Harry and Frida stepped into one of the cars of the London Eye.

“I'll check around the car, you check out the windows,” said Harry. “If we don't find the hint, we'll try to get on one of the other cars next ride.”

“Sounds like a plan…” said Frida.

A sweaty man with a backpack climbed into the car. The man sat across from Frida and Harry just as the door closed. The ride began to move. The man wiped his brow.

“S-sorry if I'm a bother to either of you. I'm not very good with heights…”

Frida scowled. “If you throw up on me, I'm kicking you out of the window.”

Frida started drinking from her water bottle again as she looked out of the windows. Harry looked around the car. He noticed a rubbery tentacle reach out of the man's backpack.

“Watch out!”

The tentacle slapped the man, sweat flying off of his face. The writhing stand from earlier leapt out of the bag, now the size of a toddler. Frida dropped her bottle, spilling water all over her lab coat. The stand continually struck the man, slamming its tentacles against his face and underarms. Blood sprayed out of the wounded civilian, and the stand slapped at that as well.

“It's... it's attacking his sweat and blood!” blurted Harry.

“Miss Robot!” called Frida.

Miss Robot appeared, punching two of the stand's nearest tentacles. The rubbery flesh turned to metal as the pair of tentacles became robotic. Miss Robot rapidly kicked the robot tentacles apart. Suddenly, the robot parts were blasted off, and larger tentacles grew in their places. The stand was squeezed against the walls, now nearly filling the entire cabin. A tentacle slapped Frida's lab coat, knocking her against the back wall.

“Th-there's nothing we can do!” screamed Harry. “Attacking the stand only makes it stronger!”

“AAAAAACHOO!”

Harry stood in an ominous, dark room. He scratched his nose and sniffled.

“Sorry, sorry. I guess smoke kinda makes my nose tickle.”

Harry held up an extinguished lighter, with an intricate gold pattern.

“Can... can I start over?”

A massive man sat in a jail cell across from Harry, unamused. A clicking sound rang out through the chamber. Harry flicked the switch over and over, struggling to re-light the lighter. A flame appeared for a brief moment, but immediately went out.

“Oh, shoot! Hold on, I got this…”

Harry continued to click the lighter. The bright jail cell cast a long shadow behind Harry's feet. A stand with a Venetian hat rose up out of the shadow. It grabbed Harry's legs, and stabbed an arrow from its mouth into his lower back.

“HRK!”

Harry keeled over onto the ground, clutching his stomach.

Harry Warhol, age 26. Came to Italy with the hopes that he would strike it rich in the mafia. Harry believed he had the drive necessary to rise through the ranks of Passione. Harry was wrong.

However... what Harry lacked in drive of his own, he made up for with the drive of his allies. In this case, Harry's allies took the form of an army of bacteria living inside his intestines. This army felt no real connection to Harry, of course – but they knew that if their host was killed, they would die along with it. And so, Harry's army awakened its true power!

Back at the London Eye, Harry climbed to his feet.

“If attacking the stand makes it stronger… the only way to beat it is to not attack! Rapture!”

A colony of creatures appeared from behind Harry's back. The creatures ate away at the floor of the car, and the occupants all fell. Harry grabbed Frida. As the group fell, Rapture spat out metal in front of it. The pair landed on a bowl of metal in the Thames. The enemy stand and the bystander landed in the river behind them, creating a small wave that launched the bowl away. Harry & Frida slowly floated away from the Eye. The tentacled stand thrashed around in the water, now the size of a small car.

“The stand just attacks randomly!” shouted Frida. “If we stay away from it, it can't get at us!”

“No... it doesn't attack randomly,” said Harry. “Before, it specifically attacked that man's sweat and blood, and it attacked the water on your coat. The stand can only see moisture... and we've managed to confuse it by getting it in the river!”

The rubbery stand continued to thrash around. A glob of Thames water splashed onto Frida and Harry. The stand stopped writhing, then lunged at the duo.

“Shit! Miss Robot!”

Miss Robot unleashed a flurry of kicks against the attacking tentacles. The force pushed the bowl away from the stand. The stand lunged at the pair once more. Its tentacles regrew, now even bigger than before. Suddenly, the stand was yanked backward towards the London Eye.

Frida wiped the water off her face. “This stand... it's forced to move away from its targets when it grows?

Harry peered towards the Eye. The bearded man who originally dropped the stand was there, searching around the base of the structure.

“It's not forced to move away from us... it's forced to move towards its user!”

“Which means the bigger it gets, the less I have to worry about the stand out-ranging me!"

Frida used Miss Robot to leap off of the bowl and onto shore. She dashed along the road, towards the user. The bearded man was crouched down next to some markings on a support beam.

