//------------------------------// // Diamond in the Witch House // Story: Care Root's Bizarre Adventure // by Ditherer the Fussbudget //------------------------------// ??? The sun’s close to setting, but the house is only a few feet away. One floor, not two. You try to ignore the pain in your arm. Hrgh. You spit a little blood on the sidewalk, and lurch out of the open. Silver You've just entered into one extremely creepy house. Is anyone paying rent to live here? It’s naturally lit, which is a fancy way of saying it’s really dark. The back entrance is a hallway, like your house’s front, but half the length. The carpet’s shag, and stacks of magazines and boardgames line the walls, each one complete with a dusty tchotchke sentinel. All in all, it looks like your grandma’s house in Besançon, but without the homeliness. For a moment your eyes have to adjust, and you look around for Diamond. She’s to your left, pressing herself against the wall between the junk and the door. There must be a staircase somewhere, but you can’t see it from here - instead there are doorless openings, a stained kitchen to your left, some less distinct room on your right, and at the end some larger space. You remember the first time you realized that other people’s houses weren’t arranged like yours. It was one of the most disorienting feelings you ever had, until the last week. There’s no sign of Trixie around here, or at least you haven’t seen her yet. You can’t hear or see anyone from here. Who was that blue-haired girl, Sonata, kissing goodbye at the door? One of the other two, Dazzling and what’s-her-name? Trixie? You feel the reassuring weight of your backpack, and try to crane your neck without leaving your vantage point. The kitchen’s empty. You scurry for it just to get out of the open, motioning with one hand for Diamond to follow. She steps lightly enough that you have to check she's still behind you. The kitchen’s just as bad as the back hall. White cupboards and cabinets are shut but splotched with red-brown. The sink looks like something out of the school bathroom, and flowery china plates have been set next to it in crusty stacks. There are signs of life, though: in one corner a switchbox lies open, half of the fuses permanently turned off. In another, a fat cylinder of a water heater thrums in tune with a minifridge with a microwave balanced on it. Your first guess, if Trixie were here, was that she’d be in the basement. If all of this stuff is up here and there aren’t lots of extra doors to check, there might not be one. Second floor, then? There’s only one exit besides the way you came, another large doorless opening into a room with a couch and a tiny TV. Just then, sounds intrude on your thoughts. A grunting noise. A man, stretching. A popping joint. Footsteps coming down the hallway. Diamond heard it before you did, she’s already checked the cabinets under the sink. Only one fits. It’s grimy and full of unopened cleaning supplies, but amid them there’s maybe enough room for someone your size to hide. But not two. Diamond trades looks with you, indecision falling over her in waves. There's definitely no time for that. You shoo her in and close it, and then scram on eggshells. Diamond You’ve already split up. Nothing's visible , but you’re pretty sure there’s no reason to open it. Shoes clack on the kitchen floor, swooping towards you and then away. The baby fridge opens. ”Hmm...” The voice almost sounds familiar. Your dad trained you never to forget a name or a face. Or a weakness. But who…? You resist the impulse to peek out and see, and wish for a moment that you weren’t bright pink. Where’s Silver now? Maybe in as much trouble as you are! Clicking, buttons on a phone, slowly. Then the slam and beep of a microwave turning on. A pause. ”Hey. She’s coming. You tracked down the girl yet?” You think to distract yourself from the ache in your neck. ”I can’t, I’m already tied up.” You’ve overheard this voice, he was an upperclassman, dropped out a few months ago. ”You gonna twist my arm about that forever? … Look, if you were at the Friendship Games you’d know what I’m talking about. Don’t underestimate them.” As the microwave shrieks that it’s finished, you realize who it is. ”Well, unless you feel like going all-out Custer, it’s our best lead. Find that girl and you’ll have all the power you c… Well, then don’t make me repeat it!” The weird kid who wore a suit to school and never talked to anyone. The one who just stopped attending last semester, hardly even rumored about. Anonymous. ”Toodles to you, too, Ari.” Click, opening, shutting, more footsteps. ”Nowhere man.” He says this into the air, facing away from you. It takes a moment for you to realize it must be his Stand. ”Keep doing sweeps, one. Two, stick with me. Guard duty for number three, and four’s on escort with Sonata.” Whatever happens then, there’s no noise. Then he walks back out, into the hallway and back the way he came. Is Silver still out there?! You reach the verge of panicking, but remind yourself that nothing's happened yet. If she'd been caught, he would’ve indicated it somehow, or she would’ve screamed for help, right? So... somewhere, Silver’s