The Birth of the Balance of Power (Juvenile Jenga) (Patreon)

“Alright, listen up! This Calzone jerk needs to go down and he needs to go down fast,” The first line amongst the meeting for these young turf warmongering boys was spoken by the brown haired, green-eyed boy standing up front.

This cabin was a bit rundown and it sat at the edge of the forest just outside of Palm Tree Park. Inside this dilapidated cabin sat and stood five young boys.

The boy who just spoke, wearing a blue muscle shirt with collars on his fists with a plastic spiked pattern and two belts looped around his pants like he was a Square Enix protagonist, was named Jaden.

“Do you guys like the plan we came up with or not? I don’t want to mull over any ideas that aren’t going to get us anywhere so we need to cut the nonsense and do what we feel will get results,” Jaden continued, standing by the lit fireplace of this old cabin. He and the boys he gathered here managed to get it to work, thankfully. The ominous look to the way the flames illuminated the room gave off a pretty good atmosphere.

“Well, no need to be so impatient,” Another boy spoke up. This one had confident, almost naturally bored looking eyes but a tiny smile that told you he was sitting amongst this group as sure of himself as one could be. He had on baggy jeans, a white dress-shirt that wasn’t buttoned up properly, and was currently carving some wood with a pocket knife he had. “It’s not like he’s invincible.”

This boy’s name was Gray. He seemed a bit scary in the way he stated things so casually.

“He may not be invincible but that’s a small comfort to me considering what he’s managed in such a short amount of time,” Another boy, this one being a young African American lad with short black hair and piercing black eyes. He wore a silver coat with a pair of short-shorts and a Dragon Ball themed t-shirt. “Seriously. We had to work to get our names recognized around the neighborhood and this kid comes along with a police record for supposedly killing his best friend and suddenly they’re calling him one of the Supreme Three? Give me a break.”

The boy’s name was Demarco. He was particularly peeved about all this, if you couldn’t tell.

“Don’t sound so annoyed,” The last voice in the cabin spoke up. Eyes shifted to the final kid sitting backwards in his chair with his head resting in his crossed arms. He grinned, black hair a bit messy and curled upward a bit. He also had a missing tooth. He wore a nice sweater with flame patterns on it and had on a nice white pair of pants. “He may sound impressive but with all of us working together, he's going to have a REALLY funny accident. Oh man! I’m so excited! I want the before and after picture of him looking so cool and then the other one of him all cross-eyed and derpy!”

This kid’s name was Ray. He held up his phone with excitement and snapped a couple of photos of himself making a fake cross-eyed look and then giggled at them.

Jaden rolled his eyes. “Enough of that Ray. I’ve yet to hear you give your okay on the idea.”

“What’s the point in holding a meeting like this amongst ourselves though?” The confident, eyes-half-open looking Gray said with a smirk as his eyes shifted over to Jaden. “After all, don’t we want that spot in the Supreme Three that Calzone occupies. If we take him down together, we’ll just fight each other for it right?”

“Hmph,” Demarco scoffed. “You make a good point but this is a bit of a different situation. This stupid Supreme Three thing is taking hold as the way the neighborhood is choosing to view the strongest kids with the most influence now. If we take him out, we can nip that in the bud and go back to being our own big shots.”

Jaden nodded. “Demarco’s right.”

He stood there looking angry with his finger held up. “Between me, Jaden the Taser, Arryn the Bully Beater, and now this new guy, Calzone the Golden Lion, there are three people who this place considers the toughest of the kids around. It USED to be that we’d run our own operations across the neighborhood, teasing whoever we wanted, and steal whatever lunch money we could as however many entities we wanted.”

The other three nodded.

“Demarco, Grey, Ray; you guys were your own factions too. However, when Calzone came along and you guys tried to bully him, what happened?” Jaden asked.

“He kicked my butt,” Demarco grumbled.

“I got knocked out so bad… I didn’t even realize I had until I woke up about two hours later in my underwear…” Ray looked over the images of his cross-eyed self that he just took and deleted them, feeling bad now.

“No comment,” Gray said with his eyes closed and his hands in a shrugging motion.

