Goonville’s Bizarre Adventure
GM’d by CodfishCartographer and Nyaa, this document written by Cod.
Before the game begins formally, all four of the Evil players meet in the Evil Lair for the first time to plan things out. Maltose, Xad, Rather, and Skeletome are the evil players, and it’s undecided who will be the secret traitors in what team yet. The four of them decide on a plan - to try and take over the city with an evil governor. Rather and Skeletome volunteer to become the traitors, and then the game begins.
All the players start in their respective home bases - The government team of Panic, Q, Z, Grody, and Rather; and the church team of Oscar, Herp, Wright, Tiger, and Skeletome. Some of the players decide to share various stand info, others keep it secret. Each team meets the Governor or Pope and are briefed on the situation, being told that they are good and the other team is evil. Panic immediately calls this that son of a bitch. Grody uses his stand, Nine-Inch Nail, for the first and only time, hurling a printer into the ceiling. Each team begins inquiring about what tools they can acquire, and then some of them go off to begin fuckin’ around.
Panic goes to the market, and considers buying a pink bath robe embroidered with “Nasty Girl” but ultimately decides against it. He buys some baseballs, some wires, and puts them all in his trusty box. Z and Herp both decide to go scope out the enemy team’s respective bases. Z and Q go together, and Herp is joined by Wright to attempt some surveillance.
Z heads to the Church as night begins to fall, and she shifts through the shadows using her stand, Shadowmoor, to enter into a dark library. Q, meanwhile, begins talking to a nun in the main church hall. Z finds the library to be quiet and empty, and she begins searching around. It’s not long before she hears some noises from an upper level of the library, and she carefully shifts through shadows to investigate. However, her heavy trenchcoat causes quite a lot of noise, and she struggles to remain discreet. She notices a table with books strewn about, and a dark figure shuffling away in between the bookshelves. As Z moves in to investigate, the figure dashes off and out of the library. Now alone, Z looks at the table the figure was at, and finds several religious texts, and a book about Goonville government holy shit. She pockets the government book, and then continues exploring. Unknown to Z, the figure was actually just a church boy, hiding in the library after hours to read a fantasy novel. Upon hearing Z approach, he his the fantasy novel underneath a book about local government, then took off - scared he’d been discovered by a higher-up member of the church.
Q, meanwhile, continues speaking to the nun, and she’s very friendly in an oddly threatening way. Q continues speaking to her, hoping that Z is finding some good intel. Z leaves the library from the second floor, and infiltrates through the church hallways. She finds some offices, but then her and Q both receives phone messages informing them that there’s been an intruder in the government buildings!!!
Herp and Wright decide to investigate the government buildings. Herp teleports Wright into some of the buildings, so he can take some photos for surveillance purposes. However, when Herp teleports Wright into the electrical building, a local janitor spots him. Wright teleports out, but Herp teleports him right back in - Herp’s original plan was to frame Wright, then return to the government buildings posing as an investigator to try to win over some better access to the buildings. This is notable for being the first of many Herp plans to never com to fruition. Wright escapes through a window and runs for the Train Station. All the Government players are immediately informed of a break-in and a mysterious figure escaping towards the Train Station, and Q and Panic head to the Station to investigate. The Church players are notified as well, and Herp runs for the Station. Oscar decides to follow farther behind, sneaking into the station.
In the Station, Herp and Wright confront Panic and Q. Herp lies about his stand power, telling Panic that he can create a bubble containing a time loop and there’s some gamblling shit and who knows what else. The four of them talk for a bit while Oscar hides nearby, observing. Oscar hurls his wallet towards Panic and Q, hoping to hit one of them with a “sleep” command - luckily, Q had pre-emptively protected himself with his stands, [Tucker] and [Dale] - so the wallet falls short! Herp convinces everyone to get onto a departing train, his plan to use his stand power to derail the train at the river bridge and use the ensuing chaos to escape into the river. As Oscar observes from the background, he isn’t quick enough to join them on the train. Worried about the situation, Oscar uses his stand power to force a conductor to report that a terrorist was on the train, and then convinces local police officers investigating the area that the terrorists were Quaq and Panic.
The conductor phones the train,bringing it to a halt and thwarting Herp’s plan, unbeknownst to Oscar. After some deliberation on the train, Herp goes for plan B - teleporting the train above them and dropping it. Panic and Herp leap off the rails, and a fight breaks out!
Q has a brief aura appear around him before vanishing; in preparation for the oncoming fight, Quaq protects himself with his stand. "They may be going to the power plant!" He yells. With Panic distracted by Q, Herp shoves Panic over onto the train tracks. As he lands on the tracks, Panic hurls a baseball at Herp. As it flies through the air, it turns into a ball of steel, and slams into Herp's chest. Herp gasps for breath, a small amount of blood coming from his mouth. As the commotion goes on, Wright bolts off as quickly as he can, running off to the east.
Q runs over to the train’s Captain and Engineer, still dazed on the train tracks, and asks if they're alright. Herp chases after him, but slips on the loose gravel around the train tracks, stumbling onto the ground. Panic lays his cardboard box down lengthwise, and it turns to steel.
A stiff breeze begins to pick up. Q hurries the Captain and Engineer off of the rails, and begins moving in the direction of the Power Plant. Herp stumbles up, and begins chasing back after him. Seeing Herp distracted, Panic's box changes back to cardboard, and he launches another Baseball at Herp. Once again it turns to steel and clips Herp's leg, knocking him over just short of the rails. SUDDENLY, THE TRAIN FALLS FROM THE FUCKING SKY, CRASHING DOWN ONTO THE GROUND. If not for the stiff breeze, it would have landed directly on the rails. Instead it lands a bit north of the rails, landing in such a way to separate Q from Herp and Panic. Several dozen innocent people are crushed and killed. Q’s stand protected him, causing a stiff breeze to pick up and move the train just far enough away from the rails so Quaq would be safe. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of many of the train’s passengers.
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Meanwhile, back at the Train Station, the police have began swarming, trying to investigate the terrorist report. A squad of officers move down the tracks towards where the train departed. Oscar sneaks after them, and uses his stand to convince them that Panic and Q are the terrorists. Oscar then flees the scene, to return to the Church.
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His plan once again thwarted, Herp pulled out the big guns and calls a STYLISH ACTION! In secret, Herp had used his Outer Heaven on the steel ball that had clipped his leg. Suddenly the steel ball appears in midair, flying towards Panic from where it had hit Herp’s foot. It hits the shoulder he threw it from, although with much less force than initially thrown with. It still hurts like a sumbitch, and nearly knocks his arm from its socket. After the impact of the steel ball, Panic leaps up and bolts towards Herp. Herp takes a defensive stance, and a brief aura appears around him as Herp prepares to use his stand on himself. Panic leaps up and slams his box down on top of Herp while turning it to steel, open-side down. Herp lets out a grunt as it slams down on top of him, then remains silent. Meanwhile, Q runs around from the far side of the train, dashing at top speed towards the two of them.
Unknown to Q and Panic, Herp immediately used his stand to teleport away to safety after being trapped. It’s not long before the police arrive, but Herp is long gone. At first the police officers suspect Q and Panic as the terrorists, thanks to Oscar’s misinformation. After seeing their government badges, though, the officers trust them.
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While all this action is going on, Maltose and Xad decide to rob a bank! They make some plans for how to take over the city, and decide that first thing they’ll need to do is acquire some funds, specifically to buy out the Comm Tower. Xad sneaks up to the front of the bank, finding security surprisingly light - all the officers must be busy with all the train hijacking going on. Xad finds the front glass doors locked, and through them spies an overweight security guard sleeping while watching a youtube video on his phone - the fight sighting of Bobbin. Xad taps on the glass doors, and throws a small rock at them, gaining no response from the security guard. He’s asleep! Xad sneaks around the side of the building, and finds an unlocked window to sneak in through. He brings a large rock with him, just in case.
