Shiho ran down the next tunnel, continuing to follow the lights as she dragged Spike behind her.
“I told you, let me go! I’ve got to help Twi!” He struggled to dislodge her fingers.
“Stop it. I told you, you’re just going to get yourself eaten,” Shiho barked.
Earlier, they had escaped the yellow Stand as it bypassed them completely, not even stopping to sniff at them. Shiho had wondered why for the longest time and she eventually surmised that it wasn’t tracking them by scent, or anything conventional for the matter. It had first taken Twilight, and then it went after Josher and Daring Do, wherever they were headed.
But she had more information thanks to Josher. His signal had gone out since his last message and Shiho could only guess what had happened to him, but thanks to him, she knew exactly what she had to do, but she didn’t know if he would make it in time.
“The enemy Stand master has to be down here somewhere. These catacombs are their hideout and even if it’s a long range Stand, we can take-”
Shiho whipped around faster than someone could pull out a gun. She heard it. A faint chomping sound somewhere behind them.
“It’s coming,” she said. “We need to move, Spike.”
“No, let me at ‘em, I’ll give it a good beating for taking Twi!” Spike swung his fist.
“Spike, if we find the Stand master, you can beat him up all you want.” Shiho tugged at his hoodie again and used Curtain Call to pull him on. “The enemy Stand’s coming. It can’t be damaged by normal means. We’ll have to wait and find its master in the meantime.”
Spike grumbled, but then he called out Winter Wrap Up, which began freezing the tunnel behind them. “I’ll slow it down at least.”
Shiho looked at him, then let go of his hood and waved for him to move. “Then let’s go. I want to give this Stand master a piece of my mind.”
The chomping sounds soon disappeared behind them, and Shiho knew they could outrun it, but before she had any time to be happy about this little fact, something yellow lunged out at them from the next tunnel to their right, chomping thin air as she ducked back, summoning Curtain Call to throw its iron spike at the enemy Stand.
The metal spike prodded into the Stand’s body as it sailed away into a neighboring tunnel, but it didn’t seem to do anything.
“Winter Wrap Up!” Spike yelled.
His Stand began freezing a solid block of ice at the tunnel’s entrance, then built upon it as the two of them ran past. Something crashed against it on the other side, cracking the ice, but as Winter Wrap Up continued to build more ice against it, it continued to hold up, allowing them to gain more distance between the enemy.
“Follow the lights. We’ll get there eventually.” Shiho picked up another piece of debris and had Curtain Call transform it into another metal spike.
“You go, I’ll make sure you get as much time as you need!” Spike planted his feet on the ground. “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
Shiho cursed under her breath, but kept going. At least he wasn’t running into the unknown to get himself eaten this time. She commended him in her mind. He had more resolve than she knew. Spike was not easily swayed and he would do what he needed to do for what he thought was right.
Perhaps the people she was traveling with weren’t all that bad. Including her grandmother.
Around the next corner, Shiho ran right into another human being who was sitting on a crate looking in her direction. She saw her coming and got up, startled. She pulled out a switchblade, but Curtain Call had already thrown its metal spike, pinning her to the wall as Shiho ran up and yanked the knife away from her.
“So, you’re the Stand master…” She glared at her. “Call of your Stand. Now. Or I’ll beat you to a pulp.”
“W-Wait, it’s not me!” She waved her hands, then groaned in anguish as blood seeped from her pinned shoulder.
“Yeah, and I’m the king of Thailand.” Shiho slapped her hard.
Curtain Call threw its cloth over the switchblade and turned it into a hammer, holding it up to the woman’s eye, but she didn’t seem to see the Stand, nor did she react to it.
Shiho spat at her. “You’re not the Stand master. Where is the Stand master? Tell me now!”
“I… he’s somewhere in… he’s in the catacombs somewhere!” the woman wailed. “I don’t know!”
But before she could be quizzed further, Shiho spotted the enemy Stand slinking down the tunnel towards them.
“No freakin’ way…” She pulled the woman off the wall with Curtain Call and threw her at the Stand.
