Chapter Text
Lucy's shoes pounded against the hard, wooden floor of the stairs as she frantically ran up to her bedroom. Steven usually hated when people (namely Johnny and Gyro) ran in the house, but this was important! She'd have to apologize when her adoptive father got home from work.
After Johnny's younger cousin Jodio completely destroyed her personal server two days ago, Lucy was inconsolable. When she questioned him, all Jodio had to say on the matter was that she was a fool for trusting him at all. She'd never admit it out loud, but she was pretty happy when Dragona and Johnny hung him off a chain link fence for half an hour for the whole thing.
Though, it didn't erase the fact that all of her hard progress was erased like that. The upside was that Johnny and Dragona offered to rebuild it for her and make it better, which she accepted after a forced apology from Jodio. In the meantime though, she'd have to hang out elsewhere until it was done.
Thankfully, she wouldn't have to be bored for two long. Someone she followed online named Narancia posted the address for him and his friends' server, called Passione. It might've all been in Italian, but Lucy had been learning it recently anyway! After all, she visited Naples quite often thanks to Johnny's best friend Gyro living there. She was no expert, but she could hold a shaky conversation with someone if she had to.
After grabbing her pink laptop from the bed and logging onto Minecraft, she balanced her cellphone on her knee to copy the server address. As she waited for the server to open up, she drummed her nails on top of the keyboard and hummed. What was the server like? From his posts online, Lucy knew Narancia could be a pretty chaotic person at times. Would it be as messy as Jodio's own server?
She didn't have to wonder for long, however. Her eyes widened slightly as she took in how beautiful the spawn point was. Flowers everywhere, a few fountains even! Lucy was genuinely impressed by the work here as she moved her character to get a better look at everything and to figure out which direction she should go in.. only to pause
Someone else was here.
She leaned in closer to the screen to get a better look at the person's tag, which read GoldExperience. Lucy thought it was a rather fitting name, seeing how gold this person's skin was. The two of them were having a sort of stand off, neither of them speaking or doing anything for a while. That is, until Lucy turned and ran off into the woods. She could hear the person chasing after her, until eventually they just teleported her to them. Her heart pounded as her blue eyes flickered down to the bottom left corner of the screen to read what they were saying.
'How did you get this server?'
It was a fair question. Lucy's own response was quick.
'I followed a link online…'
'Did this link have a special name attached to it?'
'Passione or something. Someone I follow online named Narancia posted it.'
The person paused for a while, and she could imagine that they were probably annoyed by this.
'...Of course it was Narancia.'
Lucy chewed the inside of her cheek, drumming her nails against the keyboard once again. There was no doubt that this server was probably private, and she shouldn't have been here in the first place.
'I can leave if you want??'
'No, you can stay. We have a town nearby if you want to check it out?'
'Sure! You're really nice…'
'Thank you. You're nice too.'
Lucy grinned to herself as she followed the other person's character to their home base, eyes lighting up in excitement. It was just so… fancy! It was like something straight off of YouTube, no less. It had to have taken months to plan out and do, and it felt somewhat familiar to her oddly enough. It was as if she'd personally walked through these streets herself at some point.
'What's your name, by the way? And what does Passione even mean?'
It was a pretty bold question to ask someone she met online for their name, but she figured that someone who was friends with Narancia couldn't be too bad.
'My name is Giorno, and Passione is just Italian for 'passion'. May I have your name too?'
'I'm Lucy…!! Nice to meet you! By the way, I do have my own server.. but my friend's cousin blew it up. So I was looking for somewhere else to go.'
Giorno.. she'd have to remember that name if she got to come onto this server in the future too.
'That.. sounds a lot like something two of my friends would do, actually."
'Griefing's really mean, isn't it? I don't get it.. at least my friend's rebuilding it for me. And I'm banning his cousin.'
'That's nice of him. By the way, there's something you need to know. This server isn't supposed to be open to the public, so if you see anyone named Bruno online just tell him I invited you.'
That.. made Lucy's stomach drop just a little. Her gut feeling from earlier was correct, and she felt slightly bad for just barging in without checking to see if it was alright, even if Giorno gave her the go ahead.
'I'll keep that in mind. But, I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to intrude!'
'It's fine. Narancia shared that link, so I can't blame you for joining. Would you like a tour of the place?'
'If you don't mind! Maybe I can get inspo for my own server.'
'If you like what you see, then you're free to take any screenshots as a reference for your friend.'
As Giorno led her through the town, Lucy held up her phone with her free hand in order to take pictures of the screen. She figured that this way would be far quicker than pressing the screenshot button a few times while trying to walk behind someone. As they walked past faux storefronts, she got another strange sense of deja-vu. She looked back down at the messages as Giorno explained the town.
'We're trying to make this place look like our hometown.'
'You're all from.. Italy, right? I recognize this from my visit last summer.'
'We are. You've been here before?'
'Yup! I was visiting with my father and Johnny. We have a friend named Gyro who lives in Naples. It's really lovely!'
Giorno was silent for a while as the two of them walked past a fake bank, only to begin typing again.
'Interesting. I'm from Naples myself, so we might've passed by each other before. I do think I've heard that name before, actually.'
'That'd be really cool… maybe we can meet up if I get to visit again this year? My Italian isn't the best though.'
'Maybe. We'll see. I know English and some Japanese if need be, so I can help you.'
Lucy smiled at that and prepared to respond, only to jump when she heard someone calling her name. She strained her ears for a bit, only to wrinkle her nose once she realized who it was. Great. Jodio. She knew that hiding in her room for the afternoon wouldn't work, since Jodio probably saw her scooter parked out front. Not to mention, he could be a little pushy when it came to her anyway. So, rolling her eyes, she typed again.
'I have to go now, Giorno… can we exchange numbers so we can talk outside of the game too? I'm gonna be gone most of the day.'
Giorno seemed to hesitate for a moment, before ending up typing it out for her. Lucy did the same after saving his number in her own phone with a long string of ladybug, yellow heart, and sun emojis.
'I should be getting some sleep now anyway. Buona notte, Lucy.'
'Bye bye!'
She finally logged off the game and closed her laptop, and Lucy couldn't help but giggle to herself from the joy of making a new friend. She climbed off her bed and headed back downstairs, and as expected, Jodio was waiting for her by the front door. He looked up from his phone when he saw her, and raised an eyebrow upon seeing her grin.
"What's got you in such a good mood?" He asked as they headed outside. Lucy shook her head, hugging herself as they walked side by side into town. Knowing Jodio, he was probably going to sell what he usually did. She never understood why he brought her along for this, but she always figured it was because the cops wouldn't dare attack Jodio with her around. As much as she disliked him, no one deserved to be hassled by those jerks.
"Nothing in particular." She responded as her smile began to drop. There was no way she was letting him tease her about the whole thing this early into the day.