Chapter 40 – In school, for a change

John was very, very happy with himself. The best thing about having 9 mana regeneration was that he could run both Artificial Spirit and Possession indefinitely – even while he slept. He had opted not to do that for Possession though. He had been bored out of his mind, existing as his mouse pad while sleeping – and that was the first 10 minutes. Eight hours of that would have driven him mad. Regardless, both Skills had levelled tremendously.

When he headed out for school, he put Aclysia in his inventory. The little mental connection through which he spoke to her was interrupted by the act, but it was still there. He would ask her about how the inside of the inventory was later.

Once he reached school grounds, he broke Possession. He was still afraid that it could be used to track him. Moira would have no trouble finding him anyway. Neither would that information broker who had reported him the first time around. No need to invite more influences into his life though.

With nothing else going on, he sat on mana overflow. An annoying state of affairs. Better than the alternative, but still annoying. In general, he was very happy with himself though. Life was great.

That lasted until a hand came slamming down on his desk.

“Hey there, John.”

John knew who the hand belonged to before he even looked up. A sigh accompanied him putting away his phone. Next to him, broad and bulky as ever, stood the blond footballer Frank Dickinson. The boyfriend of Vanessa, the queen bitch of this school. Together, they made up every reason that John’s life had been terrible since middle school.

“Hi, Frank,” John said with resignation. If he was lucky, this would go the easy way. Frank would make a couple of jokes at his expense, take him into a chokehold, demand some lunch money, and screw off to make out with his stupidly hot girlfriend after he got it. If he wasn’t lucky… it would be best if he smuggled his phone into his inventory. He would also find out if Gamer’s Body knew not to activate in front of mundane people.

“Still playing that dumb candy crush game, huh? Must be the best you can do if you can’t crush pussy.”  Some people giggled at that. John hoped it was because Frank was displaying a ridiculous amount of meathead malevolence.

For his part, he leaned back in his chair and glared. A bad move, he was vaguely aware. Frank was physically superior to him and it wasn’t like he could throw spells at him in public. ‘Should have picked up more Strength,’ he cursed himself and did another stupid thing. “What do you want, Frank?”

The jock tilted his head. His brain probably registered that John’s voice was different, without realizing that was because the stutter was gone. After the moment of wonder had passed, the altercation continued as predicted: with Frank putting his arm around John. “That’s such a good question, pal! I’m so happy you know to ask what your good friend wants.” The arm went tighter, until John’s windpipe was constricted. Pressure built in his head. “And your good pal Frank wants some money. So cough it up, Nerdman. These gains don’t mai-“

“Yo.” Frank was interrupted by someone. John was vaguely aware of a familiar hand tapping his tormentor on the shoulder.

“What? Can’t you see I’m talking to my friend here.”

“You’re talking to my boyfriend, so how about you back off?” Frank was stunned for a moment, the entire room was. Then the arm loosened and John got to take a deep breath. His coughing was nearly the only sound in the room.

“Jane… is this… smart…?” he asked his disguised, brunette girlfriend. He noted that the facial illusion wasn’t there anymore. Now the only difference was that her hair was brown and reasonable and that the pink light in her eyes was missing.

Before Rave could answer, Frank started laughing. “The nerd got himself a girlfriend. A plain, aggressive little twat at that.” The jock turned to the classroom, arms spread out like he was a gladiator that was about to have a glorious duel. John considered every petty trick Possession allowed him. Frank turned to Rave and inspected her more closely. “Man, you got nothing on Vanessa. How about you hang with me instead? I know some guys with yellow fever.”

The door to the classroom opened suddenly. In stepped Thomas Jefferson – the class president who had approached John a few days ago. “Hey, Marianne, want to- Oh,” he noticed the scene. For a moment his eyes lingered on Frank. Then the coward looked elsewhere. “…Jane? What are you doing here?” The air in the room changed subtly.

“Jane? Party wrecker Jane?” Frank turned back to the brunette. “Man, you’re a legend, why would you hang with this loser?”

That must have been what Thomas had been referring to when he told him that Rave had a horrible reputation back in the bus. That conversation was only a week ago but an eternity had passed between then and now for the Gamer.

Rave stood there and tapped her heel in an agitated beat. John prayed that someone would stop Frank from escalating the situation even further. He prayed even harder that nobody would do anything. “What? Am I not good enough for you to answer?” Frank asked, anger raising his volume. “Got a stammer like your ‘boyfriend’? You’re probably just as usele-“

In one swift motion, as quick as world class footballers, Rave kicked the jock in the crotch.

The collective male population in the room jumped in empathy that Frank did not deserve. The tip of Rave’s shoes decreased his likelihood of siring children by at least a few percentage points. A choked sound that could have passed as a death rattle escaped the jock.

Rave drew her foot back. Frank took one, two, three steps and leaned onto Vanessa’s desk for support. The queen bitch of the school watched her boyfriend keel over and collapse to the ground. If he hadn’t passed out, he must have wished he had.

