“Predicting the enemy’s actions is easy. Predicting your ally’s actions is where the challenge comes in. That’s why communication is so important on the battlefield. You never know what those weasels on your side will do.”

-General Roger Smith of The King’s Army of England, 1924, Morale Speech During The International Conflict

Remedial Lesson

It is said that if any man from The Colonial Union were to step over the Appalachian mountains they would be struck by lightning thirteen times. A mere superstition. A curse laid centuries ago when President Andrew Jackson broke every treaty the United States ever made with the native nations, the Appalachian Curse was said to be the primary reason why The States never expanded westward. However, that was long ago and such things don’t stick around without invested effort. I’ve been across the Appalachian hundreds of times and never been struck by lightning once. Though, I technically went through the mountain. Not over.

I exited the east side tunnel at over two hundred miles, and after checking if the road was clear I ramped up to five hundred. I needed to make it back to school before the hour. I didn’t have an extra class for the first or second slot of the afternoon, but I had enrolled in Modern Tactical Adaption and I didn’t want to be late. My father had contacted me for another delivery and I was cutting it close, but I made it on time.

However, I was disappointed when I arrived. The class was taught by my own homeroom teacher, Mr Galacto. The greatest hero the world ever knew. He had caused a media storm when he announced he had applied to be a high school teacher, but it had died away after a week. His natural calm disarming any reporter. Before him, Freshmen Class J and Modern Tactics were both taught by one Dr Bobo, a mutant chimpanzee with super genius intelligence, and he still did as a substitute.

“Ah, Mr Star. Just in time.” Dr. Bobo said and gestured to my own desk.

I took the seat and class began. There were only fourteen students in the class and they were all juniors or seniors. Making me the only freshmen and only because I had been tutored during my secondary education on the basics of combat tactics. In fact, I had begged my father to have a tutoring on it. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than to be a Guardian. A superhero, fighting villains and helping civilians. I had wanted that since before I even became a demihuman. When I was just the mundane child of a mundane scientist working to build super technology.

So it was I managed to qualify to attend an advanced class, which I had only applied for after learning Galacto was teaching. I originally was going to wait until sophomore year, but getting the chance to learn from my inspiration wasn’t something I could pass the chance for. I, along was a hundred other students, applied for post-inaugural enrollment and had to survive one of the more brutal assessments I’ve ever experienced. An impossible exam regarding military strength and tactics designed to strain and trick one’s mind. And I went through that only to spend most class days being taught by a mutated ape. A genius and excellent teacher. I respected him greatly and already learned so much from him, but he wasn’t Mr Galacto.

The lesson began. It was on a comparison of ancient tactics to modern tactics and how simplicity can provide an edge against even the most advanced troops and equipment. With examples of lower rank soldiers and civilian militias engaging and defeating Horde soldiers during the Horde Invasion. It was an intense lesson showcasing both brilliance and brutality.

After class ended I readied to leave, but Dr. Bobo called me over.

“Mr Star, I must say you are beyond impressive.”

“Thank you, sir. I try.”

“Humble too, yet you are the top student of this class, did you know that?”

“No sir.” I didn’t know that. I did know I was among the top, but there were a few others who were on par with me.

“Well, you are. Back when we had that roll flood, you were the only freshmen to survive the purge and more. Did you know that some of the students who enrolled before the term ended up kicked out?”

“Yes sir. I kind of felt bad about that.”

“Oh don’t. They can always apply for extra years if they care so much. However, if you hadn’t missed the first week you would be the top student by leaps.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to offer you a chance to make up for missing the first week.”

“You can do that?”

“No, but I can ask Mr Galacto to do it.”

“Ask me what now?” Came the voice of Galacto himself. He came in and walked to the desk with no care in his stride.

“About Mr Star making up the credit he missed out on in the first week of school.”

“Oh, sure, but I didn’t really do much that day. Too many questions. I eventually just told stories about the wars.”

