Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

John sighed, falling onto his bed back at Scholaris.

"Nope. We're not doing that again," he muttered, closing his eyes.

He grunted as Prota fell on top of him, spreading out her arms and legs. She wasn't heavy, but she'd practically jumped on him, and that would wind any manaless person unprepared for something like that.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

John sighed. "That was… a side story of sorts."

"Side… story?"

"That was part of the original [Plot]. That was something Destiny was supposed to do. Something that would draw him and Briar a little closer together."

Prota raised an eye at John.

"As friends! As friends, Prota!" John groaned. "Yes, yes, I know what the hero and Celestia are up to. Look, it's just… I don't know. It was fun and all, but in the future, remind me not to get involved in a mess like this again, ok?"

He sighed, covering his eyes.

"It was a good opportunity to guarantee that Briar will help out. That was close. I'm pretty sure that, in the original [Plot], Briar was supposed to handle things and receive Zuko's whatever as a reward. If that happened… well, it's fine. I just don't want to do that again."

The room went silent. Prota slowly got off her brother and sat on her bed, thinking about what he'd just said.

"Is it because… John doesn't want to get close?" she said quietly.

There was no reply from John, which was more than enough of an answer. They'd done something good, but somehow, it also felt like they'd done something wrong.

"You did fine, Prota,' John finally said. "It's just… don't worry about it. It's not something you need to be thinking about."

~~~

Despite the whole fiasco that'd gone on outside of Scholaris, school life soon returned to normal. Inevitably, Danjo, Arthur, Aurora, and Celeste had some questions about what'd gone on, but John had just redirected all of them to Destiny, who handled it far better than John would've.

As the weeks passed, the weather once again got warmer. There was another Valentine's Day event, but John absolutely refused to go. Prota, too, avoided going, mainly because of what'd happened the year before.

Speaking of interactions with Draco, the bullying came back. Prota had forgotten about it in the midst of fighting in cages and against cultists. Now that she was back to being a normal student, though, the issues had returned.

Thankfully, being a student also meant she could spend some more time with her friends, something she hadn't gotten the opportunity to do recently.

"Hey, Prota," Lilith said cheerfully.

Everyone had been a bit busy with class, but Prota was still playing Magecraft and was still attending the club. Here, at least, she wouldn't be nearly as bothered by a certain noble.

"You've been busy these past few weeks, huh?" Lilith continued, shuffling her deck.

Prota nodded, taking her own deck out from her bag, and the game began. It was a nice distraction from everything else.

"Everything ok?" Ryan said, watching as the two played their cards. "I heard you disappeared quite a few times."

"Off campus," Prota explained.

The twins were used to her lack of words by now. Their method of communication was similar to how John had been forced to talk with his sister. You had to read her almost non-existent expression, then interpret the few words she spoke into a full message.

Hard, but not impossible.

"Off campus? What, were you off being a vigilante in some run-down city?" Lilith said sarcastically.

Prota didn't respond.

"Wha- hey, you weren't doing anything dangerous, were you?"

Prota continued to remain silent, drawing two cards from her deck.

"You could've asked us for help, you know," Ryan said quietly.

Lilith turned to her brother excitedly. "Really? You would've been on board with us helping?"

"Wh- no! I'm just saying, we could've, you know, helped with a few things here and there…"

Prota just focused on her cards as the twins bickered. She had a feeling she knew what Ryan was getting at.

They were nobles. Fallen nobles, maybe, but they still had access to connections and funds someone like Prota wouldn't have otherwise. Would things have changed had the twins been helping? Was something like that even allowed? What if John had known about this?

"Prota? Hey, Prota, did you hear what I said?"

Her head snapped up, only to realize it was her turn to defend. She'd been so spaced out that she hadn't heard what the twins were talking about.

"...?"

"We were asking if you were gonna sign up for the Magecraft tournament."

Prota's eyes widened. There was a Magecraft tournament?

Ryan seemed to understand her confusion. "Guess you haven't heard. There's a Magecraft tournament open to all years. No big prize, just a few tokens, but it'll be fun, you know? Plus, a bunch of other kids will be watching, so you get bragging rights on top of everything else."

A Magecraft tournament… that sounded interesting.

"Go for it, Prota! You're really good at the game!" Lilith said cheerfully. "I'm sure you'd make it pretty far. Heck, you might even win the whole thing."

"You only think she's good because of her poker face," Ryan said, shaking his head. "I mean, look at her."

They looked at her. She looked back. There wasn't a drop of emotion in her expression. As always, it looked like she was completely spaced out without a single thought in her head.

"Well… that's part of the skill, isn't it?" Lilith said hesitantly.

"Yeah. It's a pretty good skill to have in this kind of game. Anyway, Prota, it's for fun. Don't think too much about it," Ryan smiled. "Just do your best and enjoy yourself. It's a game, right?"

