We who『Stand』Apart- Chapter 3
I'm still writing! Though if I spent more time WRITING the story and less time THINKING about writing the story, I'd probably have the next few chapters done by now. Probably a relatable thing for most authors—but not for u/Professional_Fig6709, I swear that dude writes with the speed that Rohan Kishibe draws.
Shout out to the other NoP Jojo stories:
The Nature of Stands by u/Professional_Fig6709
To Stand Against Our Natures by u/Professor_Phoenix555
As always, credit to u/Spacepaladin15 for the wonderful universe that has spawned so much fantastic fiction!
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Memory transcription subject: Jorak, Venlil Stand user
Date [standardized human time]: January 7th, 2137
I wake up with a migraine, like usual. It feels like there’s an angry electrical storm in my brain. Time to take my meds.
On complete autopilot, I make my way to the bathroom and take my rainbow of pills. The storm is blanketed out, and I blink the sleep out of my eyes. Some mild painkillers join the mix this time, easing the ache of the still-healing bruises from the fight with Eyjo.
Hmm. I’m up early, but not early enough to try and get more sleep. Might as well shower up.
It’s been a few paws since I learned about Stands, or Atavisions, or whatever. Other than calling in sick for the following shift, things have gone pretty well back to normal, thank Solgalick. Meiq added me to a group chat with the others, and for the first time since I left the facility it was starting to feel like I had something of a herd again, even if they were… weird.
Eyjo and Howie usually just clutter the chat up with various pictures and videos, or “memes” as Howie seems to call them, and although some have been funny, most of them are either pretty dumb or else referencing things I don’t understand. The big exception to this was when Howie thought he had a lead on a Stand user, and suddenly Meiq got real active. Turned out it wasn’t a user, just a circumstantial combination of some faulty electrical wiring and an agitated Gojid, but it was interesting to see how quickly they got serious when the possibility of a Stand user came up.
I also found out what Meiq had been writing an article for, when Eyjo shared a link to it in the group chat. Turns out the Farsul is a reporter, to use the term very loosely, for one of the sensationalist fringe tabloid sites: The Nightside Enquirer. The kind that runs garbage stories like “Dossur Ate My Baby!” or “I Was A Time-Travelling Cattle Escapee!” Any doubt that I had that it might be the SAME Meiq ended when I actually read the article that got linked, titled “Explosive Secrets Revealed: What The Exterminators Don’t Want You To Know About Flamer Fuel!”, and realized that a lot of parts had the same kinda clinical voice that he did. Skimming it during one of my second meal breaks at work, it was a somewhat jarring blend of dry academic language around some charts and field research, injected with absurd sensationalist extrapolations with very odd pacing where it wasn’t clear if the author was a wildly delusional moron or a comedic genius. Having actually met Meiq only made it less clear, as I wouldn’t call him a moron or someone particularly given to jokes.
My『Happy Colored Marbles』haven’t been solid like that since the paw everything went down. They’re back to how they always were, just little floating bubbles of color that move so easily that they still do feel imaginary. And they’re back down to a reasonable number too, today just a handful of comfortable colors that give me… there it is, with the flecks of gold, a bit of confidence for the day! Standing a little bit straighter, I let the marbles float back in. Not even walking with a limp anymore, I’m ready to face the day!
It’s not a long walk to work, but it’s not a short one either. However, like just about any distance in this city, it’s sloped. Makes for a nice enough walk home, but going to work can be a chore. Especially when you get about halfway there, only to find the road is closed while a crew excavates the street with some pipes nearby, the whole area cordoned off even to foot traffic. I groan as I start backtracking, pulling out a map on my pad to work out the shortest bypass. It indicates a side street nearby, downhill from here but with an even steeper uphill after. Alright, doable, but I’ll end up winded at work if I don’t pace myself well. Times like this, I find myself missing when my marbles were solid enough for me to roll around on.
