The first face Summer Shine looked at when she opened her eyes was that of Bushido Spirit, kneeling over her body as her eyes fluttered open.
“Sushi, you’re back,” he said as the corner of the left side of his mouth tilted up.
“My heartbeat…” Summer placed a hand on her chest and breathed in. “You found him?”
Bushido nodded. “Found and taken care of.” He placed one hand over one of hers. “Justice has prevailed once more. And you are safe.”
“Bushido, thank you.” Summer’s cheeks flushed and she pushed to her feet once she realized the rest of her friends were standing around looking at them. “What’s happened since then?”
“We’ll likely have to camp down here for the night.” Fuchsia Blush sighed and spun a metal pipe in her hand. Summer had no idea where she had gotten it from all the way out here, but it didn’t change the fact that she had one. “If you didn’t get your heart stolen, we might’ve already been a fair distance up the mountain. Now we’ll have to stay here longer with all these horny old nugget diggers… fuch my life.”
“Come on, cut her some slack.” Gipsy helped Summer up all the way. “Her heart had stopped pumping for close to ten minutes. We’re lucky Bushido stopped Weather Alternate in time or we would’ve lost Sushi.”
“At least we’re all still here.” Fuchsia rolled her eyes. “Weather Alternate’s going to pay once I make it up there.”
She balled a fist and for a fraction of a second, Summer thought she saw something black dancing around her fingers, but then she blinked and it was gone.
“Man, what are you going to do?” Prism Dash hopped over and put an arm around Summer’s shoulders. “I still don’t know what kind of Stand she has, or if she even has a Stand. But now I have one and believe me, given the chance, I’ll show Weather Alternate what I’m packing. I call the next battle.”
“Sure you do.” Fuchsia folded her arms.
“It’s late. We should get some rest before our climb tomorrow.” Gipsy Dance motioned to a set of green tents by the side. “Sweetie Belle left these with me before leaving for Leipzig. We can use them for the night, but we’ll have to squeeze a little.”
“Bushido gets a tent all to himself?” Prism stretched her arms up. “Sushi, you should bunk in with him. Give the rest of us more room.”
“What? I can’t do that!” Summer’s face could only get redder.
“Yes, it is immoral to do so.” Bushido stood straighter and hurried over to the other tent. “I will see you girls tomorrow.”
“Such a man of justice, that one.” Prism slapped Summer on the arm. “Man, I was trying to help you, Sushi. You two look like you could use a push to get to know each other more.”
“What you’re planning is jumping past all that getting to know,” Summer said.
“Well, it’s still getting to know him, just a different part of him.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Summer pushed past her. “You better take first watch. Don’t let those miners get in here.”
“What, I don’t want to take first watch.” Prism folded her arms, but Summer was already through the tent flap. “Well, great.”
—------JO-JO—------
Thankfully for Prism, nothing had happened her entire watch and when she had opened her eyes again after lying down on the tent floor, light was already pouring in, signaling the start of a new day, a day they were finally going to climb Mount Fegel to get to Weather Alternate’s base of operations.
“Aw yes!” Prism stretched her arms high as she exited the tent, cracking out all the kinks in her arms. “It’s game time.”
“And I’ve got our gear right here.” Summer tied up a bag of tools from Sweetie Belle. “It’s a good thing REO Speedwagon can hold so much. But if we lose this, we’re not getting anything else for a while.”
“Yeah, well…” Prism accepted her parka from Summer and slipped it on. “That’s right, I guess. Man, if only my mom could see me now. She’d be so proud that I’m following in her footsteps to save the world!”
“I hope so…” Summer looked down at her pocket where her phone was resting in. “I still haven’t been able to reach home. I hope nothing’s happened.”
“Come on, give them more credit.” Prism slapped her in the back. “Our parents saved the world once. And we’ve come this far. If Weather Alternate can’t beat us, they certainly can’t beat them.”
“That’s quite right…” Summer sighed. She wanted to believe Prism, that their parents would trump any foe sent their way, but a part of her still worried about them. “It’s probably just the signal. Maybe we have a bad connection so close to the mountain.”
“That’s the spirit. Hey, we should head out. Is there anything else to eat?”
“Nothing good, anyway…” Fuchsia Blush passed them and tossed Prism a paper bag of donuts. “Fuch this. I want to go home.”
“The faster we’re done here, the faster we can return.” Gipsy Dance exited the tent, already decked out in a thick layered coat. “Whatever awaits us on the mountain, they’ll dread the day they sent Eximus to destroy my family. Weather Alternate ends here today.”
