Summer Shine found herself sitting in Sugarcube Corner again the next day, but this time, their table was a lot bigger and it was overflowing with food and people.
Her mother had called her friends together for an urgent meeting and some of them had brought their children, or at least, some of their children, and she had just found out why: They were all Stand users too. Well, except for Prism.
“Man, seriously, why do all of you get all this power and I’m just plain ol’ me?” Prism Dash threw her hands into the air and complained. “I’m missing out on the party!”
“Trust me, Prism, you’re not.” Jostle Joyride said from across the table. He had on a plain green shirt with stars patterned on it and he looked like he was going on some holiday to Hawaii. “So is this meeting important? I was gonna go away for the holidays to Hawaii. I really need a break from all the metal and fire.”
Oh, looks like I was right.
“School isn’t out yet and you were going to go on a trip?” Rainbow Dash laughed. “Man, you really are a slacker, Jojo. Always have been.” Then she looked at his son, who looked up when he heard his name being called. “Uh, not you, Jojo. Uh, Cajole. Man, you guys had to do this, huh? With the same names.”
“Nah, Jojo’s fine on his homework. He was going to do it overseas.” Jostle placed an arm around his son’s chair.
“Yeah, I’m doing fine in my classes anyway.” Cajole put down the pen he had been scribbling with. “Mr. Cranky Doodle says I don’t even have to be in class.”
“He’s still teaching, huh?” Rainbow twiddled with the straw to her juice. “That old goat doesn’t know when to retire.”
“Oh, come on, don’t say that!” Pinkie Pie popped in between them carrying two trays of cakes. “If he likes what he’s doing then he can feel free to teach forever! Here, order of chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream cake!”
“Is there any reason we only ordered cakes?” Summer rubbed at her stomach as it growled from within. “We should have some normal food too. It’s lunch time.”
“Fuchs this…” Fuchsia Blush pushed her chair back and stood up. “Why am I even here? Can I get back behind the counter?”
“Fuchsiaaaaa…” Pinkie shook her head. “What did we talk about?”
“We talked about it not being an actual swear word.” Fuchsia sighed. “This is boring. There’s no meaning to this. I want to go make cakes instead…”
“Dad, is it really?” Cajole looked at her with intrigue. “It sounds offensive, but it isn’t the real word.”
Jostle Joyride suddenly pointed at Sunset after folding his arm close to his chest. His other hand flew up and rested against his forehead. “Sushi, your next words are, ‘We don’t have time for this, I called you all here to discuss something important.’”
Sunset slapped a hand on the table to get their attention. “We don’t have time for this! I called you all here to discuss something important.” Then she jumped back in shock. “Jojo, you did it again. Seriously, how do you do that?”
“Trade secret, remember?” Jojo smirked and folded his arms. “So, what’s up, Sushi?”
“So…” Sunset folded her hands together and leaned closer at the table. “Just yesterday, Summer and I were attacked. At our own home.”
“What? Really, we missed that?” Rainbow made a disappointed face. “We were there. The killer must’ve waited for us to leave before attacking. They wouldn’t have been able to handle Rainbow ‘Danger’ Dash.”
“Yeah, and if I had a Stand, they would already be begging for forgiveness,” Prism added. “So what happened?”
“So this guy called Timber Spruce attacked us,” Summer began. “Mom said he used to run some camp in the Everfree or something. But turns out, he’s the boyfriend of this girl who mom and the others killed on their adventure to save the world.”
“Twilight Sparkle.” Sunset mimicked shooting a gun. “Remember? She had the Stand that was a ray gun.”
“Oh yeah! I remember that!” Pinkie returned with a plate of fries. “And she had the dog that could stop us from moving! What was his name again? Spork? Spoke? Spake? I know it had something to do with speaking.”
“Timber would’ve killed you first, Pinkie, if he heard you say that,” Sunset chuckled. “His name was Spike and Timber was really upset we killed him as well. He kept going on about how he had so much potential.”
“No idea what he’s going on about,” Rainbow snorted. “It’s a dog. Big deal. Plus, he was helping Twilight attack us, so I call self-defense. So this Timber guy. He’s croaked?”
Sunset nodded. “And we have Summer to thank for that. She got him all on her own. I guess I’m a little rusty. He got the jump on me.”
“He managed to surprise you?” Prism repeated. “Maybe you should invest in better home security.”
“We’ve never needed it till now.” Sunset shrugged. “I never lock my doors and we’ve never been robbed. Besides, he got me outside anyway.”
“So what’s the problem? You've dealt with the threat. Quite well, I may add.” Jostle gave Summer a slap on the back. “Nice first time, Sushi!”
“It’s what he said that troubles me…” Sunset looked at her faint reflection in the glass of her drink. “There’s a plot of world domination.”
“Again? Really?” Rainbow kicked a foot against the table’s legs. “One Cinch plot to take over the world was enough for my lifetime.”
“Apparently Cinch used to be a part of Timber’s organization or something. But Timber mentioned something. That they were tracing gold to something. Whatever they’re looking for must be underground.”
“Wait, gold?” Jojo leaned forward. “Gold like… mining for gold?”
“Well, I would think so…” Sunset rubbed her chin. “You know something, Jojo?”
“Pinkie, could I have a newspaper?” Jojo waved for the pink girl’s attention. “I thought I saw something in the news this morning.”
“Here’s one!” Pinkie dug around behind her apron and pulled up a newspaper. She flipped through it and grinned. “Here! Booming Nugget Run in Germany!”
She slapped it to the table. The article had a picture of all kinds of people in a mad rush towards the camera. A lot of them carried pickaxes, while some carried drills and other technological equipment.
“Nugget Run?” Prism said aloud. “What’s a Nugget Run?”
