A/N; A response to the challenge fic up in the AF forum; where one of the group finds one of their teacher's evil. Don't know how long I'll make it, not too long though. I don't know how to tag it the challenge section or whatever we do, Em help me please?
Let me know what you think, just wrote it this afternoon. Set after untouchable, before my aid conflict.
I call it Schooled in Violence ;) Enjoy.
As usual, Disclaimer; I don't own Alpha Force, Chris Ryan does. Until he sells me the rights or takes me on for a three book deal. So if anyone knows the guy, put in a good word would ya?
For a survivalist, Alex certainly felt uncomfortable in his current environment; the tube in London, packed shoulder to shoulder to with thousands of other commuters.
He wondered momentarily how his claustrophobic friend coped in the tight environment. One look across at Hex told him that he was, if possible, in even greater discomfort. Alex remembered how long his friend was buried for in Belize and could understand why Hex might be a bit on edge in the tightly packed carriage.
Hex stood as close to the door as he could and seemed immensely relieved every time the automatic doors opened at each stop. The reprieve was short lived as more passengers would pile in, the seemingly already full train carriage, to squash against him.
Breathing rapidly in the confined space, Hex turned to his source of comfort and with shaky hands withdrew his palmtop. His fingers were trembling so much he could barely type. The crowd suddenly jostled him from one side and the boy almost dropped his expensive piece of technology. Angrily Hex shoved back hard at the mass of people pressing against him.
The crushing weight moved off him and stayed there, through the gap in people Hex was able to see what had caused the disruption in the carriage.
Three punks were shouldering and pushing their way through the crowd. Their hair was wild in various obnoxious colours and styles, multiple piercings adorned their faces. The pseudo-leather jackets they wore were well weathered and dripping with studs and chains.
They were working their way down the carriage causing a general disruption, tearing newspapers from the hands of businessmen, knocking hats off passengers heads and knocking into commuters recklessly. When something like a flash watch or cellphone caught there eye, it quickly became theirs.
They were loudly and obnoxiously passing a mostly empty bottle of spirits between them.
The influx away from the out of control hoods meant that the crowd thinned around Hex, but Alex was now separated by a dense group of people.
The forerunner of the group was a tall scrawny bloke with sharp features and a bright green Mohawk. Lecherously, he brushed up against a pretty female traveller in an attractive purple dress, his hands roaming, taking advantage of her paralysing fright and indignation.
Alex tried to move forward to help, but was held in place by the dense crowd. Hex hastened to stow his palmtop least it be seen and taken.
The punk leader's head snapped up from his previous prey at the sudden movement of Hex a little further down the train. He recognised the cues of someone trying to hide something valuable and honed in on it like a shark.
He pushed off from the now crying young woman in the rumpled purple dress and started cockily striding towards Hex.
The other two Chavs followed their bold friend with mean smiles on their scarred faces. The larger of the two had a chain gruesomely linked between piercings on his nose and ear, it hung down a few centimetres and jingled like a warning bell as his head whipped round to follow the female victim, when she turned and tried to disappear back into the crowd.
With a loud smack and a cruel laugh, he slapped her on the arse as she hurriedly burrowed into the mass of people.
The lead menace had made his way to Hex by now and was glaring greedily at the boy.
"What have ya got for me there man?" He demanded in an almost joking tone, an insane grin lighting his twisted face.
Hex glared back defiantly, "Nothing," he spat. Without trying to let them notice, he had started pushing his shoulders back and puffing his chest out to accentuate his own reasonable physique. His antagonist was admittedly lean, but already a head taller then the tall hacker.
Maybe he will just decide I'm not worth the time, Hex hoped, hiding his fear from the man.
Mohawks' friends had caught up at this point and were eyeing the new mark with amusement.
Alex could see the imminent danger and was already pushing his way through the crowd trying to get over to even the odds. It was slow going though, he was still metres away from the two cronies.
The leader of the unruly band cracked his knuckles in a show of intimidation and cricked his neck to aside, showing off the tattoo of a skull with flaming eyes.
Leaning in closer, he spoke with menace and Hex could smell the cheap whiskey on his breath.
"This is my train kid," He slurred leaning against one of the poles casually and pointing to himself with the hand holding his 40 ounce bottle.
"MY TRAIN," He suddenly yelled, as if to remind people and making everyone nearby jump.
