Therapy

If one were to leave the lands of Alfheim via the branches of the world tree, they would see the nearly incomprehensible nature of Yggdrasil rising into the unending realms of chaos from which all worlds sprung. If one were able to sustain their sanity after such a sight and managed to travel along the branches while avoiding Ratatoskr, they might find themselves in Midgard or Muspelheim, or if they are lucky, Asgard itself.

But to those that look beyond the branches of the world tree, into the unyielding and ever shifting chaos that swirls across its branches, they would see everything and nothing. Ever changing and warping to the realms of its occupants, the realms of chaos are as murky as they are defined, as sensible as they are insane, and as traversable as they are inhospitable. But never look for too long or too closely at the more undefined sections of these realms, for greater men have gone made from a mere glance at unadulterated chaos that is the world beyond the tree

However, within small corners of the endless void of chaos, strange gods have managed to carve out niches for themselves. Based entirely on the **** and conscious thoughts of all beings in the material world, these beings are fickle yet powerful, and if it were not for their constant bickering and ceaseless infighting, they would certainly be a threat to the realms of the material. They loathed the world's material, but loathed each other just a little bit more enough to the point that they spent their days fighting amongst themselves with minimal influence over the materium.

One of these gods, however, was not like his kin. Certainly he shared many characteristics with the others, such as his hunger and lust for power and the love of destroying that which was not his. But he was perhaps a bit smarter than his kin. A bit wiser. A bit more cunning and sneaky. To constantly wage war against those who perpetrated order was idiotic and a waste of resources. No, it was better to shake hands and play nice with those who were stronger.

It would make it all the easier to slip in the knife once the time was right.

This god smiled to himself as he imagined a world being ripped asunder from his power and the actions of his many children. The sickly green glow of warpstone powering machines of decay and ruin, tearing the plane apart piece by piece all to the scream of a bell forever ringing in the funeral procession of the world. Only to become the announcing sound of a new reality, one with him in power and control.

But that would not be for a thousand years at the earliest. More than likely later, as his children had a tendency to stab each other in the back a tad too often to make any reasonable progress towards his plans come to fruition. It was through these machinations that they failed to take Alfheim for themselves, as the shifting of leaders and the chaos of new management gave the elves enough time to rouse a proper defence and drive them below once more.

The Horned Rat looked over to his left, seeing one of the leaders who failed him long ago strung up and flayed upon the wall. Still alive, or at least as alive as the rats could be in the Underrealm. Perhaps in a thousand years, the Horned Rat would forgive him and take him off the wall. Or perhaps some other skaven would earn the Horned One’s favor and be gifted this rat as a meal or a plaything.

Either way, the Horned Rat did not really care about the specifics of his fate. Only that it was painful and full of agony.

The Horned Rat turned away from his wall of tortured skaven, choosing instead to focus his gaze back onto Midgard. It was a realm that still remained rather free of skaven, despite the Horned Rat’s efforts. Gaia made it especially difficult to creep into that realm, and if the Horned Rat pushed any harder with his minions, there would be far too much suspicion placed upon him. No, no, better to let things play out slowly and keep his claws off things until it was sure not to backfire upon him. He did not need to earn the ire of any gods, especially Gaia.

Normally these thoughts would be where his consideration of Midgard would end. A simple acknowledgment of his lack of a presence there, the yearning for that to change, and the usual annoyance that his skaven could not change that any quicker. But now… things were starting to get interesting. There was a new piece on the board by the name of Johnathan Benjamin Newman, and he had been causing quite the stir amongst the godly rabble. A young man gifted rather open-ended powers by Gaia herself, ones that allowed him nearly endless freedom to take them in whatever direction he desired. And in this timeline, it seemed that Johnathan had chosen to take the route of a runic mage, reviving the long since dead magic of Norse Runes.

At first upon learning this fact from a demon of time and parallels, the Horned Rat had been quite intrigued about these “other timelines” and if any of these had a John that was extremely useful and sympathetic to him. The demon was unaware if there were, and furthermore was unaware of a way to get the Horned Rat to be able to transfer himself to that particular timeline.

