Acting on instinct, she reaches out and opens it. Hanging prominently on a hook is a teal striped shirt, with CHARK emblazoned across the back. She pulls it out and tries it on, buttoning it up over her tank top.

A perfect fit.

Huh. Okay. She peeks her head around the edge of the locker door again to get another look at the placard. Steals. Sure. She can be Steals.

The locker has other equipment in it – a glove, a bat, cleats, all pristine and untouched. Steals ignores it for now and leaves the locker to go further explore the building, leaving the uniform shirt on.

It takes a while, but Steals is pretty confident she manages to find her way into every room in the clubhouse, and after tracking back and forth over just about every inch of the building, determines that she is absolutely alone.

It's a little unnerving. The clubhouse is eerily silent; every room feels like it's just been sitting there, waiting, but for what, she doesn't know. Her, she guesses. She wishes fervently that she could remember how she got here, and why.

She's alone for a long time.

She familiarizes herself with every inch of the clubhouse, and then starts messing with stuff just for something to do. She drags every chair she can find into the locker room and builds an elaborate fort, and then knocks it down for the satisfaction of destroying it. She finds a fridge full entirely of energy drinks and mixes them all together in a bowl to make a horrific concoction that leaves her with a pounding headache. She pries the wheels off a swivel chair and glues them to the bottom of a pair of cleats and does tricks off the benches in the locker room. She falls and hits her head, and then does it again.

She drags a basket of balls out into a hallway and sets up targets, and then tries to hit them. Then she tries it again, this time while skating. She falls again. She doesn't care. There's nobody around to see.

It's at least two months before she hears the crash and skates into the locker room to see a man laying amidst the wreckage of her chair fort. He looks up at her, blinking. She stares back.

"Hi," he says.

"What the fuck," she says back.

"A little help?"

She skates a little closer and helps extricate him from the chairs. Once done, he stands in the middle of the locker room, rubbing his head as he looks around. She keeps staring at him.

"So," he finally says, conversationally. "What team am I on this time?"

"What?" she asks.

"Y'know," he says, gesturing unhelpfully with one hand. "Team. Last time I was on one called the Baltimore Crabs. You've still got the Crabs here, right?"

"Uh."

"Nevermind." He sticks a hand out. "Hi, I'm Thomas Marsh."

She blinks at the hand in her face, then slowly takes it. "Steals Chark," she says. "I think."

The man – Thomas – hums, nodding in understanding. "It's your first time, right? It's always tough to remember, the first time."

Steals furrows her brow, crossing her arms defensively. "My first time doing what, you weirdo?" she demands.

Thomas turns away from her, moving around to explore the locker room. "Jumping universes," he says casually, coming to a stop in front of a locker. Steals warily slides up behind him, and then gawks as she sees that the placard that definitely used to be blank, now says THOMAS MARSH. He pulls it open, and hums again. "Oh! The Pies. That's cool. I've always liked Philly." He takes out a shirt identical to Steals's own, but with his own name on it, and pulls it on. "The colors are the same. Nice. It's so annoying when the colors get switched around."

"What are you talking about?" Steals bursts out. She can't believe that she's seeing another person for the first time in – well, as long as she can remember, and he's some… weirdo.

Thomas smiles apologetically. "Sorry, kid. This isn't my first rodeo. Or blaseball team."

"Blaseball?" Steals shoots back. That word… something about it pings in the back of her head. Like she should know what it means.

Thomas hums again, rifling through the rest of the equipment in his locker. "Yeah, blaseball. It's a sport. Kind of. Anyways, it's what we're here to do. Though I guess games won't start until the rest of the team shows up."

That gets her attention. "You mean there are more people coming?" she asks. "Are they all gonna be as weird as you?"

Thomas throws his head back and laughs. "Kid, knowing blaseball players? Depends on the universe. But they could be much weirder."

As it turns out, Thomas is right.

It's just the two of them for a while, again. They find an equilibrium: Thomas doesn't stop being weird, and tells her stories about other universes that she's, like, 80% sure he's just making up. But he helps her set up more targets in places too high for her to reach, and doesn't laugh at her when she falls on her face trying more skate tricks, and tries her energy drink mixes with a straight face, so Steals guesses he's all right.

