Abyss Chapter V, a kirby fanfic

Have you guys noticed that the character tags in the Kirby page are severely lacking characters? No Zero/02 , Drawcia, Dark Matter, Yin-Yarn, Necrodeus, Grill, Dark Mind or Dark Nebula, among others…instead, they have the names of anime-only characters that I bet have never been used and will never be. Screw logic.

Whatever, back to the story.

Kirby and all related characters are property of Masahiro Sakurai, Nintendo and HAL Laboratories.

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The first thing Marx became aware of was the smell of cookies. Its buttery, mouth-watering aroma wafted around the kitchen as he walked in. The second thing he became aware of was the female Simirror in front of him who was busy taking out the first batch of cookies out of the oven and replacing it with a second one. The third thing he became aware of was that this Simirror was his mother.

Her robes were colored sky blue with undertones of dark blue and long enough to cover her feet completely, almost like a ball gown. Long curls of soft, lavender hair streamed down her back from underneath her navy blue pointed hat, and the gem of her Mirror Wand gleamed from its spot in her belt. After closing the oven's door, she turned around to face him and although she was initially surprised to see him there, the violet eyes underneath her hat soon filled with such warmth he couldn't help but smile back.

"Good morning, sweetheart." The Simirror walked closer to him, and Marx knew she was smiling at him even if he couldn't see it from behind the neck of her robes, "I hope I didn't wake you up; you still look really tired…" The smile vanished – or so he assumed – as her eyes filled with concern.

"I couldn't sleep last night, Mommy."

Surprised, Marx turned to the kitchen's door just in time to see another purple puffball behind him. He was younger and smaller, about three years old, and his red-and-blue eyes were almost obscured by the oversized, purple sleeping cap that was almost twice as long as his body. Marx couldn't do anything but stare in shock at the tiny newcomer as he tried to take in the fact that he was looking at himself.

The younger version of Marx, on the other hand, yawned and completely ignored the older version and instead looked at his – their – mother. "I had a bad dream last night, Mommy. It was terrifying!" His eyes filled with tears as he gave the Simirror a look so heartbreaking and adorable it actually made the older Marx feel a little nauseated, "I was trying to get on my ball but then it grew red eyes and big teeth and started to chase me around and then IT ATE ME!" In his fear, the little purple puff ran to its mother – and through Marx, much to his shock – and buried his face into her blue robes.

"Oh honey," His mother picked him up tenderly and kept him tucked in between her arms, "It was just a nightmare; they're never real and can't ever hurt you." She wiped a tear from his ruby red eye and slipped a hand underneath his hat to stroke his head comfortingly, causing the younger Marx to purr and snuggle closer to his mother. Meanwhile, the older Marx kept watching them, his early confusion fading into something more akin to sadness as he took in his past self's happiness.

At that moment, he would've given anythingto actually be the one tucked into her arms.

Purple puffball in arms, the Simirror walked back towards the oven – the jester shuddered as they passed through him again – and lowered little Marx onto the floor as she took the second batch of cookies out, "I guess it's a good thing I know just the thing that can keep the nightmares away, don't I?

"COOKIES!" Marx cringed at his younger self's shout, watching him jump up and down around the kitchen and babbling as if he had drunk a bucketload of coffee, "Do they have chocolate chips? Or sprinkles? Or peanuts? Or raisins – except that I don't like them. Can I have one, Mom? Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaseeee? ?"

"You can have one after breakfast, young man." Her mother answered in a faux stern voice, but she couldn't help but smile as her son begged at her with his huge, teary eyes, "And you can have more for dessert after lunch. But not too many, unless you want to go to the dentist earlier again!"

Younger Marx made a face at the idea of going to the dentist, and then both of them laughed and turned their attention back to the cookies. He jumped next to her mother, trying to see how she cut dough into a third batch while she hummed softly under her breath. And Older Marx – the actual one – simply stood behind them, lost within his own thoughts and feelings at the memory replaying in front of him. He felt like an intruder trapped inside someone else's memories.

I miss you, he wanted to scream, but his voice got stuck at the back of his throat. His heart felt heavy, filled with a mixture of both frustration and homesickness, I can't even remember who you are, but I want to. I really do.

