PART III - UNFORESEEN
“Reynard,” Master Trainer Thorn said casually as he walked up and stood next to the Foxkin.
“Thorn,” Reynard responded flatly, not turning to look at his friend.
They stood in silence for a long while, having both just watched a tiny Gnome Ranger, one who should be relaxing and recovering from some serious mana exhaustion, charge the sidelines, seem to take control as the recruit team’s Field Marshal, and began to draw in the mud.
“Unexpected,” Thorn finally stated as the players finally rose and broke their huddle, clapping, cheering, and returning eagerly to the field, huge smiles on their faces.
“Yup.”
“This probably means something, doesn’t it?”
“Probably.”
They stood silent as the fourth battle began. It took only three plays for the recruits to score, the Shaman throwing the ball halfway down the field to the Tigerkin, who spun and dunked it for three points. The recruits pumped their arms excitedly towards the little Gnome, she whooping it up in return, accompanied by encouraging overhead applause.
Thorn glanced sidelong at his friend, trying to read his face. “Interesting.”
“Mmmmm.”
Three plays later, the recruits intercepted, setting themselves up to score on the next charge, Xin throwing the ball almost casually through the hole from at least fifteen meters out.
“Thoughts?” Thorn asked, raising one eyebrow.
Reynard growled slightly, not answering.
“Be nice, my friend.”
“Always,” Reynard said, a sly smile beginning to appear on his face.
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“Dammit!” Major Celeste hissed out as once again Kaisess smacked the ball away just as she was about to catch it, ending the charge. She watched the Tigerkin Ranger return to his team where he was high-fived in celebration. Slowly she swung her gaze towards her true nemesis. It was indeed a Ranger, but not the one that had been constantly in her face since this battle started.
The Major sneered as Field Marshal Callie called out a loud ‘Wooo!’, clapping above her head. The Gnome then shouted out loud, ‘Way to go!’ From across the field, Celeste briefly locked eyes with the Gnome, who gave her an excited wave. In return, Celeste glowered even harder and jabbed two fingers towards her eyes, before turning them and jabbing towards Callie. Callie grinned stupidly in return, throwing out another enthusiastic wave to salt the wound even more.
The Recruits had scored five times already in this battle, for a total of twenty-one points. In addition to those first three points off a blundering interception, Xin got her own long throws through twice, along with a last-ditch throw from nearly mid-field through the gate for one point, and Lena had managed to intercept another pass and shuttle the ball to Kaisess in the bunker to sink the ball for another three. All told, the Trainers had been held to only six points so far, making the score now 39-33.
The trainer team wasn’t quite in complete disarray, but they certainly were surprised and growing frustrated. For the first three battles the recruits had been disorganized and floundering. Now they were working together and proving to be ridiculously effective. Cheena was constantly under pressure, with Lena deflecting passes, pulling her down, or even once leaping unnaturally high to snag the aforementioned interception. Celeste had been denied almost completely by the Ranger Tigerkin and even Cylanae had been stymied by a sixteen year-old Warlock. It was all the fault of one person, and that person wasn’t even on the damn battlefield.
“Now this is turning into a fun game!” Cheena said excitedly as the trainers huddled up, having called a timeout in order to regroup, even though it used one of their charges. “I was worried it would be completely one-sided after those first two battles.” The Shaman looked up and saw the Major still distracted, staring at the sidelines. “Hey! Major! Head in the game!” Cheena chided, slapping the Major’s helmet.
“Sorry,” Celeste snapped, refocusing her attention.
“How do we adapt?” Cheena asked.
“We need to shut down their Sergeant . How does that Lizardkin throw so well?” someone asked.
“She’s a trained Spearmaster,” Cheena said admiringly. “Before she came here, that is.”
“Oh, well, that explains it then. How the hell do we stop that?”
“She’s not our problem,” Celeste snarled.
“What?”
