Extra Basket

Under the harsh, burning lights of the Grand Arena, the air felt heavy like every breath the crowd took was dragged through chains. Tension didn't just linger; it bound. The ball rested in Poseidon's hands for the inbound, but not a soul was watching him.

Every gaze was fixed pulled toward Zeus.

He stepped forward.

Only one step.

The floor answered like it recognized its rightful master. A low tremor rippled beneath the polished court, faint but undeniable as if the world adjusted its balance to accommodate his presence. Static crackled along the sidelines, catching on jersey fabric, whispering across the hardwood like sparks dancing before a storm.

Referees twitched, whistles halfway raised… then slowly lowered, as if calling a foul now would be an offense to something greater than the game.

Ethan, sitting among the crowd, felt his pulse stumble. For a second, he forgot to breathe. His hands clenched the railing.

Ethan's heartbeat stuttered as he realized it "He's not moving to play… he's moving to declare."

Jalen's grin, sharp and confident a moment ago, dimmed slightly—not in fear.

In recognition.

Zeus didn't simply walk onto the court.

He descended like a verdict.

Poseidon smoothly drifted inward, his movements like the tide drawn in by moonlight. Hermes adjusted his stance, his body cutting an angled lane like a blade slicing silk. Ares became still, grounded, an immovable fortress dripping with killing intent. Apollo slid outward, calm and blinding, like a beam of sunlight carving space.

They weren't repositioning.

They were aligning like stars drawn into orbit.

Louie, watching from the Raptors' bench, swallowed hard. His voice cracked when he whispered, "Why does it feel like… the court belongs to him?"

Ethan answered with quiet certainty, "Because it does... This moment"

Poseidon didn't pass the ball.

He presented it. Both hands extended, head slightly bowed not from submission, but acknowledgment of rank. Like a knight kneeling before a sovereign.

The ball touched Zeus' palm.

THUD.

Air pressure spiked.

It wasn't the ball that hit the floor.

It was authority.

A ripple ran through the court. Every player, every spectator, felt gravity shift. Jalen's footwork faltered for half a breath. His lungs inhaled half a second late, rhythm slipping.

Jalen's jaw tightened, teeth grinding as his chest rose sharply. "He… just shifted the rhythm of the entire court?"

Zeus took a single dribble.

BOOM.

Sound warped. The floorboards groaned like they were bowing under invisible weight.

Ares stepped, planting himself like a mountain to set Warpath screen. Ryan's body slammed into him with the brutal force of an avalanche—his shoulder smashing against Ares' mass.

Ryan's ribs shuddered. His shoes squealed against the wood. The ref's whistle flinched upward

Then slowly fell back down.

Hermes shot forward, a blur cutting across the arc, motion sharp and efficient. Evan tried to react, but his step missed not physically, but temporally. As if the window where he could respond had been erased.

Jalen lunged toward Zeus, body angling to intercept.

Zeus lifted his hand.

Not to shoot.

Not to pass.

—To command.

His lips parted, and with a tone devoid of emotion, he spoke a single word.

"Kneel."

The world lurched.

Jalen felt his knee bend not by choice. The wood beneath his sneaker cracked slightly, the force not physical but woven into reality's fabric.

Ethan crushed his knuckles against the railing, veins bulging. "He's not using speed or strength… He's using authority over momentum itself!"

Zeus glided forward not skating, not dashing gliding like the world itself carried him.

Brandon stepped up in the paint, eyes blazing with pride. Sweat rolled down his temple as he set his stance, muscles coiled to contest.

Zeus turned his head and glanced at him once. Cold. Effortless. Inevitable.

"Out of my way."

No shout.

No roar.

Just a statement.

And Brandon's feet slid back.

Like gravity itself had changed direction.

He hadn't been pushed.

He had been dismissed.

A layup followed. No theatrics. No power.

Just inevitability.

The ball rolled off Zeus' fingers and floated through the air like it already belonged inside the net.

SCORE: 4 – 4

The crowd—silent.

Then—

—eruption.

Jalen landed hard on the court, breath rough, shoulders rising and falling. His heart slammed against his ribs not with dread.

With exhilaration.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, a smirk crawling slowly across his face. His eyes gleamed not as prey, but as a wolf baring its fangs at a lion.

"So you can bleed momentum…" His voice was low, dangerous, alive. "…Good. Now you're worth killing."

That was when Zeus did something he hadn't yet done.

He looked.

Not over him.

Not past him.

At him.

A king acknowledging a challenger.

And the court shifted once more not by magic, not by power but by the ignition of war.

And that… is when the inbound came to Jalen.

The ball slapped into his palm like a drum of war.

He lifted one hand.

No words.

ISO.

The Raptors spread, obedient to nothing but trust.

Jalen's eyes lowered, voice almost a whisper carried only by those attuned to the rhythm of gods and rebels

"…Flash World. Open."

FLASH WORLD – 60% ACTIVATED.

Time didn't slow.

Everything else did.

The roar of the crowd stretched into a distant thunder, each clap, each gasp unfolding like it echoed through water. The lights above flickered not because they dimmed, but because Jalen moved too fast for illumination to follow.

His eyelashes lifted.

