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madimpossibledreamer) wrote2022-05-20 08:54 pm
madimpossibledreamer) wrote2022-05-20 08:54 pm
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 244
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: The Speedwagon Foundation agent Dunstan struggles to reach his target.
Word Count: 1146
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
What is clear, besides the likelihood that this will not be an experience he survives, is that at least this Stand has not taken ahold of his Stand, puppeting it how it pleases, just him. He doesn’t have to worry about being killed by Pilot, nor, for that matter, killing anyone else. Not that there really is anyone left, and given the speed with which the others were disposed of, he finds it doubtful he’ll be kept alive long enough to serve as bait.
But he tries to engrave that every experience into his mind, along with another apology. The Joestars will feel guilty. That’s just the sort of people they are. No matter that it’s not them that were giving the orders, no matter that it was not them making the mistake and not taking this as seriously as they should have done. If they’d just waited, the Joestars could probably have kept several if not all of them alive, but then, that hadn’t been the point. They’d been sent ahead to find out what awaited the Joestars, and now, the answer Dunstan can give without question is death.
Stone Temple Pilot passes what feels like a pit and a dying body. He suspects that it’s Galanis, but even if he stopped to try to help, Pilot is hardly the strongest Stand. At best, it’d probably just fail to pull her off the spikes, never mind if she could heal her wounds using hamon after. At worst, Pilot would fall in and impale itself too, saving this Stand the trouble of killing him.
Still, it hesitates for a moment to look at the pit, and that’s the point at which Dunstan knows that for all intents and purposes, the only part of him left after he’d seen that bloody message come for him at all under his control, anymore, is his Stand. Perhaps it counted a Stand and its User as two separate people, the absolute extreme to which that particular weakness could be taken.
What he can tell is that he’s not alone. True, there are a number of sacrifices, but from what the Speedwagon Foundation had been told, that was for a ritual designed to turn the recipient into a Pillar Man. Clearly, blood was part of it, and not all the corpses are—were—human.
The problem, now, is that he’s not the only one besides the Stand User currently living within the structure. Pilot’s radar-like examination of the structure has detected two more humanoids within. He’d say a Stand and its user, but they are very much nowhere near each other. Most—not all, but most—humanoid Stands tend to have a smaller range.
He’s not sure how he missed them to begin with—sure, the structure holds many hidden rooms and corridors, but at the same time, at least one of them to the northwest doesn’t feel like it had been there before.
And then he reaches a crossroads. The occasional side room—six, to be specific—had dotted either side of the corridor, but actual paths lead to either side and onward. The ‘rivers’ of blood just lead onward, downward, but through some sort of maze (and several hidden doors, Dunstan suspects) one path to the right might lead to one of the newcomers, while the other might lead to one on the left.
He doesn’t spend too much thinking about it. True, one of them could easily be the User, but he’s no longer hoping to save his own skin, and this ritual had to be occurring in the room he can sense in front of him. Letting your enemies bleed out can be an effective intimidation tactic, admittedly, but it’s not particularly effective if no one sees it to begin with, and the effects of the blood-writing Stand are unsettling enough on their own. No, the blood is actually part of the ritual, and thus following the blood would lead to the spacious room at the bottom of the incline, where it must be pooling.
He continues, only ready to sink into stone at the slightest hint of an attack. Pilot isn’t particularly sturdy, any more than it is strong. Though given its hands, it’s far more capable of delivering deadly blows than it is pulling a comrade up, particularly if it manages to build up some kind of momentum.
Fortunately, as Pilot, he doesn’t need to put too much effort into trying to find the secret door leading into the room at the end of the corridor. He doesn’t waste time with that, just sinking into the wall and out the other side.
He’d guessed correctly. This room has a lake of blood gathering in slow trickles into another pit in the room as the humanoid figure kneels beside it, bloody dagger in one hand as he gathers blood and slowly paints his skin. An altar, presumably bloodstained, sits silent and foreboding, in the middle of the room.
For the first time, he wishes that his own Stand had better eyesight, that it could make out color. He has the perfect map of the place. If Pilot could make it back and re-integrate, the images would suddenly become much clearer, to the point where he could at least add a mug shot to the report, but neither of those are options that have any likelihood of occurring. It would be useful to have a face to match, to be able to confirm beyond any doubt this is the Wesley of which they spoke.
The man has yet to turn. He lunges forward and stabs through the torso. Through the heart. He has a moment of hope, particularly as the figure pitches forward, pulling itself off one of those spike hands. The blood ripples, disturbed by the addition of a body.
And then the body pulls itself out, not even spluttering, the tattered edges of its torso hanging grotesque in the air. Damn. A vampire. And he’d just tipped it forward into a pool of blood, which it was probably absorbing through his skin. So he’d done no harm after all.
Wind runs over him, making his Stand shiver, even if his true body isn’t capable of such things while being controlled.
And then he feels agony as something bites a straight line through his middle, tearing through his stomach, screams through his Stand, and fades all too quickly.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: The Speedwagon Foundation agent Dunstan struggles to reach his target.
