Namjoon took a deep breath and tested the weight of the ball in his hand.  “It’s heavy.”

            “Oh?” Suga responded, smug smile tugging at his mouth.

            So it was heavier than he was used to in terms of playing the game, but that didn’t mean he was about to let that joker know it.  “First one to three?” he tossed out.  Suga shrugged in neutral agreement, still waiting.  “Okay.”  Namjoon backed up to his marker and nodded.  “Let’s do this.”

            Frowning with concentration, he clutched the ball close and started sprinting towards the other side, warring between elation and just a hint of caution when Suga calmly moved to meet him.  Amidst cheers for Suga from his teammates, he didn’t seem concerned as Namjoon drew close, fully intent upon bowling him over.  He dipped his shoulder and lunged, ramming into Suga as hard as he could and- stopped when it felt like he’d hit a wall.

            “Ugh!” he coughed, feeling the ache in his shoulder while they shifted back two steps and came to an abrupt halt with Suga grinning at him.

            “He’s got your mass, Jungkook,” he announced without looking away, a strange shift in his complexion present, like he had been texturized.

            More confused than ever, Namjoon blinked, “How did you-”

            He wasn’t given the chance to finish his question before Suga slipped his arm past Namjoon’s defenses to remove the ball with startling ease.  It felt as if something shifted against his torso where the ball was pressed and he wasn’t sure how Suga managed to get his arm through at all.  “Thanks!” Suga cheered, pivoting around the befuddled player before he sprinted down the track with his teammates yelling shrilly behind him.

            “Hey!” Namjoon growled, yanking himself around to follow as he flung his body after, intent upon tackling him from behind.  He had enough time to catch a glimpse of his reflection in the ball, Suga’s face mirrored in the shiny surface as well, before his target moved, leaving him floundering in the air until he tumbled into the ground.  A groan escaped him when he attempted to roll out of it and only succeeded in stumbling after the reoriented player who had paused just in front of his marker.

            “That’s your best?” Suga taunted as he took a step back for the point.

            Offended, Namjoon pulled his shoulders back and scoffed.  “Of course not.”  Another couple neck pops followed and he added, “I was just getting warmed up.”

            “Good,” his opponent laughed, giving him the ball back in a cocky display of benevolence; winner kept the ball under normal circumstances.

            “,” Namjoon grumbled while he resumed his position and waited for them to begin again.

            “Ready whenever you are,” Suga waved, sending a smile towards his friends off to the sidelines.

            “Yeah, yeah,” he huffed, moving a bit slower this time.  They approached the center point at about the same speed with Namjoon eyeing his opponent.  Brute force didn’t work so well which meant he had to think of something else; he smiled when a thought occurred to him.  “Catch!” Namjoon spat when he heaved the ball towards Suga whose expression flickered in very brief surprise.

            Immediately, Namjoon pelted after it, keeping close so he could steal it back as soon as the caught it.  He watched Suga snatch the ball and then flinched when he carried it around and behind him, arms appearing to lengthen or stretch unnaturally in a dreadfully fast spin that brought the weight around just as Namjoon caught up.  The heavy momentum of the rotation slammed into Namjoon’s shoulder and side with bruising force, knocking him off his feet to send him sliding several yards over the smooth surface.  Belatedly, he was aware of a couple guys jumping to get out of his way but he came to a pained stop and groaned.

            “Oh!” some of them cried in amused surprise and he could just imagine them pointing fingers at him.

            “What the hell was that?” he gasped, finally pushing himself up to catch sight of Suga strolling down the court towards the marker again.

            “That was you getting owned again, is what it was,” the flyer snorted as he shrugged.

            “Are you sure you’ve played this before?” horse-face asked with a slightly pained expression.

            Namjoon jumped to his feet to brush their taunts off and gasped when pain flared in his shoulder and side where he’d been hit.  “,” he hissed, trying to roll it out tentatively.

            “I think you hurt him, Suga,” Jungkook called in a worried tone.

            “It’s his call if he wants to forfeit,” Suga shrugged noncommittally, setting the ball down at the score zone to walk back to his side.

            “You wish,” Namjoon tossed back as he gritted his teeth and took a slow, deep breath.  He was definitely bruised, possibly with a fracture or some sort of break, but everything still worked and there was no way he was quitting.

            “Suit yourself.  God of Destruction,” his opponent intentionally reminded with another challenging look.

