School had thankfully ended for the day and Gus’ had rushed back to his dorm building to try out the new pinball machine they had installed in the common room a couple of days ago. He had a theory he wanted to try out.
He was lucky; he arrived before any of the other boarders. He smiled, okay he’d cheated, he’d used some of the passing shadows to ‘shadow walk’ when no one was around, to bypass his excited cellmates and arrive first. The new pinball machine had been originally activated with 50p coins but this had been altered before installation so it would use specially designed tokens, which were issued by the staff, one a day to each student who requested them. He’d picked up his token from Maylee, their residential assistant, before breakfast and so was ready to play as soon as he entered the dorm.
He dropped his bag on the floor, put his token in the slot and pulled back the plunger to send the metallic ball flying up and round as he focused on the flipper buttons to ensure the ball stayed in play. The machine was clanging away as the other students arrived, with a couple of the second years’ placing their own tokens on the glass to reserve their place playing after Gus. He smiled but focused on his play keeping the first ball in play time after time, as the counter racked up a higher and higher score. He risked a glance and confirmed that he had about six students watching him play. It was time for his little experiment.
He went onto autopilot as far as maintaining the play – he had to set it so that the lights marking additional scores and their corresponding clangs were forming a consistent pattern, roughly in sync with their heartbeats as he whispered using his voice that they were to all do a thumb’s up. As one, his audience all suddenly did a thumb’s up. “Now, spin round.” Again, his audience carried out a synchronised spin on the spot, unaware of what they had just done.
Time to break the spell. His experiment complete he was now convinced that he could use his ‘voice’ on multiple victims at the same time if he had some means of focusing everyone’s attention, even it wasn’t on him (which is what he wanted to test) provided they were all rendered susceptible by some means such as by consistent flashing lights. He deliberately broke the sequence by hitting the flipper hard a second late, causing the ball to hit the counter at the very top before it dropped into the end zone. Rather than flip his next ball, he smiled, did a little bow as his audience realised he’d just racked up the highest score so far and made way for the kid behind him to take over.
So now he just had to figure out how he could use his results practically in a combat situation. The thought of combat immediately caused his heart to beat uncontrollably faster and he tasted vomit in his mouth, Damn, damn, damn. Gus’ was sure he finally had everything under control. The panic attacks, the nausea and cold sweats had gradually reduced over the last few weeks since his unfortunate encounter with Dr Lockheart over his VR lockdown.
He’d had a few sessions with her since then, but had managed to keep his temper, though he still didn’t agree with her analysis of his motivations. He ran upstairs and dropped off his bag, changed clothes and headed back out.
The various after-school clubs were due to end in about ten minutes and he’d made it a point of honour to be there when young Chris left the Tuesday newspaper and journalism club so he wasn’t bullied by Ces’ and his cronies. They attended football training, which finished at the same time.
He smiled. Ces’, even Nathaniel, would be dust if young Chris ever lost his temper and forced Smash to surface and that was why he’d made the decision to intercept the hate squad and redirect their anger towards himself. Again, he felt the cold sweats but tried to ignore it. PTSD was Dr Lockheart’s diagnosis but that was rubbish, it had to be. How could you get PTSD from what had been effectively been a video game session?
He rushed across to the main block and arrived just in time. Distraction was the name of the game as he stepped forward and right into Ces’ and his gang’s path even as Chris exited the school talking to Zoe. Gus didn’t have to do anything, just being there was enough to focus their anger on him. Angel had been cooing over Ces’ performance on the pitch as Nathaniel and Dimitri followed on behind. As soon as Angel saw Gus, she spat in his direction (so lady-like, he thought), thankfully missing as she called him a ‘gene joke’. Ces’ laughed and punched him in the shoulder as hard as he could. He allowed that to hit as he twisted at the hips so the blow glanced off him, but deliberately didn’t respond. It was the path of least resistance; it made Ces feel good and completely distracted them from seeing Chris walk away. It had taken Gus a long time to persuade him to do that rather than rush in. As he stumbled back from the blow, he was glad to see him walk away, but that allowed Dimitri to step in and put his foot out. Unexpectedly, he failed to notice the foot, causing him to fall to the ground. Angel, Ces and the others burst out laughing as he landed with a bump and his hood fell off, causing the late afternoon sun to dazzle his sensitive eyes and immediately start to burn his face… He quickly raised his hood as he lay on the ground as Ces’ pretended to kick at his ribs to watch him flinch in anticipation. Usually that ended their weekly encounter. Gus never fought back, he just took the abuse.