Cajole put down his pen, then raised a finger. “I can answer this. A Nugget Run is basically the same thing as a Gold Rush. When signs of gold are found and news gets out, people flock to the excavation site from all over the world, looking to score themselves some gold. In the case of Nugget Runs, the gold is found in nuggets instead of giant ore veins. An odd phenomenon, but it occurs in various parts of the world and in this case, in Germany.”
“Germany…” Summer looked at the picture in the article. “Do you think this is what Timber meant? Do you think there’s some kind of secret weapon down there?”
“It can’t be anything good.” Sunset clenched her fists. “What if it’s another plot like Cinch’s to take over the whole world with the power of Stands? If there’s another Stand Geode down there, we can’t let that fall into evil hands.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Prism stood up and placed one foot on her chair. “Let’s go to Germany!”
“Woah, hold your horses, young’un.” Rainbow tugged on her daughter’s ponytail and sat her back down. “You’re not going anywhere. We don’t even know what this baddie organization really is. We can’t make any decisions based on the word of one man.”
“But what if it’s true? We’re wasting time sitting here,” Prism protested. “We’re letting the bad guys carry on with their plan while we decide if they’re real or not.”
“Timber could’ve been lying,” Summer shrugged. “We don’t have anything concrete to go on.”
“You know, somehow, I don’t think that’s true.” Jostle Joyride flicked his fingers together. “Research time. Time to see if the old family line had any information on something like this. Lesson number two: A Jojo is resourceful as is his family knowledge.”
“What if we’re attacked again?” Pinkie came back and danced around her friends. “Sushi got attacked. If we don’t want to become sashimi ourselves, we should get ahead of them!”
“I’m sure Jojo and I can take care of ourselves!” Jostle Joyride slapped his son across the back as he was taking a bite from his burger, and a slice of tomato spun out of his mouth across the room. Summer had to duck to the side to avoid getting smacked in the face with it. “Hey, don’t sweat it. We’ve dealt with enemy Stand users before, haven’t we? I mean, me more so than the rest of you, but still, it’s a shared experience.”
“Jojo’s got a point.” Pinkie shrugged and grinned widely. “I know! Just in case, Fuchsia and I will see if we can get passage to Germany!”
“Do we have to?” Fuchsia grumbled.
“Settled! And my son and I will do what we can to find out just what your Timber Bruce was talking about!” Jojo flexed and flipped one thumb up.
“Timber Spruce,” Summer corrected him.
“Yeah. That’s what I said.” Jojo cleared his throat and got up. “Come on, Jojo, let’s go.”
He made for the door and whistled for his son to follow. Cajole Joyride said his goodbyes to the group and followed behind his father. This Jojo wasn’t the best of fighters, having studied more than he had trained to fight, especially with hamon, but he was confident enough that he could hold his own in a Stand battle.
Cajole had first discovered his Stand almost ten years ago and his father couldn’t have been any more pleased with that. As early as six years old, he could already call up his Stand and command it, and by eleven, he had mastered his Stand’s power, though in his opinion, there wasn’t much to master.
“Hey, dad?” he called as he caught up with Jostle. “What do you think’s out there in Germany? Do you think there’s really some organization that’s after us now?”
The older Jojo shrugged and pursed his lips together. “Who knows? But our records are old and stretched far. We might be able to find out something as long as an older Jojo had dealt with it before.” He reached a hand skyward and spread his legs out wider. “White Buffalo!”
Jojo’s Stand made itself known beside them, its engines rumbling as steam puffed from its buffalo skull above the handlebars. Cajole knew his father’s Stand well and he had always thought it was weird that a Stand could be just a motorbike, but it didn’t make it any less cool. After all, it could breathe fire and, in his own words, fart fire to go faster.
He got on behind his father and before he could even make sure he was sitting there securely, Jostle Joyride gunned his Stand and they were off down the street faster than he could say ‘Speed’.
Their home was outside of town, meaning it took a sizable amount of time to get there, though it wasn’t as far as Summer’s house, which was all the way out in the woods. Jojo’s house was a giant mansion in a suburb, complete with a fountain at the driveway where cars could go around to drop off their passengers.
With how fast White Buffalo could travel, they soon found themselves heading down the long driveway after their front gates, which had been emblazoned with the family crest, which was a single star that was slightly askew. Cajole had never asked why it was so, but he didn’t mind. He did enjoy stargazing himself and it made him feel like he could be one of the stars up there in the night sky. A silly idea, he knew, but he wished he could be up amongst the stars one day.
“Home sweet home,” Jostle said as they slid to a stop.
Cajole looked up at the rows of windows along the two storeys, but something was wrong. All the lights should’ve been off, but there was an orange glow coming from one of the windows and the air around them smelt weird.
“Fire…” Cajole breathed as he got off his father’s Stand. “Dad, there’s a fire!”
All of a sudden, the window shattered outwards, sending glass spilling down towards them.
Jostle righted himself and looked through the window. The fire inside was twisting and turning all the way up to the ceiling. “The library. The Jojo Texts! This must be the work of an enemy Stand.”
“So they already know we’re on to them, after Summer killed that Timber,” the younger Jojo dusted shards of glass from his cyan hair. “And they knew we had a library of texts passed down through the ages. Whoever we’re up against, they know how things work. They knew we had a wealth of information stored in the family house. They know we have something that could point us towards their goal.”
“Good assumption, Jojo.” Jostle Joyride kept his eyes peeled around their estate. The fire was still raging and judging from what was burning at the moment, the fire had only started minutes before their arrival, which meant that… “Eyes up, Jojo. We’ve got company.”
Up above, there was another explosion, tearing apart part of the mansion’s facade, before a figure descended down towards them, clad in fire.