With rapid strokes, the pencil lines connected the dots on the map of the stars. It had been a good idea, thought Damian, to wake up early enough to catch a good glimpse of the sky before sunrise, because some of the constellation lines had decided to shift just that night, creating new patterns to interpret. It took him a few hours to have the time to sit down and actually take note of those changes, but he had some time to waste before the next item on his "to do" list. Now, the stars Magab, Hesteria, and Goa were all part of the same constellation again for the first time in three years, by his estimation, but he'd check the bulletin on the cini system once it was updated, just to be sure. It wasn't entirely clear to him what that was supposed to mean, but, again, the bulletin would later help him in his interpretation. He hoped that would be a good omen for his plans.

He put the maps back into his case, as he wasn't comfortable with the idea of someone catching him in the act. He sat in a corner of the school's sizeable gymnasium, which was currently empty, aside from him. On both sides of the large room, there was a vertical metal ring almost as wide as an arm's length, held in place at head height by metal bars. Bold white lines divided the field in four distinct sections, plus two smaller ones in the shape of a crescent moon at the extremities, close to the metal rings. The rings themselves were out of the field lines by a pretty significant margin.

An unassuming creak of the door announced the arrival of the person Damian was waiting for: a young man, only a little older than Damian himself, with an uncommon head of red hair and similar grey eyes as him.

Damian took a moment to take a deep breath, then he approached the new arrival with open arms. "Flibert! So good to finally see you again!"

Flibert raised his hand to greet him back. "Hey, good to see you too. I'm sorry I had to miss your wedding, you know how things are."

As they met, they vigorously joined their hands in a familiar handshake. "Of course, of course. How was your trip to New Helvia?"

"Don't want to talk about business right now. I'd rather talk about something fun, if it's okay with you, especially since later I'm due to report to our father… well, maybe I should say report to Vaufrej instead."

Damian grimaced sympathetically. "Yeesh, even less fun."

The door slammed open. A smooth, clear, and deceptively friendly voice responded, "Is that so?"

Damian and Flibert both became serious at once, right before turning to face the third man. The perfectly trimmed full short beard betrayed the fact that he was older than both, but, aside from that and being even taller and better built than Damian, he could easily have passed as his twin.

Damian opened his mouth to apologies, but the third man stopped him with a graceful gesture of his hand. "No need for that. I'm not that easily offended."

Flibert cleared his throat. "So, how was your week, Vaufrej?"

"Dreadfully boring. I doubt anyone even noticed that I excused myself early from the wedding reception." Addressing Damian directly, he continued, "And I won't apologies for that either. You should know how busy I've been since father's condition worsened."

He then loudly clapped his hands together and gave a hint of a smile. "So, why did my dear little brothers decide to meet without me in the gymnasium?"

Flibert awkwardly shifted his weight around a couple of times. "Oh, well, I didn't think it was necessary to discuss about the stepball team with you present. After all, it's been a while since the last time you even attended one of our games."

Vaufrej sighed. "The Neumann youth team is one way, a pretty successful one I should add, for our name to get recognition. I may not have the time to be present at the games in person, but anything regarding its management should still be discussed with me, as future head of the family, since it does have a meaningful impact on the family business."

Flibert nodded defeatedly. "Alright. I'm already too old as is to keep playing in the team, so I intended to make Damian the new…"

"That's out of the question," Vaufrej refuted calmly. "He's nowhere near good enough to be the captain."

He then smiled gently and patted Damian on the head. "Chief attacker is fine. Well, maybe that's a little bit of a stretch too, but how disgraceful it would be for a brother of mine to be anything less."

Damian bit his tongue. "With all due respect, dear brother, how do you know I'm not good enough if you haven't seen me play in years?"

Vaufrej smirked. "Vanilla ice cream. Do you remember that?"

Damian blinked a few times in confusion. "Uh, what?"

Still smirking, the eldest brother started pacing around and unbuttoning his elegant suit. "I, at least, happen to have been blessed with a good memory. There were only two occasions when the three of us all got vanilla ice cream at the same time. One was when I rejected my second invitation to the National team, and the other was when Flibert got his first. We didn't get a third cup of vanilla ice cream just yet, did we?"

"Oh, come on. I admit, he used to be a bit of a twerp in the past," protested Flibert, "but I myself wasn't much better than he is now when I received my invitation. I'm pretty sure I only got it because I'm your brother."

Vaufrej took off his outer layers of clothing, remaining in his immaculate white tank top, showing off his impressive shoulders and biceps. "That's for me to judge. A two versus one match should suffice."

