[Xander]

"How much flour do you need?" Ms. Katie asks as I move the first bag onto the cart.

We're at a bulk grocery store with magic ingredients rather than non-magic ones so that I can buy stuff for making muffins that taste extra-good for a stream. Mr. Trey already gave me permission, as long as Ms. Katie watches and is acting as a moderator for the chat. Quinn also agreed to act as a moderator for the chat, just in case it's needed even though I doubt I'll really have enough chatters to warrant moderation.

Thank goodness Mr. Trey didn't ask me much about what I wanted to stream today. All I told him was that I wanted to bake some muffins on stream, and he'd just asked me some basic questions. Nothing like "how many muffins" or "how big are the muffins".

I wasn't trying to mislead him, I just didn't know how to mention the bigger details and reasoning and I wasn't lying at all. I really do want to bake some muffins for a stream.

Since he said I can bake muffins on a stream today, I don't think he cared about the number or size. Especially since I also asked if I could go to Greyson's workshop to get big muffin tins and he didn't ask about the size or other details. That's the only reason I don't think I'll get into trouble – he knew I wanted to go to Greyson's workshop first and didn't ask more questions.

"Eighty pounds per muffin," I answer Ms. Katie's question.

"Per muffin?"

"Yeah," I answer. "One for me and one for you and one for Mr. Trey and one for Quinn. So that's, um… eight and four is… thirty-two? So, oh, and remember the zero. So it's three hundred and twenty pounds."

"How big are the muffins?" Ms. Katie asks.

"They have a two-foot base," I tell her. "I used Greyson's computer to figure out how big to make the tins, and then to know how much of each ingredient to buy. I have them all written down."

I show her the list, which shows how much I need per ingredient per muffin, but also a section that has them all combined.

"It might have issues with rising," she says. "If the ratios aren't correct. A standard muffin recipe is designed to help something that small rise."

"Greyson's computer does all the math on that," I tell her. "He's that smart."

"Alright," she says. "Just be aware that the muffins might not become that big, if he's never made them that big before and adjusted the system so it would know."

"I don't think that'll be a problem."

I grab another bag of flour onto the cart, then another, continuing until I have enough. Once that's done, we move on to the sugar, then the other ingredients. Once it's all collected, we go to the checkout.

"Whoa," the cashier says as I start putting everything on the conveyor belt. "Having a baking party with your mom?"

"She's not my mom," I tell the cashier. "She's Ms. Katie."

"Xander wanted to bake some muffins," Ms. Katie informs the cashier. "We came to get the ingredients for them."

"These are all for muffins?" The cashier asks.

"Yeah," I nod. "They're reaaaaaaaally big muffins. And I got stuff to make a drizzle to put on top of them, too."

"Glaze," Ms. Katie tells me. "It's a glaze to drizzle."

Stupid me. I'm pretty sure she mentioned that while we were grabbing the things for it.

"Sorry."

"You're not in trouble," she says.

The cashier finishes ringing up the stuff, and I make sure to put everything back onto the cart after it's scanned. Then, I insert my debit card into the slot. Mr. Trey upped the limit for today just in case I needed it, and I really did buy a lot of stuff.

Once we finish the transaction and have everything I need for the stream, Ms. Katie takes us back to the house.

"Where do you want to do the baking?" She asks as she parks. "The kitchen might not be big enough… I'm assuming you're using magic?"

"Yeah," I nod. "Luke mentioned during lessons today that he sometimes shows off his magical abilities because it helps people know he's not someone to mess with. Keeps people from trying to kidnap him and stuff. That's what gave me the idea for the muffins. Since I'll be using lots of magic and it will include time magic, that should tell people I'm not someone to mess with. I don't want to be someone you don't want to mess with, but I don't want people to mess with me."

"Alright," she chuckles. "What about out on the deck? There's plenty of space there and it's a nice day outside."

"Okay," I say. "Should I get the cart?"

There are a few types of carts here that can be used to move stuff around. Ms. Katie has a flatbed cart that she uses to move stuff from the garage to the kitchen, though it can also be used to go to the deck. I think.

"I'll grab it," she says. "And hold it still while you put everything on it. How does that sound?"

