[The weird circle in question looks like it's made of pure white energy and is quietly humming. Or at least that's what it sounds like to the Batter. Who knows if Ren can hear it or not.
But at the very least the Batter doesn't appear to be afraid of it. In fact, he seems to be very used to it being by his side.]
Alpha. My Add-On.
[Which...probably answers very little. However Alpha seems to be taking matters in it's own...hands? Whatever. It's floating a little closer to Ren. See? Not scary. Just here, floating and doing its thing. Not to say Alpha isn't capable of severely harming someone but like always it's under someone's control. The Batter's this time since the Puppeteer isn't here.
The purifier meanwhile just stares back at Ren. While he hasn't forgotten he'd said he would play a game with Ren if he had time, the Batter wasn't a mind reader and doesn't know that's why she's here. So let's get to the point.]
[My Add-On. Of course, Mr. Batter. How could she be so foolish? It's just an add-on. Everyone's got some of those. Add-on. Right.
It's a phrase she tries to place because it sounds like something she's supposed to know, but every attempt to recall add-on yields nothing. Not even a trickle of anything. Maybe it's like a pokemon? Only those have expressions and features and didn't take shapes like that. Not from what she's seen, anyway.
When it moves closer, she eyes the cat by her side who only flicks his tail back and forth in response. He's not poofing up or running away. It's probably fine. Maybe. She's got her little eyes on the Alpha though.]
Did you find time?
[That doesn't sound right, but it gets the point across. U KNOW why she's here.]
[Look, just because he's getting there on 'being good' doesn't mean he's gotten any better at explaining crap. Alpha is Alpha and it works. That's all he asks of the being.
And it's still just chilling. Meanwhile, the Batter understands why she's here. A game. Well...]
I did.
[The Batter has...a lot of time, since there's nothing here that needs to be purified at the moment.]
Do you have a ball?
[Kind of need that too. Also it occurs to the Batter he's going to have to take some practice swings beforehand. He can play a game just fine, it's just he's not used to holding back that much.]
What she does have are ball like items, which clearly show some kind of preparation occurred before she ran into him like this. The bag is thrown to the ground and she pulls a couple items out-
A literal ball of grass pressed together, a coconut, a couple rocks that aren't treasures because they don't shine-
[The Batter is far too used to swinging hard enough to cave in someone's skull and to never hold back. Ren has a ball of grass, a coconut and a couple of rocks.
....maybe the coconut and rocks will be strong enough to survive the impact.]
I may have to practice for a moment.
[i.e, not hit hard enough to A) break those items and B) not run the risk of hitting Ren with something that would hurt her by accident.
She knew these would easily take the place of a ball. They're round-ish?? They're big enough to hit? Maybe batter should be worried about her smacking him in the face with a rock, honestly. Her only pitching experience comes from a short dream sequence.]
[He's been smacked in the face with worse Ren. Life Lesson learned: cripple large birds before fighting them or you'll eat concrete more then once. Thanks Japhet.]
You'll have to stand close.
[Because the Batter isn't optimistic enough to think that'll go far when she throws it. Or...optimistic at all. But whatever. He stands up and Alpha zips back to his side. The bat the Batter uses is pretty dented for some reason but he'll heft it and assume a position that probably a little more professional-looking then a few kids playing a game, but old habits.
[This is it. The moment she's been waiting for. It feels like decades have passed since he agreed to this game and she can't believe it's happening. Patience is a virtue and it served her well. Now to reap her reward!!
She hasn't even thrown the 'ball' yet, but the beaming smile on her face says it all. She has no glove, a clump of grass that won't survive the first impact of his bat and somehow she can't imagine it being any other way.
Stay back, ESP Kitty. Ya gurl's gotta pitch. Alpha must know how the game works already-he's trying to get into position too. Nice.
Anyway, in a shocking turn of events, dreams aren't reality and her throw sucks. Let's see if he can hit that bizarre low-curve ball.]
[Well Ren's reward may be kind of crappy because while the Batter does manage to hit the 'ball' it...
Well, explodes is probably the nicest thing anyone can say about it and the Batter has to awkwardly stop himself from toppling over, too used to connecting with something harder with all his might. Note to self: hold back a lot more. Whoops.]
...try again.
[With something harder, if you can Ren.]
Edited (sounds better, I think) 2017-12-25 06:20 (UTC)
[Grass explosion or not, he hit the 'ball' and that's worth celebrating. Is that a home run? She can't remember the rules now. It's been a few months since ghosts explained the game.
Try again
Absolutely. Hey batter batter, hey batter batter swing because she just threw a freaking rock at him.]
[Swing and a hit. The Batter manages to hold back enough that he doesn't break it but the rock will still zip past Ren. If she doesn't go after it, Alpha will so don't worry about being down another 'ball'.
This tugs at something the Batter doesn't consciously recognize but can conclude it's amusing on some level.
It's still a warm up so he's not going to run right now. Besides they've got nothing to use as bases. No need to play by the rules just yet.]
[If he thought she looked elated earlier, it's a whole other story now. There's no fear as the rock nyooms past her and into the distance. She probably wouldn't have cared if she was hit by it, honestly, from the excitable way she throws her arms into the air.]
You hit it! You hit it very far!
[But there's a memory-one of you're not supposed to let it get hit! We lose! Lose! as she watches Alpha zoom after the rock.]
I can't let you hit it this time.
[Consider the coconut. The one she has in her grubby little hands right now.
[Yeah, this is oddly entertaining. Alpha soon zips back towards the pair and drops the rock at Ren's feet - don't ask how a circle of pure energy can hold things - before making its way back to where it used to be behind the Batter. Evidently it can think for itself.
And if Ren ever learned the Batter had control of most of Alpha's actions, he won't say anything about it.
Also hell no, he sees that coconut.]
It'll break.
[The Batter is inept when it came to emotions, not when it came to what could and could not break with a swing of a metal bat.]
[Ren looks between the coconut and the bat, as if gauging the accuracy of what he's saying with her own two eyes. Things do break and this coconut is, she knocks against it with her fingers to confirm, hard.
Fine.
Alpha, the real mvp in all of this, brought her the rock so she switches her items out. No coconut today. Maybe he can smash it for a post-game drink later.
There's a look of fierce!! determination!! in her eyes!! And she throws with all her little might.
But she still sucks, so it's probably easy to hit.]
[You're talking to the guy who somehow managed to cut off a giant's head with a baseball bat. The Batter knows his stuff.
And yeah, she does suck. But this easy pace is probably for the best. They're not losing all of their balls in one go, after all.
Swing and a hit once again and off it goes. The Batter is still trying to gauge his hits so it's still pretty hard and goes fairly far, but Alpha's here to go after the 'ball' if Ren doesn't.]
[Knowing that Alpha is a good circle that'll chase the 'ball', she doesn't go after it. There's a moment where it looks like she's going to cheer for him again, despite her own failure, but stops in her tracks when he asks that question.]
[Luckily for everyone involved, the Batter has been making small steps in controlling his knee-jerk reaction to the word 'ghost'. Different worlds. However, the hesitation in asking more is clear.]
...why would they do that?
[All the ghosts the Batter met always tried to spread seeds of chaos and kill him and others. What made this one different?]
[It's hard to say what happened. The other catalyst had moved on with Shin, which is far too much to explain now. Nor does she really want to talk about him. He still scares her to this day.
But it's not about Shin. It's about the kindly ghost who accompanied Seto.]
She was nice. She visited our dream and helped us play.
[And after that, poof, she was gone. It's clear Ren's not 100% on how that even worked.]
[A friendly ghost is...not something that the Batter can imagine. And yeah, it's pretty clear that Ren doesn't understand how the whole dream thing works. But it's enough.]
Okay.
[Alpha returns and drops the rock by Ren's feet again and the Batter raises his bat again. Batter up.]
[The easy acceptance is fine by her because she's got one thing on her mind and that's victory.
Good job, Alpha. She might love them a little bit and turns to look at her cat, his eyes on the 'ball' this whole time, as though there's a telepathic connection between them. Give her some of that good old kitty judgement.
She wants the Batter to hit it? But also wants to win. Life is hard.]
Okay! You won't hit it this time.
[She looks determined. And also, she doesn't know the rules so-she tosses the rock into the air, straight into the sky, and towards all those pretty clouds. Good luck.
[Real nice Ren. The Batter can't fly so he's not getting that. Instead he merely looks up and shields his eyes from the sun's glare. If it looks like he's trying to cover more on the right side of his face then one actually has to....well, it doesn't really matter.
If the rock lands too close for comfort and one of the Batter's hidden eyes snaps open purely out of reflex, that's probably another story.
[She's about to celebrate her victory, her eyes darting to Batter to see if he feels the sting of defeat when-
That's new.
That's an...eye? What she thought was dirt he refused to clean off his face this whole time is open and there and-
That's an eye. Her mind goes at mach speed trying to catch up with the image in front of her. Humans only have two eyes, she's pretty sure. She didn't see many of them growing up, but that seemed to be the norm. Two eyes. Two.
One. Two. Three.
Three eyes. Right.
It startles her and she stays frozen in place, dead silent. As if the eye can hear her and could attack at any second. She wants to hide, but there's nowhere to go and all she can do is keep her own eyes plastered on his face. Maybe he doesn't know? He might not. It could be something the island is doing to him-some weird bug attacking his face when they weren't looking.
