1988, sur un train Thaïlandais
With a panicked heft of his booted foot, Polnareff throws his weight into the train cabin door. It nearly cracks off the hinges as it opens, and both him and Joseph jump one car ahead in the train.
Damn. This bastard is in the reflection itself! How do I beat that?
"Polnareff, what happened?"
"Mr. Joestar, there's a Stand in the glass!" Joseph lingers behind Polnareff as they pass some more passenger rooms. Polnareff turns behind him to see Joseph scratching his chin, but catches a glimpse of the mummy inside the door glass on the rooms they pass. "Chariot!"
With a silver flash, Chariot bursts from Polnareff's shoulder and shatters each window they pass with a slash of its rapier. Joseph instinctively raises his arm over his eyes and looks down, and dives into a roll at the end of the train cabin. Polnareff tugs on the cabin door ahead, finding it to be locked. He turns to see Joseph staring pensively at the shattered glass littering the hall floor.
"Polnareff, duck!" Joseph falls flat to the floor and extends Hermit Purple from both his arms down the hall, and Polnareff follows suit in ducking down. Just as he does, he feels a inch of his flat top fly off as it gets cut by an invisible dagger. The purple vines sweep the hall, shoving the glass to each side in piles.
"What the hell, how do we fight this?" Joseph is silent in front of Polnareff, seemingly focused on the glass lining the train hallway. Not a moment later, a train car flies open and a middle-aged Asian woman walks out and steps in the pile of glass shored up against her cabin door. Her shoes crunch on contact with the pile, and her eyes scan the hall in confusion at the glass. She screams something in Thai, presumably.
"Get back in the cabin, lady!" Not understanding Polnareff's English, she turns her head to the peculiar Frenchman and stares.
"Dammit!" Joseph pounds his fist on the cabin floor and springs up. "Bust that door down, Polnareff, we need to run!" He puts himself between the woman down the hall and Polnareff, and a gout of blood shoots out as he's stabbed in the shoulder from the front. The woman screams and runs down the hall away from the two, turning her head away at the sight of blood.
"Mr. Joestar!" Chariot bursts forth and impales the door lock, ripping it and the deadbolt out of the frame. Joseph covers the wound with his hand and, with a heel turn, slams the mutilated door open. A rush of wind floods the hall, and Polnareff realizes that this is the last passenger car. Up ahead, the storage car, which has an even heavier lock on it.
Just as they are about to bust the next door down, the train intercom buzzes to life in their cabin. "Polnareff…so nice to see you. How do you like my Stand, Hanged Man?"
"You bastard, where are you?"
"I'm on the plane of the living, of course. You'll be departing it shortly…"
"Polnareff, he must be in the front of the train. That's the only room with access to the intercom."
"Oh, Polnareff. It's too bad you won't get to see me before I slice you open. I'm just the man you're looking for. Oh how I'd like to taste your Sherry again…" In a fraction of a moment, Chariot cuts the wires on the speaker booming from the top corner of the car.
I'll have you begging for your life. No words can express my joy right now…
"Hey, we can't linger here. Let's get on top of the train to regroup." Joseph latches onto the top of the car with Hermit Purple, and Polnareff leaps up behind as well. They hunker down to prevent the wind from blowing them away, and Chariot punches two holes in the roof of the luggage car for them to grip onto.
"Tch, seems like our only chance is to avoid any sort of reflections…" Polnareff casts his eyes down in thought, eyes scanning the dull metallic train roof. Joseph goes to speak up, but his breath catches in his throat. Before Polnareff can even lift his head, Joseph grabs his head by the temple and twists it away. "Hey, what the hell, Mr. Joestar!"
"Don't blink, Polnareff, just look at the jungle!"
"What? Why?"
"I need to think of a plan, and that Stand is in your eye." Polnareff reaches up to feel his eye, but Joseph smacks his arm back down. "Stop. We only have a few minutes to plan something. And by we, I mean me. Sit tight, Polnareff."
Damn it. I feel so helpless against this thing.
"Don't worry, kid. You'll be the one to skewer this thing. I think I have an idea…" The silver haired Frenchman feels a fire light in his chest.
Sherry…
In the new caboose of a Thai Train Car, with Avdol
"Avdol, that thing ripped apart a train car by itself. We need to regroup and get the others."
"To quote Polnareff: Au contraire. This demon car picked the wrong one of us to fight." Kakyoin ducks to the floor as another volley of gasoline bullets punches holes in the train car around them. Without flinching, Avdol stands resolute in the center of the pressurized gasoline. A couple hit him in the leg and gut, but simply smiles in the face of it. A voice seems to boom from the car trailing behind them.
"What's the matter, Avdol? Scared stiff? Just as afraid as your little baby friend Kakyoin?" Lifting his head from the floor, all Kakyoin can see is the back of Avdol's legs. Roaring laughter erupts from Avdol, who pats his chest and stomach as he laughs.
"Have you gone mad?"
"Oh Kakyoin. You forget, I have experience with some Stand users. I know just who this is." Standing, Kakyoin puts a hand on Avdol's shoulder and peers around to get a good look at the sports car. Since he last caught a glimpse of it, the car's tires have expanded and coated themselves with spikes. Railroad ties are lifted and chucked as the wheels impale the tracks it rides over.
This Stand, it changes…
"This, my lily white friend, is Fortune. One of the few Stands I know much about."
"What? You're bluffing, Avdol! You're just about to piss yourself in fear." The car roars to life as the front grille opens like jaws, and lunges at the car.
"Kakyoin, join me! Magician's Red!" The bird Stand bursts out of Avdol's chest and grabs the open mouth of the Stand about to take a bite out of their train cabin.
I'll have to trust him. The man with the superior intel is the one to be feared.
