No Mario but Definitely Sonic at the Agra 10 Dork Olympics 2023 (& Knuckles)

[spinsandneedles]

WHO: Sonic & OPEN to whoever wants to deal with Sonic
WHERE: Sports Day!!!!
WHAT: Sports and Sports Accessories
WHEN: When Sports
WARNINGS:Excessive Sports

Balloon Pop

A random day of quasi-sports is probably the last thing Sonic expected to encounter after being abducted by aliens, but here we are. Definitely weird, but at least their abductors are trying to keep them entertained? Might as well roll with it and see where it goes.

He'd have an unfair advantage over most people when it came to competitions involving going fast, so he decides to branch out a bit and do some things that might use skills that he hasn't already mastered. BUT THEN, he comes across the balloon popping game and decides it would be funny to see how fast he can pop them by just curling into a ball, sitting in one place, and letting the balloons idly come into contact with his quills. See, that way it's testing his patience more than his speed, patience counts as a skill and it's one that he's kind of terrible at. Either way it proves to be a surprisingly effective balloon popping strategy, but eventually there are just a few balloons left and he does have to roll around a bit to get to them.

So. Yeah, there's a little blue spike ball covered in glitter and balloon scrap rolling around the balloon zone. Nothing weird to see here, kids. He might need help getting all the balloon scraps out of his quills when he's done.

Climbing Wall

Of course he could just run up and down the wall like it's no big deal, but where's the challenge in that? He's gonna climb this wall the way climbing walls are meant to be climbed! Which turns out to be no simple feat since a lot of the hand holds are juuust a bit out of reach for such a small dude. He can manage if he hops for some of them, but he is not progressing up the wall very quickly.

Of course, he's willing to cheat just to show up anyone else he catches cheating, he can't help that competitive streak.

Prizes

As Sonic really doesn't have any super important items from home, and hasn't taken an interest in any ot the other prizes available (Clothes?? What's he gonna do, wear pants??), he's literally just giving his points away. While taking a lunch break, he's seated on a table (Yes ON a table. Are there tables? There are now.), trying to figure out why his pizza bagel things taste like peanuts and occasionally waggling a plastic cup full of chits at people as they pass by.

"Yo, free prize point thingies! I don't really need 'em."

The chits he's giving away are mostly low value, maybe a few medium and high value depending on what games he inevitably gets pulled into. He's not really keeping track.

Whatever else

He's not super interested in team sports for himself, but if he can help other people win prizes, then he'd be happy enough to join in if asked. Three legged race might be a bit awkward? But y'know, YOLO. He's fast, he can be anywhere. Literally he's just zooming around the place looking around.

Comments

[spinsandneedles]

Oh good, someone saw him being extremely uncool. SIGH, oh well. Sonic is well beyond the point of saving himself from looking like a dork, so he might as well just accept the assistance.

"Help? Yes, please. All the help I can get, I can't see what's goin' on in the general vicinity of the back of my head. Just be real careful, it's kinda sharp back there."

[newmemorywhodis]

It's okay, Sonic. Link hardly even talks at all. No one will hear of your uncoolness from him.

And indeed, Link doesn't speak. He just nods, and reaches out to pull all the pieces of balloon off of the spikes. He moves swiftly, but carefully. He doesn't doubt that they're sharp, but Link not going to let that get in his way at all.

[spinsandneedles]

Link, you're a gentleman and a pal. A true bro. A real hero.

Sonic is actually capable of holding still for longer than five minutes, and successfully does so while Link works on plucking balloon chunks out of his pointy hair.

"Thanks a lot, bud. I really owe you one. I don't usually make a habit out of rolling around in stuff that gets stuck to me so easily."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link nods in acknowledgment, before letting his hands fall back to his sides now that Sonia’s spikes are clean.

“Popping balloons is fun,” he says, with a shrug. Why wouldn’t Sonic want to roll on them? Link would, if he had spikes.

[spinsandneedles]

"Yeah, I can't argue with that."

He shakes his quills out a bit, dislodging some glitter and little prize chits in the process. He'll busy himself with picking them up while he chats.

"You need some of these little things? I don't really want 'em."

[newmemorywhodis]

Link nods. Yes, he does want more points. Because more points means more stuff, and Link always wants more stuff.

"Thank you," he says, taking them. "You don't want prizes?"

The idea of not wanting anything at all is, admittedly, a bit foreign to Link.

[spinsandneedles]

Hell yeah bro GET them points, Sonic is more than happy to donate to the 'get Link more stuff ' fund.

"Nah, I don't need 'em. I feel like having too much stuff starts to keep you rooted to one place, and I'm the kind of guy who's always on the go."

Or at least he would be if more of this particular planet was open for him to explore.

[newmemorywhodis]

"Not if you have a korok-enchanted pack," Link says.