The Stand kept going, not even reacting to the woman bouncing off its head as her body spun off behind its large form.
“Seems Josher might’ve been on to something…” She took out her phone and ran on.
It completely ignored the Die Die Riches woman, and the people of this group were poor, lacking in money. Josher had mentioned it went for Daring Do ahead of him and Daring Do was a great adventurer. She made a lot of money from the treasures she and her family had found over the years. Twilight was a princess and whether she was from another world or not, she would surely have plenty of money to never know poverty again. Josher was from the Joyride family and they had been wealthy way before her grandmother had come to this world. He would surely have more money than her.
Shiho tapped at her pockets and nodded. “I don’t carry physical money with me, so this Stand… it doesn’t track us based on how much money we carry, it must be tracking us based on our net worth. That’s it. That must be it. It targets the one who has the highest net worth.”
Shiho stopped and opened her bank account on her phone. There was only one way to test this hypothesis and if she was wrong, then she deserved to be eaten. With a push of two buttons, she transferred everything she owned into her mother’s account, leaving her with nothing.
“I’ll get her to pay me back when Die Die Riches is eating dirt,” Shiho said and pocketed her phone to face the enemy Stand. “But for now…”
The yellow Stand approached her, its teeth clacking against each other as it crawled along, but all of a sudden, it stopped and breathed, letting out hot air from its mouth. Then it turned around and approached the woman as she was trying to get up.
She couldn’t see Stands, so she didn’t even let out a cry as the Stand swallowed her whole. Now that Shiho had nothing, even a lowly member of Die Die Riches would have a higher net worth than her.
“That’s right. Target your own now. Don’t mind me while I search for your master…” Shiho let herself smile as she went ahead through the tunnel, following the lights towards their base.
She encountered another two Die Die Riches activists playing with a rubber ball, and when they saw her, they ran at her with more switchblades, but Shiho just threw her hammer at the first one’s face, knocking him down and out before kicking the second one in the chest as she ran to her. While she was on the ground, Shiho stepped on her face multiple times, then proceeded on. The enemy Stand would deal with them when it caught up.
It was at the next turn that she encountered a man with a large belly walking down the tunnel towards her with his hands in his pockets. He didn’t seem bothered by her presence, nor did he look like he was threatened.
“So, you’re here,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “How do you like my handiwork? You must be exhausted by now, running all throughout these catacombs. It’s easy to get lost, you know?”
Shiho had no doubt about it now. “You must be the Stand master.”
The man chuckled and nodded his head. “That’s right. I am Dirty Chains, master of Eat the Rich, which has been plaguing you the moment you entered these catacombs. Somehow you got past Garland Greyness and his uh, That Day That Comes Early, or something. I can’t remember, his Stand’s name is really long. And he always prided himself on being the strongest. So does Grandeur Black. But no! It is me, Dirty Chains, who is the strongest Stand master of Die Die Riches besides Duckie Deluxe!”
He bent his arms at his sides and faced his palms up as he laughed till he choked.
“You have to be the last one of your friends now. Tell me, how does it feel to have a Stand’s unending hunger chase after you?”
“You want to know, huh, Dirty Chains?” Shiho pointed at him. “You activists disgust me. But I won’t be worrying about your Stand anymore. You should though.”
“Pffft. And why is that?”
Shiho narrowed her eyes. “Because I have you all figured out.”
“Oh? Do you now?” Dirty Chains looked amused. “Then do tell. I’m all ears.”
Shiho allowed the corner of her mouth to curve up as she held her phone’s screen towards him. It showed her bank account’s main page.
Dirty Chains was taken aback by the numbers on her screen. “It’s all zero, zero, zero! Oh no!”
“That’s right. And I’m sure even you have more than zero.” Shiho put it back in her pocket and folded her arms. “And it’s going to get a lot more interesting in no time.”
There was a beep in Dirty Chains’ pocket and he took out his own phone. It was nothing fancy like the modern lightphone, but it still had a touchscreen and everything.
“He must already be done. You’re going to enjoy yourselves. At least for a moment.” Shiho took out a cigarette and sat herself down on one of the boxes.
