Scene #7466: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Gaiden Ch.6

Owner	Pose
Jonathan Joestar	Jonathan's booted heel steps firmly against the ground. Luxor, at last. The truly brutal battle at sea had left himself and his compatriots exhausted, taking a well-deserved respite during the remaining journey to port, chasing after the thief of the mystical arrows ... PREVIOUSLY Jonathan Joestar had recruited a large number of Elites to journey with him to his own world's Egypt, of 1890 in search of where he believed a rare set of arrows and their bow could be located. Once arriving and setting up the dig site among the normal workers he'd hired, excavation of the area continued until they began falling under assault by bizarre and fantastical attackers that were repelled by the combined efforts of the Elites in question. Blackmore, a rubbersuited butler with terrifying abilities that could only activate in rainy weather, and Mariner, an emotionless man with the ability to manifest natural disasters. The trifecta of Ringo Roadagain, Mystery Tree, and Downer the Kangaroo who had come afterwards to kill them all after the ruin had been successfully uncovered; with Downer being a physically robust fighter and a tactical genius, Ringo utilized his power to loop time and his skills as a gunfighter to engage in duels with those present, enforced by Mystery Tree's ability to create an escape-room situation of sorts that only allowed one person to visibly act at a time within its range. Even despite the difficulties in fighting off the attackers, they pushed on, only to be thwarted again by Axl RO and his Stand, Civil War, which allowed him to manifest the regrets of others to attack them -- and even after defeating him, they learned that he actually had a partner capable of some form of shadowshifting that allowed them to steal the arrows away into the night. Jonathan and his allies gave chase and were waylaid once more by a vampirized Straizo from an alternate world, having been informed through Zero Kiryu reading Mystery Tree's mind that the perpetrator of these attacks had been the DIO of an alternate future, one who had stolen the body of his world's Jonathan. After a truly harrowing battle with the vampire and his cronies, the Elites took to the sea in an attempt to cut off the fleeing thief, and found themselves assailed even out on the ocean by the assassin Dark Blue Moon, along with a sentient Gorilla named Forever and a femme fatale cyborg, Turner. Defeating them was no easy feat, between Dark Blue Moon's sea-based abilities and Forever's Strength taking the form of a steamboat, giving Turner all the advantages in the world to fight in. Still, they prevailed, and finally ...
Jonathan Joestar	Jonathan breathes in deeply through his nostrils, the sun glaring down. It would be sunset, soon, and that meant the thief would be able to escape using their power .. it couldn't be allowed, no matter what. It felt like the journey up to this point had lasted a lifetime, but he recalled it in a flash. "Everyone..." He felt a sense of foreboding, sweat dribbling down his face lightly. But there was no time for hesitation, not if they wanted to reclaim those arrows from unjust hands. Thankfully, with Speedwagon's assistance, he was able to convince several new faces to render their assistance with the matter, which would make splitting up to search more feasible, even if still dangerous. "We have to find them before the sun sets ... otherwise we might not catch them at all. Please keep an eye out, everyone! Luxor is a maze, even to its own locals, so we'll need to split up to snoop about." A determined glint bolsters his gaze, "There's no time to waste." the giant englishman affirms, striding forwards. Luxor is a large and winding port city without much in the way of modern amenities, even by the standards of the 1800's. Most of the buildings were formed of clay and the people bustled hither and thither, going about their business. Mostly, it seemed to rely on trade with street vendors at every corner, as if all of Luxor were practically a bazaar. Of course, this meant there were plenty of people to try and talk to .. and a lot to keep an eye out for, made difficult by the constant mingling, even so close to sunset.
Tina Natsumi	A cowboy is here! For... Some reason. It's easy to tell she's from Texas or something, because she has the exaggerated drawl and a cowboy hat on. She doesn't have much else Texas-y on her, though, instead wearing a bomber jacket and a light blouse and skirt combo with a distinctly non-cowboy-y cell phone in hand as she sweeps its camera from right to left steadily to get a good view of the city of Luxor from where the group is standing. "And in case y'all couldn't tell just from seein' it, this place is pretty darn old! Reckon most of these building's are older than most of us here and twice as sturdy, so we'll be checkin' all that out once we're done trackin' down our quarry." She speaks with the practiced tone of someone that's streamed plenty of outings in the past, talking to her viewers before slipping it into a breast pocket for easy hands-free streaming. "Lookin' for someone skulkin' around's gonna be mighty tricky with so many places and corners to hide in. But with so many folks on the lookout for him..." As Tina replies to Jonathan, she chuckles confidently before raising a gloved thumb up in reassurance. "Should be easy enough if we look for people trying to get outta here and keepin' a low profile." And so, Tina's first target: She hits up the food vendors, purchasing cheap little nothing snacks as a sign of good faith before asking if they can recall seeing anyone strange running around, especially if they looked like they were in a hurry to leave or glancing around nervously like they were afraid of something. Also, it's an opportunity to show off some fresh local food for the stream.
Zero Kiryu	"A maze..." Zero Kiryu has been a presence in this little band of problems for a while now. He had followed Yuuki the first time, and since then had taken a little more personal interest. It might have had something to do with an alternate universe body-thieving vampire having something to do with it. Though he might be more 'vampire' than 'hunter' by far, that's simply made him even less tolerant of 'other vampires' in a completely different way. "Very well. I will be YOUR maze, then." He flicks his wrist in one direction, and then the other. Not at all steadily -- alarmingly rapidly, in fact -- a jungle begins to grow from two seeds cast into the surroundings. Their expansion is dramatic; like kudzu cranked up well past eleven, thorned and increasingly thick. They wind through streets, into the earth, up buildings, through gutters and grating, along fences, down towards the harbor. There was a time when he could not do this. Could, in fact, barely encompass a single large building. Now, Zero Kiryu credibly threatens to make the maze into his own, just as promised.
Hibiki Tachibana	TODAY: Robert E.O. Speedwagon himself requests assistance for the most honorable Jonathan Joestar, and that call reaches far and wide enough to reach one Tachibana Hibiki. She's taken her official job of disaster resolution beyond other worlds more than once now (which is quite unofficial, but that's besides the point), and as the member of her current team of two that acts as the one who handles things elsewhere, it's natural that she would be the one to head out. There'll probably be a promise of recompense or something thrown in there, but mostly it's because these Bow & Arrows falling into the wrong hands sounds like a Bad Time. For everyone. And, well, we can't really have that happening. Hibiki agrees. The only problem is that she's usually able to punch issues in the face, and a search in the (metaphorical, because it's not nightfall yet) dark isn't her particular strong suit. Nevermind that her modern dress isn't well suited for blending in stealthily in the streets of Luxor, or that the suitably olden style of the seaside town kind of confuses her. Splitting up fit her perfectly fine, and offered the most chance to find what they're looking for, but...to put it bluntly... She gets lost. More than once. The crowds and busybodying even this late in the day leaves it difficult for her to get her bearings, leading to one frustrated-looking girl. "...Mmm...this isn't working." Hibiki opts against digging too hard into all the civilians doing streetside shopping, and decides to do something she /is/ fairly decent at. She sticks to backstreets and quieter parts of the port city, hands in her jacket pockets and eyes constantly shifting. In the shadows, so to speak. If this thief is some kind of shadowshifter, and trying to escape...that'll be how she finds him.
Crys Gattz	So things had been one heck of a wild right helping Mr. Joestar out, but in for a penny? In for a pound as the local saying went. So here she was once more. The Newman wanted to see things through to the end one way or another. She was in Luxor now. So the question was? Where would she start? She would need to start looking for traces of the thieves right? She had some ideas of where to go and in a port like this? There would be pubs. Where there are pubs? There is booze, where there is booze? There are loosened lips and where there is that? There are rumours. Which could be the best thing for her to check out so once she had arrived she would keep her team informed of where she was going and then would get to work. She would get small shots when she arrived talking to the bar keeps and various other patrons to see if there were any rumours or talk about the party's prey or the arrows.
