John channeled electricity through his arm, getting sparks dancing across and his skin, and let loose a bolt of electricity, trying to nail his opponent. The electricity going wide and colliding with one of the piles, sending it all over the ground. Besides his accuracy, it also didn't help that he had no idea if his assailant had a gun or not, which meant it was safer to err on the side of caution. He kept his weaving up as he worked towards the open door. He wasn't against fighting whoever this was, but this entire scenario was working against him. It also wasn't great that he had no idea who he was fighting. With Leen it had been different, because he had a vague memory of him. He had absolutely zero concept of what this guy was capable of.

The electricity coursed through his other arm as he loosed another bolt in the direction of the heavier footsteps behind him. No cry of pain followed, so he assumed it sent wide again. He was decently close to the open door, about thirty feet. His feet pounded forward but all the momentum he had suddenly disappeared as something heavy wrapped around his foot. He hit the floor hard with his shoulder, but he recovered quickly enough to see an odd 'hand' disappear into the concrete floor. All he could do was hiss, "What the hell…"

He scrambled to his feet and spun around right as his chaser caught up to him. They both stared at each other for a second, which let Marshall figure out that this guy didn't have a gun. But he did have a stand and the bigger issue was that he had little to no idea what his stand could do. His musing was cut short when the other man spoke up," Why exactly are you here?"

John didn't like the look he was getting, the lack of any real emotion other than pure annoyance and disdain. However, he couldn't keep his mouth shut," Just some sightseeing. How about you?"

A chuckle was the immediate response but after a second he actually spoke," Well haven't heard that one before, but I don't think my boss wants you alive."

"You mean Mortis don't you," It was a dumb attempt to fish for information , but his instinct wanted him to do it anyway.

There was a visible scowl on the other guy's face, "He's my bosses boss."

So he didn't like Mortis….but that wasn't useful in the slightest because this guy obviously wasn't going to betray whoever his boss was. His thoughts were interrupted suddenly," How about we drop the act of being intelligent and just get straight to killing each other."

John wasn't sure if he should be pissed at the insult to his intelligence, but some part of him was thankful for the straightforward nature. People like Leen with waxing speeches and an ego the size of everest pissed him off more, so it was a little refreshing.

Marshall fired and listened as the bullet collided with what sounded like wood. He adjusted his grip and began to move forward in a low crouch, though his thoughts drifted a little. It had been a little surprising to see the Italian hitman, but even more so that it had taken Marshall a second to recognize him. It had been subtle but the arch of his nose and pronouncement of his cheek bones had been slightly altered. The file that Marshall had read before starting this assignment had described Valentino as somebody who was unconcerned with his face being known, so it was odd that he would have his face altered.

He pushed his curiosity out the way as he nudged the door open farther with his foot and peered inside. A series of cubicles stretched out in front of him forcing him to pause and run through all the information. Valentino realistically didn't know how his stand fully worked so he could take advantage of 『FOUGHT THE LAW』in order to both figure out where Valentino is and possibly secure a disabling shot. At the same time there was the chance that the bullets would collide with something that would stop them so all the shots would do was give away his location while revealing Valentino's. Marshall snapped out of his second of deliberation and raised the pistol up into the room before firing two shots into the room. He immediately followed them into the room making sure he was able to follow their arc until they disappeared over the cubicle wall he turned into cover. 'Though calling it cover is being far too nice.'

The sound of metal colliding with metal broke up his thoughts and gave him a solid idea of where Valentino was. He began to creep towards the noise, taking care to keep his footsteps quiet. Three steps later three gunshots sounded back with two bullets tearing through the cubicle wall he was pressed against. They weren't close enough to be an immediate threat, but they were far too close for him to stay were he was.

Marshall dove back along the wall he was using and hit the ground, just as a bullet ripped through the approximate area his shoulder had been. He stayed down for a second as quiet resumed, though that also meant the intense pain from his leg and ribs had to be kept in. It seemed that neither was happy with the sudden dive he had made, but there were more pressing concerns. Namely of how Valentino had picked his location out to fire at. It hadn't been random chance since the first two had been used to figure out where he wasn't and the third was meant to deal damage. There were too many possible routes that Marshall could have taken so an accurate prediction was very unlikely, so it made Marshall wonder how exactly he made those shots.

