Chapter 3: Distasteful Reunion
Geno

"What do you mean you don't know where the Return Pipe is?"
Mario shrugged sheepishly, averting his gaze. "Well... Like-a I said, it's-a been years since I've-a last... erm, used it..."
Geno couldn't bring himself to speak. His entire body felt numb. Without the Return Pipe, how were they supposed to get back to Flipside? And, especially now that he was in unfamiliar territory, there was no way he'd be able to get there himself. The realm between dimensions could only usually be accessed by creatures that were learned in the art of traveling between them, of which the star spirit was not one.
"So..." Geno mumbled after a long pause, "what are we going to do with..."
He cast his gaze towards Dimentio.
Mario looked over at the jester, who was now sitting against the side of the doorway into the bros.' room, and frowned, letting out a sigh. "I... I can't-a say for certain, but..."
Suddenly, Geno ducked over next to the plumber, planting a hand firmly on Mario's back and lowering his head. "Look," he hissed, his voice suddenly taking on a much more serious tone, "we don't have that much time, that band I used to block out his power is only temporary."
"Fracktail," Mario huffed, quickly scratching his nose before looking down at the ground and putting a thumb on his chin, thinking. "And you're-a certain you haven't another one?"
"Sadly, no," the star grumbled in reply. "Any other ideas?"
The plumber paused a moment, then rubbed his forehead. "I... apologize, Geno, I-a wasn't really expecting any of this..."
Geno looked down at his feet, running a finger along the rim of his hat which made his bright orange curls bounce slightly. "I should really be the one apologizing," he sighed, looking back up at the plumber. "I don't think anybody expected it, in all honesty. I mean, none of us in the the council did, at the very least."
"I believe it," Mario replied, scratching his cheek and averting his gaze. "Just-a wait until the princess hears about this... mama mia..."
Geno pondered a moment, then shook his head, looking down at the ground as he leaned back and sat down in his chair. "If... we can get this done quick enough," he muttered, his gaze raising back up to meet with Mario's, "then the princess never has to know. It can be our little secret."
The plumber slowly nodded, once again pursing his thumb against his chin and looking down at the ground. "Well... you're-a not wrong in that sense." He paused, lowering his hand and slowly gazing over at the jester. "You know," he mumbled, eyes dark, "there-a is another way to-a get rid of him much-a more quickly..."
The star spirit shuddered, letting out a huff before shaking his head, "I...'d rather not..." He paused, trailing off before looking up at the plumber once more. "...Having that tag hooked to my name would not be the best thing..."
"I can-a relate to that," Mario muttered before turning back to the star, sitting down in his own chair and crossing his legs, leaning back. "Well," he began again, crossing one hand over his stomach and rubbing his forehead with the other, "I...-a suppose I could-a look for it, but we-a may just-a have-a to wait out the night and-a hope for the best."
The star spirit nodded in understanding, letting out a sigh. "Alright," he huffed, "that might also give us time to think of something else." He paused a moment longer, then looked back up at the plumber. "You sure you're okay with this?"
"Of-a course, Geno," Mario replied, meeting the star's gaze and putting his hands in his lap. "Especially considering the matter at-a hand. You've-a got nothing to worry about," he chuckled. "The most important thing we have-a to worry about is-a getting this whole thing worked out. And, considering how quickly you were-a able to catch him initially, I'm pretty sure this is-a going to be a piece of cake!"

