Mike & Karen Ch. 34

Cambrian College, November 1985...

He glowered down at the group of men, towering over them, his laser-blue eyes piercing through them. His immense, muscular form gave them pause, even through they outnumbered him twelve-to-one. He stood at his full height, his muscles tensed, making sure they understood exactly what they were in for if they forced this issue.

Behind him, a small woman was hyperventilating in fright, her eyes wide.

"You think you can take us all on?" sneered one of the men, trying to rally the courage of his comrades. They were well-known barflies, infamous for harassing girls from the College, even going so far as to invade the campus to spread their sleaze everywhere.

"Make a move," Mike growled, his eyes narrowing as he focused on the douchebag who had just spoken. "Find out..."

Mike & Karen

Disclaimer: All characters are 18 years of age or older while actively engaging in sexual activity. This story is a prequel/sequel (sprequel?) to my other work, Alex & Alexa. As always, many thanks and gratuitous panty shots from Freja and Jeanie to my long-suffering editor and beta-reader for their assistance in polishing up and improving this work. Reviews are welcome; flames will be snickered at and deleted with extreme prejudice. Enjoy!

Chapter XXXIV - Isn't Love Unkind?

One of the men tried to slip around to the side of Mike, perhaps to get behind him, perhaps to get at the girl. Mike's response was to slowly back up, putting one hand behind to ease her backward so that she was against the wall of the building. This way, he wouldn't have to worry about them getting behind and getting at her without him interfering. Whatever they did to him, he would keep her as safe as possible.

"You can't take us all out!" the man who had sneered at him earlier shouted angrily.

"Maybe," Mike replied, watching them all warily as they tried to circle him, like wolves, looking for an opening. "But I promise you, anyone who touches the girl will be hurting so badly tomorrow that it won't have been worth it."

"What, so we leave her alone and we're free to kick your ass?" guffawed the ringleader. His friends tried to close the ring and edge closer. They reeked of cheap beer and cigarettes. Typical of the Sudbury lowlifes Mike had come to expect, and not much different than the ones he knew from back home in Kapuskasing.

One of them out to the side got too close for Mike's liking and his foot pivoted on the sidewalk before flashing out, the sole of his giant sneaker slamming into the man's chest and knocking him back several feet, tumbling head over heels in a heap. The sudden move startled several of the other and Mike punched another who was inching in. He felt the man's nose give with a mushy crunch and he collapsed backward, wailing in stifled agony.

The crowd backed up in alarm, cowed by Mike's raw power. He'd taken down two of them in two seconds. Even the ringleader was backing away, his eyes wide.

He reached for something behind himself, in the back of his pants.

Mike didn't wait and lunged in, driving his huge fist into the man's face and knocking him out cold. The rest of the warband abruptly broke up in panic, running in several directions and leaving their wounded comrades behind.

He could still hear the woman behind him, pressed up against the wall, trying not to cry. He made sure the scum had well and truly scattered before hanging his head and sighing, breathing deeply and relaxing his body. He knew how frightening he could be when he was worked up, and this girl was freaked out enough as it was.

He'd been walking back toward the house on campus where he had been staying when he saw her up ahead, turning off the street and toward him, her eyes wide with fright and tears on her face. Not far behind her, a dozen local drunks were chasing her, howling for her to come and have a good time with them. She'd rushed up and hid behind him, trying to not sob. Instinctively, he'd backed her toward a wall of one of the campus buildings so that they couldn't reach her without going through him.

Now that they were out of sight, he slowly turned around and looked down at her.

She was still wide-eyed with fright, pressed against the wall and afraid to move. He assessed her again, making sure she had no visible or obvious injuries.

She was of not quite five-and-a-half feet tall, with long, straight sandy blonde hair that fell past her shoulders. She was slender, with delicate features. Her large, hazel eyes were brittle with fright. She was wearing jeans and a coat to protect her from the late autumn wind. Wearing running shoes, her only accessory was a small purse.

"You're safe now," he said finally, making sure his voice was soft. "They won't hurt you."

