They were back at the mansion, John had made sure that they were in private. It was just him and Undine in Rave’s and his room. The elementals assured no one would interrupt them, staying outside. When John had come back with a pretty pissed expression, that had raised a lot of eyebrows. Under the promise that he would explain in a bit, everyone had let him pass.

On a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 was not at all and 10 the anger he had felt when he found out that Thana was torturing Rave, he was currently at a strong 6. It wasn’t the act himself that made him this livid. Fighting monsters like that on the daily meant that he got into fucked up situations like that at least once a day. Pain was a constant companion of his lifestyle. They went through dozens of combat engagements each day. Mistakes were natural.

He had been stabbed, ripped open, burned, choked, partly eaten, his bones had been broken, and he had been through all kinds of other painful and awful experiences. Sometimes, not even three layers of defence were enough; this was just the nature of fighting enemies that were roughly his own strength day in and day out.

The reason why he still came up on top all the time was that he was maintaining a clear command structure. One could be the greatest of friends with the people in one’s raid party, but if one did not make precise orders when was is necessary, then that friendship was a bigger hindrance than it did good. With most of his party being hooked up to his mind, this was not a problem that regularly occurred.

Yet, Undine compromising that once would have barely triggered a three on that scale. A mild scolding and he would have left it as it was. A blunder, a failed experiment, nothing more. Happened to the best of them. However, her move today and the short burst of what was behind that calm façade of hers finally had pushed John’s mild annoyance with her inability to talk about whatever had been bothering her for the past weeks from mild annoyance into proper frustration.

“So?” he spat out.

They were facing each other. Undine was sitting on the bed while he had planted a chair in front of her. Arms crossed, he stared her down. Undine looked back, but did not quite look back. Her eyes missed his face slightly. A frown set on her otherwise emotionless face. She had completely isolated her thoughts. John could feel nothing from her. He could have torn that down, and for a moment, he seriously considered it. Simply breaking into her mind and digging up whatever she was hiding would give him answers quickly.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes in a forced attempt to calm himself down to at least a 4 on the scale. “What is your problem?” John said when he succeeded in getting down to 5. Undine’s eyes emptily stared ahead. He snapped once in front of her face. She jumped back without blinking.

“I want to know,” he repeated, “what your problem is.”

Undine stayed silent. “For fuck’s sake,” John voiced his annoyance with an exasperated whisper. His voice rose afterwards. “Do you have anything to say? At all? An explanation, an apology?”

“I am sorry, I would do anything to turn back time…”

“ANYTHING?” John asked. “Would you murder your sisters to do it? Would you sell your soul? You won’t even tell me what’s wrong! To quote you, yourself: Do not spout empty phrases, Undine.” The irony of this situation wasn’t lost on John. Way back when he was training for the fight with Thana, she had given him a lecture about this exact same thing. He could have lived without a reversal of these roles. “The truth is ugly and selfish; I have glanced at what goes on in that head of yours, and I can see that that remains as true as ever. I know it, you know it – you know better than everyone. You were the one that lecture me on this. Just tell me what this is about so I can try helping you!” The heel of his left foot tapped the ground at a constant, nervous pace.

The tapping and silence remained the only constant in their talk, and John only extended that pause by doing another breathing exercise until he was down to a 3.

“Do you remember how you told me that you expected honesty from me? Why are you being such a hypocrite right now?” Undine visibly shifted at the accusation, yet remained speechless. “I will force myself into your mind if you leave me no other choice,” John warned her. “I can’t have you be a potential risk to the group while this tournament goes on. We need to be at peak performance, not a scrambled mess.”

“…3 days…” Undine mumbled, her eyes as unmoving as they were throughout the entire talk, the tone of her voice clear in its misery. “Give me three days, please. Then I will tell you everything.”

John leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath.

Three days. That would mean tomorrow and then there was the Christmas pause. The chances of him having to fight in that time were miniscule. “…Fine,” John agreed, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. “The 25th, I expect you to have sorted out what you want to tell me by then. If not, I will… will have to force it out of you.”

