268. Lion and the Mouse ~Rainbow Connection~

Gabrielle types on her laptop.

Narcos sits before her and stares at her.

"Hello," said Narcos.

"Hey," said Gabrielle, rather mundanely.

"What's your name again?"

"Gabrielle JoJo. Who's asking."

"Oh! It's just that... We never actually talked to each other before. I've just been kinda wandering in your house for a week, now."

"Yep," said Gabrielle. "That is quite the predicament."

"Yeah..." said Narcos.

Narcos stares at Gabrielle.

"Stop staring at me. It's creepy," said Gabrielle.

"I wasn't staring at you," said Narcos, turning red.

"Yes, you are," said Gabrielle.

"Prove it," said Narcos.

Gabrielle takes off her shirt. 

"JESUS CHRIST!!! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" asked Narcos, turning red and looking away.

"HAHAHAHAHA!!!" laughed Gabrielle. "You dork! You were staring at me!"

"No, I wasn't!"

"Haha! If Dad was here, he'd kick your ass!"

Narcos bows his head in embarrassment. "Wh-where's Mercuria?"

"Oh? She's in a building somewhere in the city watching over the Sphinx Triads. They have a meeting with some guy called the Improbable Man in the Sunflower Street Hotel.Aaaand... Done!" smiled Gabrielle, as she saved, turned off her laptop, and slammed her head on the table.

She then takes a sip of some camomile.

"Thank God for the Brits," Gabrielle smiled sweetly as she slept on the table.

Narcos stared at Gabrielle.

"I'll punch and dislocate your jaw if you keep staring at me," said Gabrielle.

"You just look kinda adorable and all," Narcos laughed nervously.

"Tch-! Shut the fuck up you pink-haired nuisance!" yelled Gabrielle. "Don't say something so vile to me!"

"Haha!" laughed Narcos. "Sorry! I didn't mean to fluster you!"

"Psh! Fluster me!? Oh, please!" Gabrielle begins to take off her shirt.

"DUDE!!!" yelled Narcos.

"HAHAHAHA!!!" Gabrielle laughed at Narcos. "Like I'd ever..."

In a room in the Sunflower Street Hotel, Mercuria listened intently to the conversation of those in the next room using her camera which connects to her laptop.

"Greetings, Improbable Man," smiled their leader, Tricia Una, also known as the daughter of their Boss, Diablo. "I see that you're here for the arrow you bought from our organization."

"Thank you, Tricia Una," said a man wearing a white suit, white polo, white pants, white shoes, and a black gas mask on his head with a black helmet. "I would be having the arrows-..."

"Well, too bad... You can't have them," said Tricia. "Before my father's death, I made a promise that I will right my father's wrongs... So the Sphinx Triads will not be serving your organization."

"Oh?"

"Oh, yes." Tricia sneers. "Sorry. We will not be serving you. That is final."

"Very well..." he said, as he snaps his fingers and a beautiful Chinese woman walks in.

The Improbably Man then hums.

"Some of you are unlikely to have friction in your feet. Some of you are unlikely to respect your own lives. Some of you are unlikely to fear heights... But it is still unlikely that Tricia Una will kill herself..." sang The Improbable Man.

Then all at once, all the soldiers are killed. Some trip. Some shoot themselves in the head as blood splatters everywhere. Some jump off the window and kill themselves by falling off the sky.

"Give me the arrow," said the Improbable Man.

Tricia woges into a Mousewoman, a humanoid with an adorable mouse head, and proudly hisses. "Never!"

"Do your thing, Miss Daiyu Salvador... I'll be leaving this to you." The Improbable Man leaves the room.

"Yes, sir," said Daiyu.

Mercuria, who sees all this through the computer, runs outside as she enters the next few rooms.

*knock knock*

"POLICE!!! OPEN UP!!!" yelled Mercuria.

Tricia yells. "GET OUT OF HERE!!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DEALING WITH!!!"

Tricia sighs as a red Stand similar to a female mechanical King Crimson emerges from her body.

Mercuria slams the door open as she takes out her guns.

"EVERYONE PUT YOUR HANDS UP!!!" yelled Mercuria.

Suddenly, all the corpses begin to reanimate like zombies.

They woge into lion-headed Sphinxes and moan and growl creepily, limping toward Tricia.

Tricia tosses the arrow to Mercuria, who is in awe.

"Take care of this!" yelled Tricia. Suddenly, the Stand Armor encases Tricia's body as she opens her palm and points it at her own soldiers. "Sorry, old friends..."

Tricia blasts a small bullet that causes an explosion in the building.

*BOOM*

Dust settles.

The fire alarm broke as Mercuria slowly stands up from the rubble.

She hears blood dripping and something that sounds like flesh being pierced.

She then feels a sharp pain in her arm.

She looks down to see the arrow... had chosen her... slowly entering her wrist and into her arm... then out her shoulder...

"HA!?" asked Mercuria, as she yells in pain. "RAUGH!!!"

Suddenly... something emerges from her body...

(theme begins)

With yellow eyes and a humanoid face, a yellow head, yellow hands, and a purple jumpsuit, with yellow hair flowing down from its head, Mercuria's Stand finally appears.

Suddenly, stickers went flying from her clothes like crazy confetti. Some of the stickers landed on her phone, as her phone duplicates into two. The stickers stick all over: Some on her clothes, some on her shoes, some on her hair, some on the rubble, as each of these objects duplicate into two. The stickers then disappear as the two objects fuse back into one.

