Inspired by Community S3E9: "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism."

Percy POV

They're just some friends trying to have a fun game of foosball. That's what Percy keeps telling himself anyway. After all, they don't even go here. They have no right to carry on like that in the middle of the student union-

Focus. What did Hazel just say?

Shoot, they're all looking at him.

"Sorry," Percy says. "I'm having trouble focusing in here." That much is true. He can't study in the student lounge for much longer, but he doesn't have much of a choice since they're repainting the study room an even uglier shade of orange.

"Hazel was asking how we're spending the weekend," Jason supplies.

You know that feeling when you think it's Wednesday because you're following the same schedule you would on a Wednesday, but then you realize it's actually a Friday and you're going to be able to go back to your apartment and relax instead of rushing to a four o'clock swim practice?

Yeah. That. Percy feels that because—surprise—it just happened to him. "I'm not sure yet," he says. "Probably relax, play some video games-"

"Oh, yeah!"

"Score!"

"Suck it, loser!"

Percy takes a deep breath. If the sound of that stupid ball clanking against the sides of the table wasn't hard enough to tolerate, those stupid Valhalla students have to whoop and holler every time they score against some unsuspecting New Rome student. "Who let them into our student union anyway?" Percy asks.

Everyone looks at him with wide eyes.

He doesn't usually lose patience; Percy's a 'live and let live' sort of guy, but this is ridiculous! Is nobody else bothered by these guys? "You don't hear those Valhalla guys carrying on at our foosball table?"

Piper clears her throat. "Leo and I are going to have a Property Brothers marathon this weekend."

Percy wants to warn that nice guy Grover and his girlfriend Juniper that the Valhalla guys won't show them any mercy, but Annabeth's giving him daggers. He went through an angry phase after their big fight, but now he just feels sad for her. It's probably best if he tries to keep Annabeth happy so she can figure things out.

Yes, it does sting that she has an obvious crush on Piper despite sleeping with him for the past year or so. Percy doesn't want to talk about it. Moving on.

"Is that the one with the sexy twins?" Annabeth asks Piper.

"I think so. Leo, are they twins?" Piper asks.

Leo nods. "Yeah, they're twins."

"Okay, but which one is hotter?" Piper asks.

Hazel winces. "Asking the real questions today!"

"God, you can't just drop something like that this early in the morning!" Annabeth agrees.

Percy jumps when the Valhalla students at the foosball table start yelling again. "Oh yeah! Take that!" yells the skinny one with green hair.

"Pop! Pop!" shouts... oh god, it's Magnus.

Grover retracts his handshake and hobbles away with Juniper, their faces are shell-shocked.

Frank twiddles his thumbs. "I hate bullies like that."

"Wow, that's saying a lot from a guy who knocks people's teeth out on the ice!" Jason laughs.

"It was one time!" Frank protests.

"I thought there was the time you pummeled into that girl on Brooklyn's defense?" Piper teases.

"I thought you were really good in that game," Hazel says.

"No, no, that was her own fault!" Frank says. "Her brother was supposed to play, but she took his uniform and snuck on the ice. Damn, I ran into her and she just flew across the rink..." He chuckles as he recalls what the New Roman Times dubbed 'Kane-Gate.'

"Aww, are you gonna cry about it?" one of the Valhalla students teases.

Grover mumbles to Juniper, "Let's get out of here."

Percy can't take this anymore. "I'm going to kill those assholes."

"No, you're not," Jason says.

"Bro, you see how they're talking to Grover and his girlfriend. That's messed up."

"Bro, I get you, but Valhalla students are unhinged. Just let this one go-"

"Hey!" Percy shouts anyway. "What the hell is wrong with you people?" He gets off the couch and marches over to the foosball table.

The guy with the green hair punches Magnus on the shoulder and points at Percy. "Come to get clapped too?"

"Pop! Pop!"

Percy crosses his arms. "Come off it, Magnus, I know you can say more than that."

"How's this?" Magnus asks. "Eat my shorts!"

"Good one, Maggie!" Green-Hair high-fives his friend.

Wait. Percy knows that guy. "Hey, you were at my Super Bowl party!"

"Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. I go to a lot of parties, and I get hammered at all of them!"

"Pop! Pop!" Magnus adds.

Now it's coming back to Percy. These guys came to his party with some other Valhalla students in tow and supplied beer to the Mars Coed Fraternity. That was the first time Percy met Magnus, and his... significant other, who introduced himself with his name and pronouns.

"Alright," says Percy. "Before I trash talk you, I need to know your pronouns."

The green-haired kid extends a hand. "Alex Fierro, remember? 'Cause I don't! She/her for the time being."

"For the time being..." Percy mutters. "Do you have like, a bracelet or something so I know if that changes or am I just supposed to ask every hour or so?" He reaches to accept Alex's handshake.

"Sike!" Alex shouts, pulling her hand away. "I like to keep people on their toes." She gives him finger guns.

"And you are?" Magnus asks.

"Percy," he says through gritted teeth. "He/him/his. Now, can you take this clown act back to Valhalla and leave my friends alone? Some of us are trying to study."

"Aww," Alex teases. "The nerd boy needs to study."

"Pop, pop," Magnus says sadly.

Alex rakes a hand through her unruly green hair. "I'll tell you what—if you can score on us, we'll never use your table again."

Magnus tries to hide a smirk.

This is a trick. Percy can lose some of his dignity by walking away or lose all of his dignity by playing Alex and Magnus in foosball without a teammate, but who's he supposed to ask? None of his friends have taken an interest in the foosball table for the whole hour this nonsense has gone on, so Percy's all on his own for this.

"Fine," he says. He grips the handles on his side of the table, ready to control the purple resin players.

Magnus holds the ball against the slot. "Ready? Go!"

Alex and Magnus work seamlessly together, pushing the ball across the table, back and forth, dodging every one of Percy's attempts to gain control.

Finally, a little yellow player flicks the ball into the air and straight into Percy's goal.

"Hell yeah!" Alex shouts.

"Pop! Pop!" Magnus goes in for a belly bump with his girlfriend.

Percy walks away, leaving his pride on the foosball table and trying to tune out the endless teasing from the Valhalla students.

He looks to his friends, who scramble to pack up their homework while keeping straight faces. Annabeth stops recording on her phone and tucks it away in her backpack before following Piper and Hazel into the bathroom.

"I told you so," Jason says.

"Bro, c'mon, you see where I'm-"

"No, Percy. Foosball is a terrible game that just brings out the worst in people."

✎✎✎

Percy didn't think this through. He's exhausted, it's two in the morning, and he's running on expired Tastykakes and water from the shady water fountain.

The only thing keeping him awake is fantasies of himself winning a game of foosball against the Valhalla students and reclaiming his pride.

Technically, the student union closes at eleven on Fridays, but Percy managed to hide in the bathroom when the cleaning crew came through, and then when the janitor caught him in the stall, he just asked him about the kitten on his cell phone lock screen. Now Percy's back in the lounge practicing foosball.

Had he thought this through, he'd have enlisted a partner to practice with because playing by himself makes it harder to anticipate any plays Magnus and his tricky girlfriend Alex might pull. Also, it's not quite as fun.

Percy used to love foosball when he was a kid. That is, until the incident.

He grunts as he thrusts the rod forward, shooting the ball into the goal. Score—kind of.

"Ugh." Percy slumps down onto the couch and uses the bottom of his Led Zeppelin t-shirt to wipe the sweat from his face.

He used to be better at foosball, but he lost that spark he had when he was a kid in his mom and Smelly Gabe's old apartment, playing on the foosball table in his room. His mom found it on the side of the road on her way home from her job at the Sweet on America candy store. Sometimes as a treat she would bring blue candies home for Percy. On one particularly special day, Percy came home from school to find the beat-up game in his bedroom. There wasn't much space for him to dance around to The Police anymore, but he loved it all the same.

The foosball table was a place of sanctuary, a place where he could let out the anger he couldn't show in front of Gabe.

Gabe called him a delinquent today—take a shot on the foosball table.

His mom has a new bruise on her wrist—hit that distorted ball as hard as you possibly can with the mismatched soccer players.

