She slamd into Phei with enough force to stagger him—arms wrapping around his neck, face buried in his chest, sobbing and laughing at the sa ti. Her whole body shook with the force of emotions she couldn’t na.
Phei caught her.
Held her—he smiled.
A real smile.
Actually happy.
Emily pulled back just enough to look at his face—saw that smile—and started crying harder.
"You did it," she sobbed. "You actually—you—"
"We did it,"Phei said.
She hugged him again.
Then more Simps, piling on. A wall of grateful, crying, laughing girls surrounding their dragon.
Landon got tackled by three Simps at once—went down laughing, arms spread wide, accepting his worship with the grace of a man who’d just helped slay a god.
Emily reluctantly broke away from Phei just long enough thank Landon too. "You idiot!" she sobbed into his shoulder. "You actually did it!"
"Call idiot again, I will tell you dad." They laughed.
Then Brian—lifted onto shoulders, actually lifted, carried around the court while he laughed and pumped his fist.
Emily found him too, grabbed his hand in a firm handshake. "Thank you," she said fiercely. "Thank you for believing."
Brian’s eyes were wet. He’d deny it later.
The stadium kept singing.
So of the Heaven Reapers had disappeared—slunk off to the locker room while no one was watching, while all eyes were on the victors. Marcus was gone. Danton was gone too... vanished like ghosts who’d finally accepted they were dead.
No one noticed.
No one cared.
Phei gathered the Simps.
It took a minute—the chaos was still swirling, the celebration still raging—but eventually he got them together. Emily, Delilah, and the core group who’d organized everything, built everything, believed in everything when believing seed insane.
They stood in a loose circle near center court, still crying, still laughing, still riding the high of impossible victory.
Phei looked at them.
And his expression shifted.
Softer. Almost... guilty.
"I owe you guys an apology," he said.
The Simps went quiet. Confused.
"The cheerleading competition." Phei’s voice was low, ant only for them. "I knew you’d lose. I suggested it specifically because I knew you’d lose."
They just smiled.
"I needed to shake the tree. Separate the real believers from the hype chasers." He t their eyes one by one. "I used your loss to filter the crowd. Made sure only the diehards would profit from the bets."
Silence.
Then Delilah laughed—wet, broken, overwheld.
"You bastard," she said, but she was smiling. "You beautiful, calculating bastard."
"I’m sorry," Phei said. "You worked so hard, and I made you lose on purpose. That wasn’t—"
Emily cut him off with another hug.
"Don’t," she whispered into his chest. "Don’t apologize. Do you know what you did for us?"
She pulled back. Held up her phone.
The betting app was still open.
The number on the screen made Phei’s eyebrows rise.
$290,000.
"That’s my win," Emily said, voice shaking. "Two hundred and ninety thousand dollars. Mine. Not my family’s. Not a trust fund. Not an allowance. Mine. Money I made because I believed in you when everyone said I was crazy."
Delilah showed her phone too. Six Zeros.
Then another Simp. And another. And another.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars to mils.
These girls—all from Downtown Paradise, all from wealthy families with trust funds and inheritances and family money that had been handed to them since birth—were looking at sothing different now.
Sothing that was theirs.
First real money they’d ever made for themselves. Not allowances. Not gifts. Not wealth they’d been born into.
Money they’d earned.
Because they’d believed when believing seed insane.
"We should be thanking you," one of the Simps said, tears still streaming. "You gave us the chance to bet big when everyone else was running scared."
"You trusted us with the plan," another added. "You let us in."
"This is ours," another Simp added, voice cracking with emotion. "We risked it. We earned it. It’s ours."
The Simps nodded. All of them. Unanimous.
Phei looked at them—these girls who’d followed him into madness, who’d built an empire out of faith and determination, who’d just beco richer than most adults would ever be because they’d trusted a charity case when trusting him made no sense.
He opened his arms.
"Bring it in you gremlins."
They piled in.
Group hug. No performance. Not for caras. Just gratitude, and relief, and the bone-deep satisfaction of having won sothing that mattered.
David materialized from the chaos, mic in hand, cara crew in tow.
His livestream was still running—viewer count in the millions now, servers struggling to keep up with the demand. He was grinning like a man who’d just won the lottery, which, given his bets, he probably had.
