SuShi's Bizarre Adventure: Fantasy Friendship

by Jojoleopard

Chapter 16: Nickelback's Photograph

Sunset Shimmer walked into the Italian restaurant the others were seated in, sidestepping servers as they walked around bringing food to the tables. Her group of friends were seated at a round table next to a window, overlooking the street. Across the road, on the opposite side, stood Crystal Prep Academy, gleaming under the light of the sun, shiny beyond any surface Sunset had ever seen this world.

“I put the car out on the road and reset it. No one will know we nicked it,” Sunset said as she pulled up a chair to sit down. “What did you get for me?”

“Ordered you some steak!” Pinkie sipped at her glass of water. “I mean, who doesn’t like steak?”

“Actually, uh, I’ve never had steak before,” Sunset admitted.

“Oh yeah, Sushi’s from that pony world.” Rainbow Dash began clicking her fingers. “Equesteros? Equestoria? Equestotron?”

“Equestria.” Sunset helped spare her friends from the rest of Rainbow’s guesses.

“That means you can’t eat meat!” Pinkie put her hands to her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Sushi!”

“No, no, it’s okay, really.” Sunset put a hand on her arm to calm her down. “I’ve been here a while now. I’ve eaten meat. I do like the taste of it.”

“Glad ya do, Sushi. You’d be missin’ out plenty if ya didn’t eat meat.” Applejack toyed with a knife as they waited for their food to arrive.

“So what’s our game plan here?” Sunset asked. “What are we gonna do?”

“We’re just gonna walk right in.” Jojo eyed the school across the street. “We’re gonna find that principal and we’re gonna beat the crap out of her.”

“I like that plan,” Rainbow Dash said as she drank some of her iced water.

“Ah don’t,” Applejack shook her head. “Look, Ah’m all for direct punching, but if we just charge in there, we’re gonna get slaughtered. Who knows how many more Stand users are hidin’ around inside that shiny building?”

That was true enough. None of them knew how many more underlings Cinch had working for her like the Bully Squad.

“It would be a gift to Cinch if we all just charged in there without knowing what we’re up against,” Sunset decided. “And let’s not forget, Cinch most likely has a Stand herself. If she’s in charge of everything, it’s sure to be a powerful one.”

“Alright, alright,” Jojo held his hands up in surrender. “We need a plan. So let’s come up with one.”

“Can you wait?” Pinkie held her hand up. “I need to go use the bathroom. I drank too much soda.”

Pinkie hopped out of her seat and bounced off towards the restaurant’s restrooms. Sunset, whose seat was facing that way, was about to return to her meal when she felt the air move strangely, and Pinkie abruptly disappeared with a small pop.

“Huh?” Sunset knew that Pinkie was capable of a lot of strange feats, but she didn’t know that vanishing on the spot was one of them.

“What’s wrong, Sushi?” Rainbow asked as she cut herself a slice of strawberry cake.

“Pinkie just… vanished,” Sunset pointed to where the pink girl had been. “Like just into thin air.”

“Eh, I’ve seen her do stranger things,” Applejack said, completely relaxed. “We’ll just wait for her to return, then we can make a plan.”

Her friends knew her longer and since they didn’t think much of it, Sunset figured it wasn’t a problem.

The time dragged on, and after a while the food had arrived and was dug into. Pinkie still had not yet returned. It was unlike Pinkie to not show up for food and she had certainly been in the restroom for far too long.

“Ah don’t know what she’s doing in there.” Applejack sighed and got up. “Ah’ll go see what tomfoolery she’s up to in there.”

Applejack went over towards the restroom, but when she had one foot past the door frame to the women’s, Sunset felt that same sensation again, almost like a whirring of the air. And then Applejack vanished before she turned the corner.

“What the…” Sunset rubbed her eyes and looked around. Pinkie disappearing was one thing, but not Applejack. Something was wrong.

“Applejack vanished too,” Sunset told the others, who were more focused on finishing the food before them. Her own steak wasn’t even a quarter eaten. “Something weird’s going on. I think it might be an enemy Stand.”

