Phil made a beeline toward his friends as soon as he saw them gathered on the deck of the ferry to the island. While the summer had passed fairly quickly, and it was only a few months to begin with, there were still few greater joys in life than being reunited with ‘da boyz’. It was nice being away from the mountains, too. Sure, the food was good, but after a while all the trees and rocks started to look the same.
“Hey hey! What’s cracka-lacking?” Phil shouted out as soon as they were within hearing range. A seriously suntanned Jaden, a contrastingly pale-skinned Bastion, Chazz looking like his usual mildly annoyed self, Alexis looking as happy as a kid on Christmas morning while she stood next to Atticus, Syrus happily chatting with a strangely calm-looking Zane, and Chumley, who’d produced a solar-powered electric griddle to fry up an almost unending line of grilled cheeses to beautiful golden perfection.
"Phil!" Jaden and the rest waved back at him, with Chazz adding a few angry yet enduring words of how he had a bone to pick with Phil for not taking up his offer to stay over the summer.
"Everyone have a good summer?" Phil slid into place in the circle of students as if he'd never been away to begin with. Chumley wordlessly handed him a grilled cheese sandwich, one still sizzling from the heat of the griddle, while Alexis leaned down to reach into the cooler near her feet, pulling out an ice-cold bottle of pop to toss Phil’s way.
Phil casually caught the projectile and glanced at the label.
“Oh? Coke, and it’s the stuff with actual sugar in it. Damn, I like me some of that.”
“It’s good stuff.” Jaden agreed. Phil knocked the top of the glass bottle against the side of the boat to jimmy off the cap and took a swig, followed by a satisfied chomp out of his sandwich. “My summer was super sweet, by the way! I-“
Phil nodded along with a smile as Jaden described all the crazy antics he'd gotten up to, though his smile slightly tightened once Bastion caught his attention with a sharp look and mouthed the words 'need to speak later'. Phil made a slight nod of acknowledgment and turned his attention back to focus on catching up with everyone else.
“Oh, and have you seen Professor Crowler yet?” Jaden finished an account of how he learned how to surf with an abrupt and unexpected question.
"No?" Chazz answered, looking a bit mystified as to why Jaden brought up the professor all of a sudden.
“Bro, he’s jacked now!” Jaden nearly shouted the words in disbelief, miming the action of a bodybuilder flexing a crazy amount of muscles in front of an invisible mirror. “And his tournament record!”
“Mhm. The most interesting part.” Bastion added on with a sage nod of his head. “Rumor has it that he’s won the right to challenge Koyo Hibiki for the title of world champion once the doctors sign the release forms.”
Those words were enough to finally grab the attention of Atticus and Zane, who had been chatting along in their own little world next to the group.
“It may very well be the duel of the century.” Zane stated the words like it was a pure, unblemished fact.
"Well, for starters," Atticus spoke with an uncharacteristically serious look of contemplation on his face, "It's been years since Koyo has even been active in the scene. First, his health spiraled down, and then he fell into that coma. No one's been able to duel him since he was admitted to the hospital. Heck, no one's had the heart to even ask about it. Forget angering the rest of the duel world, Ms. Hibiki would fold anyone in half who tried. I bet Seto Kaiba and Yugi Muto would have words for the poor schmuck, too. They were all on pretty good terms when Koyo was active.”
Phil’s eyebrows rose. He’d known the cards he left on Crowler’s desk after the Shadow Rider incident were pretty decent. But to make this many waves? Perhaps he’d underestimated the effect of a few decent Ancient Gear cards in the GX metagame.
“Um… remind me. How does one even win the right to challenge Koyo Hibiki in the first place? I’m guessing by your words that you can’t simply show up to a world championship tournament and expect to duel him or something.”
Bastion leaned forward and took a sip of his own glass bottle of Coke before beginning his explanation of Phil’s question.
“It’s exceedingly difficult. To prove your worth to the champion, a duelist must win the national championship-“
“Oh that’s not too bad,” Phil began, but Bastion instantly cut him off to continue speaking.
