The Matters of Power

Chapter 28- The Eastside Gang [3]

"What's going on over there?" Carl peeks over the arcade machine to look at the delinquents with me. They don't appear to be focused on us and instead casually walk towards the front desk of the arcade. Everyone else around us start to notice them and start to become nervous, going the opposite direction and trying to hide in some arcade machines. Something tells me that they are part of that gang that Miles had warned me about earlier. The center gang member leans over on the counter. "Yo, how's business in this place?" The worker, who appears to be in his early twenties, looks uneased at them appearing in the arcade. "W-w-what do ya want? We don't want any trouble." The guy laughs, "Of course not, of course not! Why would we, us respectable clients, want to destroy such a lovely place where people like us get to enjoy the arcade life? But you see..." He lifts the baseball bat in his hands and roughly smacks on the edge of the counter. "There are some REALLY nasty people that live 'round these parts. The kind that likes to make a lot of trouble?" "Y-yes, obviously." "Well, then it makes this easier for all of us: we want to offer protection services in exchange for a... 'tribute' of sorts. Say, a couple hundred dollars to start." A few hundred dollars to extort this place and not even protect it? That's outrageous! I don't know if they are a part of that specific gang, but these people are no better than criminals, and they look like they are a school year above me!

The worker understandably hesitates and tries to refuse such an offer, but they start to get impatient and start eyeing the arcade machines to start messing with. "Marcus, if we don't do something these idiots are gonna destroy some good arcade games that we can't play." Carl starts to stand up and walks towards them. "Hey! What do you think you're doing just ordering a local arcade shop to bend to you?" I try to stop him from exposing himself like this, but he ignores me, and I have to go out with him as well. "Huh? Who're you to tell us what to do? Go back to playing to child arcade and stay out of business conversations?" Carl is not impressed, "Yeah? Extortion of a local arcade is 'business' to you? I may not be the most intelligent fella in my class, just ask my friend here and he'll tell you, but I can smell an extortion going about. ESPECIALLY being committed by petty high schoolers who got nothing better to do with their own power." Understandably, they are pretty pissed by Carl's remarks and focus on us rather on the terrified worker. Now that I look at them more closely, they don't look much different than us other than their nasty attitude and their thoughts that talk about 'their job being more difficult than it was supposed to be'. "You want a fight? Well, you both will get one!"

I look at Carl and he knows that we can't talk them out of his, and we ready ourselves to protect this arcade and our own skins. Despite wielding weapons that are considerably light and tough, their movements are slower than I thought they would have and gives me plenty of thinking time to dodge or parry their swings. Step, step, duck, sidestep away from their attacks is easier than I thought coming from thugs who look like they've been to juvenile prison as a secondary home. Carl is faring just as well as thought I would, using his own martial art skills to take advantage of their weapons and use their own momentum against them. For some reason, he seems more level-headed than I thought he would be, unlike the last few times I've seen fight other people after I humiliated him in school all those months ago. "You can't just keep protecting your face together!" One of them tries to swing towards the sides of my stomach, but I manage to grab hold of it while minimalizing the damage to my hands, the stings of worn wood reaching through my fingers. "Wha-" Before he can finish his sentence, I push his baseball bat towards him so that his handle hits his stomach, leaving him out of breath and losing his balance. As he drops to his knees his pain, I deliver a straight kick to his chest that shoots him back to the ground and no longer poses a threat to me. The other two thugs look at their comrade on the ground in shock and Carl manages to give a powerful punch to one of them on the side of their heads, knocking them out cold.

In a fit of rage, the last one leaps onto Carl and tries to push him onto the ground with his wooden plank but only manages to barely hang on. "Hey, Marcus! A little help, maybe!" I snap out of my thoughts and rush over to them, the thug trying to stop me by using one of his arms to push me out of the way. I dodge just in time and grab onto his arm, pulling him with enough strength over me that he drops onto the floor with a powerful thud. He tries to get up, but Carl comes along and kicks him in the face hard. Just like that, the thugs who were trying to extort this place just minutes earlier now lay on the arcade floor no longer threatening anyone. I can feel all eyes on us as they look at the attention that we caused, all because of we couldn't try to solve this peacefully. "What a pain they were." I hear Carl exhale in frustration. "I didn't think there were people this dumb to go be this much trouble." I can only muster a slight chuckle as I check myself for any damages. Besides the hands and fingers being slightly bruised from grabbing that baseball bat in its swing, I'm relatively unscathed, no doubt possible because of my powers where I couldn't do such a thing before. The worker who was being targeted by those thugs approaches us and bows down. "Thank you, thank you so much. If you could please stay for a while longer, I need to explain the police officers I just called what happened."

*Sometime later...*

"So let me get this straight," the police officer asks us, "those kids who attacked you with baseball bats and wooden planks were trying to extort the arcade and had the intent of destroying private property just happened to be beaten up by you... two alone?" Carl and I nod. Based on his thoughts alone, it's pretty clear that he's not convinced on that story, despite the thugs near the other patrol car refusing to say anything. He takes his time going through his notes while we lean on the wall that he makes us wait until he finally gives up on trying. "Alright, well," the officer talks to us again, "I don't see any discrepancies in what y'all said and the camera footage looks about right. As much as I should scold you kids for doing what you did, and beating up severely no less, those kids over there have had quite a nasty reputation. So I'm gonna let y'all on a warning, alright?" I was relieved when he said that as it would save me from trying to explain to my parents on a fight that Carl and I fought in. The officers drive off with the thugs in their patrol cars and look at my phone to see that Mom just messaged me to head on home for to help on making dinner. I say goodbye to Carl on the way home as we go out separate ways and try to make a mental on avoiding that area of San Anton for a while.

*The next morning, in 1st period...*

"Helloooo? Marcus, ya got a second?" I stop working on this period's assignment and look up towards Alicia. It's been quite a while since I've talked to her at all so I thought she wanted to catch up on conversations, but instead she grabs something from her pockets and places it on my desk.

"I found this in my locker and had a note on it saying I had to give it to you. Don't know what it is, so don't shoot the messenger."

So what is this piece of paper that had to be sent to me?