The air of the catacombs was dank and musty and Shiho Sunfast cursed under her breath as she brushed another cobweb from her face. This was the third one since they had left the big chamber behind. The tunnels had trails and trails of wires going down them, stopping periodically at a portable spotlight each time. Even if they didn’t have the tracking device on hand, Die Die Riches had practically given them the directions to their secret lair, but Shiho wasn’t complaining. The faster they got through this, the better. The device would still prove useful if the lights decided to go off in the wrong direction.
She still had a couple of punches with Duckie Deluxe’s name on them.
“This takes me back…” Daring Do said as she ran a hand along a coffin with a half-broken lid. “To another of my grandmother’s tales. She had hunted a vampire in her time, did you know that? She had eventually tracked it through a dark forest in Romania before cornering it in its huge mansion. Instead of preparing a trap to take her down or something, it just retreated to its coffin where my grandmother finished it off with a stake.”
“Okay, I’ve believed your stories up until now, but a vampire?” Shiho asked. “That one has to be embellished.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Daring Do insisted. “Vampires can only be killed by a stake to the heart or decapitation.”
Shiho snorted. “Pretty sure that would kill almost anything.”
“Vampires are quite real. We have them in Equestria too,” Twilight said.
“Next you’re going to say ghosts are real…” Josher rubbed one of the coffin lids. “A-Are they? How about zombies?”
“Okay, enough.” Shiho glared at him with her steely eyes. “The whole place is going to know we’re here if we keep talking. We’re finding the leader of Die Die Riches, and we’re turning her into a ghost. Any objections?”
“None here.” Josher gave her a thumbs up.
“I suppose she does have to be stopped.” Twilight shrugged. “That’s why we came all this way. We’re with you, Shiho.”
Shiho just nodded and kept going. They were close now. She knew it. They had been walking through tunnels for at least twenty minutes now and they were surely getting closer to Die Die Riches.
“I wish I still had both my arms…” Spike held out his remaining arm and wiggled his fingers. “Once we get back, could your grandmother still get it back for me, Shiho?”
“I don’t know.” The girl kept going. “I don’t know the extent of her powers or how far back she can reset you.”
“Don’t worry, Spike,” Twilight assured her friend. “We’ll find a way to fix it. Maybe if we return to Equestria, it’ll grow back.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Shiho said. “Now be quiet. We don’t want them to hear us coming.”
The group continued on in silence, following the tracking device that they had looted of Garland Greyness.
Shiho was in the lead and heard something from behind her.
“I thought I told you lot to be quiet,” she whispered.
The rest of the group looked at each other. “We didn’t say anything.”
Shiho frowned deeply. “But I definitely heard someone make a noise.” She scowled even more. There it was again. A sort of sound that almost reminded her of those dumb tourists who came around her school back in Japan and bought takoyaki at the stall nearby. Always chewing with their mouths open, they were.
“Something’s not right here…” Daring Do muttered as she drew out her whip. “No sudden moves, everyone. I have a feeling we’re not alone.”
The chomping sound grew louder and now all of them could hear it. The entire team called out their Stands and pressed together in a rough circle, eyes jumping about in the darkness looking for the source.
“There! Watch out!” Josher cried out, pushing Twilight and Spike away as something rushed at them from the darkness of the tunnels. In the brief moment that Josher was able to see it, he saw something that was a nightmarish blend of a pair of muscular arms and a massive, chomping maw full of tombstone teeth, gnashing open and shut as it blurred past and back into the shadows of the catacombs.
“What the hell was that?” Shiho grunted, having pressed herself against the wall to avoid the monstrous mouth.
Daring Do dropped down from the ceiling where she had jumped up to before.
“I don’t know, but it seems that Die Die Riches still has a few tricks up their sleeve. Whatever the devil that thing was, it’ll be back. Count on it.”
“We must be getting close if we’ve tripped their next line of defense like this,” Josher reasoned. “But I don’t like the idea of going on in the dark like before if there’s a monster Stand like that prowling the tunnels. If there’s a spider in the room, I’d like to be able to see it.”
