Welcome back for another chapter readers. I'm really grateful for all the follows, favs, and reviews you have all left as I made this chapter. This chapter might be a little mundane because it's mostly platforming, but the next one will be coming soon, I pormise!
To Dinogeoff022,yes they are, and you're about to find out (:
To Rook435, Thank you very much for sticking with the story for this long. I actually do have plans for Bow Kid, but I won't be able to say much without revealing my hand a bit, so you will just have to wait and see. But yes, Bow will have some involvement, and I'll be sure to keep Tim a focus in the story
To Crab, pretty much sums it up lol
To starseedchild, Thank you! Means a lot
To DannyPhantom619, I'm sure you're not the only person who thinks that haha
"So let me get this straight sugar. You went into THE Subcon Forest, fought the Snatcher that's been rumored to haunt it for centuries, lost your soul, and beat him up to get it back?" recapped Cooking Cat.
Hat Kid knew she should be taking this more seriously, but she couldn't help but smile as she nodded. The looks on the feline and the jar boss were too good.
"Preposterous! How can you have faced the likes of the Snatcher and lived?" the dismembered Mafia Boss said in disbelief.
"Oh boy, you think he was bad? I got a guy named Mephisto who would make your liquid turn yellow," Spider-Man snarked as he exited the kitchen after devouring every chocolate product the ship contained. That would stave Venom off from looking at his brain for midnight munchies for a good while.
"Sorry kid, most of the chocolate chip cookies are gone, but I saved you an oatmeal raisin." Tossing her a singular cookie, Hat Kid awkwardly accepted the cookie as Peter gave a loud BELCH.
"Excuse me," he apologized.
"I must say hun', I never thought in all my days that I would become the personal chef for THREE aliens," laughed CC.
"Once upon a time, I never thought I'd go to space. Go figure," he remarked. Crazy how far his adventures have taken him. Shifting topics, the Web Head asked, "You've heard enough about our time away, it's time you caught us up on current events. Starting with, how long were we gone?"
The Mafia Boss hopped in his spot as he shouted, "One week! One week since you left me abandoned on this ship without a way to get down! I've been forced to watch reruns of that infernal disco bird sitcom!"
The boss's strange taste in television caused Hattie to gasp as she realized, "The award ceremony is tonight!" Rushing over to the clock, she saw that they only had 30 minutes left before the big ceremony.
"I need to change out of these week old clothes," she said before running to her room. Moments later, she burst out again in the same outfit, save for the absence of dirt and grime.
Looking over to her companion in the forest, the little girl asked, "Aren't you going to change? You wore the Unlimited suit all week."
The superhero shook his head. "Now that the threat of getting body snatched is off the table, I get all the perks of having an alien super suit without the drawbacks. Including..." Flexing a little bit under the black suit, Spider-Man's clothes adjusted from the midnight black spider suit to a proper suit and tie that had Venom's logo decorated on the tie. And of course, the classic red mask. Had to keep Venom's existence on the down low.
"... a non-existant dry cleaning bill!" he proclaimed.
Those present in the room stared impressed at the display. "Wow sugar, I didn't know your suit can make you so dashing," chuckled Cooking Cat.
"Why thank you," Venom added as he popped his head out from the black fabric, earning a giggle from CC and Hattie. Peter facepalmed at the display as he and Hat Kid made their way to the telescopic teleporter. First they had to drop the boss off at Mafia town, then they'd be on their way.
One angry jar and nauseous symbiote later, the two movie stars finally arrived at Dead Bird Studios after what felt like an eternity away. They were a little late because of the boss, but the poor sap had been subjected to a week of Roombi trying to suck up his innards. It was the least they could do.
Upon arrival, they could see that the birds had no problem starting without them. The spotlights were still going strong, and cheers could be heard inside of the studio's viewing theater. They were about to go in, but stopped when they saw a familiar grumpy figure standing outside by his lonesome.
"Conductor!" greeted the hat wearing child. The old owl perked up hearing his name, and gave a small smile to the duo.
"Lad, lass! Glad you made it when you did. You made it just in time to miss the showing of DJ Peck Neck's award winning movies," he grumbled. He then brightened up a little bit as he admitted, "Though your acting was one peck of a performance. The audiences loved you two buggers on both of our movies, even though mines were higher quality."