~~~

"Gonna participate in the Magecraft tournament?" John said as soon as Prota entered the room.

At this point, she wasn't even stunned. It wasn't surprising that he'd heard about it, and it was even less surprising that he knew she would sign up. She just nodded, throwing her bag onto the table. John continued to lie on his bed, probably using his system, based on the way his eyes were glazed over.

"Cool. I was thinking of signing up, but… well, it's too much work."

She just stared at him.

"What? If I'm gonna play a card game, I'm gonna min-max it, and that's lame as fuck. Therefore, I don't go."

"Min… max?"

John sat up, shaking his head to get the hair out of his eyes.

"Have they taught statistics in class?"

"Statistics?" Prota frowned.

Was John bringing up more [Story] terms or something? What was he talking about? She understood what statistics were, to some degree, but why was he bringing it up for Magecraft?

"Look. I'm not sure how it works, but I understand that certain cards have certain odds of being drawn. Any time there's luck involved, there are statistics."

Prota still didn't understand.

"All I'm saying is, there's an optimal way to play. And if it's a tournament, where there's something to win, I need to play optimally, and that's too much work."

Prota shook her head. It was a little too much to take in. Not the part about having an optimal way to play. That made sense to her. After all, if the game relied on pure luck, there wouldn't be a tournament.

Regardless, it wasn't that. No, it was the fact that John had willingly admitted he would put effort into something of relatively little importance. Granted, he had admitted that he wasn't participating precisely because he didn't want to put in the work, but still. She stared at her brother. Had he been replaced by some kind of clone?

"Hello? Hey, Prota. Why're you looking at me like that?"

She shook her head. It was definitely John. Who in the world could mimic someone like him?

"Hm… anyway, the prize is tokens, right? It might be worth winning."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He hopped off his bed and grabbed a glass of water, gulping down its contents before turning to look at Prota's deck.

"I'm not into deck building, but… well, let's talk strategy."

~~~

The following week, Prota had yet to be defeated in a single game of Magecraft.

"...hey, did you switch your deck or something?" Ryan frowned as he picked his cards up once more. "How are you doing so well?"

Prota shrugged. The answer, though, could be summarized in one word: John.

She had to admit, he'd taught her a lot about a game he didn't even play. When questioned, he'd explained that there were tons of games out there like this, which wasn't a bad answer. Still, it felt weird to be taught by someone who had yet to touch Magecraft specifically.

He'd even offered to switch her deck up. Despite his claims of not being into deck building, he'd given her something… well, she didn't quite know how to describe it. It was a good deck.

It also a deck that made you feel like you were scum of the earth.

Magecraft was a relatively simple game. It involved taking turns by using attack cards and spell cards to attack the other player and reduce their health to zero. They could, in turn, use defence cards to block the damage. Cards played would go back into your deck to potentially be drawn again. There were limitations on the number of cards one could put in their deck, which was where the majority of the strategy lay.

Most strategies revolved around setting up for one large attack that would hopefully end the game. John's strategy, however, was something Prota hadn't seen yet.

The strategy revolved around stalling for time. Once a certain number of turns had been played, players would take a set amount of damage every turn. Normally, of course, only so many recovery items could be put in a deck. There were three stats: health, mana, and gold, and you could only recover health and mana so many times.

There was exactly one card in the game that made John's strategy possible: exchange.

Exchange allowed you to rework your stats in a one-to-one ratio. You could trade one mana for one health, or one gold for one mana. The card was widely regarded as useless and was only used due to the fact that it took up relatively little space in a deck.

However, it was an impossibly powerful card in combination with another card also regarded as useless: Treasury. The spell was simple: five mana could be exchanged for ten gold. Gold was normally used to buy and sell cards; you could forcibly buy or sell a card to your opponent. These actions were far more common, and there were a few strategies that revolved around them, but John wasn't interested in buying and selling.

No, he was interested in the potential infinite exchange setup.

It was simple: all you needed was a ton of exchange cards and the ability to play the Treasury spell. If five mana gave ten gold, and you could exchange gold for mana, then you essentially had an infinite mana duplication glitch. And if you had infinite mana and an exchange card, you had infinite health.

Games could only go on for a finite number of turns. After a certain point, both players would begin to take unblockable damage that ramped up, and once that started happening, whoever had more health typically won.

"It's a shitty deck," John had explained. "But it works. It only works because spells don't go back into your deck, right?"

Prota nodded.

"Then yeah. You can just keep playing Treasury, and then fill your deck with exchange cards and defence cards, fill your quota of attack cards, and then you're set. You just stall the opponent out. It's like waiting for them to die of natural causes."

So Prota tried it out. And, of course, it worked. The feeling was familiar to when she'd been learning chess; the strategies made perfect sense, but she likely would've never seen them otherwise. She'd asked if he was some kind of tactical genius, but the response had been no.

"I'm not that smart," John had explained. "But when you see enough things, you start to see patterns. There's a lot of card games like this one, and real geniuses are the ones who come up with these strategies based on nothing but instinct. Me? I'm just a copycat."

Copycat or not, Prota was grateful he was around to help her out. She shuffled her deck and drew her hand once more.

"Hey, Prota?" Lilith said hesitantly, snapping the little girl out of her thoughts. "It's nice that you've found a new deck, but… it's kinda not fun to play against. Do you have anything else?"

Prota nodded. It made sense. If even the cheerful Lilith was going as far as to ask her to stop playing the deck, it was truly a monstrosity. She reached into her bag and pulled out the deck she usually played, which was a straightforward chip deck that relied on slowly whittling away the opponent's health.

"By the way. I hate to bring it up, but… how are things going with Draco?" Ryan said quietly. "I know you haven't been saying anything, but, well, you also don't say much in general, so…"

Prota shook her head. She didn't want to talk about it. It was still bearable for the time being. Yes, the "pranks" were annoying. No, they didn't hurt, but that was only because of her unique constitution. Yes, she hated seeing other students get roped into her business, but how was she supposed to stop it?

Worst of all, though, was losing tokens to him. He'd never ask for too much. But that didn't matter. It wasn't the amount of tokens that bothered her: John spent nearly all his tokens on her anyway. No, just like the first time, it was the feeling of losing something she'd rightfully earned. Failure was, and always would be, one of her greatest motivators. So in a sense, losing her tokens to Draco felt like she'd failed to keep what was hers.

"We can do something, you know-" Lilith started, but Ryan shook his head.

"No."

"What? We were just talking about helping her-"

"That's different, sis, and you know it. Financial support? Connections? Sure, that's fine. But actively going against one of the most powerful noble houses in Solaria? We can't do that. If we were from Lunaris, or Gaius, maybe, but we're human. You know this, Lilith."

Lilith sighed and went back to her game, but something she'd said had caught Prota's attention.