My brain de-rails as I come around the corner and spot something so unexpected that it makes me go stock-still out of instinct and takes me a moment to actually process what I’m seeing: a shadestalker! Not just any shadestalker, as if the horrible baseline of the creature wasn’t enough, this seemed to be a monstrously big one, its shimmering needle fur looking nearly as bristly as gojid spines! The side of its face closest to me seemed to be badly burned, the scarred and hairless flesh seemingly having melted down over the eye socket. It doesn’t seem to have noticed me, but this thing is gonna kill someone! Wait… not just someone, THEM! From further down the street, a group of sivkits are approaching! The way the street curves, they wouldn’t be able to see the predator yet, but it’s definitely heard them, the way it’s stalking forward in the shadowy lee of the buildings!
Fighting the building urge to stampede away as the reality of the situation crystallizes, I take a few trembling steps back before ducking around the corner. Pulling out my pad with a shaky paw, I quickly punch in the number for the Exterminator’s emergency line. I’m on hold for a few brief yet agonizingly long moments before a bored sounding woman picks up.
“Bright Hill Exterminators, what’s the nature of your emergency?”
“SHADESTALKER!” I whisper-shout. “A REALLY BIG SHADESTALKER! It j-just passed the corner of, uh…” I swipe over to the map again to get my bearings, but she beats me to it with sudden wakeful seriousness in her voice.
“Corner of Century and Lower Cross, if your pad’s location data is accurate. Has it attacked anyone?” I take a shuddering breath. I can feel the fog starting to thin at the edges, the storm beginning to crack and bellow in the distance.
“N-not yet, but it’s stalking a small herd of sivkits!” I can feel panic starting to set in as the fog pulls back further, the storm worsening as my breathing comes faster and my heart starts to pound as if I were already running. Apparently she can hear me.
“Sir, please try to stay calm, and don’t do anything to draw its attention! We’ve got a squad on the way, please calmly move away from the predator as fast as you are safely able to!” Her words seem to fade into the distance as the storm drowns her out completely.
Memory transcription subject: Trixsel, winded burden
“I AM hurrying!”
I hobble along on all fours as quick as I can. My back feels like it’s gonna snap. Laurfen looks at me that way she does that makes me feel small. I wish I wasn’t a sivkit.
“Well you don’t look like it. If that human had attacked, you never would have gotten away!” She crosses her arms as she looks down at me. I know she’s right, but I also know that won’t change. My back has been bad my entire life, and running too fast can really hurt it sometimes.
“Well… maybe I could keep them busy so you guys could escape?” I perk my ears and try to make her less mad, but my ears fall when she just keeps looking at me the same way.
“Laurfen, enough, you know she’s doing the best she can.” Dagny stands up for me like she usually does. “Trixsel, catch your breath, okay? It’s clearly not following us.” Laurfen flicks her tail in a huff and walks off to Vilsprin and the others.
“Thanks, Dagny. I’m sorry I’m slow.” I slow my pace and try to breathe a little slower. I wish the rest of our herd was like Dagny. I think they only let me hang out with them because I’m her friend. I’m glad they aren’t all like Laurfen though.
“Oh, you’re not THAT slow. Besides, Laurfen needs to stop jumping at shadows so much. I think that human just sneezed, but…” she shrugs. “You know how stampedes are, one person bolts and then everyone is running and it’s hard to think. Laur just bolts easily. Really, she should—”
“RUN! WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE!? PREDATOR! RUUUUN!”
We all stop talking as a weird three-color venlil runs around a corner so fast his feet almost skid out from under him and then up the road, and he’s yelling! At us! He looks like he’s in a full stampede, but there’s nobody else with him. He looks so scared! And I didn’t know venlil could run that fast!
Then Vilsprin screams and goes up in the air! What…? He’s floating at a weird tilt, and making hurt sounds, and then he swings back and forth fast before he goes flying into a wall! What’s happening!?
“NO! PLEASE RUN!”
The venlil stopped running, standing away from our herd a bit but still looking really scared, and almost hopping in place. He looks like he wants to be running still. Dagny is looking at Vilsprin, but his crumpled form isn't moving. I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on.
