Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He wasn’t ready to be alone again.

It felt… odd to admit that to himself, but he knew it was the truth. The three of them had been through thick and thin together, and they felt like… something he’d never had before. 

Calling them ‘friends’ seemed like an understatement, but he didn’t know what else he could call them. 

Magolor cleared his throat and faced them head on. The decision he’d made was a hasty one, and possibly a regrettable one, but also a necessary one. “I have a suggestion! Purely hypothetical, until it’s not, but…” Beneath his scarf, he could feel his cheeks warming as he blurted, “What if you two came to live with me?” 

In the midst of the celebrations, Susie and Taranza could barely make out what he yelled. The two locked eyes. Susie spoke first, trying her best to be louder than the cheering that surrounded them. “Why, exactly?”

Magolor enthusiastically answered, “I’m glad you asked! You see, I’ve come to enjoy your company, and I have the slightest feeling that neither of you have anything planned at the moment. We’ve worked in a team, so living together can’t be that different!”

Taranza smiled and his fangs poked out. “That’s an odd thought, hm? A welcome one, though!” His face shifted and he shrugged his shoulders. “Of course, I do have… regal matters to attend to regularly. You two don’t mind, do you?”

He stuck up his thumb. Everyone seemed to know about his odd situation by now - he couldn’t get angry at him over it. “It’s fine! Susie, any objections?”

She flicked her hair and looked off to Bandana Dee, who was bawling his eyes out, clearly overjoyed at their victory. “I have to, don’t I? You two would start trouble without me, and that wouldn’t be fair.”

Magolor was glowing under his cloak. “Then it’s decided! The three of us are roomies now! Um, hypothetically. Until we get on the Lor. Then we’ll really be roomies!” He was quite glad to finally be able to use the word - Bandana Dee had taught him what it meant a while back, and he’d been hoping to use it. 

“Don’t go around calling me your ‘roomie.’ That sounds awful.” Susie glared at him and shoved out of his hold. Her hands fell to her hips as she turned away.

“I make no promises, my dear friend.” Magolor waved her off. She scowled. “Anyways, how about having some fun? We just defeated a universe-destroying god! We’re heroes!” he cheered, throwing his hands into the air.

“What did Kirby call everyone? ‘Star Allies,’ right?” Taranza was going to say something else, but turned around to catch Kirby, who’d tried to sneak up on him. He smiled and lifted him into his many hands. “I think it’s been fun. Maybe everyone can come together on better terms next time- Hey!”

Dedede swiftly hauled Taranza into his arms, ignored his giggly half-hearted protests, and announced, “C’mon, kid! Everyone’s headed back home t’ get a real party started!” He slipped the flailing spider under his arm while Kirby climbed onto his back. “Hey, you two! Mags and Robogirl! Let’s go!” 

Susie frowned. “I thought I asked him not to call me that.” 

Magolor patted her back. “Oh, he knows. Robogirl is cooler, though.” She punched him, and he groaned. “Ow.”

“Cry about it,” she said, sticking out her tongue. “Idiot.” She quickly made her exit, setting off for the Warp Stars in the distance. 

“Hey!”

She spun round, heels rippling in the shallow star pools. She frowned. “What? ”

He raised a gloved hand to flip her off. “Forgot this!” 

Her frown soured further, but before he could try and comprehend what she was planning, she primed her gun and darted at him. He had to laugh as he ran through a rift to escape her fury, scrambling to get to a star before she could. 

Dodging stray blaster shots, he grinned. He loved riling up Susie. 

The celebration party couldn’t have been better. Everyone had gathered in Castle Dedede and, upon opening those familiar doors, had been met by his armada of Waddle Dees, all cheering for their return. 

Nobody had expected this - after all, Kirby had said that they didn’t know how long they’d be away. The Waddle Dees were undeniably hard workers, but to redecorate the entirety of Castle Dedede just in time for everyone’s grand return was an impressive feat. Interestingly, the hole Dedede had smashed in the floor seemed to have never existed. 

The Star Allies had filed inside and, just like that, Void Termina was nothing but a distant dream. They would never forget what had happened - the threat had irreversibly changed things for everyone - but they would move on, and live, and laugh, and love.

Taranza yawned, wiping his face down with a towel. It stained with his makeup. He didn’t know whether Magolor had or hadn’t seen him playing that particularly awkward game of Truth or Dare. He hoped he had, because then it would explain him epically failing a backflip. It would also explain Dedede chugging hot sauce.

He liked the room he’d picked out. There were blue accents scattered about - he wondered if it was Magolor’s handiwork - and standard furniture decorated the space. 

He flopped down onto the bedsheets. The mattress sank beneath him, just slightly, so that it curved to his figure. He liked the material. The colour was pleasant, too - a seafoam blue, similar to the exterior of the Starcutter. 

It was cozy. It was warm, just as he liked it. But even then, as he curled up on his blankets, he knew it wasn’t enough to sway him to sleep. 

He could read a book- but he hadn’t brought any with him. The three of them had all gone to the Lor without the thought of personal detours. He’d drop by Floralia later on. 

How had they been? When he left, preparations were underway for celebrating the Dreamstalk. He’d been gone for a while - he hoped he hadn’t missed the celebration. Despite the memories it held for him, it was one of the few parties he enjoyed. 

Maybe he could bring back a souvenir from Dreamland. The People of the Sky had never visited the country, after all, and an ornament might pique their interest. He wondered if he’d learned enough about the Lower World to teach them all about it. 

A knocking came from the door. 

He sat up. He had his suspicions of who it could be. He quite liked talking to her, but it was the middle of the night, and he wasn’t sure if he had enough energy to argue about who had really defeated Partizanne. Clearly, he had. 

Yet, his manners got the better of him. It would be rude to leave someone at the door, and even ruder to leave a friend at the door. After smoothing out his hair as best as he could, and a quick touch up of foundation and concealer, he gently pulled at the door handle to meet Susie in what he presumed was nightwear. 

“Good evening, Taranza,” she greeted, holding her little screen tablet to her chest. Her visor was missing, and had been replaced by a fluffy headband. Her hair clip, however, was ever present. She’d packed her hair into a ponytail, too. A little Haltworker stood behind her. “Mind if I come in?”

Instinctively, he bowed as he cleared the way, only realising when Susie asked if he always did that. She took a seat on his bed, and her companion clamebered up to settle by her. It didn’t take long for her to pat her lap, and for the robot to settle there instead. 

“Um, may I ask-”

“Why I’m here?” she interrupted. He’d grown used to it. “Simply put… I’m having trouble sleeping.”

“Ah,” he said, smiling, “so you’ve come over to keep me awake, too? Cruel, Susie.”

“Well, if I can’t sleep, I don’t see why anyone else should.” Her eyes fell to the Haltworker that she’d entered with, then she looked back up at him. “How long do you reckon it’ll take for Magolor to join us?”

Taranza hummed. “About twenty minutes. Considering how he works, he isn’t even trying to sleep right now.” 

“Ah, I don’t see what’s wrong with it.” She flapped a hand at him. “If he’s not lazing around, then staying up late is fair, no?”

“I get your point, but perhaps it’d be better if it weren’t coming from you. Oh, don’t look at me like that - your sleep schedule is the worst out of everyone’s!”

“I have work to do! It’s fine. Besides, what about you? I may not sleep every day, sure, but you fall asleep as soon as it gets the slightest bit chilly!” Susie exclaimed, jabbing a finger at him as he finally sat beside her. 

“First of all: it was not ‘chilly,’ that was a tundra. Secondly: I was cold! I couldn’t help it!” He hoped that the Frost General wouldn’t talk about it if they ever saw each other again. Magolor would probably bring it up anyways. He’d have to do something about that.  

“Oh, whatever . Bring a better coat next time.” She ran a hand over her Haltworker. “You don’t mind him, do you?” 

“Of course not! He’s quite cute looking, isn’t he?” At that, the sleek screen changed, and the robot imitated a little blush. Adorable.

Unsurprisingly, Susie agreed. “He’s my favourite Haltworker: HAL086. You wouldn’t have known this, but he’s been around for a while - it’s simply that I couldn’t really… do anything with him, given the previous circumstances. After all, without Robobot Armour, Haltworkers aren’t exactly the fighting type.”

Taranza wouldn’t ask what Robobot Armour was. As much as he enjoyed their conversations, he really didn’t want to hear Haltmann Works Company promotions right now. 

She frowned. “This is when you ask what Robobot Armour is.”

“No, thank you.”

“You’ll ask eventually - I know it. That aside, you can consider HAL0 to be your new rival in the cleaning business-”

“Watch it-” 

“-and a helper around here, so to say. For instance, if you need someone to water your plants, just tell him how he should do it and when. As is everything I make, he’s quite smart. He’ll get it done.”

He cocked his head. Had he heard her right? “Wait. You made him? By hand?” He knew Susie was good with machinery, but he hadn’t thought that she’d built any on her own. “I admit, that’s quite impressive!”

“I know, I know,” she sighed, trying to be humble. “Heehee, I can’t help myself! I am impressive, aren’t I? Rebuilding a company from the ground, aiding in the relief of an interdimensional threat from the universe!”

“Yes, yes, everyone knows! I bet you tell little HAL0 that you’re the greatest businesswoman in Gamble Galaxy every day.” 

She looked away. “Not every day,” she mumbled with a huff.

“Of course,” he chuckled, and let himself fall into his mattress. He sighed. “Susie?”

“Taranza.”

“Do you think it was a good idea? Living with Magolor, I mean.” He rolled onto his stomach and inspected the orange arcs across his woven gloves. “I understand that he invited us here, and we accepted, but that was in the excitement of the moment. Maybe, by next week, he’ll kick us out.” He paused. “No, he isn’t the sort to kick someone out… Ah, apologies. My question, if you may…”

HAL0 had entered sleep mode, it seemed, by the time Susie responded. “Acknowledge that, for most of my life, I have missed the companionship of a close friend. Going by what others say about you… this is likely something we share.” She held HAL0 closer, tighter, and let her chin fall to his head. “If I am correct… then that sort of friendship is not the sort to pass up on. He considers us close enough to live with. You don’t get that all the time. Besides, we’re already here. We may as well see how it goes.”

“…I suppose you’re right. After all, he has been quite reliable through our adventures…” He broke off, yawned, and apologised promptly. 

Susie stared at him. “Why do you yawn like that?”

“Like what?”

She made a vague gesture with her hands, weakly imitating him. “You seem to show off your teeth a bit. I thought you knew.”

He didn’t know he yawned like that. “Oh- It’s not making you uncomfortable, is it?”

“No, no. It’s not an issue, I’m… simply a bit curious.” 

Taranza looked at her for a moment longer, and then away. She was quite polite, and he very much appreciated that, but he’d also noticed that she never hesitated to speak her thoughts. It was the sort of confidence that he envied, and yet it was the part of her he liked the least. 

What would he do with that sort of confidence? Maybe he’d make more friends. He wasn’t sure what confident people did with that quality - all of the ones he knew used it… somewhat vainly. 

“I think I’ll have a snack,” he mumbled, reaching for the door handle. “Do you want anything?”

“Ooh, coffee would be nice-”

“-anything that’s not coffee.” 

She frowned. “You’re horrible. You can’t just deny me coffee!”

“Well, assuming you aren’t interested-”

“Then ice cream. At least grant me the liberty of that.” She thought for a second, then added, “Strawberry flavour, and if that’s not here, then blueberry.” 

“..Fair enough. I’ll be back in a moment.” The door slid shut behind him. He looked around. Where was the kitchen supposed to be? Magolor hadn’t exactly elaborated on it’s structure or how to avoid getting lost before he left through a rift. 

In that case, it was time for some good old-fashioned exploring. 

He’d done it before - that was how he’d come across that mirror - and he’d learned a few things. Mark landmarks to keep track of where you are, avoid travelling through dense forests, do not engage in fights unless absolutely necessary, such and such. 

Sadly, none of that applied to looking for the kitchen in your friend’s spaceship. 

He sighed, turning down the hall again. If only Magolor had explained it, he’d be back in his room by now! 

Maybe Susie had an idea of where it was. He turned back and blanched. Which side was his room on? The walls were white - solely white - and the only thing that told him that he wasn’t in some ethereal void were the visible screws and lines of silver. Not a single decoration. How did Magolor live like this?

He groaned. This would take longer than he’d hoped. 

“Are you telling me that you haven’t seen him since last night and you didn’t look for him?” Magolor couldn’t believe it. Well, he could - after all, the Lor was an odd space. It’s interior defied physics in a manner only the Ancients could achieve. Thoroughly impressive, in his opinion, but it posed a great issue to visitors. He didn’t even know how Susie had found Taranza’s room, or made it back to her own without help. 

Susie stretched, loosing her hair from it’s quaint ponytail. “I assumed he had everything under control.” She moved to adjust her visor before folding her arms. “Besides, I figured that you would drop by at some point during the night, what with that dissheveled sleep schedule of yours.”

“You’ve got a pillow mark on your cheek, by the way.”

She covered it and flushed. “So I do. But, according to you, that’s besides the point. He told me he was going to get something to eat, so he may be in the kitchen.”

He sighed, stretching a palm over his face. He doubted that he’d actually be in the kitchen, but it was always worth a shot. Taking Susie’s hand, he shut his eyes and let the world around him distort. It curled, and the air thinned, and that familiar warble of a rift opening grew ever present.

It all stopped at once, and when he opened his eyes again, they were in the kitchen. 

“You have got to stop doing that without warning!” Susie jammed a finger into his side, and he recoiled. “Every time,” she muttered.

He chuckled, and after a quick scan of the room, he was sure he didn’t make it here. He’d check the hallways next, and if he still couldn’t find him, he’d ask the Lor to see where he was. He pivoted round to continue his search. He couldn’t have gotten that far- “Gah- Taranza!”

There he was, dozing on the ceiling in one of his webs. It was definitely funny, not seeing him in his prim–and-proper prime, but being startled by his amber glowy eyes was not. Especially so early in the morning. 

“Muh,” he mumbled. Something else incoherent came after, and he shakily descended to ground level. “..Good morning,”

Susie, who’d been swift to make herself a cup of coffee, waved at him with a cheek in her palm. “Did you have a good night’s sleep?”

He flushed, dragging a hand over his face as soon as she started laughing. “Whatever. He doesn’t have ice cream, if you must know.” That shut her up. 

Magolor shook his head. He had no clue why that was important now, but he really didn’t know what she was expecting. “Susie, it’s spring, of course I don’t have ice cream.” 

She glowered. “Spring is close enough to summer to be ice cream weather.”

“No, it’s close enough to summer to be ice tea weather. Have an ice cube or something.” Magolor pulled some waffles out from the pantry. He hadn’t had these in a while. He took a ripe red gem apple, too. Taranza seemed to like fruits - he figured he might like interdimensional ones as well. “Catch!”

Rather than catching and keeping it, he caught it, fumbled with it and dropped it. His face fell at the sad crack that had formed in it’s body. He washed it anyways, took a knife and started to slice as best as he could. 

“So,” Magolor began, “I believe it’s worth the effort for me to establish a few things.” He slipped his waffles into the toaster and settled by the counter. 

“Regarding?” Susie asked. 

“The two of you living with me, of course! As much as I’d love for you two to simply be free spirits in my humble abode… I think it’d be fair to set out some rules, first.” His nonchalant gaze turned to Taranza, who’d started cutting shapes in his apple slices. “Hey, what’re you doing?”

“Ah, I think they’re cuter like this,” he said, holding up what looked to be an apple rabbit. Then, quietly, he murmured, “It makes me feel bad when I eat them, though…”

Susie clapped twice, and having drawn their eyes to her, she sang, “Back to the point, boys! Ground rules.” 

“Yes, yes! I’ve already thought about a few. So, first of all…” He cleared his throat and announced, in a loud, exaggerated voice, “Susie, under no circumstances are you allowed to take apart Lor.”

She groaned. “But it’s Ancient tech. From Halcandra, Magolor!”

“Too bad! Find another starship to tear apart. I , of course, am fully allowed to take it apart for you in the case of maintenance, but if I catch you doing anything of the sort, I will remind you of what Another Dimension is like.” He would ignore whatever she mumbled this time. “Secondly, I’d appreciate it if-”

The apple rabbit crunched loudly in Taranza’s mouth. He cringed. “Sorry. Please continue.”

“..I’d appreciate it if nobody fought in the Starcutter. I have nothing against sparring on the upper deck, but right now, the only training rooms available are specially designed for Kirby.”

The spider cocked his head. “Why?”

“Because he’s my Very Good Friend. Moving on, my third request is that, if Lor ever offers to tell you a joke… you decline. Say no, leave the room, tell her a joke of your own, I don’t care. But please, never ever let her tell a joke. They are outdated and awful.”

A hidden screen on the kitchen island lit up. Susie gasped, eyes sparkling at the the new discovery. 

Your words wound me, Captain [MAGOLOR].   

“Sorry, but your jokes are dad jokes. Nobody likes a dad joke. And the last rule for the moment… in the case that we ever cross dimensions, or travel in general, I’m driving.” He watched Susie raise a cuffed hand. “Yes, Susie?”

“Even if you’re injured?”

“Don’t think about trying it.” Magolor glared at her, then slapped a hand down on Taranza’s horn. “I’d trust Taranza with Lor before I trust you. Even if he’s never driven anything before, he won’t turn it into a Haltmann-mobile or something. And he cleans!” He clapped his hands together, celebrating his observation. “A house sitter and a maid! Amazing!”

The mage in question grumbled. He shook his horn from Magolor’s grip and grabbed his protruding ear in turn. “Cleaning is not my only quality. I’m good at other things…”

“Like gardening?” Magolor chimed in, pulling him off.

Taranza shoved a hand in his face. “Like magic! …But also gardening, yes.”

“We know. It’s just funny to focus on the cleaning.” Susie eyed her mug and slipped it into the centre of the island. As Magolor started talking again, she trudged over to their side, and after taking a look at the toaster, pulled out a waffle. 

“-I reserve the right to add new rules at any given time- Hey, that’s mine!” Magolor exclaimed, reaching to take back his food. He stopped when he had a blaster to his face. “Or, uh, it’s yours. You can have it.”

She giggled. “Thank you for your generosity. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.” She reached the doorway swiftly. Her posture faltered momentarily, and in seconds, she was stood in front of Magolor again. “Magolor.”

“Susie.”

“You know that neither of us can navigate your ship at the moment, correct?”

He shrugged and looked away. “Maybe.”

“Magolor.”

“I just might consider a tour if you ask nicely!” 

Taranza gave him a look that he wasn’t quite familiar with yet, but he could see the amusement on it. “You just love seeing people beg, don’t you?”

“You said it first,” he sang. “Now, Susie, you have to include the magic words!”

A groan escaped her. “What, ‘please?’”

“ …Yes, but you’ve also got to say that I’m the best mage ever.” Truthfully, that part was a joke up until Susie pierced him with one of her ‘that’s humiliating’ scowls. 

Momentarily, he could see her debate it: wouldn’t it be better to temporarily sacrifice her dignity for freedom rather than to stay stuck in the kitchen? 

She sighed. She huffed. She draped a gloved hand over her face and pinched, before finally, with disgust dripping from her voice, she asked, “My… dearest friend, Magolor… seeing as you are such a great mage, would you be so kind as to show me around your ship?”

“Erm, I’m the best mage ever. ” He leaned against the countertop, holding a plain face as best as he could. “You’ve gotta say it.”

He swore he could hear something crack. “You’re the best mage ever.” She looked physically sick. 

Across from her, Taranza laughed a light laugh. “And what about me?”

“Collateral. Now,” she hissed, levelling her blaster with Magolor’s glowing eyes, “It would be appreciated if you would tour me around.”

He beamed at her, and she pressed the muzzle against him. “Gladly! Oh, and Taranza, it’d be great if you came too. I can’t have Susie killing me when we’re done.”

