Chapter Text
I wake up in a cold sweat. My PS5 is gone.
I know it in my heart before I go to look. I failed too many missions. Made too many jokes. The Emperor is not a patient man.
I check the shelf, and it’s like a prophecy about gems from a frog music box; inevitable, irrefutable, and inscrutable to the uninitiated. Why today? Why me? I can hear stupid Darius in the next room over, playing freaking Teardown on his Steam Deck like the closet console gamer he is. A “handheld PC” IS a console—what, is the Gameboy Color a PC, now, too? But I guess he’s just SO much better than me, because he’s such a great purple goop master man. The Titan lets him have HIS console. The hardware coward.
All I wanted to do was play Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. But now my PS5 and I are a rift apart.
A king’s tide of emotions sweeps over me, like, I dunno, a really big broom of a metaphor, or something. Despair is sinking into my chest, despair rivaling my darkest moments, those kind of moments where you think there really is never gonna be a Waluigi game. Wario has had his day, his motorcycle has driven off into the sunset, and now I am left alone, with no Ratchet and zero Clank. Wah.
I scramble down the stairs, pulling my Golden Guard cloak on over my PS5 logo footie pajamas. Surely this is some kind of a mistake. Surely there is something I can do to fix it. I can prove myself. I think, therefore I am, therefore I game. QED, PS5.
At the bottom of the endless flights of stupid stairs (accessibility, anyone? You think the Titan would think of stuff like that—but I guess his decaying body is pretty rugged, come to think of it), I skid for like a solid twenty feet in my footie pajamas on the slick marble floor. Giant stained glass windows of Uncle Emperor (Unclemperor) Belos being kind to pixies and junk like that refract the splintered light of a million stars. One advantage of autocracy? Issue one order, and boom, no light pollution. At least, when Unclemperor isn’t waging war on the Bolus Dragons, or firing off blazing potshots at random birds he thinks are Wild Witches, after he’s had a few too many Palismen.
Avoiding the nearest Steve on patrol, I stealthily slip into the throne room and crash into the most recently replaced banner, ripping it down onto the pile of old ones. The throne is empty—Unclemperor is in his adjoining chambers, watching Flyer Derby on the crystal ball. His usual white robes are being dry-cleaned after his latest Wildly-Magically-cursed old man incident, and he’s lounging in a wifebeater and nine-striped, Coven System themed shorts. His shorts have a picture of him on them, in his fancy emperor mask, and that picture of him is wearing the same shorts, and, well…
I realize I’m staring at Uncle’s underwear and try to pull myself up straight. I’m the Golden Guard. I’m important. The Titan has big plans for me. Big, big, plans. Maybe even bigger than my yearly PS Plus bill.
Uncle’s chowing down on fairy flakes as he watches “the game.” He doesn’t like to be disturbed this late, but we’re family. And this is an emergency. A mistake. It has to be.
I’ve reached the denial stage of grief, and I can’t get past the final boss.
“Unclemp—Uncle,” I say, straightening myself up, reminding myself not to call him what I call him in my head. Unless it means calling him old man, which I do constantly, “Did you hear the one about—?”
“No,” orders Belos, curtly, forestalling any future jokes, “Don’t talk, Hunter, Obasa Crunch just gribflapped a flag on the rebound swoop.”
“Okay, cool, cool,” I say, not understanding a word, “Hey, you haven’t seen my PS5, have you? You donated my PS4 to the Home For Mildly Sad Kids Who Are Sometimes Sad But Need PS4s For Sadness That May Be PS4 Related, so I can’t really… heheh… Game without my PS5.”
“You have a Switch, don’t you?” asks Belos, not looking up from the game.
“Yeah, but, uh, Kikimora kinda borrowed it to play Mario Maker, and now it smells like gremlin, and anyway, she thought she saw a little girl at the bottom of a ravine and threw i—I mean, accidentally dropped it—off a cliff. So I’m still looking for it.”
Belos pulls out a frog Palisman and cracks its neck in half, taking a big, snorting gulp of the green stuff. I try not to flinch, and not to make a frog pun. It might look nasty, but he needs these things for his health condition. His condition that might be caused by snorting Palismen. But he knows what he’s doing. He’s the Emperor.
“The Titan has big plans for your Switch,” he mumbles, half to himself, “Oh, yes, Obasa! NO! You STUPID—!”
With a crack of red lightning, he smashes the crystal ball across the room, blasting it into a thousand pieces. With a sigh, and a passing sniff of the Palisman corpse to compose himself, he pulls out another crystal ball and goes right back to watching the thing that made him mad.