“Yeah,” Jaden said. “One by one your operations failed. I was the only one left. Well, Arryn was left too but his operation is so different that he and Calzone would hardly ever cross paths anyway. Arryn rules the roost by taking down bullies and that’s already bad news for us. Then people started saying Calzone had taken you guys over and then, all of a sudden, people were only talking about him, Arryn’s operation, and my remaining turf. That’s why I called you all here. We need to stop him and get things back to the way they were. No more of this Supreme Three nonsense everybody’s talking about. It needs to go back to us just being a bunch of leaders of our own bully groups, doing whatever we wanted. Don’t cross the Gray gang. Don’t cross the Demarco gang. Don’t cross the Ray gang. Don’t cross the Jaden gang.” He said with a nod.

“If the normal kids get too comfortable with this Supreme Three label, then when Calzone is defeated, they’ll probably try to fill in his empty slot.” Demarco said. “It shouldn’t even BE like that though. We should all just be messing with kids as our own groups and ruling over our own turfs in the neighborhood in any way we want. This idea that there’s only three big ones and the rest are all small time sucks!”

“Exactly!” Jaden nodded. “See? Demarco gets me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Gray chuckled. “But we all know the REAL reason you called this meeting and promised us our revenge is because you’re worried about being taken down by Calzone next. You don’t want to be the empty slot that’ll get filled in by someone else. Isn’t that right?”

Jaden blushed and grit his teeth. “Whatever. Even if that is true it doesn’t matter. You guys want revenge right? So I’ll help you take it. Then we can dismantle this Supreme Three idea that’s in everyone’s minds and go back to just being an assortment of groups!”

Ray began laughing. “Sounds good to me.I liked being able to go around and wedgie whoever I wanted while they cried. They’d run away from me and call out, “OH NO! IT’S RAY!” Hahaha! It was so funny!”

Gray smirked, his half-open eyes looking at Ray. “What do they do now that they know you got beat up by Calzone? Do they say there goes that old hasbeen?”

“We’re all kids so they don’t say that. But they do seem a LOT less scared now and I hate that!” Ray said, finally showing a bit of an angry stint to him.

“Well then, all the more reason for us to get our act together and come to an actual conclusion on this plan,” Jaden said. “Now, I ask again, are we all in agreement with what we came up with?”

“Yeah. Sounds cool,” Ray grinned, sounding almost dismissive and impatient but still hyperactive and excited. He was thinking too much about the look on Calzone’s face.

Demarco smiled and nodded. “Yes. I think we hit upon a good idea personally, although I have my doubts that Ray here understands it well.”

Ray fake gasped, pretending to be offended. “I’m shocked that you would even insinuate that I wouldn’t know the plan.”

“Alright, then say it back to me,” Demarco said, leering at him.

“Okay. First, we all head to the park at 5 PM when Calzone heads there to do his usual exercises. We’ll all be hiding in the bushes. Demarco will throw his Pool Table billiard balls at the back of Calzone’s head to disorient him. Gray will toss his knives to slice his clothes off to confuse him. Then, while he’s shuffling through being in extreme pain and feeling extreme embarrassment, Jaden will charge at him with his taser and shock him into peeing himself! Then, while my phone tapes the whole thing from the stump across the way, I’ll tug on the rope where he lands and have him left hanging like a pinata in the park from a net. Ta-da!”

“Wow… he really did know the plan,” Gray spoke up. “He sure showed you, Demarco. Heh.”

Demarco rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Ray is a scatterbrain. How could you blame me for thinking he’d forget?”

“All of us want revenge,” Jaden interjected. “Well, you guys want it more than I do but as you said, I can’t risk him overtaking me. Better that we team up and beat him down before he becomes something we can’t account for. The old days of being equally feared will be gone. I may not like you guys all that much but I’d rather things go back to the way they were.”

“Well then, we’re all in agreement!” Ray said happily, a toothy grin on his face as he bounced excitedly in his chair.

“Good,” Demarco stood up, fist clenched. “Then we shall make our stand.”

Jaden nodded. “Let’s go get this son of a bitch.”

—

The four bullies were stationed in the park. It was still bright out so when everything went down, anyone watching would be able to catch the full show.

The four of them were stationed in their own hiding spots, with Ray up in the tree so he could activate the rope that would suspend Calzone like a pinata. Ray’s phone was on a stump across the way. It was zoomed in on their location. He wasn’t worried about anyone stealing it because he’d see it happen and beat them up for it. No biggie.

