The doors of Chuck E. Cheese burst open with such force that several ancient pizza crumbs were dislodged from the ceiling. There stood Linda, her perfectly maintained Karen haircut gleaming under the flickering fluorescent lights. She held Lily by the shoulder, who was too absorbed in her Nintendo Switch to notice the gravity of the situation.
Linda hadn't changed a bit since the divorce. She still wore those designer yoga pants that probably cost more than Gerald's monthly salary, and that "Live, Laugh, Love, but make it Threatening" expression she'd perfected over years of speaking to restaurant managers.
"Did you learn your lesson?" Linda's voice carried that particular tone she'd mastered—a mix between a disappointed life coach and someone who definitely had a "Wine Mom" throw pillow collection.
Gerald stood there, his leather jacket creaking like an unoiled door hinge. The Dubai heat had caused him to sweat so profusely that his white shirt now resembled a Jackson Pollock painting. His eye was still twitching from all that intense mirror staring, giving him the appearance of a malfunctioning animatronic.
Blade, still tied to the chair, flexed unconsciously. Even restrained, his muscles had muscles. "Bro," he rumbled, his voice setting off three car alarms in the parking lot, "this is mad awkward."
Gerald's mind raced through his options, each more questionable than the last. His Winter Arc had led to this moment—this crossroads of mediocrity and potential redemption. He could feel the weight of character development pressing down on him, almost as heavy as his leather jacket in the Middle Eastern heat.
Option 1: Win back Linda with raw, masculine energy.
But his one push-up attempt had resulted in what his doctor called "the most impressive shoulder dislocation in medical history."
Option 2: Be a mature, responsible father.
But Lily was still playing her Switch, muttering something about collecting bells to pay off Tom Nook.
Or...
Gerald took a deep breath. The kind of breath that says, "I'm about to make a decision that will definitely end up as a cautionary tale."
"Linda," he whispered, his voice carrying all the gravitas of a man who had just spent three days trying to become Batman and instead became a sweaty accountant in leather.
The room held its breath. Even the animatronic Chuck E. Cheese seemed to lean forward in anticipation.
"Can you send me feet pics?"
The silence that followed was so profound that you could hear Blade's gains evaporating from secondhand embarrassment.
Linda's eye twitched—not from practice like Gerald's, but from pure, unfiltered disbelief. She reached into her Lululemon fanny pack (yes, she made even that work) and pulled out a taser.
"I knew it," she said, shaking her head. "Three years of marriage, and you haven't grown an inch. Still the same man who tried to customize our wedding vows to include a foot fetish clause."
Blade, despite his predicament, couldn't hold back. "Bro, that's not very sigma male of you." He gagged dramatically, his muscles rippling in disapproval.
Linda, with the practiced precision of someone who had clearly been waiting for this moment, aimed the taser. Not at Gerald—he wasn't even worth the electricity—but at Blade, who went down with a bass-boosted "Broooooooo."
Lily finally looked up from her Switch. "Mom, can we go? My turnips are about to rot."
In the distance, sirens wailed. Child Protective Services, having somehow developed a sixth sense for disaster parenting, were already on their way.
Gerald stood there, a broken man in a leather jacket, watching as his life crumbled around him like his dreams of becoming a dangerous man. His last known words before disappearing into the annals of NPC history were, "At least I still have my Monday greetings."
Some say on quiet nights, you can still hear him whispering "Happy Monday" in the abandoned Chuck E. Cheese. Others claim they've seen a mysterious figure in a sweaty leather jacket scrolling through WikiFeet in various Dubai internet cafes.
As for Linda? She went on to start a successful YouTube channel: "From Wine Mom to Win Mom: How I Turned My Ex's Winter Arc Into My Summer Glow-Up."
Blade recovered from the tasing and wrote a bestselling self-help book: "Bros Before Woes: A Sigma Male's Guide to Avoiding Tasers."
And Lily? She finally paid off her loans to Tom Nook, which is more than her father ever managed with his actual loans.
The animatronic Chuck E. Cheese was later quoted saying, "I've seen some things, but that was the most NPC thing ever."
### The End
(But probably the beginning of Gerald's Spring Arc in some sketchy Dubai internet cafe)