Chapter 89

Fame Levels...Rising

“Um,” Sam’s voice squeaked. “I am being quite squished, fellas.”

I laughed. “Dowser, let us go.”

“No,” he said, squeezing us even tighter… but eventually he did release us and we scattered, all collapsing on the ground, gasping in the air Dowser had squeezed from our lungs.

We were all crowded around Sam in a circle. He stared up at us, his eyes still wet with tears.

“You saved me, Miss Darcy.”

I wiped tears out of my eyes. “I did. I promised you I would, didn’t I?”

He ran forward and hugged my leg. I patted him on the head.

“You guys would not believe what all I did. But I can show you.”

“With your recording?” Stephen asked.

“No, someone else captured the whole thing.”

“What? Someone was there? Who?”

“BigNutz69.”

Stephen just looked at me, totally blank.

I laughed. “He’s a streamer, hold on.”

I went through my menu and searched for him, he showed up right away. The Masked Man was right. His footage was exploding. That made me really nervous but I tried not to think about it too hard.

“Here,” I threw my menu at him, the footage already playing.

Everyone crowded around and watched as BigNutz69 documented all the crazy shenanigans I got up to. There were gasps and ooh’s and ahh’s and some exclamations of total joy.

When the recording ended, with my boot snuffing it out. Everyone just stared at the blank screen, their mouths practically hanging open.

“That was…” Stephen started to say.

“AMAZING!!” Dowser exclaimed.

“Darcy, you are such a fucking badass,” Netta said, making me blush.

“Miss, I can’t believe you did all that. To save me,” Sam said and hugged my leg again, crying all over again.

I scooped him up. “You’re my friend, Sam. I had to save you. I’m just sorry it took me so long. You must have been scared, all alone for so long… Did he really keep you in a dungeon?”

Sam nodded sadly. “Yes. It… was not a fun time. But it’s okay. I’m free now!! Are you all hungry? I must make a victory feast!!”

Dowser gave an earth-shattering whoo. Sam’s eyes about popped out of his head and we all laughed.

He tapped me on my leg. “Miss? Who is your big friend?”

“That’s Dowser. He… is a bit loud.”

“Sorry about that, little dude!” He said at full volume. “Nice to meet ya!”

He held out his hand to Sam. Seeing his giant one shake Sam’s tiny one was about the funniest thing I’d seen in a while.

Once the shake was complete, Sam hid behind my leg. I didn’t know what spooked him.

“And Miss?” He whispered. “Who… who is that beautiful lady?”

He had his eyes locked on Netta. When she realized he was talking about her she batted her eyelashes and came closer. “Aw, you think I’m pretty?” He nodded. “Thank you, Sammy. It’s a pleasure to meet you properly.”

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She held out her hand. But Sam was too shy and buried his face in my leg.

Netta just laughed. “He is the cutest.”

She scooted back away and once there was some distance between them, Sam popped his head back up.

“Miss, is there a kitchen here?” He asked.

“Uh, I actually don’t know. Have you guys seen a–”

“I got you, little man,” Dowser said. “I already scoped the food situation out ages ago. I’ll show you where it is.”

Sam looked unsure if he should go with him, but Dowser didn’t give him much of a choice. He bent down and scooped the tiny meat man up. He looked horrified for a moment but then Dowser released him and put him up on his shoulder. He held on for dear life but otherwise looked quite happy.

“Alright little dude, let’s go!” Dowser charged toward the kitchen.

Within an hour Sam had cooked us yet another amazing pizza party. Kenzo joined us, quite taken aback to learn that I’d already gone and returned victorious. He didn’t get to talk to Sam much, he was too busy running around serving everyone, but there would be time for them to get to know each other. We now had all the time in the world. We were finally safe, with no deadlines or life or death, or freedom and imprisonment hanging over our heads.

We ate our meal in peaceful bliss.

Completely unaware of what awaited us in mere weeks.

#

My first inkling that things were going to be a lot different, was when I noticed I had hundreds of unread messages halfway through our meal. I was a pretty thorough message cleaner. I never had a number higher than like, five. To see the number so high and to watch it continue to grow made me want to puke.

