Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

“We’re getting a new P.E teacher?” Jay Crooks muttered to herself in the dim light of the morning rays.

Her room, small and shabby and filled with a strange smell that couldn’t be washed out, was mostly only lit by the decade-old laptop sitting on her third-hand desk. At the moment, the open page showed the homepage of the international school she ruefully attended. Right there, squeezed in-between a plea to stop smoking on school grounds and a list of sick teachers was the news of a new P.E teacher.

Jay huffed lightly. And she’d just gotten used to not having P.E, too. Hrm.

A glance at the clock told her the time was 6:45 in the morning. P.E was in the sixth period. She’d been awake since - what? Three? No, it had to have been earlier than that. Either way, unless she decided to try to power-nap through English, she probably wouldn’t be able to gather enough energy for even one lap around the gymnasium.

Jay leaned a bit to the right and peeked down at her exposed shins and calves. Yup. Still twigs. Well, no use in just sitting around. With a final sigh and a longing look at her two million open tabs (half of them being Flash games and the rest articles), Jay stood up. Her chair creaked. The floor creaked. The walls cracked. Not that the creaking of half the apartment would wake her mother or anything. That old hag might as well be in a coma.

Looking around, Jay tried to figure out where she might find a plastic bag. One of those you get at a grocery shop. Maybe in the pile of half-okay laundry? Maybe in the old cupboard where she kept her free newspapers?

A crinkling sound brought her attention to the floor. Or maybe it was beneath her foot.

Sighing, she bent down, picked it up, and tried to ignore how her back groaned in pain after half a night of gaming and writing. At least there were no holes or anything in the bag, just an old receipt. Now she just had to fill it with a change of clothes. There should be something in the pile of clothes…

She dragged an okay-looking black t-shirt out of the pile. Sniffed it. Okay, yeah, no. She put it back and removed another shirt. Same thing there. Alright, if this shirt isn’t okay she’ll just have to do P.E in her regular clothes… Sniff. Uhh. Good enough?

She shoved it into the plastic bag. A little while more of rummaging and she found a pair of sweatpants. Those count as gym clothes, right? They’re called sweatpants, so… Yeah. Alright. Since it’s not like she has any sports bra or anything she’ll just use the only one she has, and as for socks… Her regular socks will do.

Hopefully she’ll be able to explain to the new P.E teacher that she doesn’t have any sports shoes. Hopefully, he won’t have a stick up his ass as the last one did.

Or maybe it’s a she? The post didn’t specify.

Jay suppressed a shudder. If it’s a she, hopefully, unlike the one before the last, she’ll use a proper bra while doing jumping jacks. That’s all for later though.

If she wants to get to school on time, she’ll need to leave pretty much… She glanced at the clock. Yup. Now.

In one movement, she strove over to her desk and shoved both the plastic bag and her old laptop into her school bag. In another swift movement, she slung it over her shoulder. Alright. Time to get to school.

Trying not to look at anything too closely, she stepped out of her room, looked both ways, and then moved down the corridor, evading whatever trash and dirty clothes lay in the way. The door to her mother’s bedroom was ajar, but Jay knew from a glance that her mother wasn’t in there. Otherwise, she’d be able to hear her snoring. Instead, that characteristic sound came from down the hallway to the right. The living room. Great. One more obstacle.

Unconsciously, she began to move with an added touch of silent caution.

The hallway ended and she moved through the living room with subdued, almost tip-toeing steps, making sure not to let her eyes fall on the couch, where her mother laid in a cluster, arms sprawled here and here, her naked body only half-covered by a hastily thrown blanket. A sickly sweet scent clung around her. Jay didn’t want to think about what it was. Instead, glueing her eyes to the door, she moved through the room with large strides, a sneer dragging itself across her face. Her hand finally fell on the doorknob.

“Have a good day, sweetie,” her mother mumbled from the couch. The sticky sweet smell intensified.

Jay gritted her teeth. “Yeah,” she said, escaping out into the open. The morning rays of dawn blinded her for a moment as she closed the door behind her. The fresh air soon replaced the sickly sweet air lingering inside her lungs, and once more, she didn’t fear breathing deeply.

Then, she descended three flights of stairs, slaughtering her calves in the process, before moving out to the sidewalk. However, she didn’t head straight for the international high school she frequented, but instead, she took a small detour. Jay herself lived in a large, brutalist apartment complex on the edge of town. Annie Swallowbird lived in a similar building, though it was incrementally better than where Jay lived. That was where she was headed, and after about five minutes, she found herself at her destination.

It was almost a miracle that Jay was able to tell which giant grey cube Annie lived in. Once she was there and waiting outside by a desolate parking lot, it only took a few minutes for Annie herself to emerge, her brown hair and green eyes bobbing as she jogged.

