Work Text:
"This is absolutely ridiculous." Someone muttered under their breath. Said person was blond, his hair close shaved to his head with broad shoulders standing at a height of 5"11. In his hand was a note from his 'beloved' upperclassmen.
It read:
Rex,
As the newly elected Captain of the 501st Boy's Volleyball club you are to ensure the entry of the Spring preliminaries and training of the new team. We are not going to input anything as we do not wish to undermine your newfound authority.
Good luck, you will probably need it.
PS if you have any other questions speak to Mr Yularen - it's out of our hands now.
Attached to the note were the keys to the gym as well as the master key to the lockers in the club room.
Rex ran his hand through his short hair. What were these idiots thinking. Himself in charge of the volleyball team was reasonable, he supposed. Kix couldn't as a Libero and Coric didn't like to be on court half the time. No doubt Kix would take up the role of unofficial Vice-Captain since you didn't have top submit that officially. Not only that but the Domino Twins as well as the other Terror Two would be difficult enough to deal with. He sighed and checked the time on his phone - 06:00 - noting that he had been made admin to the group chat.
He opened the settings and immediately kicked the no good third years off of it. He doubted anyone would be fully awake at this hour but after the note being delivered to his locker yesterday he had things to do.
His phone buzzed:
501st: Echo: ?
501st: Echo: Rex what happened to the third years?
Of course only Echo would be awake at this hour. One half of the fearsome Domino Twins, offered numerous scholarships at some of the more prestigious schools but no, they came all the way to the 501st. Rex wasn't sure if this was a good or a bad thing but at least Fives or Jesse or Hardcase wouldn't be awake at this Godforsaken hour, he could only deal with one of the first years at a time right now.
501st Boy's Volleyball Team
Echo: ?
Echo: Rex what happened to the third years?
Rex changed his name to Captain Rex
Captain Rex: That's Captain Rex.
Echo: ...yes Captain?
Captain Rex: Everyone better be at morning practice at 0700 hours on the dot. We've got a lot to discuss.
With that Rex shut off his phone and changed into his PE kit, consisting of a dark blue shirt with a black pair of shorts. He quickly ate breakfast, grabbed his bag that was leaning on the chair and left the house. He ran three kilometers before making his way to school finally getting to the gym at 06:30. He decided to wait 15 minutes until opening the gym and setting up the net so he made his way up to the club room. 6 notifications. Rex clicked on Kix's name.
Kix
Kix: Thats Captain Rex?
Kix: Your first sentence as Captain and you write THATS CAPTAIN REX?
Kix: Im guessing those useless excuses for upperclassmen have abandoned us
Kix: Never liked them anyway
Kix: Also you better be making me your unofficial Vice-Captain.
Kix: Then Ill deal with the Terror Two and you can deal with the Twins.
Rex: Why am I dealing with the Twins?
Kix: You know they idolise you why else?
Rex: ...
Rex: Have fun dealing with Jesse and Hardcase then. They might not be twins but they're basically two halves of the same person.
Kix: Dont worry. I will.
Rex rolled his eyes and felt some levels of concern and sympathy for Jesse and Hardcase.
501st Boy's Volleyball Team
Fives: CAPTAIN REX
Fives: CAN I BE NUMBER 5?
Fives: PLEASE?
Fives: ME AND ECHO WILL EVEN BEHAVE MORE?
Captain Rex: Turn up to practice on time and we'll be able to discuss it.
Fives: YES
Hardcase: woah captain huh
Rex: Just be on time or I'll set the vice captain onto you.
Jesse: vicecaptain?
Kix changed his name to (un)Official Vice-Captain
Hardcase: ...
Jesse: ...
(un)Official Vice-Captain: :)
Rex's attention was soon pulled away from his phone by the door being slammed open by a panting first year. Fives looked like he had just sprinted all the way from their house to school.
"Where's Echo?" Rex questioned Fives who snapped to attention and gestured vaguely behind him, Rex sighed and pointed at the bench. Fives took a seat as they waited for his twin.
Several minutes later at 06:50 Echo jogged up the stairs. He handed Rex a stack of notecards before moving over to Fives.
Echo flicked his twin on the forehead.
"Why'd you do that?" Fives whined. Echo rolled his eyes.
"Why did you run off?" Echo shot back.
Rex began to look through the notecards. Printed neatly were strategies as well as positions and ideal plays of the reformed volleyball team with the positions and other logistics that Rex hadn't even begun to think of. Other Captains would have dismissed these strategies with the wave of their hand, their last captain had, but that wasn't Rex. Rex flicked through more. There were 15 in total, 7 were for each of them, statistics, strengths, weaknesses, even what tosses each player liked best. The other 7 cards consisted of new formations and plays against stronger servers, spikers, blockers, describing who would be ideal for each part in each situation. And then the last card just had two words on it: Coach and Manager.
"When... when did you even get time to write these?" Rex stared at Echo who shrugged.
