Blame it on an aggressive stomach.
Pokey was sharp, sharp enough to clock quickly that the ball wasn't what I was actually focused on. He moved sideways when my hands swept forward, clawed out in a genuine attempt to gouge his eyes out.
Those eyes. They were doing most of the work, tracking, calculating, and watching the way he adjusted around my reach made it obvious that he'd spent a significant portion of the last several years training his body to respond before his brain had finished deciding.
Reflex. Real reflex, not the practiced kind that only worked in expected scenarios. Faster than anything I'd gone up against during the fights that had brought me this far. Technically, the task was simple— grab the ball from his hand. But if the person holding it was seemingly untouchable, then something much smaller and rounder was going to be considerably harder to get to.
