Inside Glass Canopy

"Ngh- It's kind of stuffy in here." Hat Kid muttered as she crawled through the vents, uncomfortable from the cramped space. Unlike most action movies, they were pitch-black, forcing her to rely on her hands to feel for any blockage and opening. It was also dusty inside, causing her to cough occasionally. Then, the girl noticed in front of her some rows of light that came from the grille, indicating she has reached her destination. Crawling over to the grille cover, she peeked through its thin gaps to scan the interior of the building.

Outside the vent was an incredibly spacious art deco ballroom, where there was a majestic fountain in the middle and tall elaborately-sculpted statues at the wall add to the liveliness of the place, though it was vacant at the moment.

Hat Kid decided to take a closer look by busting through the grille as quietly as she tried and landed on the marble flooring followed by a grille cover clinking over it. While she was walking around, she heard footsteps nearby. As the girl was unsure whether the sound source was hostile or otherwise, she rolled over to hide behind a nearby ornate pillar, pretending to be secret agent and spied from there. After a few seconds, she noticed a blonde man in an army uniform of some kind enter the hall with a worried expression on his face as if he lost something important.

"Umbrella!" Adam calmly called out a name, holding an ice cream. "Umbrella where are you? I have vanilla!"

He doesn't seem so dangerous, so Hat Kid stepped out from her hiding spot and peacefully revealed herself to the Black Egrets officer, though in an awkward manner.

"Um... hello-"

"Oh there you are, highness!" he exclaimed upon finding the girl before double-checking her looks. "Wait... you're not the princess... now what are you doing here?"

"I just entered here," Hat Kid replied. "Were you looking for someone?"

"Uh... yes? I mean, I could use some assistance in finding the princess and resuming operation um... 'Chocolate Dawn'."

Hat Kid giggled a bit at the codename before nodding in agreement to helping out Adam with his duty. "Okay then, what does she look like?"

"You don't know who she is? Well, er... Umbrella's a little kid like you with pink hair and a long yellow raincoat. I'm sure she was here before I obtained ice cream for her."

"Uh huh, I'll go look for her and bring her back to you."

"Right then... you're now dismissed," Adam stated. Hat Kid playfully saluted before going off to search for Umbrella in the castle. The officer scratched his chin, perplexed at the unexpected visitor to the Glass Canopy.

2 minutes later...

It was not long before Hat Kid found Umbrella hiding behind the pillar, and she got excited at the fact that she's meeting another one of her peers. The other party also felt the same thing and stepped out to greet her.

"Hey, another kid!" the princess exclaimed with eyes of delight, holding a purple umbrella much bigger than her stature. "What brings you here?"

"A man told me to bring you to him." Hat Kid stated her intention.

The pinkette's smile quickly turned into a frown upon hearing it and she whined. "You mean that dumb lieutenant? No way! I don't want ice cream! I don't even like vanilla!"

The brunette thought for a moment before asking her, "Why are you like this?"

Umbrella answered by expressing her discontent to the place. "It's always the same thing every day! I get stuck in this crummy place with only a bunch of stinky lieutenants to talk to while my big sister does cool stuff outside like fighting bad guys! I can't go with her cuz' she is all like "Oh, it's too dangerous for you, lil' sis!" and stuff!

Hat Kid took this into her account: Umbrella's sister is fighting bad guys that are considered too dangerous for her, meaning the planet she is on could be riddled with many dangerous people. That or the big sister was just being overprotective.

"Hey, can you do something for me?" The princess asked before childishly commanding with a mock-royal voice. "I demand that you shoo that soldier boy away!"

"I'll see to that, your majesty." Hat Kid acted along as well, leaving Umbrella at her hiding spot and off to divert that soldier away from it.

(WHERE'S THE HORIZONTAL LINE BREAK BUTTON?)

A few moments later...

After convincing Adam that the princess outran her and locked herself in the bedroom, he walked off, leaving the two girls alone in the party hall.

"Alright, now that I've rid that adult for you, there's something I need to ask." Hat Kid requested to Umbrella, who was relieved she doesn't have eat vanilla ice cream. "Have you seen any Timepieces falling from the sky?"

"Timewhatzitcalled?" Umbrella was confused at that term. "I don't know, but I did see many shooting stars and also a spaceship that flew over the rooftop! Can't you believe that? Aliens are on Earth!"

