Niccolo's eyes glower with the deepest contempt as he and Sigmund look up at the sight of Shanna smugly sprawling against the wall of the school. Even as she reaches out her hand to help them back up, the smirk on her face says it all; their attempt to recruit Brawny not only failed miserably. And now they had no other approved contenders for their posse of pain.

"Get…lost…" Nicolo wheezes in some attempt at restoring his dignity. "Or else…I'll…"

"What? Sic Brawny on me?"

As his friend stammers for a retort to her quandary, Sigmund looks upward at Shanna as she leers at them with mock inquisitiveness. Maybe it was the shame of being both outsmarted and betrayed by Brawny, maybe it was just how stupid their friend had been in bringing weapons to school that fateful morning. Whatever the case, Niccolo's partner in crime let out a heavy sigh of defeat before letting out the only possible combination of words that could make the sadistic schoolgirl's day.

"You win."

"Sorry, ya mind running that one by me again? I think you-"

"You. Win. Shanna." Sigmund says while enunciating every syllable. "We want you to join our outfit."

"Sigmund what are you doing?" Niccolo asked ruefully.

"What I'm doing is taking a bold step into the future. Ross was always talking about how times are changing, and if bullies are gonna keep the natural order of things, then we must move on past obvious stuff like swirlies, locker stuffing, and lunch money shakedowns. Am I right? Well, I don't know about you Niccolo, but buzz around the lower classes is that we've got something of a bullying savant in our midst. And…and let's be honest, without Ross around we've been sloppy and a bit disorganized."

There was a long pause of silence as Niccolo mentally processed his friend's endorsement. Deep down, he knew Sigmund was right; out of the three of them, Ross thought four dimensionally when it came to bullying kids and knew all the mental tics that could turn a simple shove in the hallway into a life-long existential nightmare. Nonetheless, as he looked at Shanna and Sigmund standing side by side next to the very dumpster they once looked to hoist Stumpy into, he gave the two of them a look one might reserve for eating dog droppings.

"Alright hot-shot, don't think I'm gonna gift-wrap this for you. Sigmund may think you're some endless geyser of bullying brilliance, but the buck stops with me." Niccolo said while poking his pectoral with a thumb for emphasis. "I'm gonna give you the name of one of your sad-sack classmates, if you don't find a way to break him down by the end of the school year you might as well kiss this chance goodbye. Am I clear?"

"As a crystal." Shanna replied confidently.

The wheels in Niccolo's head turned momentarily before he whispered the name of Shanna's intended victim to both her and Sigmund.

"I assume this shouldn't be a challenge, right?"

"You can count on me." The girl replied with a sadistic grin.