Trailer Incident

Marzi threw another punch at Mikey but Mikey spun around him and avoided it. Mikey then jumped into the air and threw a kick at the back of Marzi's neck to try and knock him down but Marzi ducked under it.

Marzi quickly spun himself to properly face Mikey and then sent a punch at his stomach.

Mikey caught the blow with both his hands and tied his legs around Marzi's arm to reduce the force of the blow, but yet he was still forcibly smacked into the floor.

Despite Marzi applying pressure on his stomach, Mikey managed to slide under his fist, place both his feet around Marzi's neck, and lock onto him. He then lifted himself quickly, placed his hands on Marzi's shoulder, and headbutted him with much force.

Both Marzi and Mikey fell to the floor right after that.

Marzi got off the ground feeling slightly disoriented, and as he turned around he was met with a flying roundhouse kick that smacked him on the side of his face and part of his neck. The blow had enough force behind it to push him back some more.

Mikey quickly entered into a sprint as he dashed to ram his knee into the side of Marzi's face to put him down for good.

Marzi had placed a hand on the floor to help him balance himself better. He spit out some blood and rubbed his cheek with his other hand, he could feel some bleeding there as well. He was injured both inside and outside of his mouth.

"Not bad," he snickered.

Quickly, he pushed himself up with his one hand and got on his feet. Mikey didn't expect him to recover so soon, yet, he persevered.

As Mikey got close, Marzi began to spin himself around. Mikey recognized this movement as a back-kick, and so he lowered his body a little and prepared himself to go underneath it and counter-attack.

As Mikey got closer, Marzi lifted his left foot and turned it sideways as though to hit Mikey with it, but he stopped it before it was even halfway. This confused Mikey for a second as he didn't understand the action. Marzi then quickly placed the foot down, changed his stance, and let out a crescent kick with his other foot that hit Mikey straight in the face. 

The blow was so hard that it sent Mikey flying into the table that had jewelry on it, and it scattered the jewels all over the place.

Watching from the other side of the room, Dragon saw what had happened to Mikey. He wanted to scream his name out in concern but he restrained himself from doing so as he caught his mouth with his hand. He knew that if he did, it would incite panic around their group.

He stared for only a little while as his attention was shifted back to the opponent that he had been facing for a while. This one was more tricky in the sense that he fought in an acrobatic way and would do splits and flips in cohesion with his attacks.

He would've been better suited for a circus than a mafia.

"I have to ask, "Marzi said as he walked up to Mikey. "Why haven't you used your fists yet? Are you perhaps much weaker than I thought you were?"

Mikey chuckled as he tried to stand up with his shaking legs. "It's the opposite. It's cause I know that if I had used them to fight you, then you would have died already. So let's call it a crutch for your sake."

Marzi kicked his legs and made him fall over. He smiled as he stood right in front of him and said, "You really are a cocky son of a bastard." And with that smile hanging on his face, he lifted his foot up high and slammed it downward at Mikey.

Marzi was stunned to find that his foot had been stopped. He didn't think that the kid he had been fighting would have recovered so quickly from being disoriented, but when he looked to see who was holding his foot, it wasn't Mikey, it was Saffi.

Saffi although injured was holding up Marzi's foot with all that he had while on both knees. He was straining trying to keep it from hitting Mikey and his already bruised body only made the action far more back-breaking than it would be. And yet, despite that, he looked upwards at Marzi with a look full of determination and conviction. As though this was something he was willing to die for.

As Marzi and Saffi locked eyes, Marzi was displeased. He didn't like the fact that Saffi got in the way of his fight and this had ticked him off greatly. But as he stared into Saffi's eyes, he couldn't help but feel a strange sort of sympathy towards him.

And so for a moment, he had stopped trying to push his foot downward on him.

Saffi was surprised when the unnerving weight that was being pressured down onto him had lessened and there was a confused look on his face as he stared back at Marzi who seemed to have a less threatening expression on him now.

In this moment of relaxation, Mikey took the opportunity to sneak away from behind Saffi and around the backside of Marzi. 

Marzi had realized a little too late that something was off, as he turned around, he was met in the face with a kick that knocked him closer to the far edge of the building.

Marzi was down. At least for now.

"Saffi, you are such an idiot!" Mikey shouted as he pointed a finger at him and waved it judgingly.

"Do you have any idea how hard it was to track you down!!? Do you know how worried I was when you left me on the rooftop to go home by yourself? If it wasn't for that one guy who came running to me saying that you had saved him from a group of thugs then I wouldn't be here right now."

"Do you have any idea the kind of heart attack that your actions have put me through!!?"

Mikey then went down on his knees in front of Saffi and headbutted him. HARD.

"Ow," Saffi responded with tears in his eyes.

"It's what you get!" *sniff* *sniff* "It's what you get for making me worry, dumbass~!"

Mikey was now in tears as he held Saffi, tightly. He began to cry more as he refused to let go of him right now. Not until he heard Saffi apologize.