Ben d'Tarkanan	"Not to worry, old chap," says a rakish looking fellow with pale skin, short brown hair, and a neatly trimmed mustache. He's nowhere near as large or built as Jonathan, but he does have an unusually distinguishing feature; his left arm is longer and paler than the right. His left hand seems as though it belonged to someone else, for how different it is. He is dressed for the weather, and yet, somehow not--though his clothes are light and breathable they also convey that more was spent on them than would be wise for a manhunt in a hot port town. The general aesthetic is '18th century gentleman thief,' complete with a lightweight cloak to keep the sun from him and hide his face. In other words, he's a bit out of date as well as being a bit overdressed. "We'll get our man long before then!" He, too, is striding forward, but he's not alone. With him, hidden in the space between worlds, is an honor guard of ghosts, forced to do his bidding. The dead see everything, when they're without rest--and such an existence is often a lonely, boring one. Ben and his ghostly retinue fan out, searching not for living witnesses, but for those the thief may not have thought to avoid. Homes, long-standing businesses, the sites of murders long forgotten, cemeteries, working from the city's outer limits inwards, as he imagines the thief might have come. Have they seen anyone recently who matches Jojo's description, or who appeared to be avoiding the eyes of the living? The drawback to this type of thorough investigation is that it takes time and a lot of coordination between him and his ghosts--especially since they have to relay their findings to him.
Yuuki Kuran	"You always take us to the nicest places." Yuuki Kuran comments to Johnathan Joestar as they finally arrive at Luxor, after the long, treacherous, Stand User And Quirk Jerk ridden overland journey through the deserts, from digsite to river crossing and finally to the maze-like city. Where Yuuki becomes, immediately, incredibly lost-looking. Like a tourist, she lingers at street stalls and alley corners, peering this way and that way, a dopey sort of lethargy about her as she cradles a parasol against her shoulder. "Maybe I'll just do a little shopping instead. . .?" She drawls, looking between the worried JoJo and a hand-spun rug that she unrolls the corner of in a covered stall. "It's really a shame that the challenge is to do it before nightfall... Otherwise, I'd love to just while away the time here, by the river. I'm sure it would be much more pleasant under moonlight. Maybe after." She leans on the rug stall, leaning towards the man. "If I bought all your rugs, would you help me with a little problem I have? A strange sort from out of town has stolen an artifact. You must know that's not good. Could you help me find them? Or point me to who could?" She draws out a seethingly potent all-black credit card with a gold stripe and lays it on the counter. "Please?"
Lilian Rook	Lilian has heard about this particular world and its, frankly, complete nonsense issues before. A certain amount of it has piled up in her metaphorical folder. The fact that this is theoretically a Concord, interest, even in a very shallow way, is outside her concern. She spends the time to at least make cursory contact with Speedwagon, and become formally apprised of the situation. What is, unfortunately, within her concern, is that there's no way she's going to blend into an Egyptian city, 1800s or otherwise. She is way, way too white, way too visibly upper class, and way too personally prideful to pretend otherwise. Nobody is going to answer forthcomingly to someone wrapped up in some ridiculously suspicious cloak and shawl either, tacky as that is already. For the time being, she hands Tina a private uplink, being her only formal ally involved and also probably likely to get into trouble, and proceeds to not mingle on the streets at all. Or indeed, the back alleys either. Instead, she is hanging around the boat for now. Specifically, to consult a number of water-worn stones of various runic engravements, while still on the sea for that resonant connection. A short ritual with the prophetic futhorc should, save some supernatural means, point her in the immediate direction of --well, likely not the thief himself, but the first direct link on his trail. One that leads to another, then another, on the straightest and shortest path.
Jonathan Joestar	Tina Natsumi is, somehow, still not the strangest person that Jonathan Joestar had met. Although her swagger and put on drawl reminded him greatly of Ringo Roadagain .. or perhaps someone emulating the man's sense of personal style. "Yes! With any luck, that could be the case." Jonathan says, before they split off. She hits up a local street vendor selling some form of salted lamb kebab and engages him in barter. At first the man, tall and spindly with a rag wrapped around the top of his head in the style of a mock, seems obstinate. But once she starts buying his food... "Oh .. you get those types around here all the time, you know .. " he says, proffering her a second kebab with seared fruits stacked alongside the lamb. Some part of her brain tells her that he's probably gouging her pricewise, but if she's willing to part with it to keep the conversation going .. "I know that man who set up his shop across the way from me deals in information like what you're looking for." The people of Luxor startle and gasp as greenery begins sprouting and growing, threatening to overtake the city. While it could be seen as a miracle of the gods, most take it to be some form of omen, though they don't know what quite to do about it. It whips everyone into a frenzy and makes it harder for anyone searching the good old fashioned way to keep an ear to the ground. However, it pays off, somewhat, as his plant life encounter some kind of amorphous blob, which quickly retreats, fading away; a Stand. It isn't located very far away from where Crys Gattz is performing her own snooping. Speaking of whom, the bartender is a large man with a sweaty, bald head and clothed in a brown frock. "Arrows? Thieves? ... " Visibly, his eyes seem to zone out as he looms before glancing down at her, with the gaze of a dead fish. "Ah. Well. Something like that, I haven't heard anything .. " The radio serving as the only real modern appliance in the establishment cuts out into static. Jonathan rubs the back of his neck, "Ah .. if only we could take the time to enjoy Luxor. It truly is rich in its own culture." he says to Yuuki as they move alone, Jonathan keeping a strict eye out for anything that could tip him off while she speaks to the rug salesman. The man in question is old and thin, with a long grey beard and droopy eyes. "All of my rugs, surely you jest? Yes, yes, if you would buy them all, I would gladly assist you however I can.." The moment she mentioned such a thing, his eyes became lit with a greedy flame. She looked exactly like the kind of person he could make a killing off of, after all, although he seems to recoil briefly as Jonathan frowns in his direction. "A-ahem..." " ... ah? .... What is this? Do you truly think this flimsy thing is worth my entire store?!" He feigns outrage, clearly ignorant on what the card even is, "My son is the finest carpenter in all of Edfu! You can't find rugs like these elsewhere! Hmph!" Jonathan looks back to the old man's direction again, frowning deeper, before inclining his head towards the gentleman thief who had been gracious enough to lend his assistance, "I'm grateful for your help. I've had a bad feeling ever since we came here ... not to make light of things, but its the kind of feeling as if someone's walking on my grave." The ghostly brigade encounter something just as spooky as themselves, and far more ferocious ... zombies! Under a bridge that connects Luxor to a residential area, where nothing but a dry river remains, a small horde of seven of the creatures are waiting, moaning and groaning quietly in their agony. They look so rotten that they have to have been here for some time.
Jonathan Joestar	In the meantime, Hibiki Tachibana finds herself in the company of not a shadowy thief, but three shady men! They are all shirtless old timers, but with bodies rippling with hard and tanned muscle, thick and bushy moustaches crinkling in the dry wind along with their receeding hairlines. Rather than being related, it seems they chose to style themselves in an identical fashion. " ... hm hm hm ..." "Killing a child would be unsightly, however --" "Your life has already ended, girl!" The assassins, quick and spry, whip their arms out from behind them and reveal their katars, swinging at her in three pronged attack. The first two try to box her in, while the third leaps high into the air and rebounds off of one of the stone walls, hurling his blade down at her. "Any of the fools who came here on that boat will die ... that's our employer's decree!" Lilian, who stayed behind at the boat, consults the stones for guidance. The reaction is odd, and vague. An unintentional interference, perhaps from the nature of the thief's abilities. But Lilian can ascertain that, as of now, they are still in Luxor's Bazaar, which meant that the bridge leading out to the residencies is as far as their search should stretch.
Zero Kiryu	"We can come back. I'll leave some foliage." Zero asides to Yuuki, dully. He's not much caring for the environment right now, either, but there's not much that can be done about it. Besides which, he tortured himself with going out in daylight heedless of the trouble it caused him for long enough that it simply doesn't bother him all that much anymore. It's only recently that he's consented to be primarily nocturnal at all, and even then not always. While he physically remains in the presence of Yuuki and Jonathan, his actual attention shifts elsewhere for most of the exchanges that are ongoing. His plants, upon coming contact with something strange, cease to grow outside of that immediate arrow and begin growing much, much more rapidly in the directions the blob could have gone. One tendril of vine snakes its way through a crack or window towards Crys's location, her position on Zero's 'radar' offering him a decent direction to go in order to locate her. Rapidly, blooms of lavender roses begin to sprout along very specifically the vines that lead towards where the Stand was sighted. Crys, and anyone who happens to be reasonably proximal to a vine, hears Zero's voice from them: "I've sighted an abnormality. The flowers blooming in my forest lead to that location. The one-eyed woman with white hair is closest, but whether any of you converge is at your discretion. I would not wonder if it was a distraction."
