Heartbeat City Part 1:
Shizuka checked her phone while leaving the hospital. "Where the hell are you?" "What's happening?" "Did he get to you?" Twentyfive missed calls and her messages were flooded by Mirino. Shizuka slapped her forehead. "Shit! I completely forgot to contact him!"
She immediately sent a message asking to meet him at his school, and then jumped into a taxi with Mello.
It was quite a beautiful summer day in New York City, the sound of the bustling streets accompanied by "New York, New York" on the radio made it all feel like the opening to a romantic comedy. But both Mello and Shizuka were deep in thought. "It's worrying…" Mello said. "Hellstrom is the kind of guy that would show up in your apartment just to challenge you, but despite that, he hasn't given us any location for the fight." Shizuka nodded. "Mirino's Weezers just need to find him and then we get to him before nightfall. I'm more worried about what his Stand could be." They both continued to ruminate.
The intense atmosphere was broken when Shizuka remembered something. "Mello!" "Yes?" "It's our final mission! We need some cool new clothes!" Mello furrowed his brow. "I'm sorry, I haven't watched as many movies as you. I'll have to pass." Shizuka didn't hear what he said because she was absorbed by her illusory outfit change.
Long white gloves weaved around Shizuka's hand, as her hoodie became a stylish white jacket combined with a purple star-shirt, and her red jeans into a white long skirt. The entire outfit was combined with a purple scarf that stretched down to her feet, inspired by pictures of her grandmother. While Mello was looking away, she changed the spider web-pattern on his clothes into a white heartbeat pattern. The taxi driver had gotten a tip, so he chose not to ask about it.
They reached Blue Oyster Elementary School in the Bronx and Shizuka and Mello stepped out, ready to take on the world. Shizuka considered creating a red carpet under her feet, but then she remembered that her father's life was in danger, so she needed to focus. Mirino was sitting on a bench waiting, surrounded by the groupies he had gained by supernaturally cheating at four squares.
The huge bags under his eyes and nervous tapping of his foot signaled that he wasn't in a great mood. When Mello and Shizuka entered he stood up and walked over to them. "What. The. Fuck!? I messaged you yesterday, and you showed up here in some admittedly stylish but completely unnecessary clothes!"
Mello quickly explained their run-in with Powerslave. "Mirino, you said that your Weezers had found something game-changing?" Mirino nodded, and took up a small vial of water from his pocket. Shizuka looked closer, and saw small traces of blood floating around inside. "It's really fucking gross. There are huge amounts of blood spilled out in the sewers."
Shizuka felt nauseous, but Mello had heard worse. "How much?" "My Weezers can spread out over the entire town, though they get weaker if I'm far away, and there were traces everywhere I checked. But what's really weird is that one of my Weezers in Queens was picked up by a fly. That fly then carried it all the way through the city, over to the top of Empire State. Around there, my Weezer was picked up and thrown off the building."
A humongous smile appeared on Shizuka's face. "Yes! Yes! Hellstrom, I hate you ,but that's the most badass thing I've ever heard of! A climactic fight at the top of the Empire. Fucking. State!"
Mirino looked absolutely horrified. He started to slowly back away. "Okay, so... I agreed to help you out in finding him, right? But knowing that he has done something like this is pretty goddamn discouraging. I might want to sit on the sidelines for this."
Shizuka felt anxious because of the chilling sound of Mirino's groupies growling. They covered their faces in their hands and started to have subtle, creepy spasms. Mello started to back away, but one of the kids had snuck up behind him and bit him in the leg. "Fuck!" Achtung kicked the kid's legs and he fell to the ground, and Shizuka jumped backwards.
. All of Mirino's groupies started to rush towards Shizuka, roaring like animals, so Mello had to jump in front of her and scatter Bloody Sundays to fend them off. They adapted quickly, using a fence as a springboard to come flying in from the side. Shizuka flash bombed them to get them away from her, but the children were small and fast, constantly coming from all directions and tanking Shizuka and Mello's intentionally weak punches.
During the chaos Mirino built up his courage and acted. He took a giant water bottle he had with him at all times and shot out the water like a geyser. It grabbed hold of his mind-controlled friends and threw them to the side. At the sight of their beloved leader stopping them, the children stopped attacking and fell to the ground.
Mello stepped forward to check on a young girl next to him. She slowly opened her eyes and checked around herself. "Huh? What… happened?" she mumbled.
All of the other children seemed to be having the same reaction. "Aw man, what happened? All I remember is Mirino being attacked…" one boy groaned. Shizuka and Mello helped them all stand up while they talked. "So, Helstrom's blood has some kind of mind controlling effect?" Shizuka said. "Probably, though the details of it are still pretty vague."
Mirino's groupies had gathered around him and were shouting questions. "Hey! What happened?" "I felt really weird… Really angry…" "Mirino! You have those cool powers, right? Do you know why that happened?" Mirino was nervously trying to come up with a good answer and when he looked around at his terrified friends' faces he made up his mind and cleared his throat.
"My friends! An evil power seems to have awakened in New York! You have always worshiped me, but despite my powers, you are my equals and my friends! I will defeat this evil and defend you all! Do not worry!" With those reassuring words Mirino turned around and walked out of the schoolyard four hours too early.
Shizuka giggled like crazy. "Hmmphh, defeat the evil? Great speech, Aragorn son of Arathorn!" "Shut up! I meant everything I said. I want them to be my friends, but thanks to my powers they follow me like some kind of king, and that isn't a real friendship! So, I'll help you. Just so that I do as much for them as they do for me."
