Having spent the train ride picking at a splinter in the wooden door of the car, Joseph had made himself a workable peek hole by the time the train began to slow to a stop. He watched as a group of men escorted by two armed Nazi soldiers made their way to the first car, two cars ahead of their own, pushing a flat cart. He could hear them moving around up there, no doubt unloading the crates within.

He glanced around what he could see of the station to notice it was heavily guarded, to the point where there wasn't a civilian in sight. Each soldier wore their Nazi markings proudly, some with swastikas on bright red armbands that stood out against the dark backdrops of their uniforms. They were in hostile territory, alright.

"So we need a plan to get out of here," he said quietly, "there are Nazis all over the place. Where are we?"

"Germany, I would estimate," Lisa Lisa replied calmly, "we were moving long enough to make it that far, but I'm not sure how fast we were going."

"We probably shouldn't ask anyone, hm?" Joseph joked.

"We don't need to," his mother stated, as if it were obvious, "we follow the crates. Our goal is wherever they end up."

"Yes, yes, yes," he mumbled to himself while watching the soldiers move back and forth, left and right, covering every inch of the station with their watchful gazes and loaded rifles. "Ah!" he exclaimed hoarsely after a brilliant idea arrived in his head, "we can ambush the loaders and take their clothes!"

"Enough of the jokes, JoJo."

"No, I'm serious. It takes them a while to load that cart so if we're fast and careful we can—"

"You're taller than most men and I'm a woman," Lisa Lisa pointed out patiently, "they would notice the switch."

Joseph groaned to himself. He still thought it would work, but only if she was onboard with the plan.

"I should've brought a gun," he murmured.

"We have all the tools we need here," she replied, running her fingers along the topmost of a stack of crates.

"Fists and Hamon against a train station's load of soldiers with guns?" he asked incredulously, "I thought I was supposed to have all the bad ideas." He snickered at himself.

"Just hide. We need to wait for them to come inside."

Several minutes passed while Joseph and Lisa Lisa waited in the pitch black with only the sounds of the Germans' rummaging through the other cars to clue them in as to how close they were. At last, the latch on the outside lifted and the door slid open with a loud creak. Moonlight flooded the car, save for where the crate stacks' shadows kept the two Joestars out of sight; Lisa Lisa with her back to the one stack and Joseph crouched low behind the taller stack on the other side. The woman reached back and touched the crate behind her just as a loader put his hands on either side of it to lift it.

A spark tingled out of her fingertips and spilled into the metal lining that reinforced the otherwise wooden box. Joseph watched the spark zip around the corner, carried by the conductive metal. The German yelped when the Hamon spark jumped into his hand, bouncing him backward and onto the floor. The crate fell from his grip and crashed down, the bottles inside shattering with a loud crunch. Thick red fluid quickly oozed out of the gap left by the lid, which sat ajar on the floor.

"Scheiβe!"

Joseph knew that word well enough. He looked to Lisa Lisa questioningly, still unable to figure out what her plan could possibly be.

Suddenly, a crack and a shout of alarm. German voices sounded out from all over the station, joined by the clapping of their fine boots on the cement floor outside. Soon, the soldiers opened fire, but not at them. Lisa Lisa tapped Joseph on the shoulder as she passed him to step out into the open. He followed her to see the Germans were all outside and distracted by something that frightened them considerably.

The Joestars hopped out of the train car, slipping past the loaders and their escorts. Joseph looked to see wide-eyed, crazed vampires spilling out of the train cars to attack the Nazis. Careful to avoid attracting the attentions of the monsters, Lisa Lisa led him across the short dirt gap between the tracks and the station's platform. They leapt up onto the cement and dashed into the station's main building, which had been vacated in the chaos.

"Why would they have so many monsters so poorly secured!?" Joseph exclaimed in a whisper as he watched one of the vampires rip the head off a stunned soldier with its bare hands.

