Divine Celebrity 131 (Patreon)

Waking up rested was a nice feeling, even if I had woken up once more as I felt the approach of the shadow assassins, but I didn’t even need to stand up. 

My pet was able to handle them incredibly quickly. 

“Thanks, little guy,” I said as I scratched his head, and went through my phone. My smile got even wider, as I noticed three surprises on my screen. 

The first surprise was from the hospital. A nice, official apology from the medical team, forwarded to me by the sports department, apologizing to me about a mix-up of brain scans. The report was lengthy, and mostly useless, carefully written to minimize our chances to sue the hospital successfully, but it cleared me to play. 

I wouldn’t have said no to a chance to take some settlement money as an apology. Pity. 

The second came from my favorite coach, attaching a small list of struggling sports teams, asking me to give them a visit if I had time and have a talk with their coaches about what could be done. “Smart woman,” I said with a chuckle as I went through the names. With my habit of hacking people, I was sufficiently familiar with the internal political leanings of the most … and the list only included her most ardent political enemies. 

She wanted me to weaponize against them, to reduce their power. Smart, if a bit rude. If someone else tried to do it, I might have reacted badly … but Coach Juana earned my goodwill in a very memorable manner. 

And, I could always make her pay more if the task proved to be too difficult. 

The third was from Megan, calling one of her favors. She said that she managed to arrange a fashion shoot for us, for the dream couple. I owed her, but what made it good news was that the photoshoot came with a nice offer of payment. 

Five grand. Not as high as my new status deserved, but my rise had been contentious enough that well-paying advertisers would play it safe. Five grand was not a bad start. Not to mention, the potential to generate some more Intent.

A sexy photoshoot was exactly what was needed to make a bunch of people jealous, and a nice break from studying. 

I sent a quick message to Megan, telling her I would be there, who then immediately made a social media post. Which had been picked by the boys I had rewritten the last night — which used several exploits that I only discovered due to my incredible increase of capabilities. 

The bots triggered a long, pointless argument about yesterday’s match, one that turned into whether football was even a sport … and it turned into even more heated. 

Which gave me almost a whole percent of Intent while I drove. Not a bad benefit for it. Pity it relied intensely on the spectacular nature of yesterday’s victory, and it was hard to replicate. 

Soon, I parked in front of a large building, which functioned both as the headquarter and the photo studio for a mid-sized local clothing brand. After I parked, I walked inside, and went to the receptionist, who, unfortunately, was a dour-faced male. “Hi, I’m Terry, here for a photo shoot,” I said. 

He looked at me dismissively. “We don’t have your name here, sir, please wait for a moment,” he declared, his smugness annoying … but also, weirdly intentional. 

Probably a way for them to show off, I thought. I would have turned and left, but I was here to do Megan a favor, so instead, I went picked a relatively concealed chair and started waiting. Someone was trying to make a show. 

Still, just because I was trying to do a favor didn’t mean that I wanted to wait. I called Megan … but she didn’t answer. Frustrating, I thought, wondering whether I should make a point … when I noted one of the cameras turning to catch my face.

Interesting, I thought as I shifted, hiding myself from the camera. I didn’t know what was going on, but clearly, it was not a simple thing. Instead, I looked outside. I could have left, but I felt moderately curious. 

Soon, I noticed a movement outside. A tow-truck entered the parking lot, which was mostly empty. It was easy to notice the destination of the tow truck. It was my car. Even more curious, I thought as I looked at the receptionist, who started watching me with a smug smile, like he pulled a great prank. 

Clearly, the tow truck was not here accidentally. 

I wondered what was going on … Someone was clearly against me, but it was too petty and ineffective to be someone useful. Or not, I corrected myself, when I noticed the presence of the four men with suits at the end of the corridor, too bulky to be anyone but professional bodyguards. 

They were well hidden, and I noticed them only through a reflection of a reflection. 

Their presence changed the possible identity of who was poking around. Someone was trying to create an excuse for a beatdown, someone that was with enough pull to call a favor from the company, and with enough money to hire professional bodyguards — with a bonus to handle a semi-legal task.

The ploy was simple. They expected me to go and argue with the tow truck driver, who would probably throw around some insults. My reputation as a hothead was already established, so even if I didn’t attack him, they could twist the situation quite a bit. 

Now, I needed to handle it. I thought about refraining to use Telekinesis, as the plotters could easily be the council testing me… But even if they were the ones, were hiding the right choice. My success with the team was already suspicious enough to give a sense of my abilities, and I continued to destroy those shadow assassins. 

Telekinesis was not particularly dangerous. With a smirk, I waited until the truck was next to a very expensive sports car, and sent a magical push … and the tow truck lost one of its front tires explosively, veering off to ruin it completely. 

The car alarm exploded loudly, alerting the whole building about the commotion. I didn’t know if the owner was on the plan, but if not, he could deal with my plotters. 

“No!” the receptionist shouted in alarm, and dashed out. Two bodyguards left just as quick, but no one looked at me. Which gave me a chance to dig around the ridiculous plot I found myself in. It didn’t take long for me to discover the truth. The company was owned by an old, rich man, and his son, Marl, was currently the head of marketing. 

A brief social media shot showed a lot of photos of the models that worked for his company, with suggestive comments about sex that gave the impression of trying too much. I had found several photos of him with my old coach Spencer, solving the mystery of his problem. Also, there were many photos he had taken himself, claiming to be an expert photographer. 

They were ugly and pretentious. 

Also, a lot of photos with the car I had just ruined, referring to it as his baby a disturbing number of times. 

Talk about a lucky shot. 

Barely a minute later, I watched him appear in the elevator, and start shouting. “You incompetent assholes,” I heard him shouting, and while going down with him was appealing, I chose to sneak to the elevator … people were too distracted to pay attention to me. 

I went to the studio floor, which was mostly empty, with two people talking. One of them was Megan, the other woman I didn’t recognize. Interesting situation, I decided as I called Megan again, curious whether she was ignoring me intentionally, but she didn’t have her phone. 

I stayed hidden, curious about the exact role Megan had played, which was revealed a moment later/ “Do you mind if I take my phone for a bit,” Megan said. “It’s not like Terry to be late, I should give him a call.” 

“Sorry, sweetie,” the other girl answered, her tone amused and smug at the same time. “Boss is very strict about no phones in the studio. It ruins his creative juices.” With that, the ploy turned rather more obvious. They were also trying to keep Megan here … probably hoping to seduce her to make my humiliation even more newsworthy. 

The newest hero coach, with his car towed, beaten, and cucked on the same day. I had to admit, it was a nice plan… Almost enough to make me respect them. 

Too bad it was revenge time. 

“And you went all that trouble setting him an interview, what a pity,” she followed. And my smirk got even wider.