The familiar feel of the spines of his stone mask, driving themselves into his brain as they hummed with the power of the Hamon that his pet and her forces had so generously given to him, brought a pleased smile right back to his face as he his body began to hum with the new power that his latest iteration of his mask was even at this very moment granting to him. As the mask, its purpose fulfilled, shattered into fragments from the overload of Hamon that the Red Stone had channeled through it, Kars stepped forward to collect his clever pet.

She'd leaped onto one of those constructs of hers, riding on its back in a clear effort to attack him when he had been incapacitated by the UV lights that she had mounted within their mouths.

Truly, he'd have to remember to congratulate her for such a thing, once he'd polished off the last of his little hawk's flaws. Dashing forward, through the beam of UV light that was still being projected from that construct she was riding and even over the screams and dismayed cries of the human pets that she had gathered so close around her, Kars opened his arms to scoop her up. Smirking as she leaped backwards, once again willing to concede such a meaningless concept as pride in order to secure something that truly mattered to her, he leaped forward a second time.

Such a thing was just one more reason that his little hawk properly belonged with him.

=BT=

The sight of sunlight gathering at the eastern horizon, a sight that had brought such hope to him during the times when he, Alice, and Dio would hunt wicked vampires during the time the three of them had spent in Tibet during his training under Master Tonpetty, brought no such feelings into Jonathan's heart on this day. The sight of Kars, his hood torn away by either his own efforts or the spines of the new mask that he had obviously been carrying with him; like as not for just such a situation as this, was not one to grant any of those who stood here against him hope.

"Hmm, what a lovely sight," Kars said, arrogant even in his pleasure. "The light of the sun is a truly wondrous thing," Kars turned to Alice, a hint of cruel amusement arising on his face as his bloody crimson eyes locked upon her armored form. "I suppose I should apologize to you, pet," Kars said, raising his arms as though he was going to make another grab for Alice where she was standing, right hand hidden behind the curve of her hip. "But, there's only room for one ultimate life form in this world!"

A wave of blackness – No, those are feathers! – spread down from Kars' shoulders, all the way up to his hands, which were themselves transforming into what looked like the clawed wings of some immense bird. Kars leaped into the air, making a diving grab for Alice, even as his and Dio's sister dove out from under him, running as fast as any vampire was capable of. Kars whipped around, following in Alice's wake with a horribly arrogant cackle.

"Mr. Joestar!" Caesar called, drawing his attention before Jonathan himself could have set off after his and Dio's sister.

"What is it, Caesar?" he demanded, feeling the urgency of Alice's flight from Kars as a vice around his very heart.

"I've made contact with Straizo," the young Italian said, a serious expression on his face as the pair of them faced one another. "We need to move quickly, if we're going to be able to meet up with him."

"But Alice-!"

"She's buying us time!" Caesar shouted, before he could finish so much as a single sentence. "Now, come on! Straizo is going to be here soon!"

=BT=

Well, this is a hell of a thing, Alice mused, charging across the empty landscape with Kars flapping the shiny black wings that used to be his arms, eating up what distance that she tried to put between the pair of them. It always seemed to be something that she was dealing with; whether it was the oddity of actually being able to intercede in the Civil War, when she'd thought that she and all of her siblings had been born too late for that kind of thing, or running like hell from some crazy birdman that wanted to… Well, she didn't know what Kars ultimately wanted from her, but she knew enough about the Pillar Man's personality to know that she wanted nothing to do with it.

The sound, and then the scent, of some small animal falling towards her drew Alice's attention up to… Of all things, a rabid squirrel that was falling down toward her. Shifting slightly, Alice swatted the thing with a high-speed evaporation freeze, shattering it under her foot as she kept running. Pulling a couple loops of her hair through the tremor-sensors that she'd installed on the top and the back of her helmet – for those times when she was operating under the sun, and thus couldn't really stick her hairs out in order to sense the delicate vibrations in the air that would tell her the locations of things when she couldn't turn around to see them for whatever reason – Alice narrowed her eyes as she sensed a large collection of wriggling somethings dropping down towards her.

Well, at least I have his attention, she mused, chilling her hands as she gathered a jagged handful of frozen needles in both of them, then launching herself into a leaping pirouette as she flung them up into what turned out to be a falling school of what seemed to be rather large piranhas. Really now, hissing softly as she rolled under Kars' dive, launching herself forward in almost a sprinter's stance, Alice tugged on her tremor-sensors as she caught the distant sound of a sonic boom. When she leaped the edge of the cliff, Kars slamming into her from behind, Alice smirked, even as she heard the shattering crack of her titanium armor and felt something digging into the back of her skull…

=BT=

Well done, pet, he mused, grinning as he gripped his clever little hawk in the security of his ribs and pulled her in close to his chest, even as he extended elastic veins from his arms and legs, pulling her limbs in close to his own so that he could fold them properly within his own malleable flesh. As he'd seen before, and come to expect from his pet when she would leave the sanctuaries that she had clearly established for established for herself throughout the length and breadth of the world, there was a secondary layer under the elegant but useless armor that he'd peeled from her insensate form as he drove her into torpor once more.

