Master's Academy
Morning

The thing Fuoco Esercito hated the most about life was social standings. They rarely made sense to him. As he aggressively paced through his godforsaken school, he constantly stumbled into places and situations where he thought he'd be accepted, but was consistently refused entry. Places like the extensive library, the gym, and even most floors of the dormitory.

There was no logic to it. No number system, no statistics.

At age five he understood the Dewey Decimal System. At age eight he knew the first thirty digits of Pi. At age eleven he'd mastered Morse Code and Italian Sign Language. Now, age sixteen, he had nothing to show for it. Sure, he'd won many awards over the years, and he'd been placed highly in IQ tests – the same helped him get into Master's Academy. But none of that mattered in the face of the hardest challenge of them all: the fight for popularity.

He'd long wanted to perfect his schooling career. He was intelligent, he was great at sports… all things that would typically assist in becoming 'popular', yet there he was. Alone and forsaken.

Esercito was walking down the hall, doing his own thing, when he brushed past him. Gioviale, goddamn, Giovanna.

The man was the bane of Esercito's existence, and he didn't even know who Esercito was! He was effortlessly popular, becoming friends with Sana Rossi — a feat known for being practically impossible — in the first two days of being at Master's! Fuoco figured he'd bought her off. He'd learned about the Giovanna family shortly after Viale arrived. The books didn't lie; his family was filthy rich off mob activity. His father had been the Don of Passione for long enough to where just about everyone in Italy knew what he was. He's probably a drug trafficker, Fuoco thought. He's got that Passione money.

But lucky for Fuoco, he had recently been hit with a certain arrow, and well, let's just say that this new development had changed some things.

Viale fancied himself a forgiving man. He forgave Polneraff for shooting him without warning, he forgave Zeppeli for attacking him without warning, and he forgave himself for constantly being attacked… without warning. There was one person he did not forgive, however, and that person was standing right in front of him, stunned in the middle of some random hall.

Amicio Nemico was doubled-over, out of breath, heaving his lungs out in front of Viale. Viale was only trying to get to his next class, but of course, the life of a Stand user got in the way and took precedence.

The black-haired dunce caught his breath and attempted to speak once again.

"There's a Stand! Out on the grounds!" he hastily described. "It's like… a tiny fire guy…"

"'A tiny fire guy'?" Viale raised an eyebrow. "You gotta be more descriptive than that."

Amicio described how the Stand was like one of those toy soldiers he had as a kid, but on fire and without the guns. Viale didn't have many toys as a kid, but recalled the appearance of said toys from a movie he watched in which they were characters. With a better understanding, Viale merely brushed off the desperate man.

"I don't know why I should help you after what you did to me," he plainly stated, "Besides, who knows if this Stand is even causing trouble."

"But Viale, buddy," Amicio begged, "I can't fight him! I could only make one Stand, and it just burned right away! I had to run away to avoid breathing the fumes in."

"So why should I help you?" Viale turned heel to face his nemesis, and stared him down. Amicio shrank into himself in response. "Because as far as I know, you're still working for someone to try to get my arrow – which you stole, by the way."

Amicio groaned. "I'm not trying to get your arrow… again. There's a legitimate threat to the school running around!"

Viale sort-of-laughed. 'Yeah, sure.' "Okay then. Where is he?"

They set off to the pool area.

Esercito paced around, waiting for Giovanna to show up. He was getting impatient. He'd sent Amicio to go get him, and to make it sound believable. "He should be here by now!"

As if on queue, the boiler room door flung open just on queue. Light was spilling into the dark, dank room behind Viale. The blond stood there, in some kind of pose in the doorway (Fuoco was certain he'd seen that same pose in some magazine). Fuoco could see Amicio hiding behind the blond.

"Finally, you decided to show up, huh?" Fuoco taunted.

"Yeah, I thought if you were gonna break some shit, I should be here to watch, y'know?" Viale was lying. He only wanted to see if Amicio's claims had merit. It was obviously a trap – he didn't trust Amicio one bit – but he thought if he could handle Amicio once, he could handle this clown. "It's good entertainment."

