The stadium was a sea of Yale blue. Every seat, every aisle, every concession stand. The hot dog vendors wore Flyer 7 jerseys over their aprons. The security guards wore them over their body armor.

  It was a little confusing. When everyone wore the same jersey, telling staff from spectators became a guessing game. A woman in Section 212 tried to order nachos from the man standing next to her. He turned out to be a retired appellate judge from Hartford. He offered her a pretzel from his bag instead, and she accepted.

  Tom came up the aisle stairs holding a cardboard tray stacked with four hot dogs, each loaded with mustard and relish. He sidestepped a family of five in matching Flyer 7 jerseys and nearly lost the whole tray when a woman backing out of her row caught his elbow.

  "Excuse me. Pardon. Hot dogs coming through. Excuse me. Thank you."

  He reached Section 108 and handed out his haul. His group included his teammate Matt, as well as Uncle Ray and Mr. Dawson. The two pitmasters had set aside their barbecue rivalry for the day to celebrate Leo.

  Tom dropped into his seat and bit into his hot dog.

  "Is that the Jacob & Co. Heavenly Tribulation Lightning?"

  Tom looked up, still chewing. A man in a Flyer 7 jersey had leaned across from the next seat over, eyes locked on his wrist. The stadium lights hit the watch at the right angle, and the miniature formation array behind the crystal threw prismatic fragments in every direction.

  Tom grinned. "You have a good eye."

  "My broker said those are exclusive to the Rated." The man's eyes moved to Matt's wrist. "And is that the Richard Mille Scorpion?"

  "Yes sir," Matt responded. "Leo Chen bought them for us."

  The man's mouth opened. Then closed. He looked at the field, where both teams were still warming up on opposite sides of the arena. Then back at the two boys. Then at the watches again.

  "You served with Flyer Seven in the Boston Catacombs?"

  The people in the surrounding seats heard the callsign. Heads turned. A woman in her forties stood up from the row behind to get a better look. An elderly man two rows up leaned forward. Within seconds, a dozen strangers were craning their necks toward two sixteen-year-olds and their wrists.

  "We were on his transport in the Catacombs," Tom said, enjoying every second of the attention. "I was his comms officer. Matt here was navigation."

  "Tell them about the corridor," Dawson said. He elbowed Matt. "Tell them."

  "You tell them," Ray called across. "You were crying when you watched the replay."

  "I was not crying. Maybe some smoke got in my eyes." Dawson denied.

  "You were flying the boat," Ray shot back.

  The woman in her forties leaned in from the row behind. "The Eastern Encirclement? You were there for that?"

  Tom held up his hands, framing the scene. "Okay, so picture this. Thirty-two thousand people. Completely surrounded. Nascent Souls closing from three sides, a Divine Child blocking the east. The only way out is west, and that's blocked by a Mountain Domain Lord with two Nascent Soul supports."

  The crowd pressed closer. What started as four seats had swelled into a knot of thirty people pressing in from all sides.

  "Leo is lying in our medical pod. Shattered ribs. Mashed organs. Vitals yellow and red across the board. Our medical officer had pulled him from combat and she was not the type of woman you argued with." Tom leaned forward.

  "Then the radio crackles. Boston Command. They're asking if Flyer 7 is available. Thirty-two thousand people trapped in a closing noose, and the only person on the entire battlefield who can get them out is a sixteen year old Qi Refiner."

  The crowd was quiet.

  "Our doctor told him no. Flat out. Said if he took another hit like the last one, he would die." Tom glanced at Matt. "Leo looked at her and said, 'I heard you the first time.' Then he stood up and walked to the deployment platform."

  The elderly man two rows up adjusted his hearing aid, fingers checking the tiny formations on its surface. "A Qi Refiner. Sent to kill a Nascent Soul."

  "Two," Tom corrected. "He killed two Mountain Domain Lords that day. At Qi Refining."

  The elderly man tapped his hearing aid. "I'm going to pretend this thing is broken, because what you just said is impossible."

  Phones came out. People searching battle reports, cross-referencing what Tom was saying with the public record.

  "The official report says Flyer 7 opened the western corridor and enabled the withdrawal of the Strike Element," a woman said, reading from her screen. "Nineteen American Nascent Souls extracted through the gap."

  "The Strike Element would have been fine," Tom corrected. "The people who owe Leo their lives are the Eastern Element. Two thousand transports. Thirty-two thousand personnel. They had nowhere to go until Leo punched that hole in the line."

