32. The Anti-Doxx DLC Skin in Walmart
Rippa was looking at a young, ginger woman hovering a few inches above the ground. She walked around and examined the person.
It wasn’t like the typical hologram projection Rippa had seen in movies. There was no flickering. No semi-transparency. It looked so real, as if it really was there in its glorious, solid form. She reached out and almost jumped. ‘Well, shit, it is real.’
Now that the Feds were looking for Rippa, Goggles had put measures in place to thwart all their attempts at figuring out the real person behind the VTuber Rippin’ Rippa. However, it was Buttons who had pointed out the physical and quite plausible aspect of the doxxing risk.
“Now that I am free to magic my way willy-nilly, I’ll be out on the streets more often and have a lot of fun,” Buttons had said. “But that puts you at risk.”
“How is that?” Rippa had asked.
“Well, if somebody sees a young woman playing with me, they will immediately think, ‘Aha, that must be Rippin’ Rippa!’”
And this was Goggles’ solution.
Rippa walked around the model one more time. “How does this work exactly?”
Goggles’ explanation was somewhat complicated. According to him, when someone who wasn’t aware of both of Rippa’s identities saw her in the context of Buttons, this was how she would appear to them.
Rippa had to run that through in her head again and digest it in chunks. The whole thing had a lot of conditionals and involved altering people’s perception of reality. It was mind-boggling. ‘Now that he knows I know he really can do anything, he’s not holding back at all, eh?’ Rippa thought.
“So, if I’m walking down the street with Buttons,” Rippa tried to see if she got it right, “Mom will see Filippa, but a hobo will see this? Did I get that right?”
“You nailed it, Miss Rippa.” Goggles smiled rather proudly.
“How about photos? I’m sure many people will want to take photos of Buttons.”
“It works the same way.”
Rippa made one more round around the woman. “Wow, she doesn’t look like me at all, which is good, I guess. Why ginger, though?”
Buttons slapped the woman’s thigh. “This is how I’ll look at your age… well, according to what’s in the DNA.” The kid then gloated. “I’m pretty, eh?”
Rippa coughed. Now that she knew it was an aged-up Buttons… “Goggles, could you at least put some clothes on her? It’s very uncomfortable looking at Buttons like this.”
“Oops, my apologies.”
The woman was now dressed in Rippa’s cargo pants and an oversized hoodie.
“But she got both legs?” Rippa pointed out, but she quickly realized she might have offended Buttons.
Thankfully, the kid didn’t mind. “The girl lost her leg before her death,” Buttons explained, “so I don’t have it either.”
“The infection after the amputation was what killed her, unfortunately,” Goggles added.
Buttons slapped the thigh once again. “But since this isn’t me, you can have both my legs.”
Rippa studied her newly acquired DLC skin. It was indeed pretty. Literally a what-could-have-been. She internally debated whether to ask for a more… fuller… larger… ‘Nah, that’s too embarrassing to ask him.’
“I’m pretty, eh?” Buttons insisted again.
Rippa pinched the kid’s cheek and shook it. “Eat up. Sleep well, and exercise. And also, take care of your skin. And then one day you’ll be as pretty as her.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
***
Yes, millions had watched the Q&A stream and the news surrounding it, but that was still only a fraction of the populace. Those who had watched it or had heard about this so-called ‘God Kid’ weren’t expecting Buttons to make an appearance in public so soon after the stream. And Walmart was the last place they expected to see her.
Thus, when a portal opened right by the entrance and Buttons walked out with Miss Pendrake and Rippa, people freaked out.
Rippa was nervous as hell, her heart racing. She crossed her fingers and prayed the DLC skin worked as Goggles had promised. It was so nerve-racking precisely because she had no way of seeing how others saw her. Looking into a mirror to check was pointless because it’d be Filippa looking at Rippa.
Buttons was oblivious to the instant chaos she had caused. Some ran away screaming. Some held up cameras to film, but kept a cautious distance.
“I’ve seen them on YouTube, but never been to one,” she said, her voice full of excitement. Her cane clattered rhythmically on the hard floor as Buttons ran into the store with Miss Pendrake in tow.
Rippa cast a quick Courage +1 buff and followed Leeroy Buttons into the dungeon.
She found the two struggling with the shopping carts. Buttons was trying to pull one out of the docking station.
“I’ve seen people pushing these things, but never how they got them in the first place,” said Buttons, giving up. “I’m gonna ask Gogglepedia.”
“It’s OK, I’ll show you,” Rippa offered. She showed the kid how to free a cart.
“Nice! Let’s go!” Buttons ran into the store for real this time, leaving Rippa with the cart. But in her excitement, the kid almost bumped into a rather rotund woman. Buttons apologized and went around her.
The woman, however, went ash-gray. She did a double-take on Buttons, then hurriedly exited the store.
Rippa’s eyes followed the woman until she was no longer in view. She also noticed Miss Pendrake doing the same.
Buttons was talking in rapid Spanish to a bewildered employee, asking where the jams were. The employee gestured toward an aisle in the distance.
“That was Shanaqueen,” Rippa said, catching up with Buttons.
