It is now Wednesday.

Thankfully, there was nobody around John when he appeared back in the regular world. It was too early in the morning for that. At first, he thought that the dream he had been in with Hestia had taken the whole night away from him, and then he considered the idea that it only took a few hours with the time difference between his Kingdom and the rest of the world. If that was true, then the journey back North to Eldham when he finally woke up had just taken the rest of the night away.

When he checked his phone though, it told him that over a whole day had actually passed since he had escaped from Otrov... and it reminded him that he had school in a few hours. Again, he was thankful for the fact that there was no one in sight, not even the illusionist that had stabbed him, but then he figured that if she had been there, he wouldn't have been able to see her. She could have just hidden from him and he would have never noticed. After a while when she didn't appear before him, he counted his blessings again.

Unfortunately though, while John managed to appear back in the real world at a time where he would be alone, he didn't teleport back to his house or the school with any luck. Instead, he appeared right back in the clothing store that he had left in with his armor still equipped and a slight layer of sweat glistening on his skin. He blinked at his surroundings as he tried to peer through the darkness of the empty store, and then with a soft smile, he grabbed another spare set of clothes to replace the school uniform that he had lost. It wasn't the exact same as the uniform that the school had provided for their students, but in his rush, John decided that it would have to work.

It only took a few minutes before John managed to leave the mall. The only people there that John had to avoid were security guards who were barely patrolling through the halls. He switched out his armor for his uniform as he walked, and when he finally made it to the sidewalk outside, his phone beeped softly from his hand and alerted him to one of the many, many text messages that John had missed since he left. The first and most prominent thread of messages that John saw were all from his mother. They started off sincere and sweet, asking him where he was and what happened to him. As he scrolled through them, he started to notice a slight worried tone in the way his mother wrote to him... and then the messages got abrupt. They asked him for his location and in some cases... just outright told him to 'Cum home.' Those ones were signed with little winky faces next to them.

He didn't go home. Without being anywhere close to his home, John had no way of getting to a bus in time to hitch a ride to the academy. It meant that he had to walk to school... or run if he wanted to try and work on his Endurance and Agility.

The second string of messages was far more urgent than the one he got from his mom, and he addressed those before he even started running.

<Where were you?! You can't just bale on me when we're trying to hunt someone like Otrov! I thought you had been captured or something!> The messages were from Robyn. The blonde warrior from the Frozen Flame had somehow immediately noticed when he got back from his Kingdom.

<Otrov attacked me. I had to use one of my abilities to escape from her and had to wait and recover. How did you know I was back?> He sent her a reply as quickly as he could manage to type one out. Robyn did not rush to send her next message back to him. She took her time and left John standing on the sidewalk in the chilly morning air for a few minutes before he finally heard from her.

<I put a tracking device on you...> Her answer didn't help to hurry John to school. If anything, it infuriated the Gamer.

<YOU WHAT?!> He didn't get a chance to spam her with more angry comments. She defended herself before John could do that.

<You weren't exactly upset about it when I bailed you out of jail, and if you had been captured, you'd be thanking me for putting that on you right about now.> Her comment didn't help to calm him down.

<In other words... you considered the idea that I could be captured and put precautions in place to use me as bait, right?> There was no answer this time, just a long moment of silence. <Meet me after school. I want to get paid. Now.> Again, there was no answer. John simply tossed his phone back into his inventory and went off to school. The trip wasn't actually supposed to be that long normally. A dozen city blocks and he should have reached it without any issue. The early morning traffic was the real bitch though. Every time that John came to a street, he had to stop and wait for a couple dozen cars to pass by before he could cross on to the next block. He jogged at a steady pace and, unfortunately, didn't manage to gain any rewards from his workout, but he made it in time.

He even managed to pass by his job on the way to school and wondered if he should actually try to go back to the gym. He wasn't sure if it was safe or not. The place was still open, it hadn't closed down or disappeared now that the Cabal had been discovered in Springfield. It was just... continuing with business.

When he got to school, he charged to the building through the parking lot. His breathing was heavy and strained as he crossed his way over to the lawn and almost made it to one of the school doors without being bothered before the closest one was slammed open with a heavy kick! The feminine leg that came out from the entrance was one that John was actually all too familiar with, and he almost smiled at the bare skin that was left exposed below June's sundress.

His art teacher on the other hand didn't even bother to try and greet John. Her eyes burned across the outskirts of the Ashcroft school grounds as she stomped out of the school in heels with a large cardboard box in her hands. She paused for a moment when she saw John staring at her, and her glare softened to look back at him... but she didn't say anything. She just kept walking all the way over to a candy-red sports car that had been left with a fold-able put down. He followed June with his eyes for a long moment as she stomped over to the car and dropped the cardboard box inside of it, and John watched as her personal belongings bounced with a heavy thud. She had gathered her things like the teacher had quit... or been fired.

"Miss Summers?" John blinked again, and before he knew what he was doing, he walked across the parking lot over to his teacher. He didn't even bother remembering how aggressive she had been the last time he had talked to her. He just closed the gap between them and gently patted a hand down onto the bare skin of her back where her yellow sundress had dipped low enough to expose it. "What happened?"

"I-" her voice cracked slightly, and John pressed a little closer to her without thinking again. "I am no longer 'allowed' to work here at Ashcroft," she explained like she was quoting something that had been said to her. John’s heart immediately sunk. Even if he had been avoiding her and worried slightly after their last conversation, seeing June fired wasn't something that he wanted. Hell, he didn't even really want to avoid the busty teacher, he just didn't want her to know about his powers.

"What happened?" he tilted his head slightly and watched as June quickly looked away from him, as if to hide her face before his teacher simply shrugged.

"I-I... I don't know!" she exclaimed, her voice breaking again as she looked in the opposite direction of John and then at the Ashcroft building itself. She leaned against her car as she spoke. "Normally, I can deal with problems like these myself but... th-this time there was no changing their minds. It was like they had fired me before they even told me about it!" John couldn't think of anything to say to that. He thought it was a stupid decision for the school to get rid of her, but she went ahead and stated that before he could.

"Why?" When he eventually managed to say anything, he could only bring himself to ask her another question. He didn't really know what he could try to say to reassure her, largely because he didn't understand the action himself. His teacher shrugged again, staring up at the building above them for a few silent seconds before she stiffened suddenly. She turned to look at John, her eyes were glistening and tearful... but also strangely serious as she looked at him.

"Mary." She only needed to say the cheerleader's name once before John assumed the worst. Already he thought that the cheerleader must have turned them in. His chest tightened and he grit his teeth together as his teacher looked at him like she had just realized something and then she looked back to the school. "Somebody mentioned that Vanessa had found out something about Mary and then took her phone because of it. The poor girl didn't even come to school yesterday though so I just assumed that it was another misplaced rumor... Vanessa must have seen some of the messages that we shared..." She didn't have to finish the sentence. If Vanessa knew about the one time that John and June had been together, then there was no telling what she could have done. Her parents’ influence on the school was almost absolute. If she had completely used that influence to try and get June fired for that, then he wasn't sure that there would have been anything for the poor art teacher to do to try and save her job, and just like that, John's anger was replaced with surprise. He didn't know how that Vanessa, the bitch queen herself, still managed to surprise John to this day, but it definitely happened, and before his anger could return, his bullying-induced paranoia made him question what else Vanessa might have done. If the Bitch Queen had seen Mary's messages then it was possible that Vanessa not only uncovered evidence of John and June's affair, but it was also possible that she saw all of the messages that had passed between him and Mary.

"If Vanessa got you fired... then what did she do to Mary?" John asked, and June turned to look at him again.