His name was Mister Johnston.

He was the computer science teacher at the academies, and he gave me pause. Around this time the was going through his social media and everything was so damn wholesome. Here he was doing the damn thing where he dedicated his summers to a mission in Uganda. There he was helping set up a stage for the theatre group. The man had to be the most eligible bachelor at the school, unless we were wrong.

It was one of those things you saw only once in a while, like a male nurse. Not a unicorn, just rare.

The normal demographic of teaching is mostly female with a few male teachers. One of the things that I asked students when I initially got into education was how old they were when they first had a black man as a teacher.

For a bunch of them it wasn't until high school. For several, it wasn't until college.

Mr. Johnston had been teaching at the academies for about a decade if I believed his social media posts. I never saw anything about a wife, so I assumed that he liked men. I would dearly love to be proven otherwise.

I was texting the group chat about him. He was a hot topic.

Kelly: This guy looks like he is right up your alley, Stacey. Honest, wholesome, hard working.

Amir: I bet he'll even hold your hand in public.

I had to hold back a giggle at that. Stacey was whatever the opposite of touchy feely was. Sure, she was an independent

Kelly: Scandalous. He might even be seen with you there.

Stacey: We'll see about that. If this is going to require me to jump over to Paramus then this guy had better be more than just a thirst trap.

Kelly: We are supposed to do the final arrangement call on Tuesday when his classes end.

Amir: Hey, I think my cousin works at the academies. I can ask her if she knows anything about him.

Kelly: Amir, I ought to slap you.

Amir: Is that a yes?

Stacey: God damn it, Amir.

Amir: Alright. Texting her now.

If he had a cousin that worked at the academies, then we could get the scoop.

I was hoping that I could answer about this soon because in the back of my head, setting Stacy up would be like a feather in my cap. It was me hard for her to accept that I was now going to oversee her dating life rather than her speculating about mine as she often did. But that was the life of a traitor who decided to bring attractive men to hang out without telling me. At least I want a heads up so I could make sure I look presentable. In addition, I want a criminal history and references for the last two girls he dated as to why they were not up to my standard. Not him, if he wasn't perfect that was on him. I was willing to accept someone who had some flaws.

But I was in no rush to be back in a relationship anytime soon. I did like to make my friends feel all awkward around me when they brought it up so that was my motivation. I would get her back and then not even tell her if my evil plans until we were in her bachelorette party in...

Kelly: Where are we having your bachelorette party?

Stacey: I thought you knew this already but Miami.

Kelly: Slay. I knew but, just needed to confirm.

This was all downstream of us getting to speak to him in person and then them hitting it off and then all the other things that made people get married. But I didn't have time for that. All I had time for was getting the kids ready that night to demolish Mister Johnstons kids on Thursday.

Kelly: Is this going to look terrible if we crush his students on Thursday?

Stacey: Hell no. He will need a shoulder to cry on anyway. And that's where I will be. You guys need a ref, right?

Kelly: You're going to finally get that module done?

Stacey: I got this.

Over the years, she had to come in and helped and even once given a short talk about how to run a small private practice. I loved having her come in and talk to my students because they got to see what it looks like when you did all your studies, and you did everything you were supposed to do and then graduated and then wants to make it on your own.

Having her as a referee would make the whole thing more legitimate.

That plus her talking to the Academies students would put us on the right path

It was difficult but it was achievable. I know that my guys were interested in starting business. I had to give them an idea what was possible.

Stacey loved coming in and the students love having her. She got animated talking about the law and super animated talking about why you should have a long engagement. She might stick on that point for while longer than I would, but she knew why people got divorced.

Stacey: I'm bringing snacks. I found out that peanut chews are his favorites.

Kelly: You're a hero.

Rachel arrived in the discord server early. Everyone else was there already of course and they were online. I had her talk through the damn thing and then I got the tiles. This time I got offered the damn thing I had been asking for.

I could buy tiles!

There were two I could buy but it was two that were more farming tiles. I spent fifty points to buy one of each. This put me right where I wanted to be.

I took a minute to check my team and made sure that everything was all lined up. It looked like they were only going to get some benefit from this, and I was really happy about that.

