Home Invasion

John manifested his claws and burst into the mimic of his house, ready for a fight with whoever decided to ambush him. Unexpectedly, however, there was no ambush. Instead, he was greeted by a trashed version of his entryway and living room. Where the couch should be were two figures; one was hooded and obscured from John’s view and the other looked to be some kind of plantlike fairy, almost as big as Leilani. The two were frozen in place mid-fight looking directly at John.

The shock was enough that John mimicked the two, halting in the doorway. The hooded figure used the distraction to reel back towards the TV and couch, which had been seemingly **** against the wall. Using one arm to brace the other and pointing at the fairy, three blacklight rings manifested around his arm, then like a spring shot forward towards the girl. The rings collided with each other in the air and formed into a black ball that turned into a round silhouette, reminding John of a pigment he’d seen online called black 2.0. He didn’t get long to look at it, however, as it hit squarely on the fairy's chest.

The fairy was hurled through the air, impacting the half-wall which acted as a railing for the bend at the bottom of the staircase. The drywall and wood split as she flew through them and she smashed into the staircase out of John’s view, only evident by the sound of a loud thud followed by a pained grunt.

The guy slowly turned to John and pulled his hoodie down, revealing a short afro with shaved sides. John was taken aback as the guy's bright blue eyes pierced him, almost glowing in contrast to his dark skin tone. John snapped out of his shock and instantly took on a fighting stance, seeing the aggressive intent in the guy’s expression.

“That was a dirty move, you asshole. I’m done toying around with you,” a feminine voice called from the staircase.

The guy snapped his gaze towards the voice. “Toying with me? You’ve barely kept up wi-”

A thorn-covered vine ripped him off the ground by his leg and slammed him into the couch before it coiled around, binding him completely to the couch and pulling it to the middle of the room. His yells and screams muted as another vine wrapped around his head, gagging him.

The fairy walked down the stairs and John lept into action, he wasn’t going to wait to be next. As soon as the fairy's foot touched the last step, John grabbed her by her wrists and pinned them to the wall, lifting her half a metre in the air. Moving so that one hand could hold her wrists, his other hand gripped around her throat.

“That’s it!” John snarled. “Today has been long enough, I don’t need this shit! Now, I’m going to ask once, who the fuck are the both of you?”

Surprisingly the Fairy didn’t struggle at all and seemed almost unphased by being bound, which irked John and made his grip tighten. It still didn’t seem to bother her at all; she just continued to smile and stare into John’s eyes. Being this close allowed John to inspect her face. It was quite angular, almost doll-like. Her bubblegum pink skin definitely made her stand out, complemented by the large green eyes. Her hair was odd too, almost looking like flower petals a few shades darker than her skin and tipped with gold.

She also had what looked like antennae which followed her brow slightly, before stretching up to reach her hair. Her ears were elf-like, quite large and pointed, or at least large compared to her size.

All in all, she was quite different looking from the fairies he’d met in the Silverwood Grove. “I apologise if I upset you in any way, My Oberon.” The fairy lowered her head as much as John’s grasp would allow, as if to bow and constantly kept eye contact with John. “It was a mistake on my part, for not introducing myself to you earlier. I thought it would have made a good impression if when I introduced myself I would have already been familiar with your domain, but I see now, I should have made my introduction a priority, Your Highness.”

John sighed upon hearing the first title then almost growled at the second. Realising she wasn’t a threat, John let go of her neck and then lowered her to the ground before releasing her wrists too. “I… why does this day keep getting more and more stressful? I thought after leaving the lab I'd just have a relaxing night.”

“I am sorry, Your Highness. I did not wish to cause you stress,” the fairy replied.

“Will you stop with the Oberon and Highness stuff? Just, you don’t have to be super formal and stuff,” John groaned.

The fairy nodded and let out a huff. “Oh thank Titania. All this prim and proper talk was driving me nuts. Thanks for letting me talk normally. Anyway, should probably go check out the guy, I caught him breaking in.”

