Emerald City, 7:15 AM

James King was running like hell. Why? Because he knew that if he was late, he wouldn't get paid. He needed this income. Otherwise, how else was he supposed to get the money to pay the landlord, and support six hungry people?

James King was a boy who had dropped out of school after his parents found they didn't have enough money, due to a burglar coming one night and robbing them blind. That had led to an argument between his parents about something with putting money in a bank, which led to an argument after that, which led to an argument the next day, which led to a long series of harsh arguments, which led to a divorce. James, at the age of fifteen, with the thought of not taking part in any of this crazy bullshit any longer, decided that the best thing to do was to try to make it on his own.

James had hoped he could get by on his good looks, (six-foot two, slight six-pack, medium blonde hair that when flipped correctly made him look like a prick, what girl wouldn't want to take him in?) and charm (despite being near-terrible in book smarts, he did have damn good street smarts... whenever his mouth wasn't running). That great thought process lead to a little while without food, showers, or a home. After the first two weeks, he found an old trailer house for sale, and was able to get one of his older friends to pay the money for him, but he still had to make his own money. And the most logical conclusion...

At the age of seventeen, James was doing a... less than ideal job. Selling what he called 'the best damn Mary Jane this part o' Emerald City'. Not to say he was proud of what he did, but hell, it put bread on the table. Hell, it also gave him the damn table to put the bread on, as well as a roof over that table, walls surrounding it, and basically everything else he owned. It also helped pay for his... associates, who also lived with him.

He himself never smoked the substance, as he thought that if he started, he might end up wasting his only revenue just to get high. 'Then my life would turn into one of those don't do drugs PSAs.' he thought. He sometimes had problems with one of his roommates getting into the stuff, but that rarely happened. As he got closer to the house, he slowed down from a dead sprint to a quick jog, and rang the doorbell. He caught his breath while he waited. Looking around, he noticed that it was a pretty nice neighborhood. Much different from the ghettos he was currently residing in.

The door opened to reveal a man who looked to be in his late 30's. Tall, Caucasian, slight beard, noticeable bald spot, pretty chubby, tired eyes and a big ol' mole near his nose. All in all, kinda an ugly bastard. From the high pitched screaming inside, he could tell it was a stressed out father, and from the look of happiness on his face when he saw the 'parcel' James was carrying, he could tell he just made this guy's day a helluva lot better.

"That'll be fifty bucks, my good man."

Wordlessly, the man gave the money and snatched the bag from James's hand. James smirked.

"Tis a pleasure doin business with ya, sir. I hope we can do business la-"

SLAM!

"Quite... ow."

James's nose did hurt quite a bit after that. 'He must not have it too bad, that was a strong damn door.' he thought to himself with a scowl on his face. He started walking back to his home, and also started viewing his surroundings. Green grass, nice houses, the usual suburbs. He compared it to where he was now. The trailer park was... well, craptacular. The ground was covered with cigarette butts, beers bottles, and the occasional dead weasel or rat. It was nice to be in an environment where you felt you could sit on the ground without having to give yourself anti-bacterial stuff.

James decided to take a shortcut through an old alleyway. This alleyway was in between two huge stores that were a part of a long line of management buildings and walmarts, bigger fancier houses, and McDonalds and the like. They basically served as the border of Emerald City and Emerald Shitty. The metaphorical tracks that had the right and wrong side, if you will.

As he walked through the alleyway, his eyes scanned the area in a paranoid fashion, darting left and right. He walked cautiously, going so far as to make sure each step was silent. He had taken this shortcut about six times before, and two of those times had not ended well. There was a small gang of about three guys and a girl that claimed that this was 'their turf'. James has chuckled when he heard this, and made he unfortunate mistake of claiming that this being their home made his residence not look too bad. That instance had gotten him a nice little scar jutting from the bottom left of his lip to halfway to the chin.

He was almost to the end of the narrow pass when he felt a sudden pressure around his neck. He could tell by how hairy the arm was that it was one of the members of the gang.

"Whata we got ere, eh?"

"Oh f*ck me."

"Nah, 'm good."

James was then shoved to a nearby wall, where he fell to arms and knees and looked up at his attackers. They were the original four, plus a new girl. There was a big, tough looking guy with a large black moustache, another, smaller guy with a smaller moustache, a bald guy with no moustache that was carrying a golf bag filled with blunt objects. The first girl had multiple piercings all over her face and blue highlights in her hair. The new girl had red highlights, and carried a stern expression as she wielded her own huge knife.

James coughed a bit and went to stand, only to have Spalding knock him down with a sledge hammer. He then sneered at James as he spoke through an odd high pitched voice.

"Sit your five dollar ass down before I make change!"

