The sun is relentless; stuck in the cyan sky.

Hooves hit the dirt road.

Dust bellows into the air.

A fly buzzes against the wind, landing on a gleaming pauldron.

A hand crushes it like a whip.

It’s body, twitches, clinging to the steel.

Game Boy wipes his hand on his pant leg, sighing as the horse beneath him pulls against the reins. He snaps its head back as the road turns to cobble.

A cacophony of sound drums from the party as horseshoes and wheels beat against each stone.

A mountain pierces the clouds in the distance. Like a sword thrust into the heavens that bleeds darkness through the sky.

“We’re close” Princess says back to the group. “Mordekaiser lies beyond this valley.”

A shiver hits her as the air grows cold; one of the guards flanking her removes his cape and drapes it over her shoulders. It trails off her, flowing from the back of the horse. Each guard at her side gets closer to her, slowing the group as they raise shields higher, their helms turning around to view the rolling hills and decaying fauna.

Gretchin looks back to Game Boy from the wagon.

His eyes stuck to the cobblestone, his horse pottering along at a slow pace.

She turns to Pepe on the reins next to her, “One moment.”

She pats his hand with wizened fingertips before saddling down and hopping off the moving wagon with a grunt. Her exhale flutters the cloak over her face as she moves to block him.

Game Boy, his head still down, sneers briefly, before he finally looks at her.

“What now?” A tired whisper is pulled from him.

Gretchin strokes the horse's snout, peering at him, “I said I wanted to speak with you.”


He ignores her with a scoff and carries on his way.




He…


He stops trying.

With a shake of his head he motions with a hand for her to speak and get this over with.

Gretchin moves up slightly and hangs a hand off the horse’s tether.

“I know… And I know it’s a burden… How many times have we spoken about this?”

Gretchin’s words fall softly, with a drop of concern.

… Softly? Concern?

Game Boy flicks his pupils at her with an upturned lip.

It’s a trick, right?

Has to be.

She was mocking me you before.

Why does she seem concerned now?

Has to be a trick.

He closes his eyes tightly and sighs deeply.

He opens them looking around for a moment, nature chirping back at him in the distance.


Until his eyes fall back to her.

“I don’t know anymore…” He blinks rapidly looking off to the side. “I stopped counting.”

“Hm.” She nods. “Now you know how she feels.”

Game Boy looks at Gretchin deeply.

“How she lived in this cycle of repetition. This…” She shakes her head. “Spiral… But she came back with a mask of optimism. A glimmer of hope. Determination-”

“Do you not remember anything?” GB interrupts her.

She hesitates briefly. “No. I’m… Aware of things but it’s like trying to recall a dream someone described to me once long ago.”

“I feel…” His voice warbles, creaks. “Beaten down. Like a dog being forced to submit… If you’re trying to throw me into this spiel about hope.”

He pauses. Letting loose a shaky breath.

“I’m not Paige, Gretchin.”

His voice breaks as he forces a tear back. Gretchin looks to him, her hand goes to touch him but she pulls it away, she looks back to the party who have now stopped and are looking at them; she thinks for a moment before placing a hand on his boot.

“You are her.” She looks up to him, placing a hand on his boot. “The same but different.”

Game Boy wipes at his face, staring at those yellow pricks of light hiding within the darkness under her hat. His eyebrows furrowed.

“You have been placed on a path, Game Boy, a straight and narrow path. You can see it through to the end or you can stray from it. It may feel like you have been beaten, that you’ve lost control. But… You still have a choice.”

She pats his boot as he nods before composing himself and letting out, “Guys!”

The party look to him.

“I need to say something.”

With a long inhale.

And a longer exhale.

He opens his mouth.

“Get movin’ ya lazy bastard!” Scoops gives a hushed shout back to Noah who yawns behind him, stumbling through the hallway following Scoops in the dim morning light.

“Why the hell are we up so early, Scoops?” He squints looking out the window. “The sun isn’t even up!”

Scoops gets to the door and opens it, a rush of cold air pushes in which makes Noah tense before turning his back to it.

