Ashcroft Academy

The conversation that John had with Mary in the garage lasted a little longer than either of them had been expecting it to. By the time that they were done talking, and John had finally decided to trust Mary enough to savor her embrace, they were already late for school. Though, after spending a week learning about the world of magic, John didn't care all that much about the school anymore. Most of what he decided to do with Ashcroft happened in that moment while Mary was in his arms. Now that they were close enough, John thought that her hair might have been shorter than what it once was.

He was used to seeing it reach her shoulders, but now that he was close enough to squeeze her tightly to his form and bury his face in the crook of her neck, he realized that her hair only reached down to her jawline now. It was short and laced with the smell of lavender and various fruits that he couldn't place... unlike Urga who simply smelled like sex, ale, and sweat. He held her for long enough that he picked the little cheerleader up off her feet and let her dangle in his arms so that they could savor each other’s warmth... and then he put her down before she soaked up too much of his aura's effect.

While he was fine with being late, just as long as he wasn't purposefully trying to waste extra time, he also didn't want to cross a line so soon after what Vanessa and Frank had done to Mary.

Vanessa...

When they finally got into the car again, everyone in the vehicle was completely silent. Mary tried to let John know that, if he needed someone to talk to, then she would listen, but he was more focused on planning. The bitch queen of Ashcroft Academy was spiraling out of control. The bullying, the **** on people who were close to John, the gun... it was all too much.

It didn't matter that she pretty much owned the school; taking a gun to the academy was going too far. He didn't know exactly what he was going to say to her, but he knew that he had to try to talk to the bitch queen herself. He almost made it to her too, without interruption, if not for the fact that another familiar face showed up to talk to him before he could. Robyn, Mary, and John all noticed Otrov standing at the front of the school waiting for him before they even stepped out of the vehicle. Robyn's grip tightened on the wheel, bending it out of shape again, as John glared in the direction of the illusionist, but not a single person made a move to try and fight with one another...

... because standing right beside Otrov was his teacher, Mrs. Wentworth.

"I..." Mary was the first one to break the silence when she saw the dark expressions on the faces of the people around her. She swallowed loud enough for everyone in the car to hear it happen and then shrunk back into her seat. "I think... I think I'm actually going to skip out on school today," she said, and Robyn took the opportunity to start her car back up again. She almost pulled out of the parking lot before John opened the car door and stepped out. He walked away from the two women who he had been planning on spending the morning with... and strolled right up to Otrov and his teacher while the vehicle slowly pulled away and disappeared down the street.

"What do you want?" he asked, and Mrs. Wentworth turned and stepped back inside the school. Whatever she had said to Otrov was clearly enough to keep the assassin from attacking John because, as soon as she was gone, the only thing that Otrov did was tuck her hands into her black slacks and tugged her suspenders taut. Her shirt was only slightly different from the one that John had seen the other day. This time the white blouse had faded pink stripes going vertically down across the fabric of the shirt. She smiled sweetly at John, who simply stared at her, and then rolled her eyes when he refused to go along with her playful attitude.

"I want to know what you're doing about Daniel," she stated, and John glanced around to see if anyone was listening. Most of the other students at Ashcroft had already begun to file into the school's building. There was a temporary moment of privacy, though he doubted that anyone would have been able to hear them even if someone had decided to stay outside. Otrov probably would have deafened them to their conversation to try and guarantee some measure of privacy.

"Nothing," he answered. It was an easy thing to address. As far as he was concerned, the problem was dealt with. When Otrov raised an eyebrow and looked at him confused, he repeated himself, "I'm not doing a single damn thing. I told the Flame what you wanted and left them to deal with your request." Otrov scoffed as soon as he finished speaking. She continued staring at him with a confused gaze while he waited to see if the conversation was over, and just when he figured that it was done and went to head inside, she finally spoke up again.

"No," she said, and John turned to look back over his shoulder at her. "No, that's not how this works." A couple of birds chirped sweetly and Otrov scowled at John.

