AN: GUESS WHO TURNED THIS INTO A SHORT STORY?
My mind kept coming back to this idea so I knew I had to write more for it!
Hat Kid encounters Snatcher and deal is sealed.
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Hat Kid knew the moment time rewound that something strange had happened on the planet she had made several new friends on. She had been so close to reaching her home, the blue and green sphere had been in view when suddenly she found herself falling through space once again, Time Pieces plummeting down beside her.
"What happened?" She wondered, voice echoing through the silent cosmos around her, but naturally nothing answered her question.
Moments later she landed on the planet in the exact same manner she had before, Mafia crashing down beside her. The alley stank just as it first did, noxious fumes rising off of the mounds of trash, making the disgruntled child crinkle her nose.
Well, it was clear to her that she had no choice but to keep moving forward and hope she found whatever caused time to be rewound in the first place.
With that Hat Kid set off, following the exact same path she had when she first landed on this planet. Granted this time she avoided giving one of the Mafia a high five, easily recalling when she had been tricked and gotten punched in the face.
This provided her with the chance to see that none of the Mafia or Mustache Girl had been involved in whatever caused time to be rewound. Typically those in contact with a Time Piece would be able to exactly remember what had happened while others would be left with a vague sense of déjà vu, unable to pinpoint exactly what had happened.
Unfortunately this meant Hat Kid still had no idea who had caused this mess, but at least she could be certain that it was no one in Mafia Town. However that meant the birds or Snatcher might be the reason why time had been messed with...
Once she collected her first Time Piece, again, the child found herself rocketing back up into the sky towards her spaceship. She knew the best course of action would be to reach the other areas, Dead Bird Studio and Subcon Forest as soon as possible. She highly doubted anyone in the Alpine Skyline had messed with time, especially considering that whole mess with the purple flowers, so she did not feel much of a need to check there.
Snatcher and the Conductor had both shown signs of nearly being corrupted by the Time Pieces they had, but she had also taken all of the Time Pieces away so there had been none left on the planet.
Time could only be rewound using a Time Piece, not lingering corruption!
Ugh, this mess was such a... mess!
The moment she entered her ship the child marched up to her fuel vault and tossed the Time Piece into it, watching happily as the power was restored. However, there was something different from back when she had first visited her ship after falling to the planet. Originally all of the rooms had been sealed off except for the kitchen, since there had not been enough power to properly provide lighting and oxygen support. It was only as she gained more Time Pieces, and more power, that other rooms were opened.
But this time her bedroom door was unlocked.
And the Badge Seller had appeared in the hub of her ship near her TV.
Hat Kid's jaw dropped.
"Hello there, young one. It seems as though something quite strange has happened." The glitched vendor greeted, waving at the stunned child.
"Badge Seller, what're you doing here?" She asked, making her way over to the mysterious figure that had been extremely helpful on her quest to gather the Time Pieces.
"I felt time rewind." He replied, face twisting and turning as his eyes flashed with their eerie lights. "The very foundation of reality moved backwards, but I remained aware of it because of my damage."
Hat Kid winced. There was no denying how creepy his appearance was, but he was super nice and that made it significantly easier to talk to him.
"I knew that the best course of action would be to find you." He continued. "However it seems as though you also do not know what caused this change."
"Yeah, something weird is going on here." Hat Kid muttered, glancing over at her bedroom door.
The Badge Seller followed her gaze and let out a thoughtful hum. "Perhaps it would be best to investigate such oddities and see if they might lead you to the cause."
The child blinked. That, was actually a really good idea!
"Uh, I guess I'll check out my room then." She looked at the door once more and tried to ignore the foreboding feeling that rose up in her chest.
"I shall be here if you need any extra help or require badges, child." He added, eyes flashing once again.
Hat Kid smiled, nodded in response, and then made her way into the accessible room.
There was nothing that could prepare her for the sight she encountered the moment she entered her lit up bedroom. She had expected some sort of temporal mess or an enraged monster from outside of reality, but the sight in front of her resembled nothing she had imagined.
In front of her sat Snatcher, reading a book.
Her jaw dropped, again.
"Hey there kiddo, nice seeing you here." The shadow greeted from his new seat at the top of her pool of pillows. "What brings you to my new office?"
She sputtered and wheezed, uncertain of how exactly to respond to his question. Normally she would try to tease him but this situation was so bizarre she was left speechless and stunned. So instead of speaking she just walked up towards him, heart pounding and mind swimming.
Why was he here? And why did he look so... relaxed?
When she had spoken to the Mafia and even Mustache Girl, they had all seemed slight distressed when they realized they could faintly recall who she was, despite never meeting her in this timeline.
Mustache Girl had been especially upset considering she did not have any friends yet she knew Hat Kid had been her friend at some point.
It had taken quite some time to help her calm down.
Once Hat Kid got closer to the shadow it was easy to notice that something did not seem right about her ghostly best friend. His right eye twitched every so often, and his talons convulsed when she approached him.
