The air in the tiny, cramped locker room of AFC Brackley was thick with the smell of deep heat and disappointment. Seventeen-year-old Lex Hunter sat alone on a wooden bench, the splinters a familiar sensation as he slowly unwrapped the tape from his wrists. Another win. Another hat-trick. Another roaring, rain-soaked ovation from the three thousand die-hards who'd braved the drizzle.
He picked up a water bottle and took a long pull. It was all starting to feel like being the king of a sandcastle as the tide came in.
On the holographic TV floating by the wall high above the lockers, a replay of the Centauri Prime XI vs. Brazil friendly was on. The commentators' voices were funereal.
"—and another devastating break. You simply cannot give them that much space. It's a masterclass, but from the visitors, not the hosts."
The camera panned over the Brazilian players, their heads bowed, expressions of utter hopelessness etched on their faces. The Centauri players, in contrast, moved with a silent, terrifying synchronicity, their elongated limbs whipping the ball around in a blur. Human players looked like children chasing a ghost.
"Tch." Lex squeezed the water bottle, the plastic crinkling.
His phone, sitting next to his cleats, buzzed once. An unknown number. A message, projected as a shimmering hologram above the screen, burned in the air
[Project RedLine.]
[Your presence is required. Are you ready to take the next step in becoming the world's best player?]
[Yes | No]
His heart hammered against his ribs, a sudden, frantic drumbeat against the dull throb of post-match fatigue. RedLine. The rumor every young footballer whispered about in the dark. The last, desperate gamble. A myth.
He didn't hesitate. His finger, still dusty with pitch chalk, stabbed at the glowing [Yes].
A new message instantly replaced the first.
[Coordinates attached. Transport arrives in ten minutes. Tell no one.]
Lex moved on autopilot, a surge of adrenaline burning away his exhaustion. He burst out of the locker room and ran all the way home. His home was a small apartment above a closed-down shop, where he lived with his mother and younger cousin.
He explained everything in a rushed, breathless manner, the holographic message still burning in his vision. He showed them the coordinates, the impossible instructions. To his surprise, they didn't question it. They saw the fire in his eyes, a joy they hadn't seen in years.
"As long as it keeps you happy. Just make sure to always check in." his mother said, her voice thick with emotion as she pulled him into a tight hug. His cousin shoved a hastily made sandwich into his bag.
Ten minutes later, he stood in the alley behind their building, his duffel bag feeling pathetically light. The air beside the overflowing dumpster began to shimmer, warping the light from a flickering streetlamp. A vehicle of smooth, gunmetal curves and strange angles materialized. A door slid open. No driver.
This really was not a myth at all.
The facility was buried deep within the Swiss Alps, a monument of metal and humming, subterranean energy. It was called The Crucible. Lex was processed by silent, automated systems—scanned, probed, and finally issued a set of stark black training kit with no insignia. His guide was a holographic AI, a stern woman with a military bearing who spoke only to deliver cold, hard facts.
"You are candidate number one-hundred and ninety-six of two hundred initial candidates. There are twenty spots on the final roster. The project lasts one year. The Galactic Cup starts in three hundred and sixty-four days. Failure is not an option."
The AI gave him a curt tour, its form flickering as it led him through sterile corridors. The tour ended at the edge of a vast, domed arena where a live scrimmage was underway. Lex froze, his duffel bag slipping from his fingers and thudding to the immaculate floor.
This was not football. This was something else entirely.
A girl with a French flag on her sleeve, no older than sixteen, received a rocket pass with her back to goal. In one fluid, impossible motion, she flicked the ball over her head, spun, and volleyed it towards the top corner. The goalkeeper, a Scandinavian boy with shoulders like a bull, reacted with speed that defied physics, twisting to palm the shot onto the crossbar. The rebound fell to a Japanese boy whose feet were a blur, selling two feints so convincing they seemed to warp the air before he slid a pass through a gap Lex was certain hadn't existed a millisecond before.
Physical freaks. Tactical geniuses. Technical sorcerers. Every player he'd ever idolized was rendered obsolete. Every highlight he'd rewatched until his eyes bled was now child's play.
