Autumn Falls, a sleepy little city in western Rhode Island. That’s how everyone had described it, before the influx of criminals. The news has tried and tried, questioning police, civilians, and prison wardens, but it seems nobody can seem to figure out where all of these criminals came from.It’s almost as if a large portion of Fall Autumn’s population had just decided to commit crimes all at once. Our hero in the making, Joshua Star, has a mind to find out where these criminals came from, and put an end to their crime spree.
“Hoooouuuup.” Joshua woke up with a stretch. “Time to find Angus and Kaya. I’d like to tell them about my plan to save everyone.” he looked at himself in the mirror “But I should get dressed first.” his stomach growls as he ponders over what to wear. “...and eat breakfast.”
He emerges from his room a few minutes later, dressed in blue jeans with one knee worn away from years of baseball and playing outside. On his feet, a well loved pair of wine red converse, colored closer to purple from use. He also wore a white baseball tee with blue sleeves, and a dark green military surplus jacket with many pockets. His hair was short, brown, and uncombed. His mother always said it looked like a cat was curled up on his head.
Joshua grabbed a piece of toast as he raced down the steps and through the kitchen “Bye Mom, I’m going to see some friends!” “No need to tell me, Joshy! You’re eighteen, after all.” He yelled and his mom replied from the living room. “All right! Time to find my sidekicks.” Joshua joked to himself as he ran to Kaya and Angus’ house (they are foster siblings). Along the way, he stopped at a gas station to buy some snacks. The store area was pretty empty, befitting the early hour, but there was one person at the back of the store. He was wearing a grey hoodie 3 sizes too large and was concealing something in the large pouch pocket.
Joshua’s expression grew serious and he walked up to the man. “Hey.” Joshua grabbed his shoulder “What’re you hiding in that pocket of yours, asshole?” the man took off his hood, revealing himself to be just a boy of about 15 or so. “Huh? Hey, get your hands off me! He pulled away from Joshua, and took his hands out of his pocket, letting him see that he had brought two pistols with him! The grey steel glinted in the cheap lighting and joshua panicked, he immediately activated the rockets he had placed on the boy’s shoulder. He fell hard and slid backwards, crashing into a shelf before stopping.
“That must’ve knocked him unconscious.” sighed Joshua as he ran over to the boy. Upon closer inspection, the boy had been carrying airsoft pistols. They aren’t even loaded! Thought Joshua as he picked the boy out of the pile of chips and walked over to the cashier. The man immediately put his hands up “Please don’t hurt me! Take what you want! I don’t wanna-” “Hey, calm down! I just got a little overzealous with this kid, he came in with airsoft pistols to try and hold you up.” Joshua gestured to the boy slung over his shoulder. The cashier looked incredulous “you threw a kid against a wall for carrying airsoft pistols? He didn’t even do anything illegal yet!” “Well… I panicked, ya see? And uh,” Joshua didn’t have a good response to the criticism. After apologising and fixing the shelf he knocked down, he left without the kid. “You’d probably just bring him to the police station!” the cashier felt it was best he took care of the boy until he woke up.
After the small fiasco at the gas station it was almost lunchtime, and Joshua had forgotten to buy snacks. He took out his old motorola (he preferred flip phones) and dialed Kaya’s number. As the phone was ringing, he happened to look down an alley and saw two large men trapping someone in the alley. Having learned his lesson, he approached to watch, but did not act yet.
To his surprise, he saw that Angus was the one getting mugged! “All right, handing over yer wallet’ll be the quickest way outta this’n fer you, fella.” Said one man, disinterestedly. “Yeah, what he says!” agreed the other. They aren’t even carrying weapons, not even a tree branch… how stupid are these guys? Thought Joshua.
At this point Angus speaks up. “I don’t carry a wallet on me, just go home. You aren’t prepared to hurt anyone.” “Is that what you think, you shitty brat?” says the 2nd man. “I know that you aren’t prepared to fight. It’s obvious by how you ambushed me without masks. Hell, Jim still has his nametag on.” Angus points to the first man, Jim. “How’d you know my name, kid? Cut the shit!” both men advance on Angus, angered by his comments.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
This isn’t good… Angus isn’t armed, either. As Joshua worries, he sees Angus breath deeply and start to glow yellow like the sun. “Kooooooohhhhh…” Angus prepares as the two men falter, but continue, not at all scared by the light. “You think a flashlight trick’ll scare us, boy?” Says Jim. Angus ignores him and yells “Sonic Ripple!” A piercing screech fills the air as Angus releases the Ripple energy he had built up before. Joshua covers his ears, using his hands and Hootsforce’s wings. The two men in the alley were not as lucky, when Joshua looked back they were unconscious.