“Good attitude to have when confronting danger,” Daring Do remarked. “You wouldn’t make a half-bad adventurer archeologist yourself, Josher.”
“Let’s just focus on surviving for now,” Spike had Winter Wrap Up floating next to him like a bodyguard. “We can talk about adventuring later.”
“Right. Of course.”
“About time too. I hear it again.” Twilight turned to the darkness as the chomping sounds resumed. “Strange World!”
Her Stand hopped into the air and activated its ability, slowing down everything in a cone in front of her. The Stand with the big mouth returned, colored bright yellow under the portable lights, slow enough for them to see this time.
“What in oblivion is that?” Spike took a step back as Winter Wrap Up began firing icicles from its palms.
The icicles bounced against the yellow Stand’s skin and shattered into the sides of the tunnel. One broke open one of the coffins on impact and sprayed wood in all directions.
“Back!” Twilight ordered as her Stand fought to slow the enemy.
When it got close enough, Strange World began pounding it with fist after fist, but each blow felt like it was connecting with rubber and it didn’t seem to even harm the enemy Stand. She was about to call it back when it opened its mouth wider and dragged itself forward with unimaginable speed, swallowing both Twilight and Strange World whole.
“Twi!” Spike called out and froze the ground with Winter Wrap Up, but the Stand just hopped and crashed back down, shattering all the ice with its weight.
Shiho grabbed Spike and ran back around the first corner, knocking over one of the lights in the process. Daring Do held Yesterday in her hand, looking to her friends for advice as she held a finger over the button. Shiho waved at her not to do it. There was still so much they didn’t know about this. If they reset time now, she would be out of charges and they would still know nothing.
“Okay, screw this,” Shiho had Curtain Call throw its shroud over a stray bone, transforming it into a long metal spike. Shiho brandished the metal stake and looked around in the darkness. “Next time that big mouth comes, I’m introducing it to this toothpick.”
“Spike!” Twilight’s voice called out from the tunnel they had come from. “Help!”
“Twilight!” Spike shouted, running down the passage. “Hold on, I’m on my way!”
Shiho watched him go. “No, you buffoon! We have to stay together!”
Shiho started after Spike, but Spike had a head start and in this darkness, it was impossible to see which way he had gone. All Shiho could hear was Spike’s receding footfalls in the catacombs.
“Ah, crap,” Shiho growled. She glanced back, making sure Daring Do and Josher were still with her. They were not.
“Good grief. Every time.”
Earlier, Josher reached out for Shiho as she went running off after Spike. He would have followed, but Daring Do grabbed his shirt collar and held him back.
“Don’t do it, Josher,” Daring Do warned. “That’s exactly what they want us to do. Whoever’s behind this Stand attack wants us to go running around scared. Well, ‘panic’ isn’t even in the vocabulary of an adventurer like myself. We’ll stay calm and figure it out.”
“Not much I can do to help here,” the boy said. “I can’t use Down Under here, the tunnels are too narrow for its size, unless we want to collapse the roof on top of ourselves. And no offense, but your Stand doesn’t attack as well.”
“Attacks don’t seem to hurt it.” Daring Do peeked around the next corner. All they could hear was the enemy Stand’s large body shuffling along the ground, but in these catacombs, it could’ve been coming from anywhere. “You saw what Strange World did. Its punches did nothing. There must be something else we can do to beat it than a straight up fight.”
The shuffling sounds began to get louder again and both their eyes turned down the dark tunnel they had come from. By now, they had left the path of lights Die Die Riches had set up behind and the catacombs had expanded into tunnels that led all over the place.
“These must lead around some time.” Daring Do pointed down a curved tunnel. “Maybe we can circle back around and find Shiho and Spike.”
Josher nodded, putting on a brave face. “Sure. I’m not going to let Die Die Riches get away with their crimes.”
“And neither am I.” Daring Do gave him a pat on his shoulder. “Whatever this Stand is, we’ll beat it. Just you watch. We’ll figure out just what it’s capable of and we’ll stop it.”
A low bellow came from the darkness, followed by more scraping. Josher recognized it as the Stand’s fingers dragging its grotesque body across the ground. Wherever it was, it was close now.
