A/N: ladywink ... i have no idea what youre talking about

other reviewers: thank you so much! argh sorry for being so delayed im slow. hehehe you guys make me so happy. so many smiles


"The Bishop! He's... he's..." Deep breath. "He fallen sick. Very sick, Kirby."

The dee seemed extraordinarily distressed, and added, "the medics can't tell what's wrong with him, but they - they're a-a-afraid that... it's fatal."

"Fatal?" Something cold and heavy encased Kirby's heart. "Deal," he spoke, "I'll take the position of prior, and when the time comes, I'll nominate you as bishop." When the time comes. In twenty or so years, he'd thought. Not in a span of months.

"K-Kirby? Are you okay?" prompted the messenger dee.

The bishop was ill. The bishop was ill! He was yet young for a bishop, and yet… how could he possibly be ill? Had he not been a man of supreme health? Had he not been a chaste and devoted follower? Why would God choose to strike him with such a crippling vice as a bedridden illness? Something so potentially fatal…

Unless… Oh, what a terrible, catastrophic unless. The deal he had made with Marx appeared to be flaring a wicked edge – but surely… no, surely not? A man of god such as Marx would not dare attack a Bishop, would he? Such treachery; some unimaginable perfidy. Kirby sank to his knees and clasped his hands over his face.

"No…"

"I know it is terrible," the messenger dee said with careful solemnity, "but we must pray for him and hope for the best."

"Is there any hope of cure?" Kirby exclaimed in a paroxysm of anxiety, "is it too late for any help?"

"There is some hope," the messenger reported, "but the affliction is of strange nature. It does not manifest itself like any natural disease or illness."

No natural diseases. No natural causes. With a flurry of enthusiasm, Kirby leapt to his feet. "We must head to the Bishop's castle! Now, dee! No delays! I personally will stand by the Bishop and pray for his recovery!"

"S-so soon?" the dee stuttered. "But what of your duties here?"

"Let the monks tend Grape Gardens. I am needed at the Bishop's side!"

He zoomed from the room and bounded away from the monastery. Kirby had to get to Bishop Arthur before anything worse might befall him!


The mighty flying fortress, the Halberd, was incorrigible, undefeatable! In designing it and overseeing its building, Meta Knight had ensured its power and strength.

Meta Knight was wrong… although not for any of his own failings. For when he turned the cannons on Galacta Knight's castle, when these cannon whirred to life and prepared to blast, the sound reaching climatic intensity-!

The sound flickered, wavered, died.

"Sir Meta Knight, I'm sorry," Vul said over the intercom. "But this plan would never have succeeded. You can't rule all of Dreamland, much less defeat Galacta Knight. I was offered a sum much greater than you promised me… and I took it."

"Y-you.. you what?" Traitor! A traitor was the infernal ruination of his meticulous planning! After everything! After all the plans he had! Meta Knight trembled in this inundating tide of fury. "What the hell did you do to my ship!?"

"I built a security feature to cut all power aside from that in the engines. All controls have also been reverted from you."

"Reverted to whom?" Meta Knight demanded with freezing anger. Oh, when he got his hands on Vul…. This was an impediment, nothing more! He could overcome it, just as he'd overcome all other blocks to his goals!

"…Magolor, sir."

But he need not have said. An enormous screen descended dramatically from the ceiling; on the screen appeared the image of Magolor, expanded fifty times his usual size, and glaring through yellow slat eyes.

"You are not overthrowing Galacta Knight," Magolor sneered, "and I've tired of chasing after you. You have no more choices, foolish knight. Marry me."


"Hello," Marx said lightly.

The bedridden Bishop Arthur turned his wizened head to the visitor. His skin was nothing but gray waves of wrinkles; his eyes foggy. "Vicar Marx…" he gusted in a waver of breath. Past encounters made the old bishop uneasy with the vicar; his visits heralded terrible news - either coincidentally, or with true purport. By superstition, he distrusted the vicar and found himself unable to relax in his presence. This unease was only more infectious while the Bishop was in such a depleted state.

"Yes, nice to see you Bishop Arthur," grinned the uncanny fool. "So very nice. You are resilient, you know that?"

"How did you find your way in?" Arthur pressed in a not so subtle attempt to conceal his unease. "The guards let you past? They were instructed to not allow visitors."

"The guards…" Marx licked his lips. "They let me in, yes. Important business, I have."

"And what is your business?" the bishop cautioned.

"To discuss your resilience. Your… unnatural tenacity. A slip of hand, ehe… or should I say teeth? It's hard carrying things." Marx pouted for a moment before resuming a frenetic pacing, dispersed by sporadic giggling. "It was rather risky to my own health, you know – having to switch the medicines myself. I'm not sure if… Well, I doubt it will harm me if I were to…"

A sickly cold crawling spread from the bishop's spine across his shoulder blades. His mouth went dry. He longed suddenly to call for guards, but did not know exactly why. What was the vicar talking about?

"Things are simple," Marx murmured, staring between his feet. This was good. No. Curse his lugubrious nature; he enjoyed playing with his victims too much – he suddenly longed to fabricate a story of why he was truly here. Something that appealed to the Bishop's sympathy. He wanted to play longer with words! But he could not. Zero Two wanted this quick. Marx curled his lips back from his teeth. Fine. Thinking about Zero made him angry, which made him hungry. Maybe he could do this without so much playing around after all. Marx turned abruptly to the bishop.

"Hello, Bishop Arthur." He smiled. "I'm going to have lots of fun killing you."