She didn't say anything, but she slowly unglued herself from the brick wall she'd been leaning against. She was still looking around warily, but finally allowed herself take a deep breath. Then she shuddered and broke down crying, throwing herself against him and hugging tight. Mike was slightly surprised, but he put his huge arms around her and held her gently. After maybe a minute of sobbing, she seemed to compose herself and then looked up at him.

"Thanks," she said quietly, her eyes bleary. "Thank you so much."

"I just did what needed to be done," Mike said, relaxing his arms and letting her step back, wiping at her eyes. "I'm sorry that happened. There was no excuse. There never is."

"Not from around here, are you?" she suggested, stifling a sniffle.

He shook his head. "No, I'm from Kapuskasing. And there's plenty of jerks like them around there as well, trust me. That's why I knew what to do."

She nodded. "Everyone on campus knows you and how you protect women. That's why when I saw you, I ran directly for you. I knew I'd be safe."

He looked at her. "You're a student here?"

She nodded again. "Third year. I don't get out much, so I'm not surprised if you haven't noticed me."

"You here on campus, or do you live nearby?" he asked.

"Nearby, but now I'm kind of afraid to head back," she admitted, blushing. "What if they're looking for me?"

"Stay with me for a few and we'll figure it out," Mike replied as he strode over to the man he'd kicked in the chest. The man was groaning and moving now, trying to roll over onto his stomach. The other two men were still out cold. Mike took the drunkard by the neck and pulled him to his feet.

The girl followed Mike as he walked into the campus, roughly dragging his seeming prisoner along. He headed toward the administrative building, pushing the drunk up the stairs.

He opened the doors and went inside, causing the late-night staff to look up at him in surprise. The titan student was roughly handling a drunk man and followed by a female student. They were used to DeBourne and unusual things happening, frankly, but this was rather different, even for him.

And the look on the young man's face indicated he was not amused.

"I need to speak to the person in charge for this shift," Mike said simply. They all looked at him blankly. He'd interrupted most of them filing or sorting papers. "That would be now."

Two women looked at one another and one of them nodded at the other. The second woman put down her files and made her way toward the back of the building heading toward the office. She was gone for maybe two minutes. In the meantime, the man Mike had kicked seemed to be coming out of his stupor.

"Gnnn, you are in such shit," the man mumbled. "Y'know what you've done, asshole?"

"Aside from prevented a rape?" Mike said tersely, scowling down at the man as he held him by the neck, firmly enough to remind his prisoner that he wasn't going anywhere. "Why don't you enlighten me?"

"My bro... my brother's on the police force," the man managed to say, gulping air as he tried to compose himself. "You are so fucked when he finds out what you've done."

"So when I prove you and those other shitheads tried to accost and rape a student, you think he's going to be okay with that?" Mike asked. "Then maybe I'll have to have a word with your brother too. Hell, I'll call him from here and tell him to come and get you. How's that sound? Maybe I'll call and tell your mother, too. Bet she'd be proud."

"Fuck you..." the man grunted. Mike somehow resisted the urge to squeeze the man's neck. The student he'd saved from this scum was staying on the other side of him, away from the man who had chased her.

Not long after, a rather weary-looking and balding man came out of one of the back officers, following the admin assistant who had come to get him. His shirt was rumpled, and his expression was downright lemony. He stopped behind the desk and looked at the three visitors.

"I'm reporting this man for attempting to assault one of our students," Mike said finally, getting the conversation going, since the admin seemed incapable. He'd had dealt with this man before, and had found him reticent to help, generally.

The admin looked at the woman standing near Mike. She blushed but nodded, clutching her purse to herself. The man glanced back at Mike. "Maybe you should tell me a little more."

"I'll keep it short and simple," Mike replied, already losing patience, since he could tell the man had no particular desire to deal with this right now. "This local sack of crap and eleven of his buddies were chasing the lady down the street, trying to have their way with her. She turned into campus and ran into me, and I stopped them. There was an altercation. I dropped three of them, the other nine took off. This one's awake, and the other two were still unconscious not far from here when I brought him here to report the incident."

