Much like Cassie's father, Frank, suspected, the school did everything it could to ignore Cassie's accusations. After all, firing a teacher for something like this would be detrimental to the school's reputation. Maybe it would even threaten the funding allocated to the school by the state! As such, news of this could never be allowed to get out.
As for the kids...this was a public school! If you didn't want to come here, feel free to move somewhere else! This was a free country!
The first meeting was scheduled to be two days after Frank first called. It was 8 o'clock in the evening. An assistant principal attended the meeting, and throughout the meeting, the old woman did her best to scare Cassie. She pulled out her school records and grade reports and even individual assignments and grilled Cassie as much as she could. Her tone was simple. Clearly, Cassie hated the school and Mr. Douglas, which was why she was trying to tear down the school with false accusations and ruin the life of a perfectly good man.
It was as if Cassie was the prisoner and the one at fault here. All the assistant principal wanted was for Cassie to admit to lying and get this over with. Cassie didn't even need to use her powers to know what she was up to.
Thankfully, that didn't last too long. Just as Cassie was so furious that she considered punching the woman in the face, Frank stepped in. The man knew the importance of not blindly placing accusations or declaring people as guilty, but he could tell the school didn't even care if the accusations were true. All the school and its higher-ups wanted was for all of this mess to disappear.
The exchange between Frank and the assistant principal was quite heated up from the very first moment. Frank threatened to move Cassie to another school. The assistant, whose name Cassie believed was Linda, said he was free to do so. Frank threatened telling what happened here to the other parents and even sending messages to the media. Linda threatened to sue Frank for defamation. Frank, intrigued by the threat, informed the old woman of his career.
Linda's face turned pale all of a sudden, and she quickly apologized and left the room. She returned ten minutes later with a promise to start an investigation.
Great...problem solved! Cassie naively believed this was the end of it. The school would look into this matter, find evidence about Mr. Douglas's wrongdoings, and then proceed to fire him. Look at that! She actually did some good to the world!
She didn't exactly save the world or defeat a supervillain or anything, but she took down a sexual predator, and she believed it was something she should be proud of.
For days, during the PE classes, Cassie looked at Mr. Douglas with mocking eyes, believing that his days were numbered. Yet, when a week went by and nothing happened, Cassie was less confident.
When several more days went by and Frank received a call from Linda, telling him that an investigation was done and had exonerated Mr. Douglas, Cassie knew her mistake.
Just because she and her parents had ethics didn't mean everyone else did, and some people were more than happy to play tricks and lie when their paychecks and careers were at stake.
"I'm sorry, Cassie, but it seems like Mr. Douglas is cleared." After ending the call, Frank went to Cassie's room and informed her of what happened. "We can only believe that he is innocent. Of course, if you want, I can call Linda and ask her to move you to another PE class under another teacher. That should make you feel safer."
Frank paused. Truth to be told, deep down, he knew something was up. After all, he was no fool. The most likely explanation to what happened was that the investigation was rigged. If the investigators didn't want to find anything, then nothing could be found.
Unfortunately, there was little that he could do. Like he did Cassie, in the modern world, everything was about evidence. Everyone was innocent until they could be proven to be guilty. This was founded on the belief that it was better to let guilty people go than to put innocent people behind bars. This saved a lot of people from being punished for crimes they didn't commit, but this also created a lot of agonizing situations like this one.
He had a heart for justice, but his hands were tied.
Of course, he wouldn't be telling these things to his daughter. He still wanted her to preserve her innocence. Preserve her faith in the law. After all, when people don't believe the law protected them, when people thought the authorities weren't on their side, they would turn to chaos. To vigilantism. And nothing good could come out of chaos.
Faced with the suggestion from her father, Cassie actually paused for a moment before denying it. "Actually, there is no need for that, dad."
"I'm sorry?"
"I said, there is no need for me to change classes. If Mr. Douglas is proven to be innocent, then that must be the case." Cassie let out a sweet, innocent smile at her father.
"But Cassie…"
"I'm tired, dad. Can I get some privacy?"
