WA Government - Lockdown Information
WA Government Infographic - Summary
WA Health - Locations visited by confirmed cases
HealthyWA - COVID Clinic Locations / Operating Hours
Lockdown Rules Summary (ABC News)
ABC COVID Live Blog - Sunday 31/01
Premier's Annoucement:
--- IMPORTANT UPDATE REGARDING COMMUNITY CASE OF COVID-19 IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA, AND PERTH, PEEL AND SOUTH-WEST FIVE-DAY LOCKDOWN ---
This morning, I convened an urgent meeting of the Emergency Management Team.
We have a serious update to provide the WA community.
This morning we received news of a positive COVID-19 test result.
That positive result has come from a male hotel quarantine security guard, in his 20s.
The information we have is fast-evolving. As you can understand, immediately our teams moved into place to begin contact tracing and put in place emergency response systems.
This is all underway, and I ask everyone to be cooperative and understanding of what is going to take place.
Here is what we know about the male who tested positive:
He was working at one of the State’s hotel quarantine facilities – the Sheraton Four Points in the city. He had tested negative for COVID-19 on January Friday 15, January Sunday 17 and Saturday January 23 – as part of the weekly testing system in place. When the man was working at this hotel, there were four active cases of COVID-19. Of those four cases, we have at least three confirmed variant strains, two UK and one South African. We are told the guard was working on the same floor, as a positive UK variant case. The guard completed two 12-hours shifts on both the 26th and 27th of January. Exactly how the infection was acquired remains under investigation.
The Health Department contact tracing team has pulled together a list of potential exposure sites of where this positive case has been in recent days. These locations currently include:

• Coles Maylands supermarket on 25 January from 8pm to 10pm
  
• KFC Maylands on 27 January from 6pm to midnight
  
• Mitsubishi Motors car dealership in Midland on 27 January from 7pm to close
  
• Spudshed, Coventry Village in Morley on 27 January from 8pm to midnight
  
• ECU Joondalup on 28 January from 11am to 2pm
  
• Consulate General of India on St Georges Terrace in Perth on 28 January from 12pm to 5pm
  
• Halal Grocery Store in Cloverdale on 28 January from 7pm to 9pm
  
• Venus Ladies and Gentleman Hair Design Maylands hairdressers on 29 January from 1pm to 3pm
  
• Perth Convention Centre on 29 January from 4pm to 6pm
  
• Nedlands Family Practice GP surgery on 29 January from 5pm to 6pm
  
• Chemist Warehouse North Perth Pharmacy on 29 January from 5.30pm to 7.30pm
  
• 7-Eleven Ascot petrol station on 29 January from 8pm to 9pm
  
• Coles Maylands supermarket on 29 January from 8pm 9pm
  
• Puma Service Station in Burswood on 30 January from 11am to 12 midday.
  
• Coles Express/Shell Service Station in Cloverdale on 30 January from 12 midday to 3pm
  
• Pharmacy 777 at Maylands Park Shopping Centre 30 January from 2.30pm to 4pm.
  

People who have been to these venues on these dates and times must get tested.
In addition, people who live or work in the Falkirk Avenue, Maylands area including Coles, Liquorland and the Maylands shopping precinct should present for a test. They must then go home and isolate until their negative test results are returned.
The investigation is on-going by our public health team, and it is likely more locations will be added following further discussions with the man.
Close contacts will be contacted by public health officials and asked to quarantine for 14 days.
More information on testing clinics will be available on our website – the WA Health and WA Gov websites.
The man’s immediate household contacts have been contacted, tested and placed in isolation at State managed quarantine facilities to complete a 14-day quarantine period in a quarantine facility.
All three have tested negative this morning. However, we can expect that they will become positive in coming days.
Genome sequencing is underway on the positive case and results will be known by Tuesday morning.
However, based on the information we have, it appears possible that this new positive case has the highly transmissible UK variant.
The past year has been unlike any other – Western Australia has done an incredible job. It’s something I am so proud of.
But as we have always known with COVID – it can change very quickly.
Today – we need to go back to what we know best, to ensure we limit community transmission of COVID-19 in our State.
Even though it was nearly 10 months ago – WA has experienced community transmission of this virus before.
We all did the right thing and we crushed it.
And it worked.
So beginning at 6pm tonight, the whole Perth metropolitan area, the Peel region and the South West region will be going into a full lockdown.
This lockdown will run until 6pm on Friday.
A five-day lockdown.
It’s crucial we act quickly, to keep the community safe.
We cannot forget how quickly this virus can spread, nor the devastation it can cause.
Following our discussions with the Chief Health Officer and Police Commissioner, the following measures will be put in place from 6pm for people in Perth, Peel and the South West:
People in these regions are required to stay home, except for the following four reasons:

• Shopping for essentials like groceries, medicine and necessary supplies.
  
• Medical or health care needs including compassionate requirements and looking after the vulnerable.
  
• Exercise, within their neighbourhood, but only with one other person and only for one hour per day.
  
• Work, where you cannot work from home or remotely.
  

In addition to this Stay Home rule.
If you do leave home, for one of the four reasons you will be required to wear a mask at all times outside and if you need to work indoors, then wearing a mask in the workplace is also mandatory.
To be clear, mask wearing on public transport is also mandatory.
People in the Perth, Peel or South West region need to stay inside their region for the next five days, unless for an essential reason.
We are strongly encouraging that everyone in this area, who is from another WA region, stay here and do not travel further outside of this area until the lockdown is over.
If you do need to travel outside the region you are in now, that can only occur if you need to return to your place of residence or exceptional circumstances.
The transport of essential goods into this region, is permitted, under our existing transport guidelines.
This lockdown means the following businesses, venues and locations in the relevant regions need to close for the next five days:

• Pubs, bars and clubs
• Gyms and indoor sporting venues
• Playgrounds, skate parks and outdoor recreational facilities
• Cinemas, entertainment venues, and casinos
• Large religious gatherings and places of worship
• Libraries and cultural institutions

Restaurants and cafes will close, and provide takeaway service only.
10 people can attend funerals, weddings are cancelled for the next five days.
No visitors are permitted to your home, unless caring for someone vulnerable or an emergency.
No visitors will be allowed in aged care homes, unless exceptional circumstances.
No visitors to hospitals and/or disability facilities, unless exceptional circumstances.
Elective surgery and procedures for categories 2 and 3 will be suspended from Tuesday, 2 February. Category 1 and urgent category 2 surgery will continue.
For a majority of schools in these regions, school was due to start tomorrow.
That has now been put on hold and schools will be closed until next week – following the lockdown measures.
It is, in effect, an extension of the school holidays.
I have been in contact with the Prime Minister and my fellow State and Territory colleagues to advise them of this situation.
I have recommended that they put a stop to any travel into WA – as an extra precautionary measure.
Border controls are important here – and I 100% support them to ensure we can get through this.
All these measures will be reviewed regularly and the Chief Health Officer will continue to monitor the serious situation and provide more ongoing advice. This is an extremely fast-moving situation.
I know for many Western Australians this is going to come as a shock.
Western Australians have done so well for so long but this week it is absolutely crucial that we stay home, maintain physical distancing and personal hygiene and get tested if you have symptoms.
This is a very serious situation and each and every one of us has to do everything we personally can to help stop the spread in the community.
We have acted decisively and swiftly given these circumstances.
I want to thank everyone in advance for their patience.
In effect, for a short period of time, we are going back to what we experienced in March and April.
This is a highly unpredictable virus. But it is important to act calmly and take sensible precautions.
Leaving your home to purchase food and essentials will be permitted during the lockdown.
I say this, so people understand that you do not need to rush to the supermarket today.
Take care of your loved ones and be respectful of others including those who are working, to keep essential services and supplies ticking over.
Our State is well equipped to handle this situation.
We have systems in place throughout the health system that are swinging into action as we speak.
We have the capacity to manage this situation.
Throughout the pandemic, the response of Western Australians has been second-to-none.
The community has done everything we have asked of them.
They have made great sacrifices, and it has kept our State safe.
I could not be more proud and thankful of the way Western Australians have carried themselves.
Now we’re asking for your help once again.
We will provide further updates as they come to hand.
All relevant information will be posted on websites as it comes to hand.
Thank you WA.

