Closer

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Afternoon.

Within the bustling environment of a subway station in Zeta City, a large group of crowd wearing semi-formal clothings were gathered together in front of one of the hallway exits.

Half of the people on the front were either carrying some forms of recording device, or a writing tablet on their hands, while the rest of them were holding on to their high-end cameras facing dead forward into the mouth of the hallway.

With a single glance, anyone would be able to easily recognize them as reporters from the various news sources of Zeta City.

Added together with the number of people in casual clothes on the back that're carrying a bunch of different self-designed placards, one would be remiss not to think that all these people were waiting on the arrival of a public figure of some sort.

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The place that the crowd of people were waiting in was the Zeta City's Prime Subway Station.

This subway station was one of the largest ones available in all of Northern Sector, connecting Zeta City with the rest of the cities within the Sector through its interconnected subway lines.

And just like its name, it was also the only station in Zeta that had a direct route towards the 'Northern Prime Elevator'.

With how the Olympus Space Station was structured, there were virtually no mode of transportation by air that were openly available for the public.

And because of that, the only way for the normal populace to travel greater distances while still remaining within the confines of the Space Station, were to buy tickets to ride the 'Prime Elevator' that served as the main connecting pillar between the 3 Sectors.

Worthy of its title as the most expensive transportational means in Olympus, this town-sized Elevator was well-equipped with the cutting edge technologies and services required to safely deliver its customers' through their long ride to another Sectors.

Presently, the Prime Elevator could be seen as the functional equivalent to the local commercial airplanes of the Old Era.

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Even after arriving in the Northern Sector and getting off the Elevator platform, Troy Dryden had still needed to take another ride through the Sector's subway lines to finally reach the center of Zeta City, which was his destination this time around.

Coupled with his current leg injury, his entire transit process this time hadn't been the best experience for the slightly tanned looking man.

From his outer appearance, Troy looked like a normal, polite, and well-mannered man in either his late-20s or early-30s.

The only thing that might've stood out a bit by looking at him would be his rather unusually well-built and proportional body figure that could even be seen through his outerwears.

*SIGH*

Almost immediately after stepping foot in Zeta City, Troy let out a heavy sigh as he walked through the long hallway of the 'arrival' section within the city's subway station.

The rather unnatural gait in his walks was no longer too apparent when compared to a couple months back, but it was still identifiable through a more detailed observation.

Beside him, his current travel companion, an older middle-aged man with white beard and somewhat stout figure, had also noticed his not-so-good complexion from the side and asked in concern,

"Is it still that bad? If so, the Head Coach might need to change his plans on putting you in for the latter half of this season."

"No no, it's most likely just because of the long Elevator ride... Plus the doctors have also said that in one more month, it'll look exactly like nothing's ever happened to it." The man replied rather confidently with a wry smile.

Although Troy couldn't really know for sure if the doctors words had just been empty optimisms or not, he himself wouldn't want to be inactive for even a minute longer if he could help it.

*sigh* This time, it was the middle-aged man's turn to sigh,

"Still, you should try to avoid overdoing it like that last season if you can help it..." He advised,

"Although scratches, bruises, and tears can be easily fixed with restoration pods, when it comes to your internal organs or your bones... Well, you've experienced it yourself, it could be detrimental to a player's long term career."

"...Yes, sir." Troy nodded obediently at the other's well-intentioned advice.

"Don't sir me, I've not been a coach for a long time now."

"I've actually been meaning to ask about that, why did you quit being a coach exactly?"

"Well why not? Scouting's fun too, you know. And I'm good at it, otherwise the team wouldn't have let me done it in the first place, right?"

"If you say so." Troy laughed mildly at the older guy's antics and decided to change the topic, "So anyway--"

"Our away match with the Alpha Centaurs is on Sunday, so why are we coming North this early? No actually... Why are you even bringing me here when I'm not even playing this month?" He asked curiously.

