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Real football is played with your feet; Idie
Topic Started: Apr 19 2015, 02:33 AM (351 Views)
Chomper
Beast Form
Time: Mid afternoon
Date: April 19th, 2015



Video games were something that were connected to being inside. Those who played games were often thought of as obese, greasy and paled skinned people, almost always male, that hardly ever left the basement to interact with the rest of society. The other alternative image was prepubescent young boys screeching every profanity that they could think of, regardless of if they knew what the word meant or not, while complaining about lag and campers. While his body physically would be in the latter category, just a hair over five feet now and still medically underweight, Damien was not into the shooter games, nor was he the MMO type either. If he bothered to read for fun, Damien would have found strong elements of his personality and obsessions in the "gunters" of Ready Player One. He had never owned an Atari, or a Commodore 64, but when presented with an older system, the shrimp was likely to pick a Gamecube over a WiiU. Of all his systems the Super Nintendo was his favorite, but it did require being inside to use.

Game Boys on the other hand were entirely portable. That was the entire purpose of the system, to bring games that would otherwise require you to be plugged into the TV on car trips. The portability of the Game Boy and its ability to connect through a cable was what made Pokemon such a successful franchise. Damien owned some of the essential games. Tetris, Mario Brothers, Pokemon Gold, both the original and the newer Heart Gold. In his game library were also some cringe inducing games that had failed for one reason or another. The less popular a game seemed to be, the easier it was for Damien to find entertainment in it. Not the "You just don't get the brilliance of this" smug sort of joy that was associated with hipsters, bu in the "I can't believe that this existed! Why does this exist?!" sort of way. Games that were broken fascinated him. Bizarre games could catch his eye as well. Today it was all about a franchise that had some brilliant innovations to it but had failed because of the reasons it was so unique.

"Ba-kee?" Damien chirped, mimicking the sound of the confused zombie like creature he was trying to lure into the sunlight. Boktai was a game that could not be played inside. Your weapon for fighting against vampires, zombies, bats and cockatrices was a solar gun, and you did not pick up ammunition for it by running over powerups. Embedded in the game cartridge, visible through the clear plastic, was a tiny solar panel that did everything from burning monsters to charging up your gun. In theory you could play the game after the sun was down for the day, but it made the game more challenging than it really needed to be. To Damien the idea of integrating solar energy directly into how a game played was fascinating, and he did enjoy the story told in the game. It had been a big risk for the designers to take, and Damien wanted to see something like that again. There was motion control, but nothing else really that had to do with the real world.

That connection to reality was becoming a needed thing for people like Damien who would easily get sucked into the world of the game. He hadn't been paying attention to the other students who were taking advantage of the sunshine to get some exercise since he sat down in the open green grounds. The sunlight was strongest when there wasn't clouds or shadows to get in the way, and the more solar power you had, the more the game opened up to you. His oblivion was noticeable when a soccer ball rolled over to him. It wasn't until he felt it bump into his leg that Damien looked up, trying to figure out where this strange attack came from. He even glanced up at the sky, as if it were raining soccer balls.
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IdieOkonkwo
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Idie had been at the school for nearly a week, and she had learned some key things.

1. This really was a school. She would be taking classes, living in a dorm, and learning to use her powers. There was a curfew, but otherwise she was free to leave.

2. The first manifestation of her powers seemed to be the worst. Not that things were good now, she still refused to take the power nullifier off from around her neck except under very carefully controlled circumstances, but she could see how someday she might get it under control.

3. She was not going to be punished for killing her parents. Instead, everyone seemed to be going out of their way to make her feel better about it. She found this unacceptable. Killing your parents was wrong in so many ways. You're supposed to feel bad about it.

And since no one else would, Idie punished herself. No fun. All studying. Staying in her room. No dessert. And lots and lots of church.

Trying to break her out of her funk, one of the teachers suggested she join one of the school's activity clubs. Idie resisted, then realized football was kind of perfect. No hands. She'd never have to point her evil powers at anyone, and it made the teacher feel better, so what was the harm?

Idie was never great at footie, but you couldn't grow up in Nigeria without learning a little. And so it was that she was out on a lovely Sunday afternoon, her homework already done and the morning spent at church, kicking the ball around. It was a sunny day, and as warm as New York ever seemed to get. Idie still wore the giant SHIELD coat she'd been given during her transport to America—she liked the way it covered her up and how it hung over her hands—but unfastened and flapped as she ran. After a bit, Idie noticed she was enjoying herself.

Immediately feeling guilty about not being miserable, her next kick went a bit wide of the net, and Idie rolled her R's under her breath in annoyance. Running after it, Idie stopped short when she saw how close it was to one of her classmates. One of the blond ones, she forgot which, though she vaguely recognized him from class.

