Chapter 12
Magolor subconsciously sniffed the air. Scents reached past his snug belted scarf to his nose, the familiar scents of bedsheets and clean metals. The quiet buzzing of the Lor's internal processes reached his concealed ears, and he felt the sensation of cozy warmth all around him. These things gently ushered him out of his sleep as delicately as the great hands of a benevolent being, causing his eyes to slowly blink open, viewing the waking world in their topaz glow. A yawn forced itself out of his mouth, unseen, yet heard, and his detached hands reached out past the pastel covers, stretching up over his hooded head.
Waking in this way made Magolor feel pretty good. Memories quickly flashed in his mind, and excitement followed them. His training was finished, his theme park completed, and all that was left to check off was the final piece of this labored puzzle; Kirby. The little alien leaped his fully clothed oval body out of bed, and rushed into other polished rooms of the Lor in vigor, getting himself ready for what would surely be a long day of searching Dream Land over, and all of Popstar if needed be.
The morning routine was finished after Magolor helped himself to a breakfast of synthetic pancakes generously slicked with golden, synthetic butter. He arrived in the cockpit of the Lor, its screen bright and blinking displays. With a blink of his own eyes, Magolor did a double-take on the dominating visuals in front of the rainbow keyboard. It was much like before, a glaring indication of something on the deck of the ship, and yet, no alarms that attempted to draw the pilot's attention on it sooner. Magolor briskly left the cockpit, heading up to the deck of the Starcutter.
The ship was still drifting fairly close to the giant tower, circling it as gradually as a celestial body, as slowly as the passing of time, pushing the occasional bubbly cloud out of the way with its oars. The morning air was cool and crisp, granting Magolor a frigid kiss over the exposed part of his face once he left the warmth of the Lor, causing him to flinch from a slight chill. After the moment had passed, he looked out over the deck, and saw something he certainly wasn't expecting to see.
It was Meta Knight. Again. Standing in the center of the Lor's deck, his cape at his back, his arms at his sides, his pointed wings open, being subtly pushed by the cold breezes. Magolor had never seen him wearing his cape while his wings were out, but moreso, Magolor was surprised to see him at all.
"Meta Knight?" Magolor asked cautiously, unsure of how to read the knight's stance. "How long have you been here?"
"I just got here," the knight answered simply. "I'm merely responding to a request."
"Request? I didn't ask you for anything, right? In fact, I'm pretty sure I said I wouldn't trouble you anymore." Magolor responded with a tilt of his head.
"That's true," Meta Knight said, "but I had a brief conversation with someone about you...and a point I could not refute was brought to my attention."
Magolor didn't say anything to this, but clearly expressed interest as he leaned forward more, bobbing a little closer to the knight, whom continued to maintain his pose stiffly.
"...Being that, you have certainly worked hard here. The training was to help you get control over your powers, but you did take that very seriously. And this..project of yours..." Meta Knight's eyes glanced to the side, towards the tower and the stages attached to it. "...You never asked for permission to build here, but it's evident that you put much thought and effort into its construction. You've been respectful, and you've been pursuing to make amends." Those hidden eyes focused back on Magolor. "In short...perhaps you have merited a slight reward for being diligent in this selfless quest you've made for yourself."
"Who were you talking to about this?" Magolor inquired.
"That's not important, but I'm sure you could figure that out on your own," Meta Knight waved a hand dismissively. "Your present obstacle is finding Kirby, correct?"
"Oh, yes, absolutely!" Magolor said quickly, his eyes widening and brightening. "Is that what you're going to do? Help me find him?"
"I'm not going to help you find him." The knight stated flatly. Magolor's face faulted out of its previous excitement. Meta Knight continued. "I said last night that I did not know where Kirby was, which was indeed true. I didn't know where he was at the time. But I do know where he lives. He has a little house with a little bed, and he goes to sleep there at night, of course."
"Oh!" Magolor exclaimed, his expression brightening back up. "Then you can tell me where he lives, and I can go wait for him there!"
"I'm not going to tell you where he lives, either."
The little wizard's face faulted again, this time sagging into a frown.
"I don't understand," Magolor started. "If you're not going to help me find him, and you're not going to tell me where he lives, then why are you even mentioning Kirby? What's this reward going to be about?"
Meta Knight lifted an armored boot up, sidestepping away from the center of the silvery blue deck with a click. Though the knight had moved, the cape remained in place, standing. Magolor blinked, perplexed by the seemingly floating cape. But then Meta Knight reached over, grabbing the dark cloth, and pulled it away from whatever held it in place with a thick flap of its fabric.
Magolor's body froze. His jaw dropped behind his scarf. His eyes were wide, his silence deafening.
Something round and bright and pink had been concealed by the cape, now removed and exposed. The smooth pink thing turned around on intensely fuchsia shoes, a pair of blue eyes as deep and clear as sapphires appearing on the circular equator, rotating until they were pointed directly at Magolor. The cheeks had perpetual, youthful blushes of pale roses, and a mouth formed a tiny dot on the face.
