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The floor ripped apart underneath them, with a reverberating boom that struck terror into Bruno's heart. And they were falling, falling, plummeting back through the floor that King Crimson had ripped open, bits of sharp stonework plummeting along with them. Bruno managed to catch himself with Sticky Fingers, grasping frantically to a tab attached to a pillar - but Giorno, who hadn't seen it coming, was totally taken by surprise and was falling faster, at an angle that Bucciarati couldn't get to fast enough. He tried to throw Sticky Fingers' other hand out to give something for Giorno to grab onto but the younger gangster tried to snatch at it and failed - and they were both now well inside King Crimson's range. There was a sharp stutter of reality and Giorno found himself slammed up against another pillar with a deranged Stand glaring at him from four sets of eyes. Just barely, in the shadow of the Stand, he saw a silhouette of a man, but he couldn't make out any features, and he didn't have a chance to. The Stand malleted a huge fist straight into Giorno's kidneys, blasting the air out of him and cracking the stone pillar behind him; it all happened so fast he barely had time to react. Blood trickled from his mouth as his knees shook and he crumpled, wild-eyed, toward the foot of the pillar.
"Giorno!"
Bruno tried to ride the zipper down to the column but - [THOOM.]
King Crimson's hard fist was wrapped around his ankle; he was tugged away from the pillar and hurled _hard_ to the already cracking tilework, and something broke again inside as he impacted, his just-barely-fixed left shoulderblade snapping apart, pulling a howl out of him and sending searing pain up and down his chest. He spat up blood and stared up as King Crimson snarled, "And stay down this time," before - [THOOM.]
he was all the way across the room again and moving back on Giorno, grabbing the dazed blond by the hair with a huge white hand.
Bruno struggled to get up, to move, his teeth gritted. King Crimson was going to kill Giorno and he had to do something, he had to do something - [THOOM.]
King Crimson had dragged Giorno out of Bruno's range and hurled the blond forward by his braid only to snatch at the back of his jacket collar with both hands and flex its hard arms quickly. The monster Stand easily shredded Giorno's jacket apart, an ugly tear that exposed the blond's smooth back; the sound seemed to echo off the pillars and the hollow high ceilings. Amid the shards of flying pink fabric King Crimson drove his fist forward and punched Giorno hard in the back of the head; the blond stumbled and crashed down, unable to defend himself, and to Bruno's helpless horror, the murderous Stand crouched down over the teenager where he fell, a - [THOOM].
King Crimson's massive fist was inside Giorno to the wrist and his other hand gripped at Giorno's beautiful golden hair and pulled, and Giorno was screaming, screaming hard from deep inside his chest as his body flollopped against the floor in the most awful way from King Crimson's fist, his bare skin slapping on the old church stone and turning red, red from the blood pooling underneath him. From the awful spasmodic jerking of his body and his wild eyes it was obvious that the Stand was slamming his hand back and forth inside Giorno and pulling, pumping and pulling obscenely at the very guts of him. Giorno's hands scraped at the dark stone and found no purchase, sweat and blood giving him no leverage, and all he could feel was the intense, unbearable splitting and stretching of his body beyond its capacity.
"So is this what started you on your traitor's road, Bucciarati?" the Boss boomed, icy mockery in every syllable, smug above Giorno's agonized yells. "This boy? Did he fill your head with delusions? With grand designs? With hope? Did you plan it together?" King Crimson's fist yanked back out of Giorno and he flicked his wrist disdainfully to send the gore off his fingers, then gripped Giorno by the back of the head and peeled him up off the floor. "Say, boy," King Crimson murmured in Giorno's left ear, "Did your little schemes include the possibility of your death? With your corpse left to rot on a cold floor far from home? Do you think you'll go to Heaven when you die?"
"No! Stop!" Bruno stretched out his undamaged hand, as he saw the murderous Stand angling for a killing blow that was all too familar, all too inescapable. The teenager groaned miserably, hands dangling, twitching, arms limp.
Bruno saw nothing but red and black, and overbright white, and the way Giorno's head lolled backward, eyes blank and lips overflowing with blood.
