by Jeff Chen
TNT came barreling in, knocking Ion Storm clean off him. Flipping his visor to clear, TNT offered Strike a hand. “You okay?”
Breathing hard, it took Strike several long moments to respond. There it was again—the word “Deathstrike.” It had to be a stupid scare tactic, but it sure was accomplishing its goal.
“Fine. Just got surprised, that’s all.” As the Miners walked back to the huddle, Strike closed his eyes, trying to tamp down his panic.
The Miners’ surprise short-passing game mostly worked, allowing Strike to dump the ball off to TNT, Rock, or even one of his crackbacks, constantly chipping away with unpredictable plays for fifteen meters here, twenty meters there. Even when they didn’t score within four downs, that forced the Neutrons to start their drives from deep in their own territory. Slowly, the Miners built up a lead, holding on to it even as momentum switched from team to team.
The Neutrons, especially Ion Storm, never let up on Strike. They began to jam the line, double- or even triple-teaming him, which allowed the Miners to score if Strike was able to get the ball off quickly enough. But when he didn’t, he got sacked, the Neutron crackbacks both piling on top of him, smashing gloved fists into his shoulders. The cheap shots came fast and furious, rabbit punches and haymakers and kill shots, all aimed at his shoulders.
In the past, Strike had gotten used to the Neutrons’ physical playing style and was able to tune out the intimidation. But his panic kept creeping up on him, mounting with each play. Twice, he threw desperation passes into slingshot zones so that they’d accelerate through, blasting all the way downfield to a streaking TNT. But both passes were intercepted and returned all the way back for touchdowns. After each pick-seven, the Neutron crackbacks made a beeline for Strike, viciously tackling him, Fuel Rod holding Strike down as Ion Storm whaled away at Strike’s shoulders.
When the whistle blew to end the first half, the Miners jogged off the field toward their locker room, the impactanium barriers separating the stands from the playing field lowered for halftime. A rock the size of a fist clanged off Strike’s helmet, sending warning lights flashing in his heads-up visor.
Strike had endured a punishing half of Ultraball. His brain raging into a red fury, he roared. He grabbed the small rock someone had thrown at him and cocked back his arm, ignoring the pain of his suit pinching at his shoulders. With a monstrous bellow, he heaved his arm forward with all the might of his Ultrabot suit behind it.
The fans screamed in terror. Spectators jumped out of their seats, scrambling over each other to scatter under benches and into aisles.
At the last moment, TNT smacked Strike’s gloved hand, knocking the stone out, sending it to the turf. “What the frak are you doing?” TNT asked. He flipped his visor to clear, his eyes wild with anger and confusion.
Strike seemed to observe himself from somewhere near the roof, floating way above the turf. It was as if someone had taken over his body and willed it to do the unthinkable. He had been aiming the throw at the far back wall of the stadium, so the stone wouldn’t have hit anyone. But the mass panic might have caused a stampede. People could have gotten trampled. And the Miners would have been disqualified, putting them in a serious hole against the rival Neutrons.
The other Miners swarmed Strike, rushing him toward the tunnel leading to the locker room. More and more trash and rocks pelted them. The boos came raining down even harder, the quaking rumbles vibrating all the way through Strike’s Ultrabot suit.
The Miners finally got into the tunnel. The door slid shut behind them. The Miners clicked out of their Ultrabot suits, Strike quicker than everyone else in his desperation to escape his claustrophobic coffin.
TNT grabbed Strike’s jumpsuit, yanking him around so they were face-to-face. “What is with you today?”
It was all Strike could do to not to reach for his left shoulder, aching with a mix of real and phantom pain. “I hate the Neutrons,” he finally said. “I hate them so frakkin’ much.”
“The best way to get back at them is to beat them,” TNT said. “Let’s add some long bombs into the plan.”
“The short game has been working surprisingly well,” Rock said. “We are up by seven.”