Once inside the bank, Xad investigates some offices and manages to find a key and a nice pair of headphones, buy is blocked by a door requiring a keycard. Xad spots a keycard hanging from the security guard’s belt, and begins sneaking up to him. As Xad reaches for the keycard, the phone auto-plays to a new video and HEEEEEEEY EVERYBODY ITS YA BOI HERE AND TODAY WE GUNNA BE LOOKIN AT oh god it started very loudly and abruptly. Xad slams the headphones he found into the phone before the officer can wake up. Xad breathes a sigh of relief, then swipes the keycard and uses it to head into the back of the bank.
Once there, Xad and Maltose find a large vault and a break room containing a toolbox. They use tools to begin taking the vault door off of its hinges, but the sound of it wakes up the security guard! He makes his way into the break room, and Xad whacks him on the back of the head with his rock. The guard falls down, unconscious, and the two burglars return to the task at hand. Once the vault door is off its hinges, Xad begins emptying the various lockboxes of their contents. There’s a large safe in the room, which Maltose uses his stand’s precision to attempt to feel the tumblers of the lock.
The guard soon wakes up, and runs from the bank. Xad notices that the guard is gone and the front doors of the bank are wide open. Xad peeks outside and sees three men on the street - unknown to him, they are Herp, Wright, and Tiger. Herp had teleported there after Panic attempted to trap him, and Wright and Tiger went there to try and investigate the train crash. Xad hurries back into the bank just as Maltose cracks the safe - it’s filled with Church money. They empty the safe and then head out the back door, only to realize there have been security cameras on them the entire time. Xad manages to find a back room with a computer inside the bank, and then smashes the fuck out of the computer with his large rock. The two of them then escape back to the evil lair.
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Outside the bank, Herp, Wright, and Tiger talk. The three of them decide to sneak back around the wreck site, hoping to get some more information or a surprise attack. Tiger’s stand power backfires though, giving Herp grave misfortune. While sneaking through the bushes, Herp slips on some dog poop, and tumbles into the river, knocking him unconscious. A few officers investigate, but find nothing. Q and Panic return to the government buildings, whereas Tiger and Wright go off to investigate the hospital, ending the first incident.
In the aftermath of the train hijacking, the Gov and Church teams return to their respective bases. They speak to their bosses, and then the next day arrives. Herp is fairly injured, and decides to hang out at the church and “stand guard” (spoilers he does a crap job of it) while he recovers. Oscar and Wright decide to head out into town and explore a bit. Back at the government buildings, Z decides to go check out the church while Q and Panic head to the North and South ruins, respectively. They both found their respective ruins to be fairly empty, but noticed some particular stone panels on the ground. Q observed his first, causing pillars of light to appear at both locations!
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Z, before heading to the church, decided to swing by the market to buy some, ahem, materials for her visit. Namely a lighter and gasoline. Lots and lots of gasoline. Those books are gunna fuckin burn. She heads to the church, but in the morning light it’s much harder to sneak in - the library is now fully in-use and occupied. Z walks the perimeter of the church, and finds some windows leading into the offices connected to the hallway she’d scoped out the night before. She finds an empty office, and shifts into it.
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Unknown to Panic, Wright was also at the South Ruins with him. Wright was hiding in the bushes nearby, observing what was going on. The pillars of light revealed a stand from within, and it spoke to both Q and Panic. The light stand asked Q and Panic to provide “challengers” - Q volunteered first, and Panic tried to volunteer, but the light stand knew they were allies. The light stand chose Q from the north ruins, but chose Wright from the south ruins, who was hiding in the bushes within the perimeter. Beams of light came down and abducted Q and Wright, leaving Panic alone. Meanwhile, Oscar spotted the beams of light, and decided to investigate the southern ruins…
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Z shifts into the empty office, only to find that the door is slightly ajar, with people talking outside. Fuck. She quickly begins dousing the small office in gasoline. The people outside the door begin commenting on a strange smell. Z grabs some papers from a drawer, and then lights the place up. She bursts out of the office, slamming the door open and knocking down of the people talking. She runs full sprint down the hallway towards the library. Z Dashes down the hallway, hurling her trenchcoat towards the doors leaidng to the library as she runs head-first into a wall. She shifts through her own shadow, bursting out of the shadow from her trenchcoat and through the library doors.
The blare of the fire alarms has the library in a panic, perfect for her to cause more trouble. Z reaches into a shadow and retrieves her trenchcoat, then begins emptying her final gas can. She’s quickly spotted, and shifts down beneath a table on the lower level. She empties her final gas can, drops a match, and then shifts through shadows out through the window. She takes the opportunity to burn a large letter “Z” into the church grounds. Unbeknownst to Z, the pope was right there in the library, and he runs through the fucking wall after her. Seeing the hulking mass of holy muscle charging for her, she promptly runs off, outpacing him easily. The pope decides against giving chase, instead opting to stay behind and help with the fire as best he can. Once safely away from the church, Z finally notices the pillars of light in the distance, and checks her phone for missed messages.
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Q and Wright were teleported to a mystical realm of light, and a voice instructed them to fight it out. AN EPIC BATTLE ENSUES! Q protects himself with his stand ensuring that he won’t be hurt...and can’t hurt anyone else. The two of them proceed to attempt to fight each other, but just wind up whiffing punches, tripping over each other, and just generally being ineffective. It’s actually quite embarrassing. Wright threw a rock at Q and it didn’t do much, Q tackled Wright, also not really accomplishing much. The voice of the light stand begins growing pretty bored of watching two babies slapfighting, so Q and Wright decide to throw the match. Wright lays down, and Q sits gently on top of him, causing Wright to give up. The stand of light sarcastically comments about how exciting the fight is.
Outside the south ruins, Oscar approaches in the first of his many disguises. Dressed in rags describing him the appearance of a bum with a scraggly beard, he approaches the ruins just as a stray dog runs into an invisible force field, snapping its neck and dying on impact. RIP dog. Panic notices the “bum” and they begin talking. While putting on the drunkard act, Oscar throws a rock with a command written on it towards Panic - it bounces harmlessly off the force field in between them. Oscar begins moving around the perimeter of the force field, trying to determine if there’s any way in - all the while acting like a drunken vagrant. Panic also investigates the force field, using his stand to attempt to break out, with no luck. Panic texts his teammates to try and figure out what the fuck is going on, and to let them know the situation - including letting them know that “a nice bum named Jimmy” is there. Rather and Z both respond, the former heading north and the latter heading south. Z arrives and begins talking to Oscar the bum, not paying him much mind. Then the force field drops.
Q returns to the northern ruins, finding Rather there. They talk a bit, and try to figure out what the hell is happening. Wright, meanwhile returns to the southern ruins to find two enemies there waiting for him. With the surprise of Wright returning, Oscar seizes the opportunity to surprise Z with a command - to protect him, and to answer questions truthfully. 3v1 against Panic, UH OH. Thinking quickly, Panic turns Z’s pants to steel to immobilize her and hurls steel balls at Oscar and Wright. Oscar goes on the defensive and backs off, while Wright goes full offense and lands some solid punches on Panic. Panic backs up to a more defensive stance, and Z shifts out of her pants under Oscar’s command to try and attack Panic. However, before major damage can be done, the four of them begin talking, and the first cracks begin to appear as Oscar has Z confirm that Panic and her were both told they were the good guys. Oscar commands Z to carry Panic off and to flee the area, and as a show of good faith Panic allows it to happen. Oscar and Wright leave from the area, and once out of Oscar’s control, Z returns to pick up her and Panic’s gear, then they both head to the northern ruins to talk to Q and Rather.
