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Some time ago, the ball hit the floor, and the Mega Beasts had their first match against their rival.
Lioness was but a Wormask then, Panther and Ocelot absent, Sphinx still a clumsy Handicoot. Jack's bark for them to take position would become more familiar with the passing days, yet it already felt like home. There was something determined and raw hidden under Jack's mask, as their gaze locked with the coach from Rutile whose scent lingered on Jack's hands, but it was a thing above and beside Lioness; a human thing that a Beastie did not regard. Lioness only stepped onto the field and waited for the other side to serve.
One day, Lioness would know this team like they knew their own, but as this was the first time Jack and the coach from Rutile would pretend to meet, Lioness surveyed the opposing team. A soon-enough-Hopra held the ball, and a one-day-Bongus was on the bench, but standing ready on the same lane that Sabretooth stood...
A fellow Wormask, whose cocoon was stony-grey instead of off-white, eyes cool like the skyline instead of warm like fire. Their gaze flickered from their teammate and met Lioness's.
Lioness had met creatures like them before. Simply meeting this opposing Wormask lit no sparks of wonder or joy. But they had something sharp in their eye, and they tilted their head with something coy, and then the ball soared over the net, and the match was on.
Sabretooth received, and a slide of Jack's boot against the grass was the sign for Lioness to receive next– then Jack howled, a signal that Lioness followed, ball directed to the frailer Wormask on the other side.
The opposing coach must've anticipated this, for they used their own coaching-code to signal to their Wormask to be ready to defend, but not without first shouting their name. "April Fool," they yelled, with a jerking shoulder gesture that none but that coach and their team understood.
A name did not mean much to a Beastie. It was a thing they wore to connect with their coach– where a human would take on a Beastie's games and nets, a Beastie would take on a human's arithmetic and names. Lioness's name symbolized the bond they shared with their coach, and they adored it for what it meant to Jack, but the syllables and sounds themselves had no meaning to them.
Yet, as Lioness filed away what they learned in that match to be used in another game, they couldn't help but note, their Wormask's name is April Fool.
Not long after, with a grand thump of the ball against grass, the match concluded in the Mega Beasts' favor. Jack cheered, boasted and spat half-chewed insults, while the coach from Rutile only smiled like they lost just to see what Jack would say. Jack planted their feet to keep their rival from moving further, and their rival took out their phone to start pestering Jack in turn, and that left the two trios of Beasties with the company of each other.
Sphinx and the soon-enough-Hopra quickly jumped to exchange greetings– apparently, they knew each other once upon a time– while Sabretooth and the one-day-Bongus approached to sniff at each other, leaving Lioness and April Fool to crawl up and meet eyes.
Beasties spoke to each other, yes, but not in the way a human would, or an animal would; more in the way that the mycelium in the ground would call to a creature to play. So, Lioness tilted their head and called out a hello.
April Fool sent a hello back. They told their number, and Lioness did the same. #03, they both said. Same number, April Fool noted, with a cheerful chitter. Same number, Lioness noted back.
The time they spent communicating was brief– only a spare few minutes while their coaches bothered each other– but Lioness realized quickly that they liked April Fool's sky eyes, and the way they played, and the mask they said they would create, something with bells and flourishes that they thought felt like them.
Humans were curious creatures. When a spark lit up in their hearts for a fellow soul, they'd dance around the topic like hot coals or eggshells. They'd falter, or wait, because their brains were big enough to invent both ideas that help and ideas that hurt, and the opportunity would be given its chance to slip through their hands.
But that was all a human thing; something a Beastie did not regard. When a spark lit up in a Beastie's heart, they would chase it. So Lioness stepped forward to press the head of their cocoon to that of April Fool's.
April Fool flinched just a bit, surprised, but they took only a moment to think before they leaned back into Lioness's touch. Their prototype masks coiled around each other like the tails of two cats, and the tips of their stubby little feet connected, and they chittered something soft to each other that couldn't be translated into words.
Jack decided they'd gotten bored of standing still then– or maybe they just wanted to escape their fellow coach's badgering– and they scrambled about to take Sphinx and Sabretooth into their arms and let Lioness hop onto their back. They stomped their feet, and as their boots lit up to take flight, barked a threat to the other coach from Rutile.
"we'll be back... to DESTROY you!!!"
We'll be back, Lioness called to April Fool, more a promise than a threat. April Fool's sky eyes shone, and they nodded soft, and then the Mega Beasts had taken to the skies.
