Lunch Broken

[laZardo†]

Boxer really felt like making the little base-baller into the Man Without A Face as he laughed into the linebacker's face. It was that kind of insolence that often warranted the more severe beatings...often worse than he'd given to Eduardo on a regular basis. It was also frustration made worse by the feeling of Gabe's cane pressed against his chest as if to strike it. He raised his baseball fist to strike, clearly unaware of the implications of bringing karma and the damaging item back around to its alleged user...but he held his fist when the guy started talking. The guy seemed absolutely driven to madness with what he was saying.

"I don't know if I should believe you. Maybe you meant to smash up someone else's car and hit mine. Doesn't mean I'll let you off the hook though, because you still fucked up." Words for both Gabe and Ric...but not quite disarming words.

He proceeded to pick Ric up by the BACK of the collar, as if to drag him someplace.

"I'm gonna take you to the principal's office. You can tell them everything there, and you certainly aren't gonna get away with this. You struggle, and you're gonna need a machine jaw to chew your food."

((Post order would be me, Atomic_Waffle and Clueless, I think.))

[Namira]

"F-fucking c-c-cocksuckers l-like you g-got me h-how I am now," Ric muttered under his breath, but it was very unlikely that Boxer wouldn't have caught it anyway. "T-take m-me to the p-principal's t-then. G-got n-nothing to g-get away w-with,"

Inside his own head, Ric continued his tirade at Boxer, and would have done but for two reasons. A. Boxer would have beaten even more shit out of him if he had. B. Ric didn't think he would manage to get it all out with his tongue mangling his sentences. It would probably have been lost on Boxer whichever way he'd put it.

Well f-fuck y-you then! N-not my f-fault y-you're so g-goddamn stupid y-you'll go a-after s-somebody f-for no r-reason 'cept that s-somebody t-told you t-they done s-something to you. D-don't you even c-consider they could h-have been lying!? J-Jesus, I h-heard you were d-dumb but now I r-realise y-you c-could w-win the w-world m-moron olympics...

Wait a FUCKING SECOND!! SINCE WHEN HAVE I STAMMERED WHILST THINKING?!

"Oh s-shit," Ric squeaked as he realised he had just gone off on one audibly at the biggest and probably strongest guy in their grade whilst that selfsame guy was holding him by the collar.

This is gonna fucking hurt.

[AtomicWaffle†]

As Boxer dragged off the stammering Ric, Gabriel was confused as to what he should do next. It didn't seem like Ric could get in much trouble if he was telling the truth... from the School, anyways. Boxer didn't exactly seem like the sincere, forgiving type, somehow. What truly suprised Gabriel was the tirade that Ric launched against him, seemingly like he'd forgotten that he was being held up by a seven-foot tall football player. Now was the perfect time to pull the little shit out of a bad situation, and make Gabriel look better in front of people. Oh, and to mess with Boxer. That could be fun...

Gabriel strode towards Boxer, and grabbed the back of his collar, holding onto it with a vice-grip. Though Gabriel was smaller than Boxer, he was still able to hold onto him enough so that he couldn't walk away. They froze for a moment. It was an incredible sight, these two abnormally huge students locked in a chain with Ric at the end, still in Boxer's grip, looking scared out of his mind.

The situation was tense. It seemed like forever before Gabriel finally spoke up. "Don't do anything more to him, man. Leave him alone."

[laZardo†]

Boxer slowly turned his head to face Gabe as soon as he felt that hand grab his jacket collar - and it was a giant-turning slow, as well. At that moment, both the leviathan's free and Ric-grabbing fists tensed. If he hadn't slipped the baseball back into his jacket pocket as he started to leave, he probably would have crushed it like an orange. Of course, the provocation from Gabe meant something else would be crushed like an orange - complete with oozing pulp - if he didn't back off soon.