“Let’s go. No time to waste.” Daring Do grabbed his hand and shook it to usher him on.
The two of them ran down the curved tunnel, throwing a couple of coffins to the ground in hopes of slowing the Stand down. They knew it likely wouldn’t do much, but it was better than doing nothing.
Their footsteps clattered against the stone floor as they rounded another corner, leading to a pathway that led down a flight of steps. The next chamber had three tunnels and they decided to go to the one to their left, which then led to two more tunnels. The air down here was starting to smell slightly less stale, Josher noticed. That must mean that they were closing in on Die Die Riches’ base. Not even poor people liked to breathe in air that was laced with the bone dust of centuries past.
“There are no lights here,” Daring Do noted. “This must be a different path leading to their base. If we can get there, maybe we can disable the Stand’s master and get it off our backs.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s do this!” Josher looked back and waved to her. “The faster we find them, the faster we can rescue the others.”
“Wait, hold on!” Daring Do reached out, but just then, a yellow shape emerged from the tunnel on the side, cruising straight for Josher as it opened its mouth wide.
“W-Woah!” Josher kicked back and threw a coffin forward as he summoned Down Under’s arm to punch the enemy. Even with Down Under’s incredible power, he felt as though he was hitting rubber and it bounced back as the enemy Stand turned in their direction, clawing at the air as it hauled itself on. “Da-Daring Do, back, back!”
The Stand began chomping the air as it chased after them, smashing aside coffins to get to them. Josher broke open more coffins and threw bones at it, but all it did was swallow them and press on towards them.
“I can’t shake it!” Josher called out.
“Just keep moving!” Daring Do gestured, running ahead of him. “It only speeds up in bursts when it lunges, otherwise, it can’t drag itself faster than we can run. We can keep ahead of it if we keep moving!”
They made a right turn, then exited through a tunnel on the left before following a flight of steps up to another crossroad. Josher took out his playing cards and began firing them off from the top of the deck down the path ahead, making a line of cards leading down it. Daring Do gave him a nod before they proceeded down the left path, ducking around the next corner to catch their breath.
Josher peeked out from the corner slightly, trying to see if they managed to lose the enemy Stand. To his great displeasure, the Stand emerged from the darkness, not even stopping to see his trail of cards leading off in the other direction. It just turned towards their tunnel without a pause and hauled itself closer.
“It’s tracking us somehow!” Daring Do pulled Josher to get him to move again. “But how?”
“Yeah, I even laid out a decoy for them to follow!” Josher pocketed the rest of his cards and ran along after her.
The Stand burst through the curve of the wall and rained showers of debris down around them. Josher tripped over one and dropped to the ground, shearing his elbows as he fought to get back on his feet, but before he could even plant one foot firmly on the ground, the enemy Stand was upon him, its mouth opened wide.
Daring Do looked back and stopped, but Josher waved at her and shook his head. “Keep going! You have to find a way to stop this Stand!”
Josher closed his eyes as he waited for the inevitable, but then the enemy Stand flew right over his head and he looked up in disbelief. It smashed apart another column of coffins as it dragged itself through the air towards Daring Do. Both of them stared at the Stand, linking eyes for a moment before the large shape enveloped Daring Do, sliding to a stop in the tunnel ahead.
“W-What?” Josher got back up and rubbed at his injured elbows. “Why didn’t it eat me?”
The enemy Stand raised its body again and Josher didn’t need to be told twice before he got moving back the way they had come, but this time turning down the path he had thrown his cards to earlier. Already he could hear the Stand coming, smashing through more stone as it started chasing after him.
“It took Daring Do first… Why?” Josher ran on, looking back occasionally to make sure it wasn’t close to him just yet. “Could it be she knew something I didn’t? Was she more important?”
He heard a crash behind him, followed by a burp. It was coming and again, it knew exactly where he was.
“It’s not tracking me by smell or sound. No way,” Josher said to himself. “It jumped clear over me to get to Daring. What does she have that I don’t? That’s how it’s tracking us and now it’s coming for me! Think, Josher, think!”