“I wouldn’t kill you.” Beneath his gaze, she cheerily added, “I’d simply give you a fancy scar.”

“It’s, ah, a bit too early for you two to be making passive-aggressive threats.” Taranza scratched his head. “One of you, at least.”

“See? You can threaten my life later, when you have a better reason. For now, I need to show you two around, right?” They nodded, and he dismissed Susie’s attempts to make a scathing remark, because those usually hurt. “Well, then, my friends, let’s go! Our first stop is the laundry room…”

To Susie’s surprise, the structure of the ship was as abstract as she expected. It was clear, as she took a seat on the upper deck, that it somehow took the space it was granted and warped it to gain more. If she was right, this was often documented as ‘dimensional transcendence’ in the Ancient records… or maybe she was getting it mixed up with some sort of fictional term. 

It truly was amazing - seeing Ancient technology free from the influence of Dark Matter always was - but it’s pristine condition was even better. From the oars to the mast to the hull, there wasn’t the slightest indicator of aging or damage. Either the ship was extremely resilient, or Magolor really was passionate enough about it to fix it up at any opportunity.

Susie sighed. She’d been lying when she’d said that she had things to do. She didn’t, really - the demechanisation and supporting of planets that had been victims of her - his - company was moving along steadily. Across Gamble Galaxy, no disturbances had been observed - not even a lick of stray Dark Matter. It was peaceful.

Which meant she had nothing to do. She wished that she hadn’t left so soon, but she had hoped to find something more interesting to do than chat all morning and threaten Magolor. As amusing as it was, she wanted to do something productive. Something fun, maybe. She wanted a distraction. 

A piece of her wanted to make the distraction herself - to make trouble. A small part of her wanted something to go wrong.

She’d started calling that part ‘evil Susie.’ As much as she enjoyed the peace, and as much as she loved to be able to grab her triple shot espresso every day, she also found a passion for the excitement of being at the centre of a crisis. The exhilaration was addictive - the thrill of tearing through her foes always stuck with her. After all, she didn’t get to use her Business Suit every day.

‘Evil Susie’ was not listened to very often, though. If she was right, she’d only listened to that part of her once, and that was when she pushed Marx off a cliff. (He had deserved it: insulting Haltmann Works Company always warranted a heavy punishment.) So, if anything, ‘evil Susie’ was nothing more than a mild disturbance. 

She was starting to doubt that, though. 

Susie had honour; Susie had virtues! She would never intentionally sabotage anything. Except if it belonged to her, and it was a machine of sorts. In that case, it wasn’t necessarily sabotage, but making a jigsaw puzzle out of massive mechanical structures. That was fun, too.

HAL0 wouldn’t mind being taken apart, would he? He wouldn’t. He wasn’t fully sentient, after all, and she would never allow him to be. She’d had enough of sentient computers.

She lifted her little Haltworker onto the planks before her. He looked at her with amber pixels, acceptant of his fate, before she flipped open the rear panel and shut him down. He sank like a puppet. 

At most, the typical Haltworker model accommodated to a simple dashed screwdriver - although she didn’t have one with her, the button to her cuff would work just fine. 

Her fingers worked quickly, even with the disadvantage of missing equipment, twisting and shifting tiny screws until her bot had been hollowed out. She inspected each fragment of his polished form, each chip, each wire, for any signs of damage. It was minimal. Likely from forgetting to maintain him for a while. The wires she’d used were quite old, too. Changing them was no priority, but it would appear on her to-do list anyways. 

There was a folded square within his head.

Paper. It rustled as she extracted it, and the tears along its sides were obvious clues to its origin. She unfurled it. 

It was her handwriting. It was nothing similar to the near typewritten style which she’d adopted now, but she recognised it. She remembered writing it, thinking that when she found it in the years to come, she’d be so excited by how far she came. She remembered thinking that she would look back and laugh about how little she was, and the atomic scale on which she dreamed.

She used to dream of making her father proud. 

She did, very often. She would come in, so young, and elaborately explain why an investment in the development of a thriving, third-world planet would be much better than an investment in a planet at it’s peak. She would sing for him, fervently belting out each word of ‘The Noble Haltmann.’ Sometimes it was as simple as correctly listing out every planet in Gamble Galaxy. 

But it was enough . 

She wondered what happened to being enough.

She wished she knew what inspired her father to desire more. Perhaps, then, she could blame something other than herself for the situation she’d gotten herself into. 

Sometimes she wondered if she had ever been enough. If it could really ever be her fault, because she had never been a good enough daughter for him to remember her. To recognise her. She had never made him proud enough. 

She recalled her father telling her to write down what she wants to be in the future. He had called her over, and she’d stood in front of his desk, wide-eyed and curious. He told her that, if she hid it somewhere and found it in the late future, it would have come true by that time. 

Susie Haltmann: president. 

He’d been right, in the end. She owned Haltmann Works Company. She told people what and what not to do, how she wanted things done, how she liked her coffee. She’d reached that dream of hers. 

Susie wondered if he would’ve been proud of her. 

Knowing him, he would’ve commended her efforts and hard work. He would’ve congratulated her for following in his footsteps and being ambitious. 

She was so tired, though. Every day, all of the time. She was always reaching out to a faint star she would never meet, falling asleep on top of unsorted documents, rehearsing that constant routine she’d never grown out of to the metronome of a dead dream. 

He would have been proud of her as her superior. But as her father…

Susie pulled out a pen and scratched out the title she’d given herself in the past. She cared little for it now. She would indefinitely value it - it was all that was left of noble President Haltmann - but she wanted something else. Something genuine. 

Beneath it, she wrote down that single word. She’d come close to it so often. Her fingers had skimmed it and missed. She had forgotten the warmth that came with it.

Susie Haltmann: president happy.

She’d get there eventually. 

It crackled as she folded it and tucked it away where she found it. Reconstructing HAL0 took her little time. She fixed back her button before turning him on again. HAL0 hummed to life and met her with the same gaze he always had. 

“Good morning,” she whispered. He beeped, and she gave him a gentle pat. She would let him hold that wish until it was granted, and she would never let some clockwork star grant it for her. She would reach it herself.

With the help of her friends.  

“Susie! Suuusie!” Someone she knew called for her from below. She knew them well, and she didn’t feel like ignoring them was particularly fair.  

She leaned over the edge to wave at Kirby. The breeze brushed across her face as she descended in a perfect drop, dusting herself off before making her way over. HAL0 trailed after her. “Pinky. What’s up?”

A Waddle Dee in a blue bandana caught her eye, and she turned to watch them jog down the hill. “Kirby! You’ve gotta stop running off like that, ya! You know I can’t-” Bandana Dee stumbled to a halt when he met her eyes. He shook himself to attention. She was glad he wasn’t so scared of her anymore. “Uh- Hey, Susie.”

She greeted him briefly before turning her attention back to her pink friend. Kirby smiled, dancing on his toes as he pulled out a skipping rope. He offered her an end. “Wanna skip with us?”

Susie saw no harm in entertaining him. “I wouldn’t mind that.” 

“Um,” Bandee piped up, fidgeting and twisting nervously. He moved to speak, but said nothing. “Nevermind,”

She had the slightest feeling that he wasn’t too comfortable with her yet, though. She wouldn’t hold it against him, or bring it up. Taking the rope from Kirby’s pudgy nub, she brushed her hair aside and moved into position. 

Bandee was swift to take his end and stand opposite her. “Ready, Kirby?” 

Kirby struck the air, beaming behind the rope. “Poyo!” In a steady rhythm, he hopped from toe to toe to keep up with Susie and Bandee. 

At some point, he had begun to sing, and Bandee had joined in. She did not know the lyrics, nor had she ever heard them sing this before. But the tune was simple and catchy enough for her to hum along. 

Soon enough, Kirby had tripped up and fallen onto his face. He laughed it off, like everyone else, before looking from side to side and deciding on a target. “Bandee! Your turn, poyo!” 

“T-To skip?” He was torn between being thankful for the offer and downright opposed to it. “Er… maybe after Susie? Chasing after you is… exhausting, ya.”

She didn’t mind having a go. Susie swung her end of the rope about, and pressed it into Kirby’s hands. He smiled at her, rosy cheeks stretching with his mouth.  

“Well then, it’s my turn!” Her visor wings shuttered down to her chin and the screen activated. She stretched, shook herself off and took her place in the centre. “Ready, you two!”

The rope took off, beating the ground and swooping through the air at a near-perfect pace. As she settled into the rhythm of the skipping rope’s motion, she realised how long it had been since she’d done something like this. Too long, definitely, since she’d allowed herself to really relax. 

Magolor had said something yesterday. Something about them being heroes, along the lines of defeating a god. They had. They had accomplished something near impossible, side by side - they had crushed the heart of Zero and given way to new beginnings. A new horizon. 

Maybe she should relax for a while. If she wanted to distract herself, it didn’t exactly have to concern work, now, did it? She could get a hobby. She could hang around with Kirby and his friends, or spend the day with her friends. She could just… enjoy things.

She could feel a smile tugging at her cheeks. She didn’t want it. It was unprofessional and childish to find joy in something so simple, but she liked it. She wondered if she could join in with Kirby’s singing-

-she slammed into the grass.

Susie groaned on the floor. Her head rose from the dirt, and she wiped down her visor. It clicked back into standby mode. There was a gross streak of muck across her blouse now.  

“Susie!” Someone scrambled towards her. “Are you okay, ya ? You haven’t broken anything?” Bandee whimpered, helping Susie up. 

“I’m… fine, Bandana Dee. Nothing but a scratch.” She rested a hand on his head. She appreciated the worry, especially from someone who’d taken so long to warm up to her, but it was highly unnecessary. She’d only tripped. She’d be fine-

Magolor gawked from the Starcutter’s entrance. He pointed a finger at her. “I saw that.” 

She blanched. He had seen that.

Suddenly, he doubled over and laughed, wiping tears from his eyes. It couldn’t have been that funny. But he looked at Susie again, and he froze. “No. No- Do not even think about it!”

Susie straightened out. She armed her blaster and set it to ‘zap.’ “Kirby, Bandana Dee. How do you two feel about terrorising Magolor for a while?” 

Kirby and Bandee looked at each other, then at Magolor, signing desperately for them to deny her. They grinned. 

“Guys! Come on! We’re friends, right? Right?!” His pleas fell on deaf ears. 

“I advise you start running!” Susie lunged for him. He screeched and bolted, too familiar with fending off Bandee and Kirby to play down the threat of their involvement. 

She’d seen Kirby break off from the gang mid-chase in the corner of her eye. When she looked over, he was running back over with Taranza in tow. He shot her a thumbs up, and she returned a nod. 

She didn’t know what it was, but… she was having fun. Shooting Magolor in the butt and letting Taranza push him into a lake might have been over the top, but she loved it. And laying in the grass afterwards, making jabs at him as he dried himself off was just as funny. 

She extended a hand to the sun. She wasn’t entirely sure if choosing to live with her teammates was a good idea at first. She’d lived on her own for so long that living with people was a challenge to her. But, for once, she’d trust her own judgement. She’d make a choice and stick to it. 

After all, how bad could having roommates be?

Chapter Text

He was starting to wonder if leaving now was a good idea. 

Yes, he’d visited Floralia few times already. That had been more work-related than anything, though, with no leisure at his disposal. Today he could sit and smile at the sun without having to return to piles of overdue paperwork. He was quite excited, really, to spend his time back home.  

But leaving the Starcutter would mean leaving Susie and Magolor unsupervised. 

They weren’t children , but they weren’t exactly mature around each other. None of them were. However, it seemed that the two of them abandoned all intelligence when in the same room for any longer than ten seconds. 

He didn’t have to care about it too much - this was Magolor’s ship, so whatever they got up to was supposed to be his problem. But considering the fight they’d gotten into the day before, and the fire they’d started in the kitchen, that was becoming debatable. 

He ran a hand over the fabric of his scarf. He wove it around his neck with care, and his free hands tucked in his shirt and straightened out his tailcoat. The mirror smiled at him, and he smiled back. He threw his cape over his shoulders with pomp and fastened each aiguillette into place, tucking and tugging where necessary. The thin gold braids bore a silky gold sheen. 

He would go. That was absolute. He also had to trust that those two wouldn’t kill each other in his absence. 

Taranza stepped into the corridor, absently smoothing his hair down. His heels clicked and fell silent as he came face to face with Magolor at the main deck. 

“Morning. Oh, you’re going somewhere?” He swivelled on his chair at the captain’s console to face him, making slow rotations. “Floralia, right?”

“Good morning, Magolor! And yes, I am. Nothing but a leisurely visit. Ah, but I might stay over for a few nights, so don’t expect me for tonight.” Unless he did something stupid. He was starting to develop a sixth sense for that. 

His ears wilted. “But you didn’t leave anything in the fridge,” he whined. 

“It’s at the back,” he replied. “Oh, and you don’t mind watering my plants, do you?”

“Nah, no problem.” He shot him a concealed smile and kicked his legs up, only to have them shoved off by his offended ship. She typed something out in a language that Taranza didn’t recognise: Magolor slumped onto the console, gently patting the controls as if Lor would feel it. Taranza wondered if it could. 

It was then that Susie stumbled in, one hand clasped around a steaming mug and her tablet tucked under the same arm. She rubbed at her eyes with her free hand, yawned, and drifted towards the sofa. Taranza cleared his throat. She looked over. “You’re going out,” she ventured. She looked over to Magolor, who eagerly smiled and waved. She frowned. “Please don’t leave me with him. He’s dumb and annoying.” 

“Boo.” The mage’s eyes narrowed at her. “And, by the way, only one of those things are true.” 

She stretched a hand across her face and sighed. “Whatever.” The rim of the cup met her lips for far too long. Susie placed it down by her side, rolled onto her stomach and closed her eyes. “Just don’t bother me.” 

Taranza stared at her groggy form before moving on. “So… you two’ll be fine on your own, yes?”  

“Uhuh,” Susie mumbled from her cozy corner. A few more muffled murmurs escaped her before she fell silent, save for the sounds of her tablet. Magolor gave him a look. He shrugged. 

He shifted on his feet and finally turned to leave, absently pulling at his gloves. He could hear Magolor’s chair squeak as keys clicked. Taranza waved goodbye without looking back, and took off into the warmth of the morning.

They’d be fine.  

Magolor stared at Susie. She’d been awake for a while, now. Long enough for Magolor to watch her drink two espressos in under an hour, and long enough for her to watch him have a sneezing fit. She had been kind enough to get him tissues. Sadly, she hadn’t been kind enough to actually hand it to him. 

She spotted him. A frown settled on her face. “What?”

He shook his head, turned away from her and got back to work. If he was right, there was some sort of damage to Lor’s right wing. Fixing it wasn’t the problem, but rather determining the origin. Star-shaped objects weren’t exactly common in Dreamland, so the dent in the Starcutter’s side the size of him made nearly no sense. 

This wasn’t the first time he’d found such a weird shaped hole, but it was the first time it’d appeared on his ship. They’d always appeared in walls rather than the ground, so whatever it was likely moved horizontally. However, the level of the hole seemed to vary. Maybe it moved horizontally and vertically. Not exactly helpful to his investigation. 

He ran through the images he’d compiled of each incident. He’d found the first in the side of Dedede’s castle. It had ripped through the bricks and the banner inside, leaving a clean-cut hole. There was another in the face of Meta Knight’s halberd, and another in a cliffside. 

The incidents could’ve been accidental. But each and every time, there were minor burn marks indicating that the culprit was moving at a high velocity. That seemed to be intentional. The lack of rubble outdoors implied each time the object collided with a surface, it was from outside . 

A high-velocity, star-shaped object that only moved outdoors both horizontally and vertically. 

“Lor, do you know anything about high-velocity, star-shaped objects that move horizontally and vertically and only travel outdoors?” His palm met his cheek as a loading icon appeared. Text began to scroll across the screen in a separate tab. 

That would be a Warp Star, Captain [MAGOLOR].

WARP STAR: a star-shaped vessel that travels at high speeds. Often steered by Companion [KIRBY], but can be driven by multiple organisms. 

Would you like me to elaborate?

He groaned into his hands. Of course. “No, thanks. Um… your right wing. Remind me of the extent of the damage, please.”

Right Wing: external damage at 17%. Internal damage at 4%. 

Damage to: RW calibration system, RW stabilisation system, RW axis.

Recommendation: attend to damage before long-term space travel. 

It had to have been Kirby. Nobody else surfed on Warp Stars so often. But if he used it so often, why’d he start having accidents? And how had he dealt more damage to the interior than the exterior?

He reached for his toolkit. Lor was right. He’d be better off dealing with the damage now rather than later. Besides, he really didn’t have much to do. Maintenance wasn’t his favourite pastime, but it was better than sitting around and doing nothing. 

“Susie,” he called, “you wanna help me with Lor?”

It was like all the caffeine kicked in at once. With incredible vigor, she launched herself from her seat and exclaimed, “Do I?!” She squealed and pumped her fist into the air. “Yes! Of course! Absolutely! Let me get my stuff first!” She darted around the corner. In record time, she was back with her Haltworker on her tail. 

He’d seen it before, when she sicced Kirby, Bandee and Taranza on him. “Who’s the little guy?” 

“Oh, you haven’t met him! Well, this is Haltworker HAL086, my personal Haltworker. You can call him HAL0.” Pride permeated her words. “He’ll be helping us out.”

“The more the merrier, right?” He waved her over. She flashed him something that bordered on a smile.

Together, they trekked to the location of their newly set mission. “ We… are fixing that .” He pointed upwards at the bright wing sporting an impressively deep indent. 

She hummed. HAL0 imitated her movements, assessing the damage with a tilt of the head and a hand at the chin. The pair slapped a fist into their palm at the same time. “Can do. HAL0 can manage any repairs to the exterior just fine. You can lead me through the interior design.”

For a moment, he contemplated asking Susie to work on the exterior instead. He wasn’t a fan of other people getting grabby with his ship - but, then again, she was an experienced engineer. She was also quite passionate about the Ancients. It wouldn’t hurt to let her have a bit of fun, he concluded.

“Totally! And you’re familiar with Ancient tech, aren’t you?” He observed her nodded response, and continued, “Well, that makes things much easier to explain. You already know that the Ancients, with their immense technological prowess, made most of their marvels quite simple to construct and deconstruct.” 

Such a feature had been what stranded him in Dreamland for a while. The force of entry had been enough to wrestle the Lor’s parts from her, and it had been up to Kirby and his friends to gather them again. The bubbling mechanism that protected each part seemed to be a self-activating defense strategy used by the Ancients. It was all quite incredible. He still didn’t understand it. 

“To demonstrate… Lor, release the right wing!” On his command, a translucent bubble encased it as it slowly detached, descended to the ground and settled in the grass. He dazzled his hands. “Tadaaa! Neat, isn’t it? Now we can work on it from down here!”

“Incredible,” she mumbled, pressing a hand to the barrier. It soon passed through, and she stumbled into it. 

“Yeah, it does that.” He had a more fortunate entrance. HAL0 waddled after him. He stepped up to the damaged plating and touched it, tracing out the shape of the dent. 

Up close, it seemed so clear that only Kirby could’ve done it. His face had left a mark. 

He strolled over to unclip the damaged side from the rest of the wing. It’s lightweight metal hit the ground with a clank. Susie took the initiative to move it further away. HAL0 quickly waddled off after she gave him a command and, soon enough, he began to hammer the wing back into it’s original shape.

“So,” he started, pointing at masses of wires and rows of gears, “this is our calibration system. As you can see, it’s taken the brunt of the blow.” A handful of them had snapped, dented or shifted. Magolor frowned. “Oh, and don’t touch too many wires. She’s a bit ticklish.”

She nodded and gestured to the silvery gyroscope that resided deeper in. “I’ll assume this is your axis.”

