Breathe in. Breathe out. Complete control over breathing, complete control over heartbeat, complete control over self. Breathe in. Breathe out. Too deeply and you'll suffocate; too shallow, and you'll begin to hyperventilate. Breathe in. Breathe out. Take exactly the amount of air you need, and no more. Breathe in. Breathe out. No sudden movements, no sudden emotions. Control over the mind, the body, and the spirit at all times.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Ivan repeated the mantra in his head as he slowly made his way to the main storage room. Originally, his Stand had been quite a hassle to use; every time he had activated Stay Up Late's fog, he had had to wear a bulky breathing tank, which not only slowed him down more than the fog did but also prevented him from using his ability for more than half an hour at a time. Though he had been accepted into the Cobalt Order despite this limitation, Ivan had still felt next to useless in role as an enforcer, only good for blocking paths and maybe capturing a few of the more hot headed opponents before retreating from the fight.

But that's no longer true. Tired of his own inadequacy, Ivan had traveled to a remote monastery in the upper region of the Himalayas. There, he had undergone intense training, and finally mastered a combination of meditative and breathing techniques to allow him to breathe indefinitely in his fog. His breathing was carefully regulated to extract the maximum amount of oxygen possible from the fog, while the meditation allowed him to conserve mental and physical energy, allowing him to stay conscious with only the minimum amount of oxygen. I've overcome my own limits, and now nobody can defeat me.

"Now, where are you?" Ivan murmured as he entered the storage room. The room was completely still and silent, and Hiram was nowhere to be seen. Slowly, Ivan began to stride forward into the rows of shelves. "Hmm," he slowly said, "the exits are all sealed shut, and you couldn't have forced an exit either. Did you go upstairs?" He glanced at the metal staircase on his left. "No, the dust on the staircase hasn't been disturbed. You must be hiding somewhere in this room."

"You might as well come out," Ivan said, spreading his arms. "It's pointless to hide from Stay Up Late. I can just let my fog consume the entire room." It wasn't technically a bluff; Stay Up Late could produce enough fog to fill the room, though doing so would almost certainly take the entire night. Ivan was tired of waiting for his enemies to fall into his clutches. This one, he decided, is the one I'm going to seek out and subdue myself. "Come out and face me head-on!" he shouted.

But Hiram did not emerge from whenever he was hiding. Fine, then, Ivan thought, I'll just have to force him out. He began to slowly walk down the aisle. Even if I can't see him, my fog will find his hiding spot. Once I get close, he'll panic and try to flee, and that's when I'll make my move. Stay Up Late hung onto his shoulder, poised and ready to leap. My Stand is the only thing aerodynamic enough to move quickly in my fog. It will grab him, drag him into my fog, and then I'll have won.

"Come on out, Hiram," Ivan said, his eyes searching though the shelves. "That's right, I know your name. I know a lot about you, in fact." No reaction. No movement from any of the shelves. In the silence, Ivan continued, "Your name is Hiram McRodes. You're 14, and an 8th grade student at Lennon Middle School. Your blood type is B negative, and your birthday is April 29th."

Still no reaction came from any potential hiding spots in the room. What about this, then? Ivan thought. "When you were in third grade, you wet your pants during field day and pretended you had gotten hit with a water balloon." The room remained silent as ever. "Seriously, nothing?" Ivan muttered to himself. "Not even a gasp of shock?"

"I know all about your Stand too, of course." Reaching the end of the aisle, Ivan slowly turned around and began to walk through the row of shelves. "Its name is Off the Wall, correct?" No response. "It's a close-range Stand that makes up for its low power with a high durability." No noise, no movement. Ivan's eyes continued to scan the shelves. "Frankly, it seems a little overpowered to me. The ability to project an unbreakable shield over anything? You'd be unstoppable against any other opponent. Unfortunately for you, my fog isn't something a shield can block."

"That's not...exactly right."

Ivan's eyes darted to the left, toward the slightly muffled sound of Hiram's voice. Walking down the aisle slowly, but with purpose, he continued to speak. "Really? Do you mean to tell me that you can block my fog?" I've got you now, he thought.

"No, that's not what I meant," Hiram responded - from the fourth aisle, he was definitely hiding somewhere in the fourth aisle. "But what you said - about my Stand being unstoppable, because of its shield. That's not exactly right."

