The clock on the wall read 5:00. PM. As in the school day had ended two hours ago.
And yet here Jules was, lurking about the hallways looking for a chess club nerd to extort or some other unlucky extracurricular soul that hadn't made it home yet. And for Jules, it was two hours of a prison sentence he didn't deserve.
"You should have kept your fucking mouth shut" He muttered to himself, "'Man that looked like a kick in the balls, huh?'. May as well told the fucker he was a dickless little fag, J. Good going"
The bully, the second in command of Rob Bolstrum's gang of thugs, wanted to be anywhere but here. But here he was, all because Rob Bolstrum had gotten humiliated by the resident school Amazon, Joanna Ingerman and that little fag Shitterman she had, against all odds, hooked up with. Jules had said the fateful words the moment Rob had lumbered away from the scene, gaining a snicker from the rest of the collected bullies and a glare from Rob. For what it was worth, Jules had gotten off pretty easy all things considered. With Big Jon erased, replaced by the knockout Joanna, there was no one left in in the high school that could beat Rob in a fight for dominance, and Jules had, for a moment, feared he was getting one of Rob's sledgehammer-like fists ploughed into his face.
But the giant of Shermer High had simply shoved him against the lockers, hard enough that his back was still hurting hours later, and simply grunted that Jules would be 'working overtime tonight'. Which meant while Rob and the boys were out having fun at others expense, Jules was stuck hunting down nerds for pocket change. Pocket change he wouldn't even get to keep, assuming he even managed to score any!
In the distance, near the library where the nerd clubs typically held their after school little queer clubs, Jules heard the indistinct murmur of conversation and the slam of a locker, With a sigh that was more of a grunt, he made a left near one of the locked lunchroom doors and stalked down towards the library. He was already in loser country, he knew that greasy little shit Matt Harris's locker was down this way and that blob with tits that he followed around because no one else would talk to him.
Jules rounded the corner and nearly plowed into the green-suited body of Mr. Krazinski, the school's disgraced janitor.
"SHIT" The bully yelled as he took a awkward, off-balance step over Krazinski's mop bucket, causing him to stumble across the hall and crash painfully into the row of lockers. The pain in his back flared again as Jules regained his footing and turned on the older man, who was holding something green and shiny in his palm.
"Woah! You all right, kid?" The janitor said, looking concerned for a moment before realizing who it was. Earlier in the day the older man had been victim to one of Rob's longer pranks, a catfish game where Rob pretended to be the hot Spanish teacher and lured the poor man into confessing his love for her before Rob had pulled the plug. Jules had been there when it had happened, laughing along with the rest of the bullies, and any ounce of sympathy Krazinski might have had vanished in an instant as hate filled his heart.
Neither the older man nor the malcontent teen saw the brief flash of light from the object in his hand.
"Why don't you watch where' you're fucking standing old man!" Jules hissed, pulling himself back together and leaping into the older man's face, "Last thing you need is for me to go report your pedo ass, how would it feel if some trailer court shithead like me got you fired? Then you wouldn't be able to skeeve at all of us little kids anymore!"
"Now listen here-" Krazinski started, but felt a flare of pain in his body as the bulky teen shoved him against the lockers, causing the green stone he had just found to tumble out of his hand moments before he curled it into a fist.
"Shut up! you're such a fucking failure, you should go kill yourself, you're a fucking janitor! What kind of a fuck up do you have to be to end up like that?" Jules shoved the older man again as the school janitor had tried to bend over, reaching towards whatever it was he'd dropped.
"OW! Kid, stop!" The old man croaked as his back flared in pain as he felt his spine collide with the latch of one of the lockers. He wanted to hit the little punk in front of him, dunk his head in the dirty mop water and teach the boy a lesson in respect, but that would surely get him fired. He'd already had to speak with the Superintendent, Andrew Chandler, about the rumors floating around school, he was already on thin ice. Just let the kid go, get that strange gemstone back, and then get back to work...
But Mr. Krazinski had no chance, as Jules's head snapped downward as the bully spotted the gemstone as it glimmered oddly in the artificial light from the overhead florescent bulbs, like there was something inside that was twisting the light and flashing it into his eye. Whatever it was, Jules swooped a hand down and grabbed the teardrop shaped object in his hand, despite the graon of protest from the janitor.
