PSEUMINO, VENTO AUREO.

✦.⁺ rueful.

═ ☆. MISTA STARED INTENTLY AT THE rock. His eyes went wide with a sudden realization. "No fucking way."

He planted a foot across the elevator frame to keep the doors from closing. A hand went behind him to his waist, drawing out a revolver. A purple one, no less. You jolted, realizing that Mista had been carrying it with him the entire car ride.

"Who the hell are you?" Mista barked at the lavender-haired man. "You're that damn sculptor we keep hearing about, right?"

"Mista, what are you doing?" you asked. Why was he being so aggressive all of a sudden?

The man stared at you. He raised his hand, probably to get Mista to move his leg. You didn't have time to blink before a bullet tore clean through his palm. The man lurched back with a strangled scream. He clutched his hand, shocked.

"What the hell?" You tried to move past Mista to the man. Mista firmly ignored you.

"I'm about to put a bullet through your eyes if you don't answer me," Mista growled. "Why were you following me?"

You looked back at the rock in the corner. It had been sculpted. There was something familiar about it too. The carved figure was curled into themselves, a terrible expression on their face. There was a gaping hole where his chest should've been, the blood gushing down looking startling real.

"Are you a cop?" Scolippi asked weakly. He curled his hand into a fist and held it against him, blood streaming down his wrist. "No, you can't be. They would never—"

Mista rammed his knee into Scolippi's stomach. He shoved him against the wall of the elevator.

"The guy with the gun asks the questions!"

You were starting to get angry. You didn't know a lot about Mista, but still, he shouldn't be treating Scolippi like this, strange rock or not.

"Why don't you back off?" You said to Mista, your voice steely. "You're acting like a mafioso or some shit. We agreed we weren't going to touch him unless he confessed."

Mista didn't relax his grip on Scolippi. You couldn't stay in the elevator like this, where someone could walk by and see you. You got into the elevator and pressed the button for the seventh floor.

"You've got this wrong," Scolippi said. A line of blood trickled from his lips. "I'm just a regular sculptor. I don't have anything to do with whatever you're here for."

Mista's revolver pressed into the back of Scolippi's head. "Explain how you became a Stand user."

Again, your gaze went to the rock. It was unnerving, the way it slightly steamed now. Was that what it was? Scolippi's Stand?

"I'm sorry, but I don't even know what any of those words mean. If you're talking about this strange ... power, it just appeared one day when I was a kid." Scolippi's words were tense, curt. "Was it the same for you?"

"How were you following me, huh? And how did you sculpt that rock to look like that?"

Scolippi turned his head sharply in the direction of the rock. "You know who that is, then? Please, bring him here, now! You have to hurry! He must be in the building but—"

Mista pulled Scolippi to the other wall of the elevator. "You haven't answered any of my questions, son of a bitch!"

You could tell by now Scolippi really didn't know what was going on. If the rock was his Stand, it didn't seem like he could control it. Otherwise, he would've done something by now.

"Would you calm down? He doesn't know anything!" With an effort, you pried Mista off of Scolippi. He allowed himself to be pulled off, but he kept his revolver trained on Scolippi.