The first baseball game of the regional season was the coming weekend, as noted by all the fliers posted around campus. It was almost impossible to turn around without seeing something that talked about the home game to start the Ylisstol Shepherds' season as they attempted to get qualified for the league games in the spring semester. The players themselves didn't seem to talk about the upcoming game too much, although it was clearly on all their minds as they sat in class, itching to get back to practice to make sure that they were in the best form possible for the game.

Robyn had moved her seat after that first time in class, sitting in the back row in between where Cordelia and Sumia still sat (and still gossiped with one another) and where the other woman spent her time reading and ignoring the rest of the class. She'd tried striking up conversation with her a couple times, finding that her name was Miriel, that she was a triple major trying to graduate as soon as possible and was only taking Intro to Ethics because it was the only class available to her that worked for all three of her majors, and that she had no time for idle chitchat when there was reading to be done. Talking to the gossipy hens on the other side of the row was just as useless, as they both talked exclusively about things that Robyn cared very little about, unless someone was staring at Chrom, then they talked about him and she couldn't help but listen to that.

But what they were saying about him wasn't good enough for her, and she didn't have the time to approach him and start talking to him herself, yet there was such a call within her heart to talk to Chrom once more that she knew she'd have to make some sacrifice. "Chrom's this big-shot on campus just because he's on the baseball team and his sister's so popular in Ylisstol, but once you get to know him he changes. And then you love him, and then he breaks your heart for some high school girl," Sumia explained, furiously folding some paper in the shape of a flower as she spoke in a whispered voice to not be heard by anyone not named Cordelia or Robyn. "And that's why I won't let Cordelia fall for his charms, and I won't let you either."

"Thanks, but I don't need you watching out for me," Robyn replied, putting on a big smile as she heard Sumia gasp at the denial of her services. "I'm a big girl, I know how to handle myself when it comes to toxic guys, if he's not a good person I'll figure it out eventually. How'd you get to know him well enough to date him, anyway?"

"W-we were friends in grade school, that's how." Flustered, and still folding her flower with the same intensity as before, Sumia glanced up at where Chrom was sitting with his friends for a split second before going back to looking at Robyn. "We decided to date right after we graduated, and it lasted for, like, a few months into starting college, then he left me for a high school girl that he hadn't dated when we were still in school because he didn't like her like that when he saw her every day around the school. But karma got him when she turned out to be a horrible girlfriend, which was totally obvious because she's a horrible person anyway, and he left her for some Feroxi girl he met at one of his baseball games, but then he left her because he couldn't keep up with the long-distance thing, and that's where we are now. He's been single like a year and—"

"And I would like to get to have my chance with him," Cordelia proudly interjected, before covering her mouth as she realized she'd been too loud in speaking and got most of the class to look back at her, trying to make sense of what she'd said.

"—this is why we can't allow her to openly fall for him, she gets kind of stupid about things when we're talking about him." Finishing speaking only when the class seemed to have resumed normally, Sumia smiled and set her now-complete flower on top of her opened textbook. "He's like a magnet for most ladies, but he only picks the ones he thinks he has a chance with, like Maribelle and whatever the Feroxi girl's name was, and if he thinks that you'll know right away. He'll invite you to dances, to games, to anything he's intending on going to, and if you turn him down he'll never speak to you again about it."

"How about inviting you to practice?" The idea to throw that out had come to Robyn while she'd been listening to Sumia's comment, but she hadn't expected the wide-eyed, in-awe reaction she got for saying it. "Let me guess, that's not something he usually does, is it?"

"I've known him since about the time we started walking and he's never invited me to practice, not even once," Cordelia replied, sounding downcast. "But that might be because he doesn't want me there critiquing him for his form while not in a game."

Sumia was grabbing another piece of paper to start folding a second flower, while still invested in the conversation they were having. "He also knows that you'll go to his games without invitation, so he doesn't have to extend the offer." Her reminder of that fact to Cordelia cheered her up a bit, but left Robyn looking confused as she didn't understand the intricacies of the relationship she was learning about. "Chrom and Cordelia used to play ball together when they were younger, like way younger, but she decided to go a different route growing up while he stuck with it."

"And that gets us to where we are now, with him being mister popular and everyone either wanting him or being an ex of his?" Robyn asked, getting two nods in response. "Okay, starting to get what's going on here. Thanks for the insight, ladies, but I think I know how I'm going to handle this situation now."

She scooted her chair back over to where she'd been sitting for class, leaving the pair to their own devices again, although Sumia was slightly unsure of what had just happened. "I wasn't aware there was a situation we were helping her figure out. I thought we were just telling her about Chrom."

"She did mention being invited to practice, maybe she didn't just say that to make me jealous, maybe it really did happen?" Cordelia suggested, glancing at Robyn and the determined look on her face, before shrugging it off. "There's no way, Chrom really wouldn't invite someone that's new around here to practice before he invited one of the people that's the reason he enjoys playing ball, would he?"

