Morning in Monica’s house felt wrong in the best way.

  Sunlight filtered through real curtains. The faint smell of coffee drifted up the stairs. Birds were outside doing regular, annoying bird things. They sounded like birds, not shrieking System mobs or mutated nightmares.

  For a few minutes, my brain almost managed to pretend we were back in the old world.

  Then my HUD pulsed once. The scavenger hunt folder sat smugly in the corner of my vision, quietly patient.

  We ate breakfast around the small kitchen island. Monica kept it simple this time. Toast, eggs, and fried potatoes that tasted like she had cheated with a spell.

  Shawn and Siva were unusually focused, which meant one of two things.

  Either they had matured overnight.

  Or they were about to do something stupid.

  “We’ll head back to the shopping belt,” Siva said, mouth full. “We clear the Simple list. Grab whatever we can. Blue pen, copper pot, wolfsbane, wand, scrolls. We sweep it fast, then come back.”

  Shawn nodded, serious for once. “In and out. Like a heist.”

  Jess gave him a look. “It’s shopping.”

  “It’s shopping under capitalism,” Shawn replied. “That makes it a heist.”

  Monica laughed softly like she had no idea what we were talking about, and I was not sure if that was comforting or disturbing anymore.

  I wiped my hands on a napkin and leaned back. “Jess and I are going too.”

  Siva frowned. “Why? I thought you two were doing the wrestling thing.”

  “We are,” I said. “But we need information first. I need to know where SPW operates in this sector.”

  Shawn’s eyebrows shot up. “Bro. You’re really doing this.”

  “I’m doing what we need,” I said. I kept my tone calm even though something hot and familiar was stirring in my chest, and it felt annoyingly like excitement.

  Jess glanced at me. “You are smiling.”

  “I’m not.”

  She stared.

  I cleared my throat. “Okay. I’m smiling a little.”

  The Bay was already loud by the time we reached it.

  Even in the morning, the shopping belt was awake and shameless. Neon signs flashed in full daylight. Holograms floated overhead. Vendors shouted their wares.

  Siva and Shawn disappeared into the crowd almost immediately. Siva walked with the stride of a man on a grocery run. Shawn walked with the stride of a man about to buy something he could not afford.

  Jess and I kept to the edge where the stalls shifted toward mundane goods. Stationery. Kitchenware. Books. Trinkets. I scanned for anything that looked like it sold information.

  Jess nudged me lightly. “Wrestling is not exactly the kind of thing you find in a directory.”

  “In this place?” I gestured at the entire street. “Everything has a directory. We just need someone who knows things.”

  Two stalls later, we found a sign hovering above a shipping container storefront.

  INFO. MAPS. DIRECTIONS. SECRETS.

  Jess stared at it. “That’s subtle.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go buy a secret.”

  We stepped up to the counter. Behind it sat one of the armadillo-bird vendors, beak tucked into a smug little smile. He wore a vest, a tie, and a tiny pair of glasses perched on his beak.

  He spread his clawed hands. “Welcome, my friends. Looking for directions? Looking for knowledge? Looking for… truth?”

  Jess did not change expression. “We’re looking for SPW.”

  The vendor blinked slowly. “SPW?”

  I held up a hand before he could pretend to misunderstand. “Singapore Pro Wrestling. Where are they running shows?”

  His eyes sharpened. Recognition landed.

  “Aaaah,” he said, leaning forward like we were about to enter sacred negotiations. “Wrestling.”

  Jess did not blink. “Where.”

  The vendor clicked his beak. “Information has value.”

  Jess’s eyes flicked to me.

  I sighed and played along. “How much?”

  He held up one claw. “Two hundred gold.”

  Jess tilted her head. “That’s insane.”

  The vendor looked wounded. “Insane? For an address that could change your life?”

  “I’m not marrying the building,” Jess said flatly. “One hundred.”

  He sucked in a breath like she had insulted his ancestors. “One hundred eighty.”

  Jess’s voice stayed calm, but it had that firmness that made grown men stop talking. “If you don’t take one hundred, we leave and ask someone else. We’ll still find it. You’ll just lose the sale.”

  The vendor stared at her, then glanced at me like he wanted backup.

  I shrugged. “She holds the purse.”

  He sighed dramatically. “Fine. One hundred. But I add bonus information.”