And after another few weeks, there's another crash in the locker room and the two of them come running in to find, of all things, an old man in a wizard hat and robes staring up at them.

"Hey," Thomas says, offering a hand to help him up. "Welcome to the Pies."

Bevan Wise, in Steals's opinion, does not seem like he belongs on a sports team.

"First of all, he's old," she informs Tom, while pouring something acid green and carbonated into her mixing bowl. "Second of all, he's, like, a nerd."

Tom snorts, and obediently holds out his cup for Steals to ladle her concoction into for him to taste. "Give him a chance," he says generously. "At least let him practice with us. See how he does. He says he's a wizard."

"Yeah, he says ," Steals shoots back. "Just like you say you've been to, like, a bazillion universes."

"Which is why I have no problems accepting that he's a wizard," Tom says, then hums. "Do we have anything blue flavored? I think it could use some blue."

The door to the kitchen slams open, and with a "BEHOLD!" Bevan strides into the room.

Steals whirls around, clutching her mixing bowl to her chest, and claps a hand over her mouth. Bevan is wearing the strangest pair of pants she has ever seen in her life, and over his uniform he has clasped a black cape with enormous teal flames licking up the sides. He holds out his arms with a broad grin.

"I have uncovered the secrets of the laundry room!" He declares.

"I can see that," Tom says evenly.

Steals keeps her hand clapped over her mouth to hide her laughter. Bevan's eyes suddenly fix on the bowl in her arms.

"Oh, a potion!" He says, with absolute glee. He strides over, looming over Steals. He has a good foot of height on her. He leans in close to scrutinize her energy drink concoction, and gives a sudden, very loud sniff. Finally, he leans back and plants his hands on his hips. "And a very potent one at that! My compliments on your alchemical skills, Miss Chark."

 "Um," Steals says. "Thanks."

 "If I may, I believe I have in mind some additions that may prove helpful," Bevan says, pausing and looking to her for approval. Raising her eyebrows, Steals nods. 

 Bevan steps back and raises his arms, and suddenly his eyes start glowing and the lights in the room flicker. He starts muttering under his breath, and the cabinet doors all slam open at once, their contents flying out and circling in the air around Bevan.

 Steals drops her bowl.

 But it, too, starts hovering, and with minute gestures with his hands, Bevan directs various odds and ends to leave the line of ingredients and drop portions into the bowl, the liquid inside stirring itself as they add to it. Finally, with a flick of his wrist the remaining ingredients march through the air back into the cabinets, which all close in perfect unison with a loud thud. Bevan takes the bowl in his hands and his eyes stop glowing.

 He holds it out to Steals with a benevolent smile, and with wide eyes she takes it back. Tom leans around him to dip his cup into the mixture and takes a sip.

 "Whattaya know," he says, giving Steals a wink. "Tastes more blue."

 "Wonderful!" Bevan booms, turning to go with a swirl of his cape. "Now if you'll excuse me, I am off to build a library."

 Tom at least has the decency to wait before telling Steals, "I told you so."

 "This team is so weird," she breathes.

 A few days later, Bevan once again bursts into the kitchen, this time with a burst of teal fireworks. Steals is attempting to shore up the glue on her skates, while Tom flips through a rulebook he founds in a drawer in an office upstairs. It doesn't seem to be written in any kind of language Steals recognizes, but Tom seems to be reading it just fine.

 They both look up at Bevan's overblown entrance, already becoming accustomed to his fanfare. In one hand, held high and triumphant, he's holding a set of… car keys?

 They have a little wizard hat keychain on them. Steals is absolutely certain they belong to him.

"Behold!" Bevan crows. "I have made a wondrous discovery."

"Where'd you get those?" Tom asks, cocking his head.

Bevan shakes them, making them jingle pleasantly. "I was performing a spell meant to summon an item of great personal import, and they simply appeared in my pocket."

"Are you sure they weren't already in there?" Steals asks dubiously, eyeing his pockets. "You have really big pockets."

"It matters not," Bevan says, folding the keys up in his hand. "The true treasure is what they unlock!"

Tom puts his book down. "So let's go find it."

