Open RP: Sports? Are you serious?

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

(some time after her fevery/craziness episode. Probably a few weeks while she scrounged up materials. I know Adam wanted in on this one, but anyone's free to join in at their leisure. Warning for Dean in advance: if he comes into this, he's gonna get attacked. Not in a bad way per se, but I still thought the warning would be fair. XD And now there's a post on Starbuck's journal, So everyone can get a better idea of how this game goes.)

She got the ball. What she needed was the court.

It had taken a little longer than she'd expected. Well, to be honest, she hadn't thought about it hard enough. The good news was that she hadn't been bored in quite a while. The bad news was she'd searched for a tool kit forever and then had to take various equipment apart to get the pieces she'd needed, which was no small task. Good for keeping in shape, though, which was something.

Okay, she wasn't exactly sure that she had the pieces she needed. She'd certainly seen a pyramid court put together from scratch, but that was a little different than making it by yourself. Yeah, just a little.

Sador was whining at her again.

"It's not time for lunch yet, you brat," she told the dog as she surveyed the wreck she'd dumped in front of Space Mountain. She had marked out the arena with masking tape that she'd found in an office. It was regulation size, or she hoped it was after all the trouble she'd gone through to get it that way. Only one area left to tape off and then she could try to put up the rest of the equipment.

Not that she had any idea how to do that.

Comments

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Taking a walk to see if anything interesting was going on in the park, Adam wandered through Tomorrowland and caught a glimpse of someone familiar, so he headed that way. "Hallo, Starbuck! Whatcha up to? An' who's this?" he added, looking at Sador with a bright grin.

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

She grinned in spite of herself. "You know damn well who she is, and don't bother playing dumb. There's something not quite right about you, you know that, don't you?" It wasn't said in a particularly insulting manner, more like a truth that neither of them could get away from. She may not have all the knowledge of the universe, but she had her own extra sense about her. Wouldn't have made a very good viper jock if she didn't.

"I'm building a pyramid court. Figured I had to do something with all this spare time. And having a game to play might help get people to burn off all that built-up energy." Not that she was speaking from experience.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Smiling enigmatically, he shook his head. "I dunno who she is. You haven't even told me her name yet." That to Adam was more who someone was than the fact of his or her existence. Names were important. And he hadn't known what form of pet his potentiality would take. That had been entirely dependent on Starbuck.

"I like games," he said. "An' I've got lots of energy. What's pyramid?"

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

"Sador," she told him in answer to the question that wasn't really formed as a question. "It's elvish. The guy Strider helped me name her, he had lots of good ideas." Adam didn't have to talk, it was fine. She'd always know, no matter what.

She smirked at his talk of energy. "I'll bet you do..." she murmured. "Well, it's a game played in this triangular arena. There's one ball." She held up the one resting at her feet. "And you can play one-on-one, three-on-three, or five-on-five, which is a regulation size team. I need to set up these five metal barriers here; one at each bottom corner, one at each side. And at the top corner of the arena is where the goal goes. You have to shoot the ball through the hole to score points. Of course, it's a little more complicated than that...." She waited to see if it was catching his interest at all.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"Sador," he repeated looking at the dog, almost calling her. "That's nice. What's it mean?"

Adam grinned. "That seems pretty complicated. But no more'n Quidditch an' I was team captain for Gryffindor." He looked at the junk on the ground. "If I help you set up the goals an' stuff, will you show me how to play?"

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Sador instantly walked over to Adam, stretched out in a sort of bow, placing her head beneath his hand expectantly. Starbuck wasn't a bit surprised. "He said it meant faithful one." She shrugged as though it made little difference. Dog had a name, that was the important part.

She crouched down and taped the outline of a smaller triangle at the center of the arena. "It's not a hard as it looks. Court is complicated, but the game itself isn't too bad." She glanced up at the odd-sounding word. "Quidditch? That a favorite Earth sport?" She looked over at her little wreckage of sheet metal and snorted. "Okay, you're on. Hardest part is going to be getting the barriers set up sturdy enough that they don't fall over if a ball is thrown against them. Or a person." Which wasn't supposed to happen, but sometimes it did.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Scratching her head eagerly, Adam said, "Oh, you're a good dog, you are. An' your name is jus' right." Oh, he missed Dog sharply just then. But after another moment of praising and adoring Sador, he joined Starbuck at the taped outline.

