by 
Chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter 16
“In your face!” Q yelled. “No one messes with me.”
“It was rock paper scissors, Q. It doesn’t prove anything,” Yoyo griped. “Besides I wasn’t ready. Not at all. He cheated in fact.”
“It proves everything! Rock Paper Scissors is all about wit, cunning, strength, dexterity, and endurance. Everything you need in battle. Thus, if you’re the best at Rock Paper Scissors, you’re also the best at battling in the gang,” Jake announced and pointed into the air.
“What does that say for you? You ended up in last place?” Temari teased.
“I wasn’t ready!” Jake yelled back.
“The finals!” Clair said. “Get em Bano!”
“Q, let’s make this interesting. I bet you a hundred cherry cokes I’ll win this,” Bano declared. “And if I win you owe me-”
“No, I can’t gamble,” Q shook his head. “Yoyo doesn’t let me hold onto any money. And I’m already in debt to Temari five thousand dollars Cherry Coke wise.”
Bano blinked quickly several times. “Come on, Q! I’ll gamble you a dollar.”
“I don’t have a dollar,” Q said. “And if I did I wouldn’t be playing you in this game. I’d be spending it.”
“But Q! I need that rush,” Bano began to ramble but suddenly stopped as Clair came up behind him.
“Just go, Bano,” she whispered.
“Rock!” Q shouted.
“Paper!” Bano yelled.
“Scissors!” everyone screamed.
“Tie,” Q sighed. “You always pick rock.”
“So do you!” Bano argued.
“Well don’t pick rock this time,” Q said and the two started again.
“If you just picked paper you’d have me beat,” Bano told Q.
“They both picked rock again,” Jake said dejected. “Now we’ll never know who’s the strongest.”
Jake walked across the room to Knssquad. “So, what’s up?” Jake asked. He fidgeted for a moment as he watched her continue to work with her weapons.
“Just working on Muffin Man. He took some beatings last week when things were crazy,” Knssquad said.
Jake watched her manipulate spaghetti strings. He had no idea what she was doing. “So, packed and ready to go TFK’s Tower today?” Jake asked.
Knssquad stopped and looked up at him. “Do you have any idea what’s inside that place?” she challenged.
Jake‘s arm twitched. “Wait, do you?” he asked.
“Yeah, I was there when Punkfilter recruited me,” Knssquad said.
“Hey everyone! Knssquad’s going to tell us what’s in TFK’s Tower. Gather around!” Jake shouted.
Knssquad just froze and glared at Jake. “Really? What’s at TFK’s Tower?” Q asked. “If I ruled the city I’d have at least 83 Cherry Coke fountains.”
“That’s a rather specific number, Q,” Temari said.
“Well, it has several levels. I took the elevator so I didn’t see many of them. The elevators are confusing. They move horizontal and vertical. One elevator goes down. Do not go down that elevator. That leads to the torture rooms and prison TFK has. You can hear their screams echo up and down the elevator shaft. There’s some office levels that are just normal. Then I don’t really know. Like I said I just rode the elevator to the top where I was summoned by Punkfilter. Each of TFK’s top guards have a hundred floors to their selves. Punkfilter‘s room was really empty, I remember that,” Knssquad stopped for a moment. Everyone was watching her.
“Then I remember seeing a giant golden door. They said that door lead to the upper level. That is TFK’s personal lair. The golden door leads to a staircase, that leads to an elevator. It’s really complicated. I think the Tower is supposed to be complicated so that TFK can play mind games on people and keep people intimidated by his power. Once you step foot inside that tower he’s got you. Rules like up and down, left to right. None of that matters. And these are just the parts I know about. There were a lot of floors I never saw,” Knssquad said quietly.
“This sounds like a good time for me to tell you guys this,” Yoyo spoke up. “I am against this. I think this is stupid. And we’re going to end up endangering all of our lives over some random impulse. So I am not going because I think this is a good idea. I am going because I am a member of this gang. And since our boss decided to go, we’re going. And I’m going because this may be my chance to end a certain someone.”