The blonde, admittedly gorgeous, woman immediately shot to her feet. “What the hell?! Do you know who you’re messing with?!” she shouted.

“Do you?” Rave returned with a raised eyebrow.

“Let’s just get out of here,” John finally decided to break the silence. This was everything he could have wanted – short of him delivering the kick himself. Grabbing his school utensils, so they couldn’t be messed with while he was gone, he stepped past Vanessa and Frank. The combined social and physical threat they presented suddenly seemed so small. Once they were out in the hallway, he blurted out. “God, I love you.”

“I told ya, Jane is fine,” she said cheekily and pulled him towards the stairs. Just before they went up, she stuck out her tongue at Moira, who happened to be there. “Have a nice day, Moi-Moi!”

“What just happened?” John asked, while they went up to the roof.

“Baldy came back this morning and told me Collide is now under the protection of the Bloodfallen. They’re the other local big player and the Order won’t risk a war over tiny ole us,” Rave explained. “Moira has her prissy little hands tied, so we can meet during school now.”

“Really? That’s great!” John was ecstatic. Almost ecstatic enough to ignore the question on his mind. “Can we trust a group called Bloodfallen?”

“No idea. Could be edgelords, could be vampires, if those are real. That’s Baldy’s problem, we ain’t got anything to do with them.“ A pretty flimsy protection from Moira’s influence, but John would take it.

“I love my life right now,” his girlfriend said once they got to the roof.

“Well, I love you,” John said again, breathing the fresh air of another summer’s day. “What did they mean by party wrecker, by the way?”

“Oh, ya know, first guy I was… doing stuff with… was a total asshole and I may have tossed him into a table – that broke. The losers there all thought it was my fault.” Rave turned to him. “That’s then though and now’s now. Don’t wanna think about that anymore. I just wanna think about you, Johnny. We’re a couple now.”

Instinctively, John felt that something was off. She only used ‘Johnny’ when she was annoyed with him in some fashion and the smile on her lips had something dangerous. “We’re a couple, yes,” he confirmed. The smile on her expression dropped and left behind was impatience.

“Who the fuck is Aclysia, Johnny?” she asked the question.

John blinked, then facepalmed. ‘The party menu,’ he realized. Aclysia was right there underneath his name. Without context, it looked like he had invited a new girl to their party. “We need to exchange phone numbers,” he said.

“How about ya start with explaining?” Rave said.

“I’ll show you, it will be quicker,” he promised and raised his hand. They found themselves in an empty Illusion Barrier. Then he reached into his inventory and retrieved the Artificial Spirit. Aclysia laid unmoving in his hand for a bit, stiff like the inanimate object she used to be. Then she blinked once and stood up in John’s palm. She was a little larger now, courtesy of having eaten spare pieces of plastic and metal John had around while he had been sleeping.

“Wow, wait, what.” Rave stepped closer and looked at the little woman. “That is both creepy and incredibly cute. What is that?”

John told her the whole story, about how he got the Skill and how he was in the process of levelling her.

“An artificial spirit that can grow and learn?” Rave summarized the whole thing with a baffled expression. “Your bullshit never ceases to amaze me. That’s some advanced stuff. Where did you even get a Crystal like that?”

“It was the Quest reward for fucking you the first time.” John answered truthfully.

“Wow. Those Crystals are worth upwards from half a billion... I think.”

 “Half a billion,” he groaned. Numbers in the Abyss made no sense whatsoever. How did the US economy withstand all of this currency flowing around in the fantasy world? “That means for fucking you I could have retired in a nice mansion. That is…bullshit.”

“Ja.” Rave agreed. “Ja, it is.”

His girlfriend stubbed Aclysia with a finger. “Can she talk?”

“I don’t know, she speaks to me via telepathy.” John raised the little plastic woman to his face. “Can you talk to Jane?”

Aclysia tilted her head quizzically, then turned to his girlfriend. She opened her mouth as she had seen them do. Nothing came out. ‘I don’t know how, Creator John,’ she informed him. ‘Please provide me with additional materials. I require size to fulfil my purpose.’

“She says she can’t. Wait, let me try something. Aclysia you can reshape your body, right?”

‘Affirmative,’ she responded.

John thought hard about the way the human vocal organ worked and tried to send Aclysia a mental image. ‘You would be better at protecting me if you could speak to people.’ For the effort, he was rewarded with a window.

‘I cannot do that, Creator John.’ Aclysia apologized at the same moment.

“Okay. So she can’t talk yet, I need to raise her stats.”

“Okay, how do you do that?” John shrugged, “Honestly, I have no idea, she has no EXP bar so I assume that she gets stronger when she eats more and stronger materials. I’ve been feeding her what I had around. Was wondering if I should go to the tool market later, buy as much metal as I can carry.”

“Makes sense, I guess? Might be easier to just ask Jimmie though – We can do that after school. When are you done today?”

“16:30.”

“Nice, I’ll meet ya at the gate then.” She placed a quick kiss on his cheek.

“Won’t you get detention for crushing Frank’s hope of procreation?”

“Do I care about detention?”

That was fair enough.