xChapter 44 - Tour

In The Everst Family Household, The Miracle Clinic is standing there stunned looking at Ronnie's Uncle, Ryan Everst, the president of the Moon Shadow Affiliate.

"Wait, so you're uncle is the president of the MSA?!" Marcus asks, confused.

"Yeah, he uh- he is," Ronnie says.

"It sounds like you guys have heard of it before," Uncle Ryan says as he hands the kids his business cards, "if you ever need a job then just reach out to me."

"Th-thanks," Elizabeth replies.

"Don't mention it kiddos," Uncle Ryan replies as he walks over to the kitchen, "I'm gonna help your mom with some of the food, okay Ronnie?"

"Yeah that's fine," Ronnie says.

Everyone is all smiling faces as Uncle Ryan enters the kitchen but as soon as he enters, Alex & Elizabeth get up in Ronnie's face.

"What the hell dude! Why didn't you tell us your uncle was the head of the MSA!" Alex asks.

"Yeah and if you were rich how come you've never paid for anything!" Elizabeth adds.

"We could've asked for front-row tickets to the gala, or gotten an answer about Dirty Fang from them instead of heading over to the east side!"

"Yeah, and you could've given us some nice deals too!"

"Guys guys guys!" Marcus says, "Let's calm down for a minute, there's probably a reason as to why Ronnie never brought him up, right?"

"Honestly," Ronnie begins to say, "it just didn't feel necessary to bring up."

Marcus sighs, "You're not really helping your case."

"I know but, he's my uncle, I barely see him and he doesn't really lend us money," Ronnie says.

"Oh," Alex & Elizabeth state.

"But still, we could maybe learn a bit more about what Vanessa was talking about," Marcus replies.

As everyone is talking, Cameron sits there nodding.

"Yeah but, how?" Alex asks.

As they sit there, suddenly Ronnie gets an idea, "You know, there's one thing I could ask my Uncle to do."

"And what's that?" Alex asks.

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The front doors to the MSA's office building as Ryan Everst enters. There's not a single speck of dirt in the lobby nor is there any crack in the tiled flooring. The receptionist greets Ryan and then looks behind him confused.

"Y'know I'm surprised that you wanted to do this," Uncle Ryan admits.

"Of course, we'd like to do this," the person behind him says, "right guys?"

"Uhhh sure," one of the other people behind him says.

"Yeah totally," another says.

"I like clothes," another says, causing Uncle Ryan to chuckle.

"Alright then, allow me to take you through a tour of our office building," Uncle Ryan says.

"Sounds great!" The main person behind him, his nephew, Ronnie Everst says. Next to him are Alex Smith, Elizabeth Moore, Marcus Veridan, & Cameron Dots.

Alex whispers to Ronnie, "So what are we gonna do, go on a tour of your uncle's business?"

"Well yes," Ronnie whispers back, "But we'll be able to see if they really are as bad as Vanessa claimed."

The group begins to go on their tour of the place as Ryan Everst shows them several dull office spaces. As they're walking around and are shown pretty much just the same exact rooms with the same layouts, the club gets more and more uninterested and bored until they reach the second highest floor of the building. That's when they run into a man covered in biker gear without any skin showing.

"Oh hey, this is our head of security, Terry Boats," Ryan tells the kids, "how's it going, Terry?"

Terry sees the kids and awkwardly waves at them before saying, "Sir, you have a shareholders meeting soon."

Uncle Ryan sighs and asks, "And I'm hearing about this now?"

Uncle Ryan then turns to the kids and says, "Sorry about this guys but I have to go, do you need Terry to show you the way out?"

"Su-" Ronnie starts to say but Alex elbows him.

"It's fine we can figure it out on our own," Elizabeth says.

"Oh okay, then I hope you had a fun time here today, and if you need anything then you know who to call," Uncle Ryan says as he and Terry Boats walk down the hall.

After waiting until the two adults turn the corner, Ronnie looks at Alex & Elizabeth and says, "See! Nothing criminal is going on here!"

"You seriously think they'd just show them doing illegal shit on a tour?" Elizabeth says.

"Yeah I'm with Elizabeth on this one, let's just take a quick look around before we head out," Alex says.

"Okay fine, but let's just explore this floor, okay?" Ronnie says.

