For two whole days after he was kicked out of the training center, Namjoon couldn’t quite get rid of the sticky, sweet residue around his ankle where Suga had snagged him.  Oh, the stuff came off easily enough when he washed it, but the smell lingered, following him around his apartment all day.  He would have been more annoyed except for the fact it didn’t smell bad, but it did make him hungry and that was irritating.

            By the end of day two of his banishment, he was ready to try again.  His trek across town was uneventful, like it had been that first day, but people eyed him more as he walked.  They didn’t try to say anything but Namjoon had the distinct feeling they knew something he didn’t.  As was common when walking the streets, most of the pedestrians were in human form, ducking in and out of small shops at infrequent intervals.  A handful with lesser alterations walked around as they normally were, freely identifying their lineage: from satyrs and nymphs to one little boy who was playing with tiny lightning bolts that fizzled a foot in front of him.  His mother watched closely but the kid was oblivious to everything else, fully entranced by his own ability to generate electricity.

            Namjoon waved Zeus’s descendant off and continued on, catching sight of another monitor in the sky.  It wasn’t the angel one from the other day, since the wings were different, bearing a resemblance to a harpy instead, but she flapped by without a second glance.  He would give them credit for being steady in their patrols.  The ones back home were spotty at best.

            As he passed by the place where the hole had been, Namjoon could find no evidence of it at all.  Apparently Youngwoon was good too.  “Damn,” he nodded appreciatively, making yet another comparison to life at home.  Maybe there was something to be said about living in smaller places.  There was jack to do around here but he had to give it credit for being very well taken care of.  And that more than included the training center, in front of which he noticed a small crowd before the entrance when he got closer.

            He walked into the tail end of the conversation apparently and noticed one of the smallest of the figures was soundly berating two others while the four additional people watched on.  “-and you’ll have to call a truce or something because now you’re getting us all kicked out by association!”

            The muscle head of the group nodded in agreement and gestured back towards the center.  “Youngbae only tosses you guys out, but you had to choose a day when Heechul was watching to play your pranks again?”

            Both suspects pointed at each other at the same time.  “But he started it.”

            Namjoon immediately recognized one of then as the kid who very nearly knocked him out as an improvised projectile the first day he came here.  What was his name again…?

            Shorty with the squinty eyes responded, “It doesn’t matter who started it!”  His targets fell silent and dropped their eyes to the ground, wincing like chastised children.

            “Heh,” Namjoon snorted, shaking his head as he walked by and made his way over the bridge so he could step back into the place of his original banishment.  The bottom floor was slightly emptier than the last time, due in no small part because he didn’t see Suga and his gang in particular.  There was someone in one of the pools and he could tell other people were frequenting some of the various floors above him but that was about it.

            Another glance around the place showed that the marks he’d made were gone and the walls were completely whole once again.  Which was just fine by him since he could give it another go without having to worry.  Maybe those punks were just hiding somewhere above.  Grinning to himself, Namjoon stretched out and took his monstrous form again, ready to attempt the wall climb.

            Before he could even start though, someone else yelled at him.  “Hey!  What the hell do you think you’re doing big, dark, and ugly?”

            Reflexively, Namjoon turned around to see who was talking to him and blinked in surprise at the approaching figure.  They were of average height, for a human guise, but he couldn’t immediately tell if the person was a dude or a chick.  Milky white skin complemented auburn hair that framed their annoyed face perfectly.  They felt masculine but they also had a decidedly feminine look to them.

            “Yes I’m talking to you,” they pointed at him, the voice helping to solidify the likelihood they were a guy.

            “I’m climbing the wall,” Namjoon explained as he pointed towards the surface he would much rather be on as opposed to standing in front of his irritant, enduring their verbal abuse.

            “Please don’t tell me they sent an illiterate city boy out here,” the stranger chided, arms crossed over their chest and one brow raised.

            Pride pricked, Namjoon snapped back, “What did you say?”

            His antagonist pointed towards the wall where a large sign beside the entryway held a tally of: Rules.  Namjoon squinted at the neat print and then sneered when the first one said: ‘No climbing the walls.’  Right…  He waved the stranger off dismissively and threw himself onto the wall, latching on with ease.

            “That’s it,” the other figure grumbled and Namjoon immediately winced when something hot pinged him in the back of the head.

