"Good catch, Yuki! Thran: Well done!" Because of the headsets Arch's voice was a bit warped as he gave the Snow Kids instructions how to play. "D'Jok, you have to pass! Don't play that selfishly!"

"Yes, Coach!"

The Snow Kids were in the holo-trainer playing against the holo Rykers. Apart from Mark who watched the training on one of Clamp's monitors. Since Rocket was back and not playing Netherball anymore, Mark was only a substitute and had to share the position on the pitch with either D'Jok or Micro-Ice. And now that Ahito couldn't play for an unknown period of time he couldn't even chat with Yuki while watching the training.

"Get your head in the game, D'Jok!" Now Arch sounded angry. His fist dashed on his desk and Mark almost feared it would break. "The qualifying games for the GFC are going to start tomorrow and if you play like this you don't even need to line up there!"

"Arch, don't you think you're a bit too … strict?", Clamp interfered. His fingers flew over the keyboards of his consoles and controlled the Rykers' moves.

"I don't think so", the tall man replied. "They don't concentrate on the game enough. It's as if they dismiss the challenge of the Cup."

Dame Simbai peeped out from behind her displays. "Why don't you put Mark in? D'Jok seems to be very tired."

"Well, why not. Mark, displace D'Jok. And remember to pass to Micro-Ice." Arch winked at him and the striker smiled happily.

On the pitch

"Here, Mei!" Thran waved his hands and Mei kicked the ball over to him. The defender began to dribble across the pitch, dodged one of the Rykers' players and passed the ball to Mark, who had just displaced D'Jok.

The striker took the ball from out of the air and passed it down to Rocket, who did his spin move to outrun three other Rykers. The next moment a fourth player stood right in front of him and used the Metal Yell to blow him out of the way, then took the ball and sent it to the Rykers' captain who waited for it right in front of the Snow Kids' goal.

Three seconds and another use of the Metal Scream later the ball hit the net behind Yuki who was a bit too slow in building a shield with the Breath. The Ryker just laughed with her metallic voice and went back to the kick-off point. Yuki shook her head in anger and frustration.

Then the game went on. A Ryker got the ball and immediately passed it to one of her teammates who took it and dribbled up to the Snow Kids' goal once again. Releasing a huge amount of her Flux she stroke out – just to notice that the ball was gone. She looked up and saw Thran floating above her in the air surrounded by the Breath. The defender turned away but the moment he wanted to kick the ball to Micro-Ice a wall of orange Flux hit him hard and made him fall to the ground ruggedly.

Gasping for air he saw his vicinity blurred as if he looked through a curtain of water. Someone hunched over him and called his name. "Thran! Hey, Thran, you ok?" It seemed to be Yukis voice.

"Hey buddy, wake up, will ya?" That had to be Mark.

More persons came and stood around him but Thran still couldn't see anything but silhouettes. He closed his eyes and groaned.

"Dame Simbai, what's wrong with him?"

"He's a bit spacy, that's all, Micro-Ice", the medic replied. Her tone calmed the team down.

Carefully Rocket nudged Thran and the defender reopened his eyes. Finally his view was normal again only the dizziness wasn't gone yet. "Ouch", he moaned, "my head." Tia and Mei each grabbed one of his Arms and helped him up. There was a little dragging pain in his wrist but it wasn't so bad.

"Are you all right, Thran?", Arch wanted to know as the boy was somewhat wobbly on his feet.

"Yeah, Coach. Just give me a second to rest." Thran held his head, then shook it to get rid of the headache. "Ok, we can go on with the training."

"Be careful. All of you."

"Yes, Coach", the Snow Kids answered in chorus and got back to their positions on the pitch.

The ball was shot up in the air again. Mark and a Ryker both jumped as high as they could to get it but it was still too high above. Mark acted just like D'Jok did sometimes. He stepped on the Rykers thigh, pushed off and kicked the ball to Micro-Ice who used the Breath and a modified form of Tia's back flip kick to score a goal. "Wow! Did you see that? I just tricked Kernor!", he cheered as he landed on the ground again while ignoring Kernor's hate-filled look.

"Nice move, Micro-Ice", Arch agreed. "Keep playing like that!"

The training went on and on. The Snow Kids kept scoring goals but the Rykers didn't even think of admitting defeat and started new offenses. It was a constant back and forth with no team granting the other one anything.

Several more goals later Arch finally announced the last kick-off. "Come on, Snow Kids, I want to see one last goal!"

