It was probably a little elitist. Rei always conducted his most important meetings on the school rooftop. When viewed in a particular light, his preference was basically level discrimination - an implicit statement that mid-tiers and low-tiers weren't worthy of participating in discussions of significance.
Still, even if it weren't a level-exclusive zone, there would still be no better place than the roof to have a serious talk. That a vast majority of students weren't allowed was just a secondary bonus; nobody in Wellston could hang around near him if Rei wanted them gone. It was just that rooftop conversations possessed a certain gravitas, a certain weight to them, and he had never been able to find a suitable replacement location.
Rei sighed, feet dangling over the roof's edge, and shook the irrelevant thoughts out of his head. He knew that lower-level students had more significant problems to worry about than such a tiny sliver of elitism: the danger in their daily lives, chief among them.
Case in point - how was he going to deal with Zeke? Two days had passed since the boy's violent outburst, and thus far, he'd gotten away without so much as a scratch. Perhaps it was to be expected, but nobody had taken him to task for brutalizing that poor girl out of nowhere, and Rei had no intention of letting it stand as precedent.
But how do I go about it, that's the question...
"Why did you call me up here?" A sharp, masculine voice called out to him from behind, clearly annoyed. "If you try to preach about fairness and holding hands one more time, I swear to God I'll stab you again."
Rei turned and rose to his feet - he had to tilt his head up slightly to look Kuyo in the eyes. It was annoying, considering Kuyo was only supposed to be Jack, but it didn't matter; half the Wellston top twenty saw him as a more legitimate king. They'd been on-and-off best friends and worst enemies for the entirety of his high school career.
As always, the blue-haired young man was more than a little intimidating, standing at 6'3 with a perpetually hard look in his eyes. But Rei had known him long enough to see past appearances - and get intimidated for other reasons, instead.
"I haven't given up on converting you to the side of good just yet," he replied with a grin. "You've got to admit I've made progress. I mean, when was the last time you stabbed someone in class?"
Kuyo's face wrinkled as his eyes narrowed, though maybe there was a smile in there. "And you say you don't understand why people hate your guts. You don't get to take credit for every way I've changed since freshman year, dude."
"I don't, though," Rei said. "I'm only responsible for the ways you've gotten better, not the ways you've gotten worse."
Kuyo could only click his tongue in response, and Rei faintly heard him mumble, "Why do I bother humoring this?" under his breath.
At least I'm winning the dick-measuring contest.
"Since we agree that I'm the only force for positive change in your life... You heard about what happened a few days ago, right?" Rei asked. "Two broken ribs, a spinal fracture, a broken ankle. Add in a stage three concussion. And the best explanation anyone has is, 'she corrected Zeke in Algebra class.' Don't you think we should do something about this?"
Kuyo raised a single, bladelike eyebrow. "Of course I heard. I even did the research. The girl is Melissa Hoffman, a Freshman with a level of 2.6. Her friend group is probably strong enough to get back at Zeke if they drag him into a group ambush. He'll naturally get what's coming to him."
"But what if he wins?" Rei asked. "Doesn't that mean he'll get off without anything? He'll even have the badge of honor of winning a gang fight to hide behind if someone confronts him later on."
"Then Melissa would only have herself to blame for not making strong enough friends," Kuyo answered, coldly crossing his arms.
Rei groaned.
There it was, Kuyo's unempathetic human Darwinism… Or in other words, his views that were pretty normal for a 5.3. After years of trying to convert him out of it, Rei hadn't seen much success.
"Dude... That would just give Zeke the idea that he can run wild without consequences," he pointed out.
"But if he rampages too much, he'll eventually provoke a person or group who can put him in the ground. Isn't it nice how self-regulating the hierarchy is?"
Rei shook his head, obviously not accepting that.
"We don't have to wait for Zeke to put someone into a coma before we start taking him seriously. And what kind of message would we be sending if we let him go scot-free this time? One I'm sure both of us disagree with."
He put a hand on Kuyo's shoulder, making direct eye contact. "I say we make a formal statement of condemnation and give an official, Royal-enforced punishment. What do you think?"
Kuyo snorted, brushing his hand off.
"Be serious. The only message we ought to send is that lower-tier students need to stay cautious and form strong group connections if they want to protect themselves. Just like in real society. You know, where they'll be headed in a few years."
"There isn't a place in the whole world where the strong don't dictate the lives of the weak," Kuyo added, of course noticing that Rei wasn't convinced. "Coddling the lower tiers will only set them up to be taken advantage of once they graduate, Rei."
He pursed his lips in acknowledgment. This was a common argument, one that he mostly disagreed with. It wasn't like a year of good governance would fully blind the school to the realities of the wider world… though he didn't really want to argue the point.
"Well, I'm the strongest male student right now. By your logic, why shouldn't I just-"
"Tied for strongest," Kuyo interrupted with a grin.
"Whatever." Rei snorted. "You know what I mean. I'm at the top of your oh-so-important 'hierarchy,' so why don't I just fry him to a crisp with my lightning and call it an official punishment from the royals?"