I think we're all aware by now of the conspiracy that's building in the background of 2077. Most of us know about the mysterious Blue Eyes who appears in The Sun ending to the game. He operates as The Stinger of sorts for (that) ending of the game; He and V discuss a job vaguely alluded to through out the ending sequence and then the ending cuts to V in space charging off towards The Crystal Palace. Cue DLC Hook and credits.
But, let's go back here. This is only the tail end of the conspiracy and where it actually intersects with V's story. Blue Eyes (and some connections to him) crop up multiple times through out the game and, when pieced together, start building a larger picture that runs deeper into Night City than the pockets of most corporats.
I've finished my second playthrough of the game and I've been drafting this post as I play and find more clues. I doubt I'll find everything or might completely dismiss some, but I want to be on the front lines of uncovering this mystery, especially if this will be our Gaunter O'Dim for Cyberpunk 2077. I apologize for the length of this post ahead of time, but I need to summarize a bunch of lore and at least 4 major side-quests; "I Fought The Law", "Dream On", "Full Disclosure", and "The Prophet's Song".
Here's a long essay incoming, but I hope you chooms enjoy and I hope you read through to the end because, oh boy, I uncovered some cool shit!
So, who is Blue Eyes? Who are his contacts? What is his role in the ecosystem of this city?
"I FOUGHT THE LAW"
Let's start with where he most appears in the game; Jefferson and Elizabeth Peralez, political family in the running for Night City's first family. Which I kinda have to summarize their questlines, including the first one which Blue Eyes never appears in. But I'd prefer to go in chronological order and not jump around, so stick with me.
Elizabeth first contacts you for the job "I Fought The Law". It's fairly basic, but the quest tells us she convinced her husband to hire V to look into the recent death of Mayor Rhyne. We get a BD of a cyberpsycho attack by Peter Horvath on Mayor Rhyne. Weldon Holt leaves the room before the attack and then the security gate crashes right before Peter walks in with billions of eddies worth of chrome. The attack is unsuccessful and stopped by Detective River Ward, who was only there because Peter went missing internally at the NCPD and he knew where Peter would go.
When investigating Peter Horvath, his previous boss describes him as paranoid that "probably thought Mayor Rhyne talked to him through the TV" and that the world was out to fuck him. She then mentions that someone "finally saw what he was worth" which cues into how Peter was thrown into this attack in the first place; he had a patron who funded his chrome and the attempt on Rhyne's life. Tellingly, River than goes into a little talk about how clues rarely make sense until put into the larger context, much like we're doing right now.
V goes to the club Rhyne died in; The Red Queen's Race. V sneaks through, takes out some Animals, and can investigate what actually happened to Rhyne. If we read the emails on the office terminal, we know that Weldon Holt arranged for Rhyne to be there. He initially mentioned this to Rhyne during the first BD; Rhyne asked Holt directly to arrange his usual room at the club. So, this doesn't inherently look too suspicious on it's own, but Holt knew where Rhyne would be. We also find out via the Animals Boss there that Weldon Holt is the one who hired them to smash up the club and they're currently waiting around for payment. Further, you can go to the room Rhyne died in, find the BD headset, and put it on... which INSTANTLY knocks V out and they need to be rescued by River (who, btw, takes out any Animals on the property you didn't get to! Ty bro!). They surmise that Rhyne was killed by a virus in the headset. Lastly, we find footage of Detective Han (River's partner) covering up the death of Rhyne. They confront Han, V goes off to the Peralezs, and quest ends.
Of note, finding the BD set is a hidden dialogue option with the Peralezes suggesting, yes, that's the correct deduction to make. You don't get that option otherwise. And V never actually comes to any real conclusion to what happened to Rhyne.
So, let's summarize what we know about the death of our Mayor. Peter Horvath was hired by an unknown Patron who spent a ton of money to turn him into a suicide bomb against Rhyne. They have connections internally to the corrupt NCPD which allowed Horvath to get access to Rhyne, both from escaping NCPD custody and for the security to give him access to Rhyne's conference room. That fails so our mastermind instead assassinates Rhyne at his usual sex club, one that we know for sure Holt knew about. Rhyne is assassinated via malware in a BD porno headset, NCPD comes in an Detective Han cleans it up. Later, Holt hires the Animals to take claim to the club and fuck it up.
Holt is looking suspicious AF rn, but we also don't have any direct evidence and V says as much if you accuse him. Personally, I think it's a little too clumsy if it's him. Holt leaves the room just as an assassination attempt goes down, sets up a sex club appointment for the Mayor where he's successfully assassinated, NCPD covers it up... and then he hires a gang to cover it up more? Something doesn't fit here.
My theory is Holt is innocent. He's a scum bag, but not the culprit here. Why would you EVER give your identity to the Animals you hired to cover up an assassination? The big dumb brutes of the underworld? A name they give up with almost no fight? No, I think someone hired them under Holt's name. And I think they hired them because they KNEW the BD Headset was left behind; Han dismissed it entirely as Rhyne dying of a heart attack brought on during sex. They needed that destroyed to cover the final footprints. It's the only piece of evidence that doesn't have Holt or NCPD's name on it and doesn't fit the narrative that both are pushing. If they're covering NCPD or Holt's tracks, why not delete the emails or footage of Han? And if Holt or Han were trying to push this false narrative, why leave the headset right there the first time?
And, while I have no evidence of this assertion, the Animals are only still there because they're waiting for payment to come in... I think our employer never intended to pay them and left them in the path of V, who is likely to shoot them and tie up the loose end for our mysterious entity. Animals destroy the BD set, V shoots the animals, no trace. And, even if he doesn't, Animals will point V to the wrong person.
No, we've got a third party here. But let's continue so we can finally let our lead actor take center stage.
"DREAM ON"
"Dream On" starts when Jefferson calls V and asks them to help in another case. Long and Short; Jefferson woke up in the night and found a man in a mask (or an implant) standing over him. Jefferson shot the man, only for his head to fry and knock him out. Coming to, he's back in bed with no evidence it ever happened. SSI, their private security, insists that there was nothing on the cameras, no evidence, and nothing happened. Elizabeth claims she slept through the whole thing event.
V investigates the apartment, with Elizabeth giving the tour, and finds a lot of evidence. Elizabeth is kinda dismissive at first thinking V won't find much. First small stuff leading into larger reveals. Let's start small and work our way up.
First room Liz takes us to is the campaign room. She talks about running the campaign entirely out of pocket and having to keep most of their supplies at the Penthouse; "It's cheaper that way". You find a picture of their daughter on the wall and Liz explains that she's off at university in Europe while Jefferson is running for office; "It's easier that way" she says. That phrasing again.
EDIT: A redditor in the comments pointed out that the Peralez are being controlled via drugs in their food as part of the tech. They mention they've been eating fast food lately, explaining why Jefferson was lucid enough to catch the agent and shoot him.
V can look at Jefferson's emails (which Liz slightly discourages them, saying there's nothing there) which reveals a bit more about their campaign. There's a video of the iconic commercial and poster of Jefferson pulling out a gun and shooting a bunch of paperwork. In the email, Jefferson HATES this commercial, but his assistant, Lea Patel, insists on it as it will air in television time slots with action-drama series and catch the attention of voters. Further emails have Eric Boucher, Jefferson's Campaign Partner (Manager?), saying Jefferson has been acting unpredictably lately; presumably referencing one of the next emails. Boucher is confused because they fired Lea Patel together, only for her to continue working and sent him a new ad for approval. When emailed, Jefferson is confused about Lea being fired at all and doesn't remember the event ever happening, even telling Boucher to be honest if he has some issue with her. A final email is from SSI Chief of Security, Wallace, discussing Jefferson's intent to hire a merc to look into Rhyne's death ("Dream On") and they suggest Jefferson drop it or have NCPD or themselves look into it. Private Security just... offering to investigate the former mayor's death? Huh... sounds more like they want to squash the issue to me.
We should now talk about the Peralez's campaign. As you explore the apartment, Liz explains that they're running on a corp free campaign; they want to get Night City out of the control of the corps and do so without ever owing any favors to them. She specifically cites "Night Corp, Militech, and Petrochem" as ones they've denied. Militech and Petrochem come up a few times in other quests but Night Corp is relatively obscure. And they choose that corp to be the first one she mentions? Stands out to me. It also isn't lost on me that we're talking about running a campaign out of pocket and refusing corp assistance... while walking on the fancy ass balcony of a penthouse in Charter Hill- North Oak.
Next room, we find Jefferson's office. Elizabeth and Jefferson both graduated with law degrees from Asukaga University in Berkley. V points out it would be extremely expensive for them both, but Elizabeth says that both got full ride scholarships from the Richard Night Foundation, run by Night Corp. To further fucking cement this moment, there's a Richard Night biography shard on the desk. But we'll drop this for now because I want to get to Night Corp a bit later.
The computer on the office desk has some emails on it sent by Elizabeth. One is between her and Judy where she's asking Judy for help on the original "I Fought The Law" quest and Judy is the one who gave her your contact in the first place. Another is from their daughter kinda asserting the same thing earlier; safer for her in Europe so she's not a target on the campaign trail. And here's the interesting one; Boucher emailed Elizabeth asking why Jefferson changed his mind on Lea Patel. Elizabth says Jefferson explained it to her that it "slipped his mind" and "circumstances changed in Lea's favor" and she asks him to drop the whole thing. She's dismissive and gives extremely vague details.
Next room, Bedroom. Elziabeth's gun is on the table. It's the one Jefferson claimed he fired and scanning it tells us that it has been fired recently. We also find the wedding photo of Jefferson and Elizabeth where she fondly talks about having blue roses because she loves them so much... except the photo's roses are red and V says as much. Elizabeth quietly corrects herself that they only had red roses instead and moves on.
In the hall, we find the blood trail and gun shots in the wall; both covered up hastily. Following the trail, we enter a tv room. The Smart Glass isn't working and Elizabeth says it stopped working recently; not like they use it much anyway. Passing a Tech Check lets us try and fix it... only to be quickly blacked out by it so hard Johnny felt it too. V asks Elizabeth about it but she doesn't know what V is talking about despite having been standing right there. We also find a hidden door in the wall. Unlike earlier, Liz is actually confused by the door but demands V try and open it.
Downstairs we have the security room. Liz says that it used to be her place but "Security had to set up somewhere" and that she had to make sacrifices for this campaign; "it wasn't the first nor will it be the last". One computer has a Welcome email from SSI to new recruits. It details that they have access to all areas except Section Zero, which is reserved for Blue or Black agents and that, should the encounter a Blue or Black Agent (SPECIFICALLY "in the night"), do not interact or acknowledge them. The next email from Wallace mentions an accident where there was a "behavioral anomaly" and "ALPHA" injured a Blue Agent (BLUE-66M) who is in critical and the SSI head is requesting access to Sector Zero to give medical aid. SSI gives Wallace the code to Sector Zero and sends a team to aid. SSI knew about the accident and lied. You go to the second computer, unlock it, and can unlock the upstairs door. On that terminal is a bunch of deleted files (presumably the security footage from that night) and emails discussing "normal maintenance procedure" and further informing security that ALPHA (Jefferson) hired a merc (V) and, should security encounter them, do not interact with them.
Small thing I found interesting, a shard called "You Are What You Slot" is found down here too. It details a fictional assassin who kills and then steals the identity of her victims. Small and doesn't mean much on it's own, but the shards are hinting at the story here; one of false identities and manipulation.
Now, let's get to the main event; the secret room. Inside is a control center. Elizabeth is horrified and feels violated. She shouts that she's not letting SSI anywhere near them, only for her head to start hurting and she tells V to do what he needs to do. She leaves him. Inside the control room is a box of bloody medical supplies. The computer discusses "behavioral norms" for ALPHA (Jefferson) and suggests amplifying "neural dampening". It discusses things similar to Wallace's terminal, but from the other side; ALPHA is displaying odd behavior by hiring a merc, the SSI teams avoided meeting the merc, and then the actual accident that occurred injuring BLUE-66M during regular 'maintenance'. The other side of the room also has another data shard, "Rewriting Synaptic Pathways", basically talking about using tech to rewire the brain a bit.
Following some wires from the control room to the roof, we find a signal dish. Johnny (replacing Elizabeth for conversation now that she's gone), joins in that the tech looks prehistoric but functional and that Militech used it in the war; it requires line of sight to transmit data but otherwise can't be intercepted. We can see the tower and go to investigate. V tells Liz the whole deal; V can suggest that the Van near the tower could be SSIs or that it might not be due to unconventional tech. Liz then itterates twice that it's a stressful campaign time for Jefferson and V should talk to her, NOT him. "Sure, whatever" V and the player dismiss.
(I SWEAR WE'RE ALMOST DONE WITH THE SUMMARIZING FOR DREAM ON, I'M SO SORRY.)
We drive after the van, Johnny is suddenly excited for smashing a corpo conspiracy and iterates that citizens do not choose their representatives, instead they're chosen by "key players" who watch the Peralezes for weaknesses or blackmail material. We arrive at the facility patrolled by Maelstrom and the occupants of our van park, get out, and climb ladders to the roof where they get into an AV that is cloaked to be near invisible (as shown in a couple of vids on YouTube and this subreddit).
At the place, Maelstom is explained; "UNKNOWN USER" contacted them while driving the van for protection to take care of V and then destroy the van. Van's data makes it pretty clear; the Peralezs' minds are being manipulated, new neural pathways are being created, and their memories are being created, changed, or erased. There are also a couple of other names of other test subjects. The data is then erased. We do see an almost flower like symbol before the data is destroyed.
The agents on the cloaked AV CAN be killed and do drop a shard, thought it doesn’t have many more details, merely that they’re contacting HQ to arrange extraction and that the Van’s data should be destroyed and echoing the arrangement with Maelstrom mentioned earlier in their shards.