“Correct! And finally, this- Yikes!” He couldn’t believe it until he touched it. Magolor cradled what was left of the stabliser fluid in the glassy canister it had seeped from. “Well… this was part of our stabliser, but, ah, not anymore. You can get started on whatever you want as long as you don’t break anything. In the meantime,” he said, holding the canister by the rim, “I’ve got to see if I’ve got any spares lying around.”

Susie didn’t need to be told twice to get to work. She simply nodded at him and pulled out her tools, setting her sights on the bent axis. 

Back in the Lor, he rummaged through one of the storage rooms. He was sure that this was where he’d kept most of his spare parts. He hadn’t labelled the rooms, though, so that could always be disproved. But it was . He tossed the new canister about a few times, gleaming at his find. Most of the time, when he needed something like this, it just disappeared. 

He ran a hand across the wall as he passed. “Hey, Lor?”

Captain [MAGOLOR].

“Having a good day?”

I sustained damage to my right wing at approximately 0700 hours. And you put your feet on the keyboard again. Fulfilled requirements for [GOOD DAY]: 0.

He chuckled. It was a silly question. “We can do something about that.” That was for later, though. Planning a voyage took a lot more effort than he liked, and with two more people living onboard, way more planning would be needed. He’d listen to some of her stories later. “Say, what do you think of my friends?”

Companion [SUSIE]: passionate about Ancient technology. Highly intelligent. Takes pride in accomplishments. Reliant on technology to execute difficult tasks. Less than sociable due to unknown reasons. 

Companion [TARANZA]: passionate about nature. Highly intelligent. Skilled mage. Highly sociable. Composed in most observed incidents of discord in past week. Displays signs of low self esteem. 

I like your friends. They are unique.  

A smile spread across his face at that. It wouldn’t be fair to force Lor to harbor people she didn’t like - then again, he should’ve asked earlier. “I’m glad you do! In that case, you wouldn’t mind joining us outside, would you?”

Companion [SUSIE] has already initiated conversation outside. 

Conversation began before Captain [MAGOLOR]’s enquiry.

Conclusion: Captain [MAGOLOR] should join Companion [SUSIE] outside.

“Fine, fine,” he decided. 

By the time he re-entered the bubble, Susie was rambling on about something he wasn’t too familiar with. However, as soon as she mentioned an ‘immaculate knight,’ he perked up.  

“-and then, I kidnapped him and modified his form under the Mother Computer’s guidance.” She paused to scratch her chin before she fastened another gear back into place. “Hey, that’s not fucked up or anything, is it? Because everyone’s been saying that it is, but I don’t understand why.”

As a computer, my input on that topic may contain bias. However, with reference to my knowledge of the denizens of [GAMBLE_GALAXY], I can assure you that is an unethical procedure to perform on an organism. 

“…Hm. Maybe it is.” She stuck her hand back into the frame, squinted, and sighed, “Oh. Oooooh.” Her vowels dragged on. “That explains a lot. Oh, but that means I have to revise the codes of conduct…”

Dismissing Susie’s whines, he stepped over to fit the new stabliser part. He peeled off it’s protective layer and, carefully, lowered it into position. It snapped into place. He eyed his handiwork with glee. “So, what’re you two talking about?” he asked.

Companion [SUSIE]’s past interactions with Companion [META_KNIGHT] and Companion [KIRBY]. I am abstaining from administering unrequested advice. 

Susie wiped a hand across her forehead and exhaled. She looked towards HAL0. He patiently tapped away at the plating. She searched through her toolbox, held up a hammer and waded over to join him. 

“To be honest,” she admitted, “I probably need to learn how people work. I mean, I should know, but I don’t, and I think everyone expects me to…” 

“Maybe… you can start by being friendlier with people?” Magolor settled into the grass and spread his feet out. He dusted off his gloves. “It worked for me. And now I’m really friendly with everyone. Especially Kirby!” 

She craned to lock eyes with him. Her lips parted, yet she said nothing. Her head fell back to her work. The timely tinking of her tools filled the hanging silence.

“I’ve tried that,” she mumbled. Susie knelt down. “I’m… acquainted with most of the defenders of Popstar, I guess. But the knight…” She grimaced. Her eyes followed the butterfly that drifted by. “…I think he might hate me. Something like that.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Hm, let’s see… He’s tried to kill me on multiple occasions, pretty sure I saw him shove a rock into my propellor bot… Oh, and there’s the fact that he literally yells it.”

He shrugged. “I mean, I’d kinda hate you if you turned me into a robot,” he joked. 

“Why would I waste my time doing that ?”  

“Because I’d look cool!” 

“You’d look stupid,” she snickered. “Anyways… he’s the only person who’s still mad about it, and I don’t get it! It’s been years, so why is it still such a big deal?”

Magolor blinked at her. It wasn’t something he had thought of before, but he was beginning to realise that Susie didn’t have morals. Or, at least, normal morals. She was certainly lacking in the empathy department, too. 

He scratched his ear and groaned. “Okay, okay. Have you ever had something really, really bad happen to you?” 

She didn’t hesitate to nod.

“Now, imagine if a certain person caused that.” He watched her intently; her brows shifted slightly. She pursed her lips so slightly, and so quickly, that moment of contemplation was hidden again. He would continue anyways. “How would you feel if, no matter how badly they hurt you, you had to watch them live like nothing happened?”

Susie didn’t answer. Again, she moved to speak and said nothing. A hand rose to her mouth as she lay her tools down. Magolor could feel it: he’d hit close to home. Close enough, at least, for her to understand what the problem was. 

A breath escaped her. “Oh,” she whispered. He could hear it in her voice, the realisation of what was wrong. A taste of empathy. 

“Yeah,” he piped, “you sorta suck. But, if I’m right, you are trying to change. Aren’t you?” He plucked a blade of grass and held it up to the sun. Light poked through it’s little holes. “And I don’t really know all the details about what you did, but… if you really regret it, and you’re ready to be a better person, you should start with an apology or something.”

She crouched down and ran a hand over the plating. It had finally smoothed out. “I’m guessing you’re speaking from experience,” she deduced. 

“Oh, I am! And trust me, as long as you’re persistent, and you really mean it, he’ll come around.” Magolor stumbled to his feet and waded over. He carefully lifted the wing cover up and, slowly, clipped it back into place. The Lor hummed as it’s wing floated back up.

As denizens of [GAMBLE_GALAXY] say: believe in yourself.

Susie’s eyes flickered between Magolor and the Lor’s screen. She gently breathed, “Thanks.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” he sang, leaning against Lor. He was just glad to help. He kicked a pebble away. When it hit Susie, she lobbed it at him. He caught it and launched it back, sticking out his tongue. 

Susie jumped to her feet, prepared to throw it back, but something caught her attention. A faint twinkling, a sound like wind chimes and thin bells. She pivoted round to get a better look. “Hey, isn’t that Kirby?”

“Is it?” Magolor could hear him, but he couldn’t see him. He joined her and lifted himself up, a hand set on her shoulder. He squinted. 

Over the horizon, a pink smear on a golden star barelled towards them. 

Yikes. “Oh- Er- Lor?”

Likelihood of impact: 87%.

I am the largest object in the area, as well as in the way of the warp star’s trajectory route. 

Likelihood of significant damage: 23%.

The speed at which the warp star is travelling is far higher than that which damaged the right wing.

He dared to take another look. By now, he could make out the panic across his face. Kirby seemed to be desperately hanging on - had he been unable to control it?

Magolor shot Susie a look and dropped down. She shrugged, a slight frown set upon her face. She would be of no help here. 

As he grew closer, he could hear him wailing louder and louder.

The Lor rested a pole on his head. 

No hard feelings, Captain.

Magolor braced himself and leapt out of the way: he opened his eyes just in time to watch the golden blur collide with Susie. She hit the dirt. 

Kirby slammed into the hull and the Starcutter groaned as a series of error messages flooded her screen. He wobbled to his feet, the thick curls of his hair hanging messily over his eyes. With dirt speckled hands, Kirby brushed them back until he only had his bangs. His eyes settled on Magolor. He beamed. “Hi, Magolor!”

“Ow,” he gasped, “ow.” He raised an aching arm to wave. “Hey, Kirby. What, uh, what’re you doing?” 

“Warp star surfing!” he hummed. “It’s something I came up with last week! But I’m not good at it yet, so I’ve been practicing whenever I can.”

Magolor’s gaze drifted to Lor. Just like last time, a Kirby-shaped indent adorned her form. He sighed. “Just guessing here, but I think your practice usually ends with you either running someone over,” he hinted, gesturing at Susie’s unconscious form, “or you crashing into a wall. Am I correct?”

His eyes widened. “How’d you know?” And then he looked behind him, at Lor’s furious scrolling text across her screen. And then he looked to his side, at his face-down friend. “Oops. I’m still kinda bad at it, I guess,”

“‘Kinda’ is an understatement. You’re okay, right?” He crawled over to get a better look at him. As usual, he was untouched. Save for some crumbs of dirt, he looked as perfect as ever. He pulled his cheek and earned a smile. 

“Sorry,” he droned, clapping his hands together. “I didn’t mean to hit you. Or Susie. Or you, Lor!” Kirby leapt to hug as much of the ship as he could, pressing his cheek against her damaged hull. Even with a rod poking his side, he held on. 

Another pole extended to pry him off, but he refused. A new message appeared on her error-filled screen. 

I advise riding the warp star normally. Please do not [WARP_SURF] in my vicinity.

You are forgiven, though.  

“Yay!” he cheered, and immediately let go. He waddled to Susie’s side and rolled her onto her back. He angled his ear towards her mouth and, after a moment of silence, he trilled, “She’s not dead, by the way!” 

“Hooray,” Magolor mouthed, checking her face over. A red patch had spread across the greater half. That would leave a bruise. “Yeah, she’s gonna need some ice for this or something.” 

On cue, an icepack ejected from Lor’s side. 

“Thank you,” he hummed, kneading it until he heard the ice within crackle. He dumped it on her stomach. “Now…” he drawled, slowly turning to Kirby, “ you are going to help fix this mess. …Oh, don’t do that…”

But his request was no use; the boy’s eyes welled up with crocodile tears, and caught the sunlight and glimmered and sparkled like stars. His lip quivered as he whined, “But why?”

“Because- Because I literally just spent an hour fixing Lor already! Now stop with the baby eyes! ” 

His pout fell away, and he giggled. “Fine! But now I know you’re weak to cuteness, Magolor!”

“Oh, please!” He waved a hand at him. “ Everyone’s weak to cuteness. That’s why you can beat anyone. In fact… one of these days, I’ll overcome that weakness and finally defeat you!” he exclaimed with his hand pointed at Kirby. 

Kirby stared and bit his finger. He yanked it out of his mouth and wiped it down the child’s shirt, loudly proclaiming his disgust. Kirby laughed. “You sound evil when you say it like that,” he joked. “Besides, even if my cuteness stops distracting you, I’ll just beat you with the power of friendship!”

“Ew. Boring!” he groaned, crouching to the floor. He pulled out a handful of grass and let the wind brush it away. He looked at Susie. She stirred. Having noticed that, he took a stick and dragged it across the dirt. 

The hero peered over. “‘Here lies Susie,’” he read. He pulled a doleful face. “Can’t believe she’s dead,” 

“I know,” Magolor answered, faux sadness in his voice. “She was so young, too.”

Susie groaned on the floor, her hands drawing up to her sides. Slowly, she sat up. She looked between them. “…Huh?”

“I miss Susie,” Kirby whined, placing a hand on his heart. “Even if she was always a bit evil, she was my friend.”

“True,” Magolor replied. 

“Stop talking like I’m dead. I’m right here.” She massaged her head, then added, “Maybe just a bit concussed.”

Kirby leaned into Magolor and wiped away an imaginary tear. “I can still hear her voice sometimes,”

She threw the icepack at Magolor. He screeched. “Why me?!”

“Because you probably started it,” she mumbled, squeezing her eyes together. She brushed the dirt off her shirt. She shook her head. “Ugh, my head hurts. A lot.”

“Tomato?” Kirby offered. He tucked his hand behind him and pulled out a Maxim Tomato, holding it out to her. She bit into it and grimaced.

“ Ew.” Yet, she continued to eat it until it’s juice stained the grass beneath her. She shivered and gagged. She looked behind her at the Lor and pinched her brow. “More work. Yippee,” she deadpanned. 

Magolor helped her to her feet and, with notable caution, pushed her shoulder. “I thought you were enjoying yourself!”

“Around you? Never.” She shoved a hand into his face. Having disarmed him, she stretched her arms out and announced, “I’ll be taking a nap now.”

Kirby tilted his head. “But you just had a nap,”

“Getting knocked out and having a nap are pretty far apart on the sleep spectrum, Pinky. Besides,” she continued, “your magic tomatoes don’t work immediately for me. Give me an hour or something.” And before Magolor could ask any further questions, she had curled up on a grassy patch and shut her eyes. 

He’d definitely have to check her for a concussion later, just in case she was right about the tomatoes.. In the meantime, he had a ship to fix. Again. “Hey,” he called, tossing Susie’s hammer to Kirby. “What do you know about engineering?”

He pumped a fist in the air, and Magolor felt a spark of hope. “Absolutely nothing!” he cheered, and Magolor deflated.

“I’m fixing this on my own, aren’t I?”

Kirby plopped down by Susie’s idle Haltworker, proudly gave him a thumbs up and nodded. “Totally!” 

Magolor sighed and got to work.

Taranza had missed this sort of peace. 

Being surrounded by the treasures of the castle gardens and the wafting aroma of roses and wildflowers. The soft breeze of Royal Road gently brushing his hair about, the familiarity of the royal gardens. The comfort of his personal utopia. His elysium, so to say. 

He looked to the blossom in his hand. An everlasting child of the Dreamstalk - after everything that happened, it lived. The hearts along its petals still brought him joy. The warm hue of its bud still made him flutter. He sighed. 

He spun it’s stem once, twice, thrice and smiled at it. It smelled like magic. Sweet, sharp, a thick scent like rich perfume and rose bulbs. To him, at least.

Carefully, he tucked it behind his horn and crouched to tend to the flowers again. He pulled off his gloves to feel the soil. Moist and gritty. Faintly infused with magic. Some of it was his. He dusted it off his fingers and picked it out from beneath his sharp nails. As much as he enjoyed gardening, he’d never been a fan of getting his hands dirty. But, as he always said, he would do it for the flowers. 

He didn’t particularly mind the emptiness of the castle. In the past few years, he’d been on his own more often than not. Any sort of company was in Dreamland, and he didn’t want to bother them to come and visit him. Floralians didn’t come to see him often, either. Royal Road, as glorious as it was, had become something of a ghost town. Only passing Antlers visited now.

It left him solely to the comfort of his own devices. Gardening, making puppets, cleaning, animating suits of armour to help him clean… He didn’t want to count longingly staring at the dusty scepters on the balcony as a pastime. 

He patted the soil back down and rose to his feet. The rose bushes didn’t need to be tended to for now. Most of the garden, in fact, had been preened to near perfection. He was sure that someone had dropped by to take care of his flowers, and he had a creeping suspicion of who. 

A sticky note on a cracked pillar caught his eye. He skimmed over it and smiled. It had been Sunny. She hadn’t signed her name, but he recognised her curly handwriting and marginal doodles. 

Taranza didn’t exactly know why she did this, but she did. She would come in unannounced (especially when he wasn’t around) and take care of a few chores. She’d leave a sticky note, raid his pantry and leave. What made it more confusing is how she always denied doing it, and whenever he tried to compensate her she declined his gifts. Although, every now and then, he noticed that the garden wasn’t always preened in her style. He wondered if there was a second visitor. 

He sighed. Maybe it was simply kindness. After all, she was one of the few People of the Sky that held genuine conversations with him. One of the few who’d really forgiven him. One of the few who’d vouched for him to stay. 

He’d bake something for her. An apple pie, perhaps: whenever he left those out, they mysteriously disappeared, and a small note of gratitude would appear in it’s place. He was sure it was her.

His heeled boots clicked against the cool marble of the castle floors. One, two, one, two- an odd footstep urged him to stop and turn round. A bonnet adorned with sunflower petals peeked out from behind a pillar. A hand held onto it, retracting when he stopped walking. 

“Sunny,” he called, “you can come out now.”

Hesitantly, she walked into the sunlight. The verdant leaves that patterned her cloak swayed with her as she bowed. She bashfully smiled at him. “Sorry. I thought you would be elsewhere, sir. I didn’t mean to, um, intrude…”

He shook his head, waving her over with a floating hand. “It’s fine. Say…” He set off again as she flew over to him, carefully pacing herself to walk in line with her. “I was thinking of baking something. Of course, I could do this by myself, but seeing as you’re here…”

Sunny lit up. She clapped her hands together and nodded vicariously. “Oh, yes, absolutely! I would love to! What will it be?”

He couldn’t help but smile. He’d always admired her sunny dispostion. She didn’t even know it was for her, yet she was so excited. “How about an apple pie?” At that, she failed to hide her interest. “Apple pie it is, then!”

She skipped ahead of him, delightedly humming to herself, unaware of the ferns in her hair. At the end of the hall, she yelled for him before running out of sight. He could hear her pulling out the pans already. 

By the time he arrived, she’d set everything out, from the apples to the flour. She rocked on her heels, impatient as he pulled on an apron and changed his gloves. As soon as he’d turned round, she had begun to prepare the pastry, quietly reciting his own recipe. 

It was only about halfway through, when he had finished interlacing strips of pastry over each other to cover the pie, that she spoke up. She passed him the egg wash and, as she washed her hands, asked, “Are you okay?” He didn’t answer. She turned off the tap. “I, um, get that you aren’t… comfortable around everyone else anymore. But you don’t have to spend your days off on your own, Taranza.”

He stopped pulling at his scarf. A soft breath left him, and he tried to ignore the fact that he could see her looking at him from the back of his head. Absently, he glazed the pastry lattice. “I know,” he whispered. And he wasn’t lying. But it was so hard to try and have a normal conversation with them after what he’d done. Most of them had forgiven him, but sometimes even they would make back-handed comments about the dead that weren’t exactly intended to hurt him, but they always did- “Thank you for asking.”

She huffed and shook her head. “That’s not exactly an answer, but I’ll accept it. Just…” Sunny bowed her head to remove her apron. The cream fabric folded neatly in her arms, and she tucked it away again. She leaned against the pantry door. “You know what? I want you to promise me something.”

Taranza set down the brush and, with a firm magic string, pulled the oven open. He bent over to slide the pan into the oven. She pushed him down to a crouch, mumbling something about ‘stringbeans’ and ‘back pains.’ “Tell me first.”

“Promise me that you’ll try and talk to everyone once in a while?” When he snapped his head towards her, she flinched and quickly added, “Not- Not all at once, of course! But you have to give it a shot, Taranza!”

“Absolutely not!” he affirmed. He had good reason to decline her, too: the last time he’d tried speaking to someone other than her, he’d been thoroughly insulted for ‘being stupid enough to follow a psychopath.’ Frankly, it was getting quite irritating how every conversation somehow ended up being about that.

“If your defense is that one incident with Clem, then you’re better off dropping it! She already apologised for it, and it happened years ago!”

“But it happened, Sunny!” He’d barely noticed that he’d left the oven open until he tried to stand. He pushed it shut and bowed, a hand on his chest and another behind his back. “I didn’t… mean to shout. Mes excuses.” 

She sighed. Her shoes clicked against the kitchen tiles until he could see them, still bent over. She gently pushed him up to his full height and set her hands on his shoulders, floating to meet him at eye level. “I know,” she told him. “I just… I think it’ll be good for you. To try and be friends with everyone again, I mean. Just… promise me you’ll at least try?”

He bit his lip. He knew that she was right, as much as he hated to admit it. It would be a start rather than a quick fix. The beginning of the end of the unspoken animosity between him and his Floralian peers. But there would be so many awkward talks that could be avoided if he didn’t bother. He looked at her. She looked at him. He pinched his nose and groaned. “I… suppose I could do that.”