Valentino kept his breath quiet as he focused on the tentacles, trying to narrow down where the writing was most concentrated. He was somewhat confused at the change in color, from green to a navy blue, but the sudden influx of cool and calculated thoughts in his head forced it away. The new thought process had also helped him figure out that his stand seemed to gesture vaguely in the direction of strong emotions. That conclusion was mostly based on how they seemed to want to attack Mortis whenever he was nearby, but it was a decent one. He finally figured out where most of the writhing was concentrated, a surprisingly annoying task, and he began to take aim.

Normally he would just line up and fire but he found himself adjusting his aim ever so slightly. He questioned himself a little, but found his mind rationalizing the change based on what he had briefly observed about Marshall. He also knew that his shot would be better if he moved out from behind the filing cabinet that had become his cover, but there was little to no chance that he would give that up.

The tentacles shifted suddenly messing up his lined up shot as he had to try to determine where the writhing was most concentrated again. There might be a better method but he had yet to figure it out, but he hoped to figure it out soon because there was no way he would be able to beat Marshall as injured as he was now.

Marshall ignored his leg as he stayed low and kept moving. Somehow Valentino had a way to figure out where Marshall was, but it was at least a little inaccurate based on the two feeling shots. His best bet was to keep on the move so the shots had a better chance of missing since the aim had to keep adjusting. It also helped that wasn't something he had to worry about with his stand active.

He suddenly sprung to a full stand and squeezed off the remaining bullets in the pistol, actually aiming in the direction of the file cabinet with two bullet holes in it. He ignored the pain in his leg and quickly returned to the semi crouch and set about reloading while keeping an ear out. One bullet hit what sounded like a computer but an exclamation of pain told him that the second found it's target.

He ducked his head and quickly moved again as four bullets sounded off and tore through the spot where he had been. He slammed the chamber closed and exploded back to his feet and squeezed off five quick shots, betting on the fact that Valentino would move from the compromised cover.

The bet paid off and he caught Valentino in the open, with a strange array of navy blue tentacles splayed from his body. The bullets all arced forward but Marshall didn't follow them, instead he dropped back down and got moving. The best case scenario Valentino went down, worst case….nothing happened and he was in cover.

Valentino grit his teeth as Marshall fired at him, he had fallen right into the damn trap. As the bullets homed in he frantically tried to wrangle his tentacles into some sort of defense. Thankfully the appendages responded and formed some sort of net across his body stopping four of the six bullets. The other two weren't stopped by the net resulting in a grazed left arm and hit left shoulder. That meant he had one leg that had been grazed, a hurt left arm, and an impaired left shoulder.

He ducked behind one of the cubicle walls and caught his breath. He was silently evaluating his options when he realized that his shirt was growing damp. The burst of movement had torn up his stitches meaning that this fight now had a damn timer in addition to basically being to the death. He grit his teeth and glanced at the tentacles, he had somewhat figured out how to work with the writhing but all that did was tell him where Marshall generally was. Realistically, even if he finished Marshall it wasn't going to end well because Mortis wasn't available to fix his goddamn chest. The other issue was that the only way out was guarded by Marshall….Well time to go.

Valentino exploded to his feet ignoring the immense pain he was in and used the writhing to guide his pistol fire. He slammed the trigger as quick as he could, emptying the few bullets left in his magazine where Marshall generally was.

Marshall was going to stand up and fire again when there was a sudden rain of bullets close by, forcing him to quickly run to his right. He returned fire while moving his bullets arcing across the room towards Valentino, but it seemed that he was adjusting to his stand very quickly as the tentacles stopped the bullets.

He dropped back behind cover and quickly reloaded his pistol, throwing stealth and caution to the wind, and it seemed Valentino was doing the same based on the noises coming from the other side of the room. Marshall took the few seconds to try and figure out what changed, since there were still other options available. So why exactly would he give up on any semblance of stealth or tactical strategy and just fire while moving. The last bullet was rammed in the chamber and Marshall spun out of his cover with his finger already on the trigger and pressing down. The bullets sounded off at the same time again as marshall maneuvered his way to some sort of cover as Valentino kept moving.

