![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerMain Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: They enter the last of the Houses, but not the last of the challenges.
Word Count: 1162
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
“Are there rules?” the Captain asks, checking her gun briefly, and Mr. Brown takes the break to do the same thing with his bow and arrows.
“If they refuse to explain, I will—as much as they hate my meddling as well as that of Balam, they are generally unwilling to act directly against us. I don’t wish to distract you too badly from dealing with the dangers that might await here.” Von Stroheim scoffs, but she doesn’t argue, so apparently she sees the sense in that.
It looks a little a maze, but they’ve already gone through one maze, and that one was harder, since that one had no light. The corridors have less turns, too, so it’s much less confusing as a maze. It’s like they’re not even trying with this one.
The obvious remaining Lord is Jacawitz, given that he’d introduced himself as ‘a minor fire god’. Before, she’d be more concerned that perhaps his self-esteem was just low. Perhaps he was actually more competent than he appeared and maybe he just didn’t think so—or, more likely, given that they weren’t exactly human, maybe he’d been trying to be underestimated to make it easier to fight them or to stay out of being a target of Xibalban politics. And it’s still a possibility, of course. But from the sound of it the Lord with a spear didn’t really buy into a lot of those things, and he’d dismissed Jacawitz, so—
“It might be useful to remember that the god of war does not view things in the state of ‘weak’ or ‘strong’,” Kukulkan interrupts her train of thought, causing her to panic—is he reading her thoughts? Was she accidentally speaking through Whisper? Did the Captain or Mr. Brown say something along the same lines while she was preoccupied, and he’s simply responding to them? Oh no has she thought something truly offensive that will cause Kukulkan to abandon them and leave them to their own devices?
The deity does not respond to that thought. Either he can’t actually read her mind, or he’s keeping her guessing for some reason (either leaving her some dignity, or just to mess with her. It’s hard to tell. “His philosophy is more one of…comparison. To really know an enemy’s strength, you must fight them and gauge the difference in strength that way. It’s not truly a single statistic quantifying strength along an absolute range of scale. Well, with a single caveat—in his eyes, abilities not used are wasted. All of one’s potential should be used, and he finds it offensive when opponents have not attempted to grow and have little in the realm of new tricks for him to test himself against. He merely suggested, or perhaps ordered, that all of you, should you apply yourselves fully, should find little difficulty before you. If any of the residents of Xibalba are still willing to entertain his gambling ways, he probably would have bet on you.” That’s…far from reassuring, but then, warnings are never meant to be reassuring, they’re meant to get you to open your eyes to the realities of the dangers ahead and prepare yourself as best you can.
And now that she thinks about it, another possibility is kinda scary: maybe he won’t be alone. Two Lords of Death have yet to show their faces, and would they simply wait until the ball game?
She opens her mouth. “Do you think Lord Akan or Lord Kisin….” she begins.
Mr. Brown shrugs and tries to look reassuring. “Maybe. No use speculating about it now; we don’t even know their powers.” If she’s not imagining things, von Stroheim looks marginally more tense. It’s good they’ve thought about this, but slightly less reassuring that they look kind of stressed about the idea, and even less reassuring that Kukulkan isn’t rushing to share, through Whisper, that that kind of tag-team fighting isn’t limited to just brothers. Then again, from what he and Balam had said, it’s not like they’d gone through this themselves, so maybe they just didn’t know?
They finally find a more open area, maybe the center of the maze, and why it’d been difficult to breathe becomes apparent in the light of so many fires just burning away on the stone underfoot. Like there’s anything there that would actually feel a fire.
This particular House looks like…well, maybe it’s trying a bit too hard, between the imposing look of this area and the spooky haunted house feel of the dimly lit corridors. Maybe she’s just reading a little too much into it. It’s not as if she’d really thought about what made the Houses appear like they do, but…are they reflections of the Lords who are there, or do they have a hand in decorating it? Do they ever switch who appears in which House?
A tall monolith looms in the center, with carvings, like on the walls in some of the other Houses. One of the images she definitely recognizes as Buluc Chabtan. If this follows the pattern of the rest of Jacawitz’s existence, whether or not that’s a front, it wouldn’t have a carving of Jacawitz anywhere, but rather ones of the rest of the deities in the hope of getting a little favor from any of them. The stone under her feet burns a little, and she nervously hops from foot to foot, hoping this isn’t going to copy the last one, too, and start fire jets coming out of the floors.
“Welcome, welcome! Are you here to save us all some time and surrender?” The glistening fiery wings look even prettier against actual fire, and if this had been the first time she’d seen him, she might be impressed.
Mr. Brown pretends to consider for all of a few seconds before shaking his head. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s as nice an option as you make it sound.” And then it begins.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: They enter the last of the Houses, but not the last of the challenges.
