Bill turned up the TV at her request. “You care about this fight, Carmen?”

Carmen nodded. “Ren and Minato are both Shotos with the same moveset, since they were trained at the same school by the same master. Their fights always end in a draw, but Minato’s been on a training retreat for a year, and he’s ready to take his lifelong rival down. The stakes are why they both agreed to only have one round.”

Bill nodded. “Oh! This’ll be a good fight. I’m betting Minato’s gonna win this one.”

His friend scoffed. “Are you kidding? She said they always tie. This one’s gonna be no different.”

“Are you betting on it?”

Meanwhile, Daniel stared with knit eyebrows. “Um…C-Carmen?”

Carmen tilted her head, acknowledging him with steady eye contact.

Daniel cleared his throat, hoping his cheeks were still brown instead of blushing red. “I’m not from here. What’s a Shoto?”

“It’s the archetype for Fighters whose build and movesets are well-rounded. They’re good at adapting and using whatever strategy they need to, but their biggest weakness is usually their lack of a specific strength.”

The confusion on his face must've been obvious.

Carmen continued. “Like, you know how Zoners are good at range? Or how Rushdowns are good at speed and fighting up close, and Grapplers dominate up close with grabs?”

“Uh…no?”

Mrs. Garcia chuckled. “Mija, our patron here’s a foreigner. He didn’t even know what a Fighter was.”

Carmen’s jaw fell. “How? You don’t know anything? What do you do all day?”

Clearing his throat, Mr. Garcia returned from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. “Everyone doesn’t study them all day like you, you know.”

“They’re starting!” Bill said, whooping in excitement.

On the screen, Ren and Minato stepped closer to each other. Minato tightened his headband. “This is the last time we’ll fight as equals, Ren.”

Ren laughed. “Are you that confident in yourself? Come on, then — let’s do this one round. Prove your training. I won’t hold back!”

At that moment, a referee appeared behind them, floating above the water, his skin and clothes all glowing blue. Ren and Minato entered identical fighting poses, and words appeared on the screen as the referee counted down.

“Ren VS. Minato. Single round! Ready? Fight!”

Ren and Minato kicked into action, crouching before lunging forward. Blue energy gathered in their palms, and their fireballs collided in the middle of the screen. They both leaped toward each other, and Ren’s kick clashed against Minato’s punch.

They touched the ground. Minato blocked his flurry of kicks and punches as Ren let loose, but the moment he paused, Minato struck him with a low kick, beginning his own combo.

The fact that it was all real blew Daniel’s mind.

That wasn’t a character programmed to be affected by hitstun; that was, apparently, a real person paralyzed and stunned after every attack. They weren’t players hitting buttons on a controller; Minato was really crouching and lunging forward to shoot a fireball.

Their bars at the top of the screen steadily decreased as the minute-long match went on. Minato held a strong lead, but Ren struck him with an uppercut as soon as he tried to jump in and attack, opening him up for an aerial combo. A string of punches left Minato sprawling on the ground, his health an inch away from being empty.

As Minato scrambled to his feet, Ren landed and repeated his motion of crouching and lunging forward three times. The number next to the bar at the bottom left corner of the screen decreased from a one to a zero. Blue fire gathered in his palms, intensifying to a blazing red. He shot another fireball, but this one was bigger — more intense — and raged across the screen.

Minato recovered just in time. When he put his arms up to block, a blue field appeared in front of him. He emerged from the blaze unscathed while his rival was still in the motion of recovering from his powerful attack.

“Tornado Kick!” Minato shouted.

He kicked as he spun through the air, carried across the bridge in a flash by a strange and sudden wind. Three kicks reduced Ren’s health bar to a sliver of yellow and sent him flying away, all the way into a blue forcefield that kept him from flying off of the bridge.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

“He got him with the EX-move! Hell yeah!” Bill cheered.

Bill’s friend laughed. “See! They’re so even, he’s reading him like a book. This is gonna be a draw.”

“No. Look at the terrain.” Carmen pointed at the screen. “Minato engaged Ren on a bridge like this on purpose. He has the high ground, and Ren can’t move side to side to escape him.”

“Can they normally move side to side, or are they stuck like this?” Daniel asked.

“No, they can move however they want. The camera just adjusts for us to keep it like this.”

“There’s a cameraman?”

She shook her head, eyeing him. “It’s…invisible.”

Daniel licked his lips, stifling another “What?”. How could she say that like an invisible cameraman and a floating referee were normal?

