Chapter 2: "I'll call you JoJo…"
Everyone in the guild were whispering quiet murmurs to one and another. Ever since that strange man went inside the master's office, that all anyone could talk about, and that was a half hour ago. Four kids sat at a table near the entrance of the guild discussing this very thing. Two of them being boys and the others being girls.
"Did you see the way he busted into the guild!? So cool!" The one boy, an overly energetic boy with pink hair and a scale pattern scarf around his neck, said to the group. "I bet he's strong! I'm going to fight him as soon as I can!"
The other boy at the table, who was wearing nothing but his underwear, scoffed at the idea. "You're probably going to lose like you always do when you fight old man Gildarts, flame brain."
This drew the pink haired boy's ire. "Whatcha call me, stripper?"
But the nearly naked boy smirked at the other. "Ha! If you haven't noticed, ash breather, I'm wearing my clothes this time!"
The two girls and the other boy looked on in confusion before one of them, the girl in the orange dress with brown hair, spoke up. "Gray," she said, grabbing his attention, "your clothes…"
The now named boy, Gray, looked down from where he sat, and instead of seeing his blue T-shirt and black pants, all he saw was his grey boxers. When he looked back up to all of his friends, he said one thing, "OHH NO!" Gray exclaimed at the top of his lunges as he began to franticly look for his lost clothing.
One of the girls, the one wearing armor and had deep scarlet hair, sighed at the other's antics. "No matter how hard I try, he always seems to lose his clothes…"
The brunette patted the redhead's head. "There, there, you've tried you best, Erza, but no one is going to break Gray of a habit he barely recognizes," she said as the pink haired boy roared in laughter, "besides, he thinks someone in the guild has a lost magic called 'clothes taker', or that there's an 'evil spirit' stealing the clothes off his back…"
Erza smiled at the brunette, "Thank you, Cana."
Cana smiled back before their attention, and the attention of everyone in the guild, was drawn to the door to the guild master's offices. Standing there was old man Makarov and the weird guy. "Listen up, you brats!" Makarov shouted as he jumped on top of a table, "The strapping young lad next to me is Joey Joestar, he's seventeen years old, six foot and three inches, weighing in at two hundred and ten pounds, and he hails from The Land Down Under! Ain't that something, and he's our newest member!" At that, everyone cheered, expect one man.
Laxus looked on in hate and anger at Joey Joestar, the last name Joestar stuck acord in him; again, something deep down cursed that name, and all those who share the blood of the Joestar line. Laxus absently scratched the three moles on his left ear as he tried to calm himself down. "Laxus," his grandfather's voice cut him out of his line of thought, "to my office, if you will…"
Laxus grudenly got out of his chair and went towards the office Joey just came out of, all the while his Thunder God Tribe looked on. "Joey Joestar, damn you!" The Lightning Mage thought as he walked along, noticing how a few of the guilds' members looking at him with a judgmental eye. "You'll pay for the humiliation I have suffered this day, you'll rue the day you vexed me, JoJo! Or my name isn't Laxus Dio Dreyar-Brando!"
As Laxus disappeared into the shadowy office, the old man to sigh at his grandson's attitude. He hasn't been the same since his father was kick out of the guild, and it hurt Makarov that he had to do such a thing, but that man, his son, Laxus's own father, drove his own wife, Julia Brando, into an early grave. Sighing again, the old man turned to go back into his office, "Take a seat anywhere, my boy, and order anything off the menu, it's on the house." Makarov said with a smile.
Joey flashed a grin then, "Thanks, Uncle Makarov." That simple word filled that old man's heart with more joy than Joey realized.
As he watch Makarov retreat into his office, Joey thought it to be a good idea to get something to eat and drink first, but as usual, even something like that was an adventure. "New guy!" Joey turned his head to see a pink haired boy, who only came up to the height of the middle of his chest, rush him with a flaming fist, "Fight me!" The kid cocked his fist back as a magic circle appeared in front of it. "Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"
Joey waited until the kid was almost on top of him before reacting. He leaped to the side, narrowly avoiding the attack. "What in the blue blazes!" Joey thought as he rolled towards a nearby table, and turned it over. "OI! What's the big idea, you bloody brat!"
Joey could just feel the boy smirking then. "The idea is to see how strong you are!" The kid yelled, not noticing the dark shadow with long, scarlet hair right behind him, "So get-OW!"