Extending his arms forwards, Flibert protested, "Wait, how are we even supposed to play stepball two versus one? That's not possible!"

Vaufrej shrugged. "Rules of engagement with the ball are the same: we can't touch it consecutively, we can't hold it indefinitely, and we can only take a maximum of four steps while holding it. The goal is the same: make it go through the ring. The only difference is that we're all allowed to go anywhere on the field and both of you can receive from and pass to each other freely."

"Hold on," Damian tried to reason with him, "think about it for a moment. Once you get the ball, you will only have four steps and a few seconds before you need to make an action, and your only options, no matter where you are on the field, are trying to score, throwing the ball at one of us, or throwing a foul ball outside the field. The game is entirely based around having to rely on your companions to move the ball across the field, it's basically impossible to play alone!"

"You call it impossible," he replied while stretching, "I call it an adequate level of handicap."

The three brothers stood in the middle of the field, all dressed for playing and ready to go, Damian and Flibert clothed in blue and Vaufrej still only wearing his white tank top over his sport shorts. A strong rumble came from outside, as the dark clouds started unloading a downpour of hailstones.

"So," wandered Damian, "are we going for a full game, first team to get to ten points, or…"

"Good heavens, I don't have all that time to waste." Vaufrej shook his head, balancing the rotating ball on his finger. "Best of three will be more than enough."

Since the ball had been in continuous contact with Vaufrej's glove for a while now, an alchemical process in its rough surface made it glow of a bright red, rather than being white as usual. If it had been during the game, that would have been foul for holding the ball for too long.

Damian barely managed to catch the heavy ball before it hit his nose, when his older brother passed it to him. As soon as it had left the older brother's hands, it became white again.

"You two can have the first action," he softly conceded. "Toss it to Flibert whenever you're ready to start."

Damian didn't hesitate, he immediately launched the ball to his red headed middle sibling, and they both sprinted towards the goal, passing it to each other with rehearsed precision. Once they were in range, not seeing any obstacles, Damian tried to score and, to his surprise, the ball went right through the ring with a loud blare, caused by another alchemical reaction within the ring itself. The two boys in blue turned their heads in shock to discover that their brother hadn't so much as taken a single step from the middle of the field, and was now slowly clapping at them.

Vaufrej's smile could almost pass for an innocent one. "Congratulations, only one left to go."

The two of them returned to the middle without a single word, carrying the ball with them.

Flibert held it aloft. "Your action now, brother."

He then chucked it suddenly, but Vaufrej caught it effortlessly. With no hesitation, he jumped in place, raising the ball as high as possible, and threw it with a beautifully slow arc. After landing, he didn't move an inch, content to watch the heavy movement of the spinning ball as it inevitably fell into the ring, which shook from being impacted on one side and blared to confirm the successful point.

Vaufrej shook his head. "Guess I'm a little rusty after all," he softly complained. "I meant for it to pass clean through, not to hit the border."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Damian had to bite on his lip in order to not start raging at how little Vaufrej was taking them seriously. He tried to calm down, perfectly aware that making him angry was part of his brother's strategy. After all, they still had one action where they started with the ball in their control. This time, Vaufrej wouldn't allow them to move towards their goal unchallenged, this time he would definitely disrupt them somehow. He wasn't exactly sure how that was going to happen, but the possibility of their brother stealing the ball and doing another throw like the one they just witnessed was one that he couldn't help but dread.

Damian made a few calculations. If he anticipated Vaufrej's offensive by even just a few moments, he should be able to run close enough to the ring that he'd have a chance to catch that ball during its descending arc. It wouldn't be easy, but it would definitely be possible. That would be a nice way of showing how much he had improved.

Flibert quietly went to recover the ball and came back towards the middle. Before passing it to Damian so he could begin the final action, the red head made a few rapid gestures to him. Damian nodded. Those gestures meant nothing to Vaufrej, since they had been codified long after he left the team. They had a scheme, now it was only a matter of execution.

Damian received the ball and stepped backwards, preparing to pass it to Flibert. His field of vision went from free to completely occupied by the large frame of his big brother in mere instants, just as he threw. He didn't even wait to see if Vaufrej had successfully managed to catch the ball, he took off as fast as he could towards the ring, so he could protect it. He couldn't fail just now, he had to fight back.

