The dancers received an epic amount of applause, and now, the fans were at the edges of their seats. The score was tied, and they rattled with anticipation.

Sour gummy worms were unlike any snack or topping Germafrost had ever tried. Firstly, they were multicolored and squarish, so much so that he couldn't see them as worms. And then, there was the sting of the sugar that coated them. Once the hard blow faded, they tasted fruity like sorbet, but not even the sharp tundra winds he'd grown up with were that strong. His tongue was more accustomed, and better suited, to sweet and bittersweet flavors. He'd spent the last few minutes of halftime checking the poles one more time while that trio waited in a line to get bags of these things. There wasn't really a place to toss the gummy worms out from where he was seated, and he couldn't see any stoats or birds that would come and collect them. So, he placed his bag next to the one in purple.

Thankfully, everyone seemed to be glued to the field, even beneath the bleachers. Not one person spoke to him, and he didn't speak to anyone. He didn't even look at them. The only time he was going to talk to someone was when one of the three would talk to him. For now, he heard nothing from them. The gray one, whose name he heard the one in blue say was Brock, was preoccupied with questions of what they were going to have for dinner after this.

The second half began when both of the teams reemerged on the field, welcomed back with cheering that Germafrost covered his ears from. Though it was his least favorite part of any game, it piqued his interest in them- but why were all of the bench players getting up and joining them? Didn't they only come on if any of the starters were out of commission? Was that how a chip-ball game was played in this land? He had heard the ones in cloaks call it a word he'd never heard before. Sock her... sugger... something like that.

This was going to be quite a fascinating and unique experience. He'd tell her all about it once he got his hands on that stick thing.

He'd tell her all about it...

❄️

"Alright! Are you guys ready for this?" Unikitty asked her friends.

In the press box, Bigbang sat behind their mic again and asked, "Are you READY FOR THIS?!"

"I just said that," Unikitty muttered.

"YES WE ARE!" everyone replied in unison, except for Swanna and Lee.

"Hey! Mind if we sit with y'all?" chirped Ragtag Tagrag, a friend who was just what the name Ragtag Tagrag would imply he was. Bim-Bom came up behind him with Glandrea, who wore a Raiders sports visor on her mint green top tier and a pair of silver cloud-shaped shades.

"I went to get a drink, but when I came back, a giant jaguar took my seat!" Bim-Bom huffed, sipping her lemonade.

Richard lowered a book he'd bought at the stand about the history of soccer. "Are you sure there's enough space for these kind individuals?"

"Of course there is!" Unikitty replied, scooting her pals aside to make some room.

"Well, I'll be! It seems both teams have called for a little extra help! In all honesty, who needs rules anymore?" Bigbang spoke excitedly.

The bench players took arbitrary positions on the field. Everyone fell silent and kept their eyes on it as the jumbotron displayed nothing but the Downers and Raiders standing there. Bigbang dragged a plate closer to them and started eating the hamburger on it. "Is... something gonna happen?"

The Raiders exchanged glances for a few seconds. Then, the Downers' central midfielder ran to the ball and sent it flying. One of the Raiders' bench players tried to catch it, but she had to be reminded that she couldn't use her hands. In response, she rolled her eyes.

The ball landed between the Raiders' strikers. One of them started to kick it around the field, and she passed it to the other one as he ran towards the Downers' attackers and one of their bench players. He charged through them like a racehorse speeding down a track. To ensure the other team had no chance of taking the ball, he kicked the ball as if he was punching it with his foot. The left-central midfielder took it from there, and the other two followed her to the goal. Confused by the Raiders' swift and cunning movements, the Downers' defenders and goalie stumbled.

"Another one for the Raiders!" Bigbang commented. "They have such lovely smiles, don't they?"

"Lovely smiles? What about their outstanding measurements of force and motion? What about the precise trajectory of their kicks?" Dr. Fox noted.

"Woah. How do you even see all that?" Puppycorn asked her, amazed.

"Because I studied and worked hard to be where I am now with you! I have so much faith in you, Puppycorn, and I'm glad you're in my life!" It felt great to say that, but she still tried to shove this lovey-dovey, friendly sensation out of her brain. No matter how hard, it remained inside as if it were a computer chip she couldn't eject from it. "You've gotta stop this! You're not supposed to need them," she thought to herself. And yet, Puppycorn was grinning from her words of support.

She now had her plan for what she'd study first once the festival was over. In the meantime, she turned her attention back to the technical aspects of this game. The bench players were working together to take the ball. The full-back stole it from all three of them, bolting past her teammates at about 12 miles per hour. When she sped past the defenders to the goal, she kicked the ball at a 57-degree angle.

"HURRAH!" cheered someone on the other side of the gang's row. Sgt. Wolf stood on the top of her seat with her sword lifted in the air, but that wasn't her loud voice. Her animated lance was waving the quillons of its cross guard up and down in the air. "That's how you do it!"

