It's a Game Jonathan, Honest Part 4 (Patreon)

Jonathan looked over the collection of sports goods with a smile. ‘Say goodbye to improvised armor.’ He quickly added a pair of neon pink shin guards to his basket that were surprisingly cheap, probably because of the color. He looked through the collection of annoyingly expensive chest guards until he found a cheap hard plastic chest protector that had been spray painted with gang signs. “At least that cuts the price,” he muttered as he turned his attention toward the collection of helmets, wondering if he could find anything reasonable that he could actually afford. ‘I really need to figure out a way to get access to Harry’s vault.’

He grinned when he found a cheap hockey helmet with a cracked visor, knowing that he could probably repair it with magic. He added it to his basket then grabbed the defaced chest protector and headed toward the checkout line. ‘I’ll grab something for my legs when I get more money.’ He walked up to the checkout counter and looked at the conversation options for the clerk. “Checkout.”

“Of course,” the clerk replied as he blurred through the process of ringing up all of Jonathan’s purchases and taking the money. “Have a nice day.”

“Thanks,” Jonathan replied absently as he glanced at his empty basket. He opened his inventory and checked his new armor. “At least everything counts as heavy armor even if some of it is shit,” he muttered as he saved the game. ‘Okay, let’s find some trouble.’

Jonathan smiled as he walked out of the shop and noticed a brick of a man in his late twenties or early thirties standing at the entrance to the alley with a heart over his head. ‘This is going to be awesome or painfully.’ He quickly equipped his new armor, using the shinguards as bracers then walked over to the man with a heart over his head.

The man scowled at Jonathan as he walked over. “Get lost, kid.”

Jonathan glanced at the conversation options. “I just need to check the bins for the thrift store.”

“Come back another day, the boys are having a bit of fun,” the man replied.

“Are you going to stop me?” Jonathan asked, picking the dark red option.

The man laughed. “Yes.”

“Bring it,” Jonathan replied as he brought his hands up, happy that he’d saved the game recently.

The man snorted. “Normally I don’t hit children, but you remind me of my nephew.”

Jonathan barely managed to block the man’s first kick, the force of the blow sending him flying backwards. He awkwardly rolled to his feet as the man dashed forward and kicked him in the head causing everything to go black.

“Would you like to load your save game?” the voice asked cheerfully.

“Yes,” Jonathan grumbled, annoyed that he’d gotten one shot. He stalked out of the shop, ready to take make another attempt on the asshole and frowned when he saw a leather jacket clad teenager with a gameboy guarding the alley rather than the older man with the heart over his head. “Shit, I should have saved the game,” he muttered as he walked over to the teenager.

“Take a walk kid,” the teenager said, barely looking up from his game.

“I need to get to the bins,” Jonathan argued.

“Yeah, I don’t care. I’m not supposed to let anyone into the alley, now scram,” the teenager ordered.

Jonathan briefly considered the ‘Make me!’ option before realizing he could probably use the guard to work on his stealth skill. “Fine,” he muttered as he walked back toward the door to the thrift shop. He pulled his skills page up and dropped into a crouch once he was out of sight of the guard, activating his stealth skill. ‘Ninja time.’

Jonathan snuck forward then back a bit, his footsteps sounding impossibly loud to his ears.

“You sound like a jackhammer,” the teenager called out after a few seconds with an amused glare.

“Damn it,” Jonathan grumbled as he stalked back to the door. He glanced at his stealth skill’s progress bar, happy that he almost had his second point of stealth. He felt a little silly as he snuck back and forth for the next twenty minutes working on his stealth skill with the occasional comment from the lazy guard when he screwed up. He glanced at his Stealth skill, slightly annoyed that his progress had slowed to a crawl once he’d hit journeyman in Stealth. ‘Yeah, screw it, it’s barely moving.’ 

Jonathan saved his game then carefully snuck over to the mouth of the alley and peeked around the corner, relieved to see the teenager was paying attention to his game rather than the street. He carefully snuck along the wall until he was ten feet past the bored teenager. ‘You’re almost worse than Andrew.’ He continued sneaking down the alley towards the man in a leather jacket with a heart over his head that was standing at the end of the alley with his back to him. 