Q picked Cherry Coke up off the floor and handed him to Temari. “Take care of him for us. It seems we have to get going. Stay safe, Temari.”
Temari hugged each of them as they headed to the doors. “Hey everyone. You guys are looking at this the wrong way,” Bano stated. “You guys see this as some foolhardy suicide mission. But that’s not what this is. This is a once in a life time opportunity to take down TFK. The first Mafia. You guys should be excited about this. This is our chance to see if we have what it takes to beat the boss of WOTNOPOLIS.”
****
“Wow, that thing is really tall,” Jake mumbled.
“It kind of makes you wonder if he’s over compensating for something,” Bano smiled and winked. A door flung open and Bano jumped. “I’m sorry! I’ll stop making that joke!”
“Hello! Are you guys here for the Crime Summit?” a young woman in a navy blue dress asked.
“What the Cherry Coke is a Crime summit? We’re here for that gang meeting,” Q corrected her.
The girl smiled and walked over to them. She took Q’s hand and shook it. “My name is Judai. Personal secretary of CEO Theodore Fredrick King. We here at the Department of Internal Energy would like to welcome you all to the Crime Summit.”
Judai continued to shake all of their hands as they stared at her in confusion. “Judai, how big is the building here?” Jake asked.
“It is half a mile in width that way and almost a mile in length that way. It climbs to two hundred stories. We also had to demolish much of the city to build this. Now if you guys will please step inside this entrance here I’ll take you where you need to go,” Judai said as she pointed them to an entrance.
Yoyo leaned back as they entered the building. “Whatever we do, don’t get separated. This is going to make that time we got lost at WOTNOP-Mart look like pie.”
“And we still found poor Jake crying in the toy section,” Q snickered.
“I wasn’t crying! I tripped and a bunch of dust got in my eyes,” Jake growled. “Please take these Visitor Passes. They will open the doors you’re allowed to visit. Most doors are free to open for anyone. However, some doors hold company, ahem, secrets, and we do not want our competitors to find them out. Because of this they will not open without proper jurisdiction, which I can assure you, you do not have. Eagle Incorporated, please continue to follow me,” Judai said as she stepped across a marble entrance way.
“Dang. This place is amazing,” Jake said as he drooled at the marble walls. “So big. So many paintings. So many statues! Maybe I’m in the wrong gang.”
Yoyo smacked Jake as they continued down a hallway. “Here we go,” Judai smiled as she neared the end of a corridor to a large room with three elevators marked.
So far the place had been empty, but now the group was affronted with several security guards blocking two elevators. “Sorry, these are just not, clean. Nothing’s worse than a dirty elevator, you see.”
“Right this way,” Judai said as the doors to the elevator on the far right opened. “I do hope all goes well for you at the summit and that we may soon be working together more closely. Be warned, the elevator does lurch, since it has to take some passages at a sideways angle.”
The group watched the doors to the elevator close. “So, who feels like we’re not going to get out of here alive?” Jake asked.
Q and Knssquad raised their hands. “This stupid floor is squeaky,” Bano complained.
“That’s because it’s covered in plastic,” Yoyo said.
“This façade of a business couldn’t be any faker,” Bano said. “I mean seriously. If this is a business, how come I didn’t see a single person in there but us?”
“This place isn’t right,” Jake shivered. “I kind of wish I had stayed home. My mom was expecting me to do some chores last month. Why don’t you just let me off? We’ll have a crazy adventure some other time?”
“Right. You’re free to go back as soon as we get off. At a high floor somewhere in the 150 story range. You just have to find your way back down to the bottom of this tower by yourself,” Yoyo smiled. A shouting noise was barely audible somewhere in the distance.
“On second thought. Consider me your guy!” Jake whispered.
“That was kind of creepy,” Clair added.
The elevator doors opened and they were faced with two men in black suits. “Hi, Eagle Incorporated, right? Please follow us to the meeting room.”
“As if they didn’t know who was coming up the elevator,” Yoyo said. An ornament room with flowered designs on the walls greeted them as they got off the elevator. The men lead them down a hallway toward a room with a voice talking in it. Each member of the gang listened to hear if it was TFK’s voice inside.