Smirking as she heard the verbal struggle that the girls were experiencing, Robyn mentally told herself that she was going to make the best of what was coming up, that being the baseball team's practice after class. She had no real desire to go for the sake of understanding the game, but rather she was going to attend exclusively for watching the players themselves (specifically Chrom). If she wasn't noticed up in the stands while they practiced she'd be happiest, and if anyone on the team, minus the one she was really there for, tried to talk to her she'd just have to ignore them and go on with her day. The last thing she was interested in was having someone else on the team try to explain everything to her, especially since none of them had tried reaching out to her as she'd been sitting in the same class as them twice a week.

She meandered over to the practice field a bit after class, but long enough after that she knew the team would be busy already, and quietly went up into the stands right behind home plate, hoping that no one would catch onto her right away. To her surprise, a blonde woman with long ringlets cascading down her back was sitting in about the spot she'd been considering calling her own, hunched over with something on her lap that she was more focused on than practice. Rather than leave this strange woman alone, Robyn decided that she'd at least have a little fun with her, stomping loudly across the bleachers to get the woman to pop her head up and start looking for the source of the noise.

"Gods, do you have to cause such a racket? I'm trying to get these statistic sheets ready for the game this weekend so we can have fun placing bets on who's going to do worst," the woman snapped, finding Robyn and glaring at her with extremely narrowed eyes. "Who are you anyway? You've never been to one of these practices before."

"I have no interest in introducing myself to you," Robyn replied, taking a seat two rows behind the blonde, who rolled her eyes and went back to what she was doing. "You said stat sheets, though? What's the deal with that? Grimsley was acting like he's the stats guy, he didn't tell me he had someone providing him with the stats."

The woman must have tossed one of her ringlets over her shoulder, because it caused the rest of her hair to bounce. "He does do the official stats himself, I'm making sheets for those of us watching the game this weekend so we can tally things ourselves in the stands to tease the players that can't keep up with the team average. Not like you'd understand why that's so much fun to do, you're clearly new around here if you don't know who I am."

"And I don't care who you are, if we're being honest." Acting big and important was the quickest way to get to the bottom of Robyn's favorite people list, and whoever this woman was, she had earned a one-way trip down to the lowest spot. "I'm just here to watch some friends and be supportive of what they're doing, not make sheets to make fun of them when they end up sucking."

"Oh, but you don't understand, it's more fun to watch them if you're watching for the sake of making fun of them later." The woman leaned back down to continue what she was doing and Robyn stared blankly at her for a bit, before standing up and jumping over the last few bleachers separating them, choosing to sit right next to her instead. "Excuse me, but why are you so close? You want nothing to do with me yet insist on sitting basically on my lap!"

"I changed my mind, big deal." Robyn smiled at the woman, trying to make her feel more comfortable with her presence right there, but the woman didn't seem to have any interest in getting comfortable. Not only that, but she didn't seem to be much of a woman at all—and the fact that this girl looked rather young was a big warning to Robyn to not get too involved. "You don't go to this college, do you? I'm new here but I don't think I've ever seen you around before."'

Pursing her lips together as she thought of how to respond, the girl ended up saying nothing, merely standing up and walking away without any explanation whatsoever. While it wasn't what she'd been going for in getting so close to her, making her leave meant that there wasn't anyone present to cause more issues for Robyn as she watched the practice, and that was fine by her. Still though, the thought of that girl and what she had been doing there in the stands lingered on her mind throughout the practice, even when she was trying her best to see what Chrom in specific was doing, not caring about anyone else out on the field.

The team wasn't very big, but they certainly were an interesting bunch to watch working together to create plays for practice. Whoever it was out on the pitcher's mound, he was fairly decent at throwing balls just easy enough to hit that the person practicing their batting wasn't spending more time missing than making progress, and the outfielders were doing a great job at retrieving the balls as they made their way towards the back fence. None of that mattered to Robyn, though, as she was focused on the pair standing by first base, Chrom telling Robin something and Robin writing it out on a large whiteboard that they'd brought with them for practice strategies.

She was just about to yell something towards them to see if she could break their concentration when a ball went awry off the batter's bat and hit the fence directly in front of her, causing her to jump in surprise. "Why, you aren't who I typically expect to see behind home plate for practice," Frederick's voice said, as he came up to the fence to get the ball, but Robyn didn't recognize him in his catcher's mask until he lifted it off of his face. "Usually it's Lissa or one of her friends back here, but you're a face that I think I prefer to their young ones. No awkward questions about why high schoolers are here if there isn't one."

"I…can't say I know who this Lissa gal is, sorry," Robyn bluntly replied, although in her mind she was trying to connect that name to the girl she'd harassed out of the place earlier, despite the name itself seeming familiar to her for some reason she couldn't recognize. "Why do you mention her by name?"

"She's Chrom's younger sister, I'm surprised you don't know of her yet you know about Emmeryn." Ball in hand, Frederick pulled his mask back down and turned to return to practice, but not without parting words: "I can't quite tell if you're being genuine in your ignorance or not, but if you aren't then please do us a favor and try to be more honest, we don't need someone lying to us about inconsequential things."

