Cajole Joyride rolled away from the front of their house as a being with fire coming out of its shoulders in arcs around it landed just where he and his father had been standing, blasting up rubble into the air as it crashed into the cobbled floor.
“Jojoooo!” a voice came from inside their house as the Stand lifted one arm, firing fiery rings at them.
Jostle Joyride summoned White Buffalo and spun it around before releasing Faster than Fire from its exhaust pipe, blanketing the air around them in a cloud of flame. Sometimes, you just had to fight fire with fire.
“Except when fire isn’t yours…” the voice cackled and suddenly, the cloud of fire folded back over the two Jojos.
Jostle quickly threw himself over his son and covered him as much as he could as the flames rained down over them. Cajole looked up at his father and rolled his eyes. His father had forgotten one important thing about his Stand.
“Tenacious D!”
As he shoved him out of the way, Cajole’s Stand erupted from within him and rolled forward with a fist held up to the encroaching flames, using its body to protect the two Jojos.
When the fire subsided, there it stood, Cajole’s bright red Stand. It had the head of a bull and wheels in place of legs, and steam puffed from its nostrils as it pounded one hand on the ground, waiting for the enemy to make their next move.
“Fire resistance, eh?” A figure appeared at the broken wall, clapping. He had blue hair and pale white skin, almost like he never went out into the sun ever. “If you think that would faze me, then think again. After everything you’ve done to my family, you’re going to pay with that for your lives.”
“Another of these weirdos, huh?” Jostle stood and rearranged his blue hair. “Nice thinking, Jojo. You’re right in assuming I would’ve forgotten about your fire resistance. Now as for our mysterious opponent, let me guess, you’re somehow related to Twilight Sparkle or Spike, the dog with potential that everyone loves?”
The interloper raised a finger at them. “That’s right! Twilight was my sister and you took her from me. And then you had to kill Spike as well, and just yesterday, Twily’s boyfriend, Timber Spruce. His sister has hired me to take you down and I couldn’t have agreed on a better opportunity to tear you and your team apart. I am Shining Armor, and me and my Stand, Napalm Death, are going to burn you to a crisp, and then burn you some more!”
“Not if you can’t burn it, you can’t.” Cajole raised a fist and reached his other arm behind his back, before sliding one foot back and turning his foot to the side.
As his brown jacket billowed in the wind behind him, he quickly threw his fist forward and Tenacious D followed suit, spinning its wheels hard enough to release a cloud of steam into the air. It sped towards Shining Armor’s Napalm Death as the enemy Stand unleashed another torrent of fire from its shoulders, but Tenacious D powered through it, resisting its high temperature as it swung a fist at the enemy.
Napalm Death took it to the shoulder, which looked like a bumpy plate of metal, then spun on one leg and swept the other one low, but Tenacious D didn’t have any legs to get swatted on its back. Instead, it bent low and drove forward, spearing both its horns through Napalm’s chest.
Shining Armor grabbed for his own chest and coughed up blood as two holes appeared through his black sweater, but then Napalm Death caught it and kept them from pushing in deeper.
“Wow, you almost got me there, I’ll give you that one.” Shining wiped his mouth and smirked. “But that won’t happen again.”
“We’ll see about that. All you can do is burn,” Cajole said. “Tenacious D is resistant to your attacks.”
Shining Armor guffawed. “You think burning’s all I’ve got? Napalm Death can wield fire in ways you never would’ve imagined.”
The flames spewing from its shoulders wrapped around its arms, then flowed down to its palms before extending themselves into fiery whips. With them, Napalm Death lashed out at Tenacious D and caught it around one of the horns. It flicked its arm up and Tenacious D was thrown into the air, before being slammed back into the ground, cracking it and sending debris up into the air.
Cajole fell back and clutched at his chest. Jostle raced to his son and helped him up as White Buffalo raced to the enemy, its horns already snaking away from its skull and curling around in the air towards Napalm Death.
“You think that’ll work on me?” Shining Armor folded his arms and looked down at them.
