Free went through the wall and delivered another whip quick punch before swaying backwards as one of the beetles..stands…things dive bombed through where he had been standing. This time however he didn't go back to the wall, or rather through the wall this time. It really wasn't Free's style to hit and run, despite how perfect『SMOOTH CRIMINAL』seemed to be for that.' I really do like it better when I can fight people head on,' He thought despite the stinging across his chest.

Free dove forward and made his upper body permeable as he heard a buzzing coming from behind which allowed two of the flying things to move right through him. He took in the look of shock on his opponents face before firing a fist forward towards his opponent's torso. The man swayed backwards but was unable to completely get out of the way. It was a solid thud and the result sent him flying, but Free had been in enough prison fights to know that it didn't hit hard enough to do anything other than cause pain. Something suddenly sounded off in his head and he quickly threw himself to the side as a group of the damn things charged from behind. He should have made just himself permeable, but he had reverted back to his original instincts again. It really was his biggest issue since when he first began to use 『SMOOTH CRIMINAL』all he was able to do was reduce friction, hence the rather inaccurate name, but he eventually stretched the "definition" of his stand and got it to this point.

He snapped back into the present when he quickly had to dodge one of his opponents stands, or at least part of it, when it went for his foot. It seemed that he had figured out one of the issues with his stands ability; Part of him had to be solid to interact with anything. The stand clamped down in the spot where his foot had been, biting only air before the stands leg overlay-ed with his own before stomping down.

It was a solid thud, but when he removed his foot and quickly backed up he saw the thing still moving. He silently cursed his stand's horrible strength, though he quickly shut up as another three beetles flew through his back and out of his front. This time he had his stand swipe it's hand through a beetle in a chopping motion, hardening the part that was inside the stand. He let a rather sharp smirk show up on his face as the stand split down the middle, it's material pushed away by the sudden appearance of solid matter inside.

Free quickly refocused and blitzed his opponent shooting a fist through the quick construct the stand had put together in front of the user. He was able to feel his stands fist glance off what seemed to be his opponent's shoulder, though this time as he went to pull his arm back, but some of the opposing stand stayed with his currently ethereal arm. It wasn't a bad plan overall, especially since he was now down an arm as three of the stand currently buzzing in a close pattern around the area. It really did forcefully draw his focus to keep that arm in its current state which would make it hard to maneuver like he normally would and possibly he may slip tearing his arm to pieces….Only issue was that Free had very little to no self preservation at this point. He calmly focused on his arm and only returned the bones to being solid, spearing the stand at the same time he was forced to dodge. It was incredibly painful to only have the bone active, but in the end the plan was more than effective as with pained hisses the bits of the stand that where within his arm faded to nothingness allowing his arm to finally reform and the pain to subside. 'I'll never get used to exposed bone' He thought as he turned his attention back to his opponent.

Almost immediately he weaved his way around a flurry of punches that were suddenly thrown at him. He quickly backed up and cast a curious look at his heaving opponent. His eyes scanned over his opponent as they suddenly rushed towards him in what seemed a manic charge, something drug addicts in Green Dolphin would sometimes get like this. Of course the guards would just shoot them and dump the corpses in the morgue without a second thought.

A heavy handed right straight sailed towards Free's face, but it simply phased through his now etherious body. He stumbled through the entirety of Free's body when he followed up with a sloppy hook. He turned around to look at his stumbling opponent and took notice of the lack of stand's flying around and being general nuisances. His opponent turned around and stumbled towards Free once again, though this time he was able to notice one of the beetle like things clamping down on his opponent's arm.

His opponent rushed him again and Free simply let them rush right through his body, though this time he kept his eyes focused on his opponent's body. He was able to make out more of those weird things attached to the body, about six in total all digging into the skin. He also was able to make out pulsing veins spreading across the skin where the weird things were biting down. His opponent turned around again and rushed but this time Free gave an evil smirk. He once again phased through but as his opponent moved through his fingers resolidified spitting the skin and causing gashes to appear on the upper arm. He turned to look at his opponent and almost was caught with a spinning back fist thrown from the injured arm.

It took him aback for a second as he saw the wound ooze blood and contort as his opponent completed the spin. The eyes seemed to be glowing red as he began to move towards Free again looking to swing again judging by the tightened fists.

Free smirked and began to walk forward to meet his opponent, a plan already formulating in his head.

Mortis examined the machine the currently dead and bleeding medical tech at one point had been in charge of. All the levels looked normal and the drugs that were being pumped into the patients system were not exasperating any of the recent additions. He felt his lips curl up slightly under his medical mask at how the procedure had gone, especially considering the lack of precedent for anything like this. It honestly excited the doctor within him to be able to experiment around with something as abstract and immaterial as stands. It honestly made him wish he hadn't ruined part of his memory when he removed his ability to feel pain, since he really wanted to remember who gave him his stand.

