+1 ( Leiz, Finished )

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The sound of a plush struggle bat against stretchable plastic echoed through the area, followed by a large, white ball flying into the air, but not very high.

Hero let out a deep sigh, puncuated by the sound of the ball dropping hard on the grainy ground of the Sandlot. He walked over, retreived the ball, and sat down on a nearby bench with a comfortable plop.

It's no good.. This body is weak..

The blue-haired child stared glumly at a small water bottle before finally opening it and taking a sip.

No.. I'm weak.

He couldn't keep relying on Kinesis and Stasis to help him out in tough situations. Especially since the amount of times he could use them per minute was limited. The crowbar he used helped, but what good would it do if he couldn't use it well? Like a baby horse trying to pull a carriage, it had to grow and develop before handling the weight and direction.

He looked blandly at the sky. It almost always afternoon in this place. Perhaps thats what made it so comfortable for recreational activity. The blank, violet eyes peered at a certain cloud that was starting to look like cheese. After a moment, he stood up once more, took the bat, and the ball as well.

Just gotta keep trying, then..[/size]

[hoffman]

Leiz found himself in Twilight Town once again. This time, however, he was not here on business or something along the lines of duty. Actually, that's not exactly true - he was here, of course, to find the remaining members of his crew, but he felt that he could slow down and take a break for a bit.

Although the androgynous soldier would never admit it, Twilight Town felt a lot more scenic and tolerable in terms of pollution. Not like Traverse Town where the even the tightest nooks and crannies smelled of incense, candles and freshly baked apple pies. Those kind of things drove the boy up the wall.

Brushing emerald-colored bangs away from his face, Leiz walked patiently past a few buildings as he set out on a general path from the Market Street to the Sandlot, one of the more popular locales. Interestingly enough, the large, open terrain of the Sandlot wasn't the reason why he felt like going there today. It was the entertainment factor associated with the games people frequently played there.

So, that having been said, the green-haired boy wanted to devote this last bit of free time to watching a game. Perhaps he'd catch the tail end of a Struggle match. Maybe if he was lucky, someone might even be grandstanding. That sport was especially rare.

But he never thought he'd be so unlucky as to be graced with the sight of a completely empty Sandlot, occupied solely by a boy, a ball and a blue bat. But not just any boy - it was the same boy who encroached on his activities near the Old Mansion. The very same boy who crashed in through the wall of the Frosted Flame. The boy in question sat lazily on one of the sandlot's many benches, seemingly resting from an extended session of grandstanding.

Leiz narrowed his eyes and watched as the blue-haired boy got up from the bench, taking the ball and bat with him. Meandering over to one of the sandlot's corners in the most silent way possible, Leiz decided to exercise his stealth skills a little bit. He didn't have to make himself known to the world around him, and quite frankly, he thought he was better off if this ... "kid" ... hadn't noticed him.

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Hero balanced the light ball in his palm for a moment before lightly tossing it into the air. Preparing for the next step, he readied the bat as if to hit a baseball when he heard footsteps and noticed something bright green slip out of sight. Distracted, Hereo blindly swung and spun on the spot, the inertia pulling his arms in a loop until he fell over onto the ground with an uncomfortable thud.

Hero nursed the spot where he fell, but still studied the place where he saw the green and heard footsteps. He didn't have a reason to be cautious, but his most recent run-in with heartless he experienced on a delivery here earlier that day didn't make him feel better about hearing footsteps and seeing random colors. Even then, if it was a person, what were they doing here? Well, if it was a person.

Hero stood up once more, pretending that he didn't see it. He sent the ball in the air, and swung at it - only the bat swung in the direction of the source. The ball sailed into the air and hit a potted plant near the place. It didn't break, but the ball bounced around within that certain area, and - if Hero was correct about heartless - it would hit something fleshy or metallic-like.

He listend hard. Hero didn't hear anything of the sort.

[/size]

[hoffman]

Leiz winced as he felt a soft object smack harmlessly against his temple, falling slowly to the ground to his side. Knowing pretty much what it was, the boy thought nothing beyond it other than that the kid practicing grandstanding had made a major miscalculation in the strength of his swing and the vector of the ball's penultimate trajectory. That, or the other boy was simply testing the waters.

He took a look at the ball that had fallen to the ground. Oddly enough, its weight really wasn't enough to warrant too much of a sound. In fact, it could be said that it really hadn't made a sound at all. Picking the ball up in his hands, Leiz peered out from the backdrop from which he hid, looking at the blue-haired boy who stood out in the sandlot.

He didn't have a very high opinion of the individual to begin with, but decided that it just wouldn't be right to walk away. Clearly, some kind of cosmic force akin to fate had brought the two together once again - not that he believed in any sort of stuff like that - so he made something of the situation.

Walking out from where he hid, Leiz tossed the ball to the shorter boy, greeting him with a rather monotonous demeanor. "Might wanna be more careful where you swing that thing. You'll poke your eye out, kid. Though, I suppose the consequences wouldn't nearly be as horrendous as what you did to that bar."

