madimpossibledreamer

Main Points:

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Willow, Jotaro, and Kakyoin are trapped and need to think of a way out of the situation. Fast.
Word Count: 1196

Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
warnings: canon-typical body horror ahoy (moreso jojo’s, though Buffy has its share of body horror too)

        Willow has seen a lot of weird sights over the years, but the army of eyeballs moving into the room on the bits that would be connected to the rest of the circulatory system and the brain are a bit of a new one. They’re actual normal eyeballs, when it comes to their size, so it’d be easy to underestimate them, but Jotaro’s hands are starting to bleed. They’ll be deadly if they get a hit in. They wobble a little as they move, and it’s clear from the eye colors that they’ve probably been taken from a lot of people. Willow swallows. She is suddenly remembering the night they’d unwisely agreed to let Andrew DM and he’d hit them with a bunch of those Beholder things.
        “This is a lot of energy to put into killing us.” Kakyoin doesn’t even sound surprised or disgusted by the gruesome sight. If anything he seems...a little fascinated, maybe?
        “He doesn’t particularly care whether it works or not. He’d using this to gather data. How we fight, our strengths, our weaknesses. If this kills us, that’s just a bonus,” Jotaro announces grimly. At least Star Platinum’s flurry of blows punch seems to be doing a good job keeping the eyes and their grotesque attachments at bay.
        It’s times like this that Willow gets to see for sure that they’ve had as much practice fighting as, say, Buffy, because they’re not even fazed. It’s easy for them to carry on a conversation like they’re not all fighting for their lives. Something about the tone, too.
        “That implies he has a way to see what’s going on,” Kakyoin points out, tendrils fending off lashing blood vessels and bundles of nerves. The tendrils are occasionally being cut and fall away, dissolving into nothing, but then, as the cut on her cheek would testify, those things are sharp. At least the forming nets and criss-crossing each other means that they’re getting lost along the way, rather than tracing the Stand back to its source and, from there, Kakyoin more directly. They don’t seem to be particularly intelligent, though they are following some sort of sense (or, maybe, programming or orders). He’ll also occasionally let out a contained burst of Emerald Splash, but it looks like he’s worried about accidentally hitting them, too, and some of the eyes are clumsily protecting themselves with grotesque ‘limbs’.
        “There’s no point in doing an experiment and not having some way to gather data from the outcome. He’s not here personally, so he needs something else.” So, Jotaro thinks that they’re being watched—
        But wait, that implies other things, too. Willow had considered putting up a full magical shield, but she couldn’t keep it up for long, especially not if she wanted to let Jotaro and Kakyoin attack through it. Limited shields require a lot less energy. They rely on her reflexes being good, but she’s been working on that, and she doesn’t seem to be doing too badly in protecting her allies. They’ve had the occasional hit, but nothing serious, and it doesn’t seem like there’s any poison or anything like that. “Wouldn’t that mean that he’d probably have been watching when he attacked Wolfram & Hart, too? Was that why he was there?” The disturbing thing is, that sounds most like the priest, or maybe the First.
        Jotaro shakes his head, actually grabbing and ripping out a few of the veins and arteries that attempt to stab in her direction. “Josuke forced his hand. Whatever he is, his traps would be a problem for him too, so he hadn’t planned to be there, other than finishing touches. He just needed a distraction to escape. But he’d still want information.”
        She gets to think about it as more of the eyes attack. It feels like it’s infinite, like there’s a neverending stream of them, but it can’t be, can it? So he’d set up something to monitor the situation. Something like magic. Or...well, she doesn’t know too much about how their powers work, but she’s pretty sure symbolism plays a big part for them too. So what occurs to her from years of experience might be relevant for them, too. If she mentions it and it’s not relevant, they’ll be able to tell her. “Something like those eyes?”
        Jotaro and Kakyoin both go quiet for a moment, glancing at each other for a moment even as their Stands fight with no visible input from their Users, and then Kakyoin starts to muse aloud. “How would he even make that work?”
        “Pay attention,” Jotaro growls, Star Platinum intercepting another whipping blood vessel before it reaches Kakyoin’s eyes. Which, yes, he’s probably concerned about his friend losing his eyes, too, but also that he probably doesn’t actually have an idea. Yet, at least. He does seem like a really analytical guy, so he might come up with a hypothesis sooner or later. They’re really targeting the eyes for some reason—well, it is kind of a vulnerable place, particularly since it can burrow from there to the brain, once the actual eye is out of the way. She’d done way too much reading about that kind of thing when Xander had been wounded a few years ago now. It had been a terrible idea, because she’d had all those thoughts about how Xander could have died or could have all these complications and then had issues actually facing him in the hospital, so now she’s just kind of got this cursed knowledge in her head.
        That was too close a call. “Should we retreat?”
        “I don’t think we’ll be able to do it fast enough, and they’ll attack neighbors, too. He’ll probably add to the eye collection. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s figured out the police aren’t going to investigate, so I doubt he’s as concerned about hiding his tracks as much.”
        “He doesn’t want us or anyone else to find clues,” Jotaro corrects. “But he thinks some things are more dangerous than others.”
        And then, when she’s putting up another shield and watching another of Hierophant’s tentacles disintegrate, Willow gets an idea. “You couldn’t punch all of them, right?” Because the eyeballs themselves, other than the whole ‘possibly transmitting things to Rush somehow’ bit, aren’t actually all that dangerous. And they’re probably the weak spot.
        “Too many,” the marine biologist grunts, and yep, that’s fair enough. “I can’t just keep stopping time, either.”
        “I’ve been trying to get them into the middle of an Emerald Splash from all angles, but it hasn’t been working, either.” Even Kakyoin is starting to sound a little frustrated.
        “Kakyoin, do you think you could at least sort of herd them into one spot? And Jotaro, could you stop time on my signal?” This will be very dangerous for multiple reasons, not the least because the rush of magic is starting to get to her again, but on the other hand she’s not going to let them all die.
        “Of course,” Kakyoin half-bows, a little flirtatious, and she’s pretty sure Jotaro just rolled his eyes at both of them, but he nods in agreement, too.
        All right. Time to get to work.