The lobby of the air hockey facility was full of students, ready for the final tryouts, all crowded as they looked for their codes on the screen. It was the day of the evaluation, and everyone was ready to give it their all in hopes of reaching the team they've had in mind since before the tryouts began.
Among the crowd was Rohan and Sriya, who made their way through the horde of muscular titans. Rohan finds his code on one of the screens, and along with it was both the rink number and also the locker room he had, which was the first one, presumably the one on the left after he noticed a number two on the right locker room he had gone to before.
Rohan turns to Sriya, who finds his code, and the subsequent information. Sriya then turns to Rohan, and nods his head, ready to head off.
The door of the rink opens as Rohan and Sriya enter the arena, where other students walk towards both of the locker rooms. Rohan watches the tall athletic men walk towards the right side room, the students he'd have to face off against, which gave him a slight worry. He takes a deep breath, and looks at Sriya, remembering what he was doing this for.
He wasn't going to let his friend down.
Rohan and Sriya went together into the first locker room, for it seemed they were lucky enough to be placed in the same team. The two find the locker room full of other students talking to one another in excitement and anticipation, telling one another what teams they were going for.
Rohan looks at the helmets on the benches, noticing that rather than the gray they were before, these were a metallic blue.
Rohan smiles softly, as blue was his favorite color, so it was cool to be on a team with blue suits. He turns to Sriya, and takes a deep breath before asking, "You ready?"
Sriya turns to Rohan and nods, answering "I've been."
Rohan smiles, feeling some of the confidence that radiates off of Sriya. He then walks to one of the helmets, and picks it up, inspecting it quickly just to observe what he was putting on. While it was clearly no top grade professional gear, it was noticeably shinier and thicker, as it seemed they were getting a slight upgrade for the last tryout.
Still, he couldn't rely on new equipment to play any better. He didn't know where he was supposed to find his strength, as all he knew was what he wanted, and he knew how badly he wanted to get it.
Rohan places the helmet on him, and a white metallic sleeve runs down his body from the helmet. As the helmet contracts to fit Rohan's head better, the sleeve completes itself, and blue armor begins to harden on the sleeve, covering his torso and creating gauntlets. His whole body becomes encased in the armor, as the boots harden and finalize, and the plates on his shoulders slide into place. A blue mask activates to protect his face, and he stares ahead of himself, a look of determination taking over his anxious eyes from earlier.
Rohan and Sriya walk out of the locker room, wearing their shiny blue and white suits, among the rest of the students on their team. As they walk towards the rink, they see the group of students walk out of the other locker room, however they were wearing red and black suits, with a black sleeve and red armor pieces.
Rohan eyes the other team, and he then looks ahead of himself, keeping the pressure off his mind.
The two teams enter the rink together, and as they do, they begin launching off the ground to begin circling, getting airborne to get some practice in before they'd have to start the game.
Sriya bends down before jumping up with a boost, and Rohan does the same, throwing his arm to pull himself up.
More students pour into the rink until all the players are in, circling about the whole rink, a mixed sea of blue and red. They continue to practice for a couple minutes, with the sound of the hums filling the room.
As the students above make their rounds, the three coaches approach the rink, looking up to see all the students already up and moving. The central coach looks up at the group with a serious glare, ready to begin the final trial.
The coaches make their way up and to a corner of the rink before calling the students to regroup with them, causing all the students to make their way for them and stopping to huddle up and hear the final instructions of the tryouts.
The main coach announces, "As you all know, today is the final day of tryouts. The other two days were simply to get you up and moving, but today you will be assessed for where you deserve to be placed. We have made some notes already, but today is the deciding factor of where you are headed, whether top division, one of the lower leagues, or to your dorm. Each team will be accompanied by a coach who will guide you, and I will referee the game. Blue team, far bench. I'm letting you all try to form a line, but if you can't handle cooperating with one another, the coaches will do it for you. But if you can't handle something as simple as that, I don't know what you're thinking about being here. Do I make myself clear?! Now go!"
The players all disperse towards the region with the small bench rooms, with the red team stopping by the nearest one, and the blue team going farther ahead.
As the teams get into their benches, two more players get on the rink, and they boost upwards. A few of the players including Rohan notice the new players, however they notice that the two players were different from the rest of the group.
These two players wore a different suit from both teams, as rather than blue or red, they wore a black suit, and more than that, they were far more armored than the other suits, as there wasn't even any sleeve visible.
Instead, they have massive gauntlets and wide plates on their chest and legs, with a helmet that had more solid armoring than the open design of the other helmets.
The two players each go to one of the goals on the far sides of the rink, as it seemed they were goalies, even though they didn't attend the other tryouts with the group before.
Rohan looks at Sriya, and he points them out, asking "Who are those guys?"
