The Ludicrous Escapade Pt.3

Despair

You crouched down next to Johnny, placing a hand on his back. His breathing had gone frantic and you were trying to calm him down.

He took a few deep breaths, regulating his breathing enough to speak again. "I want to cross the continent and grow... Just a little more and my legs will move! Just a little more! But just when I think I've conquered something, defeat rears it's head again!" The Joestar shakily met your gaze, unable to diminish this creeping sense of dread. "I... I can't do it! I'm at my limit! We can't win! The President has already made the complete corpse his!"

Johnny buried his head in your shoulder. "He'll come again... Right now he went back to the train, but he'll move the gap and come back again! I can't shoot bullets into that gap! The holy corpse is on his side! According to what he said, any harm to him gets repelled somewhere else. And this same force made Gyro's wound rise up his body!" He pointed to the train. "There isn't any way to beat him! He's justice... and we're the ones who are evil!"

"I don't doubt that he thinks of himself as justice. He'd probably argue that his plans for this country are far more important than any of our own desires." Though you certainly felt that his claim for bettering the country was all a guise to mask his own selfish desires. "And maybe some people would agree with him. But what about every other nation? For them to suffer for Valentine's benefit, how could that be considered justice?"

"And we might actually have a way to beat him." Gyro slung an arm around both yours and Johnny's shoulders. "Do you remember? How I said you could use the stirrups to use the horse's power with the steel ball's rotation? Though it's a rotation that neither my father nor anyone's ever seen... It's a rotation we don't even know how it rotates..."

"Yeah! Of course I remember!" He had been thinking about ever since Gyro had brought it up. "But a rotation that sends power from your legs? For me that's..." He wasn't sure how useful of an idea it would be when he couldn't even walk.

"Just now I tried to throw with that rotation." Gyro stared over at the steel ball he had chucked at the President. It was still resting on the grass.

"It's impossible..." Continued Johnny. "We all saw it, didn't we? That gap... No matter what kind of rotation did we use, that gap he can move will just repel any attack. That's reality!"

"Johnny..." You knew how he felt. This sense of hopelessness. You had felt it many times before. "I'm sure this rotation can work. When you tried it, Gyro, what happened?"

He picked up the ball, inspecting it closely. "Look..." He peeled a few curly, blonde hairs off of it.

Johnny let out a gasp. "What? So what about his hair?! Wh-What do you mean?! Why're his hairs stuck to the steel ball?" He let the information settle. "No way! Are you saying you hit him?!"

"No... I didn't see anything to indicate I hit his head. But the rotation passed down from my ancestors that no one's ever seen..." Gyro put the steel ball back in its holster. "You remember how it was used by the knights of the Middle Ages? The mounted enemies were also knights! They wore helmets and armor and carried shields. It's not needed nowadays, but if there was once a rotation needed to get through those defenses?!"

"What does the hair mean, then?! What kind of rotation did you throw the steel ball with just now?" Johnny now had a spark of hope. Even if his nail bullets didn't work, maybe Gyro could kill the President with his steel balls.

"I don't know..." Admitted the Zeppeli. "All I have is the result. And the fact is... the result is that it pulled out his hair from inside the gap."

You pulled away from the little group huddle and made your way over to Moxy, pulling yourself up into the saddle. "Let's go then, guys." You knew your skill with Spin was not quite the same level as Gyro, but you would certainly try to give it a shot yourself, if given the chance. Your teammates mounted their own horses and moved next to you on the tracks. "Lucy is still in that train car... At this point I guess she sort of is the corpse."

"The President can't focus on all of us at once if we split up, right? Maybe you could get her out of there, (Y/N)." Suggested the Joestar.

Gyro gripped Valkyrie's reins tightly. "Make sure you all remember the Golden Ratio. No one knows what kind of energy the rotation from the horses will have. You might be asking yourself if you can really even do this right now. But know that the only way is with the Golden Rectangle. Make the horse run with that form. If we can obtain that rotational energy from the horse... it can only be with the horse in the form of the Golden Rectangle."

"Make the horse run a way the horse itself thinks is good. Like how a horse feels happy naturally running in the grass." Gyro gave Valkyrie a pat on the neck. "Like you're thanking the horse itself for being born and coming to be here in this world under the sky." He reached into his holster. "That is the time it will make the Golden Rectangle. Then we'll definitely be able to win. We have the result... That his hairs came out..."

You leaned your head closer to Moxy's. "Do you think you can run in the Golden Ratio?"

She looked at you as if to say, 'I don't know what that means, but I'll try.'

The door to the train opened and Valentine stepped out. He was watching all of you warily, wondering why Johnny and Gyro had not ran off or tried to escape after having already witnessed the extent of his power. Surely they knew it was futile to fight against him now. And to think you were still siding with them... What could they possibly have that he did not? He hoped you would realize by the end of the fight just how fortunate you were that he even wanted you by his side in the first place.

"So he's here." Gyro spoke under his breath, trying not to let the President listen in. "Let's go. Only shoot one shot, Johnny. Once the horse has taken the form of the Golden Rectangle. Only then."

Valentine took his time unlatching the chain between the handrails. He calmly walked down the steps and onto the train tracks. While the three of you got yourself running faster, Valentine entered the gap in space. He used this ability to phase into the ground.

"What...?" Johnny hadn't been expecting a move like that. "What's happening?! Where'd the President go?! What'd he just do?!"

"He hid under the tracks!" Gyro could barely make out the President's form. "He's on the ground! Flat on the ground and sliding toward us inside the light!" He wondered if the President was catching onto the plan. "We'll split up! Johnny, you curve around from the right! (Y/N), go left with me!"

As Johnny veered right, a chunk of the tracks broke apart and patch of golden light began chasing toward him in the grass.

"So he's trying to take out Johnny first." You supposed that had been his plan from the start. After all, that was who he had shot not too long ago.

Johnny fired some nails at the light.

"Not yet!" Shouted Gyro. "Johnny, don't shoot! It still hasn't made the form of the rectangle!"

This led Valentine to spare the Zeppeli a glance. He wasn't exactly fluent in Spin terminology, but he could only assume this rectangular form or whatever was somehow related to your plan.

"He's just a little too impatient..." You watched as Johnny fired again, killing yet another person in some random location.

"Damn it! Trees are coming closer again!" Johnny was not a fan of the forest scooting it's way closer to the train. He would be closed between two trees, and he knew the President had probably been trying to chase him over to that point. However, if he slowed down at all in order to get around them, he'd get caught.

"He did it!" Gyro felt a small sense of pride for his Spin trainee. "It's done... inside that form is done. Right now his horse is inside the Golden Rectangle!" He rose his voice even louder, trying to make sure he could be heard by the Joestar. "Now, Johnny! The form is complete!"

Johnny held up his, aimed his shot, and... got whacked in the head by a tree branch.

The nail was shot toward wherever as D4C cleanly sliced off Johnny's left hand. The Joestar was left falling from his horse, blood oozing from his wrist. D4C wrapped a hand around Johnny's neck, keeping him pinned against the ground.