What went Down

Saffi stood in front of his schoolmates and they were all curious about where he had come from and who he was. But after seeing his uniform and hearing one of the thugs point out and say that he was one of Mikey's lackeys, they were all relieved to realize that they had been saved.

Mikey's group was famous around the school for being notorious. Everyone knew of or had heard just how good of a fighter their members were, from news about them ending bullying at their school to fighting other middle school gangs to even fighting high schoolers.

When word got out that something big had happened concerning their school, Mikey's group was always at the center of it all. Henceforth they gained the nickname of the California Avengers because they were always working for a cause greater than them.

Saffi stared at his opponents in contempt, but it was also mixed with fear. He didn't like what they were doing or how unfair this situation was to his schoolmates, but he couldn't deny that these people outnumbered him and were probably all stronger than him as well.

'If it had been someone else from the group, they could handle this,' he thought to himself as he could feel himself sweat. His eyes watered a little and his throat got dry. His legs were shaky and he was debating whether to run or not, but that choice had already been made from the moment he brought himself out here and punched one of them.

'Even if I can't handle this by myself, there's one silver lining here. I am not alone,' he said with conviction in his mind.

"Hey," Saffi said to the guy who was behind him. "If the two of us work toge-" As Saffi turned his head around, his eyes widened as he saw that the people he had been protecting had run away, leaving him to fend for himself.

When Safii turned his head to look back at his opponents, he was met with a punch to the face, and the next thing he knew... everything went dark.

****

Waking up a while later, Saffi was tied up with rope and hanging onto a punching bag in a rundown building that he could not recognize.

As he looked around with watery eyes that were swelled up a bit, he saw the figures of six individuals discussing something by a table filled with cash on top of it. But the discussion sounded more and more like an escalating lecture the further it went on.

Next to the table was a coat hanger with different uniforms hanging on it.

The uniforms ranged from school uniforms to teachers, firemen, priests, women, and even police officers. Saffi blinked his eyes again to make sure he wasn't seeing things and that's when he chuckled as he realized what had happened earlier.

"You're not real cops," he said with a satisfied look on his face as the punching bag spun him around a little bit but not so much that he would break his line of sight with them.

"Well, look who's finally awake," one of the gangsters said. It was the one who had been hit by Saffi a little while ago. "What was that you said, PUNK?" he asked with great emphasis on that last word, almost as if it were a slur. He was still very much annoyed from being hit.

He placed a hand on the punching bag to keep it from spinning so that Saffi couldn't avoid looking at him.

"I said, YOU ARE NOT REAL COPS!," Saffi shouted a little louder to let the deaf person in front of him hear him clearly.

The man punched Saffi in the gut for giving him such an attitude and it was only now that Saffi had felt just how beaten his body was. He couldn't feel much of anything at first because his body had become numb from his earlier beating, but after getting hit again he could precisely tell just what parts of him had been hurting. Everything.

"Hey, boss let's just kill this guy," the man grunted as he readied his fist to hit Saffi again.

"Stop," the boss yelled as he grabbed the man by the arm and pulled him aside. "Any more than this and you could kill this poor kid. Don't you see how scared he is?"

That assumption wasn't right. Normally a kid would be scared when faced with such brutish people who could end them the moment that they felt like it, but Saffi had gone through such a beating that even though most of the pain was numbed down by his body, he was tired of it all. Whether he would die or not, he kind of just accepted that there was nothing else he could do to change his fate.

He couldn't be the hero that he wished to have been. Not even to himself.

The boss then took another look at the boy and after examining him for a while, he saw no signs of fear in him at all. No shivering, no tears running down his eyes, he wasn't even pleading for his own life despite the situation he was in. Instead of fear, he saw something else within the boy, and it piqued his interest to have a little conversation with him.

"You," he pointed to the man who had been in a fake police uniform, "You can go now."

"You two," he pointed to the high school boys who were with him, "Untie this kid and let him down gently. And give him a hot towel to boot."

"And you two," he said to the gangsters who were a part of his group. "Boil me some water for tea, and bring the leaves I like with it, my favorites. And bring an extra cup for the boy."

Everyone inside the room was shocked. Their boss was giving such hospitality to a kid who had not only interfered with his workers but attacked one of them on top of that. This shock caused everybody in the room to stand still as they tried to process what had been said.

"Didn't you hear me!?" he yelled as he kicked the closest person to him in the sides and punched the other person in the guts. Both of whom were the gangsters that worked for him. "I said get moving now!"

Everyone had scattered away to complete their tasks with the utmost importance, starting with those who worked directly under him. As the high schoolers left to go get a knife to cut down the rope with, it left Saffi and the boss alone in the room for a while.

