard, having shot another guard when he went to inspect the source of the alarm.
Johngalli went to fire, but Rainbow was faster. "I'll Fly!" Jotaro, having spotted Manhattan Transfer, made his own move. "Star Platinum!" Having only seen Rainbow's powers in a hallucination, Jotaro didn't know if they worked the same in reality, and went to deflect the bullets. However, he also saw another figure clinging to the wall, in addition to Manhattan Transfer. 'Shit! There were two attackers!' Deciding to trust that Rainbow's powers did work as he was shown, he went for the second figure, nailing it with Star Platinum.
"ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!" As time continued, the new Stand burst into blood. "Damn... I didn't expect any other interference..." Sure enough, the bullets from Johngalli's gun were slowed by Rainbow's flight field. "But," the Stand said, "I can still get what I want!" It picked itself up and launched itself as Jotaro, but Gwess spotted this and got in the way. "You're not wrecking my ticket outta here!"
Unfortunately for her, when the Stand swiped its hand trying to get at Jotaro, Gwess got hit instead, two strange discs being extracted from her head. "The hell was that!?," Jotaro demanded. The Stand grunted. "Too damaged to make a second attempt, but perhaps this will be enough to dissuade you. This is power of my Stand, Whitesnake. I've used it to extract that girl's Stand from her memory." It then disappeared, taking one of the discs with it. Quickly Jotaro opened the can, letting the guard out as he returned to normal size. "You okay, Ryusei?," Jotaro asked.
Indeed, the guard was Ryusei Ito, having gotten a job as a guard at the prison a year prior. "Yeah... Didn't expect to get shrunk like that." Meanwhile, Jolyne spotted Manhattan Transfer as the bullet from Johngalli's gun got stopped by Rainbow's field. "So that wasn't part of the illusion," she realized. "Damn it...," Johngalli muttered, "Looks like the plan didn't go as predicted. Two new people who weren't suppose to be here have shown up."
He went to reload, but Ryusei had already spotted him. "Time Judged All!" Johngalli's eyes widened as he found himself having to dodge the feather projectiles from Ryusei's Stand. It then turned around and blasted open the nearby window. Johngalli aimed another shot at him, but Jotaro easily caught the bullet with Star Platinum. "You're slipping, Johngalli. I didn't even to need to stop time to catch this bullet. I've been doing this trick since I first got my Stand."
Johngalli grunted. "Damn it... If only that girl didn't get in Pucci's way..." Jolyne raised an eyebrow. "Who's Pucci?" "Hey, Jolyne," Rainbow said, "Something's wrong with Gwess." Gwess had collapsed after Whitesnake's attack. "That Stand earlier," Ryusei explained, "Somehow it stole Gwess' Stand. That's why I returned to normal size even though I should be in her Stand's range." Johngalli managed to get close and fire again, but Jolyne smirked as her strings caused the bullets to veer off from the group.
Jotaro slipped a finger across his hat. "If there's something you inherited from me, Jolyne, it's that tendency to punch anyone who just annoys you." Star Platinum and Stone Free nailed Johngalli before he got completely tied up by the latter. "This is it, right Dad?," Jolyne asked. Jotaro smirked. "Yeah, this is the best..." The said this next part together. "Punching angle!" Johngalli wound up completely pummeled by the father and daughter duo. 'Damn... We should have been targeting Jolyne first...,' Johngalli thought as he lost consciousness.
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