//------------------------------// // Chapter 36: De Futura a la Earth // Story: SuShi's Bizarre Adventure: Nugget Run Horizon // by Jojoleopard //------------------------------// Summer Shine couldn’t believe it even after seeing it with her very eyes. Even now, after looking at them for twenty seconds. Standing on the bridge before the arena was Dolfy Horner, leader of Weather Alternate, or at least what was left of it. And that’s right. Standing. Dolfy was standing there, somehow, smug as ever with his hands on his hips. More of his Weather Alternate lackeys stood behind him, pointing their rifles ahead, while behind him, two helicopters circled around in the air, whipping their hair and clothes around as two giant cannons were rolled along behind the rest of the group. “Behold, Nugget People! The might of pureblooded humans!” Dolfy cackled away as he curled his fingers together. “Weather Alternate has arrived to end your brief return!” “Oh. It is you again. Dolfy.” Mhagmea descended the steps very slowly. “You have come to witness the end of your kind.” Dolfy blinked for a second. “Nein, nein. I said I have come to end your brief return!” “You think you can stand up to the might of the ruler of the Herrakries? Witness the might of Helloween!” Mhagmea bent her knees low, then placed one hand on the ground while her other arm curled around her head. “The world will begin anew. You will not stop this.” Her Stand came into view above her, stretching its oversized arms to the sky. It’s jack-o-lantern-like face sneered back at them before the ground around the arena started to come alive. Summer grabbed ahold of both her friends as rocks began tearing out of the ground they stood on. Dolfy and his men rushed forward as the bridge they stood on began to wobble and fall apart. One of his soldiers wasn’t so lucky and plunged off the side as the ground beneath his feet vanished. “The Stand, it controls the very earth we stand upon!” Dolfy cried out in horror as another of his soldiers got thrown off the side by a floating boulder. Then he spotted Summer and her friends and ran over. “Sushi, it is time! I have acquired everything possible to defeat the most powerful of enemies!” Summer looked at the two cannons behind him and then furled a brow. “You do realize she has a Stand, right? What do you hope to do with those?” “Ah, she might have a Stand, but we can still kill Nugget People with our advanced weaponry!” Dolfy raised a hand up and grinned madly. “With pure German technology, I’ve even recreated the limbs that I’ve lost.” He gave his legs a thump. They sounded metallic. “Titanium with diamond reinforcement. They’re unbreakable!” “She will not go down easy,” Jojo joined in, dusting his sleeveless jacket. “Unbreakable diamonds, cannons or not. Mhagmea’s Helloween seems to be able to control the very ground we walk on. That must be why it can affect the earth’s core. Everything, including the core, is part of the earth. With power like this, she can easily see the new age she is about to bring.” “Well, how do we stop something that can stop the core, then?” One of Dolfy’s men stuck a hand out. “With our cannons, dummkopf!” Dolfy gave him a thwack on the head. “We didn’t bring them for nothing. Ready the cannons!” “You cannot stop the inevitable!” Mhagmea floated up on a rock platform as her Stand raised more spires around them, breaking them off into sharp spikes, turning them all towards Summer, her friends and Dolfy’s group. “The end comes for you all now.” As the spikes rocketed towards them, Summer conjured up Pegasus Forever, who stopped two projectiles in the air, converting their energy into potential energy. Dolfy took out a bunch with Dragonforce’s ethereal hands, while Jojo got down beside Bushido as Boney M slammed its shield into the ground, protecting them from the barrage. Dolfy’s men began opening fire, but Helloween brought up a barrier of debris around Mhagmea, absorbing their bullets. “The cannons! Ready the cannons!” Dolfy had his Stand continue to smash rocks from the sky as he looked back at his men. A handful of them stopped firing at Mhagmea and scrambled back to the massive guns to operate them. Each one was boxy in nature, clad in white and grey plates over a large rectangular barrel. With a push of some buttons, the plates opened up, revealing a long barrel with vents on either side and some pipes that pointed behind it. Each cannon was also outfitted on top of treads that were able to wheel their massive bulk around. “Fire! Fire them now!” Dolfy flung his arms around. “Mein meister, we cannot!” one of them replied. “The kinetic cannons take time to charge. They will not be ready to fire for another ten minutes!” “Why didn’t you charge them before bringing them here?!” Dolfy ranted. “What kind of soldiers are you? You suck! Did you really think that the enemy would give us time to ready our weapons for ten minutes?! Get out of my office!” “Mein meister, we’re not in your office!” “Then why don’t you do your job and FIRE THE CANNONS?!” Spit flew from Dolfy’s mouth as he shouted and raved. Summer watched him stomp his foot repeatedly on the ground, then turned her attention back to her friends. “We can’t rely on Dolfy’s weapons. We’ve got to take the fight to Mhagmea before it’s too late. Bushido, can you get us close?” “Boney M will protect us till we’re there.” He gave her a smile as his Stand posed beside