Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 13

[madimpossibledreamer]

I think sometime soonish I'll stop tagging all the characters, except for maybe POV character (& Josephine for Buffy since that's how this is turning out) because at some point soonish it's going to get spoilery.

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Giles and Willow finally explain their side of the story.
Word Count: 1548
Rating: K
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS.  READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

 

            "I don't quite feel ready to go searching for Xander yet, though," Buffy announces as they approach the house, and gets the other woman staring at her as if she's raving about UFOs in the sky.  "I think I need to properly accessorize."

            This statement gets a boyish grin from Josephine.  "Oh, I wouldn't ever complain about that.  The proper accessories are always a must for any party.  If I borrow any, I promise I'll take very good care of them."

            Buffy rolls her eyes and can't help the sarcastic remark.  "Better than my clothes, I would hope."

            "You wound me, madam!" Miss Joestar states dramatically, clutching a bit at her chest as she mock-stumbles toward the back door, and it comes as a bit of a shock, because Buffy's pretty sure Xander's done the exact same thing to her before.  She tries not to react much, and opens the door.

            When she stops walking, though, Josephine walks right into her.  The woman begins to mutter something, but the Slayer's not paying any attention to her anymore.  Buffy's staring at Willow, who's crying on the couch near the fireplace and has been doing so for a while judging by her reddened eyes.  The redhead glances up, sees Buffy, and begins crying louder.  "H-he wasn't...he wasn't...l-lying!"

            "Who wasn't lying about what?" Buffy asks quietly, finding movement for her legs again, crossing the room.

            "Xander!" Willow practically shouts, then becomes completely incoherent.

            "Willow, I'm afraid that I haven't seen any sign of—Ah, Buffy.  We've been looking for you."  Giles enters the large living room.  "We may have made a serious miscalculation."

            "We?" Buffy asks with a raised eyebrow.

            Giles coughs, but to his credit is serious and doesn't look away in shame.  "Er, Willow and I.  The situation had to be dealt with quickly and with discretion, so the fewer who knew, the better.  We were, of course, working with prophecy, which is notoriously difficult in the first place.  Not that I'm making excuses."

            "I think it's time you explained yourselves."  Buffy crossed her arms and went to lean against a wall.  Josephine joined her.

            "Quite right."  Giles is usually super-serious about everything, but Buffy's learned to discern between the different modes of serious, and he hasn't taken his glasses off to clean once.  This is bad.  Or, if he'd been here, Xander would've said, 'this is of the bad'.  "I won't apologize.  We were acting under the best information we had at the time.  Of course, we may have only set the prophecy on its course, rather than averting it, but we couldn't have known then."  He sighs heavily, a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  "The prophecy, given to Willow, was vague at best, and she doesn't remember all of it.  We've been using various magical techniques to try to get a clearer picture of it, and one phrase that stood out clearly was 'no one is'.  We were able to extend that phrase to 'no one is who they seem', or the equivalent of that in Yaf—in an ancient language that you probably don't actually care about."

            "And because of that, you thought Xander wasn't actually Xander?"  Buffy can't tell whether to be disappointed, angry, or just incredibly confused.

            "Well.  Yes."  Giles, it seemed, was just as aware that it sounded somewhat stupid when she put it that way.  "It wasn't as if that was all.  He wasn't acting like himself."

            "Because of the spell that was undone," Josephine interrupted, her fist clenched by her side again.

            Giles nodded, an apologetic frown on his face.  "We know that now, but we couldn't know that at the time.  We simply didn't have enough information.  Perhaps it would've made more sense to wait until we had more, but in many occasions in the past if we'd done that it would've meant the apocalypse coming and going unchallenged, and...well, simply the end of the world.  Given the circumstances..."

            "You're idiots," Buffy glared at Giles and Willow.  "You hear me, right.  You're idiots."

            "Yes, yes, thank you, Buffy, I think we realize that well enough now."  Ah, the all-suffering Watcher sigh.  Giles walked over to the other end of the couch, taking up a few things sitting there that Buffy hadn't noticed.  "Xander was telling the truth at the trial.  The parcel with his proof arrived today.  This old faded book is filled with notes on the stone mask—it is, in fact, the threat Xander kept assuring us all it was.  Though in places they are difficult to read, as it's handwritten and rather old—I'd say at least a hundred years, probably more..."

