Chapter 9: The First Tournament
"This bracket system is fundamentally flawed."
Sheldon is holding my hand-drawn tournament chart like it's a dead fish. We're forty minutes from the first Super Smash Bros tournament my shop has ever hosted and he's already found problems.
"What's wrong with it?" I'm setting up the TV and GameCube in the corner, cables everywhere.
"You've seeded participants randomly rather than by skill level. This creates statistical anomalies where superior players may be eliminated early through chance pairing rather than performance inadequacy."
"Sheldon, nobody submitted skill ratings. How was I supposed to seed them?"
"Preliminary qualifying rounds. Obviously."
Leonard is arranging folding chairs we borrowed from the library next door. "Sheldon, there are twenty people coming. Prelims would take forever."
"Three hours and forty-seven minutes using optimal rotation scheduling."
"The tournament is scheduled for four hours total," I point out.
Howard wheels in another TV on a cart. "Dude, let it go. Random brackets are fine. It's not the Olympics."
"Competitive integrity matters regardless of scale."
I'm about to argue when the first participants start arriving. College kids mostly, plus a few older collectors I recognize from Wednesdays. They're all eyeing the prize table—comic packages I assembled, including some valuable back issues and a few signed copies I traded for at the last convention.
Twenty people confirmed. Fifty dollar entry fee each. That's a thousand dollars, minus prizes and expenses. If this works, it could become a monthly thing.
Please let this work.
"Stuart." Sheldon appears at my elbow with a completely redesigned bracket. "I've corrected your system. Double elimination format with skill-agnostic seeding that statistically equalizes bracket difficulty."
The chart is color-coded. There are annotations. He's assigned everyone numbers.
"When did you have time to do this?"
"During your cable management phase. Your original system would have produced a seventy-three percent probability of bracket imbalance favoring the upper left quadrant."
I look at Leonard, who just shrugs. "It's probably better than yours."
"Fine. Thanks, Sheldon."
He nods, satisfied, and goes to tape his bracket to the wall like it's the Dead Sea Scrolls.
By match four, controlled chaos has descended.
Sheldon got himself disqualified from his first match by citing frame data mid-game. "Marth's forward smash has nineteen frames of startup, therefore your defensive strategy is mathematically—"
"Dude, shut up!" His opponent—a guy named Marcus with impressive neck tattoos—is actually yelling. "You can't coach during matches!"
"I'm not coaching, I'm stating observable facts—"
"That's coaching!"
I intervene, pulling Sheldon aside. "Hey. No frame data talk during active matches."
"But—"
"House rules. Those are the house rules."
"You didn't specify—"
"I'm specifying now."
He looks genuinely hurt. Leonard takes him to get a soda while Marcus advances to the next round by forfeit.
Howard, meanwhile, has positioned himself near the sign-in table where three women are waiting for their matches. I catch fragments of his attempts at conversation:
"So you're into competitive gaming? That's hot."
"I also do speedruns. Maybe I could show you my times sometime."
"Your tag is 'PixelKnight'? That's cool. Mine's 'RocketMan69.'"
One of the women—short, purple hair, wearing a Metroid hoodie—looks at him flatly. "Did you actually just say that?"
"Say what?"
"'RocketMan69.'"
"It's ironic!"
"It's really not."
Raj is having the time of his life. I've never seen him this animated. He's trash-talking freely—"Your recovery game is weaker than my grandmother's chai!"—winning matches through aggression and surprisingly solid technical skill. No alcohol needed. Just pure competitive adrenaline.
"Stuart!" He grabs my arm between matches. "This is incredible! Why don't we do this every week?"
"Because we'd all lose our minds."
"Yes! Exactly!"
Leonard actually makes it to finals, facing off against a quiet guy named David who plays Fox with surgical precision. The whole shop crowds around the screen. People are cheering. Someone starts a chant. The energy is electric.
I'm refereeing, managing sales between matches, and keeping a running tally of merchandise moved. A lot of people are buying while they wait—impulse purchases driven by the excited atmosphere. The Walking Dead trades are flying off the shelf. Even sold two of my last Iron Fist comics to a latecomer who "heard this shop has good rare stuff."
Leonard loses in finals but takes it well. David wins the first-place comic package—including a signed Walking Dead #1 I've been saving—and everyone applauds.
As people filter out, several stop to ask about the next tournament.
"Are you doing this monthly?"
"Can we pre-register?"
"What about other games? Mario Kart? Halo?"
I'm saying yes to everything, writing down names, building a mailing list on the fly. By the time the last person leaves, I've got seventeen signups for January's tournament and forty-three new names for my customer list.
The shop is trashed. Chairs everywhere. Empty soda cans. Someone's forgotten hoodie. But the register shows $1,347 in total revenue—entry fees plus impulse purchases.
Holy shit. This worked.
"That was statistically improbable success," Sheldon says, helping Leonard fold chairs. "Given the organizational chaos, the outcome should have been negative."
"But it wasn't chaos," Howard argues, surprisingly helpful with cleanup. "It was fun chaos. There's a difference."
"Fun is not a quantifiable variable."
"Sure it is. Fun equals people wanting to come back. People came back. Therefore, fun."
Raj is still buzzing, practically dancing while he stacks cups. "We should make this a monthly tradition. Like Wednesday nights but competitive. 'Tournament Saturdays.'"
"'Tournament Saturdays' has alliteration," Sheldon notes. "Statistically, alliterative event names increase attendance by fifteen percent."
"Then Tournament Saturdays it is." I'm grinning like an idiot, surveying the wreckage of my first successful event.
Leonard claps me on the shoulder. "You did good, man. This was really cool."
"Thanks for helping set up."
"Of course. You're part of the group now. We help each other."
Part of the group.
Three months ago I was alone and failing. Now I have friends who show up to help with tournaments. Who correct my bracket systems and manage chaos and celebrate success.
The Attractiveness power promised incremental improvements from genuine wins. This was a win. And standing here, exhausted and happy with my trashed shop and my ridiculous friends—
I feel it. That subtle shift. Confidence settling deeper. Social ease coming more naturally. Like leveling up in a game I didn't know I was playing.
We finish cleanup around midnight. Everyone's exhausted but satisfied. As they leave, Sheldon pauses at the door.
"Stuart. I've concluded that your organizational deficits are compensated for by your ability to create positive communal experiences. This is an acceptable trade-off."
From Sheldon, that's basically a love letter.
"Thanks, buddy."
After they're gone, I lock up and stand in my empty, clean-ish shop. The tournament bracket is still taped to the wall—Sheldon's color-coded masterpiece. The prize table is bare. The register is full.
My first event. My first real proof that this shop can be more than just retail.
And nobody had to know that my "organizational instincts" came from supernatural powers absorbed in the void between life and death.
They just had to know I threw a damn good tournament.
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