These people were crazy!
Arabia Fats yelped again, and this time, the glass bottle in his hands shattered to pieces. He threw himself behind cover, then looked back to the boat across the ocean, and, to his horror, noticed that the shimmering purple shape of Star Platinum still hadn't moved.
An attack this precise could only have been a Stand attack—Star Platinum's attack. But if Jotaro hadn't attacked him...
Slowly, his gaze fell to the fluttering red shape beside Jotaro. DIO's messages had mentioned something about a companion. DIO had been extremely sparse in mentioning who it was, only that they were not a Stand user. Fats had thought that meant he only had one problem to deal with.
That mistake might just cost him his life.
No, I'm not going to let it end like this! Fats clenched his fist with a scowl. If the sun can bring planets into motion, then what chance in hell do two twerps have to escape me?
"You!" he howled, pointing to the captain. "You are my eyes! Tell me what is going on!"
"Y-yes sir!" the man yelped, clutching his cap and peeking over the edge. At least he knew his place. If only Jotaro and his mysterious companion in red could be as obedient as him and roll over and die already.
Sliding down to ensure he didn't expose anything, Fats raised his hands, clasping his grimy fingers around the air as The Sun reached its next solar maximum, and hurled another solar flare out into the ocean.
He heard the plasma crackle, then a splash. "Did I get them?" he asked the captain beside him.
The sailor held a hand over his eyes and leaned forward. "You just hit the boat, sir."
"Where did they go?"
"To the left, sir. The boat is starting to sink, so if you move a little to the left–"
The sailor's cap suddenly flew off his head. Both turned to look at it, and even in the bright light, it was impossible to miss the smoking hole in the middle.
The captain paled and slunk behind the ship's railing. He gulped. "They're to the left, sir."
And that was likely going to be the last time he tried peeking over the edge. Fats looked around, but the other two sailors had seen it too, terror written on their faces.
How dare they make him do all the work? He was the one paying them. If they weren't going to risk their necks for him, then what was he paying them for?
Fats's scowl deepened, and he gripped the collar of his shirt tightly.
No, he didn't need them! He was a Stand user. That made him superior to these useless sailors in every way. He could win this fight all on his own. Jotaro and his companion were trapped on a sinking ship. They were as good as dead.
All he needed to do was change his plan of attack.
This was stupid. This was so stupid.
Yang was stupid, Uncle Qrow was stupid, and she had never said it to her face, but Weiss was stupid and a prick, but Jotaro didn't just take the cake from them, he ate it too!
"That's not how you sink a boat," Jotaro said, eyes narrow as he peered over her shoulder like he was her dad.
Ruby hissed, droplets of scalding water falling from Jotaro's hair and landing on her shoulder. The moment of pain, though brief, was enough to throw off her aim, and her shot flew high over the boat.
"Can you not?" she said. "And I thought you said no killing!"
"If that guy's got any brains, he'll recall his Stand before he has to take a hot bath. We're not gonna kill him."
Like that made it any better. Still, it wasn't like Ruby had any better ideas. She glanced down at the deck, watching as the bubbling water lapped at her boots, before pulling herself higher up and resting Crescent Rose against the edge of the boat.
Nearby, she saw the water erupt into a scalding shower and winced. They were firing blind now, too scared she'd land a hit if they so much as showed a hair. That worked to her advantage here, since she didn't have to hide to take her shots. Obviously, the hadn't been counting on Ruby being onboard, and Ruby was gonna make them regret that. Hopefully, without killing anyone. Heroes didn't kill people, so neither would she. Another empty bullet shell hit the ground as she cranked the bolt, aimed, and fired again.
This time, her bullet punched a hole through the side of the ship. Though she could barely make out the movement from this far, she could see the waves beginning to lap at the hole, sending water onto the deck. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
Ruby was no expert on boat warfare, but Jotaro's idea made sense to her. Sink the enemy's ship before they got sunk. It was basic math.
What was annoying Ruby so much right now was just how stupid it was in action!
The water exploded off to her left. Ruby barely spared that a glance before she reloaded, aimed, and punched another hole into the boat.