Since it's my purchases, it's only fair that I'm the one who does the lifting. I'm even strong enough for it now, unlike when I first moved into Mr. Trey's house.

Once everything is on the back deck, Ms. Katie and Quinn help set up the camera and I pull out the muffin tins I made at Greyson's workshop. They're constructed of a sturdy alloy I know can resist heat and sticking. Greyson uses it for his own muffin tins and other baking things so that he never has to worry about preparing them for anti-stick.

One of the cameras gets set up to look down into the first muffin tin – I made four separate ones – and another is aimed at me, while another is aimed at the table where the ingredients were placed on or around and another is aimed at the clear glass mixing bowls I also pulled from my backpack.

With all of that taken care of, I go up to my bedroom and change outfits. I'm not as comfortable in MountainStorm Gear since it's not really that plain, but it looks a lot better and I think that's important for the stream. Looking as good as my ugly self can. The clothes are comfortable, they're just not made to keep me cool in long-sleeves and pants when it's warm out.

But I think I know a spell for that, so I cast it and feel my body cool down a little bit.

"Are you ready?" Ms. Katie asks once I'm back on the deck and have pulled on my baking apron.

I don't think I'll ever be mentally ready for this, and I think that's what she's really asking, since she knows we have everything set up now.

"No," I answer. "But we can start if you two are."

"Did you forget anything?" She asks.

I forgot something, didn't I?

"Maybe?" I answer. "We have the ingredients, and the camera, and the laptop with the streaming stuff set up on it, and I've got plenty of mana and changed clothes… that's everything, right?"

She points at her eyes.

"Oh! Right! Thanks, Ms. Katie!"

I open up my backpack and pull out my glasses case, then put my glasses inside before pulling out another glasses case and slipping on the black sunglasses with green-tinted lenses. They resemble sports sunglasses, but are actually from my augmented reality set creations.

One of the adjustments I made to it was so that streamers can view their chat and some other stuff while streaming. This way, I can just have the recipe in my vision and respond to chat without having to check my computer or my phone. The recipe's also been loaded into the database for these glasses since I felt that would make things easier.

"Now I think I'm as ready as I can be," I tell her.

"Alright," she says. "Look in my eyes, Xander. Thanks. Remember: Quinn and I are here to help you out if you need it, to change cameras if you need it, and to take care of bad chatters. Just ask if you want us to change cameras or mute a chatter, okay?'

"There probably won't be very many people," I tell her. "Since I'm ugly and stupid and not cool like S.G. or Carter. Those who come probably will be bad chatters. If-if you think someone needs punished, please don't beat them."

"It's preventing them from chatting," she chuckles. "Not beating. We don't beat people here, we beat eggs."

That does seem to be how it is.

"Okay," I say. "I think I'm as ready as I can be, so, um… can we please start the stream? Is that okay?"

"You're in charge," she says. "But one more thing, alright?"

Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good.

"W-what is it?"

"Look in my eyes again," she says. "Thanks. I know you'll want to introduce yourself, so I want to make something very clear to you, okay?"

"O-okay."

"My name is Katie."

"I know."

"My name is Katelyn."

Huh? But how can both of those be true?

"You didn't detect a lie, did you?" She asks.

"No," I answer. "But how?"

"Because both are true," she says. "My name is Katelyn, but I prefer Katie. To most people, the name or nickname they prefer to go by is also their name. That's what they identify themselves as. There's no attempt at deception – to the common person, nicknames are the same as names. No one will accuse you of lying for saying your name is Xander. So you can just call yourself Xander, you don't have to say it's your nickname. Okay?"

That's so confusing and I don't want to believe her, but she's being honest. I can tell.

"O-okay."

"Alright," she smiles. "Going live in five… four… three… two… one… go!"

Carter said when we were talking after the stream a couple of days ago that he likes to chat with his chat a little before actually getting to the events of the stream. He didn't for Sunday's stream because he was too focused on being able to ride a hoverboard, but he said it helps his viewers have time to come in and watch the stream.

Since he's a proper streamer, I think I should try to follow that advice. But I don't know what to talk about. I didn't think that far ahead because I only just remembered what he'd said.