Being treated like she was possibly lying about not knowing who someone was made Robyn want to snap back at Frederick about his attitude, but as she let what he'd said sink in she realized that she did vaguely know of Chrom having a younger sister, because she'd been mentioned a time or twenty by Emmeryn in her time in the media. She hadn't ever seen the girl though, and now that she knew there was a chance she'd been rude to Chrom's younger sister she regretted doing what she'd done, knowing that there was now the possibility that she'd be talked bad about by someone who wasn't Robin to Chrom, which would throw a huge wrench in what she wanted to do with him.

Of course, that was a lot of ifs that she was having to work with there, and she could always just hope for the best. That's what she decided on doing as she went back to watching practice, seeing the team come together to try and work out whatever kinks they had remaining in their teamwork before their first game. Several more balls came flying in her direction, Frederick always being the one to come retrieve them and make idle chitchat with her whenever he was there, but by the time he'd come to get the fourth ball that had hit the fence she was wishing someone else would be the one to come her way.

While she was focusing on that, she hadn't noticed a familiar head of blue hair peeking its way up at her, a surprised look upon Chrom's face to see Robyn actually there in the stands. "How are you enjoying practice so far? It's rather boring, I'm sure, but are you making any sense of the game from it?" he asked, her gasping to hear his voice but attempting to play it cool and act as if she hadn't been caught off-guard by him being there. "Ha, it seems you got rather wrapped up in watching the team, which is good news for us! Will we have another fan in the stands this weekend?"

"Haven't decided yet," she told him, even though in her heart she knew she'd be there come hell or high water. "And this is way more boring than you'd think, I don't know any of you aside from you, Frederick, and Grimsley, and I'm not getting any kind of explanation as to who any of you are. Guess not missing the first week of classes would've done be a lot here, huh? Bet Anna made sure all of you were properly introduced."

"Don't worry, I'll find a way for you to meet the whole team soon enough, just so you know who it is you're supposed to be cheering for." Flashing her a smile, Chrom found himself nearly getting hit by a ball that came flying at him, not from getting hit in that direction but from the pitcher tossing it that way. It was enough to visibly shake him, and Robyn would have been lying if she tried to act like she hadn't screamed at the sound of the ball hitting the fence right next to Chrom, who got vocal after he'd collected himself. "Wh-what was that for? Gaius! You moron, you're not supposed to throw the ball at someone!"

"Wasn't my idea," Gaius called back to Chrom, holding both his arms in the air. "If you're going to blame anyone, I'd blame your second-in-command for telling me to get your attention somehow."

"Chrom, if you think that I would be insensitive enough to tell him to throw a pitch at you, you'd be mistaken," Robin stated in his own defense, voice sounding serious enough to be believed. "Now, if it were at the woman you're speaking with, that might be a different story, but at you? I would never!"

"What's this 'bout throwin' things at people?" There was a group of three coming into the conversation from over by third base, all of them trying to figure out what was going on but their attention solely on Robin rather than anyone else. "You've gotta tell us when we're gonna start playin' dodgeball out here, ya can't just spring that on us!"

Sighing, Robin now turned to the three newcomers, trying to ignore how Gaius was busting up laughing out on the mound. "Vaike, I know that understanding a situation is rather difficult for you, but you need to get that we weren't playing dodgeball and that someone—" he pointed towards Gaius, right as the redhead doubled over from his laughter, "—decided that he was going to attempt to take Chrom out while he was distracted."

"See, I told you we shouldn't have gotten involved, you idiot." Almost as if it were rehearsed, both people that he was with hit him on each arm, even thought it had been the smaller one (height-wise, as Robyn looked at them she could tell that both the people doing the hitting were roughly the same size muscle-wise) that had spoken. "This is why we don't get involved in the stupid stuff, there's always someone who doesn't get what's happening."
"C'mon now, y'know that ya wanted t'see what stopped all them from practicin' for the moment, why're ya both hittin' me just 'cause I got what was happenin' a bit wrong?" In response to that, both of them hit Vaike again, and he let out a loud groan at them both, which led to a third set of smacks. "Seriously guys, please stop hittin' me, I didn't do anythin' wrong t'either 'a ya!"

"Good gods why does he sound like he's never been taught proper language in his life," Robyn remarked, hoping to get Chrom to laugh at her reaction but getting silence in return. "That was funny, you've got to give me credit for that, but seriously will you tell me what that dude's story is before I have to ask for it myself?"

Chrom shook his head, watching as chaos descended on the practice field with everyone either finding something to laugh about or something to argue over. "Speak to him on your own time, I need to set this mess straight before someone gets hurt or quits the team over this. We have our first game this weekend, we don't have time for this nonsense!" Clearing his throat and stepping away from the fence, he began to attempt to take control of the situation, knowing that someone not involved was listening to his every word. "Let's get back to what we should be doing, shall we everyone? Vaike, Stahl, Sully, the three of you stop having a slap-fight and go back to passing drills, I need to know that you'll all be in control of whatever comes your way in the game. Gaius, stop laughing and get back to pitching properly, I'm sure Lon'qu likes it better when you're tossing him balls he can hit. Everyone else, just keep doing what you were doing, Robin and I will join you all soon enough, once we've got the plan of attack for the game squared away."

