Rev wrapped up another sermon, this one on the topic of living in peace with all, regardless of how they treated you. She noticed some of the audience looking at her like they didn’t want to believe what she was saying, but they didn’t make a fuss. Rev planned to go talk to a few of them later, but she had to close up the church for the day. Tomorrow, though.
She had only started cleaning up with her magic when she realized that one of the patrons had not left. He was a brown-skinned man in a set of purple religious robes. He wore a collar around his neck that was similar to Rev’s own collar, and a golden cross design dominated the front of the outfit. His hair was white and so short it looked like it was part of his skull.
He noticed her looking at him. “Reverend.”
“Just Rev will do nicely,” Rev said, trotting over to him. “Though admittedly I don’t know what to call you.”
“I am Father Enrico Pucci,” he said, smiling warmly.
“Good to see another member of the faith out here. Are you by chance having difficulty reconciling your beliefs with the multiverse and the ‘fiction’ of everything?”
“I was admittedly having a crisis of faith prior to this moment – coming to see you would have likely been a good idea, but the thought eluded me until this point. I believe it was not meant to be.”
She sat down next to him. “It’s still good to talk about it, you know. ‘Bear one another’s burdens,’ and such.”
Pucci nodded. “I had put all my faith in the actions of a man.”
“Dangerous,” Rev commented. “Completely understandable, but still dangerous. No man is perfect.”
“In actions? No. In ideals? …Perhaps not, but I used to think he was. I thought he had the way to Heaven.”
“He may have had a way to a Heaven,” Rev admitted. “…I take it recent events made you realize he didn’t have that right.”
“More than you might think,” Pucci admitted. “It was a lost prophecy, of sorts. A common thing these days, I understand. Divine prophecy squandered by interference…”
Rev looked curious. “What exactly was this prophecy?”
“It was to be a way to create the ‘perfect world’. Everything would be as it should be.”
Rev sighed. “I’m sorry to tell you, but that’s not possible until the Revelation happens at the end of everything. No world, not even the highest planes of the D-Sphere, has perfection.”
Pucci raised an eyebrow in curiosity. “Highest planes of the D-Sphere?”
Rev shook her head. “That’s a tangent… There are universes where thoughts can become reality and universes that purge the perceived ‘evil’ from people. It’s never perfect, and usually causes more problems than good. We’re called to seek the Kingdom, not create it with our own means. This multiverse is the result of what happens when we try. And I-” She stopped short and teleported to the back of the church hall, suddenly on guard.
Pucci raised an eyebrow. “I’m curious as to how you detected my Stand.”
“Magic fields,” Rev declared, voice no longer friendly and understanding.
“But you’re not looking right at it,” Pucci declared. “You aren’t very accurate.”
“What do you want?”
Pucci stood up. “I w–“ He paused, thinking for a moment. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“I can tell you what I know,” Rev declared.
“Oh?”
“About you. Do you know what one of the more common kind of villains are?”
“Priests,” Pucci answered.
Rev nodded. “And you have the exact demeanor to be one of those. Your words betray a man of that nature. Pucci, I implore you, whatever your plan is, think back to the Word. Think about peace, grace, self-control, and patience. You don’t have to go down this path.”
Pucci’s calm exterior faltered for a moment.
“Love, Pucci. It’s all about love.”
“I love everyone in the world,” Pucci declared. “Which is why I need to do this.”
“It is not our responsibility to do that, Pucci.”
“How do you know, for certain?” Pucci said, narrowing his eyes. “Maybe I am called.”
“God wouldn’t call someone like you or me to do that.”
“Open your mind, Reverend.”
“I’ve dealt with far too many people exactly like you to jump on board like this.”
Pucci shrugged. “That is fine. I don’t need your cooperation. I just need your mind.”
“My wh-” Rev felt a hand reach into her brain, latching onto her psyche. She acted quickly – tapping into her magic, trying to pull her mind back. The power of the Stand was just too much. She had to let her mind fall to it.
So she did what she could to protect herself from what would come next. She tried to alter her own mind…
…What was she doing? Wh-
Something punched her across the face. She slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Pucci’s Stand – a black and white humanoid with a crown-like protrusion on its head – handed him a disc. Pucci pocketed the disc and walked out of the church.
~~~
Flutterfree walked along the streets of Ponyville. Due to an outing that ran exceptionally late recently she had slept the day away. She had tried to force herself back to sleep, but it just didn’t work. So she had opted to go out for a walk with no particular goal in mind, enjoying the nightlife of Ponyville.
She passed by Rev’s church, wondering if Rev herself was still in there. She should have gone to sleep by this point, but you never knew. Flutterfree walked up to the entrance and knocked – surprised to find it wasn’t locked. It was always locked at this point, bar special events, and Flutterfree would have known if there was a special event going on.
She opened the doors, a frown on her face. “Rev? Are you in here?”
There was no response. Flutterfree could clearly see Rev sitting on the ground though, staring at something in front of her.
“…Rev?” Flutterfree asked again. “Are you okay?”
“Hm…?” Rev said, turning to look at her. “Is… Is that my name?”
Flutterfree gasped. “You don’t remember your name?”
“I… I don’t remember much of anything at all…” Rev said, fear evident in her eyes. “I… I know I’m a unicorn. I know how to speak… though I don’t think I could before you arrived. I know this book is important,” she gestured at the Bible in front of her. “But… What does that all mean?”
Flutterfree rushed up to Rev, checking her over. “Rev, you’ve been punched!”
“I have…? I guess that does hurt a bit…” She looked down. “I was attacked then?”
“Attacked – and someone took your memories! Oh Rev… I’m so sorry. I’m going to do what I can to fix this.”
“Thank you… Uh…”
Flutterfree started, tears in her eyes. “I… I’m Flutterfree, Rev. You could call me… a member of your church.”
“Church? This place?” She looked around. “It’s mine? …I teach people here… It feels right, but I hope they aren’t expecting me to teach anything anytime soon.” She chuckled bitterly.
Flutterfree opened the Bible to a spot toward the end. “…I think you need to read some of this, to remember who you were. At least somewhat.”
“Yeah. I will…” She stared down at the pages, studying intently.
Flutterfree pulled out her phone. “Pinkie? Rev’s been attacked. Her memory is either gone or stolen. We’re at her church. Soon as possible.” She put her phone away. “The team will be here shortly.”
Rev nodded slowly, engrossed in the pages of the Word. “I… I find that as I read, I just understand it. It’s like I always knew everything in here…”
“Do I seem familiar?” Flutterfree asked.
“…No. I’m sorry, you don’t give off the same feeling.”
“It’s okay. If your mind chose to latch onto anything, it would have been your beliefs. But we’re going to get the rest of it back, okay?”
“Okay,” Rev said, distant.