"Fine, but this is your 'in the fucking way' tax! You want it back, you can give me fifty bucks" Jules sneered. He didn't actually know if the object in his hand was worth anything, but the janitor had seemed interested in it. If he didn't get anything out of the bag of bones in front of him, he could just go pawn it, or just toss it in the trash if it was some fake plastic shit. Whatever it was, he wasn't giving it back.
The janitor simply stared at Jules for a moment, then Jules's closed fist before muttering something under his breath, turning back to his mop bucket and pretending like the bully wasn't there.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. Good fucking night" Jules said, turning and stomping down the hallway, the confrontation having given him a much needed boost of energy and confidence and he strolled towards the library. He opened his palm to look at the thing he'd stolen; a shiny green teardrop that sat over another teardrop that looked like...gold? Whatever it was, Jules immediately knew that it was some kind of jewelry. Maybe the janitor was some kind of crossdressing faggot, or maybe one of the rich girls had dropped it earlier in the day, either way Jules had pawned enough jewelry that he knew it was worth something.
'Just need to keep it under wraps. Rob'll kick my ass and take all of it if he finds out' A thought fluttered darkly in his mind, and Jules clenched his fist tight again. And it was something Bolstrum would do, as far as the much larger bully was concerned, Jules was here under orders, which meant most of the spoils belonged to the red haired behemoth that was his 'friend'.
"Fucking Bolstrum" Jules muttered as he came to a stop near the library bathrooms. He could hear the muted voices of nerds and other losers filtering out from the double doors and from at least one other classroom. He'd hide out in the men's and jump the little pricks as they wandered in. Jules would have done to the same to the girls bathroom but Rob had, for some dumb reason, a strict 'no touching girls' plicy that he made sure every single one of the his 'friends' followed.
'And maybe that's your whole fucking problem Robbie' The bully muttered as he sauntered into the final stall and took a seat to wait for his first victim, 'Maybe if you were such a gyno you could have knocked Ingercunt on her ass a long time ago. We'd all be sitting pretty then. But no no, you just let her walk all over you, now I'm sitting here on a fucking toilet!'.
Jules never saw the flicker of light between his fingers as he leaned back and closed his eyes.
He really, really wanted a smoke, but the smell would tip the geeks off and then he'd have nothing to show for it. So instead he simply sat there in silence, listening to the dull murmur of conversation from the nearby clubs and thinking about his situation and how unfair it was. He, oddly enough, started to feel a little lonely on his cold throne. The geeks, even if they were all losers, at least stuck together and seemed like they were having fun, yet Jules was all alone, his 'friends' (if he could even call them that) were elsewhere, probably making fun of him instead of actually missing his presence. He had had friends once when he was a kid. But that was a long time ago, before he and his dad had moved to Shermer after his mom died. They'd ended up in the trailer court where he'd met Rob, the sad, lonely kid falling under Rob's influence (largely due to not wanting to be on the receiving end of the larger boy's threats). Before long Jules was the first of Rob's growing gang of thugs, and his dad was too sad and drunk to even notice the boy wandering down the wrong life-path.
Jules shook his head to get rid of the existential thoughts and instead wondered if, given her little boytoy was a geek, if Joanna Ingerman was in one of those rooms, and how great it would be to get the benefits of being one of the rich girl's friends.
The bully felt a strange tightness in his chest. It felt like he was angry, maybe even jealous of the nearby students? Either way, Jules didn't like the feeling, and was honestly a little confused as to where it was coming from. He gave the bathroom stall a pound with his fist, unaware of the small, steady glow within it now to get the weirdness out of his system as he grunted;
"I wish..."
Option 1: "Rob would just be nicer to me!" With a flash of light, Jules finds himself no longer on the toilet, but back with Rob! But something was definitely wrong!
Option 2: "That I was one of Joanna Ingerman's friends!" With a flash of light, Jules found himself out of the bathroom, sitting at a table next to Joanna Ingerman, who was talking to him! But wait, something seemed...off.