Every single day, Taranza went to the Lor to see if Magolor was showing signs of waking up. Every day, he waited next to his bed for hours on end. Every day, he was dragged further into despair by the lack of response. Every night, he dreamed of spending time with him. The dreams were pleasant. Beautiful. It made waking up all the more painful. The fountain of dreams made sure that everyone on Popstar had good dreams, but what good is a dream that makes you wish you never wake up? Taranza ended up spending more time asleep than awake, but still made sure that he always went to the Lor to check on Magolor.

He scarcely even noticed the day the rifts opened in the sky. It seemed only minutes later that a much larger one appeared, with what looked like an entire planet about to come crashing through. Taranza looked up at the planet on a collision course with Popstar, and tried to summon an emotional response to it, but there was nothing that registered. It wasn't that he didn't care, he just didn't have the energy to react at all. Then, the rift closed. I guess that's the end of that. Barely even thinking about it, he lay down in the grass while he tried to muster the strength to make himself some lunch.

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It wasn't long after that Kirby, Meta Knight, King Dedede, Bandee, and some little blue creature appeared by Castle Dedede, looking far more exhausted than they should be for something that only lasted about an hour. The fuzzy little blue thing pointed to Taranza and then asked the others, "Who's that? They look kinda sad." Taranza quickly got up and went to his room to try to make a better first impression. Alright, no time to be sad. I need to go out there and be normal! He came back out after collecting enough of himself and approached the five of them.

"Hello. My name is Taranza, and you are?"

"I'm Elfilin. It's nice to meet you… what were you doing earlier?"

Taranza racked his brain to try and come up with an answer that wasn't "The person I am head-over-figurative-heels in love with hasn't woken up in a year and a half." He settled on denial. "I just had a bit of a headache. Other than that, everything is fine." He turned to the other four. "How did you all get so tired in an hour?"

King Dedede was taken aback. "An hour? I don't know about everyone else, but I was gone for a few months."

"That can't be right. I saw you this morning. You were talking to Meta Knight on the phone about-"

"You will not finish that sentence." Meta Knight interjected.

"Fine, fine. Where did you end up going, anyway? If it was through those rifts in the sky, maybe you went somewhere where time passed differently."

The five of them looked at each other, the only movement being everyone blinking, somehow always at the same time. Evidently, none of them had thought of that. "So, I'd take that to mean nothing's changed back here, huh?" Bandee cut to the chase.

"No. Nothing. Same as… same as usual." Taranza had to hold back tears.

Elfilin gazed at him, trying to decipher what Taranza was really thinking. He caught him looking towards the Lor Starcutter, and followed that glance to where it landed. Then he turned back to the other four. "I want to meet everyone else! Where are they?"

Dedede gestured to the front of the castle. "I don't know how many of our friends are around right now, but we'll introduce you to everyone we can find." They left.

The presence of someone new showing up pulled Taranza a little bit out of the pit he was in mentally. Right. I can't lose myself like this. I need to keep moving. If Magolor could see me, he'd tell me to just focus on myself. He can give really good advice when he's not looking for a laugh. He went to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich.

Once he was finished eating, he left his room again. Kirby and Elfilin were on the other side of the door, looking toward the garden. "Ah! Hello."

"Hi, Taranza! I just finished introducing him to Adeleine and Ribbon. Do you know where anyone else might be?"

He scratched his chin. "We haven't seen Marx causing any havoc recently. He's probably in his house."

Kirby looked puzzled. "He has a house? Why didn't he tell me?"

Taranza almost cracked a smile. "There are so many things I forget that you don't know."

"Oh! And maybe, if Magolor wakes up, I should tell him that I learned how to share food through high fives instead of kisses! Maybe then he'll actually share instead of keeping everything for himself."

The mention of Magolor's name sent a chill up Taranza's back. "Uh huh." I guess the new kid should know about him sooner or later.

They got to the Lor Starcutter. "Taranza, Kirby. Who is this dubious rodent?"

"Dubious rodent?" Elfilin was clearly offended.

Kirby waved his hands. "Lor, this is Elfilin. I met him when I got pulled into that hole in the sky." The door slid open, and the three of them went in.

Elfilin's face fell. "He's asleep."

Taranza nodded. "Has been for a long time. None of us know how to wake him up."

"Why won't he wake up?"

"Saw something that completely shut his brain down."

"...What was he like?"

Taranza couldn't bring himself to respond, so Kirby did it for him. "He knows a lot about things on other planets, and he's really funny! Kinda weird though… I miss him."

After looking at him in silence for another minute, they left for Marx's house. On the way, Kirby told Elfilin about some of the Star Allies who weren't around. Taranza didn't quite agree with what he was saying, but it was really difficult to disagree with him when he looked so happy. He described Susie with glowing positivity, glossing over the fact that she was still mechanizing planets. Maybe he didn't know? When Kirby described Dark Meta Knight as "cool but a little scary" Taranza could only think of the few interactions he'd had with him, where the mirror knight had talked about Sectonia's transformation in a blatantly insensitive manner. They got to Marx's house, Kirby was enamoured with the whole setting, Marx joked around for the entire interaction, and then the three that had gone went back.