"Because it wouldn't be 'punishment from the royals,'" Kuyo pointed out. "It wouldn't be a decision of the royals as a whole, but a personal decision of Rei Sterling. I know how your mind works. You want to condemn him with an air of officiality and moral authority – but you can't. They call you the 'soft king' for a reason: every high-ranker at our school knows your sense of right and wrong is completely misaligned from the rest of us."
"Hey! That's not true!" Rei protested weakly. "I know at least one elite-tier who sees things like I do. Also, I prefer to think of myself as the sole reasonable one among a group of psychos…"
Kuyo rolled his eyes. "Congratulations, you have a single high-ranking supporter. Do you want me to give you a trophy for that? Look - your personal, subjective judgment is that Zeke needs a punishment. So you can paralyze him and preach to him and feel amazing about playing hero, but you shouldn't bring the name of the royals into it. "
Rei frowned. Kuyo was irritatingly good at twisting words; it was another one of his arguments for being king. He still found it hard to combat.
"That's not a fair interpretation. I'm saying what Zeke did was fundamentally wrong," he replied, emphasizing the end of his sentence. "No matter what your level is, you shouldn't have to walk around afraid that someone's going to throw a haymaker at the back of your fucking head!"
Kuyo's expression twisted in irritation, but Rei kept going.
"His actions set a terrible precedent for what high-rankers can get away with, so I think he needs to be morally condemned by the whole school. For that to happen, the royals need to lead by example - it all starts with an official punishment and statement from the royals!"
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"Have you been listening to me?" Kuyo asked. "I'm almost positive Zeke will get thrashed soon enough, anyway! He's not even all that strong, and he doesn't have any allies. If he continues, he'll probably end up a humiliated sack of flesh within a few weeks. Isn't that enough of a condemnation for you? And if he stops, then the problem is solved! The hierarchy will take care of itself like always."
Rei felt his face heat up. "That wouldn't be enough. It's not enough - the way things currently are. Do you know Zeke's projections? He'll be a 4.6 by the end of his senior year; how will the hierarchy sort itself out then? Nobody but the royals will be able to stop him if he keeps doing this shit, and if the future royals are as impassive as you are-"
"That's a stretch, and you know it," Kuyo said. "You're pretending you have a guarantee that your so-called 'moral condemnation' would do anything to fix his issues. How do you know it won't make him worse?"
"Literally everything can backfire. Nobody stands around doing nothing all day."
"You know what's not what I'm saying-"
"Also, what's the point of being royals if we don't take action as royals! Our roles are completely pointless if we never give out public statements or official punishments!"
They kept arguing, but everything was incoherent. An angry shouting match. Reflexively, Rei shifted into a combat stance, more than ready to let his lightning do the talking.
Then, right as he was about to activate his ability-
"Hold on. Wait a second - aren't you forgetting about…?" A decidedly non-angry look crossed Kuyo's features, like he'd suddenly realized something, and he ran a hand through his hair. "Shoot. I forgot you aren't from a high-tier household like mine."
Rei set his hands down.
"Look," Kuyo said. "Maybe I could have said this to begin with, but there's traditionally another option for taking care of someone like Zeke: you send someone else to humiliate him."
"What?" Rei asked, confused.
"Think of it as a good compromise," said Kuyo. "You would secretly send an elite-tier faction member to demolish him publicly. After that, they'd be able to do all the moral grandstanding and admonishing you would have also done in front of a crowd. And it won't feel like the personal judgment of the 'soft king' Rei. More like an expression of the common opinion, that Zeke went too far."
"Moral grandstanding, huh?" Rei narrowed his eyes, and the tension in the air started ratcheting up again…
But then his shoulders relaxed, and he let out a breath. "Fine. I still think you're being stupid, but I get it. The issue is that I'm not sure there's anybody strong who would drive the message home like I would."
Kuyo gave him an odd look. "Didn't you say you met an elite-tier who thinks like you? You can just ask them to do it."
Rei blinked in realization, his mouth widening into an 'o' shape, and pieces of a plan started connecting in his mind.
He pulled out his phone, not quite remembering if he'd saved Meili's number as a contact…
***Beautiful***
Zeke walked through the hallway, alert.
Eyes had tracked him throughout the day, and he was starting to feel a morsel of regret. Not pity for the girl he'd pummeled a few days ago, of course, but pity for his own situation. News got around Wellston High pretty quickly. The student consensus was that he was fucked.
Zeke hated fighting people of a higher level than him. Not that anyone liked to face down a guaranteed loss, really, but his hatred of it was far greater than the other kids at Wellston.
It was a lesson his father had taught him from elementary, over and over. Fighting the level gap lead to broken bones and torture, in the same way two plus two would forever equal four.
But Zeke had also understood, from a young age, that frequent ability use and serious, challenging fights were the best ways to increase his ability level.
So what had he done?
The solution his younger self came up with was relatively simple: beat up a kid in the 1.9-2.0 range, wait for the kid's friends to try to get revenge, and then beat them down, too.