He stood up and walked over to Undine, who kept her head low. Then he bowed down and put his arms around her. “I just want all of us to be happy,” he whispered. “I hope you find a way to tell me. I don’t want to hurt you, in no way do I ever want that. At the same time, this cannot go on.”

“I understand,” Undine’s melodic voice seemed a slight bit more upbeat as she crawled out of her complete isolation to give him the slightest hint of determination. The willingness to find a solution.

Her cold arms wrapped around his back, and they just hugged for a moment. Then she went incorporeal, and John was left alone. “You better not run away from this,” he mumbled, knowing she could hear, and turned to leave the room.

Gnome, who had been standing guard at the door, spared herself the question of how it went, she was connected to his mind after all. His girlfriend, however, wasn’t. “So… wanna fill me in now?” she asked, leaning against the wall opposite to the entrance.

John didn’t need to go greatly in-depth. Rave already knew about the fact that Undine had been isolating herself. Whatever may happen, she was still the person John loved the most. Anything that worried him, she knew within the day, from his own lips.

“Well, that’s a downer,” Rave sighed. “I don’t like downers, they suck.”

“Yeah,” John agreed. She walked up to him and pulled him back into the room, “…We gonna play some League of Legends and forget all about it for an hour or two!”

“Don’t I get a say in that?” John complained, a small smile blooming on his mentally exhausted face.

“Do ya ever?” Rave laughed and pulled his spirit right out of the mud with that simple sound; “Ya know what we should do after that?”

““Just cuddle!”” they said at the same time. “

Jinxed,” Rave tapped him on the forehead. “Can’t talk ‘til someone says your name.”

John played along and let her pull him by the hand to the office desk where they had put down their laptops and sit him down. Then she took the chair John had left at the bed and placed it back in its usual place next to him.

She started up the laptop. “Mhm, nice and quiet, none of your smartery,” Rave mused, placing her left hand on the back of his right. He turned his hand around, and then her hand laid in his, palm on palm. Her hand was soft, but as his thumb gently rubbed over the back of it, he felt the bumps and rough spots that came from years of practicing martial arts. No amount of magic power could fix that slight imperfection, that bit of roughness that came from the human body. Neither did John want it too.

Perfection was plain in what it was. Imperfection revealed ever new facets. There was a reason diamonds were cut with a sheer endless number of surfaces and not polished into a single orb - besides technical hardship. ‘This metaphor doesn’t really hold up,’ John thought and dropped it. He liked imperfection, and that was it.

“So, let me be a bit stupid here, but I am thinking about getting this,” Rave announced and opened the Abyss Auction. What she pulled up was the selling info for a butt plug. “Ya know, for Lydia?” the techno-lover giggled. “So she can actually have a stick up her ass.”

John amusedly blew air out of his nose.

“Mhm, taking that as a yes then. Christmas gifts are nice, wanna pitch in for this next one? It is going to be pretty costly.” What Rave pulled up then, John needed a long time to read over.

At the end he nodded, being still jinxed and all that.

“Thought so, hope Thana is going to like it. Gonna get my money from ya later,” Rave added the article to the cart. She showed him some other Christmas gifts she was thinking about.

If she had something planned for Aclysia, Momo or any of the elementals, that stayed behind closed bars. Probably because she didn't want that information to leak to the affected parties.

“Now, we are going to do something stupid,” Rave decided. “Like play Teemo plus Cassio top. You play Teemo.” John tapped his girlfriend, and she laughed when she saw his sour face. “Okay, okay, John, we can do something more sensible.”

“Oh, thank God,” John said. “I still hate that hamster.”

“‘Cause ya don’t know how to have fun,” Rave teased as they logged in.

He clicked around the champion list randomly, “So, I got this new Assault mechanic… It’s really good.”

“How good is really good?” Rave asked.

John checked the window again. He had kept it open since it had popped up, wanting to read it properly when his mind wasn’t occupied with annoyance.

“Well, it’s not all that great for filler grinding,” he explained further. “but if I just spent a lot of time continuously fighting, it should pay out hard.”

