The diner two blocks from Harper Core looks like it should have gone out of business five years ago—stainless-steel box, buzzing purple neon, smudged windows. Instead, it’s full of kids in tournament lanyards and half-zipped hoodies, the air thick with grill smoke and coffee.

  “Back here!”

  Mason spots Blitz Fang Hoodie waving from the back booth by the window. Union Cap is wedged against the wall, already halfway through a plate. Owen sits on the aisle side, elbows braced on Formica.

  Blitz Fang Hoodie has her hood down for once, dark curls escaping everywhere, Blitz Fang logo cracked on her tank top. A deck box is parked next to her water glass. Union Cap’s cap is pushed back, his rig half-hidden under a laminated menu. Owen looks softer than he did on the feature stage, Titan tee swapped for a plain Henley, badge lanyard stuffed into his pocket.

  “Carver.” Union Cap taps the menu. “Story time. Reversal Spike. Sit.”

  Mason slides in beside Blitz Fang Hoodie. The vinyl gives a small protesting squeak.

  “You guys already order?” he asks.

  “Waffles,” Blitz Fang Hoodie says. “Fries. Milkshake. I paid for my humble pie with that round one loss.”

  “You lasted to Beat eleven,” Union Cap points out. “That Support kid had lines.”

  “Still washed,” she replies. “So, I’m washing it down with sugar.”

  A server appears with a pad and a tired half-smile. Her gaze flicks over their badges and rigs, softens a notch.

  “Tourney crew,” she says. “What’ll it be?”

  “Burger, no onions,” Mason says. “Root beer. And, uh—”

  “Extra pickles,” she cuts in. “District finals kid, right?”

  Heat crawls up his neck. “Yeah.”

  She scribbles, takes the others’ orders in quick shorthand, then heads back to the counter.

  Blitz Fang Hoodie props her chin on her fist. “So. Reversal Spike?”

  “It wasn’t that big,” Mason says.

  “It was big enough Dunn glitched for a Beat,” Union Cap says. “You hit the cancel so clean he just sat there eating counter damage.”

  Owen grins. “Heard the casters choke in staging. That’s respect.”

  Mason traces a circle through a ring of condensation on the table. “Naomi called it mis-sequenced, actually. Said I caught a break.”

  “Who?” Blitz Fang Hoodie asks.

  “The Analyst,” Union Cap says, before Mason can. “NP_Theory. Quiet girl with the glasses, against the wall with the notebook.”

  Blitz Fang Hoodie brightens. “That’s her? I thought she was writing a manifesto.”

  Owen lets out a low whistle. “She walked past me with, like, three notebooks. I thought she was an AstraForge auditor.”

  “She asked about Charge thresholds after my match,” Mason says. “Didn’t even blink at the misplay. Just wanted the numbers.”

  “Terrifying,” Union Cap says. “In a useful way.”

  Blitz Fang Hoodie nudges Mason with her elbow. “You got reviewed by NP_Theory and noticed by King K on stream in one day. That’s a spike in your lore.”

  “Yeah, congrats,” Owen adds. “You’ve ascended from ‘local kid’ to ‘content asset.’”

  “Please don’t say it like that,” Mason mutters.

  The server returns with drinks. Glasses clack down: water, cola, Mason’s root beer sweating in his hand.

  “So how bad did it feel?” Blitz Fang Hoodie asks Owen, straw between her teeth.

  He blinks. “What, losing? Or—”

  “Getting hit with King’s Gambit,” she clarifies. “My rig buzzed just watching.”

  Owen flexes the fingers of his bracer arm, turning it under the light.

  “Loud,” he says. “Like the rig turned into a live wire. I knew it was coming when he dropped his own Core. You hear the Drive icon ping, you brace. But when he called it…everything went crisp.”

  “Glitchy?” Union Cap asks.

  Owen shakes his head. “Not like lag. More like they cranked the contrast on the whole arena.”