“On that we can all agree on.” Bushido Spirit slid one foot forward, then raised one hand to his right shoulder before bending lower. “Justice will be delivered to those who use their powers for evil.”
“So, do we have ice picks in there? Or rope?” Prism grabbed the bag of equipment from Summer and ran her hands along it.
“Even better. Grappling hooks, or at least, they look like grappling hooks.” Summer grinned. “They hook up to wherever we shoot them, then with a pulley system, help us ascend to the point of contact. These should get us further up the mountain quicker instead of using the main paths.”
“Neat.” Prism widened her smile as the group proceeded on towards the base of the mountain.
Looking up from where they were, the mountain’s craggy surface loomed over them like a sleeping giant, standing higher than any building they’d ever seen in their lives. Most of it disappeared behind a layer of cloud and fog, but even then, they could still see at least a hundred storeys above their heads.
Prism excitedly planted the bag on the ground, quick to unbind it before flipping it open to unfurl on the frosty ground. Inside were six long devices, shaped like enlarged pipes and at the head of each of them was a speartip with four hooks around it. Along their surfaces were some rather durable ropes, going through rungs and pulleys and all kinds of mechanical bits and bobs that Prism didn’t know what they were called. She didn’t know how they worked, but she was already very excited and couldn’t wait to use them.
“I can’t wait to use these!” Prism lifted one and pointed it towards the mountain’s side. She found a trigger by the rear of the device and without waiting, she fired it up.
With a release of air and gas, the spear left the barrel and sailed through the air, with the rope behind it whipping around like the coiled body of a snake, and then it slammed into the mountain’s rock and its four hooks latched on tightly as small debris and snow rained down around them.
“Let’s see here…” Prism attached a harness around her legs and waist before hooking herself onto the device. “Am I doing it right?”
With the push of a button, she began to ascend up the rope, but something went wrong and she flipped upside down as the device continued to go up.
“Hey, help!” Her voice trailed off as she proceeded on without the others.
“I guess we better go on and help her once we get to the top.” Summer attached the harness as well and then picked up one of the grappling hooks.
The rest of her party did the same and soon, they were all ascending the cliffs alongside Prism, who was still busy trying to flip herself around. Summer had to eventually give her a hand, pushing her up from behind as she managed to readjust her legs the correct way, before grabbing on to the rope and hauling the rest of her body up as well.
“Man, blood rush!” Prism held the corner of her head and winced. “But that was… awesome! We should do it again!”
“You’ll have plenty of opportunities to do that.” Summer pointed to the rest of the mountain before them. They still had a really long way to go.
As they arrived at the first plateau, they could see plenty of equipment set up outside various tunnels leading into the mountain. There were lights, generators, and trucks with open backs to be filled with golden nuggets by the day’s end.
Looking up as she tightened the belts around her body, Prism spotted more holes bored into the mountain higher up, along a narrow zig-zagged road where miners were already busy wheeling down their early morning hauls.
“You know,” Summer said thoughtfully. “Gold is only valuable because it’s rare. If people suddenly introduce such large amounts of gold into the economy, won’t the gold be worth less money then?”
“That’s a good point,” Bushido said as he looked around. The view was really something from up here. “I suppose we can expect a dip in the gold market in the near future.”
“That’s if we stop Weather Alternate from awakening the Nugget People.” Fuchsia loaded the grappling hook again. “Otherwise, it’ll be the end of the world.”
“Come on, we can beat this.” Prism finished resetting the harness around herself. “We’re not going to let them destroy the world. I’ve still so much to do! It’ll spoil my life.”
“Uh huh. Hey, we better keep going. The other miners are already starting to stare.” Summer cringed slightly as she watched their gazes. “They might want to steal our stuff.”
“I would want to steal these too if I saw someone using them to get up the mountain faster.” Gipsy smiled and readied her gadget, pointing up to the next cliff. “Now, if I were Weather Alternate, where would I build my secret mountain base?”
“I won’t use huge glass windows, that’s for sure.” Prism pulled the harness up higher around her waist and huffed. “Reflections off them will just give your base away for miles. Plus, if I had a grappling hook, I could just zipline my way into your secret mountain base. Oh wait…” She lifted the grappling hook barrel. “Look, we do have one.”
“Weather Alternate is too smart to do something dumb like that.” Bushido shook his head. “No, to maintain the power they have today, they must act discreetly.”