“Who?”
“The fat bitch who called the gangs on you.”
Buttons wasn’t paying attention. She held onto the front of the cart with one hand and led Rippa to the jam aisle.
“She did?”
“Yeah, you are not gonna tell her off? You gonna just let her go?”
Buttons stopped and turned. She looked confused. “Why? Should I do something?”
“Bruh, her friends nearly killed you!”
“And?”
“And? Buttons!”
But the kid was not taking it seriously. “Look, Rippa, if Godzilla stepped on a Lego, would he cry and throw a tantrum?”
“What?”
“Chicken poop, I told you, didn’t I?” With that, Buttons went ahead and disappeared into the aisles.
Rippa wondered if Buttons was just acting cool or genuinely didn’t care. After some thought, she settled on the latter. Otherwise, Buttons wouldn’t have been able to hide it without blushing or bursting out laughing.
Rippa noticed the crowd. Why, yes, they had been following Buttons with their phones up.
‘Hang on.’ She quickly pulled out her phone and did a search on X, ‘Rippa.’
And there it was. Among the latest posts, a photo. Buttons, Miss Pendrake, and a ginger-haired woman stepping out of the portal in Walmart.
‘Guys, isn’t this the Buttons kid and her bodyguard? So the other one is Rippin’ Rippa?’ the X post read.
“Yes!” Rippa punched the air. The DLC skin was working!
The replies were hilarious. Ranging from ‘THAT Rippa is doxxing herself like this?’ to ‘Literally mom and daughter.’
Of course, there were doubters, too. Mostly because they did not want to accept the possibility that Rippa could be pretty.
‘Screw you, motherfuckers!’ Rippa gloated silently.
Confident and with light footsteps, Rippa found Buttons and Miss Pendrake in the jam aisle. However, she first had to push her cart through thick rows of people taking photos and murmuring among themselves.
In the center of the aisle, by Miss Pendrake’s feet, Buttons was on the floor, sitting like a mermaid perched on a rock. Her face was expressionless, her eyes red and slowly moving from one jar to another across the gigantic shelves filled with jams and marmalades and spreads from top to bottom across the entire length of the aisle. The excitement from moments ago had vanished.
“What’s wrong, Buttons?” Rippa hurried and knelt down beside the child. “Are you in pain?”
“Rippa, look. So many.”
“Yes, so many… Are you overwhelmed?”
Buttons looked up and met Rippa’s gaze. She gave a faint smile. “If you got caught stealing one little jar from the storage, you were sent to the front line to die.” The kid looked at the jams again. “But people still did.”
“I…” Rippa stopped. She didn’t know what to say.
“And when I was in the orphanage, Mademoiselle Moreau would spank me whenever she caught me with my spoon in the jar… she said there wasn’t enough for all the kids.“
“Buttons, should we leave?”
The kid looked up and smiled. “No, no. I am just being dramatic, that’s all. Help me up, please.”
Rippa helped Buttons up and placed the cane in the kid’s right hand. She held on to Buttons’ free hand and squeezed a little.
“I wonder if they have Tiptree,” Buttons mused aloud.
Still holding hands, Rippa and Buttons combed through the shelf and found some Tiptree-brand jams. Buttons picked the raspberry jam and put it in the shopping cart.
The kid didn’t let go of Rippa’s hand, but Miss Pendrake read the room and took over the shopping-cart duty.
After that, Buttons didn’t talk much. Her face remained expressionless, and her gaze, distant. However, Rippa couldn’t help but notice that, despite the change in mood, Buttons kept filling up the cart with ice cream and chips and cookies and pies and a set of colored pencils and a couple of Hot Wheels.
Rippa knew Buttons didn’t actually need any of these. Goggles could just spawn superior versions of everything. Yet the ojousama slowly but methodically filled the shopping cart.
People kept following them like some zombies. Rippa tried to ignore them, but it was really getting on her nerves.
Rippa then brought Buttons to the kids’ clothing section, and after much fussing and trying on, Rippa put a twelve-pack of girls’ white socks into the cart. Considering Buttons had only one foot, it was a super good deal.
At the self-checkout, Miss Pendrake and Buttons took turns scanning items. While they were doing so, Buttons apologized to Rippa.
“Sorry I caused a scene back there.”
Rippa didn’t say anything, but just gave the kid a little rub on the back.
“I had seen videos of the inside and knew what I was walking into. That was why I was so excited… but actually seeing it…”
“Well, you see what you want to see on the internet, but in reality, things are different.” Rippa then had a thought. “Just like me. I’m a VTuber, remember?”
“Ah, you are not like that. The VTuber Rippa was what caught my attention, but it was the person behind it I became a fan of.”
Rippa froze for a second. She made an angry face and put her hands on her hips. “When you watched my streams, you read my mind?”
“But we don’t anymore,” said the kid.
“Why, you little you!” Rippa playfully slapped Buttons on the back. “How did you even discover me in the first place?”
“I watched over Goggles’ shoulder.”
At this point, a portal opened and a couple of maids stepped out to take the shopping bags. Rippa and Buttons went home as people gathered around to take videos of the portal closing.