"That's pretty mature for a middle schooler." Shizuka had to admit. She would probably have apologized, but unfortunately she was kicked in the head.
A fifty year old man in a gray suit had taken her by surprise. He was bouncing up and down in a fighting stance, expecting Mello to come in for some hand-to-hand combat. Mello flicked a Pale Sunday that relaxed his entire body and made him fall limp to the ground. "Oh, sweet Jesus, that is amazing for my back! Where am I?" The man was snapped out of Hellstrom's trance.
"Jesus! I didn't know you could do that!" Mirino shouted while Mello helped Shizuka. "Ehm, Mirino, I wouldn't recommend drawing attention to yourself…" Shizuka pointed around herself.
The fifty or so people on the street around them had started to have similar spasms as the children. Nearly simultaneously, all of them looked up with bloodshot eyes at Mello, Shizuka and Mirino. With slow, heavy steps they started to approach, before breaking into a mad dash.
Shizuka spread out her illusions to confuse them all, and during the chaos disguised her entire crew. Slowly and carefully they attempted to blend in with the crowd. Luckily all of the mind-controlled zombies were distracted by the ringing sound of a manhole cover being sent into the air and slamming down. A woman in gothic clothes jumped out of the sewers, did a somersault, and landed dramatically.
"I saw them! I saw the enemies of our lord from my hideout spot in the sewer! They used illusion powers to evade our attention, but they're right there!" She pointed straight at the disguised Shizuka, Mello and Mirino, who found themselves in the middle of a large crowd, overwhelmed by intense, hungry stares from all directions.
Before any of the zombies had time to react Shizuka attacked with a flurry of Achtung fists. "ShizuShizuShizuShizu!" She could keep them at bay, but when the element of surprise was gone the giant horde could easily avoid the invisible fists by coming in at full force from all directions. "Open the path towards that other manhole!" Mirino shouted. Shizuka and Mello used a combination of Bloody Sundays and Achtung flashes to clear the way.
When they got to the manhole cover, Mirino simply dropped a massive ball of Weezer's down in the sewers, and they soon felt an ominous rumbling. The manhole burst into the air riding on a massive geyser, before being flash frozen way over the heads of all the zombies.
"Goddamn! You really won the Stand ability lottery, kid!" Shizuka laughed. "I wouldn't start to relax just yet…" Mello responded. The zombies had immediately begun smashing into the giant ice pillar. "Okay, I have a wild guess, and we're screwed if this doesn't work…" Mello started. "Wow, uplifting." Mirino interrupted. "...But we don't have a choice but to try. Shizuka, create illusionary dollar bills!" Mello shouted.
Shizuka didn't have time to question, so she did as he asked, and let Achtung throw hundreds of thousands of dollars to the crowd. They nearly all immediately stopped attacking the ice and started chasing the money. Acting as quickly as possible before the crowd tried to touch the intangible money, Mirino took them all to the ground and they started to escape.
"Hell yeah, man! Did you figure out Hellstrom's ability?" Shizuka whispered. Mello checked over his shoulder. "Yes. When someone consumes his blood, they seem to gain superhuman physical abilities and start to worship him. A pretty basic ability, but it's potency seems to be based on someone's desires."
"Huh?" "Well, the more someone desires for something to happen, the stronger and more dedicated to Hellstrom they become. Mirino's friends saw their leader get cold feet and desired to protect him. That incredibly intense feeling gave them extra strength and speed, but when he acted against them, showing that he was fine, the effect stopped. That's why I asked for money, since it's something nearly everyone desires, but…"
Mello stopped and looked back at the crowd they had escaped from. Now that they had all realized that the money was fake, they seemed to grow larger and more imposing. "Greed is a dangerous spiral. If we keep giving them cash, they will just become stronger and stronger. Traveling through the city by foot will be dangerous..."
Mello was taken out of his thoughts by the sound of a window being crashed and a car alarm. Shizuka smiled wickedly as she entered the expensive sports car. "I mean, the guy that owns this car is probably a mind-controlled blood zombie out to kill us, so I feel okay with taking it." Mirino jumped into the passenger seat. Mello sighed. "Okay! But I'm driving!"
Hellstrom sat laid back in a massage chair and played Street Fighter on a massive plasma TV. He was adorned in his usual strange mix of ancient gold jewelry and fashionably sleek ten thousand dollar T-shirt and sneakers. Joseph sat on his knees next to him, chained by the feet to the wall.
"Please, I beg of you, show my daughter some mercy. If you want revenge for the Pillar Men, I accept my fate, but she doesn't need to do this. She wants to prove herself part of the family, but she already is." Hellstrom didn't even look in his direction. "Oh, please, have some confidence in your daughter. I would never associate myself with warriors unable to match me. Though I am also not one to show mercy."
Joseph's face turned pale and Hellstrom laughed. "Not to you either, old man! Now, pick up the controller."
Wow, I really needed to train my New York geography for this one. The fights against Bloody Sunday and Heathens took place in Brooklyn, the fight against Can't Stop was on Staten Island, Another Dimension was in the Bronx, A Strange Tuesday was in Manhattan and Powerslave was also in the Bronx. Sorry Queens and Staten Island, but I don't even think I visited you the one time I was in New York.
On second thought, Mirino's water powers would have made for a cool fight on the Staten Island ferry.