John looked over at the couch where the guy was bound. He sighed and rubbed his forehead before walking over to the couch and looking down at the guy who just stared daggers at him.

“I’m going to ungag you and you are going to tell me exactly why you broke into my house, and I’m not in a good mood right now so it better be a damn good reason!” he stated as he reached down to cut the vine around the guy’s mouth. Before he did, however, his fists clenched. The scales on his fists audibly rubbed against each other, as a thought occurred to him.

John suddenly turned more grim. His posture became much more aggressive as anger began to bubble inside of him. “If you’ve done anything to my mom, I’m going to make sure you are unrecognisable to anyone that finds you.”

The fairy flew over and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Brenda hasn’t returned yet; I don’t know this boy’s intentions, but he hasn’t harmed your mother.”

John let out a ragged sigh as his entire body became less tense and he took a moment to calm down. “He’s some kind of thief then?” John turned back to the guy, who seemed to have a range of emotions pass over him before ending at some kind of smug smile, which sent a twinge of aggravation through John as he reached down and used a claw to cut the vine. “Speak, now!”

“You know, assuming I’m a thief just because I’m black is, like, super racist, you know?” the guy chided.

John recoiled. “What? I never said anything about your skin colour. You breaking into my house is the part that makes me assume you’re a thief.”

The guy laughed. “Oh god, the look on your face right now, Little John! Can you untie me at some point? These thorns are kinda digging in.”

John was confused, then recognised the voice. “Wait… Robin? But… What are you doing here? How did you know where I was? Also, why the hell did you break into my house?”

John raked his claws down the thorns causing them to shrivel and wither away. John’s mutations reverted back as he helped Robin sit up on the couch.

“Is it really wise to unbind him?” The fairy asked, moving closer to John.

“Yeah, I think it’s fine, he’s a friend… uh... I think.” John nodded before sitting next to Robin.

The fairy nodded. “I see… Well, seems you two need to talk or something. I will go make sure the real house is fine.” She moved towards the door before turning back. “I’ll wait in your room and introduce myself properly when you are finished here.”

The fairy vanished, not allowing John the chance to approve or argue. John shook his head and looked back.

“So… I’m still waiting for an explanation? What’s with the break-in?” John interrogated.

Robin stood and stretched before turning to look at John. “Hey! You don’t get to be the one annoyed! Dude, you’ve been missing for like a week, it’s like you just vanished! You couldn’t even afford us a message saying you weren’t going to be around for a while or something? I broke in because I was fucking worried about you, we all were!

“The Merry Men have all been privately messaging me asking if you were alright and obviously with me being the closest one to you, it was down to good old Robin Hood to come check on you.”

John let out an exasperated sigh. “Yeah… I should have messaged one of you, sorry. But that doesn’t excuse breaking into my house. None of us exchanged addresses or anything. Heck, we’ve never been on facetime and shit either, so how’d you even find me?”

Robin took a deep breath. “Just… I need to wrap my head around all of this. Fuck, if I’d have known you were Abyssal I wouldn’t have waited this long to make sure you were okay… Fuuuuck, you could have been dead or hooked up to a mana farm or anything… shit!” He took a couple steps before collapsing onto the couch.

“What’s a mana farm?” John asked, cocking his head.

“You gotta be kidding me! I know Brenda was protective but did she really shelter you that much?” Robin asked.

John shifted a little uneasily. “What do you mean? What’s my mom got to do with it?”

Robin turned to face John a little more with a cocked eyebrow. “Well, I mean… if you’re part of the Abyss, I can only assume that your mom has been keeping you off the radar or something?”

“My mom doesn’t know about the Abyss. At least as far as I know, she doesn’t, anyway. I’ve been on the fence about letting her know about this stuff.”

Robin shifted in his seat a little. “Wait, Brenda doesn’t know? Does that mean it was your dad then?”