  Jess tossed a small pouch of gold onto the counter. It clinked once. The vendor’s claws snapped it up and it disappeared.

  Huh. So they had inventory too. I filed that information for later.

  He scribbled an address onto a thin card. It was not paper, not exactly. It looked like some kind of flexible glossy material that shimmered faintly. The words rearranged themselves as he wrote, like the card was alive.

  “Here,” he said. “You’ll want to go early.”

  Jess took the card. “Why early?”

  His beak curved into a grin. “Because the crowd likes a good seat, my friend. And because today, the champion fights.”

  My HUD gave a faint pulse at the word champion.

  Jess’s eyes narrowed. “Fantastic.”

  “It is,” the vendor said, delighted with himself. “Enjoy.”

  We moved back into the crowd. Jess tucked the card away like she expected it to bite.

  “Okay,” she said as we walked. “So wrestling is real here too.”

  I nodded. “It’s real everywhere. The question is what kind of real.”

  Jess glanced at me. “That was not an answer.”

  “That’s because I don’t have one yet.”

  The building was exactly what he said.

  It was tucked between two office towers like a secret you only found if someone wanted you to. There was no screaming neon. No floating hologram. Just a plain sign above a heavy door.

  SPW.

  Jess stopped beside me and stared up. “This is it?”

  I nodded. “It’s perfect.”

  “How is this perfect?”

  “Because this is exactly where indie wrestling lives,” I said. I tried to keep my voice level. “In places that look like they should be a tuition center.”

  Jess rolled her eyes and pushed the door open.

  The roar hit us instantly.

  It was a crowd. Not street noise, not vendor shouting. A real crowd with real energy, the kind that rose and fell like a living thing.

  We paid an entry fee to a bored hobgoblin in a black polo shirt and stepped through a narrow corridor that smelled like sweat, disinfectant, and cheap cologne.

  Then we entered the hall.

  It was a converted space with tiered seating bolted to the walls and a ring planted dead center under harsh lights. The ropes shimmered faintly, like they were reinforced with something more than cable.

  The crowd was packed with humans and creatures, shoulder to shoulder, yelling like they had all agreed this was the most important event of their day.

  In the ring, two wrestlers were already going at it.

  A human with rune tattoos down his arms hit the ropes with a burst of speed that looked like a movement buff, then launched into a flying knee.

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  A lizardfolk built like a fridge caught him mid-air and slammed him down so hard the ring shuddered.

  The crowd erupted.

  Jess leaned toward me. “That was not normal.”

  I kept my eyes on the ring. “That was normal. It’s just… upgraded.”

  The human rolled, slapped a scroll onto his own chest like a sticker, and a brief gold shimmer wrapped him.

  He sprang up again like he was no-selling the slam.

  He hit the lizardfolk with a dropkick that actually knocked the big bastard backward, then followed with a spinning elbow that crackled faintly, like he had timed it with a skill.

  The lizardfolk responded by exhaling a short burst of green mist that would have made the Great Muta proud.

  The human staggered, coughing.

  Jess’s tone went flat. “That is cheating.”

  “That’s wrestling,” I said, and I heard the grin in my own voice. I forced it down. Mostly.

  The match ended with a suplex that turned into something else halfway through, when a glyph flared beneath them and detonated into a controlled burst of light. Not enough to hurt the crowd. Enough to make it look like a highlight reel.

  One. Two. Three.

  The place went wild.

  Jess sat back slowly. “Okay. I get it.”

  “You get it.”

  “No,” she corrected. “I get that you get it.”

  A few matches later, my HUD buzzed.

  The scavenger hunt folder pulsed urgently, and one line inside it flared red.

  [Item 3: SPW World Heavyweight Championship]

  [This item can only be won. In the ring.]

  My stomach sank.

  Of course.

  No buying it. No stealing it. No “special arrangement” where we slipped someone gold and walked out with a title belt like it was a souvenir.

  The System wanted blood and sweat and an audience.

  I felt Jess shift beside me the moment my face changed. She leaned in, eyes flicking over her HUD, then back to me.

  “It’s here,” she said.

  I swallowed, forced air into my lungs, and nodded once.

  “Yeah,” I murmured. “And it’s not leaving this building unless it’s around my waist.”

  The lights dimmed.

