Playtime

Alison froze and a twinge of guilt crossed her face that John missed. “Sure.” She snapped out of her trance and avoided looking at him.

John sighed in relief, “Thanks.” He turned to look at the computer again. “Should we try these things out then?”

“Of course, after you,” Alison replied. They spent the hour getting used to the computers, occasionally making awkward conversation. John quickly realised Alison was the polar opposite of Vanessa, she was sweet and caring and he couldn’t really tell why she was even friends with a monster like Vanessa.

“What is that... thing?” Alison asked, pointing at John’s screen.

“Oh, it’s a, uh, dragon. I don’t really usually draw like this, I prefer illustrating concepts for characters and scenes, but this was kind of on my mind,” John replied.

“It’s amazing but terrifying at the same time. I’d hate to come face to face with it, if it was real.” Alison laughed.

“Forget what I drew, that is amazing.” John gestured to Alison’s work. “Your’s almost looks like a photograph,” John said looking at the cliffside sunset Alison had created.

Alison blushed slightly. “It’s from somewhere my parents took me on vacation one year. I don’t remember where it was, but I remember the beautiful sunset.” Her voice was quiet and would have been inaudible had they not been in the small, confined room alone. John’s compliment put a smile on her face which just made her even cuter.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.” John’s voice took on a softer but more serious tone.

“Sure, what is it?” Alison replied.

“Why are you friends with Vanessa? Talking to you, you seem really, really nice and genuine and Vanessa is well... Vanessa,” John asked.

She contemplated for a moment, “It’s… complicated. I know this is going to sound like... bullshit, but she can be really nice… It’s just really hard to explain, sorry,” Alison answered.

“Yeah, Vanessa being nice is hard to imagine. Just this morning she almost threw Frank on the floor of the bus and they are supposed to be dating,” John said.

Before Alison could reply, the door opened and June popped her head into the classroom, “Hope I’m not interrupting you doing something inappropriate,” she laughed; the comment caused Alison to turn beet red. “You should start to shut down the computers now and get ready for your next class. Don’t worry about coming back to the studio. Once you’re done, you can go straight to your next lesson, but I need you to write some notes down about the medium and you won’t have time during our lesson, so you might have to talk outside of class,” June said and winked at John before closing the door behind her as she left.

Alison and John shut down the computers and got their things ready to leave for their next class. “Hey, umm, we probably won’t get a chance to talk at school with Vanessa being around and everything. Maybe I could call you later?” John asked nervously.

Alison blinked. “Oh, r-right, uhm, yeah,” she said. John took out his phone and handed it over after unlocking it. Alison added her number and gave it back to John. “I’m usually alone around 7 or 8, b-but you should text me first just to make sure,” she told him.

John nodded and they both packed their backs and headed out of the classroom.

John headed to his next class, civics with Mrs. Wentworth. He took his assigned seat at the back of the class, and as usual, Vanessa glared at him as she took the chair next to him. John usually hated the assigned seating, but not today. Looking over he noticed her chest.

’Hmm, looks like she must have padded her bra or something. If I didn't know her boobs were smaller, I wouldn't even be able to tell.’

John waited until Vanessa was distracted before he retrieved his other phone from his inventory. He checked the three messages Vanessa had sent. The first was her telling him to fix her, the following two were attempts to get his attention.

He opened up the love egg app and set it to low before turning it on and quickly hiding the phone again. He looked over at Vanessa but was surprised she didn't have any reaction. He thought maybe it didn't work or it might have disconnected, so he retrieved his phone sneakily and slowly pushed the intensity up. Vanessa let out a quiet, almost inaudible whimper and John could see her face taking on a pink hue which was all he needed.

During the lesson, John managed to increase and decrease the intensity of the toy without getting caught. Other than a couple of quiet moans and her face becoming redder, she managed to hide the fact that she was being teased and toyed with, and lucky for him, whenever she’d scan the room, she’d ignore him like he was invisible.

Mrs. Wentworth began walking around the class to check on the work of everyone. She started at one side of the room and made her way around. John had been mostly concentrated on messing with Vanessa but he thought he’d done enough to keep himself out of trouble. Wentworth had finally reached Vanessa. "Miss Hawthorne, join me at the front of class," Mrs. Wentworth commanded as she walked back to her desk.

Vanessa's eyes widened. "W-wait, please," she quietly begged.

