Chapter Text
Sweet and Cap'n stood outside of the junkyard, getting ready to scavenge. K_K floated slightly above them, sitting on the group's rocket-powered turntable.
“You have the bag?” K_K asked again, frowning slightly.
“Yes, I have the bag, K_K,” Sweet said, looking slightly exasperated. “I've had it since we left the shop.”
“Just making sure!” K_K tilted their head in the direction of the larger piles of refuse. “You guys sure you'll be okay for a little bit? No getting into fights?”
“Of course we will.” Cap’n said. “Won't. We'll be safe. Right, Sweet?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay!” K_K grinned. “See you soon! Good luck!”
They took off into the sky in the direction of the store, leaving Sweet and Cap'n with their pick of any of the heaping trash piles around them.
They stood in silence for a second, looking around. Sweet spotted a pile that seemed overflowing with cans and stepped towards it.
“Dibs,” Cap'n said, pointing to the same one.
…
Sweet rooted through the pile they had chosen (it was bigger than the one Cap'n had picked, and that had to count for something, right?), grabbing handfuls of zip ties and throwing them aside. “Do people throw out any decent scrap anymore?”
“Having trouble?” Cap’n snickered. The bag (which Sweet still had, despite K_K's worryings) currently contained the finds from his pile, whereas Sweet’s seemed to be full of nothing but plastic and non-useful trash.
Cap’n would never let Sweet live it down if their luck continued.
“Why would anyone need so many zip ties?” Sweet asked frustratedly, pulling another handful of them out of the pile. “Did they kidnap someone or something?”
“They're probably just from old posters or something. Besides, if they kidnapped someone, they'd only need, like, two,” Cap'n said, continuing to rummage for scrap. A second later, he pulled out a slightly crumpled can. “Think we can use this?”
“Probably,” Sweet responded, grabbing it and putting it into the bag. “And, really? Hanging up posters with zip ties in Cyber City?”
Cap'n made a humming ‘consideration’ noise, passing off another similarly dented can.
“Don't tell me you're not curious too,” Sweet poked. They were sure Cap'n would want answers too. Even if he pretended he didn't.
“Okay, fine,” Cap'n relented. “But we can't tell K_K, okay? He won't let us check it out.”
“Deal.”
The two continued rummaging through the pile in silence, momentarily satisfied.
The silence was broken a second later when Sweet let out a screech of frustration after finding yet another bunch of zip ties.
…
“Why exactly are we doing this?” K_K asked, standing in front of the fence around the storage company’s warehouses, the address that the zip ties had supposedly come from.
“Sweet needs to feel better about not finding anything,” Cap’n answered, grinning. He gave the fence an experimental tug.
“I do not!” Sweet hurried to change the topic. “Remind me why you're here, K_K?”
“Supervision. And you two were going to sneak out,” K_K answered matter-of-factly.
“Ah,” Cap'n said. “Right.”
He tugged harder on the fence to no avail. It clearly wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
“I remembered to bring the turntable.” K_K placed it so it hovered just over the ground, then climbed on. “We can go over the fence.”
“K_K, you're a genius!” Sweet said, stopping their own pulling on the fence.
Sweet and Cap’n scrambled on the turntable behind K_K.
A thought suddenly occurred to Cap'n.
“Hey, why did we walk here if-”
“And… LIFTOFF!” K_K cheered, shouting over Cap'n's voice.
…
The three made their way to the right warehouse, assisted by their rocket-powered turntable.
“Number thirty-two, right?” asked K_K, stopping at the number.
“That's the one,” Cap'n answered. “Maybe take it around the back?”
“Good idea.” K_K guided the turntable around the side of the warehouse.
Sweet sent another glare at Cap'n, who pointedly ignored it.
K_K set the turntable down and everyone climbed off of it. They stood in front of the back doors, a sign on which said they were technically only supposed to be used in an emergency (whatever would qualify as one was left unclear).