"Soo I shay again Kid, you got something for me?" He drawled, standing again and moving closer to Hex in a threatening manner. Alex increased the rate in which he shoved and slithered towards the imminent conflict.
Hex to his credit held his ground despite the hammering in his chest. Lifting his chin defiantly he gave his answer.
"You don't want what I got…" He growled warningly, subtly beginning to raise his hand in front of his body.
The punk in front of him seemed to lose even more colour from his pale face, his lips were set in a furious slit at the refusal.
The train began to slow and with it time, as it approached the next station.
Tension built as the brakes screeched louder and louder.
With a loud warning ding, the door opened and things happened.
Escape was impossible with the platform side of the doorway packed with travelers looking to embark. This left only one course of action.
Hex saw the movement come up at him in a blur, as his assailant swung his bottle like a hammer, aiming for his head. With only fractions of a second to act, Hex brought his left arm up to guard his head and ducked his head out of the way.
Pain shot up the young hacker's arm as the thick bottle smashed spectacularly on it. He shut his eyes tight against the brief pelting of broken glass, but opened them just in time to see the punk still holding the broken bottle towards him by the neck. He seemed surprised that it hadn't hit Hex in the head like he planned.
Hex heard his name being shouted in some distant corner of his mind.
Not knowing what to do next, Hex focused on the jagged bottle his enemy was brandishing like a knife. His left hand slapped against the opposing hand holding it and forced it away from his face. The sharp end of the bottle was pushed back towards the head of the man holding it. At the same time Hex's right hand came up underneath his opponents advanced elbow and shoved with all his might, anything he could do to keep the jagged weapon away from him.
Hex hadn't counted on the strength lent to him by by fear and desperation. In pushing the weapon hand back in such a fashion, he actually delivered it at force right back into his opponent.
Hard.
The business end of the broken bottle was pushed back at the punk's head and he did what any human would do and tried to get his face clear of the danger. The resulting movement meant that the stab meant for his face landed a lot lower.
With an agonising crunch, multiple sharpened points of glass punched up through the soft skin under his jaw and burst up grotesquely through the bottom palate of his mouth.
Rivers of bright red blood erupted around the ragged wound site and ran down his hand that still held the crude weapon. Simultaneously, a steady scarlet stream began cascading from his mouth. He tried to scream, understandably from the immense suffering, but it proved difficult with a partially severed tongue and an oral cavity rapidly filling with blood.
Instead what came out was a high-pitched moan of suffering that ended in a coarse bubbling choke.
Hex was quite shocked by what had just occurred, his mind was still trying to catch up to his body and that is why he was so slow to react when the two remaining punks leapt around their leader to get him.
With a flash, Chain-Face drew a knife, eager to create some similar injuries on the guy who had cut up his mate.
He was stopped in his tracks by a single hand.
It had reached out in all the commotion and took a hold of his unusual facial ornament.
And now it was pulling.
Alex yanked on the facial chain and was surprised to find just how much movement it created in his opponent. Like leading a horse on a bridle, he drew hard on the chain and led the owner face first into one of the vertical poles that commuters held onto. He speed up the movement with his second hand on the back of Chain-Face's head.
The human nose wins few fights against metal and today was no different, its ally the jaw didn't fare much better.
Alex came away from the violent action still holding a bloody chain, with a punk no longer attached to it. A cursory glance at the old owner made him think that he wouldn't be getting it put back in either, half his ear was shredded and his nose was badly torn, both were bleeding heavily.
Alex doubted anyone would be holding onto that pole any time soon either with the red smear he had just left on it.
By this stage the oncoming passengers on the platform had done plenty of screaming for the guy with a mouthful of glass and had realised that catching the next train might be more sensible. Those already on the train streamed out through all the other available doors.
Keeping his head despite the crisis, Alex turned back towards the open door and the last Chav, stray teeth crunched under his shoes as he did so.
The final criminal was still advancing, not realising that his friend with the facial jewellery had been dispatched.
Behind Hex the doors dinged again, signalling they would close soon.
Alex sprinted for the doors, shoving the final punk into an empty chair with a stiff-armed rugby fend and brushing by the statued man with a bottle in his face, to grab Hex's arm.
Hex seemed to snap out of his daze by the contact and the pair hustled off the train. They turned on the platform to see the doors closing on the train and hiding the view of destruction they had left in their wake. As the only occupant on the train watched, Alex lightly tossed the bloody chain onto the track.
