The Valiant Stadium
Mission:
- Win the Tryouts Game
- Find Suspicious Mole Activity
11:35
The crowd cheered and screamed—and also booed and cursed—as we stepped out onto the field.
The turf was a bright, almost fake-looking green, cut too perfect to be real grass. Bleachers wrapped around the field in a black-and-red ring, climbing a good few stories high—about as tall as an elementary school stacked on top of itself. Cameras were mounted everywhere, perched on rails, floating on little drones, locked onto us from a dozen angles.
Somehow, despite being a super secret spy-and-magic academy whose existence would allegedly plunge the world into chaos if discovered, the YMPA still found time to promote itself like a college football program.
Incredible.
Immediately, the defensive coordinator started barking positions.
“Alright, here’s the plan, here’s the plan,” he shouted, pointing his clipboard like a wand. “I’m gonna need Andre, Mike, Tisiah—” he rattled off a bunch of other names, none of which were mine— “on the field right now!”
My name wasn’t called.
Mikey’s wasn’t either.
Malachi, Jackson, and even Danne got called. Danne didn’t surprise me.
The bench area ran along the sideline right beside the lower bleachers, separated by a tall black fence that might as well have been a cage. The place was packed—absolute chaos. Fans shouting, laughing, waving huge signs, some painted in school colors, others painted in what I hoped was just face paint.
“You need binoculars?” Mikey asked.
“Yeah,” I said without hesitation.
“Hold on…” he muttered.
From his Thanos-gauntlet-looking glove, metal shifted and folded with a series of clicks, forming a sleek pair of goggles in his hand, like a Transformer but for nerds.
“Put ‘em on. You should be able to adjust how close you see,” he said, tossing them to me.
“What about you?” I asked, catching them.
“You think I spent MP points just to make one pair?” he scoffed, conjuring another set for himself. “Put them on.”
I nodded and slipped them over my eyes, lifting my gaze to start scanning the stands—
—and metal walls suddenly rose up from both sides of the field, cutting off my view like the stadium blinked.
The game was starting.
Now, obviously, that was supposed to happen, but the problem was it got dark. Really dark. For a moment I couldn’t see anything—not even the palest people in the crowd, and trust me, there were plenty.
I touched my finger to my earbud. “You got eyes in here?” I asked. “On the stadium?”
D7: “We’ve got access to the CCTV feeds, yes.”
“Can you find Nikki, Mari—and Greg, if he’s here?”
D7: “Do you have their last names?”
“I don’t know Nikki’s, but she’s Tisiah’s sister. Mari French. Greg Jimmons.”
D7: “Alright. But with the lighting shift, it’ll take a second.”
I groaned under my breath.
“Do these binoculars have night vision or something?” I asked Mikey.
“No, but they have infrared,” he answered. “You won’t need it though—the lights are about to hit. The YMPA’s not gonna leave a whole stadium in darkness. What if someone gets assassinated?”
Exactly what I thought.
Right on cue, beams of blinding white light fired on from multiple points around the arena, washing the field in brightness. The crowd came into view again, thousands of faces and bodies and colors folding into one buzzing blur.
If I was being honest, it was… kind of hype. I felt my chest tighten, not just with nerves, but adrenaline.
“Alright, everybody!” someone shouted over the speakers.
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I scanned around until I spotted him: a guy around eighteen with a tight curly afro, caramel skin, and the type of charisma that could only come from being born in the Disney Channel lab. He wore a red blazer over a black shirt and held the mic like he’d done this a thousand times.
“I’m Giovanni Méndez,” he shouted, grin wide, “and welcome to the Tryouts Game!”
The crowd erupted like a volcano—screaming, stomping, clapping. Somebody behind me actually yelled like they were on a roller coaster.
“I can only imagine how excited you guys are, because I am too!” Giovanni continued. “But before we get started, I’m gonna ask everyone to stand for the National Anthem.”
I looked around for a marching band or at least a sad trumpet section, but none appeared. Instead, one of the agents spoke into his sleeve, and a girl strutted out toward the center of the field.
She had a full diva walk—confident, slow, like she owned the grass. Her dress was a tight, sparkling white that caught every bit of light in the stadium. Blonde hair curled perfectly down to her shoulders.
Beside me, I could hear Mikey zooming the binoculars in to criminal levels.
“Let’s give it up for Madeline Lane!” Giovanni shouted.
The stadium roared. People stood, yelled her name, whistled. Giovanni handed her the mic with a smile that felt less host-like and more genuine.
She waited for the noise to die down, closed her eyes briefly, and then started singing.
And I’ll be honest: I immediately forgot to listen.
Not because she was bad—she was actually really good—but because I was too busy processing how a light-skin had ended up named Giovanni Méndez. Nothing about that name combination fully matched the picture in front of me. I was having an identity crisis for him.