"You guys can do that, I'm gonna head to the bathroom real quick," Cameron says.

"Okay, we'll stay on this floor," Marcus replies.

As Cameron heads to the bathroom, the group of 4 starts making their way down the hall, as they go past door after door, Ronnie notices that every single door that leads to a meeting room has tinted windows. Finally after going around in circles, one of the doors to an office space opens, and out walks two surprising figures. One is a middle-aged man with white skin, a bald head, gray eyes, and a muscular build. He's wearing a purple button-up under a black dress coat, white pants, and brown dress shoes. The other to the club's bewilderment is Tim-Tom, leader of The Three Ts. He isn't wearing his piercings today and has on a white t-shirt, red sweatpants, and black high-top sneakers. The Miracle Clinic quickly hides behind a corner as the two men start talking.

"So, I see you've taken out those piercings," The man says.

"Yeah, I wanted to try some new ones out," Tim-Tom replies.

"Are you sure? Personally, I think that this suits you more," The man replies.

"Ugh, just get to the point, Jerry Pitt. I can't stand how you always dilly-dally around any topic," Tim-Tom groans.

Jerry Pitt, the man standing there, suddenly changes his expression from jovial to cold and serious, "You never were the one for small-talk now weren't you, son?"

"You still haven't just told me what you're on about," Tim-Tom retorts.

"It's simple, our gangs should join hands," Jerry explains,

"Oh? I thought you said Club Azure wasn't a gang?"

"You know what I mean boy. And what I mean is that we've always been getting the short end of the stick from the MSA and the other gangs in the city, but that'll soon change with The Crescent Articles!"

"What the hell is that? And why that stupid name?" Tim-Tom asks.

"It's the key to victory, but still it looks like you don't want to join your old man," Jerry Pitt says as he starts to walk down the hall the opposite way of where The Miracle Clinic is watching, "don't worry though, you'll be answering to Club Azure soon enough, Whether you like it or not."

As Jerry leaves, Tim-Tom takes a second to process his thoughts, sighs, and begins to say, "So you probably heard all of that…"

Tim-Tom turns around and walks to where the hallway turns right to see The Miracle Clinic standing there, "didn't you, Miracle Clinic?"

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Alex, Ronnie, Elizabeth, & Marcus are in an empty meeting room as Tim-Tom sits down on the center round table.

"S-so, you're gonna kill us?" Ronnie asks, scared.

"Kill you?" Tim-Tom asks surprised, "Why would I do that?!"

"But we just heard you talking with a gang about some illegal activity!"

"Oh, you mean my dad?" Tim-Tom chuckles, "Yeah I don't exactly live with the old man anymore so report him all you want."

"Why were you guys talking about that kind of stuff here of all places?" Alex asks.

"Oh that, y'see there are 6 major gangs in this city; The Three Ts -that's us-, Dirty Fang, Club Azure, The Massachusetts Boys, The Vignette, & The Carmine Manifesto. And all of us are tied to the MSA. We give them a portion of our monthly profits and in return, they'll make sure others look the other way when we do some…sketchy things," Tim-Tom explains.

As those words ring out Ronnie steps backward before trying to justify, "A-are you sure? Maybe they're just keeping you all in check! And besides, it's not like the president of the MSA would know anything about this!"

"Ronnie.." Tim-Tom begins, "Ryan Everst is often the one who meets with the heads of each gang. He's directly profiting from their actions."

Ronnie's eyes go wide as he tries to make sense of everything. As he does, Marcus steps forward and asks, "How do the gangs make money?"

"Well I don't want to speak for the other gangs since I don't fully know their profit model but as for me and my boys, we get our money from taking requests from clients," Tim-Tom says, "Not so different from your whole shtick, right?"

"Yeah but…isn't your whole thing beating people up?" Marcus asks.

"Beating people up, carrying your groceries, mopping up floors, filing your taxes, even just pretending to be someone's friend! There's nothing The Three Ts won't do as long as you pay us," Tim-Tom exhales.

"Dude if I wanted to hear a sales pitch, I would've visited an MLM," Elizabeth sighs.

"Who says we aren't?" Tim-Tom asks.

"Stop joking around, so what is Club Azure gonna do, huh?" Alex asks.

Tim-Tom groans as he says, "Listen you guys are still in high school going to class and learning, you should forget all about all this gang stuff and especially Club Azure. Nothing good comes from them."