"Hello!" I wave to the camera aimed at me. "X-Xander here, for my second stream. I'm going to be doing some stuff, but let's give people a few minutes to show up. Hi. I can see some of you are here."

How do I be social? Ask what people did? I know S.G. and the others often do that when making conversation, so it's probably safe.

"Did you guys do anything fun today?" I ask. "I had some lessons earlier, and did martial arts before lunch. It was pretty fun, even if I accidentally punched Luke in the face. He wasn't mad, either, he just laughed and said that was his fault for trying to goof around instead of helping me train properly."

One of the chat messages going by catches my attention. There are so many messages going by already, I'm surprised I caught it.

[GarbledGargle]: are you a black belt?

"I'm a white belt," I say. "I only started learning last month. Luke's a black belt, though. He's helping me learn, but it's with a professional instructor. I was surprised he didn't get mad I punched him. It really was an accident, but who's okay with getting punched in the face? He even said it was his fault. I mean, it sort of was, I guess… he was goofing around a lot during the lesson. The coach had to tell him to stop a few times. Parker said that Luke had waaaaaaay too much sugar with breakfast.

"What did I have for breakfast?" I read another message. "Blueberry-banana-sprinkle-gummy bear pancakes with sausage links and a parfait with fruit, berries, vanilla yogurt, chopped nuts, and some granola. I helped Ms. Katie make some of the pancakes today and she let me make a cream cheese drizzle for them. What did you guys do today? Anything fun?"

I talk with chat for about ten minutes, and then a rude chatter shows up.

[DamienTheBest]: it's been just talking for 10 minutes when are you actually going to bake?

The message vanishes a moment later, which I think means it was deleted by a moderator.

"First," I say. "Your message popped up at nine minutes and forty-three seconds, so it hadn't been ten minutes yet. Second, it's called 'chatting with chat'. We're having a conversation and it's rude to interrupt. Third, somebody obviously needs more cheesecake in his life. Who can be grumpy when they're eating cheesecake? I don't-I don't get what all of the emotes are for. So anyway, what are your guys' favorite muffins?"

That was a lot of emotes that look like someone was laughing and I really don't understand why they were laughing at me. Then a message pops up in my vision in a private message from Ms. Katie, letting me know that they weren't making fun of me, they were laughing at the rude chatter getting put in his place.

When I look over at her, she gives me two thumbs-up and mouths "You're doing great!"

I keep chatting with chat until the fifteen-minute mark, then move on to the actual intended content for the stream. That should've been enough time for people to show up and not miss the explanations. It looks like I have 4,317 viewers right now. That's really not a lot, is it?

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Well, I guess that makes sense. It's just a baking stream by some stupid, ugly kid, not someone cute and sociable and talented like Carter.

"Okay, everyone!" I say. "Now that people have had time to show up, I'm going to start the baking! Today, I'm baking muffins! But not normal muffins, big ones. Very, very, very big ones. Ms. Katie? Could you please show this?" I put a hand on the tin that has the camera aimed into it. "This is one of four muffin tins, and they're all this size. I'm making four of the muffins. They're going to be banana-nut with a strawberry glaze drizzled on top. And the ingredients-oh, can you please switch the cameras to show the table?"

"Switched over," Ms. Katie says.

She really did switch just from me asking both times. I know she was honest when she told me to let her know when I want them switched, but still. She never said she wouldn't get mad at me or that I wouldn't get into trouble for doing so, yet she doesn't look upset at all. In fact, I think that's a friendly smile, not a mean one.

"Thanks," I walk over to the table. "And these are the ingredients. As you can see, the bananas are yellow, not ripe. We're also out on the deck, where there's no oven that can fit muffin tins this big. That's because, as the stream title says, we're baking with magic today! It's not all magic, but there's going to be a lot of it. Let's start with the first step!

"First," I say. "You wash your hands. We have a sink on the deck here, so I'm going to wash my hands in that instead of returning inside."

I wash my hands in the sink, then dry them off.

"I used magic to dry them," I add so that chat knows my hands are dry now. "Always make sure to dry your hands, too. Okay, let's move on to the second step. This is normally where you would grease the tins and preheat the oven, but the magical alloy used in these tins doesn't let anything stick to it period, so there's no need for the greasing and magic will be used to bake, so no oven is needed.