him, putting one arm behind its back. “Dolfy, you better get those cannons up and ready, just in case.” Jojo interrupted the Weather Alternate leader’s ranting. “If we don’t make it, the world ends and you’ll never get your stupid bloodline going.” “Ja, I… I don’t know what I’ve been trying to accomplish. You children are more capable than I.” Dolfy adjusted his hair. “If I were as determined and brave as you, perhaps I would already have had my world of purebloods. Trust our German engineering! These cannons will succeed! Sushi, Jojo, uh, Japanese man, go finish your adventure!” “Right.” Bushido rolled his eyes. “Let’s take the fight to her.” Jojo summoned forth Tenacious D. “My Stand will make getting there faster. Tenacious D is speedy enough to dodge any flying rocks!” “And Boney M will add to the defense.” Bushido and his Stand got on top of Jojo’s. “Sushi, we leave the rest to you.” “Got it,” Summer nodded, climbing onto Tenacious D’s body. “Let’s do this.” “Once and for all.” Jojo smirked and gave his Stand a pat. With its tyres grinding against the rock, Tenacious D was off, speeding through the arena towards the stairway leading to Mhagmea. More rocks and debris crashed down around them, but true to Jojo’s claim, Tenacious D was agile and quick enough to dodge most of the big chunks, leaving Boney M to deflect the smaller, faster pieces away from them. The ground under them began to dislodge, floating up into the air as Mhagmea got higher and higher from them. Tenacious D had to begin using its arms, pushing itself up from platform to platform, using its powerful arms to launch itself and its passengers through the Nugget Person’s rock field. Helloween spun in the air, then tilted its head down as a giant boulder soared out from behind it, hurtling towards them. Summer called out Pegasus Forever, who smashed right through it with a powerful punch forward. “Neigh!” it yelled as it did so. Summer then had her Stand absorb the kinetic energy from the flying boulder and used it to push Tenacious D higher. Mhagmea might think she was the queen of the skies, but Summer and her friends were bent on dethroning her. As they soared higher, Helloween broke apart more rocks, shooting them forward like hail, forcing Boney M to lift its shield to defend them. But after lowering its shield, Mhagmea and Helloween were no longer in front of them, much to their surprise. “Where did she go?” Jojo swung his head left and right. All of a sudden, the ground under them melted and folded, sucking in Tenacious’ wheels, causing it to stop abruptly, throwing Jojo, Summer and Bushido off its back as they scrambled for anything to keep them from falling all the way down into the ruined city. “Bushido, the shield!” Summer called out as she summoned her Stand. Bushido seemed to understand and got Boney M to place its shield under them. Pegasus Forever punched away at the shield, building up its energy before delivering one more solid punch to swap its energy back to kinetic. The blast sent the shield spinning away and Summer and her friends shooting up into the air, where they managed to grab on to different rock platforms, climbing on top of them to safety. "Phew," Jojo gasped once he was no longer in danger of plummeting to his death. "They sure don't make it easy out here." "No, they do not," Summer agreed. "Still, you and Bushido did good. But we're not out of the woods yet." The sky grew ever more violent, with green bolts and forks of lightning coming down almost continuously now. Higher now, the lightning was uncomfortably close and some bolts crashed down against other floating rocks, shattering them into a million pieces. From above them in the clouds, Helloween suddenly lunged out, its claws digging into Boney M’s back as it knocked Bushido’s Stand to the ground. Boney M raised its shield and spun it back, trying to hit the enemy Stand, but Helloween blocked it with one set of claws before rocks formed around it, making it look like a big punching glove. It smashed it down against Boney M’s head, shattering the rock gauntlet, but also knocking Bushido out as he collapsed on the ground. “Oh no you don’t!” Jojo had Tenacious D ram against Helloween’s back, spinning its wheels to tear into its back. Pegasus Forever joined in, raising a fist high as it took one leap forward. Helloween twisted its head back, letting out an echo of a growl before bending low and kicking back with one foot, knocking Tenacious off its back. It grabbed it in midair, before swinging it against Pegasus Forever, hitting it in the face with one of its wheels before slamming Tenacious back on the ground. Both Summer and Jojo were knocked to their bellies, but Helloween wasn’t through with Tenacious D just yet. Warping and heating the ground under them, Helloween turned their platform into seething magma. While Tenacious D was resistant to fire, being under its surface was a different story. Helloween repeatedly began shoving Tenacious D’s head under the magma and Jojo found himself unable to breathe. Summer took it upon herself to free him, sending Pegasus Forever over as it aimed a punch for Helloween’s head. Mhagmea angled its head down, then tilted it back up as a pillar of rock erupted from under Pegasus, launching it up into the air as a green thunderbolt struck it in the back. Summer twitched on the ground and screamed as lightning coursed through her body as her