Blood pumped through her ears. Her body was hot. The massive, freshly finished stadium hummed with noise as the audience screamed out all their passions at the Hobfootie players struggling below.

Congratulations! Your Skill Vicious Strike (Un) has grown to Level 121!

Devick’s fist cracked into the ape’s jaw. Blood spurted out of its broken nose and it took a half step backward. Still, the bastard had about sixty pounds on her and wouldn’t go down easy; even after the grueling match so far, he remained unshakable. Her eyes flicked down to the Crusher held in his hands and weighed her options. Ultimately, she decided to risk it.Ssince the Miracles had seized the lead ten minutes into the Hobfootie match, the opposition became increasingly targeted at eliminating her, specifically.

Bah, let them try. Devick allowed the song of strife its sweet song in her blood. Instead of attempting to knock away the ball, she kicked the side of the ape’s knee and then brought her knee against his face. Any scrap of solid cartilage remaining in its nose shattered. Let’s make this glorious.

Across the field, Toll boomed the oblong ball up into the air with all his strength.

Another one of the opposition attempted to spear tackle her as she turned away, but Devick’s body reacted to the threat. She felt like she was dancing, swaying just beyond his reach and positioning herself in position to catch the ball and score. Before focusing upward, she glanced around and found the Arakis Beast crept closer, but was far enough away she didn’t need to worry about its sudden rush quite yet.

Still, the attention of the entire field seemed to be on her. She practically stood in a spotlight. The crowd’s cheers were for her.

The other crusher whipped past her, rustling her clothes. Behind her, the failed tackler had his lower back shattered by the projectile. She shot a bemused glance at the grim-faced Jawem. Even now, while they dominated the Hobfootie match, Jawem refused to actually enjoy the playing.

Privately, Devick believed he would be a much better player if he would just loosen up a little. He insisted on revealing his inherent unlikability.

She glanced upward. The oblong ball spun down toward her position. Yet at the last second, her instincts began to tingle with the thrill of danger. Like a suspicious spirit in the presence of a priest, she ghosted backward, the front of her uniform singed by a spurt of orange flames.

To her surprise, the broken-nosed ape hunched over with a singed palm extended in her direction. Devick thought she caught a flicker of lime green light from the ape’s eyes, but whatever illumination it might have been was smothered by the next blast of orange fire. Devick spun sideways out of the way and the ape growled.

It forced itself to its feet and pressed both palms together. A large amount of fire gathered in a massive ball in its palms. Devick’s lips twisted. Are you kidding me? How the hell do you have enough Mana for this?!?

Why did we have no information about a walking fireworks factory?

She skipped backward, positioning herself right under the oblong ball. The ape’s eyes blazed as he unleashed the firebomb. But rather than catching the oblong ball as it passed waist heigh, Devick whipped her leg around and kicked it. The sharp redirection shot the ball directly over the sizzling flames and knocked it against the bloody remnants of the ape’s face.

The blast sizzled past without hitting anything. Which was good, because you lost quite a bit of points if the ball was destroyed while in your possession.

Then Devick flipped up into the air, avoiding a follow-up blast of fire, caught the bouncing ball, landed on the ape’s shoulders, and stomped in his teeth. Finally forced into unconsciousness, the ape collapsed. The second fire blast hit the ground right in front of the ape and erupted, sending Devick tumbling midair.

Congratulations! Your Skill Methodical Recalibration (Ru) has grown to Level 201!

She twisted and landed on her feet. For good measure, she rolled several times forward and struck a heroic pose as she popped up to her feet; she knew the Nether King sat in the audience watching.

The cheers were deafening. For several seconds, she seemed to rise directly upward, buoyed by her elation.

When she finally came back to herself, Devick felt rather surprised to find Toll looking at her with disgust on his face. He pointed to the ground, right as the referee blew her whistle. “Your stunt brought you across into my Zone, fearless leader. Two-minute time out for you. But hey, at least you made the catch.”

Flushing with embarrassment, Devick stomped over to the penalty bench. Even more galling, the game ended in the Miracle’s victory before her penalty had ended. While the rest of the team rushed together in a massive pile of victorious bodies, she simply sat and kicked her feet on the bench.

Through the announcement of their victory, by an overwhelming fifty-five points, and then trooping back to the locker rooms she remained mopey. She ignored the exaggerated eye rolls from Toll and several long-time team members, bitter despite the rush of Level Up notifications she had received during the intense match.

Forcing herself to keep pushing her limits in the past month paid lucrative dividends. The fire lit in her chest by the Nether King’s request had done her a lot of good. But that did little to cover up the frustration of making a mistake like rolling out of her Zone. She sulked, having knocked herself out of that breezy feeling of riding on the adoration of the fans.

However, those thoughts melted away when she walked out of the locker room and saw the Nether King waiting for her. In the end, he was the one spectator who mattered above all the rest. Her soul sang with joy, but she schooled her expression into a wry smile; it wouldn’t do to let him know how much influence he had over her. “Ah, Nether King Hungry Eye. Captain of the Miracle’s fan club. A lovely day, isn’t it?”

