@ask-mister-mystery from here
“That’s far enough Jesse.” Stan said, sounding a lot braver than he felt in reality.
He had barely time to react when Aggie had come running at him from out in the woods to hide behind him. He was just about to ask what on earth she was hiding from, when Jesse Stonewall had emerged from the same path Aggie had.
“You got some nerve Pines…” Jesse smirked at him with a yellowed grin before hawking a spitwad at his feet. “I’d almost be impressed, if it weren’t for the fact I beat the crap out of you, every time you do a dumbass thing like this.”
Stan felt for the brass knuckles Olive had gave him in his pants pocket. This was definitely one of those emergency situations she said he could use these in, right?
“Well Pines, you gotta pretty simple choice here. Leave me and my lady friend alone. Or, I beat the ever loving snot out of you, and then I go off with my lady”-
Jesse had been so busy smugly running through his gloating little speech, he hadn’t even noticed Stan putting the child-sized brass knuckles on. And then proceeding to somehow land an uppercut on Jesses nose, honestly impressive considering Jesse’s height advantage.
Blood instantly starts pouring from his nose like a faucet. The crack of bone that Stan had just heard makes it pretty obvious that he’s broken his nose.
Jesse dumbly dabs a finger in the stream of blood coming out, looks at it bewilderedly, and then promptly faints.
“Oh crap oh crap oh crap I am so screwed!” Stan said hurriedly, flapping his arms about.
Why is she so afraid of a loser like Jesse? What was it about him that made her entire body freeze? It’s getting embarrassing at this point.
She could throw him ten feet, easy. She could probably make all his hair fall out, or if she really REALLY tried, she could probably turn him into a frog. But her magic fails her, her body fails her, she just freezes when he’s around. There’s something in his cold blue eyes that makes her feel sick and powerless, and she hates it.
She’s been on her way to the shack to help the boys with some mystery thing when Jesse has sauntered out from behind the trees where he likely had been hiding. She’d tried to tell him as firmly as possible to leave her alone. He’d taunted her while calling her baby which made her skin crawl.
“What? You gonna get that twerp you hang around with to fight me or something? I’ll take him down just like I always do. If he doesn’t leave you alone, I’ll cave his stupid face in.”
That had made her mad enough to charge him and push him as hard as she could, but her magic failed her and he only stumbled back slightly with a laugh. That’s when she took off running down the path towards the shack. She though maybe I’d she could get there, maybe Mabel would let her hide somewhere or tell Jesse off, then Stan wouldn’t have to fight him. But of course, her friend was waiting in the yard for her like he often did. Her previous plan is forgotten and she runs for him instead, gasping that Jesse was chasing her as she ducked behind Stan, which provided little cover since he was only a bit taller than her. But she couldn’t deny she did feel safer behind him, though that safe feeling is tangling up with her fear of seeing him hurt.
She helplessly tugs on his shirt, hoping he’ll just run with her, but he’s got a new sort of resolve that she can almost feel radiating off of him. She’s rooted to the spot in fear as Jesse advances and she thinks maybe she should scream, surely Mabel of Stanford or maybe even Maria or Dan would hear her and come running but before she can do anything, Stan’s launched himself forward. She’s about to scream for him to stop but then she sees the spurt of blood, hears the sickening crack of something in the bully’s face breaking.
Her hands fly to her mouth, eyes wide as she watched the bloody brute of a boy away on the spot before falling to a heap in the dirt. She looks from the collapsed boy to her friend, finally seeing the brassy bits of metal (now flecked with blood) on his hands.
She stares at Stan, her face drained of all color. She finally drops her hands from her still open mouth to speak when another voice can be heard, shouting as he ran from the front of the shack.
“Stan, Aggie!” Stanford called, “I was watching from the window, wh-“ He skids to a stop. He takes in the sight of his friend standing there as white as a ghost, his twin brother flecked with blood and armed with brass knuckles that’s he’s never seen before, and local bully Jesse Stonewall unconscious and bloodied on the ground.
“Stanley, what did you do?” Stanford voice cracks a bit as he yells, running to his brother and grabbing him by the shoulders, “Where did you get those?!” He looks at Jesse, and looks like he’s about to be sick. “Oh jeez, you didn’t kill him, didja?!”