Tina Natsumi	Even if the guy is gouging her, Tina's not going to turn down a potential lead just because of her wallet! Besides, it's not like she gets the opportunity every day to eat authentic Egyptian street food, and she's making sure to ham it up for the vendor and camera whenever she chows down on the fruitier kebab. "No kiddin'? I'll be sure to ask him about this. Thanks for the hand pard." Grinning eagerly, she slips her phone out of her pocket briefly to take a selfie like any self-respecting showman while making sure to get the vendor in the shot as well. "Shout outs to my boy!" After giving the vendor some time to play it up for the camera should he choose to do so as well, Tina's on to find her next source of info: The info broker! Following the vendor's directions over that-a-way, she refuses to be subtle ever as she continues showing off the city to her viewers, even taking a moment to show off Zero's vine spread and dropping some highly incorrect trivia about the plants. She doesn't spot the Stand user or the Stand just yet, though, but she doesn't seem too concerned compared to getting a more exact ID on their person. Once she gets to the broker, of course, she turns her volume and flashiness down from an eight to a five in addressing him with a tip of her hat. "Howdy. Heard you were the guy to talk to 'round these parts about finding someone? There's someone I'm lookin' for, see?" Did she just go into a weird gumshoe drawl for a second there? Weird. "Someone trying to get out of here fast, probably keepin' a low profile. Might have a bow or arrow on 'em. Sound familiar?" She doesn't leave the broker without any offers of reward, of course, as she slips a Paladins business card out of her pocket and holds it out between two fingers. "Would really appreciate anythin' you got on this feller, if you could help us out so we could help you out, yeah?"
Ben d'Tarkanan	Eventually, word gets back to Ben from his ghostly servitors, who convene with him at a previously-arranged meeting place. Zombies are hard to come across in cities, if you're looking to avoid getting spotted. People naturally tend to notice when you're marching out of a graveyard with corpses walking close behind. "Oh, my, quite a few of them." It's all Ben has time to say before they're upon him, his ghosts having neglected to mention that the zombies were quite ferocious. One knocks him to the ground, and they dogpile him. A moment later, the lot of them are thrown free of the svelte Tarkanan's body. "That's enough." His command pries control of the zombies away, be it from their own wills, or from someone else's. His ghosts having witnessed also the buzz caused by Zero's plants and informed him of such, a smile comes to his face. "Alright, chaps... unpleasant as it may be, suit up, please." The ghosts possess the zombies, giving each corpse an eery blue glow to its eyes. "Take a message, and see it delivered to the townspeople in as dramatical a fashion as you please." He lists off a few of the Greats with the fingers of his mismatched hand: "Moaning, pointing, echoes, et cetera." The message? "Harbor not the thief of arrows, who dwells in darkness. Render him unto us or suffer..." He pauses, and the possessed zombies look at him expectantly. Ben waves his right hand dismissively. "You get the idea, chaps, just come up with something scary, and give me a head start before you start spreading," he says, careful to keep his voice down even in the fading light. With that out of the way, he sneaks back into the city proper to rendezvous with Jonathan and Yuuki, the hood of his cloak pulled up until he's closer to the markets. To keep from being taken as the thief by those who might not know, he doesn't dwell in the shadows, instead filtering into crowds and keeping to public spaces. He takes a different path than the one he took to reach the bridge. "Master Joestar, my friend!" His cheerful call heralds his coming, a kind of refuge in audacity for prying eyes. "Luxor is a wonderful city," he says, at more conversational volume. Then, so that only Jonathan and Yuuki can hear, "I have some local help around, scaring up a lead for us. Don't be alarmed if you happen across any... shall we say, formerly living residents."
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki steps into the wrong neighborhood--or the right one, depending on which way you're looking at it. She could have found any seedy old, immacuately mustached gangsters, but she actually found some related to their quest. Jonathan already had rippling muscles the likes of which she's only seen once before, and these fellows are actually on par with that...with speed that belies their age and builds! "Ngh...!" She's forced to spring back and backpedal away from the first two, weaving and leaning out of the way of their deadly katars while grasping her hands tightly around her necklace to tug it upwards, revealing the red crystal that had been hidden beneath her jacket collar. "Balwisyall...nescell...!" She recites an echoing chant--just as the last assassin, moving with inhuman agility, attacks from above while Hibiki is backed up against a building with nowhere to go! These guys don't adhere to normal magical transformation rules! "--Gungnir TRON!" Her arm comes up to block against the blade - only for a half-cylinder of thick metal to appear over her forearm a split second before it pierces through, in a flash of golden particles. The rest of her Symphogear forms over different parts of her body immediately afterwards, replacing her normal attire in the even more out-of-place mechanical armor. She flicks her arm off to the side to send the blade flying off to the side and out of her gashed gauntlet before she takes brings up her fists and buckles her knees. "You won't kill me that easily...and I'll beat all the info about your employer out of you if I have to!" Hibiki leaps onto one of the stone walls herself, then sprints clear up it to catch up with the aerial assassin - while he's still in midair, she kicks off and throws her weight into a bicycle kick meant to send him flying back down towards his comrades, then descend down onto them herself and scatter them with a flurry of hooks and jabs! Fighting a bunch of guys with katars is close enough to fistfighting, and /that's/ something she's good at. This is a way to get information she can get behind!
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki looks down at her seethingly Monetary credit card, and back up at the rug salesman. Card. Salesman. Card. "Oh, okay. I forgot, I'm sorry. You probably don't take card here." She smiles kindly. "I'm glad your son is doing well for himself." She adds, conversationally. "As for the confusion..." She laughs, 'ehehe', and turns to Jonathan and Zero. "The heat and I don't agree, and I think I've lost myself in mercantile pursuits." SECOND YUUKI, wearing a black vest, and grey trousers with a bushy white fake moustache, hands FIRST YUUKI a bulging... Pillow case. It was probably the first thing she swiped from the house. FIRST YUUKI does not look at all at the arrival, or the bag, simply accepting it and starting to dump out the contents: Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, bars of unstamped gold, and minor bits of amusing drapery -- a platinum candlestand with a wax-dripping wick and a smoking tip that looks freshly plucked from a mantlepiece being the crown jewel, but all sorts of spun-gold tassels and lesser baubles like rings and the like pile out. "Please, take your pick, if you don't accept credit." The casual way she dumps it out may cause a scene! But that's OK. Ben gains another warm smile as SECOND YUUKI slips away (back home, in fact, to go back to sleep). "How grand. Perhaps Zero's flowers will help be your friends' guide. Don't tell anyone:" She leans over. "But I'm buying rugs."
Crys Gattz	Crys is questioning the barkeep as she makes a small order he's acting odd really quite like something ain't right with him. She is about to press onward when she hears Zero's voice for a moment. She pauses thinks about it and would not but Zero isn't there to see it. Or she thinks he can't see it she doesn't know the full scope of the man's power's after all. She will then turn her attention to the barkeep with this information and smiles kindly at him. She has no malice to him after all. "Yes I'm tracking them down there could be a nice reward for you if you can help us out if you know something about it though there's something creepie crawling about here that /stands/ out you know?" She looks the man over while trying to keep her eye out for any signs of a stand being about. She also will look at any of the other patrons of the bar as well maybe there's something there too. She will set some coin down on the bar as well as she waits to see just what the man will do now.