"Maybe if you hadn't gone to talk to that woman behind home plate, everything wouldn't have fallen into disarray," the man with the bat in hand, who Robyn assumed was the Lon'qu he'd referred to, said to Chrom as he walked back over towards first base. "Is she a distraction for you that we need to rid ourselves of? Women are highly distracting temptations for athletes at times."

"The way you talk about ladies makes one wonder if you don't realize there's a woman on the team," Frederick mused, getting Lon'qu flustered at the statement. "If you can play with us all regardless of our genders, we can have a female guest in the stands. Although, you are right that she is a bit of a distraction that we need to get rid of, if only for Chrom's sake right now. You two can always talk later."

"Let her stay, I'm going back over to Robin now so she isn't going to be distracting me for much longer."

"No, it's fine, I should get going anyway." Since everyone was aware of her presence and she didn't care for it, Robyn wasn't going to hang around any longer than she needed to. Watching Chrom's face fall as his assurance that she could stay was ignored made her heart pang slightly, but she wasn't going to let him dictate her actions all the time. "I've got homework to take care of, some papers to start writing, things that I need to get done that I can't do here."

He looked at her, letting his gaze linger for a moment before nodding in understanding. "And we should get back to practicing as well, so it works out in the end. You have yourself a great night and I'll see you soon, right?" She laughed as she shrugged, not wanting to make when she'd encounter him next something obvious, and watching him accept that she wasn't going to be up-front about her intentions was one last moment they could share before they parted ways for the day.

But as she was leaving the stands, she turned back around to look out at the field, seeing the team having gone back to their practicing, and her eyes fell onto where Chrom was still standing at the fence, watching her leave. It wasn't something she thought she should do, but she waved at him in farewell, him giving her a halfhearted wave in return, and that gesture was enough to put a bit of spring in her step on her way out. Feeling anything like this for Chrom hadn't been in the plans, so why was she getting so happy to see him and to get any kind of attention from him? What had gone wrong?

Hearing about the game secondhand the Monday after it had happened wasn't what Robyn had intended for, but she also hadn't exactly intended on going to the game either—what she'd been aiming to do was show up and sit outside the stadium while the game was going, listening to the announcers call the plays while she did homework. But when she'd gotten there, there'd been nowhere within listening distance that she could sit, aside from actually in the stands, and the idea of sitting in the stands by herself with textbooks in her lap was not one she wanted to entertain. As she hadn't told anyone she was considering going to the game, she was sure this wasn't going to be a problem, but when she realized that the next time she talked to Chrom and his friends they were going to inevitably bring it up and she'd be hopeless in holding the conversation, she needed to do something about it and fast.

That was how she ended up getting involved in a conversation about the game before one of her other classes, time she spent on campus without any sign of anyone on the baseball team. No one in the class was particularly invested in the team or the sport, but it was the first game of the regional season and everyone at the school really seemed to want to watch their team make it to the league season (which Robyn wasn't sure why the difference was important but she was sure that she'd learn why eventually, especially if she kept hanging around Chrom like she wanted to). By the time class started that day, she knew the final score, who hit for each point, and who the "player of the game" was for each team, even though she didn't care about the visiting team's one. All of this was going to be useful for her the following day, she was pretty sure, and if she was going to impress Chrom she needed to try her best to know as much as she could about what mattered to him.

Her plan of making use of that information took a blow when Anna cancelled class in the morning, telling everyone through email to just take the time to do some of the assigned readings. Now if she was going to talk to him about it, she'd have to do it in his territory, not in the neutral space the classroom provided, and she wasn't sure if that was something she wanted to do. Deciding if she was going to or not took up most of the morning, pacing around her dorm room and trying not to spend too much time looking at the flyer about the game she'd stolen before it could get thrown away. If she looked at that, she'd immediately decide to go just because of how they'd used Chrom mid-swing as the background image for the flyer and she was starting to get hopeless about him.

It had been mere weeks and she was already feeling like he was controlling her life, and she was not a fan of that at all. "I need to be there, I can't wait until the next time we're in class to try talking to him, he'll have moved on to thinking about the next game by then," she told herself, averting her eyes away from the flyer for as long as she could but ultimately failing and staring at it. His form was amazing, something to be in awe of, and she only wished she could see him in that exact pose in the flesh, without people around chiding him for focusing on her while he did it.

That wasn't exactly the best motivation to get her to go to the practice, but it was enough to make her do it anyway. Like the last time she'd gone, that blonde girl was sitting in the spot she wanted for herself, right near the fence, but she had papers strewn all over the bleachers around her, checking for something on each and every one of them. While it would have been fun to disrupt her, Robyn wanted to try something new when interacting with her, especially given that she could very well have been Chrom's sister. "So, how'd your stats and making fun of people thing work out?" she asked, the blonde gasping in shock at the voice before grumbling something unintelligible. "Speak up, I asked you a question."

