King Crimson

King Crimson (キング·クリムゾン) is the Stand of Diavolo, featured in Part V: Vento Aureo.

Appearance
King Crimson is humanoid Stand of a height and build similar to Diavolo's. Its body is covered by a raised diagonal grid, red underneath; save for its face, neck, shoulder guards, elbows, hands, abdomen, crotch, knees and feet/footwear.

Its eyes comprise sharp orifices of a steep inward slant; from which emerge small, round fishlike/amphibian/reptilian eyes. It constantly bares its teeth through a small mouth. Its crown is flat; and from its forehead emerges two raised levels, the front of which bears a smaller, oval face of the same expression.

Its design is inspired by the character George, from the 1990 science fiction film Total Recall, who had a second face on his chest.

King Crimson
Erasing Time: King Crimson's signature ability is, to put it simply, skip time. To go into detail, it creates a space that deletes anywhere from .5 to 10 seconds worth of time and only Diavolo can manuver in this realm of missing time. Apart from Diavolo, nothing can experience or remember this deleted time, and as a result people teleport or actions appear to already occur but leave Diavolo intact as if he wasn't there. This allows Diavolo to dodge things that could otherwise wound or kill him, such as Aerosmith's bullets or a fist, which can often continue on as if he wasn't standing there at all.

To use an edited example from the manga: the first time King Crimson's abilities are shown, we cut to Girono, Fugo, and Narancia: Fugo is asking for a bottle of water and Narancia is eating a box of chocolates. King Crimson skips time, during which Giorno hands Fugo what he's asking for and Narancia finishes his box. As a result, all Giorno percieves is that Fugo has his water and Narancia has an empty box; however, since no one realizes what happened, Fugo doesn't recall recieving for thanking Giorno and Narancia is asking the others where his chocolate went.

The world of erase time changes from medium to medium; in the manga, the world is displayed with objects badly superimposed over their current self in all ways that they could move during the time frame, in a fashion akin to Nude Descending a Staircase, and at times the enviroment tears itself apart into a void filled with debris. In his first game, it simply slows opponents down, while in his second game appearance the time-stalled world is largely red with a desolate cracked ground and enemies cannot move an inch until he attacks.

Several major weaknesses exist for King Crimson, however: one is that, being a short-ranged Stand, it lacks a large range and can only extend slightly farther than Diavolo's fists. The second is that while the time deleted isn't any longer than The World's time stopping ability, the ability is more limited to what Diavolo can choose to do; unless the fight is one on one, it throws Diavolo in peril due to what he needs to keep up with. Finally, the third is that the ability to erase time is dependant on Diavolo's own stamina, as he admitted to Risotto Nero that in the weakened state his body was in from the lack of iron in his blood, he would only be able to erase time for barely more than an instant.

Super Strength: King Crimson is one of the strongest Stands, rivaling Star Platinum and Crazy Diamond, and may be the strongest one due to how its main ability can work alongside this strength. King Crimson was shown to have killed several people just by punching them right through their stomach with one blow, and above that it seemed that a tremendous amount of endurance was needed just to take one hit from King Crimson without the person suffering a tremendous injury; even Giorno lost his entire arm due to the power of a single strike. Even if it lacked the time-skipping ability, King Crimson could still put up a fight with many opponents.

Faster-Than-Light Speed: King Crimson has shown to be able to easily parry, react and even outmaneuver faster-than-light Stands like Silver Chariot, Sticky Fingers and Gold Experience, even without the use of Epitaph. King Crimson's speed may even be comparable to that of Star Platinum.

Epitaph
Prediction: Doppio is able to utilize a type of weaker and defensive sub-Stand of King Crimson called Epitaph (エピタフ), but Diavolo is aware of how to use it completely. The ability to use it by Doppio seems to be limited to permission, and it's only when Diavolo summons it can his alter ego use it. The same face that appears on King Crimson's forehead (Epitaph) appears on Doppio's, and according to Diavolo, Doppio can also utilize King Crimson's hands as his own.

Epitaph gives Doppio a preview of what will occur in the next ten seconds, allowing him to react and defend himself accordingly. It does so by utilizing his bangs, from under which the image is displayed. As stated by Diavolo, the prediction cannot be prevented, but Doppio can alter it in minor ways. For instance, one of Epitaph's predictions allowed Doppio to see his foot being cut off, and with proper tactics, it changed so Risotto Nero's foot was cut off instead. So far, only the ability of Gold Experience Requiem has been shown to bypass this.

Usage of Epitaph is not limited to Doppio, as Diavolo likely uses it to assist King Crimson - without using it, Diavolo cannot know what to change, or how to predict and defend against attacks he can't see.

Trivia

 * In an odd choice for art, King Crimson is often replacing Diavolo through a similar function: prior to Diavolo's face being shown, during several moments of skipped time, and during the Silver Chariot Requiem battle, it is King Crimson shown emoting and speaking instead of Diavolo himself.
 * While it's likely this way in order to hide Diavolo's appearance up until his full reveal, fans (and possibly populated by Jorge Joestar) have both created a theory: that Diavolo is a creation of a rouge King Crimson and has always been Doppio, just under its possession like Anubis towards Chaka.  In the book's case, this is shown through one of the worlds where King Crimson/Diavolo possessed Giorno and Doppio was free from its control and thus created his own, non-combat Stand.
 * King Crimson's time erase has been utilized with very obvious effects, but the mechanics of the time erasure themselves are not as well understood.  This is atributed to the manga having not only a poor-quality English translation for almost all of its life in translated form, but also the different uses King Crimson has throughout Part 5.  As a result, saying "It just works" is the most common answer to how King Crimson works.  Noticably, the two games Diavolo are in have different interpretations:
 * In GioGio no Kimyō na Bōken: Ōgon no Kaze, the time erase was shown to slow down the opponent's actions while Diavolo still moves at normal speed for the duration of the obliterated time, a mechanism similar to Made in Heaven's time acceleration abilities.
 * In All-Star Battle, it acts similar to The World - through a counter, Diavolo creates a skipped time space in which he is free to move about and the opponent is frozen in space, but by attacking the opponent, the spell is broken.  King Crimson also acts as his dash and Epitaph can be activated to allow Diavolo instant dodging without taking out his guard meter.
 * However, interesting glitches were found in ASB involving King Crimson's counter and Epitaph.  If Diavolo activates the King Crimson time-skip counter while he's hit with a projectile, followed by the opponent activating a HHA or a GHA, there are interesting results.  There is also a glitch involving using his HHA and then dashing through the opponent, resulting in Diavolo becoming invisible.  And, prior to a patch, this was possible.
 * Physically, King Crimson is possibly one of the strongest Stands in existence. Unlike Stands like Star Platinum, it normally attacks not with a sequence of punches, but rather with a single attack.  This is backed up by how Abbachio and Polnareff, when struck once through the body, both died within seconds/a few panels whereas Kakyoin, who suffered a similar wound, lived on for several pages. It is also possibly one of the the fastest Stands in existence, as it is able to easily parry, react and even outmaneuver faster-than-light Stands even without the use of Epitaph.
 * Due to being hit by Gold Experience Requiem, Diavolo effectively had his Stand destroyed as the final attack removed all of Diavolo's "willpower", which is what powers the Stands.
 * In the western release of All Star Battle, King Crimson is renamed as "Emperor Crimson", while Epitaph is renamed to "Eulogy".