Had he not been distracted with his own misery, Marx would've noticed how time stopped around him and the color leaked out of the room. Or how his tiny, past self cracked and crumbled to dust without a sound.

Or how darkness flooded out from behind his mother's robes, pooling around her.

"You were such a sweet child, weren't you?"

Marx was pulled out of his thoughts at the sound of the female Simirror's voice. She was facing him, her now grey and tattered robes staining with the foul, dark liquid that flowed from the space between her hat and her scarf where her eyes were before. Her voice was filled with a sorrow that chilled Marx to the bone, "You were always so happy and innocent, and there wasn't one single day in which you wouldn't wear your favorite hat or try to ride your ball around the house. You were the best son a mother could ask for."

Not this again.

Drops of sweat were beginning to make their way down Marx's back. This wasn't the first time this had happened, yet that didn't stop him from going nuts with fear on the inside. But he decided to at least keep calm on the outside and let his mother – or whatever it was that looked like her – talk.

"And then you became bad." She laughed hysterically, but the laughter sounded more like sobbing, "Like a filthy, rotten apple. You caused so much wrong, and you left your poor mother behind to cry her heart out. I was so miserable and you didn't even care."

"Shut up," Marx rasped.

"Was I not good enough for you, Marx? What did I do to deserve this?

"Shut. Up."

"Why do you enjoy making Mommy so sad? What happened to my baby-"

"I SAID SHUT UP!"

The Simirror let out an ear-splitting shriek and whipped out her Mirror Wand, hitting its gem against the wall and crushing it on impact. Marx cringed as a flying shard zoomed past his face and cut the skin, letting fresh drops of blood roll down his cheek. However, he refused to cry out as he backed into the corner, his mother looming over him with her ruined wand in hand and laughing insanely.

"IT's tOo lATE FoR yoU," she whispered, "YOu cAN't bE sAvED ANymOre; AnD Now i'm GoIng TO enJoY mAKiNG yOu ScREam…" Her body moved limply, as if she were no better than a broken puppet. She laid a hand against Marx's right cheek, her glove staining with his blood, "WOulDn'T tHAt be So. MuCH. FUN?"

"Just leave me alone! I'm not scared of you!" the jester spat back, shoving the Simirror's hand away. She stumbled back, but regained her footage and let out a hideous cackle that made his heart beat almost painfully against his ribs.

"IS thAt sO?"

A loud, sickening crack echoed around the room, and Marx watched in horror as his "mother" fell to the floor as if she were a puppet whose strings had been cut off. The darkness pooling around her body like blood rose from the floor, shifting and spiraling until it began to mold itself into a distorted, winged silhouette. Pale, maddened eyes opened amidst the blackness and smiled at Marx with sharp fangs.

"HOw aBOuT Now?"

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Marx woke up thrashing and rolling on his bed like crazy until he fell out of his bed. For minutes he laid still on the floor, trying to ease his beating heart and convince himself that his nightmare was just that: a nightmare.

If only it were that easy.

This was the third – or maybe fourth? – time he had a nightmare like this. Ever since Grill had taken him a little more than a week ago – his "injuries" had long healed, but she insisted on him staying a while longer since he had nowhere to go -, he had gotten dreams like these almost every day. Some were just memories of his mother, or of his younger self, and even both at the same time. Those were his favorite.

But some of those dreams, although innocent at first, warped halfway through it and became horrible nightmares. One second his mother was being nice and the next she was screaming like a banshee and with her hands around his neck…or where his neck would be, anyways. It was like if something – or someone – possessed her just for the sole purpose of terrifying him.

But this was the first time he had actually seen that something or someone. And he had never felt so scared in his life.

A ripping sound woke him out of his daze, and much to his dismay he saw the sharp, heart-shaped tip of his golden wings tearing through the mess of bed sheet he had fallen in. A positive side effect of these nightmares was that it somehow triggered his wings, and with every nightmare his own hold over the appendages became stronger, enabling him at this point to summon them almost whenever he wanted. However, not a night passed in which he had a nightmare without him breaking something now, "Darn it."

