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Heading into the final series of season 9’s regular series, Montgomery Bullock had no worries. Baltimore was once again by far the best team in the league, having already clinched the number 1 seed for the postseason. Winning this championship would finally have them ascend, and despite not knowing what that entailed, the excitement across the team and city was electrified, the crisp autumn air turning palpable as they were yearning to cement their legacy.
Anything could happen in the postseason, just one lucky series from a worse team was all it took to knock you out. Yet this wasn’t enough to stop the elation everyone had, premature celebrations were typically to be avoided, but with their dominance and it being so close, that couldn’t stop them. All they had to do to start the final stretch was get through this last series against Breckenridge.
Despite being a divisional rival, the Jazz Hands weren’t noted much by the Crabs. There was the typical underlying animosity you’d find any team have towards another so superior to them, but aside from the odd instances of Nagomi being traded for Holden, there wasn’t really anything special the Crabs had in mind when thinking about their opponent. At least, until Montgomery had a front row seat to Lowe Forbes’ Wild Ride.
Lowe was one of the many Jazz Hands who never ended up being thought about by the Crabs too much. They were just a bad pitcher they didn’t even really have to plan for, given their pitching with a blindfold meant they never threw accurately. They could win by not exerting much effort, and just let Lowe practically give them the game. The Jazz Hands fans always chanted “Lowe-ded Bases” when they were out there for a reason!
There were rumors of those same fans planning to target the Out of Sight blessing after Agan’s allergic peanut reaction three days prior. It would be a bit of a late push, but one that would’ve sent Lowe off the active roster. In retrospect, Montgomery feels like they should’ve seen this coming. The warning signs couldn’t have been flashing right in front of their face in a brighter blinking neon, forcibly drawing their attention to the impending danger.
Yet, having never been a victim of the Blooddrain weather before, Montgomery didn’t think much of it. Really, they knew that the mystic forces behind this game could make the unlikely happen no matter how peculiar, but being an animated suit of armor, they never thought much about what their blood even felt like.
Players knew it could happen any time in the game. Whenever it rained blood upon the field, it lasted the whole game. The field became a mess to play on which made footwork almost impossible, the ball became soaked which made it impossible to throw, and the blood being from an undetermined source made those with weaker stomachs retch. Montgomery was able to get through these relatively alright due to not having the typical senses, so while in mind, it was still kept more to the back of it, not to be focused on until it finally happened to them.
They knew what it was like to be the one draining from others, and have heard other players describe what it felt like, but they could not have possibly braced for what it felt like to be on the wrong end of this. They would’ve imagined it’d be the inverse of the power gain they felt from siphoning others, yet anything further would’ve been a mystery. As they found out thanks to Lowe, having your blood forcibly drained from you against your will is actually pretty terrifying.
It all happened within an instant, a crack of thunder roared through the stadium as Lowe kept the same grin they always did, before a torrential downpour inexplicably blasted onto them and Montgomery. The suit of armor rattled, their seaweed managed to instinctively curl like the frightened clasped limbs of a human, they internally heard screams. Oh the screams of a petrified population. Due to the suit’s mystical connection with the population of Maryland’s Montgomery County, they all felt it to an extent as well, and their reactions were amplified straight back to the suit.
With that many people, there were bound to be enough for Montgomery to finally understand what it felt like to have one of those weaker stomachs. They would have if the suit was capable of vomiting, but since it couldn’t it could only feel an extremely unpleasant feeling where a person's mouth would typically be. It wouldn’t go away, leaving Montgomery feeling disoriented and nauseous, preventing them from being able to yell out their anguish without making it worse.
Despite it feeling like an eternity, the drain ended almost as quickly as it started. The field was still being flooded with blood from above, yet Lowe was done within only a few seconds, keeping the same smile they always did, while play resumed on. It had to, so the other Baltimore players couldn’t check on just how shaken Montgomery was until the game ended.
The only visible change was a slouched posture, nothing like their metal rusting or armor parts falling off, so on the surface they seemed as fine as they could have been from an event like that. However, this left them alone within their headspace, perturbed by what they just went through, the coldness of their armor and the lack of warmth any blooded animal has suddenly far more present.