“Well, I know almost everything about your career in the military.” I said, “You enlisted at fifteen against the Navy’s minimum age and served for twelve before they caught you.”

“Yeah, but do you know why it took so long for them to catch on?”

“Uh… no sir.”

“It was because I wasn’t a combatant. Of course, I saw combat, but I was a plane repairman. See, I lived on a farm before the war and we used planes for a lot of stuff so I knew how to work one. So I went in as an engineer and they just didn’t care. But in twenty seven I had to fly a plane myself and got into a dogfight. We were in a bad spot all around. It was victory or death, and so I hopped in and took off. Two hours of forever later I was landing to a round of cheers. They wanted to give me a medal and that’s when they saw it. But by then I had been a sailor for over a decade. So I continued to serve as repairman and dogfighter, until they recruited me to a special project.”

“The M2-G project.”

“Yep. A new plane design to surpass everything before. A single unit capable of dominating the sky. It was called The Zeus Bolt, which was fun to explain when the project came out to the public. It was designed to be fast enough to circle the globe and be anywhere in under an hour with a level of firepower to end any fight in under a minute. A hit and run on demand. And they needed a pilot to fly it, and I was chosen.”

“They brought me to a secret lab and I ran hundreds of prototypes until they were finally ready for a field test in thirty-three. We prepared everything and I took up like a dream. It handled fine and was capable of holding up to five hundred easily. Internal force dampers kept me from dying and I was able to fly around The States with no problem. Hairpin turns with near zero inertia. It would have already been the king of any sky it flew in, but then we tested the real secret of the project.”

“A flux engine.”

“Yep, just like the one Mr Scott has in himself, but on a bigger and unstable scale. I fired the engine into high gear, and then.” Galacto shrugged his shoulder, “I woke up a year later in outer space. Just past the orbit of Neptune with all the power I have now. Of course, I had some trouble controlling it back then.”

“But it was enough.”

“No. It wasn’t. By the time I had become this things were getting bad. Over half of all the deaths of IC happened in the last decade. The North American Five had me, but nearly every other union had their own super weapons and soldiers to carry them. I didn’t help things for the most part. Of course after I became a primary enforcer of the treaties. Mostly on the Americans. Needed to show the rest of the world I wasn’t playing favorites by literally playing favorites. And of course I help the DDH a lot.”

“Then the invasion happened.” I said.

“Then the invasion happened. I was in space at the time and I remember feeling The Horde ships pass by. At first, I thought I could handle it myself, but then more came, and more after that still. It was insane. Just an endless tide of ships from deep space. No matter how many I took out they just sent another and another. The only ships to ever leave were the transport ships that always returned with more ships. And I couldn’t really destroy those. They apparently had neutron stars as a core. Using the massive bodies to power the gravity-warping effect they traveled with. Their cores would have exploded and killed everyone if I attacked them. So we just had to keep fighting, and we did for four full years. Until we destroyed their command ship and they finally retreated.”

“Of the fifteen soldiers who boarded the ship, only one survived, and he was immortal,” I said.

“Indeed.” Galacto agreed, “After The Horde command ship left we had to address the soldiers they left behind, and that’s when we learned there was an entire Galactic Federation out there. They aided us in assembling the abandoned soldiers into Earth cultures. Most of them being Irkens, and they seemed to adjust well enough. Even if there was some bad blood the Irkens ultimately were accepted through how loyal they were to the nations that recruited them. Old Horde tradition apparently. With that the world seemed to be at peace. The Galactic Federation invited us to join and we turned them down and that was supposed to be the last great event of history. We would develop our own technology and join the stars. History would be over.”

“But it wasn’t,” I said, “After the dust settled that’s when a whole new batch of problems arose.”

“Yes. I couldn’t tell you all the legal jargon but there started to be cases regarding mutants and where they stood in everything. They hadn’t been officially recognized as a class of their own until after the IC was over and The Peace Treaty was drafted and signed. They didn’t have anyone or anything to support them in relations with other signatories. They had no heritage to utilize when dealing with other supernatural nations, yet they were no longer protected by the mundanity.”

