Chapter 7: Everyone Wants To Go To Heaven But No One Wants To Die, Act 1

"Cause you want what you want and you want it now
And if you see an opportunity, it doesn't matter how"

Whether they admit or not, most people do, on some level, believe themselves to be special. In today's society, where private information can be shared with the entire world in a few seconds, there is a constant struggle to be special, to stand out. Of course, this is nothing new. People have always seen themselves as the main character from a drama. It is just another flaw humans have and it is not just confined to individuals. All throughout history you can see humanity's collective narcissism showing. Nations, religions and political parties all like to pretend their people are the better ones compared to everyone else.

If you ask anyone, chances are, they will tell you they don't consider themselves special. They'll say they're just ordinary people. Some will even downplay their own accomplishments. Sometimes, due to genuine modesty, or underestimating their own abilities and impact. Most of the time though, they just want to sound modest, trying to hide the pride swelling in their chests. After all, people tend to give more compliments to the humble one. Again, people want to feel special. Such is the nature of humans.

Most will never realize this. Most live their lives looking for that one thing that will finally prove their specialness. A fair number do wake up from the delusion and understand just how unimportant they are. However, very, very few truly comprehend the severity of the infection that is the human narcism. How thoroughly it penetrates the people, the systems, the world. It is never a pleasant experience.

One of two things happen to those that do. Either they accept it, and wow to spend their short time on this Earth to do as much good as they can. Sure, it might not mean that much in the grand scale of things. But why not make the best out of it? These kinds of people tend to be content, optimistic, generous and great friends. Everyone likes this guy.

Then there's the other type of person. This one will become bitter and angry with the world. They will reject it and its people, and grow cold and detached. They tend to be easily angered and are overly aggressive. Even in the light of genuine goodness, they will hide behind a veil of cynicism poorly disguised as realism. Very few people like this guy.

This realization, much like the people, typically fall into one of two categories. The first one is the slow, gradual discovery, built over a long time, often years. This is the more "comfortable" of the two. The other is sudden and violent. One event that completely shakes your world. A second is all it takes, and your perception of the world crumbles to dust.

Jason belonged to the latter group.

Actually, no he didn't. Remember, most people aren't special. They lie somewhere in the middle, but rarely in any extreme. Dividing real human beings into categories like that was misleading. Jason lied somewhere close to the middle of the bell curve. He had, during the last few years, started to realize the sad truth of humanity. Then, just two days ago had the straw that broke the camel's back come to him. Something within him had broken alongside it.

And he felt better than ever because of it.

Oh, it had ignited a rage within him. He was angry with the world, with its people for sure. But it was a comforting anger. He knew it was righteous, that they deserved it. At the same time, he understood that he was no better. Humans are by their very nature corrupt. In the end, they were nothing more than naked apes, animals. Oh, had they tried to hide it! Since the dawn of civilization, humanity had strived to separate themselves from all the other animals.

In a way, Jason agreed on trying to make that distinction. Humans were far worse than animals when it comes to taking.

And now… Jason had the power to prove it.

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It was with some effort that Jotaro restrained himself from muttering another 'yare yare' as he settled in his seat. Dealing with the two assassins had been easy enough. The aftermath on the other hand? Now that was a pain. A mixture of questioning, apologies, and thanks had kept the four travelers busy way longer than Jotaro would have liked. As had just been demonstrated, time was the enemy. Santana had already sent two assassins after them. That did not bode well. They could not afford any delays.

Thankfully, they had made it onto their plane in time. Jotaro allowed himself to relax a bit. Being friends with the Speedwagon Foundation had its benefits. Not only had they gotten them four seats in first class, but almost half of the entire first class section. All seats around theirs' had been booked. A smart move. Now they could talk a bit more openly about their mission without having to worry about eavesdroppers.

One thing, in particular, had come to mind…

"Hey, Jotaro," Okuyasu said. "So, what was that thing you took from those two stand users? Was it some kind of mind controlling stand or something?"

"No," Jotaro said. "It was a fleshbud." Okuyasu frowned, and make quick glances over at Josuke and Koichi as if to ask if they understood. They didn't but were better at hiding it.