"They starved them into hibernation," Lisa Lisa explained, cool and casual as ever despite the gory spectacle, "it would have been safe, if the smell of blood hadn't awoken them. Vampires will go dormant to avoid starving to death, but they awake quickly once food presents itself. While it makes them dangerous for the average human, they're crazed and not thinking as logically as they might otherwise. They can be easily baited and destroyed in this state."

"How do you know that!?"

"Did you think I would devote my life to fighting the creatures without first learning their weaknesses and strengths? Clearly, the Nazis were aware of this defense mechanism as well."

Joseph grinned and touched his finger to his jaw.

"But they still shipped them with crates of free blood! They were forced into it, then. They didn't have the time to be more careful."

"I came to the same conclusion. Very good, JoJo."

Joseph's grin grew and he shrugged proudly.

"Not all of my ideas are bad ones," he quipped.

The grin vanished when he heard the engine of a nearby truck rev into action. He pointed urgently toward the window, where a military truck with a canvas canopy was starting to roll away.

"That truck!" he cried, "I saw them putting the crates on it!"

"Go!" Lisa Lisa exclaimed.

They rushed outside through the open window and ran after the truck as it started its way down the road toward what appeared to be a military blockade, keeping civilians from accessing the train station. The soldiers guarding it were already rushing to join the fight against the vampires. Unfortunately, it meant they were running in their direction. Although their eyes were on the station beyond them, they wouldn't be able to avoid noticing the peculiarly- dressed English people if they got too close.

Joseph clenched his teeth and sprinted after the truck at full speed. The truck was speeding up, too. He let out an exasperated growl and jumped with all the strength in his legs, his arm extended as far as he could get it.

His fingers slapped the edge of the truck's bumper and he grabbed on before it could slip away. The bulk of his body flopped into the dirt road and the truck began to drag him behind it as he tried, with no success, to get his other hand on the bumper.

He looked up when a red scarf whipped around the latch of the tailgate and tightened securely before hardening, strengthened by his mother's Hamon. Lisa Lisa pulled herself over the tailgate and freed her scarf before she turned around and offered her hand to him. He took it, trying not to let his pride take too much of a hit.

Joseph quickly climbed into the truck's bed and looked back. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw the first soldier run past, having failed to spot them before they could conceal themselves under the tarp canopy. He immediately sucked in a tense breath when he spotted someone else chasing after the truck, gaining on them rapidly. No Nazi runs that fast, he thought.

He backed up a few steps, then turned to face the tailgate head on, waiting for the vampire to get close enough to strike. The creature leapt after the truck, practically flying through the air with its superhuman speed and strength to aid it. It landed solidly on the bumper, with both hands gripping the tailgate, then grinned hungrily at him, baring its fangs. Joseph calmed his nerves and breathed deeply as he'd been taught by his mother in Italy, preparing to launch the creature back into the night.

The vampire started to climb into the truck, but jolted suddenly when a rifle shot rang out and a bullet buried itself in the back of its skull. The monster fell forward and landed face-first in the truck bed. Joseph quickly knelt low, hoping whoever had nailed it so efficiently hadn't spotted him as well. His eyes widened when he saw the faint glow in the vampire's bullet wound, the glow of Hamon. He looked to Lisa Lisa and pointed at it. The woman shook her head, her face revealing a rare perplexity.

Joseph looked back toward the opening and waited, but no one fired on the truck again. He crept forward, stepping over the vampire's body, and peered out toward the station. It was small as a children's toy, then, and the only soldiers close enough to have killed the vampire were the ones from the blockade, who had already begun to engage the monsters at the train.

"It's like the bullet was infused with Hamon," he mused curiously, "is that even possible?"

"Metal can conduct it, but not store it," Lisa Lisa replied, "either the man who shot the beast was a fellow Hamon user or the Germans are much further along in their research than we were aware of. However, seeing as they wanted Caesar to help them, I doubt they have access to their own users."

Joseph turned around and looked toward the front of the truck.

"I guess we'll find out when we get wherever we're going," he murmured.

