Pain tastes like copper and rubber.
Soccer lay on his back, staring at the sky. It was a nice sky. Purple turning to indigo. A few stars were poking through the light pollution, looking shy.
Thump.
His heart hammered against his bruised ribs.
"Get up," Coach Cross's voice floated down from somewhere high above.
Soccer groaned. He rolled over, spitting out a black rubber pellet. "He's... very solid. Is he made of rock?"
Tank stood five yards away, cracking his knuckles. He wasn't even winded. To him, stopping a skinny hundred-and-forty-pound teenager was like swatting a fly.
"He's made of meat and bad intentions," Cross said, kicking the ball back to the start line. "And right now, he owns this path. You have to pay the toll."
Soccer stumbled to his feet. He looked at his new Copa Mundials. They were scuffed. Grass-stained.
They felt alive.
Unlike the marshmallow sneakers, these thin leather soles told him a story. He could feel Tank's footsteps vibrating through the earth. Thump. Thump. Heavy. Committed.
"He steps hard," Soccer murmured. "He plants his weight."
"Don't analyze it. Play it." Cross checked his watch. "Sun's gone. We use floodlights now. You have ten minutes before I cut the power. Score, or you're on the bench for the qualifier."
The floodlights hummed to life. High-voltage buzz. The field turned into a stage of harsh shadows and blinding white patches.
Soccer jogged back to the line.
Luna was biting her lip near the dugout. "Coach, he's gonna get a concussion. Tank plays linebacker. He tackles to hurt."
"Good," Cross said, eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses (which he still wore at night). "The team we're playing on Saturday? They don't tackle to hurt, Luna. They tackle to end careers. If he can't survive Tank, he won't survive the Butchers."
Soccer wiped sweat from his forehead. It stung his eyes.
Focus.
On the mountain, there was a boar. A razor-back. It lived in the Bramble Gulch. It was mean, ugly, and smelled like death.
Soccer had tried to run past it once when he was ten. It charged. He dodged. But the boar turned faster than he expected. It grazed his leg—a scar he still had.
You couldn't scare the boar. You couldn't out-muscle the boar.
You had to make the boar miss itself.
"Ready?" Tank grunted.
Soccer grinned. His lip was split, bleeding slightly. "Yep!"
He touched the ball.
The Ghost Step relies on rhythm. Break the rhythm, become invisible.
But Tank didn't care about rhythm. Tank blocked the sun.
Soccer accelerated. The black leather cleats bit into the synthetic turf, giving him traction he'd never experienced before.
Zero slip.
He reached top speed in three strides. He aimed right at Tank's chest.
Tank lowered his shoulder. He grinned. Come on, little man. Go squish.
Soccer saw the shoulder drop. He saw the weight shift onto Tank's front foot.
Commitment.
When a rock starts falling, it can't change direction.
Soccer didn't dodge left or right.
He dropped.
It was the Landslide Low.
Mid-sprint, Soccer collapsed his knees, letting gravity yank him toward the earth. He became a sled. His upper body went parallel to the ground, inches from the turf.
Tank was aiming for a chest-high impact. He tackled the air where Soccer used to be.
But Soccer wasn't stopping. He hooked the ball with the inside of his left foot while sliding.
He wasn't trying to go around Tank. He was going under his center of gravity.
Tank's momentum carried him forward. His hip clipped Soccer's shoulder—hard—but Soccer was rooted low, creating a wedge.
Tank tripped.
It was majestic. Three hundred pounds of linebacker hit a hundred-and-forty pound speed bump.
Tank flew. He pinwheeled over Soccer's sliding form, arms flailing, and crashed face-first into the turf with a sound like a wet sandbag dropping from a second-story window.
THUD.
Soccer used the impact to spin back to his feet.
The ball was still glued to his toe.
Open net.
He walked it in. He didn't shoot. He stopped the ball exactly on the goal line.
"Goal," Soccer whispered.
He turned around.
Tank was groaning, spitting out turf. "What... the hell..."
Coach Cross pulled the sunglasses off. His eyes were wide.
"You went low," Cross said.
"He's tall," Soccer explained, rubbing his sore shoulder. "Trees fall over if you chop the roots. Rocks fall if you dig out the base. I just... became the base."