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While ALL THAT SHIT is going on, the bad guy team makes plans for what to do with their newly stolen wealth. They found the company First Life Inc, a subsidiary of Vandelay Industries, and use that shell company to purchase the Comm Tower. GEE I SURE HOPE NOTHING BAD HAPPENS TO THE COMM TOWER SINCE THE BAD GUYS LITERALLY JUST PURCHASED IT.
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Now that things have calmed down, Q decides to continue the exploration of the city, this time deciding on the Comm tower. He finds the parking lot empty save for a single car, and when he peeks into the window he spies a single woman on a computer. Q finds the car unlocked, and rummages through the belongings inside - finding a map of goonville with some locations circled in pen, and some ska CDs. He takes the map, and one of the CDs labeled “Happy Skalidays” and then begins throwing shit onto the ground outside the car, totally trashing it.
Q then knocks on the door of the Comm Tower building, and then hides around a corner. The woman opens the door, only to scream WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY CAR? Q uses this opportunity to sneak along the wall towards the door. Unfortunately, the woman’s first impulse upon finding her belongings trashed was to look around for who did it. OH I WONDER IF IT’S THE DUDE WHO’S COMICALLY SNEAKING ALONG THE WALL. Their eyes meet, and Q bolts inside the building and locks the door. The woman yells something at him from outside, then he can hear her talking hurriedly but quietly. It’s not long before police sirens can be heard in the distance.
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Oscar decides this is as good a time as any to try investigating the government buildings. Security is tight since the break-in at the electrical building, and so Oscar tries a clever ruse. He finds two security guards that are a good distance from the others, then describes himself a disguise: he appears to be one of the guard’s great mentors, only drunk and in need of help. One of the guards falls for it hook, line, and sinker. Oscar convinces the guard to let him into the police station so he can clean himself up, and the guard agrees. Once inside, Oscar scopes out the place and how it functions.
Once in privacy, Oscar changes his disguise to fit in with the rest of the police station. However, he quickly finds the place abuzz with panic - something is going on at the Comm Tower! He commands a police chief to give him the information, and he learns someone has broken in! Oscar commands the chief to escalate the situation and send in the SWAT: the culprit is the terrorists from the train hijacking! Oscar even makes sure that the SWAT and police officers there know not to trust anyone in government attire, even if they have a badge. After sending in the report, Oscar takes the opportunity to grab a folder of documents, then runs off at full speed to the Comm Tower.
At the Comm Tower, Q realizes shit is going to be going down soon. He tries to quickly go through the tower, only for the SWAT team to bust in while he’s attempting to scope the place out. He dashes out the back door, only for a SWAT helicopter to circle around and set its sights on him. Q protects himself with his stand, the makes a mad dash toward the harbor. The helicopter’s gunner sets his sights on Q, then BAM.
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Back at the Church, Herp heads outside to observe the fire damage. He had slept through the fire (literally, in character) assuming the fire alarm to be a drill or something. He finds the destroyed wall and the Z burned into the ground, and teleports some trees to cover up the Z. That’ll show ‘er. It’s at this point that Herp notices a SWAT helicopter off in the distance, flying towards the Comm Tower. Herp teleports through the sky and punches the FUCK out of the helicopter’s tail rudder. Herp then proceeds to teleport himself over to the Hospital, as hits the ground at terminal velocity. How does he survive? Using his stand’s new power, Phantom Pain, to temporarily relieve the damage from the fall. He walks into the hospital, calmly asks for a room, then his knees fucking explode and he passes out before being rushed into a room for immediate medical care.
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Outside the Comm Tower, Panic and Rather carefully approach from one angle, while Tiger, Wright, and Oscar approach from another. Panic and Rather attempt to talk to the policemen, only to find that they’ve once again been framed. The police aggressively demand that Panic and Rather give themselves up, even after the two of them attempt to show their badges. Then the helicopter gets fucking punched.
The chopper spirals out of control, and slams into the Comm Tower, knocking off several key components and damaging it greatly. Q, seeing the damage, tries to protect the helicopter with his stand, but is too late to prevent the worst of the damage - instead of exploding against the ground, the copter manages to land into the ocean, where it begins sinking. Q then runs off to the harbor, hoping he’d done enough.
With the police and SWAT distracted by the crash, Panic and Rather run off behind the comm Tower building, where the helicopter landed. The church team members take off after them, but not before Tiger gives Panic some bad luck. Panic runs down the hill that the Comm Tower is perched on, but trips and snags his ankle on a root. Rather helps him out, but by then Oscar and Tiger have caught up. The four of them decide to put aside their differences and do their best to help out the sinking copter.
Panic and Oscar wade out into the water on a hefty log, and Panic formulates a plan. Panic turns the log to steel, and him and Oscar hold on tight as it quickly descends after the helicopter! They begin descending directly above the helicopter, which is resting precariously on a rock outcropping underwater. Panic turns the log to wood in order to help them level out and the log ascends, fast. Panic and Oscar lose their grip, and the log shoots towards the surface. Panic swims back up after it, and Oscar swims down to the copter. Panic grips the log tight, and turns it back to steel to descend back to the copter. Oscar swims inside to find a wounded gunner, and two wounded pilots - one of which appears to have a large shard of metal skewered through his eye, and the other in a seat belt that’s jammed from the damage.
Back on the surface, Tiger has the brilliant idea of using his stand to give Oscar and Panic good luck. SURPRISE THE WHEEL LANDS ON RED GIVING THEM GRAVE MISFORTUNE. The rock outcropping supporting the helicopter gives way, and the copter begins to plummet. In a moment of panic, Tiger uses his STYLISH ACTION - but this time, it’s to change fate. Tiger grabs onto the arrow, and tries to physically drag it into the green. Rather, seeing tiger struggling, joins in. The four small figures that hold up Tiger’s stand don’t like that shit one bit. They climb out from under the wheel, and begin ripping and tearing at Tiger and Rather, trying to get them off the wheel. They don’t give in, and both of them keep inching the arrow along the wheel towards the green. The small stand men climb up Rather and Tiger, and begin clawing away at their faces. Rather stumbles back as one of the small men claws out his eye. With a final drastic lurch, Tiger shoves the arrow over to green! Fate having finally been changes, the stand men give up their assault, and return to the wheel.
Back underwater, Panic uses a STYLISH ACTION to have already turned his clothes to steel just as he grabbed back onto the log, causing it to descend twice as fast and allowing him to catch up to the sinking copter. He jams the log into the copter’s open siding, and returns it to wood - the buoyancy slows the helicopter’s descent!! Panic turns the jammed lock into brittle steel, and then carefully smashes it with his Brotherhood of Steel. Oscar frees the other pilot, and Panic ties all three of the figures to the log using the USB and LAN cables he bought from the market earlier. With all three safely secured, they dislodge the log, and it ascends up to the surface.
Once back on land, ambulances arrive and begin tending to the three injured men. Thanks to the good fortune Tiger bestowed on them, all three manage to survive the encounter. The church and government team members begin a shaky truce, and go their separate ways, drawing the second incident to a close.
The players return to their bases, and talk amongst each other, trying to determine what the fuck is going on. Both the Government and Church teams begin to doubt their leaders, and decide to investigate things more thoroughly. Panic, exhausted from the whole ordeal, falls asleep under his steel box. His new stand friend, Little Boy, stands guard. Q plays with Little Boy a bit, giving him a pencil scepter and acting like he’s king, it’s real cute.
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Herp wakes up the next day in the hospital, his legs held together with metal braces. Only losers listen to Doctors’ advice, so he fuckin’ bolts from the room to return to the Church. He dons some robes to obscure his legs (and identity) and decides to patrol around the church.
