middleofsomewhere | Conclusion

Thank you.

For those inside the system the voices of the Great-Seasons ring out around them once the red mass has vanished and the blue plinth it was smothering is freed once more. They don't have all that much time to reflect on that before they find themselves waking up once more in their bodies around the tree trunks.

Or at least, around the tube that is the Great-Season they entered through. All illusions have vanished now, all that is left are pipes and metal.

The Great-Seasons allow them passage out from the centre, no sentries or pipes attack them this time. Everything seems to have been put to rights, the walls in the Autumn sector have stopped moving, there is no strange weather effects in the Summer Sector, no engineering problems in Winter and all the camaloid creatures in Spring are calm. Any Helpmates they come across are doing their jobs and no longer malfunctioning.

After a small amount of time, enough to check that all is well, their SCA's light up. All Passengers are to return to the Voidtrecker Express.

Considering the vast distances involved it is probably best that they use the evacuation function to return to the Luggage carriage.

Once all Voidtreckers have returned the train returns to the Void once more.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Soldat stops at the sound of the ball, blinking a little, and pop the pendant out of their mouth. They actually have no idea what that was even about. Kicking a ball...? "It's fine. Just got here." They can focus through all sorts of distractions.

But. Now they're curious. "What were you doing?"

"Practicing," he says brightly. "Have you ever played soccer?"

"No. I don't know what soccer is." Nobody told the Winter Soldier about sports, and they only have a vague recollection of baseball from before HYDRA ever got a hold of them.

"Its a game," Shinichi informs him. "The goal is to move the ball around the field and into the goal without using your hands."

"Oh." Yeah, completely unfamiliar. "Can you show me?"

Definitely a good distraction. Maybe they'll even learn a new game. (Can't fuck that up with a metal hand, either. Training. ~~Boring.~~ You think everything's boring except food, Pit.)

"Sure!" He'd been needing a distraction anyway. Casting a quick glance around, he points at a point on the wall.

"Pretend that's a goal, okay?"

Releasing the ball, he scoops it up with the side of his foot, kicks it up, and as it falls back down he kicks it to the side. It rebounds off the side wall at an angle and slams right into the spot he'd pointed out.

Soldat watches closely, and their brows go up, impressed, at the perfect strike. "You're very good," they say. "Strong understanding of ricochet, good body sense, precise control of the ball."

They can probably do that, maybe with a second watching. Kicking rubber balls is not a thing they have ever done before. "Can you do it again?"

"I've been practicing a long time." Since he'd been this age, the first time. And he'd gotten a lot of practice since then, now that his skill at soccer was one of his best options for dealing with criminals.

Conan eyes the dimension of the room, considering.

This time he kicks the ball straight up, bouncing it off his knee twice before twisting and kicking it straight back at the goal.

Well, Soldat's not going to try and copy that. They think maybe they'd better not try to copy anything too fancy until they've tried kicking the ball around themselves, a little. "Is the game all about just hitting the goal mark? How many people play at once?"

"The full game is played by two teams, each with eleven players. Each team has one goalie to protect the goal.The other ten players are divided between positions in defense, midfield and forward. Its a lot of fun, but there isn't really enough space here for a full game." Conan was more than happy to explain this. He was a huge fan of the game, and it was nice having the chance to explain it.

"But its fun just playing with a few people too."

"Maybe you can show me the basics." It's something to do. They're absolutely desperate for something to do. And it's something active, which is better than not active, and to do with another person, which is better than alone by a long shot.

Well, he had been looking for a distraction. Teaching someone how to play his favorite game was as good as any. (Maybe not quite as fun as rereading Holmes again, but it was close.)

"Sure!" he says brightly. "People usually start with learning how to control the ball with their feet. I can show you some of the drills."

"Okay." Soldat steps aside, circling a little to get the best view of Conan's feet. They clearly expect to be shown, and then get the ball passed over to them.

He thinks a moment, then starts doing one of the basic ball control drills. One of the first ones he'd learned. He runs it to the end of the gym, then takes it back and passes the ball over.

Soldat stops the ball from the pass with his foot, gives it a careful, experimental kick to gauge the strength of the rubber (or leather, or whatever this particular soccer ball is made out of), then repeats the drill Conan just made. They're not perfect, the ball escapes several times in the first few tries, but they're pretty good for one attempt. The repetition of the drill coming back is much cleaner, now that they know what it feels like.

Having excellent body understand, serum-enhanced learning skills, and a history of being pretty severely punished for failing at similar skills helps a lot with picking up things like this.

Eh, the last group Conan had taught soccer to had been in first grade. Compared with that, he's impressed.

"That's good! The goal here is to keep control of the ball so you can move it across the field. That and learning how to pass are usually the first things people learn."

They're wondering, a little bit, if there was a game anything like this that the person they used to be knew how to play. There's no skills coming to the surface, so... probably not. But it still seems like something a person like that ought to know. (Maybe it's not old enough? Maybe it was another game. We don't have much from back then.)

They step carefully on the ball to hold it still, looking between it and Conan's feet. "Then I should learn to pass it," they guess.

"Use the side of your foot to push the ball and roll it over to me." Conan adjusts the position of his feet. "The goal is to be able to pass it between teammates without breaking either teammates pace."

That sounds easy enough. Their first attempt, though, is definitely not perfect: the ball goes where they aim, but they don't kick it hard enough, so it doesn't actually reach Conan in a reasonable amount of time. Any opposing team member could take advantage and steal it, if there were any.

Conan catches the ball with side of his foot and rolls it back in a practiced way. He keeps the speed slower than normal.

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