The UCNA base was built with many different recreation rooms all to provide its workers with something to do other than their daily routines, with the gymnasium being the most noticeable room. The fact that it was so large meant that they had to cheap out on some of the resources during construction, aesthetics wasn’t their main goal anyways. When conflict arose in Former North Dakota, the building had to be turned into a stronghold. There was not much use for leisure and relaxation when your death could come at any time and so they ended up being places for unwanted things.

“I forgot how huge the gym was!” Catherine stood in awe at the huge space in front of her.

A large basketball court filled the majority of the room with a seating area to one of the sides.

“Quit gawking and help me move boxes.” Miley passed by Catherine carrying a large cardboard box containing who knows what, they never labeled anything.

Catherine joined up with Annie and Engie, they were attempting to sort the boxes. Annie handed over a box and Catherine started to carry it over to another room. Since the bedrooms were lacking in occupants, they decided to designate them as storage space.

They had yet to get proper beddings for their guests, who were lounging around the gym. A few even took out a basketball and took turns tossing it into the hoops. Despite their outward appearances, the group seemed rather calm.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. The cycle continued until the stack of boxes started dwindling in height.

“Damn, you androids sure got stamina for days.” Bill remarked as he took a sip of bottled water.

“We do get tired though.” Catherine stopped to lean on a box.

“Ya don’t say… I’ve seen a lot of androids round the big city but not so much in the rural places.”

“Is that so?”

A soft object smacked itself into the back of Catherine’s head. She turned to find out what it was, it was a pillow.

“Who told you you could stop working?” Shouted Miley. She was bringing in pillows for their guests.

Annie ran up to her. “I finished with the boxes, what can I do now?” She excitedly bounced up and down at the prospect of manual labour.

As Catherine went back to work Bill waved her off as he looked around the court. His eyes narrowed as he felt something was amiss.

“Hey Sam, have you seen Haven round here?”

The girl looked up and shook her head. Suddenly, one of the doors to the gym crashed open as 6 figures entered the room. Bill quickly recovered from the shock, he could see that one of the figures was Haven. He was being held hostage.

“What the fuck!” Miley threw down the pillows and tried to get a read on the situation.

The UCNA soldiers regrouped with each other as the cult members panicked and started to move behind them. “Engie, go grab Silver. She should still be in her room.” Miley whispered. With a nod, the girl slipped away from the group and rushed to get Silver.

“Alright you’re peaceful days are over!” Savage held her rocket up to the UCNA soldiers, who recoiled when they noticed what she was carrying.

Sweeper gently tapped her Captain on the shoulder. “Hey, they have civilians with them. Killing them would go against the Accord.”

Savage looked at the humans who were cowering behind them. Firing right now would solve a lot of their problems but it would add more problems. As she weighed both sides, Miley spoke up.

“The hell are you assholes doing here?”

“This is war! We can be anywhere we want!” Savage replied. She turned to Reaper and used a tactical gesture to tell her to look more intimidating as she held Haven hostage. It didn’t work as Reaper hadn’t paid attention to any of her hand sign lessons, she only raised her eyebrow as Savage continued to move her hands around.

“What are they doing…?” Catherine leaned in to get a better view.

"How did they get in? Shouldn't our base alert us if they were close?" Miley held her head in frustration, how could it mess up now of all times.

Meanwhile, Doogledert whistled and slowly backed off from the crowd. He had meant to lower the volume of the announcer because it was too loud but instead muted it.

“Screw it, pull out your guns.” Miley ordered the other two.

Catherine looked around for her gun but couldn’t find it. Noticing that something felt off, Miley reached for her gun but couldn’t find it as well.

“Uh… Miley… I can’t find my gun.”

“Where is it?” Miley frantically searched for it while Savage explained the meaning of her gestures to Reaper, unaware of what was going on at the UCNA side.

“Oh I put them away somewhere!” Annie smiled, she finally figured out what they were looking for.

“WHAT! WHYYYY!” Miley grabbed on to Annie as she desperately wanted to understand her thought process.

“Cause Silver told me too. Ya know, cause we’re busy looking for the lake!” She nonchalantly answered.

Miley fell to her knees. We’re screwed she thought to herself. Just then, Silver ran into the room with Engie trailing behind.

“Woah what the…? Captain, they got reinforcements!” Dealer grabbed onto Savage’s shoulders and started shaking her back and forth. She pushed Dealer back and turned the rocket launcher towards the new faces. “Hold it right there!”

Miley quickly got up and adjusted her glasses, they weren’t done in yet.

Savage took a look around the room. It appears that the UCNA have gotten civilians to act as meat shields, they even gave them funny dresses to designate them as targets, why else would they be wearing something that stood out so much. The fact that they are a religious group was obviously a ploy to make them think twice about shooting a rocket at them.

“It appears we’re at a standstill.” Holding the launcher up, she had to make it seem like they had more than one rocket loaded in.

“Yeah, I guess… soooo what are we going to do now?” Catherine looked to Miley for answers but she could only shrug.

The two sides stood there for a while thinking about their next move. Meanwhile, the Those at the Threshold members were quiet as a mouse, they wouldn’t dare move an inch for fear of getting killed.

“I know!” Annie shouted, getting everyone’s attention. “Why don’t we play basketball?”