“Woah, this room was a lot bigger than I expected,” Jake looked around in shock. The room was filled with hundreds of people sitting in chairs facing a giant screen. Jake looked behind him and saw that rows of seats were filled with thugs of all kinds.
“This looks like a Movie theatre?” Yoyo questioned. Knssquad’s eyes darted up and down the aisles of the larger room.
“Here at the Department of Internal Energy we think that safety is a number one priority. We are so happy to have you here and a part of this summit to reduce the soaring crime rates,” a small man in glasses said from the screen.
“What the freedom?” Bano asked, “Is that TFK?”
“That’s the Eagle gang,” someone whispered behind them. Their names and the word ‘Eagle’ were passing up and down the aisles.
“Your seat is over there,” Judai smiled and pointed to an aisle that was open.
“Thanks for everything,” Q answered.
“When the freedom did she get here?” Yoyo said in shock. “That scared the crap out of me.”
The group sat down as several heads turned in their direction. No one was paying any attention to the screen where the small man was droning on. “I don’t really get what’s going on. But we seem to be kind of famous?” Bano asked.
Q felt a tap on his shoulder. The row of people behind him were all wearing black hoods and Q couldn’t tell which of them had tapped him on the shoulder. “Q, do you recognize us?” the man asked.
“Not really,” Q said.
“We’re the old remnants of Renden’s gang,” a man said and lowered his hood. Another man bent down and started talking to Jake. “You told us way back when to get our stuff together. So we did. We’re a legitimate gang now. We follow a leader, but he’s nothing like Renden or Destinykil were. This guy’s much more powerful. We’re going to change the city.”
Q smiled. “Oh yeah. You guys tried to kill us. But I’m glad things worked out.”
The man nodded. “If you need anything from us let me know. We’ll see to it that you get anything we can offer you.”
“Do you mind telling us what’s going on here?” Q asked. “We didn’t really expect many people. Is there like, a lunch table?”
The man in the hood laughed. “You’re joking, right? You don’t know what’s about to happen?”
Q shook his head. “Oh man. How’d you come here without a clue? TFK’s recruiting for his Mafia. After the attack the Military made on the city a lot of his gangs around the city got destroyed. He needs to replenish his ranks so he’s taking the strongest of WOTNOPOLIS and putting them through a test. If you win you get to join his Mafia.”
“Well, we don’t really want to join TFK’s Mafia. But a contest sounds fun,” Q thought aloud.
“There are some really powerful groups here. I saw the Alligator thugs somewhere. And somewhere else the Butterfly gang. I know, lame name. But they have some kind of mystic stuff. They’re impossible to fight. And there’s also the Wolf gang. Those guys became really famous against the Military by being the only gang to stay in one spot and fight them off the entire five days. There was also the Spider gang and the Velociraptor gang. And of course you guys! You guys are amazing,” the man praised.
“Eh, thanks,” Q laughed. “Well, what do you think Eagles? Want to stay and join TFK?”
Yoyo gripped her sword. “This is stupid. But I want to fight now that we‘re here.”
“We’re probably never going to be inside of TFK’s Tower like this again,” Bano added. “This is also a chance to take on some competition.”
“Contests can be fun! Maybe there will be prizes?” Clair smiled. “We could win a car! Then we wouldn’t have to walk everywhere.”
“Alright,” Q said.
“This is stupid! We didn’t sign up to see this idiot prattle forever. We signed up to fight!” a man yelled from the front.
“That’s the Walrus leader, Kajol,” Q heard the man behind him say.
Q watched as people across the auditorium cheered and called after them. Kajol and his group taunted the crowd as they headed toward the exit. The only light in the room disappeared as the screen went black.
“Hello, Walrus gang. I am so very sorry that we had to make you wait. But we wanted to make sure everyone was situated before we started the games!” a voice cackled through the speakers.
Kajol froze as he looked back at the screen. Looking at him was Jose of the TFK guards. “Now why don’t we all wait for Mr. Kajol to sit down so we can start the festivities? Do you think you can do that?”