"Don't...mess...with...me..." Boxer replied ominously, as if he would somehow tear out of his letterman jacket and lay the smackdown on the hobbling Gabe even worse than he was threatening to do to Ric. "This isn't your fight." Boxer pushed out his free arm toward Gabe as to gently (relatively speaking) push him away from the situation.

[Namira]

"W-wouldn't b-be a f-fight if y-you weren't s-so damn g-guilable..." Ric mumbled, thanking his lucky stars that Boxer hadn't seemed to have noticed his little slip. Well, large slip in fact. He was more focused on Gabe it appeared. Ric mouthed a 'thank you' to Gabe, despite the fact that his protests didn't seem to be doing much good, or making much of an impression on Boxer.

Well... insults and protests hadn't worked... what about reason?
"B-boxer... w-who t-told y-you it was m-me w-who busted up y-your r-ride anyway?" Whoever it was, Ric was willing to bet a fair amount of money it was one of the guys on the baseball team. O'Cann had always had it in for Ric as it was, and a couple of his teammates had picked up a similar dislike for him, for no other reason than he was a little... different.

Ric smiled inwardly. Story of his life. Different, in this world, equaled bad. That was why guys like him and Eduardo and Gabe got the short end of the stick, and dumb jocks like Boxer and O'Cann got their own way, and were free to beat on the rest whenever they felt like it. What was that called? The weaker guys got beat down, the strong guys, even if they weren't intelligent rose to the top. The weak will perish and the strong will survive. How messed up was that? It was like that TV show there'd been all that hype about not too long ago, with the kids being abducted and made to kill each other...

Wait... was that like a proper show or had it actually been real? Ric couldn't remember.

[AtomicWaffle†]

What was probably intended to be a gentle shove away from Boxer ended up pushing the weak-kneed Gabriel back quite a bit, knocking down another student he didn't bother to take the time to recognize. Gabriel gave a toxic look to Boxer, pushing himself off of the table he'd fallen against, pushing his cane down on the kid he'd knocked down. At this point Gabriel noticed that he'd brought his cane down on Karl Van Buren, a 'friend' of his from the past. He didn't think much about Karl's feelings anymore, not after what had happened so long ago. In a show of utter contempt, Gabriel kicked him away in the very place he'd 'stepped' on him, Karl letting out a pained groan as the massive foot of Gabriel was mercilessly driven into his side. Screw being liked... it's being a good person that got me into... this.

Glancing at his knee, then at Karl, Gabriel seemed to hold onto his gaze forever, only to shoot up an icy, threatening look at Boxer. He'd noticed that Boxer neglected to keep a hold on Ric, who'd continued to stutter uncontrollably amongst his newfound ability to stand up to the monstrously huge Boxer Carvahallo. It was actually quite stupid on Ric's part. As much as it sounds like cliched bullshit, there's a very fine line between courage and stupidity, and Ric is far, far over it. As much as Gabriel did value standing up for himself, there is a time to back down. Standing almost in-between two utterly massive, ethically void and completely pissed off high-school seniors was one of those times.

All things considered, Gabriel hadn't come into many times where he really needed to stand up for himself. His imposing stature and reputation as a "manipulative, self-centered fuck with absoloutely no concience" stopped a lot of abuse he would've gotten otherwise. The times when he did, it was generally through fighting. Despite his knee injury, it only truly affected continuous walking, and he'd proven his own prowess fighting people before and after his injury. The knee-brace he wore was designed in such a way as to deny any impact on his fragile knee from severely hurting him, so it was somewhat suprising to see him severely assault people without much effort, hesitation, or visible rage at all.

