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The next morning was bright and sunny for Team Shoryuken, with James feeling especially relieved for being able to sleep in a proper bed for once. Well and truly rested, he got up before the boys and decided to shower himself, locking the bathroom door. It was immensely refreshing to be able to use such first-world amenities after having dealt with various other replacements for so long, as he showered his scaled body, tail outstretched and all. Despite last night's unusual events, he was raring to go and deal with whatever plan they had next. But he decided to let the boys sleep as long as they needed to. After all, he was merely an accomplice. Yet he did ponder on whether or not he should tell them about what he overheard last night. He didn't want to agitate them, so he decided to give himself another walk tonight. He only hoped that his friends would not become suspicious. After his shower, he dressed himself back into his disguise with some reluctance, and waited for the boys to wake up five minutes later. "Mornin' guys." "Mmmmph?" "Hehe, yer gonna miss the school bus at this rate." "W-what, we're late?!" panicked Roy who sprung up like a jack-in-the-box making James laugh. "Hhhahaha, naaaah I'm just joking. SO! What plans we got today?" "We gotta check if they got the tournament ready yet." Tommy said this as he hopped out of bed in a pair of pyjamas, which each of them had brought in their backpacks, before adding: "Then we can plan things out, they still gotta get the team from Summers before they do anything." "Right." As the boys showered one at a time, James walked out to stretch his legs and work on his act, as well as to get a general feel for the hotel layout on his lonesome. It was around 10am, and the reception desk was ablaze with some sort of argument between the hotelier and the adult who had supervised the teams' bus to the city. "Are you SURE this is the same family?" "She was very adamant about him, and her description fit him precisely." "Oh my god, this is a nightmare. I can't believe one of these kids would do this. She said there's no way she would have signed it?" "No sir, she was incredibly...stern in her statement of such." "Dammit...she's gonna have to come here and pick him up then, our bus is coming back from Summers, the tournament's tomorrow, we're just gonna have to disqualify his team." "What do you wish me to do sir?" "Call Mrs. O'Brien back, tell her she has to come here to pick her son up because we can't send him home until after the videogame tournament. Until then I'll just have to keep him out of it, his whole team if I have to." "Very well sir." James heard it all, managing to stay out of sight behind the bannister before gently making his way back upstairs where the boys were brushing their teeth together. He looked at Roy's still-blackened eye, some of which was starting to fade. For now he said nothing as they walked out together, not wanting to worry them yet as they made their way towards their apparent real objective.

A phone booth, in the middle of the street, with a phone book. James was puzzled and had to ask at last: "Okay so who we calling? We making a prank call or something?" "Nope," replied Tommy. "Just gotta find someone while we're here." "Who?" "Oh an ol' pal of ours, we wanna say hi again." Jack stepped inside and began perusing the phone book, asking: "Alright, what's his name again Roy?" "Jack Majors." Roy had taken a rather serious tone, but he was also extremely agitated as his friend began to flick through to page M. Eventually he hit upon the name. "Got it. Majors, Jack." "Can we find the address?" asked Roy. "Phone books don' have them, just numbers." "B-but we gotta find 'im, quick!" "I know I know, lemme just...." "Why you wanna find this guy's address so bad?" asked James. "We NEED to see him." Roy was pleading with an utmost urgency. "I can't just call 'im because...because I need to SEE him, face to face." "...this is more than some old friend isn't it kids?" "Um....y-yeah." "Look it's none of your business," said Jack defiantly, "this doesn't involve you, we just need you to help us win the tournament but this, it's just a li'l thing we wanna clear up." "I'm part of your team Jack." James did not want to threaten a kid, so he pulled up whatever natural adult authority he had over them in his voice. "I deserve to know about these things." "No you don't, because it doesn't involve you. How come you don't tell us about what you were doing last night?" "What, you mean walking around the town, going to a bar and coming back?" "That really all?" "Yes. Look, I get the fact you still don't trust me, but you're not even the oldest out of the three of you. Don't do the tough guy act on me." "And YOU are not even from this planet so maybe you should back off!" "Guys guys!" Tommy tried to mitigate some peace between the two. "Let's just do this, okay?" But that only gave the raptor time to add: "If you tell me about it, I can help. I know how to track down an address, I know ways to do it." "You can?!" The youngest of the three piped up with a desperate cheer. "C-can you help us find the address?!?" "I know a surefire way to do it." "Do it, please do it!" "BUT!" He lifted a stern clawfinger towards them. "You tell me exactly what this is about. Alright?" "W-what?!" "What?!" Jack repeated his younger friend's response, turning to him. "R-roy, don't tell him!" "Well if you won't tell me, then your parents will."

