When Magolor came to, he was in the Captain's Quarters. Or, at the very least, somewhere that looked very similar. The more he looked around, the more worried he was. The whole room was greyscale, and when he tried to turn on his laptop, it didn't respond. He checked his cell phone. 5:38 pm, day 7. Day 7? Just what is this place? He went to the door and tried to open it. It didn't open. He looked in the mirror. Everything was grayscale except for Magolor himself. The time just kept going by. He couldn't leave, and there was nothing he could do.

"Lor?" Nothing. "Loooooorrrrrrrr?" Still nothing. "Can you even hear me?" Nope. "Please… if anyone can hear me, let me out." No response. He started pounding on the door. "Anybody! If you're there, please, say something or open the door!" Eventually, the exhaustion caught up to him. He went back to the bed and collapsed. Magolor shouted into the monochromatic abyss of his own room for answers. "Where am I, really?" Nothing. "Whoever put me here, what do you want? Is this for ransom? Do you just hate me that much? Why am I here?" Nothing. He began sobbing into the sheets. "Why… WHY!"

- .-. .- .-. .-. . -..

Everyone had gathered yet again in front of Magolor. He was still asleep in the bed. It didn't look like anything was wrong, but it was clear that something was. After all, he should have woken up the day before. Taranza was on the verge of tears just looking at him. "Has anyone seen anything like this before?"

A chorus of confused voices responded.

"Doesn't sound familiar."

"No idea."

"Could someone explain the situation again?"

"I'm hungry."

"I got nothing."

The Star Allies tried everything they could think of to wake him up. Dark Meta Knight ended up getting banned from entering the Starcutter after resorting to brute force. Despite everyone's efforts, he didn't wake up. If it wasn't for his breathing, it'd be easy to assume that he was dead. Throughout it all, Daroach stayed strangely silent. Once just about everyone had given up on finding a solution, he finally spoke to the small crowd. "It's absolutely psychological."

Meta Knight rotated Galaxia in its sheath. "How can you be so sure?"

"Think. What was the last thing that Magolor would have seen before he was knocked out?"

"It would have been Halcandra exploding, but he didn't like that place. Would that really be the cause?" Bandee floated a question that most of the room seemed to agree with.

Daroach pulled down the front of his hat. "Maybe I phrased that wrong. He may have held no love for Halcandra, but there was something within him that reacted very badly to the sight of it exploding."

Adeleine scratched her head. "Well, it's a huge explosion. Of course it would bother him."

"That's not what I mean."

Dedede was getting impatient. "Get to the point already. Why did Halcandra blowing up get so deep under his skin?"

Daroach turned to the monitor behind the bed. "Lor, I know the file's in the Captain's Quarters somewhere. The file on the project. Could you please bring it out?"

"This file was written by Susie's father. It talks about a facility somewhere that was running 'Project Restoration'. That name sound familiar to any of you?"

No one had anything to say, so Daroach continued.

"Very well. Project Restoration was created for one purpose. Restoring the ruined planet of Halcandra to its former glory. To that end, they created two subjects. One of them has yet to be identified. The other… is Magolor."

The room was silent. It seemed they all had to take a minute to process that. Meta Knight was the first to find the words. "How did you find out about this?"

"I heard it a few years ago from the kid himself. It seemed at that point that he was still trying to pin down the whole story himself."

"Oh boy, that sounds familiar." King Dedede sounded a bit frustrated. "And why did you never think to tell anyone else about this?"

Daroach held his hands up as if he was surrendering. "I did think to tell people. But I know the guy values his privacy, so I didn't want anyone to know unless he was okay with it, or there was an emergency. This," He gestured to Magolor, "Is an emergency."

Dedede grumbled a bit, but didn't seem too worked up over it. "So, what you're getting at here is that when Magolor saw the planet exploding, his mind started shutting down because he saw his assigned purpose in life burning to a crisp?"

Kirby looked at the bed sadly. "That's awful!"

The mouse, who was rather taken with his own performance, addressed the last two things said. "As awful as it is, I have to imagine that's what's going on. That leaves two questions. Number one: Why did he go to Halcandra in the first place? And number two: What caused the explosions?"

Bandee deflated. "How are we supposed to figure that out?"

"Let's try making a timeline of events. If we can figure out the beginning and middle, we'll know what led to the end, right?" Daroach brought up this course of action as if it would be easy to do.

"What's the point?" Taranza muttered. "Even if we know what happened, it's not as if that will wake him up." Anyone who looked in his direction could tell he was on the verge of tears. No one knew what to say. It was the first time a problem had come up that no one could figure out how to solve. Everyone in the room felt the sharp pain of helplessness hit at the same time. Eventually, the room emptied, leaving only Kirby, Marx, and Daroach.

Marx looked uncharacteristically serious. "I wanted to know how that project ended."

"Oh?" Daroach inquired.

"Well, Magolor isn't still in that facility, right? Did that file say how he left?"

"Ah, right. I suppose I never told you how the prologue ended, did I? …It didn't end well. I'm not sure I can explain how exactly in front of Kirby, but let's just say there's a reason why no one we know has ever seen the facility."

"So, it blew up then. That would explain the amnesia." Marx was staring at the wall, contemplatively.

Kirby tilted his head. "Amnesia?"

Daroach pondered for a moment. "You knew about that?"

"Of course. Did he not tell you about our time tearing up the fabric of space?" He put his classic mischievous grin back on his face.

"He just said that once he woke up outside of the facility, it got really bad. I imagine you played a part in that?"

Marx's grin faded slightly. "Course he'd say that. He had it the worst of the three of us by a long shot."

Kirby was noticeably interested in what he was about to say. "What do you mean by that?"

"Me, Mags, and Susie. I found him a while after I woke up in Another Dimension, and Susie showed up later. We kinda banded together to survive that place, but it was rough going." Marx had a far-off look in his eyes, which seemed really out of place for someone like him.

Daroach simply stared for a moment, frozen. Then he dropped the hand he held in front of him. "Wow. Uh, damn. I have a lot of questions."

"The nickname sounded weird, didn't it? I used to call him that before I… messed up. He didn't let me use the nickname after that. Oh yeah, and Susie. I didn't really get to know her too well, but she definitely was there."

Kirby walked in front of Marx in order to look him in the eyes. "How did you mess up?"

"Look, Kirbo, I'm already pushing it by calling him Mags behind his back. I'm absolutely not gonna tell that story if you don't already know it." With that, he hopped on a ball the size of himself and rolled it out the door. With nothing more to say, Kirby and Daroach left after him, separating and going to their respective homes.

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

Magolor looked at the cell phone again. Day 11, 7:19 am. Even though he hadn't charged the phone at all since getting here, the battery was still full. He hadn't slept a wink, but not from a lack of trying. Being painfully aware of every moment, trying to dissociate and put his thoughts elsewhere, but to no avail. He hadn't eaten at all, and yet he wasn't hungry. Being neither hungry nor tired was a new experience, since he was usually one or the other, if not both. His mind felt like it was blocked off from him, he couldn't remember most of his life. He felt like he was closer to remembering when he approached the door, but he couldn't open it, of course. Minutes felt like days. Hours felt like years. Magolor felt like garbage. For however long it would take, he simply stared at the time and watched it go by, one second at a time. It wasn't as if he had anything better to be doing.