Disclaimer:  SSX Tricky and its characters belong to EA Sports BIG and um… probably that executive producer guy with the really long last name that's in every single DVD feature, lol.  I think his first name's Steve… I've yet to decode what his last name is…

We Are NOT Sports People

Chapter Two

Mac felt a pang of nostalgia when he entered the High Water Gymnasium.  The smell of floor-cleaning solution, polished bleachers, and basketball hide was an all-too-familiar scent to his nose.  For a lost second, he longed to be home again and back at his own school, but Kaori started speaking, interrupting his thoughts.

"Wow… so big," she whispered, doing an entire spin on her toes, staring up at the ceiling in awe.

"Yea, I know," he said, smiling at her.  "Kinda gives you the impression that you're real small, doesn't it?"

She frowned and shook her head.  "No.  It gives me the impression that someone spent far too much time building a gymnasium so tall."

Mac blinked, just as Rahzel cleared his throat, turning around and standing in front of the SSX Tricky group.  He motioned to the volleyball court behind him, as well as the cameras and microphones that were being set up around the court.

"Here we are, people.  Now, first and foremost, I suppose I should go over the rules of volleyball with you."  He shot Kaori a warm smile and continued.  "Volleyball is a very simple sport, played with a ball about the size of a soccer ball, but lighter than one.  Here."  Rahzel bent down and picked up a white ball, showing everyone.

"Everyone's seen a volleyball before, Rahzel," Eddie droned, looking extremely bored and a little sleepy.

"Yea, get on with it," Moby barked, sticking another potato chip into his mouth.  Somehow, he'd summoned the snack while on the bus, even though food was strictly forbidden.

"Right," Rahzel said.  "There are players of six on the court at a time, which is very convenient for us, because there are twelve of you all.  Two of these players have special names: setters.  They set the ball up so it can be spiked."

"Boooooring," Psymon drawled, stretching.

"Yea, this sucks Rahzzy," Zoe said with a frown, crossing her arms.  "I am so getting you back for making me do this.  You'd better watch yourself."

"Not if I don't get him first," Luther growled, his pudginess looking even pudgier in his sulking state.  He glared at the volleyball resentfully, a scowl on his face.

"Anyway," Rahzel continued, though his voice was a fraction quieter, "there's one major rule to volleyball.  You can't let it touch the ground.  But you score if it touches the ground on the other team's side of the court.  However, if you hit the ball and it hits the ground anywhere other than the court, you automatically loose possession."  He paused and frowned.  "Does everyone understand?"

"Wait, I've got a better question," Elise said, turning to look at her fellow snowboarders.  "Does anyone not know the rules of volleyball?"

There was an array of denials: "Yea."  "I know it."  "Of course I know!  It's not rocket science."  Everyone's eyes eventually fell on Kaori, though, and the Japanese boarder suddenly became aware of it.  She laughed shyly, as if she were standing in front of her classmates and doing an oral presentation.

"Yes, I know," she assured with a confident nod.  Elise didn't waste another second on doubt and looked at Rahzel triumphantly.

"There.  We all know.  Now let us go and get this game over with."

Rahzel opened his mouth to deny, but a chorus of pleading followed Elise's demand so pitiful that Rahzel sighed.  "All right," he consented.  "All right, we'll skip it.  But if anyone breathes a word that I didn't go over the rules in full detail, then we'll be spending twice as much time going over the rules of the other events.  Is that clear?"

Everyone agreed.  Rahzel's serious expression melted into a smile.

"Good then!  Listen up.  There'll be a blue and a gold team."  Rahzel pulled what looked like a list from out of his back jeans pocket.  "Just to inform you, the players were randomly drawn.  There was no sort of strategy behind the teams, or anything."

He cleared his throat.  "On the gold team: Elise, Zoe, Psymon, Mac, Eddie, and Kaori.  The rest of you are on blue."

"Gold team rules!" Eddie shouted, earning a snicker from Elise.  Rahzel rolled his eyes, but a smile was on his lips.

