Chapter Text
Cosmos swinged his legs boredly from his position on the counter, looking around the daycare
It was silent for once, the children were gone and Sun had left to go discuss something with Moon.
Everything had gone wrong.
Cosmos wasn't even sure if he belonged in his family anymore.
The entire thing was just a toxic mess. The astrals, dark stars, relationship strains were all too much for Cosmos.
A part of him felt numb towards it, indifferent.
A part of him still remembered when Moon declared the two as siblings.
Siblings his ass.
He obviously wasn't very welcomed anymore, having grown distant to everybody— including Solar and Earth.
He still felt the overwhelming guilt from when he disabled Earth.
It's like the universe turned its back on him harshly, he had nobody, nobody at all.
But then, he finally found a purpose.
Being an Astral.
And once again, Cosmos sacrificed it to protect his family.
And he never even got a thank you.
Maybe it's time he found a universe to settle in, or at least somewhere far away. Cosmos didn't want to be a burden upon his family anymore.
With a sigh, Cosmos forced himself to plant his feet on the ground, standing up and looking around the vacant daycare.
The slight weight in his pocket made him pause.
Right.
Cosmos reached out, grabbing the teleporter device and staring at it.
His grip tightened on it, hesitating for a second before sighing.
He activated it.
Wait, he forgot to put a universe id in it—
Before he could stop it, his surroundings changed rapidly.
A ball pit, he recognized immediately, scrambling to get to the top of it, deciding not to leave just yet.
His grip on the portal device grew tighter, looking around the daycare nervously.
A normal daycare.
But definitely wasn't one of the universes he's visited before..
He heard a spark, pulling out the teleporter device.
It was broken.
Cosmos eyes widened.
He was stuck.
Cosmos immediately rushed out of the ballpit, looking around and trying to find a spot to hide.
Though he stumbled, gasping as pain hit him in the lower leg— kneeling down to get a good look at what had occurred.
His leg was covered in oil, cracked and injured— He must’ve injured it when teleporting somehow..
They forced himself to stand up, stumbling out of the daycare and grasping the wall, barely noticing the trail of oil that followed.
He looked around, spotting the gift shop— which seemed abandoned, dashing into it and searching for the storage room inside.
Fortunately, Cosmos managed to find it, sighing and throwing himself into the storage room. Collapsing.
There seemed to be a charging station in the storage room for some odd reason, so that was something..
Cosmos choked.
Oh my god. He was stuck.
This was never supposed to happen—! This was supposed to be a temporary get away, not a permanent one!
He threw his head against the wall, slumping against it in defeat.
He needs to get information on where he is.
For now, he couldn't trust anybody.
He groaned, deciding to sleep for the day, stacking boxes at the entrance just in case.
Cosmos sighed, powering himself down.
—
“Computer."
“Hm?”
“Who was detected by the portal again?”
“Stranger could not be identified.”
Moon deadpanned, typing something into the computer and squinting at the footage.
When the two had returned to the daycare after every child had left— a trail of oil was evident in the daycare, Sun had screamed and rushed to take care of it.
Moon simply assumed Bloodmoon once again got its hands on a staff robot and tore it to pieces.. Making notes to lecture them later.
“How come the quality is always so good.. Until we need good quality?” Moon muttered, leaning in and sighing— giving up after trying to piece together how the figure looked.
“It’s probably just another Miku situation!” Sun called out from where he was cleaning a barrel nearby. “They’ll return to their home dimension soon, I think.”
Moon shrugged, “You’re right. The Computer would’ve told me if it was someone dangerous.” He sighed, shutting off the computer and sparing a hesitant look at it.
Sun smiled and went back to cleaning, sighing as the stain on the barrel refused to give in.
“At this point, we should replace the barrels with plastic..” Sun groaned.
“Then the kids will chuck it at each other's heads and we’ll get sued.. Again.”
Sun checked the time, humming to himself, “Uhm, maybe we should head back, Solar probably needs your help with something..”
“Right.” Moon took one last double check at the computer, turning away from it and walking towards the exit.
