Chapter Text
Tracy drove until she saw the abandoned convenience store. Every time they passed by it, Ness pointed it out since he noticed the bonesaw inside. She thought he would be there and sure enough, she saw her brother’s car parked outside.
Ness left no note of his absence, but Tracy knew he was gone. First, there was the piggy bank she set aside for him; it was missing. Second, there was the television in his room; it was missing too.
She begged her parents in the middle of the night to borrow their car. They couldn’t have cared less about where their son was, but their daughter wouldn’t give up until she found him. They relented and gave her the keys to their car.
She stopped outside the convenience store and parked right next to Ness’s vehicle. He wasn’t in the car, and he wasn’t in the front of the convenience store, either. From the storage room, in the back of the convenience store, she spotted a faint light.
That had to be Ness.
She left her car and ran inside. She stumbled into the storage room. She didn’t see the creature first.
She saw Ness’s head first.
Tracy tried not to get sick at the sight of the decapitated head. Then her mind wandered to where the body was. That was when she finally looked at it.
It was twice as tall as her, and the striped sweater and pants it wore barely fit. The most notable feature, however, was its TV head. It looked like Ness’s television, with antennae on top and dials on the side. It was somehow turned on, staring at her with a worried expression on the screen.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to call it a monster. She wanted to run.
But she had faced so much worse. This thing in front of her was nothing compared to the pure evil of Giygas. She controlled her fight-or-flight response just enough to pull back to fight. She summoned a fireball.
“T-Tracy! Stop!”
The fireball extinguished in an instant. That voice was her brother’s, but with a slight electronic tint to it. Unless this monster had eaten her brother (it was way too thin to have done that), this monster was her brother.
“…Ness?”
She gasped at the creature. Somehow her brother had survived cutting off his own head. Speaking of which…
“Can we… not talk in front of your decapitated head?”
“Ugh, yeah.” He grabbed it and hid it behind his back because neither of them wanted to stare at it anymore.
The siblings went back outside. Ness bonked his new head against the doorframe as they came out. Tracy looked away as her brother pitched his own head into the garbage bin outside of the convenience store.
Ness and Tracy sat in his car, though it was a tight squeeze for Ness’s new body. It was a while before either of them felt like talking about what just happened. Ness pulled some napkins and tissues - whatever he could find in the vehicle - to help with the blood dripping from his neck.
Finally, Tracy asked, “Why? Why did you do this?”
Ness paused for about a minute until finally he said, “I don’t think I can give you a good answer. I… I wasn’t expecting to survive this.”
“Oh.” Tracy thought about what that meant. “You were just going to leave me?”
“I didn’t have much else…” He choked back a sob. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t see the signs.” She grabbed his hand. Somehow, he had four fingers now. “I want to help you however I can.”
“Maybe… you could…” Ness pondered what his sister could do. He imagined his life after this as a solo act, but having a co-creator who understood him like literal family would be so much help.
“We could do anything,” Tracy suggested, smiling. “Anything you want.”
“I think I should take some time to think about it.” Ness smiled back. “But I want you to be a part of whatever I do next.”
“I’ll help however I can.”
“Maybe, until then, we can get something to eat?”
“Can you still eat?”
“I hope so, because I do feel hungry…”