While walking to band rehearsal, I find myself getting lost in thought, as I have a tendency to do. However, my musings are interrupted by the sound of a voice behind me saying my name.

“Hey Zoe! Can I ask you something?”

I turn around, and see who it is who’s speaking to me; Mason Wallace. Mason is the best trombone player in our year, and one of the few freshmen to make Symphonic Band along with Ashley and I. I’m surprised that he’s talking to me, we do not have any particular relationship. He looks nervous about something; what’s going on?

“Hey… um…” he begins in a stutter. “How’d you like to go to Homecoming with me?”

I immediately am forced to process a complex web of different emotions.

The Homecoming Dance is not for another two or three weeks. Asking me now is a very odd move, given that the Dance is not yet on the forefront of the collective consciousness of the school. No, no I don’t want to go with him. Like I said before, I do not have any particular friendship or anything with him, and in fact he can sometimes be kind of annoying. Still, though, it’s not as if I can just tell him this. How should I explain my answer? I need to think of some excuse, quickly now… Everyone is staring at both of us right now and I’m extremely embarrassed. I have to use the restroom.

“Oh… welll… um… I, uh… I’malreadygoingwithsomeone.”

Why did I say that? That’s a bad lie. As I previously mentioned, the dance is still several weeks away. Who else would have already asked me?

Mason looks annoyed for a second, but then he recovers and looks at me curiously. “Oh really? Who is it?”

Uh-oh. He’s going to call my bluff.

“I, um, it’s a secret,” I say stupidly, that being all I can think of.

“It’s okay you can tell me,” Mason says slyly, moving slightly closer. “Are you hiding something?”

But then, I hear a different voice from down the hall, speaking softly, but in scathing tone that is clearly discernible: “She already said no, dipshit. Don’t you take a hint?”

I turn and am flooded with relief to see Ashley coming towards us. The students around us begin chattering at her appearance, but she pays no attention to them, and looks (as usual) as if she’s bored with the proceedings.

When Mason sees her, his expression turns into a sneer. “I’m allowed to ask someone a question, am I? Or is there a new royal proclamation against that?”

“You’re acting like an entitled little bitch, and you’re heckling her,” Ashley chastises him bluntly. Mason goes a bit red in the face, but doesn’t seem to be able to think of a comeback. Ashley lightly puts her hand on my shoulder and leads me away to the band hall.

I feel incredibly grateful for her. One of the things that I truly love about Ashley is that she’s just the kind of person who can get me out of awkward situations like that.

Still, there is one thing that troubles me. I can’t turn around and go to the restroom now, as that would make things even more awkward. So, I’m going to have to hold it throughout the whole period again.

Having already cleared out all other obstacles and enemies in the palace, we arrive back in the courtroom, which has reverted to the eerie silence it had before our last battle. Since Pavia exited through the door on the right, we deduce that’s likely where he is now, and enter through it.

On the other end is something quite surprising. The door leads to what appears to be a football stadium. Other than us four, there doesn’t appear to be another soul in sight, neither on the field or in the bleachers. The door we just came out of us doesn’t seem to lead to anywhere; it is simply sitting in the middle of the grass with no sort of structure behind it. It reminds me of the doors in the movie “Monsters Inc.”

“Um… what the hell?” Nova asks.

“Well, looks like this place is not even trying to follow the laws of physics anymore,” I comment, referring to the door we just came out of.

“In all of my travels… I’ve never seen a place like this,” Ted comments, sounding strangely fearful. “Keep your wits about you, rangers.” The way he says it makes me feel a little nervous.

We walk away from the door and past one of the goal posts. Then, I hear a voice from behind me say, “Hello there!”

The four of us whirl around to see who is speaking. Near the goal post, there is an attractive woman with dark skin, wavy hair, and a fully developed figure. She is dressed casually, wearing a pair of short shorts and sleeveless tee shirt. She vaguely resembles a popular music artist I can’t remember the name of. The overall effect of her appearance is quite striking.

“Who are you supposed to be?” I ask the woman. “Pavia’s mistress?”

“Oh, I’m another one of his assistants!” she says cheerily. “My name is Sarah, and I’ll be guiding you through the final part of this palace.” Coincidentally, Sarah is also the name of the private lessons teacher who teaches me trumpet. The one I secretly have a crush on… Damn it, don’t think about that right now.

“Oh, good!” Anja says cheerily. “That means it’s almost over!”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I argue. “If you’re his assistant, why are you helping us?”

“Pavia is a big believer in fair competition!” she responds. “He is happy to face those who are proven to be worthy.”

“Well, none of us were considered worthy,” I counter. “He told us all to leave.”

Sarah starts to walk towards us. She walks in a very confident way which has a sort of hypnotic effect…

“Well, you’re getting a re-do, of sorts. He’s given you all another challenge for you to try and prove your worth.” She stops right in front of me and leans in closely. I smell a very pleasant scent that smells vaguely like a perfume that Zoe sometimes wears. “What do you say, sweetie? Wanna try it?”

“Hold on a moment!” Ted interrupts, looking suspicious. “Ashley, she is using her charm to try and sway you! Don’t fall for it!”