            “Ow!” he yelped, rubbing the warm spot with a glance down.  “Was that a fireball?”

            “Damn right it was!  And you’ll get more than that if you don’t get your down here right now, newbie!” he – it was definitely a he – growled.

            “Whatever,” Namjoon snorted.  Fireballs weren’t that much of a big deal.  His hide was mostly resistant to it anyway and a couple more wouldn’t hurt him by the time he could get into one of the other levels.  By then, Mr. High Strung himself would probably just let him be and they could both go on their way from there.  He made it one step up before lightning zapped him in the .  “!”

            The shock was almost enough to make him let go and his antagonist laughed at him from directly behind.  “I warned you,” he chided, hovering in the air on a pair of bird-like wings.

            Namjoon did a quick mental tally in his head: fire and lightning with the ability to fly; fiery temperament; unpredictable nature…  Ah .  “Chimaera?” he cringed.

            “Bingo,” the other male smirked, spitting a fireball at him with his mouth, zapping him with lightning from his right hand, and then finally lobbing a gas bomb at his head with the left.

            The first two were painful but the third one completely jostled Namjoon’s senses.  “…” he groaned when the noxious, nausea inducing scent sent him plummeting off the wall.  Like before, he slammed into the ground and reverted to his human form, utterly green in the face and sicker than a dog.

            “Up you go,” his antagonist announced, hauling him to his feet by the back of his shirt before he was deposited in front of the rules.  “Read,” he instructed, holding Namjoon in place with one hand while he pointed at the text with the other.

            Fighting the ever present desire to throw up, Namjoon clapped a hand over his mouth and finally mumbled, “No climbing the walls?”

            “So you can read!  Exactly,” he beamed.  “Now keep going.”

            Namjoon managed an utterly pitiful expression which earned him no points from his personal demon at the moment and so he was forced to go through the rest of the listing until he reached the end.  He didn’t think the: “With the exception of staff, no large, monstrous transformations on the ground floor,” was fair but it didn’t seem as if he was going to have any sympathy today.

            “Okay kid.  Now you know the rules for sure, so don’t break them next time,” the other male said, shoving him through the entryway so that Namjoon stumbled over the bridge.

            “But…”

            “And the next time I tell you to do something, you better damn well do it,” he pointed a finger at Namjoon sternly.  “Kim Heechul.  Don’t forget it.”  Heechul’s dark eyes drifted to the side and he tilted his head just a touch.  “What are you guys still doing here?”

            “Just watching,” someone answered and Namjoon had the misfortune of recognizing the group who was standing here earlier.

            “Well show’s over.  Go home boys.  You can come back tomorrow,” Heechul grumbled, waving them all off before he turned around and went back inside.

            “See?  Told you he’d get kicked out again,” the same stupid kid from yesterday laughed, nudging another of his companions who made a face and promptly slid what appeared to be money into his waiting hand.

            “At least he still has an excuse,” one with a thin headband around dark brown hair exclaimed, already moving to wander off.  “You know better,” he chided, shaking his finger.

            “Dongwoo…” the berated kid whined, huffing as he looked Namjoon’s direction once before following along.

            “Alright kiddos!  Move along,” the short, squinty eyed one urged from the rear, ushering the others to get going without paying Namjoon much attention.

            “Incoming,” one of them warned, breaking off to either side of the path, revealing a small cavalcade of rushing figures heading towards the center.

            “Yahoo!” the flyer at the front grinned, carrying someone under him as they zipped past Namjoon and through the entryway.

            “Hey guys!” Jungkook waved from the back of the dinosaur thing.  The departing group waved in kind and kept going.

            The pretty one looked right at Namjoon though and shook his head.  “Someone looks green in the face.”

            “Shut up,” Namjoon muttered, drifting to the side enough to make sure he’d be out of the way of the lumbering foursome and in no mood to deal with any of their .  He couldn’t help but take one last look though and did notice Suga eyeing him with a neutral expression.  It seemed neither of them appeared to know what to think.

            Then again, this whole place was confusing.  In the city, no one cared if you climbed on walls and most of the staff didn’t pay attention to the rules anyway.  Back home, he was also top of the tier in his generation.  Okay, so maybe Heechul was older, which would explain that pitiful exchange, but this was getting ridiculous.  Banished two times in a row?  For simple ?  He hadn’t even destroyed anything yet.  Ugh…

            And he still felt like he wanted to throw up.  Damn chimaera bull.