Flutterfree started to look around for clues – anything to see what happened. She unleashed Lolo at full strength, stretching out to find everything. She found nothing hidden in the room – but Rev started glowing white. This startled her so much she fired off a magic laser. “Wh… What!?”
“Oh! Sorry!” Flutterfree removed Lolo. “I was trying to find anything I could… I forgot that would have triggered any dormant powers within you.”
“Powers?”
“You were a powerful unicorn. You knew a lot of spells. I think I just awakened any of them you could cast from muscle memory.”
Rev blinked. She levitated the Bible into the air. She formed a simple shield in front of herself. She fired a laser into the floor. “…Huh…” She held up her hoof, creating a soft white glow around it. “I… I don’t understand any of this.” The white glow faltered and vanished.
“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”
Rev nodded slowly. “Flutterfree… Can you tell me who I am? I get that I’m a teacher of some kind but… who am I?”
Flutterfree smiled sadly. “You are a unicorn who spreads the Word of grace and love wherever she goes. You traveled the multiverse for a large portion of your life, learning a lot about the way existence works and how people are. You… treat everyone with kindness and understanding, and are a great thinker. You’re the wisest pony I know.”
“What good is wisdom if you can’t remember it?” Rev wondered aloud.
Flutterfree smirked.
“Ah. I see; I just produced a piece of wisdom. How paradoxical…”
It was at this moment Nova teleported herself, Pinkie, Vriska, and Jotaro into the church.
“Rev, this is Pinkie, Vriska, Jotaro, and Nova,” Flutterfree said.
“Are creatures with arms normal?” Rev asked.
“Now, yes,” Flutterfree answered.
Nova walked up to Rev. “Your memories really are gone… I’m sorry.”
Rev forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” Pinkie said. “Lots of inner turmoil.”
Rev sighed. “Mind reader?”
“That’d be me, not her,” Vriska said, kneeling down. “Though I’m not right now. I do want to go into your mind to see what I can find, though. I’ll need you to let me.”
Rev nodded. “It’s not like I have any secrets to hide right now or anything.”
Vriska nodded focusing her psychic powers onto Rev’s mind. Rev felt the power moving around in her head, but it wasn’t violent or dangerous, merely slightly uncomfortable. She was in there for about two minutes before coming out. “Someone tried to completely wipe you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you must have acted really quickly to retain any ability to speak or remember anything at all. All the memories you do have – speech, mannerisms, feelings – those are all fresh memories. Suggesting you placed them there yourself. Had you not managed that you’d be a vegetable right now.”
Rev stared right at her. “That’s terrifying.”
“No shit,” Vriska said. “I didn’t find anything to help us, though – any sort of actual memory is gone. You only kept some ideas and the essence of who you were. Nothing to tell us what actually happened to you.”
Flutterfree sighed. “And Rev doesn’t keep any cameras around the church. I didn’t see anything with Lolo either.”
Nova pulled out her phone. “Then we call in a favor. Someone who’ll be able to tell us what happened.” She put the phone to her ear. “Hello, Aradia? We need you at Rev’s church.”
Aradia appeared in front of them in a flash of time powers. “Here!”
Rev jumped at her sudden appearance. “Th-that was fast.”
Aradia smiled at her. “Yeah, I usually am. Or I’m pathetically slow.” She turned to Nova. “What’s the issue?”
“Rev’s memory was stolen,” Nova explained. “We have no way of figuring out what happened to her. Can you go back and see what happened?”
Aradia saluted. “Can-do! I’ll be back and we can talk about possible interference.” She vanished in a puff of time.
Rev blinked. “I should be a lot more weirded out by all of this than I am, huh?”
“You kept the ideaaas,” Pinkie said. “You’re already used to this stuff.”
“But I don’t have any experiences to be used to it upon! I’m missing the foundation of my ideas!” She grabbed her head. “That’s just not right!”
Flutterfree put a wing around her. “Rev, even if we can’t get your memories back… Nova and I can tell you who you were.”
“Not everything,” Rev said. “Not everything…”
Pinkie’s team looked around nervously.
~~~
Aradia made sure she appeared hidden in the past. She took a position outside one of the church’s windows, carefully watching. She accelerated time through Rev’s last sermon, watching as the entire church body moved out like a sea of ants. Only one man remained, talking to Rev. She slowed down time back to normal, listening to their conversation and taking mental notes.
Aradia knew exactly what Rev was talking about when she called Pucci a villain – a sad fact of the multiverse was that the religious types ended up turning evil so often. She was on Rev’s side in their little debate. But knowing what happened to Rev, Aradia knew the unicorn didn’t get through to Pucci.
She saw the disc removed from Rev’s head. She couldn’t see the Stand holding it, but that didn’t matter all that much. Pucci took the disc, pocketed it, and left the church without wasting a moment.
Aradia followed him. He took a step into the street of Ponyville and walked to a nearby alley. He took out a dimensional device, dialing a new location.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
Both Aradia and Pucci were very surprised to see Jotaro’s daughter Jolyne standing there. Her hair was green and done up in a style that resembled two pointed ears. Her face was stern, and her body fit. She was no longer a girl, or even a teenager – if Aradia had to guess from appearance alone, early twenties.
Pucci recovered from his surprise and put on a smile. “I am simply leaving this universe, young lady.”
“Yeah, that’s obvious,” Jolyne said, folding her arms. “But I thought you looked suspicious.” She gestured toward the church. “Glad I investigated. There’s a unicorn in there that looks like shit. So it looks like you’re the bad guy. And I like punching bad guys.”
Aradia knew this was fate – these two were destined to meet. Jolyne had no reason to be in this part of Ponyville at this hour. Every Jojo in the Joestar lineage had already faced their enemy… except Jolyne. The multiverse knocked before her time had come.
But some fates could not be denied.
Pucci narrowed his eyes, summoning his Stand, not that Aradia could see it. Neither could she see Jolyne’s, which made the resulting exchange very confusing to watch – and interesting.
“Stand, huh?” Jolyne said, smirking. “Mine’s Stone Free. Yours?”
“Whitesnake,” Pucci answered. “Your Stand’s ability is to stretch itself out into threads that can be manipulated with high finesse.”
“And I have no idea what yours does, but it can’t be good,” Jolyne commented.
Aradia saw Pucci’s limbs move out, pulled by invisible threads. Jolyne rushed him with her own body, leaping over an attack from Whitesnake and kicking Pucci in the face. She focused on Whitesnake, using her own Stand to tie the opposing spirit up. It must not have been as effective as desired, because something grabbed hold of Jolyne’s arm.
“Shit,” she swore, twisting her head to the side to avoid another attack. She swung her foot at Pucci but he pulled himself back by falling over. No matter how much Stand string was latched onto him, falling backward still worked to dodge the attack.
