Lady and the Tramp II

“Alright, Luke. Just walk to the end of the alley, and we’ll meet you on the other side.” Buster instructed, eyeing the young boy in an amusing manner as he watched fear take over Luke’s features.

“Are you sure about this?” Luke asked, trying to be as nonchalant as possible, “I mean, it doesn’t seem that hard…”

“You clearly haven’t met Reggie,” Ruby chuckled, patting the boy on the shoulder caringly.

“He might not even be here, dude. Go on,” Buster rolled his eyes, already fed up with the excuses he was being fed.

Finally, Luke set foot into the alley, after quite a bit of self assurance. He hadn’t gotten very far, though, before his ears were drowned in a loud ‘crash.’ He turned around, hoping it was just one of his new friends playing a joke on him, but he could clearly see the group of people starting to flee. “See ya!” Sparky called, dashing the opposite way, with sparky and Ruby not far behind.

Luke stood in fear, eyes glued to the scene in front of him, not wanting to turn around and look behind him. Down the alley, Mooch was screaming, “It’s a spook, a spook!” before Buster was calling, “It’s Reggie! Scatter!”

Buster, Mooch, and Francois all followed after the other three, while Luke saw Angel run just a bit into the alley, and then take a right turn. At the sight of this, Luke was finally able to move from his spot, bolting towards the bend Angel had gone down. He spotted the girl, as well as someone else, not too far down. A police officer was quickly approaching the two, but nevertheless, Luke continued towards Angel, who seemed to be frozen.

“Angel! Angel, come on, let’s go!” Luke cried frantically, grabbing the blonde’s arm and pulled her in the opposite direction. Angel stumbled along with Luke for a couple of seconds, before finally snapping out of her daze and sprinting alongside the boy.

“Well, I'll be. You're not getting away this time. I got you now, you little hoodlums!” The officer threatened from behind the two. As they were running, both Angel and Luke had registered that it was, in fact, the same cop from earlier that day.

After guiding Angel down various turns in the alley, Luke finally decided that the two were safe, sliding down the wall and taking a seat once they finally exited the alleys. Angel did so, too, before Luke looked over at her with a hopeful expression.

“Hey,” he breathed, watching as Angel looked back at him with confusion.

“You saved my life,” Angel stated, trying to make sense of what had just happened, “Nobody else here would have dared to do that.”

“Wow! Did you see that?” Sparky laughed, clearly amused as the rest of the group returned, interrupting Luke and Angel’s conversation.

“Is it possible?” Scratchy feigned a gasp, laughing along with his friend. The older teen moved in to high five Luke, though, to confirm his sincerity.

“Luke is a hurricane,” Ruby joked, smiling at the new addition to their group.

“You did everyone a big favour,” Mooch thanked, while Francois agreed, “Oui, you are practically a hero.” Everyone nodded in agreement, as Francois continued, “Shouldn’t we go after him or something, y’know, teach him a lesson now that our whole group is here and ready?”

The clan shared a chuckle at this, stopping when Buster interrupted them. “Hey, hey, hey, hey.” He spoke, turning to Luke, “You’ve got it all wrong, kid. In our society, it’s everyone for himself. I see we’re going to have to put you to another test.”

“Any-Anything you say, Buster.” Luke stuttered, disappointed that this wasn’t the end of his ‘testing.’

“Will somebody open this thing?” Francis whined back at the junkyard, frustrated that the only damn thing they had to eat in the building was canned food, since it didn’t spoil.

“Okay, okay, okay.” Mooch rolled his eyes, taking the can from his friend and pulling out his set of keys. “Is that open enough?”

“Magnifique, Mooch!” Francois cheered.

“That’s using your head,” Mooch nodded quite proud of his work.

“Thanks again, huh?” Francois responded, before calling the rest of his friends and letting him know what he was about to make a meal.

“You, uh, coming, tenderfoot?” Angel asked, getting up from where she was sitting with Luke.

“This is great. This is living!” Luke nodded as he follow Angel into the next room. “After I pass my next test, l'm gonna be the best guy at the junkyard that there ever was!”

Buster looked up at Luke with a scowl, while Ruby responded, “I don't think so, doll. You may be good, but you'll never be as good as the master.”

“Ah, here we go.” Buster rolled his eyes, while Francois agreed with, “Ruby's right, carnsarnit. In my day, there was only one guy by which all of us were measured.”

“The Tramp.” Ruby swooned, causing Luke’s eyes to practically bug out of his skull.

“Huh? What?” The newcomer asked, looking around from person to person. He had sworn he’d heard his dad call his other dad that at least a couple of times.

“He taught Buster everything there is to know about being on the streets,” Mooch informed Luke.

“Buster's trouble was Tramp's trouble.” Francois elaborated.

“And Tramp's trouble was Buster's trouble,” Mooch finished for his friend.

“That dog was a prize, the one that got away.” Ruby laughed, “Got away from me, at least.”

“Got away with everything!” Mooch mused, “I heard he once robbed an entire store on his own.”

“Yeah, and then a cop chased him all the way to the river,” Sparky contributed, fascinated with the conversation.

“No sir,” Francois cut Sparky off, “It was cops.”

“How many?” Scratchy spoke up.

“At least a dozen,” Francois answered, before Ruby chimed in with, “Two dozen!”

“Now that I think about it, the army cavalry were after the boy as well. He was trapped. But if the Tramp was gonna go, he was gonna go in style.” Francois explained, glad with the attention his story he was being given.

“So what happened?” Luke asked tentitively.

“We never saw him again after that.” Francois finished, “They say when the wind blows, the Tramp is still in your presence.”

“Wow,” Luke sighed, before Buster had become fed up.

“Alright, alright. That is not what happened. That’s complete bullshit,” Buster huffed. “He met this boy, see? King of suburbia. Even his prissy little name still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Alexander,”

“But he met his true love!” Ruby argued.

“He betrayed me! You can't have a family and still be a part of this clan. So I gave Tramp a choice. It's either me or him, and he picked life on the end of a chain. Hooked up with a real powder puff. Free room and board ! Living the cushy pillow life! And that's when I learned the first rule about living on the streets. Buster's trouble is Buster's trouble.”

Luke ran his hand through his hair in a particular fashion as he listened intently to Buster’s story, before the man was pointing blame at him, too.

“Hey! Hey, hey, hey! The Tramp used to do that. You ain't related, are ya?” Buster sneered, to which Luke replied, Who, me? No way!” faking a laugh.

“Good. ‘Cause if you were, you'd be dead meat.” Buster growled, getting up and leaving the room.

“Right, Buster.” Luke trailed off, unsure of what exactly he was getting himself into.

Notes

thank you for reading :^)