“The duelist must win the national championship in every single developed country. Only then is a duelist considered worthy of reaching their frail arms to grasp at the feet of the world champion.”
“Oh. That’s a bit more impressive.” Phil leaned back against the railing of the boat in thought. “And Crowler did all that?”
“Over the summer. If he hadn’t managed to get sponsored by Kaiba, who lent him a Blue-Eyes jet to use for travel, there might not have even been enough time in the summer to hit all the championships in one go. Normally the process would take a few years. But, they do say those Blue-Eyes jets can casually break the sound barrier.” Alexis confirmed, accepting a second grilled cheese sandwich from Chumley with a beaming smile of thanks, causing the boy to blush and grumble that it was no problem, no problem at all.
"I still can't believe Crowler's cool now." Chumley said in disbelief between munches of his own triple-stacked grilled cheese. "Seems like just yesterday he was a real mean guy, always picking on us reds. But ya' know what he did when I ran across him in town yesterday? He remembered my name, he smiled, and he said hi. Who replaced his brain, and how can I shake their hand?”
Everyone in the group shared a knowing look with each other, with Bastion murmuring that ‘matters of life and death tend to change a man’s outlook on the world’. They all fell silent with those words as memories of the desperate nighttime duels flashed through their heads. Each one of them had been involved in one way or another, either as a duelist or as collateral damage.
Phil could still clearly remember the scene he’d walked into in the abandoned dorm. Crowler’s hands had been shaking, but the man still stood with his back straight, as if daring the traitorous snake Bernardello to try his best. That was the first ever time Phil felt a sliver of respect for the professor.
The talk gradually turned toward other matters, like summer trips, considerations of future class assignments, and who, if anyone, would be picked as headmaster for Ra Yellow. Meanwhile, Bastion sidled over to Phil, who was sitting on the edge of the conversation with a grin that just said he was happy to be there.
“We might have a problem.” Bastion instantly dove into the meat of the topic. Clearly, by the look of his face, it was something that had been bothering him for quite some time.
Phil glanced back at him, wordlessly prompting his friend to continue speaking.
Bastion leaned against the railing on the side of the boat with a sigh.
“I would be correct in assuming that you remember my internship with Dr. Eisenstein?
“Yup. Real smart fella, I’ve heard.”
“Well…” Bastion grimaced and rubbed the back of his head with a hand, “as it turns out, he is smart. And crazy. Everything went amazingly at first, but when there was only a month left until school started back up, Dr. Eisenstein went mad. Or perhaps he'd always been mad and was incredibly good at hiding it. He started babbling about something called 'The Light' and how I needed to see it. Then he pulled out his duel disk and started a shadow duel, of all things!”
“Shit.”
Phil chugged the last of his Coke and winged the bottle toward a nearby trashcan,
So… was he trying to kill you with the shadow duel, card you, or brainwash you?” He asked Bastion in concern. “Also, you said ‘he is smart’. Eisenstein survived the duel?”
"To the first question, I am not sure. As for the second, yes, though he is not in a state to make any moves. It pained me to do so, but the final decisive strike by my Water Dragon Cluster ended up breaking most of his ribs, fracturing his skull, and severely damaging his organs. I took him to the hospital under the guise that an experiment went deadly wrong."
"I see…" Phil rubbed his chin in thought, but soon his eyes swiveled back to Bastion once the boy continued to speak.
“I also took the liberty of appearing at his bedside in disguise once I was informed by a friend of mine, who happens to be a nurse working for that same hospital, that Dr. Eisenstein was ranting and raving in his sleep. He…”
Bastion shuddered and steadied himself on the railing.
“He never woke up. Not a single time after the conclusion of the duel. But in his sleep, once he was stabilized by the doctors, he never once stopped begging for forgiveness. Over and over and over again. Apologizing, begging, crying that he couldn’t stop himself. That the seer made him do it. He screamed that the light burned his eyes, but when the nurses checked on him, they took explicit care to turn off any lights that could be deemed harsh on the eyes, even completely turning off the lights in total throughout the room. And that’s before you consider that Eisenstein's eyes were closed the entire time due to his unconsciousness.”
