Better than he thought.

It was only when Mason got close to the gym that he realized how much time it had been since the last bell rang. Between his chat with Ms. Bailey, fiddling with Luxuria, and walking as slowly as possible he had procrastinated for almost fifteen minutes. And keeping Ms. Rosso waiting was a terrifying prospect.

The only real upside was that Mason didn't really get fear boners. Instead, his genitals did their best turtle impersonation and tried to instinctually withdraw from the danger. Admittedly with the size enhancements he now had that proved easier said than done, but the nerd still envied their ability to do what little they could. Doubly so when he actually saw his vice principal.

The former soldier was standing near the bleachers, glaring at her phone. When Mason walked into the gym she seemed to sense him. Her brown eyes snapped up to him, stopping the student cold.

"Good you're here," Ms. Rosso said in her trademark calm, quiet, contralto voice. To his credit, Mason did somehow maintain eye contact. Though he did swallow dryly.

"I'm, uh," He muttered. "I'm sorry I'm late. I had to talk with Ms. Bailey."

"It's fine." The muscular woman said seemingly unperturbed. "But if you have somewhere to be later we need to get started."

Ms. Rosso led him to a metal door at the far end of the gym. She fished a heavily laden keyring out of her pocket. Flipping through them looked a little awkward with only one hand to work with. But Mason figured it would be rude to offer help, and it didn’t take that long before she got the right one between her calloused thumb and forefinger and got the door open.

The equipment room was essentially a giant concrete box. It was positively stuffed, floor to rafters, with a chaotic mass of mats, balls, pads, nets, and weights. And with the door loaded to automatically swing shut, Mason was left with a creeping sense of claustrophobia. Between that and the cheap fluorescent lights, many of which were no longer working, it felt like the type of room the mob would execute a snitch in.

All of which meant Mason was primed to jump when the vice-principal turned to face him. Her brown eyes stared through him as she spoke.

“This shouldn’t be too hard,” Ms. Rosso explained. “One of us has to count and one of us has to write.”

The tall woman grabbed a clipboard off of a shelf, apparently placed there earlier. Then passed it to the bespectacled teen. His large, clumsy hands didn’t really stand much of a chance at catching it, but after only a few seconds of fumbling, he had it in his hands. It had a few sheets of paper attached. At a glance, Mason guessed it was blank Excel spreadsheets.

“We just need four things in each space,” Ms. Rosso gave him his marching orders. “What it is. How many we have in total. How many we should replace. And how many we have to replace.”

Mason nodded hoping like hell he followed her. It seemed pretty doable. Probably a good thing, given the potential consequences for failure his imagination provided. Though the tall nerd did have a little panic attack when he realized he had nothing to write with. He shucked his backpack and began rifling through it. At first, he found a pen but decided to keep looking until he found a pencil. Just to be safe.

“R-Ready,” Mason said uncomfortably. Ms. Rosso gave him a curt nod but wasted no time after that.

“Alright. We’ve got three volleyball nets. One we should probably replace, but none we have to.”

And so it went for the next few minutes. The one-armed woman methodically listed off what needed to be written down. And her blond assistant wrote what she said. But all the while Mason kept his mouth firmly shut. Too scared of saying the wrong thing to say anything at all. And that ensured he faced the one thing more uncomfortable than awkward silence. Awkward one-sided conversation.

Not that it seemed to bother the veteran much. And yet it was still her who broke her own monotonous monologue.

“I just wanted to say thank you again,” Ms. Rosso said while inspecting some resistance bands for tears. “I’m sorry for roping you into this.”

“Oh, um, It’s okay,” Mason muttered. It was a bit of a pain sure, but he would rather do it than have the terrifying, muscular woman be mad at him.

“It really isn’t. This shouldn’t be your job,” The brunette said firmly. Before grumbling under her breath, “Or mine.”

“What do you mean?” Mason said before he could stop himself. Ms. Rosso tensed up, apparently not intending for him to hear that last part. She stood still for a moment looking away from him. But then eventually turned to talk to him.

"I really shouldn't air dirty laundry in front of you," His vice-principal in a tired voice. "But since you agreed to help me, I guess you deserve to know why I needed to ask for help in the first place. The short version is that Coach Thompson was supposed to do this last week. But he kept putting it off, and now he's sick. So I have to do it myself."