He laughed. "Quidditch is a favourite wizardin' sport. Nobody else knows about it. But it's brilliant. It's played on flyin' broomsticks, an' there are four dif'rent balls that do dif'rent things an'... well, I c'n tell you more about it if you'd like, but we should build these things first. How are they normally made?"

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Sador licked the palm of Adam's hand and made a noise that was somewhere between a bark and a whine. It sounded far too much like human speech for its own good, and seemed to communicate some kind of agreement. Starbuck rolled her eyes and tried to figure out why she felt like she could understand the damn dog most of the time.

"Wizarding sport? On flying brooms? I think I prefer my cockpit, in all honesty." Still, if it was for wizards.... "I wonder if James and Sirius ever played it," she wondered out loud. Then she shook her head and stared at the ground. "Well, normally the sheets of metal would be bolted into the floor so that they stood upright, but since that's not really an option, I'm hoping to prop them up using other bits of sheet metal."

She lifted one plank to show how she had attached another piece at the back, which was a little smaller (using a hammer and the sharp end of a screwdriver to make holes in the metal and stealing nuts and bolts from various places... yes, she'd kept herself very busy). "As long as the sheet metal attached can be bent out without pulling loose of the bolts holding it at the top, getting it to prop up shouldn't be a problem." She hoped. She hadn't had the guts yet to try it, too worried that things would pry apart and all the hard work would be for nothing.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Adam smiled at Sador. "Yeah, you c'n be over here with us. Jus' don't get in the way. I don't wanna hurt you by accident."

He turned his attention back to Starbuck. "I got a broom here if you ever wanna try. It's somethin' else. An' James and Sirius both played for Gryffindor, too. I wonder if we could find a couple more brooms an' have those two magic 'em. Then we could play over the lake or somethin'..."

Filing away the idea for later, Adam paid attention to her explanation. He looked faintly dubious. "You think that'll be heavy enough? Well, if it's jus' the ball, I think it'd be fine, but I dunno if that'll take someone's weight if they accidentally crash against it. Could we back it up a bit with some crates filled with rocks or somethin'?"

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Sador trotted over and stood at attention behind Adam and Starbuck as though she were guarding them. Starbuck fought back a smirk. She follows her training better than I do.

Flying on brooms over the lake? "Now that I might pay to see," she told Adam, looking slightly skeptical. For whatever reason, after all that she had been through here, flying brooms just seemed one step beyond normal that she couldn't reconcile. She'd believe it when she saw it. As for getting her on one... well, that would be another story entirely. She didn't scare easy, but the idea of trusting to stay up in the air when you couldn't see or touch what was keeping you up there would require some barrier-breaking on her part.

She nodded when he pointed out the problem. She'd been wondering about it herself. "You know anywhere we can get crates? I'm all for that, if we can."

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"I don't think you'd even hafta pay," Adam said eagerly. "I 'spect James an' Sirius'd do it jus' for fun." He really did miss flying. It was his favourite part of that year spent at Hogwarts.

"I saw a bunch of 'em in the queue for the Indiana Jones ride an' the Jungle Cruise over in Adventureland. I dunno what's in 'em, if anythin', but I'm sure we can find lotsa heavy stuff."

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

"Well, that's good, since I'm pretty sure we don't have the same monetary system," she pointed out. What did these people normally use for money anyway? Just one of those tiny things that you forget will probably be different. "The fleet's just gotten used to the barter system anyway."

She'd passed by that ride once or twice, so she had an idea of what he was talking about. "Great. Should we try setting up the court first and then running over and getting them, or do you want to make the run now?"

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"I gave my last 50p to Calvin anyway," Adam laughed. "He was sellin' truth. Seemed like a good deal. But if you're used to barterin', maybe we'll fly for you if you'll try flyin' after."