“Yeah. But if I get open, jam it into me,” TNT said. “Let it fly and I’ll go up and get it. Just like the old days.” He sat forward, expectantly awaiting Strike’s answer.
Strike could hardly look at his teammates. He had let everyone down in such a big way. He was supposed to be their quarterback, their coach, the general manager. He was failing in every role. “I’m sorry,” he said in a whisper.
“Don’t be sorry,” TNT said. “Be mad. Gather up that anger and turn it loose against the Neutrons.”
“That is one area in which they’re handily beating us,” Rock said. “They’re punishing you during each play, even if it means that they give up extra meters. I thought it made no sense at first.” He cocked his head. “But now I realize how smart that strategy is.”
“Rock has a point,” Pickaxe said. He smacked a fist into his open palm. “We have to hit White Lightning, hard. Like Boom did last year.” He nudged his brother. “Turn us loose, Coach. We’ll pile-drive White Lightning’s head straight into the turf. Bury him, like the Neutrons have been doing to you.”
“Let me and Pickaxe whale away at everyone,” Nugget said. “We’re your enforcers. We gotta make them pay for what they’ve been doing to you.”
“We all want part of that,” TNT said. “We have to show the Neutrons that if they pull that stuff on you, the Miners will torture them.”
Pickaxe punched a locker. “Payback.”
Even after all the punishment he’d taken, a nagging sensation ate away at Strike. White Lightning had suffered so much, the butt of the moon after his humiliation at the hands of Boom. No one deserved to be beaten down even further than that. And now that Strike thought about it, White Lightning was the sole Neutron who hadn’t thrown a single cheap shot at him.
But Ultraball was war. He couldn’t afford to be soft. He slowly nodded.
“All right,” Pickaxe said, slapping a high five with his brother. “Down in the trenches, we’re gonna get rough. Ugly.”
“Blitz three, mob swarm?” Rock suggested.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Nugget said.
TNT raised his fists, swinging away. “Let’s go smack the Neutrons in their frakkin’ faces.”
And they did. The first play of the second half, the Miners sent in an atomic wave blitz, hitting White Lightning from three different directions, smashing him to the turf. The Miners turned up the heat on the Neutrons’ quarterback, always having at least two players chase him relentlessly. He did make some plays, but he also made mistakes. The Neutrons ended their first three possessions with a White Lightning fumble, a White Lightning touchdown throw, and a turnover on downs when Pickaxe and Nugget timed the count perfectly on fourth down, Nugget whipping Pickaxe over the defenders to smash into White Lightning just as he picked up the ball.
Forced to use their one and only time-out of the game, the Neutrons made adjustments to give White Lightning more protection. But the Miners kept up the furious pace, doubling down on their single-minded focus of torturing White Lightning. For a while, he kept his composure, but every time the Miners batted down one of his passes, forced him into throwing an interception, or stripped the ball out of his hands, White Lightning got more flustered. As the game went on, White Lightning’s play faltered.
With just twenty seconds to go, the game was tied, 77–77, and the Miners had the ball on the fifty-meter line, fourth down. Inside the huddle, TNT slapped Strike’s chest plate. “Now we push in the dagger,” he said through the helmet comm. “Check this out.” He stood up and pointed high into the stands with two fingers extended on each hand. “Play of the century, part two!” Turning to White Lightning, he smacked his butt at the Neutron in red.
The stadium announcer caught on right away, his voice booming across the arena. “T
NT is signaling for a repeat of the play that ended White Lightning’s career with the Saladin Shock in the most embarrassing way possible. What do you think, folks? One-on-one, Strike versus White Lightning?”
A chant started up throughout the stands. “One-on-one! One-on-one!” Everyone was on their feet, screaming, out for blood.
Strike ran over to TNT, pulling his arms down. “Stop. We don’t have to embarrass White Lightning. Let’s just play.”
“What is the frakkin’ matter with you?” TNT said. “We have a chance for a kill shot. You can beat White Lightning one-on-one with your eyes closed. It’d be a sure thing.”
