Once he'd brought his sweet Little Lori and her adorable Noriaki out to his parlor so that the three of them could properly begin their discussion of their impending nuptials he, Dio, chuckled softly as he watched the pair of them settle themselves around the table that he'd had set out with a pleasant, healthy breakfast for the pair of them to eat while they spoke he, Dio, smiled as he watched the pair of them turning to each other with an adorable look of love on their faces.
It was simply one more sign that the pair of them were destined to meet.
=SC=
Narrowing her eyes as she watched the pair of men who'd been sent out to tail her, Alice found herself rather interested in the way that Secco – having recalled his Stand, and then deployed it again – was also watching the pair of them. It was beginning to seem that the man wasn't particularly fond of his partner, so it could be said that he wasn't fond of the other man. Still, the fact that he'd immediately summoned his Stand, as well as his carefully controlled body-language, gave Alice very little to work with, insofar as determining what the man was actually thinking.
As the man she'd just fed one of her own flesh-buds rose back to his feet, twitching slightly as his bodily-functions reset themselves, Alice called Stardust back to her side, waiting for a long moment as the man's eyes clouded over ever-so-briefly, before clearing as he made his way over to her.
"It's generally considered polite to introduce yourself when you meet someone," she said, smirking slightly as she watched the man compose himself again.
"Right, sorry," the man said, straightening himself up and making his way over to her, bowing neatly at the waist as her flesh-bud fully settled itself. "My name is Cioccolata, Miss."
"And Secco would figure to be the man following you, yes?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as Cioccolata – she found it rather amusing that his name wasn't yet another of the music references that she'd become so accustomed to hearing and hearing about in this rather interesting world – straightened back up, turning slightly to regard the man standing next to him.
"He's always been something like a pet to me," Cioccolata said, glancing dismissively at the man, who'd dismissed that wearable Stand of his and revealed himself to have a thin, lanky form and hair that seemed to hover indecisively between off-white and the palest shade of blue she'd seen in some time.
"Indeed," she said, turning her own attention to the smaller man – she didn't know if he was truly younger, but it was clear from the way he deferred to Cioccolata that he at least thought of himself as some kind of a subordinate to the man – who stood with a distinct sort of stoop to his shoulders. "So, what's your take on all of this? Secco, wasn't that your name?"
Secco nodded, though he didn't seem inclined to actually say anything.
"Don't worry about him," Cioccolata said, his tone as arrogant and dismissive as she'd ever heard from him. "He doesn't talk much, since he knows he's got nothing to say."
She could just tell that dealing with this guy was going to be a distinct pain in her ass; still, with Mystery Man moving in on Caesar's territory the way he seemed determined to do, she needed a man – or men, if Secco was determined to tag along with a man who didn't seem to respect him on any kind of level – on the inside. Even if she was going to be forced to dispose of them later, which might very well end up being the case, she'd at least be able to get some use out of the man.
=SC=
When Loreena and her annoying bishonen of a boyfriend didn't show up at school for a few days, Jotaro found himself wondering just what in the actual fuck was going on. Neither of them seemed like the type to just go skipping out like this, particularly considering the way Loreena's pain-in-the-ass boyfriend would get on him whenever he suggested skipping out of the more annoying lessons they had to take during the course of their day. Particularly English, since he and Loreena were already long since fluent in the language.
Loreena was fluent in a lot of languages, which he figured fit since her old man did work for an international company.
The more and more he thought about it, the more he knew that Uncle Dio had to be behind whatever was going on. The last place he'd seen the both of them was at the party for little Cousin Gio, and the fact that the pair of them had chosen to stay at the Desert Rose – where Uncle Dio could not only get to them, but where he had pretty much uncontested access to the pair of them – was just one more thing pointing to the conclusion that he couldn't help but come to.
He needed to talk to Aunt Alice, and then the pair of them needed to go find out just what Uncle Dio was doing, and then kick his ass if it ended up being something as stupid as what he usually got up to.
Keeping his resolve in the back of his mind, as he continued through the rest of the annoying day he had to deal with – particularly the girls, who without Loreena's annoying bishonen boyfriend to distract their attention, or Loreena herself to scare them off – Jotaro managed to get through another annoying day at school. Once he made it back home, batting off Mom as she started to fuss over him, Jotaro finished his assignments and then made his way over to the phone that Aunt Alice had bought for him for his sixteenth birthday.
"Straizo," he greeted, once he'd managed to get through to Aunt Alice's office. "Connect me to Aunt Alice," he said, knowing that Straizo would understand what he wanted.
