-Friedrich Nietzsche

John had only a half-second to process the sheer terror that the idea of someone teaching Moira to drive had inflicted on him before he was slammed into his headrest by the massive g-forces that assaulted him, a slew of four-letter words filling the air both from himself and from the warriors in the back now being pinballed around as Etriyya began to bob and weave through traffic.

Perhaps even more noticeable, and more concerning, was the ripple that he felt pass through the world around them a few seconds later, one John was intimately familiar with. It was a Barrier, one that travelled just slightly faster than the car. John thought at first that the Cabal were attempting to trap them, but no matter how far they went, the Barrier stretched just a little further ahead.

"Keep an eye out back there," Etriyya called out after they passed through their third intersection, "and make sure they don't get into the Barrier too quickly. Takes a lot of effort to constantly shift the borders of a Barrier like this while moving, but if we can gain just a little distance before they-"

"Knight Etriyya, they have infiltrated the Barrier! They are close behind us, perhaps one hundred-"

The Knight behind them who spoke was interrupted as an attack of some kind slammed into the back of their van, followed by a hail of bullets. The gunfire was readily deflected by the armor plating on the vehicle, but the attack actually diverted their path a bit, sending the vehicle skidding on its tires for several feet before it regained traction. Considering the weight of the APC itself as well as all the armored Knights riding in it, John couldn’t help but feel a slight bit of intimidation at the **** that must have been behind that strike.

"I don't think I could move this thing with my entire mana pool… better be careful," John noted just in case the chase turned into a more direct confrontation.

"Alright, I was hoping that they'd take too long to get in the Barrier and be stuck in traffic or left behind," Etriyya noted, snarling as she turned the APC to take a corner far closer than it was probably meant to. "I guess that means we're going to have to rely on my driving skills. Buckle up, this is gonna get rough."

She wasn't lying - John lost count of the number of times their vehicle went up on two wheels after the seventh, as Etriyya insisted on taking every corner so tightly that a single degree would've surely ended their chances of maintaining balance. John was convinced that she was utilizing magic to stabilize their vehicle, not that he could think up any better alternatives himself. The car continued to rock as occasional blasts caught them.

"Not gonna be able to lose them," Etriyya cautioned, "and I don't think we're going to make it back to home base. We're not even halfway there yet, and they're zeroing in on-"

Halfway through a particularly egregious turn, John heard something reminiscent of an explosion and one of the vehicle's tires must have ruptured, because Etriyya finally lost control of their vehicle. She extended her right hand as the van started to tilt, a blue rune glistening on the back of her gauntlet, but it was all for naught. The van fell onto its side and scraped across the pavement of the Barrier, halfway through tumbling again when it went off the road, hit the sidewalk, and flipped through the front window of a coffee shop.

A cloud of coarse language filled the vehicle as the seatbelts that fastened them in and the airbags that immediately deployed were more or less the only things that saved the Order Knights and John from being tossed about in the vehicle; he wasn't sure exactly how long they were bouncing for, but when the vehicle eventually came to a stop, the front end of the Order's APC was jammed up against the counter of the coffee shop, with four tires now completely flattened and a cluster of disoriented Order Knights climbing their way out of the unbarred back seats.

“Everyone out! Take up positions at the windows - John, did Tricia ever upgrade your phone?”

“N-no, she was supposed to, but with the attack she’s been busy moving everything-“

“Here, take mine! Call Moira, she’s listed as ‘Milady’ in my contacts. Let her know the Cabal are following us and that they have us pinned at… uh… ‘Six-cylinder Espresso’. Looks like at least seven, maybe eight of them piled in two vehicles!”

“Got it,” John called out, catching the phone that Etriyya threw to him. Using the van as cover, he took the “Employees Only” door into the back room. It turned out to be a break room; John was rather hoping for a storage closet so he could feel more isolated and safe, but he made do with the comfort of a loveseat and the calming thrum of a running refrigerator.

The sounds of combat came muffled through the door as John slammed it shut behind himself, frantically attempting to work the phone he’d been given. It wasn’t too hard, even though it was a different model - an older model, actually. A slider phone, the next closest thing to a flip phone, and something that made John vaguely reminisce about his middle school years just by holding it.

