Ram Bamboo whimpered as she woke up to find herself in a dingy room with various posters of Dendrobatidae hanging on the wall with Dendrobatidae himself standing over her. "Well, look who decided to join the party."

"Let me go, Dendrobatidae," Ram Bamboo hissed. "I told you, I quit!"

"Okay." Dendrobatidae pulled out a huge knife. Ram Bamboo gasped. "To quit BOC means to quit your life. Surely you knew that when you got the tattoo." She let out a whimper as he pressed the knife to her throat. "Any last words?"

"Yeah. Do you smell pine?"

"Huh?" Dendrobatidae sniffed the air, then his eyes widened. "Oh, no." Then he felt something itch him. "Itchy. Itchy, itchy!" He began scratching like crazy. He looked at his arms and saw red spots. "Oh, frog! Aaah! Where's my ointment?!" He ran to the bathroom.

Ram Bamboo let out a giggle. "That was crazy, Johan Shiobana."

"Well, Dendrobatidae was stupid enough to leave a trail," Johan said as he and Felicia entered the lair and began to untie her. "Plus, we got Felicia's Stand to thank for taking advantage of Dendrobatidae's allergy to pine."

"You know, this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't left the sheriff's office and gone off with my daughter," Felicia said sternly. "You're lucky he's still at Wartwood, keeping an eye on things in case more of BOC decides to make another visit."

"Felicia, she's just a kid. Kids do stupid things all the time."

"It's fine, Johan Shiobana," said Ram Bamboo. "I did get Ivy in danger."

"You couldn't have known that strung out musician was going to come after you."

"You could have," Felicia said to Johan. "Considering it was your idea to bomb the blue pearl farm."

Johan thought it over. Now that he thought of it, it would make sense for BOC to seek revenge after that incident. Papà avrebbe rovinato così tanto?

Suddenly, a knife was flung at the wall between them. They turned to see Dendrobatidae, looking red both from anger and from the rash that had spread to his face. "Don't you even think about trying to get away," he said, though it was kind of hard to make out due to his swollen lips.

Johan activated his Stand. "Kid, you just made a stup-"

Dendrobatidae threw another knife, which Johan easily dodged. "You know who the fuck I am?!"

"Seein' as I'm gonna kill you in a few seconds I don't really give a shit."

The frog in the wool cap smirked as he summoned Insane Membrane. The record began to spin and began to play loud rock music. Ram Bamboo shouted, "DON'T LISTEN TO THE MUSIC!" as she stuffed her fingers in her ears.

Johan immediately used DARE to immediately deafen himself while Felicia used The Rose to fashion a set of earmuffs made from leaves. "Now whatever that record player does, it can't affect us," Johan said as he advanced toward the musician, who for some odd reason wasn't worried at all. In fact, the smile on his face grew wider. "I don't like that," Johan said.

Suddenly, he felt someone punch him on the head. He fell to the floor and looked up to see Felicia looking particularly feral. "F-Felicia?"

"THE ROSE!" Her Stand appeared behind her and began bombarding him with spiked seeds that exploded on contact. Johan began to get back up, but was overcome with a powerful odor. He turned to look at Ram Bamboo with Green Onions, also looking enraged. "Oh, shoot! She lowered her hands!" It was getting harder to breathe and for some odd reason, he was feeling angry, bloodthirsty. Like he wanted to kill Felicia and Ram Bamboo for being so annoying, but he didn't know why. As he watched the two female amphibians start to fight each other, he felt the urge to kill grow.

Dendrobatidae laughed and began to explain, but Johan couldn't hear. So the frog wrote down what he said instead. "You fools! Sound doesn't travel by loudness, but by vibrations. As long as you can transmit those vibrations, the sound will go anywhere you want. Take for example the floor, did you feel the shaking in it? That's the feeling of Insane Membrane's effect!"

It was like a bass effect, Johan realized. The more vibrations were being sent out, the harder it was becoming to focus on why he was even here. He had to snap out of it somehow. Without thinking, he pulled his knuckleduster knife out of his pocket and stabbed himself in the arm. The pain seemed to do the job because he felt like himself again.

