Page 32 of The Fake Divination Offense
This isn’t the Chimeras.
This is a fresh start. Maybe not every aspect of a fresh start like I’d wanted, but it’s a start all the same, and when we go out there, it’s not wheels spinning. It’s not a repeat.
It’s abeginning.
Marlowisa nightmare to defend.
Not least because she’s on such a high, but because she’shalf mermaid, and I might as well be a gods-damned boulder for all the buoyancy I exude by comparison. Our plays in water-based situations rely on wizards or bards like Darian throwing swim spells on those of us who need them, but a few well-placed counterspells from the Gorgons and I all too frequently find myself miserably doggy-paddling toward one of the sand islands.
Marlow zips and dives and pirouettes through the water, and while I do manage a few blocks for her, I’m pretty sure she doesn’tneed any assistance. She gets the ball and she’sgone, and even the Gorgons’ best defenses have trouble containing all the grit that is our rookie.
The bright side of how fully consumed I am in the game is that I don’t have the time—or oxygen, when I’m sinking post-counterspell—to glance at the sidelines, where the cheerleaders perform.
Riprak pulls me after a particularly gnarly interaction where a Gorgon bard played a song that pinned my arms to my chest so I couldn’t swim. It didn’t feel like any of my team purposefully let the spell slip through, and Darian took the attack so personally that he’s currently locked in a riff-off with that bard while I hack water out of my lungs on the player benches.
As entertaining as it is to watch Darian rip on his guitar, my eyes drift to the right.
The stadium’s packed with Hellhound and Gorgon fans alike, and over the buzz of cheering, a song kicks on that has the cheerleaders dropping into a routine. I can only see the backs of them from here, so I grab my water bottle, take a gulp, and peek up at one of the projection screens over the stadium.
The image pans across all the performers, catching them as they expertly do the same series of thrusts, spins, and twirls.
There’s Alexo.
He’s in a Hellhounds cheerleading uniform.
I mean, of course he is.
But.
He’s in a cheerleading uniform.
I blink up at the screen, certain my mouth is hanging open, but hopefully my teammates blame it on me catching my breath.
Cheerleading. Uniform.
It’s skintight. Because why not.
For home games, it’s black with orange trim, and from the looks of the other dancers, they all have a sleeveless top but can choose whether their lower half is a pleated skirt or impossibly small booty shorts.
He chose the booty shorts.
His is the only uniform top with a small symbol for Urzoth stitched on it, right above the snarling Hellhounds demon dog.
I look back down at the live show, spotting Alexo’s pink hair now. His pom-poms flash in tandem with the rest of the cheerleaders’, and though they’re all supposed to be in sync, I can’t help but note the difference in how he’s dancing. Or maybe it’s that I’m only looking at him, so I clock the fluidity in his arches, the extra pop in his spine when he snaps upright, the way he shimmies his ass in those painted-on fuckingshorts.
“Monroe! Back in!”
I empty the rest of my water bottle straight onto my already drenched face and bolt off the bench.
Focus.
I’m here to play.
And my teammates are, too. We operate in tandem, and when I get hit by the Gorgons again, healers like Phei are right there to patch up any injuries, which keeps the plays fluid. It silences the blip of me that constantly wonders,Did someone on my team let this happen to me?We’re all working our hearts out, lifted by Marlow’s chaotic energy, and by the time the game wraps at 28–17 in our favor, we’re downrightgiddy.
Every rawball team plays seventeen games a season, and the two teams who pull in the most wins go head-to-head after the new year to take home the rawball championship trophy. Starting this season with aW—especially on a new team, where we played so fuckingwell—sets a mood that has me soaring so high I almost don’t need our team’s wizards to help me out of the water.
Emphasis onalmost.
