Marigold and Gareth, vs Burgandy and Carl featuring Blue on the sidelines.
Current Match Score 0-0
Gareth POV chapter.
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Eventually the minor innuendo warm calmed down and everyone got into positions. Both teams seemed to inactively gravitate towards splitting up instead of sticking close together. Burgandy and Carl were sitting at diagonals from each other, with Carl in front, and Burgandy at the back, ready to make the first serve.
On the other side of the net, Marigold and Gareth had split up, with Marigold claiming the front slot so that she could wave her ass in Gareth's face, or more usefully, her tits in Carl's. How effective waving her tits in the face of a gay man would be? Only time would tell. Gareth wasn't going to complain and incite more lewd comments so he just moved to the back, with them both sitting in the centre of the court, instead of at diagonals.
Time would tell which starting strategy was the best. Burgandy served without much fanfare, though it was a bit light on. Perhaps she was concerned with hitting the ball too hard and breaking it, despite Thyme's assurances, or perhaps she underestimated how much force she needed to put into it. Regardless of the truth, it falling down just barely on the other side of the net meant Marigold could hit it back easily.
She sped straight up and slapped the ball down with her free hand, sending it away from Carl the best she could. The court however, wasn't too wide, and Marigold had telegraphed the attack massively, so Carl had started running even before the ball had made contact with Marigold's hand. It was trivial for him to make a play for it, and he sent the ball straight up into the air. "Burgandy, your shot!" shouted Carl.
Burgandy glared at Carl's back, not entirely happy with his choice to send it so high up. She glared at the sun with a hand over her face as she ran forward, to try and line up her own shot. Carl had launched the ball with considerable strength, if not his maximum, and it took a few moments for it to start falling back down. Burgandy waited just a moment more then kicked off the ground, launching herself up… and cracking the stone she'd made underneath.
Gareth noticed this and was already working on shoring up his own side of the net, pumping more mana into the earth and packing the sand in tighter, making it denser then before and hopefully less liable to start breaking. Perhaps if he had time or was more trained he could do better, but he'd make do with this for now.
Burgandy went to slam her hand down on the ball, hoping to aim for the middle of the court and mess Gareth and Marigold up with a lack of communication, perhaps getting them to run into each other. Sadly, with the sun in her eyes, she whiffed the slam, completely missing t he ball.
"Shit," grumbled Burgandy, as she panicked and pushed as much mana into her shirt as she could, not properly aware of what it did, but hoping it would be useful. She was rewarded when a dome of earth exploded out from around her, draining her reserves of mana significantly, but launching the ball off towards Gareth at the back of the court, if slightly off to the side.
Gareth had no trouble lining it up, the angle was much better and he wasn't as put-off by the sun because of it. Marigold asked, "Are you going for a spike or hitting it to me?"
*Well shit. I wasn't thinking of that. Not really.* While the ball was heading Gareth's way, Burgandy was crashing back down to the ground in her earth dome. It was crumbling away even as she fell, the shirt not having taken enough mana to make it a permanent construct. *Let's just play it safe. I'll hit it up and let Marigold take the shot. The sun is still a bit in my eyes. I wish I had something to deal with that. Alas, I didn't think it was necessary for some reason.* "It's heading your way," said Gareth as he intercepted the ball.
Gareth smacked it upwards just before it would touch the ground, sending it upwards and slightly forwards. Marigold looked back and watched the ball fly towards her, a bit lower then she'd like, but that was fine. Marigold just let the ball come to her then she batted it over the net with as little force as she could, hoping for it to just barely clear the net.
Her plan worked, perhaps too well. The ball came back down smacking on the net, and giving Carl more than enough time to get under it and throw the ball upwards for Burgandy to hit it again. This time, the fae tries to hit it off to the side, forcing Marigold to run all the way to the edge.
Marigold manages it without issue because apparently nobody playing at the moment knows how to not telegraph their attacks in an obvious way. This pattern repeated itself for the next five minutes. Marigold discarding the pole she'd acquired during that time. The two teams smacked the ball back and forth, either in a very obvious way, or much too slow to catch anyone out. The fact that the ball was so bouncy and could only move so fast helping extend the rally massively.
The turning point came when Marigold jumped to return a ball early. Burgandy had set the shot up for Carl, he was going to hit it down, spiking it into the ground as hard as he could… but he was a bit too close to the net. Instead of smashing it into the ground, Marigold jumped a bit higher and smashed it passed him back towards Burgandy, hitting her boobs on the net in the process. Thyme, not obeying the normal rules of volleyball, so no problem with her touching the net, especially as she landed back on the correct side of it.
As for Burgandy, she simply wasn't ready for the ball to be smacked right back at her, she tried, but it glanced off her upper arm and sent it flying off out of bounds. "Score, 1-0 to Gareth and Marigold," announced Thyme.
The next round was over quickly. Gareth served, and Burgandy thought to be a bit tricky. Between rounds she'd found out that her boots summoned a large block of stone. She thought she'd hid her testing well enough, but the others were ready… not that it mattered. As soon as she knocked the stone up Thyme called out, "Score 2-0 to Gareth and Marigold,"
"Wait what!" hissed Burgandy, "Why did we lose the round? I didn't use magic on their side of the board!"
Thyme snatched the ball out of the air, stopping play to answer the question. "True, you only used magic on your half of the field, and I commend you for that. Sadly, you also brought the ground up the ball, and because of that, I have to give your opponents the point,"
"Wait… that's such bullshit!" said Burgandy. I used mana to summon that stone! Are you saying I can't use my earth affinity?"
"Not at all, however you will note that the spell, or rather, the enchantment, you used was to push up a pillar of earth from the ground, and then drop it back into place. The pillar is part of the ground, it isn't floating separately. If Marigold had used the stone pole she was carrying around early that would be fine. The stone dome you used early on in a panic was fine. You cannot however move the ground up and expect that to be fine," explained Thyme.
"It's clearly different though. I was obviously using a spell!" insisted Burgandy.
"Setting aside the fact it WASN'T a spell. Should I also allow anything to touch the ground? Both Gareth and yourself hardened it from the sand that it once was, and could be argued with similar logic that it is no longer the original ground, and is in fact, a spell. Thus allowing the ball to bounce on it as many times as you both like," explained Thyme.
"I still hold that it's completely different. Sure the ground is hardened, but we didn't move it at all. That pillar was an obviously raised section of the ground, and the fact that it was still connected shouldn't matter," insisted Burgandy.
Thyme let out a sigh, unsure of how to force the issue. They wanted to keep things casual, and this was an admittedly unclear section of the rules. Thyme wasn't sure if it was better or worse that it happened before the rally could really get started.
"I'm happy to give up that point," said Marigold.
"Pardon?" said Thyme turning to Marigold.
"If Gareth doesn't mind, I'm happy to say that the previous point doesn't count. We didn't even start fighting for the point properly, and Burgandy clearly didn't know it would cause issues. Plus, this is meant to be fun right?" said Marigold.
"Hmm… if Gareth allows it, so will I," said Thyme.
*Oh come on. Put the pressure on me will you?*
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