I wanted to title this one 'Infodump' but this chapter is only meant to be MILDLY silly and goofy
God I love the infodump chapters. And the fight chapters. And the climax chapters. And the slower ones. And the
writing :)
edit: thanks to my beta reader!
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Instead of giving Snatcher direct answers, the kid immediately went to her room and dug around in her toybox.
He shot a glare at the back of her head. "Seriously?" he scoffed. "Now is not the time to be playing."
She ignored him and pulled several thick books out. She stacked them in one hand and headed over to her bed. Snatcher stared. How could she carry all that in one hand so effortlessly?
Hat Kid sat in bed and pulled the covers over her. She opened the first one and started reading. Or maybe she was just staring at the page. Snatcher couldn't tell.
"You're what, eight?" he asked. She nodded, silently confirming her age. "And you're reading those thick books?" She nodded again. Snatcher narrowed his eyes. "Kid, can you even understand what the words are saying?" he asked.
"Yeah, but you wouldn't," she answered. Hattie flipped through the book until she landed on a certain page.
Snatcher rolled his eyes. Seriously, what was with this kid? "Yeah, right. I was a law student. Try me."
"Okay." Hat Kid picked up the book and flipped it around, letting Snatcher walk over and get a close look.
He only caught a few words like time-space continuum and dimensional when his head started to spin. Snatcher stumbled away, shaking away the sudden burst of brain fog.
"Told ya." With barely a smirk, she pulled the book back and continued reading, muttering to herself. "Ah, no, this is the chapter on wormholes. I don't want that one..." She leafed through the pages some more.
Snatcher kept staring at her. How was she calmly reading something so dense? "How do you even know about all this stuff?" he asked.
"You have to be educated on time magic and theories to carry timepieces," she answered.
Now that was a word Snatcher recognized. Timepieces. Those little hourglasses with temporal magic threatening to burst from their wooden structure. And that same temporal magic had stuck him in his old body. "And what are you looking for?" he asked.
"Answers." Hat Kid afforded him a momentary glance. "That's what you want, isn't it?" She sighed. "Problem is, I don't know all of them myself. You have a..." she paused, pursing her lips. "A unique situation."
"...right." Snatcher shifted, feeling awkward and out of place, mainly because he wasn't used to his mortal form. Unique indeed.
He stood for a few more moments before Hat Kid sighed again, louder this time. "I can see you in my peripheral vision, and that's bothering me," she whined. "I can't concentrate."
Snatcher scowled. Really? She was whining about him just standing there, of all things? "So? What's wrong with me being here?" he snapped.
"If I can't concentrate, I won't get answers. And not getting answers means you won't be fixed."
"Duly noted." Snatcher turned and immediately sped out of the room.
He was pretty sure she had a smug look on her face, but he didn't care. This kid was really willing to fix him, and there was nothing he would do to stop that.
Snatcher took a breath of relief. Oh, it would be so good to have his body again! All his power with none of the weird human drawbacks. He'd finally be able to kill that kid for what she did to him.
The thought didn't bring him nearly as much excitement as he thought it would.
Snatcher exited the hallway from the kid's room and pondered for a moment. Why was that? He wasn't getting attached to her, was he?
No, of course not. Hattie infuriated Snatcher beyond belief. He wouldn't get attached to her. Maybe he just felt a little scummy because he'd be killing her when he was in her debt. That had to be it!
Snatcher curiously gazed around the main room. He'd only snagged a brief look before disappearing into the kid's bedroom. It was brightly colored, with a large window giving a direct view of the planet. They were so close that he was shocked Earth's orbit wasn't pulling the ship in.
Something bumped against his feet. Snatcher jolted back. A little disk-like robot moved along the rug, cleaning as it went. "Sorry!" it apologized in an inhuman voice, heading in the other direction again.
Snatcher watched it slowly make a beeline to a platform with a train set on it. With a side glance, he noticed a small group of pillows in front of a TV. It wasn't anything spectacular like the pile in the kid's room, but it looked like a nice place to sit. He walked over and did so, folding his legs in and watching the cleaning robot bounce from one side of the room to the next, diligently cleaning. The crown was in his hands, and he absentmindedly rubbed his thumb over it, not looking at it.
