Instant Fun, Just Add Shark

[morphitudinous]

Characters: Billy and anyone!
Location: Garden's pool, fairly early one morning.
Rating: PG (nothing more saucy than people in swimsuits)
Open/Closed/Finished: Open!
Summary: Bubbles. Heart pounding. It's a shark---no, just Billy out for a swim.

When swimming, Billy prefers to keep his head below the water. It's not to show off his ability to hold his breath for a lap or two---that's a good side benefit, but it developed after his preference for staying underwater. He stays below because it's an easy way to drown out the world. With his head submerged, he can't hear any disapproval of offworlders. There's no commentary on his scarred body. And, perhaps most importantly, he can be aware of any lingering threats if his eyes are open.

So Billy spends as much time underwater during his laps as possible, prescription goggles firmly attached. He's a stream of bubbles and a peach and blue shape sliding the surface, only surfacing for air for a few brief seconds. This swimming is entirely serious business, you see. No time for chat. Just time to...run. Or swim, in this case.

His concentration is quite suddenly interrupted by the bean bags that some clown has decided to throw in. He scowls, surfacing for just long enough to toss one to the deck. You'd almost think some people have fun when they go swimming!

Comments

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

That beanbag he threw hits the water with force like a cannonball. On the side of the pool, the Swimming instructor stood with arms crossed, grinning.

"Not much of a return on that one."

[morphitudinous]

Billy surfaced, fully expecting to find that Pinkie had returned for another experiment. What he found instead certainly surprised him. He tugged his goggles to rest around his neck and slipped over to the ledge.

"...oh, it's you. I see you're picking up where Miss Pinkamena left off. Aren't your sport's balls a little bigger?"

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"Little bigger, lot heavier, and a bit more solid. Still, trainin's trainin'." Jecht casually, hopped into the water, his splash clearly just for show considering that he moved, if anything, more easily while in the pool than he did on land. "A blitzball's easy to kick across the pool. One of these things, that's a challenge."

[morphitudinous]

Billy pulled himself back, lifting an arm just in time to shield his goggles. "And you never back away from a challenge."

He easily pulled himself into a dive and retrieved one, idly juggling it in his hand when he surfaced. "The water weight won't help now, I imagine. But enough momentum from an acrobatic trick should do it."

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"Naw, I mean underwater. They just don't have the weight to keep their speed... or the right surface t'really bounce off a foot."

Jecht scooped a bag out of the water, then tossed it into the air. As it arced up, he ducked under the water briefly, then kicked off the bottom to launch up into the air. Spinning, he caught the beanbag with a bicycle kick just as it began to fall back down. It hit the water's surface like a gunshot, sailing halfway across the pool before resistance finally stopped it.

Jecht splashed back into the water lithely. "Y'see? The way I figure it, if I can get it to bounce out the other side, I'm finally back in shape."

[morphitudinous]

Billy stared. He felt his eyebrows shooting up too---what? He couldn't help it.

"Of all the people to be worried about staying in shape, you are? I understand the value of sports training, but...I really don't think you need to worry too much."

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Jecht floated there for a moment, arms and legs moving in lazy circles to keep him suspended... then laughed once, bitterly.

"I used ta think like that. 'I'm the Great Jecht! Ain't no one better than me!' If I'd kept thinkin' like that a little longer, I'd've gotten kicked off the team, because that's how lousy I was playin' at the time."

[morphitudinous]

"Ah. So you learned your lesson." Billy drummed his fingers along the ledge, thinking through what he'd just seen.

"...did you need a more appropriate ball to practice with, or are you asserting your dominance over all spherical objects?"

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"The dominance thing," he said absently. "Blitzball's other there though." Jecht jerked his thumb at a bench by the wall, where the ball sat.

[morphitudinous]

Billy climbed out of the water and approached the bigger ball, staring at it. "Curious shape. All the better for handling underwater, though I still don't understand how it's possible to kick with the same amount of force you use above-ground. Do you junction stronger spells to your Strength stats?"

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"Naw, that feels like cheatin'," Jecht said dismissively. "The thing's made to be kicked around like that. Don't ask me the physics, I'm no scientist."

[morphitudinous]

"Then maybe it's an atmospheric adjustment in the water itself?"

Billy picked up the blitzball and turned it in his hands. He couldn't detect any special properties from that basic examination.

"I'm sorry if I'm being obtuse again, but I am a scientist. One who is more and more baffled by this world every day."

He tossed the blitzball up above him speculatively, then tried tossing it at Jecht. It felt slow in the air than he would guess. That was just his lack of training in the particular sport, of course.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"This all's normal to me," Jecht said, casually catching the ball. "That's what I mean. Then again ya get to a point where wakin' up in a new world stops weirdin' you out, I guess."

He almost casually kicked the ball at the wall, then caught it on the rebound.

[morphitudinous]

Billy's impressed. His jaw drops in surprise---for two reasons. Athleticism is secondary here.

"I'm assuming that you're referring to more than one displacement?"

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"Yep," Jecht said casually, blasting the ball back at the wall again. This time, when it came back, he judged the moment carefully, then punched it back at the wall with just as much force as if he'd kicked it to begin with.

[morphitudinous]

"Time Compression is unpredictable enough already..."

He trailed off before he could say anything really insensitive.

"Great shots. If we ever get around the budget barrier, the Blitzball events would draw a real crowd."

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

If he were finishing the Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shot Mark III, he'd be leaping up and spinning right about now... but he ain't. When the ball came back towards him, he hopped up into the air, caught it, then turnd a neat backflip to land directly in the pool.

After a moment, he surfaced.

"The first one wasn't Time Compression. Lots weirder than that. And I wanna agree with ya, but one great player doesn't make a great spectacle. It only counts if the guys you're goin' against are good too."

[morphitudinous]

"And you're not sure you'll find a great player unless someone from your world shows up," Billy finished, watching the ball quiver in the water.

"And thus we've found the inherent difficulty of any Garden sporting league. No one seems to be trained in the same games."

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"Ha! Ain't anyone showin' up to compete with me! Naw, what I'm sayin' is, you need a couple teams worth watchin'. They don't all haveta be great, but good enough that you're not groanin'. Honest thing is," Jecht said, folding his arms, "I shouldn't even play if we ever did get some teams together. Takes all the fun out of it."

[morphitudinous]

"Would you be content to coach?"

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"Yeah... pretty much resigned myself to that, least till some people get good enough that I can get back in the sphere."

But Jecht fell quiet, then, frowning down at the blitzball as if it had offended him.

[morphitudinous]

Even Billy could sense an oddly placed lull. He wrung his towel out and sighed, settling on the pool's ledge.

"Are our athletic prospects as a Garden that dim?"

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Kind of a vicious circle, ya know? People ain't interested till they can see it played. Can't play it properly without a sphere. Can't get a sphere if enough people ain't interested.

[morphitudinous]

"That's true. You'd have to show them some sort of recording, or..."

Billy closed his eyes in thought.

"Maybe it would be possible to animate a simulation. I'm not that kind of programmer, but I'm sure someone is."

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

"An' I don't know the first thing about that either. I guess someone could... kinda loses somethin' on the screen, but that's just my opinion." He drummed his fingers on the opposite biceps, though there's a wry smile on his face. "I was always in the thick of it, after all."