Napalm’s fiery whips lashed out and caught White Buffalo’s horns before they could reach it. Already, Jostle Joyride could feel his head heating up almost like the whips were directly on his own head. It swung its fire over its head, then lifted White Buffalo from the ground and threw it to a nearby tree. White Buffalo crashed against it and split it in half. Jostle flew a good distance too and cried out in pain as he collided with the stone floor.
“You will be the first of Sushi’s friends to die.” Shining Armor leaned against the broken wall. “Every single one of you. You will all pay for the murder of my beloved sister and beloved pet. And Gloriosa’s brother as well.”
“So you’re all part of that group, huh? The group that plans to unearth something in Germany?” Jostle got up and tensed his muscles, ready for anything. “And you knew we had something on it, so you came to our home and burned our library.”
“That’s right. Your Jojo family line has the habit of getting mixed up in business unrelated to them,” Shining began. “Weather Alternate intends to awaken the very beings that once ruled this land. Soon, everything will be as it once was, as it was intended. Although, I couldn’t care less about their plan. All I want is the heads of every single one of you responsible for my sister’s death. Starting with you Jojos.”
“Then why burn our library?” Cajole stepped closer to their home and waved a finger at him. “If you don’t care about their grand scheme, then you didn’t have to burn down our library. Inside, you do care about it.”
“You ask questions you will never understand.” Shining cut one hand to the side. “Now, Napalm Death will finish you.”
Below him, his Stand leapt up into the air, forming the fire in its hands into guns, raining down fiery bullets around the two Jojos. Tenacious D reversed and brought itself between them and Napalm’s onslaught. The fire didn’t affect it, but each bullet pelted against its body like hail and Cajole was beginning to feel sore from the multitude of bullets his Stand was taking. They had to do something fast.
Unfortunately for Shining Armor, Tenacious D’s fire resistance wasn’t its only strength.
Napalm Death brought its hands together and a giant broadsword of fire the length of a two-storey house formed between its hands. It swung it to the side, forcing the two Jojos to drop to the ground and push their bodies as low as they could as the flaming blade passed overhead. After that, Napalm brought it up above its head, holding it high as fire began to pool into it from its shoulders, making it grow bigger.
“You fools, now you will die and your entire estate will evaporate along with your burning corpses!” Shining brushed one hand through his hair while the other one pointed a thumb at them degradingly. “Napalm Death is now drawing more fire and the more fire it puts into its attacks, the more powerful they get and I don’t care how resistant your Stand is to fire. Get ready to burn! For Twily! For Spike, the most amazing being ever, and for Timber!”
“It was just… a freaking… dog!” Jojo shouted over the crackling of the flames. “And you haven’t won yet, you tool!”
Tenacious D revved its wheels like a motorcycle and charged towards Napalm Death. Shining Armor’s Stand swung its even bigger sword to intercept, but Tenacious D suddenly seemed to gain a burst of speed, rocketing under the fiery greatsword and catching Napalm Death in a foe-tossing charge.
Napalm Death crashed to the ground behind Tenacious D and Shining Armor grabbed for his chest and dropped to a knee. The fire around his Stand vanished into thin air as it released the sword’s grip from its hands.
“What did you just do?” he gasped.
“That’s one of Tenacious D’s strongest attacks.” Cajole turned his body sideways, folded his arms and spread his legs a little further apart. “With wheels for legs, it can suddenly gain a burst of speed, accelerating straight from zero to a hundred in a mere blink of an eye. I can’t even see it move and in that instant, though it cannot turn once it starts, it’ll run you through before you even know it.”
“I’ll show you… running you through…” Shining Armor waved a hand and brought his palm up towards Cajole. “Napalm Death, pound him blue! Avenge my sister and her boyfriend and her precious dog!”
Napalm Death was about to get up, but Cajole wasn’t about to let it form another giant sword to kill them with. Speeding over, Tenacious D brought up both arms and formed them into fists and before Napalm could even lift a hand to blast its face full of fire, Tenacious D had already begun punching, raining blows all across Napalm Death’s body, beating it so hard that fist-shaped indents were forming all across its body.
