Chapter TextThe dream happens more and more often these days. Images like a portent fsh before my eyes. An odd mansion, a fight with four men, and then- It burns. It all burns and hurts more often than not. Or rather... It feels strange. Like I'm not supposed to be here. Or maybe its not a dream at all. A memory from the cells in my body? Or maybe its a Stand ability? It's almost like a between-time.

  The man who stands there across from me cloaked in shadow is my base. My tempte. Without him I wouldn't exist. Dressed as a royal of the Victorian Era he steps towards me with a soft smile and brown eyes full of pride. His features are both gentle and ferocious like an artist who was trapped between making a woman and a man. His golden hair is longer than mine but he gently touches my face with his cold hands like Mother used to.

  "You're doing well, my son." his voice is low and soft, "The strength of your heart is your greatest power, but you can't close it worth a damn against your enemies..." his expression softens and he lets go of me.

  "To close your heart is to embrace the destiny set out for you." he continues before looking over his shoulder at me, "So close it."

  My eyes snap open to the sight of something rather... odd downstairs in the restaurant. Sister Golden Hair was in the kitchen with her hair tied back and under a hairnet. She's wearing an extra rge t-shirt and pants probably lifted from a gift shop run. Even more surprising was Mack grumbling and harrumphing.

  "She just ran up in here an' decided she'd kick me outta my own kitchen." he grumbles, "Ain't she supposed to be back at the Pink Pace?"

  "Oh shush! That pce had nothing but sitting around and nguishing for me." she scoffs and Loredana sighs with a shake of her head. Sister Golden Hair hums happily when the smell of what she's cooking fills the air.

  "I had learned this from a charming little one who used to do an odd little shimmy." she says, passing Mack a pte and he makes a face full of a mix of disgust, horror, and wounded pride. Soft golden sparks fsh over a knife as it slowly rotates just above his hand.

  Loredana takes it and looks dead at Mack as she takes a bite of the peanut butter and banana sandwich, this time grilled. She looks down at it in shock before saying, "This is raising my blood pressure by the bite."

  "Oh my! I'm sorry..." Sister Golden Hair sighs and she turns back to her work, "However, I'll endeavor to work that much harder, then."

  "You ain't even qualified to work in a kitchen!" Mack sputters.

  "Oh? And who are you to stop me, little one? Daniel's kindness is what brought me here." her smile's like the menacing light of the sun before inky-bck storm clouds.

  Mack's about to blow a gasket until we're all cut off by someone coming down the stairs.

  Jolyne wanders out of her room and swings down the steps via Stone Free. Her shirt is way too big on her and falls about her knees. Her dark hair falls to her shoulder bdes with the silvery colored hair frames her face. Almost like she's part of space too. Her green eyes glitter as she looks around the room.

  "Morning gu-" she blinks and looks up at the Pilr Woman peacefully preparing breakfast while Banana Boat darts around ferrying ingredients. Mack almost comically grabs onto her arm but Sister Golden Hair just lifts him

  "I'm... not even gonna ask." she huffs, "So... what's the word on what to do next?" she looks pointedly at Loredana and said woman stands up. Her face looks haggard and worn. Her eyelids droop threatening sleep.

  "Maybe we'll take today off?" My voice sounds weak and the gre from my friend is enough to stop me, "Orrrr not." I look away and back down at myself like I had said something utterly heinous.

  Loredana shakes her head and her sad expression almost breaks my heart, "No, it's only a matter of time before the cult you came from notices that we're looking into them."

  Oh right. It's not that I forgot about that, it's just that I've been through a lot. All I've been focusing on is the fact that I'm out of it that I never thought they'd be around to try to retake me. Mack sighs and steps out from the back.

  "Ah well, I'm expectin' someone t' drop off a shipment. So come on with me to meet him, Dan." he motions to follow him and I do. Mack swirls his cane and taps it along the pavement waving to the neighbors as I hustle to keep up with him.

  "Why are you in a hurry?" I ask.

  "Well, it's 'cause he doesn't like to be kept waitin'." Mack expins as he pulls me into an alleyway with Banana Boat rushing in there as well. There's a couple of men sticking up another one. Of course Mack keeps his distance but there's still two men messing with Mack's shipment guy. One man is taller than the other one with the same odd patchwork clothing as Andrew Stone and a spiky hairstyle where every patch was a greased-up spike. The other fellow was a stockier guy with greasy white hair (almost like glue) and wearing a blue and bck patched suit like his buddy.