            “You want the G.o.D.?  You’ve got him,” Namjoon growled, taking a second to grow into his monstrous form while the others backed away with uncertain glances.  Suga waved them back, his expression serious and focused as he examined Namjoon while the larger creature moved to pick up the ball between his fingers.  The floor beneath him was surprisingly sturdy, the wood giving just a teensy bit with each step, though nothing splintered or creaked.  His shoulder still hitched when he moved but he dwarfed everyone present.

            “I was beginning to wonder,” Suga called at the ready.

            “I didn’t want it to be too unfair,” Namjoon snorted while he started moving forward, covering half the distance in the time it took his opponent to even begin.  This time, he’d win.  He closed the distance and reached to touch the ball into the mark zone (it didn’t count for him to stand in it while in monstrous form), and grunted in surprise when he felt something coil around his wrist the same time that Suga sprinted up his arm, the sensation very strange.

            “Not yet you don’t!” he laughed, jumping over Namjoon’s shoulder and planting his feet on his back so he could pull, yanking the arm with the ball up and back until it was locked in place over his shoulder.

            “Hey!” Namjoon snarled, releasing the ball so he could catch it in his other hand and try again, working on freeing his trapped one.  He yanked one good time and felt the cord snap unexpectedly, the results of which made him stumble and overshoot his target.  Laughter at the side irritated him further and Namjoon rammed his claws into the ground to steady himself so that he might slam the ball into the mark zone, leaving a sizable dent where he smashed it into place.

            “About damn time,” Suga laughed with his arms crossed over his chest where he stood by the other boys.  It was obvious he had stepped away to let Namjoon have the point.

            “Bastard,” Namjoon snarled, catching the ball in his hand again to stomp down the court.

            “I think he’s stronger than you, Jiminnie,” he gestured as he ignored Namjoon’s curse and made his way back to the court.

            “No way!” the other male scoffed, glaring at Namjoon in speculative frustration, reluctantly intrigued.

            Neither opponent said a word when they squared off again, eyeing each other intently.  Suga seemed ready but tense and Namjoon was itching to obliterate him on the court as fast as possible.  He jumped forward, intent upon ending this round as quickly as possible, and abruptly found himself with a cord around his next and Suga swinging up it to punch him under the jaw.  The attack itself wasn’t particularly terrible, merely clacking his teeth together, but it sent a horrible puff of some fine substance invading his nostrils, making him tear up with a painful urge to sneeze – which he did.  Mid-flight.

            Unable to see, the ground caught him with a tremendous thud and Namjoon slid several yards before he came to a reluctant stop.  “What the hell was that?” he grumbled, feeling as if something was missing.

            “The bigger you are, the harder you fall!” Suga taunted at his back, ball in hand while he waited for Namjoon to recover.

            In irritation, Namjoon flicked his tail, the tip just long enough to reach his opponent.  Suga jumped over it and then yelped when the end doubled back just in time to knock him sideways, the ball included.

            “Suga!” his teammates cried and Namjoon was after him again.

            The recovering male saw him coming and left the ball on the ground to close the distance between them, frowning in concentration.  He swiped at Suga, missed, and lunged for the ball instead, knowing if he could grab it, he could take back the win.  A snare around one ankle tripped him entirely when Suga rode it around both, sliding on his feet like he was skiing to tangle Namjoon up.  When his own strength didn’t break the bindings, Namjoon fell, the vibrations sending the ball rolling backward and away from him.

            “Dammit!”  He reached for Suga as the smaller male ran by and managed to grab him, laughing at his success, but then some sort of substance slithered through his fingers in a very eerie sensation and Namjoon opened his palm to see it was empty with Suga running just out of reach.  “Hey!” he blinked in bafflement, even more confused when his opponent actually waved at him before he retrieved the ball and went to take the final point.

            “Yes!” his teammates cheered, running up to congratulate him in a flurry of enthusiasm and smiles, leaving Namjoon to himself.

            Embarrassed, he resumed his human guise and checked his ankles to make sure nothing was left.  Other than a powdery, white residue, he was fine.  Namjoon smelled it, found nothing harmful about the substance, and bravely tasted it.  “Sugar?” he flinched in surprise, staring at Suga with a confused look.

            As they approached him on their way out, carrying the ball with them, Suga merely shrugged at the question and resumed talking to the others.  Only Jimin broke off briefly and squatted in front of Namjoon.  “If you can’t pinpoint it, you thank Echidna,” he nodded with a bright grin, index finger raised in the space between them.