"All right then.  Gold team, go to the boy's locker room.  You'll find your uniforms, as well as an extra pair of shoes there.  Blue team, your uniforms are in the girl's locker—"

"Uniforms?" Luther spat, looking outraged.  "You mean we all gots ta look alike, too?!"

"Afraid so, Luther," Rahzel dismissed quickly.  "All right then, everyone.  Get going, and be back out here in five minutes!"

Mac smiled at his luck, looking over at Kaori.  The look on her face was caught between excitement and nerves.  Mac grabbed her hand as they walked with the rest of the group, entering their assigned locker room.

"Let's show them that gold is better than blue!" he said, squeezing her hand gently.  She giggled and squeezed back.

"All right!"

~*~*~

Brodi picked up his uniform and a smile graced his lips.  Blue.  Brodi and blue.  Brodi, blue, and Buddha.  All three began with a B.  That must be a good sign.

"These pants look really tight," JP said grudgingly, holding his matching blue spandex shorts with disdain.

"Oh, suck it up and put it on, ya pansy git."

"Easy for you to say, Moby," JP snorted.  "You wear these tacky things all the time."

"I don't know about you guys, but I think mine might be a size too small," Luther mumbled to himself, stretching the fabric and holding them up to his waist.

There was a general round of laughter and then a pause, as if everyone were unsure of what to do next.  Brodi, along with most everyone else, noticed the discomfort in both members of the opposite sex.  The only one who seemed not to notice was Marisol, who, after examining her blue shirt and shrugging, started to take her t-shirt off.

"Good—golly—" Luther choked out, staring unabashedly.  JP started to blush at the lack of modesty of his ex-girlfriend, turning his head away.  Marisol stopped and looked around, confused.

"What?  It's not something you guys haven't seen before," she said, cautiously pulling her shirt off the whole way.  Brodi found it hard to tear his eyes away from her abundant cleavage, rude as he knew it was not to.  "Come on, kiddies," she chided, taking her blue shirt and replacing it with her old one.

Seeiah laughed and shook her head, following her best friend's brave action.  Moby shrugged and began to pull his pants off, and soon everyone was changing in front of everyone.  Marisol smirked, running a hand through her blonde hair and watching a shirtless JP from the corner of her eye.

A couple minutes later, everyone was dressed and ready to go, Marisol pulling her hair up into a ponytail.  Seeiah was telling the others that she had played volleyball all throughout high school and was her varsity team's star player.  Moby smiled.

"Lovely, then.  Maybe we've got more of a winner's chance at this than we thought, eh?"

"Of course we do!  Blue's so much better than gold!" Marisol chirped.  "Just look at the people on our team!  Gold so doesn't stand a chance!"

"I am looking at the people on our team," JP mumbled to a disgruntled Luther who kept pulling wads of blue material out of his butt crack.  "That's what's worrying me."

"I hear you JP," his friend murmured back.

Once the gold team had finished dressing and trooped out, Rahzel proceeded to set them up.  This took more time than changing their clothes did.  He kept flitting back and forth, from camera to camera and corner to corner, just to make sure all the angles would be right and everyone would be seen clearly.  It was almost fifteen minutes later, and forty-one times after Moby complained of the hunger in his stomach, that Rahzel was finally satisfied.

"All right!" he said, jogging over to a nearby scoreboard and sitting himself down before it.  "Referees, are you ready?"

The three men in black and white stripes nodded.

"Cameramen, are you ready?"

"Of course they are!" Elise droned.  "They've only been ready for the last five hundred hours or so."

Rahzel chose to ignore this, signaling for the cameras to start rolling.  In turn, he pulled a quarter out of his back pocket.  He flipped it up into the air and caught it in his palm, turning it over onto the back of his other hand.

"Mac, it's your call.  Heads or tails."

"Tails."

Rahzel lifted his concealing hand up.  "It is indeed tails," he announced, showing the camcorder nearest him.  "Gold team, you're serving first."

