“Should we stop for the night?” Ocellus was the first to break the silence.

From the abandoned fishing village, the group had ventured back into the forest as they headed up towards the volcano in the center. According to Leilani, the volcano was long extinct, so there was nothing they needed to worry about.

“Then again, if it erupted, we won’t have to work our way to TWI,” Shiho had said.

The sun had begun to set as they neared the start of the mountain and they had spotted some kind of facility built into its surface. Upon getting closer, they found it was a prison, similarly abandoned like the village. This prison looked old, made out entirely of cement and iron bars. Vegetation had grown all over it, retaking it back into nature.

The group heeded Ocellus’ suggestion and decided it would be better to have some shelter. The entrance to the prison was shattered open from within, with the gates curled out and torn off its top hinges, held together only by the creeping vines growing all over the structure.

“I think… I know this place.” Subterra rested a hand against one side of the rusty gates. “TWI had me duel her other Stand users here. There’s a circular arena inside where I had to fight and hone Crafteon’s abilities. It’s been long abandoned even before TWI was here, I believe. Probably something left over from the age of pirates or colonization.”

“A prison means cells.” Shiho stepped into the dark entrance, unhindered by the absolute silence the building exuded. “I know my way around prisons. There should be beds in here. We can get some rest here before setting out in the morning.”

“In here?” Josher peered down the entrance hallway. He couldn’t see anything on the other side. “Do we really need to go in?”

“Can’t handle a little darkness?” Calypso gave him a pat on the back and rubbed at her own shoulder. Even with her burns treated, it still hurt to move her arm too much. “It’s better than sleeping out here in the open where TWI’s Stand masters can find us.”

“Who’s to say they aren’t already in the prison?” Josher countered.

“Let me tell you, this prison will make all the difference.” Shiho walked into the dark. “I’d rather sleep on a dirty old bed than the dirty ground beneath my feet. Just stay alert.”

Everyone else followed her inside, except for Josher, who continued to stand at the entrance. “Are you for real? After the catacombs of Paris?” When he got no reply, he threw his hands up and reluctantly followed after them, taking out his lightphone to light the way. “I could swear I heard some ghosts down there. There might be some ghosts in here. Just saying!”

“Do not worry,” Leilani called to him from further down the tunnel. “With God on our side, no spirit will dare harm us.”

“Good grief…” Shiho kicked open the door at the end, sending it off its hinges as it slammed into the concrete ground with a deafening crash.

The hallway they walked through led them into the prison’s central foyer, where benches and tables lay strewn across the floor, along with a bunch of cages. Josher shone his light above and they could see more cages hanging down on chains, some of which were already broken, explaining the other cages down here.

“There. Stairs.” Shiho pointed her phone’s light across the room to a dark corner. A doorway led up a flight of stairs that spun round and round till it got up to the next floor. “These should lead us to the cells.”

The rest followed behind her, walking through two more gates and fences to get into the prison proper.

On the way up the stairs, Subterra put a hand on the railing to haul herself up, but as soon as she touched it, she immediately recoiled and took a step back.

“What, what is it, Subterra?” Leilani rushed beside her to have a look.

Subterra sniffed at her hand, then just shook her head and flicked her arm up and down. “It’s just… oil.”

“Oil?” she bent low and sniffed at the railing. “She’s right. There must be a leak from above.”

“Oil… It could be a trap.” Shiho tried to peer up the stairwell, but it was too dark to see anything in detail. “Leilani, Ocellus, check our surroundings.”

The native nodded and spread out her Stand’s tentacles around them. “I don’t feel anything. It’s empty.”

Ocellus had also sent out three swarms of Forest Rangers to cover a wider area, but she too shook her head. “Nothing. There are more puddles of oil above, but no sign of any barrels or chances of fire. I think these are just leftovers from when the prisoners escaped or something.”

“We’ll keep going.” Shiho said after a pause of thought. “But TWI’s minions will eventually find us. They always do it somehow. We’ll have to take turns keeping watch.”