"Y'know, I know that's from a movie somewhere, (cough), but just because it was cool there doesn't mean it's cool now."

Again, this probably wasn't the brightest thing for him to say, as he got another whack to the back. James wisely decided to stay quiet as the red haired girl was told to search his pockets... well, he wasn't too wise for long.

"So, what am I gonna call you?"

"Hm?" The girl asked, sounding disinterested.

"I mean, I got nicknames for the others. There's Captain Pornstache over there, Psycho Spalding, Smalls, and Blue Bitch, or BB for short."

The rest of the group sent little annoyed glares at James, while the red haired girl just raised her eyebrows. "If you're going to all the trouble to come up with insults for people who hurt you, then shouldn't you try a little better besides Smalls and Blue Bitch?"

"They're not insults, they're pet names. Nick names. Believe me, I do nothing to offend."

The girl got the money and also took out the knife as well.

"Small man has a tiny knife I guess." Captain Pornstache sneered.

"Remind me to laugh later at that joke. So, am I all good, or do you want the shirt off my back as well?"

"Sounds great."

"Of course." James really needed to learn how to shut the hell up.

James finally got to his front door, bruised, mugged, and shirtless. He picked the key from inside his left shoe (thankfully a place the girl had not checked), and opened the door. After doing so, the first thing he heard was a loud SMASH! coming from the was followed by some yelling, as two voices, both male, were arguing.

"Damnit! Not the wine!"

"Smooth move, ex lax."

"Ah shut up. Listen, I'll get the glass fragments, you try to mop up the wine."

"Fine."

"Man, I hope we can talk King into buyin us more wine. I aint gonna be able to function right if we don't got anythin."

The next thing that was heard was a cough. "You two may not have heard it due to your own idiotic actions, but I do believe I heard the door open." And then all was silent. James sighed, and closed the door behind him. The way the trailer was set up, was like this: you enter through the front or back door into the main room, which held a small sofa, a recliner, and a small bookshelf. From the front door moving left was the kitchen. It was pretty small, cramming together a fridge, washer and dryer, sink, and counter space with small drawers. That left enough open floor space for about six people to stand.

To the right was the workroom/bedroom of James and James's close friend, Winslow McGregor. Winslow and James had met about two days after James had gotten his new abode, and Winslow had been fourteen years old at the time. Winslow was a very scrawny, somewhat short kid, which meant he wasn't exactly the world's best hand to hand fighter. He had short, spiked black hair, and extremely pale skin. He also had the unnatural ability to talk more than anybody, ever. He also was one of the best damn handgun shooters, ever. He also had a weak lung, due to a pack of cigarettes always in his pocket, along with a lighter. Now at the age of sixteen, Winslow was basically James's Consiglieri. He talked to Winslow about everything, and the kid always seemed to have the answer. He also always had a holster for a double action revolver.

The two morons in the kitchen were Kevin and Danny. They had arrived about six months prior to today, one of them being 12, and the other being 13. Danny, the 12 year old, was pretty tall, and well built. He had a small six pack built up, and had a buzzcut, showing barely visible brown hair. He was also a mild alcoholic. Most people said that this claim is false, as he doesn't drink beer or whiskey. Well, there's still plenty of alcohal in wine. Danny considered it to be the classy version of beer, that and it didn't taste God awful. He also usually carried a baseball bat wherever he went. He was overly protective of his brother, Kevin, and barely ever thought it was a good idea to let him leave the house. Danny was usually calm, except when he didn't have his sauce, in which case he was, in Winslow's words, 'a batshit, pathetic, little unnatural disaster.'

Kevin was hard to describe. His appearance was very tall, almost as tall as James despite the age difference. He had long, white hair, and he usually let it fall down in a messy fashion. The most interesting thing about him though was that he always wore a mask. This mask was a plane blue, plastic Eyeless Jack mask. He usually was the one to make a smart comeback at any of the other three, and was probably the least flawed out of them all. He kept a guitar below one of the couches in the main room, and would usually play it when nobody else was around. Almost all the time he wore a grey hoodie, and black jeans. His job around the house was growing the pot that James delivered. And by doing so, he thought it was only fair that he should always sample before selling.

Today, James had close to no patience. He waited expectantly for the two idiots to come out, and that they did, after about five minutes. Danny came in, making sure to avoid eye contact. Kevin, meanwhile, had his mask facing directly towards James, possibly confident that there was no punishment coming to him.

"So?"

Danny looked up, and then looked down a little, again.

"Maybe, uh, dropped the wine..."

"Uh huh. So, there goes the wine for this two weeks."

"Well, I was wonderin if maybe you'd-"

"Like hell."

