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He raised his eyes, looking over to where Kirs was standing. He followed him everywhere. Even practice on a field on a foreign planet. Just in case. He just stared. Always watching. Waiting for the moment that Rane messed up to alert Orza, who was always with Sandy.
“Yeah,” he said, turning from him. “We had a fight.”
With that bitter lie, he shoved his way past Sal and lifted himself up into the sphere. The familiar sense of weightlessness came over him as he flew upward. Yet he still somehow felt inexplicably heavy despite that.
He got into his starting position to do the other half of his warmups – half on the ground under full gravity, half in the sphere under game conditions. Without gravity, he was able to do a few moves that would have otherwise been impossible.
As he was doing that, the rest of the team came up. He fully expected them to go to mob him again, but to his relief they went to their positions to finish their own warmups.
Practice started, and it was brutal.
Sal had to be punishing him – though Rane wasn’t sure what slight he committed against the captain – because nothing Rane did was good enough. He wasn’t making good times, he wasn’t hitting hard enough, his drills were sloppy, his technique was bad. Even when he successfully scored, the ball hadn’t gone through the goal dead center, so it wasn’t good enough.
It came with heaps of verbal abuse, a few cuffs upside his head, and constant demands to do better and stop slacking off.
Though he really didn’t know what Sal was seeing wrong, and what was wrong was all petty, he tried harder. He did more. He didn’t buck Sal’s authority. He tried to live up to whatever standard he was chasing, even as he knew it was something he was destined to fail.
For whatever reason, Sal was angry, and he was taking that out on Rane. And Rane, for his part, didn’t have the desire to fight against him. It was easier to just go along with his impossible demands as practice continued.
“Hey!”
Sal flew towards him after another ball in goal that was off center. He came in hot, fist slamming full against his shoulder. Rane grunted and would have flown back if Sal hadn’t grabbed him by a chest strap and yanked him back.
“Get your head in the game!” Sal yelled through gritted teeth.
“Sorry,” Rane replied calmly.
Sal’s eyes narrowed. He spoke again, expression no less furious, but his tone quieter. “Where is Sandy, Rane?”
He blinked before answering truthfully, “I don’t know.”
Sal’s eyes widened. But he didn’t ask anything else. He shoved him back with a snapped, “Stop being so sloppy! Get it together or you’re running the stairs in the stadium!”
What?
Rane didn’t understand, but he couldn’t question anything, because they were starting the next drill, and he had to focus.
It was a familiar, easy play. One they’d drilled hundreds, if not thousands, of times. He knew it better than he knew the layout of his own house.
Maybe that’s why it was so easy for Tarou to sneak up behind him. That wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and Rane was so focused on playing his part, he didn’t notice the large male until his arm was around his neck, yanking and choking him as he jerked one of his arms back and up, straining the socket of his shoulder.
“Sloppy, Rane!” Sal snapped.
But Rane barely heard him, because Tarou was speaking right in his ear.
“Is Sandy with your mother?”
Rane stopped struggling. Sal was lecturing him, loudly and obviously, as he said quietly, “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Tarou put a foot to his back and kicked him forward. When Rane turned back, Tarou was already flying away, going to regroup with the other two beaters.
Rane paused for only a moment before following Sal’s order to get back into formation. The next two plays went without issue – except, of course, Sal finding fault with everything he did. But Rane said nothing back to him and just continued to run drills.
Then, as he was flying the ball towards the goal, he was suddenly intercepted by Arus. The other catcher came up on him and snatched the ball from his hands. But in doing so, he caught their gauntlets on each other. They sparked and shocked along his arm, making him grimace as they fought against each other.
“Rane!” Sal snapped. “What are you doing?! Why aren’t you passing!?”
Rane pulled at their gauntlets, trying to get them apart. As he did, Arus asked-