The sudden yelp of pain got Joey to peak out from behind cover, and he saw his attacker holding his head, trying to suppress a rising bump, as he girl around the kid's age, wearing what was a cross between a dress and a suit of armor, was standing behind him. Joey instantly knew who this girl was, she was obviously the boy's girlfriend. "Natsu," the girl said, making the boy, Natsu, freeze up.
Turning his head, Natsu's blood turned colder than any of Gray's attacks. "O-oh, hi Erza…" He said meekly.
"Yup, definitely his girlfriend…" Joey thought as he watched the two talk, "Only reason to explain where his gonads went all of a sudden…"
Erza snatched Natsu by the ear then, causing the boy to whine in pain. "WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT FIGHTING IN THE GUILD HALL!?" She screamed angrily into his ear.
The boy cringed then. "Not to do it!"
"AND WHAT DID YOU DO!" She demanded of him.
"I did it! And I'm sorry!" Natsu cried comically as Erza throttled him.
Erza released his ear, and Natsu instantly went to rub the pain away. "And what did I say about first impressions?" She said, this time calmly as she helped Natsu to his feet.
Sighing, Natsu spoke quietly, "First impressions are what people will use to judge you, and your character, so make them count as good ones, since they'll not only apply to you, but to those who hang around with, too."
She gave the boy a small pat on his head before she went towards Joey. The Joestar was a bit unsure as Erza approached, but that uncertainty went away as she gave him an apologetic bow. "I'm sorry how my friend treated you, please don't think badly of the guild and decide to leave because of that."
Erza was waiting for some sort of a reply, but instead, Joey ruffled her hair. "Aww… It's alright, sheila," Joey said with a smile as Erza stood up, knocking off the hand that was messing with her hair, "Your boyfriend just wanted to have a tussle, that's all." Joey said, grinning all the way.
Joey kept grinning as the whole place went dead quiet. All eyes were on Erza as her face became the same hue as her hair. "KYAAA!" She screamed, stomping around like, well, the child she was. "Eww! He is not! He is not! He is not!"
Joey sweatdropped as he watched on, letting out a small chuckle. "This girl went from being serious and, possible, dangerous to being a normal little pre-teen girl…"
But, before Joey could properly correct himself, there was a sharp chuckle from the corner of the room. "Fufufu, you two would make a cute couple," the voice said, revealing another girl around Erza's age with white hair wearing goth-looking, black clothes, which were kinda of revealing and made Joey wonder who the hell let a girl at that age wear it, "a couple of losers!"
Erza gritted her teeth and turned to face the other girl. "Mira…" Erza said as she summoned two swords, surprising Joey. "Don't you start!" Erza then pointed one of her swords at her.
Mira laughed a little louder then, as she got up from her seat, much to the dismay of her younger siblings. "Why would I start something that you can't finish?" Mira said cruelly with a smile, inciting a growl from Erza. Mira laughed again as she walked over to the redhead, "Aw, is the big and mean Erza Scarlet angry?" But before she could get into her face, an arm, about as big around as her head, block her path.
"Oi, kid," Joey said as he looked down on the girl before him, "That's not very noice, ya know?"
Mira huffed at him, trying to stand tall before the giant in front of her; it's kinda hard to do when you're only 5' 4". "I'm sorry, but who are you again?"
At that, Joey sighed. "Oh Good Grief, are you hard of hearing?" He asked, tipping his hat up, causing Mira to narrow her eyes. He then pointed back to himself, "I'm Joey Joestar."
"Ugh! Not that!" The little devil growled, "I was trying to point out you're new, and because of that, I have seniority over you!" She paused to catch her breath as Joey looked on, not caring at all. "Hmmm… Joey Joestar…" She then snapped her fingers together, "You know what? For annoying me, I'll give you a new name, the name of a clown!" She declared with a wicked smile on her face, but Joey was still unfazed. In fact, he thought it to be adorable that Mira was going out of her way trying to be mean. "Everyone!" She yelled, grabbing the whole guild's attention, "From now on, this fool's name will be, JoJo! JoJo the Clown!" Mira smiled triumphantly, glancing over to JoJo to see if she got under his skin…
But all she got was an impassive look. "JoJo…" Joey said, testing the name as it rolled off his tongue, "Hmm… I like it, yeah JoJo's an awesome name," and then his arm went out and ruffled Mira's hair as he did to Erza's, "Thanks kid, that's pretty nice of you."
