aaaliens 4

[igiko]

The operation started at dawn, when the ARCANA would be at their weakest against natural sunlight. The first wave of the ARCANA posed no threat to the incoming squads. It was only much later that, upon peering over the mountain of alien carcasses, that Kakyoin switched on the shared channel with a stutter.

“S-Sun-class approaching ahead!”

“What?” Joseph cursed. “We’re still too far from the underground entrance. If we don’t make it inside before the Sun-class finishes charging, we’re all done for. Everyone, get moving!”

“No good,” chimed in Polnareff. “The ARCANA we busted up earlier are blocking the way. We won’t make it in time.”

“A detour would take just as long as clearing a path,” added Kakyoin.

“However,” said Avdol, “we don’t have a choice. Everyone, use what shells you have to disperse the corpses. The Sun-class has already started to charge!”

Kakyoin protested. “But Sergeant, without those shells, our firepower underground won’t be enough!”

At that moment, a text notification flashed through each pilot’s screen: I’ll take care of it. Save your shells and go once I open a path. Jotaro’s gaze shifted to the initials under the message in small text - “SM.”

“Stand Mutt,” he said, “you won’t be able to follow us in time.”

Avdol’s voice sounded conflicted as he called Iggy’s name through the channel. Upon Joseph’s insistence that they respect each other’s wishes and Iggy’s curt response - Move your ass or I’ll run you over, too - the squad conceded to advance by themselves. Iggy’s large rounds spread the fallen ARCANA in a cloud of smoke and dust, enabling Stand to rush for the exposed opening toward the underground path.

Polnareff cried, “Can’t we just eliminate the Sun-class and take Iggy with us?”

“IT’s being protected. There’s no time,” replied Joseph. “I understand how you feel, Polnareff, but it’s our duty to make Iggy’s actions count. Don’t falter now.”

“But we can’t know that for sure - “

“Iggy’s armored unit was damaged by the Emperor-class earlier. Even if we defeat the Sun-class now, he won’t be able to outmaneuver everything else,” said Jotaro. Polnareff’s curse and the thunderous thud of a fist slamming against the control panel ended the discussion.

As soon as Joseph entered the tunnel underground, the outer landscape flashed with a blinding light. The heat of the Sun-class ARCANA’s energy disintegrated the armored units and their pilots left behind on land. Iggy’s signal beeped erratically before vanishing from Stand’s radars.

Stand Mutt Iggy, KIA.


The underground hive was an immense web of labyrinthine tunnels extending from the core, known as the throne room. As opposed to the clear landscape of the surface, the tunnels were clouded in a thick fog that obscured the pilots’ field of vision, limiting their range to a short radius around themselves. It was quiet as Stand advanced with due caution, their radars devoid of ARCANA activity, when Joseph shouted into the shared channel.

“ARCANA!” The channel picked up on a dull thud from Joseph’s end. “They’re crawling all over the cockpit. There’s a swarm of them! All units, be on your guard!”

All of a sudden, the radar on each pilot’s screen flared to life with a barrage of dots indicating individual ARCANA. The numbers were so enormous that the dots looked more like blots of red ink on black paper.

“Old man, where are you?” asked Jotaro, turning his armored unit to shrug off several ARCANA clinging to the shoulders. “You can’t shake them off on your own.”

“I’ve triangulated our positions based on the ground’s vibrations,” said Kakyoin, the muffled sound of rounds being fired from his unit picking up on the line. “Jotaro, I’m sending you Sgt. Joestar’s coordinates.”

“I got them. Thanks, Kakyoin.”

Kakyoin continued, “Polnareff, you’ve strayed too far ahead. I’m advancing to bridge the gap between us. Sgt. Avdol, your orders?”

