Once the three of them had all made it to the room that Telence D'arby was staying in, Loreena found herself wondering if there was anything that she'd be able to occupy herself with, while Noriaki and Telence were playing with each other. She'd never found herself particularly interested in actually playing videogames, though she'd occasionally wander down one of the display isles in a store that sold them, if only so she could look at the art displayed on the boxes. You never really quite knew where you were going to find inspiration, after all.

"You've got a pretty nice setup, here," Noriaki said, and Loreena smiled softly as she noticed how much more at ease with himself and everyone else around him he seemed to have gotten.

It was a nice thing to notice, particularly when she found herself remembering what he'd been like for the first few weeks that he'd stayed in this place.

"Oi, you want to take the first turn?" Telence offered, holding out what was presumably one of the controllers to the video game system he'd been talking about all the way up to the room that Mr. Brando had given him to stay in.

"Thanks, but it sounds like both of you would have a better time than I would," she said, smiling at the pair of them as Noriaki and Telence began to get themselves settled down in front of the game-system that Telence had just finished setting up for them. "I've never been much of a fan of video games, myself."

"What, really?" Telence asked, a look of abject surprise on his face as he turned back to look at her; it was like he'd never met anyone who didn't share his obvious passion for the video games that he wanted to share with him.

Really, it was kind of funny.

"Oh, right," Noriaki said, a sheepish expression spreading over his face as he and Telence settled themselves down in the chairs that the tattooed man had directed them to. "You really enjoy reading and painting more than this kind of thing, don't you? Sorry about that."

"It's all right," she said, smiling softly to reassure Noriaki that she didn't hold anything against him. "I know you like this kind of thing, and it can be kind of interesting to watch."

At least sometimes that was true, depending on what kind of game was being played, and sometimes on the skill of the players involved.

=SC=

Humming softly as he, Dio, continued about his work, he found himself smiling all the wider as he checked the calendar once more. It would not be long, it seemed, until he, Dio, would be able to hold his sweet little Gio in his arms. To show the little one off to all of his new brothers and sisters, as well as all of the extended family that his son would properly have when he was brought into the world that would already have such a wonderful place for him. There would be no need for any son of his to struggle to make their way in the world, nor even to bend Fate itself to their will.

Not when all such things had already been taken care of; true, the world as it stood was not yet perfect – not yet the heaven that he, Dio, and all those he loved deserved to live in – but there would still be time to create a Stand capable of building Heaven from the imperfect, transient things of this world.

He, Dio, had not been about to deny himself the pleasure of holding his son in his arms simply because he'd not yet managed to arrange the world to his own liking. Chuckling as he pulled the string on the small music box he'd ordered from yet another branch of his sweet sister's globe-spanning company he, Dio, grinned as he listened to it playing the specific tune he'd ordered. Satisfied with his acquisition he, Dio, made his way back over to the table where he'd just about assembled his current project.

Truly, if he was to properly celebrate the birth of his sweet little Gio he, Dio, was going to have to have the project he was working on prepared before that day.

=SC=

Chuckling softly to himself as he worked on his latest couple of projects, Telence T. D'arby considered again how he was going to get that cute girlfriend of Kakyoin's to play with him. The kid was pretty good, but Telence had gotten a feel for him over the times they'd spent playing video games together, and he knew more than a few ways that he could get the better of him. Still, that wouldn't help him with Loreena McKennitt, since she didn't seem to be really interested in video games at all.

It clearly wasn't going to be easy, but his Atum didn't actually require that the victim lose to him in a video game, though that kind of thing was the most enjoyable way he'd found to build his collection…

The sound of someone knocking on his door drew Telence's attention, and he got up from his desk to make his way over there so he could see just who it was who'd come to talk to him for whatever reason. Opening his door, he blinked in surprise as he found himself facing the blind Stand user named N'Doul.

"Hey," he said, looking up and down the form of the man speaking to him, wondering just what in the hell he'd come to his room for. "N'Doul, right?"

"Yes," the man said, and Telence almost felt like the man's eyes, blind as he knew they were, were staring holes right through him. "Telence T. D'arby," the man said, and Telence forced himself not to shudder; there was something entirely too unsettling about the way the man seemed to be watching him. "I hope you're settling in well."

"I am," he said, trying to get some kind of a read on the enigmatic man staring down at him, even blind as he was.

But Atum could only answer him when he asked the right questions, and if he didn't know what to ask… Well, that was that. When N'Doul turned away, leaving with the same kind of abrupt suddenness that he'd first appeared with, Telence found himself wondering again just what in the hell had been going on. He'd have known if the strange man had been there to attack him, since that was one of the first things he always asked Atum when he found himself in situations like this.