It wasn't until several days later that Taranza saw Elfilin again. The circumstances were actually very strange. He was wrapped in a thick blanket, about to go to sleep, when a rock came crashing through the window. He jolted up and looked to see who had thrown that. Apparently, it was Elfilin. "It's one in the morning! What are you doing?"

"I have an idea! I think I know how to wake up Magolor!"

Taranza was out the window in less than a second. "What is it?"

"Actually, first, since you know him better than I do, can you contact all of the people who know him best?"

Taranza ran a hand over his face. "How am I supposed to get Kirby up this late at night?"

Kirby stepped out of a nearby bush. "I'm already here!"

"Well, that answers that." He went back in and grabbed his cell phone. He dialed a number. It took a few minutes before the person he called picked up.

"Taranza, this better be an emergency. The phone woke up a lot of squeakers."

"Kirby and Elfilin just figured out a way to wake up Magolor. We'll be at the Lor Starcutter in one hour."

"I'll be there in five minutes." Daroach hung up the phone. A few seconds passed, and then Taranza's phone rang. It was Daroach again. He picked it up. "Who's Elfilin?"

"Find out when you get here." Taranza hung up. Then he called Marx, who picked up immediately, which made it clear he had not been sleeping. Marx heard the situation and then hung up.

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Daroach was at the Lor Starcutter before Elfilin, Taranza, and Kirby. No one bothered to ask how. "Hey, little fella. What's your name?"

"You heard it clearly over the phone."

Daroach almost recoiled at Taranza's words. "It was- just- a courtesy- When did you start getting snappy?"

Marx rolled up before anyone could respond. "Hey hey hey, I heard I was needed! That's rare."

Kirby hopped up on one foot. "Yep! Well, I think you are. I'm not really sure what Elfilin is thinking."

"Let me explain, then!" Elfilin flew a short distance to be able to address the other four properly. "Kirby, remember when you hit the ultimate life-form with a big truck and then the soul of Leon got scattered across his mindscape so the three of us went through there to bring him back?" Kirby nodded enthusiastically, which led Elfilin to continue, ignoring the looks of pure confusion that the other three were sharing. "Anyway, that was Fecto opening a portal there. Because we were in Fecto's dream, it was basically a distorted map of everything we had gone through until then." He kept going, as Taranza and Daroach were looking increasingly concerned. "That got me thinking, what if we could go into the dreams of others? And since I'm half of Fecto Elfilis, I might be able to do just that. I tested it on King Dedede, and the portal opened, but the inside was kinda scary. Taranza was there, and he looked really mean!"

Daroach put up his hands. "Stop, stop, stop. Slow down. Also, what are you?"

"I'll get to that later. Anyway, since Magolor is staying asleep because of something in his mind, we can get him to wake up by going in there and fixing it!"

Taranza took a minute to process that heap of information. While he was still thinking it over, Marx input his thoughts on the matter. "Sounds terrifying. I'm in!"

"Wait." The five of them turned to the Lor Starcutter who had interrupted the conversation. "I accept the idea, but before you create a portal to go into the Captain's mind, I must insist Taranza wear something."

Marx looked a little confused. "But I've seen what he looks like without clothes on, and this absolutely isn't it."

"You WHAT?" As if it was rehearsed, the other five turned to him and said those words in unison, all wearing the same expression.

"Er, anyway." The Lor continued. "I meant the earring he left on the table in the study. If one of you takes that in there, I should be able to help with whatever you might find in there."

Kirby seemed a little confused. "But, isn't it mainly just fighting through whatever enemies we find in there? How is an earring going to help with that?"

Elfilin sat down on top of his head. "Maybe not. Fecto was a lot more hostile than Magolor probably is. There's no way of knowing what we'll find in there. It could be what Kirby's saying, or maybe it isn't. That's why I wanted to get people who knew him well. There might be puzzles that we can't solve without really knowing who he is."

Taranza went and got the earring, and hung it around one of his horns. "Everyone ready?"

Elfilin shut his eyes tight, and then began glowing softly. A few blue sparks flew out of Magolor's head, and then gathered behind him, forming into a star-shaped portal. "Let's go."

Marx, Kirby, and Elfilin went in quickly. Right as Taranza was about to follow them, he felt Daroach's hand right below his neck. "What is it? Why did you stop me?"

He pulled down the front of his hat. "I want to make sure you're ready. For someone like Magolor, we really do have no idea what might be in here. Don't let anything slip by, make sure to remember everything you can, and above all else, don't try to talk to him about anything he hasn't told you about after he wakes up."

Taranza nodded. "I will keep that in mind. Thank you, Daroach. We should get going, I don't imagine the others will be that patient." Daroach nodded, and the two of them jumped into the portal to follow their companions.