That was another thing Gabriel had gotten into many times, though - Rage. Despite not showing it when he is hurting people, Gabriel is known to be quite impulsive, he will become extremely frightening, and his lack of compassion or value for the physical health of others shows; when provoked enough. Enough, being a number of things. From being refused 'help' with schoolwork, to being contradicted in his belief of his own personal rebirth as a 'new' person, Gabriel can go from a strangely kind, happy person to a cold, self-centered and unloving person in a matter of moments. He knows this. Gabriel knows all to well that he isn't a good person according to everyone else's standards; but he knows that he is an extraordinary person, and sometimes extraordinary people need to... shove... ordinary people out of the way of their goals. Nothing can stop an extraordinary person, short of another one. Be it by lying their way out of situations, getting others to do their dirty work for them, or, literally shoving them out of the way, nothing could stop those people. Because the dreams of the ordinary student pale in comparison to Gabriel's. Yes, their grandoise dreams of fame and fortune are nothing, and deserve to be crushed just as the people should be. If it took his extraordinarily effective methods of persuasion, then so be it.


"Oh, I beg to differ Daniel... I'm not sure you've met me before, but it doesn't matter how 'big and strong' and up to your eyeballs in testosterone you are, this hobbling ol' psychopath can still do what psychopaths do best - Hurt you. Now that you've caused me to knock over that sack of shit," Gabriel heavily tapped Karl Van Buren on the head, causing him to fall down yet again, "It's obvious you want a fight, am I right? Of course, a guy like you is always up for a fight, you can't resist! Being what, seven feet tall? You don't really need to worry about much, do you? Guess what? Now you do."

Brushing his dark, straight hair out of his eyes, Gabriel seemed to walk away from Boxer, heading towards the door behind him. What was really going through his mind what what end of the cane he was going to hit Boxer on the side of the head with. Narrow meant that he'd probably cause a lot more damage in one area, but he wanted to knock him down... The handle felt better. Throwing the cane slightly in the air to grab the end, Gabriel turned around and drove the curved end towards Boxer in a perfectly executed baseball swing. Oh yes, this was going to be satisfying. The long, metal pole was built to hold up quite a bit of weight, and now it was going to hold up quite well to the impact on Boxer's head.

"An extraordinary man has a right... that is not an official right, but an inner right to decide in his own concience to overstep certain... obstacles."

Raskolnikov did prove a point that Gabe made sure to learn from - A man may abandon his goal when those obstacles he must overstep are humanized by that man. Once he sees them as more than obstacles, then they truly become obstacles, if he knows it or not. Redemption, in Gabriel's mind, wasn't something that was ever going to cross his mind because 'redemption' truly, is lying down and taking it. He'd die before that happens.

[laZardo†]

Boxer didn't think he'd pushed Gabe hard. In fact he didn't realize that he'd pushed Gabe hard enough to snap the boy's emotional state, let alone knock someone else over. At least not until the cane impacted sharply upon his head with a resounding crack. Immediately Boxer felt a pillar of pain shoot down his body like he'd fucked up a head-first charge into the defensive line...but it was only a brief flash, brief enough for him to temporarily loosen his grip on Ric. Perhaps he'd owed that to his apparent density (in both senses of the word.) Either way, the cane had snapped his temper the same way his push did to Gabe.

The first thing he did - however - was go for Ric. Not to beat him up, but to get him out of the way. As shocking as Ric's alleged vandalism was, it wasn't worth ripping on the boy any more than he was already deserving of. That said, he grabbed Ric by his sides and flung him over toward the table where Eddie was sitting. Ed helped him with his studies, how much harder would it be for him to watch over a disfigured, measly ex-baseball player?

"ED!" Boxer shouted, his face already twisted into a snarl underneath his purpling forehead. Ed perked up like a watchdog, but didn't find Boxer's expression surprising. "Hold onto Ric for me. I'll take care of him in a bit."

True to the workhorse-like manner with which he operated, his nostrils seemed to flare a bit as he exhaled out his nose in primal rage as he then glared at the nerd who had hit him. His eyes quickly shuffled up and down in a quick visual sizing-up, a trained reflex needed when having to deal with an opposing Linebacker. Gabe definitely didn't look the part of a Linebacker, which gave Boxer confidence that a good slam in the right direction would send that guy to the ground. And now that Gabe had struck him first, Boxer easily figured he could let fly with full force upon the nerd and pass it off as self-defense (though truth be told, apparently unbeknownst to him the faculty also took his mental capacity into account.)