The fact that Eisenstein survived the shadow duel was enough to tell Phil that the terms of the duel likely hadn’t been to the death. Certainly, there were ways to avoid killing your opponent while under those terms, but in Phil’s unfortunate experiences, those ways were difficult and unlikely to happen.
“I imagine he was trying to either card you or brainwash you.” Phil eventually decided. Both scenarios were practically staples of the anime, at least in the original series. And from what little he’d watched of GX, that trend seemed to continue. To be fair to the writers, it was a decent way to show consequences while not being forced to actually kill off characters. "I think the most interesting part of this is all the mentions of the seer and the light. Sounds real culty to me."
“Agreed.” Bastion nodded, pleased that they were on the same train of thought. “My nurse friend said she’d call me if Eisenstein woke up. Until then, I think all we can do is keep our eyes peeled for danger.”
Phil grunted in agreement. Another school year, another crazy situation.
"We should probably let the others know. Even if it ends up being a nothingburger, I don’t want some stupid brainwashing plague catching them off guard. Or to have to rescue them from getting carded after a casual duel randomly turns into a shadow game.”
“Yes. That would be good.” Bastion immediately made his way over to rejoin the group, with Phil right behind him.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
As soon as the ferry docked at the island, the beach was overrun by students who’d already arrived welcoming those still on the ferry. Friends greeted friends they hadn’t seen since the last school year, students chattered over whatever rumors came to mind, and it was all watched over by the commanding figures of Professor Crowler and Ms. Hibiki, who stood with arms crossed, silently watching the procession of students.
Jaden walked down the gangplank with his mouth wide open, and Phil soon followed while quickly glancing around at the rest of the students in the area. Only a few of them, enough to be counted on the fingers of one hand, had visibly reacted to the colossal metal monstrosity that loomed hundreds of feet over the beach, over the trees, and even made the buildings nearby look like children’s toys.
“C:\WINDOWS\system32>chkdsk /f
Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data …
Progress 115 of 567 done; Stage: 20% Total: 75% ETA: 1:00:32 …”
Every time a student stepped off the ferry, the giant, blue-metal colossus would focus a red beam of light emitting from its singular glowing eye. The beam moved like the machine was scanning them, and with each student that was scanned, the halting, robotic voice read off the progress meter again, with the number increased for each student scanned.
Phil recognized the monster as soon as he saw it. Chaos Ancient Gear Giant. It certainly looked like Crowler was putting his card to good use… though perhaps the few people among the student body who could see duel spirits might need a bit of therapy after the sudden and admittedly quite intimidating appearance. Phil, meanwhile, had the realization hit him that he’d probably also need therapy after learning that a fucking duel spirit was running Windows. Well, at least it wasn’t MacOS.
“What a freaky cool duel spirit…” Jaden breathed in wonder as the group finished stepping off the gangplank and a beam of red light washed over them. “It’s totally an Ancient Gear monster. Do you think it’s with Crowler? I’ve gotta duel him if it is!”
“A duel spirit?” Bastion questioned. He furtively glanced around, as if the spirit was hiding behind a tree or a building.
Phil loosely pointed in the general direction of the metal giant. “Big fucker dead ahead. Judging by how few people are freaking out about it, I think only people with some amount of sensitivity to those spirits can see it. It’s definitely an Ancient Gear monster. Looks like Crowler’s upped the security on the island after the shadow rider crap, seeing how it’s scanning everyone that’s coming off the boat.”
“Freaky.” Alexis shivered. “I guess I get the security bit, but that whole spirit thing is still a bit freaky.”
Syrus gulped and trembled slightly in fear. “Can we get a move on and skedaddle off the beach? I can’t see it, but even I want to get away.”
Phil was just about to nod in agreement when a firm hand grabbed the scruff of his neck in a familiar death grip.
“Greetings and salutations, Ms. Hibiki. Did you have a spiffing summer?” Phil glumly said without even needing to look back at the person behind him.
