Chapter 5: Not-Too-Happy to Help!

So we sat in Hat's bedroom eating triple chocolate chip cookies. They had to be soft cookies too, hard ones weren't as nice to eat, which was something we actually agreed on.

"Jerk." She sniffed through a stuffed mouth. We were in comfort eating territory.

"Whilst I agree with you, only with a lot more vulgar language, we don't have to dwell on the loss of someone who didn't really call us a friend." I reasoned. "Besides, there are other nice people right? Like, uh...Cooking Cat. And...Badge Seller? Though he creeps me out..."

"And you, right?" She gave me a hug, and I instinctively recoiled and hissed in my head.

"R-Right..." I mumbled...as I realised she was just trying to reach the cookie jar in my other hand. "In any case, this became a bit more serious." I jumped off my bed and held the cookies at a safe distance. "We need to collect the Time Pieces before Mustache."

"We're not gonna lose!" Hat declared with vengeance, before proceeding to choke on her overstuffed mouth.

"We need to head back down to Mafia Town." I said as I walked out to return the cookies whilst Hat swallowed and hit her chest.

We both descended back to the town we love/hate, and it was already daytime again for some reason when we landed.

"Short day cycles or something?" I wondered aloud.

""Wonder what we'll find this time?" Hat wondered.

"Time Piece." I oh-so-helpfully informed her as I put on my Bat Bow.

"But we can still look for Pons and Relics and Yarn and stuff, right?" She pleaded.

"I guess, but only because they're so helpful." Okay, I liked the Bat Bow, but that really didn't influence my decision, honest.

"Yaaaay!" She cheered childishly before running off.

"Honestly..." I sighed as I hurried after her.

So we began on what essentially was our treasure hunting at this point. I mean, we could afford to, our main pieces of fashion literally told us where Time Pieces were, so there was no way Mustache would be able to find any before us. And that was not my excuse as I stuffed multiple Pons down my sleeve.

"Hey Tiiiiiiiie! I found something!" Hat called up to me as I was gliding.

I landed next to her. "What is it?"

She pointed to a Mafia member riding a Rocket, noticeably with a Time Piece stuffed crudely into his pocket.

"This oughta be fun..." I grumbled.

"Mafia is fastest Mafia member in all of Mafia Town." He boasted to us. "Little girl and boy want Time Piece, so Mafia not give it to them! But, if you beat Mafia in race, Mafia might give it to you! Not possible after all, because Mafia is fastest."

"A race? I'm all over that!" Hat boasted.

"Or I could hit him really hard and make him explode." I offered. Both Hat and the Mafia member gave me very unamused looks. "...Fine. Race."

"We race to flag on other end of island." The Mafia said.

"If you say so..." I put on my Rushing Badge as Hat put on her Sprint Hat.

"Okay...ready...set...GO!" He announced as he shot off on his rocket.

"You announced that too quickly!" I complained as me and Hat chased after him. "Oh crud...he's actually fast!"

"Then we'll shortcut!" Hat declared as she ran up and began hopping across houses.

"You call that a shortcu-nonono-aaah!" I hadn't looked where I was going and due to the ice physics from the badge I had landed in the water.

"Ah! Tie!" Hat panicked, when more crows suddenly appeared to block her path. "Oh come on!"

"Darn it..." I pulled myself out of the water to see we were far behind now. I quickly put on my Bat Bow and used it to double jump on top of a building, then I used it to start gliding, taking a sharp turn around the giant geyser to catch up with him.

'I can see the flag...but he's so close! I'm not going to be able to catch up with him in time!' I thought desperately. 'In that case, I have no choice!'

"Eeeeeeeyaaaaaahhhhh!" I gave off a battle shriek as I cancelled my glide and landed directly on top of the rocket riding Mafia. Then I bit his head. Genius I know.

"Aaaaaaaaaah! Mafia hurt!" He tried to pry me off his head but I refused to let go. No, instead I pulled on his collar and choked him, to make him swerve off course as we both crashed into the wall, causing the rocket to spurt out its last flames before dying, and he collapsed with me sitting on top of him.

