One of them, the smallest of the bunch, took a tentative step backward, just as their leader, who got his teeth turned into a jigsaw by Gen, was sitting up after the hit and noticed it.

Enraged, he shouted at them, spitting more blood and dental shrapnel as he did. “Idwotws, fwigwt hwim!” he exclaimed, in a completely unintelligible way.

Both Gen and his gang members turned to look at him, and in unison, almost as if it was set up from before, they all said, “What?”

“Fwigwt hwim! Fwigwt hwim!” The beady-eyed leader pointed at Gen and kept shouting, still only managing to spout blood-soaked babbles and teeth.

“What?” both sides asked again, still incapable of understanding him, but somebody did.

“Excuse me,” a faint voice interrupted the bizarre scene, making all of them—Gen, the rival school gang, and their leader—look at the source.

Charlie, trembling like the last leaf on a tree in October, was the one talking, intimidated by so many eyes on him.

“I-I-I t-t-think he is m-m-meaning to s-s-say fight him! Fight him!” he explained, his voice wavering a couple of times from sheer fright.

There was a moment of awkward silence until the leader of the gang started nodding profusely and pointing at Charlie, who seemed to get smaller each time the finger aimed at him.

“Twhat! Fwigwt whim!” the leader shouted, his finger still pointed at Charlie as he repeated his previous order.

There was another momentary silence, and one of the gang members ended up asking, “You want us to fight the four-eyes, Ronnie?” he asked, with confusion evident in his voice to his boss, while pointing at Charlie.

Ronnie, the gang leader, grabbed his hair and pulled in frustration, stomping his legs childishly against the ground as if he was throwing a tantrum.

But when that momentary fit of rage ended, he noticed something and tried to warn his guys. “Lwoowk ouwt!” he shouted, but it was too late, as the guy who talked to him was already on the floor.

While the gang members were confused about their leader’s orders, Gen took advantage of the situation and headbutted the gang member hard enough to break his nose.

“So, I was enjoyin’ the free comedy show, but, ya know, I told ya guys to scram and ya didn’t, so now I gotta kick yer fuckin’ asses.” Gen declared as he rushed the group with a huge smile on his face, as the adrenaline pumped through his veins, and he could feel his heart beating like a punk band's drum kit.

Gen stepped into the fray with the confidence that experience and training provide. He pivoted on his back foot as he connected a boxing straight directly into the solar plexus of the tallest guy, whom he attacked first as soon as he dashed.

The big guy bent forward, grabbing his stomach and falling to his side, frothing at the mouth, fighting more for breath than against Gen.

“If yer biggest guy falls like that, ya’re all a bunch of pushovers,” he mocked them as he parried a punch from a third guy, who was sporting a purple mohawk as his most distinctive feature

After the parry, he punched the Mohawk-hair hoodlum with a lunging fist, akin to a classic Karate Tsuki, which connected against his mouth and shattered his prominent front teeth, and he fell backwards, grabbing his mouth in pain as he let out a yelp.

“Ya’re four down and three to go, ya should better run with yer tails between yer legs.” He told them, but they didn’t listen, with another one attacking, throwing a punch at Gen.

There was a loud and disgusting crunch as the attacking hoodlum took a couple of steps back and lifted his hand, his fingers bent and twisted.

A blood-curdling scream of agony came out from his mouth as he pulled back.

Gen had headbutted the punch, catching it before it could gain enough momentum and shattering the hoodlum's bones in the process.

The fifth guy, the one who attempted to escape before, came running and tried to perform a jump kick, an extremely bad idea for a brawl. 

What came next was painful to watch, as Gen saw him coming from a mile away, and when the kick came, he swayed to the side, getting his head between the short hoodlum’s legs, and grabbed him mid air, so the guy ended up sitting on his shoulders.

Gen smirked and glared at the guy, who fearfully asked.

“What are you going to d-”

But his question was interrupted by Gen dropping down with him on his shoulders and performing a devastating sit-out power-bomb, knocking the small guy out.

“So…” Gen asked as he slowly stood up, brushing grass and dirt off his pants and popping his neck to the side.

