WAR: What Is it Good For 9 (Patreon)

The desk next to him being empty was almost an insult.

The thing was never empty.

It usually had one specific person right there he could count on so that he could keep his eyes open as Ms. Mallon did her very best to knock his ass out. 

AP Bio droned on—enzymes, ATP, something about oxidative phosphorylation; all of it was stuff his dad had taught him back when he was a little kid. How many more months left? At least six if his count was right. 

Six months he wasn’t looking forward to.

‘It looks good for colleges, Kenny.’ Ma had told him as much and the counselor had been all for it, even telling him all about how it was gonna be more interesting and more challenging than regular classes. 

Yeah, right. Barely any difference when it came down to it; he was pretty sure that what counted as Advanced in Bludhaven Central was pretty much barely normal for any real good school. Something, something, lowest common denominator.

Mallon’s voice kept on and on, the rail-thin half-Russian woman not doing anything but just going off what the textbook said. All in all, it was the perfect soundtrack for a Monday morning that already felt like a half-weeks worth of school already. 

Green eyes flicked back over to the empty chair, the one that was supposed to have Luigi Fulco in it, doodling Rey Mysterio’s mask on scrap paper. 

But today, it was looking like ghost town. 

And that was pissing him off more than the lecture was.

Not even a text, bruh? Ken bit back a groan, just clicking his tongue as someone looked back at him. Fuck you looking at?

BRIIIIIING! 

The sound screamed across the loudspeakers, that perfect percolating sound he’d been waiting on for the better part of an hour. He scooped up his bag and pushed his way out, ignoring Mallon shouting from behind him as he let himself get swept up in the slow shuffle of bodies spilling out of AP Bio. They got… 

Ken scrunched up his face, trying to think back. Today’s a Monday, so… burgers.

He was already halfway to lunch and he could already smell it wafting his way from the cafeteria, mouth watering for whatever cardboard-and-ketchup tragedy passed for a burger at Blüdhaven High, when he heard it.

Well... not really his name.

"Kung Fu Kenny!"

Kenneth King didn’t even bother to turn around, nothing about that voice making it sound like they had anything close to good intentions if he gave them any attention. 

Especially when they were that dumb-fuck nickname.

"Kenny!" But then another voice hit his ears, Kenny’s eyes going wide. “

He spun the other direction, and there he was. Hair rust-red and skin pale enough to be ash-toned stood out in the hallways of Bludhaven Central, features centered around a set of reddish-copper eyes that always looked like he'd either just woken up or was about to start some shit.

Kenny blinked, heart giving a single hard thump that spiked adrenaline right through him. Red eyes. Pale skin. The one thought slid down his spine like an ice cube as his brain went off the rails — palepalepalee—before he caught himself, damn near slapping his own face in the hallway. It's the middle of the day, you fucking idiot. Ken breathed out slow, rationality kicking back in before he went for the V-word. Vampires can’t walk around in the daytime.

"Weegee, what's good, bro?” Kenneth pushed the paranoid bullshit down as he and his best friend traded their usual dap. “Where you been at?"

"Yo," His friend’s face split open in a grin, expression wide and human and normal enough to make the copper hue to his eyes seem less... predatory. At least up until Kenny caught sight of his silver-capped fang grillz. "My bad, man. I got caught up on some ol’ Eddie Guerrero vids, it’s what it is. He was a legend, you know.”“I know.”“Latino Heat, baby. The things he could do with a foldin' chair... pure poetry, I'm tellin' ya."

"You say that every time, bruh."

"And I'll be right every time, motherfucka." Luigi covered his mouth with one hand, fangs still flashing from inside. "C'mon, I'm hungry as hell."

Hungry as he was, Luigi didn’t stop talking the whole time, his wrestling addict of a friend astill babbling about some frog-splash finish Eddie Guerrero had hit back in '05, hyped as he usually did when he got to ramble on about wrestling. Kenneth caught maybe one word in five, but the familiar sound of his best friend's voice was enough to make him chill out; no more worries about vampires in AP Bio making his chest pound.

"Hey Kung Fu Kenny!!" The bark popped through the hallway air like a snapped ruler. 

What might as well have been a battering ram slammed into his side, the meaty impact solid enough to send him shoulder-first into a locker. Heads turned his way as metal clanged loud, Kenny hissing tight through gritted teeth. Godda-

Another hiss slid through his teeth as one green eye glanced up, the other still shut tight in a wince as Kenny grabbed his shoulder.

"I know you heard me, lil’ bitch.”

