42 – New Reputation

When they entered the class people instantly went silent.

Dave looked towards Jeffrey's desk, but he didn't seem to be here yet which was out of the ordinary. Well maybe not that out of the ordinary considering he had given him a full strength punch to the jewels last afternoon. Although he felt pretty roughed up himself even after a night rest he didn't want to imagine what kind of shape Jeffrey was in. He wouldn't be surprised if Jeffrey decided to call in sick for the day. He would if he were in the same position.

Given the looks in some people's eyes and how they were keeping their distance it seemed at least some rumours regarding what had happened between him and Jeffrey must have spread already.

Dave didn't mind though. A little fear was good. He would rather eventually have respect, but that was harder to come by and he would gladly settle for fear at the moment. At least it would work almost equally well at reducing their bullying of him if they knew he could and would beat the shit out of them if they pissed him off.

He also noticed some of the girls were checking out his body more, probably only now noticing his improved physique after he had used it against Jeffrey and his lackeys. Unlike the boys they weren't as afraid, believing he wouldn't beat them since they were girls. Instead they were paying much more attention to how the balance of power in the class was changing as Dave was smashing through it like a bull in a china shop.

Despite Jeffrey and Mara's best efforts at suppressing him and slandering him to keep him as the class outcast opinions were still changing. He had been doing better in P.E. Was starting to look a decent bit better as he built muscle and lowered his body fat. Now he had also proven he was not so easily bullied anymore.

Unlike Jeffrey, Mara was there and she was giving him a complicated look. There was definitely resentment there. A lot of resentment, but that didn't seem to be all of it. Maybe it was regret? If it was regret he would be more than happy. Not because he would forgive her, but it would at least be some minor form of suffering and he didn't want revenge on Jeffrey alone.

He just ignored her glare and the whispers of his classmates to sit down with Kate as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Kate was having a harder time as the attention was making her embarrassed. Dave squeezed her hand and gave her a smile to reassure her.

At the start of lunch Mara actually came over to him, but she seemed insecure compared to her usual confident self.

It was getting tiresome to effectively self-hypnotise himself whenever he was dealing with her, but at least he didn't think he would have to do it much longer. He still did it anyway since it might create some opportunities for him down the line.

"H-hi," Mara said. She seemed like she didn't quite know what she wanted to say, just that she felt she needed to say something.

"I'm sorry, I've got lunch plans with Kate so I've really got to go," he said dismissively. He tried to hypnotise himself into believing he felt bad about it though. He hoped she would believe he still had feelings for her, but was trying to push her away.

He quickly left leaving a stunned Mara behind so he could join Kate at the lunch table.

"H-how dare he?" she muttered to herself indignantly. Being the most popular girl in class and one of the more popular ones in school she wasn't used to being brushed off. She didn't like it one bit. Worse yet she was brushed off in favour of Kate. Was there even anything good about that loser? Despite the polite face she wore most of the time, she had done nothing to help her and had even gossiped behind her back with the other popular girls. Yet now she was being ignored in favour of that girl.

She wasn't sure what to do about it right at that moment though. Jeffrey hadn't shown up and none of his buddies would help her after what had just happened to him the day before. She could try to use her clique of popular girls, but that was mostly useful if she wanted to harass a girl not boys.

Though there were plenty of stares and whispers throughout the day it was actually one of his most comfortable school days since no one bothered him for once and he could just focus on enjoying spending time with Kate.

Despite spending all day at school with his new ability he couldn't really notice that much of a difference in less than a day. Learning a single particular topic for maybe an hour wasn't really enough to notice a major improvement. It would still require him to cover the content which was limited in a classroom environment where the class was dictated by how long it took the average student to learn the topic.

So far the first day was over and he hadn't heard anything regarding his fight with Jeremy so it didn't seem it was reported to the school. Not that they could do much about it since Jeffrey had made sure the encounter didn't happen on school grounds.

Kate was unhappy they had to go their separate ways after school, but despite being a little rough for wear he wasn't going to skip the personal trainer class and delay his goals.

The moment he walked in to the gym he was grabbed by Vanessa,

"Oh my god! What happened?" she asked.

She pulled his face closer to get a better look at the cuts on his lip and brow. When he noticed just how close they were to each other by the sensation of her breath hitting his cheek he couldn't stop himself from blushing.