The pair of them knew each other well enough, after so long. Once he'd managed to get through to Aunt Alice – though it kind of sounded like she had some kind of project of her own going on, given the way she sounded – he explained what he'd sussed out about what Uncle Dio was probably doing to Loreena and her annoying bishonen boyfriend.
"Yes, I suppose I can't really put it past the man," Aunt Alice said, sounding about as unimpressed as he felt; Uncle Dio really could be a pain in the ass, sometimes.
A lot of times, really.
The pair of them chatted for a few more minutes, catching up on what had been going on with each of them – it turned out that Aunt Alice did have some sort of a project in the works, though he didn't end up finding out anything more about it than the fact that it existed – and Jotaro frowned as she told him what'd been going on in her part of the world.
"Someone's really trying to move in on Caesar's turf?"
"Yes, though I have one of my people looking into that kind of thing," Aunt Alice said, then chuckled softly. "I suppose I am honor-bound to tell you that you're free to call him Uncle Caesar, Jotaro."
He scoffed. "Yeah, he'd love that, I'm sure. Still, you guys are doing all right over there, right? None of those bastards are giving you any trouble?"
"Not at present, though I have one of my people looking into them, so that could easily begin to change in the near future," Aunt Alice said, and Jotaro narrowed his eyes.
"You need some help with those bastards, you know you can call me," he said, remembering that Aunt Alice was far enough away from him that he wouldn't just be able to look at her and she'd know that he was offering help.
"I'll keep that in mind, Jotaro," Aunt Alice said, and he could tell that she was smiling.
Settling back into his chair after Aunt Alice had wished him goodbye and then hung up, Jotaro finished up the rest of his homework and got ready for tomorrow. He knew that Aunt Alice would be picking him up on the coming weekend, and then they'd go see just what in the hell Uncle Dio was doing with Loreena and her annoying bishonen boyfriend. And probably kick his ass, depending on how stupid he was being.
=SC=
Finding out from Jotaro that Dio was Up To Something again, Alice rolled her eyes as Stardust made its appearance once more.
"I suppose I should have expected Dio to pull something while I was away," she sighed, folding her arms and glaring out the wide windows overlooking the expanse of the eastern horizon.
True, she had been trying to teach her capricious twin to actually respect the desires of people who weren't them before she'd set off back to the company that the both of them had laid the groundwork for but she'd inevitably found herself in charge of when Dio had lost interest in the business side of things and moved onto his own business. The lessons clearly hadn't taken, if what Jotaro was implying turned out to have any sort of validity, so Alice was finding herself more than a little annoyed by the whole prospect.
First there was this whole shadow-faction of Passione that'd started forming under the direction of the man that Cioccolata had informed her had never given them his name; she didn't know quite how such a thing was even possible, whether it was Cioccolata resisting her command to give her the man's name – implicit as it had ultimately been – or else the ones who'd formed Passione's shadow-faction being so willing to follow a man whose name they didn't even know. And then, as if all of that wasn't enough to deal with, now it seemed that Dio was getting up to something untoward again.
Informing Straizo of what she was going to be doing, Alice made her way out to the helipad, her loyal aide following in her wake.
=SC=
He'd been kind of glad that Aunt Alice had offered to pick him up on the weekend, if only so Mom wouldn't be getting on him so much about leaving the country on a school night. Finishing packing up the few things that he was going to be taking with him when he and Aunt Alice went to the Desert Rose to kick Uncle Dio's ass if he was doing something stupid, Jotaro swung the back up onto his shoulder and made his way out to the back of the house. Leaning against the outside wall, after he'd said goodbye to Mom so she wouldn't come after him to fuss the way she would have if he hadn't, Jotaro waited to hear the soft sounds of the well-maintained engine of Aunt Alice's car as it pulled into the driveway.
Once the pair of them had met up with each other again, Jotaro thanked Aunt Alice for picking him up and slid into the back of the car.
Leaning against the left-side wall of the car, Jotaro watched as the streets and other cars passed by through the tinted windows, eyes flickering occasionally as something interesting caught his attention.
After the three of them had made it back to the airfield they were going to be leaving from, climbing aboard the small, personal plane that he'd been in so many times before, Jotaro settled into his seat, turning to watch the ground as it fell away beneath them. He wondered just how hard he was going to have to kick Uncle Dio's ass, once they found out just what in the hell he was doing. He wondered about just what he was going to find Loreena and her annoying bishonen boyfriend doing, too.
Really, that felt like the more pressing issue, right at the moment.