Looking around at the sheets of metal, he said, "I dunno. If we set 'em up first, someone could come by while we're away and mess 'em up again, or take bits, not knowin' what they're for. Why don't we go get the crates?"

Rethreaded. Whee!

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"Well, all right. I guess I should tell ya a little 'bout Christianity then. Pull up a crate," grinned Adam, setting one down and settling on it. It felt right to be telling stories this way.

"See there's this one God who made everythin'. At first, he just made Heaven an' a bunch of angels. An' everythin' was real good. But his second-in-command, an angel called Lucifer, thought he could do God's job better or somethin', so he formed an army to take over. God decided that wantin' to do that was Pride an' Pride was Wrong, so He made all the angels in the new army Fall down to a new place called Hell where everythin' is bad an' all the rebel angels turned to demons with Lucifer as their leader. With me so far?" he asked.

"Right. Well, after a bit, God started creatin' stuff like Time an' stars an' planets an' then He finally created the Earth. An' after creatin' water an' land an' plants an' animals, He created people. Two people. Adam an' Eve. Humans who had free will. That's sorta a whole long story on its own, but basic'ly, those two had some kids and eventu'ly the whole world was covered in people with free will to decide if they wanted to be good or bad. So Heaven an' Hell started tryin' to influence the people to be good or bad so they'd go to Heaven or Hell when they died."

Adam wished he'd thought to bring a water bottle back as well. "Okay, so after 'bout four thousand years, God had a human son called Jesus. An' Jesus did miracles an' preached 'bout how people should be nice to each other an' lovin' an' stuff. Buncha people didn't like that, so they had him brutally killed. But by Jesus dyin' when he wasn't guilty, it somehow saved everybody's soul so they could go to Heaven, an' made it so you hadda be real bad to go to Hell.

"Worshippin' him, Jesus Christ, is called Christianity. An' Jesus's friends went out an' started this big church an' stuff. So people started writin' these stories down into the book I told you 'bout called the Bible. Well, some prophets started figurin' out what would happen later and wrote it up in the last chapter of the Bible called Revelations."

He sighed. "Revelations says that jus' like God had a son, Lucifer was gonna have one, too. He was gonna be called the Antichrist - the Beast where Jesus was the Lamb - an' he was gonna bring about the end of the world after it'd been around for six thousand years. Then Heaven an' Hell were gonna count up the people an' have a big war to see which side was better for once an' for all."

Pausing, Adam looked at Starbuck. "This makin' sense so far? Well, I mean it don't really make sense, but you're followin' it all right?"

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Starbuck blinked. Shook her head once. "Yeah, I think I'm getting it." Now she was really curious as to how Adam was going to fit into this....

It was weird hearing about one god creating everything. And that one god deciding on vices, and punishing so drastically for a first offense. The Lords of Kobol were for the most part benevolent when asked for help, but they tended to embody quite a few human vices themselves. It was one of the main reasons Starbuck prayed to them at all.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"All right. Well, at the end of six thousand years, the Antichrist was born. An' jus' like Jesus, he didn't know he was special when he was growin' up. But a few days after he turned eleven, he started gettin' all these powers, or maybe he just realized they'd been there all along. An' he started gettin' these feelin's like he really wanted to change the world. Weird things started happenin', like continents raisin' out of the sea an' forests regrowin' real fast an' nuclear power plants runnin' without their core. Stuff that shouldn't be possible. An' this boy was doin' it accidentally, jus' by thinkin'. But the feelin's were gettin' stronger an' there were dark voices tellin' him that he could make things better if he destroyed everythin' an' started over again."

Adam sort of stared vaguely off into the distance, unable to meet Starbuck's eyes. But it was true, even if it wasn't terribly flattering, so he continued, his voice a little hollow.

"Now this boy had power like you wouldn't imagine. He knew everythin' an' could do anythin' at all. One of his titles was Prince of This World, an' it was true. Reality loved him so desperately that it'd do anythin' to please him an' would be whatever he wanted. No one had more power than him 'cept God an' even then it was close. That's a lot for one eleven-year-old to take, really. But for all his power, for all his bein' the embodiment of Evil, he was human, too. An' humans have free will. They can make their own decisions. So for all the swirlin' darkness in his head, for everythin' tellin' him that it was his destiny, an' to all the armies massin' for the final War, that boy said no."

