Chapter 15: Barreling Through

The coach had run through a dozen-plus combinations. Every other position could be jury-rigged with a warm body, but the power forward slot—that blue-collar role—had nobody on the team who fit, and it was giving him a raging headache. Until he laid eyes on Nathan.

Nathan stood six feet tall and weighed about a hundred and seventy-five pounds—nothing special next to a grown man, but among middle schoolers he absolutely counted as big and burly.

The coach caught himself thinking: "Nathan's build could hold down power forward, actually. Sure, he's never even made the bench, but the kid does work hard in practice. Never paid attention to his skills, but he's a ninth-grade veteran—he's got to have some level. Might as well throw him out there and see."

"Nathan! You're in!"

Called out by name, Nathan was mildly surprised for a beat—but he didn't stage-fright. He peeled off his jacket and walked onto the court, and the team promptly burst into a wave of jeering laughter, because everybody knew he was a guy who'd never even been a sub, basically the team's odd-job man all along. Plenty of them had long since subconsciously written Nathan off as knowing nothing but sweeping up and putting the gear away—nobody thought he could actually play.

With his players cracking up at him, the coach looked a bit foolish, but he couldn't exactly pull Nathan back off, so he toughed it out and barked: "What's so funny? You lot might not even play as well as Nathan! Every day after club you're off playing around or chasing girls. Which of you puts in extra conditioning and skill work after practice? Nathan here trains hard every single day—never once lets up."

Tobias, the team's one remaining original starting guard, couldn't hold back a laugh and called out: "Coach! Everybody knows Nathan only works out to pick up girls! He's grinding this hard to chase Isolde."

That Nathan had worked out like crazy every day chasing Isolde, that he'd joined the basketball team just to slim down—the coach himself had told that one to other teachers as a joke. Today, scolding this pack of disobedient little apes, he'd let it slip, and he went awkward for a second before bellowing in mortified rage: "You think Nathan's no good? Fine—go guard him! Three-on-three. If Nathan scores on you once, you're running a hundred laps around the field."

Tobias stood up lazily and called back, not caring a bit: "Coach, guarding anybody else, sure, I wouldn't talk that big. But guarding Nathan? Just watch! I'll make it so he can't even get off the ground."

Nathan kept smiling, nothing on his face—but inside he was fuming. His relationship with Tobias honestly wasn't that bad; mild-tempered as he was, he'd hardly ever crossed anyone. But being looked down on like this? Even the mildest man has his limits—and besides, he was at that blood-runs-hot age.

Nathan thought darkly: "A few days ago, maybe I couldn't say anything. But I've practiced the Ennead Crucible now, opened two bloodways. No way I'm buying that you can actually hold me down, Tobias."

The coach blew the whistle and the three-on-three started. Nathan might have been fuming, but nobody would pass him the ball, so all his hard cutting was wasted motion. He watched his side get worked over by Tobias and his two teammates to the tune of ten points in three minutes—two threes plus two drives for layups—beaten to a total, flailing rout.

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The coach sighed, about to call the game—privately conceding he'd been grasping at straws; pinning hopes on a player who'd never even come off the bench was just too shaky a bet.

Tobias brought the ball up. He'd never actually gone at Nathan before, because Nathan had never touched the ball—but this time he wanted to show the coach, to make it clear Nathan simply wasn't basketball material, so he made a point of charging straight at him.

Tobias threw a gorgeous between-the-legs dribble, slipped past Nathan, and rose for the layup—but as his right hand came up to cradle the ball, it wasn't there. He blanked for a split second.

The next second, Tobias heard the whole gym gasp in unison—and then erupt.

He whipped his head around. All he saw was Nathan standing under the rim, the hoop still shuddering, and the ball bouncing away on the floor.

He hadn't seen the play itself, but everyone else—including the coach—had: the instant Tobias drove past, Nathan made one smooth, practiced steal, plucked the ball clean out of Tobias's hands, then sprinted long strides, rose from the free-throw line, and threw down an airborne dunk—lordly form, massive force. You could tell how much power was in it just from the way the rim was still trembling.

Nathan himself stood frozen too. Three straight years of middle school he'd trained his body like crazy, but he knew his own baseline: a few days ago, the highest he could reach was the bottom edge of the backboard—dunking was flat-out impossible.

"One day of Art and my body's already at this level? This Ennead Crucible is scary good."

Winning the point didn't put Nathan in high spirits—if anything, he stood there in a daze.

And how was the coach to know what Nathan was thinking?

He was so happy he literally jumped—acting nothing like a man in his thirties pushing forty.

That flying dunk of Nathan's had the coach's blood at a rolling boil. Even Galen, the best jumper of the old four starters, couldn't dunk—he could only little-hook it under the rim, something that looked like a dunk but was really just a jump shot from point-blank range.

"Not just the jumping—there was that steal, the handle, the sprint speed. An all-around killer! How did I have talent like this scrubbing floors for me? Good thing I gave him a run-out today, or I'd have missed a real prospect. With that body and skill, he could even play center at the middle-school level."

Carried away with delight, the coach called off the streetball, picked several of the most skilled players to form two squads, made Nathan the center on one of them, and started real scrimmaging.

Tobias hadn't seen the play, but he knew what Nathan had done. With the four seniors retired, he was the team's absolute core, its unquestioned number-one star—how was he supposed to accept some gofer like Nathan?

A hot streak of "I don't accept this" flared up in Tobias; time after time in the scrimmages he hunted Nathan for one-on-ones. Pure skill-wise he was naturally more than a notch above Nathan—but physical tools? How could he compare with a Nathan who'd swallowed hundreds of blobs of Starfall Dew and practiced the Ennead Crucible? Any straight-up collision and he simply could not get by; and as for stopping Nathan's offense...

Tobias couldn't manage it for his life. One light lean from Nathan and he lost his footing—pure brute force had him completely owned.