Ridley always walked quickly down the halls of her school while trying to remain unnoticed, but unfortunately it was no use.

  “Hey hey, Ridley! What up little fire dwarf?”

  Heading to her algebra class she ignored the taunts as she walked past the ancient blue lockers of her high school. The metallic clicks and slams of the lockers filled the halls with a chaotic stressful melody between periods. The combined smell of sweat, mold, and pesticide was a staple of the school. Though now that she thought about it, didn’t all schools kind of smell the same? She guessed they all used the same cheap cleaning chemicals as well.

  “What’s a guy got to do to get a date around here?” asked one of the guys walking the opposite direction as her.

  “If it's Ridley you're after you’ll need to chop your legs off at the knee.” His friend retorted while elbowing him.

  She felt it was inevitable that she would be bullied in school. She was five-foot two with wavy red hair. To top it off her face was spotted with freckles. Not to mention she was poor, awkward, fairly gullible, she had bad grades, and did she mention she had red hair? That merited being mentioned twice. Additionally, the majority of her wardrobe was made up of hand-me downs, from her cousin, who was a boy. So her current ensemble was a black v-neck ninja turtles shirt covered by a long-sleeve flannel button up, and shorts that she had cut up from a pair of Levi jeans.

  She didn’t think that she was ugly, but she guessed she might be a little… bland? At home she would see her mom sometimes just stare at her and shake her head. She was most likely wondering why Ridley didn’t look more like she did at her age. A dynamite, cleavage-laden, cheerleader. So what's a girl to do? Her strategy was to ignore everyone and everything. So far, it was not a winning strategy. People had told her that freshman year was always the worst, sophomore year would get better. That had proved false in Ridley’s case. Weren’t her classmates supposed to have matured by now?

  Suddenly she felt a chill on her back as something wet began to soak her shirt. She pulled off her backpack and opened it to see a red Gatorade bottle spilling all over her papers and books. She lifted the Gatorade bottle to see a pen sized hole in the base. Someone must have slipped it in her backpack when she wasn’t paying attention. Most likely one of her female fans. Guys just used words so it wasn’t that bad, but girls… girls are vicious. She guessed she would have red stained books for the rest of the year, as well as have to pay to replace them at the end of the year. She started to feel a stress headache coming on, but she shoved it down, like normal.

  She grabbed some paper towels in the bathroom and cleaned out her backpack a bit. Then grabbed a few more on the way out and went to her next class: Algebra. As she sat down in the front row she felt a paper ball hit the back of her head. It was almost a ritual at this point. She glanced down at her ten pound, now pink, Algebra book in her hands. She could have easily thrown it into the face of the paper throwing assassin and smashed their nose… it would make a nice snapping sound if she managed to break it… but she didn’t.

  She just sat and waited for class to start trying to be small so she would be ignored. Her ears did pick up when some guys started talking about what super power they could fake for a video.

  “Yeah but how the heck did he do it? That's some advanced FX from what I can tell.”

  Apparently videos were going viral to show off your unique ‘power.’ Ridley didn’t own a cell phone or laptop so she never kept up with this stuff.

  “Alright everyone pass in your homework.” Mr Brooks said standing up from behind his desk.

  Homework? Ridley didn’t remember having any homework. Well it looked like she would be enjoying detention again today. How stupid is it to get detention for not putting some numbers on a piece of paper? She just wished she had actually done something bad to deserve it for once. Like maybe breaking someones nose.

  The class lesson was on linear equations. Her math teachers voice was so monotone it mimicked a droning fan. It was capable of inspiring even the greatest of insomniacs to take a cat nap. She tried to pay attention and freaking learns the stuffs but it just didn’t click. She had her half dry notepad out and started by taking notes but quickly got distracted as she doodled some old Celtic symbols she had seen somewhere. She pulled out a sharpie and drew one of the cooler looking ones on the back of her left hand.

  The dry erase marker made a light rhythmic thud as Mr Brooks drew out some equations. Ridley, bored of sketching, rested her eyes just for a bit and almost instantly saw a vision of a whack a mole game she used to play as a kid. The moles for some reason looked like Ridley. She took the mallet and hit the little Ridley’s so hard she ended up breaking the machine. Frustrated she kicked the machine and the little mallet turned into a spear and she started punching holes right through the front of it causing coins and tickets to spill out the front.

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  The bell rang and she jumped out of her chair screaming as she awoke. The class all busted out laughing and she quickly took her seat again, blushing.

  “Ms Ridley, I do hope you were able to catch up on your beauty sleep. At least your snoring didn’t interrupt my class.”