"Phillip Jenson." Ms. Hibiki ground out the words in a rather stern tone, even for her. “My office, now. Do I need to drag you there, or will you cooperate and walk?”
“I’ll walk.” Phil sighed and waved to his friends. “See ya’ later fellas. If I don’t make it back, pour out a cold, delicious drink for me on my grave.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“So….” Phil finally couldn’t bear the silence any longer. He was better at dealing with it than before, but the suffocating atmosphere in the office was greatly enhanced in effect by Ms. Hibiki’s demeanor. She was… visibly not happy, to make an extreme understatement. It wasn’t even like this was the first time Phil had been sitting in the Slifer headmistress’s office. Nor was this the first time said headmistress was pissed off at him while he was sitting in her office. But there was something more hidden in her gaze than the normal anger at whatever Phil had done this time.
“I got a call over the summer.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Phil didn’t even dare to raise his eyebrows. He could tell by the atmosphere and by how Ms. Hibiki practically ground out every single word that he was on unimaginably thin ice.
Ms. Hibiki waited a few seconds for him to ask about the call, but continued when Phil exercised his Fifth Amendment right to stay silent.
“It was from Seto Kaiba.”
Phil found the poster of Koyo Hibiki posing with monsters from his signature deck, Elemental Heroes, on the wall to his right to be extremely interesting.
“He told me a heartrending story about a student of this academy passing away before his time, overseas in America. Do you know what he said when I pressed him harder on the matter? You know, because it is my sworn duty as a teacher of this academy to keep my students safe? And ohhhhh, I really had to push to get an answer out of that bastard’s mouth.”
And here it was. Phil’s gaze dropped away from the poster. He closed his eyes and sat back in the uncomfortable wooden chair he’d plopped into so many times by now.
“What.” Ms. Hibiki closed her eyes and took a deep breath in an attempt to wrest control over her anger, but it was futile. She bolted to her feet with a face full of righteous rage.
“WHAT ON EARTH POSSESSED YOU TO DEAL WITH THIS YOURSELF INSTEAD OF ASKING A TEACHER FOR HELP!”
Phil nearly tumbled backward in his chair from the unexpected volume of her voice. He could almost swear the walls shook from the force of it all.
“I get it! I get it.” She repeated with a quieter voice, the anger in her expression sliding away to make way for something that almost looked like a mixture of sorrow and extreme concern. “You found out that something terrible, so terrible that even Seto Kaiba refused to give me the full details, was happening in the American branch of Duel Academy. But your reaction to that was to convince Kaiba to fly you to America, hitchhike across the entire damned country, infiltrate the stronghold of a murderous psychopath, and then confront him? And then…”
Ms. Hibiki’s voice cracked with raw emotion.
“And then, in an alleyway in New York City, two of my students tried to kill each other. One succeeded.” She sat down, rage drained away to be replaced by nothing but sorrow. “I know. I know Dimitri was possessed. I know that at the point he was at, there was no way for him to be saved. We lost that as an option the moment Dimitri escaped from the infirmary. But Phil, it’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to rely on adults. I won't lie. If you had gone to me at the end of the previous school year and told me what you told Kaiba, I would have been skeptical. But I still would have investigated. Heck,” Ms. Hibiki bitterly smiled and massaged the bridge of her nose, “I even would have let you come with me, since you would have found some way to cross the entire ocean by yourself one way or another. You’re extremely resourceful, Phil. Even I can see that.”
Any words from Phil, whether they would have been an explanation, an apology, or something else were forestalled as Ms. Hibiki stood back up, walked around her desk, and wrapped him up in a crushing hug.
“I can’t imagine how you felt in that alley. I’m proud that you fought to help people you hardly knew, simply because it was the right thing to do. I just wish that you would have asked one of us for help.”
Phil blinked in surprise as his arms were pinned to his side and his ribs creaked from the force of Ms. Hibiki’s bear hug. Sometimes he forgot that he was an adult in a kid’s body.
“Sorry.” Phil eventually muttered. “I guess I just got tunnel vision on fixing the problem after David Rabb told me about it. Dimitri… I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough to save his life. It’s my fault.”