By the time the anthem finished and everyone sat back down, the captains for both teams were already walking toward midfield.
Andre represented us—broad shoulders, intense stare, every step like he was about to sack a politician. Across from him was CAMEO’s captain: a ginger tank of a guy, covered in freckles and confidence, built almost exactly like Andre.
The referee—a man who had to be at least sixty, with weathered skin and an aura of permanent exhaustion—met them at the fifty-yard line. He leaned in, said something low to both, got their nods, then flipped a coin high into the air.
Silence fell over the stadium.
The coin landed in his palm.
A second later, he raised his hand and pointed toward CAMEO.
Half the crowd cheered. The other half groaned. The combined sound was like the worst mashup you’ve ever heard on Spotify.
Andre jogged back toward our sideline, his face twisted into annoyed acceptance. Not devastated, just irritated. Our kicker stepped up as the referee whistled the start.
The ball launched into the air, spiraling beautifully, then thudded onto the turf.
tut—tut
tut—tut
tut…
Then, like wolves spotting a rabbit, the CAMEO players exploded forward, rushing the ball. Our team mirrored them, a stampede of helmets and pads.
“See anything?” Mikey asked.
It snapped me back into focus. Right. I wasn’t just here to spectate, as much as my heartbeat wanted to.
I had to find Mari, Nikki, and Greg—and keep an eye out for anything suspicious. No pressure.
I couldn’t just scan every individual person. There had to be at least five thousand people here, if not more. Whole sections were a sea of colors and signs and motion.
“Hey, D7,” I said, adjusting the goggles. “You got visuals on them yet?”
D7: “Fifth row, Section B. Mari is one row above them. Greg is sitting right beside Nikki.”
We were currently near Section A. I turned my gaze and tracked over to the next one, where a giant red B was painted at the base of the stands.
Fifth row, he said.
I panned slowly upward—
And before I even reached row five, I saw certain souls.
My heart nearly stopped.
Jamal. Maddie. Elf.
They were sitting in Section B, all three of them, front and center, plastered with smug faces and holding a massive sign that was clearly meant to support Malachi. The letters were big, messy, and looked like they’d been written by someone’s left foot while on a trampoline.
Of course they were here.
Of course they were loud about it.
I made a mental note to keep an extra eye on that row.
I continued scanning up a bit until I found them: Nikki, Mari, and Greg. Nikki and Greg were dressed pretty casual, but Mari stuck out immediately with a bright YMPA-branded shirt like she wanted security to profile her.
A question popped into my mind before I could stop it.
“Where’s September?” I asked.
D7: “It’s May.”
“September Carvey,” I hissed.
There was a burst of keyboard clacking through the feed before he answered.
D7: “Sector C. Middle area.”
“Which row?”
D7: “Good question. She’s not seated. She’s standing in the stairwell. Sixth row-ish.”
I swung the goggles over to Section C and scanned the middle. It didn’t take long.
Seeing her hit like getting punched in the chest from the inside.
She was standing on the stairs, one hand lightly on the railing, eyes locked on the field. She wore a black long-sleeve top made of some soft, textured fabric, brown cargo pants, and Panda Dunks. Her hair framed her face in that effortless way that probably took at least twenty minutes in a mirror.
But more than her outfit, it was her expression.
She didn’t just look distant—she looked like she was searching for something. Like everyone else in the world was background noise, and she was waiting for a specific moment to happen.
“Keep an eye on September,” I told Mikey quietly. “Section C, in the stairs.”
“September?” Mikey whispered back, almost panicked. “You think she’s the mole?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She just looks… different. Just watch her. Please. I’m gonna focus on the field.”
“You just wanna watch the game,” Mikey said under his breath.
“I’m watching all areas, Mikey. All areas,” I insisted.
On the field, CAMEO still had the ball. The ref signaled fourth down; they were just past midfield now.
The quarterback called “Hike!” and the play exploded into motion.
Receivers streaked downfield. Our defense surged forward. The quarterback scanned once and launched the ball toward a player running a route near Section D.
The receiver caught it clean, securing an automatic first down.
Mike reacted immediately, thrusting his hand forward. Massive boulders of rock erupted from the ground, hurling themselves toward the CAMEO player like a tidal wave of stone.
But the guy was ready.
He launched himself into the air, using the very boulders as stepping stones, bouncing off each one in quick succession. Another CAMEO teammate swung his wand, seizing control of the rocks and redirecting them toward our players.
Half our team got absolutely bodied.
Helmets flew. People spun. Somebody did a full backflip they did not mean to do.
And before we could recover, their runner crossed into the end zone.
The scoreboard flashed.
The crowd roared.
They were ahead a touchdown.