He, Dio, had been careful to establish a routine with regards to his visits to his sweet puppy's grave; after all, his sweet sister had often proved that the appearance of normality was often the most unbreakable of shields.

"Happy birthday, Jojo," he, Dio, said as he set down the slice of delicious fudge cake that someone within the ranks of the caretakers had proven to be so fond of, if the note that he had received from them the last time that he, Dio, had made his way to the old Joestar manor was any indication. "It's so good to be able to see you again."

Left unsaid, of course, was how much better it would have been if he had actually been able to see his sweet little puppy once again. Still, there was a way that he, Dio, would be able to keep at least something of his dear, sweet little puppy close by. And, considering the way that he'd elegantly crafted such an appearance of harmlessness in all of the time that he'd spent in this quiet little graveyard that had been established at the far end of the Joestar estate, the caretakers were more than willing to allow him, Dio, free access to all of the graves that stood within the small plot.

As he, Dio, discussed the more prosaic aspects of what had happened during the course of the last year, he was also keeping his tremor senses attuned to detect any of the caretakers who might have been close enough to see what he was truly planning. Once he was certain that he was as completely alone as one could be when one was still within the bounds of a human settlement he, Dio, turned his attention to the matter of the excavation that he'd truly come back to this lonely place to perform. The scent of warm earth all around him would have overwhelmed the scent of the chocolate cake that he, Dio, had brought to this place with him; at least if his senses as a vampire had not been greater than that of any human who had ever lived.

Hello again, puppy, he, Dio, mused with a smile as he brought up the ornate coffin that Jojo had been buried in. Now, I have something for you to keep, he reflected, as he extracted the bones from his thighs; he'd spent quite the long time extracting the marrow from them, so that he would be able to bring at least some life back to the dry bones that he, Dio, was bringing up from the very ground beneath him. And now, I'll have something to keep from you.

Settling Jojo's recovered thigh bones into his own flesh he, Dio, set his own extracted bones into the coffin in just the same place as Jojo's had once been. Carefully settling the coffin back in its hole and setting the dirt that had once covered it back to rights he, Dio, rolled the turf back over the exposed ground, taking the time to make certain that any of the humans who worked in this place would be able to tell that it had been disturbed in the first place. Standing back up once again he, Dio shifted upon his newly resealed legs.

It did feel slightly odd, as he pulled his pants back up and set his clothes firmly back to rights once again, but as he, Dio, began to make his way back out of the Joestar plot and back through the estate that he'd once lived in alongside his sweet Alice and his adorable puppy, he smiled as he set off once more.

"I shall see you again next year, Jojo," he, Dio, said with a bright, calm smile upon his face.

Continuing on his way, back to the car that he'd left behind when he'd made his way back to the estate where he, Dio, had stayed for such a long time during the course of his life as a human, he smiled as the door was opened for him.

"Vanilla Ice," he, Dio, said, nodding to the man that had taken the place as his retainer in the same manor that Straizo had appointed himself as the retainer to his sweet sister.

"Lord Dio," the man said, bowing deeply to him as he held the door of the Jaguar open for him.

"Take me back to the airport, Enya," he said, crossing his legs at the ankles as he settled back into the plush seating at the back of the Jaguar he'd had specifically designed with his preferences in mind.

"Of course, Lord Dio," the old woman – well, old compared to most of the other humans that he, Dio, maintained an association with at present – said, and he could see a pleased smile on her face as she took them all back to the holdings that he, Dio, had established within Egypt.

He'd be particularly pleased to make his way back, considering the plans he had in mind…

=SC=

Taking a deep breath of the dry, spicy-scented desert air – such a contrast to her home back in Cardiff, and also to a lot of the other places that Father would find himself travelling to in his capacity as one of the Brando Corporation's Quality Assurance officers – Loreena McKennitt smiled as she settled back into the chair in the café she was seated at, sipping from the mocha she'd bought for herself. Picking up her sketchpad again, Loreena flipped to an empty page and began working on a picture of the veritable sea of sand dunes that their plane had passed over when their family had made the journey into Egypt in order for Father to make certain that the products that the branches of Brando International were putting out were up to the standards that had been set out in the company's charter.

The sound of a pair of footfalls making their way over to the table where she was sitting drew Loreena's attention to where a couple of men were standing next to each other; one of them in particular was more than a little familiar to her.