"It was obvious those morons would abandon us. I thought I'd prepare us so we don't look like total idiots at the prelims." Echo replied.
"Yeah only partial ones." Fives chimed in laughing before turning serious. "But don't worry Captain. You can count on us." Both twins mock saluted him. Rex smiled slightly and then stood up.
"Well. Let's get set up then." He ruffled the hair of the twins who were identical in every way except their persona and led the way. "We've got a lot of work to do."
...
The 501st made a name for themselves at the prelims. Who would have thought that a bunch of first and second years with only just enough players to enter into the tournament would have made it through to the top eight in the prefecture. They were unpredictable and played with strategies that seemed to have counter strategies to anything anyone could throw at them. They had the bad luck of coming face to face with the reigning champions of the prefecture and lost 2 sets to 1 at the quarter finals, but next year... they would be victorious.
Coric stepped up as their second middle blocker in order to enter the competition which put tremendous pressure on their first year outside hitters but they persevered. Fives and Jesse worked in tandem along side their more experienced Captain to gain points one by one while Hardcase and Coric blocked spike after spike. Kix would never let the ball touch the ground, they always needed to get one more shot, one more point. Echo was the control tower in the centre of everything. Setting up play after play, after they called for spike after spike. Pulling off a setter dump as Five pulled of an unorthodox receive by jutting his leg out and then immediately calling for the shot, the Domino Twins were living up to their name as the other teams' resolve toppled.
And their coach.
Coach Skywalker was a prodigy of a player before his untimely accident. Rex was glad that he had approached Mr Yularen in order to attempt to find a coach for the team. While their club advisor often could not input into the matches he did what he could, called favours and convinced the great Anakin Skywalker to coach a high school team, even if it was only temporary.
Rex reflected on the tournament as they rode on the bus back to school. He supposed next year they would have to hunt for not only another coach but a manager. While Echo helped out with the managerial duties, he had his own work to keep up with. A hand clasped his shoulder as he got off the bus. Rex turned and looked up slightly to see Coach Skywalker through his brown slightly long and rugged hair.
"You did well Rex." Anakin said, "A lot of people would have given up in your situation but you powered through the challenges."
"Thank you, sir." Rex answered. "What you've done means a lot to me and the boys."
"Speaking of the boys... mind rounding them up for me?" Anakin said, the man of his mid-twenties gave him a grin.
"Sure?" Rex bought his hand up to his mouth and blew a sharp whistle. The rest of the exhausted team gathered round.
"Coach has something to say." Rex gestured for Anakin to take over.
"Right. As you know, when I first agreed to take up this position, the agreement was that I step in as a temporary Coach until you could find a proper replacement next year.. but... I've changed my mind. You lot have a lot of potential and I would be honoured to be your coach this coming year and see you grow into one of the best teams this prefecture's ever seen."
Everyone simultaneously lit up.
"So... I'll see you on the first day back. 07:00 sharp." And with that Anakin waved goodbye to them got into his blue and white car, Artoo, and drove off.
"Wait." Kix realised. "Coach does realise we continue practice up until the last day right?"
Rex sighed. "Probably not... oh well Coach deserves a week's break on top of the holidays. We'll see him next year."
Rex dismissed the 501st ready for practice on the Monday morning.
...
Oh no she's coming
Shhh she'll hear
Who cares
She shouldn't have messed up our chances of the tournament
Yeah right a prodigy
A blessed player? More like a cursed one
Let's ask her parents, oh wait, what parents?
Betrayal hurt. She could deal with the backhanded comments, the cruel rumours, the envy... but betrayal by one of those you hold most dearly... it hurt.
It all started on that day.
"What do you mean you can't make it? We always go for pre-tournament milkshakes."
"I'm sorry Ahsoka, we'll have to reschedule."
"Oh okay, next time then."
There was no next time, and those actions were never explained. They didn't need to be; social media said it all.
(A photo of five third years all grinning as they gathered in for the photo. In the centre the girl was grinning as well, her prominent freckles shining across her nose emphasised by the filter used)
#teamnight #girlsnightout #volleyballgirls
Betrayal hurt. But Ahsoka was stronger than that and so she disappeared. She dropped out of the volleyball team, her aunt and uncle bought her an apartment in a different prefecture and she enrolled into a new school for the start of a new year. She swore against joining another Girl's Volleyball Team and immersed herself into her studies. She wasn't a bad student, in fact she was extremely good at maths and physics as well as languages she just didn't really have time for her studies so she got by as above average in her other subjects. However she had promised Uncle Plo that she would keep up all of her studies while she stayed away. Volleyball was for her... something that she shared with others. She didn't usually get along with others her age and volleyball was simply a way of settling those differences with others. She didn't have to like all of her teammates but for volleyball she would put these aside. Clearly it didn't work and because of this, Ahsoka would not be joining a girl's volleyball team where they would see her for her reputation, the rumours and not for herself or her own skills.
