Ch. 7: The Genius, the Dame, and the Idiot
Characters (in order of first appearance):
Sakura Haruno / Rosa Molla
Sasuke Uchiha / Tony Fuori
The following morning after Gelato had received his Foglia family tie from Delfino, he found an envelope tucked underneath a trashcan that made one corner of his scrap-metal home. Its seal contained the signature leaf of the Foglia family, and when Gelato opened it, he found it to be typed letter from the Godfather saying that all the newly-initiated Soldiers had to report to the old schoolhouse in classroom A-1 at 8:30 am. Looking at the pocket-watch that was dangling from the scrap-metal roof, Gelato noted that it was already 8:15, and the school building the Boss was referring to was two blocks away from where he lived.
In a hurry, Gelato washed his face, had a quick breakfast of cold pasta and old milk, and got dressed in his best black suit. But when he was looking around for the tie, he remembered that he gave it back to Delfino when the two Capos came and took him to the hospital. Then he looked at the envelope again, and noticed something bulky was inside it. Quickly, he grabbed the thing and discovered it was a brand new Foglia family tie. Not knowing how to put it on, Gelato simply wrapped it around the neck of his dress-shirt and ran out of the piece of cloth that served as the door to his home.
After some roof-jumping and a quick sprint across the street, he arrived at the schoolhouse. Without stopping, he pushed through the doors, ran up the stairs, and dashed into room A-1 to be greeted by a bunch of odd stares coming from the other kids who were in the room and Delfino, who stood at the blackboard. When Gelato saw him, he felt a smile coming across his face to see that his teacher was all right, but forced it to go away so as to not embarrass himself further.
Delfino didn't look up from the black notebook he was holding. "Well, Gelato, I'm impressed that you were able to make it on time. Usually, you're late to my lessons, or you just don't show up at all."
A few kids laughed, but Gelato ignored them and looked for an open seat. Unfortunately, most of them were taken, and the only one that was available was next to a boy with spiky black hair and wearing a white short-sleeved dress-shirt, the signature green Foglia family tie, a black gun holster strapped to his left side, with blue shorts, white stockings, and polished black shoes. This was the last person Gelato wanted to sit next to.
Hmph! That jerk Tony thinks he's so cool just because he has nice clothes, lives in a big house, and is really smart! Gelato thought as he sat next to Tony without making eye-contact.
But to his surprise, Tony was looking directly at him, but with an irritated twitch on his left eyebrow. When he spoke, his voice sounded raspy and deep, a quality that somehow made lots of girls attracted to him.
"Answer me one question: How did an idiot like you get here when everybody said you failed the initiation test?" asked Tony.
"It's none of your damn business, pretty boy!" Gelato snapped, glaring at Tony.
It was then that two girls entered the classroom, pushing and shoving each other through the door at the same time. The first one had long blond hair falling over one eye, wearing a tight purple dress that went down to her upper thighs, revealing a green leather gun holster strapped to her left leg with the Foglia leaf on it, long white gloves on her arms, and black heels. But the second girl was the one who interested Gelato the most, because ever since he was little, he always had a crush on her.
Her name was Rosa, and she was a cute dame with a pretty face, though everyone made fun of her big forehead, and sparkling green eyes that matched the green bandana she wore over her long rose-pink hair that went down to her shoulders. Like the other girl's gun holster, Rosa's bandana also had the Foglia leaf, stitched in red thread on the top fold. She wore a knee-length dress of dark pink with pink rose designs, white stockings, and black shoes. When she looked over in Gelato's direction, she smiled, and elbowed the other girl in the face so she could step through and skip over to where Gelato was sitting.
At first, Gelato's heart was racing, thinking that at last, Rosa recognized his affection for her, and wanted to sit next to him. But his hopes were dashed when she pushed him out of his seat and sat next to Tony, looking at him was love-struck eyes as her cheeks went from pale olive to bright pink. At that moment, Gelato was really furious, not just at Rosa, but also at Tony. No matter how many times he tried, Rosa's affection never wavered away from Tony, making her no different than any of Tony's other female admirers.