She led the way to the second floor, which was the first floor of prison cells. There were forty cells on each level, split in two depending on the staircase you took. Each cell was about the size of a small bathroom, housing a single bed and a bucket near the back, some of which were badly stained brown, along with bits of the floor.

Each of them took one cell on the right of the stairs, with Josher being the furthest one from the stairs, and Subterra being the closest. Shiho bent down and lit one of the oil pools on fire. That way, at least they’d have some light for their surroundings.

“I’ll take the first watch,” Subterra told the others as she leaned against the bars to her cell. “I’ve got some things I wanna think about.”

No one said anything in opposition and Subterra was soon left alone to her thoughts. And Crafteon. The air here smelled of oil. It clogged at her windpipe, but it was still manageable.

“Do you feel any different after defeating Tirek?” Crafteon said, holding on to the railing next to its master.

“It wasn’t even me who did it.” Subterra looked down at the foyer. “We let Calypso handle it on her own.”

“And that was your mistake.” Crafteon shook its head. “I managed to breathe in a portion of Tirek’s darkness before his end. Imagine if we had gotten it all. You could realize your true potential if we take it all from all of them. No one would be able to tell you what to do again, Subterra Shiver. No one.”

“What would we even do with all this power? All I want to do is protect the world from TWI.”

“You do not consider the future. With all the power in the world, we could shape it how we see fit. You could do it. We could control it all.”

Subterra gazed down the corridor of cells. Someone was snoring close by. “But what about the others? It’ll be betraying their trust if I turn out to be just like TWI.”

Crafteon slammed a fist on the railing.“Why does it matter what they think of you?”

“Because… they’re my friends.” Subterra had journeyed long with them, especially Shiho and Ocellus. Ever since the day she ran away, she’d been helping them get back to TWI, even when she didn’t remember anything. She knew their goals, she knew where they had come from, she knew their backgrounds, and especially true, she knew they trusted each other. “I’m not turning against my friends. If I do that, I’m as bad as TWI.”

“With great power, you do not need to burden yourself with others.” Crafteon swam through the air to Subterra’s left side. “Think about what I said. Power is only for those who reach out and take it. Power or friendship, that is up to you, Subterra Shiver. I hope you choose wisely.”

With that, Subterra was left to her own devices. She looked down at her elbows and sighed. One part of what Crafteon said did strike her mind. What was she going to do after they were done here? What life did she have to go back to? For as long as she had known, she was on this island.

“Do I even have parents to go back to? Did I have a job I was good at?” Subterra asked herself. “But I do have the power to change things. Perhaps… Perhaps I could.”

Subterra pictured the prison, remembering the arena further down into the mountain. It was there that TWI had taught her to hone the abilities of her Stand. She had been thrown down over and over again, but each time she got back up, she got a little stronger and so did Crafteon. Crafteon was a manifestation of her spirit. Perhaps inside, that’s exactly how she thought and what she was casting on the outside was just some facade of something far darker.

She stood there for hours, losing track of time as she gazed on into the darkness before her. The dark had never scared her, in fact, it gave her a sense of calm. Everything was silent and unmoving, almost like the whole world had completely stopped in its tracks.What would scare the regular person instead gave her peace. It was this peace with the dark that made her question herself.

Is there something more to my link with the darkness? To Crafteon?

She had only learnt about protecting others from Shiho and her friends. Before that, nothing of this sort ever crossed her mind. She remembered following TWI day after day, doing as she bidded, even if it broke all the bones in her body. Why did she follow TWI? Subterra shook her head. She didn’t have an answer for that, or even why it took her so long to finally run away.

“I don’t know what to think anymore…” She rested her forehead against the railing. “Is Crafteon right? Is this not the path I should be on? But what about the others…? I can’t just leave them. They’re my friends.”

“It’s all immaterial unless you can defeat TWI…” A voice whispered from beyond their cells.

Subterra’s eyes opened wide. “Crafteon?” she asked. But that had not been the voice of her Stand. This voice was deeper and richer, like that of a confident and proud man. That was the keyword. It was a man’s voice.