V calls Liz, Liz wants to meet in person instead of over holo and send him to a Japantown Raman shop (same one that used to be Rainbow Cadenza, coincidentally). Odd choice for an upstanding congresswoman. She says her nerves are shot, the ramen shop is a quieter place to meet than the apartment, and she needs a moment to gather herself since she last saw V, with V even asking if something has happened since they last saw each other. Of note, Liz is stress smoking the entire scene, something she hasn't done until now. She then explains, no, it's been over a longer period of time. She's been watching her husband change and act differently for awhile; he stopped reading, his taste changed, and he even insisted he was an only child and never had a bother when Liz asks about visiting the grave. Of note, yes, Antonio Peralez has a Columbarium Vault, which proves Liz is correct on this. She confesses that she herself has been told by others she's been acting strangely. V says she knew what V would find and she asserts that she doesn't know the who, how, or why, but "they're changing us". Jefferson apparently went on in great detail about a trip she swears they never went on, but she doesn't know if the vacation is a fake memory or if she's the one that doesn't remember.
She saw a stranger in their apartment tinkering with a monitor, only for him to be missing when it was reported to SSI and they looked at the feeds. The next day, she got a phone call from a stranger (whom she refers to by "he") saying that she's walking on thin ice and Jefferson could have an accident. They later erased all data that the phone call had happened. Elizabeth claims she's terrified for herself and her husband's safety and doesn't want V to reveal the truth. V points out "they" could be telling her to say that but it doesn't really change how she feels since she just wants Jefferson to be safe. She tells V to tell Jefferson it was SSI spying for Holt. She asserts she wants SSI out of her roof if they're spying on their sleep. She will take responsibility for firing SSI, but wants Jefferson to be safe and out of that fight. She adds a meeting with Jefferson to his calendar at Reconciliation Park. But, ultimately it's V's choice (especially since she has no idea if she'll remember the conversation) and leaves. Johnny jumps and and talks and mentions that there were talks like this back in his day and worrying about the damage a puppet mayor could do.
V heads to Reconciliation Park to meet with Jefferson. Entering, V is called by an Unknown Number which blacks out V's optics. They claim to know who V is, *what* V is, and what V wants. It doesn't matter what V tells Jefferson, but "don't dare cross that line" and "you're playing with fire". Its a garbled male robo voice, so safe to say it's irrelevant to the owner.
Enter Stage Right, our missing lead; Mr. Blue Eyes. He is standing on a balcony watching the place where we meet Jefferson. In the Scanner, he is labeled "Mr. Blue Eyes", has no known affiliation, is wanted for "SC 370", and is wanted for "Classified". His eyes are electronically glowing blue you can even see from several yards away. You cannot injure him as grenades do nothing and you can't aim at him. Of small note, and I don't know if this ACTUALLY means anything, but his hair style asset is referred to as Morgan Blackhand in the files, but could mean nothing if this hair is actually used by other NPCs. MOST LIKELY THIS IS NOTHING UNLESS SOMEONE HAS FURTHER INFO.
(Plot twist: It meant something. But we'll get there.)
V sits with Jefferson and can reveal the truth; "SSI is on the take from an unknown group to control your lives". V can even point out the absurdity of Peralez being as successful of a politician as he is without any corp sponsors. "They want you to be *their* mayor. Molding you like clay". You can tell Jefferson how to proceed and additional details, but it doesn't matter. Later, Jefferson will send a text and delete your number and so will Elizabeth, who will call you out for telling Jeff. In the end credits voicemails, Jefferson has decended into paranoia about some vitamins Liz gave him which he didn't trust so he sent them to the lab, only to then not trust the lab results saying they're fine. Jefferson Peralez is confirmed the new mayor during Late Act 2 and the major difference is his state of mind at the end game; either hiring V to be on his security staff or descending into absolute paranoia over everything in his life.
Lastly, Johnny appears and cryptically talks about back in his day when they'd talk about rogue AIs. Personally... I kinda completely dismiss this? It comes out of nowhere, Johnny cites NOTHING for why he'd bring this up in relation to the case, and I can't fathom a motive. I’d also point out that this isn’t the only time Johnny is outright wrong. In fact, he’s wrong A LOT in the game. For example, he criticizes V for listening to the Netwatch Agent and that he’s bullshitting you. Except, the agent is 100% correct that VDB did spike V as a suicide virus and Johnny is actually wrong. He also claims he doesn’t know what happened with Thompson after Never Fade Away, but this is a lie because Thompson is flying the AV Johnny takes to Arasaka in 2023. The only connection I can find is "Who is controlling Blue-Eyes" which might make Johnny correct, if just not in the way 'Rogue AIs' initially implies.
So, what actually has happened?
The Peralez family has been molded for a very long time into being the perfect political couple. They got scholarships from the Night Foundation for two fancy law degrees, have successful political careers, and Jefferson is running for Mayor on an anti-corp platform, an insanity for Night City. And he's actually successful at it. During a maintenance service at night on the Peralez's apartment, Jefferson woke up and shot an SSI/Unknown agent making repairs. The Control Booth knocked Jefferson out and they pulled the agent out of the apartment into the secret room. SSI put the Peralezes back into bed and hastily cleaned up everything, but the damage was done and Peralez hired V who uncovered mostly everything.
Elizabeth seems to be initially very upset by the discovery, but wants V off the trail when we meet her next. However, she's not in on it as she's equally a victim to the brainwashing/gaslighting and that's for certain. I think she's a pawn who is either too scared or too programmed to break the rules of movement on this chessboard. It's worth noting that, while the unknown entity threatens Jefferson's life and V's well being, they do not make due on either of these threats. I call their bluff. They have put too much work into Jefferson to abandon or kill him.
But, where else have we heard of this gaslighting brainwash process before?
"FULL DISCLOSURE"
Ok, we're on the shorter end so I don't have to actually explain this quest in full. Sandra Dorsett is a netrunner and a very skilled on at that, actually collecting data from Night Corp. She was kidnapped by the savs we rescued her from at the beginning of the game shortly AFTER she stole this data, suggesting Night Corp was behind it. This data is on the shard she asks you to collect during the aforementioned quest. V has full ability to NOT read it, but let's look at it; "Operation Carpe Noctem" ("Seize The Night" in Latin)
Described in it is an experiment on Night Corp's own employees where they are quietly brainwashing them and getting them to do whatever they want. They specifically cite an empathetic and calm employee who they got to fight a co-worker and then jump from a 16th floor window. The shard ends on mentioning that they're ready to install CN-07 on "our actual target".
I think multiple quests discussing brainwashing and gaslighting is too coincidental to be utterly unrelated to each other. I think Night Corp's actual target mentioned here is Peralez.
So, what is Night Corp?
Night Corp is the most mysterious of the corps in Night City. It currently operates to better Night City via philanthropic ventures, fundraising, community support, and city infrastructure. Basically, while Militech and Arasaka and the others operate in the city, Night Corp basically RUNS the actual city. They're also noteworthy for the level of security they have that even the best netrunners can't get much from them and, since they keep to themselves and seemingly just do city infrastructure stuff, no one really super bothers them. It has been run by Miriam Night, wife of late-Richard Night, until recently and we currently don’t actually know who runs NightCorp.
Originally, they were the Night Foundation, but that requires explaining Richard Night... oh boy, Lore Drop. I'll make it quick as possible.
Richard Night is the founder of Night City. He started as a partner of a firm, but his ambitions grew beyond that to founding "Night International" to build his dream; a city that would be so grand it would make all other cities pale by comparison, Coronado City. A capitalist mecha of opportunity, Night City would be run by corporations and have next to no anti-business policies on the books. Arasaka, EMB, and Petrochem were his first backers and he came into claim of land on the central-California coast; Del Coronado Bay and Morro Bay would be the location of his dream city.
(BTW, irl, Morro Bay, California is a real place. Been there, have family there, go there regularly, kinda cool!).
Despite being a capitalist mecca city and run by corps, Richard Night also dreamed it to be "A sprawling metropolis, free of crime, of poverty, of debt. A place where people could live safely, peacefully, without having to worry about the dire situations that were growing around the world at the time".
However, due to the design plans, Night didn't employ local contractors and instead got expensive architects and builders from all over the world. Local builders didn't like that, they had mob connections, bloodshed started. And soon Richard Night was murdered by an unknown assassin, presumably a mob hitman. The city was renamed Night City in his honor and his dream utopia became to embody everything that was destroying the world. Mob took control and corps didn't give a fuck since it didn't hurt them any until they eventually had to take out the mob gangs, but not in any favor to Night’s dream either.
Miriam Night, Richard's Widow, founded the Night Foundation (later Night Corp) to stick to Richard's Ideal dreams of what he wanted the city to be. They invest heavily in ecological research, alt power sources, civic infrastructure, public works, and charities and scholarships for Night City youth. "They've even managed to stay out of the normal corporate power struggles which tend to plague every other corporation, both inside the city and out. Even the shadowy corporate rumors about them, like having underwater bases in the bay or access to orbital satellites, remain unsubstantiated despite extensive investigation."
So, where does this put us now? We have ONE last quest...
"THE PROPHET'S SONG"
Garry The Prophet is our local crazy man. He spouts off insanities to anyone who will listen near Misty's Esoterica in Kabuki. However, some of his ideas aren't quite as much off the mark as one might think. There ain't no technonecromancers from Alpha Centuri (or Spanish Inquisition) nor is Saburo Arasaka an immortal vampire, but he was correct that Saburo wasn't dead and in fact immortal; via Mikoshi and The Relic.
He send you on a quest to investigate a meeting; he says that his ripper mistuned some cyberware in his head and he can hear their communications. You show up to a meeting between corps and Maelstrom. They say some nonsense phrases and transfer a data shard. Reading it ("Destroy After Reading") it seems like nonsense. But does include the line "The cages of men melt as night descends". You can decode it via a Null Cipher; first letter of every line: “Project Oracle Command Execute Plans”.
We don’t know what Project Oracle is. In real life, secret project or operation names actually tend to be chosen at random and are unrelated to the actual project (you can google funny stories about names that ended up awkward to the actual project), so this could mean nothing. But, narratives tend to give meaning to everything. Oracles are mythical in references and could predict the future or see the unseen. Perhaps perfect prediction via behind the scenes manipulations? Not sure we’ll get answers on this one for now.
Going back to Garry, he's been kidnapped. His protoge is screaming he's been kidnapped "Black suits came by - blue eyes and all". Blue Eyes huh? Further, she claims that they threw him into an invisible AV... Huh, like the one we saw back during "Dream On"? "Night's comin... The eternal night"
So, it’s time to jump us to the final step in our Fool’s Journey: The Sun.
“THE SUN”
The Sun ending has V wake up in their new penthouse apartment (with their love interest if they have one). Checking the computer, we see emails from our dear Mr. Blue Eyes. He wants an answer from V as to the job to the Crystal Palace he has planned and that they’re on a tight schedule for “obvious reasons”. We meet with him at the Afterlife and he talks about the job; Casino security is going into maintenance and V mentions giving him the casino client list. V also asks him to “hold up your end of the bargain”. They never discuss eddies or payment. It’s all in such vague terms. “Your end” or “Obvious reasons”. Smaller point but an email from Vik on the space shuttle also tells us that he’s asked around about Blue Eyes and has nothing; either he works with people WAY above Vik’s paygrade or he’s shady as hell… or both.
I think Blue Eyes knows V is dying (the obvious reasons) and I think the unspecified payment is V’s survival. V always says that they want to come back to their love interest so it’s not a mindless suicide run and I don’t think V would risk it all for nothing but eddies; especially not after Reaper (both versions) paint suicide runs as a horrible terrible thing. To then glorify it in another ending… no, the game is smarter than that.
Your love interest doesn’t seem to be too upset about the situation either. Panam and Judy leave V in The Sun due to their lives taking different directions, but it seems mostly amicable and understanding. They even express desire to see V again because they know V needs to do this job. Kerry, who stays with V in The Sun and expresses worry and also a desire to settle down with V, also seems mostly understanding that V needs to go on this quest. I don’t think they’d be so calm and loving and understanding if this were a suicide run. They know more than the player does.
Further, I think Blue Eyes isn’t after the casino aspect of the Crystal Palace at all. While that’s the major commercial aspect of the station as marketed to the citizen world, the station also has embassies from every nation on earth, facilities from all the major corporations, and is pretty much THE place where all the dark corporate espionage goes down. There’s so much more to this location than ‘casino resort’. *EVERY* corp has space stations and hideaways in space because the Crystal Palace offers it’s own legalities and opportunities that are not allowed within Earth’s terms and conditions. If they want to do some research that would be frowned upon elsewhere and get up to some Top Secret shit, it’ll be in outer space. Night City is controlled by corps and has lax laws, but outer space’s are even more so.
I think the cure V wants is not only on the station, I think it’s what Blue Eyes himself is after, but I’ll get there when it’s time to theory craft about the future.
I think it’s worth noting; Blue Eyes IS IN THE TRAILER FOR THE GAME. Yeah, anyone remember that shot on a shuttle with a guy being burned out from the inside? Yeah, he’s there. In the foreground. *Smirking*. The shuttle also seems like they’re in space.
These events leading to the Crystal Palace and the conspiracy with Blue Eyes are blatant DLC Hooks for the future and suggest a post-game DLC. This isn’t the first CDPR has done so either; Blood and Wine takes place after the story of Witcher 3 and is explicitly incompatible with the worst endings of that game. I think, conceivably, other endings where V is still alive could be roped into this adventure; Blue Eyes merely needs to hire them with the same offer of survival. While The Star takes V to Arizona and away from Night City, I think that choice of location is appropriate as, to even get to space for The Crystal Palace, citizens go from LAX to Arizona for a space port to launch them off Earth’s surface. They could have chosen anywhere else to send Panam and V, but they choose Arizona, huh. I do think Reaper, Temperance, and Devil will be locked out of this future, however, as all make any point of Blue Eyes hiring V irrelevant; there’s no V left to hire/save. MAYBE a rejected Devil ending, but I wouldn’t blame them for not continuing that conclusion either as Devil is one of the bad endings.
So, it’s finally time to really compile a lot of this information into where I think this is going in the next comment below

