Sean Wolfe - The New Order

“Oh yeah!” cried Kat as she caught the shovel and pumped her fist in the air.

“You’re right, Ben! We’re gonna win ’cause we’re awesome, unstoppable, and, most important, we’ve got me ! So let’s go!” cried DZ, just as the mechanical door swung open. DZ rushed out, followed quickly by Ben and Kat. All three of them were hyped up, and the crowd greeted them with raucous applause. Kat’s eyes adjusted to the bright light of the open-skied Spleef arena, and her jaw dropped.

Inside the fifty-by-fifty-block arena, surrounded on all sides by screaming fans, was a bona fide forest. Trees sprouted from the flat dirt ground, which Kat knew to be only a block thick. The trees covered a good portion of the arena. It would lead to various trapping and ambush techniques by the two teams.

Kat was shocked. It was her third official Spleef match, but this was by far the most complex arena she had seen. In their preliminary match, the arena had been the standard level surface constructed of snow blocks. Kat had liked that arena. Breaking the snow blocks had yielded snowballs, which Kat had thrown to great effect, knocking two of her opponents into the pit below.

The object of Spleef was pretty simple. In a fifty-by-fifty-block arena, with the floor only one block thick, two teams fought to knock each other into the pit below by destroying the floor and knocking their opponents into the holes using shovels and snowballs. The last team with a player standing won.

Kat, Ben and DZ, the three members of the Zombie team, had easily managed to take out the Wolves in the qualifying round. However, they had barely notched a victory against the Ghasts on a tundra field in the preliminary round. Now, in their quarterfinal round against the Blazes, they would be fighting in a forest.

Kat heard the tell-tale creak and click of the iron door swinging shut behind her, indicating that the match had officially begun. As was her pre-game strategy, she focused on the environment around her, completely ignoring the open blue skies above and the cheering of the fanatic crowds. She only allowed herself to be aware of the woodland that had been constructed around her and the two players at her side. They were now the only players she could trust until she left the arena.

Suddenly, the sky turned black, and all was silent. She had tapped into some primordial survival instinct, and now imagined herself standing in a silent forest at night. Somewhere in these woods were evil monsters, all working for a team called the Blazes. The only way for her to escape was to take them down with the help of her friends beside her.

Kat realized that DZ was motioning her and Ben forwards. As he was their team leader, Kat followed his order. She trailed DZ into the maze of trees, aware that Ben was watching her back. Kat was confident following DZ into the arena. He was a fantastic leader and had a ton of knowledge about Spleef strategy, built up from playing professionally back before the game was banned. While the other teams used the strategy of spreading out, DZ had explicitly told them that the best strategy was to stick together and watch one another’s backs.

Suddenly, Ben cried out in alarm, and Kat spun her head towards the source. A player, clad in bright orange leather armour, had burst around the side of the nearest tree, bringing his shovel down onto the dirt block beneath Kat’s feet. She leaped backwards as the block broke, revealing a pit of water below. Ben lunged forwards and swung his shovel across the assailant’s chest.

As Kat regained her footing, she became aware of DZ locking shovels with a second member of the Blazes and quickly overpowering him. Kat turned and saw both Ben and the other Blaze fall to the ground at the same time. Kat stepped forwards and drove her shovel into the block beneath the fallen Blaze, sending him tumbling into the pit below. She quickly turned back to DZ and saw that he had caught the other Blaze off guard, opening a hole in the ground behind him and kicking him into it.

Kat was jubilant. They were up three to one, with only one more Blaze standing between them and the semifinals. As the applause died down, Kat followed DZ’s motion for a team huddle.

“All right you guys, good work so far, but I think it’s time to switch our strategy. Execute Operation Zombie Swarm.”

“Right,” replied Kat and Ben in unison, and they spread out around the edge of the arena and eventually lost sight of one another. In Operation Zombie Swarm, they would all hunt the remaining Blaze separately. If they found him, they would play defence and call in their teammates for backup.

Kat quietly snuck forwards through the trees, her ears perked up, tuning out the roar of the crowd to listen for any unnatural noises that indicated an impending attack. Her eyes scanned the gaps between the trees. Suddenly, she caught a flash of orange behind one of the pillars of wood before it hastily disappeared. Wasting no time, Kat called out to her teammates and sprinted after the orange form. Kat burst into the clearing where she was sure the player had gone, but it was deserted.

Kat only had a moment to consider what to do next before someone crashed into her side, and she hit the ground tumbling. Dazed, she pulled herself up in time to see the dirt beneath Ben’s feet bursting into nothing as he fell into the pit below. An orange figure was standing there, shovel in hand. It was Ben who had knocked Kat out of the way, even though it meant falling into the pit below himself.

Kat hopped up and attacked the remaining Blaze with a shovel, just as DZ burst from behind a tree and did the same. This Blaze was exceptionally skilled, as he dodged both attacks and then swung his shovel into DZ. By the time Kat had recovered from her missed attack, the Blaze had tricked DZ. He took one wrong step and plunged into the same hole that Ben had fallen into.

Kat gritted her teeth, determined not to lose, and rushed at the remaining Blaze. She leaped into the air just as the player destroyed the dirt block beneath her. Kat reached out her left hand and tackled the Blaze to the ground, pinning him beneath her. In his daze, the player was powerless to stop Kat as she brought her diamond shovel up in her right hand, and in two jabs destroyed the dirt below them. Kat kicked off the player’s stomach, forcing him downwards to join Ben, DZ, and the two other Blazes as Kat landed safely on the soil above.

The match now over, Kat took in the tumultuous applause from the crowd around her. She waved to them all, a huge grin breaking across her face. From the pit below, she heard the hoots and cheers of Ben and DZ, praising their teammate for her victory.

Oh man , thought Kat as the glow of victory radiated from her face like sunbeams. Three matches down, two to go!

Stan was now well below the stands, but he could still hear the sound erupting from the crowd above. Stan and Charlie had to push their way through gaggles of fanatic Zombie fans to get to Kat, DZ and Ben.

“That was easily one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen,” said Stan, images from the match still flashing through his head.

“I know, right?” said Charlie. “I mean, I get that we’re busy and all, but was that really the first time you’ve ever come to one of these matches? Stan, you signed the paper that made the place!”

“Well, I’ll tell you this, Charlie, I’m definitely coming to every one of these matches from now on.”

Charlie laughed. “Man, you haven’t seen anything yet! You know, last time they played, in the match against the Ghasts …” And Charlie and Stan spent the rest of the walk down the corridor talking about the previous matches.

“And right as DZ was about to— Hey, guys!” shouted Charlie as he entered the room and rushed over to greet his friends. Stan followed closely behind. G and Kat released each other from their hug and beckoned the two new arrivals over to them, while DZ, Ben and his brother Bill walked over, followed closely by Bob, who sat on the back of a pink pig.