Chapter 20: Stranded
Hat Kid took off her top hat and peeked inside, and sure enough, there was the contract rolled up tidily and placed inside. She groaned, and the two girls set off along the path. They stopped when they saw some minions and ghosts around a cage of bones with an eye with a new yarn ball inside it, and walked up to a minion.
"Hey, newbies, think you can help us with this?" The minion beckoned the two girls, and they nodded. "See that strange skeleton cage thing? It's in our way and seems to be guarding those two cherries. See if you can find a way to get rid of it."
Hat Kid nodded. Typically she wouldn't be taking orders from anyone and would have thought of some retort for the minion, but not having a soul seemed to have a dominative effect on the both of them.
She picked up the one cherry, and tried blocking the skeleton's line of sight to it, but it seemed to find it regardless. She walked over to one of the ghosts and was about to ask it what to do when it was sucked into the cherry, turning it red with a zap noise, and it began rumbling and shaking.
Bow Kid was confused, and the minions yelped out and dove for cover, then Hat Kid realized it was a bomb and chucked it as hard as she could with a yelp, and it blew up before it hit the ground, sending a wave of heat into her face, and the ghost came back out completely unharmed.
The minions came out from their hiding spots and looked in amusement at the little girls. "Did you know the soft part of the fruit is sometimes called the flesh?" He asked Hat Kid, who nodded slowly. She then noticed the skeleton staring at the other fruit, and she activated it and threw it, and when it exploded, the skeleton cage disappeared, and Hat Kid grabbbed the yarn, imagining what she could make with it.
"Thanks for the help, newbies. Now, you should probably head to the village, the boss gets pretty impatient with his servants." One minion explained, and Hat Kid scratched her head.
"Ok, but where is the village?" She asked, and the minion pointed down the path.
"Just down this path, you can't miss it." He continued, and both girls nodded and took off. They reached the village quickly, but not before listening to a minion drone on about how gravedigging was a good way to get cash and ignoring him.
When they arrived at the village, they saw some trees hollowed out as housing, some ghosts flying around, some minions, and some foxes dancing around a campfire that themselves looked like they were made of fire.
Hat Kid heard a dinging coming from her hat, and looked inside, and saw the contract rumbling, and picked it up, seeing the 'Find Subcon Village' task checked off. She put her contract away and the two girls walked over to the campfire, but got stopped when they saw the shadow come out from the ground. He grinned at them, and Hat Kid sighed.
"WHYYYYYYYYY HELLOOO THERE!" He shouted obnoxiously, and the two girls just stared and frowned at him. "You didn't forget about me, did you? Don't tell me you didn't forget about me!"
Hat Kid shook her head, and mumbled: "Pretty hard to forget someone like you." Hearing this made the shadow grin like mad.
"What's up? You working on any contractual obligations lately?" He asked impatiently, and Hat Kid just sighed, and he frowned, and got right in her face, causing her to step back. "You'd better be! Remember our little deal!"
Both girls nodded rapidly, and he grinned again, then picked Hat Kid up by her cape and Bow Kid up by the back of her shirt, causing both girls to yelp in alarm, but he dropped them so they were facing the spirits. "Check it out! Those incredibly annoying Fire Spirits are sitting right there, in the middle of my village. Their little dance is creating these INCREDIBLY annoying barriers that stop me from getting to parts of my forest." He said angrily, then turned to a mocking tone. "It's almost like they're trying to put an end to me. How. Adorable."
He then faced the girls toward him. "DISPOSE of them! I don't care how you do it, as long as they suffer for entering MY domain!" He said furiously, then cackled evilly.
"I just have two questions." Hat Kid said, confusing the shadow.
"Hmm? And what would these questions be?" He replied mockingly.
"How exactly does one kill a spirit?" She questioned, and the shadow chuckled.
"That's up to you to figure out! Not my problem!" He said, then laughed again.
"Uhh, okay, but what do we call you? For simplicity's sake?" She asked again, and the shadow was able to stop laughing.
"Name's Snatcher, kiddo. Anyways, back to work, troopers! This isn't a vacation, and I'm getting impatient!" He barked before disappearing.
The girls approached the spirits, who noticed them immediately.
"We want to die! Yayyy!" The lead fire spirit said creepily. "We want to burn bright, then burn out! Become a cloud of smoooke! Our bonfire needs more fuel, only the finest paintings shall do! Can you help us?" Hat Kid nodded slowly.
Hat Kid heard something slip and fall, then a masculine grunt. She turned to see a distressed Mafia Goon get sucked into a glowing blank painting, which then showed a distorted 3D image of the Mafia. Hat Kid was horrified, but picked up the painting regardless and threw it into the fire.
"More! More!" The fire spirits chanted.
They saw a purple trail of smoke lead them to the next painting, which was on top of a tree, and showed an Express Owl. Bow Kid picked it up and tossed it to her captain, who chucked it into the fire.
