Shade woke to the scent of something rich and warm. Food. He blinked, sat up straight in the unfamiliar bed, and sniffed the air like a stray dog following a trail.
"Wait, where am I?" Shade muttered, scanning the room. It struck him as oddly tidy for a makeshift sleeping quarter: five other beds lined the space. Two lay untouched, their blankets smooth as if no one had slept there. One had been converted into a little fort of blankets and pillows. Another was made neat beneath a large, beautiful painting of a duck that dominated the wall behind it. The last bed looked mostly unbothered, though it bore the soft signs of someone having just rolled over and slept.
This must be the base, Shade decided, swinging his legs over the mattress and stretching. I haven't been in this room before. His muscles still hummed with lingering ache. "Amor must have beaten me good, I still feel it!" he said to himself, rubbing a shoulder.
A voice teased from the doorway. "Is that Shade Shaid talking to himself?"
Shade turned. Prius peered in first, an amused tilt to his face. Not long after, Akarui poked his head through the entrance as well.
"He just does that," Akarui said with a shrug.
Shi Ji followed, a teasing grin already forming. "I don't think that Shade has the ability to think to himself."
Shade blinked, surprised, then brightened. "Oh, yo!"
Prius feigned horror. "Oh no, the wild Shade noticed us!" He ducked back out as if retreating from a feral animal.
"Shade, Prius made some sweet spaghetti—come and eat," Akarui called, and then left as casually as he'd arrived.
Shi Ji smiled broadly and slipped away too.
"Spaghetti?" Shade repeated, as if the word were an incantation. He sprang from the room and hurried down the narrow hall toward the cabin's dining area.
The dining room held one long, disorderly wooden table and no windows. At it sat Shi Ji, Akarui, Matthew, Miriam, Amor, Lana, and Prius, arranged like a mismatched council. In the center of the table a huge pot steamed—spaghetti gleaming like golden threads under a sauce the color of rubies, dotted with fat, juicy meatballs. Plates were set for everyone; some sat empty, some with forks already in them.
Prius watched Shade with an amused mockery in his voice. "He's staring at that pot of spaghetti like it's the cure to cancer."
Akarui blinked at Prius. "I never took you for being a cook."
Prius puffed up, faux-proud. "Trust me. This team can't get rid of me because I'm the only one who does anything around here. I cook, I clean—"
"What are you, a housewife?" Akarui interrupted.
Prius paused, feigning offense. "I prefer the term maid, but that works too."
Shade was already seated, scooping pliant noodles and piling his plate high with meatballs and sauce. He ate with the single-minded fervor of someone who'd been starved for both food and comfort.
Prius gaped. "What in the holy name of God..."
Akarui managed a weary observation. "Shade is a… strange eater."
Shi Ji nodded, amused. "He kinda has a thing for anything meaty or saucy."
Akarui added, almost conspiratorially, "That, or chips—he likes the sound they make when he crunches them."
Prius shot them both a look. "You two sure do know a lot about him."
Akarui shrugged. "We spent a few days together. I wouldn't say Shade has a big personality— I wouldn't even say that he's infectious..."
Prius leaned over the great pot to inspect it, and his eyes widened in disbelief. The sauce and meat were gone—vanished. Only a mountain of plain, golden noodles remained, glimmering and accusatory.
"The fuck—" Prius began, then his gaze fell to Shade, whose lips and shirt were splattered with bright red sauce.
Prius's temper snapped. His hair slipped free from its tie, falling into his face in a sudden, theatrical flourish. "Imma beat his ass," he declared.
Miriam held up a placating hand. "Woah, calm down, Prius…"
Akarui shrugged, mischief bright in his eyes. "I say do it."
Amor chimed in with a laugh, "Yeah, it seems like the reasonable thing to do."
Miriam rolled her eyes. "Please stop encouraging him."
Before any fists flew, Mustang and Tiger stepped through the doorway, punctual and businesslike.
"Saved his ass," Prius breathed, collapsing back into his chair with a smug, grateful grin.
Mustang stood at the head of the table and cleared his throat. "The season starts in a few days, but we're gonna get down to business tomorrow, so let me announce some things."
Conversation died as everyone turned to listen.
"Last year, we were eliminated quite early by our conference rivals, the Roundhouse Diesels," Mustang said, setting the mood. "Listen up, rookies—the next couple of things I'm going to say will be useful for you to hear going forward."
He cracked his neck, the sound slicing the silence. "The Faulty Tilt has two types of formatting: standard formatting and special formatting. Standard formats are things like one-on-one battles, two-on-twos, three-on-threes, and at most four-on-fours. Standard formats are the easiest to manage because formatting is decided before fights by a coin flip using a special coin. Whoever wins the flip chooses the format. The Roundhouse Diesels' chosen format was three-on-three. Ours was one-on-one, thanks to the star rule."
Akarui chimed in helpfully, testing the mechanics aloud. "The star rule. All-stars count as two people, super-stars as three, and mega-stars as four, am I correct?"
"You are correct," Mustang confirmed. "My job as coach is to strategize so we don't lose because of a loophole... again."
Akarui's eyes widened. "Ya'll lost to a loophole?"
Mustang set the scene with the patience of a teacher. "Vision this: our opponent is running a three-on-three format with three normal fighters. Because of the star rule, if I put someone like Prius in the fight, he counts as two of the three people allowed on our side. I can't put Amor in because she's an all-star too—she'd count as two, technically pushing the fight to a four-on-three. So I'd have to pair Prius with someone like Matthew to make it fair."
