It's me again. I'm frankly rather amazed that I made it this far. Six whole chapters, wow. And I wasn't dragging my feet about it either. I'd like to warn readers at this time that things may be up for a change: school starts in two days, and it may put the k-bosh on my writing speed. Or not. I've found this strangely relaxing, and may end up writing more on general principal.
Important: One thing that I've noticed in Gundam fanfic trends is that a lot of people are one one side or the other on the 'Releena Issue'. I'm kinda curious, so I've decided to have a poll. Review, and tell me what your views on the Princess of Sanq, Queen of the World' and Vice Foreign Minister are. I'm not saying that I'm going to base my portrayal of her in my fic on what the results are. In fact, I pretty much already know how she's going to end up in my writing. But it may influence some parts, and quite frankly, as I said before, I'm curious.
Team Players
Football. Tackle football. Touch football. Flag football. Rugby. And in some places, also known as soccer.
"So what you're saying is that two sports, as different from each other as they are from any other sport, somehow got mixed up and now have the same name?" Heero was stupefied that such a thing could happen. Where had communication failed?
"Yeah. Most people nowadays use the American terms, a football being 'ball that is shaped like a foot', and soccer being the other one. The other way to look at it is to define a football as 'ball that is kicked with feet' and soccer… well, y'know, the other one."
Heero vowed to look up the origins of the word 'soccer' and see why it seemed like such a generic term. But later, not right now. Right now he was walking with two of his classmates from math, both seniors who were trying to get him to try out for their own sport. Danny, the broad one, wanted him on the 'ball that is shaped like a foot' team, and Willis, the one that was shorter than Heero (who was not that tall to begin with) was arguing in favor of the 'ball that is kicked with feet' team, but was actually trying to convince Heero to join lacrosse.
"Actually, they're not that different, all in all. Both games have people try to get their ball in the other team's goal, by playing to their players strengths. They work out plays to play a better game, and they use padding to protect certain body parts used in play." Willis led the way across the grassy field, trying to steer Heero over to the lacrosse equipment he set out earlier with out Danny catching on.
Heero pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. This was confusing. It was only a game, but both boys were obsessed with their preferred sport. And Willis wasn't helping with all those 'plays'. And, of course, for God's sake, they couldn't even agree on a name for what they were doing!
Unknown to Heero, Duo and Wufei were undergoing similar treatment. Wufei had been cornered by a gaggle of cheerleaders, two gaggles actually. Both groups of females were trying their level best to convince him how very grateful they would be if they joined a team. And Duo was sitting in the sports office, wondering if he was going to get a detention if he asked the adults to shut up and get to the point, as various coaches spewed praise for the noble pastime that they instructed young people in.
"There's a lot of running in both sports" Danny tossed a ball that was not really ball-shaped to himself as he walked alongside Heero. "Coach will have you run laps at first, but eventually you'll have to go on the two-mile jog with the rest of us."
"You only go two miles?" Heero was again dumbfounded for a moment, before remembering that these were cow-people, who were soft, lazy, and weak. "I can run that easy." He added, quicker that he normally would. "It won't be a problem."
"Good. Then you can start on speed training." Willis was almost to the end of the field, and had successfully led them astray from their original destination of the supply shed. "Speed is a big thing in lacrosse. A lot of people on the team are also in track."
Heero, having seen some of the track team members practicing during their off-season, again scorned their power, knowing at least four people other than himself that could take them on any day.
"We'll start with dribbling…" Willis was saying.
"So now we choose between football, basketball, and lacrosse." Heero was saying at lunch.
"I wonder why Quatre and I weren't asked." Trowa wondered.
"Who knows."
"It's probably just timing. Someone will probably get around to asking you later today."
"Hnn. Maybe."
One could usually judge the impact of a particular subject by the amount of gossip about it. Using this measure, sporting tryouts seemed to be very important indeed. Even with their limited experience with social practices, the boys all independently reached the conclusion that sports created some sort of hierarchy within the school environment (but it was such a benign topic that none of them for a moment would believe that the same held true to any sort of degree in the rest of society).
"I don't think it would be wise to try and join more than one of the teams. Scheduling conflicts and such."
