violetnerves

[violetnerves]

🦇 ~ Two J-fashion Cuties ~ 🍓

[violetnerves]

The Rise and Fall of Jenny Hopkins, aged 15 - Chapter 4, Part 1: Under Pressure.

Well this is embarrassing. It's been awhile, life happened and I also procrastinated. But I've got it done so here you go!

A bit of a slow chapter, it's mainly set up for part 2 besides the introduction to some of the original female characters meant to expand the female cast since there were very few girls at the Academy in the original game.

Word Count: 8,284

Some Content warnings that may apply:

-Jenny's got a bit of a case of internalized misogyny. I sorta hinted at it in earlier chapters but I tried to make it apparent here.

-Some foul language. I think I might've been too frivolous with it here, though considering the first chapter had the c-word in it I guess that's to be expected at this point.

I'll admit, I had a pretty nice day with Gary yesterday. Yeah, I didn't think I'd admit that to myself either, but I really did. Since I'm basically talking to myself, it's fine if I do. Not like anybody else is ever gonna read this.

Well… unless my dream of becoming a successful rockstar ends up panning out, and I decide to publish this diary, claiming it as my autobiography that I totally didn't just put out as an easy money grab. That isn't like me at all, I don't even like money that much!

Anyway, enough lying off my ass, I'm sure you're wondering what Gary and I got up to.

After we left Burgers right after Gary called me… pretty… he talked me into stealing a bike with him, and we rode through Old Bullworth Vale, specifically the neighborhood where all the Preps lived. It was some weirdly laid out cul-de-sac, rather than some kind of gated community like I would've expected. Many of the houses did have a large metal fence and gate surrounding them though, with Tad Spencer's even having an extra fence just to enclose the garage.

Gary pointed out Derby, Tad's and Pinky's house, as well as Petey's house since he apparently lived in the area too. For some reason he felt the need to point out how Petey's house was only one story, and how the only reason they lived there was because Pete's mom is an obese whale who'd fall through the floor of any building higher than ground level. I had to wonder what that kid even did to Gary to make him feel the need to insult him all the time, even when he wasn't around, and if Pete was even aware of the reason.

“So, where's your house then?” I asked out of curiosity, just casually peddling beside Gary on the side of the road as we made our way to Bullworth Town. “I noticed you didn't point it out, do you live out of town or are you from a different state and just familiar with the area from attending the Academy for so long?”

Gary didn't answer my question immediately, despite staring at me the entire time. 

It was really starting to annoy me. It was bad enough that he felt the need to call me pretty (If he hadn't bought me lunch, I probably would've slugged him in the face right after he'd said it.) but now with the staring? 

“Gary, could you quit staring at me like that? It's weirding me out.”

The guy looked like he'd been caught red-handed committing a crime, his eyes widening as we stopped by the entrance to the park not too far from the fast food place we'd eaten at earlier. He tried to give a response, eyes darting around as he clearly didn't have a good explanation, and only managed to blurt out:

“I wasn't staring at you.”

I rolled my eyes, instead changing the subject back to asking where he lived.

“So? Where do you actually live?” I asked once more, my tone a bit bitchier than I intended it to come out. Understandable given his behavior.

Just… God, why did he have to call me pretty? That's the last thing I ever wanted to be. I didn't want to look attractive to anyone, that would make me more of a target than I already was just for being born a girl at all.

I bet ugly guys don't have to deal with bullcrap like this. Dammit, why couldn't I have just been born a dude! 

Then again, I guess it could be worse. He could've said something stupid like, oh I don't know, I love you or something. I didn't trust anyone except my mother to say that to me… even though I really couldn't remember the last time my mother had told me she loved me…

Whatever. 

If Gary really had said that to me, I would've ditched him at Burgers and probably ditched school altogether.

I knew I could never, ever trust a man to say he loved me and actually mean it without some kind of catch.

It wasn't completely impossible for me to avoid going back to the Academy anyway, I'd once ran away from home for about a month and a half about two years ago in a really really dumb attempt to find my biological father. During that time, I'd taught myself how to drive, drank my first beer, and even realized that I was a little bit of a dyke. Good times.

Gary's demeanor flipped like a switch, and suddenly that nervousness from earlier was gone. He'd gone back to his usual confident self, it was almost like he hadn't been nervous at all.

How the hell did he even do that? First Gary's angry then chill the next second, then he's nervous and now he seems like he has everything under control? Man, I wish I could do that, maybe I'd be considered less of a bitch.

“Oh, me? My place is out of town and pretty isolated, it's about 30 miles North of Bullworth. Not really walking or biking distance. It's a manor, way bigger than Derby's mansion too… You know, I could invite you over sometime…” Gary said, leaning on his (stolen) bike in what I can only describe as… seductive… yet weirdly pitiful. Like he was trying to charm me, except he didn't seem confident about it. It kind of reminded me of Pete a little, though only the latter part. Pete was only charming in a pitiful way, like a kitten with a cold.

“I'm good, thanks,” I replied.

I expected Gary to try and push the topic, but he thankfully took the hint. Instead we headed into this place called “Old Bullworth Gardens” for a bit. It was just some park, there wasn't even any sort of garden around at all. Why even call it a garden if there wasn't anything besides trees around?

Gary got the idea of practicing my aim more with the slingshot by hiding in a tree and slinging pebbles at random passerby. I went through with it, because the idea sounded funny. 

And you know what? It was.

He’d point out someone, and I'd aim at them and shoot. Didn’t matter if it was some old lady or a guy wearing shorts 2 sizes too small for him going out on a late mid-day run: either way, they got the gift of a pebble getting launched at their head. I tried to avoid hitting anyone in the eyes, but that was about it. It's not like a little pebble could kill anyone after all… It's a bit stupid to die from getting hit by a pebble.

…

Gary stood behind the tree I was in, letting out a quiet chuckle with every hit I managed to get. 

Now that I think about it, describing his laughter as a chuckle didn't seem right, it was more comparable to a giggle. It was boyish and sweet, and it caught me off guard hearing it come out of the mouth of a guy like Gary. Especially since all I was doing was beaming people in the head with small pebbles. Maybe I was missing something, could it be something else that was causing it?

Maybe not, Gary was a bit of a weirdo. I knew that from the first time I'd ever spoken to him.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said Gary's weird giggling caught me off guard. A guy with crutches and a cast on his leg wobbled by, and, to my surprise, I accidentally released the slingshot’s flimsy rubber band. Instead of hitting the guy with the crutches, it hit a nearby wasp nest in a tree about a few feet away from the one I was in. The nest fell, and unfortunately for the couple having a picnic right underneath that same tree, it landed right between the two of them.

Gary's giggling turned into full on hysterical laughter as the couple screamed in terror and fled the gardens, trailed by a swarm of angry wasps.

Unfortunately, Gary's loud ass laugh got the attention of a nearby cop.

“Hey! What are you two doing out of school?! Don't think for a second about acting stupid, I see those uniforms!”

Gary seemingly didn't think twice about making a run for it without helping me out of the tree, but truthfully? I hardly blamed him.

I would've done the same thing really. A dick move, sure, but not one that I wouldn’t have done.

I scrambled down the tree and barely avoided the officer grabbing me as I sprinted off in the same direction as Gary, the cop still on my ass. As I shoved my slingshot back in my bag, I was stumped on how to get this guy off me… until I remembered something.

Behind the junk bus, just before I smashed its windows in, I spotted a plastic bag of marbles and shoved them in my purse as a keepsake. I wasn't sure why they were there, maybe some other student had dropped the bag or just stashed them there for who knows what reason.

I undid the tie on the bag and tossed it behind me without looking back, hearing the contents rattle out on the gravel crosswalk loudly. Next thing I heard was the even louder sound of a body hitting concrete, followed by a string of agonized curses. I didn't look back, but I still ended up barely holding back a laugh.

Just my luck, I actually ended up losing track of Gary. I briefly wondered if he and Davis were in the same Track team or something as I decided to run down toward the beach as the sun began to set on the horizon, turning the ocean from its natural blue color to a warm, saturated orange.

Looking at the water, I almost felt the temptation to dive in for some reason. It was stupid, I mean, it was October, and it was the beginning of Fall, the water was freezing… besides, I didn't even like swimming that much. 

…Didn't help that one-piece swimsuits typically made for girls my size tended to be pretty ugly… and there was no way I was ever swimming in a bikini…

I stood at the top of the steps at the entrance to the beach, and as I made my way down to the sandbank below, I felt an odd sense of apprehension come over me. I looked around, but besides some of the townsfolk walking around town clearly minding their own business, there wasn't anything or anyone around that could've been the cause of the weird feeling.

Shaking my head, I stepped onto the beach and walked right, my gaze fixated on the light house.

I’d… never seen one of those so close up before. It seemed to be abandoned, the light at the very top unlit and the mechanism that made it spin wasn’t on either. Underneath it was a small building, connected to the main pier with a ramp leading up to what I assumed was the entrance to the place.

I’ll admit, I got a bit curious. Before I could actually satiate that curiosity however, I felt a pair of hands grab me from behind. One hand was on my mouth, while the other had a firm grip on my right shoulder.

I didn't waste any time reacting, slamming my elbow into whoever was grabbing me. He grunted, I could tell it was a guy from how deep the sound of it was. Before he could do anything I whipped around and grabbed his throat.

I didn't apply any pressure though… because I realized it was Gary. Even though my hands were wrapped firmly around his throat, the motherfucker was grinning. He let out this throaty, mild and short chuckle as he stared at me with his head lifted up. 

My hands left his throat and I stared at him completely baffled. What the fuck was wrong with this guy?

Scratch that, I should've been asking a different question, something along the lines of what wasn't wrong with this guy. That would've been easier to answer…

…Like… I dunno, his tooth gap was kind of cute? I guess?

…

…Maybe seeing the school counselor wasn’t such a bad idea from Crabblesnitch after all. Seriously Jenny-girl, what the fuck is wrong with you? What the actual fuck? First you date a guy 5 years older than you back in 7th grade that ended up stabbing his aunt with a sharpened candy cane on the 4th of July, and now this shit?

You seriously need to get better taste in men.

Gary let out that weird giggle again, and I switched from being baffled to being pissed off.

“What’s so funny you moron? What were you thinking?!”

He kept chuckling, and I seriously considered actually strangling him when he finally spoke. What he said next only reinforced the thought.

“Awww… Did I scare you Jane? I was just trying to be funny, didn't think you'd try to strangle me like that. A bit of a psychotic response don't you think?” he spoke, smirking briefly with a short ‘heh’ before continuing, “Anyway… you wanna watch the sunset with me? I saw you looking at it beforehand so…”

What the hell was-

…

…Oh what the Hell, I was just repeating myself at this point. 

It's like his constant weird behavior was tiring me out. Just one thing right after the other. None of it was enough to make me leave, instead, I found myself tolerating it.

For what reason? I didn't know, still don't.

So what did I do?

“...Sure Gary…”

I watched the sunset with him. Yes, seriously. It was pretty nice actually, he didn't even do anything weird for the rest of the day afterwards… Thankfully.

Aside from a comment he made about the sunset reminding him of my eyes. I rolled my eyes at that, giving him a firm and final “whatever.”

By the time we were ready to go, it was past curfew, so Gary and I headed back to the school. The Prefects that were patrolling around the school grounds for curfew dodgers were hardly an issue, not noticing as we slipped through a huge hole in the outer fence wall… 

…Which we could've gone through earlier rather than hopping the fence…

Why didn’t we go through there earlier? I didn’t think to ask at the time since… well I was tired as hell at that point from all the action and Gary in general and just didn’t think about it at the time. I figure I should ask Gary about it later, but knowing me, I'll probably forget to do it. It's not like it's that much of a big deal anyways.

I did learn something new from Gary before we split up to go back to our respective Dorms for the night. The front doors of the dorms were locked up after curfew, so entering from there wasn't an option. Instead, there was a window that led straight into the attic of the girl's dorm, which for whatever reason was never closed. Aside from having to climb a lattice wall covered in overgrown vines just to get up to the window, I didn't have any issue sneaking back into the dorm, and back into my room.

No, I don't know why Gary knows about that entrance. Again… I was too tired to ask. To be honest, I don’t remember much else from that night, safe to say I was pretty checked out by that point. Weirdly, the last thing I remember that night before passing out was the sound of somebody puking their guts out, coming from the area where the bathroom was. Not sure what was up with that.

I woke up still wearing my school uniform. I even still had that origami flower Gary tied to my hair, which I'd figured would have fallen out with how loose I'd tied it, but apparently not.

Trisha was the one who woke me up by the way, not because she wanted to be annoying, but because if she hadn’t, I would’ve been late for class otherwise. Pretty cool of her, but I still ended up giving her shit for it anyway because I'm an absolute bitch with a capital b in the morning. Next chance I get I should probably apologize… If I remember to do it.

Didn't help that she asked about the flower, wondering where I'd gotten it and why I was wearing it in my hair. I practically ripped it out and shoved it into my section of the closet.

Despite all that, I think I was starting to tolerate Trisha at this point. It helps that she’s only mildly annoying, and not on purpose. Trisha's just… like that. Trisha doesn't go out of her way to be a dick, unlike pretty much everybody in this God forsaken school. Namely this one brunette - Mandy I think her name was? - who tripped Trisha on her way out of the Dormitory. I helped the fallen girl up and yelled at the girl in the cheerleader outfit, but Mandy just laughed and walked off. What a friggin bitch.

Trisha thanked me and we parted ways, and that was that.

I barely made it in time for Biology. It was… normal I guess? I already knew the teacher's name was Dr. Slaughter, and boy did his personality certainly match his name. He complimented me on my delicate knife work, but instead of feeling pretty good about the praise, it just weirded me out. I feel like he and that creepy janitor I've seen around campus who mumbles a lot hide dead bodies together after school. 

I just so happened to be partnered up with Eunice for the whole thing, but she wasn't much help. She was pretty sensitive about seeing the frog's innards, and the most I could get her to do was pass the tools I needed and label the drawings of the organs on the sheet we were given. We did chat for a bit, mainly about the other girls at the school. Turns out Eunice was a bit of a gossip with a little bit of nudging.

I did get some info on the more prominent girls around the campus, since Gary neglected to actually fill me in on any of them earlier.

First of all, there was Marian Abbott, the Head Girl. Her family was British, but she was born in America so that meant pretty much nothing really. She's basically an American. She was in her senior year and admitted that she was aiming to go to Harvard, which Eunice thought was pretty believable given how seriously she took her studies… along with the fact that her dad was a billionaire who could easily afford the tuition. She didn't go out of her way to talk to people, but that didn't matter since people would go out of their way to talk to her. She was also technically a part of the Jocks clique since she was Head of the swim team, but there was another girl in the clique who was far more important than her.

Mandy Wyles, the head cheerleader. Why was she so important? Besides the fact that she was the head cheerleader? It was because her boyfriend, Ted Thompson, was the Captain of Bullworth's football team. Yeah, her popularity was solely because of a man, a boy really. That was what gave her status. She was otherwise a vapid bully, and constantly had her eyes on the Greasers clique leader rather than her actual boyfriend. She ruled the Girl's dorm with an iron fist, since she pretty much had Mrs. Peabody wrapped around her perfectly manicured finger. If a girl did something she personally didn't approve of or inconvenienced her in some way, she'd go crying to Peabody about it and the old hag would go out of her way to find something to punish the offending girl for.

Hearing that, I thought back to what Dr. Lamb said about Mrs. Peabody looking after the girls. Was she lying about that or delusional? I'd believe that second one, seems like a lot of people in this place have their heads up their asses or something, it'd explain everybody's crappy mood.

Heh.

Oh, and she apparently has an eating disorder or something like that, and she hid it by throwing up in either the Girl’s Dorms or gym bathrooms late at night or whenever there wasn’t anyone around. I guess that explained the puking I'd heard from the night before. Personally, I don’t think it could’ve happened to a nicer girl.

I’m sure if I said that aloud, you’d be able to hear the condescension in my tone.

Then there was Lola Lombardi, the top girl of the Greasers. Two guesses as to why that is. 

That's right, It's because she's dating the leader of the Greasers, Johnny Vincent. Granted, she does have a bit of a girl posse going on with some of the other Greaser's girlfriends. Their little sub-group is pretty identical to their male counterparts, but a lot more subtle when it comes to their harassment, mainly because of Mrs. Peabody. Apparently Lola really, really hated any girl that admitted to wanting to hook up with her boyfriend. It probably would've been understandable, if it wasn't for the fact that Lola herself was a serial cheater. Every year since they'd first gotten together, Lola would cheat on Johnny with multiple guys, and her little gang would try to cover it up and make sure Johnny didn't find out about it. Except they must've been pretty bad at doing it, since Johnny would always end up finding out about his girlfriend playing hot potato with her and another dude's lips at least once, and it'd end pretty badly for whatever guy was smoochin’ Lola. Last year, one of those stupid and unlucky boys even ended up in a 3 month coma, but when the cops tried asking him how it happened and who did it, the kid couldn't even remember who had beaten him up to begin with, so Johnny and his boys got off scott free.

Oh, and despite the Greasers and Preps being rivals with one another, Lola has issues with Mandy Wyles rather than the main Prep girl, Pinky Gauthier. Mandy's been pretty upfront with wanting to get together with Johnny for a long time, but because of how close she is with Mrs. Peabody, Lola and her crew basically can't touch her, nevermind breathe the same air.

Speaking of Pinky, she's the main Prep girl. She's… pretty unremarkable. According to Eunice, she's not even mean to anyone, at least in comparison to the others at the Academy; At worst, she complains a lot and loudly about her ridiculously young step-mother, either because the other womans been borrowing her clothes or makeup or whatever without asking; apparently the last complaint was about the step-mom taking her limited edition Nintendogs metallic rose colored Nintendo DS. Initially, it seemed like she was pretty inoffensive, I thought I could’ve found some common ground with her by complaining about the annoying things my mom does… then I remembered she was dating her cousin, Derby Harrington. I dunno if I'd even want to associate with somebody like that.

While Pinky was the most prominent and popular girl of the Preps, there was another significant girl to be aware of. 

Annette Caldwell.

Annette, as far as what Eunice has told me, is a ticking time bomb. She acts like she's all calm and collected, but if you were to wrong her in some way you'd never hear the end of it, at least these days. In the past, she used to be just kind of two-faced, speaking kindly of people only to talk shit about them behind their back; A coward basically.

But then her family started getting into financial trouble, the kind you couldn't easily get out of. Recently she's been trying to get Derby to date her, in what Eunice assumed was a way to get her family some financial security. Not that Annette getting with Derby was any better than him dating his cousin, because Annette was also his cousin; The rich of Bullworth seemed to be real connected with each other, which made me wonder why the Harrington's weren't already helping the Caldwell's out of their financial woes.

By the day, it seemed like she's been getting worse and worse, and I'm pretty sure it was her I'd heard yelling at the top of her lungs at someone from halfway across the main school building yesterday.

Could've just been some random girl, but the voice sounded like it belonged to some high-class snooty teenage girl that was having a mental breakdown, so I just assumed.

At the very bottom of relevancy was Beatrice Trudeau, main girl of the Nerds. I was sort of familiar with her… though, mainly her smell. I'm pretty sure I'd hurried past her on my way to Biology this morning, and that was enough to make me dislike her immediately. Seriously, has that girl ever heard of deodorant?

She was probably one of the few Nerds that actually seemed to care about her future beyond swearing that they'll be their bullies boss someday. She could often be found in the library after school like the rest of the nerds, but rather than playing Grottos and Gremlins, she'd have her face shoved in some kind of book along with a few of the other Nerd girls she got along with.

Even though I probably didn't really need the info, I ended up asking Eunice about Trisha and what her whole deal was. Mainly how she was even in the Bullies clique in the first place. Sure, Trent was her brother and that probably answered my question, but it still seemed strange that somebody like Russell would just allow her in given her… quirks... 

Well, I was sort of right, but it was a bit more complicated.

See, Trisha Northwick considered herself… a witch. Seriously, she was 100% convinced she was some kind of magic girl in some book she liked, though she was pretty inconsistent about how her magic worked. Last year she got in trouble for taking all the salt from the cafeteria kitchen along with a shit ton of glitter from the art room and spreading it in a ring around the Boy's Dorm at 3 in the morning. When she got caught, she claimed that she was trying to cleanse the demons and evil spirits out of the Dorm, only to be told by Crabblesnitch that there weren't any demons in the Dorm, only the male students. She then tried arguing that the demons were obviously separate beings from the students that lived there, but that the salt circle would probably do them some good anyway by cleansing their souls and making them act nicer. 

I kinda figured Trisha had a few screws loose, but this was something else. At least it seemed like her delusions were meant to be helpful, if still bafflingly ridiculous.

As for the whole Russell thing? Well, he was convinced of her whole witch delusion, and the only reason she was in his clique was because Trent told him that if he didn't let her join, Trisha would get upset and put a curse on him. It was kind of screwed up actually, Russell was obviously “slow”, and you could probably make the argument that the two were taking advantage of that.

Not that I cared really. That huge idiot gave me a bloody nose on my first day here, could've broken it too with how hard he'd hit me, so why should I be concerned with a nutcase and her bully of a brother taking advantage of his retardation?

Yeah, that's right. It's none of my damn business.

Plus, actually trying to do something to make the students around here act less like assholes, even if it is utterly delusional and wouldn't have actually worked, isn't a completely terrible idea. Obviously, though, there were… better ways to go about it.

Did I know of any specific one? Not really, but I assumed there was. Best I could think of doing was smacking anybody harassing me for something stupid. Gary probably had some ideas though.

After biology was lunch, but rather than stop by the lunchroom to get a whiff of whatever unholy dish that ogre was cooking up, I instead went straight towards the school counselor's office. I was told I could either visit during lunch or after the second class was over, and since I really just wanted to get this over with I decided lunch would be fine.

As of now, I’m sitting by Dr. Lamb’s office door with this dumb diary in hand, more or less stalling; My pen rolling in between my fingers as I press the tip to the paper, jotting down one last sentence.

Just get it over with Jen. 

***

I shut the diary loudly and stuffed it back into my purse along with my pen. Usually I would've kept the holy grail of all my secrets and insecurities and secret insecurities somewhere more private than my purse, like burying it in the closet, but I didn't fully trust Trisha not to snoop around and find it. It was nothing personal, truthfully I'd do the same thing with pretty much any girl in this school. I’ve gotten my diary stolen before back at the third school I'd attended, the one in San Andreas.

Admittedly, the only reason it even happened was because I'd brought it to school in the first place, but since just leaving it at home wasn't an option here, keeping it in my purse was arguably safer; Especially since nowadays I could just beat up anybody stupid enough to run off with my bag.

My hand met the stainless steel door handle into Dr. Lamb's office and opened it, peeking inside to see her typing at her computer. She noticed me and waved with a warm smile.

“Oh! Hello Jane, nice of you to drop by!” Dr. Lamb said, her voice a bit weary. It didn't match her appearance, which was noticeably better than yesterday. I swear, it was like she'd gotten done having some kind of mental breakdown right before catching Gary and I jumping the fence. I'd ask, but I figured she'd ignore me or change the topic. It's what my mom would do, well, actually, mom tended to get mad more often than the other two, but Dr. Lamb didn't seem like that type of person.

I scanned the room itself. It was pretty boring, the only sense of Dr. Lamb’s touch seemed to be mostly restricted to her desk.

“Yeah, I kinda just wanted to get this over with. Gives me an excuse to skip lunch too,” I said, sitting in one of the office chairs set not too far from the front of her desk. I let my purse dangle on one of the chairs’ arms. I Continued with, “So, how are ya doing?”

Dr. Lamb gave me a look of concern.

“You mean you haven't eaten anything today? Did you at least eat something for breakfast?”

“Nothing besides a Beam cola. I'm not really interested in getting food poisoning on my first week of school.”

She sighed, in a way that sounded like she understood the terrible state of the food in the cafeteria but was still disappointed that I'd choose going hungry over just risking it and eating whatever looked the most edible thing on the menu.

“Well I can't just let you go hungry. Hold on, let me just get this out,” before I could tell her it was fine and that I was used to going hungry, she was already rummaging through her desk.

Dr. Lamb ducked down in her chair and I heard a drawer from behind her desk being opened up. As she rummaged through from wherever, I noticed the photo frames on her desk. She had a good number of photos but one stood out to me for whatever reason.

It was Dr. Lamb with a butch looking woman and a young girl, probably kindergarten age. The three were at some kind of beach, and the butch woman and Lamb were building a sandcastle with the girl, who I could guess was probably Dr. Lamb's daughter with how similar they looked.