"Another bad dream?"

Marx turned his head towards the door, where Grill was now standing with her arms crossed. She was now wearing a lilac and pink sleeping cap and fluffy slippers instead of her usual striped witch hat and pointed boots. Her tuft of green hair was a mess and her eyes looked tired, but her smile was sympathetic. She jumped at the sight of Marx's wings, but soon paid them no mind, "You know, they're actually very pretty when you get used to them."

"That's not what you thought the first time," the jester smiled mischievously, inwardly relieved that he was no longer alone. "Seriously Grill; you almost passed out from all the screaming! I still don't get how your brothers didn't wake up."

The onion witch pouted as she sat on the edge of Marx's bed, "Oh shut up; I was worried about you! I come into your room and the first thing I see is you screaming like a madman with those wings coming out of your sides. What was I supposed to think?" She grabbed one of the stray pillows and held it close to her, "I thought for a second that you were mutating into some monster or that there was some parasite coming out of you, like in those sci-fi/horror movies…"

"Geez, what type of messed-up movies do you watch, anyways?" Marx joked, only to get a pillow to the face and a raspberry from Grill. Both children laughed as they chased each other around the room for a while, before falling onto the bed and looking at the ceiling. Silence followed their laughter, and after a while Grill was the first one to break it: "You're not going to tell me this time either, are you?"

The purple puff sighed; Grill had come to see him for the past week every time he woke up screaming from a nightmare. He was convinced that, after seeing his wings for the first time, she wouldn't dare come close to him during the night…or at all; and yet, she had come every time to check on him and calm him down, and he couldn't thank her enough for that.

But no matter how many times she asked, he couldn't bring himself to tell her about his dreams; not even the good ones. "You don't want to hear about them, honestly." He turned to her gave her a fake smile that he hoped would look real enough, "It's actually all pretty stupid anyways, so don't worry about me."

Grill's frown wiped the smile clean off his face, but she kept looking at the ceiling instead, "Fine then, don't tell me if you don't want to…" To his surprise, her expression softened, "I guess it must be very personal if you don't want to tell. It's not like we've known each other for long, anyways."

Marx bit his lip, but said nothing. Neither of them moved as minutes ticked by, their gazes stuck once more to the ceiling. The young jester would once in a while turn his gaze quickly towards Grill, but gave up soon enough once he realized she wasn't going to return the gesture. She couldn't be mad at him for not telling, was she? In his opinion, it was a very stupid thing to be mad about, but he didn't want her to be mad at him nonetheless. The silence lingered on, and Marx was desperately hoping that Grill would at least leave; anything that would cut the awkwardness between them.

"Hey, Marx."

Instantly relieved, Marx faced her and found her grinning at him, "Yeah?" This only made the witch's smile grow bigger.

"Race you to the kitchen for some ice cream? Winner gets first pick."

Now it was Marx's time to smile, "You're on."

"C'mon Marx, don't be like that; I won fair and square!"

"But I want chooooooocoooooolaaaaateeeeee….." the purple puffball whined while eyeing the ice cream tub Grill held in her arms hungrily, "Chocolate's the best! It's sweet and creamy and delicious and sweet and you can't eat it all by yourself!" He shot Grill and accusatory look, which she was very happy to return.

"There's only enough for one person, and it's mine! Why can't you have vanilla instead?"

"Nuh-uh! Vanilla is for losers!"

"So you see my point!"

"Griiiiiiiiiiiiiiill," Marx's voice rose to a pitch that made the onion girl's head hurt, "Let me have choooooocooooooolaaaaate…Please?"

"But I-"

"-"

"ALRIGHT FINE!" Grill covered her mouth, realizing how loudly she had shouted out. After a minute of silence, she was relieved to see she hadn't woken up her brothers and turned to glare at Marx, "We'll split vanilla and chocolate between us both. Is that enough for you, you big brat?"

His smug expression only made her even more annoyed. "Yup! And don't forget to add spriiiiinkleeees~!" He sang out as he danced around Grill, his laughter slowly getting on her nerves, and she almost let the ice cream bowls fall to the floor when he suddenly appeared right next to her and screamed into her ear, "SPRINKLES!"

