"You really got it that time." He laughed pointing at Barnaby. "I think you girls will be more then a match." Alex said with a wink.

Emily nodded and with a few gulps and wiping her eyes she managed to get back to her normal self. A pretty smile surfacing through the tears. She then nodded her thanks to Aurora and replied "yep ... lets do this ... I have to get this done before my mascara runs ... so were on a time limit ..."

"Your kicking off." He smiledholding out the ball to her.

"She started it, she insulted me first" Barnaby defended as he rubbed his cheek. Then still grumbling he headed off towards the goal so they could get the match started.

"Absolutely!" Aurora replied to Emily, smiling at the girl before turning to smile even more brightly, if it was possible at Alex. "Thanks." She mouthed to him over Emily's shoulder before rolling her eyes towards Barnaby, "Yeah well you were a sexist pig first!"

Skipping over to the goal she was supposed to be defending, she took her position, determined to beat the cocky boy who insulted them.

Emily channelled all of her energy into remembering her football lessons as a child. Her father had sent her every night until she was thirteen and he finally realized he could no longer pretend she was a boy. She had not taken it sense. But she was sure that all those lessons plus all those football games she had watched as a cheerleader, had to be enough. Plus kicking the ball towards Barnaby, whilst pretending it was his head, did cheer her up rather considerably.

"Let the game begin." He smiled warming up.

Emily obeyed and blowing her whistle started the game. Her tears now completely cleared up, her mascara just about hanging in there, and her desire to win not in the least bit fazed.

"Gooooooooooo Emily!" Aurora called out in a very cliche-ed and overused cheer leading step, before quickly focusing at the game. Smiling sweetly at Barnaby, she made a very graphic gesture, slicing her neck with her hand before shooting a thumbs up to her captain. She was pretty sure they could win this. Soccer was one of Aurora's many passions and the anger she felt at Barnaby's sexist behavior helped too.

Alex tried to tackle Emily but to his supride missed. What? He thought to himself.

"Just you try it" Emily mumbled under her breath with a small smirk when Alex missed. They would soon learn that she and Aurora, and the rest of her cheerleaders were not to be under-estimated. She had purposefully chosen a girl, in back up, who like her had played soccer and knew what she was doing. Aiming for the goal she neatly slipped it past a shocked Barnaby and ran around in a circle with her hands in the air "sucks to be you!"

Barnaby looked across at the celebrating Emily with undisguised shock. Shaking himself he threw the ball to Alex for his turn to kick off. He was not going to let that happen again, one the two girls looked far to happy, and two there was no way a cheerleader could be good at football ... it was impossible right?

Alex caught the ball as it was thrown at him. "Nice job Emily." He said winking at her.

"Now the fun begins." Aurora muttered to herself, carefully scrutinizing every move made by Alex. She had done a brief vicrory jig to celebrate Em's goal but she had no intention of letting the boys enjoy the rush of a goal. She planned to use every trick in, and out of the book to keep the ball out of the goal and her main strenght in that would be her flexibility.

Emily focussed on Alex. Who says he could get the ball as far as Aurora anyway. Though Emily had complete faith in her best flyer. She was not worried. This game was as good as theres and that was fact.

Alex put the ball down for the tap that would be the kick-off. He tapped it lightly to the left. Flicking the ball over his head as a show-off. Sprinting down the field now. He could see Aurora and Emily. Both focusing on him.

Barnaby shook his head. Was now really the time to attempt to show off? But then what could he expect, nothing better than that.

Aurora laughed at the sight of Alex doing his little feats. She couldn't help it, instead of focusing on trying to win the game, the guys were showing off and that was, a little funny. But then, she found almost everything pretty extreme today.

Alex grinned at Aurora as she laughed. Before glaring at Barnaby. "You know if we want to win you got to let me rock my style." He laughed knowing that Barnaby had been disapointed at his trick.

"You could try actually playing some football instead of stopping to have a little chat" Emily cheerfully commented as she neatly took the ball from him while he was distracted talking to Barnaby.

Alex groaned as the ball was taking off him. "I'll give ya a kiss if I can have the ball back." He chuckled.

"Do you even play football? Because it seems to me you don't know how ..." Emily replied though she did not look away from where she was focussing on taking the ball back down towards Barnaby and the other goal. She found Alex amusing, for all his showing off she had never quite heard of a guy who played football by standing around talking.

"I play football when I've had an energy drink." He grinned.

"You guys crack me up." Aurora called out, even though her words were most probably lost in the wind. Alex always made her laugh, eh was pretty fun to be around and so was Emily, but usually the girl was unknowingly funny. This time though, Aurora thought that she could safely laugh without hurting her captain's feelings.

"Course I do. I'm me" He winked.