BOOK 1:THE BEGINNING:CHAPTER XLIX:PEP RALLY

Over one end of the school enclosed gymnasium was overcrowded with people cheering wildly at two teams of basketball players whose attires reputably represented the school they came from particularly the home school team whose players were dressed in white jersey and blue shorts and they were hosting the event of the day on the home ground.
The match had been set to kickstart in the weekend and there was plenty enough time for the home team to prepare adequately for match which will decide if they will be going to the next round of the tournament games. Ever since it started, it was tougher for both sides with equal scores displayed clearly for everyone including the referee on the digital scoreboard to see especially the man in charge of commentaries for the game, to take control of the game.
The rival opponents seemed a lot stronger at first in the first half but by the time Leonardo and his best friend, Jason had found a good spot to sit down in the heart of the roaring crowd of supporters, the players away from home, were tussling fervently to get hold of the mastery of the game with the home team though they seemed formidable at first with their skillful passing of the ball and the points they scored after tossing the ball into the net of their opponents but all started to change when the coach made wise changes of his attacking players in time to level up the scoreline with their rivals who soon found themselves losing the upper hand and were being starved of the ball though their defenses was still strong for them to form a counterattack.
As for the crowd, their wild screams and the shrill noises they make, the voices all seem to be falling and rising at each point of excitement of the game especially when any team wanted to score or narrowly missed the net after failing to hit the target.
A kind of huge bellow will arise in the crowd whenever they missed a good chance chance to score a point and all these were part of the excitement the game brought to the fans shouting from the audience.
From where he sat down next to Jason, Leonardo could see the cheerleaders and an alligator mascot performing some acrobatics dances at the opposite side of the arena. He tried to make out if Mary was amongst them .but her presence was somewhat missing from the whole school event taking place for everyone to participate in the annual sport weekend ceremony for the year.
Feeling disappointed, he shifted his attention to the players on the arena and kept his mind focused on the incessant battling for the ball amongst the players as it kept flying rapidly from one fingers to another in mid air each time a team tries to gain possession so fast that Jason, apart from himself and the rest of the noisy crowd, barely have the ability to keep track of the specific speed it took to surf in mid air before landing in net or gone out of play as ruled by the referee after leaving one hand to another.
Then his eyes picked a familiar face of a young girl resembling whom he had been looking for in the crowd facing him from the opposite side but ot turned out to be someone else who must have plaited the same hairstyle with that of Mary. As the noises grew more violent, Jason noticed his buddy's lack of concentration on the game and instantly informed him of his own findings as well.
"Mary's not in the crowd",
He spoke out loudly for Leonardo hear clearly.
"Lower your voice, Jason. I can still hear you even the noise around here is too much",
"I'll try",
"You said Mary's not here, how did you know that?",
"Because we would have seen her in school before the game started",
"That's true. I was hoping we would see her among the cheerleaders but it looks like she never came to school in the first place",
"Then at least focus on the game. You got lucky that you aren't playing with your soccer team today with all this distraction affecting you",
"I'm just watching out if she will turn up or something. Besides, coach says there will be no training for the whole of next week for the team before our friendly match with the Rangers team next month",
"Sounds like he's overconfident to me",
"You could say that. I was going to go against his decision but...",
"Because of Mary, right?",
Jason retorted with a question.
"Yep. I just looking forward for a whole week to spend some time with her, you know",
"Are you sure your father's guards will allow that to happen?"
"Of course they will listen to what I have to say",
"And if they don't?",
"Then I will make sure they do even if I have to use force when necessary",
"Suit yourself with that. Anyway, a team is about to score, who do you think will win this game for this year's tournament?",
"I don't ....",
Leonardo had barely replied to Jason when the crowd of supporters suddenly roared with great pep when the home team scored a point to go ahead of their opponents. Their shout overwhelmed the entire place except for the commentary present in the large hall and died down with cheerful whistling from the home fans.
Lenardo noticed the home team celebrating their points and soon flocked around the coach at the substitution area outside the perimeter where the game was played when the referee blew his whistle for another break. He was having a chat with the players when one of them suddenly grew annoyed, maybe by what the gym coach told him to do and walked away in anger from the arena into one of the exit that led directly to the dressing room inside the school. He was one of the key players in the game and many people saw him leaving in anger out of arena but they were too busy enjoying themselves with the wild cries that resounded continuously from one side of the hall to another and cared less about his emotions.
Unknown to everyone including Leonardo, during time out, someone shapshifted as a werewolf assaulted this guy in the dressing room and left him for dead with terrifying wounds all around his body.
For a brief moment, Leonardo felt the odd presence of another shapshifter like himself and sensed something wrong when the guy refuses to come back after the break was called off by the referee for the final half of the lengthy game.
Confusion amongst the coach and his team started to occur when this particular player didn't show up for like thirty minutes after the recess was over.
Two of the players were instructed to go and fetch him from the dressing room only to find out that the player was bleeding as he lay in a coma with ghastly large wounds gushing out blood profusely.
It was then that the alarm to contact the medical team nearby was raised and then everything else went into a totally standstill for the people in the gymnasium and pandemonium soon broke lose when almost all the players of the home team forfeited the game and went to revive their bleeding teammate. Against Jason's advised and against instructions for the crowd to remain calm, Leonardo left his seat and somehow maneuvered through the security man and joined a group of curious people to see for themselves what had caused the ruckus that escalated into something deadly. They including Leonardo saw the victim lying almost half dead un his own blood with huge claw marks on his body whilst the paramedics were still on their way.
"What could have happened to him?",
Leonardo question in shock
"We don't know. We only found him like this",
"This is terrible",
"And a big blow to the Yankees",
Leonardo was about to raise a question when someone shouted from the group.
"The paramedics here!",
"Tell them to come in here with a stretcher quickly,hurry slow pokes",
The coach ordered.
"Sir, they are already on the hallway coming so there's no need for you to send those boys",
An informant said after preempting the boys from carrying out his orders. And it was true that the paramedics were already at the hallway coming since they had luckily reacted quick enough to arrive in their ambulance sooner for them to send a detached unit of four paramedics with a stretcher to carry the victim to the ambulance patked outside on the school vicinity where Pennant and the other bodyguards with him him were waiting for the whole school event to end. They saw the victim as they carried him out of the school building and onto the ambulance before driving off to the hospital close by. It was a sad sight for everyone who saw the wounds of the assaulted victim and the game ended up being postponed until further notice from the principal of the school.