WHACK!

"No sprinkles for you, loser," Grill growled while twirling her broom on her right hand, her foot on top of Marx who was currently face-down on the floor, a bump beginning to swell on his head. Snarling, he managed to get Grill off of him, giving her a deadly glare and pulling out his tongue. His expression, rather than annoying her, made her laugh as her anger faded.

Darn him for being so funny when she should be mad at him.

"Just shut up and eat your ice cream," she said as she slid one of the bowls towards him. His own anger completely forgotten, Marx squealed in glee as he dunked his head into the bowl and gobbled up the delicious cold treat. Grill chuckled to herself at the sight as she ate her own serving, "It's gonna be hilarious when you get a brain freeze."

Marx, still with his mouth full, made a face at her instead. However, his expression suddenly grew more serious as he seemed to sink into thought while staring at his feet. After a moment, he turned to face Grill, his words merely a whisper yet sounding crystal clear through the emptiness of the room, "Thanks a lot, Grill."

"Huh? For what?"

"What do you mean 'for what'? I was being chased by an angry mob with food and you came out of nowhere and threw blocks to their faces to protect me!" Marx smiled, "Not only was that awesome; you also didn't have to do it. You didn't even know me, and you still let me stay in your house and everything!"

"What, you thought I would leave you with those psychos? Look, I don't care what you did or what those people say you did…" Grill pushed her bowl away from her and looked into Marx's eyes, "Throwing stuff at you like that was mean and stupid; I just couldn't stand there and do nothing. Not to mention that there aren't a lot of kids around and nothing interesting ever happens around these parts, so you coming here was sort of a….relief." She smirked playfully at him; "Plus, if you really tried to conquer Popstar, you must've done something seriously hardcore for them to be so scared of you."

"Hey, you're right! Now I wish I could remember that." The purple jester dunked his head into the bowl again and slurped what was left of his ice cream. Licking the remains off his face, his eyes widened in sudden realization and he turned nervously to the onion witch, "Wait a minute; you don't think your 'aunt' will hate me too, do you?"

"Naaaah, it'll be OK," Grill grabbed both hers and Marx's bowls and headed to the kitchen, Marx trailing behind her; "She sometimes acts a little weird, but since we're friends she won't hurt you. Also, she doesn't get along with the townspeople, so if they hate you then she'll surely be on your side, even if it's just to spite them-"

"Do you really think I'm weird?"

Both children screamed, the ice cream bowls falling and breaking on the floor. Marx looked behind him, but it was too dark for him to see anything, much less anyone. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and suddenly became aware of a silhouette right in front of him. He couldn't tell who or what it was – he managed to make out a pointed hat and what were probably robes – but judging by the way Grill gasped, she knew exactly who it was; "Drawcia! You scared the crap out of-"

"Inside voice, dear; I believe your brothers are still sleeping." There was the sound of something sticky quickly scraping over something, and out of nowhere candlelight blinked into existence. Once his eyes adjusted to the change of light, he saw that 'Drawcia', the holder of the candle, was a sorceress of sorts. Her body was completely covered in violet robes with flecks of different colors – orange and cyan with two strips of red and white, among others – held together by two huge golden buttons connected through a chain. She wore shoulder armor and her face was hidden by a pink scarf, light blue hair and a huge, violet, curled hat; although he could still see a bright, amber eye and just a bit of purple skin underneath. The candle, as well as a big, thick paintbrush and a canvas, floated beside her. Her entire figure also had a strange…texture, but he couldn't tell what it was.

Drawcia herself, however, didn't seem to notice him as she kept talking to Grill, "What I would like to know now, young lady, is what are you doing up so early in the morning. And eating on top of it all! Honestly Grill, that is not good for a growing child, and call me crazy but I swear I heard you talk to someone-" She finally noticed Marx standing in front of her, and her only eye grew wide. "Oh."

"Aunt Drawcia, I can explain;" Grill brushed away the broken bowl pieces with her foot and stepped beside Marx, "The people at the market were chasing him down and throwing food at him, and it turns out he has amnesia or something, and he didn't have a place to stay so I told him he could stay here but you were painting in the basement so I didn't tell you and-" She stopped her ramblings, "Uhhh, are you even listening to a word I'm saying?"

