Jorge Joestar runs forward, fangs snarling, claws glistening in the night, from the barn, charging from the barn to kill his greatest friend. Mario lies on the ground, clutching his stomach, injured from the kick that sent him flying out of the barn. Jorge jumps in the air and Mario points his fingers at the sky.
Thin wires, the creation of Mario's Stand, sprout from his fingers, digging through the sky as they shoot towards the leaping Jorge. Jorge spins in the air, slipping through the wires. "You missed, Marzie!" he growls.
"I hit exactly what I was aiming for, my friend," Mario says with a smile.
His wires wrap around the barn's exposed rafters. As Jorge closes in, Mario retracts his wires. The retreating metal cord pulls him off the ground at a rapid rate. He collides with Jorge midair, striking the undead man in the face with a powerful kick.
Mario flips up onto the top of the barn as Jorge crashes to the ground. He roars and clutches his face, part of which has been burned off by the kick. "That kick was filled with Hamon, as will every blow from here own," Mario shouts from the top of the barn. "I did not connect for long enough to do lasting damage, but I am glad to see that it did enough to remove your resemblance to my friend."
"I am your friend, you bastard!" Jorge shouts.
"No, you are not," Mario says quietly.
Wires lower from Mario's hands and dig into the barn, tearing out nails and wrapping around wooden planks. Mario rips his hand up and flings a Hamon filled board at Jorge, striking him in the shoulder. He flings another board, and Jorge's Stand Black Ice appears, striking the board before it can hit its master and slicing it in half.
Jorge dashes forward with vampiric speed, destroying the planks Mario throws like missiles as easily as one destroys paper. He jumps up, landing on the roof of the barn. The boards under him collapse and he falls down into the barn.
"I wasn't just ripping out boards to use as weapons, Jorge, I was undermining the structural integrity of the barn," Mario says.
He stomps down on the roof of the barn and a board pops up. He kicks the board as it falls, sending it flying down at Jorge. The Hamon filled board slips through his defences, breaking through his chest and pinning him to a wall.
Mario leaps off the barn as it collapses down onto Jorge, pinning the vampire under hundreds of pounds of lumbar. As Mario walks away from the barn, he reaches into his pocket and grabs a cigarette. He lights it with Hamon and tosses it over his shoulder. The lit cigarette lands on the pile of dry wood and hay and ignites it. Within mere moments, the entire barn is engulfed in fire.
"Goodbye, my friend," Mario whispers as he walks away from the barn.
Suddenly, the air around Mario turns cold. He glances over his shoulder just in time to see the blazing inferno extinguish. Charred boards fly through the air as Jorge throws them off his back.
Jorge is covered in burns and cuts, looking like a rack of ribs left on a grill for far to long. Bits of broken barn poke out from his shoulder, stomach, and calf. His scarf, now no more than a few scraps of torn fabric, hands from his neck, still burning. Jorge blows on the scarf and the fire dies. "I have the power to make things cold, did you really think you could burn me to death?" he asks.
Mario fires his wires backwards, wrapping them around the fence surrounding the field of dead cows. The wires retract, pulling him backward. Jorge sprints after him. "Don't you dare try to run! You started this fight, you'll be here til it ends!" he shouts.
Mario lands on the other side of the fence right as Jorge catches up to him and grabs his ankle. Mario fills his foot with Hamon, but it isn't enough. Jorge freezes the foot, turning it into an icy brick that no Hamon can travel through.
Jorge lifts Mario from the ground and slams him back down. With his monstrous claws he strikes at his friend's chest. The second he touches Mario he recoils, screaming, and clutches his hand.
As Mario cuts through the ice on his foot and limps away, Jorge catches a glimpse of Mario's chest through his now open jacket. His thin Stand wires are wrapped around his chest like a shirt, glowing with Hamon energy. "Wrapping yourself in the energy of the sun to keep me from tearing you apart, that's the type of plan I've come to expect," Jorge mutters. "But you're forgetting something: my Stand doesn't share my weakness to sunlight."
Black Ice, Jorge's aviator resembling Stand with icicles for claws, appears at his side. The Stand swipes at the air, creating a trio of icicles that soar through the air and plunge into Mario's shoulder. Mario yelps in pain as the Stand flies forward and slashes him across the back.
Mario stumbles forward, breathing heavily. "You're trying to heal. That won't work. I'm stronger than you in every conceivable way, you can't defeat me," Jorge says.
"I don't need to overpower you. All I need to do is wait until the sun rises, or make it to that thing," Mario says, wheezing.
"The sun will rise soon, yes, but not soon enough," Jorge says as his Stand wraps its arms around Mario's face. Ice appears, covering Mario's mouth and nose. "Humans can go three minutes without oxygen before facing negative effects. Judging by the position of the stars, that's about ten minutes too short. Enjoy suffocation, Marzie."