Mira smacked the hand away, but before she could tell him off, the doors to Makarov's office opened, revealing Laxus. To the world, the Lightning Mage seemed calm and collected, but on the inside he was a boiling pot of fury and hate, hate he directed at one man. "Crikey, he's madder than two Tasmanian Devils tryin' to root around with each other, and oh boy, them Devils get really, really mad when it's time root around…" JoJo said as he watched Laxus walk back to his table.
Both Mira and Erza looked at the aussie weirdly, Mira decided she had enough of his foolishness for the day. "Ugh, you're so weird," she said as she was leaving, "smell ya later, losers!"
"Ain't she a ray of sunshine…" Joey muttered. He got the feeling that there was something more to that Mira girl, something he'll have to deal with later on.
"I'm sorry, Mira's one of the more… difficult members of the guild," Erza said, "She came here only a little while ago with her little brother and sister, and she's very protective of them; the only thing admirable from that succubus…"
"Her parents members too? Or do they work normal jobs?" JoJo asked, causing Erza to cringe a bit.
"No… She's an orphan," the redhead said sadly, she wasn't sure if she was sad for Mira, her siblings, or herself, "in fact, most of the younger members are orphans, including me…" Erza then looked away from Joey, not wanting him to see her natural eye starting to water.
Joey frowned at that, he never considered himself as an orphan since Easybeats raised him, but now he's gone and Joey was alone. "Orphans, huh? I can relate," this got the young knight to raise her head up, "I'm an orphan too…" JoJo said proudly with a smile, there was no use to feel sad now about his disposition in life, only to move forward. "But that doesn't mean I'll feel sorry for myself for being such, and neither should you." With that, Joey ruffled her hair again.
This time, Erza didn't knock his hand away. "Mr. Joestar-?"
"Woah, Mr. Joestar sounds like an old man with a cool sense of style and charm," Joey said abruptly, cutting the redhead off, "call me JoJo… Yeah, I think Mira was on to something, JoJo's a pretty good name…"
"Ok… JoJo? Would you like a tour of the guild?" Erza asked, "I'll introduce you to a few of the other members while I'm at it, too."
JoJo looked at the kid, then back to the bar, seeing a barmaid serving a few people burgers and chips only reminded him of would he was doing originally, but as he turned back to Erza the girl had the biggest eyes of any kid he'd ever seen. "Well," JoJo began, rubbing the back of his head, "I, um uh-" sighing, JoJo gave up resisting, "fine, lead the way…" With that, Erza quickly grabbed JoJo's hand and smiled.
"Let's get started," Erza said, pulling Joey towards the guild entrance. "First, I'll show you to the guild owned dormitories, then to the training grounds, and after that…"
Joey could only sigh as the young knight dragged him out the doors. "Oh, Good Grief…"
Unknown location, Ishgar….
A temple of impossible size sat in the middle of a deep jungle, most thought nothing of the ancient structure as the plant life had long since taken back the building's location, making the pyramid look more like an odd hill. Vines, trees, and moss completely covered the megalithic structure, hiding it, almost entirely. Almost….
Fire light burned behind branch-covered windows and doorways, shining dimly into the moonless night. Two men entered their home base, one was a red haired man who had two small horns on his head and wore a simple loincloth. The other man had short, standing blonde hair, which turns indigo in low light. He also wore a circlet, which had braids fitted with hooks hanging from it, fitted perfectly to his single drill-like horn. He wore a vest and a loincloth matching the style of an aztec warrior.
"Lord Kars, and Lord Esidisi will be displeased with our efforts, Santana, especially Lord Kars," the larger of the two said as they walked down the long hallway.
The redhead grunted in acknowledgement. "Wamuu, I believe that they'll be intrigued by what we have discovered…" Santana said as he brought up his arm, and flexed. Soon a circle of light appeared, colored white as bone. Soon, a bone rod appeared out of the magic circle, falling as the spell finished. As the staff of bone neared the ground with only a half a inch to go, Santana's arm shot out with inhuman speed, frimley grasping the construct of bone. "Humans have evolved, and so have we."
Wamuu watched as the staff, which was as tall as Santana, sink back into his hand, absorbing it completely. "I only hope, Santana, that this will makeup for losing a Super Aja, and all of the other mistakes we've made…" Santana gritted his teeth, baring the fangs he'd never used as he remembered his greatest mistake. He should have killed that girl and her siblings after she broke the Super Aja her mother guarded.