“What would heritage matter?” I asked.

Mr Galacto scratched his head, “Come on kid, I already said I don’t know the legal jargon.”

“I do however,” Dr. Bobo said, “You see, The Peace Day Treaty is considered a retro eternal document, meaning it can be used to settle old scores and even undo previous settlements, and all around the idea of heritage. This means that older entities can claim a level of authority in matters dealing with younger entities. This is called a claim of delinquency. In short, it allows mommy and daddy to handle business when needed. This can be used in the other direction too though. A youngster can make a claim of inheritance of their forebear’s business. These things combined with the Guarantee of Honorable Assessment ensure that no one conflict scales out of proportion. Older generations keep cooler heads than the younger, the younger allows for new perspectives and opportunities, and everyone agrees to keep themselves and everyone else in check.

So it was when mutants came into the picture, there were a bunch of missing pieces. And mundane nations, who could act in place of older figures, couldn’t step in because they weren’t mundane anymore.”

“But what about me? I was born mundane and became a demihuman. I have no heritage.”

“Yes, because there are clauses that, in short, grandfather you in under mundanity until you do something to break the clause. At first, this applied to mutants, until it didn’t. Different signatories started to express concerns about random humans becoming superhuman. It started to upset the power balance between all kinds of nations. Mundane nations accused others of secret programs. Otherside nations demanded proper assessment which could over-level nations. Then there were the accusations of secret deals between Other-things. Things seemed like they would fall apart, but then someone made the discovery that saved the world. The first official evidence of mutant-kind that proved all these people were the result of natural forces and there was no need to fight. And that’s where that story should end, but we know it didn’t. After it was repeatably proven that mutants were mutants they became their own classification in the eighties, and everything got worse. You should ask Ms Turner about it. She wrote a whole book on it.”

“I know, I’ve read it, but it covered mostly the mundane half of everything. How people feared them, attacked them, and used them in experiments. All until the Brotherhood of Mutants was founded and the Revolt started.”

“Yes. Very tragic, all of it. Glad I was born after it all.”

“Same here.” I said and looked back to Mr Galacto, “But you went through The Revolt. I assumed you helped in some way.”

“Nope. I just made things worse.” Mr Galacto said, “I helped keep the nations in check and engaged a lot of mutant terrorists, but everything kept just getting worse. Almost like everyone wanted the world to end. Then they invented buffout. I remember the first time I encountered a mutant using buffout, because I wasn’t powered up enough at first and when they hit it hurt like hell. One of the few times I ever felt pain after becoming this.”

Mr Galacto rubbed the back of his neck as if the memory made it sore, “Well anyways, eventually things came to a head, Pittsburgh was destroyed, and the Mutant Rights Act was passed. Times were still tense, but peace was settled again.”

“And hopefully it will stay settled.” Dr Bobo nodded his head, “At least until I’m long gone.”

“Same here,” Mr Galacto chuckled, “Well alright then. I’ll go and adjust your grade when I get the chance. You can head on out Mr Star.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said and started to leave.

I headed straight home in under five minutes.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Star Touch HQ was as well guarded as usual. That is to say, poorly at first sight. Guards appeared disorganized and distracted, because they were. They were the first line. They were there to prevent direct assaults, and so they were scattered and unpredictable. Inside was the second line that watched every inch of the above ground. Unseen and unknown, they were there to prevent sneaking attempts. Lastly, the third line was always vigilant and ready. Often stationed underground, they were there to react to the failure of the first and second line, which often entailed just holding whatever off until the army could arrive with the biggest guns possible.