"So for the second step," I say. "We're moving right into ingredients! This recipe calls for eighty total pounds of flour for one muffin, or four 20lb bags. I'm only mixing up the stuff for one at a time. Oh, wait, hold on. How do I open this bag? Oh, wait, here we go."

I open up the top of the first bag of flour, then carry it over to the mixing bowl and start pouring in flour.

"You're going to notice that the flour's floating up like flour likes to do," I say. "But not leaving the mega mixing bowl. That's because I'm using air magic to keep it in. And that's why it's not spreading out as it falls out, either. Um… making the little flour cloud as it exits the bag."

"Billowing," Ms. Katie says.

"Thank you, Ms. Katie," I say. "That's why it's not billowing out. Air magic can be really convenient at times. And it's eighty pounds of it for one muffin, so that's four of these bags."

I think I already said that, but no one in chat is being mean over me repeating myself. Once I finish with the flour, I add in the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

"And here's for a really fun part," I say. "I've never done it on this scale before, but I really like watching as everything mixes up. If you're wondering 'where's the mixer', it's also magic! I'm keeping the air barrier over the top to prevent a dust cloud and am going to use a mixture of air and force magic to whisk the ingredients! Ready? Set? Go!"

The powders in the bowl begin mixing up, lines sort of cutting through them, showing where the "wires" of air and force magic are. A sort of dust cloud forms inside of the bowl, but the barrier on top keeps it from leaving the bowl.

When I finish mixing the ingredients, I use a little bit of air magic to make the powdery cloud settle down onto the mixture.

"Now that that's done," I say. "It's time to prepare the bananas! I love doing this bit, so Ms. Katie no longer lets them ripen. If you didn't know, yellow bananas aren't actually ripe and what people call 'overripe' is actually 'ripe'. We're actually going for overripe this time, which is when they're completely brown, rather than yellow but covered in brown. This is a mixture of plant magic to help them ripen, air magic to create a bubble around them, and time magic to accelerate the process. And telekinesis to hold the bananas. Don't put your hand inside of a temporal bubble when the rest of you isn't. It probably won't go well for you."

I move some of the bananas away from the rest. Each bunch comes in six, and I need thirty-six of the large bananas for this. Once they're separated, I hold my hands forward and work my magic.

The bananas float up into the air and quickly begin to brown, the process completing in only thirty seconds.

"And done!" I announce before telekinetically moving the bananas over to a separate bowl. "And now with force magic to peel them, I'm going to let them just drop into this bowl. And you'll see that the peels are going into another bowl. They'll be made into compost."

Once all of the bananas have been dropped into the bowl and the peels into a separate one, I nod.

"Time to mash them!" I say. "This is just force magic, and it's really fun to do. At least, I find it fun."

I hold both hands over the bowl, and the bananas start mashing from the invisible force. After a few moments of this, I make the force magic visible, giving it a green tint.

"That's the shape of the spell," I tell my viewers. "It's not normally green, I did that so you can see it. And once they're all mashed up, it's time to add the sugar and other wet ingredients. For a muffin of this size, it takes…"

I continue explaining the process to my viewers, and they seem to enjoy watching me chop walnuts for it. At least, they get more active in the chat when I use the knife and no one's being mean. They even go "hmp, hmp, hmp!" with me.

Once I pour the batter into the first tin, I begin preparing the second muffin's batter. Eventually, it's time to bake things and I ask Ms. Katie to switch the camera to the tin view. She's been changing the cameras as I work, but I was worried she might have forgotten that the tins had their own camera.

That was probably just me being stupid, but she doesn't comment on it so I think I'm fine.

"Now here's the baking part," I say. "It's a mixture of heat and time magic, with a bubble of air magic around the tins to make sure the heat doesn't escape. Also telekinesis to hold the tins in the air."

I gesture to the tins and they float up into the air.

"So now I'm going to-oh, hello, Mr. Trey," I greet Mr. Trey, who just stepped out onto the deck, changed into his around-the-house clothes. "I'm about to bake the muffins."

He looks like he's trying not to laugh for some reason.

"Hello, Xander," he says. "Are you having fun?"