[The Batter lowers his hand that had been shielding his eyes from the sun's glare and opens up the last remaining one. That's a total of four. Each of them look the exact same and are about a finger width's apart. That was one out of two reasons the Batter didn't bother using the second set: it was irritating to keep them open for long and impractical in general. If someone kicked sand in his face? Yes. Everyday activities? Not so much.
But since the cat's out of the bag, the Batter isn't going to bother hiding it. There's no point.]
Books and fear coated childhood memories are the only background knowledge she has on people. Most looked like her, with two eyes. That she's absolutely sure of. And it calls into question the nature of this man she had thought as entirely human until now. But unsettling revelation aside, she's had the luxury of working her way through most of Enso's current population-there are plenty of people among them who aren't quite human in the way she expects.
It's not a reaction from the environment around them. No weird monster or ghost latched to his face and caused that. The wary look on her face vanishes and is quickly replaced by a far more curious expression. OH BOY.]
[Annnnd there's the second reason why he didn't bother keeping them open. Sure, all things considered, a guy with four eyes probably isn't all that weird compared to some people on the island. But the Batter didn't want to stand around playing twenty questions about them either.
Still, things have changed somewhat so many it'll be different. Maybe.]
Somewhat. [To answer her first question.] And yes.
[For all intents and purposes, they were normal eyes. The Batter just so happened to have four of them when he looked human to someone.]
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But at the very least the Batter doesn't appear to be afraid of it. In fact, he seems to be very used to it being by his side.]
Alpha. My Add-On.
[Which...probably answers very little. However Alpha seems to be taking matters in it's own...hands? Whatever. It's floating a little closer to Ren. See? Not scary. Just here, floating and doing its thing. Not to say Alpha isn't capable of severely harming someone but like always it's under someone's control. The Batter's this time since the Puppeteer isn't here.
The purifier meanwhile just stares back at Ren. While he hasn't forgotten he'd said he would play a game with Ren if he had time, the Batter wasn't a mind reader and doesn't know that's why she's here. So let's get to the point.]
Do you need something?
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It's a phrase she tries to place because it sounds like something she's supposed to know, but every attempt to recall add-on yields nothing. Not even a trickle of anything. Maybe it's like a pokemon? Only those have expressions and features and didn't take shapes like that. Not from what she's seen, anyway.
When it moves closer, she eyes the cat by her side who only flicks his tail back and forth in response. He's not poofing up or running away. It's probably fine. Maybe. She's got her little eyes on the Alpha though.]
Did you find time?
[That doesn't sound right, but it gets the point across. U KNOW why she's here.]
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And it's still just chilling. Meanwhile, the Batter understands why she's here. A game. Well...]
I did.
[The Batter has...a lot of time, since there's nothing here that needs to be purified at the moment.]
Do you have a ball?
[Kind of need that too. Also it occurs to the Batter he's going to have to take some practice swings beforehand. He can play a game just fine, it's just he's not used to holding back that much.]
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What she does have are ball like items, which clearly show some kind of preparation occurred before she ran into him like this. The bag is thrown to the ground and she pulls a couple items out-
A literal ball of grass pressed together, a coconut, a couple rocks that aren't treasures because they don't shine-
Prepared thy name is Ren.]
I have these things.
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....maybe the coconut and rocks will be strong enough to survive the impact.]
I may have to practice for a moment.
[i.e, not hit hard enough to A) break those items and B) not run the risk of hitting Ren with something that would hurt her by accident.
This is fine.]
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She knew these would easily take the place of a ball. They're round-ish?? They're big enough to hit? Maybe batter should be worried about her smacking him in the face with a rock, honestly. Her only pitching experience comes from a short dream sequence.]
Okay! I'll throw this grass and you can practice.
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You'll have to stand close.
[Because the Batter isn't optimistic enough to think that'll go far when she throws it. Or...optimistic at all. But whatever. He stands up and Alpha zips back to his side. The bat the Batter uses is pretty dented for some reason but he'll heft it and assume a position that probably a little more professional-looking then a few kids playing a game, but old habits.
Let's see what you've got Ren.]
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She hasn't even thrown the 'ball' yet, but the beaming smile on her face says it all. She has no glove, a clump of grass that won't survive the first impact of his bat and somehow she can't imagine it being any other way.
Stay back, ESP Kitty. Ya gurl's gotta pitch. Alpha must know how the game works already-he's trying to get into position too. Nice.
Anyway, in a shocking turn of events, dreams aren't reality and her throw sucks. Let's see if he can hit that bizarre low-curve ball.]
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Well, explodes is probably the nicest thing anyone can say about it and the Batter has to awkwardly stop himself from toppling over, too used to connecting with something harder with all his might. Note to self: hold back a lot more. Whoops.]
...try again.
[With something harder, if you can Ren.]
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[Grass explosion or not, he hit the 'ball' and that's worth celebrating. Is that a home run? She can't remember the rules now. It's been a few months since ghosts explained the game.
