Fourteen years later…

Steve stared blankly at the clock, barely noticing it. It was the start of September, a warm Friday afternoon, and he was stuck in English class waiting for the day to end. A fly buzzed in the window while the teacher droned on about the book they were reading, one that Steve didn't particularly care for. He couldn't even remember the name off the top of his head.

A loud chorus of complaining suddenly erupted, breaking him out of his stupor. On his computer screen a pop quiz had appeared about the chapter they'd been discussing. Fortunately it wasn't difficult, since he’d actually read the book.

When the quiz was done, the bell rang and class was dismissed. With the day over, Steve followed his usual routine of heading outside to the bus to go home. His friends all had extracurriculars, so he almost always ended up going by himself. His parents were pretty lenient about letting him stay out late as long as he told them what he was doing, but when his friends were busy he usually just went straight home. Locating an open seat near the back, he sat down and searched the playlist on his phone for a good song to listen to.

As the bus started moving, he quickly saw it was going to be business as usual. People were goofing off, making faces at passing cars, or playing around on their phones. A kid up the bus was tossing the remainder of his lunch at other cars.

The school bus was old, but it had been refitted to be self-driving, so it got a security guard instead of a driver to keep an eye on the kids. The only problem was that the guard couldn’t be in five places at once, not to mention he didn’t get paid nearly enough to handle a hundred unruly teenagers. So when the guard went to discourage the kid from tossing food out the window, it just gave other kids the opportunity to cause mischief.

“Do you mind?” a kid asked, indicating the vacant seat next to Steve. Steve hadn’t seen him get on, but he figured he hadn’t been paying attention so he just let the kid sit. He seemed to be a nerdy kid since he wore thick glasses and didn’t really speak much to him. After he sat down, he began reading a science fiction novel called The Traveller’s Journey and basically tuned him out. Steve recognized the book as its movie had just come out in theaters the week before, but he didn’t know if he wanted to go see it despite its rave reviews. A movie about an old guy traveling across the multiverse on the run from a shadowy organization didn’t sound very appealing or very original.

Steve began listening to some music, but he’d barely gotten through one song before he spotted trouble. A guy named Arnie Rodriguez, who had a history of bullying, had decided to harass some students about midway up the bus since the guard was still busy with the other troublemaker. The people he was harassing were a trio of African-American girls, from whom he was trying to extort money. People were turning a bit of a blind eye to him, since this type of thing happened a lot, or maybe they were just scared of him. Steve suspected it was the latter.

Two of the three girls had tried to fork over the money Arnie was requesting, but the third, an athletic-looking girl with her hair tied back wearing a tank top, was blocking them. She was sitting next to the aisle, so she got the final say.

“I said give me your money!” Arnie said loudly, loud enough to carry to the back of the bus. Steve, who couldn’t stand bullying, got up to help, but the nerdy kid stopped him.

“What are you doing?” the kid asked fearfully. “You’ll just make it worse if you interfere!”

“I’m helping,” said Steve firmly, pushing past him.

“Wait!” the kid called. “Don’t you know who that girl is?”

Steve had seen her around, but he didn’t know who she was and he didn’t really care at the moment. He just wanted to help. He’d never talked to Arnie before, but as far as he was concerned it was time to introduce himself. As he moved up the bus, using the seats for support, he could hear the entire conversation.

“Go away,” the girl told Arnie flatly, looking like she was about to punch him out. She didn’t look scared of him at all, which clearly surprised Arnie.

Then Arnie grabbed her by the arm in an act of intimidation, which judging by the girl’s expression didn’t seem to really do much except irritate her. The girl’s two friends screamed and Steve, who was close enough by now, leaped into action. “That’s quite enough of that,” he said firmly, putting his hand on Arnie’s shoulder and gripping it hard. He gave Arnie a stare that he hoped told him that he wasn’t messing around.

“Scram, kid,” Arnie growled, glancing at him. That was when the people around him recognized that it was Steve Dodson stepping in, not just some random dude. Well, the kids that knew him from middle school did, the older kids didn’t really know who he was. Instead of cowering, they started taking an active interest in the ongoing events. Some started recording to get some internet cred.

The reason the kids who knew who he was were so excited is that Steve had a bit of a reputation for being a nice guy who would stand up for others. His dad, a cop, had trained him in hand to hand combat since he was a kid, so he knew full well what he was doing.

When Steve refused to step down, Arnie said, “Doug! Chris! Can you get rid of this kid?”

Two big dudes nearly as large and muscular as Arnie got up from where they’d been sitting nearby and began flexing their muscles menacingly. Steve let go of Arnie and analyzed the odds. The two guys he was faced with were both larger than Steve, so he wouldn’t have a size advantage. They were very muscular and covered in tattoos, which were fully visible since they were wearing matching white muscle shirts. As he thought about it, Steve noticed that Arnie’s two guys were too old to even go to his school.

Steve’s only advantage was the cramped fighting location. Despite the odds, he decided to press it. Doug moved first, attempting to grab Steve in a chokehold, but Steve ducked, leaving Doug to stumble forward into Arnie, who looked confused. Chris went next, trying to kick at Steve, but Steve moved out of the way. Arnie was the one that got kicked in the shin, which made him let go of the girl and howl in pain. The girl took the opportunity to free herself by climbing over the back of the seat in front of her and getting into the aisle on the other side of Arnie with a sweet acrobatic move.

Arnie looked around, saw he was surrounded, and promptly sat down in the girl’s vacated seat, squashing the two other girls against the wall and knocking a red bag to the floor. Doug and Chris split up, with Doug remaining with Steve while Chris went after the girl.