He pressed his fingers to the sides of his head, but with the enemy Stand pursuing him like this, he didn’t have much room to think besides to get himself as far as he could from it. He had seen its sides bulging earlier as it ate Daring Do; it looked like someone was trying to escape from inside and that led Josher to believe that all his friends were still alive in there.
“But for how long?”
He skidded past the next turn, almost running into a pillar as he entered a large chamber with a second floor of tunnels leading in all four directions. He stopped in front of the pillar and turned around. This was it. This room was big enough to house Down Under and if it was a fight this Stand wanted, it was a fight it would get.
The tunnel was filled with the sounds of scraping and the chomping of teeth and though he couldn’t see anything yet, Josher could already feel the anticipation racing to his heart. He began taping his left index finger against his pants and he refused to blink as he peered into the dark tunnel, just waiting for that spurt of yellow to appear.
“Tracking… How is it doing that…?” Josher continued to ask himself. This was the crux of the situation. If he could figure that out, victory would be as good as theirs.
He thought back to how his friends had been taken in the tunnels. Twilight had been swallowed first, so it was definitely after her. He didn’t know if Shiho and Spike had been eaten as well, but he had to assume the worst, unless they weren’t being targeted, like he hadn’t been when the Stand went after Daring Do. It was clearly coming after him now, so he thought about what he had that the others didn’t.
“Think, Josher! Use that ol’ noggin of yours!” He tapped the side of his head repeatedly. “Twilight… Then Daring Do…”
The Stand was definitely a long ranged automatic Stand, meaning it was unlikely its master would be directing its actions. That means it must have a way to differentiate Die Die Riches activists from them.
Only one thing popped into his mind when it came to differentiating them. They hated the rich. What if…
Josher didn’t have more time to go over it as the grotesque Stand came into view, dripping saliva as its teeth clashed together repeatedly.
“Here we go now.” He planted his feet further apart as Down Under swung its anchor up into its other palm.
He had his other hand on his lightphone. Thankfully, phones these days had coverage even deep underground. There were recorded findings that the signal could go all the way down to the Veryovkina Cave, the deepest known cave in the world.
“Technology these days. Sometimes it scares me…” He tapped away on a few buttons as the enemy Stand charged, smashing its hands against the ground as it came chomping for them.
Down Under swiped its anchor at the Stand, smashing it against its left side. It bent under the blow like rubber, but the force of Down Under’s blow still sent it flying to the second floor, breaking down a part of the wall.
He cheered quietly to himself, but then it shook off debris and turned its whole body to him. With a roar, it leapt off the second floor and stretched its arms out to grab Down Under, but it spun around and smashed the anchor into it again, knocking it to the ground before it repeatedly pounded its anchor against its back.
“Stay down!” Josher called out to it, shuffling both feet together before standing on his tiptoes, stretching one arm to the sky.
But the enemy Stand was not to be beaten and instead, it squeezed out from Down Under’s next blow, angling its body forward as the next strike came down. The anchor smashed against its rear and the attack launched the Stand from its spot, sending it right for Josher.
“It angled its body so my next strike would launch it towards me!” Josher put his phone away and braced himself. “It’ll have to be up to them!”
The Stand closed its mouth behind him and landed against the pillar with a squelch. It pawed at the ground, then turned around and and proceeded down the tunnel it had come from.
In the further reaches of the catacombs under Angers, a man with a large belly sat on a pile of cardboard boxes, slowly chewing into a muesli bar. He scratched at his chin as he wondered about what his Stand was up to now.
Eat the Rich was hungry. Then again, it was always hungry. Just like him, it had a voracious appetite, but unlike him, Eat the Rich could eat anything it wanted whenever it wanted. For him, to even have this puny muesli bar with chocolate bits was tough to get. Everything was so expensive now and he had to be careful about how much money to have right now.
“But it doesn't matter. Duckie will be safe as long as I’m around…” He licked his lips and got off the boxes. He walked down one of the tunnels and lifted up his shirt to scratch his belly button. “I, Dirty Chains, will be the one to take out that enemy Stand team. They will never stop Die Die Riches. Never. Eat the world, Eat the Rich. Eat them all!”