  A man nearby shook his head. "I believe you. I've read the reports. But what I can't wrap my head around is how. A Qi Refiner killing Mountain Domain Lords. What's special about him?"

  Tom opened his mouth to brag about his roommate, but right on cue the stadium screen cut to the tunnel corridor. Leo walked out with Coach Williams behind him, and the whole stadium stood up, as if it would give them a closer view.

  The crowd noise built with every step Leo took through the corridor, rolling through the stands like a wave gathering height. A hundred and fifty thousand voices hit full volume as he stepped onto the field.

  ---

  The Yale Bowl settled into that taut silence before kickoff. A hundred and fifty thousand people in Flyer 7 jerseys, breathing together, waiting.

  On the field below, both teams took positions. Yale's fort anchored the north end, already layered with Shawn and his soldiers' barriers. Dee sat behind his flak cannon, fingers resting on the targeting interface.

  Dartmouth's fort mirrored it on the south end. Seven Defenders dug in behind their own walls. The Five Flyers lifted off the ground on their swords, rising into the airspace above center field. They were the only ones in the stadium wearing green.

  Even stepping stones had to dress for the occasion.

  The Yale Flyers rose to meet them, spreading into a loose formation around Leo.

  "Which one is he?" the man behind Tom asked, squinting at the formation. Every Yale Flyer wore the nearly identical Flyer 7 jersey over their armor.

  "The helmet," Tom said. He pointed. "Look at his helmet."

  The man squinted. The stadium screen caught it on the close-up a moment later. Four Yale Flyers wore standard T4 helmets with tinted visors. The fifth helmet was different. The faceplate was a solid sheet of armor, sealed and featureless. No visor. No way to see out.

  "He's blind up there?" the woman behind them asked.

  "Third Person Perspective," Tom explained. "He sees through divine sense alone."

  A murmur rolled through the surrounding seats.

  "Well I could have told you which one was Leo," Dawson said, gesturing at the player. "Look at the build of the other four. The kid is clearly the smallest one up there that isn't a girl."

  The crowd shushed him.

  Dawson threw his hands up in frustration.

  The starting horn sounded and Dartmouth's Flyers immediately broke into a standard wedge formation, angling toward Leo's left. Their Captain led the charge with a longsword wreathed in wind arts.

  Leo didn't move.

  The four Yale Flyers behind him didn't move either.

  "What's he doing?" the man in the next seat asked.

  The Dartmouth wedge crossed the halfway mark. Their Captain committed to the engagement angle, his four wingmen spreading to envelop.

  Leo attacked.

  One moment he was standing in the air. The next, his trajectory carved a jagged line across the arena like a lightning bolt arcing between clouds. Moonrider blazed silver as he changed direction faster than the eye could track.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Dartmouth's Captain braced. His longsword came up, wind arts swirling into a defensive barrier. He was trying to read Leo's angles, preparing to meet the charge.

  He was watching the wrong sword.

  A silver gleam ignited at the edge of the Captain's vision. Leo's lightsaber, flung wide on a previous zigzag, came hurtling in on an attack vector guided by divine sense alone.

  The Captain registered it a half second too late. He twisted to block the lightsaber and Moonrider punched through his wind barrier from the opposite side.

  Two swords. Two directions. One target caught between them.

  The Captain teleported out in a flash of white light. Eliminated.

  The stadium erupted.

  "WHAT WAS THAT?" The man in the next seat grabbed Tom's arm. "There were two swords?"

  Tom grinned. "Like I said. Third Person Perspective."

  The four remaining Dartmouth Flyers broke formation. Two banked left. Two banked right. Survival patterns drilled into them since high school.

  Leo's lightsaber was already moving independently, drifting through the airspace stealthily. When the blade was deactivated, the hilt was barely visible against the bright arena lights.

  The lightsaber only existed when it killed. A flash of silver igniting at the moment of contact, then winking out and vanishing. By the time a target registered the blade, it had already tagged them.

  Moonrider carved toward the first Flyer in a jagged descent. The Flyer threw up a wind barrier and braced for impact. Behind his teammate, twenty meters away, the second Flyer raised her sword and prepared to try to parry Leo the moment he attacked.

  The lightsaber tagged her from below. A silver flash rising out of her blind spot. She looked down at the red glow spreading across her chestplate with pure confusion.

