The Brownblood Werewolves turned completely silent as the ’easy’ game turned out to be much harder than they thought. They expected to get a homerun on every at-bat, but the first two Werewolf batters weren’t even able to advance a single base! And now, there was only a single out left in the inning.
"What was that?!"
"The ball suddenly fell! It changed directions! That must be the magic that humans are so proud of!"
"No! If it was magic, our Werewolf senses would have picked up on it and been able to anticipate it !"
A single curveball threw a wrench in all their plans. As Werewolves, they thought that the best way to pitch was to throw it as hard as they could, turning it into a rocket that couldn’t be hit.
It wasn’t intuitive for them. Throwing breaking balls required a lot of finesse and technique that required not just strength, but finger flexibility as well.
Werewolves were adept at ripping apart their prey with their claws, but they weren’t used to holding the ball weirdly in their hands.
So as much as they tried to figure out the secret to that curveball, they would remain clueless as the third batter was finally up at bat.
Chief Lupan stepped up, giving a nod at Sheina and Charlie.
Suddenly, the whole baseball field turned serious, anticipation filling within the spectators. Who was Lupan? He was their Chief, the strongest Werewolf out of their entire tribe. If there was anybody here who could hit a ball, then it was him.
Of course, for this baseball game, Chief Lupan limited his strength only to the 2nd Dao, equivalent to the cultivation of the pitcher, Charlie.
But even then, Chief Lupan wasn’t just strong. He was smart and perceptive. Watching by the sidelines, he was able to see the exact ball movement as soon as it left Charlie’s hands.
He saw how her middle and index finger ran along the seam of the ball with the thumb as support on the bottom.
He precisely saw how each finger created the movement within the ball that allowed that curve.
With his true cultivation equivalent to that of a Nascent Spirit realm Maugnetic, seeing such details in such a fast movement was extremely easy.
Some would say that using his true power to analyze her pitch would be cheating, but he would say that it was well within the rules that they made up. He only said he was going to limit his power while playing the game, not while he was watching from the dugout.
So, as Charlie winded up her pitch, Chief Lupan knew what to expect.
"Go Chief!"
"We can’t lose to these humans!"
"Hit it so far that it reaches the moon!"
Ignoring all the shouts and cheers from the sidelines, Charlie sent the ball heading towards Sheina’s mitts at blurring speeds.
Chief Lupan started his swing, anticipating the curve of the ball downwards.
But as the ball started its spin, instead of curving directly downwards, it suddenly wildly turned to the left, causing the ball to slide past Chief Lupan’s bat.
Hitting at such an awkward place from the bat, the ball flew off backwards for a foul ball.
Chief Lupan stared at Charlie, a smile forming on his lips.
’So that’s not the only curving pitch!’
"What?! The ball changed directions again!"
"These humans are tricky with their throws! I swear they’re using magic!"
"Darn... it’s getting harder and harder to predict those balls."
After seeing a glimpse of what a good pitcher could do, the Werewolves began to realize that they had completely underestimated the game of baseball. Pure strength won’t win them the game. They needed the smarts to go with it too! And right now, they were like a group of little league kids playing against a team of professional MLB players.
Once the ball was retrieved, play resumed.
With the ball in her hands again, Charlie took a deep breath and raised her left leg, twisting her torso to deliver another pitch.
The ball shot out of her hands, directly into Sheina’s mitt.
"Strike!"
Chief Lupan let the ball go, thinking that the pitcher would throw another unexpected curve ball. But this time, Charlie just threw a simple fastball right down the middle.
"Hoho," Lupan chuckled. He never expected that a physical game such as this could be so mentally challenging. The mind games between him and the pitcher were as intense and fierce as any battle he faced before.
It was stimulating his brain to the maximum!
So, despite not being able to hit any of the balls as he would like to, Chief Lupan was having fun holding the bat.
"Come on!" he challenged, provocatively swinging the bat towards Charlie.
The Unity Clone didn’t respond to the taunt and simply prepared herself for the pitch.
Then, with a wind-up, she threw the baseball straight down the middle.
She was going to do the same pitch as the previous one. The audacity!
This time, Chief Lupan swung his bat, but at the very last second, he realized that the ball was going significantly slower than before!
His ’perfect’ timing turned out to be too soon!
The ball hit the bat on its very end, causing it to fly to the far left for another foul ball.
Now, the count was 2-0. One strike left, and he was out.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Chief Lupan laughed. "This is fun!"
Then, Charlie pitched the ball, curving towards the right.
The Werewolf Chief swung his bat, hitting the ball and letting it fly to the far right side for another foul ball.
The next pitch went the same. Charlie pitched, and Chief Lupan sent it flying to a foul ball.
Even though the Rebornians only needed one strike left to end the inning, Chief Lupan kept on making contact with the ball, none of which went towards the playing field.
It was quite frustrating for the pitcher.
"Haha... he’s trying to get Charlie to show all of her tricks," Michael realized.
It seemed that the Werewolf Chief was purposefully hitting foul balls in order to keep batting! With each pitch, he was getting more and more familiar with her game, and therefore was able to anticipate her next one.
This was extremely smart of him. Michael shouldn’t have expected less from a Chief.
Now, it wasn’t just him who was benefitting from these constant foul balls. The Werewolves in the dugout were slowly warming up to the curveballs, sliders, and change-ups from Charlie’s pitching arsenal. In short, the Rebornians’ advantage was slowly dwindling, and the Werewolves were slowly leveling the field.
Once that happened, the Brownbloods’ natural strength would give them the edge in the game.
"It’s time to end the inning," Michael muttered to himself.
And with a single telepathic command, Charlie understood what she had to do.
She nodded at Sheina, giving her the signal. The white-scaled Dragonborn nodded back, realizing what she had to catch.
"It’s time for a homerun," Chief Lupan declared, causing a massive raucous cheer from the Brownbloods watching from the sidelines.
Charlie wound up her pitch and threw it straight down the middle once again. No curve, no change-up.