Chapter 14

The class after break finished and it was now sports.

Pangaea Charlie absolutely hated Sports Day since he was extremely unfit and would be tired very quickly; contrary to that though, I was extremely excited.

Most of the guys [charlie's friends] were in sports but others were in recreational activities.

It's a little sad that I can't kick Reed's ass in dodgeball today.

The other's won't be spared, though.

In the changing room, we change into our PE uniform. It's a simple white shirt with a shield emblem representing Weath First Academy's logo and some black gym shorts.

We walk outside where our coach is waiting for us with a radiant smile.

We lined up and our coach explained the basic rules which was redundant to do, but necessary due to school regulation.

We move into a huge school gymnasium where the girls' PE class is also taking place.

The gymnasium is a huge basketball court with roof-mounted retractable hoops and poles that hang volleyball nets.

We walk in.

My excitement was slightly dampened after that. If our class merges, they won't allow us to throw hardballs…

What's the point in Dodgeball, then?

Please don't have a class merge.

I stare at their side trying to deduce what sport they'll be playing.

I see Natsumi, Catherine, Elle, and a few others.

[Author Note: New names will be coming through time. I don't want to just give out all of the names and have no one remembering them.]

Catherine notices us and waves.

I'm still staring at their coach trying to read his words until Arlo taps my back and points at Catherine.

"Oh, hi!" I wave back at her with enthusiasm.

The others start waving at us too.

I stare at their coach as he goes inside the coach room where he takes out some volleyballs.

I pump my fist, yes! No class merge.

If they're playing volleyball, why are they not in the schoolyard?

I look outside and the scorching sunlight informs me why.

Huh.

The teams are quickly chosen by the coach. He balances the teams out by the players who he's observed to be good at dodgeball.

Our current class is 50 people and the coach divides us into 10 teams.

The games should be pretty quick, considering its 5 v 5s with three balls. The time limit is 2 minutes each game and the team with the least people is knocked out. The players next in the list go on.

I've never played with this really quick blitz dodgeball system and instead would play 15 v 15s that lasted a long time at my past school.

Hoho, I like this blitz knockout system.

The coach puts Arlo, Alex, and I along with two other people I don't know.

Arlo and Alex, I've noticed are pretty athletic and good at dodgeball.

The coach more or less balanced the teams with two really good players with three other bad ones.

One thing though, the coach doesn't know I'm not the same Charlie anymore.

Our team now has the advantage.

I dap Arlo and Alex up and high five the other two.

Usually, the opening strategy is to have the three bad players run up and get the balls and then have them give it to the skilled players who stand behind.

"Hey you two and I will go get the balls." Arlo points to himself with one hand and then to the other two.

Huh, I'd think he'd tell me to get one of the balls since way from the past I've been complete trash at dodgeball and they haven't seen me do anything physical.

"Nah, Arlo, I'll go get the ball instead of you."

I tell him instead.

Alex intervenes, "Wait no, let Arlo go for the ball."

"Alright, if you two insist."

Arlo smiles and gives me a thumbs-up, "Alex and I will carry you guys."

I smile back at him and laugh, "Okay, but if you get eliminated the first seconds from trying to get a ball instead of having me do it, don't get mad if I smack you."

He smiles, "I'll get the ball first, they won't expect it and I'll be sending them straight to the gulag."

Ah, they're going for the surprise tactic.

I give him and Alex a thumbs up.

We're the last ones in line and watch as the first two teams battle it out. The team with two lanky fellows wins.

We watch as those two keep winning.

I glance at Alex and Arlo and feel their excitement emanating.

Finally, we watch the same first team beat all eight others, and now it's just us.

They stare at us arrogantly as we get into our positions.

We looked at the coach and he blew the whistle.

Arlo and the two others race to the middle.

The two lanky guys are taken by surprise and stay back wary for Arlo's incoming ball.

There's a thundering noise as Arlo unfortunately misses and instead hits the wall.

The two others get back with the balls and one of them gives Alex a ball. The other one was about to give it to Arlo but I call out to him.

"Yo, pass me the ball."

He looked at me hesitantly and seeing that both Arlo and Alex did not mind, promptly passed me the foam ball.

Arlo moves back with the two others whilst Alex and I slowly move in front.

We have two balls while they have one. The guy with the ball will most likely target Alex.

Their entire team watches out of Alex's ball and completely disregard me.

That's a mistake.

I take a step with my right foot and take another with my left leg with a slight pivot. The other leg reaching over, I lean forwards and whiplash my arm while holding the ball in a claw grip.

I aim the ball towards their shin but my height change slightly affected my throw and it shot towards his stomach.

He'd probably catch it if he was paying attention but the fool wasn't even looking at me.

