After a quick poll we have our final decisions. That means that our league is locked in. So get your wish lists together and get excited for this week. 

It is officially afternoon on the East Coast. With that said, we are underway...DireBear is on the clock! If you are going to be away from the site for a large chunk of time...PM me your wish list, I can then make your pick and then you can make the real announcement later. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CHARLOTTE, NC - QCS stepped to the podium. It had been 7 months since this process had started. 7 months of names, logos, uniforms, and design. They had done quite a number on the league, what with 11 logos and 2 uniforms and such. But one thing haunted them - Raleigh.

From the initial selection of Raleigh as a joke after they had foolishly bet against Scratch, to the selection of Griffins over the favored Corsairs, it seemed like this team was destined to fall by the wayside. Then, something changed. QCS had finally completed the logo for the team and sent it in. When it won, Quice found themself drawn to the team - they had plenty of other logos, sure, but the blue and brown could not be denied. Yet still, the mere existence of Raleigh was an obstacle.

Having visited Memphis and Havana to scout locations for a potential stadium, QCS wanted to do something different for once - go elsewhere in the world to have fun with a team they designed. After a long night making their decision, they received word of DireBear's selection via multiple pings and DMs on Discord. It was time.

Stepping to the podium, QCS had this to say:

"As we all know, I am a big fan of Charlotte. The Queen City is my home and is home to my favorite teams. But this time, there is no Charlotte team for me to take. This was not an easy decision to come to. But it's finally time.

"With the second pick in the AltLB Owner Draft I'm selecting the CAROLINA GRIFFINS. Once Edgeworth and I complete our trade of the Racers and Bighorns in the AltHL offseason, I will have all four North Carolina Alt Sports teams. With this pick, I'm burying the hatchet with the fine city of Raleigh. It's a great city full of great people and unfortunately the North Carolina government. The Griffins are here to stay!

"Of course, I couldn't leave Charlotte out of it. As the team is the Carolina Griffins, we'll play several home series in Charlotte. Any playoff series will be in Raleigh but we'll be providing shuttles for dedicated fans across the Carolinas come and see their Griffins play.

"Of course, our Triple-A team will be in Charlotte. Announcements on our Double- and Single-A teams can be expected soon. Brand reveals will happen soon after. Go Griffins!"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

25 𐐙𐐯𐐺𐑉𐐭𐐯𐑉𐐨 2022

INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT - I don't know what compelled me to look out my window at precisely 2:07 AM. Some might say it was divine intervention, a nudge down a certain path. Some would say it was simply destiny; that I was a puppet in the hands of time itself. Some will undoubtedly call it a coincidence - surely somebody would have looked up at that moment, and I was just the lucky one.

Whatever it was, I looked.

What I saw was a window. One window amongst many, a single stalk of hay within a haystack. If you looked for it, you couldn’t find it; I was not, and so I did. Perhaps the only thing to notice at all was that the light in the window was flickering. I tried to convince myself that it was not making a pattern, but it was. A long flash, then a short one. Then another of each. Five more long ones, deep breaths, then three short ones, pining for oxygen. Long. Short. It began again, and when it finished, it began a third time, somehow more urgent, as if to say, "Christ, you idiot, pick up the damn phone!" It ran its course, then it stopped. It was unmistakable.

COME IN. COME IN. COME IN.

I didn't have a choice. I was needed in that room. My muscles began acting independently from my brain. I tried everything in my power to stop myself from leaving, but there was nothing I could do.

I climbed eleven flights of stairs. I passed six doors on the right. I could not have told you how I knew where I was going, but I did. The door was unlocked, but somehow I knew I would’ve found the key anyway. It was the opposite of a lucid dream: it was real - I knew it was real - but I was powerless to do anything but watch.

The room was completely empty, save for two things. One was the lightbulb, which was unlit, its purpose fulfilled. The other was a baseball cap. In the darkness, I couldn’t make out the color, nor the logo on the front. If I had it my way, that would still be the case. Every brain cell, every neuron, every fiber of my being told me not to put on the hat.

And yet.

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I still don't know how long I was out, but I know it was a long time. Sounds of unintelligible chittering filtered into my ears. My half-awake state and my pounding headache notwithstanding, I was almost certain I wasn’t hearing a language anyone on Earth had spoken before. The strange symphony was quickly accompanied by frantic shuffling, as whoever (whatever) was making the sounds packed up and got the hell out of dodge. Were they scared of me? By the time I gathered enough energy to look, the room was empty.

Confoundingly empty. Look around, white walls. Look down, white floor. Look up, white ceiling. The only object in the room to be seen was the doorknob.

