Best Laid Plans

1888: Planning and Stew

Speedwagon had been about to leave the inn as Dio ran in, Zeppeli close behind, nearly knocking the poor man right over. Miraculously, Dio had survived the frantic run to the inn—Zeppeli’s cloak had stayed firmly affixed over his head, protecting him from the early morning sunlight. 

Now, the three of them were gathered around the table in the back corner that Dio had been occupying for the last few days. Speedwagon and Zeppeli enthusiastically dug into bowls of beef stew—an odd choice for breakfast in Dio’s opinion—and discussed the current situation.

“So,” Zeppeli said, delicately wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. “We don’t want Jonathan finding out about this, correct? That means we need to eliminate Erina quickly.”

“I think we’ll have quite some difficulty with that, Baron.” Dio ignored how good the stew smelt, and gestured with his hand. “This is Erina’s home ground and I can almost guarantee that she’s far more powerful than I am. She has no qualms about taking innocent lives to gather more power—she’s probably been eating at least one person a night for the past week.”

Zeppeli nodded, eating another spoonful of his stew. It smelt so good! Dio shook his head, trying to focus. He didn’t need to eat, so why was he hungry?

“We gotta act fast!” Speedwagon exclaimed. “Mr Joestar is in that monster’s clutches right now, who knows what she could be doin’ to him!”

Dio laid a hand on Speedwagon’s shoulder.

“JoJo will be fine—for now at least. She needs him alive and in love for her plan to work.” If that even is still her plan.

The words seemed to calm Speedwagon down though and he went back to eating his stew.

Dio’s stomach rumbled.

Shocked, he looked down at his stomach. Zeppeli and Speedwagon stared at him. He blushed—how embarrassing!— and looked away awkwardly.

Zeppeli laughed.

“It seems that you’re hungry Dio. When was the last time you ate? Human food.” He clarified.

Dio thought. It had been a while. Did he eat in London? No, it must have been on his way back. Some bread and cheese perhaps?

“Just before I brought the antidote to my father. But, why should it matter? I shouldn’t need to eat. And I don’t feel hungry, my stomach just...grumbled.”

Speedwagon sniggered and Dio shot him a death glare. It didn’t stop him, he just sniggered slightly quieter.

“Curious…If I had to guess, its a mental reaction, not a physical one,” Zeppeli suggested. “Your body thinks it should be hungry, so its reacting like it is. Here,” He slid his half-finished bowl of stew to Dio. “Eat this. I ate while we were talking earlier, so I’m not particularly hungry.”

Dio took the bowl thankfully and began eating. It tasted even better than it had smelt. With his heightened senses, he felt like he could taste the individual ingredients. It was strange but nice. He wolfed the stew down with such speed he was sure he would have gotten a scolding if he’d done it at home.

He placed the bowl back down, sighing and stretching back in his chair.

“That was the best stew I have eaten in my entire life,” He heard Speedwagon mutter ‘I could tell’ and chose to ignore it, sitting properly in his chair. “But, I’ve sidetracked us. How are we going to deal with Erina?”

“I have a suggestion,” Speedwagon spoke up, recovered from his laughing fit. “Why don’t we go somewhere else—take Mr Joestar with us when he wakes up—and you can learn how to use your powers and Baron Zeppeli here can help you figure it out. Then, when we’re strong enough, we take her down.”

The determination in Speedwagon’s eyes was admirable, but his plan was naive.

“Erina could kill hundreds of people in that time, Speedwagon. The sooner we take her down the better. The longer she has to learn about her powers the more trouble we’ll be in.” Zeppeli pointed out. Dio nodded, he felt the same.

“No matter what we do, we’ll have to wait until JoJo is out of the hospital. If he’s still there…who knows what Erina could do to him…” Dio trailed off, not wanting to even imagine what Erina might do.

Zeppeli nodded.

“Agreed.” He thought for a moment. “Alright, here’s my plan. When Jonathan gets out of the hospital, I will teach him Hamon, under the guise of hunting down his father’s killer. If I’m right about him, it should take around a week to master the basics. Then, we’ll leave to ‘find’ you, Dio. You’ll be hiding out in a small town, a few weeks travel from here—Wind Knight’s Lot should do. Erina will probably go after you, so she’ll be distracted while I teach Jonathan. I’ll contact my master and some other Hamon users and—at Wind Knight’s Lot—we’ll take Erina down.”

Dio glanced at Speedwagon, who nodded. Dio nodded back. Despite only knowing the man for a few weeks, Dio trusted his intuition—after all, it was the reason he was still alive. The same with Zeppeli—the Baron could have killed him on sight but had sat and listened to his story instead. He trusted these men with his life.

He looked to Zeppeli.

“When do we start?”

Zeppeli smiled.

“I’ll start writing.”