Later that night in Downtown Los Angeles, the Staples Center is buzzing with black and white-decked Kings fans, purple and white lights shining from the arena, and chattering mingling with cars roaring by.

Inside the massive building is the Kings home locker room. In the lively locker room, the Kings themselves are suiting up for their last preseason of the game.

Kale is in his stall, tucked in the corner. He leans over his lap to tug on the skates’ laces, tighten them.

“Should we do it?” an excited, slightly squeaky voice pipes up.

“Shush!” a gruff voice hushes. “Not here!”

“No, no,” a Slovenian-accented, calm voice speaks up, “now is not the right time.”

Kale halts his tying at the voices with a surprised look.

“But he’s here!” the excited voice cries out. “The rookie is right here!”

A look of suspicion grows on his face with scrunched eyebrows and a frown.

“He’s busy, can’t you see?” the gruff voice snaps.

Kale cranes his head up from his skates and peers across the room to discover the owners of the voices. He spots in the three centre stalls of the room, the top three respected Kings’ skaters staring right at him:

Closest to him is a skater with brown eyes, slick, dark brown hair, a full beard, and a missing tooth. This is Drew Doughty, the alternate captain of the Los Angeles Kings. In the middle is a shorter skater with wavy brown hair, sunken, gray eyes with dark circles, and stubble. This is Anže Kopitar, the captain of the Los Angeles Kings. The farthest skater from Kale is an older-appearing man with dirty blond hair spiked up, gray eyes, and a rough, solemn physique overall. This is Jeff Carter, the other alternate captain of the Los Angeles Kings.

Drew whirls back to the other two from his stall. “Now he’s not. He’s looking around like a dog on guard.”

Anže’s hollowed eyes light up. “Alertness. I like that!”

Jeff furrows his eyebrows at Anže with disapproval. “That’s because he can hear us!” He glances at Kale.

Kale is still staring at the three with formidable anticipation.

“See?” Jeff turns back to the two and raises a hand at Kale. “He knows we’re talking about him!” He drops his hand and looks back ahead at Kale’s direction.

Driven by curiosity, Kale rises to his skates’ blades and trudges up to them.

Jeff rolls his eyes as he faces the two. “Oh, good going, guys, he’s coming up to us!”

Kale halts in front of Anže and peers down at the three. “Are you guys talking about me?” he asks with skeptical inquisitiveness. “What are you guys talking about? Why are you guys talking about me—?”

Anže raises a pointer finger up to him. “Hush, hush, rookie, I’ll give you an answer to your questions. But for now—” He reverts his finger to aim at Kale’s stall: “—go back to getting ready for the game.”

Kale gawks at him. “But you guys were talking about—”

“Captain’s orders!” Jeff barks.

“Hey!” Drew frowns at him with an infantile aura. “Alternate captains don’t have the power to implement captain’s orders!”

Anže lowers his finger and calmly proclaims, “Captain’s orders.”

Kale lets out a heavy sigh, still stuck in his irking confusion toward what the three were discussing about him. He reluctantly turns around and lumbers back across the room to his stall.

Once Kale has sat down in his stall and resumes his skate-typing, Anže turns his head from side to side to peer at his two alternate captains.

“We shall tell him when he scores a hat trick,” he tells the two, completely composed.

Jeff holds his hand out toward Kale’s direction. “I thought you said when he fights!”

“No…” Anže slowly shakes his head with closed eyes. “...he’s not a fighter from looking at his junior footage.” He halts his movements and peers back up at him. “Besides, we got enough fighters.”

---

Soon afterward, the last 2018 preseason game for the Kings has begun! The Kings play marvellously in front of their crowd of black-dressed fans, making them cheer for them with each goal they score against their loathed rival, the Anaheim Ducks. The horn blows, the sirens flash red, the song bursts through the speakers, and the scoreboard displays the score on with bright pixels: zero to three, Kings with the lead in the middle of the third period.

In the centre face-off after the goal, Ryan Getzlaf wins the face-off against Anže Kopitar, batting the puck to Ryan Kesler.

Ryan advances down the ice and into Kings’ territory, forcing the team in black to defend as the team in white position themselves to attempt putting themselves on the scoreboard.

Kale rushes backward to the edge of the crease in the slot and brakes slightly in front of Jonathan to face the action. He spots the puck by the blue line, being passed by defencemen Brandon Montour and Hampus Lindholm. Then, Nick Ritchie parks his large form in front of Kale with his blade toward the gap between Jonathan’s skate and the post.