So I pushed my current plate of pizza aside and opened up Pandora’s Box. The messages were from a never-ending barrage of journalists, all somehow with my username. I had no doubt that the masked man probably leaked it to them, that bastard.

Despite the vast amount of messages, they all boiled down to basically the same thing: we saw your crazy fight, the Interverse loves you, and we want to interview you.

The urge to vomit grew.

I backed out of the menu and tapped Stephen on the shoulder.

“Yeah?” He said, his mouth full of pizza.

“Um… I’ve got hundreds of requests for interviews,” I said and showed him my inbox.

His eyes about popped out of his head. “Holy shit, Darce! This is it!” He greedily poured over the messages.

“This is what?”

“Your chance to get the fame that you always deserved.”

I’d fantasized about this moment. I never thought I wanted fame, but when Stephen got his and left me behind… I couldn’t help but desire it. But now that it was here… My stomach gurgled.

“I can tell you which ones to avoid, I’ll pick the perfect person to do your interview, don’t you worry about a thing,” he said, talking faster and faster.

But I was worried about a thing. All of the things.

“Wait,” I finally said. “What if I don’t get an interview at all? What if I just ignore it?”

Stephen scratched his chin. Then grinned. “Playing hard to get? That’s brilliant, Darcy. That will put you in even higher demand.”

I swallowed. That wasn’t really what I was going for. Did I want that? I definitely didn’t want to go to an interview and have my face and voice blasted to all corners of the Interverse. It was one thing for it to happen without me knowing. It was quite another to record something with that knowledge beforehand and as it was happening.

My face must have been losing color cause Stephen finally picked up on something being wrong.

“It’s okay,” he said. “This is a good thing. You’re going to get so many more opportunities. You’re going to be huge. You’re going to far surpass me, seriously. I’ll take my rightful place as your sidekick.” He laughed.

“You’re more than a sidekick. Can’t we just be equals?”

“After what that streamer caught you doing? Not a chance.”

“Hey Darcy,” Netta scooted her way into the conversation. “You should really think about messing with your Viewing Settings.”

“My Viewing Settings?”

She tossed her screen at me. “Yeah, they are settings that will make it so you always have a certain outfit at all times. I assume you don’t want to show your face to anyone, right?”

“Oh fuck yeah,” Stephen cut in. “You totally have to keep your helmet on always. The mystery is what’s gonna drive people absolutely bonkers.”

“That’s fine with me,” I said. “I don’t really like the idea of people seeing how I really look anyway.”

“That’s great then. Go to this screen and then hand me your menu,” Netta said.

I did as she asked, bringing up the Status screen, with a little third-person view of what I currently looked like. She made some adjustments and went through settings, her finger flicking at the speed of light.

“Do you want just the helmet to always be on or would you like for your whole battle getup to be all people see?”

“Full getup,” I said.

She did a few more swipes and then threw my screen back to me.

“Okay, that’ll do it. With this, you will always look like you are wearing your battle gear, even when you’re not. You still gotta doublecheck that. I’ve made it so that with me, Dowser, Stephen, and Kenzo, you appear with whatever you’re really wearing. But if you meet other people who you don’t mind showing your face to, just mess with the settings.”

“Wow, okay, thank you so much, Netta!”

“Yeah, I didn’t even know about all that,” Stephen said, visibly impressed.

She shrugged. “I’m pretty anal about my outfits, don’t expect everyone to dig around in those settings.”

With that, I would never be seen without my helmet again. Except to my most trusted allies. But if people were going as crazy for me as I thought, I might have to make a separate normal me mode to where I could go around as just a regular person. Surely people wouldn't approach me in person… right?

I didn’t know why I was complaining so much. This is what I wanted. Sure, there were going to be drawbacks, that’s just the way things worked. But I should be happy. I’d proven myself, in front of the whole Interverse, and now I’d caught up to Stephen.

I would get used to the fame. How hard could it be?