Whitesnake managed to get a hit on Jolyne’s head, knocking her silly and partially removing a disc. She used all her resources to keep Whitesnake at bay, but this freed Pucci to move. He grabbed hold of the disc poking out of her head, pulling it out the rest of the way with his own hand. She screamed, taking a few steps back – but she didn’t turn into a mindless vegetable.
“What did you do, asshole?”
Pucci pocketed the disc. “I took your Stand.” The hand of Whitesnake closed around Jolyne’s throat. “Now you can’t do anything to me.”
Jolyne struggled, but the crushing pressure on her windpipe told her that was a bad idea.
“You’ll be coming with me in case your father shows up,” Pucci said. “Ka works in mysterious ways, I hear, and it would not be much of a stretch to say that the man who killed Dio first would find his way to oppose me as well.” He opened the dimensional portal to another universe and dragged Jolyne with him to a land with pink skies.
Aradia slowed time to a crawl so she could follow – but the moment she passed through the dimensional barrier Pucci and Jolyne vanished.
“…Well then,” Aradia said. “He planned this well.” She checked her time powers in the land of pink skies. She could alter its flow, but she couldn’t travel backward. “Yeah…” He expected time travel to be used against him, so he went to a universe where it’s not allowed. I can’t interfere with the ‘past’ here, and when I tried to follow a ‘past’ connection I got shot to the local present. Fun. She pulled out her dimensional device and dialed Equis Vitis, walking back to the church the old fashioned way.
“We’ve got a couple problems,” Aradia said. “First off, he expected someone to try and use time against him, accounting for it by jumping to a universe where time travel isn’t possible. If I interfere with him while he’s in this universe, I just create a duplicate of him, and I don’t think I need to explain why that’s bad.”
“Who are you talking about?” Flutterfree asked.
“Oh, right. Probably should have started with that.” Aradia smiled awkwardly. “His name’s Father Enrico Pucci. Earth Stand, has a Stand named Whitesnake that can remove discs from people. He removed Rev’s memories… and the Stand of another person.”
“Who?”
Aradia looked at Jotaro. “I’m sorry, but your daughter fought him in a nearby alley, trying to stop him. She lost, and he took her Stand. She’s currently his hostage because he expected that you might try to follow him.”
Jotaro didn’t visibly react, but everyone who knew him knew he was inches away from going on a rampage. “He was right to expect that. We’re going after him.”
Pinkie nodded. “You got that right! Nova will trace the dimensional signatures!”
Rev stood up. “I’m coming.”
Flutterfree shook her head. “Rev, you need to-”
“I need to be there. This is my struggle as well.”
Aradia smiled. “I wish you all luck. Sorry I couldn’t give you much else.”
“It’s fine,” Pinkie said. “Get back to protecting time for us, we’ll take it from here.”
“We do need the coordinates, though,” Vriska pointed out.
Aradia pressed a button on her dimensional device, transmitting the connection. “There you are. Good luck!” She vanished in a puff of time.
Pinkie opened a portal to the land of pink skies. “Let’s go everybody! Time to get a memory disc from a priest!”
~~~
Jolyne and Pucci hadn’t stayed in the pink world very long. It had been nothing more than a stop to throw possible pursuers off their tail. The world they appeared in next was the Forest Universe.
Pucci allowed Whitesnake to release his hold on Jolyne now that they were far from the site of the incident. He sat down on a fallen tree and took Rev’s memory disc out of his pocket.
Jolyne tried to throw a punch, but Whitesnake just caught it.
“Calm yourself, Miss Kujo,” Pucci said. “I would rather not have to subdue you further. But it would not be difficult to render you to the state the unicorn was in.”
Jolyne managed to get a hold of her temper and folded her arms. “Fine. Care to explain what exactly your evil plan is?”
“You assume so much. You assume my goals are evil simply because my means are rather forward. All you know is that I’ve subdued a unicorn priest, that I knew Dio, and that I was able to best you in a fight.” He looked carefully at Rev’s disc. “I needed these memories to find my way to Heaven. She is not dead, and her friends will be able to support her back to the point in which she can live her life, of that I am sure. You attacked me out of nowhere, and I was forced to defend myself. As for Dio, you can rest easy I no longer follow his words like Gospel. It was a mistake to give Flagg that bone... ”
“That means you did follow Dio at some point,” Jolyne spat. “And he was pretty much the biggest evil there was.”
“Flagg,” was all Pucci said.
“Right, fine, not the worst, but still up there. Do you have any idea how many people he killed?”
“Untold numbers,” Pucci answered honestly. “But he knew the secrets to the world, and understood everything. Or so I thought.” He touched Rev’s disc to his head, beginning to sort through the memories. “In reality, this disc of a unicorn knows much more than he managed to piece together. What he uncovered was merely the ‘Heaven’ of our universe. Not a true Heaven. A pale imitation, not able to create perfection beyond Earth Stand. A-” He caught himself and laughed. “Once again, explaining my plans. Our world has a problem with that, doesn’t it?”
Jolyne didn’t dignify that with a response.
Pucci held the disc to his head, sifting through it, looking for a way to Heaven. She knew much about the ways of the Divine powers. Virtually none of it truly came from ‘On High’, and the things she believed did could be explained away with only a modicum of doubt.
Pucci furrowed his brow. There was really nothing of the true Heaven in here… But there were other Heavens. Powers that he could make use of to achieve the perfection he desired. The powers of Fate and Spirit… Yes…
“The Pinnacle,” he said, removing the Disc from his head.
“What?”
“Come along,” Pucci said, grabbing her by the neck again – softly this time, so anyone who saw her wouldn’t think she had an invisible hand around her throat. He opened a portal to a universe that had received a lot of attention lately: Elemental Eight. They appeared in the middle of a town composed mostly of electricitybenders, given the large towers that rose into the sky and the permanent stormcloud over the location.
Several people saw him appear. Most acted in surprise, but not fear – annoyance at worst. As the gateway to the D-Sphere, they’d been forced to get used to interdimensional traffic rather quickly.
“Wh-”
Pucci didn’t let Jolyne finish – he dialed Heaven Eight, taking the two of them through. Their bodies remained solid on the clouds for the moment, though Pucci knew it would not take long for their physical forms to become nothing more than illusions plastered over pure spirits. A curious and blasphemous shadow of Heaven.
Pucci knew his Stand would not be invisible to the angels of this world, but that was exactly what he wanted. One of them to notice his hold on Jolyne. Being angels, they would confront him.
It only took a second for one of them to appear. She pointed a finger at him, wings flayed. “Why do you have a hold on that woman?”
“Oh, I apologize,” Pucci said, releasing Whitesnake’s hold on Jolyne. “You are aware of Stands, yes?”
“Yes…”
Pucci ordered Whitesnake to move closer to him – and closer to the angel. “It’s simple, Whitesnake needs personal contact with an individual to activate its power. As you can see, I was not pressuring her neck t-”
“Don’t listen to him!” Jolyne blurted. “He’s trying to trick you!”
