Intermission

.

.

"Wow! how did Lang looks so ordinary when his sister's so attract-- Ugh!"

""...""

Even before Greg could continue, the cold stare coming from Althea and Medea both, combined with his own foot getting stepped on by Derrick had successfully allowed the large guy to stop himself from running off his mouth with whatever came to his mind.

Although Althea herself was only 2 years apart from Irvine and 3 years from the rest of the sophomores, the fact that not only was she still in her 2nd year of highschool and not yet 18 had made Greg's comment reached the borderline of creepy to most of the people present.

Standing slightly behind him, Dan could be seen with his shoulders trembling up and down as he covered his mouth, trying very hard to prevent himself from laughing.

'Kehk, that dumb brute had no tact at all!' He whispered in a low voice towards his brother.

'You're not that much different from him in this regard though...' Dennis helplessly shook his head while looking at Dan's behaviour.

.

"Welcome to the Ravenville Illusions' homebase. It's Althea, right? Your brother's been a great addition to our team." Renee Morgan spoke with a polite smile on her face as she extended her hand forward.

"Th, thank you very much."

Althea returned the handshake while giving off a slightly stunned look on her face.

She was feeling rather overwhelmed from being the center of attention the moment she'd arrived on the Arena Facility's 1st floor lounge.

After getting fetched by both Irvine and Medea at the entrance, the three people had taken some time to buy snacks and drinks from the campus' convenient store first before eventually reaching the intended destination, which was the Arena Facility.

Irvine had actually already made some plans to introduce this sister of his to his teammates after they've toured the entire place first.

After all, with them not having any practice this afternoon because of the match, chances are that many of the regulars could be easily found in either the training room or entertainment room.

However, outside of everyone's expectations, the three's arrival at the Facility had actually coincided with the rest of the regulars that had just returned from their scans together.

Which had brought them to their current situation.

"Don't mind Greg, that guy's not quite right in the head anyway. So,"

"Are you coming here to look around the place?" Derrick turned back towards Irvine's sister after he had finished dealing with his large friend.

"Yes." Althea replied.

"Then mind if we come with, we have nothing else to do for the rest of the afternoon anyway." This time, Derrick turned towards Irvine for permission, obviously referring to himself and Greg beside him.

*shrug*

"I don't mind. What, are you two going to try and dig up some dirt on me?"

"You know it! So, little sis, what's this guy like as a high school Arena player? --Ah, this way please." After recovering from the previous incident, Greg quickly grinned before immediately starting another conversation, all the while leading the way further in.

"...In high school? My brother's--"

At this moment, Althea tried to think up whatever information she could scrape through from her school's Arena team's reputation because at that time she hadn't put that much attention on her brother or any other non-OPL matches for that matter.

"...Average? He's one of the best in the school for sure, but our school's... Well, they're not a strong school."

"Come now, that can't be right. I mean, this guy's a freak of nature. There's no way he's average even in high school!"

"But..." Althea truly didn't know what to say.

"She's right though," At this point, Irvine himself interjected,

"In my 3 years attending Greenwood High, we didn't once pass the championship's qualifiers." He explained lazily.

"...What, seriously?" Greg had a disbelieving look in his eyes.

"Have you ever heard of Greenwood High?"

"No..."

"Well there you have it."

Listening to the conversation, even Derrick and Medea could only grimaced at the side.

It truly was a mystery to most of them how someone like Irvine could suddenly become one of the most promising young player in the Station, a Starseed that had managed to get his Gene Mod even before entering college, so close to his graduation.

Since the five of them hadn't walked for very far, at the time even the rest of the regular players in the lounge could still hear this bit of their conversations.

The twins had an incredulous look on their faces as they were listening in themselves.

"--Greenwood High?" The shy girl, Naomi, reflexively turned towards the observing Clint, who was standing close to her side, with a questioning look.

The first reply she got from the guy was a shrug,

"...As Lang said, the school never even make it past any qualifiers." Clint continued to speak after implying that he too didn't know any particular high school with that name,

"Still, kinda makes you wonder how some nobody from an unknown high school suddenly rise up as one of the seven Starseeds of the year, right?" He then turned his head back towards the Captain's direction to ask.

"Maybe he's a late bloomer. Either way, he's clearly strong enough now." Renee shook her head and commented back with no expression of interest on her face.

"'Now', is it...?" Standing beside her, Baron also mumbled in an almost inaudible voice reacting to the Captain's words.

"What's that?" Noticing the rare moment that this huge hulking player behind her had taken an initiative to comment, Renee turned and asked to clarify.

"It's nothing."

"...Is that so?"

.

.

The tour of the Arena Facility hadn't taken too much time for the three people along with Derrick and Greg now added into the mix.

Unlike the stadium with its long circular hallway and rows of doors and stairs. In the end, the Arena Facility was still just one mansion-shaped building filled mostly with Arena and sports-related facilities inside.

But even with only training and testing devices as far as the eyes can see, Althea hadn't turned bored even once throughout their whole tour.