Then Laurfen screams again, not her “hurt” scream but her “stampede” scream, and she starts running. I wish I could run like she does. She doesn’t go far before she screams again, this time it IS the hurt scream though and she stops suddenly and slams to the ground on her side. She starts to bleed and her white fur makes it easy to see, but she’s bleeding from what looks like a U shaped line that goes over most of her back, but her back didn’t even hit the ground like that? She suddenly gets launched sideways to bounce and roll across the street. I don’t understand what’s going on! I look at Dagny, but she looks just as scared and confused as me. She sees me looking at her though, and that seems to snap her out of it a little.
“Trix, I know we just ran, but I think this time we might actually need to—” and then my best friend’s eyes go wide and her head violently tilts, and I can see marks in her fur on either side of her head. Her feet kick the air as she rises off the ground, and she reaches up like she’s trying to feel the sides of her head but can’t touch them. I’ve never seen her look so scared, and that makes me feel really scared. Dagny struggles harder, but then looks at me, and goes a little limp.
“R… run…” is all she gets to say before there’s a horrible crack-crunch sound, and her head starts to squish the way a solid thing shouldn’t. I’m too scared to move or even look away. For a moment her head looks like it’ll pop like a too-ripe juicefruit.
Then the weird venlil screams and starts running. It’s not a hurt scream, and sounds a little like a stampede scream, but he’s running towards Dagny! Or not quite? More running at the space behind her. He trips or something because then he’s tipping forward like he’s gonna fall, but he tucks his head forward and suddenly Dagny falls to the ground! It’s hard but I make my legs move, at least enough to get closer to her. She looks dead at first, but then she takes a shallow breath that sounds really bad and wet. Her eyes aren’t opening.
I look up at what’s going on. Vilsprin and Laurfen are still both where they fell, the others are starting to run, and the weird venlil is… also swinging around the air and screaming now, but he doesn’t look like he’s dangling like the others were, and that’s a stampede scream still, not a hurt scream. He’s curled like he’s trying to hang on to something that’s moving around, but it doesn’t last too long. His eyes go wide when a bounce makes him flip too far forward, going over completely before moving at the ground like he got whipped at it and landing really hard on his back. I hear him start to gasp like he’s choking, but he’s not getting moved around like the others were, he’s moving on his own. He rolls over to his belly and finally manages to pull a strained breath, but then he reaches out towards where the others were running away.
“No…” is all he wheezes out before the rest of my friends start screaming the hurt kind of screams.
Is this a bad dream? This can’t be real. I’ll wake up and it’ll all seem dumb. Everyone is fine. They have to be. Come on, wake up, wake up, wake up wake up wake up-
“We… have to go! Come on!” The weird venlil has pulled himself to his feet, but still looks hurt. He’s limping pretty bad but he offers a paw. “There’s nothing we can do, we have to…” but then his ears perk as his eyes widen. He glances over his shoulder and his face looks like panic. “OH SPEH-”
I don’t have time to react when he dives forward. He pulls me to his chest and we roll across the ground. He doesn’t hang on after we stop moving, but gets back to his feet. He still looks frantic as he looks to me.
“Do you see that!?” he points… towards kinda where we just were.
“See… what?” I think that was the wrong answer, because he just curses under his breath.
“Nevermind, just… just run! That way! Go! GO GO GO!” He points down the road before turning back towards where we had just been and lowering his stance. I… have no idea what’s going on. He seems to though, and after what I just saw happen, running sounds good. I wish I could run better. I scrabble on all fours and start moving as quick as my stupid back will let me. I hear the venlil scream again but I’m too scared to look back. I just keep running, and for a moment I think I’m gonna be okay, but then I feel teeth sink into me and hear a scream—it takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me. It has to be teeth, nothing else would feel like this. I can feel the teeth scrape on my ribs and my spine, and then the invisible predator starts to shake me, and it hurts. I can feel my flesh starting to rip from getting swung around, and it’s biting so hard that I know my ribs will break any moment. I try to fight but nothing helps, and twisting just makes the teeth hurt worse. I can’t even catch my breath from the pain, the shaking slows for barely a moment but then starts again. I think I’m gonna rip in half, but then the teeth let go and I’m suddenly flying through the air. I can’t see where I’m going, I’m moving backwards, but then I hit something hard and the world goes weird when I fall to the ground. My eyes are so heavy, and it’s so hard to think. I try to get back on my feet but I just fall down again, everything hurts but is somehow numb too. Everything is spinning as I lay there, and as darkness closes in on my vision, the last thing I see while looking up looks like a venlil on a roof nearby, but… he’s missing most of one ear?