Shining Armor’s body followed suit, being pumped full of holes by Tenacious D’s tenacious punches. He soon fell out of the hole in the wall, dropping down in a bloody mess in front of the Jojo mansion, his eyes rolled back and his Stand disappearing from sight.
“That takes care of that,” Cajole said proudly and recalled Tenacious D.
“Well done, son. Couldn’t have done it better myself.” Jostle Joyride gave his son a pat on the back. “Though now, we’re going to have to explain the burning library to your mom when she gets back.”
“If we had been a little earlier, we could’ve saved the texts.” Cajole watched as the fire raged on inside. There was nothing more they could do for the library.
“I wouldn’t say there’s nothing left.” Jostle walked over and planted an arm around his son’s shoulders. “I doubt the fire destroyed the underlibrary.”
“The… what?” Cajole looked at his father, who had a big smile plastered on his big face.
“Come on, I’ll show you. Time for some hamon.”
Jostle Joyride rubbed his hands together and sparks of energy flowed from his fingers and he planted them on the wall and began climbing up to the hole in the wall above. Cajole followed after him, but stopped before the wall. He had been trained by his father in the art of hamon as well and he could mostly use it as he needed to, but when his Stand could do something for him, he figured it would be cooler to do that.
“Tenacious D!” he called and he got on his Stand’s back.
Tenacious D’s wheels were special, able to move quickly in one direction, but it could also travel up vertical surfaces and it did so, speeding past Jostle as it dropped Cajole off in the burning library ahead of him. Then it proceeded into the fire and returned with a fire extinguisher, which Cajole took to put out the fire in the library.
The room had been scorched and what was left was a blackened floor and walls, along with destroyed bookshelves and ashes in place of books and scrolls.
“Looks like a washout, dad,” Cajole commented. “That enemy Stand user sure cleaned this place out.” He picked up a half-burnt book. “Man, this one was my favorite, too.”
“A little old for fairy tales, aren’t you?” Jostle replied.
“Isn’t what we do kind of a fairy tale?” Cajole said back. He put the burned book down. “Anyway, where’s this underlibrary anyway? I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never even heard of it.”
“I was going to show you when you came of age,” Jostle explained. “But since we’re in the middle of a crisis, I’ll just show you now. Remember, what you see here is the culmination of Jojo’s, going back for generations. It’s pretty heavy stuff.”
“It’s old sacred Jojo texts. How heavy can it be?”
“Well, some of them are etched on stone tablets. Those can be pretty heavy.”
Cajole rolled his eyes. “Very funny, dad.”
“It’s true though. Some of those things weigh a ton.” Jostle placed his hand on what was left of a bookshelf. He passed hamon through it and a portion of the wall suddenly popped out next to it. He pried the rest of it aside, revealing a stony staircase leading down seemingly deeper than the house. “It’s a good thing we Jojos usually have tons of muscle to back that up, huh? Come on, I’ll show you around.”
Cajole followed his father deeper into the earth, looking around using the light of his phone as they got further away from the library. The walls here were of an older stonework, nothing of the carved stone they had above. Everything here seemed to just be rocks picked off the ground and stuck together. Wooden beams kept the ceiling up, but even they looked worn out over the ages. The fire above probably didn’t help with the structural integrity of their home.
Cajole sputtered as he walked right into a spider web, but his father hadn’t seemed to get any himself. Panning his phone’s flashlight across the new expanse, he found that they were now in a larger room, one about the same size as the library above, but much older. There were shelves here filled with parchments and scrolls and some of them looked long untouched.
“Behold, the Jojo family underlibrary.” Jostle held his arms out and grinned. “Here, you will find details of anything our bloodline has ever dealt with, Stands included. I actually learned a thing or two here before I met Sushi.”
“So it’s true?” Cajole walked to a row of folded scrolls. “Stands existed long before Sushi’s mom came to our world?”
“So it would seem,” Jostle replied. He took out a collection of diaries from a shelf on the wall. “These journals document early Stand sightings. Not an easy task, especially since Stands can only be seen by other Stand users. Sushi, uh Sunset, told me that it was because magic flooded in from when she came through the mirror.”