Being the son of the lead scientist I was known by everyone. So no one batted an eye when I zipped up to and into the building. I stepped into the elevator and pushed the only button below the ground floor. Labeled Lab, it set the lift into motion down into the deep earth. A mile down the elevator reached the lab in a minute and opened to the central operation room. A dozen scientists were working on computers and consulting each other as they went over data while off to the side a little girl in pink colored in a book.

I went over to her, “Hi Susie.”

“Hi, Zoomie.” She greeted.

“Have you seen my father?”

“Yep. Mr Doctor Goose is on the main floor.”

“Thank you.” And I left. Susie was a mundane human. She was just one of the scientist’s children. There were more, but I rarely talked to them. Mostly because they didn’t have any clearance. The CO room was open to anyone, but everything passed it required special clearance which I had the highest level. I demanded it for all the running around I do. So I had no problems as the guards waved me through to the main hall where Project Star Bridge sat. A massive ring designed to form a wormhole through spacetime. This was apparently a rather common technology throughout the galaxy, and Earth was offered it by the Galactic Federation. A space crossing union of planets that offered aid after we fought off The Horde. We told them to shove it. First out of reflex since we just finished a war. Then we told them to shove it a second time after reading their terms for entry into the union. After that Project Star Touch was formed in order to join the galactic stage on our own terms.

Led by my father Star Touch made a little bit of progress each year. Of course, there were also a number of setbacks born from risky experiments. People have lost their lives to the project. But the project continued on until it finally made its biggest breakthrough seven years ago. During a test run, the earth was hit by a solar flare resulting in Gate A turning into a whirling vortex that started pulling everything like a black hole. The gateway closed after it started to break apart and eat itself, but everything that went through was alternated. Three toolboxes with tools, pieces of paneling off the walls and floor, miscellaneous office supplies, pieces of the gateway itself, and one human boy, me.

Everything seemed to have been infused by some cosmic force. Like taking a pocket watch apart underwater and then rebuilding it. The water of the universe was between every part of the items, and at first this was horrifying because just as a pocket watch would rust away from the inside so did the items begin to just part away. At first the small items. Bolts, papers, and the tiniest of parts. Then the bigger stuff cracked and crumbled. They say it was like it was shaking itself apart and my father was in absolute dismay. Crying as the panels and gate parts turned to dust. All the while I felt fine except for the dread of my body turning into dust. Because then how could I play cowboys and ninjas at the park? I didn’t understand death yet.

So while doctors watched over me and my father nearly killed himself with grief I just sat around until one day I got bored and left. I went to the park and played until a pair of suited men found me. That was when I discovered that I was now a demihuman. Capable of traveling at supersonic speeds, because while a pocket watch would simply rust away, my human body absorbed the water and simply made it a part of me.

Needless to say my father was very happy about this. First as a father, and then later as a scientist given a subject to study. Observation of my speed led to the second and third prototypes of the gates. Now before me was the fourth and possible final prototype, and before it was my father giving instruction to engineers. He looked up and saw me.

“Carl, you just got back? Did you take the scenic route?” He laughed to himself.

“No Dad, I went back to school for my class.”

“Oh yes. Well, it’s good your back.”

I sighed, “Another delivery?”

“Nope, a test run, and possibly the test run.” He smiled with glee.

We went back to the CO room and watched as Gate A started to flare into life. Lightning danced around the circle until it shot into the center and expanded into a blue disc of liquid light.

“Send the package.” My father ordered and a robotic drone rolled toward the event horizon. It stopped before going in and lifted a limb. A catapult loaded with a baseball that it launched through before rolling back. A moment later the gate shut down. Everyone was waiting with baited breaths. The phone rang. A scientist answered. Everyone waited.

“Success! No anomalies detected!”

The roar of cheers was like a war victory. Dancing and song broke out and one of the scientists proposed to another. I was unimpressed. This wasn’t the first time success appeared in hand. Sure, this one would likely hold for longer than any before, but I knew it wasn’t perfect. I could feel it when the gate was opened. I could feel it wasn’t usable yet, but it was closer than before.

