Thursday, January 7
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As I pulled off my warm clothes and shoved them into a locker in the Roth Arena women’s locker room, I did a quick mental recap of my spring semester’s first couple of days. Classes were going to be a lot.
Episode Manipulation with Dr. Mindstorm focused on pushing the Episode structure to its limits and using the rating system to your advantage. According to her, a powerful hero could play down—I’d seen that before, of course, but she said we could do it without messing with the rating system. I’d seen that too. The difference was that she’d be teaching techniques to bring more firepower into weaker Episodes, prevent other powerful supers from realizing the Episode was more power-hungry than it appeared, and create imbalances that way. Among other techniques.
It felt like cheating. But on the other hand, if it could keep top-tier vils out of our Episodes with 3V1L or let us punch up, I was okay with it.
Then there was Power Builds and Role Optimization with Dr. Mays. Part of it felt like something I already understood; I’d been build-oriented for a while, while Fursona only had so much experience with Eagle-Sona. But with Super Girl Spotlight Star in the picture, making sure my builds were optimal felt more important, and I needed to understand every role as well as possible to do that. So, without playing favorites too much, this one was shaping up to be the most important class.
The biggest problem with it was Dr. Mays himself.
He didn’t seem focused; he was barely his usual jokey self for a couple of minutes each class period. And he wasn’t teaching with enthusiasm. That was a problem, because despite the material being important, it was also pretty dry. Fursona was obviously bored out of her mind—and she needed this class, too.
Building for Success’s first two class periods had been canceled due to the substitute instructor needing extra time to prepare. Understandable, really. Dr. Jackson was supposed to teach it, but she was out of commission for a while. No one begrudged her that at all. And to be honest, it sounded a lot like a second Extra Relations. The syllabus that’d been emailed to us included units on brand management, social media presence, and understanding marketing deals—odd, since the Studios took care of most of that.
And First Aid was…First Aid. I had powers for that.
The whole schedule landing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday did make for a hectic day, but it also freed up two school days for Episodes. We hadn’t pressed on Tuesday because whatever Rocko had for us, we wanted it before we went after The Agent. But this evening, we’d make it happen.
First, though, we had soccer.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked Bianca.
“Why wouldn’t I be? We want a normal experience. This is a normal thing to do. And we’ll make sure we’re on the same team. It’ll be great.”
“I’ve never played soccer, that’s all.”
“Oh. Really? Not even magnet ball as a kid?”
“That doesn’t count.” I laced up my shoes and stood up. Bianca showed me how the shin guards went on; since I hadn’t seen a pair since I was seven, I was grateful for the help. Then we paraded out onto the court.
A wall of padding surrounded the basketball court. Every possible way in was walled, exactly at the soccer court’s out-of-bounds lines. On either side, a pair of smallish goals sat facing each other, and in the center, a gaggle of college kids stood around, waiting for something.
“What’s going on?” Bee asked, stalking toward the crowd in her volleyball-style shorts and white workout top.
“Team building,” someone muttered. “Go put your names in. Teams are randomly selected one person at a time to make sure they’re not stacked with friend groups or anything and that there’s a good mix of men and women on each one.”
“Ah.” I stared at the sign-in sheet, suddenly even more apprehensive. The odds of Bee and me being on the same team were…low.
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Sure enough, Bee got picked for the yellow team, while I got stuck on orange. She looked apologetic but stalked over to the far court, where yellow and blue were set up. I hurried toward orange’s camp by the far goal.
A brown-haired boy cleared his throat once the orange team was completely assembled. “Has anyone here played indoor before? I haven’t, but I’ve been watching videos during workouts for a few weeks to fake my way through coaching.”
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A chorus of ‘nos’ washed softly over our end of the field. Then, a tiny girl with blonde hair cleared her throat. “Yeah. I was varsity on our soccer team at school, and I played a little indoor during the winters. Just don’t call me coach.”
“Got it,” the big, brown-haired boy said. “I’m Adam. My brother’s on the green team over there, so we need to beat them. Let’s all work hard, play to win, and—“
“Nah,” the tiny girl said. “I’m here to have fun. I’d have tried out for the college team if I wanted to play that hard. Let’s start with some basic passing drills. Ball control’s critical, especially in indoor, since there’s not an out-of-bounds.”
“What?” I asked.
“You can bounce the ball off the pad barriers. At least, you could at home.”
“Yep,” Adam said.
We grabbed soccer balls from the rack in the court’s center and then broke into pairs. And as the tiny girl and I kicked the ball back and forth, then stopped while she pulled my foot into different positions until the ball actually went where I wanted it to, I started to feel surprisingly comfortable.
