On the other side of the bar counter, Mrs. Garcia crossed her arms. “You’re going to become a Fighter?” she said, her eyebrows raised quizzically.

Daniel nodded. He poked at the plate of scrambled eggs, taking another bite. “I came here from Boslovania to become a Fighter.”

“I thought you woke up in that Fighter Park after a ride on the bus and couldn’t remember anything.”

“Yeah, they started to come back to me. I wasn’t on a bus to school. I was heading to the airport.” Daniel said, chuckling. That was part of the background story he and Carmen came up with on the way back.

“Oh, okay! Then, how’d you end up in the Fighter Park?”

“I…don’t remember that yet.” He leaned further into the act and bunched his eyebrows. In case any unexpected questions came up, he could use his lack of memory as a scapegoat. That was Carmen’s idea.

“I see. Well, I can’t stop you, but as the adult, I think you’re a little too young to do that.” Mrs. Garcia shook her head.

“Why?”

“Because—” She paused and gestured at the air as if trying to find the right words. “Fighters get hurt a lot, Daniel.”

“I think I could handle it. The ref heals people after the fight, right?”

“The loser, yes. But, if you break every bone in your body and just barely manage to win, you’re not getting those wounds healed quickly. You live with having to use a wheelchair for the rest of your life. My grandfather had to.”

Daniel’s jaw fell. “What?”

Mrs. Garcia nodded. “He barely got into the Ultimate Versus as the 50th ranked Fighter. In his first match, Maximum Sax crippled both of his legs. He still won only using his arms, but afterward? The doctors said the muscles and tendons were beyond repair.”

“Ah, shoot. I’m so sorry to hear about that,” Daniel said.

“It’s fine. He lived his days happily anyway, but I learned the lesson, too.” She sighed, quieting her tone. “Every time Carmen speaks about wanting to become a Fighter, I remember my grandfather being carried half-dead out of the arena.”

Mr. Garcia and Carmen watched a sitcom on TV, eating their breakfast at one of the tables. Daniel looked over his shoulder. Carmen met his eyes, returning a heavy, knowing glare. He could tell she heard Mrs. Garcia’s whispering over the TV, and she knew it was the story she’d heard a million times before.

“But!” Mrs. Garcia clapped. “I’m hopeful things will go better for you, Daniel.”

“Me too,” Mr. Garcia said from the table. “If you need a place to stay, we wouldn’t mind letting you keep the guest bedroom. Right, Carmen?”

Carmen nodded. “Daniel can stay. He’s fine.”

“Oh, he’s fine?”

Carmen perked up, her brown cheeks flushing. “No, wait, I didn’t—”

“Ha! I’m just messing with ya!” Mr. Garcia let out a hearty laugh, patting her shoulder. “When are you going, kid?”

Daniel finished the last of his scrambled eggs and pushed the plate forward. “Now, actually! Can Carmen come with me? I might need some help while I’m there.”

He caught the disapproving glance between Mr. and Mrs. Garcia — Carmen told him it would come. The first step of her plan was for him to ask them if she could come along as a guide, to test the waters.

They both knew the answer that would follow. Mr. Garcia shook his head slowly first, and Mrs. Garcia followed. “Sorry, Daniel,” she said. “Carmen’s staying here.”

“Ah, alright. I understand. I’ll be back soon, then!” Daniel made his way to the door, a spring in his step.

“Be safe!” Mrs. Garcia called out, waving.

“I will!”

The door shut behind him with a ring. High above, the morning sky beamed down at him. The sun peeked out from just above a towering skyscraper. Daniel took a deep whiff of the city air and turned in the same direction they went when they went to the Fighting Center.

But, once he was past the bar, he turned again, down an alleyway that Carmen pointed out on their way back last night. Down the alleyway, another turn, a decent walk, and he was at the back door of the bar. Farther around the corner, at the side of the bar, bags of trash sat suspiciously piled underneath a high window.

Daniel leaned against the wall and opened his phone, scrolling through old saved memes in his camera roll. A few minutes later, the window opened. Carmen crawled through the narrow opening, landing on the trash bags of pillows and using them as a stool to quietly close the window.

“There,” she said, dusting herself off and adjusting the purse at her side. “As far as my parents know, I’m in my room having a movie marathon.”

“You sure they won’t come in?”

“A hundred percent. They’ll probably be busy with the lunch rush.”

“Nice! After you, Mrs. Garcia.” Daniel put on a fake butler accent and gestured back down the alleyway.

Carmen put on the same act. “Mr. Chase, I believe it would be better for you to go first. I insist.”

Daniel bowed. “Thank you, Alfred. You guys have Alfred in this world, right?”

“Alfred?”

“Yeah. Batman’s butler.”

“Batman?”

He knit his eyebrows. “Rich guy. Parents died when he was younger. Fights crime dressed as a bat.”

“Oh! Do you mean Dogman and his butler, Johnny?”

Daniel facepalmed. “At least tell me you have Iron Man.”

“Do you mean the Tungsten Gentleman?”

The game of naming his favorite superheroes and hearing this world’s alternative continued all the way to the Fighting Center. With every named hero, his faith in this world and its comics deteriorated, until there was almost none left.

“I don’t understand,” Carmen said as they strolled into the Fighting Center’s parking lot. “Your world’s heroes sound weird, too. Do you guys not have the Enigmatic Eight?”

“Are you kidding?” Daniel cackled, wiping the tears of laughter from his eyes. “We have the Fantastic Four.”

“What about Khaki Brown?”

“You mean Jean Gray?” He shook his head. “I don’t know how I’m gonna last in this world when the heroes have such dumb names.”

