Sad to be aboard.

"Fan-fucking-tastic," Robyn muttered as the two of them stopped in the middle of Springfield's ‘famous’ shopping mall. It had been hours already since they had started searching the city for all of the places where Otrov might hang out. By that point, John didn't see much use in hunting for the assassin. As far as he could tell, she had already left town. Robyn insisted that it was too soon for her to be gone already, that it would have taken time to move all of them even with magic, but she didn't seem sure. Mostly because she seemed to know less about magic than John did.

Her insistence to keep looking seemed more like hope to John than actual surety. Otrov was gone, and they were already at one of the last few places that Eddie had given them to search. After they checked a couple of clothing stores, a music shop, and a ramen shop called Satonaka's, there wasn't going to be anywhere else for them to look. They had tried all of the local froyo shops and liquor stores and found no one who resembled Otrov in any way. Hell, they even tried checking to make sure that Otrov hadn't changed her hair and eye colors like Michel apparently had.

The closer they eventually got to Satonaka's ramen hut, the angrier Robyn seemed to get. She gradually abandoned all attempts at being nice or maintaining her manners and began to point the finger at John before she started swearing. She blamed him, albeit briefly, and decided that it was his fault that Otrov had slipped by them, specifically when he stopped looking for Otrov just so he could 'answer some texts.'

The first and most important message that John had noticed came from his mom. It was short and to the point, and asked him where he was. Apparently, both he and his mother had left the barrier at some point last night while he was blackout drunk. He was in the middle of telling her about his search across town when another message had interrupted him. It was a short text and a little curt, but he easily recognized who sent it after scrolling past all the other exposing messages that Mary had sent him.

{Are you okay???} He blinked at the cheerleader's blue text and then furrowed his brow abruptly. That was a strange thing to get from one of his old bullies. A part of him idly wondered if Frank or Vanessa had planned for some kind of new **** for him that day and he missed it by skipping school. It made him smile slightly to think that he had foiled one of their stupid plans.

{Yeah, I'm okay... Why?} He hit send and watched as the message was almost immediately received and read. Robyn had shouted at him at the time to pull his head out of his ass and pay attention, but Mary started texting back almost immediately. It took a little while for her to answer him, like she was writing a kind of huge comment to scold him with, but... it was a lot shorter than that.

{You aren't at school.} Her answer stunned John. He stood in place waiting and on the verge of typing up a reply, but he never hit send. A part of him didn't even know what to write at first. That comment was the only thing she said. There was no name calling, no ridiculing or telling him that he was doing something stupid. It was just that. When he finally realized that she wasn't going to add on to her statement, he started trying to make his own reply. It took him a couple of tries. At first he couldn't figure out what it was that he wanted to say. He tried asking why he needed to be at school, but while writing the message he deleted it, changing his mind halfway through to hopefully ask her something better. He thought about taunting her and Vanessa and Frank since they weren't going to be able to hurt him while he wasn't there, but it didn't feel right to do that. Eventually, after thinking it over for what felt like an hour, he just sent her the simplest reply he could think of.

{...So?} The conversation ended there. Mary never even sent a reply, and John was left to just stare at his cellphone screen in confusion and wonder what that had all been about. Robyn yelled at him again, and he resumed his search.

When they finally got to Satonaka's shop, they stopped. The two of them sat down at one of the nearby tables in the place and, feeling defeated, just ordered some food. Of course, John barely touched his food. Robyn tried goading him into it, but every time he went to pick up his utensils, he caught a glimpse of the ring on his finger... the ring he took from Michel, and he lost his appetite. Robyn gradually went through her own meal. She was stubborn and hungry enough at the moment to somehow push past the fact that they had failed to keep her soup from getting cold. When it was finished and she was done slurping on the amber-hued liquid and stringy noodles in her bowl, she stood up without John and apologized for being so rude throughout the day.

"I'm sorry... you didn't deserve that," she said, and when he tried to stand to follow her to the last place they were looking for, she pushed him back into his seat. "Finish your food. I'll search the next place on my own." She didn't give him any room to argue with her; as soon as he was back in his seat, she walked off leaving John to leer at the way her tight, toned butt swayed from side to side as she walked away.

"It'd be easier to do that if I was a little hungrier..." he muttered and shoved the bowl of ramen aside. Despite how intoxicating its pork and soy fumes were, John still couldn't bring himself to get into the food after Robyn had left. His Gamer's Mind and Gamer's Body abilities lessened the impact that hunger seemed to be taking on his body, so it was incredibly easy for him to ignore it. After making his first few attempts at eating with the blonde woman there, he wasn't feeling particularly well when it came to the idea of food. Instead, he got up from his seat, double-checked to make sure that he couldn't find Robyn's firm, toned butt anywhere within sight, dumped the last of his meal, and then went outside to wait at the car door.

As he was walking, his attention was gradually brought back down to the ring that was stuck on his finger. In a way... the ring seemed a little gaudy to him. It was so polished and finely decorated that a part of him felt like it was out of place on his hand. The mithril band alone that the ring had been made out of captured light and glistened like some kind of metallic diamond. It was utterly smooth to the touch, without a single blemish or chink on the item of jewelry, and so... innately carved up with magical runes and sigils that John swore he could almost see them permanently etched within the ring's socketed emerald. Compared to what the band was made out of though, the gem seemed... dark. When he stared into its crystallic surface, a part of him felt like something was staring back. He twisted the ring around on his finger, testing the few ways he could actually move the item around and watching how the emerald reflected light from its surface, and then stopped when it wouldn't even budge an inch off his finger.

He didn't like the idea of having a cursed item on himself... but a part of him suddenly felt glad that he had something so powerful... at least for the time being. At the very least he could have always used it in case of an emergency or to escape, just like his Instant Barrier ability. He-

"That's a nice ring. Where'd you get it?" A deep, rumbling voice abruptly called out from off to John's side. This voice was so loud and so strong right off the bat that the familiar accent threw John off kilter. It echoed down the length of one of the mall's many, many hallways, but no louder than it echoed in John's own mind. The sadistic grin that the Gamer found staring back at himself was only offset by the strangely-kind, glistening, blue eyes. The other man's short blond hair was still matted to his head like the last time John had seen him, and the fist-sized hole in the center of Michel's chest did nothing to calm the Gamer down. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

"Y-you-you're dead..." John stuttered and watched as his old, blonde, giant of a friend picked up a long, red, stringy bit of viscera from his chest and flung it to the ground. He nodded after a moment, sighed... and then glared down at John again.

"Yeah, what can I say? The Cabal specializes in ****."