Heartbeat City part 2:
The stolen car rushed down the streets of New York. "Shit, Mello, drive faster! We're never going to get to Empire State before sundown at this pace!" Mello disappointed Shizuka and hit the brakes. "I can't!" The zombies had lined up over the street, blocking the way. "Hellstrom's forcing us to move by foot if we don't want to kill these innocents."
A troupe of zombies had already surrounded them. Shizuka stressed out a text on her phone, and disguised as an old man she rolled down the window. "Well, hey, youngin'. Who are these people blocking the way?"
"Stop trying to escape, Joestar. We know who you are." The zombie responded in a dry, intimidating voice. Shizuka actually recognized the zombie as one of the actors her father had talked to as a stockholder of the Starship acting agency. She was dressed in stylish clothes and maintained a perfect afro.
Shizuka immediately figured out the girl's biggest desire. Using Achtung she projected a shining, eye-catching picture of the girl's face onto a giant billboard nearby. All the zombies turned around to look, and the rush of celebrity turned the zombie back to normal.
Shizuka, Mello and Mirino burst out of the car and Shizuka led them into a nearby alley. It was dark, no sunlight coming in from the giant skyscrapers, and huge groups of flies collected around bags of garbage. A fire escape took up nearly half the space, so it was incredibly cramped.
Just before they could step out into the sunlight Shizuka felt something shoot through her leg. "Aaaaargh! One of the zombies is sniping us!" Mirino's Weezers entered Shizuka's blood and sealed up the blood while Mello looked around for the sniper.
"W-what the hell?" Shizuka shouted. The flies in the alley had started to collect in the air, stacking on top of each other and forming something greater. Horrified and disgusted, our heroes observed the flies slowly form Hellstrom's fly-like Stand, Heartbeat City.
It had grotesque giant human eyes, large wings with gaping wounds and holes, long legs as sharp as knives, a main body consisting of a disgusting, slowly beating human heart and a trunk like a machine gun. The initials "H.C" were engraved into its eyes.
"Heartbeat City, Heartbeat City, Heartbeat City…" The flies that made up it's body started singing in a deeply unsettling choir. It was joined by the sound of violent winds, then the booming sound of air being shot like a projectile straight towards Mirino. Shizuka pulled him aside and the air burst through the wall.
Heartbeat City dashed forward with the mass of a human and the speed of a car. Mirino and Mello jumped out of the alley but Shizuka was brutally hit in the head and knocked out. Blood started pouring out of her massive wound.
Heartbeat City immediately split into a thousand tiny flies and started firing air bullets out of the alley. Mello took a second to contemplate before he crashed a store window with a single kick. Glass pieces spread out over the sidewalk, and Mello catched one of them in mid-air.
Angling it with incredible precision, he shot a straight line of sunlight into the dark alley. Some Heartbeat Cities were fried into nothingness, and the rest hastily scattered. Mirino immediately ran into the alley and healed Shizuka's wound. Mello performed CPR and Shizuka's eyes shot open.
"Ehm, we need to get moving!" Mirino screamed. Mello had attracted a lot of attention and a horde of zombies were rushing towards them. "Shit, his attack really took the energy out of me. I-I can't walk…"
The giant horde of zombies came closer and closer. They frothed at the mouth and their bloodshot eyes had an unsettling gleam about them. Mello looked at Mirino, and came up with an idea.
The zombies reached the alley, hungry for action, but found that their victims had somehow escaped. With the superhuman smelling Hellstrom's blood had given them, they searched for traces of them in the air, but nothing. Shizuka, Mello, and Mirino had smartly masked their scents with garbage from the alley.
"T-this is kind of embarrassing." Shizuka whispered. Mirino had sped up Mello's blood flow, making him stronger so that he could carry Shizuka over the shoulder. The three of them had fled up the invisible fire escape.
"H-heh, Mello, your next line is Shizuka, where do we go from here?´" Shizuka wheezed. "Shizuka, what do we do now?" Mello responded. "Dammit. Well, I've got it all planned out! While we were in the car I sent a message to my correspondent at the SPW Foundation, and they're sending a helicopter to the top of this building!"
Mirino's eyes lit up. "Really? I've always wanted to drive a helicopter!" He couldn't contain his excitement and shouted. Before Shizuka could stop him, a fat man in a bathrobe smashed through the window next to them and pulled Mirino into his apartment.
"Not again!" Shizuka jumped through but the man, still holding Mirino in his right hand, kicked her in the face sending her to the ground. Mello threw Bloody Sundays towards the man but, even though he was unable to see the Stands, the man saw Mello throw something and dodged them on instinct.
