Taranza worked on the garden pretty extensively. It helped him keep his mind off things he didn't want to think about. Over a year had passed since he had moved into Castle Dedede, and it seemed to be helping him that he wasn't in Floralia anymore. He still hadn't smiled, but he was happy about being around people as upbeat as they were. Magolor would drop by on occasion to see how he was doing, acting more playful than he'd remembered. Maybe it was because they were alone together far less often, but he lived up to the adjectives that others described him with. Whenever they did end up alone, Magolor seemed to make a conscious effort to avoid discussing anything personal, instead sticking to things like a video game he'd played recently, or a funny story about something Meta Knight had done. He acted the same way around everyone else, but in these cases it seemed… forced. Like he was actively suppressing the urge to say more. Taranza didn't pry, but he couldn't help but wonder what that meant.

- .. - . / ..-. .-.. .. . ...

"Morning, Taranza. Slept in a bit today?" King Dedede looked up from his huge plate of food when Taranza entered.

"Not intentionally. I was kept awake for longer than usual because I had recently developed a crippling fear of submarines."

"I'm guessing Magolor bought you a game and then said '432', right?" Bandee had barely looked away from the sink.

"How did you guess?"

"Same thing happened to me. I will never get on or near a submarine, ever."

"Agreed."

They had a lively discussion over Taranza's breakfast. Talking about one thing or the other, laughs and smiles from the ones who weren't Taranza, but then the mood changed when Kirby showed up.

Usually, he was a good sign, but he bore a grave expression-or as close to one as he could make-and he was out of breath. "Something's wrong. Magolor's acting completely different!"

Dedede shook his head slowly. "He's always doing that. Tell me when he starts shutting up. That'll be a new one."

Kirby waved his arms. "He did! I was at his souvenir shop for fifteen minutes and he didn't say a single word!"

Dedede dropped his plate on the floor from shock. "Kid, I didn't mean it literally. That can't be. I don't believe it."

"But it's true! Just yesterday, everything was normal! Now, he won't even look at me!"

Bandee looked puzzled. "Maybe he just didn't realize you were there?"

"I talked to him, though! He must have heard me!"

Taranza looked around the room. "Well, we should probably go and see whatever this is about. Last time he was doing something anywhere near this weird was after the Claycia incident."

When the four of them arrived at the souvenir shop, it looked like there had recently been a fire. Smelled like it, too. Kirby ran in the door to see Magolor throwing balled-up pieces of paper into the fireplace. The fire changed colour with every new page thrown in. He looked in the general direction of the people watching him, but made no indication that he registered the presence of anyone there. Magolor looked at the crumpled pieces of paper next to him, then went behind a support pole with more paper, scribbling violently on each page before crumpling them and putting them next to the others. Once he was done, he floated back to the pile of paper and resumed throwing them into the fireplace. There was no passion in his eyes, no effort into the throwing, no emotions were on display other than cold, calculated, animosity. The scene was utterly incomprehensible.

Bandee was the first to speak. "What are you doing?" It was what everyone was thinking, but none of them had remembered to ask. Magolor didn't respond. It didn't even seem like he heard them. They decided that it'd be more effective to stand in the way and see how he responds. Magolor's face registered that there was an object there, but nothing he would consider a person. Bandee was at a loss for words.

"Alright, wise guy, you know it's rude to ignore people like that, don't you?" King Dedede approached, trying to sound assertive, but his confusion hurt the effect. He got no response.

Bandee ran over to the ever shrinking pile of crumpled paper and grabbed a page. Magolor effortlessly grabbed it out of their hands and threw it in the fire. "Do you not want me to see what's on here?" No response. That is, other than Magolor picking up the entire rest of the pile and throwing it all into the flames. He stared into them for a moment, then the fire promptly extinguished itself, leaving no trace that it ever even existed. Magolor left. The rest were too dumbfounded to stop him, or were worried about what might happen if they tried. All that remained was silence.

"Well," Bandee offered. "It looks like we've got a mystery on our hands."

"Whatever that was, it's bad." Dedede said before turning to see where Magolor was heading to. No sign of him. "Kirby and I'll go where his ship usually is, you two see if you can find him anywhere else. I'll keep in contact." They split off into their groups.

After arriving at their destination, Kirby made his disappointment known. "Why isn't she here?"

Dedede looked into the craters the ship naturally made. "Must've moved pretty recently. The soil's loose." He dialed Meta Knight on his cell phone. "Heyyyy, Meta, have you seen the Lor Starcutter around recently?" A voice came from the other side, and Dedede frowned. "Okay. Let me know if you see it, will you? Thanks. Love you. Bye." He hung up. "You got any ideas?"

