“The end comes for you now…” a low and gravelly voice came from Auto Gunship’s throat, even with his dislocated jaw hanging from his face.
His hands were still gripped tightly around Prism’s throat and the grip only continued to increase in pressure.
With no alternative, Prism summoned Coldplay again and her Stand released a wave of heat around itself, knocking Auto back, but to Prism’s surprise, his hands still stayed attached to her neck. When he got blown back, his arms stretched like rubber and now he lay on the ground at least ten feet away, still grasping tightly to Prism’s throat.
“Let… go!” She struggled to pry his hands away.
It was no good. She wasn’t as strong as Auto and she was slowly losing consciousness. Brute strength wasn’t going to solve her problems here. She needed to look at an alternative, or she wasn’t going to make it to the Nugget People.
And that was when she had an idea. On the last shreds of her oxygen, Prism Dash remembered that Auto Gunship was actually dead.
“And zombies… are weak to… a variety of things…!” Prism grunted. “One of which is fire!”
Coldplay reappeared and began absorbing heat from all around it, including Prism’s own body. The girl began shivering immediately, but she braced through the biting cold, knowing what she was going to do in a few seconds. Auto’s limbs began to stiffen and his pressure on her neck seemed to slow. That was when Coldplay pushed both hands out to Auto’s chest, before releasing a blast of intense heat from between its fingers, scorching the uniform off the dead man and melting the flesh from his bones. Prism used the chance to squirm from the man’s grip as the fire spread down his arms, burning his skin to bone, which snapped off once Prism yanked herself to the side. Free to breathe at last, she gulped in a mouthful of frosty air before returning her attention to the burning man.
Auto Gunship’s arms flailed around as Coldplay continued to burn more skin off his body, and when the heat finally died down, all that stood there in front of her was the charred skeleton of what was once a Weather Alternate member.
“That takes the cake, doesn’t it?” Prism dusted her hands and grinned madly. “And you thought you could defeat Prism Dash.”
“You have won nothing, Prism…” the skeleton said without moving so much as a muscle, because it had none. “Auto Gunship’s body is merely a vessel for my power now… Now you face Kreator, and you have yet to see my true power.”
“A Stand that needs no living master?” Prism stepped back. “Impossible.”
Steam hissed from its bones and meat began to build back over its body and before Prism could even say ‘uncle’, the body began to rise on its feet again and the yellow glow returned to its eyes as even hair reformed atop the Stand’s head. Once again, Kreator, Auto Gunship’s Stand, stood before her, swaying its elongated arms from side to side as Prism could only stare in disbelief.
Its arms extended from its body again, but Prism knew better than to let them get her this time. She sent Coldplay to intercept them, smashing one in the side before chopping down on the other with the side of one hand. The limbs recoiled, but then spun around in the air and corkscrewed towards her Stand again.
“This dude is unkillable!” Prism had Coldplay grab both hands, stopping them in place, but even now, she could feel the strain through her Stand. She was already giving it her all to keep those bendy arms back and she wasn’t going to hold on for much longer. “There has to be something I can use to defeat this Stand!”
She had already tried ice and fire. If neither of those worked, there was nothing fancy she could do with Coldplay. She would have to think of something else, another way of beating this masterless Stand.
“Face it, there’s nothing you can do…” Kreator’s voice hissed out of Auto’s throat. “You and your friends will die up here in the mountains and you will be forgotten when the snow washes over your lifeless bodies. I will endure for all time and Master Dolfy will awaken the Nugget People. The world will enter a new age, but none of you will be alive to see its fruits…”
Kreator moved again, but this time, it swished its arms’ bone blades at Coldplay. Prism’s Stand brought its arms up to block the attack, but the bone cut right through its forearms and Prism’s own arms sprayed blood in vertical lines across the back of her arms.
“Aaagh!” she gasped and took a step back.
But Kreator would give her no room to react and slashed its arms around more, swishing them through the air like water hoses out of control. Coldplay wasn’t a defensive Stand, so the best it could do here was to try and push its arms out of the way with its palms. Kreator’s speed only seemed to get faster and Prism was getting more and more cuts across her body. Eventually, the best she could do was have Coldplay raise its arms to protect its face as bloody lines formed across their bodies, spraying blood across the stark white snow.
“This is not good!” Prism groaned internally. “I need something incredibly strong to stop this enemy Stand!”
Laughter emerged from deep within Kreator’s throat as Coldplay and Prism tried to back away, but its arms simply extended and kept on its onslaught of cuts.
“It’s no use. My arms can travel great distances. The only way to get away from them would be to throw yourself off this mountain…” it chuckled, which sounded like feet being dragged across gravel.
Prism winced from the pain of more cuts along her arms, but then she suddenly looked up and flashed Kreator a look of determination. “You’re still going to lose.”
“Are you sure about that? And you’re going to stop me?”
“That’s right.” Prism’s brow dipped lower. “All this while you’ve been attacking me, I’ve been having Coldplay leech the warmth from your body. Even now, you should see yourself starting to freeze and your movement will slow.”
Kreator looked down at its arms and true to her words, its arms, especially its skin, had started to ice over and its rapid swinging of its arms started to wind down.
“You might’ve made me slow, but that alone will not stop me.” It took two steps forward.