-
Dimentio

Those fools. I can't believe how easy they've made this!
Dimentio smirked, the light glow from the band around his neck now having dimmed to nearly nothing, the primary thing lighting the room was the bright moonlight coming through the window to his right at the back wall of the bros' room. He slowly turned his head to look over at the nearest clock he could see - on the wall opposite the way he was facing in the living room.
11:46. And it wasn't even that late, to one such as the jester himself.
His smirk slowly grew into a full-on grin, and he had to stop himself from laughing out loud.
The jester took a deep breath, holding it a moment before letting it out, coursing some of his power into the neck brace and hearing it fizzle and hiss slightly as its single hinge opened, releasing itself from around Dimentio's neck before flickering out of existence. In the next instant, the jester froze as he heard a mixture of a groan and a wince emanate from Geno, who was asleep on the floor in the bros' room.
Dimentio froze, his gaze locked onto the star spirit until a few moments after he once again ceased moving, curled up in his blue cape like a blanket. After another moment, he let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding, and a malicious grin slowly crept upon his lips.
As silently as he could, the jester got to his feet, hesitating a moment before willing his power and, slowly but surely, floating up about an inch or two above the ground.
He bit gently into his bottom lip - the familiar sharpness of his teeth almost a sort of relief after all those years of being unable to change his form. By the time of his death, being in his true form was almost something more of a hassle - but it had been so long since he had been in anything but that that he'd almost entirely forgotten what it was like otherwise.
But before that, he had some much greater matters to attend to.
Dimentio narrowed his eyes slightly, allowing his power, which had been greatly suppressed since Geno had found him in the forest, to branch and spread out as he got accustomed to his surroundings. He let out another long breath, the dimensional coordinates of his current position entering his mind. He smirked, mentally repeating them to himself several times.
Northeastern sector of the Milky Way Galactic Region; second mirror realm of String 1-254 AC - otherwise known as the 'Mushroom World'; Southwestern Central sector of the Central continent.
"Excellent."
He slowly floated into the room to his right, yellow eye glowing ominously as he glanced up at the red-garbed plumber still asleep on the top bunk of him and his brother's bed. Moving on, the jester turned around to face Geno, who was somewhat sprawled out on the floor, half curled up in his cape as he slept. A grin once again crept upon Dimentio's masked face.
Suddenly, Dimentio bent down, yanking the star spirit up by the back of his collar, twirling him around, and thrusting his opposite hand violently against the star's neck, forcing him against the wall with a hard slam as Geno's eyes flew open. Mario snored loudly.
The star spirit blinked like mad, fumbling with his right hand for his left before Dimentio suddenly forced his hands together, pressing and holding them hard against his chest as he held Geno's doll body against the wall a good foot and a half off the ground.
"-What are you-?! Hk-" the star began to exclaim before choking up as Dimentio raised the hand holding Geno's neck slightly, yet forcefully, silently threatening to pop his head right off.
"You listen to me, and you listen good," Dimentio snarled, locking Geno's gaze with an extremely harsh glare, "you'd do best to stay out of my way, star."
Geno didn't move, fear shining brightly in his usually calm mahogany eyes.
"I swear on God's name, you'll regret this day, star," the jester spat, thrusting Geno against the wall once more before a malicious, sharp-toothed grin grew across his masked face. "I suppose I should almost thank you!" He suddenly chirped, his voice getting somewhat louder as his carelessness regarding Mario grew. He continued, "If it wasn't for you shooting me down, I would've died out there, and you would've been done with me for good! Lucky for you silly, foolish little goody-goodies your morality rate's so high..."
He actually laughed. It was an airy, almost breathless rasp of a laugh, but along with it shone a sort of craziness to his gaze that noticeably made Geno's gaze turn to one of pure, unadulterated terror-exactly what Dimentio wanted.
"Yes, well," the jester hissed, his voice once again lowering to just above a whisper, "I suppose I should thank you... considering how much help you've been to me..."
He paused, tilting his head to the side in a way that was almost creepy. "...But however shall I do that? ...Ah! I've just the thing..."
The jester raised the hand he was using to hold Geno's hands onto his chest up slightly, pressing down harder to keep him held against the wall as he held his other hand out, focusing his energy as particles of pure dark magic slowly formed into an object in his hand-a clasp not much unlike the one that had put on his neck by the star spirit, but this one being pitch black.
He held up his creation, noticing the star spirit's eyes flicker to it several times and widen with a mixture of surprise and mortal terror.
After several moments, he suddenly thrust his hand forward, latching the thing around Geno's neck and instantly raising his other hand to press onto the star's forehead a moment, making him instantly fall asleep as he fell to the floor, slumping against the wall with his curls drooping slightly as the band gave off a thin black smoke.
Dimentio's grin grew even further, and he backed up a few feet.
"Ciao, !?~"
And with that, the jester warped away in his usual fashion, the coordinates for his next destination already playing in his mind on repeat, leaving the room silent once again as the clock in the other room struck midnight.