Celeste gestured towards the sidelines with her chin. There, the huge Bearkin Paladin was kneeling in front of a pink-haired Gnome who was animatedly drawing in the mud with her finger. “She’s our problem.”
A grumble of acknowledgements went up around the huddle.
“Do you want me to … uh … accidentally take her out?” Sergeant Major Natala suggested questioningly, her Dwarf eyes seeming just a little too eager.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what we need to do,” Celeste said distantly, still watching the Gnome.
“Really?” Natala blinked, surprised. She had been making a joke. Mostly.
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“No, not like that,” Celeste laughed, lightly smacking the side of the Sergeant’s head. “She’s tricky, so we need to be tricky, too. I have an idea…”
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Callie whooped again in encouragement as Koda stood and jogged back to the rest of the team. They’d been doing really well, but more-importantly, everyone was having fun. Even the recruits in the stands had grown more excited as the scores grew ever closer.
Once again, Callie locked eyes with the Major, who was watching her from the huddle with her own team. Celeste was getting pissed, and Callie was going to do everything she could to capitalize on that fact. Like before, Callie waved eagerly at the sneering Elf, pushing harder to get into her head. The Trainer’s huddle broke up.
“Okay guys, get ready,” she mumbled to herself. “She wants to get tricky? Well, I can counter tricky just fine…” Callie hadn’t been talking to Koda; they were faking a conversation. Instead, Callie had heard everything. Was using her Gnomish super-hearing cheating? Hey, it wasn’t a skill, so all’s fair in Bunkerball!
Cheena received the snap to start the charge, and fell back, looking as if she was going to throw long. To the Shaman’s left, rather than run for the downfield reception, Major Celeste unexpectedly turned and raced sideways along the front, receiving a fast handoff from the Shaman. Cheena then bolted forward, dodging the charging Koda and the Rhinokin, running hard towards the recruit bunker. Celeste was now effectively the Sergeant, looking for someone downfield to throw to, and that someone was Cheena, who was no longer being covered. She threw.
Cheena spun, ready to catch the ball. It had been a bit of a trick play to get her in the open, but she’d eluded the Bearkin and the Rhinokin, as well as Lena apparently, and was now completely uncovered. She was just about to catch the ball when Lena flipped into view from the side, snatching the ball for an interception. How the hell … ?
Lena landed, her foot slipping in the mud. She stumbled a few uncoordinated steps on the return before underhanding the ball to Fynisse just as she flopped into the mud with a splurch. The Warlock caught the ball and ran, looking for someone to safely pass off to. With Lena down, though, no one was cleanly open, and she was forced to run out her steps to end the play. The crowd had gone wild with the turnover, though. Well, at least part of it had. The other part of the crowd was increasingly getting a lot more subdued.
The teams slowly got reorganized for the change of possession, a few players swapping out on each side. Callie caught Celeste’s glare and put on the biggest shit-eating grin she could muster, before pointing two fingers at her own eyes and then jabbing them back at the Major.
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Now on offense, Callie raised her hands in a ‘T’, signaling for Xin to call a timeout, chewing up a charge but gaining a moment to get reorganized. This battle was winding down and would end soon. There was no clock, but the referee would call out time remaining whenever the countdown resumed. Callie wasn’t sure how they tracked it, but he called out only fifty seconds left, so there wasn’t a lot of time to score before the next break. Probably only two attempts if they used another charge on a timeout, maybe three.
“Great job everyone,” Callie said with a grin.
“We have your ears to thank for that one,” Lena said happily, a giddiness in her voice. “The Major is so mad right now.”
“I know,” Callie giggled. “Isn’t it great!”
“So what do we do?” The Wolfkin asked, having now fully accepted the Gnome as the team’s Marshal. Callie had finally been properly introduced and he was a Berserker named Harzol.
“Who wants to mess with their heads some more?” Callie asked with a snicker.
An eager excitement went around, everyone nodding heartily.
