I realize the title for this chapter might be a bit morbid, but given the Villain of the Week we're dealing with here, I'd say it's fitting.

For the time being, Jolyne and Rainbow had to be detained as witnesses to the brutal shooting of a guard within the Green Dolphin prison, also known as the Aquarium to some. It meant a lot of red tape as they waited to be free to investigate Pucci, but until then one more thing was on Jolyne's mind. Gwess had gotten Jolyne's locket from Ermes, and that meant one thing. Ermes might have been pricked by the arrow shard inside it. And that left the question as to whether or not Ermes gained a Stand of her own.

Ermes' eyes shot open when she felt someone trying to cop a feel. "Hands off, asshole!," she said as she sat up on her bed, spotting the janitor leaving with what looked like some bills in his hand. "Shit... He wasn't trying to grope, he was trying to rob me." She went to try and get his attention, only to feel the sharp pain of a needle in her arm. She looked over and saw she was strapped to an IV. "Wait... Am I in the sickroom?" She tried to think back. "Oh yeah, I hurt my palm, then got a fever..."

She looked at her palm, and spotted an odd sticker on it. She peeled it off, and looked confused. "Weird... I could have sworn I cut my palm on something. But I don't even have a scar." She then spotted her examination card and her eyes shot open. "No way! I was checked on six times by the doctors!? How did I sleep through six whole exams!?" She wracked her brain, and remembered something. 'Oh yeah... That pendant I found in the drain of the meeting room. I got my hand cut on it and got pissed, so I sold it off to that other prisoner... Gwess, I think.'

She nodded. "Yeah, I got a fever that night and was carried here. And what a fever, 107 degrees. Like I caught some sort of virus or something. But man... To think I got conked out for six whole days. But now I feel perfectly fine." She then noticed the sticker was back on her palm. "Or I could still be woozy from the fever... That's possible too..." She pulled the sticker off, only to find more stickers underneath. "Okay, okay... Calm down Ermes..." She then spotted another sticker on her shoes nearby, and her eyes widened as she saw there were three, with the right ones being identical.

"The heck...," she said as she went for it, only to find a sticker stuck to her finger. She then looked again and counted her fingers. "Six fingers!? Who am I, Count Rugen from The Princess Bride!? Although his six fingers were on the right hand and this is my left..." She pulled the sticker off, and the finger it was attached to merged with her index, causing a sharp pain in her hand. "Ow ow ow ow ow ow! Man that smarts! Am I hallucinating here? No, the pain is too real."

She then noticed the sticker had landed in the bedpan, creating an identical bedpan with the same amount of piss inside. The liquid caused the sticker to come undone, causing the bedpans to merge together and shatter, spilling the urine all over the counter. "Ugh! Gross!" That got the other patients to wake up and complain. "Look, it's nothing!," Ermes called out, "Just get back to sleep!" She then noticed more stickers on her palm, and picked up the shoe with a sticker on it.

'Well, it's no hallucination. It has actual weight. Somehow, objects are being doubled around me.' "Hm," she said aloud, "I wonder..." She took the sticker off the shoe, causing it merge with the identical shoe and get a tear in it. She then looked at the stickers on her palm, which started to fade. "These stickers... They're coming out of my body." She spotted the mop of the janitor just outside the sickroom, right next to her bed. 'And now that I can accept it... It sounds pretty useful.'

Later, after Ermes decided to name her new power Kiss, the janitor went to get his mop. As he got it, Ermes got an identical mop and pulled off the sticker she placed, causing the two mops to merge and nail the janitor as they did. Ermes smirked as she grabbed the janitor. "Alright, asshole. I want my money back, so just give up where you're hiding it." She then stopped as she saw two discs come out of the janitor's head. Curious, she went to reach for them, managing to grab one as the other slid back into the janitor's head when he came too and walked off like nothing happened.