Bevan leads the two of them through the clubhouse to a door that, to Steals's utter bewilderment, she has never seen before.

"What the hell?" she mutters under her breath as Bevan confidently strides up to it. "Where the hell did it come from? Where does it go?"

And then Bevan opens the door, and her breath catches in her throat.

  Outside. There's an outside.

The three of them bump shoulders in their hurry to get through the door, and find themselves standing in a largely unremarkable parking lot, outside a largely unremarkable building, except for the fact that it's definitely too small to be the clubhouse they've been living in all this time, and the large PHILLY PIES sign hanging from the eaves.

And, of course, for the van sitting in one of the spaces just by the door, with a chaotic scene centered on a wizard airbrushed on the side of it.

Bevan holds out the keys and hits a button and, of course, the van beeps and flashes its lights.

Steals's jaw drops.

"Come, my compatriots," Bevan calls, striding towards the van. "Adventure awaits!"

Tom's hand on her shoulder startles Steals out of her silence. "You okay?" he asks, one eyebrow raised.

"I didn't even know there was an outside," she confesses breathlessly. She feels rooted to the spot. It's so much. It's too much.

Tom squeezes her shoulder. She would never admit it to him, but she feels some of his easy confidence leeching into her. She takes a deep breath and feels like she can move again.

Steals stares at him for a second. Go… back? Go back down there on purpose? Bevan just stands, hands on his hips, and looks at her expectantly.

Steals reluctantly steps back out of the doorway and lets him through, and even more reluctantly follows behind him. He's a wizard, she reminds herself. He can, like, shoot lightning at it.

"So, what is that alarmed you so, Miss Chark?" Bevan asks over his shoulder. He pulls a book from under his cape and it starts floating alongside him. He flips through its pages as he walks. "Some manner of beast? A minotaur, perhaps? A dragon, even?"

"I – I dunno," Steals says, jogging up closer behind him. "I found a door that led down into these, like… I guess they were really hallways, but they had real tunnel vibes. And I thought maybe there'd be some cool shit down there, but I was only down there for like, two minutes 'cause I turned a corner and something moved."

"Oh?" Bevan asks, still paying more attention to his book. "What manner of thing?"

"I don't know!" Steals says heatedly. "Something big! And it was… like, a weird shape! I didn't get a good look at it. The lights were out in the hallway and it was dark. I saw something move and flipped the fuck out because I thought you summoned some kind of weird magic monster down there!"

Bevan hums. "Alas, no; perhaps some other day."

"What? No, Bevan –"

"Here we are!" Bevan interrupts her, throwing open the door in front of them. Steals peeks around his arm and looks down the long staircase trepidatiously. The bare lightbulbs hanging overhead are all flickering. Earlier, when she first found it, she thought that made it kind of cool and mysterious. Now, it seems sinister.

"You go first," she says, giving Bevan a shove. He doesn't move, but he does hum and tuck his book back under his cape.

"Yes, very well," he says. "You keep a lookout behind us, Miss Chark."

The idea that something might sneak up behind them is not a comforting one, and Steals sticks close to Bevan on the way down.

"You gotta know some, like, banishing spells or whatever, right, Bevan?" she asks, trying to sound casual and not at all scared out of her mind.

"Naturally," Bevan says with a sniff.

Steals's heart picks up. "Oh! Great. Awesome."

"But of course, I'll need to ascertain the nature of the beast first in order to choose the proper invocation," Bevan adds.

Steals's heart sinks again. "Oh. Great. Awesome."

They reach the bottom of the stairs. The hallways are a muted, dark green, lit by more flickering, bare bulbs. Shadows gather in the corners. Steals resists the urge to grab hold of Bevan's cape.

"Hi!"

Steals shrieks and dives around Bevan for cover. When they aren't immediately devoured, she claps a hand on her chest to get her poor heart beating again and peeks out to see what snuck up on them.

It's some kind of small… creature, covered in gray-brown fur with a fluffy tail and large, round eyes.

"What the fuck is that," Steals breathes.

"I'm Pudge!" the creature says, holding out one stubby paw. "Who are you?"

