There was one place where Reka felt today's special gift could be used most. This, of course.. being down at the recreation grounds inside the park. Where people play games that involve hitting balls or shuttles or golf balls or crown green bowls or any other sort of projectile, through the air or along the floor, fast, slow, or stupidly fast. What fun this could be.

--

It was tense. Katheyna's match at tennis today was going pretty good.. but she was having to fight to draw against this guy. And boy, was he good. But then.. creatures with more than two arms were allowed, by amended rules, to hold one racket per set. Which she found blatantly unfair, since he was a bug and she was just a grounder, no biggie..

The scores as they were.. 7-6 6-7 6-6, deuce. Right to the wire. And Katheyna was absolutely shattered. The last thing she needed was an invisible meowthgirl watching the match from the sidelines, plotting when best she could hop in and mess up the game. Of course, she'd never get to know this as being something she didn't need, but hey; who asked her anyway?

Reka was considering that one holding two and the other holding one made this thing not fair. And then.. the bell again. And suddenly things didn't quite matter so much. She's shattered, she'll probably think she's losing her mind if something goes wrong.

And she giggled, and nobody really noticed. This was great.

She'd won it to her advantage, for the twelfth time. He always seemed to get one back just when it counted. But .. not this time. This time it was all going to be over. And the sandling pitched the ball up.. and hysically screamed at it as she went to hit it.. and swiped through the air. Nothing. "Eh?"

The ball was just stuck around six feet in the air, and the Venomoth.. he was just looking at it, and pointing with a free arm. "Uh.. Kathe? Something's wrong with the ball.. I think.."

The 'shrew looked up. So there was. Oh well, we can serve from here. "Gyaah!" she shouted, as she sliced once more.. and the ball had dropped half a foot and was just hopping about in the air. Possessed ball. "What the heck?!"

Swipe, miss, swipe miss, swipe miss swipe miss swipemissswipemiss beat beat beat and "WHY WON'T YOU LET ME HIT YOU?!" was the eventual cry.

"Okay." was the soft and girlish response, as the ball bounced onto Kathe's racket, and then rolled along the floor. Reka giggled, and took herself off the court for then. "Aahha.. Deuce, again.. but.. I don't think.." She collapsed, and nobody really would have blamed her. The Venonat came over.. "You know, I'll settle for a draw.."

Reka all but cackled, and it got the Venonat's attention.. well, until he realised nothing was there, of course. Reka decided to leave the two to their recovery, and pottered off down one of the paths beside the court.

--

Ah, the fun pursuit of crown green bowling. It's like ten pin bowling, only.. not.

Carson (the loveable Nidoran-morph, of course) was busy deciding that he should learn to play this strange sport. So, he'd found some people that knew what they were doing - one adult Arcanine, male, and one lady Persian, and both seemed slightly more silver-spoony than he could really care for.

And they were showing him the wonders of tossing black off-weight balls at another, smaller, white ball, and seeing who could get the most balls closest. Needless to say - and like most Nidorans would be - he was just a tiny bit bored.

Things didn't go flying into pits only to have metal machines rerack them while your ball flies down a chute. Which kinda made it a bit less worthile. Just a bit. Carson was still smiling, anyway..

At this particular moment, he was losing, because all bowling taught him is that 'throwing the ball really hard will make you win'. Crown green.. is nothing like that. So he was down three balls and he only had one left. So, somehow.. this one had to split everything.

Reka was off the sidelines, still invisible, and she didn't have a clue what they were doing, but.. she'd been watching for a number of minutes, and the idea seemed sound. That really cute lad over there (Reka's mind instantly stared at itself) wanted to win, and he was going to have a job doing it from here.

"Unless I help out?" was her answer, before she giggled again, and hurried onto the green.

Carson threw the ball, anway. It was a nice ball, with a red sideline and red trim. And it wasn't his, but he had no fear in trundling it towards the other balls. The Persian.. snerked; that was too softly thrown, and the ball was turning and probably going to stop less than halfway there.