That demon had made for a delicious snack.

But after some time and a bit of waiting around, the Horned Rat was quite happy that he had been stuck with this John. For time and time again, he proved to be something that was quite interesting to observe. His gathering of dead magic, his companions that were drawn to him like rats to a dying carcass, his clear weakness for being manipulated…

Sure, the boy’s combat prowess was not much to write home about yet, but give it time. As long as the boy continued to be pushed against hostiles and harder circumstances, the Horned Rat was certain that he would rise to the challenge.

No, the important thing was that this boy was not limited to the runes of a single pantheon. Certainly, he had an inclination towards the runes of the Norse, but with an Egyptian Ankh and an Aki rune from the Ojibwa tribe, the Horned Rat held no doubt in his mind that, given time, Johnathan would obtain runes from many cultures and become more powerful than even the greatest mages of eras past or present.

Which is precisely why he needed to get his claws into John before things got too far ahead.

The Horned Rat began to slowly tap his fingers against his throne, the sharp nails leaving tiny indents in the pure warpstone of his seat of power. Johnathan had no love for the skaven or for skaven iconography. Yet such a rune in his hands being used regularly would be… invigorating. A clear boon to his power and a clear pathway for his rats to enter into the world. Yet there would have to be a chance for the Horned Rat to give John such a rune and for him to actually use it.

Again, the Horned Rat peered into Midgard, watching carefully for John. He and his compatriots just returned after a long mission, and it seemed that while two of them would be returning to the home of the Order of the Golden Rose to report back, Johnathan would be returning alongside two of his female compatriots and the one male compatriot that he had. Apparently one of the females demanded that she and John talked about things that happened while John was fighting some skaven in the tunnels under Alfheim.

The Horned Rat had been witness to that battle, and while he was disappointed in Qwet’s misuse of his rat ogre, he did have a chance to see Johnathan’s poor abused psyche take its toll on him through hallucinations.

The Horned Rat grinned, his eyes blazing red as an idea formed in his mind.

Perhaps there was a way to aid the boy. One that would have him eager to accept power from the Lord of the World Below. And all it would take would be a simple meeting and a simple offer.

Wonderful.

The return home had been rather uneventful, at least in comparison to the clusterfuck that was the fights with the skaven. John returned to the location they teleported in from, cast Aki as he knew it was safe to do so there, and lo and behold, everyone managed to make it back to Midgard safe and sound.

Moira and Naoto said they had to go report what had happened in Alfheim to Moira’s father, and then see what was the next step as they still had to decode the sheets if they were to have any hope of figuring out where Lifthrasir could have run off to. John had volunteered to come along and give his report as well, but the second he spoke up both, Mavis and Talia shut him down, telling him that he was going home to rest and relax and that was final.

Everyone had a bit of a chuckle at that, especially when John was about to protest only to be picked up by Sigmund at Mavis’ behest to keep him from following the two girls. Upon returning home, Mavis and Talia had sat him down on the couch to have a talk while Sigmund said he was going to take a look around the town to see if there were any obvious dangers he should keep in mind.

Well that and the fact that he seemed a bit eager to get some space from the obviously heavy talk that was about to happen.

So there John sat, on his living room couch with both Talia and Mavis standing in front of him with looks of concern etched onto their features. John’s mother was currently at work, though John had a couple of thoughts about that. She had to do a lot to get the funds necessary to put John through Ashcroft, not to mention the fact that there was still college to save up for.

But John had also taken a look at the Abyss Auction while heading back home and had noticed the price for some of the loot that he could reasonably get was rather… ****. Granted, the prices were all really high, and it looked like inflation slapped the Abyss Auction in the face as hard as possible, but that could be to John’s advantage. All he had to do was sell a bit of loot from a few dungeon runs and his mom could be set for life in terms of cash. She wouldn’t have to rely so much on working so hard all the time.

“Earth to John? Are you listening?” Mavis interjected, cutting off his train of thought.

