Chapter Text
“Excuse me? Coming through- sorry, let me just-”
With a middling amount of courtesy and markedly less elegance, Juice Collins pushes her way to the front of the queue that’s already formed outside the Choux the morning of Day 113. Her ticket is clenched in her fist, almost torn with the force of her grip.
The Shoe Thieves’ stadium isn’t prepared for the absolute mass of people streaming into it. The Charleston they’re playing in is South Carolina, which they’ve chosen for both proximity to Baltimore, as courtesy for the travelling team, the Crabs, and because it’s the biggest Charleston they have. The small city’s population is a hundred thirty five thousand on a good day; the stadium fits forty thousand, but that will hardly be enough. Everyone is watching.
If the Crabs win here, which has a very real possibility of happening, they will win the Internet Series. If the Crabs win here, they will face the Shelled One’s Pods. If the Crabs win here, they might even Ascend.
To Fans, this is just any other exciting event. They crowd into the stadium with their front-row tickets that they outbid actual players for, and they chortle and snap their gum and spill their popcorn on the floor. They point, wrists laden with Idol Pendants, at a batter they know only by batting average.
Juice doesn’t let herself be fazed by the crowds, and pushes her way into seat A115; she’d chatted up a janitor, two security guards, and a mid-level property manager to secure a ticket for herself before they went on sale.
She puts her knapsack between her knees- it’s overstuffed with water, snacks, and, in a carefully guarded folder, safe from any water damage, what must be at least thirty letters.
“Hey, what time is it?”
… at least three hours till the game starts. And the stands are full of Fans already.
It’s hard without another Blaseball player beside her in the stands to talk to. The Fans don’t understand what it’s like, to have to constantly worry for your safety- and everyone’s around you, for that matter- all while trying to hit the ball.
(During the Internet Series of Season 8, she and Q had gone on an extended road-trip date, watching the Crabs solidly trounce the Tigers three games to one; Hades, situated somewhere beneath Jersey, wasn’t too far to drive from Baltimore. They’d had the worst seats, because their money was already stretched thin to watch four games, but it didn’t matter.)
Juice shakes her head. Not the time to be thinking about that.
Through a combination of sun-induced catnaps, nervous fingernail-biting, and rereading of certain correspondence, Juice manages to burn the time till the game begins.
The score’s nil-nil till the second inning, when the Shoe Thieves would’ve scored but for the Fifth Base, and then the Crabs score two. It seems to bolster them, and Montgomery Bullock continues his shutout with barely any Shoe Thieves getting on base at all, while the Crabs score more and more and more. They’re up eight-nothing, in the bottom of the seventh, and as she watches, Ken Loser hits a dinger off a pitch like one she’d see in Blittle League.
“It’s like they don’t want to win,” muses the Fan next to Juice in an empty attempt to be thoughtful.
No way! Who would’ve thought! It’s almost like they got solidly beaten and cursed to Hades and back last season, and they don’t want a repeat of that!
“No kidding,” she mumbles through her bubble-tea straw.
Two Crabs runners get on Base. Tot Fox hits a Single.
And then a Black Hole swallows the Sun.
Juice’s fifth-grade science class taught her that light from the Sun takes eight-point-three minutes to reach the earth. So even if it exploded, everyone would have that much time before even realizing anything happened. And by the time the information reached them, it would be too late.
Now, at least, they have the warning.
Juice sits calmly in her front-row seat, pulling her knees up as a few Fans push past her, heading for the exit. The one next to her is visibly shaken, but remains, glancing up at the sky every few seconds as if the apocalypse could come any faster than the speed of light.
Maybe it’s easier for Juice as a Blaseball player because she already knows she can’t die.
Of course, the Crabs are still playing. They can’t not play. Every few seconds, there’s another pitch, another out. And the score is zero-to-zero.
The game ends about six minutes later. The sun is still shining.
Juice snaps a picture of it for Q, in case later it won’t be.