  Mason takes a sip of root beer, fizz burning his throat. “Spectating it wasn’t soft either. My rig did this micro-spike when the animation hit. Pad under my wrist dug in. For a second I thought I’d set my haptics wrong.”

  Blitz Fang Hoodie snorts. “Wow. Poor scrappy kids not used to premium immersion.”

  “Even Denise looked off about it,” Mason says. “She was glued to the diagnostic screen.”

  “She’s glued to every diagnostic screen,” Union Cap says. “It’s in the Harper Core job description. Suspicious glare in three directions at once.”

  “Yeah, but she pulled a tech over right after round one,” Mason says. “They were arguing.”

  Owen taps idle rhythms on the table. “New patch, new feedback. They probably overshot. Remember when they rolled out Burst Feedback at Arc Plaza?”

  Blitz Fang Hoodie laughs around her straw. “Half the kids dropped their cards mid-summon.”

  “We had a kid yelp and fling his rig hand in the air when his Titan ate a crit,” Union Cap says. “Denise filed a complaint. AstraForge answered with a thirty-page PDF about ‘sensory fidelity.’”

  “Everything’s ‘enhancing engagement,’” Mason says.

  “It works,” Blitz Fang Hoodie says. “I’m engaged.”

  She stabs a fry into her milkshake like it insulted her.

  Owen’s gaze drifts to the diner window, where purple neon writes backwards letters on the glass.

  “There was this moment,” he says slowly. “Right when Rampart popped. Before the KO animation really kicked in.”

  Blitz Fang Hoodie leans in. “Yeah?”

  “It didn’t look like the stock flinch,” he says. “For a second it…looked like it tried to brace. Arm came up weird. Like it knew Blitz Fang was in that lane.”

  A small shiver dances along Mason’s spine, echoing his own half-formed thought about the stagger he saw.

  Union Cap waves a fry. “New animation set. They patched in more dramatic breaks for Titans this quarter. People see what they want. There’s a guy on the boards swearing a Warden Golem grabbed its own knee after a Drive hit.”

  Blitz Fang Hoodie shrugs. “We all saw your Stonebreaker clutch its shoulder when it shattered.”

  “That one’s absolutely in the patch notes,” Union Cap says. “Trust me, I read them so you don’t have to.”

  The server arrives with their food and cuts off the argument. Mason’s burger lands in front of him, cheese sliding, fries piled high. The smell hits and his stomach makes the decision for him.

  Owen drowns his waffles in syrup, Blitz Fang Hoodie scatters salt over her fries until Union Cap reaches over and wrestles the shaker away.

  For a while the talk tilts back to matches—Blitz Fang Hoodie’s rough first round, Union Cap’s close decision loss to a Support/Striker hybrid, Owen’s earlier Titan brawl before running into Kellen. Plates empty, refills come and go.

  “You think Naomi’s logging the Drive stuff?” Mason asks after a few bites. “The haptics, Rampart’s weird break, all of it?”

  “Guaranteed,” Union Cap says. “She probably had a column ready before the event. ‘Patch 15 live: Drive feedback > 14.x, Anchor stress +12%.’”

  Blitz Fang Hoodie watches him over the rim of her milkshake. “You’re talking about her a lot for someone who only talked to her once.”

  “I’m talking about data,” Mason says.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She helped me prep for my second match,” he adds. “We went over lines. She’s just…good at seeing things.”

  “Did you ask for a sig?” Union Cap asks. “From NP_Theory. Sign your deck box, frame it.”

  Mason flips him off without looking up. They laugh, tension easing.

  “So regionals,” Owen says, wiping syrup with a fry. “You in if you place? Think Denise can swing you a slot?”

  “Depends what ‘place’ means,” Mason says. “Harper only gets so many invites. I probably need semis or better just to be in the conversation.”

  Blitz Fang Hoodie groans. “I asked Denise what I needed. She said ‘sleep’ and ‘consistent wins.’ I told her pick one.”

  “You’re the one pounding energy drinks between rounds,” Union Cap says.

  “It’s called a training regimen,” she replies.

