John's Chemistry with the New Girl

“So Gaia represents the Earth, or is the Earth?” John asked, pretending to focus on the beakers in front of him. By “chance” they had been made lab partners, mostly because everyone else already had one, and John had mostly worked alone. Crazy how things could change in just a day.

Amy hummed for a moment, actually focusing on the experiment in front of them. They were supposed to sort the substances by their position on the pH scale and try to guess the actual substances. “Both. I think, at least. My clan isn’t really the most theological in the Abyss. Gaia is the most powerful of all the gods and goddesses, and represents the Earth itself. Whether or not she actually is the ground, I’m not too clear on. I’d have to say no though.

“And you think she is the one who gave me my powers?” John asked, starting to actually focus on the task they were supposed to be doing.

“If I had to guess, yeah! Though any of the knowledge Gods are almost as likely, none of them are as spontaneous or mysterious as she is.” Amy replied, scribbling down a few notes about the acid that was currently in their distilling funnel.
“How many Gods are there?” he asked, copying what she wrote down, and picking up another flask of a chemical for them to measure.

“Theoretically, an infinite amount. So many are constantly being created and fading away that it’s pretty impossible to say how many there actually are. I’d say there are about ten important ones though.” Amy replied, taking the flask from him and disposing of the old one.

John poured the chemical through the distilling funnel as he asked, “So who are the ten important Gods? Nine other than Gaia I’m guessing.”

“Well, that's actually not including Gaia. There’s the Goddess of Time, the Goddess of the Sun, the Goddess of the Moon, the God of War, whichever God of Knowledge is most powerful, the Messenger God, whichever God of the Hunt currently represents them, the… being of ****. I’ve been told that it’s not called a god, despite being one I think,” she measured the pH of the chemical he had poured before continuing, “the last two used to be the God of the Harvest and the Goddess of the Love, but both of those have been contested recently by the God of Technology and the Goddess of Lust.”

Amy recoiled as a drop of the base they were measuring fell onto her hand, but it was too mild to have any real effect. “That’s about all I know about the Gods, I kind of swapped out my religion tutor for a combat instructor when I decided to be a Beast Tamer.”

“The more I learn about the Abyss, the more I want to know! It’s like learning about a fantasy world, but it’s real life! So you’re a beast tamer? What’s that like?” John asked, pretending to be working much harder than he actually was as their teacher walked by.

“If you’re going to ask me a million questions about the Abyss, then I want to ask you questions about your powers. I’ve never heard about anything like them!” Amy retorted, giggling at his exaggerated shock. John smiled inwardly at how quickly they had grown familiar, and wondered to himself why it couldn’t be this easy with all girls. Or at least most of them. It probably could if I had more confidence, but that’s what Charisma is for.

“Holding basic information hostage? I thought better of you,” he joked, but agreed, “but fine. I’ve already shown you most of it anyway. You can’t have too many questions left.” He had no idea how wrong he was.

“First I want to see all your skills! The list looked really long, and if they’re mostly spells, then I want to know how you got them, because it takes most people weeks to learn anything, and that’s after having been born with innate magic.” Amy demanded rather than asked, and he pulled up his stat sheet, showing her his list of skills. Her eyes bugged out halfway through reading it, and more questions filled her mind, more curious about each than the last.

“My turn! If we’re going to do this question for question, then I’m going to ask whatever gives me the most answers in one question. To that end, explain everything to me about being a Beast Tamer!” He demanded, dismissing his stat sheet once she was done and taking her worksheet with his to turn in to the teacher, “After I turn our work in.”

Despite working at half the speed they normally would, they were still done before most others, and would have the period free tomorrow to talk while everyone else finished up their work. John glanced at the clock as he strolled back to their table, and noticed exactly what Amy had; that they had around five minutes left in the period.

With that in mind, Amy made a proposal “What if instead of telling you how it works, I show you and you create a barrier for us to explore during the end of our lunch break? I want to see exactly what that skill entails, because most people have to practice years or even decades before being able to create a barrier. Or we could explore a barrier during the whole block if you don’t mind skipping it.”

“I’m down, I don’t think I really need to eat lunch because of my powers, so we could just skip and do something for that block.” he replied, and her eyes rolled in an exaggerated gesture as she learned another quirk of his powers that made absolutely no sense.

“That sounds like exactly what I suggested,” She beamed at him, and leaned against the desk as they stood up, ready to ask her final question before they left.

“Well, what’s your last question?” he asked, putting his materials away as he glanced at the door.

“Well, I saw your magic flare up when you first walked over to me. You didn’t attack me, so I wasn’t particularly worried, but I am curious. What spell did you use when you walked up to me this morning?” She asked, suddenly serious and curious on the outside, but anticipating a good reaction from him on the inside.

”That’s how you knew I had powers!” John exclaimed, a little too loud, but his nerd status caused most people to disregard him. “Well… fair’s fair.”