“Why are we here again?”

“Because it’s Leanne’s last game,” Vell said. “Like, ever. And I haven’t watched any of them.”

In spite of their long friendship, Vell had never attended one of Leanne’s Ballball games. They usually fell on nights when he was otherwise occupied with academic activities, social events, or late-night apocalypse prevention. As the empty stands in the stadium proved, Leanne’s matches weren’t exactly highly attended. Or attended at all.

“Vell, you do realize Leanne has literally never lost a game?” Harley asked. “Of anything? Ever?”

“I beat her in tic tac toe once,” Vell said.

“Not that kind of game, dingus,” Harley said. She leaned back and stretched her legs across the stands. There was no one else sitting nearby -or anywhere at all in the stands, for that matter.

Every student had long since caught on that when Leanne was on the field, there could be only one outcome. Watching one woman completely embarrass an entire team of trained athletes stopped being fun after a few minutes. Vell, Lee, and Harley were the only people in the stands.

“Vell, I’m sure Leanne appreciates your support, at least in theory,” Lee said. “But in actuality, this game isn’t all that special.”

“Yeah, even if it weren’t Leanne playing, this would still be a free win,” Harley said. “They’re playing Patschke-Puck.”

“Oh jesus,” Vell said.

The perennial fuckups of Patschke-Puck took the field. Some of them tripped over themselves as they stepped onto the circular Ballball field, and others were wearing their jersey’s backwards. Vell could only sigh. Harley at least extracted some enjoyment out of watching them make fools of themselves, so the night wasn’t a complete wash.

After the visiting team took the field, the home team also stepped up to play -slowly, and stumbling all the while. Every player on the Einstein-Odinson teamed moved with a stunted, awkward gait, most of them doubled over or clutching at their stomachs.

“Uh, guys,” Vell said.

“Oh dear.”

From the back of the crowd, Leanne walked forward, apparently unaffected by whatever was crippling her teammates. She tried to ask someone what was wrong, and was answered by them rushing off the field to go vomit. One player’s moment of nausea caused a chain reaction, and soon every player but Leanne had abandoned the field.

“What’s going on?”

“Well,” the Patschke-Puck coach said. “It appears as though every member of your team has received a completely coincidental case of food poisoning that has nothing at all to do with me poisoning all your food twenty-three minutes ago.”

A flabbergasted Leanne looked to the ref, and gestured to the coach who had all but confessed his crime. The referee shrugged.

“I also definitely didn’t bribe your referee by paying him exactly two-hundred dollars to look the other way.”

“Two-hundred dollars?” Leanne said. “That’s not even a good bribe!”

“It’s two hundred more dollars than I had before,” the ref said. Leanne tried to protest, but couldn’t.

“Well, whatever,” she said. “I was going to beat you single-handedly anyway. Now I’ll just do it more literally.”

Leanne punched the open palm of her hand, and a few of the Patschke-Puck players recoiled in fear. The bribed ref, however, had other ideas.

“Sorry, kid, but you need more than one player on the field,” he said. “If you can’t meet a minimum team size, you forfeit.”

Leanne clenched her fists.

“What’s the team size?”

“The suspiciously specific rule says you need exactly four players,” the ref said.

With a glimmer in her eye, Leanne’s head snapped towards the stand. She pointed at the three spectators with such force that Vell could feel a shockwave. Harley rolled her eyes and let out a loud sigh.

“Fuck.”

“I’ve fast-tracked all the paperwork,” Principal Goodwell said. “You’re all fully registered team members now.”

The Principal handed out spare athletic equipment to Harley, Vell, and Lee. Goodwell had been fully onboard for their hasty recruitment into the Ballball team.

“I lost to Isaiah too many times back in school, I’m not losing to him now,” Goodwell grunted. Their principal was still hyperfixated on his perceived rivalry with Patschke-Puck’s principal -among other things. He pointed at Leanne. “You’ve never let me down before. Don’t do it now.”

Leanne said nothing. She’d broken her silence around all of the current generation loopers, but something about Goodwell still unnerved her.

“Yeah yeah, you got a second chance to kick his ass, we get it,” Harley said.

“Good. Right. Second chances are meant to be seized,” Goodwell said. He nodded in the new team’s direction once before walking out of the locker rooms and back to business.

“Well, that guy continues to be unsettling on several levels,” Harley said. “At least him being a corrupt nutjob got us these cool jerseys!”

“Yeah, real piece of work, but hopefully the quick recruitment’ll win us the game. Like I said before, I’ll beat these losers singlehandedly,” Leanne grunted. “All you guys have to do is stay on the field and not get injured. Got it?”

“Understood, Admiral,” Harley said with a mock salute. “Also, why didn’t you tell me these outfits were so light and breezy? I love it.”

Harley bounced up and down to emphasize the utility of the light, sporty jersey.