Soon enough, the duo reached their destination, a stable towards the rear exit of the temple. The whinny of horses could be heard as they passed through, but soon the whinnies turned to cries of distress. Both Wamuu and Santana followed the horrid noise to the very last stall in the stable, this one was heavily fortified with iron and stone. Standing in front of the floor to ceiling iron door was one of the two masters, the Pillar Man Esidisi, with his back turned to them.
"Lord Esidisi," Wamuu began as he and Santana knelt before their master, "we have failed in our mission…" Wamuu said gravely, looking away from his master's back.
If AC/DC was troubled by this, he kept his feelings, and bodily tells, to himself. But as Wamuu was about to speak again, the noise from the stall turned from a distressed horse to a shrieking noise with guttural growls, and monstrous equine roars. The walls of the stall started to shake as the beast inside thrashed around, bucking and kicking. One of the kicks landed on the iron door, leaving indented hoof prints on the three inch thick door. Then came another kick, then another, and another, the door nearly breaking down on the last one. But as it seems the door was going to break on one last kick, all three Pillar Men heard the rush of air and the sound of a blade slicing through flesh followed by the spatter of blood. The beast was quiet now, and all three could see why; gallons upon gallons of hot blood flowed like a great river from under the door. The door itself then opened, and a man wearing a tight head-wrap covering most of his head, save for his face, and shoulders stood at the threshold, holding a large stone slab with equine features etched into it.
"Did everything work to your liking? Lord Kars," Esidisi asked as Kars walked out, not caring about the blood he was stepping in.
The leader of the Pillar Men stopped right in front of the two who were kneeling before speaking. "No," Kars said, his voice solid and unshaken, "the horse was uncontrollable once it became a vampire, it even tried to attack me, but…" He then motioned to the open stall, with a now decapitated horse laying there. "We can see how that turned out, however the speed and power displayed warrants more attempts on more horses." Kars then gave Esidisi the prototype mask as he looked down on the two other Pillar Men. "Wamuu, you said you've failed in you mission? Explain…"
Wamuu looked right into Kars's red eyes as he spoke. "The humans-"
"The humans," Kars scoffed, "what do the humans have to do with you and Santana failing your mission?"
"They have evolved, Lord Kars…" Santana answered plainly.
At that, Kars raised an eyebrow, hearing that the humans had evolved was… unsettling since the last time they did that, Hamon came to be. "How so?"
"New powers and abilities, Lord Kars…" Wamuu answered, "They seemed to gain control over fundamental rules of existence, enabling them to shoot fire, summon storms, call on beings from another realm through the use of keys."
"Ha!" Esidisi gave a curt laugh at that, "Wamuu, I don't know why you're making up stories, it's very unlike you, but you should have come here with something better than super powered humans because-"
Kars raised hand silenced his friend. "It's very unlike Wamuu to tell tall tales, Esidisi, this is why I must ask; do you have any proof of this?" At that, Santana stood up and brought up his right arm as if he was guarding from an opponent, and soon, the bone white circle of light appeared.
"Santana!" Esidisi barked, worried about the light harming them, "what is the meaning of… this…" Out of the circle came a bone staff, which Kars took hold of. "It's as if the staff appeared like…"
Kars looked on in wonder as he held the staff, he could feel the residual energy from with in the bone construct. "Magic…" With one word, Kars felt happiness he hadn't felt since the prospect of becoming the Ultimate Being.
===To be continued==
Author's note
Hi guys, I just wanted to say thanks to all of you who read, fav, and followed my story so far. I appreciate all of your reviews, and I'll try to address a few of your concerns to the best of my abilities. This chapter was a setting chapter with a peak into the future of what's to come at the end, and I really liked how this chapter came out, too. Some of you might have a problem with it being kinda short, but my goal with this story is to always have an average word count of above three thousand.
Anyway, we see our JoJo get formally introduced to the guild, but some are not too happy with it. Now, you might be wondering why I chose Laxus to be a Dio in this story, and the answer is pretty simple. They look alike(Laxus in the manga has golden-orange eyes like Dio), they're both arrogant bastards you can't help but to like, and they both share the same English voice actor. And also, you can't have a proper JoJo fic without the involvement of Dio in some way.
And don't worry, the Pillar Men will be the main baddies in this fic. Laxus will be a character we will see a few times, but after this major fight I have plan for the next few chapters, we won't be seeing too much of him after that beside the odd scene or two. Dio's time will come later although, way later, you could say it's The World away.
P.S. I wonder who Santana was thinking about early...
