Try to remember.
Chapter 2: Kids will be kids.
Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or South Park. Not even slightly.
—?M?—
Kenny hurried downstairs, schoolbag in his hand he swept into the kitchen where he was greeted with a sight that he might never get used to. A happy family at the breakfast table. Or to be more accurate, a family who was eating breakfast in the first place, as well as one who weren't screaming their lungs raw at each other.
Jonathan and Marietta Dupuis left a lot to be desired as foster parents, but what they lacked, they certainly made up for in sheer effort and wealth. It's true that money couldn't buy you love, but it was sure as hell a nice change for Kenny and Karen McKormick.
"Good morning, Kenneth." Mr. Dupuis greeted him formally from where he sat at the fancy modern dining table, before swallowing down a spoonful of muesli.
Kenny nodded a greeting in return, as Mrs. Dupuis welcomed him somewhat more cheerfully. Maybe a little too cheerfully to not sound patronising. "Morning, Kenny! Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah." He lied, before grabbing a bowlful of the healthy, no doubt Whole Foods bought breakfast, and seating himself next to Karen. The mousy haired thirteen year old was picking away slowly at her bowl, delicately removing the bits of dried fruit and raisins that she didn't like. Bits that she discarded into Kenny's own bowl. "Morning Karen." He mumbled in the way he'd always done.
"G'morning Kenny." She answered in a distracted voice.
"You'd better finish up your bowl quickly Kenny, otherwise we'll be late." His bustling, middle aged foster mother said hurriedly, as she herself cleared away her bowl and spoon. Kenny complied and shovelled away his breakfast without much thought for manners, taste, or chewing. So he was finished and had cleared away his bowl before Karen was even halfway done with hers.
A few minutes later and the two siblings were seated in the back of Mr. Dupuis' car, being driven to their school here in Gotham. The prestigious Gotham Academy. All in all, despite the overtly modern, respectable style of the Dupuis', Kenny considered their adoption of him and Karen to be the best thing to ever happen to them.
Gotham was not an ideal city, being as it was, awash with crime, super criminals, violence, a man dressed as a Bat and a boy in tights. But it had nothing on the insane dangers of the town they had grown up in. That blind spot of reality that was South Park, Colorado. But if putting up with crime meant a good education for Karen, as well as excellent living conditions. Then Kenny would welcome it, as long as it remained the best thing for his sister.
After breezing through Gotham's richer residences, they eventually pulled into the parking lot of their school, said their farewells to their new parents, and headed into the academy.
Two days into their stint and already Kenny was reeling at the differences. It was as far from South Park as you could get, and while not quite as far from an inner-city Denver school, it was still a massive jump.
A school for the sons and daughters of the rich and famous, the affluent, the important and the dangerous. People such as the adopted son of Bruce Wayne, the daughter of Gotham's Police Commissioner, the scions of various important, old Gothamite families, not to mention the progeny of some of Gotham's 'respectable' criminals. The ones who were smart enough to keep all business above board anyway. All those sorts of people attended the academy, and now Kenny and Karen were among them. And they couldn't have been more out of place if they tried. Not even the smart, pristine uniforms could hide that fact.
Hopefully they could go about their time here normally, blend in with the rich kids and get on with their lives…
—?M?—
That lunchtime was the last time Kenny ever hoped that kids would not be kids, and that everyone would carry on as usual. Treating the presence of two new kids, from an entirely different background, with little or no hostility.
He'd been walking around the sunny grounds, keeping an eye out for Karen to see how she was getting along. When he finally located her, in a secluded area, surrounded by a tight knit circle of students, Kenny's heart turned to ice and sank to the pit of his stomach. He knew this formation well, it was a fighting circle, a bullying ring. The formation that kids got into when they were trying to hide something from teachers. He had heard her voice from its centre, and immediately strode over, elbowing his way though the throng of kids to get to the epicentre.
Karen was knelt on the ground, the contents of her school bag strewn about, her hair and uniform a mess, with another girl looming over her.
"Go on, orphan, cry. Come on, I wanna see you cry." The bully had long blonde hair, and was quite clearly one of the richer kids in the school. It was something about her demeanour, how she simply oozed arrogance and snobbish superiority.
Karen had no tears in her eyes, but she didn't look up at the girl either. She sat on the ground, trying to ignore the bully and collect her things. Something the blonde girl made difficult, as she kicked Karen's books away whenever she reached out to take them.