---
Hat Kid emerged from her room a while later, her hat askew. Snatcher jolted up, snapping back to reality. She narrowed her eyes. "How long have you been watching Rumbi?" she asked.
"Is that what it's called?" Snatcher asked, glancing back at the cleaning robot. How was it still going?
"Yes, and that doesn't answer my question."
Snatcher shrugged. "I don't know. How long have you been reading?"
The kid pulled her watch from her pocket and frowned at it. "Three hours."
Snatcher stood, accidentally scattering the pillows in his haste. "I've been watching that thing for three hours?!"
"Apparently." Hat Kid gestured at him. "Come on. I have a lot of explaining to do." She pivoted and headed back into her room, the doors cleanly shutting behind her.
Snatcher started after her, flinched as the doors opened automatically for him, and rushed down the hallway.
In her bedroom, she'd set up a whiteboard easel. The various books she'd been reading were piled haphazardly next to her bed. Hat Kid strode right over to the whiteboard, pulled a purple marker from her hat, and started drawing.
Snatcher watched her, making his way over to the pillow pile. He sank into the cushions as she turned the easel toward him and stepped aside to reveal her drawing. It was a messy doodle of an hourglass.
"So these are timepieces," she began. "You know they contain time magic, right?"
"Right." Snatcher nodded.
"I use all these timepieces to fuel my ship. So, no, they aren't actually yours, even if they fell in your forest." She glared at him.
"Right." Snatcher wasn't convinced. "Wait, you use temporal magic to power-"
Hat Kid popped off the cap to her marker and flicked it at him. It nailed him right in the forehead. He flinched back as Hat Kid put her hands on her hips. "Shush."
She whirled around, drawing again. "But, yeah, timepieces are filled to the brim with temporal magic. They're very dangerous. Very beautiful, very powerful, y'know.
"Normally, when one cracks, the time magic is released, and it just fixes itself. But if the glass breaks entirely, that causes a rift." Hattie pointed at a drawing of a spherical spiral with flickers of lightning around it. The shape looked familiar, but Snatcher couldn't figure out where he'd seen it. "Rifts are bad. They're holes in the time-space continuum. They will rip apart reality as you know it if they're not fixed soon."
Snatcher lifted an eyebrow. "How fun."
"And they get even more fun if they break on someone!" she exclaimed, her marker squeaking as she scribbled more. What she revealed next was a messy doodle of a noodle-like figure with a mane. Snatcher realized with a start that it was supposed to be him. She pointed at the Snatcher drawing. "That's what happened to you."
She drew more, this time sketching a rift over Snatcher. "When rifts meet a being with a timeline, the unleashed temporal magic will revert the affected to a previous point on that timeline." Hat Kid pointed at Snatcher with the marker. "There's a clear change in your timeline. You were human, and then you weren't."
"So it made me human," Snatcher finished, dread settling into the pit of his stomach.
"Correct."
Snatcher frowned. The kid had needed three hours to study up on that? That was simpler than he'd expected. "That's it?" Part of him was relieved, but another part was skeptical.
Hat Kid sighed, her shoulders sagging dramatically. "No."
All feelings of relief evaporated.
"I mentioned your situation is unique, right?" She kept drawing, this time creating arrows pointing at the Snatcher-rift. "Well, after the timepiece broke over your head, I went into the rift to fix it."
"Wait, what?" Snatcher sat up. "You're saying you can go inside a rift?"
Hat Kid looked at him, bewildered. "Um, yeah?" she asked, looking at him like he was stupid. "It's a hole in space-time. Of course you can enter it." She shook her head slightly and kept drawing. "The best way to fix it is from the inside- or at least get the natural process started. Afterward, the rift will spit you right back out."
Snatcher did his best to suppress the mounting confusion. "Sure. Okay."
"Anyway. Rifts that form from people are different. The elements and scenery of the rift are made out of memories and emotions." She glanced back at him. "So I kinda got a peek into your brain."
"You did WHAT."
"Hey, I'm glad I'm out too!" Hat Kid raised her hands defensively. "It was creepy there. You have issues."
"Wow," Snatcher deadpanned. "Shocking."