"I win!" Hat declared as she managed to jump over and touch the flag.

"That means this is ours, thank you." I wrenched the Time Piece out of his grip...I think he was unconscious.

"We did it, Tie!" Hat cheered, though she looked tired.

"Well, obviously I'm not gonna let someone keep a Time Piece over a silly race." I said. "Let's go back and put it in the vault."

We teleported back to the ship and I carefully put it back in the vault. 'Geez...I feel like a whole ton has happened, but really we've only retrieved 6 Time Pieces so far...wow, this is depressing...'

I then heard a soft thud, and I looked over to see Hat face down on the floor. I walked over to her and kicked her. "What are you doing?"

"I'm tired..." She mumbled.

"Seriously?" In all honesty I could see why. And now that I was thinking about how much more work we had to do...yeah, that can drain a person. "Whatever, I suppose it has been a day and a night on this planet. We should get some rest, we won't be able to continue if we're exhausted."

"Can you carry me to my bedroom?" Hat pleaded.

"Absolutely not. You have perfectly working legs there." Either to spite me or prove a point, she started dragging herself towards her bedroom. "You can do that all the way there, I'm going to dry off after falling in the sea!"

I hopped into the laundry room to dry off. 'Should I change my clothes for tomorrow after getting them wet?...Nah, I'll just keep them on. They're my favourites anyway.'

I changed into my pajamas, a pair of green top and bottoms with a matching sleeping cap, and headed over to my own bedroom, which was basically just a small bed up in the attic. It's actually quite nice...after I tidied and dusted it for several hours. I took note of the telescope that was at the end and looked through it, but it turned out it was angled to see this planets sun.

"No help there then..." I mumbled as I settled down for bed. The thought of 44 Time Pieces still being on the planet swimming through my head, until exhaustion beat stress and I fell into slumber.

No dreams, which I found pretty sucky. But I was thankful to have rested well despite our current situation.

"Right...breakfast..." I mumbled.

I got dressed and headed down stairs into the kitchen, but I was surprised to see Hat already in there, looking through the telescope.

"Uh, good morning Captain." I was genuinely shocked. "You're up early."

"Tiiiiiie." She spoke in a worried tone as she pointed at the telescope. "Everything's on fire."

"...Pardon?"

"Everything's on fire."

"What the heck do you mean by-THAT!?"

She was not wrong. All of Mafia Island was on fire. Or rather in lava.

"H-How!?" I cried. "What is wrong with those Mafia guys!?"

"Sooooo, does this mean we have to rescue them?" Hat mumbled.

"...Wellllll..." We both began thinking.

"They did punch me in the face." Hat pointed out.

"Their boss took our property then tried to kill us." I added.

"But then we killed their boss."

"I argue that was self-defense."

"But Badge Seller and Cooking Cat are also down there."

"...We could just save those two."

"...Good point."

"Maybe Mustache died."

"Tie, that's super dark...don't try to cheer me up."

"I was just thinking aloud."

We pondered for a bit more.

"Okay, it's decided, we leave them to die." I nodded.

"No. Captain's orders. We have to save them so that they'll owe us BIG time." Hat decided.

"And that's why you're the Captain." I groaned as it pained me to admit it. "And, I guess I don't want any Time Pieces to burn."

"That's the spirit!" She patted me on the back before skipping past me.

"Make sure to aim properly!" I called after her as I followed.

We jumped out of the window and floated down to the magma molded Mafia Town, coughing and sweating from the heat upon entry, but we managed to land on top of a building, where several Mafia members were cowering.

"Is little girl and boy that killed Boss!" At that outburst, they cowered even further, but the outbvurst had come from an...odd, member to say the least. Looked like the rest of them of course, but he was wearing swirly glasses and a bow tie.

"...I both hate you and like you." I mumbled as I stared at his tie.

"Oh, hey! It's you!" Hat said.