Z returns to the church to investigate her dirty work with the fire. She poses as a government investigator of the incident, and actually winds up running into Herp. Each think the other is an NPC. Herp gets bored of speaking to her, and leaves the church, headed for the University…
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The church boys decide to investigate the church a bit as well, to try and find some clues as to what’s going on. They discover a vault, deep below the church, and are unable to get inside - two large guards prevent them from entering. The church boys meet up with the government crew to devise a plan. Oscar suggests that Tiger will accompany Z, disguised as a Nun, in an attempt to gain entry.
The two of them head through the church, to the local tailor. The tailor discovers that Z is an agent of the government almost immediately, and in order to keep the tailor from raising an alarm, Z fucking knocks him out. Tiger finds it pretty funny, but they both agree that keeping him around the church probably isn’t the best idea. So it’s time for Plan B - kidnap the tailor! Surely this will be the only kidnapping taking place this incident.
Tiger stays behind at the church, and Z takes the unconscious tailor to the Abandoned Area. She uses some intense persuasion (mostly mild torture) to attempt to get information about the church, the vault, and the pope from the tailor. Unfortunately, his faith keeps him from talking. Z holds him over the edge of a building, threatening to drop him if he doesn’t give some information. He calls Z’s “bluff” and gets promptly dropped to the hard concrete floor below, breaking his legs. Z leaves him there for the night, to think about their little talk.
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Meanwhile, Rather returns to the Evil Lair to talk to the rest of The Bad Guys. He informs Xad and Maltose about the stand powers he knows about, then leaves to avoid suspicion. Xad and Maltose decide that they need to step their game up in order to keep up the pace of destruction that the “good guys” are setting, and so they decide to seize control of the hospital. Using their newly gained information resources at the Comm Tower, they learn that the hospital is owned by a local businessman. Their plan: kidnap his wife and demand ownership of the hospital.
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Z returns to the Government Buildings and goes to speak with the governor in person. After realizing that she’s just kidnapped and tortured an innocent person, she wants to make sure she’s still on the right track. The governor’s office is preceded by a small waiting room containing a few comfy chairs and a sofa, and is staffed by Allyson, the governor’s trusty secretary.
Z heads into the governor’s office; it’s smaller than she imagined, and only has a single small window which doesn’t let in much light. Inside is his desk, a comfortable chair, a bookshelf, a door leading into a closet, and a card table with a small coffee machine. The governor offers her some coffee, and he makes it perfect. Z sits and begins talking to him, and immediately notices something strange - the room seems to shift and morph around her, growing and shrinking in size with the tempo of the conversation. The governor reassures Z that everything is fine and she’s doing a good job, and that the pope is definitely evil, yup no possible alternative options there. He says that the church boys may be decent people, but that doesn’t mean the Pope is. Z confesses she kidnapped a member of the church, and the governor lets her know that she should try her best not to cause too much trouble, but he’s got her back if she needs to do anything drastic. Z gets up and leaves through the door to the waiting room, only to return into the governor’s office through the closet door in the back of the room. The governor looks up at Z, confused. He asks if she forgot something or needs anything else. After clarifying that the back door does in fact lead to a closet, Z leaves for realsies this time.
After meeting with the Governor, Z talks to the rest of the government crew, assuring them that the governor is a nice dude and the Church is bad guys and everything is exactly as they thought it was. Panic starts getting real weary of the Governor at this point, and decides to go “explore”. And by explore, I mean he goes to the ruins to camp out in his box, away from where the Governor can watch him. However, he origamis himself some shurikens (and paper cranes) for steelin’ and throwin’ later on.
Z also, uh, interpreted the governor’s advice of “do what needs to be done” as “you guys can do literally anything”. With that in mind, Z decides to try infiltrating the church vault through more direct means - explosives. She buys the components she needs to make two pipe bombs, and returns in the morning to check up on the hostage with Q. They bring him some food and water, but find the tailor with a fever, barely clinging to life. They decide to show some mercy and take him to the Hospital.
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Rather returns to give the Bad Guys an update on all the shit Z’s been doing, including the location of her pipe bomb materials. Xad and Maltose take a mental note to go steal the components at some point, let’s hope they remember to do that. Before Rather leaves, Xad comments on Rather’s stand being weak - thus triggering Rather’s stand, giving Xad misfortune. Anyways, Xad and Maltose head out to do some kidnappin’
They arrive in a shady-looking van at a large townhouse; according to their intel it’s occupied by the owner of the hospital, his wife, and their child. They arrive in the early evening, before they expect the owner to be home. The lawn is neatly trimmed, and has a slight tinge of yellow to it. A garden gnome sits on the lawn, staring disapprovingly at Xad. IT BEGINS. Xad and Maltose struggle to ignore the gnome, and ring the doorbell. A woman answers the door, and Xad poses as a man from the internet. He says that he’s there to examine their failing internet (due to the comm tower being destroyed, of course), and she seems quite thankful. Xad asks her to accompany them to the van to sign some paperwork. “Oh... but my pot is still cooking... it could boil anytime soon..." she says, looking worriedly into the kitchen. “I have pork stew today too…”
Xad volunteers Maltose to come take care of the soup while he shows her to the van. She expresses some worry over Maltose’s culinary skills, and explains what needs to be done to the stew. Maltose immediately knows she knows fuckall about cooking, but agrees to follow her instructions. She begins explaining about which color of miso to add to the soup when she remembers her baby is still in the bath. She tells Maltose to use brown miso in the soup, then she hurries to the bathroom to tend to the (hopefully not drowning) baby.
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Herp arrives at the university, still dressed in white robes. His plan: spread gospel to the science wing. He finds a professor, and puts him out of commission. Herp heads to the professor’s lecture hall, and announces that he’s the new substitute. Herp begins preaching the good word of God and...holy shit the students are actually buying it. Quite enthusiastically, in fact. Herp keeps preaching throughout the day, and rumors quickly begin spreading about the new professor and his teachings.
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Back at the residential area, Xad calls into the house to ensure everything is okay, when the woman screams. Xad rushes into the bathroom to find the baby floating upside-down in the bath. Maltose rushes into the bathroom, grabbing a fistful of herbs in the kitchen on the way. He open-palm slams some herbs into the water, and uses his stand power to heal the child. “What are you doing!? My baaaaaby!” the woman screams. Maltose tells her he’s trained in first aid, and he flips the baby so hard that the baby spins around a full 360 degrees, once again laying face-down in the water. Maltose then carefully turns the baby face-up, and it begins crying. His healing worked!
“Thank you sir!” She thanks Maltose, “if there is anything i can repay you! My husband is the owner of the hospital! He can do anything for you!” Maltose shoots Xad a look as Xad turns off the bath water. Xad and Maltose talk to the woman, and discover that her husband should be home in about half an hour - and he’s been looking to stop running the hospital. Maltose and Xad go to tend to the (now boiling) soup, while the woman takes the baby to its room. They agree to try to convince the owner of the hospital to retire early, and they’ll use the fact that his wife almost drowned the baby as blackmail if they can’t convince him. Suddenly, the woman screams again.
---
Heading back to the church boys, Oscar and Tiger head to the university to try and do some research on the church and the ruins at the local library. Once there, they begin hearing rumors of the new professor and his radical teachings. Rumors begin spreading throughout town, and Z overhears people talking about the professor. She heads to the university to investigate what’s going on. As Z passes by the library, Oscar and Tiger spot her, and follow her from a distance. She heads into the lecture building, and sees a strange man in white robes speaking in a thick german accent. Oscar dons a disguise as a hipster student, and enters into the lecture hall after Z.
