Chapter 79: Distinguished Competition

Was it bizarre to see Mask, in full costume, eponymous mask, voice changer and all, standing in front of a Street Fighter 2 cabinet? Apparently, from what I could hear from the machine, playing a match while he waited for us to show?

Less than you might think, honestly. I’d seen weirder cosplay at comic and game conventions, and those often got arcade cabinets in when they could.

Was it a shock to see him here, in Miguel’s Realm?

You bet your ass.

At least I knew he was here, not outside invading Lena and the others.

He abandoned his game and strode to the doors of the arcade. He swept his hand out to the side, and his cloak billowed behind him, although I didn’t hear or feel the telltale brush of Air. He stopped in the doorway, one hand outstretched, the other on his hip.

His head didn’t move, and with his face covered, I couldn’t see where he was looking, but I knew he had to be scanning our team.

“No Ashbird tonight?” There was a weird sound, even weirder than the usual output of his voice changer, and I realized he was laughing. “Instead you’ve brought the wiki admin herself. You’ve got quite a harem, OldCampaigner.”

I felt my chest flush.

“Um,” Erin said.

Apart from Mask, Zhizhi was the only one who laughed.

She walked forward, which struck me as a terrible idea. She pointed her camera in Mask’s face, such as it was, which seemed even worse. “You must be the famous Mask I’ve heard so much about.”

He said nothing, didn’t shift from his position at the entrance of the arcade, but was it my imagination, or did he stand up a little straighter? His outfit made it difficult to notice tiny changes in his posture, which was probably part of the point.

It made it hard to judge his exact height, too. Seeing him next to Zhizhi, I thought Lena had overestimated when she called him 6’6”. Not by much, though.

“Is that how you’d like to be referred to?” Zhizhi asked. “I can use a name, a username, whatever works for you.”

After a momentary silence, he said, “Mask suits me.”

People he’d invaded might have given him that moniker, but with his edgelord persona, I’d expected him to embrace it. I’d been right.

“Cool, cool,” Zhizhi said. “So. Mask, the famous Third Eye invader! Or is that infamous?”

He didn’t move, but she seemed to have him on the back foot all the same. As best I could tell through his voice changer, he had to fight not to sputter. “Who are you?”

Seemed he wasn’t all-seeing. The only people he’d recognized so far were ones with a public Third Eye persona.

“Zhizhi Wong,” she said, “9News.”

That got an unmistakable twitch out of him. His three eyeholes pointed first in my direction, then Erin’s. “You’re broadcasting this?”

“Why not?” Zhizhi asked. “It’s a hell of a story, isn’t it? ‘ARG players discover hidden remnants of demolished mall’?”

“Ah,” Mask said.

I realized what Zhizhi was up to. She’d implied that we’d told her only about Cinder Alley, not the rest of Third Eye. Also, that she was broadcasting live to the local news.

If Mask chose to pick a fight with us here and now, she wanted him to think he’d be exposing both Third Eye and himself to public scrutiny. If he used his powers, people would see them. If he beat us and did something criminal, it would be on the record. Sure, he had his disguise, but was he willing to test it?

“If you’re a news anchor,” he asked, “where’s your cameraman?”

Zhizhi exhaled. She remained where she stood, but I couldn’t tell if it was because she refused to back down or because she was frozen in place. Her voice almost sounded calm when she said, “You got me. This is off the record.”

I didn’t want to give Mask the impression that Zhizhi was just recording, not streaming. She might not be blasting her footage to the entirety of the Denver metro area, but it wasn’t contained within this Realm, either. Whatever happened here, someone was going to see it.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Right now,” I said, “we’re only streaming to the rest of the team. What part of this gets shared in a video... that remains to be seen.”

Mask surveyed us for what felt like a long time. I mean, I assumed that’s what he was doing. For all his stance betrayed, he could’ve been trying to remember the last item he wanted to add to his shopping list.

Finally, he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

His mask tilted. “The same thing as you, I imagine. Grinding.”

I didn’t have either his concealing outfit or his relatively restrained mannerisms. I’m sure I stiffened. Erin sure did.

“Oh,” Mask said. “Were you still at the stage of figuring out how it works?”

Erin began, “We weren’t certain if we needed –”

“If it would work for just anyone,” I said.

Erin glanced back at me, blinking rapidly.