A couple of weeks in all of the first years had to sign up for clubs. Ahsoka was... not putting it off exactly but... yeah... she was putting it off.
"Hey, Ahsoka?" She looked up to see a nervous looking Dogma and Tup. The two boys were in her classes with her and had both signed up for the 501st Boy's Volleyball Team.
"Yeah?" Ahsoka looked up from her notes. Dogma and Tup knew to some extent of her volleyball history and were supportive of her choices. Though it wasn't by choice that they found out, Ahsoka had checked before she moved about the articles related to her, though most of them were written about Ahsoka Ti - her father and aunt's last name - not about Ahsoka Tano which was her legal birth name. Dogma and Tup had actually found out by accident, they were practicing on one of the school yards one night ready for tryouts when they knocked the ball towards Ahsoka who automatically received it, the reflex was a second nature to her. Both boys were extremely curious but Ahsoka hadn't told them much, just that she had a history with volleyball but couldn't join the girls team.
"Well..." Tup started. "We... We know that you can't join the girls team but the boy's team are missing a manager and Captain asked us to see if there are any first years not yet in a club and..."
"If you can't join the girl's team just join the boy's one. We can tell you miss volleyball to some extent even if we've only known you for a few weeks." Dogma interrupted, getting straight to the point.
"Oh." Ahsoka said. Join the boy's team as a manager? "I'll think about it... have you checked with your Captain before asking me if I wanted to join?" She asked.
"Uhhhh no? I mean if we knew you'd consider it we might have but we didn't want to put you under any pressure or anything." Tup explained.
"That's alright. You can tell him I'm considering it if you like."
Ahsoka gave them a thumbs up just as the teacher walked in. She focused back on the maths.
The next few days no one seemed to get back to her until Wednesday lunch. She had heard some girls making a fuss about some 'hot volleyball upperclassman' and Ahsoka wandered out of her classroom to see what the fuss was about. The guy they were talking about matched with Tup's description of the Captain (he's about 6 foot tall, blond and radiates with captainy vibes) and so she waited to catch his attention. He seemed to recognise her as well and strolled through the mini-crowd that had formed.
"Are you Ahsoka Tano?" He asked, Ahsoka nodded in response.
"I'm Rex Jaig. I'm the Captain of the 501st Volleyball Team and as you know we were hoping to find a manager for the team. Here's the application form if you do decide to go for it." Rex shook her hand briefly before leaving the first year corridor leaving a bunch of confused first years behind him.
Ahsoka skimmed through the form given to her, and quickly came to a decision: she'd do it. The 501st was fairly unknown before last year, didn't do too badly but didn't have any outstanding players... well until Rex Jaig joined two years ago followed by the famed Domino twins. Unlucky enough to face off against the prefecture's best in the quarter finals of the prelims but made it farther than anyone expected despite their Coach... what was their name again? Oh well, she'll remember it sooner or later, or just meet them in person.
...
Rex was glad how his first offical year at Captain was turning out. The team listened to him, Coach Skywalker was helping them improve everyday. The new first years showed promise, especially Dogma who would probably make the starting line up considering the lack of middle blockers and his height, and Tup had mentioned that a classmate could potentially be interested in the manager's position.
After meeting this classmate, Rex seemed to find her familiar... but from where he wasn't sure. Maybe it was just his brain playing tricks on him. He walked out of the building in autopilot towards the gym only to find two second years practicing. Fives and Echo, of course they were practising. Between the two of them they made up more determination than any other setter and spiker pair Rex could think of, they'd really stepped up since their first years. Who would have thought, the pair of prodigies, the Domino twins turning up at a school like the 501st - a school known for being middle of the pack. Well that wasn't the case these days... it was nice to see how far they'd come.
Jesse and Hardcase... well Rex was glad they hadn't changed too much since their first year though Rex thought he was going to have a heart attack when the two of them decided to race around the gym five minutes before tryouts in order to warm up last year. Hardcase hadn't changed. It was still the next block after the next and the next. The new first year was basically his complete opposite. Hardcase would kind of feel the situation, block where he guesses the spiker would place it. Dogma read each situation one by one. Reading each move after the next. Rex wondered what kind of team they would make, either a really great one or they'd try to kill eachother. Who knows, maybe a bit of both?
Either way, Rex was sure that this year would be the year. The year they finally beat the Clankers and make it to nationals.
...
Later that day Mr Yularen handed Rex Ahsoka's application form.
Looks like the 501st is all set.
...
Bzzzz.
Ahsoka checked her phone and saw her latest notification.
+XX XXX XXX XXXX has added you to "501st Boy's Volleyball Team"
501st Boy's Volleyball Team: Captain Rex: Welcome to the 501st.
501st Boy's Volleyball Team: Fives: I think you mean welcome to the zoo.
501st Boy's Volleyball Team: (un)Official Vice-Captain: Be nice.
Ahsoka grinned - this was the start of one chaotic year.