Corwin Benedict
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The Game Of The Gods Chapter 14
🕑 Added 2025-02-28 21:38:33 +0000 UTCI look at Rose’s father, who sits across from me in the car. He looks out the window lost in thought.
Rose herself leans against my shoulder, snoozing slightly with her eyes closed.
Things sure moved fast, didn’t they?
Only four days since I was killed by the tutorial creatures. Since then, I’ve been shot, met a goddess, been forced to fight a mind controlling lunatic, been shot again three times, killed a mob boss and rescued a girl I may have serious feelings for.
I really should write a thank you note for the gods. I haven’t had this much fun since I was in kindergarten.
The car pulls up to the car of our school. I gently wake Rose up, and she looks up at me with a grumpy expression.
I laugh, then leave the car. Rose follows right behind me, wiping a small amount of drool from her lips.
Her father steps out of the car, and hands her a backpack.
She grabs the backpack, but her father doesn’t let go. “I’ll need you to tell me what happened last night. I have a lot of questions that need answering.”
Rose glances at me, then back to her father. “I don’t know exactly what happened. I’m sure that Elena could tell you.”
“It was probably superman.” I say, nodding my head seriously.
They both stare at me.
“What? How else would Rose get rescued from an evil mob boss? There must be a new superhero in town.” I nod, pretending to believe the crap I’m spewing. “Or maybe some elite crime fighting unit that rescued her.” I shrug, “Whichever one you want to believe.”
Mr Demor looks at me like I’m a puzzle he doesn’t know how to solve. A calculating smile spreads across his face “Maybe you could tell me about this… elite crime fighting unit tonight at dinner. What do you think, Rose?”
Rose smiles, looking alarmingly like her father. “Yeah. That sounds like a good idea. I’d really like to hear about this superhero too.”
Weeooo weeooo! Warning! Warning! They’re on the attack, all personnel to their stations.
What’s going on Captain?
Level three emergency; verbal entrapment.
What should we do Captain? Do I open fire?
No, it’s too dangerous. We don’t know what kind of relationship powers Rose has gained since our last verbal encounter. No. We only have two options. The human Elena can either:
Say no. The human has a lot of things she needs to deal with and we can’t be sounding the alarm every time she wants to make up bullsh-, ehem, ‘white lies’ during dinner. Or…
Say yes. This means lots of extra points with Rose. But I think saying no would-
Don’t forget free food Captain.
Clearly the only answer here is yes. Very well. Prepare to open the mouth, and may god have mercy on our souls.
“I would love to have dinner with you.” I respond, doing my best to hide a pained smile.
Mr. Demor lets go of Rose’s backpack, “We look forward to seeing you then. Enjoy school honey.”
He steps back into the vehicle, and the car peels off into the street.
Rose looks at me, amusement clear on her face, “‘Whichever one you want to believe’, really?” She shakes her head and walks towards class.
I laugh, then follow her into the school.
The sight of the classroom reminds me that there’s still a very big danger that I have yet to deal with, but thankfully Mr. Monroe isn’t here yet.
Blake waves to us from the back and we move to sit next to him.
Silence descends on us, almost palpable as our other classmates chatter away around us.
“So Blake, did you ever date Elena?”
Blake splutters, dropping the water bottle he’d been taking a drink from. “Oh. No. I think she swings the other way. No other reason for her to turn me down that I can think of.”
I snort. “I can think of plenty.”
“What can I say? I’m just too amazing. Even I can’t help but love myself.” Blake flexes his arm and kisses it.
I make a gagging noise.
The class quiets, and we turn to the front as Mr. Monroe saunters in.
The class passes almost exactly like the last one, with Mr. Monroe actually teaching everyone. He uses his psi to grab everyone’s attention, and goes on about phonetics and grammar.
I glance over to Rose, and she looks around with a puzzled expression. Everyone in the classroom has their undivided attention on Mr. Monroe, and Rose knows that isn’t right.