            Josephine started.  "Trial...?  S-stone mask?  You had a stone mask here...?!"

            "You're familiar with it, I take it."  None of the derision, now, just a grim look.  "For your information, Buffy, there's some speculation about it being a torture device, but also a few rushed lines at the end about it being a device to create vampires."

            "Without siring?"  This was news.  "And it's missing?  ...That's not good."

            "It's missing?"  Josephine looks ready to tear out her hair.  "Seriously, how did you guys handle whatever weirdness went on in Sunnydale that I don't really remember?"

            "Often, with quips and plans made up on the spot," Buffy answered honestly.

            "I tried to provide more direction, but..."  Another suffering British sigh.

            "W-wait, I almost remember...hang on."  Josephine practically sprints over to the couch, even though it's not too far away, and then with a happy cry snatches up something shiny.  "It's my necklace!" she exclaims happily, putting it on quickly with the ease of long use.  She examines the few other items on the couch, then suddenly feels all the incredulous stares on her and slowly reddens, scratching at her earlobe.  "Aah...I missed it?" she asks sheepishly.  Buffy approaches more slowly.  It's pretty and simple, a small star in silver with the words 'shine like a star' on it, a simple silver chain to match.  "It's kind of goofy, but awesome," Josephine tries to explain again, before throwing up her hands and giving up.

            "It is pretty," Buffy reassured her, flipping through a few of the pages and surprised to realize that the words, though faded, were in a language she actually understood.  At some point, Giles had made the impression that everybody who had been old enough didn't speak English.  Though that could just reflect his reading material.

            "I think we're missing something, though.  I mean, I put together this catch for myself, shortly before the St-I mean, the spell took effect.  And Xa-my son never left to go get this together, right?"  She looks around for confirmation, and though she gets none, her question's answered anyway as the others make the same connection.

            "He was telling the truth about calling in an outside researcher.  Who, though?  I wasn't aware that Xander knew too many—of course, he could've discovered someone in Africa, or a traveling man with an interest in the esoteric in Africa..."  Giles looked as if he was just going to stare into the wall forever.

            "And what about the weird thing that happened at the end of the trial?" Buffy asked.

            "What weird thing?"  Josephine was staring between them, frustrated.

            The Head Watcher didn't react for several long moments, before stirring and nodding.  So he had been listening after all.  "Mmm, that's also a possibility.  To clarify, Miss Joestar, we put your son on trial.  It was meant to be informal but intimidating, to have him explain what he'd been doing or ferret out the imposter, but it didn't work as planned."

            "I got that!"  Their new ally was getting a bit impatient.

            "I wasn't finished."  It'd been a while since Buffy had seen her Watcher getting testy with someone else, and anytime it wasn't directed at her was a bit of a relief, honestly.  "At the end, we were attacked by a young man with strange powers.  When we awoke, Xander was gone, so I believe they escaped together."

            "He had water or something that put us to sleep," Buffy added helpfully, since they'd apparently decided to trust Josephine Joestar as an ally.

            "Sounds like a St-strange thing," Josephine agreed.  She'd been correcting herself a bit lately.

            "And what about the witness?" Buffy asked, because it followed that if Xander had been telling the truth, the witness had been lying, or at least mistaken about whatever she thought she'd seen.

            "That has...yet to be ascertained." Giles admits.

            "What're we going to do?" Willow asked miserably, hiccuping a little.

            "Whaddya mean, what're we going to do?" Josephine asked, turning and putting a hand on her hips.  " You're asking that as if there are several choices, none of them good.  Or just no choices.  And both of those are wrong.  There's one choice, and it's a great choice.  We can stop angsting and actually go do something for a change.  We're going to go find him, explain, and make sure no harm comes to him from this prophecy thing.  Because we Joestars make our own fates.  Try to tell me I'm wrong."

            "Well...I'm afraid you're right, Miss Joestar.  Of course, we can't lose hope.  Thank you."  Giles smiled politely.  "I believe the sooner we start, the better."