Even the familiar trickster smile on his face was tense and looked fake!
But the worst, and most damming thing of all, was the light purple glow that now encompassed his body, the same glow that had surrounded Mustache Girl during their fight.
Time Piece corruption.
Which meant Snatcher had been what caused time to get rewound.
But she did not understand why. When she had first fought Snatcher he did not seem concerned with the power the Time Pieces had, it looked like he just wanted to keep them because they landed in his forest and had "become his property".
So why would he rewind time when he never wanted that in the first place, and where the heck did he get a Time Piece from?!
She had so many questions, and no answers.
"Well since you're here kid I have another contract you might be interested in signing." That caught Hat Kid's attention.
"A new contract?" She asked, walking up to the eerily calm shadow so she was now standing beside him.
Snatcher chuckled.
"Yup, a brand new one for your new journey. I think you'll enjoy it." With that he summoned a familiar sheet of paper and passed it over to the child, smiling the entire time.
He looks so creepy now...
She cautiously took the page and scanned it over. Immediately she noticed that it involved her completing "challenges" to receive amazing rewards, like new hats and stuff. However apparently if she died Snatcher would get to keep her soul for the rest of eternity.
Well, that sounded foreboding.
"I'll tell you about each challenge whenever you start looking for your Time Pieces." The shadow added. "And when you complete them you'll get all sorts of goodies-"
"But I don't care about stuff like that!" Hat Kid interrupted. "I just want to know what happened!"
To both time and him.
"Alright, alright." Snatcher muttered. "After you complete the contract I'll tell you what you want to know, okay?"
She nodded and signed the paper, but was far from satisfied. Of course at this point every part of her was screaming to run away for the out of character shadow, but she was too concerned to listen.
She needed to make sure he was alright!
"Snatcher," Hat Kid began, looking up at her best friend with wide, concerned eyes. "Are you okay?"
The shadow twitched and the book fell from his hands, disappearing into the pile of pillows. The smile that had been plastered on his face seemed to convulse, shifting into a frown as he turned to look at her. A single, ghostly hand reached out towards her shoulder, shuddering the entire time.
Vulnerability opened up in his yellow eyes, fear clearly displayed in them!
And then it was gone.
"I'm fine!" Snatcher viciously hissed, shoving Hat Kid back and nearly making the scared child fall over. "Now how about you get started on your contract!"
The hatted child had to blink away the tears that had gathered in her eyes. Sure Snatcher had been mean before, but this was a whole new level of being a jerk, and then there was that fear she had seen with all the weird twitching.
Something else was going on here, something that involved Snatcher, now she just had to figure out exactly what it was...
However he did have a point, the sooner she completed all of the challenges the sooner she would learn what had caused time to get rewound, and how the shadow had done it. So she slowly made her way back over to the entrance of her room, but before she left she paused.
"I'll be back Snatcher." Hat Kid said, glancing back to the shadow who was now stubbornly looking out the window into space.
When he did not respond she sighed and left, door closing silently behind her.
"Oh my puppet, why do you fight?" That damned voice whispered, words so sultry and sweet once the owner was certain the child was no longer nearby.
"Have you not realized how futile it is yet?"
The red strings around Snatcher's body appeared once more, tightening their grip on the hypnotized, but still struggling to break free, shadow.
"You cannot save her." Moonjumper breathed. "She will die and her soul will be mine."
For a single moment Snatcher's eyes flashed and he looked away from the window, that familiar smirk finally reappearing on his face.
"If you think that Moonbrat," He wheezed, desperately trying to regain control of his body. "Then you don't know the kiddo like I do!"
Moonjumper snarled, his strings lashing out once more to control his insubordinate puppet. Finally Snatcher's will began to fade, body and soul falling back under the mysterious puppeteer's control once again.
Worry briefly filled Moonjumper, his puppet had managed to break free of his control which meant he could do it again, but he ignored his fears and focused back on the task at hand.
He did not need the shadow to be completely under his control, just enough so he could fight Hat Kid once and be there to collect the child's soul when she died.
Besides, surely that had just been a fluke, there was no way his puppet was strong enough to break through his control once more.
You better watch out Moonbrat. When I get my body back you'll be sorry!
Unless the kid beats the crap out of you first!
Meanwhile, the Badge Seller had warped himself back down to the planet, more than aware of the path the child would take while she tried to complete her newest contract. Now all that was left to do was wait for the hatted child to perish, and if she found certain challenges to be a bit too easy...
Well, he could always throw in an obstacle here or there to make it just a bit tougher.
He would do whatever was needed to make sure his Master's plan succeeded, not matter how terrible it would be.
Perhaps it would be best if he suddenly "lost" that Hover Badge the child relied on so much...
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AN: I'm not going to write out the individual challenges because that would be boring. I'll probably mentions snippets of the boss fights in the next chapter though.
Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed, please leave me a review telling me what you think, and I'll see you in the next chapter!