This was supposed to be a fight, wasn't it? There was a bad guy, the bad guy wanted them dead, and Ruby wanted the bad guy to fail. It was just like her fight with Roman before Beacon.
The only problem was that this was so boring! Where was all the action? Where was all the danger? Where was all the fun? They were just shooting at each other from across the ocean!
"This is boring," she muttered, reloading Crescent Rose again.
"As long as we come out of it alive, it's fine," Jotaro replied.
Ruby huffed, and she turned her attention back to their enemy. Another shot, another hole in the boat. Two more shots, and the enemy boat began to dip in the water. Ruby reached up to pull back Crescent Rose's bolt, then stopped.
How many bullets do I have left? she thought, frowning. She took out her magazine, and to her disappointment, noticed that it was empty. Darn, I thought I had more.
Reaching to her side, Ruby bit her lip as she counted the bullets she still had with her. Between her fight with Jotaro and this, she'd burned through more than she'd expected. She was gonna have to restock soon.
Beside her, Ruby heard Jotaro make a disapproving sound, and she glared up at him. "What?"
"You're awfully slow at this," he said, pulling himself higher up their boat. "Can't you go any faster?"
Ruby glanced down to see that the water was once again lapping at her toes. She scowled and followed Jotaro. "Well, you're not helping at all!"
"Can't help it." Beside her, Ruby saw the railing creak. His Stand must've been one of those short ranged ones, which meant he was basically useless here. And after all his big talk about how his Stand was so much stronger than her stupid Aura.
"What was that?" Jotaro asked.
"Nothing."
"That's what I thought."
Ruby twitched. So he had heard! Whirling on him, Ruby jabbed a finger at his chest. "Hey! At least I'm trying to do something about this! If your Stand is really so strong, why am I doing all the work here?"
"Your sniper rifle's just more useful here. That's all. If we were on land–"
"Well we're not on land, are we?"
Jotaro scowled, and the boat's railing snapped in half. "Just finish the damn fight."
"Well I–"
The boat creaked below them. Both Ruby and Jotaro looked up. The white sky pulsed once. Waves rippled out from where Ruby had to assume the Stand was, like a really big rock had dropped in the middle of the ocean.
By the time Ruby realized what was going on, a wave of heat crashed into her, and their boat flipped into the air. Ruby opened her mouth to scream.
In hindsight, not her best idea.
Scalding water rushed in to fill her mouth as she landed with a splash. Her Aura slammed into place, preventing the water from melting her face off. That wasn't enough to keep her from the unbearable agony of being boiled alive.
If she'd thought the fight with Steely Dan had been awful, this was so much worse. No matter where she moved, the water clung to her skin like a hundred knives driving deeper and deeper into her flesh. She tried to double her Aura, anything to stop the pain, anything for just a moment of sweet relief, but the water just kept dragging her deeper into its crushing embrace.
Up. She had to get up, she had to get out, and Ruby clawed for the surface. Her wet hands slapped against the boat, but no matter how fast she moved, her fingers refused to grip the hull. She could see light oozing in from the surface, cruel beams dangling threads past her face promising light froma bove, but she could not grasp them as she tumbled deeper and deeper into the bubbling ocean.
Something firm and hard wrapped around her torso. The water parted for her as it dragged her up and onto the surface, and as Ruby opened her mouth and sucked in her first breath of sweet, cold air for what felt like forever, she looked to her left to see Jotaro hanging off the underside of the boat, wet hair plastered to his bright red face.
Red—both from the heat, and from the soft glow of Aura. From the top of his head, to the arm still wrapped around her stomach, down to his legs still submerged in the boiling water; his entire body was covered in Aura.
"Y–you–" Ruby groaned, and she lurched to the side as all the water in her lungs finally spilled out before she said, "Your body... you got it under control!"
Jotaro grunted, and he dragged both of them onto the boat. "P–pain gives me something to focus on."
"Oh. Go figure"
"Yeah. Go figure."
She didn't tell him that he was still wasting Aura by giving off so much light—he probably already knew that, and that wasn't gonna help them right now, but at this rate, Jotaro was gonna run out of Aura fast. If his Aura ran out, and he fell in again, he was gonna die for sure.
Ruby wasn't gonna let that happen!
