Random Kid POV
No one noticed at first.
That was how things usually started.
The other kids were scattered around the yard, pretending not to watch the adults who had come and gone again without choosing anyone. Pretending not to care. Pretending they didn't already know how it would end—another car pulling away, another polite excuse, another reminder that most of us were still here for a reason.
The smaller boy—one of the older kids with a mutation quirk, all elbows and too-big eyes—sat near the fence, kicking dirt back and forth with the toe of his shoe when he felt it.
That pressure.
The kind that made your stomach tighten before you even knew why.
The kind that meant something bad was about to happen.
He looked up just in time to see Slade turn.
Everyone knew Slade.
Big. Armored. Fast. His scorpion tail lifted behind him like a living threat, chitin plates sliding and locking into place with a dry clicking sound. It was the same sound that made the younger kids flinch—and some of the smaller older kids too—out of pure habit. Especially the ones who hadn't even been looked at by the people who came to adopt.
And then there was Tod.
Tod stood in front of him.
The boy's stomach dropped.
No. No, not Tod.
Tod was small. Weird-looking. Quiet. He didn't talk to many people because most of them were freaked out by him. His mutation wasn't even that bad—not really. His face was just… unsettling. If it weren't for his eyes, and that weird thing with his teeth—how it always looked like he was smiling even though he physically couldn't—adults probably wouldn't mind him.
But those eyes.
They looked hungry. They followed you when you moved. And the drooling didn't help. It made people uncomfortable. Made them step back without realizing they were doing it.
Gross, some kids whispered.
…
…
What was I doing again?
OH—
OH SHIT. THE FIGHT.
Snapping his attention back to the yard, the boy saw Slade move first.
Tch. He always did.
The tail snapped forward, faster than the eye could follow. A sharp hiss cut through the air as the stinger scraped across Tod's chest. A few of the younger kids gasped, hands flying to their mouths.
Tod staggered—
—but didn't fall.
That alone made the yard go quiet.
Tod changed.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. It was more like something heavy settling into him. His posture shifted. His feet dug into the dirt. His body thickened, muscles swelling until his frame looked wrong for his size—too solid, too dense.
Like a wall that had decided to move.
Not like Hank exactly… but close enough to make it scary.
Slade slammed into him.
The impact echoed across the yard.
Tod was pushed back, skidding across the ground, heels carving lines in the dirt. Slade didn't give him time to recover. He attacked again immediately—a blur of armor and motion. Claws raked. The tail struck again and again, snapping from impossible angles.
Every hit made the watching kids flinch, even when the stinger didn't pierce.
Tod swung back.
His blows were slow, heavy, crushing. When they landed, Slade felt them—armor creaking, feet shifting—but Slade was faster. Angrier. Circling like a predator that already thought it had won.
The boy by the fence could barely breathe.
Tod was fighting—
—but he was losing.
You could see it in the way he staggered now. In how his movements slowed. In the way his head jerked slightly, like he was trying to think through something thick and heavy clogging up his mind.
Slade hit him hard, sending him crashing to the ground.
A laugh cut through the yard.
Slade's.
Something twisted painfully in the boy's chest.
Pity.
Because that was it. That was how it always ended.
Slade raised his tail high.
Tod didn't run.
He did something else.
He pushed himself forward—slowly, stubbornly, with a kind of renewed determination that felt wrong somehow, like this was his secret weapon.
Everyone knew Slade would let him get close. Everyone knew Tod was too slow to land a solid hit.
Except—
When Tod swung—
—it was faster than anyone expected.
Too fast.
The punch landed with a sound like breaking wood.
Slade flew backward.
For one heartbeat, the entire yard went silent.
Then Tod screamed.
He dropped to his knees, clutching his arm as it bent in a way arms were not supposed to bend. It looked like it had collapsed in on itself, crushed like a soda can. The boy thought he saw pieces of bone pressing up under the skin—white and wrong.
The thought made his stomach churn.
It reminded him, stupidly, horribly, of nacho cheese and chips—
—except the chips were bone.
He gagged, tears spilling down his face before he even realized he was crying.
Tod was shaking. Crying. Barely holding himself upright.
But Slade wasn't getting up.
Mr. and Mrs. Jhones came running when they heard the screaming, voices sharp with panic. One of the older kids grabbed the boy by the arm and pulled him back, telling him not to look.
He couldn't stop.
Tod lifted his head once, eyes unfocused, wide and terrified.
Not proud.
Not relieved.
Just scared.
The boy knew he would remember that look forever.
Because it wasn't the face of a monster.
It was the face of someone in pain—
someone who had made a choice—
and was terrified of what that choice had cost.
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what do y'all think? do you want the fight in first-person POV, or was this version good enough?
i really wanted this fight to land, and honestly i've never written a fight scene before. i thought doing it from another kid's POV might help, since i could kinda skip over some of the really specific stuff that i'm still not sure how to write yet.
anyways, let me know what you guys think.
also, if you don't mind, could y'all write a review for my fic? it really helps me figure out what i need to fix or work on going forward. the more honest you are, the better — at least for me. when i read reviews, i want them to feel real, not just nice for the sake of being nice.
that said, if you just wanna glaze, i'm not gonna stop you 😭 just sayin.
thanks for reading, hope y'all enjoyed it.
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also, my date went well :) but i'm kinda cheating on the assignment since we've been together for a bit more than a year. still though, i can have a crush on her, so :p