Before we begin, something a little different than usual: review responses!
StrawberryCatclaws ~ Good to see you're satisfied.
EveningEmerald ~ ...true that. True that, indeed. And yes, of course I'm continuing this — hence this next chapter.
And now for something completely different...not really. It's back to the story. Enjoy:
Kirby didn't know how much time has elapsed since he had passed out. He didn't care how much time had elapsed since he had passed out. He was already feeling breathless.
That last dream...it was a culmination of every one of his deepest fantasies. He and Marx had...kissed. Passionately. Not stopping until all of their strength had been drained. He hadn't had a dream so vivid...so real in for a long time. Every small movement, every miniscule action, every tear or ball of sweat, and every emotion at every given moment in time within that dream felt...real. To the point of potentially even being scary.
Kirby blushed. He had such a perverted mind. Having grown up alongside two children for much of his life, he had experienced much of what they experienced as the years wore on and their interests changed. He specifically remembered a moment when Tuff — no, wait...Theodore. Kirby almost forgot that he thought that name, despite its sophisticated etymology and high-profile stature, made the boy sound cool. "Think of all those musicians with those catchy single names!" he'd say. "Would any of them really want to call themselves Tuff? Or Bun? More like bum, if you ask me!"
Tiff would roll her eyes in annoyance while Kirby would laugh at how ridiculous he was, yet still approve nonetheless. And Marx would—
Wait! Marx? Was he still...?
Kirby turned around in a swift, deft maneuver, a sense of panic overcoming him. He was awake, standing next to the door, leaning up against it. "Took 'ya long enough to get up." he said.
"Heh heh..." Kirby chuckled lightly to himself. He was very much the definition of a deep sleeper. "So...are we good about, you know—"
"Geez, can you shut up about this, already?" Marx interrupted, disgruntled. "We both said sorry already, okay? Let it go, Kirby!"
"I did! I do!" Kirby said.
Marx raised an eyebrow. "Do you remember last night?" he asked.
"Why is that important?" Kirby raised his own question. "I closed your door out of here when I shouldn't have. Then I cried over to you. What are you getting at, poyo?"
Marx grinned. He grinned widely. He shouldn't be grinning; Kirby had assumed their little encounter before the two of them dozed off...didn't happen? But this played well for him. Either he could use it as blackmail or, more nefarious lt and much more satisfying, he would do as he had done before; tickle his romantic feelings toward him until he couldn't take the pressure anymore. It was a feeling Marx looked forward to experiencing again — one that he'd be willing to yearn for.
"I...I dreamt of you, last night..." Kirby admitted. Marx seemed to light up with glee with that response.
He decided to play along...for now. "I too had a dream with myself in it." Marx joked. Kirby snickered a little bit afterwards. "But being...serious and all that..." He approached Kirby...slowly. The puffball started considering whether he should walk away, but ultimately decided not to once Marx spoke up again.
"I did...dream about you, too, Kirby." he spoke. "Let's just say it would've been...something you'd enjoy..."
The closer he approached Kirby, the redder the pink puffball became. He was clearly embarrassed about something. Something Marx already knew. Something he would only get Kirby to admit on his own.
"What was in your dream, Kirby?" Marx said looking straight at him.
"Uh..." Kirby started backing away. This wasn't the type of conversation he'd deem comfortable. "I...I don't wanna say—"
"But...we always shared our dreams with each other, Kirby..." Marx egged him on, making sure he sounded somewhat sad. He already knew the irony of the comment he made, but continued on anyways, "We'd be...sitting outside, laughing, talking...having fun...then you'd ask somethin' like, 'Hey, Marx! What did 'ya dream about?'
"I'd say, 'That King Dedede would stop stealing my ball! That's what!' We'd...laugh together...lay down under the shade of those trees and I'd say...'What about you?'"
He stopped talking right there. Kirby realized that it was his moment to complete the story, to finish the memory — to tell him what he dreamed about. "I'd — poy?" He was interrupted because he had run into wall opposite of the door. He tried shifting away along the wall, but something inside him refused to let him move.
Marx, now directly in front of him, leaned in toward Kirby's left, as if there was an ear there. He grazed the puffball's cheek along the way, leaving Kirby to do his best to conceal his deep excitement.
"What did you say, Kirby...?" Marx whispered. Kirby gulped.
He then sudddenly thought of a way out without compromising too many details. He remembered having given this answer before...it was during the last time they ever spoke of their dreams and desires with each other. The last time before Marx got corrupted by Nova. As such, it didn't make it any easier to say — heck, he thought, revealing what he had been dreaming all this time would be easier than reciting this...
But alas, he had no other options. "I...I said..." he began. "'I dreamed of our...connection, M-Marx. Of...everything that has happened lately, poyo... I, um... I don't want this to end. I don't want any of this to end, poyo...'" He was whimpering by the end of it.