“What? Her charm?” I ask, momentarily not able to comprehend what he’s saying. “Oh yeah…” I look at the other two. Nova’s eyes are wide open and fixated on Sarah, specifically somewhere slightly lower than her face. Anja is not even trying to hide how enamored she is with the woman; she looks like she’s about to start drooling. I guess this confirms that rumor Zoe told me. So that means… my brain feels slow…

“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to trick you,” Sarah assures me. “Think of me as being… your servant…”

I feel a pleasurable sensation across the front of my body. This makes me embarrassed, so I quickly turn away from her. “Okay fine, we’ll do it,” I say quickly to cover up the moment.

“Splendid,” she says, beaming at me dreamily.

Sarah lines us up along the front sideline, each of us on a ten-yard mark.

“Man… am I the only one getting marching band practice vibes from this?” Anja comments.

“Oh God… I hope that part of the challenge isn’t doing weight transfer mountain,” I reply.

“Come on guys… can you be serious? We’re about to start,” Ashley nags us.

“Yeah… it’s time to put on our mean faces. Get angry!” Anja shouts.

Hmm… I’m supposed to “get angry?” Well, that’s easy. I just need to think about my bitch of a mother. Or wait, I can think about Pavia. That smug son of a bitch, he thinks he’s better than us just because we’re poor. I’m gonna show him in just a minute!

“Okay… round 1 begins now!” Sarah states from behind us.

In front of me, appears one of those winged things that we fought earlier. I’m just glad that it’s not one of the knights. Those guys were tough. (And annoying little shits.)

The first enemy in the challenge was one of those winged assholes we fought earlier. Thankfully, I knew just the thing for them. They were quickly finished off by a well-aimed round of my… uh… what did Ashley say this was again? My… probably illegal gun.

I look to my left and see that the others have finished round 1 quickly as well. I watch Ashley dispassionately tearing the thing’s head off with her bare hands. It’s gross, but also kind of awesome. (I wouldn’t be okay with this level of violence if these were real creatures… but this is the Metaverse, so anything goes.)

“Round 2!” Sarah shouts, and in front of me spawns a fjsifjlaksdjf;lkasjfl;kadsjf;lk;j nononononono it’s a wasp it’s a giant fucking wasp I HATE them it’s the same size of one of the war wasps from metroid prime that always scared the shit out of me im feeling faint bye

The wasp is nothing before the power of my hammer. I turn to my left. Ashley and Ted defeated their wasps already, but Anja is straight up passed out on the ground. I guess that’s what the scream I heard was. Fuck! We’re down one.

“Round 3!” Sarah shouts. The next enemy is some sort of snake creature I haven’t seen before.

I know I can’t afford to lose, so I wind up a huge strike, and slam it right down into the middle of the snake’s body. It leaves a pretty impressively sized crater in the ground, but… misses the snake, who moved out of the way the millisecond before my attack landed and is now wrapping around me like an anaconda. God damn it!

The last enemy was a coyote, just like one of the ones who ganged up on me a few weeks ago. I was determined to not let it end like last time… and I was successful.

I look around me after I finish. Ted is still standing, but the other two seem to have failed, for they are both flopped on the turf like dead fish. How disappointing.

“Well, congratulations you two!” Sarah says, stepping up to the field and clapping. “You two have proven yourselves strong enough to take on the boss!”

“Of course we have,” I say. “I mean, honestly. ‘Get angry’ is actually pretty bad advice if you’re about to enter a fight. You want to stay calm and collected so that you can unleash all of your anger in one precision strike. That’s how real champions do it.”

“Hehe, well… you sure showed me. Good luck, ‘champions’.”

She begins spinning her right hand, and a sort of weird purple vortex starts forming around Ted and I. Soon enough, I begin to feel weightless… and I am teleported away from the stadium.

It must have been quite a while later when I came to. I slowly get up to my feet, ignoring my heavily protesting ribcage. Thirty yards away, Anja is doing the same. I run over to where she is.

“Man… I feel like the biggest pussy on the planet,” Anja tells me, rubbing her eyes. “I just saw that fucking wasp, and went out like a light… there wasn’t even a battle.”

“I made a stupid tactical error…” I admit. “Join the club.”

We both look around. Ashley and Ted are gone, but Sarah is still standing on the sideline, watching us.

“Hey! Where did the other two go?” I ask her.

“They already went ahead and started the boss fight,” Sarah explains. “But you haven’t been out for long… if you hurry, you two may be able to help finish it.”

“Lead the way, then! Let’s go rejoin our team!” Anja shouts excitedly. Sarah nods and begins jogging towards the end zone opposite to the one we entered. Anja and I follow closely behind her.

We jog past the endzone, and to a pair of large, metal doors underneath the stands.

“The boss is behind these doors. Good luck, you two.” Sarah tells us. Using some sort of telekinesis, she opens the doors, which reveals some sort of tunnel that goes down into the Earth.

“Alright, killjoys, let’s make some noise!” Anja shouts excitedly. She runs into the tunnel, but then stops in her tracks only a few steps in. “Oh… my… god.”

“Yeah, I did a good job on him, didn’t I?” Sarah says. Suddenly, her smile seems to be twisted, and she doesn’t look nearly as attractive anymore…

“N-Nova… run.” Anja says. There’s something weird about her now- she’s trembling, and her eyes are as wide as saucers.

“What? Run from what?” I ask, leaning forward to try and look and see what’s in the tunnel. However, I can’t. Anja pushes me backwards. “Just run the opposite direction! RUN!” She screams.