Kirby was already hanging up his own phone. "They haven't seen anything yet. I hope he's okay…"

The two of them clearly had differing opinions on him. Putting aside his own thoughts for the moment, Dedede picked up Kirby and put him on his shoulder. "I do too. C'mon, let's look around."

.- ... . .-. . / -.. .. -.. / - ... . -.- / -. -

"You know, I really thought this was just nothing again, but now I'm worried he doesn't actually want anyone to find him. We've been looking for almost an hour and a half, and we still don't have a clue. What kind of sick joke is he pulling?" Bandee was looking tirelessly despite themself, but was starting to get frustrated.

"Don't you think it's messed up that every time he does anything unexplainable, you immediately think it's all his fault or that you somehow need to be the victim? Maybe something happened to him that really shook him to his core, maybe he's in genuine danger, and all you can think of is how it's going to affect you."

Bandee didn't have a response for that. Taranza was right. It was bad. The two of them searched in silence for a few minutes. "Hey, you were talking to him yesterday, right? Did anything weird happen?"

Taranza shook his head. "Nothing out of the ordinary. I exaggerated my anger for the submarine thing, he responded in that cheeky way he always does, and then I tried to go to bed."

Bandee paused. "When did this conversation happen?"

"About ten pm."

Bandee dialed Kirby on their phone. "About this morning, when you saw Magolor acting strangely, what time was it? All right, thanks." They hung up. "We have a nine hour interval for when the thing happened. Any way we can narrow that down?" They chuckled softly. "Ha, nine hours, huh?"

Taranza clapped a pair of hands together. "Let's check the security footage for the shop! It wouldn't have happened there, so we'd be able to narrow it down that way!"

"Great idea! Let's go!"

Upon arriving at the souvenir shop, Taranza booked it for the desktop computer behind the counter. He pulled up the records for the previous night. Bandee limped in a minute later. "I tripped on some tangled grass. I need to sit down."

Taranza pulled up a chair. "Here. Just rest, and I'll tell you what I find when I'm done looking through everything." Bandee obliged. Taranza spent the next few minutes rewinding the events of the previous night, looking closely at various details that might hint at what happened. He got up, floated to the door, and flipped the sign to say "closed". He then approached Bandee, who was holding an ice pack to their foot. "Come over. I have some interesting things to show you."

They went back to the computer. Taranza pulled up the video and scrolled to a timestamp."This is the security footage from last night to this morning. This part of the video shows what was going on in here at 4:30 am. No one's here, but the lights are on, and there are shadows moving outside. Then, things stop happening entirely until 5:03, where Magolor enters. He looks like he's trying to avoid being seen. When he enters, he looks at the light switch, and then doesn't hit it. Clearly, he left it on because turning it off would draw attention to him having been back there since leaving it on previously. He stays here, staring off into space, for the next two hours before Kirby arrives."

"So he's hiding from something. But what? We still don't know what went on from 10 pm until 4:30. That's six and a half hours unaccounted for."

"I haven't shown all the footage yet."

"There's more?"

"Let's go back. Way back. To when the lights were turned on to begin with."

"And when would that be?"

"11:36 pm."

"What? That early?" The timing flabbergasted Bandee.

"Indeed. We go back to that time, and see a dark room, when Magolor opens the door, turns on the light, and quickly leaves mere minutes later. This is a vital piece of the puzzle."

"Well, yeah, but how? There's no indication if this was before or after the thing happened.

Taranza tapped his head. "Think again. There's no visible proof from Magolor himself, but there is something damning if you look at the carpet on the floor before and after he passes by."

"There's a difference?" Bandee squinted at the screen.

"Yes. Before Magolor enters the room, the carpet is completely spotless. After he moves past the carpet though, there's a small dark spot riiight… here." Taranza pointed at the carpet. It's like water, but there was no water that could have fallen on it. That means…"

"Really? I'm not ruling out the possibility, but is that really enough proof to claim that he was crying here. That could be… sweat, or something."

"Now look at when he's leaving. You cannot see his face, but there are discoloured parts of his scarf. Note that the hood is still completely consistent in colour. Wherever that's coming from, it's above his scarf, but below his hood. The only thing that explains it is that he was crying in this footage. All that remains is, why?"

Bandee was really getting into it now. "So it goes back even further?"

"No, actually. The answer we're looking for is at 7:30 am, when he starts drawing."

"You can see what he drew?"

"I can. And It's not good."

"W-what do you mean by that?"

"Look." Taranza played the video, and zoomed in on the sheet of paper Magolor was drawing on.

"Wait, that's not-"

"Oh, but it is. Three hundred times over."

Bandee could only stare in shock at the crumpled up pile of drawings of the Lor Starcutter.