Chapter 63: Chapter 63: The Second Half is War
Leo jogged over to Julian, eyes still gleaming from the goal.
"Dude—let’s do the celebration," he said, almost bouncing.
Julian’s lips curved. Oh, right. The bet.
He sprang toward the corner flag, boots pounding against the turf.
The home stands erupted—not with cheers, but with a sharp, confused roar. San Dimas supporters leaned over the rail, some booing, some shouting half-laughing insults.
The sound wasn’t warm; it was the restless noise of a crowd watching an outsider take center stage on their field.
The crowd tilted toward him, sensing something.
Julian planted his feet and bent his knees, hands gripping an imaginary rod.
He gave it a sharp tug, reeling back with exaggerated strain—like he’d just hooked a monster.
Near the halfway line, a San Dimas player muttered something under his breath, pointing toward Julian’s act.
A couple of home fans jeered louder, but the stadium’s media crew—students in gold-and-silver jackets—instinctively swung their sideline cameras toward him.
Even if they hated it, they weren’t about to miss something this unusual for the game reel.
Behind him, teammates dropped to the ground in unison, flopping and wriggling like fish caught in the shallows.
Laughter erupted—though it was mixed. Lincoln’s small away section, cramped into two corner bleacher rows, was loud enough to be heard.
They banged on the rail, hollering encouragement, while the San Dimas side responded with an exaggerated, sarcastic applause.
Phones shot up from every angle—
Click.
Click.
Clik.
From the stands, it must have looked like some veteran angler had wandered onto the pitch, dragging up his silver-scaled catch in front of thousands.
Julian grinned, rod in hand, until the "fish" stilled and the whistle called them back to reality.
Lincoln reset. Formation tight.
The game resumed, but San Dimas came harder.
They weren’t shaken—they were provoked.
Pressure mounted like a rising tide. Every Lincoln player felt the weight of it.
The home crowd was feeding their team with every touch, every chase, every thump of a tackle.
The sound never really died—it just swelled and broke like waves on rock.
For the rest of the half, they were pinned in their own territory, playing on a pitch that felt like it had been cut in half.
Kai and Elijah patrolled that no-man’s-land with surgical precision.
Every pass that dared cross the halfway line met Kai’s blitz.
Every dribble that tried to weave through the center died on Elijah’s boots.
They hunted without rest, without mercy.
Still... they didn’t score.
...
Lincoln High trudged to the bench.
Breath smoked in the winter air, mingling with the faint mist of sweat steaming off their jerseys.
From behind the bench, the away section tried to clap them in, but it was drowned under a wave of gold-and-silver chants pounding from the opposite stands.
Cleats crunched against the frosted edge of the turf.
They dropped onto the seats, chests heaving, steam curling from their shoulders like soldiers fresh from a battlefield.
Coach Owens stood in front of them, jaw tight.
"Okay—that was bad," he said, voice low but cutting. "Our possession is trash. That goal? That was a gift from heaven. And I’m telling you now—stop waiting for heaven. Fate isn’t gonna keep bailing us out. We have to take our chances."
His gaze swept the lineup, lingering on each face.
"If Victor was out there right now, we’d be dead. Not one goal. Not two. They’d decimate us. And the time will come—they’ll break us. Unless..." His voice sharpened. "...we break them first."
Silence. Just the hiss of wind past the stands.
"We’ve already made a breakthrough. You know how that feels—hold onto it. Build on it. Score more. The best defense..." he leaned in, "...is offense."
He straightened, scanning the players. "Second half, we make a change. Noah, you’re on as LW. Tyrell, you rest."
Noah just nodded, expression unreadable.
Coach dropped onto the bench. That’s when Leo stood.
"We will win," he said, voice cold and absolute.
His eyes—steady, unblinking—pulled the room into his gravity. The switch had flipped again. Focus was back.
"Let’s win this for our perfect run," Leo said.
"For our perfect run," Noah echoed.
"For our perfect run," Julian repeated.
"For our perfect run!" they roared together—a single, unified heartbeat before the second half.
...
Julian stepped back onto the pitch.
Still striker.
Even with Noah in the lineup, Coach hadn’t moved him. That alone said everything about where Julian stood right now.
Or maybe it was because Noah was still clawing his way back to full strength.
A flicker of movement caught Julian’s eye—someone sprinting from beyond the far end of the stadium, cutting across the frozen track toward the San Dimas bench.
The kid looked... unassuming. Nerdy, even. Wire-frame glasses bouncing on his nose, hair mussed from the wind.
A few San Dimas students in the front row leaned over the rail to clap him on the back as he passed—this wasn’t just some random call-up; they knew him.
When he reached Coach Olivia, the reaction was immediate—Victor was on his feet to greet him, and Olivia wrapped him in a quick, almost relieved hug.
Moments later, he was yanking a jersey over his head. #23.
Julian’s eyes narrowed.
[Activating Scan Lv.2...]
...
User: Miles Becker
Position: CAM
Best Attributes: Technique, Perception, Instinct
Skill: Algorithm Pass — Calculates passing angles like a computer, delivering perfectly weighted balls that split defenses with surgical precision.
Age: 15
Total Attributes: 198
...
Fifteen years old. Almost two hundred attributes.
Another prodigy. Still in development... and already dangerous.
And three peak attributes?
[Yes, Host. Equal distribution across the three.]
Julian’s jaw tightened. That skill... if left unchecked, it could tear them open from the middle.
The whistle blew.
San Dimas kicked off—and right away, Julian saw more changes. Kai Mendoza wasn’t at left-back anymore. He was up front.
A formation shift.
The home crowd caught on instantly, the sound swelling into a chant that rolled across the pitch.
The stomps and claps rattled the metal bleachers, a low, hungry thunder that made the turf feel smaller under Julian’s boots.
San Dimas wasn’t waiting.
They were going to hunt.
And the second half had just become a war.