"Not to mention the fact that there seems to be a demand for team loyalty."
"Which do you want to try?"
"It would probably be best to just try out for all of them. There's no guarantee that we would get on the first one we tried for."
"Ha! Like anyone at this house of pillows could beat us in anything."
"Physical prowess may not help us here. None of us know anything about these games. They may want some one more experienced."
"Plus, if we try out for all of them, we can be sure we can choose the best one, since we can see what the games are like. We can turn down any offers we end up not wanting."
The break in conversation was filled with eating, as they were, as usual, discussing things over a meal, dinner in this case.
"So…Lucy…what'd you think of Ashley's new haircut?"
"Oh. My. Gawd. She look's like a total ho."
None of the boys said anything. At the request of the lunchroom staff, they had stopped removing the extra chairs from their table at every meal. Inevitably, someone would sit down. Sometimes they were lucky and it was a classmate with a legitimate topic to talk about, but more often then not, it was a total stranger or a familiar suck-up. The pilot's tactic in either case was to let the outsider eat in peace, but previous experience taught them to be wary of people who wanted to spy on them for gossip purposes. So now they were in the habit of deliberately avoiding the English language at mealtimes, as well as Spanish, French, Italian, and several other languages that they would suspect any of these international students to speak. Today's language of choice was Arabic. Whatever 'Lucy' and friend were planning to do with what they heard at the table, it would be of little use to them. The news of what sport team the Gundam celebrities would be joining would remain obscure until they actually did join something.
The Pilots were more than a little excited about this. They were bored out of their skulls, and the idea of some real challenge was putting a small spring in their step. They had all grown up in various states of isolation and/or hardship, a game of any sort was a novel experience.
"Are we going to talk to any body else about this?" Wufei said suddenly, surprising his friends. The pilots had never, ever, discussed their actions with any one but themselves.
"I think that between you, Duo, and myself, we have enough information to make an informed decision."
"Heh. He just wants to avoid any further 'persuasion' from those 'cheerleaders'.
Wufei made no motion to reply, but he was unusually wary of what was going on behind him, and was pressed into the seat of his chair as much as he could. He had barely gotten away from the female feeding frenzy intact, and was still stewing over their assault on his person. His butt in particular. He wondered what kind of strategy it was to caress the prisoner and to pinch and/or cup various portions of the anatomy.
"Women in this place are strange." He said finally, and continued on his soup, pointedly ignoring the still perplexed girls across the table.
Tryouts were the next afternoon. In any other instance, it might have waited until after classes were completely done, but their PE instructor was also the football coach, and gave every one in the class the option of either trying out or going to play flag football on the other side of the field. The tryout participants were led through a series of tests, running, crashing into lines of vaguely man-sized padded metal, and catching and throwing the lemon shaped object. Not being well informed of the game, they could not truly say how well they preformed. In about a half-hour, the people playing flag football went in to change, and a few minutes after that, people began trickling out from other classes, and joined in the tests. The pilots were done in short order, but hung around to watch the rest of the students. Since the tryouts were on the football field, they leaned in the shade of the cement concessions stand a little ways off, and chatted aimlessly about what they saw. The only people who took any notice of them were the hand full of assistant coaches and adult football fans who had volunteered to come out and help evaluate the hopefuls. Once in a while someone would glance their way, or talk to a friend about the observers, but no one made any move to bother them. Finally, after more than another hour, the event seemed to be winding down, and the ex-soldiers departed.
"Sorry I'm late." Quatre said hurridly. He handed the teacher a note, and rushed to his seat.
"Where have you been?" Heero asked Quatre. It was G/WH class, and not only had Quatre been late, but he hadn't been at the lockers between classes either, and Trowa told them he had been pulled out early in Math.
"The Front Office wanted to see me." Quatre slid in to his seat, and got out his materials for class. The lecture hall as acoustically designed and they had to whisper if not to disturb any one. Down on the floor at the front of the class, Prof. Falls, the techno phobic teacher, was having problems with the projector. The fact that said projector was so old it still ran on the antique DVD technology may have had something to do with it. Taking advantage of the delay, Quatre spilled.
"We have confirmation that they've been interfering with communications. My sister Iria finally got through."