“What is a lot of time?” Rave wondered.

“Like 2 to 3 hours, hopefully more,” John said.

“So, just so I get this right,” Rave asked. “Ya wanna bash stuff over the head for three hours, continuously?”

“What? No,” John waved off. “I am going to exploit the ever-living hell out of this. I am going to combine Momo’s and my mana to create a fortress and then venture in and out of it for relative safety – or let the enemies break on the walls.”

“…That sounds really boring. For a moment there, I thought ya got something cool;” Rave said watching the loading screen with a sudden drop in interest.

“Pretty sure that’s the most effective way of doing this,” John shrugged. “After all, I get 50 times the current tier per mob and 250 times the current tier per boss. Then other exp bonuses are added to the resulting numbers, then they are added together and multiplied with 100% per hour. I would get some pretty insane results from this.”

Rave made a show of snoring and napping off, “Okay, math, got it.”

“It's called modifier stacking and it is the backbone of all things fun!”

“So, ya gonna level absurdly quick again?”

“For a bit, yeah, chances are that this mechanic will be out-scaled as my levels go higher, as the experience is tied to tier, which is a linear progression, while my experience is progressing exponentially.” Rave almost fell out of her chair as he explained that, boredom turning her limp. Thankfully, they finally loaded into the game. “I have been thinking about getting a house back in the USA,” he changed topics.

“Mhm, but that won’t work, now would it, ya don’t even know where we gonna live there.”

“Wherever I buy a house?” John suggested jokingly.

“Yeah, no,” Rave waved off and went to the middle lane, she had picked Lux; “Don’t ya even act like ya are not going to try and take over the USA when we get home.”

“…That obvious?” John asked.

“It’s just the logical thing to do, with ya being indebted to that rat god guy,” Rave pointed out. “And I doubt ya have been spending time reading stuff on Abyssal political structures just cause you’re interested in the subject.”

“Well, you got me,” John admitted. “I want to try and get the U S of Abyssal to world power status… once I get out of here, that is… is that bad?”

“Nah, ya can try do that,” Rave told him and smirked at him. “We are still bound to collide with people, aren’t we? We will just ram our heads against other people until we come out on top. It is in the name of our guild.”

A great guild that was. Just the two of them. Yet, John still felt that he could do it. Hell, as long as he had Rave, he probably could do anything. As long as he remembered to stay level-headed in his ambitions. He was a Latebloomer, everyone was eager to remind him what a leg-up that gave him in the grand scheme of things. Might as well change the world for the better with the power he had, right?

‘What was the thing again?’ he wondered, remembering a window he hadn’t looked at in a while. ‘Ah yes.’ “To use our powers for our own goals, to be free and achieve greatness, and through our greatness to inspire others,” John recited.

“Huh?” Rave blinked at him.

“What is it?” he wondered.

“Where did ya get that from?” she asked in return.

“It is the description of my guild window, why?” he answered.

Rave bought some basic items from the in game shop before she answered, “It’s something Travolta used to say. Jimmie and I teased him for it ‘cause it always sounded super pretentious for us bottom feeders and all that.”

“Is that so?” John had trouble imagining that the giant, cursing guy had ever been spouting something like that. There was so much to him that he had never gotten to learn and that had just disappeared with him. “I wonder what he would have done if he had powers like mine?” John wondered out loud. “He was way more ambitious than me.”

“Yeah, he was,” Rave agreed. “He was ambitious above his size. He got greedy and that was it. He should have stayed at the kinds of trouble that he could deal with.”

“So, us being way stronger than he ever was, we should stir trouble on a country level?” John laughed.

“Ja!” Rave enthusiastically agreed and gave him a wild smile as she missed her last hits; “Let’s stir the pot a bit, get some life in this boring world. Punch some baddies, straighten out the world. Let’s have thousands of people, thousands of worlds collide, one of them will take it all, will stand at the top.”

“And that is going to be us?” John asked with a bit of doubt.