Frank nodded slowly before backing out of the room. As she was finally left alone, Cassie let out a deep sigh. She was truly disappointed. Innocent? When she read the thoughts of Mr. Douglas, she had a glimpse into his histories. A quick one, but a glimpse nonetheless. He had been doing this for years, and there had been many complaints filed against him. Either the investigators from the school were completely blind...or they were choosing to be blind.
If she was just a normal person, a normal student, then she could only do what all the previous victims did. Forget about this and move on. But Cassie was different, and if the school refused to take action, then she would force its hand.
The laws and rules were in place. She just needed to help with their execution. She just needed to get them the evidence they needed to work.
And she had just the idea of how to do that.
---
The next day in PE class, as everyone was spread out and shooting hoops once again, Cassie found her way to her teacher
"Good morning, Mr. Douglas. Can I talk to you for a second?" She glanced at the side. "Privately?"
Mr. Douglas frowned. He hadn't been having the best days of his life. A week ago, the head of the PE department came into his office and talked to him. Essentially, he was to stop with his...activities. Just be a good teacher for a few months until things die down. Mr. Douglas didn't know too much about what was going on. All he knew was that someone must be onto him. After thanking the department chair, Mr. Douglas promised to not lay a finger on any of the students...in the near future.
As soon as the horizon looked clear, he would be all too eager to jump back to his previous self. If anything, he would be even more active than before in an effort to make up for lost fun.
This was why when Cassie came up to him and hoped for a private chat, the teacher found himself to be not so eager to talk.
"What is it, Cassie? I'm sure whatever it is, you can say that to me here…"
Mr. Douglas started, but his voice began trailing off as, right before him, Cassie's eyes lit up. Cassie positioned herself at an angle such that only the teacher could see the silver light radiating from the center of her eyes.
"You want to go talk to me in private."
Mr. Douglas groaned. His mind offered some resistance against Cassie's instructions, but that level of resistance quickly disappeared. It had been over two weeks since Cassie got the armor, and her powers now have grown exponentially compared to two weeks ago. Within seconds, the teacher was under Cassie's control.
"I want to go talk to you in private." The man whispered before turning, glancing at his phone as he moved. "Follow me. We have three minutes before the class needs to move on to another activity."
Slowly, he made his way to the storage room connected to the gym. Cassie followed. The two entered the room and went around the corner, hiding from the view of potential curious classmates.
"What is it, Cassie?"
Cassie waved her hand in front of the teacher. The interesting thing was that she didn't really need to do that. She didn't really need hand gestures to use her psychic powers. However, Cassie simply preferred it.
"Tell me everything illegal that you have done."
"But...no..." This time the resistance from Mr. Douglas was even greater than before, but Cassie expected that. The more the subjects didn't want to do something, the more difficult it was for her to convince them otherwise. She kept on pushing, and Mr. Douglas finally gave in.
As soon as the man started listing off his crimes, Cassie felt like it was so lucky that she discovered who he really was.
The occasional molesting of teenagers on the job was just one of the many terrible things the PE teacher did. For one thing, he was a huge fan of child pornography. In the pictures tab of his smartphone were hundreds of pictures and videos of children being tortured and raped. These were the collections that Mr. Douglas came across on the internet and decided to save for his own enjoyment.
Making things even worse, even these weren't enough to satisfy the desires of the man. Cassie's face turned red in anger as the man confessed to have been planning on abducting one of the students in Pather High. He was originally going to carry out the abduction in a few weeks.
Legally, the man was a criminal. Morally, the man was a sinner.
As his mind was temporarily enslaved by Cassie, Mr. Douglas spilled every foul thing he had done and planned on doing. The more he said, the more angry Cassie became. Finally, as the man finished, Cassie had made up her mind.
Previously, she was only planning on getting the teacher to turn himself into the police and confess what he had been doing to his students. Now...she wanted the man to truly pay for his multitude crimes.
"Listen to me, Mr. Douglas…" Cassie whispered slowly and quietly, her every word sinking into Mr. Douglas's mind. "When this conversation is over, I want you to go on your phone, and I want you to send the terrible pictures and videos you have stored on your phone to every adult on your contact list, along with a confession. In that confession, you will detail your experience as a child molester and a pedophile, and you will beg for their forgiveness."
Mr. Douglas had protection in the school faculty, and Cassie truly looked forward to seeing how his protection could salvage this one!