Ms. Hibiki sighed and released Phil from his temporary bearhug prison. “I know you were trying to help. And Dimitri’s death was not your fault. That crime lies on that scumbag Bernardello’s shoulders, may he rot in Hell. You’re resourceful and habitually self-reliant. It’s who you are, Phil. Just… next time, take a moment to remember that you’re a kid. You and your friends shouldn’t have even been involved in the Shadow Rider incident to start with, and you shouldn’t have gone to America alone. Because we adults failed when we got you involved with those keys, you and your friends were forced to do and see things no kids should ever have to. Please. Count on us next time.”
Phil nodded silently and surprisingly enough, he was released from the office without any mention of detention, something that was a rarity by now. He wisely kept his own thoughts about the viability of sitting out during an event similar to the Shadow Riders or Tragoedia to himself. Hibiki had a bit of a point. The problem was that she didn’t know that something crazy could be expected to happen on the island each year with how the anime bullshit worked.
If he hadn’t gone to the abandoned dorm to investigate Bernardello’s note, Crowler might have been sealed in a card for quite some time. Fuck, Phil was still surprised about Bernardello going for the card route instead of the murder route. If he hadn’t gone to America when he did, Tragoedia probably would have discovered the joys of Trishula hand looping. If he hadn’t challenged Tragoedia personally, that Shiranui deck probably would have meant the death of anyone who dueled the monster unless there were serious amounts of supernatural-level luck in play.
Yet Hibiki’s point remained. The collateral damage, the difficulties he faced getting to New York City, sinking back into his shameful vice for one last night after being forced to cross a line he’d been avoiding like the plague since day one. Could that have been changed if he’d thought to ask Ms. Hibiki for help?
He didn’t know.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-several days later-
“You want to what?”
Bastion clapped Phil on his back with great but quiet cheer.
“You heard me. Jaden thinks it would be cool if the team was a mix of students from all three dorms, and he asked me to take care of Ra Yellow. Thus, I think it would be fun if you were on the team too, Phil.”
Phil sat back in his seat to process the unexpected request. In the front of the classroom, the teacher, whom Phil hadn’t ever gotten around to remembering the name of, droned on about some sort of bullshit on equip spells.
“Mate, I don’t know the rules of the game. I’m probably crap, too.”
“That’s why we have Jaden, Chazz, and Alexis,” Bastion wryly smiled. “You and I, we’re simply the Ra Yellow reps, around to fill out the numbers on the team. No skill around here, not a bit. Sure, there are some other guys in the dorm that might be good, but Jaden's the team captain and they might have an issue taking orders from a Slifer. That’s… er, actually the big reason. Hardly anyone in the other dorms wants to listen to a Slifer.”
“Right. Fair point.” Phil shook his head incredulously. The vast majority of the Obelisk Blue students and a good chunk of the Ra Yellow dorm weren’t quite so fond of the dorms they saw as ‘beneath’ them. “I still can’t believe a duel academy of all places is putting on a student vs teacher basketball game. I know they've done it before, but seriously?”
“No kidding, and it gets better. After the basketball game is a duel. 3v3 using representatives from each team. The teachers announced their picks yesterday. Crowler, Hibiki, and Banner. Two dorm heads and Banner, who volunteered since the admins have pretty much given up trying to find a permanent headmaster for Ra.” Bastion continued. “Something about two heads dying on the job is freaking people out. Anyway, that’s the other reason why I’m asking you to join. To duel, not to be the headmaster for Ra Yellow obviously. So, you in?”
Phil held out his fist, and Bastion quickly knocked his own against it. “I’ve got a bone to pick with Hibiki for beating me that one time last year.”
“That’s because you had the sheer cajónes to play a spirit deck. Or was that a legitimate dip into the waters of insanity?” Bastion laughed at the memory. “But that’s good. Since you said yes, the picks for our team in the duel part are going to be Jaden, Chazz, and you. The two of us can be the weak links in the basketball part together. Now, don’t bother me. I need to catch up on my lecture notes.”