"Emerald Splash!" Hierophant Green's arms extend from Kakyoin's shoulders, and form a frothing emerald waterfall between their hands. Gems come careening from the waterfall, and into the open grille of the monstrous red sports car. Clanging metal resonates from the engine block inside as it gets battered, and the cars pulls back.
"Good, Kakyoin, now duck!" Magician's Red recalls and floats in front of Avdol's stoic body, both of their arms crossed in self-assuredness. Gasoline bullets rain towards them both but, with a nonchalant lift of his hand, Avdol raises a wall of fire to block the hits. Instead though, the bullets pass through as fiery projectiles.
"Ahahaha, you think you can stop gasoline with fire! Burn to death, you idiots!"
"Avdol, you'll light this whole train on fire! Stop!"
"Tch tch." Avdol clicks his tongue and laughs. With a snap of his finger, the fire wall and all the enflamed projectiles extinguish. The cabin's lingering smoke gushes back and out of the exposed rear of the train. "Like I said, Fortune. You picked the wrong one of us to fight. Once I light all your precious projectiles on fire, they're mine."
I see, as long it's on fire, Avdol can extinguish it at will. That knowledge will certainly help us, but…
"You might be able to avoid burning up, but how about I grind you up with the rest of my Stand!"
"Avdol!" Kakyoin goes to pull Avdol back, but notices that sports car has lost a bit of its size. The spikes on the tires have gotten smaller, like treads instead of gouging spears. Avdol uncrosses an arm and points directly at the Stand.
"Have you noticed, Kakyoin? This Stand's weakness?" Kakyoin squints his eyes, but a sudden realization straightens his posture.
Avdol. Even through the pain of those bullets and the oncoming car…That's the power of knowledge, hm?
Kakyoin steps up and stands right beside Avdol, shoulder to shoulder. The car is rapidly accelerating, the hood and grille opening up to reveal whirling saws and gnashing metal teeth. Yet, they stand resolute, Stands nowhere to be seen.
"You call that piece of shit a Stand?" Kakyoin chuckles to himself and points at the car, unflinching at the oncoming metal.
"You know what they say in America, Kakyoin? People with fancy cars are overcompensating for something!" Avdol smacks Kakyoin's back and joins him in laughter. Kakyoin squints his eyes open from his laughter, and sees the car shrink. The tires have returned to normal, and the saws and jaws of the car have shrunk considerably.
"You bastards! I'll kill you!" Muscular arms reach out from the window and white knuckle grip the frame. Kakyoin and Avdol simply burst out into another round of laughter, and the car begins to jostle as its smaller tires struggle to maintain traction on the bumpy railroad tracks.
"DIO must be scraping the bottom of the barrel to hire you!"
"He'd be better off hiring Herbie the Love Bug!"
"Or better yet, throwing a model car at us!"
"Did you have to rent that car, or steal it, you loser?" At that last word, Kakyoin outstretches his right arm and flips off the struggling sports car bouncing up and down.
"You…you…you assholes!" The red sports car begins to lose its shine before reverting back to look like a regular vehicle.
"Confidence," Kakyoin chuckles a bit to himself as he turns to Avdol, "that is this poor Stand's weakness."
"Good deduction, Kakyoin, I wanted to give you a chance to take this thing down, too."
"Can I do the honors, Avdol?"
"It would be my pleasure."
"Hierophant Green! Emerald Splash!" Another hail of emeralds gushes from the extended arms of Kakyoin's Stand, nailing the sports car right in the hood, piercing through to the engine block. The car sputters a bit, still trying to maintain speed, before ultimately a puff of smoke blows out of the hood. The muscular arms in the driver seat pump up and down in frustration, the voice long since drowned out and distant as the train leaves it in the dust. Just as the car is almost out of view, Kakyoin sees it transform into a rusted, used car, broken down and useless on the train tracks.
"I doubt that coward will be back."
"You're right, Kakyoin. A confidence-based Stand like Fortune can't even dream of coming back to fight us after that humiliation. Now, let's find Polnareff. I doubt he's found such an easy opponent."
Thailand, 43 Days to save Holly
Even if we find the Stand user, this damn thing will try and catch us off guard. We have to disable it first. Something as versatile as this thing probably can't take too many hits…
Joseph inhales the passing wind, and presses a hand against his stab wound. Hamon flows across it, closing the wound a bit, albeit a bit less effective since it's his own flesh. He takes a shiny American dime from his pocket, and drops it into the darkened luggage cabin below.
"Now, Polnareff. Time to test my theory." The coin bounces a bit on the floor below, before settling in the small beam of light cast from the hole in the roof. Joseph yanks Polnereff's head down and towards the hole, making sure to turn his own head away.
"Can I blink yet, Mr. Joestar? My eyes are so dry…"
"Do it, Polnareff!" Joseph snaps his gaze to the hole in the train, and sees a mote of light fly down into the car. He pushes Polnareff down onto his back, and firmly jams his boots over the two hand-sized holes in the roof. "Gather yourself. I'm relying on you to get to the front of the car!"
"Wait, what happened?"
"The enemy's Stand is in the reflection."
"So how are we supposed to fight it? We can't go in there!"
"Didn't you pay attention in school? Reflections are just light. The Stand is light!" Polnareff scratches his temple, then snaps his finger in recognition.
"So we can just stab the light?" He grins in pride, but Joseph whips his arm with Hermit Purple.
"If you can catch it, you prideful buffoon. You're the only one fast enough. Just watch for a miniscule ball of light. I doubt we can keep that Stand locked in this car forever. Hurry!" Polnareff bolts up, and turns to run to the front of the train. Only a few cars separate them and the lead car.
From what I gather, Polnareff, this is the man you've been looking for. Revenge for a loved one is the last thing I'd keep you from…
END OF INTERLUDE 4