[center][img]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/a-hat-in-time/images/f/f4/Kid´s_Hat.png/revision/latest?cb=20180904094746[/img] [color=8258fa]Level 1[/color] - (2 -> 5/10) EXP [color=8258fa]Location:[/color] Peach's Castle - Bridge [color=8258fa]Word Count:[/color] 2,428 (+3 EXP) [/center] This lot that Kid found herself mixed up with was already starting to send some seriously mixed messages. First, she was pulled to shore and treated by the first two to see her. Now, no more than a moment or two following her arrival, one of the more menacing of them marked her as an enemy with alarming prematurity and wanted her dead, while another stood between her and him with talks of “freeing” her. What did he mean by [i]that[/i]? Wasn’t she already free? In a greater sense, no, but as she was, a prisoner within her own form, she hadn’t a sufficiently lucid conception about her own existence to be dialed into the fact. Regardless, her reception thus far had her mentally closing on a much easier fight or flight decision, favoring the latter. That was until she noticed the [color=orange]KING[/color] take his unexpected leave back into the castle to attend to what he considered to be more urgent matters. Taking his place was a great disembodied hand, who proceeded to lecture the heroes on the supposed folly of their ways. To exemplify this, he summoned seven distinct figures--lost souls like Hat Kid, bearing the same cosmetic symptoms (with the behavioral yet to be seen)--who were all familiar in some way to certain members of the party, and provided them with a simple, but harsh ultimatum: surrender themselves to rejoin their loved ones, strike them down for the sake of their quest for multiversal restoration, or die trying. The anthropomorphic alien feline didn’t hesitate. Clearly fraught with despair at the idea of having to fight, let alone kill who he cared for most in this world (or any other), he decided it best to take the right hand’s offer, meeting his hollowed out familiar halfway in an embrace, and turning the opposing septet into an octet in a (literal) flash. This impulsive self-sacrifice prompted the hooded enigma to point his weapon intently at Kid, who, having been fearfully taken aback by the rash gesture, started to slowly back away from him in trembling steps. Was [i]this[/i] what he meant; to “free” her not from the nullifying shackles that bound her spirit, but from her very life, believing that she could not be saved from it? From her limited perspective, it was difficult to tell, but judging by his nervous, unsteady aim and stressfully subdued speech, he was no more looking forward to whatever he was about to do than she was. But then, a vibrant heart sailed over the Master and struck the child in dead center of her chest, and a burst of warm fuchsia energy swelled and erupted from the point of impact as the revitalizing force lifted her off the ground. Her color started to replenish itself, saturation fading back in from the source... [hr] [i]With the blinding white clearing away, the ship’s colorful, roomy interior came into focus. Kid unshielded her eyes upon realizing were she was, and looked around the living/control room littered with recovered Time Pieces. It didn’t take her long piece together what was going on, but she went over to open the door in the window (which was no longer boarded up) and leaned out for a second look just to be sure. It was just as she expected; the planet was restored, its denizens saved, and all was returned to normal, just as it was when she first arrived… all except for Mustache Girl. She lay unconscious on the brickwork, exactly the way she left her after their battle. Kid let her pensive gaze last a couple of seconds longer before reaching for a Time Piece, but stopping herself from doing anything with it without taking the chance to think it over once more. Glancing thoughtfully back and forth between the hourglass levitating in her palm and the little red-hooded girl down below, she pondered on whether or not to lend her a single Piece--enough only to cause a little trouble and give her a better chance against the Mafia without inviting an apocalypse. On one hand, it was her who abused stolen Time power to unmake the world into a treacherous planetwide hellscape where its inhabitants were nigh invariably judged by her to be evil and punished accordingly under her self-imposed, absolute rule, thus proving Kid right in withholding the Pieces on the basis that no one else could be trusted to use their power responsibly. That, and they were hers to reclaim to begin with. She needed them back if she expected to get home, which is why she went through so much trouble to recover them, and now, she ran the risk of potentially cutting herself one Time Piece short of making it back to her homeworld for the sake of carrying out an act of spontaneous, unconditional charity that she previously would not have considered. And yet, from a philosophical perspective, it was hard to deny that her perceived selfishness, however justified, may have partially contributed to driving the delinquent Girl to acting out so dramatically, having been convinced that she was utterly and hopelessly alone in her cause. Come to think of it, Kid had no idea what Girl's upbringing may have been like under the oppressive Mafia (or in general) that could explain her moral outlook, and if she did have any insight on her origins, she may very well have been inclined to feel sorry for her. In a way, even if she wouldn't openly admit it, she already did. Still, it had to be more than mere pity forcing her hand, and something greater than simple necessity staying it. What lesson, if any, did she stand to learn from her adventure? One about understanding? Selflessness? Second chances? Finding better ways? Whatever conclusion she came to on this would ultimately influence her decision. After deciding one way or the other, Kid placed herself in the driver's seat and excitedly vacuum sealed all of the strewn Time Pieces back into the vault in preparation for takeoff. With her good work finished and the planet's reality reset, she could finally leave this world behind for the one she belonged to, and no would ever notice, let alone care that she was ever there once she was gone… as was probably for the best. At last, she was set to be homebound once again. With a full-forward push on the throttle, the spaceship's engines began to wind up, energy coalescing around the afterburners, and within an instant, the ship… abruptly stalled out. Something--or someone--was on the ship that didn’t need to be… again. Kid stood upright in her seat and shot a look to the door that emphatically said “What now?!” and then cutely stomped her way over to the door in frustration. What she found when she peeked out for the second time surprised her--a line of now ex-antagonists turned friends clinging to the window’s ledge, begging their beloved savior not to leave. Alas, as much as they might miss her, it was time for her to go, so she swept the stowaways from the window seal (literally, with a comically oversized broom) and