Marx finally backed off, his prodding finished for the time being, stepping a few steps away from the puffball, but remaining in front of him. Although this wasn't what he wanted Kirby to admit, it was a response he had expected and was satisfied with all the same. At least he put some effort into covering himself up, and a pretty good one at that. "Alright. That's all I needed to hear." he said, followed by Kirby visibly being overwhelmed with relief.
"But in the meantime..." he continued. "...we still need to find our way out of here. We've already used up a lot of time...I think." Truth be told, Marx had only been assuming that today had been the day after he and Kirby first woke up in this cell of a room. He had no reference to go off of; there were no windows where sunlight could sneak in, no clocks ticking on the wall...just nothing. It didn't help that he had an inconsistent sleep schedule, so the internal clock governing his sleep had no frame of reference of which to tell time, either.
Kirby had nearly forgotten that they were kidnapped to begin with, with the enclosed room being the only reminder of the situation they were really in. He nodded in agreement. It was high time that they got their things together, come up with a plan, and get out of there. "Y-yeah. You're right." he said before dashing towards the open passageway. "Let's go, poyo."
"Right! After you!" Marx responded, quickly following suit.
He soon ran into the puffball, who had slowed his pace significantly after having stepped a bit further into the hallway beyond their room. It looked...eerily familiar: the cobblestone texturing of the walls and ceiling, the place lit with torches, and the floor made of concrete with the occasional crack to not step on. This hall clearly had a vastly different architectural style and design compared to that of the room they had just came from. It didn't help that the door had shut behind them, startling the both of them.
The two snuck forward cautiously, past the sounds of leaking rainwater or groundwater dripping onto the floor; past the unsettling ambience that surrounded them; past the plethora of similar doors, except, looks-wise, they clearly belonged here. Beyond the bars on the top of each door separating the hallway and cells, there was nothing but blackness, obfuscating anything or anyone inside them. Marx looked over to Kirby, who was visibly a bit...scared of the whole motif of this place.
After what felt like ages, the two had reached a junction — a large, circular room where six separate paths converged, with a spiral stairwell on one side leading to an upper level. Unlike the path they had taken, there seemed to not be any lighting, and this appeared as the innards of the cells before them: complete darkness.
Marx turned to Kirby. "This place is freaky..." he commented. "And long. Far too long."
When looking around the new room, Kirby stopped in his tracks when his eye caught sight of something. Something that made him extremely angry. Marx would've been confused and asked what was going on if he hadn't noticed it around the same time. On the wall was located an insignia. A very...familiar insignia. The insignia of—
"King Dedede??" Marx said, puzzled. "What reason would he have to—" He stopped short as Kirby, filled with a new, sudden burst of rage, dashed his way toward the stairs and started swiftly climbing up them. "Wait, Kirby!"
"Stupid Dedede! He's always doing things like this, but now he's gone too far, poyo!" the Star Warrior exclaimed. This is why he recognized this place; it was Dedede's Dungeon of unDeeds; the dungeon beneath his castle. He was, quite familiar with Dedede's antics by now — especially those when relating to himself. They've been decent friends since Nightmare had been destroyed, but the penguin King had never stopped his prior habit of pranking the unsuspecting puff in the meanest ways possible, whether it be out of jealousy, ignorance, idiocy, or an unfounded fear that Kirby, as powerful as he was, would usurp his throne. That last claim was utterly ridiculous; Kirby had neither the desire not expertise to govern a state, legitimate or not. This prank, though... Oh, sweet vengeance would be his soon...
Except...not really. Upon reaching the top of the stairs leading to the base floor of a tower, Kirby was shocked to realize that, instead of entering one of the corridors within Dedede's castle, he had arrived at...his own living room? His mind quickly calmed itself down as a new state of dread and confusion took over. This...this didn't make any sense! How is this even possible? Did someone really have that much time on their hands whilst abducting the two of them?
Upon catching up to the puffball, Marx started looking around. "Kirby...why are we at your house?" he asked.
"I don't know, poyo!" Kirby yelled back, nearly knocking Marx over with the sudden raised amplitude of his voice.
"Geez, Kirby!" Marx said, disgruntled. "What was that for?"
"I don't know! Nothing makes any sense!" he began to panic, starting to pace all over the place and speak very quickly. "I don't know where we are, I don't know where to go, I don't know why we're here — I'm lost, poyo!! I...wh-WHO'S doing this to us??" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "Who?? And why??"
"K-Kirby, you need to calm down—"
"Calm down?? Poy, you can't calm down in a situation like this! We're trapped in some collection of a bunch of random places! And while we're down here, someone might be causing a ruckus in a Dreamland or...or..."
"Kirby! Shut up! This...this isn't like you!"
The puffball looked up at his friend. "Wha—?"
"If anyone were to be panicking about everything going on, it would be me! I mean..." Marx paused to gather his thoughts. "You, even when you first started on all your adventures 'n things, were always the calm, collected one. Sure, you were easily distracted, but that didn't matter! You were always focused on the end goal at hand...and I always found it, well...fascinating..." He descended into his inner thoughts for a second. "I always looked up to you both as a friend and...as a role model of sorts. I mean, you're cute...likable, yet at the same time you're...determined and, um...pragmatic." He chuckled to himself before he continued on to his point. "But...something's changed, Kirby... Lately you have been...angrier...and more..."
