Metal Deep: Infinite - Metal Wing: Episode 5

The crowd’s roar and board-thumping could out-ruckus a herd of angry bansheebeast. The fans had never been that loud, which is saying something considering our last five winning seasons. Electronic banners flashed my name, people flew the black and blue colors of The Boom, and mocking effigies of the Brawlers waved using stuffed dogs hung from nooses. Of course there were the trash talking signs I loved that read: “Sniff This” or “Bad Dog… Bad.” There didn’t seem to be a visiting fan in the entire arena. I’m sure they were there, but I missed them because the only red I was looking for was up beyond the Crag where the Brawler goal waited for me to score the winning goal. Nearly one-hundred-thousand people chanted my name. I felt like I could fly. Appropriate, considering that’s what needed to happen for us to pull out a win. The fans had faith in me. I did too. It was time to rock.

With less than a minute, and moving fast, the holoclock hovered over our head. Today it was being a more brutal nemesis than the other team. Snaps, Checker, and Paste had my back, Feline had the ball, and I had no idea where Brat and Cider where. Knowing them, they were probably getting respawned…
again
. Between us and the goal all seven Brawlers drooled to be the first to vaporize me. All they needed was to get the ball back and then sit on it until the clock ran down. I was not going to let that happen.

We moved to make our final pass, I yelled to my Boomers, “Alright guys, alley-oop with a twist. Let’s hit it.” The team jumped toward the Brawlers without question. A lot of us had been doing this for five seasons as a team. When we were in sync, we were unbeatable. I could almost feel their pulses and hear their thoughts. I knew we were in the zone, and that we were going to win. As their captain, it was my job to know.

Checker and Paste rolled to their bellies and used laser pistols to lay down cover fire from behind a gapped barrier. Blue beams zipped off two deflection grids and scattered one of the Brawlers from play immediately. Snaps, our shield man, ran to the base of the Brawler Crag and took a knee while allowing what remained of his shield to take the brunt of the laser hits. Feline tossed the ball wildly at the goal and jumped on Snaps’ shoulders in a balancing act that only her cat-like reflexes, for which she was named, could perform. I ran behind her with both laser pistols firing. I took down two guys, while Checker and Paste took out yet another.

There were only two Brawlers left. They retreated for the goal like a couple flailing pigeons. Their fear should have been unwarranted because the ball’s trajectory was not anywhere close to a striking arc, but they knew us. We did things with a laserball that could only be described as “unnatural.” We could do anything we wanted, whenever we wanted. They were right to be afraid.

Feline spun around and cupped her hands to throw me. With every last ounce of strength left in me, I jumped using the ever-stable Snaps to guide me up as he braced to maintain the balancing act Feline did on his broad shoulders. Between her boost that she gave me, and Snaps’ jump that tossed Feline, and thusly me as well, I was thrown as if having been sent sailing from a slingshot up to a dangerous height. I was near the top of the Crag.

At the pinnacle of my ascent, it was now or never. I brought my pistols to bear on the remaining Brawlers. They were so mesmerized by the move the three of us had just pulled off that earning a point for an entire team kill was easy as I blasted them into glittering electro-bits. Just before the clock ticked to zero, I double fired a series of blue beams at the still-flying ball, and after the fourth blast, I pummeled it through the goal having used nothing but laser fire. In a shooting range, no wind or distraction, it was a trick shot nobody could pull off. But moving? It was impossible for anyone besides me.

The score buzzer sounded, the final bell rang, the crowd cheered, and I screamed in panic as I fell back toward a very distant ground. Thankfully, someone flipped the switch and everything went quiet. I was safely on my feet in my Performance Pod, and not a pile of de-digitized soup on the arena’s floor. Respawns were never pleasant. Plus, the league made sure the higher up the rankings your team went, the more “intensity” a gameboard “death” inflicted on the players. It was unpleasant, but it did seem to help keep things more even, which made for better games, which made for more ticket sales. When you know you’re going to get a small lightning bolt shoved up your ass, it makes you not so eager to pull off sacrifice plays, even if it gives your team the edge. Thankfully the gamekeeper took pity on me and pulled the plug before I hit.