"Burn, BUUUURN!" The spirits chanted again.
Another trail of smoke led them to a platform suspended on a tree, and showed a Moon Penguin. Hat Kid picked it up and tossed it into the fire from the platform. Some ghosts were beginning to become confused, and the minions backed away slowly. Helping the enemy, no matter their goal, did not seem like a good idea, a large section of the forest was already in a state of permanent wildfire because of those spirits' rituals.
The last painting was over by the entrance to the village, and was encased in a large block of ice, which a cherry bomb quickly decimated. The painting, oddly enough, showed the Badge Seller inside of it, which confused both girls, but they chucked it into the fire regardless.
"Thank youu!" The fire spirits chanted joyfully before the bonfire exploded into a pillar of dark flame, consuming the spirits. Hat Kid heard a dinging and felt a rumbling come from her hat, but ignored it.
"Burn, burn, burn, burn, BURN!" Hat Kid chanted maniacally, which concerned her first officer. Bow Kid tapped her on the shoulder and shot her a concerned glare, which snapped her out of it. "Oh. Sorry." She apologized quickly, then saw the Snatcher emerge from the ground.
"WELL DONE! Please tell me they suffered. You two murdered them, right? I bet you both strangled them." He stated, and then both girls nodded rapidly, which pleased him. "Good girls!" He then cackled evilly again, then Hat Kid smiled hopefully at him, and he frowned. "Don't think I'm done with you yet, though. There's more of these pests around my forest, and I need you two to take care of Every. Single. One." He explained, which made Hat Kid sigh in disappointment, then he took out the contract and looked at it. "Next on your to-do list: Clean Up The Subcon Well. That's right, you're both plumbers now! Congratulations on your promotions!" So they went from being exterminators to being plumbers. Is that really a promotion? He continued explaining. "I also have some... other... work for you that I cannot do myself. And hey, as long as I need you, you get to stay alive! What a deal, huh?" To please the shadow, Hat Kid nodded. He then thought of something, and grinned. "But, enough talk! You look like you can handle multiple things on your plate at once! Let's get you two another contract!" He stated, as two contracts appeared out of nowhere. "Pick one, but only one! Isn't it thrilling to sign your life away?"
Hat Kid walked up to the contract on the left and examined it. The jist of the contract was to enter some creepy manor in some icy cave and find out what was in the attic, and that the old village would be available to them. They didn't want to explore some haunted house, so they examined the other contract, which was to deliver mail to 10 of Snatcher's minions in the main section of the forest.
The mail seemed easy enough, so they signed that contract, and Snatcher stamped it, then both contracts disappeared. "Good choice! Let's hope you're both up for the task!" He said happily, then thought of something and grinned. "You're looking for Time Pieces, right?" Both girls' eyes widened and they both nodded very rapidly. "I found one while haunting some poor soul. You can keep it, but this is the only time I'll reward you for completing parts of a contract, because guess what? I'm not legally obligated to!" He then cackled and disappeared, then a Time Piece flew out of the ground and into Hat Kid's grasp.
Both girls grinned from ear to ear, and sighed with relief. So there were Time Pieces around here, and he was going to let them leave with them! Hat Kid held the Time Piece to the sky and Bow Kid grabbed her hand, and the Time Piece glowed as they began shooting up into the sky, but it stopped glowing and they plummeted to the ground with screams.
When they got up, Snatcher was there again. "Oh, and, I'm not letting you leave my forest until all of our business is concluded, so that you don't slack off. I know I've got your souls and everything, but you have no idea how many of my servants have tried escaping their contractual obligations, so I set up a little barrier so that only people with their souls can leave." He explained, then disappeared again.
Hat Kid turned to Bow Kid, and they slowly walked back to the giant tree, and saw the Badge Seller. They ran up to him.
"Hello again, young ones. It is rather a shame to see you here, of all the places we could've met." He explained mysteriously. "I can see you met my old rival as well. He does not take kindly to intruders, as you can both tell."
Hat Kid was confused. "How do you know this place so well?"
The Badge Seller chuckled sadly. "I lived here, in a past life. Before this forest became the way it is today, and before that... ungrateful shadow took over."
"Oh?" Hat Kid said uncertainly. "If that's the case, what's your name?"
The Badge Seller turned away. "You may call me simply The Badge Seller. Nothing else." He said in an annoyed manner, and the girls walked away and lied down under a mushroom, where they dozed off into sleep, and the Badge Seller simply stared sadly at the full moon.
A/N: Another chapter down! As you can see, I decided that I will refer to the girls simply as Hat Kid and Bow Kid as that is their official titles and what everyone on the planet knows them as. Also, it just seems odd to refer to Hat Kid as something other than 'Hat Kid'. Don't like it? Let me know. However, I decided to fuse our favourite glitchy merchant with another character from older versions of the game, for lore effect and whatnot.