"A… fleshbud?" he said after a few seconds of silence.

"It's a vampire trick," Jotaro explained. "A lump, or a spore of vampire cells planted on a human. It allows them to dominate a person's thought and control their actions." An image from many years ago flashed by Jotaro's inner image. A high school student in green and a silver-haired frenchman. "The effect can be broken by simply removing it from the victim, but you have to be careful; it will try to attack you and the victim. Use your stands and be sure to crush it or expose it to sunlight to destroy it."

The boys all nodded in understanding, though Okuyasu still had one more question.

"So, um, these 'fleshbuds'…" He even raised his hand. "Do they, uh… if they're put on a person and the vampire dies…"

"Yes," Jotaro answered. "It was a fleshbud that trasnformed your father into what he is now when DIO died." A sting of guilt nearly prompted Jotaro to apologize, but he refrained. Okuyasu understood.

Josuke nodded , a bit taken aback. "Wow, these things really aren't human, are they?" he said. A rhetorical question. "I mean… I figured they'd be a little human, just stronger and sucking blood, but…"

"…they're not." In an atypical move for him, Koichi interrupted and finished the sentence for Josuke. "They're… actual monsters."

"You're right, Koichi," Jotaro said."They start out as humans, but in the process of becoming a vampire, they abandon their humanity. They may look and sound like it, but always remember. Vampires are not humans. They're monsters." Jotaro sighed and adjusted his cap before continuing. "And Santana wasn't even human, to begin with."

One of those silences that make people so uncomfortable settled between the four of them. Josuke tried to break it.

"So, um… where are we were going now again?"

Ah, yes. That was a very good question. Jotaro was both surprised, and somewhat disappointed none of the three teens had asked until now. Maybe not Okuyasu, but Josuke or Koichi at least. Admittedly, he had been avoiding the subject himself. There were… certain complications in place. To be honest, Jotaro wasn't sure what to make of the situation.

"Not any place you would know of." From the inside of his coat, he produced a small pamphlet. 'Welcome to Beach City!' it said in big golden letters on the front, accompanied by an idyllic shot of the ocean. "Beach City. A small town in the state of Delmarva." The inside of the pamphlet had a simplified map of the US showing its location. "Barely a hundred permanent inhabitants. Mostly tourists and summer vacationers."

"And that's where Santana is?" Okuyasu said. "Did he need a sunny vacation after being trapped for so long?"

Jotaro decided to ignore that last part. Okuyasu would figure it out eventually.

"That seems to be the case. The Speedwagon Foundation had put a tracker on Santana. He has removed it by now, but before it was destroyed, it showed him approaching Beach City. His route the last few days confirm this."

Josuke had grabbed the pamphlet and started reading it. It didn't take too long, since the pamphlet wasn't very thick, and most of it was images anyways.

"Hm… but what would he want…?" he mumbled. He looked up, a thoughtful look on his face. "You seemed pretty sure he was going there… why? How do you know that's the place he's heading? Is there something in Beach City he wants?"

And there it was.

"We don't know," Jotaro said. "However… we believe there is something he wants there yes. But we have absolutely no idea what it could be. What I just told you is everything the Foundation knows about the place."

This cryptic statement caused a few raised eyebrows. Or rather, two of them. Okuyasu frowned instead, trying to figure out if he was supposed to understand what he didn't.

"What… what do you mean that's all you know?" Koichi asked, and rightfully so. On the surface, Jotaro's words may have sounded perfectly reasonable. After all, why would he know any more than what he had already told them? But the way he said those words… implied something, a deeper meaning.

"Yare yare…" Jotaro cursed himself internally. He had it slip again. Had he been a superstitious kind, he would probably see this as a bad omen. He sighed and reached for the briefcase he had brought with him. From it, he extracted a world map. Not awfully detailed, but adequate for its purpose. He showed it to the three teens. A bunch of red crosses was spread throughout the map, marking places all around the planet.

"These crosses…" Koichi muttered as his eyes darted between them. One, in particular, caught his eye. "That's Beach City, right?" he said and placed his finger on one cross that was, indeed, placed right where Beach City would be.