"More what?"
"Gritty! Edgy, dark, whatever you want to call it! And I don't understand why, and it seems you don't either. It doesn't fit your character and...and, it's...it's tearing you apart, Kirby! It's been tearing all of us apart..."
Marx didn't know what would happen next. He thought that Kirby might get all defensive, denying much of his behavior as of late. He thought he might've made Kirby even angrier and try to beat him up in attempt to shut him up. He thought Kirby might get all apologetic and crumble to pieces in front of him. Instead, Kirby just stood there...as if realizing the gravity of what he had been told.
Once instance of what Marx perceived as a darker shift of Kirby's personality came just the week before. The whole gang was there, himself, Kirby, Dedede, and others, all in a field playing some games for the sake of playing them. It was always a lot of fun, playing games with Kirby, they all said...until that day. Out of nowhere, from the blue, on that one particular day, Kirby just flat-out wasn't in the mood of playing...anything — a quite unprecedented phenomenon, indeed.
"C'mon, Kirby!" the King would egg him on. "We're all up to a game of truth or dare, so join in!" He patted a spot on the ground to signify where the puffball would be sitting; besides him, of course. Both because...well, he was the king, only wanting the most elite of celebrities beside him, and to keep a watchful eye on this potential throne usurper.
"I...I don't know, poyo..." Kirby struggled. "Don't any of you think that this is...a bit childish?"
Everyone raised their eyebrows in response. "Childish?" asked Tiffany, one of the people in the group.
"Kirby, we do these things with you to have fun and unwind, be friends and all that." his mentor, Meta Knight, responded. "There's nothing childish about this."
"W-well then maybe I don't feel like playing these sorts of games right now, then!" Kirby swiftly retorted, doing his best to keep a dangerous balance of not playing around and not disappointing or insulting his friends.
"Kirby, I'm pretty shure that's not the case." Tuf—Theodore said. What was with that name, honestly. "You haven't been super enthusiastic about hanging out, recently."
"Yes I have, poyo!"
"No. You haven't." Marx remembered saying. "You don't look so motivated anymore, as if you were just auto-piloting through everything, like trying to just get it over with nothing else."
"Even Dedede is starting to beat you at your favorite games, Kirby!" Bandana Dee poined out.
"Hey!" the king responded, clearly annoyed by that comment, before realizing it did actually highlight the point. He hushed himself before continuing.
"Kirby, is something going on?" Tiffany asked.
"Yeah, is there?"
As everybody started gathering around him demanding an explanation, Kirby was starting to visibly look stressed out. He ran off in a panic, leaving everyone confused over what had just happened. Some chased after him. Others did not. Marx remembered glancing over at Meta Knight, his eyes narrowed, looking straight in the direction Kirby ran off to even after losing sight of him.
"...So..." Marx asked. "You know what's going on?"
"No." Meta Knight responded. "But I will soon enough."
Returning to reality, Marx found Kirby still standing completely still. He looked around where they had found themselves in, noticing several key differences between this place and Kirby's house...besides the obvious, that is. "Popstar to Kirby! Hello??"
Kirby blinked, as if he had snapped out of a trance. "Wh...what?" he whispered.
"This place isn't really a replica of your house." Marx told the puffball. "I mean...when did your house have all these rooms?"
Marx was right; this place, much like downstairs, had multiple paths leading to various other locations. Unlike Kirby's compact house, this house seemed a lot more formal, complete with a dedicated dining area, kitchen, and—
"The exit!" Kirby noticed. The exit door was still in its usual spot! Finally, they could get out of here! Trying to open the door, however, didn't work; it refused to budge. He turned around, still somewhat diligent. "Well...not to worry, poyo! We could go out one of the windows, couldn't we?"
"I...don't think that's a good idea." Marx commented, his eyes pointing to and head leaning toward one of the Windows, in the usual spot on the wall. Outside it, however, was yet more endless blackness. The same could be said for the other Windows as well.
Sorrow soon began to engulf Kirby, and despite being in a larger space than the cell they had come from, he started to feel claustrophobic. As far as he was concerned, there was was no way out of there for the either of them. "We...we'll find a way out of here..." he laughed. "Y-yeah. We'll find a way out of here. We'll find a way out of here!" He sat down, rocking back forth in place. "We'll find a way out of here!"
"Um...are you alright?" Marx asked.
"Y-yeah? Kirby? Oh, he's great, poyo! He's wonderful! He'll find a way out of here!"
Marx rolled his eyes. Great. he thought. He's lost his mind.
"Yeah! Lost my mind, poyo! Lost my mind, poyo!" Kirby continued cackling to himself.
Marx, on the other hand, was visibly stunned. He hadn't said anything aloud, so...how did he—?
Nah. It didn't matter. They needed to keep finding their way out of here.
"We-we'll find our way out of here!" Kirby screeched.