Phil rolled his eyes. Really? Taking notes on a lecture about equip spells? Weak stuff. He didn’t even need words to show Bastion what real men do during a lecture like that. And with that, Phil placed his head on the desk in front of him, falling asleep almost instantly. The only person in the classroom who was faster than Phil in that aspect was Jaden, the current class snoozing champion.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-even more days later than the several days later-
The gym was silent. For the first time since the game started, the gym was completely silent. Even Atticus, sitting in the announcer’s booth with Zane, was struck with the powerful curse of speechlessness. Professor Crowler was frozen on the court with arms spread wide in victory, standing proudly with the shattered glass remains of the goal’s backboard spread across the ground. The onlookers could still hear the sharp tinkling sounds the glass had made when it hit the ground in their heads, and even the sun filtering through the window shone upon the professor like he was a man chosen by the sports gods themselves.
“THU-THU THREE HUNDRED SIXTY DEGREE DUNK! ZANE, DID YOU JUST SEE THAT?” Atticus’s shocked screams reverberated through the speakers hung up around the gym as the image finally finished processing in his head. "SOMEBODY CALL MAINTENANCE BECAUSE THAT BACKBOARD IS ABSOLUTELY BUSTED!"
“Hey Bastion, I know the rest of the lads on the team are pretty good, but I don’t think we can make a comeback from this one. Crowler literally just did a 360-degree slam dunk that broke the fucking backboard.”
Bastion turned to Phil with a shaky smile, a half-hearted thumbs up, and a face nearly drained of blood.
“I think we can still do this. Right? I guess from a moral perspective, we’re right in the dumps, but… oh look! Jaden’s calling a huddle!”
“Alright dudes. And dudettes,” Jaden added with a grin toward Alexis once everyone arrived in the huddle. “Not gonna lie, that move with the big C man was super sweet, but I think we can still do this.”
“I think the refs are going to call a timeout.” Chazz broke in. “I overheard them talking about safety laws requiring the glass to be cleaned up. Atticus is already shouting over the maintenance crew.”
“See! We have more time to think about things!” Jaden instantly saw the silver lining and broke into his usual infectious grin.
Phil raised his head and glanced over to the teacher team. Two of the teachers were showering Crowler with streams of water from their water bottles. Crowler himself looked hardly winded, and Hibiki seemed quite annoyed with the fact that school property was damaged. It didn’t take long for her to stalk over to the grinning professor to start chewing him out over it.
“Jaden, broski, I think Crowler’s ascended into sports godhood. Look at him! How is the sun still shining directly on his head!”
“He does look like he has a halo right now.” Alexis admitted.
“Come on!” Jaden raised his voice to speak over the undercurrent of negativity brought up by Phil and Alexis. “They have sweet moves, but we’re only about five points behind thanks to our solid layup game. Just focus on getting the ball to Chazz, who’ll bounce it my way so I can shoot.”
Bastion raised a finger with a worried glance toward the teacher team.
“Crowler’s stuck to your side at this point, Jaden, and he’s more than twice your size. We have a chance of getting past the other teachers since the rest of them aren't all that good aside from Hibiki, but Crowler's size and skills are going to make it nearly impossible. Curse him for getting so jacked over the summer!”
“Then keep passing it to me, dweeb, and I’ll keep the ball to make the shot." Chazz snorted in contempt of Bastion's worry, though immediately afterward he also mentioned that the ball should be sent to Alexis as a third option if Crowler decided to change focus.
Phil, meanwhile, fell silent with a faint sense of amusement that their entire strategy was being built around dealing with one single opponent, instead of the rest of the teachers, who were still on average twice the size of each player on the student team.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Well, Zane, it ain’t looking good for our poor team of intrepid students this season.”
Zane looked over to Atticus, who was next to him in the announcer’s booth, broadcasting their discussion through the mic.
“As usual, they’re the underdogs.” He concluded in a calm matter-of-fact voice. “And here we go. As always, everyone say thank you to the janitors for making short work of that glass.”