The man looked between the three for some seconds before looking at her again. "So... you were off-campus when they began following you?"

She nodded, still blushing. "I ran, they began chasing me."

"What does it matter where the chase happened?" Mike almost snapped, scowling. "She's one of our students."

"If it was happening off-campus, it isn't exactly a campus or university matter," the admin replied.

"They chased her right onto the campus, still trying to get their mitts on her," Mike said rather angrily. "If I hadn't put myself between them, they would have caught her and assaulted her here on campus grounds!"

The young woman shook and almost whimpered at Mike's words, horrified by the thought of what would have happened if she hadn't run into DeBourne.

"If people are feeling free to harass our students on-campus, it sounds like we need to take the safety of our women seriously," Mike continued. "There need to be enforced policies and-"

"DeBourne, if you're going to insist this is a legal incident, then go to the police," the man replied, annoyed at being instructed by a student. "We're not responsible for what trouble students get into off-campus. For all we know, she had given them the wrong impression, and-"

"I'm going to stop you right there," Mike growled, his face like a thundercloud.

The admin, despite being on the other side of the large counter that separated staff from visitors, took an involuntary step back. The two admin assistants both went pale when they saw Mike's expression.

"This is going to become a campus issue, right... fucking... now. There will be policies about harassment and student safety put in place virtually immediately or I will pack my shit and leave this institution by morning. I will not be a part of any university that trivializes the safety of any students or suggests that women deserve to be raped!"

The admin didn't seem to know what to say, he simply gaped at Mike.

"Do you want to be the reason I left?" Mike asked, his voice and expression still dire. "Would you care to explain to the board of governors why? That you had your head up your ass and thought it was okay for women to be raped on campus? I agreed to come here for a year instead of going to Toronto, to get your university's fucking stature up. But what good is that if you're policies are rape-friendly?"

A deathly silence hung in the air, but the admin seemed to want to say something.

"One wrong word, Kelso," Mike warned, his piercing blue eyes not leaving the sweating admin's. "One wrong word about what needs to happen next, and I'm gone. You know I'm not bluffing. The university takes a moral stance on this issue and leads the way now. Toronto's not that far a walk for me..."

It was a seemingly ridiculous yet very dire threat. The university had gone to great lengths to convince Michael DeBourne to make a pit stop in Sudbury for a year before continuing on to study Physics at the University of Toronto. No end of pleading and negotiating had been involved, and the only leverage they'd had over him at all was that back when he was just a junior high and high school student, they had opened their facilities to him in whatever capacity was required. Sudbury wasn't exactly close to Kapuskasing, half a day under optimal driving conditions (which was almost never), but it was a Hell of a lot closer than Toronto.

And they couldn't offer him more of a free ride than Toronto had. Full scholarship, and free room and board. Beyond that, they needed his willingness to help them out by adding his incredible grades to their sciences average for a year. Hopefully he wouldn't consider the one-year stint a stain on his record. So of course, they'd screwed up his rooming situation almost immediately when the roads of Northern Ontario had been flooded out and through no fault of his own, he'd missed the registration by a day.

He'd agreed to overlook that gaffe, but this was clearly different. The titan student was incensed, and he clearly had every intention of following through on his threat if they didn't act immediately. He would leave and his grades would go with him.

It was a horrifying thought. Did the University of Toronto really need him? Apparently they already had their own scientific prodigy down there, a young heiress of stellar intellect and ability...

"Well?" Mike pressed, interrupting the admin's indecision. "What's my next move, Kelso?"

The admin looked at the young woman again. "These men were going to assault you, Miss Tucker?"

She swallowed and nodded.

"You don' have any fuckin' proof," blurted the drunk Michael was still holding by the neck. "Bitch is lyin', my word against hers! You got no proo-"

Mike had let go of the man's neck and snapped the back of his fist up into his face. He shuddered, his eyes crossed, and he went to sleep, crumpling on the floor. The admin and the two assistants looked on in shock. The young woman, apparently named Miss Tucker, looked on silently, but showed no fear.