‘Revenge shall be mine.’ He glanced back toward the teenager to make sure he hadn’t turned around then saved his game. ‘No point in taking chances.’ He snuck closer, a touch surprised when he got close enough to see around the corner and saw the ring of bikers and punks that were exchanging cash while two men fought in the ring. ‘First rule of Fight Club, you don’t talk about it.’

He watched his stealth progress bar as he snuck up on the guard. ‘That could work.’

The man turned and looked at Jonathan. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Ricky said I could beat people up?” Jonathan tried as one of the teenagers dropped the other with a well placed punch to his temple.

“Oh really?” the man asked, obviously not believing him.

“Yes, he said I could fight,” Jonathan said, happy that he’d saved game recently.

The man grinned as he reached over and grabbed Jonathan before he could react and lifted him off the ground. “In that case, let’s have some fun!” He carried Jonathan over and tossed him in the ring while two of the punks dragged the unconscious fighter out of the ring. “We have a new challenger. Kick the shit out of him.”

“With pleasure,” the young man in the ring replied cheerfully as he tried to hit Jonathan with a crescent kick.

Jonathan quickly brought his arm up and deflected the man’s lazy attempt to hit him. “You’re going to have to do better than that.” He glanced at the progress bar for his heavy armor skill which had jumped a decent amount. ‘This might actually work.’ He deflected the next kick then stepped forward and slammed his fist into the man’s groin, dropping him to the ground. “Next!”

The man laughed at the young man clutching his crotch. “You heard him, next!”

One of the girls in the ring of people held up a five pound note. “I have five on the little shit!”

“I’ll take that bet,” a young man said eagerly.

Jonathan did his best to ignore the betting, and his new title, as he traded blows with the teenager, happy that no one had complained about his hockey mask and armor. ‘At least he’s doing less damage than my regeneration can deal with since I can barely hurt him.’

Jonathan spent the next twenty minutes getting knocked around the ring by his opponent until he finally managed to jump off his opponent’s leg and kick him in the throat hard enough that he had to forfeit. He quickly saved his game before they sent out the next fighter, figuring he could always load his auto save if something went drastically wrong. “Next!”

An attractive busty teenage girl with a yellow and red mohawk stepped forward that reminded him a bit too much of Faith. “It’s time for your nap, kid.”

Jonathan grinned as he raised his hands and glanced at his dialogue options. He knew he should probably go with ‘Let’s go’ or ‘Maybe another time’ but this was a perfect chance to have some fun and he’d just saved the game. “You’re way too pretty to be a ninja.”

“You’d think so,” one of the guys muttered in agreement as the girl jumped toward Jonathan and started tossing lightning fast punches and kicks at him.

Jonathan frantically worked on blocking as his opponent tried to kick the shit out of him for his lack of faith in her abilities. He tossed himself to the side and rolled, barely avoiding a kick to his head that would have knocked him out or killed him. ‘At least my skills are increasing at a fantastic rate.’

“Had enough kid?” the girl asked after a few more kicks and punches.

Jonathan took a couple of seconds to let his ring finish regenerating the damage blocking her shots had cost him as he looked over her dialogue options. ‘Yeah, insulting her doesn’t sound like Harry, I don’t have an option to flirt so I might as well go with playful banter.’ He smiled when his attempt to saved the game actually worked. “You might be a ninja princess but I’m a hero, I’m not giving up.”

“Well said,” the girl said cheerfully as she went back to trying to mop the floor with him.

Jonathan found himself smiling as he save scummed as the fight went on and his skill increased enough that he could return the occasional hit. Of course, he’d had to reload the game at least a dozen times when he’d missed a block and she’d knocked him silly. Thankfully every few minutes she’d pause for dialogue which gave him a chance to save the game and practice his banter. He blinked as he managed to land a punch to her solar plexus that had her gasping for breath and signalling the end of the fight.

“And we have a winner,” the brick like man in the leather jacket announced. “You did alright, kid. Are you up for another fight?”

Jonathan saved the game then looked at his combat skills as he waited for his hit points to regenerate. ‘Block is at 69 and Heavy armor is at 45, I might as well see this through.’ He smiled at the man. “Bring it.”

“You’re up Bart,” the man said.

“No problemo,” replied a teenager with a skateboard as he stepped into the arena.