With only 21 teams throughout the whole Olympus, the OPL's schedules were a bit different from its college counterpart.

In college Tier-1 League alone, the regionals had hundreds of teams participating from all over the Space Station. And even its following Silver Crown Tournament had 54 school teams competing against each other for the crown.

However, for the OPL, their number of actively participating teams rarely changed. At least it hadn't been for the last decade.

There would almost always be 21 teams representing each of the 21 cities in Olympus.

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The OPL's regular season had actually started a bit earlier than the college season this year.

Although they also had their regular season's matches once per week, all of their matches were held and broadcasted during Fridays and the weekends, following the demands of the populace.

And different from the college's overall tournament styles, the OPL's regular seasons had teams playing against each other in a more planned formats rather than simply drawing lots.

For example, a Sector's team would be playing more frequently against all the other same-Sector teams, while the teams from outside their Sector would be fought way less times overall.

Like this, each team could not only determine each others' overall rankings, but also each of the Sectors' rankings in a more accurate manner.

And just like many other professional sports, their win-lose points from each match would then be counted towards their overall season rankings before deciding which of the 21 teams would go on to play in the playoffs for the season.

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For the pro team 'Lambda Defenders' who operated in the Central Sector's Lambda City, this Sunday would actually be their team's first inter-Sectoral match this season against the Northern's Alpha Centaurs.

But right now, their injured player, Troy, was a bit confused as to why he had been ordered to accompany the team's scout and arrive here 6 days earlier on Monday.

The match was still days away from today! Not to mention that with his leg's condition, Troy was not even slotted to play in any matches for at least another month!

"You're coming here with a scout, what do you think you'll be doing??" The bearded middle-aged man turned to look at him with a scrunched-up forehead.

"--Hm? You're here to make a move on some college players? For next year's draft?"

"Obviously."

"Huh, I didn't know we do it this early in the season..."

They were still in early September right now, the new semester of college had just barely started, and all the prospective players for next year's draft had just become seniors recently.

"Early bird gets the worm."

After saying that, the middle-aged man then chuckled a little at a sudden realization,

"So around this time during YOUR senior year, no one from the pro teams ever contacted you, heh?" He asked jokingly with a mocking tone.

"Aah, don't remind me. You do remember that I'm not even on the Defenders' first round of choices back then." Troy grimaced at the mention of his college career.

"Well look at you now~"

"Haha... Anyway, so," He brought the topic back on track, "Scouting. I still don't get why you'd need me for that?"

"You got nothing to do anyway, better this than you getting more restless at home with your injury. And plus..." The Defenders' scout continued,

"I figure an all-star Guard like you would give me a fresh perspective when looking at the other Guards who we'll be scouting this week."

"What a coach-like thing to say, showing concerns for your players like that." Troy smiled at the reasons given by the man, but the other party didn't reply anymore and chose to remain silent.

"--So who's the lucky fella? What kind of player is he? Or she?"

"It's 'they'. We currently have two candidates that we've made contact with." The man explained,

"One of 'em's in Alpha City so we'll go there a little bit later. Probably around the time our team's 'bout to have our match with the Centaurs."

"...And the other one's here, huh?"

"Correct, a senior player from Ravenville University. Can you guess who it is?"

"Sorry, I haven't been paying attention to the college scene anymore ever since I went pro..."

"Figures. His name's Baron. Great constitution, aggressive Guard type of player."

"...Seems like a scary guy who's the complete opposite from the timid me." Troy replied while scratching his head awkwardly.

He could already somewhat feel that the guy would be the type who'd be difficult to get along with just from the descriptions.

"Well, we'll see him soon, so you can give your opinions then."

"Mm. Ravenville's a famous school so I am rather looking forward to it too I suppose."

.

"There he is!" A person shouted.

"..."

""Waaaa~!!""

"Mister Dryden!" "Mister Dryden!!" "Troy!"

