Scouting [Invite]

  On Vivi’s first day at 552 she distinctly remembered wanting to walk up to someone and ask them, ‘Excuse me, what level of hell is this?’ Things were different now though. Now she was used to it, the ridiculous amounts of violence, the constant sense of animosity in the air.

  It was funny to think she used to be determined to stay out of fights, and avoided violence at all costs. Now here she was, a Pillar, and it was kind of her job to beat people up sometimes.

  But people change. Even the devil was and angel once.

  Typically if a group of teens were having it out she’d leave them to it, but if it was a particularly bad beat down, or people were ganging up, she stepped in.

  When she walked out into the courtyard, it was clear it was one of those times. Ohhh joy. The men were raining blows down on a boy laying on the ground, who really didn't seem to be doing much to defend himself.

So she did what she did best.

  Vivi dashed toward the group at a break neck speed and began by ramming into one of the men with her shoulder, hopefully with enough force to send him flying.

  Skidding to a stop, she’d send a swift but powerful jab for another man’s solar plexus, hopefully enough to wind him, before giving the others a pointed look. They’d probably try to fight her next, but because she was feeling pretty lazy today she hoped they’d just leave.

“Hey, fuck off before I stab you,” she snapped, “Just a friendly warning.”

   Vivi watched the boy limp toward her with upturned eye brows. She noted he was rather tall and not particularly weak looking, thought it would seem he was. He hardly resisted the beating he took, was it ‘cause he was too scared, too weak or both?

  In any case, she didn’t recognize him so he was probably a new kid. New kid’s had it pretty rough. She opened her mouth to respond to him, but was stopped short when the boy shouted and stopped one of the guys from hitting her.

  He punched the guy… really hard. Like, really freak’n hard. Why hadn’t he just done that before? The corner of her mouth seemed to twitch in a suppressed smile as she watched the fourth man make a run for it, before turning to look back at the boy.

  “Guess I owe you a ‘thanks’ as well,” she extended her arm for a hand shake. If he took it, she’d take care to shake with a firm grip as it seemed to leave a good impression on most people. Or at least the kind of impression she’d like to leave.

  “And yup. Every flipping day,” she gave him a wry smile, “Welcome to our world.”

  Vivi paused a short moment before venturing to speak again.

  “That was, uh… a really sick punch,” she placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head slightly, “Why don’t you humor me for a sec. Punch me in the stomach as hard as you can.”

  This kid seemed pretty friendly, and Vivi had a tendency to quickly take a liking to any new kid that wasn't a loud mouthed snot nosed brat. Sadly, it seemed a lot of them were, so that was one area this dude seemed different.

  Area number two was... well that punch. Most newbies were weak as fuck, but it occurred to her that the guy he punched was just an average dude, not someone like Shugo or herself. She wanted to see what his punches could do to someone of her caliber.

  Vivi squared her stance and locked eyes with him, her arms held out to her sides.

"Sure am," The corners of her mouth turned up slightly and she arched an eye brow, "Show me what you've got, brochacho."

   Vivi pictured the man careening backward when the boy had punched him just before her struck her himself, and squeezed her eyes shut. His fist struck her tightened abdomen muscles, and while it was undoubtedly a good punch, she really didn’t feel much.

  Well… that was kind of disappointing. Vivi fell backwards onto the grass, as if she’d been injured and clutched her stomach.

  “Oh, and I died horribly at your hands!” she reached up to the sky for a moment, before letting her arm fall to her side, “But gruesome murder's a foundation for a beautiful friendship.”

  Vivi kipped up to her feet and brushed her hair out of her eyes.

“Anyway, that was a good punch.” she gestured for him to follow her, “I’ll take you to the nurses office. You can lean on me if walking gets too painful.”

   She brushed off any ideas that perhaps this was a fabulously strong newbie that she could learn stuff from, but still, why the hell hadn't he falcon punched the dudes before? Some people were weird.