"All right!" Elise said, catching the volleyball a referee tossed to her.  She beat it on the ground several times and then looked up, holding it in her hands.  "Some Spanish-speaking tramp better be ready, because her makeup won't be nearly as pretty when this ball has smudged it all over her face!"  Marisol glared but kept quiet, sinking lower on her knees.  Elise smirked and turned to look at Rahzel.  "Hey Rahzzy, is it our point if the ball hits the opponent in the gut?"

Rahzel put his head in his hands, and then lifted his face to shoot Elise a begging look.  Elise shrugged and threw the ball up in the air—

SMACK!

The ball zoomed nothing short of a foot below the net.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Elise barked, looking incredulous.  And she wasn't the only one wearing this look; Zoe and Kaori were stunned, while Eddie almost fell over in surprise.  Those not on her team, however, were tickled at getting possession back so soon, and Marisol, for one, looked like a kid in a candy store.

Rahzel rubbed a hand dramatically down his face.  "No more cursing!  We want kids to be able to watch this too!" he shouted at the SSX Tricky volleyball players, turning to the cameraman nearest him.  "Make sure to edit that out, ok?" he said weakly.

Marisol crossed her arms, her shoulders swaying slightly in triumph.  "Well, well, well…" she said, an evil look crossing her face.  "What was that you were saying, Elise?"

"Shut up and rotate, Sparky!" Elise barked back, scowling and squatting down, preparing herself for Moby's serve.

The Englishman easily swatted the ball over the net, heading straight for the front row.  Kaori licked her lips, concentrating hard, preparing herself to return the serve.  Before she could, however, a voice screamed out from behind her and she jumped, the ball hitting her in her stomach.

Psymon cackled and pointed at his victim, but not a second later there was a unified scream of: "PSYMON!"

"What?" he said.  "Sheesh, it was a joke!  Calm down!"

"She's on your frickin' team!" Mac said.  "Our frickin' team!"

"I am not losing this game to her—" Elise said, pointing overzealously at Marisol "—because of you!  Straighten up and get serious, Sketchy!"

Psymon scowled.  "Big words coming from the Wacky-Serving Wonder."

The heat was getting to Elise again.  She looked just about ready to burst, and no one present could blame her—spare Psymon, of course.  But before she lost control over her shaking fists, Eddie trotted over and put a hand soothingly on her arm, Zoe doing likewise to Psymon.

"Come on, buddy, pull it together," she whispered, smiling at him.  "Let's win this thing like a team, ok?"

Psymon snorted, but there was resolution in his eyes none-the-less.  As everyone went back to his or her spots to prepare themselves for the next serve, Kaori looked at Psymon and stuck out her tongue.  After catching Zoe's eye, however, he pretended not to notice.

Moby beat the ball on the ground once, then threw it into the air and smacked it over.  "I got it!" Eddie called, returning the ball over the net with an overenthusiastic bump.  It soared over all six heads of the other team and landed out-of-bounds.

"Brilliant," Zoe muttered, putting her face in her hands while Rahzel added another point to the blue team's score.  "Just brilliant."

"Don't seem too cocky now, do you?" Marisol chirped.

Elise promptly turned around and slapped her golden-spandex behind.  "Kiss it," she snapped.

The referee returned the ball to Moby, and the Englishman threw it into the air for another serve.  It seemed his extra muscles hindered him this time, however, for the ball went over the front and back rows, out-of-bounds.

"Nice try, nice try," Seeiah said, giving Moby a small clap.  He didn't seem to care how well or poorly he was doing, however, for he was too busy rubbing his empty, growling stomach.  The gold team rotated, and, following Elise, it was Eddie's turn to serve.

"Oh baby!" Eddie said, catching the volleyball and slapping it on the ground several times.  "This is going over the moon!"  He threw it into the air and swatted at it hard with his fist.