She relaxed and pulled him into a hug, squeezing him as tightly as someone her size could. “Thank you! I’m sure you won’t regret it!” Satisfied, she released him and settled on the countertop, watching as he changed back into his orange-banded gloves. She cleared her throat. “And, um, I forgot to mention… The dark knight passed through.”

He stifled a hiss and unclenched his fists. He didn’t know someone’s doppelganger could be so irritating. If he hated everything outside the mirror so much, why did he leave it so often? He waved a hand at her, urging her to continue. 

“He didn’t… do much. He simply visited the gardens, sir.” She tucked a blonde tress beneath her bonnet and rubbed her arm. “And, um, stole three bottles of wine. Again.”

“I knew it! À chaque fois!” Taranza pinched his brow and sighed. At this point, he wasn’t sure if Dark Meta Knight was doing this to get on his nerves or not. Soon enough he’d have to start replacing the wine with vinegar to chase him off. “And he didn’t do anything else?”

“Absolutely nothing else, sir!”

He folded his arms and relaxed. He didn’t like him. But he hadn’t exactly caused any harm, as far as he was concerned. He was more of a nuisance than anything. Nobody to be scared of. He shrugged. “Alright,” he sighed, “that’s fine.” 

As he sank back into silence, pulling out a cloth to wipe down the tabletops, he caught Sunny looking at him again. He didn’t turn around, but she smiled and waved anyways. He lifted a hand to hide the pulling at his lips. 

Maybe she was right about him befriending the People of the Sky again. If anything, he was the one who was making it hard. After all, Sunny was always visiting. She wanted to know him again. Maybe the rest of them did, too. The worst that could happen would be a confirmation of his fears, but he’d been through worse. 

He turned his head to her. “Sunny?”

“Mhm?” she hummed, kicking her legs and leaning back. 

“Thank you,” he said. “For checking on me. And for caring.”

Sunny’s eyes widened and caught the light. She glowed ever brighter under the sun and her cheeks rosied up. From where she sat, she gave a slight bow and flashed him a grin. “Always.”

Chapter Text

Kirby was completely and absolutely sure that today was going to be great. 

He’d managed to get most of his close friends together (save for Dedede) for a friendly picnic in the afternoon. Bandee would be bringing some treats, Meta Knight would bring the sandwiches and Taranza would be bringing the cake. Kirby had never tried Floralian cake before, but he was sure it’d be delicious.

He skipped over a puddle and kicked a rock into the distance. It sucked that it had rained on the day of the picnic, but it was okay! The rain was amazing, after all. It made everything shine and gleam, and made the grass smell different, and meant that he could see a rainbow afterwards. 

But, as much as he loved it, he knew that sitting on a muddy patch and eating soggy sandwiches wasn’t the best pastime with friends. They’d have to look around for a dryer spot, but he didn’t mind. And if they couldn’t find one , they’d eat indoors instead! He was sure that Dedede wouldn’t mind the extra company.

“Meta Knight! Come on, come on!” He waved at his mentor, who trudged through the mud recklessly. He grunted at him and lay a hand on his blessed sword. “I bet we’re the last ones to arrive!”

“I shouldn’t have worn my armour,” he murmured, steadying himself with an outstretched hand. He stumbled again and nearly hit the mud. 

Not too far off, they could see the hill they’d picked out - the gravel path came into view as Kirby cheered and made a beeline for it. Meta Knight shook out his wings and took flight, his perfect form cutting through the droplets like a knife. 

“Meh-da na, Kirby! You’re here!” Bandee waved as best as he could with an umbrella in his other hand and a basket hanging from his arm, jumping in place to catch their attention. Behind him, a woven basket rested in the grass. 

Kirby tackled him into a hug. “Bandee! You made it!” He squeezed and squeezed, and Bandee squeezed back until he couldn’t. His mask shifted in their embrace. 

“Of course I made it! I wouldn’t wanna miss hanging out with you two, not ever! Although…” He looked around, then asked, “Where’s Taranza? I thought that you guys were picking him up.”

Meta Knight tucked his wings back and removed his mask, taking a deep breath. His eyes drifted to the Dee. “You haven’t seen him?” When he shook his head and shrugged, Meta sighed. “He didn’t sound the type to miss an appointment.”

“Because he’s not,” Kirby said, looking to the sky. “We should look for him, poyo!”  

Bandee took his basket into his arms. “Where? We can’t just run all over Dreamland hoping to find him. And what if he’s in Floralia instead?”

“Um… Aha!” Kirby beamed and puffed out his chest, jabbing a finger into the distance. A white and blue smudge could barely be made out under the rainfall. “The Starcutter! Magolor would know where he is!”

Meta furrowed his brows, but deigned to argue. Kirby watched his frown disappear beneath the shade of his mask, stark gold eyes cutting through a deep black slit. He rested a soft hand on his cape - a silent ‘thank you’ - and tugged him in the direction of the starship. 

“Looking for Taranza, looking for Taranza…” he sang, making his way down the path. A hand pulled him back. “Meta Knight?”

Wordlessly, he took both children under his arms and spread out his wings. One flap, two flaps, and a dropped umbrella later, they were soaring through the air, rain pattering against their skin. 

Kirby could see the smudge growing bigger - he could see the star speckled deck, and the gleaming wings, and the now-soaked mast billowing against the wind. It rested in the same spot it had once crashed, where grass and vines and flowers had blanketed the damage of the crater. 

They landed before the entrance gate. Meta Knight stretched his wings out and flapped off the water before beckoning Bandee and Kirby under him. He rapped a heavy fist against the door. 

“Just a second!” Someone scrambled to let them in from the other side. The door whirred open and revealed Magolor in unfamiliar clothing. “Ah, Meta Knight! Kirby and… Bandee! Wasn’t expecting to see you three today. Or, ah, without Dedede, at least. What do you need?”

A sharp, thick silence settled over them. Everyone stared at Magolor. Magolor stared back. 

“Why’re you pink?” Kirby asked.

“Ask Marx,” he grumbled, pulling at his robes. Glitter tumbled from his sleeves. 

“Okay… Um, have you seen Taranza anywhere? He was supposed to have a picnic with us, but he never showed up!” Kirby opened his mouth to continue, but turned around to face Meta. “Wait. Where are the sandwiches?”

His eyes widened and his stark composure flickered. “…I fear I have left them at the castle.” He lay a hand on Kirby’s head. “I assure you, I will retrieve them. But for now, let us focus on Taranza.”

Magolor shrugged and wandered back into his ship, dyed robes dragging behind him. After a moment of struggling with his shoes, he made his way back outside. “Hey, do any of you know how to get someone out of a six foot hole?”

Meta Knight frowned. “What?”

The mage gestured at a muddy, trampled ditch in the grass. Two bright horns poked over the edge; when the four of them leaned over to look into it, a sopping wet Taranza and a thoroughly grumpy Susie tiredly waved at them. Both of them stood knee deep in thick, unmoving mud. 

“Wenya!” Bandee shrieked, dropping to his knees and leaning over the edge. “What happened?!” 

“Someone,” Susie hissed, glaring at Taranza, “taught Marx how to make pitfalls and got shocked when he used it as a pitfall.”  

Taranza scratched the back of his neck with an unstained glove, looking away from her. “I didn’t think he was listening. I’ll be honest, he hid it better than I thought he would. And it’s quite hard to make one so well when it’s this size. I’m impressed.” Susie flicked him and he squeaked. 

“Don’t praise him! He’s literally the reason we’re stuck down here!”

“Well, I wasn’t the one who fell for it first, was I?”

“And I never asked you to join me down here!”

“Stop arguing.” Meta flashed his sword at the two of them and they snapped shut. He huffed and slid Galaxia into the comfort of her polished hilt. Dejected, Susie slumped onto Taranza’s wet shoulder. Meta sighed. “Have you tried flying out?”

Taranza grimaced and nodded. “The mud’s quite thick. We’ve tried a few times, but to no avail.”

The young hero looked up at his mentor and flinched. Kirby was getting the impression that Meta Knight wasn’t too excited to be here. Maybe it was because he had to help Susie. Or maybe he was just hungry. He couldn’t tell. He was tapping his foot and, going by how his eyes shifted beneath his mask, grinding his teeth hard enough to make sparks. Bandee looked at Kirby, then at Meta, back at Kirby and shrugged. 

Magolor droned out an exaggerated sigh. “And, before you ask, no, I can’t just portal them out.” Bandee opened his mouth to ask and the mage shushed him with a thoroughly wet hand. The Dee sputtered and Magolor drawled on. “Why, you may ask? Because I never saw the bottom of the hole. So if I tried to imagine it, I might just end up with only their lower halves! And of course, that’d be an absolute nightmare.”

Bandee wiped his mouth down with his sleeve. “…Rope?”

“Oh, two problems with that. First,” Susie started, “Magolor can barely tie a competent knot. Secondly, he has absolutely no upper body strength. If you ever fall in a hole, don’t trust him to rescue you.”

Magolor’s ears flattened out, and his tone changed. “I was trying to be helpful,” he mumbled, in no position to deny Susie’s claims. Bandee carefully and awkwardly patted his back. 

Kirby looked between everyone, pacing little circles in the mud. They couldn’t just leave them there. But if everything else had already been tried, then what else was there to do? He slowed to a halt. A memory prodded him, rising to the surface. He pumped a fist in the air and cheered, “The Rescue Dees, poyo!”

“Oh, the Rescue Dees!” Bandee echoed, perking up. He turned to Meta Knight, who was swift to spread his wings and take him into his arms. “We should find them in the castle, wanya!” With that guidance in mind, he took flight, soon nothing more than a dash amongst the rain drops. 

Magolor clapped and set a hand on his head. “Quick thinking! I almost forgot that Dreamland has emergency services.”

“Because you don’t get into trouble anymore?” he asked, cheeks rosy and raincoat dripping. 

“Because I cause the emergencies,” he answered. “Why would I call them?” He dipped a hand into his pocket. Having found nothing, he patted himself down. When that didn’t satisfy him, he sighed, ripped open a rift and rummaged about. Kirby could hear him knocking items onto the floor. But as soon as he’d started making a mess, he stopped and retracted his arm. The rift closed with a spark. He proudly held out a blue pack of cards that, in gold print, showed off a cartoonish rendition of himself. Magolor sat cross-legged in the air, lowered himself and stopped just above the grass. “So, anyone wanna play a card game to pass the time?”

Taranza raised a hand above the soil. “As long as it’s not Snap, I’m interested.”

Susie piped up. “I propose playing Go Fish.”

And so Magolor handed out the cards, only pausing to explain the game to Kirby, and watched as everyone took their turn asking for cards. It was when Kirby finished his fourth card pile during the third game that he realised how long it’d been since Bandee and Meta Knight had left. 

“Hey,” he started, “shouldn’t the Rescue Dees be here by now?”

Magolor shrugged, scanning through his floating cards before responding, “Dunno. Maybe the storm’s got them occupied. Taranza, give me your sixes. And Susie, I’ll be taking your kings and your aces!” He cackled to himself.

Taranza silently passed his cards over the edge of the hole. Susie chuckled and grinned. “Go fish.”

“What do you mean ‘go fish?’ You have the cards,” Magolor argued. 

“Actually,” she sang, “I only have aces. No kings. So go fish.”

“No, no, no. That’s not how it works. If you have the cards, I take the cards.”

“I only have half the cards, Magolor, so you’re wrong. Just pick up a card. ”

“Susie, you’ve gotta give me the cards.” 

“I literally don’t have to. So pick up.”

Magolor stood over the hole and glowered at her. She looked up at him, pulled her eye and stuck out her tongue at him. At that, he dropped to his knees and reached for the cards in her hand: Susie held them behind her and waded backwards. He stretched further. Kirby crawled over to his side, eager to see who would prevail.

Taranza’s eyes widened as the dirt shifted. He extended a hand to usher them backwards, but to no avail. “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t-”

The soil collapsed. Magolor fell head-first into the muddy sludge. Kirby tumbled into Taranza, who swiftly caught him by his leg. Carefully, he flipped him over, set him on his shoulders and sighed. Susie pulled Magolor’s head up and leaned him against her shoulder, taking care to keep his face away from her. The four looked between each other. 

“Well,” Kirby started, “now we can play different games!”

Everyone sighed. 

“How about ‘Never Have I Ever?’” Kirby scanned over them. Magolor stared at him, discomfort visible in his glowing eyes. Susie bore her trademark poker face, periodically tapping her finger against her folded arm. Taranza looked ready to crumble. Maybe playing would keep their minds off the situation. “I’ll go first! Never have I ever… um, licked a puddle!”

Susie squinted and frowned. “Who the hell would lick a-” And then Magolor slowly lowered a finger. The three of them stared at him in stark silence. 

“Ever heard of a dare?” he retorted, turning away as best as he could. “Anyway… Never have I ever shown my face.”

Everyone folded a finger down. He chuckled to himself. Susie rolled her eyes. “Never have I ever made a whole theme park just to say ‘sorry.’”

Magolor perked up and yelled, “That’s targeting!” Alas, his argument went unheard. He grumbled as Taranza forced his finger down.

“Kirby,” Taranza asked, looking to the sky, “how long does this usually take?”

He shrugged and nestled his chin into his silver hair. “Dunno. Why?”

“I’m afraid it’s going to rain harder, and quite soon at that. Call it a hunch.” He frowned. “If they haven’t arrived by then, we’ll be in an even worse situation.”

“So, I guess you could say you’d be in a hole lotta trouble, huh?” Everyone turned to the new voice. Hovering above them with glowing, crystalline wings in place of his arms and a bright red bow tie was Marx. He grinned at them. “Hey, hey, hey! I see you found my super cool hole!”

“Marx!” Magolor cheered. “I thought you had a doctor’s appointment!”

Slowly, he lowered himself until he was hovering above the mud. “Well, yeah, but they’re all Noddies. They were asleep when I got there. So…” he drawled, scanning over each of their faces, “what’re you guys up to?”

“Hole dwelling,” Susie sighed, “because we’re stuck in your stupid hole.”

“It's not my fault that I’m a good digger!” He stuck out his tongue and laughed when Susie failed to hit him. 

Taranza whined and pinched his brow. “Please get help. We’ve been here for ages and I can’t feel my legs.” Marx stared at him with big, inky eyes, almost as if he expected something from him. Hesitantly, he added, “There’s… a cake in the fridge. In a white box.”

He beamed at him and took off. Dirt splattered in his wake. “Cool, thanks! Be back in a bit!” And he was gone. Everyone relaxed, and Magolor seemed slightly more hopeful. Taranza wilted.

“Guess there won’t be cake for the picnic, then.” Kirby looked up at the sky, back down at Taranza’s weary form and smiled. “But that’s okay! Now that we’ve got extra help on our way, things can only get better, right?” 

And that was exactly when it began to hail. 

Magolor raised a barrier above the group and sighed. “Should’ve touched wood.”

Meta Knight hated having his time wasted. 

He had never had much reason to consider himself patient. He was lenient, at best, but if anything tested his patience, trouble would entail. And as irritating as the king found it, his occasional restlessness had saved them from trouble many times. So he could not particularly be blamed for being overly eager to make his way back to Kirby, especially when he was left in the so-called care of Susanna Patrya Haltmann. And her friends. 

It seemed that, however, fate had other plans for him. That being having to save the Rescue Dees from their own predicament. 

He glowered at the fallen tree in his path. With Bandee sticking so closely to him, he hadn’t the space to do anything brash or reckless. And the sudden sharp change in the weather didn’t allow the Dee to stray too far, either. But the tree was still an obstacle. And obstacles had to be overcome. 

Tucking Bandee beneath the leathery comfort of his wing, he drew out his sword. Hail pellets pattered off Galaxia’s glimmering blade; with two swings, the log splintered into chunks. It’d make good firewood if it weren’t soaked through. He resheathed Galaxia and kicked the debris away. 

Had the weather been somewhat normal for once, he wouldn’t even need to be here. Kirby’s friends wouldn’t be stuck in a slowly flooding hole, and he wouldn’t have to clear away fallen greenery until the doors to Dedede’s castle were clear. 

Yes, there were the back doors, but those ran through the garden. He did not know Taranza well, but he did know that if anything damaged his flowers he would have more than a bone to pick with the culprit. Two bones sounded like a lot. 

He heaved another log away, grunting as he steadied himself. Doing this sort of heavy lifting in such slippery terrain surely wasn’t a good idea. It wouldn’t hurt to have a helping hand, he thought. But Bandee certainly wasn’t one to depend on in this respect. Even if he bore incredible strength in battle, that strength didn’t apply to something as physical as this. 

The grass behind him squelched and he pivoted. Meta relaxed at the throaty laugh that greeted him. King Dedede rose from his knees and flexed a muscle, cocking his head towards the front door. “Mety! Need a hand o’ there?”

Bandee darted out from beneath him and pelted him with a soggy hug. The king nodded at Meta Knight, who bowed before he coolly clanked over to face him. Dedede slipped off his fur coat and wrapped it around Bandee before looking his knight up and down. 

He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Told you not t’ wear it, didn’t I?” He chuckled. “Ain’t stoppin’ you from gettin’ changed, now. In fact-” he announced, taking note of Meta’s move to protest, “that’s ‘n order! Y’ gotta wear somethin’ comfy an’ rainproof, a’right? And grab y’self a snack while you’re at it!”

He folded his wings against his back, huffed and flew up to the high windowsill that Dedede had dropped out of. He didn’t bother taking off his sabatons until he’d reached his quarters. The mud trail he’d left behind him wouldn’t be his problem until later, so he’d deal with it later. As long as Dedede didn’t see it.

He shut the door. His armour stand stood bare at the back of the room, near flush against the wall, on a small wooden stand that he’d carved himself. Slowly, he stripped himself of his metal plating until all he wore were his thoroughly soaked undergarments. He fastened each piece onto the stand until it vaguely resembled him. 

Now that he thought about it, that was a lot to wear for a simple outing. Aluminium breastplates, thick steely pauldrons, gauntlets. Dedede had been right. He wouldn’t be hearing that anytime soon, though. His ego was already bigger than him. 

He was quick to pick out a black turtleneck and matching black trousers to throw on. He really ought to wear something new - but as the name ‘Scourge of Darkness’ implied, black was something of a trademark. He opted to wear boots rather than sabatons this time, and grabbed a hooded navy cloak before making his exit with Galaxia. 

Dedede ogled him and shook his head as he approached. For once he deigned to comment on his outfit choice, and he was glad for it. “Startin’ to regret tryin’ to snazz th’ place up with trees… But, hey! I managed t’ clear most o’ the stuff while you were up there,” he reported. “Just gotta get this big guy outta th’ way!” He reared up and wrangled a thick log with both arms, heaving and grunting all the while. 

Meta could not say that the sight of the king dragging it away all by himself shocked him. Not a lot of what he did could shock him. He’d done quite a lot, really, and this wasn’t that significant compared to most of his feats. That didn’t stop him from joining in, though. 

Bandee stood off to the side with Dedede’s coat over his head, carefully clinging to the doorframe. He watched patiently as they dumped the log by the castle side - Dedede had promised he’d do something with all of it later - and waddled round and indoors to embrace the warmth of the castle interiors. He exhaled. Quickly, he slipped his arms through the sleeves of the coat and ran off.

Meta leaned against the doorframe, instinctively running a hand through his hair. His hood fell to his shoulders. On his left, Dedede shook himself off, wringing out his kimono and resting against the nearest radiator. He sighed. 

“So,” he started, “what happened out there? ‘Cause y’all look like you’ve been put through a washin’ machine. An’ where’s Kirby? Thought you took him with you.”