“Jesus f-f-fucking Christ!” His teeth chatter as he looks back at Scoops, breathing in the air. “Are you serious?”

“Storm’s coming boah!” Scoops looks back with a smirk, “This is the last nice day we’re gonna get before we’re snowed in, we’re gonna make the most of it!”

Noah turns up his coat and hefts the gym bag over his shoulder, “Why does Paige get to sleep in?”

“She’s got an appointment or something.” Scoops steps to the side and ushers Noah to pass. “Now, quit whining and move your ass!”

“Ugh… Fine!” Noah forces his feet forward. “Least it’ll be warm in the car.”

“Car!?” Scoops scoffs, tilting his head back with a rasped laugh before closing the door behind him. “We’re runnin’, son!”

The door slams shut to a muffled “Wha!?” and the room is almost quiet.

The wind runs through the house, beating at the windows.

Howling down the chimney.

The clock ticks, the pipes creak.

And the sun slowly rises. Higher and higher.

Until the house fills with sunlight and the wind finally stops knocking.

With a long yawn and a big stretch Game Girl enters the living room. Lifting her t-shirt with a hand scratching her side, she smacks her lips looking around with half-closed eyes.

“Scoops!?” She calls out, groggily hobbling into the kitchen, “Noah!?”

She hobbles over to the fridge and looks at the note taped on the door.

“Took Noah out, back later?” She reads with a head tilt. “Why wasn’t I invited!”

With a huff she stomps over to the front door and opens it, the cold air belts her a-”Nope!” She immediately slams the door and heads back to the kitchen, her teeth chatter as she warms her shoulders, searching drawers she grabs some firelighters and heads over to start the fire in the wood burner.

Pushing in kindling and coal she puts her metal arm inside and begins clicking her fingers until a spark ignites and a blaze starts.

She kneels there for a moment with a smirk and looks around the house before spluttering her lips. “Welp… Might as well do some chores.”

Time passes as GG washes the dishes, scrubs the floors, folds clothes, et cetera until the sun lowers and lowers, the light of the fire illuminating the room from the fireplace. Paige sits down on the couch and pats the cushions beside her, her feet kicking off the edge.

She gives a tired sigh and looks at the clock on the wall.

“7pm!?” She groans, throwing her head back, “I’m sooooo boooooreed!!! Is this what humans do? WHY!? This blows!”

Her head drops and her brow falls as she looks at the TV, she reaches for the remote and flicks around to other channels. Until an old western movie catches her eye.

She sits there for a moment before her stomach rumbles and she hops off the couch into the kitchen, checking the fridge and cupboards she grabs a steak and a few potatoes cradling them in her arms, her eyes go to the oven and grill with a raised eyebrow.

She heads over and examines the contraption in front of her. The dials and numbers being more or less eldritch to her. With a huff of air from her nostrils she looks back to the fireplace. Grabbing a large iron pot and filling it with water she places it on top of the wood burner letting it simmer and bubble before opening the latch door and holds the steak over the coals with a spatula.

She sits there idly watching the movie behind her. After some time and desecrating a perfectly good steak she returns to the couch and eats heartily of the half-boiled potatoes with skin and a charred slab once resembling meat.

“Good eats.” A muffled compliment comes from her mouth as she digs in her eyes focused on the television. The movie unfolding in front of her.

After she finishes her food and the credits roll, the orchestral music blaring as names scroll. Paige is enthralled and jumps off the couch.

“That was amazing!” She hollers before breaking into a laugh, “I wish I was a cowboy, that looked so cool!”

She grabs the remote and twirls it in her hand, setting it to her hip as she backs away in a circle with a squint, grinding her teeth. Her eyes flick between the coat rack near the door and a deer’s head mounted over the fireplace. She gives a smirk.

“Listen up, ya yellow-bellied sons of guns!” She lets out in an odd accent, almost resembling Scoops. “This town ain’t big enough for the both- … The THREE of us!”

Her fingers rhythmically tap the back of the remote as she thinks.

“Jenny!” She addresses the deer head, “Ya no-good coward! You’d tried dodging me for a rematch but fate brought you back to me no matter what! I rubbed dirt in your eye and I’ll do it again.”