"Oh? And why is that?" Just keep talking, you fool, and soon my fog will fill your lungs. Ivan was in the fourth aisle now, walking down it as fast as he could, his ears searching for the source of Hiram's voice.

"My shields absorb all energy from a force, but that force doesn't just disappear. It can't. So when I deactivate Off the Wall's shields, the force either continues unabated - rendering my shield all but pointless - or I have to take the force directly into my soul with Off the Wall. That's not so bad; the force of a bullet on my lifeforce wouldn't hurt me nearly as much as a bullet through my heart would. But my shield isn't unstoppable. If enough force is applied to it, I'll collapse and it will collapse with me."

"And why are you telling me this?" He was very close to the voice now, he could tell. The voice had still been muffled, coming from one of the boxes - some of the boxes were certainly big enough for a small boy to hide in. Ivan's last question echoed through the room, but no further response came from aisle. My fog must have finally reached the boy and smothered him, Ivan quickly concluded. I win. He began to open a nearby crate, searching for Hiram's unconscious body, when with a sudden crackle the voice spoke again.

"I'm telling you this so that you can understand what happened once I defeat you." What? How is he still awake? "Because my Stand may not be unstoppable -" The voice was definitely coming from within his fog, Ivan could hear it. Don't tell me his Stand actually can block my fog? His ears strained as Hiram talked, finally zeroing on a box in the middle of the of the shelf - a box too small to contain a human, though the voice was unmistakably coming from it. Frantically, yet still somehow slowly, Ivan tore the top off of the box.

"But I'm still going to defeat you with it," said the walkie-talkie carefully nestled in the box.

Ivan didn't know if he had jostled the shelf out of shock, or if it had simply fallen on its own, but a box on the top shelf suddenly toppled over. The contents of the box spilled out, their fall slowed by the fog that surrounded Ivan - small, metal cylinders, covered in first an orange flame and then a translucent silver sheen, falling all around Ivan. Grenades! was all he had time to think, and then silver sheen around the cylinders disappeared and the world dissolved into explosions.

"Concussive grenades," Hiram said, watching as Ivan's unconscious body flew out of the aisle, "have an explosive force that travels over 2000 meters per second. Even slowed down by your fog, that type of force should be more than fast enough to knock you out." The boy carefully climbed out of the vent over the second aisle where he had hidden, jumping down onto the floor of the now ruined storage room. "I guess I sort of lied earlier, when I said that letting the force continue past my shields made them pointless. By surrounding the grenades with a shield, I could delay their explosion until the exact moment I needed it. That's the real power of my Stand; it may not be unstoppable, but with a bit of thought I can use it to take you out."

"Why are you here, Alexa?" Joshua asked. He had recovered from the blast that had knocked him off feet, and now stood facing the one person he hadn't expected to see again so soon - or at all, for that matter. "I thought you said you didn't want anything to do with us or the Cobalt Order."

"Yes, well," Alexa turned away from Joshua, "I didn't. But then as I was walking home, I saw a man with the same kind of lapel pin as the guy you were fighting."

"A Cobalt Order member? Was he following you?"

Alexa shook her head. "No. At least, I don't think so. But then I remembered what your friend said, about the Cobalt Order coming after me; at the time I had dismissed it as impossible, but seeing that person so soon afterward spooked me. It probably was just a coincidence, but just in case it wasn't I decided to come here to look for something that could protect me."

The muffled sound of All Night Long's explosion rattled the door behind Imagine Dragons. Alexa tilted her head. "What was that?" "An explosion," Joshua frankly answered. "Cobalt Order Stand users are here, and one of them with the power to create explosions is after me." He paused, suddenly realizing something. "How did you get in here without them noticing, anyway?"

Alexa glanced toward a half-open window on the opposite side of the room. "That's not important. If the Cobalt Order is in this building, then I definitely can't be here right now." She turned away and began to move toward the window.

"Hold on!" Joshua said, following her. "What's the good in running away if you're already being followed by the Cobalt Order?"

"I said I might have been followed. If I'm caught here I'm definitely going to be." A sudden burst of noise came from behind the doorway, shaking it as Imagine Dragons clutched it tightly. "Besides, what do you expect me to do against that?"

"Well, your Stand can stop movement, right?" Joshua stammered. "Can't it stop the explosions that way?" "YMCA can only stop the forces on things it touches. Do you want me to try touching an explosion?" Alexa snorted, shaking her head. "I'm leaving, and you had any sense in your head you would too."

