I am the Strongest Man - CH003 - The Tactician and The Beast
The emphatic block from Perseus sends a shockwave to the people watching from the stands and from the bench.
The crowd was stunned! Perseus' bench was so amazed that they jumped erratically! While the other team was in utter disbelief that their teammate's dunk was blocked, not just a simple block, but a block that sent the ball flying off of the bounce from the board to the paint of the other side of the court!
With an infuriated face, Perseus looks at the student to send his ferocious message. Seemingly saying "Don't show off on my side of the court!"
Meanwhile, mid-air, the Student is so shocked that his eyes widens as his dunk was blocked by someone shorter than him. He is standing about at least 4 inches taller than him. He's now at 6'4 and the second biggest in their squad while playing as Point Forward. With a shocked face, he slowly looks to Perseus, clenches his left fist and grinds his teeth.
The message was sent successfully!
After they landed, they walked to each side of their court, to their respective bench.
--
*Bystanders chatter
Bystanders chats about what had just happened.
Crowd1: "Wooooaah! That was bad! Down bad!"
Crowd2: "Yeah! Oh my goodness! I never thought Tsukasa would be blocked by someone in this school, especially one of his dunks!"
Crowd3: "Damn! You know that guy?!"
Crowd2: "Yeah. We're in the same district after all."
Crowd3: "Really?! Then are you here to play as well?"
Crowd2: "Yes! We'll be playing later, after their match, that is."
Crowd3: "Wow! Who'll be your opponent?"
Crowd2: "I don't know, maybe from Schneider Industrial or Rockwell High."
Crowd1: "You're from what school?"
Crowd2: "I'm a sophomore from City 4 National."
Crowd1: "City 4 National… hmmm…"
--
Meanwhile, on Tsukasa's side of the court.
Tsukasa sitting on the bench, clenching his fist and finding a way to get back to Perseus.
Tsukasa: "Hey Kirk, do you know who is that guy?", he asks
Kirk: "I don't know, but I think he's a freshman here."
Tsukasa: "I'll definitely pay him back!"
Teammate1: "I will guard him and will lead him to you, Tsukasa."
Tsukasa: "Yes, please let me trash him."
Kirk: "Rein, don't feed his ego. He might guard that guy the entire time and lose focus on his man."
Rein (Teammate1): "Well, we want to see a show, I want to enjoy this game!"
Tsukasa: "Yeah, Rein, send him to me and I will give you a show that you'll never forget!"
Rein: "That's what I like to hear!"
--
On Perseus' team bench.
John: "Damn! That's one heck of a block!"
Clint: "You sent the ball to oblivion!"
Shay: "I wonder if it's a good idea, tho…", he says as he was nervous on how the other team would respond.
Nathan: "That block was great, but I think you should've let him boast a little bit, as they might take it personally. And as your captain, I want you guys to be modest, be modest as fuck! If he wants to dunk it on our side of the court, no problem, even if it's a bit disrespectful, we should only crush them when it's game time. Especially you, Perseus, we know that you're good, no, you're the best player here, but don't show off like that."
Perseus: "I know bu-"
Nathan: "Yeah, I know why you did that. I swear I know that. If I hadn't controlled myself earlier, I would've blocked that dunk myself!"
John: "We don't really know who they are, so we gotta be careful, ya'know."
Shay: "We might've already stepped on a tiger's tail."
Clint: "Yeah, they're from another city, so we don't know that much about their team. But, I really loved that block you did back there, Perseus!"
Perseus: "hehe. Thank you, Clint."
The coaches from the different teams walk into the court with the referee. Then the players gathered at the center of the court.
City 3 Farming Vocational School lineup.
First 5:
Nathan Uedesa - C
Shay Edwards - PF
Clint White - SF
Perseus Torres - SG
John Sinner - PG
City 4 Crimson Tech High lineup.
First 5:
Kirk Noverski - C
Tsukasa Amadeus - PF
Stanley Crawford - SF
Rein Sinclair - SG
Anthony Cruz - PG
Kirk and Nathan face off each other at the center circle.
Perseus, John, Rein and Anthony are the back courts.
While Clint and Stanley are the wings.
And Tsukasa and Shay are the front courts.
--
Tsukasa: (These damn fatso, I can intimidate him easily and go on with crushing that guy!)
Nathan: (Hmmm… their center is at least 3 inches taller than me. Will this be fine?)
Clint: (Fack, my matchup looks ripped asf…)
Kirk: (This might be an easy game for us. Lucky!)
Shay: (This might be problematic, I will just post him up and box him good every time.)
Rein: (Hmmm. That Perseus guy… he's quick on his feet and jumps pretty high, but the most impressive thing about him is his awareness and guts… I might have a rough time against him, but I will corner him to Tsukasa and double him.)
John: (I think we can do this, we'll just have to focus and have some fun while we're at it. So we'll not be stiff.)
Referee goes to the center circle and lifts the ball up.
Referee: "Ready for the jump ball."
Nathan / Kirk: "Yes."
Referee bends his arms for the jump ball, then throws it 10 feet above the air.