Stand landed back on the platform beside her. “It is no use. You have put up a good fight. You all have…” Mhagmea emerged from a cluster of rocks and stepped onto a platform beside her Stand. “While you have fought valiantly, your time is now up. I have played around long enough. The end comes.” She stretched her arms to her sides and closed her eyes. Helloween let go of Tenacious as the magma re-hardened back to rock, trapping it in the earth as it copied its master’s movements. Summer leaned her head off the side of her platform as the sound of rumbling came again. The ruins of Berlin below quaked and some began to fall over as the ground under them began to break apart and ascend. “By now, with the core’s slowing, the world’s gravity would have changed,” Mhagmea said through closed eyes. “Once I halt the core entirely, the world would be entirely cleansed as everything floats away into the great beyond. In another five minutes, you will all cease to be!” “N-No, you can’t do this…!” Summer crawled forward and reached an arm out to the Nugget Person. “You were sealed away long ago. The humans then were wrong to do so. They were greedy, they wanted the power you gave them, and to rule in your place. But those alive now have nothing to do with that! They don’t deserve to die!” “You are born from their mistakes. I have seen the chaos your kind created over the years of our imprisonment.” Mhagmea pointed a crooked finger at Summer. “In our time, humankind was united under our one rule. Look at what has happened since then.” “Humans still deserve the chance to prove themselves. There are bad people, but there’s also plenty of good people. People who want to make the world better!” “But the world will be better.” Mhagmea rose higher in the air as her group of rocks floated up. “It will all be better. It will be beautiful.” Summer strained with all her might to get to her feet. However, no matter how hard she tried, she just could not find the  strength. It was like her limbs had turned into jelly. Is this it? Is this the end? Have we… failed? Summer squeezed her eyes shut with the effort of trying to rise. All she could hear was the sound of thunder and rocks cracking against each other. But then came a new sound. It sounded like someone banging two frying pans together. “Hiii-yaa!” Dolfy shouted as he leapt up onto the platform. The sides of his metal legs had opened up to reveal small rocket boosters in them, which he used to propel himself upwards. “Dragonforce!” Dragonforce’s huge arms swooped out and grabbed Mhagmea’s own arms, pinning her in place. Dolfy wasted no time in leaping forward and nailing the Nugget Person in the face with a spectacular flying kick. He then kicked off Mhagmea’s front side and landed with a backflip next to Summer. “Did you forget about me?” Dolfy sneered at Mhagmea, reaching down and pulling Summer to her feet. She leaned against Dolfy for a few seconds while she recovered her balance. “Weather Alternate will not lose to the likes of the Nugget People, or anyone else!” Then to Summer, he slapped her on the back and said, “Come on, get up, fraulein Sushi. Did you kill all of my Stand users just to give up and die here?” That brought Summer back to reality. The journey here had been difficult, filled with Stand users trying to kill her. She hadn’t fought all this way just to watch the world end. No, she was going to fight. To the very last breath. “That’s right. It’s not over.” She put her strength back on both her feet and staggered forward. “Mhagmea, I’m going to fight for the better of all humanity.” Just then, Tenacious D burst out of the rock and pumped both its arms to the sky. “So will I!” Jojo pointed a thumb at himself as he joined Summer and Dolfy. “The Joyride bloodline has fought countless threats. You’re just another one of them. You’re going to meet your maker, Mhagmea!” Mhagmea pulled her arms out of Dragonforce’s grasp and wiped a small trail of golden blood off her chin. She looked annoyed at Dolfy’s arrival, glaring at the leader of Weather Alternate with narrowed eyes. “My rule will not be interfered with again.” She shot an arm out and Helloween jumped past her, claws bared. Dragonforce punched out with both arms, sending ethereal copies ahead, but Helloween tucked and rolled, forming a ball of rock around itself as it barreled into Dolfy’s Stand. Pegasus Forever stopped it from rolling over him, punching its surface and converting its energy to potential before wailing on it with repeated punches. “Neigh, neigh, neigh!” With one more punch, it shattered the rocky barrier and sent it flying in pieces ahead as Helloween leapt out of it. Some of the shards pierced its skin and drew golden blood from its master, but it grabbed Pegasus Forever around the snout before delivering an uppercut to its jaw. Pegasus didn’t go down and instead, brought its head back in for a headbutt, only for Helloween to tilt its head low so its horns took the brunt of the blow. It formed rocks around both fists before releasing a flurry of punches to Pegasus’ midsection. Pegasus Forever’s armor helped against the majority of the blows, but Helloween was much stronger and eventually thrust a punch in that made it double over, causing Summer to spit out blood from her mouth. Dragonforce pried Helloween away from Pegasus, but pressing one leg down, the ground under it sank and Dragonforce was swallowed up, leaving