“During meal time?” Jojo wiped his mouth with a napkin and pushed his chair out. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know. Pinkie and Applejack both disappeared when heading for the restroom,” Sunset explained. She didn’t know what it was, but something was making them vanish.

“I’m with Sunset on this one.” Rainbow got up and made to go to the restroom, but Sunset grabbed her arm before she was able.

“Wait. We have no idea what kind of power this enemy Stand has. Going there by yourself is a bad idea, Rainbow. You’ll just end like like Pinkie and Applejack.”

“Pshhh, I’m better than that. I’ll be careful, you’ll see. I’m awesome that way.”

She approached the restrooms cautiously and Sunset took this chance to look around the restaurant, trying to spot anything. There had been no sign of any strange people and there had been no sign of an enemy Stand as well. But whatever it was, it seemed as though they had to head towards the restroom for the enemy to attack. That meant at the moment, their table was a safe spot.

As Rainbow Dash passed the closest table towards the restroom, she called forth her Stand and with both hands, Running on Ice began freezing over the area, trying to find some clue as to where the enemy was. If they were invisible, the ice would freeze over their forms and reveal them, leaving them open to attack, but unfortunately, nothing appeared frozen over. The enemy wasn’t there.

“Where are you?” Rainbow spun around searching for signs of anyone that remotely looked hostile. There was a man sitting at a table on the far end looking over. His black hair was slicked back with grease and he had a huge chin and though he was the meanest looking person she’d ever seen, somehow she didn’t think he was a Stand user. “Running on Ice!”

Rainbow was gonna send her Stand into the restroom to have a look, but then she realized her Stand was no longer there.

“What the… Running on Ice!”

But her Stand still didn’t show up like it normally would.

Sunset watched Rainbow stomp around exasperatedly, then charged towards the restrooms. In that instant, she vanished as well, right into thin air. She was sure she hadn’t blinked, but there it was. Rainbow too had disappeared and there was no way all three of them had some kind of power to just disappear. There was something wrong with that restroom, but Sunset didn’t know what it was.

“Don’t go there.” Sunset held Jojo’s arm as he took a step away from their table. “Something about that restroom entrance is making them disappear. We need a better view.”

“Um, I have an idea.” Fluttershy raised a hand and pointed to the ceiling. Sunset followed her gaze and realized she was pointing at a security camera. “If we can get to the security room, I can get Florence into the system and we can have a better look.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” Jojo gestured to the staff door near the restaurant’s bar. “We should make a run for it. Just in case the enemy has anything else planned.”

Throwing their napkins on the table, the three of them remaining rushed for the door in the back, turning the heads of all the patrons in the restaurant, along with a girl with lime colored hair sitting at a small table by herself, a trio of photographs in her hand with three girls knocking on the photos, trapped inside.

Jojo was the first to shoulder the staff door out of their way and then the door to the security room. An employee stood inside, smoking a cigarette, almost dropping it when the door crashed against the wall.

Jojo charged at him and a sparkle of golden electricity ran from his hands as she thrust them against the man, who flew against the wall under a shelf of files. Instead of falling to the ground in a heap, it was as though he had been stuck to the wall and he couldn’t get down.

“Help!” he cried.

“What did you do?” Sunset watched as the man tried to pry himself off, but to no avail. “Sorry about that, mister.”

“A little trick my family has passed down for generations to defend ourselves, though now with Stands, I haven’t been using it much..” Jojo pointed at the side of his head. “We call it hamon, a ripple of our energy flowing out from us that matches that of the sun.”

“You can… harness the sun?”

“Well, not exactly like that, but it is effective against the armies of the dead.” Sunset gave him a weirded out look, and Jojo shook his head. “Stories for another time. Long story short, I channeled my energy into the man’s clothes to stick him to the wall.”

S-Sorry about that, mister.” Fluttershy averted her eyes from him.

“Right, that makes sense. Not really.” Sunset waved at the security console in front of them, consisting of a single computer with a camera feed and a set of plugged in controls. “Fluttershy, it’s all yours.”

