"Get up, you worthless disappointment."
Daisy jolted awake, floating amid a shifting miasma of coal and pitch. It took all her strength to lift her head, feeling as if the world itself was pinning her still.
Mother looked down at her. The judgment in those bright red eyes was so familiar. It felt so real, but Daisy knew it was false. The Heart of Subspace wore her face like a mask. Daisy struggled to move but her body would not listen.
"Look at you," it said in her voice. "All that work for nothing. But I can't say I'm surprised. Once a failure, always a failure."
"You're not my mother," Daisy said.
"Perhaps not in the literal sense," it said. "But this face and these words come from you. They are as real as your memory of her. We merely reveal what you would rather keep buried."
Daisy glared. She tried again to move but was too weak. It felt like the fight had been drained out of her.
"Oh yeah?" She choked out a laugh. "You think she'd call me worthless for trying to stop Wart?"
"Worse. YOU think that. You know she would hate you for losing. That after all that toil and effort you only wasted your time. Wasted HER time. You were given every opportunity and you only proved what you knew deep down from the start: You're no hero, or any kind of star, not even a princess. You're nothing. And this desperate show you put on to lie to yourself is pathetic."
Daisy felt her courage slip. She held onto her last ounce of spite to meet her mother's stare with hate. But the tears welled up behind that mask. A shudder of despair ran through her body and she went limp. It was true. She made it all the way to the finish line only to fumble. She touched the Sundream Stone and nothing she meant to accomplish mattered. Sunny looked inside her and said she was evil. That meant more than losing her crown. Sarasaland was doomed and now she was stuck in the deepest and darkest part of the Dream World while the world ended upstairs.
"It's your fault," mother said.
"I know," Daisy said.
"You could've stopped this. You could have gotten help, but you were too prideful. Too vain."
"I know," Daisy said.
"They were counting on you: Wanda and Waluigi. Those two gave everything to give you that chance. And you wanted so bad to do it for them, didn't you? Especially him." It smiled. "Really, are you so sad and lonely that you were ready to settle for Waluigi of all people?"
Daisy felt a white-hot shame on her face. She tried to look away but could not. It was not fair that this thing could sift through her most embarrassing feelings.
"He's not that bad," she said.
"The man is a disgusting and deceitful clown. A glance and anyone can tell to stay away. But that's why you like him. Because so are you. He's just brave enough to be honest about what he is. But you? You pretend."
"Shut up," Daisy said.
"You're so eager to play the part of princess. You'd do anything. Lie. Cheat. Steal. And you thought you could be a hero? Well. The show's over. You're just a mean, angry little orphan who got lucky."
"Please," she said, managing just enough strength to close her eyes. "Stop."
"Let her go!"
"W—Waluigi?"
Daisy opened her eyes to see him drop through the dark clouds above and land with an awkward stumble. He stood astride the void and stabbed a finger through the air at the shade of her mother.
"You think being a mean, angry orphan is nothing?!" he said. "She's a survivor! It takes brains and will to carve out a place in this world! I'm not going to listen to you bad mouth my friend like this!"
Daisy felt a pulse in her chest. The crushing gloom around her head parted. It was like she could breathe again.
The Heart of Subspace turned to regard Waluigi with a faint annoyance.
"How vexing," it said. "You know this to be futile and yet you choose to continue"."
"The game's not over yet," Waluigi said. "We're not gonna to give up when we can still win this!"
The void boomed with laughter all around them.
"You have already lost. Your 'friend' has allowed our servant to touch the Sundream Stone. With his wish granted, Subspace will soon touch the waking mind of every creature in this world and at long last nightmares will run wild! No longer will we be chained to the world of dreams!"
"Sounds like a good con you got going," Waluigi said. "You could even pull it off if you weren't up against me and the princess."
Daisy felt another pulse. A tingle ran through her stiff arms and she could move them again. Masks appeared all around in the miasma; their attention focused on Waluigi.
"You think yourselves champions? Behold!"
Images appeared in the rolling mists. Visions of Daisy touching the Sundream Stone and Dreamy Daisy siding with Wart. It was the last thing Daisy wanted Waluigi to see. He watched her humiliation in silence. The dream gems were scattered. She failed.
"Do you see what your princess has done? The evil in her heart serves me already. This is the truth of your so-called friend."
"That's a bunch of baloney!"
Wanda burst through the illusions, trialing a shimmering rainbow of sparkles through the air. She puffed up her cheeks to glare at the Heart of Subspace, a tiny little light amid the black.
