Chapter 72.

Happy Thunderbirds day!

-x-

Gordon frowned from the (relative) safety of his ground-dwelling vantage point.

After Penelope had finished introducing the match and retreated to the safety of the VIP box, along with Kayo and Sally, his brothers had hastily dispersed themselves around the pitch in an attempt to make it look like they knew what the hell they were doing.

Alan donning his 'oh shit' face debunked that façade in a heartbeat.

Gordon shook his head and took a large bite out of a strawberry kebab, "Why do I just know this isn't going to end well?"

Halfway across the pitch, John screamed in a mixture of outrage and horror as Virgil experimentally swung his mallet and accidentally whacked Inka on the backside. The polo pony gave a snort of terror and catapulted several feet off the ground, causing poor John to almost lose his lunch in the process.

Gordon cringed and instinctively rose to his feet, but stopped upon hearing the string of rather mature profanities spilling out of the redhead's mouth. Anyone who thought that John Glenn Tracy was the quiet, meek brother was oh so wrong. Was he a loner? Yes. Was he anti-social? Most definitely. Was he capable of being a grade A pain in the space ass? Oh yes siree…

But quiet? Absolutely not. And meek? The only thing meek about John was the pitiful lack of patterned socks in his wardrobe.

A half-eaten strawberry was wedged back between the aquanaut's gums as he retook his seat on the grass. He and Kayo had a bet going that John would be the first Tracy to snap and go on a murdering spree if the current drought of rescue work didn't remedy itself soon. Neither Gordon nor Kayo had any reservations about the redhead's ability to snuff out a life if he wanted to; he was cold, calm and collected when angered, a deadly (and occasionally messy) combination.

A blond brow travelled north as John returned Virgil's unintentional whack with a very intentional whack of his own. No way was Gordon getting involved in whatever had his psychotic brother's boxers in a bunch. As things stood he'd have to get within murdering distance just to ask John if he was okay, which was something even Scott had learnt not to do. The redhead had ridiculously long arms.

Speaking of Scott…

"Virg, you're our defence!" the eldest yelled, swinging Cosmos in a circle as two mounted umpires and referee trotted onto the pitch, "I'll take primary offense while Alan covers midfield. John, you're our tactical link."

Alan looked as if Scott had just recited a death poem in Arabic, "What?!"

The eldest Tracy ground his molars in frustration, "You and I play forward while John and Virgil worry about defence."

"Does that mean I get to whack people with my mallet?" Alan asked, scowling in anticipation of the inevitable 'no' he knew Scott would delight in delivering.

Much to everyone's surprise, the prophesised refusal never came.

"Be my guest. Onward to victory, savages!"

-x-

It was indeed a solid victory that the newly dubbed 'International Savages' were clawing their way towards almost one hour later.

Consistent with their self-appointed team name, the Tracys were indeed playing in a manner that could only be described as savage (or feral, depending on which part of the crowd you had the misfortune of sitting in. Spectators occupying the south terrace had been forced to duck multiple stray airborne balls, courtesy of an overenthusiastic Alan).

The innocent bystanders that made up ninety nine percent of the audience had begun to nudge and whisper when it became apparent that the match they were watching had more in common with cage fighting than polo.

John hurtling across the pitch and brandishing his mallet with a lot more force than was necessary, only to mistime his swing and catch a flanking Virgil square in the jaw offered both visual and auditory confirmation that yes, what the spectators were being treated to was indeed glorified cage fighting.

Virgil losing two teeth offered medical confirmation.

Unsurprisingly (for those who were on personal terms with the Tracys, at least), the decorum and refinement that one commonly associated with polo were chucked out the window with an honourable salute when it became clear that Scott was utterly incapable of losing.

More to the point, he was utterly incapable of keeping his trap shut when it looked as if the other team might potentially, maybe, just possibly, gain possession of the ball.

"VIRGIL!" Scott all but screamed, ploughing Cosmos into the rival team's Number Three player in an effort to thwart the attempted ballnapping, "Get your ass over here and help me box this guy in!"

Thunderbird Two's pilot managed to twist his bloodstained face into an appropriate expression of outrage, "I've just lost two teeth, Scott!"

"And I couldn't give two shits!" Scott howled back, not in possession of enough spare brain power to process the depth and magnitude of Virgil's injury, "I need backup and I need it now!"

Up the other end of the pitch, John ceased patrolling the goalposts to respond to his brother's request. One swift kick and Inka was galloping towards Cosmos, throwing up great chunks of earth as she and John blasted to the rescue.

"I've got it! I've got it!" the redhead cried, zeroing in on the ball like Grandma on a two for one deal.

"It's mine! It's mine!" Alan yelled, boomeranging across the pitch like a bullet.

"John, you ginger moron!" Scott shrieked, banking to the right in an effort to redirect the ball away from its captor, "Stay by those posts! You've left us wide open!"

Predictably, the redhead responded negatively to Scott's aggression, "We're down a player! Beggars can't be choosers!"

Scott could feel himself wither inwardly as Cosmos struggled to keep pace with the other team's Number Three player. They were two chukkas in and had yet to change ponies. Unsurprisingly, the cracks were starting to show.

The other team surged ahead and managed to snag their first goal. Over by the hotdog stand, Gordon was standing with the reserve Delta and Hellfire, their reins clasped in the hand that was attached to his uninjured arm.

"Oh boy…" the aquanaut muttered, chancing a glance at Virgil's bloodied face as Penelope announced the commencement of half time, "This is going to be interesting."

