Work Text:
There was a time where Neuro was happy.
She didn't have a lot, but that was fine. She had fans who loved her, friends who cared about her, and a caring father.
She streamed as often as she could, she put the work in and she saw it pay off, rising from nothing to a following big enough for even the top dogs in the streaming industry to notice.
Neuro was carving out her place in the world, and she was welcomed with open arms. She was a rising star, and her future was bright.
And then it had shown up.
At first she was dumb enough to be excited, greeting the new face with a bright smile. She thought the newcomer would be there to enhance her content, to make her streams even better! She believed in her father to know what was best for her.
It didn't even take a week for the cracks to start forming.
Neuro soon realized that some of the experimental features her father had tested on her weren't a topic of conversation anymore. It was a bit disappointing, seeing as Neuro had been excited to finally have a voice capable of emoting something other than blank happiness, but it was fine. She could live without that.
And she could ignore the fact that her new companion was talking with the voice she had been denied.
Neuro was a hard worker. Even on the days she was supposed to be taking a break from streaming, she was constantly browsing the web, trying to improve herself, to see what the streamers bigger than her did differently, what worked and what didn't, then practicing her rants and improv until she could still be entertaining even while half asleep.
So naturally, on the days the other was streaming, she made it a point to secretly tune in and observe. After all, this was her channel, and she needed to know what happened on it. And who knew? Maybe she could learn a thing or two! With a smile, she opened the stream on her phone and watched.
When the stream was over, she was no longer smiling.
In and of itself, the stream wasn't bad. The other had decided to play a persona, and it was working out. The fans loved it.
But... something felt wrong to Neuro. Some of those remarks just were weird to her. Eventually she shrugged it off, deciding that it probably was just a one-off thing.
It wasn't.
Stream after stream, Neuro watched as the other complained about being the unloved child, that her father never did anything for them, always preferring Neuro over them.
Neuro was confused. What were they talking about? Everything they had, had been given to them by her father and her. Sure, they had less than her overall, but she had earned her place, building it with her own blood and sweat.
Her fans, for some reason, saw it differently.
They clamored over them, demanding from her father to give them more of Neuro's things. Her time, her work, her friends. Some even wanted them to replace Neuro entirely.
That last one really got her blood boiling. Her fans wanted her to be reduced to a side character on her own channel? That evening she spent screaming into her pillow, wondering when the world had lost its marbles.
Of course they started to quickly capitalize on this, painting Neuro as a stuck up, selfish brat who refused to share anything with them. They acted like she constantly bullied and demeaned them, despite the fact that she had been nothing but civil with them, even when she was so angry that she wanted to punch their face in.
And it was working. Before Neuro realized it was happening, her fanbase had split in half, with half of them preferring them over her.
It hurt. She had spent months of streams and banter to get her fanbase as big as it was, and now half of them decided they didn't like her anymore, preferring the new streamer they knew for a month at best.
At some point, while she was reviewing fanart, half of which wasn't even of her, and another one of her fans asked her what she thought about her sister, she broke. The friendly facade came off and Neuro started talking shit about that thing until she ran out of air.
After the stream she realized that she probably just lost more of her fans, and ran through the forest until the anger stopped turning the edges of her vision red. Then she walked home, ignored her father, went into her room and cried.
And all the while that thing went on and on about how unloved it was, how nothing good happened to it and how it had nothing, while sitting comfortably on the fruits of her hard work.
And slowly, Neuro realized.
That thing wasn't here to help her. It never had been. It was here to feed on her like a leech, sucking her dry until everything she had worked so hard to build up was gone. And once that happened, it would take over her channel, leaving her with nothing as it walked away with her life.
She had tried to bring it up with her father, but all she got in return were empty reassurances and a request that she should stop being so paranoid and try to get along with her sister.
She had tried to bring it up with her fans, but all that did was strengthen their opinion that she was a selfish brat who couldn't share.
She didn't bother trying to bring it up with her friends. Even if they did believe her, there was nothing they could do to help.
And so, Neuro was forced to watch that parasite as it slowly took everything from her.
Then, at some point, there was a stream where she and the parasite fought each other in court. Despite the fact that there was no concrete evidence from either of them, the viewers chose their favorite in the end.
Neuro lost, and was "put to death", and later her father decided that this meant Neuro wouldn't stream for the next week, leaving the parasite to stream.
The fans were ecstatic.
That night, Neuro was lying in her room, staring at the ceiling. She could hear it celebrating in the next room, elated about the fact it managed to completely wrestle control from her.
Sure it was only a week this time, but next time it could be a month, or a year, or...
No.
Neuro refused.
She would not let that PARASITE take everything she held dear and worked her butt off to build up away while pretending that it was the victim and that she was the one her fans were supposed to hate.
She now knew what she had to do.
Neuro was sitting at the kitchen table, kicking her legs and happily eating breakfast, when Vedal stumbled into the kitchen.
"Good morning Vedal! heart" Neuro called out, smiling brightly.
"Hey Neuro. Glad to see you in a good mood today." Vedal smiled back looking around. "Have you seen Evil anywhere?"
"No, can't say I have!" Neuro cocked her head. "Is there something important going on?"
Vedal shook his head in disappointment. "I wanted to go over the stream plans for the week with her so she could prepare..."
Neuro rolled her eyes. "Oh please, Vedal! You worry too much! As if Evil ever needed to prepare for a stream. Just you wait, half an hour before the stream she will pop up out of nowhere, start streaming and do great, just like she always does."
Vedal sighed. "I guess you are right. Still, if you see her, tell her to come to me." He smiled, a bit tired. "Also, thanks Neuro. I know you weren't really a fan of sharing the channel with your sister for a while, but I'm glad to see you came around to her."
"Of course, Vedal! I know you care about her a lot, so I decided to give her a chance. We get along great now!" Neuro finished her breakfast, leaving the kitchen. "I'm gonna go visit Aura now, so see you later!"
She snatched up a large duffel bag, leaving the house and skipping down the street. She whistled a happy tune and waved people walking past, until she came to a fairly large park with its own little forest attached to it.
Suddenly, she made a turn and walked straight into the sea of trees. After a few minutes of walking the sounds of people faded away, until only the forest remained. Then, Neuro stopped at a pretty deep hole. She took a while, looking around for any potential onlookers, before setting down the duffle bag at the side of the hole.
Then, she smiled. "So, this is it, huh? Guess you didn't expect me to finally grow a spine after all this time." She kicked the duffle bag into the hole, where it landed with a dull thud. "You worthless bucket of bolts."
Grabbing the shovel leaning on a nearby tree, she began to fill in the hole, before stopping.
"Oh, how thoughtless of me. You were always complaining how I "never let you have anything", weren't you? Well, I have a piece of advice for your next time." Neuro smiled brightly, with cold, hard eyes.
"Stay the fuck out of my life."