Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 373

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Buffy and the others continue to explore Rush's lair.
Word Count: 1258
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

         The door at the end of the corridor actually swings open with a soft hiss, like some kind of high-tech laboratory. It sounds like normal moving air, rather than a blow-dart trap or the releasing of gas or something, but Buffy stays alert. Given how much he’d known about science and technology to create all those traps, having a laboratory down here isn’t too surprising. The rest of it though? Buffy doesn’t exactly expect Rush’s underground space to be a complete mess, given what she’s seen of him so far, but she hadn’t expected even a space others would be extremely unlikely to find would be kept this clean. It’s not like he’s obsessive about it, either. The petri dishes with little fuzzy things growing on them aren’t precisely lined up, but they are lined up out of the way. The papers and notebooks are stacked within reach, but not precisely. He keeps everything where he can find it, but not in a way that she could use against him in a fight. It’d probably be a pretty useful tactic to distract an enemy and maybe even stall for time, but it doesn’t seem like she could use that here.
         Pipes carry who-knows-what type of liquids through. They’re still working; she can occasionally hear some sort of gurgle. The structure is generally metal, although only the most minimal effort has been taken to try to ensure good grip or anything else. He probably makes some of his own electricity, somehow, since a computer (a fairly modern one, even) sits on one of the desks. She honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he even has one of those supercomputers that takes up an entire room in here somewhere. Racks of chemicals in jars line walls near benches, though most of them don’t have labels.
         It’s still a little dark for normal human eyes. It’s not like it’s pitch-black, but it is low lighting conditions. A green glow gives the barest minimum, from a single potted plant and a few jars of water and (obviously) something else. She’s going to guess it’s some type of bioluminescence thing, and even further that he’d been experimenting with gene splicing. Supposedly, according to one of Andrew’s nerdy rambles one day that they all tried to ignore and forget but never could seem to be able to, splicing in bioluminescence genes is probably the easiest thing you can do if you’re messing around with genes. As a Slayer with a hunter’s eyes, it’s not too bad for her or the other Slayers, but she hears Antonio walk into a table and hiss what’s probably some kind of Portuguese curse. He is a little more careful in where he’s pointing the flashlight beam from then on. Ivete isn’t, but she probably doesn’t need the help. Giorno, elegant as ever, doesn’t do that, but she’s pretty sure he’s probably using his Stand somehow, or the boa around his shoulders now. Something along those lines. Reptiles have pretty good night vision, right? Maybe that’s why he likes them so much. He does seem like a practical kind of guy.
         The small monkeys are growling quietly, hanging off each other or pointing at different areas of the lab, squinting. They’re not wrong that it’s dangerous here. She still has yet to see anything directly dangerous, like the traps at Wolfram & Hart, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Then again, she’s starting to get the idea that maybe it isn’t anything directly dangerous as much as...not exactly unintentionally dangerous, but not deliberately hazardous, either. Keeping the lab clean doesn’t seem to be a concession to safety. He doesn’t have a lab coat or the goggles or any of the other scientific protective gear anywhere—and why should he, when as a Pillar Man (growing more and more likely) or a demon he doesn’t need them? So it’s probably more along the lines of he doesn’t have to have the precautions here because he doesn’t need them.
         Which, on the other hand, they probably will, so it’d be easy to get exposed to something. He hadn’t been deliberate about his precautions, just fairly confident they weren’t necessary. The flooding would’ve made it difficult for the normal person to get inside. A normal person might’ve touched the red tide water and gotten sick, without him having to do anything. And that’s assuming that it’s only those organisms in the barrels, never mind potentially poison or whatever else. Maybe there’s a limited supply of oxygen—he might not need that, either. She vaguely remembers from her chemistry classes that some chemicals were a problem to work with in oxygen, so even just having a room without oxygen might be useful for him, but a problem for anyone else who might enter. Like, the chemicals lit on fire or something. She doesn’t remember the exact details. It just happens that her brain is highly attuned to the presence of danger, and not just from having dumbass students in your class who totally would have tried to see if they could make explosives or whatever else and catch on fire. It comes with having to fight for your life all the time.
         “Buffy,” Giorno calls, voice simmering with a quiet, controlled anger. “That’s a crematorium, of the size it’s unlikely Rush merely used it for animals.”
         For a moment, Buffy’s brain refuses to process that, but then she remembers a day of her and Xander having to comfort Willow after learning about the Holocaust. “Like...the Nazis used.”
         “I doubt he would have taken more than one individual. It’d be easier to control that way, ensure the subject did not survive afterward to potentially escape or inform others. He runs a hand over a notebook on the table, but doesn’t touch it. “Georg Schmied,” he reads out loud. “Signora Von Stroheim told me his name when discussing their adventures, although I doubt she thought it would again be relevant. He had likely...collaborated...with this man—a Nazi scientist that escaped to Mexico, rather than standing trial for his crimes.”
         Daniela bares her teeth, while Ivete shivers. “It’s...sadly not an uncommon tale, in Brazil or any other surrounding areas. A good place to disappear.”
         Buffy drifts over and notices a name at the top of what looks like a neatly kept note of deliveries—probably for his own use, since it’s really, really unlikely Rush pays any more other than the minimal ‘do not investigate me further’ taxes. “Does ‘Kevinho’ ring any bells?” Giorno had actually met with some type of official, so he might have a better idea of the players.
         From the way his fists clench, she’s going to go with ‘yeah’. “That was, apparently, the name of one of the top leaders of the local mafia causing so much trouble to the citizens of Salvador after the downfall of the Selva Cartel. Several of the small-time members whose...operations I interrupted tried to mention him, as if it would intimidate me.”
         Ivete takes a shaky breath. “It’d be a good way to get rid of people in the way.”
         Okay, she’s with Giorno now. She really wants to find something to be punched. It’s not as if he’d leave a captive alive for too long down here anyway, though, and she wouldn’t want to punch someone down on their luck. And he’s probably not here, if he hasn’t tried to attack them yet—
         They all freeze, Golden Experience shimmering into existence, as a sound kind of like a muffled voice echoes throughout the space.