Icy wind gathered at two points, both of them around Dio's metal hands.
He curled them into fists, extended them, and they swirled around, faster and faster, until they formed drills of wind on his hands. Mary Jane ran as fast as she could to Julia, still frozen in fear, and held onto her.
"Julia, what's wrong?" she screamed.
"I'm scared. So scared."
Dio was unforgiving as he saw her tears. He was unrelenting when he aimed his left hand at both of them. Mary Jane dropped to the ground, crouched, and a large wall came out of the ground, protecting them. The wind drill hit the wall, boom, and rocks went flying. Mary Jane saw their chance to escape.
"He stole Bruno's ability, and he has another one! We need to get out of here! What if he has another?" Mary Jane shouted.
Julia was dazed, lost in her fear, and Mary Jane knew that she couldn't hear whatever she was saying. Julia was someplace else. Mary Jane gently took Julia's hand and tried to be brave for the both of them.
"It's time to go home, okay? Let's run."
Julia nodded feebly.
They ran, and Dio punched out his wind drills as they went to the left. Mary Jane made a wall with every step they took, covering them from every hit. Dio stopped for a moment to change tactics. The drills weren't enough, and he wasn't sure how to lure them out.
"Oh dear, that's not good. Try pushing them closer to you," Natio suggested.
A shock of wind pushed Julia and Mary Jane into the wall. Julia hit the wall too hard, bumped her head, and then collapsed to the ground. Mary Jane covered her body with her own, but it was quite a sad affair. She was smaller than Julia; it was in vain. With her good hand, her left, Mary Jane pressed it to the wall. A piece of it rose higher, trying to protect them, but it gave Dio her exact location behind the wall.
Dio ran, his metal body echoing through the parking garage, giving his location to Mary Jane.
In a split second, they both made a decision.
Dio used his body like a bullet. He pushed as much wind as possible from behind his body to get it a few inches off the ground, then horizontal, aiming for them.
Mary Jane pushed on the wall, and a portion of it jutted out, going in the same direction. With glee, Dio sped up, put his hands up, and spun his body, faster and faster, making it a spinning metal bullet. It crashed through the wall, and Dio went through it...but he didn't go through them. Mary Jane pushed a portion of the ground lower, pushing Julia in it. With her one good hand, she grabbed Dio by the leg as he crashed through the wall.
Dio stopped spinning for a moment, and then his world started spinning again when Mary Jane smacked him into the ground.
Crackcrackcrack.
She whapped him into the ground as fast as she could, hoping that she wouldn't break her other hand by accident too. She was going to smack his metal face into cement for the 25th time when Dio finally broke free. He pushed more air out, and reflexively she grabbed his leg again. The wind pushed harder, and with a soft pop, her wrist was dislocated. She let go and crumpled to the ground in defeat.
She cried.
"No. Stop!"
Dio jumped on top of her, pinning her down. He grabbed her weak and damaged wrist, making her cry even harder. With his other hand, he grabbed her neck and choked her.
"You are coming home. You are mine," Dio said.
He let go of her throat, and she gasped in surprise when he bit into her cheek.
Hard.
All he wanted was a taste. He wanted to know—no, needed to know what she tasted like.
When he loosened his grip on her wrist and stopped biting her, he looked down with a smug look of superiority. He licked his lips, wiped the blood from her cheek, and then licked his hands and fingers while glaring at her. Sloppy sounds reverberated in the parking garage alongside Julia's quiet cries for help.
Dio closed his eyes as waves of gold and silver ran over his body.
He had never known power like this before. He had never tasted anything like this before. He looked down at Mary Jane with adoration in his eyes, which terrified her even more than the malice he had shown moments ago.
"You're coming home with me," Dio said.
"Get off her," Julia screamed.
Dio looked away from Mary Jane because Julia was trying to save her. She mustered all the courage she could to fight back against someone impervious to her powers. In front of him, she had the greatest humiliation any astral could have.
Feeling ordinary.
"It doesn't matter if I'm not strong! I'll never let you hurt her," Julia declared.
Julia proclaimed all sorts of beautiful things. She spoke about the love of friendship and how it was stronger than evil. Mary Jane was touched by her final speech before her impending death, but Dio was confused. To him, utter nonsense poured from her mouth and into his ears.
"What is she blithering on about?" Dio asked Natio.
"She is proclaiming her love for the Empire," Natio lied.
"Don't lie to me!"
"Oh goodness, you caught me," Natio chuckled. "Someone else is about to catch you. Think quick!"
Dio thought faster than his body could move, so Jimmy had the element of surprise. Something landed on Dio's head with a wet shlorp, and he screamed.
"Nasty! What is this!?"
Jimmy's hand melted like butter on top of his head, dripping into his eyes. Mary Jane escaped from Dio while he was blinded and ran to Julia. The once terrifying man was now hopelessly confused. He tore at the goop covering his face, but it just stuck to his entire body. The more he pulled, the stretchier and stickier Jimmy's hand became.
"I think it's time for you to leave, buddy," Jimmy said.
His voice echoed in the parking garage, and no one was sure where he was. His voice was everywhere and nowhere as he chastised Dio.