Luna forgot to breathe. She looked at the replay in her head. It was reckless. It was dangerous.
It was genius.
Cross walked onto the field. He tossed a towel at Soccer.
"You're crazy," Cross said. But there was a gleam in his eye. A dangerous gleam. "You deliberately initiated contact with a guy twice your size to use his own momentum as a pivot point."
"Is that what I did?" Soccer asked innocently. "I just didn't want to get squished."
"You passed." Cross signaled to Luna. "Cut the lights."
Darkness.
The hum of the lights died. The field plunged into shadow.
"Get cleaned up," Cross's voice came from the dark. "Saturday morning. 9:00 AM. The bus leaves for Westside High."
"Westside?" Marcus had appeared from the locker room shadows. He had stayed to watch. "We're playing Westside for the qualifier? They're animals, Coach."
"They're a physical team," Cross corrected. "They play rough. They rely on intimidation."
"They sent two kids to the ER last year," Marcus spat. "They don't play football. They play assault with a ball nearby."
"Exactly," Cross said.
Soccer couldn't see them in the dark, but he could hear the fear in Marcus's voice. And something else in Cross's voice. Anticipation.
"Why is that good?" Soccer asked.
"Because," Cross said, "they're going to spend the whole game trying to break you physically. They're going to hunt you."
"And?"
"And when they hunt you," Cross laughed softly, "they're going to leave the goal open."
Two Days Later: The Locker Room
The air in the visitor's locker room at Westside High was thick with humidity and the smell of mold. It was a dungeon.
The Northwood team sat on rusted benches. The silence was heavy.
Dylan was shaking. Actually vibrating. He was taping his fingers, but his hands trembled so much he looked like he was wrapping a mummy.
"I'm gonna puke," Dylan whispered. "I'm seriously gonna puke."
"Swallow it," Marcus snapped. But the captain looked pale too. He was staring at the tactical whiteboard like it was a death sentence.
"Listen up!" Coach Cross slammed the door shut.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
"Westside is going to come out hard. They think you're soft. They think Northwood is a stat-padding game. A warm-up."
Cross looked at Soccer.
Soccer was sitting in the corner, tying his Copa Mundials. He hummed a strange, toneless tune. He seemed completely oblivious to the doom hanging over the room.
"Soccer," Cross said.
"Yeah, Coach?"
"You start up top. Alone. Formation 4-5-1."
"What?!" Marcus stood up. "Coach, you're hanging him out to dry! A lone striker against Westside? Their defenders—the 'Brick Brothers'—they'll tear him apart. We need two up top to split the pressure."
"Sit down, Marcus," Cross ordered. "Soccer stays alone."
Cross turned to the team. "Westside relies on fear. They bunch up. They swarm. If we play spread out, they'll pack the midfield. But if I give them one skinny kid to bully?"
Cross smiled. "They'll get greedy."
"So I'm bait?" Soccer asked, finishing his knot. "Like when you leave a piece of dried meat out for a snow leopard?"
"You're bait," Cross agreed. "Can you handle it?"
Soccer stood up. He stomped his feet. Tap-tap. The concrete floor clicked.
"I've never seen a snow leopard turn down a free meal," Soccer said. "But sometimes, the meat bites back."
The Tunnel
Walking out to the pitch. The noise was the first thing.
Westside's crowd was loud. Hostile. Boos rained down like hail.
And the opposing team.
Soccer looked at the player standing next to him in the tunnel.
Number 4. A giant. Shaved head. Neck tattoos. He was glaring at Soccer with dead, bored eyes.
"Nice shoes, Fresh meat," Number 4 growled. "Shame getting blood on them."
Soccer looked down at his clean black boots. Then he looked up, tilting his head.
"Why would they get blood on them? Are you bleeding?"
Number 4 blinked. "What? No. I'm gonna make you bleed, idiot."
"Oh." Soccer sounded relieved. "That's good. I thought you were hurt. Ready for a good game?"
Number 4 snarled and shoved past him as they walked into the sunlight.
Kickoff
The whistle blew.
The game didn't start with tactical passing.
It started with a collision.
Soccer touched the ball to pass it back to Marcus.
Immediately—before the ball even rolled a yard—a shadow fell over him.
It was Number 4. He came in sliding, studs up. A red-card challenge in any sane league. Here? The ref was looking the other way.