Percy's money he was saving up to pay the fee to join his school's soccer team went missing, and coincidentally, Gabe found the money to join his buddies for poker tonight—tiny resin soccer players can't let you down. They have your back.

"Percy? What are you doing here so late?"

Standing in the doorway of the lounge is Jason, wearing a golden New Rome Community College quarter-zip fleece and a purple baseball cap to match. "Are you good, bro?"

"I could ask the same of you. It looks like school spirit vomited all over you or something," Percy says.

Jason takes a sip from his purple coffee cup. "We're required to do these extra admissions events for New Rome Ambassadors if we can't give tours, and, well, I couldn't give any tours this week, so my event was a video conference with some prospective students from Germany."

Percy forgot that Jason's still a tour guide. "And you had to be up at two in the morning for that?" he asks.

"It started at ten in the morning for the German students; it's eleven over there now."

"Cool."

"I thought so. They told me about the soccer game they're playing in tomorrow. I guess you're kind of in the same position, huh?"

"How'd you know?"

Jason walks to the foosball table and tilts the rods so the little soccer players stand straight up. "Leo said you weren't coming over to watch Property Brothers. I know how you like Drew Scott."

Percy throws his head over the back of the couch. "Bro, you know I love you and all that mushy stuff, but you don't get it. Foosball meant something to me when I was growing up. It was a space for me to get away from my old stepdad, and some bullies took that away from me... I wouldn't expect you to get that though."

"Oh really?" Jason says. "Try me."

Percy gets up and joins Jason at the table. "Bro, no offense, but you probably got to join the real peewee soccer team and play with other white boys and someone's fat mom named Karen or Susan probably gave you Capri-Suns and orange slices after every game, and your dad probably showed up and—What are you doing?"

Jason juggles the ball using just the pointed foot of one of the soccer players. "My mom was an alcoholic, so she lost the peewee soccer signup forms every time I brought them home from school. God, I wanted to play on the Peewee Pegasi so bad."

"Bro, I had no idea-"

"Mom died in a drunk driving accident. My sister ran away before the social worker showed up. Never saw her again. My dad was supposed to care for me, but I never really saw him. Apparently, his mental health wasn't much better than my mom's. I was raised mostly by his money and my nanny, Lupa."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Percy says.

"Don't be. Lupa says I'm stronger and more well-rounded because of it." Jason shoots the ball and scores, sending a rattling sound throughout the room. "So yeah. I get the foosball thing, but I don't play anymore."

"Why not? You're good."

Jason sighs. "I told you. Foosball brings out the worst in people."

✎✎✎

"This was a fantastic idea," Piper says.

Leave it to Annabeth to find every opportunity to get cheap or free food on campus. Today's Saturday. Percy should be at his apartment studying biology or maybe watching a football game.

Instead, he's in a reception hall on campus at the New Rome wrestling team's churro fundraiser. Granted, it was three dollars for all-you-can-eat churros, which is worth it.

"Hello, ladies!" Mark says, draping an arm around Hazel and another around Piper. "Came for the churros?"

The girls struggle to shrug him off until Chris Rodriguez, captain of the wrestling team, intervenes. "Mark, why don't you go restock the cheese, okay?"

"Okay..."

"Sorry 'bout him, folks. They do call us meatheads for a reason, am I right?" Chris jokes.

"Thanks, Chris," Hazel says.

Chris is such a sweet guy, and he's pretty attractive too. Percy was shocked and a little disappointed to learn that he's dating Clarisse.

"Are you all enjoying the churros? We were going to get them from Moe's, but then I figured it would be better to support the local place down the street. Shop small, am I right?"

"You are right!" Hazel exclaims.

Chris folds his arms over his wrestling hoodie. "I guess I should give you all the welcome spiel... Thanks for coming to support the wrestling team today, proceeds go to new mats so our team doesn't all get cauliflower ear again this season, we're looking to recruit more guys that weigh in around two hundred, so if you're interested... Oh, and our match schedule is posted online. I'm wrestling Gunderson from Valhalla this season, so you should come watch!"

