Aatrox had breakfast with his family and went upstairs for a bath. When he came out of the shower, he started to respond to the notifications he was receiving from comments on his videos, while answering the comments, he was surprised at how much his channel was growing when a notification appeared on his Instagram.
Opening to read, Aatrox saw that he had been added to a group. In the group there was himself, Jackson, Kimmy and Naomi.
[Jackson: h.e.l.lo everyone, I created this group to mark our colab. Does anyone have an appointment tomorrow afternoon?]
[BlackKimmy: Nope, I"ve already done some videos, so I don"t have anything to do tomorrow afternoon.]
[Naomi: I don"t have anything to do either...]
[ThatBenjaminGrey: My afternoon is also available. So, we"re recording tomorrow?]
[Jackson: Yes! Then it"s settled. If you want, we can use my studio here at home. I think we can record any kind of video there.]
[BlackKimmy: So, it"s set!]
They started talking about everyday things when Aatrox got another notification. Now it was a text message.
[James: Hey Ben, you still remember today"s game, don"t you? We"re going to meet at that same club yesterday, since you won"t run the risk of some non-cultivator seeing us.]
Aatrox remembered the game he had agreed to play today. Because of the incident with Travis, he"d forgotten about it. He quickly climbed up to his room and put on a sports suit and took the key to his father"s car after told them that he was going to play basketball with some friends.
Amanda was very happy, since she was worried that he wouldn"t make friends because of the somewhat cold and distant personality that he had developed after what he had been through while in a coma.
"Brother, can we go too?" Bryan asked animatedly, since his brother was leaving to play, he also wanted to go.
Aatrox thought for a while and saw no problem with it. He helped the children to put on some sports clothes so they wouldn"t tear their other clothes and went with them to the club.
"Brother, who are we gonna play with?" Bruna asked curiously while wearing a pink sports suit.
"Yesterday your brother made friends with other cultivators. We"re going to play with them." Aatrox said, knowing they"d be excited.
And not disappointing him, they both said "Wooah!" when they heard that. "Do they also know how to blow a fireball, brother?" Bryan asked cheerfully.
"Maybe, I think Jude knows something like that." Aatrox said, when he saw Jude"s lean body, he imagined the boy to be a "Magician" as the cultivators here said. Dylan would be a "fighter" more focused on strength and endurance. While James was a fighter more focused on damage and agility.
"And do you have someone strong in punching or healing there to teach Bruna, Brother?" Bruna asked with her eyes glowing.
"I think there"s someone who"s good at hand-to-hand combat, but on the healing part, I can teach you that." Aatrox answered with a smile. "But first of all, I want you to promise me something." Aatrox said going back to a serious look, to demonstrate the importance to children.
The twins felt the seriousness and asked what it was.
Seeing as they had understood, Aatrox said. "I want you to show them nothing of what you can do for them. I mean you can"t cultivate, use magic, or run faster than a normal child. Okay?"
The children nodded instantly and then asked. "Why, brother?"
"Because my princess and my prince are very intelligent and learn very fast, if other people see how smart you are, maybe they will try to do something bad with you. Do you remember what I said about depending on your own strength?" Aatrox asked.
"Yeah." They said.
"Then you can only depend on your own strength, if it"s enough. So, if you don"t have enough strength, you have to hide the strength from others until you have enough strength to hit them, understand?" Aatrox asked.
"Yes sir!" The children responded like soldiers playing. Seeing this, Aatrox couldn"t stop laughing and drove again.
When they arrived at the club, the children were impressed by the beauty of the place. If Aatrox wasn"t holding their hands, they might already be running down the gra.s.s.
Arriving at the court, Aatrox was surprised by the number of people who were there to watch. He thought that since it was a cultivators" game, few people would watch, since few people knew about them. But he forgot that many cultivators from other cities were still staying in the city and when they heard about this game, many decided to stay for a while to enjoy the game, since this sport was rare because of the difficulty of getting the cultivators together.
Dylan quickly saw Aatrox coming and waved at him. Seeing the children holding his hands, he raised an eyebrow in surprise, but said nothing.
Aatrox arrived on their team"s bench and greeted everyone before helping the children sit on the bench to watch.
"All right, how"s the game gonna go?" Aatrox asked.
"Well, our opponents are cultivators of the state of Ohio. Most of them are from Cleveland, so because they live nearby, they train a lot. But on the other hand, their cultivation is not very high. So, we can compensate for our deficit synergy with our superior cultivation." James said as he looked at their opponents.
Aatrox followed his line of sight and saw 4 teenagers/adults chatting in a black and white uniform. They were laughing and looking with provocative looks at the Aatrox team while probably making jokes.
Seeing them act in this way, the spirit of compet.i.tiveness in Aatrox was ignited. Jude came to him and handed him a purple and gold s.h.i.+rt that reminded him of the Lakers" uniform he had seen on television. "You"re part of the team now, Ben. Welcome to the game." Jude said with a smile as he handed over his s.h.i.+rt.
Aatrox was happy as he prepared to put on his s.h.i.+rt. Only something he didn"t expect was happening.
In the audience, some people recognized him as the swordsman. Then a series of fights started happening when all of a sudden, he took off his s.h.i.+rt. The women"s cultivators who were sitting in the stands waiting to see the match begin gave in by surprise. They didn"t expect him to take off his s.h.i.+rt there, but before they could do anything, he put on the team"s s.h.i.+rt and didn"t see the perfect 6-pack he had in his belly for their disappointment.
The referee of the match called the players to the court to start the match, Aatrox messed up the twins" hair and asked them to cheer for him. They quickly agreed and the animation was visible on their faces to see what the match would look like. All the players went to the court when Aatrox remembered to ask a very important question. "James, what are the rules?"
James laughed and answered him. "That"s the best part, as long as you don"t kill or cripple someone, it"s all fair during the game."