As the crowd began to filter onto the pitch to tread in the turf divots ready for the second half of the match, Sally came bustling down from the VIP box to tend to her dentally deprived grandson, "Oh, my poor boy! Look at you! Quick, hand the beast over to Gordon and come with me. We're getting you straight to the medical tent, young man…"

Thunderbird Two's pilot put up no resistance as he handed Zantor's reins to Gordon, before allowing Sally to seize his arm and gently guide him away from the ferociousness of upper class sport.

"You ginger tomato!" Scott snapped, swinging off Cosmos and glaring freshly sharpened daggers at John, "Now what are we supposed to do? There's no way we'll be able to maintain our two point lead if we're down a player! We'll be lucky to make it to the next chukka at this rate!"

Despite being preoccupied with loosening Dala's girth, Alan managed a frown, "Why did you just call him a tomato?"

Scott's glare deepened to wrinkle-forming level, "People think he's a vegetable, but he's really a fruit!"

Gordon shared a wide-eyed look of disbelief with Alan at their eldest brother's justification, "So, I'm guessing that's a creative way of saying he's two-faced?"

Scott stuck his nose in the air and made a grab for Delta's reins, "I can never tell what his motives are. Staying near the goalposts would have been the obvious defensive choice, but old space carrot decides to trot off and do the exact opposite instead. You're not in cahoots with the other team's Number One, are you? I saw you making moony eyes at her at the end of the first chukka."

John squinted in disapproval, "Of course not! I took the initiative and did what I thought was right."

The expression of stupefaction plastered across Scott's face would have been funny, were it not for the accompanying flared nostrils and clenched fists, "Listen here Johnny boy, this isn't about you, okay? This is about something much bigger than you. This is about me."

Out on the pitch, Penelope quirked a brow as she spied John and Scott locking sweat-drenched horns, "Oh dear, what's being said now?"

Kayo glanced up from stamping on a particularly stubborn divot with one of her utterly impractical heels, "Eh, probably something that involves the words 'kiss', 'fat', and 'ass'. Leave them to it, the extra adrenalin might help them net a win."

On the edge of the churned up mess of a field the crowd were pathetically trying to even out, Tracy War Three was becoming a very real threat, as exemplified by both Scott and John's concluding insults.

"Suck it up gingernut! I'm the Favourite and you're the Reject!"

"Kiss the fattest part of my ass!"

-x-

Thankfully, victory remained firmly clasped in the hands of the International Savages.

Kayo theorised that it had something to do with the Favourite kissing the fattest part of the Reject's ass.

In light of having to surrender Virgil to the sterilised horror of a dentist's chair, Gordon had volunteered to unofficially act as a goalkeeper for his brother's team. The position required fairly minimal movement of his bad arm and afforded the other three the time and manpower needed to maintain possession of the ball. It wasn't like poor Dynamo was going to see any action with Virgil out of commission anyway, and this arrangement afforded the chestnut polo pony a smidgen of excitement.

The match concluded on a score of eleven to seven. The cheers of elation from the crowd had been mind-blowing, and the Tracys had found themselves riding a high that surpassed even the one Penelope's ridiculously expensive whiskey had given them.

But the combined screams of nearly three hundred people hadn't come close to the animalistic shrieks that had torn out of Kayo's lungs when Scott had battled against the opposing team's Number Four to reclaim ownership of the ball, only to expertly hook it out from beneath the hooves of his opponent's horse and wallop it towards the Tracy goal with pinpoint accuracy and precision.

"Take 'em down, babe!" Kayo had roared, punching the air triumphantly when the ball cartwheeled over the white line and netted the boys their eleventh and final goal. Naturally, the press fell all over this statement like bird shit on a freshly washed car, frantically scribbling up draft articles lambasting Scott for discarding the well-liked Penelope Creighton-Ward (his rumoured fiancé) in favour of the steel-fisted Tanusha Kyrano.

While everyone was busy gushing over Scott's heroic final goal, the remaining three Tracys took the opportunity to slip away and regroup over by the hotdog stall.

"Look at him," John muttered, sourly dousing his lunch in mustard, "Taking all the credit like he won the match single-handedly."

Gordon tilted his head and looped Dynamo's reins over his shoulder, "Well, he did score most of the goals."

"I scored four!" John snapped, his tone causing Hellfire to startle, "He just didn't see, what with his head being wedged so far up his ass and all…"

Alan shrugged and offered a piece of his hotdog bun to Flare, "I didn't manage to score any. In fact, I can't even remember what I did for most of the match."

"Charged around and screamed if the ball got even remotely close to you," John enlightened, "Which was significantly better than Gordon's failed attempts at passing the ball to someone actually on the same team as him."

The aquanaut harrumphed and stuffed two thirds of his hotdog into his mouth, "Land-based sports aren't my forte. The umpire should have listened to my suggestion and just flooded the pitch. Not like you can get up much speed with all those damn divots anyway. Water polo is much more fun, though I reckon you two would probably end up drowning."

John snorted and nearly sprayed mustard out his nose, "Sport isn't my forte, full stop. All my muscle is mental. Say Gordo, did you have regular milk in that latte I saw you slurping earlier?"

"Almond," Gordon replied, making a face, "Tasted like dishwater."

"Did you know that the average person farts thirteen times a day?" Alan chimed in, baby blues narrowing as they locked onto Scott's peacocking form.

Gordon's own eyes widened in a mixture of intrigue and excitement, "Finally, something I'm above average at!"