Homeward bound: a Hat in time story
In a tiny corner of the System, a spaceship floats by, within range of a planet. At first glance, it doesn't seem anything out of the ordinary… except that it looks like a house, wood, bricks & all. A house that looks like a spaceship, Or a house themed spaceship? Either way, what mattered was that the ship was fully operational by all counts. The planet said ship drifted by didn't seem particularly interesting at first glance either, but it's residents are… something else, to say the least. Though they don't know it at the time, but what should have been a normal, typical first contact between planet residents and spaceship captain instead spiraled into a grand adventure through the planet, that would change all involved...
On-board the spaceship
The captain, a girl known as Hat kid, was venturing about in dreamland when suddenly…
"good morning! & welcome to another day of adventuring…", a voice called out to her from the PA system as the bed launched the pyjamas-cladded (pink with the picture of an hourglass on the pyjamas top) kid into the air and right smack on the ground, knocking her prized top hat into the air where it hovered for a while before settling on her head, changing colour to fit the rest of the outfit.
With a stretch and a yawn, Hat kid dragged her feet along towards the bridge of her spaceship as the intercom continued droning on it's usual message. She'd never get used to that intercom. Still, once the last traces of sleep left her system, Hat Kid was practically racing towards the bridge. Her usual morning routines could wait. Finding out where she was currently at is far more important!
When the door connecting bridge, bedroom (& the corridor between) opened, Hat kid was greeted by the sight of the Planet on her right; a beautiful globe that coincidentally had the same general themes as the corridors leading to her rooms.
She had little time to ponder this further when the Navigation Computer beeped out a demand for her attention; so she happily obliged. With a jump,two and a dive and a roll, Hat Kid made her way up to the nav. computer and brought up the notification. "boop!", she exclaimed happily.
That rewarded her with the navigation screen, which revealed that between her retrieval of… that thing & home, she was little more than halfway there, and still had a full tank of 40 completely filled timepieces. Awesome! Hat Kid took a few steps backwards to view the whole screen, (as best as she can anyway,) with pride. It had been quite a journey to get to this point, after all, Assisting an equally young girl in saving a young man who turned out to be a river spirit that girl met before… helping some plumber to clean up the last of a certain mess made by someone posing as his shadow clone, being inspired by a young man who claims to be some "phantom thief" to steal back his life…
*Knock!*, *Knock!*, *Knock!*
Hat kid jumped and looked around nervously. That was no meteor strike. The impact would have been so much louder, not to mention, visibly damaging to the ship. Sounds more like someone loudly knocking at the airlock on her ship. But that visitor shouldn't be from the planets nearby, or the ship would have noticed any movements towards it… So what was that about? A quick jump down to the bridge floor, towards the Captain's chair reveals that yes, someone was knocking at the airlock. A man in a blue suit with an apron, standing at the airlock with no other spaceship within sight. Someone from the nearby planets after all then. A man working at a kitchen, a marketplace… But he looks like a thug, too. Whatever his business is, Hat kid was there to talk to him about it.
It seems the man had sensed Hat Kid's presence. Because he stopped hammering at the door, looked around, then finally noticed her, his eyes briefly betraying a look of confusion.
"What is this, flying boat?" the man questioned Hat kid, his funny accent almost made Hat Kid burst out laughing. But the girl had managed to keep it within her.
"All boats need to pay a toll in Mafia Town. Even in Space! Mafia come in to collect." Having said so, the mafia goon, as it turned out to be, made to open the door.
At first, Hat Kid was content to see him try. But the fact that he did managed to make progress on that promise shocked Hat Kid into action. She managed to slam the the door back in, and was just dusting off her hands in satisfaction when the goon, in his desire to see the toll collected... smashed his way in. He didn't have time to celebrate that victory, though. The vacuum of space kicked in and forced the mafia goon, and Hat kid, through the airlock. With her position, Hat kid was able to watch in horror as the vacuum caused the Timepiece vault locks to be undone and all her active Timepieces be blown out of the ship with her… All of them, leaving the ship to power down completely, leaving the poor girl stranded for quite a while.
