On the way to football practice Dave spotted something, or rather someone. Someone he never in his life had expected to see again. Not after high school, and most definitely not after having sent himself into a different world entirely. It was someone unmistakable, whose actions had inflicted trauma burned into Dave's DNA on a level where his descendants hundreds of years in the future would see his appearance as an ill omen without knowing why. It was Francis the bully.
Francis' hair had turned gray. It was hard to tell if his skin had turned white because even with gray hair he was still a ginger in the flesh, so his skin was deathly pale to begin with. Either way, he looked like he had been through hell and then some.
No matter how broken down and destroyed he appeared, there was no mistaking him–that one-man apocalypse. Approaching him directly would be too risky, so Dave, using his authority as the captain of the team, excused himself saying he needed to use the bathroom and went the investigative route asking around about Francis.
Eventually one of the seniors both knew and was willing to talk. He explained that Francis had had the misfortune of running into a wanted criminal. Rectal Savage. A demonic madman from the mountains who had seriously earned his name. The high-ranking sect members who went on a mission to apprehend Rectal Savage had found Francis locked in a simple bamboo cage, wearing only a pair of red gym shorts that used to be white. After a dozen rounds of battle they managed to suppress Rectal Savage and capture him alive. Multiple corpses and depraved artifacts were found in his camp, but Francis was the only other living being.
Francis didn't speak for days after they brought him back to the sect, and he definitely looked evil, something Dave would attest to. Therefore to figure out whether they should keep him in jail under suspicion of being an accomplice of Rectal Savage, or to let him go free, an interrogator was sent to soul search him and uncover the truth. What the interrogator found was so horrific that he turned pale and even vomited afterwards, but in the end Francis was cleared of suspicion and released. The unquestionable truth, barring some horrific details, was that Francis' ass could be said to have been the sacrificial lamb on the altar, slaughtered for a demonic ritual.
If the interrogator had the stomach to search even deeper he would have found that Francis was an otherworlder too. As it so happens a characteristic of otherworlders is that soul searching them cannot reveal anything from before they arrived. It is simply like searching in an empty space.
Listening to the story Dave put two and two together, and he laughed hysterically in response, a reaction most unbefitting and his senior brother who explained was taken aback.
"Ah, Francis, my old friend, it only took you straying from the earthly protection of your phony god to finally receive some karmic justice, up the ass no less. Kyehehehe…"
"I advise that you leave him alone for now. He's still in a very fragile state after all the horrors that he went through. He's still refusing to speak to anyone, so he just sits there reading that old dusty tome: The Count of Mapo Tofu."
Not heeding the advice, Dave waddled up and shouted:
"Hey Francis you fat bitch! I heard you got raped in the ass by a demented mountain bandit! How's that feel huh? Did you feel the throbbing veins slithering up in there like snakes! Did the blood make it a smoother ride for him?"
Francis shook like he had been tasered, his eyes were nearly glazed over as his head turned towards Dave in short uneven bouts. The book–The Count of Mapo Tofu– fell heavily from his hands as he stuttered "Huhhh, Huhhh, D-d-d-d-Dave…". He was breathing heavily, shivering, looking like an old man in a care facility only betrayed by his apparent youth.
"Hah, that's right, Dave! Say, hehehe, are you wearing diapers under that robe? I imagine it must be–"
Francis' screeching cut him off. "Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggghhhhhhhh! AAAAAAHHHHHH!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!"
Francis, who fell from his seated position down on his back, covered his face with his hands and screamed like a stuck pig. He rocked side to side pathetically. A sect member Dave was not acquainted with came running over and tried to soothe him, but it did little to help. Now Francis was like a child being told not to cry while still bleeding after having fallen and scraped his knee. Although if anything bled it was most definitely not his knee. Dave took an awkward step back from the scene, in fact he did not feel bad for Francis at all, he only felt bad that he hadn't gotten to unleash all his ridicule before being interrupted by the wailing.
Francis went limp with his legs still quaking, after a moment his screams had been reduced to pitiful sobbing. The commotion had attracted quite a bit of attention from those nearby, including Liu Yan who just so happened to be in the area. When she saw Dave was standing there she got a bad feeling and felt a sense of responsibility to investigate the matter.
"Greetings junior brother Dave. Did you… do something? Something to junior brother Francis?" she asked with a stern and worried look.
"N-nothing, I just thought I should say hello to him since we knew each other back on earth. I have to say that I for one have no idea why he's acting up like this."
"So poor Francis is an otherworlder? and you know him too? Oh that's great news! I don't know if you heard about what happened to him, but he could really use the support of a friend, I think."
"Hehe, well I certainly tried to offer some support, but it seems he's not in a state of mind to accept any of it right now."
"So you were friends with him back on earth then?"
"Uhhh, friends might be a strong word. So we did go to the same high school. I don't think that's a thing here, so you could say we were something like members of the same sect… Something like that yeah."
Dave was about to leave it at that but a nagging feeling wouldn't let him.
Urgh… I can't take the idea of Liu Yan having any sort of good impression of that fat, rotten asshole. I need to knock him down a peg or two so she's less compassionate towards him.
"To be honest with you… Francis wasn't so much a friend as he was a terrible person. He was a menace to society, bullying everyone around him, me included. He treated people like trash, he was mean, and violent. If anyone tried to stand up to him, he would assault them, and from then on single them out as a target. The teachers, instructors I guess you would call them, let him rampage around the school freely. I think they were afraid of him too for some reason. He used to shove me in lockers, and he called me gay every time he saw me. One time he gave m- some kid a wedgie so brutal m- his underwear tore in half. Poor kid…"
"That's awful. I had no idea Francis was a person like that… but… the Francis he is now, I don't think he could do something like that to anyone. He's like a wounded animal cowering in fear."
"Best not let him heal then. He's as demonic as they come I tell you h'wat. I think we should suggest to the elders that he goes back to a cell for the safety of the general public until his execution is carried out."
"But you approached him for a greeting just now?"
"... Well… yeah."
"You thought you could have a conversation with him. You didn't think he would assault you?"
"I'm a lot stronger than I was back on earth, I have my," he sighed, embarrassed to say it "my ghetto shaman arts. I think I could take him in a fight now."
"Did he ever kill anyone?"
"What? No, at least not at school. He definitely would have though, at some point later in life. I always pictured him as a future crackhead stealing tires off the cars in his ghetto– ah! … I am the one who turned to drugs and the ghetto in the end…"
The realization hit like a bag of crack rocks. All his current success was as a pill maker and practitioner of his ghetto shaman arts.
"Am I really a ghetto drug dealer now?" he mumbled to himself. "You know what, fuck Francis. Raped in the ass or not, there's no way I'm forgiving him. He has blood on his hands, not just his underwear *giggle*."
Liu Yan visibly thought less of him for his crude and uncompassionate language.
"Back on earth we had an ancient prophecy; bully not so tough after being molested. Francis simply went and fulfilled it. That's why none of this is shocking to me."