Digimon Hypno-Drabble: Freeze Frame

It had been a strange idea, to say the least, but Sora had to agree it had some merit given what her other friends had been up to with Gatomon's own abilities in the field. So when some of her friends from her tennis club had suggested using self-hypnosis tracks to try and let them use the power of mental suggestion to track the ball better, she gave it a go.

And largely, it worked.

After getting the tapes to work, she'd managed to record herself a few messages to herself. Putting herself in a slight state of trance.

"When the opponent hits the ball your perception of time will slow. You will be able to track the ball, and move your racket to intercept... When you hit the ball, things will speed up. If the ball goes past and hits the ground, time will speed up...."

It wasn't a hundred percent perfect, and she had no plans to use it outside of practice. But it worked.

---

Today, though, she wanted to try get a few pictures of herself playing. She lacked an opponent today, going up against a ball machine, but the real aim was just to try get a few shots for the tennis club website. Most of what was on it now was low-quality cameraphone shots. Sora intended to show them that she could find a much better photographer...

"Okay, Kari, you ready?"

"Sure, Sora. Go ahead."

A few attempts were made, but Kari sighed. Sora seemed to be moving unusually fast as the ball came out of the machine.

"...Something's going weird here. It's meant to compensate but things seem to be all blurry..."

Sora froze.

Why had she picked that trigger word.

"It'd be nice if you could hold still while I was taking the shot, actually. If it was just the ball moving, well..." Kari joked.

Sora, however, wasn't in a mood for laughing.

'Oh crap. She just... She triggered it and just told me something. Am I going to...'

"T-try again, Kari." She said.

"...Are you okay?"

"Yeah, let's just try again."

'Nah, it'll be fine. I mean, I told myself to obey only my own voice, right? Right?'

The ball shot out.

'Besides, I won't even see her aiming it, will I...'

Sora swung her racket to intercept the ball... And found herself freeze in place for a split second.

"Hey, that looks pretty good!" Kari reported.

'This might suck...' Sora realised, expecting a date with the ground in the near future.

---

She did trip once, but Kari had bought her excuse the rising wind had knocked her off-balance.

"What about I take a shot of you trying to serve?"

Sora agreed, readying it... And finding herself freeze in place as Kari aimed.

"Darn, the wind's blowing your skirt too much... I'd better let it die down before I take the shot..."

'I hope it hurries up... Or you put the camera down for a second!' The frozen player hoped.