"Sorry. I'm not a kille-" he didn't get to finish his sentence.

"That is exactly what you are!" she snapped, interrupting him. Otrov's hands clenched into fists at her sides as the two turned to face one another again. "You already did it once, and if you want me to let the people in those tanks go, then you will do it again!"

"Again, I'm sorry..." John apologized and shook his head. "... but I'm not going to kill anyon-"

"DO YOU THINK THIS IS SOME KIND OF GAME?!" she shouted, and John turned to look at the doors of the school. There was a student standing right on the other side of the entrance, but from what John could see, the boy never even heard them. "Whatever the plan is, whatever the Flame is thinking, it will not work without you!" Her sentence ended with a loud banging of metal as Otrov stepped forward and shoved John face-first against the school's entrance. The door clattered and shook but thankfully didn't open. Behind the student who couldn't hear them, John barely noticed the outline of Mrs. Wentworth staring daggers at the two of them.

"You are running out of time, John." Despite the fact that almost no one could hear them, Otrov's voice fell to a whisper. "He is coming, and I'm not going to wait forever for you to man up and do what needs to be done." That made John pause.

"He-?" He didn't get a chance to finish his question or an answer for it either.

"You have one week. One week before the factory moves again and this opportunity disappears." And just like that, the pressure that Otrov had been applying to his back to hold him against the door vanished. The Gamer spun around on a heel to try and ask Otrov more questions, but she was already gone by the time his eyes found the empty spot where she had been standing.

After Otrov disappeared, John didn't wait outside the school for very long. He tried to plan ahead before he went inside the building, but any possible idea that he had for dealing with Vanessa had an instant drawback or too many holes in the plan for it to possibly work. He considered calling the police... but then he figured that her family might as well have owned the police department, so there was no chance for anything actually happening if he did that. Either her family or Frank's would have her back out on the street in no time at all and pissed off at John... if she even got arrested.

He thought about talking to her, though that would probably just end up with her pulling a gun on him again or trying some other method of bullying him, if she didn't just outright ignore him. After a while, he even considered magic. If he couldn't convince her to stop or get some authority involved, then the other option seemed to be that he had to deal with it himself. He wasn't going to hit her; even with the fact that she had already threatened his life, he didn't like the idea of running up to her and beating on her. He didn't even like the idea of doing that to Frank.

He decided against using Augment Body almost immediately. As tempting as it was to change something about 'the Bitch Queen' for the better, he knew that the moment would be short-lived and targeting something about her physical form wouldn't have actually helped the problem. He had a similar problem with his Instant Barrier spell. He didn't like the idea of leaving her to fight against a horde of monsters or dumping her alone in a world that he may never get back to like the trap barrier that Michel had tried to spring on John. His Kingdom was a place that he could return to, and he was sure that the Orcs had methods for dealing with someone like Vanessa, he was just worried that some of those methods may have involved just killing her. Even if he hated the Bitch Queen, he didn't want to see her dead or kidnapped. For a time, it seemed like his only option was to just find a way to give her the Succubus Elixirs. The potions would at least **** her to rely on others and perhaps then she would be able to learn some semblance of manners... but even that didn't work out for him.

Wentworth stopped him before he could go to find Vanessa and deal with her. Every idea he had was utterly shut down by his teacher when she stopped him in the middle of the hallway to talk to him.

"Mr. Newman," she said, and John stopped in his tracks. His teacher stared down at him as John's mind immediately went racing to try and find a method for getting passed her, but her hard glare left no room for doubt in John's mind as she practically read his intentions off his face. She brushed a long lock of graying dark hair back behind one ear as the hallway finally finished clearing of students, and John nearly turned back around to walk in the other direction. If she was powerful enough to stop the Order, the Flame, and the Cabal from attacking anyone on school grounds, then he figured that she probably didn't even need a Trap Barrier to fight him. She could have just kept him quiet with a spell while she killed him. "I'm surprised to see you at school today after what happened out on the football field..." she didn't leave him any room to explain himself, she didn't need him to tell her the truth. Even with his resistance to having his mind read, it was almost like she plucked the thoughts out of his head anyways. "... You wouldn't happen to be looking for Miss Hawthorne, would you?"

