They’ll say this match is an opportunity. A golden ladder rising up from the dirt, six lives clawing for a briefcase that promises everything. Power. Prestige. A title match at the time of your choosing. The keys to the kingdom, handed to whoever bleeds the hardest.

But that’s not the truth. No, darling. That’s just the poster.

What this match has always been is a contract written in blood and desperation. And the moment you step into it, you agree to the terms, even if you never read the fine print.

The price of admission? It’s never what you think.

Jackson Cade will tell you it’s duty. Mister Sunshine will tell you it’s joy. Tombstone hopes it’s redemption. Nox probably thinks it’s an experiment, and Gemini… oh, Gemini knows there’s always a cost – she just doesn’t know what it is this time.

But I do. Because I’ve already paid it.

You don’t spend your life building a stage like mine – dragging broken men from alleyways and calling them family – without understanding what ambition really takes from you.

It doesn’t just take your body. Too easy. Cuts and bruises heal. Bones reset.

What it takes is deeper. It takes the part of you that used to dream. The part that used to believe applause meant something.

Once upon a time, I didn’t want to win matches. I wanted to build something beautiful. I wanted to take the unwanted, the unloved, the broken and give them a home. A spotlight. A name. But the stage eats you. The lights burn away the edges. You stretch your soul so wide across the boards that one day you forget how to pull it back in. I lost them, one by one – freaks I raised from nothing – until all I had left was the echo of the ring bell and the promises I made to myself in the dark.

And now here we are.

The Invasion Briefcase. They all want it because they think it’ll change their lives. That it’ll make them whole.

Me? I want it because it might be the thing that ends mine.

Not in a tombstone sense, though wouldn’t that be poetic? No. I mean ends the need to prove myself, to chase something better, to perform until my mask cracks in half.

I want the briefcase so I can cash it in and finally close the curtain. Because that’s the trick no one talks about.

You fight to win, yes, but the real war is what comes after. What’s left of you once the crowd stops cheering. Once your skin stops tingling and you realise the spotlight doesn’t warm you anymore.

This match isn’t salvation, it’s damnation, but I’ve made peace with that.

So let the rest of them swing and scramble and scream for their moment. Let them bare their teeth and fight like it’ll save them.

I’ll walk in with nothing left to lose. And maybe… if the stage gods are kind… I’ll leave with the one thing I’ve never had.

An ending.

Welcome to the final performance.

And remember: the price of admission was never the pain.

It was everything you were before the lights turned on.