TCOTRB: The Case of The Red Bubble

🃏 Chapter X: Force Majeure

Chapter X: Force Majeure

[AUTHOR'S NOTE]:

This chapter shall include intense bullying which may trigger some readers. It's important to know that this is wrong and nobody deserves it. Kindly proceed with caution.

•••

"'Red Flower'?"

Milo has heard of the school a few times before. Whenever someone talks about it, a lot of people express the feeling of dread. The students there were said to hail from prestigious families. Nobody dared cross with them.
If the rumors were true, they are notorious for bullying students outside the school. They also don't like it when their victims fight back and admit defeat.
There was a story where Jonathan threatened a common businessman's daughter into losing in a chess match.
Another instance involved blackmailing two students from Mariner Academy who were caught hanging out with the school's basketball team (as dating athletes is forbidden). They demand to be treated like gods and goddesses.
The tall girl wearing a campus jacket strode towards Milo and grabbed him by the collar. Her name is Vanessa Alba. She can tell that he is green about the world around him and easy to take advantage of.

"Hey! Unhand him now!" Leo demanded.

"This kid's been lookin' at us funny so we gotta teach him a lesson!" Jonathan eyed her as Vanessa pulled out a Swiss knife close to Milo's face and knocked the skinny boy on the gut with a single knee.

"Say goodbye to those pretty lookers!" she screamed.

"Not good!" Jin gasped.

The three other bullies - Rina Escobar, Liu Jun and Kim Chan - kept sneering at Milo's group. Kaira dashed towards Vanessa and launched a headbutt attack on her.
The girl had dropped her weapon but her other hand quickly grabbed her hijab. "You'll pay for this!" Both groups fought against each other.
It's a good thing that it didn't happen at school otherwise they'd be screwed. Meanwhile, a nearby police officer showed up to break the fight.

"You there! You know that public fights are not allowed within the vicinity!" he waved his baton at them.

"But, officer! They started it. If they weren't jeering at us, we wouldn't have been provoked," Jun pointed the blame at the other group.

"What? They suddenly came to threaten us for no reason!" Milo argued.

The officer only shook his head in chagrin and asked them to leave the place.
"To think you're all in your uniforms. Do you want everybody to get the wrong idea that your schools are raising a bunch of juveniles?" He lectured them, "If I ever see you cause trouble again here, you'll get banned from this establishment!"

"C'mon! We'll get right back at those ungracious losers one day!" Jonathan called on to his friends until they all disappeared into the distance.

Leo then phoned his uncle to pick them up at the entrance. Being picked on at the mall after school is the last thing they'd wanna deal with ...

•••

At the Sidaris household.

Milo was terribly bruised.

His mom has been dabbing his wounds with cotton for half an hour while yammering about how he could have lost his life at that point. Jason assured her that their son is going to be fine.
Meanwhile, his friends were with Chirag staying outside the convenience store. "What?!" he nearly crushed his ice cream cone in half, "Why didn't you say so? Me and the boys could've done something about these bullies!"

"Hey, now ... These 'crimson bloomer punks' are notorious for getting away with the bullying. Thank goodness a cop showed up to stop the fight!" Jin said.

"Do you happen to know these people?" Kaira asked.

"Well, The Red Flower Academy is only across the street from art school. Those kids are also in their senior year," Chirag explained.

"I unfortunately had a run into them as they stole my lunch card (which students use to purchase things anywhere)."

He remembered calling his friend, who owns a hoverboard, to give him a free ride home. If Malik was there, they might not have stood a chance.
Chirag briefly expounded the background regarding the Red Flower Academy.

The institution was built by a mysterious elite known as "Odval" (a name meaning 'red chrysanthemum').