“I wonder how difficult it's gonna be for ya to take yer five friends with ya if I break one of yer bones?” The local bralwer approached the last remaining gang member with a huge grin on his face and a dangerous glint in his eye.

The last hoodlum standing begins to shiver, his body trembling as Gen takes one step forward, and he instantly, almost as if his arms were being pulled up by a pulley, he raised his hands in defeat.

“Stop! I’ll leave, sorry! Sorry!” He said, starting to back away, ready to dash out of the yard.

“Don’t forget yer friends.” Gen said to him, pointing at the scattered unconscious bodies of his fellow gang members.

With some difficulty, the remaining hoodlum began dragging his groggy companions out of the school yard, with Gen smirking and waving them goodbye in a mocking manner.

“Ya, kid, ya better go home.” The local brawler said as he turned around to face Charlie.

“M..m…me?” Charlie asked, scared of what would happen next.

“Yeah, yer gonna be shaken for a while, but trust me, this is my turf, I ain’t lettin’ any assholes come to mess people up, so chill and brea-” Gen talked, trying to calm Charlie.

“Next time get movin’ before the approach ya, makes my job a lil’ bit easier.” The brawler said, talking shop as if this were something routine for him.

“T--thank you for helping me…” Charlie barely managed to say, as he lowered his head.

“Don’t sweat it, like I told ya, this is my turf and whoever fucks around in my turf, they find o-” Gen’s reassuring phrase was interrupted when a basketball hit him straight on the temple.

Gen rubbed the side of his head and glared in the direction of the voice.

“Sophia, for fuck’s sake, don’t fuckin’ throw shit at me!” he shouted, clearly annoyed by such an extreme measure.

“I’ll throw whatever I want, considering you’re running late for the next appointment.” A student, from the 2nd year, much like Gen, came out to the main yard.

She was slightly taller than Gen, but slender and graceful. Her dark hair was tightly packed in a bun, and she wore glasses. She had the school uniform on, but she wore an ochre sweater over it.

“We are 20 minutes late for the basketball team scrimmage game with the team from the next town over,” she told him, pointing at her elegant wristwatch.

“Shit, that was today?” Gen asked, visibly shaken, taken aback by her words.

“No, it was yesterday!” Sophia replied with overflowing sarcasm. “I tried to remind you yesterday, but you weren’t picking up your phone, and you weren’t at your home.”

“Oh… yeah, my phone kind of blew the fuck up, but never mind that, let’s fuckin’ go, there is a fuckin’ match to win!” he said, leaving Charlie on his own as he rushed towards the school gym.

“And don’t forget the money! You don’t do this for free!” Sophia shouted at him as she followed the brawler at a brisk walking pace.

Charlie was left alone in the yard, slightly confused by the whole episode. He was still surrounded by the signs of the recent brawl, with footprints deep in the floor, revealing the earth under the grass, and the areas where some of the hoodlums crashed when they fell after facing Gen.

He stood there for a moment, thinking about the situation he had just witnessed, realizing that his new school seemed to be much more interesting than his previous one, or at least it had more peculiar students.

Charlie decided that this was enough excitement for the day and went back to the school building to pick up his stuff. As he passed next to the school gym, he could hear the cheers of the students. As he popped his head inside for a second in passing, he saw Gen, the same one who had fought off the hoodlums, jumping over another player and dunking the ball, hanging one-handed from the rim as he flipped the bird to the opponents with his free hand.

Very peculiar students indeed.

He kept firm to his decision of leaving the school and resumed his walk back to his class to pick up anything he was missing. It didn’t take long for him to silently grab his stuff, not even caring about the whispers of the same students he thought were his friends, who kept away from him, feeling guilty for leaving him on his own.

Without even a glance towards them, he grabbed his stuff and left, taking the long walk back home, as the bus he was going to take had come and gone while he was in the earlier maelstrom of violence.

Still, even after feeling the sting of betrayal from those he thought were warming up to him, he felt like the day was a net positive. He met some interesting people, saw something really cool—scary, but cool—and knew that the school wasn’t just a small-town academy, but a more vibrant and interesting place than he could’ve thought.

Unluckily for him, there was much more excitement in store for him this day.