The Ludicrous Escapade Pt.3

Kiss of Death

Jolyne watched as the grave dirt shifted with the movement of each invisible zombie. "I have no idea how many of them there are now. We're... gonna be surrounded! Hermès! We have to get out of here! Your personal vendetta or Whitesnake's goal, we can think about those things after we survive this situation! First, we have to get that door open and get out of this mess!"

"If you really want to get out of here, I could blow up the door." Offered Yoshikage. "That might set off some alarms, though."

"I also don't doubt that they'd just follow us out of this cemetery. In which case, all the other prisoners will just serve as more fuel for his ability." So even if it wasn't really a super great option, staying might actually be better than running away.

"Revenge is what's most important right now."  Hermès continued to stare at where she presumed the army of corpses was. "Maxx is going to try and get revenge on me for drowning him in the pipe. He's filled with resentment against me. He's thinking about how he wants to kill me with his own two hands and rip my flesh apart with his teeth."

"Wh-What are you saying?!" Jolyne was worried her friend was about to do something reckless.

"I'm saying that the one who's gonna try and kill me directly is definitely going to be Maxx! This is between me and him!" Shouted Hermès. "'Course, some people say that revenge won't bring my sister back. They don't get it. They'll say forgiveness is what matters. But, I sure as hell don't want to live my life trying to force myself to forget that my sister was thrown in a fucking gutter! I've made up my mind."

"Okay, Hermès. I understand." You pulled out a pocket knife you had bought off of someone a little bit ago for convenience's sake. "I don't mind you getting your revenge." You knew Polnareff had been the same way when having to avenge his sister, Sherry. Once he had been able to take care of J. Geil, it was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"(Y/N)?!" Jolyne couldn't believe you were agreeing with Hermès. "What the hell?!"

The Costello gave you a determined smile, glad that you at least seemed to understand. "Thanks, (Y/N)."

"But I'm not letting you face all this on your own." You grit your teeth as you dug the knife through your forearm. "You'll still get to kill Maxx, which means you can't blow him up, Yoshikage, but I'll help thin out the heard. Capeesh?" You started moving closer to the gravestones, where Jolyne's strings were snapping with every step the invisible corpses took. "I can handle a few zombies. They ain't no vampire, and they certainly aren't Pillar Men."

You and Yoshikage worked as a decent team. He'd direct you toward zombies getting close to Hermès which you would then slice through the skull or push away from for it to be safely blown up. You wanted to make sure Hermès would come out as unscathed as possible.

"He's going for your head!" Informed Yoshikage, as he saw Sports Maxx jump down from the ceiling onto the Costello.

The zombie's teeth sunk into her skull, but Hermès had thought several steps ahead. Predicting her enemy's movements even prior to Yoshikage's prompting.

"Hermès... you split your head in two, with your sticker...?" For Hermès to go to such lengths just to get revenge, Jolyne couldn't believe it.

"I've found you Sports Maxx!" She made Kiss swing its fist in Maxx's general direction with astounding speed.

Silence followed.

Realizing that the rest of you were likely unable to hear the ramblings of Sports Maxx, Yoshikage stepped in as translator. "He's saying he knew you'd do that." He tapped a corpse you had kicked aside, making it disappear in an instant. "He won't fall for your stickers anymore. And he's flaunting the fact that he can..." Yoshikage spared a second to glance in Sports Maxx's direction. "Oh. I guess he has separated his head from the rest of his body. Now he's screaming that it was all your sister's fault and he's going to eat you, I guess." He mostly just heard it as the ravings of a madman. "I'm paraphrasing here, of course." He thought it was worth clarifying.

Then the sticker on Hermès forehead was removed. Her two heads snapped back into one, but the chunk of flesh Maxx had ripped off also had to return to its place as it busted itself straight through his torso.

"Was this what Hermès was waiting for?!" Asked the Cujoh, talking mostly to herself. "Waiting for the moment that he'd pull her sticker off to try and get at her real head?"

