Our homeroom class was silent; you could hear a pin drop. Except for the occasional sounds of pages turning, there was no noise. Without anybody around it would be easier to recruit Evie.
"Hey, would you like to assist us on a mission? It's gonna be fun I promise." I said.
"Apologies, however I'm not interested at the moment." Evie said. Her nose was deep in a book on some complicated maths topic. The cover had a 3D model of a pyramid. Evie had exceptionally long garnet hair that seemed to flow past her waist. Despite being so polite, her voice was quite monotone.
"You didn't even hear what the mission was gonna be about." I sulked and turned my back to her.
"Maybe it's about you guys gathering an army of Stand Users. Sorry. I'm not really interested in some selfish mission."
Convincing her was harder than expected.
"It's not selfish, we genuinely want to help random people being attacked. It's unfair and people shouldn't have to go through agonizing experiences like that." I said. Her eyes remained stationary. Maybe she was finally considering our request.
"What if I just want to study? I want to focus but you two are interrupting that. Would it not be considered selfish to interrupt the little amount of personal time I have?" She did have a point. Evie clearly wasn't interested and we were being selfish by interrupting her. I struggled to even respond but Alex took initiative and took over the conversation.
"Stop being a brat and listen. People are dying and will continue to die if you don't help. We have a duty to protect others since we have Stands." Evie's face switched rapidly from being offended to a smirk.
"Fine, you've convinced me. Just let me grab a pen."
Evie slowly reached into her bag. Convincing her was easier than expected.
"Shit, Sophie, get down." Alex grabbed my arm and we tumbled to the floor. Desks were knocked across the room in our haste. Rubbing my head, I glanced around the room. Nobody had entered and there were no visible threats. Only a singular toy was on the desk. I think it was a G.I Joe. It had blonde hair and a standard army uniform. I remember now, all of its figures came with a semi-futuristic blaster.
"Kidz Bop!" Evie shouted. Right, we were here to convince her. Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought. A weird pink aura came from her body and the figure. Wait, who names their Stand after a music parody group? The aura flared up. Suddenly, the figure started moving.
Few bullets hit me. Compared to the amount that was fired it seemed like the attacks weren't very precise. You'd expect a secret agent to have better aim. The bullets hurt but not as much as an actual gun. Though they were definitely troublesome. To avoid the attacks Alex had piled up a cluster of desks. It was rather effective in stopping the bullets reaching us. After I heard the bullets stop, I peered over the desks. The action figure was gone and Evie was reaching into her bag. A white, orange and blue gun was made clear.'
"Is that a Nerf gun? I haven't seen them in ages." I said. Evie pointed the gun towards me and I ducked down.
"Shut up asshole!" She shouted. Her personality had done a complete 180. Before she seemed like such a passive, calm person. Maybe the term brat was correct to label her.
A bullet fired. Surprisingly, it went completely through the desks. It pierced a large hole through the desk and splinters fired in every direction. Wind from the impact brushed my hair back and knocked me down. Evie started the reload on her shotgun and I crawled over to Alex.
"Use your Stand to redirect your bullets. Don't hit her." Three clicks notified us that the shotgun had finished being reloaded. Alex stood up and summoned her stand. Instead of aiming at her, Evie took direct fire at the Stand.
"Plastic Love!" Alex shouted. Her humanoid Stand punched once, creating a portal. The bullet traveled through and hit the Nerf gun, shattering it into tiny pieces.
"Cocksucker!" Evie shouted. Why was she being so vulgar? From her black blazer pocket, Evie pulled out three action figures. The first being the original G.I Joe. She also had two random karate figures I didn't recognize.
"Hey Evie, where are those figures from?" I called out from behind a desk. Instead of responding normally she stuck up her middle finger.
"Yo, there's no time. Just get rid of the figures, we can get them later." Alex said. Sighing, I used my tendrils to grab the figures. I wasn't that good yet so I had to grab the figures individually. Punches and kicks from the figures left small bruises on my body. The pain was minimal, so I could bare it for a few seconds. In mid-air, the karate figures locked up and stopped moving. However the G.I Joe launched a grappling hook into the side of the building; dust fell from the bricks the claw-like wire had punctured. With an arc movement, the figure moved and shot at the windows. They shattered with relatively low resistance.
A tinkling sound echoed throughout the room. Three more figures had been lined up on the desk; their guns aimed at Alex and I. On Evie's command, they would fire and severely injure us. Like any rational person would we decided to act in self defence. At least I hope you could call it that. Alex used Plastic Love to get a desk to fall from the ceiling. Then, when it fell far enough she kicked it with her Stand. Flying a few metres, it hit Evie in the chest. Luckily she was bracing so the damage was less. Her figures flew across the room. Meaningless violence like this was pointless. Evie wasn't like Tia and Daiki. She would join us if we win in a fight and she certainly won't join us if we beat her up. Plus, if we did wouldn't that make us no better than the people targeting Stand Users?