Bevan laughs, a loud, bellowing sound that echoes down the dark hallway. "Miss Chark! Is this your monster? This is Pudge Nakamoto!"

"This is what?" Steals demands, staring back and forth between the creature and Bevan. "What the fuck is a Pudge Nakamoto?"

"I'm a blaseball player!" Pudge says, hopping up on its toes. "For the Philly Pies!"

"What?!" Steals's jaw drops. "You're on the team? But – but – why didn't you fall into the locker room?! Y'know, instead of scaring the living crap out of me by hiding in the basement?!"

"Oh, that's because I didn't fall," Pudge says blithely. "I walked out! And before the black hole, I was in Philly! So I just came back. I got a little lost, though. I don't think we're supposed to be down here. Do you guys have any food?"

Steals just keeps staring, but Bevan produces a granola bar from his cape and offers it out. Pudge snatches it up and starts chewing on it, wrapper and all.

"Well, I would declare this one mystery solved," Bevan says, satisfied. "I say we return to the overworld with our new companion."

"Right," Steals says faintly. "Sure."

She watches Pudge toddle over to the stairs and start climbing them, one hop at a time. "Tom wasn't kidding," she mumbles to herself. Blaseball players really are weird. Still; compared to what she thought was down here (namely, some kind of person-devouring monster), Pudge is a relief. An extremely weird, kind of off-putting relief, but.

Except… Steals pauses with one foot on the lowest step. She can't help but feeling like she's being watched. Pudge and Bevan are merrily chatting as they ascend the stairs, seemingly oblivious. She looks both ways down the hallway, but doesn't see anything.

You're imagining things, she chides herself. Stop freaking yourself out.

She turns back, resolved to just leave, and suddenly freezes. "Um, Bevan?" she calls out. "Do you hear music?" There's no response, and she calls, louder, "Bevan?!" But a look up the staircase reveals neither Bevan nor Pudge; they must have already gotten to the top and left.

The music skates along the edges of her hearing, and it sets Steals's teeth on edge. It's not a song she recognizes, but for some reason it sets her heart racing again. And there's something strange about it… almost like she's not hearing it with her ears, but it's being projected into her mind.

She looks back over her shoulder one more time, and freezes in place.

At the far end of the hallway, mostly in shadow, is a… thing. From the neck down, it looks like a man in a Pies uniform, albeit with no arms; and where its head should be, is instead a massive pie in a pie tin. Enormous, glossy eyes hang in the air in front of it.

PIE OR DIE?

The thought slams into her mind like an assault, and Steals clamps a hand over her mouth so she doesn't scream.

The creature edges closer, slipping slightly more out of the shadows.

STEALS CHARK. PIE OR DIE?

With her heart in her throat, Steals drops her hand and chokes out, "P-P-Pie?", desperate to try anything to stop it from coming closer.

The thing stops. It nods once, its pupils bobbing freely in its eyes in a way that would be comical if she wasn't scared out of her absolute mind right now. Slowly, torturously slowly, it recedes back into the shadows, and then is gone.

All at once, Steals can move again. She whirls around and races up the stairs in blind terror, the sound of her blood rushing and frantic panting loud in her ears. She bursts through the door and slams it shut behind her, collapsing to the ground in a huddle and desperately trying to breathe.

Bevan, Pudge, and now Tom are standing in the hallway talking, and they all stop and turn to look at her.

"You okay, kid?" Tom asks, crouching down to her level.

Steals nods. Then shakes her head. "There – there was – I saw –" she stammers through shallow, gasping breaths, trying to get her racing thoughts in order. Tom reaches out and squeezes her knee, and she forces herself to take a long, deep breath.

"There was this – thing," she finally says. "It was like – a person, but it had a pie head, and it could talk in my brain –"

"Oh!" Pudge interrupts, grinning. "You've met the Philling."

"The what?" Steals wheezes.

Tom snaps his fingers. "Oh, yeah! The Philling. Philly Pies mascot. Yeah, I've never seen a universe without them."

Steals stares at him, then at Pudge, then at Bevan for good measure, waiting for one of them to crack and admit their prank. None of them do.

Steals drops her head back against the door with a thunk. "This team is so. Weird."