Chapter 90
The Hero to Anomalies Everywhere
Answer: hard. In the very first public place I entered, just as a test to see what I was dealing with, people surrounded me.
“Is that her?”
“It has to be!”
“No, it’s just cosplay!”
“SIGN MY FISHTANK!”
That latter person seriously pulled out a quite large fishtank and held out a marker to me. The request was so weird and wild that I actually did it, signing: Fishbowl Head. And then promptly teleported away, into my room, breathing hard.
After that, I made a second outfit to wear when I wanted to be incognito. Which was most of the time. Netta helped me set it up to where it would automatically switch to it when I was in a world that had usernames public. That way, no one would ever see me in the helmet with my username attached. That was a godsend and I was so lucky she thought to set that up.
And Stephen ended up being correct: the more I ignored everything the more people wanted to know about me. A week passed and I was still all that the Interverse could talk about.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. After the pizza party, with the danger gone, everyone agreed it was best to return to our normal lives.
“Keep in touch, okay?” Netta said, giving me a hug.
“Yeah, ditto,” Dowser said. “I don’t want this to be the last time we see each other. Especially from you!” He pointed to Kenzo dramatically.
Teach laughed. “I’ll be in touch, don’t worry. Your training will begin before too long.”
“Mine, too?” Netta said, positively glowing.
“Yes, of course. I’ll contact you. Would you both like separate lessons or together?”
“How did those two do it?” Netta asked, pointing to Stephen and I.
“Together,” we both said…together (I’ll risk sounding redundant for a laugh).
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” she said. “If that's cool with you?” She asked, turning to Dowser.
“As long as you don’t hold me back,” he said with a wink.
“Oh yeah, we’ll see who holds who back, you jerk.”
They bickered the rest of the time we were all saying our goodbyes. I was sad to see them go. But I knew we would see them again soon.
Before they left, I had one last thing to say.
“Wait,” I said, holding onto their arms. “Don’t do any of the Skull stuff on your own, okay? With each other, maybe that’s okay. But I would really like you to contact me too.”
“You just want to hog all the Stat gains for yourself!” Dowser said and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.
But I laughed anyway. “No, no. The next few ghosts are yours. I guess all I’m saying is… be careful. Please promise me you won’t take on a ghost alone.”
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“We promise,” they both said and my mind was instantly at ease.
And with that, our party disbanded. We were all happy and hopeful but in the back of my head, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad.
I wondered if the next time we all saw each other we could have a more normal time or if the masks we all shared effectively made our lives much crazier than the average Interverse citizen.
But, honestly? If the only way I could see them was to risk my life, I think that would be worth it to me.
And without even having to ask them, I already knew with full certainty that they felt the same.
Wholesome or insane? You decide!
#
“Darcy,” Stephen said, practically sighing my name over a voice call. “You can’t stay cooped up forever.”
It had been about two weeks since I saved Sam and that run-in with my rabid fans was the last time I set foot outside.
“I did it for the first twenty-five years of my life. I can and I will.”
By that point, I’d sort of accepted that I was famous. It didn’t fill me with dread or imposter syndrome or anything like that. Instead, I just didn’t know what to do next. I didn’t know how to exist as an in-demand person.
“Come on, come to the writing nook,” Stephen pleaded, for like the one-hundredth time just that day alone.
“No, thanks,” I said, my eyes flipping through articles and comment threads, all still talking about me. “Did you know people are starting to dress like me? How psychotic is that?”
“What are you talking about? You’re the number one badass in the Interverse right now, girls everywhere want to BE you. You can honestly tell me that your younger self wouldn’t be absolutely obsessed, too?”
I sighed because he was right. “I would have been all over me. But, it’s different. No one should look up to me or some shit. I’m… I’m…”
“What, Darcy? A Statistical Anomaly? If you revealed that you would be even more of a phenomenon. When you do eventually talk to someone, you should one hundred percent do that.”
I shook my head so fast it must have looked like I was about to transform into a horror monster. “I can’t do that. No interviews.”
“But Darce, just think about it: those little girls finding out that their big hero started at the complete bottom and worked her way up. Think about the hope you could give to tons of kids that grew up the way we did.”
Okay, that… that I liked. I tried to imagine that. Little me, just having the realization that my life wasn’t going to be anything special like everyone else. And then having a girl with a fishbowl helmet–even then I was interested in fish–pull off the most badass stunts I’d ever seen… and then reveal that she started her life in exactly the same way. That she rose from the bottom and became…THAT.
“Alright,” I finally said. “I’ll do an interview at some point.”
Stephen cheered. “Whoa, heck yeah! Despite what you said a few weeks ago, I thought you may change your mind so I’ve been working on a list of who I think would be the best people to do it.”
Stephen sent me a message about a mile long, full of all kinds of names, and written beside each one the pros and cons of working with them. It made my eyes cross. I closed out the message at once.
“Actually, I was kind of thinking of going a different way with it. I don’t want a journalist,” I said.
“Oh?” I could already hear the disapproval in Stephen’s tone.
“Yeah. I think I want BigNutz to do it.”
“Oh.” Yeah, major disapproval. “Uh, why?”
“I’ve kind of thought about that for a while. He put me on the map, right? I think he deserves an exclusive, yeah?”
Stephen was silent. Then, “I mean, I get how you feel that way. But… he’s kind of a moron, don’t you think? I don’t know if he could handle things as delicately as we need.”
“Well, let’s see,” I said. “Let’s set up a meeting with him.”
“Will that get you out of the house?” Stephen actually sounded hopeful again.
“Yes. Set up a meeting, and I’ll be there.”
“I will take this as a victory then! I’ll contact him right now.”
I killed the call and slumped back into my position on the couch. I may have said I would go, but surely it would take him a while to respond and even longer to set up a time to meet. I had plenty of time to just sit back and re–
[ He’s already at the writing nook! He wants to meet now! Come on, Darcy! ]
Motherfucker.
I bounded to my feet. How the fuck did he respond so fast? Already at the nook!? Had he been waiting for me to contact him all this time or something? Whatever. I decided to skip a shower and just press the magic change-o-be-clean button. I usually opted for the shower, just cause it was so relaxing, but, I guess, I didn’t have the time anymore.
Fuck. Maybe I shouldn’t of request the streamer to do this after all.
…but imagining myself in a big studio with some media talk piece gave me major bad vibes. Just a streamer, in his dirty man cave, that sounded much less overwhelming.
I double and triple-checked that my settings were right to hide my identity and name from BigNutz. When I was finally sure all he was gonna see was my fishbowl, I teleported to the nook.
Hyper aware that the last time I saw this guy I’d been in a fight for my life. No meeting for an interview should be as stressful as all that.
But did that stop me from being nervous? Come on, you know me by now.