Dirty Chains’ eyes widened as he watched the numbers on his screen shift and change. “One zero, two zeroes, three zeroes, four, five, six, seven, eight… I… I’m rich? I’m rich! Look at all this money!”
But then a rumble came from down the tunnel and he realized his predicament.
Joshi Horner snickered to himself as he sifted through pages and pages of data as Blitzkrieg’s fingers moved furiously across the laptop’s keyboard. He had gone to an internet cafe nearby when he got the message from Josher earlier. It was all an assumption, but he would gladly play along if it meant the end of Die Die Riches.
“L-o-d-s-of-e-m-o-n-e,” Joshi chanted as he logged into Weather Alternate’s funds. He would have to explain this to his father later, but with any luck he could just reverse the transaction after this was all over.
While he was accessing the funds, Joshi took a fork and speared it into a plate of his favorite food, sausage eggs. Incredible that they served it in France, to be honest. He had thought it was a dish that existed only back home in Germany.
With the president safe from the attacking Die Die Riches troop, he now had time to slip away to assist the others below the streets to enact this nefarious plan.
“That’s right. All of them at once. What a perfect plan!” He clapped before stuffing another portion of the sausage eggs into his mouth. “Sehr gut, mein freund!”
With Blitzkrieg in play, he could sense them, all the electronics down below the streets. Being with Josher and the others for a while, he already knew their electric signatures and instead of pouring money into their accounts, he removed them, setting them to zero, just like Shiho’s account. She had been standing still in front of another signature for quite some time, so he guessed it must’ve been a Stand master. He made sure to put three more zeroes into that signature’s account for extra measure.
Once he was all set, Joshi gave Blitzkrieg a high-five and leaned back to enjoy the show. And the rest of his sausage eggs.
“O-Oh no! I’m in a pickle!” Dirty Chains pressed his cheeks together as he dropped his phone. His account had increased from twenty-seven euros to eight million in just a few seconds and for once in his life, he felt as though he could do anything, he could buy anything he wanted and he would be able to eat a full meal more than four times a day. But all that instantly turned to mush as he saw Eat the Rich crawl up behind Shiho.
Now that her bank account was zero, zero, zero, Eat the Rich bypassed her, not even noticing she was standing there as it crawled towards the next person with lots of money: himself.
“N-No, wait, Eat the Rich, it’s me!” Dirty Chains took a step back and tripped on nothing, bouncing on the ground as his own Stand lunged at him, its mouth opened wide. Its jaws closed around him and he vanished from view as Eat the Rich burped and scratched at its face.
“One more piece of trash taken care of…” Shiho sighed and took another puff of her cigarette.
With Joshi in on this, she knew it would only be a matter of time before he cracked their systems and sent the remaining activists lots of money. With so many zeroes in their accounts, Eat the Rich would be sure to go in search of them instead of her and her friends. And just on schedule, Eat the Rich turned to the side and belched out Twilight, Spike, Josher and Daring Do before wiping at its mouth and crawling down the tunnel, knocking over each portable light as it went.
Already, she could hear their screams echo through the catacombs as they were swallowed by something they couldn’t see.
“Good grief, what a bizarre Stand…” She puffed out another cloud of smoke before dropping her cigarette to the ground to stomp on it. “Everyone feeling okay?”
“Gross…” Spike wiped a handful of thick gooey saliva off his face, stuck his tongue out, which was a mistake, as more saliva dripped on it from his upper lip. “Aaaugh!”
“This reminds me of a story my great-grandmother had passed down over the ages…” Daring Do took off her hat and put it aside as more saliva dripped down their bodies. “She had been swallowed by a giant venus fly trap somewhere in Peru when she was searching for a lost city of gold. Turns out that the plant had been feeding off the gold for years and its properties had somehow made it grow to gigantic proportions. But my mom had always said she had emerged from that covered in the plant’s secretions. This reminds me of that.”
“I’ve dealt with plenty of plant threats back in Equestria, but this one’s new…” Twilight shook her body, spraying saliva on the walls and coffins.