Today was different, Zoe was there. She rushed forward and immediately started berating them for attacking him and called them ‘idiotic thugs’. Angel looked as though she wanted to tear Zoe’s hair out but it was Ces’, his face distorted with anger, who raised his hand and slapped her across the face while screaming “Don’t disrespect me bitch!” Zoe stepped back in shock and tripped, falling to the ground herself.
Even Dimitri and Nathaniel were shocked. Ces raised his hand to hit her again. No… Fucking… Way..! Gus somersaulted to his feet. Enough was enough, it was time to step up but of course, for the last year he’d never once crossed the line into physically responding to their bullying, never fought back. That ended today.
Dimitri was between him and his target. He kicked him behind the knee dropping him as he dived under Nathaniel’s fist as it swung at him in response. Nathaniel wasn’t his primary target and he’d deal with him later. Gus dashed forward and as Ces’ right arm swung up he intercepted the blow and spun him round so they were face to face.
To his surprise, Gus felt completely calm. No nerves, no feelings of nausea, he was totally in the zone. He stepped forward and planted his leg behind him, pushed him backwards and away from Zoe. As he tumbled backwards, Ces reached out, relaxing his fist, and grabbed at Gus’s shoulder. Gus responded by reaching over to grasp the hand, his thumb planted deeply in the fleshy triangle of flesh between Ces’ thumb and index finger, and twisted the hand round so the elbow locked.
He looked at Zoe, still on the ground. This had to end quickly and never be repeated, regardless of the possible consequences, and he potentially still had to deal with Dimitri and Nathaniel, possibly even Angel if she came out of her shock at seeing him finally respond to Ces.
First, he had to deal with Ces’. Calmly, too calmly, he proceeded to demolish his opponent. He brought his elbow down on the trapped forearm and was rewarded with a loud scream as he shattered his radial bone. A shriek of disbelief escaped from Angel’s lips as Gus followed it through by bringing his heel down on Ces’s outstretched leg and was rewarded with a resounding snap as he ended it with a groin kick. That completely took Ces’ out of the battle and allowed Gus to stand and stare at his remaining potential attackers. He stood calmly, ready waiting for Dimitri and Nathaniel to attack. Behind him, Angel had reached the side of a screaming Ces and seemed unsure whether to comfort him or attack Gus. That’s when Camille reached them even as the other two males tried to work up the courage to attack. Camille’s authoritative if minuscule presence at the scene ended any thoughts they might have of retaliation.
An ambulance was called and Ces’ taken straight to hospital, while Gustav and Zoe was sent to Dr Lockheart’s office to explain their side of the story.
It was a day later, a day in which Gustav was left in isolation, and Ces’ parents had been in the school screaming at Mr Summers to throw Gustav out of school for his assault on their ‘defenceless’ child. They even tried to claim that Zoe was lying about the assault on her by their ‘innocent’ child and that the footage of the assault captured on CCTV had been doctored.
Their argument went on for a couple of hours and they left obviously unhappy. It was now Gustav’s turn. He entered and was invited to sit down.
“Now Mr Jaeger, I have confirmed that your actions were in response to seeing Mr Morgan assault Ms Deren by slapping her in an unprovoked attack. We fully accept that you acted to protect her from any further assault and as a result Mr Morgan will be suspended from school until after the summer holidays as a result. We did consider expelling him but we prefer to work with problem pupils rather than just get rid of them.
However, that still leaves us with the problem of what to do with you. You see while we don’t deny you acted in good faith your response was, shall we say, excessive. You broke Mr Morgan’s arm and leg – I appreciate your motives, but the response… You used inappropriate and unreasonable force to achieve your objective.
I have no choice but to also suspend you as well…” As Gus tried to interrupt, to agree that he had acted irresponsibly, Mr Summers continued, “You see we think you need some time away but as your family situation is ‘unusual’ to say the least, I have made arrangements for you to spend some time away from school with an old friend. I would like you to stay with Sir Bryan Bardic, ah I believe you may know him as Commander… He has some experience with handing teenage anger issues and you will be homeschooled by him for the next few months, but like Mr Morgan you’ll be welcome back next year if you wish to return. Sir Bryan is waiting for you in reception if you would make your way there. I’ll make sure your stuff is sent on…”
Ashen’s player is taking a hopefully temporary hiatus from the campaign.
Growing up Meta, UK-Style! 