After they'd hassled Susie and Magolor into some cuffs and cells, the knights went to go calm down the Cappys who were still busy enjoying their festival. There was nothing to worry about, the ship had crashed in a field, and it was all taken care of. They, though wary, went back to their activities with cursory glances towards the firey wreck that was the Lor.

Tiff had sighed at the state of things, but she knew that with one thing done, she could focus on another. Which is why she had brought herself, as well as Kirby, to the knave's living space, the one with the television and weapons on the walls. Thankfully, the both of them were in there, just trying to relax after the day had finished up.

"We need to talk." Tiff had announced.

The two looked at her wordlessly, then to eachother, then back at her again.

"We need to figure out a plan for what to do with eNeMeE. We've gotten Susie and Magolor out of the way for now, so we need to focus on helping Meta Knight get rid of him. I'm sure you both know Meta Knight doesn't want us to destroy him while he's like this. We just need to find a way to trap him."

Tiff made herself comfortable, closing the door after herself and Kirby to show that she wasn't going to be leaving any time soon. The idea of trapping a monster like eNeMeE seemed impossible. Granted, the idea of destroying him entirely, saving the galaxy, and putting an end to a universe-wide iron grip had also seemed impossible. Yet they'd already done that. This was comparatively smaller in scale, yet, she'd felt completely out of her depth.

"We don't know any way to trap 'im," Sword admitted, "and he's getting too strong to control. If there's a way to get rid of him and put him somewhere, who's to say he won't be gettin' out any time soon?"

How would any holding place be strong enough to hold an Emperor of Darkness? That was another reasonable question, and one that Tiff would have to wrap her head around. She wasn't magically inclined in any sense of the word, she didn't know the first lick of how the stuff worked. She was more into sciences than magic, it always felt more safe and logical.

But now she had to deal with the illogical; a demon made out of magic, and some magic no one in the nearby vicinity knew anything about.

"We just don't know enough. Did you guys find anything out inside of the library?" Tiff asked, looking hopeful.

"Nothing, the king doesn't have any books about magic." Sword shook his head.

Tiff hummed. She wasn't about to ask Magolor. As far as she'd seen from his abilities first hand, he didn't know anything about anything. But.. He was literally the only mage in the entire place. However, after she'd roundhouse-kicked his face when he tried to blast her with a sphere of condensed magic electricity as she haggled him into cuffs, she figured they weren't really on speaking terms.

"Do we have anything we can do to help him?" Tiff wondered out loud.

The group wondered. Kirby looked around, curiously and blankly. He hadn't really been in this room very much, other than that one time when all the Waddle Dees wanted to beat him up.

"We need to figure out a way to talk about a plan to trap eNeMeE without him figuring it out the specific details, but if he's stuck to Meta Knight's shadow, how do we do that?"

Tiff continued, wracking her head. She couldn't write him letters, eNeMeE could read those. She couldn't just whisper, eNeMeE could listen. Distracting the wizard wasn't a reliable tactic, and it'd only work for so long consistently.

"Wait," Tiff suddenly realized, "where is Meta Knight? Why isn't he in here with you guys?"

"He went to his room after he woke up, we 'eard him talking to that demon. Seems he's got him under control for now." Sword explained.

"EruigheirugrWRuroquuiwhWIofrhgITUGirutgertg, roight." Blade elaborated.

"And you guys just let him? Who knows what he could do to him when he's alone!?"

Tiff couldn't believe this. Meta Knight was no pushover, obviously, but this was no normal threat. She saw how the wizard had talked about Meta Knight, the sick, disturbed attitude he had. Also, it was just general common sense that leaving a demon with their mortal enemy was a very, very bad idea.

Tiff huffed, grabbing Kirby's nub before he could knock the battle-axe off the wall. Tiff tore open the door and furthermore tore down the hallway, not believing what she'd heard. The audacity of it all, ugh! She'd heard clattering of armor behind her, though, as the knaves chased after her. She'd managed to get to Meta Knight's bedroom just down the hall, and almost knocked on the door. The knights had grabbed her and pulled her back.

"Let go of-"

"Shh!" Sword shushed her, and they all listened in on the room.

It was stark silent, except for a few moments after they shut up, they heard a heavy, bored sigh from within. As they sat and listened, they heard the movement of bed sheets and the general lack of anything happening. Tiff was bamboozled by the turn of events. Why was eNeMeE being complacent, sitting around doing nothing?

