A/N: Ah, I love it when I'm ahead of schedule. Like I said, I know chapter six was bit dull, and I can't necessarily promise that this chapter is exactly ablaze with action either, but I am setting up something quite exciting which I think you all will like—if I can ever get to it! Thanks for staying with me this far. It will be such a treat for you guys that have been following this to see where this will actually be going! Once again, thanks for the support and tell me what you think! (Additionally, I think I might change the summery—not sure).

It had been three months since he first came under Thugnificent's tutelage, and somehow Riley had been able to keep it a secret from his brother and grandfather. After a while, Thugnificent admitted that he was impressed with Riley's development with small hand guns in such a short time. His marksmanship seemed to improve exponentially and had recently started hitting confined targets with impressive consistency, so much so that Thugnificent felt Riley was ready to learn techniques.

"Ok, now I'll explain the three shot rule. Two body shots to shock an' incapacitate, usually to a lung an'uh organ like the liver or kidney, an' a head shot to kill. Obviously you can choose not shoot'em in the head if you ain't tryin' to kill'em right away, but you know, whus'a point of sparin'em? I want you to pick two spots on the target for yo'body shots, go."

Riley stepped into the center stall and selected his strike points, one towards the upper left of the torso, and the other near the bottom right—below the kidney. The shots rang out and two holes exploded on the target in the designated spots.

"Good!" He heard Thugnificent say aloud. "Riley, explain to me why you chose those spots."

The boy turned around and faced the man with his answer. "I picked the target's upper right shoulder cuz most people are right handed. It would probably cripple the dominate arm in a tender spot, shockin'em. I chose the second spot cuz it would make'em double-over to the front, makin'em use their good arm to catch themselves, removin' several possible retaliations."

Thugnificent nodded in approval. The boy was sharp.

"Thas wut I like'ta hear. Now, wit the head shot, why is aimin' jus for the face not always good?"

"Cuz it may not always take'em down."

"Right. Where should you aim for instead?"

"The tender spots—the eyes, an' neck. In profile, aim for the temple, and from the back aim for the base of'da neck, or behind the ears."

"Correct. You got the idea damn quick; I like it. What other critical body shots can you make while we talkin' bout it?"

"Uh…" Riley thought about it for a moment before continuing. "You can hit'em in the leg, on the upper thigh--"

"Why?" Thugnificent interjected.

"Umm, because you got those big arteries that go to an' from'da heart; you loose a lotta blood'dat way."

"Go on."

"…Uh, then you got the knees an' shins from the back an' front, an' you got the groin. Uh, another good spot is at the ankles; you can sever the tendons to'da foot an' cripple'em pretty good."

Thugnificent smiled. "You know dis shit, an' yo'aim is definitely on point. We'll work wit some other types of guns later, but I wanna start you on close combat. I'm'll show you how'ta use a blade an'ta fight unarmed. I'm gunna jus tell you now dat you better keep up cause I ain't gunna hold back much—I promise you you gunna get cut, so no cryin' when the blood start hittin' the floor, ya'heard?"

The boy nodded. By that time it was four thirty in the afternoon. Riley wondered how much he wanted to cover that evening.

"Uh, how long? Cuz you know, I don't want ma'family gettin' suspicious."

Thugnificent crossed his arms. "I wanna show you stances, so I guess an hour. But when we done I want you ta'start workin' dat skinny ass body of yours cuz you ain't gunna be very effective wit'dim bitch-ass swings you got goin' right now. Do some push-ups, pull-ups, crunches an' other shit like dat. Oh, an' start runnin' too, every day. You jus a little too sheltered here in Crackerville fo'yo' own good. It'll build stamina an' endurance."

Later that night…

"Riley, can I talk to you for a second?"

The younger Freeman boy looked up from his PSP, of which he was not really paying any attention.

"Yeah?"

Riley met his brother's stare and was inwardly taken aback by its piercing intensity.

"What the hell do you do all the time when you go over to Thugnifient's? I heard that him an' the rest of Lethal Interjection are supposed to be workin' on another record, are you helpin' with that or what?"

Riley couldn't help but smile at himself over this. "Yeah, sumthin' like dat."

Huey blinked. "Well, what do you do?"

"Not much really, I jus kinda hang out an' help'em when they ask ya'know?"

Riley's brother continued to look at him, seemingly not wholly satisfied with the answer.

"Well, the reason I ask really is because you spend way too much time over there. It used to be that I really didn't care one way or the other an' left the bitchin' up to Grandad. But I think I hafta agree that you need to spend more time with people your own age."

Huh. Now wasn't this some shit? Just what the hell would Huey Freeman know about anything to say something like that? All he sees is him just being over Thugnificent's house all the time. It wasn't like it weren't true, but more time with people his own age? That was quite the laughable statement.