Lilian Rook	Knowing that the person of interest they're looking for is 'good enough', at least in terms of knowing she isn't wasting her time, but the fact that her reading --even rather shallow as it is-- is muddled to this extent, bothers Lilian. She'd heard all about the utterly wild powers that come out of this world. She can conclude that a thief probably has something suited to stealth and concealment with him, but that nails down almost nothing she'll need later. Recognizing that there's nothing much more she can do on the ship, though, Lilian eventually has to make landfall here. She radios Tina, to update her that 'we're not going any further than the bridge; we appear to be here on time', before throwing on a proper sun hat and mantle, not trusting the Egyptian sun or air to be good for her, and certainly already expecting many 'exciting' smells, for all of her anthropological pessimism. Now she has to get physically involved. Thankfully, crows are actually native to Egypt, and especially cities, so having several of them flying around is incidentally less suspicious than some obnoxious quadrotors, to get a bird's (heh) eye view of the streets and anyone who might be moving between buildings, given none of them are extremely tall. Given that 'enough' people are already grilling the locals, she shelves the whammy as anything more than a passive aura of 'don't interfere; it's not worth it' and instead dispenses with the more traditional divination rituals to follow something else. Specifically, going from place to place around the bizarre, and hard-reading its future. More precisely, sifting through the scattershot of potential near-futures yet to be, searching for those where the wanted man comes near or goes through. She doesn't need to target him at all here, for this more subtle gift she plays closer to her chest, but only mass scan probability ahead to intuit where the most concentrated path of his potential and likely movements is.
Jonathan Joestar	As the vines begin homing in on where the Stand had been spotted, it wouldn't take long to determine that it was most likely poised to attack one of them had they wandered by, and seem to have been relatively scared off by Zero's intervetion. Or, perhaps, it had simply been pushed into a tactical retreat. Inside the bar, there is the aforementioned bar keep that Crys had been talking to, along with several others -- men by and large, sweaty and burly from being hard at work through most of the day. The only exception, besides Crys herself, seemed to be an oddly dressed woman in the corner, one silky leg crossed over the other. She was a tall woman with pale skin and shiny, sleek hair and a lithe hourglass figure. She was also dressed in the kind of bunny costume that certainly isn't from this world's time period. Narrowing her eyes slightly, she quietly stands and moves to leave, heels clicking and clacking on the wooden floor. Oddly enough, despite having been there for some time, she didn't seem to have ordered anything to drink. The man Tina had been speaking to throws up a massive fuss, simmering as he digs the information of who to get his payment from extracted; as he hadn't known what a video camera was, he had just stared at her confused when she'd prompted him to ham it up. The information broker leans in with a lofty smirk. His teeth were in remarkably better condition than most of the others around this part of town as he chortles, "Sorry, but you'll have to pay me up front." As he says this, his eyes widen slightly and trail off from Tina, and if she follows his gaze, she might catch sight of the inappropriately dressed playgirl quickly hoofing it to the bridge leading towards the residential area. Jonathan blinks slightly, nodding his head as Ben summarizes what he'd done, "I see ... then, as long as they aren't actually attacking anyone, I'll stay my hand." "Although ... " he frowns, "No, I'm sure it'll be fine." The ghosts, now possessing fleshy puppets, scare the townspeople something fierce. With the sudden flash of greenery from Zero earlier, it was surely a sign of the coming times. Most people begin holing up in their homes as the zombies wander about threatening them. It didn't seem to quite have the intended effect; but it did prove that most of the common people don't actually know anything about the arrows, or the thief thereof. And while that commotion strikes up a ruckus, Hibiki transforms into her battle form and trades blows with the assassins. "Hn?! "Some kind of armor ... " "But it won't protect you! We three will make sure of that!" They form up and assume identical martial stances, performing some kind of kata, their voices resounding as one. "Uoooooooh!" "Uoooooh!" "Uooooooh!" "HYAH!" "HYAH!" "HYAH!" Suddenly, they thrust their hand forth and -- out comes a grenade! Yes, that's right, a World War I era fragmentation grenade from each of them, cooked to perfection ... somehow, out of sight.
Jonathan Joestar	rMeanwhile, through the use of her familiars, Lilian finds conflcting information; it seems impossible to find hide nor hair of them ... but, as they still have to be in Luxor, it could only mean one thing. That they were remaining perfectly still rather than on the move, somewhere. Passing by the bridge, and reading it, reveals a stronger lead than most; and considering what little the group knows of the thief's ability, it surely makes sense one one stops and thinks about it. Under that bridge is the only place in all of Luxor where there would be a shadow to hide inside of no matter the time of day or night. But .. was that really what was happening? There's only one way to find out. Whatever stupefication the merchant has at Yuuki's oddities is washed away by his greed, "Awawawawawawaaaaauh?! Yes, yes, take them all! Oh....these gems ... or perhaps this candelabra ... any one of these could make me the richest man in Luxor! Wahahahahahahahahaha!" He seems lost in his own world, and unfortunately, it draws unwanted attention. "Oh, my bad, I'm tripping...!" one man says, feigning a fall in his attempt to smash the table and send the loot flying. "... fall my ass!" the merchant suddenly yells, grasping one of his thick rugs and using it to deflect the man by smacking him full force with the bundle. "Rgh .... look at this, I'm bleeding! I deserve reparation!" Like a stack of dominos, the situation devolves, but at least Yuuki has successfully bought the rugs ... probably? Meanwhile in the bar, the barkeep continues repeating what he'd been saying to Crys since she walked in and started asking questions, word for word, repeating the same actions over and over. Like a broken record. Until he stops entirely, on the spot, staring emptily. In fact, everyone still within the bar has done the same. Until they all slump over unceremoniously, Crys' drink clattering to the floor.
Zero Kiryu	It's not until the bunny suited woman leaves the bar and takes to the streets that Zero Kiryu notices her. She's not dressed like anybody else, she's fleeing several distinct blips, and he has multiple angles on the entire area that Crys is in by now. Momentarily he is distracted by what's happening around his actual body, his head turning slightly to focus on the probably-not-actually-drunk man attempting to start something at the stall Yuuki is attempting to purchase from. His eyes flick from Yuuki towards the rowdy man. It's not hard to intuit that he's weighing whether or not she'd want to handle the situation herself. Ultimately he decides that there are enough people proximal to the bunny woman that he doesn't actually need to do anything about it himself, and so no opportunities are actually being lost. "You're interrupting Director Kuran's business. Make amends in whatever way you're able and leave," he says. Zero's voice isn't especially outwardly changed, but he leverages a psychic pressure that steadily bends wills towards his ends.
Hibiki Tachibana	Hibiki STANCES UP towards the three after they get some minor distance from one another, fists clenched tightly and at the ready. "Just because there's thr--...huh!?" Wait, what are they doing...? What the hell are they-- She's never before seen such synchronized movements. Like they're in perfect harmony with one another. These assassins clearly have had a long and storied history with one another. She's almost envious, in a way. Such teamwork... Wait. She was expecting some fanciful coordinated attack, but instead she gets a trio of perfectly primed grenades tossed her way. Not these things again. She--can't punch them. They'll explode if she punches them. They proceed to explode anyway, with the timed cooks making them detonate right in front of the girl while she's forced to raise her arms and hastily brace herself as much as she can! If it was just one, it'd be okay...but the trio of old but powerful devices assault her with flechette and send her flying back off her feet, into the wall behind her where her own sturdiness works against her; the stone is what gives out instead of stopping her momentum, having Hibiki crash right through it and crash into the interior. There's a lot of debris and smoke, obscuring her form completely as she ends up on the floor, where she'll probably need a good half minute before she picks herself up. Surprise really is even the strongest fighter's natural enemy. "...Ugh...crap..." And by the time she /is/ back at it, if those guys assumed they actually got her and just left, she'll be right back at square one. This sucks.
Crys Gattz	A Strange woman in an outfit that doesn't belong here like her own out and let's be honest. Her pointy ears to boot, she'll take note of the locals sure but that woman who's getting up. Tall, sleek, a heck of a figure and some kind of casino bunny costume she'd more expect in the rec deck of her home colony ship. With that she'll leave her money for her drink she'll get up from her place a the bar and move to go follow the woman. Interestingly. If she gets a moment out of sight? She'll make some hand shin and in a poof, she'll make her clothing appear to be something far more local and hide her ears. The thing is will she be able to keep up with the woman and will she be able to avoid notice and keep tabs on her.