  Owen points at Mason with his fork. “Seriously, though. How mad’s your family if you disappear for regionals?”

  The question has more weight than his casual tone.

  Mason drags a fry through ketchup, watching the red smear. “Dad already thinks I’m wasting shifts. Mom’s…trying to stay neutral. If I qualify, I’ll deal with it then.”

  “Entry’s what, fifty?” Blitz Fang Hoodie asks. “Plus travel.”

  “Plus a bed somewhere that doesn’t smell like spilled soda and old nachos,” Union Cap adds. “Unless you’re cool with the convention floor.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “They’d probably sell branded sleeping pods,” Blitz Fang Hoodie says. “Core logos on the side.”

  “And charge you extra to track your REM cycles,” Union Cap mutters.

  They laugh again, but Mason’s chest tightens. Fifty bucks. Bus tickets. Maybe a cheap hostel if he’s lucky. Store credit doesn’t pay for any of that.

  “Denise might comp my entry if I do well,” he says. “Store credit, maybe a rig tune-up. She’s floated little boosts before.”

  “You’re one of her project kids,” Union Cap says. “She likes anyone who reads past page one of the rulebook.”

  “That’s you,” Blitz Fang Hoodie points at him. “You get hives when someone misplays Clinch.”

  “I’m trying to save lives,” Union Cap says. “Social lives.”

  Owen lifts his glass. “Saving us from shame on stream. Noble.”

  They clink glasses over the table: water, soda, milkshake.

  For a breath, the booth feels like its own small arena—heat, noise, cards everywhere, the night outside held at the glass.

  Blitz Fang Hoodie nudges Mason’s ankle. “You think Kellen was serious?” she asks. “About remembering your deck?”

  “Probably forgets what city this is in two days,” Union Cap says.

  “I don’t know,” Mason says. “He knew Naomi’s handle. Called out my traps. Felt…present.”

  “Part of the package,” Union Cap replies. “You remember just enough faces so your shout-outs sound legit.”

  “He looked right at you on stream,” Blitz Fang Hoodie says. “That counts for something.”

  Mason drains the last of his root beer, now mostly melted ice. “Means next time he won’t underestimate me.”

  Owen lifts his empty glass in a small mock-toast. “To next time, then.”

  They tap rims against his.

  By the time the plates are mostly crumbs and syrup, the din of the diner has settled into a warm blur. Somewhere near the front, a group from another bracket argues about whether Titans are “braindead” or “just honest.”

  The bill comes in a cracked plastic folder. Union Cap snatches it before anyone else can move.

  “Relax,” he says. “I picked up an extra shift this week. I got this one.”

  “Dude, no,” Blitz Fang Hoodie protests. “We can split.”

  “Tip me in test games,” he says. “I need you gremlins to keep me sharp before I run into actual pros.”

  Mason’s hand goes to his wallet anyway. His fingers brush thin bills. The total on the receipt isn’t huge. It’s also more than he wants to admit hurts.

  Union Cap catches the flicker on his face.

  “Save it,” he says, quieter. “Regionals will bleed you enough if you get there.”

  Mason hesitates, then lets his wallet drop back into his pocket. “Thanks.”

  “When one of you signs your first sponsor deal, you can buy me a jersey that doesn’t peel in the wash,” Union Cap says.

  “Dibs on a rig that costs more than my rent,” Blitz Fang Hoodie says.

  Mason smiles, but the word “rent” lands like a stone. He pictures envelopes on the side table at home, Dean’s hands rubbing at his back.

  The server swipes the card, brings it back with a pen. They take turns signing the slip and doodling tiny sigils in the margins like kids signing a yearbook.

  Outside, the air feels cleaner, cool against skin still warm from fryer heat. The Harper Core sign is a dim glow down the block; most of its lights are off now.

  Blitz Fang Hoodie yawns into the crook of her arm. “If I don’t get home in ten, my mom’s going to start texting my friends’ parents like I’ve been abducted.”

  “Block B starts at ten,” Union Cap reminds her. “Don’t roll in late or Denise will draft you as a cautionary tale.”