“Not yet.” Prism snapped her fingers.
Coldplay took this chance to deliver a combination of punches to Kreator’s arms, shattering its skin and bones as frost slowly took over. This gave Prism enough time to back up and increase the distance between her and the enemy Stand as its body began to regenerate.
There would be no stopping Kreator by brute force and power alone, but Prism knew something else that could.
When she was a good distance away, Prism stretched out her arms to her sides, then bent one knee slightly and stood on her toes. Coldplay glided above her and did the same, beginning to absorb the heat from Kreator again.
The Stand’s skin started to ice over again, but this time, it swung its jaw from side to side as its movement slowed, but it wouldn’t stop completely.
“Oh yeah, you can still move, huh?” Prism pounded her fists together.
“You may slow me down, but I am invincible. You will never stop me. You can run, you can hide, but I will always find you…”
“We’ll see about that. Because you’re going to regret ever fighting me.” Prism stretched one arm forward, then the other one curled in a ‘V’ shape and the back of her hand pressed against her forehead. “See, there are things you should never do on top of a mountain. For one, launch rockets. I don’t have a rocket, but I’ve got something pretty darn close.”
Coldplay whipped around and held both hands out like a flower opening its petals. With a breath out, it released a concentrated beam of heat up the mountainside, blasting a chunk of it into pieces with a resounding crunch.
It took some time before anything happened and Kreator was about to forget all about it and try to strangle Prism again, but as it took one step forward, the ground under their feet seemed to tremor, then the snow on the mountainside above them began to slide and it started to build up, shaking the ground even more as the sound of rushing snow filled their ears.
“What have you done?” Kreator looked to Prism and pointed a finger at her from one of its stretchy arms.
As the avalanche descended upon them, Coldplay released a pulse of heat around itself and Prism, knocking back Kreator’s arm and at the same time, instantly melting the snow that drifted by, creating a sort of protective bubble around its master. Kreator wasn’t so lucky and was swept away by the avalanche as it passed, leaving only one arm above the surface as it went over the mountain side, disappearing from view.
“You might not be able to die…” Prism struck a pose with her left index finger on the tip of her nose and her other hand curled under her waist. Coldplay raised one arm up and wrapped the other one around Prism’s shoulders. “But people have died being trapped under an avalanche. You might not, but you’ll be trapped here for all eternity, unable to escape the tons of snow above you. This is the end, Kreator!”
When she was done posing, Prism melted a pathway back to the elevator, then pushed on the button again to get the doors open. Another Stand of Weather Alternate had been defeated and now, all she had to do was wait for her friends to come back. Judging from how loud the avalanche had been, she guessed that it wouldn’t be long before they returned.
—-----JO-JO—--
As the enemy Stand washed away further down the mountain, it did its best to grab all the rocks around it, trying to pull itself out of the avalanche, but the force was too great and each time, its fingers were torn away from its grabbing point and on its third attempt, Kreator’s fingers tore off completely.
“No, I refuse to be defeated by a mere child. I am Kreator!”
It clamped the top half of its jaw on the next rock. The avalanche blew all around it, but Kreator held on firm and for a few seconds, it looked as though it was going to escape the rolling snow. It pictured Prism Dash in its mind and her blue and pink Stand. It imagined all the terrors it was going to inflict upon the girl once it got out of this. She wouldn’t even see it coming and Kreator would exact its revenge in the most horrendous of ways. It would first go for her eyes, blinding her, then it would tear her intestines from her body and force her to eat them, then it would-
Kreator’s teeth tore from its face and it sank beneath the avalanche with one final gurgle as it tumbled over another edge, this time landing amongst jagged rocks. The snow piled all around it and as Kreator found its footing on the hard rock, no matter how much it tried to push, it could not move.
“No, my revenge!” it wailed.
It had no way of telling how deep it was buried under the snow, but one thing Kreator knew for certain, it would try for all eternity to escape its snowy prison. One day, judging by how the world was moving, the ice caps would melt and it would be free. And when that day came, it would find Prism Dash and it was going to make her pay for its temporary torment. But it was not this day and all Kreator could do now was push in vain and howl in fury.
—----JO-JO—---
“Meister Dolfy, I believe we have something.”
Dolfy Horner put down his clipboard and approached the man who had called to him. “Well, what is it?” He stretched both arms out to the side. The burly man had recently changed into a pale-green bulletproof vest, covered by a grey coat with black gloves and black boots.
“A miner here at section C-47. He and his team had been digging into the earth when the ground gave way beneath their feet. He was the only survivor. He claims that he found not only golden nuggets in abundance unlike anywhere in the mountain, but columns of an ancient civilization.”
The man pointed at the screen where they had a video feed from one of their many cameras planted around the tunnels of Mount Fegel. It was now facing a tunnel that looked too perfectly circular to be dug out by human hands. Ahead, there were six columns, three on each side, before leading down a slope unseen. Each column had carvings of what looked like humans on them, but these humans were off. Their heads had protrusions on them resembling horns and they all varied in number, with some of them having one, others two, some three.
“We found it. They’re here. The Nugget People are here…” Dolfy grinned and marched away from the control room. It was time he saw them for himself and to be the first to welcome them to their new world.