"I said, I want, to see you, cry!" The girl growled, before Kenny managed to shut her up.
He had forged a path through the crowd with ease, being bigger and stronger than most of them. In two short, quick steps he'd reached the blonde girl. Then he grabbed her shoulder, drew her around to face him, and delivered a sucker punch.
His fist connected just below her ribcage, doubling the girl over and forcing the air to evacuate her lungs with a highly undignified 'oof' sound. With her bent double, Kenny brought his fist back and caught ahold of her head. Tightly snatching a handful of her hair, he held her face still whilst he retreated his knee, then snapped it up and released her head at the same time. His knee impacted with a sickening crunch, and the bully's whole body was sent head over ass as he let her go.
Blood instantly began flowing from her most definitely broken nose, and an ear splitting scream tore itself from her mouth. She hit the ground with a 'crack' and lay there wailing, sobbing and rolling about while holding her face.
The whole circle had taken a step back, and painful gasps sounded from the assembled students with every hit. But Kenny was not done. He bent down, grabbed the blonde by the front of her blood stained blazer, and hoisted her up to look him in the eye.
She was quite a bit shorter than him, and probably couldn't see him clearly through the tears that streamed unbidden from her eyes. But she looked up at him nonetheless, with an expression that couldn't have been more terrified if it was Batman who was beating her up.
Then Kenny growled eight pointed words at her, and with how forebodingly threatening his voice sounded, it might as well have been the big bad bat for all any of them knew. "Karen McKormick, is off limits. Do you understand." He didn't shout, but his rage was brought across in spades.
Nothing made Kenny angrier than someone hurting his sister. So long as he was her brother, and while he had this unnatural ability to escape death, then he would not stand by as she was picked on. As she went without. As she suffered. So whoever it was threatening her, Kenny would be sure to let them know, they would never get away with it.
The bully gave a burbling, near hysterical gibbering sound as an answer, so Kenny just pushed her back down to the ground. Where she lay, sobbing across from the girl she had wanted to see cry.
Kenny turned back to Karen and was relieved to see she had collected up her books while he dealt with her nuisance. Wordlessly he helped her up, and they pushed their way out of the crowd.
The circle of students had grown since he'd entered it, and now various orbiting bunches of kids were waiting to see who emerged. Needless to say the whispering started immediately, and only increased when the outsiders saw the blonde girl lying in a sopping heap.
As Kenny escorted Karen further out, one outer group approached them. It consisted of three people, all about Karens age. A raven haired, blue eyed boy Kenny vaguely recognised from the news, a redhead he also thought he'd seen before, and a wide eyed blonde.
The boy spoke first, sounding impressed but also reproachful. "Not that I'm saying you shouldn't have stood up to her, but…"
The blonde girl jumped on the back of his sentence, her tone scandalised. "You are in big trouble, and not just from the school."
The siblings didn't stop to talk with them, as the sunny haired sixteen year old wanted to get as far away from the scene as the campus would allow. But the three followed, continuing to talk to them.
"Steph's right. That was Loretta Inzerillo. Her father's a fairly important crime boss." The redhead informed them. A fact which cause Kenny's expression to sour.
"Anyone who's stood up to her in the past has wound up, well… Usually in the hospital." Added the boy, carefully.
Kenny came to a stop now that they were a out of sight of where the 'fight' had taken place. Exhaling a fed-up breath, he spoke one word that conveyed all his thoughts on that. "… Fuck."
The three younger teens, bar Karen, looked a little shocked at his foul language, but the blue eyed boy chuckled humorously, saying. "That's one way of describing it. So yeah, you should watch out for a while because Loretta was definitely a little more than whelmed at your, treatment, of her."
Kenny shot the kid a confused look. "Whelmed?" Was all he asked, to which the redhead rolled her eyes and said. "Don't mind the idiot he's just, well, an idiot. I'm Barbara Gordon." She introduced smilingly, and that's when Kenny remembered her. A couple of photographs cropped up in the papers from time to time, of her with her father James Gordon, or to be precise, Police Commissioner James Gordon.
Following that revelation Kenny recalled the boy as well, just as Barbara introduced the other two. "The idiot is Dick Grayson. And this is Stephanie Brown."
"I'm Kenny McKormick." Self same teenager gave back, before gesturing gently to the girl shifting shyly by his side. "This is my sister, Karen."
