Two priests helped me stand up and assisted me in finding a place to sit that wasn’t the stone altar.

Mary and the little girl glanced at me from time to time, no longer laughing.

-Status screen.- Might as well get a good look at it, now that I can.

Status

Name:

David

Kaplan

Age:

29

Gender:

Male

Race:

Human

Class:

None

Title:

None

Level:

None

Attributes

Health

113/113

Stamina

74/74

Mana

158/158

Vitality

0

Endurance

0

Wizdom

0

Constitution

0

Perception

0

Intelligence

0

Strength

0

Control

0

Focus

0

Dexterity

0

Agility

0

Willpower

0

Luck

-100

Faith

-1000

Blessings

Transcendental Roots

Not born into this world you are not limited by it.

Babylonian Refugee

Understand and be understood.

Tricksters Blessing

Fate and luck have abandoned you.

Active Skills

Hypothetical Anchoring

Level

1

Set an anchor in time, allowing you to return to it after exploring future possibilities.

Cooldown: 1 hour

“Careful not to overdo it. Standing out too much is never a good thing.” the policewoman said as she leaned on the wall next to me. I didn’t bother looking up from my status screen.

“I can say the same to you and your magic weapon. Tell me, is it the gun or the bullets that are magical?”

“Both. Would you like me to show you?” She took the gun out of the holster.

-She’s serious…-

“It’s okay… I had enough fun for today. You don’t try to kill me with that magical handle and we can be friends.”

She looked at the gun in her hand and cringed as some of the knights’ crusted blood was still glued to it.

“I’ll try,” she said with a heavy voice.

-Is she feeling guilty for knocking the knight out?-

I stay silent for a while, waiting for her to say something but she doesn’t.

“First time you’ve almost killed someone?”

-Shit. Too direct… I guess this day really has been quite tiring. Especially considering I was woken up by the feeling of nausea and the sounds of puking.-

“First time I hurt anyone… at least physically that is....” She laughs a self-depreciating laugh. “But I guess it was just a matter of time.” She pulled on her police badge.

-”Polis”. Tall. Blond. Good English. A dark blue uniform that suggests a very curvy figure underneath. Fingers all straight. Nails cut short with no nail polish, but palms are smooth on both sides. Luxury mechanical watch shows that it’s now 8:05 wherever she comes from.-

“You can hurt me if you want,” I tell her seriously.

-No German accent. Probably somewhere in northern Europe.-

“It gets easier with practice and I can take a hit.” I look up into her eyes, “I’m used to it. Both mentally and physically.” I nudge her knee with my shoulder jokingly, as best as I can from my half lying position on the floor.

“Or was the first time only an accident?” I smile innocently.

Her hand darts to flick me on the forehead, but I manage to slide down fast enough to avoid her fingers.

“Asshole!”

“Not really. I told ya you can hurt me. Not that I’ll let you.”

“Exactly. Asshole.”

“No… listen…”

-I must be really tired if I’m starting to monologue...-

“You need to understand that you are dangerous. That you have teeth. Sit down.” I pulled on her pants to help me straighten myself up a little.

“Both in this world and our world. If you don’t want others to bully you, you fight back.”

“What does that ha”

“But you don’t actually need to resort to anything for it. You just need to make the bully know that you can.” My hands are moving around wildly as I start my explanation.

“He might still try to bully you and then you’ll actually need to use your teeth. And that’s why you need to know that you have them and how to use them.” I point at the gun.

“However, most times like that, standing your ground and flashing your teeth, is enough to prevent anything from happening.”

“But not always.” she argues back.

“And that's why there’s always the option of running away. When someone at work is making fun of you or taking credit for your work or getting a promotion instead of you,”

-She just tensed up and nervously changed her position… did I hit close to home?-

“In movies, there's often this guy who’s a really nice guy, and he is trying to get a girl or a promotion or whatever, and it’s not working for him. There's always someone else who gets the girl or is promoted. And that guy is never shown as nice. He’s always an asshole.”

“In comedies… ironically..” she nods.

“Exactly. So during these comedies the nice guy usually struggles through random chaos, which is very funny for the audience because their lives are very chaotic as well and it's fun to see someone else struggling for a change, but in movies the hero always survives and learns what he is capable of. He gets his teeth. Which is what the audience wishes they could do with their own lives. And that is why they subconsciously sympathize with the hero of the movie. So by the end of the movie he usually either gets the girl or gets the promotion by using his new teeth.”

“Bu”

“And if he doesn't? Then they usually show in the end how he found a different girl he fell in love with during the hell he went through. Or, he leaves his old job, usually for a better paying one or one he actually enjoys.” I tried sounding nonchalant as I answered my own question.