It would be a few weeks before the Mega Beasts again faced the other coach from Rutile, but Lioness and April Fool did not need to wait that long before they met again. The two freshly-Plumasks stumbled across each other one afternoon in the woods of Amberstone, under thick trees that let sunlight touch the ground through only dappled spots.
They called hellos to each other and traded first looks at their completed masks. Lioness's had horns and a catlike grin like their coach, but April Fool's was something shaped by none but their own ideas, top points curved like a jester's hat.
Lioness said they thought April Fool's mask was beautiful. April Fool said the same. They pressed their foreheads together and wrapped six limbs around each other, rasping gentle laughs.
Plumasks were as curious a creature as their coaches were. There were few critters on the planet that could meet eyes with themselves in the mirror and recognize themself, and fewer still who could gaze at their reflection and ask who the self they were looking at was. Abstract ideas were incomprehensibly alien to most creatures, yet Plumasks were known for building masks that reflected their true selves.
But, well, it wasn't like those masks were a one-and-done thing for the little moths. Their masks were created using the material from their cocoons, but their artistic streak didn't stop when they'd run out of cocoon with which to make.
April Fool pressed one claw to the dirt below them, and, like instinct, Lioness followed.
Wild spiderweb strokes unraveled through the ground below, intertwined, interweaving. Curved shapes like the coil of a half-asleep snake passed through each other, then out, then again back in, spiraled in notional design. Twelve limbs meeting and parting and meeting again, together shaping a painting of their own ideas.
When the piece was finished, it did not come to form the shape of something recognizable– no eyes, no face, only volute spirals twined in helix shape. It was not a painting representing anything tangible. Rather, it was a painting that represented twelve limbs held together in the dirt; a painting that represented only the memory of its own creation. The memory of two Plumasks giggling together under the dappled Amberstone sun, their sides pressed so tight to each other that their masks touched as they wove turbinate strokes.
Lioness and April Fool laid together for a while, combing each other's manes 'til they fell asleep in the center of their coiled painting, limbs and tails wrapped around each other like they were a part of the piece they lied atop. The sun fell and rose again before either dared to move– and they were brought out of rest only by a distant call and a tug on mycelium string.
April Fool tapped their forehead to Lioness's, brushed their paws against theirs, and breathed something that could not be translated to words, and then they were gone, following after their coach's summoning. Lioness took a moment to trace their claws over the lines of their piece one last time before they rose above ground, shook the dust out of their plumes, and left to find something with which to play.
Then, those few weeks passed, and the Mega Beasts once again faced off against the other team from Rutile.
The Amberstone woods shifted from thick leaves to dirty concrete under Lioness's tail as the heartbeat pawsteps of Sphinx– who was still not yet a Bandicraft, but had become a little less clumsy– accompanied them toward their coach's howl in Geo City. When the two skidded to a stop at Jack's side, Sabretooth and the newly-recruited Ocelot were already there to exchange hellos, Sabretooth at Jack's heel and Ocelot wrapped 'round their neck like a scarf.
But, of course, they were not Lioness's only company. Standing across from them was the coach from Rutile and their own team– the soon-enough-Hopra, the now-Bongus, and a freshly recruited Daredillo watching the distant flickering lights with flicking ears– and, of course, the Plumask from the other side of the net, April Fool with their bright eyes.
April Fool wheezed a greeting, one paw lifted up high to wave– then Lioness had barreled into them, head buried in their chest and limbs tangled with theirs, giggling madly and purring madder. Their tails curled around each other, masks clinked together, antennae brushing antennae in a labyrinthine mess.
Their coaches watched them for a moment, gazes blank, before the other coach from Rutile clicked their tongue and said, "Yo, I think our Plumasks are gay."
Jack barked in surprise and thumped one foot like a rabbit, fists tight at their sides in exasperation. "WHAT?! there's no way they're–!"
The coach from Rutile gestured their thumb at the two Plumasks wrapped around each other, spinning slowly from their place hovering in the air, with a raised eyebrow that dared Jack to deny the obvious.
Jack took the hint, and sputtered, "l-lioness! how could you betray us like this?! i trusted you!!! D:<"
Lioness only tilted their head, antennae twitching with an amusement they didn't get. Betrayal was a human thing; something a Beastie did not regard.
Jack threw out a "whatever!" with their hands in the air, then barked for their team to take position. April Fool and Lioness separated to rejoin their own teams, the net sprung out from the concrete between them, and with a last-minute threat from Jack tossed into the pot, the match was on.