Of course, right now Link doesn't have a korok-enchanted pack. Which, admittedly...is causing a number of issues with mobility. Who'd have thought that carrying things around could be so difficult, when you had to actually use your own hands to do so?

[spinsandneedles]

"Korok? Never heard of it, enchanted pack sounds pretty cool though."

Do Not hand Sonic a bag of holding, he'll load that shit up with chili dogs or something equally stupid. But yes, traveling with a bunch of crap amd no magic bags is the worst. Hence why Sonic tends to travel light.

[newmemorywhodis]

"They're forest spirits." Or something like that, at least.

"...I miss mine," he adds, with a sigh. Link would love to have his pack again. And he would be very much on board with Sonic's plan to load one up with chili dogs, or at least he would be if he knew what chili dogs were.

[spinsandneedles]

"Ooooh, gotcha. So without them, there's probably no way to make a new magic bag while you're here, huh?"

Bummer, bro. I mean on the plus side, they can't really travel too far anyway so there's less of a need to cart a bunch of stuff around?

That's not a plus, it absolutely sucks butt that they're stuck in like one tiny place.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link shakes his head. Although, come to think of it - he doesn't actually know how his pack was made in the first place. He just...had it when he woke. And then Hetsu made it bigger, so presumably koroks made it in the first place, right?

"Now I carry things. With my arms."

This had been, to put it mildly, an adjustment.

[spinsandneedles]

Let's just chalk it up to magic. Seems as good an explanation as any, right?

"Right... I mean, I can see that being a real pain if you have a lot of stuff. Y'know, you could probably find a normal bag around here somewhere? Maybe even make one? Couldn't be that hard, right?"

Bro there are SOLUTIONS??? I mean probably.

[newmemorywhodis]

"They only carry what they fit inside."

And Link tended to want to carry...much more than that.

[spinsandneedles]

Bro your arms can only carry as much as they can fit?????

"We need to find you more bags, then. Or even a wagon. Actually, that's not a terrible idea, I wonder if we could find something like that somewhere."

[newmemorywhodis]

This is why Link is struggling. His desire for Stuff is incompatible with the laws of physics.

At the wagon idea, he hums. Not quite an endorsement, but not quite outright rejection either. There is some merit to it. But also some problems.

"I need a wagon I can climb with." A climbing wagon? Does such a thing even exist?

[spinsandneedles]

Sonic thought he had a pretty solid idea there, but here comes Link making it more complicated!

"Climb like, what, mountains? Would you even be able to handle that much extra weight while you're climbing?"

[newmemorywhodis]

"Yes." He does, indeed, climb mountains. And buildings. And pretty much anything and everything that Link feels like being on top of.

[spinsandneedles]

Y'know, relatable, except that Sonic cheats and runs up the side like it's no big deal. Not usually while hauling wagons full of shit, though.

"...Right. Really, really big backpack, maybe?"

[newmemorywhodis]

Link clicks his tongue, considering. A bit like Beedle's backpack, perhaps? Except, not shaped like a beetle. Not that Link doesn't like beetles, but that is Beedle's thing.

Were any of the prizes backpacks? He'll have to look, once he's gotten his paraglider. Or ask Lark if she could make one. A problem for later, either way.

As he considers this, however, he falls into silence. As Sonic might be beginning to realise, Link is not always the best of conversational partners.

[spinsandneedles]

Sonic waits patiently (somehow) for a response.

And he waits

and waits

...this is fine, Sonic knows a wolf lady who barely talks, and when she does it's almost exclusively in whispers. He can handle standing in awkward silence for a moment.

Eventually though he does clear his throat to get Link's attention because bro, this is getting ridiculous.

"Sooo, what do you do. Like, for a living? That involves a lot of climbing, apparently? Bet you wouldn't have any trouble with the climbing wall, huh?"

[newmemorywhodis]

“I’m a knight.”

Although maybe it want exactly accurate, to say that was how he made his living. He didn’t actually get paid, since whoever and whatever was responsible for doing that was long since dead. Mostly, he just made his own way.

[spinsandneedles]

"A knight? Wow, okay. I was expecting you to say that you were into extreme sports or something, but that's way cooler!"

Not that he actually knows what that means as far as what Link actually does for a living. Climb stuff and carry a bunch of shit, apparently? Either way, Sonic is impressed.

[newmemorywhodis]

Link just shrugs. Yes, he’s a knight. Sonic isn’t the first person to be enthused about who Link is. But being a knight is just…who Link is. It’s not special to him.

More curious though, is something else Sonic mentioned.

“…Extreme sports?”

[spinsandneedles]

"Yeah, like, snowboarding, parkour? Paragliding? It's basically just doing a bunch of dangerous stuff for fun."

Maybe that's just not a thing where Link's from? Do we need to make it a thing here? We might have to make it a thing here.