If The World Isn't Fair

John’s eyes snapped to Toby’s face. All thoughts of classes, magic, and everything else were forgotten in the sound of the quiet gasp to his left. That unexpected anger from before suddenly surged, building up in his chest.

“Touch her and I’ll kill you.” The words came out of his mouth unbidden, almost like an instinctual reaction. John surprised himself with the ferality that was in the way he spoke.

Toby’s smirk grew at having gotten a response from his victim, and he dropped his voice low as he leant in closer. A mocking tone entered his voice, designed to antagonise. John recognised it from Frank, again. “Oh? The little rabbit has a bite, it seems. Nice to see something that can make you pay attention.” John was almost thankful to his bully right then for the amount of coping mechanisms that he’d gained from the schoolyard ****. Almost thankful, but not quite.

Toby continued speaking with that soft taunting tone, “So you’re protective of your little girlfriend? Don’t want to think about what I’m gonna do to her? How I could make you sit there and watch as I held her still in that chair…”

He was trying to make John upset. He wanted to see the Gamer beg, plead and cry. John closed his eyes and focused inwards, trying to calm himself, push that unexpected anger away like he always had done when Frank taunted him, stop the anger from growing.

“...tore her clothes off…”

It wasn’t working. It wasn’t the same. This wasn’t a playground squabble. There was more at stake than lunch money and some bruises.

“...gagged her with them…”

He was trembling slightly, his entire body quivering in fury. There was so much more at stake than just him. This was fucking ****. He was going to **** someone.

“...then reached down…”

There was so much at stake. Velvet was at stake. He was going to **** Velvet. The innocent blind girl who likes rock music, and jelly beans, and has the cutest pout and was the only person who hadn’t spat in his face when he’d spoken to them in God-knows how many years.

“...and I’d pause to tell her…”

He’d only met her a short while ago, but John already knew that he was in deep for that girl. It would be pathetic, if he didn’t feel like he might die in the next few minutes.

The sadist’s voice had dropped to a whisper, directly into John’s ear. “Your little friend could have stopped this, but he didn’t.”

Something snapped deep inside John.

Objective Fulfilled!
Objective Fulfilled!
Objective Fulfilled!...

Several more identical messages flashed in his vision as the chair he sat in began to vibrate alarmingly until finally…

Error - Requirement Task Completion Speed Flagged. Mana Influx Overflow. Correcting Mana Imbalance… Mana Imbalance Corrected. Emergency Measure - Mana Channel Safety Restrictions Bypassed. All Class Requirements [Class:Berserker] Complete.

Complete Class Path?
Would you like to accept ‘Berserker’ as your chosen class? - Note: Other available paths require further completion.

Images flashed through John’s head. Berserkers were always depicted as dangerous madmen. They wielded gruesome weapons and lost themselves in battlelust. They were grim old men, full of regrets and injuries. He couldn’t think of a single reason that he’d want to risk that.

Then her voice cut into his thoughts from without, “John. I…It’s okay. I’ll be okay. I promise.”

More images filled his closed eyelids, but this time, they were more realistic. They were memories, not imagination. The way Velvet stayed positive despite everything. Her cute pout when she had lost her sweets. Her bravery, not just in the face of the unknown, but when she was unable to even see the danger. To put it poetically, as he never knew he could, Velvet’s name rang in his mind like a gentle bell leading him out of the dark.

…Berserkers were also said to be terrifying warriors. Whole armies parted before them in the stories. They were feared. Few men would stand before them without feeling the cold touch of **** upon their future, and nothing short of **** would stop a determined berserker.

John had enough self-reflective ability to know that he was unsuited to the nature of the berserker stereotype. He was skinny and shy, socially awkward and unassuming. He knew that… and yet, despite it, this was a choice he would take every single time. If he was to be given the option of sitting by and letting it happen or going against his instincts and becoming a berserker to stop it? He would always take the risk. No matter the consequence. He couldn’t imagine not taking action when he could have.

A quote came unbidden to the front of his thoughts. “Better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.”

He focused and accepted the question in front of him.

John’s eyes flew open. He felt fury spread through his body - far more anger than ever before. It felt as if each individual muscle was imbued with it. As if there was lava roiling in his core. Not a scream, or a shout, but a roar of sheer rage ripped itself free from his throat, almost as if escaping his chest, and ricocheted around the room.

The chair’s dull vibration became rattling. A fast-building electrical buzz filled the room from it, then a series of sharp popping noises. Every muscle in his arm strained upwards to reach towards the sadistic creature before him, and as Toby stumbled back in shock, several screens appeared around John.

Mana Restriction Systems Overloaded!

Level Up!

The messages had meaning, and John could understand them on a basic level, but he couldn’t bring himself to care enough right now. At that moment, all that mattered was the anger that roiled in his chest. It pushed its way through his skin. A deep growl he didn’t know he was able to make rose slowly from his chest. It got louder as it made its way up his throat. Then it turned into a wordless shout of pain and anger.

