"Ruby!"

It's amazing, Ruby thought, how much life seems to slow down when the end is in sight. Only moments ago she was enjoying the beautiful summer day, walking through the Vytal Festival fairgrounds with Weiss. The sky was a cloudless blue, birds sang happily in the branches of trees and their voices mixed with the sound of vendors of all sorts hawking their wares. The smell of food was everywhere. All that had faded, to be replaced with the sight of doom bearing down on her.

She felt the impact, felt herself lifted, and saw the scenery fly by as the steel projectile carried her back, skidding and digging two parallel trenches through the grassy soil. She felt the squeeze of metal as it wrapped itself around her body.

"Bones! Bonesbonesbones!" she wheezed as the last air escaped her collapsing lungs.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Ruby!" said the copper topped avatar of death as she gently released her iron grip on the young huntress. "Sometimes I don't know my own strength."

Ruby panted for breath while her plastic pal Penny Polendina patiently waited with an enthusiastic smile. When she could finally speak again, Ruby noticed something different about the girl. "What are you wearing?" she asked.

Penny spread her arms and looked down at her dark blue jersey emblazoned with bright orange letters. A cap with similar colors and logo rested on her head and she had a brown, leathery thing on her left hand. "Captain Red gave this to me for the game today," Penny said. She flapped her arms lightly and the bunched up sleeves unrolled down over her hands and she continued, embarrassed. "He's a little larger than I am. He says I'll grow into it, but I think he was joking."

"I hope so!" Ruby exclaimed, giggling. "But what is it?"

"The Queens District Mantles," said Weiss, finally rejoining her friend wearing her perennial unamused expression. "You make so much more sense now."

"Oh, hello Weiss!" said Penny, turning her thousand watt smile towards the heiress. "Do you like the Mants too?"

Weiss regarded her levelly and raised her fist to chest height. "Go Bunker Busters," she said with practiced disdain.

"Oh," said Penny, her smile fading fast. "That is surprising."

"And why is that?"

"You have more teeth than I would expect for a Broncks Square fan."

Ruby's jaw hit the floor. Weiss just exploded.

"What did you say?!"

"I could speak slower."

"How dare you?!"

"Guys!" Ruby shouted, pushing herself between the two, "cut it out!" Weiss glared for a moment before turning on her heel and stomping off, Ruby calling out after her until she disappeared from view. Ruby turned back to Penny, practically shouting "What was that about?!"

"I'm sorry, Ruby," Penny said, wincing. "Re-Captain Red told me 'Don't take nothing from no Bunker Buster.'"

Ruby sighed and shook her head. "Penny, you can't talk to friends like that."

"Weiss is my friend?" Penny asked, tilting her head to one side.

"Well," said Ruby, drawing out the word. Weiss and Penny had hardly ever spoken together and Weiss certainly did not seem to have a high opinion of Penny. "Well you can't talk to my friends like that," finished Ruby diplomatically.

"I'm sorry," said Penny, looking all the world like a scolded puppy. It wasn't fair, Ruby thought. How were you supposed to stay mad at that? The idea that it was programmed into Penny for just that reason flittered across her mind and was quickly filed under "things I don't want to think about." Instead she sighed. "I've just never actually seen you be mean to anyone before..."

"Weiss was mean too!" Penny protested.

"She's always mean though," Ruby replied, immediately realizing that wasn't the most flattering thing she could have said about her friend, but completely failing to come up with a nicer way to put it. "I mean what were you two even fighting about?"

"Baseball," muttered Penny, taking a sudden interest in her shoes.

"What ball?"

"Baseball," Penny repeated. "It's the national sport in Atlas. Weiss supports the Broncks Square Bunker Busters and I like the Queens District Mantles. Things are a little tense between fans right now."

"Oh," said Ruby, trying to wrap her head around Weiss enjoying a sport she didn't play. "Why's that?"

"Well, I suppose it's more that things are always tense," Penny said, kicking at the dirt. "We take the game very seriously." Ruby smiled and Penny leapt on the minor encouragement. "Do you want to see a game? The Mants and the Jumpers are putting on an exhibition match today! I was on my way there when I saw you."

"Um..." Ruby looked around for Weiss. She should probably go after her, she thought, but the upset Schnee was nowhere to be seen. Besides, Ruby reasoned, she probably needs some time to cool off. And it's not like they had any real plans for the day. "Alright," she said, prompting a smile as bright as the sun from Penny, "but is there going to be food? I haven't had lunch yet."

"Oh yes!" exclaimed Penny, grabbing Ruby's hand and leading her onwards, "lots of classic Atlasian foods! "

"Classic Atlasian food," it turned out, properly translated to "heart attack waiting to happen." Chips soaked in cheese and covered in peppers, pizza greasy enough to lubricate machinery, pretzels that were more salt than bread, popcorn floating in a bag of melted butter, more kinds of fries fried in more kinds of grease than Ruby had known existed, and everywhere there were sausages. Giant kielbasas covered in peppers and onions, brats drowned in sauerkraut and mustard, sausages on sticks covered in corn bread, and humble frankfurters, fresh from a boiling pot of water and grease that might very well have not been changed in Penny's lifetime. Ruby could feel her arteries hardening from the smell alone.