What the blind man had wanted, however, Atum still couldn't tell him.

=SC=

When she'd gotten word from Caesar, stating that his associates in Passione would be much more amenable to dealing with Jack Harper – she'd told him that The Illusive Man was an alias he used, and he'd laughed ruefully at his own confusion – if they could actually see him while they were speaking to him. And, while she'd more or less been expecting such a thing to end up being the case, she'd have been lying if she didn't admit that she found that fairly annoying.

It was nothing she couldn't deal with, but it was annoying all the same.

Thus informed of what she was going to need to do, Alice had given Straizo instructions to take care of the day-to-day running of her company, and then made her way down into the laboratory that she used for developing new materials. Or, in this case, constructing the new persona that she was going to need, in order to make any headway with the people that she was going to be meeting. Or rather, the people Jack Harper was going to be meeting.

Stardust appeared in the lab, seeming to have summoned itself of its own accord – more and more, it was starting to seem like Stardust and Whitesnake had a great deal more in common than her Stand did with Dio's own Stand, despite the fact that she and Dio were twins and most of her association with Enrico Pucci was of a rather indirect sort – and tilted its head as Alice turned a considering expression upon her Stand.

"Well, I suppose since you're here, you might as well make yourself useful," she said, smirking wryly.

Stardust grinned in response.

=SC=

The sound of something exploding was the first thing that roused Jotaro from a sound sleep, but when he saw Pucci coming into the closet where he'd been staying, an exasperated look on his face rather than any of the urgency or fear he'd have expected if there was actually something going wrong, Jotaro sat back down.

"The hell's Uncle Dio doing this time?" he asked, knowing just who was ultimately responsible for whatever kind of weird shit was going on, even if he didn't know quite what it was, yet.

"Making a spectacle of himself with party crackers, or so Whitesnake reports," Pucci said, his face twitching slightly as another muffled explosion sounded.

"Yare yare," he muttered, pulling down the brim of his cap. "It's today, isn't it?"

"According to the calendar he's been making a point of checking every day for the past week, yes," Pucci said, plopping down next to him with a gusty, exasperated sort of sigh. "Gio Brando is set to enter the world on this very day."

"Uncle Dio's going to be insufferable," he said, using one of Straizo's favorite ways to describe the Old Man when he was being particularly troublesome.

"He's going to want to have cake," Pucci said, the slightest twitch to his mouth letting Jotaro know just what he thought about that. "Nothing palatable, either; no, one of those unbearably sweet kinds."

Looking over at Star, having had more than enough experience with Uncle Dio's weird taste in cake, he nodded and his Stand vanished and quickly reappeared holding a pair of chocolate bars. Turning to Pucci, having finally found a kindred spirit in this kind of thing – it was one of the few things that he and aunt Alice didn't have in common, actually, but of course she didn't pester him about it the way he knew Uncle Dio would have if he ever found out about it – Jotaro handed one over to Pucci.

"Here," he said, handing over the second of the two bars he'd had Star fetch. "Uncle Dio usually lets me get away without eating any cake if he sees I've got one of these."

"99% cacao," Pucci muttered, turning the bar over in his hands, examining it in the same sort of way that Aunt Alice would do when she was presented with something unfamiliar; he'd known that there were a lot of things about Pucci that reminded him of Aunt Alice, so finding one more thing was kind of nice, in a weird sort of way.

"They make a 75% bar, too, but that's really too sweet for me," he said, shrugging. "Still, Uncle Dio might let you get away without having any cake if he sees you with one of these, too."

"I suppose," Pucci said, just a second before Jotaro found both himself and Pucci dropped onto Pucci's bed.

"Now, you two weren't thinking to hide from my little GioGio's first birthday, were you now?" Uncle Dio drawled, grinning down at the pair of them, even as he grabbed him and Pucci under each arm. "And you, my grumpy little cat," Uncle Dio said, grinning down at him in particular. "I can't believe that you, of all people, would want to miss out on your own cousin's first birthday."

"Yare yare, daze," he muttered; still, being called a grumpy cat was at least a bit better than being called the Littlest Jojo.

"Yes, quite," Pucci muttered, and Jotaro could see him pinching the bridge of his nose the way people did when they were trying not to get a headache. "I am perfectly capable of walking, Dio."

"I know that," Uncle Dio said, grinning in that annoying way he had when he knew he was being a pain in someone's ass, and he wanted to do it even more.