“No idea!” Rave exclaimed as she flashed forwards, landed her combo and killed her opponent, only to then be executed by the enemy tower. “I ain’t got no future sight. All I know is that I don’t want my life to be lived in the safety of a bunker. Why let the world just change around us?”

John smirked, “You know, usually I want to reign in your daredevil, but fuck it. Fine then, let’s conquer America when we get done here. Us against the world.”

“Now ya talking my language!” Rave said and presented him with a fist-bump.

They were back at the mansion, John had made sure that they were in private. It was just him and Undine in Rave's and his room. The elementals assured no one would interrupt them, staying outside. When John had come back with a pretty pissed expression, that had raised a lot of eyebrows. Under the promise that he would explain in a bit, everyone had let him pass. On a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 was not at all and 10 the anger he had felt when he found out that Thana was torturing Rave, he was currently at a strong 6. It wasn't the act himself that made him this livid. Fighting monsters like that on the daily meant that he got into fucked up situations like that at least once a day. Pain was a constant companion of his lifestyle. They went through dozens of combat engagements each day. Mistakes were natural. He had been stabbed, ripped open, burned, choked, partly eaten, his bones had been broken, and he had been through all kinds of other painful and awful experiences. Sometimes, not even three layers of defence were enough; this was just the nature of fighting enemies that were roughly his own strength day in and day out. The reason why he still came up on top all the time was that he was maintaining a clear command structure. One could be the greatest of friends with the people in one's raid party, but if one did not make precise orders when was is necessary, then that friendship was a bigger hindrance than it did good. With most of his party being hooked up to his mind, this was not a problem that regularly occurred. Yet, Undine compromising that once would have barely triggered a three on that scale. A mild scolding and he would have left it as it was. A blunder, a failed experiment, nothing more. Happened to the best of them. However, her move today and the short burst of what was behind that calm faade of hers finally had pushed John's mild annoyance with her inability to talk about whatever had been bothering her for the past weeks from mild annoyance into proper frustration. So? he spat out. They were facing each other. Undine was sitting on the bed while he had planted a chair in front of her. Arms crossed, he stared her down. Undine looked back, but did not quite look back. Her eyes missed his face slightly. A frown set on her otherwise emotionless face. She had completely isolated her thoughts. John could feel nothing from her. He could have torn that down, and for a moment, he seriously considered it. Simply breaking into her mind and digging up whatever she was hiding would give him answers quickly. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes in a forced attempt to calm himself down to at least a 4 on the scale. What is your problem? John said when he succeeded in getting down to 5. Undine's eyes emptily stared ahead. He snapped once in front of her face. She jumped back without blinking. I want to know, he repeated, what your problem is. Undine stayed silent. For fuck's sake, John voiced his annoyance with an exasperated whisper. His voice rose afterwards. Do you have anything to say? At all? An explanation, an apology? I am sorry, I would do anything to turn back time ANYTHING? John asked. Would you murder your sisters to do it? Would you sell your soul? You won't even tell me what's wrong! To quote you, yourself: Do not spout empty phrases, Undine. The irony of this situation wasn't lost on John. Way back when he was training for the fight with Thana, she had given him a lecture about this exact same thing. He could have lived without a reversal of these roles. The truth is ugly and selfish; I have glanced at what goes on in that head of yours, and I can see that that remains as true as ever. I know it, you know it you know better than everyone. You were the one that lecture me on this. Just tell me what this is about so I can try helping you! The heel of his left foot tapped the ground at a constant, nervous pace. The tapping and silence remained the only constant in their talk, and John only extended that pause by doing another breathing exercise until he was down to a 3. Do you remember how you told me that you expected honesty from me? Why are you being such a hypocrite right now? Undine visibly shifted at the accusation, yet remained speechless. I will force myself into your mind if you leave me no other choice, John warned her. I can't have you be a potential risk to the group while this tournament goes on. We need to be at peak performance, not a scrambled