Marshall winced as he felt a bullet graze his ear but he was able to power through the pain and to start to get his gun reloaded. Though he stopped when instead of hearing a similar sound from across the room the sound of the wooden door getting thrown open met his ears. He exploded from his cover and ran as fast as he could towards the wide open door.

Suddenly it all made sense, the reason Valentino had abandoned strategy for the wild gun show was because he was trying to work towards the door. He had pieced together that stealth wasn't going to work well when going against Marshalls stand and opted for the best possible solution.

Valentino moved as fast as he could down the alley dropping the pistol as he moved, since he had used up the three magazines he had it had no purpose. He wasn't proud of abandoning the fight, but there was no way that he was going to beat Marshall with his body falling apart like it was. If he was healthy and had any sort of prep he would be damn near unbeatable, but being held together by painkillers and having to deal with a plan made in six minutes put him at a severe disadvantage. At times like these he cursed his professionalism and the general tenants of his trade. Whenever he had a contract like this it really made him want to speak up, but he couldn't bring himself to truly care.

He rounded a corner and almost fell as his leg bucked in pain, but he managed to stumble forward instead and keep his body moving. His chest screamed in pain as more stitches tore and his shirt became more and more saturated with sticky red blood. Despite the pain he was also now intensely aware of the footsteps behind him, and as they grew closer his mind was quickly running out of possible solutions. There were a few he immediately discarded on principle but the main one that stuck out and seemed viable involved an open manhole cover about a hundred and fifty yards away. The original plan had been to throw the sniper down the manhole, get in the getaway car, and have Jett retrieve it later, but now it seemed like throwing himself down was the best option. With how compromised his body was there was a chance that this would ruin him in the long run, but it would get him away from Marshall. It was honestly a gamble he didn't like, but his options were quickly narrowing. The point of the job was to scatter the group and he had accomplished that, that meant his contract with Mortis was up. No more reason to try to carry out whatever Mortis objectives were, now he could just focus on getting the fuck out of here and recovering. He had only offered one job in payment and this was it.

He rounded a sharp corner but the footsteps from Marshall sounded closer still, and there were still seventy-two yards to go. It seemed like a mile though with how much pain his chest was in, and had to thank his pain tolerance for the fact he was still standing. He threw his arm out, ignoring the pain that motion caused, snagged the handle and pulled it down behind him with a loud crash. Sixty more yards to go.

The footsteps slowed for a second as he assumed Marshall had to dodge the debris but quickly picked their pace up again as Valentino rounded another corner and could finally see the open manhole cover. It was still far enough that it was going to be close, but he might make it. He was counting down the yards and forcing himself to set a quicker pace despite the pain in his leg and chest. His mental count down finally reached zero and with little hesitation he dropped himself into the sewer. The water splashed all over his clothes but he ignored it and plowed forward, silently thankful Marshall hadn't fired. He guessed it was because he hadn't reloaded, since he knew that he wouldn't have gotten away if Marshall had fired.

Marshall stopped his run and stared at the open manhole cover with a vague feeling of annoyance, mostly at the fact that he hadn't reloaded his gun in order to incapacitate him. He had wanted to remove a player from the board as they got closer to whatever Mortis had planned for the end, but it seemed as though Valentino had a different objective. Par for the course when it came to professional hitmen, they finish the job and after that they are back on the market. The fact that Valentino had stopped fighting him and ran meant that the contract hadn't been to kill him specifically. He calmly pulled out his gun and started to methodically reload as he turned away from the manhole cover.

His ear was still bleeding which was definitely annoying but nothing he couldn't handle and work through. The leg was still a definite issue along with how his ribs as both continued to ache and throb with every intense movement. The painkillers kept him functioning and more would probably numb the pain completely but he couldn't risk setting his aim off. Aside from the pain there was a much more pressing issue; Where were Joy and Seth?

