The man with the clover beanie hangs upside down from the ladder of Johana and Kan’s bunk bed. Johana stands in front of him, arms crossed, with a scowl on her face. Kan sits off to the side in a desk chair with her hands in her lap.

Johana and the man have been staring at each other for ten minutes now, beginning when Johana drug the man away from the cafeteria by the ear. Neither has said a complete sentence to the other in this time. “As I was saying,” the man in the beanie begins, “It’s so good to-”

“No!” Johana shouts. “We aren’t doing this. We aren’t going to sit here and reminisce and talk about how happy we are to see each other. The only thing you’re going to do is leave without another word and never come back.”

“It’s so good to see you again,” the man in the beanie mutters.

“Without another word, Nero.”

Kan chews at her fingernails, a nervous tick that’s been with her since childhood. “So, um, would you mind telling me what’s going on?” she says.

Johana doesn’t respond. “You ran into this weird guy at the cafeteria, and he called you cousin, and tried to hug you, then you punched him in the stomach and brought him back here, and now you’re telling him to leave?” Kan says. “I’m not criticizing, I just don’t really know what’s going on. Also, you both have that weird star thing on your shoulder, which is weird.”

Johana places her hand on the star-shaped birthmark on her neck, a mark she shares with each member of her bloodline, and sighs. “His name is Nero Zeppeli,” Johana says. “He’s my cousin.”

Nero jumps off the ladder and extends his hand for Kan to shake. “A pleasure to meet you, miss...?”

“Nijimura,” Kan says.

“It is nice to see that Johana has a friend. Her grandfather will be happy to know that she isn’t all alone at college. He worries, you know?”

“Is that why you’re here?” Johana spits. “Because Grandpa Joe was worried about me?”

“Alas, that is not my reason that I have come here,” Nero says, frowning. “I’m here on business.”

“What do you do?” Kan asks.

“He’s a traveling salesman,” Johana says.

“I work for a top-secret organization that researches supernatural phenomena,” Nero says without a second thought.

“Wow, not even going to try to be subtle,” Johana mutters.

“There are dark clouds hanging over London, Johana,” Nero says.

“There are always dark clouds hanging over London. It rains every other day.”

“Metaphorical dark clouds. There is an evil force in this city. I don’t know what it is, but I know that something big is coming. You might be in danger. Let me protect you.”

“I’m flattered by the offer, but I’m going to have to say no.”

“What?” Kan and Nero say together.

Johana places her hands on Nero’s shoulders and drags him out of the dorm room. “Listen, I’m sure you can handle whatever this evil force is,” she says.

“JoJo, please,” Nero begs.

“I don’t want anything to do with you, or the Speedwagon Foundation, or Julius, or Holly, or Grandpa Joe, or any of the other bullshit you’re tangled up in,” Johana says. “Have a nice day, Nero. Just have it far away from me.”

Johana slams the door shut. Kan stares at her. “So, secret organizations that research supernatural phenomena?” she says.

Johana forces a laugh and sits down on the bed. “My cousin’s a bit insane,” she says. “Best to ignore anything he says.”

“Is it okay to just leave him alone like that?”

“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. And even if he isn’t fine, it’s not really my problem.”

“Isn’t he your family?”

Johana sighs. “My family and I don’t exactly get along,” she says.

“Are they bad people?”

“No, they’re great people. That’s the problem.”

Kan makes an I don’t understand face and Johana rubs her temples. “Some bad stuff happened when I was a kid and I ran away from home,” Johana says. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Okay. I understand,” Kan says.

Johana sits there for a moment, tapping her foot on the ground. “You still want to know what Nero was talking about, don’t you?” Kan says.

“No. It’s just, last time I saw him, Nero promised he wouldn’t bother me ever again. He’s kept that promise for three years.”

“Which means that this thing that has him worried is probably really serious.”

“Yeah. Nero’s a moron, but he wouldn’t go back on his word if it wasn’t serious.”

“Go talk to him! Besides, stopping an evil force from destroying London sounds a little bit more important than hanging some flyers.”

“I’m sure Nero was exaggerating. And even if he wasn’t, it’s more complicated than that. I barely managed to get out of this life. I don’t want to jump back in.”

“I mean, if something big is coming, you’ll probably get drug in whether you want to or not. You’ll at least have your cool secret agent cousin with you if you help him stop it in advance.”

Johana sighs. “I’ll see you at the concert tonight,” she says while walking to the door.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

When she opens the door, she finds Nero on his knees, begging. “You get one hour to convince me you need my help,” Johana says.

Nero leaps to his feet. “I shall not let you down, JoJo!” he says while putting an arm around Johana’s shoulder.

The two walk out of Johana’s dorm together. “So, have you kept up with your Hamon training?” Nero asks.

“Are you planning to get into any fights?” Johana retorts.

“No, but they often happen in our line of business.”

“First off, your line of business. Secondly, would you mind telling me what exactly you need my help with?”

Nero pulls out a stack of Rorschach inkblot tests. He holds one up for Johana. “What do you see?”

“An inkblot test.”

“I know, but what does it look like?”

“I don’t know, and elephant maybe?”

Nero flips the picture over and frowns. “Sorry, wrong photo,” he says.

Johana sighs. “Why are you showing me an inkblot test?”

“My mother’s stand allows her to predict impending doom in the form inkblots,” Nero says while flipping through the pictures. “They can be hard to decipher, but everything in the inkblots she creates comes true.”

“You bothered me over some inkblot tests?”

Nero pulls out another inkblot, this one showing a series of interconnected lines. “What do you see?” he asks.

“A bunch of random lines,” she says.

Johana leans in to get a closer look. “Wait, is that a map of the London Underground?” she asks.

