They found themselves in the eye of a veritable cyclone-albeit not a very large one. The surroundings were a boundless void, with the exception of the fragments of… something whirling around them. Marx said what everyone was thinking. "Whoa…"

Daroach made it abundantly clear that he couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening. "Any idea what this means, little guy?"

Elfilin shivered slightly. "This guy's messed up…"

"Alright everyone, if we want to get anywhere in here, we'll have to do something about that." Taranza gathered everyone's attention. "If this is what's going on in his mind, it should stop spinning if we can get him to calm down, right?"

"Well, yeah. I don't know how we'd go about that, though." Elfilin scanned the surroundings. "Hey, that thing doesn't look like it's moving. What is it?" The five of them approached the item on the dark abyss that passes for a floor.

"I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure this is a box. Looks like it's for some kind of puzzle." Daroach picked up the box and shook it a bit. A rattling sound came from inside.

Elfilin tore open the flap on the top of the box. "Wow, that's a really clean tear! Perks of being in a dream, I guess."

As Daroach dumped out the contents of the box, Kirby picked up a few of them and tried fitting them together. "Looks like we're trying to make some kind of building. It's not just a picture."

Everyone chipped in to help solve the puzzle. Marx couldn't really help because he didn't exactly have hands, but everyone else was at least able to put in a piece or two. "Is this… the facility?" Daroach asked no one in particular.

When the puzzle finally took shape, the fragments in the cyclone began spinning higher and higher, closer and closer together, until they formed into a building identical to the one they had just built in the puzzle. It slowly lowered itself in front of the five of them. Carefree as ever, Marx hopped through the front door.

The rest of them followed. Elfilin zipped around the inside, eyes darting towards everything he could see. "Wow, these people are blurry!"

Taranza regarded the faded walls of the room they were in. "I've never seen anything like this before… What is this?"

"I can't see anything that we can really interact with. We should check out more of this place." At Daroach's signal, they split into two groups. Elfilin, Daroach, and Taranza went one way, while Kirby and Marx went the other. Kirby and Marx quickly realized they were at a dead end, so they hurried to go after the other three. Right as they caught up, Taranza noticed something.

"Hey, look at this door. Everything else in here is greyscale, but this door is brown." He twisted the handle. "It opens…" The room that lay on the other side was a bedroom. It looked to be for someone young. "Going off of common sense, there should be something we can do in here. But I can't see anything."

"Maybe it's not an object. We might just need to do something with ourselves." Elfilin floated the idea.

"Or maybe…" Daroach pulled the empty puzzle box out of his cape. He set it on the floor. Suddenly, a scene began to take shape in the middle of the room.

A monochromatic, very young-looking Magolor materialized on the floor. He was holding pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, with an almost-finished puzzle in front of him. He fit one of the pieces where it belonged, and you could almost see his eyes sparkling with excitement. Once he fit the other one into place, he got up and dashed to the door. "Look! Look! I made the whole picture! It looks like those tree things you've been telling me about!"

Someone else came into the room. He looked like the blurry people from earlier, except he wasn't blurry. "That's awesome! You solved it very fast. How about this? For the rest of the day, I'll let you do whatever you want. …Within reason, that is."

Magolor was practically jumping for joy. His hands were balled into fists in front of him, and his face was bright enough to light up the night sky. "Can I see that movie with the big bugs again?"

The other person reached down and gave him a pat on the head. "Of course you can. I'll get it set up, and then you can watch it while I get back to work, okay?"

"No, no! Watch it with me! I see how hard you work, there's no way it's good for you! Everyone needs a break sometimes, right?"

"Thank you Magolor, but I really-"

Magolor grabbed his hand indignantly. "I'm sorry, but you look like you were hit by a meteor. There's no way you can do good work like that! Besides, all you talk about is work. Remember when you burned out a few months ago? You're going there again."

The yet-to-be-identified man smiled. "You've made more progress than I thought. It was very smart of you to see what even I couldn't."

