Chapter 2

There was nothing special about today's game. Billy played his usual sterling defense and got two hits, with one RBI (Run Batted In). However, they lost. This didn't bother Billy so much, since he was only playing for fun. On the other hand, his coach took the loss very seriously.

What did interest Billy was that the bully showed up wanting his clothes. The coach would not give them to him until Billy okayed it. The bully was very unpopular, and Billy was suddenly even more popular than ever when the word got around that Billy was the reason the bully was walking around in his underwear.

One day, Ann ran up as Billy was leaving the baseball diamond. She was crying and looked very disheveled—nothing like the normally happy Ann. "Billy, you've got to help us!"

"Sure Ann, I'll help you. What's the problem."

"A bunch of boys have surrounded a group of us girls who were headed home from the mall. They pulled us into that grove of trees over there and they are treating us something awful. I'm still not sure how I escaped, but I ran to find you as soon as I did.

"Please hurry! All of the girls have had their panties pulled off, and I ran away before I got mine back. Angela was treated real rough, one boy stuck two fingers up her vagina, and she is still bleeding."

"OK, Ann, I'll go see what I can do. You stay out of the way, because I am going to call on Genie for help." Genie, please boost me like you did for my fight with the bully, Jerry Edwards.

Very well, Master. I'll stay alert to help you in other ways as you might need me.

Billy began to run toward the trees. There was no way to know how fast he moved, but he was nearly to the trees before Ann could think of anything to say. He was running at a good 40 MPH (Miles per Hour), if not faster. He was there in time to see two boys holding a girl by her arms while another one lifted her dress over her head. As Ann had reported, the girl had already lost her panties, and she was bleeding from her crotch.

Billy went into overdrive when he saw that. There were four girls and seven boys among the trees. Billy drove into the boy lifting the dress off the bleeding girl and hit him in the waist with his shoulder. The pile-driver effect of the blow drove that boy into one of the boys holding the girl's arms. Both went down and neither one moved.

Billy turned his attention to the other boy holding the girl's arm. A sweeping kick into the side of the boy's knee broke the knee joint and put the boy down for good. The girl fell on top of him, furthering injuring the damaged knee.

Four boys were left. Billy never slowed down. He ran to them and used the side of his hand to hit a place under the ear. He did not want to kill the boys by shattering their windpipes, but he did want to put them out of action long enough for the police to arrive.

Ann had had the presence of mind to call 911. It took about 10 minutes for the first cop to arrive, but the seven boys were still out by the time they arrived. The only apparent damage to Billy was a lightly bruised hand when he had caught too much skull with one of his swings. The damage was only cosmetic, done by Genie to disguise Billy's invulnerability. At first, one of the cops were going to arrest Billy for fighting on city property, but he was mobbed by the girls who threatened to injure him seriously if he did something as stupid as that.

Once the full story was given, Billy was deemed the hero that he really was. All of the boys were arrested and guarded by cops as they were taken to the ER (Emergency Room) of the nearest hospital. There, it was determined that five of the boys had severe concussions, one boy had six broken ribs and a punctured spleen, and one boy had a knee so badly damaged that it would have to be replaced.

Billy was recognized as the one who had rescued the girls and was interviewed for TV. He insisted that he had simply used martial arts skills that he had learned at home, so he scraped by the interview. Not so when his parents saw the interview on the news that night.

They knew that Billy had no such training, so his parents cornered him and grilled him until Billy confessed. He told them of the incident in the little cave and did several shape shifting transformations for them. As predicted, his mother wanted to rush him to the ER to be thoroughly examined by every doctor in town to be sure that he was not somehow badly ill. For the first time in his life, Billy defied his mother, and his father, to Billy's surprise, backed him up—no ridiculously unnecessary trip to the ER. Elsie stomped out of the room in a huff, but was soon back with an agreement to go along, but without a real change of heart. Billy settled for what he could get.

At first, Billy had to live through an armed truce with his mother, but she came around by the end of the week, so things were pretty much back to normal. Nevertheless, Billy did continue to get some piercing looks from his mother when she thought that he wasn't looking. Elsie was just a natural worry-wart and it took a lot of convincing before she would drop a concern she had over her children.

The summer rolled along as most summers do, with the kids playing or working. Gradually, the inevitability of school returning reared its head. Some kids looked forward to the event, and other kids dreaded the event, but the first day of the school year arrived at the same time, no matter what an individual felt about it.

Ann looked forward to the 7^th Grade with eager anticipation, while Billy was justifiably cautious about the 8^th Grade. Ann, who'd had friends all over the Elementary School, was expecting the same thing from Middle School. Billy, on the other hand, had a few friends in his grade, but had the attention of bullies at every grade level. Just like Ann, Billy was expecting the usual experience from his new grade as he had been through previously.

However, much to Billy's surprise, the kids still remembered his rescue of the girls from the gang of older boys that day during the summer, so he was not quite the obvious target for bullies that he had been. Besides, he had shown enough skill in basketball and baseball that the respective coaches were hoping that he would join their teams. Billy's reception on the first day of school was much more pleasant than he had ever before experienced. Kids he hardly knew greeted Billy by name and seemed to want to be pleasant to him. Strangely, he never saw a bully on that day, a first for his school career.

As was the usual practice, the first day of school was only half a day long. The kids just went through the motions of getting from one class to another, and the teachers made sure that the right kids were in the right class rooms. Tomorrow would be a different matter, with the beginning of normal lectures, etc. Lockers were assigned to the new arrivals and the old hands were assigned their same locker from the previous year. This was normally one of Billy's biggest problems, since, and it was purely by chance, he always seemed to get a locker within striking distance of his worst tormentors.

As it happened, these kids seemed to avoid any contact with Billy, at least on this first day, so Billy was in a much better mood than usual when he left school that day. He met Ann where she was talking to new and old friends, and the two of them walked home that day. They both had bicycles that they normally rode to school, but the kids were asked to leave their bicycles home that first day if they weren't essential to cut down on the confusion around the school.

Ann and Billy decided to take a "shortcut" home, even though they knew that it was one of those places that they should avoid. It was what amounted to the corner of an abandoned industrial district, and it was a hothouse of drug use and prostitution. "Nice people" just did not go there!

The kids were about to exit the district when they met three young men in their 20s who had obviously been availing themselves of something illegal. The men stepped in front of the kids and one demanded, "OK, twerps, give us all of your money if you know what's good for you!"

Immediately, Billy heard from his genie. Master, how do you want to handle this? It is obvious that they mean to do you harm, whether or not you give them money.

Yeah, I can see that. Let's have some fun. Convert me into a full size Lizard Man, and let's see what happens.