"I know. I'm a dumbass Mikey," Saffi responded with sincerity in his voice. It was soft and low but it felt very comforting in a way. "I wanted to become something more, something that you didn't want me to become, and I ended up making a mistake for it. I'm sorry. I guess someone like me doesn't deserve someone like you as a broth-"

"Stop right there! Don't you dare finish that sentence! Yes, you are an idiot but you are my idiot! I don't want to hear anyone talk bad about you around me, not even yourself."

"Mikey I-"

There was a rushed silence that came after Saffi said those words.

At first, Mikey thought that maybe he was too emotionally invested in this to think of words to say anymore, but that thought quickly shifted when he felt a run of warm liquid pass by his hands.

Mikey quickly opened his eyes and checked Saffi's back to see what was wrong, and when he looked at it, he saw a small pocket knife lodged right inside of it, placed only slightly above his hands.

And when Mikey looked in front of him, he could see the face of the person that did it. Standing not so far from him was a thug who seemed to have been beaten up quite a bit as his body was covered in blood.

Although it was hard to tell whether it was his own or from others.

Mikey's hands were shaking as he held onto Saffi. He started saying his name in rapid succession as he turned him around and tapped his face a bit to try and make sure he was awake. But alas, Saffi did not respond to his cries.

As Marzi slowly got up from where he had landed, he grabbed his head and tried to settle his mind before moving anymore. After doing so, he looked forward and witnessed the same sight that Mikey was seeing right now. 

Saffi had been murdered.

Marzi screamed in frustration, "No!" and as he did so, he brought to him the attention of the one who was carrying Saffi's body.

Mikey looked at both Marzi and the killer with tears running down his eyes. He had already made up his mind on what he was going to do next.

****

There was once a boy who was born in a beautiful city but lived in a poverty-stricken environment.

The boy's father was a bastard and in turn, his mother tried her best to be his angel.

The father got the mother infected with an STI he had contracted somewhere and then bailed to take care of himself in a place where nobody would look for him.

The mother was left to take care of her only child as well as her health with no one she could go to for help, for the man had moved her from her home country and family long before he bailed.

Even selling her body wouldn't be enough to afford a stable life for her child, she feared. And what type of brothel would take in a woman who had an infection within her?

With no clear future of recovery in sight, the mother spent all of her savings on ensuring that her son would be educated in school. No matter how run down the school was, if he could just learn to read and write and maybe even a bit of math, then he was sure to make it.

Of this she was certain.

The boy attended school as per his mother's request. But knowing that he was unable to do anything to make her condition better, he cried silently as he did his best to live the life she wanted for him.

The boy would come straight home to take care of her and then spend the rest of his free time studying. If he could only become a schooler, then perhaps he could do right by her.

But as if only add to his misery, a small group of thugs had moved into the neighborhood and would walk right by the school whenever it was convenient for them.

And that 'convenience' was all the time.

There were only three of them and they were all teenagers under the age of 19, but they were dangerous and would beat up any children they saw and make them steal money from their homes for them to use.

The thugs once set their eyes on the boy and would beat him up every opportunity that they would run into him. Not to gain anything as he had nothing to give, but simply because they thought it was fun to bully someone who couldn't fight back.

The boy once told his teacher about the problem and the teacher responded, "What does that have to do with me?" as he left and went about his day to more 'important matters.'

In reality, the teacher was afraid as well. In a neighborhood so poorly kept together, one may easily lose their life if one tried to become a hero. And for him, it wasn't worth it.

The boy would try to avoid them but every time that he would go to school they would wait outside the gate and make sure to give him a beating or two before moving on with their day. They knew that he was trying to avoid them, so they made it a game to try and catch him before the day ended.

The beatings were severe but the boy would always hide his wounds from his mother, after all, it became harder and harder for her to open her eyes as time went on. He did not want her to worry about anything else and he knew that if he could just be strong enough for her then he could overcome this.

But he wasn't strong enough for her, at least that's what he told himself when he started skipping school in order to, 'take care of his mother.'

That was the excuse he gave her. The excuse he used to run away and be safe.

His mother more concerned with his future urged him to go to school and study and asked if anything was bothering him. She wanted him to know that even though she was sick she would still be there for him no matter what.

The boy smiled and replied that if she said she could take care of herself at least until he got back from school, then he wouldn't have to worry too much and could continue attending his classes.

He smiled at her as he hid the truth, hoping not to break her heart, he would rather die with his lie.

With no more excuses to use now, and with the determination to make his mother proud of him, he decided to confront the bullies at his school that day.

Finding them that day was easy, as they were waiting by the gate to collect their money from the students who would walk in to attend their classes.

They laughed when they saw him because he did a bad job at avoiding them that day, but their laughs were cut short as the screams of teeth being broken and blood splattering replaced them all.

The boy stood tall holding one of his victims by the collar of his shirt, with his hands, face, and shirt all covered in blood.

Despite how monstrous the sight would look to most people, the students who were watching this cheered him on with shouts of joy as their oppressors had finally felt what it meant to be oppressed.

As the boy got ready to throw another punch at his opponent's face, his foe cried as he made an offer to him to save his skin.

"All the money that we have and more. I can give it all to you just please---please let us go!"

When the boy heard that, he stopped moving for a moment. All of his actions had stopped as though there was a mental tick that went off in his head as the only thought he came to was...

"Money?"