"Actually, that spaceship belonged to me," Hat Kid claimed, before explaining what happened a while ago. "And those shooting stars you saw were hourglasses called Timepieces that dropped out of it."

"Whaaaat?" Umbrella said in disbelief.

"I just came here because some kind of energy just smashed into my spaceship, causing it to fall down and drop me off on top of this place. I'm looking for the Timepieces because I need them in order to get back to my homeworld."

"Hmm... are you sure about that? I doubt a kid like you owns a real spaceship or use hourglasses to get home or something. Besides, you don't look like an alien."

"Not all aliens look like those tentacle monsters you see in cartoons. Anyways, can you show me around this place? This is my first time being here."

The girl in yellow raincoat nodded at the alien's request. "Well okay then. Since I've been living in this crummy castle for a lifetime, I'll be your tour guide- Wait... Mom, is that you?"

She noticed a middle-aged woman walking towards her, a familiar face she saw on her. She had raven hair and wore a small crown and dust-rose dress. She knew she was her mother.

"Come closer, my daughter..." her mother's soothing voice invited Umbrella to her open arms.

"Mother!" Umbrella cried out excitedly as she ran and hugged her mother, Hat Kid, however, noticed something was amiss. Her top hat detected a Timepiece nearby, but it was nowhere to be seen, except... it was found inside the queen's stomach. Gross... there is no way a human would think about ingesting a volatile object. The first thing for Hat Kid to do when getting a timepiece from someone is to ask them for it.

She confronted the mother and extended her hand out for the Timepiece.

"Can I have the hourglass from your stomach, please?" the girl politely asked Queen Nancy.

"Hm? I'm not sure what you're talking about," she replied nonchalantly.

Without a warning, Hat Kid suddenly pulled out her blue umbrella and ironically smacked her with it before she could react, knocking her down to the ground.

"Hey, that's my mom ya bitch!" Umbrella barked, using the b-word as though it is a normal word. However both the girls gasped as upon faceplanting the floor, the queen abruptly melted into a grotesque flesh puddle with a Timepiece in the middle of it before changing into an eldritch abomination.

"How perceptive of you, child..." In a distorted voice, Double praised Hat Kid's ability to see through her, which frightened her a bit. "It seems that you have found this 'Timepiece' you called and have a stronger connection towards it then Aeon has. You are something new."

Umbrella hid behind Hat Kid who just stood there shivering, holding her umbrella forward in a defensive stance, trying hard to perceive Double as less horrifying than that queen she encountered in her manor.

"L-Look, I don't know who or whatever you are and what this world is," Hat Kid talked back. "But the thing I know is that you're going do something very bad, r-right?"

"I am sent to carry out a task that is not what you see it as. My master has ordered me to bring the princess behind you to her, but now it has become apparent that you are in our way of reaching our goals." Double then formed sharp fleshy tentacles around her.

"I don't care about what goals you're talking about! Hand over the Timepiece!" Hat Kid shouted demandingly at the shapeshifter, preparing to attack back if needed.

"Whether you're from this world or not, you still exhibit your vicious traits. That will only be cleansed, through death." Double then proceeded to swipe one of her tentacles at Hat Kid, who responded by jumping back while holding Umbrella, swiftly dodging the attack although wincing at a small cut her cheek received from the bladed tentacle.

Hat Kid, ignoring the small injury, left Umbrella at a pillar and swapped her hat to a winged cap before taking out 3 badges, the Hookshot badge, Scooter badge and Projectile badge, from her backpack to pin them on it. The Scooter badge suddenly conjured a scooter under the girl as she charged towards Double, who could not react in time to dodge it. The vehicle crashed into the monster, sending her flying across the ballroom. Umbrella became amazed upon watching her stunts. As Double recovered, Hat Kid proceeded to crash into her again, only for the potential roadkill to split, evading the impact. Double then transformed her tentacles into a demonic arm holding a gun, aimed at the girl. Hat Kid responded by driving around her in circles to dodge the bullet. However, she got caught by another arm with a mouth and got swallowed by it before being released again with a forceful expulsion, sending her into the pillar. Hat Kid held her side as she got up to see Double running at her as a cartoony-looking car and quickly jumped over it, causing it to crash into the pillar and revert the monstrosity back into her nightmarish form. The little girl then performed a homing dive onto Double followed by few mid-air swipes and a short-charged beam attack from her umbrella, dealing moderate damage to the beast who grunted in pain. Hat Kid then fired a hook from her umbrella at a chandelier to evade as the recovering meat woman used her multitudinous tentacles to swipe everything within their short range.