I didn’t want Mask to know whose Realm this was, nor that we’d found a Ticket Daimon here. He might lack one or both pieces of information, and any informational advantage we could get was one I planned to hang onto.

I realized that, without the need for any test, he’d just confirmed our best-case scenario. Both Realm and Daimon could generate Tickets independently!

Unless he was lying, but why would he? Either he would follow up this conversation by attacking us, in which case he presumably thought he could do to us whatever it was he did to the people he beat and we wouldn’t be able to pass on any information; or he would let us into the arcade and we’d find out for ourselves soon enough.

“Cagey,” he said. “Good. I wonder how much more you know that hasn’t appeared on the wiki.”

Erin flinched.

I glared.

Gerry pushed past both of us, drawing level with Zhizhi. He wasn’t quite as tall as Mask, but, as best I could tell, he was more broadly built. Maybe that gave him a shot of confidence, because he reached out to poke his finger into Mask’s chest. “Guess you tell the world everything you know, buddy?”

Mask slapped his hand away. “I don’t claim to be the voice of the community.”

“Aw, bullshit,” Gerry said.

Erin shook her head. “No. He’s right.”

“Oh?” Mask asked.

“I feel awful, concealing what I know from the playerbase,” Erin said. She stepped forward as well, so I kept pace with her. “You’d be well within your rights to blow me up for it. The only thing I can offer in my defense is that I’m trying to do what I think is right.”

Mask’s, well, mask tilted backwards, and his discordant chuckle echoed through Cinder Alley.

Gerry glanced back at us. He must not have liked what he saw of Erin’s expression, any more than I liked the way she hunched her shoulders. He turned back to Mask and tried again to poke him. “What’s so fucking funny, asshole?”

Mask’s laughter stopped in a heartbeat.

This time, instead of slapping Gerry’s hand away, he extended his palm.

I couldn’t see what happened next, but Gerry skidded backwards, coughing. I don’t know if he would’ve fallen, because Erin and I caught his arms and steadied him.

Zhizhi scrambled sideways. She stared at Mask’s outstretched palm.

“Two points,” Mask said.

I couldn’t tell if he meant he’d scored two or that he was about to make them.

Fortunately, he kept talking after just enough of a pause for me to think it was done deliberately to up the drama. “First,” he said, “and I’m not going to repeat this, don’t touch me. You won’t get another warning.”

Gerry rubbed his chest. “Warning, my ass.”

“Second,” Mask said, “what’s so funny is that our dear admin took my line.”

I patted Gerry’s back and, satisfied he’d suffered nothing more than the momentary pain Third Eye used as a warning when we got hit, stepped past him and Erin. To Mask, I said, “Now I’ve heard it all. It’s one thing to go, ‘invasion is just part of the game.’ Another to make it sound like a moral imperative. You’re doing what you think is right?”

“Think?” He shook his head. “I guess there is one difference.”

“You mean,” Zhizhi said, “you don’t think, you know.”

Her voice wavered, but she forced the words out and held the camera steady on Mask.

He let the statement hang in the air.

“I’ve heard quite a bit of speculation about what you’re up to, and why,” Zhizhi said. “Not all of it flattering.”

No response.

“Here’s a chance to set the record straight,” she said. “Tell your side of the story.”

Still no response. The moment stretched out. Mask didn’t move, hardly seemed to breathe.

Then again, I wasn’t sure any of us did.

Abruptly, he turned on his heel. His cloak swirled behind him as he stalked back into the arcade. Over his shoulder, in a voice that came through clipped despite the distortion, he said, “This interview is over.”

Did he think that line made him sound cool? I felt like I understood his actions less than I had before having a real conversation with him.

Before we decided what to do about the arcade, though, I needed to know at least one more thing.

“Hey,” I called.

Mask didn’t stop walking.

Dick.

Partly because I thought he might be trying to lure me into a trap, mostly because I refused to give him the satisfaction, I neither stepped forward nor raised my voice. With the acoustics of Cinder Alley, I knew he could hear me just fine.

“Answer me this.” I didn’t wait around for him to acknowledge that I’d spoken. I didn’t have all evening. “Do you know where Matthew Green is?”

I thought Mask hesitated, though it was hard to tell since he’d reached the Street Fighter cabinet.

“The guest star from Ashbird’s Earth video?” Mask asked. “Why would I know that?”

“Good question,” I asked. “Here’s another. Considering that he went by his username in the video, how do you know who he is?”