“Yup.” Atticus cheerfully agreed. “Too bad we were banned from participating for being too good, it would be fun to get back out on the court again. Oh! Look at that! Little Chazz has the ball, he’s running down the court! Go Chazz go! Don’t trip over your own feet!”
“The real question is, will he pass to Jaden? That seems to have been the cornerstone of the student team’s strategy.” Zane calmly analyzed while Atticus jumped to his feet to keep feverously commenting on the commotion on the court. Meanwhile, Chazz screamed at Atticus to not call him ‘little’.
“He goes! He shoots! And here comes Vellian Crowler, jumping almost five feet in the air to swipe the ball out of the air! Come on boys, say it with me!” Atticus paused and held his microphone out to the audience behind him, which shouted ‘CROWLER NO SWIPING!’ at once as loud as possible. Crowler’s only response was to stick his tongue out at the crowd before making a half-court shot that sent Atticus stumbling backward with his hand over his heart screaming ‘NOTHING BUT NET!’.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Phil bounced off Hibiki's side like a rubber ball as she violently shoulder-checked him out of his path. But it was too late. The basketball that was once in his possession was sent hurtling toward Bastion, who barely caught it by the tips of his fingers and chucked it over to Alexis. Alexis dribbled it twice, moving slightly forward before ignoring Jaden, who was completely covered by Crowler, in favor of throwing it toward the goal. Chazz lurked below the net, waiting and watching in case he needed to make a quick rebound.
“Pawdon me, I’ll be taking this.” Professor Banner’s voice loomed ominously out of thin air as his thin, feline form landed right on top of the flying basketball, casually kicking it with a hind leg to send it hurtling toward Crowler.
“HE CAN’T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS! HE CAN’T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS!” Atticus screamed in disbelief.
“That is true.” Zane agreed. “I do not believe the rules normally allow for cats to play.”
"Cats do whatever they want to, including but not limited to ignoring stupid basketball rules." Banner landed, pausing for a moment to lick the back of his paw to show his utter disregard for what the announcers thought was legal. The referee nodded from the sideline, shrugging his shoulders as if to say that there was nothing he could do about it.
“Wait a meowment, he’s got us there. Cat rules are for cats, human rules are for humans.” Atticus rubbed his chin in realization. Zane groaned and threw his head into his hands while the crowd visibly winced.
“Oh? And what is this? In a stunning display of dorm spirit, Slifer Red’s very own Syrus Truesdale is unfolding a large banner with Chumley Huffington! Zane, can you see what it says?”
Zane lifted his head and squinted his eyes. “Go… Team Jaden.”
“There ya’ have it folks, Go Team Jaden! Oh! It looks like one of the members of the student team has not taken kindly to the team being called Team Jaden! Frankly, I get it. Jaden, Chazz, and Alexis are certainly pulling most of the weight around here. Near 100%, I might say. The team name should be a mix of those three. Look, Zane! Phillip Jenson opens his mouth and raises his hand to make some sort of terrible no-good gesture, but appears to re-think his words after a sharp glare from the ever-watchful Ms. Hibiki before he can even say anything! Good work Ms. Hibiki! Knowing Phil, I don’t think anyone wants to add some new words to their vocabulary!”
“And Jaden Yuki steals the ball in a lightning-fast movement from Banner, who appears to have just now realized that paws are a disadvantage when trying to grip an object that is larger than his entire body.” Zane began to redirect the audience’s attention back to the ball game.
“Which is then passed to Bastion, bold move if I might say,” Atticus jumped right back into commentating the flurry of plays. “Oh! He sends it to Phil, an even bolder move, who-“
Any further words from Atticus disappeared into a surprised yelp as he ducked underneath the announcers’ table just in the nick of time to dodge the basketball Phil had sent flying toward Atticus with all the force he could muster. The ball narrowly grazed Atticus’s hair and nailed a poor student behind him right in the forehead.
“HEY! FUCK YOU!” Phil shouted in a voice that was a good mixture of anger and barely held-back laughter.
