The Spies Strike Out
Made on: 13 Jun, 2023
Rating: General Audiences
Characters of Focus: Bees Gorczya, Esme Ramsey, Rivers Javier, Yuniesky, and Ivy (Wyatt Mason IV).
Setting: Gamma season 4, Coronation Era (made up whole cloth)
Warnings: None. (blaseball typical shenanigans)
Word Count: 2,049 words
Beginning Authors Note: Hello! There's some text formatting nonsense here, which might be a bit hard to read at times… apologies in advance for that! I attempted to use a site skin (well, for the AO3 one) so it would be changeable, but trying to get strikeout to work with it was difficult. Bleh. If it really bothers you, or you're having a lot of trouble reading this, you can use this link to read a version of it with no strikeout text!
Bees wakes up on a couch that is not zir's in a spacious room that is not part of zir apartment with a blanket ze never saw before draped over zir. Some of zir hive buzzes around zir, unbothered and in a fairly good mood, the rest still lazing about. So at least there's that.
It takes a moment, in-between greeting her awake bees good morning and nudging the still sleeping ones awake, for Bees to place the room as the sanctioned election watch room. The blanket would be from Terrell, then.
Last night must have gotten wild, somehow, because Bees cannot actually remember much of what happened. Just flashes of dread and excitement alongside the agitated buzzing of zir hive. So, not unlike the other two elections ze had witnessed.
But there's never really been a time where Bees doesn't return to zir own bed after seeing what nonsense the fans have gotten up too— and the next unfolding of the plan, of course, a voice annoyingly akin to Ivy pipes up in the back of zir mind. Even after the terrible first sight of an alteration, ze stumbled home.
There's other spies laying around them, also covered in blankets and still sleeping, and Bees figures that whatever happened can't be that bad if no one's up doing anything about it. With that note, zee puts the situation wholly in the mental compartment of 'late night the details got a bit hazy on'.
Ze then has to promptly rethink that as ze sits up. The blanket pools around zir's waste revealing a singular, thick white line across ze's waste.
Bees mourn any outfits of zir that included horizontal stripes before turning to zir closest teammate and shaking them awake.
The audience is mellow, mumbling amongst themselves. A couple half heartedly cheering and jeering as Faye skips up to home plate, is promptly declared as struck out by the umpire, and skips back to the dugout without raising fae's bat. Faye takes back faes sign from Chester, as ve and Abu-zaid go up to bat. If it can even be called that anymore.
The signs are because the spies don't do anything in half measures, and because it's a good opportunity to change a very annoying consequence of striking out into an actual strike. Not that they think the Gods, sorry, Umpires or the ILB are going to actually do anything because of this, but there were no actual good arguments for not doing so. Even Grackle has somehow been roped into holding a "THE ILB IS NOT OLSHA APPROVED: HAZARD PAY TODAY" sign very, very begrudgingly.
"If only unruns were still a thing." Esme sighs.
The spies that were there for unruns make various noises ranging from vague agreement to disdain.
Chester and Abu-Zaid return and Hye goes out.
Howell straightens from beneath his sign.
"Oh." He says distantly, "we're going to host party time this season."
A pop rings out in the dugout. Esme turns towards the noise to see Terrell grimacing, party pooper in hand.
"Habit. Sorry." He mutters, tucking the object back into his trench coat.
Esme glances at Rivers and sees the same exact dawning horror reflected from her face on horizons.
Oh no.
Houstoff.
Hye comes back. The inning becomes an outing.
Esme takes her place on the mound. After two pitches the blackhole (blackhole) burps out a player that lands face first Infront of her. Ouch. The crowd goes wild for the first and only time that night.
The spies host partytime.
This is not particularly surprising since they were unable to win any games at all, yet somehow it still seems unreal.
HQ has sent them gift bags of various office supplies to give out. With the written instructions that the contents exactly matching the over-ordering of items they did several months ago is completely incidental and that any talk from outsiders that this may be an underhand way of getting rid of unwanted items to get shut down immediately. Also, agents should ignore any defects in the items that could appear to look like small tracking devices and/or small microphones. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
Thanks budgeting department. Always so subtle.
Terrell is very firmly not put in charge of the preparation, nor greeting guests, nor providing said guests with entertainment and, hon, why don't you just help Esme in the kitchen tonight, alright?
Bees had skipped out fairly early. Pointing at a handful of symbols on zir AAC device— which Rivers is, somewhat guiltily, surprised at having last another season, knowing too well the penchant for Nanci's other devices to explode— that cloud takes to mean that ze're going out for a night on the town with Faye and Margo. Which leaves cloud covering for Bees, who was in charge of watching the crowd.
It's mostly calm, early enough into party time eliminations that there's only a couple of teams meandering around the space. Add that onto the somewhat stilted mood of what could generously be called a party, not that Rivers is one to judge, and it makes for a fairly calm event.
That is, it would be if some players undisputable base personalities didn't make them inherent trouble makers.
In this particular instant, it's Ankle. This is somewhat surprising because, unless this changed in the five minutes that Rivers had last checked the standings, the Shoe Thieves are still in the running.
The kid trots over to Rivers easily enough when cloud gestures them over.
"Hey doll," River's hand stays outstretched between them, "mind handing over that noisemaker for tonight? You've seen the signs on the door, hon, this party's supposed to be sensory safe."
The tip of Ankle's ears flush, just a bit, as their eyes dart towards the closest entrance. Evidently they have not, in fact, read the signs on the door.
"Whoops," they posture, anyways, "must have slipped my mind!"
