137 Onto the Next Match

The sound of the air hockey puck slamming against the side of the tables following an intense back and forth between our strikers and their strikers echoed in our corner of the arcade. This match between our teams was characterized by the long rallies as we went back and forth, back and forth, striking the ball and quickly mobilizing to defend against counter attacks. Our movements were large as we rapidly switched and covered for our teammates, and because of all of this, we drew the attention of many people, turning them into spectators as they watched our match continue.

"Damn it!" Zaksus cried out as I finally scored the puck.

"Damn..." Noah exclaimed with widened eyes as he gasped for air.

"Match point," Loyd smiled as the puck was replaced onto the air hockey table for the other team to serve. "We get this next point and we win."

"Hurry up and end this," I sighed. "This is tiring."

"That is if you can get this next point," Zaksus grinned smugly as he moved his striker back and forth along the smooth surface of the air hockey table, preparing for a strike.

Then, with an abrupt movement of his arms, he pushed hard with the striker and onto the puck, causing it to accelerate and increasing its velocity in the direction towards the side of the hockey table. The puck then bounced off the side wall of the table and moved rapidly towards the little slit on our end of the table that was the goal Zaksus and Noah had to score on.

"Alevian!" Loyd called out to me in order to remind me that the puck was headed in my area of defense.

Without saying anything, I took a quick step towards the table and brought my striker forward in order to intercept the puck as it slid across the wide surface of the air hockey table. With a quick deflection, I was able to smash the puck back against the spot where it had bounced off from and send it back on its original path.

The one who responded to my counter was Noah, who quickly moved his striker over to cover the goal and struck the puck directly for the goal on our side. Seeing this obvious attack, with a quick swipe of his hand, Loyd struck the puck on its side, causing it to bounce against the side wall of the table and zigzag towards the goal on the other side.

In retaliation, Zaksus quickly blocked the puck and while doing so, pushed the puck with his long and strong arms towards the goal. The puck moved at blazing speeds, making it almost impossible for one to stop it on time, but lucky for me, my striker was in the proximity of the path the puck was going to take.

Zaksus just attempted something extremely risky. It's a high risk, high reward strategy that harbored their greatest chance at scoring. I believe he must know about how tight our defense was already so that's why he wanted to gamble it all on this one strike, but unlucky for him, I anticipated it already.

Time seemed to have slowed down for me as I kept my eyes focused on puck. I quickly glanced away from the moving puck and at the path that I envisioned the puck to take once I strike it with my striker. I calculated the path the puck would take at every angle that I could strike it at and out of all the possible futures that I saw, only one ended up with a score. Even though it was only one, it was enough for me.

With a rapid motion of my arm, I smashed the puck against the wall at an angle so that it went straight towards the wall on their side of the table. The location I aimed at was just far enough from them that they would not be able to block preemptively and I hit the puck just hard enough for it to obtain the greatest amount of acceleration I could give it with my arms. The puck slid gracefully across the surface of the smooth hockey table, moving past the failed stoppage attempt Zaksus made and struck the side wall at an angle that directed the path of the puck directly towards the slit that was the goal. Without slowing down, the puck started moving towards the goal at rapid speeds, just narrowly avoiding Noah's striker as he tried to bring it down on top of the disc and entering the goal. Then, it was all over and the machine lights lit up with the color red in order to celebrate our victory.

A round of applause erupted from the few spectators who had stopped to watch as the game came to a close, and after some remarks of amazement, they soon dispersed, leaving the air hockey table with just our group.

"Aww..." Zaksus sighed in a somewhat depressed tone. "We were that close."

"Maybe next time," Loyd chuckled. "You two are pretty good for just playing the first match together."

"Man I'm tired," Noah sighed as he placed his striker on the table. Then, he looked over at the three girls who were watching us play. "Let's do mixed duos next."

"Mixed duos?" Irina tilted her head slightly in confusion.

