A/N: Co-author: Ember Nickel. (,): thoughtspeak. Yada yada.

"Who could it be at this hour?" Erek sarcastically opened his door.

"Hi, Erek." Jake invited himself in. "What do you know about football?"

"Very little, however, I could hack the fantasy servers for you if you needed."

Ignoring Marco's gleeful look, Jake sat down. "Guess what the Ellimist wants us to do."

"If I started, I'd go on all night."

"Play flag football!" Cassie cried. "And he wants to bring peace to the galaxy!"

"Beats the alternative." Erek closed the door, letting Ax and Tobias demorph.

(So can you assist us?) Ax inquired.

"As far as actual playing goes, I could kick the ball at a velocity of…" Erek relaxed his hologram to calculate. "rivaling the escape velocity of this planet."

"That's great," Marco rolled his eyes. "Why don't you two nerds duke that out, and the rest of us will…uh…What are we going to do?"

"Make a game plan. How many on a team?" asked Rachel.

"Eleven at a time in real football, I dunno about flag though," Jake replied. "So can we get five Chee?"

"We'll need more than five." Cassie tried to be casual about her comment, but failed.

"What? Six of us plus five is eleven."

"Yeah, but we won't all play."

"Sure we will!"

"Ax and Tobias?"

"They can morph human."

"But what about me?"

"You don't have to morph."

"But I don't want to play football."

Rachel knew there were times when she could win an argument, and times when it wasn't worth it. Erek returned from linking up with other Chee. "They're debating it: it's somewhat violent, and we don't know if we'll be able to manage."

Cassie smirked.

"So," Jake kept them serious, "do we know who we'll be…opposing? Maybe the Howlers again?"

"I doubt it," Marco replied. "Crayak's probably got lots of weird aliens at his command."

(But flag football players?) Tobias pointed out. (And why call on us again?)

"One last time, he said," Jake remembered. "Does that mean it'll be over after this?"

"The whole universe coming down to a flag football game?" Rachel laughed.

"If it is," Cassie prophesied, "then win or lose, we're doomed."