“Subterra Shiver, the one sought after by TWI,” the voice said again, worming its way into her ears. “It is such a pleasure to meet you at last.”

Subterra pushed off the railing and looked around, keeping her arms out in front of herself. She saw no one and she had no idea where the voice was coming from. “Where are you? Show yourself.”

She didn’t know the prisoners TWI had brought over from Equestria, but whoever they were, they were strong enough to dare challenge TWI back in her own world. She could not underestimate them.

“Don’t be afraid,” the voice continued, smooth like the softest cloth. “We are two of a kind. Both dwellers of the darkness, both of us with the shadow of TWI hanging over ourselves. Both of us are destined for so much more than this mere existence.”

“What do you want?”

“I care not for the goals of changing this world. But I do care about my freedom. Come with me. Together, we can defeat TWI and end her reign over us.”

Subterra was a little taken aback. Even Tirek,who boasted so much power, didn’t take this as a suggestion. Just who was this?

“You… want to help us?” Subterra asked slowly.

“Don’t get me wrong.” The voice seemed to travel closer, but Subterra still saw nothing. “I am not in this for anyone’s good but my own. I see the darkness within you. It cries out, struggling to be free as I am. Join me, Subterra. And I will free you.”

“But what about my friends? I will not leave them.”

The voice laughed. “What friends? The people you are traveling with? I knew you would say something like that. I’ve faced off against TWI and her friends many times before to know that I would have to first take care of them.”

Subterra’s eyes widened and she sprinted to the next cell, which Calypso was in. There was no one in there and Subterra had no idea where she could’ve gone.

“Huh?” She moved on to the next cell, where Ocellus was, and she made it just in time to see her hand slip underneath a puddle on her bed.

“What?” Subterra blinked. She didn’t have one of those fancy lightphones, so there was no way of projecting light into the room to examine it further. “I have to find the others!”

Shiho’s room was next and before she even arrived there, she had already heard a struggle from within.

“Let go!” Shiho grunted from inside, before the sound of concrete being smashed could be heard.

Subterra rounded the corner at her cell, watching Curtain Call wrestle with a dark arm coming out of the floor. With Shiho’s lightphone lying on the ground casting light in the room, Subterra could now see that the hand was coming out of an oil puddle.

“The oil…” She looked outside in the corridor where there were dozens of oil puddles all over the place. “That’s where you are!”

“Very correct, Subterra,” the voice rang around them. “I am Sombra, King of Shadows, and my Stand, Black Water, allows me to exist within its oily surfaces. I have been watching all of you ever since you entered the prison. I had a feeling you’ll return here. Our kind are always drawn back to the dark.”

“Just… who are you!” Shiho stepped back as Curtain Call yanked the arm out of the puddle, pulling out an equine Stand with red streaks coming out of its head. It snarled at Curtain Call and spat a glob of oil in its face. “Aagh!”

Shiho shut her eyes, unable to see as the Stand remained where it was. It grabbed Curtain Call around the throat, then delivered a fast one-two to its face, knocking Shiho aside before it dragged the Stand into the oil puddle. They disappeared completely and Shiho and Subterra were left with silence.

“Shiho!” Subterra ran to her friend, but Shiho shot out an arm and waved it.

“No, the whole floor is coated in oil here,” Shiho said. “You’ll have to find a way to stop him, Subterra.”

“But I’ve got to get you out!” Subterra had only just set half her foot into the cell, into the oily floor, when fingers reached out of it to grab her.

She gasped and leapt back as Crafteon dived forward, wrapping its fingers in shadowy tendrils, but the hand slipped away and disappeared as ripples formed across the floor, heading straight for Shiho.

“You’ve got this, Subterra.” Shiho gave her a nod, still unable to see. “Give him a good beati-”

She didn’t have enough time to finish her sentence as Black Water reappeared, pouncing on her and pushing her under the oil. Its surface rippled for a second or two before falling still, leaving Subterra and the puddles alone.

• To be Continued...-

Author's Note

Stand page next chapter! Stay tuned...