The crew unhooked me from the Virtual Sensor, the Performance Pod hissed open, and the sounds of the insane crowd flooded into my small sphere. My waving sent sections of girl-filled bleachers into writhing hysterics. How could I not love this sport? It always felt like it was designed just for me… I was going to miss it.

We lined up and gave the five dejected Brawlers a heartfelt “good game” hand clap. It was always so much easier to say that after a win. Especially, after a championship win. The coach, cheerleaders, and half the stadium flooded the field. Celebrations had begun: Championship hats were handed out to everyone, we foamed a few cans of beer, though I wasn’t allowed to drink any because I was not quite at the legal age to drink, and the Boom’s celebration blasted off.

I stood in the middle of the arena and lifted my hands in response to the chorus of my last name, “Rycard,” being chanted over and over. My jersey number was hoisted to the ceiling as the team’s theme song played before the trophy ceremony began. I knew that I would never have a moment like this again. I was leaving it all behind. People said I was crazy, but I was determined not to let my love of the game stop me. It was time to retire and enlist in the military.

“Rayce Rycard, ladies and gentleman,” Galy Gurtan said into the World Web One camera, “His last game as a Boomer. Retiring after five years at an age younger than most Laser Ballers are even allowed entrance into LBPL. They call him “Prodigy” for a reason, folks.

“Mr. Rycard, is it true that your decision to throw away this career that has made you, arguably, one of the most popular men on the planet, is in fact, a courting maneuver to get permission to marry your longtime girlfriend, Starshine Wyld? Rumor has it, her father, notorious militant aggressor, General Josef G. Wyld, will not allow you to be wed until you serve a term as a military officer?”

People were pushing all around, security held back the romping fans, and I moved in as close as I could to Galy’s microphone. She was trying to balance herself amidst the madness while maintaining the composure she so prided herself on. To most people it was innocuous, but I watched her face twitch with every Boom Fan that rubbed against her. She thought she was better than them, and she hated being touched by “the little people.” We had a long history. She spent her days as a talking head trying to discredit my performance at every turn. She often concocted stories about me using Performance Enhancing Drugs, said I bribed my way onto the team, and she had even implicated that I had ties to the mob. She treated her staff like crap, she used my career to springboard her own, and at no time had she ever said anything nice to me when the cameras were off. I had met a lot of two-faced people during my run as a Boomer, but she held the prize as the worst of them.

I wiped a bead of sweat and flicked it from dancing fingers. I laughed as she shuddered when the droplets landed on her tightly braided brown hair. “You know Galy… May I call you Galy?” She nodded discourteously. She preferred “Ms. Gurtan” or nothing. She hated it when people called her by her first name. “We’ve been doing
this
in the middle of
this
arena for the past five years. You’ve always had some kind of personal and inappropriate question about my life. You’ve never really seemed interested in the game itself, my performance, or how well I thought my team backed me up. They’ve deserved to be here on your fine station way more than I have. Yet that never seemed to happen.”

She looked worried, but she maintained her faked professionalism, “Your fans want to know about you, and who better than Galy Gurtan the girl who can get you behind the curtain, to inform them?”

“Right you are. And as a starter for the Bathesda Boom my contract dictated that I answer your pointed, invasive, and obnoxious questions.” She balked. My grin widened, “As of the zero there on that countdown clock, I no longer have a contract stating such.” I grabbed an almost emptied bottle filled with water and backwash from a nearby fan, tipped it over, and dumped it on her head. “So I believe my response to your inane line of questioning tonight is:
No Comment
.”

The crowd surged with cheers as I left her speechless to glare at the fans who were pointing and laughing. Her cameraman chuckled and high-fived me as I walked past him. She ran away screaming as a shower of soda, water, and beer rained down from celebrating onlookers who got in on the pouring-action I had started.

I headed toward the locker room where my girl was waiting to start my last civilian night on the town. Before I left the field, I turned, saluted the still screaming fans, and with a tear welling up in my eye, I left Boom Arena by taking off my “01” jersey. I handed it to a mother and her son waving at me from just above the player’s gate. She thanked me, and wrapped her kid in my shirt.

The crowd erupted once more with the loudest blast yet. Everybody wanted to be me, and honestly, how could I blame them? My life was nothing short of being enchanted.