United Arab Emirates, 1470 Miles from Cairo
With cautious, light steps, Avdol steps out onto the barely finished floor in front of him. The darkness and quiet around both him and Polnareff threatens to swallow them whole, save for the stale beam of light from Avdol's flashlight. The concrete shards beneath his feet crunch a bit as Avdol navigates as quietly as possible. The floors are barely walkable this high up in the building, with a grid of steel supports filled in with metal meshes and barely finished concrete filling them in.
"Avdol…how are we gonna find him in this darkness? Even with that light…" Polnareff somberly whispers from behind Avdol. Instead of responding, Avdol just tilts his head up, looking up at the ceiling above him. The floor above looks even more unfinished, with streams of airborne concrete dust spiraling through drafty holes in the incomplete stonework above.
Hm, this is probably as high up as we can reasonably go.
"Avdol?" Polnareff pokes Avdol in the shoulder, hoping to get some sort of answer. However, Avdol doesn't quite respond yet. He closes his eyes, hands the flashlight to Polnareff, and conjures Magician's Red from his arms. In front of him, a flaming compass forms between his open hands, the subtle heat pushing the chill from his core. Finally, he opens his eyes and looks towards Polnareff.
"Look," He indicates the compass with a nod. The flames glow brighter on the top half of the compass, "He's still higher up…We have no choice, Polnareff."
"…" Polnareff gives him a grave look, nods, then stoops down as quick as lightning. He grabs a handful of concrete shards, rattles them in his hand for just a moment, then flings them in an arc around the room. The floor around them echoes with dull vibrations as the concrete pieces strike the steel supports all around them in the darkness.
"Magician's Red!" Flames burst from Avdol's body, surging through and lighting up the steel skeleton of the room around them. Him and Polnareff stand back to back, Silver Chariot's arm protruding through Polnareff's, as they look around the now lit-up room.
"Oi! Asshole! We're ready for you! Come at us!" With fire in his voice matching the searing heat of the air around him, Polnareff shouts loud enough to hear the echo from the staircase behind them.
That should be enough to disorient him…unless he's been stalking us the enti-
"Avdol! Above!" Polnareff dives forward into a tumble while pointing, causing Avdol to roll on the ground in front of him while looking up. An aqueous hand descends down from a cleanly sliced gash in the ceiling above them, the three razor sharp claws slashing at the spot where they were just standing. The hand falls through the gouges it leaves in the floor, disappearing from sight.
As I thought, he was waiting for us to get distracted. Good thing Polnareff caught it in time…
"Thank you, Polnareff! Now, as we discussed!" Kicking off from the floor, Avdol stands and dashes to the left side of the framed floor, heat and fire gushing from Magician's Red behind him. Polnareff nods and rolls onto his feet, sprinting to the other side of the room. Being this high up, the room appears to be barren of both worklights and tools, though the sides of the building seem to be covered in tarps, obscuring the view of the skyline outside.
Avdol's footsteps loudly clang and thud as his feet slam down on the metal supports outlining the half finished concrete slabs in the center of them. Flames well up around him, the beams red hot barring the exact spots where Avdol steps.
Now, let's test out our plan.
In a fraction of a moment, the enemy Stand bursts through a metal support in front of Avdol and disappears, the floor below him now creaking and warping from the extreme heat and weight. The concrete slab in the center of the framing dangles from the intact side of the floor as Avdol steadies himself.
As I thought, the heat's throwing him off from my position, even if it's painfully obvious where I am.
His eyes harden as he scans the room. Gaps open up in the flames as he scans around, his vision used to the contrast between the flames and the rest of the room in an instant. After only a second or two of looking, he spots a speeding trail of water riding up the side of a steel column and onto the ceiling, twisting its way to Avdol's approximate position.
A smile forms on Avdol's face.
"What? Are you lost? Come and get me!" Avdol stomps hard on the partially bent beam below him, causing all the flames around him to extinguish. Magician's Red floats in front of him, flames on its wrists low and readied. The water stops its flow immediately and gathers itself into a small hemisphere. Then, as quick as lightning, it forms a claw and drops towards Avdol's head.
The smile transforms into a grin.
Avdol's arms spread wide, as do Magician Red's. A flaming circle surrounds them both, intersecting the palms of both Avdol and his Stand's hands, pulsing with intensity as the claw draws closer. Finally, just as the claw is about to reach Magician's Red, Avdol shouts out.
"Red Coal Carpet!"
Suddenly, the circle of flame turns into a full sphere for only a moment, before bursting out as a massive wave of heat and fire in all directions. Though Avdol can't see, Magician's Red's eyes focus on the water claw as the all-around onslaught of flame crashes into it. The enemy Stand is blown backwards at the ceiling, dispersing into little droplets as the flames push it through the holes in the ceiling. Beneath him, the whole building rumbles from the force of the technique, the tarps coating the outside burning into nothing.
As I thought. As sharp as you are, you're just water. And it'll take more water than that to quench my flame.
His grin turns into a smirking wink.
Reaching out his hands in a half point, half thumbs up, he clicks his tongue as the beam beneath him groans and lowers from the heat and force it just sustained.
"You're up, Polnareff…" He excitedly leaps down from the compromised beam to the lower floor, looking up as he lands. "Glad I got to use that one, usually they're all standing a little too close."
He chuckles to himself as he runs towards the stairs, fire dissipating from around him as he watches his steps.
A l'intérieur de "Silver Tower", 1988
Oi.
A massive explosion of fire pulses out from the other side of the floor.
