I had to take a deep breath. The thoughts of what happened just nearly 4 months ago still haunted me. It seemed forever ago, but yet it also felt like it was yesterday. My hands trembled as I gripped the handlebars, and my feet became lead boots.

Getting on the bike was a slow and heavy process, but I succeeded.

Baby steps.

I put my hand over the center console, flowed some arcane magic into it, and the bike hovered, and the door opened. I flew out into the open cavernous space in front of me. To my left was more emptiness but there was a giant structure far in the distance lit up, it reminded me of the coliseum for my homeworld. To the right, wooden risers. It all made sense; this must have been the practice field. I turned around to see the wall of opening doors behind me. More kids were flying out and going straight to the ground, forming a large circle around an elevated platform. We were like a small army of bees shooting out of the hive. I joined my peers at the bottom

Once we had all arrived, Coach Cambridge rode her dragon bike to the elevated platform, stepped on top of it, and waved to us.

"Thank you, and welcome to the tryouts. As you all know, if you've been on the team for 4 years and have good academic standing, your spot is welcome back on the team. Congratulations to those players. I expect a lot of improvement from most of you. We had one of our worst seasons this past year, and the few years before that weren't so great either. I was a little harsh on the team in the past, and I've learned from my mistakes. This year I would like to take a more calm and patient approach. If you have one bad year, it's expected, if you have several bad years, which we've had, then it comes on the coach, and I have to be better for you, the team. But sometimes, other teams get lucky. We know that Oliver is an outstanding player and will likely go pro. He has some excellent backup as well." Coach Cambridge shook her head and paused.

I thought mentioning a player on another team was strange, and she seemed to realize that.

"All I'm saying is, I don't expect us to win a championship. I always hope for it, and sometimes a team gets lucky, and they win it all out of total surprise. I don't know if that will happen, but we can certainly try. We will work on developing skills one-on-one, more so than ever before, and I also want to place an important focus on mental well-being. We must create an environment that's happy, fun, and one that all of you look forward to. So all right, enough of that. Let's start off the tryout with a speed test. I want to see who can fly the fastest."

We all lined up as Coach Cambridge divided us into four groups of 10. There were 40 of us trying out. Edna was in my group, and I was excited to race with her, but there was a tightness in my chest as Coach Cambridge counter us down.

"3... 2... 1!" A fire bolt shot out of Coach Cambridge's hand, and we took off.

I had a flashback to the incident with Houston months ago, and immediately the Blackbird sputtered. I wasn't trying to go as fast as I could, I wanted to build my way up, but everyone was far ahead of me, except for one other person who lagged behind. Edna was further ahead than most of the others, I was proud of her, but I was also losing focus. The Blackbird was slowing down on me, and I had to take a deep breath and clear my mind, but thoughts of Houston kept poking away at me. After a few seconds of trying to wrangle my mind like a lasso thrown around a wild animal, I sped up on the bike. Towards the end of the race, I finally picked up speed and blew past four other kids, coming in 5th. Edna ended up finishing third, and Clark came in first.

I wasn't sure if our group was a little more challenging or if I had a rough outing, but I felt it was a mix of both.

In Daphne's group, she ended up finishing in first, and I was proud of her. Daphne had some good speed, but the person who came in second wasn't too far from her.

"All right, now let's see how well all of you can do air dodges," Coach said.

It was relieving not having to worry about anyone on the team that didn't like me. This was a true fresh start, and remembering that helped me focus on the aerial dodges. Coach Cambridge had floating turrets in the field, shooting out puffy squares resembling cube-shaped pillows. We all had a path we had to take that Coach Cambridge demonstrated for us. Watching Coach was terrific; she flew gracefully and wasn't struck by a single turret. Everyone else that went through was struck by a few, at the very least. Others got pummeled by the pillows.

If I had my confidence from a year ago, I felt I could have breezed through the challenge without having a single turret hit me with a pillow. But when I went through, the cannon shooting out the cushioned cubes hit me twice out of 12 possible times. Not bad.

The next test everyone took was swiping a trophy off the pedestal guarded by one of the assistant coaches. They weren't going to try and defend it as best as they could, but Coach Cambridge told us that if we made a blatant mistake or error, they would capitalize on it.

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As I watched all the kids go through the motions, no one could take away the trophy. I was impressed, Edna was close to the trophy, but as soon as the Guardian swooped in, she hesitated and pulled back, and the assistant coach casually tossed a tiny fire bolt at her dragon bike. The same thing happened to Daphne, but she touched the tip of the trophy and got struck by the assistant coach's fire bolt.

