So I have not updated in over a month. This can be explained in three words: summer of hell. My summer has pretty much been blown with the sickness of multiple old men of blood relation, death of one, constant hospital visits and the rehabilitation of the other, near perpetual babysitting and a writer's block that effects everything to boot. Most of what I've been doing lately is reading. Besides, my muse got temporarily addicted to One Piece. With any luck, that's gonna simmer down soon. -sweatdrop- My luck sucks. I do not own Slayers, Major League Baseball, ect.

Ni-juu-nana

A Horrific Experience! Stop Scaring the Dickens Out of Us!

Zelgadis threw open the door of the empty conference room and let everyone in. Now, what exactly Rezzo had thought when he decided to put a conference room underneath the ballpark, Zelgadis really had no idea, but the old coot's eccentric ways did seem to prove useful now. It was just the perfect place to hide Lina and everyone else as the panic over the bleeding redhead ensued.

"Put Lina up there on the table," Maliska ordered. Kurt gently set his friend down and was forcefully shoved away by the nurse.

"Whoa! You could have just told me to move!"

"There's no time. I have to get his wound to stop bleeding and sew it up!"

"Will Miss Lina be alright?" Amelia asked, worry plastered across her face.

"Sure, as long as she doesn't die on us."

"Gary!"

"It's the truth, right Kurt?"

"Don't tell Amelia these things!"

"She can handle it."

"Stop bickering!" Maliska barked. Kurt and Gary paused their thoughts and stood there blankly. The redhead had sharp objects at her disposal and it was decided to be in their best interests to keep quiet.

"Is Miss Lina going to be okay?" Amelia asked nervously as she watched Maliska get out the needle and wire to sew up Lina's open wound.

"Of course she's gonna be okay!" Maliska smiled. "I haven't lost a patient yet!"

"Doesn't that mean that you are more likely to lose her?" Zelgadis stated. Maliska shot him an ugly glare and continued working. Zelgadis cringed backwards to put some more distance between the nurse and himself.

"Don't say things like that Mr. Zelgadis..." Amelia whispered. "We don't want to anger her. She could get into big trouble for this..."

"Zelgadis...?" Gary cut in. He walked over and looked the chimera in the eyes. "You're the team's owner?" Zelgadis was relieved to hear the baseman's voice sounding more surprised than threatening.

"Yeah, I am," Zelgadis said matter-of-factly. "Why would you ask?"

"I just don't think I have ever seen you before, that's all," Gary said. Zelgadis could see that just beyond Gary, Kurt was rubbing his temples in frustration.

"There! All done!" Maliska announced. Everyone else in the room looked over to the table and saw that Lina did indeed have stitches right between her eyebrows and that the wound was neatly closed. If it were not for the thin black knots in her skin, the injury would have only looked like a minor scrape.

"Thank goodness!" Amelia said. "Now what?"

"What do you mean by 'now what'?" Maliska snapped. "Lina could still have some head trauma from the impact. We have to get her to a real hospital."

"We can't do that!" Kurt said defensively, stepping closer to the table. "You know what will happen if we take her to a hospital!"

"It's either her secret or possibly her life!" the redheaded nurse screamed. Kurt slightly recoiled and looked at Maliska blankly. "She could need treatment that she can only get at a hospital! What if she never wakes up, huh? Then what?"

"I'll kick your ass."

"Wha..." everyone gasped. They all looked over at Lina to find her clutching her forehead.

"You heard me," she growled as she rolled off the table and fell hard onto Kurt's legs. "I'll kick your ass if you bring me to a hospital."

"L-L-Lina...?" Kurt squeaked as his teammate used his legs for support in getting up. "What are you doing?" His face flushed with crimson embarrassment as Lina pretty much scaled him until she was able to prop herself on the table.

"There's a game to play."

"Not for you there is!" Amelia scolded, shoving Lina down in a nearby chair. The force of Lina falling into the chair was enough to wheel it back into the table. "You just scared us half to death! No more baseball for you until you are healed!"

"Can I at least beat the hell out of those three?" Lina asked, pointing to Kurt, Maliska and Gary.