"Then-"

"Yes. I'll stay." The two of them faded from view of the others, and then reappeared on the couch that faced the small TV in the closet. It was showing an old cheesy movie that Taranza remembered watching once with Sectonia when they were young. Magolor was sat in the lap of the man that still wasn't identified, and he would occasionally look up at him and smile. Then, the scene faded again.

"Hey, Daroach, you know who that was? Oh, and why is Taranza crying?" Marx rolled around restlessly.

"I can hazard a guess for both of those, but I don't think you really need to hear them."

Light fell upon the window frame. Everyone turned to look at it, and apparently Marx's first instinct upon seeing a window was to launch himself through it. It didn't work, and he ended up landing back on the floor. "Ow."

A crack appeared. It expanded, until it formed a pattern in the shape of a cobweb. It was at that point that they all realized the young Magolor had appeared again, this time under the covers in the bed. He was sleeping soundly, a sight which was rarely seen by the five observers, if at all. He opened his eyes, seeming to hear the window breaking. Once it finally shattered, he snapped to attention, got out of bed, and went to check the window. He took a brief glance around the room, then looked out the window. At that moment, he was forcefully slammed on the floor by some shadowy figure behind him. He struggled against their grip, as they reached for the top of his head…

The surroundings warped. It was as if reality itself was being tampered with. The air screeched, the walls and ceiling distorted, the room flashed every single colour that could conceivably exist, and Magolor screamed as he struggled against his assailant. With every glance he took, the image of them became clearer. Kirby squinted. "I think I've seen this thing before!" Then, the scene faded again. "Did all of that actually happen?"

Elfilin's voice was shaky. "I… I think that's just how he remembers it. The… special effects wouldn't have actually happened, I don't think. Uh, what now? There's nothing left in here."

The rest of them seemed just as shaken, with the exception of Marx. "If the way forward isn't here, it must be somewhere else. Let's go!"

They left the room, and saw that the hallway was different. Daroach pointed to the new item on the wall. "What's this thing?"

Taranza craned his neck to see the object in question. "Oh! This is one of those telegraph keys. For morse code and all that. It's a little weird why they're everywhere, though." He indicated the identical telegraph keys placed all over the walls.

Daroach shook his head. "I still think it's weirder that there are any at all. After all, no one's used morse code in, like, a million years."

For the first time since they entered, the earring spoke. "The failsafe."

None of them could touch the telegraph keys. They ended up splitting up again to look for something else that changed, and it wasn't long before Marx called out. "Hey guys, there's another brown door here." The other four gathered quickly, and opened the door. It was another bedroom, with the only lit object being the door to a closet. Kirby threw it open, and figures started to materialize again.

"Are you sure this will be okay? What if she sees me?" Magolor sat on the shelf in the closet, looking worriedly at the man from one of the previous scenes.

"I know it's uncomfortable, but you need to not make a sound. If they find you, it might be bad. I'm sure I can come up with a solution, but I need time. You can do that, right?"

"Yeah, I can. Thanks, dad." He smiled and started sliding the door closed, then stopped. "What? Did I say something wrong? You look like you're about to cry…"

"Oh, uh, it's, nothing, really." The man smiled. "You're welcome, Magolor." Then, just like the previous scenes, they faded from view.

"His dad… but they don't look alike at all." Elfilin mused.

"Definitely not biologically." Daroach stated. Then, they heard a sound. Some sort of crackling noise. It reminded Taranza of the noise that always accompanied Magolor when he was especially distressed. They figured out pretty quickly that it was coming from upstairs. The source of the noise was a portal that seemed to be sustained by some kind of machine. Kirby and Marx jumped in immediately, and called through it for the others to follow. What lay on the other side was familiar to Marx and Kirby, but less so for the other three. It was Another Dimension. The light was cast in multiple places now.

"This is where I met him. Hey, that's the hole!" He flew over to a piece of land, and stood in a rectangular hole set in it. "I think I know what to do here. Hey! Hey! Wake up, guy!" Just like that, the apparition of Magolor appeared again, along with another one of Marx right behind the actual Marx. The real Marx turned around and jumped out of the hole.