"Yes sir!" This time Tia got the ball but had to give it back to Mei when a Ryker thwarted. Meanwhile the defender had free roam. She stormed towards the Rykers' goal and outran the opponent team's captain. Now there was only Kernor left. With all of her strength Mei kicked the ball in the left lower corner but the tall goalkeeper stopped ball with her foot.

Just when she stooped down to grab the ball Thran appeared out of nowhere. With a battle cry he slid towards Kernor and tackled her, pushing the ball over the white line on the ground inside the goal.

The whole team respired.

Training was over.

The Rykers' holograms vanished as well as the floating football pitch, then Clamp opened the holo-trainer. A bunch of very tired looking teens appeared in the middle of the room when all of the black and white pixels were gone. Right now Ahito would've looked quite fresh and well-rested compared to his teammates.

"Good work, Snow Kids", Arch acclaimed. "Especially you, Thran. That was a quite impressive act."

"Thank you, Coach."

"Now go, hit the showers. D'Jok, you take a rest. Tomorrow I want you to be more concentrated!"

D'Jok yawned and stretched. "Yes, Coach." Then he followed the Snow Kids who left the hall while talking about the training and one of Mei's several photo shootings.

As Thran wanted to pass the door Dame Simbai stopped him and took him aside. "Thran", she began with her strange accent "I would like to examine you. Just to make sure you really didn't hurt yourself when you got fouled."

"No problem." He wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Can I look in on Ahito first?"

"The examination would be more important …"

Pensively Thran looked at the direction where his brother's room was. "Ok …"

Dame Simbai nodded and walked off to her work place. The defender followed her uncalled. He didn't like the treatment room since he had seen Ahito lying on the bedside. Motionless, looking as if he was dead.

It seemed that Simbai had read his thoughts when she said: "Your brother's all right for sure." She smiled confidently and stopped in front of the glass door, which led to the treatment room.

"How can you know?", Thran asked when he passed by her and sat down on a stretcher.

"Well, what can he do in his room that gets him to collapse?"

She was right.

With skilled measures Dame Simbai palpated his wrist. Her monitors in the training room apparently had shown her the injury otherwise she wouldn't know where the defender had harmed himself. He grimaced with pain when the medic pressed a point somewhere around the scaphoid bone.

"Ow!"

"Is this where it hurts most?" The woman had already taken some sort of a miniature X-ray apparatus and scanned Thran's left hand. With one look at the little monitor on the device she found the reason for the pain: "It's sprained."

"But I can play in the cup, right?"

"Guess I can't hinder you. But you have to cool your wrist. And let me immobilize it a bit with a suspensory bandage." There was no way one could escape Dame Simbai's care and so Thran just nodded in agreement.

Some minutes later his hand was bandaged and the defender knew everything about sprained wrist and how to medicate it. In thanks he left the treatment room and jogged over to Ahito's separate chamber. Supposedly the younger twin needed lots of rest and shouldn't be disturbed by his brother playing computer all the time. So against their will the twins had got separated, however that didn't keep Thran from visiting Ahito during his free time and gamble on the computer with him.

Unfortunately the last few days were fully packed with training for the Snow Kids so Thran barely had had time to look in on his little brother. Today I'm going to stay longer, he thought and pushed the white door to Ahito's room open. "Hey li'l bro!", he hailed – and startled.

The spacious chamber was empty.

No signs of the Snow Kids' ill goalkeeper.

"A-ahito?"

Nobody answered.

"Ahito!"

Still silence.

Thran bustled into the room and searched through it, then switched over to the bathroom. But Ahito was nowhere to be found. Suddenly his gaze came to rest on the built-in wardrobe. Its door was only ajared. He opened it carefully. Immediately he noticed the lacking clothes – and the missing training jersey.

Now the panic overwhelmed him like a freezing tsunami-like wave. Ahito was somewhere around playing football and obviously not paying attention to the bad condition he was in.

One moment of completely consternation Thran didn't know what to do. Then he took a deep breath and screamed: "Ahitooooo!"

It took only thirty-four seconds 'til all the other Snow Kids and staff were assembled around him asking questions he had no answers for.

"What happened, Thran?"

"What's wrong?"

"Where is Ahito?"

"Did he run away?"

With every question Thran slumped more and more. Eventually he was the perfect example of a picture of misery. Why did this have to happen? What did Ahito do? What made him do so?