"Thank you!" Hat Kid praised. She'd always thought of acting as another career path if being a Time Keeper hadn't been her pick. Not the musical kind though, she hated singing.
The webslinger gave a curt nod of thanks, glad to see the bird much more mellow than he was during production. "So, did you manage to sort out that personal business you were talking about last time?" he asked.
The old avian gave a solemn smile. "You know lad, I did. And it was only thanks to you two that I finally pushed past me pride and fixed it. Seeing how ye act as if yer family had me thinking things out in me life." He paused. "Anyways, enough about me, go in there and enjoy your glory. The both of yous deserve it."
Giving the Conductor one last wave farewell, the two aspiring actors walked into the studio. On the ground was a red carpet, and as they followed it, they emerged in a big award theater. In the back, they could see DJ Grooves basking in his moment as he waved to the crowd. As they approached the stage, the audience recognized them and made way for them until they were up to the stage with DJ Grooves.
"Darlings! Thank you thank you so much! You two secured our victory! We won the annual bird award trophy!"
Spidey gave a polite "You're welcome," but considering the note they had left him on, he was suspicious as to why he was so openly caring to them. Venom sensed his unease and agreed with his assessment.
"Thank you Mr. Grooves!" cheered the hatted child. She was over the moon (heh) to have the Moon Penguin back to his old self. No more rocket shooting shenanigans.
The winning director took on a more smug look as he added, "The Conductor is probably awfully sour from his second loss ever, but don't worry, he'll come around." Fishing something out of his pocket, he concluded, "Anyway, we're all done here. No more movies until next year. Since you're so eager to get your hands on them, you can take my final movie prop as your last movie star payments."
With that statement, he finally pulled out a full time piece from his pocket and tossed it to the duo. Looking up with confused eyes and lenses, DJ Grooves just shrugged, "What, you were expecting something crazy to happen? Nonsense darling, nonsense."
"Well then, thanks for the payment Grooves, see you around," called Spider-Man over his shoulder as they walked away. Hat Kid waved excitedly back as they walked through the crowd of adoring fans again.
He's lying, isn't he the young Parker rhetorically asked his slimy companion.
Of course he was. His tone was as rushed as Eddie on his "dates".
It was going to be night raid then. Spider-Man wanted to tell Hat Kid, but it would probably be a quick operation, especially with the black suit. Unless he had some solid evidence anyways, he really didn't want to shatter the kid's idolatry.
Rather salty from the loss of yet another award, the Conductor stayed after hours to start script writing for the next movie season. It was still another year away, but the early bird gets the worm.
"That should be enough fer tonight," yawned the Conductor as he layed the script down. It was nowhere near close to done, but in the span of 2 hours alone in his office, he had managed to at least write the first scene.
Grabbing his coat from his hanger, the old fashioned bird prepared to leave, when he felt a rumble throughout the studio. "What is that Peck Necked hatchling up to now?" complained the old avian. Walking casually over to DJ Groove's side of the studio, he was quickly put on alert when he saw the silhouette of both his rival and that mischievous mustached lass in his office window. Ducking behind the crates, he peered in as he listened to the conversation.
"I-I don't know darling, the power of time itself? Shouldn't it be a bad idea to break something as important as this hourglass? What if the universe collapses in on itself? It's like those science fiction films Puffin Pete directed when I was a hatchling," the DJ stammered.
"My goodness, are you really this spineless?" Mustache Girl groaned. "Thanks to that time piece, you got to win one lousy award. Just think about all of the awards you can earn if you really start using that power." The Conductor may not be able to see it, but he was sure the little lass had the most conniving grin on her face.
"All of the awards?" The DJ repeated. Mustache Girl's shadow then held up the unmistakable shape of a time piece, and a moment later, a flash of chrome colored energy burst from the office. As the energy receded, DJ Grooves spoke in a much more assertive voice, " It's time to get this show rolling, darling."
Time itself? That must be why the spider lad and hat lass were so adamant on taking those props! Quickly looking around, the Conductor burst from his hiding place and sprinted for the nearest telephone as he remembered what the penguin was scheming. I have to warn them!
"Hey! Who's there?" came the voice of a moon penguin. Conductor had no time to waste. He had to get to Spider-Man and Hat Kid.