The Boss tugged King Crimson's fist back out of Giorno, flicking and regarded the shaking, ruined teenager for an instant, its weird four eyes all fixed and glaring at the star mark on his juddering back. Epitaph's eyes narrowed, as if in recognition. King Crimson threw the broken traitor to the ground like so much garbage, a sneer on both its faces as the Boss turned toward Bruno. "So much for our little insurrection, mm?"
Giorno struck the floor and couldn't move. His breathing was broken and patchy, every heartbeat searing. He was seconds from death, muscles juddering with trauma, green eyes wilting to grey. But some tiny last defiant flutter inside him still stubbornly clung to life, and cried to Gold Experience with the last of his strength. There was a brief glimmer of gold mingled in the blue aura as his soul started to unmoor, flickering, from his savaged body. The gold caught him, held him, washed through him; then his soul settled back down, and he was in his body again, locked in with the pain. Sweating, grinding his teeth, while his Stand burned white hot inside him, trying to keep him alive. His hands weakly grabbed for the broken, wet scraps of his own destroyed clothing, something for Gold Experience to work with to heal him, but every movement was a misery.
Bruno slammed his good hand on the floor, almost hysterical, seeing Giorno's life struggle and flicker. "No, NO, NO!" and threw a long zipper out in front of him, trying to reach Giorno, trying to open a space under him to get him away from King Crimson, but he was out of range, the zipper stopping with its end coming mangled and unravelled just a few inches short of where it needed to be. He choked on his fury; he couldn't move fast enough, it was too late... but at that point he had nothing left to lose and he grabbed the zipper and rode it hard across the floor, trying to fling himself at the Boss, just to push him away from Giorno for a few seconds, even a few seconds!
King Crimson just laughed at him and spread his arms. "Come! I don't know why you're still moving, but it doesn't matter, Bruno Bucciarati! I'll just eliminate your pathetic life again and again! You traitors have no hope in any future from this moment on!!"
And he was right in front of Bruno, raising his arm to slam it down again...
Above them came a sharp thin shriek. "AEROSMITH!"
The little toy-plane Stand came roaring down from the hole in the ceiling, gleaming with Stand fire, and fired on King Crim-
The Boss and King Crimson looked up from about ten feet away as Aerosmith's shots struck stone and nothing else, wheeled up and away and doubled back toward its controller. "Fuck, I missed! How? Dammit! Guys!! They're down there!" Narancia yelled, "Three bodies! Get over here!"
"I see it, there's a fight going on, unknown perp, Giorno's down!" Mista yelled. "Fugo! Abbacchio!" He aimed his revolver into the hole and fired three shots, the sound of the pistol firing echoing like cracks of thunder through the basement, and the Sex Pistols rode the shots.
"Get the perp!"
"YEEEHAA - [THOOM.]
The Pistols were entirely confused as none of their shots landed and they lost track of the bullets entirely. "Wha??" "How did we miss?" the little imps shouted to each other, puzzled. "Hey, Mista, the shots are in the ground?! Where were you aiming?"
King Crimson reappeared next to the shaking, semi-conscious Giorno, and grabbed for him, pulling the blond's broken body up by one arm and clutching at him, pulling him up. "You're still alive, it seems. Good, you can be my exit strategy." Giorno, half-healed, groaned, his face damp with sweat and exhaustion, curls broken down around his forehead. He couldn't spare the Stand energy to try and attack, even though King Crimson had put himself well within Gold Experience's barrage range; he needed every drop to keep himself alive just then.
"Bucciarati!" King Crimson yelled. "If you want to live, you let us leave!"
Giorno let out the most awful, broken crackle of a laugh."Won't work," Giorno rasped out.
"Oh, don't your friends care about you?" King Crimson mocked, and tightened its arm around Giorno's waist.
"You'll see."
"Get your hands off hi..." Bruno growled, his lip curled in frustration and he turned and quickly yelled up. "Fugo! Narancia! Aerial dispersal of Purple Haze! Do it now!"
Fugo protested, "But, Bucciarati, you're not...!"
"Do what I say!" Bruno screamed.
Narancia sent Aerosmith soaring, "Got it boss! C'mon, Fugo!" He grabbed the other teen by the arm and shook him by it.
