This is an AU where Cuphead and Mugman still have each other, their souls, and their Elder Kettle. Things are okay on the surface and to the untrained, unbothered eye, but beneath the surface, bad things are brewing.

After what happened when the twins were twelve... After they stumbled upon the Devil's Casino, gambled, Cuphead growing greedier with each and every win and eventually making a deal with the devil himself and gambling their souls away, certain he'd win yet again, even as Mugman stood behind and begging him to just stop. Now the pair are stuck with invisible, but definitely there and real soul bound chains around their necks running from place to place collecting all the souls of past bidders that owe their lives to the devil at the ripe age of seventeen... Though they have been doing this since they were twelve.

Elder Kettle knows of what happened, of course, those are his boys, and he's their fatherly figure. He knows everything they do.

One day, after a brutal fight that almost ended innthe loss of both the cup brothers, he taught his boys immediately about an old, sacred ritual that would bring the soul back to the body with the hit of a loved one's hand. The Perry. Also, as long as one brother gets to the dead one in time, he can almost literally smack his soul back into his body... The only exception is that their head have to be in tacked. That's what's holds their souls, where they get their energy and power for specializedweapons; so if the head isn't in one piece, then the Perry won't work. Of course, they can glue the head back together and Perry the soul back, fixing the cracks and scars of the missing head.

Over the last four and a half years, the brothers have gotten better and better in their work, so good in fact that they've earned a title from the towns people of Inkwell Isle; The Collectors.

If The Collectors are coming for you, you better just start praying it's a bad day for them... Which has only happened once, but they made it up later. You're basically screwed if you're on the list.

Also, in this AU, the cups have two different types of weapons. The finger guns, of course, but also their straws. Whenever they pull out the seemingly innocent straw, it turns into any weapon they're imagining it to be. That could be from a pistol to a machine gun. Literally anything you can hold and fire. It's their favorite, so they barely use the finger guns unless they're running low on their own souls.

The straws are powered by their souls as well as the finger guns, ND they can use up everything in their heads and half of what's in their chests before they have to step back or use their fists instead. Their souls do regenerate and refill their heads again, of course. It just takes some rest.

~☆°

Cuphead is a cup that acts first and thinks later, yet he is very compassionate and bursts easily without thinking, he is definitely ab adrenaline junkie, he loves the high of a good kill and fight, and he is the biggest jokster ever.

He is very family strong as well. He is protective of the people he loves and literally will do anything to keep them well. Even if he is annoying sometimes with his loudness and egotistical aspects.

Cuphead is the older twin of the two, only by twenty minutes, but he will always hold that against Mugman.

Cuphead has a heavy Jersey/New York accent, an ever so slightly taller frame, and a chip in the rim of his porcelain head.

!!️This takes place in the early thirties!!️