The angel smirked. “There’s n-“
Whitesnake tapped the angel in its spiritual core, removing the disc of her mind. Her humanoid appearance vanished, leaving behind just a mindless spark of energy.
Pucci smirked, pocketing the disc. That disc was going to be immensely useful. Combined with Rev’s… He had enough. He was certain of it.
Jolyne tried to punch Pucci again, but Whitesnake pushed her back.
“You have a one track mind, Miss Kujo,” Pucci observed, looking into the angel’s disc. He found coordinates to a D-Sphere universe that would work… as well as an interesting observation about blank angels. “Interesting…” He had Whitesnake use its other hand to grab hold of the mindless angel spirit and found that it could be given simple commands just by thinking at it. Without its own mind, the essence was highly impressionable.
Pucci checked inside his pockets, looking for a particular disc he had brought on the journey. It would be worthwhile to give it to this impressionable spirit.
“HEY!” they heard an angel shout. “WHAT’S GOING ON OVER THERE?”
Pucci quickly opened the portal and dragged his two prisoners with him, entering yet another universe of the D-Sphere, leaving Heaven Eight behind – to search for the Pinnacle.
~~~
Pinkie’s Party and Rev had traced Pucci’s travel to the Forest universe. Nova was busy using her screen and ring devices to analyze the dimensional flow of energy, trying to discover where they went next. Flutterfree was using Lolo to scan the area for clues, but only found a few natural magic stores within some of the trees. Vriska and Pinkie were to the side, talking about something pertaining to the mission.
This left Jotaro alone, staring into the distance at nothing.
Rev walked up to him, head down. “I’m sorry about this.”
Jotaro didn’t give any sign that he’d even heard her.
“I wasn’t able to do anything and I lost something of mine, and because of that, your daughter is in danger, being used as a hostage. I… I’ll do everything to get her back to you.”
Jotaro grabbed his hat. “Yare yare daze…”
“…Huh?”
“Stop whining. You’re not the reason Jolyne is captured.”
“Pucci wanted something from me!”
“And that had nothing to do with Jolyne being there.” He looked at her. “Hurry up and get over yourself so you can be useful in getting her back.”
This shut Rev right up. Jotaro left her utterly gobsmacked and walked over to Nova. “Have anything?”
“Yep, the next coordinates… Elemental Eight.”
“Three guesses where he went after that,” Vriska said while Pinkie opened the portal.
Flutterfree raised an eyebrow. “Heaven Eight, I guess?”
“This is good,” Nova said as they piled into Elemental Eight. “We don’t have to spend time scanning for a dimensional signature. We know where he’ll have gone.”
Pinkie dialed Heaven Eight. “Yeparooni! And we’re going to have an easy time finding the next place too!”
“Why?” Nova asked, stepping into Heaven Eight, feeling the substance of her body start to bleed away slowly. Rev found the feeling unfamiliar, but she didn’t find any reason to be particularly scared of turning into a pure spirit.
Pinkie pointed at the form of Usiel right in front of them. “Cause he knows where Pucci went!”
Usiel turned to Pinkie. “We were just about to call you – something terrible has happened. A dark-skinned man has taken one of our angels. We are unsure what he did – he escaped to another universe before we could do anything. No sign of him in the other universe.”
Nova tapped her devices. “We can fix that. Give us the coordinates. How long ago was this?”
“About fifteen local minutes.”
Usiel used his power to open up a portal to a realm of purple clouds. “The translation is safe, but jarring.”
“Oh boy, one of these,” Nova muttered. “Rev… Prepare yourself to feel like a pretzel.”
“Should have brought Eve,” Vriska muttered. “Seraphim-”
“Is impractical for long periods of time,” Jotaro stated. “We don’t know how many worlds we must chase them through.”
“Let’s move!” Pinkie said, leaping through with a smile. There was no gravity on the other side – she just drifted through the clouds. “Come on, the purple haze is great!”
Rev took a breath and stepped through. She instantly regretted going headfirst, because the instant disorientation made her tumble as she crossed through. Her body, which had been converting to an insubstantial form, suddenly gained more substance than it ever had before. Everything about her became condensed, heavy, and sluggish. She was swimming through liquid pitch as far as she was concerned, despite the scenery’s light, fluffy appearance. Her eyes soon stopped detecting any color whatsoever, replacing it with a strange ‘ping’ sensation that seemed to her as ‘white’ blips.
“What the…?” She managed to say, even though she knew she wasn’t using a mouth.
“He wasn’t kidding…” Flutterfree muttered, appearing on Rev’s perceptions as a handful of yellow dots that stood out against the otherwise monochrome scenery. “What even are we right now?”
“Normal matter cannot exist here,” Pinkie said, looking exactly like she normally did, which somehow made it all worse. “We’re… I’m going to call us dots.”
“Why was that so… fast!?” Rev blurted. “We were slowly fading in the other one!”
“Normal matter could exist in that universe, in a form,” Nova explained. “It… apparently can’t here.”
“Are your machines still able to work?” Flutterfree asked.
“They definitely can’t be called machines anymore, but I think they work,” Nova said. “The effects have been translated, like almost always.” She flowed her dots around a curved section of her, flashing with unusual colors. “Yeah, it works. I’ll get us out of here, I’m pretty sure we don’t want to fully convert and discover that sound is only ‘tertiarily’ accepted here. Or something. …Jotaro, you’re the scientist, explain it better.”
Jotaro grunted. “Drastic differences are removed quicker, minor ones are resolved over time. If a resolution is impossible things explode or death occurs. Changing too fast isn’t good for the mind.”
Rev tried to shake her head only to find that she had no motor control. “…Aren’t we supposed to be helping my mind?”
“This place is only physically annoying,” Pinkie said. “Thoughts are allowed, as is at least some kind of magic, and everything’s still three-dimensional. Your mind will be fine!”
Rev struggled to physically express her apprehension. “…Sure.”
“Got it,” Nova said, opening a portal. It took the shape of a star in front of them. “This is where they went based on the signatures left behind.” She cast a spell into it. “…Well it’d be safe if we were transitioning from a normal universe, but I can’t tell you anything for certain about these forms.”
“Fuck it,” Vriska shouted, jumping through the portal. She reverted to her regular troll self, but she grabbed her heart the moment she stood on the other side. “Hooooly… It’s like an engine in there…” She sat down, taking a rest. “Prepare for sudden inexplicable adrenaline burst.”
Everyone else followed.
~~~
Jolyne and Pucci were possibly the furthest thing from human at this point. They were sparks of energy. A handful of smaller, condensed sparks surrounded Pucci – the discs – while a large spark was the presence of Whitesnake, easily visible even to the spark that was a blank angel.
