Both teams hovered expectantly, waiting for the ball to come rocketing out of the ceiling as the audience of nearly seventy thousand clapped, whooped and hollered.
"8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..." Stunningly bright crystals in the roof sprang into life, illuminating the entire arena. Out shot the ball, at an almost impossible angle. All the Dunedin team had dinosaur related names. There was Raptor, mouth guard; Tri, as in Triceratops; Bronti, as in Brontosaurus; Rex, as in Tyrannosaurus; Terry, as in Dactyl; and Steg, short for Stegosaurus, the substitute. One of the Dunedin Dinosaurs, Rex, by the look of things, took the ball straight in the neck, nose diving off towards the lava, spiralling dangerously out of control. Rebounding around a couple of times, the ball bounced off Flamer's chest and Barf's shoulder, before ending up in the clutches of Terry, who instantly headed towards the deck and the blindingly hot lava. Flamer and Cheese gave chase, while Barf righted himself from the impact of the ball. Silverbonce had already retreated back to his mouth, whilst Flamer and Cheese had managed to panic Terry into passing the ball back to his teammate Bronti. This bought the Warriors some time, allowing them to reform their defence and make sure they were now between the ball and their mouth. During all of this, Steel was experiencing some very unusual sensations from the troublesome feelings that he'd tried to put to one side before entering the arena. To some degree he'd pushed them down into his subconscious. What was odd though, was that when the laminium ball had shot out into the arena, the troublesome, nagging sensation that something was wrong, had ripped through him, a thousand times more powerful than it had been at any point over the last few days, so much so that he was barely able to fly, and felt that his balance was all over the place. Gingerly, he made his way back towards the mouth he was trying to defend, as his mind revisited the intensity of what he'd felt when the ball had come near him.
'What does it all mean?' he wondered, his focus and concentration totally ruined.
Back in the action, the Dinosaurs were on a roll. They'd completed ten passes in a row without the Warriors even getting close to touching the ball, with the only plus point for the three friends' favourite team being that the passes had all taken place in the Dinosaurs' defensive half of the arena. With Steel distracted momentarily, it was down to Cheese, Barf and Flamer to put things right, and they were determined to do exactly that.
Flamer shot towards Tri, who was flying high, not far from the cavern's ceiling, deep within his own half.
'He's looking nervous,' thought Flamer, closing in. He was right; Tri was indeed nervous, so much so that he was looking to offload the ball to one of his teammates. Able to sense this, the Warriors as a team (minus the otherwise occupied Steel) started to work the opposition. Simultaneously Cheese harried Rex, while Barf was all over Bronti like a rash. With no immediate pass available, Tri continued to fly around in circles, dipping, diving and doubling back, all the while desperate to get rid of the ball. Flamer looked as though he was about to intercept, but Tri was having none of it and banked away at the crucial moment. Sneakily, Flamer had counted on this, and for the fraction of a second that he was in striking range, let go with his trademark jet of flame. A searing blue cone of fire torched the underside of Tri's right wing, forcing him to relinquish the ball. As the ball slipped through the air, Flamer swooped down and swept it up with one of his wings. Cheese and Barf immediately shrugged off their defensive duties like a grubby old cape and shot off to offer up some options for their friend and teammate.
Across the arena from all of that, Steel was still having difficulties flying, looking like he was drunk, weaving all over the place, incapable of moving in a straight line. By now it was clear to everyone that something was up, and Silverbonce had already decided to intervene. Whipping round from beneath Steel, the crafty old mouth guard used his updraft to steady his usually dependable captain.
"What's going on?" he demanded.
Steel shook his head, trying to clear it of the fuzziness that seemed to have filled it up, but this only made him dizzy, not something that was designed to help his current predicament. With Silverbonce twisting and turning in mid-air, trying desperately to keep up, Steel spoke up.
"It's the... baallllllll!!!!!"
"What?" shouted the old mouth guard, barely able to hear over the noise of the crowd, and totally oblivious to what was going on in the game.
"Thhhheeeee baaallllll!!!!" yelled Steel, executing a perfect triple somersault, followed by an inverse loop the loop. "Thhheeee feeeeeelling weeee're getttttting ittttttt'ssssss cooommming froooooom thhheee ballllllllllll!!!!" Neglecting to look where he was going, Steel smashed with great gusto into the rocky lower wall of the arena with a sickening THUD!
Silverbonce watched despairingly as his captain slid comically down the rocky wall and splattered onto a lower ledge. It was a poor landing by any dragon's standards, and under normal circumstances he'd have gone to check on his friend. But these weren't normal circumstances, and he'd just worked out what Steel had so frantically been trying to tell him. THE BALL! That was the key. Banking away at speed from the prone Steel, the old mouth guard powered his way up the arena, determined to get his wings on that blessed laminium ball, and see for himself what Steel knew, that he didn't.
Wrapped up in their giant oversized chair, not far away, Peter, Tank and Flash sat glued to the action as the Warriors, deep within the Dinosaurs' half, had finally got their act together and were passing the ball with a dazzling degree of power and accuracy. None of the Dinosaurs could get near them, but were currently doing just enough to stop them from getting a clear shot at the mouth, much to the friends' annoyance. With all the action to their right as they watched, the three were suddenly equally surprised to hear a gigantic roar from the crowd off to their left. Instinctively, all three turned. Their jaws fell open in unison at the sight of Silverbonce storming over the halfway line, with such phenomenal speed that he was almost a blur, even with their enhanced senses.
'What on earth is he doing this far up the arena?' shot through Peter's mind straight away. Tank had pretty much the same thought, with Flash not too far behind.