Her muscles still throbbed, the burning water still rolling down her skin as she moved, but she still had a ship to sink, so she ignored it, slinging Crescent Rose over the bottom of the boat. Whatever it was that had attacked them had also flipped over their boat, and while the rounded surface was far less stable than the boat's deck, it would have to do—she needed to get back on before–
The boat ripped out from her grasp and flipped over again. Ruby's eyes widened, though this time she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut as the boiling ocean welcomed her in again.
Hell didn't even begin to describe it. During his fight with Yellow Temperance, Jotaro had never once considered what would happen if Yellow Temperance had succeeded in covering his entire body. Gramps or Avdol might've called it cocky or arrogant, but at the time, he had thought Yellow Temperance's defeat was just a matter of when he won, not if.
Here, though, he couldn't help but think back on it, even for just a moment. The way it closed in around him, not quite sticking to him, but not letting him free. The way it ate away at his skin. The way it burned.
If this wasn't how it would have felt, then it was much, much worse.
Like before, Jotaro let the pain come. It wouldn't stop him. No one was gonna stop him, not Ruby, not the Sun, not anyone else. He focused on that pain, thought of nothing else, and slowly but surely, he felt something—his Aura—stir and envelop him.
The pain didn't go away. Not instantly, anyway. But he could feel a presence, something that was almost soft, shielding him from the scalding water and preventing any further damage.
That was okay. It wasn't perfect, but it would have to do.
A flash of red caught his eye. To his right, Ruby thrashed in the water, her cloak flying everywhere as she tried to find anything she could grasp onto. The moment Jotaro reached out and caught her, she wrapped her arms around his.
It must have been terrifying, falling in the middle of the ocean. Nothing to pull yourself up by, no assurance that someone would be there to save you—were this any other time, Jotaro would have brushed her off, but this wasn't any other time. Gritting his teeth, Jotaro pulled Ruby close against him, and Star Platinum dragged them both onto the surface.
As soon as the two of them took in the cool air, Ruby turned to him, her face flushed red with the heat. "What–what the heck was that?" she coughed out, water sizzling as it dripped from her hair and onto the wooden deck.
Jotaro glanced back at The Sun. The bright orange star almost seemed to pulse in the intense desert heat.
"Solar winds," he said. It was a guess at best, but from what little he knew of astronomy, it fit. "The Sun can–can send out waves of magnetically charged particles, either as a solar flare or a solar wind–"
"–and we're standing on a metal boat, aren't we?"
Jotaro nodded with a grunt, impressed that she'd managed to catch on so quickly. He briefly frowned, and he glanced behind them to check on the boy and his grandpa, but thankfully, their half of the ship seemed to have drifted out of range. That was one less thing to worry about.
Then he glanced over at Ruby. Soaked in water, clinging to the side of the boat like a lost puppy, her breaths coming out in short, desperate gasps. She really wasn't used to this—if their fight with Steely Dan didn't prove it, Jotaro had no doubts now.
First the Lovers, then the Sun–he'd never had this much trouble when Gramps and the others were with him. All this pain, and for what? Just to keep clinging onto the same boat, in the same place, no closer to winning this fight than they were before?
No, they'd find a way. Jotaro had beaten stronger Stands before. This one would be no different!
"Oi," he said, and Star Platinum grasped Ruby by the hood and dragged her higher onto the boat. "They're gonna get what's coming. Don't die on me now."
"I–I wasn't going to," she said between gasps of air. "But how are we gonna–"
The Sun pulsed again, waves of bright orange light rippling through the air. Jotaro cursed, barely having time to brace himself before the boat flipped for a third time and plunged him and Ruby back into the sea.
His Aura slammed into place without a moment's hesitation. If Jotaro didn't know any better, he'd have thought he was getting used to it.
This time, it was Ruby who grabbed onto him first, arm wrapped tightly around his neck as she dragged them both to the surface. They surfaced with a gasp, scrambling out of the water and sprawling over the bottom of the boat to catch their breath. As Jotaro examined his arm, laid in front of him, he noticed that the red glow of Aura was a lot weaker than before. All this use must've started to wear him down. He had no idea what it'd feel like if he ran out, but right now, his head was spinning and he felt absolutely exhausted. The next time he fell in, something was going to give.
