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The first inkling Diavolo has that King Crimson may do anything besides follow him around and look menacing comes in winter.
Diavolo has just purchased a brand new coat. It’s on the showier end of the fashionable to practical spectrum, but he thinks it looks good enough to make the investment. Besides, it’s not snowing today; there’s just a buildup on the ground, and unless snow starts falling, he shouldn’t have to deal with cleaning his coat-
A child throws a snowball at him.
There’s about a second’s warning before it reaches him, which is not enough time to get out of the way but just enough time for Diavolo to think, ‘I don’t want that to hit me.’
And, inexplicably, it doesn’t. He hears the snow hit the ground behind him, and looks down: not a speck is on his coat or any other part of his body. He turns around - it’s all in one clump a little behind him.
The child stares at him for a few seconds, before running off.
Alone on the streets, Diavolo looks to his left.
“Did you do that?” he asks King Crimson. The figure shrugs.
“So you want me to throw random stuff at you,” says Doppio, eyebrows raised.
Diavolo folds his arms. “It’s the quickest way to determine if that was a fluke incident or part of a hallucination. So, yes, I would.”
“Alright, let’s see… I’m not risking anything too heavy.” Doppio searches his pockets and finds a rubber ball. “This’ll do.”
He tosses the ball directly at Diavolo’s chest. It makes a ‘thump’ sound when it bounces against the wall behind him without touching Diavolo at all.
Doppio’s eyes go wide. “Huh, it actually worked?”
“Did you doubt me, my Doppio?” Diavolo asks, his voice level.
Doppio frantically shakes his head. “N-no of course not! It’s just… completely different seeing it in person than hearing about it. That’s all!”
“Calm down. We’ll have to try this a few more times.”
After throwing several more objects at Diavolo, with the same results, Doppio glances at his digital watch to see how long he’s been doing this and happens to see: “Uh, that’s weird. I’m pretty sure my watch just skipped forward a couple seconds.”
Diavolo raises his eyebrows. “Try it again.”
They try throwing a ball at Diavolo again. “Yep, definitely skipped a little when the ball should’ve hit you. Not by a lot, but that’s still pretty weird,” Doppio says, frowning intensely at his watch.
Diavolo glances at King Crimson like he’ll explain himself. He does not. “I can only assume the phasing and time skipping forward are closely related. ‘How’ is the most important question.”
“...Why couldn’t you have gotten a normal power like setting things on fire?” Doppio asks. “I mean, it seems like it’d be more useful and kind of cooler. Not a lot of people throw stuff at you.”
“No, I can work with this. ...Just as soon as I figure out what ‘this’ is.”