Spicy

7 PM, at the parking lot behind the basketball team practice facility.

"Is every rookie here?" Legend's voice rattled across the empty parking lot. "Headcount!"

The seven freshmen of the University of Illinois Fighting Illini basketball team counted off from one to seven, and once captain Legend had ensured that ten of the current eleven upperclassman members were in, he put on a smile filled with malice.

"Blindfold them, boys!"

The next half an hour was a blur for Tremaine, as they were packed into the team coaster, going into somewhere they didn't have any idea about. 

Their upperclassmen were having a blast inside the car, singing and blasting school gameday anthems like crazy, some were watching replay NBA games, while some were doing mental exercises.

Tremaine could feel that his buddy Deshaun was sweating profusely and was quite nervous about the whole ordeal. And on the other side of him, their team's star recruit was whistling without a care in the world.

'This guy is as eccentric as ever.' Tremaine, as a second lifer, of course knew who this guy was from head to toe.

A five star recruit that was the best high school player in the state of Illinois by a long shot. 

The university staved off significant offers from more prestigious basketball programs from other states to land Jaylen Mitchell. His electric physical tools jump off the page, and his ludicrous potential sparks joy into every college team that wanted to land him. 

A combo forward that could play anywhere in the modern, positionless game? Absolutely an asset. 

Tre kept calm, his past life's experiences were basically a cheat code right now. This initiation rite would be a piece of cake.

The singing had finally stopped, at about the same time the car slowed to a grinding halt. One by one, the seven blindfolded freshmen were herded out into an unfamiliar place. 

Tremaine could feel the heavy breathing of the two people in front, and behind him, clearly restless and nervous at what's in store for them.

'Heh I'm ready for a bloody dragon tattoo!' Tre sort of missed the dragon tattoo inked across his back. Especially since in his first life, every Illinois freshman got a tattoo for free, in their teammate's tattoo parlor. 

Entering a dark, and cold place, the seven new recruits shivered, as their captain Legend finally spoke with a commanding voice that could break one down into submission. "Are you ready, men of the basketball team?!"

"Awoo, awoo!" The roar was deafening, and was even more intimidating than usual, with a blindfold, inside this silent room. 

Unlike every other freshman, who's starting to feel the pinch of the pressurizing environment, Tre's eyes were gleaming behind the blindfold. 

"First up, Mills, you're gonna be the leader!" Two people grabbed Tre forcefully by either his arms and walked him towards where Legend's voice was coming from. "The rest of you, chill out, don't pee your pants. The night had only just begun."

Tremaine was ushered into another room, where it felt like the temperature had risen by a few degrees, reeked of various food ingredients and…

Wait, this is not Ryan's family tattoo parlor!

A tattoo parlor should never smell, nor feel as warm as this!

All of a sudden, Tremaine tensed up. He now had no control over what's happening. 

Things… had changed?

"Do you hate walk-ons?" 

"I don't, because I'm a fucking walk-on too, you hack!"

"Walk-ons aren't bad, because they fight for every chance they get."

"I do hate walk-ons, because this bastard is one."

"I so hate walk-ons that I'd love it for them to eat the most disgusting food ever as a rite of passage!"

Tremaine's mind was swirling with a multitude of outrageous scenarios that he was completely unable to hear what was being said around him. 'Since I tampered with the timeline… could my old teammates have become evil?'

"Remove the blindfolds. It's showtime, boys." Legend's voice was filled with eager anticipation, like a predator waiting for his prey to make the wrong move he's waiting for. 

"Shit no!" Tre blurted it out the moment his blindfold was removed… 

The room was bright, and white tiled, with several cooking and baking equipment at the walls. It was not what Tremaine envisioned at all. 

He thought he'd be in a dark room, with a single lightbulb swaying low… 

"Welcome, rookie." Legend was sitting at the edge of a small table, with a massive circular piece of dough behind him. "We're supposed to have a tattoo initiation today, but Ryan was down in the dumps, so we turned it into a pizza night." 

