//------------------------------//
// Episode 17: Crocodile Rock, 'round the Clock 
// Story: SuShi's Bizarre Adventure: Darkness Manifest 
// by Jojoleopard 
//------------------------------//

Everyone ahead of Ocellus looked ordinary. Too ordinary. All they did was hold their lightphones out to record Shiho. She’d seen humans do this in her short time here, but she hadn’t had the time to find out what for.

None of the other people seemed to be suffering the effects of the crystals in their drinks, so Ocellus quickly recalled who might have access to their beverages. It wasn’t a long list. The waiter, the shopkeeper, and anyone else who might be working in the cafe.

“The Stand master has to be someone working at the cafe. The waiter is the one who served us the drinks, but the one behind the counter must’ve been the one to make them.” She watched as the man behind the bar, a larger man with a shriveled mustache and a single strand of blonde hair poking out of his shiny domed head, tossed a bottle into the air before flicking the cap off midair with a metallic object. “But there are two more workers in the back. I’ve narrowed it down to one of four humans, but it could be any of them.”

Ocellus knew she had to think quickly and eliminate the enemy Stand user and their Stand before Shiho came to any other harm, or before she was forced to drink something that was spiked.

“Extreme situations call for extreme measures.” She looked at the four humans working behind the bar. “Forest Rangers!”

Her Stand solidified itself beside her, merging into its humanoid form as its muscles tensed. With a leap, it crashed down beside the large mustached man, drawing a fist back as it threw it towards him as hard and fast as it could. The man made no reaction to its coming attack or even its appearance, so before Forest Rangers’ fist could connect with his face, Ocellus stopped her Stand, having it move on to the next person.

Her next target was a blonde man with glasses. The same thing happened and she ruled him out as a normal human as well. The third proved to be the same and that left only the waiter. It was then that she realized he was no longer at the cafe. Forest Rangers scanned the entire bar, but found no sign of him.

“Of course…” she snorted. “He served us the drinks. He could spike it anytime, anywhere. But where did he go?”

Ocellus dissolved her Stand, returning it into its multitude of little Forest Rangers. They scuttled away from her, spreading out from all sides as they searched the dome for the missing waiter. And there he was, walking out the back of the dome. Gone was the uniform for the cafe and instead, he had on a black leather jacket over his skin, unbuttoned, and a pair of white shorts and flip flops. 

He turned as the Forest Rangers approached him, widening his eyes. A green glow formed around him as a humanoid Stand on all fours appeared on the ground beside him. It let out a shrieking roar as it tossed out a cluster of salt from its right hand before leaping backwards out the door with its master.

Forest Rangers pursued them, but the salt began popping all around them. Though small in size and explosion, they were big enough to launch the front row of Forest Rangers back, slowing their pursuit.

“That’s what he’s using,” Ocellus surmised as she caught up to her Stand. “The Stand creates little fragments of salt which can detonate. Though not enough to hurt someone, it can do some serious damage to the inside of the body.”

Forming her Stand back into one being, Ocellus burst out of the doors, watching as the man with dreadlocks ran down the slope, heading towards the forest.

“You’ll never get me!” he yelled as he skipped over a large stone. “One by one, you’ll all die and TWI will reward me well!”

Ocellus made a clicking sound in her mouth before following. She didn’t know where Subterra and Leilani were in the dome, but at least they would be able to watch Shiho while she chased down this waiter.

It was an aggravating task. Every time she got close, Ocellus would just receive a blast of exploding salt to the face that would temporarily blind her and cost her precious meters in the chase. The one consolation she had was that they were on an island, and there was nowhere to run permanently.

Or was there?

Ocellus took a look at her surroundings while chasing the culprit. He was heading down to the shore, it seemed. Did he intend to escape by swimming away?

Ocellus’s question was answered as she saw the waiter headed for a strange looking, white-painted craft. It looked like something out of a science picture book, almost like a boat resting on two smaller boats, with a pair of long, flat wings on the top. A propeller, larger than the one on the Brandy 2, was mounted on the front. There was someone already sitting inside, a human wearing some manner of headgear.

“Come on, let’s get going!” the waiter shouted, and the propeller began to spin.

“Stop!” Ocellus called after them, but was waylaid by another handful of exploding salt to the face. “Ack! Ptoo!” She spat out a few grains that had made it into her mouth, making sure not to swallow a single crystal. She rubbed a few stray particles from her eyes before looking back up.

The craft’s engine was running now, letting loose a pungent stream of black exhaust out the side. The waiter was climbing into the passenger seat and the vehicle began to move forward.

“You’ve lost this time!” the waiter gloated, sticking his head out the window of the craft. “I will be the greatest in TWI’s new world for ridding her of you pests!”

Ocellus watched in amazement as the craft began to lift into the air, leaving the surface of the water completely. She would have loved to examine this aircraft in detail, but right now there was no time to lose. She summoned her Stand, but she couldn’t think of anything that Forest Rangers could do to affect the enemy Stand user.

The aircraft flew up into the air, then banked around, flying back towards the island. Suddenly, there were a series of cracking noises and small explosions of orange came from the front of the plane. The sand around Ocellus jumped up in plumes, and something grazed her shoulder, leaving a burning thin cut there.

“Ha ha ha!” The waiter hollered, somehow managing to be louder than the engine of the plane. “I’ll shoot you all down! Die! Die!”

However, Ocellus was already ducking and weaving to throw off the plane’s aim. The craft roared overhead and flew back up, gaining altitude for another shot at her.

