Play ball!

"Yeah, let's go to the batting cages. I haven't done that since I was in, what, high school? I dislocated my knee because I didn't have a good batting stance and couldn't hit a single ball on like the medium speed or whatever." The other mansion staff eventually came back with a backpack, helping you put your clothes all in one place.

"Understood. Emilia asked me to keep an eye on you only until you have your bearings, and since you're currently not rolling around on the floor whining about your situation, my assessment is you've adapted pretty well, Jane."

You blinked a couple times. "Wait, is that still an option? Because that sounds like a really good stress release--"

Alice simply walked off, leaving you to have to play catch-up, slipping on the backpack as you jogged up toward her. The bra definitely kept your breasts from swaying wildly, but you became keenly aware that 'light jog' was its threshold of usefulness. Bras are expensive, you've heard from all your dates whose bras always ended up somewhere in the uncontrollable mess that is your apartment, never to be found again.

Once you were back to walking alongside Alice out the front doors and to the SUV waiting out front, you turned to her again. "Have there been a lot of people who have taken a coin like I did? You and Emilia seem like you knew what you were doing. And I'm not even really sure why I was even roped into this..."

Alice opened the passenger side door for you, and then stepped around to the driver's seat. "Only two people have refused it," she said, adjusting her mirror. "Most think the price is pretty inconsequential. And in some respects, they're right. In that body, you're plenty capable of whatever you'd have normally been doing, I guarantee you can still play the latest games on your Hideki Snap console even with tinier thumbs. Hell, from all the feedback we've received, you might even find some advantages. One Coinbearer says it's easier for them to work on machines after the change with the smaller digits, so they always transform before a computer repair or fixing their car when they're in a tight spot. Whereas other Coinbearers who started out as women find a lot of comfort in a male form where they can go about their business in the city and no one even gives them a second look. Some have turn what they first saw as a disadvantage into a strategic advantage instead, along with their new talents."

"But... not everyone, I'm guessing."

Alice nodded as she pulled out of the mansion's driveway. "Others find it more of a challenge. Especially when they chose a talent that they absolutely cannot afford to lose." She glanced over for a moment, and then turned back to keep her eyes on the road. "Baseball is a smart choice, at least for the purposes of the coin. I didn't explain it very well earlier, but the magic in the coin has an expiration date. If you don't keep flipping or turning it every so often, the magic and any talent associated with it vanishes completely, until you start flipping again. And I mean everything. You won't even be able to watch a baseball game, nothing will make sense. Which I imagine will feel extremely pathetic, because baseball's easy. My nephew knows how baseball works and he's three years old, you won't even be able to keep up with him. You won't even know that the bigger score wins, and--"

"Yeesh, I get it, okay! So I'll be an idiot when it comes to baseball if I leave the coin alone. I mean, that's not great, but it could be worse. Plus..." You frown a little bit as you had a bit of a lightbulb moment. "I could just do one or two flips a day if I wanted to keep up with the Spiral City Sentinels, right? An hour real early on doesn't sound so bad."

Alice nodded quietly. She looked like she wanted to say something more, but she held it back. You weren't particularly interested in trying to pry more details out of her. Besides, the drive was short and within a couple more minutes, you were walking up to the batting cages outside the mini-golf course. Alice deposits a handful of quarters in your hands. "Don't accidentally put your talent coin in the machine, okay? I hate having to explain to other people that we have to open up arcade games to dig through their coins, or we have to drain a pond because someone thought it would be fun to make a wish with a coin that grants ACTUAL wishes, on and on."

You nodded, looking back at Alice with a weirded-out expression. Clearly Emilia hasn't been choosing the brightest people to hand these coins out to, and that had you slightly worried about your selection. You brushed it aside as you picked up a batting helmet and bat, stepped into one of the cages, and put a couple quarters in the machine. Ten balls, slow-medium speed. That was your usual when you were in high school, it suited you just fine back then even if it would be a joke for the pro athletes. Besides, you were in an unfamiliar body, you didn't really have a good feel for movement yet...

It didn't matter. You could swear that the balls were coming at you in slow motion. This was the speed you were swinging at in high school? You connected with each ball cleanly, despite having not set foot in these batting cages since the twisted knee incident.

"That looked like kid stuff," Alice said, sipping a soda on a nearby bench. "Trust that you've got way more potential than that, turn it up."

You did so with your next set of pitches, feeling perfectly comfortable at the plate, even in this new body. You turned the dial up to medium speed, and waited. Again, it felt like the balls were so sluggish in the air, even as you knew the speed was the same as when you were a kid and you couldn't even track the ball then. Ten pitches, ten more clean hits. As Alice said, kid stuff.

You crank the machine up to medium-high, and wait for the next round of pitches. This time, it felt like a challenge. Three hits, two fouls, five strikes. You were really struggling to keep up that time, and you were breathing pretty heavily after that round. Once you put the batting gear back in place, you sat down next to Alice again. "Things felt so easy until suddenly..."

"Like a wall, I presume?" You nodded. Alice took another sip of her soda. "Yeah, that's consistent with other feedback. Consider this: the coin you flipped doesn't fully charge to make you go toe-to-toe with the best baseball players immediately. Your first flip, and flips you do after not having flipped a while, that magic puts you at pretty much average across all people who have some amount of talent at baseball. And I mean, perfectly average, right now you're the exact divide between the two. That's everyone between first year little-league kids to the Sentinels' own Joey Falcone on third base."

"So... one flip puts me halfway, the next flip puts me at the best?"

Alice chuckles a little, and it's the first time you'd seen the woman smile. "Not even close. Emilia worked out some math for it, but I'll just share two words: diminishing returns. Each flip after that first charges just a fraction of the remainder of the magic's capacity. If you flip the coin randomly, it's something like... twenty-five percent of whatever the remainder of the capacity is? The point is, you get better, but the gains might become hard to notice after a certain point unless you are playing against the best as well."

You shrugged a little. "I'm going to need a little more proof on just how real that is."

With a roll of her eyes, Alice looks at her watch. "In thirty-five minutes, you can turn your coin over, which isn't as effective as a random flip but it'll still charge the magic further, you'll get something like eight percent better which will make a noticeable difference. Plus, you'll be back to your male self. That's enough time for eighteen holes at Putt-topia, so let's just wait it out and you can see for yourself."

On one hand, the idea of seeing just how much of an improvement a simple coin flip could make intrigued you. On the other hand... you were already somewhat tired, and you were still stressed from the day, and going home sounded really good right about now. Not just to be alone with your thoughts, but to be alone with your new body... you were more than a little curious about getting a better look with more time on your hands.

Alice quirked an eyebrow, waiting for your answer.