Kajol and his group scuffled back to their seats and lowered their heads. All stared at the screen where Jose’s face was plastered. “Very good, Walrus Gang. I can see you guys can follow directions.”
Jose smiled wide and laughed into the monitor. “Oh man, so many of you are going to die soon. So you all know what you’re fighting for. A chance to be a part of TFK’s mafia. The benefits are great. And the power is greater. You can thank Endless Nothing and his army of geniuses for this glorious opportunity.”
“The goal is simple. Leave the Tower. Alive, that is. If you can exit this tower then you will pass and you will be allowed into our Mafia. However, you have a lot of competition! You can’t all leave the tower and join our Mafia. So feel free to kill anyone that you find. The less people around, the better business anyway, right?”
“Don’t expect anything to be as it seems. This place is screwy. Even I get lost here sometimes. And if you think it’s going to be a simple matter of life and death, you’re wrong. It’s more like a matter of death, and very painful death. Many of us up here have put stakes and fortunes on who we think will win. So try and make this fun for us. Go.”
Jose’s face disappeared from the screen. The entire room was pitch black. The silence that had followed Jose’s video erupted into cheers and shouts as everyone started to run in different directions. Q grabbed the members of his gang and pulled them close.
“Alright. This isn’t exactly what I expected. But with TFK I guess that’s what you get,” Q whispered.
Red signs saying exit lit up different sides of the room. There were eight exits in total. Clashing and gunshots were already filling the room as people started to attack each one another. “We’ll wait till the room clears out. If we get mixed in this crowd we’ll either end up separated or in a needless fight.”
Everyone nodded. A large amount of people were headed to the exit that Q’s group had come in. “What are they trying to do?” Jake asked.
“That’s probably the way they came in,” Bano said. “So they figure just take the elevator and all will work out.”
“It’s really stupid,” Yoyo scoffed. “The elevator had a plastic covering for a reason. It’s to get rid of the blood quicker. Anyone who gets on that elevator is probably killed. They’ll toss the bodies out then send it back with a new plastic covering so that more people can get on it.”
Q nodded. In the feint glow of the red signs Q could tell that the room had mostly emptied. “Which exit should we pick?” Q asked.
“As long as we don’t go out the way we came we’re probably safe. After all, they want to see us fight and overcome challenges,” Yoyo answered.
“No, this is TFK’s Mafia. They’re just as likely to want to see us all die brutal deaths as they are to want to see us actually fight,” Bano countered.
“Right then. Let’s go that way,” Q pointed away from the way they had come to the third sign.
The group crossed the aisles past a few gangs. Some were sitting quietly watching. A few were in loud arguments about how they shouldn’t of signed up for this. “Too late now,” Q said.
They exited the large room and came to a staircase that lead up. They started walking up the stairs and Jake raised his hand. “This seems kind of counter productive. Just saying.”
“True that,” Q agreed. “But think of it this way. If this is the wrong way to leave, then we’re probably getting closer to TFK.”
“You’re not really good at comforting people,” Jake whined. Clair raised her hand and silenced the group.
A loud noise was banging down the stair case towards them. Q put his foot out and stopped the object that had rolled down. “A body,” Q jumped.
“How pleasant,” Bano said as they continued up the stairs. “That‘s not suspicious at all.”
The stair case stopped at a room with a flickering fluorescent light. It looked like a cubicle filled office. Several men stood across the room from them while bodies lay in convulsed positions all across the room.
“Ah, looks like some more people have come to play,” a man said. “Oh my. Some real elites, too. It’s the Eagle gang.”
“No one gets past us. We’re going to make this competition easier by clearing out anyone who picks this path. So game over.” another man announced. “We’re the Alligator gang.”
Bano smirked and whipped out his kama. “Nice to meet you.”
Three men raced across the room and threw knives at the Eagle Gang. Bano blocked the knives and created a smoke screen around their group. Yoyo leapt from the smoke screen and slashed down two of the men. She dashed across the room and cut down another.
Two members of the Alligator gang slipped past Yoyo and moved in on the Eagle gang. Jake tackled one into the ground. Knssquad smashed a banana bat into the other. Shouts of terror were heard as the rest of the Alligator gang tried to escape but were cut down by Yoyo.