The man dove towards the window and pulled Mello through the window and threw him to the ground. He and Mello started wrestling, but the bathrobe man had the obvious upper hand. Shizuka started to look around the apartment hoping to figure out his desire.
There wasn't much of note, the apartment seemed like a normal, kind of depressing single guy's house. Nearly no lamps were on, laundry was scattered around randomly, the TV was playing some schlocky action movie. But, one thing caught Shizuka's eye. A picture standing on top of the TV.
Mello was using his Pale Sundays to make the man hit himself, but he simply tanked the pain and continued his assault. The man raised his clawed hand into the air, ready to slice through Mello's throat, when he suddenly stopped. He was completely still, and then he started crying. He lowered his arm and stood up, before rushing over to the illusion Shizuka had created.
It was of a smiling woman and two children. The man fell to his knees and hugged the illusion. Shizuka braced herself for him to realize it was a fake, but he didn't. Even having an illusion of his ex-wife and children there was enough. "Ah, a divorcee. Pitiful." Mello commented.
The moment was ruined when Mirino called out. "Arrrgh! Dammit!" Shizuka looked over to see him being attacked by Heartbeat City. "No, goddamn it!" Shizuka turned the entire apartment invisible. Heartbeat City panicked and rushed out of the apartment to avoid the sunlight.
"Shizuka… I don't think that was a good idea." Mello pointed out towards the street. A sea of hungry, violent zombies stared back at him. Before Shizuka could respond the zombies started to rush towards them. Some ran through the building, but Hellstrom's blood gave them the strength to climb up the walls towards the apartment.
"Okay, I've got an idea! Keep them occupied!" Mirino shouted and ran into the bathroom. Shizuka nodded and was about to plan out her attack strategy, but she didn't have time. The zombies had already surrounded and broken into the apartment.
Shizuka spread out illusory walls to confuse the zombies but there were so many zombies that they managed to find her and Mello with ease. A tall, muscular woman rushed into Mello and threw him into the corner. Achtung dashed forward and performed a nelson grab on the woman but to no avail and the woman turned to attack Shizuka.
But just as the woman was about to hit Shizuka her stomach growled. Shizuka quickly improvised and created the illusion of food on the ground. But while Shizuka was distracted the other zombies had already surrounded her.
Shizuka threw out illusory money but the crowd simply ignored both it and Mello's Sundays. As they raised their hands into the air, Shizuka felt horrified. She had felt fear before, but this, this was something else. A primal horror for her own life. In a moment of acceptance, she closed her eyes and awaited. Perhaps her efforts just weren't enough.
The booming sound of rushing water made her open her eyes again. A large beam pushed away her and Mello's attacker, and Mirino appeared out of the bathroom. "Take that, you sons of bitches!" He smiled.
"Hell yeah!" Shizuka shouted, taking out their victory in advance. Even more zombies came rushing in, and Mello jumped to protect Mirino. "Relax, this was all part of the plan!" Mirino walked in front of Mello. The zombies had swallowed huge amounts of Weezer allowing Mirino to control their bodies.
Mirino made them get up and fight off the zombies he hadn't reached with his water. "That should keep them occupied! Now…" The situation turned even lighter when Shizuka heard the sound of a helicopter. Painted on the side of that helicopter was the SPW Foundation's logo. "Fucking finally. But if they land on this building, they'll get overrun by the zombies."
The helicopter pilot was a little confused when a massive hand pointing right appeared floating in the air, but he got the memo and started moving towards the building to the right. All Shizuka needed to do now was get over to that building.
Two zombies grabbed Shizuka and Mello. Before they could fight back the zombies had pulled them through the window and jumped into the air. A wave of relief flooded over Shizuka as their fall was halted and the zombies started to climb up the wall of the other building.
Shizuka, Mello, and Mirino got up on the roof of the other building with ease, but all of the other zombies had caught on and were following them. Without a moment's rest they jumped up on the helicopter and took off, leaving the massive crowd of zombies behind.
They flew on up over the Hudson River in order to avoid getting sniped by Heartbeat City. "Jesus christ, when all of this is over I hope to god I never, ever meet another fucking Stand user." Mirino remarked. "I'm sorry kid. Stand users are drawn to each other by fate." Mello added. There was silence for a few seconds as they all watched the sunset over the New York skyline.
"Hey, what kind of guy is your dad? I want to know who I'm fighting for." "He's the greatest man in the world. He saved me from my worst moment in life, and I did for him. He had gotten old and stale, but when he took me in he regained his lust for life, so we've always depended on each other." She smiled.
"Let's get him home!"