mess. 3 days Undine mumbled, her eyes as unmoving as they were throughout the entire talk, the tone of her voice clear in its misery. Give me three days, please. Then I will tell you everything. John leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. Three days. That would mean tomorrow and then there was the Christmas pause. The chances of him having to fight in that time were miniscule. Fine, John agreed, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. The 25th, I expect you to have sorted out what you want to tell me by then. If not, I will will have to force it out of you. He stood up and walked over to Undine, who kept her head low. Then he bowed down and put his arms around her. I just want all of us to be happy, he whispered. I hope you find a way to tell me. I don't want to hurt you, in no way do I ever want that. At the same time, this cannot go on. I understand, Undine's melodic voice seemed a slight bit more upbeat as she crawled out of her complete isolation to give him the slightest hint of determination. The willingness to find a solution. Her cold arms wrapped around his back, and they just hugged for a moment. Then she went incorporeal, and John was left alone. You better not run away from this, he mumbled, knowing she could hear, and turned to leave the room. Gnome, who had been standing guard at the door, spared herself the question of how it went, she was connected to his mind after all. His girlfriend, however, wasn't. So wanna fill me in now? she asked, leaning against the wall opposite to the entrance. John didn't need to go greatly in-depth. Rave already knew about the fact that Undine had been isolating herself. Whatever may happen, she was still the person John loved the most. Anything that worried him, she knew within the day, from his own lips. Well, that's a downer, Rave sighed. I don't like downers, they suck. Yeah, John agreed. She walked up to him and pulled him back into the room, We gonna play some League of Legends and forget all about it for an hour or two! Don't I get a say in that? John complained, a small smile blooming on his mentally exhausted face. Do ya ever? Rave laughed and pulled his spirit right out of the mud with that simple sound; Ya know what we should do after that? Just cuddle! they said at the same time. Jinxed, Rave tapped him on the forehead. Can't talk til someone says your name. John played along and let her pull him by the hand to the office desk where they had put down their laptops and sit him down. Then she took the chair John had left at the bed and placed it back in its usual place next to him. She started up the laptop. Mhm, nice and quiet, none of your smartery, Rave mused, placing her left hand on the back of his right. He turned his hand around, and then her hand laid in his, palm on palm. Her hand was soft, but as his thumb gently rubbed over the back of it, he felt the bumps and rough spots that came from years of practicing martial arts. No amount of magic power could fix that slight imperfection, that bit of roughness that came from the human body. Neither did John want it too. Perfection was plain in what it was. Imperfection revealed ever new facets. There was a reason diamonds were cut with a sheer endless number of surfaces and not polished into a single orb - besides technical hardship. This metaphor doesn't really hold up,' John thought and dropped it. He liked imperfection, and that was it. So, let me be a bit stupid here, but I am thinking about getting this, Rave announced and opened the Abyss Auction. What she pulled up was the selling info for a butt plug. Ya know, for Lydia? the techno-lover giggled. So she can actually have a stick up her ass. John amusedly blew air out of his nose. Mhm, taking that as a yes then. Christmas gifts are nice, wanna pitch in for this next one? It is going to be pretty costly. What Rave pulled up then, John needed a long time to read over. At the end he nodded, being still jinxed and all that. Thought so, hope Thana is going to like it. Gonna get my money from ya later, Rave added the article to the cart. She showed him some other Christmas gifts she was thinking about. If she had something planned for Aclysia, Momo or any of the elementals, that stayed behind closed bars. Probably because she didn't want that information to leak to the affected parties. Now, we are going to do something stupid, Rave decided. Like play Teemo plus Cassio top. You play Teemo. John tapped his girlfriend, and she laughed when she saw his sour face. Okay, okay, John, we can do something more sensible. Oh, thank God, John said. I still hate that hamster. Cause ya don't know how to have fun, Rave teased as they logged in. He clicked around the champion list randomly, So, I got this new Assault mechanic It's really good. How good is really good? Rave asked. John checked the window again. He had kept it open since it had popped up, wanting to read it properly when his mind wasn't occupied with annoyance. Well, it's not all that great for