Beaming back up to the ship, Hattie and Spidey hopped down from the crates that held the telescope. Hattie was preparing to brush her teeth while Peter prepped for yet more breaking and entering later when an ominous ringtone played. Tilting their heads, they found the phone prop the Conductor had given them after shooting "Murder on the Owl Express" was ringing once again.
Curious, Spider-Man picked up the phone as he answered, "Sorry, wrong number. The pizza delivery was actually for the other giant floating spaceship." Expecting some groan of frustration, he grew on edge when the voice cut right to the chase.
"The Annual Bird Movie Award was rigged. It was an inside job."
Hearing a gasp behind him, Spider-Man narrowed his lenses as he insisted, "Go on."
"The winner knows about the power of the time pieces. He's been keeping one, and he's gonna break it. The truth lies underneath Dead Bird Studio. What goes on in Dead Bird Studio when no one is around?" the voice rhetorically asked.
"Who is this?" Hat Kid questioned.
The voice hurriedly spoke in reply, "Blow the cover on this thing, lassie. AAGH!" before hanging up.
Blinking twice, Spider-Man turned to his companion. A horrified expression donned her innocent face as she realized that DJ Grooves was endangering not only the Conductor, but the very balance of time itself.
"How could he..." Hat Kid silently seethed and lamented. She had trusted the DJ even after the firework incident, just for him to go behind her back. Is everyone on this planet out to double cross me?
Spider-Man internally sighed. There was no way he could possibly get away with going by himself now. He knew what it was like to be have people go behind his back. This just got personal for her.
"Go get heart pon dishes from the kitchen. I'm sure Cooking Cat left them in case we disappeared again," he directed. Hat Kid nodded determinedly as she ran off to retrieve said dishes. It was a wonder how the feline hasn't asked just what they are doing to need so many heart pon meals.
Spider-Man sighed, "This is going to be one long night."
In another flash of light, the defenders of time arrived once again at the doorstep to Dead Bird Studio in the dead of night. Venom had a much easier time becoming more at ease with the teleportation than Peter did, so there was no nauseous episodes this trip around.
The studio was desolate of any car, as it should be at such a late hour, which is why the duo (and a half) decided to just walk through the front door after a spider-sense scan revealed no alarms of any sort.
"If I had airpods, I'd play the Mission Impossible theme right about now," mumbled Spidey to himself.
Hat Kid checked if the vent they had entered through last time was still open, and lo and behold, a repair owl was fixing to get fired with the shoddy work they had left. The vent was barely hanging on by a few bolts, so Spider-Man pried it off once again and they crawled through.
Landing on the studio floor once again, they progressed through as normal. The lack of lights though unnerved the little hatted adventurer. The shadows the room casted were large and looming, an ample environment for someone to be watching them. The nerves were slightly getting to Spider-Man too, but Venom calmed him and his neural activity down.
"There," pointed the arachnid hero as they proceeded through the Conductor's side of the studio. His augmented spider-sense had picked up an electrical current, and following it had led them to an elevator door. How he had missed it before, he had no idea. Punching in the button to lower them down, the duo entered the elevator and began their descent.
On the way, Spider-Man noticed that Hattie had caught a case of the jitters. Putting his hand on her shoulder, he tried to get her to relax.
"Come on kid, elevator music isn't as bad as people say," he lamely joked. Seeing that did nothing to calm her, he comforted, "Whatever we find down there, we can take on, alright? You beat a soul stealing ghost, what's the worst a Pepsi commercial penguin can do?"
Hat Kid was still nervous, but gave an "Mmhmm" as a response just as the elevator finished its descent. Walking out of the lift, Hat Kid followed the path laid out by the series of shelves and crates. Just as she was coming around the bend though, she was web yanked backwards with a yelp. Turning to ask her ally what gives, he just put his finger to his mouth as he pointed with a tendril at the camera she had nearly walked into.
"Ohhhh," realized the little alien. Even after hours, there was still security in place. Something was definitely up.
Opting to take the less obvious route, Spidey and Hattie clambered up a shelf beside them, evading the camera's gaze. They then jumped and crawled onto what looked like some oversized air conditioners before landing in a pile of papers. Looking them over, they seemed to be a lot of late bills, something one college aged superhero knew all too well.
"Man, this is more money than it took to make the X Mansion!" exclaimed Spidey in shock as he held up a late bill for an entire train for 53,000,000 pons. Can someone say holy inflation Batman he said to himself.
