//------------------------------// // Magical Mystery Tour // Story: Care Root's Bizarre Adventure // by Ditherer the Fussbudget //------------------------------// The Great and Powerful Trixie The alleyway’s dark, but your eyes have almost adjusted. It’s been a week since you last attended CHS. Keeping your head down around cops is enough work without being chased. None of them have their paws on you yet, though. Unfortunately, it’s also been a week since you last saw Wiz Kid. He was going to be the ultimate addition to your little army. When you had one. Turns out the higher-ups in this wargame could’ve disbanded you all at any time, and you just hadn’t made them angry enough yet. Now they were out for blood. The only thing that made day marginally safe was that they had to keep going to school. They mostly had parents who gave them attention, who wouldn’t take kindly to hunting other students off-grounds. Not to mention that what you’ve stolen gives you a powerful bargaining chip, so long as you can get it to a safe area. You tried hiding it at your house, and someone broke in during the night to take it. You're presently certain of two things: your Stand is the only thing keeping you alive right now, and this stone needs to stay out of everyone’s hands. The coast looks clear. Midmorning with no cars, only half a city to go. You make a break for it. Canterlot is a city in a loose sense. It’s got a few tall buildings and looks imposing on a skyline, yes, but there’s very little bustle, especially at the right hours. No one’s chased you for the last few blocks, and you’re starving. Actual food might not hurt you, but vending machine fare is livable. At least until you get to that place… You walk into the nearest businessy-looking building, one of those that get rented out by a bunch of tiny companies. It’s in the closest stairwell, that tall friendly box. Vending machines are the great comfort of modern civilization. In WWII, some were invented which dispensed paperbacks instead of food. On the other side of the world, there are machines which solely vend illegal goods. No risks, no one to impress, just crackers and water for loose change. Civilization is wonderful. You make your selection, shove your food into your jacket pockets and go. You’d wear a bag or a backpack, but it would make you much more noticeable, unless you wanted to pretend to be a hitchhiker. Not that anyone would hitchhike here… It’s only when you make it back out to the front that you see the motorcycle. A girl’s sitting on it, wearing a helmet, running it on the street just outside the door. Just… waiting there. There’s another girl sitting behind her, and her face is in view. Her skin’s almost the same shade as yours, and she glances down at some sort of watch, or locket, before snapping it shut and pocketing it. She turns to look at you, and mouths words through the glass. You activate your Stand immediately. “｢Abracadabra｣!” The helmeted one turns the wheels of the motorcycle as soon as you summon your Stand. Its wavy star-speckled form dances over your head like an amoeba as the motornoise rattles the ground. Then she accelerates directly into the glass of the door. A high-pitched voice enters your hearing. “-ot that waaaay!” The rider screams, pressing her face into the driver’s back. Shards fly everywhere, but the vehicle lands in the entryway, and she doesn’t stop for anything. She’s right on top of you! …And then she isn’t. You’re over at the stairwell, and she’s back at the door. Hoping that you've tripped her up, you run up the stairs and out of sight. “Goddammit Indigo, we’re supposed to rendezvous with the others!” The voice comes from below as you climb singlemindedly. They’ll be following you on foot now. How many exits are there? How far do you have to get to lose them? The second floor’s a good start. You wait outside the door, but they aren’t coming up. “Look, I know what I’m doing, alright! We’ve got code set up. Thumbs is a victory, middle finger is danger.” “That’s a seriously underthought code.” “Look, if we can just tire her out, we can take her. You ever hunt rabbits?” “Murdering animals is a filthy hick activity, and you’re wasting our time.” “You wouldn’t say that if you ate the stew, Sugar.” “I would and you know it.” Chuckling. “Yeah.” Pause. “She’s still here, right?” “The stone hasn’t left the building. It’s above us. They’re probably calling security on us by now.” “Good. Most of it. You take over and get nearby, I’ll go after her.” You get away from the door. This looks like it’s a three-story building, but there’s only one set of stairs. If you kept climbing, she would see you now. Looking around, you see a handful of doors leading to podunk offices, some bathrooms, bad carpet… and an elevator! You hit the call button, and it dings politely. Then, in a show of ultimate luck, the doors open without a wait! You dash inside and jab the button for the third floor. It lights up, but the doors don’t respond. You stand in one corner and keep hitting the button, as it fails to do anything, feeling the blood pounding in your ears. Your power isn’t meant for fighting. You’re just good at putting distance between yourself and others. Finally, they react, and slide shut. You let go of a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “A-ha!” A light tan hand slaps between the closing doors in a karate chop. Attached to it is a blue-haired girl with goggles on her head, grinning like the Cheshire Cat in that small slit. “Gotcha, lady.” You activate your Stand. The doors haven’t been stopped just yet, so you separate them a little more. Then you let out your best attempt at a yell, and smack her wrist. She doesn’t retract it. In fact, she doesn’t act like it hurt at all. With a sudden twist, her hand’s gripping yours. You can see in her face that she’s having a spectacular time. You call up your Stand and separate her from you, but she’s still smiling outside as the doors close