Disclaimer: Wow, I don't own any of the base material, and odds are neither do you. I'm just borrowing it for a story.
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Robbie was unresponsive as Andre loaded him and his bike into the car. He took the time to go get Sam, her bike, as well as her snack, and from their rushed to the only place he knew he'd get help. It was a little house in Northridge, one he didn't quite know the address of, so Andre called ahead.
"Hi, Tug is it? I'm just calling to see if you could help us. I seem to remember, back when you went to our Prome, that you weren't like other football players. You're good at first aid, right?" Andre hoped the big guy would be willing to help them.
Fifteen minutes later, they were at Tug's home, and Robbie was being carried into the house. The nerdy boy was still unresponsive. "What happened?" Tug asked.
"We got into a fight. Seems to be happening a lot lately." Andre said. "Less you know, the safer you are."
"Wrong." Tug replied. "You want help, you talk." Despite the threat, the big guy was already starting to work on Robbie's hands and other wounds.
Andre hesitated, using the excuse of getting Sam, who was already recovering, and getting her into the house. He'd hoped that would give Tug enough time to get distracted, so he wouldn't have to explain what was going on. But the respite was short lived, and Tug insisted, so Andre just started telling what he knew.
"Robbie here's in love with Cat. She's dating this user jerk named Gideon Graves. Calls himself the G-Man. Anyways, Rob here thought he'd try and help Cat out of a controlling and potentially abusive relationship by... I don't know what he was originally going to do. But Gideon's boys had orders to kick the chiz out of Robbie." Andre stopped to make sure Tug was following.
"I wound up fighting his first battle for him. Rob here's not much of a fighter, and the first guy wasn't nearly as bad ass as the G-Mans regular enforcers. Anyways, it seemed that every time he wound up going against one of G-man's enforcers, someone was there to bear the brunt of the fight for him. Except tonight. Sam there took on Todd Ingram, and beat him bad. But a couple of Cat's ex's came at us while she was recharging. They weren't nearly as tough as the enforcers, so I was able to take one down while Rob here held his own against the other." Andre took a moment to catch his breath. He was still piecing together whatever happened next.
"Robbie had the advantage, straddling his opponent after we switched. He said something about how lucky that guy was to have ever had a moment with Cat, and how he'd thrown her away over something stupid. Then he started wailing on him, and when he stopped, just started crying. Don't know much else, had to get out of there before the Police got there and things got complicated. You know, the winners are usually the one's blamed for the fight." Andre smiled, hoping Tug would understand.
"You fled from the PoPo before they arrested you for being black at the scene of a crime? Good call." Tug said. "Your friend's exhausted. Stay here for now, rest. He'll probably want to talk once he's recovered. Or not. Either way, this isn't as bad as you think it is. From what I hear, G-Man's a serious dude, and he is at the front of whats hip and now. It sounds like your group took out a couple of his top guys. I mean, Todd was number three, right? I'll bet G-Man's having kittens." Andre was stunned at how much Tug knew.
Across town, Gideon was having a bad moment. "Define gone?" The flunky twisted under his gaze, a feeling he usually liked. But today, It was just irritating. "They can't just disappear, can they?"
"Our contacts in the police don't know if Andre took him, or if someone else was responsible for his disappearance. Samantha Puckett's bike is also missing, so she could have taken Mister Shapiro. And if our assessment is correct, she defeated mister Ingram, so she's a force to be taken seriously." The flunky said. "Regardless, they are not at any of their usual haunts. We have people watching everywhere these people are know to frequent, and they haven't shown at any of hem. We're also watching the hospitals, in case Danny and his guy were able to hurt them enough to require medical treatment."
"This is getting us no where." Gideon said. "Maddie, call Mister Harris. It's time we found out what he's up to."
Andre's phone rang as he was being treated. He had a lot of minor cuts and bruises, mostly from blunt force trauma, so Tug was cleaning his wounds. As his phone rang Tug took it, showing Andre and asking who it was. "It's Gideon!" Andre said.
"Not a problem. Tell me, what lie would he believe?" Tug asked, then thought better. "Forget it, according to Cat, you're with some girl you picked up. You don't even need a name, since you rarely seem to keep them long enough for that to matter."
With a huff, Andre took his phone and answered the call. "Yo, G-Man, What's up?" The musician said.
"What happened? I hear you got involved in my business again." Gideon said.
"That's not what happened. After that Puckett Chick tore Todd a new one, I tried to talk Robbie out of his attempted suicide. Thought it's be better for all concerned if he wasn't involved any more. Danny and his goon came at us. I tried to bail, and before I knew it, things got cray-cray. As soon as I could, I beat feet, and found myself some caring senorita who wanted to play nurse. I'm held up in Northridge, waiting for it to blow over." Andre was scared, but the years of acting classes made it easy. 'As long as I don't have to fake tears, I'm gold.' He thought.
"Well, get over your chiz, we've got work to do. Todd's out, so I need a new act to play for the opening of my ultra excursive Chaos club. I was thinking, between you and miss Vega, we might have an act. Just keep it background. I'll text you the deets." With that, Gideon hung up.
Andre wasn't sure if he was being played, or if the G-Man believed him. It had just enough truth to go either way. But Tori wouldn't be able to pass up a chance to play the opening of such a pretentious event. It could only help her career. Andre knew he'd have to be there, to protect Tori from whatever trap Gideon had planned.
"Look, Tug, I don't think I can stop Tori from wanting to play this gig. I don't know how to help everyone, I don't think we should take the gig, it's obviously a trap..." Andre started.
"We won't. Were waking directly in. You go play, and I'll be along as soon as I take care of a few things." Robbie said, looking alive for the first time since the fight.
"The shows not tonight." Andre said. He wasn't sure of where this was going.
"Good. Andre, I need to know, where do his enforcers hang out, when their not enforcing G-Man's will?" Robbie asked.
"Not sure." Andre said. "You're not thinking of going after them, are you?"
"Not directly. Would Beck know? How about Tori?" Robbie asked.
"Probably one of them. Most likely Beck. Why?" Andre asked.
"I need to set up some fights. We're going to take out his people before they can hunt us down." Robbie said. "Sam, I'm going to need your help. If we succeed, then you'll have only helped Cat, no other rewards."
"And I'll get to kick the snot out of the guy who took Cat and left me with no one to take care of me?" Sam said.
"No, I will. You'll be there, have second shot if I fail. Deal?" Robbie asked.
Sam thought about it. This wasn't her fight, but she'd been dragged in anyways. It was time to step up. "Deal." She said.
"Good." Robbie replied as he pulled out his phone. He had a lot of calls to make. This was going to take all his cunning, all the guile he'd given to Rex, to pull off. But he had a change now, and it was time for the hunters to become the hunted.
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So, that's the second break, now back to the action. Review and let me know if you like these moments between the fighting.