Just as Moon opened the door, Jack barreled in, slamming into Moon with an excited expression, causing Moon to stumble back in surprise and collapse to the ground.
“Moooooooon, Jack has found a SPONGE.” loudly declared the pumpkin animatronic, getting off after Moon gently pushed against them. Moon grunted, “Cool..??”
Jack extended out the sponge, walking past Moon and running towards Sun, who tensed up— preparing to also get tackled.
Fortunately for Sun, Jack didn't tackle him, extending out the sponge proudly. “Jack will help clean!” He announced
“Oh, uhm, sure.” Sun smiled sheepishly, handing Jack the soap.
Moon got up, watching the scene and rubbing his head tiredly.
“No— Jack! Don't eat the soap!”
Moon grimaced, walking out of the daycare immediately, deciding to leave the situation in Sun’s hands.
Today has been a long day. Suspicious activity near the portal.. Solar’s weird invention exploding.. And two kids going missing— only to be found hiding on the roof of the playstructure somehow
Everyday in the daycare was like a gamble, either it’d be calm, and Moon could get some work done— or it would be absolutely maniac in the daycare.
Moon had blanked out, blinking as their house came into view.
He pushed open the door and the first thing he did was collapse onto the couch, staring at the ceiling.
One of Sun’s cats jumped onto his lap, meowing for attention.
“Hi.” Moon patted the cat's head lazily, adjusting his position to give the furball room to curl up on his lap.
“Have you seen Jack?” Solar peeped out of the kitchen, carrying tool supplies and covered in dust and oil.
Moon cringed. “He’s with Sun— er, what happened to you??”
“Lesson learned, Don't look away from a bucket of oil when it’s directly beside you.”
Moon laughed. “Go take a bath or something, you're oiling up the place..”
Solar shrugged, putting down his tools and goggles on the counter and walking off.
Moon got up despite the protests the cat provided, grabbing a broom and deciding to start cleaning up the oil before it solidified on the ground.
Thank goodness their house wasn't carpet, Moon glanced at the broom. They would definitely need a new broom after this.
It took a while, but eventually Moon had cleaned up the stains, and Solar had returned— dry and clean.
He picked up his goggles, adjusting it on his head and smiling at Moon, sitting down beside him.
“Anything new?” Moon asked while scrolling on his phone.
“Nothing much. Bloodmoon accidentally destroyed a table, but that's pretty much it.”
Moon looked up from his phone, raising an eyebrow. “I'm sorry, a table? How did it do that accidently?”
“Ran too fast into the room and ended up slamming straight into a table, breaking it in half.” Solar cracked an amused look, remembering the look on Bloodmoon’s face when they went full force into a table accidently.
“It’s alright. Though, now it’s rather moody.”
“I would be moody too if I ran into a table..” Moon snickered, pausing at the sound of the door opening.
Sun stumbled in with Jack behind him.. Covered in soap.
“Jack tried to eat the soap.” Sun breathed out, placing a head to his forehead in tiredness as Jack grinned.
“Father! Jack is now clean.” Jack scrambled over to Solar.
“That's not.. Exactly what I meant by ‘go clean.’ but.. Okay.”
“Jack has cleaned their insides! Sponge and soap.”
Solar tensed, standing up. “Lets go to parts and service.. I don't know if your body can handle soap.”
“Awh.” Jack whined, mood lessening slightly as they took Solar’s hands and walked off towards the part and services.
Moon shook his head, patting the place on the couch besides him, gesturing for Sun to sit down.
Sun listened, slumping against the couch and leaning his head back, letting out a groan of misery.
“I looked away for one second.. And he’s eating the bottle.”
“Sorry for leaving you there, I’ll help clean up any mess tomorrow if you want.”
Sun’s mood brightened. “Maybe in two days, I already have Nexus helping me tomorrow.”
“Right, Nexus.” Moon straightened his posture. “How’s he adjusting to their new body?”
“Pretty good! They miss their height before but besides from that he likes it.”
Moon was glad that part was over at least.
