Prologue: Roosters

The introduction to the Sunny Gang and the town of Rooster Teeth, Texas.

Rooster Teeth, a small town of 300-something people in the middle of Texas, three-hours-by-train far away from everything else, was an incident-prone, close-knit, humor-driven, drinking town with a fighting problem. The residents were all vagabonds, having traveled away from their original places of residence by hopping onto a train and waiting for it to go past the Luscious, Ruby, and Red Bull Stations and onto a stretch of track that marked the beginnings of the town. Rumor was that it wasn’t a place for the weak-hearted, so they didn’t get too many new residents, but whoever came often stayed for good. Sometimes they’d go off for a year or two or even three, but they always came back to Geoff’s Saloon, telling stories of how dead it felt to be outside the town, how there wasn’t any music worth listening to if it didn’t carry the dulcet tones of their hometown musician, and how awful the other cities treated their horses.

The newcomers often came in at about the same time every three years, so the townspeople always knew when to start scanning around for new faces to greet. The conductors of the trains also figured out the pattern of future Roosters, so their station checks became pretty rigorous to match; returning residents were always aboard a red boxcar, usually the farthest one from the engine, as per their agreement with Mr. Farmahini, the conductor. He could often remember who left Rooster Teeth and when, so if he saw a familiar face, he didn’t ask questions.

It was on two of these trains that happened to carry six people spread out amongst four boxcars that gave rise to the tightest circle of friends in town. Nicknamed the Sunny Gang, they were the heart of the townspeople, laughing at jokes that only made sense to them, pranking each other, getting into play fights, and generally being happy all the time; truth be told, however, was that everyone was to be wary of them, because one wrong move and the smiles would vanish, the postures would straighten, the shoulders would flex, and the jaws would square; the wives would shuffle out of the way, the kids would be taken to a different place, and the boots would slowly align their way around the room. Somewhere in the room, a tongue would click, a growl would rip, and a gun would c**k. They were tough as nails, all of them: Geoff was former Military and Bounty Hunter, Sheriff Jack had a shotgun to be terrified of, Ray was a dead-shot, even if he was a little smaller than the rest of them, Michael was a class-A equalizer that took all five of them to restrain, Ryan was deceptively cunning and calculating in all aspects of his Tracker and musician trade, and Gavin was the Jack-in-the-box because he was always such a klutz that no one expected him to be such a good fighter.

It took a truly daring �" or incredibly stupid �" man to mess with them. They worked in unison like a well-oiled machine, taking roles and positions in matters of all kinds without needing much external communication.

But, apparently, there were plenty of stupid men in Texas.