“Etriyya, good to hear from you. What were her terms? What did the Cabal offer-“

“Moira,” John half-shouted into the phone, “the Cabal are here! They ambushed us after we met with Lady Arista - we’re pinned in the coffee shop about halfway between meeting points, six-barrel latte or- fuck, I don’t know, I’m kind of panicking here! We’re two blocks down from the Halflings & Horrors Comic Book Store!”

“By Gaia, John, can I send you nowhere?!” Moira shouted back at him. John heard no further words addressed to him specifically, but in the moments before the call was disconnected, John heard her shouting orders to other people in the background.

“Not really, no,” John mumbled, storing the phone in his pocket for a moment as he tried to orient himself. The Cabal were attacking, but so far, nobody was seriously injured. If anything, Etriyya seemed to have a far better handle on the situation than John’s last encounter with them while alongside Tricia, which gave John hope that they might be able to defend the little coffee shop, despite the distinct lack of drone support and laser eyes.

John attempted to open the door back to the main area, but as soon as he did, a cluster of blue needles stuck themselves in the door frame, one even weaving through the tiny gap and sticking itself in his arm.

“John, hide! They explode!*”

John threw the door shut by reflex, having somewhat learned his lesson from disobeying Tricia the prior day. On the other side of the door, he heard the sound of explosions begin, one by one. He had perhaps one or two more instants before his arm went too.

”Maybe if I use Shadowform...” John thought, for the first time willing his latest talent into action.. His form began to blur, flesh melding into shadows.

Then his arm exploded with azure light.

-29 HP! [Partial Evasion]

John cried out as the blue shard in his arm exploded, sending searing pain through his body. For just a split second, it seemed as if blue magic was expanding through his body, but either it was temporary or Gamer’s Body soon corrected it, as it faded almost as rapidly as it appeared. John was left lying on the floor with the remnants of the door his only barricade against further assaults. He regained his mental processes before any further spells could assail him, crawling behind a table and several corporate-branded chairs to shield himself from whatever Cabal mage had dealt such an accurate blow. The door to the main room, where the rest of the Order Knights were still fighting, was now held firm by a wall of ice that had engulfed the door and several feet of the frame around it. John could only imagine the thickness of the magically conjured ice on the other side of the door and how much **** it would take to dislodge that much chilled material.

“Shit, I thought it’d activate instantly… Gaia, but I wish I’d brought Seras along for this,” John said, for only a moment wishing that he had the resolve Moira did to demand subservience. It was a moment of weakness, of lack of will - John banished it as he did the pain, drawing his sword from his inventory and steeling his resolve.

”I will not become like that - I will never **** another to fight in my stead, I will-“

John winced as the blue explosion became a manifestation of cold magics, engulfing his arm in ice. The door mimicked the effect, becoming sealed in its shut state with a wall of ice encompassing the dark wood. No additional damage was inflicted to him, but his arm stiffened as the chill started to affect his mobility, Gamer’s Body struggling against the outward influence of subzero temperatures.

“What a pity… I had hoped that such a disruption was a sign of a more elevated battle. Instead I find a flock of ill-fitted knights battling against an untrained mob of wannabe enforcers wishing that they had the power or skill to be known as an influential **** in the Abyss. And the most promising suspect in all of this - the one who seems to be at the center of it all - cannot even handle a simple delayed-eruption spell with a frost element tacked on as crudely and ill-fittingly as a tiara upon some whorish teenager hoping to celebrate their coming-of-age as if the number of years they have wasted space upon this earth was relevant to anything other than their mundane laws about consent and inebriation."

John would have retorted against the voice, if he hadn't been so shocked at its presence in the first place. Instead when he turned, he found himself focused entirely on the person speaking. She was a woman of what seemed like obviously Asian descent, probably eastern rather than southern, judging by the paler tone of her skin and the features of her face. She wore a black dress that hung in odd ways John was not sure of how to describe - it was so long in the sleeves that it hung from her wrists like a Wraith, with wisps of fabric trailing every time she moved her hands, but its lower end trailed so short that it was almost indistinguishable from her waistline. As she moved toward John, he was aware that each step brought her painfully close to exposing her nether regions. The cloth swayed and seemed to defy gravity itself, bending in odd ways where it ended, as if it truly were a Wraith or the cloth was crafted from some dark magic itself.

