The halftime whistle blew.
"Water break," Coach Dubois called out while players walked toward the touchlines. "Five minutes, then we switch sides."
Heldrix grabbed his water bottle while catching his breath, so his chest heaved and sweat soaked through his training shirt because forty minutes at this intensity was different from jogging laps.
Text appeared in his vision.
|FIRST HALF STATISTICS||- Goals: 2||- Assists: 0||- Pass Accuracy: 82% (14/17)||- Duels Won: 4||- Distance Covered: 3.2km|
Four duels won wasn't enough yet while his passing had improved as his body adjusted to the pace.
Lucas appeared beside him. "You're playing well, man. Where'd this come from?"
"Just focused," he replied while drinking water. "Trying to make an impression."
"It's working. Coach keeps looking at you."
The five minutes passed quickly while players stretched and hydrated, then Coach Dubois blew his whistle twice.
"Switch sides. Second half, let's go."
The teams swapped ends while Team B would now attack the opposite goal, so Heldrix took his position at the center circle and waited for the kickoff.
Team B started the second half with possession.
The ball moved through midfield with more confidence than the first half, then Karim played a long pass toward the right wing where Jules controlled before cutting inside.
Team A's defense shifted to cover but their shape was narrow, so space opened on the left side where Matthieu had drifted into.
Jules spotted it and switched play with a diagonal ball.
Matthieu controlled on his chest before accelerating past his marker, then he drove toward the penalty area while defenders scrambled to recover.
Heldrix read the play developing.
He dropped deeper than the defensive line expected because staying high would have been offside, so when Matthieu looked up and saw the run, their eyes met for half a second.
The ball came with perfect weight.
It split both center backs while rolling into the space between them and the goalkeeper, so Marc had timed his run from the opposite wing to arrive exactly when the ball did.
One-on-one finish.
3-3.
|QUEST PROGRESS: ASSISTS 1/1 ✓|
The match restarted while Team B's confidence grew, then in the fifty-eighth minute the breakthrough came.
Team B pressed high when Team A tried to build from the back, so Karim won the ball with an aggressive tackle in the center circle before immediately playing forward.
Quick combination between Lucas and Sofiane moved the ball into the attacking third, then Sofiane laid it square to Heldrix who was positioned twenty-two yards from goal.
His first touch set the ball perfectly.
He remembered the system's feedback from training—plant foot position, ankle locked, strike through the center of the ball—so his body executed the technique while his brain focused on keeping the shot low.
His right foot connected cleanly.
The ball flew toward goal with pace while staying low to the ground, then it dipped slightly before arrowing into the bottom left corner past Malik's dive.
4-3.
His teammates mobbed him while celebrating, so the system registered the goal immediately.
|QUEST PROGRESS: GOALS 3/3|
Everything was clicking now because his body had finally adjusted to the pace while his brain controlled the positioning and decision-making perfectly.
Four minutes later Coach Dubois blew his whistle.
"Beauséjour! Out. Lefèvre, you're on."
The substitution surprised him slightly because he was playing well, but he jogged toward the sideline while teammates patted his back and Étienne ran past him to take the striker position.
He grabbed his water bottle before standing near Coach Bernard on the touchline, so the match continued without him while his breathing slowly steadied.
Team B struggled immediately.
Without his movement and positioning, their attacking play became disjointed, so Team A pushed forward with renewed confidence and scored twice in the next twelve minutes through combination play that exploited the gaps he'd been covering.
Final whistle.
Team A won 5-4.
Players walked off the pitch while exhausted and sweating, then the system activated with results displayed in clean white text.
|SCRIMMAGE QUEST: COMPLETE|
|FINAL STATISTICS:||- Goals: 3 ✓||- Assists: 1 ✓||- Pass Accuracy: 83% (24/29) ✓||- Duels Won: 7 ✓|
|ALL REQUIREMENTS MET|
|REWARD: +10 SP|
A second notification followed immediately.
|QUEST 2: SQUAD TRAINING - COMPLETE||- Participated in full session (90 minutes) ✓||- Not worst performer ✓|
|REWARD: +2 SP|
|BONUS: SCRIMMAGE PERFORMANCE BONUS||REWARD: +3 SP|
|TOTAL SP EARNED TODAY: 15 SP|
|CURRENT BALANCE: 15 SP|
The interface dissolved while he walked toward the locker room, so his legs felt heavy and fatigue was settling into his muscles properly now that adrenaline had faded.
Voices carried from near the touchline where Coach Dubois stood talking with Coach Bernard while both held clipboards.
He walked past them without looking directly but his ears picked up the conversation clearly.
"Did you see Beauséjour today?" Dubois asked while his tone carried something that sounded like satisfaction.
"Three goals, one assist in sixty-two minutes," Bernard replied flatly. "Completely different player from this morning's finishing drills where he could barely hit the target."
"Intelligence. The kid's football brain is years ahead of his body. Positioning was perfect, movement off the ball was professional standard. If he keeps developing..."
"Paris FC squad?"
"He makes the bench. Too raw to start, but he's earned a spot in the eighteen."
Heldrix kept walking without reacting externally, but inside his chest tightened because making the matchday squad for his first competitive match was more than he'd expected.
He pushed through the door into the locker room while his teammates were already changing, so the noise of conversations and shower water running filled the space.
Lucas appeared beside his locker. "That was insane, man. Three goals?"
"Got lucky with the positioning," he replied while pulling off his sweat-soaked training shirt.
"That wasn't luck. You were seeing things nobody else saw."
He didn't respond because explaining would require lying, so he grabbed his towel and headed toward the showers while processing that tomorrow would bring new challenges and Friday would bring his first real test against Paris FC's academy.