Ness and Zach wandered slowly down the Pier, another week survived, and another ice cream reward eaten but the urge to punch was getting harder to ignore after 5 weeks of perfect behavior.
"Well, I could punch you but then you would punch me and that would hurt" Zach mused
"Well, duh!" Ness countered, "plus you wouldn't even get to land your punch, what with me being so badass" she grinned, Zach opened his mouth to argue then thought better of it.
"We need to find a fight" he said instead
"We could join in a volleyball game, maybe the competition will dull the fight in us"
"Anything's worth a shot, I never thought it would be this hard to find a damn fight!"
They headed down to the beach and the volleyball nets to find a game they could join but instead they walked headfirst into exactly what they really wanted. A girl decided to make her boyfriend jealous by making eyes at Zach, it worked, the boyfriend went for him and Zach went full out into the guy, Ness stood back and watched, itching to land a punch herself but this was a one-on-one, she couldn't jump in, there was a code to follow, then someone tried to hold Zach so the guy could pummel him and that was all she needed, she flew into the fight, landing her punch squarely on the new guys jaw and shocking him into letting go of Zach who rounded on his opponent again, now that there was more than two people in the middle of it, others joined in and the two of them found themselves back-to-back in the very center of it all. Punches were flying in all directions, there was shouting, swearing but Zach could hear something else too, a sound that made his heart leap, Ness was laughing, so he laughed too.
Eventually they had edged their way out of the center and with their need sated, they snuck away, back up to the pier and crowds of non-fighting people, sat on a bench looking out over the sea they checked each other's injuries, a split lip for him and a promising black eye for her.
"That was AWESOME!" He said, causing his lip to pump a little more blood out. Ness laughed again, acknowledging how right he was,
"I thought at the beginning that I was gonna be left out but then they broke the code, I can't believe how big it got though, that was one massive brawl, I'm surprised the cops didn't break it up"
"Right? We definitely shouldn't wait that long again though,"
"Agreed, we should head back home and get cleaned up for now though, we can cause a fight next week, but we need to try smaller groups, so we can escape easier when we're done."
They began to get a reputation, when they strolled onto the beach a few weeks later, a group of guys stepped forward and squared up to them,
"Six on two? Really? Are we that formidable that you can't take us one-on-one?" Zach asked
"You're just a pair of little punks, but you've got some skill, I'll give you that" one of them replied, "one-on-one works for me, who wants to go first?" he added; Ness needed no more than that and launched directly at him, her knuckles connecting with his nose with a satisfying crunch
"Yeah, I think Ness chose to go first…" Zach muttered "who wants to go second?" He asked, looking around the rest of the other guys
"You two really do just come down here to fight?"
"Yep, so can we fight now?" Zach squared up
"You not gonna defend your girlfriend?"
"Ness don't need me to defend her, and she's not my girlfriend. Can we please just fight already?"
The second guy nodded and launched at Zach just as Ness floored the first guy, following him down and beating his face and head, her knees pressing into his biceps, immobilizing his arms; he managed to use his legs and buck her off him, sending her sprawling in the sand, he got to his feet and held his hand out to her, she took it and he pulled her upright.
"Man! You have a vicious streak, I think you broke my nose" he said, prodding gently at his face.
"Well a lot of guys hold back, and I found if I break something, they either go cry in the corner or let fly; you were fun." Ness replied. They continued to chat amiably while Zach and the other guy – whose name, Ness discovered, was Paul continued their fight. Ness explained why they didn't just fight at school, but she didn't need to explain why they fought at all, these guys were brawlers too, they understood the release of emotions a good fight could give. When Paul and Zach were finished, they all sat talking on the beach until the sun started to dip low in the sky.