Flesh and Bone

Chapter 17: Movers and Shakers, Makers and Breakers

For just a moment there, it almost looked like the Safe House was actually going to get something done. That would've been a pretty big problem for Gavin; he made his bones ripping off the low-tiers, and if there was a whole swarm of do-gooders running around defending the school's losers, what would be left for him?

Arlo, Seraphina, Blyke, Remi, and even elites like Ventus and Meili were supposed to be apart of that thing. Sure, Gavin could throw and take a punch or two, but being the strongest mid-tier here compared to a god tier was like being the world's strongest ant facing the average bulldozer. If they actually managed to stick together, then who knows what would've happened to him? He'd have to start doing the lion's share of his own homework again, he wouldn't have such an easy source of income ripping off the weaklings, it would've just been a disaster!

Without the god-tiers and the elites backing Remi's sob-story pet-project, then all there was left to do was to keep an eye out for her and Blyke whenever they got out of that sweet little crib of theirs. In the beginning of this little era of theirs, the former Royals had made enterprising savants like him fear conducting business as usual without one of them walking around the corner. It was like the Royals were everywhere! It didn't help that low-tier worms ratted out everyone that had been keeping them in their place; you so much as raised your voice to some kid and then, wham, Remi and Blyke and who knows what else showed up like magic.

It was like that for a week, maybe two, but then Seraphina and then Arlo stopped showing up. As if someone had taken the blast out of a bomb and let it fizzle, the imminent threat to his favorite hobbies and his position in the Hierarchy passed without a whimper. He and the rest of the mid-tiers and high-tiers breathed a sigh of relief, though as things turned out it was a little bit premature.

Despite the god-tiers being gone now, Blyke and Remi still stuck around and kept the act up. Any time one of them was free, they'd be running around the school, 'patrolling' like they were cops or something.

As if.

But anyone could see that they were fighting a losing battle, trying to keep up this little charade; no one would be caught dead going to the Safe House for help so long as people like Gavin were around. He just couldn't wrap his head around why these two Royals were still bothering with it. The last few fights they had with him proved that neither one could supplant John as King of the school, much less have any say in running its Hierarchy with or without him in the way.

Sure, John was a total fucking psycho, but at the very least he got it, rhetoric notwithstanding. Beat up anyone who got in your way, and make them regret it if they talked back; that was definitely Gavin's type of action from the get-go, even if dressing up like John's masked-up persona Joker wasn't.

It sort of freaked Gavin out of at first when people started doing it, tricking him now and again into thinking that Joker wasn't just kicking the crap out of Royals anymore, but mid-tiers like him too. It was bad enough he ran into the real, bonafide Joker one time outside on one of the school paths. Just seeing him standing there, looking ready to pummel him scared Gavin half to death and made him run off without

John having to make a single move.

If anyone had seen that shameful little display, they would've called him a coward for not trying to square up with John. From Gavin's point-of-view, he preferred the term 'creative combatant'; it wasn't the most honorable way to preserve his own place in the system, but the idea of uselessly getting his face beat in was definitely a way to knock him down a peg or two.

So with all that said: why, exactly, was Gavin standing there holding in his hands the same type of mask that John and all those poser Jokers were using?