(Untitled)

[courageofawolf]

It was near closing time at Jungle Karma Pizza, and while others might've been in the midst of preparing to close, RJ preferred to keep the store open until the last minute. After all, you never knew when someone might come in with a late night hankering for well-cooked pizza

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[corinth_cartels]

The door chime jangled as a pair of fairly dressed men walked in. One of them sported a fairly decent sized bruise, the other was grumbling as they walked in. "And I say we go get that Kusanagi asshole."

"You kidding me? He just took out a bunch of our guys."

"Man, this place used to be run by us. What went wrong?"

"Heroes. Rangers. Do the math." He looked over at the owner and sneered. "Hey!" And he whacked the table. "Rent's due!"

[courageofawolf]

RJ put down his comic book and looked up, a bewildered look on his face.

"You guys must have the wrong pizza place. I'm pretty sure you're not my landlord."

[corinth_cartels]

"That's where you're wrong," stated the first one, a nasty smirk growing on his face. "Y'see, this is Cartel territory. Scorpion Cartel Territory. The previous owner failed to pay and well..."

The second took out a bat from under his jacket and smashed a picture on the wall. The first smirked. "You wouldn't want this place to go under, riiiiight?"

[courageofawolf]

"Ah, cliche mafia. What's next, going to stick a horse head in my bed if I don't pay up? Might drive the point home better than vandalism" the slightly goofy pizza maker replied nonchalantly?

[corinth_cartels]

"Hey don't screw with us pizza man!" snapped the first. Reactionary Nutjob #1 strode forward and reached out to grab RJ by the front of his jacket.

[courageofawolf]

Reactionary Nutjob Number #1's arm was grabbed by a hand that clearly had a morpher strapped to it.

"I'm not looking for a fight here guys. Don't make it into one."

[corinth_cartels]

"FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!" proclaimed Reactionary Nutjob #2.

RN#1 stared at the hand with the morpher attached and he resisted the urge to state "You sprung a leak." Instead, he stared at the hand. And then proclaimed, "I knew this was too good to be true..."

"What now? We go back without squeezing a couple and Fresno Bob'll have our hides," stated 2, putting his baseball bat back into his holster.

"We'll have to flee into the wastes."

[courageofawolf]

RJ was tempted to just toss the mooks out and let their boss deal with them, but he had seen enough gangster movies to know what would happen if he did.

"I might have an idea about that. You ever think about entering the wonderful world of gainful employment? I mean, the worst I'd do if you screw up is fire you."

[corinth_cartels]

The pair stared at him. "You serious?" asked the first. "Even if you are a Ranger or whatever, you think you could stand up to the Cartels?"

"They pretty much control most of Corinth's businesses," said the second. "But... if you're willing to put your necks out for us..."

Any further talk however was forestalled by the chinging of the door as a small group of men from the cartel showed up. The leader, a tall tattooed man sneered. "Well, if it isn't Bob and Jeff. Can't believe Benny picked you two clods."

Jeff, the one with the bat, bristled. "What'd you say? Benny's a great guy, he took us in!"

"And look, the trash speaks!" laughed a second, flicking the ash of his cigarette on the floor.

[courageofawolf]

"I'm guessing you guys came in for the "rent"?" RJ said to the other Cartel members, complete with airquotes.

"SOrry, but I don't make donations to criminal enterprises, forced or otherwise."

[corinth_cartels]

The other cartel members laughed degradingly as Jeff and Bob inched to the side. "Uh guys?"

"Can it small fry," growled the leader as he stepped up to RJ and did something that made the muscles in his neck bulge. "You don't wanna screw with me pizza man. I'm Snake Johnson, the leader for the Enforcer division for the Cartels. You know what I did to the last pizza man?"

"He crushed his legs," laughed the rodent-like man behind him and the other six mooks laughed.

Jeff and Bob ducked behind the counter.

[courageofawolf]

"Look, normally I'd tell folks like you to not make this into a fight, but, as I sincerely doubt you're willing to listen..." RJ trailed off before kicking Snake in the stomach.

[corinth_cartels]

Snake oofed as he went down like a sack of potatoes. The other cartel members stared for a long moment before the rodent-like man cried out "GET HIM!"

Two surged forward as another two pulled out knives and advanced at a much slower pace.

[courageofawolf]

Less than a minute later the group was quite literally thrown out on their asses.

"Oh, hey, just letting you know? The obligatory "AND STAY OUT" is definitely implied here. Just sayin'."

[corinth_cartels]

As the men scampered away, Jeff poked his head out from behind the front desk. "Are they gone?"

"Yeah they're gone. Wuss."

"Hey!" A pause. "So what now? Do we take up the pizza guy's offer?"

Bob shrugged. "Sounds better than the alternative. We should at least get a message to Benny."

Standing up, Bob said, "Hey um, do you suppose we can use your phone man? I need to call Benny."

"He's our boss, and a lot nicer than any of the cartel guys are," added Jeff. "He used to help one of the Rangers. What was his name? Zoey?"

"Ziggy," corrected Bob.

[courageofawolf]

"Yeah sure, go ahead. I gotta start closing up anyways." RJ replied in the affirmative.

"And about the jobs, just show up at nine tomorrow and we can work out all the details then."