waved them goodbye before returning to her seat. She couldn’t help the sentimental water from lightly welling up in her eyes, for as hectic as her experience was, she, too, would miss this place--and the people in it. She quickly dried her tears and reengaged the throttle once more, this time disappearing off into the cosmos at warp speed, a blue starry glint in the distance signifying her departure. Not but a few seconds after, a magnificent river of light washed over the entire planet, reducing it in its entirety to phosphorescent ash, dissipating into the calamitous everbright. [hr] It had been an especially long and irregular day for Hat Kid, and she was already beginning to feel the effects of its labors creep up on her. The child's exhaustion was more of a mental one than physical, but for her, it was as good an excuse as any to retire to her room and write what would turn out to be a disappointingly vague diary entry before passing out. After letting out a tired, heavy sigh, preceded by a yawning stretch, she pivoted and dismounted her chair to head for the bedroom, only to be stopped at the first door by yet another round of alarm soundings, to which she rolled her eyes with an irritated groan. To think that now, of all times, she would be deprived a deserved moment of respite! Though, what she discovered upon rushing back to her station to observe the situation critically warranted her attention. At the speed she was travelling, she could only faintly make out the details, but what she beheld would have still been hard to miss. She reeled back in shock at the sight of celestial bodies being destructively overtaken in rapid succession on all sides by winding golden beams of burning polychroma. Coming up in the ship's peripheral view, Kid noticed a divided cluster of the same photonic masses beginning to surround her. The ship sporadically bobbed and weaved about at her behest in a series of unguided evasive maneuvers while trying to find some way, ANY way, to overboost the vessel to wring just a little more velocity out of it, desperately determined to outrun the encroaching wave of hostile radiance that pursued her, but to no avail. Her trusty spacecraft was working as hard as it could for her, and could give no more. Even as the realization of hopeless futility set in, and the ever-intensifying incandescence gradually closed in around her, narrowing her field of view, Kid couldn’t look away. Her eyes remained wide open and constricted with fear up until the very end, when the light finally washed her away. Fear--a sensation seldom experience by her--would be the last she felt. Fear of never having the chance to her friends--both old and new--again. Fear of never getting to share her stories, or ever living to tell another. Fear of never making it home. Fear of everything being in vain. Fear of no longer being… ...and then… she no longer was.[/i] [hr] When she was lowered back to her feet, Kid reopened her eyes, coming into consciousness as if waking up for the first time today. With her life force renewed, and her being restored, her memories followed, flooding back to her in short order. Save for a few anomalous blank spots in memory--like how she got here, the events leading up to now, and whether or not she actually gave Mustache Girl a Time Piece--she remembered [i]everything[/i]. Her previous adventure, her new friends, the light; ALL of it. Her prolonged journey now inexplicably lead her here, lumped in with a band of definite misfits facing down a faction of corrupted guardians summoned by a giant hand attempting to persuade them into the eternal forfeiture of their lives. Of course, they weren’t having it. The ellipsoidal mammalian creature with wing hands for ears (presumably the same one to revive Hat Kid) was the first to offer up a rebuttal, grounding his speech in hope and inner strength and all that stuff. Others followed with their own version of a personal pep talk to psych themselves up for the impending battle to save those they cared for. It was all very inspiring, to say the least. The rest opted to dispense with the theatrics, formalities and bolstering and set themselves directly before their chosen opponents in reluctant anticipation of what came next. As if to signal the combatants, shots went flying the instant the Master Hand blinked itself out of existence, the ensuing chaos causing some of the pairs to scatter so as to engage their respective frenemies with little interruption. The activity overload made it difficult to select a target, but after taking a second to assess the situation, Kid managed to pinpoint a place on the battlefield where she might be useful. She could only hope so, anyways. The giant draconic tortoise (the ‘friendlier’ one in the tuxedo) seemed to think so, else he wouldn’t have unceremoniously conscripted her into his “army” of “baddies”. Yeah, whatever. Last she checked, she wasn’t one of the “bad guys”. What bad guy would go out of her way for the second (or so) time to lend heroic aid where it is so obviously needed when she could just as easily be well on her way to anywhere else doing as she pleased? She may not have had any idea what was going on just yet; all she knew was that it was too important to sit out or bail on. Kid shrugged at the de facto leader’s declaration before running up the broad side of his shell, bouncing off the flat of his hat like a buoyant stepping stone, and springing high into the air, soaring in the direction of the Lombax, his companion bot, and the cowboy. The moment they finished their conversation, Ratchet peered upward through the sun’s glare to spot the child aggressively rocketing towards him in a controlled dive. He instinctively arced his wrench overhead in a defensive swing to parry her reckless charge, the force of the impact sending her into a reverse midair tumble. She deftly touched down on three points, brandishing her umbrella (having pulled it from seemingly nowhere), and darted forward to take two more swings at the commando. Ratchet responded in kind, deflecting the first, then catching the second between the prongs of his weapon, briefly locking parasol with wrench. In Ratchet’s (and Clank’s) empowered state, Kid was nowhere near strong enough to hold a deadlock with him, let alone prevail in one, so a mildly forceful thrust of his Omniwrench was all he needed to break their clash. Kid slid backwards on her feet against the masonry beneath them, stopping just parallel of the Courier to his left. She quickly regained her bearings, shot the rugged man a curious look, then gently smiled and waved at him. [color=8258fa]“Hey,”[/color] she offered casually to her new battle partner, blissfully unaware of his standoffish nature, or that, in general, he might not receive the aid of a child with the warmest of acclaim, writing it off instead as an interference at best. It was entirely possible that she wasn’t taking the whole affair as seriously as she should right away, and that she was already enjoying herself more than she should have been. As far as she was concerned, it was just good to be her (real) self again.