"Great, thanks, Chris!" Percy says, trying to keep from looking at his messed-up ear. It's a shame that the fraternity gets more funding from the school than all of the sports teams combined. "Hey, Jason-"

"Sorry, Percy, but wrestling is one student activity you won't see me join."

"No, I was going to ask you about-"

"Oh! One more thing," Chris says. "It is all you can eat, so please, eat as many churros as you'd like, am I right?" He walks away, ready to greet the Stoll brothers, who look dumb enough to be talked into joining the wrestling team without any experience whatsoever.

Leo laughs. "Am I right?"

"You don't need to be a nursing major to know that guy has more wrong with him than just cauliflower ear," Piper says.

Percy follows Jason over to the buffet table to get some more churros. "Bro, I need you to help me practice my foosball game."

"I told you, I don't do that anymore. It's a sick game for sick people."

"Jason, please-"

"No! And even if I wanted to, I have way too much on my plate. They want me to do another video conference with prospective German students tonight, and we have Ultimate tomorrow..."

"Quit acting like you're all high and mighty! You told me how you got into foosball. You just don't like that you're one of us-"

"Percy, what is wrong with you?" Annabeth asks.

Oh, shoot, he pissed off Annabeth.

"I, uh-"

"You know what?" Jason asks. "You're right. I need to get back into it. I have people standing up for me. I used to do that for myself."

That's the spirit.

"Catch you tomorrow in the lounge?"

"You know it, bro."

✎✎✎

While the others are cozied up in Jason, Leo, and Piper's apartment watching Property Brothers and eating Hazel's chocolate-covered pretzels, Percy and Jason are hard at work.

Jason is incredible at foosball. He probably wouldn't need a partner to take down Alex and Magnus. "C'mon, Kelp Head!" he roars. "Get your head out of your ass and try!"

"I am," Percy complains.

"No, you're not!" Jason scores again. He adjusts his sweatband and takes a drink of water. "You've lost your foosball spark, huh?"

"Yeah," Percy admits.

Jason bangs his fists against the table, scaring the ever-living shit out of Percy. "Foosball is kill or be killed, bro! How do you think those creeps from Valhalla are so good at this?"

"They... practice?"

"No, man! Being good at foosball doesn't make you an asshole!"

Percy's lost.

Jason must sense this because he wipes his glasses off with his sweater and says, "Being an asshole makes you good at foosball."

"I'm not sure I get it..." Percy trails off. What happened to good sportsmanship?

"Let's run that drill again," Jason says.

Percy reaches for the rods and Jason drops the ball into the table.

The insults start again. "You play foosball like you were born yesterday!"

What's Percy supposed to do? Dish it back out? Jason's his friend...

"I bet this is why Annabeth stopped hooking up with you!"

That wasn't cool, but Percy's taken more verbal abuse from more adults than he'd like to admit. Besides, this is Jason just practicing.

"I scored with your mom last night, and now I'm going to score against your ass!"

It's not just a 'yo momma' joke. Percy comes from a community where you do not take jokes against someone's mom lightly.

Back when he was a kid, Percy probably would have raised his fists and asked the guy, "You wanna say that again?" before promptly getting his lights punched out.

Now, he's a man, and he's going to settle this like a man—at the foosball table. All those feelings he has just start to boil up inside him. He blocks Jason's shot in response to that stupid surface-level joke. He finally gains control of the ball when he thinks about Annabeth and how he spent so long trying to get her to like him only to watch her slowly fall for Piper, and deny the whole thing! Percy passes the ball to his next rod of players as he remembers the time Smelly Gabe sold his foosball table for gambling money. He scores when he thinks of how much he misses his mom right now.

"That's it!" Jason shouts. "Kill or be killed?"

"Kill..." Percy says through gritted teeth.

"I said kill or be killed?"

"Kill!" he shouts back.

Aggression feels amazing.

That is, until the interruption.

"Ahahaha, look who it is, Magnus!"

"Pop! Pop!"

Alex takes off her sunglasses and takes a seat on the side of the foosball table. "Wow, Kelp Head. Turning to nerds for help?"

"Desperate," Magnus adds.

Percy starts, "I'm not desperate. I'm-" Then, he sees Jason's disapproving expression. "I mean, you're the one who looks like she stepped off the cover of Fine Line."

