« Prev 1 Next » Reply Share Thread Facebook Twitter Tumblr LinkedIn MySpace Email Go to Previous Thread Next Thread Please make a selection first Author Topic: Slugger (Read 288 times) lovelock Guest [send pm] Joined: January 1970 Posts: 0 Slugger « May 26, 2009 6:31:41 GMT -6 » Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top Urgh! clink A baseball sailed through the air, only able to defy gravity for so long before it was pulled down by it into the grassy middle field of the Knox Academy's baseball field. MJ had no care about accuracy at the moment; where the balls landed was of no concern to her. All she wanted to do was slam baseballs out of the field and score continuous home runs, a feat not easily accomplished by anybody, even the most talented of high school baseball players. The machine loaded up another ball on the conveyer belt and fed it to the girl, who was clad in her tan camouflage trousers, a pair of black combat boots, and a dusty white tank top. With another clink Mary's aluminum baseball bat collided with the white ball, sending it even deeper into the field than the last hit, but still failing to achieve the home run she was seeking. With an exasperated sigh she chucked her bat to the side and turned off the pitching machine. It was late in the evening, so the field spotlights were still blaring their bright white lights upon the diamond and surrounding field. This told the Knox Junior it was not yet 9:00 PM, which is when the lights shut off, and when she would begin heading to the barracks. On her way to the dugout to take a seat on the bench where her bag was and retrieve her water bottle, Rise Against's "Six Ways 'Til Sunday" began playing on her iPod, to which Mary began singing. It was rare for her to sing in public, but she figured since it was at night in an empty baseball diamond, it was like she was singing in the privacy of her room. Back to Top   tangent Guest [send pm] Joined: January 1970 Posts: 0 Slugger « May 27, 2009 0:30:50 GMT -6 » Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top [Klink... Clank... Kin, click, tick, klinkclankklicktinktacklicktickplink...] Black fingers rattled the fence of the backstop. Cold fingers on even colder metal. Sadly, it wasn't colder out. The summer months were upon them. The cold was a much greater friend to Zeke than the heat. The cold made it easier for him to keep going, as his body didn't overheat as much. Plus, it always felt good to feel an icy breeze sweep by him. Summer was going to suck. And Zeke had a feeling he was going to be single-handedly supporting the entirety of the ice industry when the season finally hit full force. He'd heard clinking earlier, and decided it was much more interesting than walking around doing nothing in particular. But he'd arrived far too late, and the clinking was gone. So was the faint whirring of the pitching machine. Shame. He wouldn't have minded pitching a few. He'd never gotten onto a team, but he had tried out a few times for the lulz. He just didn't get the permission slips filled. Or the physicals. And there was no way he was going to keep disciplined long enough to survive a season of baseball. They required students to be not only studious, but also well behaved. Not his style. But he still heard something he liked. Music. Well, really... Kareoke. But it was a solid song, and it was a girl's voice. Girls tended to do a whole lot better at singing than guys. They could still suck just as hardcore as guys. But this wasn't entirely offensive to the ears. It was funny, since as much as he listened to music, he didn't remember the band name or song title. But he knew the song. It was coming froooom... A dugout. So he snuck around the back of it, getting some amusing thoughts in his head, not all of them realistic. Quietly, he got on top of the dugout and perked himself near the edge. When the girl finished up, he swung his body down, hanging upside-down from the edge. Clenching onto the fence that separated the field from the dugout, he'd keep himself inverted and looking right at her with a half-grin on his face. "Yo!" Back to Top   lovelock Guest [send pm] Joined: January 1970 Posts: 0 Slugger « May 27, 2009 20:15:22 GMT -6 » Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top "You've been hiding for so long / you can't find yourself..." MJ continued to sing enthusiastically as she rummaged through her gym bag, finally retrieving her water bottle after finding it buried beneath a baseball mitt and various articles of clothing, such as a pair of socks and a pair of shorts. After school she had gone back to her dorm and cracked open the books. The dorm was empty for the entire duration of her study and homework session; either her roommates were party animals and never came back to their own dorm, or she didn't have any roommates yet. She figured it was the latter since she has yet to meet any girls other than the ones on her sports teams, and all of them seemed to have roomies. When she completed that day's homework and studied for brief amount of time, Mary began to feel frustrated and angry for some reason she could not put her finger on. To remedy this, she tossed a basebal bat, glove, and water bottle into an already full gym bag and left the barracks. She soon found herself at the baseball diamond hauling the pitching machine