014. 23 Seconds of Brilliance

"No, I'm okay. Your skill is legitimate. You can go to the team for preparing. We will start immediately," The referee said while picking his pen which was dropped.

"Okay, thank you," And then Adam left that place to the direction of Solidarity team's bench.

Looked at Adam's back that had already been pretty far. The referee sighed and with tremble hands took the document that Adam's information was written by him. After reading it emotionally, he realized that he forget about something. He looked in the direction where Adam went and shouted, "Mr. Adam, you haven't signed the document yet."

***

Before Adam finished his registration, Pete and Cleon were already finished. After that, they came to Solidarity team's bench. After discussing for a while, they decided Pete would be placed as a center back and Cleon as a right-winger. Without consulting Adam, they decided Adam's position as right back. They decided like that because after evaluating the main reason for their four points behind, it was mainly their center back who did too many errors previously. So, they choose Pete who had many experiences as a defender to take this position.

After Adam came, he didn't be given any time to introduce himself, because the referee had already told them to go to the field. Adam was only told to take the right-back position facing Gero and he was asked to stop or at least disturb Gero with all his might. Adam could only nod.

***

"We come back again, first I want to convey solidarity team's captain Mike message. He wants to apologize to all outside players in the spear arena, and in Silverpool City for his remarks. He has regretted saying them," the commentator said.

"There's no perfect person in this world guys. We also make mistake sometimes. So please forgive him. He had already learned the lesson. Okay, Andy. Looks like the penalty kick will be done by Dito. I think there will be no surprise," Frank added.

"Maybe a miracle will occur, everyone in solidarity team must be praying now."

The game was started, Dito stood two meters facing the ball which was on the penalty spot. He looked at Gavin, who guarded the goal. Then, he moved and kicked the ball to the upper right corner of the goal.

Gavin jumped in the right direction but he still failed to catch it and the ball was in. 5-0 Solidarity team behind.

All players in Solidarity team were depressed including Adam, Pete, and Cleon. Even if they knew the probability of the ball went in was bigger in the penalty kick, they couldn't help to feel bad.

On the other hand, the audiences cheered excitedly. Firering players were also jubilant. They did some celebration to express their happiness.

Adam could only look at them with determination to make them shut up at least once.

***

two minutes later, the game was started.

In the middle of the field, A player of Solidarity team passed the ball to Mike to start the game. He then dribbled the ball forward and after saw Dito came for him, he passed the ball to Cleon. But before the ball arrived at Cleon, its direction changed toward Dito.

Adam saw a Firering player used his power of psychic to bend its direction. After looked at close range, Adam finally knew, battle ball was more complex than soccer. Because every player in this game had special powers that were hard to anticipate.

Dito took the ball and ran fast entering Solidarity's territory. Mike tried to stop him with a sliding tackle. Dito chose to jump and passed the ball on the air to Gero who had already run past Cleon.

After receiving the ball, he ran quickly toward Adam. Looking at the youthful appearance of Adam, he sneered and decided to give Adam a welcome gift.

Adam saw Gero came to him. His body froze, he didn't know what to do.

'What are you doing? Block him!' Eve's voice was transmitted to his soul.

'yes,'

Without thinking, he moved forward to intercept Gero.

Looking at the stiff movement of Adam, Gero wanted to laugh, and then like his habit, he accelerated.

Looking at the accelerated Gero, he remembered something. This was the exact movement Gero did before use illusion to deceive Solidarity's player before. Without any hesitation, he activated Golden Aura and saw Gero decelerated and then turned left.

Adam without thinking, moved to Gero's running trajectory to intercept and finally stole his ball with a clean tackle and ran forward quickly.

Because Gero was surprised, he stumbled. He didn't think a newbie could read his skill, "Damn it!" He turned his body and ran chasing Adam.

Cleon was running back to help the defense when he saw Adam stole the ball from Gero cleanly. He was surprised Adam could do it. Then he saw Adam ran toward him, and his instinct kicked in. He transformed his body became a panther and ran toward the penalty box.