They hand over the item easily enough, with rushed instructions to hand it over to Ivy after everything, before slipping off to meet up with their friends. Kids, Rivers has to sigh, so much energy.
Cloud's not surprised to see them, with Ivy and some other kid in tow, running out of the building a couple of minutes later. What Rivers is surprised to see is a very frazzled looking Yuniesky, known antisocial workaholic, walking up to cloud moments afterwards.
They've got a computer in hand, and Rivers can see the monolith that is Conditional somewhere around the couches, so cloud can wager a guess on why the poor dear looks like they've been through a rough couple of hours and is in desperate need of a twelve hour nap.
"Hello, dear. I thought you would have snuck out by now." Rivers observes politely.
"Me too." Yuniesky rubs at their face with their one free hand, "Maybe I'd see where everyone else has gotten off to if I did that. I swear we're losing agents by the second."
"I did see Ivy go off just now." Rivers agrees easily, not mentioning that they have not exactly been discouraging this behavior for the entirety of the night.
Yuniesky huffs at that, before getting distracted by the computer in their hand. They mumble at, what cloud presumes to be, Conditional for a few moments before returning their attention to Rivers.
"Conditional likes making small talk." They explain, robotically as if through repetition the words have lost all meaning, before turning back to the computer to read off of it, "they say: 'You look very nice tonight RJ! Also, I think the kitchen is on fire.' Oh. Hmm, that is… not good."
Rivers does not have the time to respond to that, as cloud is already running as fast as possible towards the thin trails of smoke coming from the back rooms.
Overall, the spies count the party a veritable success. How accurate that assessment is is quite debatable, as only about half of them were present at any given time. Which is an amazing feat in itself.
The time for election results comes all too soon.
They've reviewed the packets from I.N.F.O. beforehand or, if you'd like to be more specific, a handful of them reviewed the packets and then the most important information was handed down to the rest through secondhand gossip.Yunie is not one for gossip, nor for busying themselves by reading packets, since they have their primary job concerning Conditional to do.
So they go into it somewhat blind, other than the vague nonsense that Abu-zaid bothers them with and the equally vague conversations that they have with Conditional.
Apparently, the fans were still fairly organized, on the spies' side of things at least. Yunie would have thought that after achieving the strikeout they would have argued a bit more on the next course of action, since none of the blessings would really affect the outcome of games until they're… un-striked? Or maybe just until the tournament of champions has come to pass. Who knows.
The spies gather in the same room they usually do. Bunching up around a long couch and coffee table.
They have the news on (courtesy of Rivers, who got to the room fairly early and who's co-worker is apparently in the program) until the screen flickers before switching to the face of the umpires.
They're too busy being sleep deprived (they blame party time) and repeating Conditionals comments to the room at large to really pay attention that much. The decree passes with some fanfare and cryptic words from the umpires, and another umpire is put in charge. The blessings go similarly fast, a guy yanked out of the blackhole (blackhole) there, an extra star added onto a pitcher here. Yuniesky stares vigilantly at the computer and repeats or responds to what Conditional says— just because they don't have (much) of a social life doesn't mean that Conditional can't have one— until suddenly, Condi stops. The other spies stop talking too, and Yunie glances up to the TV for the first time that night.
The spies won Knight Strike, again. Strike four.
"Huh." Faye says, "they did allow it, how about that?"
The next blessing result scrolls up the screen, and Yunie looks back down at the computer.
The blessings, on account of just being scrolled up the screen fairly fast just to show to the world that the results are official, are over quickly enough.
There's a beat of silence after the screen blinks one final time before returning to the news. Silence that is suddenly broken by the ringing of the landline on the wall behind the couch.
"I got it!" Ivy scrambles upright before, indeed, getting it.
They hold the phone to their ear, and asks whoever called with the cheery, customary greeting: "how did you get this number!"
They pause listening to their response, before sending the watching spies a thumbs up. "Ok! I see… maybe… that's classified... That's also classified."
Ivy nods a hums a few more times, face slowly shifting to one of surprise. Yuniesky glances nervously over to Conditional. Who, being a wonderful monolith slab of unknown substance, does not return the gesture, but does buzz the hacked Flitbit on Yunie's wrist to show that they saw and that their worry is somewhat warranted.
"We didn't mean to intrude on… oh? Oh! Wow, really?! I don't know, I'd have to ask around. Maybe…" Ivy shifts towards the wall, free hand coming up to cup the phone against their ear, "Ok. Ok. Yeah. Thank you, we'll call you back!"
They set the phone back and turn around to face their teammates. Who are all watching Ivy very intently, much to the detriment of the kid's nerves.
"Who let them on the phone again?" Yunie can hear Grackle whisper to Rivers, before the kid steels themselves to share said call with the rest of the class.
"Um!" Ivy says with their entire chest, before wrangling their voice to a standard level, "That was the Garages! Or, um, specifically one of the garages, Brisket, on behalf of their music label. Does anyone play an instrument? They want to do a collaboration 'cause of, uh, the forth strike."
And that's the start to the spies off season project.
Ending Author Notes: Thanks for reading! This was inspired by my own answer to "What happens when the spies strike out (wrong answers only)" so this is just a silly bit shown through a silly fic! :-D
Of course, the likelihood of actually seeing what happens when the spies reach strike 3 is very, very low as of current (RIV Blaseball)... But even without the game being alive I'll still be playing around with its universe! So, I'll be seeing y'all around! ^__^
(Also, dear god implementing the strikeout text was so painful,,, why on earth did I do this to myself,,, (<-- the price of being self indulgent))