“The jester happened. But Kirby is fine.” He carefully loosened the straps of his mask and shifted it to the side of his face. His furrowed navy brows seemed to never change; the arc of his nose turned up as his fingers pinched it. “According to Haltmann, Taranza taught him how to make a pitfall. It backfired. The two of them are stuck in the hole. And now it’s raining. I doubt much more explanation is needed, sire. I left Kirby and Magolor at the incident site.”

The king scratched his chin with a hand beneath his elbow. “Now that’s a first, ain’t it? An’ it’s just those two down there?”

“Yes, sire.” From the side of his eye, he saw him extend his arm towards his face. He swatted his hand away and shot him a glare. “No.”

“But you’re all chubby-cheeked ‘n baby-faced! Y’ look just like Kirby, and that kid’s adorable!” he argued, making another attempt to cradle his face. “Not even a teeny poke?”

“Not even that.” Meta turned away from him. He could feel his eyes on his back: his hairs prickled, and he could tell that he’d crept closer. Before Dedede could catch him in one of his bear hugs, he swivelled. He caught his arm and flicked him, grabbed his cheeks and stretched. “This is what that would feel like.”

“Naw, you’re jus’ scared o’ gettin’ a li’l ol’ pimple,” he teased.

“Because you don’t wash your hands.”

“Nope! Washed ‘em a couple hours ago! How ‘bout that?”

Meta sighed, releasing him from his hold. Scolding him never harboured the results he hoped for. Dedede cracked his back as he straightened up again, chuckling to himself. 

Footsteps echoed down the hallway. Meta slipped his mask back over his face, and Dedede perked up. Bandee emerged with five Dees jogging after him, all clad in high-visibility jackets and orange rain boots. A pair of them carried an assortment of rescue tools.

“Sorry for the wait, wanya,” Bandee piped. “Just wanted them to finish up with their game. Oh, and I grabbed you another coat!” He held out a dry version of what he wore. Another umbrella was tucked under his arm. 

“Thanks, squirt!” He didn’t hesitate to pull it on and pat Bandee on the back. He wobbled but held his balance decently. “C’mon, y’all. I’d love t’ see how those two are handlin’ all this!” Dedede sauntered through the door with a grin spread across his cheeks, eager to see how they were faring. 

Until Marx crashed into him, at least. 

Marx careened into the ground, face digging into the soil and body going limp. Shortly. In seconds he was back on his feet, seemingly uninjured and still restless as ever. He leaned into the king’s face and beamed, “Hey, just the guy I was looking for! Can’t really see anything when it’s raining this hard, y’know.” Marx opened his mouth to keep talking, but noticed his audience. “And some extras, huh? Anyway, we’ve got a little problem!”

“That you caused,” Meta Knight interrupted, standing by Dedede. He hadn’t stumbled on impact, but going by how the king rubbed his shoulder, it must’ve hurt to an extent. He’d treat him for it later. “What is it?”

“Gee, how’d you know? Well… a couple of hours ago, I might’ve dug a super cool hole with Ranzy! I covered it up with grass ‘n stuff because that’d be a funny prank! Figured it’d catch, like, one or two people. But guess what?” His grin grew; his fangs poked out as he cackled, “It caught four! Crazy, right? But turns out that a cool hole in the dirt doesn’t do so well in the rain.”

Bandee froze in place and echoed, “Four?”

“Yeah,” he affirmed. “I’m good at my job, I know! Hold the applause! Anyway, Taranza’s all sad and wet down there, and he promised me a cake if I get help, so I need you to help him and everyone else outta the hole so that I can have my cake. So, are you gonna help?”

Meta Knight, Bandee and Dedede looked between each other. All at once, they looked back at the Rescue Dees, who gave a thumbs up. 

Dedede turned back to Marx. “C’mon, let’s go. Ain’t good to keep friends waitin’ f’ so long!” He set off in a nervous jog. Which quickly turned into a full-on run. Marx took to the air and soared after him, chuckling to himself about a job well done. Bandee and the Rescue Dees sprinted after him, and Meta waited for a second before setting off. 

Maybe he should’ve pulled them out of there himself. 

Magolor had seen better days. 

Compared to his involuntary expedition in Another Dimension, this wasn’t much. It was nothing compared to everything else he’d been through, really. But he’d still been in better situations. Like when he was in the Dream Kingdom. A forced vacation for a few years in a lovely little portside town. It was boring, yes, but made him money. And it was comfortable. 

Standing in a muddy ditch slowly filling with water was not comfortable. 

The fabric of his cloak and hood had stained brown with dirt, and the pink dye had begun to leak into the water. He was sure that Taranza would have noticed, at least, but it seemed that he’d stopped paying attention to much else other than his mindless weaving. With his eyes half-closed, nonetheless! Whatever he’d been making had sunk beneath the waist-deep pool, and with each passing minute sunk deeper. 

There were a few things that he hadn’t let get drenched in dirty rainwater. Like the thick blanket of silk that he’d laid on Kirby. The child had promptly fallen asleep on top of him, and Taranza had kept a firm hand on his back to keep him from falling off. He’d offered to make one for Magolor and Susie, but Susie had rejected the offer, saying that she was fine. Magolor took him up quite quickly, and proudly donned his new white scarf.

On his side, Susie absently hummed a vaguely familiar tune. He’d heard it a few times from her before, but never bothered to ask what it was. But considering the lack of entertainment down here, he figured it might make for some good conversation.

“So,” he droned, falling back against the walls of their enclosure, “what’re you humming?”

“Company jingle,” she curtly answered. 

Magolor glared at her. Going by the way she’d looked at him, she was actively trying to avoid talking to him. Perfect. He leaned closer to her face. She scowled at him but stayed quiet. He leaned closer. Susie stopped humming and grumbled, turning away. 

It was only when he poked her side that she snapped, “What?” 

He paused to look at Taranza. When he saw that he was still working away at the never-ending silk chain, he asked, “Wanna hear a joke?”

She stared at him. After thoroughly assessing her minimal options, she shrugged. “Go on.”

He smiled, fully aware that she couldn’t see it. “Okay,” he began, “so once upon a time, there were these three travellers. And one day, they came across a Galactic Nova. It was really generous, so it said that it’d grant each of them three wishes! Are you still with me? Good.

“The first traveller immediately asks for a million gold coins. And what do you know? A million gold coins appear behind him! The second traveller looks at that and asks for infinite coins. The Galactic Nova grants his wish, and he’s pretty happy about it! But the third guy… he asks for his right arm to spin clockwise forever.”

At that, Susie squinted and opened her mouth to interrogate him, but he quickly shushed her with a damp finger and continued his speech.

“Now that they’re all down a wish, they figure they’ve got to think on it a bit longer before asking. So after thinking for a good while, the first traveller asks for a partner. The second guy looks at him and asks to be the most handsome guy in the universe, so now he’s got the first guy’s partner hanging off his arm. Guess what the third guy asks for?”

“…What?” she poked. 

“His left arm to spin counter clockwise forever. Real creative guy, I’ll tell you that. But by now, everyone’s got only one wish left. The first guy looks at himself and sees he’s got wrinkles and all of that. So he asks for eternal youth. The second guy sort of laughs and just asks for infinite power. And the third guy… asks for his head to spin. Forever. In whatever direction Galactic Nova chose.

“So Galactic Nova was all like, ‘Yeah, sure, whatever,’ and granted all their wishes. And they went on with their happy little lives! Ten years later, they all meet up again. The first guy’s got an amazing natural glow to him now, and proudly claims to have achieved enlightenment! Don’t ask how. The second guy tells both of them that he controls galaxies now, and nobody really minds because he’s really hot. 

“And after listening to their incredible successes, the third traveller, with his spinning arms and ever-rotating head, says to them, ‘I think I made a mistake.’”

He looked at Susie. She, oddly enough, had the weirdest look on her face. Something between amusement and plain disappointment. She tentatively probed, “What’s the punchline?”

“No punchline,” he confirmed, surveying her carefully, “that’s the joke.” 

And she snorted so hard that he had to laugh. 

She tried to stifle herself with a well-placed hand, but after hearing Magolor’s chortling, she couldn’t keep it in. She broke down in awkward giggles, shoulders trembling and cheeks flushed. Really, it wasn’t one of Magolor’s best jokes, but it was by far his longest and definitely sat on the funnier side. Or maybe she was just laughing at her weird laugh. He was, anyway. 

When they both calmed down, catching their breath and giving each other playful pushes, they sighed. 

“Your jokes are bad,” Susie said. 

“Yeah, but you found it funny, and that’s a win for me,” he lilted. He glanced at Taranza and frowned. “Figured he’d at least snicker. Or maybe your sense of humour’s just terrible…”

Susie examined him closely. She waved a hand in front of his face, and then his uppermost eyes, to try and catch his attention. She frowned. “Don’t tell me he’s fallen asleep,” she mumbled. She extended an arm to shake him.

Taranza snorted and gasped as soon as she touched him. He stared in confusion before looking at his hands and groaning to himself. Susie reeled back. 

“Oh my gosh,” she stammered. “Were you seriously-?”

“Cold,” he mumbled, pulling the damp strings from his fingers. They sank into the deep, the faint purple glow quickly dissolving into nothing. “My apologies. You didn’t need me, did you…?” 

Magolor raised a brow as he yawned into his palm. “But you were making stuff,” he pointed out. “In your sleep?”

“Mm,” he hummed, dragging a damp hand across his face, “in my sleep. Did I miss something urgent that you had to wake me up?”

“Your eyes were, like, half-open,” Susie recalled. Her brows rose. “You sleep with your eyes open?”

“Pour l’amour de Dieu- Answer the question, please,” he hissed. 

“Well, aren’t you grouchy? First of all, I hope whatever you said translates to ‘I love you.’” Susie gave him a shove, to which he shot her a look so fierce Magolor thought she might apologise. Might. “And second of all, no. We didn’t. You just missed a really bad joke and we thought you should hear it,” she finished, elbowing Magolor.

Magolor lit up at her signal. “Ooh, hooray! Okay, so once upon a ti-” His ear twitched and he shut up. He ignored Susie’s confused stare and Taranza's half-lidded glare because, not too far off, he could hear footsteps trudging through the mud. Quite a few, actually. For a second, he figured that the sounds must’ve been from passing creatures. Until he remembered that the only reason why the four of them had been in here for the past hour and a bit was because help hadn’t arrived. His eyes widened. 

“…says that I’ve got issues!” Marx yelled, laughing when nobody else did. He flew into view and hovered over the quartet. The glow of his wings illuminated Magolor’s face. Marx waved down at him: he waved back. “Hey, bud! Guess who got help?”

“Thank Nova,” he sighed, hopes lifting higher when he noticed Dedede, Meta Knight, Bandee and the Rescue Dees looking over. He looked down at his ruined robes, stained pink and brown, barely recognisable. Barely salvageable, either. It wasn’t too much of a loss: his wardrobe mostly consisted of the same clothes. 

A rope dropped down and interrupted his line of thinking. He glanced at the source: a Waddle Dee in a bright orange jacket and rain gear. They nodded at him, and when he took that as a sign to grab on, they waved a hand and tugged. Hard. Magolor only realised that it had taken the combined might of the Waddle Dee rescue team and Dedede to heave him out when he’d finally seen the grass again. If it weren’t wet, he’d consider kissing it.

Had his legs not fallen asleep, he might’ve assisted in getting everyone else out, too. Alas, the only help he’d been able to provide with his little handicap was lifting Kirby up and out, then swaddling him in the silk blanket on his back. Meta Knight seemed particularly gentle in taking him from his hands. 

“Well,” Susie groaned, stomping dirt from between her mechanical knees, “that wasn’t the best experience, but it’s not my worst.” The wind blew against her, and she had to swipe a soggy tress from her view. She looked up at Taranza, who Dedede had volunteered to carry to his castle. “Feeling any better yet?”

His amber eyes drifted to her. He lifted one of the many hands he’d cosied into the fur of Dedede’s coat to give her a thumbs up. Susie half-heartedly patted his back: a rare show of sympathy.

Marx flew in circles round Magolor, chanting ‘cake’ until he got the message. He sighed and splayed his hands out; a large, star-shaped rift opened before them. Marx cheered, zipped into it and came back out with a decorated box. 

Magolor closed it and turned round. He pressed the fingertips of both his hands together, straining himself to remember what the king’s castle looked like. Trimmed red carpets with gold embroidery. Alabaster pillars that stood upon scuffed tiles, a stocked, crackling fireplace… The air warped and warbled as his fingers spread out. Through the rift, he could hear the rain hammering the windows. His palms ached. He wouldn’t be doing any more of that anytime soon. “Okay, everyone in! Unless you wanna take the scenic route.” He was met by no protest, and he was glad for that. One by one, they stepped (or flew) through until the plains were empty. 

From the warm interior of Castle Dedede, Magolor snapped his fingers and the rift blipped out of existence. He sighed and stretched before wringing out his clothes. Marx simply flared out his wings a couple of times, and the rain splattered off him. Susie recoiled. 

Bandee propped his umbrella against the wall and asked, “Is everyone alright, ya?” 

Magolor looked around. Kirby was asleep in Meta Knight’s arms, and Taranza was still warming up on Dedede’s back; Susie’s lower half looked ready to be deep cleaned, and Magolor’s clothes were barely recognisable. He scratched his ear. “Never been better,” he joked. Bandee’s cheeks flushed. He must’ve been smiling. 

Still, the Dee sighed. “So much for the picnic-”

“Picnic!” Kirby shrilled. Everyone jolted - Meta Knight nearly dropped him, but he didn’t notice. He looked around and up at his mentor. “Someone said picnic, right? Are we still having it, poyo?”

Meta stared back down at him. “…I believe so,” he replied, glancing at the cake in Marx’s hands. The jester vicariously shook his head at him. So he turned to Dedede.

“I’ve got snacks in th’ fridge,” he suggested. “Oh, an’ the sandwiches y’ left behind! An’ if y’all are stayin’ the night, I can ask the Dees to whip somethin’ up real quick.”

Susie held a straight face as she surveyed Meta Knight. He glared at her but didn’t shift, ever wary of her. “I’ll be staying,” she said, and turned away from him.

Magolor and Marx looked between each other. At the same time, they gave a thumbs up: the cake box toppled in Marx’s claws and he scrambled to catch it. 

Dedede grinned and chuckled, only to quiet himself when Taranza stirred. He beckoned everyone to follow him into his throne room and asked them to wait. The first time he left, he came back with blankets. He rolled Taranza into one of them and left him with Susie before leaving again. The second time he came back, it was with the aforementioned sandwiches and some paper plates. “Would’ve been nice to do this in the sun, but here we are!” He flopped down between Bandee and Kirby and reached for a snack. Meta Knight slapped his hand down, and Dedede whined, “Why?”

“Wash your hands,” he hissed, “all of you.”

“But you haven’t,” Kirby noted, pointing at him.

“And I’m going to, because I don’t want to get sick.” He rose, but before he turned to leave, he hesitated. Everyone looked at him in confusion. And then he sneezed.

“So much for not getting sick,” Susie teased. She stood to make her way out, carefully stepping over Taranza. “He has a point, though, regarding keeping up good hygiene. Considering half the room just escaped a budget bottomless pit-”

“-courtesy of me!” Marx interjected. Magolor slapped a hand over his mouth before Susie could threaten him beyond the irate glare she’d just shot at him.

“…as I was saying, most of us are covered in dirt, and using muddy hands to eat clean food is criminal. There’s also the fact that a few of us had the… unfortunate experience of swimming in grime for hours, and I’m confident that the risk of illness is far higher for us than anyone else. So, on that note…” she rang out, “Do you have a pressure washer?”

“‘Scuse me?” Dedede crowed. He scratched his head and leaned into Bandee’s ear, murmured a question and pulled back when he shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t keep track o’ these things too much, now.”

As Susie reiterated her oddly specific (and self-oriented) demands, blathering on about mud-caked metallic joints, Meta Knight huffed to himself. Begrudgingly, and to everyone’s great surprise, he asked her to follow him. He set off upon catching her attention and she had to run after him to catch up. 

“Huh,” Magolor hummed. “Never thought that’d happen.” He doubted that Susie had been overexaggerating her… issues with the knight, but there was the possibility. There could’ve been something else to it. Nothing Magolor knew about, of course. 

When he came back, Dedede was quick to wipe crumbs from his lips and ask, “What’d y’ do this time?”

“Locked her outside,” he coolly replied, reaching for a sandwich. He lifted his mask just enough so that he could take a bite, chewing and swallowing before adding, “And I washed my hands, mind you.”

A tinny fist rapped on the arched window. Everyone turned to see Susie furiously mouthing ‘let me in’ with a hose in her hand. Meta Knight rose to meet her. He flipped her off, and before she could argue any further, pulled the velvet curtains shut. He sat back down and continued to eat, tuning out Dedede’s reprimands.

Magolor looked at Marx. Marx looked back at him with a fistful of cake. They snickered between themselves. That was more like it.

Chapter Text

Taranza had always slept on his own.

Save for winter, at least, but that was another story for another time. 

He liked the drifting silence of the night. He liked the natural peace that fell over everything in sight, too. The stars. The chirping crickets. The white noise of the ongoing storm. The gleaming ring surrounding Popstar’s blue moon. From where he lay, its milky light cut through the dull clouds and spilled through the arched windows of Dedede’s castle and dimly illuminated his room. If he could touch it, and cradle it in his hands, what would it feel like? If he could taste it on his lips, would it be sweet? 

Joronia had always asked him questions like that, and he’d always been embarrassed that he couldn’t answer them. Sometimes, he’d wished that he could catch the moonlight in a bottle and show her. But magic had its limits. Still, he had always understood why she loved it so much. Something that paralleled the sun and rivalled it in beauty, something that swayed the ocean; something that led a court of stars in a nocturnal parade. Something that could not be lived without. 

It was, so discreetly, and so perfectly, everything. 

The two of them had always adored the haloed blue moon. It stood proud as Floralia’s spectacle of the night - the peak of beauty, she used to call it. He could recall how eager she was to stay up when it was at its fullest, and he clearly remembered the numerous reasons she’d concoct to make him join her. She’d challenge him to friendly spars on the balcony. She’d ask him to play an instrument for her. Once she simply took his hand and pointed it up at the moon. He missed nights like those. 

He missed a lot of things. All the time. He missed the past and his heart ached for it. He missed the long-gone normalcy that he’d sacrificed for a love he never professed. 

And by Nova, he missed when he wasn’t sleeping with three more people in his room. 

Marx’s snores interrupted his thoughts constantly. For someone so small, he slept like a sack of bricks. It didn’t phase Magolor, seeing as he was cosily curled up beneath his friend. Barring the occasional grumble in his sleep, he looked undisturbed. 

Susie, unfortunately, wasn’t so lucky. He didn’t have to turn to her to know - the occasional shuffling of the sheets was enough to let him know she was awake. He’d been facing the window for the whole night. Including when Marx and Magolor had ‘snuck’ onto his bed despite their volunteering to sleep on the floor. But through his rear eyes, he could see that she’d set herself straight out on the bed, arms firmly at her sides. She hadn’t moved at all, and - he eyed the clock - three hours had passed. And her eyes were wide open. 

Outside, thunder boomed. She squeaked. Slowly and cautiously, she turned her head to him. She stared and, unbeknownst to her, he stared back. She turned away. Her arms shifted onto her chest and she twiddled her thumbs. And then she turned back to him. 

It went on like that for a while. Turn to him, turn away, think on it for a while and repeat. Internally, Taranza wondered if the rain had had an impact on her. But she finally broke the cycle, hesitantly and gently tapping him. 

“Taranza,” she whispered, lips pursed, “are you asleep?”

He held his breath for a second. “To your relief, you’ll find that I’m actually awake,” he answered. She sat up and released a breath he didn’t notice her holding. He pushed himself up and turned to her. “Are you okay?”

Susie’s gaze flickered away from him uncomfortably. “Um,” she started, “nothing important. It’s… just sleep problems. Again.” Her knees rose to her chest and she wrapped her arms around them. She wore a dry shirt that she’d borrowed from his closet. She pulled the sleeve up her wrist so that she could look at her gloved hands. “And if I can’t sleep, neither can you.”