Which it did. "That's three to me, I think.." she said, savouring the hollowness of winning against someone quite a bit smaller than she.

Carson looked out along the green.. and noticed something. "No, wait.. it's not stopped yet."

Missie - for want of a better name - glanced out along the green, and started speaking. "Don't be-"

Stupid? The ball was, indeed, moving. Moving impossibly, too; waving to either side, going at a constant speed, and generally ignoring all physical laws. "Is it meant to do that..?" the Nido asked.

"..." That's not the sort of thing you answer.

Along the ball went! Reka was pushing it along and nobody was really seeing her at all. When it got to the set of the other balls - she stopped, and the ball stopped, and she wondered how best to do this, to make it look good.

Missie eyed. "Well, it's still stopped short. Three to me."

"Well, your balls are moving now." Carson said, and Missie.. had to start walking over there because, indeed, -without contact-, her own balls were slowly being moved from their tight spots around the white one.

Slowly, but they were. "Something's fishy here." she said, making herself hungry at the same time.

Then two balls just flung themselves away from the pack and landed elsewhere, while one lifted off the floor, and moved over to the Persian, and dumped itself in her arms. Carson eyed the setup.. the only ball anywhere near the set was.. his.

"One to me?" he said, grinning like anything. The Persian.. hissed, and stormed off. "What just happened, Sedg?!" she asked the Arcanine, but he was kinda still staring at the pack.. and Missie waved a hand in front of him, and he didn't blink.

"Oh great.."

--

It wasn't exactly late, but Reka couldn't help but feel she should get to the elections office soon anyway. That's where she was expected to be, come to think of it.. not playing with people's minds in the park. But hey. She had time for one more.

Badminton is a wonderful sport. Just like all the others. The shuttle, a piece of feathered plastic, can be hit so hard and go so little a distance that it's almost unimaginable. Though it gives your arm a run for its money, that much can be said.

Karlai was squaring off against Soir in what was just a practice. The thing is in this case.. that Karlai was a, quite young, female purple Charmander .. and Soir was an Abra with a piece of gauze around his eyes.. and he wasn't even holding the racket he was swinging about at the shuttle. Quite a nice setup.

"But you don't even have to move about!" Karlai was complaining, as she darted back and forth, while Soir stood on the centreline and the serveline, and the racket did all sorts of weird and wonderful jumpings and slicings about to return the shuttle rather cleanly each time. "Yeah, but would you have me jump about for it?"

"Yes?"

"I have to visualise both where the thing is, where the shuttle is, and where you are. It's as much a toil for my head as it is for your body, I assure you of that." Sounded pretty mature for an Abra, did this guy. Never evolved; Reka could see a glint of purple shine through his shirt just for a second there. A stone? Fair enough.

Reka had never minded psychics before. But the Bell was in control here. And it thought something was wrong, so it made Reka aware of it. Still; the meowthgirl decided she could continue anyway, and she stood aside the court.

The shuttle was tapped lightly by Soir, just on the serve; as you do. Reka decided now was the time, and bounced forward, to take the shuttle out of the air. Well, she'd have taken it out of the air, had it not gone purple on her, and burned her hand. "Yeeaahh!" And she fell over, still invisible, the shuttle hitting the net, having been deflected enough.

Unseen, she cradled her hand. Karlai had no idea what had just happened.. but Soir was speaking. To Reka? "Now why'd you want to go and do something like that, little one..?"

"Soir, who'ya talking to?"

"There's a girl sitting on the floor. Feline. Indestinct. I'd have not noticed her if she hadn't tried to grab the shuttle."

"There's nobody there."

Karlai looked again.. but her ears told a different story. They told of slight sobbing. Reka had a rather nasty burn on her hand from that psychic's attack, and it was making her upset. And since she couldn't be noticed, this wasn't seen; but she could still be heard.

"Well, this girl's invisible. As far as I'm concerned, anyway; I don't think it matters too much."

"He can see me?" she said. Well.. it was a given. "I said I didn't want to be noticed! At all! I want you to not be able to see me, or sense me, or detect me or whatever the heck else it is you're doing!" she screamed at him.