"R-right!" Fugo called out his semi-feral Stand and had it punch and release several capsules from its knuckles. The capsules fell into the gasp, plummetting fast, and Aerosmith chased them and opened fire, causing Purple Haze's lethal-in-30 seconds virus to blast over a broad swatch of the basement.
It's shimmering, iridescent purple-blue-black particles rapidly dispersed and washed over Bruno, the Boss, Giorno and all the space around them.
Bruno yelled, "In thirty seconds all living matter in this room will disentegrate, Boss! None will be spared! Flee for your life if you value it!"
The Boss realized he was on the verge of being outplayed and was definitely outnumbered. He felt the itching, burning sensation begin on his skin, the rising of small pustules of decaying flesh, and also realized that even with King Crimson's magnificent ability to bypass sections of time it wouldn't allow him to escape a weapon like Bucciarati had unleashed. What madness. He growled and threw Giorno aside, placing his own survival paramount, and activated King Crimson's ability to cover a fast retreat. The traitors would be dealt with, and wouldn't survive the week in any event.
[THOOM].
Bruno moved to a pillar and hit it with his working fist, creating a zipper that went up and up and up, until it struck the ceiling - then it curved and followed some obscure line of architecture and popped apart. Sunlight flooded down into the basement, the golden light destroying the remnants of the virus and making the basement safe for the others. The bright light was almost obscene for what it revealed, the blood and ruination all over the basement, both Giorno and Bruno's.
"Mista, get Abbacchio and get down here. We have wounded to carry and my shoulder's broken. Narancia, Fugo, stay in position there and be ready to cover our exit." He staggered to another pillar and created a larger zipper, with a huge, two foot pull tab.
"Right! Be right there!" Mista grabbed the tab and came down; Abbacchio followed after Bruno sent the zipper up once more. Narancia and Fugo gazed down into the basement with confusion. "What the hell happened? Is Giorno okay? Where's Trish?" Narancia yelled.
Bruno quickly raised his hand. "We're still in combat, Narancia! Don't drop your guard until we clear the area! Watch for movement!"
"Yeah, yeah, okay!" The scout sent Aerosmith rising and flying.
Abbacchio and Bruno locked eyes for a long moment. Mista sprinted to Giorno and his lips curled back in horror as he saw exactly how badly Giorno'd been beaten. He crouched next to Giorno, starting to reach out toward him but hesitating. Instead, he spoke softly. "Hey, Giorno, y... you still with us?"
Giorno made a horrible moan. He pulled himself halfway off the floor, arms shaking, and struggled to sit up. His shaking was terrible to look on, the flame of his being flickering. "Still here." He was pale and blank-faced; he lifted his head and he, too, shared a long silent look with Bruno; Bruno was leaning on Abbacchio and both were limping closer. "I need," Giorno started to say, but his arms trembled to the point where he almost collapsed and Mista caught him up with a "whoa!" that sounded more jovial - a false positivity - than the moment justified.
"I need a minute," Giorno managed, eyes closed. "I need something to heal with."
Giorno rested against Mista. Mista gripped his arms hard and tried not to think very much about the full-body shudders racking Giorno's body, or the way his legs were curled up under him in an awkward, weird way and that Giorno didn't seem capable of moving them. Or the blood. Or...
Mista's brain felt like it was locked into slow mode, paralyzed by what he was picking up, and he looked around blankly to try and find something, anything. He found one of the ladybug pins within arm's reach and grabbed hold of it; it was slick with blood, its pattern almost obscured, but he still pressed it into Giorno's hand and made sure that Giorno held onto it. He looked at Bruno, who looked equally helpless and blank, uncertain what to do.
Abbacchio was pulling at the strings of his coat and yanked it off himself with sharp, angry gestures of his hands. "Jesus Christ," He rumbled, somehow blaming all of them at once with his tone, and draped the big black coat over Giorno. He muttered sourly, "Nobody wants to see you naked, brat." The visceral outrage showing in his tinted eyes didn't match his growled words. Under the black fabric, still warm from Abbacchio's body heat, Giorno's shuddering eased. His hand that gripped the pin withdrew under the coat and disappeared, moving under the thick fabric.
