purplegc-tumbld prompt: did Snatcher experience anything when he put on the top hat, and if so, what?

I don't typically do prompts, but uh… I let this one slide XD

The Hatted brat's hats were her signature for a reason, and The Snatcher had a rather tumultuous relationship with them.

The first time he'd set eyes on her, breathless and quivering in fear after breaking out of his trap, (far too late to do any good, of course) he didn't think too much of her somewhat flamboyant headgear. It was some sort of tennis cap with wings on it, a little weird but eh, whatever made kids these days happy. Or more importantly, led them into his forest, where he could benefit from their naivete and, as with the kid before him, occasionally worrisome work ethics. He set her to some tasks right away. One of which, well... she didn't bat an eye at murder. A kid after his own heart, though that probably wasn't a good thing in common opinion. Oh well. There were three fewer fox spirits for him to deal with, so he was perfectly fine with that.

Not long after, he realized that the hat wasn't just for show.

With a magical poof, it changed shape. It gained new functions, lent her new powers, and he started actually looking at the thing a little more intently. Was it the same hat, transformed? Or a new hat altogether, just swapped out magically? Who knew. Either way, the girl never noticed his watchful gaze, too busy blowing up graves for spare change and, judging by the malicious giggles, the sheer fun of it. Seriously, who raised this kid? What a menace! What's more, she was able to weave new hats with new powers once she had access to magical materials. Hat Kid soon gained abilities to see and traverse dimensions just like the dwellers could, and that alone gave The Snatcher some concern. (Also? He was really gonna have to have a talk with Moonjumper about leaving his junk everywhere. Those dratted yarn balls were a right nuisance if they got unravelled.)

As she slowly and steadily worked through her contracts, Snatcher kept his gaze on her and her abilities, doing whatever he needed to in order to gain the advantage of, as one might say, "knowing thy enemy". It was a good thing he did. Whether it was kicking up dust behind her as she raced around with her sprint hat, blew up obstacles with the brewing hat, manipulated spirit dimensions with the dweller hat, or easily located her objective with her main piece of headgear, a top hat, those articles were not to be trifled with. (And yes, he was very pointedly ignoring the ice hat. Just, ew. No thank you.) The Snatcher was keeping a wary watch on her, because her odd timey-wimey shenanigans (AKA undoing time when she died in order to come back to life, holy crow that was just cheating), as well as her uncanny competence, was making a fight seem more and more inevitable by the second. She certainly didn't have the manners to just die by the wayside and spare him the effort, unlike what some of his contractors did on occasion. The Snatcher was sure he'd have to show how he'd earned his title in order to make the inevitable duel even remotely fair. Or, you know, completely skewed in his favour. Totally fair in his books!

With all contracts complete, Snatcher prepared for the inevitable clash. Yet it didn't happen right away. The kid procrastinated a little in the Alpine Skyline, riding along ziplines and dodging oversized goats in her quest to get more Time Pieces. Maybe she knew what was coming and wanted to avoid it, maybe she was just scatter-brained. Either way, it was rather rude of her! But it gave him more time to prepare potions for the upcoming duel, so he set to brewing while he continued to keep tabs on her through their contract. Those slips of paper weren't just for show!

Then the Hat Kid got the Time Stop hat.

Right. That was it. No way, nuh uh, not gonna happen. He was nabbing her hat the moment he got the chance. Totally not fair! In the end, it turned out she only owned one hat that shapeshifted. He'd seen a cat nab it from her, and she hadn't been able to use any of her headgear until she'd gotten the original one back. Very good to know. Yup. Absolutely taking that hat from her at the start of their fight, because there was no way he was going to tolerate that level of shenaniganry from anyone but himself. It was going to be a nuisance of a fight for sure. Thank the fates he had both invincibility and the inherent patience of the immortal, because the only way he figured he was going to be able to kill her permanently (Timey wimey powers SUCKED) was to murder her so many times that she gave up and accepted her fate. Yup. This was gonna be a grind.

Eventually, whether it was because she'd worked up her courage or felt the lack of her soul too keenly, Hat Kid came to collect her dues. With his last Time Piece the Snatcher baited a trap, luring her to his lab for her eventual demise. His plans went off without a hitch. Wasn't it just so nice when everything fell into place! She boldly traipsed into his arena, eyes honed in on the prize. She was already half of the way into the bricked-off area when her (admittedly rather keen) instincts began to act up. The girl furtively glanced around the glade, whirling around suspiciously as her cape rippled with her movement. The edges of its fabric, a little ripped and ragged, crackled through the windless air. The forest itself knew what was coming next, and it couldn't wait to sink its roots into her fresh corpse. The Snatcher was going to toss her body to the side for it, of course, provided that there was anything left once he was done. There was a reason he fired his beams vertically in an open glade. Things tended to get a little bit, ahem, scorchy, and that wasn't too healthy for his woods. So, the body was a foregone conclusion. Her mind though? Hmm. He could let it dissipate… or maybe he'd let her mind and soul come back together to form a new dweller once she was dead. She'd certainly proved her competence time and time again, and a minion of that caliber could be greatly beneficial.