Magolor seemed to be asleep, but he was waking up at the gray Marx's urging. "Nnh… wha?" He opened his eyes and scanned the scenery, then sized up Marx. "Uhh, good morning?"

"Hi! What's your name? I'm Marx, by the way."

"I'm, uh…" It looked like he needed to think about that one. "Magolor. My name is Magolor." Then they faded.

Daroach and Elfilin were somewhat surprised to see Marx in the vision. Elfilin zipped around the new landscape. "The plot thickens! You two knew each other from here?" Before Marx could answer, the lights moved.

Marx examined the places where they lay. "Huh. I got nothing."

Elfilin looked around and flew into a hole set into one of the strange chunks of terrain. "Hehe. This place is weird! …Hey, something's happening!"

The colourless Marx peeked out of the hole. "C'mon, Mags, they'll be after us soon! Hurry up!"

Magolor, holding his detached cape like a bag with food in it, dashed into the hole to join Marx, and lowered his voice to a whisper. "We should eat this quickly, right? It'd be bad if they caught us with it."

"Yeah. Also, you don't need to flatten yourself into that corner. You look like a minifridge." They dissipated.

Daroach snickered. "Marx, did you really call him a minifridge? That's genius." The lights moved again, but this time they all landed back on the original platform.

Marx froze. "Uh oh. I really hope this isn't going where I think it is." He approached the platform, and took a deep breath. "I really don't think this is a good idea, Mags." The apparitions materialized yet again.

"But why would he help us at all if he's not trustworthy? It doesn't make sense."

"You're too trusting. He's a sphere doomer. Don't believe anything they tell you."

Magolor wrapped his cape around himself. "Okay, if you're so convinced, then how about this? When I'm meeting him for deliveries, you can follow behind at a distance and come to bail me out if things start going wrong. …That's what you said a friend does, right?" The way he looked at Marx in that moment cut right to the heart of everyone watching. Even to them, who had no way of knowing what happened next, they could just tell that it wouldn't end well. The figure of Marx nodded, and then the two of them vanished.

They reappeared shortly after. Magolor sat in the hole, shivering and crying. Marx flew up behind him. "Mags, I-"

"Don't." He didn't even turn around. "Never call me that again."

Marx looked to the side. "I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry."

"Sorry? SORRY? You just stood there and watched that whole time," He finally looked back. "Didn't even THINK about helping me, and you think I'm gonna buy that 'sorry' bullshit? If you had just told me you were that useless, I never would have gone at all!"

"...I got the food when he dropped it. I'll leave some here. Goodbye." Marx left.

The next minute passed by, but the only thing that happened in the grayscale scene was Magolor sobbing, wrapped in his cape, and shivering. "So cold…" Eventually, he faded as well.

Everyone turned to look at Marx. He didn't address any of their stares, except for pivoting to look directly at Kirby. "You know, when I first woke up after you sent me flying into Nova, I didn't regret a damn thing. Given the opportunity, I would have done it again in a heartbeat. But that? That changed me."

At those words, the apparition of Magolor appeared again, but this time, he was backed into a corner by a gang of sphere doomers. "Okay guys, just calm down. I wasn't stealing anything. Someone else just dropped the food and I, uh, was bringing it back! So…here you go!"

" Then what is that behind your back? "

" Grab him! "

"NO! LET GO! LET GO OF ME!"

The white sphere doomer suddenly got knocked clean out of view. Marx floated behind all the doomers with one wing out, spinning one of his trademark balls on the tip of a claw. "Don't you think you're being a bit hasty, you pack of bastards?"

The remaining five doomers promptly turned away from Magolor to focus on Marx, who had just established himself as a threat. The five-pronged attack didn't even get onto the runway before two of the prongs were cut off. One of the purple ones was clipped by a dark orb from Magolor's hands, while one of the red ones' flight was sent on a collision course after a well-placed projectile from Marx. They dealt with the rest of them quickly. Marx flew down and grabbed the box that Magolor had given to the doomers earlier. "I think you dropped this."