Nero nods his head. “There’s more,” he says. “Inkblots showing various landmarks around London, and one unnerving inkblot that is the reason for my visit.”

He holds up another inkblot, one resembling the face of a woman. Johana looks closely at the image. The woman looks so familiar, but Johana can’t quite place her. Then she notices a star-shaped smudge of ink by the woman’s neck. “It’s me,” she mutters.

“I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t vital,” Nero says.

“So Holly predicted impending doom in my future. Awesome,” Johana says flatly.

“It isn’t as bad as it seems,” Nero says. “If the inkblot had shown you with a slit throat, or a bullet hole in the center of your forehead, you’d be destined to die. This picture only shows you frowning. Something is coming, yes, but we may be able to mitigate its danger.”

“Do you have any idea what this doom is, or how we can stop it?”

“I have an idea.”

Nero pulls out a final inkblot. “What does this look like to you?” he asks.

“I don’t know, a skull?” Johana says.

Nero looks at it again. “You know, it does kinda look like a skull,” he says. “Personally, I think it looks like a cocoon.”

“A cocoon?” Johana repeats, thinking back to the odd sculpture by the dormitories.

“I looked online for any supernatural stuff going on in London involving cocoons, and you know what I found out? A bunch of giant cocoons have been popping up all over this college campus in the past few weeks.”

“I know where one is.”

Johana leads Nero to the large cocoon outside of the dorm building. “Interesting, very interesting,” Nero says while poking the cocoon with a pen. “This silk, it isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s strong and thin, like normal silk, but nearly invisible. If it wasn’t wrapped so tightly I don’t think we’d be able to see it.”

“Isn’t silk normally strong and thin?”

“Not to this extent. Plus, normal silk doesn’t give off this much heat.”

Johana places her hand on the cocoon, before rapidly pulling it back. She grimaces at the new burn on the palm. “Okay, that’s weird,” she says.

“Stand back,” Nero says.

A pair of barely visible arms appear in front of Nero and strike the cocoon, hitting it dozens of times in the span of a few seconds before disappearing. The silk cocoon rots away, leaving a gaping hole in its side. A skull rolls out from this hole and lands on the ground in front of Johana.

Johana covers her mouth to keep from vomiting. “That’s a human skull,” she mutters.

“More than just a skull, I’m afraid,” Nero says while peering into the cocoon.

Johana glances inside the cocoon and sees a rotting corpse missing its head. “Did you do this?” she asks.

“Did I do what?”

“This! You rotted away the cocoon, did you accidentally rot away this body?”

“My powers don’t work on people. She was like this when we got here.”

“Wait, she?”

“Her clothes haven’t fully rotted away yet. Judging by her fashion and height, I’d guess that this body belongs to a woman in her twenties, presumably a student at this university.”

Nero notices a lanyard hanging from the corpse’s neck and grabs it. “It’s a student worker id for the library,” Nero says. “Does the name Louise Ciccone ring any bells?”

Johana snatches the id from Nero’s hands. She stares at the picture on the front, a picture of a pretty young woman with brown curls. “I recognize this woman,” Johana says. “She went missing a few days ago.”

“A few days ago?” Nero asks. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, why?”

Nero looks inside the cocoon again and scratches his chin. “Bodies don’t decay that fast,” he says. “Nearly all of the fat and muscle has faded away, leaving only bones. That doesn’t happen overnight.”

“What does this mean?” Johana asks.

“It means that we’re dealing with a stand user.”

Johana sighs. She’d hoped to never hear those two words ever again. “Are you sure?” she asks.

Nero nods his head. “We have a stand user to stop,” he says.

The arms reappear on Nero’s shoulders and grab the cocoon, ripping it out of the ground. “What the hell are you doing?” Johana shouts.

Then she notices it, a series of silk cables leading out of the bottom of the cocoon and going underground. “These cocoons, they burn the energy in people’s flesh and drag it somewhere belowground,” Nero says. “Are there any buildings nearby that have a basement?”

“I think the library has a basement,” Johana says. “People don’t use it very much though.”

“Perfect!” Nero shouts before running off in search of the library.

“Are you just going to leave the body?” Johana yells back.

“Someone else will figure out what to do with it!”

+++

After Johana shows him where the library is, Nero sprints down the stairs to the basement, leaping over three steps at a time. The library basement isn’t the evil lair Nero hoped it would be. Instead of the large room filled with death traps and fire, he finds a cramped basement filled with shelves containing textbooks, lit by flickering fluorescent lights. The basement is empty, its ceilings covered in cobwebs and its floor covered in dust.

“Looks like nobody’s been down here in years,” Johana says.

Nero bends down and looks at the floor of the basement. “I’m not so sure,” he says. “It’s faint, but there are footprints in the dust.”

Johana leans down and notices the faint footprints. Specifically, she notices two sets of footprints leading to a door on the other end of the basement and a single set leading back. “There’s somebody behind that door,” Johana says.

Nero slowly walks towards the door. Johana follows close behind. Around halfway to the door, Johana grabs Nero by the shoulder and stops him. “What?” he asks.

Johana points at a pair of bookshelves sitting in Nero’s path. Nero narrows his eyes and notices the giant web sitting between them, made of the same silk as the cocoon. One flurry of punches later, the web and the bookshelves it was attached to are gone. “We’re definitely in the right place,” Nero says.

The door sitting at the end of the basement is a heavy iron door, locked with a padlock. A sign sitting near it proclaims that it is used for the storage of old newspapers. Nero places his hand on the padlock. It rusts and falls off the door. Slowly, Nero pushes open the storage room door.

Five cocoons sit on the other side.

TO BE CONTINUED IN

Chapter 3: Nero Zeppeli’s Viva La Vida, Part 2