It was now the end of the week, the last day of tryouts. The days went pretty fast, not much change from the first day of tryouts if I am being honest. Training and school like normal, then exercise with some basketball added in for the hour of tryouts, I talk with Jay and his group for a bit then I go back to my dorms, occasionally with Percy and Grover, to chill for a bit before I head off to the Soul Forge to do blacksmithing and crafting stuff. I finally got a working motion detector on Thursday despite lowering the amount of time I had to mess with that project.

But now it is Friday and I was sitting in the gym surrounded by the eighteen others who had made it this far in front of the coach before the last tryout day truly started. For me tryouts was a nice experience and I had learned a lot about the game that I didn't know before, but there were usually around four people who got told they didn't make the team at the end of every day, which is why there were much less people then when tryouts started.

“Hello again, kids.” Coach Stine announced as he stood in front of the crowd of guys in the gym, standing straight and looking around at us. “CAN I HEAR IT FOR THE LAST DAY OF TRYOUTS?!” He shouted unexpectedly, with a wild grin on his face and causing the nervous atmosphere to vanish as everybody gave a combination of shouts and claps. I had to smile at the man's ability to shift the mood. That was the kind of energy that I was simultaneously impressed with and envied.

“RIGHT!” He called out after the cheers had subsided. He waited a few seconds before readying to continue in his normal voice when he had all of our full attention, starting his instructions for today. “Today is going to be tough for all of you!” He announced first, reeling in the mood and looking at all of us individually. “As this is the last day of tryouts, we will be pushing all of you to see just who can be called to be part of the Golden Canons! We will divide into two teams of five and two teams of four and then we can get started!” He instructed us, then stepped back and letting us form up our teams.

From there everybody stood and we all created our groups over the next minute. Jay, Tom, Vincent, Terry and me were all together when we were made to make groups of five so we all just looked between us and gave a nod before standing separate from the confusion as our own group. The five of us were pretty good during whatever drills the coach made us do, and though we haven't played any actual games or team drills yet I think we would do pretty good. Jay put together a good group.

Once the chaos subsided and the coach sorted out the last two groups because they, as he said, ‘Are a bunch of dunderheads who can't count!’. I do not envy them, at all. I would have definitely been in that group if I wasn't in Jay’s group.

But as soon as everybody had been sorted out he began to explain what we would be doing today for our final day of practice. There were four teams with two of the teams playing at any one time, and those two teams would play against each other until somebody gets a point, then the losing team would be switched out with one of the other teams and repeat. Of course he explained that the point wasnt to get as many points as possible, but to show how we handled ourselves on the court with a team that we had to work with. Nobody quite believed him though. As if getting points wasn't exactly how we were supposed to show our skills.

Then after he explained everything he told two of the other teams that they were playing first. I didn't quite remember most of the names of the people on either team, but I recognized that there was a rather good guy named Dev playing alongside another decently good guy named Harry, with them going against Tony and John alongside three others on their team. The teams seemed pretty balanced, with a good amount of people who are better than average and a few more average players per team. I mean… I definitely wasn't the one to be judging basketball skills, but that's how it seemed to me.

Both teams huddled up on the court for a moment while the other two teams that weren't playing, including myself, went off to the side to watch and wait.

It only took a minute for the teams to break apart and arrange themselves on the court while the coach walked back in from grabbing a basketball and they all prepared to start the game. Harry approached the center with John coming opposite to him, both being surrounded by their teammates. The coach walked to the center of the gym, both John and Harry crouching a bit to try their best to win the tip off and start with the ball.

Then it was tossed into the air by the coach, causing both John and Harry to leap into the air with hands outstretched to the ball, John seemed to get his fingers on the ball and started to push it away. But at the very last second Harry got his hand in the way and shoved it back to his team, with a lanky black haired guy that I don't remember the name of receiving it.

Then they were off, dribbling quickly down the court with a blond haired guy from the other team keeping close by while the other people. Just as he passed the three point line however, the guy with the ball managed to pivot quickly and lob the ball to Dev who was shouting instructions to the other people as he got them into position. Then Dev passed the ball to a guy wearing white sweatpants with brown hair, who was in just the right position as per Dev's instructions and received it without any problem. He turned and was about to shoot, but at the last second Tony swiped the ball away and he started dribbling down the court with speed with Harry just behind him as he tried to stop him.

John was running along to the left of Tony, almost completely undefended as another stocky blond guy tried to defend him but wasn't doing a great job. I could barely see Tony’s eyes flickering and seeing John, but he kept moving on anyways and was at the two point line in a moment, preparing to shoot from there despite his disadvantageous position. He threw it in an instant and I could tell that it was a good shot, but then Harry leaped into the ball's path and grabbed it in the air, passing it away to Dev behind him.

I could see that Tony was angry and he glared around at his teammates as he turned to track the ball. He then yelled something with anger that I couldn't quite make out, which made the guy defending Dev glance away from him for a split second, but that was enough when Dev went around him and shooting from the two point area and just barely scoring a point for his team.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Dev's team cheered as the ball went in, and the man himself got high fives all around as they grouped together. Tony was pissed as he approached his team and he was yelling a lot about how bad they were. I couldn't help but notice that he never said he did anything wrong, just everybody else. His team was not impressed by Tony as they went to sit back down.