"Welcome to Florida, and Have a Nice Dementia", is what the sign at the Tampa Bay Airport should say. Instead, it says something about beaches or oranges or manatees or some shit; just enough airbrushed propaganda to keep the geriatric New Jersians excited about their newly reincarnated/refurbished life in the Tropicana Senior Living Estates (conveniently located next to Publix Grocery, WaWa gas station, and the Bingo Casino).
Yeah, every bit of the stereotype is true: Florida is filled with old people. Old people that shouldnt drive, yet still do, which in turn makes me feel like a paranoid skitzophrenic on the verge of death for simply trying to walk across the street at a crosswalk.
Here's two more stereotypes that are also true:
1) Florida is full of meth addicts and crackheads.
2) Florida is full of unbelievably hot chicas.
Yes, every stereotype you've ever heard about Florida, including the friendly manatees, is absolutely 100% true. Don't question it, nor be surprised, if you ever come.
But hey, I fucking love old people. I do. I love talking to them. They're over all of the angst and politicized shit you hear from every young hipster or redneck, and they have a fuck ton of cool stories to talk about. I LOVE OLD PEOPLE.
And hey, though it's taboo to say, fuck it, I love drug addicts too. I do, I really do.
They most certainly win the award (there's no award for this) when it comes to the CRAZIEST FUCKING STORIES and experiences you will ever, ever hear about. Ehhh fuck it, half of the stories may be lies or imaginations that they firmly believe to be true basely solely on whichever drug-induced high has inspired them...but the other half of those stories are probably VERY true and surely the craziest you will ever, ever, hear. Want some unspoken validity or verification of why they have the craziest storiest, and moreso how you know those stories are true? Allow me...
Imagine you were a 13 year old girl raised by a prostitute mother and drug dealing father. Now imagine your mother killed your father, so now you have to work the streets selling your vagina so that you and your mother could get high together with your new step-dad that is actually your mothers pimp. Now imagine you spend the next 15 years of your life attempting to kill your step dad while also still selling your vagina for more drugs. Now imagine you found God and Jesus Christ, but you firmly believe they are aliens and that just makes you wanna do more meth.
Now THAT person has interesting stories...way more interesting than someone raised in the securely nested suburbs of the gentrified side of town, who went on to get her Associates degree in nursing and has two healthy baby boys signing up for Little League and the smartest daughter in the world that just won her first spelling bee. Fucking blow me to sleep...yawn....crack ho wins in the "1 up you" category of storytelling, guaran-fucking-teed.
I digress.
Florida.
Fucking Florida.
I gotta tell ya, I love it. And I love it for the reasons you likely hate it. Something something, "to each their own", something, blah-dee-friggin blah, whatever. I love it.
Aaaaand I hate it.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand that very contradiction, that complex differentia of love and hate...well, that just makes me love it even more. Spice of life shit, really...
SPICE OF LIFE. Perhaps that should be the words of welcome in the Tampa Bay International Airport:
Welcome to Florida: The Spice of Life. Read back of sign for exciting dinner recipe ideas: Take two filets of manatee, marinate overnight in meth, add a dash of mothballs and VOILA...Florida Surf n Turf!
I'm trying to fish, and this guy smoking meth 20 feet away from me is striking his lighter 20 times in as many minutes. He's now asking to borrow my lighter. I threw my lighter at him and it landed just short of him in a splash of sand. He has been non-stop looking for that lighter for nearly an hour, likely forgetting why he even needed my lighter and now convinced he his hunting for some buried treasure left behind by Hernando De Soto. To each their own...
Women. Yes Florida has some goddamn beautiful women. But I want nothing of them...fakest women I've ever seen and never want to meet in my life. Alright alright mayyyybe for one night, depending on the severity of whatever std is included in the drama package. Ugh. They are materialistic as hell, have the highest standards that they will never ever deserve, and will likely break/kill your heart faster than chicken fried steak. A bunch of hot uppity bitches that probably know one sex position: "oh baby, let me lay on my back and be fake as fuck because that's actually all I ready do at ANYTHING in life anyway. Tee hee."
And I assure you ladies, that goes for the men here too...they're uppity little bitch boys as well, who probably last around 2.4 minutes total in bed before they go back to playing Call of Duty or playing Texas Hold Em' with the other apes.
Do not get into a relationship with anyone that claims to live long-termin Florida. (And by long term, I mean almost than 1 year). Just don't. Just let that person wither sleezily away into...i don't know...early dementia, or meth (likely both) without you. Ain't worth it...jus ain't worth it.
A fish is biting my line. And I just lost it because I'm busy talking to you assholes on Reddit. I need to find my goddamn lighter also before this tweaker loses both my lighter and his mind forever trying to find desotos treasure.
Goodnight sleepyheads. Kiss

