10 crowns. Just 10 miserable crowns. That was the amount the kids, Hatkids, were able to get, the problem was that they seemed to start cursing each other because apparently the badge seller was wandering around and he would give rewards on their own to those with the best score. He probably would have to find him and kick him out of the forest later, or better yet, take his soul for good.

It was not the time for that though, since it was time to check on Mustache Girl. The girl had finished turning off the house of the everlasting fire, apparently with just a few burns. Oh well, maybe she would be actually useful. Even then, since there were no more timepieces in the Subcon Forest, he didn’t have any to give to her.

“Hello there, kiddo!” Snatcher greeted her, Mustache Girl’s clothes were dirty, and she had a few bandages over her burns in her arms and her face. “Is the move going well?”

“Go to hell!” Mustache Girl gave him the finger.

“Oh, funny that you say that, because, you see… we are already in hell.” Snatcher giggled. “And this is my domain!”

The girl shivered and turned away. He was just trying to scare her off, if Hatkid could do his stupid jobs and come out alive, she would do it as well.

“What do you want?”

“I just came to check if you were, you know, doing your other contracts. You shouldn’t be slacking off, kid, if not there would be… consequences.”

Mustache Girl’s next job was to move all the things located in a small living room in the middle of the forest. The room was part of an old house that had long ago lost its walls and ceiling, and now Mustache Girl had to move all the furniture to the small house that had been on fire not so long ago. Since now all stuff was lying around in the wild. It had started to attract spirits who had already been buried. The magic of the forest was a pain to deal with at times.

“There are corpses keep rising close here and they come to hit you if you take some of this stuff. It’s impossible!” The girl complained. “And I can’t just continue yet! I’m hungry! I have to eat something!”

“Again? But you just ate yesterday, and that was like… twice!”

“Alive kids have to eat every day! If I don’t eat something I will die before I finish your stupid contracts.”

“Oh yeah? Well, that brat with the hat? She didn’t ask me for food once when she was working with me. You should be just like her!”

“I don’t have instant access to an alien spaceship with endless food rations! I’m, just, a, human!” Mustache Girl threw Snatcher some books to his face, they just ended up phasing through him.

“Alright, fine!” The ghost teleported and came back with a bunch of what seemed to be grapes and other weird looking fruit. “Try these, these shouldn’t be toxic for humans, or were these ones the ones that were toxic? I forgot! It seems you will have to test them out!” He threw the bunch of grapes and berries over to her. Mustache Girl, in a way trying to catch them over, ended up falling backwards and hitting her head with the ghost table, and unfortunately for her it was surprisingly solid.

“You… you, you are even worse than the Mafia!” Mustache Girl rubbed her head trying to alleviate the pain from the hit.

“Tsk tsk. You talk a lot kiddo, seriously, you should learn more from your friend. She doesn't complain, ask for good, or even talk! Sheets the job done, and efficiently so! She’s just the perfect contractor!”

“Yeah, I know that you two are just the best of friends, but if you think you can manipulate me like this, you are dead wrong!”

“Ha! Friends? You are kidding right? She might be efficient, but she’s still a pest! Now, seriously, less talk, more action!”

“You can’t tell me what to do!” The girl with the Mustache grumbled, before getting hit by a corpse who was trying to take over the table of the room. “Hey! Leave me alone!”

“Hahaha!” Snatcher cackled at seeing the kid getting hurt. “Good luck kiddo! You are gonna need it!”

“Leave me alone!” Mustache Girl kicked the corpses attacking her and jumped over some trees with a bunch of grapes and berries. She sat down over a branch and started eating.

“At least the food is better than in the Mafia Town.” She reflected.

***

Snatcher wandered around through the forest for a while. The subcondites were all either working or some were even wandering just like him through the forest. It seemed as if he would have enough time to go back into reading, or…

He looked above towards the sky. He could probably visit Hatkid and check if she was ready to do some Death Wishes again. Okay fair, he hadn’t found anything useful to use against her the other day, other than Hatkid was actually looking for her parents…

Maybe he could make fun of them to bother her in a challenge? Or perhaps look into her memories using the energy he found in her spaceship?

No, for some reason, all those ideas just felt wrong somehow, it was just…in bad taste. But wait, he was Snatcher! He loved making jokes in bad taste, right? Piss off that hat brat who liked to go and pester him from time to time, the kid that refused to die.

Blegh, he was just going and checking on her to see what she was up to, if she continued with the challenges, she was likely to finally die.

He appeared in her bedroom, but Hatkid wasn’t there. Had she left somewhere else? Perhaps she had gone to have another adventure or something, so perhaps he was finally going to get some piece.

“Hey! Kid! Long time no see! For me at least.” Snatcher heard a voice from the main room, it sounded like a man doing a funny accent, which was obnoxious to Snatcher.

He went to the main room but stopped behind the threshold of the hallway to the kid’s bedroom. It seemed to be as if Hatkid was talking to someone through the giant screen, sitting in the control chair. The man on the screen looked old, but weirdly young at the same time. His mustache, beard, and hair were all gray, but most weirdly enough he had a third eye above his forehead.