Jaden hid in the bushes that overlooked the area where Calzone would often come without his gang to sit and… contemplate stuff? It was weird. He’d see the guy just stand around with his hands in his pockets and not say or do anything for a really long time. He didn’t pick on anyone, beat anyone up, de-pants people, or steal their lunch money. He just stood around and… thought.

This loser was the guy everyone was claiming was one of the three biggest badasses of the neighborhood now? As if!

Jaden was way better fit for this position and he knew it. Even though he thought Demarco, Gray, and especially Ray were beneath him, he respected that they were so rough too. Demarco would throw billiard balls at people. Ray used bondage ropes to dangle people from dangerous heights to scare them. Gray scared people with pocket knives.

As for Jaden, he had a taser he stole from his uncle. He set it to its lowest setting whenever he needed to use it but it was always funny seeing people dance around and pee their pants with their eyes crossed when he hit them with it. He wondered what sort of dance Calzone would do for him.

Speak of the devil. Here he comes.

Calzone entered the park, wearing the same expression he always wore. He looked not all there. His eyes were downtrodden as he leered ahead. He stomped through the grass with his hands in his pockets. Recently, he’d acquired a small gang. It was just two other kids who were admiring his strength and the speed with which he’d made a name for himself.

Demarco looked on with a pout when he saw Calzone. He’d lost his gang after Calzone beat him up. He was left naked over the hood of a car, drooling all over it. When that picture got out, his standing as a bully was finished. It was making him mad all over again.

Ray was struggling to suppress his excited giggles up in the tree. He usually found bullying so much fun. He was a bouncy, excitable child. When he approached Calzone and demanded he be his next victim because he looked cool and wanted to see his cool face get all goofy when he knocked him out, Calzone flipped the script on him. Instead, Ray ended up beaten up, stripped to his briefs, and left unconscious from a hanging wedgie with rope tied behind his back. His bladder let itself go too. It was a very unfun day.

Gray looked on with a calm face and a small smirk. He was the most composed of them all but he did have to admit that recalling his confrontation with Calzone left him a bit sour. He approached Calzone after he heard of Demarco and Ray’s defeats and offered him a place in his gang. Calzone refused. He then tried to show him what refusing him meant… and then Gray ended up naked on the ground, his wet undies over his head, and his own boot shoved into his butt cheeks.

Jaden’s plan was a chance at redemption. It was a chance for things to go back to the way they were.

Calzone was walking into position now.

Demarco would nail him with his billiard balls. Gray would throw the knives that sheered his clothes off. Jaden would tase him. Then Ray would suspend him from the net hidden beneath the grass using the rope he had.

Finally, Calzone was taking one more step into position… and he was finally there.

It was go time!

Suddenly, Demarco rose from the bushes and tossed one, two, THREE billiard balls at the back of Calzone’s head.

Calzone closed his eyes and dodged to the side.

Right then, Gray shot out of the bushes and tossed the knives he had at Calzone’s pants but was in position of the trajectory of the billiards!

“EEP!” Gray felt his underwear get wet from fear as one of them bashed into his forehead. The second one struck him across the face and made him spin around like a ballerina. Then when he stopped while in the middle of wetting his pants, now missing a tooth, the third one smashed into his crotch.

The hit destroyed the belt buckle he had on and his pants flopped to the ground, exposing his Super Mario briefs.

His face froze. His tongue was out and his eyes were crossed. He then fell over and face planted the grass.

The knives that Gray threw reached Calzone… but Calzone grabbed one of them out of the air. The other whizzed by and sliced Demarco’s pants clean off, pinning them to the fence behind him.

“GUGH?!” Demarco blushed, standing in his X-Men briefs now.

Jaden snarled and charged with the taser on and set it to a higher voltage then normal.

Calzone spun the knife and tossed it at the tree behind him!

“WHOA!” Ray yelped and jumped out of the tree top, landing on his butt behind Calzone. Ray then got uncharacteristically upset and went to try and grab Calzone from behind. He put his arms around Calzone’s back.

However, Calzone swung around and Jaden ended up ramming the taser into Ray’s butt, sending volts into him from a very bad place!

“AAAIEEEYEEEEEEEE!” Ray gasped, eyes spinning as he was shocked.

Calzone rammed his head backwards to knock Ray into loopy land and send him crashing on top of Jaden, who’s taser went flying.

Demarco charged at Calzone with his hands out.

