The Legacy of the Pitch

B y KooKoo Boy

I was always just a normal person, except for living in the Sub-Lanes. For those who don’t understand, the Sub-Lanes is a city underneath the real world, where all of the homeless, crazy, and messed up people live.

My name’s Ryder. I was one of the homeless people who roamed around the Sub-Lanes, looking for any places to be able to sleep in or just not be with the toxic underground air, that poisons and endangers everyone who breaths it in.

Milo has been my best friend since we were around four years old. Both of us lost our parents to the guards. He’s one of the best engineers in the sublanes. One time he made a mech that could fire bolts. Even though it was only a foot tall, it was still better than most things I’ve seen anyone make before.

Anyway, I need money soon or I’m not going to be able to buy anything to survive. There’s this soccer league in the Over City, and if you win a whole bunch of games, you become a champion. It’s nearly impossible to become a champion, and only three people have ever became champions. Mr. Haddington was the first ever champion and people say he’s unbeatable, even though he’s eighty now. But also if you win, you get a grand prize of fifty million dollars, and you become famous, but I don’t really care about being famous or anything though.

I don’t really care if people say I’m bad at soccer, I just need the money. You have to win a ton of games and then win fifteen games in a row, to go to the championship match. If I lose a game, at least I tried, and I’ll still get some money.

“ Hey Milo, wanna try to compete in the big soccer league?”

“ Wait, dude you know it’s like impossible to win right?”

“ Yeah, but I don’t care. We can try and if we win we get money.”

“ Ryder, even if we did want to play we need at least eight players to complete a team. I’m not doing it. Sorry Ryder.”

“ You could become famous Milo.”

“ Are you trying to bribe me Ryder? You know I like being aknowledged for my robots and engineering skills.”

“ Come on you know you want to be known for you work.”

“ Ah, fine I’ll do it I guess, but you better make sure people try to hire me at an engineering buisness.”

“ Let’s go! I’ll make sure that you get into the best engineering company there is Milo!”

“ Ok let’s find some teammates Ryder!”

Me and Milo went to find some teammates. The first one was easy because we have a friend in the Sub-Lanes. Her name is Sarah. She really likes to study magic, because she wants to be a mage. To cast spells you need a tech staff, which can only be located in the best magic store in the Over City. Her parents used to live in the Over City, but then when a big attack happend, her parents house got destroyed, and they had to move to the Sub-Lanes. After Sarah of course said yes to joining us, we went to the Over City to recruit another friend. 

Her name is Chloe, and she works with the biggest names in the Over City. She’s kinda famous, but she just likes that she gets to help people. Her goal is to make peace with the entirety of the Sub-Lanes, since both sides sorta hate eachother. She is already getting good progress on her goal, since she’s already made some friends in the sub-lanes, and she’s made more allies too. It was hard to get Chloe on the team, since she didn’t want to be seen,” Not being professional.”, she said. After we gave her some confidence she said that she would join if it didn’t waste time.

Next, it was time for a hard one. Mini and Tall, the brothers from nowhere. You might be wondering why we call them the brothers from nowhere, but it’s because their brothers, obviously, but they aren’t really from anywhere, because they live in the Over City sometimes, and the Sub-Lanes for the rest of the time. They were born in the Sub-Lanes but they are welcomed in the Over City as well. Tiny was the easier of the two brothers to get on the team, because even though he liked working with Milo in engineering, he also liked soccer. Tall’s passion was being a guard in the Over City. He has his passion because when he was six, a tile fell from a building and was coming straight for him, but then a guard stepped in and caught the tile, saving Tall’s life. That’s the reason why Tall is determined to be a guard. Mini and Tall’s names are hilarious, because Tall is three feet tall, and Mini is a brick wall weighing a staggering three hundred and fifty pounds and being 7 feet tall. Mini joined the team right away, because he loves soccer, but Tall insisted that he kept training for being a guard.

“ Nope sorry buddy. Not doing it Ryder.”

That’s exactly what happened where I tried to get Milo to join earlier today.

“ Come on on lil bud.”

“ My names Tall, not lil bud!”

“ Ok you dont’ have to talk to me but at least talk to Milo.”

“ Fine. I’ll talk to him I guess if I have to.”

“ Hey Tall.”

“ What do ya want, Milo.”

“ You can join our team and play soccer with us.”

“ Why should I do that?”

“ Because we’ll have a lot of fun playing together.”

Milo is good with talking to people and persuading them. For some reason people just like to agree with him, like if they don’t they’re going to get beat up, which they won’t, because Milo’s to scrawny to hurt anyone, except for when he needs to.

“ Fine, Milo I’ll play on your team or whatever.”

“ Ok dude. That’s great. We’ll have so much fun on a team together!”

“ We better.”

With the hardest person down, all we have left is the triplets.

Two of the triplets are calm and loyal people, Tinker and Poppy. On the other hand, Spinner is probably the weirdest, craziest, and the most wild person you’ll ever see. 

