A.N : Alright, I love baseball and know a few rules, but I don't really know it in details (because my knowledge was mostly from reading Dorabase and watching anime Major) so I won't really write it in details. I'm sorry if I'm wrong in any part of the game though and would really appreciate it if you can tell me the right ones
Baseball Game and Clingy Noibat : Chapter 8
It was a sunny day and the day for baseball game between the Dragapults and the Sneviers. 10 year old Ayla was already on the field and getting ready for the game just like her team mates and the opponent team.
"Alright, you three can stay out and watch but don't get in the way of the game because you can get hurt." Ayla said to her three pokemon, Jolteon, Luxio, and Noibat, "Understand Noibat?" she asked him specifically.
Noibat whined sadly. Ayla sighed at the sight. Noibat is very clingy to Ayla ever since she saved him from those teenagers. He barely left her sight and always either clinging to the back of her neck or her arm or hugging her. Every baseball practice and other activities that require no pokemon attached to her, Luxio and Jolteon have to stay on either side of him to make him stay put, but even then Noibat sometimes managed to get away and immediately attached himself to Ayla. He was part of the reason why Shinx evolved it seems. Ntonio and Emmet had joked that Noibat acted like a blood sucking parasite that refused to be away from it's organism they attached to which was Ayla. Noibat had scared them away with his teeth when he heard it while Emmet and Ntonio laughed while getting away.
But even if Ayla didn't mind his clinginess, this has become a problem for events like this. Noibat barely left Ayla's arm if it's not for Ingo's Haxorus who got to be their 'babysitter' for the day since either Ingo or Emmet can't come to her game. Haxorus was holding Noibat in his arms while Noibat still whining sadly.
"The game won't be long," she told him gently, "You can still see me from here." Noibat has stopped whining but he still looked at Ayla sadly like she's leaving him for a month or so.
Ayla smiled assuringly at him before looking up at Haxorus, "Thanks for coming Haxorus. Even though I'm sure you drew the short straw from the others to become 'babysitter' of the day." Haxorus huffed in amusement before he ruffled her hair with his free claws. Ayla laughed at the affection, "Okay, okay. I'm going to prepare some things. Wish us luck guys." She then turned to get ready herselfs.
Later on, the Coach called them all for some briefing, "-and do your very best because we got company." He smiled before gesturing to the Dragapult who was floating near their team bench.
Their team was excited. That particular Dragapult is their team mascot. He has no owner and then become the team's mascot since a long time ago so he became a rare case of pokemon in Rotom Registry where he was reserved as 'Uncatchable' so no one allow to catch him for the purpose that he's a mascot. Their Dragapults team has been a long running team for elementary of 4th grade to 6th grade and it was to believe that particular Dragapult has been there since this team was first made. He sometimes come and watch the Dragapults game and his presence was like a good luck charm for the team.
"Alright, remember the batting order, first, Shortstop Tommy. Second, 1st Base Ayla. Third, Left Fielder Ntonio. Fourth, 3rd Base Conrad. Fifth, Center Connor. Sixth, 2nd Base Jackob. Seventh, Right Fielder Thomas. Eight, Catcher Ferdinand. Ninth, Pitcher Acer. Pinch Hitters are Ronald and Hanry."
This is actually Pokemon Baseball, where usually there's pokemon players as well. But children like them usually didn't have pokemon players for various reasons. First, the pokemon has to be able stand on two legs or two legged and more but can use the gloves and bats. Second, No fliers because there will be no home run if there was. Third, in elementary and middle school baseball, pokemon has to have at least the average heights just like the kids to be more of a fair game, so pokemon that tall like Haxorus was not allow to play.
Their team didn't have the pokemon that meet the categories so there's none in their team players. But it seems their opponent team has a Grovyle and a Munchlax as their players.
"It's a shame Gible can't volunteer as a player." Tommy teased good-naturedly at Ntonio who rolled his eyes, "You know he's too short. When he evolves as Gabite he'll be too tall for us. Might as well wait until middle school." Ntonio though turned to Ayla who tried her best to stifle her laugh, "What about Noibat? He seems pretty keen to be around you all the time, why don't he join in?"
"No fliers, remember?" Ayla managed to smothered her laughs and continued, "Besides, he won't play any game if he latches onto me all the time."
"Luxio's tail can be use for the glove." Tommy added lightly.
"He doesn't want to play baseball." Both Ntonio and Ayla knew this the second they tried to teach him one.
