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Relax? Have You Said Relax?: Chapter Ten

Kurt, Kitty, Tabitha and Amara presented themselves immediately but it wasn't enough to really make an interesting party.

"Bryan, Sara, Samantha, Maria?" asked Iceman.

"Huh?"

"A volley-party?"

"I'm not in a fit state to," said Jean's sister by passing her hand on her rounded abdomen indicating her rounded abdomen.

"That tempts me!" made Bryan, soon imitated by Maria.

Kurt took the census of this little people.

"Seven players, we'd need to make two teams of five or six..." he noticed in a loud voice, "Jean, Ororo, Scott, don’t you want to play?"

"I rather like to arbitrate, the volley isn't my knack," declared Jean.

All of them turned toward Ororo who shook her hands.

"No, very little for me," she answered. "But, our leader will surely set an example, hum?"

All the heads turned this time toward Scott who raised his eyebrows above his ruby-quartz shades.

"No problems," he answered before reassuring Jean on her implicit question. "Don't worry, there're no reasons that I'll lose my shades."

She smiled and walked with the others toward the pitch.

"We need two persons in addition," noticed Tabitha.

"We can ask the Bro..."

"No way!" reacted Kurt. "The less we see them, the better we are."

Amara cast a glance toward a group of young adolescents seated no far from here and who didn't seemed to be disgusted or scared by their presence.

"Maybe..." she thought in loud voice with hope before going up towards them.

The others looked her going away. Perplexed, they see her chat with the adolescents and then come back with two of them, a triumphant look on her face.

"I'd like you to meet Shiri and Sydney who have kindly accepted to join us."

"Hello." They said in a shy voice.

"Don't worry, we aren't going to eat you," smiled Shadowcat before turning herself toward her friends. "So, I'm Kitty, and here is, like, Bobby, Kurt, Tabitha, Scott, Jean, Ororo, Sara, Maria, Bryan, Samantha and their daughter, Mathilde."

"Don't panic, we won't all play," said Scott in a kindly tone seeing a sort of how-are-we-going-to-remember-of-all-these-names-? appeared on the two human's faces. "In any case, thanks for trusting us."

"You're welcome," said Sydney."You didn't seemed to be as dangerous that the media had let us think, so why not?"

Samantha, Mathilde, Ororo and Sara sat down some meters from the pitch -- prevention is better than cure -- on a par with the net. Jean, having discussed the rules with Storm for a few minutes, moved forward the group.

"Well, this will do. Two teams of five," she said. "The best would be that you manage to make them equitable."

"And for the rules?" asked Amara.

"The same as the ones for a classic volley-match," answered Jean before tackling THE point which Magma was particularly referring to. "The powers are allowed -- In any case, when we prohibit it, we aren't a lot successful...with some exceptions."

"Which ones?"

"I was refering to Iceman," answered the telepath. "Kurt, you can utilize your teleportations but don't misuse it; Tabitha, avoid doing again to us the same thing than the last time, we've spend two hours to plug the hole and the grass needed four month to recover..."

"Yes, it's a volley match Boom-Boom, not a party of explosives balls..." approved Scott by referring to the day where Tabitha, during a match, had swapped the balloons with one of her little dears particularly imposing. It had passed above the net three times over -- each one wanting to get rid of it the fastest possible -- before touching down and to cheerfully fill its part.

"I've always loved to innovate," she said proudly.

"So try to innovate in following the rules for one time," Scott trapped her sarcastically.

She sent a grimace to him but he knew that the young mutant was not at all hurt. Scott turned himself toward the young mutant who seemed to be the most amused by the reflexion and said, "That's the same for you Bobby."

"Hey! I always follow the rules...well, I try since sometime!"

"Yes, like, at the speed of a glacier," said Kitty.

"Ah ah, really spiritual," conceded the young mutant.

"Can we come back to our story?" asked Jean waiting to get back the group attention. "So, Bobby and Kurt can use their powers, Tabitha rather not, cause we have only one ball. If we add Amara who is not either allowed to transform the balloon into a volcanic bomb; Kitty, who doesn't have a lot of utility with her power in the play; and Scott who, off course, can under no circumstances use his...That makes a total of four humans, six mutants including two who can use theirs powers without danger," she recapitulated.

Knowing what they have to do, two teams have been rapidly formed by three mutants and two humans. Maria, Bobby, Bryan, Shiri and Kitty on a side; Kurt, Tabitha, Scott, Amara and Sydney on the other.

Between the talents of each one, the opportunity of Nightcrawler's teleportations and Bobby's ice-slopes preventing some balls to be considered officially out of the pitch or even block its at the net, the match was one of the most interesting and the most cautious.

Off course, Amara could've used her power to melt down Bobby's ice, but this wouldn't have been without risks; so, she remained responsible and only turned to her gifts to clean the place and in that way, to prevent it to become an ice rink.

Jean umpired with seriousness and impartiality, replacing sometimes the balloon in the match with her TK when it was sent too far from the pitch. Some tourists more curious or -- we like to think so -- less bloody idiot than the others, have even approached to see play two teams constituted of mutants and humans in heterogeneous way.

In short, exhausted but satisfied, it was with a no-restrained pleasure that all of them jumped into the water after more than a hour of a match which haven't had let a team dominate the other.

chap 11

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