He suddenly snapped up when the feeling of….something crawling down the back of his neck. His stand exploded out in response to that feeling and Mortis glanced up expecting somebody to be standing across the room. Instead he was met with a mass of purple tentacles expanding from the chest of his patient. The tentacles writhed for a second and reached towards Mortis before the color suddenly shifted to green.

Mortis cocked his head to side and stared through the medical goggles with an odd feeling creeping through his chest. The feeling quickly ended when the tentacle suddenly lunged and 'stabbed' him in the shoulder, and suddenly he felt his emotions change. Envy exploded throughout his body, his thoughts drifting back to his foggy memories with the man he strove to surpass. He felt that intense desire for the kind of power the shadowed figure in his memory had. He felt his stand simmer into existence as his muscles tightened while his emotions continued to run wild. His stand swiftly responded to its user's emotional state and deftly swiped with it's scalpel like fingers, and with surgical precision it severed the tentacle.

The writhing mass retracted and a cut suddenly opened up along the arm of his patient, and with a new found clarity devoid of raging emotions Mortis smiled. He was vaguely aware of his assistants' intense surprise, though he really began to care when the tentacles shifted color to yellow. Mortis could almost feel a cry of joy escape his lips as he stared at the mass of tentacles. He had succeeded in what could have been considered an impossible goal.

He paused his walk forward as the tentacles continued to writhe and instead directed his stand to instead take control of the sewing, which it did quite deftly before retreating back to stand by him. Mortis then pivoted on his heel and spoke to the nearest assistant," Begin the final stage and keep your eyes peeled for any abnormalities…it's almost done."

He had gotten a stand to exist, now the issue was making sure he was able to bind the foreign material to the body in order to prevent any complications down the line. He exhaled and wrangled his exhalation under control, since he had to be perfect in order to guarantee success on 『POWERSLAVE』. Though...he also had to give some credit to the patient; Ziti Valentino was truly a durable man.

Some of the haze lifted from Seth's mind and he was suddenly acutely aware of the pain radiating throughout his entire body. He glanced around the room trying to process where his unconscious instinct had moved him, and he immediately saw a large issue. That issue being the bisected and brutalized bodies of several of his beetles, which also accounted for his regained consciousness.

His initial, well secondary, plan had been to catch Free off guard by making himself go berzerk with 『BALLROOM BLITZ』. However, he hadn't figured that Free would target the beetles so quickly, especially after he had gone out of his way to make them bite him in hard to reach places. He guessed that this was the difference between somebody like Priest and somebody who understood their stand on a deeper level.

Free suddenly spoke up drawing Seth's attention," So….I can assume that you are mostly back now."

Seth summoned his remaining beetles, twenty-nine out of his original fifty, before giving a cautious response," I heard you weren't the most talkative person."

Free shifted his position and ran a hand down his face, his posture exuding exasperation, " I've just spent the last two minutes listening to nothing but deranged grunts and growls, at this point I just wanted you to shut up."

He began to pace to his left getting Seth to mirror the movement, despite the wounds on his body. It was odd, he thought as he paced, he's so lackadaisical yet I can't even get him to slip up. Normally he could get his opponent to make a mistake or open their guard for him to attack. Yet with Free he couldn't even touch him, in the literal sense, and judging by his twenty-ish missing beetles he sure as hell wasn't going to win without pulling some sort of trick. Seth snapped out of his internal tangent when Free exploded forward his stand lashing out with a kick.

The beetles quickly moved the swarm to the area where the kick was going to land, and Seth also threw himself to the side trying to avoid it. He was a little too slow to avoid it entirely and he tightened his core muscles to brace for the pain. However…. He wasn't prepared for the stands foot to phase through both his makeshift shield and then his torso.

Pain exploded through his body as it felt like a hot knife was being slammed into his gut. The foot exited his gut with a trail of a few blood drops following the white foot of the stand. Seth almost fell to the ground, but quickly had a few of his beetles clamp down and pump him full of adrenaline. That only dulled the intense pain, and made the truth hurt a lot more; he was severely outclassed in terms of skill.

He stumbled back and quickly observed the empty look that now adorned his opponents face. "I don't enjoy doing this to people, but I need to finish you off."

Seth scrambled back and directed part of his remaining swarm towards Free, who calmly moved forward and let the beetles move right through him. In several steps Free closed the distance, shifted his weight, and launched a fist forward. Purely on instinct Seth Through up his arms despite being fully aware that nothing he had was stopping this. Pain suddenly exploded throughout his broken arm drawing his attention before more pain exploded in his collarbone as a little of the phantasmal fist materialized.