"You shattered his confidence, man." Khalil put his arms around his shoulders. "But it's a good thing, because we get free pizzas from their shop!"

"This is Ryan's shop?" Tre faked his surprise after calming down.

"Yeah, there's also a small tattoo parlor beside this and their house was the other property on this block."

Ryan entered the room wearing a chef's uniform. The usual aggressive look on his face was replaced by a forced friendly expression he uses when dealing with customers. 

"Today, you'll be eating my wondrous creations." Ryan said with the same forced expression. "While us upperclassmen eat Legend's creations with glee." 

Tremaine wanted to cry. Ryan was a disgusting cook, while Legend was a sublime cook. He knew that their captain works here part time, while Ryan mostly works in the tattoo parlor at the back… only because he was atrocious at baking pizzas...

"Is that it? That's easy." Tremaine feigned ignorance. A normal person would not know that Legend was also a legend at pizzas while the heir of the owners were as bad as a noob like him.

Tre was sent outside into the pizzeria's dining area where they would be eating.

A well groomed man of Latin American descent sporting a nice moustache, entered the room. He was about the same height as Ryan, and he exuded the charisma of a womanizer, especially with that hair neatly tucked into a ponytail. He was carrying several bottles of something. 

"Here it is! Yes!" Khalil was already moving towards him, carefully scrutinizing what he had in store. "Do you have some good stuff over there, Miguel?"

The anguish players chimed in on the fun, except for Tremaine. He already knows what's up… and he's also excited… but he doesn't want to show it. 

Legend and Ryan came in holding four pans of freshly baked pizzas. The aroma was breathtaking, even without looking at it. 

Khalil was ready to fill those pans with his selection of blistering hot sauces. He was ready to see the world burn!

Meanwhile, Tre knew that half of this team were demons with insane heat tolerance. So it was not beyond his comprehension that they would pull something like this…

Too bad it's me they're up against. 

Tremaine hated spicy food when he was younger, but once he got accustomed to his mom's sudden love for peppers, and spices, he never looked back. It became a willful part of his diet, helping him metabolize faster, and maintain his tip top shape, alongside other benefits.

"Are you ready, rookie?" A deep voice that had a weird accent from a bald center that was even taller than Legend entered his eardrums, and a smile that was innocent, but terrifying. "Oh, I'm Tarik, a sophomore."

"Oh, of course, I am. Nice to meet you, Tarik."

Tarik's smile showed him his stunningly white teeth.

"Lamont, get the rest." Legend called out to a muscular man wearing aviator glasses. 

Instantly, Lamont walked towards the kitchen in silence. 

"No, no, no! Not there!" Lamont stopped walking. "Get the other rookies!"

"Oh." Lamont hastily ran to the other side, with surprisingly silent steps. He disappeared as fast as he appeared.

Ryan arrived with two more pans of freshly baked pizza, while Miguel, and Khalil were working their magic on the pans already there, giving them a beautiful hot sauce layer. 

Tre could feel the heat in the air, with the air conditioning off…

After everyone else had arrived, the blinding lights winded them, and the assaulting aroma of spice and hot sauces attacked their senses. 

They saw the demonic face of Khalil drowning several pans of pizza with hot sauces on the right side. Meanwhile, on the other side, six whole pans of pizza looked mouth watering, pristine, and untouched on the left. 

"Is that what we're gonna be eating?" Deshaun already knew the answer even before he asked. It was surely that pan of hot sauce with dough.

"Yeah, that's what you'll be eating, I'm gonna eat some of those nice mushroom topped stuff on the left." Jaylen didn't care. He only had eyes on that mushroom special. "I'll even drown that with hot sauce if that's what I need to do to eat that."

Once the number of pizzas had become ten on the left and seven on the right, Legend finally told the freshmen that their rites had begun. 

"As the leader of this group, you Tremaine, shall start by eating four slices of this special stuff."

Guns blazing, fangs bared, mouth already on fire, and stomach already churning, Tremaine stepped forward undeterred like a savage beast. 

He had nothing to fear.

'I so fucking love spicy food!'