On the next play, the Raiders pushed the ball towards the midfielders and the other bench players. Their faces lit up as they ran to the blue goal together, but the defenders for the Downers stopped them in their tracks. They copied the Raiders' every move, each action canceling itself out. This escalated into them all striking a series of dramatic, romantic and goofy poses, giving the Downers' strikers their advantage to score again.

One amusing teamwork montage later, the second half was a little over its halfway point. Midfield, the central Raider took the ball first. With the citizens roaring for her and a cobra in the crowd biting her tail, she passed it to the right midfielder. She passed it over to the left midfielder, who forwarded it to a bench player. She let another one take it, and he kicked it over to a striker. Bigbang almost fell off of their seat, and so did the entire crowd.

The striker then passed the ball to a defender, but a Downer striker swiped it from him. He maneuvered his way around the Raiders' defenders, looking the goalie straight in the eye. He gave everything he had to earn another point for his team, but as he entered the penalty area, about to shoot the ball, he slipped on ice.

Every single person at the stadium, Bigbang included, now had their sight in the sky. Thick, heavy clouds drifted above the field, ringing around it like the grandstands did on the ground, similarly to adding another layer to a cake. Fans embraced and huddled together to keep warm as they prepared themselves to get wet. Wind swept their fur, hair and feathers into scruffy disarrays as they walked out of the bleachers in resistant stances.

"That's strange," Richard commented. "The forecast didn't predict a thunderstorm..."

But it wasn't at all a rainstorm, or a thunderstorm for that matter. Everybody froze, so to speak, when a cascade of snowflakes came falling down from over them. The stadium slowly began to transform into a contender for the world's largest bowl of shaved ice. With a little push from Hawkodile, they cleared it as fast as they could. Some of them ran onto the field in the style of a pitch invasion.

"Oh, crap. Listen up, everybody! Sadly, due to... weather concerns, we're gonna have to call this game," Bigbang announced. "If you can, give our teams a quick round of applause, thumbs up, or cheer as you exit. I'm going to head home and process what's happening. If you need me, you know how to call me up. PEACE!"

"I guess we'll have to plan a festival for Snow Day instead," Richard said as the gang was leaving. "Come along."

"Wait!" interjected Unikitty. The clouds had suddenly come out of nowhere, spreading out quickly like she would spread frosting or butter. Snow fell from them instead of rain when it was nowhere even close to autumn yet. That was when she was taken back to the caverns, where she'd seen a surprise cloud much like those. Across the field, above the left grandstand, a squarish light blue dog flew up, over the press box and away. She only saw them for a few split seconds, but they had to be that one dog who looked a lot like her and Puppycorn. There was a dog with that striking resemblance in the caves, too. "I think I know what's going on."

"What?" said Puppycorn.

"Puppycorn, do you remember that dog we saw in the cave today?"

He chewed on a hamburger he'd picked up off the ground. "What dog?"

"Did you see the blue dog you told us about?" Hawkodile asked Unikitty, positioned in a fighting stance.

"Yeah! They just left," she answered. "The last time we saw them, a cloud came out of nowhere and then just snowed on them. These clouds are like that one, but waaay bigger! I don't know why they're popping up, but I think that dog might be where they're coming from. We should go out and find them!"

She made for the bottom of the grandstand stairs. Dr. Fox did as well. "But we've still got to finish fueling the floats and then put them in the garage!"

"I know, but if someone is feeling so unhappy that there's a huge unexpected change of weather in the kingdom, I've got to know who!"

Hawkodile gave a salute. "Copy that, Princess. Go on ahead. I'll clear the skies."

With that, he rocketed straight up into the sky like a space shuttle lifting off- a jump into action that Dr. Fox looked at quite bashfully.

The clouds had grown so fast that the stadium was almost completely cast over, but this wasn't Hawkodile's first rodeo. He zipped in random directions, punching every cloud in his sight down to size. The clouds could fill in the holes he created like a hole in the ground shoveling dirt onto itself. But, he noted how much slower their pace was compared to other rough clouds he'd fought. Sounds reminiscent of shattering glass caught his ears each time he punched a hole through them. Additionally, in contrast to other rough clouds he'd faced, these let out sad sobs instead of angry huffs when he landed hits on them. So, he grabbed a cloud by the trail on its back and spun it around like he was about to throw a discus. Catching the other clouds in his accelerating spin, he flung them as far away from the stadium as he could. As they hurled through the air, they shrank and then disappeared one by one, allowing the stars to come back into view.

Unikitty took Dr. Fox's hand, leading her and the others out of the stadium before they could slip on the icing metal. Of course, that wasn't before she cheered for the Raiders as she saw them leave. Swanna motioned toward them, getting Lee's attention, and the two of them followed.