Hattie continued. "Particularly strong minds form clearer rifts, and can even summon specific things from those memories." She clapped her hands together, giving Snatcher a round of applause. "And you, as a ghost, have a particularly strong mind. Congrats."
"Woo-hoo." Snatcher weakly pumped his fist in the air.
"So I'm in your mind, right? And I'm trying to find my way out, and it's all weird there, and I meet an actual person from your memories." She shifted, drawing in some blank space on the whiteboard.
Snatcher leaned forward. A person? Who could possibly...? "It wasn't Vanessa, was it?" he asked cautiously.
"Nope." Hat Kid moved to the side and pointed at her new drawing. She hadn't bothered drawing the whole figure. All she had was a pointed crown.
The exact same one Snatcher was wearing right now.
Snatcher felt a chill run through him. "No."
Hat Kid stared him down. "Yeah."
"No."
"Yeah."
"You're lying." She has to be. "There's no way..." How did you meet the me I abandoned so long ago?
It was Hat Kid's turn to say no.
"Prove it!" Snatcher folded his arms, ignoring how uncomfortable he was touching himself in his old body. "What was his name?"
She answered in a heartbeat. "Elliot. Really nice guy. Too nice. You two are very different."
Snatcher stared at her. It was exactly the correct answer, both affirming and disheartening. Wordlessly, he picked up the cap she flicked at him and shot it back at her.
She caught it. Darn it.
"Okay, so you met El-" Snatcher choked on the word. "You met my past self in the rift. So what?"
"So this is where things get complicated, believe it or not." Hattie capped the marker, shoved it back in her hat, and pressed her hands together. "In your mind, he was chained up in a dungeon."
"Where he belongs," Snatcher muttered, looking away.
"Wow, okay." She made a face. "He really didn't agree with that. So he kinda... um..." Hat Kid tilted her head. "I dunno. I guess he kinda... came with me? He grabbed my hand as I was leaving the rift, and I think that pulled him out."
Snatcher eyed the doorway, half-expecting a mirror image of himself to come walking into the room.
"No, he's not here with us physically." Hat Kid corrected. "He's only here when you're not."
"Well, that's convenient," Snatcher snarked, looking back at her. "So where is he, then?"
She pointed right at him. Snatcher snorted. "Really? Nice try." He sank into the pillows, the tension leaving his body. Thank goodness. She was just pranking me, he realized.
But the kid shook her head. "No. I'm being honest. As funny as it would be to elaborately prank you, I wouldn't spend three hours reading for that."
Snatcher glared at her. She has to be lying, right? "Prove it."
"Okay." Hat Kid walked over to him, bent down, plucked the crown out of his hands, and put it on top of his head.
The next second, the crown was in his hands again, and Hattie was back at the whiteboard again with her arms folded.
"What the-?" Snatcher gripped his head. It was like a scene had been cleanly deleted from his mind. "How did you...?"
"You're sharing a body with Elliot's consciousness," Hat Kid explained. "He doesn't seem to be aware of you either. The crown is the only thing separating you." She raised her hands in finger quotes. "When the crown is worn, Elliot is 'awake', but when it isn't, you are."
Snatcher stiffened.
Hat Kid's explanation answered his questions. Why he'd been 'fainting' constantly, why Karmin knew his name, why he was stuck in his mortal body.
But he couldn't just accept it. It couldn't be real. It couldn't-!
"Prove it." The other two times, the phrase had made him look like a fool. But this time he'd be okay, right...?
Hat Kid rolled her eyes. "Okay," she sighed. "Put the crown back on. I'll take Elliot to a different room. If you don't remember how you got there, that means I'm right."
"Fine," Snatcher huffed. His fingers trembled around the crown, but with confidence he didn't have, he put it on.
He stumbled. The room was different. His crown was clenched tightly in his palm. He looked around, recognizing the greenish, disorderly room where they'd entered the ship.
He dropped the crown, recoiling as it clattered on the ground.
The kid is right. She was telling the truth.
Snatcher lifted his gaze to meet Hattie's. She didn't even look smug or superior. Just unimpressed. Her apathy hurt more than triumph.
She's right.
Somehow, the person he lived and died as still lived on, and they were sharing a body.
He doubled over. He felt sick.
How utterly human.