There was surely a reason, she just didn't know it. It obviously wasn't of good will, no duh. It had to be something else.. But without knowing what's going on in that room or without a way to talk to Meta Knight without also speaking to his wizard hang-around..

She looked into the room through the slight cracks in the wooden door, but she simply couldn't see anything. It was pitch black. The only light source was the door and the faint glimmer of Meta Knight's yellows eyes, which she only just barely caught.

"Poyo?" Kirby wondered, looking at Tiff's sullen expression as she pulled away from the door.

"Any bright ideas, Kirby?" She asked him.

Kirby seemed to think, then he shook his head. Tiff got up and took herself, followed by the knights, back to the room they were in before Tiff had rightfully freaked out at them.

"Alright, well.. It seems like he is actually okay for now, somehow."

The less she interacted with eNeMeE, the better. She needed the privacy, and who knows what sort of mind tricks he'd try to get her or Sword and Blade to spill the beans. She hadn't forgotten how he'd seemingly possessed Dedede and Escargoon back when they'd sieged his company, and she wasn't about to discount it just because he was in a new form. He hadn't used it on Meta Knight, yet, so perhaps he didn't have the ability to while he's stuck like this.. Yet.

"For some reason, eNeMeE wasn't using anything or fighting Meta Knight while he was asleep. We all heard he was in there, but why wasn't he doing anything?"

"Maybe he just gave up?" Sword proposed.

"RUIGHerguERgerhghrGHErugtrtg." Blade countered.

Tiff looked at Blade and nodded along. She was glad she'd decided to learn how to understand him, all those years ago. At times like this, it was especially useful to be very thorough and clear, without any chance for miscommunication.

"Yeah, there's no way he just gave up. He has to be waiting for something, or he has to be unable to do something. But why?"

Tiff recalled how in the dungeon, the wizard's silhouette was clear and crisp from the torch light. Additionally, outside, on palace grounds, there were numerous torches all along the place to make sure the Waddle Dees could light their way. However, inside Meta Knight's room, there was next to no light. That's the only difference she could spot with how things were going; the way the environment was lit.

"What if he can't do anythin' in shadowy places? Like it's too much darkness?" Sword thought.

"Yeah," Tiff nodded, "I'm thinking the same thing. The way he moves around, he's a shadow. And if there's no light source, there's not really any shadows, just darkness."

It made some lick of sense to her, but it was a bit stupid to think about this way. Why couldn't this just be something that made sense, like science? All this magic assumption stuff was just theoretical at best and wrong at worst. If only they had anyone to talk to about this. Some sort of expert. At the most, all they could do right now is just hope and pray their assumptions are correct.

"Maybe, if that's right," Tiff decided to pursue this line of potential logic, "we can put him somewhere with no light. Maybe we can throw him into space, or into the ocean. But how are we going to get him off of Meta Knight?"

Kirby tugged on Tiff's hand slghtly, pulling her finger. She looked down, noticing Kirby had produced the small cellphone she and Escargoon had worked on for him all that time ago before he'd headed into the Dimensional Mirror. It was cute, and a special spit in the face of NME— being that it was the same cellphone that'd been given to Dedede, now just painted pink and with a few more features.

She looked to see that Kirby had brought up his contact list, and a name was highlighted. Tiff thought about calling them, but again, she was unsure. But.. Considering how she couldn't talk to Magolor, any other mages would do. Even if they weren't the strongest, they had to at least know something or other.

"Good idea, Kirby!"

Tiff took the phone that was handed to her as Kirby poyo'd happily. She pressed the call button, and held the phone up to the side of her head. She waited as it rang, and rang, and rang.. Until, eventually, the other side picked up.

"Hey, Kirby! You finally got the courage to ask me for a rematch, huh?" The tomboy-ish voice on the other side was almost immediately snarky, but in a pretty friendly way.

"Uh, hey, Gryll. This is Kirby's friend, Tiff. We don't really have time to play anything right now, maybe later. We were wondering if we could ask for your help with something? It's pretty important."

"Oh, uh." Gryll sucked in air between their nonexistant teeth. "Suuure..? What do you need?"

"Do you know anything about how magical shadow stuff works? None of us over here are mages, so we don't know anything."

"I know a little."

"Okay, so, theoretically. If a person were stuck as a shadow-"

"Kirby's stuck as a shadow!?" Gryll jumped to a conclusion faster than Tiff had jumped out of her skin from the yelling.