            Attempt number three.  The rules of his life previously didn’t seem to apply here and that was strange.  As he’d already seen, the monitors paid close attention and had a semblance of care; the people were boring (otherwise known as well-behaved); and the training center didn’t take any .  Something was going to have to change.

            Gathering his resolve one more time, Namjoon made the trek through town on foot.  They didn’t have any public transportation out here and no one needed their own since they were remarkably self-contained.  He could feel a serpent tran swing by their town every now and then, the massive creature capable of carrying large numbers of people from one out-of-the-way destination to the next, and there seemed to be a pretty steady influx of fliers carrying people or packages, but nothing much else.

            For a wonder, no one was in front of the center today and Namjoon practically tip-toed across the bridge, still feeling like someone was watching him.  Where the hell were the guards then?  That was what he wanted to know.  But his bigger concern was who was on duty today.

            Peeking inside, he looked around and noticed that Sunny chick doing laps in one of the pools, little tendrils of steam and heat rising from the surface.  Heated pools?  Hot damn!  That was a fun prospect and one he would undoubtedly check out later but he straightened up immediately when he saw the Cyclops guy, Youngbae, keeping an eye on things.  He was so damn conspicuous with that hair though.  Namjoon had to wonder if he was trying to compensate for something, the thought of which made him snort to himself.

            Voices at one of the stairwells drew his attention and he noticed a group of five young women exiting with two of them brushing at ice strands in their hair.  “Next time, we go to a warmer level,” the one with the longest hair winced, finally giving up on rescuing the solidified threads.

            “You’re just mad because you didn’t duck,” the tallest one explained, fingers playing with each other and likely the guilty culprit.

            “You aimed low!”

            “It was a combination of the two and you’ll have to be ready for something like that in the future anyway, Krystal,” another spoke up, appearing slightly older than the rest.

            “You know the guys aren’t going to go easy on us,” the fourth one with short hair explained matter of factly.

            “No.  They’ll just run over us if they can.”  And that from the other girl with ice in her hair.  She was short to boot.

            “I’d like to see them try!” Krystal exclaimed, giving Namjoon a frown as they passed by.  He frowned right back at her and glared until they were past.

            “You know he’s new, right?” the older woman commented as they went by after noticing the exchange.

            “He’s still a guy!” Krystal maintained, holding onto whatever point she was trying to make.  It just left Namjoon annoyed and confused more than anything.

            “What the hell?” he sighed, scratching the back of his head while he looked after them.

            “End Zone,” Youngbae offered with a nod towards the departing young women.

            “Huh?” Namjoon grumbled, sure he’d heard wrong.

            “The game they’re talking about.  End zone,” he explained further.

            “Okay,” Namjoon shrugged, nonplussed.

            Youngbae laughed once and shook his head.  “You looked confused.  If you go upstairs, you’ll probably find a group practicing.  If not, that’s up to you.”

            “Yeah, whatever,” he responded with a glance around.

            “What’s your name anyway?” the Cyclops asked, extending his hand in greeting.  “I’m Youngbae.”

            “So I heard,” he responded dryly with a hesitant look at the hand.  “Namjoon,” he finally offered in return.

            “Well, Namjoon.  Welcome to our training center.  And sorry about tossing you out the other day,” he added with an amused eye smile.  “I heard Chullie got his hands on you too.”  Namjoon nodded and rolled his eyes.  “You’re off to a rocky start but if you have any questions, let me know,” the shorter male waved and wandered off, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

            He briefly debated trying his luck with the wall one more time since it was only Youngbae and there didn’t seem to be anybody else around that could take him down but he didn’t really feel like risking it.  Besides, the stairs weren’t a problem for him anyway and maybe he’d be able to see something for a change.

            As expected, the first level was filled with trees and he could see through the door by a tiny window.  There didn’t seem to be anyone present but that was no guarantee.  Still, he didn’t feel like checking it out personally and so kept moving.  The next floor featured a desert terrain that seemed to extend for leagues.  He knew it didn’t but that was certainly the impression he was left with.

