Jojo's Bizzare Adventure: Miracle Milk

Chapter 9: A totally normal morning

Time: September 3, 2011 (Saturday) 11:35 AM
Location: A nearby basketball court

There's a basketball court near the apartment Jomi and I are living in. Basketball is a favorite pastime among the young adult men of the Philippines, but thankfully they seem to work on a sort of schedule. The guys usually arrive in this public open air court around 12:30 after lunch. So during the morning we have the place all to ourselves.

We visit this place often, and today is no different. Except Sophia and Zippa are both here as well this time around…

From different sides of the court standing 10 paces far was me and Jomi, as we stare intensely at each other. My eyes covered by the glint of the sun while Jomi's eyes were covered by the shadow of her witch hat.

"Chronos!" "Scientific Witchery!" Jomi and I shout in unison as we manifest our stands behind us and assume a fighting stance.

Standing in the shade was Zippa and Sophia, fanning themselves with fans as they simply watch and do nothing about the fight between us that's seemingly brewing. Instead Zippa fanned furiously as Sophia had her gaze intent on her phone which had a timer app running, it was counting down 3… 2… 1…

*BEEP BEEP BEEP

With the sound as our cue, our fight begins, I am out of Jomi's range, so I must close the distance. The fastest way to do that is to approach her, I run towards her with much gusto, Jomi of course won't simply let me get in range, W1tch hurls countless balls of fire at me, a curtain of bullets all headed towards various directions, some aimed at me, others not, a seemingly stupid move until you consider the true intention of this curtain fire.
They are to ensure I am unable to move any closer and eventually get hit. To dodge one bullet, I inevitably move inline of another bullet, forcing me to constantly stay on my toes. If she simply directed all fire towards me, I could have easily just sidestepped all of them until I got within range. Without any ranged options of my own, I am unable to compete against her ranged barrage.
Fortunately my stand is Chronos.

Chronos is Joker's Stand ability. It gives him control over time itself, a truly powerful Stand, complimented by my opponent's fighting experience and quick wit. W1tch hurls blast after blast of fireballs without rest, normally a barrage like this would overwhelm a normal opponent, but my opponent is Joker, and Joker is not a normal opponent. Right now he is probably manipulating time to speed up his own flow of time, increasing his reaction speed and movement. Due to that he is able to weave through the bullets like a thread, grazing only a few of my blasts.
Any good fighter knows to never remain predictable of course, after a while I stop blasting fireballs, W1tch points 2 fingers towards Joker, the tips of her fingers flash with energy for a brief second before a bolt of lightning shoots out towards a very surprised Joker.

The attack was instantaneous, just as I was getting used to the flow of the fireballs, she suddenly decides to blast me with lightning instead, I was forced to react quickly. I focus my mind to activate a different ability instead: Time Stop.
Before the lightning bolt could be fired, I stop time. Within the 2 seconds of time I am given free reign over my movement I rush towards Jomi, I head behind her as fast as I could so I could launch an attack. Though these balls of fire may now be motionless, touching them would mean resuming the flow of time for them, they'll burn and disrupt my concentration for stopped time, I had to carefully thread within the maze of fire in order to reach my desired position. 2 seconds was not enough, I was able to get behind her but before Chronos's fist could land a direct hit, time resumes its flow.

The bolt of lightning lands on the ground and dissipates, grounded as the lightning has nowhere else left to go, my shot misses as my target within an instant disappears from where he once was. He stopped time just as I predicted, I quickly turn around and order Lancel0t to swing from behind.

"Lancel0t, behind me! GO!" "What!?" I am caught off guard by Jomi, who was able to predict my movements within stopped time, I had to quickly re-maneuver myself, Chronos stops his fist mid-punch to instead assume a block.

*CLASH!

My Chronos's arms clash with Lancel0t's blade, though typically in movies, a clash like this would be long and drawn out, in real combat though, there is literally no reason to do such a thing. Chronos and Lancel0t break free immediately from their binds and a stand-off ensues, Chronos and Lancel0t both begin a flurry of blows, neither being able to land a direct hit as fists clashes with blades over and over. While that was happening though I fail to notice W1tch who had been charging up a spell, she swings her arm and a visible blade of wind launches from her hand at point blank.

"Chron-!"

*BLAM!

"Augh!"

A direct hit, I was unable to block the attack and was met with a painful blow to my stomach. I fly high into the air, my glasses flying off of my face, soon both me and my glasses both kiss the asphalt in much pain.

*crack!

*WHISTLE

Zippa whistles, to signal at us that the fight was over. "Cut! This round goes to Jomi. That's 5 wins for Jomi, and 2 for Joker. The trade lasted for 12 seconds of actual time. Not bad. That was the longest fight yet!" Zippa explains the results of the fight.