My focus left the pictures and went back to Dr. Lamb, who set a fairly large black canvas lunch bag on her desk. She unzipped the top, and it turned out to have several baggies full of what appeared to be sandwiches wrapped up in napkins. 

“I've noticed that a lot of the students around here seem to avoid eating the food in the cafeteria, so I figured I'd get permission to have the students in my afternoon Home Economics class make these sandwiches as a warmup while I get their assignment ready and hand them out. They're basically just PB and J sandwiches with banana slices in them, though I did make sure to include a few that's just jelly and banana, for the students that have a peanut allergy. Feel free to take one!”

My gaze shifted from the bag back to Dr. Lamb, and for some reason I couldn't help but to think back to what Gary had said about her.

"I mean, Lamb just seems like she's hiding something to me. She's a new hire, and I feel like she's just putting on this act of being all sweet and kind until she reveals who she really is…”

It's not like I hadn't been screwed over by a “nice” teacher before. I was still going to be careful, but I was kind of hungry, so…

“Thanks ma'am,” I replied, taking one of the bags and unwrapping the sandwich inside of it. Sure enough, it was just a plain, white bread PBJ, one of the banana slices peeking out between the two bread slices. Not like I was expecting anything spectacular, “It's better than nothing.”

Dr. Lamb smiled and zipped the bag up, putting it back where she'd pulled it out.

“Yes, it's far better than skipping a meal. Listen Jenny, that’s not the kind of habit you want to repeat, it could lead to an eating disorder. Teen girls around your age are particularly susceptible to developing them.”

“So I've heard,” I said. It's not like I was at risk of it. I just needed to cut back on the Beam colas, which I could do at any time. Y'know, if I ever felt like it.

Which wasn't anytime soon I don't think. Didn't mean I had a problem though obviously.

“I'm serious Jane,” Dr. Lamb replied, her tone sounding more like a stern parent than her usual soft spoken way of talking. Which didn't seem too out of place oddly enough, “Just try and eat the most edible thing on the menu, at least until after Halloween when they finally let you students roam the town.”

I groaned. I wasn't gonna be too mean, but I knew I had to be blunt.

“Listen, Lamb, there's nothin’ edible comin’ out of that lunchroom. It's like the food's being made by a lunch lady that's deliberately tryin’ to poison people. And given the amount of kids I've seen runnin’ out of the lunchroom just to puke their guts out in the garbage cans out in the hallway cause the ones in the lunchroom are occupied? She's doin’ a great job. Seriously, I think that Edna woman needs to be fired. Her cooking could probably be considered a war crime.”

Dr. Lamb gave me a look that outright said, ‘You're right, but you shouldn't say it,’ which meant she was definitely gonna get on my case about saying it in the first place.

Except she didn't. She changed the topic instead, and somehow that ended up being worse than her reprimanding me for just being honest.

“So I'd like to talk about what happened yesterday…”

“What the fight or Gary and I skipping school?”

“About - Waitaminute w-what fight?”

Shit, did I just tell on myself? I guess that explains why I hadn’t gotten called in for it. I guess getting beat up for the second time in a row by the new girl on her second day left them too embarrassed to say anything about it. Since I've already blabbed and it could get that asshole Davis into trouble, I decided to just tell her. It’d whittle their number down a bit more… Or I could get in trouble again…

“Uh, yeah. That Davis White kid shot a pebble at me and lured me into the Shop class area where the rest of his buddies were, and so I had to beat the crap out of them again. They did it cause they were mad about Trent and Russell getting in trouble.”

“Oh for fu-BUCK’S sake.”

I kinda just stared at the blonde woman as Lamb held her head in her hands, pressing her thin hands into her face. She mumbled up a storm and the few bits I could make out among the jumbled mess of words were: “Second day” “2 months” and “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph”. I wondered briefly if I should interrupt but figured that, with how run ragged she seemed to be yesterday, this school's craziness was starting to get to her. Gary had said she was new, and that was pretty obvious when compared to the other faculty who were either just another part of the school's madness or completely numb to it.

It'd be terrible to see that kind of thing happen to her, even if what Gary said about her was true.

The blonde woman grumbled a bit more before scratching her head and glancing at me again.

“I-it's fine… Though I will have to inform Dr. Crabblesnitch of this… But what I actually meant to talk about was the other incident. Concerning you and Gary hopping the main gate.” 

I already figured that one was coming.

“Yes ma'am? What about it? I thought it was kinda weird how I didn’t get called into the office for it, figured you would've told Crabblesnitch by now. I wouldn't even really blame you for doing it, protocol and all that nonsense,” I said, finally opening up the bagged PBJ I'd been offered to dig into. 

“I did, at least as soon as I could do it. I actually did it this morning.”

I raised an eyebrow at that.

“This morning?” I said, the surprise in my tone apparent, “You mean you didn’t do it right after you caught us?”

She shook her head.

“No, I'd planned on it but I kept running into distractions throughout the day. It was my turn to patrol the school grounds along with Mr. Galloway, but unfortunately he seemed to be preoccupied with… something else… so it was just me and one of the Prefects at the time. It's why I was out there to see you two climbing the gate. It was just one thing after another; I needed to attend my afternoon Home Economics class. One boy shoved a firecracker down another boy's pants during shop class and it triggered the shop class teacher's PTSD. A fight broke out in front of the Boy's Dorm…” The blonde’s eyes unconsciously landed on me, and I had to hold back an eye roll so she wouldn't notice. “Again…” Lamb just kept going and going with all the stuff that went down while Gary and I were out on the town yesterday, and I briefly wondered if stuff like this happened on the regular. Did the school board or whoever was in charge of monitoring schools know about any of it? 

Eventually Dr. Lamb got to the point, “I did catch you two going back to the school grounds later on in the day on my way home, but I still made sure to inform Dr. Crabblesnitch of the incident this morning...”

“Wait, if you told him then how come I wasn't called up to the office for it?” I replied with a mouthful of PBJ.

“Because he had already been informed of the incident by Gary.”

I blinked, swallowing the bit of sandwich I had so I could ask clearly. But I found it a bit hard to speak. Gary had said something? He'd admitted it? I mean, I guess he'd have to since we'd been caught but I hadn't taken him for being such a casual snitch.

Given we seemingly hadn't gotten in trouble for it though… maybe he'd had the right idea.

“Gary admitted it?” I asked, as if for some reason I needed to confirm what Dr. Lamb just told me barely a second ago, “What exactly did he tell Dr. Crabblesnitch then besides that? Because, well, I don't take the Headmaster as somebody who would let something as serious as leaving campus without telling anybody very lightly…”

“Oh he took it quite well actually. Gary had approached him earlier in the morning right as he left his car. Gary’s reasoning for it was because he got a little impatient and since you were new, he'd wanted to just show you around town before they finally opened up the gates after Halloween. I'd assume since Gary is the current Head Boy and meant well enough, Dr. Crabblesnitch decided to let it go, especially since there hadn't been any incidents reported by the police as a result of you two. He told me he let Gary off with a warning and wanted me to tell you the same.”

I guess that means I'm off the hook and that the cop I'd tripped up with marbles hadn’t bothered to report us either… Or he’d hit his head hard enough on the pavement to forget about it entirely. Either way, it meant I wasn't gonna get in trouble for once, so I was fine with brushing it off entirely and keeping my mouth shut about that.

“Alright then. I actually wasn’t fully ok with the idea of leaving campus to be honest. I only went along with it cause I didn’t want to eat lunch in the cafeteria.”

Dr. Lamb smiled and responded with:

“Ok, just don't do it again. If you really do get hungry, then please don't hesitate to just ask me for a sandwich. At the end of the day I usually end up having extras anyway.”

“Yeah… Sure, I'll remember to ask,” I replied. My eyes shifted over to the wall clock, but unfortunately I still had about 15 minutes before the bell rang and I could finally get outta here. Why can't the hours fly by when you want them to?

“Jenny?”

My attention focused back on Dr. Lamb.

“Yes ma'am?”

“I'd like to just ask something. On your first day, when Trent and his friends were trying to take money from you, you know you could've-”

Ugh, here we go.

“Could've what? Run off to find faculty or a prefect instead of hitting Trent? I ran to the office right after anyway, the Bullies decided to escalate things, not me. I actually gave him a warning before I actually got physical too! He decided to ignore it,” I knew exactly where Lamb had been going with her sentence because I'd heard the same thing a million times, from men and women of all kinds. From the people that were supposed to stop this kind of crap before it happened. It's bullshit, it's always been grade A bullshit. I didn't want to think Gary was right about her, but this definitely wasn't helping.

Hey God! If you're real, why do you keep pulling this stuff on me? Give me a friggin’ break! What the hell did I ever do to you anyway?

Lamb frowned, and her response felt the same as my rant about the lunchroom from earlier, except this time I was the one who decided to change the topic. 

My thoughts went back to the framed photo on her desk, and curiosity got a hold of me.

“Who's that woman in the photo with you and your daughter? Is that a family friend or something?”

She looked at the photo as well.

“Oh her? That’s my girl-” Dr.Lamb suddenly stammered a bit, seemingly correcting herself, “R-roommate! She’s my roommate. W-we co-parent.”

A few awkward minutes passed before I nodded and said:

“Whatever you say ma'am,” I told her with a bored tone in my voice. 

I figured that was the only way to sort of brush off the fact that I actually knew what she meant. It was clearly a secret she wanted to keep to herself, I guess to keep her job, which was a reason I could understand. Not sure why she even wanted to work at Bullworth though, given its reputation. Maybe it was the only work she could get?

But even if she was a jerk, I don’t think I'd tell anybody about it, even out of spite.

Mercifully, the bell finally rang and with only a wave I left the room.

Not exactly polite, but I wasn’t in the mood to stay around.

As I made my way out into the hallway of the second floor, a familiar voice called out.

“Hey, Jenny!” 

I turned my head in the direction of the voice, and it turned out to be Pete, walking over to me with what looked like a book bag slung over his shoulder. As he got a bit closer I noticed his hair was slightly damp, like he’d taken a shower recently. Either that, or he’d been on the receiving end of a swirly. Gary mentioned that happening to Pete a lot.

“Hey Pete, what up?” I replied back as he stopped in front of me, barely looking eye-to-eye - I was a bit shorter than him, which certainly said something about my height since Pete barely stood taller than some of the younger kids around here - as he picked at his right ear. Must've been a bit waterlogged.

“Gary wanted me to tell you that after the next class is over, he wants you to go to the library and meet up with Algie. Apparently he needs to get to his locker in order to return some library books.”

“He can't do it himself? Also, why did Gary send you off to tell me, couldn't he have told me this himself?” 

OK, right after saying that, I realized it sounded a bit rude, like I would've preferred talking to Gary instead of Pete. But instead of mulling over it I just waited for Pete to answer.

Pete sighed before explaining.

“Algie is terrified of going into the main school building after dinner is over. The Prefects start patrolling the school grounds since that’s where everybody else is while the rest of the faculty either hang out in the Teacher’s lounge, stay in their classrooms to work on whatever or they leave campus for the day. It basically means the Bullies have free reign of the building until about 8 PM when the janitor locks the building up.”

“Ok, yeah that makes sense, but why couldn't he just tell me this? I mean, he did tell me about Algie needing help when we were in town the other day…” Granted, I could only vaguely remember that. It's a good idea that I'd been reminded at all. But again, why couldn't Gary do it?

Pete looked at me in confusion.

“Y-you guys went into town? Did… anyone else tag along with you two or..?”

“Uh, no. It was just me and him, why?” Pete looked at me weirdly, and suddenly I realized where his thoughts were going, “Get your head out of the gutter Pete.”

Pete put his hands up defensively.

“Hold up, I didn't mean to imply you guys were doing anything like that, I just thought- Oh forget it,” he went to the back of his head, only to suddenly jerk his hand away with a look of disgust. 

Ah, ok it definitely was a swirly then. Poor guy.

…Hopefully he remembers to flush his ears out, toilet water induced ear infections weren't pleasant to deal with…

…So I've heard anyway, typically from the people whose heads I'd shoved in the toilet. Not without reason, of course.

Pete continued talking, changing the topic and giving me the answer to my question. 

“Anyway… the reason Gary couldn't just tell you in person is because the school elections are finishing up, so he's a bit busy with that. Head Boy responsibilities basically.”

I shrugged. I suppose that made sense. He certainly hadn't shut up about how he was the Head Boy and all that jazz during the tour around the school. In my opinion, it was one of those dumb school titles that people overstated the importance of.

…I guess it did have the benefit of avoiding serious repercussions for playing hooky, though. Especially if you were already brown-nosing the Headmaster beforehand.

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Anyway, I gotta get to class, see you around,” I turned to leave, already checked out of all the noise going on around me.

I thought I could hear Pete say something else, like he was trying to get my attention again. 

But to me? He might as well not have been there at all.

[violetnerves]

Random Bully Headcanons I made up an hour ago:

- The rivalry between Derby and Johnny is one-sided. Johnny is mainly the aggressor while Derby could care less. Occasionally though, Derby would try to piss off Johnny by convincing one of the Preps to ask Lola out on a date, specifically to either watch Johnny lose it or as an attempt to get him kicked out of the Academy and leave the Greasers without a leader. Gord was an example of him doing this, but due to Jimmy's interference, he had to stop doing it out of the little concern he had for his clique members' wellbeing. (Chad genuinely tried to get with Lola without Derby convincing him into it and the Preps made fun of him relentlessly for it afterwards.) It's partly why he chooses to completely brush Jimmy off when he's tried to give evidence of the Townies being the ones who took their trophies. All because Jimmy ruined his free entertainment.

- In general, Derby doesn't seem to care about the school heriarchy. In game, he rolls his eyes at the idea of there being a "King of the school" since it obviously wasn't an actual thing, just something Gary made up. It's mentioned that the Preps would prefer Bullworth only being a rich kids school. Well, after the riot broke out at the end of the game, what do the Preps do? Haul themselves up in Harrington House, presumably as an easy way to claim that they had no real involvement in the riot or any of the bullying, unlike the "poors".

- Gary has an obsession with Real-Time-Strategy video games, particularly the Age of Empires series. He also has a secret love of TableTop RPGs since they're pretty much a looser RTS to him. Due to the reputation of them being ruined by the Nerds, though, he'd never actually admit to it. If he ever got the chance to play, he'd only choose to be a DM since he's a control freak.

On his medication, he'd be a fairly rough DM, with maybe a bit too many combat encounters, but he'd at least try and have some kind of plot until he inserts his OP DMPC into the party that looks suspiciously similar to him in his Halloween costume from the Halloween mission. But with the physique of a body builder. It's totally not him though.

Unmedicated, the first dungeon the players encounter would be similar to DnD's Tomb of Horrors, regardless of what level they were. His OP DMPC is the boss of the dungeon. He doesn't expect the PCs to survive the dungeon at all.

That last one is kind of a joke but I think it lines up with Gary's personality so...

[violetnerves]

The Rise and Fall of Jenny Hopkins, aged 15 - Chapter 3: Gary the Unreliable Narrator. BullyAU.

Alright so instead of a chapter taking me an entire month to write+edit, instead it took me almost an entire month to write+edit.

Progress!

So first of all, this is a chapter in Gary's POV compared to the past two which were in Jenny's. I figure that every now and then I'll drop a chapter in Gary's POV if it'll benefit the story. Otherwise, it's mainly Jenny's POV.

This chapter is less about forwarding the plot and more just a bit of "bonding" for Jenny and Gary, and a little bit of a character study for Gary and a little world building added in, like a mention of Bullworth Academy's background.

Anyway, content warning for the following:

-Gary POV (He's gross.)

-Derogatory language towards women.

-Harsh language.

-Questionable relationships.

If I missed anything, let me know.

Word Count: 6728

The pebble flew from Jenny's slingshot well enough, only to disappointingly strike the metal of the hallowed out junk heap of a bus and bounce back with a pitiful little  

I rolled my eyes at Jenny, and rudely, she didn't even acknowledge it! 

*'Ugh. I don't know how long I can stand pretending to like this moron.'*

"Do you need me to aim it for you? C'mon Jane, it's not that difficult!" I said, pointing towards the bus' windows. "Just aim for the glass!"

She finally acknowledged me, even if it was only to glance at me and then back to the bus. At least she actually said something other than grunting dismissively.

"Oh shut up Gary, it's been a while since I've used a slingshot. Mom banned me from them after I shot out the right eye of one of her crappy boyfriends 5 years ago. I'm a bit rusty."

I admit, hearing her say that got a chuckle out of me. Jenny's casual admittance to partially blinding a man who used to date her mom reminded me exactly why I even bothered with her in the first place. She was clearly screwed up in the head, and that kind of thing appealed to me in a way I couldn't describe. On one hand, she wasn't clever or smart, so she'd never be able to undermine a genius like me... but on the other hand? Jenny was psychotic, a real violent headcase. Even if she'd probably feel offended by being called that, it was true.

I'd looked over Jenny's permanent record after a bit of snooping around the office during the start of the school year, about a month before the girl had actually arrived. That hopeless ditz of a secretary, Danvers was none the wiser, too caught up in her lust for that old windbag of a Headmaster to notice all my digging. Lots of juicy info in there.

I saw the joy Jenny got out of hurting people. Even if she might've tried to deny it, it was obvious. Much like the rest of the school, I'd watched how she gleefully beat the crap out of those losers on her first day here as well as the ear-to-ear smile she had as she walked out of the Shop area earlier. She might try to hide it under the excuse of just trying to brute force them to leave her alone, but I knew better. Because I was smarter than her, smarter than anyone in this stupid sinkhole of a town.

And in the end, I'd make sure they'd all know it. Every single one of these *morons*.

"I'll shut up when you actually break a window, now aim," I pointed towards the windows again, taking the opportunity to lightly brush her on the shoulder. 

Jenny glared at me and took aim once more. I grinned as she shot another pebble and hit the second window on the right dead on. The glass shattered, and the resulting shards fell into the inside of the bus. 

I couldn't help but snicker, and internally I'd hoped the Hobo who lived behind the bus would make the mistake of forgetting to wear shoes the next time he drunkenly stumbled through the broken down bus' aisle after a few too many drinks.

"Finally... now hit the other windows."

"Yeah, yeah..."

After about 6 pebbles later, the last bus window shattered at the impact of the small rock.

I slowly clapped as a response.

"Great job, Jenny... Though I'd compare your aim to that of a guy with no arms... Who also went blind from an "accident" involving a slingshot and his girlfriend's angry daughter."

She gave me a rude grunt in response. She didn't even turn her head to *look* at me.

I guess this is what I get for trying to be a little humorous? Hmph. If I was an idiot, I would've smacked her across the face for that, but I let it go. Honestly, the amount of generosity I show idiots like her is astounding. If anybody knew just how much I held back, I don't think these morons would ever look at me the same way... not even that sissy Petey. Jenny, too... and for some reason, that bothered me a little. 

The girls in Bullworth were terrible, all cagey, and stuck up. Jenny was sort of like that, but just like with her seemingly internal denial of her violent tendencies, I knew it was an act. With time, I'd rip that mask off of her much like I'd ripped my own off of myself all those years ago.

"Well, if you're done insulting me for my bad aiming, then I'll just be going. See you whenever."

I was nearly so caught up in my endless, maddening thoughts that I hadn't noticed Jenny had shoved the slingshot into her purse and began to walk off.

*'Ugh! No, not yet! Get back here! How dare you walk away from me?!'*

I was tempted to run to her and grab her, but that probably would've just made her angry. No, that wouldn't do at all, I could just-

"Hey, hold on a minute, Jenny. You didn't eat lunch, did you? I know you didn't even eat dinner yesterday, and I don't think you came to breakfast today. You weren't even in the cafeteria!"

She stopped and turned to me, a bit annoyed but still clearly caring enough to hear me out. 

"Yeah? So?"

"Soooo let's get the hell out of here and get something from town. You've basically skipped out on 3 meals, that can't be healthy, y'know?" I couldn't resist adding in a little jab, nothing too bad, "Even if the weight loss might be a bit beneficial..."

She frowned and rolled her eyes at me. I felt my eye twitch, fists clenching.

*'You'll know your place soon, bitch. Just like the other morons.'*

Thankfully, Jenny didn't notice my irritation, and she responded back with an actual answer.

"Sure, I guess... But how are we even supposed to go into town? I was told we couldn't leave campus, and they keep the front gates shut and locked 24/7. You got some kind of way out of this dump?" Jenny said with a bit of suspicion in her tone, "I don't think it's a good idea anyway, I could get in trouble for skipping class."

I smirked and smoothed my hair out.

"Of course I do Jen, I know this place top to bottom, heck, I could probably draw the whole layout of the school by memory," I bragged, walking up to her side. My hand hovered over her shoulder a bit, but I decided to pull it back. Best not to agitate her more, I was being a little too fast about all this. In time Gary... In time... "There's plenty of exits to the outside, and the teacher's around here are too uncaring enough to even bother. Every student around here sneaks out all the time, trust me."

Jenny's whole demeanor seemed uncertain, even though she still had that resting bitchface going on. I couldn't say she ever looked ugly with it, though, even though I'd never admit that to her.

I had to tear her self-esteem down gradually. Sure, I liked her violent streak, but she was too proud, too stubborn. I had to rip that out of her and shape it into something I could use. My own personal attack dog.

She seemed to relent, nodding.

"Fine... Show me the way then."

"Gladly."

I waved to her as we headed over to the main gate, the familiar, faint sound of the school bell ringing to announce the end of lunch. I looked back at Jenny, who wasn't running as quick as she should have been.

"C'mon Jenny, pick up the pace! Russell likes to hang around the main gate after lunch, and I really wouldn't want him catching us there!" I said, turning a corner. 

Jenny snapped back at me a bit angrily.

"Ok, fine! Look, I've got short legs so..."

"So? Just hurry up!"

I smirked as I got to the side of the Academy's main gate, leaning against the red brick as I waited for Jenny to catch up. She did, though she appeared to be confused by the fact that we were at the front gate.

Yes... Be confused idiot. It makes me feel smarter just by standing next to you.

"And we're here... why?.."

"Simple. We're climbing over the front gate."

I pointed to the top of the side of the stone archway that was fairly easy to just climb over and jump down from. The only obstacle was the black metal gate on the areas we'd have to climb to get to it. Black spikes lined the first gray stone foundation that we would have to climb on.

I yearned for the day one of the idiots of Bullworth took an unfortunate fall while taking this route. I wanted to see the life fade out of them as their stupidity and ego cost them their pointless and sad existence. It almost happened to that dumb jock Kirby last Halloween. I'd seen him lose his balance and nearly take one of the fence's spikes to the back. Guaranteed paralysis, or he dies, either way I was gonna *enjoy* watching it happen. But then that insecure idiot *Dan* just had to help him and the Jocks managed to sneak out to town during last Halloween without any issue.

 

It made me so upset that I tried to skip out on doing anything for that Halloween, much to Petey's confusion. *"But isn't Halloween your favorite holiday?"* I recall that proofofhisdad'sshitpullouttechnique saying while wearing that dumb Han Solo costume his mother helped make for him. It was bad enough that my parents were making me escort some of my younger cousins trick or treating with him, but hearing that little bitch question me about it was enough to cause me to swing for his face. He ducked, and my fist met the  solid brickwork of my house. That's how I ended up with a broken hand that school year, and now that Petey was old enough to attend Bullworth this year, I'd spend the entire school year paying it back.

Now that I thought about it, did that mean I was at risk of losing Jenny? She was pretty stupid after all. She could easily end up hurt or dead by her own idiocy. It was a wonder we'd ever met at all.

I decided that I wouldn't let that happen. She was *my* useful idiot, I wasn't going to let her go so easily.

"That looks... pretty unsafe."

I'd already climbed up onto the first foundation at that point. I turned to her, giving her an unamused look.

"What's wrong? Don't tell me you're scared! Quit acting like a little girl, Jenny! I won't let you fall!"

Jenny shook her head, sighing, and I helped her up, pulling her up to the knee height wall along with me. Jenny and I just stood there for a moment, my hands gripping her forearm and looking deeply at her honey-brown eyes. 

Did she know how distracting her damn eyes were? I wanted to rip them out and preserve them, I didn't want her looking at anyone else with those things. Anybody else would sully them, *ruin* them, not me. I'd keep them perfect forever.

Jenny's mouth was moving as if she was saying something, but I couldn't hear her for whatever reason. I was still caught up in her eyes. I wish my eyes looked as good as hers. The only thing cool about mine was that if the light hit them in a certain way, the pupils almost looked red. It fit me so well.

A voice, not Jenny's, broke me from my trance.

