“What should we do with… the mouse?”
“I don’t fucking know, burn him? He’s disgusting.”
Kevin was just, like, so done with all of these batshit competitors. From having to man the front desk and check in these monstrosities to being responsible for wrangling the wrangler, he just couldn’t even anymore. So when faced with the decision of what to do with the mangled, half-melted corpse of Mickey fucking Mouse, the easy road took precedence: get rid of him.
And so, off the peons went to accomplish this task. Kevin would admit: though the extra responsibilities he’d accrued throughout the three long-ass days of this year’s competition were hella tiring, he wouldn’t trade this promotion for the world. Just a little while ago, he’d been a simple desk boy, and now he was handling all sorts of under-the-desk business for Karl Jak himself. The boss had always seemed to take a shine with him, but this kind of quick turnaround was practically unheard of in Syntech’s channels. He wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that Joey had practically shit himself when he’d heard he’d been passed over for the ginger wonder.
Well, now that bitch could go melt the rest of Mickey Mouse, for all Kevin cared.
“Hey, Joey!” Kevin called out. “Save the ears. They’ll go nice in Karl’s trophy room.” From afar, the top-knot twerp could hear Joey’s pained groans. Heh. That would show him who to leave on read.
Nobody leaves Kevin on read, goddammit.
As he approached the doors to the morgue, they started to slide open prematurely. The redhead stopped and watched as Pepsiman burst past him, sprinting faster than he’d ever seen the blockheaded robot toward the observation window. Kevin scowled; he’d forgotten the refresher had been an old pal of the mouse’s. He should’ve known that he would come rushing in soon after the little hero’s untimely de --
“Yuukaaaaaaaaa!” Pepsiman screeched, plastering his hands and face to the glass and searching desperately for the rotted, fucked-up corpse of Yuuka Kazami.
“She’s already been moved, bot-brains,” Kevin shrugged, tucking his clipboard under one arm and reaching out for the cacophonous cyborg with the other. “Time to get back to the Recreation Dome and do your job, P-Man.”
Pepsiman spun around, and though his face was covered by a thick layer of spandex, the strange mold of his features visible through the mask looked pretty angry, in a way that Kevin had yet to experience the cyborg. Instinctively, he stepped back towards the doors. He may have gotten a promotion, he may have been a badass, but Kevin was a lover, not a fighter, and even someone as pathetic as Pepsiman had a good shot of absolutely taking him down.
“You,” Pepsiman droned as angrily as he could muster (not much), “PepsiYuuka’s death is not refreshing news!!”
“Yeah, but like, I didn’t kill her, you crazy robot --”
Pepsiman lunged, but seemed to be thrown off course by a huge wave of bright, flashing white lights. At first, it seemed like someone had just pointed a particularly bright fluorescent the wrong way, but when the glass of the observation window shattered, Kevin almost pulled a Joey and shit himself.
And when, at last, the light had dimmed, he watched as a two feet, three inch tall fucking cartoon mouse hopped up onto the windowsill and looked down at him.
“Golly,” Mickey Mouse chirped, “that was no fun at all, huh, pal?”
***
Man, bein’ alive again was a trip.
Of course, if Mickey coulda picked, he probably wouldn’t have brought himself back to life amidst the corpses of his fellow competitors. Seeing people like Gildarts and little Toga lying on the weirdly cold morgue beds was never gonna be super fun, but it definitely ended up being a little more stomach-turning than he expected, so the sight of alive people like Pepsiman and Kevin certainly brightened up his mood.
Still, Kevin’s hurry to get him out of the morgue and into a more concealed holding area certainly set off some warning bells in the little mouse’s brain. Was Karl’s intern worried that if a bunch of dead competitors started zombie-ing back to life in a similar way, they’d stage some sort of coup against Karl?
...actually, was that a plausible idea?
Mickey didn’t have too much time to think about it before the man bun-sporting redhead burst back into the small lounge, carrying with him a swanky lookin’ tablet that he was just a-swipin’ at with his spindly, pale little fingers.
“So, Mr. Mouse --”
“How many times do I have to say it?” Mickey interrupted, pulling his legs up onto the sofa and crossing his arms, “Mr. Mouse was my Dad. Call me Mickey, or Mick.”
Kevin squinted. “Right,” he scowled, “anyway, uh… Mickey, just to update you on the conditions of the competition, you’ve come in seventh place in this year’s festivities.” He flashed the screen of the tablet at Mickey, showing him the line up of how the competition had shaken out. He’d admit he felt a little bit of morbid satisfaction when he noticed Frieza’s name behind his own, and remembered watching (or, er, hearing) the weird cowboy version of Deadpool stickin’ that dude in the neck with some sort of poison. Which, come to think of it, brought him to…
“Deadpool killed my pal?!” he nearly screamed, jumping to his feet.