Ben d'Tarkanan	Over the sounds of doors and shutters closing and the occasional startled cry from a townsperson, Ben laughs affably. "Not to worry, Master Joestar," he says, flashing a winning smile. "I've a careful soul in command of each." One of those careful souls seems to have coaxed a shriek nearby. "Of course, cultural attitudes regarding such things do tend to differ! I'll be back shortly." With a strange gesture from his left hand, Ben seems to vanish. The Ripple Master can hear the sound of finely made boots against the ground, a kind of soft grinding noise like someone has just made an impressive vertical. Invisibly, Ben hops from roof to roof, searching for one of his possessed zombies. "By the Dragon Below, what are you doing, man?!" comes a hoarse whisper from thin air. "What you said to do. It turns out these people really don't like curses. And they also probably haven't seen your thief." Then... he'll just have to smoke this thief out, won't he? Ben extends his arm towards the possessed zombie. There's no indication of this, since he's invisible, but the spell promptly breaks due to interference from another, Ben having positioned himself in an alley. "Meet up with the others, keep up what you were doing--but warn everyone to stay in the light." "Why?" "Because I've just given you night tremors." The zombies begin spreading a disease, warning the townspeople to stay away from the shadows or suffer 'a deathly illness.' It may scare off the thief, but Ben can't just attack without warning, can he? Biological weapons are perfectly honorable if fair warning is given. The disease causes tremors, fever, debilitating paralysis and a powerful sense of dread, should light of some sort not touch the sufferer's body at all times. It doesn't last long, passing after only 24 hours--but Ben is hoping his minions can infect the thief with it, wherever they might be hiding, and keep them from leaving.
Lilian Rook	Reading the heatmap of the five dimensional future, Lilian finds herself inexorably drawn to that bridge. She's learned forever ago not to resist that draw, regardless of anything that might seem like an incongruity. Poking around it after the infestation of loitering zambos has left, she doesn't expect to find much. But if their man really is there, he shouldn't have much to expect from her waiting here either. Lilian first radios Tina to come and form up on her, in case she gets a runner. She leaves the familiars where they are for now, but whenever Tina arrives, Lilian next does the obvious thing and begins conjuring one light after another, floating ghostly flames gradually filling up space where shadows could still exist, making sure to do a thorough job of covering the area before being willing to call it. Down here and out of sight of the townsfolk, she isn't too conservative about it either.
Tina Natsumi	<<"Within the bridge area, eh? That helps narrow it down. I got a lead on an info broker, too, so let's see where that goes.">> Tina radios back to Lilian, turning her attention back to the man once he emphasizes getting paid in reity rather than being paid in vague promises. "Alright, alright... How's fi-" He's looking away from her. Following the broker's gaze to the strangely dressed woman fleeing the area, she tilts her head sideways for a moment while letting out an intrigued noise. "Mm. Not bad. Maybe I can get an interview with her if I hurry it up. But you..." She turns back to the broker, faking a pout dramatically while resting her hands on her hips. "You really gonna get distracted by someone that far when you got this right in front o' ya? You're breakin' my poor lil' heart." She winks at the broker, then starts running after the bridge herself to follow that potential lead. Or distraction. Better to assume it's her best lead for now. <<"We got a runner towards the bridge, Lilian. I'm on her tail!">> Once she sees the playgirl, Tina yanks her phone out of her pocket and raises it overhead to take another selfie, but it's not accompanied by just a flash of light this time. Instead, a bipedal robot thing decked out in red, white, and blue coloration with stars and stripes plastered all over it appears out of nowhere! "Alright, Uncle Sam... You know what to do!" As she issues the command to her Persona, its eyes flash once as it projects an image of itself even further ahead, waaaay out in front of where the playgirl is headed. It's a decoy to try and slow her down by making it look like someone's already gotten ahead of her! It's also very two-dimensional, but it's flashy and bright and garish as hell.
Yuuki Kuran	The rugs get out of hand. But, worse yet, everything goes to heck and even Zero feels the need to step in. More than annoying: it's embarrasing. And those are her rugs now. "Excuse me." She begins, but nobody pays any mind to her. "This is absurd..." She laments, before clapping her hands twice. "I'm going to collect what's mine now--" She begins, before the rug salesman begins using her rugs as a blunt object with which to hit people? The tang of blood on the air -- on her rug causes an immediate flip. "Put My Rugs down, immediately. And you, whoever you are..." She looks down her nose (impressive, as she's a not-impressively-tall Japanese-Swede) at the reparations-asker. "You've bloodied my rug. If you want reparations, pay me immediately." She points at the king's ransom of loot now littering the street. "That is the value of the rugs I purchased and you've ruined." There's an explosion in the near-distance as Hibiki gets EXTREMELY owned. SECOND YUUKI looks on from a roof in horror, as her bushy fake moustache tumbles through the air. FIRST YUUKI, incensed, begins collecting her rugs.
Jonathan Joestar	"Hmph..." The three grin, casting their eyes to the smoking corpse on the ground. Of course, she's not actually dead, but the three self-sure Assassins grinning at eachother can only assume as much. After all, even with that fancy suit of armor she was able to summon, a little girl is only a little girl. From their perspective, this outcome was the only one possible. Turning in perfect synch, they begin to walk away, arms folded behind their backs. "I suppose ..." "We'll leave the rest to Mariska and our employer." "I want lamb kebabs for dinner!" "Eh? That's too expensive. We're getting too old for that kind of diet, too." As for the shadow-disease, its a brilliant idea. Taking the warning to heart, any who hear the decree struggle inside to bask themselves and their family in as much light as they can, as the sun begins dipping over the horizon. Jonathan, having watched Ben take off earlier, frowns after him and crosses his arms. He could only hope the consequences wouldn't be too bad, he didn't want these people to suffer because of them unduly. "Fool!" "Bastard!" "Were you birthed from a rock?!" "Watch your mouth -!" The fighting merchant and ner-do-well, under the intensely convincing command of Zero, immediately prostrate. Its an instinctual deference. "I'm very sorry for my transgression!" the 'drunk' stammers out, very clearly having dropped the act. "I just wanted her valuables!" "It's alright, I'll just settle with what's left. Ha ha .. ha ..." The reparations asker looks up, snot dribbling down his nose, clearly looking as if he'd never be able to afford it in his entire life. "Ah ...ah ... I can't pay for thaaaaat! Eek! Please forgive me!" Jonathan sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose before noticing, "Ah .. the sun's going down! We're out of time ...!" The playgirl stops on the bridge with a frown, turning abruptly to glare at Tina and Uncle Sam. Below, Lilian's use of light seems fruitless at first glance ... but as she continued on, eventually a shrill cry resounds, a figure raising from the shadow as if it were a pool of water, apparating to swipe at Lilian's skull with some kind of club. The disguised Crys can see the frosty glare get even colder in the woman's eyes as she crosses her arms, "Ugh ... " "Really, I have to deal with this?" "Some stupid yankee and her toy tin man, that plain woman under this bridge ... and that fat cat Joestar and the rest of his cronies too." The look on her face sours, "And to top it all off, not a single person here appreciates how lucky they are to lay eyes on me. Unforgiveable."
Jonathan Joestar	"The only thing worse than this would be some stupid Japanese ape drooling over me, though these ones are almost as bad." she continues grousing, loudly and rudely. Ejecting from the shadow like a diver through the water, the thief reveals themselves as ..a woman, with ridiculously furry eyebrows, rounded green eyes, and otherwise perfectly average features. She could be a salaryworker just about anywhere, really. Or maybe a librarian. "A-ah ... Mariska ..." It turns out, what she'd tried to hit Lilian with -- and what she'd hit Speedwagon with before, at the temple -- was a simple looking hammer. "I ... cantseemtohitanyonewiththishammerhardenoughtokillthemitssoannoyingicantstanditwhywonttheyjustgodieinthedesertorsomething ...?!" Her mumble was increasingly agitated but came out so inhumanly fast that it was practically gibberish. Her grip was iron tight on the tool she wielded. "Would you shut the hell up?" the newly identified Mariska purses her lips. "But as long as you're still going to pay me, I'll even fight alongside an annoying rat like you. Just go hide with your Inkpot and I'll kill them all in a flash." "SHOCKING BLUE!" Appearing from seemingly nowhere, amorphous gel with armored hands and two glowing, golden eyes swipes with razor sharp claws in an attempt to decapitate Tina, bolting about at high speed. "Since you all followed me out here ... you're all in my Stand's range! Even that "Lord" Joestar!" Jonathan collapses suddenly, a broiling pain wracking his body. "What..is this ...?!" His skin begins turning bright red, as if he were being boiled alive. And one after another, the same would happen to all of them, although, it seemed she could only afflict one target at a time.