Looking at Cleon who transformed into a panther and ran toward the penalty box, Adam didn't stop running and passed the ball. He waited until he saw the opponent's left-back came to him with fast speed. Didn't want to take a risk, he kicked a long pass toward the penalty box.

After kicked the ball, he realized from the ball trajectory that it was too high, and it would be too difficult for Cleon to receive it. Even it would go out of the field. But he saw something impossible to occur.

Cleon saw the ball was flying over his head and looked at the trajectory, it would go out the field. But something impossible happened. Somehow someone created an earth wall in front of him. he didn't know who did it, from teammate or opponent. But he had to thank him and use this opportunity the best he could.

Cleon as a panther not only could run fast, but he could also climb vertical obstacles like earth wall well. Without hesitation, he climbed the earth wall smoothly and jumped to the ball who had already lost the velocity and was going down. Cleon then transformed his body back to human and kicked the ball which was above his head with an overhead kick to the goal. The ball moved like a bullet that was fired from a gun to the ground in front of the goal.

The goalkeeper was very shocked by what Cleon had done. He tried to move to the ball trajectory, but before he could do anything, the ball passed his hands and hit the earth beneath him and bounced to the net behind him through between his legs, just a little bit beneath his crotch. The ball was pretty powerful, it spun on the net for a few seconds before falling down.

*...*

The arena became silent. No one would predict something like that could occur. Then, a wave of applause was heard.

*Gulp*

The Firering goalkeeper was pale, his body was stiff. The ball was just a few centimeters from his little brother. He couldn't imagine what would happen to it if it was hit with such powerful ball. For a few seconds, he was rooted in his position in terror.

***

Adam saw all of that with disbelief, "that's so cool!" He exclaimed.

Then he saw his teammates were jubilant and ran toward Cleon. Adam didn't want to be left behind, he ran toward Cleon as well. All players of Solidarity team came and threw Cleon into the air.

They smiled, cried, laughed, and shouted. If people didn't saw the score, maybe they would think, they were the winner. But they didn't care. This score was their liberation, for each one of them, it left a mark in their lives.

"That's wonderful Logan! The earth wall that you created timely was really crucial. I think you like Gavin is talented to become a battle ball player," Mike said earnestly.

"B-but captain, you said before...," Logan said.

"Not now... Let's talk again after we finish the match, celebrate it! You deserve it," Mike then left Logan alone.

For Adam, this is the first goal he participated in the process of scoring it.

For every member of solidarity team who decided to left after this match, it would become a beautiful memory, someday they would brag about this moment to their friends or family, they were maybe lost badly, but this goal was so incredible, which could become discussion topics for years.

For Cleon, Pete, Gavin, and maybe Logan, this moment just a cornerstone in their journey as battle ball players.

"It just took 23 seconds from the kickoff, the atmosphere of the arena changed dramatically. That's such an incredible goal scored by Cleon. But I must remind you, the timely created earth wall which was done by Logan and Adam performance that looked ordinary but difficult were crucial, he stole the ball from Gero, one of the best Illusionists in Silverpool City. Their deeds can't be separated from the dazzling execution of Cleon. Their combination is really amazing at this level of match. What do you think Frank?" The commentator, Andy said excitedly

"I can't say anything else, you have already said the points. Then I will do a more concrete action. I will submit this match record to battle ball association (BBA) of Laits Kingdom and let's hope it would enter as one of the nominations for the best goal of the year this Winter. And I will submit it under tittle '23 seconds of brilliance'," Frank said.

His words make the audiences noisy. discussions occurred in the middle of hundreds of audiences.

"That sounds great. I will support you. Okay, let's continue the game. Hahaha... Firering team players look solemn. It seems they can't accept this result. Now we don't know who scored 5 goals and who scored a goal.

Here we go. The kick-off has been done by Dito to Gero."

***