Foenix

Ch. 39: Shadow Moses

Jolyne lost count of how many times she'd yawned while standing there on the harbor under the morning sun. It must have been a considerable amount because her dad and Giorno would shoot her concerned looks from time to time. She waved them off, having no intention of explaining to them that her sleep-deprived body was functioning entirely on too much coffee and weeks' worth of pent up rage and frustration. Wet dreams and bloody kisses didn't exactly seem like good topics for starter conversations so early in the morning either.

Trying to expel Donatello's cursed blood from her body with her Hamon had failed, so since that night, she was left to endure those damned dreams. Only an hour or so after hitting the sack, she would wake up disturbed and covered in cold sweat, feeling the intense urge to cleanse herself in gallons of ice cold holy water.

Bruno's sparring sessions helped exhaust her enough that some nights, she would immediately fall into a dreamless sleep after one of their sessions. However, other nights, the dreams still crept up on her, and she would wake up a while later, her body hot and drenched in sweat. On those nights, she tried using some of the mediation techniques she had learned from Lisa Lisa that were meant to conserve energy and provided the same restorative benefits as sleep. She would do this on her bed for the remainder of the night until it was dawn and time to get up for training. It was effective for the most part but still couldn't substitute for actual sleep. It didn't do anything for the intrusive thoughts or the slight feelings of excitement either.

Jolyne was ready to get rid of Donatello from her life once and for all. She hated him, plain and simple. He had caused her family immense grief, leading them to a long separation, and he was all too proud to announce his sinister intentions for her. Thinking about what he had said back in his cell about how hard his life had been, she was even more certain that any empathy would be wasted on a self-pitying asshole like him who blamed the world for his misfortunes.

These past few days, knowing that he was on the same island as her had made her constantly on edge and filled her stomach with butterflies. She would feel better once it was Giorno's problem. And maybe when they finished interrogating him, they could get rid of him for complete good. It was a strangely dark thought, and perhaps a few months ago, she would have found the idea of a life being ended quite upsetting, but too much had changed since then and so did her outlook on life.

"Is Bucciarati already at his post?" her dad suddenly asked her.

"Yeah, he came as soon as he could. It's weird, but..." She stopped talking when she saw Weather Report staring at the horizon instead of the main building like the others. "Hey, is something wrong?"

Weather Report shrugged, continuing to keep his eyes fixed straight ahead. Jolyne tried following his gaze but could not find anything out of the ordinary, just clear blue skies. Perhaps he was sensing something she was not with his stand ability.

A movement suddenly caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. Seeing three people emerge from the main building, everyone became extra alert.

Donatello, flanked by two uniformed senior Hamon disciples on either side, stood out like a sore thumb in his white suit and red leather jacket as he limped out of the building. The platinum chain jewelry around his neck glinted in the sun, similar to the silver chains imbued with Hamon that wrapped around his torso and bound his arms at the back. Despite the sorry state he was in from his time in the dingy cell, his blonde hair disheveled and his clothes looking wrinkled and stained, he couldn't seem to stop smiling.

Jolyne took a deep breath, breaking away her gaze for a moment.

She was not afraid. She could do it. Whatever she had witnessed and endured in her dreams, none of it was reality. No one was privy to the contents but her.

When she turned back, she found Donatello squinting at the sky, seeming briefly bothered by the sun. However, he stopped paying attention to it when he caught sight of her.

"Oh dear, I missed you. Since you were so close, you could have come by to visit me more... I know you wanted to."

Jolyne's face contorted in disgust but she didn't bother to reply. Paying him any attention at all would be giving him exactly what he wanted.

Ignoring him, she said to the others, "Shall we go now?"

They had already made all the preparations, so they quickly boarded the boat that would take them to Venice. It was a small draft boat that could enter as far as Giorno's palazzo in Venice without any problems. The group transporting Donatello consisted of the two Hamon disciples, her dad, Weather Report, Giorno, and herself. It was not a large committee, but it was everyone necessary.

In good environmental conditions and with not too much cruise ship traffic, the job could be done in half an hour. The weather was nice, even nicer than what was forecasted thanks to Weather Report. Still, Donatello seemed quite calm, too calm for someone whose stand ability would be rendered useless on sea, where he couldn't unearth memories. It gave Jolyne a strange feeling as she watched him board the boat, stranger than what she had felt since her meeting with Bruno that morning.

The space on the vessel was much more enclosed than on the harbor, so everyone was more closely packed together. This also meant Donatello was in much closer proximity to her than she would have preferred, which was actually to keep a continent's worth of distance away. When he caught her looking at him, he grinned and blew her a kiss.