“Do you think she’s right?”
“There is sense to be made from what she’s said, but that would just mean…” Jostle shoved through the books on the shelf and brought out one with a blue star on its binding. “That the portal to her world has been used many times before. Here we are, the Tale of the Ancients. I knew I remembered something about nuggets…”
“What do we have here? I haven’t heard this story.” Cajole Joyride looked through the book as his father flipped the pages.
Everything in it was handwritten, of course, but there was the occasional picture scrawled between paragraphs, and they all consisted of humans bowing down to larger figures. There was one with these figures standing together, dotted with countless blocks around their feet, and then there was another with floating beings behind them, not as human in resemblance.
“History tells of an ancient civilization that predated humanity, beings that resembled humans, but were an entirely different species. Ones that they worshipped as gods when they came about.” Jostle pointed at a line of text. “They were known as the Herrakries in their ancient language, but our family and any such explorers of the truth called them…” Suddenly, he burst out laughing, much to his son’s confusion.
“What? What is it, dad?” Cajole tried to grab the book from him to see, but with his convulsing laughter, it was hard to get.
“Sorry about that.” Jostle wiped tears from his eyes and tried his best to stifle his laughter. “They were called… They were called… pffftttt… They were called the… Hah… the Nugget People.”
And he continued laughing again. Cajole couldn’t help but join in. That did sound silly for an ancient race of pre-people.
“Okay, okay, time to be serious.” Jostle wiped his eyes again and flipped through the book. “According to these, the Nugget People were the earliest Stand users. Whoever came through the portal all those thousands of years ago must’ve released magic into our world for the first time, creating them.”
“So what happened to them?” Cajole looked at a picture in the book where the Nugget People seemed to be locked away by the humans.
“They taught early humanity how to use and control Stands as well. And that’s when they were turned against. It says they were sealed away deep in the earth, doomed to eternal sleep and to never again see the light of day. Their blood is golden and when they bleed, it is said they form trails of golden nuggets.”
“That must be what made the gold at the Nugget Run in Germany!” Cajole snapped his fingers. “Weather Alternate must be looking for the source to reawaken them. Why would anyone want to reawaken these Nugget People? That can’t be anything good, especially after humans had betrayed them.”
Jostle made a sound. “Bad guys always have bad plans. So that’s it, we’ll have to stop them. We’ll have to get to Germany, but…” He looked at his son. “They’ll keep coming for us, this Weather Alternate. Unless we set a diversion for them.”
“Hmm? What do you mean, dad?”
“They want us for murdering their girlfriend, slash sister, slash dog or whatever, and they’re gonna keep coming. What they’re not going to expect is us going for them, especially since they burned down our library.” Jostle Joyride put the book down. “What we can do is take the majority of the heat away from you kids as you go to Germany.”
“That sounds like a plan, wait a minute. What?” Cajole shook his head and looked at his father again. “You want us to go to Germany?”
He nodded his head. “They’ll keep coming. And we’ll keep taking them down, but when they’re focused on that, you kids have a chance to slip to Germany and take down the head of the snake. They must never awaken the Nugget People, or we’re going to be in big trouble. Fuchsia and Pinkie are already after tickets. I’ll call the others and I’ll let them know the plan, but you, Cajole, my Jojo, you kids will be the most important piece of the plan. Trust me, that’s what all your training has been for. You did well today. You’re ready.”
Cajole didn’t like having to split up with his dad, but he did make sense. The enemy would send their minions out to get them, like they already have with that Timber Spruce and now Shining Armor. Who knows how many more would keep coming. They had to get to the source and stop Weather Alternate. That was the only way to be sure they would stop.
“Dad, I won’t let you down. I’ve trained all my life for something like this. I’ll make you proud.” Cajole clenched a fist firmly. “We’ll stop Weather Alternate.”
“That’s my boy.” Jostle wrapped his muscular arms around his son. “Now it’s time to set our own plan into motion. Weather Alternate’s gonna have a taste of our little smokescreen.”