Word Count: 1162
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
It’s hard to tell whether the next area they step into is a corridor between Houses, which would be unexpected, as that’d never happened before, or whether it’s part of the next House. If it is the second one, though, it’s still following the pattern of most of the others, where the Lord of Death doesn’t find them immediately and they have a little breathing room. As much as one can breathe in an area with so much smoke on the air. Shadows and light from unseen fires dance over the walls, offering just enough to make out a little of the area and little else, not even if there really is a roof or it’s just a starless or clouded sky. Buluc Chabtan had implied that the next House they’d be entering would be their last. Kukulkan, through Whisper, appears to confirm the same. “Don’t anticipate victory too soon, however,” he states, cautious. “The houses are not the end of your journey. The ball game is then played by the surviving challengers.”
“Are there rules?” the Captain asks, checking her gun briefly, and Mr. Brown takes the break to do the same thing with his bow and arrows.
“If they refuse to explain, I will—as much as they hate my meddling as well as that of Balam, they are generally unwilling to act directly against us. I don’t wish to distract you too badly from dealing with the dangers that might await here.” Von Stroheim scoffs, but she doesn’t argue, so apparently she sees the sense in that.
It looks a little a maze, but they’ve already gone through one maze, and that one was harder, since that one had no light. The corridors have less turns, too, so it’s much less confusing as a maze. It’s like they’re not even trying with this one.
The obvious remaining Lord is Jacawitz, given that he’d introduced himself as ‘a minor fire god’. Before, she’d be more concerned that perhaps his self-esteem was just low. Perhaps he was actually more competent than he appeared and maybe he just didn’t think so—or, more likely, given that they weren’t exactly human, maybe he’d been trying to be underestimated to make it easier to fight them or to stay out of being a target of Xibalban politics. And it’s still a possibility, of course. But from the sound of it the Lord with a spear didn’t really buy into a lot of those things, and he’d dismissed Jacawitz, so—
“It might be useful to remember that the god of war does not view things in the state of ‘weak’ or ‘strong’,” Kukulkan interrupts her train of thought, causing her to panic—is he reading her thoughts? Was she accidentally speaking through Whisper? Did the Captain or Mr. Brown say something along the same lines while she was preoccupied, and he’s simply responding to them? Oh no has she thought something truly offensive that will cause Kukulkan to abandon them and leave them to their own devices?
The deity does not respond to that thought. Either he can’t actually read her mind, or he’s keeping her guessing for some reason (either leaving her some dignity, or just to mess with her. It’s hard to tell. “His philosophy is more one of…comparison. To really know an enemy’s strength, you must fight them and gauge the difference in strength that way. It’s not truly a single statistic quantifying strength along an absolute range of scale. Well, with a single caveat—in his eyes, abilities not used are wasted. All of one’s potential should be used, and he finds it offensive when opponents have not attempted to grow and have little in the realm of new tricks for him to test himself against. He merely suggested, or perhaps ordered, that all of you, should you apply yourselves fully, should find little difficulty before you. If any of the residents of Xibalba are still willing to entertain his gambling ways, he probably would have bet on you.” That’s…far from reassuring, but then, warnings are never meant to be reassuring, they’re meant to get you to open your eyes to the realities of the dangers ahead and prepare yourself as best you can.
And now that she thinks about it, another possibility is kinda scary: maybe he won’t be alone. Two Lords of Death have yet to show their faces, and would they simply wait until the ball game?
She opens her mouth. “Do you think Lord Akan or Lord Kisin….” she begins.
Mr. Brown shrugs and tries to look reassuring. “Maybe. No use speculating about it now; we don’t even know their powers.” If she’s not imagining things, von Stroheim looks marginally more tense. It’s good they’ve thought about this, but slightly less reassuring that they look kind of stressed about the idea, and even less reassuring that Kukulkan isn’t rushing to share, through Whisper, that that kind of tag-team fighting isn’t limited to just brothers. Then again, from what he and Balam had said, it’s not like they’d gone through this themselves, so maybe they just didn’t know?
They finally find a more open area, maybe the center of the maze, and why it’d been difficult to breathe becomes apparent in the light of so many fires just burning away on the stone underfoot. Like there’s anything there that would actually feel a fire.
This particular House looks like…well, maybe it’s trying a bit too hard, between the imposing look of this area and the spooky haunted house feel of the dimly lit corridors. Maybe she’s just reading a little too much into it. It’s not as if she’d really thought about what made the Houses appear like they do, but…are they reflections of the Lords who are there, or do they have a hand in decorating it? Do they ever switch who appears in which House?
A tall monolith looms in the center, with carvings, like on the walls in some of the other Houses. One of the images she definitely recognizes as Buluc Chabtan. If this follows the pattern of the rest of Jacawitz’s existence, whether or not that’s a front, it wouldn’t have a carving of Jacawitz anywhere, but rather ones of the rest of the deities in the hope of getting a little favor from any of them. The stone under her feet burns a little, and she nervously hops from foot to foot, hoping this isn’t going to copy the last one, too, and start fire jets coming out of the floors.
“Welcome, welcome! Are you here to save us all some time and surrender?” The glistening fiery wings look even prettier against actual fire, and if this had been the first time she’d seen him, she might be impressed.
Mr. Brown pretends to consider for all of a few seconds before shaking his head. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s as nice an option as you make it sound.” And then it begins.
