The worst hunting ground, school.

John looked up at the sky as he waited for the bus. The dark clouds betrayed the rain that would be falling all day today. It was unusual for a summer day, but then again, John barely got surprised by anything less than extraordinary. If your experiences in the past week included talking to a god, arguing with Charon and discovering you can do magic, then rain in summer is not that odd at all.

A curtain of soft rain started to fall just as the bus rounded the corner. It stopped in front of John and let the few people waiting get on. John, lost in thought, sat down in his usual seat, leaning his head against the window, seeing a flash, and then a few moments later he heard the crack of thunder. He shook his head when he heard it. Texting good morning to Cynthia and as his mind connected Cynthia to the current weather, John started to hum Thunderstruck to himself, trying to time the thunderstruck parts to the erratic lightning outside. As John was amusing himself, more and more people got on, the seat in front of him getting filled with one seething blonde and her brute of a boyfriend.

As John hummed to himself, he got a text from an unknown number:
Hey there, John, it’s Ilis. Cynthia gave me your number. Could you swing by my workshop today? I’m almost done with your dagger, I only need to craft the handle, and I want you to do it. A good hunter has at least partly a hand in his tools after all. Oh, and I have some other good news too! Tell you when you get here.
Ilis

John chuckled, responding with a: I’ll be there. Might bring my girlfriend, get you two some time to bond. with a winking emoji. Following that, he texted Cynthia that they would need to make a slight detour this afternoon because of dwarf related matter,. and then, as he looked up, the bus had arrived at the academy. People got up from their seats and started to rush to the exit. John, in no hurry and in quite the good mood, put his cellphone into his pocket and waited his turn to get off the bus.

John, looking up to check if it was still raining, did not realize that there was a certain jock pulling one of the oldest tricks in the book. John’s foot caught behind Franks and he got sent tumbling into one of the fresh puddles on the asphalt of the parking lot. Jeering laughter came from his old bully as Vanessa walked on, pretending to have nothing to do with this.

“Nice job, noobman, wet your pants?” Frank taunted. If this had been a week ago, John would have cowered and just taken the beating Frank was no doubt planning on dishing out to him about now.

Sadly for Frank, this was not one week ago. John looked up at his old bully and realized that, in comparison to the nightmare, or Ellen for that matter, Frank was by far not as intimidating. So, to everyone’s amazement, including John’s, he responded with, “Hey, don’t I remind you of a certain blonde right now?” He chuckled at his own joke in such a carefree way that Frank’s reddening face with its trademark pulsating vein showed a hint of confusion. Even an oaf like him realized something was different, he just couldn’t put his finger on it…

Frank shook his head, grumbling as he cleared his head, his hand whipped out to John’s collar and pulled him right back up, out of the puddle. “I can’t do something with all these people watching…. But trust me, you little shit, no one emberasses my girl and gets away with it. I hope you are looking forward to PE, you know what rain brings.” Frank spat in John’s face, then tossed him aside, taking large strides to catch up to Vanessa.

John wiped the disgusting drool from his face and looked himself over. His pants were soaked, but they would dry. He was half tempted to use cleanse on them, but quite a few people saw what had just transpired, and it would draw attention if John wore the same pants in a dry state when they had just seen them get wet.

As John hurried along to his first class with Mrs. Flung, he realized what Frank was aiming at. If it rained during PE, it would be time for dodgeball. And Frank and his cronies tended to not be all that concerned about the well being of the ones that could not dodge their throws. He planned on pulling something during dodgeball, it seemed. As John sat down and huddled behind his book, he started writing on a piece of paper, trying to catch the attention of the oh so eager to comment overgoddess.

His civics class flew by as John and a certain pop up happy goddess were having an intimate discussion, the snark being so real they could sense it three classrooms over.

As John formed his plan, he dragged himself from class to class. When he handed in his biology assignment, June was amazed by the details he had drawn. She asked him all about how he had managed to find such a skittish animal to draw in such detail. As John spun lie after lie to cover up the fact that he was now a part time hunter for an ancient Greek goddess, Mr. Stone walked up to them to see what the fuss was about. His eyes widened as he recognized the bird, before asking John in great detail on where he found it and if he had seen any more of them. It turned out that Mr. Stone was quite the bird enthusiast, and as luck would have it… Marco resembled an almost extinct falcon subspecies.

Eventually though, John managed to talk his way out of it all, leaving a very happy set of teachers behind with the promise of a decent grade for his drawing, to say the least.