Word Count: 1146
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
It’s a question, really, whether his second use of Transmissions from a Lonely Room will even record anything. Dunstan feels detached, detached from his own Stand as it continues, using the ability despite the fact that he’s now a puppet on a string—is he still able to command his own Stand, or is it just following the last order he gave? Does the connection to his own brain, his own memories, his own will even exist anymore?
What is clear, besides the likelihood that this will not be an experience he survives, is that at least this Stand has not taken ahold of his Stand, puppeting it how it pleases, just him. He doesn’t have to worry about being killed by Pilot, nor, for that matter, killing anyone else. Not that there really is anyone left, and given the speed with which the others were disposed of, he finds it doubtful he’ll be kept alive long enough to serve as bait.
But he tries to engrave that every experience into his mind, along with another apology. The Joestars will feel guilty. That’s just the sort of people they are. No matter that it’s not them that were giving the orders, no matter that it was not them making the mistake and not taking this as seriously as they should have done. If they’d just waited, the Joestars could probably have kept several if not all of them alive, but then, that hadn’t been the point. They’d been sent ahead to find out what awaited the Joestars, and now, the answer Dunstan can give without question is death.
Stone Temple Pilot passes what feels like a pit and a dying body. He suspects that it’s Galanis, but even if he stopped to try to help, Pilot is hardly the strongest Stand. At best, it’d probably just fail to pull her off the spikes, never mind if she could heal her wounds using hamon after. At worst, Pilot would fall in and impale itself too, saving this Stand the trouble of killing him.
Still, it hesitates for a moment to look at the pit, and that’s the point at which Dunstan knows that for all intents and purposes, the only part of him left after he’d seen that bloody message come for him at all under his control, anymore, is his Stand. Perhaps it counted a Stand and its User as two separate people, the absolute extreme to which that particular weakness could be taken.
What he can tell is that he’s not alone. True, there are a number of sacrifices, but from what the Speedwagon Foundation had been told, that was for a ritual designed to turn the recipient into a Pillar Man. Clearly, blood was part of it, and not all the corpses are—were—human.
The problem, now, is that he’s not the only one besides the Stand User currently living within the structure. Pilot’s radar-like examination of the structure has detected two more humanoids within. He’d say a Stand and its user, but they are very much nowhere near each other. Most—not all, but most—humanoid Stands tend to have a smaller range.
He’s not sure how he missed them to begin with—sure, the structure holds many hidden rooms and corridors, but at the same time, at least one of them to the northwest doesn’t feel like it had been there before.
And then he reaches a crossroads. The occasional side room—six, to be specific—had dotted either side of the corridor, but actual paths lead to either side and onward. The ‘rivers’ of blood just lead onward, downward, but through some sort of maze (and several hidden doors, Dunstan suspects) one path to the right might lead to one of the newcomers, while the other might lead to one on the left.
He doesn’t spend too much thinking about it. True, one of them could easily be the User, but he’s no longer hoping to save his own skin, and this ritual had to be occurring in the room he can sense in front of him. Letting your enemies bleed out can be an effective intimidation tactic, admittedly, but it’s not particularly effective if no one sees it to begin with, and the effects of the blood-writing Stand are unsettling enough on their own. No, the blood is actually part of the ritual, and thus following the blood would lead to the spacious room at the bottom of the incline, where it must be pooling.
He continues, only ready to sink into stone at the slightest hint of an attack. Pilot isn’t particularly sturdy, any more than it is strong. Though given its hands, it’s far more capable of delivering deadly blows than it is pulling a comrade up, particularly if it manages to build up some kind of momentum.
Fortunately, as Pilot, he doesn’t need to put too much effort into trying to find the secret door leading into the room at the end of the corridor. He doesn’t waste time with that, just sinking into the wall and out the other side.
He’d guessed correctly. This room has a lake of blood gathering in slow trickles into another pit in the room as the humanoid figure kneels beside it, bloody dagger in one hand as he gathers blood and slowly paints his skin. An altar, presumably bloodstained, sits silent and foreboding, in the middle of the room.
For the first time, he wishes that his own Stand had better eyesight, that it could make out color. He has the perfect map of the place. If Pilot could make it back and re-integrate, the images would suddenly become much clearer, to the point where he could at least add a mug shot to the report, but neither of those are options that have any likelihood of occurring. It would be useful to have a face to match, to be able to confirm beyond any doubt this is the Wesley of which they spoke.
The man has yet to turn. He lunges forward and stabs through the torso. Through the heart. He has a moment of hope, particularly as the figure pitches forward, pulling itself off one of those spike hands. The blood ripples, disturbed by the addition of a body.
And then the body pulls itself out, not even spluttering, the tattered edges of its torso hanging grotesque in the air. Damn. A vampire. And he’d just tipped it forward into a pool of blood, which it was probably absorbing through his skin. So he’d done no harm after all.
Wind runs over him, making his Stand shiver, even if his true body isn’t capable of such things while being controlled.
And then he feels agony as something bites a straight line through his middle, tearing through his stomach, screams through his Stand, and fades all too quickly.