The ball soared with a sharp whizzing sound, flying over the front row and into the back, heading straight for Luther.  The Southern redneck couldn't have cared less, however.  The ball landed at his unmoving feet and bounced away.

"Luther!" his whole team shouted.  Even JP seemed upset with him.

"What?" he replied lazily, crossing his arms.  "I didn't see it.  Oops.  My bad."

"It was right in front of your fat face!  How could you miss it?" Seeiah snapped, setting her hands on her hips.  Luther looked at her and glared.

"Well miss 'Volleyball VIP,' maybe you'd like to take my spot, hm?  Your ass is large enough to cover both positions.  Hell, I don't even WANT to play this stupid game."

Luther's name was shouted again, but this time by an angry Rahzel.  The disc jockey's frown was evident even from his place over at the scoring table.

"What did I say about cursing, Luther?  And put more enthusiasm in the game!  Just being here doesn't count as participating; I'll still drop you from the league if you do nothing more than stand there!"

Luther looked outraged, but JP managed to catch his eye before he said anything.  The Frenchman shrugged imploringly.  "Just play, Luther," he said.  "It won't kill you."

The Southerner went to mumbling curses under his breath and pulled another large wad of blue fabric from out of his crack.

Eddie served again, still to the same target.  This time Luther hit the ball, though, bouncing it foreword to Marisol, who delicately set it over.  Kaori and Mac worked together and accomplished a bump, set, and a spike, but Seeiah rushed foreword before the whizzing ball could slam against the ground.  Instead, she slid on her knees and bumped the ball before it hit the floor, the white orb sailing over to Marisol.  The Latino blonde barely had time to express her congratulations to her friend, however, for the ball was moving faster than she'd expected.  She backed up and hit it over.  The ball fell between Kaori and Psymon, both of whom thought the other was getting the ball.

"Yes, well done!" Rahzel said, his voice booming.  "Nice work, Seeiah, very nice!"

Marisol bounded over for a mild celebration with her best friend, patting her back and giggling with joy.  Psymon was furious, however, and turned on Kaori.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU GET THAT?" he shouted.

Kaori was indignant.  "What do you mean, 'why'?  You were the one who was supposed to get it!  It was closer to you!"

"Was not, you little twerp, and you know it!"

The riled-up Japanese girl turned around and rapidly muttered things in her native language, Psymon scowling all the while.  The rest of their team, however, didn't seem to be nearly as upset with Psymon and Kaori, and set themselves up to receive the ball.  The blue team rotated, Seeiah serving next.

"You guys better watch out!" Marisol called, turning around and winking at Seeiah.  "This girl knows how to play some volleyball!"

"We thought Elise knew how to play some volleyball too, didn't we?" Psymon said.  "But look how she turned out.  I doubt Seeiah's much better."

Elise didn't have time to choke the brash maniac, for the next second, Seeiah had thrown the ball up twice as high as normal, going into a jump serve.  Her hand came crashing up to pound the sphere, her feet off the ground, and the ball soared straight to Zoe.  The punk boarder met it without fail, however, and returned the ball over the net.  It sailed past Brodi, who did nothing to stop it, thinking it would be out-of-bounds.  The referees said otherwise.

"Hot damn!" Zoe shouted with glee, jumping into the air.  While she was giving Elise a high-five, Rahzel sighed and began massaging his temples.

"Note to self," he muttered, "remember to pay the censor overtime for this."

It was Mac's turn to serve, and the teenager accepted the ball with nervous hands, having never played volleyball before.  Mac swallowed, threw it into the air and met the ball with his fist, but it ricocheted off at an odd angle and went far left instead of foreword, almost nipping Eddie's orange afro off his head.  The bounces of the ball echoed about the silent gym, only to be interrupted by Moby's snickers.

"Well that was brilliant," he called over to the sulking teen.  "Bet you practiced for hours on that one, didn't you, mate?  Just like you planned it, huh?"

Mac told Moby to do something so vile that Rahzel stood up in outrage, knocking his chair on its back.  Those closest to him—namely, the cameraman—could see that the manager's nostrils were flaring.