Indeed. We come here nearly every day to practice and hone our skills. The rules are whoever can damage the user first loses.

Though it has been 2 or so weeks since we were last challenged by the milf mum to fight another miracle child. We can't afford to slack off. We must always be prepared and constantly be trying to improve our skills, unless we wanna fucking die.

We used to head to the nearby park that's also a cemetery to do our practice, since it was a nice large area and was rarely crowded, though every now and then we'd get strange looks from passerby's, we paid them no mind.
Although after a training accident where we almost caused the entire park to burn to the ground..!? We've been training here since instead. We only found it recently and the people have been nice enough to let us use it during the early mornings.

"Nice job Jomi." Sophia compliments. "You are getting better and better at controlling both Lancel0t and W1tch simultaneously now. That's some impressive mental dexterity there." "Thanks!" Jomi returned the compliment.

"Agh… That hurt… Anyone know where my glasses went?" I stand back up into a sitting position and rub my stomach with one hand while trying to feel where my glasses went.

Unbeknownst to me, Sophia had already picked it back up for me. "Umm… About that… Looks like your glasses got pretty messed up during that round." Sophie said as she hands me my glasses. The left eye has a bunch of cracks in it. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry Joker! I have a spell that can repair items, only minor mending though, but hey, the cracks are minor so I can do it. Do you want W1tch to fix it up for you?" Jomi apologizes, but I don't really mind… "No thanks… It's about time I got a new pair anyways… I'll tell pops the news."

"Say, ya' stopped time, did'ya? Any improvements so far?" Zippa asked. "I'm still stuck at 2 seconds. Although if I remember correctly, I stopped time for everyone but you and Sophie that time. I wanted to try it out, were you guys not able to move or see me within stopped time?" I tell. "Hmm… Now that you mention it… Yeah, I did see ya' move didn't I?" "Really, that's awesome!" Sophia says excitedly. "how many people do you think can you allow to go inside your 'world of stopped time'?" "Hmm… Maybe 3 to 5 people?" I reply my estimate. Suddenly I remember something. "Actually, there's something I've been meaning to try now. So far I can stop time, dilate time, rewind time, and see through timelines… I haven't improved on any of these skills yet, but I figured I can maybe try learning a new way of manipulating time." "What do you have in mind?" Sophia asked. "You'll see. Jomi, 10 paces again. I want you to do that fireball barrage attack again. Sophia, start the countdown again." I returned. To which Sophia immediately responded "Got it! Let's go for round 9 of Jomi vs. Joker then."

Once again, Jomi and I were in a stand off, the countdown for the fight already began and we were simply waiting for the signal. Sophia however, a little impatient is viewing Arcaea for a vision of what new trick I have in mind.

"Huh? What's this!?" I ask as I stare at the confusing vision Arcaea returned to me. "What's up Sophia?" Zippa asks as she looks at the vision as well.
It was bizarre… It was a 10 second clip, at around the 3 second mark, right as a fireball was about to hit Joker, he suddenly stopped existing and then after 5 seconds, he returns already behind a very confused Jomi to deal a hit! "Weird." Zippa remarked, she reached out to a bottle of water but kept her eyes on Jomi and Joker while doing so.

*BEEP BEEP BEEP!

The battle has begun! Before the fight started, I took the opportunity to peer into the nearby future using Chronos… The vision predicted me being burned to a crisp by Jomi's barrage of fire. A rather unfortunate future…

"Which is why I shall obliterate that time out of existence! CHRONOS!"

% #&^%^#^%*&(%#%!#^%&^*^&*#%%#$!#$%$%&^%%%!# #$&^*)(_((^&%#!^#^&(*

I continued blasting fireballs at Joker, but before I knew it, he was no longer there… "What!?" I turn around to see Joker already behind me, already in the motion of punching me. "When did yo-!?"

"BAKA!"

"Eureaghugh!"

"Huh!?" Zippa screamed in shock. "What just happened!? Sophia, did you see what just happened? What the heck happened!? That's crazy, I gotta splash myself with this water to see if I'm dreaming!" Zippa motioned the hand she was grabbing the plastic bottle she had to throw water in her face but instead… "Huh!? There's no water? And why do I feel so refreshed!? When did I have time to drink the water!?" As Zippa was having a mental breakdown, I was processing all the information, trying to piece out what just happened until it clicked… "You… Joker… You skipped time!" Joker who was helping Jomi back up stared at my direction and simply smiled.

"Quick as ever, huh Sophia? Yes. That was the new technique I wanted to try out. Time obliteration. I select a small portion of time and erase it out of existence. Everything that occurred within that time perishes, leaving only the results, the aftermath of that time, the only one free from the effects are me and up to 5 other people I allow. It seems my limit for that ability is 5 seconds worth of time erasure. And it seems I need to wait for it much longer than time stop to use again." I explain my newly acquired ability.