Jonathan frowned as he looked at the strangely familiar young man with blonde hair that was standing straight up, sure that he’d heard his voice before but not able to place it. He dodged and brought his arm up to block when the kid swung his skateboard at him. “Asshole,” he muttered as he worked on blocking or dodging the skateboard when his hit points got too low. “I need a weapon.”

“Here,” the girl that looked a touch like Faith offered as she tossed Jonathan a nice solid stick.

“That’s more like it,” Jonathan said as enthusiastically as he swung his new stick around and nailed the teenager in the knee.

“You little shit!” Bart screamed as he swung his skateboard at Jonathan’s head.

Jonathan ducked the skateboard and hit the teenager on the wrist. He winced as the punk slammed the skateboard into his chest, knocking him back. Thankfully the chest guard turned what would have been a crippling blow into one that simply knocked the wind out of him and dinged his hp. ‘I’d be dead a hundred times over without my ring.’

It didn’t take Jonathan all that long to figure out that he was better off dodging the wild swings and blocking the jabs or that the perfect time to hit the other guy was right after a wild swing. Ten minutes later he’d managed to knock his opponent down and then out with a vicious kick to his temple.

His next five opponents were nothing particularly special though they netted him a fair amount of points to his various combat abilities as he dragged the fights out as long as possible, mostly by blocking or taking hits rather than hitting them, but eventually they worn themselves out and his progress dropped to almost nothing so it was easier to just knock them out and fight the next in line. He sighed as he noticed his current opponent was barely in the fight anymore, having burned through most of his stamina. He swept his feet out from under him then dashed forward and punched him in the temple, dropping the man unconscious.

“Sounds like I’m going to have to deal with you myself,” the man built like a brick said as he stepped into the ring, “unless you want to run home to your mother.”

Jonathan saved his game. ‘There really should be a dialogue option for gloating about having your gang beaten by a five year old.’ He brought his hands up. “Let’s do this.” He staggered back as the man flashed forward and kicked him. He lost half his hit points even though he’d blocked the shot. “Shit!” he screamed as the man kicked him in the head, faster than he should be able to move.

“Would you like to load your save game?” the voice asked cheerfully.

“Yes,” Jonathan grumbled. He spent the next five minutes loading his game and getting the shit beat out of him, despite his various attempts to dodge or block the hits in different ways that didn’t cost him as much health. “This would be a lot easier if I had more hit points or a shield.”

He glanced toward the thrift store bins that he could see through the gaps in the ring of punks. ‘Okay, if I can find a shield I might be able to survive the fight long enough to max out my Block skill which should decrease the damage I’m taking when I block.’ He slipped through the gap in the ring where the large man had been standing and sighed in relief as none of the fighters reacted when he left the ring. ‘Okay, that’s handy.’

Jonathan made his way over to the bins that were chained to the thrift store walls. ‘There goes my plan to tip them over.’ He grinned when he spotted a milk crate on the table that would give him enough of a boost to see over the top of the bin. He placed the crate in front of the bin labeled clothes then stepped up to look at the bin of old clothes. He grabbed the two stained shirts sitting on top of a collection of clothes that seemed to be useless background. ‘A Weasley could probably get a bunch of useful crap out of here.’ He stuck the shirts in his inventory, moved his crate over to the next bin and looked through the collection of magazines. “Oh, skill books.”

He picked up a Popular Science and opened it, happy to see the improvement to his Muggle Studies. He put the magazine in his inventory then grabbed the next glowing magazine. “Quilting and Knitting?” He opened it and smiled when he picked up three points of Tailoring. “Nice.” He raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw the stack of glowing Playboys. “Huh, they’re skill books.” He picked up the first book and opened it. “Etiquette, Muggle Studies, Photography and Artistic increased by 1. Four skills off of a single magazine, apparently the articles are good, who knew?”

He spent a minute glancing through the various pictures and skimming over the articles then put the magazine in his inventory and grabbed the next Playboy from the stack and opened it, happy to see further skill increases. ‘I’ll have to hand these to Ron once I get to Hogwarts, probably Hermione… then again, it might be easier to just have her find them in Harry’s collection while I’m playing her.’

