Happy New Year. It's climax time. And now for some review replies:
Bunnyrabbit202 I was wondering where you went. Thanks for the renewed commitment, though! Appreciate it a lot! You'll probably understand Marx's motives soon enough... Dun dun dun
P.S. Glad you enjoyed the shifffffffffff. I'm sure you'll enjoy the rest of the story.
Raspberri-Marxie Dammit you fell asleep again! WAKE UP!!
With that said done, on to the chapter. The longest one so far, in fact. Enjoy
"Hold on, poy! We're nearly there!"
"I'm trying! Cut me some slack!"
They made it. After so much hard work they had made it. Getting power from eight different planets was a task easier said than done.
"Come on! I'll help you up!"
"I can do it myself!"
The duo had traveled from the season-changing fields of Floria to the vast seas of Aquarius. From the clouded gas giant of Skyhigh to the volcanic hell that was Hotbeat. It was a who's who of the Gamble Galaxy, aside from Popstar itself.
"Ha! Told you I was okay!" Marx said.
"You nearly slipped off, poyo." Kirby told him. "Just wanted to help."
"'ts fine!" he scoffed. "Honestly, sometimes you worry too much. I was fine!"
Kirby sighed at the jester's arrogance. "You...you know I have reason to worry."
"Well of course you do! Nothing wrong with it! Never said there was anything wrong with it."
They were now headed toward the mythical comet Nova. It had actually passed by planet Popstar just over a year ago, and it's orbital trajectory had now led it quite the long distance away. It had been quite the exciting time when it was visible from the sky, and the same sense of excitement was in the air — erm, space — as it was then. It had been an admittedly exhausting journey, and at long last this adventure would reach its satisfying conclusion.
Kirby layed down flat on the Warp Star's surface, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. Clearly, something was amok.
"You seem troubled." Marx inquired.
"I wonder why." Kirby responded dryly.
"Come on. I wasn't being all that mean, Kay." Marx poked. After a few seconds of silence, he let up and added in a more sincere tone of voice, "Or at least...I didn't mean to."
"It's fine. It's just..."
Marx tilted his head. "Yes?"
"Poyo, I mean...d-doesn't this all seem...I dunno...a little too easy for what we're doing?"
"Does it, now? That dragon on Halfmoon wasn't exactly a pushover—"
"Beside that!" the star warrior shouted, startling the accomplice. After gathering himself and taking another deep breath, he continued, "Like how do we know if Meta Knight hasn't already made it here? Heck, how do we know if Nova even grants wishes, poy? I mean, it's a tradition from what I can tell to make a wish when the comet comes up in the sky, but—"
"You're asking these questions now?" Marx countered. "Kay, if I wasn't sure that this was going to work, you'd think I'd tell you."
"I-I-I dunno, Marx..." The star warrior was stuttering beneath his breath. "M-Maybe I'm just losing it..."
The purple figure scoffed, turning away. "Keep telling yourself that and you just might." he said.
An awkward silence took hold, as it usually did throughout these segments of space travel. Just...when were they gonna get there? Couldn't be any further now, could it?
Well, it would all be worth it. Worth all this patience and planning and—
"...Marx?"
He blinked. "Yeah?"
"I-Is it... Poyo, I-I'm sorry, it's..." Kirby struggled. He was obviously trying to hide himself again. "I know we're here to get to Nova to stop the Sun and Moon from fighting...b-but..."
Marx's eyes widened with intrigue. "Go on."
"Is it normal to have some part of you want to...wish for something else?"
"..." His resolve stiffened, his face growing more serious. "...Why do you feel the need to ask me that?"
"Is it normal?" Kirby softly asked. "...O-Or is it just a star warrior thing...?"
"Kay, it's a comet in which it could grant you anything you could imagine. It's natural to be..." What would be the right word to use? "imaginative...about what you'd want to wish for."
"I...I don't want to screw it up, poyo."
"J-Just stop thinking about the whole Meta Knight thing for once, okay? You haven't let go of it since we left home and, frankly, I'm...pretty sure...that we've beat him to it."
"...I-If you say so, poyo..."
Marx sat down, right beside the puffball. "Just forget about everything...and tell me. If we weren't here to, you know, stop the Sun and Moon, then...what would you wish for?"
"...Marx?"
"What, deep inside your soul, is your most precious...most selfish desire?"
Marx was tempting him to do something. But what for? "S...Stop it..."
"What would your heart wish for, Kirby?"
Something inside him broke. "STOP TEMPTING ME!"
The jester would have been thrown off of the distressed puffball's side if he hadn't jumped back in shock. Kirby himself was breathing rather quickly and stressfully, his eyes bloodshot, his stubs twitching, and his body being stood up when everything started to slow down. The weight of his eyelids started to build up rather quickly, and before he knew it, he was curled up into a ball, his face up against the Warp Star's surface once again.
Tears trickled down his face, or at least as far down as they could in the cramped area they were allotted. His cheeks were blazing red.
"It's just a mild curiousity, Kay." Marx said. Whilst his composure wasn't nearly as soft as it had been previously, his tone seemed somewhat unaffected by what had just happened.
"N-No...It's my fault." Kirby whispered.
"I didn't get that."
"It's my fault." Kirby spoke more clearly. "I shouldn't have brought it up. I...only made things worse..."
"It's fine." Marx waved away. "It's only natural to be curious."
"W-We have a task at hand, and I'm just...I'm just being nothing but a fool..."
"You don't have to be."
"I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted. Now straighten yourself up."
"I'm...sorry for...for everything..."
Okay. He wasn't letting up. Marx sighed. "Kay, it's fine. You don't have anything else to apologize for. You...you're the best thing that ever happened to me, you know?" He turned to face Kirby again, but was left somewhat irritated by the fact that the star warrior refused to look up.
"I don't want to hurt you more, poyo..."
"Good! Get up, then! There's no point in sulking about it. Besides, you yourself admitted we've a task to complete."
"C'mon, please?"
Kirby, after a bit of internal deliberation, slowly allowed himself to be unveiled, unshielded by his stubs. He slowly opened his eyes, but a quick glance into the background would see them open up wide, with amazement above all else. "Woah..." he said.
Initially puzzled, Marx again turned himself around, but soon was, too, left speechless.
In front of them was was a massive, round, golden piece of clockwork, with various things sticking out of its sides, such as a pendulum, some crystals, a light bulb, and various gears amongst other objects. There was a face on its front, and while it's eyes were closed, it didn't appear too dissimilar to the face of a smiling cat, minus the whiskers. Whatever this comet was, it was without a doubt an invention of the Ancients. They weren't directly in front of it; in fact, they were far enough away from it for it not entirely to fill up their frame of view. Still, one couldn't deny Nova's sheer size.
Its appearance was sophisticated, its scale was towering, and it somehow managed to invoke a sense of excitement and terror at the same time.
"...We're here." Marx announced; he wasn't attempting to get the comet's attention, and as such kept his voice down.
"Uh huh..." Kirby absently responded. He was still gazing at the mechanical monstrosity, or so it seemed.
"Okay. Right." Marx stumbled for a second. "W-We need to get closer to it."
"The Warp Star will not go any further." He stood up.
"What?"
"If we are to...save Popstar, poyo, we need to proceed..." He stepped forward. "...on our own."
"Kirby, stop!"
He stepped off the Warp Star. Panic ensued within the jester, but only for a short moment. The star warrior was continuing to walk toward Nova just fine, as though an invisible floor had appeared. He was quickly followed by his relieved colleague.
"Goodness, Kay, you need to stop scaring me like that." Marx said.
The pink puffball said nothing. The purple was left to snarl as a result.
As they got closer, Kirby could begin to hear...something. What it was, he couldn't tell? A whisper? A song? Pink noise? What's happening...?
He stopped. It was as though there was some instinct or feeling that told him to not proceed any further. As if this spot, as compared to any bit closer to the comet, was where he was meant to be. Where he was destined to be.
Marx looked on with a blank expression on his face. He was twiddling his toes — er, shoes — as if he were waiting for something to happen.
Kirby was lifted up off the ground, or at least what was supposed to be the ground. He was floating, floating right in front of where Nova's eyes would be looking, were they to open. As he rose up, seven stars of various colors, red to violet, encircled him, a visualization of the power he and Marx had collected from the various planets on their journey.
He breathed out. Inside him remained a small yet vocal shred of self-doubt. A sense that he would somehow make something go wrong.
The sound became clearer. It was a whisper, after all. He has come to steal it from you. it warned.
Kirby stiffened up. "Meta?" he asked.
He intends to betray you. Don't allow him to.
But...no, that couldn't be right, could it? The voice...it faintly sounded like Meta Knight's voice, combined and distorted with a few others. Who was telling him to—
Nova's eyelids opened; or, at least, opened halfway. In spite of that, the brightness of the light emerging from them forced the star warrior to shield his own, else he burn them. They were bright purple, the comet's eyes.