The boat's hull crinkled under his grasp, and Jotaro closed his fist with a snarl. They were getting nowhere like this. He couldn't attack with the enemy out of Star Platinum's range, and Ruby couldn't attack because she had no chance to reload and steady herself.
"I hate the sun," Ruby mumbled into the metal hull of the boat. "I hate the sun so much!"
Jotaro hummed his agreement. "We can't do shit about it. As long as The Sun keeps sending its solar winds, we're just gonna have to deal with it."
Ruby would've frowned at that dismissive tone at any other time, but something about that caught her attention.
"Hey, Jotaro," she said, slowly. "You said that a Stand as strong as this one only has a limited area of effect, right?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"I was just thinking... if we have so much trouble dealing with it, how is our enemy doing?"
Jotaro's eyes widened. Of course. Why didn't he think of that?
Jotaro dragged himself over the top of their boat and peered off at the enemy ship. "They have someone keeping balance," he said after a moment.
It was so obvious in hindsight, too, and it made their plan of attack so much more simple. Take care of the guy at the steering wheel, the stupid fight was over, and they could go home. Not that they could do anything about him, with the enemy Stand user protecting him with the solar winds. Jotaro turned to Ruby to speak to her.
The Sun pulsed again, sending another solar wind their way, and their boat toppled over once more.
When Jotaro plunged into water, there was a single moment where nothing happened, a single moment where the searing heat pressed to his skin felt ever so slightly numb. In that single moment, Jotaro let himself believe that maybe, just maybe, he'd been wrong.
Then his Aura broke, and the pain rushed in to take its place.
Immediately, his fight against the Wheel of Fortune came into mind, his whole body burning to ash. Of course, he'd escaped then by going underground and tricked Wheel of Fortune by leaving his coat to catch on fire.
There was no such escape now. He could feel his skin beginning to peel as the burns began to take shape. But he'd dealt with pain before. Sure, this was nothing like he'd ever experienced, but it was pain all the same. He would make it through. He had to make it through.
Again, the same red cloak flashed before his eyes, Ruby's flailing form passing before him. Bubbles poured out of her mouth, wrenched open in a muffled scream as, to Jotaro's surprise, burns began to form on her skin as well.
I thought she had more Aura than I did. Did she lose count?
Jotaro shook his head. No, now was not the time to ask. He had to save her!
Star Platinum practically tossed the two of them back onto the deck, shivering amid steaming pools of salt water. Jotaro tried to move, but pain jolted up the burns running down his body, and the most he could manage was a pathetic groan.
"S–solar winds..." Ruby whimpered. "We... we need to stop the solar winds."
Jotaro ground his teeth and closed his eyes. That was obvious, but it wasn't like saying would help. He tried to rack his brain for anything he knew about solar winds, and he spoke the first thing that came to mind. "The Earth is shielded from solar winds by a magnetic field. You have a magnet with you?"
"N–no... just my scroll, some spare ammo, a few elemental dust bullets, and–"
"Elemental dust? What–" Jotaro hissed, clasping a hand to a burn on his stomach. "What the hell is that?"
"It's elemental dust. You use it to create... elements? Like fire, lightning, ice–"
"Lightning? You have one?"
"Just one." Groaning into the deck, she fumbled with something in her pocket. A bullet tumbled out of her grasp and rolled on the floor. Ruby weakly pawed at it, trying to pick it up, before she gave up and nudged it toward Jotaro instead. "What–why do you need it?"
"Electromagnetism. If I can get a current going..."
"Aura. Dust needs to be triggered by Aura. I don't have any left." Ruby glanced up at Jotaro, her silver eyes pooled with tears of pain. "Neither do you."
Jotaro barely had the strength left to summon Star Platinum, yet his Stand materialized anyway, a concerned look on his face as he scanned the two of them laid out on the deck. "Aura and Stands are the same thing, aren't they?" Jotaro said.
"Y–you can't know that..."
Peeling his face from the deck, Jotaro looked up to watch as spots began to form on The Sun, signaling the next solar maximum, and the next solar wind. With both of their Auras down, their next plunge would be their last.