"Man, fuck that guy," Mason said in commiseration. He knew Coach Thompson as a gym teacher. But lazily making a mess and expecting someone else to clean it up seemed very in character. It reminded him of the class where he **** them to play dodgeball (even though the school district had banned it) and then made them all late to their next class because he made them put all the balls up.

But before he could get too upset about the previous assholishness, a chilling thought almost knocked Mason off his feet. He has just dropped an f-bomb in front of Ms. Rosso.

"I'm so sorry!" The tall nerd said frantically, holding up his clipboard as a shield. "It just sort of slipped out!"

For a long moment, Ms. Rosso didn't react. She just stared at him with the same stony expression she always wore. The silence was agonizing and all Mason could hear was the blood thundering in his ears.

But then, the miraculous happened.

"I guess I'll let it slide since you're helping me out," She said nonchalantly. Then he saw something he had never seen before. Ms. Rosso smiled at him. Admittedly, it was only a smile in the same way flavored water was juice. But nonetheless, her lips were curled up slightly and there was a tiny, hint of amusement in her normally flinty eyes. "Besides, I actually agree."

Mason was completely stupified. Doubly so when the amazon simply went back to cataloging equipment as though nothing had happened. But something had changed. Now the two actually chatted as they worked.

Well, calling it a chat may have been generous. Even small talk was probably pushing it. It was really just Ms. Rosso asking him questions. She asked if he had thought about what he wanted to major in (he was interested in paleontology.) And how Viv was doing (she was still a troublemaker.) And even whether he still played many video games (he did, but he decided to not bring up his new hobby of harem building.)

She wasn't exactly a sparkling conversationalist. She was brusque, and direct, and never gave the indication she was okay with answering questions in return. But Mason had a suspicion that she was just like that. That the burly woman was just kind of socially awkward. But it seemed to him that she was making a genuine attempt to be nice.

And that led Mason to finally realize it. Ms. Rosso was nice, she just wasn't very charismatic. It reminded the teen of his family's vacation to Alaska. A tour guide, while leading them along a hiking path, had explained the difference between a dangerous animal and a threatening one. No one could deny the retired soldier was dangerous. But as they talked it became clear to him that she wasn't a threat.

And that also made him realize that he may have been too hasty in discounting her as a target.

Most people probably wouldn't have described Ms. Rosso as classically beautiful, but they probably wouldn't say she was ugly either. She was just the type of woman that was described as handsome. Her jawline was strong and both her eyes and cheekbones were prominent. But the dark-haired woman still had her own special charm. Even a pair of scars, one on her lower lip and one bisecting her right brow, seemed more appropriate than unflattering.

And it wasn't just the warrior woman's face.

As the two worked the storage room, which seemingly lacked any ventilation, grew progressively stuffier. Not helped by the fact that, somehow, everything heavy was in the way of everything light. So it wasn't long before their jackets came off. Which gave him a preview of her body.

Like her face, it wasn't conventionally attractive but was incredible nonetheless. It was toned to the point of being shredded. And yet she didn't lack feminine charms either. Her broad shoulders were matched by surprisingly wide hips. And while her pants did their best to hide it, it was clear her butt was both rock hard and decidedly not flat. But most surprising of all was her chest. It would have been easy to assume Ms. Rosso had zero percent body fat. But that clearly wasn't true given how large her breasts looked. If Mason had to guess he would say they were on the larger side of C-cups.

Mason couldn't help but compare his principal to his history teacher. It was tempting to make a hackneyed mythological allusion. Something along the lines of Ms. Rosso being the Athena to Ms. Bailey's Aphrodite. But that wasn't quite right. Really it was that the blonde was the princess the dragon would kidnap. And the brunette was the knight who would slay it. And while being six-and-a-half feet tall didn't leave Mason feeling very damselish, there was something to the idea of being carried in her arms.

Well… arm.

Really that was the one thing giving him pause. The teen knew it wasn't fair to hold it against her, but there was something disconcerting about the way her right sleeve suddenly became empty after a few inches. Even more so with how she had tied off the excess fabric in a messy knot.

But as time ticked by, the teen also realized that wasn't going to stop him. Even if he might not turn on the charm (for a given value if charm) just yet. After all, he already planned on seducing Vina and Ms. Bailey. Plus he was dating Yumi. And he still had to balance all of that with his normal life.

It certainly wasn't because he had no idea where to even start with the amazon.