"Oh, damn," cursed Dendrobatidae. "No matter, that's not all Insane Membrane can do!" The record player began to play different music. It sounded like some hippie 60s song. Johan shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He thought he was seeing things. Dendrobatidae split into two. Then four, six, eight, ten, twelve... You get the picture.

"Gonna... get you," Johan babbled. Between Green Onions' gas and the music, he was sure he was losing his mind.

"Well, come and get me," one of the Dendrobatidaes taunted. Johan lunged at him, only to phase through him. "Oops! Maybe I'm over here!" One of them stabbed him in the back. "No, over here!" Another stabbed him in the arm. "No, here!" A third stabbed him in the foot. "Or maybe I'm here!" A fourth stabbed him in the chest, dangerously close to his heart.

Questo non va bene. Johan was badly wounded. Any more and he was sure to die. One chance. He took a handful of his blood and flicked them at the Dendrobatidaes. One of them let out a yelp and tried to wipe it out of his eyes. "Heh. Ora ho te." Maybe it was the music, maybe the loss of blood was making him a little loopy, or maybe it was his will to survive, but something in him caused him and DARE to go all out on Dendrobatidae.

"MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA!"

Dendrobatidae crashed through the wall and went unconscious and Insane Membrane disappeared. At that moment, Felicia and Ram Bamboo came to their senses. "Uh, Mrs. Sundew?"

"Yes?"

"Why am I chewing your leg like a dog would a bone?"

"I don't know. Maybe the same reason I'm trying to rip your hair out of your scalp?"

"Yeah, and it was this," Johan said as he threw Dendrobatidae to the ground.

"So, what are we gonna do with him?" asked Ram Bamboo. "Kill him?"

"No. This guy has vital information we need on BOC, so a little interrogation is in order."

"I ain't saying jack!" Dendrobatidae shouted as he hung upside down from a tree. Returning to Wartwood wasn't a problem, now all they had to do was keep the strung out musician from using his Stand while he was being interrogated. Luckily, Leatherleaf was there to keep him from using it as he had Good Bad Ugly at the ready.

"Kid, let me put it in a way even a drugged up has-been like you can understand," threatened Johan. "Either give us the names of your bosses and their Stands' abilities and this interrogation won't turn into a torture session."

"You think whatever you do is torture?! Wait until Mr. Bufo gets ahold of you!" He covered his mouth immediately.

"A name. Good. Now what's his Stand?"

"I... I won't talk!"

Johan stared. Then he nodded. "Okay." He reached for his knife and Dendrobatidae squirmed as the boy approached him, but instead of stabbing him, he cut him free. Then suddenly, he reached into his mouth, pulled his tongue out, pinned it to the ground with his knife and flung him over a tree branch. Dendrobatidae let out a garbled scream as he could feel his tongue being stretched out. People witnessing this winced.

Johan held up a stick and handed it to Ram Bamboo. "You want to tack a whack at the piñata?"

"I don't know what that is, but okay!" she said gleefully.

DARE grabbed hold of Dendrobatidae and began to amplify his pain receptors to the point where both the stretching of his tongue and the beatings Ram Bamboo were giving him became maddening. Meanwhile, Johan set his phone down on the ground and played some music before doing a dance similar to Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. It was something Mista personally taught him back home.

"What the heck are you doing?" questioned Sylvia.

"What?" Johan asked. "You've never heard of music before?"

"I know what music is and that is NOT music!"

Ivy thought Johan's dancing was strange, yet somehow had the urge to join him. So did her mother and grandmother and even Sprig and Polly. Then Johan turned and pointed to the squealing Dendrobatidae. "If you're not going to talk about your bosses and the abilities of their Stands, you're going to have to worry about more than just a stretched out tongue and getting beat up by a former employee, Dendrobatidae."

"Alright, alright! ALRIGHT!" Dendrobatidae squealed, though it was a little hard to make it out.