“Well, I think we’ll call it a day. Ay son?” My dad slapped my back.

“Yeah.” I smiled back at my dad.

We rode to the top of the building and to our home. We ordered a meal from the in-house kitchen and even invited some of the other scientists to an impromptu party. Dad even allowed me to drink wine freely, but only had a few sips for the toast.

The next day was uneventful. We were near the end of the summer term, and everyone was thinking about what to do for Autumn break. I already knew I was likely going to be running deliveries for Dad. Of course as annoying as it was I didn’t mind at all. Star Touch was the forefront program of the scientific community. Everyone was watching it and hoping for the day it was finished. Helping that along was far from unpleasant to me. Still, today I was hoping to spend some time with my friend.

I found Jerry in the backfield. He was talking with his team, as he always did. I remember being disappointed when we were assigned to different teams, but we were both named the team leader, so I understood why it was. Still, it sucked that we’ve barely hung out since.

“Yo, Jerry,” I called out to him and he stopped his meeting to look at me and waved as I jogged over.

“Carl, where’s your team?” Jerry asked, as he always did.

“Around. We didn’t plan for anything today.”

“Good for them.” Samantha moaned, “Jerry has us running more drills.”

“Team composition is important.” Jerry said back, “We need to stay in top form.”

“How much more can you improve?” I asked. They had been training almost nonstop. The idea of them reaching some new tier combat prowess was unlikely. At least for now.

“There’s always something to build on.”

I thought on that for a moment. Then I thought of something. “Adaption. How are you on that? How about an exercise in adapting to new and sudden changes.”

“How would we do that?” Amanda asked.

“A Battle Brawl tournament at the arcade. You seven plus me makes enough for three rounds. Best out of three, all random.”

“Shouldn’t you do this with your team?” Jerry asked.

“Sure, but I would still need a plus one, you might as well all come, and then we’ll plus two, which I’m sure I can find.”

“If you mean Adrian, then please don’t.” Amanda sighed.

“Yeah,” Brick agreed, “He way too good. He would win, hands down.”

“Not what I met, but true. Sounds like a fun time to me.” Amanda said.

“Me too!” Samantha jumped up raising a hand over her head, “Show of hands, who wants to a Battle Brawl Tournament!”

The entire team raised their hand except Jerry and Abraham.

“I don’t much care for games, but if everyone else wants to, I come along.” Abraham then raised his own hand.

“It’s unanimous then!” Samantha cheered, “No sweaty exercises for today!”

“Very well then,” Jerry agreed and turned to me, “Go get your team and tell them to meet us there. We’ll figure out the plus two when we get there.”

I nodded and took off. It took a few minutes to find them and tell them the deal. Within the hour we were all at The Arcade, and we had the plus two taken care of as Melissa and Jennifer managed to bring Jessica and Jesse with them.

“Jessica,” Jerry greeted, “You came.”

“As a kidnapping victim.” Jessica Black sighed, “They all want me to win this outright.”

“Yeah! Girl power!” Melissa shouted pumping her fist into a battle pose, “We’re gonna beat all you boys!”

“Why does that even matter?” Gwen asked.

“Because, it just does,” Melissa explained strolling into the building. We all followed.

“I also don’t get it. Boys versus girls I mean.” Alice added and the other three sighed.

“She went on this rant about the eternal divide between boys and girls,” Jennifer explained, “And how we’re all destined to eternal strife.”

“I had to agree to come just to shut her up.” Jessica sighed again.

With the group being eight boys and eight girls we all drew lots and paired up. The first round I was against Jesse. She was a bit shorter and she had to stretch her hands to get all the buttons, on top of her not being experienced I didn’t even need my super speed to win. Though I did end up getting my main brawler as my third, which I didn’t like getting in the first round and as my third after winning the first two. I rather have them in the last round, but I would need a bit of luck for that.

My next match was against Samantha who had beaten Abraham with two perfects. She was an actual challenge winning the second match and forcing me to use super speed for the third.