The sorceress was completely ignoring Grill and continued to stare intensely at Marx, who began to flinch under her gaze. There was something about Drawcia that made him restless, and it was not just the way she was looking at him right now. Something inside him shifted, and for a second he thought he would throw up; but he didn't and he and Drawcia kept staring at each other, still as statues and waiting for the other to give in.

"DRAWCIA!"

The sorceress snapped out of her daze and turned to the witch again, "Grill, what did I just tell you? Inside voice!" She turned to Marx once more, but her gaze wasn't as intense as before, "I wish you had told me about Marx staying in our house before. You know I'm not fond of surprises of this kind."

"Yeah, I know that. But the last time I interrupted your alone time in the basement because Pepper had set the curtains on fire, you almost bit my head off – Wait a minute," She narrowed her eyes at her 'aunt', "How did you know that's his name?"

"How could I not know? Everyone in Popstar has heard about the jester who tried to become king." Grill frowned, and Drawcia chuckled, "Well, except for you, dear. But that's because you weren't even in Popstar when it happened." Her eyes focused on the broken bowls that Grill had tried to push away, "Were you two eating ice cream?"

"Well, uhhhh…" Grill's face reddened, making the stripes under her eyes almost invisible, "….yeah."

Drawcia looked at a grandfather clock set up on the wall to her left, "At 4:31 in the morning?"

"Yeah…"

"…"

"I hope you left some vanilla for me."

"So let me get this straight," Drawcia spoke while she absentmindedly stirred her ice cream with a spoon – how did she manage to do that without hands, Marx had no idea - her sight focused on Marx on the other side of the table. Grill was behind him, cleaning the broken pieces of porcelain with her broom and grumbling to herself, "You woke up in Cookie Country, without any memory of what happened to you or of whom you are, other than your name."

Marx fidgeted in his seat and tried his best to keep eye contact with the elder sorceress, "Yeah; that was almost a week ago…"

"…And that's it?"

"Well…" Marx broke the eye contact and looked nervously at the table, "I spent around two days walking towards Yogurt Yard, and some memories came back to me during that time. Just a few names and places; nothing much." Grill was his friend, and Drawcia seemed…decent, but he wasn't ready to tell either of them about his stay in Dark Star, his dreams/nightmares about his mother or even Galacta Knight. "Then I arrived at the market and…well, Grill already told you what happened next."

Drawcia said nothing for a while, simply staring into the distance. Marx's heart began to beat faster, almost expecting for the sorceress to burst and call him a liar and then force the truth out of him, but instead her only eye narrowed in disgust and growled, "The townspeople are nothing but hypocrites; just like almost everyone else in Dreamland. They talk about peace, but they aren't afraid to use violence in order to deal with something that simply doesn't please them…" The spoon floating before her began to bend, "Fools…all of them!"

"Calm down, Aunt Drawcia. You're ruining a perfectly good spoon." Grill disposed of the last shards and sat next to Marx, suddenly regarding Drawcia with excitement, "You said you knew all about Marx trying to conquer Popstar! C'mon, you gotta tell us all about it!"

"Yeah, I wanna know!" Marx bounced on his chair, the pompons on his hat falling comically on his face, "What did I do that got everyone so nervous? Did I blow something up? Did I eat somebody?"

Drawcia chuckled at the younger ones' enthusiasm and put the bent spoon away, "You didn't do anything of the sort, Marx. But you did some quite clever tricks. You got the sun and moon to fight, and you tricked Kirby into summoning the Great Comet NOVA for you."

"NOVA…" Gold-colored metal, the sound of gears turning and dull blue eyes flashed in Marx's mind, but it all vanished in an instant, "What's the Great Comet NOVA?"

"Oh! I've heard about it! It's said that if you collect enough power from the stars, you can ask NOVA to grant you a wish!" Grill stared at Marx in awe, "And you really tricked Kirby into summoning NOVA? Neat!"