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(( Man, that font reaaaaaaally doesn't suit me. ))

For a moment, Hero stopped in his tracks and wondered what he was talking about. Then, he revisited the scene in his mind, remembering the similar flash of green heading out the open door of a certain bar.

"I- I paid for that though!" said Hero in what the thought was a defensive tone, but seemed more childish.

"And what happened to that wall was nothing compared to what it did to my head." Importantly, Hero revealed the bandage around his head, covering the spots where he was both bruised by the ship's collision, and the place where a wine glass was thrown at.

Hero resumed his walking over and retreived the grandstander ball.

He started up again, only speaking to Liez while he did so,

"What does it matter to you anyways?" he asked, not coldly, but more curiously.

[hoffman]

Leiz mockingly winced at the boy's bandages and snorted, stuffing his hands away in the pockets of his jeans. "Yikes, that looks nasty. But if you're still talking to me, it's obviously nowhere near as horrible as what it did to the bartender's wallet."

The boy brushed locks of green from his face as he turned silent, not actually having much to add onto that retort at all. That was a good question, however: what did it matter? He pondered on this fact, passively sizing up the situation. Was there an inherent grudge against blue hair? Or was it that he hadn't yet seen this individual do things that didn't involve harming himself or others?

Getting awfully sick of hanging this situation over the boy's head, Leiz let the thought go. As much as Leiz hated the boy in front of him, he hadn't yet caused him any inadvertent harm. As it stood, there wasn't a sufficient or personal good reason to loathe him. After all, Leiz couldn't care less about how other people lived their lives as long as he wasn't suffering collateral damage.

"... it doesn't matter much to me. I didn't think it was right to leave you to your own devices out here, after all," he replied, trying to make small talk as he watched the boy give grandstanding another go. "... y'know, I hardly see anybody grandstanding anymore. Everyone out there wants to play Blitzball or be in the Olympus Games."

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Hero loosened up a bit.

"Well, Blitzball and um.."

Olympus Games? What's he talking about? ...

".. well, that's for the more tough people. If I tried out Blitzball and the other sports seriously, I think I'd fracture something. Grandstanding is the safest just because it's more solitary and I have less of a chance of making a fool out of myself."

At first, Hero hoped he wouldn't be disgusted by the lack of his tougher stature, but he felt that he was already disgusted enough by then. He seemed to have somewhat of a grudge against him, but at least he was trying at a conversation. Even though Hero saw the face of a hardened veteran on this person's face, he saw past the eyes and saw.. well, many things Hero didn't have. A story, resonsibility, and something else.. Love?
After a few bats, Hero spoke up again.

"Say, you look strong enough, though. Can I ask for your name?" said Hero courteously.

(( Super blah post. ))

[hoffman]

"... 'strong' enough?" the emerald-haired boy asked, narrowing his eyes. The comment, Leiz believed, was very much unwarranted. In his eyes, the other boy wasn't really in any place to judge the strength of others. Leiz believed that, if anything, only he was qualified to be doing that. Nevertheless, he kept his inner sentiments regarding strength to himself. "Relative to what?"

Leiz withdrew his hands from the pockets of his jeans and folded them out behind his neck, tilting his head slightly to the side. Albeit irked at what the male had said, he refrained from showing any more signs of displeasure. He didn't want to make enemies. He didn't exactly want to try to play nice and make friends, either, but that was just another one of the many issues that plagued the emerald enigma.

He turned silent as his violet eyes went astray, surveying the sandlot with a passive, unfeeling gaze, searching for signs of the crew he felt he should have been searching for. There was no such thing. Only the twilight sky, some multi-tiered residences, the concrete of the sandlot, some potted plants, and benches off to the side caught his eye. They were the only two here.

Eventually, after a few long seconds of obvious reluctance married with a sense of distractedness, Leiz responded in a cold, indifferent manner. "I'm Leiz. Leiz Ryada. Don't suppose you've got a name as well ...?"

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[/color]

Introducing himself always, somehow, made him feel uncomfortable. Every time he said his name, what he named himself, it didn't seem like that was all there was to it. Such as a last name, middle name, surname, practically anything. But there was none.

It felt like there was some harshness between their conversation, despite Hero's cheerfulness. Perhaps it would be better if he wrapped this up quickly, but he wasn't used to dismissing people - no matter how they looked. He was, however, used to being dismissed.

Optimistically, Hero said, "Relative to you giving the impression of a tough person, I suppose." He said it in a kind of disdainful way, peering down at the waist of his, which must have had no more volume than a streetlight pole. He couldn't help how he was built, but he also couldn't help how his frail stature irritated him. Especially since the business he worked for concerned delivery in large and wide scales, in places where he could only reach by leaping his very farthest and barely catching the edge of a rooftop with his crowbar. The only thing he was thankful for, perhaps, was that it made him extremely light.

He stopped batting for a moment, and hesitantly held out the grandstander ball and bat to Leiz, accompanied by the invitation, "I'd like to see you give this a go as well."