  Owen lifts two fingers. “Later. Try not to make content without me.”

  He heads off past a row of shuttered storefronts, shoulders a little hunched, tournament badge swinging from his pocket like a small flag. Blitz Fang Hoodie peels off in the opposite direction, already hunting for a playlist on her phone.

  Union Cap pauses at the corner with Mason.

  “You good?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” Mason says automatically. “I’m fine.”

  Union Cap studies him for a beat, then nods. “See you on the sheet.”

  He angles toward a dim bus stop. In another few seconds, Mason is alone under the buzzing diner sign, rig bag strap biting into his shoulder.

  His forearm still remembers the hum from Kellen’s Final Drive, a ghost tingle under the skin.

  He flexes his hand once, shakes it out, and turns for home.

  The living room glows faint blue from the TV when he eases the front door open. The air smells like old carpet and laundry detergent, familiar and stale in a way that makes his chest feel tight.

  He closes the door as quietly as he can and moves past the couch.

  “You know what time it is?”

  Dean’s shape sits slumped in the armchair, remote in hand. He clicks the TV off; the room shrinks to the pool of light from the side lamp. The shadows under his eyes look deeper than they did that morning.

  “Late,” Mason says. “Tournament ran long.”

  His rig bag strap digs into his shoulder.

  “You got school in the morning,” Dean says. “Shift at the store after that. That ring won’t cover the power bill.”

  “It’s Saturday,” Mason replies. “No school.”

  Dean blinks, recalculates. “Right. Sunday shift.”

  He shifts in the chair, hand going to his lower back before he catches himself.

  “How’d you do?” he asks. “At this…stage.”

  “Locals,” Mason says. “I won two. Still in it.”

  Dean’s fingers tap the remote. “Win anything real? Not store coupons.”

  Mason glances at the stack of mail on the side table—bills, thin white envelopes, one thick brown one from some city office.

  “Fifty in store credit so far,” he says. “If I make semis tomorrow, it jumps. Top three get regionals slots.”

  “Store credit,” Dean repeats. “So you can buy more cards to maybe win more store credit.”

  “It’s not just that,” Mason says. “Regionals mean bigger prizes. Exposure. Sponsors—”

  “Exposure doesn’t keep the lights on,” Dean cuts in. “You skipped a shift this week. Jenna called, asking if you were okay. I told her you were sick. Wasn’t hard to guess where you actually were.”

  “I asked Dev to cover,” Mason says. “He said he would.”

  “Well, he didn’t,” Dean says. “So now you’re one more mark on the attendance sheet. Those marks stick. That’s not a game. That’s rent.”

  Heat rises through Mason’s chest. “Jenna likes you. You’ve bailed her out on overtime since forever. One missed day—”

  “She likes that I show up,” Dean says. “Every time. Even when my back feels like rebar. That’s the only reason they give me those hours instead of cutting me loose like the rest of the crew.”

  “I know,” Mason says, voice fraying. “Do you think I don’t see you come in and go straight to the couch? Do you think I want that? For me? For you?”

  “Then maybe don’t build your whole future on a corporation’s hobby,” Dean says. “You saw what happened when they rolled in here with their Core Fields and ‘economic investment.’”

  “This isn’t some mall demo anymore,” Mason says. “It’s a real circuit. Rankings, contracts, prize pools—”

  “For kids whose parents already know which AstraForge VP to call,” Dean says. “You see any kids from our street in those commercials? Or is it all clean uniforms and big-city practice houses?”

  “So the door’s shut?” Mason shoots back. “Because we’re not on the nice side of town?”

  “I didn’t say don’t play,” Dean says. “I’m saying don’t hang this house on the fantasy that you’re the one out of a thousand that makes it.”

  Elaine appears in the hall, half in scrubs, hair pulled into a messy knot, hospital badge clipped to her pocket. She takes in the tableau in one glance.

  “You two are going to set the walls vibrating,” she says, voice low but firm. “It’s late.”

  “We’re talking,” Dean says.