~~~

"You want to know if I can do something about Draco?"

Prota nodded. She'd gotten the message to Destiny by using John as a translator. They were eating lunch, where their conversation wouldn't be heard over the roar of students talking.

She'd been reluctant to bring it up to John, but she'd recently realized that he wouldn't do anything rash. His actions from a year ago proved that. If that were the case, then she was hoping he'd be reasonable and help out in a normal way.

The problem was, she couldn't have him helping. If John was the one to provide assistance, Draco would know it was her doing, and that would result in the twins being harmed.

This all led to the current conversation to Destiny.

"I can't. You know this, Prota."

She looked at John helplessly. With Destiny, she was fine with speaking a few words here and there, but a few words wouldn't be enough to get the message across.

"Um… different nobles, different countries," she muttered.

John sighed. "Ok, I think I understand. She probably heard somewhere that nobles from other countries don't need to be worried, right? And so she's wondering why you, a person of interest from another country, can't touch Draco. Is that right?"

Prota nodded. John just sighed again.

"You could've just asked me, you know."

She shook her head. She didn't want John to be the one getting involved.

"Why not? Destiny can't take care of this, you know."

"...why not?"

"Politics."

John made a face of disgust as he took another bite of his sandwich, annoyed by the mere mention of politics.

"Alright, Destiny, correct me if I'm wrong, ok?" he sighed.

Destiny gave him a thumbs up, indicating for him to continue.

"Look. Ok, I don't know everything, but I'm gonna be going off the little that I know, ok? I don't know if you've noticed, but nobles from Lunaris and Gaius have gone mainly untouched. They're a little uncomfortable, but they haven't been actively targeted by Draco. You've seen that, right?"

Prota nodded.

"Now, Draco can't afford to go after them. He can command others to do things to nobles, which is different, but he can't touch them directly. Do you know why?"

She shook her head.

"It's because of the power of the professors. Look, the reason most students are afraid of reporting Draco to the teachers is because he can use his connections to ruin them. However, other nobles don't need to be worried about this if they stand on the same level. So, they can report him with no concern."

Prota nodded. That made sense.

"But if he uses someone else to pull his prank or whatever, they can't prove it was him, and the poor kid who followed his orders would never say Draco made them do it. So, Draco gets away. So, why not take revenge?"

She mentioned for him to continue. Destiny had been nodding along, as if he, too, already knew everything John was saying.

"It's because of war."

Prota tilted her head to the side. War?

