Late September 2018

Large, scattered flames illuminate a dark room, casting it in an intimidating warm hue. Rubble blankets the dirty ground with the pebbles, boulders, and a broken concrete barrier, giving off sharp, eerie shadows. The air is thick with heat, yet the battle is not near its end.

Leaping into view from behind the barrier and over it is Kale Clague. His thick, light brown hair still holds its volume although sweat and dirt are evident on his face. His defined eyebrows are lowered with determination, his hazelnut-coloured eyes sharp, his left hand holds onto the barrier as he swings himself over it. His right hand is thrown behind him with a vibrant, ergokinetic violet and white sword.

Kale slams his feet onto the ground and darts away from the barrier, his focus pinned on a certain object ahead of him.

Yards away with boulders and pits of fire in his path is a glossy hockey stick leaning against a large rock. It gleams with the fire’s glow, untouched by the debris or dirt it is propped on.

Kale continues pressing on toward the stick, jumping over boulders and weaving around the large flames, keeping his eyes on the prize.

His vision occupied by the stick bounces up and down with the motion of his running. It begins to grow closer to him, inch by inch, steady but surely.

Suddenly, two orange-tinted, metallic throwing stars fly straight at Kale from the dense darkness up above. Kale turns his head away and throws his sword-occupied hand in front of him as the sword morphs into a same-style heater shield.

The throwing stars strike the clear area of the shield, away from the violet-glowing edges, and bounce off in opposite directions.

Kale holds his stance, anticipating more attacks. After a few moments of stillness, he reverts his head back in front of him and lowers his arm. His anxious facial expression turns stern when he spots who is entering his view.

Lowering himself on his glider is Nolan Patrick. He looks majestic, yet menacing with the fire glowing behind him. There is not a single speck of sweat or dirt on his face, maintaining his perfect facial complexion. In each of his hands is a sharp, glinting throwing star.

“Not so quick,” Nolan tells him in a taunting tone, his voice sleek and smoky.

Kale scowls at him. “Ugh!”

He instantly launches up into the air as a form of a jump, converting his shield back to his sword. The force guides him to lean forward, becoming perpendicular to Pat as he begins to perform a flip over him.

Nolan tosses his throwing stars up at him as an attempt to thwart him off. Kale simply swings his sword at the stars, severing them in half.

He then completes his flip and lands steadily on his two feet with his back facing his opponent. He whirls around to face Pat’s back and closes his hand to dissolve his sword in sparks.

Kale steps up closer to him with a mocking smirk. “Hah! Get that, Pat!”

Nolan simply responds by swing around to face him, causing his glider to spin around as well to his motion. The end of the glider slams into Kale’s torso during the motion.

“OOF!”

Kale trips into the air and falls onto the ground, flat on his stomach. Buzzing pain shoots up inside him as the breath in his lungs is knocked out due to the impact. He coughs, attempting to recover his breath, and groans to cope with the fading pain. He wearily peers up, spotting a light from above the darkness.

In the light, faded into the darkness, is a cool gray, spheric wall. On the wall is a rectangular glass window, similar to a reporter’s booth in an arena. Peering out of the window are three familiar faces: Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Quick, and Patrick Kane.

From the other side of the window, the three are looking out at the simulated fight scene below. They are each sitting on swivel chairs with a desk occupied with legal pads, pens, and water for each of them.

“Wow,” Jonathan remarks in his dry, deep voice, completely stunned. “I did not see that coming.” His dark brown hair is spiked up with his eyebrows raised over his brown eyes.

Sidney scoops up his pen and legal pad from his desk and onto his legs. “Huh, I should take some notes!” he exclaims with his infantile, high-pitched tone. He clicks the pen by his ear two times. “I can use that with my ice sled!” He scribbles on the yellow paper.

Jonathan turns to the small man. “I gotta admit, the Kings’ redefined powers are cool.” He points toward the window. “I’d like to use a sword like that.”

Sidney peers up at him from his notes, his dark brown, shaggy hair hanging over his head. “You got a forcefield.” He points to him with his pen. “That’s pretty cool!”

The goalie spins back to face the window and throws his hands out at the window. “He’s got one too!” He pulls his hand to his chin as doubt fills his mind. “Well, it’s more like a shield, but it serves the same purpose as a force field.” He looks back to his right, where Sidney is sitting.

Sidney has a skeptical look at him. “And if someone strikes from behind…?”

From below, the three can hear Kale yelping.

Jonathan nods. “Right.” He slowly turns back to face the fight. “I’ll be grateful with my powers.”

With a bright smile, Sidney turns to his right, where the Master of the GHP is sitting. “So, Patrick, what do you think about the rookies?” He shrugs while lifting his eyes up. “Well, rookie, Nolan’s a sophomore!”

Patrick stares out at the window with a chilled expression, his eyelids heavy over his blue eyes. “They’re gnarly, dude,” he says in his deep, surfer-like voice. “It’d be radical for our society to bring ‘em in.”

Sidney perks up. “Awesome! I agree!” He then leans over to him and whispers with his hand covering the side of his mouth: “It’d be better though if one of them got the stick…!”

