Decided to write some angst tonight. Please enjoy.
Something had been up with DJ Grooves the second the Award Ceremony had begun, and he had only gotten more and more strange as the minutes passed; that was what Hat Kid had known before she got a call on her spaceship that explicitly told her that the winner of the Bird Movie Award, DJ Grooves, was withholding a Time Piece from with the intention to break it. Now that she had received said call, she knew exactly why her friend was acting strange and knew that she had to do something, fast.
Getting into the studio was easy, especially when the front door was unlocked and a certain owl director was waiting for you by an elevator. They had a simple plan prepared on the way into the basement involving a smaller, more controlled detonation from the Conductor's bomb from Train Rush: Take out Grooves, evacuate everybody from basement, return the Time Piece to its vault, and destroy the hidden part of the basement so it could no longer be used for malpractice(saying it was being used for evil would've been an overstatement).
Knowing the plan, the two went their separate ways to fulfil their respective roles in the plan, and everything from there should have been easy. Unfortunately, Grooves had stolen the bomb beforehand and decided to use it for his own sinister purposes, i.e. Blowing up Hat Kid with it. It wasn't until after the bomb had been defused in the nick of time that things started getting hectic.
Feathers were flying as Express Owls and Moon Penguins alike brawled within the stands, the Conductor fended off a quartet of knife-happy Parade Owls, and Hat Kid was left to deal with the DJ on her own in the third(and hopefully final) phase of the battle.
While it wasn't obvious, Hat Kid had been struggling to slam her umbrella against her former 'Stylish Mentor' without feeling a simultaneous hint of guilt and anger. On the one hand, she felt betrayed by the penguin for withholding something so important to her, but on the other hand she felt that the bird wasn't as in control of his actions as everyone believed him to be. The Time Pieces were powerful devices, capable of turning back and altering time in accordance to its user's desires; power, unfortunately, can make people crazy if they don't have self control, and that was what tended to happen when people discovered the power of the Time Pieces in a way that was not carefully planned out. It was as if the power within the objects was sentient and liked to drive people crazy until they were no longer themselves and were replaced by a shell of madness. With this in mind, Hat Kid had been devising a personal plan to snap DJ Grooves out of his power-driven mania before penguin she knew was lost, but his actions had been so unstable that it seemed like it was already too late.
It probably didn't help either that DJ Grooves was a bird that bottled up his problems and negative emotions, and that this opportunity to win all the trophies he believed were his had given him an outlet to release the pent anger he'd been building since his post-Award 42 losing streak began. Finally letting out his frustrations was exhilarating for the underdog, but it had made him blind to what was going on around him; he was blackout drunk on a potential double-victory and was having zero regards for anyone and everyone around him.
It was going to take a miracle to snap the penguin out of his violent trance, and a miracle was (more or less) exactly what was provided in the last few minutes of the fight.
Grooves had knocked Hat Kid onto the floor and slammed the umbrella out of her hands. With a knife ready, the fire in the eyes more than indicated that he was about to aim directly for the child's heart as he screamed out "Say 'sayonara' Darling!" in the uncharacteristically high tone of voice that he'd been using frequently within' the last few minutes. Distraught screeches could be heard from The Conductor as the traitorous Parade Owls pinned him to a corner of the battlefield. The DJ raised his knife in the air and prepared to plunge it into the kid's chest when a switch flipped within his mind.
The events that had lead up to this moment, from her spaceship getting broke into to this very moment, had finally caught up to Hat Kid and broken her into a terrified pile of tears. This, in turn, woke up an important part of Grooves: the part of him genuinely that cared for other people.
They had been recording footage for Picture Perfect, and things had somehow escalated to Hat Kid walking about on the telephone wires and doing tricks on them. It was a magnificent display that inspired the creation of The Big Parade, but the metaphorical spark of inspiration had been briefly lost when a very literal spark of electricity had shocked the child on the wires. The young diva had fallen to the ground and, despite the lower gravity, had still injured herself quite a bit.
Normally the child would get back up and assure everyone she was okay, but this time she hadn't and instead had begun to cry in pain. DJ Grooves immediately moved to the child's side as he couldn't stand to hear such sad sounds come from something that was meant to be full of joy and liveliness. He carried her to the fountain and cheered her that time while she got fixed up.
And again when The Big Parade had concluded and the DJ had to weed out the bird that had sold him homing missiles instead of fireworks, he had been there to calm the shooken up child that had been scared out of her wits for nearly getting blown up twice in two days.
"Darling," he told her, "no matter what happens, I want you to know that I would never do anything to purposefully harm you. You understand that?"
The child nodded her head, hugging the bird.
"Good. I promise you Darling, I will never ever lay a harmful wing on your head."
Those two moments flashed in DJ Grooves' eyes as his knife-wielding wing began to trimble.
"I...I..."
The shaking got more and more violent as tears welled up behinds his cracked shades.
"I c...can't…"
The knife clattered to the ground.
"Darling? DARLING!" The DJ cried out. He fell to his avian knees as he realized everything that had happened. All the fighting around the two ceased with the sound of the microphone in his other wing hitting the floor and making an ungodly noise. "I am so...so sorry Darling."
Hat Kid did the best she could do in her own broken disposition and hugged the bird, his soft feather growing damp with tear.
"Holy peck…" The Conductor uttered in shock, "She completely broke him."
There were several minutes of stunned silence before the stands emptied themselves into the elevator, leaving only two directors and a single child in the basement.