"You two! Jenny, Gary! What do you think you're doing?! Don't climb on that! You two could get hurt!"

That *slutwhorebitchcunt* *Miss* Lamb stood in the middle of the circle pathway leading to the Dorms, the Main school building and the front gate. She wasn't looking as prim and proper as she did on her first day here, her pinned up blond hair part way out of the bun it used to be styled in, and her eyeliner streaking down her face as if she'd been crying earlier. Considering the state she was in now, I held out hope that the bitch would crack and get run out by the end of the month like most of the new teachers this school would get. 

Honestly, even if she looked perfect, I saw how she really was on the inside, even though everyone else seemed to be blind to it. Blind to the real demon she truly was.

I didn't believe in God or the devil or any nonsensical deity imagined up by the many morons polluting this dumb blue sphere, but just from her existence, I knew I couldn't rule out the existence of demons.

It was bad enough that she had to force her way into my life again after abandoning me all those years ago, now she had to try and get me in trouble?! Why did she hate me so much?!

"Crap, it's Dr. Lamb, let's hurry up and-"

Without a word I forced Jenny up to the second foundation, following along with her as we got to the slope of the archway and climbed onto it.

That blond bitch below kept yelling at us to get down, but I blocked out her screeching voice.

Jenny and I slipped down the archway and to the outside below. That blond bitch ran to the gate to out at us more, sounding like a raving demon watching us escape from the pits of Hell.

A small smile curled at the edge of my lips as she watched us run off to the left. I turned my head to look back at Jenny as we moved.

"C'mon, we're going to Old Bullworth Vale. There's a fast food place there that I'm sure you'll like. You look like you've got cheap taste so it's perfect," I said, my run turning into a light jog as we crossed the bridge

"We're gonna be in big trouble when we get back. I doubt Dr. Lamb is gonna keep quiet to Crabblesnitch about us ditching school."

I stopped in place and turned to Jenny, noticing that she seemed a bit startled by how quick I'd spun on a dime.

"You think I give a *fuck* Jenny? I'm the Head Boy! A bit of buttering up to that moron and I'll be let off easy!" I said enthusiastically, trying to take off again.

"But what about- Hey!"

I didn't bother with a reply before jogging off again and expecting Jenny to follow me, which she did. 

She was already into me, I could tell.

After about 15 minutes we stood in front of Burgers, the fast food place that was the primary hangout spot for many of the children of Bullworth, where even the cliques somehow got along with one another... aside from the Preps, since they deemed themselves "too good" to be seen walking into this Grease pit. 

There was an unwritten agreement with the past and present managers there with the students: as long as no one caused any trouble *inside* of the joint, any student would be welcome to eat there despite the Academy's reputation. It had been that way since the opening of the building back in the late 50s, when Bullworth Academy was still a reformatory school/borderline borstal for boys before being remade into a regular, co-ed private school in the late 70s.

"Why is it called 'Burgers?' I've never even heard of this restaurant before, is this an east coast thing i'm not getting?" Jenny asked, looking up at the sign in confusion, "I mean, wouldn't that make advertising the place pretty difficult? Who's gonna remember a fast food place just called 'Burgers?' At least Cluck n' Bell sounds funny."

"Well the original franchise creator was involuntarily committed to an Asylum if that answers your question."

"It really doesn't."

"Huh. Guess you'll just have to keep wondering then, now c'mon. I'll be paying by the way."

Jenny immediately tried to stop me, and I heard her digging into her purse.

"What? No, it's fine, I can pay for my own-"

I whipped around, catching her off guard. I propped my hand up on the building, pressing against glass and relaxing on it.

"Oh c'mon Jenny, just let me pay for it. I come from a pretty wealthy family, y'know? It's not a big deal."

Jenny still seemed pretty reluctant, and admittedly, it was pissing me off. I've been nothing but polite to her, at least compared to the other troglodytes infesting this place, so why was she still so cagey?!

"I just... I don't wanna owe you anything that you can hold over my head later. It's happened before, and we've barely even known each other for a full day..."

"Yeah well, I wouldn't *do* that to you. I'll repeat this since it's clearly not getting through to that thick skull of yours... I'm from a very... wealthy family Jane..." I said quietly, though with how close we were, Jenny would be able to hear me just fine. "...There's nothing I could possibly want from you that I can't already get myself, alright? So quit with the cagey attitude, will you? I'm genuinely just trying to be polite, and you're really making me feel like crap by talking to you like this."

I added in that last bit of guilt-tripping just to seal the deal. I knew women were particularly susceptible to it, partially due to societal factors and just from what I've seen from the natural social behavior of women throughout the years. I had plenty of examples to go off of, from my absurd amount of female "cousins", to my "mother", to the various, uptight girls from the Academy... and... well, that bitch that I didn't want to think about unless I had easy access to a small animal I could strangle the life out of.

Sure, Jenny was a little different from other women, more like a man in a way... but I didn't think it made much of a difference. It's not like guys couldn't be susceptible to guilt-tripping themselves, otherwise it wouldn't work so well on Petey!

Then again, I'd hardly call Petey a guy, or a man for that matter. I barely considered him a male. I sometimes wondered if I could somehow gaslight him into going through with getting a sex change just because of how funny it'd be.

Jenny looked at me for a moment before eyeing her purse. She rolled her eyes and took her hand out of her purse.

"Well, if you're really not going to try and hold it over me, then fine," she zipped her purse back up and slung it on her shoulder.

"See, was that so hard?" I held the front door of Burgers open, "After you."

"Gee Gary, you're such a gentleman," Jenny said as she walked past me and into the restaurant. 

If I lacked self control, I would've slammed the door in her face right then and there, but I was better than that.

"Yeah, you're welcome Jane..." I replied back, trying hard to hide my bitter tone. If Jenny had noticed, she chose not to comment on it.

We ordered and sat down at a booth near the back of the building. I could barely tolerate more than one person at a time, so I felt it was necessary. Jenny was nice, or just didn't care enough, to question it.

The place was just as dingy and rundown as I remembered it. Sure, it was colorful like any other fast food place, but it still had that familiar stink of Bullworth all over it.

"So, you wanna hear about my plan for us to take over the school?" I said, grabbing a few napkins.

Jenny raised an eyebrow, seemingly both confused and interested in what I said.

"Take over the school? Why would I want to do that?" Jenny said, not so subtly watching as I began folding up the napkins in a, I'm sure in her eyes, really bizarre way. I tried to keep her from seeing too much of what I was doing since I didn't want to ruin the surprise. "I doubt that's even possible, I mean, who would even let us do that? It just sounds stupid."

I wanted to stab her eyes out. I wanted to take the cheap plastic cutlery I'd grabbed from near the soda machine and jab it right into her *lovely honey brown* optics and ruin her life. Stupid... Stupid?! It's not... *i'm* not stupid, you fat pig! You moronic whore! How dare you! You're lucky I even acknowledge you!

My hands clenched my work-in-progress napkin creation, threatening to ruin the work I'd already put into it. Instead, I let out a deep sigh and continued.

"No, no. See, I've got a plan, Jane. Ever since my first day here, I've dreamt of nothing but finally ending this cycle of bullying that's infected this horrible school since the beginning..." I whispered in a tired tone. That wasn't a lie, I hardly ever really lied... perhaps left out some information once or twice? Yes, and it was no different here. Once, when I was a stupid moron that thought these... *creatures* considered me an equal to them, I did hold hope that I could change things for the better and maybe find friends...

But I realized the truth. 

These animals didn't *want* change. They just wanted to keep stabbing each other in the back over and over. Generation after generation, grandfather to father to son. It didn't stop even after they started letting girls in. Instead, it was just like the boys, grandmother to mother to daughter.

So why not join in? Except I wouldn't play along, no, of course not. I'd never join a clique and be a lackey to some pompous incestuous nepo baby, a psychotic cuck, a hormone driven weakling, or have to choose between the two dumbest students at the Academy. No, I would be on top. It's what I deserved after everything this dumb rock's put me through in my 16 years.

The girls had their own way of backstabbery that I gleefully took for myself. Their psychological warfare was far more foul than any physical force the boys could muster, and I couldn't resist adopting it for myself. It suited my intelligence far more than the brute force approach anyway.

Though I still hated the girls the most because of it. The only reason I took a liking to Jenny was because she clearly wasn't capable of any of that. She was too stupid. *She* couldn't hurt me in a way that mattered. She was... simple... If a bit brutal in her ways...

...

...I didn't feel threatened when I was around her.

...

But I couldn't let her know that, and I would never willingly say it out loud. Not even on my dying breath.

I refused to give that to her. She'd never deserve to hear that from me. Jenny was just another moron after all, and she always would be.

"Don't you want that? To end the bullying? It's not like it wouldn't benefit you. You told me on your first day here that all you wanted was to be left alone, and if we pull this off..." I chuckled, continuing to fold the napkins, almost done with my cheap napkin origami creation, "Well, you'll get just that. You get to spend the rest of your school tenure living it up like a queen, and I get to graduate this year knowing I made a real difference here."

Jenny hadn't responded immediately, which I expected. I'm sure her smooth brain needed a bit to really take in what that all meant. 

Before I'd get a response, one of the workers came by with our food. A young woman who looked like she hadn't had a good night's rest in over a decade set a tray down at our table with the grace of a limbless ballerina, and it clattered loudly as it hit the table.

As she walked away, I continued speaking to Jenny:

"Hmph, how rude. I bet she has the gall to wonder why she only gets paid 7 dollars an hour. Isn't that right, Jenny?"

Jenny was already digging into her food, having popped  a handful of fries into her mouth with the piece of burger she'd bitten into along with a sip of that Beam cola soda she seemed really fond of for some reason.

She noticed me trying to keep the conversation going and just nodded, and with her mouth *thankfully* empty, she replied.

"Yeah, sure whatever," Jenny took another sip of her soda and seemed to look down at the table for a bit before replying again. "So... can we talk about this taking over the school plan of yours?"

"Oh of course, ask away Jenny! You're one of the most important parts of all this, after all. The queen on the chess board, so to speak."

The comparison to chess was deliberate, genius even. You couldn't win a game of chess if the king was taken out... but you could without a queen.

Oh, but that sweet little psychotic moron could barely hide it as the natural blush on her face grew brighter from my comment. Hook, line, and sinker. My little puppet. *She really is head over heels, and for me! That moron. She's making this so easy.*

"I'm really that important to your plan? I feel like you're just trying to butter me up," Jenny put up her guard, staring me down mid-chew. I chuckled, dipping a greasy onion ring into my ketchup packet.

"Can friends not compliment each other, Jenny? That's what we are aren't we? Don't tell me you can't take a compliment, c'mon now," I gave her a hurt look as I set down my origami to take a sip of my own drink. 

*Ah, nothing better than some good old diet Sprunk.*

For some reason, me looking hurt at her ticked her off a little, but she seemed to accept my response, albeit with a little attitude.

"Yeah, ok, whatever, just..." She took another quick sip. "What *is* it exactly? Your plan? How are we doing this?"

"Ah, yeah right. Well first off, we gotta get the Nerds on our side. Those guys are basically targeted by every clique, *especially* the Jocks. But they're sneaky bastards, and it's probably best to get them on our side considering all that weaponry they've got."

"The Nerds?" Jenny asked. "...Doesn't that include that fat blond kid with the open zipper we ran past yesterday?"

Algie?

"You mean Algie?" I replied.

"Yeah, that kid."

"Well? What about him?" 

"He stinks, the guy smells like piss for some reason. I dunno if I wanna even associate with a kid like that."

I chuckled, taking a bite out of a chicken nugget.

"Well, you're gonna have to. An easy way to get the nerds on our good side is for you to help escort him to the bathroom. See, the Bullies banned him from using the boys' dorms and Main school buildings bathrooms. The gym bathroom is basically out of the question thanks to the Jocks, and the Preps aren't going to let Algie into their private bathrooms inside their special little incest nepo baby Dorm," I went back to working on my origami, I'd already eaten half my food anyway. "It'll send a message to the rest of the cliques to back off the nerds a little if you're seen helping them. You've already got a little bit of rep for beating up most of the Bullies by yourself on your first day, and I'm sure word will go around that you did it again earlier."

Jenny still seemed reluctant, and to be honest? I couldn't blame her. Those nerds were a couple of creepy losers, Earnest especially. But unfortunately, playing nice with those degenerates was smarter than antagonizing them.

"Ugh, seriously? Do I have to?"

I gave her a serious look.

"Yeah, seriously. C'mon Jen, you only have to do it one time, I promise. Algie's pretty much their third man. You do that favor for him, *heh*, the rest will warm up to you quickly."

I could see Jenny juggle the thought in her head a bit before answering.

"Well, I guess if I'll only have to do it one time... then fine, but I'm definitely gonna haggle him for money for it."

"I wouldn't take anything less personally. Really, I mean, if you're gonna do a favor for anybody here, you really ought to ask for money to do it. The Preps might act like everybody else here is destitute just because their parents don't own a yacht, but that doesn't really mean anything. Even the Greasers can pay you a good amount for helping them out with anything."

"Good to know."

"Of course, now..." I propped my elbow on the table, leaning my head on my hand. "How's your Bullworth experience been so far? I realize it's just your second day here, but uh, how would you rate it anyway?"

I hid my creation underneath the table as I held it with my other hand, waiting for the right time to present it.

Jenny took another sip of cola.

"2/10 so far. Dr. Crabblesnitch is making me see the school guidance counselor tomorrow. I guess he thinks talking to her'll make me into a 'proper lady' or whatever."

"Oh great, you gotta deal with Miss Lamb. I pity you. I can't *stand* that woman."

"Why? I mean, I'm not exactly happy about having to go to counseling, but Dr. Lamb doesn't seem so bad. Did you have some kind of bad experience with her?"

Oh great, I've said too much. Now I'd have to make up some kind of bullshit reason to avoid the *real* truth. Using Jenny's distrust of adults (aside from her mother for some, presumably stupid reason) seemed like an easy and quick way to do that.

"I mean, Lamb just seems like she's hiding something to me. She's a new hire, and I feel like she's just putting on this act of being all sweet and kind until she reveals who she *really* is..." 

Jenny looked at me weirdly, and I was starting to get nervous. How could I get through to her about Lamb without her knowing about all my irrelevant baggage?

"I don't know, man. She seemed pretty genuine to me..."

I frowned. I couldn't think of a good reply that wouldn't just be me repeating the last thing I said.

Instead, I chuckled and tried to move the topic along in a different direction.

"Well Jenny... When it comes down to it, You'll learn who your real allies and friends are around here..." I pulled out the origami flower and presented it to Jenny. "Like me."

She looked down at the paper flower for a bit with her typical resting bitchface before casually taking it out of my hands and looking over it.

"...So this is what you were doing with those napkins?"

"Yeah. You like it?" I asked, genuinely curious to hear her answer. It wasn't like I *needed* to hear her compliment my napkin masterpiece... but it wouldn't hurt anything if she did. I could never get enough of my ego getting a little more stroked once and awhile.

When it seemed like she would reject it, Jenny did something that had me fuming. She fiddled with the bottom of the flower as if she was trying to undo the folds, but before I could angrily ask her why she was trying to ruin the gift I'd worked so hard on, I was caught off guard by what she did next.

She tied the loosened napkin folds into the strands of her poorly styled short copper hair, and there it sat on the right side of her head. I just stared at it as it hung there loosely on her hair.

Why had she done that? Did that mean she liked it? She didn't have to-

"Is something wrong? I just had this weird thought about pinning it to my hair, I can take it out if-"

"N-No!" I stood up and reached out to Jenny, only to immediately realize how stupid I looked and sat back down, laying my hand on the table. "It's... it's fine. I'm glad you like it, seriously."

I probably had the dumbest look on my face, I knew I was grinning like an idiot, but I couldn't help it. It was like she had me under some sort of hypnotism that was making me feel giddy by just looking at her.

Ugh, *she* was the one who was supposed to be all flustered and caught up in her emotions, not me! 

Why was I acting like this? I didn't even like this pig!

Then she had this damn smile on her face... ugh! I shouldn't have complimented her, what was I thinking!

While I was scrambling to change the topic, Jenny seemingly decided to do it for me.

"This was nice, but I dunno if it's worth it to have to sneak out all the time, do they ever open the school gates and let us walk around town?" Jenny asked as she piled her garbage on the tray, tossing a napkin she had just cleaned her face with on top of the pile. "The one private school I went to let us go into town as long as we were back by curfew.

I internally sighed with relief, regaining my composure and clasping my hands together.

"Yeah, they open the gates back up the day after Halloween. That was the compromise over keeping them shut for the entire school year, which was what the citizens of Bullworth originally wanted, but I guess Mayor Higginbottom and Dr. Crabblesnitch worked something out," I shrugged. "It's not really surprising, Crabblesnitch and the Mayor are childhood friends."

"Wait, how do you know that?" Jenny asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.

"You gotta know your enemies like you know your friends Jane. That's how you *win*," I jabbed at the table with my index finger to emphasize my point. 

I didn't feel shy about giving her that bit of advice, since I doubted she was even smart enough to make use of it. Oh Jenny, so stupid, yet so violent...

...Almost the perfect woman...

"I guess that makes sense..."

"Well of course it does," I gathered up my half-eaten food/garbage on the tray and stood up from the booth with my drink in hand. "Now c'mon, let's leave this dump, I've got other places in mind we can visit."

Jenny stood up as well, grabbing her drink and the tray of garbage. She replied to me as she dumped the contents of the tray in a nearby garbage can and set the tray on top of a nearby stack of them.

"Other places? We're not just going back to the Academy?"

"Psh, no, that'd be stupid," I held the front door open for Jenny to walk through. "We'll wait till after curfew, maybe around 12:30. Less people that'll be wandering around, you know?"

"What about the cops? Man, it's my second day, I'm starting to think this was a bad idea..."

I closed the door and turned to her as we walked to the side of the restaurant, my tone betraying a bit of irritation with the copper haired girls nitpicking.

"Who cares? Don't tell me you're some kind of law-abiding citizen *Jane*, quit being lame!" I shook my head, chuckling a bit. "Honestly, I thought you were supposed to be some kind of juvenile delinquent, not some goody-two-shoes..."

Now *that* had clearly ticked her off, but rather than it backfiring on me as I had partly feared, instead it got Jenny to actually go along with what I wanted. 

"Oh shut up Gary. Just show me where you wanna go. If we get in trouble with the cops I'm 100% pinning it on you."

"Ah, a snitch then?" I replied, and I could see Jenny's temperament begin to reach a boiling point.

Alright, I'd had enough by that point. As fun as it was to push Jenny's buttons, it was time to take the pot off the stove top.

"I'm just joking Jen, chill out. Don't take it so seriously. Now, c'mon, let's get going."

I began walking, and Jenny followed alongside me like a stubborn but loyal mutt. Hm, maybe not a mutt, that was a bit generous. No, actually, her face was similar to one of those horribly inbred pitbulls. It was fitting since she clearly had the brain of one of those genetic dead-ends.

I took a look at her. She was still a bit mad clearly, so I figured I ought to say something to make her a little happier.

I was walking to the right of Jenny, and my eyes caught the origami napkin flower I'd folded, still tied into her hair. That led to her copper hair, and the way the reddening yellow mid-day sun shone on it. It was dangerously close to the color of rose gold metal, and I struggled to even tear my eyes away from it to concentrate on her face.

Now, I know I just compared Jenny's face to an inbred pitbull about a minute ago, but that was only because she was visibly angry at the time and the look on her face wasn't doing her any favors. Now, since she was relaxing a bit, she actually looked...

...Kind of pretty...

Did I ever mention those eyes of hers? Like... fresh pools of honey harvested straight from the honeycomb. It was a shame her eyes were squinted most of the time, you could barely notice just how good they looked when the sun hit them at just the right angle. Part of why I liked to provoke her was because she'd open her eyes real wide when she got upset, and I could actually get a good look at them.

"Gary? What are you looking at?"

The sound of Jenny's voice broke me out of my stupor. When I took another look at her, she looked confused, weirded out even.

Ugh, way to ruin my fun. Alright, what should I tell her?

...Hm...

"You know..." I said. I wanted to just insult her again or tell her to mind her own business and laugh at her for thinking I could even stand to stare at someone as ugly as her.

But... I didn't. For once, I just told the truth.

"You're really pretty you know."

I expected Jenny to get flustered, maybe look surprised just so I could get a good look at her eyes again. Something like that could have been entertaining and at least make up for that little bit of vulnerability I'd exposed just from telling her that. 

Instead, she had the gall to just frown at me and look *away*.

"Don't tell me that. I don't want to hear it."

Why? It was a compliment! Maybe I missed something? Misread her body language? Why would calling her pretty upset her? 

*'Some women just don't know how to take compliments.'*

It's not like I wasn't attractive, I mean, c'mon! I was rich and handsome, not to mention smarter than everybody in this stupid town combined! I was doing *her* a favor even! 

It's not like I actually meant it anyway! I was lying when I said I was telling the truth. That should've been obvious!

"Yeah? Well... I meant it, so I'm not taking it back. Get over it Jenny."

I decided to double down on it since I figured it would just make her mad, but instead, she shied away from me like I was some kind of vermin. Ugh, *women*.

Rather than backing out, instead Jenny *thankfully* relented, and we could just go ahead and move on.

"...Fine, let's just go.”

[violetnerves]

The Rise and Fall of Jenny Hopkins, Aged 15 - Chapter 2: The Setup.

Ok, so this took me about a month and I feel bad about it. It really shouldn't have taken me that long since this chapter is mostly about the actual mission from the game plus some bits of Jenny's backstory. But here it is, and the editing on it is minimal at best. Constructive criticism would be appreciated.

Anyway, Content warning for some ableist language and sexism.

Word Count: 8799

My eyelids fluttered open as sunlight peeked through the blinds of the dorm windows, hitting my face and rudely waking me up. Just to really rub it in, my alarm clock went off. The ring rattled my ears, and I slammed my hand down on the stupid piece of junk.

I let out a grumble, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, followed by a yawn. Then my back started acting up, and I grumbled.

A single thought came to my mind.

'Why does school have to start so damn early?'

I heard Trisha sit up, obviously awoken by my loud alarm clock since her side of the room didn't have the sun shining on it.

It was odd that she looked more put together than she did yesterday, despite having bed-head that would put Bob Ross' afro to shame.

We met eye to eye, and for a bit, there was an awkward silence in the room. The only sounds I could hear were the outside movements of the other girls in the dorm getting ready for the day.

Trisha looked down, then back up to me again. She bit her lip. She gave me a pair of finger guns, in a bad attempt to, I assume, be funny to make the obvious tension in the room disappear. It didn't work.

"Hey... Jenny, right? Can we... talk about yesterday?"

I shook my head, getting out of bed and opening up the large dresser next to it. I tossed a white button-up shirt with the Bullworth Academy crest sewn into it on my bed, along with the blue plaid skirt, socks, and a bra.

I turned to give her the nastiest glare I could muster, mainly as a warning. Just to rub it in that I didn't want anything to do with her, I added in a small warning as I focused on putting on my uniform.

"Not interested, don't even bother."

"Aw... C'mon..."

I heard her get off the bed and start walking closer to me. Before she could get too close, my head snapped in her direction.

The sudden movement caused her to hop back a little, holding her hands up in front of her. I'd assume I looked pretty pissed off since the way she put her hands up was clearly defensive.

The only thing I could see her wearing was a long t-shirt with the name of some emo boy band that swamped her rail-thin body just above her knees. I didn't know if she was wearing any shorts underneath since the length of the t-shirt hid her hips. For some reason, she still wore those arm warmers from yesterday. Does she just not take those off at all?

"Look... About yesterday..."

I spat my reply out in the rudest way I knew how.

"Yeah? What? Oh yeah, no big deal. You were gonna record me getting my ass kicked by your buddies so you could all chuckle at it later over whatever crappy take-out food this dump of a towns' got! I already know about that, I don't need you to remind me, ya freak!"

This girl stared at me, lip trembling with those big, obnoxious, and freaky green eyes of hers looking like they were about to start bursting into tears at any second. Before I could tell her to just fuck off, however, the door to our room opened.

Mrs. Peabody walked in, dressed in what looked like the same outfit she'd worn yesterday - more than likely, she was one of those weird people who had multiples of the same clothes. She took one look at me, then over to Trisha. Compared to how she eyed me, it was similar to how you'd look at a dirty mutt compared to a disease ridden rat.

Sure, I wasn't very happy with Trisha... but the way the older woman looked at her in disgust just rubbed me the wrong way. She barely even tried to hide her contempt for the girl. Shit, even I don't think anybodys' has ever even looked at me like that, and i've been enough of a bitch in my life to warrant it.