The leader ran as fast he could towards the exit. Two ice arrows pierced his legs and brought him to his knees. A hand grabbed him by his shoulder.
Bano launched the guy against the wall. A shattering sound rushed through the room. A wave of light hit them and they all shouted as they were blinded by it. A scream was heard as the man disappeared.
“What the heck did you do?” Q jumped away from Bano.
“I don’t know?” Bano said as their eyes adjusted to the outside light. “I don’t know my own strength I guess.”
“It’s glass, pig headed men,” Yoyo said. “It was painted to look like a wall. When you threw that guy into the wall he smashed into a glass window and fell from the tower to his death.”
“Wow. That’s a lot more cruel than I intended to go for,” Bano spoke.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Yoyo asked.
“Er, no creepy girl,” Bano said grimly.
Jake trembled. “I just about bounced into that wall earlier. If I had of I would of smashed right through it and died.”
“They weren’t kidding when they said you can’t trust anything in this place,” Q said.
The group stepped over the bodies of the Alligator gang and others who had fallen and pushed through the exit.
“Great, another staircase,” Bano said.
****
“So how many of them will be mine?” Venomu asked the giant sitting at his desk.
“You know you’re not getting any of these. Besides, I think we both know you have more than enough already,” the man said slowly. “If you’ve taken care of the drugs then get out already.”
“Why not, TFK? Aren’t we old friends? I’ve known you for years. And I’ve been paying you heavy amounts of drugs and money and experiments for as long as I can think of. You even used to have me as your personal guard,” Venomu smiled.
TFK lifted a cigar to his mouth and ignored Venomu. “This will be a good show. It helps relieve the boredom of the reports. Watching them die will be much more entertaining then hearing about them killing each other. The cops should thank me. I’m doing them a service.”
Venomu nodded. “How rude of them to not see that you are the very definition of an upstanding citizen?”
TFK turned toward Venomu and shoo’d him with his hand. “Get out of here. You’re bothersome.”
Venomu laughed and headed for TFK‘s personal elevator. “By the way, TFK. Would you mind if I toyed around during some of the events? Not anything too fancy, persay. But just a little fun. There’s a few gangs you have today that I’m interested in.”
“You‘re such a pest,” TFK said and waved his hand.
Venomu beamed as the doors closed. Jose appeared from a corner of TFK’s office and shook his head. “That guy gives me the creeps. You should just kill him boss.”
“Perhaps someday,” TFK said. “For right now he’s useful against our cursed friend Mikel. Until I know what those other two are planning I am keeping things in balance.”
“I hear those two made contact with Venomu recently. They also messed with the AMP locators and botched the Military?” Jose asked.
“Yes.” TFK said. “Not that any of them matter. Their just more fun nuisances then most. Plus the more powerful the more tasty the soul.”
****
“This is a little weird,” Bano said.
“Creepy,” Q agreed.
The Eagle gang stared into the dark room they had entered. Dirt covered the ground as a heavy fog rolled past them. “This is a grave yard?” Jake asked.
Q nodded as he scratched some dirt off the stone marker in front of him. A date of death was written on it. From what they could see the entire room was filled with markers. “You know, something made me think that TFK wasn’t the type to mark his dead,” Clair said.
“No kidding. He seems more like an oven kind of guy,” Jake nodded.
“Do you see an exit?” Knssquad asked them.
“No, and I don’t see how we got in this room, either,” Q answered. “Hey wait a second. Why is their fog here? We’re indoors.”
“At the Department of Internal Energy money is wasted on smoke machines to creep people out when they walk into the graveyard section. Because having a company with the initials D-I-E or having a graveyard wasn’t enough of a hint,” Yoyo groaned.
“Hello there!” a voice yelled from behind Jake. Jake’s scream ricocheted across the room.
“Z-Zombie!” Jake said as he ducked behind Yoyo.
“Knssquad! Time to put our Zombie knowledge to action,” Q yelled. “Reload!”
“No! I’m not a Zombie,” the voice said. “If the Zombies were here you‘d already be dead.”
