Chapter Text
Everyday is the same for Nathaniel Adams. He wakes up, evades his mother’s questions as he slips out of the door, adjusts a school uniform that scratches and burns the skin, and meets his friend to walk to school with him. The two fit together well, he’d like to say—both students in the same class to a batty old teacher, yes, but their truth rests beneath the surface. They both serve as students of moxie, taught by the comic and cartoon hero Moximous Mask, and they had hoped to always live this life.
The first sign that perhaps things had changed was when he left his house, and nobody was there to greet him.
That didn’t align with their unspoken rule. Nathaniel almost prided himself on being the sloppy, delayed one, only ignited into a passionate speed that could outrun the steam train to the big city if a new Moximous Mask episode premiered. His friends berated him, but deep down, he’d always believed they’d been charmed by it. Was he wrong all this time? A hollow heart drummed against his ribs. Louder, louder it grew, as he approached the moss-ridden path. Such greenery loved to trudge to the tune of his friend’s steps. Yet, here it lay, perfectly intact. His brow furrowed, and he continued to follow the stone path. No one worked near the hay fields—normally, the old man who worked there would call the two boys over, always buying extra glasses of milk for those two ‘just to help out’. Where his station typically sat, four empty bottles chimed a tone-deaf tune. The two for him and his friend, and the two for the man and his wife. As he continued down the path, he wondered if maybe the usual couple that walked to the bus stop would be holding up the path as always; he didn’t like how the click-clack of his sandals didn’t slow down. They weren’t meant to even have the opportunity to speed up, and yet, here they rumbled, synonymous with the racing of a heart oozing worry rather than blood.
Trembling legs skidded to a halt outside the school gate. For the first time that day, he could hear… voices. Where he’d grown so used to evading any interaction with his mother, he actually hadn’t spoken to her, and maybe that should have been his first sign. Because she wasn’t there either, was she? Boiling things on the stove, humming an old opera tune to herself, drumming a wooden spoon against the counter… he hadn’t heard any of that. Foolishly, he’d put that down to actually waking up early. For once. He could go back and try to sleep, but he’d already pinched himself enough when adjusting his school shirt, and reality often peeked through the cracks by now. Shaking legs sought the entryway to the school.
A tug on his unbuttoned collar beckoned otherwise. Instinct urged him to yelp. A ball of fluff shoved itself over his mouth, and as Nathaniel followed the source, all he could note was an abundance of the colour blue. Not in a ‘I’m about to pass out and the sky is blurring with the ground and also I might throw up my lungs and they’re not meant to be blue’ way, contrary to what his pounding brain may have screeched behind his skull. No, this creature was quite literally blue. Beyond a small tuft of white fluff around his scowling mouth that crept down to its stomach, the feline (Nathaniel thought, he couldn’t tell through stinging tears) had been drenched in a dark blue tint, juxtaposed by the red cape that fluttered behind him. Little white paws seemed to… float? Were they floating? Nathaniel shook his head, wondering if he were hallucinating, and this was his entryway to the mysterious ‘other world’ everyone but him MUST have found.
Oh, Enma, this seemed like too much of a Moximous Mask plot to be true. If only pinching himself worked! Especially as the cat opened its mouth and hissed in a way that presumably calculated and spat out familiar sounds: “Don’t go straight into the enemies, are you insane?!”
“...yeah?” was all he could reply. Truly, what else could he do? He’d woken up a little earlier than normal to a ghost town, the only humans left were alleged enemies, and this was if—and only if—he trusted the word of a talking cat. Maybe he’d slept on the wrong side of the bed. His body always slept better if he faced the left instead of right.
The cat smacked its forehead, of which Nathaniel noted a blade-shaped scar, and grumbled. “Why did the chosen one have to be like this…?”
“Cho-” his brow furrowed momentarily. Contorting, his face then flipped 180 degrees, and his eyes ignited into whole galaxies. “Chosen one?! Am I gonna be a super hero or something, and save Harrisville?!” Excitement bounced off of every hurried word. He and his best friend had always joked that if something were to happen, Nathaniel would be the Moximous Mask of this world, and his friend would be the Bold Basher who lifted him up in times of struggle and dilemma. Had the time finally come?!
Of course, such enthusiasm ignored the alleged omniscience of the blue cat—sure, he may not have been all-knowing, but in comparison to the boy of heroic delusion, he might as well have been. As the cat opened his mouth, he gestured his paws towards the school. “Just… listen to me. On those school grounds, two very dangerous youkai are currently manipulating a young boy around your age-”
“Youkai?” Nathaniel tilted his head. “Aren’t those, like, the stories your parents tell you about to keep you obedient?”
The cat scratched his face and chuckled, “If that worked, you might not be interrupting one so much-”
“What the hell kind of youkai are you? You don’t look like you’re meant to tell me a life lesson,” with a small scowl, Nathaniel brought his knees close to his chest and stuck his tongue out, “you just look like an old man turned cat.”