The look he shared with the three was sufficient to tell them to talk to her. Kenny knew better than anyone that you needed friends. Friends protected each other, but more importantly in this case, friends protected Karen when he or Mysterion could not. And they seemed the right sort, especially since one was a police commissioner's daughter and one was the adopted kid of one of the richest men in the world.
Dick Grayson graciously took the hint, and started. "So Karen, where are you guys from?"
Just as their conversation got going, an announcement came on over the school tannoy system, sternly demanding.
"Kenneth McKormick, report to the Principal's office immediately."
Their conversation froze as Dick, Barbara, Stephanie and Karen all looked to Kenny with mixed expressions of worry and pity.
All Kenny could say in reply was. "… Fuck."
—?M?—
Leaving the school much later than usual, Kenny surmised that it could've gone worse. A couple of weeks detention would not hurt him in the slightest, and the verbal assault he was likely to receive from his foster parents was negligible.
What did bother him though, was the car that had been following him for several blocks now. With tinted windows and an obscured license plate.
Barbara and Dick had warned him about this, but he'd be lying if he said he gave a damn. Being who he was, what did he care about this sort of thing? So as he turned down another street and the car came to a halt, Kenny prepared himself for a fight. He was not disappointed, as seven young men stepped out of the vehicle, followed by a blonde girl with a cast covering her nose.
Stopping in his tracks Kenny faced them fully, and feeling cocky he called out. "Out of hospital already, Loretta?"
The girl balled her fists and made a sound like a piglet having its tail pulled, before yelling to one of the guys. "That's him, Jack!"
A thuggish looking guy, about twenty and wearing an ill-fitting leather jacket, strutted toward Kenny.
"Now…"
Was all he got to say… Kenny didn't have time for this, and didn't like fighting out of costume anyway, as it only resulted in more problems during the day. But the young vigilante could easily tell that even if he ended the ensuing fight, this problem most likely wouldn't disappear. Like that kid had told Mysterion. 'You push someone, they push back.'
As this Jack approached, Kenny did the same, taking a slow walk up to him. But before Jack could continue his posturing, or throw a punch, Kenny had sprung into action.
He jumped, twisting his body in a spin and performing a startlingly fast roundhouse kick. One which smashed into the side of Jack's unsuspecting jaw, sending the guy tumbling down to the ground where he rolled into the gutter.
Kenny was no martial artist, but he'd taken classes when he could. Not to mention sometimes life was the best teacher you could find, and Kenny McKormick had lived quite a life, or several depending on how you looked at his curse.
A cry of "Oh shit!" Went up somewhat collectively from the thugs, and several of them lunged forward.
They had little coordination, and hadn't had time to get around and entrap him. So as two men bumbled forwards, it was easy work for Kenny to sidestep them, cracking one in the side of the head with an elbow jab, while the other one tried to get around his friend to get at Kenny.
Kenny brought up his fists and smacked away a punch from the second man. He retaliated with a staggering kick to the thug's stomach, hooking his foot under the hoodlums sloppy block.
Given the amount of times Kenny had been stabbed, shot, impaled, burned… Okay, given the number of times Kenny had been attacked from behind by a hitherto forgotten opponent, he made sure to spin a quick kick to the head of Jack. Just as the guy was pulling himself to his feet. This blow sent him wheeling into the road this time, with an even clumsier looking trip and fall.
A third nameless thug charged in, this one significantly larger than his fellows. The proverbial brawn of these already bulky men.
One meathook of a fist came down on Kenny like a sledgehammer, striking him in the shoulder and driving him back quite a ways. The teen stumbled to the ground and had to speedily roll out of the way, as the big guys foot came in to stomp his face into the sidewalk.
Kenny scrabbled away, paying no heed to the sound pf Loretta jeering in the background. The mob princess no doubt egging her fathers cronies on to kill him, or something like that.
Kenny pulled himself up and away, using the bonnet of a parked car as leverage to heave himself to his feet. As his shoulder thrummed pain at him, Kenny decided to get a height advantage on this bigger opponent. He threw one foot up onto the bonnet of this very expensive looking sports car, and hopped up onto it. He came around in a spin on his heel and stood above his enemies, on the bright orange vehicle.