“Sorry, I was just… never mind.” He sat back a bit on the couch, looking up at the two lovely ladies. “So, what did we need to talk about? Finding Lif? Translating those sheets? Figuring out what to do about the buff Viking now currently stalking his way through town?”

“John,” Talia said softly, her voice full of concern. “You know what we need to talk about.”

“Yeah. I do.” John took in a deep breath, leaning onto his legs while looking at his clasped hands. “So, translating. I think if we start making some grids to have some possible-“

“That’s not what we need to talk about,” Mavis said, a bit of annoyance in her tone which she quickly tried to suppress. “John, we need to talk about-“

“Moira? I honestly think she’s gonna be a good ally. I know the Order has problems, but-“

“John, stop,” Talia interjected, placing one of her hands on John’s who visibly flinched at her touch. “We need to talk about what happened in the battle.”

John stayed silent for a moment. “We killed the skaven. We ran from the ogre. I blew up a lot of skaven, and then we-“

“John. Just… You know that’s not what we are talking about.” Mavis sighed. “You froze and got hurt because of something you saw. Something that you were hallucinating.”

“No, I wasn’t,” John replied quickly.

“Yes, you were,” Mavis retorted. “I couldn’t see what it was, but our mental and soul based connection let me at least know you were seeing something that wasn’t there. And considering we weren’t under any sort of gas attack from the skaven or that you hadn’t taken any **** before the battle, I know it was something you were hallucinating on your own.”

John muttered a swear under his breath as the ability for him to just lie about hallucinating anything was thrown out the window. “I just… I saw some scarier skaven. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Scary skaven wouldn’t have caused the reaction you had,” Talia said. “We faced far creepier things when we fought off the draugr in Beowulf’s Barrow. You reacted like you were being talked to. Or you saw someone you knew.”

“You don’t know what you're talking about,” John growled. “What I saw or didn’t see isn’t any of your concern. It’s a me thing and I will work through it just fine.”

“But you don’t have to,” Mavis said, sitting down beside him with a hand on his arm. “We can help you out. Just tell us what's wrong and we can-“

“No,” John interjected. “This isn’t something you can just… magic away or something. This isn’t your problem, it's mine, and even if you could do something, you can’t. So just… don’t.”

“John, if you just tell us-“

“I said no.” John quickly got up, walking over to the opposite wall and leaning against it with his face turned away from his two girlfriends. “I don’t want to talk about it. It started when I was alone and I will solve it alone.”

The three were silent for a moment, and John cursed internally as he could almost feel their gazes boring into his back. Finally, Talia spoke up, “John. Did something start happening in prison? Something you started seeing?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” John yelled, turning to look back at them. “It doesn’t matter! So just fucking drop it!”

“Damn it, John, just let us help you!” Mavis yelled back. “I actually give a shit about you and your fucking mental health, and I know how badly things can get if you don’t address them! So, please! Just tell us!”

John just stood there, stoic and staring daggers into Mavis who returned them in kind. Talia gave a look of concern as she looked between the two of them, and just as she was about to say something, John gave a small sigh of defeat, his shoulders slumping as he let out a bit of his frustrations in a single breath.

“… Yeah,” John muttered out softly. “Yeah. I started seeing… something. I had to deal with being in prison and being thrown into solitary when they needed to experiment on me. So I started… talking to myself. Talking until something in me answered back. But again, I don’t… I just…”

“John.” Talia had stood up and was now at John’s side, concern etched into her beautiful features. Features that John had thought he would never see again during that month he had been locked up. “If you don’t want to tell us specifics, I understand. But you also need to understand that if you don’t tell us anything, and this happens again, we can’t be there to help you out of the problem that we don’t know about.” She looked down to John’s arm, softly rubbing the area that the skaven had sliced when John’s guard had been lowered. “We got lucky with the rat ogre showing up when he did. It distracted the vermintide long enough that we could regroup and move past your hallucination. But if we aren’t so lucky next time… we could end up getting a lot more hurt if we don’t know what we are handling.”