"Yeah," I nod. "Chat, that's my foster dad, Mr. Trey. Oh, I don't think you can see him. He was in my last stream, and he's over by Ms. Katie. And now it's time to bake the muffins! Three… two… one… baking!"

The muffins immediately begin to rise as they bake, eventually forming domes over the tops of the tins. I'm glad I gave the tops a flat space around the edges, as the muffins even spill over a bit, making their domes sort of like hats. It takes only a minute for the muffins to finish, then I use air magic to cool them down a little as I move them onto the large trays we set out for them.

"That way," I say after telling chat what I'm doing. "The glaze drizzle doesn't stay liquid as long after getting poured on them and can harden faster. And now it's time to make the glazes! I was originally thinking of making the muffins like volcanoes, with the glaze leaking out of them, but then I realized it wouldn't look as good if it was just strawberries or orange glaze, it'd need chocolate to really resemble lava as much as a glaze could. So we're just going to do a strawberry glaze, though I did grab the stuff to make an orange glaze, in case someone wanted one. And yes, I'll be using magic to make the glaze. Mr. Trey, Ms. Katie, and Quinn? Do you want a strawberry or an orange glaze? Or we could do both."

Mr. Trey wants both, while Ms. Katie and Quinn only ask for strawberry, so I make a big batch of strawberry and a smaller batch of orange. The batches are still pretty big since they're supposed to cover pretty wide muffins, so that's "big" and "smaller" in relation to that.

"Also," I say after finishing making the glaze. "Here's a piping bag. Ms. Katie is a professional and I know she likes doing decorations, so I got her a piping bag," why is Mr. Trey laughing? "Well actually, there are several of the bags because they came in a set, not individually. And now I'm thinking about-about the stream on Sunday, when Carter had his chat vote on stuff. I know me attempting decorations would be a failure since I'm not good at art, but if the adults want to compete, they can do that. Do you want to?"

I look at the adults for the question.

"Sure," Mr. Trey says.

"I can do that," Quinn says.

The three adults start piping glaze onto their muffins while I just pour it onto mine. It's really hard to resist just eating some of the pink icing on my own and once I finish covering the top of my muffin with it, I give in to the temptation and eat what's left in the bowl I prepared for myself.

I'm the one who paid for the ingredients, so I probably won't get into trouble as long as I don't lick the bowl.

Once the adults do their glaze art, my viewers vote on which one they like the most. Mr. Trey tried to do a flower design, while Quinn drew a bunch of hearts in a circle. Ms. Katie ended up using both strawberry and orange glaze (and I find out that I made more than was needed for one person), and she drew a very good flower design on her muffin.

Ms. Katie wins by a lot.

"Alright!" I say. "And now it's time to eat the muffins."

"Xander?" Mr. Trey asks as I pull off my apron.

"Yes, Mr. Trey?"

"I think I'll only be taking a slice of my muffin."

"They can be saved for later," I sit down by my muffin. "I don't mind if you don't finish your food."

I take a bite from the rim of my muffin, and it tastes really good. Buying magic ingredients instead of non-magic ones was definitely the right choice.

----------------------------------------

[Luke – 13 years]

Parker and I can't stop laughing. We were playing a game when I received the ping that Xander had gone live and switched to that instead to watch it together, and it's so damn clear to every mage that he's quietly issuing a threat. Him demonstrating that he can casually use magic the way he did is basically him saying "mess with me or try to take my money and I'll roast you alive".

Which probably wasn't necessary after his flame breath demonstration a couple of days ago, but I guess that's why he was asking me how come no one really tries to kidnap me or take advantage of me. He wanted to try and figure out a way to deter others.

The fact that he's using time magic only makes it funnier because very few mages can even wield it slightly and he went and casually did it twice. A demonstration of his mana reserves.

Pretty much every mage in his chat is commenting on Xander's not-so-subtle warning to leave him alone, and there are quite a few people there. Xander drew attention with his hoverboard demonstration and he's basically blown up as people want to learn more about him. Knowing him as well as I do, even if for as short of a time as I have, I know that he probably thinks he has a small follower base and nearly 5,000 viewers isn't much.

