Angelo and Matteo are both in the game room playing pool, well more so Matteo playing pool. He's very good at it, he's able to perform all kinds of shots, trick shots, behind the back shots, there are little shots he's not able to perform. He sees this as a sort of mind training, so all shots without missing with maximum precision was the best practice he had to train his mind. It was also a heck of a lot of fun too.
Angelo is just watching and all of the skills and how he's able to put every ball on the hole without messing up once, he saw how calculated and precise he was and how all of his movements are all necessary. Matteo prepares to line up the last shot of the 8 ball with his cue stick into the far right corner of the table, it's a pretty far and long shot but he's done this before... Crash! Just like that the ball shoots into the hole with total perfection.
"Yeah !"
Matteo's arms shoot up in the air.
"Did you see that Angelo, pretty cool right ?!"
"Yeah that was cool"
His amazing blonde hair shines with the ceiling light like a spotlight. He looks into Angelo's eyes and realizes he's not as amused as he is and his head is down. He still smiles but his eyes soften "Hey I angel don't beat yourself up about it".
Angelo moves his head up looking up at Matteo who is about 3 feet taller than him.
"Working with dad on his projects is hard work. It took me years to get the hang of it."
Matteo smiles down at Angelo.
Matteo will always be the amazing older brother to Roberto and Angelo, but Samantha just can't seem to grasp that Matteo gets all of the attention from her father leaving her in his shadow.
Matteo notices this and tries his hardest every time to be at Samantha's side, but with her jealousy there's not a thing he can do to convince her he's on her side as her older brother.
"Matteo, what do you think will happen with the monster's outside?"
"Hopefully father is right and they'll be gone after a while and this thing will blow over."
Matteo isn't as worried because he on the other hand has seen a monster before. Except the monster wasn't really a monster, as a matter of fact it was royalty.
Three years ago, when Matteo was ten years old he met Sir Rhys Kafka. He was a 7 foot tall koi fish standing on two legs and very long whiskers. He spoke fluently in Italian so naturally he got along really well with the Owelis when they met in important dinner parties.
Sir Rhys Kafka was knighted by the Count due to his public relations and being the grand voice for inhumans everywhere, he would give speeches around the world advertising peace between both sides of the war. Since the day they met Matteo has admired the purity and kindness that radiated from Rhys that night. Now he's spent every day to become Sir Kafka and respect all Inhumans everywhere no matter who, to Matteo any sign of disrespect towards an inhuman is a disrespect towards Sir Kafka.
Back to the present Matteo has the opportunity to assure Angelo just how Rhys assured Matteo.
"Don't you worry about anything Angel, as long as your big brothers are here nothing bad will happen to you."
Matteo grabs his shoulder and gives a genuine smile. This is a promise, for as long as Matteo is in his presence no bad will occur.
This was enough to lift Angelo's spirits. So very inspirational, so heart warming to the point he doesn't ever why he was worried in the first place.
Suddenly they both hear footsteps entering the game room. They both turn to see Roberto, he walks in with a book wrapped around his arms covering the title.
He walks in then abr
"Oh! He-hey big brother!"
Roberto abruptly stops walking as soon as he sees Matteo.
"Hey! how's it going… say are you alright?"
"Y-yep, yeah! I just want Angelo."
Roberto makes eye contact with Angelo and Roberto turns to the door looking back at Angelo waiting for him to follow.
Matteo didn't mind and went back to the pool table.
Angelo made his way through the door and closed it on his way out.
"Angelo, I need you."
Angelo raises his eyebrows in confusion. Roberto almost never asks for help let alone him.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. Nothing at all brother, here take this."
Angelo is passed a book from Roberto's arms. It reads "Advanced tuning".
This is a book about modifying vehicles and improving their performance.
" What's this? You gonna tune a car Roberto?"
Roberto smiles
"No Angelo, WE are going to tune a motorcycle. An Oweli never backs down from a challenge."
These words aren't like Roberto, it's like he's motivated to do something for once. That thing being what scares Angelo, he doesn't mean?
"We're going to take up that fiend's challenge and beat that furry animal at his own game. WE are going to race him ."
"But dad said-"
"Dad has nothing to prove, he wants to have us ignore this and the entire town will look down on us. I'm tired of being treated like a little kid". (says the ten year old)
Roberto looks around to see if anyone's nearby and at the gameroom door, then speaks in a lower voice.
"You're the only one I can trust not to sell me out to dad, and I can't do this alone. I need more hands."
"I just don't know about this Roberto."
Roberto lets out a sigh. He never truly believed that Angelo would be completely thrilled to help take up the Ventura gangs challenge. He hasn't been watching Matteo and his father for hours in the garage waiting for them to offer a lesson in engineering. Roberto has always had to watch closely and teach himself, eventually he got pretty good at it but Matteo would always get a whole lot better leaving what Roberto has learned completely useless and outdated.
"Well… I'll be in the garage tonight working on an old model dad worked on when he was our age. I'll tune that up and see that it's race ready. Tomorrow I'll try and contact the Ventura gang, there I would need your backup."
Roberto takes one last look around to make sure they're not being watched.
"I'll let you sleep on it. I could use your help Angelo."
Those last words were genuine and spoken in a soft tone Roberto wouldn't normally use.
Roberto gives a nod and walks off turning a corner in the hallway.
Angelo was now by himself thinking. This is the opportunity he's been waiting for the moment he could prove himself just as Roberto said. The opportunity is offered to him but now he freezes, this is dangerous and it's going against his father's wishes. Angelo has never been one to break the rules, he's a good kid after all.
****
Time passes by and Angelo finds himself in his bedroom and he sees his large comfortable bed with its brown covers and dark oak frame. It's about time for him to hunker down from this stressful day. He moved the blanket over so he could hop on and place it back over his chest.
He lays over to his left side facing the wall, closes his eyes and begins to clear his mind.
Not long Angelo's mind starts to think about what Roberto's doing right now. His little fingers are trying to do some kind of wiring on the vehicle. At least he thinks he has to look at wiring… He doesn't really know how tuning works.
Once again Angelo tries to forget about everything and clear his mind. For how tired he is after this eventful day it became easier to just slowly ease away from consciousness.
…..There we go….. just pitch black…..