"Evie, let's talk." I said. She pulled out a pistol from her inside blazer pocket. Before she could fire I used my black coils to grab the Nerf pistol. I tossed it to the side and reached down to help Evie. Her ankle was swollen red and tears were quickly forming in her eyes.
"You don't have to join us if you don't want to. Just stop fighting. There's no point in us fighting each other." She nodded and I helped her up. Alex had to escort us to Sato's office since I forgot the way.
Limping while carrying Evie was harder than I expected. I was leaning down the entire time which put a strain on my back. And when we arrived there was an uneasy tension in the air. Mr Sato didn't hesitate to heal Evie's injuries, but glared the entire time. Nobody was talking and nobody wanted to talk. But thankfully it didn't seem like anybody was going anywhere.
"Sorry about your shotgun. I'll buy you a new one after school." I said. Evie's injuries were completely healed. We had reached homeroom in one piece.
"I'll help with whatever you guys are planning. It seems like it'll be violent and you could use my help." Evie said. She leant back on her stool and balanced two pencils on her fingers. "Rumours are spreading about you guys so we should act fast. And the figures were from Karate Kid."
That day after school we went straight to our town's toy shop. Bright lights covered the glass windows of the shop. As we entered we brushed past a few kids running out of the shop. Entering the shop as two high school kids probably made us seem suspicious. Evie picked out a sniper rifle and we were good to go.
The sun set as we sat on a park bench. Located on top of a hill, we had a good vantage point of the entire city here. A mixture of orange and pinks decorated the sky. A soft breeze blew against us as we took turns sipping from a fizzy drink. Families were returning home after spending the afternoon playing.
"Thanks for spending the day with me. And for taking an interest in me."
"No problem," I said. "If you ever need a place to stay you can sleep round mine." I had an empty spare room with no bed. Why was I offering for her to sleep over? She nodded and yawned. We spent another hour sitting on the bench, talking about all sorts of things. Unfortunately, Evie had to leave once it got properly dark.
The next day Evie greeted us in the classroom. Alex lives sorta close to me so we walk to school together. Upon sight of us both she hurriedly showed us something on her phone.
"I caught a glimpse of this guy playing baseball by himself. He completely freaked out and his Stand went haywire. Cracks formed in the baseball bat and in the rocky ground underneath him. His Stand had a singular horn protruding upwards. The second horn had been chipped off already. Since it was so dark we couldn't see any other features.
"Yo, what's the plan?" Alex said.
"Maybe don't beat the shit out of him? Just act like a civilised person and it should work out fine, dumbass." Evie said, with a slight hint of annoyance in her voice. During lunch we headed down to our school's field. There was a large batting cage with two people inside. One pitching and the other with a baseball bat. The stance was the same from the video.
"Oi, batter, we know you have a Stand." I shouted. He didn't drop the bat, but he loosened his grip. Calling for a five minute break, he walked over to us.
"How do you know about that?" He gripped onto the thick metal caging.
"That's easy, my friend took a video of you last night." Evie's eyebrows furrowed. "Let's not get caught up in the details. If you help us, you'll be doing the world a favour."
"Depends, do the people deserve it?" He asked. Alex pushed past me and placed a fist on the fence. A rattling sound alerted his friend.
"Yo, the people we're targeting are terrible human beings."
" Plus, you get to beat the shit out of them. Deal?" Evie chimed in.
"Deal. The name's Kenta Ishizaki."
Two more people was all we needed. I'm sure with a bit of persuasion we could get Akihiko on our side. Seeing as we did recruit four people in two days. Exiting the toilet was not a place I expected to see a potential candidate. He had short, light brown hair and black-rimmed glasses. It wouldn't have been weird to see him just passing, it was weird because he was posing against a wall. Obviously waiting for us.
"Ah, fellow youngsters gifted with the power from God. I would say it's an honour to be in your presence, if mine didn't overshine yours."
"Sophie, let's leave," Evie tugged on my sleeve. "This guy obviously has 8th grader syndrome, it's creeping me out." I turned to leave but the strange boy stopped me.
"Hold up, you guys are Stand Users, right? You are, right? So you'll need me to help. Hold on," He withdrew a stack of tarot cards from his inside blazer pocket. Sliding off the top three the blond boy picked them up and held them up.
"One of these three cards is The World. Discover it and fate will have decided I must join you." He said. I picked the one in the middle and his face lit up. Damn it. The World. Plain as day.
"Guess I'll have to join—" A loud slapping sound interrupted him. Akihiko walked by and had slapped the strange kid on the back of his head.
"Cut it out, Ren. They're not gonna understand what you did if they didn't see Magnolia." Akihiko said. He pulled out the cards and showed them to us. All three cards were 'The World'. So Ren had rigged the game beforehand. Akihiko pinched Ren's ear and grunted.
"Too many people are talking about you gathering Stand's. It's dangerous.
"Stop being edgy and look at what we've done," The comment was intended to be playful, but I came off as mean. "In two days we've gathered five people. For our plan to work we only need one more person." Akihiko's eye rolled to the side in careful consideration. After a long pause, he spoke.
"Fine."