“Foul!” Both the ref and Atticus, who quickly jumped out from under the table to stand on top of it, wildly waved their hands in righteous anger, while Zane let a rare snort of laughter escape his normally stoic demeanor. The ref moved toward Phil, but Ms. Hibiki was faster as she raced to grab him by the ear to start a mid-game lecture about safety and appropriate language. Meanwhile, the student in the line of fire let out a wild curse and threw the basketball in Phil’s direction. The ball was snatched out of midair by Alexis, who in a blatant disregard for whatever penalty the ref was currently handing out to her unfortunate teammate, made a casual three-point shot while the teacher team was distracted.
That action was the beginning of the end. Chazz sprinted forward to catch the ball after it went through the hoop, causing the ref to madly blow his whistle for acting while he was giving out penalties. Chazz pointed back at the man, shouting that the ref was a nerd before chucking the ball at Bastion, who caught it and passed it to Jaden. Crowler sprang into action, flinging himself heedlessly into the path of the ball to catch it, but he was a fraction of a second too late – the ball bounced off his chest instead of smacking into his hands.
The ball hit the floor and flew into the sky. Jaden looped around Crowler with all the speed and grace of a ninja on performance-enhancing drugs, jumping into the air and kicking the ball like he was in a game of soccer back to Alexis, who caught it and casually made another three-pointer. Ms. Hibiki continued to viciously chew out Phil for his previous actions, effectively benching both players for the remainder of the game.
Bastion stumbled to catch the ball as it fell out the bottom of the hoop, but a tawny cat with brown stripes jumped into the air with a meow of laughter to intercept. All four of Banner’s paws shimmered with a pale green light, and as soon as the first paw made contact with the ball, it shot toward Crowler’s outstretched hands with the force of a rocket, moving much faster than it normally should have. Crowler used the momentum of the impact to spin around, sprinting down the field and slamming it so hard onto the opposing goal that the metal visibly dented and sagged.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
“Well, there you have it folks. The student team had spunk, but ‘team old goats’ have won yet again. Oh, sorry Professor Crowler. How does ‘team super cool teachers’ sound? Please don’t hurt me.” Atticus cringed away in mock fear after Crowler shouted at him about the ‘old goat’ joke.
"I believe the student team still deserves credit where it's due," Zane spoke up with a considering look at the scoreboard, noting the three-point difference that the game was at when time ran out. “I do believe this is the closest the score has been since the two of us were first years.”
“Ah, the first and only year we were allowed to participate.” Atticus smugly recalled. “What can I say, buddy? We’re too good. Just too good.”
Zane cleared his throat to interrupt Atticus before he could start walking too far down memory lane.
“Well, while the basketball game is over, the student team still has one more chance to even the score.” Zane’s eyes sharpened, and a terrifying aura appeared to emanate from his entire body. “Team Teacher! Send your three representatives forward! Team Student! Send your three representatives forward! Atticus, pull the lever!”
Atticus shot forward while chuckling evilly, grabbing an inconspicuous metal lever on the wall nearby and yanking it downwards. The basketball court shuddered as the wooden floor split apart to reveal a duel field, one large enough to accommodate a total of six players at once. In one smooth motion, the teachers sitting on the bench tossed three duel disks toward Crowler, Hibiki, and Banner, while Jaden, Phil, and Chazz sprinted over to their own bench to grab their gear.
“PRESENTING!” Atticus roared into the mic to the rabid joy of the crowd of students, “ON TEAM OLD GOAT! VELLIAN CROWLER! MIDORI HIBIKI! AND LYMAN BANNER!”
Zane grabbed the mic from Atticus’s hands, his steel-like aura causing several of the students in the bleachers closest to the announcers’ table to fall to the ground with foaming mouths.
“PRESENTING!” Zane roared with volume equal to Atticus, “ON TEAM JADEN! JADEN YUKI! PHILLIP JENSON! AND CHAZZ PRINCETON!”
Atticus put one hand on the mic, and the two friends leaned together to shout into the mic at once.
“BEGIN!”
Crowler: 4000, Hibiki: 4000, Banner: 4000
Jaden: 4000, Phil: 4000, Chazz: 4000