That statement alone sent shivers through all of them. They all turned towards James with different expressions. Jack was outraged. Tommy was shocked. Roy was panicking as he tried to stammer out: "W-wh-what...?" "While you guys were getting ready, I heard the guy who's in charge of us arguing at reception about something. Said your mom had called up and was threatening to come down here because you forged her signature." "S-SHE'S LYIN'!" "You got nothing to do with this!" roared Jack defensively. "You brought me in on your frickin' team, I'm involved now, and unless I get the full story then I'm leaving and you're not gonna be able to find this address quick enough before Roy's mom gets here!" "Oh what, did you tell on us?! I bet you did, yer a tattletale!" "I did NOT snitch on ANYONE!" "ALRIGHT!" Roy's tearful shout broke up the brief argument as they turned towards him, his cheeks reddening from frustration. "A-alright! I...I'll tell you what's going on." "What?! Roy, no-" "No Jack! He has to know, he knows too much now!" "Dammit! We agreed, just the three of us, this was PERSONAL!" "I don' care! I just wanna do this NOW, an' we're wastin' time!" Jack merely threw up his hands and let Roy make his decision. James said nothing and waited for the truth as Roy continued. "I'm the only one who's real involved in this, yer just my friends, this shouldn' involve you..." "But we did this BECAUSE we're your friends," added Tommy, always the mediator. "Jack's just worried cuz we all known each other a long time and we only known James for like, what, a few weeks?" The raptor rubbed the back of his neck and nodded softly before saying: "Alright I can kinda see your point guys. I just wanna help." "Okay," said Roy sternly with a wavering plea in his tone. "Find his address. Then I tell you." "Alright. Stand aside. I know an old trick Sarah taught me." The raptor walked into the booth, the phone somewhat archaic to him but not enough for him to not comprehend its simple 12-button layout. He never did understand what the hash mark was for. Fishing out the quarter he received as change from the bar, he began to dial the number for Majors, Jack. Phones were rather strange in his world. On the one hand, many people had mobiles. On the other hand, there were still areas of the world where regular phones were used, either because it was cheaper, or because it was harder to trace. Usually the latter amongst those he knew. Eventually an older woman's voice came shyly on the receiver. "Hello?" "Hello," began the raptor with his most official English tone, "is this Jack Majors' residence?" "Y-yes....who is this?" "My name's Mr. Campbell from the Fourside post office and I have some mail for him." "Oh? Well, why can't you just deliver it normally?" "Well...there's been a slight problem, this is actually rather embarrassing but...we were updating our new database, moving all of the addresses from paper onto our computers. Unfortunately there was a hiccup and some of the addresses we...lost. I'm very sorry to ask this but we've been calling people up in the phonebook to get back their addresses all morning."

For a while, there came a silence on the phone. The woman on the other end was possibly debating on whether this was legit or a lie, trying to think of a question to break it. "If you lost our address, then why do you not have it on paper still?" James replied with quite a surprisingly quick answer. "Ah, yes, that's the OTHER embarrassing part, we also lost the paper when we sent them for recycling." "Oh...well...that's rather silly isn't it?" "Haha, yes, it um, it rather is. We were so certain our new computers would take in everything but...well I don't know how the bloody things work." "Oh, don't get me started." The older woman prepared herself a small rant. "I can't even LOOK at the things with those glaring screens, gives me a headache!" "Hah I can sympathise, the poor girls have been working here on them for days, we had to bring in new chairs and everything for their poor backs." "Kids these days are all about their Nintendos and Walkmans, they can't just enjoy a nice day out anymore!" "Hahaha, I agree absolutely! Not like when we used to have ball games in the park right?" The woman chuckled with the raptor, as the kids smirked at the older incredibly British accent of their alien friend. Beforehand it was just a standard Londoner accent, but now they kept expecting the raptor to pull out a cup of tea in his hands. "So," said the woman at Majors' residence, "you want the address?" "If that is alright with you yes." He motioned for a pen or pencil from the boys before Tommy quickly produced one from his pockets, as well as a small notebook. "Alright then...actually hang on!" A light of inspiration came from the older woman. James panicked silently. "Why can't you look up any letters or mail you said you had for us?" "Ah...that..." He held his tongue to prevent stammering before he remembered the emergency excuse. "That...WOULD be a great idea but unfortunately we do not have any actual mail for you right here at the moment. All of it was um...already offloaded into the...delivery vans, yes! Yes the mailvans already took all the mail early in the morning, and after they left, as well as with all of the original written addresses in the trash with