Pieces of said memory began to fall into place inside Marx's mind: Mr. Bright and Mr. Shine fighting each other in the sky; a pink puffball with red feet flying into space atop a big yellow star; a ring of multicolored stars merging into a giant, cat-like machine with pieces of machinery sticking out of it…

The exquisite rush of power that filled every fiber of his body as his wish to rule Popstar was granted.

"I remember now." Marx's lip turned into a sneer, "Kirby collected all those stars to summon NOVA, but I pushed him away at the last second." He began to chuckle to himself, his grin becoming bigger and crueler, "The idiot never even saw it coming! HA!"

It worked! It all went according to plan!

Marx suddenly stopped laughing. There was something about those words – or maybe more about the distorted voice that spoke them inside his head – that chilled him to the bone. The memory of him gloating over an unconscious Kirby in space was replaced by the images of a monochrome Simirror with no eyes and a grinning, pale-eyed shadow, but he blinked and they were gone.

"Marx? You OK?" He noticed a gloved hand wave in front of him, and turned around to see a worried Grill beside him. Her worry, however, turned into annoyance the moment he looked back at her, "Sheesh, don't you ever scare me like that again! You were laughing like mad one second and the next you suddenly stop and begin staring into space. I mean, honestly – "

"Oh shut up, Grill," Marx muttered, which earned him a broom to the face and a fight with the onion witch. Both children were too caught up in their discussion to notice Drawcia gripping the edges of her side of the table so hard she was beginning to dent it. Her eye was half-closed as a sign of strain, fixated on the young jester before her. Unable to hold herself in check any longer, her whole figure began to shake and distort; the purple skin underneath began to drip and turn pink, a faint amber light coming to life on her chest. Her amber eyes – the left one now visible – began to glow eerily, as tendrils of pink goo tore out from her body and crept towards the unsuspecting children –

THWOMP THWOMP THWOMP

All three of them jumped and turned to the sound of heavy blows against the door. Such was Drawcia's surprise that her form quickly returned to normal, and while trying to calm her nerves she rose from her seat and headed for the entrance. Marx watched her go, noticing how tense she looked, and cringed when she stared back at him through the corner of her eye the same way she had done when she first looked at him.

THWOMP THWOMP THWOMP

"I'm coming, I'm coming! Who would come here at this time, anywa-" She hastily opened the door and froze. Grill and Marx peeked from behind her, and their breath stuck to their throats at what they saw.

The whole population of Yogurt Yard and probably even more than that was currently standing by the door. Some held sticks, rocks and other things to hit with, and they all looked incredibly angry; it soon became something more akin to fear once they saw it was Drawcia at the door, though. Standing right in between the door and the angry mob was an old yet burly dark red Bugzzy, who was the only one staring back at Drawcia without any hint of emotion. Next to him stood a cyan Bonkers with his hammer strapped to his back and holding carefully what seemed to be the Bugzzy's scimitars.

"Drawcia." The insect Dreamlander deadpanned.

"Celus, this is…quite a surprise," Drawcia said in a sickly sweet voice, taking a good look at the mob around her mansion, "Care to tell me why is the entire town surrounding my home so early in the morning and looking so hostile?"

"Don't play dumb, witch!" The Bonkers beside Celus dropped the scimitars and pointed an accusatory finger right at Marx, "There are rumors coming from Castle Dedede saying that Kirby's gone missing, and the only reasonable explanation is that he did something to him!"

The mob shouted in agreement and began to push forward, trying to come closer to the door. Marx, initially shocked and confused by the whole affair, soon became annoyed at the angry Dreamlanders, "Hey, wait a minute! I haven't done anything; go blame someone else and leave me alone!" He turned to the cyan Bonkers, "And stop pointing me with your stupid, fat finger unless you wanna lose it," he snarled.

The Bonkers bellowed in indignation and reached out behind him for his hammer, but Celus the Bugzzy stopped with a glare. Turning to Drawcia again, he coolly replied, "According to what is being said at the Castle, he was officially declared missing about a week ago…" His eyes narrowed, "Just around the same time your purple friend here appeared."

