SOMETHING FROM WHATEVER STEPHEN said touched Kimberly. Her heart was moved. So she reached into her jacket and threw something his way. Catching it, he looked to see that it was the Lion's Den emblem.
"Kim, you don't have to—"
"I know I don't," she interrupted. "You said you wouldn't lose a second time, so why should I be worried?"
He had a lot of questions to ask her, but now was not the time. Griffin got up, scratching the spot where Victoria had kicked him.
"Ooh!" Mila said. "Sister Ally's gonna be even more mad!"
Victoria ignored Mila's childish antics. The last thing on her mind was telling Allison about this. Instead, she skated toward Kimberly to ask if this was the right choice. With a sincere smile and a warm tone, Kimberly answered, "Of course! It's his debut!"
In just a moment's time, the two challengers, Stephen and Griffin, were lacing up their Dyna Blades. At the finish line, Victoria and a Skull Raiders member were waiting with the opposite team's emblem in hand. Their challenge: Whoever can take the other team's emblem at the end of the railroad wins. The railroad track itself was approximately five miles long.
"It's your first time putting on Dyna Blades, huh, kid?" Griffin asked.
"How can you tell?"
"It's your stance. You look too stiff!"
Stephen hadn't ever thought about how his stance played a role in rollerblading. So, with a calm attitude, he said, "Shut up and get ready."
The two got into a racing position. Mila started the countdown with Kimberly next to her. The moment she said "three," Stephen could feel his heart pounding. Two seconds later, she screamed, "Go!"
The two accelerated, their wheels skidding against the pavement. The wind brushed past Stephen's hair. His eyes were fixed on the ground, entranced by how fast he was moving. Griffin was already many paces ahead of him.
'I'm starting to get the hang of this,' he thought to himself. 'Keep myself balanced and time the acceleration… Everything's so precise. These things react almost as fast as I can think.'
Griffin thought that by showing how pathetic Stephen was for accepting a challenge as a rookie, his spirit would deter. He couldn't have been more wrong. For when he looked at Stephen's face, he saw an unyielding smirk. All that was going on in Stephen's head now was one thing: 'This is freaking awesome!'
Shifting his weight, Stephen accelerated until he zoomed right past Griffin. Griffin was stunned as his lead was lost!
The frustration he felt was intense. Lifting one leg up, he placed his Dyna Blade directly on the train track. When he felt himself moving forward, he started fully grinding it. The speed and acceleration he received from the rail grinding pushed his momentum past Stephen.
"You're out of your league, kid!" he said.
A few moments passed before Griffin could finally see the finish line. The Lion's Den silver-sapphire emblem was shining in his member's hand. This caused a huge smile to form since not once had Stephen taken the lead. When he looked back, his smile faded.
Stephen wasn't behind him.
"Was I beating him so bad I didn't notice I left him in the dust?" he asked himself.
Suddenly, a zapping noise was heard. It sounded like electricity, and it was coming from directly above him. Anxious to look up, his eyes darted, only to see Stephen grinding on the power lines. Arms spread out, looking almost like he was flying!
Sparks flew out as his wheels glowed red from the friction. From his perspective, he saw something that Griffin hadn't seen: not the finish line, but the horizon line beyond the mountains.
'I can see it,' he thought. 'I can see the sky!'
Crouching to leap off the power lines, Stephen flipped forward into the sky. Griffin stared in awe at what he was witnessing. From below, he saw Stephen nestled between two clouds, making it look as if wings were on his feet. Before he knew it, Stephen had not just taken the lead; he had successfully secured the emblem!
Griffin stopped at the end of the railroad, saddened by the results. In disbelief, he said, "I… I lost."
Kimberly and Mila, who had been following behind to ensure Griffin wasn't planning to cheat, stopped right beside Stephen. They each cheered, having seen the whole thing. Kimberly was perhaps the most excited about the victory. Just when Griffin thought things were over, Stephen approached him.
He didn't have enough courage to look him in the eyes after that loss. But Stephen didn't care. He grabbed Griffin by the neck and slammed his back straight into the ground. He then placed his wheels right on his head, ready to skid them across his face.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Griffin begged.
Letting out a sigh, Stephen made the right decision by removing his feet.
The next morning, the sounds of birds chirping woke Stephen up. Looking in front of him, three birds had their talons on his bed sheets. He was so pumped up with adrenaline from last night that he forgot to close his windows. One such bird, the Steller's Jay, had slept on his head.
Arising from bed, the first person to greet him at his door was Victoria. She was holding a toilet plunger right in his face.
"Do you think just because you won your race last night that we weren't going to give you a punishment?" she asked. "And what's with all the birds in your room this morning?!"
"I'm being punished for winning?"
"No, you bird brain! You're being punished for having jacked Ally's Dyna Blades!"
