The bruises from yesterday have been healed. His sister was a nosy busybody for even noticing, and the fact that she bugged one of the t-rats into healing him meant that it would go twice as badly for him today. Not that he cared. If it was ten times as bad, he still wouldn't let them have the satisfaction of thinking he was afraid of them.

This time is was Stricken. Black Widower (Hah! She was only sixteen! Who did she think she was fooling with a name like that?), she'd told a couple of the others that she thought Mike was 'cute'. So of course they all started calling him names, saying he was her love slave, stuff like that. Stricken though, he had a crush on Widower. He'd gone and said he was too much of a chicken zip for her.

Decking him had hurt. Probably sprained a few fingers, but it was worth it just to see Stricken fall on his ass and match his name to his expression. He hadn't hit back right then. The Doc had made it public that nobody was to touch the 'Alchemist's family'. Yeah, family, right.

That thought fueled him on towards the sewer grate at the end of town. It was off limits to the townsfolk in Heartland. It was off limits to him, too, but that had never stopped him before. That's where they hung out, in the sewers under the town. Going there now would just get him beat up for sure. Stricken would probably kick the shit out of him. But he didn't care. He had to prove to them he wasn't afraid of them. And maybe, this time, he would finally errupt.