The Crimson Phoenix

Showing Off.

Bouncing the ball repeatedly, Quincy was sweating badly and his breathing was heavy. He was tired and his heart kept thumping faster than a machine. He was playing with all his strength and he was already at his limit. Leo on the other hand hadn’t broken a sweat at all, mainly because he wasn’t actually putting in too much effort.

Quincy had a habit of always wanting more. Despite Leo beating him with seventy-two points, he was still resisting and his will didn’t waver at all. He also began to spot a pattern in Leo’s moves and he was adapting to it. However, adapting to superhuman abilities is almost an impossible feat for an ordinary human.

Quincy bounced the ball and headed towards Leo who used his super-speed eyes to see through Quincy’s dribble. Everything suddenly became extremely slow in his eyes and Leo smirked, ‘I can do this all day’ He thought. He was thinking about hitting the ball off Quincy’s hand and was just about to spring into action, but Quincy surprised him and suddenly bounced the ball to his other hand, causing Leo’s hand to miss.

‘What!?’ Leo’s eyes were wide open and he was filled with shock, ‘He tricked me!?’ he thought to himself.

Quincy grinned. “You weren’t expecting that were you?” He said as he carried the ball towards the hoop. He had secretly been studying Leo’s movements since they started playing and he had read through Leo's counters. Quincy gave a dominant smile as he went past Leo and scored.

Among the spectators, the coach was watching with conflicted feelings. Her eyes were wide open with surprise, happiness, and disappointment. ‘Leo is injured but yet he can beat Quincy in a one-on-one. I have seen treasure. If I knew he was this good, I would’ve roped him into the club a long time ago. Too bad though, he can’t go on the field looking like that.’ she thought to herself but also began to ponder on Leo's surprising request.

'But thinking about it, he knows he can’t play with that appearance but yet he decided to sign up. Does he have a secret plan?’ The coach kept thinking as she was watching the game between Quincy and Leo. Many of the students there were watching too and most of them were amazed by Leo’s performance.

“Leo is so awesome. Look at him go, he’s faster and stronger than Quincy.” One of the students praised with awe.

“Humph, you don’t know anything about basketball. Quincy has been playing for a long time now and he has a trump card…” another one of the students disagreed with him. Everyone in the place looked at him, waiting for him to complete his statement “He adapts faster than anyone else. The more he plays, the more he’ll get used to it and even strong opponents will be no match for him with time.” He calmly said. Some people nodded and they all turned to face the game. The guy actually didn’t lie and Quincy was already closing in on Leo and giving him a hard time. Their points were still far apart though but the difference kept reducing. Leo is now fifty-five points away from Quincy’s and that initially used to be seventy-two points.

Leo was a bit surprised at how fast Quincy guy learns and how he could see through his tactics. The truth was that Leo had been holding back and this was annoying him. He didn't know how to fully control his powers yet and he was trying to proceed with caution, so as not to expose himself.

But even that couldn't make Quincy beat Leo. If Leo didn’t have powers, he would’ve had a tough time beating Quincy, but Leo wasn't totally depending on his powers. He also had a trump card of his own… he could also change the situation and switch between tactics instantly. This kind of dynamism has always proved to be a threat to opponents and with Leo having powers, it just made his dynamism even more overbearing.

Leo had his hand on the ball and wanted to head for the hoop but was blocked by Quincy. Leo stared at him and he also stared at Leo. He looked tired and was in a bit of a sorry state but he was too excited and wanted to just keep playing until he could catch up with Leo’s points. Leo scoffed, ‘In your dreams man.’ He thought to himself arrogantly.

Quincy tried repeatedly to get the ball off Leo's hands but Leo would take a step back or bounce the ball to Leo's other hand. Suddenly, Leo squinted his eyes and moved. This time around, Leo faked going to the left and Quincy followed but Leo didn’t move too much to the left and the moment Leo shifted back to the right side, Quincy was still able to follow even though Leo went further right than he did left initially. This was a faking too and Quincy was able to block him again which wasn’t beyond Leo’s expectations.

As a result of Leo's enhanced maneuverability, he was able to perform a faking better than others. Leo moved to the left again with an even greater distance than he did right initially which made Quincy come to one conclusion, that was the maximum amount of faking Leo could perform and if he could catch up with it, Leo would have to start his faking all over so Quincy tried his best to block him and he was just about to succeed but Leo disappointed him.

