The soft chime of his phone pulled Leo from the glowing replay hovering before his eyes.
On the ghostly screen, his own stumbling form was frozen mid-fall, a red arrow marking the precise angle of Rin's winning tackle. He blinked the projection away and fished the device from his pocket.
A text from his mother.
"Come home soon. Dinner's almost ready."
His thumbs moved over the screen.
"Okay. On my way now. Thanks, mum."
He shouldered his backpack. The fifty-dollar bill in his pocket no longer felt like paper. It felt like a token, a small, heavy chance. As he walked, his mind whispered a command to the system still active behind his father's lenses.
"Review."
The world around him became a pale backdrop on his way home. A life-sized, translucent Leo and a ghostly Rin re-enacted their one-sided match on the sidewalk before him.
Red lines highlighted his poor positioning. Blue arrows dissected Rin's superior angles. White text scrolled with a cold, clinical efficiency.
[ERROR AT 02:14. TOO HEAVY A TOUCH. BALL CONTROL LOST.]
[ERROR AT 07:52. HESITATION. SHOT OPPORTUNITY LOST.]
[ANALYSIS. PHYSICAL STATS ARE PRIMARY CONSTRAINT.]
[AGI INSUFFICIENT. VIT INSUFFICIENT.]
[INTENSE TRAINING REQUIRED!]
He was a spectator to his own failure, studying the blueprint of his humiliation. He was so engrossed in the phantom game, he did not see the large figure emerge from the corner bodega until it was too late.
The impact was solid. Leo stumbled back, the holographic display flickering out like a popped soap bubble. The world snapped back into ordinary, painful focus.
"Watch where you're going, freak!"
Leo looked up into the furious, doughy face of a man in a stained leather jacket. The man had been holding a large, soft drink. The collision sent it tumbling. Ice and brown liquid splashed across the man's boots and the concrete.
"You ruined my shoes!" the man roared, his anger instant and volcanic. He shoved Leo hard, a meaty palm slamming into his chest. Leo's back hit the brick wall of a storefront, the air leaving his lungs in a pained gasp.
A paper fell from the man's hand. Leo's eyes tracked it. He could tell it was a betting slip. He just happened to piss of a man who was down on his luck.
Before Leo could even form the word 'sorry,' the man drew his fist back. It was a big fist, knuckles scarred. Time did not slow. It crystallized.
Adrenaline was a fire in Leo's veins. And with it, the G.O.A.L. System ignited.
[THREAT DETECTED. NON-COMBAT PARAMETERS ENGAGED.]
[SCANNING ENVIRONMENT FOR SOLUTIONS.]
His Perception, a stat of 92 burning like a star in his mind, expanded. He saw everything, all at once. The thug's weight shifting onto his front foot. The slight drop of his right shoulder telegraphing the punch. The condensation on the broken cup on the ground. And in the high periphery of his vision, something else. A distant, airborne object.
A stray football, kicked from a lit lot half a block down, was sailing in a high, lazy arc. Its trajectory was a glowing, golden line painted across Leo's vision. It was coming directly toward them, a brown speck against the twilight.
The system connected the dots in a nanosecond.
[INCOMING PROJECTILE IDENTIFIED. ASSET DESIGNATED.]
[TARGET ACQUIRED. METAL PUBLIC WASTE RECEPTACLE.]
[SOLUTION PATH CALCULATED.]
[OBJECTIVE: SCORE.]
A new, shimmering path overlaid the scene. A dotted blue line showed him: DUCK LEFT. USE OPPONENT'S COMMITTED MOMENTUM. INTERCEPT BALL AT COORDINATES 2.4, -1.1. STRIKE WITH RIGHT CLAVICLE REGION. ANGLE 72 DEGREES.
It was not a thought. It was an instruction etched into his nervous system.
The thug's fist uncoiled, a blur of violent intent.
Leo moved.
He dropped into a low crouch, jerking his body to the left. The man's punch hissed through the empty air where Leo's head had been. His own force carried him stumbling forward, off-balance and grunting in surprise.
As Leo rose from the crouch, the football descended from the sky as if on a string. It fell perfectly into the space he now occupied. A bright, pulsing X glowed on its surface.
Leo did not try to catch it. He followed the instinct and the geometry. He thrust his upper body upward, twisting his torso. He met the ball not with his foot, but with the bony shelf of his right shoulder.
The connection was a deep, muffled thump. It sent a jolt of sharp pain down his arm.
The ball did not soar. It launched. It became a brown missile, streaking away on a flat, line-drive trajectory. It missed the stunned, stumbling thug's ear by less than an inch, a whisper of air in its wake.
Twenty feet away, the opening of a green metal waste bin hung like a silent mouth.
The ball found it with unerring accuracy.
CLANG.
