He'd not expected the young Joestar to wish to stay with him, given the clear longing in his face and voice when he'd spoken of the siblings he'd lost to the stone mask, but William was not about to deceive himself by denying that he'd hoped to make the boy fully understand the futility of his longing before the pair of them had been forced to confront the vampires that wore their faces. It was a tragedy, losing such a promising student, and all the moreso for the heartbreak young Jonathan was bound to face when those two beasts he was so blindly determined to defend showed their true nature.

William hardly wished for the boy to have to suffer in such a way, but it truly seemed to be the way the world worked; such a lesson, while undoubtedly harsh and hence a thing that William had been hoping to spare the boy, would indeed be all the more potent for that fact.

Wishing the world different will do me no good, William mused, gathering himself for what he knew he would need to do next.

=PB=

Knowing beyond any doubt that William would not allow this latest defeat by Jonathan Joestar's vampire siblings to go unanswered, and that his fellow Hamon-user would doubtless begin planning his next offensive against them, Straizo knew that it would be both simpler and more difficult for him to attempt to make peaceful contact with the vampire Alice Brando. Simpler because William would inevitably devote a great deal of his attention to those plans that he would be formulating; more difficult, because his fellow Hamon-user would eventually desire his input on those selfsame plans. In light of that, Straizo knew that he would need to look carefully for an opportunity to enact his own plan.

Preferably, without needing to obviously cut his remaining ties with William until the time was right.

=PB=

The sight of a carriage outside the Joestar estate was hardly an odd one, but Jonathan had truly not been expecting to hear from anyone who lived in Wind Knights Lot again. Still, they had come to the estate: the resurrected knight Bruford, and the children Poco and his sister Donna. It was still a strange thing to think on, that Alice and Dio were capable of raising someone who had been dead so long as the knight Bruford – and his brother in arms Tarkus, if what the man had said was indeed true – back to some semblance of life.

They two that had been raised by Dio, to work beside Alice on some project of hers, apparently had the same constitution as his siblings even retaining the same… reaction to sunlight if they were exposed to it.

It was for that reason, among others, that Jonathan had been pleased to see the black-lined white cloak with what looked to be a hand-fashioned clasp upon Bruford's shoulders when the resurrected knight had approached him to speak about Dio and Alice. It was the same type of protection that Alice had crafted for herself and Dio, and he'd felt a bit closer to them for seeing it. Beyond even those considerations, however, just having the opportunity to speak to someone who had personally witnessed even a small part of the history he had learned of in school as a boy held a certain fascination about it.

"It gladdens my heart, knowing that my liege Lord and Lady are well," Bruford said, smiling gently down at the neatly-sliced steak upon his plate. "Though, knowing that they were forced to shelter themselves in a distant land is rather troubling."

"America isn't quite so distant," he said, attempting to be reassuring, but not certain how his words would be taken. "It's quite a manageable journey by ship, and the area they've settled in is rather beautiful."

"Indeed?"

He could recognize the signs of interest on Bruford's fair face, and so Jonathan settled back into his seat. Thinking over what he had seen during that all-too-brief time when he had been a guest of Dio and Alice's Montana estate, Jonathan organized his thoughts so that he would better be able to describe what he had seen in the short time he had been present within their holdings. As well as the somewhat longer time that he had spent within the state of Montana.

=PB=

Sitting down on the bed that Miss Alice had slept in, Poco kicked his feet as he looked down at the photograph of Miss Alice, her brother, and that kindly Jonathan guy who'd come out to meet with them just before Miss Alice and Mr. Dio had left. Still, if this was the place they'd gone back to, Poco couldn't really blame them; their big house was really pretty, and their mother and father were so nice. He didn't quite have the nerve to ask why it was that Mr. Joestar and Mrs. Brando didn't seem to be married, or why Miss Alice and Mr. Dio looked so different than Jonathan when all of them said they were siblings, but Poco had his suspicions.

He wasn't rude enough to actually say anything, of course.

When Mr. Joestar called them all down to dinner, Poco smiled as he left Miss Alice's room to go get cleaned up. Mr. Joestar might not have been Miss Alice and Mr. Dio's real father, but he was nice enough, and Mrs. Brando was- well, she wasn't a lot like Miss Alice, but she was nice, all the same.

The meal was wonderful, and when Poco tried to thank Mrs. Brando for her wonderful cooking, he found out that the Joestars were really rich: they were so rich, they had someone whose entire job was just to cook for them. Her name was Eileen Robinson, and when Mr. Joestar had told him that, Poco had insisted on thanking her for it. Mr. Joestar had even been nice enough to take him to meet her when he'd said he wanted to do that.