This was when Saffi decided to take a proper look at the person standing before him. He was a 6-foot-tall man wearing a stylish brown fur coat on him. His branding style was mostly brown and black and he had on more jewelry than a married woman would ever wear in her life.

From a range of necklaces to earrings and rings to who knows what else he had underneath his clothing. When moving his hands, one would sometimes get a glimpse of bracelets hanging around them. All of which were gold in color.

The man had brownish-blonde hair and he seemed to be Italian.

He didn't say anything to Saffi while they were alone, but he stood by him silently. As though making sure that nothing else would happen to the boy while in his presence.

A few moments later, the two of them were sat down between two ends of a table, each with two people standing by their sides. On the man's side were the two high school boys who Saffi had recognized from earlier. And on Saffi's side were the two thugs who were with them.

"So, how do you like your tea?" the man asked as he poured a cup of black tea for himself and Saffi. He then laid out the tea in front of Saffi as he passed him some sugar.

"I'm sorry, would you like some milk with that?" the man asked, but Saffi didn't respond. He just stared at the cup laid out for him for a while and then stared right back at the man who gave it to him.

The man didn't wait for his reply, instead, he began to place some leaves that were on the table into a miniature motor for him to crush with his pestle.

"You see, I could just buy these leaves already crushed from a factory, but then I wouldn't get to experience the full value of crushing them for myself. You see this aroma is to die for, and a spice is only at its peak when it has been freshly grinded. Not when it has been made to sit awhile."

The man went on and on about spices and leaves as he continued to grind his in front of Saffi as though giving him a demonstration along with his lecture. After a while, he then stopped as he had a moment of realization. "Where are my manners," he cackled, "My name is Mazino, but you can call me Marzi. And what would be your name, boy?"

"...."

"Saffi," Saffi said in a low apathetic tone.

"Ah, he speaks," Marzi jested. "For a moment I had believed that my men here beat you senile," Marzi spoke with a smile on his face as he pointed with his spoon behind Saffi towards where the two thugs stood.

Saffi turned to his right where the person he had punched earlier was standing. And the thug looked at Saffi with bitterness as he curled his lip with a snarl.

"Don't worry, he won't lay another finger on you, not without my say," Marzi iterated for him. You are safe now, Saffi." 

Marzi had now finished pounding his leaves into a fine powder. He sprinkled them into his tea like a refined gentleman and stirred the cup a little with his spoon to properly mix the two together. And then with glee, he drank from his cup as though it were the best thing he had ever had in his life. He placed his hand on his cheek from the extravagance he felt and then drank from it some more.

"Aren't you going to touch your cup?" he asked, but Saffi remained silent.

"I see, not much for conversation. Okay... Let us skip to plan B then," Marzi said. He raised his pinky finger as he drank from his cup and this was the signal that the gangsters beside Saffi needed.

Instantly the one on the left backed off as the one from the right punched Saffi across his face. Saffi felt a tooth break as bleeding began to start from the inside of his mouth. He was knocked off his seat and rolled off a meter or two away from the table.

The gangster who hit him immediately went to work by grabbing his hair with one hand and punching him in the face with the other. Saffi tried to fight back by striking the man in his guts but the man was flexing his abs to reduce whatever damage was being given to him by the boy.

That plus the fact that Saffi was already weak from injury led to this being a one-sided beatdown.

That was until Saffi felt a surge of adrenaline hit him. That mixed with the anger he felt towards his oppressor pushed him forward with enough strength to aim at the man's family jewels.

The man squealed in agony as he let go of Saffi's hair. Saffi took this opportunity and tackled the man downward. He then got on top of him and started hitting him across the face. Again and again and again.

Saffi was fueled by rage, he didn't care how badly he hurt the guy in front of him. He just kept going. The anger that was in him clouded his mind and the next thing he knew, he went from being unable to think to seeing himself beat down the person from a third-person point of view.

Saffi was shocked at how this could happen, how was he beating someone up relentlessly, and seeing it happen at the same time from a distance? Then, as he looked closer, it wasn't himself that he was looking at, it was Mikey.

He was now re-living/watching the memory of Mikey beating down one of the men who had burnt down the orphanage 4 years ago. The only difference right now was that it was Saffi in place of Mikey from whence this incident had occurred.

It was only for a moment, but seeing this made Saffi feel like a cold-hearted monster, who only knew violence as a means to get a point across.

'Is this how Mikey felt?' he asked himself as he stopped punching and froze in place sitting on top of a stagnant body.

As Saffi was trembling from the feeling of beating somebody within an inch of their life, a warm fur coat had been placed around him.

"It's okay now Saffi," Marzi said to him as he cared to his uncertainty. "You are safe now," he whispered.