“‘France’… ‘Rodentia’… ‘The molecular structure of water’…” murmured the man. “Those three phrases are the next hint of the scavenger hunt. But to what do they lead, Ras wonders…”

A gloved fist punched Ras, turning his arm robotic. He screamed as Frida grabbed his shoulders.

“AAGH!!! What happened to Ras's arm?!”

“Wait a minute... you're that Ras B.B. guy! ‘Feeding Your Inner Pete’ or whatever it was called!”

“‘Taming the Inner Beast’, you swine!” spat Ras. “And if you had read Ras's book, you wouldn't have made such a fool of yourself. One of Ras's tips to achieve oneness is to allow others to become one with you. So... that's just what Ras will do!”

Ras elbowed Frida in the stomach. He grabbed her hand and ran his long, black tongue across her forearm. Frida's limb was dripping with saliva. Ras kicked Frida off of the shore, and into the water.

“Octopus Has No Friends~! Time for din-din~!”

The tentacled stand lunged at Frida, pulling her into its mass.

“Soon, you will become one with Ras’s pet – making you one with Ras!”

Ras paused as he began to hear words in a strange alien language. Ras looked down, only to see four of Rapture's bodies eating away at his robotic arm.

“What the- whose creatures are these, all sneaky-like?!”

Harry stood on the side of the road, mere feet away from Octopus Has No Friends in the Thames.

“They would be mine, actually,” said Harry. “And sneaking around isn't all they can do!”

The creatures shot a barrage of metal at Ras, cutting his face. Ras slapped Rapture away.

“Worthless pests! A weakling spirit like this isn't deserving of true prosperity!”

“Funny you say that – because I'd say our stands share some similarities! Your stand starts weak and gets stronger – similarly, while my soldiers may be weak, my army is stronger than you can imagine!”

Rapture formed into a humanoid figure next to Harry. The stand rapidly punched Octopus Has No Friends, destroying the tentacles holding Frida. Each time a tentacle was destroyed, a new, larger one grew in its place. Harry marched forward with Rapture as the stand was pulled closer and closer to its master.

“Foolish man!” screamed Ras. “The spirit of Ras B.B. can never be destroyed!”

Harry breathed heavily. The stand was now bigger than the London Eye. The fleshy tentacles were situated next to Ras's feet. A drop of blood slid down Ras’s face. Ras looked back towards his stand.

"Wait, I-"

A tentacle slapped the bearded man, smashing his skull to pieces.

Ras B.B., self-help book author: Retired!

= = = = = = = = = =

Frida and Harry entered the apartment. Everything in the dining room was ransacked. The window was shattered, and burn marks covered the couch.

“What the- did Dalia make a mess again?!” cried Harry.

“This doesn't seem like something she'd be capable of…” said Frida. “Hold up, where is she?”

“Good question. Dalia!”

Harry wandered into the kitchen, and opened a cupboard above the stove. Dalia was curled up inside. She was beaten to a pulp, and softly crying.

“Mow…”

“Dalia! Did someone break in? Did they take anything valuable?!”

“Mow... mow…”

Frida shoved Harry aside. “Get out of the way! Don't worry, Dalia, I'll fix you up.”

“Mow…”

Miss Robot gently lifted Dalia out of the cabinet, her body becoming robotic in the process.

A man and a woman approached the Thames, near the Millennium Bridge. The man was mostly unclothed, but had a metal skull helmet and bone-like shorts. Strange piercings went through his body, and holes in his calves displayed his bones. The woman wore a short skirt and a shirt with an exposed midriff. She had a large triangular color and rubber gloves. Her ears were covered with bloody tissue paper. The woman pulled up her glove with a hand carrying two bloody planet-shaped earrings, and looked at her watch.

“Virginia's late,” said the woman. “We'll probably miss the start of tonight's gathering.”

“Yes, I expect so. Though, I doubt Mistress Newton will be too mad – after all, we've been looking for the Secret Steps for a while now…”

The woman held up the stolen blue feather, inspecting its golden ring design. Fog rolled in along the riverbanks.

“Finally!”

A riverboat with an American flag rose from the river. Through the fog, the words “Proud Mary” could be seen on the side of the boat. A platform extended, and the two walked aboard. The duo stepped through a door into an ornate ballroom. A young woman in a red, white, and blue dress emerged from behind a column.

“You're late,” said the man. “I hope Michaela doesn't kill you for this…”

Virginia sputtered. “B-but... I didn't…”

“Don't worry, I won't tell her. Probably. Let's just get upstairs before this week's gathering starts without us.”

“Y-yeah, sure…”

The three walked across the ballroom to a marble flight of stairs. The boat sank back into the water, and the fog disappeared.