Upon reaching the away team's locker rooms, Neo practically tossed Chase onto the ground near one of the benches.
Then the usually unangered blue haired delinquent stepped up in front of the team with their heads hung low.
And he yelled.
"The hell were you idiots doing!?"
Neo's knuckles could be seen turning white, from his clenched blood-covered fists.
Meanwhile Chase was too busy trying to use his flames to melt the icicle that had been impaled in his own calf.
Leo stood up, but Hans quickly pulled him back down.
Then coach Gerald spoke up.
"Five of our players were poorly ejected in the match... And have gained two game suspensions each."
It looked as if Neo could not answer, with his mouth agape.
Gerald continued.
"I am surprised the Overseer did not eject the either of you as well, since you both clearly did more damage than anyone on this team had the balls for."
He said, eyeing the depressed group of students before him.
Then with a roll of his eyes, he began toward the exit.
'Finally!'
Chase's mind blurred with frustration, as the icicle began to melt.
The away team was never allowed to bring healers, which he found to be quite a stupid rule considering the home team would never share their own.
Then out of some desperate attempt, began to use his arm sleeve as a poorly tied tourniquet; however, it would work for the time being.
He looked up, and glanced at his teammates.
'Five of them...'
He could guess two of them easily, those being: Jack and Leo, but five...?
Equan was no where to be seen, and Michael looked to be quite defeated. In fact more so than most of the other players in the locker room.
Skylar was arguing with one of the bench players about the younger boy taking his spot in the lineup.
Hans was quietly sitting next to an angered Leo, who was gnawing on the collar of his own jersey.
That left Jack, who was quietly leaning against one of the icy pillars of the bright blue locker room.
Normally when a player was ejected (Which was surprisingly common in an academy sport) no other player could take their spot for the remainder of that game.
But a suspension was quite unheard of, in fact the only suspension that had happened for the team this year was because Neo had tried to rip someone's arm off in the first game of the season.
Which meant that five starting players would not be able to play in the next few games.
Luckily, those spots were not unplayable by the back up players unlike an ejection.
However, that also meant that less skilled players would be acting as the starters for the time being.
And that would most likely mean that Chase would be charged with leading the offense...
He shuttered at the thought.
'We're screwed...'
...
The ride home was silent, so silent that it was quite a bit more uncomfortable than the usual rides.
Leo had not insulted him once, and Neo had not made cracked sort of terrible joke.
While silently watching the grand arena made of ice vanish in the distance, he scanned the surrounding environment.
Far ahead, the river that separated the two kingdoms held a vast bridge made of ancient wood on the warm side, and unbreakable ice on the other.
Around the carriage that the six of them resided in, lie about ten or so mountains covered in ice and snow.
And below them, sat twice as many valleys that were filled with large crevices in the ground, that could have been formed from battles of ancient gods for all Chase knew.
He looked down at the Vox on his wrist, and spotted a new line of runic letters.
It was hard for him to read his ability markings without the devil mask that resided in the ruin that sat on the lower portion of his neck.
It glowed faintly underneath the line that read: Passive Primis-
Chase had recently learned that his Primis Insight class would be covering something like that in the coming days, which would act as a great boon for him.
Considering he had now gained something related to the term, he was now quite excited to learn how to use said ability.
Which was able to drift his attention away from both the drowning defeat and the terrible pain in his leg.
He continued to study the new ability that was made up from some sort of unheard of language, until he could make out the words "Flame" and "Aura".
Before the match, Chase had spent his time alone in the locker room reading up on a couple of new books he had obtained from Vivian.
One being about the three ancient houses of Vallmora (For obvious reasons), the other being about the gods.
In which he had found nothing about the one named "Eternity".
Eventually, when Chase glanced up from his Vox, he noticed that the carriage had stopped, and the grand walls of the ancient academy of the same sigil that he now carried, was standing tall nearby.
They had arrived back at Phoenix Academy.
Chase was not entirely consumed from the anger of losing, as he knew that the match they had just played did not matter.
In fact he had originally planned on selling the game if it got too close.
However, he had also found that his pride had taken quite a big hit from the defeat...
He shook his head, ignoring the thoughts as he gathered his things from the locker room.
Neither Gerald, nor the team captain Leo had anything too say after the loss, so everyone simply left and somberly returned to the main district of the academy.
While walking alone, Chase glanced up at the beautiful night sky.
Then he noticed that a new constellation that he had never seen was standing proudly next to the constellation of Orion.
It was a man, wielding a large duel-sided battle axe.
A large bird surrounded in flames was above him, shrouding the man like an ancient cloak.
It was so familiar that it felt strangely unreal, as if some terrible force had carved a powerful illusion into the sky itself.
Then he realized that he was truly alone on the rickety bridge and that idea was for naught.
"Weird..."