Honestly, training kicked off without any issues and I saw green. Across the board, everyone went up in at least one stat. Even Rachel went up. Our B team guys did well as much as they could. When one of them subbed out because they had to go do some schoolwork, Rachel or I would sub in. We got five games in there which was good because that meant I got 30 minutes of playing each as the manager, five times. It wasn't exactly 30 minutes each time, but the average was about 30. This meant that with three points per minute, I got 180 points.

That felt like a good haul. It made me happy. At this point, I felt that my guys are ready for the next challenge and that I was pushing them just enough to get our numbers good for a game against the academies. Sure. They might have some weaknesses, but their strengths were good.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Game would tell me if to work on some of their weaknesses as much as I brought off their strengths. For as much as it was good to have them as strong warriors in the field, if they couldn't farm, they couldn't win. And I was all about winning.

---

All day Wednesday, I dreamed about winning that game. It was going to be an epic showdown.

When the time came to help the damn rental company unload, Stacy was there to volunteer both her time and her reputation.

Rachel and Stacy were setting up.

"I just feel like you're wasting your talent here?" Rachel said. " Shouldn't you be doing lawyer stuff?"

I held the door open for Stacy as she made her way in.

"A girls got to have hobbies," she said. "My life would be very boring if all I did was lawyer stuff."

That was when he walked in with the kids. Mr. Johnston got off his van and had his high schoolers out like busy bees.

I waved to him. He waved back and then beckoned me to come over.

"You must be Professor Thomas!" He said, warmly.

"I am. Mister Johnston, welcome. Your team can go get set up right inside."

"Alright guys. Best behaviors here," he said.

I was looking for the BSlayer but I was distracted. He was distracting and I swear that I could feel Stacey's eyes on me. It wouldn't hurt for me to chat with him.

"Did the referee arrive yet?" He said, closing the door to the van. He took a second to put his keys away and then gave me his full attention.

"Unfortunately, yes," I said. “We’ve got to have a chat with them.”

Stacey had taken the referee course just so she could do this. The things that a woman could do with a little convincing was wild. It had taken her two hours and about ten bucks, but it was so worth it.

“I’m so happy to see a sister leading an esports team,” he said.

I casually flicked my hair.

“I know. I think we need to take over.”

“Preach!” He put a fist to his chest. Alright, this was acceptable.

Stacey was waiting by the door.

“This is our referee, Stacey,” I said.

“Pleased to meet you. Now let’s talk about how this is going to go,” Stacey said.

The manager conference beforehand to iron things out was brief. Mr. Johnston was beaming the entire time we talked. I don’t know if he just liked being here.

“Before we begin, do we have the time to talk about careers?” he said. “I understand that you’re both strong sisters, but…”

“Stacey is a divorce attorney,” I said. “She’s come in to help because she is a personal friend of mine and a player.”

He nodded to her.

“Kelly is a professor here,” Stacey said. “As well as being the teams manager. She teaches students about business and marketing.”

“Alright. Well since I have to sell these kinds of things to the admin as being educational, would both of you mind talking about that briefly to my students? They think that there’s not really a career path for them as gamers.”

“I can speak about gaming as a career,” I said, “But you’re going to want me to bring in Rachel as well. She works in the industry.”

He brightened at that.

“Rachel works for the Red Mist Academy, right?”

I turned to see her setting up the final computer.

“I’ll ask her, if you want to talk to the kids first,” I said.

Stacey puffed up her chest. Mister Johnston pursed his lips.

Got him.

“Bring them over. I can talk about law school and private practice. It’s not all ‘How to get away with Murder’ after all,” she said.

If someone had asked for the lowest cut referee top, I would point them in the direction of wherever Stacey had got hers. It left little to the imagination. This was perfect for her use case. She wanted to get his attention and she did.

Now she had to keep his interest.

Easier said than done, but she has all the cards she needed on the field. Stacey gave her little schpiel and then I gave mine. Then? It was on.

The ban round was very perfunctory. We know what BSlayer wanted and we wanted to deny that to her.

The team was set up. We began our band picks and immediately things got off the rails. They banned the things that we were going to ban, which meant that our turns took longer, which meant that our guys were arguing about things and that kind of spiraled.