  "Hand over the package and nobody gets hurt." one of them says sticking a gun in the man's face.

  "Hey! Hey, be cool! This is just food!" the man sputters.

  "Yeah right! We know what's in there, dickhead." the other one barks.

  I was just about to rush in when Mack grabs my arm, "Hell no. We're gonna stay right here."

  "What do you mean?" I hiss, "Your man's going to get shot by Spike-Head and... whoever the other guy is!"

  Then we hear the strumming of a guitar. Suddenly between them is a man completely dressed in bck from head to toe. His long bck coat also only having bck buttons and bck stripes for decoration. His gloves are pure bck as well and his boots are too with bck iron spurs spin-clicking on the pavement. It looked almost like he was limping. But all I could think of was how confidently he moved.

  His hat is wide-brimmed and shades his face. His eyes are covered by a pair of dark sungsses. He smiles. Or at least I hope he is. On his back is a shiny bck guitar case with the only bright color on it being silver and it being the csps that hold the case shut. In his hands is a pristine ebony guitar cquered to a shine that almost makes it metallic. Even the guitar's strings were bck. He stands between the shipment guy and Glueboy and Spikey. He tunes it silently and expertly. The shipment guy brightens and Mack pats my shoulders.

  "Sit on back, Daniel. You're aboutta see a show."

  The Man In Bck tests the strings again. Nodding to himself and the two thugs stop and look up at him almost looking scared. He smiles and his hands dance across the body and neck of the guitar pying out a melody that really shouldn't just be a guitar.

  It was almost like an entire band was pying along with him. His pying flirts between bassy and powerful and light and delicate. The two men stare dumbfounded as the music forms what he's pying in the air. An entire big band bsts out its sound. Glueboy and Spikey both cp their hands over their ears and scurry backwards. But to us it sounds like a grand symphony. The Man in Bck pys for us and the shipment guy calming us all down.

  Mack comes out of our hiding spot, "Mr. Bck! Thank god!" His head rises from his pying and he turns a little. A hammer cocks back from a gun and he closes the distance between us faster than I expected leaving the two thugs on the ground passed out from the noise.

  "GET DOWN!" he yells as a bullet whizzes right through his hat and sends it flying off his head with a screaming hot shot. Gray hair fuzzes out from his dark scalp and at the removal of his sungsses its almost like I've seen a ghost. Keeping me down is a man who almost looks exactly like Father Pucci! Aside from the odd limping gait he has and the commanding presence.

  "What the-" I breathe.

  "No time to expin, run now!" he snaps, putting his hat and sungsses back on and grabbing my arm. Mack dashes in behind us as bullets whiz past our heads. Spikey and Glueboy trundle after us almost like they're scared out of their minds too.

  I mean I would if I heard shots going off. We scramble for any kind of cover but Glueboy gets nailed in the stomach, with the bullet going right through his spine.

  "Uough! Uh! Ahhh? Oh hey, it doesn't feel so-" his jaw breaks open and someone bursts out of him in a bloody slurry pushing out of him is a bloodied man in white. His coat, shirt, pants, and hair all covered in gore and viscera.

  "Lord Dio, I've come to take you back home." he smiles and his hand goes to the finely pearled holster on his hip, "Fear not, I won't let these nonbelievers harm you. My stand Devil's Right Hand was given to me by your almighty power."

  "Why are ya givin' us everything?" Mack snaps with a turn of his cane and unsheathing a bde out of it, "Are you that willin' to die?"

  "Well, I believe its only fair to inform you of the name and Stand of the man who will kill you. You are a nonbeliever and... an apostate." his searing red eyes burn into The Man in Bck. He tunes up his guitar again and Banana Boat dances along with the strumming.

  Sacred Heart appears and Spikey stumbles towards the mangled body of Glueboy, "Motown... n-no! NO! WHY?!" He pulls out a gun, "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU PURE WHITE XENOMORPH-!"

  A little detour would expin what happened next nicely. The World Fast Draw Association or WFDA's fastest draw time was .208 seconds. That included the time taken to react, draw, and fire at a target (in this case a balloon.) and, world css competitors can fire at any time under a second.

