Chased turned around and faced the voice joyfully calling out to him only to realise that it was the last person he had wanted to see.
"Hey, I asked you something." A red haired muscular boy said as he menacingly approached Chase, leaving a group of people behind him, carefully watching their interaction.
"Nothing." Chase replied stressfully as he tried to find a way to escape his situation. He could feel himself sweating from the pressure that the red-head was exerting.
"Don't lie to me or you know what's going to happen to you." He said as he jabbed Chase's rib making him wince in pain, finding great joy in Chase's pain he smiled, "Does that still hurt?"
"I was just in the principal's office." Chase replied, trying his best to keep the fear and pain out of his voice.
"Leave him alone Lucas." A girl said as she pulled him away from Chase. "We need to report back to the principal".
"Relax Iris, " Lucas said as he sweetly smiled at her, "We still have some time, let me mess with him a bit".
"No, let's go!" Iris said as she headed towards the door of the building Chase had just exited whilst the rest followed. Lucas scowled as Iris dragged him away as she threatened to punch the living day lights out of him if he wasted their time.
"Don't worry Chase, " Lucas said as he reached the door and smiled, "I'll play with you later".
"Come on!" Iris moaned as she finally dragged him away leaving Chase alone in front of the building.
"Well", Chase said as he started walking back to class, "I am safe for now... at least."
*****
It was 3:30pm and school had ended but Chase had found himself sitting in detention alone doing his physics homework that he had received from the last period, the teacher in charge of detention had left for a while as he had to get something in the teacher's lounge.
The chemistry teacher had put Chase in detention for skipping class this morning but that was to be expected. He could have done his work at home but he had nothing to do in detention and preoccupied himself with physics. He hung around with no one as he had no friends ever since 6th grade. Now he was in 10th grade but still had no friends which was quite depressing so, he tried to forget about his loneliness and tried to finish his homework.
He groaned. "How do you even calculate this?" He asked himself as he violently flicked through his textbook trying to find the formula for change in thermal energy but gave up halfway followed by a deep sigh. He heard a couple of voices outside the classroom and hoped that the owners voices would either turn back or if they did notice him, leave him alone.
"Oh!" A voice happily exclaimed, "Look who we have here!" As it opened the door and approached Chase, saying something to one of the people outside.
Lucas!
The realisation made Chase panic leading to him stuffing all his books inside his bag and trying to leave quickly before Lucas could reach his table but, he didn't have time as Lucas moved fast and appeared in front of Chase before putting an arm around his shoulders.
"Why such in a hurry Cheesy?" He smirked, "Trying to ditch your friends is not cool you know?"
Chase wanted to brush Lucas' arm off his shoulders but Lucas had tightened his grip and his hand turned into a fist.
"I do not want trouble." Chase said quietly.
"I do not want trouble." Lucas repeated mockingly as he gave Chase a savage punch to the stomach and he fell to the ground clutching his stomach and his rib in pain.
"Well", Lucas said as he grabbed Chase by the hair and put him on his knees, "It appears that you haven't recovered from your injuries from last week." He smiled, picking him up slightly and kneeing him where his bruise was. Chase groaned in pain as he dropped to the floor again and saliva exited his mouth making him look unsightly.
"Lucas, stop it." A voice calmly said as it walked towards them followed by about thirteen people.
"We're just playing Iris." He calmly said as a Chase in pain got violently thrown towards nearby tables causing them to fall down on him.
"Whatever." She said as she took a seat on one of the tables in the middle of the classroom whilst the others took nearby seats.
"When's our next mission?" A boy asked, completely ignoring the kid trying to recuperate his breath on the floor amidst a set of fallen tables.
"Don't know", another girl replied twirling her hair, "Ms Pierce didn't tell us. Do you know Lazuli?"
"No", Lazuli said replying to her friend Kate.
"I want to quickly get stronger as training isn't really boosting my power." Another boy said as he started shadow boxing.
"Relax Alex". A boy named Kabé said as he tried to calm down his friend.
"Hmph! Boys." A girl named Jaimin grunted whilst checking herself in a mirror.
It looked like everyone had forgotten about the boy at the back of the classroom. Chase nearly recovered from those blows decided to take his chances to leave when three students said their good buys and exited the classroom. Lucas was distracted by Iris and everyone else couldn't care less about him so he swiftly stood up whilst clutching his stomach.
Lucas caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw what Chase was doing. He immediately pulled Chase by his collar and dashed him backwards causing all heads to turn to look at him but nobody said anything.
"Stay put." Lucas warned as he continued his conversation about missions and other stuff.
There were about fourteen people left inside the room, including Chase, and it appears that the thirteen most popular kids in school where in that classroom. They were not only popular but they were the top twelve strongest of the school and the three that had left were runner ups. In the midst of them, Chase's elder sister was there and she made the top 5 strongest of the school leaderboard. Here is the list of the top 13 students: