Dallas - 1972
"No way! Again? This guy has to be cheating!" Shouted a leather clad thug at a poker table.
"Raise your sleeves scumbag, or I'll cut you!" He shouted, brandishing a knife across the table.
The man across from him, a blonde haired 6'5 ruffian, obliged. He rolled up his plaid sleeves and smirked, no cards were hidden.
"Gah! Just my luck." Sighed the thug as he sat back down.
"Guess luck is on my side today." Said the ruffian.
"What was your name again kid?" Asked the thug.
"JJ." Said the ruffian, "And I'm not a kid, I'm 25!"
The thug chuckled a bit.
"Let's try blackjack instead, change the pace a little." Said another man with a mohawk to the other three at the table.
He shuffled the cards and dealt them out grinning, "No way that JJ punk is gonna win this time, I made sure to deal my buddy some good cards, meanwhile JJ over there is looking at a king and a seven!"
JJ mulled over his cards a bit while the two men gave smug glares.
"Well JJ? Fold?"
"Double or nothing."
"What?!" The two men cried in unison.
"Is that a problem?"
"N-no! Here!" The man dealt him another card.
"JJ smiled, "Blackjack."
"What?! No way!"
JJ flipped over his cards, revealing a king, a nine, and a two.
"Now hold on a minute!" The dealer hoisted JJ over the table by his collar, "You cheating rat! I know you did it!"
"How is that?"
"I-"
"Hmm, cat got your tongue?"
"Why you! I'll get you for this!" Shouted the thug as he reached for his blade. He gasped, it wasn't there.
"Looking for this?" JJ raised his fist, the blade clutched tight.
"When did you-"
With a swift motion JJ sliced at the man holding him, cutting his belt and sending his pants to the floor making him let go.
The thug tried lunging at JJ across the table, but miraculously slipped and bashed his head against it, knocking him out cold. The third man, afraid, quickly leapt from his seat and high tailed it out of the bar before things got rougher.
"N-now I don't want no trouble!" Yelled the last man as he desperately clutched at his pants, trying to hide his colorful underpants.
JJ smirked and twirled the knife in his hands, then stuck it in his jacket pocket. The thug watched in fear as JJ laid a bill on the bar, "Keep the change, sorry for the ruckus." He said to the bartender and left without another word.
...
Outside, JJ leaned against a car and fished a cigarette from his pocket. He lit it and took a long drag to calm his nerves. He was good at hiding it, but he never liked getting into fights. Although when he did, he always won. He held up one of the playing cards from the game, the nine from his winning hand. As he took another puff and stared at it, the colors shifted and blurred, the numbers contorted and twisted around, reforming themselves into sevens.
"Hmph. It's not cheating if you don't get caught."
He sighed and tossed the card to the wind before stubbing his cigarette out with his foot.
"Excellent show back there, kid."
"Hmm?"
JJ turned around and saw a grungy looking man in a cowboy hat standing in the entrance to an alleyway.
"Almost seemed to good to be true, if you know what I mean." He said in a very pronounced southern drawl as he tipped his hat.
"Do I know you?"
The man chuckled and almost coughed a bit.
"No, I'm just an observer. But I saw somethin' back there that... caught my eye."
"What can I say, I'm just good at cards."
The man stepped from the alley towards JJ.
"Don't play coy, I saw it. When you took that guy's knife."
"!" JJ gasped.
Behind the man was the silhouette of another person. Slowly from wispy black strings of smoke in the air, it began to take form and grow clearer. It was humanoid, but to call it human would be woefully incorrect. It was thin, emaciated, with blackened skin and a gaping snakelike jaw. From it's legs and back jutted spikes pointed behind it like deformed spurs. And throughout its body were gaping holes JJ could see clear through, like bullet wounds.
The man pulled his hat down low and unholstered a revolver JJ had yet to notice.
"Buddy, you got yourself a stand. And I don't like that one bit."
JJ ducked behind the car and the man opened fire, he fired 3 shots. JJ heard the shatter of glass from the rear windshield, the pop of the tire to his left, and felt a searing pain in his left thigh. He looked down and saw his leg was red, blood staining his blue jeans.
"Was I too slow?"
Another gunshot cracked through the air, JJ felt something wiz by his head and impact into the trunk. He looked over at the bullet hole gaping inwards.
"But how? He's on the other side, the bullet came from this side!"
"There's no use hiding it!" Yelled the man, reloading. "I saw the look on your face, I know you have one too! So show it!"
JJ tore off part of his sleeve and tied it around the wound, then slid over to the right side of the trunk.
"You're just gonna make me angry kid." Sighed the man before pointing his gun back at the car. He fired another two shots. both impacting where JJ had sat moments ago.
"I have to figure out how he's doing this, or I'm a gonner!" JJ wracked his brain trying to figure out what was going on, what that thing was behind the man, and what a "stand" was. He'd never encountered anyone with this power before.
Ever since JJ was little, he'd had "it." It all started when he was 5 years old, he contracted a strange illness and was rushed to the hospital by his mother. His fever was 105 degrees, the doctors said there was no chance JJ would survive. But then, after a night of agony, the fever broke. And when JJ woke up, "it" was at his side. His mother thought it was an imaginary friend, and JJ had always been confused why nobody else could see. He got made fun of by other children when he invited them to play with his friend. It never spoke, but JJ could see in its eyes that it could feel. It watched over him, protected him, and when he got older he learned of the other things it could do.