  “Your volume says otherwise,” she replies. “How’d it go, Mase?”

  He forces some air into his lungs. “Good. I mean…solid. Still alive in bracket. Kellen Royce was there. Feature match. Place was packed.”

  “That’s the kid from the morning show, right?” Elaine asks. “With the…jacket.” She makes a vague iridescent gesture.

  “Yeah.” Despite everything, Mason’s mouth twitches. “His Final Drive hit and the whole arcade—”

  He stops himself. Now isn’t the time to explain haptics.

  Elaine fingers his lanyard, eyes searching his face. “Did you enjoy yourself?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” he says, then, more honestly, “When I was on the platform? Yeah. It felt…clear. Like all the noise dropped away and it was just play lines and reading people. I don’t get that feeling anywhere else.”

  Dean exhales through his nose. “Fun is fine. You know what else people say is fun? Weekends. Days off. We don’t get many of those.”

  Elaine turns a sharp look on him. “Neither did you when you were doing softball every Sunday.”

  “That was different,” Dean says.

  “Because you were the one playing?” Mason asks.

  Dean’s jaw tightens.

  Elaine steps closer to him instead of away. “You needed that,” she reminds him. “Remember? You said if you didn’t have something that wasn’t work, you’d lose your mind.”

  “Back then the jobs were steadier,” Dean says. “We had some slack.”

  “We have none now,” Mason says quietly. “That’s why I’m trying this. I’m not asking to drop everything. I’m asking for one shot at something that isn’t stocking shelves forever.”

  “Those shelves pay,” Dean says. “This…might.”

  Elaine takes a breath, then another, as if she’s counting to five in her head.

  “He’s not asking to quit school and sleep at Harper Core,” she says. “He’s playing a sanctioned event. There are brackets, refs, rules. It’s organized.”

  “And owned top to bottom by the same people that ate half my contracts,” Dean says. “They sell kids on this dream while they hollow out everything else. That’s not exactly trust-inspiring.”

  “I don’t trust them,” Mason says. “I know what they did to the neighborhood. That’s part of why I want in. At least in the ring I can take something back.”

  Dean laughs once, no humor in it. “What, you’re going to beat them at their own marketing?”

  “I’m going to see how far my skill goes,” Mason says. “And if there’s actual money on the table, I want some of it coming here.”

  Elaine looks between them, expression soft and tired and sharp all at once.

  “Okay,” she says. “Let’s deal in specifics. Tomorrow: what do you need to feel like you gave this a real shot, and what do we need so we’re not sinking the other parts of our life?”

  “Semis,” Mason says, before he can overthink it. “If I make semis, I lock a regional invite and more than just store credit. That proves I’m not just…deluding myself.”

  “And if you don’t?” Dean asks.

  Mason feels the weight of the question settle in his shoulders.

  “If I don’t,” he says slowly, “we sit down and figure out if I can pick up more hours. Maybe I still go to smaller events, but I don’t treat this like it’s a career path until I do better.”

  Elaine nods once. “That sounds like an actual plan.”

  Dean studies him for a long moment. “You hit semis,” he says, “I’ll stop riding you about this tournament. Not about school or the store. About this one.”

  “It’s not a magic pass for nationals?” Mason asks.

  “I’m not signing you over to AstraForge,” Dean says. “I’m saying: show me this isn’t just fantasy, and I’ll get off your back—for now.”

  Elaine holds out her hand between them. “Deal?”

  Dean looks at her hand, then at Mason. Calloused fingers close over hers.

  Mason adds his own, their hands stacked awkwardly above the mail.

  “Semis or better,” he says.

  “Semis or better,” Dean echoes.

  Elaine squeezes, once, then lets go.

  “Now both of you go to bed,” she says. “Some of us have twelve hours of triage ahead.”

  “You’re on nights again?” Mason asks, guilt needling his ribs.

  “Double,” she says lightly. “They’re short. I’ll grab a nap in the staff room. Don’t worry.”