Mike finished scowling down at the man asleep at his feet before looking at the admin again. "I'm waiting."

Kelso knew he had to comply with Mike's wishes, and he had to mean it. If DeBourne suspected for even a fraction of a second that he wasn't serious, just paying lip service to the notion and no immediate action was taken to protect female students from assault, it would be his fault that DeBourne was gone. Nobody else's, just his. It didn't matter whether Kelso considered it an issue or not. DeBourne wasn't known for making outrageous or silly demands, but his moral views on matters were uncompromising- women's rights to their bodies were to be respected, and there were no Nazis on campus. Simple.

"Don't you think your daughter'll thank you if she decides to come here when she's old enough, Kelso?" Mike mentioned almost casually. "Maybe she'll go somewhere else when she realizes her father didn't give a damn about her safety."

The administrator coloured at the mention of his teenage daughter, but she was something of a fixture here on campus, visiting him regularly. He forced himself to think about what if it had been his daughter these local drunks had chased and assaulted. What if he hadn't done anything to protect her?

He finally nodded. "First thing in the morning there will be a crisis meeting and action will be taken. You have my word. Not just unenforced policy. Real action."

"Pardon me if I wait to see it before I believe it," Mike grunted. "Is that security camera on the corner of the south building facing Barry Downe actually working?"

The admin looked at his assistants, once of whom nodded. "I saw the feed this afternoon, it's functional."

Mike nodded. "Make sure copies of the last hour are made, at least two. If this jerk is serious about his brother being a cop, I don't want the evidence disappearing."

The admin seemed uneasy. "You... you think this will become a police issue?"

"Of course it will," Mike replied, frowning. "Because the university is going to contact them about these scumbags coming on campus to assault women."

Kelso looked like he wanted to protest, but he caught himself. He knew exactly what would happen if he made DeBourne mad. His choices were simple- initiate steps that led the institution down the road of protecting students from assault, or explain to the board of governors why he'd compelled DeBourne to leave. He had no particular doubt whom the university valued more, himself or DeBourne. Except for his daughter, nobody really cared for him.

"They'll be called in the morning," he assured the student. "What... what will you do with them until then?"

"I'm throwing this piece of shit off the campus, of course," Mike said simply. "And the other two morons if they're still out there. But I'll be back five minutes before this place opens in the morning. Believe it."

He turned and looked at the student named Tucker. "You should wait here until I've gotten rid of these jackwagons, then we'll get you a cab home, if you like. For now, explain to Kelso about what happened. If you're not comfortable talking to him, or if he doesn't seem serious, talk to one of his assistants. Make sure they take it all down. I'll be back in a few."

The young woman nodded. Kelso blushed angrily. Mike bent down and picked up the unconscious man, tucking him under his arm like a sack of potatoes. Without another word, he turned and walked out the door, heading down the stairs and away from the administrative office.

It was nearly nine now, and the night had closed in. A stiff, chill wind blew across the exposed square that centered the campus. He strode through the night, encountering few people, but those who did gave him a wide berth.

He glanced at the pavement ahead, noticing that the bodies of the other two douchebags were missing from where he'd left them. He looked ahead toward the entrance of the campus, his keen eyes finally spying movement.

The two men were leaning against one another and hobbling almost drunkenly away from the campus, out toward Barry Downe Rd. One of them happened to look back and saw the huge form of Mike coming on, catching up rapidly. They both burbled and yelped, limping and tottering away as fast as they could, leaving a snotty trail of blood droplets behind them.

Mike shook his head and exited the campus, crossing the road to Woodbine before depositing his still-unconscious crap sack on a bench, leaving him in an unceremonious lump. It wasn't so cold that the man could freeze, and somebody would find his sorry ass before long.

Job done, Mike turned and headed back into campus, straight toward the admin building. He opened the doors and stepped inside, where he found Miss Tucker speaking with one of the admin assistants. They both looked up and the assistant tilted her head at the back, toward the offices.

"Kelso's sending Denise to look at the security tapes. She knows how important this is," one of the secretaries said.