A Change in Fate

chapter 3

Anubis was on his way to find this Joestar kid, though this seemed more difficult than he had anticipated.

The group was split up. And he realized that he had no idea which guy was who. Two of them seemed to be missing, should he place his bets on them? He decided he would.

He ran back into the town square. One of the people there was obviously a stand user. He'd just assaulted two other people, and was now holding some kid. He was sure he heard him call that kid Giorno!

He swung the sword up, and tried to bring it down on top of the head of the kid clad in black, when his arm wouldn't move.

"what the fu-" a hot liquid dripped down his arm. Warm rain? Was that a thing? He looked up. It was red. Blood. And those were...

"strings!? F-fuck! They're sharp!!"

The man whipped his head around. His eyes went wide in disbelief.

What he saw was that same blue haired girl, two once severed arms roughly reattached to her body with the very same strings that restricted the movements of the man with the sword. Her shoulder was also sutured, but still bleeding heavily, she didn't look good, but she was standing, and surviving.

And she accomplished her most important goal.

"N-Narancia!! Watch out for... for t-that man..! He's... He's after Giorno..!!"

It was all she could bring out before she stumbled and collapsed again, but it was also all she needed to say. Narancia jumped up, and filled the man with bullets from his Aerosmith. For a moment, he didn't even question how this strange girl knew his name.

The next time Rae woke up, she was on a strange couch. The place looked weirdly luxurious. She tried sitting up, but a huge sting in her shoulder forced her to stay down.

"Ah...you're awake? I can finally properly fill up your wounds then."

She snapped her head towards the voice. It was Giorno. And Trish was also there. She sat quietly in the corner.

"Could you please take those strings out of your wounds? They prevent me from healing you."

Rae stared at him dumbfoundedly for a good few seconds, before she did as he asked. First her left arm. He held it, and attached it properly, then her shoulder, and her right arm.

"Wh... where are we...? Why did you bring me along with you...? Why-"

"I'm very sorry, but I can't answer your questions..."

She was brimming with questions, and wanted to ask them all at once. Frustration rose up in her until suddenly a third person appeared in the room, but it wasn't through a door or anything. He came through the roof?

This person was Buccellati.

"Say...Rae Odengard... am I saying it correctly? Doesn't matter. You're going to answer some questions for me."

She visibly cringed at how badly he pronounced her name, but she nodded slowly.

"Alright, first question. We found some interesting information between your belongings."

She felt her heart sink. Of course they'd look through her stuff.

"First off... these documents... with all of this information...on all of us. All of us. Except for Trish over there. And these documents have a very interesting stamp on them." He paused, and slammed an open document on the table, causing her to flinch, it was his own. He pointed at the logo at the top of every page. "isn't that the Speedwagon Foundation logo?"

Rae once again nodded slowly, she saw no reason in lying here.

"Then... why was the Speedwagon Foundation tracking us? Care to explain that?"

She honestly felt like crying, but she fought it, and cleared her throat.

"The Speedwagon Foundation has been trying to take down your boss for years now, that girl over there, Trish, is a clue to finding him." She paused for a moment, trying to find words, her hands were shaky. Her definitely regretted following them further past the tower now. "I was supposed to collect evidence that the boss was located there, and that Trish was his daughter. Even the Speedwagon Foundation expected him to take her under his wing..."

She sighed, and shuddered. She just wanted him to ask the next question already.

"Are you a stand user?"

That question wasn't much of a surprise. She nodded again.

"yes, I am. My stand is called Cool Cat, though he isn't very fit for combat..."

She reached into her pocket, and panicked when she couldn't feel the yarn doll that was usually there.

"W-wait! W-where did he go!? The yarn doll!"

She started feeling around. She knew the string had been cut, but that still meant that he couldn't be very far away. Where was he?

Suddenly Buccellati shot her a kind smile.

"He's been hanging out with Narancia. Don't worry. Your questioning is over."

Huh? Already? He was so strange..

"We had a feeling you meant to join us, and we can always use an extra hand... what about it... will you help us take out the boss?"

Buccellati held out his hand towards her, and she looked between his face, and his outstretched arm. She was incredibly confused, but she did know that they seemed to have the same goal.

"You must have missed the part where I said that I'm literally paid to take out that shitstain... I'm in!"

She smiled back at him, and very weakly shook his hand.

"Alright then... the rest already knows this but, our next step would be, to steal a plane and get to Sardinia."

She raised an eyebrow, she wanted to suggest just grabbing a Speedwagon airplane, but decided that might actually take too long, and thus nodded in agreement.

"Though, I would like to see my stand back now, there are a few repairs I need to make..."

He smiled at her words, and called for Narancia, who soon swapped places with him inside the turtle, and eyed the girl on the couch curiously.

"I'm pretty sure this guy is yours?" he held out Cool Cat to her, and she carefully accepted it, though it was with a pained expression. Her arm still hurt a little, but she started tying knots together in the strings right away.

"uh... thanks for... saving my skin back there, I probably would've died... or at least gotten hurt pretty badly without you..." he rubbed his neck, he seemed pretty bad at this kind of thing, but she appreciated it either way. "you're pretty a pretty badass chick.."

She smiled warmly, which was a lot better than what she'd shown him the first time around. "I'll have to thank you too, I'm gonna assume you carried me back here... that's pretty amazing, thank you.."

He flashed her a huge grin, and waved his hand at her. "no big deal! Not at all!"

They continued talking for just a little longer until they reached the airport, where the group would steal an airplane to fly to Sardinia.