“Are we going in?” K_K questioned after no one had made a move to check the door.
“I kinda… didn't expect to get this far,” Cap’n admitted, hands fidgeting. “Anyways, Sweet should do the honors. It was their idea.”
“Sure. I'll do it.” Sweet said. “Because Cap's too much of a coward to do it themself.”
Cap'n grumbled in protest but backed away somewhat eagerly.
Sweet ignored him and approached the door.
As soon as he made contact with it, a hologram of a lock flickered into existence above it. Sweet announced “it's password protected.”
“You want help?” K_K asked.
Sweet nodded. “Open to ideas.”
“ABC1234?”
Sweet entered the guess.
Fail.
“1234567?”
“Nope.”
“QueenSucks123?”
Sweet gave a snort of laughter. “Why would they use your password, Cap-”
“Keep your voice down!” Cap'n hissed. “What about… cr33pyw@reh0use?”
“There's no way that's gonna work.”
“Just try it.”
“Okay.” Sweet began inputting the characters. “c-r-3-3-p-y-”
“You don't have to spell it out.” Cap’n said, annoyed. “Just put it in.”
“I'm telling you, it's not gonna-”
Click.
The lock icon above the door disappeared, and it swung open.
Sweet stared, momentarily stunned.
Cap'n gave a loud whoop!
K_K clapped politely.
“What's wrong, Sweet?” Cap'n asked, smirking. “Stunned by how correct I was?”
Sweet scowled at them.
Cap'n stuck his tongue out in return.
They glared at each other.
For a moment, all three were silent.
Then, K_K spoke up.
“Are we going in?”
“Yes!” Sweet said, turning back to the now-open door. “We got this far, right?”
“Sure,” Cap’n agreed. “That logic makes sense. Of course,” they grinned, “it's coming from Sweet, so we can't be too sure…”
“Hey!” Sweet said, whipping back around to glare once more.
“Just saying I agree with you!” Cap'n responded, smirking.
Before a fight could break out, K_K spoke. “The plan sounds good! Let's do it!”
“Fine,” Sweet said, turning back around. They stepped forwards towards the door, then stopped.
Sweet moved out of the way of the door. “I think Cap should go first. After all, he's the one that figured out the password.”
“No thanks,” Cap'n responded. “Don't want to be a glory hog, you know? And it's your idea that got us this far.”
“Oh no, I insist.” Sweet said with mock-politeness. “What's wrong? Are you scared?”
“Wh- of course not! I just thought that you should, you know-”
A look from Sweet cut Cap'n off. It was clear he wasn't going to win this battle. Normally, he would have argued more, but…
Something about this place made him want to get it over with as quick as possible.
“Fine,” he said, “I'll do it.”
Feeling Sweet's gloating eye on their back, Cap'n walked up to the door and gave it a light shove. It began to slowly creak open.
Cap'n gave it another shove and it opened at a faster pace.
“Okay. Follow me.”
“Sure.” Sweet responded. “K_K, do you-”
“I think we should stick together.”
No one argued this time.
Together, they began to make their way through the warehouse.
After what seemed to be a long time but was probably just a few minutes of walking through the aisles, Sweet stopped.
K_K almost bumped into them, but halted just in time. Cap’n, unaware that the two behind them were no longer following, continued onwards.
“Why did you stop?” K_K questioned. tilting their head.
“I don't think we're gonna make any progress this way,” Sweet said. “We’re going too slow, we’ll never find whatever it is this way.”
“Do you have any idea what we’re looking for?” K_K asked.
“Not really.” Sweet said, wringing his hands unconsciously. “Just… whatever makes sense?” They sighed. “Cap’n is probably right. It's just gonna be posters or something.”
K_K tilted their head, frowning slightly.
"I-"
Cap’n’s voice suddenly came from up ahead.
“Hey, uh, guys? I think I found out what the zip ties were for.”