He was shown to his dormitory—a sparse, quadruple-occupancy room that was empty, his roommates presumably still training. There was no time to settle. His first drill was waiting.
It was a simple possession exercise. Five-on-five in a tight grid. It was a humiliation. The ball moved at a speed that left him dizzy, pinging between his new "teammates" with telepathic precision. His first touch, once recognized as "precise" and "intelligent" back in Brackley and his homeland, felt clumsy and slow. He was a step behind, his mind struggling to process the patterns of play these monsters saw instinctively.
After the drill, a brutal fitness assessment. A series of shuttle runs designed to break wills. A German midfielder named Kael, with ice-blond hair and a cruel, sharp-featured face, finished the final sprint without breaking a sweat. He glanced dismissively at Lex, who was bent over, hands on his knees, lungs screaming for air.
"They must be scraping the bottom of the barrel," Kael remarked to no one in particular, his English laced with a German accent. "Sending boys from farmers' leagues to do a man's job. Even that girl, Tracy, would do better."
A hot spike of anger burned through Lex's fatigue. He saw the raw hunger in every candidate's eyes—not just for a spot on the team, but for something more. For validation. For a chance to be the one to take back what was theirs.
The final test of the day was a tactical sim—a full-immersion holographic match against a nearly accurate digital recreation of the Centauri. The objective was simple: score one goal. The AI teammates, programmed to the average candidate's level, were being systematically dismantled. The alien opponents were flawless, their passing lanes a web of inevitability. Digital morale broke. AI players yelled, blamed each other, gave up—a chillingly accurate simulation of real human despair.
Lex, playing as a false nine, found himself isolated, marked by two hulking Centauri holograms. The play seemed dead. The system's logic demanded a pass back, a reset.
But Lex saw something else. A micro-gap, a single, fleeting flaw in the AI's perfect defensive code, a vulnerability born of its own relentless perfection. It was a million-to-one chance. A stupid risk.
He took it.
Instead of passing, he nutmegged the first defender with a stupidly audacious flick, burst between them with a surge of desperate energy, and from thirty yards out, with a defender's clawed hand hooking his shirt, he didn't shoot for power. He chipped it. A delicate lob that floated perfectly over the stunned goalkeeper's head and dipped just under the crossbar.
Whoosh.
The sim froze. The holograms flickered and died, the arena plunging into a sudden, profound silence.
A hundred pairs of eyes from the other candidates, waiting for their turn, stared at him. Not with admiration, but with sheer, uncomprehending surprise.
He grinned, a rush of triumph flooding his veins. He'd done it. He'd carved his name on this stone mountain.
From the high observation deck, the project's director, a grizzled former legend known only as "The Gaffer," watched. A ghost of a smile touched his lips.
When the results were posted later, the triumph crumbled. The board showed clear times for each candidate to complete the sim. Most were clustered between one and five minutes. A few prodigies had tickers in the seconds. Kael's time was 3:11. Lex's time glowed a mocking red: 22:18. The slowest of the day by a vast margin. Except for one other candidate, a hulking boy named Mateo, who had clocked 15:02.
After the session, Lex was in the locker room, cleaning his boots, trying to scrub away the shame of that red number maybe. Kael approached, his footsteps echoing on the tile.
"That was the dumbest thing I've ever seen," the German said, his voice low. "And the slowest, too. A fluke that took you twenty minutes. Don't get comfortable."
Lex looked up from his boot, the anger from earlier returning, but now it was cold, focused. The pressure, the insanity, the sheer scale of the challenge—it hadn't broken him. It had unlocked a clarity. A vicious joy.
"They have physics. Tactics. Genius," Lex said, his voice steady, a slow grin spreading across his face. "But they don't have that. They don't have stupid. They can't code for chaos."
He stood up, meeting Kael's gaze without a flicker of fear.
"They might think this is about building the perfect machine. Maybe it is." Lex's grin widened. "But me? Either I become the world's best player, or I become the world's best player. It's a win-win, hehe."
He shouldered his bag and walked away, leaving a stunned silence in his wake. Kael scoffed, shaking his head as a few other candidates who had overheard chuckled derisively at Lex's remark.
The Crucible had its monsters, its geniuses, its freaks of nature. But now, it had something else.
A Wild Card.