Gold Avenue used to be the beacon of Pluvia city, if one were to hop into a time machine and go back 100 years they would see streets filled with high rises, shops that were rolling in money and bankers lounging around the street. Now Gold Avenue was nothing more than a shell of its former self. Ever since the bankers and other industries moved to Los Santos, Liberty City and Vice City most of the buildings there were derelict, the houses changed to sub divided flats, shops that used to sell luxury goods now changed to dull grocery stores and sex shops, and the old buildings looked as if it might collapse if a speck of dust were to so much as sneeze incorrectly.
In an alleyway between an Indian restaurant that was guaranteed to make you live on the toilet bowl, and a gay club where people like to dress up as cartoon and video game characters were 2 men. The first man was as fat as a beachball and had a face that resembled melted wax. He was bald and had a handlebar moustache that was thick enough to cut though steel like paper. His street name was known as the Elephant.
The man next to him could have jumped out of an "after" photo of those internet ads that sell you 'get muscular and strong in 3 days program'. His hands were at least 6 times too big. He could have been a movie star, or an Olympic athlete or even a model however his face was hideous. He had scars all over his face that no amount of plastic surgery would solve, his eyebrows looked as if they were just on fire, his teeth were rotten and worst of all he had no nose. His street name was Scorpion.
Scorpion looked down at his watch frowning, "Fox is late" he said grumpily.
"Typical" Elephant said as he sucked on a cigar.
"He's from San Andreas, typical for them to be so slow" Scorpion said. "I still can't believe he is the son of the emperor of San Andreas though."
"He isn't his son, more like he is his protégé" Elephant said in a mocking French accent.
"Whatever" Scorpion spat "I was expecting him to train us to be better gangstars not for us to teach him."
"He is new to Pluvia." Elephant said, "He just needs to know the city, and then he will show us a thing or two."
"When we first met, I was kinda expecting him to show us how to break into a military base or how to dual weal machine guns or how to be more charming with the ladies, but so far all he did was show us stealth take downs."
"Well, you can't start on square 100 unless if you were born on it." Elephant said.
"And speak of the devil, here he is" Scorpion said pointing to a blue motorbike that pulled up in front of them.
On the bike a thin young black man. He was so thin that most of his skeleton was visible and was wearing clothes as if he had just come out of a marathon. His legs were long and thick as if it was made of steel and wore glasses that was as thick as cardboard.
"Well, well, well" Scorpion said, "Look who finally showed up."
"Sorry." Fox said, "I had something I need to take care of, so why do you want to see me?"
"Well, we would like to show you more of 'the ropes' if you know what I mean." Scorpion said as if he was a teacher speaking to a child. "Now come with us, and we will show you how to do a simple mugging."
"I already know how to do that" Fox said clearly annoyed, but Scorpion ignored him.
"Come on now, let's go" Scorpion said as he gestured for Fox to follow him.
"What about the fire-ice guy that I kept hearing about?" Fox said casually as he ran up to the two street thugs.
For a moment all the colour in the face of Elephant and Scorpion drained from their face, then they shook themselves as if their bones turned to jelly. "Hot ColdBoy? Do not worry about him." Elephant said in a strangely high-pitched voice. "It's a big city, why would he attack us?"
"I don't know" Fox said "I heard so many things about him. I saw that he left someone with 3rd degree burns over half of his body and he also shattered someone's right arm with liquid nitrogen."
"Don't worry about him." Scorpion said calmly. "He won't hurt us. He only goes after big named criminals and their underlings, we work alone."
"I see." Fox said as he looked up and down the damp ally. "So, who exactly are we going to rob?"
They came onto a half busy street, where people from businessmen to homeless people raced up and down the street going goodness knows where, all of them rushing from one place to another. Elephant looked up and down the street, but he immediately whirled around to look back behind him to see an old Japanese looking woman on a stroller with eyeglasses that was as thick as steel, going down the long ally heading towards them, and she was clutching a handbag big enough to store an entire galaxy.
"That woman over there." Elephant said.
"Really an old woman?" Fox said obviously disgusted. "Why not one of those businessmen?"
"To risky to grab one of them." Scorpion said, "and she is heading this way, so why not take this opportunity?"
"No." Fox said firmly. "I may be a thief and I had killed a few people when shit hits the fan, but I am not a barbarian. I do not steal from the old, the young and women."
"Suit yourself" Scorpion said indifferently, as he and Elephant drew their weapons, Scorpion pulling out a pistol, Elephant drawing a revolver.
Fox didn't have time to raise his voice when the two were in front of the old woman.
"Good evening, madam." Elephant said in a false gentlemen like voice.
"Now would you be so kind to hand over that bag of yours?" Scorpion said aggressively.
The old woman let out a loud wail. "No please, don't hurt them!" She cried.
Scorpion's hands were just an atom's width away from grabbing the bag when he let out a loud scream. A throwing star was lodged in his arm. His gun went flying and went straight through a gutter. Elephant didn't have time to blink when another throwing star was lodged through his hand. Elephant howled as he dropped the gun he was holding as it fell onto the floor. The gun instantly went off, and the bullet went straight through Scorpion's foot. Scorpion collapsed onto the wet floor still screaming, Elephant tried to dive for the gun, only for a gunshot to ring out, and Elephant was howling again as his other hand now had a hole through it.
All of this happened so fast that Fox was still frozen in place, unable to process what happened. It was only until the old woman was in front of him that he finally moved. The old woman was smiling at Fox like a grandmother seeing her favourite grandchild. Behind her were two men in dark suits looking at him as if he had mortally offended him.
"Please make sure your friends are sent to the hospital" The old woman said. "My boys here heard you protesting them attacking me, so they will let you live."
"Who are you?" Fox found himself saying.
"I am Madame Suzuki." The old woman said with a small smile.
"Suzuki?" Fox said his eyebrows raising, "You mean?"
"Yes, I am his mother." Madame Suzuki said. "And what is your name?"
"Fox, madame." Fox said.
"Well Fox, as a token of my gratitude, I hope that we will keep in touch. And tell the hospital that the Suzuki family will take care of their hospital bill."
Fox stood aside as he watched the old woman, and her bodyguards walk past him and then vanish into the crowd.
Fox froze for a moment, and then withdrew his phone calling the hospital.