“Discreet doesn’t seem to be their game.” Summer mimicked a steering wheel with her hands. “They just attacked a bus full of miners and stuff on our way here. Everyone must’ve seen it.”
“I’m sure it’ll just get chalked up to some criminal assault or something.” Prism sighed and fired off her grappling hook again. “We’re the only ones who can stop them at this point and be sure that Coldplay and I are going to show them who’s boss!”
She began ascending as the rest of her group readied their devices to follow. Prism planted her feet on the craggy surface from time to time, steadying her ascend, making sure that she would be facing up the whole way this time. Having the blood rush to one’s head wasn’t something she’d like to try again anytime soon.
As they continued their ascent, something caught Prism’s eyes along the mountain surface. At first, she thought nothing of it, but when she stopped ascending, she reached a hand out and ran her fingers along the strange object. It was some sort of tube and it seemed to run into the mountain itself. Inching herself over, Prism placed one eye against it, feeling a rush of air coming from it, drying her eye and forcing her to recoil as she blinked rapidly.
“Hey, I found something!” She rubbed her face and waved to her friends.
Fuchsia was the first one beside her and she peeked into the tube as well. “Celldweller thinks this is an air vent for Weather Alternate’s mountain base. Honestly, I thought they would be smarter than this, making an air vent on the side of a mountain people would use grappling hooks on. Fuching morons.”
“Well, we can’t get in through here.” Prism waved a hand. “But I think I just hatched a brilliant plan. Coldplay!”
Prism’s Stand appeared in the air beside her and flicked one hand down to its right knee, then the other one curled over its head.
“What’s the plan?” Fuchsia looked unimpressed.
“You’ll see in a minute.”
“Fuch this. Just tell me.” Fuchsia groaned.
Prism’s brow deepened and she let out a strange sound. “Fine, fine. I’m going to trace the heat coming from this vent using Coldplay. Then we could get a rough location of their base entrance!”
“Pshh.” Fuchsia said nothing more and kept ascending.
“Uh huh. And when I get this done, I’ll be the one to have found Weather Alternate.” Prism watched her go for a bit, then cleared her throat and focused on the vent.
Coldplay raised one hand, then curled its fingers until only one remained pointing forward. Dipping it into the vent, Prism felt what her Stand was feeling and traced the heat coming from within, following a snaking path deeper below them. The vent eventually led out into a squarish room with an elevator. Prism couldn’t exactly see it, nor could she explain it, but she could feel the elevator behind the doors and at this moment, it seemed to be going up.
“An elevator is a good sign…” Prism said out loud. “Secret bases don’t always have elevators leading from one section to another. They usually served as secret entrances to secret bases and that would mean that the entrance would be close above us. If we can find it, we’ll have our entrance down into Weather Alternate’s first base.”
“How many people are inside?” Bushido asked, reaching her position. “It would be useful to know the number of the enemy in case we need to fight them.”
“Let me see…” Prism focused herself on Coldplay’s powers even further. “It’s not easy,” she said with some strain in her voice. “The further away living beings are, the harder it is for Coldplay to detect them. And this is one big mountain.”
“As we’ve learnt from the fight before…” Summer stopped beside the two of them. “It seems not all our enemies are Stand users. Weather Alternate employs regular people as well. I’m sure we can handle them easily, but if they have a Stand user in that base, we’ll have to be ready for a fight.”
“I wonder how many Stand users they have left,” Prism pondered aloud. “They must have had quite a few if they can afford to send them at us one after another like they have been.”
This statement sent a ripple of unease through the group. Battling one of Weather Alternate’s Stand users was hard enough, and they had barely survived fighting two. If there were more of them inside the base, they might have to be careful about how to proceed.
“We’ll deal with them as they come. I have Coldplay now!” Prism stuck a thumb to her cheek. “They want to stop us, they’ll have to go through me.”
Prism clicked down on her barrel and continued up the mountainside. It wasn’t long before the rest of them joined Fuchsia at the top of their next cliff. This next part was flatter than the one below and there were less people up here, though there were still some miners investigating the walls up here.
“Alright, time to spread out and search for the entrance.” Prism pushed Summer’s shoulder as she unhooked herself. “We know Weather Alternate has an elevator coming down from somewhere up here. It could be higher, but I have a feeling their elevator would be on this plane.”
“Right. Once we find it, we’ll have to get into their base and find whatever they have on where the Nugget People are buried,” Summer continued. “Then we find their boss and we put an end to him and his organization and make sure the Nugget People never see the light of day.”