Regaining his position in the air above all of the forces that his clever hawk had brought to this place – forces that he would make a proper assessment of once he'd begun his pet's transformation into the Pillar Woman that she deserved to be – Kars became aware of that same, sustained scream that he'd heard once before.

Turning to confront whatever it was that was making such an annoying racket, Kars found himself confronted by some kind of aircraft.

=BT=

Shuddering as he beheld the black-winged form of Kars, Jonathan came to understand yet more of the prophecy that Master Tonpetty had granted to him. Kars' ribs, extending from his chest and wrapping around Alice's torso like some terrible parody of the clamps that Alice herself would often use when she was constructing something or other, made more than clear just what twisted branches Master Tonpetty had been referring to in his prophecy. Only the top half of Alice's body was visible; her arms and legs having clearly been hidden away within the folds of the Pillar Man's flesh. Jonathan could only hope that they were merely hidden, as opposed to being devoured the way Kars had done to Dio.

Thoughts of his vampire brother brought Jonathan's attention firmly back to the present, just in time for the sound of something beating against the shatter-resistant, UV-filtering glass of their plane's canopy to catch his ear.

"Kars!" Dio's snarl, filled with more hatred than he'd ever heard even from his mercurial brother, almost encompassed the hatred that Jonathan himself felt for the Pillar Man who was flying above them even now.

Even the fact that he'd clearly refrained from maiming Alice in the same, cruel way that he'd done to Dio was no comfort, since he was clearly taunting them with her unconscious form: an elastic vein of the same kind that Dio, Alice, and Straizo would all use to extend their reach at times was wound around Alice's right wrist, tensing and relaxing in order to send her right hand rebounding off of the canopy over their heads.

"Straizo, open the canopy!" Dio snarled, turning his attention from the cruelly taunting form of Kars in the sky as though such a thing physically pained him to do.

"Calm down, Dio," Caesar said, though there was more of a growl in the young Italian's voice than Jonathan thought would help any of those present here.

The sight of Kars' grinning face outside the canopy of their plane, leering down in that same, cruel way that he'd seen the Pillar Man do so many times in the past… Jonathan knew that his and Alice's brother would not be calmed until their sister had been restored to them once more. Neither would he, but Dio's fury was not to be underestimated.

"Straizo, open the bloody canopy!"

"Dio!" he called, drawing the attention of his and Alice's brother, before he could do something mad in the blind fury that was clearly building in him. "That's Kars' plan! He wants you to do something mad. If the canopy is opened at this speed, and with the plane this high in the air, we'll all be thrown free from the aircraft as we're in motion!"

Beyond that, there was also the simple fact that all of the oxygen would be torn loose, suffocating those members of their party that required breathing in order to sustain themselves. However, at the moment Jonathan knew that his and Alice's brother was not sane enough to truly comprehend that fact, simple as it was. Dio's anguished scream sounded nearly inhuman, but even with the maddened, helpless fury in his carmine eyes, his and Alice's brother allowed himself to flop back into the seat he'd been settled in.

=BT=

Narrowing his eyes slightly as he beheld the humans in that aircraft of theirs, Kars dismissed them; confined as they were by that metal coffin of theirs, even those vampires that tailed so obediently after his clever hawk would be helpless to stop him. A moment's concentration saw him extruding a pair of jets from his back, and Kars turned his flightpath. There was truly only one proper place for his pet's transformation into the Pillar Woman that she was meant to be to begin: the temple where he and his had consumed the humans who had been foolish enough to attempt to challenge their dominion.

=BT=

"The Boss used herself to buy us time," Caesar said, leaning forward to take Dio's armored hand. "She knows what she's doing; trust her."

"This plane is armed for combat with vampires," Straizo said, his steady tone lending some much-needed calm to those aboard the aircraft that Jonathan and all of his people were pursuing the Pillar Man through the air to whatever destination he intended to make for when he'd taken Alice. "We have Starburst, Rattler, and Shrieker rounds," Straizo continued, and Jonathan could just about see the thoughtful frown upon the other vampire's face.

"We should probably save the Rattlers and Shriekers until we manage to get Alice away from him," Caesar said thoughtfully. "She won't be able to protect herself from the sensory-overload they're designed to cause, considering the state she's in."

