The sun beats down at the arid ground.

The mountain stands strong against the wind whipping past it.

Game Girl pops into existence. Standing in the barren wastes.

Her eyes drift down to a stain in the earth, a black shadow, foul and malformed weaving into the cracked soil. She looks to the broken metal beside it, a warped and misshapen handless arm in shreds.

A flash runs through her mind.

Game Boy’s wide eyes meeting hers.

As the stump of her robotic arm punctures his face, tearing flesh from bone. The arm splinters through. Peeling away the muscle and sinew until it exits through the back of his skull.

With a shuddered breath, she closes her eyes tightly and a shaky sigh leaves her body before she places some headphones over her ears.



She slowly opens her eyes,eyelids heavy, her pupils peering around at the surroundings once more before she vanishes into thin air.

Water crashes as it falls down the cliff edge into the river below.

The remnants of a campsite, the ashes cold and still like they were locked in time.

She appears and looks over the edge briefly, before turning and tilting her head at the stained grass. A smear of red clinging onto the blades.

She runs a hand over her chest as the pain returns sharply and momentarily. Game Boy’s eyes looking into hers as he thrusts the sword through her chest, the edge piercing her back, the feeling of steel scraping her ribs and her falling back towards the river.

She leaves once again.

A city of stone and gold.

A tower high and proud.

The once bustling streets, silent.

Paige walks down the path looking at the quiet people standing in place, some in the middle of conversations that they’ll never finish. Others peddle their wares to no one for eternity.

She makes her way towards the large castle in Narfinex City, the doors are wide open, the guards are stoic and unmoving as she strolls past them and enters a large hall of marble pillars and art. The throne at the very end is empty.

She moves past and up the stairs, further and further until she enters a room with a large table, the balcony lets in a golden light. Her eyes turn up to the mural on the ceiling, depicting great heroes fighting back against a corrupt mess of monsters. Her head tilts down to a familiar shape, Gretchin, sat quietly with a bottle of wine tilted into the veil of darkness under her large hat.

Paige removes her headphones and hops on the table and sits beside her, Gretchin hands the bottle to GG who refuses politely. With a shrug, Gretchin places it back down.

The pair sit in silence for a moment, Paige kicks her legs, her one hand resting firmly on the table as she looks around the room. The empty chairs, the busts of Princess and art of the royal family she’s never seen.

“Well.” Gretchin sighs, “This is dull.”

GG forces a smirk with a quiet singular laugh. “Peace usually is.”

“Peace…” Gretchin takes another sip of wine, “It’s odd, honestly.”

GG turns to her.

“You’d think there’d be something, a celebration. A sense of… Winning? But it’s just silent. The people outside are zombies, just going through the motions, they don’t notice anything different, they’re not aware of what happened… If this is peace, I’d take the alternative.”

Paige looks back down at her feet with a slight nod, “Do you think I messed things up?”

“No.” Gretchin says quickly and softly, her hand reaching out and resting on Paige’s. “You did the right thing, Game Girl. Game Boy would have killed us all if it wasn’t for you.”

“But…” GG chews her lip, “Isn’t this place just purgatory now? Lifeless, nothing happening. Is it any better?”

Gretchin thinks for a moment.

“That’s a great question.” She takes another sip of wine. “Y’know, my role was the wise mage, had all the answers but gave them through riddles. Knew more than I let on but less than I wanted to know. Now…” She turns her hand up and looks around her, “I’m a court to ghosts.”

Paige looks into her eyes.

“But I’m alive, thanks to you. And although this may seem hollow, you have my gratitude.”

A twitch of a smile enters Paige’s face and leaves as quickly as it appeared.

“You could come to Urf with me?”

“You know as well as I do that I can’t.”

There’s another moment of stillness. Paige throws her head back with a long sigh.

“There has to be something I can do?” She hops off the table and begins to pace the room, “The world has reset so many times… Why not now?”

Gretchin shrugs, “Perhaps you finally broke the cycle, like you always wanted.”

Her words hit Paige’s chest and she stops still.

“... Right…”

Gretchin sighs, “I’m sorry if I offended you, you shouldn’t listen to me I’m wine drunk…”

“No, no.” Paige turns to her, “You’re right… This is what I wanted, just not what I expected. But I can fix this, Gretchin! I promise!”

“HA!” Gretchin shakes her head, “Game Girl, you don’t need to fix a thing! Be selfish for once, my dear, this doesn’t matter! It’s all a video game! You!” She throws a finger at her, “You have a chance to live! You ended things here, you stopped the Big Bad. You have a life! Go live it!”

“B-but…” Paige’s pupils shake slightly as she looks at the witch, “What about you? The people outside! I can’t just let them have nothing for eternity! They need purpose.”

“Don’t worry about them.” Gretchin leans in, “At the very least they’re safe, I’ll work on a fix for this, you don’t have to worry anymore.”