"It went fine, the team did rather well outside of the usual failures, and we even got to tease Chrom a bit about his lackluster performance in the game." There was a smugness to the girl's voice that made Robyn want to punch her in her face, but she resisted. "I'm just checking what everyone got against the official statistics for the game, some people who played alongside me got some wildly different numbers from the actual ones."

"I can't say I understand a word of what you're saying, but whatever makes you happy, I guess. Mind if I sit with you?" Not waiting for an answer, Robyn pushed a couple of the papers away and flopped down on the bench right next to the girl. "I changed my mind from last week, by the way. Shall we do the proper introduction thing?"

The girl was too busy trying to reorganize her papers to immediately reply, but after Robyn said her name and that she was there at the request of Chrom, she perked up, a sneer on her lips. "That's cute, do you know how many girls he invites to practices? Not many, that's for sure. Wish I could say I'd been invited by him, but my first time here was at the request of his sister, not of him." That revelation was a bit of a blow to Robyn, as she'd begun to believe that this girl was a very rude younger sister that needed to be put in her place, and her reaction to that news was noticeable enough to be called out. "What, you can't tell me you thought I was his sister, that would be hilarious. I'm his sister's best friend, Maribelle. It's a pleasure to properly meet you."

The name struck Robyn's memory harder than most things she encountered did, and it didn't take much effort to remember where she'd heard it before. "You're the high school bitch that Chrom left Sumia for, aren't you?" she asked, not caring about her wording until she saw the offended expression that Maribelle was now wearing. "Oh gods, I didn't mean it like that, I just—you know—damn it, that's how she referred to you, kinda, and that's how I got you in my mind and I'm so sorry if I just made you hate me forever."

"I was unaware that there was someone out there who couldn't keep my name out of her mouth, but I'm sure it's no one important. You're forgiven, just don't think of me as a bitch until you have your own reason to." The offended look was gone as quickly as it had appeared, as Maribelle went back to what she'd been doing. "But yes, I would be the high schooler that Chrom dated for a few weeks, which was painfully awkward for us both because of the age gap and because of my relationship with his sister."

"Relationship? As in…?"

"Friendship, don't jump to any conclusions. Lissa's a dear but I couldn't become anything more than friends with her at the moment, she has so much growing up to do and I need to separate myself with the image of having dated her brother still." Looking out onto the field, where the team was lining up between two of the bases, all pointed in one direction, Maribelle gave a wistful sigh. "And anyway, there's someone else that I would love to get my chance with before I take on a safe option such as Lissa."

Robyn wanted to pretend like she understood what was being said to her, but she didn't have the slightest clue of what was being referred to with that. "O…kay, but is that why you enjoy ragging on the team? Because you're getting back at Chrom for dating you?"

"I rag on the team because they're a bunch of older friends of mine, there's nothing spiteful about it in regards to that failed relationship. You'll understand once you've gotten with and broken up with Chrom for yourself, trust me." All Robyn wanted to do there was give a rebuttal about how she didn't want to date him, but Maribelle was not going to hear a word of it. "That's how he works, my dear, he suckers women into dating him and he turns out to be a horrible boyfriend, anyone who's dated him can tell you that."

"There's only three of you who've done that, three's not a large enough sample size to make that judgment with. I'll find things out for myself—but don't think that I'm trying to date him, please, I barely know the guy. You and what's-her-face, you both knew him for a long time before getting with him, you had history before anything happened." Robyn was getting visibly worked up with every word, something that had Maribelle giving her a knowing smile in return. "Don't do that, I'm not trying to deny anything!"

Laughing, Maribelle winked at her. "You keep telling yourself that, but I think that your face gives your intentions away. Don't worry, whatever happens between you and him, I'll be here to give you a listening ear and a snarky comment about him when you need it."

"Are you two almost done having your conversation up here?" The voice came from a couple rows up in the bleachers, a gentle voice that seemed rather young, male, and definitely not belonging to a college student. The two ladies looked to who was talking, and standing above them was a boy and a girl who couldn't have been much older than fifteen or sixteen. "We didn't want to interrupt you, but we've been waiting for a while and—"

"Ricken, dearest, you don't have to wait until we're done talking to join us." Maribelle paused, looking at the girl that he was with before realizing why they'd waited. "Er, how much of what I said did you both hear?"

Turning to look at the same girl that Maribelle was looking at, Ricken seemed uncomfortable in answering, his body language enough for Robyn to gather what had happened strictly from it. "Is that Chrom's sister?" she asked, hoping that her connecting the dots had worked properly this time. The three nods she received gave her vindication in her understanding, but then what had happened hit her and her jaw slowly dropped, having to turn around completely to see the wide-eyed and surprised look on the girl's face for herself.

"Y-you'd date me if you weren't crushing hard on someone else?" the timid voice that escaped Lissa's lips asked, her focus entirely on Maribelle, who was going pale at the fact that she needed to answer the question. "You're probably just saying that because you're impressing your new friend here, but…I'd be okay with it if it happened, I really would be! We'd make a much better pair than you and Chrom ever did!"