He quickly opened the rest of the magazines and stashed them for future reading then grabbed the last glowing magazine and opened it. “Two points of Artistic skill.” He put the craft magazine in his inventory then moved his crate to the next bin. “Looks like silverware and a pot.” He stuffed it all into his inventory. He blinked as some of the silverware was labeled silver rather than stainless steel. “That’s useful.”

He gleefully tossed the rest of the silverware into his inventory, getting fifteen more pieces of silverware that were actually silver. “I should be able to melt them down for crafting if I can get the right tools.”

Jonathan jumped down and walked over to the plastic plastic trash bin and stuffed the lid in his inventory. He stared as he noticed a two foot long, neon pink, rubber dildo, as big around as his wrist. Hovering about it was a gold tag reading Quest Item.  “What type of quest needs a dildo? Yeah, I was probably not supposed to run into this quest until after I was at Hogwarts.” He picked up the dildo, slightly confused that the voice didn’t give him a quest. “Huh, yeah, I can’t see…” he trailed off as he noticed the insane amount of subdual damage the dildo did, ten times the amount of damage his trusty stick caused, “using that. Yeah, okay, I’m totally using this, I don’t care how it looks.”

He put the dildo in his inventory then saved the game. ‘I need money and they won money betting on me, let’s see if I can pickpocket any of them. Twelve skill should cover it, right?’ He dropped into stealth mode then snuck over to pickpocket the ninja girl. He had a brief moment of elation as he managed to steal a blue satin g-string from her before it was ruined as she turned around to look at him.

“You little bastard!” she exclaimed as she pulled out a switchblade.

Jonathan didn’t even pause as he loaded his save game. “Nope, not going there.” He dropped into stealth and snuck over to one of the overweight guys and tried to pick his pocket. He blinked as he managed to steal the man’s wallet without anyone noticing. He saved the game once he realized that he’d succeeded. He grinned as he tried to steal another item and got a bucket of KFC. He lost his grin when the man turned and growled at him like a hungry Rottweiler.

He quickly loaded the game and tried again, only to have the same thing happen the next five attempts. ‘Moving on,’ Jonathan thought as he moved to the next punk and worked on stealing what he could. It quickly became apparent that thirteen points of Pickpocket was generally not enough to successfully steal from a group of punks but was enough to occasionally pickpocket them, which meant that he was doing a lot of save scumming.

Two hours and seventeen points of pickpocket later he was done with the group and back to the ninja girl. He felt like laughing when he finally managed to steal the blue satin g-string without her noticing. He saved his game then walked back into the ring and equipped his plastic lid as a shield and the dildo as his weapon of choice. “I’m ready.”

The man stared at the dildo in disbelief. “What the fuck?!”

Jonathan jumped forward and hit the man in the nuts with a clang, going for a quick takedown.

The man snorted. “I’m wearing a cup, but nice try, kid.”

Jonathan blocked the man’s punch with his shield, happy that it soaked more damage than his worn out bracers. He slammed the dildo into the man’s leg.

“Fuck that has some weight to it,” the man complained as he continued trying to beat down the kid.

Jonathan glanced at his Block skill. ‘Yeah, six points then I can start leveling.’ He took a step back and dodged a kick then blocked his follow up punch, happy to see that his hit points weren’t hitting the halfway point as long as he managed to avoid getting kicked. His arm felt more than a little numb by the time he hit 100 points of Block but his opponents lifebar was three quarters of the way down.

He rolled between the man’s then sprang up and bashed his shield into his back, knocking his off balance more from surprise than anything. He jumped up and slammed the dildo into the back of the man’s head. “Capture!”

Jonathan blinked in surprise as the man vanished, his trick actually working. “Holy hell.”

The ninja girl cheered. “Pay up guys!”

Jonathan watched in disbelief as the girl collected at least two hundred dollars.

The girl smiled as she put half the money in her pocket then tossed Jonathan a wad of cash and a wink. “You’ve got some nice moves kid, look me up when your balls drop.”

“I’ll certainly do that,” Jonathan replied as the ring of punks started heading for the exits. 

He saved the game and headed out when he noticed the fat guy that he’d failed to pickpocket so many times before...

Half an hour and many, many, many reloads later… Jonothan walked out of the alley munching on a piece of KFC as he left.