            “Come on, Jimin!” one of them called, dragging his only explainer away and leaving Namjoon to his rather morose thoughts.  He’d lost.  To a person with the power of sugar.  How humiliating…

            After his defeat, Namjoon found that no one else was interested in having him on their team either, which was really his best chance at any sort of prestige in this place.  The cards honestly seemed stacked against him when he looked at it.  The Infinites didn’t need someone else; even their smallest member was more than able to contribute and he seemed to run them about as much as the other short one did.  The FXers brushed him off entirely, due in no small part to Krystal’s influence, even when he had to bend his pride more than usual just to talk to them.

            It wasn’t like playing on an all girl’s team would help his cause anyway.  At least, that was what he could tell himself.  He found another group of the Shineers who treated him decent enough but they were so not his style.  And that left the more than confident DB5K, who at least acknowledged him, but it was very clear they didn’t need his presence.

            Over a matter of days, his shoulder and side healed without him going to see the horn boy he eventually put a name to.  Apparently Yixing spent most of his time in the training center which was probably a good thing if injuries were common.  He couldn’t imagine them not, really.  That much was unchanged from the city.  Unfortunately, he was not in the city and as such, Namjoon was friendless, generally unliked, and so very bored.

            All things considered, his best chance at anything still lay with the Bulletproof Boyscouts (they really needed to reconsider their name).  And since his initial approach had failed, pretty hardcore, it called for something else to be done this time around.  Namjoon considered it reconnaissance and he started to go everywhere and listen in on everything.

            He didn’t talk to anybody and, most of the time, they didn’t talk to him either, but he eavesdropped on every conversation he could.  In doing so, he picked up on the names of the competing groups, who they were descended from – when their forms and powers didn’t automatically give them away, and he even developed a general sense of ranking among them.  Not only that, but he figured out their positions on the teams and how they were likely to play.  So maybe he was spying on them, but he got to know Youngbae and Heechul better because he was always hanging around the training center.

            The chimaera dude still didn’t much care for him, but they maintained their distance, and at least Youngbae was willing to give him a shot.  He even tried to give Namjoon pointers on handling his monstrous form, which he wasn’t sure if he should be grateful for or just offended.  Most of the time, it depended on the pointer.

            Sunny was a pop-in regular who worked part-time in the town as the owner of a tea-shop.  Supposedly, she had some of the best flavors in town since she could freely moderate the temperatures of each brew accordingly.  Other faces were harder to pin down but as far as Namjoon could tell, he was the only newbie around in a while.  It looked like they didn’t get many fresh faces all that often and, unless he was reading things wrong, a fair few of those here were older than he’d initially thought.

            Of course, age was hard to guess in general because their lifespans were naturally long, especially those descended from more divine lineages.  While Jungkook was actually the age he looked, seventeen – give or take – the rest of Suga’s group, including Suga, were considerably more practiced.  That helped explain his defeat the day he challenged him.  Everyone knew the older you were, the more skilled you became and Namjoon didn’t really have much experience in that regard.

            Back home, in his generational group, he had no such problem making them believe he was awesome.  Out here, where the people were strange and no one acted like he thought they should, it was a different story and he needed to figure out what the hell he was up against.  Also, why his parents sent him here.  That was still baffling to him and certainly a sore spot.  In short, it meant him laying low and watching everything.

            Which was how he figured out their flyer went by the name of V and was descended from Nike, hence the wings.  He didn’t seem that old though and tended to hang out with horse-face, otherwise known as J-Hope.  Not surprisingly, given the nickname, he claimed Elpis as a distant relative, the only spirit that had remained when Pandora opened the proverbial box.  Namjoon couldn’t figure what good J-Hope was, aside from making everyone laugh, but he did have a noticeable box hanging around his neck at all times, often hidden under his shirt.  Jungkook, who they also occasionally called their Golden Maknae, he knew though it took some snooping to figure out he was descended from King Midas in a very strange turn of events.  Instead of everything he touched turning to gold, it only applied to himself…

            Jimin, with his weird dinosaur shape thing going on, was kin of Echidna and just as young as he looked in turn.  His gift was that of turning into a beast but little else, though some of that strength carried over to the courts as well.  Namjoon wasn’t really surprised when he finally discovered that the pretty one, also known as Jin, was distantly related to Aphrodite; on the surface at least, he didn’t have much claim to fame beyond his attractiveness, which he seemed quite proud of.  Namjoon was, however, bothered when that one in particular seemed to know that he was around.  On more than one occasion, he had to duck behind the door or wander off to the side of wherever they were hanging out to make sure he wasn’t being too conspicuous.

