//------------------------------// // Chapter 30: The Power of the Sun // Story: SuShi's Bizarre Adventure: Nugget Run Horizon // by Jojoleopard //------------------------------// Dolfy Horner yelled in pain as Summer helped him down the final ledge, finally back into the open once again, away from the darkness of the tomb. “Stop complaining.” Summer gave his arm a flick as she put him down. “Be thankful you didn’t have to crawl all the way out.” Bushido Spirit made his way away from Dolfy’s other side and dusted his coat’s shoulder as snow softly fell around them. “Maybe now you will understand that what you’ve unleashed on the world was never meant to be found.” “I was wrong, I thought they could cleanse the world of impurity for me!” Dolfy slammed a fist against the snow-covered ground. “To them, all bloodlines are weak, pure or no. Nein, nein, nein, nein, nein! This was not how it was to happen!” “Fuchsing idiot.” Fuchsia combed loose strands of hair out of her face. “That’s why you never mess with something you only think you understand.” “This isn’t over.” Dolfy gave his clothes a pat and removed a walkie-talkie from his waist pocket. “I can still call for backup! We can still take down the Nugget People!” “What’s the point?” Everyone turned to Prism, who had found a spot against a round boulder. “We’re not going to win. No matter what we do, we can’t beat them or their Stands. They taught humans how to use Stands, didn’t they? They must know everything there is about this Stand business. They… they got Gipsy…” Summer and her friends sighed and looked behind them where they had rested her body, now partially covered in some of their parkas. “But that’s precisely why we can’t give up now. Not yet.” Summer crouched down in front of her friend, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Gipsy gave her life to save you, to save us all. If we stop now, her death would be for nothing.” “It’s all my fault. I did this. I killed her.” Prism covered her face with one hand. “No, stop it, Prism. She told you. Your job’s not done here yet.” Summer gave her a squeeze. “We’re not giving up and I’m not giving up on you, Prism.” “Coming all the way here was all for nothing, Sushi.” Prism sighed. “We came close to stopping them, but now here we are. The world’s going to end soon. We can’t stop them.” “Hey, snap out of it. Existentialism’s my thing.” Fuchsia suddenly appeared and slapped her. “This is not the end. Our parents are still counting on us. Now are you going to get your fuchsing act together or do I have to drag you along with us?” “I…” Prism looked down, tears forming in her eyes again. Summer looked at the state of her friend and shook her head. They had all been shaken by Gipsy’s death and she didn’t blame Prism for feeling like that, seeing as it was her life specifically that Gipsy saved, but if they gave up now, everything they had done up to this point, everything they had worked so hard to stop, would be for naught. Deep in thought, Summer hadn’t heard a familiar jangle coming from her coat. Reaching in, she took her phone out and looked at the screen. Widening her eyes, she put it to her ear and accepted the call. “Jojo? Where are you, is everything okay?” “Yeah, you won’t believe it, Sweetie got me another chopper. I’m on my way back.” Summer was glad to hear a familiar voice, especially after everything that happened. “Wait, Sweetie Belle isn’t with you?” “Yeah, she decided to stay with Apple Bloom while she recovers. It’s just me. What’s going on? Did we win? Did we stop Weather Alternate?” Summer looked down at her feet. He didn’t know what had transpired. With a shaky breath, she recounted everything that had happened, trying her best to not deliver it to him too sharply. She was afraid he would crash the helicopter if he didn’t take the news well. “No… Oh, no. No, no. It shouldn’t have been like that…” Jojo’s voice returned after a few seconds of silence, his mind likely still comprehending the news. “Is-is Prism okay? Is she hurt?” Summer looked at her friend, then sighed. “In more ways than one. Look, we need a ride out of here. Why don’t we talk about it when you come get us? We’re also going to have to plan out our next move.” “On my way, I’ll push this chopper to the limit. Give me another fifteen! Jojo out.” Summer put her phone down and before she could do anything else, the ground rumbled, almost making her lose her balance and fall off the side of the mountain. Learning from that experience, she stepped away from the ledge, but rumbling wasn’t a good sign. She