fandomhigh | Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Good morning, everyone! It's time for another summer of Anakin Skywalker Thinks This Teaches Team Building and Also Amuses Himself (Mostly the Second Thing) but "Shenanigans" Is Easier!

The bleachers for viewing were set up in the park backed up to the pond and near the Belthazor Commemorative Divot. Food vendors, remembering how this worked, had arrived with hot dog, popcorn, and rum for the squirrels. Huge flatscreens were set up facing the bleachers, which gave people a hint that today's event would not just stay inside the park, and the cameras were trained at...well, ankle height or the sky for now because squirrels and rum.

Anakin and his bullhorn were standing behind a folding table stacked high with brightly patterned shirts and people who had been here before knew that just because the shirts were free, it never, ever meant you wanted to wear them.

"GOOD MORNING!" he boomed through the bullhorn when enough people were gathered. Just behind the table, invisible because of the piles of shirts, Beaker meeped cheerfully. "Welcome to another summer of team building activities!"

He might be waiting for a while if he was expecting cheers, just saying.

"Today, as has become tradition, we shall conduct a relay race around the island to acquaint you newcomers with where things are!" he said. "Please listen as your name is called and then come up for your festive t-shirts. We shall have three teams of eight."

TEAM CATS
Sakaki
Miles
Bob
Rosa
Belle
Juillene
Duke
Harry

TEAM GRAFFITI
Enola
Nina
Summer
Prompto
Malia
Annie
Wanda
Clare

TEAM SAFARI
Hannibal
Stark
Rey
Travis
Elli
Tisarwat
Alara
Liam

After everyone had gotten their shirts and teams settled, Anakin reached for the bullhorn again. "Today, we are going without powers if you have any!" he yelled, which still not necessary with a bullhorn, Anakin. "First two team members to the starting line, the rest of you ~~handwavily~~ find your stations around the island! Ready, steady--go!"

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"Huh." Travis looked from the shirt to the much too cheerful looking guy with the bullhorn. "I guess it could count as my workout for the day."

Little did he know.

"There is often plenty of exercise involved," Stark said. "I think there are better ways to exert ourselves but, again, Anakin."

"Right." Travis nodded. "Well. Heaven help us if he ever meets my old captain from Seattle. Who knows what kind of nonsense they'd come up with?"

Probie, a little pitbull puppy, let out a little bark, tired of being ignored.

"Right," Travis said, leaning down to rub her ears. "Stark, meet my new team member, Probie. Probie, this is our friend Stark."

That was a very nice, formal introduction for a new puppy.

"Anakin doesn't need any help coming up with nonsense," Stark said with a hint of an eyeroll. "What did your captain do?" Hopefully at least slightly less ridiculous activities than Anakin came up with.

"Hello, Probie," he said, crouching down a little to hold out a hand to the puppy. "Good to meet you."

Probie ran in excited circles until she tripped on the edge of her too-large work vest and went tumbling.

She seemed to enjoy that part, too.

"Maya's an Olympic gold medalist," Travis said. "Basically the best of the best of the best in her particular sport. She won on a sprained ankle. She's a big believer in pushing through the pain and working until you want to die."

Stark nodded. He'd at least watched some Olympic events when he'd been on the island before.

"I don't recommend wanting to die... perhaps a good thing I'm not meant to be training for anything."

Then he just grinned at the puppy's antics. "Probie," he said seriously, "you are adorable."

Probie wagged her tail at him in delight.

"She's pretty damn cute, isn't she," Travis said, with a positively doofy smile on his face. "I just adopted her on Monday."

"Extremely cute," Stark confirmed. "Congratulations?" Was that what you said when someone got an adorable pet? He didn't know.

"Thanks." Travis chuckled softly. "I'm hoping to get her trained up into a proper fire dog. Have at least someone watching my back when I'm on the occasional job, you know?"

And give him something to get overly invested in doing with his free time in the meantime.

"I don't know anything about fire dogs," Stark said, giving the puppy an appraising look. "But it's always better to have someone looking out for you than not."

"Especially when your job involves danger," Travis agreed.

"Never had a particularly dangerous job." Only compensated labor counted as a job.

"But someone to watch my back has saved me more than once," Stark said with a nod. "Less danger here than most places I've been. Aside from the occasional attacking vines or Christmas decorations."

Or worse things.

"Makes sense," Travis said, nodding. Then: "Wait, Christmas decorations?"

"Before you were here," Stark told him. "In the winter. The reindeer tried to eat me. Liam killed it. But not just the reindeer. Everything, all the decorations, went a bit murderous."

". . . But they're Christmas decorations."

Travis wasn't getting over this one very fast.

"It's a strange island," Stark said with a shrug. "There was a weather satellite? That probably doesn't help. We blew it up. Things went back to normal. Normal for here."

Sorry, Travis.

"A weather satellite??" Wow, that was quite a pitch he hit there.

"That we blew up." Stark nodded.

He really didn't mean to keep breaking your brain, Travis. It just happened.

"Had to borrow Anakin's ship to do it."

"Anakin's ship." Travis nodded slowly. "Anakin's . . . spaceship?"

"I don't know how to pilot the other kind," Stark pointed out. "And that wouldn't work well against a satellite anyway."

“Ah,” Travis said. “Right, silly me.”

"Does it help to know that's the only time I know of that it's happened? With the decorations."

Probably not.

"You may get used to the ships. I haven't got one but there are a few here."

"And no one else notices this?"

"The ships?" Stark asked. He was pretty sure it wasn't the ships. "Or that the island goes mad on a fairly regular basis? You may underestimate how odd some of the places the rest of us come from are. I think I'm just used to it now. It doesn't make sense, much of it, but I'm used to it."

Just wait until you turned into something, Travis.

Summer Shenanigans, Wednesday, May 12, 2021

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