Alex fakes offense. "He."

"You're the one who looks like he stepped off the cover of Fine Line."

"Better."

"What brings you here anyway?" Magnus asks. "I thought we already told you: this table is our turf."

"On our campus," Percy says.

"Woah, woah!" Alex throws his hands up. "Don't bring your pretty nerd boy into this if he's too fragile to take it!"

Jason leans forward and speaks directly to Alex. "I love the way you guys just confidently wear your asses as hats. Really, just amazing stuff."

"Oh, thank you kindly," Magnus says, drawing Jason's attention away from Alex. For a minute, Percy thinks he might take this as an opportunity to slap him in the face, but he doesn't because these guys can't fight. There's no way they'd hash out their arguments on any other field than the foosball table.

"Okay then," Percy says. "How about this? Tomorrow morning. You guys up against me and my bro Jason. Whoever loses can never use the table again."

"Oh, it is on like Donkey Kong," says Alex.

"Pop, pop," Magnus says with a smirk. The two guys Z-snap in perfect unison and then leave, hands in each other's back pockets.

Percy sighs. "This might be because I haven't had sex in a while, but PDA is starting to piss me off."

"Nah, me too," Jason says. "But for the record: you didn't have to dump Annabeth."

"It was mutual, and we were never dating."

"It was not mutual according to Hazel."

Percy laughs. "Ah, yes, I forgot you and Hazel were gossip buddies. Don't believe everything you hear."

"I'm just offering my two cents," Jason says, arching an eyebrow. "You had great sex, then you got insecure. Now, you don't have great sex, and both of you are worse off because of it."

Percy wants to object because Annabeth is not worse off because of it, but he doesn't want to put any more gasoline on Jason's fire. "Maybe we could stand a chance against those Valhalla students if you'd trash-talk them the way you do to me."

✎✎✎

Here's a joke for you: A basic white boy with the fashion sense of a Harvard student and a Latino guy from Manhattan with a faint New York accent step into a combination Kentucky Fried Chicken-slash-Taco Bell. The Latino guy orders your basic three-piece chicken meal with two breasts and a wing because he has a huge appetite and he hasn't been getting any real breasts lately. Meanwhile, the basic white guy orders a Doritos Locos Tacos Supreme Combo and declares to his Latino friend, "I love Mexican food!"

It's funny to Percy at least. Jason wasn't laughing.

Percy takes a bite from his chicken and asks, "How come you stopped playing foosball?"

Jason leans back in his crusty mall chair. "I told you. Foosball brings out the worst in people."

"The way we were playing, it seems like the worst in people makes for good foosball."

"Touche."

"So?" Percy asks.

"So what?" Jason plays with the straw in his Baja Blast.

Percy points with his plastic spoon. "What happened?"

"I guess there was this one incident..." Jason pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and then asks, "So you know how my dad just kind of throws money at problems, right?"

"You've mentioned it."

"Cool." He launches into his story. "This one time, he got in a lot of trouble and sent my nanny Lupa and me on this cruise to like, the Bahamas or something, one of those nice but also really tacky cruises. Like, it was kid-friendly enough to have a kids' rec room and a water slide, but adults also had fifteen drink vouchers a day, so Lupa was trashed for a lot of that trip, and my dad's bodyguards weren't concerned with how I spent my time."

"Your dad has bodyguards?"

"Had," Jason corrects. "I later found out he sent us away on that trip because he was being sued for violating a secretary. She would've won the court case, but Dad paid her off with the bodyguard budget."

"I'm sorry," Percy says.

Jason rolls his eyes. "I'm sorry for her. She should've sued his ass."

Percy nods. He knows a thing or two about crummy father figures.

"Point of the story: I'm on this cruise and I'm hanging out in the rec room, just being a regular kid for once, okay? And I'm kicking everyone's butts at foosball. I mean, I finally felt like one of them, and here comes this chubby little Latino dude in a Hawaiian shirt. Man, he must be such a momma's boy today 'cause I don't know any eleven-year-old that would wear something like that unironically..." Jason laughs.