Leaving the room of unpaid bills, the trespassers found themselves now in a room full of electric wiring and a catwalk as well as an office of some sorts. Blatantly ignoring the restrictive signs, Hat Kid was a little dismayed to find it locked. Peeking inside though, she could definitely tell it was the Conductor's office by the cowboy hat and boomerang hanging from a coat rack.
"Maybe we should try to get in?" suggested the hatted explorer.
Inspecting the lock, Spidey shook his head. "No good. I can't pick it, and I've already caused enough property damage."
Hat Kid scratched her head as she tried to come up with a way in that didn't involve Sparta-kicking the door. Her gaze fell upon the electrical wires that were scattered around. Hoping to use them to get around to the other side, she jumped on them, much to Spider-Man's immediate worry. Making sure to bounce over the electric current, she managed to hop her way across. For her efforts, she found what she was looking for: a round hole blown into the side of the office.
Unexpected but I'll take it she thought. Beckoning Spider-Man to follow her on her tight roping, she pointed towards the hole in the wall. "Can you go look? I can't jump that far." she requested.
Nodding, Spider-Man swung into the hole and landed in the office hallway. Using his mask's investigative mode, he scanned the room for anything out of the ordinary.
"Looks like someone got in a struggle here," he noted. In his investigation, he found the phone that had been used to call them in the corner of the office. He crouched down to inspect, and he found yellow feathers littered on the ground. Scans also showed a penguin flipper print on the phone as well.
"Seems like the penguins really have it out for the Conductor," Spidey surmised as he exited the room. Jumping back through the hole, he reported back to Hat Kid who was waiting on one of the pipes. "It looks like someone tried to drag the Conductor away. Whoever did it sure wasn't gentle since they left these behind." He then pulled out the yellow feathers.
Hat Kid gasped as she recognized the color. "I hope he's alright," she panicked. She then picked up the pace on the electrical wires as Spider-Man went ahead. Thanks to his super equilibrium, he was able to walk on the electric wires as if they were sidewalks. Hat Kid however, in her haste, nearly fell down to the bottom of the electric room, if not for a black gloved hand grabbing her wrist and hoisting her up.
"Whoa! Slow down kid, you look like Quicksilver at the Ringling Brothers . I'm sure you won't do much good to the Conductor as a pancake," Spidey warned as he stared down into the black abyss.
"Heh, sorry," Hattie sheepishly apologized.
The two of them managed to bounce their way to the other side of the electrical room where they found their footing on some vents. Hat Kid ran up the shafts while Spider-Man crawled up alongside her. As they reached the next floor, they heard two unmistakable voices from the next room over.
"I knewww you were a no good peck neck! Even I wouldn't have stooped as low as to start scheming with time! Are ye off your rocker?" came the accented voice of the Conductor. Spidey and Hattie peeked into the door where the voice had come from to find the Conductor tied to a chair
"Oh darling, this time piece is all I need to right all of YOUR wrongs. Years of cheating will be undone, and we'll be even, as we should be," DJ Grooves responded.
The Conductor fumed at the Moon Penguin. "ME WRONGS? I won those awards fair and square! Besides, the little Hat lass and the Spider-lad are probably coming to put an end to this. You can't be deluded enough to think you can possibly take on both of them!" He paused his tirade with a smug grin, eyeing the two sets of eyes he saw behind the door.
DJ Groove's voice turned a little more sinister as he forboded, "Conductor darling, I think that they're the last people you should be worrying about." With that, he dragged the Conductor away kicking and cursing into another room.
Taking their eyes out of the room, Spidey and Hattie glanced at each other. "We've gotta get moving," the arachnid said, and they hurried along another catwalk as they delved deeper into the studio than they'd ever been.
After swinging across a gap in the electrical room and inspecting a shelf full of obscure movies with bird puns, the two journeyed into a large room stacked full of crates.
"This must be the storage room," observed Spider-Man. The room was covered in all sorts of props, boxes, and other clutter thrown around in no order whatsoever. "My apartment looks like Fein Shui compared to this mess," commented the wall-crawler.
They ran around the floor for a while trying to find a way out. When it became evident that the only way out was up, they started searching for any low standing crates that they wouldn't knock over, but they all seemed too high to reach without tipping them over.