Joshua barely heard her last sentence. "Forces…" he murmured. Something had just clicked in his head, something he had learned a long time ago while reading the Wikipedia article for 'fire' on a whim. "Your Stand stops forces," he called after Alexa, who was beginning to exit the window. "That includes the force of gravity, right? That's how you got up here in the first place - you stopped the force of gravity and floated up here."

Alexa turned to look back at Joshua. She paused briefly, before giving a quick nod. "Would it be possible for you to stop the force of gravity in this room?" Joshua asked excitedly. "Yes, but wh-" "That's great, that's really great," Joshua interrupted her, pacing around the room excitedly. "Could you do that?" Another explosion rocked the door behind Imagine Dragons. "Now?"

"Why should I?" came Alexa's cold response.

"What?" Joshua blinked, not fully understanding the question. "I know what this guy's power is, and I know how to defeat it. I just need your Stand to stop the gravity in this room." "If I leave now, there's still a chance that I can leave completely undetected," Alexa responded. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't do that instead of taking such a big risk because you think you know this guy's weakness."

"I know this guy's weakness," Joshua said, "and anyway, I can't leave. The Cobalt Order captured one of my friends here. I have to fight them, with or without your help." Alexa didn't move from the windowsill, but her expression shifted to one of concern. "You helped me fight the Cobalt Order before," Joshua said desperately. "Please, I'm just asking for your help one more time."

Alexa sighed, closing her eyes. "You're sure this will work?" she asked. Joshua nodded without hesitation. The world seemed to stop as Alexa tilted her head to the side in thought. Finally, she hopped down from the windowsill. "[YMCA]! Stop the gravity in this room!"

"Yes, mistress!" the golden Stand appeared at her side, slamming its fist into the floor. Joshua began to feel weightless, like he was suddenly at the top of a rollercoaster, as objects in the room began to float around him. "Just so you know," Alexa said, "YMCA can't attack or defend itself while its stopping a force, so whatever plans you have from this point on can't involve me." She looked at Joshua. "I'm trusting you to finish this quickly. Don't let me down." "I understand," Joshua said, Imagine Dragons returning to his side. "Leave it to me."

With Imagine Dragons no longer holding it back, the mistreated door was finally blown off its hinges and was sent flying through the gravity-less room by the latest explosion. From behind the smoldering doorframe, a smoldering Dmitri pointed an arm at Joshua and Alexa.

"Well, well, well, it looks like I caught two rats for the price of one," Dmitri said through gritted teeth. "I hope the two of you are prepared to meet your maker." Dmitri snapped his fingers, and then -

Pap!

There was no large explosion. There was only a tiny snapping sound which came from a nearby desk lamp. "What the -?" Dmitri sputtered, snapping his fingers again and again. Two more small paps came from desk lamp, the second one accompanied by a crash as the light bulb burst apart. "Where's the kaboom?" Dmitri said with increasing panic. "Why have my bombs become duds?"

As he opened the hand he had been snapping with, Joshua finally was able to see All Night Long. It was pure black and cylindrical, with a silver opening on one end, like a small salt dispenser. From that opening, a handful of tiny black pellets spilled out into Dmitri's hand, which he then through in the air.

Papapapapapapapapap! Upon contact with the overhead light, the pellets became a cluster of tiny bright explosions, though they did nothing aside from briefly making the room a tiny bit brighter. "What is going on?!" Dmitri exclaimed. "What is - oh," He lowered his arm as he finally seemed to notice the floating room. "What is this? What are you doing?"

"At first I thought your Stand was making the fire explode somehow," Joshua said, "but when you blew up that light in the hallway I realized that the only way there could be such a big explosion was if your Stand was the explosive itself. I was pretty sure it wouldn't be invisible, so…" He pointed at the tiny pellet fragments lying on the ground. "Your Stand is - or creates - tiny explosives that detonate when exposed to heat, but then how can they cause such big explosions?" Joshua looked at Alexa. "It was when you mentioned forces of explosion that I realized. A Stand that's sensitive to heat, creating hot explosions? It had to be -"

"Convection," Alexa breathed. "The heat of the tiny explosive is pulled through the air by gravity, where the fragments react to it and explode in turn, creating a chain reaction until the overall explosion is huge." "Right," Joshua said, nodding. I didn't remember it was called that, but still. "Even Stands have to obey the laws of physics, and your Stand requires convection to work. No gravity means no convection, which means your Stand's main function has been nullified."

