"Should we be worried about more Floridian wildlife with Stands trying to chase us down?" Giorno asked. "I don't appreciate being forced to kill animals." He frowned and rooted around in the center console before handing a pack of tissues to an appreciative Mista.

"It's possible." Dio wasn't sure what to expect once Pucci realized that he was gathering up his sons. The pigeon was probably not meant to kill them, just to cause enough of a ruckus that Pucci could figure out where they were. Beyond that, his intentions were still a mystery. Dio figured there were two possibilities: the attacks would relent because Pucci didn't want to bring harm to his sons, or the attacks would continue as a sort of trial-by-fire to test their mettle and ensure that they were worthy of bringing down Heaven.

And once all of his sons were brought together? Polnareff believed that they were being brought together for their safety, but Dio held no warm and fuzzy paternal feelings towards the names on the printed out files. In the best case scenario, he was handing them over to Pucci in exchange for his discs and then escaping back into the past. If they had any potential, he'd meet back up with them at the end of the world, but beyond that, he had no use for them.

And if Polnareff realized the truth, he would… do what, exactly? Use some sort of ghostly curse on him? Send Mista a text telling him to shoot Dio dead? His threats didn't sound like empty posturing, but it was still possible that he had been bluffing.

One thing Pucci had said was still bothering him. (Well, several things that had been said were bothering him, but that was besides the point.) He had described the Joestars as inconsequential. Jotaro was in a coma and the Speedwagon Foundation was involved. Dio put two and two together: Pucci had managed to defeat Jotaro somehow, probably by stealing his discs.

What other Joestars would be around in 2012? He didn't have high hopes for Joseph, but Josuke should still be able to fight. He'd have to ask Polnareff about getting a hold of him later.

"What kind of enemy are we dealing with? Is there a reason that they're sending animals instead of doing the work themselves?" Giorno asked. His tone made it clear that he didn't hold the unknown enemy in very high regard.

Dio restrained the urge to be defensive. "The enemy is a man that can remove and reinstall Stands in the form of discs, as you've seen. If he is sending others after us, it is only because he is unable to do it in person. Trust me when I say that anything he does, he does out of absolute necessity."

"I see." Giorno looked thoughtful. The cover on the turtle rattled again.

"Oh my God!" Hol threw himself into the corner of the seat and the car door in shock as he pointed at the turtle. "You're the consigliere!"

"Yeah, duh. Nice to see you too, asshole," Polnareff grumbled. His partially-transparent head and torso hovered just above the gem in the turtle's back. "Giorno, I have three leads on your siblings. I'll keep working on finding Jotaro in the meantime, but what do you want to do?"

Giorno glanced back at Dio. "Is this enemy also looking for them?"

"Yes. We should find them before he does."

"Alright. Let's start with the closest one, then. An address to start, but supplementary information would be appreciated." Giorno gave a slight frown. "They may be my siblings, but we don't know what kind of people they are."

"Avon Park's the closest." Polnareff peered at the papers. "Should be easy enough to find. Give me a minute." He slipped back into the gem and the metal lid closed.

"Did he say Jotaro?" Hol Horse asked. "We have that kid around, we beat Pucci easy peasy."

"Jotaro's in a coma, Hol," Dio answered flatly.

He slumped forward. "I'll be damned."

Whatever Polnareff did on the computer was effective, because it didn't take long for Giorno's phone to buzz. Mista picked it up and looked at the screen. "We have an address… and a criminal record."

Giorno nodded. "Put the address in the GPS. What sorts of crimes?"

"Petty theft and drug possession, mostly."

The GPS started stating directions and Giorno frowned at it. "Distribution?"

Mista scrolled through the file. "Can't tell. This is kind of a shitty scan."

"We'll be getting there pretty late," Giorno said. "Do we wake him up or wait until morning? I understand the need for urgency, but we've been driving all day. It will be important for us to stay sharp if any more Stand attacks come."

Mista scowled. "I'm tired as hell. There's no way the enemy knows about the turtle, right? We can sleep on the couches in there."

"I don't need to sleep," Dio said. "I'll just go in and get him. You all can stay out here."

"You mean kidnap him," Mista said with a frown. "If there was some creepy vampire busting into my room at the dead of night telling me I gotta go or exploding pigeons were gonna get me, I wouldn't want to go with him. I'd freak the fuck out and refuse. We don't want to have to fight this guy and whatever Stand user might get sent after us."

"That won't be a problem. I can be very persuasive," Dio replied. "Right, Hol?"

Hol nearly pulled his hat over his face. "Oh, Jesus."


They found their way to a run-down apartment and pulled into a pothole-filled parking lot at around 1 AM. Ungalo's apartment was on the interior part of the fourth floor and was shared with two other people. Based on some old blueprints Polnareff had dug up, that portion of the apartment didn't even have openable windows, so Dio would have to break his way in from the front door.

Hol declined the offer to relax in the turtle and instead stretched out on the backseat. Mista went into the gem to get some shuteye. Giorno remained in the front seat and peered up at the building.

He rolled down the window. "There's plenty of people in there," he said to Dio, who was leaning against the front of the car and looking at the building thoughtfully. "Some awake, some sleeping. There is no one in the entrance hallway that I can sense, so you won't have to deal with a guard or receptionist or anything like that. Unfortunately, that's all I can tell you."

"Good to know." Dio didn't move from his spot against the car.

Giorno fell silent for a few long moments before speaking up again. "Well? Are you going in?"

"I'm thinking," he replied brusquely.

Giorno tapped his fingers against the car door. "Do you want me to go with you?"

Dio glared at him sidelong, but there was no judgment in Giorno's expression. "No," he finally answered, and Giorno nodded before rolling the window back up again.

Dio wasn't too worried about how this offspring would react to him. He was a bit more concerned about himself. This was the apartment of the one that had a picture on the printout, the one that had reminded him immediately of Dario. He was hard at work partitioning their identities in his mind, one box for the son and one box for the father, but if they acted anything alike Dio wasn't sure what he would do. Worst case scenario: snap and kill him? Best case scenario: knock him out, throw him in a bag, and store him in the turtle until he could get rid of him? He frowned in irritation and finally took the first step away from the car.

While Giorno's recon had been vaguely helpful, Dio could feel a smaller version of the same pull that had brought him to Pucci. As he flexed his hand against the handle and snapped the lock on the front door, he hoped that it would be enough to bring him to Ungalo.

He trudged up the steps to the fourth floor, avoiding trash that had accumulated in the stairwell corners. He swung open the door to the fourth floor and the hinges squealed. The carpet in the hallway was a dull brown that had somehow been stained even browner. He heard music thumping from one room, then a muffled television newscast in another. One door matched the room number Polnareff had found. Dio pressed an ear against it; the interior was quiet compared to the other rooms.

The handle on the door was also already broken. It could have been normal, given the disrepair of the rest of the building, but could Pucci have managed to send someone out ahead of them? He pulled the door slowly and crept inside.

The first room was a grimy kitchen and living room combination. Dio spotted three sets of shoes by the front door. He ventured further inward and saw a bathroom that looked like someone had cleaned it halfway but gave up out of despair, as well as a hallway that had three closed doors. Two had light visible in the space between the door and the doorframe.

He approached the closest door and he felt a pull at his awareness. If his instincts were correct, this was his son's room.

He opened the door; his sight briefly took in the tableau of strewn sheets, the taut and sweating face of an unattractive young man, and a half-dressed Betty Boop crawling across the bed. He slammed the door shut, heard someone yelp, swear, stumble into something heavy, and then pull the door open again. The disproportionate cartoon head was nowhere to be seen; there was, however, the damp and furious face of Ungalo glaring up at him as he slid his arms through a shirt that was still inside-out and backward.

"What the fuck, man? At least knock first. You one of Tom's pals? You really gonna bother me this late? I already gave that piece of shit the money I owe him, so don't even fucking try to start shit with me today-"

"Ungalo." The velvety vampiric tone he had perfected over the years quickly stopped his stammering. "You don't recognize your own father?"

Ungalo squinted in confusion. "You...you're gonna have to narrow it down then, man. You know I was one of those foster frequent fliers-hey!" Dio had shouldered past him and now stood in the room, staring at the mess within with barely-contained derision.

"Listen, get to the point, would you?" Ungalo spoke with affected bravado even as he scrambled to tidy up, shoving some sort of drug paraphernalia Dio didn't even recognize into a drawer (and Jonathan's insipid quote returned to him unbidden; Dario had been nothing if not a man owned by his vices, and it seemed Ungalo could be the same way, too.)

Dio was silent. Ungalo squinted at him and crossed his arms. "I don't got all night. Either tell me that someone left me a fat load of cash in their will or get out."

Dio crossed his arms in return, his nails digging into the flesh of his forearm. "Have you spoken with any priests lately?"

"Priests?" Ungalo paused from throwing socks into an overfilled hamper. "That code for something?"

Before Dio could continue, someone slammed their fists on the door. "Open up, you freeloading bitch."

Ungalo's face went pale.

"Tom?" Dio asked as he raised an eyebrow.

"No," Ungalo whispered. "Worse." He took a deep breath, flipped his shirt around so that it was at least facing the correct direction, and opened the door. "Jerry!" he cried with too much enthusiasm. "How can I help you?"

"Fuck off," said Jerry, and he shouldered his way into the room just as Dio had done. "Why are you being so damn loud in here? Also, where's rent? You're late again."

"Rent?" Ungalo looked genuinely taken aback. "I just paid you rent-"

"You paid Ben's rent," Jerry sneered.

