Scored tied at 54-54, Presque Isle has the ball on their 20 yard line. While war at this timeout, let’s talk about these two teams. We’ll start with Portland Prep. Well this is a storied program, 17 state championships, and not to mention the one national title from the team back in ’98.
They’re good, but they’ve lost a lot of talent since they’re team from last year. They’ve even lost one game this season. It was to out-of-state opponent Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. This Portland team has a few decent players but none of them over a two-star recruit. Vermont, New Hampshire, Stony Brook, smaller schools and Division II schools are coming after these kids. Now, let’s move on to this Presque Isle team. They’ve got two who can play. The wide receiver Matthew Baker, who’s a decent player, one-star recruit on U.S.A. Today and two-star on ESPN, who’s going to the University of Buffalo. A decent sized kid, just under 6 foot and weighing in at just under 200 lbs.
Now let’s move on to their big player, the quarterback, Jack Travers. He’s the big giant tall kid, 6’ 7” tall, maybe pushing 6’ 8”. He was just 6’2” last year as a junior; he grew 5 inches since last January. His arm strength was fine last year, but it has massively improved. During the summer he got lessons and was able to do some drills with current New England quarterback, Tom Brady. Tom actually said that his arm is better than his, and his running ability is uncanny. Travers runs a 4.8 second 40 yard dash. At his height and weight, that’s phenomenal! He’s yet to commit, but he has narrowed his choices to 5 colleges, Boston College, Michigan, Kentucky, Georgia, and Tennessee. And all of them are offering him scholarships. He did tell the press that he will commit at the Under Amour Game in February.
Let’s get back to the game. Score tied at 54, 1 minute left in the game. Travers in the shotgun, calling the cadence. McKinney motions to the left and the ball snaps. Travers drops back, standing tall. He throws a pass across the middle! But it was too high. 2nd and 10, Presque is going to go to a no huddle offense. Travers awaits the signal call. He walks back up and gives the signal. He moves back under center, and gets the ball pretty quickly. He pitches the ball to Brown on a sweep to the right. Oh, he’s not going anywhere… but what’s this! He chucks the ball across the field and Travers is standing wide open! He catches it and turns to run! He’s moving down the field! He runs for what seemed like forever before being tackled out of bounds by the weak side corner chasing him down from behind. Presque now has the ball on the Portland 40 yard line.
We go back to the no huddle and Travers calls another signal as he sits back in the shotgun. He gets the ball off the snap, and drops three steps back in the pocket. He throws a quick pass to the middle to Baker, who else? He breaks one tackle before being brought down by a swarm of Portland players. Now a running clock at just over 20 seconds, Presque has no timeouts. 2nd and 2 to go, 18 seconds and ticking. Travers gets the ball in the shotgun but what’s this! He takes off straight up the gut. He gets through and out quick’s the linebackers! The strong safety lunges at his legs… but Travers hurdles over him! He takes off to the 20, the 10! He gets run down from behind, he’s still going! 5! Now a whole posse is hanging on to him. He’s driving! And falls into the end zone! Touchdown Presque! And with only 6 seconds left. The entire team dog piles on Travers as they celebrate the impossible touchdown. They jog off the field as the PAT team comes out to give them the 7 point lead. He kicks and splits the uprights, the score 61-54.
And here we go the kickoff team. They line up as the kicker takes his mark. Her runs up and squibs the ball right up the middle. It hits a Portland player and that starts the clock. A Portland player picks up the ball and starts his run. The clock strikes zero as the player breaks a tackle before being brought down by two Presque players.
It’s over! Presque Isle wins! First ever appearance in the state tournament, they pull off the win in the state title game. And now we crown the MVP, Jack Travers. Racking up over 400 yards passing, rushing for 95 yards, and a grand total of 5 touchdowns. Presque will be celebrating late tonight! Final score Presque Isle: 61, Portland Prep: 54. This has been a broadcast of the Maine Class 2A state championship.
The Locker Room
Sounds can be heard as the silent locker room becomes louder and louder.
“Can I get a who-rah?”
“Who-Rah!”
“You know!”
“What’s up!”
“What’s up!”
“Whoa!”
“Whoa!”
“Whoa!”
“Whoa!”
“Vikings on three! 1… 2… 3!”
“Vikings!”
The locker room becomes a bustling and loud room as the players celebrate. Jack Travers is toward the front with the starters. Fired up, they were shoving each other around.
