“Come on, you know the protection fee's due today, so pay up, or you're going to have an unfortunate accident."

Briar's ears had always been sharp, and when she heard that coming from the cracked door of one of the classrooms, she let out a heavy sigh and rubbed her forehead. She'd also never been someone who was able to ignore things like that. She was too willing to stick her nose into dirty business like that. She walked to the door and pushed it open.

As she stood in the doorway, she swept her eyes across the room, just taking in who was there, where people were, and the way the desks and chairs in the room were positioned. She stretched and shrugged before she grinned, seeing the fear on the face of the year seven girl as the squad of six year elevens loomed around her. Briar was in year nine, handily splitting the difference between the two sides of the confrontation.

“Protection? Could always do with some of that, myself. So, what's it cost?" Her tone was cocky, everything about her stance saying that she really didn't need anyone to protect her. As the elevens turned to look at this new arrival, they took a moment to evaluate this wrinkle in their plan. One or two of them seemed a little wary... she may have been two years younger than they were, but she was about their size.

“This doesn't concern you. Bugger off, or we'll make you leave in a wheelchair," the ringleader said, scowling at her. Of the six, he was the only one who properly outsized her... but, fortunately for her, he looked to be the sort who relied on his size to intimidate people into doing as he said. He really didn't look like he had the brains for much more than that.

“Aww, but c'mon! I wanna be safe," she said, her tone obviously mocking as she traded a glance with the younger girl, wordlessly trying to let her know what was about to go down here.

The girl visibly understood, looking around for a place she could reasonably get to when things got messy. Meanwhile, the big brute looked at two of the other bullies, who were only slightly shorter than Briar, but looked even more like Neanderthals than their boss. They started pushing past the tables and chairs to make their way to Briar.

“Huh... this is a curious way of making me feel safe... or are you just coming to get my money?" She laughed as she asked that, making the pair really cross as they were moving through the furniture more like bulls than anything else... though, she'd once caught an episode of an American show that showed that bulls were actually pretty nimble and graceful, able to keep from running into shelves of china.

“Steve told you to get out of here. You've got until we get to you, or we're going to make you smart something awful," one of them said as they got to the last layer of furniture between them and her, getting a little caught up on it.

“You lot make me smart? Honestly, you don't look like you've got a lot of smarts to spare," she said with a laugh, moving to stand next to a low shelf, resting her hand on a nice, thick, heavy textbook on it.

“Ass it," one of them said, surging past the line of desks, rushing toward her and winding up to take a nice, big swing at her. Honestly, though... he couldn't have been much more obvious about what he was doing!

It left her with plenty of time to grip the book and bring it up in the way of his fist, angling it so that his hand went slamming into the wall instead of her grinning face. “ARGH!" He clutched his hand, having managed to slam it straight into one of the studs. He didn't have time to recover, though, as she stepped to the side and brought the book up to clock him right across the face.

“I'd say a textbook's a lot better at making people smart," she said with a sneer as he crumpled to the ground, and his fellow thug finally got past the tables rushed at her, himself. She shifted her grip on the textbook and gripped it with both hands, swinging it like a cricket bat right up into the second thug's gut, knocking the wind out of him before bringing it down across the back of his head.

Briar straightened up, looking at the two brutes that had crossed the room for her. The girl she'd saved, though, managed to dart away from the main cluster of bullies while they were distracted with Briar. Good job, kid, she thought, smirking as she looked at the other four would-be gangsters. “Alright. Who's next?"

Steve practically roared at her, shouting at the other three, “Get her!" The remaining thugs started toward her, having a bit of a tough time with the mess that the first two had made crossing the room.

Briar laughed as they approached, scanning the area around her for a better weapon than a textbook. Not seeing anything, she shrugged off her backpack, gripping both of the straps near to where they met the bag. She held it low to one side, while keeping the textbook in her other hand.

The next one to reach her was the smallest of the group, wiry, but Briar knew well enough not to underestimate people like that. She didn't, and so she was ready for him to slip in toward her, trying to get inside the reach of her 'weapons'. Unfortunately for him, he'd neglected one of the weapons she had at her disposal. As he rushed in to grapple with her, his groin was met by her knee, coming up with quite a considerable bit of force, given the powerful muscles behind it.

He doubled over, winded as the next thug arced around behind her, wrapping his arms around her. He had a look of triumph on his face until her foot came stomping down hard onto his, before she spun around with the book, clocking him across the face with it. The last of the trio was the only girl out of the lot, and she came up in front of Briar. “Afraid to fight without a weapon?" She asked with a nasty sneer on her face.

Briar raised her eyebrow and grinned, turning and taking the book and her bag, setting them on the shelf before she turned back to face her, getting into a fighting stance. Not Karate or anything like that, but much more like a boxer's stance. The girl smirked and cut in toward her, her fists up and ready to fight.

This one really did put up a decent fight, at that. It figured for someone able to hold her own with a group of guys like this. She was either arm-candy for Steve, or she was a real scrapper. And... not that Briar was trying to be judgmental... but this one wasn't arm-candy.

Briar used her forearms to take the first few punches that she threw before she returned with a few, that she either dodged or blocked to one side. They traded punches for a good moment, before she then dropped down and spun around, trying to sweep Briar's legs out from under her, but as muscular as Briar was, she wasn't slow, the way the boys had been.

She took the opportunity of her opponent being lower to the ground to drive her knee forward, knocking the other girl to the ground before she turned to look at Steve, smirking. “You know... I think it's working. I'm already starting to feel a lot safer, and I haven't even paid you yet."

Steve was breathing heavily, his face a mask of rage as he started pushing across the room to Briar. She grinned and moved to get ready for him. She quickly took in the debris of the boys' efforts to cross the room, standing near some knocked over chairs as he walked right up to her. “Oh... you're going to pay alright, little lassie," he said.

Briar tilted her head lightly to one side, “Oh really? I mean, your friends really haven't done much to get any fee out of me, despite my offer to do so," she said with a grin.

Steve bellowed in anger as he started rushing toward her. Briar, however, brought one of her feet up onto the chair in front of her, kicking it forward to make it knock his legs out from under him. His cry of anger was replaced by one of panic as he toppled forward to the ground... but he didn't have to worry about striking the ground, as it turned out. The bigger problem for him was hitting Kestrel's knee as she brought it forward to meet his falling head, leaving him to tumble across several other bits of upturned furniture.

Briar sighed and stretched, shaking her head, “Oof, that one wasn't fun. His head was properly hard..." she said, reaching down to rub her knee with one hand while the other reached over to pick up her bookbag. She made her way over to where the bullies had been gathered around the year seven, rummaging through their bookbags, eventually finding a notebook and an envelope of money in Steve's bag. The notebook was a record of the kids he'd been extorting, and Briar snapped it shut, picking it up along with the money as she turned to smile at the girl.

“Y'alright?"

The year seven nodded her head and looked at Briar with wide eyes. “How did you..." Her tone was full of awe, completely taken aback by what had just happened. “But... yeah... I'm fine..."

Briar laughed and grinned, shaking her head and sighing. “A lot of practice. Don't worry, I'll see who I can put you in touch with to teach you a thing or two so you'll have a better time looking after yourself. Anyway, I think it'd be good for you to come with me to talk with the staff. It'll be good to have you there to back up the story. The book's great evidence, but if you come forward, too, it'll do better."

She nodded eagerly, going with Briar and the evidence to let the school know about the extortion ring. The gang didn't last for very long after that at the school, quickly getting expelled and remanded to the juvenile legal system. All in all, it was a good day's work for a nosy busybody like Briar... especially one who knew how to handle herself well in a fight.