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“I’m bored.” Ponk declared, sitting upside-down on the couch.
“You can help me make muffins!” Bad chirped from the kitchen.
“No. I want to do something fun.”
“Baking is fun!” Bad protested.
“Only to weirdos. I want to do something action-y, without moving though, yuck, and preferably with the cries of my enemies filling the air.”
“For the last time Ponk,” Ant snapped. “We only have two controllers and Puffy and I were using them first!”
Ponk pouted and crossed his arms.
“But I want to play!” They whined.
“Tough luck Ponk.” Puffy laughed. “But I’m going to crush this kitty!”
“Hey! Don’t be homophobic!”
“I’m a lesbian, furball!”
Bad ignored the fighting and puttered around the kitchen, getting all of the ingredients out and double checking that yes, the oven was preheated. They didn’t need another July sixteenth incident.
The sound of Sam singing something drifted through the building, quickly getting close enough for them to make out that Sam was singing the mail song from Blues Clues. He skidded into the living room and dumped the pile of letter and a few magazines onto the coffee table.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for Bad to sing that?” Puffy wondered. “He has an actual tail. You only have a tail sometimes.” She tacked on, and Ant dropped his hand and closed his mouth, poking through the mail pile.
“Sing what?”
All of them turned toward the kitchen doorway, where Bad poked his head out. He blinked at them in confusion.
“Uh… Do I have any mail?”
“Yes, you do!” Ant held up a fistful of letters. “But you have to sing the Blues Clues mail song.”
“Blues Clues mail song?” He echoed.
“He only watches Sesame Street.” Puffy grumbled. Then louder: “The song Sam was singing a moment ago.”
“Oh! Sure, I can try!” Bad actually did a pretty job for only hearing the last couple lines clearly, and Ant reluctantly passed over the mail.
“Hey!” Ponk tried to sit straight up and almost fell off the couch where she was still sitting upside-down. “Steve sings that song, not Blue, and he’s a human!”
This sparked an argument that Bad yet again ignored aside from the occasional “language”.
“Fan mail, junk mail, language Sam, fan mail, pretty sure that’s hate mail, more fan mail, language to you too Puffy, wrong address, and—oh.” Bad stared at the bright red envelope with fancy vine engravings decorating it. Black calligraphy on the back declared it was addressed to “Saint of Games Badboyhalo, Teen Titans Tower”, with Bad’s real name in a different handwriting, and the return address was “Lord Crimson, Conqueror of Worlds, Defeater of Armies, King of Hell, Hell”.
“Everything good Bad?” Puffy asked, looking up from her own pile of letters.
“My dad sent me a letter…” Bad moved to open it only for it to get knocked out of his hands.
“Wait!” Sam cried. “It could be a trap! Let me get my letter scanner!” He ran out of the room.
“Isn’t that illegal? Mail is supposed to be private right? That’s illegal?” Ant asked.
“So says the villain-f—!”
Bad whipped his head around to glare at Puffy with raised wings and lashing tail, and she faltered.
“… fraternizer.” She finished weakly. “I was going to say villain fraternizer.”
Bad looked away, satisfied, and she quickly scribbled what she had actually been about to say on a piece of paper and handed it to Ant. The two began poking at each other in a little fight that Ant was winning because he had claws. Was, because Puffy pulled out a knife and he booked it to the top of a shelf.
“Got it!” Sam ran back into the room with a receipt scanner.
“Sammy, that’s a receipt scanner.” Ponk deadpanned.
“No! I modified it! It’s a letter scanner now!” He turned it on, and a bright red light shone over the letter that was still on the floor. Ant came down from the shelf to bat at the light with his paws. Sam pushed him back.
“No Ant! This isn’t a laser, it’s a letter scanner. It scans letters for dangerous substances and other threats.”
They waited for the scanner to do it’s work while Sam watched the little screen on it attentively.
Nothing happened.
Puffy coughed.
Nothing still happened.