Tinker’s a boy, and his passion is tinkering, obviously, but not that kind of tinkering like with gadgets and stuff. He wants to tinker with star dust. With people taking constant trips to the moon, people always bring star dust back to Earth with them, there’s a lot of star dust in magic shops. Sarah always goes in magic shops and tells me about the star dust. We plan to someday put together some money and buy Tinker a bag of stardust, even though a single bag of it is twenty thousand dollars.

Poppy is a girl who loves to experiment with bombs and explosions. As a kid, she would hold fire crackers, and whenever a stranger walked up to her, she would throw one in their face. Then they would run away in pain, and it brought joy to her, because she was independent and could protect herself. She’s been making bombs and hoping that she can make different explosions each time. She’s a very kind person who doesn’t like to upset people, so she always tries to help people. Her goal is to make every kind of explosion and sound of bombs that there is. 

Spinner is definetly something. Spinner likes to carry around his rusty sword that will probably give you tetanus and kill you if it stabs you. His goal is to rule the world, which he is definitely crazy and capable enough to do it. He’s not crazy strong or anything, but he is crazy enough to make anyone scared of him. Spinner cares about people more than most people, but he just doen’t show it a lot. Since Spinner was a little kid, he would always barge into random stores and buildings saying that he would take them over, while holding a little piece of wood with a nail in it that was taller than him.

Tinker and Poppy both said yes, and Spinner after almost cutting me with the tetanus blade of death, agreed to join us too.

“ Ok everyone, now that we’ve recruited everyone, let’s go sign up!”

“ Yeah let’s do it!”

“ Yeah let’s go!”

“ Woohoo!”

We took the longest way to the stadium, since we all wanted to chat. We were also eager to get to the stadium because we could be signing up to have fifty million dollars. 

“ Is this were we sign up Milo?”

“ Ryder are you dumb or something?”

“ Um rude. Why do you say that?”

“ Because we are standing right infront of the stadium, so of course this is where we are supposed to go!”

“ Ok geez dude.”

“ Hello sir, we would like to buy an entry ticket for the soccer league.”

“ And what is your name sir?”

“ My name’s Ryder.”

“ Ok Ryder, an entry ticket is five thousand dollars.”

“ Ok here you go sir.”

“ Here’s your ticket, and the hotel is that way, and the training facility is right next to the hotel on the left of it.”

“ Ok thank you sir.”

The reason that we had five thousand dollars is because when everyone joined our team they also chipped in four hundred bucks, which is a lot of money fore us. 

We were very surprised that we got to stay in a hotel, since none of us except Tall and Mini, but they were little kids when they went in one, and it wasn’t as big as this one. We all  headed over to the hotel and slept the rest of the night cause we were very tired. In the morning, we all ate and headed down to the training facility.

We’ve all played a little bit of soccer before, because right before I thought about joining the league, I played in a match on the street, because someone bet me ten bucks that I couldn’t beat them. I beat them 5-0 in three minutes, but I felt bad, so I told him it was beginner’s luck, and I let him keep the money. We all trained at the hotel for about a month before the first qualifying match was here. The qualifying match is where the winning team moves on to the stadium matches. There are occasions where if the losing team has a lot of talent, and they don’t want to waste the teams talent, they let them join the stadium matches aswell. We all became beasts at soccer, and I was the leader of the team, obviously.

“ Ok guys the day we’ve all been waiting for is here! We will win if we try our hardest, we will win this game!”

“ Everyone say,” We will win!”.”

“ WE WILL WIN! WE WILL WIN!”

“ LET”S GOOOOOOOOOOO!”

We stepped onto the pitch and met the opposing team. They’re team captain was a rich person whos name was Zack.

“ Hi, I heard your name is Zack. Nice to meet you.”

“ Hi poor kid. Haha we’re going to destroy you.”

“ That’s not very nice dude.”

“ Do you think I care what you think?”

“ You should! Rude.”

“ We will beat you poor kids.”

“ Nope, we will beat you!”

The match started and right away the other team took the ball and made a goal right away. The score was now 1-0 and we were not happy. Our team coordination was not very good, but it got better. After they scored another goal. The score was now 2-0, and we were ready to win this game.

“ Guys, there’s five minutes left until the game’s over! We need to win this!”

“ Let’s win this guys, so that we can accomplish our dreams later!”

We started the last five minutes with the ball and we made a miracle happen.

“ I’m passing to you, Ryder!”

“ Here, Mini. Score with your power!”

Mini launches the ball at probably fifty miles an hour. “AND HE SCORES”, the announcer says.

Now it’s 2-1 with three minutes and thirty seconds left.

“ Hey poor boy.”

“ What do you want Zack? Are you scared that we are going to beat you?”

“ Shut up, no I’m not. That’s just what I expect a non- grateful Sub-Lanes person to say.”