Tina Natsumi	"A yankee? Japanese ape? Whoa, whoa, you tryin' to get me demonetized?" Tina spits back with well-acted disdain, the smirk on her face not at all matching her tone. Keeping her hands away from the phone's camera as she slips it back into her pocket, she gestures (overhead) at the playgirl before pointing at the camera, as if directing her to look right at it while speaking. Whether she does or not is irrelevant, though, as Tina gives her a thumbs-up at that indignant monologue. Hearing that second voice from nearby, however, Tina steps sideways carefully while turning to face the new speaker with the hammer. "Easy there, gal. Slow it down a bit, will ya? The viewers back home'll need to understand what a pretty young face like yours is sayin', too!" And then she turns her attention back to Mariska, tipping her hat down slightly at the boast of killing everyone immediately. "You can try, lady, but don't you for a second think me or Uncle Sam'll g-" She doesn't get to finish her own boast, however, as the armored gel charges in from somewhere out of sight, forcing Tina to take a defensive position beneath the robotic Persona. It covers the user with its arms, taking those claws directly against its chunky metallic surface with the ear-splitting screech of metal on metal. The cutting isn't quite as terrible as Mariska might have hoped for. It digs into the Persona's surface rather fiercely, reflected as bloody spurts from Tina's own arms, but she doesn't seem too much worse off afterwards. No, what's worse is the burning sensation that follows after that, even if it only lasts for a moment and has the cowgirl hissing in pain. "Tch... Neat trick you got there. But let's see if you can take mine!" The Persona splits into two, then into four, then into sixteen, lined up in two rows of eight with the entire lot of nearly-identical clones holding pairs of Thompson submachineguns in their hands. "This is the power of a 'merican Stand! Er.. Persona! This is the power of GUN!" All at once, the Persona squad starts firing an obscene amount of bullets* at Mariska and her cutting gel Stand as well as a wide berth around herself! *Only one of them is actually firing (magical mind) bullets. The rest are actually visual garbage, somewhat brighter than the real Uncle Sam and far flatter when looked at from an angle, but they're all making that same bullet-spewing noise with all those muzzle flares to add to the confusion.
Zero Kiryu	Zero starts cooking. It's less effective than it really should be; like somebody trying to cook a stone statue. He runs a hand along the surface of his skin curiously, a gentle blackening occurring as he touches his own skin. He shakes his head and resumes ignoring the scammer, folding his arms over his chest. His plants, which are quite well Everywhere, give him a front-row view from multiple angles of the boasting as well as what's attacking him and everyone else. It's not something he can really shut down as far as he knows, at least not directly. From his hand he produces a fruit, which he sets down on the ground in front of Jonathan. "If you're about to die, eat it," he says. In response to the entire surroundings being declared a Hostile Gimmick Zone, Zero folds his arms over his chest, leans back, and shuts his eyes. There is a faint rustling from the plants all around, and something begins to fill the air. It's thick, powdery, like heavy pollen fall. It's a soporific, and because of how widespread Zero made himself, it's absolutely everywhere. "It's fine to dress confidently, but... that you're fishing for stares and compliments in a fight," says Zero's voice, echoing as if from each minuscule grain of soporific falling, "is extremely unattractive."
Ben d'Tarkanan	Ben isn't hard to spot as one of Jonathan's 'cronies.' On top of being near lily-white, there's his clothes, which somehow manage to be ostentatious even when he's dressing for stealth. There's also the fact that they look about a hundred years out of place. He'd meant to adopt another invisibility spell, and make a quiet path back to his fellows. He hadn't thought much further than there--and was pacing impatiently, waiting for some sufficiently pithy and charming thing to come to him. "Hrk," is all he can utter before his attempted Cool Withdrawal is turned instead into a march of pain. His sword is shakily drawn as he draws in pained breaths, the right hand clutching his chest as sweat beads in rivulets race down his face. It isn't until he arrives, hair matted to his head, dark stains sticking his loose thief's garb to him, that he seems to catch up to his target. "Ah," gasps d'Tarkanan, grinning crookedly despite the pain. "You've... sapped a great deal of my strength. Of course, turnabout is fair play." His legs give out, and it's not clear whether that's intentional or not until he's almost hit the ground. His left arm shoots out just before his chest impacts. From his fingers, a sickly green bolt streaks out, with a core of inky blackness contained therein. If it strikes, it will do exactly as Ben suggested, supernaturally withering the strength of the Stand user at a terrifying rate.
Yuuki Kuran	Prostration... Okay. Okay, that's a good start. Actually, it's a fantastic start. Crouching down to the poor beggar, Yuuki places a hand on their shoulder. "I understand. It's fine. Life is difficult, and you must do what you can to survive." Yuuki plucks a fallen ruby off the ground -- she's sure the merchant won't miss it -- and slides it into the snot-dribbling man's hand. "This is a life-line. A cardinal symbol of a new beginning. Use it to make something of yourself. More than a hustler or a beggar, become a man that the you of right now could only bow and respect." This may be tears in the rain. As a coincidental note, as she starts speaking of 'cardinal lifelines', her own skin begins to turn deeper and deeper shades of red, steam boiling off of her. She takes a woozy step back and her parasol clatters to the gritty bazaar-ground beneath her as she touches a hand to her forehead. When she does, the sheer sizzle of fingers on her forehead causes her to make a disquieted noise. "This S-stand power... Gh...!" She gasps. "Everyone, please, Jonathan --" The redness leaves her, the boil ending. "-- Jonathan and I need your help. Find the Stand user, and stop them!" For her part, SECOND YUUKI begins zipping around along Zero's vines and the rooftops, unbothered by the soporific to find the Stand User -- especially if they need line of sight to their targets -- and put an end to this charade, now that her rugs are bought!
Lilian Rook	Though lighting the dark seems useless at first, the fact that nothing happens as she shrinks the shadows meter by meter is what keeps Lilian wound and alert. Like a game of minesweeper, she combs her lights into progressively tighter and tighter perimeters, her sense of tension growing with each inch of shadow that doesn't metaphorically explode. So she's more than ready for an attack from the dark. When the mystery figure leaps from the shadows, swinging what seems to be an improvised weapon at Lilian's head-- -----[stop]----- Lilian quickly takes three steps backwards and out of reach of the hammer. She has the luxury of recognizing it as one, as well as a short amount of time to size up the frantic, quite possibly deranged woman in front of her, paused in the moment of frothing aggression, the first words of her spasm of gibberish frozen on her lips, unreadable. -----[start]----- --she's already moved back faster than blinking, as if the space between them had suddenly expanded, or as if the Stand user had hallucinated her being within striking range in the first place. No sooner has the hammerblow whiffed through empty air than the young lady in the sun mantle has smoothly and swiftly stepped forward into its wielder's reach and seized hold of the base of her arm and her wrist with the practised precision of someone who actually practises emergency disarms. What strikes her next is pretty obvious. Subtle ripples of fizzling black static pulse once from her feet on the ground, and then she launches off, aiming to drag the Stand user up into the air with her. It's a very simple strategy, but the basic reality is that there are simply no shadows within reach when suspended a good ways above the ground, which she hopes will render 'Inkpot' harmless. But Mariska is a slightly different story. Both ostensibly more dangerous, and far more offensive in character and attitude. Lilian's sun hat falls right off from the suddenness of her maneuver, revealing the gleaming golder-than-gold lily ornament in her hair, and a thoroughly sour grass-green stare to go with it, able to be imperiously aimed down at the bridge due to her elevation. "I don't apologize. Since I happen to know someone infinitely prettier, those looks don't exactly impress me, and neither does that outfit. Did you just escape from a photo shoot somewhere? Chased by evil magazine editors?" Since Tina seems to actually be in danger though, Lilian then aims a slash of her hand and a wave of black and red fire at the lunging stand, briefly subjecting the gel-like Stand to an intense gout of somehow corrosive fire.
