Chapter Four: Let The Games Begin
I'm sorry this chapter took so long. It gave me so much trouble, and I went through three or four drafts that all looked massively different for each other. But I pushed through it because my readers are amazing and I don't want to disappoint you guys. Hopefully, it'll get easier to write from here on out.
Also, here's a big thank-you to HundredSunsets on AO3 for looking this over on short notice due to my main beta being temporarily incapacitated.
It was the first game of spring training, and Ruby had never been so nervous in her life. Yes, the games didn't actually count for anything yet, but now people were watching her on television. If she tripped over her own feet, everyone would see it, and they would laugh at her. If she booted a grounder, everyone would laugh at her. If she tried to throw the ball to first base and missed so badly that she beaned the guy selling ice cream next to the field, everyone would laugh at her. If she forgot the number of outs, everyone would laugh at her. One time, back at Signal Academy, she had forgotten the number of outs. It was awful. The worst thing about fielding was that there was only one way to make a play the right way, but infinitely many ways that she could mess it up. Ninety-nine-point-five percent of the time, she didn't mess up. But a zero-point-five percent rate for catastrophic failure was still terrifying. So, as she shifted her weight from foot to foot in the infield, waiting for the first pitch of spring training, it would be fair to say she was nervous.
Glynda had tried to defuse the tension with a small pep talk before the game. "No pressure here. You've got nothing to lose," she'd assured the team, before adding, "But that doesn't mean you should slack off. We've got to be ready to hit the ground running when the games start to count."
Ruby would've followed that advice to the letter, except that when she tried to hit the ground running, she usually fell flat on her face. Literally.
Being the first game of spring training, the team was putting their best foot forward– every starter from last year's team was on the field: Yang on the mound, Nora in left field, Velvet in center, Yatsuhashi catching, and Ren at first base. Then there were the four newcomers to the team with high expectations– Ruby at short, Pyrrha at third, Blake in right field, and Weiss across from her at second base.
Ruby glanced over at Weiss, who didn't look the least bit nervous. She was fiddling with her glove with an expression of cool professionalism. How could she not look nervous at all right now? Ruby felt about as calm and collected as that time in Signal where one of her cleats had fallen off while she was trying to leg out a triple (But that was another story). This had to be one reason how Weiss ended up with the "Ice Queen" nickname– by looking as cool as ice all the time. She turned her attention to home plate as the leadoff batter strode up to bat. Their opponents were the Vale City Crusaders, the reigning champions of the Vale League Central Division– the division that Beacon played in. If the Hunters were going to have any success this year, they needed to hold their own against the Crusaders. Easier said than done. Last year, Vale City had won 95 games and lost 67. Beacon had gone 79-83.
The batter dug in at the plate. Yang looked in for the sign from Yatsuhashi and nodded. Ruby took a deep breath and crouched down, balling her hand into a fist and smacking the pocket of her glove. This game wouldn't count for anything. But she had only one chance to make a first impression. And it had to be good.
Yang kicked her leg up, drove forward, and just like that, the ball was in the air, flying towards home plate–
Crack.
Years later, Ruby Rose would still be mad at the universe for making the Crusaders batter hit the ball towards her.
It was a hard, bouncing grounder, and for one fraction of a second, Ruby panicked.
Thefirstpitchofspringtrainingandtheball'scomingatmeAAAAAAAAAAAAA–
Then her instincts kicked in. She moved forward a step to meet the ball as it bounded towards her, put her glove out, and the ball thudded into her grasp. So far, so good.
She turned, reaching for the ball with her throwing hand, and that was when she realized things weren't going to plan. It hadn't been a clean scoop, and as a result, the ball was still rattling around in her glove, which meant that when she tried to transfer it to her throwing hand, she might as while have been trying to catch a butterfly with a spoon.
Nonononono–
Finally, after a few agonizing milliseconds, she managed to close her fingers around the unruly baseball, and she whipped her arm around, firing the ball to Ren at first base. The throw beat the runner by a foot.