Without a second thought, Boxer pushed both arms forward to charge at Gabe.

[Namira]

Ric skidded some considerable way along the ground, the polished floor causing him to slide some way further than he might otherwise have done. Then again, Boxer was about an entire foot taller than Ric, so perhaps the ease of which the footballer could manhandle him was unsurprising. However, now Ric was pretty pissed off, especially as Boxer continually ignored him. He glanced across at Eduardo and grimaced. Ric picked himself up and glared at him.

"S-stay the f-fuck a-away, a-all right? I-I got n-nothing a-against you b-but I h-have s-s-something to s-say to your 'f-friend' d-don't to-touch me,"

Ric was deadly serious, he might sound like an idiot, but he sure as hell wasn't one. He was far more coherent than he had been for a long time, even if weirdly coloured lights were falling across his vision. Then again, that was fairly normal for him. For some reason though, these were strobing red... Strange, usually they were green...

Sure Eduardo was around the same size as Ric... but he had also been smashed in the face with a door and punched in pretty much the same place too. Ed would be starting injured if he decided to 'restrain' Ric, and Ric knew he could put up a fight.

With a purpose, Ric began marching back towards where his two giant classmates were squaring up.

[AtomicWaffle†]

The look of rage and satisfaction on Gabriel's face was erased and replaced with a completely genuine look of terror. Boxer, somehow, wasn't taken down by the cane to the head. He watched in horror as Boxer shoved Ric over to Eduardo, and then proceeded to charge at Gabriel. He only had a few seconds to react, and tossed the cane off to the side as he dove in the other direction, just as Boxer was about to hit him.

His knee collided with the ground, the brace's protective padding absorbing most of the blow. Regardless, it was still incredibly painful. Gabriel looked around for something, some object... anything to hit Boxer with. What could he use?

Or rather, who... Gabriel smirked before reaching out towards the boy to his right. Karl Van Buren. He let out a cry as Gabriel grabbed him by the back of the neck, and threw the scrawny boy across the cafeteria, careening into Boxer, or at least, he hoped so. The boy was actually quite light, and he was easily tossed around. The convulouted relationship between Gabriel and Karl has changed much over the years, but now it has degraded into Gabriel causing some degree of physical harm to Karl whenever he can.

Unfortunately for Gabriel, throwing another student like that threw him off balance severely, and he collapsed forward.

Ow...

[laZardo†]

Eddie didn't get out of his seat as Ric was thrown across the floor toward him. He simply turned slowly, maintaining a relatively straight and glum face as Ric turned to glare at him. Although to be truthful, such a glare from such a still-disfigured face did get Eduardo slightly tense, but then again Ric had just slid across the floor after being thrown by the school's biggest jock. The comments he added weren't that much friendlier either, but then again Eduardo expected it...the guy speaking them had probably suffered brain damage at the hands of the jock that did that (Probably as a rite of passage, poor bastard.), and he was simply deluded in his dreams of retribution.

"I'm not going to touch you," Eddie droned coldly, "But I'd stay away from those two...if they lay so much as a finger on you, you'd better be ready to wear those bandages the rest of your life."

Other students had definitely noticed the fight and were actually doing their best to keep a perimeter while forming a thin circle audience around them, as school fights tended to do. A few were even chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!" as Boxer and Gabe went at each other like wild moose.

Boxer just barely missed Gabe as he charged, but on the other hand there was a wall a few feet behind him. He pushed his arms out a bit to try to catch himself, dulling his impact on the wall quite a bit but still disorienting him somewhat. He turned around and resumed his charge toward the now-fallen cripple, only to find another kid tossed at him. With a linebacker's reflexes he deflected the boy (toward Frankie Solano, who got pushed back onto a table), but didn't turn his attention back to the target at hand fast enough before tripping over Gabe.

