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madimpossibledreamerAmong other things, you might have been exposed to the concept of tulpas from the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters. Hostile things aren’t the only things thoughts can manifest, but it’s an example.
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: The Speedwagon Foundation agent Galanis fights the Stand as best she can.
Word Count: 1431
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
So, manipulating reality, almost certainly. But also, potentially, gruesomely, using the minds of its victims to do it. Because while she doesn’t remember the specifics, she did read several of the database entries Marchant had written, hence why she’d chosen him to accompany them despite his lack of combat experience, because this wasn’t meant to be a combat mission; that was supposed to be a possibility only, not a certainty. With an eidetic memory, the man had a vast array of knowledge—the theoretical if not practical about Stands, various mythologies, whatever caught his attention or imagination really. The supernatural was one of those areas of interest, and while she was certainly no expert, if things like demons existed and if their enemy was the kind to employ such creatures, then it was prudent to take someone who was.
She remembered him mentioning something about scorpions and Mayan mythology, if not the specifics, in one of his database entries. And blood, obviously, though it’s hard to tell how much the conquistadors exaggerated the truth.
So there’s the possibility, if not the certainty, that Marchant’s own expectations at least shaped the thing that killed him.
“Tulpas?” she asks.
Dunstan looks entirely unaffected as he considers that carefully, offering a noncommittal hum as he thinks. Then, he gestures with his hand that she should go on, and he’s right. They both need to make as much of an effort as they can to find and kill the User, and while Dunstan can act at a distance through his Stand, she doesn’t have the luxury.
She nods, pausing only to throw a single knife, because she doesn’t necessarily need to touch that Stand and potentially put herself under its control to see if she could harm it. It doesn’t wriggle or exhibit any movement suggesting pain, shrink, disappear, or anything of the sort. Which is unfortunate; this would be much easier if it could be damaged in such a way, but she doesn’t have time to test more obscure ideas like what had been necessary to damage Notorious B.I.G. The User, then.
Galanis runs before the bloody message finishes melting off the wall and gathering on the floor, keeping an eye out for traps. She’s not sure how fast the Stand is, if it could keep up with her at a run, but from what she’s read in the database, every Stand has to have some sort of weakness. It’s not weak, persay. True, it can only focus on one person at a time, but with an apparently high range, a User who’s hiding effectively, and the inability to attack the Stand itself, it seems invincible. But while each Stand is individual, sometimes there are similarities, and she’s hoping this one has similarities to Bast and can’t move quickly enough to catch up. Of course, maybe it can. Maybe it’s a moot point and it’s not even focused on her. She can’t and won’t know, not yet.
The tripwires are common, but at least she knows to watch for them even as she hurries. There’s no rocks trying to crush her, no traps dropping from the ceiling, no saws emerging from the walls, floors, or ceiling, no sand covering and smothering her, or at least rendering her helpless to avoid the Stand and its attacks.
And then she steps and feels the stone move beneath her and has only a few seconds to react. She jumps, the change in weight causing the slab of stone to fall faster. She manages to catch the edge of the pit, slamming into the stone with a bone-rattling momentum that nonetheless does not break her grip.
She almost knows without even looking what’s beneath her, but glances down anyway—yes, a spike pit below her, great.
And there’s a drip on her arm, then another, and then a trickle of liquid down her arm that she can’t wipe away, no matter how annoying it is. The blood channels on either side of the corridor.
The Stand’s going to catch up at this rate. At least from here, it’d be really difficult to read any of the messages it might try to write on the wall, and it won’t be able to do much when controlling me, since it didn’t kill Marchant by walking him into any traps, so presumably it has to kill a target itself, rather than using any outside means of killing. Even if it controls me and has me climb out of the pit, it might even be enough of a delay for Stone Temple Pilot to find the User.
At first, she thinks the liquid gathering underneath her fingers is blood, that perhaps the stone she’s clinging to had also sunk a little when the trap was sprung and that the channels are also leaking into a highly inconvenient puddle. That’s when the puddle moves, and she realizes two highly inconvenient facts. 1. That’s not a puddle of blood. That’s the Stand. And, like with Pilot, it appears confused as to how to affect her, meaning that it’s highly likely this is an automated Stand with limited intelligence of its own merely acting off of very general orders, such as ‘guard the entrance’. 2. Related to the first inconvenient point, it’s probably not doing this on purpose, because it seems to ‘prefer’ to kill by its own power, rather than unrelated methods, but thanks to its oily blood-like feel creeping beneath her fingers as if desperate to affect her, her own grip is slipping.