Yang gave Ruby a thumbs-up and a brilliant smile as Ren tossed the ball back to her. "Nice one, sis!" she called out. "Just do that ten thousand more times and you can call it a career!"
Ruby gave her a weak smile in return and checked to make sure her heart was still beating. Dust, I love this sport, she thought happily.
Half an hour later
"Ruby, will you please stop fidgeting?" Weiss asked. "You're practically shaking the entire dugout."
"Sorry! I can't help it," Ruby said, making no effort to stop bouncing in her seat, as she'd been doing for the last five minutes. "I'm just excited!"
"I understand that," Weiss said with a sigh. "But what exactly are you excited about?"
"Everything!" Ruby said, throwing her arms out. "We're playing baseball on a sunny day in Vacuo, and we're getting paid to do it! There's nothing on Remnant I would rather be doing right now!" She poked Weiss. "Come on, doesn't this make you the least bit excited?"
And then, miracle of miracles– a slight but genuine smile graced Weiss's face for an instant. It brightened her whole face, and for a few moments, Weiss didn't seem nearly as cold as she usually did.
"Yes… it does," she said. "I suppose I just don't show it as well as you do."
Weiss's real smile was entrancing. Ruby wanted to see her smile like that more often.
Suddenly, the brief glimpse of happiness disappeared, and Weiss's normal mask slammed back into place. The reason for that quickly became clear as Ruby heard someone else coming up behind her.
"Hey, sis," Yang said, putting a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "I had to move your baseball bag last inning because you put it on top of my stuff." She held up Ruby's bag. "I just wanted to make sure it got back to you."
"Thanks." Ruby reached out to take it back. "Did you –"
Crack.
The sound of wood meeting a baseball interrupted her, and she turned to see Ren drive the ball into the left-center gap. As she watched, Nora came around to score from second.
"WOO!" Ruby yelled.
A few moments later, Nora jogged into the dugout, high-fiving teammates as she went, and started to pass by them.
"How's that pitcher looking, Nora?" Ruby asked.
Nora stopped, pulling off her helmet. "Honestly?" She winked. "Dead meat. He's throwing arrow-straight fastballs that I could hit blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back both ways uphill in the snow while fighting an Ursa."
Ruby blinked. "So… he's hittable?"
"Very hittable. Count on getting up this inning unless they pull him."
"Thanks!" Ruby's already-palpable excitement hit new heights as she took her bag from her sister. "Yang, do you know what this means?"
Yang grinned. "Is it time to bring out your pride and joy?"
"You bet!"
There was a compartment on her bag that Ruby had kept shut all winter, and it was right now that she was reaching for the zipper to open it. "Oh, I've been waiting for this moment for months!" she said.
"What? Hitting?"
"Shush, Ice Queen," Yang said. "This is a special moment. Let her have it."
Ruby ignored them both as she unzipped the compartment and, with an ecstatic breath, drew out thirty-three inches of red-and-black wood.
"A baseball bat?" Weiss asked, sounding let down.
"Not just any baseball bat!" Ruby said, cradling it in her arms. "Her name is Crescent Rose!" She ran her hands along the barrel, savoring the feel of the smooth wood under her fingers. "Oh, I've missed having her in my hands."
"Why haven't I seen you using that before?" Weiss asked.
"Oh, I only use Crescent Rose when I'm actually playing a game. I don't use her for batting practice because I don't want to increase the risk of breaking her." She pressed the barrel to her face. After sitting in the Vacuo heat for hours, the wood felt warm against her cheek. "This is her first time out since last fall!"
"Aw, this is too cute," Yang cooed. "Only you would be so devoted to a baseball bat, Rubes."
"Hey!" Ruby looked up. "I remember perfectly well when you named your glove 'Ember Celica' in middle school, you know!"
"Guilty," Yang said, shrugging. "At least I don't sleep with my glove."