Penny gently steered Ruby towards the franks and ordered two with mustard and onions because "There wasn't much point if you didn't," and a soda Ruby thought looked large enough to bathe Zwei in. Ruby eyed the food suspiciously all the way to their seats.

"What exactly is in this?" she asked as she sat down on her wooden chair.

"I'm told it's better not to ask," Penny said slowly. "I understand they are quite good though."

Ruby paused, the first dog halfway to her mouth. "You mean you don't know?"

Penny shrugged. "I don't have anywhere for food to go."

Ruby shook her head and after a moment's hesitation bit into her hot dog. It was... something else. Not good, certainly, though she was relieved to have the overwhelming taste of pig in her mouth as opposed to some less reputable animal. The bread was stale, the meat was greasy, the onions and mustard really not to her taste, but at the same time... it worked. Something in it made the sun a bit shinier, the sky a bit bluer, the grass of the field a bit greener. They went together somehow special.

"Wow," she said.

"I understand it's even better with beer," Penny grinned back.

The makeshift stadium wasn't even half full when the anthem started playing. Penny stood at attention, her cap over her heart and a serious look on her face, while Ruby awkwardly tried and failed to make out the words over the cackling PA. When the music stopped and everyone cheered Penny put her cap on backwards and the game began.

It wasn't terribly exciting, Ruby had to admit. Taking turns with the ball, only one batter playing at a time, and a long feeling of setting up in between short bursts of action. Penny tried to explain the rules and what exactly was happening on each play, but it seemed like most of the game wasn't even played on the field. She had a scorecard out, but it seemed like she was jotting down just as much when nothing happened as she did when a batter actually got to a base.

And then there was a seemingly endless sea of history behind them. A question about Penny's favorite player turned into a lengthy conversation, and it wasn't until they were several minutes in that Ruby realized the person Penny had been talking about hadn't played in years.

"Old Iron Horse? No, he's not playing," Penny said in a confused tone of voice. "He took ill and had to retire. He passed away just before the Great War."

Ruby's eyes bulged. "The Great War?!" she exclaimed and Penny nodded. "How do you even know him?!" Ruby shouted.

"Everyone knows him," Penny said, simply. "Everyone in Atlas, anyway. We know all the Greats."

"You talk about him like he was a founder of your kingdom or something," Ruby said, slouching down in her seat.

Penny nodded slowly. On the field a player hit a long fly ball that briefly caused a ruckus as an outfielder missed it and suddenly the field came alive with players scrambling for bases and position. Penny watched it silently, but intently and waited for the play to calm down before continuing.

"I suppose we do," she said. "We've been playing this game longer than anybody remembers. When the Great War broke out I don't think there was anybody alive who remembered the first game. We had always played it, as far as anyone was concerned. And then the War came and then Mantle fell and then we had a new Kingdom. Atlas. And I suppose... I suppose it helped people remember that there was more to us than a flag and a name."

Ruby thought about that and took a long sip from her soda. Most of the ice had melted, but it was still cooling. "Have you ever played?" she asked after a while.

"Yes," said Penny. "I played in two games while I was at the academy. I batted a thousand."

"...That's... good?" probed Ruby.

"Very much so," said Penny with a proud smile. "I was not allowed to play again after that. My father and Mr. Ironwood said it was unfair." The smile vanished for a second. "I thought it was unfair too."

The rest of the game passed without event as far as Ruby could tell. Penny watched the game closely, but even she started talking more about how lovely a day it was than how exciting the action was after a while. They couldn't all be winners, Ruby thought.

Afterwards the two shopped briefly at a small souvenir shop set up for the occasion and the two parted happily and went their own ways home. Weiss was at the dorm waiting when Ruby arrived and rolled her eyes at Ruby's new blue and orange cap.

"Did you two have fun?" she asked icily.

Ruby reached into her bag and pulled out a white and blue pinstriped cap with twin Bs emblazoned on the front and tossed it to Weiss. "Penny wanted to say sorry," Ruby said, by way of explanation.

Weiss 'harumph'ed, but set the cap carefully on her bedpost. "I suppose Penny isn't that bad," she conceded before amending "for a Mants fan."

Ruby grinned and started getting ready for bed when she heard Weiss continue. "There's another game tomorrow," she said, failing to achieve nonchalance. "Between the Bunker Busters and the Hill Island Goliaths. It should be a better game than anything with the Brownstone Jumpers in it."

Ruby thought of the game she'd just come from. The hot summer sun, the appalling food, the slow game steeped in history...

...And what a good time she had.

She nodded and the two friends shared an anticipatory smile.