~Manipulation~

3 // Streaming

So far, their plan had gone perfectly. Wilbur had met up with Tommy and, after five minutes, had convinced the boy to team with him and planned attack Phil. There was one little issue: Wilbur hadn't told Tommy to actually destroy the house. Therefore, Tommy wasn't destroying the house. Instead, they had just entered it and searching for Phil.

Tommy was about to subtly hint this at Wilbur (or maybe he wasn't – it meant he didn't have to destroy Techno's house) but at that moment Phil came walking down the stairs. Wilbur immediately went to Phil and started attacking him. Tommy followed after, but was stopped by a test message from Wilbur.

'Are you going to follow through with my plan or not? You do know how much time I've put into it – and you're just ignoring it? Destroy the house Tommy!'

Tommy visibly tensed. This was it – Wilbur had originally said that he was going to verbally command him to destroy the building on stream, but Techno knew the plan, so it was fine, right? Chat had noticed that he was standing still for a while and started spamming the others' streams. It was only when Wilbur aggressively coughed that Tommy was brought back to realty.

Here goes nothing. The blonde placed a block of obsidian and then an end crystal onto the ground. He took one deep breath, then blew up the crystal.

The game lagged for a second. When they all came back, there was nothing more than an empty crater resting where Techno's house once stood. Everyone was silent. The streams picked up the apparent break in script.

Techno's character ran over to the debris – even his secret stash of underground loot was gone. What!? No one said anything. Techno turned around to face Tommy.

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!?"

"Mate that was really not cool." Phil chimed in.

"Tommy, Tommy, Tommy! I can't believe you would do something like that. I mean that's just cruel. We were supposed to attack Phil, not something like this. You've gone too far."

Tommy gulped. Jeez – these guys were all suddenly really good at acting. "Y- yeah well... serves you r-right!" Acting this was getting really hard. He really just wanted to apologise over and over, but they had an audience to entertain. Over a hundred thousand people were watching this. "Y- you suck and... you're no big man! T-the house was ug- ug- ugly anyway." Tommy felt a tear slide down his cheek. Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm.

"Tommy! How could you say such a thing! No – I want you to leave and think about that you've done." Phil looked dead into the camera. How were they all suddenly so good at acting!? Techno just stayed deadly silent the whole time.

"Tommy that was cruel. You're selfish and that was unfair." Wilbur shook his head, but the stream could pick up on his smile. Guess one person was still terrible at acting.

"Wilbur please – this is no time for smiles." Phil was now reprimanding Wilbur which was odd – he had never commented on Wilbur's acing before.

"You're right. Tommy needs to pay for those actions." Wilbur launched an enchanted arrow of poison at Tommy's character; successfully killing him.

Tommy felt a few more tears run down his face before he decided to end stream. He couldn't do this: it felt too real. "B-bye guys. Thanks for tuning in and I'll see you a-all next time. Bye." Unlike usual, he didn't say and endless list of goodbyes – he ended it immediately. A few seconds later he left the group call as well.

Suddenly, he got a message from Wilbur: 'Very good Tommy! I loved your acting there. I just have one complaint. You were supposed to stay with me. Not leave stream. You've hurt my feelings and I expect an apology.'

Tommy sighed. He was about to go and lie down (maybe call techno), but he got another message. 'Oh, and don't even think about venting to either Phil or Techno. You saw how they acted. Even after knowing the plan and agreeing to it, they got angry. They were just waiting for an excuse to leave you and this was the perfect one. Now apologise to me before you get no friends at all."

Tommy's hands shakily typed out 'Sorry Wilbur'

'Whose fault was it?'

'Mine'

'Good! Now join vc'

Tommy took a moment to compose himself and wipe the tears away from his face before joining the call. "Hey Wilbur."

"Hi Tommy! Since you apologised so nicely, I'm going to invite you to join me in my next vlog. I'm going to a maze and you are too. It's tomorrow so don't be late." His voice was creepily happy.

With that, he hung up the call, leaving a very shocked Tommy to replay the events over and over in his head. After a few moments of silence, he closed off his laptop and went downstairs for a snack. He took a granola bar and went upstairs to rest. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.