“I know that it has been a while since I told you to wait for me and that you wanted to talk to me first before doing the whole trip back home because you said you got something important in that planet you are. I just have been busy, fixing time rifts from timeline to timeline.” Hatkid must have done an expression expressing disapproval, because the man reacted to it waving his hands.” I know, I know! It just takes some time to fix things and the people who find the timepieces use them to do the craziest things you could ever imagine with their planet. I got stuck once in the 4th dimensional time rift and oh boy, that was not a nice experience I want to repeat! And someone in the council is thinking of using the timepieces to grant the wishes of those that are less unfortunate, which I think it's a terrible idea. I… Martha? Not now! What? I’m busy! I’m here on a call.!” The man seemed to be interrupted by someone on screen. “Just wait a moment, I will finish soon." Tim spoke to a person outside of the screen's reach, and turned back to look at Hatkid.

“Sorry about that. But hey, let’s look into the brighter side of things! I’m finally here. Tell me, what did you want to show me? What can old Tim do for you?” Despite his apparent tiredness, Tim kept smiling all the way through his story.

Snatcher moved his shadow through the floor closer to the screen to see what Hatkid was doing. Thankfully it seemed she hadn’t noticed him yet.

“Hehehe!” Hatkid smiled smugly and pointed out to the counter of timepieces in her spaceship, now showing 56 timepieces since her last visit to the Nyakuza Metro.

“Oh…” Tim’s smile instantly faded away. “I’m guessing that you are still collecting timepieces to go and save your parents, right?”

Hatkid nodded.

“And you just found more timepieces in there… I mean, I guess you really want to try and save them.”

Hatkid nodded again. Tim sighed.

“Okay… look, kid. I know that the last time that you came back to me with the 40 timepieces I told you it would take more to really go and save your parents. I didn’t want to specify how many, because I didn’t want to hurt you, but it seemed I hurted you more because I unintentionally gave you an objective you can’t really complete, because you are going to need more timepieces than the ones you still have, even if you now have 56. You are going to need–”

“60?” Hatkid asked.

“Not really, you–”

“70?”

“No. Kid, look…”

“80!” She extended her arms over, if 80 timepieces were necessary, it was just a matter of time of getting them! She was completely sure she could do it!”

“One hundred million pieces.” Tim looked away for a moment, not able to see the girl into her eyes. “You are going to need at least one hundred million pieces, if you want to go and save your parents.”

Hatkid's smile just dropped, replaced by a confused expression. Tim was just joking, right? It was sure she was just completely joking, there was no way so many timepieces were needed to get them back.

“Look, your parents died sucked into a black hole, right? A time black hole is just one of most powerful forces that could ever exist, trapping everything that exists inside it, even gravity, even time, and to pull back and turn what got inside there back to normal, you are going to need a lot of timepieces, so many timepieces, that you probably won’t find them in your life time, you are probably going to even find them in the whole universe, because they are just too many pieces for someone ever get.”

Hatkid didn’t look confused now, she just looked sad, and frustrated. To Snatcher Hatkid was always smiling, well except when she got hurt, but she would get over quickly, Snatcher had never seen the girl look just as sad as she did now.

“I’m sorry, kid, I should have told you this sooner, I just couldn’t see you get hurt, I didn’t want to hurt you more than what you already were.” Tim said scratching his neck, trying to sound reassuring. “Just… what do you say if you come home for a while? I mean, I am not going to be here for a long while, I have other things to do, so you would stay there on your own for a while, but maybe there are things in the workshop you can play around with. We can look over the ship and see how we can upgrade it and everything once I come back, in a few months or so.”

Hatkid didn’t look back at him, she had a listlessly gaze into the stars, looking upset. Were those tears rolling down her face?

“I’m sorry kid, I really am. Talk to you later.” Tim hung up the video call and the screen went back to normal.

Snatcher looked back intently at Hatkid through the shadows. Was Hatkid crying? She was really crying! In all his time knowing her, nothing had ever made her cry, not even having to fight him all, it just looked so unlike her to show weakness.

But Snatcher had found it, he had found her weakness, and her weakness was her parents.

She ran away into her bed and started to cry into her pillow, at times, she would start to scream out loud.

“Why? Why? Why?” She kept going over and over. The news had completely broken her, because that was the worst Snatcher had ever seen her. Long gone was the strong girl who seemed could do anything, and now in front of him was just a lost kid, an orphan, a person who seemed lost and lonely.

“Uh… kiddo…” Snatcher muttered getting close to her, but then decided it would be better to leave her alone for the time being, there was nothing he could say to her now. He didn’t want to say anything to her now, or make fun of her at all. He just wasn’t in the mood.

Snatcher left the Spaceship the Girl was and this time, decided to slowly descend into the forest from here he was, letting the gravity of the planet bring him down over. He couldn’t die, but he would probably feel the hit.

As he fell at incredibly high speeds, Snatcher thought back in Hatkid again and another painful sensation deep inside himself, in what would have been heart took him by surprise. Whatever, he was collapsing down into the earth, a little excitement was to be expected.