“Judging from our current position and the map we gleaned from the last raid, this is a larger tunnel that empties into a number of smaller ones. All units, our objective is the tunnel that leads to the throne room.” A dot appeared on the overlay of the hive’s map, signaling the aforementioned tunnel. “The ARCANA pursuing us will thin from the restricted girth of the next area. Pace yourselves and don’t lose focus - fight only when necessary.”

Retreating some dozen meters, Jotaro swung his blade as the image of Joseph’s armored unit plastered with various classes of ARCANA came into view. The ARCANA had attacked the joints first, the parts eaten away and robbing Joseph of a means to retaliate with precision in close range. Jotaro clicked his tongue.

“Hurry up, old man, or you’ll get left behind.”

“I know. Don’t dawdle yourself, Jotaro!”

Because of the thick fog, Stand’s speed was drastically reduced as they advance in tentative formation through the crowd of ARCANA lunging at them with reckless abandon. Jotaro and Polnareff picked off the ARCANA with deft slashes of their swords, their flanks and rear protected by the ranged support of Joseph and Kakyoin. Between the pairs, Avdol guarded the center to prevent the ARCANA from slipping past.

When, judging by Kakyoin’s shared coordinates, the opening of the smaller tunnel approached with the thinning fog, Avdol’s cry jerked everyone in their seats.

Polnareff shouted, “Sgt. Avdol!”

“What happened?” asked Joseph, his volume escalating.

“It’s an ARCANA! Though I can’t tell what class it is . . . I’m on it! Jotaro, you watch Sgt. Joestar and Kakyoin!”

“Got it,” said Jotaro, snapping his head to his left when Kakyoin cried out with a booming explosion of ambient noise on his end. “Kakyoin! What’s wrong?”

Kakyoin was slow to respond, and the words came out of him like sobs. “M-my eyes . . . It burns!”

“This is bad. Jotaro! I saw it just now - a Moon-class slinking away. It must have penetrated the shield of Kakyoin’s cockpit with its acid!”

Jotaro gritted his teeth as Kakyoin attempted to stifle his whimpers, although he was already turning away from the opening before him. “What do you want me to do about that? Kakyoin, don’t move. I’m coming to you.”

Meanwhile, Avdol struggled to deflect the blows of a melee ARCANA that he did not recognize from the lectures and image feedback. It was fast with a precision he’d never witnessed in the ARCANA before, and just a moment ago had pierced straight through one of his armored unit’s arms, rendering it useless. Despite Polnareff’s battle cries, the ARCANA’s advance was relentless.

“Polnareff! Where are you?”

“Just hang in there, Sergeant! This is a tough one, but I think I’ve got it. Nothing can beat my speed!”

“S . . . speed?” echoed Avdol, his eyes widening. “Wait! Polnareff, desis - “ His shout was interrupted by Joseph’s sudden exclamation.

“Oh, my god!”

“What is it now?” said Jotaro in an almost testy tone.

“All units, look! Read the radar! There are massive vibrations heading our way. These large movements . . . they can only mean the approach of an High Priestess-class! If it catches up to us, we’ll be crushed under its weight. Jotaro, link your armored unit with Kakyoin’s. We must leave this area immediately.” Sweat lined Joseph’s brow. “Polnareff, Avdol! What’s your status?”

Avdol started, “Sgt. Joestar, we - ”

“This is Polnareff. We’ll bring up the rear. Hurry up and take Kakyoin out of here!”

With their armored units linked, Kakyoin cruised after Jotaro toward the slim tunnel opening, Joseph taking the vanguard to pick off approaching ARCANA from afar. Static played through the intercom on his headset and Joseph startled as he emptied into the foggy but thinner tunnel.

“Avdol, is that you?”

“S . . . Jo . . . ar . . . ”

“Avdol! What’s your status? Where are you and Polnareff?”

“Ser . . . ant . . . Radio was des . . . ustice-cla . . . Po . . . reff . . . “

Joseph, who was squinting, gasped as his eyes widened. “Justice-class!”