"Aw come on King. How the hell am I supposed tah function right if I don't got wine?"

"Easy, you fuckin shut the hell up about it and maybe try to be sober for more than two fuckin hours."

At this point Winslow came in the room as well. He had the usual bags under his eyes and messy black hair. He was rubbing his forehead as a barely noticeable groan came from his throat.

"Hey Dan, how about this. You can go an buy another casket if you like."

Winslow handed Danny ten bucks, but before Danny could take the money away, James snatched his hand.

"Now Danny Boy, when you come back I want half that dough back, and you can keep the casket. If you aint got five buck by the times you get back, Ima smash the damn bottle over your thick skull an make you lick up the sauce and glass, got it?"

'Danny Boy' seemed to get the message, as he knew that whenever James made a threat, he almost always kept it. He violently shook his head up and down and ran out of the house with the money. Kevin stopped him, and offered to go instead.

"Nah, it's alright Kev man, I got it."

"It's alright Danny Boy, if I let you go, you might drop it again. 'Sides, it's just a block or two away. See ya guys."

"You'd still better have that five dollars, it doesn't look like King's in a good mood today!" Winslow called after him.

Danny watched his brother leave, and decided to sprawl out on the couch.

Winslow looked over at James.

"King?"

"Hm?"

Winslow motioned towards James's bare chest.

"Oh yeah. Smalls and his guys got me in an alleyway. Mother fucks took the cash, the left overs in my pocket, my fucking knife, the knife my fucking father gave me when I was a kid, and to add insult to injury they take the shirt off my fucking back. Mother fuckers."

"Damnit King, are we going to go get it back?"

...

James was silent for a little while as he contemplated what to do.

"Well, Win, we can't just go over and ask. What are four teenagers gonna do to five adults?"

Winslow pulled a gun out of his holster.

"We ask nicely."

"Nah, shootin em up would garner too much attention from the cops."

"Not if we dispose of them proper like."

Danny stretched on the couch, deciding to throw in his two cents.

"Here's how it looks, gents. We got five individuals who are taking our income, and the way it looks, this may soon become a regular thing. If we don't do anything, we lose money, we lose house, we lose food, we lose life. We do something, we have a risk of getting thrown in prison after police come and look over things. That's a risk, mind you, not fact. Also if take em out, we don't have to worry about them going after us, and the punishment isn't as bad. Think about it, jail over death."

"Unless we're put on death row." James replied.

"But still-"

"And now here's my thought. We get back-up jobs." said Winslow.

"But King's already got enough on his hands."

"I didn't mean that King gets another job."

...

"Fuck, you know I hate that fuckin word. Job."

"Ok, here's the real options," King said slowly, "gettin a job, goin to jail, or death."

"Fuck, jail still sounds nicer."

"And you sound awfully dumb by saying that." Winslow pinched the bridge of his nose in agitation.

"Man fuck you."

"Ok," James interrupted, "both you shut the hell up. As soon as Kevin gets back, we're gonna discuss what to do."

knock knock knock

The three boys looked at the door, confused.

"Is he really already back?"

"I hope he made it back alright... with the wine, too."

"He better have five bucks with him."

James opened the door, expecting either their friend or a girl scout selling cookies. Something he wasn't expecting was Kevin, along with six unconscious teenagers, and one unconscious adult.

Out of the teenagers, there were five 16 year old girls, and a boy that looked either 15 or 16. Two girls had purple hair, one with a white button up shirt and black shirt, and black heels. The other had a purple t-shirt and white jeans. One girl was blonde with a cowboy hat, blue jeans, orange button up shirt, and boots. One had pink hair, with a yellow sweater and a green skirt. One had multi colored hair, wearing a sleeveless blue shirt and matching blue shorts. The boy was wearing a light purple shirt with a darker purple jacket on top of it, and green shorts. The adult was a woman who looked to be in her early thirties, and she had long, blue hair with some sort of weird hat on. She had a long blue dress (which looked as though it had met a sugar high kid with glitter) and blue heels. Easily, this was one of the weirdest sights the four had seen in the neighborhood.

All three of them looked up, looking confused, (rightfully so, might I add).

"Yeah, uh, I found them in the middle of the street. How did you not seem em, King?"

"I didn't think there was anything when I walked by."

"Well, I also found this with em."

Kevin pulled out a suitcase he had hid behind his back, and opened it to reveal hundreds of bundles of hundred dollar bills. The four were silent, until...

"Uh..."

Kevin turned around and James looked out to see a girl scout selling cookies.

"Wanna buy some cookies?"

Author's Note

I'd just like to thank everyone for reading my last chapter. Thanks for reading this one as well. Have a pleasant day.