"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT LANGUAGE?" he screamed across the court.  "How many TIMES do I have to repeat myself?  No foul cursing!"

"Tell it to someone who cares!" Mac hollered back, furious with himself and with Moby, who was now sniggering heartily.

"You'll be caring when I tell you that you're no longer riding with the league!" Rahzel quipped back dangerously, pointing at Mac with such a disciplinary finger that it reminded Mac of his mother.  "Do you hear me?  And that goes for all of you!"  Rahzel looked around at everyone, making sure to pause at the ones that were known for saying the wildest things.  "You all hear me?"

"Yes Rahzel," the group droned back.  Their manager nodded and snorted, sitting back down.  He situated himself and turned to the cameraman, looking almost desperate.

"Please make sure to edit that out," he whispered imploringly.  "I sounded like an eighty-three-year-old woman."

The cameraman swallowed and gave a quick nod.

Marisol gratefully accepted the ball as the referee handed it to her, winking slyly at him.  She then proceeded to make a big show of beating the ball against the ground, glancing up every once in a while to shoot glares at Elise and confident smiles to Seeiah.  Her best friend smiled back, giving her the victory sign.

Marisol grinned even wider and finally threw the ball into the air, her hand crashing down upon it when gravity brought it back to Earth.

It sailed lower than Elise's serve had.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" the Canadian bombshell laughed, her voice exploding through the silence.  She collapsed on the ground melodramatically, gales of laughter still protruding from her mouth.  Marisol scowled and put her hands on her wide hips.

"It's not funny!" she barked, glaring at Elise.  But the Canadian girl carried on for so long that Marisol stormed up to the net, grabbing it and glaring through the holes at her rival.  "What exactly do you have up your ass that's tickling you so much?!"

"And what exactly did you have up yours that made you serve like that?" Elise choked out, rolling onto her back and kicking her feet up in the air.  Rahzel started frowning.

"Ok, Elise, it was all right for the first ten minutes," he snapped, staring at her pointedly.  "Let's get up and get this game over with."

"Yea, mate, I wanna eat!" Moby agreed from his position on the court.  "Hurry it up, would ya?"

"Oh keep your pants on, Moby, or Zoe might get excited," Elise snapped back, though she became somber and stood up, rotating with the rest of her team.  Zoe snickered and winked at a blushing Moby.  Rahzel opened his mouth and hesitated, as if wondering whether he should have that edited out or not.  He closed his mouth, however, and merely shook his head.  No use bothering their censor with more work than was necessary.

Kaori accepted the ball that was handed to her, while JP looked at Rahzel.  "What's ze score?" he shouted.

"Two to one, your team's winning."

"Don't mess up," Psymon drawled from the position in front of her, staring at Kaori as she beat the ball on the ground.  She looked up and glared at him.

"Leave me alone."

"What?" he innocently replied, his voice soft.  "I was just giving you my… vote of confidence."

Kaori rolled her attractive Asian eyes and served the ball over the net.  The gold team scored three more points with her serving, due to a miscalculated bounce on Luther's part, a weak set by JP, and an overzealous bump by Moby, respectively.  Kaori was getting ready for her fourth serve, and the blue team was really starting to get serious, when she waited too long to hit the ball and accidentally sent the orb flying into the back of Psymon's head.

Psymon stumbled foreword a step and turned around, staring at her incredulously.  There were several moments of tense silence.

Kaori swallowed hard.

"Um… sorry."

"Sorry?!  What the hell was that?!  Sorry?!" Psymon barked.  He cracked his knuckles and took several steps foreword.  "You little pest!  You meant to do that!"

"PSYMON!" Kaori screamed as he proceeded to chase her around the gymnasium, the pair weaving in and out of people, camcorders, and microphones.  "PSYMON, STOP!"

"Psymon Stark, stop that immediately!" Rahzel shouted, standing up out of his seat.  "Stop and get back to your position!"  For all the good that did, Rahzel could have been shouting at Moby's stomach to stop growling.