As Hat Kid was looking for a low crate, she found a red scaffolding that was close to one of the shorter towers.
"Here!" she beckoned, and the webslinger was beside her in moments.
"Good one kid, now do what you do best."
Smiling at the masked man, Hat Kid double jumped and dove, landing squarely on the top of the crates, which remained surprisingly firm. Spider-Man shot a web line to the ceiling in order to help her make the right jumps. In no time, Hattie had navigated the array of boxes and leapt up to the top row without falling. Noticing the extra security at the top row, the two trespassers knew they were going the right way.
As Spider-Man webbed another security camera for the little girl to pass, they heard the two bird directors in another hallway.
"Let go a' me already! I swear when the Spider-lad and the Hat lass get here, they're gonna beat yer tail feathers redder than yer jacket ya son of a finch!" the Conductor continued ranting.
"The little darling and her sidekick are only missing one time piece Conductor. After all, she has many more in her collection. I'm sure she won't even notice me using this one to claim what's rightfully mine." Grooves responded.
Instead of responding, the Conductor gave an almost unnoticeable nod out the side of the hallway, where he saw a human shaped silhouette clinging to the wall and crawling off.
"Sidekick?" Spider-Man repeated after the directors had gone. "That Redfoo ripoff just earned a ticket webbed to the Owl Express undercarriage."
They continued forward, finding a large door near where they heard the directors going. As the two time protectors entered a large clearing, they noticed there was a series of wires leading up and down scaffoldings. Tracing the wires back t their origin, they found that they converged on another steel garage door.
Gazing up at how high they needed to go, Spider-Man shook his head. "We're taking the express route," he announced before grabbing Hattie by the hand. Tugging the web, he shot them both upwards and tossed the little alien onto a power switch.
"Let's work from the top-down," he instructed. Nodding, Hat Kid proceeded down a series of scaffoldings and electric wires. Though they managed to get through mostly without a hitch, getting back down safely nearly blew their cover.
"Get down!" Spider-Man had quickly whispered. Jumping behind some covers, the quick witted arachnid and explorer were not noticed by the table of crows adjacent from them.
"And there was a giant fire!" one shouted, sending the table roaring into laughter. As they howled, Spidey and Hattie managed to slip away.
"Such awful jokes go against everything my quips stand for," Spider-Man said half jokingly. Those punchlines were as funny as modern Adam Sandler.
As they hit the last power button, the steel door lifted revealing... a viewing room? And a familiar one at that. Hat Kid immediately recognized this as the viewing room they had seen at the end of the time rift. She then made a mental note to herself to read the Time Rift book from Subcon forest whenever they got back. She REALLY needed to catch up on her time rift lore.
Hearing the telltale thwip, Hat Kid looked behind her and saw that Spider-Man had already found a way out not involving broken glass as he webbed his way up to the side of another catwalk.
"Catwalks. For when air vents are to expensive for every room."
Hat Kid grinned at the joke before finding her own way up via wall jumping. Leaving out the doorway in the wall, Spidey sighed as he spied more security cameras. "That's what I get for putting my faith in something with 'cat'."
Seeing no security cameras on the ground below, the web head leaped over the guard railing and fell as light as a feather to the ground. Hat Kid followed suit as she jumped down next to him. Peering around, they found no doors that were unlocked for them to go through, meaning DJ Grooves hadn't gone through them either. Reaching out with his augmented spider-sense, Spidey managed to locate one open door at the end of the hallway. The two of them took a brief detour back onto the catwalk before dropping down again.
Inside the open door, they saw DJ Groove's dressing room laid out before them. Along with the usual makeup mirrors, there were posters for various movies produced by the penguin. Two of which caught the attention of the two actors-in-the-making.
"Hey! It's the Big Parade! I'm on the roof!" squealed Hat Kid with joy. She didn't think she'd make it really big in the acting industry, but here she was on the front cover of one of the bird world's biggest hits (presumably).
"That's brilliant and all, but I prefer this one," called Spider-Man. Looking in his direction, she saw him clinging to the Picture Perfect poster which featured a picture of both Hat Kid holding a photo and himself winking at the camera upside down.
"Ehhh? Ehhh?" Spidey childishly said as he started pointing to the poster him and himself. "They finally got my image right," he commented, remembering how the last movie based on him had his costume missing all the black webbing.