Percy doesn't laugh because he remembers his favorite blue Hawaiian shirt from when he was a kid. His mom bought it special for the one time they were able to go on vacation together.

"The poor dude said something about how I looked like a tiny lawyer, and damn, he was right. He might have been wearing the tackiest Hawaiian shirt, but I had on a collared shirt and khakis. I left my sweater in my room—thank God—but it had elbow patches on it. Anyway, this kid said something dumb about how I looked so after I kicked his ass, I jabbed him with the rod until he peed." Jason snorts. "God, it sounds kind of stupid now, doesn't it? Can't believe I stopped playing over that guilt. I bet he was pretty embarrassed though..."

Percy bets that kid was pretty embarrassed too. He knows the poor little boy was embarrassed because that little boy was him, which can only mean the bully in the rec room... "You're Electric Mayhem?"

"That's what the other kids called me 'cause I shocked this girl on accident and—Oh, shit. Waterboy?"

"Don't call me that!" Percy packages his KFC meal and storms off.

"Oh no, Percy, bro, come back!"

"Don't call me 'bro' either!" Stupid Jason thinking it was funny the way he treated him on the one vacation his mom could afford to take him on. He should have listened to his friends on Friday when they said he shouldn't challenge the Valhalla students. Hell, he should have listened to his instincts that first day of freshman year when Leo wanted to recruit the Ultimate Frisbee douche as a fake tutor for their fake study group.

✎✎✎

Percy isn't so sure Jason's going to show up. Scratch that: there's no way Jason is going to show up to the match against the Valhalla students, and now Percy's going to have to take them alone.

But that's okay. Percy's been on his own most of his life. He's used to this. He may not win, but he'll go down swinging. He-

Jason's here.

"I can do this on my own," Percy says.

"No, you can't. Or have you forgotten... Waterboy?" Jason asks.

Percy grips the rods on the foosball table. "I told you not to call me that!"

"Oh, so we're doing this!" Jason grabs the rods on the opposite side of the table.

"I guess we are!"

Percy tosses the ball onto the table and twists the rod, shooting the ball towards Jason's goal, only to be blocked by his purple resin foosball players.

Jason shoots, only for Percy's guys to catch it. "You're the real asshole!" Percy shouts.

"No, you are! It's been ten years!"

"And you still haven't apologized!"

"Hey, guys," Leo says, taking a seat on the couch. "Can I play the winner?"

"Not now, Leo!" Jason and Percy shout in unison.

They grunt like tennis players with each hit, the tiny ball bouncing back and forth between players until she shows up giggling with Piper over something stupid.

"Do you have a chapstick I can borrow?" Annabeth asks.

"Always!" Piper hands her an orange soda-flavored chapstick tube.

Jason seems to notice this too.

"Damn, I could get used to my lips tasting like this," Annabeth notes.

Piper wiggles her eyebrows.

"Guys, can you listen to me for one minute?" Leo asks.

"Agh," Percy grunts.

Heads turn as the tiny ball flies straight up into the air, almost in slow motion.

"Holy shit," Piper swears.

The ball finally lands, so Percy twists his rod, ready to strike again, but the toes on the foosball player don't quite reach. Damn, it's Jason's ball.

Beads of sweat form on Jason's forehead as he desperately tries to reach the ball, but his players can't touch it either.

They can't rock the table—that's a foul.

Jason finally looks up at Percy, desperation in his sky-blue eyes. "Think you can do that again when Magnus and Alex get here?"

"Seriously, guys," Leo says, clearly not understanding the urgency of this conversation. "Frank sat on my Property Brothers DVD and now we have nothing to do."

"Can I play the winner after Leo?" Hazel asks.

"Oh my god, stop, JoJo Siwa is kind of an icon," Annabeth says in response to something on Piper's phone.

Piper laughs. "She makes me want to start filming TikToks."

"Wait, let's do it."

"You ever seen the 'Electric Love' trend?" Piper asks.

"That was the song I had picked out for us," Jason mutters so softly only Percy can hear.

Percy offers his hand. "Let's just focus on beating those guys. Channel the anger, remember?"

"Are we at least bigger assholes than them yet?"

"Only one way to find out."