"Does Mafia know little girl?" The odd Mafia questioned.

"Ah-! Nope!" She quickly changed her tune and giggled, making me frown.

"A-Anyway! Things bad!" He said. "Mafia Town full of lava! Faucets have been turned off!"

"So, turning off giant water faucets causes...lava?" I questioned the logic. Stupid, I know, but someone had to.

"Yes! Um..." He leaned in to whisper: "Wasn't you, was it? Mafia saw little figure running around, turning off faucets."

"...Oh." I instinctively strangled thin air. "...No, wasn't us..."

"Then please help Mafia!" He suddenly threw himself at our feet. "Please save Mafia Town! Or everybody burn!"

"Don't worry, we'll save you." Hat gave me a wink as she said that. I shivered.

"We just have to turn the faucets back on, right?" I questioned. "No problem." I put on my Bat Bow and my Spider Tie Badge. "Captain, let's get to it."

"That's my line!" She cried, offended.

I glided over to the closest faucet I could see and climbed up it quite easily.

"Stupid Mustache..." I huffed as I began turning the faucet by smacking it with my yo-yo. "Doing something as idiotic as this. Sure, kill them all with lava, don't give two sugars about all the nice people living in this town, no, no lava. LAVA! From turning off faucets!"

I climbed up the building and looked around. Even with the town basically swamped with lava, I could still see loads of Pons and a Yarn around. Curse my impulsive collecting disorder which I totally have that made me grab every single one on a detour to the next faucet.

"Huh...thinking about it..." I stared out into the horizon. Nothing but lava heated water. "This place is pretty isolated. I'm pretty sure this planet has a lot of other places...but this place just seems so...separate."

I folded my arms in thought. "Just what kind of planet is this anyway?"

"Boop!"

I felt a familiar finger poke my nose, and I looked up to see Hat leaning over the edge of the building.

"Can I help you, Captain?"

"You were just standing there. Are you still sleepy?"

"I'm fine." I said.

"Good, 'cause there's just one more faucet left." She pointed.

"I'll get it, then." I nodded, gliding over to it.

"Can I ride on you whilst your gliding!?" Hat called after me.

"No thanks! I don't want to get Yoshi'ed!" I argued as I landed and spun the faucet, causing the water to flow again. "So, that's all of them ri-HACK!"

For some reason, releasing the final faucet caused a giant cloud of hot steam to erupt all around us.

I coughed violently as I waved the steam out of my eyes. "What the heck was tha...HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!?"

When the smoke cleared, everything was back to normal! The lava was just gone! The buildings were fine! The PLANTS were fine!

"Eh...heeeeh..." I stood there, completely baffled. My mind couldn't process it. Everything I knew about basic physics was wrong here.

"...I GIVE UP!" I screamed before face planting the ground. "I can't make logic out of this! I can't ground this in 'reality'! I accept that nothing makes sense! I ACCEPT MY FATE! ARE YOU HAPPY, SPACE!? YOU BROKE ME! YOU REALLY BROKE ME!" I then laid on the ground.

I then felt Hat sit on me. "Having a mental breakdown?" She asked.

"Leave me alone. I'm mourning the loss of rationality." I groaned.

"Oh, it existed in the first place? Welp, now that its dead, thing'sll be even more fun." She giggled.

'That's it!' I raised my head. 'This is all some trial...to get me to drop to her level of blissful ignorance! No...I'm not beaten yet!'

I stood up as proudly as possible. "I will continue on!"

"Cool. Wanna head up to the geyser then?" She pointed up. "Looks like there's a party!"

A party in that short span of time..."Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Wanna take the cannon again?"

"...Okay."

I resigned myself to my fate as we blasted to the top of the geyser, only I landed successfully this time, only to be met with everybody in Mafia Town cheering for us, along with a banquet of fish, prawns, lobsters, and other seafoods. But most importantly, a Time Piece!

