Keeper's Knowledge (Balancer's Soul cycle) (51 page)

It
i
s now two outs
in the top of the ninth inning
and Connor
was up to bat and the room began to silence into a tense atmosphere.
He
was able to score
the
team a total of six points and four of the points were
solid
home runs. It was now all up to
him
to tie up the game or lose.
He
didn’t want to lose by any means
.
He
took a deep breath
, calming
and
made
the
stance.

Xaon also took a deep breath
to shake the stress off
.
Connor
was glad to see that even he could feel the pressure
building
.
Xaon
took his stance and threw another Gyroball, but
he
didn’t bother swinging.
“Ball one.”
T
he second throw was a
completely
different matter. It
came as
a
down the middle fastball which Connor
couldn’t pass up
and
swung with all
he
had. The
bat whistled
in protest
as it began it
s approach. It met
the ball with the force faster than a bullet train
hitting another going in the opposite direction
.

The force of the connection made the bat bend back slightly. The ball made a perfect trajectory to right field and broke the sound barrier
yet again. Connor
watched the ball spin end over end as it aimed directly at the net. The crowd was completely silent and couldn’t really follow the speed of the metal baseball. It was almost at the net…
almost…almost…just a little bit more…

A
la
rge black cawed and scaled four
fingered hand
intercepted
the path of the ball. The
three
fingers
and thumb
wrapped around the ball
and Connor
could see the impact of catching a solid supersonic
metal ball break the
thick
bones in his hand. The momentum caused his hand to still graze the home run mesh screen, but
the
outcome
was determined
.

“
Out!”
T
he ref announced.

“The winner of today’s game is
TEAM RAMPAGE
!!!”
The female Keeper commentator mentally yelled to everyone present. The crowd went wild and
cheered. Connor
looked around the stadium and smiled.
“What a truly magnificent game that will not be soon forgotten.
Such skill and perseverance will remain with us for centuries to come.
I have never seen a game so close and so thrilling in all my years.
Give it up for the players who gave it their all.
”

All the pressure and
tension finally abated off of Connor. He
smiled
,
dropped the bat
and
spread
his
arms to the side and dropped flat on
his
back and into the
cool
dirt.
He
closed
his
eyes and
continued
smil
ing
.
We didn’t win, but I knew that it didn’t matter because I sat out
what I meant
to do and did it. I had fun.

Then
a
shadow block the light
being filtered by his eyelids
and so
he
opened
them
slowly.  Long brown silky strands were falling over her shoulder as she stoo
ped over
him
. Her green eyes were sparkling with exciteme
nt. “Connor, are you alright?” He
smiled brighter. “That was some kind of hit. We didn’t win, but I don’t feel like I lost.”

“That’s because you didn’t, little ones.”
Connor
turned
his
head in the sand to see Xaon walking on all fours in
their
direction. Behind him the crowd still
remained
going absolutely wild.
“Just look at all of them
. This was what they all needed…
W
hat I needed.”
Connor
sat and then stood up. Sarah moved behind
him
and beat off all the
red
sand from
his
clothes.
“If I may ask, will you all be playing anymore team sports?
Maybe we can battle against each other again?
”

Connor
looked at Sarah and her
captivating
eyes explained it all.
He
turned back to the reddish orange eyes
were unique to only
Xaon. “I’m sorry, but no we will not. I did what I sat out to do and everything turned out extremely well for us.
I believe it is time for others to have their chance at glory.
We just want to relax and have fun experiencing everything
that this place has to offer. Xaon thank you so very much for the amazing game that we were able to play with you.”

He shook his
scaly
head slowly from side to side slowly as his eyes were closed. He opened them and a purring rumble escap
ed
his throat.
“No, it is
I
who should be doing the thanking, Connor. You have given me a challenge that I haven’t gotten in
nearly a millennia
. I feel like I’ve gained some honest pride for once thanks to you. I might be next in line, but that kind of pride is superficial compared to fighting a worthy advisory.”
Xaon reached forward with one hand while maintaining balance
on
the other three limbs. He turned his hand to the side as an offering.

Connor
was glad to shake his hand again. Then an idea popped into
his
head as
he
released
the
grasp on his
clawed
finger. “Xaon?” Hi
s bulky head turned to look at him
again. “Can you take me to the guy who caught my hit
?
I need to see to something.”

“Follow me
.”