( I dun get it. Is this thread somehow related to Fragility in any way? ) [/ul]

[hoffman]

[[It is related to Fragility, in a sense: Leiz is currently searching for his other crew members. It's also placed in the Fragility thread's timeline... if you're a little confused about how that's all set up, you should check it out. It helps illustrate how things are flowing.]]

"I go by the alias Hero," the blue-haired one said, perceptibly making sure that Leiz was aware that it was a name that he gave himself - not one donned at birth. Even still, the soldier found it to be quite the odd name, wondering what kind of event or source of inspiration pushed him to name himself that.

"'Hero', huh," Leiz quipped, a cocky smirk crossing his face. It was an expression of duality: one consisting of both amusement and a bit of scorn.

To Leiz, 'Hero' was a humorous name. Though by no means a bad person, the soldier known as Leiz lived by a selfish code of justice: to live for oneself... to please oneself... but never to interfere with the pleasures or well-being of others, unless their intentions conflicted with carrying out his own. He had no belief in artificial abstractions such as 'good' or 'evil'. In his opinion, both sides of the supposed "balance" of the universe followed a common dogma.

To make themselves happy.

For Leiz, all things - no matter how good or bad - succumbed to the drive for personal happiness. Therefore, altruism was but an imaginary trait to him, merely a misattribution applied to those who demonstrated 'selfless' behavior. The only thing people were looking for was to feel rewarded and to feel good.

The emerald-haired boy shook his head as he reminded himself to stop over-analyzing the oft-debated subject of 'good and evil'. Right on cue too, Leiz realized, noticing how Hero had stopped batting the ball for a moment to offer him a try. The vanity of seeking self-worth and strength clouded his judgment as he became somewhat preoccupied with wanting to impress Hero.

"You sure?" he asked inquisitively, noting the reluctance in the boy's actions as he took the ball and the bat by the handle. "I tend to show people up when I'm asked to compete."

Taking a few steps back, Leiz made sure he had ample space to practice so that nothing would get in the way. He then tossed the ball lightly up in the air - a good five or six feet - before making a soft swing upward with the struggle bat, launching the ball back upward to about the same height. It was apparent that he was somewhat skilled at this already. Having grandstanded quite a few times in the past as a hobby, Leiz's strategy seemed to center around control and proximity, most closely shown by his tendency to strike upwards with the bat.

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[/color] congradulated Hero, forgetting his tendency to adress people by 'sir' or 'miss'.

There was always something nice about working on a wide-scale basis from world to world when meeting interesting people.[/ul]

[hoffman]

Diverting his focus from Hero for the time being, Leiz kept up his string of swings for at least another thirty seconds. Eventually, however, the green-haired boy had made a swing that wasn't nearly as controlled as the others. The ball connected with the bat in a less-than-impressive manner, bouncing and rolling off to the side. By his estimation, Leiz had made at least forty successful hits.

Wincing, the soldier blamed it on his aching arms. It had been rather long since he had kept something like that going. Tossing the bat over to Hero, Leiz rolled his shoulders as he left to go pick up the ball. "Could've kept that going longer."

Leiz stopped at the continuously-rolling ball to retrieve it, picking it up in his left hand. He turned around to face his new acquaintance and began to spin it idly on his left finger. An impressive feat, but a parlor trick, nonetheless. He eyed the blue-haired boy, shooting him a somewhat smug glare. "But, yeah. That's what the game is about. You have to be able to feel the ball's weight and perceive its momentum. If you can do that, you know exactly how hard you have to hit it. The only limitations are your focus and stamina."

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"Stamina, huh?"

Hero leaned back on the bench, his arms falling off one side of it, his head tilted towards the sky. He didn't really have much strength, and he never thought about all that stuff concerning precieving the ball's momentum and stuff, but he must of thought about it subconsiously at the very least.

"You must have come from a nice world to have that kind of intellect and power." said he in a good-natured way, not trying to flatter him or anything.

(( I.. have no muse. I thought about what to say to Leiz after that but.. nothing. 8( ))

[hoffman]

The sixteen year-old somebody stopped rolling the ball over his index finger and tossed it lightly over to the seated boy. Silent but flattered, he threw his arms behind his head, not having much of anything to say in response to Hero's remark at first. He eventually settled on a sentence that belittled Hero's words, though not so much in a way that might have seemed deriding. "It's not really much of a world at all."

Leiz stuffed his hands away in his windbreaker's pockets, sizing up whether or not it would be appropriate to make his leave. Judging by the pace of the conversation and the dwindling energy of the boy before him, Leiz resoundingly decided that departing would be the best course of action.

"Glad we could have this talk, Hero," Leiz teasingly remarked, a sardonic smile crossing his lips. Removing a hand from one of his pockets to wave to the boy, Leiz turned around and made a beeline for the sandlot's exit, not showing the least bit of hesitance in cutting this meeting short. "But I've gotta run. You obviously get around the universe, so. We'll probably catch up later."