'Weird little geek got me good,' thought Johnny, as he fell to the ground.
"Johnny," Velma whispered, half from shock, half from her years of training with sneaking around to keep her voice down. She took half a step towards Johnny but jumped back as a second beam of light from Mandark shot out at her feet.
"Now now miss Dinkley, I put a six-centimeter vulnus through his upper abdomen at the point where his lung meets his liver. I presume you have enough knowledge of the medical field to know that sort of trauma to be fatal," said Mandark, walking forward and stepping over Johnny's limp body as he maneuvered her through the glass sliding door into the observation deck which had been repurposed into a lab. "Truth be told, I'm impressed the two of you managed to infiltrate down this far, but our intelligence reports that you each likely possess Stands by this point – which is the reason you're still alive. You see we need intel on your other compatriots and I figured you'd be easier to communicate with than the brute on the floor back there. So, the sooner you answer my queries, the sooner I can hand you over to a security detail."
Scanning the room, Velma took in as much information as she could, but each item in the room began to have information floating in the air nearby, as though her eyes had turned into some sort of heads-up display. Upon looking at Mandark, all the words said were, CAUTION—Dangerous
The blood in Johnny's throat had burned and crusted before it could surface in his mouth. Mandark's attack was a moment of searing pain, followed by the strange coolness of his entire nervous system shutting down.
'Doesn't even hurt,' thought Johnny, 'in fact, I barely feel anything. Like there's nothing left to the world but the sound of my own blood boiling. Ain't the prettiest thing I've ever heard, definitely not the last thing I thought I'd hear before I die…'
Every muscle in his body seemed to fail at once as he tried to stand, making it feel like he was sinking deeper into the floor as a result. Shallow half-breaths were all he could manage as his head hit the floor tile with a twist. Reflected off a mirror panel was Mandark moving towards Velma, with a strange apparition appearing in the air beside him. Resembling a person, only with skin and body parts made of tiny glowing spheres, like a thousand lightbulbs packed tightly together.
All at once, Johnny realized there was another sound he'd hate to be the last thing he ever heard. With his right side immobilized from Mandark's shot, he raised his left arm up and grabbed at the doorway and pulled himself towards it, that's when he remembered the fight at the Hospital. This wasn't the first time he was on his back with holes in his chest, but he survived that last fight. Then there was the fight with the Kung-Fu dog, bruises, broken bones, mended from going from one room to another. Each doorway was not just a way to go from one room to another, but from one life to another. And so, Johnny gripped the edge of the doorway and will his body through.
"Honestly, I'm not much for interrogations so I'm going to rely on your reputation of professionalism to know when you're outmatched and to surrender whatever information I require," said Mandark. "After all, you don't even possess a combat Stand, let alone one capable of standing up to my Particle Man. So, save us both the trouble and tell me what you've learned about all of this because all I'm missing are a few key pieces of information and then I'll be able to form a proper hypothesis about the mechanics of these newfound powers of ours."
Seeing Johnny rise up from behind Mandark, Velma knew she had to think fast to outthink the genius and buy Johnny the time he needed to get away. Raising her hand to her face, she took off her glasses and pretended to drop them to the ground in a panic. Getting down on her knees, Velma swept along the ground with her hands, "My glasses, my glasses," she said, as she had said many times before.
"What a suboptimal pair of optical enhancers miss Velma. To possess as illustrious a reputation as yours and yet be defeated by something so simple, I'm unsure whether your predicament is an indictment of the academic community or of your roughshod vocation," said Mandark.
Putting her glasses on, Velma looked up at Mandark, and just beyond him to where Johnny was standing at his full height, with his silhouette splitting in two with the summoning of his stand.
"I'm sure there's a maxim about the reverse correlation of intelligence and people who talk too much, but to be honest, I'm a little too mad to remember it at the moment. Now Johnny," yelled Velma, rolling to the side to get out of the way just as Mandark began to spin in a panic.
Raising his arms in defense, Mandark barely managed to block a straight punch from Johnny. The lights of the room dimmed for a split second as he fired another laser in reply, but Johnny jumped to follow his punch with a roundhouse kick, which changed his profile just enough for Mandark's attack to miss. In contrast, Johnny's foot hit its target, sending the bespectacled genius crashing through a transparent desk at the center of the room with a flash.
"Got you, ya little punk," said Johnny.
Surprisingly, Mandark was still on his feet, and clutching his abdomen more in surprise than pain. Looking his way, Velma saw the broken desk appeared to have melted down the middle, as though it was broken in half the moment before Mandark hit it.
"We figured one of the Stands had some sort of restorative quality to it. Honestly, that was the one variable which was most concerning to my superiors. However, we have not yet determined the mechanics or limitations of the ability. You're not the ideal research assistant, but I'm more than enough to make up for what you lack," said Mandark, adjusting his glasses as an ominous light shone through the lenses.
The lights in the room began to strobe off and on as Mandark's Stand shot out lasers which seemed to emanate from any point on its body. A blast from the hip melted through the back wall as Johnny dodged behind a table with empty chemistry beakers. Extending its right palm, Particle Man shot another blast at the table just as Johnny leapt over it, striking a pose in the air. Stopping for a quick second, Johnny grabbed a bit of shattered mirror glass from the floor and held it up as another focused beam of light shot at him.
"That's not how mirrors work numbskull," said Mandark as his laser shot clean through the mirror shield.