Paige snaps her head to the coat rack.

“And Deena, when I refereed your match against Myst & Director I thought making sure the rules were kept would be the catalyst to you pulling out the win, but all you did was cement yourself as a failure. It’s a sad thing, wasted potential. You ooze it, but it’s blanketed by a generic mediocrity that suffocates any talent hidden deep within ya.”

A hat falls from the coat rack in response.

“So I says to you!”

GG scrunches up her face as we zoom to her eyes, then to the deer head, then the coat rack and finally back to her.


“DRAW!!”


Paige whips out the remote with lightning speed and hits a button. The orchestral music replaced with a woman moaning and a… Non-PG scene playing out in front of her.

Her eyes widen with a gasp as she looks at the TV before juggling the remote in her hands and clicks the TV off as her face flushes red. She stands there awkward for a second before burying the remote in between the couch cushions, like trying to hide the evidence.

A shaky breath comes from her as she twiddles her thumbs and looks back to the clock then she glances to the night sky outside, the wind picking back up and tackling the glass windows.

She stays there for a time. In the dark, the dying light of coals touching her as huge gusts of wind and snow rattle the house.

Before she sighs and heads towards the bathroom.

The water from the shower beats down on the porcelain. The room is humid and warm, steam fills the air and lays a thick layer of condensation on the mirror. Game Girl's robotic arm lays on the counter next to the sink, beads of water slipping down the ridges of purpled metal.

The shower stops, drips drop as the glass door opens with a wobbly clunk and Paige heads over to the mirror in a towel. She wipes the fog from the glass and looks at herself. First her eyes flick to the drenched blue hair that she pushes from her face to look at her eyes. Big, round with a glint of sadness. Then to her left arm, a messy stump ending above the elbow with a ragged scar and the other carved into her chest with an identical one on her back.

She drops her towel and steps back looking at the rest of her body.

An untextured and unmodeled clump of skin moulded into the shape of a woman.

Her pupils flick up and down at herself, the frown on her face that she chews into a side smirk which doesn't last as she gives a heavy sigh and grabs her metal arm, reattaching it with a wince of pain before grabbing one of Scoops' clean t-shirts and covering her body. The shirt swallows her, loose and baggy making her look like a toddler wearing grown-ups clothing.

Paige puts her back against the wall.

“It’s a sad thing looking in the mirror and not recognising the person looking back at you.”

Her words bounce off the tiles.

Unlike in the past, the walls don’t fall away exposing stars and the cosmos, nor a black void.

Just a simple bathroom, a warm and steamy one, where the breaths you take burn your throat. The only sound is your own voice reverberating and the drip of a leaky shower head hitting the drain over and over.

“I wanted my own life.”

“To be someone that a young version of me, if that ever existed, would be proud of.”

“To be a hero.”

“To be normal.”

“To be a cowboy, ha.”

She gives a small laugh before looking at her metal arm.

“Being some kind of Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t what I expected.”

She rotates her hand back and forth.

“But that’s life.” She sighs. “You can never plan it, you just gotta… Hope.”

She grabs a towel from beside her and dries her hair before looping it over her head and letting it rest on her shoulders.

“If you told me years ago I’d be living in someone else’s house, eating their food and doing manual labor as a form of rent, I’d ask what went wrong? But despite everything, I think I’m happier here than I’ve ever been.”

“Because I chose this in a way.”

“It wasn’t decided for me.”

Her eyes flick to the mirror.

“I know if you, Jenny, got to decide you’d avoid me forever.”

“But this wasn’t decided for any of us, this was… Cosmic. Fate of a wheel spin. You didn’t have a say, I didn’t get to choose this.”

She smiles, “But damn I wanted this!”

“I told you, I wasn’t going to stop until you’re gone and I don’t go back on a promise.”

“And now.” She chuckles, “What do you have against me?”

“Everything you said in your promo was countered, you put yourself as this returning force, this person who beat the game and could master it. It was cute! It’s the best promo you’ve ever done but it wasn’t enough was it? It didn’t raise your caliber. It didn’t help you in the match, it didn’t win you fans or support and when you let Jennie Nickles pin you, you proved everything I said right!”