When my name was called up, I had nerves bouncing around in my chest like a flurry of pinballs. Everyone was watching me but of course they were, they had nothing else to do. Floating in place, I gulped, and Coach Cambridge blew a whistle, and my dragon bike vibrated and jerked forward. Taking a deep breath, I focused solely on the trophy, and the bike lurched forward. I was back in command of the dragon bike, the familiarity came back to me, and I cut through the air at blazing speeds and dodged the silly attempt at a fire bolt coming my way from the assistant coach with a barrel roll and quick pivot as I blew past the trophy. Reaching my hand out and flying backward in one fluid motion, I captured the trophy and hightailed it out of there.

I flew to Coach Cambridge's pedestal and handed it to her. But she was frozen stiff with her jaw dropped.

"Coach Cambridge, what should I do with this?"

"Uh, uh, Rollie, yes?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh, I'll take the trophy from you. Thank you. And uh, bravo." Coach Cambridge took the trophy and set it next to her.

Turning towards my peers, all of them were silent, but they erupted in thunderous applause.

"How did you do that, Rollie?" Coach Cambridge asked. "You flew backward to take the trophy. Was that an accident? You made it look so easy and look like it was intentional, but I've never -I uh- don't uh- just. Wow."

"I used to play a lot when I went to school at Attleton. I was on the Fyron team then."

"Ah ha. I see. Well. Thank you for putting on a dazzling show for all of us."

"Uh, sure thing."

At the end of the tryout, Coach Cambridge herded us all together on the benches.

"Thank you to all of you for coming out to our tryouts. I wish I could have all of you on the team, but unfortunately, they cap it out at twenty. So thank you to the forty of you here. And if you don't make the team this year, keep going and keep trying. Don't give up. Some of the greatest players to ever enter the game didn't make their first tryout, sometimes their second tryout. Just don't give up. As you leave today, the posting will be on the wall next to the exit of those who have made the cut. Good day to you all."

Everyone rushed out of the stands, got on their bike, and flew back to our designated locker. I sprinted down the steps of the massive wall and jogged towards the exit. They had already put a large sheet on a lamppost bulletin with a list of the 20 names on the roster. I scanned the list up and down repeatedly. The only names that jumped out at me were Edna and Daphne's. Clark was also on there as the first person.

Where was I? Did I really not make it?

I took a deep breath and slowly read the names. Without even realizing it, I had somehow missed my name. There it was, At the very bottom of the bulletin. Below that was a note: practice will be this Monday evening.

All the stress that was building up in my head melted away. I relaxed my shoulders. I wanted to throw my fists up in the air and holler with delight, but there were 20-some-odd kids around me on the verge of tears. A few kids celebrated quietly to themselves, and then I turned to see Edna and Daphne smiling at me.

"You made the team!" Daphne whispered to me.

Her voice made my skin tingle, and my lips curled up.

One of the assistant coaches approached Daphne and me and said, "Excuse me, but Coach Cambridge would like a word with the two of you. Just for a quick moment."

Daphne and I glanced at each other. We didn't know what else to do, and I worried I was in trouble, but we nodded and followed the assistant down a hallway to the right. Clark was walking with us too.

"Hey, mate, do either of you know what this is about?" Clark asked.

We both shook our heads.

Following the light at the end of the dark tunnel, we were back on the field once again with Coach Cambridge waiting outside, talking with the other assistant coach. As soon as she caught sight of us, she beamed.

"Clark, Rollie, and Daphne. Thank you so much for trying out this evening. I was greatly impressed with your abilities and demeanor during practice. Daphne, Clark, both of you had a great year last year. Clark, you've had a great 2-year run so far. I think the three of you should consider entering your name as captain and assistant captains for the team this year," Coach Cambridge said.

Me, a captain?

Coach Cambridge looked each of us in the eye and smiled. "Clark probably has a better chance at being Captain based on having an extra year of seniority on both of you, but you should really consider it. It doesn't really require a lot of responsibility. Be a good example, support the other players, help them out if they need it, and lead a few drills or be the first to do the drills. Our coaches will rely on you to be our support and leaders for the team."

"Yeah, I'll take it!" Clark grinned.

Coach Cambridge chuckled. "Unfortunately, it's not as easy as that. You still have to get the vote from the rest of the team, but it's good to know that you will put your name in for Captain consideration. Rollie and Daphne, you don't have to give me an answer right away, but just let me know before Tuesday. I will say, a huge added benefit of being a captain or assistant captain is being able to go to the captain's spa."

Daphne and Clark were excited, but I was lost.

"Yes, of course, so the captain's spa is a little place where all of the captains from the teams and even the club leaders are allowed to enter the spa, which has a nice pool and a sauna for the students who qualify. It's one of the biggest draws for having any sort of leadership on campus, as well as how it looks on your record. Any questions at all?"

None of us said anything.

"Very well! Go on, off you three go. Congratulations on making the team."