Divine Celebrity 97 (Patreon)

As I walked the corridors, I was whistling calmly. A part of it was about the relaxation granted by the fun dalliance with Kim, but another part was about my guide, once again back to her stand-by position. 

It was good to see that, despite her attitude change, her shyness stayed a constant, easily allowing me to goad her back to her place — a place where she had the ability to distinguish the passage of time. 

And, even better, since she wasn’t trying to recover from what was, for all intents of purposes, debilitating exhaustion, she wasn’t sucking the Intent that was being generated, allowing me to channel much more easily.

It was a pity that the flow itself was pathetic at the moment, with most people’s feelings of awe and jealousy replaced by pity — an emotion that was clearly weak enough to properly fuel the system. 

Luckily, there were only a few days until the match, which would give me an opportunity to flip the situation once more — something I wanted to do before dealing with that professor once more, with a reach strong enough to make that arrogant asshole back off. 

“Nice,” I murmured when I arrived at the field once again, and saw every single quarterback hopeful studying passionately, which was more than I expected. I had expected to find at least half of them slacking off, bored trying to memorize the plays, but they kept their attention. 

I had underestimated their passion, I thought as I walked toward them. “It’s time for the test, boys,” I said, only to see every one of them flinch at my voice. 

Maybe it wasn’t the passion I had underestimated, but the degree of fear and respect they felt toward me, was enough to trigger their study habits. If that was the case, I was very glad. 

“Are you ready for the test,” I said.

“Yes, coach,” they answered in one voice, which confirmed that it was the mixture of Leadership and Intimidation that was working wonders  — helped by the spectacular story of growth I presented, of course. 

“Good, we don’t have time to waste. Everyone, grab a  pile of paper, and a pen, and spread it around. It’s time to see just how much you have managed to learn.” 

They nodded before following my request, and spread along, distant from each other to prevent copying, none of them willing to help the competition. “The test is simple. I’m going to call a play, and you’re going to draw it on the paper as  accurately as possible, both the formation and the receiver routes.” 

A few of them already had signs of panic growing on their faces, tempting me to just fail them. “T-the full play,” muttered one of them, showing just how badly his confidence was going, tempting me even further.

But it wouldn’t be nice for their morale if I unilaterally failed them after forcing them to study for a full hour. Instead, I gave them a chance. 

“Draw the offensive scheme, B-fifteen,” I said.  Half of the pens stayed frozen, while the other half moved immediately. 

The play itself was a singleback formation, which was one of the more popular passing formations that spread out the receivers in a tight formation, though it still left enough strategic space for some running plays, mostly relying on the threat of the receivers to create space. 

It was mostly used for pass plays, which was why I called for B-fifteen, which was a tricky running play, relying on the confusing structure to push forward through the right side, aiming to gain around five yards under ideal circumstances. 

I waited for thirty seconds before I called. “Enough, flip it,” I called, calling the stop. They stopped writing as they flipped their clipboards, letting my gaze at their ploys. 

“Not as horrible as I feared,” I muttered as I gazed toward the plays. Every single one of them had drawn the singleback layout correctly, which was better than I expected. Unfortunately, flawless success was limited to that. 

Three of them had already drawn pass plays, mistaking it for other, more common variants. The other seven were drawn more accurately, but for none of them, the details were perfect. They have either blown the assignment of the protections of the offensive line, or mistaken in the assignments of the receivers. 

Still, two of them distinguished themselves enough by accurately drawing the core aspects. 

“F-twenty-two,” I called, this time a variation of the double-wing passing play. I had picked that deliberately, because, unlike the earlier formation, double-wing passing offensive layouts were famous for their complicated nature. Since it was a symmetrical formation, it could be used to attack any side easily, requiring a very careful understanding of the assignment. 

It was a good passing play to use in a variety of situations because it combined short and long crossing routes. Yet, it was complicated for that exact reason, with the outside receiver and tight end running cross routes, while other receivers running sharp go and out routes. 

To my pleasant surprise , the two managed to draw the play with reasonable accuracy. Not perfectly, but with enough accuracy to show that they had understood the concept.

Interestingly, not both of them belonged to the practice squad. One of them had been a part of it, and if I was remembering perfectly, actually playing the center of the offensive line — which gave him a great advantage in knowing the plays, as centers had to study almost as much as the quarterbacks. 

Still, the fact that he had done it as a practice squad player was certainly a good sign. The more he knew, the less he needed to memorize. 

The interesting player was the other one, able to learn much more accurately than the center, a performance that I didn’t expect to see. And, even a glance was enough to confirm that he had the physique of a runner. 

I trusted my abilities to read him accurately during the earlier practice, which confirmed he was fast enough to compete for a starter receiver position. Interesting enough to take note to research him.

I wouldn’t put it above Spencer to send another practice squad player to join the team, just to pull him away at the last minute to make sure everything was ruined. 

I had given them five more plays, enough to make sure I was confident in my assignment. “You three, stay,” I said as I pointed at the three of them. Normally, it would have been enough to keep the center and the newcomer, but I chose to keep a practice-squad running back as well despite the poor performance. 

A part of it was the potential for the trick plays that could be used to confuse them, but a bigger part of it was to have backups against the potential problems. 

“Now, I want you three to line up and throw passes,” I called, followed by assigning a group of receivers to them as well, and outlining a simple cycle of passes, based on a variety of short, mid, and long passes. 

I wasn’t very hopeful, particularly on the long passes, but it was better to test their capabilities directly. And, while they were distracted by the plays, I started going through their files.

The first file I had gone through was George, the center. The reports showed that his physical capabilities were impressive, but he didn’t have the speed or the agility to match them. Yet, I could see that his passing performance was surprisingly well, especially in short passes, though his medium-range passes were passable as well. 

After digging a bit, I saw the reason. He played quarterback in middle school and part of high school, until the growth spurt hit him and he had reached a significant degree. 

In comparison, the running back I had picked, Tristan, was putting a performance that could only be described as middling, barely able to hit a part of the short passes, not enough to be even the backups, though, combined with his ability to run, it should be enough for a couple trick plays. 

Which had the potential to be interesting, especially if I used him and George and Tristan at the same time, making them confused about which one was playing the Quarterback, and which one was the running back. 

Admittedly, such trick plays were not used often, mostly because they had a high chance of going badly, therefore most coaches avoided them, not wanting to look like idiots.  

I certainly didn’t want to look like an idiot as well, but unfortunately, the material in hand was limited, forcing me on the riskier path. Hopefully, my tactical acumen would be enough to twist the tide. 

Only then, I had turned my attention to my newest, and most promising player. Arthur. His file showed that he wasn’t just new to the team,  but to the college as well. The date of joining was Monday, right after Coach Bill’s departure, but before that mess with Spencer began. 

Still, considering the transfer would require several days to be processed,  it should be normal. I started going through the documents about his transfer, which included reports from his coaches, both high school and college. 

I was just looking for the best way to leverage his skills, but as I read the reports, something started to niggle at me. 

The style of writing, I realized after I had read several reports. It wasn’t the handwriting — as they were typed — and the signatures on the scans were different. 

Yet, the reports were suspiciously similar in terms of sentence structure and the choice of words. Even worse, the similarity was subtle enough that I doubted I would have caught it without Pattern Recognition enhancing my capabilities. 

“Interesting,” I murmured. “Especially when combined with the timing.” I was considering the merits of confronting him directly and letting it slide, when a sudden flare of Intent distracted me. 

One that followed immediately with my phone starting to buzz with endless notifications. 

I had a feeling that our documentary just went online.