  “You shouldn’t—”

  “I’m fine,” she lies, smoothing his hair back. “One day at a time, okay?”

  She kisses his forehead, leans to brush a kiss against Dean’s temple, then heads for the door with her bag. The lock clicks behind her a moment later.

  Silence spills into the room.

  Dean clears his throat. “If you…do end up needing bus fare,” he says, eyes on the blank TV screen, “for regionals or whatever—if that happens—we’ll look at it. Not promising miracles. Just…we’ll look.”

  It lands clumsy and heavy and still more generous than Mason expected.

  “Okay,” Mason says. “Thanks.”

  Dean shifts in the chair, rubbing his back again. “Don’t stay up all night with those cards.”

  “I won’t,” Mason lies.

  In his room, he closes the door softly and lets his shoulders drop for the first time since he saw the light in the living room.

  The familiar mess greets him: half-peeled posters, a desk buried under sleeves and printouts, ancient laptop asleep under a stack of notebooks. His bed is a tangle of sheets and the hoodie he threw there before heading to Harper Core.

  He unzips his bag and sets the rig on his desk with care. The matte-black casing looks more beaten in here than it did under arcade lights, but the hand-drawn sigils along the side still feel right under his fingertips.

  He buckles the bracer onto his arm and flexes. The HUD flickers on, cool blue washing over his skin.

  HOME – PRACTICE – DECK EDIT – SETTINGS.

  He taps SETTINGS.

  HAPTIC FEEDBACK: 70%.

  DRIVE FEEDBACK: STANDARD.

  SPECTATOR SYNC: ENHANCED.

  A tooltip hovers over the Drive option.

  “Drive feedback adjusts sensory immersion during Final Drive activations,” the text reads. “All options conform to AstraForge safety guidelines.”

  He huffs out a quiet breath. “Sure.”

  His thumb hovers over “Reduced.” A simple tap and King’s Gambit-level spikes would be dulled. Safer. Softer.

  He pictures Naomi, brow furrowing as she flips to a new page. “You changed a setting? Why?”

  Because my arm hurt when someone else pulled Drive.

  Because I’m scared of the hardware, not the match.

  None of those are things he wants to admit.

  He leaves it on Standard.

  A prompt winks at the bottom of the screen.

  REPORT EXPERIENCE? Y/N.

  He imagines the report dropping into some AstraForge inbox, one line in a spreadsheet next to a hundred others: “User reports discomfort at Drive feedback. Resolved: within spec.”

  He imagines, instead, a text to Naomi: My rig buzzed weird during King’s Gambit. Yours?

  It tastes too much like searching for an excuse. Like he’s already blaming the hardware for matches he hasn’t played.

  He closes the prompt without typing.

  DECK EDIT blooms into a grid of cards, tiny icons and names: his Rank-2 Striker core, the Rank-3s he scraped paychecks to grab, the lone Rank-4 that still feels slightly unreal when it hits the Field. Little ghosts of matches overlay the list in his head—where traps fired late, where Charge math saved him, where instinct outpaced prep.

  He runs through a few sequences mentally, fingers tapping a quiet beat on his knee. Grappler timing. Striker surges. Controllers who stall too long.

  After a few minutes, the lines tangle and blur. His eyes ache. The day tries to replay itself—Denise’s whistle, the roar when Crimson finished, the diner laughter, his father’s jaw set hard—but it all smears at the edges.

  He unstraps the rig, rests it gently on a folded regionals flyer, and lets himself fall back onto the bed fully dressed.

  The ceiling stares down, blank and a little cracked. Beyond the walls, the house settles; somewhere down the hall, Dean’s chair creaks once as he shifts.

  In the quiet, the phrase sits in his chest like a weight and a metronome.

  Semis or better.

  He lets the words mark his breaths—four in, four out—until the buzzing in his arm fades and exhaustion finally drags him under. The last thing in his mind before sleep isn’t Kellen’s spotlight or Naomi’s pen or even his father’s voice.

  It’s the bracket tree at Harper Core, empty next to his name, waiting to see if he can fill in the lines.