looked around, trying to see if she could find out what was causing the rumbling, but to no avail. “That can’t be good…” Bushido stood up, instinctively reaching for his sword. “I wonder what the miners are doing now.” Fuchsia sat down, resting her chin on her hands. “They came all this way to strike rich, but they won’t even have the chance to spend any of that gold. What a waste of time.” Just then, a troop of people clad in black uniforms rushed out of the cave system, carrying automatic weapons. Bushido brandished his weapon and was about to cut them to pieces when Dolfy began clapping. “Endlich, gut, gut.” He laughed as the new arrivals stopped in front of him. He turned to the rest of Summer’s group and she put her feet further apart, just in case he was about to try anything. “Weather Alternate has a plan, fraulein, and in order to stop these Nugget People, I must first return to Fegel Zwei and prepare.” His men pulled out a stretcher and placed him on top of it. “You don’t think conventional weaponry’s going to work, do you?” Summer asked. Weather Alternate didn’t have any other Stand masters left, thanks to them. “The Nugget People mentioned a something. How they had been imprisoned by the sun. Something had turned them to stone once before, I intend to find out how.” Dolfy snapped his fingers. “I have just the idea. I’ll be back. With weapons. Lots of weapons. More weapons you will ever have seen in your life! Mein truppen, gehen! We shall meet again, Sushi.” And with that, Dolfy and his group marched back into the tunnel, likely going back to the elevator to Fegel Zwei. “What did Dolfy say, Sushi?” Bushido approached her. “Something about being imprisoned by the sun?” Summer shook her head. “I’m not sure. I think he was insinuating that the sun had something to do with turning them to stone.” “The sun?” Bushido looked up at the fiery ball of light in the sky, squeezing his eyes shut after a second. “Perhaps these Nugget People cannot go out in the day. Like vampires.” “Vampires don’t exist.” Fuchsia was unimpressed. “Believe me, I know. I tried looking.” “We can’t rule anything out. With all this Stand stuff going on, nothing’s impossible,” Summer said. “Perhaps they were beaten by humans with sun-like Stands all those years ago.” “At this point, we’re making too many assumptions.” Fuchsia blew a raspberry. “We should just wait for Jojo in silence.” So they waited there, listening for the tell-tale sound of Jojo’s helicopter. After what felt like hours, but must only have been minutes, there came the faint noise of rotors cutting through the cold mountain air, getting louder by the second. Eventually, a black helicopter swooped around the side of the mountain, blowing snow and frosty air into their faces as it descended towards them. Jojo waved from inside the vehicle, but Summer noticed that his face wasn’t as excited to see them as she had hoped it would be. She was likely more excited to see him, but something wasn’t quite right. Once the ladder was lowered, Summer made sure Prism went up first, using her Stand to get her off her bum and then a little up the ladder before she took over on her own. Summer made sure the rest of her friends were safely aboard before making her way up. Once she was in, she made her way to the front, where the copilot’s seat was. “Hey, Sushi. Been a while.” Jojo handed her a pair of headphones and motioned for her to buckle in. “Yeah, good to have you back, Jojo…” Summer squeezed his shoulder. “Hey, listen, things aren’t going too well right now, as you know.” “Oh, I know, Sushi. Believe me.” Jojo gulped. “So uh, on the way here… I mean… Something’s transpired.” Summer had read his face correctly earlier. Whatever news he had didn’t sound good. “What’s going on?” “I think it’s easier I show you. Hold on, everyone!” Jojo flicked one of the switches, then slid the helicopter away from the mountain. He kept them facing forward as he weaved back around the mountain and to Summer’s horror, in the middle of a city, there was now a giant mountainous structure of stone, reaching high into the sky, almost as high as Mount Fegel. It ended in a domed structure, opened on all ends that was supported up by rows of pillars. Around it was a secondary ring of hills, not more than two hundred feet and between that and the tower, the unfortunate part of the city was now submerged in water, leaving only the tallest buildings visible. “That’s Berlin,” Jojo explained as the helicopter zoomed on, flying towards the new structure. “I saw people scrambling to escape