John looked up at her, then looked over to Mavis who had walked over to stand beside Talia. He sighed, turning away before softly saying, “I saw my dad.”

The two of them were silent, allowing John to continue. “Dad was… never around when I was little. When I was growing up, I thought it was because he hated me or something. Like he didn’t want a kid. Granted, that might have been true, but Mom told me later that he had gotten arrested a bit after I was born robbing a bank and killing three people while doing so. Mom said they were fighting before he did it, and I think he was trying to get enough cash to leave here forever without me and Mom.”

John sighed, walking back over to the couch before sinking into it. “I never really thought much about him growing up, you know? It was just a random fact that I didn’t have to care about. Mom used to live in other states, she used to roller skate when she was younger, and my dad got arrested a bit after I was born. Interesting facts, sure, but it wasn’t relevant to me as a person.”

John leaned back on the couch, listening to the sounds of Mavis and Talia taking seats at his sides without saying a word. “Then I started hearing the rumours. Or I guess the whispers that I wasn’t supposed to hear. Dunno if they would be more rumours or gossip or… anyway. Basically my mom left me with a family friend one day for a playdate with her kid. Something simple while she was busy doing something important. Well, a friend of that friend came over for some reason, they got to talking, and I heard the lady say that, ‘I wouldn’t trust that boy if I were you. Did you hear what his father got arrested for? Like father, like son, I always say.’”

“That’s horrible,” Talia said. “Just because your father was a POS doesn’t mean you were bad. Plus, you were just a kid!”

“Yeah, tell that to her and the other ladies who spread similar rumours,” John muttered with venom dripping from his words. “Then there was that goddamned visiting preacher at a church we went to. I heard him talking about me with one of the moms. Said, ‘the son of a wetback ain’t got much a future for himself, but God will work with him nonetheless.’”

“What the hell is a wetback?” Mavis asked.

“Slur for Mexicans. It's supposed to be because they would have crossed the Rio Grande illegally so they got their backs wet.”

“That’s… awful,” Mavis said. “I’m sorry you got treated like that.”

“It is what it is. But I got used to being treated not like John Newman, but as the son of Manuel.” John said. “So when I got put in prison, after having killed a man and being told of all these crimes that the guild I was trying to join did… I guess it was just easy to blame it on being my dad’s son.”

“And so you hallucinated your father reaffirming what you thought?”

“Bingo,” John said, his voice growing more tired as they talked. “It was someone to talk to, someone to blame for all this terrible shit… And… I got to talk to my father. I never got to do that before and now I could pretend I was.”

“Does he talk back?”

John nodded. “He does. A lot. He stopped showing up as much when I got out of prison and got to see you two again, but… When things got stressful in that fight, I just… He showed up. He just said the things that got under my skin, and it… I just…” John let out a shuddering breath, hugging himself tightly. “He was all I had in prison. And he just amplified every negative thought I had while in there. And now I just can’t get rid of them.”

“But John… You’re not a terrible person,” Talia said softly. “You’ve been a wonderful boyfriend to the two of us and have been doing your best to do right by the Abyss.”

“I know. But that doesn’t change what my brain thinks.” John sighed, leaning forward and looking out at nothing in particular. “Once a thought gets in my head… even if it's false, I just… won’t stop thinking about it. There’s always the possibility of it being true so my brain considers it. And when my hallucinatory father chimes in even when I want him to go away-”

“Then you just have the negative thoughts reinforced,” Mavis said somberly. “Jesus. I knew prison was bad for you, but… Thor’s beard, why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

“Did anything else happen?” Talia inquired. “You can tell us if you want to.”

“No. You can’t,” he said, his words barely a whisper from an unknown corner of the room, audible to John and John alone. “Hearing and seeing your absent father is one thing. But if you were to start talking about the other things plaguing your mind, the things I’ve seen that you want to do and tried to do, the OTHER beings you talk to in your head… Well, we will get a lot of time to talk in a padded room.”

John didn’t want to believe him.

John couldn’t believe him.

John refused to believe him.

John took in a deep breath, and softly said,