"Hey! I was just sitting there, Rosa! Why'd you have to push me out?" Gelato snapped, pointing at Rosa with an accusing finger.
But Rosa didn't even look at him when she spoke, "Gelato, be quiet! Can't you see I'm trying to talk to Tony?"
"I can see that, but did you really have to take my seat to talk to a worthless idiot like him?!"
At that moment, Rosa not only glared at him, but Gelato could feel a lot of other jealous female eyes on him as well. Luckily, Delfino broke up the tension by shooting a blank at the ceiling with his gun, causing everyone in the room to be quiet and all their eyes focused on Delfino. He cleared his throat, which sounded a little painful, but managed to speak with a clear voice.
"All right, former Cugines, listen up! You are now Soldiers, which means that you will be taking orders from the Capos, and whatever they tell you to do, you do it, no matter how dirty the work is. Now, the way this works is that you will be assigned into squads, which consist of three Soldiers and one leading Capo. The arrangements are based on the strengths and weaknesses of each individual, pairing the best and the worst in order to create mutual cooperation between the two. Does everyone understand?"
No one answered.
Delfino nodded. "Good, then let us begin the assignments. Squad 1 will be consisted of…"
Gelato lost interest, and continued to glare at Tony, who wasn't paying any attention to Rosa's advancements, while the other girl growled in frustration behind them. Then, his name was called, and he waited eagerly to hear whom he was going to be paired with. Delfino paused again, and said his name again.
"Gelato Vortice, you will be in Squad 7, along with Rosa Molla…"
At that, Gelato jumped up from the floor and cried for joy, while Rosa's head dropped in frustration.
"…and Tony Fuori."
"What?!" Gelato instantly froze, just as Rosa jumped up from her seat and cried for joy. "Why do I have to get paired with Tony? He's not even on the same level as I am!"
"That's the point, Gelato," Delfino said calmly. "Tony got the highest praise at the initiation, while you hardly got any praise for your efforts. Therefore, you two were paired together so you could maybe learn a thing or two from each other."
At that, everyone snickered, but loudly enough to where Gelato could hear them all, and sat back down on the floor in disgust. Rosa continued to snuggle next to Tony, who still starred straight in front of him without a care in the world. Then after the rest of the squads were assigned, everybody left with a brown envelope containing the name of their Capo and where to meet them later that day.
As Gelato was walking down the street, he decided to take a look inside the envelope. He opened the flap, and reached for a single paper that was inside. It showed a photographed profile of a skinny man with spiky silver hair, dark eyes, and pale skin. He wore the same black suit and green tie that Gelato was wearing, except he had a black patch over his left eye and a long turtleneck collar coming up from his suit, covering the lower half of his face. This somewhat irritated Gelato, apart from the bored expression the man seemed to give him. Below the man's profile was a hand-written note that said: To Squad 7: Meet me at the park on 13th Street near the fountain at 3 pm. Here is a picture of me so you can spot me when you get there. See you then.
Gelato looked at the clock next to the street. It was 9:45 now, so Gelato had plenty of time to kill, but it was then that he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He turned around and at first, nothing seemed strange, and then his eyes fell on a garbage can nearby where a small bit of scarf was sticking out from behind it. Remembering last night, he realized whose scarf it was.
"Come out of there, Fogliaragazzo, you can't fool a Soldier!"
"A Soldier?" the boy exclaimed, stepping up from behind the garbage can. "I thought you were a Cugine."
"Not anymore, I passed the initiation with flying colors!" Gelato said, trying to sound cooler.
"Really? Then you must really know your stuff!" Fogliaragazzo said, obviously buying into Gelato's lies. "Can you teach me that thing you did to Grandpa? The one that made him bleed from the nose and pass out?"
"Oh, that, well…" Gelato was dumbfounded. He didn't want to disappoint the kid, but at the same time he didn't feel like babysitting him either. "It's not easy to learn, and you might not be mature enough to handle it."