The sound was profound, a ringing, metallic gong that echoed down the quiet street. The entire bin shuddered on its stand, the noise swallowing all other sound.
"Goal!" Some kids roared.
Silence, thick and immediate, followed the echo.
The thug stood frozen, his fist still extended, staring at the vibrating bin. His expression cycled from rage, to shock, to a kind of superstitious confusion.
He looked from the bin to Leo, who stood panting, his shoulder throbbing. The kids in the distant lot had stopped their game. They were statues, staring.
The thug's confusion hardened back into a darker, uglier anger. The public strangeness of it all demanded a more definitive response. "You think you're funny?" he snarled, and lunged again, this time to grab.
WHUMP.
The heavy metal security door of the shop behind Leo swung outward with sudden, solid force. It caught the man squarely in the ribs, lifting him off his feet and sending him sprawling into the gutter with a choked cry of pain.
"Problem here, son?"
Leo turned, heart hammering. He was standing directly before a shop called Hal's Sports Gear.
In the doorway stood a man who looked carved from an old tree trunk. He wore a faded apron over a broad chest, his arms crossed. His face was weathered, his eyes a sharp, calm blue that took in the scene; the thug in the gutter, the football now rolling near the curb and Leo with his glasses askew without a flicker of surprise.
He directed his gaze at the thug. "You lost?"
The man in the gutter scrambled to his feet, clutching his side. He muttered a string of curses, shot a last, bewildered look at the waste bin, and hurried away into the gathering dark.
The man in the apron then turned to Leo. His eyes, however, went not to Leo's face, but to the glasses on it. He studied them for a long moment.
"Those are some serious frames," the man said, his voice a low rumble. "Mind?"
Hesitantly, Leo took them off. The world became a soft, unfocused painting. The man, who said his name was Hal, took them with a surprising gentleness. He held them up to the light from the shop window, his thick thumb tracing the line of the right temple. His thumb paused. He had found the inscription.
For David, who sees the whole field. - Always, Clara.
Hal's breath left him in a quiet sigh. He looked from the glasses to Leo's face, and his expression shifted. The sharpness melted into a deep, poignant recognition.
"You're David's boy," he said. It was not a question. "Leo. He talked about you all the time." He handed the glasses back as if returning a crown jewel. "I played midfield with your dad at State. Best football brain I ever shared a pitch with. He saw passes that weren't even there yet. I still miss his ass."
He looked Leo up and down, his gaze missing nothing: the worn sneakers, the grass-stained knees, the determined, desperate set of his jaw beneath the fear. "So. What brings you to my doorstep with trouble on your tail?"
Wordlessly, Leo pulled the crumpled fifty from his pocket. It was damp with sweat. "I need the junior team kit. For tryouts."
Hal looked at the bill, then back at Leo's face. He gave a single, slow nod and jerked his head toward the interior. "Come on in."
The shop was a cavern of possibility. The smell of rubber and clean polyester filled the air. Racks of jerseys stood like soldiers.
Hal went straight to a wall and pulled down a set. A home kit in the school's blue and white. The jersey felt crisp and new. The price tag dangling from the shorts read $99.99.
Hal bundled it into Leo's arms. "Fifty bucks. That's my price."
Leo stared. "Sir, the tag—"
"Tag says what I tell it to say," Hal said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He leaned on the glass counter, which held displays of gleaming whistles and goalkeeper gloves.
"You know, my daughter's about your age. Plays striker for the girls' varsity team. She's good. Scary good. But she complains the boys she trains with just boot the ball. No vision." He gave Leo a long, appraising look. "No one who sees the game. If you're serious about this… and if those glasses help you see even a shadow of what your dad saw… you should come train with her. She needs the challenge. You might, too."
It was not a gift. It was an invitation. A door.
"Thank you, sir," Leo said, his voice rough. "I will."
Hal nodded, a satisfied grimace that was almost a smile. "Good. Now get that kit home. And send my regards to Clara."
Leo walked out of the shop, the new fabric soft and promising against his chest. The door chimed a gentle bell behind him. He put his father's glasses back on. The street snapped into hyper-clarity, every crack in the pavement a canyon.
[NEW ALLY REGISTERED. HAL.]
[NEW OBJECTIVE LOGGED: TRAIN WITH HAL'S DAUGHTER.]
[CURRENT FUNDS: ZERO. PRIMARY KIT. ACQUIRED.]
He had no money. He had a throbbing shoulder. He had the ghost of a bully's rage still humming in the air.
But standing under the neon glow of Hal's Sports Gear, Leo Reed felt something new. It was not hope, not quite. It was the solid click of a gear engaging. The first, real step onto a path.
The grind, he understood now, was not just on the pitch. It was everywhere. And he had just passed his first, unexpected test.