Little cat paws slammed against little cat palms as the youkai attempted to crack his knuckles. He seemed to forget that the fluff would drown out any noise—if success were even possible—and scoffed at his own failings. “My name is Hovernyan. I am… a wandering spirit of sorts, and I’m not normally meant to ground myself to someone. Especially not for a purpose like this, but…” he turned to his belt and began to furrow his paws against it, until he fished out a small red and yellow watch, “but… but desperate times call for desperate measures. You’re the only one that’s yet to be hurt by Kin and Gin’s magic, so-”
Nathaniel raised his hands; in doing so, he slapped away the watch, which Hovernyan nearly dove face-first to try and catch. He cradled it to his chest but listened to Nathaniel, his gaze solemn, despite its stone exterior clearly cracking. “Look, I need to know what’s going on. I’m not gonna be one of those superheroes that’s just thrown into the mix without a clue as to what I’m doing, or Gingin are gonna kill me, aren’t they?”
“Kin and Gin, but…” his bottom lip quivered—Nathaniel didn’t know cats could do that, let alone youkai—and he sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re owed an explanation of sorts. Offer me your wrist, and I’ll talk you through it all-”
Just as Nathaniel offered his shaky wrist towards the air, a gust of wind beckoned the watch to fly beyond Hovernyan’s grip. He squeaked, desperate paws clambering for it, but the storm whisked it down the hill.
“Oh,” a young boy’s voice, high yet strained with a faux saccharine taste cast over thick clumps of venom, “what a tragedy. Little Hovernyan comes from the future, but he still can’t quite play the hero, can he?”
Nathaniel whipped his head around to source the noise. Hands clasped together, a young boy found himself draped in a multitude of black and purple frills. If the fashion-illiterate boy of a similar age had to label it, it seemed… princely? Beyond the masquerade mask formed of smog over his eyes, revealing two hollow dots that glowed with rippling overlaps of red, crimson and rose, a small velvet crown had perched itself atop muddied, golden tresses of hair. This crown matched the mask with a red jewel—that seemed to be the motif, as his eyes panned down the rest of the outfit, noting a silken button up shaded in purple and adorned with further red jewels along the collar and the sleeves. On his right wrist lay a watch not unlike the one he’d sent away. However, unlike Hovernyan’s technology, this one mirrored his eyes with a protective layer of smog. Puffy shorts reached down to his knees, drenched in black, and high socks just beneath his knees revealed skin that looked mottled and rotten. Small mary janes stretched over these socks; they, too, followed the pattern of a consistent red jewel. The only outlier to his outfit was the deep blue cape that danced down his thin figure - however, once Nathaniel’s eyes panned to the side, he realised why. A cat that stole Hovernyan’s face but drenched it in melancholia hovered near this young boy, and it matched his desperation for a masquerade, for it also had a smog mask pierced with red dots for eyes.
The cat opened its mouth and snarled, not at the bewildered boy, but at the even more bewildered cat. “Why don’t you give up? You can’t outsmart yourself from another universe-”
Hovernyan snapped, “You’re meant to be a being of companionship. I’m only meant to attain that form if I have a strong bond with my friends and my partner, so why do you get to be Darknyan, and I’m stuck like this?”
“Because,” Darknyan floated over and scratched Hovernyan’s cheek, swiping with enough force to make Nathaniel wince, “I have a companion. You might not like what we do, but we actually get things done.” He raised his paw once more and showcased glittering claws, adorned with small tornadoes swirled around them.
Nathaniel leapt up and outstretched his arms, unsteady weight rested upon two trembling knees. “Stop! I… I don’t get what’s going on, but you guys clearly know something, so before you fight, can I please get some answers?”
The cat’s snarl contorted to corruption, his mask similarly wavering. His paw raised higher, he parted his lips ready to cry on behalf of his victim - Nathaniel, of course, clasped his eyes tightly shut and readied for the stinging impact to swirl through his veins. Nothing ever came. Instead, he heard a very light voice mumble, “That’s enough.” Sheepishly parting one eye, tears barely made out the same form of the young boy, who had thrown away all but his mask. Wearing a beige hoodie over a tank top, and khaki shorts that reached down to his scuffed up, pale knees, he looked like any other boy that Nathaniel would play with at school.
But, he’d mentioned another universe… had something happened to him? Strangely, his chest ached. Unravelling that ache revealed shards of a mirror, and sheepishly, Nathaniel begged his heart to stitch itself back up so he wouldn’t yet have to confront that truth. Instead, he stared at the boy, arms still raised to protect the blue cat. “Who are you?”
“What’s it to you, Nathaniel Adams?” The boy smirked.
“How do y-”
“I have to say, I had a feeling you’d be a little difficult to mess with, but you’re more interesting than I expected you to be,” he chuckled to himself as he turned his back, “I’ll call this one a truce, but next time, you better not disappoint, okay?”
All he could do was watch as the other boy walked off. He couldn’t say he knew anything for certain, but strangely, he found himself wanting to call a particular name—Kenny.
Instead, he hung his head, waiting for an explanation that never came. The streets flooded, and mundanity beckoned him, in a way that he’d hoped it never would again. Just what had happened to his regular life?