'Okay that's weird,' Ermes thought, 'Why wasn't he weirded out that he got nailed by his own mop?' She looked at the disc she managed to grab. Later that day she was released from the sickroom, the doctors having determined that some bacteria had gotten into the injury on her palm and caused a minor fever, but it had passed. "Can I ask a question?," she said to the doctor, "There's a janitor here, right? Is he a well-behaved prisoner? Do you know his name?" "Sorry, no," the doctor said.

Ermes sighed, and decided to check things out for herself. She went into the bathroom for some privacy and decided to examine the disc. 'It looks like a CD, but feels more rubbery and elastic.' She then spotted something in the reflection of the disc. The image of the janitor grabbing her money. As she looked, she heard a voice in her head, about how the janitor was bragging about grabbing her cash and hiding it in the banister pole at the courtyard steps.

As he was hiding it, a new figure that reminded Ermes of an executioner stepped out, calling the man McQueen and shoving what looked the disc from before into his face. Ermes then found herself having to pull the disc she was holding out of her own face, dropping the disc into the toilet. "Jeez, what was that? It was like I was hearing his memories." "I heard, you know," came a voice from behind her. She whirled around to see the janitor right her.

"I heard you were looking for me," the man said, "I'm used to being tracked. But I gotta, admit, this is my first time being tracked by a woman." Ermes calmed down and scoffed. "There's been a lot of odd things happening lately," she noted, "But right now, all I wanna know is who you are. And what's up with those weird discs that popper out of your face?" The man looked at her for a bit before he broke down sobbing. "I... I don't remember... I can't remember anything!"

Ermes looked taken aback. "The hell are you on right now? You were walking past the sickroom last night. And I tried something on you to get my money back." The man seemed to remember something. "Money... Yeah, I have a lot of money somewhere, but I can't remember where." Ermes blinked. "Are you OK? You look more confused than me right now." The man smiled. "That's the nicest thing anyone ever said to me... Especially such a lovely young woman. A shame I'll never really get that chance... To live with such a woman."

He got out a belt and hung himself before Ermes' eyes. But what really concerned her was that she also seemed to be choking, as if she was the one hanging. This prisoner was Thunder McQueen, the man named in the disc Ermes had. His Stand was Highway to Hell, a dangerous Stand that could pull someone into his suicide. Well, it wasn't really his Stand to begin with. Whitesnake had stolen it from some other victim and gave it to McQueen because he thought him to be pure evil due to a lack of animosity or malice in his actions.

Pucci wanted McQueen to find his enemies and clean them up, and McQueen obviously thought Ermes was such an enemy since she was looking into him. Ermes gasped for air as she saw propeller-like growths coming out of her neck as her windpipe started to get crushed. Thinking quickly, she got one of the stickers from her palm and threw it onto the noose McQueen made. She then made a reach for it and managed to pull it off. Like she hoped, the noose tore apart, dropping McQueen and letting both of them breath again. Ermes breathed heavily as felt the crushing sensation fade.

"So I'm not the only one," she realized, "Other people have this power too." McQueen picked himself up, looking confused. "Why...? I can't believe you saved me... I only approached you because you were investigating me." "Well, yeah!," Ermes admitted, "Because I wanted the money you stole you from me! And what the hell's up with you!? Why would you go hanging yourself in front of someone!? At least have the decency to do it in private, asshole!"

"I...," McQueen stuttered, "I was just depressed. I never had any good thing happen to me in my life. I never even got any visitors." Ermes calmed down and sighed. "So that's it." "But now I understand what it means to live and die," McQueen said, "I owe you my life. And I'll be sure to return the favor." Ermes couldn't help but get embarrassed at the praise she was getting, but when she looked away for a second, she noticed McQueen had suddenly dove into the nearby sink.

The same sensation happened again, and Ermes found herself feeling like she was drowning as water started coming out of her nose and mouth. As she struggled against Highway to Hell, which had wrapped around her in the form of the water, she spotted McQueen's wrist and saw it was heavily scarred from what looked like razor cuts. 'So that's what this is about! This guy's just suicidal by nature! And he doesn't even realize that his power is killing me too!'