[Next]

The truck eased to a stop after several hours of travel. Having started to doze off, Joseph slapped himself and sat up. Looking over the tailgate he could see they'd traveled into a forested area, disturbed only by the dirt road they were traveling on. Lisa Lisa gestured for him to join her in the back and he complied with a soft, but tired sigh. Soon, he heard a gate open and the truck proceeded through, past a fence lined with barbed wire. The further in they went, he started to spot watch towers with armed sentries. On either side of the road were vast fields of dirt, cleared of trees. Despite the efforts to conceal them, he could see small lumps in the dirt. A minefield, perhaps.

After following the road's few gentle curves the truck stopped beside a small, unremarkable cement building with practically nonexistent windows. Joseph drew himself back behind the cargo when he saw someone come around the corner of the truck. The tailgate opened and he heard a man climb inside. He peeked around the corner of the crates to see him hand one down to another man waiting on the ground. They probably weren't going to get out that way.

Joseph carefully reached over to where the canvas covering the truck's bed met its side and lifted it gently with one finger to peek outside. There weren't any guards around the truck itself, just standing in the towers in the distance. Perhaps they figured the minefield was protection enough, if anyone managed to slip past the towers. He tried to look toward the back of the truck, where the two men were unloading it, but he couldn't see more than a single foot beside a wheeled cart. He looked backward and gestured to his mother, who came to join him by the truck's side. She peered outside, then nodded to him.

Joseph glanced back toward the two men, who were still unaware of the two stowaways hiding behind the truck's cargo. The one in the truck made plenty of noise as he moved the crates, letting the bottoms grate against the tops of the boxes underneath them. As he carelessly carried them, the glass bottles inside knocked against each other, albeit not hard enough to break. It was enough noise to cover their escape, if they hurried.

The Joestars waited for the man to turn his back on them before lifting the canvas enough for Lisa Lisa to slide out underneath it and land silently on the ground below. Joseph turned away and crept up behind the crate stack nearest to the truck's rear end, where he waited.

The man in the truck returned to the stack to grab the topmost of the boxes and slide it off. Once he had it in his arms, he found himself looking at Joseph's chest. His brow creased in confusion as he looked up to locate the larger man's face. Joseph grinned at him and waved before clenching his hand into a fist and ramming it into the poor man's jaw.

The man outside let out a "huh?" before putting his hands on the truck bed to peer inside. He yelped when Lisa Lisa popped up behind him and slapped a hand over his mouth. She used the hand on his face to spin him around and her other hand to jab her fingers into his neck, right in the windpipe. He backpedaled into the truck's bumper, gasping but unable to call for help. Joseph jumped over the crate stack and kicked him in the head, knocking it against the truck's hard side. Lisa Lisa caught him before he could fall to the ground and her son helped her stow him in the truck with his friend.

The way relatively clear, Joseph hopped out of the truck bed and followed her to the only door in the boring cement surface of the bunker. It was metal and equally boring. To his relief and surprise, it was also unlocked.

"This feels…strange," Joseph muttered, "and I don't just mean the vampires and Hamon bullets."

Lisa Lisa nodded her agreement, but proceeded inside nonetheless. The room was undecorated and lit by one bulb hanging from the ceiling. In the center of the room was a square of floor separated from the rest by its composition: metal rather than concrete. Aside from the single gray button on the wall, it was the only notable feature.

"I expected…more?" Joseph wondered aloud.

Lisa Lisa proceeded forward several feet until she was standing atop the metal section of floor and gestured for him to follow her. When he complied, she looked back at him and pressed the button on the wall. Joseph felt the floor beneath him jolt and widened his stance to stabilize himself as they continued to sink into the floor, further and further underground. Soon, the light from the bulb above them was just a small ray in the darkness around them. Joseph looked down, wondering how far the lift would go and what might await them at the base.

"Be on your guard," Lisa Lisa warned him, "if the amount of blood on the train is any indication, the Nazis will have plenty of monsters at their disposal."

"And they'll owe us plenty of explanations," Joseph concluded.