Breathing hard from the encounter, Alex pushed his blonde fringe out his eyes and turned to his friend.
"There has got to be a better way to get to your school." He declared.
"I told you, we can usually walk, but we were running late today." Hex justified, slipping out his palmtop to check on it as they began to walk.
Alex just shook his head at the infernal device.
"Between your extensive hair care routine and you losing track of time emailing 'someone' I'm not surprised we're late." Alex commented wryly.
Hex did not miss the emphasis his friend had placed on the 'someone' part, but he pretended not to have heard him.
"What?" He said, feigning ignorance.
Alex grinned, as he withdrew the school issued diary that Hex had given him. While Hex may have been a fan of keeping track of things online, Alex was a good old pen and paper sort.
"English up first," He announced after finding his timetable in it, as they reached the top of the stairs.
Hex looked up from his palmtop and groaned.
"Eugh English with Mr Greenaway. He's only been here a semester, but I already hate the guy."
Hex frowned and was about to say something more when a hand closed on his arm and he almost jumped out of his skin.
He spun to confront his attacker and found only a distressed brunette teenager. She looked like she had run a marathon, her hair was all out of place and frizzed, the makeup around her eyes was running and she seemed short of breath.
Most notably she wore a dishevelled purple dress with a tear down the front and a broken shoulder strap.
"Oh my god I saw what you both did in there, thank you!" She sobbed, pulling Hex in closer and holding onto him as if for dear life.
Hex blushed and tried to find an appropriate place to put his hands, he had never felt so awkward in his life. His head swung back and forth guiltily as if someone might see him in her embrace.
Alex watched in amusement as Hex had the air crushed out of him by the enthusiastic girl from the train, not knowing it was his turn next.
Hex managed to detach himself from the girl, who had now started to cry again. Nervously he gave her a shaky smile.
"You were so brave," She sobbed.
"It wasn't like that, Alex and I were just.." Hex started but cut himself off as the girl sprung on Alex and starting hugging the life out of him.
It was now Hex's turn to laugh as his friend went a brilliant scarlet hue.
Alex was caught by surprise by the sudden physical contact, but not unpleasantly so. He secretly thought that despite what had happened that day, the chick pressing herself against him was still pretty hot.
Overdoing the rescued damsel thing a bit though, he noted.
"Shit, we are late as. We got to go Alex!" Hex broke in suddenly in a rush.
"We came off a stop short and now really have to run." Hex hastily explained to the girl who had reluctantly peeled herself off Alex, her eyes were ringed red.
"Ah yeah," Alex stammered, smooth as always. His face still felt hot, the falling neckline of her top with the ripped shoulder wasn't helping.
"Uh I mean literally," Hex clarified to Alex and jerking his head in the right direction.
"Right, sorry." Alex mumbled, who he was apologising to it was unclear.
"Wait.." The girl started, but the pair had already taken off at a trot.
"Step it out Geordie Shore, we're late enough as it is." Hex hissed between breaths as the pair jogged down the London streets.
They were in one of the less busy areas so they had a pretty steady run at things without the interference of traffic.
Alex gritted his teeth, running beside his friend, he wasn't holding things up. They both knew who the better runner was.
"How can I? I don't know where we are going.." He growled.
"Two more blocks.. 'PANT' ..big brick building," Hex puffed out with a frown, his arm was really starting to ache.
"Try and keep up then." Alex challenged him, lengthening his stride and increasing his cadence.
Hex grunted and dug deep within to match his pace, he had asked for it after all.
They chewed up the blocks and were in front of the school panting and straightening out their clothes before they knew it.
Hex shrugged his throbbing arm in its sleeve, he almost felt too hot after the run to be wearing his favourite grey hoody. A miserable cold London winter definitely merited its use though.
Alex could see his breath as he breathed in and out, the sweat running down his back was starting to go cold.
"Yep we are late, just play it cool and let me do the talking." Hex instructed him as he pushed open the school gate. For the third time he ran his hand through his fringe futilely trying to make it spike up again.
"It's the first day back from holidays, how strict can they be?" Alex reasoned, following his friend down the empty corridors.
"Exactly," Hex agreed stopping at a door to classroom labelled 107.
He flashed Alex one of his rare grins and opened the door.
Stepping into the class, Alex wasn't sure what to expect.
It wasn't what followed.
"Detention." A stern voice declared.