This set something off in Esercito – he decided that talk was a waste of time. In an instant, Fuoco dragged the phosphorus across the rough surface of his matchbox that he'd been carrying in his hand, obscured to Viale's eyes. From the flame that danced around the matchstick, a faint battle cry was produced. Amongst the various other sounds that came from the room, however, it was silent on Viale's ears.

Viale watched the match silently. He'd learned by now that some Stands had odd activation requirements. Polnareff had told him of one that required the user to win a game of poker to activate the ability, so he knew to be wary. His hesitance proved fruitful, as from the match spawned an inch-high, seemingly sentient ball of fire. To Viale's confusion, the fire moulded itself into something resembling a human.

"Aww," Viale cooed, feeling cocky, "it's a little fire guy! Is this what you were talking about, Amicio?" Not hearing a response, Viale turned around to see Amicio had fled. He wasn't surprised.

"Hey! My Stand, ｢Disco Inferno｣, is not a "little guy", it's a very strong Stand!" Fuoco was beyond offended at this point. First, he came to this school and swooped up all of the ladies~, then he insulted Fuoco's very strong, very cool Stand! How dare he! "You'll pay for that comment, Giovanna!"

As Fuoco focused, more and more Infernos stepped out of the flame between his fingers. As Viale realised that it was another colony type Stand, he mentally admonished himself. Dozens and dozens piled on top of each other, more falling on top of each other in a massive miniature dogpile.

Before Viale knew it, he was being chased out of the room by around two hundred bite-sized fire Stands, who were all coughing up their own miniature fireballs and flinging them at him. He just barely managed to make it out of the pool area when he spotted Amicio, a safe distance away, just watching Viale get pummelled from behind.

Viale didn't have time to think about that, though. He decided it was time to fight back. "｢Mr. Blue Sky｣!" He dove into the cement that lined the oval. Unfortunately, as Viale soon discovered, the 'I get hurt when the surface is damaged' weakness of his Stand extended to singe marks on the cement. He quickly found himself getting burned from his hiding place. Viale quickly ejected himself from the slab. He took a small amount of time to attempt to punch the little Stands, but quickly gave up as it would be a fool's errand to try to defeat so many small targets.

Meanwhile, in the boiler room, Fuoco was exerting himself more than he expected. His Stand required more brain power and focus the more Stands he created. He had an upper limit of six hundred and sixty-six Stands that he could produce; the implications that number presented were lost on Fuoco. It turns out that Amicio was merely around the corner while Disco Inferno chased Viale out. With his job seemingly done, he entered back into the room to ask Fuoco a question.

"Is- uh… is that all you need me for?" He asked meekly. Fuoco was on the ground in a meditative position, eyes glued to the match that was still burning on the ground in front of him. There was a constant stream of Infernos coming from the flame and sprinting out the door. He was sending them to aid in the defeat of Viale.

"No, actually," the seated boy said, "I need you to stay right… there…"

As he trailed off, Amicio noticed the line of Stands marching out the door had split, and now there were a few Infernos aimed towards him.

Viale had a problem.

Scratch that, he had hundreds of problems.

And they were all climbing up him, fast. Somehow, Viale had found himself cornered almost two-hundred metres away from the user, just near the north-east corner of the school. 'How big is this guy's range?' Viale thought. The pain was immense, but Viale fancied himself quite tolerant of it. What he was mainly concerned about was the fact that he was wearing his brand new Gucci plain-white shirt. 'I gotta get these guys off me!'

Viale hastily observed his surroundings. Luckily, everyone was supposed to be in class at the time, so he practically had free reign over where to go, as long as it wasn't in sight of the classrooms. Finding nothing in his vicinity that would be able to help him get the Stands off him, he had a realisation.

"The pool has water in it," he said aloud. Viale would later chastise himself for not realising this sooner. He flung himself forward, returning back the way he came from. How silly was he? The boiler room was right next to the pool! It was obvious. But now he had to actually get there. Viale hoped his past sprinting training was enough for this.

"Woah– hey hey! What are you doing?!" Amicio did a little dance, attempting to brush off the sizzling Stands that were halfway up his leg. He'd been expecting a simple job: get Giovanna to the boiler room, and leave. That was all Esercito requested of him. But now, in this moment, he realised that he may have been too hasty in accepting the 'request'. But he had no choice; the boy said he'd burn down the building if he didn't do what he asked.