"We're ignoring the big question here!" Weiss said. She pointed at Ruby. "Why did you give your bat a name and a gender?"
"Who doesn't?" Ruby replied.
"I, for one!" Weiss said.
Yang shook her head. "That's not normal, Ice Queen. Everyone here's had at least one piece of equipment with a name. Like Nora."
"Yup!" Nora said, popping out of nowhere and waving her bat. "Magnhild says hello!"
"But still–"
"Yatsuhashi!" Yang shouted. "What's the name of your bat?"
"Sticky," was the reply from across the dugout.
"Oh, and I know Pyrrha calls one of her bats 'Milo,'" Nora added.
Yang turned back to Weiss with a smirk. "See?" she said. "We're the normal ones."
"What– what about you, Belladonna?" Weiss asked with a note of desperation, turning to the right fielder who had been sitting a few feet away from them the whole time. "Tell me you don't partake in this."
"Nope, Weiss," Blake said with a shrug. "My bat has a name, too."
"Ooh, what's its name?" Yang cut in.
"Gambol Shroud."
"Gambol?" Yang furrowed her brow. "Is that a name? I've never heard it before."
"You could look it up," Blake said.
"I think I will." Yang pulled out her scroll, tapped out a search, and after reading silently for a few seconds, she looked up, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You basically named your bat 'Dancing Shadow?' That's, uh, dramatic."
"You're one to talk about dramatics. You named your glove 'Heavenly Fire,'" Blake retorted.
"Haven't you ever given one of your bats a name, Weiss?" Ruby asked. "Or a glove? Or your cleats, even? Never? Not even once?"
"Well, I–" Weiss hesitated, and she reddened slightly. "N-no, I haven't!" she finished heatedly.
"Never?" Ruby pressed. She would admit that she was the worst person in the world at lying, but Weiss was making a good case for second place.
"N-never!" Weiss repeated.
Yang crossed her arms. "You couldn't sound any less believable if you tried to convince us that you had a heart."
"Fine!" Weiss growled, throwing her arms up. "I did name my bat. But it was once! And it was in little league! I was seven years old!"
"Hey, they say that all baseball players are still kids at heart," Yang said. She paused, thinking for a moment. "You know, that would explain a lot. Your heart must've frozen up as a kid, so that's why you've never named anything again."
Weiss sent a withering glare at Yang. "Xiao Long, could you please go find someone else to antagonize?"
Ruby glanced back and forth between her sister and her teammate, wondering frantically how to intervene in this conflict, until she was yanked back into the game going on at that moment.
"Miss Rose!" Glynda barked, appearing behind Ruby.
"AH!" Ruby jumped and whipped around. "Yes? What's going on?"
"You're on deck," Glynda said. "Get a helmet on. And please do hurry. Forgetting about your own at-bat is never a good look."
"Oh! You got it!" Ruby said. She picked up Crescent Rose and went for the helmet rack, leaving behind Weiss and Yang, while hoping that they wouldn't tear each other apart while she was gone.
Three days later, facing the Desert Hills Nomads, with Cardin Winchester pitching, things went south. And it wasn't the 'going on holiday to the coast of Vacuo' kind of south.
In the top of the fourth with two outs, a monkey Faunus on the Nomads hit a ground ball to the left of Ren that wasn't far away enough to get by him, but just far off enough to pull him away from first base, forcing Winchester to cover first. It was an easy play, and Ren tossed the ball to Winchester for the third out with no difficulty. Ruby was already jogging towards the dugout as Ren made the throw.
Unfortunately, as the Nomads player ran through the base, he brushed against Winchester with his shoulder. That could've been a pure accident– unintentional collisions like that happened every day in baseball– but Winchester seemed to take it as a personal offense and started jawing at the runner.
"You got a problem, buddy?" he snarled, stepping forward. "Keep your damn hands off me."