The speaker’s hair was slicked back with enough grease to fry chicken, and in desperate need of some heavy shampoo. His grin was crooked and smug, fresh ketchup stain decorating his shirt like some kind of medal. Ashhole couldn't eat with his mouth closed if his life depended on it, the too-tall fat fuck.

Standing in front of Kenny was the same piece of shit who'd rearranged his face last Thursday.

Fuck.

Jimmy mothafuckin’ Kostas.

Two of his little stooges, both of them sophomores and too big for their ages already, stepped out from behind their “leader”, said big-ass Greek already cracking his knuckles.

Kenny fumbled for the locker behind him, wincing a little bit as he worked his shoulder and pulled himself back up. His eyes flicked from Jimmy to an annoyed-looking Luigi and back to the stooges walking with Kostas today. Yeah, nothing goin’ on upstairs. 

Both of them wore the same empty, borrowed grins of kids who still thought their life was a movie, shit sweet because the “boss” of their little school mob kept them in enough stolen cash to feed their sugar addiction and keep them packing on the pounds. 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a whole gang of fatasses.

While that would have been funny, Jimmy’s group was as diverse as it was low on brain cells, which said a lot about Bludhaven Central.

The late-morning rush of students on the way to their next period did as kids always did the second they sensed violence. A good chunk of them, uncaring about food or attendance, closed up around them, a river of backpacks and teenage vultures. It was a widening semi-circle of rubberneckers, faces eager and  ready to see someone get folded like an omelet. 

An audience. Kenny bit back the urge to spit on the grimy barely-mopped floors. Just what I fucking needed.

“Lil bitch came crawling back early,” the voice, deep as it was, oozed fake surprise that Jimmy probably thought made him sound like his uncle, a real mobster. “Thought you’d still be nappin’ on the pavement, pretty boy.”

Ken squared his shoulders, pushing off the locker metal digging into his spine. “Cute. How many times you practice that in the mirror, chief?”

The snort that Jimmy sounded out was a wet noise, piggish even, ugly enough to make Kenny’s teeth itch. “Ayyy, you still a funny lil bitch, lil bitch,” Kostas parroted his catchphrase again, but Kenny didn’t hold it against him. The football player didn’t have that many brain cells left to devote any to verbosity. “You ain’t pay up last week.” Ken clicked his tongue and lied like he breathed. “No bread last week.”

Jimmy hummed low, and snapped his fingers. “Tito…”Thing 2 stepped up from behind Kostas, a vaguely Mexican kid who’d definitely been putting back the churros. “Word is you bought lunch Thursday and extra words is you had three Rice Krispies as a snack, full-size.”’

Snitching ass motherf- Ken bit back a groan.

Tito stepped back and Jimmy grunted Kenny’s way. “Full-size, that’s at least five dollars should be in my pocket right now. So, you should got some cash for me, right?”

"Got cash for who, nigga?"

"Don’t fuck with me, King.” The big guy puffed his chest out like he was trying to scare away a mountain lion, breathing heavy through his nostrils. “You not gonna like what happens."

Luigi shifted half a step forward, his usual lazy energy gone flat and dangerous.  “Yo, he said he’s good, Jimmy.” That metallic rasp in his voice cut through the hallway noise, and Kenneth caught something in his peripheral vision; couple of kids backing up without even realizing it.

Jimmy flicked his eyes over to Luigi. “What, you his lawyer now? Beat it, Dracula. This ain't got nothin' to do with you.”

Dracula. His brain froze on that for a split second, fangs and red eyes flashing through his skull before he shoved it down. Focus, dipshit. Kenny’s jaw went tight, ten fingers flexing tight to two fists. "We could run the ones right now, fat-ass nigga. Try me."

"Already did, lil bitch." Knuckle after knuckle cracked and popped, Jimmy flexing out those ham-sized hands. "I hit you that hard you don’t remember?"

He did. 

Fist slamming right into his head, the bright flash of pain, the taste of pennies all in his mouth as Jimmy glassed his ass hard enough to bring back a whole lifetime of memories. Real shit, this fat fuck got an arm on him. Like, how you beat ass so hard his past life in another reality feels that shit?

What kinda Superboy-Prime ass shit was that; punching through universes?

Impressive as it undoubtedly was, Kenny wasn’t letting that shit slide, especially not the way his face slid off linoleum that day. Let’s get it. The chakra in his gut coiled tight like a snake, sprung up and just waiting for a single excuse; Kenny letting out a laugh as thin as Kostas was fat.

“You got caught jerkin’ your shit in the stalls freshman year with a magazine,” Kenny clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, bullshit sliding out of his mouth that was nothing more than half-remembered rumor. “A magazine. I just want you to know I ain’t forget, bruh.”

