5. P R E D A T O R S : Nightmares

Part I: CHAPTER VII

Autumn fell over onto his back, breathing heavily. "Winter, please!" he groaned. "We've been playing for three hours!"

"You're the one who said I need practice!" Winter said accusingly, dribbling the ball on Autumn's stomach. "So come on! I gotta practice!"

"You've been practicing!" Autumn wheezed. "Why don't you take a water break?!"

"Or how about we go two-on-two?"

Autumn lifted his head. Winter caught the ball and turned around, holding it to his hip.

Christine the Aquian and Rusty the dog, Autumn's arch-nemesis, had just entered the gym, the latter of whom had put forth the challenge. "'less you're chicken, of course," Rusty sneered, spinning his own ball on a claw.

Autumn let his head fall back to the floor and stared at the ceiling. "Why me?" he moaned.

-

After a long, grueling game filled with plenty of trash talk and, of course, uncalled flagrant fouls, Rusty and Christine ended up winning 21 to 12 (Winter scored all 12 points).

"HA! Tough luck, doe-boy!" Rusty crowed as Christine nailed a two-pointer for the win. "Take this hard L!"

"Whatever, Ruben." Autumn mussed Winter's hair and said, "We'll get 'em next time, right, Winter?"

"Right!" Winter crossed his arms and stuck out his tongue at Rusty.

"Fat chance, midget." Rusty caught the ball as Christine passed it to him and said, "C'mon, Chris—let's go find some real competition."

Christine glanced at Autumn and Winter—then picked up their ball and followed Rusty out of the gym.

"Hey, that's—" Autumn stopped and sighed. "Ah, never mind. We needed a new one, anyway."

Winter looked up at his older brother. "You know what you need, Autumn?"

"What's that, squirt?"

"A backbone."

Autumn rolled his eyes. "Hilarious."

-

"Did you see my jumper, Chris? It was wet!" Rusty mimicked his shooting motion and cackled gleefully. "Those wimps didn't stand a chance!"

"Yeah, yeah." Christine rolled her eyes. "Keep talkin' about it and your head'll get bigger than it already is."

"You're just jealous your shot isn't as good as mine," Rusty taunted her.

"I scored fifteen—"

"Anyway, follow me," Rusty interrupted. "I wanna show you something cool."

"Is there anything left for you to show me? I've seen practically everything you have," Christine pointed out. Then she scrunched up her face and added, "And that's kind of a problem."

"Aw, don't pretend like you didn't enjoy that time we—"

"What did you wanna show me?" Christine broke in, her face flushing with annoyance.

Rusty pushed open the door they were standing front of, which led into the boys' locker room. "A bit of Z.P.A. men's history," he replied, gesturing with a grin.

"Oh, gross!" Christine covered her nose. "Smells like dead people and butt in here!"

"That's Z.P.A. men's history, baby," Rusty said, still grinning as he led Christine deeper into the locker room.