‘I got you right where I want you.’ Leo smirked as he suddenly maneuvered back to the right without even completing his step. This shocked Quincy so much, he wanted to puke. When Leo faked to the left, he acted like he wanted to take a long step and cover a huge distance, this would naturally not have been a faking because the higher the distance of your step, the harder it is to fake and if you try to, you either risk falling or making a mistake and most players don’t take that risk.

Knowing this, Quincy used logic to judge Leo’s movement. Little did he know that Leo had already gone beyond human logic. What made Leo able to fake that was that he used super-speed and made his left foot land way earlier than Quincy’s right foot, making it look like Leo didn’t complete his step. Using this advantage of time, Leo lunged at Quincy’s right side and had already gotten behind Quincy by the time his right foot landed on the ground.

Quincy was shocked at the fact that Leo was in front of him a second ago and I’m suddenly behind him. This was as a result of Leo’s super-speed and enhanced maneuverability. ‘What the hell…’ Quincy thought to himself. The coach and a few students who had their eyes widened by Leo’s movement were shocked. It was not like he became a blur, but he still moved faster than the human concept. ‘So fast…’ the coach thought. Leo had already scored and Quincy was still surprised.

Logan, who was sitting on one of the benches, frowned slightly. ‘Is this guy trying to show off?!’ He thought. He knew clearly that Leo used his powers there and he had a bad feeling about this. He quickly used Leo's phone to make a call.

“Such incredible speed!” Joan exclaimed with a flabbergasted look on her face. This was beyond anything she had seen before and it went beyond her imagination. ‘Is he really injured?’ She found herself asking that question one more time.

Leo tossed the ball to Quincy whose appearance made him pity him. “You okay man? You don’t look so good.” Leo said with concern. Quincy, who was still surprised, snapped out of his daze and faked a laugh.

“What? Pfft, I’m fine. I’m just warming up.” He denied it, but deep in his mind he was like, ‘how in the world should I be fine, I’m already tired after playing for so long with you and you just keep displaying shocking abilities. Just what the hell are you?!’. Leo didn’t want him to collapse so he wanted to finish this up as fast as he could.

“Okay. Let’s have a few more minutes of play.” Leo said as he distanced himself from Quincy. His voice made Quincy know that Leo was hardly even tired at all.

At this moment, a man dressed in black entered the basketball court. He was wearing a black shirt, a brown windbreaker and a pair of black jeans, and a baseball cap which was black too. He had a stout figure and was very fit for his age. He looked around and saw Leo playing basketball which startled him at first.

“It seems that what that boy told me is true.” He said to himself. He received a call from an anonymous contact saying that he should head to the Elian Comprehensive high school. He went to sit on a bench beside a student. Because of the cap, he couldn’t be easily recognized. The person this man sat down with was Logan but Logan didn’t bother about him and he completely ignored the man sitting with him as he was really immersed in the game.

Quincy was already tired but his willpower was the only thing keeping him standing. It was also that willpower, that Leo wanted to crush, in order to end the game fast. Leo went towards Quincy with speed and Quincy wanted to block him. His legs were wide open, wanting to try and counter Leo if he should do that half-faking move again. Leo smiled and bounced the ball in between them and the ball appeared behind him. His attention was taken by the ball, he was surprised as to why Leo would make that move.

He suddenly realized something was wrong and turned to look back at Leo but he was already gone, this shocked him and when he looked back at the ball, he saw that Leo was already with the ball and on his way to score. He dunked the ball and hung on the hoop for a second before coming down.

The face of the dark figure changed. He was filled with surprise and happiness. ‘Interesting.’ He thought to himself.

Quincy frowned and he was already on the verge of giving up. ‘How did he do that? He took advantage of Leo's split-second distraction. Just who is this guy’ Quincy thought, as he turned to give Leo a complicated expression. Leo smiled at him with an innocent face whereas he was laughing out loud like a devil on the inside. ‘Hahaha, you need to see the look on your face hahaha. Had enough yet, hehe’ This was the thought going through his brain.

Quincy was with the ball this time and he came at Leo. Leo blocked him and wanted to get the ball off his hands but he decided to use the same trick again but Leo already had a solution for that. Quincy bounced the ball from his right hand which went between his legs and hit his left hand which was behind his back but his mistake was using that trick against Leo. Leo moved to his left almost as a blur and used his left hand to get the ball away from Quincy’s hands and passed it to his right hand. This greatly alarmed Quincy and his will to play had been depleted greatly. Quincy already knew that the moment the ball reaches Leo's hand, there was nothing he could do about it so he didn’t bother to go after Leo and he decided to save his energy.