A/N: Well...hello...I guess it's been a good year since I posted anything worthy, hasn't it? Anyways! For those of you who remember me, I'm HeartMurdock345...just with a different name...I'll stop rambling and talk about the story now because it isn't all about me, since I have a partner in this writing business now!
This awesome story is being Co-Written by me and LookImUpsideDown, and basically we have a group of orphans who are living together and keep having all kinds of trouble with this gang. So who do they happen to find? And prepare for shockers in later chapters! We hope you enjoy this story!
"And...Checkmate." Marcus Schevik knocked his opponent's white king off the board, smiling in sweet victory. Nick Anderson scowled at his loss. "You cheated."
Marcus instantly shook his head back and forth. "You just can't play."
"And you're just an egghead." Nick smirked as he left the table to sit beside Axel Turner on the couch, who was flipping through a magazine that appeared to be about cars.
"Maybe if you had ever went to class, you would have learned some things in life." Marcus called over as he set the board back up.
The seventeen year old on the couch rolled his eyes. "Where's the fun in that?" Nick was muttering.
Axel turned halfway towards him, pushing her dirty-blond hair out of her green eyes. "Might have kept you out of jail all those times."
"Hey," Nick pointed at the sixteen year old girl with his index finger. "Jail is one thing. It makes you look tough, like you actually went out and did something dangerous. But winning a chess match to a twelve year old is nothing to gloat about."
Marcus pushed his glasses up his nose as he glared at Nick. "I'm thirteen, Nick."
"And I don't really care, ginger."
"Don't call me ginger!" The younger boy stood and left the table, standing in front of Nick with clenched fists. "You know I don't like being called that."
Nick ran a hand through his shaggy light-brown hair and smirked at the frustrated kid before him. "And why do you think I do it?" His icy blue eyes glistened with the joy of picking on the boy.
Axel dropped the magazine onto the table, it made a soft thud and she leaned towards the boys. "How about we stop arguing like children and have a decent conversation where no one gets offended? And Nick, in case you don't understand: Stop picking on Marcus or I'll smack you with my magazine."
Luckily the door opened and neither party had to agree to that suggestion, for a tall African woman came breezing in with a small boy at her side, holding her hand tightly.
"Lia," Nick heaved himself off the sofa. "You got my Snowballs, right?"
Lia Jackson gave him a sharp look as she nodded to the bags in her hands. "Well hi, Nick. I'm fine, thank you very much. Want to give me a hand? Of course you do." She lifted her arm and dropped the two bags into Nick's hand before he could object.
The eleven year old at her side went to sit beside Axel on the couch, offering her a stick of gum from the pink package he held.
"Thanks, Joshi." She popped it in her mouth and resumed reading her magazine. By now, another face had joined the small crowd in the apartment. A fifteen year old Chinese girl came out of the bathroom, her soft black hair hanging wet around her face. Hochi Chan let out a quick gust of air, fanning herself.
"Sure gets steamy in there."
"You could shower with the door open," Nick offered, which was followed by Lia smacking his arm and Hochi throwing the only couch pillow across the room at him.
She folded her arms over her chest, her face unhappy. "You would like that, wouldn't you?"
Nick's only response was a sly grin and Axel turned around on the couch, indicating Joshi Mattman. "Hey! Young ears, asshole."
It was Lia's turn to point, looking quite stern. "Hey, language!"
"Yeah, 'cause I'm not used to that, too." Joshi was muttering as he untied his shoelaces and kicked the shoes off.
"Well you better not be repeating it, Joshi." Lia reminded the blond haired, brown eyed boy for the sixth time that week and he almost groaned, knowing better.
"I know. But don't think I didn't hear Levi over-using a certain naughty word a few hours ago."
"Levi had two excuses," Nick explained, climbing up to sit on the dining table across the room. "One, he's twenty. Two, he was really pi-...I mean ticked off. And three, it just sounds cool when Levi says it, since he's so dark anyways."
Axel rolled her eyes. "That's THREE excuses. God, Nick. First, you lose to a thirteen-year-old at chess. Now, you can't count to three. I didn't think it was possible, but you might actually be getting STUPIDER."
Marcus snorted laughter from his place at the refrigerator, earning a quick scowl from Lia before she went to grab Nick's ear roughly. "Hey, ow!"
"Get your butt off the table, we eat there." She proceeded to tug his ear until he scrambled down and shoved her off him.
"Look, I'm the hot one here. Don't ruin my face and/or head." Nick made a circle gesture with his finger. Pretty much used to his behavior, the others mostly ignored him.
Joshi reached for the television remote and turned the small TV on. Axel kicked her feet up on the rickety coffee table to read an article about the latest Lamborghini. Lia finished putting the small amount of groceries away and sat at the table to look at the paperwork for her part time job. Marcus wandered back to his chess set and much to his dismay, Nick followed. Hochi pulled her legs up onto the chair with her, watching the show Joshi had selected.