“Captaining your fan club is a pretty prestigious position these days,” The Nether King responded to her humor in kind, although his smile revealed the undercurrent of exhaustion that ran through him these days. She wondered what he did, to always seem like he hadn’t slept in a week. “With your point deferential, you’ll likely be the third seed in the next round. More fans will flock to the skyislands, so I appreciate it.”

Not only were the facilities within the stadium phenomenal, but the locker rooms led directly to a raised bridge back to private team quarters so the Hobfootie players could depart without walking through the throngs of people released below. The former audiences’ chatter wafted up to where the Miracles were standing.

Most of the players gave the Nether King several meaningful looks, but they had other concerns right now; as the winner of the match, they were given free rein through an entire floor of the luxury hotel for the night. This included a sauna, several bands and foam stretching equipment, an on-call chef, and some of the most sumptuous beds and couches Devick had ever encountered.

After sleeping on one of those fluffy, cloud-like mattresses even grumpy Jawem had to admit the skyisland was ‘a decent enough place’. And none of the Miracles would sneeze at a free meal.

“That was our deal yes? This much is easy,” Devick replied with an easy smile. “It helps that you approached a quality Hobfootie team… and simply asked us to play Hobfootie. At this rate, I expect I’ll be able to deliver to you the championship trophy within the month. And if you think being Captain of the Fanclub is prestigious now, wait until- what is it?”

Devick felt a prickling along the back of her neck. She could tell it from his face. A cold eel of fear wriggled up from her gut and wrapped its clammy body around her throat.

The Nether King’s mouth twisted. “I actually came to give you a warning. You are being targeted. It happened, during the match; that individual who started using flame-based Skills? That wasn’t his own doing. He was being puppetted by someone who definitely has a Class.”

Devick saw Jawem, who had walked some of the way down the raised bridge with the rest of the team but began loitering to listen in on their conversation, narrowing his eyes.

Devick raised a hand and fanned herself. She tried to display the due amount of concern one should have for the truth they were being targeted, but it was really hard to feel anything around the massive surge of delight she felt from this proof the Nether King had observed the match and worried about her safety. She tried to focus on that delight, and not the insistent eel, tightening around her windpipe. Raising a hand, she gracefully fanned herself with her fingers. “Truly, it is a curse to be this charismatic. Everyone wants a piece of Devick~”

She viciously strangled away a grin, but unfortunately, the left side of her mouth quirked up. Devick coughed lightly to hide the twitch and shot the Nether King a look of mounting worry and maidenly dread. Her acting, as always, was superb. “That is- I hope you aren’t attempting to insinuate that in a similar manner, I should allow you to puppet me. That simply-”

At the end of the bridge, Jawem twitched. Devick took a breath to swallow the insane and dangerous eagerness she had at the thought of her body wrapped in his solid power and spoke firmly.

“-cannot be even considered.” Her voice squeaked a little at the end. She admitted that perhaps her statement was as much for herself as it was for him.

The Nether King quirked an eyebrow at her in a manner that implied he had followed the entirety of her thought process and was bemused by the veering insanity he found there. To be so casually seen through set her aflame, made her hungry for more, for more proof of their connection, of their natural understanding.

Unfortunately, the Nether King was quite the tease. He spoke without touching upon that shared moment at all. “Just be on the lookout for another such instance. The Skill used was pretty interesting, but limited in that the user would only be able to activate Skills she has learned herself. Ah, that’s the other thing. Normally, I would have just taken care of the problem myself, but-” He grimaced. “...even I would hesitate to touch her, so long as it only seems like a diversion. Because you can handle a whole lot more than a fire-sneezing ape.”

Devick worshipfully- no, thankfully, she corrected herself- received the compliment. But she didn’t miss the small wince in his expression. Only a few individuals existed that would give the Nether King pause. From there, a name naturally unfolded.

“Larson Cerulean,” Devick said lightly. “She’s the one who did the puppeting.”

The Nether King nodded. “Just be careful. She seems like the type of bully that will escalate things. Honestly- well, my priorities have shifted a bit. If that conflict comes to a head, don’t endanger your life; I no longer need to maintain the popularity of the skyislands.”

With that and a small wave, the Nether King departed. Devick stood completely still, watching his departure. A tremor ran through her body as she walked back through the Nether King’s words.

He didn’t need her help any longer. His priorities changed.

All that joy in her chest became cloying, frigid suffocation. The long tongue of the frigid eel unrolled, smug and triumphant. However, she rewound the conversation and emphasized different parts of his statements. Larson Cerulean threatened her. The Nether King would rather she remain safe than continue to win the high seed for the Hobfootie tournament.

Between her safety, and likely happiness, and the point differential, happiness was more important.

Some of the warmth returned. Yes, this was a much more acceptable way of looking at things.

“You dumb bitch,” Devick said cheerily. She pivoted on her heel and skipped across the bridge, beginning to plot a suitable way to punish Larson. “Just when Hobfootie started to become a bit predictable… Hehe.”