The cowboy stepped behind the car, gun drawn. But JJ wasn't there.
"Where'd that punk go?"
The man checked under the car and carefully bent down, placing his hand on the bumper.
Underneath was a puddle, gasoline leaking from one of the bullet holes. And in the center, a lit cigarette.
"!" The man hoisted himself back up, but was yanked back down.
"What the?"
His hand was stuck to the bumper of the car by some sort of black elastic holding him down by the wrist. He yanked at it but it wouldn't budge. He looked closer and saw it was coming from the license plate.
"So that's what his stand can do!"
The letter and numbers from the license lifted from the frame and stretched upwards like taught rubber bands, wrapping themselves around his arm in an unbreakable hold. He struggled in vain to get free, meanwhile a flame had caught the gasoline and was creeping towards the rest of the car.
"Come on, let go dammit!"
The fire crept closer, he could feel the heat know as it rose towards the gas tank.
"Sweet Home Alabama!" The ghastly figure rematerialized and with a ferocious punch broke apart the license plate to free him.
He sprinted to the car behind, and dove to cover as the previous car exploded in a shower of flame sending debris raining down. He got up and dusted himself off, readjusting his hat.
"I'll give it to ya kid, ya almost got me. Now come out and fight like a man!"
He examined the street, searching for JJ. Finally his eyes drifted to the window of a storefront across the street. In the reflection he saw JJ, hiding behind another car.
"Gotcha!" He aimed and fired off another two shots, one impacting the glass and the other the ground next to JJ.
This time, JJ had been watching, through the reflection. In just the millisecond the bullet fired, he could've sworn he saw it curve a path toward him.
"How is he doing it?!"
JJ scratched his head in frustration. But then he noticed his knife, he'd dropped it in his hurry to get across the street. It was laying on the ground next to him, balanced on a pebble. The end was pointing at the car he was hiding behind. For some reason unknown to him, JJ reached down and spun the knife, it twirled around in a circle and eventually came to rest pointed back at the car.
"It's like a compass! I wonder..."
JJ rummaged in his pockets and found a dirty coin, he placed it against the side of the car. It stuck to it.
"He's magnetized all the cars!"
The man crept toward the car JJ was behind, his gun drawn and stand at the ready behind him. This time, he wasn't getting away. He felt the crunch of glass beneath his feet as he walked around the side of the car. There JJ was, defenseless. He aimed his gun directly at him.
"Sorry about this kid, just can't have another stand user running around this city."
"Look down."
"Huh?"
JJ smirked. "Look down."
"Come on kid I'm not gonna-"
Dozens of tight white lines erupted underneath the man, attaching themselves to him. It was the remains of the storefront display, on the shattered glass from earlier. With a zip the lines retracted and flung dozens of shards of glass straight into the man from all directions, sinking deep into his flesh. He screamed and stumbled back, firing his remaining shots straight up in the air only for them to rain back down around them into the cars.
"Looks like I'm not just some 'kid' after all!"
"Why you-!" The man pointed the gun at JJ but it only clicked empty.
"You asked to see it, so here it is."
From behind JJ multicolored ribbons of smoke and light emerged from thin air, coalescing into a human figure behind him. Its skin was a mixture of checkered and plaid patterns, covered in crisscross lines. Its muscular form flexed as if to show off the dangling ribbons of fabric hanging from its arms and waist. And its eyes glared harshly at the man from under what looked like the brim of a hat in its dome shaped head.
"That's... your stand?"
In the blink of an eye JJ's stand floated past him to the man, and wound up ready.
"Oh man..."
It clocked him straight in the jaw, sending him off his feet. The rained down a flurry of blows directly into him, hundreds of punches in a matter of seconds.
JJ let loose a fearsome cry, "ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA! OOOOORAAAAAA!"
The man flew across the street and crashed into the windshield of a car, defeated. His stand faded away and JJ could hear faint groans of pain emanating from him. JJ cracked his knuckles and approached.
"P-please! No more! I surrender!" Croaked the man.
"Good grief." Said JJ, retracting his stand.
"This thing.. you called it a stand, right?" JJ questioned.
"Y-yeah! I've met a few other people with them before." He winced.
"Tell me more."
"Only stand users can see stands, some people just have 'em! I've had mine since I can remember. Please, don't hurt me!" He cowered in fear.
"Hmmm, yours had a name. Sweet Home Alabama." JJ scratched his chin. "Do all stands have a name?"
"Y-yeah I guess. Alabama is where I grew up, that way my stand reminds me of home..."
"I see." JJ pointed at the man, "Then I'll call my stand... Kansas!"
There was an awkward pause.
"So you're letting me go?"
JJ cleaned himself off and picked his knife back up.
"Only if you swear to never harm anyone ever again."
"Yeah! Promise!"
JJ walked over and sniffed the man.
"Uh..."
"I can tell the cut of someone's jib by how they smell, you seem truthful enough." JJ pinched his nose, "And you reek of gas, go get a shower after you go to the hospital."
JJ began to trod off, twirling the knife in his hand and whistling.
"Wait kid!"
JJ turned back. "What? Don't make me change my mind."
The man gulped in fear, "W-what's your name? I've never met a stand user so strong."
JJ smirked and posed, "The name's JJ. JJ Speedwagon."