Chapter 80: 72.2 Call the Champions (2 of 2)

Fridays were filled with all the class blocks. It wasn’t a serious day, either, especially when the weekends were reserved for a host of sports competitions. The pep rally was the main event of the day. There were special sections of time where faculty or students hosted events to raise school spirit.

The Central Lions was a prideful and highly elite body of students, teachers, and administrators. The lion emblems and statues, along with the bold colors of white, gold, and black, imparted a message that this school was okay with being extravagant.

Students were free to come and go to class due to their reduced time blocks. They would usually show up for attendance purposes, even if it wasn’t exactly at the start of class. They could even appear at different block times.

Most teachers remained in class so they could be receptive to any student that needed help, like an office period that lasted all day. They weren’t required to provide any lectures or hold students. That freedom from restraint usually meant there was more homework or online work to be done, but everybody appreciated it.

It also meant there was a lot of activity in the hallways. Students and faculties cheered for the sports athletes or any group of students with a weekend competition. The chess club kids got their own fair chair of praise and encouragement. Banners were waved about. Faces were painted. Tastefully appropriate and culturally variable music was played in different sections of the school. And Hailey the Event Planner was the one running the show with a huge staff of students.

Jay was passing by the main courtyard where he could see the hole in the fifth-floor administration wing Rick had gotten blasted through. The school news covered it as an accident caused by a runaway buffer a drunk custodian had exploded in the end. Scaffolding surrounded the hole where a night crew planned to fix it. Looking back, the moment still seemed hilarious and looney.

But Amanda’s fear of Jay harming students had put blasting Rick through a wall in a different light. One chunk of concrete the size of a softball could kill a kid. All around him were high-spirited students enjoying the Friday festivities.

All of them were killable.

It would be easy.

Like the assassins, but more defenseless.

He wouldn’t struggle to slash through two hundred of them.

Or a thousand of them.

Kleo bit his finger hard, snapping him from his downward spiral of thoughts. He stroked her head in thanks. Jay kept on the move, finding peace and quiet in his classes or his favorite napping spot. He read more into gravity physics and watched some videos, too. He found a private room to help Kleo with her reading lessons since Hailey was busy. He checked in with the dance class and didn’t find anyone noteworthy there. Then he got a message from Rob to hang out at the Capoeira Club room.

Jay took off his shoes and hoodie and gave a respectful bow to the mat. He did a few light warmup laps around the small space. Rob was already stretching and warming up in the middle of the mat.

Ivan and Sarah weren’t attending right now. They were one of Hailey’s freshman lackeys helping with school spirit and festivities. They were swamped with work, but the kids were having fun. So, for this occasion, it was just him and Rob.

Good.

Jay could get the most out of Capoeira Club when it was just the two of them.

“I’m going to limit my magic as much as possible like last time,” Jay explained openly.

“Dude, you watch too much anime.” Rob laughed. “I like your devotion, though. No matter how many times I see your fancy lenses, they stay cool.”

“When they’re at their dimmest, I think that’s when I’m doing okay on power limitation. Takes a lot of willpower, trust me. But I want you to kick my ass, after all.”

“Sure, sure, whatever.”

Even though Rob took it as a joke, Jay was serious. It took a huge amount of willpower to withdraw his Attributes to human limits and keep his passive powers under wraps. That way he could feel the hits, put effort into the strikes, and see Rob’s mastery from the base level. 

Because Rob was really good. Like pro MMA level good. Capoeira was his preferred art, but he knew Kickboxing, Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Muay Thai, and actual MMA. He mostly trained Capoeira, but he would supplement with another martial art every half a year. He’d done this for seven years, loving his personal hobby.

Developing Super Capoeira.

Too bad he didn’t plan to fight professionally. He wanted to be a fitness guru or whatever and take things from there.

For some reason, Jay found that sad. He would’ve taken Super Capoeira to the greatest heights and shown it off personally. But Rob was more of a realist compared to Jay. A hobby was just a hobby that kept Rob centered.

“I’m going to surpass you, sensei,” Jay said with a lopsided grin, which was harder to pull off with a mouthguard. “And show Super Capoeira as the pinnacle fighting style of the Multiverse.”

Rob laughed. 

Jay laughed.

You are reading story The Gravity Freak of Dungeons and Monsters: System Portal Fantasy at novel35.com

Rob kicked Jay in the face.

***

Cutie had seen many bad things in her sixteen years of life that would soon become seventeen years. Her greatest comfort was her three-legged dog, Bojo, and her friendship with George. But nothing could comfort her easily after finding the missing lemon seller’s torn apart corpse.

Cutie turned away, staggered to a dilapidated fence bordering a trailer home, and vomited. She pressed her hand over her black and red bandana tied around her neck. To keep it from getting speckled by vomit. Her other hand held her rifle.

Every Zion Soldier knew that the rifle existed as part of their identity–never drop the rifle. The gang life required discipline, and none were more discipline than Zion Soldiers. Except for having to lose your lunch from a horrific discovery.

“Okay, I’m good,” Cutie said, returning to George’s side. “Crazy cannibal killer? Shouldn’t be any. Zombie Boys got wiped out last year for this shit.”

“Zombie Boys had bad juju. This is the baddest juju I’ve ever felt,” George said.

George’s family had come from the bayou of Louisiana. They’d touched on the old black magic there. Hoodoo and whatnot.

Cutie didn’t mind his quirk much other than finding it silly.

But after last week. After seeing real magic and monsters. Knowing what their bosses, er, partners in the O’Kelly’s could do had tilted her perspective. She wasn’t going to wave off George’s juju claims any time soon.

Putting on a brave face no girl her age should constantly wear, Cutie crouched and examined the former lemon seller.

Enough of his face remained identifiable to the locals in Junkside’s low-north quarters. Lovable guy. Never caused problems. Sold lemons to anyone, even to the worst gangsters. But now he was laid out with his chest cavity emptied and his limbs ending in nubs as if they’d been chewed on as an afterthought.

Cutie glanced up where a big storm drain poured brown water into a canal. A bunch of them ran through Junkside. A few estuaries and watery basins from the everglades made themselves known when it rained a lot. Like this week.

Cutie had on her special rain boots and raincoat for weeks when Florida was pissing all the time. Then you had jet skis, motorboats, canoes, or plain paddle boards coming out for people to get around.

“More water, more flow.” Cutie slung her rifle on her shoulder and paced about. “More flow, more movement. More movement, more animals. Gators?”

“This isn't a gator,” George said on a sour note. “But the word in the low-west quarter saw something giant rise out the water. Scaly, too. Like a Godzilla.”

“Stay serious, George,” Cutie muttered, chewing the edge of her bottom lip. She tried not to do that. Made her overbite more pronounced. “What does the baddest juju you ever felt mean?”

“Call the O’Kellys,” he recommended.

“We can’t just call them for just about anything,” Cutie said. “If this turns out to be a damn gator we could’ve murked, that’ll make us look stupid.”

“Gator. Zombie Boys. Whatever. It makes me want the O’Kellys and their new gang with the big magic.”

The Champions.

Cutie shook her head. She was going to argue until she turned purple to keep the Champions out of this. Especially that kid with the glowy eyes. He gave Cutie weird feelings. She did not want to feel those tings.

But then Cutie saw a track.

A gator track would be easy. Man tracks would make the search longer but doable for the Zion Soldiers. This track was not human or animal, though. It was something other. Something that made the skin on the back of Cutie’s scalp itch really bad. And she only got that itch when the truly bad stuff was right around the corner.

She was only alive by avoiding the real bad stuff.

Cutie called the O’Kellys herself.

Bring in the Champions.