"The two winners of this match, meaning Loyd and Alevian, will be on different teams and one of you three will join either team to have a mix duo match."

Wait, I complained in my mind. I'm tired too!

"That sounds fun!" Irina smiled.

"We could do that," Loyd quickly agreed, and with his approval combined with the great enthusiasm on Irina's end, my route for escape was cut off.

Loyd walked over to the blue side of the table and held up both strikers. "So who'll play?"

"I'll pass," Muria quickly excused herself. "I'm not the best at activities that require plenty of energy."

"Right," Irina frowned as she recalled that characteristic about Muria. Well... it's not something that I would consider a concealed characteristic. If you were to look at Muria, from that calm and relaxed countenance and frail frame of hers one could tell that she's not the best when it comes to endurance.

"I can go," Luna smiled and informed Irina.

"How bout we have the girls choose who they want to partner with?" Noah suggested.

"I'm fine with that," Loyd simply smiled at the suggestion.

"Irina," Luna looked over at the excited girl. "You can choose first."

"R-really?" Irina's face turned a light color of scarlet, which was maybe from the lighting of the arcade. In any case, she appeared somewhat nervous when prompted to choose who she wanted to partner with as she was stuttering in her words and quite indecisive. "Alevian."

Irina then walked over to stand by my side and grabbed hold of the other striker that was resting on the surface of the smooth air hockey table with both hands. Her face was still somewhat red as she stopped next to me, and she brought the striker close to her chest and toyed with it quite nervously. I believed that it must be because this was her first time playing air hockey, which explains why she's quite nervous and trembling somewhat.

"I'll be on Loyd's team then," Luna smiled as she accepted the blue striker from Loyd.

Seeing Luna on the other team peaked my interest in the match. No longer did I felt distracted by my sluggishness, and instead, I was focused on Luna's countenance as she prepared herself for the match. She was speaking with Loyd, smiling as she asked him for advice on how to play, and because of the loud nature of the arcade, the distance between their faces and bodies were quite close as they spoke to each other. From my perspective looking over at them, their body height seemed to compliment each others and their charismatic and outgoing faces made it seem as if they were a couple.

"A-Alevian," I heard Irina's voice softly calling my name, and I looked over to discover her blushing face as she stared at me with her large, blue eyes. "T-this is my first time so... don't be mad if I'm not good at it."

"Of course," I sighed and smiled at her in order to try and calm her nerves. "It's just a game so just try and have fun."

I then looked over at the two of them once again and this time met Loyd's eyes. Loyd nodded at me and I nodded back. In this brief and silent conversation, we had exchanged messages about the upcoming match. Our goals were to minimize our influence and make it so that the two girls could have fun.

Then, he turned his eyes away as he continued his interactions with Luna. For some reason, Luna seemed to be quite happy as she enjoyed herself with speaking with Loyd. Maybe it was because of Loyd's charismatic nature and smile, but I felt as if the Luna that I was seeing at the moment was a different Luna from the one that I was accustomed with. I don't know how to say it, but Luna just felt more... happy? Like she didn't care about her inevitable end nor anything else that might be bothering her. Instead, she focused all her attention on what was at hand and enjoyed herself.

I looked away from the two of them and towards Irina. On my face was a smile that I believed was somewhat forced, but I couldn't tell exactly how much of it was forced. Whatever the case may be, I did my best to ignore it as I began briefing Irina on the basics of air hockey.

"So you just hit it against the side of the table and pray that it goes in?" she asked with a confused yet focused countenance on her face.

"Y-yeah," I nodded. "As for the angle, you sort of just get the feel for it as you gain more experience."

"You two ready?" I heard Loyd ask us.

"I'm ready," Irina smiled and answered.

"Then let the match begin!" Noah exclaimed as he scanned a phone against the scanner to pay the fee for a match.

"Hey that's my phone!" Zaksus cried out as he reached to wrestle his device back from Noah.