“Hey, at least this counts as a liquid.” Josher slicked his blue hair back. “It empowers Down Under. So I’m feeling good, I suppose.”
“Where’d it go, anyhow?” Spike pointed down the tunnel. “Why’d it spit us back out?”
“Aha, I called in a little help from Joshi.” Josher held up his lightphone. “Don’t be alarmed, but he emptied our bank accounts.”
“He what?!” they all said at once.
“I said don’t be alarmed, jeez.” Josher continued. “That was the only way to get us out of the Stand’s radar. He put lots of money into the accounts of everyone else down here, meaning-”
“That’s a great idea. The Stand will be targeting their own!” Twilight gave him a pat on the back. “Good job, Josher!”
“The one you should really thank is Joshi.” Then he held out his phone. “And lightphones. These things rock.”
“I will have to get one myself one of these days…” Twilight patted her pants down. “But how did you take money out of my account? I’ve only been here a few days.”
“I can only assume it was through Blitzkrieg’s Standoh powah!” Josher covered his mouth and nose with one hand, then put the other arm behind his head. “You know what, we should move on. We can ask him later.”
“Very well.” Twilight brushed a hand through her hair. “I just hope he can get me my money back. I brought a lot of bits from Equestria’s treasury in case I needed to make any purchases.”
“So won’t your wallet still have this money or something?” Daring Do asked as more screams rang out from down the tunnel. “It’s physical money, right?”
“It turned into something else when I came into this world.” Twilight held out a blue card in her hand.
“Ahhh,” Josher and Daring Do said at once.
As Eat the Rich continued scouring the base for more rich, it knocked through a barricade three of the activists had set up, shattering wood across the area as it chomped down on two of them before throwing itself at the third. The man squealed and raised both hands, but just as it was about to swallow him, he looked up and his eyes glowed red. With a palm, he knocked Eat the Rich aside and all of a sudden, knives flew out from the coffins, pinning its hands to the stone walls.
As it touched the walls, Eat the Rich was no longer in the catacombs. Instead, it was in a two storey house and the moon shone in from one of its windows, lighting up the hallway it was in.
“You’re not going to reach me…” a voice echoed out from one of the rooms. Its door was open and all that could be seen was darkness. “You have gone out of control long enough. It’s time to end.”
Eat the Rich dislodged the knives and rushed for the dark doorway, but a shadow rose out from within it, towering even over its large form. Two arms wrapped around it and pulled it in, followed by the sound of tearing and squelching.
Whimpers erupted from inside and Dirty Chains began crawling out of the doorway. He had blood running down his head and from various cuts across his body, and his shirt was in tatters, barely kept on over his shoulders.
“N-No, Duckie, no! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! No, no, oh no!” He crawled, scraping his knee against a loose piece of floorboard. “I didn’t expect them to do that! Rich people can do whatever they want and get away with it. Please, no!”
The house rattled and a vase fell off a small table and hit him on the head, sending him down to the floor as the shadows around him grew in size, stretching across the wall from some unnatural light source. Two pinpoints of light opened from within the shadows and the man screamed in fear as a giant mallet crashed down on top of his chest. He coughed out blood and attempted to retreat when the mallet became a knife, slicing across his stomach as he pulled himself away with one arm.
“You let your Stand get out of hand…” Duckie’s voice echoed around the house. “If I let Eat the Rich continue, it will consume all that we are. Therefore, your time is up, Dirty Chains. Die Die Riches thanks you for your efforts as a Stand user for the cause.”
It raised the knife again, which phased from knife to mallet, then back to knife again in the shadows. Dirty Chains still attempted to get away, pulling his body with his fingers, but it could do nothing more than that as the knife came down above his head.
As everything turned dark, Eat the Rich froze for a moment, then dropped to the stone ground of the catacombs and faded away, leaving only the still alive bodies of those it had swallowed earlier. One particular body, that of a man with a large belly, lay on his face as white dust began leaving his lifeless body.
Further down a tunnel, at an old desk before a carving of Nugget People, a woman in a white suit turned around in her chair and planted her hands together. “There’s nothing left between them and me. Let them come…”