Human, Lv.1

Jay only spent a fraction of a second glancing at the pop-up before greeting Annie.

“Yo,” she said.

Annie looked Jay up and down. “We’re getting a new P.E teacher?”

Jay shrugged. “The easy times are over. You didn’t stick to that jogging thing, did you?”

“Uh, no,” Annie said hopelessly. The both of them started walking. “But I’m pretty sure he won’t be as bad as the last one, right? I mean. It’d be hard to top the kinda guy who calls running laps for fifteen minutes a ‘warm-up.’”

“Maybe. Then again, he could be even worse. You never really know,” Jay said, indulging gleefully in the horrified expression that washed over Annie. “Hey, if you don’t want to try your luck, you can always call in sick?”

Annie shook her head. “No. No way. Mr Persson’ll flay me.”

Since the Painstone International High School was on the outskirts of town, walking there from their apartments wasn’t too hard. Once there, they met up with Gerald.

Human, Lv.38

Personally, Jay preferred Gerald over Annie. Had it not been for Gerald, Jay would never have so much as glanced at Annie where she sat alone. But of course, the guy couldn’t just let someone sit alone as they wanted, he just had to go and invite them over. But, Jay supposed, that was exactly why she liked the man. He was interesting!

Even if he hadn’t been a rehabilitated otherworldly child soldier with a level befitting a Fighter, she’d still find him pretty interesting. He had a strange outlook on life, people and the world.

Even better, he had secrets. Lots of them.

Secrets he was terrible at keeping.

Squeezing them out of him had been as easy as making lemonade. With just the slightest prodding, the man had gotten so flustered she didn’t even need to reveal she knew his level was high. And the more he revealed, the more curious she got. In the end, after she had learnt about his childhood and how he became a soldier and why he had come to the school at all, there was only one thing she didn’t quite understand. One secret he withheld from her ravenous claws.

How all of it connected.

He was fighting a battle when he came here, but he never explained who the enemy was. He came here alone, yet she knew there was no way in hell he could have defeated a competent party of Fighters alone. He alone was chosen to come here. What made him so special?

There was something here he wasn’t telling her, and that clawed at her insides.

Well inside Painstone, the three of them parted, going to their own classes. During some classes, two or three of them would meet and at other times they were alone. At lunch, they all met and ate together. Annie alternated between talking in gangly German and over-fluent English, Gerald doing the same but reverse. Jay had no problem with either language, so she was content to just listen to the two misunderstand each other.

Compared to Gerald with all his secrets and mysteries, Annie was pretty boring. The only interesting thing about her that Jay had been able to wring out was that her brother Charlie had gone missing when the portals opened. But that was hardly anything unique. Everybody lost someone to the portals that day.

Oh, wait, right, the slightly interesting thing was that he went missing the day before that. Alongside four other classmates.

Right. All very interesting, but when Jay had tried investigating the incident, she’d pretty much hit a brick wall instantly. Nothing there to uncover. Just five rose statues in a courtyard and a newspaper article that was overshadowed and forgotten the very next day. An interesting incident worth trying to uncover with nothing behind it.

Gerald was much more interesting. At least she knew she might be able to get answers someday.

Once lunch finished, all three of them headed to the very same class. P.E.

Jay dreaded it. Forget being thin as a twig, she was more like a dangly wireframe. Bones and skin with pretty much nothing else. If she was lucky, she might be able to get out of this class if the teacher is strict to the point where he doesn’t allow people without indoor shoes to do anything. Maybe.

Gerald parted from Annie and Jay and headed to the boy’s changing room while Annie and Jay went for the girls. After a brief time there, the two of them headed to the inside of the gymnasium. It was large, blue-floored and made for all kinds of sports, none of which Jay liked. If she was lucky, since it’s his first day on the job, the new teacher might be kind to them. Maybe. Hopefully.

The class gathered on the breeches, some wearing custom shirts with their name and number emblazoned, others wearing regular colourful sports clothes, and Jay wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants.

The door on the far side of the hall opened.

God, he was big. Tall and broad, muscles practically bulging out of his shirt and pants. His eyes were pure white, giving off the impression that he might be blind, but since he walked confidently, his back straight and strong, that didn’t seem to be the case. His hair was long and black, draping down his massive pecs and over his broad shoulders. Somehow, the air around him seemed to resound and vibrate with power.

To most in the room, he looked like the most ripped bodybuilder they had ever seen. Or like a shredded strongman.

To Jay, he seemed like a lot more. Her blood froze in her veins.

Divine Human, Lv.???

...What?