Batey Descending

Batey

Nico Pengin

Published by NicoPengin.com, 2021.

While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

BATEY DESCENDING

First edition. September 30, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 Nico Pengin.

ISBN: 979-8201681777

Written by Nico Pengin.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Also by Nico Pengin

Batey

Batey Ascending

Batey Descending (Coming Soon)

Batey - Español

Batey Ascendiendo

Standalone

la Insurrección de los Lápices

Uprising of the Pencils: Revised Edition

Batey

Watch for more at Nico Pengin’s site.

To my sister, ImCompletelyMe, I love you, just not the memories of getting beat up before I could develop muscles. Enjoy this what if story inspired by you :)

CHAPTER 1

Chilly.

Things don’t change in people. When they move, their routines change, but only because they want things to stay the same. On Earth and on Gibraltar, people strive for what makes them feel like things are the same. We work because we want to. We play because we can. Even though the conditions are different, men will still look at me like a fine slice of traveling steak.

Becoming a professional Batey player hasn’t changed me much. I’m still me, and I earn the name Chilly, consistently. I have suitors, men and boys alike. All ages and all backgrounds, sticking around me like they’re living through a blizzard. All because I give them nothing but the coldest part of my shoulder. None of them are good enough for me; none of them are right.

Even with the Earth in balance and humanity divided, people are still the same. They are so desperate to stay the same because changing that much leads to too many problems. I know that because I’ve been through that, and I tried to change, and it didn’t work.

Just walking into the venue makes me feel that. The surrounding cold. There’s no "sky" above us, just illumination that mimics our old, lost sunlight. There are clouds, but they are made out of steam and other produced gases inside this spaceship. It's blue, but it’s too shallow. The sky is closer than it used to be. Even though it’s supposed to be the "same". It changed, and nobody has any acknowledgement of it. I haven’t met one person who admitted that the sky here is the same or better than the sky on Earth.

So why even choose it? Why do people not change? I wonder why. Maybe they have hope, and I can’t sympathize with that issue. Men have hope of warming me up, getting close to me and working their way into my heart, but that’s not happening. Not again. Maybe they have hope that they’ll feel so good they’ll forget where they are.

It won’t change the facts.

We’re all stuck up here in this alien habitat. Most people see the massive spaceship, Gibraltar, as salvation. But not enough think of it the correct way. It’s a prison. That’s the real fact, the hard line. The Blues, the aliens that put us in Gibraltar, are keeping us here, making us think they’ve lifted us up and “saved” us. Its pure superiority at work. A dogma. A system where the weak are celebrated, so the strong can rule them easier. I’m not into it, and I’m astonished that so many are.

All the way into the stadium, up the rows of lights where the New Batey field is stationed. Awaits the first big game of our career as a team. I can feel the heat on me. If I weren’t so cold, I’d melt with everyone else. If I weren’t Chilly, maybe I’d be Happy, but I’d also be Dumb, just like Nico, my annoying but lovable, little brother.

It’s a miracle we ever met at all. After so many years of being disconnected. I still remember getting in trouble, almost daily. And all the trauma we both went through when we had our lives back on Earth. I was five years ahead of him. Somehow, that was enough to turn him into some hopeful, deceived, and gullible boy. While I stayed strong, independent, and furious at the truth that my eyes and ears witnessed.

We’re ready to play. They call out my name, and I run into the field, and that’s the first and last time that I listen to someone telling me what to do. I work with the team because the team works with me, not the other way around. They trust me to take care of my positions, so I do. They trust me so I can deliver results. They trust me, and sometimes, I wish they didn’t. Because I still can’t trust any of them.

The feeling is not mutual.

Gorri is on the backline, playing the goalkeeper. Not surprised. The old man has loved to be the director of the defense, ever since I met him. He needs to look the strongest even when he’s weak. That must have been how he lived before. He’s all our senior; he was still an adult when the spaceship came by. He probably had a family, and they probably hated him. No one likes to be consistently bossed around like that. He gives off a family man vibe.

Yuck.