“Next team up! Jay’s team get on in there!” The coach yelled out as he walked up to get the ball back and start the next game. ‘Great… Well, let's hope all that practice and things translate to some skill at the game…’ I thought to myself with some trepidation as we all stood up.

Jay was all smiles though, as he patted everyone on the back as we walked up. “Come on guys! We are going to crush this!” He said with a grin as he looked down at the other team on the other end of the court.

I smiled and stretched my arms a bit to get ready as I walked down to our side of the court. Tom started jogging beside me, before going ahead of all of us. “I’m on tip off!” he shouted back to us, and I could see Jay hesitate beside me at his words before he just shook his head with a sigh. “Trust me! That ball is ours!” He shouted back as he approached the center of the gym where the coach and the other team was waiting with Harry once again coming up to do the tip off.

I just gave a slight frown as I saw him running up without asking or anything. I mean, he is exactly the one who I would have recommended to go do it anyways seeing as he was the tallest one of us, but for him to just go do that… Not a great start on team communications.

Vincent and Terry didn't seem to think anything of it however, as they went into position around Harry and Tom alongside me and Jay without changing their confident grins whatsoever. Jay recovered from the momentary pause in his enthusiasm quickly however and moved beside Terry towards the back with me on the very right side of our semicircle.

Then in the next second when everybody was ready and watching, the ball was tossed into the air. My legs and arms tensed as I watched the ball go up, Tom and Harry jumped, then Harry stretched out his long arms and swatted the basketball to his team while Tom barely reached Harry's wrist from his jump.

Damn. I winced while already starting to move while keeping my eyes on the basketball that was down the court in the hands of a guy with black dreadlocks who was dribbling his way down the court at speed with Vincent on his way to intercept him. I went to defend Dev, standing in front of him as he tried to escape from my defence, but he couldn't seem to get free of me even while I was watching the ball.

While defending against possible passes wasn't what I had trained Deflection for or even thought would work until just this moment, I could somehow feel openings in my defence against possible incoming balls like a pressure in my mind and I just knew where to move to defend against it. Though that was the most accurate description I could give. How passive skills like that worked was more like instincts being manipulated or amplified than anything like some kind of HUD overlay that one could just show or explain. It's like I just knew to some extent what I should do and what was happening without using my eyes. It was incredible that the two main effects of the passive weaving together into one seamless feeling or sense like this, a huge step up from normal Deflection training.

But in the next instant my thoughts on my passive ability were cut off abruptly as Vincent reached the guy with dreadlocks. My thoughts and eyes locked in on Vincent’s initial attempt to steal the ball while the guy tried to evade his reaching arms. Vincent's arms seemed to blur as he swung them together as fast as he could while the ball was exposed to him, before grabbing and pulling them away with the ball in his hands. “Nice!” I exclaimed in appreciation for the clear skill that went into that steal.

Then I could see Vincent turn towards my voice, and I could see him lining up his shot to pass to my position farther down the court and free of any immediate defenders as Dev was still recovering and racing back to me as he tried to defend me like I was doing to him just a second ago.

The ball went flying through the air and in my mind I could feel the path that the ball would take while I positioned myself to receive the ball. Then I got a blaring warning from Evasion coming from my left! I could sense that Dev was coming in hot, jumping into the air to catch the ball just in front of me! I was calm though, as I instantly started to feel my Deflection passive kick in when my eyes turned to his hands and I made a jump to follow through with the path to deflect him in my mind.

My body moved with my hands, with them moving up and deflecting one of Dev’s hands with only a slight adjustment from my passive while the ball was coming in and letting only one of his hands make contact with the ball making it get pushed to my right and right into my waiting hands. Then everything sped back up again and while Dev staggered a bit from not landing exactly properly, most likely from hitting my back as he came down, I was off dribbling hard down the practically open path down the right side of the court to the other team's net.

I could hear shouts from both sides, but I didn't hear anything of value so I just kept dribbling down the court to the three point line where I let myself come to a stop. My Throwing Skills passive activated as I brought my hands to the ball and prepared to throw and I started feeling the trajectory I needed to throw the ball to score, before I moved in the next instant following through and shooting the ball. I held my breath as I watched the basketball start to arc through the air, my mind racing as I could feel my skill send a positive feeling through my mind. Then it went in, and I raised my hands above my head with a loud and relieved “Woo!” as I watched the ball fall in. Nothing but net.

“That was insane!” I could hear shouted from someone behind me, as I turned around with a grin. My teammates were jogging their way to me with equal grins on their faces, moving around the still and dejected players of the other team, most of them having that distinct look that people did when somebody did something impressive but they were on the other team.

What happened next was a round of high fives and a little bit of laughing from my teammates while I was just as impressed by what I did as they were. My pasives were really pulling their weight even while so low of level.

Dev also walked up with a grin on his face as he approached me. “I got to say, that was impressive. Good game man.” He said with a smile, and he put forward an outstretched hand which I reciprocated and gave me a firm shake before backpedaling back to the audience. “I will get you next time!” He shouted back with amusement and challenge in his voice. “I doubt it!” I called back, with a grin as he retreated. ‘I doubt it, because I got some weirdass system that is making my mind and body go beyond that of a normal human…’ I thought internally with a slight sense of something that I couldn't quite identify as Dev gave a smirk before he turned back to his team.

Still… I was probably going to make it on the team this year if I could keep doing stuff like that.