You got to get everyone on the same page. And this was probably the second time that our enemies had resorted to psychological warfare to get inside of our heads. This time, it was working because they were kids. No one expects cute little high school students to go ahead and fuck with you. But they did.

And the Fallout was that most of the meta characters that we were trying to get away from were still in and everyone on the Academies team was smiling. They knew that they had got in the way with something incredible right there and I had to have it hand it to them. They were right.

Mr. Johnston looked very pleased at his kids. He kinda smiled at Stacy and I reminded myself that there was a reason that we were here.

For some of my kids? It might be for the game. It might be for the glory.

For me? I was here for spite.

You didn't just unleash psychological warfare upon a bunch of college kids like that without getting retribution.

I set my strategy for the first turn to farming.

I swear that just looking over to Murph that he was glowing. He looks like he was doing a Goku power up. I had to check to see if anyone else is gawking it in the same way that I was.

He got out there and it looked like he was having the best game of his life. No one was going to question that performance.

There was a drug that I could give him that would make him do that every time? I might buy it. But only if it was less than 10 bucks. Anything over that? And I probably was going to have the budget for it. Maybe some blue ox energy drinks.

I assumed my position behind the mid laner and Raquel. For my vantage point I could easily see how the mid laner was doing and also how Murph was looking in Raquel's view. I swear that his avatar looked like it was glowing as well.

I know it really wasn't but there were game game effects that might give that look. It wasn't for me to tell anybody. If someone else noticed and told me? I might see it. I might not. I wasn't a snitch.

The game kicked off with my bottom lane guys circling around the minions. BSlayer had gone jungle this round and was making her warm up and down, popping out to get mid and top in equal measure.

Racquel, my star bottom, was doing her best to push the farm. All on all, she was pushing gold way ahead of our opponents. Murph backed her up, topping her like a sub. They went together, so when her special attacks were on cool down, his were back up. They rotated in.

Boring.

Good play? Doing the basics correctly and better than your opponent was kinda boring to watch. It was like a duck if viewed from above the water. The furious kicking underneath was there, but you just didn't see it. I rotated it to the other group members to check on them. It will be too easy to just sit in one spot and not check on Bob.

Bob was getting his game on. He was batting the academies player back and forth.

Then the minute clicked over to eight and I could feel the difference.

I was still in the first turn, but the opponent was in the second.

My mind reeled. They was setting their strategy to offense as I was trying to figure out what happened.

I pulled out my phone and pretended to mess with it.

They were declaring their turn early?

How the heck was that possible?

My mind raced against their possibilities. What the heck were they doing? That had to be BSlayer, pushing her team.

We were still farming when the team fights started.

Of course this meant that mid and top were not expecting anything.

They struck while our jungle was in bottom lane. We were working the three to two advantage to deny their farming, then top was empty and our mid was on what losing side of a three on one conflict.

Bob valiantly did everything he could to fight them until it was clear that this was an assassination. Thirty seconds after they engaged, our jungle and support were heading to the middle lane, ready for vengeance.

This left the bottom lane with just Racquel and you can probably see where this is going. Their three snuck past our guys, going through our jungle as we went through theirs.

Then they got Racquel.

It felt like in those shounen anime when someone is overconfident and is about to teach their opponent a lesson because of all the hard work they've put in. BSlayer and her crew were mocking us by targeting my team one at time.

It was like they were all going to be at the top of their game.

It was a sure thing. I checked the match ratings and my guys were all at a five except for Esther at a six. They didn't have a single player below nine.

I didn't even know what that meant.

All of a sudden the board was under their control.

I felt like ripping off my headphones right there but...

But there was a part of me that wanted to stay and learn and grow from this. I would be able to do that if I stuck this out. These kids were easily on another level but I could get my kids there.

I could formulate a plan to get my guys doing this.

The team fights began and I took every one as a learning experience. The team did better together when we were able to dodge the predictable ganks.

In that way it became more about dodging than it was about winning. We had to guess where they would pop up and more often than now at the beginning of the second round, we were wrong. Then we started to get it by the end. By then it was a done deal.

These kids who would definitely get a scholarship to a four year school on this basis alone. If not, the world was a harsh mistress.