John clenched his jaw. “Listen, I’m already not in a good mood, so don’t bring that piece of shit sperm donor up. He’s not part of my life and there’s no way he ever will be. Now, are you gonna tell me what you’re talking about?”

“Well, like, I just assumed one of them was an Abyssal, and must have been sheltering you. Like how do you go all your life not knowing you need to be wary of mana farms? Wait a minute…” Robin jumped up off the couch. “You’ve got weird monster claws and there are fairies in your house. I can’t even feel a twinge of mana coming from you. What the fuck is going on!?”

“Oh wait… So I’m something called a late bloomer. I’ve only had my powers for a week. Not sure I can explain you not feeling my magic though, I have heard someone else mention that though... The claws are part of my powers.” John laughed. “Actually, you’re going to get a kick out of my powers.”

John then explained his powers, how he’d met Ellie, the things happening through the Cullis Gate and a few other details while still keeping some things back.

“Dude, your powers are fucking bullshit, seriously. And god damn, you’ve had a week full of it, you should play some video games or something to destress.” Robin laughed as he looked at an Observe screen of a random item in John’s inventory.

“Play video games? My life essentially is one. When I get home, usually my first thought is collapsing in bed.” John exhaled loudly.

“Speaking of bed, that fairy said she was waiting for you up there. Does that mean you’re gonna do something with her too?” Robin smiled and nudged John with his elbow.

“Oh shut up, dude, I don’t even know her yet and-” John was cut off.

“Don’t know her yet, give me a break. You just told me about how you not only lost your virginity this week but also fucked a bunch of other people and Abyssals. You’ve essentially done more in the Abyss after a week than I’ve done my entire life!”

“You keep trying to downplay it all. You’re literally a fairy king and have a bunch of kobolds that worship you and you’ve been complaining about it,” Robin groused. “I know it’s probably a lot to take in all at once but you haven’t just become part of the Abyss, it’s like you’ve thrown yourself in the middle of the pool. This might sound insensitive and I don’t want to downplay personal mental health and stuff but… man up!”

John rubbed his face and let out a huff. “It’s easy for you to say when you’ve been able to get used to this stuff. Do you know how jarring it is to realise the people around you are part of this world? One of my teachers killed a giant fucking dragon in front of me; Moira, the class president or whatever, is some kind of the leader of some cult; the hottest teacher in the world might be part of this shit too; and on top of that a friend I’ve known for years and would have said I know in and out is in on it. And that’s just the people, there’s so much more that I have to process!”

Robin rolled his eyes. “Cry me a river! Come on, dude, it’s not like you to get held up by shit. I get that it’s gonna take a little getting used to but it seems like your hair’s gonna fall out if you keep stressing so much.”

Robin crashed back onto the couch. “You’ve literally had conversations with me and the Merry Men a ton of times about if you got superpowers and shit, and now that you have them, it seems that all you can do is complain about it. Not only that, you got bullshit powers that seemingly have no limit to them. You know what, you said you were gonna do a barrier or something with your girl tomorrow, right? Well, I’m gonna join, I usually stay out of Abyss stuff but how could Robin Hood leave Little John to fend for himself without at least trying to help? Now you better at least send a message in the discord apologising, just tell them you got a girl and they’ll lose their shit enough to forget that you abandoned all of us. Anyway, I’m gonna head out. I did what I came to do, so we can talk tomorrow. Have fun with the cute little fairy, you perv.”

John sighed. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll send you a message once I’m out of school and free, dick.”

Robin laughed and walked towards the door before vanishing. John willed the barrier skill up and **** himself out of it. The trashed living room went dark but John could see it had returned to the tidy room it should be.

“Well, that was unexpected… it wasn’t unwelcome, though. It’s actually pretty good to have him as part of this… Now, I guess I need to find out what that fairy wants and why she’s here,” John thought out loud as he stood up and walked towards the kitchen.

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