The two teams traded a win and a loss each– first a win for the Mega Beasts, as the coach from Rutile smiled at Jack's insults, then the other team from Rutile turned the tides in their favor. Dashing about the court with Lioness's own team beside them and the other team from Rutile against them felt one and the same– both, separately and together, felt something like home.
The Mega Beasts again soared off after their loss, all cramped together to hang onto Jack as they took to the skies. While Jack and the coach from Rutile exchanged glares and threats, their teams exchanged goodbyes and see-you-soons. They touched down some while away, in a secluded spot by the outskirts of Mythwood forests, where Jack flopped onto their back to let their Beasties all crowd around them.
While the other members of the team gathered to rest or fiddle amongst themselves, Lioness hovered toward Jack, with their eyes to Jack's screen and their paws to their vest. Jack giggled at the sight, a smile in their voice, then lifted their claws to hold Lioness's cheeks in their palms.
"i don't mind if you're sweet for bea's plumask, lioness," Jack said, their voice soft the way it was when the Mega Beasts were their only company. "just gotta play the role, y'know? make sure they don't... find out it's me."
Lioness just stared at them; a strange little moment where they would have blinked if they were a creature built for such things. Jack laughed and pressed their thumbs a little tighter into Lioness's fluff.
"you don't have to worry about any of that, huh?" Jack huffed a sigh. "i wish i could be like you."
The Mega Beasts and the other team from Rutile played against each other a sparse few times after that, in scattered jumpscares at random times, but the Mega Beasts and the other team from Rutile did not truly meet again until they faced under the roof of the Rutile town stadium.
The tension between Jack and the coach whose scent lingered on their hands had reached a breaking point, it seemed, and Jack could not bear to wear their mask any longer. They stood under a patch of sunlight beaming through the windows, helmet in their hold and heartbeat hammering, while they hummed along to the song playing on the radio. Lioness hovered beside them, and Ocelot had themself curled around their shoulders, while Sabretooth, at last Panther, and the finally-Bandicraft Sphinx stood by their side.
When the other team from Rutile joined them on the field, Jack swallowed, claws held so tight the tips squeaked against their helmet's coat of paint– but Sphinx and the now-Hopra only traded greetings, and Sabretooth and the Bongus only waved, and Lioness and April Fool only touched their foreheads and their six limbs together.
As the ball raced back and forth between Beastie paws and tails, Jack howled their story to their fellow coach from Rutile; something about friendship and betrayal, about wanting the better-than their dear friend held– about the net between them dividing the impassable line between a friend and an enemy, a loser and a winner of which there could be only one.
But that was all a human thing; something a Beastie did not regard.
Was to yearn together for the elusive better-than such a terrible thing? For what reason did a Beastie and a coach join hands, did a pair of Beasties or a pair of teams push each other, if not in search for such a goal? To lose was still a lesson learned, nothing more than a chance to play again.
Sphinx, Sabretooth, Ocelot, and Panther were their team, the ones beside Lioness on this side of the net. But that did not make Kitty, Puppy, Shadow, Jammer, or April Fool any lesser, simply for the fact that they stood together on the other side.
The net did not denote friends and enemies like a human would think– only a team one and a team two, a line that would dissolve as soon as the match was over.
Though most creatures struggled to hold onto abstract ideas, all Beasties chased after the need to be, in some way or some how, better. The search for better-than was an intangible thing, yet it could be traded nonetheless, swapped like the ball from one side of the field to the other with every match. And what good would it serve a Beastie to hiss and spit at the one holding the crown, rather than taking the chance to call through mycelium threads, let's play again soon?
The match ended with a victory for the other team from Rutile, when April Fool tossed the ball over the net and Lioness failed to receive. Where a human would've hissed and spat, the two Plumasks only held each other in six paws and called through mycelium threads, let's play again soon.
Now, today, after the human world was forever shaken, but the world of Beasties only looked a little brighter, the Mega Beasts and the other team from Rutile found themselves huddled together in an old hideout by the outskirts of their hometown.
While Ocelot and Shadow the Daredillo volleyed a ball back and forth, and Sphinx and Kitty the Hopra traded how-are-yous, and Jack sat with her freckled shoulder pressed to the other coach from Rutile's, gesturing wildly with ungloved hands as they chatted about human things, Lioness and April Fool huddled together in a shady spot under a tree, purring softly with twitching antennae.
Their limbs pressed together, heads buried in each other's manes, two Plumasks from different teams rested together with no worries about betrayals or bitter rivalries or anything raw hidden under their masks at all. Those were all human things; something a Beastie did not regard.