Gasps popped off around them like some Orville Redenbacher in the microwave, kernels of giggling bursting into full-blown laughter. Jimmy’s face folded into something meaner, older than seventeen. He laughed once, a short, sharp, rough sound, and then he was moving.

Jimmy was the same way in a fight as he was in everything else in life; ugly and simple.

Unfortunately for most people trying to take him on, that didn’t have a damn thing to do with how fast and strong he was.

Unfortunately unfortunately for Jimmy, he wasn’t that strong or that fast.

Ken weaved right, eyes wide as he slid past a heavy haymaker.

A wild hook met nothing but locker steel with a loud, metallic BONG, reflex dropping Ken under the next fist he hadn’t even noticed. 

“Fuuuuuck!” Jimmy shook his hands out and swung again like he hadn’t just whiffed and fucked up his own knuckles.

Out of nowhere, a laugh burst out of Ken’s mouth as the whole thing clicked in his head. It was just like that clip from an old movie he’d seen in a life he didn’t own; the cafeteria fight with Flash Thompson in the first Spider-Man. Every lunge a beat late, every clumsy fist something he was already side-stepping, his body moving with the sort of grace ballerinas had. 

He was almost dancing.

Half the crowd roared, whoops going off every time he ducked bouncing off dented lockers and feeding the fire in his chest. Jimmy's curses got shorter, meaner; face going even more red as he kept on putting full haymaker force in every hit like he was trying to end it all in one punch, man. Keep goin', fat boy. Wear yourself out.

Ken let it ride, let the rhythm build as he started matador dancing around a snorting bull. He saw the opening a split-second before it happened, eyes going wide as his smile spread wide and clear; Jimmy’s frustrated fist a wild right cross on an express train to nowhere.

The punch whistled past his ear, close enough to feel the wind, then he snapped forward. His fist drove low and hard, all that coiled chakra in his gut flowing down through his shoulder, his elbow, his knuckles.

The hit landed dead-center in Jimmy's soft stomach. 

All that JV-football bulk was worth shit for dick when Ken's fist met it. All six feet two inches folded like a lawn chair, Kostas going down to one knee, hands clutching his gut, as a bubbling  grunt slipped out of his lips

"Oooooh!" The circle exploded, sound bouncing off hallway walls the way they did to him last week.

Kenny’s grin stretched wide as he spotted the follow-up, Jimmy's exposed jaw glowing in his vision like a video game weak point. Chakra coiled in his other hand, clean and ready as he cocked his fist back for the fini-

Iron clamped down on his arm.

"Wha-" Ken half-turned, ready to shake off whoever was stupid enough to interfere, but the grip didn't give a single bit.

Those copper eyes were flat, suddenly dead serious as they stayed right on him. "Donovan's comin'," the harsh whisper slid in his ear. "You stay low till final bell, he'll forget this by tomorrow."

Ken blinked. VP Donovan. 

Guy ran Blüdhaven Central like his personal kingdom, a petty little dictator who played favorites with the jocks and the connected kids while the rest of them got fucked. Bet.

They broke the circle fast, Luigi steering him as that grip stayed locked tight with more strength than he knew his friend ever had Kids parted on instinct as Jimmy was still hunched on dirty linoleum, one of his crew helping him up.

Five seconds later, and two different hallway cuts, Luigi shoulder-checked open a paint-chipped door. Without another world, Ken was dragged through, the slam of the door behind them echoing in the sudden quiet of nothing but buzzing fluorescent light as they scrambled into the basement stairwell. 

“Bruuuuh,” Ken shook his head, fingers flexing as the image of how he wanted to lay out Kostas played back in his head on loop. Still… sending him to his knees wasn’t bad, either. "Man, I been wantin' to do that for—"

He didn’t get the chance to finish as steel wrapped around his throat.

The little air he had vanished from his lungs, crushed out by nothing but raw force as he was slammed up against the wall, cinderblock surface grinding into his back. Ken clawed wildly at the wrist, fingers scraping against flesh that felt too cold, too hard. What the fuck what the fuck what the—

Luigi?

It was. 

Only not. 

His best friend’s face was inches away, lazy grin replaced by something bright and wrong as strands of rust-red hair fell into his face. His custom-fitted silver fang grillz caught the stairwell’s single buzzing bulb as inhuman eyes stared at him. 

Full red, deep as fresh blood, both piercing right through his soul.

“Now…” Luigi’s voice was different, the lazy drawl scraped away. “…you’re gonna do some talking.”

“..o-or w-what?”

The monster wearing his best friend's face just gave him a grin, even as he struggled to even pull it in a breath.

“Or you’re gonna do some dying.”