A Small Dose of Tyranny.

June didn't follow John back into the school. The teacher tried to talk to him one more time before he left for his classes, but John's attention was already elsewhere when the artist tried to exchange phone numbers with him. After he considered the initial possibility that Vanessa could have been tormenting Mary next after taking June's job away, he couldn't think about anything else. Normally, he was the one who was getting hurt when Vanessa and Frank needed to bully someone. Sure, there was always the occasional victim that they might meet and set aside time for every now and then, but John... John had been dealing with them for most of his life...

... and he never even once considered how he might feel if they tried hurting someone that he had gotten to know.

It put a surprising rush in the Gamer's step as he darted into the Ashcroft academy and immediately passed by a herd of teachers that had gathered at the door to see June off. Not a single person had tried to say anything to her on her exit or fight for her right to stay when Vanessa used her parents’ donated money over the school to take control. They just stood there and watched until she had driven away, all except for Ms. Stanfield, the fanatical feminist teacher from John's sociology class. Her signature leather jacket had been unzipped and kept open for once, leaving her pink t-shirt with a female power symbol on it bare for the whole school to see. She glared at John as soon as he looked at her, before he had even managed to appraise her slender figure, and with a slight turn of his head, he tried to duck past her before she could find some excuse to get him into trouble.

It didn't work.

Even without the womanly curves that the average woman held, Ms. Stanfield still somehow managed to take offense to John's gaze and classified his mere glance as disrespectful leering before he had even moved five feet away from her. Her voice echoed throughout the halls as Ms. Stanfield called for John's immediate halt and the young Gamer watched as all of the other teachers in the area scattered when they heard her tone. In seconds, Ms. Stanfield made it so that John was already missing June's presence from the school. The stomping of her heavy leather boots echoed throughout the halls as the rest of the students also vanished from sight... but John didn't stop walking either. For a moment, the teacher must have assumed that she was going to catch up to him.

"John Newman!" Despite how John winced at hearing the teacher speak, her voice wasn't as grating as he always thought it to be. It was certainly harsh and always seemed to hold an underlying judgmental tone in her words, but it wasn't as bad as he always imagined it to be. Her voice was just barely deeper than the average woman's, and if she didn't use it all the time to try and express anger or resentment to her students, John might have even considered her voice to be smooth on the ears. Her constant snapping changed that. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but is that not the wrong uniform for an institution such as this?! Where are your clothe-" John didn't let her finish that sentence. He still had to find Mary.

"Sorry, it's an emergency! Igottago,bye!" he called back and then quickly darted off down another hallway, bolting as fast as he could. His teacher didn't get the chance to run after him. By the time she rounded the same corner to peer down the hallway, John was already at the other end. He disappeared from her line of sight one more time and then he was free. It was Wednesday, he reasoned with himself. He should not have had to have been dealing with her.

After all, his Sociology class was on Tuesday.

When John finally found his first clue to try and help him figure out where his old bullies were, he realized that he had already crossed from one side of school to the other. The names and faces of his fellow classmates passed John by as he searched through the crowds for Mary... or Vanessa... or, hell, John would have settled to even talk to Frank by that point. He just wanted to make sure that they weren't hurting Mary because of his powers and all the messages that he had sent to the cheerleader. The other students in the school didn't help him to find them either. When John tried asking a cheerleader or a football star where their fellow teammates might be, he was ignored or told to fuck off.

His first actual clue came from a lucky glance. As John was passing by one of the many other doors that led to the outskirts of the school's property, his gaze skimmed by one of the windows to the sports field out behind the school... and then stopped when he found a lone football player standing outside just as school was starting, like he was keeping watch in front of one of the many large equipment sheds out back. However, the bored football player didn't even bother trying to turn his head from side to side as John stared at him, he just continued playing on his phone and lit another cigarette while the lights in the equipment shed abruptly flickered on behind him.

John watched as the jock glanced down briefly as a stream of light shot out from the vent above the equipment shed's entrance and down onto the grass in front of him... but the Jock didn't do anything... even after someone began screaming in the building behind him. After a couple of moments, he only bothered to take action against the screaming by putting on a spare headset to drown out the noise with music. John barely heard the noise himself. It was high-pitched and would have been loud had he been closer, but there were a couple walls and a few dozen yards between them.

When he went outside, however, the screaming got louder. He recognized Mary's voice before he ever even crossed the football field. Her shrill voice usually had a tendency to annoy John. After suffering through years and years of bullying from her and her friends, John was used to the idea that he should be trying to ignore her and walk away whenever he heard that shrill tone... yet, there were some other people there whose presence John hated more than Mary's that day. Somehow, the guard they had watching actually managed to spot John as he approached and warned the people inside the shed that he was here. John slowed his pace halfway across the field as the screaming came to a complete stop, though he could still barely hear Mary panting inside.

