Gary couldn't help but shake his head at the sight in front of him. In the past, if he had been surrounded by ten gang members like this, he would have been shaking in his boots. However, after everything he had been through, fighting off against a group of normal thugs seemed like child's play. His System seemed to agree with him, not even bothering to issue a Quest.
‘I don't mind beating them all up, but that wouldn't exactly reflect well on the Howlers. Is there any way for me to get out of this without a fight? If I tell them that I'm their leader, they won't believe me. Should I call Kai or Olivia and get them to vouch for me?' Gary considered his options.
“Watch out!” Naomi shouted, as two men threw out their fists at the same time to teach the teenager a lesson.
Although Gary was still contemplating what to do, he calmly grabbed onto the incoming fists, and quickly twisted both of their arms, before lifting his leg and kicking one of them in the back. The blow was so strong that it knocked the man off his feet and into his friend sending them both tumbling down to the ground.
‘Kai told me that it's important to hide my identity, for my sake and that of Amy. The leader of the Howlers should be someone feared but remain a mystery and it's kinda too late to put on my mask..'
One of the larger members rugby tackled Gary with full force, yet the man was unable to push him for even an inch. Holding up both his hands, the teenager slammed them down on the man's back, causing the gang member to yell out in pain as he fell down.
‘Damn it, I have to keep in mind that these guys are more fragile than the Altered from the academy. Tese guys won't be able to recover in a short amount of time. If I don't hold back my strength, I might accidentally end up killing or crippling them. That would be bad, especially since they're technically my gang members.'
Naomi continued standing at the door, unable to believe her eyes. It had already been impressive enough to see this stranger come into her shop and defeat two adult men. Part of her had still thought that the green haired teenager had been lucky to only face some inexperienced members, but now it was clear that he was really extraordinary.
The cuts on these gang members' faces and their enlarged knuckles were proof that this batch of Howlers members were more experienced, but somehow the teenager was dealing with them without much of an effort. Seemingly thinking the same, this time three men charged towards Gary, and had come toward him with a kick and a punch while the third one stayed a bit further back.
Moving in at a quick speed, Gary came in close to the man before his kick had finished, right up to his chest and pushed him, causing him to fall off balance. Now he was dealing with the other one, which he kicked at the back of the legs, making him fall on his knees.
‘Arghh, this whole situation is super annoying. You guys aren't even worth a single point of EXP.'
While in the middle of his thoughts, Gary was able to hear something cutting through the wind. Lifting his head he quickly made out what it was. He opened his palm, stopping the flying object with it.
[-1 HP]
Gary looked at the small knife that was now stuck inside. The wound hardly did anything to him, and if he took out the knife he knew his body would just heal it up. Regardless, Gary's whole body was shaking with anger.
The kneeling man who had been kicked from behind saw this as an opportunity, and went to grab Gary's leg, intending to restrain him so others could finish him off. However, Gary quickly lifted his leg, and stomped it back down. Gary's foot landed on the man’s hand and a few cracks were heard as he crushed it against the concrete ground.
“I was going easy on you guys because it was clear to me that this was mostly a misunderstanding.” Gary stated in a gruff tone that sounded slightly like a growl. “That ends now. I won't overlook what you bastards just did. It's one thing for you to attack me, but since when is it okay for the Howlers to drag innocent bystanders into their fights?”
The gang members were unsure what he was talking about, but Naomi figured it out. She was standing in the path of where the knife was thrown. Gary could have easily avoided the knife, yet he had deliberately blocked it, so she wouldn't get hit.
‘This… this is definitely not the actions of a kid.' Naomi thought, feeling bad for how she had treated him earlier. ‘This man saved me, and he still is thinking of me, even at a time like this.'
Although she had no clue how old Gary was, she was starting to see him in a different light. She had never felt indebted to someone like this before. Pulling the knife out from the palm of his hand, Gary immediately threw it back, piercing into the original thrower's leg, who yelled out in pain.
“I was in a good mood today… I was happy that I was going to see Amy again, but you just had to go and ruin it. I thought it was okay to leave everything to Kai, but it seems I'll need to help him sort out some of the rotten members.”
The energy coming off Gary was giving Park the creeps. It was like every cell in his body was telling him to run away, but his brain argued that it was just one teenager when there were nearly a dozen of them. If they caved in, it would be a disgrace to the Howlers' name. Unsure what to do, he pulled out the phone from his pocket.
—-
Inside his office, Kai was doing his paperwork as normal when his work phone received a sudden phone call. The caller had been saved as ‘Team Leader #17 (Park)'. The blonde teenager let out a sigh as he accepted the call and pressed on the loudspeaker.
“Sir, I know you told me not to contact you unless there is an emergency but there is big trouble at Bader Street!”
“How many?” Kai asked nonchalantly as he continued to sift through papers.
“It's just one person sir, but if someone doesn’t come soon, we're going to be in big trouble.”
‘Bader Street?' Kai thought. ‘We've invested quite a bit into it since it was Gary's old apartment. It won't look good if something happens to it, especially when he should be coming today.'
“Just hold out for a little longer. Help will be on the way,” Kai replied and hung up, before calling another number.
******
*****
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