“Gretchin-”

“Shush.” The witch interrupts her, “You’ve earned a rest. I’ll take care of things. Stop worrying about doing the right thing. Go and enjoy yourself, leave this place behind and never come back.”

Gretchin smiles deeply from behind her cloak.

A lump catches in GG’s throat and she swallows it before rushing in and hugging her tightly. Her hand gripping the purple robe as she buries her face into Gretchin’s shoulder.

---

---

Paige places herself on a chair and drinks from a bottle of water, sweat pouring down her face as the heat envelopes her.

The farm is lush, the seeds sprouting into wheat and corn as she takes a moment to take in the beauty of the ranch. All of their hard work is coming to fruition.

Noah drops to the seat next her with a huff, “Hey.” he says out of breath wiping sweat from his brow, tipping up the cowboy hat that sits out of place on his head.

“Howdy, pardner.” Paige giggles offering the water to him, which he takes with an eye roll.

“I thought it’d help block the sun but it's just making me sweat more.” He drinks heartily and removes the hat plopping it onto Paige’s head, she adjusts it and leans back. Noah looks to her, giving back the bottle, “Suits you.”

“Scoops know you borrowed it?”

“Nah, he’s too busy training to care anyhow.”

The pair sit there quietly for a moment. The cicadas chirp in the distance as a crow flutters overhead with mocked caws.

“Noah,” GG asks softly, “Are you happy?”

Noah’s eyes widen slightly as he takes in the question, “Erm… Yeah, I suppose… Are you?”

“I don’t know.” Paige tilts her head back, “I feel weird recently. Like there’s something missing.”

“Like what?”

She shrugs, “Purpose? Maybe.”

“Hm… I mean, you did get rid of a huge problem for yourself. Maybe find a new hobby?”

“A new hobby?” GG looks at him with a deadpan expression, “That’s your solution?”

“I’m tryna help!”

“What do you want me to do, dude? Knit?”

“Maybe you can crochet a new arm?”

“Hilarious.”

“Or get into dendrology so you can get that stick out of your ass?”

Paige laughs along with Noah. There’s a beat.

“What the heck is dendrology?”

“It’s the study of trees.”

Paige squints, “How do you know that?”

“I’m really smart, Paige, that’s why.”

“Sure…” Paige smiles and takes another sip of water and hands it to Noah, “I’m gonna get back to work.” She claps Noah’s shoulder gently before getting up.

Noah takes the bottle and taps, “Hey, Paige.”

She stops turning around, “Maybe you can just focus on XWF stuff for a while now? Make that your new purpose.”

“I mean, I try to, Noah.”

“Yeah I know, but you said a while back you had trouble focusing on stuff… Now, what else is taking your attention?”

Paige stays still for a moment, her eyes drifting to the side.

Noah gets to his feet and walks past her, placing a hand on the hand and ruffling it slightly before getting back to work.

---

---

As the afternoon turns to evening.

The sun is getting lower and the air is turning cooler.

A golden hue falls over the ranch, and Game Girl sits in the barn. Looking over the land, sitting firmly on the open window, her legs dangling over the edge.

“I know I’m not the best wrestler in the world, heck, not even in the company.”

“I get distracted, I leave on a whim, I fail.”

“But, when I am here I do try.”

“It’s partly because I fight for other people, that's where I get my dedication from. It’s what drives me.”

“Fighting for yourself isn’t a bad thing at all, making your own battles and stepping up to them is admirable. But protecting those you care about, wanting to make them feel safe… That… That just sings to me.”

“It’s hardwired into my noggin.”

“Why do you think I always come back for War Games?”

“It’s because what I love the most in this business is companionship, comradery, a sense of belonging because I lost that years ago and I craved to have it back.”

“And doing this, I’ve made great friends. People I cherish and will never forget.”

“People like Dickie!”

“Someone who showed they gave a crud about me when they didn’t know me, someone who went above and beyond for me when they didn’t have to. There’s a quiet sadness in him, he might not show it all the time but it's there.”

“He wants to give the impression that he can strip away his humanity and unlock that fight when it counts but it's still there in him.”

“He’s the biggest threat in this match by a landslide.”

“And if he wins, I’ll be so proud! I’d be so happy for him.”

“And he’ll likely do the same as he said to Scoops, he’ll ignore that human moment and go for the win and that’s exactly what I want him to do, it's what I expect. He won’t go easy on me and I won’t hold back because I know he’d want me to try my hardest to prove myself.”

“There was a time, long ago, when I was a real threat. On a win streak, on people’s lists of who to watch out for.”

“I, as the kids say, fell off.”

“I was so consumed by everything else that I didn’t have that fight in me, I got close to winning a lot of big matches but I failed.”

“But, as you all should know by now, once I get knocked down, I come back a lot stronger.”

“And I may have won my last singles match, and the one before that, and even though I wasn’t the one to lose us the trios match, that still counts as a loss in my books.”

“And what else do I have right now?”

