Joanne stalked across the front lobby of the Baccarat Hotel with Scorpion Queen right behind her. She was clenching and unclenching her fists, digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands in an attempt to keep her anger and annoyance from boiling over to the surface. Her headphones were back on her ears, some of her favorite music playing loudly through them. Barely paying attention to where she was going, she walked right through a group of three police officers as she stepped out the hotel's front entrance.
"Hey, you there!" one of the officers said. "Stay right there! Nobody's allowed to leave the hotel until we determine what happened here!"
Whether Joanne heard him or not, she ignored him and kept walking. The officer grabbed her by the shoulder and jerked her back.
"I said stay where you are!" he said.
Joanne turned around to glare at the officer and jerked her arm out of his grip.
"Don't you fucking touch me," she snapped.
She turned back away from the officer and began to walk away.
"Joanne," Scorpion Queen warned. "That's a police officer. It may be a good idea to avoid antagonizing him."
"What did you say to me?" the officer growled, reaching for his baton.
"Officer?" came a voice from behind him.
He turned around to see Focaccia standing there. The mafioso was leaned to the left, with his left hand grasping his left shoulder and his right arm dangling behind his back.
"Whaddya want?" the officer asked, annoyed.
"I'd just like to inform you that that girl is with me," Focaccia said, smiling calmly at him. "In case that would help you consider your potential future actions a little more carefully."
"You think you're some kinda-" the officer began to say, but he stopped cold when Focaccia pulled his right hand out from behind his back and showed the object he was holding to him.
"Oh, of course. Yeah, I was just gonna tell her to be careful out there, don't worry about it, sir," he stammered.
"Good," Focaccia smiled. "I thought so."
He walked past the police officer, placing the object he'd shown him back in his jacket pocket. As he approached Joanne, he slowed down again to walk beside her.
"Fuck off," Joanne said, continuing to walk and listen to her music without turning to look at him.
"Trust me, I'd love to," Focaccia admitted, keeping pace with her. He pulled a bottle of vinegar out of his pocket and unscrewed the cap, taking a large swig from it. "But Giorno told me to keep you safe, so that's exactly what I'll do."
Joanne didn't respond. Well, she didn't respond verbally, at least, but she did stick up her middle finger at Focaccia and start walking faster. Focaccia matched her pace again, pushing past the crowds of people walking along the busy streets to keep up with her.
"Look, quite frankly, you probably need me," he stated. "I've known you for maybe ten minutes and I can already tell that you're impulsive, reckless, and immature. Once you start running into other Stand users, you won't last a minute without some serious assistance."
"Don't talk to my Joanne like that!" Scorpion Queen snapped from the other side of its user. "...I'm sorry, I don't mean to snap at you. It's just that she, and I, have been through quite a bit today. Not only did we meet her father after eighteen years, which I'm sure you can imagine would be a lot to take in, but somebody tried to kill us."
"Okay, that's a good point," Focaccia conceded. "But what would drive her to react so negatively to Giorno just trying to help her? He's only looking out for her, and I'm sure she can see that even if she's angry with him for being absent for so long."
"It's because she sees him assigning you to bodyguard us as a form of 'control'," Scorpion Queen said. "People around Joanne have always tried to control her, and she's always hated it. First it was her teachers, when she still went to school, who would always get angry with her for learning and acting differently from the other children. Then it was her stepfather, who all seemed to think that he could demand whatever he wanted from her and mold her into the person he wanted her to be. And most recently, it's just been many people in general, making her life as hard as she can since she ran away from home when her mother died. She's had a hard life, and there's only ever been a couple people she could turn to. First her mother, then me, but that's it. She's never had any close friends or other family."
Focaccia's expression softened.
"...I think I can understand that," he said. "And I suppose I can understand her anger with Giorno as well. I'm still going to do my best to keep you safe, whether you 'need' my help or not, but… I won't try to control your choices, Joanne."
He turned to look at Joanne, only to find that the space between himself and Scorpion Queen was empty.
"Where's Joanne?!" he asked urgently.
"I- I don't know!" Scorpion Queen panicked. "She must be within 50 or so meters of me, but- she just disappeared! I usually know where she is at all times, so how did this happen?!"
"If she's within 50 meters of this spot, then that gives us a radius to search!" Focaccia said, beginning to run down the street. "We'll have to check everywhere on this street!"