to the mound. It was dusk then, and she had been hitting balls until late in the evening. Her body was sore and she was tired, but it helped ease her frustation, so she felt good. Her skin was damp with perspiration, so she brought an arm up and wiped some off of her face with the back of her hand. Having forgotten she had applied mascara and eyeliner to her eyes earlier in the day, she cursed out loud once she realized the black smudge on her hand, temporarily interrupting her recital of lyrics. "I miss the person that you were / but I don't miss you..." It would be hard to be aware of, let alone hear the student that had crept up behind her and suspended himself upside-down on the fence between the dugout and diamond over the iPod blaring music into her ears and her own voice, so when she squirted water into her mouth and turned toward the baseball diamond, he startled her, even if she could not hear his greeting. As soon as she noticed him her eyes, which the smudged mascara made her look like she had been crying, widened in surprise and she immediately spat water out of her mouth and into the boy's face. "What the fuck!?" she yelled out in a mixture of confusion, anger, surprise, and embarassment. She was confused because the boy was upside-down; embarassed because he may have heard her singing and because of her smudged make-up; surprised because she had thought the area was empty, and angry because she had been caught off-guard. Her cheeks were tinted red, and Mary appeared completely flustered. Instinctively she reached down and grasped her baseball bat, the first weapon her mind and body was aware of. Luckily, she stopped herself pre-swing, preventing the boy from getting seriously injured. "Holy shit, dude!" she screamed, tearing the iPod buds out of her ears and shoving them in her pocket along with her iPod, "don't fucking sneak up on me like that, you prick! If you didn't catch me off guard with your fucked up position you may have gotten your face smashed in!" Back to Top   tangent Guest [send pm] Joined: January 1970 Posts: 0 Slugger « May 28, 2009 23:07:53 GMT -6 » Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top As he hung upside down, the first thing that he was greeted with, was acidy spit. And by acid, he meant water. But it did get in his face. It caused him to flail a little against the fence that he was clinging to. And flailing meant a lost grip. Lost grip meant nothing allowing him to deal with gravity. Since he hadn't learned how to break that law yet, he did the only thing he could do. Fall. And he fell right into a heap right in front of the dugout. Gracefully. As gracefully as the people in a skateboarder nut-bust compilation video. As he was getting himself righted, he got to notice the eloquent statement she made before picking up the baseball bat. That caused him to scramble to his feet and get out of the way before she even swung down with the bat. Zeke was a near master of getting away. Baseball bats were something he did indeed like to be away from. At least when they were aimed at him. Broken bones, bruises and possible bludgeoned lacerations were things he most certainly did not want. When she gave the second part of her panicked speech, the boy simply laughed. Lucky for him, the spit had been something of a mist, so it hadn't been too big of a problem. It just made his face look wet. "But it didn't... So I dub the surprise worth it." Zeke never cared about what if's when they were in the past. There was no chances in the past, only what really happened, and what people wanted others to believe happen. "Anyway, emo kid... I think you need a little touch up on the make up. Back to Top   lovelock Guest [send pm] Joined: January 1970 Posts: 0 Slugger « Jun 16, 2009 10:28:54 GMT -6 » Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top The boy managed to scramble away before Mary brought the bat down upon him, which he should be grateful for; if he had been watching her earlier, he would know that Mary had a vicious swing. Not only that, but when he stood up and laughed at the frantic tone of her voice, Mary was ready to load up and knock his skull over the fences. However, better judgement suggested that she let him be and perhaps he may be able to help her out with something she had in mind. Her face visibly contorted in irritation as he laughed and made a quip about her messy make-up, but she brushed it off, past experiences telling her that causing a confrontation over minor jabs was not worth it. "Probably, since I just smudged it and now I look like shit. Unfortunately, I'm not a barbie doll who carries around her make-up kit everywhere she goes, so I'm just going to have to deal with it until I get back to the barracks to wash this stuff out of my eyes." Mary was about to throw her baseball bat into her bag and leave, but this boy piqued her curiosity. Twirling the bat around a couple of times, she nodded to the boy and said, "Why are you around the field at this time anyway? I think it's going to close soon." She thought of reasons why this boy would be wandering around the baseball field, and when a plausible one came to mind, Mary brought it up: "Do you play ball?" Back to Top   Reply Share Thread Facebook Twitter Tumblr LinkedIn MySpace Email Go to Previous Thread Next Thread Please make a selection first