"We don't have a choice," he said.
Star Platinum plucked the bullet from the ground, examined it curiously, then, with a shout, crushed it between its fingers.
For a single, dreadful moment, nothing happened. Jotaro's stomach sank. Perhaps he'd hoped for too much. Perhaps Aura and Stands were completely different after all. For the first time in a long time, he actually considered that maybe, just maybe, there was no way out.
Then, he felt power surge through his body. Electricity arched over Star Platinum's purple skin. It tickled, though whether that was because it was too weak to hurt, or because he was too numb to feel it, Jotaro couldn't know.
The Sun pulsed. The waves stirred. Another solar wind surged toward them.
Jotaro had no idea how this "electric dust" was supposed to work, but he'd heard Gramps talk about his "ripples" all the time. If it was anything like that...
Jotaro took a deep breath. The electricity began to swirl around Star Platinum. Star Platinum spread his arms, and as the electricity danced across his skin, Jotaro willed it to move like a circuit. In through one arm, out through the other. He couldn't feel anything change, couldn't see it. The solar wind closed in. This wouldn't work. There was no way it was gonna–
Then the solar wind passed over them.
Across the ocean, Jotaro heard the enemy Stand user howl with rage, but with the attack done, and the solar cycle with it, Jotaro had bought them precious time to finish this fight.
"Ruby!" Jotaro rasped out with what little strength he had left.
Ruby ejected her magazine and slammed in another one. The bolt snapped into place with a click.
The Sun began to glow again, the surface swimming with activity. He could feel the gravity begin to shift. The next solar wind was almost upon them.
Metal scraped against wood as Ruby dragged her sniper rifle across the deck again. Groaning as her burns rubbed against each other, Ruby set her gun against the railing, closed one eye and took aim.
And she fired.
It was no exaggeration to say that Star Platinum's precision was almost unparalleled. His control over his body was practically inhuman, down to the smallest muscles. Polnareff's Silver Chariot was fast enough to cleave through beams of light, but he was limited by his human reactions and coordination. Star Platinum's fine motor controls meant Jotaro had no such limit.
That was just it, though—Star Platinum had inhuman control of his own muscles, and nothing more. When it came to throwing a punch, Jotaro knew it would always land where it was supposed to. Attacking from a long distance was a different matter entirely. Sure, he could throw rocks with the speed of a bullet, but between him and the target, there were so many things that could tear the control from his grasp and into the hands of wild, uncontrollable fate. Things like wind, air resistance, and especially here, gravity; they were all things that Jotaro could probably figure out and adjust, but that took practice, practice he did not have.
Ruby, on the other hand, made it look like second nature. She did not hide the fact that she breathed, ate, and slept with that hunk of junk she called her child. As he watched the bullet shoot out from the barrel, twisting and turning under the pressures of gravity, past violent waves and past the raging Sun, and obliterating the steering wheel of the enemy ship, he couldn't help but feel relieved that she did so.
One last solar wind swept out over the ocean. Like before, it passed harmlessly over them. The same could not be said for the other boat. With nothing to help keep balance, the boat keeled over and flipped on its side, and the enemy Stand user disappeared into the water.
Immediately, The Sun vanished, and the ocean settled back into darkness once more.
It was over.
It was finally over.
Ruby collapsed with a sigh, and she let herself fall back into the water pooling onto the deck. Even without the sun, it was still a little warm, but Ruby didn't have the energy to pull herself out.
Jotaro did, though, and as he dragged himself upright against the railing, she grabbed onto his sleeve and dragged herself up against him. He would have shoved her off a few hours ago. It really went to show how tired they were that he didn't.
"We won," she mumbled into his arm.
Jotaro hummed, but it sure didn't feel like they'd won. They were both horrifically burned, exhausted, and Ruby was pretty sure her heart was about to explode.
But they were still alive.
Jotaro had been right. Boring was no fun, but she would have really preferred boring instead of this.
Not that it's gonna matter, she thought glumly as she noticed the water lapping at her skirt. Our ship is still sinking.
It'd seemed so unimportant back when they were fighting for their lives, but as weak as they both were, if they didn't get help soon, they were done for.
