PART VIII - ORGANIZED GNOME CHAOS
“Thank you again, Captain,” Reynard said, actually quite polite in his tone.
“Happy to help,” Captain Huvaen said as he pushed the trainer’s chair towards the Bunkerball sidelines.
“It appears they are quite in need of your assistance,” Vanis said, gesturing up at the scoreboard as the three approached.
“How could they possibly be behind by thirty points in only the second battle?” the Foxkin said, slapping a paw to his face in disbelief.
“Because she’s been doing something where everyone runs around in random directions before the whistle is blown,” an approaching Major Celeste said, having seen Reynard being pushed their way. The camp team was currently on defense, so she’d swapped out for someone a little more burly. ‘We can’t get a read on what they’re doing until it’s too late. It would be actually quite impressive, if it wasn’t being used against us.” Then she amended as she clasped wrists with the Foxkin in welcome, “Well, it’s still quite impressive, to be honest.”
“She who?” Huvaen asked.
“Callie,” Vanis clarified.
“The Gnome? She’s not playing, is she?”
“No, but she is the Field Marshal. Pixyl is also assisting again, I presume?”
The Major nodded. “She is. Callie seems to be concentrating on offense, while Pixyl is focusing on defense, with a little help from Callie from time to time. We’ve only scored eight points, so whatever they are doing there, it’s working. In fact, five of them were only single-point throws.”
“Alright,” Reynard said with a sigh. “Roll me up to the sidelines and let’s see what we’re dealing with. We’ll regroup after this battle ends and see what can be done to salvage this thing.” He looked up and back at Huvaen and Vanis. “Thank you again. I’ll let you know if anything else comes to mind.”
“Happy to be of what assistance I can,” Vanis said. After relinquishing the rolling chair to the Major, Huvaen joined Vanis as they walked around the field, with the intent to find seating in the bleachers with the other recruits.
“Sire, may I speak bluntly?”
“Of course, Captain.”
Huvaen gestured back towards Reynard. “That Reynard’s request is a fool’s errand. You realize that, right?” the Captain said, serious concern in his voice. “And I would argue that now is not the time for us to be spending resources on it.”
“I’ll admit the odds are low,” Vanis concurred with a sigh. “Still, I believe it is a worthwhile pursuit. It may yield nothing, but it could also change everything. From what the Beastkin here have been saying, there hasn’t been a documented Beastmaster in five-hundred years, and now one is right there.” He gestured out on the field where Jesca had just caught the ball, quickly passing it off to Lena, who was promptly brought down. “I don’t think Jesca fully realizes it yet, but this is going to be important; she is going to be important.” Jesca momentarily got a confused look on her face as she looked in Vanis’s direction, before a shout drew her back to the game.
“Normally, I’d agree, Sire. But these are far from normal times and I would hate to be distracted from the threat we face.”
“I know. Just a few people chasing down the leads and rumors. Our window is short, so if nothing is found in a few weeks, it will be too late to be of much value. I believe we can spare that. After all this time, he could be dead, anyways. We still have plenty of people to focus on what needs to be done.”
Huvaen frowned, apparently trying to find the right words. “Sire, regarding that other idea you proposed. I am still not convinced your plan is in our best interests. It is quite dangerous, in fact.”
“Yes, but I believe it is the most-likely to succeed. The monarchy must be protected.”
“I understand, but …”
Vanis held up a hand. “I still need to get approval before I can put that to cipher, so let’s have this argument after that. I’ll speak with them first of this evening. My father will likely disapprove anyway, so it probably won’t matter.”
“I understand. I wish to set out at first light with your reply, so is watching a bunkerball game really a good use of your time right now?”
Gesturing to a secluded area behind the bleachers, Vanis changed his direction. Quietly he spoke to the Captain. “I have orders from Commandant Xera and Legate Galin to make objective observations of several people, and reply to them with my thoughts. Callie and Pixyl are two of those people, and this is a good place to see them at their best. But, let me put this in a more pragmatic light. Around you are over sixty Advanced recruits that will soon be Silver or Gold tier, plus trainers and staff that are as high as Topaz, possibly some higher. Ranking officers too. I consider them all my friends, and many consider me theirs. Should, in the future, we ever need allies …” Vanis cocked his head and let that implication hang in the air before he moved on. “A couple hours cheering on our team will not matter. Once the game concludes, we will spend the rest of the evening on this topic and I’ll compose a return cipher.”