"No."

"Why not?"

"It would put you more at risk to develop serious complications with your injury. Complications that could very possibly end your career."

"Piss."

Lina folded her arms and pouted. It was unlike her to miss a game due to injury. She had always played through pain. She felt it was weak to stop playing when she could still walk, even if it was barely. Now she could walk, see... and best of all... cuss.

"What the fuck am I going to do?" she barked. "Baseball is my life and if you take that away I'm a pile of crap, you hear!"

"Miss Lina! Don't you dare talk like that!" Amelia scolded.

"I'll talk how I want to, you hear?"

"Maybe that ball did a bit more than give you a cut on the head," Gary muttered.

"Oh, yeah, I never asked you two to carry me down to the dugout! Who are you guys anyways, Laurel and Hardy?"

"Hey, we were concerned!" Kurt snapped. "It was better us take you quickly before the medics arrive and reveal that you're a woman to everyone!"

"I could have gotten up by myself if you had let me be for a while," Lina growled.

"Yeah right! Can't we be concerned here? If Gary and I..."

"I don't want to hear it!"

"Stubborn witch!"

"Idiot jackass!"

"Hey," Gary whispered to Amelia, Zelgadis and Maliska as Lina and Kurt argued loudly. "I'm going to go back to the game. Make it look like things went off alright."

"Good," Amelia said. "Go tell Mr. Xellos that Lina's okay."

"Maybe I should be the one to go and tell him that," Maliska piped up as she gathered her things from the table. She and Gary scuttled out of the room, leaving Amelia and Zelgadis to attempt to control Lina and Kurt.

"Do you hate me or something?" Kurt snapped defensively.

"I hate how you just butt into everything!"

"...and what's wrong with covering your tracks for you every once and a while? I swear, if I weren't around sometime..."

"If you weren't around sometimes...? Without me, you might not even be here!"

"Yeah, because you came late and got picked first!"

"That's not my freaking fault!"

"Then who's fault is it going to be!"

"Wanker's!"

"Just because..."

"ENOUGH!" Zelgadis bellowed, shutting up Lina and Kurt. Both ballplayers glared at their owner and grumbled something inaudibly.

"What's wrong with you two?" Amelia scolded, coming between Lina and Kurt like a referee. "You guys are supposed to be friends!"

"This is insanity and I am not going to stand for it," Zelgadis warned. "Lina, Kurt, both of you are going to have to drop it right now."

"Who are you?" Lina asked, looking over and examining the chimera.

"I am Zelgadis Graywords... your team's owner and your high boss."

"Tch. Since when are you all authoritarian?" Lina sneered. "I thought you hated owning the Slayers."

"I did when I first got it," Zelgadis replied. "Now I see though, that I need to take charge a little more, huh?"

"Why start now, you damn prick?" Lina grumbled. She pouted and sat down hard in a chair while Zelgadis's face began changing color and Amelia and Kurt's eyes began to twitch.

80808080808080808

"...and we brought it to you first folks," Ramon said into the microphone. "Liam Inverse hit by a line drive and carried off the field by her teammates... what a drastic turn of events for the Portland Slayers." From up in his pressbox seat, he and the rest of the commentators saw everything that had happened down on the field and were now waiting for play to resume again.

"I don't know about you Ramon, but I doubt how well the Slayers are going to be able to preform tonight without their two star rookies in the lineup," Naga sighed heavily, slumping back into her chair and rubbing her temples. "The situation is looking bleak here. What do you two back there think?"

"Auf, au, auau, ruff, au," Kiko barked. Give them a moment, will ya? By where he stood in the corner, both Nehszriah and AirJay were sitting on the floor, shell-shocked about what they had just seen.

"That was... awful..." Nehszriah was just able to squeak. "He isn't even on my team and... I feel so bad for him..." AirJay tried to put in his own comment, but his vocal cords were temporarily rendered useless.

"This is going to be a long delay by the looks of it," Naga said. "Now, for a word from our sponsors." Just as she flicked the switch to go to commercial, the door to the pressbox slammed open, hitting the two frightened commentators and revealing Maliska standing in the doorway.