Hat Kid huffed. "That stupid mafia goon just had to ruin everything did he? Looks like she'd have to explore every nook and cranny of this Planet just to secure every timepiece of hers again! If only that was easy…" as she entered Planet atmosphere, allowing gravity to take its course, sending her to the planet below.
Mafia Town Fountain Plaza:
At Mafia Town, as they say amongst the mafia folks, when they're not working to maintain order around the place, or to deal with a certain nuisance, it was always 5pm around there. Nice,quiet & simple. Just how Mafia likes it. Today was shaped up to be just like everyday prior…. Till a glowing hourglass and a blue umbrella with a star on it came crashing into the town fountain, spilling water everywhere. The Mafia goon nearby sighed.
"Now Mafia has to get mop to clear the mess up. Not to mention, getting a plumber to plug the hole up and get the fountain back to normal! It's gonna be a long day for Mafia…"
At a corner in Mafia Town;
Hat Kid could not help but scream as she fell through Planet Atmosphere. She'd heard of skydiving before, seen it on tv before, but this… experiencing it for herself, unwittingly or otherwise was a whole different thing all together. Initially panicky as all heck, Hat Kid's expression only changed when she saw that her trajectory would land her on top a tentage. So she stopped panicking and went into a spread eagle pose, only switching to an upright position when she was near the tentage… crashed right through said tent and landing feet first, force of habit entailing the she did a small pose as though there was a camera nearby. A smash was heard nearby. When she turned around, she saw that the mafia goon who had gotten her into this mess in the first place had slammed into the nearby wall, unconscious, but most likely dead.
Hat Kid could only feel a tinge of sympathy for the man. He was only trying to do his job? Or maybe he thought this one would be simple… and paid for it by crashing back home and most likely unconscious for a long time after that, or dead, but whatever. Now, thanks to him, she'd have to scour the entire planet just to find back the timepieces, before anyone with ill intents find out their true power.
Taking a moment to dust down and make sure She was fine, Hat Kid adjusted her precious hat and breathed. "Alright, time to get back those timepieces."
Now, she could have gone straight down the pathway in front of her, but where was the fun of that? Hat Kid, was a pretty curious kid, letting nothing but extreme danger and self preservation get in the way of finding out things. So she went up the path she saw was there before she had crashed through. From there on, she allowed curiosity to get the better of her and spent the time talking to some of the friendlier mafia goons… only to have her opinion of them being jerks and being relatively simple minded strengthened, a goon who was lamenting that his son would never be as strong as he is, grabbing codes to a red vault from slips of paper that were near it, and some balls of yarn, (some yarn balls that looked like they were ready to sprint… except she had a nice ribbon she could wear, that could allow just that, and some yarns that had tubes of purple liquid in them. Those, she reckoned, she could stitch into a nice witch hat.), before she remembered that she was there to find the time pieces and get back home in the first place!
Fortunately, the talk of the town itself had provided a valuable clue; news of a disturbance that had messed up the town's fountain, a glowing hourglass. Presto!
Even better, her own crash site was actually near to the town's fountain. I.E, if she had focused on getting to the timepiece first, she could have retrieved it much earlier. Fantastic.
With a huff, she made for the fountain area. There, as the rumours abound suggested, was the timepiece, in the hands of a mafia goon and on his other hand was… her umbrella! When Hat kid stomped up to the goon, he didn't acknowledge her. And the other goons were too busy with their own businesses to care about what's happening. Finally, something right in a day of weirdness.
She took a deep breath and shouted; "Hey!"
The mafia goon finally turned around. That was something, at least.
She smiled and told him, "I'll take you!", pointing at the timepiece before indicating herself.
The act of claiming the timepiece to be her property angered the goon, to be sure. Fortunately, it did not anger him enough to launch an assault on the young girl, instead contenting himself to keeping Hat kid at arms length with the umbrella holding hand and keeping the time piece out of her reach, her sounds of struggle cheering him up enough to smile and giving a contented chuckle.