I nearly missed it at first; its silver sheen masked by the bright white of the wall surrounding it. I couldn’t make out the outline of a door, but I latched onto the doorknob nonetheless, desperate for some sort of comfort in this strange place. Surely, an alien spacecraft with science fiction technology wouldn’t use a regular old door with a regular old doorknob. This place must make sense. Maybe I’d just been taken to some sort of ahsylum.

As soon as I finished that thought, the door opened. In walked a man, epicurean in stature, wearing a navy blazer over a T-shirt that read “STILL DEAD. THANKS 4 CHECKING.” Yet a third possibility for my mind to mull over. Certainly a pearly gate of sorts, but St. Peter this was not. This couldn’t be.

The voice of the man interrupted the many in my brain. “Sorry about all that commotion. Our doctors can be a little … strange at times.” Gears turned. Doctors. Could be an institution after all. My mind was too full of thoughts to spit any of them out. After a beat, he continued. “How are you feeling?”

That I could handle. “Fine.” I seemingly expected myself to prove it, and rose to my feet. My throbbing cranium begged to differ.

“Excellent. Why don’t you follow me to my office? I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

Leaving the room, we were greeted with a constant hum at precisely the wrong pitch. Already overwhelmed, my headache felt like it was fracturing my skull with every second. The walls of my vision closed in; it was all I could do to make out the shape a few meters in front of me. After what seemed like an eternity, the droning came to an end, and my vision restored, I acquainted myself with these new surroundings.

A large desk dominated the interior. A comfortable looking chair sat behind it, with two smaller chairs against the back wall. The right-hand wall was littered with credentials from schools I had never heard of; the left-hand wall with photos of sporting events, as well as a large trophy case with a single basketball trophy inside. An enormous window covered the wall opposite the door, and a deep black sky outside reflected the room back at me. It was even clear enough that I could read the inscription on the door:

Iɢɴᴇᴜꜱ ᴅᴜCʜᴀʀᴍᴇ MᴄQᴜᴇᴇɴ, M.D., Pʜ.D., Xᴋᴄ.D.

McQueen offered me a chair, then looked puzzled. “Are you sure you’re okay? Something seems wrong.”

“Just a headache. Do you have any Tylenol?”

“I don’t, sorry.”

I paused. “Could you get one of your doctors?”

“No, they won’t have any. Listen - ” I couldn’t. What kind of doctor doesn’t carry a pain reliever? McQueen continued, but the words ricocheted off my eardrums like baseballs off of Jose Canseco’s head. Hoping to relieve some pressure, I reached up to take off my hat.

The hat! I had completely forgotten about it. Maybe, if I just took it off, all this would be over. I could just go back to my apartment, back to my job, back to my friends. End this bizarre charade. It was worth a shot.

Hands shaking, I removed the uncomfortable presence from my head, hoping for some relief from the seemingly endless pain. Nothing. All it did was seemingly delight McQueen further. “Straight to business, I see,” he said. “You want to know why you’re here.”

Before I could even think about reacting, the lights went out. In that split second, there was only black. McQueen began to speak once more.

“I’ve had a lot on my plate recently.” As he spoke, the room lit up in color. “I’m starting to realize that this is too much work.” Colors, actually. One side of the room lit up in a piercing blue; the other in a color that seemed to defy categorization. “I’ve been observing you for several months now.” I would question that sentence later, but my brain was beyond cognitive reasoning. The lights got brighter. “I need you.”

“Paradise needs you.”

I was shocked. “So this is it? This is heaven?”

“No, silly!" The intense illumination initiated an assault upon my eyeballs. “This isn’t heaven.” I could feel myself fading out of consciousness. “This is Io-”

And once more, I was gone.

---------------------------------------

And once more, I came to. Lying on the pavement, it was clear I had returned to the world I knew, and yet it was also clear that something was not quite the same. Dancing lights flickered through my closed eyelids, and yet it was clearly night. Noises jittered their way into my ear canals, and yet the street was clearly empty. I distinctly remembered removing the cap, and yet it was clearly back upon my head.

I looked up to see the sky. Terrifyingly, it was completely devoid of stars, and yet it wasn’t quite the deep black of space. Even more terrifyingly, a bright emblem was emblazoned upon it, as if hovering 90 feet above the ground, and repeating, over and over and over and over again, stretching across multiple city blocks. It seemed familiar, though I knew I hadn’t seen it before. And yet…

I took the hat off once again, and sure enough, they matched. Finally, something had clicked into place. Most of the things I have written down still confound me, and they probably always will. But I am here, and no matter which cosmic forces may have brought me here, I am meant to be here.

I slowly rose to my feet. Despite it all, I finally felt calm as I looked down the length of the street toward my future. I gave myself a confident nod.

“Up and Atom.”

For Immediate Release