The machine spoke aloud. "READY " it said. The voice sounded like that of a vintage computer; as in very vintage.
Wish for what your heart most deeply desires. ~
Kirby gasped. N-No...he needed to—
"I WILL GRANT YOU ONE WISH "
You know you want to, Kirby.
No...
Wish for Marx to love you back.
No! I wish—
He was suddenly shoved aside, left floating out to open space to Nova's right. His body ached.
"Well, I want to control Popstar!"
His resolve froze. Everything went cold.
That was Marx's voice. He told Nova to—
Wha-? What?? Why did he—
How could he—
N-No... That couldn't have just happened. He said that he wanted to save Popstar, didn't he?
No. He didn't.
Know how he said that it was only...imaginative? A curiosity, to think of what one would selfishly wish for?
Well Marx had proven himself to be extremely "imaginative".
And with that, Kirby realized that his friend had given in to his selfish desires.
"OK 3...2...1... BLAST OFF"
The sound of an ion engine lighting up was heard, and within a blink of an eye, Nova was rocketing its way back toward home. Toward Popstar.
As if things couldn't get any worse as they were, in the distance, he could faintly hear Marx's demented cackling grow louder and louder. Focusing on him, Kirby could see something begin to sprout out of the jester's form.
"At last..." Marx said. "At long last, it worked! All my plans worked!" His laughter grew more grotesque, more distorted, more painful by the second, until at last his transformation was complete. Jutting out of either side of him were large, golden wings, capped by knife-like ends that looked like spades you'd find on a deck of cards. Claws came out of each wing, their talons long and sharp. His mouth now played host to several fangs. His eyes looked crazed as lustful for power, one pupil immensely smaller than the other. And on his face was this insane, bloodthirsty smile.
Never in his worst nightmares would Kirby have ever imagined his best friend to appear like this. Now, it seemed as if this would be the being of all his nightmares to come, if he could ever manage to sleep again. This...this thing wasn't Marx. It-It couldn't be Marx...
"POPSTAR IS ALL MINE!" the beast declared.
He tried to protest. He tried to cry out. He tried to speak. Say anything. Anything at all. But he couldn't. He was paralyzed in shock, terror, and dread.
"NOW I CAN DO ANYTHING!!"
He tried reached out to him, with one of his stubs. He couldn't move.
"We...can do anything." Marx said. They were now looking directly toward each other.
Look away Look away
"We can do anything...together, you and I." It flew straight toward him.
Get away Get him away from me
"I can finally stop being so...useless. So...defenseless, so incapable. I am now as powerful as you, Kay." It came up close to whisper the next bit, "I may even be more powerful than you."
"...Wha...What have you done?" Kirby finally managed to speak, albeit very weakly. "Why have you— Why did you do this, poy...? We were supposed to..."
"Stop Meta Knight? Stop the Sun and Moon from fighting?" it mocked. "Ha! Don't make me laugh."
"S-So...Meta Knight wasn't ever trying to get the wish from Nova... Th-That was all a lie..."
"He didn't have anything to do with this little...escapade. However, I will admit...it was hard to find the right time to enact the plan, Kay. But when Meta Knight pulled his little stunt, I knew I would be able to get away with it with you at your most vulnerable... At your moment of existential crisis... At your weakest. When you wouldn't be able to put up any resistance."
"You... How could you..." He held his breath. He had felt something foreign, something he never thought he'd feel. Marx was grabbing him. With his claws.
"And when you revealed your...well...love toward me, heh..." he chuckled. "I knew I already won. I knew that I had you in my pocket."
"You...manipulated me..."
"But of course. It was too easy."
Kirby couldn't hold back his pain any longer; neither emotional nor physical. "But why?? I was your best friend!"
"..." Marx seemed to be restraining himself. "You are. You wouldn't have understood."
"I wouldn't have allowed it!" Kirby yelled. "This is mad! Completely ludicrous!"
He was hushed up rather forcefully. So...Marx wasn't restraining himself, then. "You haven't seen the things I have seen, Kirby." His voice was low, quiet, and dark as the night sky. Yet the tone was...soothing. It felt as though the entire universe around them had slowed itself down. It made the puffball feel numb. "You haven't experienced the things that I have experienced. And yet...I can safely say...we share the same pain. The same...injustice.