Joy hadn't been that far behind him as he had cut towards the perch and she hadn't seemed injured in any way that would affect her ability to run. Seth had been behind Joy when he had started running so the fact that neither had made it to him didn't leave many alternative answers. Now he had to work backwards and figure out where exactly the split up had occurred. He wished he had paid more attention on the way here but he had tunnelvision on where he had noticed the sniper's perch. He had assumed that removing the long range threat in the fight would open greater options. That must have been the trap, but that raised the question of how exactly they would split the group up.

He rounded one more corner and made it back where his firefight with Valentino had started. He scanned the walls and area around the alley trying to pick up any other details before turning around, trying to get an idea of what he could see from the perch Valentino had used. He figured that there were about three parking lots, the road, ten or eleven roof's, and the warehouses. He wasn't able to definitively determine if that was the warehouse where John had run to, but since the perch was looking in that direction he had to assume that something was in that direction. It wouldn't make sense to leave the perch and then travel in the same direction you had fired unless there was some purpose, even if it was just a getaway vehicle he had to work off the assumption that there was something that way.

Seth let out a breath as he continued to work his way around the fairly empty lot, making sure that he knew the distance between all the available cover. He knew that it was best if he could work quickly, but he also knew that he had to actually win this fight. That meant that everything needed to be in his benefit since, based on his last few fights, he needed every single advantage possible. So his goal was to have a solid amount of cover to both protect him and make it difficult for 『BALLROOM BLITZ』to be taken out early.

That was issue number two; he had no idea what his opponents stands were. He could guess that the guys stand wasn't a physical powerhouse based on how it failed to knock out Joy, but that didn't mean it's ability wasn't dangerous. The girl was also an issue since all he knew was that her stand had to at least be strong in order to not be moved by Joy, or that could also be an ability. In all honesty he would rather be able to observe longer and figure out their abilities before engaging, but he didn't have the time. Mostly because he had no idea where Marshall or John was at this point, and he assumed they both had issues to deal with at this point. It didn't make sense for Joy to get kidnaped unless the plan had been to scatter them.

He shook his head, tightened his wrist brace with a deep exhale, and gave one final look over the lot. His injuries were definitely a large detriment in this fight, but his stand could let him work around that. He mentally went over all the facts and measurements he knew of the area and ran through a few small hypothetical scenarios about his opponents' stands, and piecing together whatever their abilities may be. The males stand wasn't physically strong but he had no idea what it's ability was, and the female had some sort of ability that was related to the ground. That conclusion was based entirely off what he saw when Joy tried to pull her.

He couldn't deny that a fairly large part of him was excited to fight an opponent in a situation where he actually had some preparation and a chance to not be completely crushed. It wasn't that he cared about winning so much, it was more so the embarrassment of getting his ass handed to him in basically every fight so far. Entirely a factor of his large ego. He was also aware that the stakes were a fair amount higher than just his ego. He had to work off the assumption that he had absolutely no backup and that all of luck was against him. Though to be fair he had been getting screwed by lady luck or whatever this entire bizarre adventure. From the damn beginning, to getting blown up, getting mauled by Priest, and then further decimated by whoever the guy that phased was. It was high time that he got a chance to beat the shit out of somebody else.

-STAND STATS- 『LIVING COLOUR』

User: Ziti Valentino

Strength:D

Speed: D

Range: D

Durability: C

Precision: C

Potential: A

『LIVING COLOUR』is a writhing mass of tentacles that extend out from chest and back of Valentino. The tentacles reach out towards the nearest person and change color based on the strongest emotions around. When they change color it can force nearby people to feel greater amounts of the target emotion, anger becomes uncontrollable rage. The other effect is that Valentino gains some of the traits and minor skills that come from the emotion. The ability as a whole is referred to as "Cult of Personality"

Ziti Valentino is an Italian born hitman/mercenary who has done work for various criminal groups all over the world, but the most common employer was an Italian crime group. However that group was eventually consumed and decimated by a new group called Passione. This resulted in him being ousted from Italy due to Passione blocking him from getting jobs. As more and more jobs disappeared he eventually grew desperate enough to take a chance to enter into the world that Passione inhabited. He acts according to his contracts and obeys them to the exact letter, but once they are fulfilled he makes himself open on the market again.