"Hey!" a voice called out faintly, ringing in her ear. Ruby's gaze followed the sound of the voice, back to where the boy was waving over at them. Oh yeah. I almost forgot about him.
"Are you two okay?" he called out.
Ruby and Jotaro waved back, not having much energy to do anything else. That seemed enough for him, and he said, "We called for help! Help will be here soon!"
Well, that was good. It didn't feel good—Ruby still hurt all over, but she was sure her Aura could take care of that once it came back. She slumped against the side of the boat and groaned. If today wasn't just the worst day ever, she didn't know what was.
It was then that Ruby finally noticed the night sky above them, pitch black and dotted with stars. The sun should have set a long time ago, just like Jotaro had said. Maybe it should have surprised her that he knew so much about when the sun was supposed to set, but she was much too tired for that.
And he said it was winter, too. That sure is weird. I thought I just got into Beacon, she thought. Did I really travel through time?
Ruby wasn't really sure, but right now, she didn't care a whole lot either. All she wanted to do was sleep. Heck, when she got back to Beacon, all she would do was sleep. Ozpin would probably let her sleep once he heard about how much she had been through.
Another shuddering breath left through her lips, and Ruby's eyes scanned the night sky again. Not like she had the energy to do anything else. Her eyes stopped at every star, watching it twinkle against the darkness, but as she did, she couldn't help but feel like something was... off.
Maybe she had just travelled really far, and everything looked out of place because of that. After all, she had spent last night in someone else's house, and the week before that in a tiny prison cell, so she never had a chance to take a good look. Something at the back of her head told her that couldn't be right.
Ruby narrowed her eyes and looked again. She wasn't super into space or anything like that, so she had no idea what stars were supposed to be there, but she could've sworn that there were too many stars in completely different places, like it was a competely different night sky. That was impossible, but... no matter how many times she tried to tell herself that she was just being silly, she couldn't quite shake the icy feeling crawling its way up her back.
Then she moved her gaze further upward, and her heart stopped.
"Jotaro..." she whispered. Jotaro didn't reply, so she shook him, and he grunted, letting her know he hadn't fallen asleep.
"Jotaro," she said again, and this time, when she pointed up at the sky, his gaze followed.
"What?" he grumbled.
"What is that?"'
"It's the moon."
"I know that, but why is it... whole?"
Jotaro gave her a strange look, and for a moment, he looked like he was trying to tell if she was joking. Ruby really hoped she was, or maybe she was going crazy, because nothing she could think of could possibly explain that!
"It's always been like that," he said after a moment of silence.
"No, it's not!" Ruby tried to scream, but a sharp pain lanced up her stomach, and she fell back with a whimper. "No, it's not..."
Suddenly, everything began to fall into place with horrifying clarity. No Grimm, no dust, no scrolls. No Beacon, no Vale, no huntresses or huntsmen. Maybe she could have traveled through time, before any of that was a thing, or maybe she really had landed in some backwards country that had no technology, but no amount of time travel could explain why the moon looked like that!
Ruby clutched her cloak tight, suddenly feeling bery cold. "I don't think I'm on Remnant anymore," she said.
How was she gonna get home now?
The Sun – 19 (Retired)
Upright: Positivity, fun, warmth, success, vitality
Reversed: Inner child, feeling down, overly optimistic
Originally, I'd planned for the fight to be completely different, but that turned out really long and boring, so I ended up writing all this off the top of my head. If the laws of physics seem particularly liquid today, that's why. I guess it's a good thing I split the fight in two, otherwise I would've forced myself to finish the mediocre version of the fight.
I did finish the chapter by Tuesday, but I held it back for a day or two to do some proofreading. I've been feeling particularly motivated as of late, so hopefully I'll get enough done to get a chapter out within the next two weeks, but who knows how long this'll last.
Anyway, Ruby knows now! I think some people complained it was taking her too long to catch on, I've been holding out on it because of comedy, and because I thought revealing it in this fashion would be particularly dramatic. I'll wrap up The Sun & the fallout within the next chapter, again, hopefully within two weeks. Until then, feel free to leave a review, it keeps the story at the top of my head. Take care of yourselves out there, and stay safe!