THANK YOU MODS FOR LETTING THIS THROUGH!
Please click HERE for the PDF version if you would like to download the dd.
(credit: research compiled by IG:@wydstockbros)
To get things started, I'm not a financial advisor, I'm not a bot, and this one goes out to you, Chamath.
---
tl;dr
AMC is the global leader in a $17 billion dollar industry that’s been beaten senseless to the ground with so much room to run. After pioneering deals with streaming services, buying out their competition, and upgrading their facilities worldwide, 80% short interest is highly inappropriate for its TRUE fundamental value — $69.69 a share.
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀$AMC TO $69.69🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀$AMC TO THE MOON🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
---
"I'm questioning whether they[WSB] are actually doing the research when it comes to things like GameStop and AMC ..." - clueless CNBC dude.
I fuckin miss movies. And when I say movies, I mean the whole damn experience. I wanna buy my $15 popcorn, pour an ungodly amount of butter and jalapenos on that shit and munch in a recliner seat watching in laser 4k quality. I like this company. I like this stock.
For the past few days, I've been scouring Google for news articles and company data. I've also been trying to find some detailed DD in here but they’ve all been pretty limp-dick when it came to AMC. And most of the news articles I've read were surface-level AT BEST with a grim outlook based on first-glance analysis. Guess these analysts are just too damn lazy to dig deep.
Because when we dive into these issues, we can easily see that the theater giant may not be in as bad a situation as the media/analysts are claiming.
In fact, I believe that AMC is absolutely misunderstood, overlooked, and undervalued.
Here is why I am more confident than ever that $AMC will not only reach $30 but is in the perfect setup to see ATHs and WELL ABOVE.

I. Ugly Start, Beautiful Setup

Chances are if you are currently holding a significant position in $AMC, then most likely you've already read up on the company and its current standing in the cinema industry. You've probably read about how the corporation has nearly $5 billion dollars worth of debt with many of its locations still closed as the pandemic remains a global issue. You may have realized that new movies haven't been coming out. But more than that, you're seeing that movies are just being released on streaming platforms anyway. You might be concerned for AMC, or even the industry as a whole.
All of these concerns are very valid and based on real uncertainty, but let's break down each of these points and see if they’re as bad as analysts claim.

II. A Discussion on Debt

Media outlets keep honing in on this debt like it’s an ugly scar of the corporation. But what we need to focus on is why that debt came to be, how the money was spent, and how this debt was a strategic play in order to cement AMC into the new era of cinema-streaming.
We can categorize the money used into four parts:

• New equipment and amenities
• Lease payments
• Maintenance costs (utilities, wages, etc.)
• Expansion (buying out the competition)

Pay close attention to the last category because this one is important. Over the past five years, AMC has been acquiring smaller theater companies like Odeon. After buying out these companies, AMC then had to suit its "new locations" with the standard luxury amenities AMC is known for. This makes for a significant bulk of their debt totaling over $3 billion in just acquisitions. This was the investment that helped solidify AMCs spot as the world's largest cinema chain.
On the topic of maintenance costs, AMC managed to raise enough money to get through 2021. With ongoing news of vaccines, we can hope their efficacy leads to a speedy reopening near mid-late 2021. But when the economy does reopen—and AMC is back at full operation—what will it look like?

III. The Future of AMC

There's an elephant here.. right in this very room. Yes, streaming and cinema have had some serious beef in the past. In fact, some cinema chains are having tensions with streaming to this day. But what has AMC done in regards to streaming? They were the first to settle deals in order to partner up and take part in streaming revenue.
Yup, you read that right. AMC is both having their cake and eating it too.
Why would motion picture companies do this? Why not just end the cinema industry? To put simply, analysts are deeply underestimating the value of the "cinema experience". Just as I mentioned in the intro, I miss the cinemas. But I am definitely not alone. But let's not talk about me and the hypothetical "people'', instead let's talk about research studies.
In a 3-year study done in Korea, researchers found that shortening the window of cinema exclusivity and releasing movies on streaming early did not have a significant effect on ticket sales. And though this is a limited study done outside of the US, remember that AMC is a global corporation and these results have a hopeful outlook for the future relationship of cinema-streaming for AMC worldwide.
"But wait, you still haven't mentioned what streaming gets out of this?"
It's not what streaming "gets out of this" but rather what these motion picture companies maintain in keeping a healthy relationship with cinemas. During the peak heat of the movie theater-streaming feud, AMC halted the showing of Trolls and vowed to never show a Universal Pictures film in its theaters again if they were to continue releasing their films on streaming platforms without a proper cinema-exclusivity window. But today, we can see that the tensions have fallen and both motion picture companies and AMC have found a way to mutually benefit each other.
Now besides streaming, AMC has been investing in luxury amenities as seen by their chairs, 4K laser projectors, MERV air filtration, and ultra-surround sound speakers. With so many locations and so many amenities, they are offering full theater rentals with high demand during the pandemic. AMC has further cultivated their century-old movie experience into modern times. And this pandemic didn’t just change their amenities.
They had to learn how to cut costs and have more efficient operations in order to survive. This only spells good news for when they emerge with better operations, more money to spend, and higher valuations. So that begs the question, how high can the company's share price go realistically?

IV. Valuation

First, let's look at the Movie Theater industry as a whole in comparison to a few other popular entertainment industries:
Movie Theater US Market Size $17.1 billion
Casinos US Market Size $15.7 billion
Amusement Parks US Market Size $14 billion
Music Label Music Production US Market Size $9.4 billion
Music Publishing US Market Size $7 billion
In the world of entertainment, cinema is a very lucrative business.
And, again, who is the largest movie theater chain in the world? Yup, AMC.
Clueless CNBC dude mentioned that we retail traders don't trade with a fundamental reason but is there a fundamental reason in shorting a $17 billion dollar industry GLOBAL leader down to its grave? Does AMC deserve to die? I surely don't think so.
Now I won't touch upon squeezes in this since I'm sure many of you folk have already read/heard enough about them, but I will leave this quick intuitive article about it. And yes, these shorts can and will be squoze once we have faith in our upper valuations and investors(we) begin buying again.
And buy again we will. As many users flee limp-dick Robinhood and join one of the real brokerages, their positions/funds will be settled and ready to trade come next week. Where do you think these angry RH refugees will be putting their investments? That's right, exactly into the positions that RH stopped them from buying last week: which includes $AMC.
If you were part of the RH user base and your plays were affected by the blatant market manipulation, it's not only "not too late", but I believe it is an opportune time to BUY.
How high can it go then? When will I know it's too late to take a position?
So when we talk about valuation, many people fear the uncertainty of a stock rising far past its current value. Well, I think Chamath Palihapitiya said it best:
"Everybody that bought that stock is also underwriting how they want to own it."
In our current price-action environment, it's not too ridiculous to see how we are forming the foundations for AMC to continue rising beyond ATHs. We are already hitting nearly $16 on the day and rallying +53% while enduring heavy trade restrictions. Who's to say that this passion cannot continue? Now I’m no expert and can’t tell you how high this can go, but I am personally eyeing $69.69 as a target.
With so many current factors at play including hype, short covers, and ITM options having to be exercised, this is actually the BEST entrance to manifest its ATH valuation and chart some never before seen territory in its price action. It's like the manifest destiny of stock valuation. In fact, we may never see this opportunity for AMC again if we don't act now and solidify its value upward.
At the end of the day, prices are what the buyers/sellers settle upon so WE can pioneer that value if we damn well please. This is what a free market is all about.
Will there be people that disagree with this?
Sure.
Will people continue to short AMC as it goes up?
Absolutely.
Do I think that AMC being shorted 80% and rising is fair?
Really? See section III.
But institutions are selling off! Like Silver Lake liquidating their 44m shares.
Yes, then the next day $AMC dipped to $7.50 and has since recovered… with AMC $600m less in debt.
We all know who is shorting AMC, and I am sick of these hedge funds who think they, alone, can decide whether or not a company is worth a damn.