As if coming to the same conclusion on his own without Avdol’s clues, Jotaro piped up in the shared channel through the static on Joseph’s receiver, “Hey . . . Don’t tell me the ARCANA Polnareff is fighting is - “

Before either Joestar could say another word, a deafening roar preceded the collapse of a wall in the large tunnel behind them. The ground shook, jerking the armored units and threatening to sweep them off their feet. The High Priestess-class ARCANA had emerged near the small opening, separating the squad and the immeasurable amount of ARCANA on the other side. At the base of the entrance, Polnareff’s armored unit staggered to a stand.

Jotaro’s screen flared to life with the notice of an encrypted channel, and Joseph said, “Don’t tell Polnareff.”

Jotaro stared wide-eyed at the screen, past the thin fog to Polnareff’s armored unit as Polnareff groaned. In the background, almost too quiet to be heard but still maddening loud for his squadmates, Kakyoin let out a shuddering breath.

“Talk about a close call . . . Hey, where’s Sgt. Avdol? He . . . he made it here before me, right?” asks Polnareff.

“The High Priestess-class,” said Jotaro in a breathy voice, “it . . . “

Stand 0 Muhammad Avdol, KIA.


“If,” started Kakyoin, his voice wavering from the pain of his eyes ruined by acid, “I become a burden, I want you to leave me behind.”

Their rear was safe for the time being, the High Priestess-class still plugging up the entrance several kilometers behind them. The ARCANA so far had been few, easily picked off by Jotaro and a shellshocked Polnareff. The fog was much thinner now, no threat of hallucinating imaginary ARCANA looming over Stand anymore.

With a clearer view of themselves, they’d assessed the damage from the initial entrance. Jotaro and Polnareff were by far better off next to Joseph, whose armored unit was maimed in the joints, and Kakyoin, a section of whose cockpit had melted enough for the Moon-class’ acid to splash against his eyes - an attack that, in its full potency under normal circumstance, would have completely disintegrated his skull and brain. Silence fell in Stand’s shared channel to Kakyoin’s request, a quiet acceptance of the terms of being a pilot.

Before long, there was a rumble indicating the arrival of another ARCANA swarm where the small tunnel split into more paths. Within seconds, the deformed visage of the Hanged Man-class emerged. Joseph audibly sucked in his breath.

“Polnareff . . . ”

“It’s fine, Sgt. Joestar.” Polnareff’s voice was controlled. “Continue on without me.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Joseph. “If this is your way of avenging Avdol, then now isn’t the time! The edge we have over the ARCANA is teamwork. We can’t afford to lose any more of us.”

“That’s not it. I’m thinking about this rationally. Look at the radar - you can’t even tell that these are dots. There’s just too many of them. Trying to make a path as a squad will waste the rest of our rounds. I’m going to tear through these bastard, and you guys can take that chance to slip through. The Hanged Man-class are fast, but they’re no match for me.”

“P-Polnareff, you . . . ”

“Are you serious?” asked Jotaro.

“I’m dead serious,” said Polnareff. “They’re going to be in range in about fifteen seconds. Get ready to follow my every movement. Our objective is the south branch tunnel.” The appropriate tunnel lit up with a dot. “Once the opening comes into view, we’ll switch positions so that you guys are facing front. Then I’ll fend them off to buy time.”

After what feels like an eternity, Joseph sighed. “Fine. That’s the best we can manage. With your strength, we’ll make it to the throne room and take back the earth for humanity. You hear that, Polnareff? . . . France will be on the map again.”

Polnareff’s voice broke as he held back tears and replied, “Thank you, Sgt. Joestar.”

“And I want you to be the first one who gets to walk on French soil again. I expect you to regroup with us after fending off as many ARCANA as you can. Is that clear?”

“Yes - crystal. Now go!”