For her, learning the systematic process in building a routine for an Arena athlete's everyday life was enjoyable enough to satisfy most of her curiosities regarding the particular topic.

After they had finally circled back to the 1st floor lounge past the hallways of 'borrowed' bedrooms and the entertainment room, eventually the day too came to an end for Althea's first ever experience in ditching school.

Along their way, many conversations had been traded both regarding the kind of person Irvine was before college and also Althea's own aspirations with regards to Battle Arena sport.

A topic which even now she still didn't have an exact answer to.

As the artifical sun set along the horizon, Irvine invited the rest of the people in the group to have dinner together before he sent his sister off. Though unfortunately, it had turned into an offer which Derrick and Greg quickly declined after they'd learned that he was not treating any of them.

The means of obtaining money for normal college student athletes were already very limited as it was.

Together with the fact that they had to carefully watch their diets during this tournament period, occasions in which they should splurge needed to be properly planned beforehand.

It was one thing if it was for a weekend hangout with friends where they could let loose, but a semi-formal dinner with a friend's relative seemed hardly appropriate, especially considering they had to pay for it themselves.

In the end, just like they had promised beforehand, the out-of-campus dinner invite was only attended by the two Lang siblings and Medea who didn't seem to mind the cost herself.

Since it was not their first time hanging out together as a group, the rest of the dinner too went by uneventfully with Irvine eventually sending his sister off at the closest monorail station in the end.

At the station platform, he didn't forget to remind her to 'deal with mom and dad' herself since Irvine'd guessed that this could probably be her first time coming back home this late into the evening.

"I still have many questions regarding the match." Althea hinted at her brother with her statement.

"Then send me a text or call later. You know my schedule. You can even contact Dormer if you want."

"Ha?" Irvine's reply had caught the red-haired girl off-guard.

"Do you mind?"

"...No." Medea grumbled under her breath.

"See."

"Alright then." Althea nodded with her usual straight expression just in time for the train to arrive from the distance,

"See you later."

"Yea, say hi to mom and dad for me if you decided to tell them the truth of today." Irvine smiled, "Oh also, don't skip school for the next match or the one after that."

"..."

"If you're taking risks, might as well make it worth your while. We're going against Verdante as our 4th opponent."

"Ah." *nod*

*DING*

With that as his parting words, the train in front of them only stopped for a while before carrying away the slightly tired Althea back towards their home direction.

Only after the train had left for a while did Medea opened her mouth to speak again,

"What if we lose against Verdante on the day?"

"Then she might have a different learning experience. But from my point of view, if we're really going to lose, might as well lose the battle we can afford."

"What was that, are you getting complacent just because this is still the regionals?"

"No, I'm planning to win." Irvine stated matter-of-factly.

After getting back to his younger days from the future where he'd been a middle-aged retired player, Irvine no longer had the desire to display those burning sentiments of youth where one wouldn't even think about the consequences of defeat if they could help it.

On the contrary he had to consider the effects every possible defeat would have on his athletic career as a whole.

It was not an attitude that was borne from a lack of confidence, but from experience.

He would not be someone who could sacrifice his body on a long-term injury for a chance to win a match if push comes to shove. At least not for matches of this stage.

Though it would be a different matter if it was the Golden Crown or even the Supreme Crown. Because at that stage he would've already achieved his old dream anyway.

Irvine firmly believed that there's no success without its fair share of failures. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't still try his best to win every challenges that came his way.

It's just that his 'best' wouldn't include things that might have a lasting negative impact to his future goal.

.

.

After the two eventually retired for the night after sending Althea home, time continued to pass for both their studies and practices for the rest of that week.

Wednesday through Friday, the regulars' daily life consisted of morning practice, daily classes, and ultimately followed by the usual afternoon practices.

At this point in time, although various Uncrowned Tournament hadn't yet started for those players who're in the 2nd string, even they had also started to get busy with preparations.

The only group that wasn't truly affected by the pressure of competitions during this time was the final 3rd string.

Their days went by less strictly than the rest with most of the players, both the invited and the walk-ons, honed some basic skills that're tailored to their styles in a very controlled environment.

They had one coach from the group of coaches under Lark who was responsible for arranging and reporting their development everyday. Their only goal for this semester was one.

To get promoted into the 2nd string, and if possible, in time for at least one the Uncrowned Tournaments!

With each of the 3 strings' players busy with their respective goals for this short term, finally, another weekend too, soon arrived.

.

Even for Irvine, his schedule for this weekend was slightly different than the previous ones.

At 9:00 AM in the morning, Irvine was standing on the relative edge of the vast flat land that was Ravenville's training field.

Directly in front of him stood a single tower with two people standing guard in front of him.

It was a man and woman that was still the only rather close friends he had from classes. Wilson and Ella.

As he had promised them a couple of times previously, he would try his best to assist them in training should he have the time.

And today was exactly one of those times when he could afford to fulfill the promise while still get something out of it in the form of his own solving practice against the two!