"Ack-ngh... What a disrespectful... lady." Double said to Hat Kid as she transformed into a complete form, a nun she usually disguises as. "Y-You... are more than a nuisance to our plans. My subordinate will take over from here..."

The nun then moved away and suddenly, a flurry of heavy-duty scalpels was thrown at Hat Kid and caught her by surprise. A few of them cut her body while many others impaled her Sprint hat and pinning it to a nearby pillar. That caused the girl to lose her abilities and drop down from the ceiling, falling onto her back due to the wounds, much to Umbrella's dismay.

"My, how interesting." a feminine voice came from afar, where Hat Kid couldn't see before she revealed herself as a ninja-looking nurse observing her hat. "It seems that your hat provides you with the necessary tools needed to fight back... and since you're no longer a threat, we will be taking away that little sister of Parasoul- what the-?!"

Valentine found herself wrapped in a long tongue belonging to Hungern, Umbrella's living weapon.

"Nobody hurts my friend!" the princess yelled. "Kid, take your hat back while I deal with nurse boobs!"

Hat Kid nodded in gratitude as she took the scalpels out from her wounds and ran to the pillar where her hat was. Although it was too high for a short kid like her, she defied that by running up the pillar and retrieved her hat back in the process. She then jumped off it and dove at Valentine, who was struggling to free herself from Hungern, and kicked her in the face, releasing her from the tongue and knocking her down. The nurse rolled back and got into her combat stance, but was shot by Hat Kid's hook and pulled towards her, followed by a swing from Umbrella, hitting her in the stomach and knocking her down before both proceeded to swing their umbrellas at her like golf clubs, combining their blow towards the doctor and sending her flying into the fountain.

Valentine, soaked in fountain water, then stood up clutching her stomach to see that her side is bleeding.

"Why you little..." the nurse then proceeded to use another set of scalpels and threw them at Hat Kid, who was unable to dodge them in time and inflicted more cuts on her, causing her to yelp in pain.

"Wha- no!" Umbrella cried out for her friend, who was exhausted and bleeding at this point.

"I don't think we can outlast them, we need to go, now!" Hat Kid said to Umbrella, unable to fight any longer. She grabbed her and placed her on the back her scooter before driving off to retreat from the fight.

"Did you think you're gonna leave the operation without a shot?" Valentine smirked as she hastily loaded her syringe with poison and threw it precisely at Hat Kid, intoxicating her with it. The little girl winced and tried to ignore the injection as she and Umbrella drove out of the stage.

"Damn, some random kid stole our target." The nurse muttered under her breath at the failure.

"Our master now calls us to return to the cathedral." Double, in her nun form, informed Valentine.

On the road

The city has never been any less beautiful for the Hat Kid thanks to the art deco architecture that makes it stand out more compared to the snowy and gothic architectural style back on her home planet. Both girls are on the scooter with Hat Kid, although wounded from the fight, taking the driver's place going past vehicles by vehicles.

"Did you see what we both did back there?" Umbrella talked to her with uncontrolled excitement. "It was awesome! I mean- they're like "die" and we're like "no you" and they went like "bleh"! And think your umbrella is cool, it shoots laser beams and grappling hooks! You could be like... like my new sister!"

Hat Kid became hesitant at the idea of being a sister of someone she doesn't know.

"So... where can we go from here?" she asked Umbrella for direction as she is not familiar with navigating the long roads stretching in between buildings.

"Hmmm..." the raincoat kid thought for a while before she figured out a place they can go to. "I know, we can drive to New Meridian, starting at Little Innsmouth! By the way, what's your name, kid?"

"I don't know my real name," the girl in a hat stated. "But many people I meet call me Hat Kid."

"Hat Kid? Pfft-ha ha ha! What name is that! I know you should have better names than that, like Miss Hatty or Toppy or... hey, I can call you Sunshade Renoir!"

"Uhh... let's just stick to Hat Kid..."

"Whatever you say, Hat Kid. I'm Umbrella Renoir, the youngest princess in the Renoir family."

And then both talked on and on while driving. All Hat Kid heard onwards was Umbrella's short silly stories at the castle. But then, that's the closest she can get to knowing about the place.

Little did they know, Valentine's poison is slowly acting on Hat Kid.