“You sure that’s not a receipt scanner Sammy?” Ponk asked.
“Very sure!” He frowned though and shifted the scanner to a new angle. It beeped and Sam’s eyes lit up only to dim. “1 bag of tortilla chips” the scanner screen read.
“Well.” He said, standing up and tucking the “letter scanner” behind his back. “The only strange thing about this letter is that handwriting looks like the barcode of a bag of tortilla chips.”
“Really? Huh. Thank you, Sam.” Bad said, picking up the letter and opening it.
Dear Saint, my son.
It has been a while since we’ve spent some time together, hasn’t it? Not since that battle for Earth a few months back. I would like to fix that! Day of the Blood Star is tomorrow, as you know, and I would greatly appreciate it if you came! We can finally spend some proper family together! It will be a lot of fun, and I won’t attack anyone, I promise!
Your father, Lord Crimson, Conqueror of Worlds, Defeater of Armies, King of Hell
P.S. I heard you adopted that fire demon kid as yours! Take him too, I want to meet my grandson!
Bad sighed.
“It’s from my dad. He wants Sapnap and I to come visit for Day of the Blood Star.” He gave the letter a mournful look. “And he forgot I changed my name again…”
“He deadnamed you?” Ponk cried.
“Yeah,” Bad sighed again. “But it’s okay, at least he remembered I have a name! He didn’t use to.”
“So, are you going?” Puffy asked.
“Well, it’d be rude if I didn’t. Day of the Blood Star is a sacred day for family, and he did ask us to come. I better tell Sapnap and see if he wants to come too.” Bad opened a portal to the Honeycomb living room and left.
The remaining Titans went back to doing their own things when the smoke alarm went off.
“The oven!” Ponk gasped from where he fell off the couch. “Bad, you’re so stoopid!”
“Why can’t I go?” Skeppy whined from where he was hanging off of Bad in his tiny form.
“Because Skeppy, I don’t think it would be a good idea for a non-demon to show up to a demon family holiday.”
Skeppy grumbled and clambered around to sit on Bad’s shoulder and pout into his hair.
“Do you want to come?” Bad asked Sapnap. “You don’t have to; I can tell him you were sick or busy or something…”
“No, I wanna come!” Sapnap said. “Can I bring Karl and Quackity?”
“Wha—no! Didn’t you hear what I told Skeppy? And you aren’t even married!”
“I heard none of it.” Sapnap said without a trace of shame. “I always tune you out when you talk to Skeppy, I don’t want to hear you being mushy and gross.”
Bad spluttered. “Me being mushy and gross? You’re the ones who don’t know what’s appropriate for public spaces!”
“To be fair, Mr. Halo.” Karl piped up. “The Honeycomb was empty, and teleportation doesn’t allow for knocking…”
“When do you leave?” Skeppy asked mournfully, like Bad was about to go marching off on a war mission he wouldn’t come back from.
“I think around nine in the morning? It’s an all-day thing, so—”
“All day?” Skeppy wailed.
“Yes Skeppy, all day. It goes until midnight, officially.”
“MIDNIGHT?” Skeppy shrieked. He almost fell off Bad’s shoulder, but Bad caught him.
“Yep. Skeppy, close your mouth. You look silly.”
Skeppy’s mouth clicked shut.
“Fifteen hours.” He whimpered. “I won’t survive!”
The portal opened, and Bad and Sapnap hurried through.
“You came!” Crimson stood up from his throne and hurried over to them. “You’re incredibly late.” He crossed his arms.
“Sorry Dad.” Bad said distractedly said, brushing cinders out of Sapnap’s hair. “There was an attack we had to deal with.”
“On Day of the Blood Star?” Crimson looked devastated. “We must show them the price for interrupting a sacred holiday! Ready the warships for Earth!”
“No!” Bad and Sapnap yelled.
“It’s fine! We took care of it!” Bad insisted. “They’ve learned their lesson!”
“And going after them is just interrupting the day more!” Sapnap chimed in.