Sriya notices the two goalies, and he answers, "I think the goalies have their own rinks they did their other tryouts in, but for the final evaluation, they're split up into the other evaluations with the other players. I guess we can't have a game with open goals, huh? Well, just find an opening, and the shot will hit anyway."
The coach who normally stayed to the right of the main coach follows the blue team, and he stops in front of the far bench room before giving it a light knock, causing an opening to form for the group to enter.
Rohan slowly guides himself into the room along with Sriya and the rest of the team, and the players begin seating themselves on the bench, trying to be as close to the door as possible to get out first. Rohan however didn't care too much to get out first, as instead he feels it would be more beneficial if he had some time to observe, and so he sits towards the back.
Sriya looks at Rohan, and he follows him to the back as well, wanting to go out on the rink along with him. Rohan looks at Sriya and nods to him before closing his hands together and waiting.
The main coach hovers to the center of the rink, where his gauntlet holds onto one puck. He then yells, "FIVE PLAYERS FROM EACH TEAM, COME OUT HERE AND TAKE YOUR SIDES!!"
Five players on each bench get up and leave the bench room to head towards the coach. With the added space, everyone else scoots towards the door, eager to be able to go out too.
The ten players on the rink move towards the coach, with the blue players on the far side of the rink, and the red players on their side. Two players from each team stay farther back, and the other three players stand side by side with a distance, creating a horizontal line of three offensemen and another line farther back of two defensemen.
On each team, one player takes the lead as the center player, and moves closely to the coach. They close their fists, activating their gauntlets, and then open their hands, ready to grab the puck when it drops.
The coach looks at each of the center players, and he holds the puck in between them. He then announces, "Begin," and the puck is let go of his hold, thus leaving it to anyone else's taking.
Instantly, the two center players clash with one another, with the red player managing to grab the puck with his beam, and flying off towards the deep blue zone.
Rohan's eyes widen, and he nearly stands up as he sees the red team immediately push into the blue territory, seeming to be close to getting their first goal.
However, Sriya calms him, saying "Don't worry, Rohan. Remember, this isn't a traditional game. It doesn't matter what team wins and what team loses. What matters is how well you play in it."
Rohan sighs, and he sits down, calming himself and remembering to keep himself cool headed.
Sriya sighs, and he says quietly to himself, "You and him are too alike sometimes."
The red center man takes a shot at the goal, however rather than getting in, the goalie who took the blue team's goal blocks the shot with his arms, as he has extremely wide gauntlets that act as shields, causing the puck to reflect off and purposefully fly for one of the blue team's players.
One of the players manages to grab the puck with their gauntlet, and they rush down the rink, sticking close to the wall as they hope to get to the other side and get a shot.
Rohan watches as the player boosts down the line, and he readies to watch the player dash past him, fascinated with the intensity of the game.
However, rather than watching the player dash down the rink, Rohan instead watches as one of the red players smashes straight into the player with the puck, causing the player to slam straight into the wall where Rohan was, making a loud thud.
Rohan nearly jumps from the sudden strike, and he watches as the player struggles to get back in the action while the red player grabs the puck and goes back for another strike at the blue team.
The red player dashes for the goal, and primes for a shot. However, before sending the shot, he suddenly uses his other hand to pull himself far to the left side, and then thrusts his chest forward, pulling himself towards the goal. As he flies towards the goal, he then fires the puck, and he manages to slip it past the goalie due to the maneuver, and it gets inside the goal.
The goalie sighs in discontent after failing to protect the goal, and the red player who made the goal pumps his fist in the air, excited that he got the goal.
The ten players who were just out return back to the bench room, and another ten players go out for them, shifting to the next batch. Rohan moves up the bench, and sits at the front, right in front of the door.
The new ten players move back at the middle of the rink once the coach grabs the puck, and the coach drops the puck for grabs, once more starting up the game, however this time the blue team seems more aggressive, as it was one of their players who obtains the puck and drives it towards the red team's side.
Rohan watches the teams fly off, and he then looks up at the coach, who was writing on a small screen on his Connect, seeming to be taking notes on the players. Rohan then looks at Sriya, and the other three players who would go onto the ice with him. Rohan turns back to Sriya, and asks, "So, are you taking center?"
Sriya turns to Rohan, and he says, "I'll try, but if someone else wants it, then it's no problem. Just take whatever you can and do your best."
Rohan nods his head, and he continues to watch the game, starting to feel the anxiety creep back in since he was up next to get out in the arena.
The blue team rushes into the red team's zone, and the player who had the puck moves towards the edge of the rink, rather than straight into the goal. As he does, the two other offensemen make a dash for the goal, even without the puck.
The player at the edge turns to the two players making the run, and he then aims his gauntlet at the one in front, and fires his puck at his teammate.
The teammate raises his gauntlet and closes his hand, causing the puck to get suspended in air by his own beam, now being the one to take the puck. He then pulls his arm back, and fires the puck directly into the goal, managing to get an opening from the slim time it took for the goalie to reposition himself.