With practiced grace and precision as though he were fighting in the simulation exercise again, Polnareff met the Hanged Man-class ARCANA head-on. He pushed forward, dispersing the swarm. Mimicking the path he took, Joseph, Jotaro, and Kakyoin hugged his back. When a daring Hanged Man-class managed to rip out one of Polnareff’s armored arms, Jotaro gripped his controls tightly.

Upon reaching the even smaller tunnel, where the fog had dissipated in its entirety, Jotaro glanced back at Polnareff’s distancing form before taking off with Kakyoin in tow. By then, Polnareff’s eyes were misty and his vision cloudy, tears threatening to overtake his senses as he shut off the shared channel with his squadmates.

“Damn it . . . This is for you guys. Please . . . make my death count!”

He threw himself at the ARCANA. At some point, other classes mixed in with the Hanged Man-class, and he cut through them like the rest. A cluster of smaller ARCANA huddle around the legs of his armored unit and eat away at them, causing him to lose momentum and crash onto the ground. They covered his cockpit with their bodies, slamming into the material to reach his flesh when their silhouettes transformed before Polnareff’s eyes.

His grief fueling the Judgment-class ARCANA’s hallucination, Polnareff smiled as his cockpit shattered and the mutated visages of Avdol and Sherry lunged for him. The ARCANA disguised as humans tore him apart, consuming him, when the automated explosive he’d set earlier went off and brought down the tunnel on them.

Stand 3 Jean Pierre Polnareff, KIA.


The entrance to the throne room of the original hive loomed before them. Unlike the previous branches, however, this opening was closed off by a foreign membrane and connected to a new class of ARCANA. Ordering Jotaro to stay on guard with Kakyoin, Joseph studied the peculiar ARCANA and cursed.

“I can’t figure it out,” he said. “And it doesn’t respond to any questions I project onto it. It’s an ARCANA that doesn’t have a will.”

“Sgt. Joestar,” Kakyoin’s voice was small but regaining its original tone, “I may know of a way.”

“What? How do you know that, Kakyoin?”

“On our way through the tunnels, I wasn’t able to fight at maximum capacity, but I did project onto as many ARCANA as I could sense. Since they have to use this mechanism to enter the throne room, I saw some images of the basic procedure . . . ”

Joseph heaved a relieved sigh. “Great! That’s our Kakyoin. You always think ahead. So? How do we open this and confront DIO?”

“That’s . . . Please step back, Sgt. Joestar.”

“Huh?”

“It could be dangerous.”

Joseph’s brow furrowed. “Wait, what do you mean by that? Don’t tell me . . . !”

Switching the link to Joseph’s armored unit, Kakyoin approached the inactive ARCANA. Without a word of explanation, he plunged his armored unit’s knife into the ARCANA’s gaping body. In response, the ARCANA made a keening sound and puffed up, as though preparing to expel some kind of substance.

“Sgt. Joestar! Step back!” shouted Kakyoin, his volume pushing Joseph to do as told.

Air erupted from the ARCANA’s body almost soundlessly with such force that it chipped off a part of Kakyoin’s broken cockpit glass. Joseph and Jotaro watched in silence while Kakyoin pressed farther down with the sharp weapon. The walls shook with a groaning tremor, and they turned their heads to behold the membrane on the gate slowly expanding, creating an opening.

“The gate . . . ,” started Jotaro, trailing off.

“You did it, Kakyoin!” exclaimed Joseph. “You don’t have to stand there anymore. The opening is wide enough for us to go in. Hey, Kakyoin!”

With wide eyes, Jotaro snapped his head back to where Kakyoin stood. The latter had yet to move, frozen in place with his arm in the ARCANA’s gaping body and the glass of his cockpit fogged up from the burst of warm air. Jotaro’s breath hitched in his breath.

“Kakyoin, don’t tell me you - ”

“It’s the Fortune-class,” said Kakyoin, cutting Jotaro off. “It has no offensive capabilities, but there’s a defensive mechanism in place for non-ARCANA entrants. Every class of the ARCANA have a special substance they inject into the Fortune-class’ body, which signals it into opening the membrane. As humans, we have no means of replicating that substance . . . The only option left was to brute force entry by physically reaching the activation system . . . My cockpit is damaged, so I was going to be exposed to the gas either way. In order to preserve both of your cockpits, I was the obvious choice.”