the garbage delivery men, we tried to update our databases with all of this bother, and quite frankly we can't ask them to go sifting through dozens of mailbags just to find one or two letters now can we?" "W-well I-" "-and to do that with every OTHER address that we need to reclaim well...you can see the problem we're in." "Oh well that's fair enough then." A silent wiping of his brow and a thumbs up indicated that he had passed the test. "The address is...Jack and Nora Majors, 359 Flint Avenue, Fourside, zipcode 25479." "Thaaank you, you have been immensely helpful, terribly sorry about all this." "Oh it's alright, you just be more careful about them now!" "We'll try, if the bloody computers try!" "Hahaha, of course. Goodbye." "Goodbye!" And with the call hung up, he produced the address upon the notebook, much to the boys' elation. "You did it!" squeaked Roy happily. "Thank you James, thank you so much!" "Ah-ah-ah!" He held it away from them with a grin of coercion. "First...you hold your end of the bargain up. Tell me who Jack Majors is." "Oh you snake!" Tommy sneered at this sudden but inevitable betrayal. "What's the deal?!" "You promised you would tell me. If I'm gonna help you, I need to know this. Don't you trust me?" "I do." Roy was honest. And his opinion mattered the most to James. "And I'll tell you. I...I'm not meant to be here." "Huh?" "We all just hopped on a bus an' wanted to come to the city, to do something...for me. You just got involved an' kinda...helped us along." "Jeez I feel like I kidnapped you or something." "It's not kidnapping if we went willingly, an' you were just someone who joined up before we were ready to head out!" "Oh, so I'm the fall guy if anything happens to you?!" "NO!" "Then why are your parents after you?! Why didn't you tell them anything!?!" "CUZ I'M RUNNIN' AWAY!"

The youngest of the group stood defiant with tense pasty arms and a tear-stained face before he relaxed and tried to explain himself. "My mom...my mom doesn' care about me. She doesn' let me do anything. Sometimes she hits me, even just fer doin' nuthin'. She wastes all our money, she steals from me an' my dad, and he can't do anythin' cuz he's a wuss!" "Roy-" "-I don' wanna go back home...I wanted to tell someone, tell the police but mom told me if I did she'd know, an' she'd lock me in the basement again. I...I don' wanna go back down there, it's dark an'...a-a-an' I get...s-scared." He started to break down into tears, fingers curling near his eyes, his two friends coming closer to comfort him with their presence. James could do nothing but feel remorse. He hadn't felt such an urge to hug someone in years. Instead, he gently lifted up Roy's cap to reveal the black eye. "She did this...right?" With a nod of admittance, he started to cry for real, his friends holding him close. "But...why didn't you tell anyone else?! Your teacher, your friends' parents or-" "None of 'em believe us!" protested Jack with a slight break in his voice. "They think cuz we spend all the time with each other we're makin' up stupid games an' lying all the time! We've known Roy since he was in kindergarten, we're the only people that don't abandon him, cuz we're his friends!" "And this is the only way? Hiking it all the way to Fourside just to find someone?" Roy nodded as he sniffed hard. "We're lookin' fer my Granpa Jack. He fought in a war. He...he'll protect me. He's not a wuss like my dad is." "...listen, Roy." James put a hand on his shoulder in empathy. "I know how you feel. I ran away from home too." "R-really?" "Yep. Li'l different from you though, if you change bad mom and useless dad to social worker who wants to take you away from a good family because neighbours think they know better about what happens in your house than you do." A memory in that instant made him seethe and bite his tongue tenderly to resist the urge to swear, swallowing the sounds and motioning his mouth to curse silently with clenching fists. "What happened to you?" "...my neighbours thought my foster parents did bad things to me. They were lying, they'd never hurt me, they just hated my parents, and I dunno why." "Wh...what happened to yer real parents?" asked Tommy cautiously. "They died when I was really li'l. I can't even remember them but who cares, we're gonna see your granddad Jack right now." "Wh-wha?" Tommy was surprised along with the other two. "But-" "But what?" James turned to him sternly. "I wanna help you. I've been in that kinda situation. You thought because I'm from another planet that I wouldn't know the kind of problems you have? Well I do. We find your granddad, finish up the tournament and win big, right?" "R-right!" "And what about you two?" "We're taking the bus home," said Jack. "Roy stays with his grandpa. It's what he wants." "Right. But...the grown-ups organising this thing won't let you, and they know your mom's coming...plus if they confirm your signature is forged then they even said they'd forfeit all four of us." "What?!" For once Jack actually panicked alongside his friends. "Yep. But that's IF they can prove it. They don't have any proof other than what Roy's crazy mom said....." Ideas started to tick inside the raptor's mind. An idea of deception. A grin slowly formed upon his lips. "Wait a minute. Guys. I think I know how to fix this."

