“That look….” Thomas said as his gaze shifted to follow Axton’s. He looked over at the open door that led from the main room to the place where he knew that Axton had set up every game system he owned for a while before he gave Axton a side glance that was chock full of skepticism. “You can’t have…”

Axton simply smiled knowingly and closed his eyes.

“That’s… impossible….”

Axton remained silent and let the revelation sink in, which was still only half-believed by his ridiculously rich friend.

“Hold on. I’ve got to see this.”

Thomas got up and speed-walked over to the open doorway and then peeked in. As his gaze fell on Axton’s VR Pod, Thomas’ jaw nearly hit the floor. The rich man began to shift his gaze between the Pod and his less well-off friend before he rushed over to Axton and grabbed his shoulders.

“How?!”

Axton shook his head and sighed. He was glad he got the Pod, but there were things about it that caused him some serious grief. Not that his friend would have suffered nearly the same even if the one who had gotten said Pod was his friend instead.

“Luck of the draw. And some bad luck.”

Axton’s words were just barely enough for Thomas to be satisfied. He knew that when Axton said stuff like that, it usually meant that things were not nearly as cut and dry as they might be for someone like himself. After all, there was no way someone like him was rich enough to get that Pod on his own, let alone keep it unless something was going on behind the scenes.

Odds were that Axton was in a bit of hot water, even if he refused to fully admit it. But then again, what were friends for aside from helping in times like this? As any human would tell you, money makes nearly all problems go away, and Thomas had enough that spending a few tens of billions to help his only real friend would be like an average person offering a single dollar to help their friend buy a pack of gum in the late 2010s. Losing that ‘small’ amount would essentially be him spending chump change, but it would help.

Thomas moved back a bit and sat down opposite to his buddy. “Alright, lay it on me. What kind of shit did you get yourself into?”

Axton looked up and saw that his old comrade was in one of ‘those’ phases again. He would not leave or let Axton do just about anything until he heard literally everything, and odds were that his buddy would use his substantial wealth to force a few hands and pull a few strings. If there was one thing that he was both glad and sad over, it was that Thomas was so very overprotective of him. It kinda made him wonder exactly what he would do if he found out how toxic his previous employment had been.

Axton may have been a bit petty and vindictive, but he wasn’t about to destroy an entire corporation by using his trillionaire friend as a weapon. Too many innocent people would feel the bite of such an act, and that was one of the reasons why he had never really told his friend about the stuff he had to deal with.

But, then again, even if he kept quiet, he knew that Thomas had more than enough resources to get the information through... other channels. So, begrudgingly, Axton spent the next few hours recounting the events that led up to him getting the Pod, along with his time in-game and his dealings and eventual refusal to deal with the makers of the newest game.

As Axton explained his current situation, Thomas was dead silent, and his face didn’t shift at all. Axton knew this side of his old buddy as well. Being born into extreme and gratuitous wealth meant that Thomas had been surrounded by brown-nosers, sycophants, and money-hungry parasites nearly since birth. This and the extreme power he wielded even as a child meant that he had to be educated in a certain way, all to make sure he was as diplomatic as humanly possible. Despite this, there were certain tells that anyone who knew him well enough could pick up on, and one of those was when he just let people talk and kept a face that didn’t change at all the whole time.

This was a tell-tale sign that he was plotting and scheming, using his cybernetic augmentations and his own personal intellect to process every bit of info that came his way, add to it using his family’s wealth of gathered data, and then use all of that to form a plan of attack. The lack of muscle movements in his face and deathly silence was a dead giveaway that he was irritated enough that he was using the machines at his disposal to come up with some kind of retaliation, either by direct or indirect means. Axton kept talking regardless, as he figured that even if he shut his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to change his friend’s mind.

As he finished his story, Axton waited for Thomas to stop pulling a Tzeentch and quit making his convoluted and intricate plans with the aid of the family supercomputers. Alas, Thomas merely sat in his seat for what felt like an eternity, occasionally taking a sip of his glass of water and not doing much else besides. Eventually, the gears in his head finally stopped turning and the multi-trillionaire sighed deeply.

“Let me guess.” Axton said, breaking the lengthy silence. “You’ll have something done about all of that?”

Thomas reclined in the sofa and nodded once. “A few things will be out of my reach, but I’ll be able to pull a few strings and get some people in the right places. Both the Blythe family and that company are out of my hands, but I’ll be able to put the screws to a few people and we’ll see how things turn out.”

“Can you not go all out?” Axton asked, worriedly.

“Why not?” Thomas retorted, clearly a bit upset at how his close friend had been treated as of the past year or so. “Are you worried they might try and retaliate?”

“Yes and no.” Axton said as he finished his drink. “I just don’t want those who don’t need to be harmed to be harmed. I just want to have some room, to have them not bother me and interfere.”

“Yeah, well, they seem to have already decided to do that, regardless of what you wanted.”

Axton nodded and continued, “Yes, and that’s why I know you will interfere here and there. But I don’t want you to crush them utterly. There are a lot of innocents that would feel the result of you going all out, you know.”

Thomas nodded, acknowledging that he knew that as well. “Well, there isn’t all that much I can do about them, anyways. Those two, together, are worth more than I am by about half. That, and they are bound together tighter than you would expect. Honestly, I’m surprised that they haven’t sent someone here to kill you by now. Either way, I’ll get in contact with a few of my people and I’ll have so many eyes on this place of yours that not even an ant will be able to sneak in and bite you.”

The clock on the wall chimed and the pair of people realized that it was way too late for both of them to be up. Both rose from their seats and Axton walked his childhood friend to the door. As Thomas walked out, he turned back for a bit.

“Seeing as I’m also going to get that game too, I might as well send you a Friend Request. You will know it’s me when I send it, trust me. Together, we’ll make sure that they can’t easily mess with you.”

As Axton closed the door, he fully expected that his old boss would never allow things to be that easy.

He was right.