the rest of the way. That look unsettles you. Wasn’t it a victory to make it to the third floor? When the elevator opens, you can already hear her jogging up the stairwell. You bolt out, looking around: offices, more offices, and a long hallway with a plain door. Over it, the words “Fire Exit”. That has to be it, the next step toward getting to that place. Your Stand creates more space between you and the elevator, propelling you down the hallway. She bounds after you tirelessly as you throw open the door and run up the stairs beyond. Almost all buildings are required to have a set of stairs that grants access to all areas. This includes tricky places like roofs, basements, subbasements and back-areas, where the average person might get lost. However, most businesses and owners wish to keep regular people from trespassing in these places. For the average company, fire exits fulfill both of these needs, but proper alarms are often expensive, and wiring them in is tedious. Especially in cheap buildings, if you can’t see a mechanism affixed directly to the door, you should take the alarm warnings with a grain of salt. Especially especially in a building without alarms on its glass front doors. You’ve made it up to the roof safely, and from this vantage you have a pretty good view of the nearby city. There are some rooftops close-by, but the further out they get the taller and shorter they become. A long way away, you can even see the park through a few of them. You know that these people are tracking you by range, or else the stone. And you know that they have extra trouble finding it if you’re in a crowd. Once, one of them muttered about there being “too many living things nearby” when you slipped away. These facts are the basis of your plan. Indigo makes it up to the roof and stops. “You gonna run?” You don’t respond, backing up to a far corner. She goes on. “It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t. You’ve already lost. ｢Nails for Breakfast｣!” You flinch and prepare for battle, but nothing happens. Then she pulls out a little pill bottle and pops the cap. With pinching fingers she grabs a few… tablets? And swallows them. “This is ALD-52. It’s called a prodrug, because it gets turned into LSD by the body. You can buy it online if you shell out a little cash.” She says, and then stands there like you’re going to say something in response. Then you start to feel lightheaded. “Since LSD takes time, I made sure to mix it with everything else nasty I could get my hands on, of course.” It comes in a wave, like the feeling of being about to vomit, the thought that your body’s just... too loose. You resist that line of thought, and start to feel your legs heating up instead. How is this happening…? Indigo walks over, cracking her fists. One of her thumbs shimmers like a mirage, and then it’s longer, and a darker orange. “A-｢Abracadabra｣!” You jump backwards, and suddenly you’re on the next roof over. The distance is too long to jump without a Stand, but increasing your range doesn't seem to change what she's doing to you. Indigo frowns at you over the distance, and cups her hands around her mouth. “Fine! We’ll do this the hard way!” You feel your left leg go numb, and you realize, dimly, it’s hers. You look down, past your dress, and the leg is the same color as hers, the same everything. A foreign object. You wonder if you’re starting to hallucinate. While you head for the exit, she’s jumping in your peripheral vision. It’s like she’s bodyslamming an invisible man, or ragdolling. Then, on her fourth or fifth attempt, she cries out. You ignore her and make your way into the building - and then your leg comes back. It flares up with pain, collapsing underneath of you, and you cry out. Stumbling with the pain, you fall down the first flight of stairs outright, and only with your Stand do you land on your back, leg up in the air. The successive impacts leave ripples of hurt around your lumbar, and you hold onto those hard-edged sensations as your vision jerks and threatens to swim. You test your leg on the floor, leaning on it a little. Then you seethe and retract it to your chest again. Sprained ankle. Obviously she did this somehow, but figuring out her Stand and its limits isn’t in your power right now. She’s going to come over here, or call over the others. They’re going to find you in a stairwell unable to walk, and they’re going to take the stone. Until you learn why people wanted it so badly, you can’t relinquish that rock. Especially not given what they’ll probably do to you after they get it. Your fear and pain keep you grounded enough to summon up your Stand, and then the rest is fast measurements and hope. You scoot on your back to the nearest flight of stairs and create some space between you and the nearest wall. In a diagonal shot, you’re halfway down the stairs. Another, and you’re on level ground again. You repeat this process as quickly as you can, ignoring the pain. Sometimes you fall anyway, and the stairs buffet your spine like a bad massage, but you make it to the ground floor. You need to get to a doctor. But first you have to make it. You have to get to that place! Outside, you’re in the lobby of a closed business. All the lights are out. The architecture’s the same as the last building, but it’s cleaner, dimmer. You prop yourself up on a wall and lean as you hop toward the entrance. The blue girl, Sugar, is already outside on the motorcycle. She’s staring at you, expressionless, unmoving. You grit your teeth as your Stand unlocks the door, and then lean on it as it swings open. You want to puke. No one ever said that Trixie Lulamoon wasn't a lightweight. But you’ve already seen your objective close by. The pain hasn’t cleared your mind, but it’s forced you into a single mode of action, and you know what to do now. Sugar gets off the motorcycle and waves in the direction of the building you just escaped. Indigo emerges on ground level. In the