Egyptian Rivers (Open)

[Kanika Stryker]

((OOC: I know there's still the open tryout thread, but it's been going for a while and stepping in doesn't seem right. Plus, I'm playing Kanika as a late transfer anyway so missing tryouts seems more appropriate.))

"Sorry, you came in a few weeks late to try out for this season, they already had tryouts. It was a total mess. You wouldn't have made it anyway."

Bitch-ass twat... Kanika was pretty ticked at the moment. Not because she missed tryouts. Well, partially. But the fattie behind the desk telling her she would have failed... She pissed her off so badly, so irrevocably bitchtastically, that Kanika was pretending the staff member's head was the very soccer ball she was kicking against the back wall of the school's stadium bleachers. It was a nice, wide, broad and flat surface, so she'd marked a few points on the wall to kick the ball at, testing her accuracy, and her ability to get to the bal before it got away.

Despite her last name, she was a goalie on her last team. The ten points she was aiming for were in the shape of a star, marking each of the corners. And she had a pattern that resembled drawing a star without lifting the pencil. Five lines. Ten sides. Ten points. The star was small, but her slight inaccuracies, and the differing positions made the ball rebound off the wall at a wider angle each time. She'd yet to complete the whole star before failing to control the ball. That was sixteen kicks from ten feet away. The first kick was direct. The second was maybe five degrees off. That meant a foot of adjustment. Next was also five degrees off. One more foot. One more foot again. Then it was seven degrees in the opposite direction. Foot and a half? No, three feet. Then the ball was already past the next point, so she started to have to run back and forth faster and faster. She could finish an average of three lines. By then, she was running a good twenty-five feet to catch the ball, having to anticipate the rebound angle and position of the ball. It was tougher than it looked to finish the star. If she could spin the ball properly maybe, but a goalie's job was to keep the ball out of the goal, not be super-accurate with the kicks. A decent accuracy was enough for a long kick.

Still, she couldn't help but want to shove the ball down the woman's throat. That's why she hadn't noticed she was getting closer to the wall each time she did the exercise. She just wasn't truly focused on the exercise.

[Matrim Gallagher]

(OOC: Could not resist...... fell to the temptation of soccer and sports and and Goalie.....)

"You're pretty good, you should consider joining the team," Matrim said. He was in his roughed up shape of course. Two busted up arms, in casts, and slings, crossed over his torso like he was a mummy on the upper half of his body. But for the lower half? All systems go. He could run, jump, hop, kick, walk, you name it. He could even dance. Hell, he could do some wrestling moves like this, he proved it too! Against Mathew when his arms were broken.

"I mean you aren't that bad from the looks of it. Most of the team is looking a bit rusty if you ask me," Matrim said, his British accent only coming off lightly, "What's your name?"

So this girl plays soccer... that's nice.... now why isn't she on the team I wonder..... hell, I ought to put her on the boys team if she's good enough. Not like anybody will care if there is a girl on the team. I'm not exactly against the idea.

[Kanika Stryker]

"Kanika... Stryker." She had her back to him as she stopped the ball with a well-placed foot stomp. Her foot was a bit heavier than it needed to be, but such was the nature of her disdain. Even with the compliments, she wasn't happy. Being denied out of appearances was the worst kind of discrimination. For the most part, she played sports for the fun and passion. But now she had to prove herself and that made the game just a little bit less fun. She hated the segregation, the sexist mentalities between divisions. It just irked her in the worst way, and she didn't know why.

"Kinda hard to join..." She kicked the ball straight up, high enough to give her plenty of time. "When the tryouts were done well before I moved here..." The ball was on a downward descent. She crouched down and launched herself into the air, flipping backwards, her whole body arched as the ball came into kicking range. Her body crunched up with a sudden snap, her leg kicking the ball straight at the voice's chest. It was only after the kick that she saw the casts. Smooth move. She landed form her backflip with her eyes closed, not wanting to know what had happened. Her kicks had some power to them, after all. But it was only a soccer ball. Pray for the best.

[Matrim Gallagher]

"So you are just going to give--" He saw the ball coming. He was fast, he was strong, and he knew when a ball was coming for him. He quickly lifted both arms upward so that they crossed over his head, he hit the ball with his chest hard enough to stop the momentum. The ball dropped and Matrim lowered the arms back to their resting point. He then put his right foot on top of the ball, pulled his foot back rolling the ball onto the top of said foot and lifted it up into the air, bouncing the ball back and forth by hitting it with both knees, "So you are just going to give up? If I were you I'd find the captain of the soccer ball team and give the bloke a good hit to the head. Really give him something to think about."

