Half an hour. That was all the notice the campus needed to fill Blackwood Stadium.
Word spread fast through social media and group chats. Students flooded into the stadium stands and concourse areas, phones up, gossip already turning into wagers."
Some came for the spectacle... Alex versus Marcus, the unfinished fight now wrapped in regulation and a whistle.
Others came for the sport: a proper game between Marcus's practiced crew and whatever ragtag classmates Alex could scrape together.
Marcus's team name had already stuck in ten different mouths: Apex XI.
Trimmed jerseys, flawless warmups, movements drilled by bored professionals who had seen it all... they played like college-level warriors, every step precise, every glance sharp, every motion meant to intimidate.
Tyler warmed up beside Marcus, loose and practiced; Jonah and Reese ran drills like they meant it.