Huvaen slowly nodded as he began to understand the Prince’s thinking. “Very good, Sire.”
“Besides, I’m sure the game will be quite entertaining.”
The two Elves emerged from their secluded spot, continuing their walk. Spying Ambria, Lhawni and Koka in the seats, the latter looking almost strange without her brother at her side, Vanis led the way. “Good afternoon,” he said, taking a seat, the captain sliding in next to him. “I forgot to ask you this morning, but how is your head and neck?” he asked Ambria.
“Better,” the Faun said. “I think I just needed some sleep, just like Cheena said. Tasi gave me a few drops of a muscle relaxing tincture before I went to bed, and that helped, although I didn’t get any points this morning because of it. I guess the sleep was too deep.”
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“Good to hear, nonetheless. How has the game been going? Fill us in, if you would?”
“Compared to last week, it’s been a slaughter,” Lhawni chuckled. “Without their Marshal, they seem to have no organization against Callie. I see Reynard’s back, so maybe that will change.”
“The Major mentioned it. How is Pixyl doing?”
The Goblin shrugged. “They aren’t scoring, and she seems really excited.”
Down on the field, the recruit team had scored again, only three this time, and was now back on defense. Pixyl, hovering in the air and wings fluttering, was relaying a series of hand signals towards Koda, who in turn was passing instructions on to the other players. Cheena prepared, considered and then blew the whistle to start the camp team’s charge. Immediately she was under pressure from both Koda and Shirax as they burst past the front, forcing her to run right. She was looking to get a throw off, possibly to make it to a side bunker, when Harzol slipped under his defender’s arms and leapt at the Shaman, bringing her down hard from behind. As she was hit, the ball popped into the air and Koda managed to snag it before he stumbled and also fell. On the sidelines, Callie high-fived the floating Pixyl, causing her to spin excitedly in a circle a few times, to the cheers of the recruit side of the bleachers.
Cheena was slow to get up after the hit from the Wolfkin, who offered her a paw in assistance. She winced slightly and held her side as she gingerly made her way off the field. The ball was now turned back over to the recruit team with excellent field position.
“One minute!” the referee called, and Callie signaled for a timeout, chewing up a charge, before walking out onto the field to talk with the players, Pixyl fluttering along after her.
“Do you think they’ll score?” Huvaen asked generally. “Not a lot of time left.”
“Probably,” Koka said. “We’ve been pretty unstoppable so far today.”
Out on the field, Callie was now jogging off, Pixyl flying ahead. A few other players walked off as well while Callie pointed to replacements on the sidelines, and they all ran in to fill in the slots.
“Where’s Juniper?” Ambria asked absently, realizing that the Dryad hadn’t arrived with Vanis. “I thought she would be with you.”
“After all the teleportation and people spending time in her grove, she wanted some extra time to rest in her tree after the debriefing,” Vanis replied. “She’ll be back in the morning.”
There was a short whistle from the referee, letting all the players know to get back into position. The players lined up, and then as one, nearly all of the recruit players seemed to move in a random direction. There was a collective groan from the camp team as various recruit players switched places, while others would back up, move sideways a few steps and then fall back into place, twisting and spinning chaotically around each other, almost impossible to follow. The moment everyone was where they needed to be, Xin whistled, Koda snapped the ball, and the opposing team simply had no idea who was going where. Moka actually ended up receiving the snap from Koda, and he quickly threw it downfield to Jesca, who in turn underhanded it to Xin. With barely an effort and bullet-like speed, the Lizardkin drilled the ball through the hole from distance for seven points.
For the camp team, most of them were largely dumbfounded, once again falling victim to the chaotic play that Callie had been using. Celeste sighed, simply waved off the ref, and the battle was whistled to an end a few seconds early rather than bother with one offensive play, effectively taking a knee.
“I don’t know if that play would be legal in the Imor leagues,” Huvaen said with a laugh. “I’m still not sure what I just saw, though.”
