Dragons Games chap 10

Heyo I am back and have the chapter 10 update for you all. I had another version of this opening but the file just vanished the other day. Poof. And now I can't find it. It was the best opening, trust me, and now I have to replicate it from memory. Just goes to show you should save in more than one spot, so now I have like twenty spots to save this script on. Enjoy.

2328 words

Chapter 10

The Dragons Game

1

Today was the day.

As the exam weeks came and went, the campus closed off its lecture halls and sectioned off most of the grounds, opening its gates to the public behind two distinct ticket booths. The staff had spared no expense when it came to the finals game – hosting the event would bring a lot of attention any business owner would crave for.

One of the booths was selling spots for the last couple seats still available to the public, while the other was selling seats to a very different show. Kendra had set up the stand with all the trepidation of a clumsy possum, and the lines behind each stand were very different in size. One could guess which was more popular.

But her hesitance soon gave way to relief. She’d had every member of the club on advertisement duty, and the weeks of spreading the rumour had paid off as dusk settled over the campus. It seemed that over the years people had gone hungry for theatre after the industry had seemingly fallen off the radar from all the big entertainment companies, and a surprising number of people were eager to see a performance, regardless if it wasn’t performed by professionals.

As Jim smoothed out the sleeves on his purple jersey, he passed hundreds, perhaps a thousand people on his way up the grounds. He’d never seen so many people on the campus before, human and Pokémon alike clogging up the snaking pathways, usher volunteers corralling the people to where they needed to go.

He got a few stares thanks to his sports attire, taking a few shortcuts as he avoided most of the foot traffic. The finals were starting only minutes from now, but he’d managed to slip away from Mr. Bahril’s gaze with the help of his teammates. The mere mention of Poképusswas all they needed to be persuaded, and although the concept of getting some right before the game was tempting, he was going to see Cassidy for less hormonal reasons.

Soon the familiar shape of the hall entered his vision, and he moved up the incline from the side, peeking round the corner at the main doors. Caius was out there checking ticket stubs for a crowd of hundreds, a long line curving out of view, and he could hear muffled voices from inside. While not as popular as the game, Jim was sure they’d have a full house tonight, and the thought made him grin.

He followed the wall until he reached the emergency doors at the back of the building, the kind that only opens from the inside. Thankfully someone had wedged a brick between the grooves, so Jim could peek through the gap into the hallway just inside.

He stood around waiting, checking his watch for the time, then remembering he wasn’t wearing one. Perhaps he should have just stayed back, being late for a finals was no joke.

But then he heard familiar footsteps, looking through the doors to see Cassidy appearing out of one of the rooms, Jim waving to get her attention. Her jaw dropped when she saw him, coming over and standing in the threshold with him.

“Jim?! What are you doing here? Isn’t your game about to start?”

His answer sputtered out into nonsense when he noticed what she was wearing. She was packed into a red corset that was fitted with straps running down the front, exposing a tempting amount of cleavage through the leather loops. Black sleeves trailed from her shoulders, holes for her thorns to poke out of included. His eyes trailed down to her waist, where she wore a fluffy skirt that ended above her knees, with black and gold trim following the padded material down her long thighs, leaving her shins bare. It looked like she’d just walked out of a medieval fantasy camp.

Her face was likewise done up, her natural eyeliner enhanced by a mask of tempting shadow. Her scales were shinier than usual, as if freshly waxed, and there was a glossy outline along her chops that suggested lip balm or some kind of lipstick.

“Y-You look… geez,” he said, charming as ever. He pulled at his collar as his face warmed.

“Mrs. Felix hired a few makeup artists, you should see what they did to Amelia,” Cassidy said. “So what are you doing here, Jim?”

“I just wanted to see you before the kick-off,” he said. And boy was that a good decision, he thought, but didn’t say. She was almost spilling out of that thing, the Garchomp too voluptuous for such tight clothes, though to him that just made her all the more pleasing on the eye. “How’s the play going?”

“We haven’t started yet,” she explained, Jim wincing at his own stupidity. “but everyone’s accounted for, even Isaac’s uncle came through with the props, you should see the stage, it’s amazing, like an actual theatre.”

“Not like a theatre, it isone,” Jim corrected. “If everyone’s even half as talented as you are with that ukelele, those people will agree with me.”

She smiled, pulling him by the jersey and subjecting him to a messy kiss. She tasted of strawberries for some reason, then he remembered it was the lipstick she was wearing. When she pulled away he smacked his lips like he was sampling a wine. “Mm! What brand is that?”

“Oh no, I forgot about that,” she said, using a claw to wipe at his face, His lips were probably as cherry red as hers, the way she’d mashed her face against his. When she deemed him clean she touched her own snout. “Great, now I have to do my makeup again. Thanks for being so cute, Jim.”

“Anytime,” he replied, the two sharing a chuckle. “I better get going, see you down there, right?”

“Yes, yes you will. And we’ll see you here later, right?”

“Yeah, promise.”

“Good luck with the game!”

“Love you,” he called back as he turned to leave. Lingering for a moment longer to listen, only to hear the door rest against the brick as the Garchomp retreated inside.

He left the hall behind, his eyes drawn to the sky. He could see the oval floodlights over the tops of the buildings, their powerful bulbs pushing away the darkness, their eye-watering hue reaching up and polluting the night sky with their white glow. It reminded Jim of the first time he’d gone to a stadium, how he could hear the crowd before even seeing them. The noise was so very similar to what he was hearing now, and even though a few ovals couldn’t compare to the grand stadiums in the city, the number of people here made it feel like it was just as big as one.