Jolyne shuddered, both at his action and the unwanted feelings it had stirred within her. She immediately turned her back to him, feeling his gaze drill into her as she put more distance between them, as much as the enclosed space would allow.

She was glad she had chosen to throw on a large sweatshirt that morning for the trip. Having a roomy layer of clothing somewhat helped alleviate the crawling gaze.

As they left the harbor, her dad was at her side, putting a hand on her shoulder. Feeling him so close gave her a bit of reassurance, as did Giorno's look of concern that constantly flitted from her to his brother, who continued to be flanked by the two Hamon disciples.

She couldn't wait for it all to be over.

The journey went smoothly at first, with no note-worthy incidents happening along the way. The sea's cool breeze was comforting, and she enjoyed how the icy seawater sprayed on her face when she stood close to the edge. Catching the serious but serene expression on her dad's face beside her, she even allowed herself a moment to wonder if this was part of the allure of his job for him.

She began to feel hopeful that she was just being paranoid until, ten minutes into traveling on the half path, they heard a thud and felt the boat lurch beneath their feet, as though the hull had hit something huge in the water.

Jolyne hadn't been on too many boats in her lifetime to tell for sure whether something like that would be normal or not, but her high-strung nerves put her on guard immediately. It seemed that she wasn't the only one, as the others around her also tensed, standing straighter. No one uttered the words 'Stand attack' but everyone thought it, recognizing the signs. Seeing the grim expression on her dad's face, who was far more experienced than her in both fighting stand users and traveling on water, she became far more convinced.

Peering into the blue sea, it didn't take long before bubbles began to rise from its depths, warning of the presence of something beneath. Jolyne hadn't really known what to expect but certainly not the sight of strange creatures submerged just beneath the surface. She felt as if she were in a movie and not reality. No way were sea monsters real. But then she wouldn't be able to explain what she witnessed next.

From the depths of the sea emerged blue octupus-like creatures that had only two tentacles and a head crowned with red jewels. If the jewels were not a clear enough clue that they were not from this world, then there was the fact that they looked like they had come straight out of a cartoon. To top it off, the creatures emitted an unnatural sound, like a pre-recorded, studio-generated roar.

"What the hell are those creatures?" asked Giorno, who probably had entire encyclopedias about marine biology memorized.

"Fuck, are those pokemon?" said Jolyne.

"Tentacool," replied Jotaro without hesitation. "First, they threw Super Mario enemies at us and now pokemon."

Even though the creatures didn't seem to be very difficult enemies to defeat, just as the gombas hadn't been, they manifested their Stands, as the environment the group moved in was a disadvantage. Her dad looked ready to jump out of the boat and fight in the water, but she asked him to wait.

"Guys, we should turn the Stand user over to Nintendo's lawyers so he knows the real terror when we catch him," Jolyne told them, managing to hit the pokemon with a fishing rod she had found in the warehouse room. "Venice is starting to appear on the horizon. Should we stop?"

They didn't have much time to think about it because as soon as she finished speaking, they heard a noisy whirring sound overhead that grew loud with each second. A glance at the sky showed a helicopter heading their way, though perhaps it was simply passing by. It wasn't something necessarily unordinary, but Jolyne's gut told her to exercise caution.

She stole a glance at Giorno and saw him frowning as he gazed up.

"Helicopters aren't often given permission to fly over Venice," he said aloud. "Stay on your guards, everyone. It's terribly suspicious."

By air and water, they could only wait for the enemy to approach. Another creature attacked the boat, this time not a tentacool but something similar, though much bigger, almost the size of a kraken. The evolution seemed to follow the patterns of the anime, making the tentacruel a huge beast with even more tentacles. It was much more dangerous and, certainly, more intimidating than the small tentacool. With a mighty swing of one of its tentacles, it knocked Jotaro clean off the boat.

"Dad!" She leaned out to peer over the edge.

"Jolyne, please stay away from the gunwale," said Weather Report. "Remember, Mr. Kujo is an expert swimmer."

He was right; she had almost forgotten that her old man was practically born to traverse the sea. As if summoned, a purple-jacketed figure emerged, punching with both his Stand and his own fist at the tentacruel. It wasn't the weirdest thing she had ever seen her dad do, but she was sure it made the top 10.

The downside about keeping an eye on him was that Jolyne stopped paying attention to the helicopter. Someone approached the gunwale beside her, leaning dangerously close to the edge, their knuckles turning pale as their hands clenched on the railing tight. It was Weather Report, the same person who had advised Jolyne to stay away from the gunwale only a moment ago. He gazed at the helicopter with sharp, unblinking eyes, surprising even her with his level of deep focus.