"Oi, Mr. Brando!" she called, when it started to become more than a little obvious that the unfamiliar man was starting to wish that Dio Brando was as far away from him. "I didn't expect to see you here!"

"Little Lori!" the man exclaimed, turning his attention to her, and incidentally allowing the man he'd probably been flirting outrageously with to escape from him; which, with a distinctly grateful look in her direction, he did. "How marvelous to see you again, my dear," he said, wide grin on his face as he sauntered over and practically poured himself into the chair next to her. "How have you been lately?"

"Things have been good," she said, smiling both for Mr. Brando, and for the fact that she'd managed to help that man escape from him.

She knew the kind of outrageous flirt that Mr. Brando could be, and also how overbearing the man could also be when he put his mind to it; it wasn't really the kind of thing that most people liked having to deal with for a long time. In fact, only his twin sister seemed to be able to keep a leash on him with any degree of certainty. Still, as the pair of them discussed her father, his work, and what she herself had been doing while Father was making his rounds in this part of the world, Loreena found herself relaxing as she and Mr. Brando spoke to one another.

Even though the man was an outrageous flirt, and more than a little overbearing, but for all that he was ultimately harmless.

Once the pair of them had parted company again, Loreena turned back to her sketchpad and began sketching once more. Finishing the last dregs of her mocha, Loreena got up from the table where she had been sitting and began making her way to the park that she'd seen on her way to the street café where she'd got the drink in the first place. Looking for a comfortable bench beneath one of the trees within said park, Loreena smiled as she made her way over to one and settled herself down to continue sketching.

=SC=

Once he, Dio, had made his way back to the hotel and spa that he'd been establishing for some time, he found himself smiling all the wider. Seeing Little Lori again, even though she wasn't quite so little as she had been when he, Dio, had last seen her, had been a treat. Even though she had distracted him from speaking to that interesting Egyptian that he'd spotted on his way through the city. He'd seen in her eyes that such had been her intent from the start, but the resulting conversation had been interesting enough that he'd been willing to indulge the girl, if only to satisfy his own curiosity.

"Enya," he called, pitching his voice to carry through the expanse of his home as he removed the elaborate coat that he, Dio, had been wearing in order to shield himself from the sun while he was out and about during the course of the day. "Have you managed to acquire that antique you were searching for?"

"That I have, Lord Dio," the woman who had attached herself to him, Dio, nearly as soon as the pair of them had encountered one another on that long-ago summer's day said.

As he continued over to the rack to hang up his coat he, Dio, heard the familiar sounds of Enya's footfalls making their way through the hall and into the main room that he was standing in once more. Shedding his shirt and hanging it on the hook next to the jacket that he'd been wearing during his trip through Cairo he, Dio, turned to see Enya making her way back into his main room holding a large bow and what seemed to be an ornate, stone arrow.

"So, this is the antique that you've been searching for for such a long time," he, Dio, said, narrowing his eyes as he contemplated the weapons that the withered old woman was presenting to him. "And, you say that this will grant me, Dio, access to even greater power than that which the Stone Mask itself granted."

"Indeed it will, Lord Dio," Enya said, looking up at him in that worshipful way that a great many people that he'd met during the course of his eternal life tended to do; it was something that his sweet sister had never truly come to approve of, though she tolerated it with an amused sort of good-humor when she found herself confronted with such a thing.

"Very well, then," he, Dio, said as he presented himself before the withered woman who had attached herself to him for such a large proportion of her human lifespan. "I, Dio, invite you to proceed."

As Enya drew back the string of the bow she was holding, aiming the ornate stone arrow squarely at him he, Dio, braced himself for what was about to happen. True, as a vampire he was immune to any form of physical pain, but there were more kinds of pain in this world than strictly the physical. He, Dio, had learned the lesson both painfully and well.

He still didn't like thinking about it.

When the arrow struck him he, Dio, felt as though he had been stuck by far more than a simple carved stone… It felt as though he'd been struck by all of the thunderbolts in a storm, each of them woven together into some kind of unimaginable super-bolt of some kind. It had been a long time indeed since he, Dio, had had the urge to breathe in the manner of a human; however, when the arrow struck him he, Dio, had to admit that such a temptation had been present.

