James presence was like a gravitational anomaly, a bck hole sucking in defenders and spitting out perfectly timed passes to his wide-open teammates. He was a one-person offensive tsunami, just obliterating the Motijheel defense that had started the game so confident and cocky.

  And on defense? Forget about it. He was a brick wall, an impenetrable fortress guarded by dragons. Steals, blocks, deflections – he was disrupting every single Motijheel offensive attempt before it even had time to form into a coherent thought. He was everywhere, all at once, a basketball ninja teleporting across the court.

  Phantom, ghost, anomaly, glitch in the matrix – pick your favorite supernatural descriptor; they all fit James perfectly. "Dude's not human, his speed is insane," a Motijheel pyer muttered under his breath, shaking his head in disbelief. "There's no other expnation."

  The Motijheel pyers? Remember those guys? The confident, almost arrogant team from the first quarter? Yeah, those guys had packed their bags and left the building.

  Now they were repced by pale imitations, pying with a heavy cloak of hesitancy weighing them down. Crippling self-doubt was their new team mascot. Passes were weak, tentative, like they were afraid of the ball itself. Shots were rushed, cnky, bouncing off the rim like angry rejects.

  Movements were sluggish, uncoordinated, like they were wading through mosses. Basically, they were the anti-thesis of everything they were supposed to be as a team. The shock and awe of James’s insane, superhuman skills had completely shattered their confidence, leaving them as empty shells. Their will to win? Evaporated into the humid gym air. Poof. Gone. "I just want this to be over," Salman whispered to Anderson, his voice barely audible above the rising cheers from the Banani side.

  Banani High, though? They were riding a wave of pure, unadulterated euphoria. Energy was crackling in the air around them, practically visible. They were feeding off every impossible py James conjured up, their morale soaring higher with every swish, every steal, every pass that defied logic and physics. "Let's go Banani! Let's go!" their bench was chanting, jumping up and down like they were at a concert.

  They weren't just pying basketball anymore; they were witnessing a legit miracle unfold right before their eyes, and they had the insane privilege of being part of it. It was like being granted VIP backstage passes to history in the making, except the backstage was a sweaty gymnasium and the history was being written in squeaky sneakers and the thump of a basketball.

  The score gap just kept widening, a slow, agonizing stretch for Motijheel, a thrilling ascent for Banani. Banani 60, Motijheel 50. Then bam, Banani 70, Motijheel 55. Then whoosh, Banani 75, Motijheel 60.

  The inevitable was becoming so gringly obvious it was practically screaming in everyone's faces. The unthinkable? It was actually, really, truly happening. Like, pinch-yourself-to-make-sure-you're-not-dreaming happening. "Seventeen points up," a Banani fan whispered to his friend, eyes wide with disbelief. "Seventeen! Are you seeing this?"

  As the final minute ticked down, each second feeling like an eternity for Motijheel, the outcome was no longer a question mark flickering in the distance; it was a giant, fshing neon sign in Times Square. Banani High was going to win. Against Motijheel High. On Motijheel’s home court.