“Wait, someone’s alive? Hang on; I’m coming to help!” The torches flicker and die, leaving her in an inky blackness. She can’t see as the potential rescuer jumps above her, shoes probably barely missing her face, only feel the air from the movement above her head.
“Are you the Stand User?” she asks, even as one hand slips and sends her falling further. Wait—no, she’s slipping. She shouldn’t have asked. Getting out of the pit is the first priority, and if this stranger is approaching, he wants something.
She steadies her own breathing, focusing on her fingertips, because if there’s the slightest likelihood it works like a natural oil, it might actually help stabilize her grip. She can make out a little in the light of the flickering hamon. He looks startled and might be dressed like an American student with branded clothing and everything.
“Is that…a new kind of weapon? ¿Habla español? I was here on vacation, and there are bodies everywhere, and this is supposed to be a safe tourist attraction and my grandpa warned me Mexico wasn’t safe, and I told him off but nobody mentioned a cult…” The panic is real. The shock. Most people don’t see this many dead bodies, after all.
“My hand?” she reminds him, because someone has to keep focused, and he laughs nervously, a man on the verge of a breakdown.
“Right, right, sorry.” The first vague feel in the light is a little too forceful, and nearly knocks her down, but the second leads to a slightly shaky, sweaty grip that is still better than having her hand dangling. He starts to pull her up, which is good, because that’s when her right hand slips.
And then the man smiles, demonic in the flickering light of the hamon. “Whoops.” All of the fear drops away. And he lets go.
Unless she’s incredibly lucky and one of the spikes hits something vital, she’ll die slowly. But she has never been one of those people to go gentle.
The first thrown knife hits its target, because she hears him start swearing at her. The second, unfortunately, does not—the walls of the trap are too smooth, probably for this very reason, because the ancient architects didn’t want anyone to be able to escape their fate.
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: The Speedwagon Foundation agent Galanis fights the Stand as best she can.
Word Count: 1431
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
Galanis watches as giant scorpion monsters appear from nowhere and fulfill the written prophecy, disappearing as soon as they’ve completed their task. Well, they retain the same general shape, at least, but have more limbs than they’re supposed to, she’s fairly certain, are much spikier, and are big enough to be a physical threat, not just a venomous one. Unfortunately, they’re not far away enough to avoid the spray of blood, and not close enough to help—not that there’s really all that much she could do to protect him from that, especially as one of the tails had seemed to phase through the wall before going in for the kill. It’s not the first time she’s seen someone die, as much as she wishes otherwise.
So, manipulating reality, almost certainly. But also, potentially, gruesomely, using the minds of its victims to do it. Because while she doesn’t remember the specifics, she did read several of the database entries Marchant had written, hence why she’d chosen him to accompany them despite his lack of combat experience, because this wasn’t meant to be a combat mission; that was supposed to be a possibility only, not a certainty. With an eidetic memory, the man had a vast array of knowledge—the theoretical if not practical about Stands, various mythologies, whatever caught his attention or imagination really. The supernatural was one of those areas of interest, and while she was certainly no expert, if things like demons existed and if their enemy was the kind to employ such creatures, then it was prudent to take someone who was.
She remembered him mentioning something about scorpions and Mayan mythology, if not the specifics, in one of his database entries. And blood, obviously, though it’s hard to tell how much the conquistadors exaggerated the truth.
So there’s the possibility, if not the certainty, that Marchant’s own expectations at least shaped the thing that killed him.
“Tulpas?” she asks.
Dunstan looks entirely unaffected as he considers that carefully, offering a noncommittal hum as he thinks. Then, he gestures with his hand that she should go on, and he’s right. They both need to make as much of an effort as they can to find and kill the User, and while Dunstan can act at a distance through his Stand, she doesn’t have the luxury.
She nods, pausing only to throw a single knife, because she doesn’t necessarily need to touch that Stand and potentially put herself under its control to see if she could harm it. It doesn’t wriggle or exhibit any movement suggesting pain, shrink, disappear, or anything of the sort. Which is unfortunate; this would be much easier if it could be damaged in such a way, but she doesn’t have time to test more obscure ideas like what had been necessary to damage Notorious B.I.G. The User, then.