At least the lectures are out, he thought, passing by a hall with all its windows and doors closed. After Cassidy had helped him through the weeks of tests he felt like he could finally breathe again, focusing on what he loved most.

When Jim returned to the Mythics locker room, they were all listening to Mr. Bahril laying out the plan of attack. He slipped into one of the vacant chairs and listen to the routine talks. These strategies were so ingrained into his head he could recall them from memory, but the coach was insistent this time around.

“I’ve heard a rumour that their number twelve player got an injury earlier in the season,” Mr. Bahril said. “Sprained left arm, so if you see a chance land on him hard. We’re here to kill these Spartans so keep an eye out for twelve alright?”

“Kill as in, kill them in the score, right?” Matty asked, blinking when Mr. Bahril didn’t answer him. “Right?”

“Gavin you’re swapping with Leon this time around,” the coach went on. “I want you playing for the middle and using that speed you’ve got. Keep to your designated zones everyone, and never let any of these Spartan assholes blindside you. They’ve been doing that a lot this season so keep your heads swivelling.”

“Yo,” Isaac whispered, nudging Jim with an elbow. “where do you think coach gets all this info? He’s talking like he’s got a spy network or something.”

“I guess all the coaches take this life very seriously,” Jim answered.

“Way too seriously,” Isaac replied. “Wish we got a normal coach for once. I want to win as much as the next guy, but this…”

He gestured at Mr. Bahril, who was in the middle of speaking. “-and when there’s a scrum if you can stamp their feet when the refs aren’t looking you go for it, anything to get us an edge.”

“It’s a little much,” Isaac concluded.

“Alright boys,” Mr. Bahril said, clapping his hands in expectation. “Time to get out their and kick some Spartan ass, show those kids no mercy. You’ve gone through the whole season without a single loss, so I don’t need to tell you how to do that just one more time. You know every piece of dirt, every blade of grass on that field out there. Watch each other’s backs, don’t give those Spartans an inch. Now get out there and come back with the cup in your hands.”

The Spartans moved out, whooping and hollering as they formed up at the exit, jogging out into the cold night. The crowd met them with their own cheers, and now that Jim could see the turnout in full, he was beyond impressed. The stands were a roughly even mix of purple and red, the colours of the Mythics and Spartans respectively, over a thousand people crammed into the stands and the surrounding areas, anywhere for one to get a seat at the game. Banners were held up, flags were waved, and faces were painted over the more dedicated supporters of the teams. Jim felt his ears buzzing by the following encore, the word Mythics being yelled over and over again.

It was overwhelming, and Jim loved it, raising his hands to encourage the home supporters to get louder, and they did. The support began to die out, however, when the Spartans made their way onto the field a few moments after, their supporters fighting a verbal battle with their opponents in the stands as the team of red jerseys filed out.

The two teams slowly approached each other, like something out of a western shootout scene, each boy cracking their knuckles and necks, stretching their limbs and lumbering up for the following fight. Jim looked over the Spartans one by one, recognising some from their previous encounters, but one stood out more than the others.

“Look who it is,” the boy with the number ten etched onto his jersey said, stretching his shoulders as he addressed Jim. “Old chicken legs himself. How did a bunch of soccer players like you make it to the finals?”

“We obliterate anyone who gets in our way, Spartan stooge,” Isaac answered from Jim’s right. “Just like I obliterated your mom last night, Captain Erich.”

Erich was about Jim’s age, with short blonde hair and an impressive set of arms that earned him many looks from the female gender. He also had this short little moustache that would look less out of place on the face of a porn star than a sports player, but that was just Jim’s opinion.

“Your mom jokes are so feeble nowadays, Isaac,” Erich answered. “Speaking of, I tried to put ‘Mythics defence’ as my password the other day, but it said that was too weak.”

“Oh is that right?” Jim asked, Erich nodding modestly as he gloated over his own joke. “Would a weak team go toe to toe with a Charizard fullback?”

“That was you guys?” Erich asked. “heard about that.”

“Yep,” Jim confirmed. “You wanna know how we got here? We destroyed that orange iguana, that’show we got here.”

“Just like how I destroyed your mom!” Isaac added, Jim turning to ask him if he could turn down the whole mothers thing he had going.

Before Erich could reply, he glanced at something to his left. Jim followed his gaze, narrowing his eyes at a group of people dressed in black suits walking out from one of the exits embedded in the stands.

Not far from where the coaches and the other benched players were sitting, were a group of white patio chairs the suits gingerly sat into. There were five in all, four men and one woman, their attire out of place in such a red and purple environment. Their suits were crisply ironed, with flashy buttons and clean wrist cuffs. Each of their hairstyles was more flamboyant than the last, polished and shiny under the glare of the oval floodlights, each one wearing a piece of jewellery like a ring or a necklace to draw the eye. There shoes were likewise classy, with polished leather shows for the men and high heels imbedded with jewels for the woman.

They looked out of place in not just the visible sense, and Jim knew why. So did Erich, and Isaac, and the rest of the boys as the two teams joined the stare one by one, deferring the rivalry to the spectators as they watched. There could be no other reason than to wear such expensive suits on a cold night like this. These were the sponsors.

So much had been going on these past few months Jim had almost forgotten about them, and he felt a nervousness in his chest, the kind one feels when they need to impress someone, like when he was about to meet Cassidy’s parents.

“Take a good look, Jim,” Erich said. “This’ll be the last time those sponsors look in your general direction after we kick your butts.”

“Money’s always involved when people have to look at you, Erich,” Jim shot back, Erich grumbling as the Mythics laughed at him.