“It’s funny, I just expected you to Thanos the first one back together, or something,” I say.
“Spare me your references,” grumbles Belos, “It can wait till morning. Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my S&P approved approximate to breakfast vodka, secretly switched with the copyright compliant equivalent of Folgers Crystals. You’ve got to tell Steve to stop doing that.”
“I know. There’s just so many of him, it’s impossible to assign blame,” I muse, momentarily trying to crack the detective case of the century, “Anyway, uh… My PS5?”
“I took it, Hunter,” says Belos, still not looking up.
“What? But why—? I thought the Titan had—” I stammer, stricken to the heart, “Is this because of my missions? I know I’ve been failing a lot, lately, but I promise, I can do better, I’ll train harder, I’ll staff-zap myself even further, I’ll, I’ll—!”
“I could do that, you know,” Belos says. For a second, I’m confused. Staff-zap himself further? Of course he can, he’s the most powerful witch alive. But then I realize he’s pointing at the crystal ball.
“If I wanted to, I could do that,” he says, pointing to a complicated—and extremely dangerous—flyer derby maneuver, “I could go pro. Show all these witches the meaning of skill. I was pretty athletic, in my day. I wrestled in high school, you know.”
“What’s that got to do with my PS5?” I demand, “Also, in your condition, Uncle? I mean, you’re the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles, totally, but, like, your case of… Whatever you’ve got going on… Maybe you could be, like, a flyer derby coach.”
“Star player,” says Belos, “I could be the star player…”
He cracks open another Palisman—turtle, this time. Crunch, hissss…
“Mmm, A’Tuin, you delicious rascal…” he mumbles, words beginning to slur a little.
I groan in exasperation. “Okay, Uncle, if I help you make a flyer derby team, and you get to be star player, even though I’ve never seen you ride a staff in my life—you slow walk everywhere, and when you’re surprised, you just stand there, it’s like your go-to move! But if I make you your flyer derby team, then can I have my PS5 back?”
“No,” says Belos, cold as the Palisman dust on his fingers. He straight-up starts licking them. The Emperor of the Boiling Isles, everyone.
“Okay, if I get Steve to stop switching your morning vodka with Folgers Crystals, then can I have my PS5 back?” I insist.
“Gaming is a distraction, Hunter,” says Belos, huddled over his flyer derby game like a hungry animal, “The Day of Unity is coming. I need you eyes front, focused on the task at hand. The Titan has big plans for you.”
“Well, your eyes are certainly front,” I say.
“If you’re going to Game, you have to prove you have the maturity to do so responsibly. If you are unprepared, gaming can make you toxic and neglectful.” Belos burps.
“I knew it was the missions! I’ll do better—I promise! I’ll show you I’m not just some kid! No more jokes, really! Not even the one about—“ I begin, hoping to squeeze in just one last one.
“No,” says Belos, shortly, “Hunter, with the Day of Unity approaching, we must be more anxious than ever about traitors in our midst. Don’t forget…” he sighs, heavily, “The last head of Emperor’s Coven.”
Lilith. Aw, frick. The L word is the one and only word you can’t use around Unclemperor, these days. It doesn’t make him mad, or drippy, or goo-punch random walls. He just gets really, like, quiet and hunched. It’s like his resentment is a little candle he’s trying to warm himself with, but still wants to hide—almost wants to put out, in spite of himself.
“Well, hey, Uncle, maybe if I catch some other traitors, I could have my… PS5 back?”
But Belos is in his own little world. “So disappointing,” he grumbles, “So much promise. Almost… Beautiful, in her own way. But no, that’s ridiculous. That’s just like…” He stares at me, a little unnervingly, “I’ll never be like him, I saved him, I… But I could have anyone, I could, I could play flyer derby, I’d be the star player…”
Crack. It’s a giraffe palisman, this time. I didn’t even know they made those. Doesn’t that go against the whole banishment thing? Or is it a technicality? Anyway, it’s dead now.
“Well, uh, you have a good night, Uncle, uh… Sleep tight, um… Don’t stay up too late,” I hesitate. Shock has set in. There’s nothing left to lose, “Do you know what to do with yo-yos?”
Belos blinks. “Yo-yos? What even is that?”
“It’s a human toy. It’s, like, a spinny thing on a string. Yo-yo.”
“I’m not engaging with this conversation,” says Belos, tiredly.
“But do you know?”
“Goodnight, Hunter.”
“Well, yo, yo MAMA knows!”
I run for my life.