"Nobles are part of a country's infrastructure. Attacking a noble household is equivalent to attacking a core part of a country. This is basically a declaration of war. Why does this matter? You were asking about Destiny, right? He could report Draco. But there's no proof. He could attack Draco. But that would be like declaring war on Solaris, since he's, in a way, a representative of Lunaris."

"Yeah, that sums it up," Destiny nodded. "I'd love to beat the crap out of him, Prota. Trust me. But I can't, because of what John just said."

She sighed, feeling rather dejected. And here she thought she'd found a way to deal with the situation.

"Hey, I mean, if he's bothering you that much, you want me to do something about it?" John said, raising an eyebrow. "He can't do anything to me. I'll tell the teachers it was me, too, so no other kid eats shit for what I do."

"And how are you gonna prove he did anything?" Destiny said, pointing out the obvious.

"What? I just rage bait him into doing something stupid to me, get someone to watch it, and then just go tell the teachers," John shrugged. "It's not that hard. Draco's an idiot. He'd fall for it easily."

To the boys' surprise, Prota shook her head. She was surprised he'd come up with something that could plausibly work. She was even more surprised that he wasn't as hesitant to deal with Draco as he'd been before. Regardless, this was unfortunately something John couldn't help with.

"Seriously? No?" John frowned. "Then why were you asking Destiny if he could do anything?"

Prota just shook her head again, going back to eating her lunch. Her silence confused John, but in the end, he shrugged and continued on with his meal.

"Well, if you ever want me to do anything, you just let me know, ok?"

~~~

Draco sat in his room, visibly annoyed. It wasn't enough. Taking his frustration out on Prota wasn't enough. There was still one person he wanted to get at, one person he wanted to take down, but didn't have the means to.

John Quarta. That cocky, stupid peasant, that boy who didn't know his place, who refused to cower, who refused to bow.

The problem was, he couldn't do anything about it. There was nothing to threaten. Nothing to take advantage of. For once in his life, Draco was at a loss as to what to do. He didn't have the power to attack John directly; for all his talk, he wasn't very strong.

He would never admit it, but he was weak. He didn't have the means to enforce his demands on his own. He was very good at figuring out people's vulnerabilities, but what was to happen when someone had nothing to lose?

Draco knew from experience that John wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice someone else if it meant he got what he wanted. He'd seen John actively offer to throw Danjo to the wolves, just to kill him. Threatening Prota would do nothing. He couldn't hurt her, and the one leash he had on her had no effect on John.

"Foolish!" he growled, slamming his fists onto his table. "How does a manaless commoner get away with his foolishness?"

All he had was the knowledge that John used some kind of pill to gain mana, but that didn't help. John was strong enough without mana. Well, maybe not strong, but his combat capability was frightening enough that he wasn't confident in fighting him on his own.

"What am I supposed to do?!"

He was so upset that he didn't hear the click of the door opening behind him. He turned around only when a hand was placed on his shoulder.

"Wh- how dare you?!" he yelled, turning around. "Do you know who I am?"

"Of course I do."

The figure was hooded, hiding their face. Their voice seemed obscured, stopping Draco from recognizing it, but when they threw their hood off, his face went pale.

"You- you- professor? What are you doing here?"

In front of him stood Lupin Wolfhound. Draco quivered, a little afraid. Why was this man in his room?

"You want to deal with John Quarta, correct?"

"Um- well, yes," Draco muttered.

"And you are too weak to fight him yourself."

"That's-"

"Here. Take this."

Lupin pulled his hand out of his cloak, revealing a marble-like orb. Inside swirled dark, malicious energy, casting a faint purple light around it. Draco stared at it, entranced by the hypnotizing patterns forming inside.

"What… what is it?" he muttered, his hand slowly reaching out.

"Don't worry about the details. It's a special pill that will increase your mana output tenfold."

Draco's eyes shot open in surprise. "Tenfold?!"

"That's right! Even you should be able to deal with that boy after taking this, right?"

Draco took the orb, his eyes shining as he stared into the purple light.

"Why… why are you giving this to me?"

Lupin turned around, throwing his hood back up.

"Let's just say… your father sent you a gift. Isn't that nice of him?"

Draco snapped out of his trance, rage quickly consuming his mind.

"Yes! My father taught me that we nobles stand above everyone else! John doesn't have the right to talk back to me. He doesn't know his place! It is our right to treat commoners how we please! Why does he not understand that?"

"Mm… perhaps he's not a fan of the way you treat him. Have you considered that?"

Draco's eyes were filled with anger. "Why should his opinion matter? Commoners are not people. They do not deserve to have their opinions heard. All they should do is listen to our orders. That is the law of this world."

Lupin flashed a strange smile before turning to leave.

"That's nice. Your father raised you well."