Wrangling teenage emotions is hard enough on good days, but what if on bad days they could manifest as giant flesh and blood monsters?
Pacific Rim meets Friday Night Lights as knee-jerk rebel Sage Sawyer is forced to join her high school "tourneytub...
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Friday night and Coach Wu's voice crackles over the comm.
Peter Donkersmit feels something far more than her commands looming over him. But right now, her voice is his immediate concern. So Peter tries to tune everything else out. It's nearly impossible.
The Warren around him is a hive of floodlights and half-hearted rain. It trickles softly against Jolly Roger's window. It's far from a deluge, so the Jackalopes' thaumaturge is easily able to make out the details of the terrain spreading before him.
Each team's turf is flat grass, with a moat dug around both cities. Luckily none of the buildings are scattered. All twenty are in the same place. Easier to defend. Easier to destroy.
"Donkersmit," Coach says, "tonight I want you to just manifest one humor. The Freephalia Thoroughbreds aren't really known for manifesting very original or even effective humors, so I just want to make sure you manifest the biggest baddest single humor you possibly can right before that ump blows her whistle. Then we'll be fine for the rest of the game. Understood?"
Peter can barely whisper out a reply. But he does. Coach seems to find this acceptable, because her quick barks over the comm system move on to other jockeys. This leaves Peter alone with his own thoughts.
In his experience, this is not often a good thing.
The Jackalopes' manifestation station may rise up all around him, but it does nothing to keep all his thoughts away. Peter sees himself reflected in his tub's window: his shoulder length tawny hair, his elongated face, his jutting jaw, his Adam's apple, his essential, inescapable gawkiness...
Peter hates it all.
And then that stupid effing song comes on.
His mother's voice. The nearly shouted lyrics. The Hooks all jamming out along with her. The noise fills the entire stadium. Peter glares at Dr. Howder up in the stands. He assumes this is her doing, somehow. Peter can barely breathe. On the other side of the court, the Thoroughbreds' own thaumaturge manifests a tan colored horse humor. Unlike its natural counterparts, though, the horse stands about fifteen feet high. It starts cantering around its own manifestation station, tossing its head to and fro.
Ready for battle.
Peter may not be able to breathe properly, but he has no choice.
It's time to manifest another humor.
He leans forward in his cockpit's seat, ignoring the sweat now trickling down his forehead. It's nowhere near warm outside, but in here it feels like a million degrees. Peter pushes it all away. He lets out a brown cloud, floating down the humor horn and expelling itself from Jolly Roger. The cloud pools on the manifestation station ground and then begins to coalesce into a hauntingly familiar face. Or lack thereof. Tawny hair. A gawky frame.
