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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Well that was probably the worst moment of Gee's life.
And she hasn't even gotten around to telling Nate the whole truth yet, either. If this is how Sage Sawyer reacted, Genesis shudders to think what he'll do.
Gee can't quite believe she lost it like that. And in front of all the Jackalopes too. Luckily, the Jupiter convoy soon makes its way into the town of Lake Zachary. Lake Zachary is a remote holiday village nestled in a small valley surrounded by the Ribald Mountains. As they make their way through winding roads snaking up and up and up, Gee looks out the window to see ragged peaks rising up into the clouds. Even though it's not quite November yet, she can just about glimpse the snow up there.
Like a warning of winter.
Gee hopes the scenery will distract everyone from glancing at her.
Even for just five minutes.
As the convoy passes closer and closer to Lake Zachary High, tall trees of various kinds whip by them, nearly blocking out the already clouded sun. Finally, at the center of the valley, they come upon Lake Zachary itself. The body of water itself is quite large. Deep, but calm. Picturesque.
The bus comes to a stop and everybody piles out. It seems to Genesis they disembark with much more enthusiasm than normal. As if they couldn't wait to free themselves from the metal box they've all been trapped inside with her and Sage for the past several hours. Even Artie's ramp descends just a few seconds faster.
But maybe that's just her imagination...
Despite the hovering guilt and shame dangling over her head, as soon as Gee steps off the bus, she breathes in the fresh mountain air. It smells like pine wood and lake breeze. She lets it soak into her skin.
There isn't much time to meditate upon this, though, because soon the Jackalopes are unloading all their supplies and their overnight bags, releasing their tubs from the row of trailers in front of the bus, and heading down to the visitors' locker room of Howl Court. The room is close by, just across a crumbling parking lot, so they find their way there quite quickly. It's a dingy space, but it'll do. The Jackalopes change into their uniforms.
They put on their game faces.
Gee and Sage's confrontation is forgotten. For now.
This team has work to do.
By the time they climb into their tubs and pound out into the unfamiliar court, rain is falling in unrelenting torrents. At first Gee can hear every splattered raindrop crashing against Phoenix Beacon's hull like a thousand harmless meteorites, but within minutes they all fade into barely audible background noise.
A dull hum for the gut wrenching melodrama called tourneytub.