Meta Knight spoke, softly, and yet it was still enough to shatter the silence like glass.
"The reward is bringing Kirby to you. Now, I'll let you two have some time alone."
Magolor was too fixated on the hero of Dream Land, Popstar, and the universe in general to notice Meta Knight's departure, whom leaped over the side of the Lor, spreading his wings out to catch the cool drifts, soaring away like a dark, jagged eagle. Kirby returned the stare in silence, making no movements except for an idle cant of his head. Those crystal blue eyes of his were so painfully pure, to be looking at them again after all the drama, the betrayal, and the battle that followed it was more than Magolor could bear. After everything, he still looked like the exact same Kirby, the same as he was when the Lor Starcutter first crashed on his planet, when he first gazed at him as Kirby smiled, nodded, and patted himself affirmatively, to help this stranger whose ship had fallen apart. Those same eyes, that same innocence, it was all still here.
Magolor started to perceive the world through thick glass as his eyes filled up with tears, his face cringing from the emotions flooding inside him, drowning his mind. He gasped involuntary, warm fluid running down his cheeks, seeping into his scarf. The whole apology speech he mulled over and meticulously formed in his head flew away, abandoning him, leaving him with barely any words left to scrape together. Only one word managed to stand and run to his mouth, drenched with sheer emotion.
"Kirby..."
The puffball only continued to stare at Magolor, like a child uncertain, maintaining absolute silence. The feelings within Magolor began to overwhelm him, outpouring through his eyes, crushing his throat, squeezing his heart until it was pounding heavy beats under his chest. The little wizard suddenly lurched forward, acting without any coherent thoughts, guided purely on emotional instinct as he threw himself against Kirby, grabbing him with his quaking hands, his whole body trembling.
"Kirby...!" Magolor wailed. His liquid-paved eyes forced themselves shut, tears pumping out under his lids, dribbling down his face and dripping on the fine pink surface of Popstar's hero. Magolor gasped aloud again, unable to hold back the intense bawling that followed the motion shortly after, degrading into a hysterical mess, gushing an incomprehensible twist of sheer sorrow and joy.
For a time, Kirby quietly held Magolor, allowing him to get all the raw, unmitigated emotions out. If the tears flowing on him and the oval alien's noisy sobbing bothered him, he certainly didn't show it, nor were there any hints of annoyance or reluctance towards him. All Kirby did was watch Magolor silently, almost curiously with those blue eyes as he held his stubby arms around the quivering wizard, feeling his warmth against the cool skies surrounding the Lor Starcutter.
Eventually, Magolor slowly calmed down. The tears stopped once it seemed he had none left to shed, his voice toned down into heavy breathing, joined by consistent sniffling, and his body eased out of its shaking. The exhausted lemon eyes opened again, looking at Kirby's pools of blue with a pained stare, now bogged by the thought of how much he must have inconvenienced him for being the one to bear the brunt of his blubbering, leaving the puffball rather damp from his own tears. Magolor pulled back, removing his hands from the hero with obvious shame. But before he could bumble into any attempts at apologies, Kirby was the first to speak.
"Magolor," Kirby's voice rang youthfully concerned, "why were you crying?"
This question left Magolor absolutely dumbfounded, to the point he didn't realize he was staring at Kirby like a man who lost his mind, rendering him speechless for a few long moments until he shook his head out of the bewilderment.
"I..." Magolor started, while being jostled by sniffles. "I was crying...because I feel so bad...about everything I've done...even now, I'm still being a problem for you..."
"You're not being a problem." Kirby responded genuinely.
"No...?" Magolor sniffled. "It's not bothering you that you're all wet from my crying?"
"No, it doesn't bother me. I just want to know why you're so sad."
"Why!" Magolor exclaimed in shock. "Because of everything I did to you! Everything from before, when my ship crashed here, and you helped me out so much, and then I..."
The little wizard visibly cringed, clenching his glowing eyes shut miserably, unable to finish the sentence.
"I don't understand...why are you acting this way towards me?" Kirby asked, with a blink of his relentlessly innocent eyes. "Didn't you say you wanted us to be friends in the end?"
"Friends...? I...I did say that at one point, didn't I...?" Magolor's face contorted, looking like he was trying to hold back a relapse of tears. "But that was...it was before I got a hold of the crown..."
"No," Kirby shook his head. "I meant when you said it after we defeated you."
"After...wait, what? I never said anything to you after...I don't even remember you defeating me...I was..."
Magolor cut himself off again, chilled by the memories. The Master Crown's total control over his body, leaving him a blind prisoner in his own shell, unable to see what was going on at that point. It was just darkness and pain that ended when he woke to Landia's presence back on Halcandra.