It was easy. Not the soccer thing. That was really hard; kicking with different parts of my shoe gave totally different results, and making the ball go where I wanted it to was shockingly challenging. But not using my powers? That was easy. Not being a superhero? Also easy. Maybe clubs and casual sports were the way to let Annie be a separate person from Understudy.
We stopped after a few minutes, already sweating a little in the huge, heated arena, and assembled by the goal. “Okay, I’m Sierra,” the blonde said. “We’re going over positions because it’s obvious that most of us haven’t played much. The rules say we have to rotate people and that everyone had to play at least three positions during the season. So, we need a keeper, two defenders, two midfielders, and two forwards.”
I raised my hand. “I’ll play midfield first.”
“Really?” Adam cleared his throat. “That’s a pass-heavy position, and you’re pretty new. You’re tall, though. You could be a good keeper.”
Sierra glared at him. “We’re here to learn how to play and have fun, not be competitive. What’s your name?”
“Uh, Annie.”
“Okay, Annie. You want to play midfield? Why?”
“Because I’ll get good at everything that way. Sure, it’ll be rough at first, but I’ve dealt with bumpy roads before. I’m a fast learner as long as it’s not math.”
“Ha. Alright, fair enough. So, you’re a midfielder now. Who else wants a position? If you don’t pick, I’ll assign them.” For someone who didn’t want to be called coach, Sierra sure was acting like one.
Adam ended up as the other midfielder, and when we broke back into partner pairs to practice dribbling and passing more, we ended up together. As we paced off and set up cones, I took a look at him. The dude was massive; almost built like a tank, his muscles weren’t just bulky. He reminded me a lot of Su-Bin’s boyfriend, Cam. Someone with real muscles, not just show ones. Someone who worked out hard but to be strong, not just look like it. So when he stuck his hand out to shake, I squeezed it firmly, then increased my grip to match his.
He stared at me for a moment, eyes narrowing slightly. “What?” I asked. Then he pushed a little harder, too.
“Nothing. You reminded me of someone, that’s all. So, we’re doing dribbling drills, kicking around either side of the cones, then passing the ball back to the other person so they can go. I’ve seen these before. I’ll go first,” Adam said. He started down the court, taking small kicks and moving slowly but in control. There was something hesitant about him, like he wasn’t trying too hard.
Or like he was.
I pushed it out of my head as the ball bounced across the polished wooden floor. My whole brain went into getting a foot in front of it; when it bounced off my arch and stopped in front of me, I couldn’t help but smile.
Then I started jogging through the cones, weaving and kicking, weaving and kicking. The wind in my hair felt great, even though I wasn’t moving anywhere near as fast as I did with [Solar Wing]. And yeah, I missed the ball a few times and had to go back for it, but it wasn’t like anyone else was nailing it, either—at least, not most people.
Bianca was casually bouncing a ball over and over using only her feet, not letting it touch the ground as she walked slowly through her cone maze. And Sierra obviously knew exactly what she was doing. She navigated hers at a dead sprint.
Still, I could feel myself improving, and doing it without the Style System having any say in it. And, somehow, that felt good.
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When practice ended, I was sweat-drenched, red-faced, and completely exhausted. ‘Don’t call me coach’ Sierra had put us through our paces, and my legs felt like Jell-O. But I’d gotten way, way better at indoor soccer. In a couple more practices, I might actually be ready for a game. Maybe not against Bee—she was really good—but maybe the green team, or the purple, red, pink, and black teams. They were waiting for the court as we finished, so there’d be more than four total.
“So, what’d you think?” I asked Bee as we filed back into the locker room and changed into warm clothes.
“My team’s fine. We’ll be competitive against everyone.”
“No, I mean about the club. Can we do it? If you’re too competitive, that’s going to be a problem,” I said.
Bianca was quiet as she pulled a sweatshirt on over her activewear. Then she cleared her throat. “Let’s see how a game goes. We can decide after.”
“Fair enough.”
We walked home across the snow-covered campus; the sky was clear, and it’d be a cold night, but even so, we had a lot to prep for. Homework, yes, but that was taking a backseat tonight. The wind was blowing from the north—a stale, chemical smell—and we hurried along the sidewalk toward Walnut Tower.
The moment we got inside, Bee disappeared into the shower. I waited my turn, rinsed off, and changed into fresh, warm clothes. Bianca was already halfway into her Kaiju-Sona suit when I emerged, and I transformed into Understudy. “Let me guess? I’m flying today?”
“Yeah. This suit’s not the most mobile outside of one large feature, but I can only use it for a little while at a time. It’s a big drain on my energy reserves. Now, are you ready?”
“I am.” I took a deep breath and headed for the roof. Tonight was the night. Tonight, we were taking down The Agent. And there was no stopping us. Not this time.