"COME BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE SQUIRT!" Psymon hollered, almost knocking Eddie over when he tried to get around him.  Kaori sprinted behind the tall form of Brodi and stopped, clutching the back of his blue shirt.  Psymon attempted to bypass Brodi like he had done everyone else, but Brodi lifted up his arm.  The maniacal pursuer just barely stopped himself in time from being clothes-lined.

"Hold on there, cowboy," Brodi said, grabbing Psymon's shoulders and holding him steady.  Psymon lifted his blue eyes to glare up at Brodi, only to find that there was no aloofness present in Brodi's expression.  The Buddhist was totally solemn.  "Let's calm down a bit now, shall we?"

"Let go of me Brodi, before I kick your ass from here to Kingdom Come," Psymon whispered, so quiet that the microphones couldn't pick up on what he was saying.

"Personally, I don't believe in Kingdom Come," Brodi answered, a trace of the seriousness leaving his face.  "So an empty threat there, buddy.  But listen to me Psymon!" Brodi added, interrupting the boarder, for Psymon had opened his mouth to dish out a better threat.  "Calm down and listen to me.  Kaori didn't mean to hit you, everyone here knows that, and you're really over-reacting."

"Yea," Kaori added from behind the safety of Brodi, but her tall friend motioned for her to be quiet.  He didn't think this was the best time for her to be commenting—not with Psymon's clenched jaw about to crack his molars and all.

"Now go back, you two, and let's finish this game," he said, staring at Psymon.  "Plus, I think Zoe's starting to miss you, Sketchy."

Psymon snorted in a very like-I-care way, shaking himself free of Brodi's strong hands.  He slouched off and made his way back to his side of the court.  Kaori slowly came out from behind Brodi.

"Thank you," she said, her smile beaming up at him.  He smiled back down.

"No problem, dear lady."

Kaori pranced back into her position, the referee handing Brodi the volleyball to serve when he was sure everything was back to normal.  Rahzel, who had been standing on pins and needles the entire time, now slumped back in his chair, convinced that this whole game was a lot more trouble than it was worth.

And things didn't pick up from there.  Brodi, it turned out, was the best server of them all.  He scored five times in a row, seeming to know exactly the most strategic spot to place the ball, which was unfortunately between Zoe and Elise.  Psymon got raving mad after the fifth serve, and started ranting horribly to the pair, shouting curses that even Rahzel didn't know.  Eddie cut him short, however, and started chewing Psymon out for blaming the two girls.  They were still going at it when Brodi served again.  Once more, it landed between Zoe and Elise, who had run into each other in an attempt to save the ball.

"That's IT!" Elise shouted, shoving Zoe backward.  "WATCH YOURSELF, GIRL!  THAT WAS MY BALL!  YOU STAY ON YOUR SIDE!"

"WHO ARE YOU TELLING TO WATCH THEMSELF!?" Zoe screamed back, her temper boiling over.  "I KNOW YOU'RE NOT TALKING TO ME, BITCH!"

Rahzel's chiding wasn't heard over the screams as Zoe and Elise went into an all-out brawl.  The two firecrackers kicked, scratched, pulled each other's hair in such a free-for-all that nobody wanted to try to stop them, not even Moby.  The referee finally just signaled for Brodi to serve again, Elise and Zoe still caught up in their catfight.

And for the seventh time, Brodi scored, putting the score to Blue: Nine, Gold: Four.  Marisol started laughing with glee.

"Why are we even bothering?" she asked to no one in particular, snickering as she watched Zoe kick Elise's arm.  "There's no competition whatsoever!  Just look at them!"

It was at about that moment that Elise found an opponent more interesting than Zoe.  The Canadian bombshell stood up, screaming a battle cry like an Amazon woman, and flung herself right at Marisol's gut, knocking them both over.  Blonde hair flew in all directions as the two engaged themselves in a fistfight.