Mrs. Wentworth sighed as she finally reached the front of the class, turning to glare at Vanessa. "Now! I don't have all day!" she commanded leaning back against her desk. Vanessa reluctantly stood and slowly shuffled to the front of the class. "Miss Hawthorne, everyone else in the class has been working on the assignment I gave. I want you to tell everyone exactly what you have been doing all class that has distracted you from doing your work." Wentworth's voice was demanding and it was clear that Vanessa wouldn't get away without giving some kind of excuse.

Vanessa took a second to think to take a deep breath. "Well, I, mmmh-" She cut herself off with a moan as John pushed the intensity up. She took a ragged breath before continuing, "I w-was texting m-my friend," she managed to stutter out an excuse.

"And that is more important than the work I have set?" Wentworth asked with an annoyed tone.

"Yes, I-I mean n-no, it won't happen aah-gain," she let out another moan, John pushed the intensity as high as it could go, and Vanessa tightly closed her eyes and bit her lip as her body began to quiver. After a couple seconds, John shut the toy off, and Vanessa was able to regain her composure. John looked around and realised no one was really paying much attention to Vanessa. Most students were looking down working, and the few that were looking up seemed to be looking to the front of class, not actually at Vanessa, and their eyes seemed kind of lifeless.

"Go sit back down, Miss Hawthorne, and you will be glad to know you will have detention after school," Wentworth sighed.

John left the toy off and put the phone on his lap. Wentworth looked over his shoulder and scoffed. "See me after class, Mr. Newman," she said moving on. Vanessa hid her face allowing John to text her

< J: Quite the show you put on. It looked like you enjoyed my little gift - G >

She hunkered over, blocking anyone's view from her phone, but at the same time she turned away from John, giving him a chance to read what she texted back.

< V: OMG stop! And put me back to normal. What do you want? Money? I can give you plenty of that, just put me back to normal and leave me alone! >

< J: I don't want money, I'm doing this for entertainment, and don't worry about your tits, I'll put them back soon enough, but in the meantime, I think that attitude of yours has earned you more teasing - G >

John opened the love egg app once again and looked through the presets. Some had names like 'turbo pleasure', but the two that John looked at were 'edging' and 'tease mode'. He decided on the latter setting, and lucky for him, it had a timer which he set to 2 hours before he closed the app.

< V: OMFG, it was humiliating enough the first time, stop! >

< J: You will learn to speak to me properly and with respect. For now, I think you deserve to be punished, so enjoy - G >

He quickly stored his phone in his inventory again and focused on his work, smiling when he heard Vanessa let out a mix of a pleasurable moan and an annoyed groan as she shifted in her seat.

The bell rang, and everyone stood and began leaving for their break. John knocked on Mrs. Wentworth's office door. "Come on in Mr. Newman," she called. John entered the office and immediately saw a pop-up.

You have entered a barrier and can only leave with permission or if the owner is defeated.

John began to panic. "Sit down,” Wentworth ordered from behind her desk. John sat immediately and used Observe on her. Instead of getting the regular pop-up, he had to clutch his head as it began to throb, a similar sensation to brain-freeze.

Wentworth sighed, not looking up from her paperwork. “Please refrain from doing that again, Mr. Newman. Now to why I invited you to my office,” she sat up straight looking up at John and continued, “first off, keep magic in my class to a minimum. I didn’t feel you casting any spells, so you obviously have some kind of magic cloaking item, but I’d rather not have to **** ignorance on the class every time you decide to use it. Second, Miss Hawthorne and her family are part of something that I am working on. I would tell you to back off, but something tells me you would try to get away with doing something anyway, so I won’t say Miss Hawthorne is off-limits, but if anything happens to her public appearance or if you were to somehow diminish her reputation, then I won’t give you a second warning.”

John sat there trying to wrap his head around what his teacher had just said before everything dawned on him. “Uh… Mrs. Wentworth, d-do you have superpowers too? I’m slightly confused.”

Wentworth looked at him for a moment before letting out a slight chuckle which grew to a full laugh. It made John uneasy as it was rare for her to even smile. She eventually calmed down. “John, you are truly clueless about the Abyss, aren’t you?” she asked, still chuckling.

John scratched his head. “I guess. I only got these powers Monday and… Wait, Abyss? What is that? Where is that?” John questioned. Wentworth held her hand up, silencing him.

“I do not make a habit of giving out information for free, so I expect something in return... eventually.” She rubbed her temples before continuing, “The Abyss isn’t a place. To put it simply, it is anything involving the supernatural. It’s not a particularly safe place, but you should be okay. As you are now your use of magic won’t be noticed because of whatever you have that is cloaking it.”

“What do you mean? Something is cloaking my magic?” John asked.