Jolyne was still in the grasp of Whitesnake. The Stand could still, at any moment, tear her mind from her ‘spark’ and give it to Pucci. She had considered jumping him while he was consulting both Rev’s and the angel’s ‘discs’ at the same time, but she knew she had no idea how this body worked. She couldn’t be certain a physical attack could even do anything. Did ‘physical’ even exist here?
She knew voices didn’t, because she’d tried to speak, but nothing had come out. Pucci had not said anything to her during their stay in this universe either. He just kept Whitesnake on her while he tried to figure out where to go next.
It was taking longer than normal. She wasn’t sure if this was to ‘allow our bodies to acclimate for further travel’ or because it was getting harder to find the ‘path to Heaven,’ whatever that shit meant. He was clearly off his rocker. That made him decidedly dangerous.
Also more deserving of a punch right to the nose. As soon as he actually had a nose again.
This was so confusing.
Pucci seemed to have figured something out, because he opened another portal, this time to a blank, white space. He and the angel spirit went through, dragging Jolyne along with them. When they entered the universe everything about them snapped into sharp focus. The sudden clarity of everything around them was jarring. Pucci was a human again, as was Jolyne. The angel spirit remained a featureless aura.
Pucci furrowed his brow. He tapped his foot on the white expanse. “Curious…”
“Baffled, are you?” Jolyne spat.
“Yes… This seems decidedly… normal.” He frowned. “Perhaps I made the wrong connection. We seem to have lowered ourselves.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Jolyne said, summoning the wiry blue form of Stone Free by reflex.
Pucci stared at her Stand. Then he looked in his coat pocket – he still had Stone Free’s disc. “Nani…?”
“Not questioning it,” Jolyne said, punching forward with Stone Free. The angel spirit reacted – summoning the Stand Pucci had given it. The World. Time froze, and the next thing Jolyne knew she was on the ground, dazed. “Ow…”
Pucci ordered Whitesnake to pull out Jolyne’s Stand disc – and it produced another disc for Stone Free. But Stone Free still clearly existed within Jolyne. Which made no sense.
It was then that Pucci understood. He smirked. “This is a dream world.”
“Eh?”
Pucci raised a hand and summoned a golden chalice to his hand. “It shapes itself based on what we think. You thought you had Stone Free in a moment of instinct, so you did. I thought I could take the Stand from you in a disc, so I did – but you still thought you had Stone Free, so you also kept it.”
“So… We aren’t really human right now, are we?”
“Presumably not,” Pucci declared. “…I wonder how far this dream goes…” He held out his hand, imagining a mountain. Only a couple of pine trees and a large rock appeared. “Clearly, very limited in scope…”
Jolyne narrowed her eyes. Something about this world made the priest think he was getting closer to his goal. Did he want the power to make dreams reality, perhaps? Would that be his ‘way to Heaven’?
She focused hard on her thoughts, creating a few dozen Stone Frees. “Heh.”
Pucci dispelled the ‘mountain’ and created a few dozen Whitesnakes. “You think this will work?”
“It’s a great idea.”
“It’s foolish. We have limits to our imagination, but I also have a real Whitesnake, and the spirit here has The World. You would lose.”
Jolyne clenched her fist – she knew he was right. Their ‘imagination’ power in this universe would be identical, and he had the edge. Damage to their ‘bodies’ could probably just be undone...
She let the Stone Frees stand down. “Fine. Where to next, Father?”
Pucci consulted the discs again – discovering almost instantly where they needed to go. “We’re in a place where the paths are easy to uncover. Because we can dream up portals to take us to the places we desire.” He waved his hand; opening to a universe much like the one they were in, except the expanse was completely black. “Come.”
When Jolyne resisted, Whitesnake grabbed her by the neck and pulled her through to the black expanse. They still manifested themselves as their human form, but something had changed. The world felt cold.
Pucci tried to generate a golden chalice – but nothing happened. He furrowed his brow, moving to consult the two discs for what to do next.
He didn’t get very far with them. A man appeared in front of him – a man Jolyne recognized from pictures.
Dio.
Pucci and Jolyne recoiled.
“An appropriate response,” Dio said, sneering. “The daughter of the man who killed me, and my closest disciple… or should I say traitor.”
Pucci summoned Whitesnake as a defense and ordered the spirit to summon The World. “You were wrong, Dio.”
“It was merely incomplete!” Dio declared. “The first step! Had you achieved Heaven you would have seen much more, and realized that my words were right all along!”
Pucci’s cold exterior faltered. “D-dio, I-”
Jolyne punched Dio. “Trick. This is a trick,” she declared. “You’re an illusion.”
Dio summoned The World, grabbing Jolyne’s neck with much more force than Whitesnake had been using. “Does this feel like an illusion, Little Jojo?”
The spirit’s version of The World and Whitesnake punched Dio. Whitesnake removed a ‘The World’ disc from Dio – but the vampire’s Stand still remained.
“Did you like doing that again?” Dio shouted. “Did it feel better now that I’m alive? Or do you prefer taking it from a corpse!?”
Whitesnake punched Dio into the ground. “You’re not real,” Pucci declared.
“Perhaps not,” a new voice said – that of a man with unusual poofy white hair. “Perhaps I’m not either, brother.”
“W-weather Report?” Pucci stuttered.
“Good grief…” Jotaro said, walking towards them. “All of you are embarrassments.”
“D-dad!?” Jolyne blurted.
Jotaro, Weather Report, and Dio cracked their knuckles and summoned their stands.
“Don’t look at Weather Report!” Pucci shouted. “He’ll turn you into a snail through your eyes!”
Jolyne forced her eyes shut. “I’d like Stone Free back now!”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Pucci said, driving a Stand disc into her – the version of The World he had just taken from Dio a few moments ago. “Stop time!”
Jolyne, the angel spirit, Jotaro, and Dio stopped time at the same moment, freezing Pucci and Weather Report. The angel spirit met Dio with The World, evenly matched.
Jolyne had to face her father. She allowed her eyes to open in the frozen time.
“Not real…” She said, trying her best to focus on using a Stand she’d never had before. She knew The World was stronger than Star Platinum in almost every way, but it didn’t have quite the same level of finesse or accuracy.
“ORA!” Jotaro yelled.
“ORA!” Jolyne yelled back.
The two Stands of the same type bashed at each other with rapidly moving punches, cycling back and forth in even time. Jolyne began to strain.
There’s no way I can beat Dad.
She realized with some horror that because she thought that, she was doomed to lose to him in this universe.
He got a punch off on her. She closed her eyes and time resumed. “We can’t win!” Jolyne declared. “Our minds dreamed up enemies we could never defeat!”
“I figured that out,” Pucci declared, trying his very best to fight the unimaginable power of Weather Report while blind. “We just need to buy enough time for me to consult the discs!”
“OR WE COULD JUST PACK UP AND GO HOME!”
“Swap!” Pucci shouted. “You get Weather Report, I’ll be able to fend Jotaro off while I process.”