Calzone turned and tripped Demarco, making him squeal before his underwear was grabbed.

Ray was on the ground, peeing his pants, and jittering from the electricity. It made his pants crumble and his teddy bear undies were exposed now. He just laid on his back, humping the air with each muscle spasm the electricity gave him.

Jaden pushed him to the side and was about to charge again when he saw Demarco get spun around by his briefs and then launched out of them!

Demarco screamed as he soared through the air, lower half now naked but spewing a bit of pee from his fear, before he slammed into the ground.

Jaden was caught off guard by this and actually looked at where Demarco was flying. When he turned back, Demarco’s briefs were tossed into Jaden’s face!

“AGH!” Jaden pried them off and then gasped when he saw a fist flying at him.

Jaden wet himself before the punch hit but when it did, stars and birdies exploded into his field of vision!

He was sent soaring out of his clothes and flying like a disk, down to just his Powerpuff Girls tighty whities.

He crashed into the bushes and dangled there, legs swaying back and forth from the light breeze of the wind and his underwear clad butt on open display.

Calzone stood there with his hands in his pockets and looked at the scene.

Ray was on his back in wet teddy bear briefs, out cold and eyes white.

Demarco was unconscious on his stomach, butt naked from the waist down.

Gray was face planting the grass with his butt sticking up and his wet Super Mario briefs on display.

Jaden was dangling over the bushes with his wet Powerpuff Girls undies showing off.

Calzone turned and saw a phone on a stump across the way. All of that had been recorded and was probably being uploaded to the cloud.

Calzone shrugged.

He didn’t mind a little workout.

He dragged their unconscious bodies before the tree and then tugged on the rope that Ray had been tasked with holding onto earlier.

This activated the net that was below the grass and the four of them were captured within it. Their unconscious bodies were scrunched up together and they were left dangling from the ground, dripping pee, and looking like the world’s wettest pinata.

Their sleeping faces were a little cute. All of them had their tongues out despite their eyes being either closed or slightly cracked open to see the whites underneath.

It was kind of adorable but Calzone wasn’t the type to dwell on that.

Instead, he marched over to the phone and picked it up before looking right into the lens.

“First and final warning,” He said. “Don’t mess with me.”

News spread fast after that. The amount of kids that were called over to the park to see the former bullies strung up in their own trap was amazing.

Jaden, the last of the remaining old guards, was no longer considered one of the Supreme Three. His reputation was destroyed along with the other bullies. No matter how cool they acted, this picture said more than their mannerisms ever could and that video made its rounds rather fast.

Arryn the Bully Beater watched it with Manzo and Waves, laughing at how sloppy the work of those former bullies were. They couldn’t even go back to being regular, normal bullies after this.

As for the Supreme Three concept… people did indeed start to adopt that as the new norm. The vacant spot left by Jaden’s defeat saw a lot of bullies and would-be bullies scrambling to claim that they were the next one.

The bullying problem only got worse. Despite the fact that Jaden, Demarco, Gray, and Ray were no longer bullies but jerks to be humiliated and made fun of by even the kindergartners, the atmosphere this upset created was the worst case scenario. The vacant spot was being fought and scrambled for endlessly.

That was until a calling card was found in the locker room of a certain elementary school one day.

The card simply read, “Azure.”

The balance of power was restored somewhat after that… but if it were to ever be disrupted again, who knows what would happen…!

—

This story was heavily inspired by that one episode of Samurai Jack where a bunch of bounty hunters try to plan out a way to defeat Jack and get demolished in under a minute at the end of the episode. It also serves as a bit of an origin story for the Supreme Three concept. Before the Supreme Three idea came into being there were just a bunch of bullies with small gangs that were equally feared around the neighborhood.

Calzone, however, just showed up after his little scuffle with the law and was targeted. He ended up beating up all the big bullies and their reputations took such a huge dive that the idea shifted from there “being a bunch of bullies” to there being three powerful kids that just rule over the neighborhood and a bunch of bullies around at the bottom rung, scrambling to either make a name for themselves or to overthrow them.

Ironically, Calzone is the only one of them outwardly considered a bully. Arryn is the Bully Beater and his operation exists to take bullies down. Azure’s operation does the same on paper but… as we’re seeing now, there are flaws in the way his system works.

I’ll see you next time. Tell me which of the four bullies and their humiliating losses did you enjoy witnessing the most.