filler grinding, he explained further. but if I just spent a lot of time continuously fighting, it should pay out hard. What is a lot of time? Rave wondered. Like 2 to 3 hours, hopefully more, John said. So, just so I get this right, Rave asked. Ya wanna bash stuff over the head for three hours, continuously? What? No, John waved off. I am going to exploit the ever-living hell out of this. I am going to combine Momo's and my mana to create a fortress and then venture in and out of it for relative safety or let the enemies break on the walls. That sounds really boring. For a moment there, I thought ya got something cool; Rave said watching the loading screen with a sudden drop in interest. Pretty sure that's the most effective way of doing this, John shrugged. After all, I get 50 times the current tier per mob and 250 times the current tier per boss. Then other exp bonuses are added to the resulting numbers, then they are added together and multiplied with 100% per hour. I would get some pretty insane results from this. Rave made a show of snoring and napping off, Okay, math, got it. It's called modifier stacking and it is the backbone of all things fun! So, ya gonna level absurdly quick again? For a bit, yeah, chances are that this mechanic will be out-scaled as my levels go higher, as the experience is tied to tier, which is a linear progression, while my experience is progressing exponentially. Rave almost fell out of her chair as he explained that, boredom turning her limp. Thankfully, they finally loaded into the game. I have been thinking about getting a house back in the USA, he changed topics. Mhm, but that won't work, now would it, ya don't even know where we gonna live there. Wherever I buy a house? John suggested jokingly. Yeah, no, Rave waved off and went to the middle lane, she had picked Lux; Don't ya even act like ya are not going to try and take over the USA when we get home. That obvious? John asked. It's just the logical thing to do, with ya being indebted to that rat god guy, Rave pointed out. And I doubt ya have been spending time reading stuff on Abyssal political structures just cause you're interested in the subject. Well, you got me, John admitted. I want to try and get the U S of Abyssal to world power status once I get out of here, that is is that bad? Nah, ya can try do that, Rave told him and smirked at him. We are still bound to collide with people, aren't we? We will just ram our heads against other people until we come out on top. It is in the name of our guild. A great guild that was. Just the two of them. Yet, John still felt that he could do it. Hell, as long as he had Rave, he probably could do anything. As long as he remembered to stay level-headed in his ambitions. He was a Latebloomer, everyone was eager to remind him what a leg-up that gave him in the grand scheme of things. Might as well change the world for the better with the power he had, right? What was the thing again?' he wondered, remembering a window he hadn't looked at in a while. Ah yes.' To use our powers for our own goals, to be free and achieve greatness, and through our greatness to inspire others, John recited. Huh? Rave blinked at him. What is it? he wondered. Where did ya get that from? she asked in return. It is the description of my guild window, why? he answered. Rave bought some basic items from the in game shop before she answered, It's something Travolta used to say. Jimmie and I teased him for it cause it always sounded super pretentious for us bottom feeders and all that. Is that so? John had trouble imagining that the giant, cursing guy had ever been spouting something like that. There was so much to him that he had never gotten to learn and that had just disappeared with him. I wonder what he would have done if he had powers like mine? John wondered out loud. He was way more ambitious than me. Yeah, he was, Rave agreed. He was ambitious above his size. He got greedy and that was it. He should have stayed at the kinds of trouble that he could deal with. So, us being way stronger than he ever was, we should stir trouble on a country level? John laughed. Ja! Rave enthusiastically agreed and gave him a wild smile as she missed her last hits; Let's stir the pot a bit, get some life in this boring world. Punch some baddies, straighten out the world. Let's have thousands of people, thousands of worlds collide, one of them will take it all, will stand at the top. And that is going to be us? John asked with a bit of doubt. No idea! Rave exclaimed as she flashed forwards, landed her combo and killed her opponent, only to then be executed by the enemy tower. I ain't got no future sight. All I know is that I don't want my life to be lived in the safety of a bunker. Why let the world just change around us? John smirked, You know, usually I want to reign in your daredevil, but fuck it. Fine then, let's conquer America when we get done here. Us against the world. Now ya talking my language! Rave said and presented him with a fist-bump.