At the height of the shout, his arm ripped through the metal holder, leaving sharp edges coated in dark blood. He reached over and released the other hand roughly, uncaring of the damage he took. He barely considered the waist cord and simply tore it off. Released, his eyes flashed with unbridled rage. He leapt at his target, pushing them both against the concrete pillar.

The thing in front of him was still stumbling backwards in shock. It seemed panicked. Terrified. “W-wait! No! I’m sor-” The pathetically pleading words cut off sharply as he slammed a fist into it. There was an audible fleshy crack and a noise of pain, the squeal of a wounded animal. Not enough. It was not enough. Another strike, and another. The attacks were wild and unrestrained, but so overpoweringly forceful that it didn’t matter. Often, contact came with a shocking pain, sparks wrapping themselves around his attacking fist. They danced across his skin and up his arm, then faded.

One strike missed and slammed into the concrete pillar, cracking it and leaving a small fist-shaped indent. There were numbers and other indications of damage appearing in his vision, but it just didn’t matter.

John kept striking and striking. Still not enough. Fingers caught on rough greasy hair as they wrapped around the skull, ignoring the sparks of electricity that crackled and burnt them without pause, barely paying notice to the fearful whimpers and wounded animal noises coming from it, only focused on lifting and slamming down it’s skull with a sharp crack on the concrete. Again and again and again and again and again and again and…

A soft voice intruded on the anger, the all-encompassing, distracting anger. A **** tone of worry and sadness in that gentle voice calling his name. “John! John, please talk to me, I need to know you’re okay! I can’t see you! Talk to me! Please, please, be okay!”

Awareness came back to him slowly. Velvet was talking to him. He was out of the chair. He was knelt down and…

He… oh fuck, he did that, didn’t he? There was a corpse next to him, and dozens of patches of blood splatter on the concrete floor and the pillar, looking like a horrific contemporary art piece. It was Toby. Or it used to be Toby. The man’s face was- He stopped and vomited violently on the ground next to the corpse. It took a long minute to stop, and when he raised a hand to wipe his mouth clear, he saw the caved-in skull, with fragments scattered across the ground, and a thick coating of blood beginning to congeal all around. The nausea swiftly returned and another minute was spent making sure the contents of his stomach were expelled while he scraped his hands against the rough concrete. He might be unable to wash it all away, but he didn’t want to touch her with blood on his hands.

When he’d finally finished, he raised his voice in a weak croak, “I’m… not dead, Velvet.” Saying ‘okay’ might have been a bit too far. He stood and moved over to her.

There was a sob in her voice as she spoke, “Oh, thank Gaia! I couldn’t tell what had happened, and all I could hear were these growls and thuds and cracks and I was so worried and scared and-”

“Velvet.” John stopped her, swaying where he stood as pain pulsed through his head and severe vertigo assaulted him. He looked at his health bar. It was down to 6HP, and there were several red dots along its length. His mana was oddly diminished as well. No time to consider any of it. No time to stop and rest. “Sit still so I can undo your chair and we can get out of here and get help.” He fiddled with the latches and buckles that held the chair together, getting a better look at it. Honestly, despite not knowing what he was looking at for the most part, even he could tell these chairs were cheaply built.

He clenched his teeth and **** himself to continue as another pulse of pain and dizziness rocked him.

With the hands released and the headpiece raised, he moved around to her front. “I’m just gonna undo the belt now, and you should be able to get up.”

Carefully reaching forward and trying not to get any of the blood on her, he clicked the latch and pulled the strap away. She experimentally rose slightly, then stood fully when she realised there was nothing holding her. “J-John? Is that you there?” She moved her head and looked directly at him, her eyes widening in open shock. “I can use my abilities again. You’re…” She stepped forward and raised her arms as if about to hug.

John stepped backwards. “Velvet, I-I-I’m covered in… I’m dirty.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and began moving away. “Come on, they came in through this door.” He walked away, pretending he didn’t notice the confusion and hurt radiating from her and trying desperately to ignore the signs his body was giving him that it was time to stop. He knew that if he stopped moving for even a moment, he might not be able to get back up afterwards.

Just as he got close to the door, it slipped open, and just as quickly crashed closed, whilst the massive thug named Bob slammed home the interior lock and latch with a desperation that John would never have expected from the intimidating figure. He quickly moved Velvet behind him, putting his body between the hulking figure and her slender frame.

It was none too soon, either, as the thug spun around and spotted the pair of them free from their restraints, and then looked past them to see the vast blood splatter surrounding the semi-mutilated corpse of Toby. A rabid look came into his eyes, and his voice came out, gravelly and unregulated, as if unhinged, “Was you, wasn’t it? You called your little paladin friends at the Order.”