She quickly slapped a sticker on her nose to give herself something to breathe with. 'This is so gonna sting when I finally get out of this...' She was already in the same position as McQueen, and getting moved away from him. But she also found herself next to his mop, so she grabbed it and knocked McQueen out of the sink, dispelling Highway to Hell and letting her breath normally as her sticker got removed, stinging her face. She then remembered the disc she had.

'That disc... The one that came out of his face! I wound up dropping it in the toilet, I should go grab it! It must have something to do with this!' Luckily the disc was too big to get flushed down the drain, and the toilets had recently been cleaned, so retrieving the disc wasn't an issue. "Something to be said for a prison that cleans the bathrooms on the hour every hour," she noted. She ran off as McQueen spotted her. "That disc... I feel like it belongs to me... But I don't think she'll be giving it back." He stood up. "Ah... I feel like dying."

Ermes made her way back to her cell in the female ward, hoping it would get her as far away from McQueen as possible. As she headed down the stairs, she ran into a kid playing with a baseball, Jolyne and Rainbow with him. "Hey, Ermes," Jolyne said, "Long time no see. Our cellmate said you sold her my locket. Tell me, did you get pricked by the stone shard in it?" Ermes raised an eyebrow. "Wait, that was your locket? Sorry about that. If I knew it was yours I'd have returned it instead of selling it off."

She then double-checked Jolyne's words. "Wait... Did you know what was inside it?" Jolyne nodded. "It was part of an arrowhead. The ore it was made of contains a virus that kills most people, but for those it doesn't... It gives strange and incredible powers." She and Rainbow revealed Stone Free and I'll Fly, and Ermes realized that no one else seemed weirded out by them. "They're called Stands," the kid said, "And Stand users tend to be drawn to each other. No one else in this hall can see them, just the four of us."

He turned to Ermes. "That's why you ran into the janitor. Even if he's not natural by any stretch of the imagination, he's still bound to the same fate." He tossed Ermes his ball. "Don't touch it." Ermes went to instinctively grab the ball, only for it to pass right through her. "I was born in this prison," the kid explained, "My mother was one of the inmates. I've been secretly living here ever since."

The ball opened a small crack in the wall. "Come on," Jolyne said, "We can talk in the kid's room." Ermes was confused, even more so when the kid grabbed her arm from within the crack and dragged her along inside. To her confusion, she found herself inside a large and well-furnished room, with two men inside. "Don't mind them," the kid said, "They're just here." "So this is your room?," Ermes asked in confusion. "Kinda," the kid replied, "Well, it's not really a bedroom, so there's no bed to sleep in. I just use the piano. I get all the Mars chocolate and orange juice I want, though."

"It doesn't even ruin his appetite since this room is actually an illusion," Rainbow noted, "Still has flavor, though." Ermes scoffed. "Explains why he sleeps on the piano. So what is this place?" "It's some sort of ghost house," Jolyne explained, "But don't worry, the kid's no ghost. It's just that he can access this room through his Stand." Ermes looked at the kid. "You mean, this kid has it too?" "It's an ability that I was born with," the kid explained, "This prison caught fire in 1984, and had extensive renovations done to it. My Stand, Burning Down the House, creates a ghost projection of the room that was burned down in a sort of pocket dimension."

"So what's all this about, then?," Ermes asked, "Did you track me down just because you thought I might have a Stand?" "Yes, actually," Jolyne admitted, "But when the kid spotted your altercation with the janitor and how it got started, he told us. That disc you have. It's a little different from the one that took Gwess' Stand, but it comes from the same source, a Stand called Whitesnake." She explained the whole situation. "Okay, I think I get it," Ermes said, "But that janitor didn't go comatose when I took this disc."