=SC=

The sudden flash of… something startled Alice out of the meditative state that she usually fell into when she found herself with no immediate, pressing obligations, and she sat back up in her seat. The closest she could come to describing what had happened was that it'd felt like some kind of high-voltage electrical jolt had passed through her. It was hardly the strangest thing she'd had happen, but it was at least odd enough that Alice knew she'd probably be best served checking in with Dio.

Odd things happening to her with no explanation always did seem to lead back to her capricious twin, in some way or another.

Still, there was the matter of her meeting with the contractor to discuss the construction of a new building in the general area of France where her company was looking into expanding toward. That kind of thing seemed like it could wait, at least until she'd managed to settle the matter of the new facility she wanted to establish. Once her private plane had landed in France, Alice got up out of her seat, thanked Straizo for his work as her pilot, and made her way down the folding stairs and into the hangar.

=SC=

Turning to watch as the figure that he, Dio, had summoned from deep within his very Self – something that was called a Stand; at least according to what Enya had said, so many times that he'd almost found himself struggling not to memorize her spiel – he made his way over to the apparition that he'd named The World. Both for the tarot cards that that handsome stranger Muhammad Avdol had seemed to favor for making his predictions, and for the power that he intended to lay claim to. Because, while it might very well have been true that his sweet sister had brought a great deal of the world as a whole to fawn at her knees, there were still places that stubbornly resisted the gifts she brought.

As well, there were… other uses that he could see for such a divine power as a Stand; uses that could not truly be supplanted by even the most ingenious of his dear Alice's inventions. At present, however, it remained to be determined just what this Stand of his was capable of. It would not do, after all, to be uninformed about what had become such an intrinsic part of his being. His sweet sister had, after all, impressed upon him the great value of information; truly, it was always better to have as much as one could.

=SC=

After she'd finished meeting with the contractor – a rather excitable man by the name of Philippe Collins – Alice continued on her rounds about the small, French town where she was looking to build her newest facility. She'd always done this, once she'd settled on a place to begin construction, since making her facilities blend into the landscape and architecture of a place more often than not helped in making them more acceptable to the people she was trying to work with.

The sound of a scuffle, far-off enough that whoever was fighting had probably thought they were safe from interference by either the authorities or just people passing by on their way through the town, saw Alice turning her path toward the sounds of the scuffle that was occurring rather far off from where she was currently standing. Narrowing her eyes as she drew close enough to begin seeing what was going on, Alice realized that it wasn't two people scuffling with one another, but what seemed to be an old man attacking a much younger woman.

Folding her arms in annoyance as she hurried her pace, Alice tracked the sound and the sight of the pair of them to a dark alley under the light rain that was falling over the city where she currently was.

Lightening her steps, so that she would be able to stalk up to the man without the risk of him hearing her when she drew close enough for human senses to begin registering her presence, Alice closed with the bald man that was now looming over the young woman – little more than a girl, Alice realized, once she had the chance to study the pair of them in more detail – catching the bald man by the back of his shirt collar, and casually tossed him into the wall of the alley they were all presently standing in.

"Rude," she muttered, making her way over to the girl and helping her back to her feet. "Where are your shoes?" she asked, turning her attention to the girl she'd just rescued. "On second thought, give me a moment."

Turning, she kicked the bald man back into the alley wall that he'd clearly stumbled away from, and turned her attention to dealing with the bald man. It seemed as though the girl would keep, at least for long enough that she could deal with this cretin.

"I'll let you off with a warning this time, little man," she said, narrowing her eyes as she drove her right heel into the bald man's gut; he was one ugly son of a bitch, too. Uglier than she'd seen in some time, really.

Before she could get another word out, however, Alice was forced to whip around, grabbing the extended wrist of a strange, fast-moving figure. Raising an eyebrow as she beheld the figure whose motion her actions had arrested, Alice found that it looked a bit like Altaïr crossed with a Bedouin, oddly enough.

"Interesting," she muttered, studying the figure whose right wrist she'd grabbed hold of; when it tried to lunge at her, under what seemed to be the direction of the ugly son of a bitch she'd originally started out dealing with, she used the figure's own momentum to twist it around and stab it with what looked like some kind of a retracting knife that stuck out of its wrist. The sharp tang of human blood drew her attention back to the bald man she'd originally started out dealing with. "Very interesting."

A large patch of seeping blood was slowly spreading down from his shoulder; it was an odd mirror of the shoulder of the figure that she'd stabbed with its own blade.