Then again, considering how downright feral and capricious her soul had been by itself? Making a minion out of something like that could be more trouble than it was worth. (Possessing a toilet, then attempting a spree of vandalism and murder, was not the typical thing souls tried to do the moment they escaped. The fact that it had even managed to escape in the first place was ghastly enough!) The soul might give him a lot of energy if he ate it… or maybe just give him a huge stomach ache. Hrmm, what to do-

Oops. She was approaching the Time Piece. The Snatcher snapped himself out of his distraction and prepared to lunge.

"Wait up, kid…"

A quick bit of dramatics later (it was important that his victims knew just how screwed they were!), he easily took the hat off her head. Plopping it on his own (and my, it fit quite nicely), he overrode its magic, forcing it to his whims. It was a nice hat, after all, and maybe he could use it's power against her. So he tried it out a little when he was aiming his potions and-oh. Oh, YES, he could work with this! It's powers, designed to home in on an objective, made aiming at the brat much, much easier. Blue potions rained down on her panicked little head, and her shrieks of terror and indignity were music to his ears.

He loved this kid's hat!

As she ran around the arena desperately, The Snatcher was pleased with the realization that murdering this gremlin wasn't going to be as much of a grind as he thought. It was like a game of darts with a moving target. Oh, he was going to have fun with this one. Glass shattered and blue potions exploded into glorious, glittering puffs as he happily fired at her. His beams edged towards her thanks to the powers of the hat, and hoo boy, were his minions having a ball running her down. What fun! He killed her twice in quick succession. His attacks were massive, intimidating, and rather a bit unpredictable as he alternated between his repertoire of spells and tricks. Up until now he'd been hiding his powers from her, and the shock value was paying off in spades. What fun. What absolute, impeccable fun!

At least, it was fun, right up until she threw his own potions back at him.

Oh.

Oh Peck.

Right, never mind. This kid was so dead.

Suddenly The Snatcher wasn't nearly as confident about his ability to win. That scared him. It was, in hindsight, still a fun battle, but at the time he'd been all but panicking, blasting her with everything he had and then some, as well as coming up with a few new moves on the spot. It went from an execution to an actual brawl, something that The Snatcher was completely unprepared for. He killed her several more times. However, the inevitable had changed in her favour, and it showed all too quickly. With the shock value gone, she learned how to dodge his attacks, how to make him hurt for the first time in centuries, how to beat him at his own game, and it rattled him to his ghostly core. Timey-Wimey shenanigans sucked.

In the end, he lost. He lost the fight, he lost all the time pieces, he lost her soul, and he even lost the bloody hat. His dignity was down the drain too. To say his ego was bruised from the loss, and from the complete rewrite of his contract by a meddlesome brat, was an absolute understatement. The fact that she didn't just scram when he asked her to was just a little more salt in the wound that he really didn't need to deal with right now.

Dang it all! He'd just started to like that hat. He'd wanted to have her soul in his grubby little hands, her time pieces too, and losing all of it so soundly made him angry, made him lash out. It didn't help that he'd maybe started to warm up to the idea of a new minion, of having a quirky but competent maiden of mischief running around his woods and doing his bidding. He totally hated her. How dare she, with her cheating time and reversing death, and throwing his own potions in his face, and trashing him in his own arena, and, and-! Gah! Insufferable wretch! He hated her! He hated her stupid little grin, he hated her cocky carefree attitude, he hated anything to do with her! And because it was her favourite thing, because it was her calling card and she loved it so much, he hated the kid's hat! The only thing he hated more is that he didn't have it!

No. No, he just hated the hat. That was it. Stupid hat! He pointedly ignored the memory of a children's fable, a long-ago remembrance of a story about a fox and sour grapes.

He hated the hat… but maybe, just maybe, her soul was still in reach. Maybe he could still recover from this loss. His mind, now in motion after a little time to himself, started up plans for a new type of contract. The Snatcher came up with fresh ideas, rewards, temptations, and he resolved to do whatever he had to do to get her soul back. He was going to have his revenge, and she was going to drive herself right into it! Seek it out even! Yes, yes, hah hah, yes! Diabolical! Oh, he was on a roll!

A few days later he was staring down at her, grinning behind his book at the look of concentration on her face. Oh, the Death Wishes were a brilliant plan. Absolutely perfect. For a little girl who loved rewards, loved to challenge herself and prove herself the better, it was all too easy to suck her down a rabbit hole that would lead her to her own doom. He smiled as she pointed at a challenge, and he explained it to her with a carefree twang to his tone that hinted it ought to be such an easy contract (It wasn't. She was going to die. Repeatedly). He followed it up with an additional dig, "There's a couple of bonus challenges too! Like this one! Don't use any of your stupid hat abilities. Easy peasy!"

Hat Kid scrunched her face up at the comment, unconsciously grabbing her top hat's rim as if to defend it from his insults. She glared at him as if to say It's not stupid. The look of indignity was both cute and hilarious, especially on her rounded little features. Totally worth it, at least until she stuck her tongue out in response. "You're just jealous," she retorted softly.

"What!?" What? No, absolutely not. "Ew, no! As if I would be jealous of some dumb hat that's too big for your small, idiot head!"

He was not jealous at all. Nope. Not at all. Every time he stole that fashionable hat afterwards, it was totally just to prove a point. He did it because he knew it made her mad, made her wrinkle up her face unhappily. Yup. That was why he did it, to rub it in. That was all.

If he liked how it fit on his head, then that was just a bonus.