The titan collided with the floor with enough force to be felt for a few meters from the epicenter, and since Boxer had rarely been brought down on the field let alone the school, the fall was pretty jarring. He got up to his hands and knees, groaning, and crawled toward the fallen cripple to try to wring his neck. Boxer never meant to kill anyone, but he was very likely to snap something on Gabe if he put enough of his simple mind to it.

Meanwhile, Eduardo raised an eyebrow and - out of some random burst of imagination, briefly envisioned black ropy tentacles springing out of Boxer's back and goring Gabe and Ric.

[Namira]

Ric narrowly avoided being knocked over as each of the others began to fall all over the place, taking others such as Karl Van Buren with them, although that seemed deliberate rather than accidental. Gabriel definitely had something against Karl, that was plain to see.

Ric responded to Ed's comment about the pair laying a finger on him by raising one of his own over his shoulder at him. Who gave a damn whether or not they were bigger than him? Ric wasn't exactly a pipsqueak, although his six foot paled in comparison to Boxer; who stood almost a full foot taller, and Gabe; who wasn't much shorter than that himself.

Ric recoiled from the action momentarily, but a thought sprang to mind as Boxer fell, then stayed on his knees. Ric wheeled and swiped a free tray from a table, pleased to note that it was one of the metal ones. Boxer seemed preoccupied with attempting to throttle Gabe, which gave Ric a perfect opportunity to put his plan into action.

The majority of the bystanders were surprised to see Ric returning to the fight; most of them thought that he would have been glad to be out of the scrap, that meant safety. On the other hand, it also meant sanity, and for Ric that was a trait he had in only very short supply.

Moving in from the side Ric dropped the tray near Boxer's head, and as it fell, directed a kick squarly into it. If it was to go as planned, the tray would be smashed right into the side of the giant footballer's skull, and Ric doubted that even he would be able to shake something like that off.

[AtomicWaffle†]

Gabriel only had seconds to react as Boxer knocked Karl away from him. As Gabriel was going to get up, Boxer appeared to trip over Gabriel, and fell onto his face. Gabriel pushed Boxer's leg off of him, and was on his knee when Boxer began to get up from the dirty floor, crawling towards him menacingly. Fortunately for Gabriel, Ric Chee somehow gathered up his balls, and delivered a VanDaminator of sorts to Boxer's head. Gabriel didn't take any more time to see if he'd gone down or not, and rose up onto both of his legs.

He hoped that Boxer wouldn't get up after being hit with that tray, but there was no way to be sure. Well, maybe there was...

The recently recovering Karl Van Buren was standing just behind Gabirel when he noticed Gabe had grabbed him by the very scruff of his neck. He never really knew why he took this punishment in stride, but that was just the way Karl was. Knowing Gabriel for a very long time, he knew that he was just the opposite. Ever since that axe flew into his knee - or as he'd say it, since Karl drove it into his knee - Gabriel's gotten darker and darker, and he has only recently come out of his shell. Karl preferred it when Gabriel was his freakishly apathetic self, instead. Now he just used Karl as his punching bag and in this case, part-time wreaking ball. Karl let out a cry as Gabriel threw him backfirst onto Boxer Carvahallo.

Gabriel stood up afterwards. Now, he noticed that Mrs. Bland was just outside of the Cafeteria, wondering what exactly was going on within it. Gabriel quickly decided that it was time to leave, and grabbed his cane off of the floor, calmly striding out of the Cafeteria, but not before taking the Baseball that Boxer had brought in to threaten Ric with.

"Good day, Mrs. Bland"

With a friendly half-wave, Gabriel limped off.

((Chronological Note: Continued hours later in No One Will Hear You Scream))

((Continued in Nobody Will Hear You Scream))

[laZardo†]

Boxer had only gotten to his hands and knees and was rubbing his face when another projectile had hurtled his way. The tray hit the more defensible side of Boxer's face near the ear...but it was the rim that hit, causing a focused pain that seemed to shoot out the opposite ear, causing him to fall onto his side. He had rolled belly-up when another student was flung back in his direction, landing on top of him. Thankfully, this boy was light compared to Gabe, and Boxer managed to sit up, with Karl sprawled across his lap.