“Hmm…” Crimson considered this, rubbing at his chin. “Well, dinner is almost ready, and we can’t put off more of the day without running out of time. Come! Let’s eat, and you can tell me all about the tortures you inflicted on those sacrilegious troublemakers!”
Sapnap and Bad winced behind his back.
“—and then Dream’s virus destroyed the program, and with the weap—uh, I mean their god out of commission, they surrendered.”
“Ha!” Crimson laughed. “The destruction of their false god is a wonderful punishment! But what did you do to them after those weaklings gave up?”
“Uh… we turned them over to the police… so they could be taken to, uh…”
“Be fed bologna.” Sapnap said between bites.
“Yes!” Bad shot his son a grateful look. “To be fed bologna! The most poisonous food in the galaxy! The mere thought of this food is often enough to send its victims to tears!"
Crimson gasped in awe. “This bologna sounds like quite the weapon… how do I get it?”
“Uh…” Sapnap froze, about to take a bite.
“It only works on humans.” Sapnap said at the same time Bad said “It’s really rare.”
They exchanged looks and Sapnap corrected himself to say “It’s really rare!” while Bad switched his answer to “It only works on humans!” They both looked at each other, panicked.
Crimson grumbled. “A weapon that is rare and only works on humans… that is not a good weapon. Aren’t those humans always getting attacked by intergalactic forces? They need to develop something better… You know, if I was in charge of things on Earth—”
“Well, us Titans are perfectly equipped to handle any extraterrestrial threats!” Bad chirped with a forced smile.
Sapnap cleared his throat.
“And the Hive! You didn’t let me finish, Sapnap.”
Technoblade frowned.
"Something wrong Tech?" Phil asked, having to shout over the noise that Niki and Tommy were making.
Techno shook his head. "Nah. I just have this weird feeling, like someone forgot us or something."
"That is weird." Phil agreed.
"It's probably nothing." Techno went back to reading case files and ignoring the existence of everyone else as he did so.
“Yes, I can attest to that, as galling as it is to admit that I was beaten by mere children.” Crimson grumbled. “Though it is impressive, how did you manage to get those teenagers to follow your command without mind control?”
“Teenagers?” Bad questioned. “We don’t have teenagers on the Titans…”
“Is that not your team name?” Crimson asked. “The ‘Teen Titans’?”
Bad groaned and dropped his forehead onto the table.
“Bad’s just better than you.” Sapnap declared.
“Sir!” The door banged open, and a messenger servant came running in. “Sir, I—”
Crimson held up a hand and the servant stopped in her tracks, trembling. He calmly dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. Sapnap rolled his eyes at Bad, who had lifted up his head to peer at the servant.
“What.” Crimson asked mildly. “Did I specifically order you underlings not to do?”
“D-disturb you during your time with your family.” The servant stuttered. “But sir—!”
“No buts! One night in a cell!” The servant started to protest. “Go by yourself before I make you.” She slumped and scurried out of the room, muttering apologies.
“Now, where were we?” Crimson mused.
“We were talking about how much better Bad is than you.” Sapnap said with a straight face. Bad dropped his face to the table again. Crimson frowned.
“Who’s Bad? I thought we were talking about my son…”
“That’s my name.” Bad said tiredly, voice slightly muffled by the table. “Badboyhalo. Bad for short.”
“What?” Crimson’s head snapped around to stare wide-eyed at his son. “But—but what’s wrong with the name I gave you? Saint of Games is a wonderful name! It shows your power and it connects you to your mother’s heritage!”
“Did you not hear the ‘halo’ part?” Bad muttered.
“You mean the mom you killed?” Sapnap asked innocently. Bad shot up to gape at his son and Crimson spluttered.
“You see here child! Sacrifices must be made sometimes, and—and sometimes they are unavoidable! Lucia was a wonderful angel, but there is nothing that can be done! If it hadn’t been for her sacrifice, Saint never would have been born!”
