The two rivals met eye to eye as the ensuing eye-staring contest made everyone shiver a bit as they waited for everyone to gather. Smith although shaken up initially regained his composure as he gave a devilish smile and mimicked opening an imaginary bottle and pouring out the content. Richard seeing this began to boil up, but when he saw the discomfort of the people around him, he quickly quelled his anger and looked away:

‘No, not now, but definitely, later he thought to himself as he knew he wouldn’t hold back.

“Well, good thing I have your attention now. I have split all of you into eight equal teams of five as we work on our attack, Mr. Dayo, would you give them the armband numbers” he said as he asked his assistant to distribute different armbands with numbers 1 to 5 written on all of them. It wasn’t strange as this was one of the training techniques the coach devised. There were forty senior players in the academy that would then be divided into eight teams of five. Each player wearing the number one armband would come together and so on. The selection is done randomly you won’t know who you will be paired with in the next session. The rule where simply to try and score as much as possible as the team with the highest scoreline wins in a short span of 10 minutes. There won’t be any tactics as the players would decide for themselves where they would play but everyone must play everywhere by the end of the game, including as the keeper. This would help everyone be able to develop their attacking senses, but some would shine brighter than others in this game.

“Whew, not the same” Smith sighed in relief when he saw the armband given to him that had the number four on it and he saw Richards's own which had a 1 on it.

“Well you should have received your armbands by now, so get together and speak about how you would play, as usual, all matches would be played at the same time on various areas of the pitch, you should know the rules by now so, without further ado: Team 3 vs Team 8, Team 2 vs Team 5, Team 6 vs Team 7 and finally Team 1 vs Team 4, get to your positions”

As the coach called out the mini teams to play against themselves Smith’s face that was away from Richard continually fell in dismay as Richard’s face rose in evil anticipation. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the last two teams were called Smith’s confidence hit rock bottom causing him to start sweating profusely as he turned back to see Richard looking at him smiling. It was a simple smile but when he stared at those eyes, he felt himself become smaller as they resembled that of a predator about to consume its prey.

“Uhm coach, how about I sit this one out, I had an issue with my ankle on the way out of the shower,” Smith said as he walked out not even waiting for the coach’s response as he promptly went to the audience stand and sat down.

“That’s strange,” Dave said as he wore his armband signifying, he was in team 8 “Smith would never do that do you have an idea about what’s wrong” Richard was stunned at first when he saw this as the shock didn’t last long when his lips curled up in a smile, “I think I might have an Idea or two” he spoke as they split up.

---

As the mini-games began, Richard dominated as his speed, reaction, and command improved. He wasn’t looking like a teenager struggling anymore but from what everyone could see it was as though he was suddenly another person altogether, it was totally unbelievable that the other three matches quit just to watch Richard take on multiple players easily.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

‘Hey, hey, hey, this isn’t how it is supposed to be’ Smith thought as he watched on from the stands in despair as he watched Richard continue to show his prowess. If before it was just a pothole of a difference between them but now it was definitely a chasm that he didn’t see himself or have any hope of even crossing at all. To him the image of Richard kept growing higher, the higher he jumped, the faster he ran, and the stamina to hold up players these were just some qualities to name a few that gave him a point of concern and a thought crossed his mind that caused the despair in him to grow even more:

“At the rate in which this is going, if he does something like this during the next match and a possible final in front of several people watching, he is definitely going to get picked over me” Smith said as he began to bite his nails anxiously, that was until a massive object fell to the ground:

BOOM

Dust rose as the ground shattered causing heavy dust cloud to rise just outside the pitch but within the stadium as the force caused the earth to vibrate as a result of the shock wave coming off the point of impact. When the dust settled a massive oval-shaped obsidian black vessel that was so smooth you could see your reflection was seen as the players began to nervously come around to check it out:

“Tunde, wetin be that” a boy said as he jerked the shoulder of another boy;

“How would I know” the boy said not even giving the other an eye as they came around

“You children should not go near that thing; it might be dangerous,” Mr. Dayo said as he tried to pull the children away from the object, all the cells in his body were screaming for him to run away without looking back but his conscience wouldn’t let him leave the children.

“Richard, do you have any idea of what that might be” Dave said as he held Richard’s hand as they began to go inside with the other kids

“Do I look like the person that dropped it, besides it clearly resembles all those invasions shows we watch and how aliens invade the planet” Richard said as he placed his other hand on his chin as he assumed a thinking position;

“Wait now that you mentioned it, it truly looks like one of those, that object clearly looks like a container of some sort” Dave as he paused and turned around to have a better look at what had fallen from the sky when suddenly, the pod that was stuck on the ground in a slant manner made a sound as though opening a carbonated drink as a line appeared in the center of the door. The line ran vertically but not to the ends of the pod as it stopped some inches away from it, from the line the two segments began to slide open as more gas seeped out and a humanoid creature was seen with an octopus-shaped head with tentacles running across the chest and a body that had a similar physique to humans only buffed up and scaly as they had a dark brown color to it. Connected to its arms and face were tube-like materials. As the gas dissipated and the tension rose, the invader opened its eyes, as it revealed its eye pupil to be dark red and had this ominous glow to it.