He laughed a little, letting the ball drop after doing this several times through his little speech, "After all, shows a bit of initiative. And if you have all this anger, you should put it to something. Especially since the pillars don't allow fighting to take place on school grounds. Sports is where everyone gets there anger out for the most part. Oh, how rude of me I forgot to mention. I'm Matrim, but you can just call me Matt."

He wasn't going to tell her right away he was the captain of the soccer team, and the Varsity Captain, meaning that he was one of the pillars enforcing that policy. He would tell her once he was sure she was determined to join a sports team. He didn't want somebody who would just roll over and accept defeat. So he kicked the ball towards her gently. A smile over his face as he waited to hear her answer.

[Kanika Stryker]

"Matrim huh? Unique name." She stated, very blunt in her observations. She wasn't like most people who came to the school blind. She'd done her research. They even had a PHS wiki site out there to cover notable persons, violence rates, and the latest news. PHS 42 had gotten a lot of coverage and updates because of the PHS 259 incident and the transfers. And notable persons... Who could deny that the pillars of the school were notable people. Along with the teachers, of course. So yeah, she was quick to figure it out. Matrim Gallagher, Varsity Captain. She hadn't known about the casts though. But she did know his rank. And she felt it was a safe bet to assume he was the Matrim described in the article. Who else had that first name?

"So, what sports did you play before that, Matrim? I take it you follow most the teams pretty closely." She questioned, using her toe to flick the ball into the air and catch it with both hands. Pause for an answer, of course. "The anger isn't over the tryouts... It's... Just not a good day for me overall." Subtle? Not amazingly so, but it'd work.

"Think you could give me a recommendation to the team captain? I figure your word would be a bit more persuasive than mine."

[Matrim Gallagher]

"Matrim huh? Unique name."

"I was named after a very unique kind of person," Matrim said. He was named after his fathers best friend, a very strong and lean fighter. One who could definitely go for the kill every time without worrying about it. Matrim himself was different in that aspect. Not to mention Matrim Aldon had surgical steel plates in his arms that made him freakishly tough in that area. "I just play soccer," He said.

"The anger isn't over the tryouts... It's... Just not a good day for me overall. Think you could give me a recommendation to the team captain? I figure your word would be a bit more persuasive than mine."

"Depends," He said, getting a bit closer to her and looking at her a bit, "What positions can you do?" Yeah, that was a very good question to ask a girl. Of course, he didn't mean it that way, at all. Especially being spoken for, but he wasn't really thinking about that. He'd try and gauge the girls strength and ability on sheer observation alone, but in the end it wouldn't cut it. He couldn't exactly fight her either, so he'd have to see her in practice or something. "We really only have a few openings after all..."

They had all the forwards and midfielders you could ask for. And it wasn't like they were about to put a five man front strategy just to let people play. Especially since Matrim wasn't at the goal to defend anymore. He'd be the one up front, and he knew that even if they had two forwards they'd score at least 4 goals a game if not more.

[Kanika Stryker]

"Just soccer, huh?" She was interested in baseball too, the kind that used the smaller ball. But baseball wasn't in season yet. At least not to her knowledge. It was a summer game, after all.

"What positions can you do?" Kanika didn't even catch the awkward wording. She rolled a 1 on her innuendo check, so to speak. "I played goalie at my old school. I just wasn't as fast as the others but I had a knack for being where I needed to be. So... They stuck me in he goal box and I've been there for a few years." But she knew that was a rather easily filled spot on a team, and if someone left due to injury, it was usually someone who ran more often. "I was also uh... Frak, what was it... Fullback! A few times in the beginning. I did okay there too.

She wasn't really putting on her most determined, confident front, mainly because she didn't have to. Talking big to this guy wasn't going to help. She just had to play big when she got to the field. If they'd let her try out. Since the guy had even been on the team, hopefully he'd give her his support. He was the Varsity Captain for crying out loud. Head honcho for the sports crews. He must have only said he played soccer because of the season they were in. He must have had other standbys.

[Matrim Gallagher]

"Show up for practice." Was all Matrim would say, "If you are any good you'll be starting until my arms heal up. But I expect you to work on the other positions in practice. Because I want to be able to switch you out to defender if I have to, or midfielder. And if you want to I'll even switch you to forward in the future at times. In any case, it's pretty obvious I'm the captain. But what I say stands, sometimes to get what you want from me you got to knock me around a bit. Only trouble is, I'm a hard person to beat up."

He started to walk off, "Tuesdays and Thursdays after school, be there." He'd say, and leave her to her practice. Perhaps she'd come across someone else, or perhaps she'd just go back to her training. Either way Matrim was going to put her through hell just like the rest of his team. Their practices would be pretty tough. Especially for the ones who wanted to be goalie or forward. Those would quite possibly be the hardest practices. Insanely hard.

He couldn't wait.