"I'm not looking for trouble." Rot held up his hands in what, he was pretty sure, the football jocks would see as a sign of surrender rather than a strong defensive posture. "You can feel free to walk away."
Perhaps the little bit of sneer he put in his voice was unnecessary. Women were, Rot knew, genetically inclined to be attracted to the dominant male, but few women found bullies particularly attractive... perhaps because human females tended to be victims of a disproportionate amount of that bullying.
At any rate, there was no way the jocks could back off after he'd essentially announced they would be chickens if they ran.
Once again, their football practice paid off as the four football players, admittedly with Randal still rubbing his head where he'd rammed it into the lockers, surrounded Rot looking for an opening.
"What do you guys think," Rot said. "All four of you at once, or two at a time?"
He'd halfway hoped that would shame them into attacking one by one but apparently football team mentality involved mass tackles. The four rushed him together.
Against one opponent, he'd have used joint locks or simply **** them out. Against four on the street, he'd use kicks to control the distance. Here in front of the audience of intrigued females, it might be time to trot out his, admittedly limited, aikido. Sidestepping the rush, he let Mike, the biggest football player, reach him first, grasping his arms in Rot's hands, then rolling onto his back with his foot in the football player's gut.
The throw was so basic, Rot couldn't believe it would work but Mike flew up in the air and crashed into the slow-moving Randal, driving both of them into the bank of lockers.
Rot continued rolling and was back on his feet before the remaining football players reached him.
He brushed off a punch, sending the fist not into a locker but into the concrete wall beside it, and, as the puncher howled over his broken fingers, turned to the fourth, his arms open. "Want to give me your best shot?"
Instead the jock backed off. "Coach says no fighting."
"Not a problem. Unless you forget that when I'm not looking. Then I'll come after you."
"Like I said, Coach says no fighting, that's the rule."
It was funny how that hadn't been the rule when they thought they could dominate the pencil-necked geek. Then again, they hadn't thought they'd actually have to fight Rot because at Aaron Burr, guys like Rot didn't fight back, they took their medicine and let the football players run over them.
Well, no more.
"That," Barry said, "was awesome. Can you teach me?" Barry was looking a little green from being punched in the gut, but he had a big grin on his face.
"Yeah, Rot." This was Rene who had, it turned out, been watching. "I think I'd like to learn some of that kung fu stuff also."
Rot nodded. "Anyone interested, we can meet after school." It would slow his efforts to get into all the girls' pants, but women and guys like Barry should know how to defend themselves. Besides, having Rene as a sparring partner might not be so bad--it had certainly worked with Colleen.
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