"Ben's rent?!"

Jerry sniffed and smeared his nose against his sleeve. "Yeah, he was short this month. You're a real good samaritan, right? Anyway, now you're short."

"The fuck-Ben's rent? Fuck Ben! That was my money!"

"Now see here, kid," Jerry said, taking on the tone of a kindergarten teacher. "All you did was give me an envelope of cash. Who could ever prove it was really yours? I like Ben more than I like you, and you're both here on illegal sublets that I just barely allow. Therefore, he got your share of the rent this month-" He paused in his lecture when he spotted Dio. "Who's this fucker?"

"My..." Ungalo furrowed his eyebrows. "...dad?"

Jerry gave Dio a once-over before shrugging. "Uh huh. Anyway, no rent, no room. Maybe your sugar daddy can lend you the money-hork."

To Jerry, his solar plexus had suddenly folded in upon itself like a badly made origami crane. To Ungalo and Dio, a powerful yellow hand had just driven itself into his chest and then disappeared. As Jerry fell to the ground and moaned, Ungalo stared at Dio with awe.

"Ungalo." Dio's cheerful tone was dissonant with the vicious kick he was currently driving into Jerry's side. "Why don't you join me for a little family reunion?"

For a moment Ungalo's face was blank with shock, but then he broke into a grin and slammed his foot into Jerry's ribs. "Yeah! God, I hate this guy so much. He thinks he's so great just 'cause-"

He was about to continue kicking the groaning and confused Jerry in the ribs when Dio grabbed him by the shoulder and began yanking him away. "No time for that," Dio said, and the affected warmth vanished from his tone. "Where did that woman go? Was that your Stand?"

"Stand?" Ungalo stumbled out of his room and stared at Dio blankly. Then, his face screwed up in confusion. "You could see her?!"

Dio strode out into the hallway and looked both ways before heading to the stairwell. "Do you have any special abilities that have helped you throughout your life?"

"Sometimes I get lucky and find unclaimed lottery tickets in the trash," Ungalo answered. "But usually they only get me enough money to match the original cost of the ticket."

Dio scowled in annoyance as he threw the door to the stairwell open. "What did you do to make that woman appear and disappear?"

"Uh." Ungalo's face was taut with bewilderment. "I just… I always thought I just had a really good imagination."

Dio stopped on the landing and turned on his heel. "You can see this, yes?"

The World manifested and loomed over Ungalo, who stared up at it with his mouth agape. "What the fuck," he wheezed.

"If you focus, you can bring forth your own. Try it, quickly."

Ungalo gave a nervous nod, then squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated. Nothing happened. He held his breath and furrowed his eyebrows, his face growing red from the effort.

Dio heard an odd rustling and he turned to look behind him. On the wall was a sign with rules about the use of the stairwell and the fire escape. Something on it was moving; he squinted and looked closer.

The little stick figure man atop the illustration of the stairwell fell off of the sign with a metallic clink. It landed on the floor and began walking around in circles.

Dio held up a hand. "Now, stop."

Ungalo let out the breath he had been holding and the stick figure faded away. It reappeared in its customary spot upon the sign.

"We'll work on it more later," Dio said. "Come on."

"You said family reunion," Ungalo said as he followed Dio down the steps. His tone suddenly grew terse. "You're cool, I guess, but I don't want to see my mom again. Didn't go well last time."

"I hold no affection for your mother," Dio said plainly.

Ungalo wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Makes sense. But who is gonna be there?"

"Your brothers," Dio answered. "Well, half-brothers. Each from a different mother."

"Uh." Ungalo was wide-eyed. "Okay. How… how many?"

Dio shrugged and pushed open the door to the first floor. "At least three."

Ungalo gawked at him. "At least?!"

Dio kept walking. He opened the entrance door and looked back.

Ungalo had paused a few paces away, his expression uncertain. "I don't know about this," he said mostly to himself. "What's the saying? Never meet your heroes? What am I gonna get out of meeting a bunch of half-brothers that don't even know me? Or a dad that wasn't around?" He frowned and looked away. "I just don't think this could go any better than I've imagined it, but it could certainly go worse."

"You have two very good reasons," Dio said, his tone firm. "You need to understand the potential of your Stand power before it is taken away from you. You are being hunted by an enemy that could keep you from ever realizing your full potential." Pucci probably wasn't looking to take his sons' Stand discs, but he could bluff. "Do you feel satisfied with your life, Ungalo? Are you content to fall ever further downward in this dump?" He gestured widely at the decrepit apartment entranceway. "If you have no desire for anything more, then you are not my son, and you should stay here."

Ungalo's face flashed with anger and his fists tightened at his side. "The second reason?"

"Jerry probably called the police and reported an assault," Dio responded.

"Oh shit." His anger melted into panic. He ran forward and ducked past Dio to get out of the apartment building. "Alright, I'll go."