But the clothes were secondary to the very essence of the woman. Several shards of ice seemed to cling to her in various places, so crystal-clear they were almost unnoticeable except that John was so caught off-guard by her very appearance that he was inspecting every part of her being. Most noticeable were those forming around her feet - she was striding toward John, and with every step more and more of the jagged shards formed, outlining her path as she stepped closer to John and knelt near his side

Her expression was more noticeable and more meaningful than any choice in decorative attire - she glanced at John as if he were a mere ornament, something decorating the land around her for her amusement, and nothing more. Even her touch upon his skin was as cold as the ice surrounding her, and her face never showed the joy of contact with another living being.

"I had hoped that the whispers of a breach in the Divide were more substantial… you're little more than a wish, though. A hope whispered into the gales of fate, adrift only on flotsam salvaged from optimism amidst the tides of destiny itself. I wonder how well you will fare when your waters wash upon the shores and you face the immovable rocks that form the foundation of this world?"

"What the fuck are you talking about? Are you Cabal, or-"

John was cut off in mid-sentence as someone who he recognized as assuredly Cabal broke the window to the break room he'd been hiding in, a blast of crimson arcane energy sending glass shards over his shoulder. He winced as they washed over him, a few shallow cuts appearing on his torso.

-2 HP!
-5 HP!

What was more worrying than that slim damage, though, was the deep purple blast that was being prepared by the tall man John saw emerging through the now open entryway to his safe hiding place, the pale skin of the scarred man glistening particularly noticeably in the high noon sunlight that sparkled from his sweaty skin.

"Knew one of you'd be chickenshit enough to hide out in the back… just never thought some broad would be dumb enough to come along with you!"

The man raised his hand, a blood-red energy swelling at his fingertips. John couldn't tell what he was getting ready to do, but he could read the killing intent in the man's eyes. Bizarrely enough, true to his words, his attack was pointed somewhere between John and the woman, designating them both as equal targets.

Without thinking, John threw himself forward. Maybe he was still confused and shocked by the abruptness of this confrontation. Maybe he was just disoriented by the explosions that had landed himself and the rest of the Order in this godforsaken coffee shop; maybe his father had just drilled too many chivalry lessons into his mind before disappearing from John's life, and they were finally kicking in. Whatever the root cause was, John found himself in front of the strange ice-cold femme fatale who had intruded on his saferoom, taking the full brunt of the unknown magic that struck his chest with the heat and **** of a small bomb.

-67 HP!

"AHHHHH!"

John's cry came as his vision whited out from pain. When he had full appreciation of his senses again, he saw the Cabal mage standing near him, hand outstretched and eyes so wide John could have fit an entire fist into their sockets. But the gaze did not linger on him, no - it was focused entirely on the woman, who now stood between John and his assailant with a gaze half annoyed and half amazed.

"You… you are the one I was informed of, I have no doubts. My sources are reliable, and deep. But I cannot bring myself to believe that one who possesses such talents could also possess such foolishness," the woman noted, seeming as if she were talking more to herself than to John or the Cabal mage before her.

"Foolishness?!" the man roared, ignoring her obvious focus on John in favor of his dark magics. "I'll show you real foolishness!"

"Yes, yes you shall indeed," the woman noted idly. The man brought his arm down in a crimson arc, bringing forth magic that shattered the tiled ceiling above John and ruptured the ground under his feet, but the woman didn't even move to block it. The magic simply dissipated across her neck, a wall of ice forming between her skin and the offensive spell. There was no sign she even noticed the attack… until she frowned, narrowing her eyes.

She never turned, never even looked at the man. All the same, a cascade of black spikes emerged from her back, a mixture of the ice that surrounded her feet and the flowing darkness that seemed to comprise her clothes. They pierced through the man's chest effortlessly, severing arteries, veins, and respiratory pathways in an instant as they pinned the man to the ceiling, collapsing his chest and rendering him helpless. The occasional whisper of a cry escaped him, as the ice slowly expanded to cover every part of his existence. In his new crystal casing, he was starkly visible, sending tremors down John’s spine as the man’s final horrified expression was literally frozen in place.

"Guess you didn't really need my help," John said quietly, smiling in a vain attempt to hide his terror. It was all he could do - the crimson magic had left John wracked with pain, more even than the bullets he'd taken and the spells he'd tanked in prior encounters with the Cabal and their minions. It seemed as if the spell was specifically made to inflict pain, and John had encountered little enough of that stimulus that he was only able to deal with it by curling up into a ball and trying to fight through it in vain.