"Isn't it obvious? Tying up a loose end."

Amicio regretted a lot of things he'd done. He regretted taking orders from Zeppeli, he regretted using the arrow, but most of all, he regretted attacking Giovanna. But he couldn't help himself. He'd done it again. He couldn't stand for himself.

Or could he?

Because he wasn't going to give up that easily. In his first fight, he knew Giovanna wasn't going to kill him, or even seriously injure him – Zeppeli had said so. But this guy… he was in real danger.

Acting fast, he summoned his Stand, ｢Innervisions｣, and let one of the many crumpled paper balls that made up his base Stand catch fire. It hurt like a bitch, but by some miracle, his gambit paid off as the Infernos instantly became more enamoured with the concept of lighting the paper on fire, rather than himself. This allowed him to abandon the doomed paper and turn heel out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

Fuoco, who was busy trying to keep the match alight, only noticed that his Stand wasn't doing what it was supposed to do after Amicio had already left. He grumbled, but carried on attacking his other target.

Viale had just made it to the pool when he noticed Amicio escaping the boiler room. He had no time to think, though, as the enemy was still hot (haha) on his tail. A few Infernos had been shaken off during his mad dash back across the oval, but the ones that remained were costing him his clothes' value by the minute. Oh, and it was starting to hurt, too.

That didn't matter, because he'd made it to the pool in time.

He was elated, but that elation slowly turned to confusion, then to horror. Viale looked on in shock as he found that the pool was completely void of any water. 'How? People were using the pool yesterday. They can't have drained it this fast!' He could vividly remember walking past an in-use pool that morning as well.

Viale's questions were quickly answered, as he peered into the empty pit. At the base of the structure were hundreds of Infernos, all cheering and chest-bumping each other.

'The bastard drained the entire goddamn pool! In like, five minutes!'

That was it. He was defeated. The Infernos in the pool had noticed him and were beginning to climb out of the pool, melting holes in the tiles to use as footholds. He did what he could, even summoning Mr. Blue Sky again in an attempt to fend off the little devils, although that was quickly proving to be useless. Just as Viale was about to run away and get help–

FWOOSH!

–he was sprayed with a hose. Soaked, he turned to see Amicio at the nozzle, who turned his attention to the Infernos that were climbing the side of the pool. He quickly gave them the same treatment. They were safe, for now.

"Amicio?" Viale questioned, his eyes squinting as if he didn't believe what he was seeing. He was shocked that he'd come back for him, after Viale had all but put him in the hospital on his first day there.

"How are you losing this fight?" Amicio questioned forcefully, "You kicked my ass, yet you're falling to a bunch of little candles? What the hell, man?"

Viale was indignant, "Not that I'm not glad for the help, but didn't I just see you running away too?"

Amicio slightly recoiled from the observation. "Yeah," he admitted, "I did. I also lured you to a trap." Viale was about to respond, but he was cut off. "I also tried to hurt you before. But Giovanna, we need to get this guy, right now. No matter how." Viale was still on the ground, so Amicio offered him a hand.

This time, Viale was visibly flabbergasted. When they first met, Viale thought he was a pretty cool guy, but that was quickly changed when he tried to do the whole killing thing. That wasn't cool. Then, after Viale had soundly beat him, he was once again thrown for a loop, as the defeated Amicio was something else. But now, what was he seeing in front of him? It was a far-cry from the meek, order-taking boy he thought Amicio was.

Viale took his hand. As he helped him up, Amicio smiled at Viale nervously. "Now, have you got any idea of how to beat this guy? Because this hose won't reach."

Viale scratched his chin, and smiled wryly. "Yeah, I got something."

Fuoco huffed as Amicio closed the door behind him again. "Why are you back? Want to die that badly?" He sneered. Amicio scoffed, and had his Stand, primarily made up of discarded chip packets this time, drop what looked like Viale's unconscious body down next to him, face down. Fuoco looked down at Viale, then suspiciously back up at Amicio. "This is interesting, but didn't you just extinguish my Stand?"