only its arms. Lifting a hand, Mhagmea’s Stand encased Dolfy in a rocky prison. Jojo got on top of Tenacious D as it charged at Helloween, pressing both hands on his Stand’s back as he charged his hamon through it. Energy laced around Tenacious D’s horns as it pierced Helloween’s left arm when it raised it to push the Stand away. Hamon passed from Jojo’s Stand into Helloween’s arm, turning Mhagmea’s own arm into stone almost immediately. She hissed at them, then called back her Stand as Dolfy and Dragonforce broke out of their rocky prison, complete with an enormous breath of fire. Mhagmea had Helloween bring up wave after wave of earth, putting it between her and the blast of flame as she stepped back on rising platforms, escaping closer towards the dark clouds. From behind, Boney M’s shield spun in an arc, breaking through one of the platforms just as she was about to step on it. Mhagmea fell through her own earth, before Helloween created another mound just under her, which swallowed her whole. Layer by layer, it built itself up, like a snowball rolling down a hill. Dragonforce’s fire blazed against it, but this time, it didn’t melt through. “This is no longer just rock. It’s the earth itself!” The man raised his hands and flinched. Bushido and Jojo ran over to join Summer on her platform as the earth mold began to grow and take shape.  “This has gone on long enough!” Mhagmea’s voice echoed around them. “Let me show you the true power of the earth!” “What is she doing?” Bushido’s face had blood running down its left side from the blow he received earlier. “I don’t know, but we’re running out of time. We should squash her now while we have the chance!” Jojo sent Tenacious D to the growing mound. It smashed its fists repeatedly against the surface, but even as it began to crack and give way, more earth formed around it and with the risk of being absorbed into the fold, Jojo had his Stand back away. Dolfy made a snap decision and bent down onto one knee, his other leg popping open to uncover a rocket launcher inside. He fired it at the growing mound of earth, but even the blast of the missile didn’t leave a lasting dent in Mhagmea’s construct. “Well, I’m out. Any ideas?” Dolfy asked, snapping his leg closed again. Before anyone could suggest anything, the mound began to move and it was then that Summer realized that it was now an arm. Fingers closed around the platforms they were all standing on and they had to jump off, heading back down as more earth was added to it. A head appeared over a thick stump, and the giant colossus opened its mouth in a booming roar. “It’s a giant golem!” Dolfy exclaimed. “She’s constructed a plating of earth around herself that can do her bidding, all thanks to her Stand!” Jojo took a closer look at the earthen giant. “Aim for the joints!” he shouted. “We need to bring it down!” Pegasus Forever and Boney M whisked down to a forming leg as it joined with the body, bashing away with fists and shield. Dirt and debris was blasted up into the air with every impact, but then the colossus swept a hand down, knocking both Stands away as Summer and Jojo fell on their backs. Summer felt as though every bone in her body had just been cracked in half. Summer lay there, stunned and unable to do anything except watch the Mhagmea golem grow in size as it absorbed more earth. Dolfy hit the golem with a torrent of superheated flames from Dragonforce. However, it just made a hard layer of solid clay on the golem’s body which cracked and was re-absorbed by the monstrosity. “Verdammt!” Dolfy shouted. “Can nothing stop this thing?” “The end of your world is inevitable!” Mhagmea bellowed through her creation as it took a step forward. As the last pieces of earth formed around it, what stood before them was now humanoid in shape, vaguely resembling Mhagmea, but instead of a singular red horn, it had the twin curled horns of Helloween, along with its oversized arms. Stepping forward, the colossus’ knee crashed into the rows of platforms, forcing Summer and the others further back towards the start of the arena. Summer and her friends were slowly running out of walking room and none of them could fly. They had to think of something before that happened. “How are we supposed to deal with this?” Jojo shouted as the huge stone beast made a grab for him that he was barely able to dodge. “Oi Dolfy! Got any more tricks up your legs?” “We just need two more minutes!” Dolfy looked back at his giant cannons. “When they’re fully charged, these Nugget People are gonna wish they were never awakened!” “The core’s going to stop in another four minutes. That leaves us with two to stop Mhagmea!” Summer pointed at the side of her head. “That leaves us with little room to stop her if those cannons fail!” “The projectiles are fired by the buildup of kinetic energy!” Dolfy moved one hand through the air before going past his other arm. “It’s strong enough to punch through the strongest battleship!” Mhagmea’s colossus roared and rained down shards of rock around them, cutting through their clothes and skin before Boney M brought up its shield to protect them. As metallic thumps echoed through her ears, Summer was about to pin all her hopes on Dolfy’s cannons, when something else crossed her mind. Perhaps there was a way to make sure his plan worked. But she would need time, and that wasn’t something they had the luxury of having right now.