It’s us or nothing now. The game keeps going on. Nico’s surprisingly fast. He’s brave and strong for his size. He grew up well, not that I helped make that happen much. I left so soon, and then the Blues came down. And while I waited to head up, bide my time and make a plan for my future, he just went along with it. He ran away from home like I did. Of all the things to influence, maybe I gave him the wrong ideas.

These players on the other team, the RTG boys, hit hard. They aren't afraid to treat a delicate and gentle lady rough. Not like all the other men. The ones who buy me whatever I want, give me Cred whenever I ask, never backing down from my selfish requests. A word was created for men like that. The ones who treat women like they’re the most precious thing to ever come into space, just for them and no one else. Society calls them simps. I call them simpletons.

None of these boys fall for me, though. They’d sooner punch me than ask me out to dinner. At least they’re professional about it. I’ve got nothing to give them except my best effort. A few kicks for good luck. And that’s a hard-fought battle.

The big one charges at me, as wide as he is tall. If I asked him about it, he’d probably call it “muscular fat.” Well, I have a karate fist, all muscle and bone, so I check him right into the softest part of his pads. He moves; I don’t. That’s a lifetime of training. A technique forged through millions of repetitions He wouldn't understand.

But another one comes in to snipe me. He’s charging in, knees first, on a slide tackle, and he gets taken out before I can even see what happened. I followed the trail down to the bottom of the arena. One went out, and the other jumped right off and rejoined the fight. We’re up a player while they’re down. Nico was the one who got there that quick.

Who stole the center of attention.

Again.

~~~

CHAPTER 2

I used to be Happy. Not my real name, but it’s what my parents called me. I was the happiest baby, never crying, even when I should have. Maybe I cried, but it was only until I learned how to laugh. Once I did it, I was smiling all the time for the first five years of my life. And I loved it.

I loved my Mama more than anything at all. She was my world. The earliest memories I have, are of being at home with her while she held me on her lap. She’d roll up the dough and start cooking dinner for Pa in the afternoon. Then she’d put me down for a nap. Singing soft Taino lullaby songs to me, even though I wouldn’t understand the words or strange rhythm. Still, it worked so quickly and effectively, and when I woke up, we’d all have a family meal together. The three of us were at our peak of enjoyment together.

I was still happy, even when Pa wasn’t. He lost his job when I was still small and didn’t know any better about how the world works. I thought it was fun being with him every day, but I could tell just a little that he and Mama weren’t doing well. They weren’t happy, even though they were together. I didn’t understand at the time. How love worked. How people so close, could devastatingly get so far apart.

I didn’t understand until Nico was born. That was when my smile was gone for good. It started off slow, with Mama spending all her time with him like she used to do with me. And Pa left again for a new job that lasted a while, so I had no one left. And it was all his fault. He took the center of attention.

MY attention.

I hated him, with all the hate that I could hold in my little five-year-old heart. I didn’t know any better. But I knew that things had changed, and I couldn’t stand the change. Things were the same for Mama. Except now there were two of us competing for time, love and affection. She’d do all the same things again. Sing him the same songs she sang to me. The weird Taino songs I didn’t understand, and preparing dinner with him on her lap like she did with me. Except it was him and not me. Things were the same for her but different for me. I had to survive while my whole life changed and his life didn’t. His life had just started, and I was already resenting it.

That’s what I thought, anyway. That led me to dark places emotionally in my mind. I started acting out. Pa saw it happening, and Mama couldn’t stop it, so he started directing his hate on me. I threw things on the floor, and when that didn’t work, I’d ruin dinner—I’d throw it around, I’d scream and holler. I was an unholy terror. I was demanding time, love and affection. I think that it drove my Pa to drink.

I was kicked out of the house during the day when I wasn’t at school. They didn’t want me in while Nico was there. He was their “Happy” baby now. Not me. Not anymore. Not ever. Instead, they tried to put my anger to use. When I was five, Pa put me in a beginner's karate class to sort through my rage. By the time I was seven, they had given me a black belt.