            Another floor up showed him an enclosed mountain setting quite unlike the crevasse setup at the bottom of the building.  There was a group bouncing around inside though, with two flyers, four moving targets, and one stationary.  Hmm.  That was interesting.  They also seemed to be tossing some sort of ball between them.  He winced when one on the mountain didn’t catch it right and a small explosion erupted where the ball slipped through his hands and hit the surface instead.

            “ to be you,” he shrugged, certain they weren’t the punks he was looking for and so he moved up again, finding himself at a level that was just an empty floor.  Strangely enough, Suga and his crew were there.  Go figure.

            On the other side of the door, he watched them in two teams: Suga, Jungkook, and the pretty one facing off against Jimin, horse-face, and the flyer.  The ball they carried was substantial; it was watermelon sized and it appeared to be heavy.  Suga’s team had it and Jungkook was trying to bulldoze his way through, golden body gleaming for extra weight and momentum.

            While horse-face flickered around the back, clearly unsure of what he was doing, Jimin rushed in, dodging around the pretty one while their flyer distracted Suga.  Jungkook hit the shorty and stopped, grappling for control of the ball.  After a short struggle, Suga got around so he could help Jungkook, prying Jimin off and then yanking horse-face’s feet out from under him with another one of those weird whips he seemed to be able to generate at will.

            “Touch Down.  That’s what they’re playing,” Namjoon snorted as he saw Jungkook reach the marker at the end and set the ball down victoriously, still fending off their flyer.  Suga and the pretty one both rushed up to hug Jungkook in congratulations, all three of them grinning like idiots.  Namjoon knew that game though, and was damn good at it back home too.  He rolled his shoulders and popped his neck before grinning as he stepped inside, drawing their attention immediately.

            “Hey.  Isn’t that the new guy we pulled off the wall the other day,” the flyer pointed out, looking back at his group to confirm.  They nodded with various degrees of agreement while Suga simply went around to pick up the ball and take it back to the starting point.

            So much for introductions.  “Yeah.  I’m Namjoon.  The God of Destruction,” he smirked and nodded confidently.

            “And?” horse-face prompted with a shrug of his shoulders, dark hair stark against a pale complexion.  Granted, he didn’t have anything on Suga in that regard.

            “And I wanna play,” he gestured towards the court.  He was not expecting their amused laughter at his answer.  “What?” Namjoon demanded in confusion, one hand balled into a fist at his side.

            “Go play with someone else,” the pretty one waved, patting Jungkook on the shoulder to let him know he should get ready.

            “No.  I wanna play with you guys,” he remained firm, staying where he was.

            “And what makes you think we want to play with you?” Suga finally spoke up without looking back at him, eyes trained on wiping the ball down.

            Namjoon scoffed at the comment and crossed his arms over his chest.  “Touch Down-”

            “End Zone,” the flyer corrected immediately.

            “Whatever,” Namjoon waved off the difference.  “In a competition or game setting, it’s a five player team with one backup and he doesn’t seem to know what the hell he’s doing,” he pointed out horse-face who just laughed and shrugged.

            “So?” Suga questioned, looking up at last.

            “So I wanna take his place,” he explained as if it was obvious.  It would give him the in he needed so he could shape them into the best gang here.  Damn right.

            Again, they scoffed at his response and he frowned at their lack of understanding what he was offering.  “Are you even any good?” the irritating flyer butted in yet again.

            “I’m the best,” Namjoon smirked with a nod.  All six of them regarded each other with several different expressions of skepticism and it was hard to keep himself from getting annoyed.  He was dammit.

            “Prove it,” Suga urged, tossing the ball towards Namjoon with both hands.

            “Oof!” Namjoon coughed as the massively, heavy projectile slammed into chest when he was unprepared for the weight of it.  The ball felt heavy in his arms even when he managed to get control of himself and he glared at Suga in challenge.  “Fine.”

            “Oh!  Can I play against him?” Jimin asked excitedly.

            Suga laughed and waved him off with a wink.  “Nah.  I got him this time.  Next time you can have him,” he added, stretching his arms in front of him with his fingers laced together, palms out.  “Alright wannabe God of Destruction,” he began, leaning over with his hands resting on his knees.  “Let’s play.”

(a/n: So I'll admit things are going a slightly different direction than I originally intended but the end destination is the same!  And I'm still having fun.  hehe  I hope you are too.  With any luck, I'll be getting them closer together before too long so stick with me!  I've got five more days!  Huzzah!  XD  lol)