"You can't come to other people's homes and act like this. Ain't right, man," Jimmy said.
"Natio! Get him off me!"
"Just relax, and it will stop," Natio replied.
"That won't help!"
"Yes! The more you move, the worse it gets!"
Dio refused to listen and kept pulling at the rubbery skin. He pulled and pulled until he found the wrist, and then the arm. He could tell it was a different body part because the squishing noises sounded different than before.
"I know where you are!"
Dio pointed above, to the hole in the ceiling. Julia and Mary Jane looked to where he was pointing, and no one was there. Their eyes shifted to the opposite side of the ceiling where Jimmy was stuck, flat like a pancake. His outstretched arm slowly swirled around Dio, covering his entire body in goo. A few seconds later, the goo started pouring into his mouth.
Dio bit into it.
"HEY! No biting," Jimmy shouted.
He released his pancake body from the ceiling, zipping through the air, and then collapsed onto Dio. A wet smack echoed out in the garage, and Dio went flying into a cement pillar. Jimmy's body was more gelatinous than human now, and he jiggled in the dimly lit garage. A wet coughing noise came from what Julia guessed was his throat. A giant hole opened in the center of his body, and the rusty old compass flew out.
Instinctively, Dio reached for his pocket, but his partner in crime wasn't there.
"Natio," he screamed.
"Oh, don't fret. Come to me."
Jimmy's body slowly returned to its human form, but he was caught mid-transformation. His head and shoulders were fully formed, but the rest of his body was still a goopy mass on the floor. He saw Dio run to the compass, and Jimmy shlurped across the gravel at breakneck speed.
A moment after Dio's hand touched the compass, the Head and Shoulders, minus the Knees and Toes, of Jimmy lunged on top of them.
He was still transforming when he engulfed Dio into his amorphous form. Jimmy's head smacked into Dio's, then dissolved into a wave of rubber that coalesced around him. Jimmy decided to deal with two problems at once. He would focus his transformation while getting rid of the misbehaving child.
First, he focused on the legs. The bottom of the Blob Formerly Known As Jimmy sprouted two legs. One connected with Dio's, the other with the ground. He firmly stuck, or more like shlorped, his foot into the ground and focused on his arms next. The left arm pushed out of the shoulder and wrapped around a cement column in the garage. The right grabbed onto Dio and pulled him out of Jimmy's rubber head.
They both gasped for air in unison and locked eyes.
"Get off me," Dio screamed.
Jimmy anticipated that he would use his wind powers again the moment he was cornered, like what he did with Julia and Mary Jane. He also knew that he could withstand the blast of wind. He was sure that if the crumbling garage caved in, he would survive. He was willing to tire Dio out all week if he could.
But he thought he was sure Bruno had it handled, and now Bruno had no tongue.
And he thought that Mary Jane and Julia had it handled, so he was in no rush to help.
This time, Jimmy wouldn't act on what he thought might happen. He would act on what he knew had already happened.
Jimmy unstuck his arm from Dio, wrapped it around another column, and let Dio seal his own fate. One of Jimmy's legs was still glued to one of Dio's. Dio couldn't break free. All he could do was run and scream, push and shove. Natio summoned another gust of wind, and all it did was stretch Jimmy's body further. The tension of his rubbery arms tightened from the poles.
"Let me go," screamed Dio.
"I think that is exactly what he's trying to do. Prepare yourself," Natio cautioned.
"I'm done listening to you! All you've done today is lie to me!"
Jimmy let go.
Dio's body was thrown without any regard, like a cigarette butt being shoved out a gap in a car window.
He was flung through the hole in the car garage ceiling, and he shot out so fast that Mary Jane blinked and missed it. They were completely awestruck as Jimmy shrumpfed himself back together and walked away from the entire fight without a scratch on him.
"Ohmigod, Jim-Jam, thank you," Julia gushed.
She rushed over to hug him, and Mary Jane ran right after. Mary Jane was so grateful, so excited, that she didn't think. When she opened her bloodied hands, she winced in pain, yet her smile never wavered.
Her destructive hands grabbed his sides.
She realized her mistake.
Mary Jane's smile disappeared, and her heart raced.
In horror, Julia and Mary Jane waited for him to be crushed. Julia closed her eyes tight, her spine tingled, and she turned away, not wanting to see it.
"Oh, gosh, so sorry about that," Jimmy said.
He was bending over as Mary Jane hugged him; the goopy body started to melt, and she shook in confusion. Jimmy tried to bend forward to hug her back, but she was too short, so he just melted on top of her head.
"I am so embarrassed. This doesn't mean anything," Jimmy said.
"Wait, how are you alive?" Mary Jane asked.
"I won the fight, silly; that's how!"
Julia opened her eyes again to see a first: someone alive after Mary Jane hugged them. Jimmy had never met Mary Jane until that day. He had never seen the many accidents, broken doors, and several mishaps because of her brute strength.
But today, Mary Jane felt the best she had ever felt after a battle.
Like an ordinary girl.
She could hug someone.
So she hugged Jimmy, and he hugged her back, and before she knew it, she was crying into his squishy shoulders.