As if on cue, Magnus and Alex prop open the doors to the lounge, letting in an entire entourage of Valhalla students, some of which Percy recognizes from his Super Bowl party.

"Look, it's that Gunderson guy Chris is supposed to wrestle this season," Jason whispers.

"Holy shit, he's massive. Can Chris take him?" Cauliflower ear is going to be the least of Chris's problems this season. At least Percy only has to go up against Gunderson's skinny friends, and he's got Jason as a teammate.

A guy wearing a vintage war jacket sets two cases of beer on the coffee table, narrowly missing Piper's toes.

Annabeth shrugs and reaches for a Natural Light. "Don't mind if I do..."

"Sure thing, babe!" The guy takes a pocket knife with the initials T.J. carved into it and stabs the bottom of a can of beer before passing the foaming mess to Annabeth.

Shocked, she watches the beer leak from the can. Before the carpet can get even more messed up than it already is, Piper swoops in and starts drinking from the hole.

"Piper, that's going to cut your lip open!" Hazel objects.

"Fifty-fifty tickets! Get your tickets for a dollar each! Ten for eight dollars!" Travis Stoll yells. Of course, he's here with those red raffle tickets. It wouldn't be an unsanctioned New Rome event without a fifty-fifty raffle.

Frank buys a ticket before taking a seat on the couch next to Hazel. At least the people who actually go to New Rome got to claim the furniture.

"Are we doing this or what?" Alex asks.

"Pop! Pop!" Magnus shouts, earning applause from his peers.

Magnus and Alex take their side along the windows, ready to control the gold-colored foosball players.

They smile cheesily at Jason and Percy.

"So uh, what are your pronouns today?" Percy asks. "Just so I can be politically correct when I insult you."

"She/her. Now, are you ready to go down or what?"

"Oh, it is so on," Jason chimes in. "Sorry, I didn't get to introduce myself yesterday when you waltzed into our closed practice. I'm Jason, and I use he/him pronouns."

"Wait!" shouts a girl wearing a green hijab. Oh, yeah. That's Samirah, the designated driver. Percy remembers her from the Super Bowl party. She's the only Valhalla student he respects to any degree.

Samirah holds up her phone and takes a picture of Alex and Magnus at the table. "For the yearbook," she adds.

"Can we get any of that action?" Jason asks.

"Sorry, my cellphone storage is full," Silena Beaureguard says before taking a selfie of her and her boyfriend Beckendorf.

Go figure. The editor of The New Roman Times can't give the time of day to a newsworthy story.

"We'll give you the advantage since we're probably going to win," Alex says, tossing her green wolf cut over her shoulder.

"Ready, bro?" Jason asks.

"You know it, bro," says Percy. They top it off with a bro hug and then Jason pushes the ball into the slot.

"Pop... Pop!" Magnus says before hitting the ball across the table.

Alex laughs, "Hey, moron, just because you dress like you go to Harvard doesn't make up for the fact that you go to a crummy community college."

"You can't shit on New Rome if you're going to use our table," Jason says.

Samirah, sober as ever, deadpans, "Wow, sis, you've really got 'em. Yup, those dumb cis boys don't even know what they're in for."

"That's right, Samirah!" Alex shouts.

"Just like we practiced..." Percy mutters to Jason. He balances the ball on his player before passing it to one of Jason's.

Jason twists the handle, spinning the rod and sending the ball straight up into the air, just like before.

Percy clenches his teeth and balls his hands into fists. C'mon, c'mon...

The ball lands in the perfect center of the table. Percy smiles at Alex and Magnus, knowing that there's no way either of them will be able to reach the ball. It's still fun to watch them try though.

"Should we shake the table?" Magnus asks.

"No! We can't... Ugh!" Alex shouts.

"C'mon, bro," Jason says. "I think I owe you some KFC."

"And I owe you a Baja Blast."

Jason and Percy bro-hug one more time, and it seems like Silena managed to clear out some storage because she's finally taking pictures of... Nope, she's just fixing her makeup.

And together, not caring about their borderline tragic pasts, their crushes getting drunk together on the couch in the student lounge, or the sobbing Valhalla party animals, Jason and Percy saunter out of the student union as best bros.