“My homeworld is in a stasis, my new home is at peace.”

“What do I have to fight for?”

“To win a briefcase?”

“Not like I’m going to use it on Scoops?”

“But I can try and stop other people from getting it, to do my job of trying to protect him.”

“Or…”

“For once, I can fight for myself.”

“To prove that I’m not some scared, sad little girl.”

She hops off the ledge and her feet hit red sand that puffs into dust lingering in the air, as she scans the barren horizon of Mars.

Holding her breath for a moment, she exhales calmly and inhales slowly.

She begins to walk, leaving footprints in the ground.

“Everyone in this match, minus Dickie, will look at me like some throwaway line. Do the same thing every other talentless leech does and remark upon me being from a video game, using the same tired one-liners of “It’s game over for you” and “Hope you got some extra lives.””

“It’s all such boring crud.”

“Isaiah King is literally one of the most disappointing wrestlers in the company, someone who at one point in their lives was a consistent main eventer, title holder, threat and ever since he joined SEB, he’s been nothing more than a lap dog to a gross, high-school romance that has consumed so much air time you’d think XWF starting throwing out re-runs of Saved by the Bell.”

“Betsy is somehow more two-dimensional than me, acting bipolar, switching between a loved up little girl, to shouting about how she’s going to destroy her opposition. All the while singing songs from some edgy cartoon pretending to have a plot.”

“Heck, maybe that’s where Exiles drew all the inspiration from?”

“Just copy/paste the same old repetitive garbage over and over at nauseum, throw in a few lines to make people feel uncomfortable and cringe all the while acting like there’s a point to the useless amount of junk they do. Peacocking to one another and getting lucky once every blue moon.”

“King and Granger have been around each other for months now, spent so much of their time together but I bet any money right now in this match they’re airing every grievance, saying they’re going to kill each other to win this match and the moment its other, it’s all under the bridge, nothing happened!”

“Like everything they ever do, nothing happens! Nothing matters!”

“Go to some weak indie promotion so King and SEB can finally settle things for the twentieth time. Nothing happens.”

“Betsy can laugh and flaunt her new dress and SEB can say awooga while King is literally in the background doing nothing, promoting some old stereotype and hitting every tired cliche and still… Nothing happens.”

“Nothing either of you two washed-up, nobodies do will matter again. You can’t work in this industry anymore, you don’t have that fight in you!”

“Speaking of no fight, Korvayne.”

“Bobby Bourbon attacks you, and you give up? You phone in a promo and attack him after the match to do what exactly?”

“Is this your existence now?”

“You could have been something promising, something new, something exciting but the second things get too hard you throw it away?”

“You give up a chance to prove yourself as TV Champion because you had a little hissy fit?”

“Are you a child!?”

“What happens in the one in one million chance you actually win this match, huh?”

“You get the case but refuse to ever cash-in because somebody dared to call you a nasty name?”

“You got slapped backstage and now you refuse to play ball?”

“Just keep a hold of that case forever because you bailed on a chance to actually prove yourself?”

“You are a waste!”

“Like King, like Betsy, you could have been something awesome but you’ve already put one of the nails in your coffin proving that you don’t have the heart or the drive to make it.”

She collects herself for a moment.

“XXXVI is the cruddiest wrestler here, and yes I’m including whichever Blade or Hixx or whoever joins from the battle royale, a sweltering disappointment who doesn’t deserve a place in this match. Forgettable and quite frankly, terrible at everything they do.”

“I am racking my brain to even think of something notable about them.”

“Longest reigning Revolution champion?”

“Pretty easy when you either have no opponents or a long streak of Mr Oz and Summer Pages.”

“What about any time he has to go against a real opponent? Every time he’s with The Director or whatever he wants to call himself this week he ends up parodying someone and it not landing, then going into a match and getting his butt kicked for a solid 5 minutes straight.”

“It’s laughable!”

“It’s embarrassing!”

“It’s like Rowan Vance’s hobby! Going checking out spooky ghosts in some decrepit building only to come to the same conclusion over and over that they might exist or it might be the wind! Here’s something you can search for Rowan! How about trying to find a time machine so I can get my gosh darn time back watching your inane, repetitive promos?”

“You’re a fine wrestler, you’re a competent talker but by gosh you are so infuriatingly dull it makes my head spin.”

“If you focus, you could be someone so hugely remembered but you just can’t commit!”

“You’re me!”

“With the super powers and very sudden drive to prove myself.”

“I want to win this match so bad, not just for myself but to prove everyone that I can do it.”

“To show that I can take this seriously.”

“And that I can do it with an arm missing.”

“I want this to be my moment, the thing that changes the tide.”

“All of you, including you Dickie, are just in my way.”

“I respect one of you.”

“I want to prove myself to one of you.”

“And I deeply care about one of you.”

“But the rest?”

“The rest can be the first handful of humans to eat martian dirt after I drop them.”