  Music hit the speakers. The crowd rose like they were being hauled to their feet.

  A voice boomed, magically amplified. “MAIN EVENT TIME!”

  The champion stepped out.

  He was an orc.

  Not the cartoon brute kind. This one was tall, lean, and heavy with tattoos. His tusks were capped with metal. His eyes were bright and mean.

  And the belt around his waist looked exactly like how it should look.

  Gold, green, and steel. The SPW logo stamped dead center, with filigree wings curling on either side.

  The challenger came out to boos and a wave of insults, because wrestling crowds were universal in one way. They loved the villain and hated the person they were supposed to hate.

  So the orc was a face.

  That complicated things.

  The match did not last long.

  The challenger threw a spell net.

  The orc walked through it.

  The challenger tried a staff strike.

  The orc caught it, snapped it clean, and clotheslined the man so hard the air rippled like it had been punched.

  The crowd screamed.

  The orc hit a finisher that looked like a pop-up powerbomb, except the human flew so high he nearly kissed the ceiling lights. The ropes flared red at the moment of impact, like the ring itself was signaling the end.

  One. Two. Three.

  The referee raised the champion’s hand, and the champion raised the belt. It was a squash match.

  My HUD buzzed again. Item 3 pulsed brighter.

  Jess’s voice was very calm. “You’re going to fight that.”

  “I’m going to attempt to survive that,” I said.

  “And how do you plan to do that?”

  I stared at the belt, then at the champion’s shoulders, then at my own hands.

  “I plan to be very convincing,” I said quietly.

  Getting backstage was, somehow, easier than it should have been.

  We waited near the side, followed a crew carrying crates, and when a goblin in a headset stepped in our way, Jess slipped him gold with the smoothness of someone who had done this before. A small part of me felt sad about that.

  He weighed the pouch once, nodded, and let us through.

  Jess muttered as we walked down the corridor, “This is too easy.”

  “It’s show business,” I said. “Most doors open if you pay the right person.”

  We passed wrestlers stretching, arguing, nursing bruises. An elf was spraying something on a dragonborn’s shoulder that smelled like mint and tiger balm.

  Jess’s eyes kept darting, cataloguing threats and exits.

  Mine kept drifting back to the ring. To the crowd. To that belt.

  I tried to look normal.

  I failed.

  Jess glanced at me. “You are excited.”

  “I am focused,” I corrected.

  “You are glowing.”

  “I am not glowing.”

  “You were smiling at the chanting.”

  I exhaled. “Okay. Maybe I missed this.”

  Jess looked like she wanted to argue, then decided against it.

  We found the office because it had a sign that read BOOKING.

  Jess stared at it. “Booking?”

  I nodded. “The booker’s inside.”

  Jess exhaled. “Chris.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I swear to God, if you tell me wrestling has bureaucracy…”

  “It has more bureaucracy than the government,” I said, dead serious. “Just with less paperwork and more concussions.”

  Jess’s stare sharpened. “Explain.”

  I hesitated, then decided I might as well rip the plaster off.

  “The results are predetermined,” I said. “The booker decides who wins. The wrestlers act it out like a story.”

  Her head turned slowly toward me.

  “You’re telling me this is fake.”

  “It’s scripted,” I corrected automatically, because I was physically incapable of not being annoyed by that word. “The story is planned. The outcome is planned.”

  Jess’s eyes narrowed further. “So they’re not really fighting.”

  “They’re really fighting,” I said quickly, because I could see murder forming behind her gaze. “They’re taking real falls. Real hits. Real injuries. The pain is real. The risk is real. It’s agreed upon. That’s the difference.”

  Jess looked exasperated and confused at the same time.

  I knocked on the door before she could ask if the steel chair was real.

  A voice called, “Enter.”

  We stepped inside.

  Behind the desk sat a fairy.

  She looked human at first glance until you noticed the wings. Sleek, translucent and sharp-edged. And she was three feet tall, which somehow made the whole thing more dangerous.

  She wore a blazer over a crop top, hair pulled into a high ponytail, eyes bright like she was always five seconds away from turning desperation into profit.

  She looked up from her clipboard and smiled.

  “New faces,” she said. “I love new faces. What do you want?”

  I kept my voice steady. “We’re here about the belt.”

