The Valiant Stadium
Mission:
- Win the Tryouts Game
- Find Suspicious Mole Activity
- Stay Away From Andre
12:45
It was CAMEO’s ball.
Because they hadn’t finished their drive before the third quarter ended, they kept possession. Which meant we were already starting the fourth at a disadvantage. The first half had been an embarrassing mess, and now we needed a miracle run to even have a shot.
“Alright, they’re deep on their side of the field—they’ll probably go for a long pass,” Malachi said, scanning their formation. “We’re going 3–4, alright?”
“3–4,” the team echoed, as we spread out.
Andre took an edge spot, another guy mirrored him on the opposite side. Jackson, Mike, and Mikey were set to crash in from wide angles. Me? I was hanging back, reading, waiting, trying to figure out where the disaster was most likely to start.
The CAMEO quarterback—face slick with sweat, orange hair plastered thin against his forehead—barked, “Hike!”
The field exploded into chaos. Helmets collided. Cleats tore into the turf. The crowd’s roar dipped into a tense hush as the play unfolded.
I shuffled laterally, eyes darting, trying to track where the ball was going to go.
Andre crashed through the middle. The flanks closed in. And then—the quarterback snapped his arm and fired a bullet toward a wide receiver who was just a few yards past everyone else.
He leaped.
He caught.
He used his momentum and kicked off his teammates’ backs as a jagged pillar of rock erupted beneath his feet, vaulting him further.
I took off, Perk igniting in my legs, every step stretching into yards. I was closing in when a whip of water coiled around his ankle and yanked him out of the air.
He hit the turf headfirst.
I didn’t have time to adjust. I tripped over him, crashed hard, and slid, taking a bright orange cone with me for good measure.
My luck in one play.
Second down.
I pushed myself up and looked toward where the water had come from—Tisiah, of course. He straightened, wand still glowing faint blue.
“Okay—bruh—I see you!” I yelled, jogging over to slap his hand.
“Good job, good job,” Malachi called as we reset. “Now 4–3. They might run it this time to try and get the first down, alright?”
We shifted into position. Just before I locked in fully, I glanced up into the stands. I wished I had my MP-enhanced glasses—I wanted to see Mari, Nikki, and Greg’s reactions—but all I found was about thirty Greg lookalikes and a thousand strangers.
Too many people. Too much noise.
“Set! Hike!”
Wa-PLUMP—pads collided again. The sound of bodies crashing into each other rattled in my ears as I searched for the running back.
Found him.
No ball.
My stomach dropped.
I snapped my gaze back to the quarterback just in time to see the ball sailing overhead. The sun caught it perfectly, turning it into a painful, glowing blur as it arced toward a nearly wide-open receiver.
No. No, no, no, no, no—
I launched forward with my Perk, copying that earlier “I’m-not-doing-too-much” move, and conjured a stone barrier in front of the receiver.
Before he reached it, a fire whip snapped toward my head. I ducked, heat licking over my hair, and glanced back in time to see some guy with glossy black hair flying toward me, wand blazing.
We were about sixty yards out from the touchdown.
I thought that meant I had time.
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I hurled a gust of wind at him. He dodged to the side and sent a boulder hurling straight at me. It slammed into my shoulder, knocking me sideways—but in midair, I flung out two water whips, catching his torso and flinging him away.
We were both airborne for a few disorienting seconds. Spikes of ice shot toward me from another CAMEO player, but I formed a ramp of ice underneath myself, sliding down safely as the spikes shattered harmlessly behind me.
My eyes locked back onto the runner.
Now the entire field looked like the four elements had decided to host a street fight.
To my right, Jackson was already closing in on the runner.
I threw up a rock wall in front of the ball carrier. Before he could leap, I sent a burst of wind slamming into the wall, knocking him backward, right toward Jackson.
But Jackson, being Jackson, launched a wave of water that shoved him back forward again.
Perfect.
I jumped, landed on my earlier rock structure, and slammed it down on the runner’s helmet just hard enough to send him crashing to the turf in an Andre-style collapse. The ball popped loose, bouncing upward.
Fumble.
I sprinted for it.
Then balls of fire started raining down behind me like we’d accidentally stepped into the Book of Revelation.
“Why!?” I shrieked, full sprinting, full screaming as flames exploded on the turf behind me.
“Connor!” Jackson yelled.
I conjured another ice path under my feet, sliding toward the bouncing ball. I lunged, fingers outstretched—
And watched water whips—at this point the thirty-seventh time today—wrap around it and yank it away.
I followed the line of water, heart punching my ribs.