Crys Gattz	Crys continues on, in her disguise for the moment it helps her not get noticed at least she's pretty sure she's not been spotted yet. She will come to the bridger she will see what's forming it seems that the others have found their way there. She thinks the time for stealth is over for the most part. She ends up caught as collateral damage in the initial part of the attack. "I guess the time of being sneaky is over." She avoided the brunt of the attack. Her comrades were not so lucky. She will make use of this though as she banishes her disguise and pulls two-photon sabres which glow blue and oddly have chill about them. "Well then time to get to this let's see what you got." With that Crys breaks into a run heading right at Mariska launching into several swipes with her blades before she'll pass and start to try to turn around, not wanting to remain in close combat with an unknown foe just yet.
Jonathan Joestar	Jonathan, doubled over on the ground, wheezes. Steam pours off of his whole body as his mind races -- the fruit hitting the ground in front of him barely registering. "Ah .. guh .. !" What had happened? It wasn't the same as being burned alive, or even cooked, truly. Both were unfortunately sensations he was familiar with. But the pain flaying every nerve made it too hard for him to think. The nature of the sudden Stand Attack was lost on him. "A-agh...l...let me g-goooo.." The apparent thief's mewling is rather ineffectual. Rather, Lilian hit it right on the head. Inkspot is a stand which could transfer its user into the Shadow World, a world made of dark black ink. But without a shadow to enter, she could neither escape through it, nor drag someone into her territory where she could effectively fight them. Mariska, in the meantime, is sprinting at shocking speeds and with incredible acuity in high heels, avoiding Uncle Sam's barrage while Shocking Blue returned the aggression with extreme prejudice, shooting into one of the unfortunate souls who still scrambled for safety nearby, having not gotten to his home in time. It passes through him, and once it did so, the man with dead eyes turns, his body being promptly obliterated under the hail of gunfire, a sacrificial meatshield. Mariska herself, in the meantime, is fighting off a dangerous game of chicken with Crys's futuritstic weaponry, only capable of defending herself with her own hand to hand skills to ward her off with a barrage of accurately thrown knives, burning cuts criss crossing her body as she narrowly avoids death, struggling to keep going with the soporifics in the air. "Unattractive..what gives a two bit freak like you to say that to me, you half-bred mongrel?!" Eve wriggled in Lilian's grasp as Mariska stumbles, the substance that Ben had cursed her with sapping her body of its strength. It seemed as though her outrage over being done in by people she viewed as actual garbage being the only thing keeping her upright. That, and actually being rather tough for her appearance. But Lilian Rook brooks no more room for human shields when she obliterates Shocking Blue, much to Mariska's surprise. " .... ?!" ... and much to the surprise of those present, she didn't go down with it. Actually, she seemed to be no worse for wear. "Tch...!" Three figures leap high into the air, faces covered in cloth masks that do nothing to hide their bushy moustaches as Lilian is given no time to recover, with a precise flurry of kicks and fists fired mid air to try and dismantle her grip on Eve, so that the three elderly assassins could recover her. But even if they do get their hands on her, she petulantly swings her hammer in a back and forth motion. "I..isaidlemmegoIdontlikebeingmanhandledlikethiiiiis!" Mariska nearly falls over, "Now you losers show up?!" The three quietly look amongst themselves, and to the Elites gathered before them, especially now that SECOND YUKI has appeared to reinforce the bunch. The situation frankly wasn't favorable to them, but it wasn't unsalvageable. "We figured the mighty thief Mariska could have handled the job ... " one starts. Another finishes, "..but it seems not." The third, "Fools, the lot of you. You're already too late -- what you seek was already delivered to another contact earlier today." When the original group had been waylaid on the ocean, that is, "We'll be taking our employer, we'd like her to pay us handsomely for our services." "Y...you're gonna' leave me here?!" Mariska screeches, nearly tripping on the shattered planks of the bridge.
Zero Kiryu	Zero makes an aggravated noise in response to Jonathan's inability to deal. He doesn't seem to be dying though, and mostly-dead is still not dead for his purposes. It's not a problem. He twists a hand through the air, conjuring a sort of chair for Jonathan from vines. A pedestal rises up to convenient grabbing distance, holding the fruit aloft. Then he disappears. "Well... as vampires go, I AM a mongrel," Zero agrees, emerging out of the vines nearest Mariska in a swirl of plant matter. "As men go, though..." He forces a flash of memories into Mariska's mind, not an attack, merely a moment's experience from the point of view of the one living it: There is a man... no, to call him a man isn't correct. The Batter has the vague shape of a man, but he's more like an action, an impulse given a body to carry it out. He walks forward, slowly beginning to fade out of existence as he does so. She can feel the disparate and perhaps conflicting dregs of consciousness because Zero could feel them, a thought of, 'I'm glad I made it back in time to see them both one last time.' There is a switch. The switch is set to OFF The universe stops existing, and Mariska's consciousness is permitted egress from the memory forced into her mind. "Do not mistake me as small and petty." "You are not my equal." But for all that he forces a uniquely surreal and perhaps unpleasant rebuttal towards Mariska, it is not an attack. It frays no more than a very intense picture show would. Zero's attention is laser-focused on the Three that have appeared to perform a rescue. He's looking for an opportunity-- to strike, to take something back. The third assassin gives it to him. The instant that the third says 'You're already too late', Zero stares intently at him and listens to his thoughts for knowledge of the contact.
Jonathan Joestar	An image. It's just how the brain works. Even if not entirely conscious in doing so, the electric pathway that recorded that moment in memory replays on some level when recalling the information. The old man's mind, to Zero, is an open book. There is a container passed to a man with blonde hair and a cocky look on his face. He is dressed in a dapper white suit; Mystery Tree had been a high-roller, a gambler at heart with eccentric tastes. This one looked more 'normal' and yet, the pins lining his jacket gave him that bizarre flair that most of the people from Jonathan's world usually had. Rather than a gambler per se, he seemed more like a playboy, the kind of guy who'd take a girl on a date so he could laugh when he dumped her after the party. A man in a dark suit, with dark hair, and smoking a long cigarette stands behind him, eyeing the blonde man coldly, a pink haired woman with a disinterested look and various cutesy bugs printed on her silk screen shirt, and finally, a scrawny teenager wearing an anachronistic gakuren, with the mark for first-year on his collar. He had bright green hair and seemed to be whistling something unintelligible.
Crys Gattz	The knives prove to be a problem, as physical weapons can still get past her photon barrier so she takes it seriously she'll have to parry or deflect those attacks. This has her break off for the moment as she pulls back. She'll make ready to go in again, but that is not needed it looks like between all her allies and everyone else? This fight seems to be over. She looks to the three then to Mariska for a moment then back to the three. She looks back to Mariska then to Zero she stands there keeping her weapons ready but not charging in just yet. She eyes the trio for a moment but if Zero's not going after them? Something else is up and she'll stand there waiting to spring into action if it becomes needed.
Tina Natsumi	Tina's eyes widen in shock as Shocking Blue moves into its unfortunate victim and turns him into a shield for that gunfire, her reflexes not being quite good enough to stop her Persona from firing in the heat of battle. Once the Stand is eliminated and the three strange figures appear, she takes that opportunity to check on the (probably very dead) victim. Her hands are trembling as she does so, and the words of the three assassins barely even registers for her as she stays there for what feels like an eternity. It's not until the assassins reveal what's happened and Zero addresses Mariska that she finally draws a revolver from her hip. Tempting as it is to fire on the assassins, however, they are not her target. Neither is their employer, strange and rambling as she is. "Just shut the hell up already!" Tina belts out in a genuinely angered tone, getting up to turn her weapon at Mariska after she starts screeching. She fires off all six shots in rapid succession at the Stand user's legs, approaching her while the stream from the phone in her pocket is all but forgotten. If she doesn't miss and isn't held back by someone, she reloads, then aims at center mass with a shaky grip. "Looks like they don't need you alive anymore. So... Can you give us a good reason to need you alive?" Tina grits her teeth as she keeps that revolver aimed forward, apparently on a hair trigger with even her Persona fading in and out of existence after what had happened moments earlier.