Kenny's speed and acrobatics took the thug by surprise, and a punch he had thrown while the lad was getting up, missed spectacularly. Next Kenny lashed out a leg and booted the man right in his face. The guy recoiled but did not go down, so Kenny quickly brought in another kick to the same area.
That was when the fourth man came in, swinging a baseball bat with reckless abandon. The wooden bat missed Kenny, but left a nasty dent in the hood of the car. Also causing the vehicle's shrill alarm to go off, the whining beeps echoing out in the evening street.
Kenny delivered a kick to the batsman, and then reached down to grab the bat for himself. Because in a fight against seven guys, he needed more advantage than just standing on a car. He wrenched the bat from the thugs hands, and stepped back to assess the fight once more.
One was out for the count, the guy he'd elbowed in the head must've hit something on his way down and been knocked out. Then there was the second guy who was winded and hugging his chest, not looking to be in any condition to fight where he stood off to the side. The third, largest thug had a bloody nose, but didn't seem out yet. That left three others, who were circling the car. And Jack, who was…
Kenny felt someone grab his ankles and yank, pulling his legs out from under him and causing him to smack down onto the cars hood. Pain reverberated throughout his whole body, but he'd been through far worse and could pass this off as a dull ache.
Jack brought several punches in, smacking Kenny twice in the face and bringing about a wave of dizzying pain. Though it was distant, Kenny could hear the girl squealing in delight. So, eager to disappoint her, Kenny hefted the baseball bat into a shorter grip, and jabbed the butt at Jack's face.
The painful 'thunk' sounds drew some agonised shouts from Jack, and Kenny no longer had fists landing on his face, or someone holding him down on the car. He rolled off, landing on the ground and dragging himself to his feet sluggishly.
Out of the corner of his bruised eye Kenny caught sight of another thug stepping up to the plate. So he brought the bat round in a wide arc, which connected satisfyingly with the mans head. There was no yelp, but the man fell to the ground and remained there, unmoving. Which Kenny took to be a good sign.
A brutal swing of the bat and Kenny felled another one of them. Leaving him with three; the big guy, a weedy fella he had't hit yet, and Jack.
Kenny swung the bat at the weedy guy, which was ducked nimbly and countered with a quick, almost tentative jab to his midriff. The teenage boy didn't have time to be sympathetic to his enemies, so he swung the bat again, catching the guy in his side and eliciting a scream from the poor man. Another swipe at his legs, and this one was down as well.
Then Kenny turned his attention back to the big guy, who was all of a sudden right on top on him. He smashed into Kenny, sending the bat clattering to the ground. With the car alarm wailing, the musclebound thug grabbed onto the badly beaten teen, and swung him into the side of the vehicle.
The window he'd been shoved against cracked under the force of this impact, and Kenny felt a wet sort of pain at the back of his head. While his vision blurred, Kenny felt a blow so heavy it might've been made of metal, slam right into his face. The window cracked further as his head was whacked against it once more, and Kenny had only enough wits about him to avoid the second punch when it came in.
This meant the big guys fist went through the car window, getting shredded by jagged, shattering glass as it passed through. These daggers of glass slashed along the thugs arm, producing from him a very high pitched screech.
Kenny extracted himself from the thugs loosened hold, and then grabbed the man's head. With all the strength he had, Kenny shoved the bald crooks cranium through the other window. The window on this side that had not been shattered yet… The result was very painful for the nameless brute… His head went straight through, more glass shattering around his skull as he was lodged into the vehicle. The sharp fragments broke away as the thug fell limp, not unconscious, but whimpering sadly as he quivered there.
Kenny drew back, his face bruised and bloody, his clothes the same.
He was about to turn his attention to Jack, when a gunshot cracked through the air.
Kenny didn't see who shot him, but whoever it had been had made sure they wouldn't miss, as the bullet penetrated his skull.
He fell to the concrete, losing consciousness almost immediately, and passing on from this world…
… After the thugs had picked themselves up and left, the door of a nearby house creaked open. While in other homes, the curtains were gently parted by the streets occupants…
A short, stocky man looked out of his front door, glancing about with a very frightened expression. Then he caught sight of the teenage boy, lying still on the sidewalk outside of his house, blood pooling around his head.
"… Oh my God…" He began quietly.
Then his eyes drifted to take in the smashed up sports car at the side of the road, and forgetting the dead boy, he suddenly shouted.
"What the hell happened to my car!?"
—?M?—