hiding. You creep out of the cabinet, checking over the rim for movement. There’s nothing. Why is Anonymous here? What does he care about the Dazzlings? ...Then again, why do you care about Trixie? Whatever the reason, he’s guarding something. Is he expecting intruders? He sounded relaxed when he gave those orders, so maybe not. The hallway you came from is clear, for now, but you don’t want to retrace his footsteps. You try to get a better look at the other opening, with the entertainment room past it. Once you’re closer, you see it’s one undefined jumble of rooms. Not far from the sofa is a weight bench, nearby a small spiral staircase, and not far from that is a dinner table, and fixed in the middle there’s a front door covered in nails and wooden planks. Keeping low to the ground, you can see a pair of dress shoes under the sliver of table in your vision. He’s nearby, facing your general direction. Silver’s not hiding down here until she’s behind the couch; she went up the stairs. Which means you’re going to have to follow her, or make some kind of distraction... It’s only then that you notice the intangible, see-through figure of a ghost glide through the room. An honest, real, heavens-above ghost, dressed in equally colorless and transparent armor, floating in mid-air and glancing around. You stifle a scream, cover your mouth. It sees you. Silver Even though it’s two stories, this is a one-bed one-bath house. You haven’t heard anything happening downstairs except someone talking, so you aren’t panicking yet. The upstairs is quieter, smaller, and all of the doors are open except one. Bedroom, bathroom, the untapped potential for a nursery, and some kind of study. You’re most hesitant about the bedroom because someone might be sleeping there, but you look inside anyway. The bed’s empty but half-made, the curtains are drawn shut, and everything else is dark. You conclude that, most likely, Trixie’s not here. Then, on a childish impulse, you check under the bed for her. Nothing, except... A box, on the far side. You crawl over to that end and pull it out, thankful that it doesn’t groan against the carpet. It’s a briefcase, plain black. Experimentally, you try to open it. It doesn’t budge. On closer inspection, it’s locked; a seven-digit combination lock sits before you, every number turned to 0. Those black numbers on glimmering gold taunt you, and you contemplate them. If there’s something important in this house, it’s probably in here. So, as quietly as you can, you take off your backpack. Diamond You duck back into the kitchen and backpedal further, into the hall, and then into the dark room past it. Your heart’s killing you. The ghost swoops in, tracing your path like a sheet of paper in the wind, checking corners. Inside the darkness, you’re close to panicking. There’s nothing around here big enough to hide behind, just a desk and more stacks of crap. You try to stay silent and huddle into a corner as it completes an inspection of the kitchen. It takes so long that you start to think that maybe it’s not coming near you after all. But then it draws itself out into the hallway, lingering as it gazes up and down, and then finally turns its eyes to you. Straight to yours. With a look of mute annoyance, it draws a shortsword from its mass. You try not to scream, or maybe it's just that your mouth won't let the sound out. It’s absurd, but... if Silver heard you screaming, you’d both get caught. And you have a debt to pay back, to her family, to her… to yourself. To overcome your mistakes. To be who you want to be! It hovers closer to you. You shut your eyes as it strikes, but nothing comes. You open them, expecting it to be waiting to land the blow once you’ve relaxed, but you can’t see anything at all. A moment of feeling around, and... wait, you’re back in the cupboard? Silver You carefully slide the material out of two separate pockets of your pack. They’re large jagged chips of tile, each big as your hands, taken off the floor of Canterlot High. You had to come before anyone else was there, and dig them up carefully, and it stung, but they’re your secret weapon for now. “｢Tin Cup Chalice｣.” Although they’re already here, you whisper it to them anyway, for luck. Then you position them, holding each upright, on either side of the case. You understand your power: whatever’s inside your hallway can be destroyed and recreated. With your willpower, and your fear for how quiet things are downstairs, you choose to think that the front half of the briefcase is inside your domain. It softens, rusts, and flakes away in a matter of seconds before you pause the decay. Inside that darkness-within-darkness, there’s the glinting of red. It’s exactly what the Crusaders were looking for! You reach in for it. And then, as your hand closes around it, an ethereal grey one protrudes from the box and grabs your wrist. You yelp, loud, and pull free, shard in hand. Below you, the ghost sinks through the floor. When you hold it, you can tell immediately that it’s part of those pendants the girls, Sonata’s group, were wearing. Unless there’s a knockoff jewelry shop around. You make out your own appraising eyes in its surface. It’s