"Is there something wrong, Miss Jane?" Mrs. Peabody's eyes were firmly on Trisha even though she was clearly talking to me. "Is she bothering you?"

I looked her in the eye and shook my head.

"No ma'am, we just... disagreed on something. S'not anything that important."

Mrs. Peabody didn't seem entirely convinced, but in response, she simply nodded and closed the door. I could hear the sound of her footsteps fading as she walked away, her muffled voice talking to one of the other girls in the building.

I sighed, shaking my head and slipping my pajama shirt off.

While tugging my bra on, I looked over to Trisha, who seemed a bit confused at the fact that I hadn't bothered to tell on her.

"What is it? What's with the face?"

It took her about a minute to actually say anything, and in that time, I was already halfway dressed.

"...How come you didn't tell on me?" Trisha asked, circling her fingers together nervously. I had to wonder why this girl was hanging out with those jerks. You'd think she'd be just another girl to pick on for them.

I shrugged, buttoning up my shirt with my neck tie undone and hanging around my neck. I didn't want to talk to her for longer than I needed to, so I kept my answers short.

"I don't like you, but with the way Mrs. Peabody was looking at you, I think she's way worse." I haphazardly tied my neck tie sloppily, not caring much for how it looked, nevermind what other people would think about it. "She seems like a nasty old hag."

Trisha seemed to chuckle a little at that.

"Oh, you have no idea... We can barely do anything in the dorm without old Peabody riding our butts about it... Well..." Trisha looked over at the door then back to me. "Unless you're Mandy Wiles, then you can basically do anything you want. The favoritism is unreal!"

Oh, of course Mrs. Peabody's got favorites. Old, bitter women like her tend to have them, mainly as a weird projection kind of thing. Some weird way to relive their youth.

Hm, well, since the girl is already blabbing, I might as well get some info about the other girls out of her. Gary had been more than generous with telling me all about the boys of the various cliques yesterday, but he'd been pretty quiet about the girls.

Which was odd, surely the girls around here had some kind of influence?

"Who's Mandy? Should I be concerned about her?"

Trisha didn't hesitate to nod and replied back, "Ooohhh, yeah, definitely! I wouldn't start anything with her. Not only is she Mrs. Peabody's favorite, but she's also a part of the most popular clique in the Academy! You'd be committing social suicide if you try and even push back against her picking on you!"

I rolled my eyes as I tied my neck tie, which ended up looking sloppily done by the time I was finished. Meh, if I get yelled at for it, then I get yelled at. I've been yelled at so many times for the dumbest things that it got to the point where I barely acknowledged it anymore, even if I had genuinely done something wrong.

"Yeah... she sounds real threatening. Look, if she tries anything with me, I'm giving her a swirly. It's pretty much my go-to method for knocking morons like that off their high and mighty pedestal. Getting your head shoved in a toilet can be a real humbling experience, lemme tell ya."

Trisha laughed nervously, fidgeting with her hands.

"Yeah... I mean, that's not a good idea, and I don't agree with you doing that... buuuttt, if you actually go through with that, can you make sure to tell me?" The blonde girl eyed me, almost pleadingly, and in a tone that seemed... oddly joyful in a sinister way, said, "I wanna see."

I shrugged half-heartedly, slipping my socks on.

"Eh, sure, why not?"

I shit you not, the girl squealed right in my ear, opened up her side of the dresser, and sprinted over to her bed to get dressed for the day. All in the span of what felt like a second.

"Ooohhh, I'm so glad we're friends now!"

I was taken aback as I stared at her, the abruptness of it all irritated me.

"Hey, hold on, no we aren't! Your buddies still attacked me yesterday and you were completely fine with filming it! I'm not letting that crap go!" I said, shaking my head at the audacity to try and act so casually given what happened.

Seriously, did this chick have the memory of a goldfish?

Trisha was in the middle of tugging her undershirt on as she looked at me with a sad "deer in the headlights" look. She did this odd mix of a groan and a whine as she did this overdramatic move of faceplanting on her bed.

She looked back up at me and clasped her hands together pleadingly.

"Can I please just make it up to you then? I can't have my roommate mad at me for the entire school year! It'd be so annoying!" Trisha replied, her night shirt getting waved around in the air as she gestured her arms wildly. "Please! I don't even have footage of you getting beat up! It was mainly footage of you beating them up!"

I tried to just blow her off, but... Trisha did have a point. Besides Trent and obviously Russell, I don't think any of those other bozos actually ended up getting a hit on me. Then again, none of them seemed to be particularly good at fighting anyway. In fact, they all seemed a bit caught off guard when I'd decided to fight back.

Hell, just from the bullshit i've had to deal with at my last 7 schools, I probably had more experience actually tussling with people than them, and that didn't even include those boxing classes my third step-father let me tag along to and watch about 3 years ago.

I sighed, rolling my eyes and grabbing my purse.

"Okay... Fine," I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder as I slipped my shoes on. "You can make it up to me... just don't be weird about it..."

I left the room, hearing Trisha yell out something that sounded like a hurried, "Don'tworryIwon'tbeweir-!" as the door shut behind me.

'Man, I think I might've been a bit too lax on her...' The thought popped in my head as I made my way down the double set of stairs, right past a red head and another girl with glasses gossiping about something I didn't care too much to listen into.

As I passed them, I couldn't help but feel like I was being watched, and I turned back to look at the two. They were still talking, though they were turned away when I definitely remembered them facing my direction as I walked past. Huh, weird. Had they been talking about me?

I wouldn't be surprised if they were, what with what went down yesterday. The new girl beating up an entire group of boys and only getting a bruise and a bloody nose out of it was definitely something that would get gossiped about for a while, maybe about a week. On one hand, it'd probably mean people would leave me alone, at least for a bit... but on the other?

Well, I didn't actually know, but it couldn't have been good for me. That was usually how things went, I'd always get the worst of it.

It was why I started to believe in the concept of past lives, as well as karma. I was probably a real ass in a previous life, and I was only now getting all the negative karma from it.

Mrs. Peabody stood by the front door with a piece of paper, clearly about to go on some spheel about something I didn't too much care about. I ignored whatever she was telling me as I grabbed the paper and stepped through the double doors of the building to the outside... only to be met with a loud, burly voice yelling in my direction.

"HI JENNY!"

The voice was bellowed out by Eunice, a girl I'd helped out yesterday during Gary's tour.

Some doofus with an overly long name that I couldn't be bothered to remember had stolen some chocolates from her that her folks gave her as a gift, so I offered to get them back free-of-charge.

It wasn't difficult, hell, I probably could've done it blind folded. I tracked the thief to the first floor boy's bathroom by following some tossed chocolate wrappers, gave him a swift punch to the gut, and swiped the box of chocolates back as the guy was left heaving on the floor. I guess there were worst places to blow chunks, even though his puke never actually ended up in the toilet bowl.

My "reward" for that simple errand was a hug. Not so bad, maybe just a bit awkward right? Wrong, my back still hurt like hell. I think she might've cracked something in my spine while doing that crap. If I were her, I'd consider a career as a chiropractor... Then again, she'd probably be terrible at it. That kind of stuff was supposed to make you feel good... and I definitely didn't...

I gave the heavy set girl a nonchalant wave, and she walked over to me.

Now... I had to give her this. She did have a nice smile, but man, that voice... I wonder if losing weight would make her sound normal...

Then again, probably not. There was a girl at my 5th school who sounded similar to Gilbert Gottfried without any real effort, that was just her natural voice, and that girl had been as thin as a twig. Some girls really did just get the short end of the stick.

The first one being that they were even born a girl in the first place. Seriously, why did being a girl have to suck so much? Not only do we have to deal with periods, but nobody takes us seriously at all!

Man, sometimes I wish I was a dude, not because I was "confused" about my gender or some crap like that, then people would actually respect me for once. Then they'd take me seriously when I knocked their teeth out.

"There's my main squeeze! How's it going, Jenny?" Eunice said cheerfully, clasping her chubby hands together in front of her chest.

We stood to the side of the archway leading into the large space around the building of the Girl's Dorm, and I noticed some of the younger, middle school girls passing by and giggling about something followed by them not-so-subtly glancing in my direction. Word really was getting around about yesterday, huh? But then, why were they laughing? Wouldn't they be in awe of me instead?

I shrugged, blowing a bit of air as I huffed and looked Eunice's way.

"It's Bullworth, so I guess it could be a lot worse."

Eunice nodded, giving a small smile.

"Yeah... I guess it could be worse, but... y'know, it could always get better too!"

"Uh huh..." I replied, leaning against a nearby stonework wall. I propped my foot up on the wall as I relaxed and just let her talk... up until she snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Yeah?"

Eunice put her hands on her hips, looking a bit frustrated. Shoot, how long had I zoned out?

"I said, do you want to go to class together? It'd be cool if we had the same one for first period, y'know, Chemistry? Mrs. Peabody should've given you your schedule by now."

My gaze shifted to the paper in my hand and, sure enough, it was my class schedule. Conveniently, Chemistry was the first class I had today.

"Yeah, I got Chemistry too. I guess walking together doesn't sound like a bad idea," I said, stuffing my schedule inside my purse, not caring if it ended up a little crumbled.

It's not like I had anything better to do, besides, if those Bullies bothered me again, Eunice could've been some nice backup to have for dealing with them. Or a good meatshield. Either way, there really was no downside to it. For me at least.

Eunice seemed pretty happy about walking together.

"Great! Let's go, I think the bell is about to ring!" Without hesitation, Eunice grabbed me by the hand and, with a ridiculous amount of strength, pulled me with her to Chemistry. Now, usually this would've put somebody in a bad standing with me, but with how strong she turned out to be, I was kinda reluctant on bitching at her about it.

Chemistry class wasn't anything out of the ordinary... Aside from the teacher being blazed out of his mind. Dr. Wattz was clearly high on his own supply, but I didn't know what he was even on. It could've been anything. There were a hell of a lot of chemicals in the room to choose from. I had to wonder if some of them were even allowed to be used around and by a bunch of inexperienced teenagers, especially the kind that attended Bullworth Academy.

You'd think a stoner teacher would be pretty nice, but Dr. Wattz was the opposite. I screwed up by pouring the wrong chemical into my beaker and causing it to blow up in a puff of grey smoke, so the old guy threw a hotplate at me. It didn't end up actually hitting me thanks to a personal lifetimes worth of having to avoid flying objects. Instead, it flew towards that big doofus Russell and shattered to bits the second it connected to his skull. Oddly, and a little bit horrifyingly, Russell didn't give much of a reaction to the heavy metal piece of machinery cracking against his head. Seriously, was that guy even human?

So yeah, Chemistry was kind of weird now that I think about it. If there was any proof that Crabblesnitch was in some pretty heavy denial about the actual state of the school he was running, then that teacher was a damn good example. I mean seriously, what's next? An alcoholic teacher barely hiding the fact that he's chugging a 40 out of a paper bag as he's clicking through a presentation shown on a projector?

...Ok, maybe that was a bit too outlandish.

The bell rang for lunch, and as I left the classroom with Eunice, she and I split up. She wanted us to eat together, but I wasn't really interested.

She tried her hardest to get me to go with her, but I told her I wasn't that hungry. That wasn't really true, but I heard there was gonna be chicken for lunch today, and judging by the state of the food I'd choked down yesterday, I wasn't keen on getting salmonella and God knows what else from eating potentially undercooked chicken.

I headed outside, beelining towards the vending machine. If there was anything still keeping me on this bitch of an Earth, it would probably be Beam cola. Nectar of the Gods.

I shoved a dollar bill into the money slot and pressed the first button, and a can of Beam cola dropped down the machine. The sight of that chilled blue can was like looking down at a clear pond after trekking through a barren desert for miles.

Well, ok, maybe not that great of a sight, but it was still nice to be able to drink one of these again. I hadn't had one in weeks, not since mom had refused to keep buying them since she thought they were the cause of me being overweight. Which... well, she probably wasn't wrong, but it's not like it wasn't her fault since she introduced me to these things in the first place.

Back when I was barely a toddler and being forced by mom into participating in those glitzy beauty pageants, she would pour about half a can of Beam Cola into my sippy cup for me to drink in the morning so I wouldn't act cranky or fall asleep. It'd do the trick, probably since an entire can of Beam cola had about 40% of the daily recommended caffeine. I had a lot of memories that were just of me sitting in front of a mirror and chugging it while mom got me prepared to go on stage.

Yeah... those were the days, when it was mostly mom and me after my grandparents passed.

I felt a frown form on my face as I pulled the tab on the can, and that familiar hiss of the pressure releasing stuck solidly in my head. Whenever I heard it, I didn't know whether to consider it a pleasant noise or a bad one. On one hand, I honestly hated having to do those stupid pageants, hated having all that crappy makeup plastered on my face and those dumb outfits I'd be forced into... But on the other hand?

At least back then, mom actually seemed happy spending time with me. Nowadays she'd rather be with her rich boyfriends or the occasional millionaire she managed to sucker into marriage way more than me.

A little, niggling thought that seemed to shrink by the day tried to convince me that mom was doing it for my benefit, that she was just trying to find the right guy that could take care of the both of us financially.

After all, if it had really been about the money, surely mom wouldn't have told me to pack up and leave with her after she actually saw the last man she'd conned cornering me in the kitchen to do god knows what? The guy ran a goddamn fast food franchise. He was loaded.

She had to care a little. I needed her to.

I'm not sure how I could take it if it turned out she didn't.

The can met my lips and I drank. Leaning against the vending machine, I was thankful there wasn't anyone around at the moment. I could already start to feel myself breaking a bit emotionally, and I was struggling just to keep all the cracked pieces together to put everything back to normal. It was like I was trapped in a constantly shaking room, trying desperately to fix this broken vase that just kept getting cracking into smaller and smaller pieces from all the force.

When I got to being reminded about what my last "step-dad" tried to do to me, it always screwed up my entire day. I was so used to being able to kick the ass of anybody that was dumb enough to cross me that the one time I couldn't fight back...

"Ah Hopkins, I've been meaning to talk to you about what happened yesterday."

I jumped a little and spilled some cola on the ground, turning to see Dr. Crabblesnitch walk out of the front door of the school building. He seemed to glance disapprovingly at the soda in my hand, though I wasn't sure whether it was because he thought I shouldn't be drinking it for whatever reason or because I'd spilled it.

'Wouldn't be surprised if it was the first one.'

"Something wrong sir?" I asked, holding the cola can by the top and casually letting it dangle at my thigh.

"Well no, not really. I wanted to speak to you personally about an incident with some of the male students that you were involved in yesterday, among other things..."

'Alright, here we go..'

"Yes sir? What about it? Am I in trouble?" I said in a slightly disinterested tone.

I already got this guy's gist the day I'd met him. He was just another old prick too stuck in the old days to even see what was going on with the younger generation.

"No, actually. I'm just curious as to why you went near the Boy's Dorm. You weren't trying to go in there, were you?" Dr. Crabblesnitch replied, his tone dripping with suspicion. It's like he was eager to get me in trouble for something.

Been there, done that, and got expelled from my third school because of it.

"I got my directions messed up, that's it. Shouldn't you be getting onto the guys who did this to me?" I pointed out the bruising on both my right cheek from Trent and the punch from Russell that had my nose swollen and inflamed. "It was Trent and Russell by the way. I don't know if Dr. Lamb told you, but it was them."

Crabblesnitch eyed my face, though I got a feeling of disinterest from him.

"She did inform me of those two in particular, and they've been given suitable enough punishments, however..." He went on, and the next thing he said made me want to wring his neck. "I don't entirely believe that you didn't purposefully walk to the Boy's Dorm because you weren't familiar with the layout, as Mr. Northwick informed me that you headbutted him the second you walked onto the school grounds. Is this true? I wouldn't put it past you looking for a fight... given your record..."

I got caught up trying to respond, the audacity of his statement leaving me absolutely perplexed.

"Yeah I did! Because he tried to take money from me!" This guy was seriously trying to tell me I was looking for a fight! It was my first day! The only thing I'd been looking for was the Girl's dorm! "Look, I know my record makes me sound like a real tool, but this place is full of bullies and maniacs!"

Dr. Crabblesnitch, again, seemed to wave off my criticisms.

"Oh nonsense. I'm sure he was just showing a bit of school spirit! Hijinks. I'm sure he was simply just trying to mess with you. Boys will be boys after all. It's perfectly understandable that you didn't quite get it, being a girl and all."

'UUUUGGGGHHHH. Thisplacewillbethedeathofme.'

I felt as though my brain was starting to leak out of my skull after hearing that, I nearly didn't catch the rest of his sentence.

He continued on as I took another sip of soda, the overly sweet liquid bringing me some respite from the bullshit spewing out of his mouth.

"Now, I want you to stop with this nonsense. It's unbecoming of a young lady to be so violent. I want you to behave yourself. Now, I've had a talk with Dr. Lamb, and we've both decided it would be beneficial if you visited her for counseling, starting tomorrow. Understood?"

'Ok. Good. Great. Just treat me like a nutcase I guess. As if i'm the problem here.'

Of course, I couldn't actually tell him that. I'd rather not get the world record for the quickest school expulsion in American history.

...Even if it was kinda tempting...

"Understood, sir. Can I go now?"

I wanted to just curl up in bed and yell into my pillow.

Crabblesnitch gave me a curt nod and straightened out his neck tie. As I waited for his response, I got the odd feeling that we weren't alone, as if somebody else was just around the corner. Odd.

"Good, be on your way then."

The Headmaster walked right back into the main building, and after the door shut behind him, I stuck my middle finger in his direction for a second. It was stupid, but it did make me feel a little better. If only I could do it to his face.

Alas, it simply couldn't be.

"Pfft, 'Good, be on your way' yeah, i'll be on my way..." I muttered to myself, mocking Crabblesnitch's tone, "I'll be on my way to putting my foot up your stupid a-"

"Hey!"

I turned my head to see Slingshot kid standing in front of the small set of stairs leading up to the main school building entrance. His nose had a gauze patch on it, with another one slapped on his forehead, underneath it was a large reddish purple bruise. I tried to remember exactly what I'd done to cause that, until I thought about when i'd pushed Tom into him. Must've landed on his face pretty hard when he fell apparently.

Gary gave me his name yesterday, during the tour. It was Davis White, I think?

Along with his name, I knew at least two things about him from what Gary had told me.

The first was that he was in his senior despite looking a bit on the younger side, he was even pretty short to boot, he couldn't have been taller than 5'4. In fact, he was supposed to graduate last year, but he was so deep into his bullying obsession that he'd purposefully gotten himself held back. Gary doubted Davis even wanted to graduate at all, which was bizarre to me. Being able to bully freshman couldn't have been worth spending yet another year in the hellscape that was an American high school.

The second was that he was basically the "brains" of pretty much every plan the Bullies had. Whenever they'd pull something, it was usually his idea. Another kid, Troy, was supposed to be the second-in-command since Russell liked him the most. But more often than not, when Russell wasn't around, it was either Davis or Trent leading, not him. An easy way to tell whether the idea came from Trent or Davis was fairly easy. For one, Davis wasn't nearly as straightforward with his schemes compared to Trent.

He had his clearly homemade wooden slingshot on hand, giving it a firm grip as he glared at me. Obviously, he was pretty mad at me, but at the same time, there was a sort of confidence to it, like he had something planned out.

"Oh, great. You again. Look, I don't-" I didn't get to finish my sentence before he started talking, his tone accusatory and aggressive.

"I saw you talking to Crabblesnitch. Trent and Russell already got detention because of you, you tryin' to get the rest of us in trouble?" Despite his aggression, he seemed to avoid getting any closer to me. That showed, to me at least, that he had some kind of common sense.

"What?" I said, turning toward Davis. "Shut up. They got what they deserved. Maybe take the hint and-"

He again didn't even let me finish. I saw him lift up the wooden slingshot in his hand, grabbing the rubber band with his other hand.

"Screw you new kid, this is what we do to snitches around here!" Davis lifted up the slingshot and aimed it at me, a pebble stuffed in the middle of the rubble band as he pulled it back.

"You better not-AAow!"

He let the band go, and the pebble struck me in the head. I dropped my Beam cola, which spilled on the ground at my feet.

Son of a bitch, I wasn't done drinking that!

As I got myself together, Davis had the biggest shit eating grin on his face as he let out a snide chuckle.

I grunted angrily, kicking the can away as my shoes were slightly saturated with soda.

"You-!" I snapped, and in response, Davis turned and began to book it to the right of the main school building, yelling back:

"Yeah! Come and get me fatso!"

Well shit! I might as well!

"Get back here!" I yelled back at him, sliding down the stairs railing as he ran ahead.

Was this guy in track? I'd barely turned the corner as he was already past the parking lot. At first, I'd figured that's where he'd been headed, as I recalled Gary mentioning that the Bullies tended to hang out there. They seemed the type to gang up on one person anyway. Instead, I followed him as he turned right again, headed to the path that led to where the Gym, Harrington house, and Shop class were.

Davis pushed past a kid in his way who I realized was actually Pete, who was sent toppling down the small set of stairs along with the stack of books and papers he'd been carrying. Surprisingly, Pete didn't seem much affected by the fall as he yelled out to me from the ground:

"I saw him! He went towards Shop class! To the right of the fountain!"

"I saw. Thanks anyway!" I shouted back at him as I ran past.

Pete could pick himself up. He didn't seem that hurt.

I took another turn and spotted as Davis ran through the gate that led into the Shop area. Just before it shut behind him, Wade ran through and confronted me.

"I'VE GOT HER!"

We collided with each other and ended up in a grapple, grabbing at each other's arms to stop the other from hitting them. As hard as he tried, he couldn't wrangle his arms away from me, but neither could I. The most I could do was try to knee at his gut, but my short legs either didn't connect or barely did so. My height was really biting me in the ass here.

"OHHHHH I'VE BEEN LOOKIN' FORWARD TO THIS!" Wade tried kicking at me too, but I was able to back off a little and avoid it, but only barely. I was stuck on how to get the upper hand until I noticed the nearby trash can that we just so happened to be slowly making our way towards.

Hm... That'll work.

"Yeah... So was I..." I said as a wide grin spread across my face. The unhinged glee Wade had had on his own face turned into a worried confusion as we were right beside the trash can. Without hesitation, I tossed him into the can ass first.

"HEY! I-I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!" Wade cried as he tried to pull himself out of the metal trashcan. He didn't seem to be making much headway, though, in fact he seemed to be accidentally digging himself deeper in his attempt. Clearly, he wasn't used to being on the receiving hand of getting tossed into a garbage can.

"Better luck next time!" I called back, heading towards the metal doors into the Shop class area. Thankfully, it hadn't been locked, but it took me an embarrassing amount of time to realise the doors were supposed to slide open to the side. As they did and I sprinted in, I spotted Davis behind a fence taunting me.

"You're too slow! Hahaha!"

He took off again when I ran into the fence, grabbing it and seething in frustration until I realized it wasn't enclosed. There was an opening to the right of me, and without hesitation, I ran for the turn and followed after him.

It was odd to see the shop not be surrounded by all those Greaser dorks. Yesterday, after the tour of the main school building, Gary showed me around the entire campus. Those guys were scattered around the entire place like they owned it. We didn't stick around the area long, since the Greasers clearly hadn't wanted us there... well, aside from the fat one whose name escaped me at the moment.

That guy gave me some serious bedroom eyes as I walked by, and when I pointed it out to Gary, he laughed and told me about how that Greaser in particular was into fat women.

After learning that, i've considered going easy on the Beam colas from now on.

I heard the loud sound of a garage door slamming down and looked towards the source. At the back of the shop building was some kind of smaller building, presumably another garage. I figured I'd have a hard time trying to get it open, but surprisingly, the shutter door slid upwards without much effort.

I quickly found out why.

A 2x4 wooden plank was swung at me, and I barely managed to dodge it with a clumsy roll that ended with me stumbling back into the nearby brick wall of Shop class.

Ethan, the kid obsessed with ninjas that i'd gut punched yesterday, was the guy who'd swung the board at me. As I got up with my back flat on the wall, Ethan swung the board around in the air like he was swinging a sword, complete with making swishing sounds with his mouth. How the hell was this guy a bully? He's acts like a complete dork!

"Man- Ethan! Knock it off with that crap and just hit her with it!" Tom said from a back corner of the room. He seemed to be distancing himself as far as possible from me and Ethan, I'm assuming he was reluctant to get near me due to what happened the last time he did. Good, let him be afraid. If a lot of the jerks around here were smarter, they'd do the same.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Ethan turned his head and yelled back, stupidly holding the board right in front of me within grabbing distance. I grabbed for it, yanking the plank of wood out of his hand. As he whipped his head back to face me, I swung the board and hit him in the stomach. He doubled over, and I hit him with it again, this time in the back with enough force to break the board in half.

