Bullies

'Wait, no. I remember seeing someone there when I was falling. Did I fall or was I pushed?'

Yes, Harry remembered now. He saw three boys standing on that cliff when he fell off it. What were they doing up there?

Harry's memories were still in a bit of flux since he just got an entirely new bunch of them, but it wasn't hard for Harry to sort through the memories of the person who owned this body as he tried to understand what had happened.

The previous owner had been going somewhere when he saw the young girl—Jenny. Yes, he had been going somewhere when he saw Jenny getting bullied by those three boys. The boys were pulling her hair and calling her names, and since she couldn't hear, it was hard for her to even know what they were doing. She tried to tell them to stop, but her voice was funny since she wasn't used to talking, and the boys only made fun of her even more for it.

The previous owner had stepped in once he saw it happening, and he tried to fight off the three boys and make them leave Jenny alone, but it had been a lost cause right from the start. The boy didn't possess any form of physical strength that would allow him to fight off three boys his age, and he didn't even have any martial arts or CQC training that would've made it a more even affair. Instead, he became the new target for the bullies. They put sand in his mouth, pulled his hair, and stomped on him. Jenny tried to pull them off, but she was weaker than even him, so she didn't stand a chance.

The previous owner tried to run away, but he was chased down to the cliff, and one of the boys ended up throwing a rock at him that slammed into his stomach and made him go over.

Harry raised his shirt, and sure enough, there was a large bruise growing where the rock had hit him. It was red and bleeding, and Harry felt a frown growing on his face as he realized how close he had been to death. Were children always this cruel?

'This boy actually died, didn't he? That was how I was able to occupy his body. But how did I move into his body, and what happened to my previous body?'

Harry frowned as he thought about what he had been doing before he came here. A thought of his ex-wife came to his mind first, but Harry got rid of it quickly since it wasn't important to him anymore. Harry remembered the accident and the fall that should've killed him, Harry then thought about his son, George, and he wondered what he was going to do about this. George was with Harry's parents, so Harry was sure that George would at least have someone to take care of him, but Harry didn't like the idea that he might never see his son again.

Jenny came over and looked at the large bruise that was on Harry's stomach, and Harry put down his shirt when he saw that she was about to start crying again. The girl looked up at Harry with tears on the edge of her eyes, and she hugged him tightly while muttering 'thank you' in her own weird way. Harry patted her on the back a few times to try and calm her down. He wasn't the one who did anything for her, so it felt weird for her to be thanking him so fervently.

The bushes in front of them rustled a little, and Harry's eyes narrowed into a glare as he pulled the girl off him and moved her to the side so that his body was covering hers a little. From the bushes, three boys emerged.

"Oh, thank God! See, what did I tell you!? You can't just die from a fall like that! He's fine!"

One of the boys, a tall, lanky one with red hair, shouted at a chubbier boy who had a look of extreme relief on his face like he had just been told he wasn't going to prison by a judge. The look of relief on the large boy's face faded and was replaced by a smug look of superiority not long after as he pointed at Harry.

"I guess idiots really don't die from anything! Look at him all wet and he's still trying to protect the girl like some sort of fucking knight in shining armor!"

The chubby boy had been the most worried about what they would tell Harry's grandmother, Victoria, if Harry had died, but now that they knew that he wasn't dead, he didn't care anymore and he seemed to immediately revert back to his faux-confident state.

The third boy, meanwhile, was silent. This boy was a lot smaller than the other two, but he carried himself in a way that showed he was the leader of this small group of bullies. He had an intelligent look in his eyes and an almost permanent smirk on his lips.

Right now, this boy was staring straight at Harry as he watched Harry watching the three of them. There was something different about Harry. The boy didn't know what it was, but his sharp instincts from years of bullying told him that there was something very different between this Harry and the Harry that had fallen off that cliff.

Harry always had his head lowered, and there was a cowardly air about him that told you he wouldn't be able to fight back even if he got the chance to do it. But this Harry looked like someone completely different.

This Harry carried his head high, and there was a glare on his face as he seemed to survey each of them calmly. He stood straighter, and there wasn't a shred of cowardice in his eyes.

He looked like someone who was used to beating the shit out of other people.

"Hey, what the fuck do you think you're looking at, Harry~!? You weren't satisfied with your dip in the water!? Want me to toss you in again!?"

The chubby boy also seemed to notice the intense look that Harry was giving them, and unlike his more intelligent friend, he wasn't someone who put much thought into the things he did or said. Once a thought came to his mind, he just blurted it out.

And the first thing that he thought was that Harry was trying to put on a show of false confidence to try and protect Jenny.

The chubby boy began to step forward to confront Harry, and the intelligent one immediately told him to wait!

"Ralph! Wait, something is different!"

The chubby boy raised his hand and told the intelligent one that he was just being silly!

"It's Harry! There's nothing this wimp can do to me! I'll dunk his head in the water to wipe that stupid smirk off his face!"

WOOSH!

SLAM!

"Gah!"

The entire clearing suddenly went silent. The whistle of a gentle breeze floated through the trees and over the glistening lake. The chubby boy stared up at the sky in shock and confusion as he wondered what happened to him, but then he felt a sharp pain shoot through his spine and his entire body jerked!

"My back! My fucking back! What did he do to me!?"

No one could say a word as the boy began to writhe on the ground in pain! He was trying to reach his back to rub it and soothe the pain, but his hands were so chubby that he couldn't reach all the way over, and he was just left turning on the hard ground to try and scratch it!

The moment had been unbelievable to those who saw it.

One moment, Ralph was moving towards Harry and grabbing him by the shirt to try and drag him to the water, and the next moment Harry shifted his weight forward, grabbed Ralph by the shirt and arm before twisting and slamming the boy into the ground with enough force to send ripples through the edge of the lake!

There were no wasted movements.

The children there weren't soldiers or fighters, so they wouldn't be able to appreciate the fluidity of what Harry had done, but even they weren't lost to just how perfectly Harry had turned the boy's weight against him and used it to bring someone much larger to the ground!

The intelligent boy took a step back in fear and he swallowed thickly, but the tall, lanky boy felt anger surge through him as he saw Harry take down his friend and he ran in for an attack.

Let it be known that this boy was not the brightest bulb in the shed.

The tall boy got to Harry in only three long strides, and he began to throw sloppy, wide punches to try and knock Harry down. Harry ducked under the first punch, dodged the second one, and when the third one came, Harry used his arm to redirect it to the side, grabbed the boy's arm under his armpit, and pulled the boy forward while driving his knee up toward the boy's midsection!

SLAM!

"Urk! Blergh~!"

The knee slammed right into the boy's stomach, and the boy felt like his world was spinning on an axis before he suddenly barfed all over the floor! Harry took a few steps back and looked down at the boy impassively before he turned his gaze over to the third boy that had come. Harry raised a hand and told the boy to come, but the boy knew better than his two friends. He was smaller than his two friends, and even though he was smarter than them, he knew that it wouldn't do him any good in a fight that his friends couldn't win!

Harry released a calm sigh as the boy turned and ran, abandoning his friends.