Shadow Rift (A Hat in Time)

Information Dump

I wanted to title this one 'Infodump' but this chapter is only meant to be MILDLY silly and goofy

God I love the infodump chapters. And the fight chapters. And the climax chapters. And the slower ones. And the

writing :)

edit: thanks to my beta reader!

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Instead of giving Snatcher direct answers, the kid immediately went to her room and dug around in her toybox.

He shot a glare at the back of her head. "Seriously?" he scoffed. "Now is not the time to be playing."

She ignored him and pulled several thick books out. She stacked them in one hand and headed over to her bed. Snatcher stared. How could she carry all that in one hand so effortlessly?

Hat Kid sat in bed and pulled the covers over her. She opened the first one and started reading. Or maybe she was just staring at the page. Snatcher couldn't tell.

"You're what, eight?" he asked. She nodded, silently confirming her age. "And you're reading those thick books?" She nodded again. Snatcher narrowed his eyes. "Kid, can you even understand what the words are saying?" he asked.

"Yeah, but you wouldn't," she answered. Hattie flipped through the book until she landed on a certain page.

Snatcher rolled his eyes. Seriously, what was with this kid? "Yeah, right. I was a law student. Try me."

"Okay." Hat Kid picked up the book and flipped it around, letting Snatcher walk over and get a close look.

He only caught a few words like time-space continuum and dimensional when his head started to spin. Snatcher stumbled away, shaking away the sudden burst of brain fog.

"Told ya." With barely a smirk, she pulled the book back and continued reading, muttering to herself. "Ah, no, this is the chapter on wormholes. I don't want that one..." She leafed through the pages some more.

Snatcher kept staring at her. How was she calmly reading something so dense? "How do you even know about all this stuff?" he asked.

"You have to be educated on time magic and theories to carry timepieces," she answered.

Now that was a word Snatcher recognized. Timepieces. Those little hourglasses with temporal magic threatening to burst from their wooden structure. And that same temporal magic had stuck him in his old body. "And what are you looking for?" he asked.

"Answers." Hat Kid afforded him a momentary glance. "That's what you want, isn't it?" She sighed. "Problem is, I don't know all of them myself. You have a..." she paused, pursing her lips. "A unique situation."

"...right." Snatcher shifted, feeling awkward and out of place, mainly because he wasn't used to his mortal form. Unique indeed.

He stood for a few more moments before Hat Kid sighed again, louder this time. "I can see you in my peripheral vision, and that's bothering me," she whined. "I can't concentrate."

Snatcher scowled. Really? She was whining about him just standing there, of all things? "So? What's wrong with me being here?" he snapped.

"If I can't concentrate, I won't get answers. And not getting answers means you won't be fixed."

"Duly noted." Snatcher turned and immediately sped out of the room.

He was pretty sure she had a smug look on her face, but he didn't care. This kid was really willing to fix him, and there was nothing he would do to stop that.