“Yeah!” Brown yelled.
“I can’t believe we did it! This is awesome! AAAAAH!” Travers yelled.
“Let me tell you something, it’s cold as hell! I thought I was going to freeze!” Baker complained.
“What! You were playing the entire game! How are you cold?” Travers yelled back at him, obviously making fun of him.
“Two reasons! One, it’s -5 outside! And two, I’m from Georgia. I’m not used to the cold.”
“No! It’s cause you’re a pussy!” Brown razzes him a bit.
“Shut up, bitch!” he yelled back.
“Please. Gentleman, may I make a suggestion. Slap my ass!” Travers joked around.
Baker pushes away from Travers, “You a gay ass motherfucker!”
They all laugh as they proceed to removing all their pads and football gear before putting something on more comfortable. Basketball shorts with a regular t-shirt and then slides a sweatshirt over the top. Travers grabs the trophy, making sure not to break it on accident. He carries it to the yellow school bus and sets it gently on the seat next his coach. He moves toward the back of the bus and slings his bag over the back seat. He sits down and then stretches across the bus over to the next seat. Tonight, he was going to have two seats on the bus ride back home. The first hour and a half, no one could sleep. Everyone was too fired up. By the time we had gotten past Bangor, most of the kids were already asleep.
Jack was in the back dosing away before he starts to have an unusual dream. The dream starts off in a blur as he hears a voice. It was obviously a boy’s voice, it sounded like it was distress. It was followed by a silence then by a sweet sarcastic woman’s voice. The voice got louder and louder before it finally silenced. It blurted out something that was inaudible. Jack starts to lose consciousness in his dream before he is woken up by a sudden jolt of the bus.
He leans up and wipes his hand across his face. He looks outside to find that almost the entire town of Presque Isle were out in the streets holding up homemade signs that said miscellaneous stuff such as, “Go Vikings!, Great Job!, State Champs!, etc.”
Through the bus window and road noise that is common in most school buses, he could hear the faint cheering and applause of the crowd. The crowd seemed to go on all the way to the school, mostly in a single layered line that spaced out in some parts of the town. But the people got denser as they approached the school. They pull up to the school and around the back to the stadium. And to the teams utter disbelief, that entire itty bitty stadium was filled to the brim to cheering fans as they welcomed back their new state champion sons back. They pull up to the front gate and start to unload the buses. Jack moves to the front of the bus as everyone files out one-by-one. The coach hands him the trophy personally and asks him to take it out.
Jack agrees, and as he exits the bus. He holds the large trophy up high into the air. The crowd goes nuts as he runs onto the field straight to the 50-yard marker. He’s then surrounded by a swarm of his own players as the jump up and down and celebrate.
As they were celebrating, something caught Jack’s eye. He looks up into the sky to find what looks like a horse flying through the air. He watches intently as it soars overhead and appears to land just behind the visiting stands on the other side of the field. He thinks to himself and decides to go and check it out. He hands the trophy to Baker and makes his way through the small crowd of about 40 kids. He jogs across the field and moves around the visiting bleachers.
He moves to a slow and swaying stance as he moves with complete silence. ‘What was that?’ he wondered to himself.
Just as he said that, something caused him to just freeze. He couldn’t move, no matter how much he struggled. He couldn’t break free from the mysterious hold. He tried to yell for help, but what came out was just a little whelp. He stands there in complete silence as something moves in the shadows. The object moves forward and comes straight toward him. It was a horse! One with wings and a horn! ‘How’s that possible!?’ He yelled in his head. Every vein in his body wanting to just unleash its torrent.
“It is only possible if you truly believe. And with a little bit of magic, that can’t hurt either.” The horse said.
Jack’s eyes widen with fear as he strains with all his might to try to break free. The winged and horned horse moves closer to him.
“There is somepony that is in need of love. She won’t survive much longer without somepony in her life. And I’m choosing you.”
‘Somepony?’ Jack thinks in his head as the horse moves and lowers his horn to touch Jack’s forehead.
Beams of light shoot out everywhere as Jack is slowly overtaken with a white aura. He begins to lose consciousness as the aura moves from his feet up to his torso and head. Just as the aura reaches his head, Jack loses consciousness completely and goes limp. The magic holding him vanishes and he starts to fall to the ground like a wet noodle. Just before his head collides with the hard pavement, a bright white flash that would blind anyone without proper eye protection explodes, and he disappears completely.