John completely came to a stop when the door to the equipment shed was suddenly thrown open with a loud metallic bang. The guard in front of the shed simply lowered his head back to his phone and stepped to the side as Frank came barging out of the little squarish hut. Behind him followed Vanessa and a few more members of the football team. All of the men were in the middle of zipping their pants back up.

Directly behind them, curled up on a pile of worn down, blue gym mats, was Mary. She had one trembling arm curled protectively across her bosom and gripping at her shoulder as she looked fearfully past the group of jocks and cheerleaders that filed out of the equipment shed, while the other arm was tucked between her legs as she cupped her mound, as if to hide or protect it. Her sleeveless cheerleading uniform was torn from one shoulder and left to hang open as she stared at John with wide eyes, makeup smeared down her cheeks in long, dark, tearful lines. She didn't say anything, she didn't continue crying or screaming... she didn't even move from her spot in the middle of the shed. She just stared at John from the opening in the shed with her shoulders still sunken and shaking.

"Well, speak of the devil!" Frank laughed as soon as he had finally finished buttoning up his pants with a satisfied sigh. He gave a small pat to his crotch as John's face dropped all expressions and just stared at the bully blankly. "We were just talking about you."

The slightest of rumbles in the sky above alerted John to the fact that he was already moving. He stopped mid-step, as the morning light that had previously been illuminating the football field dimmed suddenly, and glanced up towards the sun as clouds seemingly grew out of nowhere and hid it away from sight. A brief flash of lightning skipped through the sky overhead, and with a slight turn, John glanced back at the school building behind himself... and locked his gaze on the many cameras that had been set up to point at the football field.

Call it Gaia, call it god, or whatever the hell else you need to, alright? It doesn't like it when magic is revealed to the rest of the world.

Even after remembering what Robyn had said to John, it didn't help to calm him down. He glanced back down at Frank, who was grinning so hugely by this point that John could see a sheen barely glistening on the bully's white teeth. Vanessa smirked at John from where she stood safely behind the wall of athletes and... potential rapists, but John didn't care enough to look at her. It took everything he had not to just run at the Jock and start pummeling his face in. He was so focused on controlling himself that he didn't even hear what Frank said next, only that it brought out a laugh from all the other people there. The Gamer brought his clenched fists up to his chest... and stared briefly at the ring Daemon that sat glowing on his finger in the middle of the football field, illuminating the area up more than the sun was at the moment, but no one else seemed to notice it. They just kept cracking jokes at his expense.

The idle thought that he could take them on passed through John’s head as he stared at the ring again, but he dismissed it as quickly as he could. A quick count of the people there outnumbered John six to one, excluding all the cheerleaders that had been brought there to watch. If they were anywhere near as strong as Frank was, then John wouldn't have been able to fight them head on. He couldn't use magic, so that excluded his Infused Strike ability as well as all of the stat and health bonuses that he would have received from his armor.

It still wasn't a fight that he could win... unless it was just a fight against one person. If he could just isolate them somehow without actually using any spells, then he could have had a chanc-

"Hey, faggot." Frank's voice cut through John's thoughts like a knife through butter. The jock's hand curled into the Gamer's head of hair as he yanked John's gaze up to look at him... and diverted John's attention entirely away from controlling himself. He could take Frank on in a fight. Michel did it... and John beat Michel.

"I said I'm talking to you, faggot. I-" Despite how strong Frank was and how much health he had, John realized one major difference between him and the enemies that he had grown used to fighting. While the undead were solely focused on killing and/or consuming John's flesh and the Cabal diverted a large amount of attention to preparing for their abductions, he realized that Frank didn't bother preparing at all. Years and years of bullying John and pushing the Gamer into inevitably running away from their encounters left the jock with a certain kind of... cockiness. It made it all that much more surprising for the both of them when John finally interrupted Frank by driving his leg up into the bully's crotch as hard as he could.

WEAK POINT EXPLOITED! Damage has been doubled!
CRITICAL! 40 Damage!

Surprisingly, John's kick made a soft thumping noise as he pounded his leg so hard into Frank's crotch that the jock jumped a couple inches into the air. The thumping sound was immediately followed by a collective groan that almost all of the men on the football field echoed before Frank fell whimpering to his knees in front of the Gamer. The bully squeaked one more time... before John interrupted him again.

CRITICAL! 21 Damage!
CRITICAL! 21 Damage!