“So you can remember the name of the woman you knew for a few months before killing, but not the name of the kid you raised, gotcha.” Sapnap nodded.
Crimson growled. “Get a handle on your child, Sai—Bald, he is being very disrespectful.”
Bad spluttered as Sapnap burst into laughter. “B—bald?”
“I don’t recall you acting like this at that age.” Crimson continued. “I don’t know how someone as kind as you could raise a kid as unruly as this one. Do you need parenting tips?”
“Bald?”
“Oh, or you could just let me have him! I would cure him of that disrespect in a couple weeks at most! What do you think, Bald?”
“My name’s not Bald!” Bad shrieked. “It’s Bad!”
“Ah, I see. Now, about me taking Sapnap…”
“Like honk I would let you get your stupid claws on me!” Sapnap jumped up and backed away.
“Sapnap! Language!” Bad scolded. “He stays with me, Dad!”
Before Crimson could answer, the doors were swung open and a second messenger came running in.
“Sir!” They gasped. “Sir, I have news from—!”
“Night in the prison cell.” Crimson snapped.
“The… bat… sir?” The servant asked confused.
“I said, night in a prison cell. Go on, shoo.” Crimson made am impatient shooing motion with his hands.
“But… sir, I have news that I think you’ll wa—”
“NOW!” Crimson roared, and the servant eeped and ran, the doors slamming closed behand them.
Crimson huffed. “Help these days.” He muttered. “I should just go back to mind controlling the lot of them.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the three, gradually being broken by eating sounds.
“So.” Crimson finally said. “Tell me about your Earth lives. Are you still with that rock-boy?”
“His name is Skeppy. And yes.”
Crimson groaned, putting his head in his hand. “Where the fudge did I go wrong?”
“Language. And that’s rude.” Bad scolded. “Skeppy is an amazing person, and I love him.”
“He’s an annoying chip of crystal that talks too much.” Crimson complained.
“He’s a diamond, not a crystal.” Bad said.
“He is really annoying.” Sapnap said nonchalantly.
“You see?” Crimson gestured toward Sapnap excitedly. “My grandson agrees with me!”
“No I don’t.”
“What? But you just said you thought he was annoying as well?”
“I said he was annoying; you didn’t say he was.”
“But I did!”
“Yeah, and I didn’t say anything.”
“You… what? You said he was annoying! And so did I!”
“No, I said you’re annoying.”
“But—but you said that you said nothing before that!”
“First I say Skeppy’s annoying, and then I don’t say anything at all? Make up your mind, old man!”
Crimson fell silent, trying to unravel the conversation. Bad tried to hide his giggles by hiding his face in his food.
“…So, do you have a lover too?” Crimson asked.
“No.”
“Oh dear, that won’t do! I have a few officers who are looking for a partner, perhaps you could—?”
“I have two.”
Crimson blinked. “…Two?”
“I have two boyfriends.”
“Wonderful! Tell me about them!”
For the third time, a servant came through.”
“Sir!” He cried. “General Jemma—!”
“Out!” Crimson shouted at the poor servant.
“But—!”
“I said out!” Crimson used his magic to shove the servant out the doors and slam them shut. “And go to the cells!”
“That sounds like something you should really be paying attention to.” Bad mused.
“No. I want to spend time with my family, and that’s what I’m going to do!” Crimson pouted. “Tell me about your boyfriends.”
With that, Sapnap was off and running, gushing about his boyfriends to his grandfather.
“I think I like this Karl fellow.” Crimson decided. “But this Quackity character…”
“What’s wrong with Quackity?” Sapnap asked, looking hurt.
“He sounds suspicious. A shapeshifter and a flirt? No no, that will not do.”
“Excuse me?” To both Crimson’s and Sapnap’s surprise, it was Bad who spoke up in defense. “You barely even know Quackity! Or Karl for that matter! Both of them are good boys who love my son very much!” Bad shoved his chair back so he could put his hands on the table and get in his father’s face.