"Thanks, Marx. We should go soon, I'm sure more will come." They vanished.

The five of them simply stared. It seemed no one could think of a word to say. Again, except for Marx. "It's not over. Look where the light is now." Everyone redirected their gaze to a platform in the middle of the nowhere within Another Dimension, which was already nowhere. Without another word, Marx flew over to it, stretched a wing out, and dug one claw into the surface. He flew back. Magolor appeared again, and read the fully formed message that had carved itself into the terrain: Going back to Popstar. Sorry. -Marx. Then he disappeared again, and all colour completely vanished from the area. Then, another portal opened. Marx gestured toward it. "Shall we?" Having nothing to say, the others obliged.

The portal took them to the main room of the Lor Starcutter. The earring hanging from one of Taranza's horns spoke. "I wonder what meaningful memories he has of this room." The door slid open, and a battered, exhausted Magolor stumbled into the room and collapsed on the floor before disappearing.

Elfilin flicked an ear backwards. "That was fast."

In the search for more memories, they dispersed throughout the ship. Kirby went into the kitchen at the back of the pantry, and saw that there was also a washing machine and a dryer. There was something in the washing machine. It looked like a torn up set of Magolor's clothes. He picked them up and put them in the dryer, then turned it on. The cycle was over almost immediately. He pulled the clothes out, and then it occurred to him that that was almost certainly a waste of time. He went out and called out for someone to help him. "Hey guys, I found something but I don't know what to do with it."

Taranza arrived soon after. "What is it?"

"I don't know what to do with these clothes I found."

The Lor Starcutter jumped into the conversation through the speaker. "Put them in the oven. Bake at nine hundred degrees fahrenheit for ten minutes."

Taranza pulled the ring off his horn and stared at it. "Run that by me again?"

"The clothes. Put them in the oven."

Taranza stared blankly at the earring. "All right, Kirby, put them in the oven."

As Kirby was putting the clothes in the oven, the other three arrived in the room. Daroach's eyes went wide. "Why are you two putting his clothes in the oven?"

The earring responded on their behalf. "It's a good idea. I promise."

As if on cue, The clothes begann to catch fire, and the appearance of Magolor, who was wearing an identical set of clothes, in front of the oven signified that they had done a good job. He stared intently at the flaming contents of the oven. As he listened to the crackling of the fire, he started laughing. "Ha ha… hahaha… hahahahahahahaha… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" He kept laughing, a screechy, haunting sound that clawed at the minds of all who heard it. He hadn't even finished before the image of him disappeared from view, leaving nothing but the echoes of his maniacal fit of mirth.

Taranza turned to Kirby. "Do you remember back when he was throwing all that paper in the fire?"

Looking about ready to cry, Kirby walked closer to him. "You think… he copes with things he doesn't want to remember by burning things that remind him of them?"

"That's what it looks like."

They were interrupted by the room shaking, and then a tremendous impact. Elfilin flew back to the main room, and saw Magolor knocked out on the floor. The front door slid open, And Kirby, King Dedede, Bandee, and Meta Knight walked through the door. "Hey, Kirby! You're in this one!" The others gathered behind Elfilin quickly, and Kirby reminisced about when he first met Magolor. After he'd waved the four heroes away, The monitor turned pitch black. Magolor wasn't looking at it so it didn't seem like it was a real event that happened. A speck of light appeared on the screen, and started growing very slowly.

The next memory they saw was on Halcandra, the moment when Magolor stole the Master Crown. Daroach, Elfilin, and Marx were surprised, but what got to Kirby and Taranza was the way it was represented. A frozen moment in time, Magolor looking down at the crown, a storm of light and dark crudely mixed together raging around him. When he reached for the crown, the light began to fade. When he put it on, The light vanished altogether.

Daroach flipped his cane. "I knew he fucked up bad before I met him, but I didn't think it was THAT bad."