He chuckled to himself. He didn’t mind, even if this was becoming a habit of hers. “In that case, would you be interested in going on a walk? I’m just visiting the gardens, of course, but we could get something from the kitchen first.”

“Hm…” She frowned and brought a hand to her chin. Marx snored out. She grimaced, grabbed his detached hands and squeezed. “ Please.”  

And so after grabbing Susie an old cape to wear, they were in the quiet comfort of the castle halls. Lightning snapped across the sky. Susie pulled the fabric tighter over her, thumbing the thick inner silk and the gold lining. Taranza walked ahead of her, bare feet padding across the marble tiles and rolling carpets. 

“I should wear your clothes more often,” she joked, elbowing him. “These are quite comfortable. That would be since you used silk, obviously - both elegant and weather-proof. Definitely practical. And I look cute in it!” She struck a pose. The gold glistened against the verdant green.

He eyed her. He slowed his pace to match hers. “Or… I could make you something! It’d be free, of course, and personalised to your tastes. And it’d be silk. Or not. It would depend on what you order…” Taranza blushed. He didn’t mean to talk so much, but the idea of making something for someone else always excited him. “How does that sound?”

“Sounds perfect! We can take my measurements later, but I feel like trying out trousers for once. I’ve been thinking of flare-legs - anything pink will do-” 

“How long have you wanted me to ask this?” he laughed.

“Since I heard that you had experience as a tailor,” she beamed. “I mean, six hands? And you make the thread. I’m expecting the best quality when it comes.”

“Yes, yes, when it comes. Just make sure to write down your requests and remind me tomorrow.” He gently nudged her to the right, and they passed into the kitchen. 

Wax candles that had nearly burnt out faintly glowed on the walls, flickering with the slightest gust of wind. The faucet dripped. Rain pattered against the glass of the windows. 

Susie analysed the pinned-up drawings on the fridge-freezer. Some in carefree crayons, others in thick graphite pencils, but all made with the same amount of love. A crayon drawing of a pink and grey smartly-dressed figure brought the smallest smile to her face. She didn’t mind that the chore list had been stuck on top of it with a sword magnet. 

While she picked out ice cream for herself, Taranza took to making himself tea. He stayed over often enough to know where they kept their tea bags, and enough to know that they’d started to keep his tea bags in the same place. He pulled out a small, pink tea bag from the tin in the cupboard and set it in his teacup. 

“Interested in tea?” he asked, filling the kettle with water.

Susie looked at the container in her hands and peeked a look. She groaned, shoved it back into the freezer and bumped the door. It swung shut. “Barely anything left in there. So, surprise me,” she huffed. 

He pulled out another pink tea bag for her and dropped it into a plain mug. When the kettle began to whistle, he hastily poured the water into each cup, placed each cup into a saucer and held the mug out to Susie. “Rose hip tea. It’d be best for you to let it brew for a while,” he advised, closing the cupboard overhead. “That way you can get the most out of it.”

“If you say so.” She left it on a tabletop to look for another snack. After a bit of rummaging, she triumphantly held out a slice of shortcake. “Now, let’s go before we run into anyone.” She tugged him into the hallway, realised she’d left her cup behind and lumbered back for it. “Alright,” she sighed, mug in hand, “now we go.”

They breezed through the hallways. As the cold nipping at their ankles grew stronger, Taranza led her towards a short staircase. He ran up in long strides, droplets of tea spilling into the saucer as he balanced himself. Susie nimbly skipped up. Her saucer was still clean when she reached the top. 

After a few more turns and closing some windows, he stopped at a pair of double doors. The cool light of the midnight storm peeked from the gap beneath and spread across his face as he opened them. An old granite terrace fenced with cracked quartz greeted him. Ivy hung from the veranda and curtained the view. A quartet of bamboo seats were spacily positioned around a round garden table. 

He smiled. He hadn’t been up here in a while. And to his greater relief, the rain hadn’t passed further than the planters that decorated the edges. He ducked under the hanging rain charms and singing wind chimes to settle into the round cushions that lined a chair, took a sip of his piping hot tea and sighed. From here he could see the glisten of the rain on Castle Dedede’s little green patch.

Susie set her cup down in front of him to look over the terrace’s fencing. She hummed and sat beside him, reached for her tea and drank it as if it hadn’t been freshly boiled. She crossed her legs. “It’s a nice view from here,” she whispered. 

“Yes,” he answered, “it is.” 

The sky flashed and his vision flickered. He rubbed at his eyes until he could focus again. A booming crack tore through the air and the heavy rainfall slowly grew louder, stray droplets hitting the stony floor. He hoped the rain wouldn’t damage the plants. 

A creamy strawberry popped up in front of him. He lagged in realising that it was an offer, and Susie sounded disappointed by his slow response. She frowned at him and waved it about. “Do you want it or not?”

“I’ll take it!” And he did. With practised caution, he slid it off the fork and slipped it into his mouth, pleasantly surprised by the perfect combination of sweet syrup and heavy cream. He swallowed. “Thank you,” he hummed. 

“Don’t think of it,” she retorted. Her fork cut into the thick shortcake smoothly: a triangle of the dessert fell onto it. She scooped it up without further thought and let it disappear through her lips. “So, do you come here often? Castle Dedede.”

“Oh, quite often. Sometimes I’m invited over, sometimes I visit.” He leaned back and relaxed a bit more. Taranza folded a leg over another and, quite clumsily, jogged his tea. He hissed at the heat on his knee, rubbing at it to numb it out. He sighed. “If you’re wondering about my room, that’s just for the winter. Just in case I have anything to work on.”

She hummed tunelessly. Her gaze drifted back to the plant-laced balcony. “What sort of stuff?”

“It varies from general paperwork to personal projects.” The puppets in his fabric drawer crossed his mind: maybe he’d show Susie if she was interested. “Most of the time, it’ll be for research.” 

“Care to elaborate?” 

“I will,” he said, leaning towards her and raising a floating finger, “if you answer some of my questions, too. We can’t have this turn into an interrogation, after all!”

Susie furrowed her brow, looked him over and conceded with a shrug. “Fine. As long as you agree to answer my questions in return.”

“Of course! That’s how an exchange should work, no? Tit-for-tat, or whatever the phrase is. Now, let’s see…” He snapped his fingers and sat back. “You’re not from Gamble Galaxy, right? How many planets have you been to?”

Her lips curved up at that. “I like this question,” she hummed, resting her chin in her palm and her elbow on the armrest. “Let’s see. I’ve been to plenty outside this galaxy. At least… thirty or so? That sounds right. But in Gamble Galaxy… I’ve only been to Shiver Star, Popstar and a few moons. Mostly on business. How about you?”

“Oh, I haven’t left this galaxy before. But I’ve been fortunate enough to visit Ripple Star a few times!” He smiled to himself. He ought to visit again sometime soon: Queen Ripple might like to hear how he was doing. “You wouldn’t mind if I asked you something else, would you?”

“Go ahead. But I get to ask you next.”

“What’s your hair routine?”

She laughed softly, flicked her hair at him and wagged her finger. “That’s off limits. If I told you, then my hair wouldn’t stand out half as much.” She sipped some of her tea and let it swirl in the cup. “What, are you jealous or something?”

“Jealous is an overstatement,” he chuckled, “but I will say that your hair is quite nice.”

“Thanks. My turn, now!” She cleared her throat. “Are your hands - and I’m talking about the detached ones - real? When I say ‘real,’ I’m specifically asking whether they’re magic or not.” 

“Well,” he started, bringing all four of his floating hands forwards, “they’re a bit of both. Physically, they’re flesh and blood. They’re still a part of my body, so if I touch something with them, I can feel it.” 

Susie reached to hold one. “Can I?” When he nodded to her, she gently pulled it into her lap to inspect it further. She poked at his palm and pulled at his fingers with practised care. An intrigued frown tugged at her brows. “If they’re flesh and blood, how are they surviving while not being attached to you?”

“That’s where the magic comes in. I won’t lie - I don’t know as much about myself as I’d like to, so I can’t exactly explain that bit to you. But I think it simply keeps the limb alive as if it’s connected to the rest of the system.”

“I’ll assume that’s what makes them float, too?” 

“Mm, exactly. I like to imagine that all my hands use the same magic, you know: that the magic they cast is the magic that keeps them alive.” He smiled. A soft purple spark flashed between his fingers: he snapped them, and the light shot off into the storm. “Just a guess, but it’d be incredible if it were true, hm?”

She raised her brows in acknowledgement. Her thumb brushed against where his wrist would’ve been and, curiously, she flipped his hand over to get a better look. “So,” she mumbled, “how’d these come about?”

“Haven’t a clue,” he answered, shrugging.

“Are you sure?” She looked sceptical - he wasn't too shocked. 

“I mean, I’ve got an idea, but nothing too clear.” He chuckled to himself. “I’m just guessing they came with the package.”

“And you haven’t considered asking your parents or something?” she asked, squeezing his palm gently before letting go of his hand. 

He flexed it a couple of times before letting it rest in the air, unoccupied. His gaze fell on the teacup, no longer steaming. He liked it better when it was hot. “No parents,” he answered. He turned to Susie and saw a shockingly sympathetic frown across her face. “Not- uh, I wasn’t exactly born. More like I popped out of a flower.”

She squinted at him. “What?”

“I could ask around for you. Really, I’ll never understand the story myself.” He rose to his feet with his teacup in his hands. He extended another. “Would you like a refill? I’m just dropping by the kitchen.”

Susie thanked him and handed off her cup before spooning another slice of shortcake into her mouth. She leaned against the woven armrest with a sigh, waving as he passed through the doors once more. 

The sky flashed again, and he looked outside. He frowned. He was almost sure that wasn’t a lightning bolt this time. In fact, he thought he’d seen something - or someone - yellow rip across the cloud cover. 

He shrugged. It must’ve been his imagination. 

Susie hated the rain.

She wished she’d told Taranza that instead of following him onto the veranda. But she hadn’t. Now, she was sitting quietly, waiting for him to get back with some piping hot tea. 

She’d leapt in her seat when the lightning struck (she was sure it was lightning, even if it wasn’t as white as usual) and hummed loudly to cover up the thunder. It was so embarrassing. She wasn’t a child. She had no reason to fear the weather.

She ate some more shortcake, hunched over the plate in a way she’d never replicate in public. She pulled her feet onto the chair and leaned back. Her metal knees glinted in the dim light of the night. She could see specks of mud between the joints. A thin strip of wood. Sludge-black blades of grass that she hadn’t noticed in the hours of the evening, and a little leaf wedged deep into the crevice. 

Had Meta Knight been kind enough to show her the actual pressure washer instead of a basic hose, she wouldn’t have to resort to picking the dirt out with her nails, desperately hoping not to scratch her paint job. But he hadn’t. So she set down her plate and busied herself with cleaning debris from her knee with precision and care. 

She tugged out some grass. It snapped when she pulled too hard, and she had to dig her nail deeper to get a hold on it again. After the same blade snapped again, she decided to return to it with tweezers. Later. And after a completely different one gave her the same results, she concluded that she’d simply have to dismantle her leg and clean it out herself. 

The door swung open. She thought it was Taranza. The steely grey of a familiar mask told her otherwise. 

Meta Knight stared into the distance with his arms folded over his chest. A navy blue blanket was draped over his shoulder. He was unaware of her and, for a moment, she felt safer.

She fixed her posture, set her leg back on the ground and cleared her throat. He snapped his head towards her. She’d startled him. An accident, but one she didn’t care to talk about. She looked away from his piercing stare. “Good evening, Meta Knight.”

Interestingly, he stepped onto the veranda and sat opposite her. With a low, gravelly voice, he echoed, “Good evening.” He was swift to turn away from her and back to the balcony. He coughed. And coughed again. And sniffled and leaned back and wrapped his blanket around himself without acknowledging her once. 

He sounded ill. He’d probably caught a cold from the previous day’s troubles. She wouldn’t be shocked if that were the case - he had already started sneezing when they had their little indoor picnic (without her, of course.) But it didn’t explain what he was doing out here. If he was sick, he’d be better off going back to sleep in the warm comfort of his bed. Maybe he was reflecting on something, but on what? And even that wouldn’t explain why he was so willing to sit with her-

“What?” he rasped, setting his eyes on her. 

“What?” she repeated. 

“You’re staring at me, Haltmann. I’m no spectacle.” 

Susie blinked and felt the stinging of her eyes dissipate. She broke eye contact - if she hadn’t, she was sure she’d start to freeze - and looked back at him. She bowed. “…It appears I was. The intention wasn’t to bother you. I was… just thinking,” she explained, fighting the incredible urge to tap her foot. 

He grunted. “I don’t care.” 

That sounded like a lie, but she wasn’t interested in provoking him. Her eyes stayed set on him. His eyes stayed set on her. She watched as he leaned forward to let his wings fold over him like a cocoon. He made sure to leave his head free to keep glaring at her.

Slowly, she picked up her plate of shortcake to keep eating. His eyes followed the cake as she set her fork into it again. There wasn’t much left by now. “What are you doing out here?” she asked. 

Despite the thick metal mask and the constant shadow over his face, she could tell that he frowned. It didn’t appear so aggressive: it looked more uninterested, if anything. “Is that important to you?”

“Well, considering you’re sick,” she said, balancing the cake on the prongs, “I thought it was worth asking.” She ate it. It didn’t taste so sweet anymore. 

“I’m not sick,” he hissed. Ironically, he shivered.

She chuckled to herself. “Of course not.”

He huffed - it was more of a chilly sigh, if anything - and tucked his wings tighter. “I’m waiting for someone.”

She hummed and raised a brow. “Me too.”

They both returned to silence. The clinking of the fork against ceramic was the sole noise against the storm. Soon, she’d finished what was left on the plate. Nothing but smears of cream decorated its patterned rims. She lay the plate down on the table and sat back. It’d be great if Taranza showed up.

But he didn’t. If she had her pocket watch on her, she’d know exactly how long he’d been gone for. It felt like a long time. He’d probably gone and done something stupid, like tripping down the stairs. He’d done that a couple days before. She didn’t like to imagine that his clumsiness had gotten him hurt again like it always did, but it was the most plausible reason.

Susie stopped her leg from bouncing. She looked down at the dried mud flakes that had fallen out of its joints. How on earth did Taranza find it in himself to let her sleep in his room with all of this? Or maybe he was just too tired to notice. 

She folded her hands over each other on her lap and snuck a look at Meta Knight. Magolor’s advice echoed in her mind. She made a conscious effort to tune out the irritating squeak of his voice. He’d said that if she wanted to be on better terms with him, she’d be best starting off with an apology. A part of her doubted this would work, but opportunities were made to be taken. She cocked her head and asked, “What’s your problem?” 

That was not what she was meant to say. 

His heavy-lidded stare drifted up to her. He looked her over with his usual disdain; she could sense the growing animosity behind his mask. “What?”

“I’ve got my own idea of what it is,” she added. “But I’d say it’s worth hearing it from you. Because it’s your problem. And I’d like to make amends.” 

He didn’t respond immediately. But his eyes had remained on her. He coughed again. “With you?” he asked. After another few seconds of glaring, he decided to speak. “Several things,” he started. He tucked his wings behind his back. “You invaded our planet. Hurt thousands of people and destroyed the oldest of the forests. You kidnapped me and used me like a weapon. You take Kirby’s forgiveness to mean that everyone has forgiven you. And, above all else, you’re seeking to ‘make amends.’ As if nothing happened, because that’s how it ends up.”

Her eye twitched. “Well,” she sighed, “that’s your perspective. First of all, I worked under the president’s orders. It’s ridiculous of you to shift the blame for everything onto me-”

“Including kidnapping me.”

“…Yes, that too. You weren’t… supposed to become part of the plan, and I apologise that you got involved in the first place. It was a case of- what do they say- being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Her mouth felt stale. The forced smile across her face ached with every passing moment. 

What she could see of his face darkened as she spoke. “Wrong place, wrong time,” he echoed. He folded one leg over the other and leaned back. His eyes brightened and she briefly squinted to adjust. “You have no sincerity. And no heart, Haltmann. ‘Make amends.’” He scoffed. “Even if I did choose to forget everything, who’s to say you’ve changed at all? That you’ve learned anything from what happened to you. To your president.”

“Don’t compare me to him,” she spat, voice rising. Her hands balled up in her lap. Meta Knight hummed at her reaction, intrigued. She needed to control her voice. Calm down. A beat passed before she spoke again. “And I never said you should just… forget what happened. That wouldn’t be fair, and I know that.”

“So why can you ignore the severity of your offences so easily?”

“I’m not. I-” She broke off into a droning sigh and massaged her face with her cold, steel fingers. “I didn’t know how serious everything was until recently. Things like that were… normal in the old company, so I didn’t really- I didn’t exactly… understand the personal impact of what I did back then. On you, or on anyone else.” 

“And you do now, hm?” 

“I’m trying. Unless you’ve got a problem with that.” She folded her legs over one another, took a deep breath and started up again. “I know that you don’t trust me, because you make that glaringly obvious. And I know that you don’t like me, either, but I’m trying to change, and to get better. So would you please be so kind as to bear with me while I do that?”

He huffed again and cleared his throat. His voice rasped, but the thinly veiled spite remained stagnant and firm. “I’ll try. But by no means does this mean I’ll forget what you are, Haltmann.” He let his wings fold against his back and collapse into the glimmering fabric of his cape. He turned from her and faced the dark sky. Finally, she relaxed her shoulders. She didn’t have the energy to ask what he thought she was.

That had gone better than expected. Not the way she had hoped for it to play out, but it was a start. She would need to tread carefully from now on. He’d take anything as an excuse for distrust - he always did - so she’d have to avoid being too rash. At least she had a chance at reconciliation, though.

Her attention drifted to the night. The sky flashed white and thunder followed soon after. It didn’t quite scare her like it had earlier. What did scare her, however, was a vaguely familiar yell and a yellow bolt of lightning tearing across the sky. 

Meta Knight stood to peer over the balcony. His blanket and his cape billowed in the wind. There was nothing there. Anymore, at least. 

She knew she’d seen yellow lightning somewhere before. Recently. And the voice, and what it had boomed. Something with a ‘J’ in it. Jambandran, maybe. There were only four people who knew of that language, and they weren’t even supposed to be on the planet.

Behind her, the doors opened again. She turned to see who it was and jumped to her feet. 

Taranza, with no tea in his hands, wobbled on his feet, smoking and frazzled. Water dripped from the ends of his clothes. Dedede stood behind him with a shaky face and a hand hovering over his back. 

“What happened? I thought you said you were getting tea!” she yelled, trying to pull Taranza closer to inspect his face. A bolt of electricity shocked her before she could touch him. Her eyes widened. “No way.”

“Yes way,” he objected, collapsing into the chair next to her. He patted his spiked hair down. “And you would not believe who it was.”

“A Mage Sister,” Meta Knight said. 

Dedede flopped down beside his knight and waved at Susie. “Yup. Zan Parmesan or somethin’? I ‘unno, but she seemed pretty skittish.”

“Partizanne,” Taranza corrected, squeezing his eyes shut. He groaned and spread a palm across his face. “We didn’t see her sisters or her master in the area. Just her.” Slowly, he winced and turned to Susie. “Sorry about the tea, by the way. I can brew some more, if you’d like?”

She shrugged it off. “You got struck by lightning. Tea isn’t at the top of my mind right now.” She looked him up and down. “And why are you wet?”

“I was outside,” he answered. 

Dedede nodded. “After he saw that bolt o’ lightnin’, he figured it wasn’t lightnin’! Took me a while longer.” He rested an elbow on Meta Knight’s shoulder and ignored the look he gave him. “So he decided to try n’ look for th’ culprit, right? He climbs out the nearest window, and there she is! All stormy-faced ‘n whatnot.”