“Ok, we’re going to do the same play they just did back to them.” Callie knelt, using her finger to draw out the play in the mud for all those that hadn’t picked up on the specifics previously.
“Also, Xin,” Callie said, grabbing the Lizardkin’s clawed hand, “I’ve got one more thing you can do, and hopefully it will work.”
Once told, Xin actually giggled, looking at the rest of the team. “I believe that will indeed work, Little One. They are very angry.”
“It’s not much, but it will rattle them even more. Make sure you are all ready for it, so you don’t get hurt.”
Everyone stood, clapping to get some excitement going as they returned to the field.
Once again the two teams lined up. Xin put the starting whistle in her mouth and eyed everyone, gesturing vaguely towards Lena for no real reason at all. She took the cue, shuffled slightly to her right, forcing Celeste to reposition just a bit to match, the Major growing even more tense. Xin took a deep breath and in one fluid motion spit the whistle out followed by exhaling sharply. There was no starting sound, but the eager team of trainers and officers leapt forward, bowling several recruits over into the mud. The referees quickly whistled out several times to halt the action, the Trainers having drawn a penalty for going past the front before play started.
“Suckers!” Callie cackled to herself.
There weren’t a lot of penalties in the game, but Jesca had shared that going offsides like this was one. The Sergeant for the offense was in charge of the start of play, and that only happened when their whistle sounded. No sound, no start. Xin now had a choice to accept moving the ball forward fifteen strides and replay the charge, or take five and add a charge back to the total. With so little time remaining, it made more sense the ball was moved the full amount, and the referee walked it off, setting it down in the new spot.
The trainers, grumbling at being duped by the fakery, grudgingly returned to the front, pairing off against the line of recruits. Xin again casually signaled as if she was making some last-minute corrections to the play, gesturing to both Kaisess and Lena. It was meaningless theatrics. They already had a plan.
The ball was snapped and Xin dropped back three steps before handing it off to Lena, who had charged across the field, while Kaisess took off towards the bunker, Cylanae struggling to keep up. Meanwhile, Koda and the Rhinokin, a Barbarian named Shirax, cleared the road. Xin charged forward through the gap, leaping casually over someone sprawled in the mud. Lena ran left with the ball, sighting in on Xin, Celeste right on her tail. The Major leaped for a tackle, pulling her student down into the mud, but not before Lena got the throw off.
Xin caught the ball, and kept running, counting to herself towards six long strides while she sighted in on Kaisess, already almost to the far end of the field. He had Cylanae hot on his heels, but he was open. With Spearmaster accuracy, Xin threw for the Ranger. All he had to do was catch it. Either he’d be able to pass it back to Xin, or if he was brought down Xin could get seven on the next charge.
The ball was perfectly caught by Kaisess, and he began to silently count off steps of his own, looking to pass back to Xin before he hit six. On his second step, though, his foot slipped in the mud, sending his legs out from under him. The Duelist trainer, rushing hard to catch him, had been mid-leap, set to body tackle the Tigerkin. Now, she crashed into his legs, sending him spinning in the air like a pinwheel. Kaisess flipped twice before falling to the ground, bouncing once and coming up with one leg splayed out oddly.
For Callie, the world froze at that moment and the image burned into her memory. Kaisess, in mid-bounce, his right leg obviously not looking the way it should be. Cylanae sloshing forward face-first along the ground, pushing a wave of mud with her face. Xin running, but already beginning to redirect her path slightly as a glow started to appear in her right hand, her lizard-fast reflexes kicking in before anyone else had registered anything had even happened.
“Oh no!” Callie somehow managed to squeeze out as she started to rush forward, the world still moving like thick syrup. Koda was struggling to his feet, eyes downfield and transfixed on his teammate. Xin’s Totem was already beginning to spring into existence, the light having drawn the outline of the magical beacon. Cheena, who had been right behind Xin, trying to run her down, started her own casting, her hand beginning to come to life.
Kaisess screamed.
Kaisess … screamed …