Flick.

A silver shimmer rippled over his irises like clock hands spinning out of sync with reality.

Ethan's eyes widened. His breath hitched like a skipped heartbeat. He felt it before he understood it.

"He… he stepped outside our timeline."

Jalen took a step.

The wood didn't crack from force it fractured visually, like pixels bending, time frames glitching as he entered a pathway not meant for mortal trajectories.

Poseidon Kai Nakamura felt it too.

His pupils sharpened, Wave Control calculations instantly adapting, tracing all potential lanes simultaneously.

Kai's jaw clenched, a flicker of respect crossing his face. "His tempo… it's folding between beats?"

Jalen dribbled.

Not bounce… flicker.

Not motion… interval leap.

Each tap of the ball wasn't just fast it was threaded through the spaces where time didn't fully exist.

Ares lunged in a walking fortress massive shoulder shifting to set another brutal Warpath wall.

But by the time he planted his foot

Jalen was already gone.

Ares' eyes widened, a toothy grin splitting as he felt nothing but wind hit his chest.

His laugh rolled like thunder. "THAT WASN'T A DODGE. THAT WAS A SKIP!"

Jalen's sneakers hit the ground once BOOM.

The world rippled.

Zeus leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, chin propped on one hand. Azure lightning crackled just faintly in his eyes. No words. No theatrics.

But his presence sharpened like the sky drawing breath before a storm.

From Zeus' bench, Chronos finally moved.

Lucien Chronos stood.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

Not to interfere.

To judge.

Jalen cut left.

Poseidon read three potential lines, body adjusting like fluid curve.

Jalen didn't choose any of them.

He carved a fourth. A path Poseidon couldn't predict because it didn't exist a moment ago.

Kai shifted, breath catching.

"…He outran predictive flow?"

Ethan slammed his fist against the rail, eyes wild. "This isn't speed. He's removing reaction windows entirely. He's erasing the defender's ability to recognize the moment!"

Jalen hit the paint.

Hermes dove in from the side, grin wide, golden sneakers screaming across the floor like a comet's trail.

"Too predictable, Flash."

Jalen didn't answer.

He flickered.

His body stepped inside his own afterimage.

Hermes' grin faltered as his hand cut through nothing but a ghost of movement he thought was real.

Hermes' breath dropped into a whisper. "…He used his own echo as a stepping stone."

Jalen rose.

And that was when Zeus stood.

Not slowly. Not violently.

He just stood, and the arena's air pressure spiked like a deep-sea trench.

The Divine Gods didn't look at him.

They didn't need to.

Their bodies shifted an inch. Drawn by orbit.

Zeus' voice rolled across the atmosphere—not loud, not quiet, just undeniable.

"Chronos."

Lucien's head tilted, golden eyes half-lidded.

He stepped forward.

Time bent.

The air rippled—not like heat. Like HOURS folding into SECONDS.

Flash World met Chronos' passive aura.

And for the first time

Jalen felt resistance.

His chest tightened. His dribble stuttered mid-air not physically, but sequentially, like a frame of animation being deleted.

Lucien's voice flowed like quiet water, devoid of malice. "Your world… against mine?"

Jalen's teeth pressed hard, a sharp grin stretching through the strain. His aura surged, silver cracks flashing around his limbs like fragmented film reels.

"I don't care who owns this court…"

His arm drew back, ball exploding with inertia.

"…I'll rewrite it myself."

FLASH DUNK DECLARED. The words punched through the arena like a war horn calling defiance to the heavens. Ethan's feet were already leaving the ground, body coiled like a spring of pure intent not just to score, but to declare existence.

DIRECT CONFRONTATION WITH DIVINE AUTHORITY.

The crowd didn't breathe. Evan's pupils expanded. Lucas felt something in his chest snap loose a chain? A limit? He wasn't sure. Ryan's hand clenched on his jersey like he was holding onto reality itself.

Chronos didn't flinch.

The old god simply lifted his hand two fingers rising like the slow toll of fate itself—measured, deliberate, almost gentle in its cruelty.

"Denied."

The whistle of time itself seemed to echo behind that single word. Space around Ethan compressed, like invisible walls were closing in, sealing the court into a predetermined sequence only Chronos knew.

And then—

The air cracked.

It wasn't thunder.

It wasn't a dunk.

It was Zeus—and for the first time all night, his divinity flickered, like a storm front finally acknowledging pressure strong enough to challenge its reign.

Zeus' head tilted.

His eyes gold and cold like lightning trapped in glass focused, truly focused, on Ethan. Until now, everything had been lazily controlled, power flexed like a god watching ants clash.

But now?

The storm leaned forward.

A sound like grinding rumble broke from Zeus' chest not a laugh, not anger recognition.

"…He dares to force a path through fate itself." Zeus murmured, voice low, words barely audible to anyone but the gods and those standing closest. His fingers flexed once, electricity spilling lazily between them like bored lightning searching for a target.

Ethan's dunk was still rising.

Chronos' fingers were still lifted.

Time locked between them like a blade suspended.

Then Zeus spoke not as a player, not as a captain, but as a god responding to a challenge.

"Let it be seen."

To be continue