Ethan crumpled to the ground, and I threw the piece of wood I'd been holding to the back of me.

I looked up at Tom, and whatever expression I'd had on my face must've been threatening because instead of trying to fight back, he had decided to shove himself into the corner of the room.

I took a few steps closer, and without missing a beat, Tom grabbed a nearby wooden ruler and held it out in front of him defensively.

"S-stay away from me you crazy bitch!"

"You know, this really could've been avoided, but no. Maybe you should've thought a bit more before thinking it was a good idea to jump me with your buddies."

"It wasn't even my idea! It was all Davis!"

"Wow. I really don't care."

I ran up to brunet and smacked the ruler out of his hand, clocking him in the face. He fell onto a nearby wooden crate that shattered into a heap of wood. Barely had to break a sweat with that one. He laid flat on the concrete floor, moaning and whimpering.

I rolled my eyes and walked over to the other garage door that Davis had gone through, opening it as easily as the last one.

I stepped into the open area, getting confronted by Troy, the ginger kid who had absolutely no inside voice to speak of. Possibly the most absurd thing anyone has ever said to me came out of his mouth, and I was split between laughing or just smacking the shit out of him. Maybe both.

"I'M GONNA HIT YOU HARDER IN THE OVARIES THAN YOU HIT ME IN THE BALLS!"

He charged toward me, and without hesitation, I took the lid off of a nearby metal trashcan and held it out in front of me.

As he neared, I whacked the lid across Troy's face, and he anticlimactically fell to the ground with a loud thump.

That was easy.

I went further along and finally found Davis standing on top of a structure made up of what looked like garbage. He seemed far less confident than he had after launching that pebble at me.

He kicked away the ladder he'd used to climb up the structure, which left me unable to get up to him on foot without risking something going wrong. That structure didn't exactly look all that stable, and trying to grab on it probably would've caused the whole thing to fall over.

"You stay away from me!" Davis said, his tone betraying how scared he actually was.

I threw the trash can at him like a frisbee, and it hit him in the arm. He stumbled a bit but managed to balance himself, the structure creaking and shifting as it was on the verge collapsing on itself.

"Get away, you psycho!" Davis yelled, voice cracking mid-sentence. His hand grabbed onto the wall behind him for balance. I scooped a nearby brick off the ground and prepared to throw it at him.

"What's wrong? Can't take what you dish out?! Huh?!" I didn't give two shits if he was scared of me. Let him be. Maybe he and his buddies'll learn to finally not fuck with me after this. I didn't care how much I would end up hurting these jerks. If they insisted on bullying and harassing me, then they were pretty much asking for anything that happens to them.

I wound up my arm and threw the brick, which hit him in the jaw. That was enough. Davis stumbled back, and the structure couldn't take anymore of it. It collapsed in on itself as some of the trash that kept everything together tumbled out in multiple directions. I saw Davis jumping away from the collapsing structure with a yelp as the entire thing fell apart, falling on his face to the asphalt below.

As everything settled, Davis laid flat on the ground, letting out a quiet groan as he rolled onto his back. I walked over to him, and as I looked him over, I noticed the slingshot he'd shot me with in his front left pants pocket. Without hesitating, I grabbed it. Davis noticed this, though didn't seem to bother with getting up. I didn't doubt he was actually hurt. Hell, I'd probably broken something in his face just from tossing that brick at him. Given that entire ordeal he and his buddies just put me through, I personally couldn't muster up the care to feel bad about it.

Clutching at his face with one hand, Davis tried grabbing for the slingshot with the other, giving a weak protest to go along with it.

"H-hey!" Davis said with a pained groan, "That's mine y-you jerk!"

It clearly hurt for him to talk, and the part of his jaw I'd hit was starting to redden and swell up.

So I kicked Davis in that same area and swiped the slingshot from his hands. He began yelling and soon crying as he grabbed at his face.

I simply turned and walked out of the Shop area, passing by the other boys on my way there.

'I'm sure this'll come up during my talk with Dr. Lamb tomorrow...' I thought as I neared the fountain.

I was just about to sit down on the base of the fountain when I felt a pair of hands on me.

With a yelp, I was pulled back, feeling my back hit what felt like a guy's chest. His breath hit my ear, and that was enough to freak me out. In my panic, I kicked back at whoever it was and connected with what felt like his kneecap.

"Yow! Hey! What's wrong with you?!" From the voice I realized it was Gary of all people, and as I backed away and turned around, I saw him clutching his left leg. I wanted to slug him in the jaw, but since my energy was spent from earlier, I yelled at him instead.

"W-what's wrong with me?! What's wrong with you?! Do you just grab girls like that all the time?!" I yelled back. What even was his thought process? Did he think I'd just be ok with it or something because I didn't hate him?

I was really starting to regret letting this guy off easy calling me a cunt. I couldn't even remember why I'd let him off the hook in the first place.

Gary winced a bit as he rubbed at his leg, clearly still a bit miffed. He straightened himself out and glared at me.

"Geeze Jen, I was just trying to scare you a little, you know, to be funny. I didn't think you'd freak out about so much," Gary put his hands up in a lax but defensive way. He got right next to me and casually put a hand on my shoulder. "Anyway, what's up? You're a bit jumpy today. Did something happen recently?"

I moved my shoulder to get his hand off of me, and before he could respond, I replied to his previous question.

"Those douchebags jumped me again because Trent and Russell got in trouble for what happened yesterday, Davis shot a pebble at my face and lured me into the Shop area where the rest of them were waiting to gang up on me," I showed Gary the slingshot briefly before stuffing it into my purse, "I also took Davis' slingshot. Mostly because I could."

"Aw, you beat them up again? And I didn't get to see it? You know, that's really inconsiderate of you Jane, you should've told me so I could've watched. I probably hate those morons the most out of every neanderthal in this place."

I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, ok, Gary. I'll be sure to let you know beforehand if I get jumped again. I'll even set out a nice chair for you to sit in too. Would you like that princess?"

"Yeah, that sounds nic- Wait, what did you just call me?"

"Huff huff JENNY!"

Trisha came running from the single back door of the main school building, barely avoiding bumping into me and Gary. She bent over to catch her breath for a second. Her hair was messier than it usually was, presumably from her sprinting.

She looked up at me with her makeup smudged face and spoke at a mile a minute... which, as a claim, only made any sense if you were around to hear her while she was talking.

"Jenny!Theguysaregonna-!" Trisha went quiet as soon as she spotted Gary, who, as he had laid eyes on her, sneered in disgust.

"Ugh, what is she doing here? Hey, short bus, don't you have something better to do other than polluting my air? Like whoring yourself out to those Preppies to buy all those dumb anime figurines you have!" Gary said, practically shouting out the last part of his sentence for anyone nearby to hear... At least they would have if Trisha hadn't starting screaming after Gary uttered the word, "whoring".

I covered my ears and yelled:

"Trisha! Gary! CUT IT OUT! GEEZE!"

Trisha stopped with the screaming, but Gary was more than happy to continue talking.

"Why do I have to quit talking? I didn't do anything, I just asked a question, come oooonnnnn Jenny," Gary visibly pouted, as if he thought he could guilt trip me or something. I wasn't having any of it. Instead, I turned back to Trisha.

"Lemme guess, you were gonna warn me about your buddies jumping me near Shop class, am I right?" I folded my arms, tilting my head quizzically at her.

She seemed amazed by the fact that I was already aware.

"Uh... Yeah? How'd you know?"

"Because I literally just beat them all up. Again. Look."

I turned and pointed in the direction of Shop Class, and the first thing I noticed was Wade still being stuck in the trash can. He'd seemingly given up on trying to get out of it, pitifully looking down and probably waiting for one of his friends to pull him out. But instead of it being one of his friends, it would end up being Trisha.

I turned back to her.

"The rest of the boys are inside the Shop area, so have fun dragging them all out of there I guess..." Suddenly, a realization came to me, "Trisha... How come you only just now tried to warn me about what the Bullies were planning? Seems like a weird coincidence that you got here right after it all went down..."

Trisha suddenly appeared a bit nervous, but before she could speak, Gary decided to butt in again.

"Yeah... What is it, Trisha? Upset that my good pal Jenny here caught onto your act? C'mon, answer you whore!" He prodded Trisha in the shoulder, which only seemed to make her even more nervous than she already was. It was also clear that Gary's slut shaming was also getting to her, and it drew a line with me that I knew I had to put a stop to.

"Gary, knock it off, seriously."

Gary groaned and turned away.

"Finnneeee..." He turned his head briefly to talk over his shoulder, "Trisha should explain herself though. I'm telling you Jen, she might be hiding something."

"I do have an explanation actually Gary! So shut your gap-toothed, wannabe know-it-all ass up!"

I was at my limit. Without an ounce of hesitation, I grabbed the two of them and knocked their heads together.

"Yow! What was that for?"

"Ow, Jenny, stop! My old therapist told me I have enough brain damage!"

"Just. Talk. Trisha! And shut up, Gary!"

Gary, for once, seemed to be able to stay quiet as Trisha began explaining herself.

"Ok, so I got in trouble for drawing during Algebra 3 class, so I got sent to lunch detention where Russell and my brother Trent were because of that whole thing from yesterday. Well... the teacher watching over us, Mr. Burton stepped out for a little bit, so we all started talking and stuff. I mentioned to Trent about how you ended up as my roommate, and he told me about how Davis planned to lure and jump you at the area around Shop class during lunch with the rest of the guys. I tried to sneak out to warn you, but Mr. Burton came back, and he wouldn't let me leave even though I'd already finished my lunch. But then Russell got mad about something, and so got Burton was distracted by that. So here I am!"

Huh, yeah I guess that made sense. So Trent is her brother then? I thought those two looked a bit similar. I guess that explains why she even hung out with those bozos.

"You really expect us to believe that? Don't be so gullible Jen, she's clearly trying to cover her ass."

"Gary!"

"What?"

"I'm telling the truth! Seriously!"

"I know! Ugh, just... just go pick up your buddies off the pavement and leave!" I pointed towards the Shop area, then looked over to Gary, "We need to talk..."

Trisha seemed more than happy to leave, even giving Gary a quick glare as she jogged away towards Wade. I gave Gary a glare of my own, but just like with Trisha's, it didn't seem to bother him much.

"Gary, what the hell was that?"

"Whatever do you mean, Jane? I'm just looking out for you. You'd do the same for me, wouldn't you?" he tilted his head, his face looking almost like a whipped dog. It didn't make him look all that sympathetic, though. I actually wanted to slug him in the face even more than I previously did.

I shook my head, still looking up at him angrily.

"Gary, she's my roommate. I can't just start beef with the girl i'm sharing a room with," I responded, trying to relax a bit. Gary was making that a bit hard though, what with him making probably the most punchable face possible at the moment. He was really bad at trying to look innocent.

He let out a defeated "tsk" and folded his arms.

"You really got stuck with her as a roommate? You have my pity, Jane, seriously... But fine, I won't agitate her, in fact... she could probably be a bit useful to us later... As long as you can stomach being nice to that spastic attention whore..."

That last bit of his sentence before the insult gave me a bit of pause. Useful? What for?

"Useful?" I asked, "For what? You make it sound like you're planning something big. Mind tellin' me about it?"

A knowing smile stretched across his face. I'd been a bit preoccupied with... uh, "admiring" it that him touching me on the shoulder as he guided me down the steps and towards the direction of the parking lot hadn't registered at all.

"Yes, useful. I can't say much since i'm still working out the details, but there's no need to worry your little head about all that... Now, c'mon, how's about we work on your aim with that slingshot you've got there? I know just the perfect place to practice..."

[violetnerves]

Bully: Battle Royale, Chapter 1 -

Nothing will ever be the same again.

So I finally got this done, been struggling with feeling inspired to write for a while since my dog fell sick and couldn't walk without help anymore. We were forced to put her to sleep yesterday, and I only just got the inspiration to finish this a few hours ago.

It's a shame, she was a good dog, but all good things come to an end. I feel like I'm taking it rather well, but i'm also the type of person to have the grief hit later on rather than immediately.

It seems rather gruesome to write a fic like this considering all that, but I also feel like it kind of helps... in a weird way.

Anyway, Content warning for the following, I'll also put some of it in the tags too:

Death of a Major canon character.

Blood, like, a lot of it.

Graphic descriptions of injuries/wounds (Might be more applicable in future chapters, not so much here.)

Some foul language.

Honestly, if the deaths of teenagers/children is something that you have a difficult time reading about, you'll want to avoid this fic.

Word count: 2657 (It's short, but I consciously wanted to avoid what happened with the other fic where I had to split chapter 1 into two parts. Future chapters will be longer.)

Like my other fic, I'll also be posting this on Ao3.

Jimmy hated Mondays.

No, really. He did. There was just this suffocating atmosphere of suckage that, well, sucked any and all kind of positive feeling that you could get throughout the day. Besides, what good thing ever happened on a Monday? Exactly! Absolutely nothing!

Sunday was second to it as far as terrible days went, but that was only because the next day after that one was Monday.

Sure, it wasn't an unpopular opinion, but saying it out loud was dumb. It was like saying the sky was blue or that water was wet. The only appropriate response, in Jimmy's opinion at least, for saying you didn't like Mondays was the following:

*"Well, obviously no one likes Mondays **moron**. Who does?"*

...

Why did that sound exactly like something Gary would say?

Why would he even think about that *snake*?

He shook his head, trying to force his thought process onto something else.

This wasn't an ordinary, typical Monday at school, no, of course it wasn't. The entire student body of Bullworth Academy were shoved onto two garbage heaps of buses - Aside from the Preps, who got their own, new and fancy private bus - both of which might as well have been 20 miles away from breaking down and stranding them all in the middle of nowhere.

Jimmy sighed and leaned his head on the bus window as his classmates wreaked havoc all around him. Trent and Wade were throwing Bucky's glasses back and forth to each other across the left section bus seats while Bucky himself tried - and failed - to catch them. Johnny and Lola were - not so quietly - making out with each other in the other seat in the aisle next to him, and the rest of the Greasers were busy yelling at some passing drivers about how shit their cars looked. Several of the Jocks were tossing a mini toy football all around the bus, occasionally - most likely purposefully - hitting one of the nerds with it. The Nerds didn't have much of a way of defending themselves since they weren't allowed to bring any of their gadgets along.

Jimmy was left without a lot of the stuff he'd collected as well, having decided to just leave it all back in his dorm room. It's not like anybody could mess with anything there. The whole school was allowed to go on the field trip, regardless of grades. He'd thought that was a little odd, but he figured it was because the trip was meant to be educational rather than actually fun.

He wasn't sure what the Preps were up to. Most likely, they were all enjoying the experience of having their own bus to their inbred, spoiled rotten selves.

"You boys! Cut that out! You're old enough to know better than to throw things at people!" Mr. Galloway could be heard yelling from up front, his tone of voice sounding more irritated and tired than usual. The Jocks must've noticed his irritable tone as well, or they might've cooperated out of respect for one of the few nice teachers at the Academy, because after that, the toy hadn't been thrown around anymore.

Where Jimmy was seated, he was able to make out some irritated grumbles from Galloway, muttering about needing another drink, and Ms. Philips coaxed him off of the idea.

Galloway was clearly having a pretty bad hangover. This caused Jimmy to feel a bitter disappointment in the man, something that he was unfortunately used to feeling when it came to the adults in his life. He was miffed that Galloway was still drinking despite everything the boy had been doing to get him to stop. But he guessed there was only so much a kid like him could do. It was saddening that one of the few teachers who actually gave a damn about his students acted like a mean and irritable drunkard half of the time.

At least Ms. Philips was along for the trip as well, sitting right next to Galloway. She'd be an extra pair of eyes to make sure the English teacher didn't try and sneak a drink during the trip.

"Hey Jimmy?" Pete Kowalski said, concern in his tone. As Jimmy's friend, maybe the only real friend he had so far that hadn't been made by brute force, he sat next to Jimmy on the bus. Jimmy wasn't sure if he liked sharing a seat all that much, but he supposed it being Pete was better than anybody else.

Jimmy lifted his head up slightly from the window, looking over at his slightly younger friend.

"Yeah, Pete?" Jimmy said, slightly grumbling the first part of the sentence out.

"Are you ok? I dunno, you just seem kind of distracted by something."

Jimmy shrugged, leaning away fully from the window and sitting up in his seat. At first, Jimmy wanted to stay quiet and avoid answering, but he felt that Pete would think he was ignoring him. Which... well, that's pretty much what he would be doing.

"It's nothing, just..."

Jimmy knew he shouldn't look back at part of the source of his bad mood, but...

Well, there was something bothering him. Ok, not something, *someone*.

Jimmy turned in his seat to glare at the occupant of the last bus seat at the back of the bus. There, Gary Smith sat alone. His gaze faced the window, watching the scenery as it passed by and ignoring the shenanigans of the rest of their group.

It was stupid, Jimmy had hardly known Gary for barely a month, and they'd been enemies for longer than they'd been friends. Yet... aside from the fact that it was a Monday, as well as the dumb crap the other students were doing around him... Gary's betrayal still nagged and scratched at him the most.

Mainly from how spontaneous and, frankly, stupid it was. Gary seemed to pride himself on his intelligence and how he always thought ahead compared to the "morons" around him. But... he was by himself. The only other kid that actually sat alone was Russell, who was forced to since his size caused him to take up the entire bus seat. In Gary's case, it was because nobody in Bullworth actually liked him enough to sit by him. How could he even think he could become king of the school when no one even liked him?

"It's Gary, isn't it? He's still bugging you."

Jimmy turned to Pete, who seemed to lean back at his intense gaze.

"What! No, I don't care about that chump! Screw him!" Jimmy replied, following it up with a scoff, "Though i'm sure Gary *wishes* I cared that much about him. You remember how offended he got when I called him *boring*?"

Pete seemed to relax a bit more.

"Ha, yeah. I actually thought he was gonna hit you right after that. I'm surprised he didn't, then again, Gary's always been kind of hesitant about getting into an actual fight."

"Yeah, cause he's a coward. If he wasn't such an asskisser to Crabblesnitch, I'd beat the crap out of him."

Bucky's glasses flew just above Jimmy's head, and he snatched them out of the air. Wade, who'd been the one to toss them, yelled out:

"Hey Hopkins! Toss those to Trent!"

Jimmy frowned, turning around with his knees on his seat and his arms laid on the back to face Wade. He got a side eye from Constantinos, who sat right behind him, but he didn't care much. It's not like his respect mattered much. The kid was no better than Gary, except he happened to be a lot less bold about insulting people.

"Will you dumbasses cut it out! What'd I say about picking on the nerds? Do you want me to kick your ass *again*?"

Wade frowned, but rather than actually do anything, he sat back in his seat. Trent flipped Jimmy off but got back in his seat just as quickly as Wade did.

Jimmy smirked and looked over to Bucky.

"Here, catch."

From 3 seats away, Jimmy tossed Bucky's glasses back to him. Rather than actually catch them, though, the glasses slipped from Bucky's hands and fell to the ground, cracking the left lense right in the middle.

Jimmy noticed but didn't much care, sitting right back in his seat.

"I swear, some people just never learn."

Pete nodded, yawning. Jimmy thought that was kind of odd. Did he not get enough sleep last night? Then again, he did have Gary for a roommate, Jimmy wouldn't be surprised if that weird mumbling Gary had kept him up late.

"Yeah... The kids around her are... So stubborn... man, I'm kinda tired..." Pete mumbled, already appearing half asleep. He looked like he was struggling to even sit up. "W-What about you?"

Jimmy was about to say he wasn't until he himself had yawned before he could. Suddenly, it seemed he was also on the verge of dozing off. This didn't seem right, Jimmy knew he'd gotten plenty of sleep last night. He'd clocked out at 7:30, right after a whole day of running around and doing errands for some extra spending money.

"Yeah... It's weird, I was gonna say no, but for some reason, I'm just feeling like I could pass out at any second... Weird... Huh?" Jimmy looked over to Pete, finding the latter boy passed out... along with Lola and Johnny, who were also passed out in their seat in the next aisle.

Jimmy had a bad feeling bubbling inside him, and despite being on the verge of passing out, he grabbed the back of his seat and struggled to lift himself up to get a look at the rest of the bus.

Every single student, as well as Mr. Galloway and Ms. Philips were in a deep sleep in their seats. He glanced over to Gary, who had his fingers gripping the window, as if he'd been trying to open it before succumbing to whatever had caused everybody else to pass out.

*'What the... Is there some kind of gas leak in the air? What's going on here?'*

Jimmy attempted to get out of his seat to reach the aisle, but his drowsiness won out. He fell, barely catching himself with his arms before even those had failed him. On the ground, he tried to get up again, but his eyelids grew heavier and heavier until he couldn't keep them up anymore.

*'What...'*

The thought barely registered in his head before he lost consciousness.

***

*Jimmy sat alone on a park bench.*

*He wasn't sure what he was doing there, but he had a feeling it didn't actually mean all that much. He was dreaming after all, and as far as he understood it, dreams and nightmares were just your brain throwing out stuff from your memories and smashing them together in your head to sort things out. At least that's what a therapist had told him once, in the one time he went.*

*He'd only gone once because mom had only really paid for one session. CPS had only really required her to take him one time, so that's the only time he'd ever seen a therapist.*

*Suddenly, he wasn't alone, and he turned to find his father sitting with him.*

*Well, not his dad, more like his dad's tattooed body from the shoulders down that Jimmy had only seen from a photo of him as a baby. From the neck up, it was Mr. Galloway's head, which... was a weird sight to look at, given how his bio dad's muscular frame compared to the rather gaunt Galloway was mismatched in the most uncanny way.*

*Jimmy grimaced.*

*"Ew."*

*"Look, I'm trying to work with what I've got here. It's not my fault your mother's taste in men is terrible." The voice that came out of Jimmy's pseudo father figure belonged to the hobo who lived behind the bus. Man, surely he could've had more to work with than that?*

*"Fine, but do you take constructive criticism?"*

*"Sure."*

*"You did a bad job."*

*"Aw, c'mon."*

*Jimmy frowned.*

*"What's up with all this, by the way? Why are you here? Or is asking that question just pointless?"*

*Jimmy's pseudo dad sighed, scratching his head.*

*"Who knows? I guess your brain felt like you needed a father figure at the moment to prepare you for what you might see once you wake up."*

*Jimmy leaned forward, rolling his eyes. So he wasn't even sure why he was here? Great.*

*"And why is that? I fell asleep on the school bus on the way for a friggin field trip to a museum. What could be so dangerous about that?"*

*Pseudo dad went quiet for a bit, sighing.*

*"I guess we'll figure that out soon enough. God help you James," as he called Jimmy "James" he briefly sounded like Galloway for a moment, and he began to disappear.*

*The dream began to break up, and as soon as Jimmy had arrived -*

He woke up.

Jimmy found himself sitting in a school desk, his head laying on the table. He lifted his head up and looked around. The rest of the class was in the room... as well as the townies? None of the townies were sat at a desk, instead the group were laying in a pile at the other side of the room. Mr. Galloway and Ms. Philips were nowhere to be found, something which gave Jimmy pause... as well as a terrible feeling to take over him.

He looked around the room, trying to get a sense of the area in case he could make a quick escape.

The room itself appeared to be an abandoned classroom, left to decay and be ravaged by God knows who. Some plants had grown in through the broken window panels at the right side of the classroom. The floor had visible holes in it, the stone broken either by disrepair or by anyone who explored the building.

"What the hell..." Jimmy muttered, turning his head as he heard someone mumbling. Just one row and two seats behind Jimmy, Russell lifted up his head. It was only then that Jimmy noticed the metal collars everyone in the room was wearing, and as he held his hand up to his own neck, he realised he was wearing one too.

Russell noticed his collar immediately, touching it.

"Huh?" Russell said. His fingers began to curl around the collar as if he was about to rip it off.

Without hesistation and fully going off of his gut feeling, Jimmy yelled out to Russell:

"H-hey Russell, don't pull on that!"

Russell didn't listen, didn't even really register Jimmy's voice at all. He gave the collar a hard tug, and Jimmy heard a loud crack as the pressure caused the metal to break.

