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1.
There’s cheering in Tokyo and in Philadelphia tonight. They rip down posters and pour champagne everywhere. Someone slips in it and lies on the ground for a few minutes feeling their head spin in the aftermath.
When the storm comes in all the power lines are knocked down. The countdown clock is frozen on 80:80:80. Someone else throws a spare crate with the force of a trained pole vaulter and the screen shatters into a million tiny pieces.
2.
They lock the doors and bar them with concrete. They start the stadium’s legs up to full speed and they don’t hit stop until the forest is in the distance, far, far away.
There’s a speck at the edge of the woods and Coolname focuses in on it with the binoculars. Its eyes widen. The device falls out of its hands and it turns away from the balcony.
“You need to make this thing go faster,” it says. “Right now.”
3.
A mousy brown haired girl stands in the tall grass outside the gates of Yellowstone National Parkpark. Wheat stalks stick out of her arms and leaves are woven into her clothes, and wires wrap around her eyes like a cold, smooth blindfold.
“They told me Melly was here,” she says, in a voice almost too hard to hear. “They told me they were here. What did you do with them?”
The Magic turn away. They know better than to engage.
4.
Here’s a secret: if you turn an eight sideways it becomes an infinity, if you cross an infinity over it becomes an X, if you trace its outline it looks like a symbol you saw in the sky years and years ago.
The Tokyo Lift joined the league in Season 11, after the events of a climactic battle none of their number ever actually witnessed.
When they send her away, the clouds shift and turn red. A deafening noise rings.
5.
Paula Turnip feels something in her heart seize and turn the color of dawn. In her pocket, next to her wallet and the coin she always keeps for the boatman, something buzzes.
She left a message. She never does that. Part of Paula wants to delete it, just out of spite, but she gives it a chance.
“Do you understand now?” A voice like a bell, malice like a knife. “It will take a while. But you’ll understand.”
Message erased.
6.
The Tokyo Lift were Relegated in Season 4, after having replaced the LA Tacos three seasons prior.
She washes up on Discovery Point with a wild-mad look in her eyes. Flips the hair out of her face and looks up at a sun pierced through.
They’re waiting for her at the dock. She grasps one around the wrist with all her strength, digging into the blue arrow on their arm with perfect plastic nails.
“Don’t you let go of me.”
7.
“I found my brother out there”, she says, with her face pressed against the glass. “Or what was left of him.”
Her eyes are black, cold, inverted. Her hair floats up off of her body as if gravity only half-cares about what she’s doing. The flood is pushing at the door.
“Do you want me to tell you about it?” The receiver is tight to her ear, one hand scratching at the pane, the other with nails filed to points.
8.
The girl with her face walks at night, up and down the halls. Her footsteps sound like an animal.
She never speaks, but is always smiling. Never boasts, takes up no space.
At practice she stares. blinks. Hits the ball sometimes, but not always. Just enough to be useful, but never enough to shine.
When she opens her mouth, a low tone comes out. No one’s calls in Tokyo connect for weeks afterward.
At least they can say she’s humble.