7. Like Evangelion
The next day, it was so obvious Buttons was trying to hide her excitement at seeing Rippa again. When Rippa pointed it out, Buttons blushed.
“I mean, I told you that you don’t have to come back, so if I look too happy, you’d think I tricked you into coming.”
“I didn’t come to make you happy, dumbass, I came because I wanted to,” Rippa laughed. She found it cute. Then she paused and thought. ‘Did I say that because I wanted it to be true, or coz it’s true?’ But then thinking about it, Rippa realized that she wanted to hang out with Buttons, regardless of the reason. Rippa felt relieved, as if a mild indigestion had gone away. She could see that Buttons had relaxed a bit as well.
From then on, Rippa hung out with Buttons whenever she could. Not daily, though, as she had her own things to take care of.
Being a full-time streamer living with her parents did not mean all she did was go live on YouTube for a few hours. There were collab streams to schedule, which also required discussing what to do, testing connections and screen-sharing, and handling such backend tech stuff. Talking to sponsors and merch vendors, and responding to business emails took up a lot of time, too. Sponsors wanted to dictate what she could and could not say. Plushie samples had the wrong colors. Compiling and sending her expenses to her accountant was tedious. Art commission costs and license fees related to her stream-related software were the easy ones. Gacha spending wasn’t. On top of that, Rippa also had to keep track of the artists she had commissioned, and keep in touch with her editors and discuss analytics.
All in all, retreating to the sunny beach and hanging out with Buttons became something she looked forward to. It also helped that Goggles somehow extended Rippa’s home Wi-Fi to cover the beach. She could bring her laptop and get some work done from the comfy lounge.
It was during this time she had gradually learned a bit more about her alien friends.
Buttons, for instance, wasn’t that fit. The original girl had already been quite unhealthy to begin with. Weak, frail, and small. That explained the frequent rests and naps.
“Basically, my stats are hard-capped,” Buttons explained rather casually. “I don’t level up.”
“Couldn’t you guys, like, upgrade or something?” Rippa asked rather bluntly, which she later regretted. ‘Ah, I should have worded it better.’
“I do my best, but nothing short of re-rolling will fix it,” answered Goggles in a language Rippa could understand. “That’d be fundamentally altering who she is. Playing gods. Buttons doesn’t like that.”
It was also during this time Rippa noted one fundamental constant in Buttons’ life. No matter where or when, after every meal or snack, Madam J.D. would appear with a maid in tow, armed with a toothbrush and a toothpaste. Then she’d vigorously brush Buttons’ teeth. The ordeal seemed rather brutal even to Rippa’s eyes, so she suggested Buttons do her own brushing. However, watching the kid do a half-assed mimicry of the job made Rippa step in and snatch the toothbrush from Buttons’ hand. Holding the kid’s jaw firmly, Rippa did a satisfyingly thorough job, and to her surprise, Buttons remarked, “Hey, you do it much better than Madam J.D.”
Goggles, meanwhile, stayed in the background. Sure, he remained accessible whenever Rippa needed something or had some questions, but like a lamp in a room, he wasn’t noticed while he was there, only when he wasn’t.
“Where does he go off to?” Rippa asked Buttons. She had assumed, given that the beach was a holodeck, Goggles went off to other parts of the spaceship to take care of stuff. But Buttons’ answer caught her off guard.
“He goes to do taxes,” the little girl dropped a lore bomb with that answer, but didn’t elaborate, much to Rippa’s annoyance.
‘Taxes? Aliens do taxes?’
Upon Mom’s suggestion, Rippa also tried various methods to geolocate the beach. After all, her phone did not lose any connection even when she was hanging out with Buttons. Her carrier’s data network, her home Wi-Fi, and even GPS. They all stayed connected. However, all maps showed she was at home. Even the EXIF metadata of the photos she took showed the location of Rippa’s home.
“Perhaps, the UFO is directly above us?” Dad suggested. “So the x-y coordinates are the same as our house?”
Rippa’s family rushed to the windows and poked their heads out and looked up. They were disappointed to find nothing interesting in the sky. ‘The ship must be cloaked, of course,’ Rippa thought.
***
It took Rippa some days to muster up the courage to ask Goggles if it’d be OK to invite Buttons to her room and show her the streaming setup.
“Would that be alright with you?” Goggles asked in return. “You would be bringing a stranger to your house.”
“Huh? No, I’m asking you because Buttons would be going to a stranger’s house.”
They then both laughed and agreed they weren’t strangers anymore.
Buttons, of course, loved it. So, Rippa went ahead to pick up some trash in her room and bring the laundry out and hide adult stuff.