Unfortunately, blanket statements like that are the Bell's gift to being unfair, and that's exactly what it did. So a list of all the things Soir was doing constructed itself in Reka's head. Sensing her, detecting her presence, her being. Detecting where he was, knowing where he was. And then the basic stuff... breathing, thinking. Processing. Remembering. Existing. All the other stuff that he was, indeed, doing.

".. I can't see anything any more..!" he eventually called out, after collapsing on the floor. Something was wrong here. The racket clattered on the floor also.

"Soir?!"

".. Oh I didn't mean that. No I didn't mean THAT! STOP IT!!" Reka screamed also, but.. pfft. Reka was useless at acting correctly. She was only nine, of course. So the Bell took her off autopilot and let herself scream and worry her own self into nonaction.

Soir wasn't doing much of anything any more. "Karlai.. .. I think maybe something.." Is wrong? Something went wrong the next second, as his skin and his being took on the texture and quality of hardened rock. A statue? Maybe. But then it'd still exist, in some way... Nah. Reka knew. The Bell was being dramatic.

The Bell was going to leave her with the sound of a shattering psychic, which she'd promptly remember whenever it felt best. She was helplesss against it, and she realised this now.

That's pretty much what happened. Shatter. A nice dramatic ending to a misworded phrase, and something that made the kittygirl wonder is this, really, was the deity's impression of 'making the world a funner place.' Crack, crunch. Karlai could do not much but stare. Cracking, falling, going. Disappearing. Becoming gone. So unfair.

And Reka had not actually minded the guy, but for the fact she burned herself and blamed him. "No!"

Like shouting no at the face of time would do much anyway? Too late. She could do little but watch, and then when there was nothing to watch.. and she realised that she'd been watching the whole time.

The Bell made her face grin. And she cursed it inwardsly, and dragged herself away from the scene, leaving behind the Charmander, and a large number of bits of unidentifiable rock.

*Well, he won't notice you again, if that's what you want.*

Scream.

The world pulled that little bit too tight on Reka, and she fell over again. And all she knew was that, when she woke up agaiun.. the Bell would have took the memories, and left just the traces. And that would be its way. That would be -the- way.

But she couldn't take it off, not now. The world swam black, and she with it.

***

It was dark when she woke again. And too right, she had no idea what had happened. Quite desolate and empty was the park.. the place she was at was a bare court, save for some bits of gravel that must have come loose from the path.

Which went crunch underfoot, cleanly. Reka remembered where she was, and then.. thought about the time. The election! They'd be counting now!

She was visible, she noticed. Hard thing to forget, really. The bell sat innocently around her neck, and tingled a little when she moved aside, picked up Bluewings, and scampered off in the direction of the north park exit. So it was late at night.. what'd she care? She was the supreme one!

Past streets that looked dismal in the dark light.. it had to be gone midnight now, which means they'd not only know, they'd have known for a while. And where was she? Passed out on a badminton court. Splended. At least nobody noticed her as she ran along.. and, somehow, all the funny people one could find out at such late times were off in some other area of the city.

Election Office was still open, because they were waiting for her, in all honesty. Because she had won, there was no surprise in this statement.

"Sorry I'm laaate!" she called in. "I fell asleep somewhere..! I don't know why.."

A few 'aww's.

"Well, miss Reka.." the Umbreon said. "You took 93% of the voting circle. That's the biggest win in this island's short history. Be proud; you can sleep in the mansion which is rightfully yours this night."

And some cheering was in order. Of course, the dumb thing is that Reka was too young to last at any celebration party they might have had. Mostly this was for the election staff. Reka wasn't feeling too well today at all, for reasons she'd since forgotten - gleefully for her - and instead she and the Umbreon left for the mansion, which was partially furnished at least.

Still dark, still dismal.. the sort of night where things happened. Reka had the Ledian, and the Umbreon was by her side, and they were just moving pretty quickly. Walking, as well.