"Oi," she called, keeping a safe distance. "Kick it back, yeah?"
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Chomper
Beast Form
There were no clouds raining down sports equipment on him. Which, while a proposterous idea, was actually a good thing. lThat kids book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs sounded like a good idea until you realized that you were getting hit with frim things on the head, soccer balls were just a little bigger than a meatball and much harder. So there was no unique and wonderous weather condition that was to blame for him getting the tap on the leg, but there was someone near his size. Damien stared at the girl for a minute, confused about her presence for two reasons. First he had not been aware of anyone around him as he was playing his game. Back when his powers had been switched, the best advice that was given to him to focus on just one voice in his head was go to that place he got when playing a video game where elephants could charge through the room unnoticed. That was his usual state of mind when playing any game that he particularly enjoyed, and recently Damien had gotten quite hooked on Boktai. With the Gameboy in hand Damien had gone from sitting hunched over in an open field with bright sunlight to a claustrophobic mansion with puzzle boxes in the twilight hour, the knowledge of a powerful vampire waiting to fight laying somewhere in the twisted building. He had become Django, fighting off the undead. Secondly Damien knew that he was small. At fifteen he just scraped past the five foot mark, and pinching an inch on him was like pulling hen's teeth. Most students were not only taller, but weightier than him as well. The handful of students that weren't were the ones who had powers that presented themselves at a younger age. Where had this girl come from and how was she smaller than him?

Wherever she came from, she was here now and was requesting that he kick the ball back to her. The stare which had been lingering on the girl for long enough for even Damien to realize that it was awkward before he broke it off to stare at the soccer ball. His brain was leaving his game behind, the atmospheric music hard to pick out now that his attention wasn't on the screen. She was the source of the soccer ball, but nobody else seemed to be hanging around her. Which meant that she had chosen to kick the ball just like he had chosen to play Boktai. Again he stared at her blankly, mind a blank on what to say to her. It wasn't as if Damien had never been around sporty girls. His older brother Lance tackled any sport thrown at him and for most of Damien's life the younger of the de Chantraine boys got dragged into the games. Lance's dates were able to keep up with him athletically. But when Damien was exposed to them it was within the confines of his family's house, a place where he felt safe and secure. "I'd have to be standing to kick it," Damien pointed out to the girl.

The DS was snapped shut and tucked into his short's side pockets and he uncrossed his legs. Damien grabbed the soccer ball, spinning it with his pointer fingers. In the back of his head was Lance yelling at him for touching the soccer ball with his hands. Standing up his suspicions were confirmed that he was taller than this girl, something that he found to be funny. A snort escaped from Damien as he parked a foot on top of the soccer ball. There was a profound lack of things to say to the girl again, and the shrimp just rolled the ball around a little with the foot that was on it. It was only polite to say something to her, especially since he was holding her soccer ball hostage at the moment. "I thought I was the shrimp."
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IdieOkonkwo
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The blond boy was staring at her. Why was he staring at her? Had her eyes turned to fire and ice again? Idie reached up for the nullifier again, but of course it was active. She should have known that anyway, the temperature never bothered her while her powers were on. Now that she'd stopped running, though, she felt a bit of a chill from the wind. Idie wrapped her coat around her more tightly and told herself it was because she was cold.

"Ok. Stand up, then. Or just throw it," Idie said when the boy protested the great effort in returning her ball. What was the big deal anyway?

And then he started playing with her ball, which... ok, she supposed it wasn't really hers, anyone at the school could use it. Kind of rude, though. Unless it wasn't? She was having trouble understanding the local culture sometimes. Idie shifted her wait from foot to foot, waiting to see if she was going to get the ball back.

But no, he seemed happy playing with it himself. And then he called her a shrimp, which... ok, she didn't know what he meant by calling her food, it must have been a yankee phrase. But she knew an insult when she heard one, that part seemed to cross cultures.

But she deserved to have her ball taken. She was a monster and—no, wait, this kid was a monster too! Hey! Don't take her ball!

Not impressed with this kid, but not quite willing to make an issue of it (yet), Idie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Be a good Christian. Turn the other cheek. "May I have the ball back, please?" she said, opening her eyes again.
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Chomper
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Damien squirmed a little bit, instincts telling him that he had somehow upset Idie but in typical Damien fashion he was painfully unaware of how. It didn't strike him that he might have insulted her when he pointed out that she was a shrimp because he had not said it with any ill feelings. He was well aware that he was a small guy, and it was quite a novel experience to run across someone who was smaller than him that didn't still think that velcro sneakers were the greatest invention. Alright so they were pretty cool in some ways, but Damien knew how to tie his sneakers just fine and shoes were one thing that he had been growing out of when he didn't need new shirts or jeans for years. The point was that Damien had been use to his smallness and it was refreshing to him to meet someone else who was small.

