Bright lights. The audience, silent with anticipation. The announcer, calling her name in the same dry monotone he had used for everyone else's. The judges, sitting in a panel, pencils at the ready. The beam in front of her. Everyone waiting for her to begin her routine.

And she was ready for them. Ready with her turquoise leotard. Ready with her hair tightly set in a bun. Ready with her makeup immaculately done.

Ready with the invisible man at her side.

She walked out, in front of the lights and the audience and the announcer and the judges, and she got on the beam, and it began. The performance. First the pose, and then tension, and then she was off: jumping, flipping, dancing across the thin beam. A turn, with a twirl mixed in for extra complexity, and then she was moving back to her original position. Her movements were quick, but not jerky; elegant, flowing, graceful.

A flip. And then another flip. Next a twirl, followed by a high jump. She had practiced the routine for months, and now she was executing it all perfectly. The crowd cheered every time her feet landed directly on the beam, without a stumble or even so much as a quiver. Every single move she made was deliberate and, of course, flawless.

She paused, standing on the end of the beam, and took a deep breath. Her next move, if she could pull it off, would be the perfect climax to a perfect show. But it was risky. As far as she knew, no one had ever pulled off a double flip on a balance beam. While dismounting the beam, sure, but even the best gymnasts in the world never went beyond a single flip during their routines.

She had practiced it, of course. She had even managed to complete it a couple times. But not with any regularity, and never with enough precision as she would like. She glanced at the panel of judges. Her routine had been perfect; she could end it right now and walk home with first place. Did she really need to try to perform this move at the risk of losing points?

Of course she did.

One step. Then another. And then another, and she was running now, as much as one could run on a balance beam, trying to build up enough speed, and then she was out of room, and she leapt, and-

One flip. Two flips. Landing. Pose.

The crowd exploded with cheers. Everything had gone so much better than it ever had before. An ecstatic grin on her face, she dismounted, springing backflip over backflip and landing on the mat, and walked off to even louder cheering. Her routine - even the risky double flip - had been perfect.

Of course, it hadn't been perfect perfect. But that hardly mattered for anyone but her. After all, nobody could've seen the third, muscular leg of the invisible man fold out of her own and plant itself on the beam, stabilizing her.

"Aaahh," Joshua sighed over his bowl of cereal. "It's good to finally be free!"

The folded newspaper came down onto his head with a whap. "Don't gloat," his mother scolded. "Anyway, you're not free just yet. Part of the terms of your probation include running a few errands for me today."

"Alright, alright," Joshua took another bite of his cereal. "Do you mind if I go to the gym first?" "As long as you don't forget the errand list," his mother responded, before setting down a package with a paper on top in front of him.

Joshua picked up the paper and read the list of errands. Mail the package, buy some milk from the grocery store, do a couple other things; in other words, nothing too pressing. He had plenty of time to work out before he needed to do any of these errands. Finishing the rest of his breakfast quickly, he grabbed his coat and bike helmet before walking out with the package in hand. "Bye Mom! Love you!"

"Love you too! Drive safely!" came the response.

As Joshua walked his bike out of the garage, he stopped to take a deep breath. He hadn't just been gloating - It was good to finally be free.

Ever since that fateful night at the football game, Joshua had been grounded for staying out past his curfew. Of course, the only reason he had missed his curfew was because he had been kidnapped by the Cobalt Order - but it wasn't as if he could've told his parents about that. Neither of them would've believed him, and even if they did it would probably just make his mother worry even more. So he made up a story about losing track of time with friends, and accepted whatever punishment came to him.

As it turned out, that punishment had been a month-long grounding. Even though Joshua had resolved to accept the punishment without complaint, the tedium of not being allowed to leave the house (except for school), as well as not being able to use the Internet (except for monitored homework), had left Joshua anxious for it to end. So he decided to bargain. With increased chores, better grades, and good behavior, he had managed to get a month of grounding reduced to three weeks.

