Buckle up, chickadees, this one's getting weird! And that's even taking the original show into consideration. Thinking up this script was the one thing keeping me sane during a very boring shift at work. It's bound to be . . . special.
I don't own Jojo's Bizarre Adventure or any of the characters thereof. They belong to Hirohiko Araki, who knows much better how to make use of them than I do. I do own Mack Grimmus, who is basically me, put through a few dilutions and alternate universes. Please support the official release! READ THEM MANGA. WATCH THEM ANIME. They're good stuff, I promise.
P.S., Apologies in advance for the footnotes, which appear waaaaayyyy at the bottom of this page. I will try to find a way around them in the future if they're too much of a pain.
Chapter 1: Displacement
"Oh hell," she muttered under her breath, glancing around herself. "Where did that wackjob send me? This doesn't look a thing like Japan, unless it recently turned into a freakin' desert."
The girl frowned in consternation, pulling a smartphone from her pocket and examining it. She stood at an unimpressive five feet, three inches, wore a very plain blue blouse with denim jeans and a denim jacket, and had her honey brown hair cut to a boyish length. Her pale skin made her a poor match for the intense sun beating down from the thin space between the alley's two surrounding rooftops, and she looked, being not remotely dressed for the considerable heat, very much the part of the lost tourist. In point of fact, if she had arrived in the town through any normal means of transport, that is precisely what she would have been. Her arrival, however, had been anything but normal. She still had shivers running up and down her spine at the recent memory of the dark, airless wormhole that had dragged her from her point of origin to her current location, and she could only hope that the resolution to her quest would be worth the ungodly trip.
Muttering under her breath, she swore viciously as she swiped ineffectually at the smartphone's screen, which claimed to have no signal to receive. "He said he was going to set me down in Tokyo, that unhinged asshole. This looks more like Cairo than anything! It took the boys FIFTY DAYS to get there from Tokyo! Granted, that was with an army of crazed hitmen slowing them down along the way, but still! How the hell am I going to make it all the way to Japan and back here before my time is up?! Bugger all-"
With a sigh and a snort, she glared at the No Signal notification in the upper left corner of the phone's screen. "Well, either I'm in the most backwater, receptionless town on Earth, or he at least succeeded in sending me back in time. Question is, exactly how far? If he overshot and sent me back a century, I am going to wait right here and kick his face straight down into his lower intestine when the return portal shows up. He said that'd be in a month and a half's time." A month and a half. Fifty days, ish. What a laugh that must have been for him to program. With a grimace, she navigated to the phone's calendar app to set herself a notification for forty-five days in the future, then realized she had no idea of the current date, never mind her current location.
Stuffing away the phone into her backpack, a beat-up old leather thing with the label ripped off, she gingerly made her way on sneaker-clad feet to the alley's mouth. It was easy enough to blend into the crowd, even though she looked obviously much paler than most of the people meandering up and down the street. Despite the occasional paler or darker face, the majority seemed to be of Pakistani or Indian ethnicity, their amber-brown skin and the frequent sight of the red bindi at the center of many passers-by's foreheads leaning her instincts more toward the latter of the two countries. India, then. She was in India. EXCELLENT navigation, crazy scientist man, she ranted silently to herself as she looked for a newspaper stand. She'd need to remain under-cover, if she could, and she was not remotely dressed for inconspicuous travel. It had been her plan to be transported instantaneously into Tokyo airport, where new arrivals of different nationalities would be less noticeable, but NOOOO, he had to plop her down in INDIA. THAT wouldn't inconvenience her in the least.
Curiously enough, no one seemed to take too much notice of her, though she was still elated when she finally found a street corner convenience shop and gratefully ducked inside, thankful for the respite from notice and likely the only source of current information she'd find. The shopkeeper looked up from the magazine he'd been perusing, raising an eyebrow at the new, obviously lost arrival. Seeing her light skin, he sighed, cleared his throat, then said, in broken English, "Yes? I can help you?"
"Yes, please!" she replied, holding up a palm to ask for the shopkeep's patience as she reached into her backpack and pulled out a small, heavily pencil-annotated phrasebook for the common traveler's convenience. Flipping through the pages, she found the chapter and entry she needed, perused the page for a few seconds, then looked up again at the man behind the counter and recited in slow but purposeful Hindi, "Maiṁ ēka akhabāra kr̥payā mila sakatā hai?"1 She hadn't practiced every phrase in this book for nothing; she'd determined she would be prepared for anything, given the shady nature of her transport facilitator.
Raising his other eyebrow along with the first, the man considered the girl for a moment, then replied in kind, "Hām̐, yahām̐ āja kā akhabāra hai."2 Reaching over the counter, he grabbed a folded newspaper and passed it to her. "Yahī kāraṇa hai ki pandraha rupa'ē kharca hōṅgē.3"
Taking the newspaper in one hand and flipping through the phrasebook with the other, the girl scoured her translator with furrowed brow, then inquired, "Āpa amērikī paisē lē jā'ēgā?4" She had intended to get at least some of her money - her entire savings account, converted into cash printed as close to the late 80s as she could find - changed for yen when she reached Tokyo, but, for the time being, all she had were American dollars.
