Chapter 15: Top Dog

‘A horrible situation.’ Was Tom’s thought.

“I told you, no one looks at me that way and gets away with it!” The one in front told him, while the ones behind him were looking forward to a good show.

‘This sh*tty neighborhood! I didn’t even do anything to you! I may have thought you were a scum of society, but it’s not like I told you that to your face! I never spoke those words out to you!’ Tom gulped down hard. Outrunning someone on a bike was impossible for someone like him.

There were four of them, all with a black band around a part of their body showing their affiliation to a colour gang. Tom was considering what to do, but he was afraid resisting or fighting back would just worsen his situation.

‘Looks like there is no way around a beating. I just hope after a few punches he’ll get bored and they’ll leave.’

The one Tom had ‘offended’ hopped off his bike, while the rest stayed on theirs, likely to catch up to him if he tried to make a run for it. Tom had resolved himself to his inevitable fate, so he gritted his teeth, clenched his hands and closed his eyes as he waited for the impact from the fist that had just been thrown.

Instead, he heard a scream from the boy.

“My arm! You sh*thead, this had nothing to do with you! Who the hell are you?!”

Opening his eyes, Tom saw the boy down on the floor, holding his elbow which appeared to have been broken. He was addressing a man completely dressed in black with a large trench coat, who had suddenly appeared in front of Tom.

“Me? I’m just someone who happened to pass by. This world has enough dangers that we humans don’t have the need to be fighting amongst each other, yet here you are ganging up on a defenseless kid. You scum are the worst.” The man answered.

Since he was in front of him, Tom could only see that the man had long flowing hair and a solid body. Calling him tall would be an understatement, Tom estimated him to be well over eight feet. As he turned around, Tom got a good look at his face. His savior had a scruffy beard, but overall good looks. It was as if he was staring at an older version of Blake.

The other students who hadn’t gotten hurt, got off their bikes and started to pull out weapons, with the one on the floor taking out a pocket knife.

“Don’t worry about me, I deal with things a lot worse than these small time trashes on a daily basis,” the man smiled at Tom, as he ran forward to one of the students with a bike chain.

The boy panicked and lashed it out, but stepping away, the man avoided it and grabbed it. He then ripped the bike chain out of the other’s hands, and swung it at the attacker’s legs. Tom found it a bit ironic that the man seemed to have better mastery over the boy’s weapon.

Without taking a break, the man easily dispatched the other’s one by one. Without breaking a sweat he had simply knocked the pocket knife from the first boy’s hand, before kneeing him in the face.

Tom had to pinch himself, to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. He even took a look around to check for some hidden cameras, but of course there were none. There was no one else to witness the six of them. It didn’t take long and the man had taken out all four of them carefully.

“Go home kid, there are a lot more dangerous things in the middle of the night and you won’t always be lucky enough for a good samaritan to help you out,” the man advised as he started to walk away.

‘Who was that?’ Tom wondered.

———

There was one more person who had snuck out from home, only in Gary’s case it was a lot harder to do so. At least it should have been, however this time, he found it a lot easier to escape their apartment on the top floor. There was a lot more strength in his fingers as he grabbed onto the window ledges, and slowly went down until he reached the bottom floor. Even landing on the floor from his height didn’t result in any pain to his feet or knees.

‘Hehe.’ Gary smirked to himself. ‘Maybe this whole werewolf thing does have more perks than I initially thought.’

The meeting place set by Kai was in front of the school. He would have usually changed into his normal black and red tracksuit when out, but that was also the uniform given to him by his gang. There was no reason to run around with a target on his back, instead Gary had grabbed some plain clothing, just a white top, and some black trousers.

When Gary finally arrived, he could see Kai, standing there, staring off into the distance just as he had done on the rooftop. The only thing missing was the wind to make his hair flutter. From a distance, Gary noticed the other one still wearing his black and gold Bolex watch, which just annoyed him even more, but also reminded him why he was here.

“I’m here just like you asked, so what’s the job?” Gary asked, getting straight to the point.

Kai looked Gary up and down, and scoffed a little at what he was wearing.

“You got here a lot faster than I expected, seeing as I only texted you a short while ago. Did you already happen to be in the area?” Kai questioned back and Gary just scratched his head nervously and nodded. “Well, it seems to be a good thing, considering your current outfit. There’s no way in hell, I’m letting you go like that. Here!”

Kai threw a sports bag over to Gary.

“What’s this?” Gary asked. Opening it up, he found some clothing inside waiting for him. He was surprised to see that it was just his size, even though he had never told Kai that information.

“Have you already forgotten what I told you? We’ll be making a new gang and today you’ll be the one to represent us. I don’t want us to be one of those poor gangs who wear hoodies and tracksuits and harass people. The first impression counts and since this will be our debut, you’ll need to make yourself look a little nice.”

Gary looked around, looking for somewhere to change but the school was already closed and there was nowhere else. Seeing him hesitate, Kai pointed at the floor.

“It’s nearly the middle of the night, so there’s nobody to see you anyway.” Kai pointed out as he tapped his foot impatiently.

Gary wanted to argue that Kai was there, but the other’s gaze made it clear that he was starting to get irritated. Unfortunately for Gary, he was depending on Kai and couldn’t risk pissing him off. Although he didn’t want to, Gary reluctantly got changed in front of the school into the new clothes that Kai had brought for him.

Gary now had a small jacket over this white top, without a hood, yet with a collar that popped outward. The trousers were quite tight fitting, but in a material that expanded, and a matching pair of boots to go with it. In fact even though the clothes looked uncomfortable the material was very flexible making it feel quite nice on his skin.

However there was one thing he didn’t like, the colours, making him wonder whether it was his fashion sense that was off or Kai’s.

“Perfect, you actually look half-decent now. Don’t look at me like that, you should know that every gang has something that symbolises which gang they’re from,” Kai started to explain. “Before you wore red and black and now you shall be black and gold. Trust me, with how many gangs there are, this was the best available colour combo!”

Now that Kai had pointed it out Gary noticed that everything that Kai was already dressed that way. The main colour of his clothes was black, with the trim, outline and the small details golden.

“Unfortunately, your hairstyle still sticks out like a sore thumb, but we don’t have the time to do anything about it. It’s something we’ll have to solve another time.” Kai stated with a smirk as he jokingly made a gesture of cutting them off. At least Gary hoped that it was just a joke.

The two of them did not move inside since the actual meeting place wasn’t at the school. The destination was somewhere else, but no matter how many times Gary asked where they were going, after telling him it would be a surprise the first time Kai ignored his questioning.

Eventually, they reached a car park. It was a bit away from the main shopping street and other places and it also looked a little rundown, but Gary could tell from afar that it appeared to be quite lively inside. There were actually people hanging outside who acted as some sort of bouncers. The most surprising thing was that they looked to high-school students no older than eighteen.

Finally, following Kai, they entered an elevator and went ahead to the top floor. When it opened. Gary was hit with a wave of cheers and screams as if he had come to a rave party.

‘What the hell is going on?’ Gary thought.

Looking around, they were all high-school students, some even still in their school uniforms, and what they were all cheering at was a fight happening in the centre.

“This is an illegal fighting event, for high-school students only,” Kai explained, with a nasty smile on his face. “Here’s where the strongest students meet up and duke it out amongst themselves to decide who the top dog is!”