-

? sector of a nonexistent galaxy; second mirror realm of String NOT-0? - primarily known as the 'Void'; Central-?-? sector, only known habitable area. Otherwise known as...
"...Castle Bleck."
Dimentio floated in silence, staring up at the great pitch-black castle far down the long pathway before him as the strange forces and winds from the surrounding void made his hat and cape whip about like mad around him. He squinted slightly, the only thing off about his otherwise expressionless face as memories came flooding back to him.
He scowled, brow creasing slightly as he held his hands together, his back hunching slightly as he cast out his power, forcing back the winds from the pathway and around him in general for the time being. He huffed, raising back up as his hat returned to its normal mostly upright position, swaying slightly as it always did in this form.
The jester lowered his hands to his sides, pausing a moment before floating over to the great doorway into the castle and looking up at it. He hesitated, then leaned forward, pressing his hands firmly onto it's cold surface and sending a spark of power through it, pushing the door open with a tremendous creak.
Letting out a huff, Dimentio floated through and into the castle, snapping so the doors closed behind him.
"Still here after all these Godforsaken years," he murmured, looking around as he slowly floated down the great foyer hallway. "I'd have thought it would have been destroyed by now. Old Blumiere must have had a brain under that hat, after all."
He continued this way for a while, wandering the halls with the only audible sound being the occasional flicker of one of the pitch black torches and the whistle of the strong Void winds outside the windows.
Eventually, he entered a fairly large, mostly empty room and froze completely, eyes widening.
He clenched his right fist hard, the ends of his hat lowering as he hunched his back. There was an unmistakable energy in this room, focused mainly around an area in almost the exact center.
Memories of that day-that horrible, awful day-came rushing back in one single moment, and he fell to the ground, holding his head with both hands as he stumbled slightly to stay on his feet before letting put a bloodcurtling scream, moving his hands down and forcefully tearing his mask off before throwing it extremely hard like into a nearby wall, making it shatter into multiple pieces.
The jester stood there, breathing heavily as a couple spare strands of his black hair fell into his face, gaze locked onto the spot where his mask had hit the wall. He mumbled a curse under his breath before immediately turning around and floating out of the room, not even bothering to close the door after himself.

Come on, Dimentio thought, a sneer across his lip and a furrowed brow as he strived to remember which door lead to his next location, you couldn't have forgotten, Demen, remember how many times you went there...
"Ugh!" He scoffed, throwing his arms up in frustration.
The jester immediately lowered his arms again, rubbing his deep gray eye with a balled right fist before tugging gently on the skin below it, frowning before he continued on his way.
He paused, thinking a moment before stopping and holding up his right hand, thumb and middle finger pursed together and his eyes closed.
"Hallway... eight, was it?"
Trusting his luck, Dimentio snapped, feeling the world flip around him and seeing flashes of color through his eyelids before it suddenly stopped in his usual warping fashion. Hesitating, he opened an eye a sliver to see if he had gone the right way. He grinned, opening his eyes and looking down at the door before him. It was pink.
Hanging from a nail shoved haphazardly into what was vaguely the center of the door was a sign that read out in delicate curved handwriting:

Knock before entering!

Except you, doofus! KEEP OUT!