"Huh?" Damien asked, having been caught in a mindless state when Idie asked for her ball back. He had been caught off guard by what to him was the sudden appearance of the girl and got too caught up in the novelty of it, mixed a little bit with his nerves around the opposite gender, and had been fiddling with her soccer ball to relieve some of his tension. Now that she had brought his attention back to it Damien was aware that he still had it under foot. He frowned at the sight of the familiar black and white piece of sports equipment, as if it were to blame for the source of unease. Damien knew that you could do some impressive feats with them. Soccer, or rather football, had been popular with his cousins in France. They had managed to move the ball around like pros, avoiding cow patties and kicking the ball barefooted as if it were no big deal. Damien had been shown how to juggle kick the soccer ball, but it was the more athletic of the de Chantraine boys who could do it. Still Damien gave it a shot, the soccer ball bouncing once, twice, on the top of his shoe before rolling away from him.

"Just you?" Damien asked her, looking at his surroundings for the first time really since he had sat down. There were other students enjoying the day, but the girl seemed to be the only one who was waiting for the soccer ball. Damien didn't think for a minute that she was playing by herself because she wanted to. He just figured that she had gotten over looked because of one reason or another. Probably was new. When he first came to the school there was a brief period of interest from his fellow students, but when he stopped being such a new face Damien did what he always tended to do, blend in with the background. Was that what happened with this girl? "You can't play foo..soccer by yourself. You end up having to chase after the ball too much. Alright so the whole game is just chasing after the ball but it's better when there's someone else right?"

He had been thinking too much about his cousins and France, thoughts that were linked with the fancy footwork that he had just attempted, and failed at. He had always wondered why his parents accents were stronger after they had returned to the United States. Damien had never thought about what sort of affect it had on him. It would seem that it meant he had slipped ever so briefly into the European mindset. He had stumbled up a bit, almost calling the sport by what it was known in the rest of the world. Stupid of him because he was suppose to be an American right? Damien might now know that he was a mutant, but his question of identity was far from answered.
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IdieOkonkwo
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And there was the ball, just a little ways away from the boy. He'd tried to use it like a footbag, which of course didn't work very well, and now it was sitting there. Should she get it? It still wasn't very far from him, but at least he wasn't holding it anymore.

"I know how to play football," Idie answered in her Nigerian accent as the boy explained it wasn't a solo sport. Of course it wasn't, everyone knew that. "I was just practicing my shooting." Or maybe he was pointing out how she didn't have any friends? Rude! Though... that was probably her own fault. She didn't feel like a good friend anymore. And there weren't any other Nigerians, or even West Africans! The only other African she knew of was Ms. Munroe, and there was no way she was going to talk to a false goddess. And not even a real African! They said she was born in New York!

She fidgeted a little, bouncing on her toes, still waiting for him to kick the ball back.

Oh forget it. It was her ball and she was going to get it back.

Darting forward suddenly, coat flapping around her with the movement, Idie tried to maneuver the ball away from the boy with a curving kick.
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Chomper
Beast Form
Damien had stared at Lance many times over the years, trying to figure out how on earth he could be related to the older teen. There were some physical features that were very similar between the two, which was to be expected between any sibling. Other than that it felt as though he were the polar opposite. Lance had been smart and a quick learner, Damien not so much. He could not see the big picture like his older brother was capable of, and still was having issues thinking of the consequences of his actions before taking them. It was something he was aware that he had to improve on now. Words still flew out of his mouth without getting stopped by the brain's border patrol. "Angry much? 's just a stupid game, chillax."

That was another critical difference in the de Chantraine boys. Damien did not view things as sports but rather games. His attitude was much more lax when it came to playing any sport than his brother. It didn't mean that he was a lump on the couch though. Damien was probably more active than Lance, provided he wasn't caught up in a video game at the moment. He needed to be moving almost always, and too often when following the structure of something like soccer where limitations were placed upon players depending upon their position on the team, meant that Damien was forced into standing by and waiting for some action. He wasn't saying that Idie was stupid for playing the game. Nor did he have any malicious intent in telling her to relax when she was very clearly upset with him. All he had meant was that she should remember that it was just a game to waste time with. He didn't even think that Xavier's had sports teams that competed with other schools, so being so serious about something like practicing your dribbling was pointless.

