Chase eventually caved in, and decided that he would go to The Phoenix Academy Winter Gala.
Only because shortly after his meeting with Neo and Poppy, Equan and Michael showed up at his door and asked him if he was going.
The two seemed a lot happier than they had earlier that day, which made Chase quite thankful that the Frostfang match hadn't completely shattered their spirits.
After all, playoffs were near and the team needed to be at their best.
He had also found out that the Gala was a masquerade, which only added to the problem at hand.
That problem was that he did not know what he was going to wear.
He didn't care much for dancing, and certainly wasn't interested in whatever socializing was brought to the table.
In fact he only said he might go because he heard Neo say something quite intriguing to the boy who had to live off of poorly cooked wild monster meat for an entire year.
"The food is good."
Which Chase had dropped all arguments immediately, and told the Cobra and the Ivory Princess that he would consider attending.
Then a knock was heard at his door.
Standing up from the cushioned window sill at the end of his dorm room, he casually made his way over to the door.
Upon opening it, sat a small box and no one in sight.
He picked the box up cautiously, and carried it over and set it on top of his bed.
Using his topaz dagger, he opened the box and inside was a very very expensive looking silk tuxedo.
"How convenient..."
He muttered, as he took it out of the box.
In fact, part of him wished that some sort of magic bomb was awaiting him the moment he lifted the cardboard.
However, he was most likely not going to obtain any good excuses in order to get out of this so called gala.
He had already used training on multiple occasions, such as school assemblies, and even Aetherball celebrations after hard fought victories.
With a sigh, he put the tuxedo on.
Looking into his bathroom mirror, he wished he could gouge his own eyes out from this sight of his unkept self in a suit.
His hair was now all the way down to his shoulders, but was far to thin to actually sit and rest like normal long hair.
No, his hair decided that it wanted to be as wild as possible.
He tried several times to wet it and brush it back, but every single time it shot back up.
Part of him wished that he still had golden hair, while he also didn't necessarily hate the mud curse that was put on it.
If he squinted it sort of looked like he had blonde highlights in the brown hair.
His eyes had terrible bags underneath them, from the amount of all nighters he had been pulling recently.
His skin had actually gotten quite a decent tan from the fact that there were two suns instead of one in the Phoenix Academy mountains.
With another deep sigh, he pondered what he would use as a mask.
"Wait a second."
Immediately after the thought crossed his mind, Sparky growled from within his soul.
"Bah! What's the worst that could happen?"
Following his lack of caution, he summoned the Naga mask onto his face.
The cold metallic scales brushed against his cheeks, and gently compressed into a comfortable position.
Feeling a strange rush of confidence, he thought for a moment as he looked into his black empty eyes in the mirror.
Pouring some of his Axis energy into the ruin on his neck, he felt a wave of aetheric presence shift against his skin.
Then the mask began to change shape.
The sharp horns compacted into new angles on the mask, as the colors began to vibrate into a new set of colors.
With another glance, his once serpentine-like tribal mask had turned into a devil's mask that only covered the upper portion of his face.
It had only two horns, one on each corner of his forehead, and the left half of the mask had turned into a matte black.
While the other half of the mask had shifted into a dark snake green.
"I don't hate it..."
He thought aloud.
Checking the time, he realized that the gala would start in only a few moments.
Casually walking over to the door, he turned the knob, and left his dorm room.
As he walked down the grand stairs, full of a bunch of dressed up students, he realized that maybe he wasn't overdressed for the occasion.
In fact, he was quite underdressed compared to a lot of the bizarre costumes some of the upperclassman had cooked up in the recent hours.
Someone had even donned an entire life-sized manticore costume, which made Chase shiver.
He wondered when anyone had actually decorated the academy halls in the few hours he had spent in his dorm.
Surely some of it had already been there, but then again the entire academy was ran off of an all powerful child of Orion's magic.
A few more steps down, Chase spotted a dark skinned boy with his black locks tied back into a bun, and another boy with slick backed onyx hair.
The two looked quite normal compared to the other students in the grand stairwell.
Equan was wearing an ivory mask, with two lightning bolts acting as the ears of the mask. While Michael simply wore a full sized mask made of entirely ice.
The two were both looking strangely at one of the distant staircases, as Chase stepped down and at their sides.
"Wha- Oh..."
On the other staircase, Professor Luke was wearing a pink gown and screaming at some of the other students about some sort of illusion magic.
"Well this is off to an interesting start."
Michael muttered just loud enough for his two companions too hear.