To top off the threat, Xander's eating the entire muffin. It's not even taking him very long. Ten minutes in and he's already halfway done with it. The fact that he can keep going tells pretty much any mage or mage-aware viewer that Xander really can burn an immense amount of mana.

This isn't really what I'd meant when I told him I do some demonstrations of my magical abilities to make sure would-be attackers and kidnappers and exploiters know not to mess with me, but it gets the point across. Probably a whole lot faster, too, since he's streaming it live and actively responding to chat, which means people know it's actually live.

A few times, they switch the cameras to show both Xander doing that and Trey and Katie trying not to laugh or looking like they're baffled by the amount he can put away. I think having the quantity as a single item really hammers home just how much high-level mages can eat.

Tomorrow is probably going to be really fun and I can't wait to see if Katie offers me more food now that she's seeing Xander tackle such a giant muffin.

It's bigger than his entire torso!

----------------------------------------

[Sig – 13 years] → starts during Xander's PoV

"Sig?" Aunt Rachel asks as I pass her by.

"I really need a shower to wash the sweat off!" I tell her. "That's why I didn't put a shirt on, you know."

I just got back from mowing some yards and feel really gross right now, so I don't want her to delay me taking a shower.

"Pretty sure that's just because it's summer," she says. "Why do I smell honey?"

"Oh, I'm also covered in honey."

"And how did that happen?"

"There was a bear with water balloons filled with honey and it threw some at me while I was running away."

Aunt Rachel gives me an unamused look.

"No, seriously," I turn my head to look over my back. "Yeah, look, you can see a balloon bit on my back. You can check the news, too. I'm sure it's getting reported on, I wasn't the only victim. I really do need to go shower now! Once I'm done, I'm gonna test my streaming stuff! I got the email that my account is ready to stream while I was out, so I want to test things to make sure it's working right."

"Give me about thirty minutes to finish up some stuff," she pulls the piece of balloon off of my back and examines it for a moment. "Then I'll be ready to moderate."

"Please," I roll my eyes. "No one's heard of me. This is purely so I can test out the stuff, so it's unlikely I'll get any viewers."

"Sig," she says. "It's just in case, alright?"

I don't like this, but I get the feeling she might just take my computer away for a little bit if I don't agree.

"Fiiiiine!"

After my shower, I set things up to start streaming, then wait for Aunt Rachel to be ready. Since there won't be any viewers for a nobody streamer like me, I'm going to play Duty of Loyalty, but on a solo mission rather than a team mission. I boot up the game and start picking out the settings, then wait for Aunt Rachel to let me know she's ready.

Rather than coming down here to let me know, she sends a message in my chat.

[AuntBastion]: Ready when you are.

I go live.

"How's the volume?" I ask. "Can you hear me fine?" She can. "And is everything displaying? It's supposed to have my game on the screen with my webcam over the map section. Alright, cool! And is the game volume too loud? No, alright! Then let's start. Wait! I should do an intro!"

Even if there's no one here, that doesn't mean no one will check out the VOD later. I plan on telling my gaming friends about it so they might check it out.

"Hi, everyone!" I say. "I'm TheUltimateBastion, but you can call me 'Seb'! This is me just making sure the streaming setup is working right in preparation for a stream I'm doing with my Aunt on Thursday, so I'm solo-playing Duty of Loyalty! Going to do a solo mission they released a few days ago, and I haven't played it yet so this is my first time! We're going to jump right in, so here we go!"

I tell it to start the mission.

"The setting is a deep, dense forest," I say. "I was the captain of a squad on its way to a rift that spawned monsters near some mines, wiping out the entire village and workers. However, the plane we were on got downed by an aerial monster no one knew about and I… was the sole survivor.

"Now," I continue narrating. "I must wait until backup arrives. An hour of myself and the monsters of the rift… or rather… I and the deaths of countless monsters as they fall to my greatness! Bwahahahahahahaha!"

I can just imagine Aunt Rachel smacking her head upstairs.

"Let's do this!"

For the next hour, I slay monsters and use parts from the wreckage of the plane and the mining facilities to build a base to defend against attacks from. The mission is a pretty fun one and when it ends, I notice that I have a match request. The name is familiar to me, but it's in English, not Zrebzialan, so I'm not sure who it is.