Nathan jumps a split second earlier than Kirk. Meanwhile Kirk jumps according to his height.
Nathan: (Damn it, I'm falling down.)
Kirk jumps and says…
Kirk: "Hah! I got it!"
Out of anxiety, Nathan jumped a bit earlier so he wasn't able to tip the ball on to their side. This is to show how much of Kirk's height manages to intimidate him somehow.
Kirk easily wins the jump ball.
The ball goes to Rein and he passes it to Anthony.
Anthony moves the ball near the center three point line and John immediately covers him.
John uses his lockdown defensive skills to pin down Anthony away from his teammates.
Crowd1: "Nice defense, but here comes a pick."
Tsukasa moves to pick John from the right. John fights the pick but Tsukasa is too big and muscular for him.
Anthony only uses Tsukasa's pick as bait and crosses to the left. Tsukasa rolls down to the paint fast, anticipating the pass. Anthony throws a bounce pass inside the paint to Tsukasa.
--
Five seconds before.
Perseus on the other hand, manning his opponent, looking on what is happening on defense.
Perseus: (Shay cannot move fast enough to recover from following Tsukasa's movement.)
Perseus runs toward the back of Tsukasa.
--
Anthony passed the ball beautifully to Tsukasa.
But Perseus manages to catch him off guard and delays him for a bit enough for Shay to recover.
At this time, Rein uses this opportunity to run to center three.
Perseus knowing this would happen, he runs towards Rein but Anthony uses a screen to block Perseus' way.
Tsukasa sees Rein and passes him the ball.
John quickly switches to Rein, but it's too late as Rein catches and shoots the three point bomb!
Rein: "Nice pass, Tsukasa! Nice screen, Tony!"
Tsukasa & Anthony: "Haaa!"
--
Crowd1 and 3: "That's a very nice ball movement!"
Crowd2: "Yeah, they usually use this kind of play, equally distributing the ball, making it hard for help-defense to catch up."
Crowd3: "Help-defense, you say? What's that?"
Crowd2: "Help-defense is when you are defending your man and seeing the ball at all times."
Crowd3: "Then?"
Crowd2: "See when Tsukasa picks John?"
Crowd3: "Yes."
Crowd2: "Then Shay switches a bit to Anthony; Perseus HELPS with defending Tsukasa while waiting for Shay to return to his position. That is Help-defense. But, in turn slightly leaving Rein running to an open location and Tsukasa passes him the ball, and then another screen from Anthony comes and blocks Perseus' way and with that Rein manages to snuck in a three."
Crowd1 and 3: "Ohhh… that's cool!"
--
John: (They got away with 2-3 zone defense… damn it! Tsukasa's body is so strong, cannot fight or slide through it!)
Perseus: "That's fine, man! It's not like the end of the ball game. That's just the first ball possession, plenty of time for a comeback."
John: "Right."
Clint gets the ball and passes it to John from the inbound. John walks the ball to the half-court with Perseus and Clint following him.
As John walks down the court, he sees the opponent's position. They are doing a Man-to-Man defense.
John: "They must be proud of themselves, huh?"
Once John walks past the half-court logo, he immediately passes the ball to Clint who's still on his way to the left-wing side.
Stanley sees the unminded pass and takes advantage of it.
John was shocked as the ball was stolen. He made a terrible mistake for being provoked by the other team.
Stanley steals the ball in mid-air and swiftly drives to the baseline and prepares for the layup when Perseus comes down running for a chasedown block!
Tsukasa shouts as he sees Perseus run like a train following Stanley's tracks.
Tsukasa: "Drive it, Stan!!!"
But it was too late as Perseus took only 5 steps to complete the half-court run and then jumped higher than Stanley's jump.
Stanley's finger roll layup was smashed by Perseus so hard it was sent flying to the ground and bounced outside of the court's door.
The crowd was stunned! They know Perseus can defend well against Tsukasa but they didn't expect that he can also run that fast. He was behind for about 4 normal fastbreak steps. His steps were like about two meters each!
Stanley's eyes widen as he sees the ball go out of the court with Perseus' block. He cannot believe the fact that someone other than Tsukasa and Kirk can block his shot that bad, but he shrugs it off.
Stanley: "Woo! That was impressive!"
Perseus just stands there and waits for his teammates to come to the other court as well.
Stanley: "Well, aren't you someone cool? You totally ignored me after you blocked my layup. It's kinda embarrassing! At least, show some emotion after you denied it, right?"
Perseus: "How can I celebrate that inelegant piece of a layup? There's not even a trace of trying to evade my block."
Stanley: "You motha--, I mean I didn't even notice you chased me, so, I guess I'll just have you show that I am worth defending."
Both team players walk down to the other side of the court.
Kirk: "Nice steal right there!"
Tsukasa: "Ah, I told you, every time! Don't just focus on shooting the ball on a fastbreak, at least, look at your back first so you won't get denied like that! Jeez--, it's embarrassing!"
Stanley: "Well, I can't help it. It's just the way I am. And besides, you were also blocked by him, and you know he was coming, right?! So don't come at me like that just because you are a little bit better than most of us here."