The ball slams into his gut with a loud bang.

The ball rolls quickly back into our side from the calculated trajectory after the hit.

The thin guy I hit holds his stomach as he breathes heavily and sits down on the floor roughly from the pain.

The coach calls a quick pause and runs to check on the guy.

Well, taking a cannon foam ball right into the stomach would obviously have your wind knocked out of you. The guy should've actually looked at me. There's obviously going to be a reason why I have the ball.

I pick up the ball as the guy roughly walks into the left side, the knockout zone.

Arlo and Alex offer me fist bumps with a surprised smile.

The coach goes back to his spot and blows the whistle to resume the game.

Without giving the guy a chance to react, I shoot the ball directly to his shins. This time my aim was accurate and he's blown out.

Arlo and Alex look at me surprised yet again and I high five my four teammates.

This time, the ball stays in their side of the court and the ball from the guy I knocked out is given to one of the dudes in their team.

I go back and we spread out while Alex takes the center. This is so that he can shield any ball that comes to us while still in distance to hit them if they get too close.

One on their side throws the ball to one of our teammates and he, unfortunately, takes too long to dodge.

The ball is thrown into the air and I dive to catch it.

See, that's why you hit the shin. So that the others don't have a chance to catch it after you hit a guy.

Our teammate stays in the game and the other guy is knocked.

Now it's a 5 v 2 and we have two balls.

I lightly jump with my right foot and take a long step with my left foot and shoot the ball to one of them.

I miscalculate their running speed and the ball ends up barely a few centimeters off from him.

The ball slams into the wall and makes a really loud bang.

Well, with these long legs and good throwing technique, it isn't difficult to hit hard. Most of the power from the ball doesn't come from your strength, and instead comes from your dynamic movement and speed pickup.

The ball quickly rolls back into our side.

Picking it up quickly I once again cannon-arm the ball and this time hit the other one.

Alex shoots at the other guy at the same time and we end up winning.

We high five.

Blowing out that team's eight-win streak in under a minute, it's now our turn to dominate.

Our team is obviously unfair, but the coach makes no changes and merely watches us play.

They need to focus on one of us to even the firepower while we can just hit knock one out and overwhelm them.

We quickly accumulate wins, each one lasting less than the two minutes of the match.

I walk into the knockout zone, being hit by a ball after tripping on Alex's leg and spending ten seconds laughing at my dumb fall.

By now, we were just clowning around which just upset the others. Of course, when we were against our friends in other teams we made a complete circus show of dodgeball and then finally knocked them out before the 2 minutes were out.

What upset them, even more, is that we still won even while doing stupid things.

We almost lost once after Alex and Arlo gave the three balls away and restrained me while yelling at the opposing team to knock me out.

Funnily enough, they were the ones who got knocked instead even when the balls were targeted towards me and we had to come back from a 3 v 5.

Having three balls at the same time gives a really good feeling of power…

Games quickly pass and we start feeling a little more confident fooling around.

I was starting to get tired but I was having too much fun to care about that.

Knocking out the team, I walk back to the starting line and both Arlo and Alex begin restraining me

"Bro... I swear.."

"GET HIM GET HIM GET HIM!" Both of the idiots began yelling at the opposing team.

"Wait, wait, wait, please." Our teammates did not know what to do and let the other team grab the three balls.

"Alex, Arlo, I swear."

With no other option, I look at my other two teammates and gaze at them with hope. Please, I don't want to be knocked out two rounds in a row.

They merely look in a different direction.

Over to the corner, I see our friends laughing their asses off.

I look at the coach trying to hint that this shouldn't be allowed but he merely beams his radiant smile at me.

Over at the other side, Natsumi, Lizbeth, Catherine, and Elle are laughing their noses off while sitting on the bleachers.

Hah, let's see who's laughing when they lose their volleyball turn and I make fun of them.

I look at the opposing team, "Hit both Alex and Arlo. It's better to knock out two people than just me, right? It's obviously the most logical thing to do."

They respond by attempting to slam the balls into my gut.

I duck and the balls hit the wall.

Yeah, that's why you aim for the shin.

I pick up two of the balls and take out my indignant feelings on the other team.

[Author Notes: Hey! A little bit of relationship development between the friends after the slightly dramatic chapter 13. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did! Do you guys like the way his friendships are developing?

Sep 24:

Wooo!! We just hit 10,000 views. Thank you all very much and although my TGIF Mass Release application was not accepted, I'll be doing a triple release in gratitude to you all. Thank you so much for reading the book and please enjoy!

3/3

PS: Don't forget to comment your thoughts! They matter to me.

Please comment your thoughts. Thank you very much for reading and don't forget to help me with power stones!]