Okay. I will give my legit reason on why my stories are taking so long to update. I'm having most of my time taken up by football, homework, and recruiting and applications for colleges I want to go play football at. By the time I'm finished with everything, I'm already worn out and I don't feel like writing with the little time I do. Really the only time I have is on weekends, and that can get sketchy at times. Please forgive me and I hope you all understand. But anyway, here's the new chapter and enjoy. I just wanted to get something and sorry if there are mistakes. I was lazy.
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“Twilight! I took the trash out last week!” complains the purple baby dragon.
“I know, Spike. I promise I’ll do it the next two weeks. I’m on a break through.” She replies while planting her face into the book she was reading. “I’ll give you a gemstone if you go and take it out.”
Spike gives a small huff, but gives in for the reward. He runs up the stairs to gather Twilight’s heaping pile of useless notes that she’s thrown on the floor. He does get them to stuff inside the waste basket and carries it back down the stairs. He walks into the kitchen and dumps the paper into the large bag. He ties the drawstrings and more or less drags the bag out the back door. Just as he steps outside, he sees, what appears to be an appendage, sticking just outside the trash cans with the object on the ground. He let’s go of the bag and starts a frightened creeping walk to the strange creature.
As he gets closer to it, eh begins to notice it had fingers. Not much different than his own paw. Only difference was the lack of scales and claws. He panics and runs back toward the door calling for Twilight. Almost instantly hearing this, she appears just outside the door to find a running and terrified, Spike.
“What’s wrong, Spike?” she asks using her magic to hold back the screaming baby dragon.
“There’s a dead thing in the trash!” he yells back.
She giggles and shakes her head, “Oh, Spike?” She sets him down and walks over to the trash bins.
Spike hides at the door as Twilight walks forward toward the trash bins. She sees the appendage sticking out and starts to get nervous. She slows her pace to a stalk getting ever so closer to the unknown creature. The appendage gave a slight movement, but it was more of a twitch.
The twitch did make her much more cautious. She reaches the creature and comes into full view of it. The creature was an ugly very, very light brown color, very tan. It reminded her of some type of primate, just with less fur. Its nostrils were flaring in and out, telling her it was obviously still alive.
“Oh my! It’s still alive!” she moves up to get a closer look at the strange creature. “Spike, go and get Fluttershy. She’ll know what to do.”
Spike runs out the door and runs toward Fluttershy’s. She’ll know what to do.”
Spike runs out the door way and runs toward Fluttershy’s cottage. Twilight watches him leave and then moves back to the creature. Her horn glows as she tries to lift it into the library. But it wouldn’t budge. Why is my magic not working? She tries again, but alas, comes up with nothing like before. Well, it’s obviously not magical? So she resorts to plan B. Drag it.
She bites the clothing on its upper body and begins to tug. It drops to the ground off of the trash cans; making Twilight realize heavy the creature really is. She tugs and pulls and eventually does get it through the door. She drags it across the slick tile flooring of the kitchen and into the stained hardwood of the main room of the library.
She let’s go of the creature and takes a couple of breaths from exhaustion before being greeted by a familiar voice.
“Hi, Twilight!”
Twilight jumps from the sudden greeting, “Rainbow!”
She turns around to find Rainbow Dash standing next to Fluttershy. Now’s my chance! she thought to herself.
“Fluttershy, I need your help!”
“You do?”
“I need you to look at this creature.” She points with her hoof to the creature lying unconscious.
Fluttershy’s sensitive and skiddish personality instantly goes away as she creeps slowly toward the mysterious creature.
She lifts off of the ground as she moves over top of the creature.
“Rainbow, fly next to her just in case.” Twilight tells Rainbow Dash.
She flies over to Fluttershy and stops next to her. At that moment, the creature began to stir. It grumbles and wipes its face.
“Twilight! I couldn’t find Flutter…” Spike called out running back inside the library. “Oh! You’ve already found her.”
He looks on the floor to find that large and strange creature, “You brought THAT inside!”
Twilight turns back toward Spike and nods, “Why, yes. I couldn’t just leave that poor thing outside in the cold. It is winter time you know.”