pretty, but why would anyone want to get their hands on it? There’s a stirring downstairs, a rushing, moving up the stairs. Oh. They heard you. Diamond The miracle of whatever just happened to you is interrupted by the certain knowledge that something’s gone wrong. You open up the cabinet a little when you hear the scream from upstairs, and Anonymous rushes to the stairs and starts ascending. You could distract him, but that wouldn’t help her if someone else caught her. Not that it would help you, either. So you do the best thing you can. Rushing out of cover, you step onto the fridge with one foot and hold yourself up, level with the fusebox. And, with a storm of loud snaps, you slam all of the switches on. Around you the house suddenly fills with light, ceiling lamps you hadn’t known were there remembering a job they’d fulfilled long ago. Anonymous curses from the second floor and rushes back down. You duck into the hallway. ”Two, Three, upstairs! One, guard the door!” He says this, and then half-jogs into the kitchen. And the same ghost that tried to stab you drifts into the hallway. It sees you, and rushes. Before you can rush out of the door, or shut your eyes and wish your way back to cramped safety, it closes in and throttles you. You squeak under the strength of the intangible hands, but your own pass through. Silver All of the lights are on and whoever’s coming up went back down. Diamond must be helping you. A shout downstairs, and then two ghosts float up through the carpet. There’s no exit but through them. You throw the closest thing you can, one of the shards of your Stand, at them. It passes through harmlessly, landing against the floor. You strain a little just after, and it slowly raises itself up to stand against the wall, but nothing more. One comes closer, and it’s some kind of Roman soldier. You swing the now-empty briefcase at its face, and it passes through, falling on the bed. Then it reaches into you, and grabs something. Your heart. It squeezes, and you can’t breathe. The other one snatches the red gem from the floor beside you and then floats patiently behind your murderer. The only thing you’re still holding, while your body spasms, is one piece of tile. You raise it while cold shivers wrack your nerves. It doesn’t even hurt, you’re just stopping, all at once. Through sheer terror, you keep your arm raised. And the closest part of the bed, the footboard, rots and falls apart in an instant. Between those two shards, it crumbles to dust, and then spits out an explosion of force. Stand power. The ghosts aren’t even looking at it as they’re vaporized, and the wave of psychic power passes over you painlessly. Still, you clutch at your chest and fall down for a minute. The gem’s on the floor nearby. You’ve still got something to show for all of this, if you can get it outside. But what about Diamond? Diamond You're gasping, tears forming in your eyes, as you try to summon up whatever magic helped you a moment ago, and begin to feel like you've squandered something once-in-a-lifetime. Then, without warning, you find you can breathe. The hands around your neck are forced a few inches away from it, and you gasp for air. Loudly. Anonymous rushes over, and sees you. And… something tiny and black, hovering around your neck. It’s smaller than a canteloupe, covered in square plates like armor on an armadillo. Its eyes are the color of your skin, and they flash with intelligence. Around the front, along the whole of its torso, is a giant “C”. You can see all of this even though you’re not looking at it all. You just… know it, like an old friend. Even with its small form, it holds off the ghost’s hands easily. Anonymous steps closer, practically sputtering. ”You?!” The ghost floats away from you. You smile, despite yourself, that he seems to be taking you as a threat. It gives you hope. Then Anonymous rummages in his suit’s inside pocket and pulls out a handgun, and you stop smiling. ”Who’s upstairs?” There’s such a profound change in you that the gun feels like a secondary issue. Some potential, some power... Oh. That's what it does. You didn't even know that the knowledge would come to you automatically - it feels like having someone else in your head for a moment. You take a deep breath and draw it out. You picture yourself switching on all of the electricity a minute. Then, in your mind’s eye, your Stand drives its fist through that memory, and it dissipates like a cloud. ”My friend! ｢Pink｣!” You shout, and then the lights all go out. Your Stand lands a solid hook on his gun, and then on him personally. It knocks the wind out of him, and you run in the opposite direction. The stairs come upon you, and you take them two at a time in brief, stomping jumps. When you get up, Silver’s just coming out of one of the rooms. She smiles and holds up a piece of the gem. “Any sign of-” ”No.” She shakes her head. According to the noise, Anonymous is coming up after you. You look around at the open doors and find exactly what you were hoping for. You point to it and turn to Silver. “I’ll be outside. Trust me.” And then, from her perspective, you’re gone. Anonymous You’ve got an aching pressure in your head. Of