Really, he could see how Miss Alice and Mr. Dio had become such kind people, being raised by Mr. Joestar and Mrs. Brando; not to mention having Jonathan for a brother, too.

=PB=

When she'd gotten her shipment from Green Day, the last thing Alice had expected was to meet up with Straizo again. She'd had at least some idea of what the man might've wanted, however, so she wasn't all that surprised when he requested a meeting.

"So, you want to become a vampire, too?" she asked, taking a sip of Chai and settling back into the plush cushions of the sofa she'd moved into her personal office.

"I first began studying the art of Hamon so that I could refine my body," Straizo said, clearly working himself up to some sort of long, involved lecture or other. "I've no desire to wither away as some old man. And, now that I know that you and your brother have retained the logic and reason that you seemed to possess as humans, I would request that you turn me, as well. Even with the mastery of Hamon that I have presently attained, I can still feel the inevitable breakdown of my body. In fact, I suspect that such mastery as I have attained has only made it easier to sense such a thing."

"Well, this will certainly solve a problem I was going to be facing in the future," she said, smiling slightly as she finished off the last of her tea and made her way over to the personal ice box that she'd had installed in her office for just these sorts of occasions.

"What do you mean?" Straizo asked, eyes tracking her as she grabbed a container of preserved blood and settled back down on her sofa.

Smiling slightly, Alice detailed her plans for the battle armor she was aiming to create. Without mentioning that she aimed to create an entirely new type of metal, or just anything having to do with the spark-nets she was going to be making. No sense in laying all her cards on the table when she didn't really know the man she was speaking to. Sure, he'd said that all he really wanted was for her to turn him into a vampire, but given he was still working with Zeppeli…

Best not to risk any particularly sensitive information.

"That hardly sounds possible," Straizo said, but his tone was far more interested than dismissive, so Alice smiled and settled back in her seat as she drank her daily shot of blood.

"I'm certain you'll find, Straizo, that there are very few truly impossible things in this world."

Quite a bit fewer than her own, certainly; even considering the fact she'd been dropped about a century and change in the past, Jojo Earth had a lot more going on than her vanilla Earth way back when.

He chuckled, rubbing the mug she'd given him with his long, elegant fingers. "Yes," he said, locking eyes with her across the expanse between his chair and her sofa. "I've come to realize that rather well."

"Good," she said, offering him a nod and a smile of her own. "Now, as to your request, I expect that vampires are incapable of utilizing Hamon?"

"You would be correct, Alice Brando."

"Well, that complicates things a bit," she said, finishing her blood and tossing the container into the chute that would carry it to the kitchen for washing. "I'm going to need to test any armor I assemble against Hamon, to say nothing of the components themselves, and I'd rather do them in controlled conditions as opposed to being forced to resort to combat-testing everything," she paused, locking eyes with Straizo for a long moment.

"I see," Straizo said. "If I were in the same position as you, I suppose I would wish for the same. If I give you my aid in this project of yours, will you grant me the use of the stone mask?"

She sighed. "The stone mask is in a box under my bed, back in my room in the Joestar estate," she offered a lopsided, conciliatory smirk. "Which is in England, by the by," gathering herself, Alice straightened back up. "Still, I think I could manage with my blood," she continued; she might have to ask Dio about that, since he seemed more interested in exploring in that direction than she herself was.

Watching as a contemplative expression spread across Straizo's face, Alice sat back and let the man consider his options. With people like Straizo, their mind was both their greatest asset as well as their most glaring weakness, and sometimes it was both of those things at once. When Straizo seemed to come to a decision, Alice nodded and signaled for him to carry on.

"It sounds like a workable solution," he said, nodding. "Very well, I accept."

"I look forward to working with you, then," she said, reaching out so that the pair of them could shake hands, sealing their agreement. "Now, there's only the matter of how you want to handle breaking ties with Zeppeli."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's a question of if you want to make an open declaration of your new allegiance, or just fake your death and break off that way," Alice said, crossing her legs at the knee and leaning her chin on her left fist. "Myself, I'd want to avoid as much hassle as I can, but well… You're not me."

"How would you even begin to conceive such an idea?" Straizo asked, looking startled, but not shocked or scandalized the way she knew Jonathan would have been if she'd suggested the idea to him for some reason or other.

"Well, it's simply a fact that Zeppeli's unlikely to start a search for you if he thinks you're already dead," she said.

"Yes," Straizo said, keen gaze shifting to the middle-distance before he turned it back to her face. "I suppose I can't argue with your logic in that matter. What would you suggest?"

"Well, that depends," she said, sitting back up and settling herself for a likely-involved conversation. "How much does Zeppeli expect you to survive?"