Making Nexus a new body was a nightmare. His old body was entirely corrupted with Dark star power, bending in on itself and giving in slowly to corruption, which gave Moon a very short deadline to make the body.
Eventually, the corruption got too severe— so Moon had to quickly grab an endoskeleton and transfer Nexus over to said endoskeleton, despite their protests.
It took a while, and a ton of losses and explosions for Moon to make Nexus a correct body. (Being the fact that somehow, the body kept exploding before it was ready. Not even Moon knew why that was occurring.)
Now the days focused on working were gone, and he could focus on his own things— but of course, that peace didn't last, and Moon had to get started on making Killcode a body.
At first, Moon had thought being separated from Killcode entirely was impossible and too risky, but somehow they made it work.
The only downside was Moon ended up going into a 2 week long coma after successfully transferring KC to their new body.
Moon was relieved at being separated, but also felt rather guilty— He remembered Sun telling him how Solar had panicked extremely when he fell into a two week coma.
But besides all that, the true bad days were gone— gone were the days of villains and cruelty. To Moon, it was still rather weird dwelling amongst what were once their tormenters.
The last time they had a villain was roughly six years ago.
After everything had calmed down, everybody eventually settled on their own paths, departing from the main universe or at least moving away.
But one by one, they came back— and when it was simply Moon, Sun, Solar, Jack, Dazzle, Earth and Lunar— soon became Moon, Sun, Solar, Jack, Dazzle, Lunar, Earth, Nexus, Killcode, The Bloodmoon Twins, Solar Flare, Eclipse and Ruin.
(I feel like I'm forgetting somebody bro.)
It was kind of bizarre to think about— once enemies, now living all together like a large family.
“Moon?”
“Hm— oh, yeah? What's up?”
“You zoned out again.”
Sun leaned in, waving a hand in front of Moon’s face, causing Moon to blink in surprise. “ ‘M back, im back.” Moon swatted Sun’s hand away.
“What are you thinking about?” Sun asked, adjusting his position on the couch, fidgeting with his hands.
“Nothin’, just stuff.”
“Are you worried about the figure you saw on the camera?”
“Yes— No, kinda. God, how do you know everything about me??” Moon smiled to lighten the mood, earning a soft laugh from Sun.
“Im sure it’s nothing, and if it is— we can just check our channels comments every now and then. The viewers always say something about it.”
“Right, the viewers. God, you're a genius.” Moon stood up, putting his phone in his pocket. “I think I’m gonna go check up on the others now, go get some rest or something, today was fucking wild.”
Sun nodded without argument, standing up and walking up the stairs, probably off to go see Dazzle— who was most likely taking a nap around now.
Moon peeked into the parts and service, watching Solar crouch down besides Jack, who seemed completely unfazed by the frustrated look on his fathers face.
“How did you even do this to yourself??” Solar muttered, putting his tools to the side after spotting Moon.
“Great, you're here. Can you watch over Jack for a second? I need to go find the Bloodmoon twins.”
Moon gave a thumbs up, moving besides Jack.
He paused, deciding on what to say— he wasn’t exactly good with kids.. Which was rather ironic considering he was a daycare attendant.
“Solar is mad at Bloodmoooon.” Jack swinged his legs boredly, grinning.
“Why?” Moon tilted his head, raising an eyebrow curiously.
“Jack and Bloodmoon roughhoused too harshly and now Jack has dents in his arms.” Jack extended out an arm, showing two claw dents deep within him— not enough to puncture, but enough to hurt.
Moon frowned, concerned.
“It was an accident, though.” Jack shrugged, not seeming at all affected at the dents in his arms.
Right, Jack had a shit ton of layers of metal— the dents weren't even close to being deep enough to cause oil to spill out. Jack probably didn't even feel it.
Jack fiddled with his hat, looking around— eyes glowing in the partially dim room, narrowing his eyes to squint at certain things he found interesting.
—
Bloodmoon stared at the roach, crouching to the ground in a hunting posistion— pupils dilated and focused on it.
“Brother..”
“Shhh! The roach will get scared and run away from us if you talk, stay quiet so we can stalk..”
