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]

"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."

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"Sounds like ruggers," said Adam. "Or rugby, really. My friend Brian's always goin' on 'bout it. Or that American Football that Greasy Johnson likes. I hope the rules are simpler, though." He laughed.

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

She felt bad that there was any person int he world who people called 'Greasy', but that left her head quickly and she shrugged and smiled. "I don't think they're too bad. The big thing is, when you have the ball you can only take three paces before passing, shooting or bouncing the ball off of one of the barriers. Obviously, in a one-on-one game you use the barriers since there's no one to pass to. And the corners and triangle at the center that are outlined with the tape are neutral zones; you place the ball inside it and no one can tackle you, but the ball has to be on the ground inside the zone."

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Adam nodded to show he understood. "Three steps. I think that's like basketball. The neutral zone is kinda interestin', though. If you're holdin' it there, isn't it easier for someone to get close enough to tackle you when you fin'ly do move?"

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

"Yup, which is why you normally use your time in the neutral zone to figure out who you can pass the ball to on your team," she explained, tapping her foot at the central triangle. "This position is easier. You can move around it while still keeping the ball inside. When you're in one of the corners it's harder because you normally have to charge past a person to get out." She liked it, though. Crouched down low on the ground in that particular kind of face-off. Getting a good look at the person's eyes and gaging whether or not they could take you if you came barrelling forward right then-

"In a one-on-one game the person doesn't always move to tackle you, though. They'll usually face you because it's easier to try and snatch the ball from your hands once you take it off the ground than it is get you both down there."

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Looking unfocused for a moment, like he was trawling the universe for an image of that, which is quite possibly what he was, in fact, doing, Adam smiled.

"It sounds neat. But if I'm gonna get to see how it all works, we'd better get this court finished, huh?"

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

She had a funny feeling he was going to catch on pretty quick.

"Right," she said, standing up and getting to work arranging metal barriers so that they could be propped up correctly. It seemed like her makeshift panels were holding fine, thank the gods. "Okay, you set the three panels up at the sides, I'll get the two at the bottom corners and the goal at the top corner."

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

He often did.

Adam watched what she was doing for a moment, then got to work on the three panels she'd indicated. It didn't seem like too much longer that he finished up and looked over.

"How's this?"

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

Damn, he was fast.

Starbuck was fixing up the goal properly when she looked over. "Very nice," she decided. She was messing with the panelling; the goal had an extra panel that direct the ball down and back out through a hole at the bottom after a goal was scored. Once she'd made sure that it couldn't escape on the sides, she went to stand in the center of the arena.

"Not bad. And it's regulation size, which is the important thing."

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

Grinning, Adam looked at how the goal worked and asked, "How do you know?"

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

She did a kind of eyebrow-shrug, placing her hands on her hips. "Military. One thing you have to be able to judge with reasonable accuracy on sight is distance. And I know regulation size because I was in line to play professionally when I was fresh out of school. Got a bad knee, though. That was when I discovered flying." So it had all worked out right, really. Because the cockpit was definitely where she was supposed to be.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"Really? You were gonna be a professional? I'd best be careful, then," Adam said, still smiling. "But you seem like you like flyin' better anyway. Isn't it interestin' how things usu'ly work out for the best, even when it don't seem like it at the time?"

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

She pointed a warning finger, smirking. "Don't think I'm going to go easy on you just because you haven't played Mr Unlimited-Power-From-Another-Dimension."

To be honest, Starbuck didn't really know if anything worked out for the best. It certainly hadn't with Zak. Or her mother. Or, oh, her entire frakking civilzation. Perhaps the most disgusting thing about it was, even though she was a devout pessimist in the face of it all, she had some resevoir of hope somewhere that persisted in telling her that everything was going to work out. She wouldn't make it to Earth (she'd die in some huge firefight before the end), but everyone else would, and they would live. Most of the time, she hated it that little resevoir. Right now she wasn't really sure.

"I do like flying better. It was just one of those things; got in the cockpit and had the feel instantly. I miss it around here." She was in control in a viper, at least.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

"I don't expect it at all," he laughed. "Don't worry, I'm used to gettin' beat by girls. Well, one girl anyway. Pep made sure I'd never be one of those boys that has to win all the time."

Adam tended to take the long view of things, and if you take a long enough view, things do tend to work out. Not necessarily for individuals, however...

"All the more reason you should fly on brooms with us," he nodded finally.

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

"She was one of the friends you had in that gang you were telling me about?" Starbuck recalled. "The Them, right? Good thing you had someone to keep you in your place." It didn't occur to Starbuck that being beat by girls is something that boys on Earth wouldn't be used to. The gender politics of her civilization was just a little different from the planet that the twelve colonies had set out for. She may be one of the Toughest of the Tough, but it wasn't among a group of prissy princesses for sure.

"A broom is out in open air. A cockpit is contained and has controls; pitch, yaw, roll and all that. I'm kind of doubting a magic broom is going to work the same way." Really doubting it.

[average-adam.livejournal.com]

He grinned. "It works 'zactly the same way. Only it's instinctive. There's no instruments to rely on. You jus' gotta trust it." Pepper would do it for sure, he thought.