  The fairy laughed, delighted. “Everyone is here about the belt.”

  Jess crossed her arms. “We’re not here to waste time.”

  The fairy’s gaze slid to her. “You’re the manager.”

  Jess blinked. “I’m what?”

  “The manager,” the fairy said, like it was obvious. “The brain. The voice. The one who keeps this idiot alive.”

  Jess looked at me.

  I shrugged. “She’s not wrong.”

  The fairy leaned forward. “So. You want the SPW World Heavyweight Championship. You want a match with my champion.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Then you want to get on the roster.”

  I nodded once. “I have experience.”

  The fairy’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You do.”

  I held her gaze. “Japan.”

  Jess’s head snapped toward me so fast I thought she was going to sprain something.

  The fairy blinked. “Japan.”

  I kept going before Jess could explode. “Small promotions. Dojo stuff. Mostly dark matches. I wasn’t a big name.”

  Jess hissed through her teeth, barely audible. “Chris.”

  The fairy studied me for a long second, then smiled like she had decided she liked the lie.

  “Okay,” she said. “If you have Japan experience, you can prove it.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Dark match,” she said, tapping her clipboard. “Three days from now. You work. You impress me, and I offer you a contract.”

  Jess’s eyes narrowed. “And if he doesn’t impress you?”

  The fairy shrugged. “Then he goes back to being a fan with dreams. Or back to… Japan.”

  “And if he does impress you?” Jess asked.

  The fairy’s smile sharpened. “Then he gets a spot in the World Title Tournament. Then we see if the crowd loves him or not.”

  My stomach dropped, but not from fear.

  From the sheer, stupid thrill of it.

  Tournament bracket. Climbing the ladder. Earning the shot.

  The part of my brain that grew up on storylines and title runs lit up like someone had flipped a switch.

  Jess pinged me in chat.

  Jess: You’re enjoying this.

  Chris: I am acknowledging the situation.

  The fairy pointed her pen at Jess. “And you. You’re his manager. His valet. His voice. He’s not much of a talker.”

  Jess’s head turned slowly toward me.

  “You look good,” the fairy said, cheerful and merciless, eyeing Jess up. “Yeah. This could work.”

  Jess stared at her, then at me, then back at the fairy.

  Chris: Go with it. I’ll explain later.

  “Fine,” Jess said finally.

  The fairy clapped once. “Perfect. Chemistry.”

  Jess muttered, “I hate this sector.”

  The fairy slid a temporary registration slate across the desk. It glowed faintly when my hand touched it.

  Not a full contract.

  Not yet. This was a tryout.

  “Three days,” she said. “Do not disappoint me, Japan.”

  Jess’s eyes narrowed at the last word.

  I kept my face straight. Barely.

  We left the office with my stomach doing unpleasant things.

  Jess walked beside me, expression tight. “You realize you just signed up to get beaten up for entertainment.”

  “It’s not just entertainment,” I said automatically.

  Jess’s eyes slid to me. “Do not.”

  I shut up.

  On the way out, we passed the ring again. I caught one last glimpse of the crowd still buzzing, still chanting, still hungry for spectacle.

  Somewhere deep down, a part of me was genuinely excited.

  That part of me was also an idiot.

  Jess nudged me as we stepped back into the hallway. “We need gear.”

  “Yeah,” I said, already thinking it through. I needed to look like a wrestler.

  Jess’s tone went dry. “And I need what, exactly? A clipboard?”

  I looked at her, then did the thing my brain always did at the worst possible time.

  I glanced her up and down.

  Jess caught it instantly.

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “What?” I asked, innocent.

  “No,” she repeated. “Whatever you’re about to say, no.”

  “I’m just saying,” I began, already doomed, “if you’re going to be my manager or valet, we might want you to look… a little more interesting.”

  Jess stared.

  Then she tilted her head. “Interesting.”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “Interesting.”

  Jess took one slow step closer, voice dangerously calm. “Chris.”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you say the word sexy, I will make you wrestle the orc today.”

  I swallowed. “Okay.”

  She held my gaze for a second longer.

  Then she turned and started walking back toward the shopping belt.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go find you knee pads. And a helmet. And maybe a lawyer to write your last will.”

  I followed, because I valued my life.

  And also, because, for the first time in a while, we were walking toward a fight we actually chose.