=SC=
Humming softly as he, Dio, continued to make out the invitations to the impending nuptials of his sweet Loreena and her adorable Noriaki, he finished up the last few of them, and then turned to the envelops that he'd had specially printed just for this sort of occasion. Taking care to fill each of them lovingly, he sealed them and set them aside to stamp and address. The sound of someone making their way over to where he was sitting drew his attention just as he'd been about to place the first of his stamps and he, Dio, turned to see his faithful Vanilla Ice making his way over to the desk where he was seated.
"What is it, Vanilla?" he, Dio, asked, sealing and stamping the second of the invitations that he'd finished making out.
"Your sister is going to be paying a visit soon, along with your young nephew Jotaro," his faithful retainer reported to him, bowing deeply.
"Truly?" he asked, smiling as he, Dio, stamped and sealed the third of the invitations, "Well then, I suppose I should go and prepare for their arrival," he, Dio, said with a chuckle.
Making a quick stop in the room that Little Lori and her sweet Noriaki were sharing he, Dio, checked on the pair of them. His sweet children were settling in well, of course, and the loose, billowy clothing that Little Lori tended to favor would make things quite a bit more simple when the child she was carrying began to show at last. He was glad to know that the pair of them were doing so well, and the presence of his sweet sister and his Littlest Jojo was likely to make the pair of them all the happier.
He, Dio, was all the more pleased to know that more of his dear family would be present at the Desert Rose alongside him.
Airing out the rooms that his sweet sister and his Littlest Jojo would be staying in for however long they were present within his Desert Rose, removing the drop-cloths that kept his staff from needing to do so much dusting in the rooms that he, Dio, didn't make use of when his sweet family wasn't present and fluffing the pillows on his sweet sister's bed while his loyal World did the same on the bed that his Littlest Jojo would be making use of.
Humming to himself as he finished the last of his work, pausing for a moment to straighten a few of his sweet sister's models – the model airplanes, jets, and lunar landers that she had made such a point to look for when she had the chance – he, Dio, turned his path toward the kitchen. His sweet sister and his Littlest Jojo would be wanting some food when they arrived. Or at least his Littlest Jojo would, since as a vampire like himself, his dear Alice did not actually require anything aside from blood to survive.
Still, she did take pleasure in the act of eating the same as he did, and that was truly all that mattered.
Preparing a well-seasoned steak and a bowl of sautéed mushrooms for his Littlest Jojo, he then prepared a bowl of sausages for his sweet sister. It was something that the both of them would enjoy when they arrived, and as he, Dio, set out a bucket of chipped ice with a can of root beer, one of 7-up, and a jar of candied cherries in grenadine. He himself had also come to enjoy the drink that had been named after Shirly Temple, and so he, Dio, also made his way over to the large, side-by-side refrigerator that he'd had placed in his kitchen.
Preparing himself a tall, chilled drink of that same kind he, Dio, made his way out to the small airfield that he'd had cleared and prepared for when his sweet sister or the other members of his dear family would come to visit him.
Looking up to the sky as the light began to fail at last he, Dio, smiled as he caught sight of the approaching form of his sweet sister's personal plane approaching the airfield, the running lights on the bottom of the plane flashing more and more brightly as Straizo brought the plane in for its landing. Smiling all the wider as he saw the running lights of the runway lighting up as proximity-sensors detected the plane as it came in close enough he, Dio, took another long drink as he continued watching. Once the plane had made it down to the ground he, Dio, quickly made his way to the side of his sweet sister's plane. As she and his Littlest Jojo descended from the ramp he, Dio, embraced each of them in turn.
"It's so good to see you both again, my dear family," he, Dio, said, grinning widely as the pair of them came down to stand on the tarmac beside him.
His sweet sister gave him the kind of bland, distant smile that had never failed to unsettle him whenever he happened to see it. And, as he ushered the pair of them into the halls of his Desert Rose he, Dio, tried as hard as he could not to shudder. He didn't know just what it was that he, Dio, had done to displease her and yet, when he turned to look at his Littlest Jojo, he found that his dear little nephew was looking at him in a rather unimpressed manner as well.
It was hardly the most promising start to the time they would be spending together.
Gently guiding his sweet sister and his Littlest Jojo to the dining room where he'd set out the food that he, Dio, had prepared for the both of them, he turned over just what difficulties the pair of them might have had with him at this point in time.
=SC=
One look at her capricious twin's face, and Alice could tell that he hadn't even the slightest idea of why she and Jotaro had come back to this place. Still, it wasn't as though she had any concrete idea of what it was that he was actually doing, much less what was in his head when he'd been doing. All she and Jotaro really had was a suspicion, and the knowledge that Loreena McKennitt and Noriaki Kakyoin weren't in school when they should have been.