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki is gassed. She doesn't want to extend more aid, try to save more lives, try to hold everything together. She just wants rugs, and to take a nice nap, and maybe a shower, and maybe some other stuff. But one of her favorite people is hurting. And so is she, to an extent. Still, it is her role not to fight and suffer, but to guide and enable. So, with a lethargic dip, (First) Yuuki Kuran retrieves her parasol, and then simply abandons the rugs, and the treasure, and walks towards Jonathan Joestar's vine-chair to hold the parasol over his head to block out the last rays of Egyptian sun, and gently rest a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay, Jonathan. I'm here. You're safe. I..." SECOND YUUKI squints into the night, shrugs, and retreats back across roofs and paths to collect her RUGS before the Bazaar makes off with all of them. She had her eye on a beautiful patterened silver moon-emblem rug, and she had thought it easier to simply buy the shop than haggle for a single rug. Maybe she changed some lives! She was really useless at figuring out weird Egyptian Puzzles once more, but she had a decent time, so that was fine.
Lilian Rook	Eve, thrashing and muttering in Lilian's grip, dangling above the ground, completely confirms her suspicions. "I knew it." she says, with somehow considerably less dispassion than she has for Mariska. "As far as what I've heard about these things, I suppose I must be pretty fortunate yours has a glaring weak spot. Or, I suppose, that weak spot wouldn't exist for most people. I suppose you just had a bad matchup." She stares down at Mariska. "Though I'd also heard that blasting that thing should have at least been pretty painful. Sort of a shame. I'll have to double check later." Being jumped by three assassins is something that causes Lilian to operate on reflex, rather than careful judgement. That their target is to exfiltrate Eve doesn't register at first; she has no means of knowing that she has associates, nor that these men even existed until now, and all that she reads from them on short notice is their intended attacks. The first few blows she is able to evade without trouble, using the aerial mobility that her attacks don't have to turn aside from thrusting fists and feet, a spare hand to deflect a flying snap kick, a shot from her knee to intercept a sweeping heel. Between three people and her only having so many limbs, though, there is a very sharp limit past those first few, beyond which it isn't isn't geometrically doable, and Lilian is not about to accept a blow to hang on to the scraggly muttering weirdo in her grasp. Particularly, a falling kick that would otherwise hit her in the face is evaded on autopilot, through the same uncanny trick as Eve hadn't really been able to see. This entails Lilian being three feet too high to hit, but Eve not coming with her. A head over heels aerial axe kick on the man who catches her, followed by her hand diving under her mantle and withdrawing a handgun in the blink of an eye, but they have her, and she hasn't fired by the time reason takes over again. "Who the f-" Lilian begins, then brushing a loose lock of hair out of her face instead and taking a breath. "Too late is a funny phrase to use. Though, I'll forgive you for using it, seeing as you don't know who you're dealing with." A moment of contemplation passes, her finger not moving from the trigger, but not curled particularly tight. "So how about I pay triple. I could use you, for the time being."
Ben d'Tarkanan	Ben's chest hits the ground. Even that is painful. It doesn't stop, just because the source of that pain is now subdued. He grimaces, barely able to roll over onto his side, much less get up or swing his sword to intervene against Mariska's mustached help. Yet... despite his pain, he's smiling. Defenseless as he is, it is Not a good idea to draw attention to himself. It would be smarter, by far, to let his colleagues try and bag this one. And yet... with his brow set in determination, he rolls onto his knees. His sword is plunged into the ground, used as a shaky crutch to forcibly rise to his feet. Even leaning upon the sword draws sweat to his brow anew, but when he finally stands upright, there is a smile on his face, his head held high. "I've infected your employer... with a deadly disease," Ben lies, his chest heaving with exertion. He hadn't. But... "If you doubt that, you may ask her about how she feels. I believe fatigue and muscle pains are the first symptoms?" The best lies have a bit of the truth mixed in. He did drain her strength! "I assure you that Dame Rook is... how do they say..." He wheezes a laugh, remembering the phrase after a brief upwards glance. "...'good for it,' so if it's money you're after, you may as well take up an offer you can benefit from." He coughs, wincing at the pain. "As for you, my lady," he says, turning his gaze towards Eve, "I'm sure I could be persuaded to cure you of my disease. You could, for instance, tell me where this arrow is presently." And Ben, of course, could get the snot kicked out of him by a surprise attack. He's barely hanging on, but he's hoping that bluff, ill advised though it is to even stand at the moment, will net them some valuable information.
Jonathan Joestar	It's the kind of psychadelic, out of depth feeling one could associate with a drug trip. But a really, really bad one. The memory that Zero imparts and the words that follow are just as effective at keeling her, if not more so, than the soporifics or even the curse from before. Becuase it hits her at her deepest and softed, most vulnerable part. Her ego. Someone like him thought he was better than her? (He is.) That she should bow her head and defer to him? (She should.) It drove her half-mad with fury. How dare he, how dare he try and humiliate her like that. How /dare/ he make someone as beautiful and pure as her feel this way? That filthy, mangy, mixed blood mutt didn't deserve to breathe the same air she did and he was talking down to her?! In reality, Mariska staggers, not even a chance given to froth at the mouth as Tina's pistol rings out, ruining the legs that the promiscuously dressed thief had evidently been quite proud of. This time when she screeches, its out of pain, rather than anger. Or perhaps a mix of both. Eve's eyes nervously flick back and forth between the actors present. The Three Assassins, frowning, do nothing to rescue Mariska from her predicament. "Y...you....you little tramp, I'll ... I'll never forgive you for scarring my legs .. I'll make /sure/ that you'll suffer ..." she slurrs, incoherently, trying to push herself back up. Crack. Creak. The unstable footing of the bridge crumbles, and sends her plummeting down into the craggy rocks below with a sharp crack as her back hits the ground directly, and all movement ceases. Perhaps she was dead. Perhaps simply crippled. But there's no longer any use in attacking her beyond satisfying one's own anger. Of course, Jonathan Joestar wasn't here to advise on the matter, so whether or not to kill the woman was purely up to Tina Natsumi, now. STAND USER: MARISKA STAND NAME: SHOCKING BLUE STATUS: RETIRED Speaking of whom, with his body no longer threatening to implode from the rapid change in temperature and vaporization of gas, the boiled and poached englishman is in Yuuki Kuran's helpful and skilled hands. With his breathing starting to regulate, it surely wouldn't be too long until he could recover, and then use his Hamon to heal everyone else, too. The Three Assassins appraise Lilian quietly, but it wasn't quite the kind of look you'd use to gauge someone you were about to attack. It was somthing more contemplative than that. Eve grimaces, biting her lower lip, as the Three Assassins share a look amongst themselves. There's a resignation there -- more than that, a subtle fear. They were afraid of something, or someone else far more than they feared for their employer and her money. "N...no way .." "There's...absolutelynowayilleverbetraylorddiolikethatyouscumjustshutyourmouthalready -- !!!" The hyperventhilating woman staggers, the soreness and lethargy running through her like lead filling up her veins. Using the spectacle of her peculiar and loud verbal tic to their advantage, the three drop a pluming smoke bomb onto the ground in an attempt to cover their escape, tugging on Eve to get her to activate Inkpot and allow them to escape into the night.
Zero Kiryu	Zero observes in relative silence, apparently disinterested in the ego break he's caused. After all, that she should simply live with confidence rather than demand attention was what he had criticized her over in the first place. The soporific rain ceases, his foliage begins to withdraw to a reasonable density. A plant near Lilian whispers, "You will need to lower your defenses ever-so-slightly to receive the information I am about to convey." Anyone else with psychic defenses powerful enough to block Zero out will get a similar PLANT MESSAGE. Immediately afterwards he shuts his eyes and communicates the images he saw of the buyers to everyone present in the operation, plucked from the mind of the elder assassin. Accompanying the images are a simple psychic explanation: These are our enemies. Pursuit will re-commence at Mr. Joestar's discretion.