=PB=

His meeting with the vampire Alice Brando had not been precisely what he had been given to expect, and yet Straizo found himself all the more pleased by that. The female vampire was the diametric opposite of the few bestial creatures he had encountered on his travels; and also, he suspected, the newborn vampire that had once been William's father. The same one, Straizo knew, that had caused his fellow Hamon-user to develop such a pronounced antipathy for the creatures as he had demonstrated on so many occasions.

It was also, he suspected, the same experience that led him to so distrust the good sense that Alice Brando had demonstrated on every occasion that they had clashed with the vampire woman.

Still, such musings would not serve him in his present task, so Straizo set them aside. What he needed at present was to know what William aimed to do next, both so that he could make proper plans to escape from the man's side in the most expedient fashion, and so that he could steer William's plans along lines that would make such actions on his part reasonably simpler.

=PB=

Settled down in her lab, seated at a long table that she'd used for crafting a far few things in the past, Alice worked carefully to create a net from the nitrocellulose ropes she had ordered. She'd already poured some of the alcohol used to stabilize the ropes and keep them from exploding in transit into a smaller container that she could carry around more easily, and had closed them both tight to keep said alcohol from evaporating. The spare ropes had been stored neatly on the bottom of the shelf that held the other explosives that a dig site like the ones they were running on their own land sometimes needed.

Steadily tying off the net that was taking shape beneath her hands, Alice heard the distinct footfalls of her twin brother making his way into her lab.

Sighing, Alice rolled her eyes as she heard the door being opened. Love Dio though she might, he wasn't exactly the most careful of people, and when dealing with high-explosives… well, Dio'd already seared his eyebrows off awhile ago, and still hadn't quite seemed to learn his lesson about not fucking around with dangerous chemicals.

"Ugh, this room of yours smells horrible," her brother said, and she could practically hear him grinning. "What kind of explosive concoctions are you creating now?"

"Something to deal with Zeppeli," she said, rolling her eyes as Dio slipped his arms around her shoulders, nuzzling the back of her head. Narrowing her eyes, Alice flexed her ponytail, swatting her twin firmly on the nose with the end of it. "Not while I'm working, peacock."

Dio laughed. "Of course, my owl. I suppose that I, Dio, will leave you to your good work."

Sighing, Alice rolled her eyes as Dio finally left her laboratory. Rinsing off her gloved hands in the alcohol solution, renewing the protection that she had first applied, Alice returned her full attention to her work. The first of her spark-nets was coming along well, and soon all that would remain was the final field-test. Drawing Zeppeli into a fight would likely be simple in the extreme, considering the man's pronounced antipathy for vampires in general and her and Dio in particular.

Then, she'd get to see just how well the man dealt with a spark-net to the face.

=PB=

Making his way down the darkened streets, knowing that it was only a matter of time before he encountered one of the vampires that had so unjustly laid claim to the land surrounding them, William Zeppeli controlled his breathing. Constantly channeling Hamon was the only way he could avoid being taken by surprise when one of those damnable vampires finally showed their faces.

"You know, I was wondering when I'd see you again."

Turning quickly at the sound of the female vampire's arrogant voice, William found her standing at the end of a cul de sac, arms folded neatly behind her back. The bright white of her clothes was a stark contrast to the darkness they both stood in, and William found the sight all the more horrid for that fact. Still, such a thing was only to be expected: this vampire did indeed attempt to conceal her true, evil nature behind a façade of kindness and charity.

Such a thing only made destroying her all the more urgent, William knew.

=PB=

When Zeppeli charged at her, after spouting some of the usual bullshit that Alice had long since learned to ignore, she carefully loosened the cap on the container holding her prototype spark-net. Grasping the middle with the rubber gloves she'd taken the precaution of wearing to this first field-test of her new weapon, Alice deployed it and threw the net so that it would open out over him.

"Are you truly so arrogant as to think that a mere net will save you, vampire?!"

Grinning as she dashed backwards, out of range of the impending explosion, Alice looked up just in time to watch as Zeppeli's right fist – already crackling with Hamon – slammed into the center of her spark-net. The nitrocellulose, volatile as it already was, detonated rather spectacularly, erupting in a fireball large enough that Alice found her hair and the loose parts of her clothes blown back solidly by the overpressure wave. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we do not punch a net made of guncotton with a fist full of Hamon, she mused, chuckling softly.

It was a heady feeling, knowing that one of her own inventions – devised more as a curiosity than anything else – had been able to do such a substantial amount of damage. Still, she knew that it was only a matter of time before Zeppeli managed to heal himself from even that much damage, and as she'd had no desire to go carrying around more potentially unstable explosives than she'd needed, that single spark-net had been the only one in her possession. Not only would she need to make another one, but she would also need to develop a better way of storing and deploying them.