"How about Haxorus?" Conrad joined in.
Ayla raised an eyebrow, "He's almost two meters tall. He towered all of us. Besides, he's my brother's. He has a job to battle in subway battles."
"Then why is he here?" Connor, Conrad's twin asked.
"To babysit." Ayla answered flatly to their brief laughter.
"Places everyone! The game is about to start!" The Coach called them to the field. Ayla's eyes wandered to the spectator seats and saw they have a good 10 to 15 people watching.
"That's quite a lot we got there." Ntonio mused, voicing out Ayla's thoughts.
"Oh yeah, I believe that was because of the Munchlax and Grovyle. I heard those two are the descendants of the star players Sceptile and Snorlax respectively at Harbours Team." Tommy answered him, "Heard they're pretty good just like their parents."
"Well, no pressure then, right?" Ntonio smiled before all of them take their places for the greeting salute by both teams to each other. Their oldest, Ferdinand was the one who participated in rock, paper, scissor for deciding who's first offense and defense.
"We're first defense. Places everyone." Ferdinand said before getting his Catcher gear ready. Ayla took place at First Base while Ntonio at the outfielder on Left.
When everyone is ready, the Umpire along with his Greninja who also going to referee it seems, announced, "Play Ball!"
This is going to be hard to focus on the Umpire's voice if the Greninja decided different from his trainer, was all Ayla thought before Acer shouted, "First!"
Ayla step forward just in time to bend sharply getting the ball before touching the runner. "Out! Out!"
Jolteon and Luxio jumped in excitement in seeing Ayla's safe. Noibat didn't really understand how the game goes but he looks more wide-eyed in fascination when he saw Ayla caught the ball and quickly touched the runner. Haxorus was really more of the brothers replacement when he gazed proudly which was probably what Emmet and Ingo would do if they were here.
The first inning resulted in three outs, so no points yet. Next up, they're going on offense.
Tommy is the first batter so Ayla has to get ready on the white circle as the next batter complete with her helmet, gloves, and bat. While Tommy was there on batter box, she observed that the other team's Grovyle was on 3rd base while Munchlax on 2nd.
"Out!" the Umpire called out. Tommy meet up with Ayla and whispered, "Their Ace likes to cut it close, see closely."
Ayla nodded and went to the batter box. She nodded in greeting to both the Umpire and the Greninja before looking forward again.
"Play!"
The Pitcher threw the first pitch, Ayla was about to swing but hold herselfs when she saw the ball was really cutting it close to the strike zone. The Umpire calling it Strike, the Greninja though calling it Ball.
The second pitch was similar but this time the Umpire called it Ball while Greninja called it Strike. Ayla can barely swing. She was utterly confused to listen to whom when they said it differently.
"Ayla! Just swing!"
The third pitch went inside and it was clearly a strike. The fourth pitch though, the ball went out of control and grazes Ayla's helmet when she ducked bending her knee, making her helmet falls from her head.
"Dead Ball!"
Ayla was standing up while holding her helmet when suddenly a black purple blur slammed head first to her chest, making her stagger in her place.
"Noibat-" her breath was cut off for a while when Noibat desperately hugged her neck and face while worrily cried out for her, "I'm okay- I'm okay, see."
Noibat was clearly stubborn and Ayla was desperately trying to get his grip loose while everyone else didn't protest and just watched the scene with various levels of amusement.
When Noibat clearly stuck himself on her front in a death grip, Ayla sighed, flopping her hands to the side tiredly and looked at both Umpires, "Can I-"
The Umpire shared an amuse look with his Greninja and nodded before she quickly jogged to where Haxorus and her pokemon were, "Come on Noibat, I can't play if you keep clinging to me. I have to go to the first base, see? I'm fine. Look, Haxorus, I'm fine, right?" she asked the tall pokemon who was clearly worried after the near miss to her head but was clearly found it amusing as well at Noibat's gluing himself on her front, but he nodded for the sake for the game to keep going and the pleading look she gave him.
"Noibat please.." Ayla was about to give up when Luxio came to her rescue and grabbed Noibat's scruff firmly, dragging him away from Ayla since Haxorus was afraid to hurt either of them if he tried it with his claws. Noibat let out an anguish cry and tears from being separated away and Ayla can only smiled assuringly before nodding a thanks at Luxio and she went back to stand on first base.
Ntonio who was already ready on the batter box just snorted good-naturedly when the Snevier's Catcher quipped, "If I didn't know any better I would've thought the girl was dying from the anguish cry he's making."
