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On account of an unlucky coin toss, Abe was the first to receive the ball. And despite not having been alive for even a year yet, he more than made up for it with muscle memory and coordination. Clearly, his career as a vigilante superhero was doing wonders for his prowess on the court.
However, you weren’t worried about keeping up with his movements. You were just as fast as he was, after all. The real struggle was an internal one; the unseen mental war of calculations and predictions. Trying to figure out what he would do next shouldn’t have been that hard, considering how you were roughly the same person.
Which was precisely why he would try to do the exact opposite of what you were expecting. This line of thinking would almost certainly lead to the entire game devolving into a series of events consisting of 50/50’s. Crucial moments that would decide whether you won or lost.
Abe was thinking the same way that you were, and knowing him, he was more than capable of remaining in control of the ball. You knew it as surely as you knew your own capabilities.
And those certainties were proven right when your clone brother used his adhesive feet to stop on a dime. You did the same, but the sudden maneuver caught you unawares, and you were a split second too late to react.
With dizzying speed, he pivoted, tossed the ball between your legs, and caught it on the other side before delivering the ball to the hoop with a layup. The crowd cheered and hollered. Some of them even looked a bit awestruck after seeing how fast you and your clone counterpart truly were, if only for a brief moment.
You hadn’t wanted to let Abe score a point on you this early in the game, but you weren’t too put out by this outcome. After all, it was your turn now.
—---
Step by step, little by little, you and Abe fought over possession of the ball, your arms snaking around one another, fishing for openings. It was a delicate dance that taxed your brain more than it did your body. Your stamina reserves were far larger than that of a normal human, and, with practice, you could pretty much perform any kind of move that you could imagine. But the same rules applied to Abe, so you were tasked with outmaneuvering an opponent that could hypothetically perform any maneuver, so long as it didn’t violate the core rules of the game.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the cruelest part of this matchup.
Any shot that either of you attempted, from anywhere on the court, it was a given that you would make it. It was hard to explain to any non-Spider-people, but your rapid mutation had granted you a kind of spatial awareness that was unmatched by most people other than Matt.
Spider-people didn’t miss stationary targets, and they seldom missed moving ones. They pretty much always knew where they were going, where they would end up, and when they would get there. Although, that last sense could be a <span class="mu-i">teensy</span> bit inaccurate at times.
(Cont.)