I guess that's my cue.
Polnareff slowly peeks from the other side of a metal column. He had been quietly moving on his side of the floor, letting Avdol take the first encounter. From the sounds of it, it was a success.
"Oi! Avdol! You alright?" Polnareff shouts as loud as he can, holding onto the support with one hand as he presses his chest to it. In the distance, Polnareff can barely make out Avdol's voice, from a little lower than he expects.
"Thank you for your concern, Polnareff, but I am fine. I fell to a lower floor, but you should be wary. I blasted him a floor up."
Great…I was hoping this was going to be easy.
Lifting his knee up to the metal column, he bends his foot so that the ball is planted firmly on the column as well. He breathes with a bit of anxiety, then kicks off the steel pillar directly backwards. Just as his back collides with a concrete slab floor behind him, the enemy Stand slices through the column he had been leaning on.
Yep, another point for Avdol…he figured this N'doul guy could hear me clear as day if I leaned against any of the pillars…But now it's my turn to shine.
The water claw barely misses a beat, raring itself back as it refocuses on the point of Polnareff's impact.
"Oh? You're pretty quick." Polnareff rises up and leans on his knee, "Let's see how we compare."
Silver Chariot forms behind him, its armor immediately bursting off of it. The pieces noisily collide with the metal beams and columns around it, but the claw seems unperturbed.
Heh, he must know about my armor. Let's see if he's done all his homework.
The water claw rushes forward, three deadly sharp points centering on where Polnareff sits. However, Chariot scoops Polnareff up and chucks him straight up into the air, Polnareff twisting to keep line of sight on the enemy Stand. The claw stops its swipe midway as it notices the lack of contact, freezing in place.
"Gotcha, you bastard!"
With a strike quicker than lightning, Chariot stabs the Stand through the back of its manifested hand. Yanking it upward, Chariot heaves the water claw up along with its blade, the Stand fully impaled on it. The water twitches, trying its best to move as Polnareff lands gracefully on his feet.
"Seems like whoever gave you the info on me forgot to mention a few things." Polnareff coldly glares and points at the impaled claw, "My Stand, Silver Chariot, can impale anything. A hull of a ship, fire, even the air itself. Why did you think I couldn't stab through a drop of water?"
With a few circling steps, Polnareff continues, "Now, while I have my captive audience, I just have to wait for Kakyoin to track you down and hold you still. And once Mr. Joestar gets here, we can see just what DIO has in store for us." He notices the claw start to wriggle its way up to the tip of the rapier, though Chariot swiftly responds by jamming the end of the rapier into an intact steel column.
"No, you don't. You're gonna wait right there."
Footsteps echo in the stairwell in the distance, with Avdol rounding the corner and looking for Polnareff a second later.
"Oi, Avdol. I nailed down our moisture problem." Polnareff coolly points to the end of his sword as he looks at Avdol.
"Excellent job, Polnareff." Avdol starts to approach, but stops himself with a hard look on his face, "You may want to move, however."
"Tch!" Polnareff's eyes look back at Stand's sword, only to notice the water claw having dissipated into a large drop that is currently descending down the blade towards the hilt. With a flick of its wrist, Chariot snaps the blade at the hilt and jumps back alongside Polnareff, just as the water claw swipes at Chariot's throat.
"Don't underestimate him, Polnareff. Must be one of DIO's elites that Hol Horse had mentioned." Magician's Red bursts from Avdol, floating in front of him. The claw lingers on Chariot's separated blade, dividing Polnareff and Avdol alongside the pillar between them. Polnareff flips up to his feet, staring at the enemy Stand with a look of frustration.
"The bastard's trying to keep my sword from me."
"Your fault for giving it to him, Polnareff. For now, let us improvise, shall we?" Avdol smiles once again, then makes a gesture with his hands. "Crossfire Hurricane!"
A ankh-shaped burst of flame rushes forward from Magician's Red, crashing into the metal column.
Shit! Warn me next time!
Polnareff sucks in his stomach and turns sideways, trying to line himself up with the pillar. Flames spill from the other side, leaving only a little gap unscorched like a shadow cast from a searchlight. He can feel the metal in his earrings grow hot as the air singes everything around him, a very familiar feeling from the last time he got hit with a Crossfire Hurricane. However, the heat is a little less unbearable despite almost engulfing Polnareff, a sign of Avdol's pure mastery of fire.
Squinting through the bright licks of flame, Polnareff sees the enemy Stand drooping off Chariot's embedded blade, the heat transferring from the column to the rapier's edge. It finally drops off and funnels through a crack in the blasted concrete below, the flames subsiding not a moment later. Polnareff dives forward, Chariot beside him, flinging himself past the pillar and next to Avdol. Chariot, however, has its hilt out and jams it directly into the end of its blade, reattaching it and slicing through the pillar as Polnareff rolls out of his dive and rises next to Avdol.
"Oi, Avdol. This guy is slippery."
"I've seen. Guess we'll have to improvise some more…"
"Oi, and warn me next time you plan on lighting me up!"
"Relax, Polnareff. That one would've been far hotter than the one in Hong Kong if I had let it hit you."
"What about that is relaxing?"
Avdol clicks his tongue, turning his back to Polnareff. Polnareff follows suit and presses his back against Avdol like before.
"Simple, Polnareff. It didn't hit you. Trust my accuracy like I trust your blade."
Tch. Easy for you to say.
Their eyes scan the room around them, looking for even the slightest movement, the stillness eating at Polnareff's patience…
END of INTERLUDE 13