What the hell is this?! Joanne thought. I was just walking, but now, all of a sudden…
She looked around, taking in her surroundings. She was in a diner of some sort, with a black-and-white checkerboard tiled floor and several booths with red fake leather cushions. She was seated at a round booth in the back corner, underneath a ceiling light that someone had attempted to make look like it was from the 1950s, without much success. Across from her in the booth sat a girl.
She looked to be about Joanne's age, possibly a couple years older. Her hair, eyes, lips, and nails were all a brilliant emerald green, and she had very pale skin. Her hair was tied in a knot behind her head, besides a few strands that were allowed to hang down loosely in front of her ears. She wore a long, fancy gold-colored jacket that descended almost to her feet, with thin black stripes running shakily down its entire length and featherlike decorations along the upper edge, almost like wings. Beneath this jacket, she wore a bandeau of the same color, with similar stripes running along it horizontally, as well as a bronze-colored dress with the same stripes as the jacket, plus a large slit in the side that allowed her left leg to stick out from under it at all times. A large tattoo of a snake coiled around her leg and up out of sight under her clothes, its head peeking out on the back of her right hand.
In that hand, she held a sealed letter.
"Who the hell are you?" Joanne asked. "What is this?"
"This is a restaurant, silly!" the girl said, waving her left hand in a circular motion to indicate their surroundings. "And my name is Athena. I'm really sorry for interrupting your walk like that. I imagine it was probably kinda weird for some girl you've never met before to just drag you off the street through the door of some random diner pretending it's stuck in the 50s."
"Oh… yeah," Joanne said. "That's… what happened."
But then why don't I remember it happening? she thought. I was paying enough attention to where I was going that you'd think I'd have noticed something like that!
"Aaaaaanyway," Athena said, grinning. "I bet you wanna know what I want with you anyway, right?"
"Let me guess," Joanne sighed. "You're gonna try to kill me, like almost every other goddamn person I've met today."
"Of course not!" Athena giggled. "I'm not the type to just randomly grab people off the street and murder them! And even if I were, it'd be a crying shame to kill someone as cute as you!"
Joanne blushed bright red. Athena seemed to not notice and just continued talking.
"See, my older sister and a couple friends of hers are running this… well, it's kind of a game, I guess. They haven't really told me much about it, but I'm supposed to help deliver these invitations to some people they decided they wanted to come join. You're the last one, and I've been looking all over for you! I'm lucky you happened to be walking by while I was taking a break in here."
She set the letter in her hand down on the table and slid it across to Joanne, who picked it up. It was sealed with a circle of wax that looked oddly similar to the symbols of Scorpion Queen's triggers- a circle with a heart in it.
"...Thanks?" she said.
"Joanne!" Scorpion Queen shouted from across the room. It and Focaccia sprinted over to her as fast as they could. "What are you doing in here? And how did you just disappear like that?"
"Scorpion Queen, there you are!" Joanne sighed, relieved. She had barely even noticed that her Stand wasn't with her until it had returned, but nonetheless, she felt much better now. "This girl here-"
She turned to motion at Athena, but the girl was gone.
"Huh," she said.
She turned to Scorpion Queen and Focaccia, motioning at the booth she was sitting in.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Sit down," she said. "I've got something you need to see."
Scorpion Queen and Focaccia obliged, sitting down at the booth on either side of her. She held up the letter so that they could both see it.
"Some girl gave me this," she said. "Said it was an invitation to some kinda game or something."
She tore the envelope open and pulled out a small card. The card was decorated with shiny red swirls along the outside, as well as a large heart symbol at the top. Written on it was the following text, which Joanne read aloud:
Congratulations, Joanne Jonas! You have been cordially invited to participate in the Game of Hearts, an exciting globe-spanning event like no other! Please go to Carnegie Hall in New York City at 3:00 PM on September 20, 2021 to receive more information. Present this invitation to be allowed entry.
"Seems interesting," Joanne said. "And plus, I'll bet an 'exciting globe-spanning event like no other' will have a big cash prize, which I could really use. Even if it doesn't, it could be fun. What do you think, Scorpion Queen?"
"Well…" Scorpion Queen mused. "Opportunities like this don't come around very often…"
"I'd say to go for it if you want to," Focaccia said.
Joanne looked at him, surprise written on her face.
"Really?" she asked. "Seems like the kind of thing you'd hate."
"You know nothing about me," Focaccia replied. "I just so happen to think it sounds very fun. And I'm here to be your bodyguard, not to keep you from doing anything."
"Okay, then," Joanne grinned. "Let's do this, buddy!"
"I'm not your buddy," Focaccia said. "I'm your bodyguard."
"Yeah, whatever," Joanne scoffed.