“You have no right to get involved in our love lives! None! They are happy and in love and they work to keep their relationship going! And I am happy for them too! I hope they never break up because the three of them are perfect for each other!” Breathing hard, Bad lowered himself into his chair. Crimson gaped at the outburst from his son.
“You mean that?” Sapnap whispered to Bad.
“Every word.” Bad muttered back.
“Aww.” Sapnap smiled. “I’m going to tell them and we’re not going to let you forget it.”
“I know.”
“Well… I—” Crimson started to say.
“Si—!”
“WHAT!” Crimson roared, standing up so fast the table almost fell over and snatching up the servant by the back of her shirt. “IS! SO! IMPORTANT!”
To her credit, the servant looked relatively unfazed. “Sir, I bring news from the battlefield.”
“Battlefield?” Bad and Sapnap echoed.
“Why.” Crimson demanded. “Must you interrupt me, during dinner with my family, on Day of the Blood Star, with news from the battlefield.”
“Our forces are losing, and the generals need weapon L activated, which can only be done by you.”
“What? We’re losing?” Crimson demanded. “How?”
“You started a war? During Day of the Blood Star?” Bad shrieked, reminding Crimson that oh yeah, his family was right there.
“I, uh…”
“A sacred holiday for family? The one that you were upset about it being interrupted by attackers on Earth?” Bad looked like he was seconds away from going big, and Sapnap moved away from him, his eyes and skin glowing like lava.
“Well, you see, when you didn’t show up… I kind of—well I thought you weren’t coming, so I decided to go ahead with some of my plans early—” Crimson pushed his pointer fingers together nervously.
Bad let out a screech of rage, growing big and knocking over the table with the force of it.
“I can’t believe you! You said you wanted to connect! And you promised you wouldn’t attack!”
“I mean, technically I’m not attacking—”
“Come on Sapnap.” Bad shrank back and stalked out of the room. “We’re leaving.”
“What? No! You can’t leave!” Crimson dropped the servant and ran after Bad. Sapnap smirked and fired off a mocking salute as he followed his dad out of the room.
“Please! I’ll call off the attack, we can finish dinner and play games, and—and please don’t go!” Crimson begged. Bad continued his path without even a glance at Crimson. Sapnap cackled.
“Saint—!”
“I’m not Saint!” Bad raged, unleashing a pulse of magic that knocked Crimson and all the servants on their butts, along with destroying a decent chunk of the ship and shutting down quite a few systems.
“My name is BADBOYHALO, and don’t you FORGET IT!” He opened up a portal and stormed through.
Crimson gaped after his son. Sapnap snickered and leaned in toward Crimson.
“Better luck next time, poopy face.”
Bad stuck his head back through the portal long enough to yell “Language!” and Sapnap followed, still laughing at the demon lord’s misery.
“George, stop prodding Skeppy.”
George looked up at Sam.
“I’m checking to make sure he’s alive.”
“I’m not.” Skeppy moaned, voice muffled by the couch cushions.
“Skeppy, Bad hasn’t even been gone for two hours.” Sam sighed.
Skeppy moaned again. A portal opened up and Bad stepped through. Skeppy shot up with a happy shout, and Bad turned around and went back through the portal. Skeppy plopped down on the floor and cried. A couple seconds later, Bad and Sapnap came through, Sapnap snickering and Bad with a stormy expression.
“Bad!” Skeppy launched himself at Bad and squeezed him tight. All traces of anger vanished from Bad’s face, and he spun Skeppy around with a laugh.
“I thought you were going to be longer than that?” Sam asked in surprise. Karl and Quackity both mobbed Sapnap with kisses.
“Stuff came up.” Bad replied vaguely. “Dad has… other things to worry about.”
“Uh… Sir?” The servant who had managed to deliver the bad news in the first place asked.
“Yes yes.” Crimson muttered. “I’ll activate weapon L.”
“No, um, sir. Weapon L was destroyed in your son’s outburst.”
Crimson’s eyes widened in horror.
“NOOOOooooooo!”