Wake up, wake up, wake up…
Memory transcription subject: Jorak, stand user with questionable judgement
I’m gonna die. I tried so hard, and it didn’t matter, and now I’m gonna die. The massive shadestalker just finished chewing up and tossing aside the last sivkit, and now there’s nothing left to distract it as it rounds on me. I should have known it was a Stand, shadestalkers don’t even get half this size! I thought I could save them, or make SOME kind of difference, but now I’m just going to die with them. That last bite it got me with hit deep, and my left arm isn’t working right anymore—it’s hard to move, and my fingers aren’t responding. It snarls, blood coating its maw as it stares me down, and I can feel my legs try to give out under me.
At least some of my marbles are solid again. I don’t know why they changed, it’d be nice to know, but I can worry about the why later if I somehow make it through this. It’s way less marbles than I had when fighting Locomotive Breath, but the five ash-white and ice-cold spheres that roll back to me are better than nothing. The shadestalker’s teeth snap shut where I had just been a scratch ago, even if I can’t surf around on this few marbles, they’re at least enough to help boost a step here and there! That’s not going to be enough to turn this into a win though. I don’t even have time to come up with a plan, having to duck and weave and dive just to barely stay ahead of its gnashing teeth. All I can do with this few marbles are quick direction changes and slightly faster dodges. Those quick short bursts are enough to keep me alive for now while it’s so close, but I saw how fast this thing ran down the road after the fleeing sivkits, and I’m not able to move anywhere near fast enough to get away.
Fire rips through my leg, and a scream rips out of my throat as its fangs sink in. I wasn’t fast enough. It swings me back into the air as it whips me back and forth, my leg in absolute agony, before it tosses me to tumble and bounce across the street. I try to scramble back to my feet, but the motion makes my leg feel like it’s exploding and I collapse back to the ground. I… I can’t get up! Being down to one arm was bad enough, but now my leg isn’t working right either! Out of desperation I start trying to drag myself with my good arm, but I may as well not be moving compared to before I went down, and even THAT wasn’t fast enough. I can hear it taking its time stalking up behind me, and the deep growl coming from its throat almost makes me pass out. If only my marbles were working, but I can’t ride so few, and I can’t even get to my feet to stand on the ones I have. I’m gonna die. The marbles roll around me, occasionally clacking off each other as I claw my way uselessly forward on pure instinct, and I can hear the shadestalker standing almost over me at this point. This wasn’t supposed to be how my life ends!
…SO I WON’T LET IT!
I feel a few strands of wool rip from my tail as its teeth snap shut, but I’m already gone. Instinct, determination, desperation, I’m not sure where the last-possible-second idea came from, but one hand is all I need if I’m okay with a bumpy ride! Lining the marbles up in a row to make a bar-like handhold and catching it with my claws, I’m able to drag myself at full rolling speed, which is more than enough to stay out of the monstrous Stand’s teeth, at least for the moment! It only works as long as I’m able to hang on though, which is a challenge by itself as I bounce, roll, and skid behind the marbles, leaving a splotchy orange trail of blood in my wake. I can hear some kind of sound coming from my throat, and I’m not sure if it’s a scream or a laugh—maybe both. Taking a quick turn to dodge another bite, I barely keep my grip while I roll and fishtail behind my marbles and end up on my back, roll-dragging myself as fast as I possibly can away from the monstrous thing that I now am getting WAY too good of a look at. Running at me with spit flying from its mouth, its one yellow eye burns with hateful will. I can feel myself wanting to freeze up again, and even though I push through it, that momentary spike of fear while my focus was on it was all it took for me to lose track of my surroundings for just barely too long. I’m suddenly crashing through a patio table and some chairs that had been set up outside of a restaurant, and by the time I roll to a stop the beast is already standing over me.