"You're insane! Kirby's all the way in Ripple Star; Marx had nothing to do with it!" Grill stepped forward, crossing her arms at Celus, "And isn't Kirby the greatest hero in the Gamble Galaxy? How did he get captured, anyways?"

"How the hell should I know?" Celus snarled and grabbed one of his scimitars, pointing it right between Marx's eyes, "But even if he didn't do it, he's bound to know something!" He pointed it towards Grill's cheek, drawing a thin line of blood, "Any of you has to know something! Everyone knows how much you hated the guy, you bunch of stinking-"

"How dare you!" the scimitar was knocked away from Grill's face, and Celus found himself face to face with a furious Drawcia and her now glowing paintbrush, "It doesn't matter if they did you wrong; they're still children! They know nothing and neither do I, so if you wouldn't mind leaving my property…"

"Celus, maybe this is going too far!" A female Waddle Dee stepped forward while gripping her parasol tightly, "We were supposed to get the boy and send him over to King Dedede; he's the one who should be able to deal with all of this!"

But if anything, the name 'Dedede' made the red Bugzzy even madder, "Right, because he has done such a fine job as king so far, hasn't he?" The Waddle Dee lowered her head and stepped back into the crows, and Celus turned back to Drawcia, "Now, you listen to me, you ha – AAAAAAAAGH!"

Everyone gasped as Celus was lifted into the air, clawing at his neck as if an invisible hand was crushing his neck. What was most terrifying, however, was Drawcia's expression as she glared at the insect. Her hair was waving out like a deadly halo around her body, and her eye had a hellish glow in it. "No, you listen to me, Celus," she spoke in a dark and dangerous voice, and Marx saw Grill cringe in fear beside him, "You barge into my house, you threaten my guest and then my apprentice, and finally you insult me. Now tell me…" Insane glee sparkled in her eye as the hold on Celus's neck got tighter, "A perfectly good reason why I SHOULDN'T SNAP YOUR HEAD RIGHT OFF THE REST OF YOUR BODY RIGHT NOW!"

Hell broke loose among the mob, and all the Dreamlanders surrounding Drawcia's mansion fled for their lives, leaving only Celus's Bonkers friend behind. The blue ape held his hammer in what was supposed to be a threatening stance, but the obvious fear on his face betrayed him, "L-let go of him, you maniac! I w-won't warn you again!"

As a response, Drawcia let out a shrill sound between a scream and a cackle and used her powers to throw Celus towards his lackey before he could even react. Both heavyweights collided with a painful crack and rolled all the way back to the town while screaming.

And during all this, Marx couldn't turn his gaze away from the sorceress. He was afraid of the now psychotic Drawcia, of course, but it wasn't fear what bothered him; there was an odd, crushing feeling in his chest that was tearing his chest apart, and he almost threw up then and there. But then he saw Drawcia slowly calm down, and the pain vanished with her rage.

"Lousy bunch of hypocrites; they just have no manners at all!" Her eyes fell on Grill and filled with worry instantly, "Oh Grill, dear! You're bleeding! I better go look for some bandages and cotton…My, you're so pale; that brute Celus must have scared you senseless!"

"R-right…C-Celus…" Grill stammered as Drawcia dragged her back into the mansion, having no strength of her own after watching her 'aunt' flip out like that. Marx watched both females disappear into the house, and then turned back his gaze into the town ahead, watching as the sun slowly rose above the houses.

Kirby was missing and no one had any idea where he was. With some of his memories on the whole NOVA affair back, he would've been jumping with glee; but somehow being blamed for it when he didn't do it dampened his mood. And there was something telling him that, even with the bubblegum-pink hero gone, things were just beginning to get worse for him.

"…..Well, this sucks."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Congratulations to all of you who guessed that Drawcia was the mysterious aunt! *coughPlayer-5cough* Making her flip out like that were tons of fun.

Fun Fact: "Celus" is similar to the Spanish word "celos" (jealousy). It doesn't have much sense here, but in a side story I'm planning, it will, I promise.

Sorry for the rushed ending; I was planning on going to bed early today (PFFFFFFFF) and I was sick of postponing this chapter, not to mention I made the chapter longer than the previous one AGAIN….so yeah.