“You’re underestimating my dad!”
“I can hold my own!”
The two flipped locations, Jolyne using the power of The World to make up for being essentially blind. She froze time and opened her eyes. She punched Weather Report through the face, not holding back in the slightest. He was just an illusion after all.
“ORA!” Jotaro yelled, rushing the frozen Pucci. Jolyne considered letting him die – but then she wouldn’t have a way back since she really had no idea what he was doing to take them from universe to universe. She launched herself physically at the visage of her father, taking a sideways hit across her stomach.
Then time resumed. No longer was Weather Report a danger. Pucci proved himself to be just as clever as Jolyne – having predicted where Jotaro was going to appear, he had Whitesnake ready, driving a copy of his Stand disc into him. The illusion wasn’t sure how to deal with two Stands in one body, dissipating in a puff of confusion.
“Get us out of here!” Jolyne blurted.
Pucci held the two discs to his head.
“AUGH! You’re too fix-”
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She whipped around, punching them across the face with The World.
It was Jotaro.
Again.
Behind him was another Weather Report.
She saw him activate his power… She felt her inner body start changing…
“Got it!” Pucci declared opening a portal. He dragged Jolyne through with him to another plane of whiteness, the angel spirit following.
“WRYYYYYYYYYY!” Dio called after them, upset that he had never done more than stalemate a mindless spirit.
The portal closed behind them.
Despite themselves, Pucci and Jolyne fell onto the ground, exhausted, breathing heavily.
~~~
Pinkie’s group and Rev appeared in a white expanse of nothingness.
Nova looked at her hooves. “Sweet. It’s good to be me.”
“That was too jarring of a change,” Vriska muttered. “We should be reeling more from it…”
Rev looked around, confused. “Is there nothing here? What are we standing on?”
Pinkie giggled. “We’re here, and we’re standing on a plane of functionally infinite size! Woo!”
Rev wasn’t satisfied with these answers but didn’t push it.
“Huh, the path is significantly easier to follow now,” Nova said, checking her leg screen. “Sweet. I can take us right to the next place. Goodbye, endless whiteness!”
Flutterfree held up a hoof. “Wait… Don’t you girls see?” She activated Lolo fully. “Nothing of us is actually here.”
All of them were nothing more than sparks of gray amongst the white.
“Huh,” Nova said. “…Odd.”
Nova opened the next portal. “We can come back and wonder about this later, right now we’ve got to follow them. If we can move quickly through the next few like we’ve been here, we’ll catch up.”
They entered the black expanse. Pinkie raised a hoof. “By the way, this is going to get a little screwy.”
“How so…?” Vriska asked.
Pinkie pointed at a version of the Doctor walking towards them from the blackness, a gun in hand.
“What the fuck…?” Vriska said, backing up instinctively.
“This is an embarrassment!” Joseph Joestar said, appearing from the side. “I gave my life for you people, and now look at what you’re doing! Scrambling through these universes with no way to go!”
Jotaro tensed. “This kind of screwy. I see…”
Sombra appeared in front of Nova. “Boop!”
A Pinkie with flat hair and a psychotic look appeared as well. “HI THERE! Time to kill ’em all!”
And Rev… saw an old man in a priest’s robe. He looked livid. “Starlight…”
“…Am I supposed to know you?” Rev asked, cocking her head.
“Wh-”
“Oh, you’re probably someone from my past right?” Rev smiled. “See, I have no idea what my past is. Sorry.”
“I am Fa-”
Flutterfree unleashed Lolo in full at every single illusion, touching them with a strand and dissipating them into nothing. “They aren’t really here. They were never really here. They were creations of our own mind.”
Jotaro dropped his fighting stance. “…You made that easy.”
“You’re welcome,” Flutterfree said, smiling warmly. “Nova?”
“Uh… Yeah,” Nova pressed some buttons on her screen. “I have i-”
“We’re going to have to talk about your vendetta against Sombra,” Flutterfree interrupted.
Nova sucked in a deep breath. “Let’s talk about that later.”
“Agreed,” Pinkie cheered. “TO THE NEXT WORLD!”
Jotaro lingered for a moment while the others piled into the open portal.
He thought, for a moment, that he had seen Jolyne’s corpse.
He couldn’t shake the image.
~~~
Pucci stood up before Jolyne, feeling the power of the world. “Jolyne…”
Jolyne blinked, looking around at the white expanse. “What, are we here?”
“Perhaps…” He held up his hand – and the white expanse was gone. They were on an Earth. Birds chirped, the leaves rustled, and a nearby brook babbled. Pucci smiled. “Ah… With but a wish, I created a perfect world…”
Jolyne tensed. Did he have what he wanted?
Pucci opened a portal to the first universe that connected. He imagined the perfect world growing into the void of stars he saw, and the plants did indeed move. But he frowned. “This power… This power is overwritten. The worlds will not accept permanent perfection from here.”
Jolyne put her hands on her shoulders. “Then why don’t you just take your perfect world you’ve made here and be happy with it?”
“That defeats the purpose,” Pucci declared. “The point of reaching Heaven – the Pinnacle – is to bring it back. Back to the worlds and all their broken uncertainties… To introduce a Fate much more certain and glorious than ka.”
Jolyne clenched her fist. “I was afraid you were going to say that…”
Pucci smirked. “What are you going to do about it?”
“The World,” Jolyne summoned, freezing time. The angel spirit noticed, moving through frozen time as well, but it wasn’t able to move fast enough. Jolyne reached into Pucci’s jacket and pulled out a particular disc, punching him with The World’s other hand just to add insult to injury. She allowed time to resume and forced the disc of Stone Free back into herself.
Pucci gaped. “H-how!? All the Stands I gathered from that world vanished upon transit!”
“I guess that happened because you believed they would. I believed I’d keep it.” Jolyne smirked. “And I also believe I can hold two stands. Because I’m just that much of a badass.”
The World and Stone Free appeared behind Jolyne. “Your move, Pucci.”
Pucci used his imagination to summon every Stand he could think of behind him and heal the wound on his face.
Jolyne did the same. “We’re both minds in this world, Pucci. We both do the same things!”
The ‘perfect world’ lost all sense of order. Gone were the plans of using Stands against each other – instead it became a contest of who could think of the most unpredictable attack. Pucci turned the world into fractals. Jolyne summoned to her side a million tiny bees made of pine needles. Pucci turned Jolyne into a snail. Jolyne imagined herself as a devourer of worlds, cutting through Pucci’s midsection. Pucci imagined himself as a holy angel, smiting all that was below him.
The mindless angel spirit just sat, unable to do anything in this battle of imagination.
“This is a stalemate!” Jolyne declared. “Just give up!”
“No it isn’t!” Pucci declared – pushing Whitesnake forward. “There are rules to this place.” He held Rev’s and the angel’s mental discs to his head. “I cannot take your Stands because of your belief… But I can take your belief!”