  The class laughed again. Mr Brooks, she knew, said this all in good fun. She couldn’t be offended that easily and remain sane. However the ones who actually wanted to put her down probably were thrilled to hear a teacher take a jab at her. This regrettably only inspired more taunting.

  ***

  Finally Ridley made it to P.E., the peak of high school bullying events for the day. The girls giggled and pointed at her in the locker room. She had long stopped wondering what they said about her. She just changed as quickly as possible and went out to the fields.

  For some reason wrestling was still considered educational, even though it seemed someone always got injured.* The girls were all half-hearted about it save a few of the more athletic types. Depending on the coach she would occasionally be paired with someone her size. However she always managed to lose despite the fairness of the match-up. She had a build more suited to the lollipop guild than to wrestling.

  They headed out to the field that had wrestling mats spread out around it. The guys were all psyched to get super sweaty and share that sweat with their classmates. The best way to do this of course was to mash each others bodies together and exult in their dominant ability to lay on each other. On this scorchingly hot day the girls were all either swooning from the heat or over one of the more popular boys like Jared Malone.

  The girls reveled in their misguided opinions of the ass that was Jared. The girls chatter drifted over to Ridley’s ears, “He’s about to wrestle, I bet he will wipe the floor with that whole group.”

  Because being handsome somehow increases your ability to sit on people.

  Ridley for one hated Jared. Not only had they known each other their whole lives, he was the primary instigator of her bullying at school. He knew not only how cripplingly poor she was but also most of her embarrassing stories from growing up together. Of course he was her first crush, but that was when she was six! All of the embarrassing things she did like planning weddings, talking about how many kids they would have, it should have been wiped from her humiliating history if it was pre-middle school.

  To call them childhood friends would not be accurate. More like childhood nemesis’s, that doesn’t sound right, nemesi? What's the plural of nemesis? …more like childhood enemies. As they got closer Ridley actively tried to avoid being seen by him. It didn’t work.

  “Hey Ridley, why don’t you come have a turn on the mat? I think you are the only worthy contender in the school. I know you have had plenty of practice wrestling with raccoons when they steal your dinner.” Jared shouted. His choir of meatheads chuckling along.

  There was, in fact, an encounter chasing a raccoon. Their families were camping when she was eight and a raccoon took the bag of marshmallows before she got the chance to make any s'mores. That was pretty much the most angry Jared had ever seen her as she normally would just take everything thrown at her and shove it down where the sun don’t shine so it would have no emotional impact. She pretended to ignore his taunt and almost succeeded, but then he pulled out his secret weapon. Her mother complex.

  “I know wrestling runs in the family, because your mom really spanked my ass last night. Though the wrestling mat was a bit more comfortable.”

  She began chanting her internal mantra again. Ignore, Ignore, sticks and stones, only 522 days till graduation, but for some reason this time it didn’t work. Ridley began to feel a fire in her gut that moved into her chest and head. She stopped walking with the group. Her vision started to go red and all of sudden she had tunnel vision on Jared. She felt all the frustration she had suppressed from the stress of school and home life bubble up and turn into an intense violent energy.

  She took a step toward Jared who looked terribly satisfied with himself as he was able to get a rise out of Ridley. Then she planted her foot and exploded in a sprint right for Jared and the wrestling mat. With not a thought in her head—the bottled up energy launched out of her chest and manifested into a blood curdling scream—but it sounded more like a howl for some reason. The boys were laughing at first, then her scream became guttural, animal, primal. Then the guys started to step back with a look of disgust and confusion.

  As she approached the mat she launched the top of her head directly into the center of Jared's chest and they both went down with a grunt. When they hit the mat Ridley grabbed Jared's giant arm and lifted. He was light! It was no more difficult than picking up a folding chair. She hefted Jared and flip him onto his belly while he was still winded from the head butt. She sat square on his back and grabbed his forearm with both of her tiny hands. She pushed back with the full strength of her legs and pulled on his arm, bending it straight back towards his spine sharply. She felt it flex with resistance until finally the joint gave out with a satisfying pop.

  Oh, how that little pop made her feel… enraptured. A cascade of relief overcame her and her joy came out in the eeriest little chuckles.

  She let go of his arm and it flopped to the ground. The sounds of Jared's screams finally reach her ears. They were a melodious chant dedicated to her overwhelming victory. Ridley stood up and planted her foot upon his head. Tilting her head back she looked into the sky, a howl of joy exploded from her lungs. With her arms held out and hands bent like claws she continued to howl with all her classmates looking on, horrified. Then a weird blue prompt popped up before her eyes.

  ^

  Congratulations, you are now a barbarian!