Preferably without the need to wear rubber gloves to keep herself from getting her other gloves covered in alcohol when deploying the refined version of her spark-net.

Well, back to the lab, I suppose, Alice mused, returning to the rooftops so that she could more easily cover the remaining distance out of the swiftly-growing town of Jordan.

Once she'd made it back to the isolated outbuilding that housed her laboratory – placed far enough away from the other buildings that any kind of uncontrolled reaction would be more easily dealt with before it could spread farther than the confines of the single building she was working out of – Alice settled down at her drafting table and took out a piece of paper from the fireproof, ceramic storage case she'd devised to hold what few flammable writing supplies she kept in her lab for when she needed them. She knew what she wanted out of the deployment canister she aimed to create, but bringing it into reality would take some work.

It was some time later, when she'd just finished working out a preliminary plan for constructing a throwable canister that would deploy on its own, that Alice found herself interrupted by the presence of someone else in her lab. Someone who wasn't Dio, so that was pleasant.

"What is it, Phil?" she asked, turning to look up at Phil Collins as the full-time archeologist came into her lab.

"Glad I caught you at a good time, Miss," he said, looking a bit uncertain, but clearly having resolved himself to some course of action or other. "And, I'm sorry to be the bearer of such news, but…"

He trailed off, simply handing over what looked like some kind of hand-written note. The handwriting itself wasn't familiar, but the location… Adema? That's near the old train yard, she mused, considering what she'd read and the likely implications of such. Seems we're moving tonight.

"Give my regards to the staff, and make sure they know I'm going to be both out late and returning with a guest," she said, rising from her seat after tucking the paper she'd been working on into a fireproof holder, separate from the remaining blank sheets that she still possessed.

"All right, ma'am," Phil said, and Alice could just about see the expression of confusion on his face through the back of her own head.

"Don't worry about it," she advised, smiling as she turned to leave her lab.

Once she'd made it back to her room, taking a shortcut up the outer wall the way she did when she didn't want to bother with the hassle of greeting anyone and everyone who might cross her path when she was in a hurry to get somewhere, Alice grabbed the first-generation armor she'd been working on. It was basically rubber-backed motorcycle leathers: thick enough to diffuse most impacts, but her best defense would still be evading a hit rather than trying to tank it.

The extra flexibility that she'd developed over the time that she and Dio had had to explore the limits of their abilities – really, a Stone Mask Vampire started as double-jointed and could easily go up from there – allowed her to don the armor more easily than she'd ever been able to do in her last life. And, the fine control over her body-temperature made wearing what would otherwise have been an uncomfortable necessity at best feel as light and breathable as the clothes she usually wore.

Her trip to the deserted train yard just a few miles outside the small settlement of Adema – she'd long since gotten used to all of the music references, but every now and then they still got a chuckle out of her – was made on foot, and even in armor she was still faster than any other means of travel she'd have been able to access in this day and age. Any normal ones, at least, Alice reflected with a smirk.

Let's see… Coal train, coal train… Ah, coal train! Grinning as she found her prize amid the darkened yard and all of its idle locomotives, Alice climbed inside. She'd already knocked out what guards had been present, tying them up and stashing them in the main guard house so they'd be found more easily once she'd gotten what she needed from this little excursion. After all, the note she'd gotten had said to come alone.

It was, however, quite a bit more lenient on the subject of trains.

Standing before the immense, imposing form of the coal train she'd picked out, Alice lifted the thing quickly, carefully, steadily offsetting it from the rails before climbing up into the cabin. Stoking the fire, Alice smirked as she felt the powerful rumbling of the floor beneath her feet. Once she was well underway, the sheer momentum of the train she was riding driving it inevitably forward through the empty, untamed grassland that bordered the small settlement of Adema.

Chilling her hands, Alice coated them in a thin, flexible layer of ice, then quickly grabbed four chunks of flaming coal out of the furnace. Dashing up the side of the train, Alice swept her gaze over the four, fully-loaded coal cars trundling along behind the engine. Bracing herself against the tearing wind caused by the train's racing speed, Alice tossed each flaming chunk into the bed of coal contained in the car housing it.

Then, once she had seen the fires spreading thought the stored coal, Alice turned to face front on the train she was riding. About then was the moment Alice realized that she was essentially dressed in biker-ninja gear, surfing a flaming train into battle with monks who could punch with the power of the sun. She laughed. Ah, that awkward moment when you realize you're doing something metal as fuck, and you're the only one who's ever going to know about it.