A portal opened in the living room, and Buttons and Miss Pendrake walked out. Mom and Dad welcomed them with hugs and fussed over the kid as if a grandchild had come over for the holidays. Mom made tea and brought out a tray full of cookies and stuffed the two guests while her adult daughter made her room more presentable.
Eating cookies and drinking tea, Buttons and Miss Pendrake sat on the sofa and looked around the living room. While the child was curious and talked to the hosts and laughed at Dad’s dad jokes, the young bodyguard remained silent and composed, but she kept accepting the cookies Mom offered one after another.
Rippa still wasn’t ready, so her parents gave the guests a short tour of the house. They showed them the kitchen, where Buttons paused for a few seconds in front of the refrigerator with an ice and water dispenser.
Miss Pendrake showed some sign of interest when Dad showed them the garage and his truck. She tiptoed and peered in through the window. Buttons was more interested in the power drill on the shelf, but the adults made sure she didn’t touch it.
When Buttons was finally permitted to enter Rippa’s room and see her favorite VTuber’s streaming setup, she was more than thrilled. Rippa showed her the basics: how the VTuber software tracked movements and facial expressions through a camera. How OBS captured the VTuber software window and composited the scene with other elements such as a YouTube tab open in the browser.
“You see this? Come here and move a bit,” Rippa offered. Buttons stood before the desk and jerked her head left and right, but nothing much happened.
“Ah, OK, the camera is tracking a bit high. Hang on,” Rippa sat in her gaming chair, hoisted Buttons up, and settled the kid on her lap. In that split second, Rippa couldn’t help but notice Buttons’ left leg instinctively shooting outward before very slowly easing back down, mindful of Rippa’s shins.
Rippa cleared her throat and invited Buttons to try again.
Her eyes fixed on the screen, Buttons moved her head. Rippa’s anime avatar moved in sync. Buttons smiled, and Rippin’ Rippa smiled back.
“Hang on,” Rippa turned on the microphone. “Say something.”
“Hello. Hello,” said Buttons, and Rippin’ Rippa on screen moved her lips.
Rippa could feel Buttons’ little body bouncing up and down as the kid jolted in delight.
“How about we make a model for you?” Rippa suggested and opened the VTuber model maker app. It wasn’t anything fancy, just some basic-level stuff she had downloaded from Steam. She loaded up a default model.
“Now, we can make some changes with this, and this, and this.”
With that, Rippa let Buttons tinker with the software. She fought the urge to take over the mouse, as the child had a bit of a problem with moving the cursor to where she wanted.
While Buttons was having fun, Rippa turned to see what Miss Pendrake was up to. The blond girl had been quietly sitting behind them in a chair, studying the room, but now something seemed to have caught her eye. Rippa’s shelf of anime figures and plushies and acrylic stands. Miss Pendrake stood up and approached the shelf. She seemed to be interested in one particular—
‘Wait,’ Rippa stiffened a bit.
Sitting on her lap, Buttons must have felt it. She looked up for a second, then resumed working on her model.
Rippa’s eyes were darting between the figure and Miss Pendrake. The green eyes. The face. The blond hair, now in a ponytail. And even the stubborn strand of hair on top… Rippa slowly took out her phone and opened Grok.
‘Pendrake.’
After a few seconds, the AI spat out an answer. A rare English surname… a variant of the far more famous Arthurian legend…
‘You silly little aliens!’ Rippa did an internal facepalm. Who would have thought aliens would out-otaku humans?
“I’m done!” Buttons’ voice brought Rippa’s attention back to the child on her lap.
The kid had changed the default model’s hair color to ginger. And she seemed to have made the head a bit larger.
“OK, gimme a sec,” Rippa started working. Save. Export. Load up in the VTuber studio. Default level tracking… and done.
“Do something,” Rippa suggested.
Buttons, once again, moved her head left and right, and said, “Hello. Hello.”
The ginger kid on screen did the same.
Buttons pointed at the avatar. “It’s not moving as much as you do when you stream.”
“Ah, that’s because I move a lot,” Rippa explained. To make her avatar move more livelily, Rippa herself would make large, exaggerated movements and facial expressions.
“See this? Normal smile,” Rippa smiled a normal smile. “Small smile. Big smile,” Rippa smiled big. “Big smile.” The avatar on screen made a big smile. “Kinda like Disney acting.”
“Hmm…” Buttons seemed to be in deep thought. After a few seconds, she looked back up. “So, it’s like piloting an Evangelion?”
Rippa looked down at the child on her lap. “Don’t tell me you watched Evangelion. You are too young for that show.”
Buttons looked back at the screen. She moved this way and that, and studied how it translated to her ginger avatar’s movement.
“You are amazing, Rippa!” Buttons concluded. “When you stream. The movements. The expressions. Wow.” She looked up in awe. “I wish I could pilot this body as well as you do.”
“Well, it takes a bit of practice.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”