In the hazy smoke, under the beams of the stadium lights, a silhouette stood out—glowing, dramatic, annoyingly majestic. The light caught his shoulder just right, outlining him like he was some kind of golden hero statue.
It was beautiful.
Inspiring.
Unfortunately, it was Andre.
He snapped his arm forward, and a massive gust of wind blasted past me, knocking me back just enough to send him surging downfield with the ball.
CAMEO defenders swarmed after him.
So did I.
Before any of us got close, Malachi rained fireballs from above, detonating patches of turf in front of the defenders.
Any poor soul who even thought about reaching Andre found themselves suddenly reconsidering their life choices in the face of pure, blistering heat.
It looked ridiculous.
It also looked unstoppable.
Then the lights shut down.
The towering metal walls around the stadium, the ones that had closed up earlier, began to part again. The stadium lights then flickered, then snapped off, plunging everything into a choking half-darkness.
The crowd roared—not in excitement this time, but in confusion and panic.
We all scattered instinctively, drifting from our positions like leaves in a storm as sunlight began to leak in from above, streaking across the field.
“Agent—D—what’s going on?” I stammered, staring up at the widening gaps.
D7: "Our cameras just got cut. We’ve lost visuals on the entire stadium."
What scared me most was not what he said.
It was how he said it.
He sounded rattled.
Tisiah sprinted toward me, moving faster than I thought was physically possible for someone built like a slightly smaller refrigerator.
“Connor, what’s going on?” he gasped.
“What makes you think I know?” I shot back.
“Someone pressed the wrong button,” Danne announced, as more of our team jogged over. “They basically ruined the game.”
“I don’t know…” Jackson muttered. “I doubt that’s it. They’ve never made a mistake like this before.”
“‘Never made a mistake’—there’s a first time for everything,” Danne grumbled. “And it just had to be us.”
D7: "It’s an automated system, monitored by an entire control crew to make sure it doesn’t malfunction. I tried to reach their command line—ran into encrypted blocks everywhere. They told me they lost access."
My mouth went dry.
“So…” I whispered. “This isn’t a mistake, then.”
“No, I’m sure it is—” Danne started, but Mikey held up a finger, eyes suddenly sharp.
“What do you think it is?” Mikey asked quietly.
Before I could answer, Andre spoke up.
“This is your doing, isn’t it?” he snapped, jabbing a finger at me. “Of course this happens when you let an informant play on the Mageball team.”
“Are you saying this is an attack?” Malachi demanded.
“Well…” Andre said slowly, looking up. “Someone must've taken control the stadium and—”
He didn’t have to finish.
Because as the walls finally finished retracting, the sky revealed three massive planes hovering overhead, as it covered the sun. Matte black. Engines roaring so loud it felt like they were pressing against the sound barrier itself.
“Oh… my… God…” Tisiah breathed.
The air went thin. Hot. Wrong.
The engines dragged the temperature lower in some places, higher in others—a weird, nauseating shift that made my skin prickle.
People started screaming.
Some cried.
Some ran without even knowing where they were going.
I stood there, frozen, my brain trying to process thirty things at once and processing exactly none of them.
D7: "Connor. Move. Now."
“Come on!” Tisiah shouted, grabbing my arm and yanking me toward the bench. The rest of the team followed like a stampede.
Coach Wallaby was on the sideline with his hands locked over his head, eyes red and wide.
“We need to get out of here. Now,” the defensive coordinator said, voice tight. “This is a catastrophe.”
“Maybe they came late for the halftime show,” Avion muttered weakly.
“Bro…” Mike whispered, stunned.
Questions overloaded my brain.
Who was behind this?
Who triggered it?
Who orchestrated it?
How did they get control of the systems?
How did they know the schedule, the security protocols, the everything?
None of it mattered in that moment.
Because from the belly of the sky, the planes began to rain down pink smoke—the same exact color and texture from the ambush me and Greg encountered.
No more doubt.
This was an attack.
“RUNNNNN!!” Jackson screamed, voice cracking as everyone bolted toward the emergency exits.
“Yo, D!” I yelled into my earbud. “They are literally dropping unidentified smoke—”
The rest of my sentence vanished in a blast.
An explosion tore through Section D of the bleachers, wiping out a chunk of the stands and part of CAMEO’s sideline. The shockwave slammed into me, knocking me flat onto the turf.
The ground shook. My teeth rattled. My ears rang.
Sweat rolled down my face, but I couldn’t tell where the heat ended and the terror started.
And for a second, all I could do was lie there, staring up at the burning sky, realizing I still had no idea how bad this was going to get.