Rivals

"Okay," Lucy said, quietly. "That's the guy. You see him?"

They were sitting on a hill overlooking the school parking lot. Classes had let out a few minutes ago and normally Brent would be on his bus headed home but Lucy had assured him this would be worth his while. He wasn't so sure yet. "Yeah, I see him just fine." Lucy had brought a pair of binoculars and had pointed out a kid, just a freshman, walking along the edge of the parking lot. Brent could see him just fine - apparently his eyesight had been improved as well as his physical strength. The kid had his head ducked down and his arms were around his backpack as if someone might try to steal it from him. He looked scared.

"Now - the target. He's coming up from the gap in the fence, there."

The target was a senior. Brent knew him, or at least he'd been pointed out to Brent very early on when he got to high school. It was Matt Perkins, the notorious bully. Perkins was overweight and not particularly tall. He had hair that fell down over his eyes and bad teeth. For the last two years he'd been preying on the incoming freshman class, always choosing one or two new kids to pick on. He would harass them until he grew bored and then he would pick a new one and start in on them. He'd never bothered Brent - Perkins only went after the scrawny kids, the little ones who couldn't fight back.

"You want me to beat him up?" Brent asked. He had to admit the idea was kind of exciting.

"Yeah, but you have to do this right. He has to know why he's getting beat down," Lucy explained. "He has to know it isn't cool to prey on little kids."

Brent frowned. "Hey," he said. "This isn't personal, is it?"

"I don't know what you mean," Lucy said. "If you're trying to suggest something, such as, I don't know, maybe last year Perkins and I had a run in, you know, maybe he shook me down for my lunch money every day for three weeks in a row, and maybe he knocked me down and I couldn't exactly fight back with these braces on my legs, well - no. That has nothing to do with anything."

"Uh-huh. Okay. They're about to cross paths."

"Good luck," Lucy said, and squeezed his bicep. "Go be a hero."

Down in the parking lot Perkins was leaning against the side of a car, smiling so hard his teeth flashed in the sunlight. The freshman was trying to back away but Brent knew exactly how this was going to happen. If the freshman ran, Perkins could chase him down easily. If he stood his ground Perkins would just beat him up. The kid didn't have a chance.

Which was where Brent came in. Right? He knew that was how it was supposed to work. He was supposed to protect the defenseless. Stand up for those who couldn't stand up for themselves. Nothing had ever looked so pure, or so easy.

He dug his feet into the ground and jumped. He could hear Lucy cheering as he dropped through the air, down the side of the hill, to land not more than ten feet away from Perkins.

The bully jumped in place as if he'd seen a ghost. "What - ?" he had time to ask, before Brent grabbed him and lifted him off the ground with one hand.

Perkins struggled, kicking at Brent's face and shoulders while his hands grabbed on to Brent's shirt and pulled. It was easy for Brent to fend him off, though. Perkins wasn't even particularly strong, just massive, and his weight meant nothing to Brent's new muscles.

He looked down at the freshman, who had fallen over backwards and landed sitting on the sidewalk.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Ryan," the freshman said. "I mean, Ryan Digby."

"This guy giving you a hard time?" Brent asked.

The freshman just nodded. He looked like he couldn't believe this was happening.

"You want me to teach him a lesson?"

Ryan Digby got up slowly and shrugged. "I - I don't know, I just want him - I want him to stop. Every day he's here. I live just over there," he said, pointing at some houses on the other side of a chainlink fence. "This is the fastest way for me to get home. I tried taking the long way but he was just waiting for me there, too. He kept telling me he was going to kill me. He said if I gave him money he would let me live a little longer. I tried telling my Dad but he just said I should learn to stick up for myself. I tried that, and he - Matt - beat me up pretty bad."

"Okay," Brent said. "I'll take it from here. Why don't you go home, now? I don't think he'll be here tomorrow."

The freshman nodded and ran off. He looked terrified - but maybe that was just the shock of seeing the tables turned on the bully.

"You're dead," Perkins said, up in the air. "When you put me down, you're going to be dead."

"Interesting," Brent said. He put Perkins gently back down on his feet. "You going to kill me now?"

The bully roared like an animal and came charging at Brent. He was faster than Brent had expected for someone so heavy and Brent had no doubt he could have seriously hurt a normal freshman. To Brent it felt like he was being attacked by a chipmunk. As Perkins punched and kicked at him, Brent just picked the bully up again and then walked over to a patch of grass and dropped him on it.

Perkins collapsed with an unpleasant "Oof," as the wind sagged out of him.

"Are you going to leave Ryan alone, now?" Brent asked.

The bully's eyes were burning with hatred as he propped himself up on his elbows. "That depends. Are you going to be here tomorrow? Are you going to walk him home every day?"

Brent dropped to one knee and made a fist. He raised it high and prepared to bring it down. He would have to judge this carefully - he needed to hurt Perkins, but not permanently. He thought about what Maggie had said the night before. We can kill people pretty easily. Way too easily.

If he hit him just hard enough, though -

"Go on," Perkins said.

"What?" Brent's concentration faltered.

"Just do it. I want you to."

Brent shook his head. "I don't understand. You want me to hit you?"

"You think you're the first person to ever hit me? I can take a punch like a man. That's what my dad says. It's important, taking a punch like a man. You don't cry. You don't whine about how it wasn't fair. The bigger the guy, the stronger the guy who hits you, that just makes you tougher 'cause you took it like a man. So go ahead. Whatever you got, I'll take it."

"Your dad... hits you?" Brent asked, horrified.

"Just when I deserve it. I'm not telling you my life story."

Was it possible? Brent had been to an assembly on bullying his freshman year. The teachers had claimed that bullies were people looking for control over their own lives. That they hurt other people because they were being hurt themselves. And Brent wasn't so naive as to think there weren't dads out there who hit their kids. Grandma hit Maggie sometimes, didn't she?

"Get up," he said.

Perkins looked confused. "You're not going to hit me?"

"I'm not sure yet. Just get up."