Bloodmoon extended a claw out towards the creature, growling in frustration when footsteps from behind it caused the roach to scurry off in a panic, squawking.
Bloodmoon whipped its head towards the source, prepared to yell at whoever interrupted their hunt. “Run, run away and hide for you have interrupted our hunt!!”
They froze slightly at the sight of Solar staring down at him, arms crossed with an annoyed look. “What did I say about roughhousing with Jack?”
It frowned, “Oh! He is strong, the pumpkin one can handle it! Stop babying it!”
Solar raised an eyebrow, narrowing his eyes. “And still, I don't want you roughhousing that much with Jack.”
“No—!”
“I’ll tell Killcode.”
Bloodmoon tensed, growling low in its throat. “Fine, fine!” Bloodmoon dismissed with a wave, ending the conversation by turning back towards where the roach was, whining when they couldn't spot it.
The sound of the daycare door opening and closing let Bloodmoon know that Solar had finally departed.
Bloodmoon crossed their arms, standing up and huffing. “Brother, oh how bored I am! Nobody to hunt or chase or squash like an ant!”
“Oh, I have the perfect idea. The storage room in that giftshop holds a large amount of bugs!”
“Perfect, perfect! Hunt, hunt! Let’s go now!” Bloodmoon looked around for the roach one more time, before scrambling out of the daycare and locating the giftshop.
Unfortunately, it was closed. Bloodmoon growled as they tried to rattle the door’s handle, putting a hand on their hips after failing.
Moon said no destroying property.. But.. Surely no one would care about the giftshop door handle?
The door went flying as Bloodmoon slammed full force into it, stumbling back after seeing it land against the wall harshly.
Bloodmoon winced at the sound.
“What a weak door.. It came apart in a soar!”
Bloodmoon was ever so slightly surprised, having expected to bruteforce the door open.. Not send it flying.
Meh, Bloodmoon could blame it on Jack later. The door was bound to come apart soon after all.
Bloodmoon looked around the giftshop, turning towards the light and turning it on. While they did have night vision, Bloodmoon decided to turn the lights on just in case, even though they preferred the dark.
It squinted, trying to adjust to the light suddenly flooding its vision, snarling under their breath.
Door laying limp against the wall.. And no other door. Bloodmoon frowned in confusion, head snapping in different directions as they tried to locate the storage door.
“Brother, where is the storage room??”
“To our left.. Brother.”
Bloodmoon looked to the left, spotting the blue door perfectly blended in with the blue colour of the gift shop.
“Dumb door!! Why is it practically invisible?! Weak, pathetic!! KILL IT!”
They growled, marching over towards the storage door.
A crunch came from below their feet, and Bloodmoon paused, looking down curiously to see a.. Weird metal piece?
It reminded Bloodmoon of those things they’d see in a computer, was it a chip of some sorts?
Their head tilted curiously, distracted almost immediately and kneeling down to get a good look at it.
They picked it up, bringing it to their nose and sniffing it— It smelled like oil and electrical stuff.
Bleh. nothing Bloodmoon liked. They pulled it away from their nose.
“Brother, what is this??”
“A piece of metal.. Maybe from the Moon guy? HAH! Cant even hold on to a piece of metal! Weak Lunar Animatronic! We give it back and laugh in his face.”
Bloodmoon nodded in agreement, shuffling to place the chip into their pockets, tapping it a couple of times to make sure it was there.
Was the metal piece directly from Moon? There was a trail of oil leading towards the storage room.. No, Moon would’ve cleaned that up.
Suddenly— they heard it, a sudden shuffle coming from the Storage room. Too loud to be a mouse.. Too quiet to be an object.
Must be a cat or raccoon.
Bloodmoon cautiously approached, noticing how the door was locked. Considering how easily the other door fell off.. Bloodmoon pushed roughly against it, managing to lodge it open.
It didn't fall apart this time, swinging back against the wall.
Bloodmoon looked down.
They did not see a raccoon.
Nor a cat.
Cosmos and Bloodmoon locked eyes.