Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 206

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: A certain vampire makes his appearance.
Word Count: 1105
Rating: Teen (Buffy|Jojo's level violence)
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

           Never let it be said that Dio Brando doesn’t know how to land on his feet.  He’s had to learn to get this far.  He was in the middle of the castle one minute, and out in the middle of a town the next.  And the town clearly isn’t quite the same, either.  Some of the architecture is strange, there’s very clearly objects on the streets that aren’t carriages but have wheels and are clearly transportation, and while it looks like the people are still largely farmers, he doesn’t exactly recognize the farming instruments they’re using.  In the distance, briefly, he sees two women and a man escorting a group of villagers toward the one building in town he can still identify.  He smirks.  It’s irony, isn’t it, the most delicious type a vampire could imagine, that the one place he can recognize, the one place that gives him comfort, however useless the emotion, is the church in the distance.  Their outfits are similarly outlandish, compared to the time he’d known.
           He certainly isn’t a coward, but he also knows when to proceed with caution, and clearly he needs to have a better understanding of the situation.  It’s obvious he’s in the future, although the question of how is an unknown.  Still, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that if the Mask existed, perhaps something else did, too, something with a different source of powers.  Other concerns exist—does the pathetic line of the Joestars still exist?  How much is known of vampires?  How much is known of him?
           It’s a slight disappointment that, depending on how long it’s been, Jonathan might have died.  He’d have liked to have tied off that end once and for all, no matter how exactly it would have ended.  His ‘brother’ owed him that much.  But then, there is no point in wasting time with regret.  It will change nothing of what is happened.  A useless emotion, one he should have discarded long ago for the weakness it causes.  Now, all that remains is to find the information he needs to know, and to rebuild his power.  If the inhabitants believe a mere church would help them, it might interest them to know that religion won’t help them at all against a vampire.  Nor would any other fervent, utterly wrong and useless belief.  It’d be a simple matter to have his army back again, once he found the need for it.  True, he’d seen a few zombies on the streets, ones he even recognized, though they didn’t appear to recognize him.  He’d even seen a few of the Man-Faced Dogs he’d created out of sheer boredom.  While they should have obeyed him immediately on seeing his face, they’d attacked him instead, and he’d had to put them down.  Perhaps it wasn’t quite the simple matter of coming to the future, unless the zombies had somehow lived this long.  He wasn’t sure how long control over them would last, after all, and if it had been hundreds of years, as the technology and architecture seem to indicate, that could have been long enough for them to forget, or rot.  It’s somewhat surprising there’s a town left, if that were true.  They don’t seem to have much of a working brain, and probably would have eaten the town’s inhabitants if on their own devices.  He considers that, smoothly ripping out a spinal cord from one of the ones that dares venture too close.  Yes, it would make sense if another vampire had stepped up in his absence.
           And then someone starts making an announcement, coming from multiple places.  He looks around with interest, trying to determine where it comes from, and eventually follows his advanced hearing to a window, which he breaks.  He finds something inside, a mechanical contraption.  Fascinating, how humans keep trying to overcome their limitations, go past their pathetic abilities.  Monkeys scrabbling in the dust, but it’s almost admirable, how much they keep trying.
           The content of the message is fascinating.  He’s curious what kind of woman would call herself ‘Miss Murder’, but other than that, doesn’t pay all that much attention until the human mentions a vampire and a dog.  It’s clear he’s obviously talking about Danny, though how he could possibly know such a thing is yet another question Dio has to answer.  Of course, it’s entirely possible that other vampires have gone after other people’s pets, but the coincidence would be strange.  And why would this ‘Miss Murder’ be called an ‘animal’?  Had other animals evolved like humans?
           It becomes clear that he’s the one being talked about when the mysterious announcer mentions the Joestars.  It’s odd that the man seems convinced that Dio has died, since he’s fairly certain he’s alive.  True, humans might define it differently, but they’re fairly biased.  And in any case, he’d been the one to choose his fate, not Jonathan.  The only reason he’d even waited was so he could use Jonathan’s blood to move beyond human limitations.  It’s not like he’d been the one that had been cornered.
           It’s also very obvious that the man calling himself Jojo is trying to anger him.  At least the real Jojo had been a gentleman.  It’s not even a surprise when he claims he’s just a stray the weak Joestar line picked up along the line.  This one is going for the low blows, and while Dio had learned to fight in the streets and it’s easy enough to turn his anger at the juvenile taunts to a cold rage.  This imposter will die, slowly and painfully, but Dio is not going to fall into the obvious trap of blind rage.  The Joestar gave away quite a lot, and it’s not even clear whether it was intentional.  Possibly.  Directing him to a specific location, away from the townsfolk…it’s entirely possible that Joestar isn’t even there, but he doesn’t have too many other places to search.  He could search for the rabbit, probably named ‘Miss Murder’, but if it’s able to somehow bring him forward into the future, it’s no ordinary animal.  It had already been tipped off that he was a vampire, and could track living things.  It’s probably hidden in the church, or somewhere else where enough weaklings with heartbeats and warmth are gathered.  He needs to have more information about any possible Hamon Users or any other beings with powers before he’ll just throw himself into a group of humans with no idea who might be a threat, and if he cautiously does as Joestar asks, maybe Joestar will make further mistakes and he’ll learn what he needs.