Seeing that the goon held her umbrella in a loose grip, Hat kid seized the opportunity to take it back and point it at the goon's face. Now, this goon may pretend to be a tough guy, but in actuality, he was just a bully targeting the helpless, with little hope coming out top against someone with actual combat experience. Now, to the goon's credit, he did manage to stare down against hat kid. But after a while, it proved too much and…
"Nooooooooooooo!" the goon cried out, fleeing with tears in his eyes.
Maybe the nearby goons were trying their hardest to just be minding their own businesses, or were just plain near deaf, but not one goon moved to intervene. Which suited Hat kid just fine. It allowed her to show just what she's made of, exert her presence as an equal to them where the firepower was concerned.
"Down with the mafia!" Hat kid shouted, now chasing the goon and giving him a good wack with her umbrella. After a few whacks of the umbrella, the goon exploded.
"Thank you!" Hat kid exclaimed, waving happily at the spot where the mafia goon would be at. The timepiece, now free from any grasp, floated at the spot it fell. Hat kid raced towards the hourglass and walked around it. No damage, it seemed. Now as relieved as the aura the artifact was generating, Hat kid jumped up and grabbed the timepiece, twirled around and held it aloft.
"Misson accomplished! Time to head back to the ship." Focusing her thoughts on the ship, Hat kid and the timepiece teleported there.
The ship's bridge:
"The bridge seems fine," Hat Kid thought to herself. "Sure, there's the damage to the airlock and the timepiece vault, but everything else seems to be here."
Having placed the time piece back in, Hat kid touched the button next to her kitchen doors. The lights immediately turned back on.
"Alright! Power's back!" Hat kid exclaimed, doing a jig on the spot. A thorough check later on all accessible areas of the ship (the bridge and the kitchen) reveal that yes, everything is fine on the ship. Awesome!
After the events of the day, Hat kid wanted to lie down and sleep. But she knew she'd never be able to rest easy till she'd fixed every issue she could reasonably resolve. So off she went. The vault was an easy one; chains and a padlock to reinforce the locks on the vault's. The airlock? Now, the skips automatic bulkhead systems managed to seal the ship before anything worse happened, just as advertised. With those bulkheads being stronger than the initial airlock, Hat kid wasn't afraid of anymore trouble trying to invade her ship. Still, overconfidence had gotten her into this mess. So…. Hat kid took some of her spaceship quality wood and secured them into her bridge's window.
"There! That ought to do it." Hat kid puffed, wiping the sweat off her forehead. Now the spaceship was truly secure and she can now rest easy.
Jotting down on a notepad recounting the day's events, since she couldn't access her diary again yet, Hat kid stripped off her sweaty pyjamas and left them hanging to dry.
Normally, she'd put on a fresh pair, but she was locked out of the bedroom for the time being and sleeping in sweaty pajamas was out of the question for her. Hence, Hat kid opted to engage her ship's active camouflage and sleep in her current state of undress, curled up in the captain's chair, wrapped in pillows to avoid disturbing her dear rumba, Rumbi. Once she was comfortable in her makeshift bed, it did not take long for the toil of the day's events to catch up to Hat kid and for the girl to drift off to sleep.
Author's notes: Greetings ladies and gentlemen, thanks for reading through this chapter. Now, people might be wondering about the status of Dreemurr in Need. I assure you that it's not cancelled. I'm just not feeling up to it at the moment. I'll update both whenever i can and I'll do my best to make sure you're entertained all the way through, no dropping of standards. Also, since this is a Hat in Time story with mods integrated as best as i can, to the story, this section would also be dedicated to being a mod spotlight. For this chapter, the mod debuting is the pajamas mod by Jawchewa on steam. Loved running around in this costume for its cuteness and for the fact that you could imagine Hat kid being lazy to change out of it… or being
forced to wear it due to her being locked out of her room till she got 7 timepieces like is the case here. Mentioned, but not used yet, is the ribbon "hat" by Camb0t on steam! As noted, it is a sort of sprint hat, only, it leaves you without a hat, but you gain a ribbon hair tie in it's place. Perfect for those who want to see her hatless more often!
That's all for the mods showcase this chapter! Stay tuned for more Hat Kid business! BLKey… out.