Crunch.
Soccer felt the wind of the cleats pass his ankle.
He hopped. A tiny, efficient vertical movement.
Number 4 slid beneath him, carving huge gouges into the turf.
Soccer landed, spun, and trapped the return pass from Marcus.
"Get him!" Number 4 roared from the ground. "Kill him!"
Three Westside defenders abandoned their zones. They saw the lone striker. They saw the prey. They rushed him, frothing at the mouth.
Coach Cross, standing on the sideline, folded his arms.
That's it. Take the bait.
"Soccer!" Marcus screamed. "Pass it!"
Soccer saw the three defenders coming. A wall of blue jerseys and angry faces.
They're fast, Soccer thought. But they're angry. Angry things run in straight lines.
Time slowed down.
The Assassin's Zone.
It wasn't magic. It was adrenaline refined by years of near-death experiences. The world turned gray. Sounds became muffled underwater pulses. The only things in color were the threats.
Shoulder drop left. Hip shift right.
Soccer dribbled.
Not away from them.
Toward them.
"He's suicidal," the Westside coach muttered.
Soccer performed the Ghost Step.
First defender: lunged. Soccer's body wasn't there. He moved like smoke in a draft, sliding into the tiny pocket of space under the defender's arm.
Second defender: tried to sweep the legs. Soccer sensed the vibration in the turf before the slide even started. He lifted the ball with a delicate flick—the Sombrero. The ball arc'd over the defender's head.
Soccer ran around the sliding body, catching the ball on his chest on the other side.
Third defender: Number 5. The other Brick Brother.
He didn't tackle. He just stood there, elbows high, ready to check.
Soccer was running full speed. The ball bounced off his chest to his foot.
He didn't slow down. He didn't turn.
"Go through," he whispered Tank's lesson.
He approached Number 5. The defender braced for impact.
At the last second, Soccer stepped hard on the ball.
He stopped dead.
Number 5 flinched, shifting his weight forward to absorb a blow that never came.
Soccer rolled the ball backward with his sole, spun 360 degrees—the Roulette—and used his back to shield the ball. As he spun, his elbow naturally, "accidentally" clipped Number 5's jaw as he turned.
Clean move. But devastating physics.
Number 5 stumbled.
Soccer exploded out of the spin.
He was through.
The entire Westside defense had collapsed on him, leaving forty yards of empty green space behind them.
And the goalkeeper.
A tall, lanky senior with panic in his eyes.
Soccer dribbled closer. The silence descended again. That heavy, oppressive silence he loved.
The keeper rushed out. "I got him! I got him!"
Soccer watched the keeper's knees. Weight on the left. Lean on the right.
He waited.
Waited.
Waited until the keeper was screaming, hands outstretched.
Soccer just... chipped it.
A gentle scoop of the toe. No power. All insolence.
The ball floated. It hung in the air lazily, mocking the chaos below. It drifted over the keeper's fingertips by an inch.
Swoosh.
It dropped into the net like a dead bird.
Soccer stopped running. He stood in the silent penalty box, the crowd stunned into muteness.
He turned to Number 4, who was still picking himself up at the midfield line.
Soccer grinned. His wildest, mountain-est grin.
"You guys really like to cluster up, huh? Like wolves!"
Marcus ran up, grabbing Soccer by the shoulders and shaking him. "You lunatic! You beautiful lunatic! One nil! ONE NIL!"
Soccer looked at the scoreboard.
Northwood: 1 - Westside: 0
Time: 0:45
Forty-five seconds into the game.
Coach Cross sat down on the bench. He hid his shaking hands in his pockets again.
"He just..." Luna whispered, "He just assassinated the entire defensive line."
"Yeah," Cross muttered. "But now they're really going to be mad."
On the field, Number 4 was red in the face. Veins bulged in his neck. He gathered his team. They weren't looking at the ball anymore.
They were looking at Soccer's knees.
"Next time he gets the ball," Number 4 hissed, loud enough for the front row to hear, "break his legs."
Soccer heard it too.
He felt the shift in the air. The malice had doubled. It wasn't sport anymore. It was war.
He tapped his black cleats on the turf. He felt the grip.
Good.
"It's slippery when it storms," Soccer told Marcus. "Stay behind me. I'll clear the path."