Chapter Text
“ALRIGHT!” Chris screams as Sans smiles and is mid-shrug in the face of his skull being about to be bitten by Susie, like he just paused a big dusty ball of violence.
“Are you done assaulting our janitor?” Chris asks, eyebrow raised, hand on hip.
“You fuckin’ work here too?!” Susie asks in pure anger.
“Helps pay the bills. It costs a lot to run a grocery store.” Sans.
Susie lets him go and goes back to her seat, not even bothering with his nonsense.
“Wouldn’t a grocery store pay for itself?” Sonic wonders aloud.
“Nope.” Sans says, dusting himself off, “s’ expensive.”
“Okay but how though?” Joker asks.
“The bag of bones runnin’ the place spent too much on various states of “closed” signage.” He winks.
Susie grips the edge of the table, her eye twitching, wood slowly cracking.
“Alright, back to the game.” Chris sighs, annoyed, handing Sans a mop. Sans walks behind a nearby pillar.
When the player takes their seat again after the chaos, they can see Sans taking a nap in one of the booths in the background. You didn't see him walk to that booth…
The act of throwing cards onto the pile and giving throwing some people more cards into their hands is inherently relaxing to Susie, everything flowing back to a more normalized rhythm.
A new song is playing in the background, it puts Sonic in a good mood.
"So I heard you're jumping into a fighting game soon?" Sonic turns to Hat Kid.
"Yep!" Hat Kid smiles.
"GAH! Lucky! I wanna be in a fighting game!" Susie balked.
"You would no doubt be a fan favorite, with how well you throw that axe around." Joker jokes.
"I got ranged attacks, I got self-healing, I got a big f!@$ing axe! I got a whole package! Who wouldn't want me in a fighting game?!" Susie bragged, though still upset at getting "snubbed".
"I'll see if I can pull some strings for ya, kid." Sonic teases Susie with a confident wink.
"You better." She pouts before throwing another card on the pile.
The player changes the felt to a scenic painting overlooking some beautiful, if alien, mossy islands with stars dotting every inch of the sky with some falling down in an iridescent cascade of colors.
Joker keeps nervously looking at the skeleton napping in the corner, mop leaning against his skull head.
"Quit lookin' at him. He's an asshole." Susie squints at Joker.
"Right. Sorry. Just… bad memories… good music though…" Joker sighs.
Susie raises an eyebrow, "What, does he mess with you too, make annoying jokes, and do weird stuff with your friend's mom?"
"Uh… no to that last one… first one is yes, definitely." Joker leaves it at that.
Sans winks to camera (you).
Sonic pats cube on the head, "Been a bit of a slow time for you bud? I know you like our company but I kinda hope you and hairy head here," He glances at the Player, "would have a bit more going on outside the tournaments."
"Hey the Inventory paid for his services and he's doing them just fine thank you." Chris takes offense for Cube, despite the fact Cube was mostly just confused.
Cube beeps.
"Maybe I should get Tails to make a translator for you too like he did with Yacker." Sonic sighs exasperatedly, a little annoyed he can't connect more with the little guy beyond his beeps.
"Talkin' to robots were never my strong suit, heh." He gives an awkward smile to the Player.
The Player gets some new cards, depicting Sonic and his various friends and enemies on the matching colors if there were any.
"So, secrets out in the open, you been targeting anyone new recently?" Susie asks Joker.
"Just the usual." Joker motions his eyes over to Chris, who doesn't notice.
"Damn, is it that tough a nut to crack?" Susie looked a bit concerned, "Should… should I smash his teeth in or something?"
"Not… not yet, thank you for the offer." Joker laughs awkwardly, talking her down from that much violence.
"Wish I could help from my side of things but eh, Dark Worlds are more about stuff coming to life instead of… whatever goes on with yours." About as bright as Skull about how symbolism works, this one…
"Eh, not the worst I've encountered." Joker shrugs, "His heart will be the Phantom Thieves' in due time." He foreshadows.
The player buys a new hat for Cube. Rather, it looked more like some sort of… egg shaped wig?
"Hey wait a second I recognize that haircut-." Sonic gets cutoff as everyone is, for lack of a better word… digitized by Cube.