Kirk: "Now, now… calm down, boys."
Tsukasa: "This bastard!"
Stanley: "Yeah, then what?!"
Kirk: "Stop it, both of you!"
Stanley: "Tch!"
Tsukasa: "This damn shithole!"
Kirk: "Now, Tsukasa, go back to your man! You too, Stan!"
Rein: "Hooooo~ my-my! They're at it again."
John speaks to Perseus.
John: "You really saved me back there! Thank you very much! If you were not there to chase him, haaaa~! Sorry."
Perseus: "Nah, we're a team, after all. Plus, if I let him do his thing, they might have the boost of confidence and be on a roll after. We'll be playing a losing game if that happens."
John: "That totally makes sense. Anyway, thanks, man!"
Perseus: "You've got it!"
Clint: "What exercise do you do, man? You're fast and you jump high! Like, wtf, man!"
Perseus: "Now, that's a secret trade! Hahaha!"
Nathan: "Now, let's go, they are inbounding."
Perseus & Clint: "Right!"
Farming Vocational High team goes to man their position. Then the game proceeds, Stanley inbounds the ball but there was Clint who is tall and has an outstanding wingspan for a 6'3" guy. Because of Clint's length and disruptiveness, Stanley's rising irritation, and the referee's silent counting on the inbound, he passes it high towards Rein who's running towards the three point line with Perseus guarding him completely and completely misses an open man Tsukasa.
Rein: "Oh no…"
Tsukasa: "Goddammit!"
Perseus quickly grasps the situation and hurriedly stops his feet from following Rein and just mindfully watches the direction of the ball. Meanwhile, Rein who is seeing this unfolds in front of him couldn't make a move but bite his lip because of frustration.
Perseus grabs the ball in mid-air, lands and sprints towards the other side of the court.
Perseus: "John, Clint! Come on!"
John and Clint run fast following Perseus.
Rein fights his momentum to follow Perseus and his two opponents. He as well runs fast, almost as fast as Perseus current speed.
Perseus passes the ball to John and turns his speed down a notch to match his two teammates. Perseus turns right to near the corner three and proceeds to run to the paint.
Meanwhile, Rein catches up to John, but John manages to pass it to Clint that is now near left corner three.
Rein: "Tsk."
Rein leans forward and chases Clint but he sees Clint passes the ball again. He looks and it is going to the center so he runs towards it.
--
Meanwhile, Clint before performing the pass.
Clint: (I can't shoot really well from this far. If I drive it, this Rein will get me in no time at all.)
Clint looks at his rear, he can clearly see Rein catching up to him and that's when he sees Perseus running to the paint and he decides to pass it high to him as he is being nervous because of Rein.
--
Perseus watches the ball and it's going to him, but it's a bit high for a normal pass. He sees Rein going towards the ball as well and…
Perseus: (There's no way that I can get the ball without the ball being stolen from me once I landed.)
Perseus continues to run to the ball and charges his knees and legs force so he can jump as high as he can.
Perseus jumps.
Rein jumps as soon as he sees Perseus preparing to jump for the ball.
Rein musters his upper body strength to contest Perseus' shot.
Rein: (I'll at least try to disrupt his shot, but if I can, I'll reject him. Well, here goes noth--)
But… Perseus' air is still going and until he comes colliding with Rein's body while Rein's going down already and his face is now being pushed by Perseus' body like a 4x4 pickup colliding with a 10-wheeler truck.
Perseus soars thru the air like a superhero leaning forward while holding the ball. The referee whistles, but, Perseus' as if he is flying, he slams the ball into the rim and hangs in there. Rein braced himself for the inevitable fall, he was posterized by some unknown rookie from a tier 2 school, a farming school.
Rein, remains his calm and collected posture. He definitely is embarrassed, but he is now amazed by how this Perseus guy plays.
While laying down, in Rein's mind…
Rein: (if I can get a hand of this guy like what I did to Tsukasa, then there will be no school in Country P that can handle our might. Heck, even other countries will see us as a threat. And I can bolster my coaching career resume! I want him on our team! If I can't get him, I will play with him and see his true potential!)
Perseus: "Are you okay? Let me pull you up."
Rein: "Heh-! Let's talk later. The game's not done yet."
Perseus: "Tch- alright."
At that same moment Rein got Perseus' respect. He knows it, but keeps his cool.
The referee called it a shooting foul, so Perseus went to the free throw line and shot an and-one.
The crowd cheers for their home team. They haven't seen anything close to that in person. They are so happy on how their team is performing right now.
Crowd2: "It seems like this game is going to be a nice one."
Crowd1: "Yeah! I never thought that our school had these talents! Damn!"
Crowd3: "Heck yeah! I'm loving this game! I will tell all of our schoolmates that we should support our own team."
Crowd1: "What's his name again?"
Crowd3: "Who?"
Crowd1: "The one who blocked Tsukasa and dunked on someone just now."
Crowd3: "I think it's Perseus."
Crowd2: "He is an interesting guy indeed."
A player from the crowd is now keeping his eye on this up and coming team from a farming school, especially to that player, Perseus.