I look back to Mr. Monroe, who hasn’t even glanced at the classroom since he started his lecture, thankfully not noticing Rose’s behavior.
I see Rose raise her hand from the corner of my eye. I reach out, grab it before it gets too high, and pull it down.
She looks at me worriedly, but I just shake my head at her.
She leans close, and whispers “What is going on?”
“Don’t worry about it. No one is being harmed. Just… don’t show him you’re unaffected. I don’t know what he’ll do then.” I don’t take my eyes off of him as I speak.
“Him? Is Mr. Monroe causing this?” Her voice starts to rise, so I make a calming gesture with my hand.
“Yeah. That’s what the bracelet is for, it stops his magic from affecting you.”
“Magic? What the hell Elena!” She whispers furiously, “You need to tell me what the hell is going on.”
I smile at her, “You’re cute.”
She pauses, her face reddening. “Don’t distract me Elena. What’s going on?” She tries to hide a smile, but I still catch it.
I giggle at her expression.“Magic exists. Ask Blake to explain the rest to you later. For now, I’m not sure how much longer he’ll ignore our whispering.”
Thankfully, she listens to me, and we go quiet.
I follow the example of the rest of the class and write down what he’s saying into my notebook. I do want to pass the class after all.
The bell rings, signaling the end of class. I feel as the spell effecting the class ends, the psychic presence returning to Mr. Monroe. The class starts moving all at once, the students returning to their normal behavior as chatter starts up once again.
Rose looks around with a weirded out look.
I stand up and motion for her to follow me.
“Elena, a moment of your time please.” Mr. Monroe says.
I stop before the door, the last of the students leaving. Eventually, I turn around. Rose stands behind me, looking between the two of us with worry.
Mr. Monroe glances at Rose. “You may leave.” I can tell that he attempts to use his psi on her. She ignores it.
Mr. Monroe looks harder at her, eventually his gaze drops to the bracelet around her wrist.
“I see. You made some protection for your friends.” He looks at me with an annoyed expression. “Smart, I suppose.”
Rose steps closer to me. I smile at the other Beta Tester. “After the way you creeped on me a couple days ago, I decided that I would protect all the teenage girls from your lecherous advances.”
His look turns angry, as he steps closer. “How dare you, you pathetic brat of a girl.”
I lean back on my left foot, “How dare you be such a terrible and cliche villain, you sociopathic, con artist of a teacher.”
He pauses, getting control of his emotions remarkably fast. “Your measly protection does not make her safe. A bullet still moves fast enough to pierce her pretty little head.”
“Just because you gave someone a gun doesn’t mean you’re safe. My hands still move fast enough to snap your pretty little neck.” I respond, real anger beginning to flood me. I pause, regaining control of myself. “But that is neither here, nor there. What do you want?”
He considers me, “I want you to work with me. Just imagine what we could do, two Beta Testers-”
I laugh, interrupting his little speech. “I refuse.”
“Consider your words carefully. Last time, I was merciful. Next time, I will kill you and your friend.”
I consider his words, my eyes flickering to Rose. I doubt that my spell to stop bullets will work against system-affected bullets. If a firefight starts here, she won’t be safe. “It’ll be a partnership?”
“Indeed.”
I know I can’t trust the man. What I saw in his status makes that abundantly clear. But I don’t want to risk Rose’s life in my own problems. I almost died in my last fight with another Beta Tester, I’m not sure if I can win against Scott Monroe. “I’ll think about it.”
“You have two days.” He holds up two fingers, “After that, well… may the better Beta Tester win.”
“Elena.” Rose stops me as I move to leave. “He means to kill you if you don’t agree, right?”
“I do indeed.” He says with a small laugh as he leans against his desk.
She looks sadly at her backpack as she lifts it up. “I have something that might affect your decision.” She reaches into her bag.
Both him and I look at her curiously, wondering what she could reveal. Before either of us can react, she pulls out a gun and fires it three times into Mr. Monroe.
He stares at her, his eyes widened in shock as blood and brain matter falls out of his head and body.
