A bit of silliness co-written with Raphiael, inspired by fe_contest's sixteenth prompt "The Line". It may or may not end up being an actual submission. Also posted at Raphiael's LJ.
The air was filled with the echoing thunder of balls crashing against the walls. Ephraim ducked as another microfoam sphere of certain death (or at least shame) whirred over his head.
He heard the telltale thud of ball hitting flesh, and didn't need to turn around to know which of his teammates had been hit - Neimi's unmistakable wail gave her away. He grimaced and dove for the ball, catching it just before it rolled back out of bounds and hurling it toward the other side of the gym. Just as quickly, he leapt back from the line marking the middle of the gym floor, with no time to be disappointed at the hollow ring of his ball against the floor. He looked up, and Eirika had already spotted him, ball in hand.
The fact that she was his twin only made him especially concerned. Both of them took particular delight in aiming at their friends.
Eirika's aim was near perfect. Thankfully, so was Ephraim's lunge to the side, just in the nick of time, letting the ball connect with the back wall instead of his torso. It rolled out of sight, and Ephraim stepped further away from the other side, letting the others take aim as he scrambled for ammunition.
Eirika's blue ball bounced idly alongside an orange one. Ephraim snatched both of them and stuffed one under his left arm as he scanned the gym to assess the situation. So far, this game looked surprisingly indecisive. Team Valni had reigned supreme for most of the year. Sure, Team Lagdou had Innes and Eirika, but they were also stuck with Lyon and Knoll, who mostly hid out in the back of the court with wide eyes, shyly turning to one side or the other to avoid getting hit. Team Valni had Ephraim, as well as Duessel and Valter, and as much as Ephraim hated Valter's guts he begrudgingly admitted that his throwing arm was useful for maintaining the dominance of Team Valni.
He watched as a ball from that same useful throwing arm shot through the air and hit its target at full force. Not that the target was hard to miss - Dozla was not at all a slight or sprightly student, and never really had been. Ephraim took a moment to toss the orange ball to the unarmed Duessel before lobbing the blue one back across. His shot connected with Saleh, sending both him and his glasses flying backward. Behind him, he heard a "For great justice!" from the boisterous class president, L'Arachel - in hindsight, elected largely because no one else had cared as much.
Duessel flung his own ball with aim and speed that Ephraim couldn't help but admire. For just a moment, he thought about how Duessel had transformed him from "that freshman who somehow made it into varsity football, probably because his dad knows the principal" into next year's star quarterback. This would be Duessel's last year-end dodgeball game, and Ephraim swore that it'd be a legend for all of Emblem High to remember.
(Or at least until the next year-end dodgeball game.)
Duessel's ball made a perfect arc across the line, the sort of graceful path Ephraim could only dream of creating. He watched, stunned at the sight of its exemplary curve, right up until it met its resting place. Between Innes' hands.
"I caught it; you're out!" Innes shouted over the chaos as Ephraim stared on in shock. The field of battle seemed to move in slow motion as Duessel, ever a sportsman, gave a nod and retreated to the sidelines. A true dodgeball hero until the very end.
Something bumped against Ephraim's foot. He looked down and picked up the ball and met Innes's eyes. Innes struck first, pitching the ball a little far to the right in his haste. Ephraim quickly dodged it before returning fire; Innes leapt away and the ball bounced off from the ground where he had stood. Out of ammunition, both of them retreated from the danger zone.
As Ephraim made it into safety, Valter lunged into his place, orange ball still clenched tight between his fingers. He looked to the side, where Mr. Haar was "observing" in his usual napping fashion, before curling his lips into the kind of smile that always made Ephraim's skin crawl. With undoubtedly deliberate force, he lobbed the ball at the back wall, letting it fly straight toward the spot in the back where Lyon and Knoll tended to hide. Despite himself, Ephraim winced, expecting to hear the usual moan of despair Lyon tended to give when he was hit. Instead, he watched with awe as Knoll, with all the speed a quiet science geek was probably capable of, dove in and took the hit. It wasn't until Ephraim heard something about "inhaler please" from the other side of the gym that he shot a pointed glare in Valter's direction.
Valter gave a cloying smile back, as if to say, What? We're going to win this, Renais.
Ephraim ignored the small tear-stained drama of true bromance at the other end of the gym and preoccupied himself with finding a ball.