"Wit who? You? Or maybe Jazmine? Das ok homie I'm cool, really."

"I'm not kidding Riley. I'm worried about you—it just doesn't seem right."

Riley rolled his eyes. "Nigga please. As much as you wanna believe err'body out'ta get err'body else, it ain't always like dat."

Huey shook his head. How was it so difficult for him to see that what he was doing was abnormal? What almost nine-year-old boy hangs with folks nearly three times his age? He didn't even go around Ed and Rummie like he used to, not to say that was a bad thing, but it seemed that Riley was only replacing one bad influence with another. Not to mention that Grandad was not being of very much help. He pretty much stopped trying to get Riley to listen to him, and it's not like he would just start listening to the ten-year-old brother. Although there was only one good thing Huey would say was coming from this—Riley didn't talk back to Grandad nearly as much as he used to—small victories Huey supposed.

"Tomorrow's Saturday Riley, whatchu got planned?"

"Goin' to Thugnificent's." He answered, having since returned to his game. Of course, what else could have Huey expected?

"Alright lil nigga you ready?" Thugnifcent asked as he walked toward his young protégé. When he was in front of him, he pulled from his pocket a slender piece of metal and handed it to Riley. The boy fiddled with it a second and realized what it was. "A butterfly knife?"

"Thas jus whut people call it cuz half of'em don't know wut it is. It's actually called a balisong, otherwise known as a butterfly knife—came from the Philippines. Da'one you got now was made in Japan an' it's what you'll work wit. I'm'll actually give you one that was made in the Philippines when you ready for it—them shits is the real deal. I'll teach you how to flip it later, but right now jus open it up so we can get started."

Thugnificent took time explaining proper stance and thrusts to use in a one-on-one. As his tutorial continued, he explained finally that a knife fight was a lot like a dance, you moved, your opponent moved and the better of the two drew the blood. These statements of course were based on a person who also knew how to fight with a knife, and seeing as that most 'dumb niggas' really didn't know how to, the boy would simply have a tactical advantage.

"Mostly its jus 'thrust, slash, parry' until you get the point across. Now, since you lil an' quick, you can get in, get out and keep goin'. I'll tell you not to really worry bout tryin'ta kill'a nigga wit a knife cuz in reality, it's pretty damn hard. Jus think of it as an opportunity you give yo'self to think about droppin'em in a better way. Also, don't waste yo'time tryin' ta block wit a knife, you'll jus lose some fingers or some shit like dat, ya'heard?"

As Thugnificent faced off with the young boy, he learned quickly that Riley would be quite the match for most knife-wielding adults. He would need some polish, but Riley was swiftly developing into a highly capable fighter—more than perfect for what the gangsta-rapper needed.

As the days passed, Riley began implementing the training regimen that Thugnificent put him on. Every day after school, he would do fifty sets of crunches, pull-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups followed by a run of several laps around the neighborhood to keep up his conditioning. Over the passed couple of days, Thugnificent had introduced a new facet of his training. In addition to the gun and knife work, hand-to-hand was now on the docket. In the beginning, Thugnificent wanted to see just what Riley knew about fighting. Decidedly unimpressed with his sloppy street-brawling, he informed the child that he would be teaching an adapted style that he found very effective, the Israeli Krav Maga. While Thugnificent himself was no master, he did earn himself a green belt in the style, which was more than enough to train the boy on. Giving a brief history on the style, he told Riley that the most important thing about using Krav Maga was not to prolog a fight, but to get the job done and get out. He went on to tell him that learning Krav Maga was a potentially painful and dangerous experience, and that normally heavy pads were needed. "Since we ain't got none, you jus gunna hafta deal wit it." Was all the man said on the matter.

And of course all of this made Riley wonder just what the hell was going on. Why exactly did he need to know all of this? Somewhere in his musings though, Riley felt that he should just stop trying to figure it out. If he learned nothing else from this man, Riley would damn sure know how to fight—and how to lie. He had been using his exercise routine to explain away all the bandages on his hands. Thugnificent hadn't been exaggerating when he told him he would bleed. There were several times when Riley had cut himself trying to flip open his balisong single-handedly. Thankfully Thugnificent was not hitting him the way he used to, but maybe that was only because there was no need when the boy would just injure himself when he made mistakes.

In some odd way, he felt that he needed the direction that he was getting from the older man. Even Riley noticed that his behavior seemed to be improving slightly. He didn't mouth off to his grandfather, or make cutting insults to his classmates like he had before, and his grades were improving. Despite this though, he knew that Huey knew something was up. Riley could tell his older brother couldn't put his finger on it, but Riley knew Huey wasn't one to let himself stay in the dark when he could do something about it. He just hoped that Huey wouldn't start snooping about—Thugnificent wouldn't take well to having anyone learn what was going on—hell, this had to be illegal in some kind of way.