The class was full of kids like them, mainly in school by force and not by choice or obligation. Even the teachers didn't try too hard to do anything and just let the students do whatever they liked as long as it didn't completely disrupt classroom activity for the few who actually tried to learn.
Nikko Tyler and Carlos could care less, all they did was write rap together or just talk about movies and video games. It was obvious they were having fun being around each other especially for Nikko, he still felt a bit uncomfortable because he hadn't been in any kind of fight in a while but he still preferred to just hang out with his friends.
Apart from the teachers and the probation officers happy that a few kids were not causing trouble and were staying in class occasionally even actually learning a few things, most other peoples reaction to their group of three friends was very hostile or just extreme.
A few latino kids called Carlos a betrayer and always harassed him after school for hanging out with Tyler and Nikko but he never let it get to him.
Tyler got the most feedback actually, mostly because he acted a bit "feminine" people kept calling him names like f*ggot and he wasn't even actually attracted to boys. However Tyler had a very sharp tongue, much so that they stopped calling him f*ggot in his presence because he had given out worse nicknames that stuck.
Only Nikko got off easy that was mainly because he retaliated very quickly, he couldn't throw insults back like Tyler he even talked very little that some people assumed he was mute but he was popular for how good he was at fighting. His own troubles came from his probation officer but that ended with the man asking him not to get caught up in viral videos.
So aside the occasional bouts of insults in school or the getting blocked after school Nikko was having the best time of his life even at home it showed that something was different about Nikko, he was getting into trouble less and less. Before Tyler and Carlos if you were not related to him or his cousins and did not live nearby, your interaction with Nikko was very limited. He was like a small child that only knew how to cry except he only knew to act out violently, his guardians felt he'd been traumatized by the violence on the streets he was constantly exposed to so they excused a lot of his behaviour even when it was obvious he enjoyed inflicting pain and wasn't just having communication issues.
Well all of that was changing now, he was talking a lot more even occasionally rapping along with music Dionne would often play. He was staying indoors to see TV shows or hanging out with Tyrone and his friends just so he could play more video games, normally when with them he would only look forward to when they were doing home invasions or when they were getting into fights with other kids.
Safe to say, Tyler and Carlos were making him more human and less angry confused teen.
One incident would still happen to properly conclude Nikko's arc in Parkland High.
One good day the kids harassing Carlos had had enough, they were not just trying to bully Carlos because they were racists that hated him hanging out with two black kids. The fact was that outside the building for parkland Carlos had a different identity. His father was a very popular member of the purple wearing MARINA KINGS gang, he was gang royalty. They were trying to get him to stop mixing up Tyler and Nikko for their own good, these were older kids and they had seen these kinds of friend ships take dark turns especially when one of the other friends become members of rival gangs something that was clearly going to happen with Nikko who already wore a small pendant that said GD (gangster disciple).
They were gangster disciples themselves, real gangsters not like than Nikko. They had decided that even if they could not convince Carlos to stop hanging out with his friends then they could stop his friends from hanging out with him. Tyler was the first target.
what happened was simple, one day when Nikko came to school he found out that Tyler and Carlos weren't there, this made him do something he had never done before. After school he went looking for them. He went to Carlos first but got jumped instead.
He took the beating in good faith because he was in Marina King territory, he was here for his friends. He eventually got to Carlos's house there he saw Carlos on the porch with the same kids that were supposed to be harassing him.
Carlos tried to talk to him but the other kids didn't let him, they surrounded Nikko told him how they beat up Tyler and that he was probably hospitalized. They could've beat him up but out of respect for Carlos they let him walk back, he lost a bicycle though.
Nikko was very silent throughout the next day, he went to school with a dagger tucked under his clothes. Carlos still wasn't in school.
After school he stalked the Marina kids and found an opportunity to approach them when they where loitering around a small supermarket.
All they saw was a hooded person approaching them with a metal pipe in one hand, they instantly knew it was Nikko. One of them had a gun, was strapped but they entire group of eight was calm just the fact that this was their gang territory made them relaxed, to take into account that the person in front of them was just this one fifteen year old kid with a metal pipe made them even less weary.
"Hey, chico you're a long way from home. It's getting late, don't you think you need to be somewhere else, Eyy Chico?"
Nikko took of the hood, to make sure they got a good look at him. He was grinning.
"I'm sorry who even let y'all over the border?" It was a bad comeback but it still worked.
Most of the group was annoyed but it was a girl at the back that acted first, She threw a beer bottle with wicked aim. It didn't make a positive difference because Nikko actually caught the bottle and smashed it in the face one of the boys who was closer to him, he was the luckiest.
Next with an absurd fidelity he used the metal pipe to smash into the heads of the boys around him. Still holding on to the broken bottle the fourth person got brutally stabbed all over the stomach area.
It wasn't that they weren't trying to get in a hit on him but that he could easily read the directions of their movements, and hit back way too hard. Without the metal pipe he could still easily knockout these kids but now he probably killed that one that had blood leaking from his ears luckily the other boy he hit with the pipe got hit on the neck not the head (how is that even luck?)
The remaining two boys and two girls were horrified, Nikko had knocked out four people in an instant and the way he did it, they saw clearly but his movements it felt surreal.
The boy with the hand gun quickly brought it out, his intentions were to scare Nikko but when Nikko saw the gun he reached for the dagger tucked under his clothes. This made the boy with the gun jumpy, for all he knew Nikko may have been carrying a strap.
The gun fired. Nikko had been hit.
The bullet could've gone straight through his head, it was weird but in that moment when he felt he was about to die he saw the bullet and even more absurdly he was able to hit it slightly with the metal pipe. The wound was on his left shoulder after the bullet veered slightly off course. Nikko himself was surprised.
There was an even stronger effect of surprise in the group in front of him, they were sure of it. They were sober enough to know for sure that they had seen Nikko move just enough to block the bullet.
The boy who shot didn't hesitate with the next, he had done it once so there was no need to hesitate with the rest. However Nikko had already sprang to action.
He genuinely dodged the next bullet by running out of the aim before the boy fired, although he still got hit in the left arm again he got to throw the pipe creating the distraction that allowed him to get face to face with the shooter.
He hit the taller boy with an uppercut so hard it looked like the boy actually jumped backwards.
He got the dagger out and went for the remaining three that had started running away.
He didn't catch up with two of them a boy and girl but the last person he caught up with was a girl but he gender didn't make a difference to Nikko, he stabbed her multiple times on the back out of anger for the two that escaped.