“Organized Gnome chaos,” Lhawni giggled. “That’s what you saw.”
“Organized? They looked as if they were just randomly running around.”
Vanis shook his head. “You didn’t see it? Each of the players had a specific pattern to move, to make sure they didn’t get entangled in each other, as well as be in the right spot for the start of the charge. It was a very well-choreographed dance, in fact.”
“I must have missed it.”
“Watch for it next time. From this vantage it’s easier to see than if you were on the field at eye level, I suspect.”
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“Good game!” Callie said, walking up to Reynard, Celeste and Rowani. Next to her was Pixyl on one side and Jesca on the other, Artemis trailing behind the Catkin. “Glad you could join us,” she added towards Reynard.
“For you maybe,” the Major said with a laugh, while Reynard simply glowered. “I think we’re going to feel that beating for the rest of the term.”
Callie looked up at the scoreboard and winced. “Yeah, we might have overdone it a little bit, I suppose. At least Reynard joining helped some.”
“You beat us by over forty points!” Reynard said. “How the hell did I help?”
“We were up by thirty when you got here, so at least the bleeding slowed?” Callie suggested with a questioning inflection. She wasn’t trying to gloat, actually. More than anything, she was just happy to see Reynard had joined; it was good he got out and about considering their earlier conversation.
“What was that crazy redirection play?” Celeste asked curtly. “Just when I thought I had the pattern down, it completely changed. I don’t even know what is happening there. What do you call it?”
“Mass Confusion One through Five,” Callie said, smiling. She, Pixyl and Jesca had come up with the plays earlier in the week. Variations on one another, each put nearly all of the team in motion before the play, in a seemingly random direction, but all carefully choreographed. The moment everyone was in the right spot, Xin would whistle, Koda would snap the ball and the opposing team had no idea who was going where. It also took some of the normal receivers and turned them into defenders, while the normal defenders, as well as Xin, ran downfield to catch. Eventually, the trainers learned the chaotic pattern of the first variation, but Callie and Pixyl had devised four more and just switched to the next one. Plus, they could mirror all five, too, giving them a total of ten possible plays.
“Appropriate name, Little One,” Rowani said with a chuckle.
By now, most everyone had moved past Rowani and Maugra using the unicorn blood, especially among the trainers and officers. A few of the support staff in the camp were still wary or even rude to the two, but they were largely in the minority. The biggest continuing difficulty for the pair was to find people to simply be around socially. They had no contemporaries, Rowani seeming too young to be hanging out with the trainers, and their lifetime of experiences making them both too old to join the recruits. As a result, Rowani and Maugra were both actually a little lonely. Being allowed to play the game had been the Pantherkin’s first real opportunity to make friends again. The fact Rowani, Celeste and Cheena, as well as Maugra for that matter, had all been together on a mission the day before certainly helped as well.
Callie held up a ‘wait a moment’ finger, and removed her backpack. From inside, she pulled out a folded piece of Xin’s parchment paper the Lizardkin used for drawing. Glancing quickly at it, she then offered it to Reynard. “This is number three.”
Rowani and the Major peered over the Foxkin’s shoulder as he unfolded. Before them was the detailed dance of Mass Confusion, players twisting and stepping in a way that looked utterly chaotic at first glance, but then started to make more sense the longer you studied it.
“How did you come up with this?” Reynard said in disbelief.
“It was actually Pixyl’s idea.”
“I j-j-just said we should do something confusing,” Pixyl said almost defensively. “She’s the one that did m-m-most of the work.”
“Aww! My girl’s just being modest,” Callie said with a smirk. “You can keep that, we already have new plans for next week’s game.”
“That sounds ominous,” Celeste said worriedly.
“More than a little ominous,” Rowani concurred. “Should we be worried?”
Pixyl just grinned back with a sly, almost evil look. “You should be,” she whispered loudly as she waggled her eyebrows. “You should be!” she slowly warned again in another slow whisper. The little Pixie turned and started to walk off, a quiet cackle coming from her, while Callie and Jesca put on the same evil grins before turning to join.
“This is not going to end well,” Celeste groaned as she watched the troublesome trio walk away.