“Dumb? Alright, Mr. ‘Justice League’. That’s a corny name.”

“Yeah, I guess you win on that one. The Liberty Legion sounds way cooler.”

The double doors into the Fighting Center opened as they walked through. Last time, they went to the left and followed the spectators to the audience seats. This time, they went to the right side, following a man in a suit with a flowing red cape behind him. They walked until the hallway branched into two different directions — one for Fighters, and one for people coming to become Fighters.

The woman at the door greeted them with a smile. “Hi! Are you two here to become Fighters?”

“Yes,” Carmen answered.

“Great, but you’ll need your parents' permission.” The woman looked at the man waiting behind them in line. “Is he your father?”

“No, but I have written permission from mine. They were too busy to come with me.” Carmen took a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to the woman.

A forged signature. Daniel could never.

The woman studied it for a moment and nodded. “Checks out! What about you?”

“Oh, my parents are dead,” Daniel replied flatly. Carmen jabbed Daniel with her elbow. As the woman gasped, Daniel chuckled. “Kidding! No, I’m with her. Her parents have custody over me. Mine are dead.”

The woman knit her eyebrows. “Okay…well, all of our slots are taken right now, but I’m sure someone will be done in a moment. If you’ll just wait here.” The woman gestured to a set of chairs against the wall, beside the door.

“Thanks. How long will we be here?”

The woman glanced into the room and waved a hand. “A few minutes. It doesn’t take long for us. Time dilation and all that.”

Time dilation? Daniel winced. It sounded crazy, but he kept silent and followed Carmen to the gestured seats. “Looks like we got some time to kill. You got games on your phone?”

Carmen brought her phone out quickly. “I knew you’d ask! Do you guys not have mobile games in your world?”

“Of course! We aren’t that weird. No, the only game I have is multiplayer. I don’t have a cross-dimensional signal here.”

Carmen exhaled heavily from her nose. “Well, there’s this one game I’ve started playing…”

Daniel easily beat Carmen, winning three games in a row compared to her simple one. More people arrived to become Fighters and got seated in the same waiting area. Just when he won the fourth match, the woman returned and called Daniel in first.

The room itself was a decent-sized gym, like two large classrooms combined and with rows of empty fold-out tables scattered throughout. As she walked him to a table in the back corner, Daniel scanned the room, confused. Why were they waiting so long if the tables were empty?

He got his answer quickly. A second later, an athletic man flashed into existence at a table on the other side of the room, panting, sweat on his brow.

“The proctor will be here to help you out in a second,” the woman said with a smile.

“Uh…thank you,” Daniel said before she returned to the door.

From this far away, he faintly caught the conversation between the athletic man who just blinked into existence and the fancily dressed worker man who approached him.

“Did it go well?” the proctor asked.

The athletic man stared at his hands. “I can do so much now. Oh my God…”

“I’ll take that as a yes! The gym is across the hall. Please be careful not to fire off any of your abilities until you enter a training sim. Have a good day.”

With a nod, he led the athletic man out. Soon after, the woman from before sat Carmen at that same table. Daniel waved at her from across the room and returned to twiddling his thumbs, curbing his nervousness. Every moment here was another second of unfamiliarity. It had the same atmosphere as taking tests back home, but it felt different. Where did that man go? The woman from before mentioned time dilation, and that man came back pretty winded. Was that where all the other people at the other empty tables were at?

What was about to happen here?

The proctor sat down in front of him. “Hello,” the proctor greeted, speaking with a slight British accent. “May I have your name?”

“Daniel. Daniel Chase.”

The proctor nodded and swiped his wrist menu open. A few white circles appeared in the air, and when he pressed one, it expanded into a large white rectangle. “May I have your ID?” he said.

“Uh…”

Daniel swiped open his wrist menu, hoping he didn’t look as lost as he was. Settings, Friends, Messages, Map…he tapped the Self button. The menu expanded to a screen that showed a standing avatar of himself, with small boxes next to his pockets that showed everything he carried and stat numbers on the other side. Right now, all he had there was a health bar, a hunger bar, and a stamina bar — all full, luckily.

Below that, he spotted the button labeled ID. Daniel pressed it, but his finger sunk through the button. He reached in with his full hand and plucked out a thin plastic card with an unintelligible string of letters and numbers on it.

“This?” he asked.

“Yes, Daniel, that ID,” the proctor chuckled. Daniel handed it over, and the proctor inserted it into the menu he had open, pressing a few buttons afterward. “Alright. The test is open. You should see a new option in your menu.”

Above the Friends icon, an exclamation mark button floated, pulsing with an urgent yellow instead of the normal white. Daniel pressed it. His Self menu closed, and a dialogue box opened.

“BEGIN FIGHTER INITIATION EXAM?” it read, with buttons to either confirm or deny below.

The proctor raised his hand. “Before you begin, it’s my job to give you a bit of information. You’re about to begin a test that's run and administered by the system itself. No matter what happens or how long it takes, you’ll only be gone from here for two minutes. There’s a personality test, followed by a scenario simulation, and based on your answers and how you perform, the system will decide your stats and your abilities. Then you’ll be walked through a tutorial for each move before you return.” The proctor folded his hands in front of him. “Just answer the questions honestly, and act in whatever way feels natural. We won’t know your answers. Do you understand?”

“Sounds simple enough,” Daniel said. “I’m ready.”

“Good. Press confirm, and you may begin your test.”

Daniel took a deep breath, and pressed the checkmark button, ready to see what the system was about to put him through.

The world plunged into black.