Legend of the North

Chapter 7: Familiar Faces

Jagger Pitts. One of the first people outside his family to make his life a living hell. Despite not knowing each other outside of being in the same year as Cristian, Jagger had insisted on harassing him and making his life miserable. Cristian would have loved to tear him apart right then and there, but he knew it wasn’t the right time. He had to wait for the right moment to strike.

When Cristian remained silent, Katie, the woman hanging off of Jagger, said, “Cat got your tongue? Oh, wait. I forgot. You got a puppy as your partner.”

At her words, the group burst into laughter. Fenrir, incensed by their words, snarled at them, though it didn’t come off as threatening and only made the group laugh harder.

“Did you see that? Is the puppy angry?” Brayan mocked.

“What are you going to do? Nip at our feet?” Aidan asked.

Cristian considered his options. Facing them head-on wasn’t an option no matter how much he would like to. For one, he was the one at a disadvantage. It was five against one, and that was assuming no one brought their summons into the fight. Even if he somehow miraculously won, he would be the one punished and possibly sent to prison. That was something he had to avoid.

Jagger swaggered forward and towered over Cristian as he demanded, “You’re not ignoring us, are you? It’s a bit rude, don’t you think?”

Bowing his head, Cristian said, “Sorry, I’m just a little out of it.”

A large hand landed on his shoulder and gripped it firmly to the point where Cristian felt his bones creaking. He winced, but he didn’t dare to lift his head to avoid antagonizing Jagger.

“Is that so? Maybe I need to clear that head of yours,” he said.

That was the only warning Cristian got before he was punched in the stomach. He wheezed as the air was knocked out of him. If it weren’t for Jagger holding him by the shoulder, he would have fallen to his knees. From the sidelines, Fenrir barked.

“Oops. That’s your stomach. My mistake. Let me try again,” Jagger said before delivering another punch to the stomach.

This time Cristian ended up puking and coughing up what he had for lunch. Bits of it landed on Jagger’s shoes, which only enraged him, causing him to punch Cristian several more times.

“How. Dare. You. Ruin. My. Shoes. You. Worthless. Piece. Of. Trash,” he said in between punches.

[What are you doing? Are you just going to take it?]

He would have loved to point out that was all he could do at the moment. While he wasn’t out of shape, he still hadn’t gotten used to his body. His figure in the future was vastly different from the one he had now. Expecting him to be able to fight like he could in the future was completely unrealistic.

Finally, Jagger seemed to have enough and released. Cristian fell to his knees, almost falling into his pool of vomit. Jagger brushed his bangs back as the rest of the group joined his side.

“That’s much better,” he said, pulling Katie to his side.

“What a loser,” she said.

“Do you think he has anything worthwhile on him?” Brayan asked.

“Let’s strip him and see,” Aidan suggested.

“Oh, let me record this. I’m going to post it for everyone to see,” Jeanine, the only other girl in the group, said as she waved her phone.

In an instant, Cristian was hit by déjà vu. A frighteningly similar situation had happened in his past life. Originally, it would have happened much later, as Fenrir’s original size had acted as a deterrent despite the wolf never showing any abilities. With Fenrir’s current size and the fact that the wolf’s summoning lacked any flare to it, they must have felt emboldened.

As the bullies got closer, he instinctively crawled back. They laughed cruelly as they stalked towards him with sinister grins on their faces. Fenrir immediately rushed to step between them and barked at them.

“Out of the way, mutt,” Brayan said, aiming a kick at Fenrir, who barely dodged in time.

That did it. Forget about waiting for the right time. The right time was never going to come if he didn’t act and let them push him around. This wasn’t like the last life. He wasn’t a clueless kid who struggled to survive in a world that rejected him. He was a man who survived many years during the apocalypse. Jagger and his cronies probably didn’t even live past the early days.

With this in mind, he struggled to his feet and glared at them. Rather than being intimidated, they sneered right back at him.

“What’s this? Is the loser really going to fight back?” Aidan asked before he threw a punch.

Cristian dodged to the side before throwing his own punch. It definitely wasn’t his best, but his punch still landed. The bully jerked back and touched his cheek in surprise. The rest of the group stared in disbelief as if they couldn’t believe he just did that.

Jagger was the first to recover as he barked, “Get him.”

Brayan and Aidan rushed at him as Jeanine raised her phone to start recording. Cristian’s eyes narrowed as he knew that he had a limited amount of time to act if he wanted to avoid being caught on camera. Tapping into the power given to him by Fenrir, he reached out to the two bullies in front of him. In an instant, they vanished into thin air. The others stood there in shock, giving him the chance to get in close. Before they could react, they were gone too. Cristian took the opportunity to catch his breath.

It seemed that his trick worked. While he hadn’t intended to use the dimensional space in this manner, it proved useful as a prison. Now he could do whatever he wanted with them until he decided to let them go.

Focusing on the dimensional space, he could see and hear the bullies panicking at being dropped in an empty space. They frantically searched for an escape while calling for help to no avail.

They didn’t have any service, so their phones couldn’t connect, but what surprised him even more was that their summons couldn’t come to their aid. Summons never failed to answer their partners’ call except for extraneous circumstances. It looked like the dimensional space was one of them.

He smirked before turning his attention to Fenrir and asked, “Are you okay?”

[I’m fine. As if a measly human like that could hurt me. It’s good to see you show some backbone. I thought you were really going to let yourself be pushed around.]

“Sorry,” he said, knowing full well that was his original intention.

[As long as you know better, but what are you going to do with those humans?]

A devilish smirk crossed his face as he said, “You’ll see.”