Simon Williams briefly noticed my presence, but he quickly turned away to focus on doing his duty and being on time for the Top Eight of the fighting game Super-Major. I quickly turned my attention to my future self, who I could only know as Cap for now. Unlike Adam, he declined to wear glasses and had grown a short goatee, keeping himself in decent enough shape so that he didn’t even have a visible potbelly. Upon closer inspection of the station where the players competed at, it showed that they were competing in Guilty Gear, which I vaguely recognized as a popular anime fighter.

“Ninth place at Frosty is amazing,” one of Cap’s friends said. “You ended up being the highest-placing May.” From what I recall, super-majors consisted of around one thousand players, so if my future self had really managed ninth, it was incredibly impressive.

“It was just bracket luck in winners and even some in losers,” Cap tried to shake off the praise. “I still can’t believe Snowlock thrashed me that hard. Here I thought I saw enough of Giovanna’s frametraps, but I fuzzy jumped like my usual dumb self.” Cap shook his head and looked around the station until his eyes quickly fell upon me. “I’ll catch up with you guys when Top Eight starts. I gotta take a leak and grab a bite.” His friends surprisingly agreed, and he quickly sent a few texts on his phone before walking over to me.

“So,” I said to Cap. “Any payout?”

“Abyss, wasn’t it?” Cap led me out of the busy auditorium and into the quieter halls near the bathroom. “Suddenly launched into the future on your hero quest?”

“I don’t get it either,” I quickly admitted. “I’m not too sure if you remember that much about your hero days yourself. If you need me to, I’ll explain from the top.”

“I remember quite a bit,” Cap said. “My memory just gets fuzzy in certain areas. My…our first quest was to seal the God of Fire, and that archer girl, Diana, tagged along with us. And also Inder and her half-brother Altis…”

“Latis,” I corrected.

“Ah, it was Latis.” Cap scratched his head. “After that, the memory gets fuzzy. But I think I recovered decently well after my hero days. I don’t think I’ll be able to make ninth again at a major this stacked, though. And if you’re serious about the question, only Top Eight gets a payout. The two seventh places only get a couple hundred bucks, which isn’t even enough to pay for the flight here.”

“You flew all the way across the country to play video games?” I asked. My parents didn’t even usually take me to many places over the summer.

“Sure thing,” Cap said. “Most of these other gamers aren’t locals either. I didn’t really get into Two-D fighters until a few years ago, but they really grew on me. We can try if you want…”

“I just got here,” I said. I explained everything after I’d fought the Process-saurus, from warping to Dorothy’s past to witnessing Adam’s mediocre life with Sharona and even the weird octopus dreams. “This isn’t quite the timeline I need either, apparently. But…”

“Hmm,” Cap said. “Maybe I’m not really you. My real name was never Adam. It’s Arnold, but you wouldn’t know since you’re just Abyss, right?”

A couple of cosplayers walked out of the bathroom, and I could easily tell that one of them was a cross-dressing man. That sort of stuff wasn’t too uncommon, and the furry cosplayers even acted like animals sometimes.

“Well then, Arnold,” I said. “I can’t say I’ve never dreamt of being a pro gamer, and it’s probably better than getting dumped by Sharona. But it feels like you abandoned your hero duties. Maybe you can’t be a scientist who cures cancer, but I doubt this is the best timeline…”

Arnold shrugged. “You’re still in eighth grade at this point, right? When you care too much about whether or not something’s cool or uncool and all. There’s always going to be some stigma to cross-dressing and competitive gaming, but it’s the best life for many of us.”

“Best life…” I began. “Mashing buttons and controlling a teenage girl in a hoodie and bike shorts is…”

“Oh, May’s a grown-ass woman, well into her twenties at this point. They just retained her features from the earlier games.” Arnold was defending his character choice. “There should be some stations open for casuals so we can run a set. You should take a break after fighting that alien, right?”

“Well…where are we exactly?” I asked. “Maybe I do need to go somewhere immediately…”

“Chicago, Illinois, at the annual Frosty Faustings tournament,” Arnold replied. “They’ve got a lot of different fighting games and usually over four thousand total participants. This is my second time going, and my first time, I got one hundred and twenty-nine out of a thousand, which was decent but not great. I really didn’t expect to go this far given the balance of the current patch…”

“Hmm,” I replied. “Alright then, let’s see what my future self’s got.”

Arnold only spent a few games playing May after teaching me the basic controls, showing me that he knew the game in and out, even for the characters he hardly touched. The cast was as predictable as ever for an anime fighter, with impractical, stylish clothing and weaponry to aid muscular men and curvy women. May and Bridget were Arnold, or rather, Cap’s, two favorite characters, and both sported bike shorts to show off their slender legs, their petite figures standing out amongst the other sexier females. I could hardly get the hang of closing in the distance and chaining combos with the fiery Sol Badguy, despite Arnold telling me that he was very simple to use.