On the morning of the Rookie Gauntlet, the team bus was a cage of nervous silence. We drove through the familiar, bustling Saturday morning streets of Ahmedabad, but none of us were looking out the windows. The usual cacophony of auto-rickshaws and vendors was a distant hum. We were all lost in our own thoughts, the weight of the day settling heavily on our shoulders.
Then we saw it. The Apex Municipal Arena. It wasn't a high school gym; it was a professional-grade coliseum, a shimmering dome of glass and steel that rose out of the city like a monument to the sport we played. Banners of corporate sponsors—OmniCorp, Aether-Core, Nova Dynamics—fluttered in the hot August air. The energy of the crowd was a palpable force even from the bus. Thousands of people milled about, a vibrant river of fans wearing the jerseys of two dozen different teams.
As I stepped out into the humid air, my new
Aether Sense went into overdrive, and the sensation was overwhelming. It was like stepping out of a quiet room into the middle of a rock concert. The sheer concentration of powerful players in one place was a sea of invisible energy that crashed against me. I could feel the sharp, aggressive hum of the Oakhaven Elites, the chaotic, buzzing energy of the Downtown Dynamos, and dozens of others.
In this vast ocean of talent, I could feel my own Aether signature for what it was: a tiny, barely perceptible flicker. It was intimidating, but it was also exhilarating. This was the world I had only ever seen through a screen. Now, I was in it.
Our assigned locker room was small and functional, tucked away in the depths of the arena, a clear sign of our team's low seeding. The air inside was thick with the smell of nervous sweat and the low murmur of anxious players. The usual pre-game bravado was gone, replaced by a raw, quiet tension. I saw our main defender, a big senior named Kenji, methodically polishing his helmet, his movements too precise, too controlled. Our fastest forward was nervously tapping his foot, a frantic rhythm against the concrete floor.
Ren, our captain, was trying to keep everyone loose, walking around and offering quiet words of encouragement, but the tension was a solid thing. We all knew the Sentinels' history in this tournament: five straight years of first-round exits. We were the underdogs, the team everyone expected to be a quick and easy win for a stronger opponent.
Jax was in the corner, a coiled spring of intensity . He was listening to music on his datapad, his eyes closed, but his focus was absolute. He knew, just like I did, that this tournament was our real proving ground, a stage big enough for our rivalry.
I sat on a bench, my datapad in my hands. I already had the coach's playbook memorized, so I was reviewing the public data on our opponents, the Cyber-Titans. My System displayed their stats in a clean, terrifying list. Their starting five all had Aether Control stats in the high 30s. Their star player, a striker named 'Unit 734'—a callsign, not a name—had a Power rating that was even higher than Jax's. They were a team of machines, built for overwhelming offense. The weight of my role as the "secret weapon" felt heavier than ever.
Coach Valerius walked in, and the room fell silent. He didn't look nervous. He looked like a general before a battle.
"Alright, listen up," he said, his voice cutting through the tension. "Out there, you'll see the Cyber-Titans. They're from a top-tier tech academy. Their gear is better than ours. Their stats are higher than ours. They've been training with pro-level simulation tech since they were kids. On paper, they should wipe the floor with us."
A heavy gloom started to settle on the room.
"But they have a weakness," the coach continued, his voice sharp. "They're a machine. They play a perfect, aggressive, pre-programmed game. They will come at us with a synchronized barrage from the first second, because they expect us to panic, break formation, and get picked apart. We will not."
He turned to the rest of the team, his eyes hard as steel. "Your job is simple. For the first five minutes, you will do nothing but defend. You will form the 'Iron Shield' formation around Kai. You will protect him. You will give him space. You will not try to score. You will not try to be heroes. You will hold the line. That is your only job."
Marcus, the big defender who had mocked me at practice, raised his hand. "Coach, you want us to just… float there? And do nothing? They'll pick us apart if we don't fight back."
Valerius's gaze snapped to him, cold and hard. "You'll do exactly what I tell you, Marcus. You will trust the strategy, and you will trust your teammate. Your job is to be the wall. Let Kai be the sponge. Is that a problem?"
"No, coach," Marcus mumbled, immediately looking down at the floor.
The coach's eyes swept the room, daring anyone else to question him. Then, he turned to me. Every eye in the room followed his.
"Kai," he said, his voice low and intense. "Your job is to absorb every ounce of their fury. You will use that perfect defense of yours, and you will build your Momentum. You will not attack. You will not use your piercing shot. You will just stand there and charge your weapon until it is full. You will wait for my signal. Am I clear?"
"Yes, coach," I said, my heart hammering. The entire team's opening strategy, our one chance of winning, rested entirely on my System.
We walked out of the locker room and through the tunnel. The roar of the crowd hit us like a physical wave. The bright lights of the arena were blinding.
On the other side of the court, the Cyber-Titans were warming up. They looked exactly as advertised. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, five players moving as one. They ran a complex passing drill with a cold, robotic precision that was terrifying to watch. They looked less like a team and more like a squadron of killer robots, their chrome-and-black Aether Gear gleaming under the lights.
We took our positions. The announcer's voice boomed over the speakers, introducing the teams. The crowd gave a polite cheer for us, the clear underdogs. They roared for the Cyber-Titans.
The countdown timer appeared on the main screen.
10… 9… 8…
Across the court, the five Cyber-Titan players raised their arms in perfect unison, their energy cannons already glowing, a sign of their absolute confidence.
3… 2… 1…
The starting whistle blew. And the storm broke.