Hey everyone, hope you enjoyed the first chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.
First, to clarify, yes I gave Hat Kid a little buff, as she's going up against Grimm and people who fight for a living, not train owls and ghouls.
Team RWBY will get to spend some time helping Hat Kid in her own adventure, getting all the Time Pieces from the Snatcher, the Conductor, DJ Grooves, and confronting Mustache Girl.
Hat Kid spun in the chair of her spaceship wheel. Whew! That was one hectic fight. She wasn't even sure it was on the same planet as she was. Well, another day in the life.
She jumped out of the chair, running back to her room, then to the secret pillow fort. She studied the door more. How did it get here? She was almost certain it wasn't here before. And that girl Yang and the man Junior, and those two girls, and the DJ bear? What was that all about? They weren't birds or ghouls or mafia. They were just plain humans.
She jumped back up from the fort and plopped down on her bed. So many questions. It made her feel like going crazy. But she had to pull herself together. A door appearing means one thing: There are Time Pieces there. And she needs to find them all.
Running back to the fort, Hat Kid opened up the door once more, expecting to fall as she did last time. Instead, she found herself coming out of a bush. This was a strange door, as most others were consistent with where they put her. She did a quick look-around. She was in a forest, the tree leaves bloomed with a red shade to them. It seemed very peaceful.
Hat Kid activated her hat's power, searching for the Time Piece. She closed her eyes and started walking in the direction the hat showed her. She opened her eyes and noticed she was nearing the edge of a cliff. It was likely that the Time Piece was just over it. Just then, two flashes of red and black blew past her, causing her to spin around and trip.
She regained her footing. What was that? She looked back over to the cliff face. There stood two people, about the same age as Yang, she would guess. One was a woman, wearing a white and black shirt and a bow on her head. The other, a man, had a strange mask on, almost reminding her of her own Dweller's Mask. They both appeared to be armed with swords, as she could see the sheathe hanging on the woman's back, and the man's side.
She then heard a familiar sound. A train whistle. Hat Kid blinked. A train? Could it be the Owl Express?
All of a sudden, the man pulled out his sword and jumped right off the cliff. The woman glanced back at Hat Kid, who jumped back upon seeing that she knew she was there. The woman didn't seem to care, however, and simply jumped off the cliff after the man. Hat Kid rushed over to the edge, seeing that they both were skidding on the side. They then jumped off. The man pulled out his sword, landing on the train, stabbing it into the top.
Hat Kid was relieved upon seeing that the train did not resemble the Owl Express in any way. If the Conductor found out his "lovely train" had two unwanted passengers aboard, he would absolutely lose it. She tapped into her hat's power once more, and her suspicions were correct. The hat told her there was a Time Piece onboard the train. She let out a sigh, before diving off the cliff after the two.
She opened her umbrella to break her fall, landing a little bit behind them. The man sliced open a hole inside the train. He and the woman then jumped inside the hole. Hat Kid didn't know what they were doing onboard, but she didn't have time to answer questions. Her priority was getting the Time Piece. She jumped over the hole, pressing onwards towards the front, where her hat told her to go.
She heard what sounded like a lot of gunfire and swords clanking, and assumed the girl and man ran into some trouble. She considered lending them a hand, but decided against it, as technically they were committing a crime, and she didn't want to get in bad with the authorities of this place.
Hat Kid moved into the open-area car, searching boxes. There wasn't much in them, just some weird colored crystals she didn't care about.
The back door to the car behind her flung open, a robot flying out with the man and woman following. Several other robots crowded around them. They didn't seem to care about the much smaller woman searching through the luggage.
Hat Kid stopped searching for a bit to watch the fight. The man and woman ran straight at the robots, swinging their swords, knocking several down. The woman did some weird move where she threw the blade at the robots, holding onto it with a black ribbon. The blade turned into a gun, and fired at all the robots as she swung it around.
The man proceeded to rush into a crowd of robots and swing his sword every which-way, the robots falling to the ground in a heap.
It was at this moment Hat Kid realized she should get back on-task, and she continued rummaging through boxes, hoping to find the Time Piece. She looked up to see the man walking towards her, and he did not look happy. Her eye twitched, and she moved as fast as she could through the boxes. She was about to open the next box when the man grabbed her by the back of her collar.
"I've got the kid. Let's move." He said with an ounce of annoyance in his voice.
They moved into the next car, an area with more crates and boxes. The man opened one.
"Perfect." He said in a gruff voice. "Move on to the next car. I'll set the charges."
"What about the crew members?" The woman asked.
"What about them?" The man replied.
All of a sudden, a huge robot with 4 legs crawled out of the shadows.
"Adam!" The woman chastised.
The man, now known as Adam, put Hat Kid down. He then charged at the behemoth, which opened fire with white glowing rounds. The woman leapt onto some boxes, then attempted to slice it. It didn't go over so well, as the blade bounced off, forcing her to come back to the ground. Adam jumped in, slicing and dicing, but the robot kicked him back with one of its four legs.
Adam ran back, grabbed the woman, and set them at the back of the car.
"We need to get out of here!" The woman said.
The robot's barrels elongated, and it started charging white light.
The woman's eyes went wide, as she saw that the small child was in its direct line of fire.
"THE KID!" She shouted.
"On it." Adam replied, rushing in to grab Hat Kid, who was frozen in fear.
The robot fired a huge blast of white, knocking Adam, holding Hat Kid, and the woman back to another open car.
"Buy me some time!" Adam yelled at the woman.
"Are you sure?" She asked
"Do it!" He replied.