He then saw the ground growing closer to his face, after something heavy and fast made painful contact with the back of his head. Damian, somehow, managed to stagger his way into keeping his balance, but then he was hit a second time, now on the side of his head. Disoriented, he wobbled towards the closest wall to try and hold on to it, only to realise it wasn't the wall he was approaching but, once again, the cold hard ground. This time, he wasn't able to avoid the impact. With his head spinning and his ears ringing, he barely recognised the blare of Vaufrej's final point when it pierced the air in the gymnasium.

"How long was I out?" Damian asked, still barely conscious. His head hurt in more ways than one.

Flibert was on his knees besides him. "Only a few seconds."

Vaufrej, putting his clothes back on, commented, "You did recover faster than I thought. I guess you have grown up a little after all."

"Tell me," started Flibert, visibly holding back his emotions, "wouldn't you consider that a coward move?"

Vaufrej adjusted the collar of his shirt. "Not at all. You know I couldn't touch the ball consecutively, so, if I wanted to move it around the camp, my only option was for it to touch one of you before it came back to me. Him turning his back to me gave me an easy target."

Damian had to fight back a dry heave when he tried to go from lying down to sitting upright. Perhaps, it had been a little too ambitious to straighten up so soon after coming to his senses again. No matter. He half crawled half wobbled toward his case, where he left his clothes.

Did his brother plan it all along? Was it his entire idea from the start to do that amazing long shot so that one of them, afterwards, would be forced to give their back to him while trying to run in the ring's defence, only to use their head as a spot to bounce the ball off of and effectively pass it to himself?

A big hand grabbed his briefcase before he could do anything to stop it. Vaufrej calmly extracted the content of the case: the notebooks, the cini book, the maps of the stars, and examined them one by one intently, without opening his mouth. Damian needed to constantly fight back the instinct to snatch his stuff back, the discomfort in his chest growing more and more as his brother's silence protracted.

Eventually, the tall young man tidily and methodically put Damian's stuff back into the case, still without uttering a word. Damian could feel the disapproval even through the silence, even through his brother's neutral expression.

Vaufrej finally smiled. "Well, I have to admit it: you did get a little better, Damian. Your first action with Flibert showed some solid technique, and I do appreciate you trying to anticipate a second long throw, it shows initiative."

"Does that mean…" Damian tried inquiring, hopeful.

"Unfortunately," his brother interrupted, "that's still not nearly enough to be team captain. I will no longer suggest that chief attacker might be too much for you, but captain is still out of your reach."

Flibert crossed his arms. "So, who will take my place now that I won't be able to stay in the team any longer?"

While getting his arms into his suit's sleeves, Vaufrej replied, "I'll decide that at my leisure. I think that Rosso kid, the current chief defender, is passable, but I need to ponder it some more. Well, it was quite pleasant to spend some time with my younger siblings, but now I absolutely must go back to serious business. Flibert, I'll be hearing your report on the trip during lunch."

As he closed the last button back on his suit, he addressed Damian directly again, still smiling gently. "And you, don't forget you're a married man now. Toying around with stars and potions is all well and good, but you're a grown up now, and that comes with duties to carry out."

Only after Vaufrej had left the room, Flibert gave Damian a solid pat on the shoulder. "You did good. Well, as good as could be expected against him. How are you feeling?"

"Weak legs aside, I'm mostly fine now." Damian replied truthfully.

"You know, even if he is right about the whole Alchemy thing, don't take it to heart too much and don't worry about it. You're the third son, that gives you some more leeway than either of us. You still have some time to dedicate to something you enjoy, get it out of your system, before joining the rest of us. Take advantage of that time and don't let Vaufrej spoil it for you."

Damian nodded, averting his eyes. After a couple more gentle pats on the shoulder, they exchanged pleasantries and Flibert left, leaving Damian alone once more. He sat down, leaning his head against the wall.

That's right, he thought, even though now he was kind to him, not even Flibert was his ally. He had to remind himself he had no allies. If he was to keep doing what he truly wished to do, he still needed to show results, and he knew only one kind of results would ever change his family's mind: something that would positively impact the family business. And he was so close to a massive breakthrough, he was sure of it. He had been on the verge of that discovery for a while now, he just needed that one more step he wasn't able to take with his own strengths.

He extracted one of his notebooks, the oldest one, and opened it to one of its last pages. He was greeted by the familiar diagram of the stars he had made more than a year ago, by now, his first reading he truly felt proud of. That's the one that gave him the path forwards, the path he was still following. It suggested that fairy magic was the key.