"But what if-" Alex begins to say but Tim-Tom stops him.

"I guess I didn't make myself clear," Tim-Tom says as he stands up, "If you try and mess with any of those gangs you'll be dead."

Marcus, Ronnie, Alex, & Elizabeth all freeze in fear at those words.

"See what I mean?" Tim-Tom says, "So go back to your cake delivering and cracking down on pencil black markets."

Tim-Tom shows the group the way to the door and as they do so, they run into Cameron.

"Oh hey, there you guys are, what did you find out?" Cameron asks.

Cameron looks to see that the rest of the club all look like they want to tell him something, but they can't, Alex sighs and says, "We learned absolutely nothing."

"Oh, okay," Cameron says nervously, "let's go home then."

"Y..yeah," Alex sighs.

As The Miracle Clinic leaves, Tim-Tom watches them go and then sighs as he says to himself, "That should stop them from going down my path."

As Tim-Tom then leaves, little did he realize how wrong he was. Sure that threat would make them question if they should really get involved.

But that wouldn't stop them from trying to do what they feel is right, it would only just set them back.

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Elizabeth gets home and walks past the living room where her parents are watching TV.

"I'm home," Elizabeth says.

Her parents, Lan Thi Pham-Moore & Nolan Moore, turn to look at Elizabeth as she enters their bedroom.

"Uh, you need something, honey?" Nolan asks.

"Yeah gimme a sec!" Elizabeth yells as she exits their room.

Elizabeth hands her mom the object she grabbed from her room, it's a first-place trophy for a taekwondo tournament she did in middle school.

"Can I try taekwondo again?" Elizabeth asks.

__________________________

Alex is at The Dawnbreak Fitness & Health Center doing 100 reps of jump rope as Blanko walks over to him.

"What are you doing?" Blanko asks.

"I'm trying to get faster," Alex replies.

"Oh is that so?" Blanko replies as he goes and grabs another jump rope, "Then so will I!"

As he starts to jump rope, Alex yells, "First one to give up will buy pre-workout for the winner!"

"DEAL!" Blanko yells as the two jump rope, not only to get faster but to push each other beyond their usual limits.

__________________________

Ronnie Everst is in a storage unit with Marcus Veridan and his mom Sally Everst.

"What did you want from here?" Sally Everst asks her son.

However Ronnie is too focused on finding something to answer, and he eventually finds what he was looking for, it's a box of VHS Tapes that's titled 'How To Defend Yourself'.

"I only saw one of these," Ronnie says, "I figured I might as well finish watching these now."

"And why is that?" Sally asks, "You better not be trying to get into any fights!"

"What? I would never," Ronnie lies, "I just want to be prepared if I go down the wrong alley, that's all."

Sally looks at Ronnie and sighs, "Okay but you can only take 3 of them."

"Three huh?" Ronnie says as he looks into the box and grabs three VHS tapes, "I guess I'll take these 3."

__________________________

Tim-Tom is walking down the streets of Starlight City at night until he finally reaches his home, an auto shop with a garage on the side. He opens up the garage and enters.

"Now I'm sure you already saw my texts about what Club Azure is planning on doing," Tim-Tom says as walks forward.

On the right of the garage is Tim The First Thug. He's wearing a green jean jacket over a white t-shirt, pink-shaded sunglasses, blue jeans, and white vans. He's leaning on his motorcycle.

"Club Azure is going to try and swallow up all of the gangs, and since everyone thinks we're the weakest one, we're gonna be hit first," Tim-Tom continues.

On the left of the garage is Tom The Second Thug. He's wearing a beige hoodie with blue and red stripes, black sweatpants, and white sneakers.

"But you know what I think?" Tim-Tom says as a smirk appears on his face, "We should bring the fight to them. How 'bout that?"

Tom & Tim are silent.

"I know, pretty cool idea right?" Tim-Tom says.

The two have mortified looks on their faces.

"What's up with you guys?" Tim-Tom says, "Okay I get it you don't like the idea, my bad."

"Dude, turn around," Tom says.

Tim-Tom does and that's when he sees several people all on the street carrying weapons. And all of their shirts have a 'C.A.' insignia on them.

".....crap," Tim-Tom says.

See You Next Chapter!~