Frank simply collapsed like a sack of bricks after John threw the next two punches. His body went limp and dropped to the ground as John quickly Observed and stood over the football star, and then he turned his attention to the rest of the football team before they could rush him.

Frank Dickinson Jr
Level 8 Athlete
<Asshole>
7/89 HP
Relationship: -200
Effects: ****.

Thankfully, Frank wasn't dead yet. He was just knocked out, and it seemed that the rest of the football team realized that as John stepped and put his foot down on Frank's throat. He watched as the majority of them stopped before they could reach John and carefully looked down at the spot where the Gamer pressed on Frank's windpipe.

"It's time for you to leave." He was still torn between trying to talk them or taking them all on. A part of him still felt like it was a bad idea to try and fight so many people at once without the use of his magic, but he realized that he had already crossed the line into the territory of bad ideas. When Frank woke up, he was going to want retribution, even if that meant using the entire school to get it. Unfortunately, Frank's lackeys weren't ready to back down yet. They took another step towards him, so John pressed down harder on Frank's neck. The jock gurgled weakly as his supply of air was cut off, and all of his 'friends' froze once more. "Leave, or I'll start hitting him again." Whatever guilt they had been feeling, for what had happened in the shed, or what was about to happen, took control, and everyone seemed ready to take a step back... or at least they just didn’t want to see Frank get hurt. They all retreated… except for Vanessa. The Bitch Queen finally stepped to the front of the crowd and stared John down as he pressed on Frank's throat.

"Then do it." She didn't bother saying much more than that. She just called John out on his bluff. The Gamer growled and turned like he was going to hit Frank one more time before Vanessa interrupted him before he could. A small smirk spread across the cheerleader's lips as she walked up to John. "Here... You seem a little nervous. Let me help," she stated, and with a soft giggle, she stomped down on Frank's crotch in the exact same spot that John had hit him in.

WEAK POINT EXPLOITED! Damage has been doubled!
CRITICAL! Vanessa Hawthorne attacks Frank for 16 Damage!

?????? has cast ??????, preventing Frank from dying!

John was so stunned as he watched Vanessa coldly strike down her own boyfriend that he didn't even notice the additional pop-up at first. He just watched as Frank's body jerked once on the ground and stared at the jock’s health bar as it was completely reduced to... one last point. Frank kept breathing, but he didn't get up. He was still **** and alive somehow.

"Come on!" Vanessa didn't scream at him when she spoke again, though he was expecting her to. She didn't bark him around; if anything, her tone seemed... almost eerily kind. It was like she wanted him to hurt Frank... or just see someone get hurt. "Don't you want to hit him?" she encouraged him, until John was solely staring at her as he backed away from the Bitch Queen and Frank's **** body. When he didn't do anything though, her tone changed again. She started glaring at John and walked over to one of the other football players muttering the word 'pathetic' over and over again. She didn't even bother carrying her own backpack. Instead, one of the guys did that for her, and if anyone ever got in trouble for what was inside it, it wasn't her.

It was why Vanessa felt confident enough to keep things like one of her bodyguard's handgun's inside the backpack when she went to school. The crowd around Vanessa bristled and murmured nervously as she drew the weapon out with a little sigh... and then she pointed it at John. She didn't bother warning him or explaining herself. She just pointed the gun at him... and then at Frank... and then finally at Mary who screamed again upon seeing the weapon. The rest of the football squad nervously began to clear out of her way, and some even managed to disappear, but not before they heard what she was doing.

"Eenie... meanie... miney... moe..." As soon as she started talking, the rest of the crowd disappeared. John nervously took another step back as she pointed the gun at him again and again, and then he steeled himself and **** his body to take a step back towards her when he thought about how much damage he had seen Taylor's rifle do in the past. "Catch a tiger by its toe." If she emptied the whole gun into him, John would have died. At the most, he probably could have survived one or two shots... but he felt like that was enough to at least disarm her. "If he hollers... let him go." Vanessa didn't try to stick to any pattern as she pointed the gun back and forth between the three of them. "Eenie..." She tried to keep her aim randomized. "Meanie..." It shifted from John, to Mary, then back to John, and finally to Frank. "Miney..." Except she didn't bother waiting for her song to end before she fired the weapon. She just turned and shot one round into the shed with Mary.

In his initial surprise, John didn't think about what he was saying. He just blinked and then watched as Taylor turned at Grace with his rifle again and started trembling when he saw her bronzed body shake with each fresh wound that he gave her all over again. He cried out Grace's name, but saying it didn't help. It was like he was actually living through a nightmare.

"Moe," Vanessa finished with a little hum.