Considering her offer for a few moments, the man ultimately sighed and nodded, holding a hand out for the cash. "Ēka amērikī ḍŏlara hai, tō.5"
"Dhan'yavāda!6" Reaching into her pocket, she slipped a one dollar bill from her small "pocket money" stash and passed it to the man, who punched in the purchase and stored the foreign bill in the cash register. Now that she had a newspaper in hand, she could glance over the headlines and, more importantly, the date. To her pleasant surprise, the man had been kind enough to select for her a copy of The Indian Express, an English-language newspaper published in India. Grinning in relief, she glanced over the paper's headline area until she located the date. April 14, 1988.
1988! A year after the events of the fifty-day race to Cairo! Maybe more like a few months, depending on the time of the year, but still. It was worrying to consider that the man she sought may have left Tokyo by now, and she might well be in deeper trouble than she'd anticipated. It was a MUCH longer trek from India to New York than it was from India to Tokyo.
Glancing up at the shopkeeper again - after a short consultation with her phrasebook for questions about location - the girl asked, "Yaha kyā śahara hai?7"
"Āpa khō diyā jānā cāhi'ē.8" Shaking his head in sympathy for her, he informed the young woman, "Yaha Uttara Pradēśa mēṁ Lakhana'ū, hai.9"
Lucknow? She was fairly certain that's what he'd said. That was a city in the Northern Province, or Uttar Pradesh, of India. She'd heard about it in passing as one of the other popular travel destinations in the province, along with the majestic Taj Mahal and the holy city of Varanasi. At least it was a major cultural and trade center, and would be close to an airport, but she doubted she had the money for a flight to Tokyo, even with the fortunate exchange rate of almost fifteen rupees to a dollar.
Maybe it was time to see if she might yet be able to call in a favor. She prayed very fervently that the help she needed existed, and that she could find it in time. Looking earnestly up at the shopkeeper, she hesitantly inquired, "Yadi āpa ēka phōnabuka hai?10" She only hoped she'd be able to call collect.
Shrugging, the shop owner reached down behind his counter and pulled up a hefty tome, a good hundred pages thick.
She stared at the book with wide eyes, then consulted her phrasebook. "Yaha antararāṣṭrīya phōna nambara hai?11"
He nodded. "Āpa bhāgyaśālī rahē haiṁ. Purānē phōnabuka kēvala sthānīya phōna nambara bhī śāmila hai.12"
Breathing a sigh of relief, she repeated, "Dhan'yavāda," then opened and began to scour the heavy phonebook for the entry she needed. Past the first half of the alphabet (thank goodness there was an English section) she looked, past the Os, the Rs, then stopped halfway through the S section, running her finger carefully along the tiny columns printed on hair-thin pages. Finally, she found the number she needed and, pulling a pen from her other pocket, wrote it down on the palm of her hand.
As a final precaution, she stepped over to a rack set to one side of the counter, selecting a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap with a cloth attachment at the back, meant to protect the back of the head and neck. Taking these to the counter, she rummaged in her pocket and pulled out a twenty dollar bill and passed it to the store owner. With another check of her phrasebook, she stated, "Āpa jahāṁ ēka phōna khōjanē kē li'ē mujhē batā'ō ki tuma parivartana rakha sakatē haiṁ.13" It wasn't like money was an object at this point. She needed to pull out all the stops just to locate a telephone, since her smartphone had no cellular service to patch into.
Taking the bills with very sharply-raised brows, the man considered for a moment, then pointed towards his left. "Saṛaka kē nīcē, agalē kōnē para.14"
Not too far, then. With a nod and another "Dhan'yavāda," she donned the hat and glasses, then made her way out of the shop and down the street, going left from the door and across the packed street towards the next corner. Now to hope the payphone might take American change. That wasn't a guarantee, even in a busy tourist center like Lucknow.
The small free-standing payphone stood on the street corner, its metal pole covered in spraypainted graffiti and scratches from stones kicked up by passing travelers. Ducking out of the main flow of traffic and trying her best to ignore the loud noises of the bustling metropolis, she directed her attention instead to the coin slot. Her expression slid into exasperation as she noted the small sign printed above it: Kēvala rupa'ē. Rupees only. Well, that shot her plan firmly in the foot.
Though perhaps . . . she could use it. She had no trust in it, and no real experience with controlling it in a delicate matter like this, but it was the only shot she had. Grimacing and reaching for the phone, she placed her fingertips on the metal plate that housed the coin slot and concentrated. Come on, she urged silently. Come on, I need you. I may not understand you, but I NEED you right now. You saved my life once - if you don't come through for me now, I could well die here, alone and unknown, so show yourself already!