  I couldn't even see the draw.

  In moments the man's hand is clear through Spikey's chest. Even holding his quickly beating heart, "My name is Cashe. My orders are to kill the nonbelievers who had taken in my Lord Dio and return him safely to our home." The man reaches back down to his holster with a soft smile. His right hand, the one who held the heart and burst out of Motown's mouth and broke his jaw in the process was almost pristinely clean. Aside from the fine grey of gunpowder and the fact that his suit was steadily getting dirtier and dirtier. His white almost translucent hair reddens with the blood.

  "Stick close." The Man in Bck states, "Don't take your eyes off him for even a second."

  "You don't gotta tell me twice." Mack snarls, "He's goin' to take Daniel." Banana Boat tenses and then... He starts dancing. Cashe gnces at the little stand dancing and doesn't even notice Mack's extending arm and fist.

  "ZOOM PUNCH!" it nails the man in the face and sends him backward. With soundwaves from the guitar weighing him- We blinked and he's gone. We immediately form up and stand back to back with each other. Banana Boat, Sacred Heart, and the Man In Bck all together.

  "What's taking them so long?" I groan, "It's about to be the lunch rush and I don't think anyone wants Sister's attempts at human food." I make a face at the burnt, raw, overcooked, or otherwise terrible attempts at culinary arts.

  "How rude, Jolyne! I'm doing just fine!" Sister Golden Hair snaps and chides, coming out of the back with her hair sweeping around her, "I'm sure the boys are doing just fine." She went out to drape her cloak to dry in the sun, now wearing a waitress's uniform that somehow fit.

  I know Great Grandpa Joseph's stories about the Pilr Men were weird but somehow Sister Golden Hair seems to be weirder.

  "Knowing Daniel he's probably in trouble." Loredana huffs, "That boy and his weird origins still vex me." She's focused a lot more on training her sword moves which is kinda weirder. I get up from the stool and stretch. I almost want to stop thinking about what happened at the pnetarium. How nice it was to rete to someone without them wanting something else out of me.

  Dammit, stop thinking about him, Jolyne. He might be like the other dorks and bastards you've given the time of day to. Or... there was something odd about him. Something that made me want to learn a little more.

  If he's taken back or dies before I know what exactly draws me to him I'm gonna go up there and kill him again.

  I sigh and run my hand through my hair, "Look, if its all the same to you two I'm going to find them." I grab my coat and head towards the door, "If anything goes wrong I'll ring the restaurant."

  This is bad. Worse than bad. All I can do is try my best to run as Cashe closes in on me. The Man in Bck, Mack, and I have been trying to get away from him as much as possible but wherever we go he ends up being at that pce.

  Walls.

  Pavement.

  As we move nowhere solid is safe. Not even cars or stairs. His damn right hand keeps popping out and firing off shots or trying to stop them. Blood dapples the pavement from the Man in Bck and Mack as they keep taking damage. Shots ring out and Mack sshes at the right hand with Banana Boat trying to dance-snatch the pistol. Which was a smart move if he didn't draw it so fast. The sound waves would still slow him a little but get canceled out by how fast he moves.

  But the Man in Bck still pys and Mack still uses his weird sunlight breathing technique to deflect bullets with his sword. Steadily and ever so slowly they begin to tire. The dance becomes more sluggish and sweat streams down their faces. Cashe never spoke as he continued to pummel them down to the barest nubs of waking. His bullets weren't real bullets. They were small and barely nuisances. But then I see Mack's chest bloom with blood and Cashe's hand just about to emerge from his chest-

  Fshes of what happened to my mother scream through my mind. What I became when I tasted blood, too. The idea of the man so kind as to feed a wayward boy he barely knew was never lost on me. For it was like Christ. But I had no time to think about that right now. My heart pounds and my throat burns with bile. Sacred Heart can't even keep up with this guy, and neither can the other two Stands! What do I do?! What do I do?!

  I can't do anything. I'm not fast enough. My power can't even touch Devil's Right Hand because of how fast it is. So I do the one thing I know works.

  Panic fills me and I cp my hands over my ears, "Stop! Stop it!" I roar with Sacred Heart bsting out and bashing apart all it can hit, "JUST STOP ITTT!"

  And just like that...

  Everything...

  Stops.