Round 2. John Vs Brett. FIGHT!

John regretted his hatred of gym class.

Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true. After all, gym was a cesspool where jocks that guzzled 15 protein shakes a day were put in the same room as out of shape nerds before being told that they were allowed to enforce any laws of the social hierarchy of school through teasing and throwing rubber balls at each other, often causing the nerds to learn that rubber can cause both blunt **** trauma and burn wounds from pure speed alone. And when it wasn’t dodgeball day, they instead got to remind everyone in the gym class how out of shape the nerds were by their lack of an ability to run at a decent speed, lift their body off the ground a decent amount of times, or do a few basic jumping jacks without getting sweatier than a whore in church.

Yeah. John still hated gym. However, right now he really wished he had been more open to the concept of exercise in his past. Maybe if he had been, his lungs wouldn’t feel like they were on fire and his muscles wouldn’t be screaming in agony from only a few minutes of constant running through the school’s empty halls.

He steadied himself against the nearest wall of lockers, taking in a few deep gasping breaths. Thankfully, it seemed that stabbing this Brett fellow had halted him long enough for John’s out of shape body to get some distance between the two of them, leaving John alone with only the sound of his labored breathing accompanying him.

Damn it, he really needed to start training his body if this were to be a constant thing.

Achievement Unlocked!
Self Realization
You have taken the strength to look inside yourself and understand you are (obviously) out of shape. Maybe you will actually change that now. Here's some help to get you started, you wimp.
+1 Strength
+1 Endurance

“... Fuck… You…” John said between breaths, reading the achievement.

Quest Unlocked!
Piss off the most powerful being in existence!
You wanna rethink those words, Newman?
Objectives: Don’t apologize.
Rewards:
Instant ****
Accept? (Y/No, and say you are sorry)

Well. Wonderful. It seems that whoever wrote these achievements was snarky. But… John really didn’t wanna die. He slowly reached up and pressed no, saying at the same time, “I am sorry.”

Good.

John slowly stood up straight, now finally having a hold on his breathing. He looked around himself, trying to get a bearing on where he had run to, as he was more focused on getting distance between him and Brett during his mad dash. He looked up at the various names above the doors, and after a few reads, could tell that he had made his way to the history department. Well, department was not really a good descriptor, as it was 3 teachers who taught history and happened to be in the same hallway. The point was that he now had the rooms of Mr. Enkleman, Mrs. Wentworth, and Mrs. Gutierrez in front of him, and an ice mage somewhere behind him.

“Guess it’s hiding time. Well, hiding and coming up with a better plan.” He looked up to the ceiling, muttering softly under his breath, “You gave me these powers today. Please don’t have me be killed today,” before opening the middle door and heading straight into Mrs. Wentworth’s room.

Brett, meanwhile, had just left the art room and was grumbling over and over to himself about the school. Specifically, how much he now HATED it. He grumbled how it would be better as an ice cube, and how there probably were nothing but ugly teachers here removing any semblance of worth this school could have. “Oh, but Brett, it’s not a school, Brett. It’s a finishing academy,” Brett said, mockingly quoting what Crowly had told them on their approach to the building and the setting up of the trap barrier. “It’s for bright young minds to prepare themselves for the real world and we should be kind to it, as the innocents inside are blah de blah de blah.”

Brett gave an exasperated sigh before sitting down and checking his leg. Earlier he had been able to remove the screwdriver and take a potion to deal with the current hole in his leg. However, the problem was the potion wouldn’t do much. Both Brett and Callie were trainee Catchers, having yet to prove they would be of use to the guild in terms of catching rogue mages. Since they were still in training, they weren’t given the guild’s good equipment, thus making the best potion that Brett could drink to heal with one that barely did a damn thing. These “stabilizing” potions were made to bring the drinker to a conscious and stable state, but still leave scarring and wounds that would have to be healed later. In theory this was made so that the trainees would have to report where they failed to their superiors and either learn for next time or be taken off catching patrols. In reality, it just made catching targets harder as the trainees now had to work around wounds that would not heal.

Brett got up and turned down another hallway, only to scream in frustration as this halfway lead to a dead end. He had already wasted nearly 15 minutes limping through hallway after hallway trying to find this kid, only to discover this finishing academy had about 5 million hallways and lockers a skinny kid like him could hide in.

'Gaia above, I am never gonna find him at this rate…’ Brett thought to himself as he slowly limped down another hall.

“Awww, looks like lil Bretty boy is lost.”

Brett nearly jumped into the air as his radio crackled to life, the static clouded voice of Callie coming through from other end. He fiddled with the clipped radio on his belt for a moment or two before finally slipping it off, pulling it up his ear.

“Fuck off, Callie. I need to find the kid. Ask Crowly where he is.”

“Awww, Not having fun looking for him? C’mon! Crowly said you already made 5 wrong turns and tried 13 classrooms. I wanna see if you can make it up to 25!”

“Callie, I’m fucking serious! The kid stabbed my fucking leg and I am in no fucking mood to act catty with you!”

“Geez, touchy. Fine. Here, talk to Crowly ya big baby.”

Brett waited for a moment or two before the older, wiser man came on the line.

“Brett? Do you need some help looking for the mage?”