Rolling his eyes as he saw Uncle Dio's Stand opening the door for him, Jotaro folded his arms as he found himself being carried out the door and down the stairs. There was the expected debris from all of the party crackers that Uncle Dio had been screwing with, the confetti and streamers all over the damned stairs and the railings that led down into the living room, and Jotaro rolled his eyes as the three of them went down. Turning to glare up at Uncle Dio as he started to hum that birthday song that he'd heard so many times when he and the Old Man would ambush him for another of those annoying celebrations that they liked to spring on him every damned year like clockwork, Jotaro wondered just when in the hell this whole thing would be over.

=SC=

His grumpy little cat had finally settled down, even as Enrico had stopped squirming in that adorably subtle way he had of doing, when he, Dio, had made it down to the salon where all of the others who had been invited to his Desert Rose had presented themselves to welcome his little GioGio into the world. Tossing the pair of them down on a couch that he, Dio, had had set out for just this sort of an occasion. He hadn't yet managed to have the party room entirely set up yet, but this would suffice for the time being.

Chuckling as he, Dio, settled down in the chair that had been set up to preside over the gathering of his sweet family and those friends of his who had proven themselves worthy to stand beside him in the new world that he was going to make he, Dio, smiled all the wider as he looked them over. The sound of a distant rapping on the front door of his Desert Rose, just as Vanilla Ice had obligingly settled his sweet little GioGio down in his lap, caused him to raise an eyebrow, returning his gaze to his loyal Vanilla Ice.

"Vanilla, kindly go see who that is, would you?"

"Yes, Lord Dio," his faithful retainer said, sweeping a bow as he quickly departed from their gathering.

=SC=

Finding himself and Loreena invited to another celebration by Mr. Brando, another one that felt like it should really be only for the family that Mr. Brando had gathered around himself, had still been pretty strange. But, as Mr. Brando's Stand made its way around the table, handing out plates of cake and putting colorful hats on each and every one of them as it finished with that, Noriaki chuckled softly. As weird as things around here could get, Noriaki was finding himself more and more at home.

Everyone here was a Stand user, after all; there was nothing in his life that could compare to the kind of companionship that he'd found in this place.

When Mr. Ice came back into the room, leading a big guy with silver hair done up in some kind of style that Noriaki hadn't seen before, Noriaki found himself surprised. He thought that every one of the people who meant something special to Mr. Brando and his family had been invited to this celebration.

"He says his name is Jean Pierre Polnareff," Mr. Ice said, leaning down so that he could speak to Mr. Brando where he was sitting with his little baby, cuddling it close and playfully tweaking the little thing's nose every now and then.

Watching as Mr. Brando raised an eyebrow, once Mr. Ice had leaned close to speak to him without anyone else being able to overhear, Noriaki found himself wondering just what in the world was going on. He supposed that he was going to find out when all of the rest of those present did, but there was still a part of him that wanted to find out sooner.

"Ah, so you've met my sister," Mr. Brando said, grinning widely as he waved the newcomer Mr. Polnareff down into a seat next to Loreena. "Come, then; celebrate with us, Jean."

"Well, thank you for inviting me, Mr. Brando," Mr. Polnareff said, settling down in the seat that had been offered to him; the one that put Loreena between the pair of them. Something that Mr. Polnareff seemed to take notice of right away. "And who is this vision of loveliness?"

"I'm Loreena McKennitt, Mr. Polnareff," Loreena said, sounding almost like she wanted to laugh, but knew that that kind of thing would have been rude; especially considering where the both of them were, right at the moment.

"What a lovely accent you have," Mr. Polnareff said, laying it on a bit too thick for Noriaki's taste. "Are you from England?"

"Wales, actually," Loreena said, smiling slightly as Noriaki reached out to clasp her left hand, pulling it into his lap as she leaned back into the circle of his arms.

Out of the corner of his left eye, Noriaki noticed Mr. Brando smiling slyly at them; he was starting to understand more and more why Jotaro looked so exasperated whenever he ended up having to spend time with the man he called his uncle. Really, Mr. Brando seemed to go out of his way to do anything and everything that defied convention, just to say he could. And, while it could easily be said that Stand users defied convention simply by existing, Mr. Brando clearly defied convention because he thought it was fun.

=SC=

Finding himself with his little cousin Gio Brando in his arms, while Uncle Dio went around serving the monstrosity of buttercream frosting and sprinkles that he called a cake, Jotaro looked down into the little guy's eyes. They had a lot more amber to them than he'd been expecting, really. Still, he'd heard that only vampires actually had the kind of blood-crimson eyes that Uncle Dio and Aunt Alice both shared, so maybe this was what their eyes had looked like back when the two of them had been human, too.