Now each team had a goal, and the players were returning back to their benches. Sriya stands up and puts his hand on Rohan's shoulder, saying "Well, it's time to show them what you're made of."
Rohan takes a deep breath, and he stands up. He steps out of the room and begins to move towards the center of the arena, where the other players were heading towards. He looks at the red team, seeing how almost all of them were tall and physically superior to him, all of them seeming to be far better trained.
Rohan takes the right side on the front line, knowing he couldn't take center, and he stands suspended in air, waiting.
Sriya takes the center position, and the other three players on their side fill in the rest of the positions. As they do, the red players set their own positions, waiting for the puck to drop.
As the coach returns to the middle with the puck held by his gauntlet, Rohan looks directly ahead of himself to see the red player in front of himself, who looks at him with a determined glare before looking at the coach.
Rohan turns his attention to the coach as well, watching him glide to the middle. The coach then moves the puck between the two centers, and finally lets go of it.
Sriya immediately charges his shoulder into the other center, and as he does, he manages to pick up the puck. The moment he takes the puck, his body immediately drops down, but furthermore he boosts himself downwards as well.
Once Sriya gets low to the ground, he pulls himself forward, making a run for their side, which had started well as the other players were still above and behind him.
However, all the players chase after him immediately, with the two defense players lowering down to meet his height, and the three offense players trying to rush back to their side for extra protection.
Rohan watches as the rest of his team also rushes down towards the opposing zone to support Sriya, and so he does the same as well, knowing he couldn't waste time on observing. Rohan uses both hands to pull himself forward, and as he does, he kicks forward with a boost, trying to speed himself up as much as possible. Unfortunately, he was still behind the rest of the team.
Sriya looks up to see that he was nearly under the goal, and so he throws his body to angle himself upwards before thrusting with his chest, and pulling himself up towards the goal. The precise and quick movements made it difficult for the other players to match, even on the other team, as there was no question that Sriya was extremely skilled.
The coaches note Sriya's dominance, but notice that for some reason, he was taking more time than he needed to, as he could have easily pulled up right after making the duck, yet he chose to stay under for longer.
The main coach's eyes contract in curiosity, realizing that this player is skilled enough to know what he was doing, but now it seemed he was deliberately letting everyone else get to the zone first. While letting someone else get the goal was sometimes necessary depending on the formation, Sriya's tactic would've easily let him get his own goal, boosting himself, yet he still chose to change it so he could let everyone follow.
Rohan looks down at Sriya, who attaches himself to the back of the goal, only to revolve himself around it. As Sriya does, he turns to Rohan, and yells, "GET IN FRONT!"
Rohan's eyes widened, as he wasn't expecting Sriya to do a callout to him, especially when he had talked about how the game was only to show individual skill, and so there was no point of worrying about the rest of the team.
Now that he is put in this position however, he can't just sit around and destroy Sriya's opening, and so he pulls himself towards the goal, leaving his left hand open to grab the puck. He looks at Sriya and nods, confused as he knew Sriya knew how bad of a shooter he was, but there was no time to ponder that.
Sriya pulls his arm back, and he fires the puck at Rohan, giving it to him, which would give him an opening to take a shot on the goal.
Rohan catches the puck with his own gauntlet luckily, as he was slightly scared of missing it, but now that he had it, all he had to do was drive it in. He turns to face the goal, and sees that the goalie had moved all the way to the left side, exposing a great portion of the goal, as he was forced to move from far side to far side by Sriya's revolution.
Rohan pulls his arm back, and his eyes contract to a determined glare, as he sees his target. He gets ready to throw the puck, ready to make a goal, and finally do something.
Sriya watches from the edge, his eyes wide in anticipation.
However, as Rohan begins to throw his arm, the center player of the other team rams straight into him on his left side, where his arm was pulled back, exposing his side. The player slams his shoulder into Rohan's body with immense speed, almost more than excessive for a simple strike.
Rohan's body, rather than flying towards the goal, flies to his right side, flung like a ragdoll into the wall with an incredibly loud thud. His body then slides down the rink, as it caught him so off guard that he couldn't manage to keep himself airborne.
Sriya's eyes shoot wide open as he watches Rohan slump down to the floor, completely lost for words, as he was sure that his play would've finally given Rohan some spotlight.
Just not in this way.
The red team's center sees the puck now floating in front of him after having been let go from the hit, and so he takes it, and begins to race down the rink.
However, rather than chase him, Sriya boosts himself downwards for Rohan, as he notices that Rohan showed no sign of getting up, but instead it seemed he was heavily knocked down.
On the floor of the rink, Rohan's body lays down limp, as if he wasn't even alive. His eyes were closed, as it seemed he was unconscious even.
He had practiced for maneuvering and shooting, but not combat, the worst area for him.