Mario reaches for his mouth and Black Ice kicks him in the back of the head, sending him sprawling onto his stomach . It fires down a pair icicles that pin Mario's hands to the ground. "I wonder, will the blood loss kill you before the lack of oxygen?" Jorge muses. "You're losing blood like a geyser. I can smell it from here. You know, it's actually kinda intoxicating. You have the best smelling blood I've encountered yet, Marzie."
"I wonder, though, why would you allow yourself to lose so much blood?" Jorge says, eyes narrowing. "You could have healed those wounds with Hamon, or at least sewed them shut with your Razor's Edge. Unless there's a reason you're not using Hamon or your Stand..."
Jorge squints and glances over the dark field. With his superior vampire vision, he notices something. Thin wires run from Mario's hands to the corpses of slain cattle. "Oh dear," Jorge mutters as all of the cows around him explode.
Chunks of dry meat and bone rain down throughout the field, making the entire area look like a bowl of salsa. The force of the bovine bombs knocks Black Ice away, giving Mario a momentary chance to escape. He lifts his head up and slams it back down on the ground, shattering the ice covering his face, and rips his crucified hands from the earth. As he climbs to his feet, he glances back at Jorge.
A tall cylinder of ice sits where Jorge stood. The ice melts, revealing Jorge standing with his arms crossed. "Okay, time out. What the hell was that?" he asks.
"I used my wires to fill the dead cows with Hamon. The stomachs of cattle are filled with grass and methane, both highly combustible materials. Because you dried the cows out by draining their blood, I was able to create a chemical reaction that caused them to explode, raining down Hamon filled pieces of meat on this battlefield," Mario says.
"I don't think that's how anything works," Jorge mutters. "Regardless, it didn't work. I protected myself with a pillar of ice."
"Still, it set me up to use an incredibly difficult technique," Mario says.
"Oh ho? Do tell."
"Notice the chunks of meat surrounding you, they still glow with the Hamon energy I filled them with. You could make your way through this field, presumably, but the beef slurry will slow you down considerably. Now, notice your Stand. It is too far away to strike me without you stepping closer. These two factors make this an opportune time to do this," Mario says before sprinting away from Jorge.
"Come back here!" Jorge screams.
"I would rather not!" Mario yells back.
Jorge growls and his Stand fires icicles at Mario. Before the icicles can hit, wires wrap around Mario's back, creating armor that the icicles bounce off of. Jorge growls and runs forward, freezing the ground below him as he runs to block the glowing meat.
As Jorge runs, his foot slips into a Hamon infused rope loop created by Mario's Stand, ripping off his foot and causing him to trip. As he falls onto his face, Jorge's Stand plunges its claws into the ground. Ice spreads across the field, quickly catching up to Mario. Mario slips on the ice, flying forward and landing on a black box sitting at the edge of the field.
He smiles and slams his fist down on a button. The black box, actually a large spotlight, turns on, enveloping Jorge in a blinding pillar of violet. Jorge screams as his skin turns to dust. "I picked up one of the UV lights from Stroheim's camp and drug it here, just in case," Mario shouts.
Black Ice fires an icicle at the light, shattering it, but the damage is done. Most of Jorge's flesh and skin have burned away and his right arm has fallen off. He struggles to stand back up. Mario takes a deep breath, healing what he can with Hamon and sewing up what he can't with his Stand. "It's over, my friend," Mario says.
"Shut up!" Jorge shouts. His Stand stabs its icy claws into his chest and frost spreads over his body, filling in the holes in his skin. "I'm not dead, not yet. And it's not like you have any room to talk. You've lost liters of blood and are holding yourself together with your stupid wires."
"Yes, I do not think either of us can fight for more than a few minutes."
"So let's stop. Go our separate ways and never see one another again," Jorge says. "This doesn't have to end with us killing each other. It can end with you letting me go."
"You know that I cannot do that," Mario says with a sigh.
"Yeah, I know. So let's end this."
Jorge stabs the ground and sharpened spikes of ice jut out from the ground, some as big as two meters tall with dozens of smaller spikes between them, covering the field in pointed spears. He jumps up on top of one, balancing atop the point. Mario pulls himself up onto the top of a spike using his wires. "Falling down into this field of spikes would be very painful for me," Mario says. "You, though, with your monstrous new physiology, you would be fine. Allow me to make things a bit more fair."
Mario shoots out wires, covering the gaps between the spikes, and floods his wires with Hamon. "You have survived surprisingly well, considering the amount of solar energy I've pounded into you, but you are hanging on by a thread. How fitting it is, I suppose, that my thread will slay you," Mario says.
"We'll see, old friend. We'll see," Jorge says. "Hey, you know what this reminds me of?"
"That trip to Cairo ten years back?"
"Yes! With the scorpions, and the spike pits, and that one boulder."