V. Conclusion - Resurgence

We are at the cusp of AMCs resurgence. Because most of us have been kept from participating in social activities, we can better understand that the public is yearning for a sense of normalcy. Sure we've gone pretty far with just watching movies on our TVs or computers through the pandemic, but that doesn't scratch the itch for many folk.
What you're investing into when you invest in AMC is the entire experience in tandem with its new streaming deals. And having been beaten so low—while still holding such great fundamental prospects— its share price is ready to blow up.
In the future when “The Deep Squeeze” is turned into a movie, we’ll be a part of history.
And you’re going to want to see it on the big screen.
--
Position: $50k in calls and shares
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀$AMC TO $69.69🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀$AMC TO THE MOON🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

The results are in for Match 9. The winner is…
William Eyelash, with a score of 68 to Jacob Brown’s 68, tie broken by a higher ‘categories taken’ count!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	The Graveyard Shift	16-13
Quality	The Graveyard Shift	22-20	Reasoning
JoJolity	Masters of Funky Action	20-25	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10

William Eyelash had taken the lead in this match, and though as a leader, he hadn’t done the best job, getting Jack visibly injured, as a combatant, he had managed to withstand the aggressive and area-painting onslaughts of himself from not so long ago, and of a much more experienced version of the partner he’d once had.
It had made him catch his breath, reflect on all that had come to this point, to recall that moment where Ocean Eyes had been the one to embrace and protect him.
“Yes… I understand now,” William answered, walking carefully through the snow, “you had something good going there, Jacob Brown, but… Y-you didn’t seriously think I would fall for tricks like those coming from my own Stand, did you?” Didn’t even know it could do all that, though… Even now, I can still grow, huh?
That put a smile on his face, then, as he approached the injured Jack, helping him up. “You still with us?”
“Hee hee, I’ll peachy keen as peachy cream in a little while… But right now I’m very much hurting yes.” Jack chuckled, resting his eyes and looking things over. “In the end, though… I called that other me in the hoodie an impostor, but he knew my Stand better than I did. He was even more me than me… What does that mean?” He looked down. “Am… Am I the lie?”
“I, uh… I don’t know how to answer that,” William said, “but… You’re one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. And, uh… You helped me out a ton. Sorry for getting you hurt, uh, not that used to leading, but you really seemed to trust in me…”
“We all make mistakes!” Jack said, not minding that at all, “but… I suppose you’re right. I won’t let some stranger get in my head… But I guess that all of us were telling the truth in our hearts, then.” He looked to the defeated ‘Billy’ and the slightly-older Jacob, both bleeding and unconscious, the latter falling much faster. Already, a strange white blob was moving through the snowfield towards them, examining them. “So I guess we spare them today... if they survive what we’ve given already!”
Neither would realize it for another few minutes, but for Jacob Brown, those words had proven prophetic.
“S-still though… If you’ve really lived a full life here, become the same person with the same Stand, same memories,” William said, “does that mean that can just… Happen? But how, wh-when really, by probability and stuff…”
“So is the unusual burden of ‘Fate,’ felt strongest upon this city,” a familiar, altered voice spoke, and sitting on a park bench, William and Jack spied none other than the Institute’s head, still heavily layered as he always was.
“Oh No…” William muttered.
“‘Oh no?’ Is this a problem of a person?” Jack asked, then giggled. “Heeheh, just a little joke. I know about the Institute, of course!”
“The ‘Fortuna Double’ might exist at any point in time, for any Stand User from outside its walls, and no matter how irreconcilable the circumstances, how ‘impossible’ it should be for two people to have the same fated path, even for the slight differences of the city… The ‘Same Person’ can unquestionably exist. Wouldn’t be surprised if you, ‘Jack,’ and this ‘Billy’ here were simply the first you encountered who were close enough to your age that you immediately noticed.” No tilted his head. “Why, even that cute creature who followed the elder Jacob Brown is, literally, the same being as the Bert that just died… Yet, unlike them, bound still by fate. I wonder, then, what will prove to be the same, to be indomitable ‘fate,’ and what will prove not so.”
“I think sometimes about if I’ve ever had one here… Or will, in the future. That sounds utterly boring if so, though. I refuse to know my fate; it’s vexing enough of a limit on myself that I’m burdened by, knowing it’s predetermined to exist at all.”
“Uh… Right.” This was heavy, huh? William tried to figure out what it all meant. “Fortuna Doubles, huh… So they’re both real, completely and absolutely, then?”
“Precisely!” No remarked, cheerily. “Would you like to speak more about this? Go on, sit with me.”
Only a few hours remain still in your window of time to vote in a match between an Agnes and some Guy in a crowded concert hall brought down to size.
Scenario:
Alexis Williams was sinking.
Every day, the myriad of matters which plagued the outwardly-cheerful woman’s mind seemed to be growing worse and worse. The unhealthy relationship she’d had with her Stand had turned into an even worse sort of tension, a fundamental disconnect with an aspect of herself which she literally could not be away from.
It hadn’t been uncommon for some time for her to wonder if a given day would be her last. Over the last several months, those feelings had only grown and grown in their intensity, in their power over her, and it had even begun to show outwardly.
It wouldn’t be long now, surely, before-
Alexis’ hotel room door was kicked so hard that one of the hinges flew off, and through it launched, not an attacker like she might have imagined, some hostile Stand User out to invade her home, but something arguably even worse.
“ALEXIS!”
Her friend and fellow Eighth Circle mainstay, Bucket.
She clutched her forehead and forced a smile, turning away from what she’d been using to get through the day and towards him. Already, she could tell that the chaos agent, formerly known for the octopus on his head, now sporting sick sarashi and a pompadour, was here with intentions ranging from ‘good’ to ‘no intentions whatsoever,’ and it wasn’t in her nature to tell someone like that to fuck off.
“Bucket! Hey!” She said, an edge to her chipper tone. “You, uh, surprised me there… You’re gonna fix that door, right?” She blinked. “Wait, weren’t you at that Metra show? I thought I’d heard everyone there was shrunk down to-”
“Forget about that!” He answered, earnestly drawing closer, grasping her by the wrists suddenly, yet at once gently. “Alexis, I don’t know what’s going on with your head or heart or anything else, but I know I can’t just stand around outside your door watching you get more and more miserable! Even I noticed, so it must be really really bad whatever’s hurting you inside! I’m an acolyte of the boogie now, the example of Rudolf Pavlova, so I can’t let a friend be in need!”
“Rudolf…” Alexis had heard of his passing, so soon after helping her put on such a wonderful show, and been unsurprised. Wait, though, since when did Bucket- Ah, never mind. She shook her head, looking him in the eye. The highly chaotic, unstable hellraiser of the Judecca Highrollers was giving her puppy-dog eyes. “Did… Did you want to do something?”
“Yes! I want to make you better!” Bucket exclaimed, pulling away and bouncing upwards. “So c’mon! Let’s head out… Make some trouble, follow no rules but our own and to be happy!” He stopped, then, pulling back a moment, as if reading the room once again, folding his arms over his chest. “I mean, if you want to.”
Alexis thought it over. He meant well, clearly, and wished dearly to cheer her up… A person didn’t need to understand the nuances of the soul to see when a person was hurting, and to reach out for them.
She doubted it would make things better for her, but who’s to say it needed to be?
“That sounds great,” she said, relaxing her forced cheer slightly and nodding. “Maybe it’s what I need right about now.”
The Woods at Aurelio - Midday - Near the Northern Bridge
“So you’re sure that he’s got a base out here?”
“Crystal clear!” Tiger ‘Glitch’ Ricky answered Effie Linder, tilting her head one way and then the other as she and her Stand attempted to scope out the sounds of the area. “There was only basically one cop left and then Ugo made them quit, took the place over, paid them off… So now he just sorta comes and goes around that little old ‘empty’ police station!”
“If he hangs out at the town’s police station,” Effie asked, confused at her coworker’s demeanor, “then why are we out this far away from it?”
“Because!” Glitch answered, huffing and folding her arms. “I said he comes and goes! And prrobably isn’t there right now. Mrr, you’re the one who wanted to come out here with me, so let’s keep searching!”
“…” Effie nodded. “You know what, fair enough. He never was the type to stay still long, so looking where the Watch is going would be a start…”
Since that day she fought that shithead twink Agnes and that Italian twink Arpeggi at Tigran Sins’ casino, Glitch had been gradually, increasingly mulling over the idea of becoming something not so much unlike the latter… A vigilante, out to not just cause problems on purpose, but sometimes even solve them on purpose, in the way a Stand User knew best: shenanigans and violence.
Hearing about the way that Ugo McBaise had sabotaged the capture of the very villains whose challenge had inspired her to act, had directly gotten people killed and responsible for dangerous people staying at large, that felt like reason plenty to break out ‘shenanigans and violence’ on him.
Effie caught her on the way out, and had said then, “what, am I gonna wait around for Fira to send me on some bullshit errand? If you’re turning that piece of shit’s head concave, I’m in too.”
And so, enthusiastically, Effie had joined, and the pair had been circling the outskirts of town atop Vida Loca ever since, Effie also using her murder of crows for further observations than what her eyes alone could tell her.
Glitch’s ears perked, as did her Stand. “…something’s up ahead. A bunch of people hanging out by the river…”
“Hm? Yeah, I think I see it!” Effie remarked, producing a pair of binoculars to look that way. “VALKYRIE guys… You know what that means up here, don’t you?”
Though most of the company fell in line with Rushen Smith’s new leadership, it was something of an open secret that Ugo McBaise had very specifically drilled the former Neighborhood Watch, which had become a new unit of the company, into being loyal to him, not to his rank. Fears being stoked about the potential of ANVIL going to war with the town was all that kept them from being disbanded outright, feeling that people familiar with the area were best-suited for watching it.
Glitch hissed. “Alright, then, you know what we’ve gotta do!”
“Wait, it looks like they’re being talked through something by…” Effie adjusted the binoculars, peered through the crowd, and recognized a very identifiable vest… and a bald head, shining in the midday sun. “Mr. Jones?”
Mr. Jones had been having a good few weeks himself, ever since his earlier, very successful outing with Dread. It had ended in him successfully acquiring not just any ‘Memento,’ but perhaps one of the city’s most dangerous, and the life-fearing compliance of the kidnapped alleged immortal who led it to him, taught him its secrets.
Apparently some kitty somewhere was sad about that, but eh, when you’re making an omelette, yeah?
“Wait wait wait,” he said affably to the crowd of VALKYRIE agents he’d once called a neighborhood watch, “you say a guy in a blue pomp and a dancer’ve been… Spray painting your cars? Throwin’ dead fish at ya? Sprayin’ ink to get away?” He snickered. “You’ve had a hell of a morning with this prankster pair, then, if they keep givin’ you the slip.”
“Please, Mr. Jones,” a young man said as he continued to wipe fish guts off of his helmet visor, “I… I know, technically, you aren’t our leader anymore, that the bosses don’t like you much, but.” He sniffled, earnestly. “But you’ve always been so good to us, even since then! You’ve been loyal to us, and we still love you for it, no matter what they say you did!”
“Heheh… Hearin’ you say that makes it worth it, y’know that?” Mr. Jones wiped a finger under the eye of his sunglasses, looking them over. “Think I know who might be the whodunnit-er here, actually. Just gimme a hot minute to track the guy down, and-”
“Got a lot of nerve talking to my men, Jones.”
Everyone went silent, then, at the sound of a hammer, for dramatic effect, being dragged along the pavement of the road, then swung in the air by an absolute cinderblock of a man.
“You got a problem, and you come running to him because he happened to be passing by? What happened to using your damn heads?” Ugo chewed his subordinates out, then, before looking to the neighborhood watch founder. “I think you’ve confused these people, Worm, by still keeping up that paternal reliable neighbor shit. They’ve all been taught well and good that they listen to me, not some replacement,” he pointed his hammer forward, then, threateningly, “and sure as hell not some serial killing scum!”
“Now now now, Ugo, c’mon, it’s clear they like us both, yeah? So let’s just… Clear the confusion up, if y’care that much!” Mr. Jones reached for the sabre sheathed at his side, then, drawing it with a golden sheen; he’d fished it out of the wreckage of Capital Island one day after it wasn’t destroyed in Jack’s ritual. He, too, pointed it forward. “I know the language you speak, so let’s talk in that.”
Ugo grunted, then, swinging his hammer back over his shoulder as a very feminine form appeared behind him, looking like something of a curvy, thickset cowgirl. “Aw, Ugo and I concur, y’all know we’re down t’bash some heads and take a name or two! Why, sugar, we’re about to put you down like a sick dog!”
Mr. Jones got a snicker out of the odd word choices of ‘She’s a Big Boy,’ finding the contrast between Stand and User in all but their brutal aggression amusing; sometimes he’d tried in the past to talk to him and unpack what the Stand actually said about Ugo’s soul, but it was a conversation the very straightforward, taciturn former football star never quite liked to have.
Jones gestured with his head, then. “Watch, get back to HQ, yeah? Whoever you see walk through that door, few hours from now, respect that, yeah?”
“Uh… S-sure?” The ex-Watch member who’d been speaking said, turning around. “C’mon, guys, let’s get pizza or something… I guess.”
Alexis had been sitting by the bank of the Wormwood River, mulling over the shenanigans Bucket had encouraged her to join in with, ever since she’d happened to spot all the Watch members they’d been harassing seemingly surround somebody; it was an action which led Bucket to say ‘just gimme a minute’ before diving into the water.
It was a shame, honestly. This harmless problem causing had actually been kind of fun, in a way.
Bucket splashed up soon after. “I knew it!”
“Knew what?”
“There was this bald guy talking to all the VALKYRIE guys about all our awesome pranks, and then that no-good bastard Ugo showed up and they started slugging it out and moving towards a sewer grate. And then, you wouldn’t believe it… The bald guy turned into Conqueror Worm!”
That gave Alexis pause, then. He was here? “We… We should probably go somewhere else, then! If people out there are fighting, I want no part in it whatsoever… And you probably shouldn’t anger guys like that either.”
“I can’t just turn away from this, Alexis! I’m here to cheer you up, and that guy… When he helped kidnap you, that’s when you started to feel even worse! So, I’m going to roll up there, give him my fiercest look possible, and make him apologize for being mean to you.”
That… Wasn’t where Alexis was expecting Bucket to end that sentence, but it made her sigh, momentarily. Her mood was good and ruined now anyway by these revelations, and Bucket was suggesting something dangerous nonetheless. “Look, Bucket, not everybody is good-natured, okay? You can’t just walk up to somebody and-”
“But I will!” Bucket insisted, flexing. “Because I have the power of ‘the boogie’ on my side, don’t you get it? This will cheer you so far up! You don’t even need to come along if you don’t want, because I dunno I might punch Ugo a bit if he hits first! But either way, you will get your apology, I swear it!”
Then, Bucket ran off. To confront two very dangerous brick shithouses of men. In a sewer.
“He’s going to get himself killed…” Alexis felt awful now, standing and looking Southward. She could just leave, couldn’t she? Bucket even said he wasn’t expecting her to follow when it could turn into a fight… In the end, were humans not all fated to fall victim to their own mistakes, their own vices and eccentricities?
…I can’t just leave a friend like that, even if I’m feeling bad.
“Bucket!” Alexis called, beginning to run after him. “Wait up for me! I’m coming along too! Let’s… Get that apology!”
She was having to babysit the guy who came to help her out, now, was that it?
“Ghhgh, it’s a two-for-one special on the worst in the city, isn’t it?” Glitch complained, trailing Effie down a ladder into the sewers. “First we’re tailing Ugo, and then Mr. Jones, and now they’re fighting… I don’t even know who’s worse!”
“One’s a serial killer, and yeah super dangerous,” Effie pointed out, “and the other keeps getting a lot of other people killed with his own dangerous stupidity… Keeps causing us problems, and helped escalate that warzone. I don’t like being an enemy of ANVIL, Glitch… I really don’t.”
“Mmrhh… They’re gonna get a piece of our best attacks.”
The pair, then, touched ground, and Effie saw around them the signs of battle, of pieces of the ground seemingly terraformed, nicked, busted-up, and the sounds of clashing in the distance. Undoubtedly them.
Then, though, as they stepped forward, soon after, a pair literally dropped down behind them, one after the other, first a scarred, pompadoured idiot doing a cool roll, then a redheaded gymnast landing coolly not far behind.
“Wait a minute… Bucket? And, uh, that performer from that thing everyone liked… Alexis Williams?” Effie remarked, backing away a bit, trying to figure out the pair’s intentions. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, you know!” Alexis tilted her head, very blatant in how forced the chipper tone had become, especially by the nature of what she’d said next. “Losing control of my life, letting weird things get out of hand… But I’m here now. I’ve committed to my choice, and I hear sounds further back. So, Bucket! Let’s get a move-on, yeah? I don’t particularly care much for being in a sewer…”
Bucket, however, had been unmoving since he had begun to stand. Glitch, too, faced directly his way, allowing him to look her in the eye as a strange expression came over them both.
Effie and Alexis, then, were deeply confused, until Vida Loca appeared, and the sounds of beatboxing seemed to fill the air.
“Wh-” Effie was taken aback. “Glitch, we’ve got something going on here. You’re not seriously going to-”
“Hey fishman, the cat’s here to catch ya / Tiger ‘Glitch’ Ricky on the mic comin’ atcha / In a hotel or a diner or even a sewer / My rhymes gonna run you through like a skewer!”
This was physically painful for Alexis to watch. She covered her mouth as she prepared for Bucket to open his, well aware that half of their social circle was probably going to slap him for whatever came out.
“Name’s Bucket, B-U-C-K-E-T / Got beat but came back now with the Boogie! / Was chasin’ a killer but this fish can still school you / With my friend Alexis here, my rhymes’ll hit true!”
“…hit true?” Alexis couldn’t help but find that groan-inducingly hilarious, though her momentary joy, then, was cut short by the fact that Effie, meanwhile, was absolutely seething.
“C’mon, do this literally any other time!” She exasperatedly proclaimed, tugging at Glitch’s arm, “we can’t let those assholes get away, c’mon, you know we need to cut this out and-”
Bucket threw a fish at Effie’s face.
Everyone went silent, then, as it slid off and hit the ground, her own expression dry with displeasure.
“Did… Did you just throw a fish at me?”
“Yeah! Because you keep ruining the vibes!” Bucket huffed. “So cut it the hell out, or I will do it again!”
“Really now,” Effie said, keeping her hand by her slingshot and beginning to walk further Southward. “If you keep distracting us, I’ll have to get you out of our way.”
One of Bucket’s massive knives, then, was drawn, blade resting centimeters from Effie’s face. “Don’t threaten me, alright? That’s completely against the spirit of this.”
Glitch hissed, then, her own mood ruined, “hey! You can’t just pull a weapon on my friend like that, even if she’s being a spoilsport! That’s way over-the-line!”
As both sides fell back, not losing sight of the other as they attempted to pull away and regroup, it was clear that three-fourths of the quartet had been angered enough at one another in an instant that a fight was about to brew.
Alexis had been deliberately trying not to send out her Stand this entire time, wanting some semblance of mental distance from it after their disagreements had turned increasingly mean, her literal fighting with herself and grappling with her demons leaving her wanting absolutely none of this.
Bucket was about to get himself killed over, easily, the stupidest thing she had ever seen a fight start over.
This day has gone from sad to fun to the most frustrating I have ever seen… I tried to make a good day out of it, but here I am now. I can’t just abandon Bucket after he tried for me… But boy is he trying me.
OPEN THE GAME!
(Credit to CaptainSpooky27 for yet more awesome match art!)
Location: One of Los Fortuna’s sewer pathways, specifically far on the Northwestern outskirts of the town of Aurelio. These are one of the many entrances to the elaborate and interconnected underground networks of the city, though you’re in a pretty straightforward section of it that doesn’t branch off all that many surprising ways.
Not far South from here, but distant enough that it won’t ever affect this match, you can hear the sounds of a simultaneous battle between Mr. Jones and Ugo McBaise.
The area here is 63 meters by 33 meters with each tile being 3 by 3 meters. With TGS on the left and JHR on the right, represented by their character tokens.
The light grey tiles are the concrete paths, the darker grey tiles are the walls, and the blue tiles are sewer water. The walls are solid all the way through.
The sewer itself is actually relatively clean here, as clean as underground sewer water can be really. The water level is about 1 foot below the walkways and the water is 3 meters deep.
The ceiling is 4 meters above the walkways and the walkways have cheap metal guardrails between themselves and the water, as represented by the bolded outlines. The orange rectangles are the metal bridges between the walkways and the yellow circles are open manhole covers with light streaming through. The grey triangles are strange stalagmite-like protrusions, likely somehow created by Ugo and Jones’ fight. They match the same material as the stone walls, take up most of the walkway in width, and reach up to the ceiling.
Goal: RETIRE your opponents!
Additional Information: Logic is allowed to kill me(Kak) and both of the players who made me write this.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Judecca Highrollers	Bucket	"Are you mocking me? You went into the ground with your zipper? Are you copying me?" This whole thing has gotten so absolutely lame, that it’s killed your attempts to cheer your friend up and to have an awesome rap battle. So these guys are lame, and need to feel it! Make sure to find creative ways for your strategy to humiliate your opponents!
Judecca Highrollers	Alexis Williams	“You think that you can escape my punches when you're surrounded by walls of dirt?” Bucket’s gotten people into another frustrating situation by not thinking, huh? Well, you’ll get him out of this in one piece by using your head. Use this underground sewer environment to your advantage!
The Graveyard Shift	Effie Linder	“They say that sound reverberates better in liquids than in solids.” Seriously, Glitch? Seriously? Well, at least as long as you’re in this gnarly sewer, you can get something out of it by using your head. Use this underground sewer environment to your advantage!
The Graveyard Shift	Tiger “Glitch” Ricky	"Do you think you stand a chance against me by going underground?!" So now you and your opponents are going to be trying to one-up each other, huh? Bucket is an immensely clownable guy, dammit, and you were so hyped to do so verbally… Make sure to find creative ways for your strategy to humiliate your opponents!

Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

The results are in for Match 10. The winner is…
Ananas “Agnes” Bayley, with a score of 72 to Guy Manuel-Mota’s 69!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	BADD GUYS	18-12
Quality	Suburban Regalia	22-23	Reasoning
JoJolity	Suburban Regalia	22-24	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10

Amidst the sea of concrete snow that the stage had become, egged on by Agnes’ unusual encore request that Metra had agreed to, the killing intent of the self-styled villain and master mixologist had won out against the comparable brutality of the affable mercenary who had tried to take his life with just as much brutality.
The crowd, though annoyed by being utterly doused in carbonated everything, literally tossed around, literally watching their fellow partygoers exsanguinated and turned into meat puppets, did not allow it to ruin their fun, cheering on for Metra and her eclectic song choices. Agnes hopped off the makeshift surfboard he’d constructed, his opponent cut to pieces and speared and speared to hell, and it a testament to the sheer resilience of Guy-Manuel Mota that, even in such a gored, pulverized state, his opponent wondered if he was actually dead.
Regardless, he wasn’t getting back up, or reassembling, or pulling any more surprises or attempts to play possum. Realizing that it was over, Agnes was shaking. Breathing heavily. Hints of tears started to form in his eyes… but before he had a chance to cry, he arched back, laughing into a sea of concrete snow.
He’d won again.
“There you go, Metra, your show is saved or whatever,” he said with a mocking flippancy as she left the crowd to meet him backstage, “and I didn’t even kill any of these guys who paid to see you… They’ll just have to deal with sticky-wet clothes and some broken limbs.”
“Can’t believe this happened again… And I just had no choice but to keep singing and dancing.” Metra rubbed her hands on her arms, shaking her head. “I’m sick of this shit… I thought it was all almost over, but it’s just going to be forever in this city, huh?”
“Probably,” Agnes said, still half-laughing through a strained face, “just a constant, encroaching wave of ‘despair’ every waking moment… Way I see it, either you ride that shit as far as you can, or you let yourself drown. Doesn’t make a difference to me which you do.”
He glanced up at the ceiling then, cupping his hands. “Hey, fuckers! I won now! I beat the guy you sent! Get on the biggering or I’ll burn your casino down again!”
The game had, in fact, been won, and Agnes and Metra were the first to start to be free of its grasp, along with the spiked and bloodied separated bits of Guy, still pulsating ambiguously.
“He’s out for blood.” Tigran declared, warning the others Entertainment District highrollers observing, as he produced a deck of cards. “My Stand can’t hold him at that size much longer… But this whole place is about to be flooded with people, too. Duck into somewhere, and get away in the confusion.”
He spoke authoritatively, and even his sole superior, Fox, complied with his wishes after an urgent glance. “I… I’ll come for you! I promise I will!”
Tigran didn’t hear much more of that, then, beyond the sounds of Pork Soda’s Stand cry amplified by sonic boosts courtesy of Metra Doria. He fought impressively with little more than a deck of cards, but even then, could only buy his friends the seconds they needed to get away, live to gamble another day.
Tigran “Golden” Sins, User of ‘The Grid
Retired!
Face broken in nearly a dozen places by Agnes and TD/MD, the 48 year-old owner of Heartache Casino would be very quickly interned at Red Clay penitentiary, Metra insisting that her ally not kill him.
As thousands of confused concertgoers suddenly grew to full size and began to flood the halls of the Alexander Dickinson Amphitheater, the rest of his accomplices were able to escape the authorities yet again. Despite his extremely infamous protectiveness towards his face, he almost seemed to wear the damage with pride, knowing that this time, it represented having allowed the only man he considered greater than himself to run free yet again.
Red Clay Penitentiary - Industrial District
“Well, well, well, isn’t this a small world now? Tigran Sins, now in my care… Certainly less of a looker than I’d heard.” A dark-wavy-haired twenty-something sat snickering in the warden’s big swivel-chair, clad in a sleeveless velvet minidress, what of her flesh was exposed covered in flickering tattoos resembling closed eyes, flanked by uncanny-looking guards. “You don’t know me, but I’ve certainly heard of you… Of how you treated someone I hold dear very cruelly. Don’t you understand we’re all Stand Users trying to live our best life, Mr. Golden? I’m not the one who hurt you and threw you in here, and you’re not the one who said that I needed to be kept half-starved at all times so I couldn’t create anything.”
“Wh… Wait. Who the hell’re you?”
“Did my sweetheart never mention me, or do you just not pay attention to anyone but you and yours?” She leaned forward, bridging her fingers together. “I’m Palmer. I was a drama teacher at a small-town high school, but they kept overfunding football, one thing led to another, and now… I’ve got some serious vision.”
Tigran would be the last inmate admitted to Red Clay before a coup months in the making finally came to fruition.
Hey, yeah, Palmer! Remember that fun NPC? She was dating Mr. Jones and killed four people for him! Anyway, yeah, adjacent to him, an all-out meanspirited brawl in a sewer is taking place, feat. two chaotic clowns and two very frustrated young women.
What rotten luck this had been.
That leak, now of all days, when Being So Normal, Cairo Satori’s pet project that they had been slaving away at ever since setting foot in this series, had the deals with the devil that it had been built upon from the very beginning exposed for the world to see, and the city, which had loved every second of it before, had now been divided sharply between the loyal fans remaining and those protesting the entire thing, demanding the resignation of their producer, the cancellation of a show which had been picked up by so many streaming platforms, had already begun to make so much for the people who had made a livelihood of it all.
With the connection to Andrew Tiffany’s demise, even the oh-so-loyal Purple Flying Man resigned with only a short argument, and even the damage control removal of Caroline Jeffords, responsible for the worst of it, did little to contain the fact that Cairo knew about this, and Cairo allowed this to proceed nonetheless.
What, were they going to just throw it all away at the last minute? Ruin lives, tank companies, get how many people laid off? All over the failures of those close to them? Of course not.
“Cairo, dear,” the voice of that ever-troublesome producer, Million Dollars, muttered into a cell phone for them, “I’m going to need to go under the radar for awhile… People are beginning to look into my own affairs as well. But know that, as always, no matter what, you have my support. This show isn’t just a cash cow, Cairo… It’s an example. An example for the world to look to, and something for Stand Users to aspire to be better. I know you’re probably mad at us as well, but… You know that, don’t you?”
“Dollars… You’ve got a lot of nerve, trying to plead with me right now,” Cairo answered, tense in what had been their green room, sitting in the mall their producer had owned, “we definitely need to talk about our future… But we need to have one, too. Of course the show must go on… Nothing’s gonna jeopardize that!”
Free Viper Strip Mall, Suburban District
In recent times, the atmosphere at Free Viper was… somewhat dire. In fact, it had been on a rapid decline since that fateful day a couple months ago when Bert hijacked a ritual meant to challenge fate and did so, while murdering tens of thousands of people and injuring far more than that at the same time. Actually, Black Knight Penitentiary Album’s death and the realization that Remix was a serial killer came before that and weren’t very uplifting either, but what Bert did was somewhat hard to top.
Either way, the realization that he found one of the most morally bankrupt groups of people to team up with in Los Fortuna was one that Arthur Lifeson had reached not too long ago, and though it was somewhat of a painful thing to come to terms with, he had no choice but to do so and simply carry on. Bert had died, and the least Arthur could do from here on out would be to do his best to assist the city of Los Fortuna and bring justice to those who deserved it. The city certainly needed it, given all that was occurring right now.
For all the time Arthur spent in the city, he hadn’t gotten enough of note done yet… but that was soon to change. He had a plan in mind, one that would help keep the city and the world of stand users as a whole from devolving into further chaos. Before he could put it in place, however, he’d have to get some help.
Los Fortuna Shopping District, Sweet FA Mall - The Next Day
Nix Ripa had been in this city for months now, and in that time, all he had done was tear down walls, break buildings, break people who had dared to step all over the safety of others, of those too weak to bend fate to their whims.
It was despicable to him, and the icy Stand User was seething with hot rage. Those without the power to change the world themselves were pitiable, in their ways, yet at once, he knew they were not above help… That they needed to be driven higher, reach for the stars rather than wave to the heroes they saw in them!
When Arthur Lifeson discovered and contacted him, he did not hesitate to make his way to the megamall in which this was all set to culminate. Rather than in the comfortable solitude of the Black Hill Estate, where he could train without disruption, he’d even spent the night in an alley nearby, wanting to be able to spring out first thing in the morning!
When he did, then, as if on schedule, the older bearded man who had requested his help stood at the foot of Sweet FA, looking himself quite regal with that increasingly modified Medieval Times getup.
“Sir Ripa… It is an honor to meet in person, with yet another warrior of great acclaim.”
“Heh… I’ve seen you around,” Nix answered, stretching off the sleeping-on-a-dumpster aches and forcing out his hand, which Arthur, in turn, grabbed firmly, the pair locking fingers tightly and staring one another down intensely. “Did a damn fine number on those guys at this very mall awhile back… And it takes some guts to drive out into the Middle Finger for any reason! The mountains are where I do my most intense training of all!”
“Aye, I regrettably was fooled into following the glorious allure of Being So Normal… I lack even your good reason, of how you and your fallen brother-in-arms, Sir Rains, apprehended a true villain in the process of this fight, and even a black knight who would have put a past companion of mine to shame with her depravity.” He looked towards the space and shuddered. “The show, it refused to show the truth, but the wounds from that grueling battle, the burns… They were excruciating. That witch Jeffords, nothing she’s touched can be trusted as a truth to show the world.”
“So we’re in agreement then!” Nix said, finally letting the handshake go as Arthur’s hand began to grow numb, rolling his arms around and turning to face Sweet FA. “I looked into this place, their mission statement, their show, their producer… Set a good example my ass! They just want the whole damn world to think there’s nothing better than being a Stand User! That the ground we walk on should be kissed just for what we’ve got! Well… I’m no goddamn celebrity!”
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” Arthur agreed, “and this mockery… It will not do good for the world to learn of us this way. A knight’s honor is not something we seek for glory, for congratulation, but because there is no greater purpose than to slay evil, to protect those who cannot for themselves!”
“Heh… I like you. After this, we’re sparring ‘til one of us can’t move!”
Nix led the way in there, then, Arthur feeling pause for a moment at the sheer intensity of his companion. This was not of fear, however, or of a sudden feeling of inadequacy at someone so much younger, yet so much more driven than him.
Nay, he had been filled with more righteous determination than ever, and with a battle cry that led to a family with two kids in a stroller staring his way, he ran in after him!
…
…
As soon as they reached the main foyer of the mall, both of them realized, in tandem, and Nix spoke first, “…this place is huge as hell! Where do we even go to smash shit up?”
“I… That. That is a good point! Perhaps we should conduct a map kiosk, one which says ‘you are here!’ Ugh, those are always a pain to read…”
“I’ll help you.”
Both turned, then, to see a very fashionable teenager, clad in a purple aviator cap and goggles, slim and bearing a dour expression on his face. All who had hung around Cairo would recognize the Purple Flying Man from someplace or another, as well as all the extremely online and influencer-following of Los Fortuna.
“This show… They’ve done so much to capitalize on my uncle’s death. They’ve actively stopped the truth of whatever might have happened to him from being investigated with their frameup… And this conflict, I have lost two of my brothers to it all over again.”
He paused, then, and the two men seemed to trust him.
“You won’t be able to erase the show completely… It’s already had a limited run in this city. But masters, extra footage, content they were going to actually send out… There’s a storage space nearby… Most of the show’s data is backed up, of course, but that’s where everything is being saved. If your wish is to sabotage Being So Normal, to ruin its international release before it can cause any more harm to the outside world, that is where you go.”
“So you’ve had a change of heart yourself… I am thankful to hear that, Purple One…” Arthur snapped his fingers, then, as if remembering his name. “Right, now I remember! ‘Afton,’ wasn’t it?”
Purple’s face faulted. “Erm… N-no, eheh. It, uh… It wasn’t that. I haven’t been anything but ‘Purple’ for a very long time.”
“No matter what you’re called, an enemy of this show’s from within is just what we need to make this a little less of a pain in the ass!” Nix declared. “Lead the way!”
A Series of Backstage Halls Deep Within Sweet FA
Acrobatic and stealthy as he was, after leading the way in for those who had sought out this quest to begin with, Purple hurried along deeper inward, well aware that it was likely this place would not be unguarded, and meaning to scout ahead, maybe even fight a bit if he absolutely needed to.
He really, really did not want to, and so far, it wasn’t reassuring to him that nobody had interrupted them. No show staff, no Stand Users, not even some rent-a-cop had yet gotten into the way of this.
As he made his way to a security room, quietly bemoaning the fact that he would never live down infiltrating a security room with that damned nickname Bad Apples had given him, his worst fears were confirmed.
His friend, his confidante, Cairo Satori was sitting in a swivel chair, watching screens displaying the entire mall and idly leaning their head into a metal baseball bat.
“Purp…” They spoke up without even turning to face him. “Wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon! I mean, with everywhere you’ve blocked me, privated your accounts… I was under the impression you needed some time away from the show.”
Purple hopped down, then, walking closer towards the chair, clearing his throat and pondering his words clearly.
“The show needs time away from the show, Cairo… You know damn well why I brought myself back. Come on. You know this isn’t right… It doesn’t have to be this, and even just delaying could save-”
“Delay, huh?” They stood, twirling that bat they’d always carried around. It didn’t worry Purple. He’d never seen them actually using it. “C’mon… You know it’s not that simple, buddy. I’m just trying to make sure everyone has a good time… Already, I’m cutting toxic people out of the show! Even when they’ll make it harder to make anything going forward, Caroline is gone! I’ll keep that producer on a really short leash! I am doing everything in my power to make sure that this goes well… C’mon, can’t you look on the bright side?”
“You… You already know my answer to that. You’ve betrayed my trust, Cairo. The trust of my uncle, of everyone you’ve worked with… Of this whole city!” He shifted in place, then, becoming a much more avian humanoid figure with its pose. “I am its lavender courage, and I am your friend! And as both, I cannot abide by-”
Cairo swang their bat, and as they did, the arms of a Stand emerged from their own hand and struck it as well, multiple times in quick succession.
By the time the bat impacted Purple, it was with enough force for the deeply resilient eternally-young ghost to be sent hurtling towards a wall, literally impacting it hard enough to leave an impression in its form, embedded and unconscious in a single swing. He was alive, and would walk this off, but he wouldn’t be getting back up today.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” they said, standing with the bat over their shoulder, ‘Peach Pit’ manifesting more fully by their side (drawn by the artist Boy George, as usual), “but I can tell we don’t have time to chat… I’ll send you a gift basket from the launch party, yeah?”
Then, their attention turned towards the others on the security room screens, addressing their Stand in the meantime, “uh, hey, Peach…”
“I’m on it,” the Stand answered, “Arthur Lifeson and Nix Ripa… I’m excited for this, honestly.”
“And you don’t need to know that I am to, honestly…” Cairo moved to press the intercom button.
“I heard violence!” Nix called out, balling his fists. “Purple found someone!” He began to rush forward, then, Arthur preparing to make a blade, only to be stopped by the crackling of an intercom button.
“Hello again! Wow, it really isn’t all that often that Being So Normal has repeat appearances, but that’s, what, twice in this promotional cycle alone?” Cairo’s voice rang through, then, and they continued, “I figured we’d see some trouble here, so I gave most of staff the day off… I knew it’d be types like you two who showed up, and honestly, I gotta say, despite the circumstances, I’m a bit psyched!”
“Cairo Satori!” Arthur spoke up then, waving his hands. “Put this madness to a close, before I have to put you to my blade! You need not fall victim to this any longer… To fight us is a waste of time!”
“Well, I’ve got time to kill, and nobody to talk to, now that my friend’s taking a bit of a nap. And besides, you think I’m gonna just let you destroy everything we’ve been working to build up because you don’t like a couple of the crew members? C’mon, have a reality check here! No way I’m gonna allow that… Especially not right now! Look, why not come talk to me after I’ve completely closed this Netflix deal?”
There was silence, then, and then they spoke up again.
“Oh, who am I kidding? We both know that this is only gonna end one way! If you wanna stop me from sending this show out for the whole world to know and love, and not just be another little piece of Los Fortuna’s super storied, super amazing history, then STOP me! I’m already sending Peach your way, and there’s no way the two of us will just get walked all over!”
Arthur shut his eyes in frustration, but Nix shook his shoulder. “We knew from the start it’d come to this. C’mon… Any more talking this through will be a waste of all our breaths.”
“Yeah! This pre-battle stuff goes on way too long, I swear! So much to cut down in post without missing the meat of it… But enough talking shop, yeah? Let’s get to what we’re here for… You wanna say it with me? …no? Okay, suit yourself!”
“OPEN THE GAME!”
Location:
A hallway to several storage rooms in Sweet FA Mall. The area here is 40 by 80 meters with each tile being 2.5 by 2.5 meters. The white tiles are completely out of bounds for this match. The light magenta tiles are the main hallway, the purple tiles are side hallways, and the red tiles are the rooms. Each room has a number associated with it for convenience, as shown by the purple numbers. The ceiling is 8 meters tall. The doorways are denoted by the dotted lines between the rooms and hallways.
The players start at the left end of the hallway and Cairo starts in the security room (room 5) to the right of the bottom center. Cairo’s Stand starts in the middle of the main hallway.
The grey X marked circles are security cameras on the ceiling that connect to the monitors that are represented by the yellow notched rectangles in room 5. The light blue rectangles in the main hallway are 4 meter tall metal shelves that house stage set up equipment such as stepladders, light fixtures, microphones, extension cables, construction tools, and anything else needed to set up or tear down a stage. All shelves are bolted to the ground.
The yellow stars are disks, tapes, harddrives and other recordings of the footage shot by Cairo’s show.
The walls are drywall while the floor is ceramic tiled.
Now onto the different rooms:

• Room 1: Contains racks and cardboard bins of merchandise. The brown rectangles are cardboard bins of plushies and hats. The red circles are racks of clothing merchandise.
  
• Room 2: Contains a mountain of chairs and other furniture within a 5 meter tall metal storage fence as represented by the light blue rectangle and the junk inside it. Each side of the fence has a chain locked door.
  
• Room 3: Contains various cooking appliances and peripherals. The white rectangles are 4 meter tall metal storage shelves and the magenta rectangles are 5 meter tall metal storage containers. Basically any appliance that doesn’t fit on a shelf is put into one of the three containers.
  
• Room 4: Contains two long tables as represented by the grey L-shaped rectangles. On these tables are neatly laid out items that were used in Round 2 Match 4, this means Riot Shields, Fireworks Cannons, Magnetic Ray Guns, Grappling Hook Guns, smoke bombs, Tar filled paintball guns, mannequins, body armor, skateboards, net launchers, fire extinguishers, step ladders, marbles, bowling balls, trampolines, shovels, steel chairs, and blankets. Only the crystal ball is missing. The blue circle is a barrel of fencing foils and the yellow rectangle is a banged up motorcycle that while not completely totaled is in pretty bad shape.
  
• Room 5: The security room. It is rather bare, only housing the monitors set-ups to the security cameras and three swivel chairs to go with them.
  

Goal: RETIRE your opponents!
Additional Information:
As a reminder, White Tile areas are out-of-bounds for this match. If you willingly traverse through them you will be retired by a pair of mall cops.
Here is a shortened version of Cairo’s character sheet with all relevant information, the full sheet is linked below
Name: Cairo Satori
Age: 21
Gender: None, whose business is that anyways?
Species: Human
Occupation: Beloved Media Icon
Equipment: The newest smartphone, two sets of wireless earbuds for communicating directly with [Peach Pit] quietly, a bag of weed mints, and a baseball bat.
User Stats:
Strength: 3 (Too much effort to get properly strong- Cairo can throw as much effort into a hit as they need to in order to finish someone off after being brought to near-retirement by [Peach Pit], and that’s about the maximum they need.)
Agility: 2 (Never had to run after or from anything.)
Endurance: 2 (Not one to hold up under sustained pressure for very long, hoping to duck back from any conflicts except where absolutely necessary.)
Conduction: 2 (Able to personally carry their Stand’s damaging energy through them, and has a general knowledge of how to apply it.)
Vibing: 3 (It's for vibe checks- the necessity of finishing an opponent off personally, in a fast and hard strike. The full force of their strength, loaded into one moment rather than a series of fests. Also, they do have good vibes.)
Stand Name: [Peach Pit]
Stand Appearance: On the bulkier side of stand builds, Peach Pit has some resemblance to a knight in plate armor- big, dark metallic pauldrons, a chestplate, an assortment of straps and buckles, etc. The surface of the stand looks very much like a sunset with its colors flipped around. Its face is smooth except for a simple minimalist icon of the sun, and the rest of the head is mostly covered by a knight's helmet as well. A gradient of sorts goes from the head of the stand down to its armored feet, starting with an orange-red and ending in black with white specks like stars in the night sky.
About/Oddities: The stand is dangerous, outright. The manifestation of an incredible will for a very specific life gave it incredibly high offensive might, and although Cairo has depleted its very low ‘potential,’ nothing else has decreased in the slightest.
Additionally, [Peach Pit] is sentient, and thinks of itself as a close friend and bodyguard to Cairo. Despite being able to dish out high damage, it is very much a friendly, calm and collected individual, having respect even for those it has to fight. As such, [Peach Pit] leaves RETIRING opponents up to its user completely. An enemy can be beaten down, but will still be able to pull together and carry on albeit impeded until Cairo personally finishes them off. This isn't simply a choice- if instructed to keep pressure on an opponent who's down but not out, its strikes can indefinitely inflict serious pain and yet never be quite enough to injure a foe to the point where they're considered RETIRED.
Due to the bold weakness in this, for how combat inefficient and easily hurt its user is, Peach doesn't have full damage transference. Instead, it can be destroyed repeatedly- Cairo takes one instance of C power damage upon its destruction, and it can be resummoned from Cairo's position after ten seconds.
Peach's presenting identity has been influenced by Cairo's insistence against defining things that way, to the point of being comfortably seen subjectively as anything. Peach will respond to any pronouns without questioning it.
Stand Stats:
Power: A(The stand can exert a great amount of power in its attacks)
Speed: A (Its movements are very fast and its attacks can travel just as quickly)
Range: B (50 meters)
Durability: E (Subpar durability, however when destroyed the user takes C power damage and the stand can be summoned back to Cairo’s side after 10 seconds.)
Precision: C (Generally decent in its movements, but its projectile attacks only move in a straight line once fired and can only be stored within conductive materials. In non-conductive materials it would keep traveling)
Ability: Peach Pit lacks a complex ability, as far as one would expect. Rather than intricate effects, its hits themselves can simply be conducted through material similarly the way that electricity does, with distinct variation based on the conductivity of the material. Within conductive material, damage is stored up much like a battery - the moment someone touches the "battery", the damage transfers directly to it on the point of contact. This means that if Peach were to punch a metal rod and someone were to touch it, they would feel the full brunt of Peach's attack the moment they do so. A battery remains charged for up to fifteen seconds, and at any point if it hasn’t been touched and discharged already, Cairo can pick any direction from where the battery is in contact with non-conductive materials to activate the next type of attack.
Within non-conductive material, either deployed through battery or direct strike, damage "travels", moving forwards in a straight line at A speed in the same direction it came from. This wave of damage can be seen as it travels, with slight shimmers of light and a crackling sound emanating from where it's currently positioned.
Damage cannot travel further than B range from Cairo.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Black Hill Regalia	Arthur Lifeson and Nix Ripa	“The thing in Hayato's hand was definitely a handy cam. It doesn't seem to be in this room right now...” This show is a sweet-sounding idea, but it’s so corrupt to its core that you can’t allow it to spread any further than it has. Destroy as many physical backings of the recordings Cairo has made for their show as you can over the course of your strat!
Being So Normal	Cairo Satori	“I even took a video of the cat-like plant you've got in the attic!” This show… You know it’s been an unsavory road, one you wish you could have managed differently, but the good it can do, the way the world might finally begin to understand the ugly and wonderful truths of Stand Users and appreciate them more as a part of their lives… You will celebrate that. Take creative inspiration from actions that took place in matches related officially to ‘Being So Normal!’ That is to say, these 5 matches, R1M5,R1M23,R1M29,R2M4, and R3M8!

Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!