Pausing for a moment with smoke rising from behind the glass, Johnny gasped as his knees buckled. As Mandark chuckled and stepped forward, a smirk crossed Johnny's face as he flung the mirror at Mandark which exploded in the air as Johnny's Stand punched it into a spray of shrapnel, causing Mandark to cover his face as his Stand fired blindly around the room.
Rushing over to the worktable Velma had hidden behind, Johnny slid onto the floor next to her as he patted the smoke out of the fire that had caught the underside of his left armpit.
"Keep this up and there won't be anything left of this shirt," joked Johnny.
"As much as this place would be a treasure trove of information for our case, I think we're in more jeopardy here than I care to admit," said Velma.
"I'd say skedaddling is our best bet, but I'm surprised we haven't already drawn attention from those heavies in the meeting room downstairs," said Johnny.
"My guess is they're tinted, one-way windows. Mandark likes his privacy, which means we came in through the lab's screening room. I'd say our best option is to leave the way we came," said Velma, letting out a scream as a beam of focused light shot directly towards her, "Jinkies!"
The beam stopped dead in its tracks as it came into contact with a blue fluid in some electronically monitored fish tank. The sizzle of hot meeting cold came from the tank as the super-cold fluids began to evaporate and boil from the introduction of Mandark's energy.
"Absolute Zero Gel, much as Susan is a jerk, he knows his stuff," said Velma as she got up and made a run for the door with Johnny right behind her.
"You're not getting away that easy," shouted Mandark as every light in the laboratory shattered, infusing Particle Man with all of the absorbed energy at once which was released in a massive burst of energy towards Johnny and Velma.
Pushing open the door, Velma felt Johnny's hands on her back shove her quickly to the side of the hallway as the blast caught his feet as he jumped from the room. The attack vaporized both of Johnny's legs, causing him to fall helpless to the ground. Appearing by the door's archway was Johnny's Stand, Mama Told Me Not To Come, and with a massive hit which sent a visible shockwave through the floors, walls, and ceiling, the doorposts and lintel shattered. Before he hit the floor, every speck of dust, trace of smoke, and drop of blood reversed course and joined back together, leaving Johnny's legs good as new.
Looking down the long tunnel where they had come from, Velma saw all of the doorways to the rooms they had passed on their way here seemed untouched, but it was still a long way just to get back to the trams, let alone back to the surface.
Reaching down, Velma helped Johnny back to his feet, which Johnny seemed astounded by as he took a moment to wiggle his toes and blow out a sigh of relief, but there was no time for levity as Mandark was on the chase.
Each overhead, fluorescent light that Mandark passed under exploded, sending a shower of sparks through the darkening hall behind him while Particle Man grew in brightness from a tanning bed to a lighthouse beacon.
Staying behind, Johnny kept Mandark busy so Velma could run ahead. But the increased power also seemed to increase the speed of Particle Man, now easily dodging punches from MTMNTC. A focused beam from Mandark sliced off Johnny's arm but falling back into one of the offices, caused it to fly up and reattach itself to Johnny's body. Pushing forward on the partially broken wall, Johnny weakened the overhead support enough to cause the ceiling to collapse over Mandark.
Intensifying its light, Particle Man simply floated in the air through the debris, burning a path for Mandark to calmly walk through as he took a moment to adjust his red tie.
Going for another attack, MTMNTC landed a punch on Particle Man's face, but rather than recoil, the Stand used the point of contact to counterattack with a burning blaze of pure light which caused Johnny to stagger blindly along the wall until he fell face-first into another room.
Fiddling with the door, Velma looked back on the scene, seeing Mandark's brutally calm expression. He was toying with Johnny, testing the capabilities of his ability. Sadistic curiosity was having him draw out the fight longer than he needed to, just so he could prove his superiority over his foes.
Finally opening the security door, Velma looked back as Johnny stumbled out of the final office room back into the hall. His shirt was long since burned away, and his jeans were down to shorts, yet oddly, his sunglasses were still in pristine condition.
'Why does my Stand focus on the dumbest details?' asked Velma to herself, as the fabric of her skirt began to flutter from a breeze coming from the tunnel.
"And now we've come to it, the final doorway you can use before the tunnel. I'm afraid our experiment has come to an end," said Mandark, pointing his finger like a gun at Johnny, who was barely staying on his feet.
"I'll be honest with you. I've known a number of gals named Susan over the years who had taken a swing at me," said Johnny, "there's even this one in my Karate dojo. And, this is me being completely open now, you're the weakest one I've known – by far."
"A dramatically timed final statement deprecating one's opponent meant to provoke some emotional response in the hopes to cause them to make a mistake at a critical point in combat. Pity for you I'm too smart to fall victim to cliché tropes like that," said Mandark.
Another flare of Velma's skirt came, but this time she realized there was no differential air pressure generating wind. Rather, her skirt had moved on its own, or more accurately, something in her skirt pocket. As Mandark charged another attack, Velma pulled out her magnifying lens, and the whole world around her seemed to shatter like glass as time stood still.
Stand Guide:
Particle Man (1990 song by They Might Be Giants) - Stand of Susan "Mandark" Astronomonov
Power - A
Speed - C/A
Range - C
Durability/Endurance - C
Precision - A
Development - D
This Humanoid stand is seemingly made up of thousands of tiny spheres, which upon closer inspection almost look like light bulbs. It gains power by absorbing ambient, electronic light from the environment and storing it for power, to blind opponents with light, to create heat, or firing it out as focused lasers for attacks. In a pinch, Particle Man destroys lightbulbs to gain massive amounts of energy at once.