I stare at both of them in shock.
Shit. Bitch be crazy. And also kinda hot.
My thoughts catch up to me a second later.
“[Unmatchable Speed]” I push her to the ground as more gunshots go over our heads.
A bullet skims my arm, but I ignore it. I look around, trying to pinpoint where the shots are coming from.
Alarms go off as the school realizes that there’s an active shooter.
Wherever his assistant is, she stops shooting suddenly. I hear footsteps running away from the room.
Rose whimpers under me, and I realize that blood is starting to pool under her. I roll off of her, and find a bullet wound in her chest.
Ignoring the sirens of the school, I cast my healing on her. It takes a good long while, as I fight the system-bullet for a couple of minutes, before it pops out into my hand.
My psi reserves are mostly empty, and I can hear people coming closer to the classroom.
I look around, noticing the gun still sticking out of Rose’s bag. Rose had passed out at some point during the healing, but she’s breathing fine.
I grab her bag, and zip it up. Then I pick her up, and move her away from the pile of blood. I take off my sweater and put it on her, covering the blood on her clothes.
Then I wait.
It doesn’t take long for police to arrive, they carefully enter the scene to find two girls huddled in a corner and a dead teacher lying on the floor.
Rose wakes up from the noise of the police.
I whisper in her ear as the police walk towards us “you don’t remember anything since class started, it’s all blank.”
An almost imperceptible nod is her only response as we are moved away from the scene.
We’re escorted out of the building, where an EMT looks us both over. Neither of us have any injuries, my gloves having healed a bloody gash on my arm.
An officer walks over to Rose and talks to her.
“You’re Dr. Trudeau’s daughter, right?”
“Huh?” I blink, turning back to the EMT, “Oh yeah, that’s me.”
“I’m Leo.” He says, examining the blood on my arm, “your dad’s a good guy, I always like working with him.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
The police officer sighs as Rose shakes her head at him, then he walks over to us. “Elena Trudeau?”
I nod.
He looks at the medic, “Can I talk to her?”
The medic stands up. “She’s right as a whistle. I’ll give you guys some space.”
THe officer watches the medic walk away before turning to look at me. He waves his partner over, who pulls out a notepad. “Can you tell us what happened, Miss Trudeau?”
I pull my legs up and hug them, acting the part of the scared teenage girl. “I can try.” I pause for a moment, and try to think of an explanation for all the bullets in that room. “Mr. Monroe asked me to stay after class, so that we could talk about one of my assignments. Rose-”
“Miss Demor?” The officer asks.
I nod, then continue, “She stayed behind to keep me company. Then- then it happened.” I pause for effect, “I don’t know who he was, he wore a hoodie and a mask, but he was carrying a gun. Mr. Monroe tried to talk with him, but the person wouldn’t respond. He just shot him.” I say the last part in a whisper, forcing myself to believe the story myself to help the lie. “Then he started to walk away. I don’t know what made him turn around, but something did and he pulled his gun on us too. I pushed Rose to the ground. It all happened so fast…” I trail off.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about him? Any identifying features?” The officer asks, his pen hovering over his notebook.
“No sir, I can’t think of anything else.”
The officer frowns, but writes something down in his notebook. He takes a deep breath, then offers me a fake smile. “I understand this has been hard for you, Miss Trudeau. I promise we will do our best to catch this man.”
The officers walk away, the older of the two patting me on the shoulder as he passes.
I breathe a sigh of relief as I see them go, then look at Rose.
She’s sitting on the curb, staring into space.
I walk over to her, and sit down next to her, “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” She responds. She looks at me with a worried expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“I feel alright, but I think I might be going crazy.” She says.
“What’s making you say that?” I ask.
“I don’t know if I can talk about it. It says that I signed a non-disclosure agreement?” She looks at me quizzically.
My eyes go wide. “Please don’t tell me there’s a blue window in front of you.”
“How did you know?” She asks, her voice rising in surprise.
“Shit.”