Tapping into his skills, Kale pokes his stick at Nick’s stick, attempting to pull it off the ice or serve as a distraction to avoid the burly forward from putting the puck in, if he receives it.

Nick responds by jabbing his stick against Kale’s stick, pushing it away to increase his chance of scoring if he gets the puck.

Frustration and determination flood Kale, his mind aiming at the goal of defending well in order to keep the shutout. He whacks his stick against Nick’s stick, pressing his arms against his back. Nick gives a bigger response by pushing himself into Kale.

Kale extracts his force into his feet, digging the blades of his skates into the ice to avoid stumbling into the goalie. He holds his stance firmly and shoves Nick with his arms, angered by the forward’s response.

Nick elbows him back against his torso, shooting pain and annoyance into Kale. Kale rams himself into the hulking forward, causing him to whirl around to face him and shove him with his two hands with a blunt force.

Kale stumbles back, tripping on his skates in an attempt to regain his balance and not slam into the pipes of the net. He softly hits the corner of the crossbar and the post, which catches him. Kale stares up at Nick, taking in his enraged expression.

Although Nick towers over Kale and beats him by a large margin in weight, fury eats up Kale’s judgement, his mind only wanting to not only defend this forward but also knock him over.

Kale instantly shoves his stick horizontally against Nick’s chest as a way to attack and let out his anger.

Nick does not budge. He instead shakes off his gloves and stick, grabs Kale’s jersey’s collar, yanking him toward him, and uses his other hand to slam a fist into his cheek.

Fizzing pain bursts all around the right side of Kale’s face at the source of impact. He grimaces at the uncomfortable sensation, immediately letting fear douse his fiery anger. Kale cranes his head back as he drops his stick and raises his arms over his head as a way to defend his face from the punches Nick is landing on him.

Each blowing impact shakes Kale’s frame, having his teeth bared as his eyes are squeezed shut and eyebrows are knitted tightly. He attempts to pull himself away from the forward’s grasp, but his grip is like made of iron: he cannot move right or left or backward; he is stuck in place with no escape.

Panic begins to arise in Kale at his agonizing situation: his breathing gets heavier and louder, his heart slams against his chest, whimpers begin to escape from his mouth. His mind scrambles to find a way to rip away from the fist of the predicament, yet with each twist and turn, the blows become harder, the situation becomes more pressured. His thoughts are sinking in the stress of the situation, his feelings are being mingled in with the buzzing pain coursing around his arms and head as his helmet flies off, his chest warms up, his hands are beginning to get filled with a soothing, warm flow, his chest bubbles with a raging surge—

BOOOM!!!

Kale lurches backward as a torrent of vibrant, violet energy blasts out of his chest and hands. The energy flies into Nick, knocking him off his blades and hurling him through the air before thrusting him through the glass on the other side of the rink and into the ice resurfacing tunnel.

And everything. Grows. Silent.

Kale holds his stance with his arms held out in a post-energy release pose as he stares ahead in utter shock. His jaw is hung open with his eyes as wide as pucks.

The shattered glass on the edges tinkers and clatters onto the ice and the spongy floor on the other side of the boards.

Kale’s heart instantly drops as nausea grips his stomach. He slowly reverts his eyes to spot the rest of the arena:

The hockey players have stopped their hustling in the Kings’ territory.

The fans have also stopped their chanting and chattering.

The reporters sitting up in the reporting booth even stopped their reporting.

And all their eyes are on Kale.

“Oh myyyy…,” Kale forces out.

He swings his eyes to the referees. Even they are staring at him with fright and silence.

Horror fills Kale as he absorbs the shaken room; he swallows in an attempt to control his bubbling emotions of distraught. “Oh my, oh my, oh my…” He drops his arms, still staring ahead in a daze. “...I am-I am so sorry, oh my goodness, I-I don’t know—”

Kale cuts into his rambling by skating forward toward the closest referee, who is by the blue line.

He brakes next to him and looks into his panic-filled eyes with his palms facing him. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, I’m leaving, I’m leaving now, don’t worry about me.”

With that, Kale bolts across the width of the ice, hops into the home bench, and rushes off as best as possible with skates into the tunnel, leaving the whole arena in bewilderment and shock.

Notes