OHFE: Splashed Out

   The Zanbenn planet was famous for being Earth-styled and strictly four-seasoned. The locations of its suns and moons made it possible that it was divided into quarters, each of which always had the same season and everything required. Therefore, this planet was some kind of a space resort for those who wanted to know the nature and all the details of Earth seasons. Or to have a fine rest.

   "You sure it's not a mistake again?" Kaster Tyler asked after the TARDIS had landed. "I don't want to appear in the middle of a glacier wearing this!" He was wearing nothing except blue swimming trunks with green vertical stripes.
   "Trust me!" the Doctor replied. Unlike Kaster, he was fully dressed and now fixing the scanner. "Yeah! Check this out, Kaster!"
   The image on the scanner's screen showed doubtless seashore landscape. Kaster let out a "yessssss!", jumping up with glee, but was interfered by his sort-of-sister Rhodie Smith, who wasn't hurrying with changing her clothes either:
   "Hold on, Doctor. There are loads of... aliens out there. Won't they... I don't know... stare at us?"
   "Rhodie, you forgot that I'm an alien too", the Doctor grinned. "And look how many species and races there are! Blimey, you're just like your mum... Don't worry. If you haven't noticed, I've chosen the place where humanoids prefer to gather".
   He was right. The place shown was full of human-like creatures, some looking fully human, some with additions like odd skin color or extra limbs, but that was okay, at least for Rhodie.
   "What are you waiting for?" Johnny-Jimmy glanced into the console room from the corridor. "C'mon, Rhodie, and we'll find you a nice swimsuit!" Rhodie nodded and left, and Kaster dashed after her.
   "Without me!" This was stated by Kyon Turlough, who was just returning from the wardrobe room, dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and pale blue shorts. "What? It's for security. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the 24th century swimsuit in a pile of medieval robes brought me to the Vortex Manipulator there..."
   "If you do a thing like that once again, I'll drop you on a private asteroid with its owned keen on property question", the Doctor threatened, though cheerful sparkles were dancing in his eyes. He knew that this ginger sharp-nosed kid had a soft side hidden under all this cheekiness and pride and mischief. Just like his dad.

   The inhabitants of all kinds of planets didn't even give a second glance to the company which appeared at the beach, because the atmosphere was of all kinds of grooves. However, some of them squinted, checking their memories and sight.
   "Where's Paul?" the kid with spiky dark hair and with an enermous scar on his chest, just over his heart, asked. "I'm really curious about her. Beach fashion can't be of... emm... both kinds".
   "Paul's here". The company was expanded by two more people - a quite tall girl in a navy blue swimsuit and a boy almost twice shorter than her, wearing red shorts.
   Kaster's jaw dropped:
   "Paul?.. But I thought you hated this kind of clothing..."
   "Don't mess it up, I don't like things that are called girly, but I've always been a girl and I'll always be", Paul parried. "No frills, no pinkie-keen accents, everything's fine. C'mon, Fivey, I'll teach you how to swim".
   Meanwhile Rhodie, the Doctor and Johnny-Jimmy were laying the huge purple beach blanket on the sand, while Kyon decided to explore for a while. But hardly had anyone stared looking for trouble, it found them - or it was not the trouble, but a surprise.
   "Rhodie!"
   Rhodie twirled and beamed upon the sight of a girl of about her age, but with jade green skin shown out by a reflectory swimsuit, long silvery hair braided and put crown-like on her head and narrow stripes along her arms and legs, which changed their color to golden upon the sight of the first girl. That was Gallie Kaourook from the planet Arzert, whom the team (or part of it) had met before and even had had to go along with her (literally).
   "Hi Gallie!" Rhodie ran closer to her.
   Two more girls of Gallie's race, one in mat red swimsuit and the other in bottle green, caught up with them.
   "My sisters, Lexia and Aytack", Gallie introduced them.
   "I thought that they humans were not so... pink and yellow", Lexia, the one in red swimsuit, noticed.
   "C'mon, not everybody's stereotypically so!" Kyon, as usually bounced out of nowhere - luckily he hadn't brought his spaceboard this time, otherwise he would've looked at everyone from the top, literally. "And not all humans are such. I'm Kyon Vislor Turlough, and not a human, and this doesn't prevent me from being so pink and orange... What? Don't stare at me like that!"
   It wasn't difficult to recognize why Gallie's sisters weren't believing their pinkish vinous eyes - the reason was Kyon's ginger hair color. Before they could burst out questioning, Gallie hurried to prevent the danger:
   "There's a competition out there", she gestured at the patch of the beach where there was a crowd of youngsters gathering. "Wanna participate?"
   "What kind of competition?" Kyon asked, his green eyes glittering - he was keen on all kinds of competitions.
   "Don't know, it's different every time. Coming?"

   The competition's rules appeared to be quite simple. Two "crew members" were holding a surfboard out at sea, at the place where it wasn't too deep, and every participant was to swim there, climb onto the board and skip as many times as possible without falling into the water. Yeah, it sounded easy as pie, but it wasn't too easy to accomplish - Rhodie and Johnny-Jimmy fell off the board after their first jumps over the skipping-rope.
   "Sloppery, slippery thing!" Johnny-Jimmy babbled, splashing in trials to get to Rhodie who was in the front row of the watchers, some meters away from the board. Meanwhile Kaster was already swimming to the board, burning with enthusiasm (he could've burst into flames if it wasn't for water surrounding him).
   "That's the clue", Kyon smirked and yelped when a figure much taller than him emerged from under the water. Paul sniffed, shook her head like a dog after a bath, and Rhodie thought against her will that she had never realized two things before - one was that Paul's hair was so long (now, when soaked, it got straightened and was spread all over her shoulders), and the other was that under all his usual layers of clothing Kaster was really skinny... as well as Five, who was here as well. No wonder, where's Paul, there's Five.
   Despite all the expectation, by some miracle Kaster managed to perform seven and a half jumps over the skipping-rope before slipping and falling into the water, his back hitting the water first.
   "Haaah, Sandshoes, watch how this is done!" Kyon was the next to climb onto the surfboard (for some reason he stayed in his shirt, despite having left shorts at the shore), and he wasn't going to leave the watchers without a sight: after jumping fifteen times, he suddenly performed a somersault, having landed onto his right hand, legs in the air. "Trion power in action!"
   "Is he always such a poseur?" Gallie asked - she wasn't afraid of being heard because the crowd cheered like insane upon Kyon's break-dance sequence which followed.
   "What you are as sloppery and slippery as this board, you can do anything", sounded from nearby. The Doctor's expression was ironic, but it was clearly seen that he was recalling something. And not necessarily bad. "There's the illustration of the proverbial apple tree and apple. Habits and everything... Anyone fancy going snorkelling with me? Oh, sorry, Paul, I forgot that you're..."
   "I'm afraid of depths, not of water", Paul pointed out. "Why not?"
   "You know, there's a whole new world down there... Despite everything, seas are something that is in common upon almost all..."
   SPLASH!
   "...planets", the Doctor finished, blinking salty drops out of his eyes - that wasn't Kyon's fall, that was a full cannon-ball dive. Accidental. "Guess some of us have had a glance at it..."