Hopping down one of the sets of stands that was between the two groups, Ricken motioned for Lissa to follow him down, but she remained rooted where she was, to the point that Maribelle had to get up to join her. Meanwhile, Robyn continued staring at her with her jaw ajar, unsure of what she was watching but convinced that it wasn't supposed to happen like this. "I don't think I've seen you around here before, usually when we come to practices it's just the three of us up here," Ricken said as he came to standing above Robyn, smiling down at her with his fairly childlike face. "Are you one of the team's friends?"

"I'm one of Chrom's friends, yes," she replied, snapping her mouth closed to not look as surprised about anything. "And I'm sure you're one of Maribelle's, which means you're probably a high schooler like she is. Look at that, all the necessary introductions taken care of, and I haven't even had to tell you my name."

He seemed to not be super impressed with how brash her behavior was, but however he felt he didn't make it overly obvious. "I think that having more people up here to watch the team practice makes them work harder, because they've got an audience. Someday, I'll be just like them and winning league titles for this school, but before I can get there I've got to get through high school."

"What a shame, I'm sure the team really wants a kid who's still not gone through puberty playing for them." The moment she'd said what was on her mind, and heard the dejected "oh" that Ricken gave in return, Robyn regretted opening her mouth at all. She didn't know the kid and she was being a jerk towards him, just because she was used to being jerkish to people all the time. Twice in one afternoon she'd made that mistake, and these people were closer to Chrom than she would ever be, she was sure; this was undoubtedly going to have an impact on her relationship with him in the future, if any of these kids told him what she'd been saying to them. "Hey, maybe you'll hit it before you get to the college game, then you'll have a fighting chance at being important to the team, you know?"

"You're right, I know you are, but me being small isn't the end of the world. Like…you know there's a player on the team no one can ever find, don't you?" It was sad, hearing this kid trying to defend himself by throwing someone else under the bus, but Robyn felt bad enough about what she'd said to let him go through with it. "There really is, he's on the roster and shows up on stat sheets but when they're on the field you just don't ever see him, even when he's making plays!"

"I'll believe it when I see it," she replied, trying to not sound like she was onto his lies. "How can there be someone on the team that no one sees, but actually does stuff?"

Ricken shrugged as he took the seat right behind Robyn's, pointing out at a spot on the lineup between first and second base that she hadn't noticed was empty before as she followed his finger. "That's right about where he should be, if they're lining up by jersey number. Do you see him?"

"No, I see a gap between Grimsley and that transfer student from Ferox, is that what I'm supposed to be seeing?" She was sure it wasn't, but she wasn't delusional enough to fall for the idea of there being an invisible player.

He could tell that she wasn't buying his words, as he dropped his arm from pointing. "You'll understand soon enough that he's real, just you wait. Everyone who hasn't see the team in action before doesn't think he exists, but he does and when you catch on you'll find it just as fun to point him out to everyone as I do."

"Yeah, I'm sure I'm not the only person who doesn't see anyone where you're telling me someone is, but go on with your life I guess." There she was, being rude to this kid again, but she couldn't help it, especially since she thought what he was saying to her was easily the stupidest thing she'd ever heard.

Rather than open himself up to more of her criticisms, Ricken instead turned his attention fully to the running drills the team was now doing, giving her absolutely nothing to call out about him. That ended up being fine, because as soon as she started growing bored of having no way to interact with the kid, Maribelle opened her mouth and gave her something else to do instead. "Robyn, that was your name, correct? Could you come here? You need to properly meet Lissa, while you're both here." She was beckoning for her to come up and join them in the upper bleacher, something that she did only after a moment's hesitation.

"Maribelle says that you're here because Chrom invited you," Lissa said, her voice rather cheery and upbeat, even though she was visibly nervous talking to Robyn. "I don't know who you are or why he trusts you enough to invite you to practice, but I hope you'll come with us to the next game to cheer him on."

"This is 'meeting' her?" Robyn asked, giving Maribelle a side-eyed look, to which she shrugged. "Anyway, when's the next game and where? I might consider going, I don't know yet though, there's a lot of other important stuff for me to be taking care of this semester."

Lissa straightened up how she was standing, adjusting one of the sleeves of her pristine white collared shirt (which was clearly part of a school uniform, given that Ricken was wearing something similarly designed, although Maribelle was dressed differently than them both) as she recalled the answer to the question. "I think the next game's in Valm, but I don't remember where exactly it is, and it's next weekend, I know that for sure. Or maybe the next game's the one at the big arena in Ferox, but if it is then you have to go to it, no matter what. That game was the best one last season!"

"It's an away game? How do you expect me to go to that? I'm a broke college kid, I don't have the money to travel across the area to get to these games, especially not when I don't care all that much about baseball!" She hadn't meant to get so passionate in her declaration, but the power of her words was enough to take both Maribelle and Lissa aback, but they quickly recovered with a shared glance and excited looks. "Okay girls, what's going on, I've just met you both and you're looking at me like you're about to—"

"Did you think that I was talking about you needing to come to the next game without a plan for how to get you there?" Lissa giggled, while Maribelle waved for her to continue speaking without taking too much time to pause between thoughts. "You'll go there with us, duh! We don't usually have too many people from here go to the away games, but since you're Chrom's friend I'm sure he won't mind if you get to come along because of me and Maribelle wanting you to go."