"No! No!" Tiff reassured. "Kirby's fine, here!"

Tiff had held the phone up to the orb in question, who poyoed happily into the microphone.

"We're just wondering because we're having a debate on it, and no one really knows anything about magic. So we were wondering if you could clear the air on it."

Tiff didn't think Gryll needed to be brought into this. Gryll was just a bystander who didn't need to be dragged into someone else's problems, especially problems of this sort of magnitude. Gryll was a bit too.. Silly. Unaffected by what had happened in the universe on the regular.

"Okay, yeah. I can do that. Go ahead." Gryll invited.

"If someone was stuck in a shadow, what happens when they go into a room that has no light?" Tiff asked.

"Uuhh.. If I remember right, nothing..? If they're stuck as a shadow, they need light. Same if you're not stuck, you need light. Otherwise you're just.. I don't know. I don't really specialize in that sorta magic, but that's what I remember about it, I think."

"How do you get someone out of a shadow if they're stuck?"

"I don't know. Sorry. You'd have to ask someone specialized in that. I can try to find one of my old wizard-school buddies and try to ring them up? Maybe? Though the one dude I knew who went into that specifically was kinda a weird creep. Like, everyone else in the class was fine except that one guy inparticular. Always something weird about him, but uh, I probably still have some contact information or something laying around somewhere."

"Oh, ok! Uh, yeah, that'd be great, Gryll. Thanks!"

"Hey, no problem. I'll call you later if I get anything from him. Or maybe I'll just come and visit one day, y'know? Get a game going later. Man it has been a while since I mopped the floor with Kirby. Gonna be fun!"

"Yup. Call us if you find anything out!"

"Bye."

"Bye!"

Tiff hung the phone up, passing it back to Kirby. At least she'd gotten somewhere. One thing had been confirmed, and that was better than zero. As long as eNeMeE was in that dark room, he couldn't do anything. Maybe, anyways. Gryll didn't know for sure. But at least it was something!

"Alright, I think so long as Meta Knight's napping, we'll be okay. For now we need to figure out a way to talk to Meta Knight and let him know about this new info without letting eNeMeE know."

Tiff looked towards the knights. She looked at Sword. Sword looked at Blade. Tiff looked at Blade. Blade looked between the two, then pointed at himself.

"Soroight, erugttgherugurthguerthguergtheruergtuergtui me?"

Tiff was unsure as to whether or not she'd be able to sleep that night. The thought of that demon being holed up in the same castle as her had made her almost nauseously worried about her own safety. As if at any moment, he could spring from the darkness, destroy the entire place, and bury everyone underneath the rubble.

She reassured herself, steeled her bravery, and simply had asked Kirby to stay the night in the castle, and joined her parents in their bed rather than in her room. Tuff had joined as well, and though she felt a bit childish for needing such comfort, she reminded herself that's exactly what she was. She needed the comfort just like any other person, and any other kid.

She felt she'd dealt with it fairly well on her own. With the things she'd seen, thought of, and heard about today, just asking to be close to her loving family was nothing to be ashamed of. To rely on other people for comfort, especially in times like that very moment, was nothing to be slapping herself on the wrist for. She was not ashamed, she'd still felt worried, but she'd managed to sleep.

She did not have a nightmare.

"Is that where he is? Why is he all the way over there? How far did he have to go?"

The man didn't expect any answers from his compatriots. They all held a stoic silence as they moved across the plains. The Grand Shepherd had looked to him, poking him forward with a long, wooden herding cane.

"My feet are killing me, ugh.. I'm so exhausted, can this wait until tomorrow morning?"

He didn't expect them to understand what he was talking about. They were monsters, incapable of thought, incapable of fatigue, and incapable of understanding his mortal needs. Yet, they needed him, and he could ask them to do whatever he pleased thanks to the bargaining piece he'd wedged into their little club.

"I'm sure he'll still be alive by the time we get over there. Plus, one night, chances are he'll have found a way to free himself before we even need to do anything. It's not like he's an incompetent, you know.. He would've come back in like, two days, on his own. I told you he would've, but ooohh no. Don't listen to me. No one ever listens to me around here.."

The Grand Shepherd looked at him emptily, wordlessly, and hatefully. He couldn't understand the burning stare, and he didn't really want to. He was at their mercy as much as he was at theirs, and he could only just hope that by tomorrow, his paws weren't sore.