Making her way over to the bald man again, she grabbed him – the odd figure in the Assassin / Bedouin garb seemed to have vanished once again – dragged him back to the mouth of the alley, and threw him into a Dumpster by the side of the road.

"Well, now that we're done dealing with that miscreant," she said, casting an annoyed look back at the mouth of the alley before turning her attention back to the girl she was talking to. "What happened to you?"

"He chased me into this alley, miss," the girl said, fidgeting with her fingers a bit. "I… I don't think he meant anything good."

"Yes, I expect you're right," she said, narrowing her eyes in the bald man's direction. "Were you headed anywhere in particular, before you were accosted?"

"I was going to meet up with my brother, miss," she said, as Alice made her way over to the girl.

"Well, I don't see you making it very far without shoes," she said, glancing down at the girl's bare feet. "Come on," she continued, holding out her hand to the girl. "I have a car waiting for me; you can catch a ride with me back home, and we'll pick up your brother on the way."

"Thank you, miss," the girl said, reaching out to take her offered hand.

Gathering the girl up into her arms, Alice made her way out of the alley. Blinking as she felt something go out of her, and saw a flash of muddy shoes being wrapped up in what looked like the kind of rags that she kept in the trunk of her car in order to wipe down her umbrella on rainy days like this one, Alice shook her head as he continued on her way out of the alley where the pair of them had met.

"So, what's your name?" she asked, as the pair of them continued on their way out of the alley; she'd been just about to reach into her pocket to ping Straizo with her car, so he'd know where to meet up with her, when that same something reached into her jacket's right pocket and did it for her.

"Sherry Polnareff, miss," the girl – Sherry, apparently – said, as the pair of them made their way back to the street just in time for Straizo to pull up to where the pair of them were beginning to make their way down the sidewalk.

"It's good to meet you, Sherry," she said, as Straizo got out of her silver Jaguar and opened the door for the pair of them. "Did you and your brother arrange to meet anywhere in particular? Or should we just expect to meet him on the way there?"

"No, miss," Sherry said, smiling as the pair of them climbed into the Jaguar and settled themselves down.

Glancing down at the wrapped bundle of rags just sitting there on the floor of the car, Alice narrowed her eyes. She was clearly going to have to look deeper into what was going on with her, but that kind of thing would have to wait until she'd gotten Sherry and her brother back to their home. Once she'd gotten Sherry to tell her just where she and her brother Jean Pierre lived together, Alice directed Straizo to follow those directions, and she herself looked out for a man fitting the description that Sherry had given her of her brother, Jean Pierre.

=SC=

The feel of her stomach rumbling brought a soft laugh from Loreena, prompting her to stand up and begin making her way out of the park where she had been seated under one of the trees working on her sketches of the pyramids that she'd seen while she and her family had been staying in Egypt. Catching sight of an odd, green figure, Loreena turned to study it more closely. It was clearly something inhuman, and the fact that it was standing close to someone in the park… Someone else here has one of these, too?

Reaching deep into herself, Loreena felt the power that had always been within her responding just as quickly as it ever had. Petting the head of the creature – if someone had seen it, they might have said it looked like some kind of a robotic cat, or maybe a greyhound crossed with one; though if they'd been at all familiar with exotic animals, that same person might have recognized it as a mechanical-looking Fossa – Loreena sent it out to meet with the redhead who seemed to be connected to that strange, alien-looking green man that she'd seen.

=SC=

Sighing as he stared out at the park that he'd come to, Noriaki Kakyoin wondered if even a single one of them would be able to understand what he was going through. When he felt something that felt almost like either plastic or body-warmed metal bumping his right hand, almost as though whoever or whatever it was that was standing there was trying to get his attention. Turning to look over at who it was, Noriaki felt it nudge him again, and then looked down.

Standing there, wagging its oddly-tipped tail at him… Noriaki didn't know quite what it was, but it seemed like it was trying to lead him somewhere. Once he'd gotten to where the strange creature was trying to lead him, Noriaki found himself looking down at a girl with long, wavy blonde hair, wearing a long, pink-and-purple striped skirt and a loose, dark red blouse. Finding that his own phantom companion had followed him to this place, Noriaki found that he couldn't quite think of anything to say, even when she reached out to lace her fingers through those of the phantom that had been following him for as long as he could remember.