Amicio rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but that was just to get him to trust me. One clean knock on the head with my Stand was enough." Amicio rounded the body. "You leave me alone, and I'll let you walk away with this."

Fuoco got up from his meditative position. He looked like he was considering it, but his sinister smile was a dead giveaway that he was only acting. "You know what? No." This was obviously a trap, Fuoco thought. He didn't know what he was planning, but he knew for a fact that Nemico wasn't bright enough to come up with something solid enough to severely hurt him.

The two stood eye-to-eye, the tension rising through the roof, each man waiting for the other to move. Fuoco was confident, whereas Amicio was moments away from breaking his thin strand of composure. The moment lasted an eternity, but the first move would end up being made by Fuoco. Suddenly, and as fast as the first time, another match was lit, dropping as many Stands out of the flame as Fuoco could manage, without needing to focus.

Amicio acted fast, sending his Stand to try to stomp out the fire, but Fuoco decided to get his own hands dirty and rammed into Amicio with his full body, sending him tumbling towards the wall next to the door. Innervisions put up a good fight, but the sheer number of Disco Infernos that Fuoco had sent towards Amicio was proving to be too much for just the one Innervision to handle.

The fact that it was flammable was also not helping the fight.

Disco Inferno had taken to climbing Innervisions like a fish to water. In an instant, the outer layer of the trash-Stand started to burn.

"You absolute dumbass, Nemico! My Stand is way more powerful than your literal garbage!" Fuoco taunted as he stood back up. 'It's just too easy!' he thought. Indeed, it seemed like that, but upon closer inspection, he noticed that Amicio was giggling. "What? What's so funny?"

Amicio started laughing harder. That's when Fuoco noticed that Amicio had moved so he was leaning again up against the door. Before he could stop him, his hand shot up and turned the doorknob, and the door swung outwards, causing Amicio to fall back, only to be caught by another Innervision that was waiting for him outside. It scooped him up, and slammed the door.

Fuoco, confused, turned to see the discarded Stand, still on fire. That was when Fuoco realised that Viale's body was gone, too. He'd figured out his mistake too late.

His eyes widened marginally as he saw that the flaming Innervisions was made up of chip packets. He thought back to the chemistry class he never paid attention to, and remembered that most chip packets are primarily composed of polypropylene, which produces highly toxic smoke when burned.

And the room was filled with it.

He rushed at the door, yanking and abusing it, trying to get it open. 'Why isn't it opening? There's no lock!'

Unbeknownst to him, Mr. Blue Sky's fingertips were popping out where the ground met the door, holding it shut like a superpowered door stopper. Viale himself was in the floor, completely safe from the smoke. And even if he was outside, he was equipped with a torn-off sleeve of his precious shirt around his mouth and nose, acting like a makeshift mask.

Fuoco was coughing and wheezing, but before he lost consciousness, he said one final sentence. "What did I do to deserve this?!"

Amicio opened the door, letting all of the smoke out at once. At the same time, Viale emerged from the floor. They both wore the same expression on their face: satisfaction.

｢Disco Inferno｣

Long-Ranged Stand

Stats:

Power: E

Speed: B

Range: A (200m)

Stamina: D

Precision: A

Potential: A

"Another one, Viale?"

Viale chuckled bashfully. He'd gone to get the principal so he could cover up Viale's absence, as he usually did when there was a Stand fight. Esposito in turn called the Speedwagon Foundation to escort the newly minted Stand criminal off the premises. "Yeah, this one was tough. You might want to look at getting the oval un-burned."

Esposito sighed in resignation. "Alright, let's get him out of here, boys." He and the Foundation members that had been dispatched swiftly exited the scene, the recently suffocated Stand user on a stretcher in tow. They were assured that he was alive.

Viale was about to head back to the dorms when Amicio tapped him on his shoulder. "Hey, Giov– Viale," he corrected, "are we good now? Because I know I've kinda been a dick to you."

Viale smiled, internally asking himself if attempted murder is considered a 'dick move'. "Yeah, we're good now."

Amicio breathed a sigh of relief. "Great, because Rossi's couch is not very homely."

To Be Continued ===