“TNT has a point,” Rock said. “A normal play might or might not be successful. But if you could make White Lightning go one-on-one, you’d almost surely beat him for a score.”
“Yeah, but . . .” White Lightning might be a hated Neutron now, but he was the only Neutron who hadn’t thrown a single dirty shot at Strike the entire game. He could have easily joined in, but he hadn’t stooped to his teammates’ level.
White Lightning had been the laughingstock of the entire league last year, cut by the Shock after he had been beaten one-on-one by Boom and cried afterward. No one deserved to live through that humiliation again.
“No,” Strike said. “Everyone line it up, slant fifty-six red.”
“A frakkin’ slant?” TNT said. “Not another short pass. We might get stuffed way short of the end zone. Air it out long. We’ll catch them totally off guard. I’ll rocket out of a slingshot zone and go up and get it.”
“Slant fifty-six red,” Strike repeated. “You’ll have all sorts of room to dodge and juke on your way to a score. And at least one slingshot zone should be wide open for you to launch yourself through.”
The announcer kept up his chatter. “Can you believe this? Just over one year ago, White Lightning experienced the worst embarrassment of his life, at the hands of Boom. Will history repeat itself, this time with White Lightning punished by Strike?”
“I like TNT’s thinking,” Rock said. “A one-on-one play, you versus White Lightning, is sure to result in a touchdown. A short pass might, especially if the Neutrons leave the slingshot zones unguarded, but—”
“No,” Strike said. “Now line it up.”
“Going one-on-one is the smart thing to do.”
“I said, line it up!” Strike stomped his way back to the ball, waving his Miners into position. He stood a few steps away from the line of scrimmage, waiting impatiently as Nugget slowly took his spot over the Ultraball. The crowd was against him. His teammates were against him. But they’d win this game without embarrassing White Lightning again.
TNT took his spot by Strike’s side, shaking his head. Even though his visor was flipped to reflective mode, Strike knew there was annoyance all over his face.
Focusing on Nugget and the Ultraball, Strike put up his hands. “Hut. Hut!” The ball whipped into his hands. Strike backpedaled just three steps before lasering the ball to TNT, who was racing forward into the slot. It clanged into TNT’s gloved hands a split second before a Neutron crashed into him, sending him careening toward Strike.
TNT had almost broken the tackle when another Neutron hurdled over Pickaxe and smashed in. As TNT went down, he flipped the ball in desperation toward Strike.
The Ultraball flew high, to Strike’s left. He leapt up, twisting as he desperately stretched to the max. His shoulders screamed in pain. The ball seemed to float over his fingertips, but then it snapped into place, his glove electromagnets sucking it in. Kicking off someone’s head, Strike jumped over two defenders and landed back to the turf. A slingshot zone was ten meters in front of him. He charged ahead, accelerating to top speed.
The Neutrons came in hot. Meltdown raced toward Strike on an intercept course and threw himself into the air. The two of them hit the slingshot zone at the same time, blasting out the other side, locked together as one. Meltdown slammed fist after fist into Strike’s gloves and helmet, but Strike curled up into the fetal position to protect the ball. They slammed to the ground at the twenty-meter line and bounced as they slid toward the end zone. Meltdown tried to wrap Strike up to end the play, but Strike crunched an elbow into the Neutron’s visor to break free. He popped to his feet and raced forward, leaping for the goal line.
But he nearly whipped into the turf when Meltdown snagged his ankle. Meltdown heaved backward with a massive pull. Crawling, fighting, punching, Strike fought for every last centimeter. Just as another defender barreled in, Strike collapsed over the goal line, slamming the ball into the end zone.
As the thousands of Neutrons fans in red groaned and swore, the other Miners raced in, jubilantly chest-bumping and high-fiving Strike. “Way to make it interesting,” TNT said. He flipped his visor to clear, a grin on his face. “Sorry I didn’t trust you. I should have known you wanted to make the big play yourself.”
