The roar of the crowd wasn't just noise—it was a textured, living thing. In a pocket of the Apex supporters' section, a different kind of energy crackled.
"He's on! He's actually on!" Isabelle squealed, gripping Chloe's arm so hard her knuckles were white. Her eyes were glued to the blue-and-silver #19 now darting down the right flank. "I told you he'd play!"
Chloe, ever the pragmatist, was scanning the tactical disaster with a player's eye. "They're getting murdered in the air. They put him on to… what? Do physics?"
Maya didn't answer. She was a statue of focused intensity, her arms crossed, her gaze dissecting the field. Then, from the pitch, a figure looked up into the stands.
King Vance, taking his position for the kick-off, his eyes swept the crowd. They found her. For a fraction of a second, the ice in his gaze melted into something private, a flicker of recognition. He gave a slight nod —not a wave, but an affirmation. I see you. Watch this.
"Oooh, someone's getting a look," Chloe singsonged, nudging Maya with her elbow. "Captain Hot-and-Icy checking in on his number one fan."
A faint, betraying heat crept up Maya's neck. "Shut up, Chloe. He's checking the supporter placement," she muttered, but the damage was done. Isabelle giggled.
Behind them, slumped low in her seat as if trying to merge with the plastic, was Sasha. A massive textbook, Principles of Organic Chemistry, was open on her lap. Her eyes flickered between a complex formula and the players below.
"Can they win?" Isabelle breathed, mostly to herself.
"It would require a fundamental restructuring of their defensive set-piece scheme and a 300% increase in midfield aggression," Sasha mumbled, not looking up.
"Statistically improbable before half-time. Their defensive structure has the binding energy of a poorly formed peptide chain. One more goal and it hydrolyzes."
"It would be really nice if King could score a hat-trick, right, Maya?" Isabelle sighed dreamily.
Maya's slow nod was automatic, but her eyes weren't on King. They were tracking #19. Leo had drifted infield, a pale, determined shadow weaving between the hulking Williams midfielders.
He moved with a jittery, intelligent energy, like a sparrow navigating a flock of crows. He's not just running, she thought. He's parsing.
On the pitch, the game reignited with a desperate fury. King and Thomas moved like synchronized blades, a one-two pass carving through the stunned Williams midfield.
Thomas received the ball on the burst, but a scything tackle from a Williams destroyer sent him stumbling. With no time, no angle, he hooked a hopeful, looping cross towards the left side of the box.
It was a bad pass. Too high, too slow, heading for the touchline.
A flash of blue and silver lunged. Leo Reed, arriving a half-second too fast, overran it. The ball bounced off his shin, skittering awkwardly ahead of him.
A groan started in the Apex crowd. A simple first touch, butchered.
For Leo, the world telescoped. The roaring crowd became a deafening, formless wall of sound. The green of the pitch vibrated. He could hear individual voices—"Move it, Reed!" "What's he doing?!"—but they were distant, like echoes down a tunnel.
The ball sat at his feet, a foreign, terrifying object. This wasn't the quiet park or Hal's private turf. This was real. This counted. His lungs locked.
The Williams left-back saw the panic. Smelling blood, he charged, a red-and-black torpedo.
A blur of blue intercepted. King didn't shove the defender; he simply inserted his body into the space, a wall of muscle and intent, forcing the man to check his run.
Then King turned. In one fluid, violent motion, he stepped into Leo's space and—SMACK!—slapped both his cheeks, sharp, stinging blows that snapped Leo's head to the side.
The sting was electric, identical to the one at the Shot for cash place. It wasn't pain; it was a circuit breaker.
"FOCUS!" King snarled, the word a laser cutting through the noise. His grey eyes were inches away, burning with pure, impatient fire. "See the game, not the ghosts!"
The spell shattered. The world snapped back into hyper-clarity. The system's overlays, muted by panic, blazed to life. [PRESSURE: LEFT BACK NEUTRALIZED. OPTION: DRIVE INWARDS.]
Leo gave a single, jerky nod. King snatched the ball from his feet and was gone, a tempest driving at the heart of the Williams defence.
Leo exploded after him, his heart now hammering a rhythm of fury, not fear. King danced past one midfielder, sold a dummy to a second, drawing the centre-back and the lurking, malevolent form of Logan Turner towards him like iron filings to a magnet.
At the last possible moment, as Turner committed to a crushing tackle, King flicked the ball backwards, a delicate, impudent little pass, right into the path of Leo's run.
[PASS RECEIVED. PRIMARY THREAT: #5 TURNER. RECOVERY VECTOR CALCULATED.]
Turner, impossibly quick for his size, had already pivoted. He was a freight train on a new track, bearing down on Leo. Three massive strides closed the gap.
The Croqueta. The move he'd drilled a thousand times in his bedroom. Leo's body moved on instinct. Inside touch with the right, push forward with the outside. It was cleaner than it had ever been—smooth, swift.
