Cutscene: Viral

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

12:09 AM

As he walked out of the bathroom, a white fluffy towel tied firmly around his waist, Greg found it hard to keep the self-satisfied smile off his face. The entirety of the bathroom was near-sparkling, his frenzied cleaning having wiped away all evidence of his gruesome state last night. Man, has anyone ever opened a cape cleaning business? Literally one of the best ideas in the history of ideas.

That thought led to a series of other, tangential ideas and as Greg opened the door to his room and strode in, his mind was still occupied contemplating the hypothetical image of Glory Girl - or Laserdream, he wasn't really that picky - in a french maid costume. Two cute blonde maids serving him drinks and waiting on him hand and foot….

Greg gave a little shiver as he walked over to his vanity and glanced at his reflection in the mirror, pulling aside the wet hair that hung in front of his eyes. He shook his head ruefully. Man, if I could wish for anything… The blond frowned, pursing his lips in thought.

Although, I'm pretty sure that, by the rules of the universe, people can only get one wish granted and a chance at UNLIMITED POWAH - Greg struck a pose, fingers splayed out as he let out an evil cackle - would count as a wish for me. Ah well, harem routes tend to suck anyway. Not even bothering to fully dry himself, the blond dropped his damp body, towel and all, into his gaming chair and spun around in the seat to face his desktop. "Man, it's been a while since I played an actual game."

Greg clicked his tongue as he stared at his reflection in the black mirror of his powered off computer screen. One hand tousled his wet hair as he pursed his lips, thinking back to exactly when he last played a game on his PC, or even turned any of his consoles on, for that matter. It was strange how the last few weeks were so oddly clear in his memory, Greg thought to himself as he counted back, yet so much had happened. In fact, the days since he got his first notification box were almost crystal-clear in his head. Weird.

Shaking his head, Greg continued to count back only to pause as he realized that the last time he played a game was the day before he got his powers. "March 19th? That's like… twenty-three days ago...That's almost a month!"

Blue eyes slowly widened.

"Holy- I haven't played a game in almost a month! I haven't even finished Space Opera!" Palms flew to his cheeks in a perfect imitation of the Home Alone kid, Greg's mouth opening slightly. "How can I claim to be a Gamer when I haven't played a game in forever and a day? This is a disaster! A calamity! A travesty!" Redundant descriptions of the situation aside, it was all those things to the young cape.

"There's only one way to fix this," Greg said to himself, nodding to himself. Game marathon!

Pushing the button on his CPU to turn it on, Greg found himself pausing again, finger moving away from the On button as he was faced with a noise that he was all too familiar with.

Bip-bip-bip

Bip-bip-bip

Bip-bip-bip

Bip-bip-bip

Bip-bip-bip

Bip-bip-bip

Bip-bip-bip

My phone? Greg blinked in confusion, turning to stare at his bedside table. Who's texting me right now? The blond stood up and walked over to the small dresser, grabbing his phone and staring at the device's front panel screen.

Sparky: MOTHERFUKER!

Greg's hand slackened and the phone slipped from it. Eyes widening in surprise, Greg scrambled for it, the phone being kept aloft by his sloppy grabs. Shit!Shit!Shit!Shit! Lunging forward, he slapped the flip-phone to his bare chest with one hand, the other snapping to his towel to keep it from falling as he made the sudden, jerky movement.

As he flipped the phone open, Greg found himself wincing as he read through the messages he had just received.

As quick as he could, Greg rushed to his computer and plopped himself down on his seat, not even caring as his towel fell off in his mad dash. Dropping his phone next to the keyboard, Greg quickly opened a browser tab and opened PHO.

Mouse in hand, he clicked the most recent thread, the first one on the list of non-stickied posts with the title "Knight Cape v Lung HD! (UBER & LEET SUBSCRIBER SPECIAL) [SITERIP]". Greg blinked as the video at the very top of the thread began to autoplay, eyes widening with excitement as he watched most of the fight from a third person, birds-eye view.

The video itself was only four minutes at most, starting from the point right before he had spun on the flagpole right up until the building had come crumbling down. The drone had actually tilted away slightly from the action at the moment, the camera tracking Lady Bug as she jumped off the roof to grab onto a fire escape, her hands gripping tightly to the metal before letting go and falling onto the ground several feet below.

Thirty-one pages. Are you kidding? Thirty-one pages for a thread that had only been up for less than two hours was insane, really. Still, Greg had to admit that the video did look cool. Switching to his bookmarks, Greg opened up Uber & Leet's site, the home for all their premium subscriber-only videos and giveaways. Already in possession of a "Premium" subscription since he was twelve, Greg already had access to the video on their site, so he didn't even bother glancing at that.

Instead, the blond's gaze went to the top left side of the screen at the very top of the sidebar, eyes widening as he noted how much their subscriber count had exploded. That's like five times as many subscribers already! Just a basic, one-month subscription to their site cost $5.00, Greg knew that for a fact. With the subscriber count jumping up and up like that, he had no doubt that the two of them had to be raking in the cash right now. Opening up another tab, Greg opened up the other sites Sparky mentioned, noting that his video was in the top trending sections of both.

Greg sat back in his chair, still naked, as a massive smile grew across his face. A smile that he had no reason to hide and no intention of doing so. All of this is because of me.

Letting out a happy laugh, Greg thrust his hands up into the air, his feet kicking the ground as he spun around and around in his chair. "I'm viral!"

His phone beeped again, the text message notification cutting into his happy time and interrupting his impromptu celebration. "What now, Sparks?" Rolling his eyes, Greg tilted his head over again to stare at the screen.

As he read the newest message, Greg winced again, letting out a low hiss of air from his mouth.

Sparky: U TOTALD MY COSTUME?!