"What? I don't get it… How does that work?" Zippa asked. "You erase time, but what does that mean!? If you erase time then shouldn't it not be there? He erases time but stuff still happens in it!? How does it work!? Someone explain it I need to know it's so confusing!"

Sophia pats Zippa at the shoulders as her mental breakdown continues and she simply says "Zippa… It just… Works."

"I think I *cough! Get it!" Jomi says. Still experiencing the after effects of being punched in the gut earlier. "It's like when you skip a portion of a video or flip a few pages ahead in a book. Everything that happened in that portion still happens, the video already made, and the book already written, but you, Joker, decided to skip past them to ignore them. Only you, the one with the omniscience to know that what you are seeing is just a video or a book are aware of what happened and what you did, while everyone else will simply be confused! Am I correct?"

Zippa stares blankly at Jomi before smoke starts pouring out of her ears… Looks like she's completely stopped thinking… "Let's drop the topic Jomi… For Zippa's sake." I say to Jomi, and she replies with a simple nod.
I was about to tell everyone to try going for another round when I suddenly hear the familiar sound of a basketball ball being dribbled at 0.6 second intervals.
I've been training my sense of time as well.

"Yo, waddup harem boy." A young somewhat tanned, somewhat ripped shirtless boy greets me with a mocking nickname casually. This is just how teenager boys of the Manila were apparently. Formalities don't exist for them it seems… Much to my agitation. "Believe me, I'd rather be spending time with anyone but these female sickos… That being said, you guys are here early." I return the greeting. Behind the tanned buff boy who was now holding the ball in his waist were 9 other people. "What? Get out of town, we'd kill to be with the ladies! Other than that… We all had early lunch, so we have time to play before the sun starts heating up! So here we are. Earlier than usual." The boy replied. You wouldn't be saying that if you knew how insufferable these women were… Ignoring that thought I replied back. "Well, then I guess this'll be our cue to leave."

Suddenly, a loud growl could be heard, it was the sound of someone's stomach begging for food.

"Heh, sorry, that's me." Zippa said, embarrassed. I groan. "Sure, it's pretty late, and we've been working pretty hard. Let's call it a day and grab some grub…"
Everyone was staring at me expectantly. I let out another groan… "My… Treat…"

Everyone rushed towards me screaming as we bid the boys farewell and headed to the usual place we went to eat and also to meet.

"You guys are always beat up when we see you, what exactly are you guys doing in the court early morning anyway?" The boy asked, curious. "Punching each other with ghosts! Obviously!" Zippa replied and I, and everyone else couldn't help but facepalm. "In all seriousness though, if you guys are interested, might I interest you in the ways of Sendo and Hamon? If you guys do well I might just decide to go out with one of ya'!" Zippa said. But the boys simply gave out their half-hearted screams of disapproval. "It honestly amazes me, how you manage to both flirt and advertise your martial arts school at the same time and fail miserably at doing both." I tell her blatantly. "Well… What can I say? I'm a natural." Zippa replied, tone deaf as usual. "Augh." A grade A slut, and a grade A moron… "Why do you hate women so much Joker?" Sophia asked as we head towards the usual. "It's a long story, and my pops is involved…" "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Tell us all about it! Please, please please, pretty please with some cheese?" Sophia asked eagerly, she was practically begging for it…

Yep… It has certainly been relatively peaceful these past few days… One thing is still stuck on my mind and I can't stop thinking about it.

That damned U.F.O. we saw near the end of August… Just what was it? I can't get it out of my mind… What bothers me most is that… That place landed in our favorite meeting place/restaurant… The Unidentified Flavorful Object.

STAND PROFILES

Stand Name: U.F.O.
Stand User: ?

Destructive Power: ?
Speed: ?
Range: ?
Power Persistence: ?
Precision: ?
Development Potential: ?

A strange flying saucer showed up out of nowhere one midnight. And I have reason to believe that thing was a stand. Probably a long-ranged type… Other than that, the thing is a complete mystery.

TO BE CONTINUED

Hey y'all. So… Happy new year I guess?

Pretty late to the party, but a week late isn't much… I think?

So yeah… The upload schedule is now every 7th day of the month!
Anyone following can read this while waiting impatiently for the new chapters of Jojolion. I know I look forward to every chapter of that one!

The previous 2 chapters were very long and wordy compared to this one. It must be quite... Shocking? Eh?

There are multiple reasons.

I once thought more words equaled better. But looking back, those 2 chapters feel so much like they were mostly filler honestly. I wanna try doing less words. Convey more with less words rather than convey few with many words. Something like that.

Also, so that I can fulfill my monthly upload schedule you know? Probably that's the real reason I use less words.