Walk in the park... uh, forest

The class filtered in, and Miss Addams explained their assignments. John finished the work quickly thanks to his language setting. He sat, looking around before bringing his character sheet up. ’I should probably spend my stat points. What I need most is strength and probably endurance. Hopefully, that and my hand to hand skills will help me in any situation I might get into right now.’ John pondered for a moment before deciding on what exactly he should spend his points on. First, he spent 7 points to bring all his stats to at least 15, next he put 2 into agility and endurance bringing them up to 17 and 3 into strength making that 18. Happy with his decision he hit accept.

John felt his muscles tighten momentarily like he’d just overexerted himself in gym class, then a relaxing wave pass over his body. With nothing else to do, he started to think of ways to explain his powers to Ellie while using Meditate. He decided that if he just told her she would probably think he was lying or crazy, so he would have to show her, but he would still have to try to explain it before so that she wouldn’t be blindsided.

He remembered what Miss Wentworth had said and thought that the best thing to do would be to head to the forest just outside of town so that he was away from everyone and to use a barrier. Which he’d have to figure out how to do. He took out his class schedule and groaned. He had IT and shop next and didn’t really need to go to either. ’Maybe I could just skip them? It isn’t like I struggle with computers and all I’ll end up doing in shop is using Craft again. If I wanted to do that, I could just do it after class, and it might be a good idea to avoid magic in school anyway in case someone saw.’

He pulled his phone out and began texting.

< J: Hey, so my afternoon classes are a little boring, how about we meet up a little earlier? >

< E: Couldn’t wait to see me, eh? Sure, I’m not doing a lot right now anyway, just sprucing up my online dating profile :P xx >

< J: You so **** for dick pics? >

< E Yeah, I don’t have enough in my collection ;) x >

< J: lol :P >

< J: I can either skip straight after this class in about 30 minutes or so, or if you need a little more time, I could wait until lunch at 12:30. It’s up to you >

< E: Well, I can tell how **** you are, so I wouldn’t want to make you wait. I’ll set off in 30 minutes x >

< J: Nice, I’ll see you later then x >

< E: ;) xx >

The rest of class dragged out and he was a little nervous about what was to come when he met Ellie that all of his plans seemed bad. Which is why he decided to wing it.

“Vanessa, John, please wait a moment, I need to speak with you,” Miss Addams called. Everyone else left, leaving just John, Miss Addams and Vanessa. John walked up to the front and could feel Vanessa burning a hole in the back of his skull, not that it was anything new.

“Thanks for staying behind. The reason I needed to see you, Vanessa, is that you are failing in Spanish and it’s very likely that you won’t pass the course. I know you might not care about a second language, but it’s important that you at least pass the class. I’ve asked John if he would tutor you outside of school time. You really need to take this seriously, Vanessa. If I don’t see any improvement in your grades, I’m going to have to have a word with the coach and have him suspend you from the cheerleading team.”

“What!? You can’t be serious! Why him of all people!? You can’t do this!” Vanessa yelled, her face contorted and starting to turn red in anger.

John remained silent. “I am serious. I chose him because he is the top of the class,” Miss Addams explained with a soft but firm voice, trying to calm Vanessa.

Vanessa was fuming and turned to John. “Okay, what do you get out of this then? Because I can tell you one thing, you won’t get anything from me,” she spat.

“What John gets out of this isn’t important to you. The only thing you need to concern yourself with is getting your grades up.” Miss Addams looked over to John. “Now you need to figure out a time and place for your tutor sessions.”

Vanessa didn’t take her eyes off John and scoffed once Miss Addams finished talking. “Give me your fucking phone.” She held her hand out. John hesitated before handing his phone over. “Unlocked, idiot!” Vanessa pushed the phone back at John. After unlocking it he handed his phone over; she quickly typed something in, then handed it back. “I’ve put my address in your phone. You can make your own way there after school tomorrow, I don’t want to be seen with you.”

Before John even managed to get a word out, Vanessa had stormed out of the classroom. John loaded up the love egg app before Vanessa was out of range and opened up the presets before selecting the “Tease” option. He then put his phone away looking back to Miss Addams. “That went... about as expected,” John sighed. “Thanks again for doing that.”

Miss Addams rubbed her temples. “Just make sure her grades improve, please. Go on, you don’t want to be late for your next class.”

After leaving school John jumped on the bus to get to the nature trail. He smiled looking forward to seeing Ellie. It didn’t take long to get there and Ellie hadn’t arrived. He sat on the bus stop bench while he waited. He couldn’t really think of a good plan during class, but he had remembered a small clearing in the forest with a bunch of rocks around it that he thought would be perfect. He was just thinking about where exactly it was when the next bus arrived.