By looking at the sky, it felt strange to think that that morning they had a hailstorm on their hands, since the only visible clouds were now closer to the horizon and the sun had come out in full force. On the ground, however, a few clues of the morning's bad weather remained in the form of puddles, other wet spots and, in shaded areas, even a few surviving shards of ice. People had also come out of their houses and all those who didn't work at the Neumann factory seemed to be back in the streets.

Damian carried his briefcase with him on his way home. He felt much better after seeing the local Medical Alchemist, just to make sure hitting his head didn't give him a concussion. Not a bad excuse to come back home a little later either.

Seeing that the street in front of him would become difficult to navigate due to it being somewhat overcrowded by the market being back, after that morning's bad weather, he decided to cut through an alley. He felt something softly brushing against his leg. It was a streaked grey cat, who called for his attention with soft high pitched meows. He crouched down and caressed its head, to which it responded with loud purring.

As soon as he realised that the streaked patterns of the cat's forehead formed a letter M, a familiar voice spoke inside Damian's head. "It looks to me, little Neumann, that you didn't make any progress since the last time we spoke. Maybe it would be time for you to accept my assistance."

Goosebumps formed on Damian's arms when he was reminded of his meeting with the demonic cat a few days prior, but, unwilling to show any weakness, he kept on petting the grey cat, pretending the voice in his head didn't startle him.

He scratched behind a pointy grey ear. "Purring and acting all cute while trying to sound serious? That's an audacious choice if your intention was to be taken seriously."

"That cat," boomed the voice with a hint of irritation, "is not me. Neither is she some kind of puppet of mine. She allows me to speak through her, but she doesn't obey me. I do not act that way." When it continued, it had become a little softer. "To your slight credit, she does that because she genuinely likes you."

Damian quickly cleared his throat, in preparation of trying to sound more calm and collected than he actually was. "In any case, I have no interest in keeping this conversation going. I don't need your assistance and don't particularly enjoy your company, so leave me alone."

"When it comes to the pleasure of conversation, I can assure you that the feeling is mutual, little human," the voice commented curtly. "However, we face a common enemy here. Yesterday I clearly sensed the first thread of a larger web being spun, and that thread has been created specifically to deceive you. The spider who's weaving that web isn't going to be as considerate about making you humans her puppets as I am with my meowing friends. To her you're mere flies, flies that she intends to trap into silky little cocoons to consume at her convenience."

Damian suppressed a deriding chuckle. "You mean my mother in law or my wife? Your claims are rather bold, considering that the former lives in the forests all the way on the other side of mount Nusinet and the latter is, well… to be quite frank, of all adjectives that I'd use to describe my wife, threatening isn't one of them."

After a long silence, the voice sighed. "As you wish, then. Just remember, if you start to catch glimpses of the trap that's being built around you, my offer of help will still be valid. Unlike the spider plotting against us all, I mean no harm to the flies living around me."

The boy got back up on his feet when the cat decided it was time to go her separate way. "If we humans are flies and my mother in law and/or wife is the spider, then what are you?"

Another pause. "I'm the queen bee of a nearby hive."

The door opened on a more silent house than Damian thought he'd find. Every time he had entered the house in the past couple of days, the hustling of lutin activity had always been the first thing of notice. That day, nothing. Clelia came to greet him from the living room, not wearing her tall hat for once.

"Welcome back," she chirped, stopping in front of him with a little bounce.

Damian felt every muscle in his body tense up, almost startled. "Someone is in a good mood. Did something happen while I was away?"

She shrugged, still smiling wide. "I'm just happy to see you, is that strange?"

That declaration made him feel good, better than he would have thought if someone had brought up that situation as a hypothetical beforehand. That being said, the conversation with the cat was still fresh in his memory, and an annoying feeling itched in his mind. What if the spiderweb had just been coated with honey?

He decided to keep a practical tone. "The house is quieter than usual, today."

"Well, you can't expect the lutin to spend all day with us every day: they still have their own little lives to live."

An image of those three small troublemakers in their day off elbowed its way into his mind. He couldn't help but picture them doing normal things, like reading a book or playing chess together, while still non-stop screaming their tiny heads off in that strange language of theirs.

He took his jacket off and hung it to the coat hanger next to the door. "In any case, nice to see you too. I'm going to go and…"

A pair of small, soft, and surprisingly warm hands interrupted him by grabbing on his own hand. She had squeezed her eyes shut and her shoulders had visibly stiffened in the process.

The silence preceding either of them speaking went on for a little too long for his comfort.

"Can't we…" she hesitantly tried to get out of her mouth, "spend some time together instead?"