“I’ll see what I can find.” She nodded and raised one hand. “Fl-Florence.”

Her Stand snaked out of her fingers and plunged into the computer monitor. Soon, the camera began to swivel allowing them to see everyone in the restaurant. This was going to help them pinpoint where the enemy Stand user was. The first place they looked was around the restroom. Fluttershy zoomed in at every table, trying to view their faces to see if she knew anyone, like with the Bully Squad. She went by two tables with two couples each, one that had a group of office workers, and another with a lone girl toying with a camera. Fluttershy lingered on her and zoomed in further. Sunset knew that must’ve meant she knew her.

“Lemon Zest. Of the Shadowbolts.” She tapped on the screen. “Principal Cinch’s t-top students…”

“Strikes you a little weird, don’t you think? A student of Crystal Prep sitting here at the same time as us?” Jojo planted a fist in his palm. “And look, she’s got the perfect view of the restroom from where she is and a blocked view facing our table.”

From where Lemon Zest was seated, there were a row of potted plants between her and the table they had all been sitting at. Perhaps her Stand worked with line of sight. There wasn’t enough conclusive material to make any conclusions right now.

“So what’s the plan?” Sunset asked her friends. “We know we can’t just walk up to her and deal with her.”

“Um… She’s gone.”

“What?”

Fluttershy gulped. “She’s not seated there any longer.”

All three of them looked at the screen and the table she was at was now empty. Fluttershy had Florence pan the camera, but there was no sight of her anywhere now, but the door to the staff zone was swinging close.

“Here she comes.” Jojo clenched his fists and straightened himself.

Florence detached itself from the computer and Fluttershy glanced at the trapped employee and flinched a little. “S-Sorry. Th-this is an eme-emergency…”

As they got ready for their enemy to show up, the three of them spread themselves out in the room and waited for something to happen. Sunset tensed up and summoned Pegasus Fantasy behind her. In such close quarters, she could give the enemy Stand a good beating before they had a chance to do anything, or at least, she hoped that would be the case.

The door was thrown open, sending all three of them into a combative stance, but as it slammed into the wall again, there was no one standing at the entrance.

“So, you figured me out, huh?” a voice came from outside as the door started swinging back into position. “I must say, it was clever of you to come back here and use the camera to find me.”

“We won’t let Cinch win, Lemon,” Fluttershy said. “Thi-this isn’t right, what she-she’s doing.”

“Just come in here so we can whack off your mind control.” Jojo snapped his fingers. “Make it easy for us.”

A laughter came as the door shut fully again. There was a thud and it swung open and smashed into the wall again. The cheap plaster wall was already starting to crack at the handle’s impact point. “You seriously think we’re mind controlled?” When no answer came, she continued. “Crystal Prep Academy is loyal to Principal Cinch. Her legacy of victory and excellence is as much ours as it is hers, dudes!”

“No way. You agree with her world domination plot?” Sunset couldn’t help but frown. What she was hearing was incredible. Incredibly ridiculous.

“We’re great at everything, and under her leadership, we are so much more. And the rest of you are going to see just how much more once I’m done with you.”

“We’ll see about that. Go, Pegasus Fantasy!”

Sunset’s Stand dived past her, then smashed a fist through the wall on the left. She saw a tuft of lime colored hair outside before Lemon darted away back down the hall. Pegasus Fantasy went out after her, but then Sunset felt that weird buzzing sensation again and suddenly she felt lighter, almost like she had lost a part of herself.

“My Stand’s gone.” She realized as she failed to summon Pegasus Fantasy. “It’s the same with Pinkie and the others. It’s not the restroom, it’s something else she’s doing.”

“But it’s not dead,” Jojo told her. “Your Stand reflects you. If it was killed, you would be too, at least if you have a short range Stand like yourself. It’s still alive. Somewhere. As its user, you should still be able to track its position.”

And he was right. Sunset could still feel the presence of her Stand. It was outside the camera room in the hall past the staff door and it wasn’t moving.

“This must be Lemon Zest’s Stand power,” Jojo said. “It somehow captures things and keeps them in some other dimension or something. Be very careful, everyone. Until we learn how she does it, we can’t risk doing anything that might endanger us.”