when the waves came. It was as though it just erupted from the ground, some kind of hidden spring, maybe.” “It must be the Nugget People.” Summer leaned forward in her seat. “Mhagmea, the leader, she was saying she was leaving to end the world. She would be doing it up there.” “That isn’t all. I thought something odd was going on before I left the hospital.” Jojo slightly turned his head towards her. “Sweetie had been saying there was something off with Earth’s magnetic field. She said her tools were going haywire, like something was messing with the core of the planet. I think… I think I know why now.” “The core? No way, they can’t possibly control the core.” Jojo shrugged. “According to the annals of my ancestors, the Nugget People created the world as we know it. Lush grasslands, barren deserts, vast oceans, but it was humans who started taking their creation and reshaping it themselves. So if they can manage that, who’s to say they can’t control the planet’s core?” “But what do they hope to gain, controlling the core?” Summer’s eyes widened. “You mentioned the magnetic field.” Jojo nodded. “That’s right. The magnetic field’s the only thing keeping us from the full power of the sun. And that’s not the worst thing. If the core stops spinning… let’s just say the results would be… catastrophic. Like, end of all life catastrophic. As in everyone could be thrown off the planet.” “We have to stop this!” Summer slammed a fist against the side window. “We can’t let the Nugget People wipe out everyone!” “Do we have a plan?” Jojo tilted the helicopter’s controls, bringing them forward, towards the giant spire. “What more is there to plan?” Fuchsia said, her voice being heard over the helicopter’s comms. “We take the fight back to those fuchsing nuggets and we kill every last one of them.” “It’s not that simple. We can’t just rush in without a plan.” Summer turned to look at her friends. None of them really looked sure of what they were going to do. “We have no choice, Sushi…” Bushido said slowly. “The Nugget People are already disrupting the core of our planet. If we continue to let them do this, the world will not recover from it, even if we stop them. We have to do this before it gets worse.” Summer sighed and returned her attention to the front. The Nugget People’s new lair was getting bigger as they got closer. There wasn’t much information to go about the Nugget People. Mhagmea definitely seemed to have some kind of control over the earth, especially if she could slow the planet’s core. Eortsuh and Lowodda’s powers were still a mystery to them all. They hadn’t even revealed their Stands yet. As for Souyul, they knew she had a Stand that could reflect anything back at their attackers. “Wait… there’s more…” Summer recalled, leaning back up. “Jojo, Dolfy Horner, the Weather Alternate leader, he mentioned that the Nugget People had been locked away by sunlight thousands of years ago. Isn’t your hamon sun-related?” “Hamon generates energy resembling the sun, yes.” Jojo nodded. “Yes, now that you mention it, I think I read that in the library. Though my ancestors have no record where they are from, the Nugget People would turn to stone in the presence of sunlight. Hamon… Hamon might just work.” He lifted a hand and rubbed two of his fingers together, generating a burst of golden energy. “If we can get you close, we can win this. We can.” More than ever before, Summer once again felt they could do this. They could still save the world and their parents. Her parents. Summer looked down at her phone, still finding there had been no contact from her mother back home. Whatever they were busy with, they had to know the urgency of their mission now. She typed out a message to her, telling her of their whereabouts and how Weather Alternate was no longer a threat. At least for now. If they could not stop the Nugget People now, the world would be over for all of them. “Mom, I hope you get this… Things are not going to be easy from here…” Summer thought of her friends. She still had Bushido, Fuchsia, Prism and Jojo with her. She didn’t want to think of it, but a part of her knew not all of them were going to make it home, but whether she would or not, she resolved to give it her all. They had to stop the Nugget People here. “Whatever it takes.” Summer’s brows creased at the towering spire, now casting shadows across their helicopter. “Whatever it takes.” Jojo gave her a thumbs up and a glint in his eye, before pushing down on the throttle and taking their helicopter further in towards their final battle.