“Sounds like a solid plan.” Gipsy nodded. “I like it.”
“Okay, then we know what to look for. Let’s get to it!” Prism pumped a fist up, then rushed off excitedly as she sent Coldplay out ahead of her. “Machinery generates electricity. Electricity has heat. If there’s any machinery nearby, Coldplay will find it.”
Her Stand slinked forward, moving in a zig-zag line as it raised one finger up to feel the air current around them. And then she felt it too. Ahead and around a fairly large boulder, there was a buzz of heat, slowly increasing in power the closer Prism got to it.
“It’s here. I knew it! I knew the entrance to the secret base had to be close!” She hopped into the air and swung a fist under her left leg before returning to the ground.
Prism Dash made her way across to the boulder as quickly as she could and she had yet to cross around to the other side when she heard a very family ding. She knew that sound well. It was the sound an elevator makes when it reaches its destination.
The girl immediately stopped in her tracks and her Stand did the same, gliding back to her side and putting both arms up in front of its face, stretching all its fingers out wide.
Over the sound of the wind howling around her, she could just make out the faint sounds of footsteps against snow and soon, a squarish man with shaved sides and a plume of hair on top appeared from around the boulder, dressed in a grey parka with a thick fur lining around his neck.
“At last, you’ve arrived. I have been expecting your team.” He rubbed his hands together and flexed one arm up and the other one down. “Today, you’ll feel the full might of Auto Gunship, member of the inner circle of Weather Alternate. Oh, what memories I will have of this day where I tear your spine from your body.”
“We’ll see about that. Coldplay!” Prism waved a hand down as her Stand raised both of its hands.
Auto Gunship immediately grabbed his shoulders and started shivering. “W-Wh-What are you d-d-doing?”
“I’m taking your heat away. Without it, you won’t be able to protect yourself from the cold.” Prism placed one hand on her left knee, then the other one on her right ear, stretching her fingers up to touch her hair. “And when you can’t do anything to retaliate, Coldplay!”
Prism sent her Stand forward, parting the snow under its glide before delivering three punches to Auto Gunship’s face. His cheeks waggled in the air with each blow and the third one knocked out two of his teeth. Spinning on one foot, Coldplay bent low, then stood up faster than the eye could see with a vicious uppercut to the man’s jaw. Auto lifted into the air, then crashed down beside the elevator, one eye still twitching. His jaw seemed to have come loose from his face and it was hanging off his face, kept attached only by the skin.
“That was easier than I thought.” Prism dusted her hands. “And as I thought, up here in the cold, my Stand reigns supreme! Because I can take heat away, your body won’t be able to fight against the cold. They won’t be fast enough to keep up with my Stand that way.”
Prism stepped over the man’s body, then approached the elevator to inspect the console beside it. There were blinking lights on it, along with one square button.
“Looks simple enough.” Prism dusted snow from her shoulders, then pushed one finger against the button. The door to the elevator slowly slid to one side, revealing a steel cage with white plates attached to the sides. “Now I just need to signal the others and get them here.”
Prism was about to backtrack to their starting point when something shifted in the air around her. Snow was falling around her, but she still felt something, like a change of the wind, or a breath of air.
“Breath of air…” Prism spun around and looked at the body of Auto Gunship.
The dead Weather Alternate man’s head had turned to face her and his eyes were now balls of yellow fire. Prism almost jumped out of her skin, but then one of Auto’s arms stretched out like rubber and tried to grab her. She rolled out of the way just as a blade of bone tore out of Auto’s forearm, almost taking her leg off as she leapt over the body, spinning in the air as Coldplay emerged from within her and fired a beam of heat at the man. It scorched half his body, but then somehow, his skin miraculously healed over except for a few missing patches, then Auto got up and staggered towards her, his limp jaw hanging open like an entrance to a dark cave.
“This has to be the work of an enemy Stand! But just what are we dealing with here?” Prism swished one arm to the side as Coldplay delivered a flurry of punches to the man’s gut.
Auto Gunship backed up with each blow, but nothing seemed to hurt him and before long, he had shrugged off the punches and reached both arms for Prism’s Stand, grasping it around the neck. Auto’s dead fingers squeezed hard on Coldplay and Prism quickly began to feel its effects as she dropped to a knee, unable to breathe.
“There’s no way… He can still… be this strong!” Prism gasped.
As Coldplay looked into the burning eyes of Auto Gunship, Prism couldn’t help but feel she might’ve been a little too confident of her own abilities.