"Good times."
"Yeah. Good times."
The two stare at one another for a moment before dashing forward, jumping between spikes. Jorge lunges forward and slashes at Mario with his claws. Mario leaps up and kicks Jorge in his ice covered face, sending him stumbling back. Jorge manages to keep his balances atop the spikes and summons his Stand.
Black Ice flies forward and slashes Mario across the side of the face. As the Stand pulls its arm back for another strike, wires wrap around Mario's fists, creating makeshift gloves. Mario punches the Stand in the face, knocking it backwards.
Jorge jumps over his falling stand and punches Mario in the face. Mario blocks the next punch with his fists. As Jorge's hand comes to a halt against Mario's gloves, the gloves unravel and wrap around Jorge's arm. Mario heaves back and throws Jorge over his head, sending him flying at the spikes.
Jorge yanks his arm back, pulling Mario off balance, intending to pull Mario down with him. Mario takes a deep breath and floods the wires with Hamon. As his arm begins to melt, Jorge resummons his Stand, who slashes the arm off.
Mario grabs onto a spike and stops himself from falling as Jorge drops into the pit of spikes and wire. Jorge lands on top of his Stand, stopping the glowing wires from killing him. Jorge runs up frozen spike, charging at Mario. As he runs, ice grows from his amputated elbow, transforming his arm into a jousting lance.
Mario flips off the spike, jumping high into the air, and shoots wires between his hands. Jorge reaches the top of the pillar and kicks off, stabbing at Mario with his lance. The two men collide midair, Jorge's lance piercing through Mario's stomach.
Mario ignores the pain and pulls a noose made of wire around Jorge's throat. He channels Hamon through the wires, burning away Jorge's neck. The two dying men, connected by Stands as much as their past, tumble through the air, inseparable as they plummet down towards the pit of spikes.
Jorge lands on one of the taller spikes, the spike stabbing him through the heart. The force of the sudden stop throws Mario off course, snapping the lance in his chest and throwing him down into the spike bit. As he falls, the wires wrapped around Jorge's throat follow, decapitating Jorge.
Mario plummets into the pit of spikes, covered into lacerations, a lance of ice in his stomach. His physical pain is great, but not as great as his emotional pain. He closes his eyes and accepts his fate.
A hand grabs him by the ankle, saving him moments before he reaches the spikes. He opens his eyes to see his savior, the Stand Black Ice, who holds onto an icy spire with one hand and Mario with the other.
"You won," a raspy voice says.
Mario looks down at Jorge, or at least, what's left of him. Jorge's head, now little more than dust and bone, lies on the pile of spikes and wire at the bottom of the spikes. "It was a hard fight, harder than you have ever had to face before, but you won," Jorge whispers. "Tell my son that I'm sorry. For everything."
With those parting words, the Hamon finally eats away at Jorge, and the head turns to dust. Mario glances at Black Ice, who fades away before his eyes. With the last of Jorge's strength, the Stand throws Mario out of the spike field.
Mario crawls away from the field and rests against a tall tree. The rising sun shines down on the spikes. By noon the ice will be gone, erased by light just like the man who created it. As Mario rests, he sees a figure approach from the East.
The dawn light prevents Mario from seeing the figure's face until it is only a few feet away. The tear streaked face of Joseph Joestar looks down on Mario. "I followed you, because I was worried about my dad," Joseph mutters.
"How much did you see?"
"Enough."
"You shouldn't have had to see that."
"Are you going to die?"
Mario glances down at the lance stuck in his stomach and sighs. "I don't know," he says.
"Afterwards, Dio and I destroyed all of the masks," Grandpa Joe says. "Or atleast, I thought we did. Apparently there are still a few of them floating around."
Kan slowly puts the mask down. "I'll destroy it," she mutters.
"Grandfather, is that the end of the story?" Nero asks.
"There's more, but revisiting those dark days took a lot out of me," Grandpa Joe says. "I'll tell you the rest when the time is right."
"Fantastic, more secrets," Johana says.
Joseph takes a deep breath. "Johana, I'm sorry for trying to force you down the same path my father led me down. It is not an easy path, it is not an enjoyable path. It is not a path anyone should be forced to walk against their will," he says. "But, it is a necessary path. My father saved lives. He became a monster, towards the end, but before that he saved countless lives. He stopped an army of Nazi vampires from destroying Mexico."
"And then he lost himself, died, and left you all alone," Johana says. "I can relate."
"Be thankful you didn't have to watch your father's death."
"Oh, I'm thankful all right," Johana says, voice dripping with disdain.
"Your father was a good man. He was a selfless man. He embraced his destiny and walked the path of heroism. And so, judging from your recent actions, have you."
Johana sighs. "Yeah, I guess I have."
To Be Continued In
Chapter 38: Floyd and Camellia go to the Zoo