It bought him a yard. Just one. Turner's eyes widened in surprise, but his legs, monstrously powerful, recovered in a single, grinding step. The right-back closed in from the other side, a pincer movement.
Trapped. Again.
But the system was singing now, and Leo was listening. Turner's recovery had planted him. His weight was forward. The nutmeg wasn't a flourish; it was a necessity. Leo stabbed the ball between the giant's legs.
Turner roared, spinning, but his momentum was all wrong. He was a grizzly swatting at a hornet—powerful, but slow to reorient.
That half-second of chaos was all Leo needed. He didn't try to dribble. He looked up. King had continued his run, a sliver of space opening up at the edge of the box. Without breaking stride, Leo lifted a delicate, lofted pass over the scrambling defender's head.
It wasn't perfect. It was a little behind him. But King Vance didn't need perfect. He adjusted his body in mid-air, letting the ball drop over his shoulder. One touch to kill its momentum. A second to set it onto his favored left foot.
The entire stadium inhaled.
Logan Turner lunged in a last, desperate slide. King's shot was not a blast. It was a whisper. A precise, curled finish that bent around the keeper's fingertips and kissed the inside of the side netting.
Swish.
For a moment, silence. Then the Apex High section erupted.
The referee's whistle blew. Not for the goal, but for a check. The linesman's flag was down, but the VAR review was a formality—a new, tense ritual. The giant screen flickered. Angles replayed. King, clearly onside. The wait was agony.
Then, the referee's hand pointed to the centre circle, and his voice crackled over the PA: "Goal confirmed. No offside."
The eruption this time was primal. Leo stood, breathless, a grin splitting his face so wide it hurt. A heavy hand clapped his back, nearly knocking the wind from him.
"Nice work, Leo," Frank grunted, his own face flushed with relief and battle-joy. "You woke up."
Across the pitch, King was being mobbed, lifted onto his teammates' shoulders. His usual icy composure was gone, replaced by a fierce, triumphant yell directed at the bellowing Williams High fans.
In the stands, Maya shot to her feet, a raw shout of "YES!" tearing from her throat before she could stop it.
As Chloe and Isabelle swiveled to stare, their teasing smiles already forming, Maya quickly sat, composing her face into its usual neutral mask. "It was a competent finish," she said, her voice tight. The shared, knowing laughter of her friends was her punishment.
The half-time whistle blew, a mercy for the exhausted and a reset for the furious.
───────────
The locker room was a cave of heavy breath and the sharp, sour smell of effort. Arkady didn't stand for a speech. He paced like a caged tiger, his voice a low, grating rasp.
"Steve. You're on for Perez at the half. He's got a yellow." Perez, slumped on a bench, didn't argue, just nodded, his face grim.
He stopped in front of Frank. "You. You are a traffic cone. Create more chances. Or you will be replaced by a literal cone in the second half." Frank's jaw tightened, but he nodded.
His gaze fell on King and Leo, who were gulping water side-by-side. "The connection is adequate. Double down. Do not get cute. Efficiency." A glance at Thomas. "You are a ghost. The left wing is a highway to goal. Use it or be replaced by someone who remembers they are on a football pitch."
There was no pep talk. No inspiration. Just cold, functional adjustments to a malfunctioning machine.
The second half was a different kind of war. Williams High, stung, retreated into a dense, brutish defensive shell.
The beautiful, violent chaos of the first half became a grinding siege. Apex passed and probed, but the spaces were gone, clogged with red-and-black bodies.
Leo's lungs burned. The initial adrenaline had worn off, replaced by a deep, systemic fatigue. Every run felt heavier. The system's prompts came slower, his Focus resource depleted.
The Williams High midfielder was chasing a lost cause towards the touchline when the ball finally rolled out for a throw-in.
Leo bent over, hands on his knees, the world swimming at the edges. The noise of the crowd was a distant ocean. He fumbled for the ball, his arms leaden.
As his hands left the ball, sailing it back onto the pitch, a new sound cut through the haze.
One long, unwavering blast.
The referee's whistle. Not for a foul. For the end.
Leo straightened up, blinking. Around him, Williams High players slumped in relief, some collapsing to the turf. Apex players stood frozen, a mix of frustration and exhaustion on their faces. 1-1.
They hadn't lost. But as the reality settled in his aching bones, Leo understood: in a knockout tournament, a tie was a sentence. It meant they had survived, but only just for now.
He had played his first full match. He had set up the equalizer. He had felt the sting of a rival's slap and the thunder of a crowd's roar.
It was the most exciting, overwhelming, and incomplete feeling he had ever known.
The Griffin Cup wasn't a storybook. It was a grind. And they were still neck-deep in it.
The Griffin Cup wasn't a storybook. It was a grind. And as the exhausted players trudged off, a single, sobering notification pulsed in his vision: [MATCH STATUS: INCONCLUSIVE. ADVANCEMENT PROBABILITY: 53%. PREPARE FOR EXTRA TIME.]