Seth bit his tongue to the point of drawing blood as he stumbled backward reacting to the sudden pain. He kept himself on his feet but really was in no actual position to do anything, since even with his stand dulling pain he was still overwhelmed by it.

He was suddenly distracted by blood exploding from his chest as Free's stand had taken advantage of his current pain to cut him across the chest with his ability. Seth was only saved by his bodies involuntary flinching, and even then it still wasn't a large difference. He was vaguely aware of his body hitting the ground, but all he really was able to feel was pain exploding across his entire body.

Free had his stand shake it's hands to get the blood off of them, keeping his hands clean being a small quirk he still had from when he was just a thief. It was odd, he honestly missed those days when he had been a petty thief before getting sent to Green Dolphin. After that….well he currently worked with a complete psychopath who treated people like soiled handkerchiefs. He rolled his shoulders and refocused on his unfortunate opponent. He really didn't want to kill the fool, hell he honestly didn't want to kill anybody, but he had to stay in Mortis' good graces. 『SMOOTH CRIMINAL』readied it's hands as he strolled forward, already planning out the cleanest kill possible.

He stood over the man and readied the final punch when his instincts suddenly screamed at him. His stands ability activated and with mild discomfort something invisible passed through his torso. The feeling left his body and he quickly spun around to see his new opponent, and found himself met with a slightly familiar face. " Well, I guess that means that Priest didn't get anything done."

Joy Jordan stood about eight feet away from him with a scowl on her face, and a solid chain wrapped around her left hand and he guessed the ethereal chain was attached to her right. He also was able to notice some injuries dotting her body, though nothing seemed incredibly major or debilitating. The wound on his torso throbbed as he passively observed the movements her right hand made, since after their last fight he had looked over the security footage and was able to put together a general idea of what caused his wound.

Her wrist flicked out and in response he made his entire body permeable and dashed forward, the uncomfortable feeling moving through where his once solid head had been. He closed the distance and 『SMOOTH CRIMINAL』lashed out once he was in range. It's punch was countered by Joy's stand, resulting in a clash of power that his stand quickly lost.

Blood dripped from his hand as both he and his stand readjusted their stance, and quickly lashed out with a kick. This time the attack connected with the stand as she was unable to get her stand to check the kick. Though Immediately after he was forced to render himself impermeable in order to avoid both the phantom chain and the material one.

He took a step back as her stand slammed it's fist hard into the floor creating a mess of cracks. With some distance made between himself and the new opponent He quickly evaluated several factors: His stand was a little quicker, a lot less powerful, but it seemed to be a lot more precise. He could also guess that it's durability was better, but it didn't make a huge difference in the scope of this fight. Overall the real issue, he thought as snaking chains comprised of concrete and tile began to construct, is the goddamn chains she can make.

Joy launched the salvo of quickly constructed chains toward Free, less in an attempt to hit him but more just to block his vision. She knew how the last fight had gone, but this time she had learned a bit from thinking back to the fight. Her musings were cut short when the blue and white stand of Free exploded from the salvo and launched a kick at her head. She overlaid her stand with her arm and raised it in an attempt to block it, but it phased right through it.

However, She had been prepared and the moment the foot went to connect with her head she had 『ALICE IN CHAINS』punch the leg. She was able to make out a pleasant sounding hiss from where she guessed Free was. Only issue was that she was fairly positive that it hadn't done any major damage. Her brief train of thought was cut extremely short as Free and his stand exploded forward and quickly phased through her hastily prepared guard. Time seemed to slow down as she was able to see the sharp white fingers enter her bicep without breaking the skin, and soon after pain exploded from within her bicep.

She very quickly backpedaled and quickly tested her arms range of movement; and it wasn't great. Thankfully it seemed as if he had only damaged the muscle and not completely ruined it somehow. Her stand quickly lashed out as well getting Free to halt his attack and adjust his stance. Joy managed to get her body under control and spared a short glance at Seth, who was alive but still in a world of pain. Her mind quickly ran through all the ideas she had after talking it over.

She shifted her weight forward and lashed out with the solid chain aimed at the Free's face. And as it began to phase through his face she lashed out with her chain of wind, relishing in the slight feeling of connection that came back along the chain. She quickly brought the solid chain back and settled back into a stance while Free examined the cut now spanning his chest.

