The punch hurt a lot, but Mike was willing to take it; he had no intention of appearing weak in front of mere bullies. Crumpling to the ground, he did his best to breathe, and tried to push back up before another fist came rocketing toward him, this time in a hook to his left cheek. He tumbled to the right, falling back into the gravel. As he groaned, Mike felt the sharp rocks cutting into his skin as his tormenters loomed over him. It was just like middle school all over again. Troy and James were long gone, no longer daring to even come close to any of them out of sheer fear of El, but these high school bullies – upperclassmen – had no such knowledge of what El could do, and Mike, a still rather short, small, and shy freshman, looked to be easy pickings to them.

"Ya punk," one of them, a scraggly looking senior with long messy hair, grunted out as he kicked Mike in the side, eliciting a yell of pain from the downed boy. "Shouldn't have made Roy look bad in front of everyone. Serves ya right."

Mike, for his part, just tried his best to block out the pain.

Earlier that day, lunchtime at Hawkins High School

Mike plopped down with his sack lunch beside El, who gave him a small smile before taking another bite of her sandwich. Dustin had yet to show up, but Will and Lucas were already sitting across from El, and greeted Mike as he joined them.

"Man, that geometry quiz was killer compared to anything we got in algebra," groaned Mike as he pulled it out his own sandwich and slowly peeled off the plastic wrap. Lucas sighed.

"Really? Crap, I've got it after lunch and I haven't studied yet." He reached into his backpack and retrieved a spiral notebook which he flipped open and began studiously (and hurriedly) peering over the random and haphazard geometry notes he had taken during the few weeks they had been enrolled. Meanwhile, Will, quiet as ever, looked back into his small bag of chips before fishing out another piece, and Mike and El sat quietly beside each other while chewing on their sandwiches, enjoying both their food and their closeness.

"Alright guys!" came a yell, and the four turned to see Dustin hurrying over to them. In his attempt to snag an open seat to Mike's right, he accidentally bumped into an older student before putting his backpack on the ground and pulling his lunch out. Before he could start, however, a hand roughly pulled him on his shoulder and Dustin fell out of the lunch bench.

"Alright, dweeb, that's it," the older student that Dustin had bumped snarled. His hair, which might've once been meticulously maintained by a possibly unhealthy amount of hair gel, was now slathered in green beans, while his mouth and nose still had tomato sauce from the spaghetti meal he had been eating. The upperclassman raised a fist, ready to strike the clumsy shocked freshman.

"Woah, hey, we don't need to do this," Mike suddenly spoke out loud, and the upperclassman stopped. Glaring at Mike, he dropped Dustin back onto the ground before turning fully to face him. Standing up, Mike realized that this upperclassman was easily a head taller than him and likely considerably more muscular. Still, he stood his ground. Before he decided on a reply, the upperclassman eyed El out of the corner of his eye, and an eyebrow of his raised.

"Well, looky here, you're not a bad looker. Why're you hanging out with these dorks?" He attempted to smooth out his hair, while El maintained her stoic, unimpressed look. He moved closer to El. "Hey, why don't you come sit with us? You can tell your friends that you hang out with Roy Batson."

El scoffed. "Why would I want to sit with you? It's like you're hopped up on extra shots of testosterone." Roy's face quickly turned into a snarl.

Suddenly, Mike turned and shoved the older high school backwards, who, off-balance already from his about-to-be punch, tripped backwards over Dustin's heavy backpack and fell backwards into his spaghetti again, nicely slathering the back of his head with the red tomato sauce. Roy moved to get up, but was quickly hindered by one of his friends, who placed a hand firmly on Roy's arm.

"What's going on over here," came the voice of the teacher, having walked over here. Roy, smooth as ever, grabbed a nearby napkin and wiped off the majority of the tomato sauce.

"Nothing, sir," Roy began, a pleasant and affable smile affixed on his face, "I was just introducing myself to these young freshmen here and I must've accidentally tripped over something. Otherwise, I wouldn't have gotten tomato sauce everywhere." He gave a little chuckle, as if to make the point that it was all due to his own clumsiness. The teacher, apparently satisfied with Roy's take of the situation, simply nodded and strode off to some other part of the cafeteria. Instantly, Roy's smile dropped, and he glared at Mike before sitting down again with his friends. Mike, for his part, felt a chill run through his body as El nudged him back into his seat.

Back to Mike getting acquainted with the ground

Mike grunted as another kick came in. However, as he waited for the next attack, it never came. He warily opened an eye.

"Stop it." Two simple words were like the chorus of an angel to the downed boy, doubly so considering that the girl who uttered them was like an angel to him anyway.

"Looky here, the little girl wants to play," crooned one of the seniors, standing up and making his way toward said 'little girl'. El, for her part, simply stood there. Even as the fist came hurtling toward her, she stood there, looking stoically upon the situation.

"Umph," the senior grunted, landing hard on his back. As quick as the wind, El had moved forward and kicked him in the gut, easily dodging his punch.

When she was first adopted by the Byers, Chief Hopper still came around often. Early on, he discovered that she used her powers often enough to protect the boys from harm. He found nothing wrong with that, but under the necessity of hiding El's powers as best as possible from the world at large (he had no intention of calling another federal government agency upon their heads), he quickly enrolled her in a karate class. That was two years ago.

"Uh," one of the seniors backed away, leaving two more standing near Mike as the third fled. The last two charged at her, but within the count of a brief few seconds, both were similarly down for the count, having been defeated swiftly. Of course, it wasn't exactly fair to them that El could easily augment her karate abilities with her powers, giving her access to what appeared to either be superhuman strength or extreme talent, but it wasn't as if El cared about being fair to bullies.

"Mike, are you alright," she whispered, kneeling to the ground and caressing his head. He had a bit of blood leaking out of his nose, and likely had other bruises all over his body, but was otherwise fine.

He chuckled mirthlessly. "Why is it that you always rescue me?"

"We protect each other, Mike. You did your part for me. And now, I did my part for you," she responded softly, running a hand through his hair.

Mutually protecting each other. Mike could live with that. After all, to each other, they were guardians.