It Happened

[Ghosts]

Shin Seiki, Japan - October 11, 2036

Vanessa stood, abruptly jolted from her seat as Noah Hill’s line drive landed safely in “Splits” MacVurich’s glove. A malformed roar burst from her lungs as a cheer and she launched a fist in the air, releasing the tension that had built not only over the course of the series, or the playoff run, or even the whole damned amazing season, but over the long course of the build of these Niihama-shi Ghosts that had just won their first PEBA playoff series.

It had been five and a half years since it was announced that the Ghosts would be the league’s 29th/30th team, rejoining PEBA after a brief three-year stint fifteen years ago, Vanessa thought. Before then, the Ghosts were a respected, if unspectacular, member of the defunct League of the Rising Sun. That league may have died, but its legacy thrived in the form of the Rising Sun Division, as well in San Juan, Scotland, and Havana. Three PEBA championship trophies belong to former LRS teams. None belonged to the Ghosts, though. Nor was there any prideful legacy. The team never won a championship in the LRS. It was initially invited to PEBA after the collapse of the LRS, but as the team struggled to adapt, it was quickly banished to the World Independent League. The team’s finances suffered extreme whiplash, and the organization nearly collapsed under the weight of its debts and misfortunes, losing well over $200M USD in just five years. If it weren’t for Vanni Bruno and his mysterious bags of cash, the organization almost certainly would have disbanded. Vanessa certainly would not be here without him – he’d taken her on as his personal assistant at the behest of her father. God only knows how her dad knew Vanni.

Even with that bailout, it had taken countless transactions and deals that left the Ghosts a talentless mess, season after season, for them to have reached this stage. For this long-derelict team to have just defeated the vaunted Shin Seiki Evas, owners of two of those PEBA championships and a nearly perfect playoff attendance record, was almost surreal.

Vanessa soaked it in, the gleaming joy of victory, letting it fill her soul and radiate back out again. The euphoria illuminated her eyes, lifted the corners of her mouth, floated her body. It was as though she were a child and her dad had lifted her into the air again on the day of her Little League championship win. This was it. Everything she’d poured her soul into for years, every hard decision she made, every promising and trusting player traded away, every date she missed with every late night – it was all worth it. This was validation. The kind that she ached for, that she wondered if she could ever know again without Dad.

Her fist still clenched and aloft, she tuned back into the world and immediately took note of the other person in the suite – her boss and the GM of the Ghosts. He stood, hands clenched upon the rail, overlooking Genesis Park. It seemed as though he were surveying, even, perhaps, brooding. The juxtaposition shocked Vanessa from her brief moment of reverie.

“Dan?” It was all Vanessa need muster to gain her mentor’s attention. He turned his head without so much as a twitch below the neck, slightly in her direction and forced a flash of a half-smile before returning his gaze to the field. The players were rallying around series MVP Pedro Flores after having paid the Evas their respect. Vail’s gaze stood fixed on the stadium scoreboard. A graphic displaying the 2036 playoff tree, with the Ghosts lined up against Toyoma next, burned into his vision.

“It’s not enough, Vanessa,” Vail seemed both surprised by the idea that trouncing his brother in a playoff sweep was insufficient and infuriated by the idea that behemoths like the Wind Dancers and Farstriders and Alleghenies still stood favored above his team. “It’s not anywhere near goddamn enough.”

[Apollos]

Very proud of the Ghosts, the first of the PEBA's re-integrees from the WIL to make the playoffs. The Niihama rebuild was a master class in how to quickly stack prospects in anticipation of a violent ascent, and I'm loving watching it. Looks like Vail's words were prescient... Let's go Ghosts

[Ghosts]

Thanks Brian! I can't wait to see the Knights make the same ascent, but I'm certainly not looking forward to facing off against the superstars you have developing.