“When Samael Dyson pinned you, you proved everything right!”

“And the only “win” you can cling on to is that you pulled one over on me? That you attacked me from behind with your little buddy? That you beat Deena and Latoya of all people when I said I was going to be as fair as possible?”

“What do you actually have, Jenny?”

“Honestly.”

“A group of people who tolerate your endless spiel about stuff that doesn’t matter as you go around in circles, going into a spiral of hypocritical, moronic nonsense as a coping mechanism to lie to yourself that you’re something that matters.”

“When you challenged Hixx, you did something that so many with crushed egos do after they lose and had to walk away with their tail in between their legs, you went after a rookie for an easy win. You, this person who “beat the game,” punched down because you got your butt kicked by me, you got embarrassed by me and your high-level meta play amounted to nothing because you lost the title to someone else anyway.”

“On your return you have been what? Two-time? Three-time? Xtreme Champion with one real match against me, and a sad excuse for another match with ZERO defenses.”

“That’s pathetic, Jenny.”

“You’ve been “active” for just over a month, lingering like a bad smell for longer and you have been stuck on square one.”

“That’s sad. Truly, honestly it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen.”

“And I’ve lived my life, dude!”

She breathes a laugh and shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Wasted potential is…” She drops her hand as she sighs, “Soul crushing.”

“It’s why the Hixxes burns me. They have the potential to be great but they do the same thing over and over, stuck in their cycle and lose every time because of it. But I respect them for trying! Almost every show you’re gonna see at least one of them! I love that about them! They try, they truly do.”

“And you fall below them, Jenny! You STOPPED trying! You want to be this person who irks people by being the definition of irritation.”

“You think you’re still gaming the system.”

“But you’re doing nothing!”

“You’re still stagnant.”

“You’re still an egomaniac.”

“You’re still a cancer.”

“And you’re still here.”

“Part of me respects that in a small way. Despite everything you planned going down the drain, you’re still here. You came back to a place you apparently hate, proved you’re still as mediocre as you’ve always been, proved that everyone was right about you when they laughed at you, mocked you, looked down on you.”

“You’re still here.”

There’s a pause.

“Why?”

“So you can fail at winning a crown again?”

“So you can lose to me again?”

“So you can mess up like it’s coded into you again and again?”

“Last time we faced, I quoted Vaas, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I said that’s not insanity, that’s hope. And I truly believe that, I really do.”

“What do you hope to achieve, Jenny?”

“Prove that you’re not a snivelling wretch of a human? To finally be recognized for once? World domination?”

“You can try again.”

“You can hope for change.”

“But it ain’t coming.”

“Because I’m going to be there every step of the way blocking your path and sending you crashing back down.”

“There’s three House of Hardcore members in this tournament, one of us is going to win the whole thing, you can bet on that because we all want similar things, we want to actually change this place for the better. We don’t want a manchild with a private army holding power, we don’t want money hungry sociopaths being in charge and literally nobody wants you or your kind here.”

“Speaking of your kind.”

“There’s three of us in the tournament, Jenny… Do you even know who is on your side?”

“Because I think you’re such a self-indulgent worm who's too busy sticking their head up their own butt to even notice.”

The drip from the shower finally stops as Paige goes to exit.

“To me, this is just another chance to beat you.”

“Make sure this time you actually try for once, because this could be the biggest moment of your life.”

“The time when you can finally say - I killed Game Girl. . .”

He sniffs up, expecting the shocked glances and the gasp from Princess.

He didn't expect the silence that came after.

The heavy, long silence.

Air so thick you could drown in it.

“I was a coward…” He wipes his nose. “I wanted something that never belonged to me-”

“I was…” He pauses, his brow tightens. “But I was a coward!”

He looks away from the group, shouting up the sky. “I’m a mons-”

 no

“I was…”

He breathes heavily looking down at the earth.

“Please... “ He looks back to the sky. “Please stop, I… I don’t want to keep doing this-”


again…


and          a    gaain

and           a     gaain