The moment that Troy and the Defenders' scout reached the exit of the hallway and towards the outer area of Zeta City's station, Troy's figure was almost immediately crowded by a bunch of reporters and fans!

"How's your injury from last season??" "Are you coming North early to prepare for the play against the Centaurs?"

"Did you come here specifically because you have some business with the Androids?"

"Can you sign..."

"And..."

...

Even before Troy could fully walk out of the hallway, a barrage of questions and screams from both the reporters and the fans were already thrown right onto his face.

Younger men and women wearing shirts with the Lambda Defenders' colour schemes and his particular suit number could be seen taking pictures from behind.

Some were even trying hard to stretch their hands up while carrying placards with the letters "T.D." on its face.

Although the majority of the sports fan living in Zeta City were supporters of the Zeta Androids. You could always find some smaller communities of other teams' supporters within.

These were mostly people who're born or grew up in Lambda before they ended up moving here for works, studies, or family reasons.

In the end, because of his nature, Troy couldn't help himself but to patiently answer and interact with both the reporters and the fans alike for almost an hour before eventually moving away.

Even then, he still ended up needing the help of the middle-aged scout to mediate for him and the rest to end the unplanned meet and greet session earlier.

The old scout himself didn't know how these people even caught wind of their arrivals in the first place, but if he hadn't meddled when he could, both him and Troy would be here answering questions and signing items all day.

And his current schedule didn't allow him to have that kind of luxury.

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Inside one of the meeting rooms in Ravenville Stadium.

*chatters* *chatters*

Irvine and the rest were looking at the tournament bracket being shown through the projector while some of the other regulars were taking pictures with their phone.

'Well, this is anti-climactic... But I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't put the seeded cards together so early.' He commented in his mind.

On the screen, tables displaying their weekly opponents and match schedules were posted in a very detailed manner.

Other than Ravenville, there were 11 other Tier-1 schools in Zeta City that would be participating in the oncoming Warrior Crown Tournament.

A total of 12 Tier-1 universities and colleges.

Including the top contenders such as Verdante and Eastern Zeta, they would all be competing for the 3 available spots to go to the Silver Crown for the next 11 weeks starting next week.

And for Ravenville specifically, everything would start on Tuesday, September the 11th!

But unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, their first enemy team was not getting their tensions up enough at the moment...

"Western Zeta Armadillos..." Irvine mumbled the name to himself.

Both Western and Eastern Zeta were government-owned education establishments.

Although the both of them were known to excel in their sports program as proven by their Tier-1 status, purely in terms of Battle Arena, their strengths were miles apart from each other.

And it's not entirely their own fault too.

With schools like Ravenville and Verdante dominating 2 of the 3 quotas of the city since a long time ago, it really had been a harsh battlefield for the rest of the Tier-1s in Zeta City.

'Still, even with that, the Armadillos' Warrior rankings have never been above the average line since at least 5 years ago...'

Irvine had done a rough online search against the enemy team on his phone since he himself didn't quite remember this particular team from his past timeline.

'Rather than them...'

He then continued to slide his sight away and towards the fourth column on Ravenville Illusions' row of the table.

As he did so, the Head Coach, Lark, who hadn't actually stopped speaking ever since the table had been displayed also started to touch on the subject that Irvine's been thinking of at the same time,

"--Play carefully." He stated.

"Don't stupidly go all out as long as we had a safe point lead against these first three teams!" He reminded everyone in the meeting room,

"But never give them any handicaps either. Winning is still of the utmost importance, after all."

*inhale*

"Improve what you have to for these next three weeks!! After that... It'll finally be the first moment of truth for us, people!" Lark pointed back towards a particular logo on the 4th column on the display.

It was a green logo of two gales of wind given shape.

The two stripes of wind were crossing against each other, moving from the upper corners and finally meeting up on the bottom center of the logo, making them resemble a greenish letter 'V'!

It was the Illusions' first adversary that lied beyond the first three teams of the tournament.

Verdante college's Windrider!