"That's why it's probably different," Rainbow pointed out, "Gwess' Stand was stolen, so a piece of her soul was robbed. But from what we've learned, this disc actually holds the janitor's memories. You can live without your memories." "Did the janitor have two discs when you got this one?," the kid asked. "Yeah," Ermes said, "They just popped out of his head when I knocked him out back at the sickroom." "The discs always come in pairs," the kid noted, "One for memory, and one for a Stand."

Suddenly, Ermes' wrist started bleeding. "Shit... Is he still coming after me?" The others gasped as Ermes was subjected to electrical shock. "The janitor again!," Jolyne said, "Is his Stand affecting Ermes all the way here in the female ward!?" Fortunately, the effect stopped as quickly as it began. "Someone must have spotted his suicide attempt and stopped him," Ermes said, "If I find out who I'll pull them into the nearest closet for a proper thank you."

"That may not have been it," the kid clarified, "The body is naturally resistant to electricity. Anything under one-hundred volts, while painful, will prove to be far from fatal. Basically, it's likely he failed in his suicide attempt." Rainbow pulled the memory disc out of her head. "This guy, McQueen. Pucci, the one who we think controls Whitesnake, recruited him for his lack of any emotion in his actions. We need to find him quickly. This attempt failed, but his next attempt will have him trying to find saline water, which more easily conducts electricity."

Ermes' eyes widened. "He's going for the medical ward! Saline water is commonly used in IVs and for washing wounds!" Ermes raced out of the ghost room, Jolyne and Rainbow following her. They spotted McQueen, having wrapped himself in exposed wires. His body was all wet as he finished dumping the water over himself. "Damn...," Jolyne said, "He doesn't even know what he's doing to you. He doesn't realize what sort of power he has."

"The fuck is wrong with you!," Ermes called out, "Why all the suicide attempts!? There's no way in hell anyone's life could be that bad!" McQueen looked at her. "I'd like to believe that... But my life has been hell from the day I was born. For example, do you know why I was imprisoned here? It was four years ago... I was cleaning the shotgun in my apartment. But it was loaded for some reason, and it wound up going off. The shot flew out the window, where a woman was falling from the eleventh floor, just one floor above me. The shot hit her, and blew her heart away."

He started sobbing. "She would have fallen to the ground and died, but instead I wound up killing her... Just because I was cleaning my shotgun! I would have been okay with a manslaughter charge. No matter how you look at it, I was responsible for her death. But the judge called me cold-hearted, and I got slapped with a life-sentence." He bawled. "That's the kind of man I am!" Ermes tried to stop him from hitting the switch, but Rainbow held her back. "Allow me. I'll Fly!"

She quick stepped in front of McQueen as he hit the trigger, and to his surprise nothing happened. "What the fuck...?," Ermes said. Jolyne smirked. "Rainbow's Stand merges with her and creates a field designed for perfect flight." Ermes facepalmed as she smirked. "Pokemon type science. Electric-type beats Flying-type." McQueen looked at Rainbow in longing. "Are you... An angel?" "Yeah," Rainbow said sarcastically, "And I'm here to send you to Heaven. Hey Ermes, a little help here!"

Ermes grinned. "Gotcha. His Stand doesn't work if the one killing him isn't himself." She slapped a sticker on McQueen, splitting his head. "Oh wow," Jolyne said, "So that's what it looks like." "I decided to call this Stand Kiss," Ermes said. Her confidence manifested a physical form for her Stand, a humanoid female covered in stickers. She pulled the sticker off McQueen, merging his heads. As he went unconscious from the pain, the other disc popped out of his head.

"That reminds me," she said, "This guy had five-thousand dollars squirreled away. The location should be on his memory disc. Might as well take it as payment for all this trouble." She turned to the others. "Whatever this Pucci guy wants, he's got a lot of nerve dragging me into this this. I can't let him continue with this bullshit. So... I'll help you out. Besides, I get the feeling I owe you for the business back in the prison car." Jolyne smirked. "Kinda. I did notice that faux-Tom Cruise giving you grief, so I made sure he paid for it. Didn't really mean to take his ear off, though." Ermes laughed as the three of them left the sickroom.