"Ladies and gentlen!" he shouted into the mic, voice barely audible over the celebration. "We are LIVE at the scene of the greatest upset in Paradise history! The Heaven Reapers have been DETHRONED! The charity case is now the KING!"
The crowd roared in response.
David pushed through to Landon first—found him still surrounded by Simps, face wet with tears he wasn’t even trying to hide.
"Landon! My man!" David shoved the mic in his face. "Talk to ! How does it feel?"
Landon laughed—broken, overwheld, barely holding it together.
"I don’t—I can’t—" He wiped his eyes with his jersey. "Three weeks ago, I was a bench nobody. A benchwarr. A kid who’d never start a real ga. And now—"
His voice cracked.
"Now I just helped beat the best team in the state. With three players. Against five." He laughed again, disbelieving. "I don’t know how to feel. I don’t think I’ll ever know how to feel."
He looked directly at the cara, steadying himself.
"I just want to thank everyone who believed. Everyone who showed up. Everyone who bet on us when betting on us looked like throwing money away." His voice shook. "You believed when we needed it. We won’t forget that."
David clapped him on the shoulder, then moved to Brian.
Brian was calr—still emotional, but holding it together better.
"Brian," David said. "The man who gave up his spot on the Reapers to join Phei’s team. Talk to us. What was going through your head?"
Brian took a breath.
"I want to thank the of yesterday," he said slowly. "The who stood up when Phei asked for teammates. The who walked away from the starting lineup—from everything I’d worked for—because I believed in sothing bigger."
He looked at the cara.
"Everyone told I was throwing my career away. That I’d never play for a real team again. That Phei was just a charity case who’d get destroyed." He smiled—small, fierce, proud. "They were wrong. And I’ll rember that for the rest of my life."
David nodded solemnly, then turned back to the crowd.
"You heard it here, folks! These boys risked everything! Brian gave up his spot on the starting five—the Heaven Reapers starting five—to join a team of three against the most dominant squad in Paradise history!"
He gestured at the scoreboard.
"FIFTY TO SEVENTEEN! They didn’t just win—they MORE than doubled them!"
The crowd scread.
Brian added, looking past the cara to the crowd still celebrating: "Thank you. To everyone who believed. To everyone who took the risk with us. This win belongs to you too."
David was about to continue when soone tapped his shoulder.
Emily.
She held out her hand for the mic.
David blinked—surprised—then grinned and handed it over without hesitation.
Emily stepped forward. The stadium was still celebrating—still singing, still dancing, still riding the high—but sothing about her movent drew attention.
People started quieting down. Watching. Waiting.
She raised the mic.
"HEY!"
Her voice cracked through the speakers, cutting through the noise.
The stadium settled. Twenty thousand faces turning toward the girl in the blue and white Phei Simps uniform, standing at center court like she owned it.
"First of all,"Emily said, voice steady despite the tears still drying on her cheeks, "thank you. To everyone who believed. To everyone who bet on us when the odds said we were crazy. To everyone who showed up, who cheered, who helped make this happen."
Cheers. Applause.
"Second—" Emily grinned, the expression sharp and mischievous. "There’s an after-party."
The crowd roared.
"Location will be shared in your respective class group chats! Academy students, Downtown residents, VIP guests—check your phones! We’re celebrating tonight!"
She handed the mic back to David.
The stadium exploded again—phones coming out, group chats lighting up, the promise of a party spreading like wildfire through the crowd.
David laughed into the mic.
"You heard the lady! Check your chats! The night is NOT over!"
Sowhere in the chaos, Phei stood at center court.
Still surrounded by Simps. Still being hugged, thanked, celebrated.
But for a mont—just a mont—he looked up.
Past the lights. Past the banners. Past the physical world.
The fairy hovered near the rafters, invisible to everyone but him.
She winked.
The Consort watched from her vantage point, expression finally settling back into composure—but he’d seen the surprise. He’d seen her shock.
A shocked gasp echoed through the stadium.
Then another.
Then 200,000 voices rising in confused uproar as the celebration shattered into chaos.
The gymnasium doors had burst open.
WTF are Federal agents doing here!
"EVERYBODY STAY WHERE YOU ARE!"
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