The initial thrashing was always one-sided in his favor, and the growth he received was small (though that didn't make it any less cathartic). The real progress came from fighting three or four weak fighters simultaneously. Even if a single scrub was far too low-level to challenge him on their own, taking on a decent-sized group of them had always been a suitable catalyst for his ability growth.
Best of all, his method allowed him to make good progress while avoiding conflicts with people as strong as or stronger than himself. Zeke was pretty proud of his younger self for realizing the optimal strategy so early. It was stress relief, maintaining peace with everyone worthwhile, but without sacrificing ability progression. The shaded center of a three-way venn diagram.
Unfortunately, he'd made a mistake with his most recent target, likely because he'd been too emotional to recognize anything more than her status as a freshman and the irritating qualities of her face. The girl was a 2.6, solidly in risky territory due to the high chance that she had multiple friends of a similar level willing to counterattack.
How many periods are they going to wait for? he thought. Or maybe it'll be tomorrow? Wait-
He activated his ability in offense form, using his enhanced speed to tilt his head out of the trajectory of a flying knee. Wind rushed by him in a near-miss. A yellow blur flew past, carried by the momentum of the attempted ambush, before skidding to a halt.
"I can't believe I whiffed that," Zeke heard the figure mumble using his enhanced senses. He observed the tall, golden-haired boy who had tried to catch him off guard.
"I told you, dude," a girl's voice echoed behind him. "You're fast, but Melissa said this guy can become a defense or an offense type whenever he wants. Don't attack alone next time."
When did they-?
Zeke turned to find two female students, one with green hair and one with silver, surrounding him from the sides. Their eyes glowed as they activated their abilities, and suddenly, one's arms were a shiny grey metal, while a pair of swamp-green orbs appeared on the other's palms.
The other students in the hall began to back off at the sight, keeping a safe distance to observe the fight from afar.
He grimaced, putting his hands in the air to buy time to think. "Woah, woah! I surrender! Aren't you guys looking for Zeke? I'm Blake, a third-year stud-"
Instantly, he blitzed his speed to its max, then buried his fist in the green-haired girl he assumed was their long-range attacker. She crumpled to the ground with a bloody cough, and Zeke smiled in satisfaction before barely activating his defense form in time to take a jaw-cracking jump kick that sent him reeling into a row of lockers.
"Bastard!" The blonde boy yelled. "Aileen! Let's get this guy!
"You don't have to tell me twice," she muttered, and Zeke opened his eyes to find the girl jumping in the air for a hammer-strike. Dazed and wanting no relationship with the girl's metal fists, he switched to his offense form, rolling out of the way of a floor-crushing blow.
Unfortunately, the blonde speedster seemed to have predicted his movements. Zeke saw the blur coming, but still got caught with a stomp that pulverized his left ear and cheek. The left side of his vision went black, accompanied by unbearable pain, and Zeke screamed, flailing his limbs wildly.
Instead of a follow-up, though, the other boy grinned victoriously and began to gloat. "Yeah. You liked that, didn't you? Now we're gonna return the favor. Let's start with your ri-"
Zeke regained his clarity, grabbed his ankle and squeezed.
The blonde boy let out a shriek, falling over onto the floor next to him, and Zeke took the opportunity to land a skull-cracking fist on his temple before switching back to defense form once again.
"Shit, Markus!" His final opponent cried, rushing over to rain a storm of blows onto Zeke's prone, concussed body. With no other choice, he curled up into a ball against the wall and protected his head and neck with his arms, trying to win a battle of attrition.
The girl's fists were solid and heavy, crashing him further and further through the wall with each impact. Zeke grit his teeth as his back and forearms became a single purple bruise. Eventually, though, the ringing in his head faded as his regeneration worked its magic - and he had a chance to counterattack.
In a singular motion, Zeke switched to his attack form and sped behind the girl, crashing into the back of her neck with his elbow. The girl toppled forward, temporarily stunned, and he viciously stomped on the back of her calf with a satisfying crack. The girl cursed, trying to stand up again... But then he stomped through the other leg, splitting solid bone, so she had no way to continue the fight.
Zeke smirked in victory, knowing he'd won.
Still, he was cautious enough to switch back to his defensive form. He needed the healing to keep him conscious, and he wanted to observe his handiwork.
Lying flat on the ground were three decently strong mid-tiers, possibly as strong as he had been in middle school. He'd taken them down all at once. It was undeniable evidence that he'd gotten stronger, and Zeke shuddered, an overwhelming pleasure spreading head to toe.
There was nothing like it. He'd searched for a substitute, for the incredible sensation of dominance that came from winning, but nothing ever came close. It was an addictive, thought-erasing rush unmatched by any substance or experience in the universe, and he grinned, licking the blood off his lips.
What was another blow or two, in the grand scheme of things?
It would be compensation. Compensation for ganging up on him. A soccer punt to the blonde's jaw, maybe break metal-arm girl's stupid hands…
Sorry, Mom.
A lost part of him whimpered.
***Beautiful***
I picked up my ringing phone, blinking a few times at the caller. In the week since we'd swapped numbers, it was Rei's first time contacting me.
"..........."
"I'm sorry. You want me to do what?"