---
Maltose rushes upstairs to find the woman cowering in the corner of the baby’s room, the child half-dressed and clutched in her arms. In the center of the room is a rat the size of a goddamn cat. The rat stares menacingly at Maltose. “S-save my baaaabyyyy!” the woman cries. Maltose calls down to Xad for backup, then summons his stand in between the rat and the woman. His stand takes the form of a crock pot with arms, holding onto a bearded head.The rat bites at his stand, then backs away. The rat can see his stand!!!
---
Z approaches the robed figure, attempting to talk to him. Hipster Oscar also attempts to speak to him. Z recognizes his voice and stares down Oscar, who mouths “play along” to her. The robed figure talks to them, playing dumb. Oscar comes up and palms him a slip of paper commanding him to answer questions truthfully - specifically, Oscar’s questions truthfully. Oscar makes sure to clarify this, so that Herp won’t reveal too much to Z. Z, suspicious of the man, sends her Shadowmoor to travel along the ground, sneaking it behind him. They speak for a bit, and Herp summons his stand to show his “holy spirit”. Z immediately blinds Herp with her Black Lotus, and sends her arm through a shadow in her pocket. It protrudes from Shadowmoor, and she slashes at Herp’s legs with her knife. CLANG! It hits metal - the leg braces from the hospital! Z vanishes, teleported to the next floor up. Herp reveals his identity to Oscar in their short time alone, as Z dashes to return to the lecture hall. Herp tells Oscar to call him Nicholas Holdt, to keep his identity secret.
---
Maltose poses at the rat and calls out "IF LANGUAGE IS THE COLLISION OF THE HUMAN MIND AND THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE, LET ME SHOW YOU THE COLLISION OF MY FIST AND YOUR FACE" Maltose rushes at the rat and punches full-force at it, only for his fist to curve and slam into his own face. A stand appears above the rat - a snake coiling around a log, rotating slowly. Maltose falls down from the force of his own punch, and the rat leaps onto his chest. "XAD IT'S GOT A DING DANG STAND" he calls out.
Xad tries to get the woman to talk about how she hates the rat to trigger his stand, but she’s long since fainted. Maltose tries to punch the rat off his chest, only for his arm to curve around, punching himself on the opposite side. As a fun bonus, he’s effectively hugging the rat. “XAD I HATE THIS GODDAMN RAT” Xad approaches to try and carefully pry the rat off Maltose, only for the rat to turn and stare him down. As Xad tries to grab the rat, his arm twists and grabs Maltose’s arm, pushing it down so he hugs the rat even tighter.
Maltose hugs the rat tight, so it’s unable to move. He then uses his stand power to cause the rat to hallucinate, making it think it’s on fire in a hell filled with cats. The rat begins struggling and screaming. “FUCK IT UP XAD, IT CAN'T SEE YOU NOW” random objects around the room begin flipping wildly and randomly “QUICKLY PLEASE” As the rat is distracted, Xad runs up and begins kicking the shit out of the rat, sending blood flying everywhere and the rat flying across the room. Maltose runs up and grabs the rat, and begins punching it in the face. Everything in the room flips horizontally, slamming Xad onto his face. From his newly grounded perspective, Xad sees the room’s bookshelf flipping horizontally, and is about to fall on the baby. Not only that, but the ceiling fan has flipped so hard it’s detached from its hinges, and is headed right for Maltose.
---
Z sprints through the science wing, back down to the lecture hall from earlier. She finds Tiger waiting outside, and they both head inside. Z immediately dives into her shadow and stabs Herp’s back, beneath his ribs. Before he can retaliate, she falls back into her shadow and manifests behind Oscar. Her shadowmoor punches at Herp, who defends himself with his own stand. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Shadowmoor laughs, while Herp counters with his own stand cry of NIENIENIENIENIEN. Tiger spins his wheel, trying to give herp bad luck. It spins and spins and spins and….IS GREEN! BAD LUCK FOR HERP! As the fight breaks out, Oscar decides to “fake” participate, so he doesn’t hurt Herp but without making Z suspicious of him. “HOLDT!” he cries out while pretending to write commands as he approaches Herp.
Z dives into her shadow, coming up at Herp in an attempt to stab him. Herp’s stand punches Z, launching her across the room! It...doesn’t hurt? Herp runs towards the science lab attached to the lecture hall, and flings the door open - gas pours into the room! Herp used his STYLISH ACTION to have turned on the gas in all the burners earlier in the day!! Herp leaps backwards, crossing his arms across his chest. His metal leg brace scrapes against the doorframe, causing a small spark. BOOM!!!
---
Xad dashes at the bookshelf, but not before his CHU CHU DAY eats the rat’s stand. He slides under the bookshelf, catching it just in time. He suddenly gains understanding of the rat’s stand power - the ability to “flip” people or objects. Xad flips the fan blade, and it pierces through the floor just next to Maltose’s head.
The rat regains its senses, and bites Maltose’s face, causing blood to gush everywhere. Maltose gets a brilliant idea, and gives the rat another hallucination - that it’s in rat paradise! Maltose gently puts the rat down, then makes some healing water to patch himself up. The rat sees itself as being saved from a blizzard by a loving family, and it feels warmth and happiness for the first time in its baby-hunting life. A small rat tear runs down its cheek. It never knew life could be so nice, so happy. Finally, the rat knows what love is. Hey, maybe the rat doesn’t need to be so mean, maybe it can be nice and use its stand power to help peo-and then Xad shoves a fucking kitchen knife through its brain, killing it instantly.
Xad and Maltose take a moment to recover, and they hear a car pull up outside. They clean themselves up using some of Maltose’s healy water, then Xad goes to the front door while Maltose checks up on the baby and the wife. The husband is confused at the sight of Xad, but he explains the situation. The husband enters the baby’s room to find Maltose holding the man’s wife. Maltose looks up at the husband, "Yo. It's cool. I'm both trained in first aid and gay. I'm only interested in your wife in a purely medical sense" he explains. The two of them speak with the husband, and after explaining all of what happened the man invites them to dinner.
---
Z sees gas fill the room as Herp flings open the door. Unknown to the others, she’s had both the pipe bombs in her coat this entire time. Gas explosion + pipe bombs = not a very healthy Z, so she shoves her hand into her pocket and STYLISH ACTION!!!’s the pipe bombs into the lab. Just as she does, she feels a sudden BLAM on her chest, as though a great force slammed into it. She falls to the floor, clutching her broken ribs. As Herp dives into the room, the pipe bombs go off! Herp teleports himself as his leg brace causes a spark, but due to Tiger’s misfortune the nails from the pipe bombs distract him, causing his teleport to go off late. He teleports to the campus grounds outside, badly burnt and riddled with nails. He looks around, only to find Q!
---
Maltose and Xad sit down to eat the extraordinarily salty soup with the Hospital owner and his wife. Maltose carries the baby down to dinner, and then begins talking business. They begin haggling over the price of the hospital, and Maltose plays his trump card: "Because we now have two options: One, you sign over the rights to First Life Inc. We leave, nothing is disturbed and life goes on. Or you don't. And we leave. And we take your baby with us. And if you want the baby back, you give First Life Inc your entire company." Maltose threatens.
The husband and wife look at each other. The husband is the first to speak. "I understand what you are doing Mr. Maltose. We are horrible parent who do not deserve this wonderful child. Perhaps it is best for you to adopt it as your son." The wife cries into the husband shoulders.
“Xad it's your turn. Threaten the wife, beat someone up, do whatever I don't care anymore about this damn gaggle of idiots.” Maltose says, fucking done with this shit. Xad sighs, and offers to take the hospital off of their hands as payment for saving his wife and baby. “Very well, I trust you to save more people than me.” The man says, and signs over ownership of the hospital to First Life Inc. Maltose and Xad return to their Evil Lair, finally happy to be done with that bullshit family.