Above the 'KEEP OUT' was an arrow pointing to a crudely drawn picture of Dimentio's head with a glare and scribbled, sharp teeth.
Dimentio chuckled lightly. Mimi's old room.
I'll come back to you later.
Making a mental note of its location, Dimentio turned around and observed the five doors in the wide hallway other than the one he was in front of. They were somewhat spread apart-three across the hallway from the one he was at and two to the right on the same side.
Starting from the one to the right of his current position, he slowly floated by them. This one was a fairly simple door of a light almost purpley-gray color.Nastasia's room, no doubt.
To the right-or rather, the left if you were facing the wall itself-of Nastasia's was a very, very dark blue door with a shining silver handle. Blecky's room...
Directly across the hall was a crude, medium brown wooden door that didn't even look like it had been painted. It had several 2x4s haphazardly driven into it in several places-possibly covering up holes that had been made in it in the past. There was only one brute in the Bleck household capable of such feats...
O'Chunks...
Moving on to the middle door on that side of the hall was a deep green colored door that appeared to be made of metal. It had a dirty silver handle, as well as a sign hammered nicely into it that simply stated "KEEP OUT!" in large, scribbly letters and was signed at the bottom right by a backwards-facing capital L.
Dimentio huffed, immediately moving into the final door as a subtle grin crept upon his lips.
It was a pitch black door that would've blended in almost perfectly with the rest of the walls if it wasn't for the fact that the white lines outlining some of the details in the carving weren't... different, to say the least. They had a light purple gradient on them that stayed constant over the whole door-magenta at the top right down to a light blue at the bottom left. And the whole thing seemed to have lighter, moving bubbles passing across it at any one given time-almost similar to Dimentio's hat.
The jester grinned, reaching out and grabbing the doorknob (which had the same pattern as the lines) and attempted to turn it, only to find that it was locked. Already expecting this, he sent a spark of his magic into it and heard a satisfying click. Immediately after, he opened the door, letting himself in.
The room was completely dark for a moment before a candle in a small lamp on a desk against the wall to Dimentio's left lit with a quiet fwoosh, dimly lighting the somewhat small, cluttered room. Closing the door behind him, he slowly floated over and stopped in the center of the room, taking his hat off and shaking his messy black hair out, the two white streaks on the side nearest his yellow eye almost seeming to glow softly in the candlelight as he looked around.
He dropped his hat to the ground, lifting a hand to send a spark through the diamond-shaped pin holding his collar together at the base of his throat. Immediately after, his poncho quickly (and quite literally) retracted up into the base of his collar, disappearing altogether as it made it all the way up. He tugged off his black gloves and tossed them up onto his slightly slanted desk before pulling his messy hair up and back, wrapping his fingers around the base of the bunch and forming a band to hold it into a sort of ponytail.
Stepping over to a smaller sort of bedside table next to his large, covered bed, he quickly tugged open the top drawer, digging in for something like half a second it before shoving it closed and opening the one below it, shoving some papers aside and pulling out an exact copy of his mask-this one baring a completely neutral expression with wide, circular eyes.
He twisted it around, pushing any spare strands of hair out of his face before putting it on. The mask displayed a variety of expressions from pain, to joy, sadness, even mortal terror before Dimentio's eyes dropped half closed in a neutral expression. A moment later, it displayed his true expression.
Dimentio stood tall again, pulling his black sleeves up a bit and putting his gloves back on before warping back outside the room, something heavy weighing in the back of his mind as the world, once again, spun around him, an array of colors flashing in his vision.