"—yep, you just invited me to come on your dollar." Taking a moment to let that offer sink in, Robyn turned to look over her shoulder at the team as they were still running in lines across the field. On one hand, going to the game with these girls would mean getting to know them better, but on the other hand it meant time away from the place she was starting to call home. A realization hit her as she was watching the team, and she frantically turned back to look at Lissa. "You're like twelve, should you be traveling across borders without an adult present?"

"First off all, I'm fifteen, and secondly Emmeryn comes with us because she likes supporting Chrom in what he does whenever she can." Shaking her hands in a finger gun-like motion, Lissa waited to see what Robyn's response to that was, but all she got was a blank stare. "So will you come with us? I promise it'll be a good time if you do."

A different set of possibilities had formed itself in Robyn's mind, going beyond knowing the girls and being at the school. On one hand, if she went her passion for supporting Chrom would most likely be noticed by him and he'd respect her more, but on the other, if she didn't go then he probably wouldn't know that she'd even considered going in the first place. Not only that, but going meant getting to know both of his sisters better, and staying meant that doing that would have to wait for a later opportunity; why, though, was she thinking about needing to know them better? Why was that even something that she was using as a basis for making her "go or don't go" judgment? "I'll still have to decide later, sorry," she said, being completely honest about the situation. "Let me get back to you about it next week, at one of these practices, okay?"

"Sounds fair to me," Lissa replied with a small smile. "I won't tell Chrom or Emmeryn about this plan until you've said yes, though, just so they don't get any ideas. But if you do come, I'm sure you'll like it more than you could ever like any game here at home. Part of the fun of the away games is the travel time itself, you know?"

"Don't try to convince her when she still needs to decide based on other factors, I'm sure she's aware of how fun going on trips is. After all, she's not from around here, she knows what it's like to visit somewhere she's not from." Maribelle's statement hit Robyn deep down without meaning to, and not in a negative way. It was just odd that she could tell that she wasn't from Ylisstol (or even Ylisse, but she didn't know how much she'd gathered) without her having made any reference to it. "You've made it quite obvious that you aren't Ylissean, Robyn, and your facial expression at hearing me say that only proves it. Where are you from, since it's not here?"

"I…I can't answer that, sorry." There was a limit to how much Robyn was going to say to these relative strangers, and delving deep into her personal history was somewhere she'd already drawn a line. "It's not bad, I'd just rather you not hear it and think negatively of me for it. I'm not interesting enough to come from somewhere horrible."

The girls looked at each other once more, trying to come up with guesses to throw at her, but before they got the chance to, Robyn decided she wasn't going to stick around any longer and she booked it out of the stands, nearly tripping on stairs on her way out but managing to escape without harm. "That was weird, it's almost like she's from somewhere exotic and too cool for Chrom and his friends, but she doesn't seem like that kind of person. Maybe she's ashamed of choosing here to go to school?" Maribelle suggested, while Lissa's attention went out to the field, to one player in particular.

"She's kind of acting like Robin does when you ask him about where he's from," she said, her eyes focusing in on the light-haired statistician on the team, who wasn't running anymore but rather wheeling the whiteboard out for use. "Maybe this is something we need to let Chrom know about…"

"And betray Robyn's trust by you going back on your word? You must be insane, we've only begun to know your brother's new object of his affections and you already want to make her despise us!" Playfully smacking Lissa's arm, Maribelle soon went to looking out at the same person she was. "But at the same time, I think you may be right about this. That was not the kind of behavior I expected from her, she's been so quick with her words that watching her flee like that must mean something suspicious is happening."

Out on the field, Robin happened to look in the direction of the bleachers and see that he had two girls standing in them watching him intently, which made him pick up his pace with rolling the board across the grass. "I don't know what it is with those two, but whenever they stare at me like that, I worry that something awful has happened," he muttered to himself, trying to shake the thought that he'd done something wrong out of his mind. "They know I'll check to see who's here, one of these days their vigilant watching will be caused by some disaster happening outside of practice, I'm sure of it."

"Robin, what are you rambling on about to yourself?" Chrom asked, out of breath as he and the rest of the team walked around trying to calm themselves down after their running. "If you've got the breath to talk under, you could have had the breath to keep running with us. You didn't even do half as many lines as the rest of us."

"You know I stopped so I could get to addressing what all needed to be talked about after the weekend's game, which shouldn't be my task but a certain captain of ours always decides it should be." That got Chrom to shut up, while the rest of the team started to gather around them to hear what needed to be said. "Okay, now that we're all here and tired out so there won't be too much back talk, who wants to guess where we need to improve for the next game? Any takers?"