Her body begins to warp into some sort of dimensional barrier as her body warps and duplicates.

"Kisses?" asked Mercuria, seeing that the stickers have kiss marks on each of them.

She sees Tricia preparing another Combustion bullet as she sees her Stand Armor. She also sees a large rainbow-spangled humanoid with several multi-colored jellyfish-like tentacles below its body's lower half puppeteering the lion men.

The zombies in the room all growl and approach Tricia as Tricia prepares another Combustion Bullet. They seem to be controlled by the woman in a black suit and sunglasses, Daiyu Salvador.

"Ms. Una! Don't!" yelled Mercuria.

"Tch-!" said Tricia. "I don't listen to insubordinate cops like you!"

"There are innocent people in this building!" yelled Mercuria.

"So?" asked Tricia. "None of this is any of your business, lady!"

Tricia prepares another bullet.

"DON'T ATTACK WITH THAT UNREGISTERED ARMOR!!!" yelled Mercuria.

"WHAT!? THIS IS MY STAND YOU DOLT!!!" yelled Tricia. "Wait... You could see my...-?"

*ROAR*

The lion men charge as Mercuria yells, "NO!!!"

Her Stand finally emerges and punches all of the lion men as they are tossed out of the window.

"OSHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" yelled her Stand.

"Whoa... that felt... energetic! Like my blood pumped into my veins! Like an adrenaline rush!What... What is this thing?" Mercuria checks her Stand's body. At first, she fears it, but she ends up touching its body out of curiosity. Her Stand tilted its head to the right. "What are you? Wait..." Mercuria sees that the Stand makes a thinking pose when she thinks about what the Stand is. "Wait... Can I control you?" asked Mercuria. She moves her Stand around and sees it moving left to right and wave around its arms. "I can command you... Is this what a Stand is supposed to be?Very interesting..."

A zombie lion man prepares to bite her in the neck.

"WHOA!!!"

Her Stand blasts a punch into the lion's face. "OSHAAAAAAAA!!!"

The Stand then puts one of its stickers into its left arm as Mercuria's left arm and her Stand's left arm duplicate into two, both connected to their shoulders.

"Whoa!" yelled Mercuria. "We're connected in some way... I'll call you..." Mercuria sees the kiss mark on the sticker. "Kiss. That's a cute name.KISS!!! BEAT THESE GUYS!!!" Mercuria yelled, pointing to the multiple growling zombie lion men.

Kiss blasts its fists toward several lion men with her three arms.

Mercuria then grabs and duplicates one of the men's guns as she begins to shoot at the lion men.

*shoo... CRACKLE... BOOM!!!*

"STOP FIRING!!!" yelled Mercuria.

"Why can you fire!?" asked Tricia.

"I'm not wielding an explosive... Whatever you're wearing!"

"For the last time! It's my Stand! SaltNPeppa. Allows me to blast all these bitches to hell. What does your Stand do? Duplicate shit? Pretty useless if you ask me."

*click click*

Trish points her palm to the Daiyu.

"Don't even think about it! We need her alive!"

"So did I. But she's too dangerous to live."

*pchoo...*

"NO!!!" Kiss grabs Daiyu's arm as her aim curved upward and was blasted into the sky.

"JESUS CHRIST!!! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE POINTING THAT THING!!!" yelled Mercuria.

"YOU PUSHED MY ARM!!!" yelled Tricia.

"That is a very good point! I'm sorry!"

"Tch-..."

*BANG*

*SPLAT*

"AGH!!!" A bullet hole appears in Mercuria's arm as one of the Stand's tentacles puppeteers Mercuria's arm and points the gun to her head.

*BANG*

*CLANG*

Tricia blocks the bullet with her Stand's hand.

Mercuria sighs in relief. "Th-Thanks!"

Mercuria's arm fuses back together. "GAH!!! God... that hurts!" Mercuria has an idea.

She tosses the gun in her other hand toward Daiyu.

Mercuria then removes the sticker from the gun pointed at her head as she is launched toward Daiyu.

"OSHA!!!" 

*POW*

Kiss blasts a punch into Daiyu's face as Daiyu nearly drops from the building, and Kiss grabs Daiyu's polo. Her sunglasses drop from her eyes and to the concrete below, shattering to pieces.

"Heh..." said Mercuria. "Gotcha."

"There will never be a Mouseman leader for the Sphinx Triads!"

*shoo*

*BOOM*

*SPLAT*

Daiyu's head explodes as her brains splatters everywhere.

"HEY!!!" yelled Mercuria. "SHE WAS A PRIME SUSPECT!!!"

"That... was a woman looking to assassinate me for being a different race of Cryptid than the majority of the Sphinx Triads. My father was a Manticore and his subordinates were Manticores and Sphinxes. I, meanwhile, am a Mousewoman, like my mother... What you humans call a racist."

"A mouse-what?"

Tricia woges into a Mousewoman before Mercuria's eyes.

"Oh... wow... that is a giant fucking mouse in front of me..."

Tricia woges back to normal.

She reaches her hand out. "I am Tricia Una."

Mercuria shakes her hand. "Mercuria Costello."

"I was reaching for the empty holster on your belt to check if it's big enough."

"Oh..." Mercuria laughed nervously.

Tricia sighed and grabbed the gun from the ground, pocketing it in Mercuria's holster. Tricia's breath fogged Mercuria's skin.

"Tch-..." said Mercuria, turning faintly red.

"Goodbye, Signora," said Tricia, as she walks out of the destroyed room with a couple of her living men following after her.

(theme ends)