"But I want to learn! I feel that spell of yours is just the thing I need to beat Grandpa and take the title of Godfather for myself!" Fogliaragazzo insisted. "Unlike other people I've met, you're not afraid to stand up to me, which shows you acknowledge me as a person, and not merely the grandson of the 3rd Godfather."
"I'm not sure I follow your logic, but you do realize that getting your grandfather out of the way isn't going to automatically make you the next Godfather."
"I don't care, and I'm willing to use any means necessary to get what I want, even if it means getting into trouble."
"What about that bodyguard you had? Does he know you're here?"
"First of all, Gamberetto is not my bodyguard, he's my tutor! He just acts like one because he doesn't want me to get hurt. Second of all, he doesn't know I'm here. Now are you going to teach me or not?"
Gelato sighed. "Okay, follow me."
So they walked together down the street, until they came to a newspaper and magazine stand in front of a large square with lots of people and cars. Gelato looked both ways to make sure no one was looking, and casually strolled up to the stand in front of the man behind the counter who was reading a newspaper while grabbing a tall magazine from the behind the stack of short ones. He was just about to walk away, when the man behind the counter stood up and pulled a revolver out of nowhere, pointing it at Gelato's head.
"Put that magazine down, kid!" the man said with an irritated tone. "I know you've been stealing them right from under my nose, and you're not gonna get away with it this time."
Gelato didn't budge. "You can't tell me what to do. I'm a Soldier of the Foglia family now, so you'd better think twice about pulling a gun on me, cuz I could've killed you if I wanted to."
The man hesitated, and then he raised his hands in the air with the revolver still in his hand. "Okay, have it your way! I don't want to make trouble for anybody!"
When the two were out of sight of the newspaper stand, Gelato and Fogliaragazzo went into a nearby alley and sat down to inspect the magazine they took, which was full of pictures of naked women. Fogliaragazzo was fascinated, but at the same time confused. This wasn't what he had in mind.
"Why did we have to go through all that trouble to get an adult magazine? What does this got to do with that thing you did to Grandpa?"
Gelato didn't look up. "Because this is exactly what I did."
Fogliaragazzo's eyes widened. "You turned into a naked girl? How?"
"It's an improvisation of the Transfiguration spell, but personally I like to call it the Mafia P***y."
"Cool! Can you show me?"
At first, Gelato hesitated. It wasn't that he wasn't comfortable doing it, but it was whom he was doing it in front of. He liked doing it in front of older men due to his love of messing around with them, and seeing their faces when he did it. But Fogliaragazzo was just a kid, and yet his enthusiasm and determination made Gelato think that he was much like himself when he was Fogliaragazzo's age.
"All right, but I'm only going to do this once."
Fogliaragazzo's face lit up as Gelato crossed his arms and spread his fingers wide. As he did this, he closed his eyes and said: "Transfiguration: Mafia P***y!"
Suddenly, a bright flash of light appeared in front of Gelato, blinding him from Fogliaragazzo's sight, but then it was quickly gone, and in Gelato's place stood a naked girl with long blond hair, large boobs, thin curves, long legs, and the same scale marks and bright-blue eyes that Gelato had. Instead of blushing, Fogliaragazzo's eyes widened and he grinned. Gelato, though not surprised, felt slightly embarrassed and quickly changed back, but Fogliaragazzo's face didn't change.
"That is soooo cool! Lemme try it!" He said, and imitated Gelato's pose. "Transfiguration: Mafia P***y!"
The bright flash appeared again, but instead of a pretty girl, a fat brunette with pouting lips and lumpy legs stood in Fogliaragazzo's place. Gelato was immediately disgusted, and quickly told Fogliaragazzo to change back, which he did obediently. Then for what seemed like hours, Gelato instructed Fogliaragazzo as he went through transformation after transformation, trying to perfect the Mafia P***y as if it were an assignment given by a Capo. Then just as Fogliaragazzo had finally got the proper form, his tutor came storming down the alley and was stopped dead cold by the appearance of a tall busty woman with long brunette hair and sparkling brown eyes.
