“Bring me those contracts-
Pronto!
Don’t you mess with me!”
“Don’t mess with King Diiiice~!” she sang, tapping her feet to the tunes of the room. “Don’t mess with meeeee~!”
Throughout her playtime, Kathrine must have spent about five hours in this room alone in her twelve-hour run. To her, the song was delightful; the jazzy tunes, the Cab Calloway-esque voice, the bobbing of King Dice along to the song, she just couldn’t help but sing along. She couldn’t figure out why, but she had a weird love for King Dice; was it his cocky and arrogant nature? Was it his spiffy fashion sense, with his sharp suit and cute bow-tie? Was it his singing voice, singing the very song she was joining in? Was it related to her love of object heads in general? She didn’t quite care, but she knew that this was going to be the last time she would be in this room.
As she lacked the perfectionist nature of many others that played the game, she went through the levels and bosses any way she pleased, not caring much about getting a “perfect” score. She had gone through things rather quickly, though due to her not being very good at the game she had numerous deaths. Nonetheless, she had collected all of the soul contracts and was here to bring them to the devil’s right hand man. She lingered in the room for just a little while longer, to hear the song one last time before handing them all in. She walked Cuphead up to the sharp-dressed man to initiate the dialogue, and things went as normal, with King Dice leaning over and talking. She didn’t notice the dialogue much, still tapping and humming along to the music, before the dialogue stopped moving from her pressing the key to skip through. She took a quick glance at the actual dialogue, before her eyes became glued to the text box and King Dice’s different animation.
King Dice was standing up, tapping his foot, and wearing a curious expression while tapping on a stack of papers he was holding.
“Hm hm… Sorry, Cupsy, but you can’t pass just yet!”
“Eh… what-“ she growled. “-Why?!”
She went through the dialogue some more.
“You’re missin’ a few! But admittedly, it’s too dangerous for you to go there!”
“Go where?” she thought. She went further.
“Ah, well, that just means that I’ll have to round ‘em up myself!
“But don’t worry your hollow little head-“
He interrupted himself, grinning again and winking with a ding. What she noticed most of all was that as he winked, the music stopped dead in its tracks.
“-I’m more than capable. Feast your eyes!”
And with that, he jumped into the ground with a little spin, leaving the room silent. Kathrine huffed in confusion, hunching over in her small cammie and shorts and tapping the movement keys in an effort to amuse herself.
“So now what?” she grumbled. “I can’t go forward, and Dice is gone!”
She was left to hum “Die House” to herself while moving Cuphead around randomly in boredom. While she was messing around, she froze when she felt something warm and wet moving on her fingertips. She reeled back at the nasty feeling, reeling back far enough to fall right out of her chair onto her rear on the hard floor, knocking her head on something slightly as well. She blew short strands of stray red hair out of her face; thank god for the short cut.
She winced as she stood up, rubbing the part of her head that was hit with one hand and looking at the other one. She saw an unusual sight; on all five of her fingers, there was a thick, warm, and black liquid, and even stranger, it was moving: it was spreading. Her heart skipped a beat, before her pulse increased; she glanced over at her controller and saw that the same black fluid was leaking copiously from the buttons.
“How-“ she choked. “This is imp-“
She took the other hand from her head and looked at it, seeing the same black ink had spread across that hand as well.
“-possible.”
She felt a horrendous pain in her hands as the ink seemed to sink into her skin, before her hands became chalk white and pale. She hissed in pain as two of her fingers merged together on each hand and her wrists gained a “curl.” Black dots formed on the knuckle of each finger, leaving her hands as large white gloves. Her heart raced as she started panicking, sweating profusely, panting harshly and quickly and her hands stiffened in pain. The ink soon reached her clothes, her yellow cammie dyeing itself a dark, muted purple, becoming larger, the fabric smoothing out and gaining long sleeves that reached her wrists, white buttons forming at the end. Over the shirt formed a gelatinous black shell that soon converted itself into a white dress shirt, and smoothing into a dress shirt. The same morphs of ink formed over that piece as well, forming into a pale purple under shirt held together with two purple buttons. A muted, bluish-purple tailcoat soon fit itself over her torso, the front popped open with prominent shoulders; a smooth tuxedo.
Around her neck formed a large, dark purple bow tie, fitting around easily. Her underclothes and black shorts were converted as well, now having a pair of boxers and her shorts becoming a long, refined pair of dark purple suit pants. She gained a pair of white socks, and over that formed a pair of shiny, pale purple dress shoes. The ink was absorbed into her skin even more, wincing in pain as she grew taller, her breasts disappearing entirely, before she howled in pain, her - his knees bucking; good god, horrendous male pain! She lurched over, clutching her torso with both hands in pain, starting to cry. Suddenly, something interrupted his thoughts: a tune, Die House. It repeated endlessly in his head, and the very pain itself seemed to be commanding him to do one thing: sing.
Whether it was a coping mechanism or some otherworldly power, he cleared his throat and sang out loudly, his eyes flashing many different colors of green in a trance. The rest of the changes seemed to follow along:
“I’m Mr. King Dice-“
There was a strange voice, and it sounded so familiar...
Yes, yes, you are! I’m enjoying this quite well, sweetums, you’re just fiiiiine~
He kept on singing, not seeming to notice or think of anything else but the dear song.
“-I’m the gamest in the land.”
I sure am! Keep it up!
The ink started to dissolve his body, making the suit into a hollow, jointless shell.
“I never play nice-“
No I don’t!
Her voice changed, deepening into the very singing voice that had muted in the game’s room, before his neck disappeared to leave his head floating above a hollow suit.
“I’m the Devil’s right hand man!”
And well deserving of that stance!
The ink that was on his hand at the start started to congeal around his entire head, absorbing into it and making it pitch black. As the rest of the song played in his head, his head reshaped, becoming a sharp-edged cube. As the black faded, his head was a blank white, with purple dots on each side; the irises of his eyes went from a bright green to a pitch black, like his pupils. He had a circular purple nose, with thin black eyebrows and a thin black mustache. He had a wide, toothy grin on his face, giving more prominent cheeks and slightly squinted eyes, his cheeks flushed pink. He twirled around and sang out:
“Don’t mess with meeeeeeah!”
He laughed loudly, standing up and clapping his hands together. He looked around, tapping his foot while grinning wider, his eyes squinting connivingly.
“Just because you put such a flatterin’ image of me and my boss in such a public place doesn’t mean that we won’t give ya' a pass!”
King Dice sneered loudly.
“So, Moldenhauer brothers… prepare for a surprise, and make sure you’re ready to pay up!”
Maniacal laughter boomed through, before he leapt through the ground with an exaggerated spin and an evil grin.