"I did not. I think you knew that, somewhere… yet here you are, defending my life and honor against such a crude ****. Either you are attempting to gain my favor in the most blunt and ineffective manner I can imagine or you are truly an imbecile, who knows little and nothing of the world he now dwells in. Based on what I have gathered, the latter is not only more fitting but fits well with the description of the man I am seeking. Tell me, is your name John Newman?"

"I- no, I'm-"

"Ah, but I can read it in your voice that my guess has struck true," she cautioned, leaning down beside him. Blood dripped from the ceiling, a crimson not unlike that of the mage it was leaking from, soaking the floor and slowly ebbing toward John and his damsel-in-distress-turned-sadistic-captor. "And if that intelligence is accurate, perhaps the rest is too, no matter how fantastical… that would be intriguing indeed."

"Intelligence? You must work for Lady Arista, or are the Cabal just spreading rumors now?" John asked, only half-sarcastically, as he tried to figure out how to reliably work his muscles under the strain of the pain they were still spasming through. Before he could gain a reliable locomotion to his upper body, the woman knelt down on top of him, driving her knee between his shoulder blades so hard that John could only cry out in sudden pain, despite the lack of a damage indication from his UI.

"I work for no one," the woman said bitterly, twisting her knee in John's spine out of spite, "but many work for me. I would have sent one of them, did this trail not seem too outlandish to be falsified in the first place, but it seems now that it doesn't matter. You're no better than a newborn - no abilities can compensate for the experience you lack."

"Sorry to disappoint," John grunted, struggling to his feet, "but there's only one person I care about pleasing - and it's sure as hell not you."

The woman's disappointment faded. Slowly, as if a new thought had just occurred to her, that resentment and bitter defeat faded away. In its place came a devious, frightful glee.

"Oh, fear not, John Newman. You may be less than ideal, but I can see a spark in you that may yet blossom. The most powerful and righteous of rages often comes from those who start the most innocent; I see the beginnings of a fury in you that cannot be contained. If I am wrong, I have lost little… and if I am right, I have gained more power than can be comprehended by mere mortals."

"Glad everything's turning up roses for you," John spat, limping toward the door. The Asian woman cut him off, although she never appeared to move. One hand landed on John's chest while the other planted its palm firmly on his throat, locking him in place with an icy grip. Even her skin was like the arctic, with no tangible pulse or warmth to separate her skin from the shooting pain that gripped John's body the moment she touched him.

"Of course… if I am wrong," the woman said slowly, reaching into a satchel at her waist, "…then this will almost certainly kill you. I pray for you, John Newman. Come to me when you burn more brightly than the hate of those who rise against you. Winter knows no boundaries, no mercy, no compassion. It consumes all in a deathly grip and culls the weak and the sickly. Bring yourself to me again when you have become the fire that can shape that ice into something that is to be admired, not feared. When we can create something as beautiful as it is deadly and bring a living song of passion and bittersweet love to this undeserving world!"

The woman pulled her hand free, revealing a blood-red crystal the size of John's fist. John struggled against the woman's grip, but his muscles seemed frozen in place by her very presence. He was only able to mount a token resistance, his shivering fingers just managing to clutch at the wrist pinning him to the wall of the coffee shop before the other palm thrust forward.

John cried out in pain as the hand holding the crystal shot into his chest, driving the ruby-red stone deep into his body. There was an immense amount of agony the second it touched his skin; while the woman's body was ice cold, the stone burned with a heat like a small sun, searing into John's flesh the memory of its shape as he absorbed all that it was, all that it had ever contained.

ERROR: Gamer's Body failure; unable to convert Shard of AEGHI%&!($! into HP damage, REBOOTING: 8% COMPLETE

The crystal manifested in John's mind, reflecting and amplifying the energies that were tearing apart his very being in a torrent of pain and suffering. John screamed as fractals overcame his essence, his pain and torment caught in an eternal reflection that he was **** to gaze upon a thousand-fold. As he cried out in pain, he screamed back at his own misery, and two more cried out in sympathy. Four more whispered their sorrows, and eight more fell into blackness as the suffering and damnation of one soul became more than his consciousness could bear.