A translucent hand emerged from her forearm and reached into the payphone, phasing through the telephone's outer panel up to the wrist. Her eyes grew wide as she watched it, glancing around surreptitiously to check for any passers-by that might have noticed. She well knew that no one else could see it - no one normal, anyway - but she still couldn't afford to be careless.
After a few tense moments, the coin slot rattled, then a ping! sounded from the machine. A green light beside the phone's receiver illuminated, and she breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Picking up the receiver as the extra hand vanished into thin air, she quickly dialed the American phone number from her palm into the keypad. No prompt came up for her to select the type of call she wanted to make, so she assumed it had made that arrangement for her. It was curiously forward-thinking like that.
The ringing tone told her that the call was in the process of connecting, and she hugged closer to the phone kiosk as an arm jostled her backpack, shifting the bag around to sit against her chest so she could keep an eye on its contents. Finally, she heard a click, and a low, drawling voice with a distinctly Texan twang said, "Ya've reached the Speedwagon Foundation. How c'n I help ya?"
Slumping where she stood in sheer relief for a moment, she said quickly and quietly, "Thank God. The Speedwagon Foundation helps people in need of assistance with matters outside the natural, yeah? I need your help, badly."
She could hear the voice on the other end of the phone grow a little prickly for a moment as he replied, "Well, I don't rightly know. Are ya sure ya got the right number, lil' lady?"
"I'm sure," she replied grimly. "Look, I don't want to go into the details on a public payphone, but I'm in Lucknow, India, and I need to reach Joseph Joestar immediately, if at all possible. Can you please help me with that?"
The line went silent for a few moments as the other party calculated how to respond. "What's yar name, miss?" he finally asked.
"It's Mack," she muttered impatiently. "Mack Grimmus. Look, don't even try to look me up - I have a sneaking suspicion I won't be in your files - but I have a Stand, and I have done my research, and I know for a fact that that is impossible. Out of anyone I've ever heard of, Joseph Joestar is the man to call when freaky Stand-related shit happens, so I need to reach him, please."
". . . Lady, yar askin' a tall order outta me," the man on the line ultimately replied after a long pause.
"I know, but please believe me when I say I am WAY off my course here in India - I was trying to get to Tokyo. Now I haven't got hardly enough cash to get me where I need to go and I am scared of what will happen if I don't figure this out before it's too late." Sighing heavily, she bowed her head as she murmured into the receiver, "I know it's a stretch. I know you don't know me from Adam. But please. I'm alone in India, I have nowhere near enough funds to get me to Tokyo, and I don't have a good grasp of what my Stand does. Isn't that at least worth looking into? You can screen me, if you want. You could just recommend me a cheap travel agent. Anything. I'm begging you."
For a long, long while, she didn't hear anything else from the line, a lot of silence and dead air. Her stomach turned inward on itself, knots upon knots building up as the time without reply stretched longer and longer. Then, finally, the man on the other end sighed, "Okay. Listen, I can't do too much from here, but I'll do my best t' get ya on yar way. If I give ya an address fer a hotel near the Lucknow airport, can ya get there an' book room 215 'til we can get somebody over there ta arrange things?"
"Y-yes! Yeah, I can do that. Thank you." She almost felt like she might throw up or cry. Maybe both. After taking a moment to steady herself, she asked, "What's your name?"
"Miles, Miss Mack."
"Thank you, Miles," she sighed. "I can get to a hotel. Do you know about how long it might take you to get somebody here?"
"Depends on a few factors, 'specially since we don't have too many offices near India, but we'll do our best. I'll call ya in two hours once I get things set, okay?"
"Okay." Finally, things seemed to be going straight and steady, for once in the last several weeks. She took down the name and address of the hotel Miles had directed her towards, along with a few major landmarks nearby, then thanked him a few more times before hanging up. Stepping away and heading back towards the convenience store she'd visited earlier, she started planning out the necessary questions from her phrasebook to get her to the hotel.
She didn't see the figure that slid away from a wall to follow after her. Tall, lanky, and with a swagger in his step, he kept enough distance that she wouldn't notice her tail, but stuck to her like glue, hands in his pockets. He reached up one and pulled his wide-brimmed hat low over his eyes, the two loose strings hanging from its underside swinging beside his chin. The cigarette hanging from his lips tilted upward with a smirk as he shadowed the girl. What an interesting conversation to overhear in Nowhere, India. The sound of a name as distinctive as Joseph Joestar could not be a mistake of his hearing, and he was intrigued enough to look further into the matter.
Of course, the fact that she was a pretty young thing was just a nice bonus.
1 "May I have a newspaper, please?"
2 "Yes, here is today's newspaper."
3 "That will cost fifteen rupees."
4 "Will you take American money?"
5 "One American dollar, then."
6 "Thank you!"
7 "What city is this?"
8 "You must be lost."
9 "This is Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh."
10 "Do you have a phonebook?"
11 "Does it have international phone numbers?"
12 "You're lucky. The old phonebook only had local phone numbers."
13 "You can keep the change if you tell me where to find a phone."
14 "Down the street, on the next corner."