“She- she said something - before she struck me, I mean - but I don’t know what. She seemed mad. I’m, uh, fine for the most part.” Taranza scratched his cheek. “I think she might’ve been looking for someone, though. That would explain why she didn’t want to get caught.” He loosened his scarf. Then he pulled it off entirely. He folded it into his lap. “We might need to look out for her.”

“Exactly what I was gonna say,” Dedede crowed. Taranza shook his head, somewhat unamused. The king yawned and stretched his arms. “S’ the only interestin’ thing that’s happened in a while, so we’ll tell everyone at th’ meetin’ t’morrow. But, uh, that aside…” He leaned on his knee and let his voice drop to a whisper. “Everyone know what they’re doin’ for th’ kid’s birthday?”

Meta Knight chuckled and tilted his head. “Of course.”

Dedede raised a brow, but he stayed silent. “So y’ ain’t gonna tell me about it, huh? Alright, then. How ‘bout you two?”

Taranza’s energy returned with the new topic. His face lit up with anticipation. “Ooh, yes, yes! I’m nearly done with the newest puppet show. It’s taken a lot of work, so I hope he’ll like it! Oh, and Dedede, I might need your help getting everything to the castle. You’ll be free to help, yes?” The king nodded, and his smile brightened.

Susie knew what she was doing. She’d been working on it for years. Meta Knight wouldn’t like it, but it wasn’t for him. “Special project,” she stated. “Can’t tell you, or you might end up telling Kirby about it.”

Dedede grinned and puffed his chest out. “Better be great, cause none o’ y’all’s gifts are gonna compare t’ mine!” He laughed, proud of himself. But anyone could tell that it was a cover-up.

“You didn’t get him anything, did you?” Taranza asked, pity poking through his words.

He held his smile for a moment longer. But after a beat passed, he groaned and his face fell into his hands. “I’ve been tryin’! But I ain’t got a clue what I can get him that’ll be cool!” 

“I feel like you forget that he’s Kirby. Anything will suffice,” Susie retorted, rolling her eyes at him. “Bake him a cake or something.”

“I can’t do somethin’ as borin’ as that!” Dedede spread his arms to the sky and fell back in his seat. “S’ gotta be extravagant! ‘N memorable!”

“That just sounds like a good cake to me,” Taranza joked. 

“I ain’t bakin’ a cake,” Dedede groaned, thick brows furrowing. He pulled off his nightcap to let his head breathe. “I got two weeks t’ think o’ somethin’ that he’ll like, an’ I’ll do it!”

Taranza smiled from across him and rose to his feet. “I’m sure you’ll think of something,” he comforted, laying a floating hand on his shoulder. “But I think I should get some sleep. That bolt’s taken a lot out of me. Are you staying, Susie?” He extended his hand to her.

She grabbed her plate, took his hand and pulled herself up. “No,” she sighed, “I’m busy tomorrow. Good night, you two.”

As soon as she saw Dedede wave her off, she left. She would need an early start to the day. And some coffee. She had two weeks to finish her restoration project, so she’d need to speed up her work.

She turned to Taranza and nudged him. “Are you sure you’re okay? I don’t need you passing out on our way to your room.”

He drowsily nodded, drawing a hand through his hair. “I’ve been through worse,” he said.

She wondered what he meant by that, but didn’t bother to ask him. All she wanted was to wrap herself in a blanket and sleep. They passed by the kitchen, and she washed her dish before they left for his room again. 

They were (un)pleasantly surprised to see Magolor and Marx chatting it away on the bed. The pranksters watched wide-eyed as Susie and Taranza walked towards them. Susie stared for a second at Marx, decided she had no interest in entertaining whatever he was about to say and shoved him onto the floor. Taranza wordlessly fell into the mattress, rolled over and hugged his pillow. 

Ignoring Marx’s loud complaints, she lay flat on the mattress and crossed her hands over her chest. For once, Magolor was quiet. He poked her twice. She grunted at him. He poked her again and leaned over her to see her face. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Something happen?” he asked quietly, slowly shifting beneath the blankets. She felt him pull it from beneath her and lay it over her.

She pursed her lips and edged her eyes open. “Just… thinking. Nothing serious.”

He almost seemed to raise a brow at her - it was hard to tell, especially because he still had his hood on - but took her word, shuffled into place and left her alone. 

Outside, the rainfall relented and ebbed away. She didn’t know how long had passed until it had become nothing but the slow drip of water from dislodged bricks and protruding window sills. It did nothing to take the conversation from earlier off her mind. About change. There was nothing to change anymore. She’d fixed everything that had to be fixed, and rewritten most of the apathetic codes of conduct. She knew that she was far, far better than her father could’ve ever been. At managing the company. At treating her organic employees like people instead of expendable robots. 

She knew she was better than who she used to be. She was independent, at least. And she didn’t waste her time looking for someone else’s approval. She knew that would get her nowhere.

She wasn’t trying to satisfy Meta Knight. He was insatiable. But she still, at least, wanted to move past everything he hated her for (which, to her quiet dismay, was more than she’d expected.) So that she could confidently say that she’d changed. Just to make sure that nobody could come along and say that there was a striking resemblance between her and the late President Haltmann. 

(Nothing scared her more than that.)

Susie curled in on herself as tightly as the cluttered arrangement of the bed allowed her to. The ceiling was a plain, old thing with a half-dusty chandelier hanging in the centre. The soft moonlight that bloomed from the golden chains only made the age of the room clearer. 

She bit her lip, took in a breath and let it out. She’d sleep on it. The whole embarrassingly one-sided beration that came from her pathetic attempt at an apology. It wasn’t something she wanted to continue thinking about, anyway. Even if she knew it would come up again eventually. 

The door creaked and she shot up. Her fingers had already wrapped around an unlit candlestick by the time she saw who it was.

“Calm down,” Dedede whispered, leaning against the doorframe, “it’s just me.” He peeked in to see the state of her friends and waved at Marx, who waved a wing back at him. He gestured to the door with a hand and, with another, mimicked talking. He raised a brow at the lampshade. “What’s that for?”

Her cheeks warmed, and she slowly set it back down. Marx jumped into her spot on the bed as soon as she got up to meet Dedede. She closed the door behind her, stared at him for a good while, and finally asked, “What?”

“Just checkin’ on you. I saw you and Meta sittin’ together back there an’ figured he might’ve said somethin’ to you.” He pulled off his nightcap to let his head breathe. “Did he?”

Her gaze drifted away from him as he spoke. “Just the usual,” she sighed. 

She could feel him linger on her. Picking his next words, maybe. Deciding whether or not to continue with a dead-end conversation like this one. He’d ask her if she was okay, and she would say yes, because nobody was interested in learning about her problems. 

Dedede, still against the door, tilted his chin up at her and rolled his wrist. “Y’ feel like talkin’ about it?”

…And even if he was interested - and unfortunately, he was - she wasn’t the sort to share. There was a reason why they were her problems rather than their problems. He’d take his knight’s side, anyway. They were too familiar with each other for him to even pity her in the slightest. The concern he was feigning had no meaning to it other than to make her feel cared for. She knew better than to fall for that. 

“No thanks. Is that all?” she asked, stepping back in front of the room. 

“Is that all? Oh. Well, uh, if you need me to talk to him…” 

She shook her head. “Good night.” And this time, she didn’t even wait for him to say it back. She swung the doors shut and momentarily lingered with her hands set on the handles, eyes on the aged polish and the oak patterns. She could hear Dedede’s sandals on the floor as he left her. 

Magolor made space on the bed for her, squishing Marx against Taranza. The two of them had already fallen asleep again. She curled up under the blankets and pulled them up to her face. 

“Good night, Susie,” Magolor mumbled, patting her shoulder. 

Her eyes didn’t quite meet his in time to say it back. She gave him a weak reply. She doubted that he heard it. As if it mattered. She chewed her cheeks to kill the soft smile that had risen up, closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. The next week would be a long one. 

Chapter Text

Magolor had to admit, he sometimes felt out of place when he was with his roommates.

Susie owned a leading intergalactic mechanics company. She knew how to handle herself in tough situations and had no issue telling people how to get things done. She was cool. Snappy, sassy and smart. She wasn’t scared of starting fights, either. She knew how to throw punches faster than anyone and knew how to weaponise anything in the vicinity. To say the least for her, she always looked like she knew what she was doing. Even when she didn’t, she mostly kept her cool facade.

Taranza was a budding king (or regent, or whatever he called himself - everyone knew that he wore the crown.) He was soft, and almost seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve, but he knew when to toughen up. He seemed less eager to run into battle, though. He was kind. And gentle and curious and patient. The thick, sweet smell of heart magic seemed to envelope him. He was strangely powerful, and maybe all of that love had something to do with it. He certainly had a not-so-subtle proud streak, though. 

Magolor, on the other hand, didn’t feel so accomplished. While he was an intergalactic traveller - the intergalactic traveller - he didn’t travel so often anymore. Once upon a time, he’d been powerful enough to hold Gamble Galaxy in white-gloved palms, but it had taken no more than a clawed crown to tell him that the power he held wasn’t his. He harboured an artillery of long-forgotten spells from the Ancients, and an assortment of his own making, but he still had a long way to go before they were truly something to remember. The only things he knew he could hold to his name were his theme park and his beloved ship.

He held his cheeks in his hands and watched Taranza lazily. It was a slow day for everyone, it seemed. Taranza’s gloved hands worked a needle through a fabric body, his eyes creased with peculiar focus. He cut the thread and tied it off, put his tools aside and rolled his craft over. 

It was a small, pink, round thing with stubs for hands and bright red feet. Its cheeks had soft rosy smudges of blush, its eyes sparkled with navy resin and deep-blue glitter, and it wore an unmoving smile. Taranza gave it a squeeze. It squeaked.

Magolor found it cute. It held a strange air of familiarity, though. “Who’s that?” he asked, extending a hand to poke at it. He nudged it with a finger.

“Guess,” Taranza answered, smiling at him. 

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “and that’s why I’m asking you.”

The puppeteer covered his puppet with a pair of his hands. He snapped his free fingers and from his downturned palms came a gentle flash of violet. When he lifted them, his pink creation smiled even wider.

He gawked. The pink thing teetered on its feet, waving its arms in the air, before toddling towards him and waving again. It squeaked with every step. And if that wasn’t incredible enough, it opened its felted mouth and sang, “Hi!” 

“Guess!” Taranza repeated, crossing his legs and leaning forwards. He dangled his finger above it and it quickly diverted its attention, hopping and dancing to catch his hand. It latched on.

“What, is it someone I know?”

“Someone you know very well,” he beamed.

“I don’t know,” he groaned. “Nobody looks like that!” 

Susie came from behind Taranza and rested an elbow on his shoulder. She snapped her fingers. “It’s Kirby.”

And, perfectly on cue, the puppet cheered, “Poyo!”

Taranza nodded, confirmed her guess and laughed as Susie pumped her fist in a quiet victory dance.

“Why not make it look like Kirby, though?” Magolor asked. He could see the thin, iridescent strings between Taranza’s hands and the puppet’s felt. He wondered if the puppet truly lived, or if it simply listened to commands through the strings.

Taranza waved him off, slid ‘Kirby’ off his finger and pushed him in Magolor’s direction. “Oh, just to keep the mood light. It’s better to have the story linked to the puppets rather than the people.” He tucked his needle back into the case and set it down on the tabletop. “A few of my shows are about Kirby’s adventures and, as you know, they can get quite… dark.”

The gentle whir of machinery sounded louder in the silence. 

“So I try not to, uh, blatantly portray everyone involved. And it’s just, ah, easier for me to make simple bodies like these,” he stammered, loosening his scarf's grip round his neck. In the meantime, the Kirby puppet crawled into Magolor’s open hands, squeaking about as it explored his palms.

Susie asked, “Is it alive?”

“To an extent,” he said. “It’s got a personality, but it’s mostly magic and strings.” To demonstrate his point, he pulled his hand back suddenly. The puppet flew back towards him and dangled in the air until he lowered it to the surface again. It looked confused, but after being redirected by Taranza, it waddled over to Susie and sat in front of her. 

She squished it with a finger. “Hm. This is the ‘personal project’ you were talking about.”

“Alongside others. I’ve made puppets of almost everyone I know.” He reached a hand into his cape and pulled out three more puppets: a chubby cheeked one wearing a blue bandana, a blue kimono-wearing penguin in a fluffy crimson robe and a round, bat-winged blue thing in a sewn-on mask. 

“Oh, I know who these are,” Magolor proclaimed, grinning to himself. He reached to poke one. “Bandee, Dedede and Meta Knight, right?”

Taranza nodded at him and covered the three with his hands. With the same violet flash they came to life. It took no time for all of them to gather around the little rendition of Kirby, engaging in grunts and hums of makeshift conversation. ‘Meta Knight’ pulled out a felt sword and pointed it at Susie’s finger: she pulled away, frowned and rolled it over. 

“Is there a puppet for me?” Magolor inquired, eagerly leaning across the table to meet Taranza’s eyes. He was sure that he’d made one of him. It’d have to be adorable, just like he was, and cool, too. But Taranza simply shook his head. “Why not?”

“There’s a lot of work that goes into making these little guys,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I have to design them, infuse them with magic, get their voices correct, give them personalities… it’s more stressful than it sounds, you know!” But he cleared his throat and puffed up with pride. “Nothing I can’t do, though.”

“So you will make one for me?”

“When I find the time, yes. I’m busy preparing for Kirby’s birthday show, though, and after that I've commissions to take care of. So don’t expect it so soon.” Taranza pulled all four of his puppets back and took them into his palm. He covered them. When he lifted his hands, they had returned to their dormant states. “So, what are you getting him, Magolor?”

“Something cool,” he beamed, stepping down from his seat. “It’ll be a massive callback to when we were adventuring together!” He needed to prepare, though. Finding a Super Ability was hard enough, but finding a way to reproduce them and store them was a whole new challenge. But he was Magolor. If he’d conquered Another Dimension, he’d surely be able to find and contain a few Super Abilities. He could already envision the excitement on Kirby’s face. His gift would eclipse all others! He didn’t want to dampen anyone’s spirits, though, so he said nothing more on it. “If you’re doing a puppet show, what’re you doing?” he asked, turning to Susie.

She looked behind her. She turned her eyes downwards to the tabletop, clearly hesitant to share her plans. “If either of you tell anyone, I’ll be hiding ‘surprises’ in your closets for the next week. Got it?” 

Magolor and Taranza locked eyes. Neither of them wanted to find out what that meant, so they nodded at her and sat patiently. 

She folded her arms and shut her eyes. She breathed out. “It’s… something of a callback too. I guess. It’s called Robobot Armour,” she explained. “Kirby used it to traverse Popstar when my father and I mechanised it. He seemed to take quite a liking to it, so I’ve been trying to replicate it using the blueprints and what I could find left of it floating around in space.” She brushed away a hanging hair from her face. Her hand hovered over her mouth as she continued in a lower tone, “But if Meta Knight finds out… well, we all know there'll be chaos.”

“What’s Robobot Armour?” Taranza asked, clearly confused.

Susie gave him a blank look. Slowly, and to Taranza’s growing horror, a practiced smile spread across her face. She stepped back from the table, straightened out her shirt and piped, “I’m glad you asked! You see, Robobot Armour, previously known as Invader Armour, is a Haltmann Works Company specialty. Made with our company’s impenetrable Haltonium alloy, it can tear through any and all obstacles in its path!” She whipped out her tablet, slid it into the center of the table and projected what she must’ve been talking about - a steely, round robot held together with oversized screws and tiny bolts. She continued, “Vigorous testing has proved that our Invader Armour’s arms are one hundred times stronger than those of Bonkers. So feel free to punch away to your heart’s content! And don’t be frightened by our product’s weight, either. Although it weighs eight-point-six metric tonnes, its high-power thrusters will allow it to lift off and glide through the air with ease.”

“Eight-point-six tonnes…?” Taranza echoed.

“Eight-point-six metric tonnes!” Susie repeated. She reached out to change the projection. It switched to video footage of Kirby in the Armour, drilling into the steel-plated terrain and beating up his foes. “This is what it looks like in action. And I’m sure you may be wondering why it looks different? I’ll have you know it’s the exact same Armour. You see, Haltmann Works Company’s Robobot Armour can change itself to accommodate its pilot. It retains the data, too, so you can use any Robobot Armour and still feel familiar!” She clapped her hands together. “Now, are there any questions?”

Magolor raised a hand, and Susie gestured to him. “Did you memorise all of that?”

“I did,” she confirmed, smile growing wider. She turned to Taranza. He had already buried his head in his hands, groaning to himself with half-baked shame. She leaned against the table, tapped his shoulder, and when he looked up at her, sang, “Told you you’d ask eventually. Anyway, I’ve got to catch up with coding that thing. If you need me, I’ll be in my room.” Susie waved with a hand and left. Her heels clicked down the hallway: the whirring of her door echoed elsewhere. 

Magolor stared at Taranza. He thought Taranza was staring back: the darker bits of his orange eyes flicked up at him and away, then back again. He tapped his fingers together. 

“So,” he started, glad that Taranza looked at him with his white eyes, “have you got anything planned for today?” 

He cocked his head. “I was going to work on my puppets for a while longer, but I’m sure a break wouldn’t hurt. What is it?” 

“Well…” Magolor droned, pushing himself out of his seat. He looked away. He’d hoped that he’d come up with something to do for the day, but nothing came to him. “No clue. I’m just bored.”

Taranza smiled. “We could go on a walk,” he suggested. 

“Still boring,” he shot back.

“Play a game together?”

“I’d easily thrash you.”

“Do some reading? Floralia’s got a pretty vast library.”

“Tempting… but no thanks.”

He frowned at him, slowly slouching towards the table. “You know you could make a few suggestions instead of dismissing all of mine, right?” 

Magolor shrugged. “It’s just that you sound like you do nothing. Don’t look at me like that! You know how boring you sound. Hm…” He snapped his fingers together. “How about we do a bit of sparring? You know, like a bit of exercise.”

He seemed to brighten at the idea of a good fight. He shoved out of his seat. “That sounds like a great idea! But you aren’t going to make this too competitive, are you? Because I’d rather take this less seriously today.” 

“Well, I’m not giving you anything if you win, so how’s that?” He stepped away from the table, cracked his knuckles and made his way outside. 

Taranza ran after him. The sunlight lit his face and revealed the silvery sheen of his hair. His friend frowned at him. “That doesn’t sound like a fair exchange, Magolor. So don’t expect anything from me if you win, either.”

“More like when I win!” He laughed to himself and found a place in the grass. The trees in the area were far away enough that he wouldn’t hit them. So was the Starcutter. And therefore Susie. So if she managed to capture anything along the lines of an embarrassing loss, he’d be quite impressed. “Okay, rules! First rule is you can only use yourself, or whatever you can conjure. So you can’t throw a rock at me and call it a day. Unless you conjured the rock. Second rule is that there isn’t any sort of time limit. We keep going until someone surrenders or passes out.”

“Any limits on the spells we can use?” the mage asked, stretching his arms. 

Magolor thought to himself. Taranza did have an intimidating set available to him, but he doubted he’d use everything in a friendly fight. He shook his head. “Not really. Only thing I’d say is try not to use the same spells again and again. You’re allowed to, but I’d prefer if you didn’t. Other than that, this’ll be a free-for-all! So…” He clapped his hands and readied his stance. One foot forward, the other back. Both hands primed to either blast him or take a hit. “Are you ready? We’ll start on the count of three. Lor, count us down!”

A light flashed in response and a series of screens flipped up with bold, enlarged text scrolling across them. 

Of course, Captain [MAGOLOR]. A loud, echoing beep rang out. One. 

“I said down,” he yelled. 

Counting down and counting up take the same amount of time. Arguing with me wastes time. And so she started again; the beep repeated itself. One.