She couldn't help but grin at the annoyed and pissed expression that made its way onto Free's face. It had been one of the ideas that Marshall had suggested; that the ability required intense precision and a lack of sight may disrupt it. She ran a hand across her face to wipe some sweat away and after that quarter second she regained her sight to be able to see the tail end of Free disappearing through the floor. A single word escaped her lips at this sudden change," Shit."

She quickly began to run through different possibilities before a figure exploded through the floor in front of her and quickly nailed her stand with two quick punches, not dealing a lot of damage but causing enough to be noticeable. She once again backpedaled and lashed out with some new concrete chains, but only nailed a concrete wall that Free had phased through. Now she didn't know whether or not he was even on the same floor

That question was almost instantaneously answered as from the wall next to Seth 『SMOOTH CRIMINAL』emerged , throwing a punch downward. She frantically lashed out wrapping the solid chain around his torso and yanked him away from the punch. The fist impacted the ground with a solid thud before disappearing behind the maze of walls. She rolled her shoulders and quickly created several more concrete chains from the torn up floor around her. She was distracted from her frantic eye movement when Seth finally spoke up;" Joy -gah- I think I have a p-plan."

Joy glanced down at the pain wracked form of Seth and raised an eyebrow before he continued," 『BALLROOM BLITZ』, grk, can get into each room and when they find him you can go through the wall and try to finish him quickly."

Joy looked down at him somewhat amazed that he had been able to come up with that plan despite being what looked like intense pain. She just nodded her head and kept her defense up as she saw the blue beetles of 『BALLROOM BLITZ』take off and enter one of the rooms.

After that it was a steady silence with only the faint sound of buzzing wings echoing back towards them. She looked down towards Seth who was intensely focused, probably using his stand to feel out the other several seconds Seth directed his hand to the wall to her left. Joy put her head down and ran to the wall making 『ALICE IN CHAINS』reach out and touch converting the plaster wall into a few hundred weak and fairly thin chains. As the wall reassembled itself she was able to see Free as he danced around the beetles of 『BALLROOM BLITZ』 with a few of them laying dead at his feet. She gathered up all her chains and shot them forward right as Free turned to face the sudden noise behind him.

There was a sudden explosion of dust as the plaster chains shattered and Joy stood there with eager anticipation. Especially considering she really hadn't had a leg to stand on the last time they fought. Her elation was suddenly cut short when a kick exploded from the dust and collided with her ribs, sending her off her feet and into the ground. She scrambled back to her feet and looked through the dust as the form of Free emerged, with his dress shirt torn and blood leaking from several new wounds decorating his body. She really shouldn't be shocked, but after that salvo she expected him to be at least limping.

He proved that the damage wasn't to bad as he exploded forward forcing her on the defensive with her stand. Especially since she could only counter at the exact moment the hit would impact, which meant that she couldn't take advantage of her greater strength. With the next hit however, she managed to grapple the strike and make the stands get entangled with each other. She then stepped towards him and through a punch, since even without her stand she is still incredibly strong. Only issue was that she actually had to hit her target, and Free just as easily made the transition between stand fighting and normal unarmed fighting. He swayed back with practiced making the punch miss before trying to counter, only to have it be blocked by her guard. She went to throw another punch but felt the wounds from her fight act up, slowing it down and weakening it, getting her thrown into the ground. She quickly re-summoned her stand to her side and used it to block a stand enhanced soccer kick from Free. It still sent her sliding across the floor, but the only damage she took was from her body scraping across the floor.

She rolled to her stomach and pushed herself up and stared down Free as he went to make his way towards her. Though he suddenly flinched in pain as a flash of blue appeared on the back of his calf. He spun around and with the hand of his stand he pierced the beetle and killed it. Joy took advantage of the distraction to charge him and try to get close, only to have her outstretched arm captured and the entirety of her thrown through the remnants of the wall she destroyed earlier. She hit the ground and felt her teeth rattle as she came to a stop, dust now coating most of her clothes and skin. She picked her head up with a groan and looked straight ahead to where there was a small fire burning. It was probably lit when she broke the room with her salvo, which in itself was kind of lucky. She went to push herself up but paused while she stared at the flame, a new concept entering her mind. She had been able to see some degree of discomfort when her air chain, or whatever it technically was, so was it possible to hurt him without hitting him? Thinking about that idea she also flashed back to the truck stop where she made chains out of water, the turning point when she had figured out that her chains don't need to be inherently solid. So with that in mind she reached forward and wrapped her hand around the flame causing a painful burning sensation to spread, but very quickly she saw the fruits of her labor. The flame stretched out and expanded forming a new weapon she could use.

She finally heard the footsteps of Free get closer and closer, and after a few more steps she whipper her arm backward sending the flame whip cracking through the now incorporeal Free. Though this time she could see pain visibly present on his face, and even got him to back up several steps in pain. She quickly scrambled back to her feet and readied her new chain, "Alright, you mother fucker lets go."