"Correct, Koichi," Jotaro said. "Do you know what all of these places have in common?" Their looks told him everything; they didn't. "All of these places are known for strange things," Jotaro explained. "The Foundation gets thousands of reports every year about strange phenomena happening in these places. Supernatural phenomena."

He made paused for a moment to let it sink in. Josuke and Koichi were now frowning too. Okuyasu looked a bit more relieved now that he had realized he was just as lost as his friends.

"As you know, the Speedwagon Foundation is largely dedicated to investigating supernatural events. Vampires, pillar men, stands… but also other things, like ghosts, haunted places, and monsters, stuff like that. If anything weird happens, it is the Foundation's duty to look into it." Another pause. "However, there are places in the world where the Foundation is not allowed to go." He gestured to the map. The crosses mark those."

"…not allowed? What exactly do you mean by that?" Josuke asked. "They're forbidden to? By whom? These are all over the world, so it can't just be one country's government… even then, couldn't the Foundation get past those? I mean, they've got tons of resources and contacts and agents. They've got you, and a bunch of other stand users too, right? There shouldn't be any place on the planet they couldn't go."

"You're correct Jouske," Jotaro replied,"I asked the same thing. But no, it doesn't have anything to do with any world government. Turns out, old man Speedwagon, the guy who founded the organization, personally forbid them. After gramps fought the pillar men, he turned up with this map, telling them that they were under no circumstances allowed to visit these places."

"That… doesn't make any sense," Koichi said. "A map? Where did he get it… or rather, from who did he get it? And why would it be so important no one visit them he would tell his entire organization…?"

Ah, Koichi had hit his head on the nail. That was the question, wasn't it? What had made Mr. Speedwagon so sure these locations needed to be avoided at all costs? Where had he gotten the map? Who had given it to him? What secret did these places hold that made them so dangerous? Jotaro had tried asking gramps about it, but the old fool had refused to answer, only insisting it was important the Foundation kept away from those dozen or so places.

"I don't know," Jotaro admitted. "No one does. However… we can make guesses." He picked up a document folder from the briefcase. Those were all major reports regarding these mysterious locations. "Rumors of these places go back a long time. Several thousand years in many cases." From the folder, he produced a series of photographs of ancient paintings. The paintings showed the most bizarre structures. Upside-down pyramids, enormous swords stuck in the ground in a grassy field, a tower surrounded by a giant whirlpool. "Many of them appear to be way more advanced than anything humans at the time could have built. But the pillar men civilization was centuries ahead of humans at the time, maybe even millennia. From this, we can draw one conclusion…"

"They were built by pillar men," Josuke finished Jotaro's sentence.

"Exactly," Jotaro said. He grabbed another couple of photographs from the folder. "These photographs were taken two days ago via satellite," he explained as he handed them out. The first few photographs didn't look too exciting, just some bird's eye view pictures of the small town. A bunch of streets and houses. An admittedly pretty neat-looking beach, a large green hill, ending in a cliff… and something else at the end of the cliff.

"Hey, Jotaro, what's this?" Okuyasu asked, waving the photo in front of him. "Some weird stone formation-thing."

Without saying anything else, Jotaro grabbed the last of the photographs from the file. The image had been taken from a passing boat and uploaded to a private blog a few weeks ago. It showed the end of the cliff Okuyasu had asked about. An enormous, masked statue sat there, staring out over the ocean like an ancient sea goddess.

"So… anyone willing to bet whatever Santana's looking for, it has something to do with that thing?" Josuke asked. No one answered.

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Now, now, before you blow up the comment section: Yes, I'm aware there wasn't anything major revealed in this chapter at all. No major plot-related stuff at all, just filler. Yup, nothing at all, no twist or cliffhanger endings.

At least I kinda introduced this chapter's villain, and by 'villain,' I mean the next obstacle for our heroes to beat up.

I don't have too much to say other than that. As stated, this chapter contained next to no important plot points. None at all.

The one-updater-a-week schedule seems to work fairly well... so expect the Chapter 7, Act 2 next Wednesday. I figure it'll be set from either Okuyasu's or Koichi's perspective, so if you've been waiting for them to make their POV debut, look forward to that.

Until then, take care of the planet Earth and remember that anything can happen in space!