Before Russell could even realise the repercussions of what he did, the collar *exploded.*

The sound of the blast woke everyone in the room up, and those in front of Russell got the worst of it as they were sprayed by Russell's arterial blood from his burst open neck. The big guy fell over on his desk, his life literally draining out of him and spewing out on the dirty, decrepid tile floor. The Townies awoke and scrambled to their feet at an almost unnatural speed, their eyes widening at Russell's corpse.

It only took a second of realization, before the scream of one of the girl's caused a panic, and all hell broke loose in the room as desks and furniture were toppled over and people scrambled and ran blindly around the room.

Jimmy hated Mondays, and this time, he felt that he had a good reason to at this very moment.

Nothing good happened on Mondays, and it didn't take Russell's gruesome death for Jimmy to realise that after today, nothing would ever be the same again.

[violetnerves]

Kind of Unhinged Bully/Canis Canem Edit Headcanons, Part 1 of ?:

- Every single one of the Preppies have had surgery of some kind to fix the obvious physical defects that resulted from their inbred family tree. Derby was the worst case and definitely looked like a long-lost brother of Charles II of Spain before he went under the knife. Even after all the extensive work was done, Derby's mouth is stuck in a permanent smirk, and he can't emote with his face all too well due to how stiff it is. Some easier to hide deformities are sometimes kept, like Tad's single webbed foot, and some have yet to be corrected, like Pinky being bowlegged.

The only reason Tads older brother's severe deformities haven't been corrected is due to his behavioral issues being too disruptive for him to ever live a normal life, thus his family couldn't be bothered and just shoved him into an asylum to be forgotten about.

- Tom's paranoid nature comes partly from the fact that he and his family are in witness protection under different names. His real name isn't even Tom Gurney, not that any of his friends are actually aware of this. At times, Tom will occasionally let slip about something he'd experienced under his old identity, like his quote questioning somebody about if they've ever been on a cruise ship before, which may imply his family were fairly wealthy in their old lives.

None of Tom's friends are allowed to visit the apartment in Bullworth that his family lives in, with his parents claiming it's because the apartment is too small for a bunch of rowdy boys. (Which is true, Tom and his parents have to share both a bathroom and a Bedroom.) Though it might mostly be because they're embarrassed by how far they've fallen in status.

- Mr. Luntz has definitely killed somebody before. The shady In-and-Out motel owner, Mihailovich, helped hide the body. (Kind of a joke headcanon that's semi-plausible ngl.)

I'm just gonna write these randomly since I'll be doing something and my brain just beams these into my consciousness without my consent.

[violetnerves]

The Rise and Fall of Jenny Hopkins, aged 15, Chapter 1, Part 2:

Part 2 of Chapter 1, story under the divider.

Word Count: 6403

Possible content warning for Physical abuse, ableist language towards Russell (Mostly by Gary.) and homophobia (It's directed towards Pete by Gary, this shouldn't be surprising.)

I was met by my own gaze, reflected by the bathroom mirror. My nose was even redder than usual, swollen not only by the punch from Russell, but also by the tissue paper I had shoved up my nostrils.

I ran my hand over the back of my skull and felt my hair, which barely grew past my chin. It was cut unevenly, an impulsive idea done out of frustration from my fellow classmates of past schools yanking at my hair... as well as partly influenced by my last step-dad. The creep used to just feel at my hair, as if he'd had any right to just touch me in that way.

Mom was *pissed* the second she'd seen what i'd done to my hair, screaming and yelling at me about why I wanted to make myself look ugly; As much as I tried to explain, she just wouldn't hear it any of it, and it turned into us having a screaming match in the hallway. Eventually, mom just started throwing whatever she could get her hands on at me.

I ended up locking herself in my room afterward, not wanting to escalate things more than they already were. Well, that was partly the reason. The other major reason was so I could avoid hitting her out of frustration. I could still recall how I'd clawed at my own arm for even entertaining the thought of physically harming my mom.

I cringed at the memory and made my way out of the bathroom.

It was remembering things like that where I really began to notice how easily I considered violence as a solution to my problems. Other girls didn't act like that, so... What the hell was wrong with me?

The old woman I'd nearly ran into on my way in was right outside the entrance to the girl's bathroom, scowling and making the excessive wrinkles on her face all the more apparent.

What was her name again? Oh, right. Mrs. Peabody.

Her appearance was like night and day compared to Dr. Lamb. Her clearly dyed brown hair was pinned up in a too-neat bun, lacking bangs, which made her oddly high hairline prominent. Wrinkles decorated and hung on her face like uncooked dough, and I could make out some dark facial hair growing on top of her upper lip. I felt like I could touch her, and her brittle body would crumble like a poorly built sculpture.

The old bag hadn't been happy about the attitude I'd given her when i'd shoved myself through the door, slouching over it like some decrepid gatekeeper. She had shown *some* concern over my gushing nostrils, though I had a feeling most of it was because of my blood dripping onto the disgustingly clean carpet.

"Are you sure you don't want the nurse to have a look at your nose? Just to make sure that whatever awful *boy* did that to you didn't break anything?"

"Yes ma'am, I'm sure," I responded, struggling to resist the urge to be sarcastic at her. My mood wasn't exactly the highest right now, and the last thing I needed was for someone to dote over me with fake sympathy. Besides, I was pretty familiar with what a broken nose felt like, and I know I definitely didn't have one. "I just want to go to my room to unpack. Which one's supposed to be mine?"

Mrs. Peabody let out a harumph, followed by her digging into a pocket on her skirt and pulling out a key with a piece of paper stuck on it. *2-D* was written on the paper in permanent marker.

"Room 2-D, as it says on the key. That's on the second floor near the end of the hall. Your name will be written on the placard next to the door, just in case you have trouble with simple directions. Keep in mind that you also have a roommate. A bit of a warning, the girl is a bit... unwell..."

I didn't respond. Instead, I took the key and wandered up to the second floor. It wasn't long until I found the room, entering it and finally feeling a sense of security that I hadn't felt since I'd first left my step-father's house.

Then my eyes met the walls, and I was stuck looking at the... decor...

There was a clear divide of the free space and the part of the room my roommate clearly had made her own..

My roommate's space was messy, the wall near her desk and bed plastered with posters and drawings. It was either official, professional art that was from the actual show mixed with unofficial art drawn by somebody else, all of which were printed out and taped on the wall, along with several other amateur spiral notebook drawings that had a pretty heavy anime influence.

There were even more of the drawings on the desk, most of which were incomplete. Along with the drawings was a variety of merchandise, most of which were plushies of anime characters.

I didn't recognize most of them, aside from this magical girl one from when I used to watch poorly dubbed anime on shitty motel tvs back in the day when mom and I didn't have a permanent address, either couch-hopping at wherever her new boyfriend of the month lived or staying at the aforementioned hotels.

I couldn't really recall the name... I think it was Captain Uranus or something? I dunno, I wasn't much of a fan of weird, foreign media like that.

There was a laptop bag that sat on her bed, and next to that was an end table that had some framed photos on it.

Then my eyes met a photo on the end table next to the bed, and I grimaced.

It showed that girl from earlier, the one who'd been recording the fight, alongside Trent and that kid with the black eye - sans the black eye - at what looked like a carnival or amusement park. Great, so I was roommates with her?

I stepped out of the room for a moment to look back at the placard next to the door, eyes shifting to the first name on it, which was above mine.

*Trisha N.*

*'Gonna have to remember that.'*

I re-entered the room, and my gaze was drawn to the other side of the room. A perfectly made bed stood nearly untouched, plain grey bedding with some odd looking blue flower pattern that didn't really fit with the color scheme of the room and the building. There was also my luggage, which had been dropped off before I'd gotten here.

Beside it was a large dresser, which I walked over to and opened up.

Several pairs of button-ups, ties, skirts, as well as underwear, socks, and shoes were inside, enough to last about a month before they required washing. Though the wardrobe itself was mostly empty, which meant that there was at least enough space for clothes that I'd actually *like* wearing.

The button-up shirts had the Bullworth emblem sewn into them as a patch, and the skirts were a dull shade of blue in a plaid pattern, which had straps that were probably supposed to be slipped onto my shoulders like suspenders... I doubt I'd actually bother to wear them like that, though. I didn't want to look like some dork.

Now that I had my mind on the extra space in the wardrobe, I did have some things I could put into it. I went ahead and tossed some of the clothes I'd brought along in my luggage into the cupboard. I wasn't exactly neat and tidy about it, just putting the clothes away in whatever pile they belonged to.

As I went to grab for my purse, I realized something.

*'Wait a minute, where the hell is-'*

Then I remembered it.

The sound of my purse hitting the concrete. Me turning my back on it to punch Wade in the face. Then when I left it behind because I'd been too annoyed and pissed off to remember my damn purse.

*The Boy's Dorm.*

*"SHIT!"* I hissed quietly, darting out of my room, down the stairs, and eventually out of the building entirely. I could hear Mrs. Peabody yelling back at me, but in the rush, I didn't really care what she had to say.

It wasn't long until I reached the spot where I remembered leaving the bag. Much to my relief, there wasn't anyone around...

... But I didn't see my purse anywhere...

I found myself staring at the entrance to the Boy's Dorm, silently wondering if I should bust the door down and tear the building apart to get it, despite the risks.

A growl bubbled out of my throat, and I turned away, retreating back to the Girl's Dorm before anyone else could pester me.

***

My right hand tugged down on the skirt of my school uniform, holding onto the tray of food with my left and *very* shaky hand. I wasn't a fan of skirts or really any kind of dress. I always felt exposed while wearing them, vulnerable in a way that I just couldn't stand. Plenty of times, at schools where uniforms were required, there would always be guys who'd try and "peek" at girl's under the guise of retrieving a dropped pencil, eraser, or whatever else was easy to "accidentally" swat off of a desk. Whenever they would do it to me, It tended to end poorly for them, and sometimes, me as well if the teacher hated me enough.

I sighed and smoothed down my skirt, making my way out of the lunch line. It seemed as though all of the tables were filled up, every student sitting with their friend/clique group as if they were personally assigned there.

The bullies were all bunched together at one table to the left of the room, and every single one of them - except Russell and Trisha - were beat up looking from earlier. Trent and Wade had an ice pack pressed against their heads, and Troy had thick gauze on his nose. The kid with the Brooklyn accent who'd threatened to give me two black eyes had two of his own. Each of them had bandages and patches of various sizes on and some noticeable bruises on their bodies. Wade caught sight of me and immediately gave me a rather vengeful stink eye.

Seeing the guy still miffed about what happened earlier might've made me feel a bit better... But then I remembered my missing purse, and my mood shot back down considerably. I was certain one of the bullies must've grabbed it, and if not, then it was one of the other boys, or even Trisha, since she'd been the only one there mostly conscious.

I didn't even consider the possibility that Dr. Lamb picked it up. One, because there wasn't an announcement about a missing purse, and two, because I never got *that* lucky.

Most of my money, my ID, my Mp3 player, as well as other embarrassing things, were in that bag. Getting it back was the first thing I was gonna focus on doing after lunch was over.

At first glance, it looked as though I was going to have to find somewhere outside of the cafeteria to eat lunch. No one around looked inviting, and when I got near any of the occupied tables, I was met with the sense that I didn't belong there.

Well, until it hit me. Literally.

Something spongy and soft nailed me on the cheek, landing on my tray. I looked down to find an extra bread roll embedded into my chunky mashed potatoes.

With an annoyed look, I turned my head to find the culprit responsible.

At the far right side of the cafeteria, two boys, one fair-skinned and one who looked mixed race, sat together at a basically deserted lunch table. Both had hair that was some shade of brown, but despite the one trait they shared, the two couldn't have been more different from one another.

The darker skinned boy sat to the left, appearing meek, radiating an air that screamed, *"I have no self confidence, please victimize me!"* he glanced at me for only a second before suddenly looking away. That meekness was exasperated by his button-up dress shirt, which was an oddly faint shade of pink that couldn't have been colored like that intentionally, as if it'd been originally a white shirt until some absent-minded idiot or a real jerk threw a red sock in the wash with it. His hair was cropped close to his scalp, but from the texture, I figured it'd be fairly curly if left to grow out.

To the right was the fairer-skinned boy with a shitty looking undercut that reminded me of a certain infamous dictator. Judging by his stare, he'd clearly been the one who'd thrown the bread roll. His dark, reddish brown eyes bore into mine as if he was trying to intimidate, asserting a sense of dominance over me. His hands were clasped together under his chin, and above it was the kind of smile that gave me the sense that he had complete and utter confidence in whatever he was thinking about saying or doing next. In a way, he seemed out of place, even wearing a teal sweater vest when I knew just from looking around that the standard vest color was supposed to be either some shade of green or blue, rather than a mix of both.

I began to walk toward the table, glaring daggers at the smug boy wearing the teal sweater vest.

"What's your issue? Do you wanna start something? Because i'm already in a crappy mood, and the last thing I need is another idiot trying to make me do something really stupid..."

"Well, aren't you a real peach, new girl? I suggest toning down the attitude a little or else they'll put you on medication - *boy*, nearly drove me insane..." He leaned his head against his balled up right hand, rapping the fingers of his left against the wooden table. That smug, all-knowing smirk of his seemed to be permanently stuck on his face. "I saw that little scuffle you had with that overgrown sped Russell."

I let out an unimpressed huff.

"Yeah? The guy decked me in the face... What of it?" I wasn't sure if he was going to rib me or something. I was on high alert at this point, given what happened earlier. "And, yeah, I'm new. Do you need something from me?" I set my tray down on the table and sat down in front of the confident boy.

Upon getting closer, I noticed a scar on the left side of the odd stranger's face that cut through his eyebrow, crossing his eye and ending just above his cheekbone. How did he get that scar?

Weird smug kid just got weirder.

"Yep, welcome to the worst school in the country, friend. The name's Gary Smith. Now, I'll be blunt, I actually want to do *you* a favor", he pointed a finger at me as if he was emphasizing his point.

I raised my brow, this time already smelling something rotten about whatever this guy might've had in mind.

"In this wretched hive of an institution, you're gonna need a friend, so, how about it?"

I frowned, sparing a glance to the meek boy beside him. He hadn't bothered to say anything at all, just occasionally picking at his food and sparing a glance at both Gary and me.

"Alright... what's your deal?" I said.

As far as I was concerned, all I wanted was to keep my head down - maybe pull a few pranks occasionally, but nothing that would get me in serious trouble - and eventually get out. I'd already been expelled 7 times. The only school left would probably be even worse than Bullworth, if that was even possible. Getting some friends around to help me out was probably a good idea.

"My deal? Aw c'mon Jenny, I'm just trying to make you, *'the new kid'*" Gary put a weird emphasis on those last three words. "Feel welcome. There is *'no deal'*, just common courtesy!" Gary grinned widely, exposing the top set of his teeth as well as the visible tooth gap he had. "I'm Head Boy, y'know? It's pretty much part of my job description."

"So you're just doing it because it's something you're obligated to do?" I scoffed, taking a moment to open up my milk carton. I decided against drinking out of it. However, when that unfortunately familiar sour milk smell hit me when the seal was broke. How long has this milk been sitting around? Did people really *pay* for their kids to go here? When even the *milk* was spoiled? "I feel welcome already."

Gary was visibly fazed by my dismissive attitude.

He grimaced, suddenly slamming his palm on the table and pointing at me with an accusatory finger. I wasn't bothered by the slam, though the meek boy beside him jumped and inched back in his seat a little. The rest of the lunch room hadn't noticed. The room itself was loud enough with other students talking and fooling around already. The three of us might as well have not been in there at all.

"Alright, listen here... *Jane*," Gary put an odd emphasis on my real name. "I'm trying to be nice here... Surely you could return the favor at least and not act like a. Fucking. Cunt!" Despite yelling, his tone didn't match his outward appearance. It was obvious he was angry, but it was subdued. Like he was trying really hard not to explode at me.

My mouth twisted into a snarl, and I felt myself start to *shake* with fury. I stood up, palms flat on the table. I would've grabbed for my tray, but I figured if I did, I'd end up swinging it at him. It's not like the food on it looked edible anyway, but since I'd already gotten into a fight today, I didn't think it was a good idea to start another one.

Even if the last one wasn't even my fault, but when has that ever mattered to school staff? A fight was a fight, I was surprised I hadn't already been called to the office about it.

"Listen here asshole! You don't get to call me that! Not you or any other one of the assholes in this shitty place!" I yelled at him, not even considering how I could've been heard by someone. I didn't care, I knew this guy had never had anyone call out his bullshit in his entire life. Lucky for me, *I* had to be the one to do it.

My fists balled up from their place on the table, and it was taking up all my willpower just to not sock Gary in the jaw. I huffed, standing up and looking down for a bit before even looking at Gary again.

He still looked somewhat pissed, though in an oddly calm way. It was certainly a hell of a lot less than the way I was feeling at least.

"I knew I was wasting my time here. Eat shit Gary, I'm eating outside."

I let my rage simmer down a bit before grabbing my tray and leaving. Gary just stared at me, looking as pissed as I felt. Good. Let him seethe.

I didn't even spare a glance at the other boy, because why bother?

With a turn, I left in the direction of the entrance to the lunchroom. As I neared the large archway, I heard somebody shout out, "W-wait!"

I ignored it.

***

I sat outside on one of the stone benches, picking at the oddly pale looking Salisbury steak coated in a congealed, rotten looking gravy. I'd taken a bite out of the bread roll not coated in potatoes and eaten a few chunks of fruit that didn't entirely look spoiled. But beyond those two things, everything else on the tray looked inedible.

*'The second that school gate opens, i'm never eating in the cafeteria again. I can't believe people actually **pay** for their kids to go here.'*

I set the tray to my left and looked up at the sky. It was dim, the sun's light blocked out by the grey tinted clouds rolling in. It'd probably start raining soon.

At least the sky matched my mood.

The sound of double doors opening and footsteps scrambling down the steps of the school caught my ear. I grabbed one of the napkins and wiped away whatever food residue might've still been on my face.

The boy wearing the pink button-up shirt, the one who'd been sitting with Gary, rounded the corner shyly. He almost looked reluctant to even talk to me.

"Hey there... Uh, how's it going?" He raised a hand, waving it and reaching out in my direction for a handshake. "I'm Pete, Pete Kowalski. I-I was sitting next to Gary... but you probably didn't notice me. People tend not to.... So... Your name's Jenny, right? Or is it Jane? Gary called you by both... so..."

I glanced at the boy's hand unamused.

"Jenny Hopkins, and don't ask me how I'm doing. I've only been here for 2 hours and people already want me dead," I picked at the tissue paper I'd stuffed up my nostrils. A smile spread on my face when I realized my nose wasn't gushing anymore, and I tossed the blood covered tissue paper on my tray. "Your friend Gary is a dick by the way."

Pete gave a really, *really*, awkward smile.

"Yeah. This school *is* the worst, but Gary... he's a bit bad at socializing. I wouldn't take a lot of his insults too personally... He's kind of been like that for as long as i've known him... A pretty long time, actually."

I gave a grunt in response.

"Sure, whatever... Man, if I'd known I was gonna end up here, I probably would've avoided getting expelled so much. I've been thrown out of everywhere halfway decent."

"'Yeah! I've been expelled out of everywhere halfway decent because I'm such a bad, naughty girl!' How about you give up the tough girl act, pal? You're about as threatening as a *Teacup Chihuahua*, you've even got the stature to match." My mood was taken out back and shot the second I'd heard Gary's familiar voice coming from above me and Pete.

Gary leaned over the railing above, pressing his balled fists against his face like a bored teenage girl. He tilted his head, I could only assume in an attempt to look even more punchable.

"What's your problem?" I asked, my voice barely hiding my contempt. I was still annoyed by Gary's presence because of what he'd called me in the lunchroom. I mean, seriously? Calling me a cunt just for being a little bit of a smartass?

Gary shrugged.

"Well, A.D.D. primarily...." He began making his way down the steps, continuing to talk along the way. "...Also life, my parents, this school, western civilization..." Gary stood next to Pete, and I noticed a visible change in the other boy. The second Gary neared him, Pete visibly shyed away when the other boy slapped a hand around his shoulder, pulling him even closer. "But really? Honestly? Enough about me, I see you've met the Boy's Dorm mascot. My dear, brutish Jane, allow me to introduce you to 'Femme-Boy', the girliest boy in school!" his other hand hit Pete's chest, presumably just to really dig the insult in.

The smaller boy slipped out of the taller boy's hold, looking a bit peeved but clearly lacking the self-confidence to retaliate properly.

"Why don't you leave me alone, Gary?"

So much for not taking Gary's insults too personally.

Gary chuckled, unfazed by Pete's demand. "Look at you, Petey! 'Leave me alone, Gary! I'm really self-important now that i've finally hit puberty!' What's your problem?.." he tilted his head in faux curiosity. "Are you trying to impress Jenny? Is that it? Do you wanna get into her panties? Hm, no that can't be since you're clearly a fairy. Then again... I guess Jane does look like a dude... A bit desperate are we?"

"Gary, it's not like that, and you know it!"

"Whatever you say, Pete... But sometimes I have to wonder..."

"Will you shut up, Gary? God, you're a bore," I chipped in, completely fed up with the events of the day. Lunch wasn't even over yet, and I was more annoyed with this school than the rest I'd been forced into attending.

First those bullies, then that behemoth, and now this... nutcase who *seriously needed to shut up.*

Gary turned his head to me with a look of... surprise?.. on his face. Barely a second passed before I saw it twist into an agitated sneer.

"Boring?.. I'm boring?.." his mouth slacked, seemingly having a hard time comprehending what had just been said to him. "You know... you're none too interesting yourself... *'friend'*." Gary got up close to my face, his dark reddish-brown eyes staring daggers into my light brown ones. I stood up fast and glared back, unwilling to be intimidated by yet another self-important dude with an ego as fragile as lined notebook paper. My hand brushed the side of my food tray, and for a second, just one second, I contemplated hitting Gary over the head with it like I'd wanted to earlier, consequences be damned.

"Jenny... Gary... C'mon, she didn't mean it." I heard Pete say, obviously trying to deescalate things. But to me and Gary, he might as well not have been there at all. Guess the guy hadn't been kidding about being forgettable.

But... rather than things getting out of hand, Gary pursed his lips, backing out of my personal space. The tension between us dissipated like a fine mist.

He closed his eyes, took a breath, and raised his hands in an 'ease-up' gesture.

"Ok... Look... I'm sorry, to both of you, but especially you, Jenny. Calling you a cunt was out of line, and honestly? I should've known better. Cursing is something for the weak-minded. I just... get a little over-excited sometimes! Petey can back me up on this, right?" he gestured to the other boy, who gave weak nod in response. "See?"

I shut my eyes, then slowly opened them back up. I let out a huff.

"It's cool, Gary... Forget it. I can't be bothered to argue anymore, I just... I want this day to be over and done with."

Gary grinned, though unlike the smug smirks he'd been giving me, this time his expression seemed... genuine? To me, it didn't seem like it had any sense of dishonesty behind it. But what did I know? I've certainly never personally dealt with a dishonest person before...

Aside from probably every friend I've had. Not to mention my mother, who could probably win a world record in making false promises, if something like that even existed.

"Well, Jenny... you'll have to get used to it i'm afraid. What you've gone through is the typical Bullworth school day. You're just counting the seconds till it's over, all the while the Bullies, Preps, Greasers, Jocks, and even the Nerds run around like escaped zoo animals terrorizing the locals," Gary monologued as he took a seat to my right on the bench. "You either join in or get eaten. 'Canis Canem Edit', or Dog Eat Dog, is the school motto for a reason."

That last bit certainly explained some things. "Dog Eat Dog", yeesh, with a motto like that is it any wonder this place is as crazy as it is?

Gary, to the "surprise" of the few who were listening, continued talking.

"But that's why I asked to be your friend earlier. This place is ruthless. You're already aware that they're not going to take it easy on you just because you're a girl, even with that old hag Mrs. Peabody watching over the girls like a blind, dementia ridden mama bear. Trust me, life will be a lot easier around here for you with someone like *me* hanging around and giving you a bit of advice every now and then," he held out his hand. It was closer to him than to me, requiring me to have to reach my hand out closer to him to take it. "So how about it Jenny? Last chance to take my offer, I feel like i've been generous enough for the day."

I thought about it for a bit. I already got the sense that Gary was a bit - no, definitely an egotistical jerk. But his apology from earlier did seem genuine, even if he did try to doll out excuses for his actions at the same time. Hell, I wasn't exactly the most pleasant person to hang out with either.

But he was the first person, Pete being second, to actually try and strike up a friendship with me in this crazy place. It was clearly for practical reasons, yes... but there was always the chance that the arrangement could turn into something genuine. Maybe if Gary had someone who could tell him off every now and then - obviously Petey couldn't do that, I could tell just from being near the guy - I could have something of a good time here.