“Oh look, a wild nerd. I’ve heard that’s good luck… or was it bad luck?” Ellie laughed as she climbed off the bus.

John laughed, “Hey Ellie, umm, you look great.”

“Aww thanks, you don’t look so bad yourself,” she said as she leaned down, giving John a quick peck on the lips. She stretched up and took a deep breath through her nose before looking out into the forest. “I love nature trails, they are so peaceful. Shall we get going then?”

John motioned her towards the dirt path. “After you.”

They began walking through the forest. The sound of the town had vanished, and in its place rose the sound of nature. John spent a couple of minutes glancing down at Ellie's hand, wondering if it was okay for him to hold it and how he should go about it. Ellie looked over and giggled a little. “You don’t have to wait for permission. It’s not like we haven’t done more than just hold hands, you know.” John reached his hand over and took hold of hers. “So… you wanted to talk to me about something?” Ellie asked.

“Yeah, kind of, umm... It’s probably easier to show you which is why I wanted to come out here. There is a clearing about 20 minutes walk from here and I thought that would be the best place for it,” John explained.

“You aren’t about to introduce me to your sex cult or something, are you?” Ellie smiled as she bumped her shoulder against him softly.

“You caught me, I’m about to introduce you as my newest member,” John joked, making them both laugh.

“I bet your teachers won’t be happy that you skipped their classes just to come to spend time with widdle ol’ me,” she teased. She leaned in to rest her head on his shoulder and looked up into his eyes.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m doing great in biology, I could probably do a better job at teaching computer class than the actual teacher, and I’m kind of useless at shop so it isn’t like I’ll be missing out on anything,” John reassured her. “Were you doing anything fun or interesting before dropping everything just to come meet me?” John asked with a cheeky grin.

“No, not really. I was just trying an MMO called Black Desert Online. Well, I say that, but I really spent the entire time playing with the character creator. My character was super hot though, so I’m sure she’ll kick-ass.” John smiled and watched Ellie's excitement as she talked.

After walking for a few minutes, Ellie suddenly stopped and grabbed John by the arm. "Did you just see that?" she asked as she pointed to a line of 6 hedgehogs walking into a tree stump.

"Oh wow, they're so cute," John said quietly.

"No, well yeah, but you saw the first one right? I'm 100% sure it had a tiny crown," she claimed.

"Maybe it was a leaf or something?" John rationalised.

"Hmm, yeah, maybe you're right, but I was sure I saw it." She frowned.

"Well, either way, the hedgehogs were cute. Come on, let's keep going, the spot I was talking about should be off the main path just up ahead," John said, taking Ellie's hand again.

They followed the path another minute before coming to a large boulder. John led the way off the beaten path, and five minutes later they came to a clearing. It was a rough circle, around 15 feet in diameter. There were 7 stones around the edge with one being slightly taller and thinner than the rest. The inside of the circle was a bed of moss, but it was uncharacteristically bright green, devoid of weeds and seemed like someone had made it like that.

"Okay, so are we here? What did you want to say, er, show me?" Ellie asked.

"Right, umm," John scratched the back of his neck then continued, "I need you to promise to keep an open mind and just let me explain, okay?"

"Oh god! You are in a sex cult, aren't you?" She jabbed; John gave her an unamused stare. "Fine, I promise that I'll give you a chance to explain your cult first," she laughed.

John took a deep breath. "So when I woke up the day we met I had powers and-"

Ellie cut him off, "Oh, so you became a superhero then." She laughed.

John ignored her interjection. "I went into the park that day to practice using them and to level up because my abilities are video game themed."

"What a shock," Ellie cut in again.

"Okay, never mind! I'll just show you," John snapped. He focused on the circle that they were in, trying to envision the barriers that he'd been in before. He saw a slight glimmer creating a dome around them.

Skill Unlocked: Create Barrier - 20MP

Skill Unlocked: Cullis Gate - 100MP

John’s eyes bugged out as he saw the cost of the new skill he’d gotten and wondered what it could be. Suddenly blue glyphs or runes began to glow on the large stones.

“John, what’s going on?” Ellie asked, clearly confused and worried.

“I’m not sure; this is the first time I’ve done this spell, so this might be how it is supposed to work,” John answered unconvincingly. Ellie just shot him an even more worried look before it felt like the world began spinning. It became brighter and brighter until neither of them could keep their eyes open. Moments later the spinning stopped and the lights slowly dimmed.

John felt dizzy and fell back onto his ass. He scrunched his eyes, rubbing them before opening them to see that the forest around them had vanished.