Try again
Absolutely. Hey batter batter, hey batter batter swing because she just threw a freaking rock at him.]
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This tugs at something the Batter doesn't consciously recognize but can conclude it's amusing on some level.
It's still a warm up so he's not going to run right now. Besides they've got nothing to use as bases. No need to play by the rules just yet.]
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You hit it! You hit it very far!
[But there's a memory-one of you're not supposed to let it get hit! We lose! Lose! as she watches Alpha zoom after the rock.]
I can't let you hit it this time.
[Consider the coconut. The one she has in her grubby little hands right now.
R U READY BATTER?]
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And if Ren ever learned the Batter had control of most of Alpha's actions, he won't say anything about it.
Also hell no, he sees that coconut.]
It'll break.
[The Batter is inept when it came to emotions, not when it came to what could and could not break with a swing of a metal bat.]
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Fine.
Alpha, the real mvp in all of this, brought her the rock so she switches her items out. No coconut today. Maybe he can smash it for a post-game drink later.
There's a look of fierce!! determination!! in her eyes!! And she throws with all her little might.
But she still sucks, so it's probably easy to hit.]
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And yeah, she does suck. But this easy pace is probably for the best. They're not losing all of their balls in one go, after all.
Swing and a hit once again and off it goes. The Batter is still trying to gauge his hits so it's still pretty hard and goes fairly far, but Alpha's here to go after the 'ball' if Ren doesn't.]
Where did you learn to play?
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In a dream. A ghost taught us how to play.
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...why would they do that?
[All the ghosts the Batter met always tried to spread seeds of chaos and kill him and others. What made this one different?]
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[It's hard to say what happened. The other catalyst had moved on with Shin, which is far too much to explain now. Nor does she really want to talk about him. He still scares her to this day.
But it's not about Shin. It's about the kindly ghost who accompanied Seto.]
She was nice. She visited our dream and helped us play.
[And after that, poof, she was gone. It's clear Ren's not 100% on how that even worked.]
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Okay.
[Alpha returns and drops the rock by Ren's feet again and the Batter raises his bat again. Batter up.]
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Good job, Alpha. She might love them a little bit and turns to look at her cat, his eyes on the 'ball' this whole time, as though there's a telepathic connection between them. Give her some of that good old kitty judgement.
She wants the Batter to hit it? But also wants to win. Life is hard.]
Okay! You won't hit it this time.
[She looks determined. And also, she doesn't know the rules so-she tosses the rock into the air, straight into the sky, and towards all those pretty clouds. Good luck.
Yeah. Nice.]
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If the rock lands too close for comfort and one of the Batter's hidden eyes snaps open purely out of reflex, that's probably another story.
Whoops. And he doesn't hit the rock either.]
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That's new.
That's an...eye? What she thought was dirt he refused to clean off his face this whole time is open and there and-
That's an eye. Her mind goes at mach speed trying to catch up with the image in front of her. Humans only have two eyes, she's pretty sure. She didn't see many of them growing up, but that seemed to be the norm. Two eyes. Two.
One. Two. Three.
Three eyes. Right.
It startles her and she stays frozen in place, dead silent. As if the eye can hear her and could attack at any second. She wants to hide, but there's nowhere to go and all she can do is keep her own eyes plastered on his face. Maybe he doesn't know? He might not. It could be something the island is doing to him-some weird bug attacking his face when they weren't looking.
So in a soft whisper, she says-]
Something's there.
[ON YOUR FACE FRIEND!!!!]
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I know.
[The Batter lowers his hand that had been shielding his eyes from the sun's glare and opens up the last remaining one. That's a total of four. Each of them look the exact same and are about a finger width's apart. That was one out of two reasons the Batter didn't bother using the second set: it was irritating to keep them open for long and impractical in general. If someone kicked sand in his face? Yes. Everyday activities? Not so much.
But since the cat's out of the bag, the Batter isn't going to bother hiding it. There's no point.]
It's normal for me.
[....yes. "Normal".]
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Books and fear coated childhood memories are the only background knowledge she has on people. Most looked like her, with two eyes. That she's absolutely sure of. And it calls into question the nature of this man she had thought as entirely human until now. But unsettling revelation aside, she's had the luxury of working her way through most of Enso's current population-there are plenty of people among them who aren't quite human in the way she expects.
It's not a reaction from the environment around them. No weird monster or ghost latched to his face and caused that. The wary look on her face vanishes and is quickly replaced by a far more curious expression. OH BOY.]
Does it hurt? [Pause] Do they blink?
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Still, things have changed somewhat so many it'll be different. Maybe.]
Somewhat. [To answer her first question.] And yes.
[For all intents and purposes, they were normal eyes. The Batter just so happened to have four of them when he looked human to someone.]
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