distance, you see a couple more motorcycles. And then there's you, hopping determinedly like a woman on a mission. You look ridiculous, and you don’t care. Sugar sees where you’re heading, and stands between you and the motorcycle. “Is the stone on your person?” She stares at you, undaunted. You hop closer to the back end of the bike and balance yourself. She turns a few degrees to keep eye contact, holding out her arms to block you. Between you and a ticket out of here, her full wingspan. The others approach. You turn to them, but look only at Indigo. Even though you’re sweating and there’s a buzzing in your head that won’t go away, the thespian in you can’t resist the moment. You raise your voice so all of them will hear you. “Trixie isn’t just a showstopper, she’s a patron of the classics. And two-thousand years ago, a man in China wrote The Art of War. He said ‘Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across’.” Indigo blinks. “Desperate people take chances. The more desperate, the more bizarre their tactics get. And if you leave anyone with only one way out, you’re adding pressure to the barrel of a gun in that one direction!” Your Stand appears over your shoulder as your voice climbs, finally shouting, “That is why you lost on this day to the Great and Powerful Trixie!” You create space between the road and the motorcycle. Before Sugar can turn around, the vehicle crashes into her from behind. As she pratfalls, you reach out for the seat. Your hand makes contact, and from there your Stand helps you up the rest of the way. As soon as you’re not about to fall off, you create more space, put yourself back on the road, and you peal out. All in all, it takes less than ten seconds. They’re right behind you, of course. Buildings rush by as your Stand pushes you along; you’re moving too fast to stop or turn now. Then the buildings thin out a little, long roads leading into neighborhoods as you race past. You never stop hearing them. Even if you had unlimited fuel, you wouldn’t outrace them in your state. You only barely understand how you’re not crashing right now. Your right hand shimmers and goes numb. Over your shoulder, you see Indigo wave at you with your own hand and reach out for the side of the road. No. You swerve, still zooming forwards, and swing her hand at a parked car’s side mirror. She yelps over the turbulence, and in a flash, your hands switch back, just in time for your Stand to stop the collision. “Agh!” It still hits your ring finger and pinky, and they snap backwards. You wobble in your seat and groan the pain into the wind, but the motorcycle keeps running along underneath you. It's the only thing with energy here, now. You’ve only got enough strength to use your Stand one more time. The stoplight ahead’s green, and you can see your goal. You grip the accelerator with your three good fingers and reach into your jacket with your good hand. Everyone sees the glint of the red stone in the daylight. You’ve almost made it. You spent endless summers in Canterlot Park. It was huge, and almost entirely wooded. It was also out of the way enough that not too many people came there - that is, it was populated, but not popular. Now, as you barrel toward it, you tense your body. Straight onto the green! The motorcycle jerks onto the sidewalk, past the gates, and off the stone path. When your front wheel hits the grass, it starts tearing into the turf, digging ferociously in a spot it's destined never to leave. Its momentum bucks you off, and you go sprawling end over end into the grass. Part of your impact gets your ankle screaming again, and you lay there. You’re not getting up. The others stop. There are five of them, on four motorcycles. Sugar and someone else got left behind so Indigo could make the trip. She dismounts first, letting her motorcycle thump against the ground, and scrambles over to you. Clenching your good fist tighter, you summon your Stand one more time. “｢ABRACADABRA｣!” The word comes out loud enough to echo, exactly as it should. Indigo braces herself, but no space appears between you. As soon as she sees that, she rushes over and grabs your wrist. “Hand it over!” She places a knee on your ankle, and you cry out, your hand spasming and opening involuntarily as she leans in. Then her eyes turn to yours, more lost than anything, “…Where is it?” You smile through the pain, if only because the lightheaded feeling is getting worse. A wiggle of gripped fingers, a wink. “Presto.” She’s losing it now. “Where is it?! I saw it, you had it!” She reaches into your pockets, crushing the crackers, but finds nothing. You cough and speak. “I threw it underneath of the wheel when I went over. I-into the hole.” A female voice you’ve never heard before calls over. “It’s not in here!” “｢Abracadabra｣ put distance between it and the motorcycle. It’s one foot underground somewhere in this park, and only I, Trixie, know where.” Indigo grabs you by the collar. “Where?! Where is it?!” Your good hand comes up and smacks her across the face, throwing her off of you. As she recoils, you fall limp to the ground. Before she can react, you turn your head to the others. “I don’t know how her Stand works, or why you want the stone, but if I die of an overdose you’ll never get to it. You’d better call Trixie an ambulance.” They’re silent for a moment. Indigo glances back at the one standing closest, and something passes between them before he nods, once. She turns to you. “This isn’t over!” Then she rips the bike from the earth and sets it back on the path. A few minutes later, paramedics arrive. You’re the only one still there, and by the time they load you into the car, even that's questionable. But you’re alive, and the stone’s safe. For now… ｢To Be Continued｣ Stand: ｢Abracadabra｣ User: Trixie Ability: Creates space between a pair of objects or surfaces. Stand: ｢Nails for Breakfast｣ User: Indigo Zap Ability: Switches body parts with any person the user’s touched hands with.