"Wait!" I realize. "I think that's Lexi inviting me to a tag-team match! Okay, so Lexi is a European gamer. I think she comes from the British Kingdom. We've played with and against each other a few times and she's pretty awesome! Lemme look at the scenario. Oh! It's the same one I just did, but with two players instead of one! That means there should be a little more difficulty. Let's accept!"

I accept the match and receive confirmation once we arrive that it's Lexi. The two of us play together, her with very broken Zrebzialan and me with broken English. She knows even less of my language than I do of hers, but we manage to communicate well enough to work together and defend against the monsters. In the two-member version of the mission, we have to take out the flying monster before reinforcements arrive and the mission is an hour and a half instead of just an hour.

That's fun to take down, especially since we have to get creative due to it being, well, flying while we're stuck on the ground. Lexi and I manage to figure out how to use grenades to launch things into the air, though, and we succeed in hitting the winged best with shrapnel, tearing part of its wings.

"Crazy bastard!" Lexi laughs after I do it the first time.

Okay, maybe I didn't communicate with her well enough what I wanted to do, but there is a language difference.

"I'm the best!" I pump my fists up in the air. "Let's do this!"

I have to fight to not look at chat during the battle. It suddenly got super busy right before the monster attacked. Since Aunt Rachel didn't switch the chat into slowmode or Follower-only or something, I'm assuming it's not bots and I really want to know what's going on. But I can't look, I have a monster to take down.

Finally, at long last, Lexi and I manage to down the beast, my shrapnel-based attack idea helping us in tearing apart its wings so it comes to the ground. When we kill it, we give each other virtual high-fives, then clean up the remaining monsters as they surge, one last battle before help arrives and the mission ends.

"GG, Bastion!" Lexi says.

"GG, Lexi!"

A friend request comes in from her and there's no way I'm passing up the opportunity to be able to better-coordinate team matches with someone as great of a player as she is. How she knew I was online and was able to send me a match request confuses me, but I can figure that out later.

"Whoa," I say as I look at my view counter. "Hold up. What's going on? Uh… wait, on here it says a raid from Xander? Four thousand nine hundred and seventy-two viewers? Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Wait, Xander was streaming? Are you still here?"

There aren't as many people here as what he sent over, but there are still over two thousand people who saw me and Lexi try to communicate in languages we don't know to take down a boss monster. Xander might still be here or he might have left already.

[XTK9]: That was a really cool fight.

"Thanks, Xander!" I say. "You were streaming? What'd you stream? Wanna call me?"

My phone rings almost immediately, and it's him, so I answer it and connect the call to my microphone so chat can hear him properly.

"What'd you stream?"

"I baked muffins."

He sounds really sleepy, so I think streaming wiped him out and he's going to need a nap before bowling later. We've got plenty of time before then, so he'll probably take one.

"What kind?" I ask.

"Banana-nut," he answers. "Then I ate one. Mr. Trey, Ms. Katie, and Quinn all only ate a part of theirs."

"Guess they weren't very hungry, huh?"

"Not hungry enough to eat as big of muffins as I made."

He must've made dessert-sized muffins. Those can be pretty big.

"Probably not," I giggle. "Did you have fun?"

"Yeah," Xander answers. "Especially the part where I mashed the bananas with force magic. That was super fun."

There's some sort of clattering sound followed by an "oops" from Xander.

"I'm gonna have to watch the VOD!" I tell him. "You're probably busy with something right now, right?"

"I'm helping Ms. Katie make dinner," he answers.

"Alright!" I say. "I'm gonna let you go now! Bye, Xander! See you later!"

"Bye," Xander replies, then the call ends.

"Alright, chat!" I say. "Thanks for coming in and watching that fight! I'm gonna get going now, too! This was just me testing the stream setup and it's probably close to time to make dinner here, too! Bye everyone! I should be back on Thursday at about 7 Mountain Time! Byyyye!"

I end the stream, then stretch my arms and back. That was a fun fight, and Xander raiding in right as it was starting was cool timing. Who'd have thought he'd do another stream so soon after the first?

As for my own stream, I think it went great, even if I wasn't expecting any actual viewers. That was definitely a good test run for Thursday, too.

How many of them will come back for it?