The smell of ozone and recycled air filled the arena. It was a smell I knew better than my own home. From my spot on the bench, the Aetherball court was a perfect zero-g cube of controlled chaos. Players flashed by in streaks of light, their Aether Gear glowing as they chased the pulsing energy ball. It was beautiful. A deadly dance of strategy and power. And I was stuck watching it.
My name is Kai, and my official rank is a nice, round number: zero. Unranked. In a world where your Aetherball stats are displayed for everyone to see on public leaderboards, being unranked means you're less than nothing. You're trash. A ghost.
"Look at him, still making notes." The voice belonged to Jax, our team's star player and the reason for our school's winning record. Jax was an F-Rank prodigy, blessed with natural talent and a cannon of a right arm. He was also a first-class jerk. "Hey Kai, you gonna write your way onto the team? Maybe you can bore the other team to death."
His friends laughed. I didn't look up from my datapad. On the screen, I wasn't writing notes. I was running a simulation. The other team, Northwood High, had a defensive formation that was solid, but I saw the flaw. Their goalie always overcommitted to the left side on a power shot. It was a tiny tell, something you wouldn't see unless you'd watched every second of their last twenty games. Like I had.
Our coach, a heavy-set man named Coach Valerius, paced the sideline. His eyes were glued on Jax, his golden boy. He had a reputation for spotting raw talent, for building power players. He never looked at me. Why would he? My public stats were a joke. Strength: 9. Agility: 11. Stamina: 12. The numbers of a regular high school kid, not an Aetherball player.
"Kai, get your head out of that damn tablet and watch the game," Valerius grunted, not even turning his head.
I am watching, I wanted to scream. I'm seeing things you can't.
On the court, Jax had the ball. He was winding up for his signature move, the 'Jax Hammer'. It was all power, no finesse. He would blast it straight at the goalie. The Northwood goalie, just as I predicted, shifted his weight, anticipating a shot to his left. It was the perfect opening. A simple feint, a soft shot to the right, and it was an easy goal. A guaranteed point.
"Don't do it," I whispered, my fingers tightening around my datapad. "Fake left, shoot right. It's wide open."
Of course, Jax didn't hear me. He roared and fired the Aetherball. It shot forward like a comet, a brilliant trail of light. The Northwood goalie, already moving, simply extended his shield and caught it. An easy save. The crowd groaned. A golden opportunity, wasted. The clock was ticking down. Ten seconds left.
Northwood got the rebound. Their forward, a lightning-fast girl named Elara, weaved through our stunned defense. She didn't have Jax's power, but she was smart. She saw the openings. She passed to her teammate, who passed back, a perfect chain of high-efficiency plays. It was the kind of Aetherball I dreamed of playing. They scored just as the final buzzer screamed.
The final score glowed on the giant screen. Northwood: 4, Westwood: 3.
We lost.
The locker room was quiet. Not the good kind of quiet. It was heavy, thick with disappointment and anger. Jax slammed his helmet against his locker.
"They got lucky!" he shouted, his voice echoing in the tense silence. "That goalie was on another level today."
"You should have faked the shot," I said. The words just came out. I couldn't help it. My mind, the part of me that lived and breathed strategy, took over. "His positioning was off. He pre-emptively covers his left side against power players. A simple vector shift to the right would have been an undefended goal."
Jax spun around, his face red with fury. "What did you say, you benchwarming zero?" He stalked over until he was towering over me. "You think you know how to play from the sidelines? You've never logged a single minute in an official game. Your score is zero. Your rank is zero. You are a zero."
He shoved me hard. I stumbled back, hitting the lockers with a loud clang. The other players just watched. No one stepped in. To them, Jax was the hero. I was just the weird, obsessive kid who didn't belong.
Coach Valerius walked in, his face like thunder. "Hit the showers," he commanded. His eyes scanned the room and passed right over me, like I was a piece of furniture. He walked up to Jax, clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, son. You've got the power. We just need to train it harder. Forget the fancy stuff."
That was it. That was my life. Overlooked. Undervalued. A ghost in the machine of a sport I loved more than anything.
I walked home under the streetlights, the anger and frustration churning in my stomach. It wasn't fair. I knew the game better than any of them. I saw the patterns, the code within the chaos. But none of it mattered without the raw power the system valued.
I collapsed onto my bed, not even bothering to change. The ceiling above me felt as heavy as the world. I closed my eyes, replaying the game again and again in my head. Jax's failed shot. The goalie's tell. The open path to the goal. Fake left, shoot right. Simple. Perfect.
My head began to throb. A low hum started in my ears, like a computer booting up. I opened my eyes. The room was dark, but a faint, blue light was starting to form in my vision. It wasn't a reflection. It was inside my head.
A single line of text appeared, sharp and clear against the darkness. It hung in the air, glowing with a soft, ethereal light.
[System Initializing…]