“But how do we stop her?” Fluttershy cowered. “If she can just take our S-Stands, we can’t attack her.”

“You know what?” Jojo pounded his fists together. “We’re not going to get anywhere unless we push her. White Buffalo and I will go out there and do what we can, but you two need to figure out what kind of Stand she has.”

“What? No, that’s crazy, Jojo.” Sunset grabbed his shirt sleeve. “What if she gets you too?”

“It’s a risk we’ll have to take. Don’t you worry, Sushi. Even if I get taken too, I’m sure you two will finish it.” Jojo flashed her a smile and gave her a thumbs up. “Now, let’s roll. White Buffalo!”

They both peeked out of the corner at the same time, with Jojo running from the get go, charging straight out of the room. Lemon Zest stood on the other end, decked out in a colorful shirt and a purple skirt, with a camera pointed directly at him.

When she saw him and his Stand coming right for her one behind the other, she cursed and lowered her camera before running back out the staff door.

“Oh no you don’t!” Jojo sent White Buffalo’s head after her, which snaked around the corner. There was a splat and she uttered a cry of pain as Jojo and the rest of White Buffalo caught up with her.

Barging out the staff door, he found her kneeling by the corner, blood seeping from a wound in her back.

“That was so not cool.” Lemon glared at him. “Do you know how long it’ll take to clean this shirt?”

“I don’t care. What I care about are my friends.” Jojo spread his legs further apart and pointed a finger at her from an outstretched arm. “Now, where are they? What have you done with them?”

Lemon Zest moved her eyes from Jojo to his Stand, which roared next to his side, further away from the doorway. She smirked devilishly and raised her camera. “You’ve made a mistake.”
-------JO-JO-------
“It’s her camera.” Sunset tapped on the computer screen as Florence hacked the device again. “That’s her Stand!”

They had both seen Jojo’s attack on her out in the main hall and her lifting the camera to snap a picture of Jojo, who instantly disappeared. Then she pointed it at White Buffalo before it could do anything and it vanished too.

“But why didn’t she just take a photo of him in the hallway?” Sunset stepped back and folded her arms in thought. “Why did she run out instead? If she didn’t do that, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

“What if she couldn’t?” Fluttershy kept her eyes on the screen as Lemon stood up.

“What do you mean?”

“I-I mean what if she couldn’t take a picture of more than one person at a time?” Fluttershy theorized. “The hallway outside is narrow. Jojo and White Buffalo would have to run at her in a line. It’s the only explanation that fits.”

“I guess it also explains why she didn’t just photograph all of us while we were eating,” Sunset realized. “There were too many of us for her Stand to capture in one shot.”

“That must be it,” Fluttershy agreed. “The question is, now what do we do?”

“We have to stay together,” Sunset decided, taking her friend’s hand. “If she can’t take more than one of us at a time, we’ll just have to keep her from isolating us.”

“Bu-but we can’t beat her. L-Literally,” she squeaked. “Your Stand has been taken, and Florence doesn’t fight.”

“You beat Black Violin and Lyra,” Sunset reminded her. She gave her hand a squeeze. “Hey, we’ll find a way.”

The two girls peeped their head around the door, making sure that the coast was clear.

“What if Lemon just decides to make a run for it?” Fluttershy asked, keeping a watch out for any movement. “What’ll we do then?”

“I have a feeling she won’t,” Sunset kept her eyes peeled. “There’s only two of us left, and my Stand is gone. I’ve never known people like Lemon to give up on easy prey.”

“We’re easy prey?” Fluttershy trembled.

“Well, no. We just want her to think that we are.”

And then there she was again, standing at the other end of the hallway with her Stand in hand, still smiling from ear to ear.

“So it’s down to you two.” She lifted the camera up and down, then her smile faded as she saw them linking hands. “So you figured me out, huh?”

“We know that you have to take pictures of us to make us disappear,” Sunset began. “And that you can’t take more than one of us at a time.”