He didn't even have to nod his head. She saw his answer before he even had the chance to lie to her.

"I see... And, what exactly do you plan on doing upon finding your fellow student?" she asked, and John swallowed dryly. "I hope you're not thinking about attempting something similar with what you did to Miss Summer's, are you?"

June. She knew about how he changed his teacher's wom-

"She needs to be stopped." When he finally got a word in edgewise, Mrs. Wentworth simply shook her head at him. Her arms crossed over in front her chest, squeezing her breasts up high her neat crimson red blouse, but the movement never even bared an ounce of cleavage. His teacher kept her body covered from her neck to her ankles in cloth. Her shoulders, her arms, and her legs were all kept in long sleeves and under a long skirt that was littered with ruffles and lacy trims. "I don't care what the rules are, she can't just be allowed to-"

"You will leave Miss Hawthorne alone, John," her voice echoed down the hallways when she interrupted him, leaving no other sound in its wake. The school went silent and Mrs. Wentworth glared down at John... but he didn't back down. He was sick and tired of cowering and looking away from things that were more powerful than he was. "The cheerleader and her boy toy are under my protection and will remain that way until I am done with them."

"Wow, that's ominous... but I'm not leaving," he said and watched as the school's lighting system dimmed. He opened his mouth to continue talking but barely managed a syllable before the walls around him started to shift, with each surface expanding and then shrinking like a wave that moved away from the two of them. Lockers, doors, windows, and tiles all wavered and then froze in the position that they came to just at the end of the wave, leaving various pieces of the school jutting out at awkward angles. An influx of heat and smoke filled the air as Wentworth stared down at him, but still John steeled himself to meet her gaze, even after a screen tried to pop up between them.

You have been pulled into a Trap Barrier. Defeat everything inside to escape!

"If you don't let me deal with Vanessa in my way, then I will let the Order know that you have 'plans' for a civilian," he said and watched as a small smile spread across his teacher's face. Apparently, she didn't even care about the fact that he remembered how horribly she spoke about the Order of the Golden Rose and the Frozen Flame.

"And how exactly do you plan on getting out of here to do that?" she asked. John didn't have an answer. He did have a bluff, but she saw through it and called him out on it immediately. "Don't bother lying, Mr. Newman. There are other ways for divining truth other than reading one’s mind." There was a horrible pause as the two of them continued to stare at each other in silence, each searching the other for some kind of bluff or hidden answer, but eventually Wentworth decided to repeat her warning. "Miss Hawthorne is under my protection, John. I will give you one more chance to leave, but if you do not heed my warning then-"

"I'm not going anywhere," John grunted and watched as his teacher's jaw tightened.

"Very well..."

"If I go missing, the Flame and the Order will both notice!" he snapped, spitting the words out as quickly as he could. "I may not be able to tell them firsthand about your plans with Vanessa, but if they start looking into what happened to me, then they'll find it out anyways!" For once, his teacher didn't have a reply to his statement. Though he felt like if she tried she probably could have used her magic to cover up his ****. "If they get involved, how well will your plans work then?"

Again, she didn't answer him. She looked at him without an expression, like she was trying to find a better reason to kill him and be done with it... but she didn't argue with his point. The Order would look into it, and she would need to put in the effort to hide their fight, no matter how short or long the battle would last.

"Or... you can let me try to talk to her. Let me do what I have to get her to act a little civilized for once in her life, and then you can continue on with your plan." Again, Wentworth stared at John as he finished talking. Her arms unfolded and folded again in front of her chest and she tapped a foot impatiently while the air in the school got hotter and hotter... but she didn't argue with his proposition again.

"What did you have in mind?"