“Then who are you?” Clair asked. No one could yet see where the figure was talking from in the dark graveyard.
“I am a guard of DIE and would like to welcome you to the graveyard challenge. If you can defeat me you can move on your way out of TFK’s Tower. If not, you will be buried somewhere in here,” the voice said cheerfully.
“Hi,” Yoyo said as she whipped out her swords. “We’re not interested in your stupid contest or games. So come out now or I’m just going to hack you.”
“Over there,” Clair said and pointed at a dark shadow behind them. Yoyo charged into the fog. A loud shriek was heard followed by the sound of something collapsing.
“Yoyo, what happened?” Jake yelled out. No one answered.
“I’d like to say that I somehow defeated her, but I think she just fell through the ground or something,” the voice answered.
“Or something?” Q yelled. “What do you mean?”
“Because of the weight of all the dirt piled on the floors below us, sometimes areas snap and that kind of causes a quicksand effect. And if you weren’t careful and were charging across the floor you might just fall through the floor. Exhibit A, that angry chick,” the voice answered.
“Were there other exhibits and you never thought to fix it?” Jake asked.
“Yoyo! Where are you? Are you okay?” Clair yelled.
“Not exactly sure where I am. But I’m alright. I can’t reach the roof or get back to you guys from here, though,” Yoyo yelled. “Take out this chump and I‘ll catch up with you in a bit!”
“Yeah right,” the man said as he came into view. “You guys were in trouble already. Split apart and you’ll be split to pieces. We elite guard are not just pushovers. We may not be as strong as the great three, but we’ll certainly be enough for you gangsters.”
The sound of engines roared to life as the man charged forward. The group split up as a chainsaw swung from each hand.
Jake bounced into the air and slammed a kick into the man’s face. Jake dived to the ground and exploded a firework in the man’s face. The man took a few steps back and yelled as he disappeared from view.
“Oh shoot,” Jake laughed. “Yoyo, I think I just sent the dude to you.”
“What? I don’t see him?” Yoyo yelled. “Did you really send a chainsaw wielding maniac down on my floor somewhere? I’m going to kill you!”
“Maybe,” Jake said.
The group walked away from the hole of terror where a stream of threats and shouts and sexism could be heard. Jake asked, “I feel a little guilty for, well, dropping a maniac in there with her. Think we should try and help her?”
“Naw,” Knssquad said. “She’s stronger than most of us. And I think it’d hurt her pride if we were worried for her. Besides that guy‘s a nothing.”
“She’s been in a fighting mood,” Bano said.
“Nice moves, Jake,” Q smiled. “You’ve gotten a lot better.”
****
“Stupid pig-headed men are just,” Yoyo screamed. “They’re stupid!”
She looked around the room she had fallen in. It was cramped and filled with other junk. Most of it she had crushed when she fell in there. “Where the heck am I?” Yoyo asked. She felt a wooden door in front of her and opened it.
She stepped out of the room and looked behind her. “Oh, a janitor’s closet. That’s why I smell like soap.”
She looked around the hallway she had landed in. “Why does this place never have any of the lights working?” Yoyo whined. She reached out and tried the door closest to her. It was locked. She continued down the hallway trying doors and found they were all locked. She swiped her keycard halfheartedly through them and found she was denied access.
“Yeah, company secrets are in all these doors, huh?” Yoyo growled.
A metallic chink across the room made her jump. She saw that a door had opened slightly across the hallway from her. She moved towards it slowly. “Way too suspicious,” she whispered.
She poked her sword through the doorway to make sure no one was waiting there for her. “Of course the light switch wouldn’t work here. I know I often install light switches that don’t work,” Yoyo grumbled.
Two roaring engines came to life as a figure stomped towards her. Yoyo immediately dodged the person moving at her and took a few steps back into a table. The person spun around and slammed his chainsaws into Yoyo’s swords. “You’re a pretty strong one, huh?” Yoyo asked.
She ducked back and dodged his next attack. “Sorry, I can’t take any chances,” Yoyo said. “I can’t let a stupid chump like you hurt me before I face off the man I really want to kill.”