"See? Was that so hard?" Johan said as he pulled the knife out from the tongue. Dendrobatidae fell to the ground with a thud and left his punctured tongue sticking out of his mouth. A puddle of blood and saliva began to form as he spoke, "The guy is big time! He goes by the name of Samandarin. He always conducts his business in his own private wagon. Almost never leaves it."

"A name and where to find him. Now, what's his Stand's abilities?" The musician said nothing. "Hey! I asked you a question!" But instead of responding, Dendrobatidae grabbed Johan's knife and slit his own throat with it. The people watching either gasped, screamed or turned away.

"Figure that out yourself..." Those were Dendrobatidae's last words.

"Shit..."

Ram Bamboo put a hand over mouth and tears began to leak.

Later that day, Ram Bamboo sat on her bed, looking down at the floor. She heard the door open and looked up to see Johan, covered in bandages. "Hey."

"What do you want, Johan Shiobana?"

"Just call me JoJo. I noticed the way you were crying when that strung out musician took his own life. Why? I would have figured you would have liked to see him die."

Ram Bamboo looked down at the floor as Johan sat next to her. "He took me in. My parents died and he took me in when no one else did. But later I found out it was Samandarin who killed them. It turns out they owed him a lot of money that they spent on me and when they couldn't afford to pay..." The little frog began shaking.

"You don't have to finish it," Johan said. "I get the picture."

"No. I have to tell you. When they couldn't pay, he had Mr. Bufo eat my parents." She chuckled bitterly. "They ate my parents and forced me to work for them." Johan handed her his knife. "What?"

"Carve out that tattoo. You won't feel free unless you remove every trace of them off you." DARE appeared behind him, but Ram Bamboo held up her hand.

"No. No dulling the pain. I want to feel every moment..." She rolled up her sleeve and plunged the knife deep into her upper arm as she let out a scream. She continued to scream as she peeled the skin right off her arm and dropped the knife. Quickly, Johan wrapped the wound with a cloth and took her to the doctor's.

Ram Bamboo had to wear gauze around her arm for a while. That's literally what the doctor told Johan. How long "a while" was he could not say as frogs were fast healers. But there was more important information to discuss with Leatherleaf and the Sundews. "What have you got?" he asked.

"The undertaker found this in Dendrobatidae's pocket," Leatherleaf said, pulling out a piece of paper.

"What is it?" Johan took it. "A map? And what's with the little blue oyster shells on it?"

"Frog, you're dense," said Sylvia. "Look at the directions."

Johan did. "Wait. These are the locations for Blue Pearl labs? Sweet, we hit the jackpot! All we gotta do is go to these locations and blow them up!"

"You make it sound simple," said Felicia. "Do you realize that they will fight back?"

Johan shrugged his shoulders. "Sorry, but the time for subtlety is over. They know who we are if Dendrobatidae is any indication. Now all we need are some boom shrooms and the fastest snail in Wartwood."

"That would be Hopediah's snail Bessie, but I don't think he'll let us borrow..."

"Good enough."

"Hey! Where are you going? Did you hear what I said? And he's gone."

"No." Was Hopediah Plantar's answer.

"I figured you'd say that," Johan said. "That's why you're coming with me."

"I said I... Wait, what?"

"I admit it, I don't know how to ride a snail, but seeing as we need one to destroy the labs, we're going to need a getaway driver."

"By 'we' you mean 'you'."

"Fine you got me."

Hopediah considered it. "Can you promise me the kids won't be involved?"

"I had DARE knock them out cold. They won't be up for hours."

"...Can you promise me that I will make it back? I'm all they've got."

"I can't guarantee it, but I will do my best."

Several minutes later, somewhere in the valley, Bufo smelled the air and the smoke. Samandarin approached him from behind. "What do you think?"

"It's beautiful."

"And expensive. This 'Frog's Passion' is proving themselves to be quite the nuisance."

"Then perhaps it's time to speak to their leader, this JoJo..."