Rather than argue with her, Stephen considered whether or not Allison was also a Road Rider. It was improbable for her to be one because of her profession as a mixed martial artist. The job required her to travel to different states and participate in relentless matches. Who knows what she might say when she finds out about him riding Dyna Blades?
For the whole morning until it was time to head to school, Stephen spent that hour cleaning all the toilets in the house.
"Listen up!" Victoria said. "Everything that happened yesterday is on you. If you tell anyone about the Lion's Den, you'll be sleeping on the roof with your bird friends for a week."
He expected her to say something like this. On their ride home last night, not a single one of the girls wanted to answer his questions. Whatever sort of team they were on, it was clearly a secretive one. Why else would they hide the fact about a room filled with multi-thousand-dollar equipment?
"Sorry, Steph," Kimberly said in a low tone, her hand covering her mouth. "I'm sure we'll tell you everything one day, so for now, please just bear with me, okay?"
'She said "me," not "us."'
At school, Stephen rested his legs over his table as he leaned back against the chair. He was just barely balancing on the chair's two feet. Face toward the ceiling, he considered how his walk to school with Kimberly was quieter than usual. The moment they entered campus, she pleaded with him not to say anything about how her team got involved with the Skull Raiders.
'For Kimberly to go so far as to—'
"Steph, you were insane last night!" Castiel yelled, entering the classroom.
His sudden outburst prompted many of the students to crowd around him. Everyone throughout the whole school knew how Stephen was considered one of the biggest street thugs. Rumors had quickly spread that he got ambushed by several guys wearing Dyna Blades, only to unleash a swift counterattack the same night on their leader. Word also had it that he completely disbanded an entire team all by himself.
"They're just rumors," he corrected the crowd around him.
"No way, boss!" Maxwell announced. "We saw with our own eyes how you beat the Skull Raiders' leader in a race!"
As interesting as the attention was, Stephen furrowed his brows and said, "I thought I ordered you guys to leave it to me…"
"We're sorry, boss! Please forgive us! We just didn't want to let you take those bastards by yourself."
How could Stephen be upset at that? Their hearts were in the right place. So he closed his eyes and said, "Fine. But don't go disobeying orders again."
Maxwell testified that Castiel and he were indeed present at the scene, causing all the students around to believe that the rumors must have been true.
"Can I join your team?!" a girl screamed out.
"Yeah, I wanna join, too!" someone abruptly added.
In no time, several people began clamoring one by one about how they wanted to be on a team with him. Fixing his position, Stephen got up and asked Castiel and Maxwell to come with him outside. His lack of response to the other students caused them to pout. It was essentially like him denying their request to be on his team.
And he couldn't have done it more smoothly.
His two gang members met him outside the room just as he instructed. In a laid-back tone, Stephen asked them, "Well, how about it?"
"How 'bout—ow!" Maxwell screamed after being punched in the arm by Castiel.
"We'd love to join your team, boss!"
"Good," he said. "That's all I needed to hear. With us three, that puts us just shy of two."
"But, boss!" Maxwell announced. "We don't have any Dyna Blades."
"I asked you to join my team, didn't I? So just leave the rest up to me."
Exactly like a true leader would respond, Castiel and Maxwell were joyful knowing they had chosen Stephen's side. Even if he didn't look at them the same way they did, they were undoubtedly ready to follow his lead.
After school ended, Stephen met up with Kimberly at the park. She promised him that as long as he kept the Lion's Den a secret, she would teach him a new trick. The thought of being taught by someone he considered a younger sister was strange, but he was a shameless man. As long as he could ride Dyna Blades again, he honestly didn't mind.
"Last night, you were stiff as a board, Steph," Kimberly said. "Here are the principles to have better control over your body while riding, okay?"
Nodding his head, Kimberly, who was already wearing her Dyna Blades, jumped up to perform a triple backflip without using the cushion system. What was impressive was that she landed exactly where she jumped from. Her wheels weren't even a single millimeter apart!
Not once feeling embarrassed as he fell, Kimberly even admired how serious he was each time he got back up. It was inevitable that he failed more than ten times trying to get the right posture down. The Dyna Blades he was wearing were different from the ones he had used the night before. But that was no excuse for his failure.
Once the sun started setting, the two eventually walked home together.
"Hey, Kim."
"Yeah, Steph?"
"Thanks for your note last night."
Kimberly immediately waved her arms, stating that it was nothing. Her face was bright red as sweat dripped from her cheeks. Stephen smiled, ignoring her overreaction. He was going to question why they didn't just ride home instead, but she answered before he could finish asking.
"Riding in broad daylight is asking for trouble. Anyone can pop up at any moment to challenge you if you're not prepared."
He accepted that answer. He was still new to the world of Dyna Blades. Considering that his roommates had been keeping this secret from him for who knows how long, he chose not to tell them he was planning on forming his own Road Riders team.