“I assume you have some kind of enchanted item which is hiding your magic casting with, am I wrong?” Wentworth asked.

“I don’t think I have anything like that? I haven’t gotten many items and I think the only ones I have on me now are naturally enchanted but nothing that says that it would protect me from being detected,” John explained.

“Interesting… A late bloomer who’s able to cast magic without leaving a magic signature… You’ve given me some things to think about. Make sure to train your magic if you don’t want to end up dead. I’ll be in touch, Mr. Newman, close the door on your way out.” Wentworth said as she returned to her work.

“Wait, before I go, where should I use or practice magic then? If the Abyss can be as dangerous as you said,” John asked.

Wentworth glared at him. “I don’t care, go put a barrier up in the woods or something. Just get out of my office.”

John stood and began walking to the door but stopped just shy and turned back. “How do I make barriers?” he asked.

“Figure it out or ask someone else. I teach history and civics not magic,” she dismissed.

John thought about pressing the issue but decided against it and left her office

You have left “The Witch’s Office” barrier.

’The Witch?’ he thought, then walked away. Looking at the time, he did a double-take. ’I was only in there for 2 minutes? There’s no way. We were talking for, like at least 10 minutes.’

John rubbed his temples and chalked it up to some kind of magic. Then he noticed the notification.

Quest update: Learned more about the world of the Abyss.

“Out of my way, dweeb,” John heard coming from down the hall followed by a crashing sound he was all too familiar with. He looked in that direction and saw Frank walking down the hall away from him and some scrawny student he didn’t recognise sitting on the floor against the lockers.

’Damn, this would probably be a great time to get Frank under my thumb, but Wentworth told me a lot and I should probably focus on that for now. Also, I think I need to tell Ellie about this stuff. If I could possibly get into danger, she should know and I don’t really want to cut the time we spend together down. I doubt just telling her will be enough though.’ John took out his phone and began messaging Ellie.

< J: Hey, Ellie, I was hoping we could meet up after I’m finished at school? >

A minute later she replied.

< E: Sure, I’d love to. Got anywhere in particular in mind? >

< J: Yeah, I was thinking we could take a walk through the forest on the edge of town. It’s really nice out there, and I kind of need to talk to you about something >

< E: That sounds… ominous? But a walk in the forest does sound nice >

< J: Yeah, I guess it does. Don’t worry about it, we will talk later. You should meet me here, there is a bus stop that can take us straight to the nature trail >

< E: I’ll see you later then xx >

’Wait... She put kisses at the end, what is that even supposed to mean? I’m going to screw this up, aren’t I? Should I put some back, or what?’

After his short panic, John hesitantly sent a text back.

< J: Great :D see you later xx >

John looked at the time and saw there were only 15 minutes left of his break, so he decided to head to his language class early. ’Heading there early actually gives me a good idea.’ John rushed to his next class and saw that Miss Addams was sitting at her desk.

Miss Addams was one of the teachers that were nicer to him. He walked into the class and over to her desk; she looked up with a warm smile.

“Hello John, what brings you here so early?” she asked, smiling at him.

“Hey Miss Addams, I wanted to get in a little earlier to talk to you,” John replied smiling back.

“Of course, what can I help you with?” Miss Addams asked.

John sighed. “It isn’t really a secret that Vanessa doesn’t like me and I’ve always just accepted my fate, but honestly, I’m getting tired of it. I was thinking about dropping out of Ashford, but unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to afford to pay back the scholarship I have. I thought that the next best thing would be to somehow get Vanessa to like me more. I’m not stupid, so I know that she’ll never actually like me, but if I could spend time with her alone, maybe she’d hate me less and I’d become less of a target. I know this might be a big favour and I’ll owe you a lot, but would there be any way for you to have me tutor Vanessa outside of school? I know she has the worst grades in the class because you posted our last exam results on the board. I don’t really have many other classes with Vanessa and I know that none of the other teachers would even hear me out, so would you help me?”

Miss Addams stayed silent for a couple minutes then sighed, “Fine, but on one condition. I want to see an improvement in her grades, so I want you to promise that even if her attitude towards you doesn’t change that you will keep tutoring her until she improves.”

“Yes, of course, I promise. Thank you, Miss Addams, this means a lot and I really do owe you one,” John exclaimed.

“You don’t owe me anything, just remember your promise. Now, there isn’t long before class starts. Would you please set out the textbooks for our lesson?” she asked.

“Sure.” John headed to the back of the class and set out all the desks, taking his seat just as the bell rang.