"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa-" The Desert Hills runner held up his hands, his tail flicking behind him. "Calm down, man. It was an accident!"
Winchester stepped forward, sneering. "Yeah, sure it was."
Ruby veered away from her path towards the dugout, fear coming over her as she wondered if she would have to deal with her-first ever brawl, but the first-base umpire wasn't having any of that. He was between them and pushing Winchester away before anyone else got close to the scene. Thankfully, the runner wasn't looking for a fight, but that didn't stop them from sniping at each other as they retreated.
"Cool your jets, man. I didn't know it was a national crime to bump into you," the other player shouted.
"And don't you forget it!" Winchester barked, jabbing his finger at the runner as he retreated towards the dugout.
That should've been the end of it. However, Winchester wasn't done fuming, and as Ruby jogged into the dugout, he threw his glove onto the ground with an angry thwack.
"Faunus bastard," he growled, plopping down on the bench.
Four people besides Ruby were close enough to hear that. One was Yang, who had come up to Ruby to offer a high-five. The second and third were Velvet and Blake, trotting in from the outfield. And the fourth was Weiss, who had been minding her own business on the bench when Winchester decided to sit down near her. Ruby stopped dead as soon as she heard it. Winchester's suspect views on Faunus were no secret, but this was her first time hearing anything like this.
Yang was the first to react, swiveling towards Winchester as a tinge of red flashed in her eyes. "What did you say?"
"That Faunus bastard," Winchester repeated. "The rascal thought he could knock some fear into me. Heh." He grinned and leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. "I shouldn't even be mad, really. He didn't scare me one bit. That's his animal half, y'know? Just like all of his kind. He's gotta try and be the alpha male."
Okay. That… that was just wrong.
Yang took another step forward. Velvet and Blake were staring at Cardin with expressions of complete and utter disgust. Ruby was mere seconds away from telling Winchester to shut up. A confrontation seemed imminent– and then Winchester opened his mouth again.
"Right, Schnee?" he asked suddenly, directing his question at the snow-haired girl to his right. "Ain't that the truth?"
"What?" Weiss jerked up, taken completely by surprise. "It – I–" She faltered, and for one second, Ruby thought she saw a look of pure terror flash across her face. But as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, and Weiss still hadn't said a coherent reply.
Yang was now watching Weiss with a raised eyebrow. To her left, Blake had an eerily similar expression, also directed at Weiss. They were watching to see what Weiss would do.
"Winchester." Weiss's voice was different now– cooler and much more controlled. Whatever she was going to say, it was coming now.
Please don't mess this up, Weiss, Ruby pleaded silently.
"What?" Winchester asked, frowning as he noticed the sudden iciness in Weiss's voice.
"Please don't ever think that I would believe something as close-minded and idiotic as what you're saying."
"Wha-wha–" Winchester spluttered, his face reddening. "Are you calling me an idiot?"
"Considering the way you were just talking…" Weiss paused. "Yes."
Winchester stood up, rising to his full height over Weiss. "He tried to run me over, and I'M the one you call an idiot?!"
"That was a small and entirely accidental collision," Weiss said. "You're overreacting."
"He ran right into me! He didn't even try to avoid me!" Winchester moved even closer to Weiss as he said this, and the difference in size between them was suddenly very apparent. Weiss didn't look the least bit fazed by this, but Ruby was starting to worry for her friend's safety. At least until someone else stepped in.
"Hey. You were in the basepath, Winchester."
This interjection was from Blake. Winchester turned to face her.
"So?!"
"What was he supposed to do?" Blake continued, her tone growing sarcastic. "Stop nicely so as to not hurt you, and just let himself be put out?"
"He was going to be out anyway!" Winchester fumed. "What's your problem with me, Belladonna?!"
Winchester was now surrounded on all sides by angry teammates (and the rest of the team had started to notice what was going on by now), and he still wasn't backing down. This wasn't going to end well.
"Mr. Winchester."