"You know the routine by now, don't you? You are alienated, ridiculed, distrusted by the very people you intend to save..." Kirby felt the tip of one of Marx's wings brush lightly against his cheek. It made him blush. "...until they feel the need for their hero to save them. Admit it...they wouldn't care if they ever found you dead."
He shut his eyes tightly.
"They wouldn't care if you died right in front of them."
"N-not Fumu...or—"
"I'll admit that you have your loyal followers. And I feel glad that they'd care about you. But no one...nobody would care about me. To them, I'd be just another stuck-up bit of scum from the Fringes. A victim they could take everything from without consequence. Why care about poor little Marxie when I have my own careless life to attend to?"
Kirby could feel a few salty tears dripping down his face. The thing was that most of them weren't his.
"But no more... Never again. Never again will we have to suffer at their hands. Never again would we have to endure their insults and their laughter. They treat us like the very villains you seek to defeat, or worse. They think they can just recline back and enjoy their perfect, carefree lives in their perfect Land of Dreams. But now they'll know better.
"With our combined strength..." Marx started to speak up. "We will give them justice for the pain they've caused! We will END their lazy ways of life!"
Then everything went silent again.
"We can even..." Marx continued, but this time...his voice didn't sound emboldened by immense power, nor was it distorted by some monstrous transformation. Kirby opened his eyes again. The jester's eyes no longer looked crazed, his mouth no longer housed layers of sharp teeth, and, whilst he still was grabbing onto the pink puffball, it wasn't through the use of claws, but rather through a pair of yellow-colored arms wrapped around him. It was as if he had transcended from an unimaginable nightmare into one of his deepest of dreams. "We could even...make sure no one else will feel our pain..."
His eyes were wet and shiny, his pupils reflecting the stars that surrounded them. His eyelids made him appear saddened, yet his mouth was squirmed into a gentle smile.
He was perfect...
Tell him.
"P-Poyo..." Kirby whispered.
"Come. I want you to be my prince. My co-monarch. Together, we can do extraordinary things..."
"I...I love you..." His heart rate was accelerating.
"Then come with me."
"..." He felt warm. Everything felt warm.
What was he to do? Here it was, the chance to give in to his deepest, most selfish of desires. So why was he struggling so much? Why was he being so...indecisive?
Kirby sensed something. Something he wasn't intended to sense. The throbbing in his chest slowed down to a crawl.
The darkness. He could feel its cold touch.
But why? What was it doing at a time like this...?
Kirby starred into the distance. At the comet rocketing it's way toward Popstar.
Marx was intending on controlling Popstar. But to accomplish this aim, he too was intending to destroy it.
The façade revealed itself for what it was. He was being seduced. Deceived.
"You're lying." Kirby coldly responded.
"What?" The distortion came back.
"You're lying." he repeated. "I know what you're really planning. Don't act like I can't see."
"Heh... Heh heh heh..." Marx started quietly chuckling to himself. Okay...not quite the reaction Kirby was expecting.
It went on for a short while before Marx resumed his talking. By now, his Nova-granted form had again revealed itself, but by now Kirby knew it was his friend that was inside. Or...former friend.
"You know...it's too funny, really." Marx explained. "Meta Knight was taking over Dream Land to make its citizenry a less lazy people. And now his dreams are being fulfilled, albeit by a more powerful...painful being.
"He was a fool." His voice started to slowly become more and more sadistic. "To think that he could just demand Dream Land to be a less lazy folk. The only way people can change is through fear...and I can assure you...Kirby..." His grasp started to grow tighter and tighter as the sentences progressed. The puffball started to struggle to breathe. "...that they will be sufficiently traumatized into submission.
"I said that nobody would care about your death until they need you to save them. Well...they will have no savior to rescue them from my grip. After tonight...whenever a Dream Lander would dare speak your name...they will only recount about how you..." The claws dig into Kirby's flesh, causing him to wince in pain. "...begged for death..."
He leaned in closer to to the puffball, inches away from his face, as the blood started to spill out onto his exposed body, some of it escaping out to empty space. He continued, "...and how I, their ruler...and your lover, being a merciful lord...obliged."
Both of the knives that capped Marx's wings pierced straight through Kirby's skin, through his heart, and out the other side.
A bloodied corpse and its master. Both had been left alone, both had been drawn together by their shared misery. Now the former was left to rot away, having been deceived that the latter had been his equal.
But Marx, as cunning as he was, didn't realize was that his triumph would be short-lived.
To be continued. MWA HA HA HA HA HA