She turns back to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash slowly getting closer to the figure. They seemed to be trying to wake it, but Twilight had no idea on why they would want to. The figure began to stir even more before finally setting itself up. Everyone was holding their breath waiting for something. Rainbow ,ready to make any necessary action that will be required, wants impatiently in the air.
The figure erects itself fully before rubbing its eyes and then looking around, “Oh. Hey there cutie…” he holds his hand toward Twilight Sparkle across the room from him.
“Don’t try it buster!” Rainbow calls from above.
The creature then gives a sudden startled look before moving his eyes upward to find two pegasi flapping above him. He gives a confused but not panicked look, “Wow! Cool, pegasus. I’m starting to like this dream.” He says as he gets up on his two feet.
“Um… Sir, this isn’t a dream.” Fluttershy said after she realized how tall the creature was.
At that moment, the creature’s face turned from happy to a horror stricken expression that could pass as him seeing an apparition. He backs away slowly holding his hands out him front of him. As he backs up, he trips over some books lying on the floor.
“You can talk!? I must be dreaming!” he yells as he moves away from the 3 ponies.
He pinches his skin, pretty harshly, and lets out a small cry from the pain, “Okay. I’m not dreaming? I must be dreaming. Horses can’t talk, they can’t talk.”
“Hey, buster! Who you calling a horse?” Rainbow Dash moves up to him starting to give him the bad cop talk.
“This is a dream! You can’t be real.” He screams back.
Fluttershy, being the caring pony that she is, moves up to him; without fear might I add. She flies next to him and lays a hoof on his arm. At first he jumps from the soft touch on his arm but then settles down to stare straight at her hoof.
“Why do I feel this? And how can you talk?”
She gives a sweet smile, “It’s okay. I don’t think it’s a dream though.”
“Okay. But how can you talk?”
“Well, we’ve always been able to talk. It’s not hard for us to talk. Just as easy as you can, I presume.” Twilight interrupted by stepping forward and approaching the strange creature. “What exactly are you, sir… If I’m correct? “
“Um…” Jack wasn’t sure how to respond to her question. “Yeah. I’m a male, but to answer your question, I’m a human.”
“A human! Likely story. Sounds made up to me, Twilight.” Rainbow Dash comes out of nowhere to butt into the conversation.
“Why would I lie to you all? I’m a human, and my name is Jack… Jack Travers. I’m 18 years old and I play contact sports. I don’t how much more you want.” He adds to try to subside their suspicions.
“I don’t understand, but maybe I’m not the one to know who you really are.” Twilight moves up and starts to examine the tall “human.” “So… Travis, was it?” he nods.
“I find it necessary that we must meet the princess. I come to realize I have no knowledge of what a human is and I don’t have the information here in my little library to find anything out. I will write to Princess Celestia to set up a meeting with her.
She will determine if you are a “human” or a possible danger to everypony here.”
Jack thought to himself for a while, Everypony? What the hell does that mean?
“That’s fine. I don’t understand why I’m here in the first place anyway.”
Twilight gives a small nod, and she motions for Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash to head home. As they leave, Fluttershy is out
the door first followed by Rainbow Dash. She gives a nasty and disgusted look just as she heads out the door.
“Now that we are alone, we need to find you a bed to stay in for the night. It’s getting pretty late. Spike!” Twilight calls out.
A small purple figure turns a corner and walks slowly scared out of its mind. “What’s that?” Jack asked.
“This is Spike, my number one assistant and baby dragon.” She said proudly.
“A dragon? Why am I not surprised? Oh wait! I know, because apparently I’m filled with a world where horses… sorry, PONIES, can actually talk. Great!”
“Spike, would you mind showing him to his room? It’s getting late and he’s been through a lot.” He nods reluctantly, but it was obvious he wanted nothing to do with the large human.
Jack follows Spike upstairs, and inside a small room with an equally small bed. He steps inside, and before he realizes it the door slams shut. He hears a latch as he reaches the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Why am I locked up?” He calls.
“Twilight wanted me to lock the door while you stay here. It’s just a safety precaution, sorry man.”
Jack hears the faint clacking of the dragons little claws hit the hard wood as he moves down the small hallway. Jack moves over and lies down back down on the bed. This legs hang off the edge at his knees, but it didn’t matter. He was tired and had been through a lot the first night there. He begins to doze off back to sleep hoping that he would wake up in his cozy little home in Northern Maine. After a long while, his breathing slows down and he was out for good.