"Maliska, what are you doing here?" Ramon asked in a rather confused voice. "You're supposed to be in Pittsburgh, aren't you?"

"No," the nurse said, swallowing the nervousness she had stuck in her throat. "Li...Liam Inverse is going to be alright. I checked out his wound myself. He should be back playing baseball within a few days."

"That's a relief," Naga said, a smug smile across her face. "How about by the end of the series?"

"Not a very good chance of it by what I saw." Naga's smile dropped slightly.

"...but he'll play again."

"Definitely."

"Good then. Thank you," Naga smiled. Maliska nodded her head thankfully and closed the door on her way out, allowing AirJay and Nehszriah to fall to the floor in a state of semi-consciousness.

"What do you find so pleasing about this?" Ramon snapped, noticing the grin on Naga's face.

"Oh, nothing that would interest you," she said sweetly, batting her eyes at the man sitting next to her. Ramon just shrugged it off as a muffled threat from AirJay was heard to "stay away from his woman".

So, now one more person at least knows, Naga thought as she glanced down to the ballfield. No, my mistake... two people. That nurse and Gary Polous. This is going to serve to become very interesting indeed...

"...and we're back here live from Jones Soda Stadium as we come at you broadcasting the 2006 World Series of Baseball," Ramon said, flipping the switch for the microphone on. "My name is Ramon Wild Punch..."

"...and I'm Naga the Serpent and right now, for those of you just tuning in, the tide seems to have turned for the worst for the Portland Slayers as a line drive off the bat of Francisco Casa crashed into the skull of Liam Inverse, who was unprepared for the moment as he had been distracted, along with the rest of the ballpark, by his manager doing the Chicken Dance on the dugout," Naga added, taking her cue flawlessly.

"Yes, yes," Ramon sighed. "It just has been informed though, that Liam is currently stable and will be able to play baseball once again, but what we need to figure out is how to get this game back into gear with three members of the Slayers' lineup gone and seven more innings of game play left."

"What's this? I think I see Gary Polous coming up from the clubhouse!" AirJay said, having finally crawled over to sit in a chair painfully between Ramon and Naga. "Yes it is! He is also followed by two other members of the Slayers, seemingly in order to take the place of Liam Inverse and Kurt Fuchs."

"I guess you're right there," Ramon said. He looked down onto the field again and suppressed a giggle. "Hey, it looks like Xellos Metallium is being thrown out of the game! That's it Sunny! Throw him out!" He punched the air in excitement as the blue-haired woman on the field pointed to Xellos and mimed the action of pulling on a chain.

"Oh man, that's gotta hurt!" AirJay snickered as he watched Xellos mime being pulled violently by Sunny's invisible chain and slammed himself into the dugout wall.

"Let us all hope that Metallium has leaned a valuable lesson," Naga said as everyone prepared for the continuation of the ball game. "Dancing poorly is something to do in private, not on the top of a stadium dugout in the middle of a highly important game.

"Agreed," said the other three human members of the pressbox in unison. Kiko shook his head in agreement.

Things To Know

Usage of the Four-Letter Word: By law, there can only be one instance of the word f""ck in a work for it to still be a PG-13 or T rating. One more instance and it all turns into a R or M rating. This explains how my younger brother can buy a copy of Flogging Molly's album "Swagger" without our mother's consent, despite the song lyrics for "Black Friday Rule". Besides, Lina's pissed, and I have seen many T fictions with f""ck in it. Multiple times.

A Moment of Silence: ...for the World Cup. -sighs- There's no standing my Italian acquaintances now. -bows head- Really, I still am hearing it.

Lina vs Kurt: Don't hate it! I actually needed Kurt to just blow up and start taking Lina on. She's been going around near recklessly and needs to be put in check.

Next Update?: Hopefully not in another month and a half's time. I really want to finish this before the regular season's over with. Man, am I gearing up for a Tigers themed post-season. Oh, try not to expect the next chapter in a week. I'm not sure if writer's block is cured that easily.