"Quiet now!", a strong voice finally ensured order. Arch. The Snow Kids stepped aside and waited for advice. The coach needed only five seconds to get a general idea of the situation then he spoke again: "Everybody; look for Ahito in the whole academy! Whoever finds him brings him to Dame Simbai. Otherwise we'll meet in the assembly room by forty minutes. Off you go!"

As the academy was quite a big building, the time given was rather short so even Clamp and Arch set off to search the young goalkeeper. Thran was the last one to leave his brother's room. He ran through the corridors, opened every single door on his way, then examined the elevator and searched the first floor where the players' shared rooms were. Currently the defender opened another door which led to an unemployed chamber as he suddenly heard a voice.

It was faint and weakened with every moment elapsed but it was there.

Thran, please save me …

He instantly made it out: Ahito! "Where are you, little brother?!" Thran looked around hurried just to find that his brother wasn't there. Suddenly twin-telepathy returned to his mind. What if he had just sensed Ahito's thoughts? That would mean that his brother could be anywhere and it could take days to find him! But what if …

Thran didn't want to finish the scenario that sneaked into his imagination.

Again his twin's voice begged for help.

Ahito, where are you? Thran waited for an answer. In vain. Ahito, say something! Anything! AHITO!

One last time Ahito's twin-telepathy-mind-voice breathed an imploring Help!, then it died away.

Thran turned his heels and raced along the wide vestibules not paying attention to Mark and Yuki who he almost ran into. Arriving the lift he hammered against the buttons on the wall. The cabin took far too long to appear so the defender just rushed down the stairs taking several steps at a time.

Downstairs he took the shortest way to the assembly room hoping to find Arch there. How could there be so many corridors and rooms? This whole building was just far too big! Suddenly one of the doors on his right opened and the coach came out.

"Arch!" For once Thran forgot being polite and calling him 'Coach' but the man didn't take it a miss. The boy looked horrified when he told him about what happened. When he had finished his summary his eyes filled with tears. "He'll die!" The defender started sobbing. Quickly he wiped the tears away regaining some hope. "We have to find him!" Almost entreatingly he stared at Arch.

The Snow Kids' coach sighed. "For now we should wait for the others to come back. If nobody has found Ahito we will have to –"

"COACH!"

Tia's voice came from the direction of the main entrance. Rocket shouted, too: "COACH, there are footsteps in the snow!"

Although Thran, Arch and Mark and Yuki – who had followed the Yuki's cousin – initiated the same time, the defender reached the entrance first. Wordlessly Tia, who stood on the doormat, pointed at the ground. Deep footprints showed where Ahito had blazed a trail through the snow. "No one has left the academy today so these have to be Ahito's", Rocket explained, shivering from the coldness.

Thran looked at the way the footsteps led. "He's been in the city", he whispered.

"Then we just have to ask the people whether they have seen him", Micro-Ice, who had arrived a moment ago, suggested. "Everybody knows him, so we'll have found him in no time."

"What do you think how stupid he is?", Thran flared up. "He wouldn't be so dense to stay there. Besides: He wants to play football and the Town of Akillian is the last place to look for a pitch."

"How do you know?"

"He's my twin brother."

"Good point." Yuki rolled her eyes.

Thran wanted to leave the academy to follow his brother's trail when Arch mollifyingly put a hand on his shoulder. "We're going to look for Ahito, that's a promise, but first it would be better to tell the others about the footsteps and that we're going to search through the city. And I'll ask the Galactik Football League whether they are able to locate your brother. But acting precipitately won't help."

The defender trembled in anger. Normally he was calm himself though now he lost his temper. "My brother is somewhere out there, he's terribly ill and probably not able to make his way back to the academy anymore! AND YOU WANT ME TO STAY HERE AND DO NOTHING?!" Close to tears again he took a deep breath. Then he went on a bit more calm: "I'll go out there now", Thran pointed at the snow-covered landscape, "and look for him!"

"You won't have to."

"What the –"

Light blue hair, blue eyes and a black coat – that was what one would notice first of the girl who stood in the doorway. Some sweat poured from her forehead and made her look weary and tired but her voice was still clear and powerful even though a bit low. The reason was no other than –

"Ahito!"

The girl had put her right arm around the goalkeeper's waist to support him. With the left hand she held his arm to not let him loose his footing. Behind her in the snow one could clearly see the path she had taken. She seemed to have been carrying Ahito all the way to the academy all by her own.

With her bit too low-pitched voice she said: "Get a doctor."

As if agreeing with the girl the barely conscious goalie emitted a stifled moan. Then he lapsed into a deep coma.