Back to topic, I found very interesting the way you could pay students as "bodyguards" to walk with you and help you defeating other students, or just accomplishing tasks. I'm currently playing the Godfather 2, and the system is the same : you've got a part of your family along with you, what makes the action really more cool. In GTA IV, once you were friend with Dwayne, in the case you didn't kill him instead of Playboy X, you could call him to send you two armed gangsters able to help you out. Why not apply this to Bully 2 ?
Once you are friend with a clique, they're able to send you one of them. The protagonist could have two boys along with him (or why not a girl too, heh) from the cliques he chosed himself, depending of what he needs... A Prep if he needs to beat someone up, a Nerd to pass through locked doors, etc...