Ok, that might be a bit *too* optimistic. It was probably best to lower my expectations a little. Or maybe a lot.

Aside from all that, what's the worst that could happen?

"Ya know what? Sure, Gary, let's be friends." I took his hand in my own and shook it. His hand felt unusually heavy, and his grip on my hand was tight. I eventually wrangled my hand from his grip, and afterward, he still kept that smile on his face, as if what had just occurred wasn't strange at all.

As I silently hoped something would happen to prompt Gary to move away without me having to get aggressive, the bell rang.

"Well, it looks like lunch is over. You know, i'm glad we got everything sorted out, It would've been just *awful* if we'd stayed on bad terms," Gary said, leaning against the brick stonework of the school's stairs.

"Yeah, I guess so."

It seemed as though Pete had just slipped away as soon as the bell rang. Made sense, he probably didn't want to stick around with both Gary and I around.

I stood up to grab my tray and leave, but the bushy browed boy spoke up again.

"Hey, Jane?" I felt that sense of relief after hearing the bell disapate the second Gary produced a single syllable.

"Yeah, Gary?" I replied in a rather offhandish way. I'd hoped that would make it clear to him that I wanted to leave. Maybe I was a bit too subtle about it.

"I'll be waiting for you outside the lunch room. I've got a surprise for you." Gary said. The way he worded it sounded like a demand rather than a request, which irritated me a bit, but I decided to shrug in response. "Good! See you later!"

Gary turned and left for the school building as a few students were already making their way out.

Once my garbage had been thrown away, I joined up with Gary outside of the lunch room.

Gary was still leaning against the wall of the stairwell, bouncing his knee impatiently with his arms folded.

"About time, I was about to leave and let you fend for yourself amongst the beasts. But I decided to be patient and wait a little longer," Gary grinned. "Aren't I so charitable?"

*'Good lord, impatient much?'*

"About as charitable as the average Billionaire," I shrugged and folded my arms. "So, where are we going first? Got any pamphlets that i'll toss into the first trash can I see?"

"Please, this place isn't *that* fancy Jenny," he began walking with me following not too far behind, pointing to his left. "First of all, we're going to my locker, like I said, I've got something you should see."

I raised a brow, my lower lip turning up inquisitively.

"Your locker? Why would I need to see what's in there?"

"Because it's a surprise! Who doesn't like surprises? Now c'mon,"

I rolled my eyes at his vagueness, but I still followed Gary to the left side of the building.

My eye line was to the ground, staring disinterested at my own shoes as I followed Gary.

"Hold up," Gary announced, holding his arm out to stop me. I wasn't paying attention, so I ended up bumping into him. Annoyed, I looked up.

My annoyance turned up tenfold by the familiar brute who was currently digging through his locker for...

...Well, a book, not even one of those kids picture books either. It looked like an actual chapter book. Huh. I hadn't thought of Russell as the kind of kid to read stuff like that.

"There's Russell, you know, the big ape that busted your nose."

"Yeah, I'm already familiar with him. What's the de-EEAAL?!"

I found myself being pushed forward, and I stumbled, barely managing to balance on my feet as I realized I was now right next to Russell. The commotion caused the big ape to turn, and now my small self was looking up at the brute.

"Hey, it's you?" Russell said, though the way he phrased sounded more to me like a question rather than an observation.

"Uh, yeah?" I stupidly replied, answering the huge bastard's weird observation/question.

From his expression and tone, I could tell that Russell's barely functioning brain was currently chugging away to figure out his next move. He grinned, seemingly managing to produce a *thought*.

"YOUR CASH! ALL OF IT!" Russell screamed. I unconsciously backed away a step, my ears aching from how *loudly* and *closely* he was yelling at me.

I frowned, grumbling a few insults under my breath.

"Ok! Ok, fine. I do have something to give you."

Sure, my purse was still missing, but that didn't mean I was stupid enough to not keep extra pocket change somewhere for emergencies.

And, well... getting harassed by a giant Special Ed kid/possibly mentally stunted adult man *technically* counted as an emergency, in my honest opinion.

I took off my right shoe and shook it above my open palm. Five bucks in balled up one dollar bills landed with a soft tap my hand.

"Here, it's all I have," I said, dropping my shoe and shoving it back on my foot.

In reality, I did have an extra 5 dollars in my left shoe, but I doubted Russell - or really anyone else, I was surprised I'd even come up with that trick myself - would think to ask me if my other shoe had any hidden bills.

"Haha, stupid, haha," Russell chuckled, taking the ball of crumpled bills from my open hand.

In response, I could only roll my eyes.

Well, Russell must've noticed that, because before I could react, my head was forcibly shoved into Russell's foul-smelling armpit. His meaty hand scraped rapidly against my skull and messed up my not exactly nice-looking hairdo.

"Kneel before Russell!"

"Ok, ok! Geeze, man! I Kneel, I kneel!

Eventually, the behemoth decided to show some shred of mercy and released me, laughing as he walked off with half of my cash. As soon as Russell was out of earshot, I let out an angry hiss as I tried to fix my hair.

"Thanks for the distraction, Jenny! Now I can get to my locker!"

I turned around to find Gary fiddling with the locker that was about two spaces away from Russell's.

"Wait, Gary, did you *push* me into Russell just so you wouldn't have to get harassed by him?"

"Yeah, it's annoying having my locker so close to his. I usually have to wait until one of the other unlucky bastards nearby catches his attention," his locker clicked, opening with a loud but short creak. "Now c'mon. Get over here, I have something to give you."

I snorted.

"Oh screw you, Gary, this better be important," I said, stomping over to the locker right next to Gary's.

"I'm just going to ignore that little jab of yours and give you this back."

Gary pulled something dark out of the depths of his locker, holding it up in front of me.

My eyes went from their usual, angry squint to wide open and surprised in mere seconds.

"My purse! You're the one that took it?" I practically ripped the bag out of Gary's grasp, earning an annoyed glare out of the older boy. "You jerk! Why didn't you tell me you had it earlier?" Gary got visibly giddy about my reaction to his thievery of my purse.

"Because it was a surprise, you dunce. A well worthwhile one, in my opinion. You should see the look on your face!" Gary said, giving a wheezy chuckle. I eyed the inside of the purse suspiciously, and he added in an: "And no, I didn't look at anything inside it. I'm not interested in your tampons."

"How did you know there were tampons in it if you didn't look then?" I retorted.

He eyed me in an unsurprised yet disappointed way. He then rolled his eyes in probably the most dramatic way I'd ever seen anyone do. Seriously? My statement wasn't stupid at all.

"...What woman *doesn't* keep her monthly plugs in her purse Jenny? Honestly..." He shut his locker, relaxing against it. "Now, are we going to continue the tour, or are you going to continue being difficult?"

I shook my head, sighing.

"As long as you don't use me as a distraction again, then... sure, lead the way."

Gary stood up straight again, walking away from the lockers and - annoyingly - draping his arm across the back of my opposite shoulder. He didn't exactly give me much of a chance to back out. His grip was fairly tight, I felt his perfectly cut nails dig into my skin through my shirt.

"Of course... You know, I think this'll all lead into a nice, long, and rewarding experience for the both of us..."

Gary wore an oddly sinister looking grin that spread across his face.

"Just you wait."

[violetnerves]

The Rise and Fall of Jenny Hopkins, aged 15: Bully Genderbend Au/Rewrite. Chapter 1, Part 1:

So this is Part 1 of an au/rewrite I've been working on for a bit... And it ended up getting out of hand because I ended up hitting over 12000 words just for Chapter 1 alone.

As a result, I had to split Chapter 1 into 2 parts, and even after that, both parts ended up being over 6000 words. It seems like a lot to me personally, but maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, here's a summary of the au:

In this Au/rewrite of Bully, Jimmy Hopkins is instead Jenny Hopkins, a 15 year old girl with a history of delinquent behavior. She exhibits some symptoms of Anti-Social personality disorder, even being diagnosed by a therapist with Conduct disorder.

The female cast has been expanded a bit, and some of the existing female members have been fleshed out a bit more, some of the male cast has been given some care too. As a rewrite some things have been changed about the Canon story, partly to fix a few plot holes and issues with the original that may have been caused by the original games rocky development history, though not to the point where it's unrecognizable since I do enjoy the game's original story, despite it's many faults.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy what I've written so far.

Part one of Chapter 1 starts under the divider. I'll also be posting the story on AO3, under the account: BlueEclipse7573

Total word count: 6565

Content warning for violence and strong language. If there's anymore I should list, please let me know!

'Here we go again'

I was laid back in the backseat of my stepfather's rental car, staring up at the roof. It felt as though we'd been driving for days, even though it'd been a 1 hour trip to Bullworth from the hotel at most.

"Jenny..." My mother spoke up, trying to get my attention after i'd decided to just ignore her for the whole trip. "...Please say something," her tone was aggravated at this point, annoyed that she was being given the silent treatment by her own daughter.

Yet again, I didn't want to bother with a response.

It's not like I wanted to be mean to my mom, but it was the nicest thing I figured I could do to protest against getting sent to yet another Boarding school while my mother ran off for the year with yet another one of her flings.

The silence, aside from the noise of the car, would continue on until my new step-father, who was old enough to be her mother's father, decided he was going to parent me despite the fact that I'd only known the old guy since last week, when we'd first me during my mom's wedding.

"Speak to your mother, Jane..."

*'Oh, please'*

"What? Who are you? Mom, this creepy old guy is talking to me, I think he might be one of those 'perverts' you've warned me about," I replied. Granted, the new guy - whatever his name was, mom went through men like one of those revolving doors you see in fancy and expensive hotels, so I never really bothered to catch his name - surprisingly hadn't been creepy around me, at least compared to the other men mom decided to have relations with.

Mom always did have shit taste in men.

Mom groaned, clearly being driven up the wall by my attitude at this point.

"Jenny, please be nice to your new step-father. He's not a 'pervert'."

I sat up.

"Yeah, you might be right, but he's not really doing himself any favors with the whole 'fat, old, and balding child molester' look he's got going on."

The old man sighed, and mom turned her head to look at me, her mouth twisting into a snarl. I wasn't phased, I was used to it at this point. The older woman looked like a clown with how overdone her makeup was, with her dark purple eyeshadow and lips covered in a cheap waxy red lipstick, and with a foundation that barely matched her actual skin color.

She looked so old and trashy with all that crap on her face.

"That's enough! I've had it with you, you little brat. All I want is a little peace and quiet with my new husband, and you insult him!" Mom wailed, setting a manicured hand on the old man's shoulder.

"Now look what you've done, you've upset your mother!" The old man growled. "I've got half-a-mind to beat you..."

I frowned, giving him a clear stink eye.

I knew it. Just another phony. Just like the others.

"I doubt you would, i'm sure you only do that kind of crap to the women dumb enough to marry you."

The two adults gasped.

"I can't believe you, you little monster! We'll deal with you when we get back from our honeymoon... next. year..."

Mom had left it at that, much to my relief.

Getting into arguments with mom never made me feel good, even if I did enjoy pissing off whatever awful man my old woman decided to bring into her, and therefore our lives. I didn't want our relationship to be so bad. She was my mom after all... So why couldn't she just act like it for once?

It was sooner rather than later when the car slowed to a stop, and I looked out toward the large, foreboding entrance to the school I'd be stuck in for an entire school year.

The entrance to the school was a large, old-fashioned, dull red and white stone archway, the red color clearly faded a bit with time and wear. Chipped into the stonework near the top of the structure were the words "BULLWORTH ACADEMY." The dark Iron gate doors were wide open, yet I couldn't help but think they looked the complete opposite of inviting. Like a fancy jail cell.

"Finally..." The old man sighed heavily with relief.

*'Yeah, feelings mutual you shriveled old bastard'*

"Here we are, young lady, Bullworth Academy, just the kind of place a girl like you needs."

I pushed open the car door, grabbing my purse on the way out. I didn't even bother to spare a glance at the two adults behind me in the car.

"Have fun, Jenny! I'll think of you from our cruise ship!"

Mom giggled in response to her new husband's goodbye, but all I could give was an eye roll in response.

"Whatever," I muttered, shutting the back car door behind me.

The car revved, and the vehicle left the property entirely. Against my better judgment, I turned and watched as it drove off the premises.

I couldn't help but wince, accidentally letting the hard, emotional barrier I'd built up over the years crack a little.

"Mom, why'd you marry that phony? What is wrong with you?" I asked no one but myself. A question that already had an answer, and one I'd asked so many times before.

Mom married that old fart for protection, for money, and just because she wanted to. Getting a good husband for herself and a good father never was a factor for her to consider, not with how much of a revolving door her love life was. I hadn't been a priority to her for the last 10 years. It was always going to be just *her* needs.

So what *wasn't* wrong with her?

"I can't believe this..." I said to no one. A lie, really. One I'd said way too many times.

And I'd probably keep saying it for as long as I lived.

I was so caught up in wondering why I still wanted to defend my mom from her own awful decisions that I hadn't noticed the clicking of heels against concrete slowly growing louder.

"You must be the Hopkins girl,"

I jumped and turned, taken aback.

"Huh? Where'd you come from?"

It was a woman who was doing a bad job of looking younger than she actually was. She wore a dark, long-sleeved dress shirt with a matching pencil skirt. Her hair was done up a bit, curled up into rolls at the ends. In general, the woman had a very... old-fashioned look to her, as if the act of stepping out of my stepfather's rental car had sent me back in time a few decades.

"We've been expecting you, welcome to Bullworth Academy... (sigh)," the well-dressed woman said, putting an odd emphasis on the word Bullworth as well as raising and dropping her arms in a slow, dramatic arc as she did.

*'So weird'* I let the thought hover a bit.

"I'm sure you'll be happy here, very happy indeed..." She shrugged, "Anyway, I can't spend my life waiting around for naughty little girls... I've got a *man* to make happy"

*'Yeesh, you already remind me of my mother. That can't be a good sign.'*

"The Headmaster is expecting you Hopkins, in his study,"

"Ok, I'll go see him then," I replied. I then immediately turned and walked in the opposite direction of the school.

"Oh no, no, no, his study is over *there* girl, in the main building?" The over dressed woman adruptly mentioned in a hasty manner. I frowned and turned back to the woman, who pointed a finger towards the largest building on campus.

"Right... my bad ma'am." I tugged on the strap of my purse, silently annoyed that I wasn't able to get away with fleeing and hiding out until the school year ended.

It's not like mom would've noticed if I'd done that anyway.

I walked in through the entrance to the campus, already feeling like a trapped animal despite the gates still being open.

"Don't keep Dr. Crabblesnitch waiting, he's a brilliant man... brilliant..."

The gates behind me closed, and along with it, my one chance at freedom.

The woman took off without me for some reason, and I was left to just look around the area.

In front and to my left and right were two other buildings, both two stories tall.

However, I was stopped in my tracks by a group of three male students, all of whom seemed to be lacking the sweater vests that they should have been wearing. Their dress shirts weren't tucked in and instead left to hang out. They weren't even wearing slacks either. Instead, they all wore denim jeans for pants. Were they even following the dress code for this place?

They crowded around the middle of the two routes to what I could see were the two dorms, separated by gender.

It seemed they immediately noticed me as well, eyeing me down as fresh meat, clearly noticing I wasn't wearing the uniform.

Well, things were already off to a good start. I was still near the frigging entrance!

That *had* to have been a record.

The one in front, a white blond with a pimple problem, but an oddly charming smile approached me. The two behind the blond were backing him up, a dark-skinned black guy with a rather enthusiastic tone of voice yelling excitedly at the blond to "put the new kid in an armbar" and another white guy, except he had brown hair, as well as slightly tanned with a slingshot sticking out of his front pocket. He was quietly looking over the situation, It's like he was scheming hard about something, and I had a feeling it couldn't be anything good.

I was short, even for a girl, standing at barely 4'10. So despite the blond probably being average height for a guy his age, that still meant he had the height advantage. Same for the other two guys, who were a bit shorter than the blond but still obviously taller than me.

But that didn't mean much, in my opinion. I always felt the saying, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall" was accurate for a reason.

And if he didn't want to back off, "blondie" here was going to learn why pretty damn quick.

"Hey, new girl, a pretty face like mine is expensive to care for... How about a little dono to help keep it lookin' good?" He stuck out a slightly calloused hand, palm up and in my face. The other two boys behind him chuckled as if the whole thing was just a practical joke to them. One that "I" was the butt of.

I spared a glance at his open hand and then up to the face of the boy it belonged to.

"Wash your face first fucko. You've got the little dipper growing out of your forehead," I mocked, hissing the sentence out spitefully and glaring up at the taller boy. The grip on my purse tightened a bit.

My response made the blond drop his smile. I was white-knuckling the purse strap at that point.

"Eh! Wrong answer!" the blond reached for my bag.

Friggin' idiot.

Before he could react, I grabbed the arm that was reaching out for my bag, tugging him forward. I drew my head back and slammed it on his jaw, sending him falling back as I let go of his arm.

The two boys behind him yelled something out - a name, "Trent" or something - but before they could retaliate against me, I ducked away and sprinted off in the direction of the main building.

On the way, I bumped into a few students, earning a few insults and curses thrown my way. Luck was on my side, though, as a student exited the school building just as I neared the main door. I ran in while the door was still open, and it slammed shut behind me. I let out a breath, stepping forward into the large room.

A few students had taken notice of my adrupt arrival, but only for a few seconds, because they quickly went back to their daily routines just as soon as they had stopped.

*'...I guess that could've gone worse...'* I thought, heading up the stairs and into Dr. Crabblesnitch's office.

The first room I entered into was weirdly dark, with the only bit of light coming from the ceiling of the other room, which looked to be Crabblesnitch's main office. I took a few steps inside until I was in the other room, catching Crabblesnitch's attention soon after.

The light above turned out to be a skylight set into the ceiling, illuminating the room in the sun's natural yellow glow. There wasn't any sign of artificial light in the entire room, which... gave me a few thoughts, the first being of how cool it'd be to take pictures in here. The second thought was of how comforting this place should feel... yet I couldn't help but feel so uncomfortable and tense. That clearly wasn't a good sign.

"Ah, yes, so you must be Miss Hopkins," the older man said, gesturing for me to take a seat on one of the chairs lined up right in front of his desk.

I sighed.

"Uh huh," I said, hoping to get out of this room as soon as possible.

Crabblesnitch's brow furrowed, clearly annoyed with my overtly informal reply.

"What? 'Uh huh', what?"

I grumbled quietly.

"...I meant 'yes sir'..."

"Very good, now let me see..."

I sat down as Dr. Crabblesnitch brought out a folder nearly bursting with papers, which were the documentation of my record from the last 7 schools I'd attended along with some police reports. I thought it was impressive how thick the folder was. Anyone else probably - rightfully so maybe - might've felt a bit of shame looking at it... but not me. You couldn't pay me to care really.

So it wasn't surprising that the papers pretty much smothered Crabblesnitch's desk, covering the fine maple in a sea of white. As well as some red and black, due to the pen ink on the papers.

Crabblesnitch feigned a gasp, dragging his finger over multiple spots on different papers.

"My, my, Miss Hopkins, you've done a lot of naughty things, haven't you? Vandalism, graffiti, bad language, violent conduct, disrespecting staff, a shoplifting charge, and is that..." He motioned to a particularly large bit of red writing. "Arson? Oh, I'm absolutely terrified of *you* Miss Hopkins!" Dr. Crabblesnitch concluded, feigning fear much like that gasp from earlier.

"Aw c'mon, give me a break. That last one was an accident..."

Aside from everything else. Arson was probably the one I *hadn't* meant to do, oddly enough.

Crabblesnitch didn't appear convinced.

"Regardless, I don't think I've ever met a girl like you, never in all my years! You must be the rudest little girl I've ever encountered!" He lowered himself down to meet me eye-to-eye. "Tell me, Jane, why should I waste my precious time on *you*?"

I shrugged in response.

"I dunno."

Dr. Crabblesnitch stood up straight.

"Because it's my calling! It's what I do!" The older man pointed at Jenny. "*You* excel at causing trouble..." He gestured to himself. "And while my expertise is in fixing little boys rather than little girls, I'm sure my methods could work on someone 'butch' such as you, eventually you'll be the respectable young woman that you're meant to be! I have a good feeling about you, Miss Hopkins, I'm sure you and I could grow to be great friends..."

*'Sure, whatever you say.'* was my first thought. Okay, not really. My first thought was actually: *'Did he just call me 'butch'? What does that even mean? That's a name, isn't it?'*

Regardless, I was able to see through this guy like glass. I was sure the Dr's definition of a "respectable woman" was probably a few decades passed.

I was starting to see a pattern...

"Now, you keep that nose clean girl, or I'll scrub it raw myself if I have to!" He turned to the open door of his office. The clacking of heels caught my attention, so I turned to look as well. The lady who'd met up with me and abandoned me at the gate earlier strutted through the door, a serving tray with a tea kettle and a matching tea cup set in her hands. "Ms. Danvers?"

"Yes, Headmaster, and I've got your tea..."

"You are good to me, Ms. Danvers"

"No more than you deserve... Headmaster," Ms. Danvers said demurely, setting the tray down on a nearby table.

*'Ugh, i'm gonna hurl. Might get me in trouble, but that's better than whatever i'm sitting through right now.'* I shifted in my seat a bit, looking away.

"Ms. Danvers, would you kindly take our new friend Miss Hopkins here to the girl's dorm so she can be properly attired?"

"Certainly Headmaster," Ms. Danvers turned in my direction. As she did, her expression instantly changed from pleased to something akin to a disgusted sneer. Like she was addressing a bug she'd accidentally stepped on. "Come along, girl. I haven't got all day,"

I stood up, but before I could finally leave, Crabblesnitch addressed me one last time.

"And remember, young lady, you will have a clean nose, so keep it clean; or we'll do it for you."

As I left Crabblesnitch's office, I pondered at my current situation.

*'So, here I am at the worst school in the country, whose alumi are nothing but arms dealers, serial killers, and corporate lawyers. Real scum. And that out-of-touch old creep thinks he can tame me? We shall see my friend, I only give people what they have coming to them'*

Oh, that's good, that's something I'll have to remember to write into my diary later. I stuffed it in my suitcase for safe keeping, which was *hopefully* put into my dorm room.

Ms. Danvers and I stepped back into the school's main office.

"Go, run along to the Girl's dorm, young Hopkins, i'm far too busy to deal with you." Ms. Danvers abruptly said, much to my confusion and a little bit of anger..

"Weren't you supposed to take me there? Like Dr. Crabblesnitch told you to do?" My mind thought back to those boys from earlier. I didn't doubt that they would try to harass me again, especially after what I'd done to their buddy.

"The girl's dorm is the first building to your right when you enter the school. I'm sure you can find it on your own. You'll have plenty of time to get unpacked as your schedule is still being set up due to your mother's inability to send in your admission slip on time. Now, get a move on, little miss." Ms. Danvers replied, pretty much ignoring the question.

Well, there went my security.

I struggled not to flip off Ms. Danvers on my way out as I left the building. On my way out I saw a group of well dressed guys who all simultaneously radiated an air of smug get into a fight with what I could only guess were a few background characters from the movie Grease.

What the hell was wrong with this place?!

*'Just gotta get to the Girl's dorm, and I can keep my head down till lunch. Seems like a solid enough plan to me.'* it wasn't like I had classes to go to, at least not until tomorrow, or, if I was lucky, the day after maybe; Until then, just keeping a low profile was the best option.

As I made my way down the steps, I noticed two of the bullies from earlier walking my way, the karate obsessed one and slingshot kid. Without hesistation, I began speed walking back to the large circle walkway near the entrance, the middle area separating the two dorms. In my haste, I figured going right was correct, going off of memory of what Ms. Danvers had told me minutes earlier. I mean, shoot, my memory couldn't have been that bad, could it?

*'Ms. Danvers said something about going right, so i'm going right. Screw it'*

It was only when I reached the front of the building that I realized I'd fucked up my directions. I could clearly make out the words, 'BOY'S DORM' above the entrance to the building.

The blond, Trent *if* my memory was correct - considering how I ended up here, I was justified in having my doubts - who had tried to shake me down for money earlier stood in front of the steps leading to the dorm's entrance. His lower lip was swollen and turning a nasty shade of red and purple. He was joined alongside two redheads - auburn on the right and maroonish in front of the two - dressed similarly to him on the stairs leading up to the Boy's Dorm.

"It's her! That's the new girl who did it, Wade! I'm gonna end up relegated to backstage duty for my next play because of her!" Trent motioned at me, then to his throbbing, already starting to redden lower lip as he addressed the leading redhead.