"Little children save Mafia Town!" The funny lookinbg one suddenly shook us roughly by the hand. "Mafia grateful eternally! Mafia prepare feats and Time Piece for saviours! And, um, overlook killing Boss."

"Isn't that nice, Tie? Everything worked out!" Hat beamed.

"I, guess so." Guess we were friends with the Mafia now...how was I supposed to feel about this?

"Please, eat Mafia's delicious feast!" He offered.

"Um..." I mumbled.

"Hey, hey." We looked to see Cooking Cat whispering to us. "It's okay. I cooked it all."

"Yay! Fish for breakfast!" Hat cheered.

"That's right, we didn't have breakfast...fish for breakfast...that's weird." I admitted. "Ah, whatever, it's been sooooo long since I've had seafood!"

And I was thankful not to cook for once as we tucked in, with me completely forgetting that food on this planet could not agree with us or give us some kind of illness. But I didn't care, because I was eating salmon and prawns and lobsters in bliss. In case you didn't know, you can't get fish in space.

"Enjoying yourselves?" Cooking Cat asked. "You should! You two saved the whole of Mafia Town. You really aren't ordinary aliens, are you?"

"We're pretty ordinary where we come from, actually." I corrected her between mouthfuls.

"That so? Well you're the talk of the town now, between beating up the Boss and now this."

"I argue that those were unintentional. We're just here for these." I held the Time Piece for emphasis.

"Really? Those things that fell with you two. Well, you must be really adamant on getting them, then." CC said.

"Indeed. And on that notem, we need to go put this one back. Captain." I prompted her.

"Wait! Let me get some extras!" She then proceeded to tip several fish and prawns into her hammer space in her hat.

"C'mon." I sighed as I teleported us both back to the ship.

"Couldn't we have celebrated a little longer?" She whined.

"Hey, we'll be back down soon." I argued as I dropped the Time Piece in the vault.

"I'll go put the fish in the fridge!" Hat declared as she hurried into the kitchen.

"Hmmm..." I tapped on one of the control panels, and a door opened. "Oh, good! We've collected enough Time Pieces to open the door to the Machine Room!...Actually, on that note..."

I ran into the Machine Room and had a look around. "Everything seems to be working fine. That's a relief at least...wait, when did we have an old-timey phone?"

Suddenly, a blaring sound and red lights flashing started happening all over the ship.

"The intruder alarm!?" I gasped as I dashed into the main room. "Captain! It's an emergency!"

"Oh, howdy there, Tie."

"...WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?"

Standing in the middle of the room was Cooking Cat of all people! And she had a giant wooden crate with her.

"Hi, CC!" Hat waved as she turned off the alarm from one of the screens.

"How did you get up here!? Carrying that box!?" I yelled.

"Oh I just had the Mafia all toss me and this thing up together." She answered.

"Into the stratosphere!? No...no...stop questioning it..." I massaged my temples. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"Well you two just up and beamed up on us when there were still presents to go around." She said. "I hadn't even given you dessert!"

"Captain never gets sweets at breakfast. It makes her unbearable." I stated.

"I for one am all for dessert." Hat stated.

"That's good then, ain't it? I'll just put this here for now..." She moved the crate near the window. "Nice place you've got here...do you have a kitchen?"

"Thisaway." Hat led on.

"H-Hey! If you're gonna look at it, don't move anything! It's set up just how I like it!" I cried after them.

And that's how we gained our first freeloa-COUGH-friend aboard our ship. Unfortunately she was not the last.

And here we have Chapter Five which covered two more Acts, plus welcomed aboard CC and a certain present I'm sure you're all aware of.

This chapter didn't really have too much plot despite covering two acts, but it did hint at some things if you can't tell and next time we're focusing a bit more on story rather then Tie's suffering. Unless you like that sort of thing. By the way, in case you were wondering, Tie's basic Neckwear is called the Tip-Top Tie. I think you can get his naming convention from that.

Anyways sorry this chapter took a bit. Hope you still liked it though, and now it's on AO3 as well. See you in the next one!