Divine Celebrity 145

People were calling me before I could even get a chance to get into my car, though I was only interested in answering two. Coach Juana, and Megan. 

I decided to answer Juana first. “How do you do, coach?” I asked with a cheerful voice. 

“You are incapable of not creating a spectacle, are you?” she responded. “You gave me a huge mess.”

“Just as you wanted. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble with him anymore.” 

“Likely, considering the board is preparing to ask for his resignation, leaving us with two major positions to fill,” she answered bitingly. 

“Hey, don’t act like you’re unsatisfied. I’m sure it’s a sacrifice you’re willing to make sure none of the other coaches act out. And, you used me as a very devastating weapon, they won’t be,” I said, cutting the chase. 

“Well, that still leaves us with the challenge of—“ she tried to say after a pause, realizing she had lost track of the argument.

“The challenge of finding a coach. Yes, I’ll take the role,” I answered, and she let out a relaxed sigh. “As long as the payment is appropriate, of course.” 

“I’m sure there’s a lot of place in the budget—“ she started, but I cut her off once more.

“No, I’m thinking about a more personal payment, just like our bet.” 

She fell silent for a moment, letting the moment stretch for a while. “Only if you win,” she admitted. 

“Excellent, a deal,” I answered immediately, enjoying her shocked gasp. “See you later, my beautiful coach,” I added as I ended the call. 

Then, I texted Megan, saying that she could call whenever she was available, and meanwhile, I used the opportunity to do a search on the Ancient Brotherhood that Paul and Arthur mentioned, but failed to find anything. 

Or, more accurately, I had found too much, which equaled the same. There were simply thousands of mentions of Ancient Brotherhoods, all spread along many different cultures, regions, and entities. The name was simply too general. 

Pity, as I would have loved to get some more information. 

However, while I was doing my search, I also went through the reports my web crawler was producing, and analyzed them based on my advanced capabilities … and the results showed a marked increase of strange occurrences during the last three days.

Coinciding with the mention of the fallen guardian Paul mentioned. 

Things were getting faster, meaning I needed to take some risks. Preferably with Acolyte business. I thought about the best candidate, and Laura jumped into my mind. 

A quick call to her, however, revealed that she was currently back with her family due to an emergency, and she was not available. 

Pity. 

Which left only a few viable candidates. Arthur if I wanted to avoid revealing magic, but that had its own restrictions. Marcus was the best male in terms of trust… 

Then, there were Coach Juana and Megan, two sexy ladies who helped me a lot, but trust was a complicated issue between us. However, both of them depended on me for their success significantly, which gave me a preferable hook. 

While I drove, Megan finally called. “You don’t do anything by halves, do you?” she asked, echoing the earlier talk with Coach Juana. 

“Of course not, where’s the fun in that,” I answered, earning a deep sigh. “Don’t tell me it doesn’t help you,” I added. 

“No, that’s not the problem. It helps the sales immensely, but you just ruined my week with a lot of work,” she grumbled, trying to act frustrated, but I could hear the elation in her voice. The basketball match had already picked up a lot of media coverage, and my ‘inappropriate’ behavior was even a part of the discussion. 

I was happy with that. A lot of people had very negative things to say about my inappropriate behavior online, but, considering the intensity of their negative feelings, I was very happy about the results. 

“My pleasure,” I said. 

“Since you’re that happy, you’re going to accompany me to dinner. We have a potential deal that could mean a lot of money, but the business partner needs to meet with you as well. Are you free?” 

“Sure, just text me the address, and I’ll be there,” I said. I didn’t offer to pick her up, considering we were just ‘broken up’ and it wouldn’t look good for the story. 

“Be there in an hour,” she answered. “And dress smart casual.” 

I chuckled at her commanding attitude even as she ended the call, making a stop at my dorm to dress before I prepared to move. 

As I drove, however, I continued to channel my Intent to my pet, curious about what would happen once it reached the next stage, a state that I would hopefully learn about soon. 

[Black Tortoise (I - %73)]

The drive toward my destination didn’t take too long considering I had violated every single speeding law, but I was feeling reckless. It was a beautiful chance to stretch my psychical abilities after using command aura for so long. 

I enjoyed the strategic aspects, but I still liked to challenge myself as well. And, the meeting was quite a bit distance away from the city, allowing me to properly cut loose. 

Then, on the way, I noticed a very distinctive event. A familiar figure, Megan, driving an unfamiliar new and expensive car — though enough to recognize it as a rental, probably to impress the potential client. Unfortunately, the nature of the car was not the thing that caught my attention. 

No, it was the two cars, both black SUVs, following her in a desperate chase. Even from the distance, I could see Megan’s face contorted in panic as she took a sharp turn, avoiding her followers despite their attempt to cut her off. 

It was a close call, one that Megan avoided due to her surprisingly amazing driving skills combined with the impressive rental car. Pity that her car was already looking like it was on its last legs, far less resistant to collision than the SUVs that chased her. 

I had a strong suspicion that those SUVs were bulletproof. 

The safe thing would have been to turn back and avoid the chaos, but the moment I came across the show, I already had an idea about the real target of the evening. They were probably targeting me, and Megan was just an incidental target. 

I was honest enough with myself to admit that I didn’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t been confident in my abilities. I had a tendency to be reckless, but also selfish. Luckily, I wasn’t afraid of the challenge — especially since I couldn’t feel even a hint of magic from the two SUVs — so that was a moot question. 

Instead, I desperately drove toward them, and with a painful drift, cut the path of the first SUV while I did my best to imbue my car with Intent, with no idea about what kind of effect it would generate. 

Luckily, I was confident that I would be able to survive the collusion even if didn’t help the slightest thanks to my physical enhancements. My car … that was a more difficult call. 

Yet, as I infused the car with my Intent, I could feel some kind of connection with the car. It was subtle and sublime, but it allowed me to control the car with far more accuracy than I expected. 

Which meant I managed to position the car at the perfect angle. Of course, colliding with a bulletproof SUV, I still expected my car to end up like an accordion, though it would have been a fair exchange to allow Megan to escape while entangling the aggressors. 

I wanted to interrogate them. 

To my surprise, it wasn’t my car that ended up like a badly completed jigsaw, but theirs. Mine survived with almost no scratch … and more importantly, I barely felt the bump, which was supposed to be impossible. 

Then, I shrugged. It was hardly the most impressive thing I had seen magic accomplish. Then, I noticed another surprise. Megan suddenly slowed down and took a sharp turn, her expression of panic even more intense, clearly trying to help me. 

An inadvisable action, certainly, but I had to admit, brave as well. Far braver than I expected Megan to display. Maybe I had underestimated her. 

However, I didn’t have much time to waste appreciating, I thought as I prepared to jump out of the car. 

I had some enemies to deal with.