“Annie… that is the dumbest thing I’ve heard and I had to listen to Cath for the past 6 months.” Miley wasn’t surprised that someone in her team would think that, but to say it out loud was next level in not understanding the current situation.

“Yes that could work.”

“Huh?” Miley looked over to the enemy’s side, their Captain had said it. “What the shit do you mean that could work?”

“Watch your mouth UCNA scum!” Sweeper had stepped up to defend her Captain. “Okay but seriously what do you mean by that could work?” She whispered to Savage.

Savage put one of her hands on her hips and puffed up her chest. “I’m saying that we should play a game of basketball to decide which side dies.”

“I’m not following…” Catherine tilted her head to the side, confused by what they want.

“We have a basketball match and whoever loses has to die!” Savage stomped her feet on the ground, fed up with them not understanding.

Basketball has a long and storied history as a sport. After World War 3 ended in 2065, human civilization was on the brink of collapse, there wasn’t time for official sports tournaments to be held as the remaining countries tried to rebuild themselves. In fact, sports tournaments were banned as everyone needed to chip in for humanity’s survival. This left many sports fans unsatisfied. A man named Freddie Harrington saw this as an opportunity so he established an underground basketball ring in 2066. It started out as pre-WW3 basketball but many of the contenders were criminals which led to violent encounters on the court, normally this would be a sign to stop but those that watched were fascinated by the brutality mixed in with good, honest basketball, which drew in larger crowds every game.

Soon underground basketball spread across shattered North America, Harrington had to establish rules and guidelines to keep the contestants from going too far and killing each other but make it so it’s still bloody enough to keep the audience’s attention. The rule of One was created, players are allowed to carry only one weapon of choice, guns weren’t an option because they were too powerful. Another rule was that the person who is currently handling the ball isn’t allowed to use their weapon, this was to ensure that the person with the ball would focus on scoring rather than fighting. Though, the no guns rule was eventually changed to ranged weapons in general as in 2067 Kenny ‘the Archer’ Miller became dominant through his use of a bow leading the Wisconsin Bandits to numerous victories.

The rapid growth caught the attention of the US government and soon their officials were knocking on Harrington’s door. At the time the US was currently putting the Act Against Crime law into place which allowed for the execution of those that are deemed criminals based on a point system. Something as small as littering would only give a tiny amount of points, the points would decrease after a certain period of time if the offender doesn't break any more rules but once one became a criminal it would be a permanent status. Murder or rape, on the other hand, would automatically mark the offender as a criminal. They saw underground basketball as a way to get rid of criminals and generate revenue, so they secretly sponsered Harrington as long as he got rid of the no killing rule. Money and participants were poured into Harrington's lap as he continued to popularize the blood sport.

By 2071 the world had become more stable, as civilization was brought back from the brink demands for sports was growing louder by the day and the US government had to act. Bringing back all the sports would put a huge strain on the precious resources they had to spare, so a decision was made to have a vote for which sport they would bring back. It was an overwhelming victory for basketball and the US government elected Harrington as the head of this revival project. He established an offical league that strictly followed the rules of pre-WW3 basketball but due to a large outcry from his underground audience and a little push from the government he created another league that followed his underground rules whose participants would be criminals, his underground blood sport would rise to the surface.

US banks served three purposes: the regular banking service, a prison, and an arena for underground basketball. To prevent running out of contestants a single tournament would be held every year. Huge crowds would be drawn to banks to watch the spectacle, a 5 on 5 no holds barred basketball match where bets were made on which team would win. The contenders were given a choice of weapons to choose from before the match and they were allowed to communicate and strategize with their chosen team members. The very first teams were a sorry sight to behold as they continually missed their shots, but that eventually solved itself as the weaker teams got culled. Life in jail wasn't so bad if you were a dominant team, money went into making sure that they can and would want to continue winning.

As the UCNA team wasn't omniscient and couldn't read the explanation, they only looked at each other confused. They didn't have their weapons and there was no way they would come out of this situation unscathed if they were to charge in head first.

"We can totally take these guys on in basketball." Catherine whispered to Miley.

She agreed, but she also didn't know how to play basketball. Looking at just the heights, it was obvious that the UCNA side had taller people overall.

"Okay we accept." Miley gave a confident look at Savage, who gave a smirk in return.

"So now that we know we're settling this through basketball..." Dealer walked up. "What's your team name? You know? Like you gotta have your place and then an animal... or object... or a verb... screw it just pick another word. We're the US Ligers by the way."

"That's not even a native species to the US!" Complained Sweeper.

As the two argued over appropriate naming conventions, Catherine spoke up. "I guess we're the UCNA Plesiosaurs."

"Good we'll have these civilians be the witnesses." Savage grabbed Haven and pushed him forward. "He'll be the commentator from our side and sit over there at the other side of the room."

"Oh hey! Sammy could be a commentator from our side." Annie pointed at Samantha.

"What! Why me- I mean of course my exalted eyes will catch the entire battle play out." She struck a pose that covered her embarrassed face.

Those idiots don't know that we forgot our guns Savage thought to herself, they baited them into an even playing field.

With that settled, all contestants and witnesses took their place. With the fate of Former North Dakota up for grabs, this will certainly go down as the fifth most important match that ever happened in basketball.