Angus spotted Joshua and said “‘Sup. you were there the whole time, weren’t you?” “Only a little.” Joshua said awkwardly. “I had a theory about you I wanted to confirm, and this is definitely confirmation.” Angus gave him a look and replied “Well that’s not creepy at all. It’s a good thing I already knew you had a stand, otherwise I would have freaked out when I saw my friend with a wyvern on his back.” Joshua went bug-eyed “What do you mean, you already knew!” “Well, that’s what happens when you carelessly summon your stand in school.” Angus chastised Joshua for being careless. “Anyways, let’s leave before people come looking, Kaya’s still at the house.” Joshua nods in agreement and the two head to Angus and Kaya’s house.
Once they arrive, Joshua asks Angus if there’s a private place the three can meet “Well, our foster parents aren’t home right now, so we can use the basement.” Angus leads them down to the basement. Joshua, remembering his hunger, says “Hey, do you have anything to eat?”
After Joshua microwaves some leftovers, he meets the other two in the basement. “Alright. So I wanted us all to meet for one reason.” Angus and Kaya nodded “Remember the last history class?” “I remember Angus being an ass.” jokes Kaya. Angus slaps her on the shoulder “Careful what you say, I might beat you up.” “Like you even could!” “Guys, guys! Calm down. Focus.” Joshua stops them from getting distracted.
“The point I’m trying to make is… I’m going to actually try and fight crime.” Angus and Kaya immediately protest in turn “What? You could get hurt, or killed! Some of these guys are no joke, Jostar!” “It’s better to just leave it to the police, they’re working hard to stop them!” Joshua replies to them one at a time “The police can’t cover the city, Kaya! And Angus, you just fought criminals today!” Both look at each other, they clearly think this is a bad idea. “I wanted to do it as a team with you two. All I need to know is if Kaya has a stand.” he looks at her and she looks at the ground. “I said it in class. If I had a superpower, I’d try to ignore it, and live normally.” “So you do have a stand?” Joshua asked. Angus responded for her “She does have a stand… but she doesn’t like to use it.” Kaya looked at Joshua “It just feels… unfair! Doesn’t it feel like you got lucky? Like someone else deserved this more than you?”
Joshua softened “Kaya… a stand isn’t something that you get through luck. You have to have the potential, you have to be strong enough in mind and spirit to handle it. Nothing about your power is undeserved, a stand is something that has to be brought out with your own will to fight.” She closes her eyes “I just feel… like it’s unfair to people who don’t have it in them to fight back. They should be given the ability to fight back, not me.” “But you were given the ability to fight back. That just means you’ll have to fight to protect people who can’t fight back.”
Her eyes snapped open “You... You’re right. I have to fight. I shouldn’t waste my power feeling bad about myself.” Kaya stands up “All right! I agree to join you crime-fighting trio!” Joshua smiles and stands up, too “That’s it, go Full Force! Now what’s your stand ability?” Kaya blushed “I, uh… I don’t know?” Joshua planted his face into his palm. “You’ve never actually used your stand?” “W-well, I have… but I mostly let it do its own thing.” “Huh? Your stand can act for itself?” “Yeah, when I was ambushed the other day, it touched the two guys mugging me and they started walking away from each other, but they didn’t notice they were walking away from each other.”
Joshua sighed “We’ll work on you later, first I need to know what Angus’ stand is.” Angus looked up and smiled “I don’t have a stand.” Joshua blinked. “What do you meeeeeean? What do you call that yellow light and the piercing scream then?” “It’s a technique called Ripple. I found it on an obscure forum post when I was young from a user called W-ZEP1881.” Joshua looked skeptical “Well, whatever works. Apparently it lets you see stands too, which is handy.” “Yeah. I wasn’t going to join your suicide pact at first, but now that you’ve roped my sister in, I’ll have to join to make sure she doesn’t get killed.”
Joshua smiled “Whatever you say, man. All right, with the three of us going full force, it’ll be no time at all before we clear the streets of the filth in this city!” everyone stands up and puts their hand over the table. “From now on, we are the protectors of Autumn Falls!” Everyone nods in agreement. Before they cheer, Joshua gets a call.
“Hello? Mom?! Oh my gosh I’m so sorry! Love you bye!” He hangs up the phone “I’m late for dinner, meet at the abandoned factory tomorrow!” Joshua yells as he runs out the door. “I will never understand that guy.” says Kaya. “Me neither.” sighs Angus.