“Because that's the only two options you have. Run away in hope someplace else will be magically better or make yourself useful and capable enough to get what you want. Because anything other than that is doing nothing. And when you do nothing and let everyone else push you over, and worse of all you take no responsibility for why it’s happening and blame everyone else instead of growing some teeth… then… then your life becomes hell. And that's never a good place to be in.”

We sat there in silence for a moment and as the silence grew longer I started feeling more and more stupid by the moment.

A bone-chilling scream made us jump and look at the altar.

Any self-consciousness I had left me as I saw a boy turn into a man in front of my eyes. The annoying teenager who got slapped by Inga was on the stone altar. His body visibly growing while he screamed in agony.

A moment later he became a man, about 25, who straightened up and sighed in relief.

-At least he still has that stupid fluffy mustache on his face… even if he did grow the body of a greek god…-

The boy -Man?-, the kid looked at everyone, stopping on Inga and grinning smugly before puffing his chest and walking down from the altar.

Inga, Mary as well as about a dozen other people, including me, started laughing.

When the kid saw Inga laughing his grin disappeared.

“Here’s a great example,”I tell the policewoman who was standing next to me wondering why I was laughing.

“I don’t know if he’s aware of it or not, but when he was shushed by Inga earlier he probably took it as his words not being taken seriously because he’s just a teenager. So what does he do when he’s offered a chance to make himself powerful? He becomes an adult. Because he thinks that that is how he will be respected and people will listen to him. He thinks that that will give him the teeth needed to reach whatever goal he deems important.”

“You can’t know that.”

“True. Not with certainty at least. But everyone who laughed most likely laughed because they thought the same as me. Plus… just look at his expression and how he glares at Inga for laughing at him. Not anyone else. Just Inga.”

“I don’t know... “

“Fair enough. That’s just my interpretation of it. Do you at least agree with my reasoning?”

“Most of it. But I don’t agree with your conclusions.”

“I’d love to hear yours but just let me finish my previous point.” I put my palms together and act apologetically.

“So… anyways... “ I ignore the glaring 25 year old kid and look back at the policewoman.

“Marcus.” I offer my hand.

“Yeah, I overheard. Elsa.” She shakes it.

“So people like to say we should just be nice to everyone and then everything will be good. Right? What they don’t understand is,” as I started to monologue again my hands shot up to illustrate my points.

-She’s facing me. Face, eyes and feet. Seems interested still. Could be just European politeness though…-

“What people don’t seem to realize is that being nice means nothing if you're harmless. What else can you be but nice! to everyone around you, if you’re the weakest person there? You have to act nice and agreeable, otherwise, someone might try to hurt you. And you have no way of fighting back. Because you are harmless, and that makes you a pushover. And that means that anyone else can just come and take whatever they want, because they know you don’t have any teeth to defend yourself.” I slowly made a half circle around her as I spoke.

-Good. She keeps facing me. I have her attention. Even more now that there's only a wall behind me, and no people to distract her. Did two bowls just react to the same person? Shit… need to keep looking at her.-

“Look at what you did today. When push came to shove you did what you had to. You found your teeth and used them. Unfortunately, it happened the way it happened, but at least now you are aware of what you are capable of. ”

“Doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“It shouldn’t. What happened happened. There’s nothing you can change about that. It’s not what caused you to realize how dangerous you are that matters. It is what you will do now that you know you are.”

Elsa looks at me. Not saying anything, so I continue.

“Now that you know what the ‘darkness’ inside of you is capable of.” I imitate quotation marks with my fingers. “Now you can respect yourself. Because you know how dangerous you are and what you are capable of. And you respect yourself because even though you have teeth you don’t use them on others. You are nice to them. You are merciful. You follow the rules. But now that you have teeth, and more important is the fact that others know that you have teeth...” I point at the group of people behind her.

“Now no one in this room will bother you and you can be sure as hell that the knights will think about it twice before trying.” I was talking louder and louder.

-Not too loud so that we aren’t overheard, but I’ll need to add some anger? Passion in the end.-

“And when -More like if…- we get out of here then the assholes at work will stop bothering you and the knowledge of what you are capable of will finally let you go after the promotion you want, and actually have a decent chance at getting it. Now that you’re no longer a pushover. Physically at least.”

I push her at half strength and she stands her ground and frees her gun holster.

I smile and put my hands in the air.

She smiles back awkwardly.

“Good. And now I respect you more.” I start walking back to the rest of the group as I add, “Because you suppress that part of you and act kind instead.”

As I pass her I flick her butt in the same way she tried to flick my forehead.

“And that's for trying to hit me earlier.”

“Asshole!”

She turns around and runs after me. Slapping the back of my head as she catches up.

-I like her.- I smile as I rub my head to ease the sting.

My smile disappears and my eyes open wide when the little Indian girl on the altar suddenly balloons in size and quickly deflates back to normal.

Another bone-chilling scream follows.

-This one is worse than the first…- I think in horror.