“Harley, I know you’re...you, but please take this a little bit seriously,” Leanne pleaded. “I’m not going to lose my last match ever, especially not by forfeit, and especially not to Patschke-Puck.”

Lee stepped out of a side room, having finally finished changing and getting her long hair tied up for the game. She was far more uncomfortable in the jersey and track shorts than Harley, if only due to unfamiliarity.

“I do believe my father would have a heart attack if he saw me right now,” she noted.

“Then we should send him a pic,” Harley said. “Speaking of! Team selfie!”

Harley corralled the three of them behind her and then snapped a quick picture of them all in their matching uniforms. After that, she put her phone in a locker and put her game face on.

“Alright, let’s go, game time, hoo-rah,” she grunted. “Are we going to do that thing where we put our hands together?”

“No.”

“What about a pregame speech?”

“The pregame speech is don’t fucking get hurt,” Leanne scolded. “So try not to trip over your own feet like you did in that mutant apocalypse.”

“In my defense, I did have more feet than usual,” Harley said. “Man, you’re a lot more fun to banter with now that you talk.”

In response, Leanne made a shushing noise and then pointed back towards the field. She led the way as the newly minted team stepped out of the locker room and made the short hop to the levitating Ballball field.

“Alright, we’ve got all our players now,” Leanne said. She gestured to the other three loopers. “Can we play?”

“Looks like you’re all set up,” the ref said. “Very well! The game can begin after the required several-minute-long pregame staredown between the opposing teams!”

“Pre-game staredown?” Vell said.

“Ballball has a lot of weird rules, just go with it,” Leanne said. She lined up along the meridian of the field, mirroring the other team -in more ways than one.

“Oh, come on, fucking you guys again?” Harley said. She panned over their off-brand doppelgangers Leanna, Leigh, and Harmony. “Do you not have any other students at your school?”

She pointed out Harmony in particular.

“Didn’t you literally go to jail for attempted murder? Of me?”

“I got therapy,” Harmony said.

“I sure hope you had a good doctor,” Harley said. “Though we’re probably about to undo a lot of mental health gains with how badly Leanne is about to crush you.”

Leanne flexed. Her doppelganger Leanna tried to flex in response, but had far less muscle to work with. She stepped back instead.

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“Be brave, Leanna,” Leigh said. “We came prepared this time. To prove that they, indeed, are the off-brand imitations, we found the original from which this so-called ‘Vell’ is a cheap copy! Behold!”

Leigh gestured dramatically down the line, towards one of the teammates the loopers didn’t recognize. A short, skinny young man with curly brown hair waved up at Vell, his matched counterpart.

“Phil!”

Vell looked down at Phil, and waved hello back.

“That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?” Lee said. “Phil, Vell, I mean, really, they’re not even the same height.”

“Well I guess I don’t measure up to this big fella, but I’m just happy to be here representing my school,” Phil said. He extended a hand in Vell’s direction. “Let’s both do our best, pal.”

“Oh yeah, let’s,” Vell said, shaking the offered hand. Harley raised an eyebrow.

“Well, he seems nice,” Harley admitted. “Guess he’s got that in common with Vell.”

“Stare down over! Play ball!”

At the referee’s shout, Leanne took off so fast Harley’s ears popped. Neither team had even gotten their bearings by the time the first “ding” of a scored goal rang out. The scoreboard started to climb up and up again as Leanne scored another goal.

“Should we stop her?” Leanna said.

“You’re welcome to try,” Leigh said. “Focus on hurting these imbeciles!”

Leigh made a dive for Lee, hoping that one dirty tackle could injure her badly enough to get her off the field and make their team forfeit. The doppelganger was still mid-air when Leanne shoulder-checked Leigh hard enough to send her rolling halfway across the spherical field.

“Reflexes, Lee,” Leanne said. She tossed the ball over her shoulder, towards one of the goalposts, and scored another point.

“I was reacting,” Lee protested. “Just not at your frankly superhuman speeds.”

“Fair enough,” Lee said. The ball she had thrown a second ago rebounded directly back into her hands, and she held it for a moment rather than throw it again. “Any of you want to try scoring?”

“Thank you, but no,” Lee said. Leanne tossed it at the goal and let it bounce back again. One of the Patschke-Puck players went for a diving tackle on Harley, and Leanne caught them by the ankle and tossed them across the field. She then offered the ball to Harley.

“Harley? Goal?”

“No thanks,” Harley said. “One of the chicks on this field tried to kill me a few months ago and I kind of want to stay focused on her.”

“Good thinking.”

Harley and Leanne side-eyed Harmony together. She seemed stable for now, but they were suspicious of even the slightest eye twitch. Leanne chucked the ball at the goal a few more times to secure a large lead. Meanwhile, Vell dealt with his own doppelganger.