---
Back at the university, Q had heard about the man preaching at the university, and came to investigate. He has no clue what’s going on though, so Herp plays innocent, and tells Q that the terrorists are in the science building! Which is very much on fire. Q runs into the building, and Herp takes off, teleporting away as soon as Q is out of sight.
The lecture hall is up in flames, a fire alarm blaring. Z, covered in flames staggers up, and tries to work her way to the door of the lecture hall. Q flings open the doors and surveys the scene. Z shifts out of Q’s shadow and heads down the hallways towards the campus grounds. However, with her newly-broken ribs she doesn’t get far, and Tiger helps her stagger out of the building.
Q applies healing patches to Z, and the four of them talk outside the burning building. "I'm as confused as you. We came in, talked with a lecturer and then Z telephoned away. I got him to say the truth and called himself Holdt. That's another weird part. She came back, a fight happened, and then this happened" Oscar explains to Q. Z mentions that she had to waste BOTH bombs, and Oscar takes notice, inquiring about the bombs. Z avoids the question, causing Oscar to be even more suspicious of her. He whispers to Q asking if he knew about the bombs, and Q replies that they’ll talk more later - when Z isn’t around.
Exhausted and extinguished, the two groups stumble back to their home bases, ending the third incident.
After teleporting away from the University, Herp pulls the nails from his face and limps his way back to the church. After the (relative) success of his preachings at the University, Herp decides it’s time to take religion by the reins and ascend to pope. And so, as is tradition, Herp has to go kill the previous hope to become the new pope. He approaches the pope, and has a moment speaking with him. Herp places his hands on both sides of the pope’s head, and pulls up firmly - removing his head cleanly. It, uh, seemed pretty easy. The pope’s body falls to the ground, and then a THWUNK hits Herp in the back of the head, and everything goes black.
---
Z is the first to return to the Government Buildings. She’s physically patched up thanks to Q’s stand, but she’s exhausted. She goes to speak with the Governor again, feeling guilty that she failed and wasted the bombs she prepared. She sits down in a waiting room chair, and immediately passes out. While she sleeps, Q also heads to speak to the Governor. The governor slaps Q on the shoulder, and shows him into the office. Q gives himself a healing patch, in an attempt to give the governor bad luck. As they enter the office, a picture frame falls from the wall and shatters against the ground. It appears to be a diploma from a prestigious university.
Q begins speaking to the governor, and while he accepts the governor’s offer of coffee, he never drinks it. Q and the governor speak, but Q is mostly on the defensive the whole time and is mostly using the conversation as an opportunity to scope out the man. Just like when Z met with the governor, the room shifts and twists around Q. He pretty quickly ends the conversation, and gets up to leave. He opens the door to exit, and sees himself sleeping where Z was - burned and damaged just like her. Q drops his coffee cup, momentarily distracting him. He looks back up, and Z is sleeping there normally. The governor comes over to help clean up, and Q places one of his patches on the carpet to help clean it. “Huh,” The governor says, “Your boys learn a new trick, Q?” Q mumbles a confirmation, then leaves to the waiting room. While there, he walks up to Allyson and places a patch on her glasses. She can’t see it. That confirms it - the governor must be a stand user!
Later, Z wakes up and goes to meet with the Governor. Once again, he calms her suspicions and encourages her to do what needs to be done. At this point, she decides the time to play around is over - it’s time to get serious. No more cute little bombs, time to get some REAL firepower. And only one place in town has those kind of explosives - the mines.
---
Herp wakes up in a jail cell. His first impulse is to try and teleport out, but teleporting in any direction leads to earth, causing the teleportation to fail. A guard stands watch, and Herp tries to convince him to join Hero in his holy revolution. Herp tries to convince the guard forcefully to join him, but fails. Herp then decides to just say “fuck it” and rips open the fucking bars of the jail cell. However, he...sits. And waits….
---
Z decides to scout out the mines first, since what she has planned means she may need a good hiding place. She arrives to the mines late in the evening, after the workers have all cleared out. She scouts out the first tunnel she comes across - one that’s fenced-off, and marked as “abandoned”. She finds the tunnel stripped of its lighting rig, and she cannot go any further. Suddenly, she hears someone outside the tunnel, and shifts out and away from the mining site.
Panic, meanwhile, heads into the mining area - he’s the one Z hears. After spending time hiding, he decides he needs a stronger hiding spot, along with some more firepower to defend himself with. He approaches the same tunnel that Z scouted out, and he sees evidence someone was there - footprints, disturbed dust, etc. He uses his stand to smash open the lock on the fence, and heads inside. Finding the tunnel too dark to explore, he decides to try and find some headlamps or flashlights to use.
Panic heads down to the bottom of the mining site, and finds several flimsy-looking sheds. He uses his stand to lift up the edge of them, and swipes some tools - a few headlamps, and some sticks of dynamite. Panic heads back up to the tunnel, and then uses Little Boy to etch his path along a wall, so he won’t get lost. Panic heads deep into the old mines, when suddenly he hears footsteps behind him!!
---
The church boys return to the church from the university to find the place abuzz after the assassination attempt. Luckily, the pope is unharmed. However, they learn that Herp has been contained in a jail cell, DEEP below the church. Learning that an assassination attempt by Herp left the pope unharmed gives the church crew pause, and makes them begin to worry about the true strength of the pope. Time to meet with the government crew and work out a plan of action, but not before checking out the church vault. They speak with the pope, and request access - it’s granted! They don’t spend long there, but inside they find an old bow and arrow, and a strange slab that looks similar to the ones at the ruins…
---
Q Also heads to the mines, searching for Panic. He follows the footsteps in the mine shaft, and eventually finds a large, silver chunk of ore sitting along the wall. “Hello?” Q calls out. “New mine who dis” a familiar voice calls out. “It me” Q replies. Panic reveals himself from the ore, and they are relieved to see one another. Q tells Panic about his experience with the governor, and they suspect that Z has been brainwashed by his power. They hide (most of) Panic’s newly gained dynamite in the Abandoned area, and then go to meet up with the Church Boys, to make a plan of action.
Q and Panic meet up with the church crew. They talk about the governor, the church, and the suspicions that there may be more going on in the background. They’ve since determined that neither the church nor the government team robbed the bank, so it’s still a mystery. They begin to suspect there may be a third group of stand users, acting behind the scenes. However, they also need to worry about the Pope and the Governor, and their possible plans. After some deliberation, Panic and Tiger decide to investigate the government buildings, searching for a vault similar to that of the church. Oscar and Q, meanwhile, will investigate the bank, and see if they can find any evidence of who robbed it.
Panic and Tiger arrive at the government buildings, and head into city hall. They find some stairs and head down, finding a dull grey door locked with a scanner. Panic tries tapping his badge, and the door unlocks! The two of them head in, finding a long hallway lined with more gray doors. They see several security cameras lining the halls though. Panic sneaks up to the first, and turns the lens to steel. He turns around to find another fucking camera looking right at him. He quickly steel’s the lense, hoping nobody noticed him.
---
In the government security room, a security guard notices Panic acting strangely and tampering with the cameras. Panic is fully allowed in there, and so the security guard finds it odd that Panic is acting so strangely, and informs the Governor.
---
Panic and Tiger head into the first door in the hallway, and find it filled with grey file cabinets filled with documents. After searching through them, they find information on the bunker itself. Each floor has an astounding 100 rooms, and there are 20 total floors. The first several floors are filled with various legal documents and records, but floors B5-B10 are all evidence. All the floors from B10-B20 are blacked out as classified.
Panic and Tiger head into the elevator, and find it only goes down to B20. They the elevator down, and a bored-sounding woman’s voice announces “Floor Twenty” before the elevator opens into another hallway lined with doors. The voice sounds similar to the governor’s secretary, Allyson - Tiger and Panic begin suspecting she may be a robot. The doors on this floor are much heavier-duty than the previous ones, and have small windows of very thick bulletproof plexiglass looking in.