Had he spotted someone he recognized inside? She already had her suspecions on who it might be.

She tried squinting into the helicopter through her bangs that were swaying wildly due to the suddenly strong winds, but it was too high. The helicopter seemed to have also slowed down and now hovered aboved their boat, proving their suspicions correct.

"Pucci."

She shot Weather Report a look, her breath catching in her throat.

"What? How do you know?" she asked.

"I just do."

His gaze turned stormy. The winds around them suddenly began to pick up fiercely, making the waves more and more choppy as everything began to cloud over. The blue sky darkened to a gray, and there was even the sound of thunder not far away.

Jolyne didn't have time to doubt or question what he meant. Whether or not Father Pucci was really in the aircraft, which was a grave matter of its own, it looked like the boat would sink if Weather Report didn't calm down quickly.

Keeping his eyes glued on the helicopter buzzing above their heads, Weather Report suddenly stepped back and made his way to the other edge of the boat, where the helicopter was closer.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," she muttered.

As she followed after Weather Report, Giorno caught on and went to the position she was in to try and help Jotaro, although he seemed to be managing quite well.

Too focused on the dangers outside their boat, Jolyne had practically forgotten all about the ones lurking within.

It all happened before she realized it. Although Donatello had been locked up for days and perhaps even beaten, as indicated by the bruises on his face and the limp in his gait, his wounds had mostly healed. Hence, it took him no more than a moment of pain to dislocate his arms and free himself from the chains.

Her only warning as she passed by was the thud of the Hamon disciples' bodies hitting the floor or railing as they were shoved aside before a hand suddenly grabbed her waist.

Whipping her head around, she came face to face with Donatello's red eyes that seemed to be taken from the most terrifying of monsters and his feral grin. An atavistic fear ran through her in the few tenths of seconds before his sharp teeth brutally pierced her neck.

A bite hurt, but a bite to the neck hurt even more. A ragged scream escaped her. The others turned, even Jotaro, who had heard her all the way from the water. The scream only lasted a moment, however, before Donatello let go, pushing her away. Regaining her balance and grabbing onto the railing of the rocking boat, Jolyne turned and watched him double over, spitting out thick, purplish-blue blood.

"That's what you get for biting without asking."

Despite the dire situation, she had to suppress a snicker that threatened to escape when she saw Donatello lift his head and flash his red eyes at her, his body trembling uncontrollably. A choked, gurgling sound came from him, and he spat more of the strange blood.

Jolyne grabbed her neck and pulled off her sweatshirt, intending to use it to apply pressure on her wound, leaving herself in just a tanktop. The body peeking through her top was much tanner than her face. Underneath the fabric, a padded bra sat on her completely flat chest. Although she had a marked waist, she looked quite masculine.

"How is it? Is it your first time dining on corpse blood? Bruno specially asks for your rating."

Donatello fell to his knees on the ground, now vomiting. If he had been a full-fledged vampire, that would have knocked him out completely. The corpse blood from Bruno's body was the perfect poison to hurt a vampire. She couldn't believe his idea had actually worked.

Seeing him fall, the pokemon began to appear everywhere, closing in more aggressively. To make matters worse, Weather Report had not calmed down and the situation was becoming even more dangerous for them on the boat.

"Signore Report, if you don't stop, the boat is going to sink!" Giorno shouted.

Weather Report seemed too focused on the helicopter to pay any attention to anyone. Sometimes, she forgot how truly terrifying of a power the normally calm man had.

The boat began to lurch dangerously and the sea became choppier, causing her dad to succumb to the attacks of the tentacruel and sink into the sea. Just like that, Jolyne went from feeling victorious to watching the world sink all at once.

Looking up, she saw a face appear in one of the windows of the helicopter. It was still too far away for her to see clearly, but she was almost certain it was the priest. Even all the way from the boat, she could feel his mocking gaze on her, his very posture exuding arrogance.

She felt rage heat her blood, but instead of being swept up in the intense emotion, it was Hamon that began to form in her despite being in a foreign body. The lungs of a reanimated corpse didn't work exactly the same, but she knew she had to try when the moment was ripe.

The decision to go in Weather Report's direction instead of her dad's had been a difficult one to make, but she was confident that her old man would be able to get out on his own. He always found a way to come back to her.

She charged straight at Weather Report, who seemed to be in his own little bubble. Without even raising a shout or trying to talk to him, she smacked him in the back of the neck. The blow seemed to bring him back to himself, just as the storm that hard started began to die down again.

