madimpossibledreamer | Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 383

~~(temporarily unbeta'd)~~

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Mista's investigation goes...interestingly.
Word Count: 1077
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

Mista had looked forward to a promotion like this, but he hadn’t really considered one thing. Promotions involve more responsibility, which isn’t usually a problem, in his opinion, except that it also complicates things, and he prefers simplicity. It’s still not usually a problem from where he is. Usually Giorno’s the one dealing with all the complications, and he has the kind of brain that deals with that kind of thing easily. There’s nothing that Giorno and his golden touch can’t deal with, but as perfect as he appears, it’s not like he doesn’t want or expect help sometimes. If there’s ever something he wants a second opinion on, that’s what he has Polnareff and Fugo, as annoying as having him back is, and if he’s really desperate, Trish for. The only thing Mista needs to worry about, usually, is just shooting anyone that threatens Giorno. Even as, technically, the Number Two in the whole organization, it’s more of a technicality than anything.
This isn’t one of those missions. He’s under orders to shoot to kill, sure, though Giorno had sounded unsure as to whether Mista could even kill him—not, he clarified with the typical lack of hurry, that he didn’t believe in Guido’s skills. Simply because an enemy likely to show up is probably immune to bullets. At the first sign of an enemy, particularly a man with longer pink or purple hair (but not, he also assures, Diavolo), Mista’s first priority is to escape to a safe location, at which point he is to contact Giovanna at his first opportunity.
That is not the kind of order Giorno gives. It’s the first time he’s ever told Mista something like this, which is more than a little nerve-wracking. Mista had yet to see the number four, which is a good sign, but his eyes are peeled and on such a potentially cursed mission he’s even more alert for the number’s presence than before. If it’s a danger strong enough to spook the Don? That’s concerning. He hadn’t been this worried since Diavolo, or something going down in Florida. Mista doesn’t remember what happened there, though, because he hadn’t been invited to go then, either (something about concerns about uprisings while the Don was gone) but obviously Giorno had to come out of it fine, because otherwise none of them would be here, right?
He had, of course, tried not to panic, so as to not worry any of the others with him, which is exactly why they all know and are just as jumpy. At least he hadn’t been told to keep it a secret, so he hadn’t already failed Giorno. In his defense, he’s not too used to all this cloak and dagger shit.
So maybe he’s going overboard, to the point Fugo is pretty seriously threatening to stab him. That’s fine. It’s actually probably better if they don’t find this Rush guy here. If Giorno Giovanna gives orders to prioritize not getting caught, then he’s at least going to try to follow them. Besides, he’s half sure Fugo just wants to see (for once) if Purple Haze would be effective against Rush, and he really doesn’t want to encourage that. It would probably be good to know, but this isn’t an isolated warehouse. There are people around, so someone has to rein him in before he kills an entire neighborhood.
It’s when the building catches on fire that he stops having them all watch. He was on watch, sure, but it’d been boring enough he’d been dozing off, so he only notices when Tre slaps him awake, and he promptly wakes everyone. Thanks to one of the new Stand Users, he has them all move in. He doesn’t remember the name, but The Pit And The Pendulum is useful enough, as long as they’re careful. One of the other newbies is clueless enough to walk through the flame frozen in midair and has to be patted down when the fire spreads to their clothes and starts burning her, and one guy has to be sent outside because he can’t stop coughing after walking through a stationary cloud of smoke that was too thick. As long as they’re careful about not touching anything, though, they’re able to get through. It works kinda like that asshole with Kraft Work, but freezes ‘deadly things’, not just physical ones, and if you walked straight into a bullet, it could kill you. Mista’s actually kind of glad the guy was on their side and not especially ambitious, because he can nearly guarantee fighting him would get Guido shot. Again. And then he’d have to endure yet another lecture from Giorno. Either way they’re able to get in and out without anybody getting seriously injured, or really seeing the guy behind it.
“That’s because of this. Bastard could’ve been halfway around the world. The range on this transmitter is higher than it probably needs to be,” Fugo announces, pointing at a device on the ground. Mista’s no expert and even he can tell that’s some kinda arson thing.
“So it might be traceable? Expensive stuff like that is rarer and harder to get your hands on,” Mista thinks out loud, before groaning at the contents of the papers he can grab that aren’t currently on fire. “It looks like he’d kept the Arrow here, and there’s no note about having moved it.”
Fugo swears colorfully before forcefully, with a few deep breaths, calming himself down, which is good, because Purple Haze was starting to appear behind him. “That’s probably because he wasn’t planning on coming back after he retrieved it. No reason to leave behind a note you’re just going to burn later. We still need to look, though. Damn it.”
Fortunately or unfortunately, they don’t find the Arrow, but they do find half melted...things. Some of them look kinda like Stands, but ones that weren’t quite right, even before they’d caught on fire. Which, yeah, explains a lot of it—if this guy was experimenting with pulling Stands out of people or making artificial ones or whatever, no wonder Giorno would be alarmed. They save what notes they can, and now it’s time for a report, again. Mista has to keep reminding himself that this isn’t failure, because sure, they didn’t get as much out of this as they could have, but he was doing his best to follow orders and make sure they didn’t lose anybody else.