Panic looks into the first room to find a strange machine, unlike anything he’s ever seen. It looks kind of like a model of the solar system? But it's got way too many planets and none of them seem familiar. Upon closer inspection, the "planets" are made of some kind of clear crystals. There are slots for 13 of them, but two are missing. There's a grid of identical, square buttons on the machine. As Panic approaches it, he feels a strange buzzing inside of him. Panic backs out and checks the next room.
The next room is empty, save for a strange smell. A mix of weed and sulfur? Concerned he may have released a deadly neurotoxin, Panic shuts the door and moves on. Inside the next door are many large crates filled with thousands of VHS copies of the Star Wars Holiday Special. In the next room, the floor is littered with red 2x4 lego bricks. As the light from outside shines on them, they begin splitting in two, multiplying as though through cell division. Panic quickly closes the door, and moves on.
As he grabs the handle of the next door’s handle, his fingers are sliced open - as though the handle itself is sharp. He instead moves on to the next room. Inside is a beautiful woman in a red dress. "Hey there, handsome" she says in a light spanish accent. “Hi.” Panic replies, then closes the door. In the next room is a wooden chair that doesn’t look very comfortable. Upon closer inspection, the chair is engraved “To B, love aunty”. Panic decides not to fuck around with it, and closes the door. They skip over the remaining doors, and head to the elevator at the opposite end of the hallway - which leads all the way down to floor B50.
---
Z returns to the mining site. She has a plan. She posts as an inspector, and heads down to the sheds at the bottom of the mining site. She pockets two old sticks of dynamite. It’s time to do some dirty work.
---
They ride the elevator down, and it opens into a LONG hallway. One so long, they can’t see the other end of it. There are no doors in this hallway, and no security cameras. Panic hesitantly tosses in a steel’d paper crane, and it clinks harmlessly on the floor. Panic takes a step forward, posing dramatically! Everything feels...normal?? As they both step out, the elevator door closes behind them, and they hear the elevator begin to move. They cross the long hallway, only to find a lone door at the end. The door has no electronic lock system like the others, nor even a keyhole. Strangely, it has a doorknob, whereas all the previous doors had handles. Panic opens the door into darkness. He dons a headlamp, and gives another to Tiger.
The inside looks like... A cheap 70s apartment? A living room setup, with a red plaid sofa and a CRT TV with a VHS player attached. There's a large bookshelf, with a comfortable looking recliner next to it. There are two doorways leading to other rooms. There's a thin layer of dust covering everything, and a light switch on the wall. Panic hits the light switch, and lights turn on through the room. A ceiling fan begins turning, blowing the dust around.
Panic goes to open one of the door, and Tiger checks out the bookshelf. The door leads to a kitchen. There's an old microwave with a turn dial, a white wooden table with a yellow plastic tablecloth (the floor is a matching shade of linoleum), a large refrigerator, and a large pantry. There's a counter with a sink, dishwasher, and oven+stove. There are several shelves above the counter. On the wall is a window, looking out onto a photo of Yosemite Valley. The bookshelf appears to be half filled with books, half with VHS tapes. There's a wide variety of topics and genres of both. There's a few old board games on top of the bookshelf. Tiger and Panic agree that this is likely a safety bunker for the governor.
“Do you think the governor is the paranoid type?” Tiger asks. "Nah, not really." a friendly voice booms from the elevator hallway, "The previous governor sure was though, product of the 50s. I did redo the place to be more up to my tastes though. Whaddaya think?"
---
Meanwhile, Q and Oscar arrive at the bank. Oscar creates disguises for them, and their clothes begin to shift and change before Q’s eyes. They head into the bank, posing as security experts. They enter into the bank, requesting to access the destroyed computer. Once in the small security room, Q places a patch on the computer, and begins repairing it. Oscar refreshes their disguises, then they log onto the computer.
They find the desktop littered with icons and folders, most of which are named “Untitled 1” “Untitled 2” etc. A shortcut is labeled “Internet”, which opens to a Google search for “big boob”. After searching through the desktop, they find a shortcut to DOCUMENTS HERE. Which leads to a folder containing ANOTHER shortcut leading to DOCUMENTS HERE. After a maze of folders and shortcuts (including avoiding some folders named “not porn” and “dnt click”) they finally find a folder containing security camera footage.
The folder is filled with dozens of video files, each an hour long. Each one contains four different viewpoints from around the bank - the lobby, the room containing the safe, the outside of the building, and a closeup of the teller counters in the lobby. Q and Oscar search for the most recent files, and watch the footage. They see two unknown figures moving about the bank - unknown to them, it’s Xad and Maltose infiltrating! Oscar and Q look carefully, and see the hand of Maltose’s stand moving the safe dial to crack it - confirming that there’s a third group of stand users! They pocket the computer’s hard drive, and then quickly leave the bank.
---
Tiger quickly moves into the kitchen with Panic. The governor stands in the doorway, his imposing frame blocking it completely. Was the doorway always that small? The doorway feels very far away, was the living room always this large? The governor strides over and sits on the couch. "So, P over there I recognize, but I don't believe you and I have met." he smiles warmly at Tiger.
STYLISH ACTION! The governor notices the TV is on, with a cooky game show starring Tiger’s stand. Tiger poses, attempting to give both the governor and the bookshelf bad luck with his wheel. WELCOME TO WHEEL OF FORTUNES! Tiger shouts. "Err, nice to meet you... Too? Weird friend you got here, P" the governor responds. “He’s eccentric. He also loves old game shows, y’know. Just...can’t get enough of them.” Panic replies, moving into a defensive position.
"Can't blame the boy! Wheel of Fortune is one of my favorites too!" He grins wide. "Now, where are my manners? The name's Brian May, you can call me Brian! Would you-” “WELCOME GOVENOR! Let’s hope things go your way today!” Tiger interrupts, tossing the Governor the TV remote. Tiger begins feeling so very awkward for interrupting in such an odd way. Did the room get bigger? Did he shrink? Is everyone...staring at him? “Call me Jack! Jack Spade if you want!” Tiger says, feeling a bit out of place.
The governor gets up from the couch, and offers coffee or tea to them both. Panic inquires about Z, and the question gives the governor a pained expression. He appears to shrink, and Panic is wracked with guilt over digging up a sensitive topic. The governor moves toward the kitchen, and Panic tries to keep his distance, while feebly attempting to ignore the overwhelming guilt. Tiger and Panic reposition into the living room, letting the governor pass by into the kitchen.
The governor offers them to relax on the couch and take a load off. The couch DOES look very comfy. Panic resists the urge to sit down, and begins inching towards the front door, which is still open. He reaches into his pocket for...something. Tiger is sweating bullets, his eyes locked on the wheel on the TV, whose arms have slowed to a crawl.
"Z's been workin' herself to death, I'm afraid. Gal could really use a vacation." the Governor says. The door out of the apartment feels so far away. Was the living room always this big? "She's come to me for help a few times. I keep giving her my best advice, but I think she might be misunderstanding me, or something." He lets out a quick chuckle, "Guess even guys like me don't know how to talk to women, eh?" The arrows slow down, and stops on Gree-wait. Was the green region of the wheel always that small? The red section feels awfully large...is it 50/50 still? The arrows stop...on red. The men on Tiger’s stand seem a little confused. "O-oohhh noooo? Yooooou loooose?"
---
Z strides into the church, the sticks of dynamite in her pocket. She knows what she needs to do, and that the others wouldn’t have the stomach for it. The church is filled with many people, praying that God shall protect them from the terrorists. Z sends her Shadowmoor to lurk underneath a church pew, then she lights a stick of dynamite. She phases it through her coat pocket, dropping it out of Shadowmoor. She turns and walks out of the Church.