Back in the nineteenth century, Jotaro mused, offering Gio his right pointer-finger as the kid started to reach out of the bundle of blankets that Uncle Dio – or Vanilla Ice, but he didn't quite see Uncle Dio letting anyone else handle his kid after he'd just come out – had wrapped him up in so he wouldn't get cold or anything like that. Chuckling softly when Gio grabbed his finger, Jotaro tugged lightly and found himself smiling just a bit wider as Gio tugged back.

"Quite the grip my little Gio has, right, my Littlest Jojo?"

Sighing as he turned to see Uncle Dio leaning over him, Jotaro rolled his eyes as he continued playfully tugging on Gio's little hand. "Whatever you say, Uncle Dio," he muttered, knowing that the vampire would be able to hear him; Aunt Alice had told him about the acute senses that she and the rest of her kind – the few of them that there were – possessed.

Shaking his head as Uncle Dio turned back to the last slices of the cake he'd probably baked himself, Jotaro scoffed as he watched his weird uncle turning to Pucci with that same look of determination he always got on his face when he was going to try to get someone to do something dumb. Or at least something that they weren't fond of doing.

=SC=

Fighting himself not to twitch as he found himself confronted with the mass of frosting and sprinkles that Dio had created in order to celebrate the birth of his clearly beloved son, Enrico sighed in relief as Domenico took the plate from him. He had ended up taking a bite – though thankfully only one – when Dio had turned a look of sorrowful pleading upon him, and asked if he truly didn't enjoy the cake that he had spent such a long time making. Enrico, knowing that for all his bluster Dio was a truly sensitive soul, had in the end submitted himself to eating at least a single bite.

Such had been all that he could stand, in the end, of a dessert so rich in sweetness Enrico would have been shocked to learn that it contained anything less than a pound of sugar.

As the celebration began to wind down, with Enrico having cleansed his palate with the unsweetened chocolate that Jotaro had been kind enough to give to him before this exercise in oddity that his old friend would doubtless consider one of his more sedate celebrations. Particularly given the presence of young Gio among all of the festivities. Enrico had his doubts that such a young child as Gio currently was would possess even the faintest memories of the celebration being ostensibly held in his honor; however, in light of the sheer tenderness that he could see in every line of Dio's ageless face when the vampire held his son – such tenderness as Enrico knew full well that he was capable of, but had little chance to see under most circumstances – Enrico was glad to be with his friend in such a time.

He simply wished that Dio had chosen to prepare a more palatable cake to welcome his son into the world.

=SC=

Once Uncle Dio had finished being weird at them all, going back to his room with little cousin Gio – Jotaro finally allowed himself to roll his eyes; really, he was glad that Uncle Dio and the Old Man hadn't tried to overrule Dad or Mom when they'd been in the process of choosing Jotaro's own name, since there was entirely too much of a chance that Jotaro himself would have ended up with some kind of weird, rhyming name of his own if that had been the case – Jotaro gratefully made his own way back to Pucci's room. Sure, he knew that there was pretty much no chance in hell that anyone didn't already know that he was rooming with the man, but it was a rare person who was willing to bother Enrico Pucci when he wanted to be alone.

The guy had a lot more in common with Aunt Alice than most people knew, including the ability to be really scary in that soft-spoken way of his; really, it was one more reason that Jotaro had come to like him, even with as weird as he could get about Uncle Dio.

Settling himself down in the space Star and Pucci had both made for him in the latter's closet, in the beanbag chair beside the pile of manga that Star had fetched from his room, Jotaro made himself comfortable again. The party for cousin Gio had been just as weird as he'd been expecting, with Uncle Dio bringing out a stuffed cake that played the Happy Birthday cong alongside the actual, normal kinds of stuffed toys that all of the people who weren't crazy had bought to celebrate cousin Gio's first birthday. Still, it'd been fun enough, and Uncle Dio had been preoccupied enough with cousin Gio that he hadn't tried to get anyone to do anything too weird.

Aside from conning Pucci into eating that overly-sweetened mass of frosting and sprinkles he called a cake, but that was really Pucci's own fault for having no spine when it came to Uncle Dio; he'd at least thanked Jotaro for the chocolate, once the party had broken up and everyone had left to go back to their own rooms.

Stretching as he heard the sound of someone making their way into the room, Jotaro smirked slightly as the closet door opened and Pucci made his way into the closet with him.

"Quite the celebration."

"Yeah," he allowed, smirking in response to Pucci's subtle smile.

Both of them knew that it was hardly going to be the only one Uncle Dio was going to drag them to.