It wasn't until he was forced to dart to the back of the gym for a lone purple ball that he realized that the other side must be employing the most disgraceful strategy of all time: Let Them Run Out of Ammunition While Holding Up The Natural Speed Of The Game. Innes's brainchild, no doubt. Ephraim squeezed holes in the ball's rubber covering as his eyes darted from Innes, to Eirika, to Lyon. They had six people left and must've been getting desperate. Team Valni had twelve, but he wasn't sure how many would survive the oncoming volley.
It was only a matter of time. Ephraim wasn't sure whether it was Innes or Eirika or someone else entirely who finally gave the command: Now!All he knew was the chaos that ensued - the bright yellow ball that wizzed just over his head, the half-deflated green one that barely missed his leg, the shouts of his comrades as one by one they began to go down.
Many a valiant warrior fell that day: Moulder, who fell to Eirika; Syrene, shot down by Innes's aim; L'Arachel, struck by none other than Lyon. At the end, when the bulk of the onslaught had ended - Ephraim still burying his nails in the flesh of the purple ball - he counted three men (and women) standing on Team Valni. Himself, Tethys, and Valter (of course).
Unfortunately for Team Lagdou, in their haste they had allowed Team Valni to gain the same advantage they had before. There were perhaps 3 balls left on the other side of the gym, strewn far to the corners, but Ephraim was not one to employ such dirty strategies. No, he would uphold honor and sportsmanship - just as Duessel would have in his place. He slowly released his vicegrip on the purple ball and let it go sailing across the gym again, up over Tethys' head and into enemy territory.
He heard the thud of success and snatched a few balls as he saw Artur make his way to the sidelines out of the corner of his eye. Re-armed, he looked for his next target.
And that was when he saw the ball hurtling toward Eirika's face with brutal speed.
Crack.
It took a moment for Ephraim to piece together what had happened. A shout of pain, a stumble, the heavy sound of sneakered footsteps pounding on the floor. When his mind cleared, he saw it: blood seeping from between Eirika's fingers, clutched to her nose, and out of the corner of his eye, Valter smirking and readying another ball.
"She's out," he said with a sneer, and despite the tears Ephraim could see forming at his sister's eyes, she complied.
Boos arose from the sidelines of both teams. Ephraim would have pelted Valter himself if the response from the crowd hadn't woken Mr. Haar. The events of the next few seconds were muted with rage in his memory: Cormag caught Tethys's ball. Valter pelted Cormag. Ephraim pierced the rubber lining of yet another gym ball and barely noticed Innes's sharp assault until he noticed a ball moving with alarming speed in his general direction.
Had it been meant for him, Ephraim would've undoubtedly been struck out. But the ball whipped past Ephraim and to its target. Despite the fury and force behind it, it was a clean hit with its intended target, completely fair game.
Valter doubled over as the firm rubber hit his stomach, hard enough that it would surely bruise. An objection began to rise from his throat - "Not fair, that was too hard!" - but Innes coldly pointed to the sidelines, where both teams were cheering him on.
Their cheers abruptly simmered into silence as a ball suddenly struck Innes squarely on one shoulder. The gym's collective attention turned to Ephraim, arm still curved from his follow-through.
They did not boo. Ephraim was the last man standing in Team Valni, after all. The crowd did not judge him, but Innes tilted his chin just so, as if to say, Is that the only way you can defeat me? And after I'd done you a favor? before announcing, "I'm out."
Silence fell over the gymnasium. One man left on each side. Ephraim, with a finger-pierced ball at his feet. Lyon, lurking at the edge of the wall, eyes wide, breath short. Each stepped forward, Lyon with more temerity than Ephraim had ever borne, Ephraim with the purposeful gait even Duessel had never perfected. The only out player without their gaze fixed on the proceedings was Innes, who was holding the tissues to Eirika's nose as she looked on.
Lyon weakly lobbed a ball, and Ephraim watched it sail two feet to his left. Strangely prickled by Innes's departure, Ephraim looked again at the sidelines, where Duessel watched him with not anticipation, but seriousness.
The last dodgeball game of the year, down to the very last man. A tale that would doubtlessly inundate the halls in the coming fall and cloak the freshmen with words of Ephraim's glorious dodgeball supremacy. Duessel watched him measuredly, his beard accenting his sternness. Eirika watched Lyon, disappointment working its way from behind the tissue and into her eyebrows. Innes frowned; Valter smiled.
Each remaining player took a ball in his hand and stepped up to the center. As Ephraim raised his arm, the outcome seemed obvious.
Until he stepped, with a single decisive stride, over the line.