He was met with a team full of stoic faces, all reddened from exertion. "Ri-i-ight, you're not going to answer me for the same reason you're not going to talk back to me. I'll just give it to you, then—we need to improve on actually hitting the ball when we've got players on bases. That's it, that's what we need to do."

A single hand was half-raised, before someone else pushed it back down. "He's right, you know, we do need to get better about that. We could have invoked the mercy rule on our opponents if we'd gotten more solid hits," Chrom added, looking directly at the person who'd been raising his hand. "That means not going up to bat and swinging wildly even if you know the ball isn't being pitched right."

"Maybe if you focused more on hitting the ball all the time, rather than just swinging every chance you get, you'd get more hits that aren't just home runs." Now Robin was focused on the same person, who was glancing between them both without the breath to retaliate against what they'd been saying. "Gods I love manipulating these kinds of conversations to not have to hear you try to defend your horrid play style, Vaike. It's almost refreshing to know I'll get through this without you saying a word."

"Trust me, I can say lots 'a words, they just ain't how I wanna say 'em," Vaike said in return, inhaling deeply once he'd spoken. Even that little bout of back-talking was enough to get Robin to shake his head at him, pointing at the statement marked number one on the whiteboard: Actually try to hit the ball 100% of the time, no exceptions.

Another hand was raised, this time by Lon'qu, who was looking disgusted at Vaike but wasn't saying anything until he was addressed. Robin wasn't sure where calling on him was going to go, but he had no reason to ignore him if he wanted to speak, especially since he was the newest member of the team. "Is this how every practice after a game will go? Run until players vomit then tell us what we did wrong?" he asked, face going completely neutral with his first word. "If so, I may end up transferring back to my previous school, we were harsh but this is ridiculous."

"No, this is the only way the slackers on the team learn a thing or two, sorry that we made you participate in the running drills when you were actually the only person who had a positive hit-to-at-bat ratio in the game." He finished his statement by pointing at the second statement he'd written on the board: Hitting the ball means getting on bases, without needing to get hit by the ball. "Some of us finished with equal hits and strikes, and others struck out every time they were at the plate. We'll get better, eventually, it was just the first game after all."

"If my performance in the next game matches the previous game, I will sit out of the punishment drills then. Is that fair?" While other players were giving groans of disappointment at the suggestion, Robin looked to Chrom and when he firmly nodded in acceptance, it was made a new team rule, scribbled in the corner on the whiteboard. "Very well, proceed without any more input from me."

"I have something to say now," Gaius chimed in, glaring at Lon'qu and not trying to be even remotely shy about it. "That's fucking stupid, you can't let him sit out without letting the rest of us get our chance to sit out. I pitched most of that game, didn't let them score a point on us, and I had to run the drills and you don't see me complaining."

People were clearly back to having breath in their chests, because the murmurs of more discontent were getting kicked up in the group. "Seriously, I actually hit a home run and you didn't see me whining because I had to run some damn lines," one of the players said, while the person directly next to them added, "I didn't run into the back fence three times catching fly balls just to have to run here, but I did it anyway."

"Yes, yes, but if I don't make punishments have some meaning to them, then they're not going to be useful to any of us. I know that you hit our first home run of the season, Sully, you wouldn't let any of us forget it that day, and I know that you made some incredible saves that you shouldn't have needed to, Stahl, but what one of you does is counterbalanced by what the other one can't. I can't reward you both for doing something when you don't do a whole lot of other things." Moving to show the third and final point on the board in its entirety, Robin gestured to it with a sweeping arm motion: Even if you hit the ball once, please remember that hitting it every time is what we need. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, but points matter above all.

"I think this is all pretty fair," a voice in the middle of the group threw into the conversation, but no one seemed to notice that anything was ever said.

Chrom could sense that his team was about to start rebelling against the decision that had been made, but he couldn't do anything to take it back. Stepping to be at the whiteboard's side, he looked upon his team and shook his head, before clearing his throat to bring them all back to attention. "You guys need to stop with the infighting, I get that we're having some creative differences here at the moment, but let's focus on what's most important here. We won the game, we had someone actually hit on base more than striking out, we had our first home run of the season, and we had some really great plays across the field. Yes, there's room for improvement, but until we have the league title to our names, there will always be room for improvement."

That got everyone to cease their arguing, even if there were a couple of threats to "take things outside of practice" that were spat as people worked through their anger. "Thank you for that reminder, Chrom," Robin said, sounding genuinely thankful that he'd been given that kind of assistance. "There's a reason they made you captain, because you know what needs to be said to get things done."

"I also know that it's getting hotter every time we're out here for practice, and you know what that means?" He tugged at his shirt, lifting it up just high enough to expose his waistband before dropping it. "Next practice, be prepared to strip down and let the sun do its work on us, I think we deserve the time without being forced into being properly dressed out here after our performance this past weekend."

The gesture Chrom made was noticeable even up in the stands by the three people watching the practice, and while Lissa seemed a bit disgusted at what it meant, Maribelle and Ricken were both looking forward to what it could mean, especially since they knew a certain someone who might come to the next practice wouldn't be prepared for it at all.