Hope you like this. Please keep in mind this is my first Newsies fanfic. Newsies belongs to Disney, I only own the characters I make up.

Chapter 1

"Extra, Extra! Man mugged! Found half-dead!" Jack Kelly shouted his improved headline. The actual story was the guy got away with only a couple of bruises, but that didn't sell.

"Here, I'll take one," a man said handing Jack a coin. That request was followed by another, then another. In a matter of minutes he had sold 20 papes. Not too bad, he thought to himself as he slipped away before they realized the headline was slightly exaggerated.

The rest of his selling day was a repeat of the same trick. Improved headline, sell a bunch, and move on before he got figured out. Just another day in the life.

By the time he sold out it was roughly the time when most of the other newsies were eating whether they had finished selling or they just needed a break. As he headed over to Tibby's he ran into David going in the same direction.

"Hey Davey. How was selling?"

"The usual," David began, but was interrupted by someone calling Jack's name as he ran over to them.

"What's wrong Race?" Jack asked hearing the panic in his friend's voice.

The dark haired Italian paused a moment to catch his breath before rattling off the issue as fast as he possibly could. "Spider and Pepper came back. This time they got Crutchy. We fought 'em off, but he's not looking good."

Jack closed his eyes. This was not the first time newsies from the Bronx had gone after his boys. And every time he hoped it would be the last. Opening his eyes he asked, "Where is he now?"

"Blink and Mush took him back to the Lodge."

"Well then let's go." Jack said turning and heading in the direction of the Newsboys Lodging House.

The walk was carried out in a tense silence. This would be the fourth time in a month those two Bronx newsies had done this, and each kid they got always ended up worse than the one before him. No one knew why they kept doing this, just that they wouldn't without orders from the head of the Bronx newsies, Lightning. The Manhattan newsies kept waiting for Jack to plan something in retaliation, but he never did. After the second attack he had gone to talk to Lightning, but got turned away, and that was all that was done. The Manhattaners had no clue what was up with their leader. Race had suggested that maybe too much time around David had drilled into his head that talking was the only way to handle something, but no one took it seriously.

The truth of it was Jack was in denial. Only a few months ago all the newsies in New York had united against Pulitzer. He couldn't believe that in such a short amount of time Lightning could forget all that and try to start a turf war.

When they entered the Lodging house they were met with the grim expressions of Blink and Mush. "How is he?" Jack asked.

Mush replied, "Kloppman patched him up and said he'd be fine, but he's really hurt Jack."

Jack nodded before climbing up the stairs to the bunk room. The first thing he saw was the small group gathered around Crutchy. Hearing their leader come in they turned toward him and stepped aside.

Crutchy looked like a mess. Two black eyes, cuts all over his face, and an arm in a sling.

"How ya doing?" Jack asked.

"I'll be ok Jack. It looks worse than it is." Crutchy replied ever the optimist. "My arm's not even hurt. They dislocated my shoulder. Kloppman set it back in place and told me not to move it too much."

"Did they say anything about why they were doing all of this?"

"Not really, just that we should be staying alert if we don't want to get hurt."

Shouts broke out from the surrounding newsies. Racetrack's voice sounded above them all, "Jack they're pretty much declaring war!"

Jack looked at his friend and said, "I know."

"So what are we going to do?"

Jack paused to think. If the Bronx was serious about this war they wouldn't try to go it alone. If he wanted his boys to make it through they would need bigger numbers. Racking his brain Jack thought of a source. "At the moment we do nothing."

"What do you mean nothing?" Race exclaimed. "We can't just let them get away with going after us anytime they feel like it."

Jack started toward the door. "I know, but I've got an idea of someone who can help us. Someone close."

"And I assume you're on your way to go talk to that someone?"

Jack nodded. "And I think I'll take the Walking Mouth with me." He said pushing David out the door with him. "He might help with the convincing."

Probably not the best start, but it will get better. Read and review. :~)