Chapter 161 - A Surprising Substitute

As Arthur expected, the assembly went on several minutes into the first break. He heard countless groans from people sitting around him all complaining about the humidity and how bored they were.

Eventually, the assembly came to an end and everyone was allowed to leave and have what little remained of their first break.

Arthur and his friends made a trip to the infirmary so that Arthur could say hello to Emily. However, it seemed as though she wasn't around so they just made their way towards their lockers instead.

The area around their lockers was packed with students, it seemed everyone wanted to quickly get a snack and run off to enjoy their break before lessons started again, which caused a rather unsightly crowd to form.

Eventually, the group thinned out as the horde of students quickly made their way out of the building, leaving only a few stragglers behind, and Arthur's group. 

Arthur and Holly made their way to their lockers with ease, while Quinn was grumbling and still complaining that he had a bottom locker.

"Oh great, and our first class of the year just had to be maths," Quinn groaned, "And then we've got sports right after."

Arthur spent time reorganising his locker while the other two began having a conversation while eating their snacks.

"Hey, it's the nerd squad!" A rather grating voice echoed down the hall.

Arthur's group all knew who that voice belonged to. It was Vasco, who just happened to be the most annoying out of Ruslan's groupies.

Arthur closed his newly organised locker after grabbing his books for maths and a snack. He locked it and turned to see Vasco walking up to them with another of Ruslan's groupies. Ruslan himself however had immediately gone to his locker without saying a word.

Vasco seemed to notice this, and an irritable expression formed on his face.

"What's the matter Rus? You ain't gonna say a word to him?" Vasco turned around and taunted Ruslan. "Is it because he beat your ass last year?"

Ruslan didn't respond verbally, choosing to instead flip Vasco the bird before slamming his locker shut and walking off.

"Hey, I get if you're scared. It looks like the scrawny dork worked out." Vasco continued to taunt Ruslan, "I bet he'd stomp you again."

Ruslan didn't respond to his provocations this time either, so Vasco called him a coward under his breath. It was audible enough for Arthur and his group to hear, meaning it was likely that Ruslan had also heard this, but he still didn't respond.

Vasco clicked his tongue before he and his groupies quickly grabbed what they needed out of their lockers. Vasco threw a nasty glare at Arthur before stomping off, he seemed to be walking faster to catch up with Ruslan.

"Well, it seems someone's more docile this year..." Arthur muttered out loud.

He looked around to see that both of his friends weren't as surprised as he was.

"That video of you throwing him to the ground sort of became viral over the holidays." Quinn said, "Haven't you seen any of the memes?"

"No, I haven't really paid much attention to what anybody else has been doing," Arthur responded. "I haven't really talked to anybody besides you two either."

"Oh, well. Basically, Ruslan became a joke over the holidays because people kept spreading that video around. I heard even the year tens that they bullied had started making fun of him online." Quinn said while laughing.

"That doesn't sound like it would make him docile though. If anything wouldn't that make him act out worse?" Arthur asked.

"Oh, I guess you're right," Quinn shrugged. "No idea then."

'I guess his father took my advice to heart.' Arthur thought to himself. 'I'm still surprised it was that effective though.'

The group spoke for a while before the bell inevitably rang, and eventually, they were making their way towards their first class.

"Oh yeah, who is our teacher for sports?" Quinn asked, "I heard the fatty got fired."

"I think I remember reading on the schedule that our teacher is someone called R. Nyilas." Holly responded, "I think they might be a new teacher."

"I guess we'll find out next class" Quinn retorted, with a slight groan after remembering that they had sports after their maths class.

"Nyilas?" Arthur muttered in a questioning tone. "Isn't that someone from a pretty prestigious family, what are they doing as a sports teacher?"

"Huh? What if it's just someone with a similar last name?" Quinn asked.

"I guess, but it's a pretty rare surname here though," Arthur said.

Arthur was lost in thought for the rest of the trip, he thought he had heard that name mentioned at some point but he was having a hard time connecting names to faces.

The group made their way towards the classroom, and after a few minutes of waiting, their teacher had arrived. They were let inside and their first lesson had begun.

The first class was more of an introductory class explaining what they would be doing that year and what they should expect from the curriculum. They went into some basic math problems, but the class quickly came to an end.

The bell rang once more, an ear-piercing noise that echoed down the hallways, signalling the arrival of a horde of teenagers as everyone rushed to get to their locker so that they could get what they needed for their next class.

After a troublesome battle to get into their lockers, Arthur had put his books away, but realised much too late that he had forgotten something.

"Ah, I forgot to pack my sports uniform," Arthur groaned. "I knew I was missing something."

"Let's just hope our new teacher isn't as uptight as the last one," Quinn remarked while pulling out his sports uniform. Arthur turned to see that Holly had her uniform too.

"Oh? It's usually Quinn who forgets his uniform, this is a first for you." Holly laughed as she closed her locker and squeezed out of the crowd, the other two followed.

The group eventually made their way to the gymnasium. It seemed as though the school faculty had just finished packing away such a large amount of chairs and were wheeling the last of them into the gymnasium's storage room before all making their way out of the building, all except for one.

The one teacher who remained was a tall curvy woman with long red hair. The woman was trying to juggle a soccer ball, but it didn't seem as though she was very good at it, as on her third kick the ball bounced out of her control and rolled away.

"I guess that's our new teacher," Quinn muttered as he watched the woman chase after the soccer ball. "It doesn't seem like she's that sporty, maybe Arthur was right about her being a princess? Oh well, at least it isn't another creepy guy."

"She'd easily beat you in an archery competition though," Arthur remarked as he trailed behind the other two, which caused his friends to turn to him with a confused look.  What the two saw was Arthur with a somewhat confused, yet oddly smug grin plastered on his face.

Before his two friends could ask him what he was on about, they quickly received a response to their question from the new teacher's mouth.

"Merlin?" The redhead woman muttered out loud.

His friends turned to stare at Arthur once more,

"Hey, Legolas." Arthur gave the redhead, who happened to be someone he was very familiar with, a friendly wave.

"Wait, you already know the new teacher?" His friends asked him.

"Oh yeah, we killed a den of vampires together," Arthur said with a playful tone. "We're basically best friends."

Rowan, their new sports teacher, approached Arthur's group with a nervous expression.

"I had no idea you were a teacher, uhh. Miss Nyilas." Arthur said, unsure if it was okay to call her by her first name.

"Rowan is fine." She said with a slight laugh. "This is my first proper teaching job, I was a student-teacher up until the end of last year."

"Oh, Mason and Liam are also teachers." She added. "Mason is teaching at another high school while Liam has been working as a primary school teacher."

"What about Alvira?" Arthur asked out of curiosity.

"She's still in college," Rowan answered. "She is the youngest out of our group, but I think she wanted to work with kids like her cousin."

"Her cousin?" Arthur asked with a curious expression.

"Her cousin is Liam, didn't you know that?" Rowan asked, to which Arthur shook his head in response.

The other two had eventually joined the conversation, introducing themselves as other students started entering the building.

"Why didn't you say anything if you knew who our teacher was?" Quinn asked. 

"I actually wasn't aware of her family name. I just figured it would be someone I could at least recognise." Arthur muttered, "The Nyilas family is a major contributor to my father's company, so they received an invitation to the first wave of New Genesis.. That's where we met."