John never broke his gaze from the big man, even as his mind whirled in confusion. The Order? He’d never heard of them, and he was pretty sure he’d remember meeting a real life paladin. Bob kept talking, “Yes, you fuckin’ called ‘em, didn’t you? Now we’re fucked. Should’ve fuckin’ known not to trust a fuckin’ extra kid falling into our lap. Now we’re fucked, ain’t we? Huh? Ain’t we?!” The huge thug shouted out the last word, and suddenly lumbered forwards, swinging a meaty hand forward as if to grab John.

The Gamer stood strong in front of Velvet and waited for the hand to descend towards him. With a shout, he tried to dart past the grab and jump at the thug’s eyes. What he hadn’t accounted for was the **** exhaustion that had gripped his skinny frame, and the lack of his newfound berserkism rearing its ugly head. Rather than an agile evasion and sharp counterstrike, the nerd was suddenly subjected to a firsthand experience of minor whiplash as the heavy-handed grab connected with the hair at the back of his head, filling his body with a dozen aches and a sharp pain that covered his scalp.

His senses reeled for a moment. After it faded, he had just started mentally preparing himself for the taunts and jibes, like he had with Toby. That was when the blade of a wickedly sharp knife entered between two of his ribs. There was a brief moment of pure shock, where John clearly felt his skin part like butter, the slight snapback of his muscles as they were sliced apart, and then the grating of the steel against his bone. Then, almost with relief, the pain struck him.

It wasn’t like how Toby had played with him, cutting into his arm to see what would happen. That had been like fire, red, angry, burning. No, if that was fire, it was a match, and this was an acetone torch searing through his insides, white-hot and relentless. John knew he screamed, not because he could hear it, but because he felt his vocal cords tearing.

He watched in sheer, abject terror as the homicidal street brawler ripped the knife from his chest, leaving a gaping wound weeping blood, only to slam it back in. The man’s face had seemingly lost all sanity as a rictus smile of madness filled his face. The pain was close to overwhelming, and through the darkening edges of his vision, John saw his health bar flashing an urgent emergency red with a simple word.

CRITICAL

With a savage twist, the blade came from his flesh again, and John’s scream was cut off by the pain for a moment. He realised the wounds weren’t closing with a magical flash anymore. Everything seemed to slow as the man raised the blade again.

‘It isn’t fair.’

John thought to himself in that moment. All of this time, lying low, hiding away, being the cowering mouse in the corner. All of his short life, wasted doing nothing of worth, and the one time he actually stepped up? The one time he made an effort to help someone, to protect something other than his own skin? He was going to die, in a random basement, after having been kidnapped by magicians.

‘It simply isn’t fair.’

But when had life ever been fair to John Newman? A happy family life, until his father died. A good relationship with his remaining parent, until she couldn’t cope with the grief any longer. A good time at school, until he reached high school. A new start at Ashcroft, until he found his bullies had followed him. He could see Velvet out of the corner of his eye, unable to see what was before her. She was shouting something, and it was with a slow surprise that he realised she was crying. John remembered, then.

With a wet cough, spitting up some blood, John spoke, “Even if the world is unfair… even if the world gives me nothing, then-ghkk-” The knife slid into his chest again forcing an involuntary **** noise from him, and then the rest came out in a scream that pulsed with magic he didn’t understand, even though it flowed more naturally than the blood that still wept from his stomach, “THEN I’LL CARVE MY PLACE OUT OF IT!”

His vision blurred, and tinged with red again. He felt himself lose control, and barely held onto consciousness as he watched his body move.

With a jerk, he pushed himself onto the knife, and wildly struck out with his legs, feeling a crunch as one made contact with the man’s groin. The thug doubled over with an unexpectedly high screech, letting go of John. Immediately, he collapsed to all fours, splatters of blood covering the ground from the freely-flowing wounds. John watched in horror as he pulled the knife out of his own body, crawled over to the burly man cursing on the floor, and clumsily stabbed it into the other man’s body. John felt as control began to return to him, even as his body took a rattling breath that bubbled with blood, and laid on his side next to the assumedly dying thug.

“V-velvet!” John coughed, feeling more clots of blood in his mouth than before. The blind girl was at his side almost instantly.

“John! Oh Gaia, John! Please don’t die! Please! Oh Gaia, please!” She spoke between sobs that wracked her slender frame.

A bang echoed from the exit door, and John weakly reached for the knife, feeling the clumsiness in his grip from his hands being numb as he closed on the handle of the blade.

There was a flicker of some darkly reflective metal between it and the frame, then a flash of golden light as the door burst inwards, barely missing them as it skidded halfway down the room. On the other side stood a woman dressed in a suit of gleaming gold and silver plate armour, and a man in dark clothing that was oddly difficult to keep focus on, though that could have just as easily been the way his vision kept swaying from side to side. Or was it the darkness at the edge of his vision? He couldn’t tell.

He watched helplessly as the pair stepped forwards, then slowly, surely, felt his vision fading as they got closer and closer. He desperately prayed to whatever god or goddess was listening that they were friendly to Velvet, at least. The last thing he heard, as he drifted off, was a quiet prayer that seemed so far away.