From Bullets To Billions novel Chapter 65

Chapter 65: The Rangers Form!

Inside a gym that usually only had two people at most, there were now four.

Steven, the owner of the place, stood behind the counter. Max, his one and only customer, was present as always. Then there was the man who had shown up once before, someone Steven would never forget. And lastly, of all things, there was another student.

But this one wasn’t a customer. That much had already been made very clear by Max.

Seeing them all together in his little gym, Steven found himself asking one big question:

What did I do in my life to end up here?

He didn’t understand the situation at all, why Max had gathered them, what they were planning, and once Max finally began explaining everything, Steven seriously started to think he was trapped in some kind of fever dream.

"Wait... wait... wait!" Steven said, holding out one hand while rubbing his forehead with the other. "Let me try to wrap my head around this. From the beginning."

He pointed toward the student.

"So first, this guy here, Green."

"Joe," Joe corrected instantly.

"Right, Joe. He goes to the same school as you," Steven continued, eyeing Max, "and he was part of the group that used to bully you, right?"

Both Joe and Max nodded at the same time.

That alone was strange, Steven didn’t even know how the two of them had gotten close in the first place.

"So somehow," Steven continued slowly, "he’s now helping you with whatever situation you’re caught up in. Because there’s some kind of head bully at your school who’s targeting you... and that would be this Dipter person?"

"Correct," Max replied. "Glad to know your ears are working."

"And now you’ve gathered everyone here, the ex-bully, your bodyguard or whatever he is, and me, to help you take out the head bully?" Steven asked, eyebrows raised.

"Correct again," Max said. "Though I’m not sure why you’re repeating everything I already explained if you understood it from the start."

Steven rubbed his temples. He felt like he needed to lie down. When he left high school, became a pro boxer, and eventually opened a quiet little gym, this was not where he thought life would take him.

And what was going on with schools these days anyway?

A head bully? Secret plots? Full-on factions?

Had things really gotten that bad... or had he just been so far removed from it all that he never realized what was happening right under his nose?

"You can’t be serious, though... can you?" Steven asked, staring at Max like he had completely lost it. "You really want me to help you beat up a bunch of high school kids? Do you think I have no pride?"

He remembered the last time Max had hinted at something like this, back when he was first asked a strange question that stuck with him. Steven had wondered if Max might eventually ask him to fight his bully... but thinking about it and actually being in the situation were two very different things.

"You can’t think of them as just high school kids," Max said firmly. "If you do, this situation is going to get very dangerous, for all of you." _{freeweɓnøvel.com}

Steven raised an eyebrow, but Max didn’t pause.

"Dipter isn’t a normal student. And the delinquents following him? They’re not either. He can rally fifty of them, just like that. All of them loyal. All of them ready to do whatever he says. And they’re willing to use weapons, bats, knives, anything."

"I see..." Steven muttered. "So you really do need our help if that’s the case. I mean, I get it, you want to get back at them. And I guess you can’t do it alone... but I really need to think about this. I can’t just go around doing stuff like this!"

Of course he’s fine, Steven thought. Someone like him, someone who probably uses weapons himself. If there’s a fight in the ring, I bet he doesn’t even blink. Of course he’d be willing to take down high schoolers... he probably enjoys it.

Dipter wasn’t just one person. He was an entire group.

So, the only way to stop that from happening, the only way to make sure no one tried anything after their beatdown, was for Max to form a group of his own. A team that would show everyone that messing with him meant dealing with all of them.