With every word, Kakyoin’s voice grew thinner and weaker until he was speaking just above a hoarse whisper. He continued, “This is the end for me. Even if I were to survive this, I can no longer see . . . I won’t be able to participate in elaborate maneuvers against DIO. Sgt. Joestar, Jotaro - I’m sorry to be selfish until the very end, but please . . . make . . . our deaths count . . .”

The sound of shifting fabric was the last input from Kakyoin’s line. His armored unit remained standing, the knife embedded in the Fortune-class ARCANA to prevent the gate from closing.

Stand 4 Kakyoin Noriaki, KIA.


“Jotaro, you know what to do, don’t you?”

“I got it. You just remember to do your part, old man.” Jotaro paused, his hands weighing heavily on the controls. “Are you sure about this?”

Joseph’s voice rumbled through the intercom in a soothing cadence. “If I wasn’t, we wouldn’t have devised a plan like this in the first place. In any case, we don’t have much time left. My tank was punctured earlier by one of DIO’s tendrils - soon, I won’t be able to move my armored unit. It’s now or never . . . So get ready!”

Their armored units leaped away from DIO’s incoming tendrils. As they glided across the throne room, Jotaro asked, “Where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“The Empress-class infection. Where is it on your body?

Joseph grumbled, “So you figured it out. Forget about that, Jotaro. It’s not going to matter once the pincer attack goes through.” When Jotaro said nothing, he continued, “Listen carefully. These will be my last words before the Empress-class devours me.

“This old man doesn’t regret what’s about to happen. All we’ve done - it’s for your mother and the people she loves like her own children. I may have been a part of the squad everyone considers heroes, but, in the end, I did everything for Holly. I’m not much different from you. But you, Jotaro - you’re my grandson. That’s why you have to survive. Leave this dingy throne once the core is destroyed, and greet your mother again.”

“Old man, you’re going to . . . !”

“I know the objective is to retrieve the core, but . . . after everything we’ve experienced to get this far, I’m not interested in dragging this abomination out into daylight. We’re going to finish it here once and for all. Then the rest of the sub-hives can go down.” Joseph chuckled.

“You were never one to follow the mission directive, anyway. Indulge your old man just this once. I’m tired of outliving everyone.”

As they settled into position with DIO between them at equal distance, Joseph asked, “Are you ready?”

There was a long pause before Jotaro answered, “Yeah.”

Joseph and Jotaro lunged forward simultaneously, the latter brandishing his armored unit’s blade. Because he was out of rounds to fire, Joseph chose to grapple with DIO instead, locking the original being in place. Jotaro’s movement stalled only once before his sword found its mark, tearing through DIO’s fleshy form and straight into Joseph’s cockpit. Immediately, Joseph’s line went dead.

The blade had impaled him where the Empress-class was growing on his arm. As he bled out, Joseph smiled.

“It’ll be nice to retire and see you again . . . Caesar.”

Stand 1 Joseph Joestar, KIA.


With the passing of its creator, the throne room shook furiously. As debris and dust fell around him, Jotaro, who’d hunched his armored unit to shield the cockpit, scanned the collapsing hall. A particularly violent tremor split the ground, its force traveling up the wall and puncturing a weak point in the ceiling. With a boosted jump, Jotaro soared toward the fractured roof and blasted through the crack, the collision shaking his seat as rocks pelted against the cockpit.

The container that was meant to imprison the core known as DIO and given to each pilot remained empty by his side. Jotaro inhaled, then exhaled deeply.

“Good grief . . . I’m going to end up in solitary confinement again. But I’ll do it.”

After all, he thought, he owed his squad a visit to his mother.