No more than thirty seconds later, the dimensional jester was body slamming a certain dark blue door.
"This is ridiculous," he hissed as he stumbled back from the door a third time now. "You'd swear he wouldn't have time to lock his Godforsaken door for such a big event, but nooo, of course he did."
Floating back again and charging a thicker wall of dark energy around him this time, he lowered to the ground, putting one foot back further than the other and preparing to charge.
"Lousy Godforsaken common sense-" he growled as he charged at the door again, putting his elbow up to shield his head and focusing the shield to the front of him as he suddenly burst through the door, breaking it down in the process and flying into the room, the lower half of him ramming into the end of Bleck's bed as he reched, getting forcefully bent over the white wooden rail at the end of it. He stumbled back, arms wrapped around his stomach as he wretched, grumbling quietly.
Shaking his head, Dimentio quickly snapped out of it, floating over to the desk next to Bleck's bed and shoving anything and everything off it. He huffed, yanking open the drawers and digging in each, shoving them closed forcefully as he found nothing. He growled, going over and doing the same for any and all other things and drawers in the room and, much to his dismay, finding no sign of what he was looking for.
"WHERE THE HELL IS IT?!" he suddenly screeched, sending out a tremendous wave of dark energy that burst through the room, making anything delicate shatter immediately and anything too light go flying.
Suddenly, Dimentio stopped, hearing a quiet, familiar hissing voice tickle his ears.
"Thov shovldst know where I lie..." it hissed, an automatic, yet unneeded sense of dread growing in Dimentio's chest.
"Chaos," he mouthed, eyes widening slightly as he immediately flipped dimensions once-twice-eventually ending up in a strange, warped realm that was almost pitch black.
He gulped, knowing full and well that he shouldn't have been there.
"Dementio," it hissed with a now much louder voice. Dimentio flinched harshly, his shoulders hunching. "Thov shovldst know what to do... qvickly," it went on, tone seeming to grow in urgency, "we'ue limited time, thov shovldst know... hvrry so we can leaue this place as promptly as possible..."
Dimentio quickly nodded, eyes clenched closed. He took a deep breath, straightening his back before holding his arms out to his sides, palms forward as he slowly let his breath out, feeling an extremely strong amount of dark power begin to gather around him and centering on his open hands and chest. He had to force himself not to move as a sort of piercing sensation began to go through wherever the power was strongest-the worst of it being where his heart was.
After a while of this, and the ever-growing pain, he blacked out.

Suddenly, Dimentio sat up, breathing heavily only to find himself surrounded by the dark blue star-speckled walls of Count Bleck's room. He hesitated a moment before slowly getting to his feet, glancing around.
The room was absolutely trashed.
The jester huffed, stepping over and shoving the door off the two steps up to the entrance to the room before stepping back over and shoving some of the tattered papers, clothes, etc. out of the way with his foot before stopping, the events from what seemed like moments before flooding back into his memory. A subtle smile crept upon his lip as he felt an all too familiar power source nearby.
In the next instant, Dimentio dashed up and out the door, grabbing onto the side to swing himself around and across the hallway to the entrance to his own room, twisting the door handle and swinging it open before freezing, staring at the object now lying atop his desk.
There, atop his desk near the candle lighting the room was a fairly thick black book with a large blue gem in the center and four smaller silver ones at each corner. Outlining the cover and twisting around the four corner gems was a thin line with a gradient color-magenta at the top to red at the bottom. Within this outline was another diamond-shaped one that touched the outer line at the top, bottom, and both sides. The gem in the center radiated out a sort of red pattern onto the book's cover itself.
On the side binding were three tan strips near the top, middle, and bottom. Closer to the topmost of the three and between the top and middle was a small, aged slip of paper that read out in delicate handwriting:

Dark
Prognosticus

Dimentio's smile slowly grew into an evil grin as he floated over to the book, sitting down at his desk and gently lying a hand on its cover, black smoke curling around his fingers. He opened one of the top drawers in his desk, pulling out a small vial of deep purple, almost black, ink, opening it, and setting it next to him on one of the flatter areas of the desk before pulling out a quill from the drawer with a long, delicate black feather on the end of it.
Swiftly opening the book, he flipped through the slightly aged pages before suddenly stopping on two blank ones side by side. He paused a moment before slowly dipping his quill into the ink and writing on the page in delicate handwriting not incredibly dissimilar to that the book's name was written with on the binding.
Greetings, old friend.
It's been ages, hasn't it?
Well, I'll get to the point.
I have a favour to ask...