"Stop rolling!" Rahzel shouted to the cameramen, standing up out of his seat and rushing over to pull the two apart.  "Stop rolling, please!"  The cameramen seemed to think this form of entertainment was much more amusing than a volleyball game, however, and did nothing of the sort.

Even with the combined efforts of Rahzel, Seeiah, Eddie and Brodi, Elise and Marisol couldn't be torn apart from each other.  Their fighting quickly got increasingly violent, so much so that Zoe had to put an arm on Psymon's shoulder to keep him from joining in on the fun.  Marisol grabbed Elise's hand and bit her as hard as she could, just before Elise screamed and thrust her forehead at her opponent's.  Their heads collided with a sickening crack, and both fell to the ground, limp and unconscious.

No one said anything for several seconds.

"Oh shit," Rahzel whispered, swallowing.  Mac looked at him.

"No cursing, Rahzzy."

"Marisol!" Seeiah shouted, rushing foreword and picking up her best friend.  "Oh my—Is she dead?!"

"Calm down, Seeiah!  She's not!" Rahzel shouted, his face turning sallow.  He over-reactive answer sounded more like it was directed to himself as he surveyed Elise's still form.  "Somebody call an ambulance!  They've probably just knocked each other out!"

"Now this is entertainment!" Luther said with glee as Kaori rushed past him to find a phone.  Seeiah shot him an extremely ugly look before turning around to continue slapping Marisol's face, hoping to wake her up.  "Somebody get me some popcorn!"

"Serrer Luther," JP whispered, staring at Marisol, his perfect jaw strangely rigid.  Luther didn't know a whole lot of French, having only been around JP for less than a year, but he did know when JP was telling him to be quiet.

Mac, who was biting his nails, suddenly looked up from Elise's face.  "Um, I think I'm gonna find Kaori.  Ya know, just in case she starts going off in Japanese and the operator can't understand her…"  He jogged after the young teen.

Eddie suddenly arrived back on the scene, everyone else not having noticed that he had disappeared.  He carried a dripping wet paper towel in his hand, and he flung himself on the floor next to Elise, wiping her face with it.  It took several strokes from the towel, but the corner of Elise's mouth started twitching.  She opened her mouth slightly and groaned.

Rahzel looked delighted.

"Brilliant Eddie!  Great job!  Now do Marisol…"

While Eddie was busy performing the same treatment to the Latino blonde, Luther suddenly spoke up.  "So does this mean that our match is canceled?"

If Rahzel weren't so worried, he would have turned around and given Luther a fat lip.  But the circumstances being what they were, he could only wave his hand and say absentmindedly, "Um… yes, yes, we'll stop the match there.  Blue team wins."

Luther started raising the roof.  "Go blue," he mumbled to himself.

"And does this mean I can go get myself a pizza?" Moby asked, watching as Marisol began weakly stirring on the ground.  Rahzel didn't answer, so Moby shrugged and wrapped an arm around Zoe's shoulders.  "Come on, love, I'm in the mood for Italian.  Sound all right to you?"

Zoe's eyes lingered on the pair of blonde divas till she made absolutely sure both were coming back to consciousness.  "Um… yea, that sounds… that sounds nice.  Psymon, want to come?"

Moby kept his groan to himself, glaring as the pointy-object-happy maniac shuffled over to them, grinning broadly at Zoe.  He couldn't decide what was worse: Psymon, his hunger, or the cameramen that refused to stop filming.  He knew this crazy stunt would appear on TV later… And he just knew his mother was bound to record it and show it to all her sewing circle friends.

Translations:

Serrer—Shut up

Author's Notes:

So what did you guys think about the volleyball game?  Interesting start, huh?  Tell me if the action went smoothly or not…  I'm perfecting my "action-dictating" technique, lol.  And also let me know if you think the characters were "in-character" enough.  I think I got pretty much everyone down, except perhaps JP and Marisol… They both seemed a tad too fond of each other, but what do I know…

~Pudgoose