“Yeah,” Strike said with a dumb smile. “Just like I planned.” He fought back the claustrophobia pressing in all around him and punched a fist into the air. He bellowed out a primal roar. They’d done it. They’d beaten the hated Neutrons. His teammates launched into a series of sky-high, double-twisting backflips, and he joined in with them, not caring one bit about the fans showering them with boos.
TNT flipped him the Ultraball, pointing up at the giant Meltdown Gun etched into the center of the high ceiling—the Neutrons’ team logo. “Smash the gun.”
Strike laughed maniacally, trying to hide the fact that he no longer had the confidence to make a throw as long as that, not with any accuracy. He drop-kicked the Ultraball, sending it cracking into the impactanium barrier separating the field from the fans, and then turbo butt-slapped a surprised TNT.
After the Miners’ touchdown celebration, the two teams lined it up for the customary postgame fist bumps. White Lightning was in the front of the line, and he slowly approached Strike, looking down at the turf. “Thanks for not making me go one-on-one,” he mumbled. “I owe you big-time.”
Strike nodded. “Thanks for not throwing any cheap shots at me today.”
White Lightning turned to leave. Strike almost put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, to try to console him. Everyone was exhausted after an Ultraball game, but White Lightning looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. The bags under his eyes were heavy and dark. His face was pale. Like death.
As White Lightning trudged away, Strike tried to harden himself against the pathetic sight. Ultraball is war, he thought. But pity kept on nagging away at him.
He startled when a big guy in a red jumpsuit tapped his shoulder. “This is from Mr. Zuna,” the guy said. He handed over a piece of paper folded in half, then stepped away to wait.
Strike looked to the others, pausing before he opened the note. It read:
Your Ultrabot suit is getting tight. You’ll be forced to retire soon. I have a solution.
Keep this under wraps and come alone, or the deal is off.
Frozen, Strike remained stone-still in a mixture of shock and horror.
Raiden Zuna knew his secret.
“You okay?” TNT asked him. “What does Zuna want?”
Strike stared dumbly at the ground. He reached for his left shoulder, unable to tell if the aching pains were real, or just in his imagination. He could still play in top form. Or near it, at least. But how long would that last?
“Strike?” Rock and the others crowded around their quarterback, their coach, their leader. Rock’s voice lowered to a whisper. “Is it about Boom?” He patted his side, where his prized possession was safely hidden: the phone Boom had given him last year, just in case of absolute emergencies. “Should I call her?”
“No,” Strike hissed, snapping out of his trance. “Stop looking for excuses.”
“I know,” Rock said. “I just . . .” He swallowed down a lump. “I’d give up anything to see her again. Even an Ultrabowl title.”
Ultrabowl title, Strike thought. His teammates’ entire futures rode on his shoulders.
<
br /> If he failed . . .
He shook his head. I have to get back to playing in top form.
Even though he knew that it might be the stupidest decision he would ever make, Strike looked at the big guy in red and nodded.
RESULTS AND STANDINGS, AFTER WEEK 2
RESULTS, WEEK 2
Miners
84
Neutrons
77
Molemen
91
Explorers
70
Beatdown
63
Flamethrowers
56
Shock
56
Venom
42
STANDINGS, WEEK 2
Wins
Losses
Total Points
Molemen
2
0
168
Neutrons
1
1
182
Miners
1
1
154
Beatdown
1
1
147
Flamethrowers
1
1
140
Explorers
1
1
133
Shock
1
1
119
Venom
0
2
70
5
The Offer
STRIKE FOLLOWED BEHIND the bodyguard in red, walking up a long set of stairs leading to the North Pole Stadium skyboxes. The other Miners had pleaded for him to not go, but there was no way he could miss a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to extend his playing career. Making some sort of deal with Zuna was making a deal with the devil. This was the man who had nearly taken over Taiko Colony last year, with every intention of cratering it. But Strike would do anything to win an Ultrabowl title for his teammates.