"YOU'RE GONNA GET IT WWIIMMMPPP" the other red haired boy to the left practically shouted out. I wasn't sure if the guy lacked an inside voice or if he was just *really* that mad about what I'd done to his buddie's lip.

"You're dead, new kid, DEAD!" The redhead who'd been referred to as "Wade" shouted, making his way down the steps with his fists up and at the ready.

I backed away and turned, ready to sprint away again. Instead, I found that there were 4 other people behind me. There were the two other boys from earlier, the karate kid and Slingshot blocking off the entrance along with a black haired boy with a hell of a black eye on his right eye in the middle of them, though he looked a bit nervous. I knew he was with them, though, with how similarly he was dressed, with the white school button up with jeans look.

Then there was the last member, and she probably stood out the most, even though she was clearly with them given her outfit. She was a blonde, like Trent; and while that probably didn't necessarily mean they were related, the way she smiled certainly matched the same one he'd had earlier. She had those... weird emo kid hairstrips, the ones with jagged purple and black stripes. Her button-up shirt was open, and under it was a black spaghetti strap undershirt.

Her makeup was all fucked up, streaks of eyeliner haphazardly swiped under her eyes onto her cheeks as well as on her lips, which had some purple lipstick on peeking out from underneath all the mess. It was like she'd done her makeup while she was in the middle of a mental breakdown, just swiping and swiping until she'd finally felt satisfied.

She wore striped arm warmers and even though she wore jeans to match with the other boys, they were noticeably ripped to the point where the right pant leg was just gone, cut off to probably the beginning of her thigh. Underneath that was a pair of thigh-high socks, similar in color to her hair strips and arm warmers. Her shoes were a pair of Chuck Taylor shoes, yet again, the same color scheme to the aforementioned other articles of clothing she had.

She still had the school issued skirt and tie, but even she'd managed to put her own... unique touch on how she'd worn them. The skirt was tattered, not really exposing anything since she wore jeans, but I was surprised she was bold enough to just wear them destroyed like that. Then there was the way she wore the tie, which had me all kinds of confused. She had it in her hair, using it as a hair tie to pull some of her long hair into a side ponytail.

It was kind of difficult not to notice and point out all the oddities of her outfit. It was just... all out there.

She held up a video camera and pointed it at me. Great, so she thinks she's gonna record me getting my ass kicked? Nice, real nice. What a goddamn joke. I was just gonna be a part of something her and her buddies would laugh at later.

"Yeah! Get her! Get the new kid!" the karate obsessed boy jeered.

*'Damn it, mom, why'd it have to be this school?'* I thought as Wade began to get closer and closer.

"You jerks are really pissing me off! That's not something you wanna do, I'm only gonna tell you once! Screw off!" I carried myself and threatened him in the most intimidating way I could. A part of me knew it wouldn't work, though. It rarely ever did.

It wasn't fair. People always just had to pick on me, and for what? For what goddamn reason?! Why was I some kind of target for people to pick on?!

"A bit late for that bitch! Now put up or shut up and i'll beat your ass!"

I grabbed at the strap of my purse, letting it slip off my shoulder and fall to the ground.

What right did these jerks have to push me around? What dumb justification did they have? It was probably some bullshit about them being sad or something, as if that gave them any right...

I scowled, stepping forward towards the taller red-head.

Well, no more. These guys were clearly asking for it, so they were going to get *exactly* what was coming to them. I'd make damn sure of it.

I didn't notice the growing crowd forming behind the bullies blocking my only exit. Mainly students lured by all the commotion going on. I hardly heard the yipping and yelling of the crowd, my anger and frustration causing it all to merge together into some incomprehensible mish-mash of sound.

Wade took a step toward me, getting within a distance where he could hit me; instead, my fist cracked against his face, and the sound of my knuckle hitting spongy skin made an unpleasant sound. The force caused Wade to stumble back. His body barely turned 180 degrees before he fell back. His body hit the stone ground, and, for a moment, it all went quiet aside for the sound of me exhaling angrily.

Trent and Troy looked down at Wade's knocked out body in surprise, then looked up at me. It wasn't long until Trent blurted something out.

"Grab her Ethan!"

Behind me, Ethan grabbed at my arms, clearly trying to restrain me, but I realized he wasn't that much taller than me, so I retaliated by headbutting him. I whipped around, realizing that it was the Kung-fu kid from earlier. I threw a hard punch at his gut, and it was enough to double him over.

With my back turned, Trent took the opportunity to grab what little hair I had on my head and yank me back, followed by him pinning my arms while Troy prepared to punch me in the face.

Bad idea.

I ducked at the last second, and instead of Troy's fist hitting me, he'd accidentally socked Trent in the jaw instead.

"OH NO, I DIDN'T MEAN TO-"

Trent let go of me, and I kneed Troy in the crotch. Returning the favor, my fist met the middle of Troy's face. I got a bit of a thrill as I felt some of the bones of his nose crack from the force. He screamed and fell over, his nose already gushing.

I backed away, now facing the rest of the jerks who were stupid enough to mess with me.

2 down... 3 more to go. Trent, black eye kid, and Slingshot.

The three came at me all at once. Black eye kid tried grabbing for me.

"Nobody beats on Tom's frie-AaagGGGHHhhh!"

I kicked the kid, whose name was Tom, apparently, hard in the groin. I slammed my head on the left side of his face, subconsciously hoping to give him another black eye just for being stupid enough to grab me.

Slingshot grabbed me, and I took Tom and shoved him at Slingshot, causing the both of them to topple over. Slingshot kid hit the ground rather hard, and with the weight of Tom, he was knocked out.

Then there were just two, me and Trent.

He caught me off guard. Trent threw a punch at my face, and it connected. I stumbled back, and he hit again. That time it was a kick to my gut.

I found myself stumbling back a bit, but rather than that screwing me over, instead I ducked his punches. Trent was a lot taller than me, and I knew an easy way to use that against him.

I backed off, ducking to avoid both his punches and kicks. This only agitated him further, and he tried to get closer.

Before he knew what I was doing, I charged at him. I ducked, wrapping my arms around his waist and tackling him to the ground. He couldn't even act, freezing up as I laid punches on his face and chest. I was nearly out of breath by the time I was done.

Eventually, Trent stopped resisting altogether, head lolling to the side as the only sound he made was some pained groans.

I stood up, and only then did I notice the crowd blocking the entrance.

Every single one of them was shocked, and for a moment, their reactions had me a bit giddy. Especially the other Bully girl who was dressed weird, who was still filming *everything.* She appeared as if she wasn't sure if she should still film everything or not.

I was tempted to laugh until I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"Y-You! Bitch! Once I'm- I'm done with you! You'll be drinking from a straw!"

Behind me, Wade yelled, and I turned around just as he swung for my face clumsily, as if my earlier punch still had him a bit dazed. I grabbed his arm, forcing him to turn.

A smirk crossed my face knowing what I was about to do.

With Wade's back to me, I grabbed his jeans and gave him a wedgie, causing him to squeal in a high pitch. I kicked him in the lower back for good measure, and the combination of the kick and his dazed state caused Wade to lose his balance, and just like when I'd slugged him in the face earlier, he fell and knocked himself out on the concrete.

And then it was all over.

I turned to Trent, and just to rub salt in the wound, I snorted and spat a wad of snot and spit on him.

"That's what happens when you screw with Jenny Hopkins! Who's your momma! Yeah!" I raised a fist to the air in triumph. Sure, my face kinda hurt and I was sure it'd bruise like hell, but hey! Things were actually going my way for once! I totally taught those jerks a lesson!

The crowd at the entrance began murmuring, and while I didn't catch what everyone was saying, one sentence stood out to me for whatever reason.

"Wow, what an idiot. Russell isn't going to like this." One of the more snobbish, uptight voices in the crowd spoke, giving me pause.

I waved it off, and spat back.

"Pft, who's Russell? I'll kick his ass too!" I said proudly. I'd already beaten all these guys. How could another dude be any more trouble?

My newfound confidence proved to be short-lived, however, as I began to feel the earth shake from beneath me.

An Earthquake? In New England?

No, that couldn't have been it, did they even have earthquakes in New England? What else could it be?

Whatever it was, it couldn't have been anything good, judging by how the crowd that surrounded the entrance to the Boy's Dorm just seconds earlier seemingly vanished without a trace, including the weirdly dressed girl.

A loud, ear shattering bang of wood hitting stone sounded behind me.

I twirled around, my usual squinted eyes now wide open in *bafflement* at the sight of the possible missing link in human evolution that she'd kept hearing about from those Bigfoot hunting shows.

At the top of the steps to the Boy's Dorm, an overly large ogre of a - Adult? Teen? I couldn't tell - student, judging by the uniform, stood as tall as he was wide, his frame taking up the entirety of the double door frame. He took one look at me, and then the group of boys laying prone on the concrete.

If this was a cartoon, I was sure there'd be steam pouring out of his ears. His face was redder than a chili pepper from rage.

He yelled, literally roaring as if he was some kind of beast instead of a man... boy...

...Whatever...

"YOU'RE DEAD, NEW KID! DEAD! ROAARRR!"

*'Fuck my life.'*

The brown haired beast rushed toward me, and for the first time in forever, I was stuck in place and couldn't move.

His fist met my face, nearly knocking me off balance. I felt a hot fluid spray out of my nose from the hit, and my hands clasped my nose immediately after, coming back colored in a dark red that contrasted heavily with the light freckled skin of my hands.

I yelped, stepping back as the beast roared again and beat his chest like a goddamn gorilla. Before he could unleash another blow, however, a voice I didn't recognize yelled from behind me.

"Russell! Russell, no sir! Back off of that girl at once!"

I turned and saw as a thin, young adult woman with yellowish blonde hair ran towards Russel and I, getting in between the two of us. She started grabbing at my shoulders firmly as a way to get ahold of me and away from the much bigger boy in front of us.

My nose blood trailed down my mouth, and I tasted copper - A taste I was all too familiar with - as I looked to the woman who was now focused on Russell.

"That'll be enough of that young man! I know your mother taught you better than to lay your hands on a fellow student like that!" The woman who couldn't have been that much older than me barked to the boy who towered over her. The over developed brute didn't give much of a reaction. In fact, it didn't seem like the kid even had much of anything going on upstairs.

Yet he complied, stomping back into the Boy's Dorm, like a well-fed bear returning to its cave to hibernate for the winter.

I sniffed, looking up at the woman.

A teacher that actually gave a shit for once? It was like I'd found a 4-leaf clover... or something like that.

When the woman turned to me, her face looked like she'd been on the verge of bursting into tears at any moment. Yet when she spoke again, her voice was weak and quiet, but not really wobbly like you'd usually notice from somebody about to cry.

"Oh dear... Your nose is bleeding... I really ought to take you to see the nurse for that, it could be broken..." She pointed at the main school building, to the left door next to the main entrance. "The nurse's office is just right there."

I shook my head.

"N-no, it's fine. I know what a broken nose feels like and what I've got... isn't it." I said, blowing my nose and feeling a bit of blood ooze out. To say I was familiar with having my nose broken would be like asking me if I was familiar with eating. Or breathing. "I just need a napkin or tissue, whichever one I can get a hold of."

The lady still looked a bit worried, but she didn't hesitate to dig into the satchel she had hung on her shoulder. She brought out a small pack of tissues sealed in a plastic wrapping, opening it and offering some of them to me.

"Here, you ought to make your way into the Girl's dorm. It's the building just over there. Mrs. Peabody is inside, and she'll make sure you're taken good care of. She looks after the girls here in Bullworth Academy."

She stuffed the remaining tissues back in her satchel as I tore and stuffed the pieces of it up my nostrils to block the blood flow. I felt and looked dumb, but that was better than getting blood everywhere.

Begrudgingly, I thanked the blonde woman, and in response, she gave me a smile. It was... rather nice. But I didn't give much of a response other than a nod. Adults tended to be two-faced and phony, and for all I knew, this was just gonna be something temporary.

"Oh no need to thank me, miss, I'm just doing my job." she gave me a pat on the back, which simultaneously felt a bit patronizing... but also kinda nice.

Huh, it looked like she really was just a nice lady. At least something was going good for me today.

"My name is Dr. Lamb, i'm Mrs. Peabody's aid as well as the school's guidance counselor. We'll probably be seeing a lot of each other from now on," Dr. Lamb looked around at the bullies who were currently writhing around in pain on the ground. I noticed she had a frown on her face, which made sense given what she had to deal with now... thanks to me no less.

"Go ahead and get yourself settled over in the Girl's Dorm. Mrs. Peabody might be a little strict, but she genuinely does care for the well-being of all the girls here in the Academy. I'll just take these boys over to Nurse McCrae."

I looked around and only then really took in the carnage I'd caused. Trent, Wade, and the rest of their buddies were sprawled out all around us. At least two of them had a bloody nose, and the kid with the thick Brooklyn accent had a tooth knocked out and a small trickle of blood trailing down his lips. Yeesh, I might've headbutted him harder than I thought. Wade's underwear peaked out of the back of his pants as he laid face down, clearly stretched out from the wedgie I'd given him.

I felt like grinning, but I felt that'd probably upset Dr. Lamb. She'd already been so nice to me, fucking up her opinion of me by being my typical snarky bitch self would suck.

"Yeah, I'll just get going... Thanks Dr. Lamb..."

I looked to the Girl's Dorm, only to notice her, the girl from before who'd been recording everything, running back to the scene. I'd been prepared to beat her ass like I'd done to her friends when she just bumped into me, running past *without* apologizing and yelling:

"Guys! Don't worry, I've got my healing crystals!"

A chorus of groans came from the boys lying down, and I stifled a laugh before making my way to the Girl's dorm properly.

[violetnerves]

wonder what they got up to 🤔

[violetnerves]

Part 2 sort of thing for my Bully/Canis Canem Edit x Battle Royale crossover: Assigned Weapons/Objects.

In the novel, Battle Royale, each student is assigned a duffel bag with a weapon/object in it along with a map, compass, a watch to track time, bottled water, and food. Most of the weapons are what you'd expect, like guns and knives, (Though guns aren't as common as bladed weapons.) but occasionally a student might get unlucky and end up with a joke item that might be utterly useless or have really only one use. Then there are the helpful items that aren't weapons, like a student who is given a tracking device that's wired to the explosive collars worn by everyone in the program and another who is given a bulletproof vest.

With that blurb out of the way, here's some of the weapons/objects that I'd think the students of Bullworth Academy (plus the Townies) would end up with.

Gonna just put a content warning for the mention of Guns, Murder, and Attempted suicide, so be aware of all that before reading any further. If I missed any other content warnings, let me know, and I'll update the post.

The Main Trio:

Jimmy Hopkins - A Toy Slingshot. (I'd thought it be funny and it's at least a little useful.)

Gary Smith - A Tracking device that pinpoints the locations of the collars the others wear.

Pete Kowalski - A Pink stuffed rabbit plushie. (Gary got a laugh out of that one.)

Prefects (They're technically students too, so):

Seth Kolbe - An Inflatable Toy Baton.

Karl Branting - A Police Baton.

Edward Seymour II - A Beretta U22 Neos pistol. (I figure Edward might be a former Preppie, and thus, he comes from one of the rich families of Bullworth. So, just like some of the other Preppies, he got a gun as well.)

Max McTavish - A Megaphone.

Non-Clique students:

Angie Ng - A Tazer.

Christy Martin - A MAC-11 Machine pistol chambered for 9x19mm Parabellum. (She was given Justin's bag by mistake.)

Constantinos Brakus - An 8ft length of Rope. (Contantinos considered using it on himself before spotting Algie trying to hurt Gloria. Instead, he ends up stealing Algie's weapon after saving Gloria.)

Eunice Pound - A Cleaver.

Gloria Jackson - A multi-tool.

Gordon Wakefield - A college text book.

Ivan Alexander - An antique camera with film.

Karen Johnson - A metal baseball bat.

Lance Jackson - A bag of nails.

Melody Adams - A butcher's knife.

Pedro De La Hoya - A fork.

Ray Hughes - A spoon.

Sheldon Thompson - A whistle.

Trevor Moore - A pair of safety scissors.

The Bullies:

Russell Northrop - None. (He dies before the program starts due to his attempt to remove the explosive collar around his neck by force.)

Davis White - A Pistol Crossbow.

Ethan Robinson - Throwing stars.

Tom Gurney - A bottle of Potassium Cyanide. (Tom gives the bottle to Trent when they finally meet up so he isn't tempted to injest it's contents.)

Trent Northwick - A Hunting knife.

Troy Miller - A standard Kitchen knife. (Taken by Wade.)

Wade Martin - A bullet-proof vest. (He tossed it away out of anger since he got mad it wasn't an actual weapon. Gary finds and picks it up, secretly wearing it under his button-up shirt and vest. Wade ends up taking Troy's kitchen knife since Russell's death caused Troy to go into shock, so he wasn't in the state of mind to use it anyway.)

Preps:

Darby Harrington - A scoped Browning BLR Rifle chambered for .243 Winchester cartridges. (Some of the Preppie's parents provided bribe money to get their kids better weapons than the rest of the students. Mr. Harrington was exceptionally generous. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean the Preps would know how to use them weapons they were given...)

Bif Taylor - A Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun.

Tad Spencer - A stainless steel gardening fork. (It's resemblance to the pitchfork his father once stabbed him with, along with the implication that his father didn't care enough about him to bribe the government to get his own son a better weapon that would guarantee his survival, and combined with the stress of his situation causes Tad's mental state to deteriorate during the events of The Program.)

Pinky Gauthier - None. (Pinkie threw the duffel bag she was given away since she refused to participate in the Program.)

Gord Vendome - A semi-automatic AMT Backup chambered for .380 ACP cartridges.

Chad Morris - A Series ALFA Steel Revolver chambered for .22 LR. (Chad trades his revolver for Bryce's ice pick, claiming that he's not a very good shot, though it might've been done out of pity for Bryce's situation.)

Bryce Montrose - An ice pick. (Bryce's parents couldn't afford the bribe money to get him a better weapon. He ends up trading the pick for Chad's revolver, albiet reluctantly.)

Justin Vandervelde - A box of matches. (He was given Christy's bag by mistake. Ironically, he's one of the few Preppies who actually know how to fire a gun due to past experience, along with Parker.)

Parker Ogilvie - A .44 Auto Mag Pistol.

Greasers:

Johnny Vincent - A Bowie machete.

Lola Lombardi - An OTF (Out-The-Front) Switchblade.

Larry "Peanut" Romano - A Push dagger.

Hal Esposito - An antique Soufflé dish.

Lefty Mancini - A Side-folding Switchblade.

Lucky De Luca - A Boot knife.

Norton Williams - 4 lb Hand Sledgehammer.

Ricky Pucino - A Gerber Mark II Survival knife.

Vance Medici - A Straight Razor.

Nerds:

Earnest Jones - A Nail gun.

Algie Papadopoulos - A BC-41 Knuckle knife. (It gets stolen by Constantinos.)

Beatrice Trudeau - A scalpel.

Bucky Pasteur - A plastic toy dinosaur.

Cornelius Johnson - A walking cane.

Donald Anderson - A notebook.

Francois "Fatty" Johnson - A pair of brass knuckledusters.

Melvin O'Connor - A wooden club.

Thad Carlson - A yardstick.

Jocks:

Ted Thompson - A Football helmet.

Damon West - A Butter knife. (He tosses it away.)

Mandy Wiles - A small canister of Pepper spray.

Bo Jackson - A wooden baseball bat.

Casey Harris - A Maglite flashlight.

Dan Wilson - A bright red plastic toy baseball bat.

Juri Karamazov - A sickle.

Kirby Olsen - A Whip. (Needless to say, when Kirby pulled it out of his duffel, he was mortified.)

Luis Luna - A Fire axe.

Bob - A metal garbage can lid.

Townies (The gov just wanted them to get rid of them for being high school dropouts and figured putting them in the Program with the students of Bullworth would be killing two birds with one stone.):

Edgar Munsen - A 9mm Beretta M9 handgun. (He smuggled it in. How? Who knows?)

Zoe Taylor - Bear repellent spray.

Omar Romero - A Crowbar.

Clint "Henry" - A Handheld Mini electric Chainsaw.

Duncan - A pocket calculator.

Gurney - A bottle of lighter fluid.

Jerry - A lighter.

Leon - A wood saw.

Otto Tyler - An empty glass bottle.

Some of these I got stumped on and I may have put too many joke weapons, but eh.

[violetnerves]

u expect them to reunite in their final year and not be instantly drawn to eachother ???? okay whatever man talk to the hand also sry for the break my tablet broke so i had to draw this with my computer mouse no im not okay about it :)

[violetnerves]

The Bullies Clique in Bully/Canis Canem Edit is goofy like the entire group besides Russell can be summed up as:

- The fruity, not closeted theater kid that reads Manga and watches Soap operas and wants to be an actor. (Probably the most normal one, let's be honest.)

- The possible paranoid schizophrenic who hates shoes and thinks he's smarter than he actually is. (Also the only mature one.)

- The probably on-the-spectrum kid whose special interest might be martial arts and ninjas (Probably likes Naruto too).

- The loud closeted LGBT kid.

- The OTHER loud closeted LGBT kid. (Daddy issues edition.)

- The OTHER probably on-the-spectrum kid whose special interest might be BULLYING PEOPLE and was traumatized as a young child by being force fed junebugs by his cousin.

That entire group is held up by Russell in the same way Atlas holds up the Heavens in Greek mythology.

[violetnerves]

Crazy ass crossover idea that's kinda fitting but also, as mentioned, crazy to think about:

Bully/Canis Canem Edit × Battle Royale

Basically the students of Bullworth Academy (And maybe the Townies as well?) getting abducted and put into an Americanized version of The Program from the original novel, and then chaos ensues.

I've had it on my mind for a while, but it got shoved into the back of my head due to my female Jimmy Bully Au. Plus, I got insecure about the idea, and I couldn't figure out whether I wanted it to be an alt universe/sequel or just have it take place during Chapter 3 of the original game.

If you don't know what Battle Royale is, here's the page on it from Tv Tropes that explains the basics, it's literally the originator of the Battle Royale genre:

[violetnerves]

"It's Still You."

[violetnerves]

👊🏻🚲🧨 𝙎𝙤 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙄 𝙖𝙢, 𝙖𝙩 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙗𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙨𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙤𝙡 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙮, 𝙬𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙪𝙢𝙣𝙞 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙧𝙢𝙨 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝙠𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙬𝙮𝙚𝙧𝙨. 𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙨𝙘𝙪𝙢. 🛹📚💐⁣

jimmy joins the ranks!!!

dedicated to gerry for being such a lovely guy

[violetnerves]

The Bully clique and its members were underutilized, and it makes me sad.

I already know all about how the clique itself is part of the leftovers from the Punk clique along with the Townies, so that kind of explains why the both of them are just sorta there, but still.

I'm putting a divider on this since I'll probably ramble a bit.

I think it would've been neat if all of the members had been more reoccurring in the game (including Russell, since like Gary he pops up in Chapter 2 once and is pretty much never brought up again until the last chapter.)

For instance, I had one idea of two of the bullies tagging along with Russell and Jimmy during the mission where you egg Tad's house. (Maybe Tom and Troy, since Tom mentions hating the Preps in one of his quotes and Troy probably hangs out with Russell outside of school the most.) Naturally they help distract the preps while Jimmy throws eggs into Tad's house. It'd probably make the mission easier than it already is, but I think it'd be ok given it is a kind a of revenge mission after the Preps turn on Jimmy after Gary brings up what he said about them during the cafeteria scene.

Also, I think it'd be funny if it was those two in particular since I can already imagine the cutscene where while Russell is threatening Mr. Oh for calling him dumb, Tom's just trying to deescalate the situation while Troy's probably making it worse.

I started thinking a lot about what it'd be if they were more involved in the story after taking note of how many people choose them as the clique Jimmy would be in a "what-if" scenario where he actually bothered to join one.

Now, obviously, this doesn't mean Jimmy would join up with them as a member. But I think out of all the other cliques, they'd turn out to be the closest with him, like genuine friends since the group has always sort of given me the vibe of a friend group more than the other cliques, only rivaling the Greasers. I feel like it would make the fact that they still have 100% respect for Jimmy even after all the other cliques turn on him mean a hell of a lot more rather than it just being done for gameplay reasons. Heck, they'd probably even aid Jimmy along with Russell during Final Mayhem rather than them inexplicably just being in the main school building to be beaten up by Edgar.

I'll probably make more posts around this idea, but for now, I'll cut it here since it's getting a bit long.