"Yes," Straizo said, the steady calm in his tone a sharp contrast to the simmering tension in the plane as a whole, and the seething rage he could see on Dio's face in particular. "Firing Starburst."

Finding himself clenching his fists almost involuntarily, Jonathan forced himself to relax as he watched the Starburst missile streak over Kars' head, breaking apart into multiple smaller magnesium-flares which then exploded into the kind of horrible, eye-searing light that would incapacitate any vampire who found themselves caught out in it. Their jet thundered over the Pillar Man's head, turning around to unleash another Starburst missile into Kars' path, before turning to race out of the way of any possible retaliation.

"Caesar, you know this area better than anyone else here," he said, turning around in his seat as best he could so that he could properly speak to Caesar where he was sitting. "Do you know of any volcanoes close enough to reach?"

"Yes, of course!" Caesar exclaimed, a grin breaking out on his face as he turned back to Jonathan. "Isola de Volgano!"

"How long do you think we can keep him following us?" Joseph asked, seeming more than a little unsettled by the whole situation; Jonathan could hardly blame him, truly.

This was an unsettling situation for all of them.

"We'll keep him following as long as we need to, Jojo," Caesar said, a note of grim pleasure in his voice.

Narrowing his eyes as Straizo jinked the plane around, following Caesar's directions as Kars righted himself in the air and followed quickly after them. Even from such a distance as their plane was maintaining from the Pillar Man, Jonathan could see the lines of tension and fury in every line of his body. Maintaining the deep, steady breaths that would allow him to channel his Hamon, Jonathan braced himself as Straizo accelerated the plane, turning their path steadily towards Isola de Volgano.

Towards a land born of fire…

=BT=

Snarling as he turned to confront the insolent pests who had dared to attack him with those infuriating weapons of theirs, Kars narrowed his eyes as he focused on the fleeing aircraft that had been harassing him.

"My apologies, pet, but it seems that you will have to wait a bit longer to become what you were meant to be," he said, glancing briefly down at his clever hawk, as he turned once again to confront the infuriating creatures aboard that aircraft of theirs.

Redeploying the jets that he'd used to maneuver, Kars set off after that aircraft, and all of the irritating pests riding within it.

=BT=

Growling under his breath he, Dio, tried to settle himself back into his seat. He knew that his sweet sister would berate him for being so tense as all this, he knew that she would have been able to keep a level-head aside from the cold fury that would make things all the clearer in her eyes, but such a thing had never truly been in him. He knew that his sweet sister was not of a kind to approve of such a thing, but no matter how the pair of them had worked at such a thing, his temper had never seemed one to be tamed.

Forcing himself to at least unclench, before any of the others riding in their plane could turn around and see what he was doing he, Dio, turned to look out through the canopy once again.

It seemed that they were nearing the volcano that Jojo had been so insistent that they all go to, and he could see the infuriating sight of that bastard Kars through the rear monitor-cameras. He could also see the unconscious form of his sweet sister, hanging like some kind of twisted ornamentation from the ribs that that infuriating bastard of a Pillar Man had wrapped around her. Hissing as he remembered once again the way that Kars had pulled his sweet Alice into the very flesh of his body once he'd grabbed her from the back of the robotic dinosaur that she had been standing upon, he tried to settle himself once more.

Their plane bucked as Straizo forced Kars down with a sustained blast from the VTOL jets, and he, Dio, grinned under his helmet as the infuriating creature was pushed ever closer to the caldera of the volcano they had all finally made it to. The coup de grace was a Starburst missile, launched directly into his face as he tried to regain his lost altitude with those ridiculous wings of his.

Laughing aloud as he, Dio, watched Kars plummet down toward the volcano that was to be their battleground, he braced himself as Straizo sent their plane into a sharp descent.

=BT=

Breathing slowly and deeply, both to calm himself and to channel the Hamon that he and his would sorely need once Straizo had forced Kars down to the rocky ground of the volcano, Jonathan shuddered slightly as Straizo fired a last Starburst missile as they all followed Kars as he landed. The rumble of the VTOL engines as they activated, with Straizo's firm hands guiding them to a smooth landing, not very far from the place where Kars had crashed into the ground, prompted Jonathan to close his eyes briefly.

You will meet your death on a land born of fire; to free an owl from the twisted branches of a wicked old tree, you will give your last breath to a young lion on the peak of a blazing mountain. Such had been Master Tonpetty's last prophecy to him; such had been the warning that Jonathan had carried for such a long time, and it was firmly in his mind as Straizo guided them down to land on the burning ground of the volcano underneath them. Closing his eyes for just a moment, Jonathan rose from his seat at last, making his way out alongside Straizo, Caesar, Joseph, and Dio.