He blinked and looked right at Starbuck. "I said I wasn't gonna."

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

She was getting pretty drawn in by the time he ended it. Her eyes widened, but instead of chanting Latin or screaming or trying to hit him, she gave him a reaction that would probably have been pretty uncommon in his world; she grinned. "So, you're the kid of the guy who runs the place where all the bad people are supposed to go? And you've got all this power, but you didn't do what you were created to do?"

She could understand that this was a slightly bigger deal for Adam than she was making it out to be. At the same time, retaliating against parental figures was something she was all to familiar with, and if his dad was anything like her mom.... "So how'd the folks react to that?"

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Relieved and amused by her reaction, Adam grinned back. "That's 'bout it. They can't seem to take the power away. I've wrestled with it a bit," he snorted, "especially when I was 'bout fifteen, but I think I got it under control now, an' I've made a choice to be true neutral. I kinda ended up with the Earth as my realm, so I look out for it. I think it's 'bout time people got to jus' be people without anyone else messin' 'em about. We'll see how things go when they're doin' it all on their own."

He swung his legs against the crate. "My real dad didn't like what I did much. He tried to come up from Hell, but I stopped him. We've never act'lly talked. I think he wrote me off as a bad job." Adam's grin got wider and more mischievous. That's saying something when Lucifer thinks you're bad. But two bads don't necessarily equal a good, either. "There's a lotta stuff you can do when people are deliberately ignorin' you..."

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

"Fifteen?" She quirked her eyebrows. "Why fifteen? You start trying to hit on girls?" Mostly it was just funny in her ears. Without anyone else messin' 'em about. Yeah, that was definitely one way of putting it. She had to appreciate the vision of it, though. What she would have done for someone to have given that to her people.

"You were lucky," she told him. "Lucky he ignored you. Must make it one hell of a playground...." Bad didn't scare Starbuck. It was the ones who claimed they could fix everyone, make them better or make the world better, that scared her.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"Everyone wrestles with themselves at fifteen," he pseudo-explained. Although by that point it was mostly girls hitting on him and him trying not to want that.

"Dunno how much of it was luck, really," Adam added with a mischievous smile. Probably not surprisingly, the ones who claimed they could fix everyone and make the world better were the people who scared Adam, too. He had been so close to being that person, but with the power to back it up. They say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions...*

*This is not actually true. The road to Hell is paved with frozen door to door salesmen. On weekends many of the younger demons go ice skating down it.

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

She didn't miss the avoidance. But it wasn't like it was her business to pry. "Or with everyone else." She had. But then, wrestling was one of her favorite ways to pass the time, wasn't it?

Now the thing that really stuck at the back of her mind was this, though, "So, do you get a regular hman life? I mean to grow and age normally? Do you die eventually?" He had to, right? That Jesus guy did, or it seemed like he had been until he got himself hung out to dry.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Adam shrugged. "No one seems to be able to agree on that. It's not like there was s'posed to be a world for me to grow up in." He knew, of course, but it wasn't the kind of information he liked to share.

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

She couldn't imagine he didn't know, but if he wasn't telling he had a reason. A reason that maybe she didn't want to know, so she decided not to ask obnoxiously. Starbuck gazed around the court carefully. "Any of the sport arenas at home look like this? Or do I look like I'm creating some kind of big animal trap here?"

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

He squinted his eyes and looked at the court. "Well, it kinda looks like basketball an' it kinda looks like football an' it kinda looks like nothin' else I've ever seen. I'll be interested to see how it's played."

[i-have-my-flaws.livejournal.com]

Basketball. Football. Well, those were... unoriginal names. Then again, pyramid wasn't very inventive either. But at least it didn't have the word 'ball' in it. "Well, it's a lot of throwing and tackling and toppling people over, if that gives you a better idea," she said wryly, grabbing the ball from the center of the arena and tossing it back and forth in her hands. "Don't know how that compares to what you're used to."