My marbles roll back to me and towards my good arm, but I’m practically frozen. I can see in the beast’s sadistic eye that it’s just waiting for me to make a sudden movement, and this time it looks tensed and ready for another drag-roll. A growl builds in its throat as it bares its massive fangs, and my mind is starting to blank out. The one moment seems to stretch out, both of us frozen and waiting for the other to move, and then everything happens all at once. It lunges at my face, I raise my arm out of reflex, its jaws seem to close in slow-motion over my arm, and then…
CRUNCH.
Oh Solgalick that hurt. My arm is probably broken and I feel like I just got shot in the side of the head. I can feel blood start to drip down onto my face from the few pinpricks its teeth made, but it’s the bones in my arm that took the worst of that hit. I can’t believe that worked. Growling around my trapped limb, it bites its jaw down harder, and I can feel my marbles getting crushed into my arm where I’ve lodged them between its teeth. It probably would have taken my arm off if I hadn’t blunted it like that, and even though I can feel the damage the marbles took from that, I’m not dead yet!
“Did… you think…” I gasp out, not even knowing why I’m bothering to talk to the thing, “I was gonna make it easy!?” I’m probably going to die here, I know that, but a spark of something inside me won’t let it happen without a fight. Left with no other cards to play, I do the only thing that it feels like I CAN do as it holds my shattered arm locked in its jaws so close to my face.
I slam my head forward with everything I’ve got.
I can feel its teeth part my wool and tear the skin on my forehead, but I can also feel something break that isn’t me for once, and the beast lets out a pained yowl as my ruined arm comes free. Fragments of shattered teeth fall to the ground like broken glass, frozen to the point of brittleness by the ash-white marbles and then cracked apart by the impact. It backs off for a moment as my head falls back to rest on the ground.
I’ve got nothing left. Neither of my arms is working, and the amount of blood I’ve lost from my torn-open leg means I don’t have the energy to move the intact one. Once it decides to finish me, that’s it. At least I gave it my all. Then a sound makes my ears perk.
I’d expected a growl, the heavy sound of its approach, or the crunch of my own bones, but instead I hear a siren rapidly getting louder, and within moments the flashing lights of an exterminator van can be seen coming up the street. Glancing back over to the shadestalker, it’s gone. Vanished the way only a Stand is capable of. I feel a laugh well up in me, but it comes out as a bloody cough.
[Loss of consciousness detected. Searching for timestamped transcriptions that continue context… search complete.]
Memory transcription subject: Vesko
That stupid pup is making the same mistakes I once did. He wants to protect the herd, I can respect that, but idiot stampede risks like those sivkits cost as many lives as wild predators do in the long run. Sometimes more. No matter. The mindless hazards have been removed, and that pup will have all the time he needs in the hospital to get the lesson through that thick skull of his. For now I’ve got other problems to deal with—I spit up another mouthful of blood and broken teeth.
“『>!Wax Fang!<』!”
I bring my atavision back out, focusing through the pain radiating from my mouth as I climb onto its back. Even knowing that it’s a part of me, I despise looking at it, its grotesque shape a reminder of all that I’ve been through and everything I oppose. I curl my claws into its bristly scruff as it takes off running, leaping from rooftop to rooftop as I make my way towards that clinic. I’d rather still have my flamer, but if this wretched manifestation is the tool I have, then it’s the tool I’ll use to protect the herd.
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Jorak's gonna be feeling that one once he wakes up, as will the sivkits if they DO wake up. We got to see what a Stand battle looks like to people who aren't Stand users, but who's Vesko? We get a bit of insight, enough to make some inferences, but what's his deal?
Band Reference for『Wax Fang』