The alleyways were still dark, and no matter how many flashlights or cell-phone screens you took with you, there still wouldn't be enough light to see a mile ahead of you. It was dark enough in those alleys to carry secrets, set up shady dealings, and to stage surprise assaults...

A painful lesson I learned about 99th street just now. I just wanted to take a shortcut to get home from a long, boring day of classes, and ended up close-lined by a bunch of freaks in fishnet stockings.

Here I am- on my back in a puddle from yesterday's rain - gaping at the infamous Rapid 99 like an idiot. There they are, standing over me with an deviant glint of satisfaction in their eyes.

And suddenly, I found myself blurting out,"What the hell do you want from me?"

Which, of course, I got no response from.

Ever since classes started back after break, a group of girls who randomly started to 'tag along' on my trips back home. At first, I thought they were just some sort of harmless stalker-freaks, since they never came within ten feet of me, so I ignored them entirely. And then, after a few weeks, they started to pick at me in any way that seemed to satisfy their need to do evil; tripping me on the sidewalk and skating away, giving me a shove to 'accidentally' fall in the middle oncoming traffic, tossing random items in my bag in the CD store so the alarm would go off... You name it, they'd done it. Twice.

The girls slowly started to move closer, laughing amongst themselves.

"Hello? I said, what do you want from me?"

Laughter from the girl in the middle ceased; in fact, her entire expression dropped, and she was angry now.

"What do you think we want from you?"

I could feel my brow wrinkle on impulse. "Mind games? I'll pass. Just tell me what you want. You're the one bothering me, aren't you?"

"Smartass," The girl on the left said, crossing her arms.

"We wanna offer you something. This doesn't happen every day, just so you understand me clearly."

The leader offered me her hand, and strangely enough, I trusted her enough to take it.

There was silence among us four for a moment, and then she finally spoke.

"You've got the makings of a 99'er."

"Oh, no." I said immediately. "I don't do the whole... skating-street-gang thing... that's so popular these days," I said, quoting the term with my fingers.

"Come on. You haven't even considered it," the girl on the right said.

I shook my head, looking the girl on the right in the eye. "I don't need to. What could a life of graffiti and fancy skating do for me?"

"You mean, what could a life of power, beauty, and endless excitement do for you," their leader quipped, grinning. "That kinda answers itself, doesn't it?"

The three of them started to giggle.

Even now that I was on neutral ground with the Rapid 99 right now, as opposed to our usual encounters, I still couldn't see any reason to even think about being associated with them. They were... just plain weird. They had a bad rep for catfights, and after tormenting me for a couple of weeks, for whatever reason, they wanted me to be a part of their gang. I think I had every right to say no...

So I said it. "I'm not joining you guys. Sorry."

The girls' borws wrinkled, almost as if they were all in sync. "Yes you are."

Their leader looked at me as though I had just said something crazy. I repeated, "No, I'm-"

"Yeah, you are. If it helps you decide any faster, your place has already been trashed." The leader crossed her arms. "You've got no place to go back to, and if you join us, that problem will be gone as quick as it came."

"What... what do you mean, 'trashed'? By who," I asked.

The thought alone shook me up, but I knew better than to believe it, especially coming from a bunch of misfits. They'd probably tell any kind of lie...

"Love Shockers. Ever heard of those tramps?" The girl on the right asked.

Frowning, I shook my head slowly. The leader smirked.

"Another gang of hussies. As if we need any more," she joked, sticking her tongue out. The girls alongside her slapped her two quick high fives. "Apparently you were screwing around with one of their exes. They wanted some payback. You need to learn to keep your business on the D-L, eh?" she said, giggling with the other two girls.

"Exes? I haven't even..."

Before I could finish my sentence, I needed to be sure of that, myself.

I knew for a fact that at school, I was only involved with one boy, who'd never dated anyone else as far as I knew. And I didn't live around any boys my age, so it wouldn't have been anyone in my neighborhood...

Then I remembered. There was a streak of wild parties after the GG's took back the city from their rivals and the Rokkaku, and I went to the last two with my best friend. I never thought they'd be so much fun, until I was actually inside the garage, dancing with Gum, Rhyth, Jazz, and Boogie. The music was so loud and hypnotizing, that I didn't care who I was dancing with- girl, guy, robot - I was moving beside someone, and we were having a good time.

Even then, there was only one guy that turned my experience into something a little more 'intimate' than it did with any of the other guys, but I never got a name, and I couldn't remember his voice, so after a week of searching, I gave up on my tall, dark, and handsome stranger.

"Hey. Come back to reality, girl."

At the clap of her hands, my eyes darted back onto her face. "So you remember now, right? Don't tell me about it, then. We don't got time to reminiscence in every one of your drunken hookups. You need to be in 99'er uniform pronto. Can you even grind?"

I still wasn't completely snapped out of the memory. I needed to know more about what my life had apparently been turned into. Now, I was a ex-stealing, homeless, high school drop-

"Hey!" The leader snapped in front of me. "You really need to lay off whatever it is you're smoking... What's your name?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Me? Come up with one of those exotic street names? Doubt it." I lightly shrugged, shaking my head. "...what are you guys' names?"

"You don't deserve to know them yet. And you're not picking your official name, dork. We give you that. I meant the one you're leaving behind."

"Oh." I felt like such an idiot, but for some reason, it didn't make me feel bad. "It's Flow."

She smiled. "Hmph. Well, Flow, we've got work to do. Time for you to learn 99th street like the back of your hand."