"I've figured out where you are now!" Announced Hermès, "Your location! I gotta aim right above it! Right at your face! Straight for the center line!" She went for a right roundhouse kick, landing the toe of her shoe smack dab in the middle of Sports Maxx's face. "That kick was for Gloria... Looks like I broke your nose. But, just imagine it was Gloria who did it. This is also for Gloria!" He fed the man a well deserved knuckle sandwich.

"Wow... she thought pretty far ahead." Commended Yoshikage, before Maxx ordered all the zombies to attack Hermès.

"Trying to hide again? You won't be able to." The Costello gripped a copy of Maxx's head by the scalp. "I put a sticker on your head and separated it into two. All I have to do is peel this off and they'll merge back together. That'll also be for Gloria. Then the next one, and the next one, and one the one after that." She ripped off the sticker, sending the ghost heads smashing back into one, a pair of discs clanking onto the floor as a result. Using Kiss, she delivered a swift barrage of punches, each of them in honor of her dead sister.

"And just like that, it's over." Yoshikage watched as the remaining zombies disappeared like a gust of smoke. The awakened souls returned to their eternal slumber.

The Costello stared off into the distance, blood dripping from the nasty gash in her head. "Don't know why, but..." Her eyes started to water. "...suddenly the tears came... I really want to cry as hard as I can... but I don't think I have time to cry right now..."

She started to topple forward, but you caught her in an awkward sort of hug. "Don't worry, Hermès. Cry all you want. You did good. You avenged your sister."

Jolyne got up to her feet, taking a closer look at the head wound. "I'll call up Foo Fighters." She started sending out some thread, "She'll be able to help with this... I think."

You set Hermès down, having patched her up yourself for the time being. "I'm sure she'll be okay. Now we just need to have someone get us out of this stupid cemetery. Blowing the door up will definitely get them asking too many questions whenever the guards eventually arrive."

"In the meantime..." Yoshikage picked the two discs off the ground. "I suppose we should be taking a look at these, right? Or determine a way to sneak them through. I presume they'll do a body search following a strange incident like this."

"Hey, guys!" Foo stuck her head in through the bars. She had rushed over as fast as she could as soon as she heard Jolyne's call. Having slurped up some sewer water, she was practically good as new. "Bring Hermès over here, (Y/N). I'll fill up the wounds."

After Foo finished her task. You did a quick pass around of the memory disc, everyone taking a chance to view it.

Apparently Whitesnake had provided Sports Maxx with a bone that he was asked to use his Limp Bizkit on. When he did, it created a hole through Whitesnake's hand. In his mind it seemed to prove there was a way to achieve 'heaven', according to someone else's plan. The bone was heading toward the punishment ward.

"Who knows who that bone belongs to... but we have to stop it, whatever it is." Jolyne held on tightly to the disc the moment you removed it from your head. "I have to get to the punishment ward."

"Did you not feel it, Jolyne...?" Your hand grazed over the front of your neck. "Well... I suppose your connection is a little bit different from mine. That was... that was Dio's bone... I'm sure of it... but we watched his body turn to ash? There shouldn't be anything left, right? Did I... really miss something?"

Foo gave your hand a pat through the bars, "I don't know much about this Dio guy, but I'm sure things are gonna be fine. Don't sweat it."

"Yeah..." Jolyne gave your shoulder a squeeze. "We're going to take care of this. Foo," Jolyne handed the discs over to the plankton. "Hide these and make sure Emporio sees them. Then go call a guard and get us out of here." Foo Fighters gave a curt nod, slipping the discs through their skin and then dashing away.

"(Y/N)..." Yoshikage took shape next to you again, having returned to the void room for a short time. He wasn't exactly thrilled to be the one telling you what he had just witnessed. "It's Dio. His body is becoming more translucent. He seems to be... starting to phase out."