            And then there was Suga…

            If Jimin was to be believed, and there was no reason for the kid to lie to him, he was a very strange descendant of Echidna as well.  Admittedly, that very strangeness allowed him to do some very unique things which everyone else seemed to be aware of too.  The other teams gave him a decent bit of respect and he really was very good when he was on the court, when he wasn’t playing nice with the younger boys anyway.

            In the few days he watched them extensively, outside of spying on everyone else too, he found Suga pretty much doted on them, with the exception of Jin who often mock argued and pretended to be offended when the shorter male didn’t treat him as nice on the court.  He was more than good enough at teasing the others when he felt like it, but just as often, they returned the favor – usually in droves that had him breathless with laughter before long.  And then on the other side of things, Namjoon discovered that off the court, Suga tended to be incredibly lazy with a penchant for eating.  A lot.  If they weren’t practicing, he didn’t like to do much at all, preferring to nap or just lounge around while they figured out the next thing to do or place to go.

            Maybe it just was part of his overall makeup.  Or it could be that he was pretty much their ace in the hole, but the more Namjoon watched, the more determined he was to beat him.  And the more he observed their practices and how they worked, the more he thought he could do it too.

            “You’ve been on good behavior lately,” Heechul commented as Namjoon tried sneaking through the bottom floor of the training center without drawing too much attention.

            “Of course!” he answered quickly, trying to escape the chimaera man as fast as possible.

            “Then again, that could have something to do with you keeping your trap shut and actually looking around for a change,” he added as he brushed a strand of auburn hair behind his shoulder with a bemused smirk.

            “Sure,” Namjoon answered through his teeth with a forced smile.  It was damnably hard not to spit something back but he knew Heechul would kick him out for sure for being “rude.”

            “I like this new you,” Heechul gestured towards the younger male with a quick hand movement.  “It’s a definite improvement.  Keep it up,” he winked, laughing at his own commentary before he turned around to walk off.

            “Pompous prick,” Namjoon muttered while he hurried towards the stairwell.  He’d figured out that the guys came to practice at almost the same time everyday though they changed their room frequently.  Apparently, End Zone out here was something they played in many terrains.  This time, he found them in the ice room, which was just fine by him.  He double checked to make sure they were just settling in and stepped inside, shivering once from the blast of cold air that hit him immediately.

            It took them a few seconds to notice him but Jin was the first to comment.  “So.  Done spying on us for the time being, Namjoonie?” he grinned, crossing his arms over his chest while he chuckled, standing partially in front of Suga as he spoke.

            “We already told you.  Go find someone else to play with,” V waved at him with a dismissive gesture, brownish bangs partially obscuring his vision.

            “I wanna play with you guys,” Namjoon maintained in a steady voice.

            Suga chuckled once and rested his arm on Jin’s shoulder.  “You’re just here because no one else would have you.”

            While that was part of it, Namjoon shook his head.  “I want a rematch.”

            “Oh?” Suga prompted with a bemused smile as he glanced at the ball in Jimin’s hands this time.  “What makes you think the results will be any different this time around?”

            Namjoon rolled his shoulders and popped his neck.  “I think I might surprise you.”

            “You can’t have gotten that much better in a matter of days,” Jimin frowned while he swung the ball from side to side in front of him.

            “I don’t know,” J-Hope began with his finger shaking thoughtfully.  “He looks different this time.”

            “You’re seeing things,” V snorted as he nudged J-Hope.

            “Maybe you can give him a second chance?” Jungkook shrugged, focusing on Suga instead of Namjoon.

            “You think?” Suga smiled, shaking Jin’s shoulder.

            “Up to you.  If he wins though, you’ll never live it down,” Jin chuckled while his head shook from side to side.

            “He’s gotta beat me first,” Suga winked, giving Jin’s shoulder a squeeze as he stepped in front of him.  “What do you guys think?” he tossed the decision to the rest of his group.  They shrugged and while V made an annoyed face, no one argued against the idea.  “Alright Mr. God of Destruction,” Suga smirked while he gestured for the ball.  Jimin tossed it over and he caught it with deft ease.  “Looks like it’s your lucky day.”

            Namjoon caught the ball just as awkwardly as before but at least he didn’t take a step back this time.  “Good.”

            Suga gestured for him to follow along as they moved to the uneven terrain.  “Let’s see what else you can do,” he murmured, breath billowing out in white clouds as he spoke.

            “My pleasure,” Namjoon exhaled, taking a deep breath to steady himself.  It was now or never.  “Let’s do this!”

(a/n: Counting down the days but trying to get this sorted out asap!  We'll probably be experiencing a time jump next but with any luck, I think I'll be able to wrap this up before the deadline in only a couple more chapters!  Wish me luck!)