Now, to get her dad out of the water.

A deafening roar sounded from the other side of the boat. Jolyne watched with a gaping mouth as the sea burst open, letting out a huge, raging Gyarados, a giant blue oriental-style sea dragon, with Jotaro Kujo mounted on top. He wasted no time charging straight towards the rogue Tentacruel. Star Platinum tore the huge pokemon apart with a flurry of blows of which only half would have been necessary.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the boat, she saw Giorno glowing in the golden light of his stand as he faced off against other sea pokemon. Whichever ones so much as aimed an attack against him would disappear in that instant.

With a weapon as powerful as Gold Experience Requiem at his disposal, Jolyne wondered why it was taking him so long to deal with all of the creatures at once. That's when she noticed new pokeomon suddenly popping up, taking the place of those that had disappeared, although making it double.

Glancing back at the helicopter, she saw someone peeking out from behind Pucci's figure, watching the battle below. She couldn't see him well at all, though he seemed smaller and more hunched over than the priest. It wasn't long before he moved over to the helicopter's open door, holding something in his hands. The greenish thing in his hand unleashed two whips that shot straight down into the boat. They latched onto Donatello's legs and wrapped around him, all the while avoiding the chains around his torso. Jolyne realized with a start that the whips were actually leafy vines. Tracing them back to the man in the helicopter door, she was finally able to make out that he was holding a bulbasaur.

It was obvious that he was the one behind this bizarre phenomenon. Without a doubt, that user was the missing son of DIO, Ungalo.

The vines did their job, towing Donatello up, and it looked like he was going to escape again.

"Oh no you fucking don't."

Jolyne hadn't put herself through all that harsh training just to let herself fail like that. Grabbing a coil of thick rope tucked away to the side, she did quick work of making a noose she had practiced tying numerous times with her strings. Then, with all the strength in her arms, or rather Bruno's arms, she began to move the lasso in a circular motion before tossing it hard. As it flew through the air, she poured her Hamon energy into it, forcing it to follow the trajectory of her will, which was toward Donatello's bloodsplattered torso.

Donatello, who seemed only half-conscious by that point, looked startled as he suddenly found himself trapped in her noose, the rope tightening around him over his silver chains.

"Overdrive!" she shouted.

She knew the borrowed body wasn't going to work the same as her own, but she hoped imbuing the silver chains with a new surge of Hamon would at least stall him long enough until one of the others could come to her aid.

To her elation, not only did Donatello's body squirm before going limp, but his upward trajectory stopped as well. It seemed that her sparks had run up the leafy vine and also affected his brother, who was pulling him up. Jolyne wasted no time, taking the opportunity to pull hard on the rope, tugging Donatello back down in the boat's direction.

Not long after, when she had caused the body to dip a couple of meters closer to her, she felt some resistance and knew it could only mean that Ungalo had gotten over his momentary shock and was now resuming his efforts to pull Donatello back up.

For a moment, the unconscious Donatello was tugged up and down like a rag doll as two people on either end battled for supremacy. Jolyne was impressed that the bulbasaur's leafy vine was able to hold out for as long as it had. Although it looked as though both parties were of equal strength, gravity worked in her favor, so she managed to slowly inch the body a little lower toward her end.

Just then, as she looked up to check the helicopter, she saw Pucci pull something from his body. He threw the object out the window, too fast for her to completely follow its trajectory with the naked eye, though she noticed a nearby flock of seagulls and how one of them cried out. She waited for something to happen, but they continued to circle in the air as the seconds stretched into a minute. Just when she began to doubt her assumption, the temperature in the area took a dive.

Wearing nothing on her upper body but the tanktop, Jolyne couldn't help but shiver and had the urge to hug herself for warmth. That would mean letting go of the rope, however, which she refused to do. Gritting her teeth against the freezing temperature, she instead concentrated completely on pulling Donatello further down.

She had underestimated Pucci's attack, thinking his intention was only to make her freeze. Before she knew it, a haze began to arise in the air and little translucent squares began to fall from the sky. Not having expected them, she wasn't able to dodge fast enough when one square fell near her and grazed her arm, passing through with a holographic touch. She heard the sizzling sound before she felt an excruciating pain that caused her to cry out and let go. Seeing bone poking out of her injured arm, she realized the square had melted part of the flesh in its path.

With her no longer dangerously tethering Donatello to the boat, the helicopter was able to take off at full speed, taking his unconscious body with ita. The sea battles around her continued, but Jolyne could only watch the helicopter that carried their escaped prisoner get further and further away.