"Daisy may not be perfect, but she wants to do the right thing! We all make mistakes, you big meanie! She can do better if she keeps trying, I know it! She's my friend and I believe in her! We can still do this!"
"You are a fool. The Stars have already passed judgement on your princess and she is found wanting."
Waluigi smirked at the cosmic horror. "You think I care what the Stars think? We don't need their permission. We do what we want!"
A faint glow enveloped Daisy's body as her friends spoke up for her. Strength flowed through her and more. She pulled herself free of her paralysis.
"Such delicious hubris!" the masks cackled. "You are the heralds of our calamity. Come! If you are so eager to die, then face me! Receive the wages of your courage!"
The masks swarmed through the air, too many to count. They dived and swooped faster than Waluigi or Wanda could dodge, pounding them back and forth across the floor of the void. The two of them cried out and struggled to fight back in the whirl of chaos.
"Stop it!" Daisy shouted. "Let go of them!"
She charged at the illusion of her mother. She reared back and slammed her fist into the specter. The glow surrounding her body rippled down her arm and exploded out of her fist in a wave that blasted across subspace in an enormous beam of rainbow light. The masks burned and evaporated and all at once the black void turned white.
The shade of her mother crumbled. A wisp of something escaped from the ash. Daisy's ears rang and her vision blurred. She blinked and saw herself in her old bedroom, crying.
"…I can't do this, so why should I bother?! You should've left me to rot in that orphanage and found someone better! Someone who can actually do what you want! Someone perfect!"
A vision of mother stepped close to wipe away her tears.
"Perhaps I could have," she said. "But I am not in the habit of making mistakes. Had I chosen, I could've stolen one of the Star Children to raise instead. But I did not. I made my choice, and I chose you."
Daisy held her breath along with the phantom of her younger self.
"No doubt you will struggle against them," mother said. "You will train twice or three times as hard as them just to keep up. But you'll do it, won't you? And I think you will be a better princess for it. Failure is precious when we learn from it. A third-place trophy is still earned. Carry it with pride. I do not want perfection. I want you to rise to the challenge. I want you to be the best princess you can be."
Merlana offered the dented trophy to her daughter. Daisy stepped toward the scene, reaching out. The world blinked and they vanished. It was only a memory.
"Wha—" Daisy stammered, reeling from everything. "What just happened?"
"Oof," Wanda groaned. She sat up on the floor, looking ruffled. "I'm not sure. It looks like you shot a big laser at the bad guy!"
"No! Not that, I'm talking about the—" She stopped. "Actually, what was that about? How and why did I shoot that giant rainbow laser?"
"It looked like dream magic!" Wanda said. "…I think, since we're in the dream world, our faith in you manifested as power!"
A bruised Waluigi chuckled, flat on his back on the ground nearby.
"Figures something schmaltzy like that would work here," he said.
Daisy helped her friends up. Wanda took back to the air after bending a wing tip back in the right direction and Waluigi started stretching.
"So, what now?" Daisy said. "We get Wanda to wake up so we can get out of here?"
"That's not going to work," Waluigi said. "We didn't enter the Dream World through Wanda's head. She'd wake up in Sarasaland without us."
"Well, then at least SHE can be safe!"
"I'm not leaving without you guys!" she said. "We're doing this together!"
The white void shifted. Stripes of black tendrils began to grow along the horizon, reclaiming its territory.
"I don't like the look of that," Daisy said. "Do I need to get more compliments so I can do that laser again?"
"I like how cute your hair looks today!" Wanda said. "It looks really nice!"
Daisy looked at her arms and did not see any sort of mystical glow.
"It's not working!"
"I lied, I'm sorry!" Wanda said. "Your hair looks really messy right now! I just wanted to help!"
Subspace roared. The tendrils of dark silhouette raced across the ground towards them.
"Run!" Waluigi said.
The three of them tried to run from the oncoming tangle of shadows, but they were sprouting up from every direction and it was only a few minutes before they were encircled.
"What do we do?!" Daisy said.
"This way!" a voice shouted. "Over here!"
A red door with a white knocker appeared out of nowhere. It opened, and Commander Reverie waved for them to come through. The three of them dove through the door and the commander slammed the door shut before Subspace could reach through after them. The door vanished in a puff of smoke.
"It appears the three of you are unharmed," the commander said. "For another few minutes, anyway."