all the threats, the Stand users, the potential strategies, it’s this prissy bitch who shows up! You keep calling your legionnaires to your side, but they don’t come. You hear the backdoor opening and ignore it. Too many distractions, diversions, when all that matters is that gem! No one’s spoiled rich kid is going to stop you from giving her back her voice! When you reach the top of the stairs, there’s the other one. Grey, hateable, destined to be third for homecoming queen. She’s standing in the doorway, facing you. The other one’s not here. A voice is calling out from below. ”One second!” You don’t know how the pink one’s teleporting, but it doesn’t matter. She’s holding a slab of flecked white stone in each hand, and behind one you see the red glint. She managed to open the case somehow, but she's here now and she has it in her hand, and you can solve all of this in a few seconds. You train the gun on her. “Drop it.” She trembles minutely, but doesn’t react. Like she’s used to it. You raise your voice, hoping to spook her. ”Now!” She kicks off, out of the second-floor doorway that doesn’t go anywhere. She'll break her legs on the fall, but you shoot for good measure. Silver Your body is your domain. It’s in your hallway. You’re holding up a wall in each hand, and you can picture the whole boxy shape of it if you just squint yours eyes and think sideways. Thoughts of Mr. Rich, posed about to murder you, bubble up at the sight of the guy in the suit pointing the gun, glomming onto the idea, giving it depth. The bullet explodes into a great white cloud of aura just in front of you. You feel the pain of asking too much from your Stand, but you’re out now. Gravity and trust do the rest. After a couple feet, you stop falling, and you see something holding you in the air. It only slows your descent, but you float down to the earth. Diamond breathes heavily and you both keep to the side of the house. The sun set while you were inside, and in the cover of night her Stand helps you jump the fence. The backdoor’s thrown open behind you, and you don’t look back. Three fences, four, trees. The two of you only rest blocks away. She pulls out her phone, makes a call, speaks in clipped and apologetic tones a few feet away, and then a plain grey car comes to pick you up. Care The movie doesn't disappoint. The insane proficiency at murder, the well-directed choreography, the constant uncomfortable look on his face... The music's not as good as the last movie, but besides that, bliss. At one point, you put an arm around her. Her shoulders are so diminutive compared to yours. She reaches over and pats your head. Then, absentmindedly, she runs her fingers back and forth through your hair, and your eyes nearly roll back in your head. All in all, it’s an amazing evening. When you finally take her back home, soaked in the happy energy of the theater, you talk the whole way. You get out and open her door, as an excuse to not sit awkwardly and wave goodbye. Then she kisses you. It’s an entirely alien feeling, like eating a new food for the first time, but you lean back into it when you get the idea of what’s going on. Mouths touch, capillaries burst, and then, just as immediately, it’s over. You look into her eyes, one at a time. They’re so… beautiful. You bet your face is frozen in some horrible slackjawed gape, but she doesn’t give any sign. In the distance, Golden opens the door and hovers on the step with her arms crossed, grumpily inspecting the night sky. You let Derpy go, and watch her walk inside. Then you get back in your car and sit there for a minute, head spinning. That’s how you got your first kiss. A little while later, now you've moved up in the world, you get back to your house. Park, get out, feel like the man of the hour, unlock the-- your front door’s already unlocked. Huh. Must’ve forgot. You enter anyway, looking around the dark family room, and then disconcertingly hear breathing. Following it, you summon up ｢Timbuk Three｣ and draw closer to it. Suddenly you’re standing in the middle of the room. ”It’s about time you showed up!” she says, as if you broke an appointment. She’s laying on your couch, next to a bottle of painkillers taken from your medicine cabinet, and there’s a crowbar sticking perpendicular out of her arm. ”Trixie was beginning to wonder if you lived here after all,” she smiles. ｢To Be Continued｣ Stand: ｢Nowhere Man｣ User: Anonymous Ability: On request, summons up to four ghosts of those whose names are not recorded in history. Each request must be specific enough that only one person in history fulfills it. Ghosts retain memories of their lives, and can manipulate small objects, travel within a mile of the user, and communicate nonverbally. In all other respects, they behave as Stands. Stand: ｢Pink] User: Diamond Tiara Ability: The user can ‘erase’ any actions they’ve taken in the last two minutes from causality, causing time to carry on as if they had simply done nothing instead. Erasure does not undo the effects of those actions on living things; if the user trips and falls on their head, they can erase the tripping, but they will still have the bruise, and witnesses will remember the fall.