"Go see if Trish is okay," Giorno muttered, through clenched teeth and the pain of healing himself. He felt too many eyes on him, all frozen pity and dread, and couldn't handle that. Thin threads of gold light escaped from beneath the folds of Abbacchio's coat. "Make sure Purple Haze didn't get her. I can fix her if she's hurt if you're quick."
"Giorno," Bruno started to say, but whatever he wanted to say died in his mouth after that and he just nodded and bobbed his head at Abbacchio, who broke away from him, reluctantly, with a grumbled "yeah," to find the girl.
"Feel ready to get up, bud?" Mista desperately wanted to get them all moving, a desire he saw mirrored in Bruno's tight-lipped, grim expression and smouldering eyes. He tried to keep his tone light, easy. "We gotta get moving."
Giorno nodded and ground out, "I know. Help me." With Mista's strong arms pulling him, he managed to get back on his feet. His legs wobbled like a newborn colt's, but steadied after a second and he was able to hold himself up with Mista's arm under his shoulders. He looked at Bruno again, their eyes a hard conversation full of silent self-blame and remorse, and Giorno shook his head. "We couldn't have known." He at least sounded more like himself, less wan and beaten, color returning to his eyes.
Abbacchio reappeared with a dazed but unharmed Trish walking next to him. She too took in Giorno's obvious ruin, the way his hands gripped at the edges of Abbacchio's coat to keep it on him, with a pale, horrified stare. "Oh my god," she stammered. "Giorno...?"
Giorno shot her a weary look. "No." He didn't have the energy to explain further but she understood him anyway.
Trish scowled at him but nodded and moved to his other side immediately, putting an arm around him to help Mista steady him. He let her, feeling her angry, determined spirit. In the moment he needed that spirit around him far more than pity or concern. "I don't know what the hell happened here but let's get out," Trish barked, and started forward. Her motion spurred Mista, and they all staggered toward the stairs.
Bruno nodded too. "Narancia! We're moving! Meet us at the stairs!"
They staggered out of the church, bloody and mauled, seven pairs of eyes trying to see in all directions at once, with Aerosmith rolling above them in wide circles. "Everyone on the boat! We need to get out of range as quickly as we can." Bruno yelled. "Mista, take the wheel. Everyone else in the turtle. "
One by one the group slid into the key and disappeared, until only Bruno and Mista were left outside. "Just drive. We'll figure out what to do once we've gained some distance and we can find a safe place to disembark." Mista nodded and turned on the boat, while Bruno retreated into the turtle with the others.
He found that Giorno was resting on one end of the couch, still under Abbacchio's coat, now thrown over him like a blanket. His head rested on Trish's lap. Her body language was protective, her hand gripping one of his hands. His eyes were closed; he looked like he'd passed out.
"Just leave him alone," Trish growled at Bruno as he tried to move over and talk to them. "Don't look at him like he's pathetic! Let him be!" And she looked like she was ready to bite anyone that tried to approach anyway, maternal ferocity showing in the set of her jaw. Her hand was gripping Giorno's tightly. She kept stuffing bits of torn magazine under Abbacchio's coat, and Giorno's golden light continued to flare and fall in random jittering patterns.
Bruno nodded; somehow he couldn't argue. He abruptly remembered that Trish and Giorno were the same age and perhaps she had some different way of relating to Giorno's feelings because of it. He slumped wearily into another chair. His own body was only running on adrenaline and Gold Experience's shimmering light, and he still had a broken arm of his own to contend with. Worse than any of the physical pain was the sourness in his stomach that told him he had utterly failed everyone. Despair and confusion smothered the group like a black shroud, and he felt unable to pierce it.
"Why won't anybody tell me what's going on," Narancia complained, flopping to the floor and crossing his ankles over each other, leaning back on his hands. Abbacchio, shirtless, glowered from the other side of the turtle, eyes veiled behind shadow and the set of his mouth grim and cold. Fugo was shivering where he stood, arms crossed around himself, and he kept looking toward Trish and Giorno and then ripping his gaze away somewhere else. "Bucciarati, can you... can we please talk about this?" he stammered. "What happened down there?"