  Her partner turned to look. Moonrider went through his barrier and tagged his shoulder guard.

  Two red flashes. Seconds apart.

  "That's two weapons," the man next to Tom said. "He's controlling two weapons independently."

  "Divine sense," Tom said. "He doesn't pilot his body. He sees and moves everything at once. The enemy, the Moonrider, the lightsaber. Three pieces on the same board."

  "That's not fair."

  "No," Tom agreed. "It really isn't."

  The next Dartmouth Flyer had retreated to fort airspace, hovering above the Defenders where overlapping ground formations and the Gunner's flak cannon created a defensive net.

  Standard response: when you're outmatched in the air, fall back to your fort and force the enemy into your kill zone.

  He lasted five seconds.

  The last Flyer waited at the fort boundary. Cortland Winthrop. Leo's former teammate at Exeter, where they'd injured half the high school playoffs bracket together last year.

  Cortland had a sinking feeling Leo had saved him for last.

  Leo attacked in a blur. Moonrider hooked low, catching Cortland behind the knee. The lightsaber ignited from the opposite side and struck the same leg at the shin. The two blades wrenched in opposite directions.

  Cortland's scream cut through the arena noise. His leg buckled at an ugly angle and his armor teleported him away, a few seconds too late.

  The crowd was on its feet. Tom could feel the concrete shaking under his shoes.

  "He's going for the Defenders," the elderly man yelled. He had his hearing aid out now.

  Leo landed inside the Dartmouth fort. The lightsaber settled into orbit around him, circling his body at shoulder height.

  Five Soldiers closed on him. Their formation was tight, barriers snapping up in overlapping layers as they advanced.

  He moved through them like water through a grate. Moonrider in front, lightsaber behind. Two weapons sweeping through the formation from opposite sides, and the Soldiers caught between them had to choose which direction to block.

  They always chose wrong.

  Thirty seconds. Five Soldiers. Each one blocked the weapon they could see and got tagged by the one they couldn't.

  The Gunners were last.

  Dartmouth's primary Gunner spun his flak cannon toward Leo and fired at point-blank range. The bolt crossed five meters of space in a blink.

  Leo tilted his head. The bolt grazed past his ear and blew a crater in the fort wall behind him. The lightsaber drifted over and pressed its tip gently against the Gunner's chestplate.

  White flash.

  The secondary Gunner put his hands up.

  The lightsaber sent him on his way.

  "TOUCHDOWN BULLDOGS! 12-0!"

  The announcer's voice cracked on the second word. The first quarter buzzer sounded to a stadium that had already made up its mind.

  Leo walked out of the Dartmouth fort. Behind him, it sat empty. Twelve Dartmouth players eliminated one by one.

  The whole thing took two minutes and twelve seconds.

  "BULLDOGS! BULLDOGS! BULLDOGS!"

  The chant rolled through the Yale Bowl in waves, crashing off the reinforced spirit-glass dome and folding back on itself until the air hummed with it. Even the Dartmouth sections joined in.

  The man in the next seat grabbed Tom's shoulder with both hands.

  "Did you see the lightsaber? He turned it off between kills. The Soldiers had no idea where it was coming from."

  "The Gunner," his wife added. "He fired point blank and Leo just tilted his head."

  "He sees the cannon, the barrel angle, the qi charge building in the formation array," Tom said. "By the time the Gunner pulls the trigger, Leo's already moved."

  A man with thick glasses worked his way in. "I've held season tickets for the Giants for twenty-two years. I've watched every elite Flyer in the league. Sato. Mikhailova. Reeves. All of them have gaps between their primary and secondary weapon commands."

  He pointed at the field where Leo was walking back toward the Yale side.

  "That kid has zero gap. The Moonrider and the lightsaber operate on completely simultaneous command inputs. He's holding both at once, while tracking enemy positions and managing his own flight path." He shook his head. "I've never seen an NFL Flyer do that."

  Tom nodded. "He had to get that good. When you're threading through a lava chute with Nascent Souls desperately trying to kill you, you develop perfect control or you die."

  "This is our year," the man said, turning to his wife. "Yale is going to win the championship. Williams is finally going to get his third."

  "About time," his wife said. "He's been chasing after the third for a while."

  "After what I just saw, Harvard doesn't stand a chance." The man pumped his fist. "That Flyer 7 kid is going to run through the whole bracket."