The scenery crumbled, and rebuilt itself into a room that none of them recognized, except for Taranza. "This is the room I brought him to when we met… I had no idea he kept any of this in mind."

Without warning, Marx yanked the blanket off of the bed, revealing a tray with two mugs of hot chocolate under the mattress. "Whoa. Is that supposed to be there?"

A mischievous smile played on Taranza's lips. "Marx, could you put one of those mugs on the table here?"

He obliged. "And what should I do with the other one?"

"Drink it as fast as you can. Magolor did the same thing, I'm sure it's not too hot."

Marx started drinking from the mug and- "PFAH! GHKGKHGKGGKHGKHGKGHKGHK! Ow! What the fuck?"

Ignoring Daroach who was almost doubled over with laughter, Taranza pointed to the bed. "I think it worked. Look."

Magolor slithered out from under the bed, and kept his ear to the wall. Then, he quickly went back down, grabbed one of the mugs, and placed it on the table. He then chugged the other one, and the door was thrown open by a monochromatic Meta Knight. A few seconds passed, and he and the illusory Taranza sat at the table. The two of them talked, and then Meta Knight left the room. Magolor crawled out from under the bed after making sure he wouldn't come back, and celebrated. While the setting was completely changing itself, Marx asked: "Is it just me or did absolutely none of that memory make any sense at all?" The next few memories, save for the unveiling of the theme park, were all ones that Taranza was directly involved in. The piano, the chess game, the piano again, the cave… I show up here a lot. I wonder why.

Time seemed to skip forward a fair amount. The next memory they got to looked like it would be the last. "This is Egg Engines." Kirby pointed out.

Trying to find what would trigger the flashback they were looking for, They examined the small, yet cluttered room they were in. Taranza looked inside a glass case he found and recognized an item attached to the bottom of the lid. "A telegraph key." He tapped the button. That did it. The lid closed by itself, and Magolor appeared in the cage, tapping the button. He had a desperate sort of smile on his face. In front of the case stood a robot. Seconds later, the entire room went up in an explosion. The floor, the case, the robot, the walls, even the sky shattered.

The five of them found themselves back in the boundless void they were in originally, though it seemed much calmer now. All they could see was a door. The sign hanging from the doorknob read: "Captain's Quarters: Authorized entry only."

"Hey, it looks like he changed the sign. It used to have a swear word on it." Kirby said.

Elfilin tried to turn the handle. "It won't open…"

"Hold on, let me handle this." Daroach marched up to the door, grabbed the knob and pulled as hard as he could. "rrrrrrrRRRRRRRGH. Nope. It's impossible. Can't be done."

Kirby stamped his foot. "What are we supposed to do if we can't do anything? That door is the only thing here!"

Marx scanned the rest of the abyss. "Yep. There really is nothing else."

Taranza spoke up for the first time since they all got to the door. "I really, truly mean no offense by this, but are all of you stupid? The sign says authorized entry only. Just get authorized." He knocked on the door. "May I please come in?"

"How did I not think of that?" Daroach grumbled, as the door opened by itself.

Taranza went into the room by himself. Save for the fact that it was black and white like the rest of the dream, the room looked completely normal. The covers on the bed were messy, and a cell phone lay on the nightstand. It was in full colour, and the screen said "2:49 am, Day 502" He turned back a corner of the duvet, and saw a bright blue hood with a gear pattern emblazoned on the front. Naturally, there was someone wearing it. It was Magolor, who had his eyes squeezed tightly shut. Noticing that the blanket had moved, he opened one eye, then the other. "T-Taranza… you…"

Taranza tried to speak to him normally, ignoring the tears welling up in his eyes. "Good morning. How have-"

He didn't make it very far before Magolor leapt out of the bed and tackled him in a very aggressive hug. "YOU'RE HERE!"

"Ow… my head… what happened to you?"

Magolor immediately pulled away. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm just…" Tears started pouring from his eyes.

"I'm just so happy to see you again."