Unfortunately, that was their mistake. Two guys had been barely manageable, but with only one, Steve just knocked him out by kneeing him in the stomach and smashing his face into a seat, barely having to act while using the guy’s own weight against him. He turned around to see the girl laying Chris out with some kind of martial arts move, ending with him getting face-planted onto the floor with a heel-drop attack as the girl used the bus seats for extra leverage. It was over so fast, the onlookers were totally stunned. For the first time in Steve’s memory, the bus was dead quiet. The electric engine’s humming was the only other noise apart from the security guard whispering into his radio, looking just as stunned as the kids.

Arnie looked just as shocked as everyone else, but he quickly recovered from that. He jumped up, saw he was surrounded, and grabbed a baseball bat from a sporty kid nearby. “Come and get me then,” he snarled, waving the bat around threateningly. Despite the rough talk, he looked scared.

Steve kept his distance, wondering just what he was going to do next. Then the bus stopped and the doors opened. Steve glanced out the window and saw that the bus had stopped in front of the police station. A pair of cops ran on the bus and surveyed the situation. Arnie took one look at the cops, cursed in Spanish, and bolted, pushing past Steve and running towards the emergency exit in the back. Steve and the girl dove out of the way as the cops pursued and tackled him before he could get the emergency door open.

XXX

Steve spent the next hour being interrogated by the cops alongside the girl. “And that’s what happened,” he said, finishing the story. A video of the fight had already been uploaded to the internet, so he’d shown that to the cops as well, which had cleared him and the girl from any wrongdoing. Normally a kid would still be suspended for getting into any kind of fight period, but given that had never happened in middle school he hoped it wouldn’t happen now. His dad was a well-respected cop, so the other cops were generally more lenient with him than they might otherwise be.

The officer questioning them wrote something down in his notebook before saying, “Given the situation, there won’t be any consequences from this, provided it doesn’t become a habit. You two might fancy yourselves as superheroes, but you just got lucky, simple as that. So keep your noses clean. Especially you, Miss Matthews. This could’ve gone a lot worse for you after what happened last time, given who was involved.”

Steve was curious what exactly the officer meant by ‘last time’, but he knew better than to ask. Cops didn’t exactly give out information about their job to non-cops. So the two teens were released and sent home. Steve texted his dad for a pickup after leaving the station, but he noticed the girl hadn’t called anyone for a ride.

“Do you need a ride?” Steve asked her.

“Nah, I’ve got one,” the girl said. “Thanks for earlier, too. I’m Hannah, by the way.”

“Steve Dodson,” Steve introduced himself. He was impressed by how she’d stood up to Arnie without a hint of fear, but was still wary of her because of what the cop had said.

“Oh, I know,” Hannah said, offering her hand to shake. “I’ve seen you around, and I know your reputation. I just didn’t think you’d help me out of all people.”

Steve accepted the handshake. “Why, cause you’re good at martial arts?”

“Well, that. And because I kicked a guy in the nuts last week for talking smack about my friends. I didn’t know if you’d heard about that.”

“Not really. I don’t really pay attention to school gossip much.”

“I can respect that,” she said. “Just do your own thing no matter what anyone else thinks. Except sometimes it’ll come back to bite you, like it did me.”

“What happened?” Steve asked curiously.

“I got caught up in a bit of an incident with some criminals over the summer and had to fight my way out. The cops got involved, and then my mama. Not fun. I got grounded for the rest of the summer.”

“You fought some gangsters?” Steve asked in shock.

“Yeah, they caught me poking into their business and weren’t too happy about it. I’m fine now, though; all the guys involved that didn’t escape before I could deal with them got arrested. Real easy for the cops, too; all they had to do was cuff up a bunch of guys knocked out on the floor. My martial arts training really came in handy that day.”

“So, where did you learn martial arts?”

“I started karate when I was six, and I eventually graduated into starting some other martial arts last spring or so. I guess you recognized I threw some kung fu moves in there, didn’t you?”

“Uh, sure,” Steve lied. “I am surprised you let yourself get grabbed, though. You could’ve just messed him up as soon as he grabbed you.”

“Since we were in close quarters I couldn’t really dodge it. If you hadn’t intervened, I would’ve done just that by headbutting him and showing him why you don’t mess with me.”

“In all honesty, I would’ve liked to see that,” Steve replied.

Hannah laughed. “Really? I think that’s the first time anyone’s ever told me that. Well, in that case…” Hannah glanced around for any eavesdroppers, but none existed. Lowering her voice, she said, “In my spare time, I do a bit of investigative work, like a detective. Sometimes it gets a bit hairy and it would be nice to have backup for a change. Would you like to tag along?”

“I don’t really go looking for fights…” Steve began, but got cut off.

“Oh, that’s your dad, isn’t it?” Hannah said, looking off down the road where an unmarked police cruiser was making its way towards them.

“Yeah, it is,” Steve replied, wondering how she’d recognized him from so far off.

“So, are you in?” Hannah asked hopefully, staring him down again. Steve was wary, but something about the way she was looking at him said that she was really hoping he’d say yes.

When she put it like that, he couldn’t refuse. “I guess so,” he said eventually. The whole thing sounded a bit dubious, but it did sound like fun. The day had also proven that her martial arts could get her out of any jams they came across, and he could back out if they got in over their heads.

“Then we’ll meet up tomorrow to discuss,” she nodded. “I’m going to scout around tonight, so I’ll send you a message later with details.” Then, calmly as could be, she began walking down the street, rented a bike at one of the bike rental kiosks with a credit card, and pedaled away.

Steve wondered if he was really doing a wise thing in agreeing to team up with her. He figured he’d talk to his dad about it later; he’d know from his work if she was up to anything truly dangerous.