BOOM. The dynamite explodes, killing many innocent people. The church goes run from the building, screaming - panic is ensuing. Z circles around the outside of the church, planning to shift into the library and use the panic as a cover. Her plan: use the remaining dynamite to blow open the door to the church vault.
Suddenly, water begins flowing from every door and window of the church, flooding the area VERY quickly. Z shifts to the second floor of the library, only to find the first floor completely flooded. Damn! The vault is down there, how could it be flooding so quickly? "Stand-user! Show yourself!" Z shouts. She doesn’t have much time to get to the vault before
A voice booms from the church rooftop. "DEMONTRESS! YOU HAVE COME ONCE MORE TO WORK FOR YOUR MASTER, SATAN!" Z shifts onto the roof, to find herself face to face with the pope. He is shirtless, his muscles bulging. The two of them spot each other, and pose threatening in unison. “EL SALVADO!” The pope shouts, and a blue rippling stand appears behind him!
---
Tiger sweats but grins a bit. “Ah, congratulations, governor. you've won some fortune today…” He trails off. “I’ve won what now?” Tiger dashes at the bookshelf. “But you’ll have to pay with your blood, I’m afraid! Panic, help me out with this!” Tiger and Panic begin pushing the bookshelf over to block the doorway into the kitchen. A yelp of pain sounds from the kitchen, and a thick stream of blood flows through the air from the kitchen into the TV. "Damn, P, what kinda stand does your buddy have in there? I thought the church's wheel guy just messed around with luck, not suck the blood outta my fingernails!"
Tiger and Panic shove the bookcase in front of the doorway, and Panic turns it to steel. "Err, sorry, anyways, Jack, how you like your coffee?" the governor says, “...Boys?" His voice is...calm and friendly?? However, Panic and Tiger bolt out of the living room, dashing into the hallway at top speed. As they exit, Panic kneels down and takes a stick of dynamite from his pockets, placing it on the ground. The two of them run down the hallway at full speed. In the distance they can see the elevator door! They pick up the pace, and as they draw near...no, it’s...not the elevator? It’s a familiar door with a doorknob, leading into a familiar apartment, a stick of dynamite laying on the floor.
---
"YOU!" the pope shouts angrily, "YOU MURDERER! KIDNAPPER! BOOK BURNER!"
Why must everything always go wrong for me? Z asks herself, shortly after blowing up a congregation. "Are..are you the Pope?" she asks. “I AM!” The water surges upwards, submerging the second floor of the church. "Then I have a present for you." Z says, pointing to the pope. She lights her second stick of dynamite, and hurls it through her own shadow, popping it out of his. Z leaps into the water as the stick explodes, blasting the pope into giblets.
She swims in the ever-rising water. That...that was easy. Mission accomplished? The bits and pieces of the pope melt down, turning to water. The water wraps around Z, lifting her into the air onto a huge water cross, high in the sky. "Uh! Wait! Can we talk about this!?" Z shouts to the flood. Z creates a long thin shadow, stretching far down into the water. She shifts through it, out of the cross’ embrace. Suddenly, she finds herself back on the cross - she can’t escape!
---
"Hey P, mind giving me a hand with this bookcase?" Panic and Tiger hear the Governor call from the kitchen "I don't remember it being so...metal." Panic feels awful for trapping him in there. He was just offering us coffee Panic thinks, He really doesn’t seem that bad. Tiger gives him a firm slap on the back of the head to grab his attention.
Panic snaps out of it, then closes the door, turning it to steel. He turns around to try and leave again, and sees Tiger...standing next to Tiger. "Hey, P, I'd really like it if you let me outta here." the Other Tiger says, "How about we talk stuff out?" Tiger punches his clone in the stomach. It coughs, and falls to the ground, and is gone. "If we just run, who cares how many guilt clones he sends after us!" Tiger shouts as they both dash back down the hallway.
They both arrive at the opposite end of the hallway, once again arriving at a steel’d door with a stick of dynamite in front of it. A clone of Panic stands in front of the door. "How about this," he says, "I'll tell you my stand's weakness. Will you be more civil then? I won't hurt you two boys."
"Tell me your stands weakness." Panic asks, without agreeing to his bargain. He sees himself smile, but the tiny details are wrong. Panic feels a little silly for resisting so much, when the solution was so easy! Tiger backs up a little bit, keeping his eyes on the clone.
The Other Panic vanishes, and two loud CRACKS sound from behind the door. It falls off its hinges, and the governor is standing there, holding two cups of coffee. Tiger and Panic both jump back, away from the door. "Here, let's walk and talk," the Governor says, taking a step forward.
“I need to give you my resignation, Governor” Panic says, then hurls the second stick of dynamite at the governor, one end ruined and liable to explode under any kind of trauma. Panic and Tiger dash off down the hallway, and hear...nothing?? There’s no explosion. Off in the distance, they see an open doorway, the governor walking towards them while holding two cups of coffee. Tiger gave the governor good luck, so the dynamite was a dud!
"This is my weakness!!" they hear him yell. The two of them skid to a halt, then dash back in the opposite direction. “Thanks for the tip!” Tiger shouts back. "I DON'T GET IT IF I'M HONEST" panic adds.
"I'm moving!" he yells back, jogging after them. "My stand only works when i'm standing still!" Panic glances back, seeing the governor power walking towards them, a bit out of breath. "C'mon you two, I'm not as young as you are." They hit the end of the hallway, but it’s different this time! The elevator doors, for realsies. Panic smashes the elevator button, and the doors open.
Tiger and Panic jump into the elevator, and are mashing the door close button. "Hey, wait, you never had any of your cof-" the doors close. Tiger slams the B20 button. They listen to the elevator music. For an agonizingly long time. Was the elevator ride always this long? Tiger and Panic begin to, well, panic. “No! No, no, no no no no no” they both mutter in unison.
The light for B20 illuminates, and they hear a ding, followed by a long silence…
…
…
…
“Floor Twenty” the familiar elevator voice says, as the doors open. They both leap out of the elevator, but Panic stops and puts his arm in the door, to keep it from closing. “Only one way up and down, Tiger.” Panic says. “Wanna find out what happens when you turn a whole elevator into heavy Steel? Cuz I sure do.”
Panic turns the elevator into heavy steel, and then the cable into a thin, brittle steel. There's a loud CRACK above the elevator. Then a low, dull groaning. CRACK CRACK CRACK WHOOSH The elevator is gone.
From deep down in the elevator shaft sounds an enormous BOOM. “Well, that was pretty fuckin' cool, right?” Panic says to Tiger, and they begin to relax. They head back towards the elevator, but on the way Tiger gets a sinister idea. He opens the door leading to the lego room, then they ride the elevator back up to B1, and stroll out of city hall.
---
Z struggles against the water binding her to the cross. She attempts to shift away several more times, but always finds herself drug back to the cross. The water level rises, nearly submerging the church entirely.
STYLISH ACTION! Z notices a nearby news helicopter, circling the sky above the scene - a news helicopter, on the scene!. Z stretches a shadow over to it, and then shifts inside. She threatens the news crew inside, shouting at them to fly away. She hates to flee, but knows she can’t win at the moment. The cross vanishes, and the water begins rising even more quickly, now in the shape of a large dome.
The water lashes out at the copter, but narrowly misses! The copter flies off, and soon lands at the nearest place with a helipad - the Hospital. Panic, Tiger, Q, and Oscar all see the dome of water and the helicopter flying off, and the two groups both rush over to the hospital to see what the commotion is. At the church, the water dome begins to subside, eventually dissipating altogether, leading to a wet end to the fourth incident.