Still, there was a better than average chance that he was involved with their absence, considering how close he was to the pair of them, and the circumstances of such an absence.
After they both had the meals that Dio had been generous enough to prepare for them, or at least that's how he would have phrased it, Alice found herself faced with the prospect of discussing more serious matters with a man who seemed to go out of his way to avoid serious anything. Stardust emerged, an annoyed look on the parts of its face that were visible, echoing her own feelings in the way that she'd become more and more aware of during the time that the pair of them had spent with each other.
First off, of course, they needed to find out if Loreena and Noriaki were even here in the first place.
"Oi, Uncle Dio, just where the hell are you keeping Loreena and that pain-in-the-ass boyfriend of hers?"
Of course, one could always count on Jotaro to cut straight to the heart of any situation that he found himself in.
"Why, the both of them have been staying here with me," her capricious twin said, smiling in that way that Alice had come to be ever more annoyed by after seeing it so many times. "They're quite happy."
"Yes, and I'm sure their feelings on the matter are perfectly natural," she deadpanned, narrowing her eyes slightly as Dio turned an expression of calculated innocence her way.
Enthralling people and making them want to do what you wanted them to was an almost trivial matter for a vampire who'd been exploring their abilities for as long as the both of them had been doing; she'd even used it a few times herself, though only under pressing circumstances.
"Well, I suppose I might have hurried things along a bit," Dio said, folding his arms with a petulant sort of defiance. "Still, even you would have to admit that the pair of them have been abysmally slow about their courtship, sister."
"Be that as it may, that is their choice, brother dear," she retorted, all the more unimpressed by her twin's antics.
"What the hell did you do?" Jotaro demanded, Star Platinum popping out of his back even as Stardust delivered Alice's annoyed swat to the back of Dio's head.
"Ouch," Dio pouted, folding his arms and calling out The World to stand beside him as though to complete their trio of Stands.
Or as though he thought it would keep her from rightfully smacking him for any other stupid things he'd been getting up to.
"Very well, I shall take you to see our young friends, and they can tell you just how happy they are to be here," Dio pouted, turning to lead her and Jotaro up the stairs to the rooms that their family – extended and immediate, as had been the case for quite some time – all made use of while they were enjoying his hospitality.
Or, at least that was how he would always put it.
When she and Jotaro made their way up to the room that Loreena and Noriaki had claimed for themselves, with Stardust retreating back to wherever it was that Stands stayed when they hadn't been called out and Star Platinum just about marching alongside Jotaro, Alice narrowed her eyes. She didn't know just what she and Jotaro were going to find, once they started talking with Jotaro's missing friends, but Dio didn't seem like the kind to use flesh-buds on people he liked.
Still, he was the type who wanted to arrange the world to suit himself; really, things could go either way from this point.
=SC=
Narrowing his eyes as he slammed open the door to the room that Loreena and her annoying bishonen boyfriend shared, Jotaro quickly found himself facing Loreena; he also found himself looking right at her as she lounged in one of the big, plush chairs.
"The hell's he been feeding you?" he demanded, once he'd managed to get a close enough look at her to tell that it wasn't just her clothes that were making Loreena look different. "You're getting fat."
"Now that was hardly called for, my Littlest Jojo," Uncle Dio said, frowning at him in that annoyingly pouty sort of way that had always reminded him of those idiot girls who kept following him around; it pissed him off, but Aunt Alice was good enough about slapping sense into Uncle Dio's empty head that he didn't have to deal with that kind of shit nearly as much as he probably would have without her.
Really, he didn't even want to know what Uncle Dio would be like without Aunt Alice to keep him from being even stupider than usual.
"The hell're you talking about, Uncle Dio?" he demanded, turning to glare at the vampire.
"That's hardly fat that our dear Loreena has been putting on," Uncle Dio said, folding his arms as he settled down on the huge bed that this particular room came equipped with two of.
"What're you getting at, Dio?" Aunt Alice demanded, and Jotaro tried not to smirk as Uncle Dio cringed slightly.
It was both the tone she was using, as well as the fact that she'd gone so far as to use Uncle Dio's actual name when she was speaking; though just his first, so he wasn't in as much trouble as he could have been, but even an idiot would know that he wasn't far-off.
"It's nothing too untoward, sister," Uncle Dio said, looking more than a little desperate; he had to know he'd fucked up, now it was just a matter of getting the dumbass to admit it.
"That wasn't what I asked, Dio."