Galanis runs before the bloody message finishes melting off the wall and gathering on the floor, keeping an eye out for traps. She’s not sure how fast the Stand is, if it could keep up with her at a run, but from what she’s read in the database, every Stand has to have some sort of weakness. It’s not weak, persay. True, it can only focus on one person at a time, but with an apparently high range, a User who’s hiding effectively, and the inability to attack the Stand itself, it seems invincible. But while each Stand is individual, sometimes there are similarities, and she’s hoping this one has similarities to Bast and can’t move quickly enough to catch up. Of course, maybe it can. Maybe it’s a moot point and it’s not even focused on her. She can’t and won’t know, not yet.
The tripwires are common, but at least she knows to watch for them even as she hurries. There’s no rocks trying to crush her, no traps dropping from the ceiling, no saws emerging from the walls, floors, or ceiling, no sand covering and smothering her, or at least rendering her helpless to avoid the Stand and its attacks.
And then she steps and feels the stone move beneath her and has only a few seconds to react. She jumps, the change in weight causing the slab of stone to fall faster. She manages to catch the edge of the pit, slamming into the stone with a bone-rattling momentum that nonetheless does not break her grip.
She almost knows without even looking what’s beneath her, but glances down anyway—yes, a spike pit below her, great.
And there’s a drip on her arm, then another, and then a trickle of liquid down her arm that she can’t wipe away, no matter how annoying it is. The blood channels on either side of the corridor.
The Stand’s going to catch up at this rate. At least from here, it’d be really difficult to read any of the messages it might try to write on the wall, and it won’t be able to do much when controlling me, since it didn’t kill Marchant by walking him into any traps, so presumably it has to kill a target itself, rather than using any outside means of killing. Even if it controls me and has me climb out of the pit, it might even be enough of a delay for Stone Temple Pilot to find the User.
At first, she thinks the liquid gathering underneath her fingers is blood, that perhaps the stone she’s clinging to had also sunk a little when the trap was sprung and that the channels are also leaking into a highly inconvenient puddle. That’s when the puddle moves, and she realizes two highly inconvenient facts. 1. That’s not a puddle of blood. That’s the Stand. And, like with Pilot, it appears confused as to how to affect her, meaning that it’s highly likely this is an automated Stand with limited intelligence of its own merely acting off of very general orders, such as ‘guard the entrance’. 2. Related to the first inconvenient point, it’s probably not doing this on purpose, because it seems to ‘prefer’ to kill by its own power, rather than unrelated methods, but thanks to its oily blood-like feel creeping beneath her fingers as if desperate to affect her, her own grip is slipping.
“Wait, someone’s alive? Hang on; I’m coming to help!” The torches flicker and die, leaving her in an inky blackness. She can’t see as the potential rescuer jumps above her, shoes probably barely missing her face, only feel the air from the movement above her head.
“Are you the Stand User?” she asks, even as one hand slips and sends her falling further. Wait—no, she’s slipping. She shouldn’t have asked. Getting out of the pit is the first priority, and if this stranger is approaching, he wants something.
She steadies her own breathing, focusing on her fingertips, because if there’s the slightest likelihood it works like a natural oil, it might actually help stabilize her grip. She can make out a little in the light of the flickering hamon. He looks startled and might be dressed like an American student with branded clothing and everything.
“Is that…a new kind of weapon? ¿Habla español? I was here on vacation, and there are bodies everywhere, and this is supposed to be a safe tourist attraction and my grandpa warned me Mexico wasn’t safe, and I told him off but nobody mentioned a cult…” The panic is real. The shock. Most people don’t see this many dead bodies, after all.
“My hand?” she reminds him, because someone has to keep focused, and he laughs nervously, a man on the verge of a breakdown.
“Right, right, sorry.” The first vague feel in the light is a little too forceful, and nearly knocks her down, but the second leads to a slightly shaky, sweaty grip that is still better than having her hand dangling. He starts to pull her up, which is good, because that’s when her right hand slips.
And then the man smiles, demonic in the flickering light of the hamon. “Whoops.” All of the fear drops away. And he lets go.
Unless she’s incredibly lucky and one of the spikes hits something vital, she’ll die slowly. But she has never been one of those people to go gentle.
The first thrown knife hits its target, because she hears him start swearing at her. The second, unfortunately, does not—the walls of the trap are too smooth, probably for this very reason, because the ancient architects didn’t want anyone to be able to escape their fate.