"Hi, Gamberetto, do you like my transfiguration?" Fogliaragazzo asked in a sexy female voice.
"W-w-what are doing, Future Godfather? This is utterly vulgar! Change back immediately!" Gamberetto stuttered angrily.
Fogliaragazzo folded his arms in protest. "I don't want to."
"Are you questioning my judgment? Whoever taught you this is a pervert and I will give him a piece of my mind!" It was then that he noticed Gelato standing behind Fogliaragazzo. His look of bewilderment changed to that of complete irritation. "YOU! The little troublemaker that gave the Godfather constant headaches and yet you somehow managed to become a Soldier! Just the sight of you makes me sick!"
As Gamberetto waved his hands in preparation to cast a spell, Gelato acted quickly and positioned himself again for the transfiguration but added a movement where he clapped his hands before crossing them in front of his chest. Then he closed his eyes, and spoke a set of new words, "Transfiguration: Mafia Harem (Harem Technique)!"
A series of flashes appeared, followed by a red mist that covered the entire alleyway for a few seconds before it parted as quickly as it came. In its place, there stood not one but several dozen naked girls that all resembled each other in likeness and figure. Gamberetto was stunned, and couldn't move as the girls gathered around him, and proceeded to hug and cuddle him in the most awkward places. His nose bled like a broken fire hydrant, and soon he collapsed from the shock and excitement of it all. Then all the girls laughed mischievously at him and disappeared, leaving Gelato to stand in their place as he proceeded to shove his old leather shoe on top of Gamberetto's head.
"I may be a troublemaker, and I may be a pervert, but there's more to me than meets the eye! In fact, I'm planning to rise to the top and become the next Godfather, and then we'll see who's the sickest one to look at!" said Gelato, grinning.
Unfortunately, Gamberetto was out cold, so he didn't hear Gelato's speech, which ticked Gelato off, but he quickly got over it when he noticed Fogliaragazzo had changed back to his normal self. This did surprise him initially, and then he figured that Fogliaragazzo was getting uncomfortable in that form, especially in front of his tutor, and eliminated the spell for that reason. However, something about Fogliaragazzo's direct stare made Gelato think that there was something else bothering him.
"Hey, I didn't mean to knock out your tutor, but he kinda had it coming, so could you forgive me this one time?"
Fogliaragazzo shook his head. "I could care less about Gamberetto, but after seeing what you did, I don't think you should teach me anymore than you already have."
"But why?" This came as a surprise to Gelato. "You seemed to be enjoying yourself, heck, I was starting to have fun, even though I had my doubts."
"If you're aiming to be the Boss, then that makes us rivals, because I've always wanted to follow my family's legacy, just to show them I'm not just the 3rd Godfather's grandson. But because we're competing for the same thing, we shouldn't learn from each other. Therefore, I'm gonna learn on my own, and beat you with my own power!"
That made Gelato feel a surge of pride, and so he scuffed and turned away from Fogliaragazzo. "Well I'm already one step ahead of you, being a Soldier and all, but I can't wait to see what powers you'll learn, though you could've learned a lot from me."
"Yeah, right, like naked women and stuff like that are gonna help me in the long run!" replied Fogliaragazzo, and he left the alley without saying another word.
A few minutes later, Gelato was in the park that his Capo was supposed to meet him. After running through a few trees and crossing trails, he finally came to the fountain, which was made of rusted limestone and had been running dry for a long time. However, Gelato had hoped he would be the first to arrive, but because of all the drama that happened with Fogliaragazzo, he lost track of time and wound up being fifteen minutes late. Tony stared blankly at him, while Rosa frowned with slight irritation, and the third person, which Gelato recognized from the picture, had no expression at all because his face was covered and his eyes showed no emotion whatsoever.
End of Chapter 7