In the meantime, Eddie had also made for Ric and tried to restrain him from behind, on Boxer's orders. Save for the (un?)lucky tray that had slammed into the side of the titan's face, Ric probably was not capable of causing more damage than Boxer was at full power, let alone wresting himself away from Eddie's restraints. Eddie was no jock, but he was not quite a scraggly stickboy of a nerd either. Of course, he'd barely had the time to even attempt it before Ms. Bland suddenly walked in. Neither him or Boxer had noticed Gabe leaving - and with the incriminating baseball.

((@Clue: You can decide if Eddie successfully restrained Ric.))

"I don't know what just went on here, but I will not have anybody trying to dominate another student in this cafeteria!" Ms. Bland suddenly ordered. This time, whatever connotations were clearly implied by her language were overshadowed by her tone. "Looks like a few of you will be riding the express line to the principals office!"

"Ms. Bland!" Boxer groaned. "These bastards just tried to gang up on me. Fuck..." With a mind as simple as his, it was simple enough to gather some basic thoughts together. Suddenly, he started to feel his jacket, the floor, and Karl for something. "Baseball...where's that goddamn baseball!?"

If Frankie Solano weren't collapsed across someone's food right now, he would have been snickering.

[Namira]

Ric didn't bother fighting Eduardo; there wasn't really any point, he had already illustrated what he thought of Boxer, both phsyically and verbally. Plus Ms. Bland had arrived, so continuing to fight would be inadvisable. Ric contented himself with simply grumbling at him.

"Y-you d-don't need t-to d-do t-that... I t-think B-Boxer gets t-the p-point..."

Ric really couldn't be bothered to argue his case; the first punch had been thrown by Gabe, who had managed to extricate himself with expert timing, and Boxer had kicked off the whole thing by grabbing Ric in the first place... Ric frowned, in fact, the one responsible in the first place was either the one who had busted open Boxer's car or the one who had said it was Ric. Hell, it was probably the same person, Ric was just a convenient scapegoat.

Bastard... Ric thought bitterly. Too afraid to face up to what they did... Guys like me and Gabe who end up taking all the flak for it... Ric waited, wondering how the situation was going to develop from here, but couldn't help but smile when Boxer spoke.

"D-don't s-start what y-you can't f-finish B-Boxer," he taunted, then added as an afterthought. "E-especially w-when it's b-based on n-no e-evidence w-whatsoever..."

[AtomicWaffle†]

The battered Karl looked up, dazed. His head was on someone's chest... Boxer's. Frightened, Karl jumped up, recoiling strangely as the bruise on his shoulder sent a sharp pain through his side. Seeing the massive football player's eyes staring into his wasn't the best sight. What a monster. Second to Theobadlt, but, he thought, probably because he knew Gabriel better.

Karl had a shitty day, and being Gabe's punching bag wasn't making it any better. But what could he do? His handycap doesn't make much of a difference considering he towered over the lanky Karl.

Today was considerably more shitty than usual. He'd barely gotten to school on time, nearly failed to hand in an assignment, and almost been hit by a renegade baseball bat before realizing he'd forgotten any money at all for a lunch. Then Gabriel came along, and pummeled the shit out of him. At least that was something consistent.

Speaking of consistancy, Karl still didn't have a lunch. And the period was pretty much over. Greeeeaaat. Gingerly, Karl walked over to the unconcious Frankie Solano, and pulled his backpack off of the table.
"Urgh... Sorry for landing on you, Frankie. Oh, and er... sorry about that, Boxer." Now, nothing else fuck up today, i've really had enough...

Karl gave a quick, frightened smile to Boxer, and then started to walk out of the Cafeteria.