"What did she say? What method did she use?" Heero and Wufei had their interest piqued.
"She used the universal language."
"Money again? How much did she have to offer them to get them to stop?"
"She didn't offer them money, she was going to take their money. She threatened to sue them if they continued to interfere with the operation and running of the Winner Corporation."
"That's great! Does this mean we'll be getting all our mail now?"
Quatre frowned. "No, not really. They slapped together some policy about student communications, and are saying that only official business will be allowed for me. He tried to make it sound like he was doing me a favor."
"Pfft. That's nothing new. Everybody in this place acts like they're doing you a favor just by existing." Wufei was exaggerating, but not by much.
At this point, a student was randomly selected out from the crowd to run the projector so the teacher wouldn't have to show how stupid he was any longer, and the three had to shut up and listen. But Quatre still had news, although this part wasn't necessarily good news.
Later, gathered at lunch, Quatre relayed this first part to the rest of his team mates. David Mouze, along with a kid from their Gym class, looked from face to face as the conversation went on in a language neither of them could identify. Understanding the tone, if not the words, and the effect on the celebrities, if not the reason, both bystanders wondered what was going on that could make the usually passive foreigners visibly relieved.
"What's every one so happy about?" David asked.
The boy from PE, Marvin, who had more sense, or more respect for people's privacy, or maybe just a better understanding of just how rude it was to be nosey in other people's business (I'm voting for the last one, considering the environment in which all these children were raised), ignored David and addressed the reason why he himself had come here.
"How'd you do in tryouts?" Marvin was a sports fan, but not a full-fledged athlete, and so had held a mediocre position on the team since his freshman year.
There was the silence he had come to associate with any question that was posed to them as a group, as the five boys, with out any visible signals, sorted out who should speak up. Trowa spoke up first, he shrugged and said "Dunno."
"Aw, come on, you've got to have heard something. You guys were tearing it up out there!"
"How come you asked us how we did instead of if we've heard anything?" Trowa wondered.
"It's been less than a day. Results weren't promised until the weekend." Heero said.
Sounds of eating ensued. David and Marvin were somewhat dismayed when the next statement (coming from Wufei) was again in another language, signaling something that the pilots didn't feel like sharing.
"Man, you guys, don't shut me out! Speak in English like normal people!" David complained.
"Why would you associate normalcy with only English? English is no more common than any other language." Wufei was growing tired of David's continued presence. The lad was so much like a woman that Wufei wondered if there hadn't been a mix-up at birth, and he was all the time trying to come up with an excuse to stay with them.
"The front office wanted to see me about some incoming students." Quatre didn't want to be bothered with stepping on anyone's toes, and could justify allowing this tidbit to hit the gossip mill, so he answered Wufei's question of 'what else did the front office want to talk to you about this morning?'.
"Why would they bother you about that?" Wufei asked. David and Marvin were speechless. It had never occurred to anyone to simply ask to be included in what was going on in 'Gundam Land', but apparently the method worked.
"Well," Quatre chose his words carefully, knowing full well that this would probably be all over school in an hour and a half. "One of the new students is my sister, Pricilla. They assumed I would want to be the one to show her around."
"Is Pricilla a nice sister or a not-so-nice sister?" Was Duo's question.
"I honestly don't know. I've never met her."
"Then how do you know it will really be her and not some imposter?" Heero obviously saw this as a security risk.
"All my sisters and I were genetically engineered for looks. If you've seen one of them, you've seen them all."
"Do you think that one of us could identify your sisters just by knowing you?"
"Not as easily. My father drew the line at certain features he didn't want in his only son, so I guess I'm the most original looking of the lot. Otherwise I could have been a lot prettier." Quatre took a sip of water.
"When does she arrive?"
"Tomorrow. I won't be able to go the basketball tryouts."
"Seemed kind of a boring game anyway."
Quatre made noises of agreement, and then turned the conversation over to the lacrosse tryouts that afternoon after PE.
By the time tryouts came about, Quatre's news was all over the school. And, since the students were given a few hours to ponder this information, most everyone had decided that even if it did involve a Gundam pilot, they simply didn't care. Sisters really weren't that interesting, and this girl was just another new student.