Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 263

[madimpossibledreamer]

Honestly given that Darling is an orphan with a Stand, her parents were probably Stand Users that were killed.  (This might sound a little obvious but it genuinely hadn’t occurred to me before now.)

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: The first challenge: the House of Night.
Word Count: 1265
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

 

        The dog leads them to a door that reminds her vaguely of the choice of doorways, before.  It’s not just dark, though.  It’s like the foggy mist, if foggy mist comes in inky black.  And just like before, it feels alive, in…well.  In ways that an underworld that should be dead shouldn’t feel.  That might be why this all feels so unnatural, really.
        The dog is definitely Kisin’s, too.  It turns to look at them and wags its tail, like it’s wishing them luck, but it’s also sticking its tongue out at them in a doggy laugh, so Darling suspects it’s not wishing them the best of luck.  Or maybe it is; maybe it and its owner are hoping they actually get through this so they can act for revenge, but not before suffering a lot.
        If they had to deal with this a lot, though, no wonder the Mayans were so weird.  True, her childhood wasn’t the greatest and she turned out a bit weird, but this is exactly why she’s qualified to comment on this, because this is so much worse.
        Darling takes a deep breath and reaches out to grab the Captain’s and Mr. Brown’s hands.  They look startled for a moment before they understand, and then they step through and there’s no more seeing their expressions, because the dark ink crawls over their eyes and they can’t see any more.
        “Is everyone okay?” Darling tries to ask, and starts and panics slightly.  She can still feel hands in her own, but that’s all.  She can’t even hear the words as they leave her lips, and for one moment she wonders if she’d just thought about asking but shakes that off, knowing she’d at least mouthed the words and there should be some kind of sound.  She tries screaming, but that doesn’t work either, and she could definitely feel that, because her throat hurts now, so she stops trying that.
        The hands in hers tighten, as if reassuring, before to her left Mr. Brown starts tapping his fingers on her hand.  It takes her a good full minute to work out what’s going on.  Oh, of course, morse code.  The Captain is definitely the sort of person who would learn morse code and demand that everyone around her learn it, too, but there’s a problem—the only morse code she knows is the one for SOS, which she demonstrates.
        The hand shakes a little, as if Mr. Brown is soundlessly laughing, before tugging slightly toward their right.  Oh.  Right.  She might mess up a little, but hopefully she can pass along the message.  She does know about the dash-dot thing and the pauses, so hopefully she’ll at least be able to pass along something that the Captain can interpret even if she makes a few mistakes.
        It’s nice, the teamwork.  That she’d thought, last minute before they stepped in, to grab their hands, too.  That Mr. Brown can think on his feet, and they can try to work out a plan.
        She gasps soundlessly when she hears the Captain’s voice—how is she doing that?  “Can you two hear me?”
        Darling tries to respond, but it’s no more successful than the first time, so she just squeezes the Captain’s hand a little more briefly.
        “I’m speaking through Panzermensch.  See if you can use Whisper,” she continues, and—well, she’d feel a lot better if Mr. Speedwagon and Jojo were here, but she’s still lucky to have these two here.
        “Is this working?” she asks.  It’s a really weird feeling.  She’s used to letting Whisper act on his own, so taking control is strange.  Of course, it’s probably weirder to have Whisper relaying messages from a Mayan god she’s never met, but this strangeness is her life now.  She can hear it, so presumably they can too, but it’s good to confirm it.
        “Robin is using hamon, but apparently it can’t illuminate the room.”  Darling can hear the Captain frown.  “Sadly, neither the infrared nor night vision functions on these binoculars are working, either.”
        Darling considers that, grateful they’re not pushy and will just let her think.  “So…what do we do, then?”
        “Does Kukulkan have any suggestions?” the Captain responds almost immediately, and Darling lets Whisper himself answer that one.
        No, sorry.  I wasn’t actually here with the Hero Twins, who, after all, thought they had completed the task they had set out to accomplish.  They were interested in bragging, not a step-by-step instruction manual.  All I know of this place is that it is called the House of Night.  That’s not very helpful, but it is a pretty good excuse as to why no help can be given, so she’ll forgive that part.
        And just then Mr. Brown starts tapping again—that’s right; he doesn’t have a Stand, so he can’t just communicate like they are.  Not that a glowing martial art isn’t cool of course, but she hadn’t thought about how it might make things difficult for him in some ways, too.  She’s had Whisper as long as she can remember, so it’s kind of hard to think what life would be like without him.
        She passes along the message, and now it feels like the Captain’s laughing at her, but it’s not in a mean way, or she’d be more upset.  They don’t seem like the type of people to be mean on purpose, anyway.
        “Robin suggests we solve this like a typical maze—not that we have any indications that it is a maze, but it’s better to assume that it is.  The two kinds of mazes either have walls attached to the outer wall or do not.”  It’s clear she’s summarizing and unsure about doing so, but so far what she’s saying is perfectly understandable, so it’s probably that she’s not used to it.
        “I’ve heard about the ‘hand on the right wall’ thing?” Darling asks hesitantly.
        “Yes.  The other method is to walk forward in a straight line where possible, and if that is impossible then keeping track of the directions you return and turning back to face the original direction when you can.”  That sounds more complicated, but before Darling can say anything about it, the Captain adds, “I will use this method, although depending on the size of this location, you may need to finish the execution.  Panzermensch itself is not a long-range Stand, though its creations can be taken further away.”
        It might be dangerous saying that out loud where the Lords of Death might be listening in, but it’s stuff they need to know, so Darling gets it.  The explanation actually makes a lot of sense, because while Jojo had flown the plane further away from the Captain than Whisper could fly, the Captain had only ever used Panzermensch as a close-range Stand, so it had only really been useful to get zombies to stop trying to climb up to the rooftop they’d been hiding on, back when Pixie had decided that was a good idea for some reason.  And timing-wise, it makes sense to use both methods at once, just in case there’s some kind of deadline they weren’t told about (because it seems just like the kind of thing these Lords of Death would do), while simultaneously staying put with their physical bodies just so there’s less chance of them personally getting lost.  It’d be useful if the Captain could make something like a remote control car or airplane, but if she could do that, she would’ve mentioned it already, and Darling already feels better now that they have a plan.