This time, Kirby was the one to approach, putting his little pink arms on Magolor's scarf.
"It was after we defeated you, just before you vanished away..." Kirby said, his gaze becoming one of sadness.
"I don't remember anything like that at all..." Magolor admitted.
"I remember it." Kirby said.
The spherical ball of rubbery skin spoke again, to inform Magolor of the events. He described their final battle, and how he knew that even then, it wasn't Magolor he was fighting anymore. It was some horrid thing full of hatred and anger, a thing that had the wizard's face on it, which it used as elaborate eyelids for its own ocular presence. Everything else was just a nightmarish aberration of both his body and clothes, a house remodeled to the specification of its new owner.
Battered and pushed to their limits, Kirby and his friends worked together to bring the monster down, and with one last strike, the beast screamed out in haunting rage. It clawed at the air around it as plumes of black smoke and blue fire expelled out of its form, melting the thick crust of darkness away. And with a flash, all that was left was Magolor, wearing the Master Crown, which immediately shattered and dissolved in slivers of vanishing gold.
"Magolor!" Kirby shouted, running ahead of the group, not allowing his tiredness to slow him down. He leapt towards the wizard, whom floated like a lifeless body in the sea of dimensional fire, and was in process of pulling higher up. Kirby attempted to grip the drifting form, only to find his arms going through him like he were a mere illusion, enveloping in a baby blue glow. Terrified of what was happening, terrified that there was going to be nothing left, not even a chance to say goodbye, Kirby's little arms flailed, trying again and again to grab him in the rapidly passing precious seconds...but then his desperate motions came to a halt. He heard, as if coming from a distance, and yet certainly radiating from the destabilizing alien, his voice whispering like in a dream.
"Nothing good...comes of fighting...let's always...stay friends...Kirby..."
And with a shimmer of light scattering like a cloud of teal fireflies, Magolor was gone.
"...Since then, I always hoped that you would come back one day..." Kirby said, finishing the recounted memory as his eyes seemed to brighten up. "I hoped you weren't really gone...and that we could be friends again, like you said..."
Magolor stared at Kirby, speechless. He had absolutely no memory of this, but he certainly remembered telling him the same thing shortly before the group left to fight Landia. At the time, it was only to reinforce that he had no hidden agendas, but...maybe deep down, he did secretly wish for a friend...
"Friend—" Magolor spoke suddenly, stunned by realizing what was said. "Kirby, you—you want to be friends with me...?"
"Of course I do." Kirby nodded.
"Even—even after everything I did—making you repair my ship, fight Landia for me, and then—" Magolor stammered.
"It's always better to be happy with friends than be bitter and hold grudges." Kirby said with a wide smile. "If we can be friends, then why shouldn't we be friends?"
Magolor hovered over the silvery deck of the Lor Starcutter as he processed what was said several times in his head. It was so surreal, that after everything, he didn't even apologize, and yet here Kirby was, forgiving him anyway. A sensation of warmth took hold of Magolor's heart, and his eyes scrounged up a few more tears to push out, glimmering in their yellow glow. The little wizard barreled into Kirby again, this time driven by the instinct of absolute happiness and friendly love, squeezing his hands around the pink puffball. Kirby returned the hug, nuzzling his smiling face against Magolor's thick drapery.
"You're right," Magolor said in this joyful embrace. "Why shouldn't we be friends? I don't even want to think of any reasons!"
"Me neither," Kirby agreed, "and I'm happy you came back! I hope we can do fun things together again!"
Gasping aloud, Magolor gently pushed Kirby off himself.
"Actually!" The wizard exclaimed eagerly, pointing a gloved hand over at the new levels of the tower. "I have something fun we can do right now!"
"Oh?" Kirby asked curiously as his eyes followed Magolor's hand, then landed on what was being pointed to. "What's that?"
"It's just a small gift," Magolor beamed. "Something to make up for all the fuss I caused. It's my amazing theme park I built just for you!"
"A theme park? Wow!" Kirby said as he ran to the edge of the ship's deck, leaning over to get a closer look with excited eyes, a smile opening wide on his face.
"Take us over there, Lor!" Magolor shouted with another motioning sweep of his hand.
The Lor Starcutter complied immediately, pushing through the crisp winds to veer down, swimming quickly but carefully through the sky until it was only inches away from the first level's platform, docked by its side.
"It's all new challenge stages, with a special surprise if you complete them!" Magolor explained as the Lor slowed down into a stop.
"I can't wait! When can I try them? Can we start now?" Kirby asked, almost bouncing on his searingly magenta shoes with anxiousness.
"Let's go!" Magolor answered, taking Kirby by the arm, leaping over the gap and guiding him towards the first stage.
As the two ran, the Lor Starcutter waited by the edge of the stage. The two friends would be gone for hours, but the ship didn't mind. For the first time in a very long time, it felt at peace.