The woman lunged at the robot, attempting to punch a hole in it however she could.
Hat Kid had managed to get away and to the other open car behind them, continuing her search for the Time Piece.
The robot then shot another huge blast of white at the two. Adam pulled out his sword and seemed to absorb the shot into it.
The robot jumped at him, and then-SWISH-Adam cut right through it, turning the monster into a cloud of black shreds.
He then turned around and headed for the other car.
Hat Kid looked up from her search to see what was happening.
The woman was standing on the edge of the car she was on, looking at Adam, who was on the other one. The woman gave Adam a sad look.
"Goodbye."
She took out her sword, and then cut the connectors between her car and Adam's.
Hat Kid was taken aback by this. What was she doing?
()
Later that night, Hat Kid and the woman sat together in the woods by an open flame.
"You're probably wondering what happened back there. It's a long story." The woman said.
Hat Kid shrugged.
"We'll just say I broke up with him and leave it at that."
She put a twig into the fire.
"My name's Blake. Blake Belladonna." The woman said.
"Hat Kid." The child replied. It wasn't often she talked, but giving her name was one of the few times she did.
"Hat Kid? Is that what they call you, or is that your actual name?" Blake asked.
Hat Kid shrugged. It was just the name she knew.
"Well, I assume you weren't robbing the train back there with us, Hat Kid. What were you doing?" Blake questioned.
Hat Kid pulled out her camera and showed Blake a picture of a Time Piece.
"Oh, those. I think I have one." Blake said, digging into her pockets. Pulling out the glowing hourglass, she looked at it with a curious face.
"What are these things? How do they work?"
Hat Kid had no intention of explaining. She beckoned for Blake to give it to her.
"Alright, alright. Here you go." The bow-haired girl replied, tossing her the hourglass.
Hat Kid nodded, and put the Time Piece under her hat.
"By the way, I was wondering." Blake continued. "You wouldn't happen to know a place where I could stay for the night? I'd do fine out here, but the Grimm may try to have me as a midnight snack while I sleep."
Hat Kid thought to herself. Blake seemed kind-as far as she knew. She helped her out like Yang did, and she figured there wasn't too much of a problem with letting her stay, as only Hat Kid knew the combination to the Time Piece Vault.
She reached into her hat and pulled out her keychain.
"Woah, what's…" Blake started to say, but before she could continue, Hat Kid held onto her hand, and pressed a button on the keychain. Green light surrounded them, and Blake's eyes were wide as plates.
In a second, they were standing in the diary room.
"Teleportation? What?" Blake said, her eyes not as wide as they were before, but still pretty wide.
Hat Kid gestured to the top of the fort, which was covered in pillows. She then jumped into the pillows, leaving the room.
"Hat Kid, what is this place?" She asked, looking around. A small hand stuck out of the pillows and beckoned her to come out.
Blake shrugged and climbed out of the fort, attempting to get out of what appeared to be a sea of pillows.
She finally surfaced and caught her breath. What she saw took it right away. The room she was in was a massive bedroom, with a window looking out. What she saw out the window was space, as far as the eye could see. Hat Kid stood at the bed, waving.
"Hat Kid…" Blake gasped, coming out of the pillows. "What is this place, and who are you?"
Hat Kid jumped off the bed, landing right in front of her. She gave Blake a huge smile, and ran through a door that had a gear sign on it. Blake sighed.
"What a character." She then took off after Hat Kid, running through the doors, into a purple-floored corridor, through another door that opened into a large open area.
The room was filled with blinking lights. A TV stood in the corner, with some weird dog show on it. There was a huge screen beside a vault-style door, with a picture of the hourglass, and a number.
Hat Kid climbed up a ladder leading to the vault, opened it, and tossed in her newly acquired hourglass.
"So that's what they're for." Blake said. "Are they keeping this place on?"
Hat Kid nodded. She gestured towards the large glass window that stood at the front. At the front there was what appeared to be a control station, with a wooden ship wheel in front of a large chair. Beside it was a door that looked to have been boarded up with wooden planks.
Through the window, she could see a large view of a planet, definitely not hers.
"It's...beautiful." She said, pressing her hands against the glass.
She turned around and saw that Hat Kid had ran off again, probably to get something. She took this as an opportunity to look around. There was a yellow slide poking out the wall, a circular disc-shaped robot that kept crashing into things, and exhibit stands showing off ordinary objects.
She walked up to one in particular, a cheeseburger cushion. The writing on the plaque said: "Research concludes that this thing is very soft to sit on. So soft, that the only logical conclusion is that these are the chairs of this planet. It is not a snack. I tried. It tastes like fabric."
Blake chuckled softly reading the last part. She then heard a door open, seeing Hat Kid emerge from a blue door, carrying a mattress with bed stuff and a pile of pillows. She flipped the mattress in the air, as well as the pillows, having the mattress land first, then sheets and blankets, then pillows. Hat Kid then looked at Blake and did a wave, before running into the blue door.
Blake was pretty surprised to say the least. Hat Kid, whoever she was, certainly was not from Remnant. Questions danced in her head as to what this meant for her.
But it didn't matter. She was finally free from the White Fang. As free as being teleported into a kid's spaceship was. There was probably a way to return to Remnant and continue her life there, enrolling in Beacon and becoming a huntress. But for now, she would need her sleep.
She crawled into the mattress and laid her head on the pillows. They were unbelievably soft. Her thoughts started to leave her as she drifted away into dreamland.
Until tomorrow, then.
NEXT CHAPTER: Blake meets the soul-stealing, toilet-hating, contract-making ghoul himself, THE SNATCHER!