Approaching the address at an apartment building, the four boys soon found the name Majors, J on the list of intercoms. Roy pressed it, before the woman from the telephone spoke through. "Hello?" "Hiya, um...is this Jack Majors' place?" "It certainly is, and who might you be?" "Um...I...I'm his grandson? Roy O'Brien?" "...Roy O'Brien? I'm not...what?" She was interrupted by something, her voice fading into another direction before she spoke once again. "What are you doing here Roy?" "I'm here to see Granpa Jack. I...I need to see him." "I-i'm sorry but I-" "Tell him that I need a wingman!" "...what?" "Jus' tell him I need a wingman. Please?" His finger was shaky, his voice plaintive as his friends waited patiently for an answer, the woman's voice fading again. A very brief but excitable argument ensued before she replied: "Alright Roy, you can come up, we'll let you in." The intercom buzzed harshly as the door was unlocked, and Roy quickly opened it before heading into the building's lush maroon-on-mahogany interior. James followed behind but was halted by Tommy on the stairs leading up to Majors' apartment. "Hey uh James?" "Hmm?" "Look, you been a real help to us but...can you give us a bit of privacy? Grandpa Jack'll be suspicious." "Ohhh sure, no problem, if you need me I'll be right here." "Thanks." The three boys headed onwards, as the raptor waited with disguise tight around him, trying to peer from around the corner. He wasn't able to hear much, but he could clearly see Roy being embraced by someone happily before the door closed. He could only hear Roy, Tommy and Jack as well as the woman, but nothing from Grandpa Jack.

An hour passed by as he sat upon the stairs, sighing to himself. He briefly pondered upon his own grandparents, and why he had not been able to meet them, or even live with them upon his orphaning. Perhaps they were already dead. Or too far away for him to relocate. Either way, he felt pangs of envy for the boys, clasping his hands to his snout until he heard the door open again. The three boys stepped out with solemn faces, which James was rather weirded out by. He slowly got up as they approached. "Well?" They looked at each other, before Tommy delivered the news. "He said yes." Smiles beamed from all four. "He said he was hoping Roy would be able to find a way to reach him someday so he could be able to show how bad his mom treats him, he just wasn't able to do it before. But he says he's willing to look after Roy, after the tournament." "Awesome!" The raptor grinned with tightened fists of joy. "And what about my idea? What did he think?" "He's gonna go with it. We let him know when Roy's mom arrives, and he'll be there to shut her down AND keep us in the tournament." "Hhhahaha...god...don't you just love it when a plan comes together?" "Yeah..." Roy had turned rather shy in his relief. "Th-thank you...guys. Yer the best friends ever." "We're YOUR friends Roy." Jack put an arm around his younger peer. "You know you always got us." "Hehe yeah...and...thank you too James." "No problem." James shrugged with a smile. "You'll be one of the lucky kids who can get out of this kinda situation." He nodded humbly, still thankful that everything was coming up roses. "But...we still got one last thing." "W-wussat?" James bent down forwards until his snout barely rubbed against Roy's pudgy nose. "We still got asses to kick at the tournament." The three nodded excitably and bumped their fists against each other, including the raptor. "You boys ready to rock?!" "YEAH!" shouted the three before Tommy took charge with: "Let's rock this town! Come on, we gotta get our gameplan before tomorrow and keep an eye out for any trouble." With that, they left the apartment building and headed back to the hotel. Throughout the day they read up on all they could possibly read about the possible games they would be playing at the tournament, as well as making trips to the department store where two sole arcade cabinets stood. Naturally the kids from the other teams would be there to practice in turn, which gave Team Shoryuken all the more reason to shape up. After a day's worth of training, tomorrow soon came. And with it, at last, the tournament itself. No sign of Roy's parents so far, but when they showed up, the boys now had an ace in the hole.