“You assume you’ll make it past me alive,” he answered as he swung his chainsaw in the direction of Yoyo’s voice. He coughed in pain as he felt his grip on the chainsaw disappear.
“I already did,” Yoyo said from behind him as his arm thudded against the ground. She pulled her other blade out of his chest and watched him fall to his knees.
“How did you?” the man stuttered as he gripped at where his arm used to be. “What are you?”
Yoyo kicked the man into the ground. “You guys make this place seem so scary with your fog machine and your initials. And having a chainsaw maniac guard the graveyard. But who you should really be afraid of is us.”
Yoyo bent down and searched the man’s pockets. “Found it!” Yoyo jumped. “I bet this security key will get me on my way.”
****
“I really hate stairs,” Bano said as they climbed higher. “Especially when they defy logic. We‘re supposed to leave the tower. So I have to go higher up?”
“We’ve been at this stair case a long time,” Clair mused. “Maybe we fell off the grid of the game? They probably didn’t expect anyone to get past chainsaws back there so didn’t bother to have this lead anywhere important. What they didn’t count on was faulty architecture!”
“They could also be trying to keep us tired and annoyed so we won’t expect whatever’s coming next,” Q said.
Everyone stopped and looked at Q. “What the heck? Since when are you the logical guy?”
“Well, Yoyo has passed on so I figured I’d have to be the sexist person for the gang now. After all, it’s the most crucial part of the gang,” Q said. “If you weren’t all so boar headed boys with your male parts you’d know that!”
“It needs work,” Bano shrugged. “Like, a lot of work.”
“Give me a break,” Q said.
The group came out of the stair case and ended up in a large gym. Several other groups of people were standing around the room. Most of the people looked beat up. Some were even heavily injured. A screen hung over head while a man talked about stock prices. The screen immediately changed to that of Jose’s face as the Eagle gang stepped forward.
“It would seem those of you who made it to tier 2 have arrived. Excellent. Most of those who aren’t here yet are dead,” Jose cackled. Q looked around the room and noticed the numbers had dramatically decreased from the room they were at last. “Instead of hundreds of contestants were down to a solid one hundred at this point. Consider what you did so far as applying for the job. Now you are all in the interview phase. These are your job competitors.”
“Now we’re moving to the next phase. The rest of the battle will be downhill. No more upstairs business. In fact, you are forbidden from climbing higher into the Tower. Good luck,” Jose said.
“Hey Jose!” Q yelled. Jose’s eyes fell on Q. “I don’t care about working at your stupid company. Just know we’re going to climb higher into the Tower, rules or not. And we’re going to find TFK. And when we do we’re going to crush him.”
Everyone stared at the Eagle gang. Everything was still except one person laughing in the distance. “Way to make a scene, Q,” Jake said.
“That was rather awkward,” Clair whispered.
Jose grinned. “I look forward to killing you then.”
His face disappeared and the screen went black. “Yo, Knssquad,” Q said. “I want you, Clair, and Jake to take one of those other exits. Bano and I are the only ones who can stand up to TFK. There’s no reasons we should endanger you with those monsters.”
“But Q! There’s no way you could possibly fight them on your own. You-” Knssquad was cut off.
“Go,” Bano said. “If you guys can survive this madhouse that’ll be great. Besides, you need to find Yoyo before she loses it or something. We can handle this.”
“Good luck,” Clair said and hugged them both. “We’ll be waiting on you guys outside. Don’t take too long.”
“Are you sure about this?” Jake asked Q.
“Yep,” Q nodded. “This whole kill or be kill thing isn’t what we signed up for, anyway. We’re just taking our complaint to the top.”
Bano and Q split from the gang. Q turned back and yelled to them. “Just survive!”
****
“Survive,” Jake whispered as they headed down a flight of stairs. Other groups were moving down the stairs with them. “We’re such a small group now. And let’s face it, those three were the strongest. They came out ahead in the rock paper scissor matches by quite a bit.”
“Shh,” Knssquad said. “Let’s not draw attention to the fact we lost our strongest members and are puny now.”