Bruno lifted his good hand, a tired 'come here' expression that he meant for the whole group. The others pulled away from their places and took up positions near him; Narancia sitting on the table, Abbacchio on the floor at his feet, the silver head resting against his knee. Fugo sat on the couch the other side from Giorno, not willing to endure Trish's sharp tongue for being too close. Trish looked up and listened, staying with Giorno.
Bucciarati inhaled and winced around the pain of his shattered shoulder. "The Boss didn't mean for us to deliver Trish so he could protect her," he began, voice brittle as shards of glass. "He meant for us to bring here there so he could kill her and wipe out any connection to himself. Giorno and I had planned all along to try and learn about the Boss' true identity. There's no point in denying that now. It was a secret we kept between us from the day he joined. It should have been easy but... when the Boss attacked Trish in the elevator, it infuriated me. I chased him to the basement."
"And Giorno chased you. We followed him into the church but he was ahead of us. The next thing we knew we found the hole in the floor," Abbacchio nodded. "And?"
"And the Boss has an incredibly powerful Stand," Bucciarati growled, "With horrific capacity. King Crimson. He can anticipate actions within his field of influence to about what seems to be a ten second window, and escape them by eliminating the time between your action and his desired result. He showed me this before he attacked me. He ran me through. Cut me apart. I managed to pull Trish and myself up to the ground floor, and Giorno found and healed us there, but then King Crimson attacked again and tore the floor open. He had Giorno down before we even hit the ground. It was all so fast my head's still spinning."
Fugo's hand flew to his mouth, eyes wide. Trish murmured, "Piece of shit" from where she sat. Narancia blinked slowly, while Abbacchio looked grimly satisfied, as if Bruno's explanation slotted together with things he'd been aware of for some time but couldn't piece into a whole. Now he knew. "So, you and Giorno were in on it the whole time, huh?" He pushed his forehead against Bruno's knee. "I knew you idiots had to be up to something. You weren't very good at hiding it. Should have let me in. Maybe then your precious twink wouldn't be in little pieces right now."
Bruno ignored the snark, feeling no heat from Abbacchio, as the silver-haired investigator was still pressing hard against him and Bruno felt him shudder.
Fugo, however, just stared at him. "You planned to betray the boss? And... and all of us?" His voice rose thin and high. "You of all people! And look where it got you!" He pointed at Giorno and Trish. "You all almost died and now he'll..." He shrank back, folding his arms miserably around himself. "He'll follow us... oh God, he's going to follow us...! He'll send Ciocolatta... It was him, wasn't it?" His eyes flared. "Giorno! It's his fault! He put stupid ideas in your head!" He started to launch himself across the turtle room, but Narancia leapt up and grabbed at him, holding him back. Trish looked venomous from where she sat.
Bruno glowered at Fugo. "Stop," He snapped, a single hard word of command. "Giorno is not the instigator, this was as much my intention as it was ever his!"
"You fucking traitor!" Fugo roared, shaking off Narancia and lunging at Bruno instead. Abbacchio stood up, putting himself between the enraged blond and his capo, and his full height was no less impressive and dominating for his shirtlessness. "Shut the fuck up, Fugo!" the investigator roared.
Fugo punched Abbacchio in the jaw and, while the ex-cop was reeling from that, shoved him aside, knocking him toward the table; Abbacchio stumbled and fell toward the couch, hair in a flutter, his arm draped over the cushions. Fugo surged past and grabbed Bruno by the lapels, yanking him up with sheer fury to his feet and screaming in his face. "YOU SOLD US ALL OUT, YOU FUCKING MORON, EVERYTHING WE WORKED FOR, AND NOW WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"
There was a sudden sharp wobble in the floor, and the ground under Fugo's feet buckled and swelled up, pushing him and Bruno apart, tossing Fugo backward on his ass and sending Bruno falling back into the chair.
"How about both of you take a fucking time out," Trish Una snapped, lowering her outstretched hand. A glimmer of pink light was visible around her fingers and the slimmest glimpse of a pink and red Stand form showed at her shoulder before the Stand vanished back into her skin. "All this arguing is pointless. What's done is done. Do you intend to fight my father, or do you plan to just cringe and die?" She glanced down at Giorno. "I'm going to fight him. And I'm going to beat him for what he did to all of us."