“So the ol’ PP may seem like a school of rejects and losers to most people, but I’ve always seen it as a place for the underdog to feel at home,” Phil said. “A place for us to come together and realize that the things some people call ‘flaws’ are really what makes us unique.”

“Yeah, that’s very nice, but, uh- duck,” Vell said. He grabbed Phil by the shoulders and pushed him down as he ducked to avoid a thrown knife. “But I think your school mates are a bit aggressive.”

“Oh, they’re just spirited,” Phil said.

“They poisoned like twenty people,” Vell noted.

“I admit they can be a bit overly ambitious sometimes, but that’s just Leigh being Leigh,” Phil said. “You’ve got to respect her can-do attitude. Never let’s something like the odds -or the law- being against her slow her down.”

While odds and morality never slowed her down, getting tackled by Leanne (again) did. Leigh rolled around the spherical field, tumbling right past their feet as Vell and Phil walked. The disgruntled doppelganger stood, brushed the turf off her backwards jersey, and went looking for Leanna. She was easy to find: all one had to do was find Leanne, and then look as far away as possible. Leanna cowered on the other side of the field, far away from her sportier duplicate.

“Leanna! Is this really how you want to spend your last game? Running and hiding like a coward?”

“Better than spending it getting my bones broken,” Leanna mumbled.

“Oh that viking bitch won’t hurt you too badly,” Leigh said. As soon as she was finished talking, the ball rebounded off her skull and back into Leanne’s hands. Leigh fell face first in the grass at Leanna’s feet.

“Not a word,” Leigh demanded.

“Do you get it?” Leanna said. “I’ve never even scored a goal against regular players, much less against a giant, superpowered, amazonian one.”

“You are absolutely useless,” Leigh said. She stood and brushed turf off her jersey again. “Wouldn’t even help with the poisoning, and now this.”

“I’m not sneaky,” Leanna said. “And why didn’t you poison the big one, anyway?”

“I, uh, well, I did,” Leigh admitted. “Double dosed, actually.”

The two doppelgangers turned and watched Leanne scored twenty-five goals in the span of eighteen seconds.

“She appears to be slightly immune to poison,” Leigh said. “Perhaps her raw physical power also extends to her gut microbes.”

Leanne and her invincible gut microbes scored another ten goals, and then took a break to rebound the ball off of Harmony’s head. She was starting to stare at Harley, and that wasn’t good for anyone. While the ball bounced back, Lee sidestepped an attempt to kneecap her and left the offending Patschke-Puck member to trip over his own feet.

“How much longer do you imagine this will take, dear? I think our would-be saboteurs are already starting to lose steam,” Lee noted. One of the PP team members took a swipe at Harley. She had dodged the cutlasses of undead pirates (briefly) so the inept attacks of a few z-list sports players were no issue. Vell had already dodged the last of the throwing knives, as well.

“Don’t let your guard down,” Leanne advised. She made a few more quick goals while they chatted. “They won’t give up. If I can say one good thing about these guys, it’s that they’re persistent.”

Leigh proved Leanne’s point by trying another tackle. This time Leanne didn’t even have to intervene, Lee simply stepped aside and let Leigh faceplant into the dirt all on her own.

“You really need to stop going for dives, dear, you’re going to break something,” Lee cautioned.

“Bite me.”

“Well, don’t say no one warned you,” Lee said. She strolled away to check on Harley.

Leigh got herself out of the turf for the hundredth time, and scanned her opponents. She latched on to what she believed was a vulnerability.

“Stop going after the women,” she demanded, as she pointed at Vell. “Get the tall, twig-like one! He’ll break easily!”

Vell looked up from his conversation with Phil as players all over the field started to converge on him.

“That means you too, Phil!”

The diminutive “duplicate” of Vell shrugged and looked up at his taller counterpart.

“Sorry pal, nothing personal,” Phil said. “Got to have my friend’s back, you know?”

“I think you could pick better friends, but I understand,” Vell said. He placed his palm on Phil’s forehead and extended his arm, pushing Phil aside and keeping him at bay while he appraised his odds against the approaching Patschke-Puck players. Vell started to react to their attempted dogpile, but never got a chance.

With fifteen consecutive rubbery bonks, the game ball bounced off fifteen different heads. Leanne’s expertly-aimed shot ricocheted off more than a dozen skulls, rattling each of them enough that they stopped in their tracks and gave Vell time to get clear of the rapidly-gathering horde.

“This is ridiculous,” Lee said.

“At least they don’t have any more knives,” Harley said. A tomahawk came spinning through the air and embedded itself next to her feet. Harley looked at it and shook her head. “Technically not a knife.”

“All of this for two-hundred dollars, I can’t believe-” Lee stopped mid-sentence and blinked twice. “What on earth am I doing?”

Lee dodged another axe and walked around the spherical field to the referee’s position.