“I wouldn’t worry about those guys,” Clair patted Jake on the shoulder. “If anyone could fight TFK it’s them after all. We’ll just focus on finding Yoyo.”
“Which I think we all know will be pretty much impossible at this rate. This place is really big. Shoot, why didn’t we just go with those guys?” Knssquad asked.
“Too late now,” Clair said. “Let’s focus on the mission. Survive.”
“Hey there,” a girl said behind Jake. Jake turned around and gasped.
“What’s wrong?” the girl said. Jake just turned away.
“Ah, sorry, I didn’t expect to see a pretty girl here. Gangs and a scary tower is kind of a guy thing,” Jake said.
Jake fell forward as Clair and Knssquad smacked him. “We’re pretty girls!” Clair said.
“Except for you guys,” Jake waved his hands. “I am just so used to your beauty I forgot.”
“You should just stop now,” Knssquad ordered Jake.
“My name is PeinQ,” the girl waved.
“I see my brother is still a pain,” a voice echoed behind them. Clair and Knssquad turned around and jumped.
“Dark Raptor!” Jake said.
“What a guy,” Dark Raptor said. “Here we were trying to act all cool and win the contest. And he totally stole the rug out from under us. There’s no way we can compete with the cool of yelling at a TV screen. It’s like, what the heck was this all about?”
“This contest was about cool?” Jake asked.
“Everything is about cool, Jake,” Dark Raptor nodded. “Write this down. Your life goal? To be cool. If you do that then everything else makes sense.”
“If Q doesn’t make it back can we replace him with this guy? He makes a lot of sense,” Jake asked.
“No, that didn’t make any sense,” Clair shook her head.
“Those two die?” Dark Raptor laughed. “What a joke. No, don’t worry about them. Those two are out of this world.”
Jake let out a sigh of relief. “I guess you’d know.”
Dark Raptor smiled. “However, when I next see my brother I will kill him!”
Clair ignored him and asked, “By the way, what gang are you?”
“Velociraptor gang,” Dark Raptor nodded. “Me and PeinQ here. There are others but they’re kind of here and there right now. Want to join?”
“It’s PeinQ and I. And no,” Knssquad said.
“Well, you’re not invited, Grammar Grinch,” Dark Raptor snapped.
“Hey, Dark Raptor. Tell us what those two were like as kids,” Jake said.
“Hm. They were weak. They would of lived out on the street, but I let them live in my tree house and under a bridge. They would of also starved to death but I always offered them my food. I was the best,” Dark Raptor told them.
“What kind of backwards memory do you have?” Jake questioned.
“I wasn‘t the best back in those days. I always bullied them. Taking away their money. Pushing them over just because I was taller than them. I‘d leave them at the Zoo in the Gorilla exhibit and say, ‘good luck‘. I hate gorillas so much. I always played horrible pranks on them, too. Filling their juice boxes with fire ants. And one time I was glued- I mean, they were glued to a busy intersection. And I did all of this. No one pranked me because they were too scared,” Dark Raptor mumbled.
Clair turned away. “Wow, those two were monsters. No wonder he wants to kill Q so bad.”
****
“We’ve been running up these stairs for forever,” Q panted. “At this rate we’ll be exhausted by the time we find TFK.”
“Any better plans?” Bano asked. “Want to camp out and start a fire?”
“Well no. I am kind of glad these floors have adequate lighting. It was weird before,” Q said.
The stair case ended at a marble door. Q pulled it open and looked inside. “Wow, not exactly what I expected,” Q gawked.
Inside was a gigantic empty room. A small bed in one corner and an elevator across the room from it. Several racks of suits sat next to the bed. “This place is kind of odd,” Bano said.
“Do you think this is TFK’s room?” Q asked.
Bano looked up from the ground. The floors were covered in tiny multicolored specks. The ceiling and walls were made of the same substance. Light reflected off the surfaces from two windows high up. “No, this isn’t TFK’s room,” Bano said slowly.
“It’s mine,” said a man in a suit standing at the far side of the room.
Bano whipped out his Kama. “You here to fight?” Bano asked.
Punkfilter smiled. “Oh, it won’t be much of a fight.”
