It had been 10 minutes since the start of the school's break time and Chase had spent half of his break in the infirmary getting patched up and being subjected to a lecture. And now, he was going to spend the remainder of his break in the principal's office.
"Just great", he muttered under his breath.
Ms Marina did not want to waste anymore time as she had a class to teach after break, so she quickly led Chase into another building and up some stairs before they found themselves in front of a long corridor that only had three rooms unlike all the other corridors of the school. The corridor was arranged to have two doors on the side facing each other and the biggest door was in the middle of the two rooms, a couple of metres in front of the staircase, so that it was the first door that was seen when you arrived at the top.
Along the walls were several group portraits; pictures of people Chase had never seen before and pictures of people he had seen too but some qualities of the pictures looked older than the others, hinting that those pictures were taken at different time periods.
Chase and Ms Marina walked past the two other doors before stopping in front of the biggest one. Above the door was written:
PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE
Ms Marina knocked on the door and, without waiting for an answer, she opened it, gesturing for Chase to enter, then followed him inside before closing the door behind her.
The room itself was spacious: There was a desk placed in the middle of the room, at the back in front of three big shelves that contained neatly arranged books, two luxurious chairs were placed in front of the desk to face the person behind it, a PC was resting upon the desk and pens and pencils were neatly assorted inside a pen box. A black four-seater sofa was located at the far left of the room whilst a standing lamp lay inactive next to it.
"Hello there Ms Marina." A calm voice greeted behind the desk, "What can I help you with?" Ms Marina motioned towards the boy and sighed.
"Chase, what have you done?" She asked, trying to hide her emotions.
"Nothing, Miss Pierce." He replied, feeling a bit bothered by her question.
***
Maria Pierce was a 36-year-old stunning woman who had long black hair, striking blue eyes and a frightening aura. She wore a one-piece blue suit and had her favourite black sunglasses attached to her breast pocket. She had managed to build the school and become it's headmaster when she was only 25 years old and she quite enjoyed her job.
During her lifetime, she had vanquished foes of all kinds and, after a couple of years, she was untouchable. She was Earth's protector and was feared throughout the galaxy. There was even a statue of her in the city hall not only was she revered, she was also Chase's aunt. Maria was the last born of a family of 7 and she was 8 years younger than Chase's mom, who was the oldest of the family.
***
"Chase, take a seat." Maria instructed as she gestured to one of the luxury chairs facing her desk. "What happened this time?" Maria asked Ms Marina as Chase took a seat.
"He's gotten himself injured again." She sadly said as she glanced at Chase. Just then, the bell announcing the end of break rang, Ms Marina excused herself and left the room, leaving Chase alone with his aunt.
"Let me see the injury." Maria said as she got up from her desk and walked towards Chase. He felt a bit embarrassed lifting his shirt up for the second time today but he had to do it if he wanted to leave her office as quickly as possible.
"It's already covered in bandages, so I do not think that you will be able to see anything." He voiced as he slowly lifted up his shirt. Maria stared at his bandages, getting a clear picture of the injury and told him that she had seen enough prompting Chase to pull his shirt back down.
"Are you sure that you don't want me to do anything about this?" She asked as she walked back towards her desk.
Chase shook his head, "No, I do not want you to get involved in this matter, I will handle this myself."
Maria sat down and chuckled, "No you won't".
"It does not matter." Chase sighed as he stood up and headed for the door. "I'm sure that you remember the promise that you made me, not to intervene remember?"
Maria started looking uncertain and fell silent for a couple of seconds before finally speaking. "Yeah, but I don't like seeing my nephew with new injuries every week."
"You promised not to intervene, so do not intervene, Aunt Maria!" He warned as he opened the door and stepped out of her office back into the corridor, closing the door behind him. Maria sighed and looked out of her side window, wondering when all this was going to stop and when he was finally going to ask for help.
Chase started walking along the corridor and headed towards the stairs going down. The time was 11:20, which meant that he was five minutes late for class, but he was confident that his aunt was going to send a message to his teacher explaining why he was late.
He headed downstairs and started self reflecting: As much as he wanted to tell his aunt what was happening, he knew he couldn't as the situation would have escalated if he snitched, so he had to keep it to himself.
As he exited the building, a sudden chill ran down his spine and he broke into cold sweat.
"Well well well..." Someone beamed, "If it isn't my good friend Chase Tennyson, what are you doing here?"