“Please no feet on the sofa, it’s velvet --”
“How the heck did that happen?!” Mickey ranted, hopping up and down angrily on the couch. “Gilly was so… so… I mean, he used that nasty thing, right?!” He remembered briefly the strange dead conversation he’d had with Jakky the Elf Kid, where it’d been implied Gil had put on the Malefactor again. How could that scary-as-heck monster lose to Deadpool?
“Mickey,” Kevin spat as calmly as he could, “before you’re enveloped in righteous fury, there’s the matter of your prize to discuss. Now that you’re alive again, you’re free to claim it.”
Mickey glanced down at Kevin. He’d forgotten about the prizes.
“As our 7th place finisher,” the redhead continued, “you are entitled to winnings equal to about 7,000 coin, as well as one from the line of contestant plushies manufactured in your likeness.”
“Did I consent to that?” Mickey quirked his brow.
“It was on the forms you filled out while dressed as Rambo,” Kevin quipped.
“Ah,” Mickey nodded. Always read the fine print.
“Anyhow, Karl has taken the liberty of funneling your cash into something in your honor, since you were, uh, dead,” Kevin explained. “He figured it would make a nice vacation yacht, but I just spoke with him, and he’s willing to bequeath it to you in light of your recent, uh… untimely revival.”
The former intern turned the tablet’s screen back to Mickey, and the mouse’s eyes grew wide. There she was: the Steamboat Willie. “I don’t remember Kraw having much water, though, pal,” the little king looked up at Kevin, “so I’m not sure how much use I’ll get outta that.”
Kevin chuckled. “Oh, no, Mickey,” he shook his head, “this is for the biggest ocean there is: space.”
Mickey’s eyes widened. A spaceboat?!
HECK. YES.
“Oh, and there’s one more thing,” Kevin smiled, reaching into his purse and pulling out a small box. “He’d like you to have this, as well. From his personal treasure store. He thinks you may be in the best position to get some use out of it.”
Mickey swiped the little box from Kevin’s hand, but shoved it in his pocket instead of opening it. He didn’t feel like it was polite to unwrap a gift in the presence of someone who hadn’t gotten one, and besides… what if it was some crazy evil thing? He never really liked or trusted Karl Jak, and though he got the impression the mogul didn’t exactly have a negative opinion of him, he knew that he’d meddled in the purple-suited man’s heckin’ capitalist fantasy islands one too many times. He wouldn’t put it past the guy to try some shady stuff.
And on that note, he took a deep breath. Something about this moment, right here, made him feel like maybe -- just maybe -- his way-too-extended affair with Dante’s Abyss was finally over.
Actually dying could do that to a person, he supposed.
He reached up to his neck and felt around with his freshly-grown back, gloved hand. There was no collar to be found, and he let out another sigh of relief as he held his hand out to one side. Kevin’s brow furrowed a little bit in confusion as he wondered what, exactly, the mouse was up to --
And then the Keyblade appeared.
“Oh shit,” Kevin exhaled, frantically getting up from the chair he’d been sitting in, but Mickey Mouse was too fast, launching into a double backflip and landing exactly between the redhead and the door out of this little lounge.
“Language, pal,” he scolded. “Okay, so listen up. I’m not gonna, like, hurt ya or anything, but I do have a bit of a bone to pick before I sail off into the sunset, capiche?” He propped his Keyblade up on his shoulder as he took a few steps toward Kevin, who slowly lowered himself back into his seat. “Near the end of the tourney there I came in possession of a… familiar-lookin’ gun, and buddy, let me tell you, it would just be so goshdarn nice of you to let me know where the rest of that fella you got it from is, alright?”
Kevin shuddered a bit, but he wasn’t built for interrogation. “Nos’talgia.”
Mickey grinned. He hadn’t expected it to be quite that easy. But also -- what the heck was Nos’talgia?
“Come again, pal?”
“It’s a planet,” Kevin shrugged. “Talk to the teleporters and they can get you there quickly. I’ll have your, uh, spaceboat dropped off there for you.”
Mickey’s smile expanded across his whole face. Wow. A new boat, some weird little trinket, coming back to life… and he was about to finally, maybe, find his best friend? Well, jeez Louise, maybe this wasn’t turning out to be such a bad universe after all. And with that, Mickey Mouse giggled a little bit, burst through the door, and was off. As he disappeared toward the teleporters, his last cry to Kevin rang out through the hallways of the preshow facility.
“Pleasure doing business with ya, pal!”