She exploded forward the chain lashing out with unnatural precision forcing Free to go intangible again. The chain phased into his torso eliciting a grunt of pain from her opponent while he backed up. The chain finished it's arc and Joy quickly whipped it back across trying to catch Free on the back swing. However this time he dove forward onto the ground and slid forward with unnatural speed right into her legs. Her eyes widened and she attempted to have 『ALICE IN CHAINS』catch him with a downward punch, only to have pain exploded in her thigh as his stand hand jabbed both of it's hands into her leg. She stumbled backwards but still managed to shoot a kick down, only to have it parried away from any real connection. Free immediately went for another punch, but out of nowhere six beetles slammed into his back breaking the skin.

Free was officially past the point of being pissed and was now into being completely lived. He quickly had his stand spear the beetles killing them off and removing the pain in his back. He quickly delivered another strike to Joy who whipped back with the flaming chain, though this time he was ready for the discomfort as it passed through him. He winced a little as he felt the heat move through his body, something he honestly could only describe it as being cooked alive, but he ignored it and phased his fist into Joys stomach sending what he imagined was large amounts of pain all throughout her body from having a foreign object touch her internal organs.

He saw her grab her stomach and cry out in pain, which gave him the opportunity to turn around and make a dash to where his original opponent was. His eyes quickly locked on the injured form which had gotten back on its feet. Free barreled towards him and used the lesser version of 『SMOOTH CRIMINAL』ability to reduce the resistance and increase his speed. He saw the look of fear and surprise make its way onto his unfortunate opponents face as the gap was suddenly reduced to zero. Though the look was quickly removed when his stand connected with the face sending the man slamming into the wall and easily knocking him unconscious.

Free stood over the downed opponent breathing heavily for a moment before turning around to where Joy had gotten back to her feet and now possessed two chains made of fire. He spit some blood out of his mouth before taking off in a run towards her. She lashed out with both the chains as soon as they were in range, and he let the first one phase through him. An intense heat filling up the inside of his body throwing off every single internal process. The second chain however he let ensnare one of his arms, scalding the skin but also letting him pull Joy off balance.

She stumbled towards him caught off guard by his tanking of the second hit, which made her unable to counter the punch to the side of her head. He knew that punch made her ears ring and hopeful she was disoriented as he went for a sweep with his leg. Thankfully it seemed to be that as Joy crashed into the ground and quickly had her vision filled by the white fist of 『SMOOTH CRIMINAL』slamming her head into the ground.

Free stood there panting over Joy for a minute as he took in the sudden silence. He looked down at Joy and over at the other man before beginning to walk away, though it was more of a sway as he made his way down the hall. It would be so easy for him to kill the two unfortunate fools, but….despite his association with Mortis he wasn't a killer. A thief, a thug, and a maimer for sure but he still had yet to cross that line. Though, it also as an incentive that they were working against Mortis, since this gave him an opportunity to game both sides. If Mortis kills them off and succeeds Free guarantees himself a spot in a new criminal organization and a fair amount of money, but if these FBI or special agent people succeed in beating Mortis he has a chance to escape his control or a lesser sentence.

Free stumbled against the wall and glanced up at an destroyed clock and saw the time, at least 15 minutes past the end of the procedure. Free smirked and continued his walk down the hallway towards the exit, where he hopefully expected to find a mercenary and at least a goddamn first aid kit.

STAND STATS- 『ALICE IN CHAINS』

User: Joy Jordan

Strength: A

Speed: B

Range: D

Durability: B

Precision: C

Potential: B

『ALICE IN CHAINS』is humanoid stand with gray skin, red nails and human like facial features, though the eyes are entirely red. It wears a dress that is adorned with small circular suns that turns into chains when it reaches the knees. It has a similar athletic physique to Joy and it's appearance reflects her general punk nature. It's ability is to create chains out of different materials and control them. It isn't bound by the state of the material, though with things like water, air, and fire it requires an incredible amount of focus to keep it in that shape.

User History: At the age of thirteen her home was invaded by Mortis for her father's research into the mythology of something called the arrow. Her father and mother were killed and she was shot by his golden gun, causing her stand to manifest. Several months later, August specifically, she met Marshall who was already on the Mortis case with Jason. She was attacked by an unknown stand user and saved by Marshall, who decided that it was more dangerous to leave her alone and decided to take her into protective custody. She continued 'schooling' with Jason and Marshall 'teaching' her over the next four years. She also proved to be a valuable member of the team as she was quick to pick up the general skill of her stand.