The minute-long fight ticked down to the last ten seconds. Ren leaped into the air, aiming for another jump-in attack. Daniel waited for Minato’s uppercut to come — Ren saw it coming too and put up his block. But, the uppercut never came. As Ren landed and stood there blocking, Minato seized his arms and tossed him over the railing.

Ren plunged into the water.

“K.O.!” the referee shouted as droplets of water sprayed the apparently invisible camera.

“Yeah!” Daniel cheered, leaping from his stool.

Bill shot upwards, too, and whooped loudly. “I told you! I told you! Gimme those fifty dollars!”

Bill’s friend angrily tossed the fifty-dollar bill at him. “Man, shut up. You didn’t even know who they were before she told you!”

Daniel sat back down in front of his empty plate and the remains of his decimated salad. If fights like these were on every channel, this dream had an awesome form of entertainment!

But that salad actually filled you up.

He stared at his plate as the realization dawned on him. The small details had built up like grains of sand — the salad had truly filled him up, the time on the clock matched the time on the TV, and he could even taste the humidity of the air outside. He tried pinching himself, but that didn’t work either, and it left his skin sore.

Dreams had their telltale signs and oddities, but this was missing all of them. Was this the real world, now? What happened to his world?

As Mrs. Garcia took his empty plate away, he shook the thoughts away. Keep the act going, for now. Foreigner from another land. Right.

“Thank you,” he said. “The salad was pretty good.”

“Was that the first fight you’ve ever seen?” Carmen asked, adjusting her glasses.

“Uh…” Carmen looked even better with glasses. Daniel averted his gaze and cleared his throat. “Yes. Yeah, actually. That was crazy! And you’re telling me that’s not a game at all?”

“Of course not,” Carmen said. “There’s a Fighting Center a block away where you can go watch Fights in person.”

Daniel gasped. “In person? Can you show me?”

He must’ve said the magic word. Carmen’s eyes lit up, and she looked at her mom. “Mom, can I take him to go see?”

“Wait just a minute,” Mr. Garcia cut in. “I don’t know your name, kid, but you can’t just come in here in the middle of the night and ask my daughter to go somewhere with you.”

Daniel’s heart plunged in his chest as Mr. Garcia stepped out from behind the bar counter, a wide, menacing frame.

“Where’d you say you were from, again? Do you have any ID?”

Daniel gulped as the words faltered on his tongue in the face of Mr. Garcia’s furrowed brow. “I, uh—oh, I think I have something.” He scrambled for his wallet, grabbing the only two pieces of ID he had.

Mr. Garcia took his learner’s permit and his school ID, studying the both of them. “Permit looks official, but…mi carino, have you heard of Chicago, Illinois?”

Mrs. Garcia shrugged. “Must be a small town.”

His eyes flickered to the school ID, and for once, Daniel saw his gruff exterior break with a small cackle. Daniel sighed. “I had a little wardrobe malfunction that day. The bad camera makes it look worse than it really was.”

Mr. Garcia nodded. “At least you aren’t lying about being under eighteen. Carmen, are you done with your homework?”

“Yes, papa. And I cleaned my room, and the bathroom, too. Can we please go?”

He chuckled, a deep rumble. “At least you’re asking instead of sneaking out there. I’ll come with, but we aren’t staying for long. Go ahead and get ready.”

“Thank you!” She pumped her fist and darted up the stairs.

Daniel chuckled. “She seems a little excited.” The Carmen he knew back home was talkative, sure, but never this enthusiastic about a specific topic.

“A little? You haven’t seen the worst of it. I’ll finish up in the kitchen, but you stay here until we come,” he said, leveling a finger at Daniel.

As Mr. Garcia disappeared into the kitchen, Mrs. Garcia went back to wiping the bar counter. Daniel sat there, glancing at the white line on his wrist. What kind of world was this for no one to have heard of Chicago?

He swiped his menu open, and pressed the button floating in the air to open his map. A new screen appeared, showing a top down view of the area, with different restaurants and buildings of interest highlighted. A typical city, but the name was something completely unfamiliar — South City, Crestwood.

A moment later, Carmen returned, descending the stairs with a small white purse bouncing at her side. Mr. Garcia came back from the kitchen, too, apparently having left his apron behind in favor of the bright yellow shirt he wore underneath.

“What’s your name, again?” Carmen asked.

“Daniel Chase.”

Carmen nodded. “Alright, Daniel. I’m ready, papa.”

Mr. Garcia gestured for the door. “Lead the way, mija.”