Chapter Five:
A Two-Way Hack Attack
The Internet Graveyard was a lively realm today, Ugandan Knuckles were playing games with one another, and various dinosaur memes were happily feasting on tasty meme food. In the Starbucks near his lair, the former villain SMG3 was starting up another one of his well-loved video game livestreams.
"Greetings, good viewers." The Internet Graveyard's Number One celebrity greeted happily, "Today, we're going to be playing the totally original, not-a-Splatoon clone, video game Crayola Scoot. I started playing this game, and it's sooooo good, I thought I'd show you guys what it's like."
EggDog barked as he hopped up on the table.
"Thanks for joining me, EggDog." SMG3 pat his beloved majordomo/pet on the head, "Alright. Are you ready, folks? Then let's Crayola away! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
With the stream equipment rolling, SMG3 turned on Crayola Scoot and got right to the gameplay of it. Even though it wasn't a complete copy of Splatoon, the game involved characters riding around on skateboards and painting up the ground, just as Inklings would ink up the area in their Splatoon games.
"Oh, this so totally not Splatoon..." SMG3 said as he controlled Dillon, a crocodile character, "...and this game is really, really fun. Heck, I'd say 'eat your heart out, Splatoon, you ain't the only game to have people painting up the turf.' Maybe I should stream De Blob one of these days, that game predates Splatoon by half a decade."
"Bark bark!" EggDog yapped.
"Excuse me, nobody asked for your opinion." The ex-villain told his pet, "Don't go and yap about how the developers ripped off the folks of Inkopolis. If they had, then the Big N would come knocking. And I bet they'd send out Lawyer Kong again. Oh, wait. The dude quit, then he got beaten up by ninjas outside the courthouse, and he's selling weapons again. Ha ha!"
A message popped up on the screen a moment later.
"Oooh, what's this?" SMG3 asked curiously, "SMG4 is offering a special meme deal. Let's see what it is..."
He clicked on the accept button, and, to the meme ruler's surprise, Crayola Scoot froze up and a skull icon cropped up on the screen. In a matter of seconds, a text window appeared with a blue hat symbol above it. The text read: 'Your computer is being hacked, all of your social security numbers belong to us. Oooh, despicable SMG4.'
"WHAT THE BINGUS?!" SMG3 screamed, "I'M BEING HACKED WHILE STREAMING?! AND SMG4 IS HACKING ME?! Oh my god, this is the worst prank ever, AND YOU'RE RUINING MY CRAYOLA SCOOT STREAM!"
-In the Mushroom Kingdom-
-At the same time-
SMG4 sat at a bench in the countryside, chuckling gleefully as he watched funny monkey memes on the internet. He was in the middle of making a monkey mushroom meme and decided to look at monkey memes for partial inspiration, even the mushroom-related memes were very funny to watch.
Today had been fine so far, and he wasn't even worried about any drama, not even the news of the Mushroom Kingdom military declaring war on Inkopolis seemed to faze him. Oh wait, the meme man hadn't heard the news yet.
"La de da la-la..." SMG4 sang happily, "Meme time, meme time. Watching memes online, and posting memes on social media, oh, what a good day for memes."
Moments later, a message made its appearance on his computer screen. "We are offering free meme drinks." The message read; "Would you like to buy now? This isn't a scam and there is absolutely nothing sus about it."
'Really?' SMG4 thought, 'Last time I made a purchase for something that didn't seem like a scam, it led to some bad shit. This time, it looks... legit.'
"Eh, why not?" The meme man quipped, and he tapped the 'yes' option.
BZZT! Evil laughter emanated from the speakers as a sinister skull symbol appeared, accompanied by a message that read; "Your social security numbers and every piece of information on your computer is in our hands now. You have just been hacked, courtesy of SMG3."
"WHAT THE HELL!?" SMG4 cried, "YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS! WHY TODAY OF ALL DAYS?!"
Seconds later, he heard his phone buzz, and he picked it up, seeing that he was being called by SMG3. That double-crossing jerk was probably gonna brag about how everything on SMG4's computer was all his now, wasn't he?
SMG4 tapped the answer button, prepared to chew out his nemesis for what he'd done. However, as soon as he replied to SMG3's call, SMG4 was surprised to hear the Internet Graveyard's Number One Celebrity proclaim, "YOU HACKED ME! After all we've been through, after we saved the universe from Zero, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!"
"I didn't hack you! You hacked me!" SMG4 yelled, "Why would YOU do that, Three? After all this time, after all of the character development you had, and after we teamed up to stop Niles from destroying the universe, WHY WOULD YOU GO BACK TO YOUR EVIL WAYS AND HACK MY COMPUTER?!"
"I didn't hack your computer!" SMG3 protested, "You got hacked too?!"
"Yeah, but you're saying you didn't do that. What's going on?"
"I'd ask you the same thing. Someone clearly wants us at each other's throats, and when did you get hacked?"
"Just a minute ago." SMG4 told his former nemesis, "While I was looking at spicy memes. Someone apparently offered me a meme drink, but I guess that was bogus."
"I was just hacked too!" SMG3 exclaimed, "While I was streaming the Crayola Scoot game, which isn't supposed to be a Splatoon rip-off by the way. This message that was apparently from you cropped up, and I thought it actually was from you."
SMG4 exploded with laughter. "You're playing Crayola Scoot, which is NOT a Splatoon knock-off?!" He quipped.
"Yeah, and it's really fun."
"Are you suuuuuuuure it's not a Splatoon knock-off?"
"Bro, not every game that has a mechanic akin to the one in Splatoon is a Splatoon knock-off!" SMG3 yelled, "As far as I'm concerned, the only Splatoon rip-off out there is Squid Game, and that one sucked ass! I don't know what those Sony weirdos were smoking, and I don't know how and why Nintendo didn't come knocking when they had the chance."
SMG4 rolled his eyes. "They did come knocking, why do you think we don't look identical to our avatar anymore?" The meme man scoffed.
"That was a different scenario, different story arc!" SMG3 shouted, "AND CAN WE FOCUS? WE'VE BOTH BEEN HACKED, AND I WANT TO KNOW WHO THE CULPRIT IS! HOW CAN I STREAM WHEN SOMEONE IS HACKING THE BOTH OF US AT THE SAME TIME! AND WHERE'S MELONY WHEN YOU NEED HER EXPERTISE!"
"Okay, let's calm down and think..." SMG4 suggested, "...and how about we do some hacking, and find out who is behind this attack? I doubt it's that KongScumZelus18950 guy who hacked my Twitter months ago."
"Great idea. Or we could step away from the computer for now and actually go look for the hacker." SMG3 remarked, "And by the way, about that bogus meme drink offer that got you hacked, what did I say before about accepting sus offers? That's what led to the castle being destroyed in the first place."
"Thanks for the reminder. I'll talk to ya later, Three. It's time to find a hacker."
"Hope you don't land in too much trouble, Four. I'll do some digging, and you do some hunting."
"No problem, amigo. Buh-bye."
SMG4 tapped the 'end call' button and the line disconnected. He put away his phone, and deactivated his laptop for the time being, then he stood up with a furious frown upon his face. It was time for action, and that hacker was not going to get away with the crime he'd just committed. Wacky adventures were calling once again...