“Sir, I will pay you three hundred dollars to ignore their previous bribe,” she said. The ref considered the offer and looked to Leigh for a counter-offer.

“Going once,” he said.

“I- I can do two-fifty and-”

The referee could certainly be bribed, but he would not be lowballed. He started blowing his whistle and didn’t stop until all the knives, axes, zweihanders, and claymore mines were off the field. It took several minutes to relieve Harmony of her various stored weapons (as well as several pictures of Harley with cartoonish red x’s over the eyes), during which Leigh called a time out.

“Now what do we do?” Leanna said. “Our whole plan was to cheat.”

“You could try actually playing,” Vell suggested.

“No one asked you, twig-boy!” Leanna shouted back. The unexpected vitriol from the usually soft spoken doppelganger caught Vell off guard. After he was done reeling, he stopped and looked down at his bare arms.

“Am I really that skinny?”

“It’s just that you’re so tall, dear,” Lee said. “It makes you look, well, narrow.”

Vell looked at Leanne. She was only an inch shorter, but no one would ever call her “narrow”.

“I need to start working out with you,” he noted.

“Vell, buddy, I’d be happy to go for a jog with you or something,” Leanne said. “But if you did my exercise routine, you would die.”

“Play ball,” the referee shouted. The moment the call came out, Leanne vanished in a blur of speed, retrieving the ball and hurtling towards the goal once again. The Patschke-Puck students surprised everyone with their next move: absolutely nothing.

“You guys okay?” Vell asked.

“Oh yes, we’re alright,” Phil said, as his teammates began to sit or lie in the grass. “Leigh just thinks we should ‘embrace the inevitability of death’, as she put it.”

Phil joined his teammates in laying on the turf and allowing malaise to consume them as Leanne continued to rack up the points.

“I almost feel bad,” Lee said.

“I don’t,” Harley said. “Harmony definitely still wants to murder me. They can suck it.”

After three quarters and several hundred points scored by Leanne, the game was finally called in favor of Einstein-Odinson. Leigh shuffled her teammates together and glared daggers (the metaphorical kind this time) at their opponents.

“We’ll get you next time, Einstein’s!” She shouted, shaking her fist.

“You probably won’t,” Vell said. He diverted his attention for a moment to look at Phil. “Bye. Nice meeting you.”

“Same to you, big guy,” Phil said.

“Maybe we’ll meet again next year,” Vell suggested. It would be nice to have a bright spot in these chaotic clashes with their “rival” school.

“Oh no, buddy, I’m a senior,” Phil said, with a broad smile. “As much as I’d love to stick around and help out my pals here, I got to move on to bigger and better things. I got a job lined up at Kraid Tech.”

Vell’s hand dropped.

“Kraid...Tech?”

“Oh yeah,” Phil said. “That fella’s merciless, no hold barred attitude is going to be what takes us into the future. Hey, maybe I’ll see you working for him too some day, right?”

“You definitely won’t,” Vell said. He turned his back on Phil and stumbled back to friendlier face. Harley made sure to keep an eye on all the Patschke-Puck players until they were out of murdering range.

“Hmm. I suppose that fellow really wasn’t your doppelganger after all,” Lee said.

“Because he was short, a senior, or because he was totally chill with Kraid?” Harley said.

“All three, I suppose,” Lee said. “One wonders how they couldn’t find someone who even vaguely resembled Vell.”

“Maybe he’s just unique,” Leanne said, as she ruffled Vell’s hair. “If so, I’m glad we got the only one.”

As the cold night settled in, a purple butterfly flitted past one of the floodlights that illuminated the field. The “team” made their way off the floating field and headed back to the locker room.

“Sorry your last game was a bit of an anticlimax,” Vell said. Leanne shrugged.

“Eh, honestly, they’re all like that,” Leanne said. “If anything, that was the closest I’ve ever come to losing. Thanks for having my back, guys.”

“Eh, save your thanks for Vell, I was whining about having to be here the whole time,” Harley said. “But it all ended well. You kept your winning streak, and I found out I look great in jerseys. I’m going to have to rock this look more often.”

“You do have to give that one back, though,” Leanne said. ‘That goes for all of you.”

“I know, I know,” Harley said. “Lee should totally order us matching jersey’s though.”

“Oh, that sounds adorable,” Lee said. “I’ll get right to it. What color, do you think?”

“We can talk about it later,” Leanne said. She tugged at the collar of her own jersey, which was drenched in sweat. “Right now, showers.”

Seeing as Leanne was the only one who had actually exerted herself during the game, she was the only one who needed to shower. That suited her just fine. She needed the moment of privacy anyway, and not just for modesty’s sake.

Leanne rested her head on the shower stall’s wall and let out a deep sigh. She had played the last game of her school years. Just one more milestone behind her.

One step closer to leaving.