Noibat was still crying even in Haxorus arms while Ayla just closed her eyes and sighed tiredly while the first base guy just smiled sympathetically at her. She motioned for the Umpire to go on.
"Play!"
Ntonio made that eye contact with Ayla and knew what she has to do. Silently inching away from the first base while everyone was focusing on the ball, Ayla was a good quarter away from the base when the Pitcher threw the ball.
"Second!" the Shortstop yelled while the Catcher quickly threw it to Second.
Try as it might, the Munchlax was taking advantage of his shorter height to Ayla's longer legs. But Ayla was faster and slide head first safely to the base, "Safe!"
"Yes!" Ntonio said excitedly. The team was cheering as well while Noibat has quieted down and was looking at Ayla with amazed look on his face now.
After Ntonio managed to get to 1st base while Ayla was on 3rd, Conrad keep them all running and get them 3 points with his homerun.
"Nice!" Connor and others congratulated them while Ayla went straight to Noibat to assured him more. Noibat quickly hugged her when she opened her arms and laughed slightly at his enthusiasm, "This is still the first inning, Noibat. There's still 5 more innings to go, can you handle it?" she asked softly to his sensitive ears which Noibat nodded to.
Second and third innings went by without a score. At Fourth inning though was when the Sneviers start to get serious.
There's a reason why Conrad is their cleanup hitter. It was because he can hit homeruns more than anyone in the team. But it's not going to be the case in this inning.
When Conrad hit the ball, it was supposed to be another homerun, but the other team's Shortstop suddenly ran and threw Munchlax high up to the sky where the pokemon caught the ball, easily making it their three outs in this inning.
"Out!" both Umpires yelled.
"What?!" Conrad and many others of his team said aloud.
"You can do that?" Connor asked incredulously.
Ayla and Ntonio look on with widened eyes, "Apparently you can.." Ayla muttered.
Haxorus snorted in amusement at their incredulousness, Jolteon and Luxio just look on at the humans, while Noibat looked as confuse as the humans.
The opposite team cheered at the good teamwork while Ntonio murmured to Ayla, "Well- if they hide those maneuver all this time, I'm honestly afraid to know what they hide and can do next."
Ayla can only nodded quietly at that.
Turns out the Sneviers didn't really have that much tricks on their sleeves yet, but they are sure a challenging opponent. It was a win for the Dragapults because of their earlier inning points, but it was barely.
Noibat happily latched himself to Ayla's back when they're all done and packing up. The Umpires though went to talk to her,
"Hey there, can we have a minute?" the Umpire asked. Ayla nodded and came over, "Yes?"
"I see you get confused on the first inning when I shouted the balls predict. Did you hear it differently from Greninja perhaps?"
Ayla now looked at him a little warily. She and her brothers didn't exactly announce their ability to understand pokemon 'speech' to everyone, but every now and then people caught up when they saw how she and her brothers interact with their pokemon. It wasn't always a good response from other people though when they knew, so Ayla has a good reason to be wary and not immediately confirmed what he said. Haxorus glanced their way keeping a close eye and ear on the conversation.
The Umpire saw the look and quickly placate with his hands, "Don't worry, I don't think it's weird because I can understand a little bit myself. That's part of the reason why I trained my Greninja as fellow Umpire." Seeing that he got Ayla's attention and her eyes were less wary he continued, "You see, I'm.. kind of a new Umpire. Not too long on this job and Greninja's predicts help me to see if my predicts were wrong or not, but the problem is, I can't always caught on on what he said because he yelled it at the same time I did. I just want to offer some advice, just hear the ones humans Umpire said."
Ayla nodded. She knew most people can't understand them, so it was more rational to do it that way anyway.
The Umpire smiled, "That was a good game back there. Your Noibat's good?"
Ayla pointed to Noibat who was clinging tightly to her back shoulders, "He's good.. It's just he's been a little more clingy lately." Haxorus snorted at that. It was not just this lately, Noibat has been clingy to her ever since he became her pokemon. But the Umpire didn't need to know that.
It was Greninja's turn to smile, "Why are you so worried when your human played?"
Noibat was proven shy since he didn't offer an answer and just hide his face in her hair to everyone's amusement. The Umpire and Greninja bid them goodbye and let Ayla finish packing her stuffs.
Ayla sighed since Noibat still hasn't loosened his grip on her yet, "We'll work slowly on it, don't worry." She soothed.
For now she didn't mind a clingy Noibat.