Whitesnake grabbed for Jolyne’s head. Jolyne created a new version of Whitesnake to meet him. “Not if I get yours first!”
Thousands upon thousands of Whitesnakes appeared, trying at all angles to reach their opponent. Trying to tear their mind out of their body. Space became nothing but Whitesnakes and the forms of Pucci and Jolyne.
Jolyne tried to think of something, anything to break the tie.
“Jolyne,” Pucci said. “Whitesnake has an ability you are not aware of.”
Jolyne paled. Then shook her head. “That doesn’t matter at all! I can give Whitesnake the ability to… To… TURN YOU INTO A SNAIL!”
Pucci became a snail. Jolyne smirked. “And now Whitesnake can extract discs at long range!”
Jolyne grabbed Pucci’s mental disc, holding it in her hands. “Heh. Gotcha.”
“Whitesnake can create illusions,” Pucci declared.
“Wh-”
The world shifted. Pucci’s disc was not in Jolyne’s hand. Instead, Pucci was pulling Jolyne’s mental disc out of her mind.
And Jolyne’s thoughts went blank. Her Whitesnakes vanished from the universe. In an instant Pucci transformed the world back into his ‘perfect world’ now that he was uncontested. He caught Jolyne and set her down on the grass below, next to the angel spirit. He pocketed her mental disc, smirking.
He had won.
Now all he had to do was use the immense power in this universe to climb to the place he needed to go. The absolute dominion he had here… It should be enough to cut to anywhere he wanted. No more steps. He would go right there. Or as close as the energy in this world would let him. H-
Jotaro punched him across the face with Star Platinum a hundred times in the middle of stopped time. It should have been enough to kill – but Pucci just imagined himself back to normal.
Pinkie’s team and Rev had arrived, ready for a fight.
Pucci smiled warmly. He imagined chains around all six of them that could not be broken. He knew they had not yet figured out what mental control they had over the world – and he didn’t plan to tax them enough to let them realize. “Ah, you’re early,” he said, creating six metallic pillars in the background. “Welcome to the perfect world.”
“What’s so perfect about it?” Flutterfree asked.
“Wh-”
“Everyone, this is just a dream world,” Pinkie said, popping out of her chains and transforming into a pink alicorn the size of a small mountain. “Don’t let him distract you. Any of us can do anything here.”
Pucci stared at her, aghast. “How did-”
“Easy. I’m Aware.” She slammed his body into the ground with a hammer the size of a galaxy. “Celestia it feels good to say that.”
Pucci grunted, completely unharmed. “You know there’s no win condition in this world the-”
Pinkie summoned a Whitesnake to her. “Nuh-uh. I totally saw how you beat Jolyne.”
Pucci knew he couldn’t win in this universe. So he had to try something desperate.
He ejected himself into another universe.
Pinkie clearly hadn’t been expecting this move, staring at him in confusion. She recovered quickly, charging after him.
Pucci had all the time he needed – he wasn’t reverting back to standard physics right away. He would retain the power of the dream world for a short time. He summoned the six pillars he had created earlier to him and accessed Rev’s disc. He plugged the information into the pillars, and they tapped into a universe much higher than the one he had just been in.
A bolt of lightning came from everywhere at once, and yet nowhere. It engulfed Pucci and Whitesnake. Their bodies vanished, leaving only the discs behind, floating in space.
“…Did he blow up?” Flutterfree asked, cocking her head to the side.
“Yare yare daze, Icarus flew too close to the sun,” Jotaro commented, grabbing his hat.
“He got what he wanted,” Pinkie said. “It’s not over. That was too anticlimactic.” She grabbed the discs, searching through them. “Right… Here’s Jolyne’s a-”
In a flash of white light, Pucci appeared again. He had fused his form with Whitesnake, becoming a human with black stripes and a black crown-like protrusion growing directly from his skull. His eyes glowed with bright pinkish-purple power, and a cape that burned blue had appeared on his back.
“I’ve done it,” he said. “I am second only to God…”
Pinkie stuffed Rev’s disc back into the unicorn’s mind, quickly. The pink pony was not allowed to replace any others, being frozen in place by an invisible force.
“You try in vain,” Pucci declared, widening the dimensional opening between the dream world and the physical realm he floated in. “I do not change. Not anymore. Now, I am above. I can shape this world into the perfection it needs… And then I can move onto the next… And the next…”
Rev threw a Bible in his face. “DID YOU EVEN READ THIS THING!?”
“Back, are you?” Pucci asked, pulling the Bible off his face. “I am exceptionally well versed in its contents. I became a Father, after al-”
“Right, so, explain to me a few things,” Rev demanded. “How in the name of the Most High can you justify what you’re doing!?”
“I am giving the worlds perfection.”
“THAT IS NOT YOUR JOB!” Rev screamed. “THAT IS GOD’S AND GOD’S ALONE!”
“He uses me.”
“Open to Revelation. Read about the end of times. Perfection will not be achieved in this life, Pucci! Or we could go anywhere else that talks about the soul being purified, or – oh! How about we look at the passages that discuss when God speaks to people? He doesn’t order things against His nature!”
“The Old Testament wars, Rev.”
“You and I both know those had purposes,” Rev growled. “You also know that the Word speaks of peace, understanding, grace, and forgiveness! What you’re doing is not peaceful! It is power hungry, promotes pride, and removes the free will we were given!”
“I do not force them to believe,” Pucci declared. “I will merely force them into beautiful predestination. No uncertainty anymore. The perfect worlds will operate precisely as needed…”
“No man deserves the right to determine the existence of free will!”
“I am in the position to do so, am I not? I have been to the Pinnacle and become the One!”
“You are not the One Above All,” Rev spat. “That is the being second only to God. You aren’t even one of Them. You saw into this disc of mine! You should remember Them!”
“You never met Them,” Pucci declared. “Nor did you meet the One Above All. You act merely on rumors.”
“I’d also never been to the Pinnacle, merely knew of methods by which people tried to find it,” Rev declared. “Why do you think so few people find the Pinnacle? It’s one of those things that doesn’t want to be found!”
Pucci shrugged. “Perhaps I am not as strong as I need to be to remove this dreadful uncertainty from the world… But this is a start. I will find the Pinnacle with this power.”
“Famous last words,” Rev said. “…Do you have any idea how many people have probably said that?”
“Billions,” Pinkie said. “It’s been billions.”
Pucci turned to her. “…You know that.”
“I do. You won’t get to the Pinnacle, Pucci.” She sighed. “And it won’t be the instant-win you want it to be, either.”
Pucci faltered for the first time in the conversation, doubt crossing his face. But he recovered quickly. “Then I will work with what I have. I’ve been given this power – I will bless all the worlds I can.”
“And we have to stop you,” Jotaro decreed.
