The First Cheater

Every form of mini golf — from backyard turf to celestial greens orbiting neutron stars — is governed by one sacred law:

“Play fair. Or don’t play.”

It wasn’t just a rule.

It was a law of reality. Woven into the gravity wells, stitched through greenstone, encrypted in scorecards across galaxies.

But now…

Someone was bending it.

And not from within the game.

But from before it was born.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mike Delaney sat at a café inside the League's Sky Atrium, halfway through a cosmic citrus soda and reviewing junior tournament footage when Forebot floated over with a report.

“Three players,” Forebot buzzed, “have submitted winning scores from courses that do not exist.”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”

“They claimed to play on ‘The Twelfth Crescent Loop.’ But that course was never designed. Never built.”

Mike squinted. “But their scorecards?”

“Perfect,” said Forebot. “But with one problem: they predate their own ink.”

Mike sat up straight.

“That’s not just a cheat…”

“It’s temporal forgery. Someone is pre-writing wins before games happen.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

A meeting was called.

Bogeyn. Elder Slice. Parthon. Ayla. Chip. Zeek (late, but present). Even the enigmatic Lady of the 19th Hole made an appearance, wrapped in starlight and mystery.

The room was tense.

“Tampering with score-time is impossible,” Elder Slice said. “We wrote the ChronoMarkers ourselves.”

“It’s not being hacked,” said Forebot. “It’s being rewritten. Like the law was never real.”

Mike stood at the head of the table.

“Then we’re not just facing a cheater.”

He turned.

“We’re facing the first one. The one who taught the universe how to cheat.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Chip dug into his conspiracy scrolls and found it: a myth so ancient it had been buried under satire and forgotten scores.

A name.

Mullvar.

A being who refused to play the first game of golf fairly. Not because he couldn’t — but because he believed:

“Victory unearned is still victory.”

He didn’t lose.

He pretended to win.

And then made others believe he had.

Some say he was erased.

Others say he erased himself from history — to cheat without being remembered.

Bogeyn tapped the table. “If he’s back, he’s not just cheating holes. He’s corrupting the rules.”

Mike nodded.

“We need to find him.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The team retraced timelines, following paradox holes and distorted greens:

A tournament where every ball landed in the cup before it was hit

A champion who couldn’t remember ever playing, yet held a gold trophy

A green that looped endlessly unless you missed on purpose

At each site, a symbol burned faintly into the turf:

∀ ⊥ — "For All That Falls"

The sigil of Mullvar.

And then, at the edge of the Gravity Fringe — where spacetime folded like origami — they found a hole that played itself.

Ball. Cup. Score.

No player.

Until a voice echoed behind them.

Low. Smooth. Unapologetic.

“You’re late.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

He wore no uniform.

No logos.

Just a black caddie’s coat, stitched from tournament banners that had never been flown. His face shimmered — not masked, but unfinished — as if he were being rendered by memory, not biology.

Mike stepped forward.

“Mullvar.”

The man smiled.

“Or what's left of me.”

“You’re cheating the game at its root,” Mike said. “You’re trying to rewrite the concept of fairness.”

Mullvar tilted his head. “Fairness is a lie. Rules are illusions agreed upon by the slow.”

He tapped a scorecard that wrote itself as he spoke.

“I don’t want to win, Mike. I want the game to be meaningless.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mullvar made his offer.

One hole.

Not played in space.

Or time.

But in intention.

They would each step into the Zero Green — a place between realities — and attempt to putt a ball of pure motive.

If Mullvar won, the laws of fairness would collapse retroactively. Cheating would become a natural part of the game — baked into the rules.

If Mike won…

Mullvar would surrender his unfinished scorecard, and every forged victory he ever created would vanish.

Including those stolen by the players Mike had already defeated.

Cassie. Mira. Even himself.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

They stepped into the Zero Green.

It had no shape. No physics. Just truth.

A voice — not Parthon’s, not any being’s — whispered:

“What is your reason for playing?”

Mullvar spoke first.

“To prove that reality is malleable. That truth is weak. That victory belongs to the bold, not the just.”

His putt — precise, clinical, razor-perfect — missed.

Not by distance.

By meaning.

The ball stopped inches short, rejecting him.

Then Mike stepped up.

And he thought.

Not about winning.

Not about fairness.

He thought of Cassie’s laugh.
Of Mira’s impossible swing.
Of Chip’s wild trick shots.
Of Zeek asleep mid-hole.
Of Bogeyn’s tea.
Of Forebot's poetry.

Of a universe where play matters.

And he swung.

The ball didn’t roll.

It sang.

And dropped into the nothing.

Which became something.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The symbol ∀ ⊥ vanished from every course.

Every fraudulent scorecard disintegrated.

And Mullvar?

He faded into vapor — not with rage, but a weary smile.

“Guess it mattered more than I thought.”

He was the first cheater.

And the first to be forgiven.