“ Shut it rich boy. We will beat you whether you like it or not!”

They started the final minutes with the ball and they almost wreck our chances of winning.

“ Milo take the ball!”

“ I’ll try!”

Milo misses the steal and they are now twenty feet from the goal.

“ Spinner, get the ball from them!”

“ You got it Captain!”

Spinner saves us and almost gets fouled by doing it. But, he did get the ball for us and now there’s one minute left in the game. We pass down the field, scrambling for the goal.

“ Here Milo!”

“Pass to Poppy!”

“ Take the pass Tinker!”

“ Here Sarah!”

“ Pass to Chloe!”

“ Score the ball, Tall!”

Tall winds up his tiny leg, but there’s only five seconds left! 

“ Shoot the ball Tall!”

 “ THERES FIVE SECONDS, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE!”, the announcer screams at the stadium.

He shoots the ball. It goes a little slow, but it throws the goalie off guard and he dives to the left. I see the one second fade to zero, but I look at the ball and hear the announcer say,“ HE SCORES WITH THE SLOW BALL! OH MY WHAT A COMEBACK! NOW IT’S 2-2 AND COULD THE SUB-LANES TEAM MAKE A COMEBACK IN OVERTIME?!”, the announcer yells to the whole stadium.

In over time, we start with the ball and it’s a fight back and forth with no goal made. Over time is coming to an end and we had the luck on our side, and by luck I mean the ball.

“ Ok guys let’s do this thing, AND WIN!”

We pass back and forth and then we are at the goal and we have a chance.

“ Here Ryder, Score the ball!!!”

I shoot and the goalie gets ready to block. I close my eyes…….and I SCORE!!!

“ We win guys. Let’s go!!!”

“ Let’s goooo!!!”

We move on to the stadium matches, and the team that we beat was apparently a good team that the rich people didn’t want their talent to go to waste, so they let them join the stadium rounds as well, but I don’t know how that’s fair, but I don’t care.

We train for months and keep winning matches. We became one of the best teams in the league. Now everybody knows who we are and the rich people and even Mr. Haddington says that we are the most favorited team in the entire league.

The day of the championship comes and we are all nervous, but excited. We get our uniforms and get ready to win this game. We all need to win this for our dreams.

We get onto the field and get ready. We find out that the other team is Zack’s team again. We aren’t that happy that we can’t play a different team but it’s fine, I guess.

“ THE MATCH WILL START IN TWENTY SECONDS!!!” the announcer yells at the champion stadium. Mr. Haddington walks up to me and starts talking to me.

“ Hi Ryder. I’ve heard that your team is pretty well known.”

“ Yeah haha we are.”

“ Well good luck out there and I hope you win. Not to be biased.”

“ Thanks. I hope we will win.”

The matches starts and for the first twenty minutes we score goals back and forth and the score is 5-5. 

“ Score the ball, Tall!”

“ You got it!”

Tall scores another goal and with forty minutes left the score is 6-5 and we are winning. So far we are all working great together as a team, but we aren’t winning by enough. We pass it back and forth a few more times until Zack scores a goal. Now the score is 6-6 and we aren’t doing as good as we need to, but we get ourselves together and with thirty five minutes left we score another goal. The score is 6-6, and were tied again.

The final stretch of the game comeswith five minutes left and we pass the ball a few times and each team scores a goal. Now the score is 7-7, and there is thirty seconds left. Neither of the teams can score, so we go into over time, but still, no one can score, so now we go into penalty kicks.

“ RYDER SCORES!!!”

“ ZACK SCORES!!”

We go on and the penalty score is 4-4 and we kick.

“ Come on Sarah, you can score!!!”

Sarah winds up and…GOOOAAALLLLLL!!!!!

“ Let’s go Sarah we did it!!! Now we just have to block them and we win the whole game!”

“ OK EVERYONE, THERE IS ONE KICK LEFT CAN THEY DO IT!!!”

“Zack shoots with Chloe in the goal and he…..MISSES THE GOAL!!! OH MY GOD THAT IS A WIN FOR RYDER AND THE SUB-LANES TEAM!!!”

“ Let’s go guys our dreams can now be reality!!!”

( 1 YEAR LATER )

“ Hi Ryder!”

“ Hey Milo! I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

“ It’s only been a week.”

“ Still now that we are interviewed all the time it’s hard to be able to see eachother all the time.”

“ Yeah, well it’s been good seeing you and i’ve been talking to everyone and it seems like we have all accomplished our goals!”

“ Yeah, bye!”

“ Bye!”

Tinker got a bag of star dust, and is now one year older. Tall became a guard. Spinner kinda rules the world. Chloe has made peace with the Sub-Lanes. Milo and Mini have gotten into the best engineering academy kinda because they’re famous. Poppy has figured out every explosion and bomb there is. Sarah became a magic conjurer. And I have made some money, and by some I mean eight million dollars, and I am now the forth champion of the pitch.