Hat Kid smiled back at the giant portrait of herself. She was really impressed with how it came out.
Deciding to move on, the two of them ascended to yet another catwalk as they entered what they could only describe as the epitome of welath. All around them were golden awards, each for a different category of film. Peter suddenly realized just how pointless the Oscars were as he gazed at all the replica trophies.
Little Luna was sure that this was something really important to understanding the mysteries of Dead Bird Studios and all yadda yadda yadda, but that didn't matter to her right now. Instead, she walked right up to what she thought was the gaudiest thing she had ever seen. A gold toilet, next to a gold sink and a gold hand drier. They could already see the metal getting brittle from all the hot air.
"The chemist inside me is screaming right now. The other underpaid Peter Parker side wants to roundhouse kick whoever came up with this atrocity," facepalmed Spider-Man. Hat Kid as well could literally come up with a million better uses than a hot air blower.
Finding nothing else in the room that was worthy of note, the two of them climbed down and entered the other unlocked door to find themselves in another hallway. Noticing another door was open, they entered a tool and prop room where they walked over a shelf and a camera. As they exited it, they noticed there was a whiteboard holding open the next door. Coming closer, they frowned at what was drawn on its surface.
"That can't be a good sign," Spider-Man said aloud. If Mustache Girl had been trying to keep her involvement secret, she sure wasn't anymore. "She must have known we were coming. Look."
Inscribed on the board 'Hat Kid smells', 'Spiderman is creepy', and 'Mustache Girl rules' were the most prominent writings, as well as other insults and self brags.
"Everyone forgets the hyphen," Spider-Man said exasperatedly.
"Why is she being so mean," Hat Kid sighed as she felt a comforting hand and tendril on her back.
Continuing forth from the billboard, they entered what looked to be Conductor's conference room. Probably to meet with producers Hat Kid thought.
Unfortunately for the two of them, there were cameras all along the long conference table lining the room. Fortunately, web shooters and hook shots existed. As both swung over the cameras, leapt up onto another award case before diving into air vent that was open. Emerging in the Conductor's own dressing room, they found that their movies with the owl had also been made into posters.
On the wall, Murder on the Owl Express's poster featured Hat Kid in the forefront as other side characters were behind her such as the Conductor and the crows. Inside of her magnifying glass she was holding, Spider-Man's eye lens was seen in the center to show his inclusion. For Train Rush, it simply showed Hat Kid sprinting across the exploding surface of the train as Spider-Man swung in from the top. All in all, Spidey judged it to be pretty badass.
A thought then occurred to Hat Kid as she turned to Spider-Man. "Are we getting paid for these?" she asked.
The wall crawler's mind immediately went to how much they could sue the studio if they wanted to. At least Snatcher had been upfront with his dealings with a contract. This studio scammed them out of their pockets.
"Matt and Jennifer would have a field day over how many IP laws were just broken," he said to himself. On that note, they left the room and entered another vent that lead to another catwalk that led to another vent.
So much air conditioning thought Hat Kid as they emerged into what looked like a drill room. After avoiding the deadly spikes of death, they found themselves into another catwalk. Seeing where the catwalk ended, Spidey swore that this place had worse vent placement than Oscorp as he crawled into what he hoped was the last one.
At a lower level of Dead Bird Studios, a vent grate crashed to the ground as a black boot shoved it down. Hopping down, Spidey was almost overjoyed to find another elevator door. Hat Kid landed beside him and went up to the elevator door.
"Boop!" she chimed as she pressed the button. Instantly, the door opened, allowing the two to step inside the lift.
"Alright Luna, we made it this far. Are you sure you're ready to face DJ Grooves hopped up on Time Piece energy?"
Venom formed a slime head on Peter's shoulder as he added, "It is not too late for you to turn back."
Hat Kid mulled their words over in her head before firmly stating, "No, protecting the Time Pieces is my responsibility like how protecting people is yours. I need to do this."
As much as he didn't want her to come, he knew that stubborn responsibility to do the right thing wouldn't let him have it. Man, this what MJ feels all the time
Nodding in understanding, Spider-Man used a tendril to push the only button on the inside of the lift, taking them down to the lowest point in Dead Bird Studio.
Thank you Dinogeoff for pointing out one of the grammar errors. I usually only get to write late into the night so I was tired when I finished