Cardin froze as Glynda's voice, low and angry, carried across the dugout. Their manager stalked up to them, fury radiating from her. And all of it was directed at Winchester. As she approached, she shifted her clipboard into its baseball bat form.
"You are being irrational. He ran into you by accident, and you need to move on from it." She hefted her bat over her shoulder, and somehow her glare became even more ferocious. "And that comment that about Faunus was incredibly derogatory. Attitudes of that sort will not be tolerated on this team."
Winchester was silent now, and all traces of anger were gone from his face, replaced by an air of forced compliance as he stared down Glynda's bat.
"That's much better. Now–" Glynda turned her bat back into a clipboard. "I'm taking you out of the game. Sit down." With that, she looked down at her clipboard, signaling that the matter was closed.
Winchester sat down, deflated, and just like that, the crisis was over.
Ruby made her way over to the water cooler, where she was joined by Yang a few seconds later.
"Wow," Yang muttered. "I've heard the rumors about him– who hasn't? – but Dust, he's even worse than I thought he would be."
"I don't think I want him on the team, Yang," Ruby said.
"Same here. But we signed him. We're stuck with him unless he gets traded or released. You all right, Velvet?"
That question was directed at the center fielder, who had just joined them, looking very shell-shocked.
"I'm fine," Velvet replied. "I just… I don't understand why anyone would choose to be like that." She sighed, her rabbit ears drooping noticeably. "And he's going to be on our team for the next few years."
"Ugh… Hey, you know that we'll all have your back if he tries to pull anything, right?"
"I'm not worried about my safety," Velvet said. "Coco already acts like a bodyguard around me all the time."
"If she knew what was going on a second ago, she would've climbed out of the bullpen and run across the field to deck Winchester. So she'll be first in line to castrate him if he goes after you."
"That's true."
"Seriously, though, we've all got your back here. Not just Coco. Me, Fox, Yatsu, Nora, Ren, Blake, Ruby– the list goes on. We outnumber him, plain and simple."
"Yeah, consider me part of your protection squad!" Ruby said.
"Coco can give you a membership card," Yang said, and her voice was deadpan enough to make Ruby wonder if that was a thing.
Velvet smiled. "Thank you, Ruby. But you really don't have to go out of your way. You've probably got enough to worry about as it is."
"No, it's fine!" Ruby made a fist and smacked it into her palm. "I'm ready to help anyone!"
"Good for you, Ruby," Yang said. "Winchester's going to be in trouble." She shrugged. "Heck, it looks like even Ice Queen is willing to put up a few words in your defense, Velvet. That's something…" She looked over Ruby's shoulder. "And, speak of the devil, look who's here."
Ruby turned around and saw Weiss refilling her cup at the water cooler. As she tipped the cup back to take a drink, she noticed the three pairs of eyes on her.
"What?" Weiss asked, lowering her cup. "Why are you all looking at me?"
"Hey, Ice Queen," Yang said.
"Hey?" she said warily.
Yang gave her a slap on the shoulder. "You did good with Winchester."
"…Thank you?"
"It's a start," Yang said. "Only a start, but it's a good start." She stretched languidly and winced. "Ugh. I could use a soak in the hot tub. I'll catch you after the game, sis," she said to Ruby, before walking past and disappearing into the locker room.
"What on Remnant was that?" Weiss asked, staring after Yang.
A slow grin spread over Ruby's face as she realized what was happening. It was exactly was hoping for.
"Keep doing what you're doing, Weiss. I think you're starting to prove yourself."
As someone who plays baseball, I can confirm that we've all had a moment like Ruby in the middle of a game, where you're just like "oh christ the ball's coming at me WHAT DO I DO."
Anyway, please leave a review- I LOVE seeing them, and I read and cherish each and every one of them. All of my readers have been wonderful reviewers so far, so here's a huge thank-you for that. One of the only things that makes me as happy as baseball is a review on my story. Thanks for reading! Air Force Muffin out.