“Nah, I thought I would just limp through the halls in excruciating agony for the fun of it! Of course I want help!”

“Well, he is- Oh hold on… Yes… Mmmhm… Okay, I will tell him. Brett? Callie told me to tell you that you are a jackass and that you have ten minutes to try and win the bet.”

“I know, I know. You tell that bimbo that I’ll win this fucking bet and that if she has a problem with it she can shove it right up her-”

“Brett, I have a location on the mage. Also, I would prefer not to play telephone between you and Callie.”

“... Fine. Where is he?”

Crowly gave Brett a few instructions, telling him which halls to turn down and where the kid seemed to be in the room. He said he could see the kid was regenerating his mana somehow, so Brett needed to strike fast in order to deal with the kid.

“He appears to have no offensive magic yet, but his mana flow is so strange that I cannot honestly tell you what to expect. Be cautious with this one.”

Brett looked down at his hand, which was starting to ice over and grow tiny spikes out of it. He could feel that his magic was causing the room’s temperature to drop a few degrees.

“Trust me, Crowly. When I am through with this kid, he’s gonna learn that the depths of hell are ice cold.”

John sighed, finishing up his meditation so as to look over his character sheet. Frankly, he did not like his odds. Brett was 3 times his level, and John’s own powers were pitiful when it came to doing anything worth a damn in attack. As icing on that cake, the blade was… well, he looked over to his blade, using Observe on it again to remind himself of what it said.

The Papercut, Bane of Notebooks and Large Paper Stacks
10-15 slashing damage
+500 Damage if Foe is made of paper
A blade straight out of a notebook’s nightmares. This blade is stained with the non-existent blood of millions of pieces of paper. Only okay against humans, but if you were in a world of pressed wood, you would be like a GOD.

Wonderful. John now had one of the most overpowered weapons ever, but only when his foes were literal paper tigers. What’s next? A frying pan with fire damage bonus against eggs? A mop that only does healing if the target is dirty? A vibrator whose bonus effect was distracting female opponents?

‘Actually, God, if you could make that last one real, I would not complain.’ Silence met John’s question, and he figured that said plenty about his idea for a vibrator weapon. John figured it was best to move on, so he went to look at the items he pulled from his inventory. First was the Rune Stone. Initially, John had figured this stone was completely useless and that it would stay in his inventory till he was at least a few dozen levels stronger. However, a phrase he had read in his Runic Glossary had given him reason to take a second look at the stone.

“Runes can be pre-inscribed for a greater cost, but then activated at a later time for a greatly reduced cost.”

Granted, it was still vague as shit, but it gave John hope. Maybe this Rune Stone wasn’t useless after all. How much of a lower cost would the stone activate for? If it was at a 20th of the spell’s initial cost, maybe he could still activate it to use against-

“Surprise, kid.”

John spun around, just in time to see Brett fling another ice spell at him. It hit John square in the stomach, causing John to fall back against the wall. A small popup appeared in John’s view as he raised his head to look at Brett

Frost’s Bite! 10%
You’ve been hit by the Frost Bite spell. You take no damage, but the ice will continue to grow on you till you are completely encased in ice.

Brett, meanwhile, was doubling over in laughter. “Oh my god, that look on your face is priceless!” John had to think fast, before he was covered in ice. Ignoring Brett, John reached down to his stomach with his right hand, having dropped the blade when he was hit by the spell. Just as he started to trace the line for Kenaz, John was once again hit by the same spell, this time on his hand.

Frost’s Bite! 20%

Frost’s Bite! 30%

“Ah ah ah, no little fire magic. You are going to sit there and freeze the fuck over.”

Frost’s Bite! 40%

Brett walked up to John, tapping the frozen parts of him. “After that, I think I’ll have a bit of fun thawing parts of you out so I can get **** for what you did to my leg.”

Frost’s Bite! 50%

“Then, after we hand you off to the mana factory, I think I’ll see if we can find out who you were. Maybe see if you had a family that can join you in the factory. If not… well, it has been getting nippy in the air.” Brett smiled a cruel grin. “Would be a shame if a blizzard passed through your town and iced over your family.”

Frost’s Bite! 60%

John’s eyes went wide. This… this madman was going to hurt his family. He was going to kill John’s mother, all because of John’s inability to fight.

Frost’s Bite! 70%

‘Guess I’ve got no other choice.’ He looked over to his left hand, where the runestone still laid. He pressed his finger against the rune, begging for it to activate. However, instead of the dormant power of the rune activating, another pop up appeared.

Warning! Insufficient mana for Rune activation! Activating this rune will drain your health. Proceed? (Y/N)

Frost’s Bite! 80%

‘If I’m going down, I’m taking you down with me.’

“Got any last words of freedom, kid?” Brett asked, snickering at John’s plight.

Frost’s Bite! 90%

John looked back to Brett, his eyes filled with the fire of determination, selecting with a thought the choice of yes on the earlier popup. Just as ice moved to his chin, creeping closer and closer to his mouth a single word entered John’s mind. The word needed for this rune to be unleashed. As John's final word before the ice overcame his mouth, he said the activation phrase, mana pouring into the runestone.

“SURTR”