The predator in him reacted to Idie's sudden movement when she went to kick the ball away from him. It was like a switch was flipped and his eyes were instantly focused upon the black and white ball as Idie kicked it away from him. Rahne had been trying to get him to find some sort of balance between a human shape and his animal form, and so far it had been all or nothing with him. His physical shape hadn't been able to reach a midpoint, and his senses were just as plain as ever when he looked normal, but there were still impulses, little flashes into what he was capable of. Now Damien was pivoting on his heel and chasing after Idie and the ball. He was now playing with her, even if neither one of them realized it or thought of it that way. Even though he had no idea about how to handle girls, or why Idie had been annoyed by him, Damien had just inserted himself into her game. The soccer ball was just a different type of prey.

"You think you can get better on your own?" Damien asked, keeping pace with Idie easily. His morning jogs combined with his years of skateboarding and gave him strong legs. The boy could run, human or beastly shape. He was no mutant speedster, but he didn't just stand still either. One leg snuck out, aiming to steal the ball back from Idie, even if it was her ball to begin with. For the time being Damien's unease with the opposite gender was forgotten in his pursuit of his prey. Damien could focus well on one thing at a time, which was part of the reason why he liked video games so much.
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IdieOkonkwo
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She got it! She got the ball from him! YES!

And then she promptly lost it as he stole it back. Ugh. Idie rolled her R's in annoyance.

There was something funny about the way he moved. It reminded Idie of an animal. The kind that pounced. A serval? Barracuda? No, an iguana! They'd sit there like a lump, but would move surprisingly quickly when they wanted. Especially when they were about to catch a bug. Yes, that's how he'd gone after the ball. Like an iguana. And now Iguana Boy had her football. Again.

In general, Idie wasn't that competitive. There were more balls in the shed, she could just go get another one. Most days, that's what she would do. Give up at this point, let the bully have the ball, go do something else. But for some reason, this got under her skin. There she was, minding her own business, and then he took her ball! Stupid Iguana Boy!

Not particularly registering that they were basically playing football, which had sort of been her goal, Idie tried to hook a foot around his ankle to trip him. "What is WRONG with you!" she yelled. "It's mine! Get your own ball!"
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Chomper
Beast Form
What Damien and Idie were engaged in was barely any sort of game, let alone soccer, and the object that they were both fighting to keep control of was nothing that the shrimp would have any interest in eating, both as a human and as a beast, but the hunt was on and he was enjoying it. This was a game of keep away more than soccer and that was something that Damien could do. One of the more popular games that he'd played during the soccer years whenever there was an odd number of players was like monkey in the middle, only played with your feet. It had been an activity that was hair pulling frustration inducing and at the same time exhilarating fun. Damien had taken his share of lumps playing it, for it had always been a rough game. In a way the challenge of not being the odd man out could have prepped him for his beast form's hunting skills. It certainly helped add to the scrappy tenacity that Damien had.

Fifteen years was a good amount of time to acquire bumps and bruises. Damien had hit his head on things so many times in his life, be it skateboarding or loosing his balance while trying to do something that would have to be considered stupid. If he had bothered to put a bandage on every scratch or scrape that he obtained in his life Band Aid's stock market value would have jumped up to a very respectable level. Looking at the young teen you might not expect him to be so tough. He had grown in the past year, both in height (minutely he had to admit), and weight (again a small amount) yet his sturdiness was only noticeable in his other shape. But those fifteen years had helped Damien to be more than what you could see. When he crashed Damien straightened himself back up and moved on. So when Idie tried to trip him he didn't care about the risk of getting hurt, even if he was running at a good pace. Nor did he care that for a few seconds his balance had been thrown off entirely and he was forced into having to use his arms for a few steps until he could straighten his back up again. What bothered him was what Idie was yelling at him after she did it.

"What's wrong with me? The hell's wrong with you?" Damien accused, "Trying to break my neck?" If he had any sense of control or ability to read the situation he would have known to stop at that. Idie was upset with him from the beginning and she had just reached her breaking point and snapped at him. But Damien had missed the point of her anger, and thought that her upset nature was due to him being a better soccer player, not because he had imposed himself on her private game. In his mind he not only had done nothing wrong, he was being nice by playing with her. She had asked him at first to kick the ball back to her. Had she wanted to be boring and just pointlessly kick the ball about she would have picked up the ball when it had hit him, not ask him to kick it back.

No matter how he approached it, all Damien could come to was the fact that she had wanted someone to play with her. She shouldn't be upset that he had gotten involved, and she certainly shouldn't be telling him to go get a ball of his own. The tripping thing Damien was alright with. He had played with Lance and his cousins, all of which were much more aggressive with the ball than this strange girl was. Tripping was in poor taste, not quite cheating, but still frowned upon by those who took the game seriously. Damien hardly cared if they were following the rules. This was more like that game of keep away that he had enjoyed playing before. So yes, she could try to trip him, but telling him to get his own ball was making him feel snappish. "Stupid. Why would we play with two balls?"
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