  Tom winced. The enthusiasm building around him felt good. It also felt premature.

  "It's going to be really difficult," Tom said.

  The celebration paused. Faces turned.

  "Harvard has Mateo Thandril."

  The name landed differently depending on who heard it. Some frowned in recognition. Others tilted their heads, unfamiliar. The man with the thick glasses went still.

  "The Divine Child," Tom explained. "He projects a divine domain over the entire arena. Every Yale player who steps onto the field against Harvard will feel his name carved into their skull and their knees buckling before the first horn sounds."

  The energy in the surrounding seats deflated.

  "How do you beat that?" the woman from the row behind asked.

  "That's the problem," Tom said. "A divine domain suppresses everyone inside it. When a Divine Child's pressure hits you, your body wants to kneel. Your mind wants to worship. Leo could be twice as skilled as every NFL Flyer combined, and he'd still be on the ground."

  Silence.

  Dawson bit into his hot dog. "Way to kill the mood, kid."

  "I'm being honest." Tom spread his hands. "Leo knows the situation better than anyone. He's been working on it."

  "Working on what?" the man asked. "If the domain can't be beaten with skill, what else is there?"

  "There's a technique called the Heart of Flesh," Tom said. "Ancient cultivation method. The only known way for a lower realm cultivator to resist a divine domain."

  "How's his progress?" a man with thick glasses pressed.

  Tom hesitated. "Slow. It's one of those techniques that takes most cultivators decades. Leo's been asking professors, but no one has a good idea."

  A woman behind them held up her phone. "Hold on. Did any of you see this?"

  She turned the screen around. An Instagram reel, posted a few minutes ago. The thumbnail showed Leo outside the Yale locker room, a reporter shoving a microphone at him.

  She hit play.

  Leo's voice came through the phone speakers, tinny but clear.

  "I think in order for Yale to beat Harvard this year, it has to be a team effort. I can't do it alone. I need everyone's help. The whole school. Show them that Yale won't bow down to a mere divine domain."

  The people pressed closer, leaning in to hear.

  "Coach Williams told me about Texas A&M's 13th Man tradition. I don't really know the details. But all I know is, if we add a hundred and fifty thousand men and women to our team, I'm pretty sure we can overwhelm Harvard together."

  The cluster of fans grew quiet.

  "He's asking us to be on the team," the man with thick glasses said. "The 13th Man at Texas A&M started because the fans stood the entire game, ready to step onto the field if called."

  The man in the next seat stood up. "So what do we need to do?"

  Before Tom could answer, the elderly man two rows up cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed with a volume that suggested he forgot everyone wasn't cheering.

  "WHATEVER THE BOY NEEDS, HE GETS IT! YOU HEAR ME?"

  A roar of approval from the surrounding sections.

  "He needs us to resist the domain with him," Tom said, raising his voice above the swell. "That's what the Heart of Flesh is about. Connection to life. If Leo walks onto that field against Mateo alone, he kneels. If he walks on with a hundred and fifty thousand people behind him..."

  He let the sentence hang.

  The woman behind them was already typing on her phone. "We need a name for this."

  "The Bulldog Army," Dawson said. Everyone looked at him. "What? Leo said he needs a hundred and fifty thousand extra players on the team. Sounds like an army to me."

  "Bulldog Army," the man with thick glasses repeated. He pulled out his own phone. "I run the Giants fan forum. Forty thousand members. I can have this posted by tonight."

  "My daughter's at Yale Law," the woman said. "She'll spread it across campus."

  "I coach pee-wee Flying Aces in Bridgeport," another voice called from a few seats down. "Every one of those kids is wearing a Flyer 7 jersey right now. Their parents too."

  Tom pulled out his phone, opened Instagram, created a new account, and typed the handle: @BulldogArmy.

  He uploaded the pregame interview clip as the first post. Then he turned the phone around so the crowd could see.

  "Follow this," Tom said. "Share it. Tag everyone you know."

  The man with thick glasses had his phone out already. "Done. Shared to the Giants forum."

  The woman tagged her daughter's account. The elderly man two rows up handed his phone to a teenager and said, "Do whatever the boy just said."

  Tom watched the follower count tick upward. Twelve. Forty. A hundred and six. People in the surrounding sections were passing the handle along by word of mouth, each person pulling out their phone and searching for it.

  By the time the post-game fireworks crackled over the Yale Bowl, the account had two hundred thousand followers.