Akarui frowned, thinking it over. "But wouldn't that technically be a two-on-three?"
"Star status is tested every year," Mustang explained. "Stars are above your average fighter—so much so they can potentially beat a certain number of normal fighters at once. In that scenario, I could put someone like Banri against three people because he's a super-star and counts as three people, even though he's beyond that. Still, you never want to risk losing your best fighters."
Akarui pressed for the heart of the matter. "So what part of this made you lose last season?"
Mustang's voice grew sharp with memory. "There's a rule called the Stockpile Rule. Back in my day, teams built up fierce super-teams full of powerful all-stars and super-stars and overwhelmed weaker teams with sheer star power. An example: say in a three-on-three, we had Shade, Matthew, and Miriam fighting, and they were defeated by three normal fighters. If all our other normal fighters had already lost, we'd be left with Prius, Amor, and Banri. Before the Stockpile Rule, the star rule might have been thrown out when a team was down to three fighters, and teams would keep fighting until one side had no members. The Stockpile Rule says if you can't meet the criteria for the number of fighters in a match, you automatically forfeit the game."
Akarui made a face. "Ok, what?"
Mustang continued, steady and precise. "In a three-on-three where only Prius, Amor, and Banri are left against a team of three normal fighters, I can't pit any of them in. The criteria for a three-on-three is to start the match with three fighters on your side. You can't have under three, and you can't go over three. Because of the star rule, those three fighters might count as seven people and it would be against the rules to have a seven-on-three match. If I tried to put in only one all-star, that all-star would count as two, which would make it a two-on-three—that's not allowed either. So the Stockpile Rule kicks in, and we lose by default."
"Why not just put the super-star in?" Akarui asked.
"We didn't have Banri last season," Mustang said flatly. "The Roundhouse Diesels were a team full of normal fighters; our roster wasn't as deep as it is now, so they beat us using the Stockpile Rule."
Prius, never one to let defeat sit quietly, shook his head and said, "We could have definitely won that game too."
Mustang's voice carried like gravel across the splintered table. "Well of course, things have changed. The Roundhouse Diesels' most important fighter, Makkah Dreger, recently passed the all-star test."
Prius barked a laugh of relief. "About god damn time!"
Amor folded her arms, unimpressed. "Hmph, I'm surprised he wasn't one last season."
Mustang nodded once. "Yes, and we all know that he's the engine of their team. They're changing their lineups to adapt to Makkah's change in status. It gets even better, because we have a lot more normal fighters now."
Prius's grin widened. "So you're saying that we're kicking their ass this year."
"Exactly!" Mustang thumped his fist down with theatrical force. The impact cracked the table beneath his arm—wood splintering along the seam.
"Oh, oops," Mustang said, almost sheepish despite the show.
Tiger shuffled forward, a small motion among bigger ones. My wallet... he thought, and the breath of it seemed ludicrously inappropriate next to the crack of broken wood.
He cleared his throat. "I will also announce that our mascot Reese escaped."
Amor shrugged. "He couldn't have gone too far."
Prius jumped up, sudden alarm in his tone. "Wait, so how will we get around?!"
Tiger held up a set of keys like a makeshift answer. "We can take my car."
Mustang folded that into the briefing. "For the rookies: mascots are, for the most part, responsible for transportation. But ours... escaped."
Prius waved a hand offhandedly. "Psh, we don't need him—we have Tiger's car!"
Tiger squinted. "I can't tell if you're mocking me or not."
"Either or," Prius shrugged.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Tiger pressed.
"To each their own," Prius said with practiced nonchalance.
Tiger's face hardened. "Ok, you're definitely mocking me."
Mustang raised a finger, corralling the chatter. "One last thing before I go, and all of you listen closely. We're going after the protection pass this season."
At that, Amor, Prius, and Miriam all blinked, eyes widening a fraction.
Prius sucked in a breath. "Yo coach, are you insane!?"
"We're going to be contenders this year. This is the right decision," Mustang replied, matter-of-fact and immovable.
Shade, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, asked the obvious question. "What's the protection pass?"
Tiger cleared his throat and explained, steady and plain. "Every season, the head of the league starts a scavenger hunt in a random location in the Faulty Tilt—one location per conference. In this hunt, players search for the protection pass: a golden ticket the GM of a team can use to negate the elimination of their team if they were to be knocked out."
Amor leaned forward, pragmatic. "The problem is every good team goes after this, which can cause many other teams to be eliminated. It pretty much becomes a battle royal."
Mustang's eyes were lit with strategy. "I think we have a good chance at gold this year. So we could really use that protection pass."
Prius's voice thinned at the edges. "But coach, what if we get eliminated?!"
"If we get eliminated, we get ELIMINATED!" Mustang fired back, emphasizing the hard truth. "But that won't happen, right?"
Prius swallowed. "I— I'm not going to argue with that."
Mustang settled the room with a single nod. "Be awake early tomorrow. Goodnight." He turned and left, footsteps taking the heat out of the conversation.
Prius grinned at the stunned silence like a man fishing for trouble. "So. UNO anyone?"
Before anyone could answer, Amor conjured a small, glossy red ball—candy-bright and absurd—then flung it with a sharp snap of her wrist. It struck Prius clean on the temple and sent him collapsing in a startled heap, out cold on the splintered wood.