#tw Dio disaster from Star Dust Crusaders spoilers and death mention

[empathyisagiftandacurse]

Continued from here @sunshine-and-ladybugs

“Aside from the fright of seeing you lose consciousness and struggling to reach you before I passed out, that was a relatively mild attack.” Lexi shrugged. “No less terrifying if I think about it too much, but… At least we’re not any worse off from it, as far as I can tell…”

She smiled. “It’s probably the most apt term for me, since I did start out studying botany and its medicinal uses before I joined the Foundation.

“Yes, I am happy. Oh I didn’t mean the basement is a bad place to work! It’s fully furnished, and no different from the rest of the building. But yes. The people at the Foundation are wonderful.”

She paused and read Giorno’s expression and emotions, thinking through her next words.

“Joseph Joestar. His stand can manifest photographs. This photo was taken by his stand when he and his grandson began searching for the cause of his daughter’s sudden illness.

“She had stand fever, even though she was never in danger or in a situation that would awaken a stand. Her stand started strangling her, around her organs and spine and crushing her. She lost consciousness, became feverish and weak, like she had a bad cold, and was unable to fight its effects…”

Lexi paused again. She could tell that meant something to Giorno but she did not press for information.

“Every Joestar had stands awaken in them around the same time. The cause…is very strange, but somehow this body…”

She pointed to the shadowy man’s birthmark. “-When its stand awoke, everyone connected to the body’s bloodline was affected. And He had a stand that could sense the Joestars; even those living all the way in Japan. He hired a team of assassins and sent them out to stop the Joestar party from finding him while he was in Egypt.

“He… Had a way to sense other people with the potential of developing stands, even dormant ones. When I found his manor, he sensed me and came out to question me. He kept crowding me, trying to persuade me to be his friend. I could see the energy from his stand and his emotional aura. I was terrified…” She swallowed thickly. “But every time I tried to run, he was there. Right beside me. I could not get away p. His falcon attacked me, and he used that as an excuse to escort me inside and treat my wound… And that was my last contact with the outside world for months…”

Lexi hugged herself and stayed quiet for a while before tentatively resuming her story.

“Dio kept trying to awaken a stand from me. He poked me with a strange arrow. He had one of his Allies point a gun at me, while he wondered out loud if it was worth the risk of killing me to awaken a stand, or keep me around as I was… I was useless to him. But he was intrigued by my ability to see stand auras and he wished for information about the Speedwagon Foundation, my family, the Joestars… everything… So he let me live as an unwilling guest in his manor.

“Most of the women he saw were not that fortunate… I…” She swallowed thickly and shuddered. “I saw their bodies, drained of blood. Just like the ones in the Canary Islands… He had a pile of coins and riches, and he let the corpses rot on it until his servants removed the bodies…”

“Because I took a call meant for my father, I ended up temporarily agreeing to work for the Speedwagon Foundation. I went to Cairo to search for signs of several missing Foundation agents and other missing persons. Every time they got close to finding Dio’s hideout, the agents disappeared. I knew I did not need to get close to it to find their auras, so I wanted to try to help find them. They warned me not to go to where their agents last reported their locations, but since my family was already trying to help them take care of Mrs. Joestar, I knew why the Joestars were hunting Dio. It was the only thing I did know for certain. I feared a war between stands would break out, with mass casualties. I knew Dio would not care how many people died for him.

“I begged Dio to help me research ways to stop stand fever, hoping for a peaceful solution…But… he was determined to kill all of them, including his minions who deflected to the Joestars’ side. He kept twisting my words, trying to make me question everything about myself and my beliefs. He only asked to be friends, yet… somehow… Accepting seemed too dangerous to risk it.

“He believed…the body he had stolen was fighting him, and keeping him vulnerable. He thought he would be invincible once he drank Joestar blood. It didn’t work. They defeated him, and the body turned to ash… Although all of them were wounded and several of their friends died in the battle. There were casualties throughout Cairo, too… The cause was hidden in the news but these articles cover it.”

She showed some newspaper clippings in the slideshow on her computer as proof. She paused again, unsure if she should continue her story.

Lexi swallowed. “This is where things become very strange…”

Like they weren’t already?

“…You see…that Star birthmark is a mutation passed down by the Joestar family.” She showed some pictures of various shoulders sporting various sizes of purplish Star birthmarks.

“Dio…was not a Joestar… He was a vampire… The same one who killed Joseph Joestar’s great grandfather in that ship explosion I showed you, in 1889…”

She waited a moment as she gradually added on more bad news.

“Dio was the monster in the coffin that Lady Erina had sunk to the bottom of the sea.”

She showed more pictures on the laptop now, of Dio posing in the shadows. One photo was digitally colored to reveal his face and hair color, and cruel smirk.

“Dio is the one who went on a murder spree and collected Stand Users around the world… And Dio… Sired some children… With his decapitated head attached to the body of Jonathan Joestar…”

Lexi stared down at her plate, unable to make herself look at Giorno right now. She could feel his emotions and knew it was an incredibly difficult story to process.