“Clever.” Lemon put her feet up on her toes and leaned forward, pointing at them with two fingers. “Nickelback is able to send anyone it's taken a photo of into the photo. Just look at this photograph.”

She held one out, which was a photo of Rainbow Dash, pounding on the invisible barrier between them with both fists.

“Rainbow!” Sunset called, but she couldn’t seem to hear or see them.

“Everytime I do it makes me laugh.” Lemon snickered and gave the photograph a waggle and a wave. “But I’m not done yet. Once I deal with you two, Principal Cinch is going to see just how powerful I am and give me a higher standing.”

“You’re going to give our friends back right now.” Sunset waved a fist at her.

“Oh really? You and what army?” Lemon bent closer forward and pulled out three more photos, depicting Jojo, Pinkie Pie and Applejack also trying to find a way out of their photographs. “Just you wait. I’ll pry you two apart and I’ll get you as well!”

She ran straight for them, and flew forward in a flying kick. Sunset dropped low and pulled Fluttershy to the side and Lemon passed right over them before landing and spinning around for a second kick, which Sunset avoided by bending back. While Lemon was still recovering from her kick, Sunset tugged Fluttershy and they ran off down the hall, towards a junction.

“Go on, run!” Lemon shouted after them. “Like it’s gonna make a difference! I’ll catch you two eventually!”

She ran on in pursuit after them, just turning the corner as Sunset’s heels disappeared into an open doorway. It was marked ‘storage’.

Sunset and Fluttershy ran into the room, dodging around shelves of frozen meat and other foodstuffs. However, they had not gotten far when they ran into a dead end.

“We need to turn around,” Sunset said, but it was too late. Lemon Zest had stepped into the doorway, blocking their escape.

“Going somewhere?”

“Hey you, you can’t be here!” Another employee appeared at the doorway behind Lemon.

But the girl just whipped around and snapped a photo of him. In a flash, he was gone and Nickelback was already printing out a photo of the man.

“No one stands in me and Nickelback’s way. We’ve taken too much effort to become a Shadowbolt at Crystal Prep.” She walked in and closed the door to the frozen meats. “Now smile, will you? And let go of each other.”

Lemon Zest closed the gap and kicked at them again. Sunset stepped back and whacked her leg away with one hand, but then she spun around and kicked one of the hanging meaty bodies at her and it smacked right into Sunset’s face with a thud. She let go of Fluttershy’s hand and slid across the wet floor, coming to a stop somewhere in the middle of the room.

“There we go. Just what I needed.” Lemon’s Stand was in both hands now. “Say cheese!”

“Fluttershy, you can win this, remember, you and Florence can-”

There was a flash in the dimly lit room and Sunset vanished from the floor.

“No, Sunset!” Fluttershy reached out to where she had been.

“And another one to add to my collection.” Lemon waited for the next photograph to come out of Nickelback before removing it and looking at it and laughing at it. “Now, it’s just you and me, shy girl.”

Fluttershy stepped all the way back until she was up against the walk-in freezer, unable to move away any further. Lemon raised her Stand, chuckling as she did so. Fluttershy’s hand brushed up against something. She looked down.

“You’re mine!” Lemon pressed down on the shoot button on Nickelback, just a fraction of a second before all the lights went out.

Click!

“Hey!” Lemon shouted as darkness fell inside the storage room. She could hear the sound of air being released next, but she had no idea what that was. “Whatever, man. You’re forgetting Nickelback has a flash function. I don’t need to see you to take a photo of you.”

She clicked the button and a flash illuminated the entire room for a fraction of a second, but there wasn’t the sound of the emerging photo from her Stand she normally heard after it snapped someone.

“A-And you forgot something, Lemon Zest,” Fluttershy’s voice rang out in the dark room, along with something metallic squeaking. “You ha-have to take a photo of someone alone. Well, Florence and I, we’re one and the same. Y-You can’t separate her f-from me. And that means you can’t take a picture of us.”

“Why you…!” Lemon groused and shook a fist to the ceiling. “That just means I’ll have to kill you the old fashioned way!”