"I can shoot it down," Weather Report whispered from beside her.

Jolyne realized for the first time what he had been up to the whole time during her little tug of war game. Storm clouds were brewing overhead in the horizon, cackling with electricity. Weather Report seemed completely serious as he looked at her, awaiting a response.

She immediately shook her head, rejecting his idea. No matter how desperately she wanted to reverse the situation, it was too dangerous for everyone. She had never seen him this way before, the way he seemed far more obsessed with throwing the opponent down than he was with his own life and the lives of his teammates. For the first time since she'd known him, Weather Report scared her.

Only when the helicopter was a speck in the horizon did the sea finally start to calm, no more sea creatures popping up to replace those they got rid of that were making trouble for them. The boat was silent, rocking gently in the calm waves.

Jotaro simply adjusted his cap that miraculously hadn't been lost underwater. Giorno was quickly at Jolyne's side, seeing her numbly holding her burnt arm—technically, Bruno's. She gritted her teeth against the pain as he regrew the skin cells in her arm; her addled brain wondered if Bruno was feeling the pain back on the island too or if he got a pass since she was borrowing his body at the moment.

A wave of nausea suddenly hit her. She didn't know if it came with having her head attached to a body that wasn't her own for too long, especially one that was not quite alive, or if it was just the crushing defeat sinking in.

---

They set course back to Air Suplena to fetch Jolyne's body and return Bruno his. Giorno had given her his expensive jacket to cover up, which she had soon turned into a bloody rag, but he didn't seem to mind. He was much more focused on her being okay despite the bizarreness of her current state.

In fact, she really wasn't okay, as her nausea hadn't abated at all. Her physical state was nothing next to what she had felt: fear. It was not simply being scared—what she had felt was a sense of paralyzing fear, the likes of which she believed an adult could no longer feel. Being paralyzed for those tenths of a second could have made all the difference in how things played out. Had they not predicted that such an escape was possible and planned ahead for the contingency, Donatello would have undoubtedly stolen her blood and probably more.

The feeling actually got worse the more she dwelled on the fact that the man who wanted to hunt her had escaped and was on the loose again. She would have to be alert at all times from now on, even within the island, as he had already proven that he was capable of sneaking in. There was really no saying when he would appear again or where.

'Well, it won't be for a little while at least.'

She tried to be optimistic, thinking about a poisoned Donatello hiding in a ditch somewhere licking his wounds, but at the moment, it didn't bring her much relief.

As they neared the island, her dad explained to her that with a little luck, they could find the helicopter and track down Pucci along with the two brothers. Jolyne was going to grumpily retort that it was pointless, that there was no way Pucci would have used that mode of transportation if he didn't have a way to cover their tracks when she noticed Jotaro's tired eyes watching her carefully. She suddenly realized he was trying to cheer her up. That in itself warmed her heart more than than any of the words he had just spoken to her.

"The truth is, seeing you riding a water pokemon is something I used to think you did when I was a kid," Jolyne said to him.

"It wasn't really the worst fight I've ever had," he replied with a very slight smile, though only for a second.

There was silence between them, but this time a more comfortable kind.

Jolyne would have been content to leave it at just that, but of course, that wasn't exactly her style.

"I guess at least we've learned quite a few things in this fight," she said. "First, we confirmed that the blood of the dead works as an effective poison even if it isn't used against a full-fledged vampire. Second, we gained more knowledge on the missing brother and his Stand; it's safe to say his ability can also be overridden by Gold Experience Requiem. As an added bonus, thanks to his ability, Dad even fulfilled his secret dream. Third and finally, I've realized the Leone Abbacchio experience."

"What do you mean?" asked Giorno.

"I've become one with Bruno Bucciarati."

---

Hamon Disciple N1: My name is Giacomo Tiramisu, and I have a dream: to be the one to put an end to the plague of vampires that killed my grandparents. Despite being a 20-year-old man and having been surpassed by the young Zeppeli, my story is unique, so I will be proud to join you and let you know about my bizarre adventure.

Hamon Disciple N2: Well, that's not going to happen.

Hamon Disciple N1: What?

Hamon Disciple N2: The authors say that they've already introduced too many characters to add more named OCs, so we're just stuck being minions.

Hamon Disciple N1: But what about Iulius?

Iulius: My character description is "Caesar but 14 years old". Just how am I an OC?

Hamon Disciple N1: But that's not fair!

Iulius: Well, at least you're alive. We Zeppelis usually die in this series, so I wouldn't complain.