Connor
turned to look at
S
arah
who remained looking up at
him
. “I will be right back, Princess. This will only take a few minutes and I’ll meet back up with
you.” She entered his mind and saw what he
planned
. She jumped to kiss
him
on the cheek and ran over to the rest of
the
team.
They were all laughing and having a good time
,
even though they
didn’t win.

He
turned to Xaon and nodded.

Connor
followe
d him to their team’s dugout. Xaon
stood on his back legs just as he entered the fenced in room. There were three male Keepers standing against the fence with their backs to the field and they were all grinning and grunting.
Connor
guessed it was their native language
, but the dialect was
impossible to decode
,
let alone imitate
.
There were three other’s sitting on the bench grunting along. They all stopped what they were doing once they
realized
Connor
trailing behind their captain.
“Easy guys, he would like to speak with Zeheil for a moment.”
That was all that they needed to hear and they became slightly more relaxed
with
him
in their presence
.

The middle one sitting on the be
nch stood up. And
Connor
saw his right hand resting inside his robe
,
all the way
down
to where his black belt tied it all together. He was hiding it and his
expression
was masking how he felt quite well
, but not well enough for Connor’s perception and instincts
. His cloudy grey eyes looked
down at the Balancer
as he said
“I am Zeheil. Did you come back to get mocked
even more
, little one.”

Even his voice
hid
what he didn’t wish to share.

“Drop the act, Zeheil.”
Connor
said evenly and
his
voice
dripped
with authority.
Everyone in the dugout’s eyes widened and their
grunting
noises stopped
at such a command
. “Show me your
right
hand.” He
wasn’t playing
Zeheil’s
verbal sparring game.

He looked back at the rest of his team with worried eyes. Xaon spoke
in a tone
.
“Do as the Hatchling says or I’ll do it for you.”
He just figured it out too.

Reluctantly Zeheil turned to them
and obeyed
the captain’s order
. Carefully he slid his right hand out of his robe and his facial expression couldn’t hold its shape
any longer
and became pained. His teammates all gasped as they looked at his hand wrapped in a towel and soaked completely through with
dark
red blood. It was all too easy to
differentiate the shiny
red
blood from his
glossy black
claw
s
. The guys all tried
moving their heads to
get a better look, but they were in
Connor’s way. He
spoke
aloud again
. “Everyone stop!” They all did and turned to look
down
at him
. “I want all of you to block me and Zeheil from the onlookers.
Allow him to keep his dignity.
And we might need to get something for him to bite down on because I’m going to work on his hand.
I’ll fix his hand back to normal.
” They didn’t move
to do as he
ordered
until
he
said “
Unless
you want
me to cut off his hand so he could
re-grow it or would you rather let me fix it for him
and ease his suffering
down to a day instead of a week
?”

One of the members had another tow
e
l
he brought
with him
from the bath house that was made for
the size of
a Keeper, but it looked more like a king sized bed sheet. He wrapped it up into a long rag and folded it in half. His almost black eyes looked at his comrade and said
“Bite down on this, my friend”
Zeheil opened his large mouth and his friend slid the tow
el to his back grinding teeth. Connor
told
Zeheil
to sit on the bench and he did
so without protest
.
Connor
look
ed at the others and they took the
unspoken
hint. Three of them stood behind the bench and blocked the view from the back. Xaon and the remaining two knelt behind
him
and
blocked his
side. Their wide torsos blocked out the still excited crowd
, but left more than enough
ambient
light to see
by
.
He
looked into each of their worried eyes and
admitted
“Zeheil, this will hurt. I’m not going to lie
to you
, but you need to remain calm and let me do it. I will work as quickly as I can
to lessen the pain
.” He nodded and held out his
bloody
wrapped hand.

As
Connor began
unwrapping the cloth
,
each of the
ir teammate’s eyes widened once the broken
hand was revealed. The three long bones in his palm were all broken and
painfully
out of place. The most gruesome
sight came
from his middle bone that broke through
the
scales
,
on the back side of his hand.
Connor
closed
his
eyes and used sonar and
to see
that he had three bones broken and one
clean
break in each
where the brunt of the impact
from
where he caught the
dense
baseball
. Once he figured what
the damage is
Connor
looked up at
Zeheil’s
pained
expression and his scaly brows pulled together
.
Connor
smiled and said “This is the price you paid for winning the game, big guy.” Two of the keepers behind
Zeheil
chuckled
;
in their way. “I’m going to start resetting the two minor breaks first. He nodded once he prepared himself.