She just ran through the dark in a straight line, vaguely remembering where Fluttershy had been standing. Instead of colliding with a human, Lemon found herself going even further and eventually smashed her head into a shelf with wheels, falling flat on her back as everything on it tipped down over her.

The lights suddenly came back on, blinding her eyes for a second, but when she opened them again, she could see Fluttershy standing at a doorway looking at her.

“Aha!” Lemon flipped her camera up and took a picture of her upside down, but once again, no photo came out from Nickelback. “What gives?”

Fluttershy lifted a hand, where Florence dangled from her fingers. They wrapped around each other to form a hand and waved at her. “Like I said, Lemon, you ca-can’t separate us. And that means you can’t defeat us. But you on the other hand…”

She planted her hand on a door and began to swing it shut. Lemon grunted and pushed the shelf’s contents of frozen meat off her body and rushed for the door, but by the time she got to it, Fluttershy had already fully shut it, pulling a latch down outside to lock it.

“Hey, let me out!” Lemon bashed at the door, but it was made of a sturdy steel and she could not even dent it.

“Do you know where you’re standing?” Fluttershy stepped back as Florence made its way to a thermostat on the wall.

Only now did Lemon Zest look around, realizing she was in the freezer Fluttershy had backed up against earlier. She must’ve opened it when she turned the lights off.

Outside, Florence was turning up the temperature. The inside began to grow warmer, and the ice on the walls started to melt into water on the floor. Soon it was about a centimeter deep, splashing around as Lemon pounded on the door. Some of the water leaked outside under the door, which Fluttershy was satisfied to see.

“This is your last chance, Lemon Zest,” Fluttershy called through the door. “Release everyone, and I’ll let you go.”

“What, what do you think you’re gonna do to me, give me a sauna?” Lemon guffawed. “Joke’s on you, I love saunas, dude! And when I get out of here, you’re dead meat! Just like all the meat in this room!”

“Fine,” Fluttershy said, extending Florence to an electrical socket in the wall. Then she used her other hand to touch the tip of another tendril of Florence to the water.

The effect was immediate and from the small window into the freezer, light flashed from the inside and she could hear Lemon Zest shout and convulse as electricity shot through her body from the water. Fluttershy only stopped when she heard her body splash in the water and disconnected Florence from the socket.

She pried the door open again and there was Lemon Zest, lying in the puddle of water, her eyes rolled back with the photos at her side. Being polaroids, they were of a laminated material and they floated in the water, but soon, they all flashed white and suddenly, Fluttershy’s friends were lying one on top of the other in a pile on the flooded floor.

“Oomph, what in tarnation?” Applejack got off the top of the pile and walked backwards. “We’re free?”

“Fluttershy, you did it!” Sunset climbed off the wet floor and hugged her shy friend. “I knew you could win!”

“And I knew it even more.” Jojo got up, and because he was right at the bottom, his shirt and vest were now soaked.

“Uh, what’s going on?” The employee whom Lemon had captured sat up and rubbed the side of his head. “What are we all doing in the walk-in?”

“I think it’s time we use one of my favorite methods.” Jojo twisted the cap back on his head and straightened his vest. By now, the rest of them had heard about his famous tactic.

“No. Jojo, no, don’t do it.” Sunset raised a hand up to stop him, but it didn’t work.

Jojo turned to the door and ran with his arms bent at ninety degrees. “Run for ittttt, Sushiiii!”

Author's Note:

And here goes the second half of part I!

Comments

[nightshroud96]

Interesting that the Shadowbolt appear to not be brainwashed there.

[Golden_Reflection]

Before I read the chapter:

[Golden_Reflection]

Stand Master: Lemon Zest
Stand Name: Nickelback

Ability: Any person who Nickelback takes a picture of is placed into the picture, but it is limited to taking a picture of only one person or stand at a time.

[Golden_Reflection]

And we’re back to new stands, each one presenting new opportunities for the Fantasy Friends to learn about themselves.

Also more stand bios from yours truly.

[Jojoleopard]

11002524

[Black--Soul]

If they are willing and murder happy? Kill them all!