“Hey!” She cried out, “You’re cheating!”

“Am not. I’m using my natural talent. As one should when adapting to an enemy.”

“Well.” She gritted her teeth trying to hold out against my attacks, “I don’t have anything to help me here.”

“What a shame. Not my problem.” I smirked as I launched my final combo and wiped her out.

She pouted and turned her nose away, “You’re a jerk. No wonder you and Jerry get along so well.”

As she marched off I called back, “Rematch me anytime. I do love winning.”

My next match was against Jennifer who had won by showing a natural talent for the game. As we made the selection for random I spoke to her, “So, you’re good at video games?”

“Apparently.” Jennifer said with a bit of a smile, “I beat Brick kind of easily, and Donovan said he only knew how to play his main brawler.”

“How did he handle round one then?”

“Round one was against Gwen, so by sucking less I guess.”

We laughed as the brawl started and Melissa cheered for Jennifer and for Jessica who was facing Jerry. Both of them had won their matches easily, which was no surprise. I’ve played against Jerry millions of times and knew he was good, and Jessica managed to dethrone the top score of the whole arcade knocking Adrian and his brother down. It would have been quite the game to watch, but I had to handle Jennifer first. Which turned out to be easier said than done.

Jennifer was somehow capable of pulling off complex combo attacks and blocked my moves despite having no knowledge of any of the characters’ move sets. She managed to win the first match with near half health. I ramped it up for the second match increasing my speed and perception to be the same as the game. I was literally pushing buttons as fast as the game would allow and Jennifer was still holding her own. She managed to get me down to half-health before I got her down. In the third match, I didn’t hold back. I ramped up again to match the speed that the game moved the pixels. I was making frame-perfect inputs and Jennifer still managed to be a challenge, but I still won in the end with most of my health.

“Wow. You’re good.” I complimented her, “You would have won if I didn’t go all out.”

“Thanks. I’m not sure how I do it though to be honest.”

“Talent. Simple as.”

“I guess so.”

I looked over to see that the rest of the teams went and set up a series of loser’s brackets and were playing against each other. None of them were watching Jerry and Jessica who didn’t seem to be going at it. They weren’t slamming buttons or jerking the stick. I went over to ask what the deal was, but before I could speak Jessica stepped away.

“I concede.”

“What?” I asked on reflex not sure if I heard right.

“I concede. I’m done. Jerry wins. Now it’s just you two.” Jessica didn’t even look at us as she turned and walked off.

“I should go after her,” Jennifer noted as she walked past to join her leaving me and Jerry.

“What was that about?” I asked as the cabinet beeped its musical tones.

Jerry just shrugged as he reset the cabinet and we set the random setting. We had started these random settings brawls because the randomized process was so random that Jerry could never call it perfectly. A blind spot he called stuff like this. When something was so unsure that the possibilities blurred together unless he focused to see past the blur. So we would play random so he could try to see past the blur.

We started and I could tell something was wrong. Jerry was barely pushing the attack. He was playing it really casually.

“So this was a nice outing,” I said also playing casually. “Everyone is having fun. Even Gwen, and that saying something.”

“Having fun is important, you should always try to make time for it,” Jerry said as he seemed to quicken his pace.

“Why would you say it like that?” I asked also upping my pace, “Ever since school started you’ve been… not different, but more of whatever your deal is.”

“More sagely than what my age would suggest?” Jerry quoted something my dad said long ago.

“More standoffish. More cryptic. More distant. More aloof. Take your pick.” I started to get more aggressive.

“I have more in my schedule. So do you.” Jerry said as he fell into a combo that knocked him out. Something he shouldn’t have done.

“Yeah,” I said restarting the game, “But we can always find time for each other. Can’t we?”

“Maybe. Between everything, I’m sure we could.”

“What do you mean maybe?” We selected random and the stage set itself again, “We have plenty of time each day and I literally can be anywhere in minutes.”