This was a typical evening for the small household. The only missing piece was the tall, dark-haired Levi Rizzo. Normally he would have been seated beside Lia, his girlfriend, watching her work with his big, deep brown eyes. But Levi had stepped out for a walk around noon, in order to calm himself from his previous explosion. This one had been about a threatening letter telling the group they were going to get kicked out soon if they couldn't pay rent within the week.
Being the oldest, Levi felt it his responsibility to take care of these things, and he felt as if he was going to fail taking care of everyone like he had promised to do. Lia knew it had something to do with there being no one to take care of him when he was a child- not that she'd ever share that thought with Levi. He was a sweetheart, but mention his family and… it isn't pretty.
"Let's watch-" Hochi's suggestion broke off when the door was opened once more and she was the first to see who was coming in. Her tiny scream was loud and got the attention of everyone else.
Levi stumbled in, barely managing to walk. His clothes were torn and bloody, and more of the warm red stuff was running out of his nose and his jacket sleeves. His right eye was blacked, the bruise extending down over his cheek and to his chin. His bottom lip suffered a large gash, his shaggy hair completely messed up.
Lia was the first to reach him, afraid to touch him in case the damage was even worse under his clothes. But she could not resist and embraced him in her warm arms. He gasped for a moment before slowly putting his right arm around her, hearing her sniffing into his jacket.
Joshi managed to see around her and suddenly shrieked at the sight. He was backing away, tears falling freely down his cheeks. Marcus jumped out of his chair, gagging at the sight of the blood as he felt his heart racing in his chest.
"Lev?" Lia whispered, looking up at him. He tried to breathe, but a sudden pain stopped that and he double over, clutching his chest with a grimace. As the spasm of pain ended, he managed to partly straighten up.
"I'm… Fine. I'm fine." Levi managed to sputter out. Lia shook her head in disbelief. He tried to grin at his girlfriend- a horrible sight, as his mouth was full of blood. "Li- I'm okay."
"Oh, yeah," Axel scoffed, though her face was pale. "You're just PERFECT."
Hochi was in the corner of the room, hugging herself as she shook with terror. "They've gotten worse!" She cried to the others. "They almost killed him!"
Lia glanced at her, knowing she was right. She led the broken man to the couch, where Axel made room. As soon as she had him down, Lia quickly went to pull Hochi in her arms to calm the younger girl as Nick left his chair to kneel by Joshi, doing the same as the boy sobbed into his shoulder.
Axel stared in disbelief at the broken man next to her, who was at that moment bleeding all over the couch.
"That's it!" Axel said furiously. She jumped up from her place on the couch. "I am tired of hiding while those dicks get away with this! We have to go do something."
Lia stared at her, incredulous and terrified. "Axel, no." she said. "We can… we can call the police again."
Nick looked at her over the top of Joshi's shaking head. "They'll just say what they've said the last four times we called. Not enough evidence to make an arrest."
"Levi just got mugged! That isn't evidence enough?" asked Hochi through her tears.
"What'll they do, look for fingerprints in his bruises?" Axel asked. "We're on our own. It's time we stood up for ourselves."
Nick grinned. "I haven't beat the cr- uh, the snot out of anyone in a while. Sounds like fun."
"I agree," said Marcus. He was doing his best not to look at Levi's battered face. "As they say, sometimes you've got to fight fire with fire."
Nick glared at him. "Fight fire with fire? What are YOU gonna do, ginger? Challenge the thugs to a game of chess?"
Marcus clenched his fist, but suddenly a garbled cry rang out. "STOP!"
They all turned in surprise to Levi, who was looking at them through puffy eyes. "Stop. All of you… stop. We're not gonna do anything. We're gonna wait it out."
Axel threw her hands out. "So we're gonna stay holed up in here until Dumb and Dumber and Even Dumber decide to leave us alone? We're gonna be cowards?"
"We are not being cowards, Alexandra." said Levi. Everyone stiffened. Levi only used full names when he was getting pissed. "We are being SMART. I won't have you kids running out to confront those guys."
"You kids?" Axel seethed. "I'm sixteen! I'm not a kid! I'm-"
"You're staying here." Levi interrupted. "It's final." He motioned to Lia, and she helped him rise off the couch, and limp his way down the hallway to their room.
Axel stood frozen for a few seconds, then with a sudden movement, grabbed her magazine off the table and chucked it out the window. She felt a sudden pressure on her waist. Joshi was hugging her.
She bent down, and ruffled his hair. "C'mon, squirt. It's not that bad. It'll be okay." He nodded and sniffled.
Nick strolled across the room, stopping next to the door. "It's a shame about that magazine, Ax."
Axel shrugged. "S'okay. I read it alre-"
"A real shame," Nick continued. "In fact, no one would blame you if you wanted to go down and get it."
Axel looked mystified. Nick rolled his eyes.
"Yep, that'd be perfectly reasonable. And if we just HAPPENED to run into those thugs while we were down there…" He trailed off.
Axel gave him a crooked smile. "Nick- forget what I said before. You're a freaking GENIUS."