Taranza threw his cape to the side, revealing the rest of his verdant tailcoat. The golden threads and silver buttons caught the light. He ran a hand through his silver hair and smirked at him.

Another beep. Two.

Magolor snapped his fingers and Revolution Orbs materialised in his palms. He didn’t dare turn his eyes from his opponent. 

The third, final signal came and, before Lor could finish counting, the two had shot through the grass, tearing towards each other. They collided. Taranza aimed a web shot at him, and Magolor’s magic burned through it. 

He skittered back and stomped a foot: needles ripped through the dirt, narrowly missing Taranza until one grazed his arm. It barely slowed him down. Taranza charged at him again, this time with magic exploding from his palms, and slammed a hand into his chest. Magolor flew back and rolled.

He pulled himself onto a knee, examined what were once white robes and grumbled. “Dude, this takes ages to wash.”

“Well,” Taranza said, shaking his hands off, “taking it easy on your clothes wasn’t in the rules. But if you’re nervous, I’ll let you slip that in there.”

“Oh, please. It’ll be you asking for extra rules sooner or later.” He shook himself off, dusted himself down and snapped back to attention. As soon as he’d collected himself, he threw himself back into the fight, surging into Taranza.

He was worried when Taranza hadn’t fallen over - instead, his heels dug into the dirt and he stumbled backwards. Magolor remembered that proximity was on his side and pressed his palms into him. Magic shot through and Taranza immediately convulsed, his hands twitched and-

Taranza punched him in the stomach and kicked him onto the ground. As Magolor clutched his stomach, Taranza gasped for breath, pinching his brow and desperately patting down stray hairs. They locked eyes.

“You punched me,” Magolor started, sprawling out in the grass. 

“You electrocuted me,” Taranza shot back. He took in a sharp breath, released his hands from his sides and straightened out. “Up, up! On your feet!”

He gave him a look but listened. He’d been the one to suggest some sparring in the first place - he couldn’t give up because he punched him. Even if it did hurt a lot. He steeled his resolve. “Alright,” he said. He squeezed his hands into a fist and released his fingers from his palms. He stared Taranza down as he backed away.

Taranza was sturdier than he’d anticipated. He didn’t put any magic in his punches, though. So that was raw strength. Magolor wasn’t sure if he was a heavy hitter or if he couldn’t take a hit, but he knew better than to find out. 

Taranza let a plasma ball materialise in his hands and tentatively made his way towards him. With each step he took, Magolor moved back further; the floral aroma only grew stronger. He would strike sooner or later, and there were only two ways he could: using magic or using his own strength. He’d already hit him with both of those, and Magolor still needed to figure out how to counter either of them. He could put up a shield, but those chipped away with each hit. He could teleport, but he was too predictable in his trajectory. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he moved in straight lines. He was certain that he couldn’t parry him. He had no interest in breaking an arm. Staying on the defensive wouldn’t help him too much, either. The offensive, on the other hand, was a viable option. He’d managed to stagger him once already - even if his recovery time was impeccable, it was progress. He’d change his technique, then. 

Magolor pivoted to dodge a swift jab from Taranza, teetered on his feet and launched a Revolution Orb at him. He didn’t falter when he ducked under it. Magolor slammed his foot into the soil and ripped Needles from the grass. Taranza hadn’t seen that coming. He yelped as two– three Needles jabbed him. He hissed, tottered back and pushed off from the ground. 

Lilac light swirled in his satin-covered palms. Magolor knew far better than to stand still - he’d seen this move on the battlefield before. The light sparked and a familiar dark spectre unfurled from his hands, looming over him with twin sceptres. The air thinned and a chill ran through him. Heavy perfumes hit his nose and he snorted, unable to adjust to the piercing aromas. Magolor couldn’t tell, but he was sure he saw him flash a smile before he began his barrage. He darted between each attack as best as he could and launched himself towards Taranza… and into a rift. 

As Taranza tensed and primed his hands, eyes darting about, he snickered to himself. His favourite part about any fight was spooking his foes from Another Dimension. He coated himself in magic and surged at him, emerging from a new rift-

-only to miss entirely. He crashed into the ground with no grace, rolled over and jumped back onto his feet. Taranza, who rose from his knees in the grass, chuckled at his blunder with a hand over his mouth. He must have dropped out of the sky before he could notice. It wasn’t much of a special manoeuvre as he’d anticipated. Just quick thinking. And maybe the eyes on the back of his head. 

“That’s a cool trick,” he said. He straightened out his coat and dusted himself off, clapping with two of his free hands. “Turning yourself into a projectile is quite risky, though.”

“How’d you figure out where I was coming from?” Magolor inquired, slipping a hand beneath his hood to adjust his hair. 

“I didn’t.” He set off to preening himself, tugging hairs into place and flattening out creases in his clothes. “It was more of a gamble, really. I was mid-air, so you could’ve come from beneath or above me and hit me anyways. But, at the same time, if you were coming from anywhere else…”

“I’d miss. Hm.” So it was quick thinking and hazard perception, then. He knew how to switch from the offensive to the defensive rather quickly, too. He’d just have to learn how to keep up. 

And so they exchanged hits in a near perfect rhythm, breaking off for short breathers and shooting half-hearted taunts at each other. Magolor wouldn’t say fighting Taranza was challenging. Yes, he was being thrown like a ragdoll, and every time he thought he had the upper hand, he’d either take a punch or get flashed with raw magic. But by no means was he giving him a hard time. 

He skittered away from a web shot and, as he charged at him, summoned his Ultra Sword replica. For once, he opted to swing it from the side. Taranza caught the blade with four hands. Their eyes locked. Magolor steadied his grip against Taranza’s strength, stood his ground as best as he could and, when he felt him push harder, let go. 

The sword dissipated into silvery, ash-scented dust and Magolor squeezed his hands together. That hurt, but seeing Taranza skid through the dirt made the pain worthwhile. 

“Haha! How’d you like that?” Magolor teased, folding his arms. He watched as Taranza inspected the gashes in his gloves, pressing a thumb to his palms to check for blood. He craned his head. He doubted that he’d actually injured him but, just to make sure, he stepped towards him. His face had scrunched together, and he’d bitten down on his lip in what looked like pain. Magolor stepped closer. “Hey, you aren’t hurt, are you? I can- uh, call it off. Get you some first aid.” But he only groaned in response. Two of his hands lowered to the ground. Magolor stopped in front of him. “Taranza? Ranz? Ranzy?”

But as Magolor offered a hand, Taranza slammed his palms into the soil. Something caught Magolor by the hood and yanked him into the air, leaving to dangle helplessly in front of his uninjured friend. Magolor stared at him as Taranza laughed, pointed a mocking finger at him, coughed and laughed even harder. “Nowhere near as fun as playing dead, but good enough. So, how’d you like that?”

To no avail, Magolor tried to free himself. He felt his hands brush over a petal or two as he grasped at his hood. Kicking his feet did little to help him, but it sent Taranza into another laughing fit. He groaned. “Dude, I thought I hurt you! And you thank me by pinning me up with a- a-” 

“A Dreamstalk,” he finished, calming himself and clearing his throat. He pulled at the back of his tailcoat and revealed the dirt and grass that had smeared the golden thread. “That’s what you get for making a mess. But I’m quite flattered that you’d go out of your way to see I’m alright, Magolor!” Just to demonstrate how touched he was, he gently laid a hand over his heart and cupped his cheeks with two more. 

“Well, that’s the last time I do that!” he yelled. He managed to levitate himself high enough to dislodge the plant. He made a slow, lazy descent, and when he finally reached ground level again, turned his back on him. “In fact, I don’t want to fight you anymore.”

He half-expected Taranza to apologise. Maybe not profusely, but at least to say ‘sorry.’ But he didn’t say anything. Magolor edged his head round to sneak a look at him. He was smiling. With his hands knitted together. “So I win, then.”

“What? No, you don’t.”

“Actually, I do,” he corrected. “You said that we’ll keep going until someone surrenders. You just said that you don’t want to fight me anymore, which is as good as a surrender. Therefore, I win.” A proud grin spread across his face with the same speed that Magolor realised the error of his words. Taranza hushed him. “A shame, really. But I suppose you simply couldn’t keep up with me!” 

What a way to end it. Stupidly. And a bit embarrassingly. He groaned into his palms and swatted at his friend to stop him from laughing at him any more than he already had. “Whatever,” he dismissed, poking at the fresh hole through his hood. “If I didn’t surrender, you’d be writhing in pain on the floor.”

“Yes, yes, in a thousand years. Now, even if you lost,” Taranza started, taking up his cape again and draping it across his shoulders, “I’m intrigued by some of your techniques.”

Magolor raised a brow. “Like?”

“That sword you summoned. It’s pure magic, isn’t it?”

“…Yeah. With a dash of soul magic in there.” He paused to let him speak again, but he stared patiently. “What, do you want to learn how to make something like that?” At that, he nodded eagerly. Magolor scratched his chin and an idea came to life. “Well… I could teach you. But it wouldn’t be fair to do it for free,” he drawled, feigning deep thought. “How about prioritising my puppet?”

Taranza tilted his head to the side as he patted out the crinkles in his clothes. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Magolor repeated. “I just wanna see what you can make of me.”

He shrugged. “Sounds like an odd exchange, but I can do that.” Taranza cracked his knuckles, stretched his arms and tried to stifle his growing smile. The enthusiasm was coming out. It reminded Magolor of when he learned his first spell.

“Okay,” Magolor started. He paused to think of an explanation. He didn’t teach often, after all. “So, I made that sword using what I call ‘reminiscent magic.’ It’s like making a physical version of a memory of yours.” He rolled his wrist, snapped his fingers and a Gem Apple spawned into existence. “See? Once you get the hang of it, it’s really easy. And if I recall correctly… you already know how to use it! A little bit, at least.”

Taranza cocked his head and flexed his fingers. He leaned in to inspect Magolor’s creation, gently nudged at it and asked, “I do?”

“Yep. You know that spell you cast? With the black lightning and everything? That’s from your memory. It’s temporary, though, because I’m guessing you can’t see that memory so clearly. But it’s a starting point.” Magolor threw the apple over his shoulder. In seconds, it burst into sparks. “As you can see, and as you’ve already done, you can weaponise what you can remember. My Gem Apples are bombs, and Sectonia - her name was Sectonia, right? - makes lightning.” He settled into the grass. Patches had blackened with the force of his spells. Taranza opted to crouch instead, and Magolor was sure it was because of his clothes. 

Magolor was enjoying having someone listen so intently to him. He knew that, while Taranza might’ve had more potential, he didn’t know how to use all of it. Magolor, on the other hand, knew spells that were near extinct. He knew the limits of his soul and how to surpass them safely. He’d studied magic thoroughly before journeying to Halcandra and learned how to manipulate his own in Another Dimension. In other words, he had a thousand times more experience than Taranza could hope for. 

“So,” he continued, “I want you to follow your thought process for that spell with Sectonia. In fact- how do you cast that spell? Because you don’t seem to know so much about reminiscent magic, and this is one of the harder spells to cast.” Summoning anything that even resembled a person took a lot of magic. And, for some reason, Taranza seemed to be able to do it perfectly. The air seemed to thin, however, whenever that spectre woke. There was something terribly off about it. Maybe he was overthinking it, though. 

He furrowed his brow. A hand reached for his scarf but hovered over it rather than tugging at it. “It’s become reflexive to me, if I’m being entirely honest. But I do think about it before casting sometimes. Thinking about it makes it stronger,” he said. Taranza turned away to face the trees as he continued. “Um… It takes a lot of focus. Since she’s a- she was a person. It’s harder to fully remember her likeness sometimes, especially when there’s so much going on in battle. So I don’t think about what she looks like, but I try to remember what exactly she was doing. The spell is an imitation of one she used when she fought Kirby, but she used to show it off to me regularly.” He chuckled to himself and sighed, finally sitting in the grass and the dirt. He crossed his legs. “She was so proud of it when she figured it out, she used to make a show of it every night. That’s why I remember it so well. That, and the fact that she told me I had to learn how to cast it.”

There it was: that thick, sweet smell of heart magic. Like honey and cinnamon and vanilla pods. Magolor briefly winced at its intensity. He knew that Taranza didn’t mean to literally radiate love, but it always seemed to leak through his words. Especially when talking about his late queen. 

“So, you remember how to cast it because it’s a shared memory. Almost.” The scent softened as Taranza snapped back to attention. He could finally breathe again. “How about you try something like that? Try copying a spell she cast. But without summoning her. Focus on what she was doing instead of her, like you said.” Magolor leaned on his knee and, just to remind him of what he was here for, summoned another Ultra Sword replica. He followed its weight into the soil and let it stand on its blade. Taranza ran a hand over it, stopping at its hilt. “Come on,” he encouraged, “give it a shot!”

He looked almost nervous to try it. Magolor had a hunch that he knew why. So he took his hand, uncoiled his fingers, and turned his palm to the sun. He did the same for himself. Taranza looked between their hands. “From the palm, yes?” Magolor nodded at him. “Okay.” He took in a deep breath. Held it for a beat. He slowly let it out. He squeezed his eyes shut and murmured something to himself in Floralian - words of affirmation, hopefully - and, with intense focus, pulled magic into the centre of his hand. 

It started off as a soft, faint violet light. Like his other spells. Then it darkened, almost, as if eating away at the light, and glimmered. The smell of perfume slowly returned as the spell swirled in his palms, and then- it solidified. It crackled and chiselled itself into form and took on a pinkish hue. By the time he was done, he was left with a quaint, gleaming gemstone. 

Of course the vain, evil queen would make gems for herself. It was barely visible, even under the sunlight, but the prismatic light it emanated gave it away. He wasn’t sure what Taranza intended to do with it, but he’d managed to make it. He looked at his own hand, tossed the freshly formed Gem Apple in the air and let it hit the dirt. It rolled out of sight and burst. 

“Oh, it’s all wrong,” Taranza sighed. 

“What?”

“It’s wrong,” he repeated, taking the gem between his fingers and holding it against the sky. “It’s tiny, for starters, and the colour is off. It’s shaped wrong, too.” 

“Oh, come on. It’s your first shot.” He rolled his eyes at him and gave him a playful punch. “Besides, you actually got it on your first try. The first time I tried summoning this thing,” he said, gesturing to the sword, “I came up with nothing but dust. It just takes a bit of tweaking. Try it again.”

And so he did. The second time, it came out a bit smaller, but it looked closer to purple. The third time, it was bigger. Not as big as the ones Sectonia could make, apparently, so he had to keep going. The seventh time, it was about the size of his hand. Its shape had been refined, too, to something reminiscent of a diamond. The thirteenth time, it had grown to the shape of his head. It looked much more like a polished gemstone than his first attempt. 

Magolor had stopped counting by the time Taranza was satisfied. Hovering in his hands was a splendorous purple-pink diamond, no smaller than his chest. He looked so proud of himself, Magolor almost forgot that they both reeked of expensive perfume by now. 

“Sectonia could make gems wider than your ship’s mast, but I’m happy with this,” he admitted. He smiled at him and took his hands into his own. “Thank you, Magolor. I mean it!” As if a verbal ‘thank you’ wasn’t enough, he pulled him into a hug, squeezed him tight and rocked him about. 

He’d hug him back if he could, but Taranza didn’t notice he was holding his arms down. And he was being ragdolled again. Affectionately, this time. He struggled to get his feet back on the ground until Taranza let him down, profusely apologising for being so unaware that he was carrying him. 

“It’s nothing the best mage ever couldn’t teach,” he hummed. “But what’re you gonna do with that? You probably can’t sell it because you made it, and it probably won’t last forever-”

“Throw it at people.”

Magolor stopped. And frowned. “You’re going to throw it at people. The shiny rock that’s bigger than your head.”

He scoffed at him and rolled his eyes. He thought he was rolling his eyes, at least. “As if you’re any better. You throw bombs at people.”

“They’re non-lethal!”

“And so is this. As long as I avoid hitting any heads, that is.”

“That thing will at least break a few bones on impact.”

“Yes, that’s the point. Incapacitate your enemies!”

“No, you’re- Well-” He did have a point. If one was incapacitated, they couldn’t fight. And anyone who couldn’t fight was barely an enemy. “Fine.” He shook his head. He wouldn’t have to worry about Taranza killing anyone until Taranza got into a fight, and he didn’t see that happening anytime soon. 

As Magolor flattened himself out in the fields, Taranza tapped his shoulder. “You don’t mind me asking, but where did the sword come from?”

“The sword?” he echoed. “It’s… a long story. But to cut it short, it’s Kirby’s. It’s the sword Kirby used to defeat me when I was, y’know, evil.” He kicked at the dirt. A pebble hit the blade. “After all of that, I found myself in a tight spot. Probably about to die. And this is what I summoned to protect myself,” he said. 

“I thought you failed to summon it the first time,” Taranza reminded him.

“Yes, the first time I wasn’t working under pressure.” He looked at it. It had begun to feather away, its shape melting into dust. The sour smell of apples wafted through the air. He kicked its greyed remains, and it flew with the wind. Taranza watched as his own creation crumbled into glittering shards and dissipated, leaving a faint shimmer on his hands. “Oh, don’t worry about that - this stuff always works on a time limit. You’re pretty good at this for someone who’s never heard of reminiscent magic, though.”

He bashfully smiled at him, knitting his fingers together. “Thank you. But that isn’t to say you’re not good at this, is it? The sword is impressive!” 

“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” He could feel the pride swelling up in him already. He scratched the back of his head and his hand caught in the freshly torn hole. He grumbled. “Great. Another chore. Look what you did,” he joked, turning round to reveal the extent of the damage. 

“Well, it’s nothing the best mage ever can’t fix.” Taranza patted his shoulder. “I ought to get back to my puppets,” he sighed, “but this was fun. Maybe next time I’ll teach you how to strengthen your shields.” He waved at him and left, walking back towards Lor. 

Magolor watched as his silhouette shrank and disappeared through the doors. He looked at where the sword recently stood. It left a deep gash in the dirt. He kicked dirt into it and flattened it out. Within a week, grass would’ve covered it up. Maybe a flower or two. 

He felt a bit out of place sometimes. As if he didn’t belong on Popstar. He wasn’t unaccomplished, though. He had unearthed an archaic Ancient boat. He’d found Landia, the Guardian Angel. He’d conquered Another Dimension. He’d built a theme park and it was his. He had apologised to Kirby. And Dedede and Bandee and Meta Knight. Up to now, he’d accomplished everything he’d wanted to. 

He smiled. He was impressive. In fact, he wasn’t as cool as his friends. He had to be cooler than them. If he felt out of place, it was because of that. A laugh escaped him. He didn’t know why he’d ever doubted that. 

But a part of him wanted to do more. To be more. Taranza had called him the ‘best mage ever.’ Of course, it was a joke. But there was no harm in striving towards something, was there? The same goal as last time. Power. It was what had gotten him into trouble, but it was also what drew him to Kirby. 

Kirby was strong. Powerful. Nothing short of the star-devouring god he came from, but he used his strength for good. He used it to protect the people he loved. He used it to save the people he’d never met before, to give people like himself second chances. Maybe he’d try to be strong like Kirby. Popstar was a hotspot for trouble, of course, and he couldn’t let Kirby take all the credit for defending the star.

It was decided. He would become the Magolor, the interdimensional traveller and the best mage ever. Or in Gamble Galaxy, at least. And he’d do it without the help of evil artefacts this time - he’d learned better since the Master Crown had torn him apart. And then, when he’d achieved all of that, he’d stand by Kirby and protect his friends. A worthy goal for someone like him.

Magolor laced his fingers together, stretched and set them behind his head as he walked back to his ship. If Susie was working on herself, then he couldn’t just laze around. He would have to work hard to get to where he wanted, but he’d always known that. He whistled a bit. And a name - a title - hit him, and he beamed. 

‘Grand Mage Magolor’ had a nice ring to it.