“Yes, but you have your deliveries, school, your team.”

“What is your deal with the teams? Yeah, we were both assigned as Team Leaders, but that doesn’t mean we’re enemies.”

“Of course not, but as leaders we have responsibility.”

I started getting upset, “Responsibility is not a reason to abandon your past. You’re supposed to be my best friend. Even my-”

I cut myself off. I couldn’t say it as I missed a move that did damage to myself and lost. We were tied.

“My team is practicing and training as well. Even Melissa and Jennifer are learning hand-to-hand combat. I’m teaching them personally. We’ve been putting in the effort to, but I still try to be your friend. You’re the one who keeps skipping out on me.”

“Maybe you’re just better than me,” Jerry suggested trying to deflect.

We restarted the game one last time and set to random. I selected for mine and he came up. My main brawler. Mr Galacto in his black and yellow motif.

Now we were talking. Jerry had also gotten his main brawler. Red Fox. A quick striking character in a bright red long coat.

The match started and Jerry got the first hit in. In any real-world fight, Galacto would win every time, but in order to keep the game fun and playable he was scaled to a reasonable power level, which was how Jerry was able to dodge and counter my attacks. Red Fox was a quick striking brawler that required fast inputs to complete attacks. Galacto was an all-rounded brawler that was easy to learn and difficult to master. Both of us were just that, and so we went all out. I ramped up to double the game’s speed and was managing to get the edge. I was even able to trick Jerry into a few fake outs, but not many. Jerry was also in full swing. Not allowing any time for talk or taunts. Using his brawler’s more reactive fighting style to deal major damage even as I powered through. We whittled the health bars down more and more until the final attack came. Each with only a hit left I went forward to throw a wide vertical attack. One that would hit nearly the entire column for a guaranteed knockout, but then I heard Jerry’s finger shift on the board. I didn’t know what he was doing, but I could guess that it was likely a counter to my attack. I shifted at the last possible moment into a burst attack at the exact same time Jerry jumped and flipped high enough to dodge the first attack and throw some kind of burst attack of his own. The next frame both attacks went off and we fell into a double KO.

“Wow!” The perkiness of Amanda made me jump out of my skin. She stepped between us to look closer at the screen. “A draw. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“I thought everyone else was playing a loser’s tournament?” I said.

“We were. We have a ranking list and everything. Melissa is at the bottom.”

I looked over to see that Melissa was on the ground crying after seemingly losing to Gwen.

“Poor girl, she was really trying too.” Amanda sighed.

“Yeah, she seems to always pick the biggest battle for herself,” I said chuckling.

Jerry stepped up and called out, “Team Three, we’re done here. Time to go.”

“What? But we have new rankings and rematches to go through!” Samantha whined.

“Another day,” Jerry said.

“Do you swear to that?” I said. “That all this will happen again? That you won’t dodge every opportunity for us to meet up?”

Jerry shrugged, “Sure thing. Better than having Samantha strong arm me into it. Come on Team.”

All of Team Three made their farewells and left. Leaving my team and the Jessicas behind. I looked over to Jessica Black. She was with her other roommates consoling Melissa until she announced she was going for a drink. I followed. She got to the bar and before I said anything she spoke.

“Because Jerry is a jerk.” She turned and leaned back looking at me, “To answer your question.”

“What question?” I asked.

“Any of them. I conceded because Jerry was trying to lose on purpose. I called him out and he said something about how I should face you in the final. Then I said something about honor and he said something that made it clear that the deal was something between you and him.”

“What between him and me?”

“I don’t know, but I didn’t like his tone, and he wasn’t going to yield on his bull. So I conceded.” She finished her drink and looked at me, “I’ll still play you if you want. I know Melissa would like that.”

I was dumbfounded by my anger and confusion. I didn’t know what to do or say. So I just agreed to the match. We returned to the game area and played one last game. I won by the narrowest of margins.