บท 27: Chapter 27

"Oi. What the hell are you doing on my car?"

Owen opened an eye and smiled. Finally, they were here: two women and three men, the latter led by a tall man wearing a distinct orange jacket and the symbol of a lion. His black hair was curly and a scowl etched his features.

"Just taking a nap," Owen replied. "Surprisingly great. What model is this?"

"It's a camry," one of the ladies, notably dark and emo, replied.

"Oh, neat—"

"I'll ask slowly: what are you doing lying on top of my car?" The scowl deepened. The three big men with him silently concurred and threatened him. Fists were smacked against palms. Growls were made.

"My bad." Owen got up and walked up the windshield and onto the roof. "Nice view."

"You mother—"

His boot stomped the gangster's face, which he then used to propel himself towards a safe distance. Standing for a second, he peered over his shoulder and saw the looks of shock.

Owen rolled his shoulder. "I have to get back to work, so let's make this short."

As soon as the first man ran up to him, Owen spun on his heel and landed a mean kick to the stomach. Instant knock-out. The big man toppled on top of one of the girls. The distraction served him well and he burst forward to slam an uppercut to the chin. He weaved under a desperate punch and struck back with a jab to the side followed up with a punch to the gut. The guy reeled back and hit his own car, groaning.

A four vs one was rendered moot. Simple. Easy even. As one man snuck up behind him, Owen was able to bring him to his knees with a roundhouse kick.

Two of them were struggling to get up. The remaining two were unconscious.

The guy who had been pissed about his car and rammed into it lunged at him. A boot to the face promptly put him back in his place, slamming him against the car, though not for long.

"Not bad," Owen noted. "Hey, you should consider getting into construction. We could use someone like you."

The man in the black and orange jacket spat on the ground. "Screw off."

His fist whizzed by Owen's cheek. With a smile, he threw a fist back and launched him into his car again. His opponent wiped the blood from his nose and went for a different strategy. Up till now, he had been lunging at him like a boxer. Arms up and ready to throw hands. Now, he switched to grappling.

It didn't matter. The one to crash against the ground wasn't Owen but the gangster responsible for the fighting change. Only one lady remained standing, a dark-haired woman that was eerily silent and visibly emo. Piercings adorned her nose, lips, and ears, her hair was long and smooth, and she lacked the orange-white colour palette of the Royal Lions. She must have been new or an outsider friend. Her expression blank, it was impossible to get a read on her.

"Alrighty." Owen dusted himself off. "That was a good fight. Oh, don't worry, I won't tell your bosses. Just don't loiter around this area, that's all I ask."

Whistling, hands in his pockets, Owen marched down the street to go back to work. Behind him were the groans of the proud Royal Lions. The rising stars of the Bay sat on their asses, dazed. One lone woman watched Owen cross the street and head back into the construction site.

***

Knock, knock.

"Come in," Isabella said. Her voice was monotone and Owen entered the room expecting annoyance. He found commitment instead.

"I see someone's fired up." Owen slid her a glass of water. "Another script already?"

"I really want to get the ball rolling," she said. "Didn't you mention how channels with videos already there get more success? 'Cuz viewers want to watch more, go to your channel, watch stuff, and therefore tell the algorithm that we have a high watch time?"

"Yeah, something like that." He glanced at her computer and the lines of text. "How many words do you have?"

"Just four thousand."

"Woah, nice progress!"

"That's just the script though. Thing is that I make notes and list sources. That takes a lot of time."

"Fair enough."

"I am worried about our rate of output," Isabella said. "I mean, people will expect to hear from us, right? We have to keep going."

"I'm too busy with work to do fully-fleshed editing…" Owen trailed off until a light bulb went off in his head. "Hey, why don't we redo your old videos?"

"Old videos?"

"The ones I recorded," he clarified. "However, we do them with your voice now. No extra editing, just a different voice over. I still have the files in my library."

Isabella leaned back and crossed her arms. "If we schedule their release properly…then…hm. Yeah, that way, we can stay ahead."

"One video per week," Owen suggested. "We won't burn out if we aim for that."

"One video a week." Isabella gave an affirmative nod. "Let's do it."