madimpossibledreamer

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Buffy doesn't wake up dead, much to her surprise, and she and Josephine confront the Mohawk Slayer.
Word Count: 1173
Rating: K
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

"Hey, come on. Did I say you were just allowed to give up when I left? You're just as much the heroess as I am. Stop taking a nap on the job, Slayer."

Buffy sits up, still a bit woozy, to see Josephine's upside down face above her. She thinks for a moment she sees worry in those black eyes, but the expression, if it had been there at all, is quickly replaced by the usual grin. Buffy's brain is a bit slow to realize that Josephine's not hanging upside down from the sky but is rather standing over her, hands on her hips. It's oddly easy to see, considering that this is night and all.

It takes even longer for her to realize that a few Slayers are holding torches, while others either behead or crush skulls with clubs. Some of the vampires are on fire, but most are just taken care of in a businesslike, cold manner that Buffy doesn't recognize. Sure, she hasn't worked with many of the Slayers recently, which...okay, that's weird, why hadn't she, since she had the time...but the emotionless robotics weren't anything she remembered. What had Giles been teaching them? Was that what the previous Watcher's Council had wanted?

Worse, since when had they become the stuffy British jerks who'd only thought of her as just another pawn in an ancient game of chess?

The square is filled with dust that's beginning to be carried away by the wind that's picking up, but worse...there's a couple bodies. Not as many as she'd feared, but still—it never gets easier.

"Apparently we managed to find a thing, even if we didn't find a Xander. But that can wait." Josephine picks up a hammer she'd picked up from somewhere with a grin, but it seems somehow dampened.

"You got that right." Buffy has a bad feeling, the same bad feeling she's had since the start of all of this. But this isn't the time to get distracted. She matches Josephine's grin with a smile of her own, picks up the nearby bloodied sword, and charges the nearest vampire with a quip on her tongue.

"We're just lucky no bobbies showed. The torches were a bit of a risk, and we probably shouldn't hang around too much longer," Josephine suggests, and surprisingly enough she's not grinning like a madwoman anymore. She actually seems tired as she cleans the wound on her arm with a handkerchief she borrowed from another one of the Slayers. They all seem rather exhausted, but without complaint they gather up the three fallen to transport back to HQ.

"What exactly did I miss?" Buffy's sick of being the clueless one.

"Well, I'm sure the other Slayers will tell you, exactly, but...I'm pretty sure they recognized some of the vampires." Miss Joestar glances at the ruined clothes, then at Buffy with an apologetic look on her face, but the Slayer is beyond the point that she's worried about an outfit. She tears off a bit of cloth from the pants and ties a makeshift bandage as if she's done it a hundred times before.

"Recognized?" That can only mean...

"Yeah, hate to say it, but we got a few weak enough to have gotten turned by the uglies." Buffy and Josephine look up with equal distaste—and it's the Mohawk Witness.

Josephine's the one who keeps her cool, and has to hold Buffy back. "It's not exactly as easy as that. These aren't your kind of vampires that have to run around turning each other. Someone had to have used the mask on them. My guess is, they trusted someone they shouldn't have. You, maybe, since you don't care about their lives?"

The Mohawk Witness snorted. "You make me sound like a psychopath. Just because I won't risk my life for theirs. Nothin' personal, but not everyone has a hero complex."

"Why'd you say that Xander took the mask?" Buffy's a lot calmer now. Well, no, that's a lie, but her anger has cooled.

"He's still MIA. And even if you guys seem like you've taken back your theatrics at the trial, did any of you think about maybe possession? Some vampires can do that, right? So who says he was even aware of everything he was doing? He seemed pretty out of it." A slight smirk. "You guys are really too quick to jump to conclusions, sheesh."

Unbidden, the fiasco with Dracula rises to mind, and...they hadn't figured out who that guy was, yet, who'd taken Xander and interrupted the trial. If he was a vampire, an ancient one, and had gotten Xander to do his bidding without even realizing it...it was unfortunately plausible.

Josephine, too, looks uncomfortable with the possibility, and not very skeptical. Neither are good signs, because if there's anyone who's a bit of an outsider in this, it's her.

"Or maybe he just moved it somewhere safe to protect his friends. He's the sort who'd pull an idiot move like that, isn't he? He's a guy with a hero complex. At least, that's the way they tell it at lunch." The witness Slayer shrugs. "I just tell it like I see it."

She...didn't have a reason to lie. Did she?

Buffy needed a clear head. And maybe not a concussion. That probably wasn't helpful, either.

"It's true," a Slayer with a slight accent approached, sending a glare at Mohawk Witness Girl. "Not the rubbish she's talking about—the fact that I knew one of 'em. A Slayer in my squad. Probably wouldn't have gotten far—hated the sight of blood, but I told her I'd look out for her. She nearly gutted me. I reckon she spent a little too long playing with her food." She puts on a brave face, but her voice trembles a little.

Josephine swore under her breath. She suddenly looked ready for another fight, and Buffy understood how she felt. Given the number they'd been attacked by, whole squads had probably been wiped out. By one of their own. Or Xander. The thought made her feel a little nauseous. Or maybe that was the concussion. No, don't think about it too hard. They had to fall back for now, evaluate who they could trust...try to get in contact with the other search parties! What if Giles or Willow or anyone else was hurt?

Josephine nodded when Buffy explained they should retreat for now. "We need to regroup, yeah. I hate leaving my son out here with so many vampires on the loose, but...at this point, I think I'm probably more of a target and might only draw attention of the bad kind to him."

Hang in there, Xander.

The bookstore with the wooden star had a sign over the door that read 'Closed', but it wasn't completely empty. A tanned older male in a fastidiously maintained suit peered over pince-nez at a note written in the 'new acquisitions' area of the binder. "What on earth is a 'Joestar'?" he asks the air, which holds no answers.