As he rode his bike down to the gym, Joshua briefly thought about the Cobalt Order. Even though they still possessed the weapon they had stolen, neither Joshua nor Daniel and Hiram had encountered any other Stand users since the attack in the woods. Daniel was continuing to search for the Cobalt Order's hideout, and had even tried looking up Stan to try and find him again, but had had no success. It was as if the Cobalt Order was going out of their way to avoid them.

Oh well, Joshua thought as he pulled up to the gym. If what Hiram said about destiny was true, it would only be a matter of time before they crossed paths with the Cobalt Order again. Until then, the only thing he could do was to get better at using his Stand. Worrying too much about the situation would do no good; now was the time to get all his pent-up energy from being stuck in his house out at the gym.

Jake Elwood was in a bad mood.

Not that he ever wasn't in a bad mood. Short, squat, and ill-tempered, Elwood was known in the Cobalt Order for always being a most unpleasant person to be around, on top of being a general failure as well. His unpleasantness had even given him some notoriety in the general society as well: he had been briefly featured on the first and only season of the reality show Tough Guy Walking, where he had managed to give half of his fellow contestants severe food poisoning as well as break several expensive pieces of equipment. In an interview, the producer had attributed the show's tanking ratings to "that ****ing Elwood ****-up."

Even once he was recruited into the Cobalt Order, Jake Elwood had remained the consistently unlikable loser. This was the reason for his current bad mood - as far he was concerned, it was completely unfair. Sure, he had consistently slacked off on his duties, and sure, he had forgotten the secret password so often that they did away with it for him altogether, but he still had yet to truly fuck up. Certainly he hadn't done anything nearly as bad as the two bozos who stole the Fragment and then lost it to a couple kids. His Stand was fairly useful to boot, if he did say so himself.

So why the hell was he always the one stuck doing draft duty?

Draft duty was the most menial of jobs you could get at the Cobalt Order. It meant it was your job to go to a public area like a shopping center or a mall or something like that, and sit and wait and do nothing but watch for Stand users, and then if you spot one then you approach them and ask if they were interested in amassing power and had they by any chance heard of the Cobalt Order?

Elwood hated it. It was stupid and boring and he had never once encountered a Stand user. The only reason he didn't blow it off entirely was because he was sure that someone, be it Subdivisions or Taste of Honey or the boss or that goddamned messenger Stand, would find out if he did, and then he would be in for it. Still, he hated every goddamned second he worked draft duty.

In fact, he was beginning to suspect the whole thing was some elaborate prank pulled on him. "Get him out of the way," they were probably saying, "so that we don't have to look at his ugly mug anymore." Elwood grimaced, rubbing his Cobalt Order pin on his dingy jacket with his finger. "Doesn't make any sense," he darkly muttered. "Subdivisions should be doing this job. He's got the Stand for it."

He hoped he wasn't doing draft duty incorrectly. Usually he could tell when he was doing something incorrectly, because when he was someone would be yelling at him. No one had yelled at him yet, and anyway it was pretty hard to mess up waiting around and looking for Stand users. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was somehow messing things up again.

Suddenly, Elwood saw something that made him jump, causing his car to shake and scattering the junk food wrappers on his dashboard. He paused to sift through the files in the passenger seat until he found the one he was looking for. He looked at the file, and then out of his car, and then at the file, and then out of his car.

There was no doubt about it. The kid entering the gym was one of the brats who stole the Fragment.

The inklings of a plan began to form in Elwood's mind. Beat the kid, take back the Fragment, become a hero in the Cobalt Order. Easy! He hurriedly got out of his car and started to walked toward the gym. Screw draft duty, he thought, if I get the Fragment back I'll never have to work a day of draft duty again.

Good luck kid. You may have taken down heavyweights like Power and Landslide, but you'll be like eggs on toast against my Stand, [Rubber Biscuit].

-To Be Continued- Bounce Back (Act 2)