Pucci smiled the smile of a father whose son had just said something unbelievably stupid. “Jotaro, you can’t do anything to me.” He pointed, and the physical universe he was in was rewritten with new stars and planets, creating a real ‘perfect’ world. “Universes are my plaything. I have the power of a dreamscape in realspace!”
“And we’re currently standing in a dreamscape,” Jolyne said, having just had her disc inserted back into herself by a well-aimed teleport from Nova. “We have the same power right now. And there’s seven of us.”
Pucci decided to cut and run, creating a portal – but Flutterfree’s imagination closed the portal.
The seven of them imagined themselves on the other side of the tear between the dreamscape and the realspace. “We may acclimate slowly to the physics of this universe…” Nova began.
“But that’s going to take at least a few minutes,” Rev declared. “Until then…”
Pinkie created two planet-sized scythes. “GO NUTS!”
Jotaro summoned the Ora to end all Oras – the fist larger than their field of view. Pucci’s physical form was punched to the side, only for a Pink Planet to devour him, candy corn teeth proving to be exceptionally sharp. Jolyne tied him up with Stone Free, imagining each strand of her Stand to be termites with supernova-like attacks.
Pucci resorted to his ability as Whitesnake – pulling the memory disc out of Jolyne.
Pinkie giggled, creating a replacement disc and placing it in her head. “Fun, isn’t it, Father?”
“NO!” Pucci shouted. “THIS IS NOT FUN!”
Nova created a crystal lattice of five dimensions. Flutterfree created a bunch of reality-tearing rabbits. Jotaro kept using the Ora to end all Oras. Jolyne twisted Pucci around and drove him into a woodchipper. Pinkie turned herself into an Eldritch Creature and burrowed herself into his mind. Vriska rolled 8-8s as many times as she wanted, achieving luck beyond comprehension, slicing him into millions of pieces.
The angel appeared, mind restored, still wielding The World. Pucci tore the disc from him. “You don’t deserve that…”
“Who needs it?” The angel decreed, smiting Pucci with holy light and what appeared as the Hand of her Lord.
Pucci reformed once again. He laughed. “You can’t do anything! Your powers may be equal to mine – but I know I can’t be beaten! I just imagine myself back to full! And unlike you, I have no timer!”
“You’re wrong,” Rev said, appearing behind him. An immense cross silhouette appeared behind her, shimmering along the edges like an eclipse. “You’re not immune to judgment, no matter how much power you have.”
Doubt crossed Pucci’s face. “Rev…”
Rev’s eyes went white and her cross necklace began to levitate. “Father Enrico Pucci. You have defied the teachings of Christ and our Lord. You have sought violence and power for yourself. You planned to rewrite the glorious creation with one completely of your own, denying our Creator in the process.”
“I did no such thing.”
Rev pointed a hoof. “Yes you did, Enrico Pucci. You have engaged in idolatry, assisted the lord of lies in his plans, and lived in the ways of the world. You have corrupted the message of the Gospel beyond recognition, to the point not just of blasphemy, but misrepresentation of what we are supposed to stand for.” She blinked, her eyes glowing brighter.
“Enrico Pucci, by the power vested in me by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I declare your time in this existence is over. It is time for you to move onto the next life. See you in Heaven.”
“No… Please! Lord! You sent me on this mission! You put it upon my heart! Yo-”
The white light enveloped Pucci – and in a scream, he vanished, leaving nothing behind.
Rev stopped glowing and shook her head. “Oooog…”
“YOU DID IT!” Flutterfree cheered. “You performed a miracle, Rev!”
Nova rolled her eyes. “She just used her knowledge of Pucci to convince him he could die, and since his power was one of dreams, it meant he would die.”
Flutterfree folded her arms. “I think it was more than that.”
Nova turned to Rev. “What do you think?”
Rev simply smiled knowingly. She said nothing.
“Oh, don’t you dare…”
Flutterfree blinked. “…She’s not going to tell us what she thinks.”
“I don’t care if there’s some doctrine of being ‘humble’ she’s following, this is bull,” Nova blurted. “REV! Hey REV! Come back here!”
“Does it really matter what I think?” Rev asked. “It won’t change what either of you believe in this case, will it?”
Neither of them had a response to that.
Jotaro floated over to his daughter. “Jolyne…”
“About time you showed up, da-”
He pulled her into a hug.
“D-dad! I’m not a ki-” He squeezed harder, keeping her from talking. She flailed for a few seconds before accepting the embrace.
Pinkie appeared on top of Vriska’s head. “Well, that’s that! We stopped Enrico Pucci from unleashing ‘perfection’ on the multiverse! Woo!”
“Yeah. I don’t feel like I did much,” Vriska admitted.
“You weren’t all that important to the drama going on,” Pinkie admitted. “It was focused on Rev and Jotaro. I didn’t even get to do much this time, it’s a weird feeling!”
“You being open about this is a little weirder, in my mind.”
“Well, how’s this for weird? Originally, Pucci was supposed to be Jolyne’s nemesis. He would have reset Earth Stand if we hadn’t showed up and fixed things back then.”
“Huh.” Vriska pondered this. “Yeah I don’t know how to feel about that, Pinkie. I’m just going to accept this as a good ending and roll with it.”
Pinkie grinned. “There is one thing here that’s not just a dream construct that will vanish later.” Pinkie pulled the disc of The World out of nowhere. “We’ve still got this.”
“MINE!” Vriska shouted.
“Ah ah ah!” Pinkie said, pulling it away. “Nope! You’ve got enough. We’ll be sending this to the Research Division, see what they can do with it. Replicating Whitesnake’s ability would be very helpful.”
“Aw…. Fine.”
Jotaro and Jolyne released each other.
“…I’m proud of you,” Jotaro said.
“Dad…”
“I’m serious. You handled yourself well. You and Pucci had to have gotten through that dark illusion world somehow. You fought valiantly. And you knew exactly what to do when you came to.”
Jolyne rubbed the back of her head. “…Yeah, I am a pretty big deal, I guess.”
“It seems I forgot to teach you humility.”
“Yep!” Jolyne said, smirking. “And it’s faaaaaar too late to start now!”
“I can try.”
Jolyne shook her head. “Yare yare dawa…”
“Like father like daughter,” Vriska commented.
“Sorry to cut this short!” Pinkie said. “But our dream powers are going to dissipate REALLY soon and then we won’t be able to breathe in the vacuum of space! We should get back home!”
Rev nodded. “Yeah… We should. But I want to say something first.” She looked to them all. “Thank you for dropping everything to help me. We may not agree on… well, much of anything, really. But it’s humbling to know the lengths you’re willing to go through for somepony like me.” She bowed her head. “I am in your debt.”
“You beat him,” Vriska pointed out. “Let’s call it even.”
“Let’s call it friendship,” Pinkie corrected, giggling.
They laughed together.