"Bah!" Dmitri spat. "Who cares if you've removed the convection from the room!" In a single practiced motion, he removed a match from his pocket and pressed it against All Night Long. "All I need to do is create my own convection - a match flying through the air will carry the heat just as effectively!"

"Maybe," Joshua said as he began to back up, carefully controlling his movements through the gravity-less room. "But the question is, can you make it in time?" "What?" Dmitri said. "I'm about to charge at you," Joshua continued, pressing his back against the wall. "Do you think you can create such an explosion before I catch up to you? Because I guarantee that once I do, you won't get another chance."

For one second there was silence. Neither Joshua nor Dmitri moved an inch; both tensed as their eyes locked. Even the floating objects seemed to stop drifting, as if they too felt the overwhelming tension in the room. Then, with a scream, Joshua and Imagine Dragons launched themselves from the wall. The Stand and the user flew straight toward Dmitri, who responded with a yell as he scratched the match against All Night Long. The match's red tip ignited with a sizzling spark, the newborn flame hurtling through the air as Dmitri prepared to throw it - and extinguishing itself just before he let the match go.

Shit! Dmitri thought, I moved my hand too quickly! Any further thoughts he might have had were suddenly interrupted as the outstretched claws of Imagine Dragons slammed into him.

"GRA-DADADADADADADADADA!" The green Stand's claws were a blur as they slashed across Dmitri's body, lifting the man up and sending him flying through the air. He crashed against the hallway's opposite wall, sliding down to the floor in an unconscious slump.

As he watched Dmitri drop to the floor, Joshua let out a deep breath. Behind him, the floating objects in the room slowly drifted to the ground, and Alexa emerged from the room to Joshua's side. "Just so you know," she said, "I still don't want to throw my life away fighting the Cobalt Order." "Oh," Joshua said, turning away. He didn't know why he had assumed that this fight would've convinced her otherwise, but he had hoped… "I understand."

"But," Alexa continued with a sigh, "I realize that by this point it would be foolish of me to act like I have nothing to do with this. Like it or not, I am an enemy of the Cobalt Order now, and it would be more reckless of me to go off on my own than it would be to stick with you guys." Joshua looked at her again, feeling a mixture of relief and guilt. "I'm sorry for dragging you into this," he weakly said.

Alexa shook her head, giving a soft smile. "Don't be. It was my choice to help you fight. Now I just have to see it through to the end." "Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad you're on our side," Joshua said. "And I'm sure if we work together we can -"

He was interrupted by a sudden thump coming from the door on the opposite side of the hall. In an instant, Imagine Dragons and YMCA appeared at the sides of their users, who snapped their focus to the door. What was that? Joshua thought. Another Cobalt Order Stand user? He looked over at Alexa, who gave a short nod, and the two of them silently crept toward the door. With a fireball building in Imagine Dragons' mouth, Joshua slowly placed his hand over the doorknob, slowly turned it so as not to make a sound, and taking a deep breath in he threw it open to reveal -

"Jesus, kid! I almost froze you! What are you doing here anyway?"

With a sigh of relief, Joshua let go of the doorknob and recalled his Stand. By his side, Alexa nervously glanced at the large man in combat fatigues who seemed to take up the entire doorframe. "Uh, Joshua? Is this one of your friends?"

Joshua looked at Stan, who emerged from the room as Birdhouse in Your Soul disappeared behind him. "Something like that."

-To Be Continued- Fly in Honey (Act 1)

Stand User: Dmitri Dostoevsky

Stand Name: [All Night Long]

Power: A

Speed: C

Range: B

Durability: E

Precision: D

Developmental Potential: D

Heat Sensitive Explosives: All Night Long can fire explosive projectiles that explode upon contact with objects of extreme heat. While these projectiles are very small, and therefore cannot cause much damage by themselves, the resultant heat of the air around the explosion can cause the fragments of the projectile to explode again, creating a chain reaction that culminates in a devastatingly large explosion.

As we are approaching the end of the school year, updates on this story will probably be sporadic until around mid-May. I will do my best to keep everything on schedule, but nothing is guaranteed.