The fury that he could still see in every line of Dio's armored body prompted Jonathan to reach for his and Alice's brother's right shoulder, gripping it strongly enough that the vampire would at least be able to feel the pressure through his armor. Before he say so much as a single word, however, their group of five was forced to split apart as a hail of Hamon-charged feathers – of all things – sliced through the vary air where they had just been standing. Even through the heat-distortion in the air, Jonathan could see the vortex of air created by the feathers' passage.

"Get out of the way! That windstorm is as sharp as his blades!" he shouted, warning the members of his family before they could be caught unawares by what he had only just seen.

As Kars raised himself back up, black wings slicing through the air as they launched yet another barrage of those lethal feathers of his, Straizo and Dio leaped forward to intercept them. The scarves that the pair of them wore over their armor served to drain the lethal Hamon from the feathers, causing them to burn to harmless cinders in the heat of the volcano where the six of them were battling. The sight of Alice, wrapped in Kars' exposed ribs, with most of her body hidden by the Pillar Man's flesh…

Jonathan could fully understand, and thoroughly sympathize with, the pure rage that he could both see and hear in his and Alice's brother's mien.

"We have to get close enough to pull her out of there," Caesar said, seemingly having to bite down on his own rage to do so.

"Yes," he said, narrowing his eyes as he considered just what they were going to need to do in order to accomplish such a feat; Alice would have known in an instant, but the fact remained that they didn't have her to guide them in this situation. Thus, it fell to them; to him, in particular. "Dio, Straizo, you two take up guard positions on either side of us; we're going to need you to keep the air clear of those damnable feathers of his. Joseph, stay close to me; we're going to need to get Alice out as fast as we can. Dio, how fast can you freeze one of your own kind?"

"Fast enough, Jojo," his and Alice's brother said, pure determination swiftly taking the place of the helpless fury that he'd earlier been prey to.

"Good," he said; the pair of them both knew that ice acted as a barrier for Hamon, and that a vampire such as Alice could survive freezing without a single jot of harm. "We'll need a burst of both positive and negative Hamon, in order to force Alice free from Kars' body. Joseph, that's where you and I will come in."

"Right, Gramps," his grandson said, nodding firmly as the four of them all took up their appointed positions. "Let's go!"

With Dio and Straizo to either side, absorbing the Hamon from the feathers that Kars was almost continually launching at them now, he and Joseph were able to weather what would have otherwise have been an impassable storm of lethal, razor-sharp feathers. However, it seemed that Kars was far from the mindless barbarian that Dio was most apt to describe him as, because once it had become clear that the feathers he had been using against them were no longer going to be of any help…

"Are those some kind of fish?!" Dio demanded, and Jonathan could not quite tell if his and Alice brother was more incredulous or annoyed.

"Piranhas! They're piranhas!" Joseph exclaimed.

"Mind your breathing!" he shouted, though he felt rather off-balance from the whole situation, as well.

"Bastard!" Dio snarled, whipping his scarf forward to sever one of the flying piranhas cleanly in half.

Dio and Straizo made quick work of the piranhas Kars had launched at them, cutting the creatures down with no more mercy than Kars himself had shown any of them, and Jonathan found that he could feel nothing but relief for the fact of it. Giving Dio something concrete to vent his rage on was also clearly helping his and Alice's brother; helplessness was not something that any of their family had ever been the kind to accept with grace. Nor should it have been, Jonathan knew.

Dio and Straizo pressed their hands against Alice's head just as soon as the pair of them had managed to reach her, and when he and Joseph were finally able to latch onto Kars' body just long enough to fill the Pillar Man's body with their opposing charges of Hamon, Alice's frozen body was launched free as though it had been fired from a cannon. Feeling all the lighter, as Dio swept their sister up in his armored arms and dashed back from the infuriated form of Kars, Jonathan smiled slightly.

"Give me that!" the Pillar Man roared, black wings all but slamming into the ground with their powerful down stroke, as Kars launched himself back into the air.

Dio's only answer was a blast from his Space Ripper Stingy Eyes that seared into Kars' left shoulder, and a particularly rude gesture as he ran steadily back to the plane that they had all journeyed to this place in. A barrage of Hamon-charged feathers, thick enough to nearly blacken the sky where they passed, slammed into the side of the plane. The Hamon in the feathers was enough to ignite the remaining fuel in the tanks and the jet detonated in a horrifyingly spectacular explosion, scattering the shrapnel of what had been their only means of easy escape from this place.

The fact that Jonathan knew that his own life was to end upon these grounds meant little in light of the fact that his family seemed to be trapped.