Back in the fight, dust flies into the air as Kale collapses on his back with Nolan, who no longer has his glider, on top of him. They grapple with each other, rolling around and creating more dust around them. Kale solely clutches onto Nolan’s arms as Nolan attempts to bash his fists against him.

Nolan conjures enough energy to shove Kale, causing their rolling to halt as Kale is pressed against the ground. Now with no more movement as an obstacle, he rips his arms out from his opponent’s grasp and begins slamming his fist into his face.

Kale instantly defends himself by holding his arms up at him with his head toward away. “No! No! No! No!”

With that, Nolan punches his arms instead as Kale continues crying out in fear.

Nolan gives him one last shove before climbing off of him and rising to his feet and stepping over him. He peers behind his shoulder cooly, spotting Kale slowly lowering his arms. He whips out a throwing star and flings it at him.

“Ack!” Kale cries out as the star lands upright next to him.

He pulls his arm toward him to move it away from the star. Yet his arm his stuck in place due to the star’s blades pinning his shirt sleeve to the ground. He slowly raises his eyes back up to the standing forward with sad betrayal.

Nolan simply gives him a smug smile before turning away and strutting toward the hockey stick. He steps up to the boulder with the stick and daintily plucks it off with his two hands.

He gazes at its shaft and he holds his hand out toward Kale, mentally commanding the star to return to him.

The star speeds away from Kale like as if a gust a wind took it up and flies into Nolan’s hand.

Nolan whirls around, spotting Kale slowly climbing up to his feet. He swaggers back to him with the stick by his head.

“Better luck next time, Kale Chips.” He nudges his arm.

Kale groans as he straightens up with a weary expression. “You didn’t use your powers though,” he manages to crock out while massaging his cheek with an opened mouth

He juts the hockey stick toward him. “It’s still considered fighting.”

Suddenly, the dark, menacing scene immediately gets washed out by the room’s house lights turning on from above. Now surrounding the two men is the rest of the gray-coloured wall around the small, circular, empty room.

In front of them, an entrance way is revealed as the large door slides upward and out of view.

Waltzing into the room are the three GHP members, causing Kale to position himself next to Nolan.

“Alright!” Sidney cries out while clapping. “You guys did aweeesome!”

Kale frowns at him. “Is it alright for Pat to fight hand-to-hand combat?” He peers at his friend from the corner of his eye.

“Anything to win a battle,” Jonathan replies.

Nolan gives him a smirk. “Told ya.”

The three halt in front of them.

“But both of you dudes did gnarly!” Patrick holds out his fists toward them; the two take his fist bumps. He then motions them to follow them with a wave of his hand over his shoulder. “Come on out!”

The two friends follow the three members out of the training room and into one of the dark gray-coloured hallways of the GHP headquarters.

“Thanks for coming here and testing your guys’ powers for us!” Sidney pipes up during their ambling.

Nolan shrugs. “Sure thing.”

“It was cool finally fighting like that with my new powers,” Kale speaks up, slowly healing from his pain. “I still need to get used to them though.”

Nolan peers at him with a mocking expression. “Used to having wheat come out instead of a wicked sword?”

“Heh, yeah.”

Patrick leans over with his cool look to peer at the two friends. “And you dudes are more than welcome to come over anytime!”

“You can use the stimulation feature in the training room whenever you’d like,” Jonathan adds on from next to Kale.

“That was a gnarly idea JT man came up with!”

Kale gives them his open smile. “Aw, well, thank you for inviting us over!”

Patrick holds out a thumbs-up to him. “No probs, dudes!”

They then enter the large main room. Sidney halts in front of the archway, causing the others to stop as well. He turns around to face them.

“So, what’d ya guys wanna eat now?” He begins listing the options with his fingers: “Pizza, burritos” —he drops his hand with a mind-racketing question— “maybe I should ask Bubby—”

“Actually, I need to go,” Kale blurts out, darting his eyes to each person. “I have a game tonight— the last preseason game before the regular season begins…!” He takes in a deep breath of nervousness before rambling on and possibly having a meltdown.

Nolan scoffs at him. “Relax a bit, gosh.” He smacks his back. “You’ll end up losing like back there if you don’t loosen up.” He places a hand on his hip. “Learn from me: I fought in a preseason game in my rookie year.” He flawlessly flicks his flowing hair. “That was so great.”

“Yeah, yeah, right…,” Kale mumbles while scratching the back of his neck.

“You got it, Claguer,” Jonathan speaks up to him, “you did great in the other preseason games.” He pats his shoulder.

Kale begins to step away from them and toward the exit, which is on the other side of the main room. “Haha, thanks, yeah…”

Patrick waves to him. “Latronic, dude! Chillax under the Cali sun!”

Kale peers behind his shoulder and waves to them. “Okay, thanks! Bye, guys!”

Sidney waves to him giddily. “Byeee!!!”

With that, Kale crosses the main room and disappears into the tunnel that leads to the exit of the building.

Nolan stares out at the tunnel’s opening with a flat look. “Okay and...leave me here.”

Sidney peers up at Jonathan. “Aren’t you supposed to go if he’s going too?”

Jonathan chuckles, slipping his hands into his pants’ pockets. “He’s leaving way too early. Only rookies arrive at the rink five hours before the game due to jitters.”

Nolan gives him gawk. “Hey…!”

Notes