This wasn’t a battle she could win, and Ocellus knew it. At least, not from this altitude. She had to get to higher ground; a feeling that was only increasingly frustrating since she had no wings in the human world. With the blazing sun scorching her back as she ran back into the observatory, she looked up at the huge telescopes and the beginnings of an idea began to form in her mind.

Paying no attention to the plane for the time being, she ran up the stairs until she found a closet door marked ‘maintenance’. The door was locked, but she had Forest Rangers punch the door open easily. She remembered her astronomy lessons from her time at Twilight Sparkle’s School of Friendship so long ago, particularly the parts about a telescope’s inner workings. Assuming the telescopes here worked in the same way, she might be able to find…

“Yes!” Ocellus looked behind a rack and found what she was looking for. A bundle of convex and concave mirrors, meant to replace any damaged parts the telescope might suffer. She grabbed the largest one she could carry and left the closet.

Ocellus could still hear the plane whirring around in the air outside, eager to confront her again.

Hefting the mirror, Ocellus ran back outside and waved her free arm above her head, picking up rocks and throwing them at the plane, even though there was no chance of her landing a hit.

Just as she hoped, the pilot of the plane took the bait and turned the craft around. The sun was behind it, shining right in Ocellus’s face as she turned to face the seaplane.

Just as the first shots were fired, Ocellus raised the mirror in front of her chest, catching the full rays of the sun and reflecting it back into the cockpit of the plane.

Pure, unfiltered sunlight poured into the eyes of the pilot and the waiter, scorching hot and blinding them, the light searing into their faces as Ocellus beamed them with the power of the sun itself. It was like being punched in the face with a burning iron from every direction. 

The plane wobbled in the air, losing altitude as Ocellus struggled to keep the beam of sunlight on it. She could hear the waiter and the pilot shouting and screaming as they flew overhead and out of range of the mirror’s reflected light. 

She watched as the plane stumbled around in the sky as the pilot struggled to take control of the craft. It was headed right for the observatory, and the pilot tried to pull up, but he was too slow. One of the floats of the plane clipped the top of the observatory’s roof and there was a tearing noise as the float was ripped off the underside of the plane. Losing the float threw off the whole balance of the plane and it corkscrewed through the air, trailing black smoke before it vanished over the other side of the observatory. About three seconds later, there was a muted explosion and a thick column of murky smog rose into the air, mixed with licks of oily flame.

Ocellus dropped the mirror and hurried over to the site of the crash. It took her about five minutes, but she finally made it to the other side of the observatory and saw the remains of the plane scattered across the sand. She went over to check the cockpit, and there was the body of the pilot. The impact had thrown him through the windshield, where he had been impaled by the glass and parts of the engine. No sign of the waiter.

She looked around to see if maybe he had been flung loose by the crash, but Ocellus didn’t see him. 

Then the sound of muffled grunts and cursing from above and behind caught her attention.

She turned around and saw the waiter, wearing some kind of parachute around his body. So he had managed to bail out before the plane had crashed, but his chute had gotten caught on an outreaching branch. Judging by the way the chute was entangled around him and the branch, there was no way he was getting out of that on his own.

“Nowhere to run now,” Ocellus said smugly, calling forth Forest Rangers, which floated up to the waiter’s altitude. “Now, since I have you right where I want you, tell me where TWI’s island is.”

The man huffed and puffed, but he could not get himself loose. “Mwen pap janm, you’ll have to kill me before I tell you anything! Crocodile Rock, destroy her!”

The man’s Stand appeared beside him, but Forest Rangers grabbed its arms at the wrists, stopping it in its tracks and also stopping it from being able to toss out more of its salt.

“Tell me, where is TWI’s island?” Ocellus repeated herself from the bottom of the tree. “I can find a better place for this salt if you don’t. Trust me.”

“I’ll… I’ll never tell you anything.” He spat at her.

Ocellus nodded and folded her arms. “It’s your wish.”

Squeezing tighter around Crocodile Rock’s arms, Forest Rangers shoved its arms towards its own head. The salt splashed against the Stand’s face, some of which dropped into its mouth. Forest Rangers then kneed it under the chin, forcing its jaw shut and forcing the Stand to swallow its own salt. The waiter’s head snapped back as the top row of his teeth shattered, but then blood began spurting out from his mouth as his Stand’s salt began exploding inside his body.

“A-aaagh!” he gasped as blood began to fill his throat.

“Now, I can stop this with my Stand,” Ocellus said. “But only if you tell me where the island is.”

“No, no! I canevaa…” The waiter coughed as blood pooled in his mouth. “Dish ish for the good of the woruldo…”

Ocellus shook her head. “Not if so many humans have to die. We have to save this world the right way. Now, where do we find TWI?”

The waiter squinted his eyes, then coughed twice before gurgling as he choked on his own blood. In another eight seconds, he was gone, his eyes rolling up and his hands going limp.

“Shoot…” Ocellus sighed and had her Stand let him go. “A dead end. I had hoped for something a little more… confirming.”

She left her body and returned towards the first observation dome. Forest Rangers would’ve finished stitching Shiho’s injuries together by now and with the Stand gone, it shouldn’t pose a threat to the rest of her friends as well. Even though it was a victory here, Ocellus couldn’t help but feel lost and disappointed. They were doing what they could to stop someone she once called a friend, for the better of the world.

“But is this really better for the world?” Ocellus asked herself. “It would be better for the sake of innocent lives, innocent greedy lives, who cared not for the state of this world. But will things get better once we stop TWI?”

What more was there to do but to hope? But for now, that was a shining light in the dark and cloudy horizon. Perhaps once this was all over, she’d find her friends once again and they would do what TWI could not accomplish without the deaths of this world’s leaders.

- To be Continued...-