[This guy's being a jerk. He's being a jerk, and . . .
It feels kinda good. Something like competitive spirit rises in Leon's chest—something like nostalgia, too. He's used to people being assholes to him on the field. It's been so, so long. Longer than he remembers, he knows that. When was the last time he stood on the mound and faced a batter totally disrespecting him? It feels like around six months; he knows it's longer. A year and a half. Two and a half years. Maybe the last game he remembers pitching, when he was 17, is the last game he ever pitched in his life, and maybe it wasn't—he can't know. But even if it actually were six months . . . it's been so long.
To his body it feels like yesterday, just like it always has. He slips easily into position, grips the ball, winds up, and throws a cutter.
In a world where there were any justice, it wouldn't be a very good pitch. Wasn't he just reminiscing about how long it'd been since he did this? Not since he pitched, to be fair. He'd done that days before, in the ViViD level with all the sand, and that had been the first time he'd used his arm in a very long time. But throwing balls at a wall is a different thing from standing on the mound and aiming at the strike zone with a batter staring you down. It's not like he's practiced that since arriving in Cerealia. He hasn't been working on his skills on the down-low, sneaking out to the field when no one's around to witness his shame. That's not his style. As much as he's missed it, deep down where he doesn't want to admit, practice is practice, and he doesn't practice.
In a just world, the pitch would kinda suck.
But that isn't the world Leon inhabits. In his world, the good die young, children are made into tools of war, and most relevant in this moment, sometimes people have a truly ludicrous amount of talent without even trying. Leon is one of those people. The ball slices through the air in a breathtakingly perfect arc, like a force of nature, like the fucking sound of the wind made material, or something poetic like that.
It clocks about 90 miles per hour, because Leon did in fact go easy on him.]
=D
[This guy's being a jerk. He's being a jerk, and . . .
It feels kinda good. Something like competitive spirit rises in Leon's chest—something like nostalgia, too. He's used to people being assholes to him on the field. It's been so, so long. Longer than he remembers, he knows that. When was the last time he stood on the mound and faced a batter totally disrespecting him? It feels like around six months; he knows it's longer. A year and a half. Two and a half years. Maybe the last game he remembers pitching, when he was 17, is the last game he ever pitched in his life, and maybe it wasn't—he can't know. But even if it actually were six months . . . it's been so long.
To his body it feels like yesterday, just like it always has. He slips easily into position, grips the ball, winds up, and throws a cutter.
In a world where there were any justice, it wouldn't be a very good pitch. Wasn't he just reminiscing about how long it'd been since he did this? Not since he pitched, to be fair. He'd done that days before, in the ViViD level with all the sand, and that had been the first time he'd used his arm in a very long time. But throwing balls at a wall is a different thing from standing on the mound and aiming at the strike zone with a batter staring you down. It's not like he's practiced that since arriving in Cerealia. He hasn't been working on his skills on the down-low, sneaking out to the field when no one's around to witness his shame. That's not his style. As much as he's missed it, deep down where he doesn't want to admit, practice is practice, and he doesn't practice.
In a just world, the pitch would kinda suck.
But that isn't the world Leon inhabits. In his world, the good die young, children are made into tools of war, and most relevant in this moment, sometimes people have a truly ludicrous amount of talent without even trying. Leon is one of those people. The ball slices through the air in a breathtakingly perfect arc, like a force of nature, like the fucking sound of the wind made material, or something poetic like that.
It clocks about 90 miles per hour, because Leon did in fact go easy on him.]