I do not own any piece of this media whatsoever.
Landing wasn't an especially hard endeavor.
What, did you think it would be hard with a barely patched hole in a nonessential part of the ship? No! In all honesty there is a real good reason I wasn't too concerned before about landing; first the ship was built like a star shaped brick and twice as rugged and second I am, or was, an experienced pilot who has done this tons of times in this life.
The entire process still sucks though. There is a good reason I wanted to study the warp star and it gets pretty obvious when you think about it for long enough. The ship is the size of an average mansion, most of that is electrical, wiring, and magical circuits that run through huge foot wide pipes inside the walls along huge hallways to get to each room. In the center is the entire engineering bay and it's a monster at providing power via stellar and planetary energy absorption.
It was built extremely rugged and made to take a beating, but that doesn't mean it's all that great of a ship comparatively. Imagine a house inside a tank, it's slow and for some reason you took off the main cannon to save space so now you just have a machine gun turret and thick armor.
The insides are where you actually put a lot of effort into, because you are going to live there. It's furnished as best as you can and looks nice. Mama took real time out of her day to help me design the insides and some upgrades I really should have done at least a decade ago.
For example this ship if I went by her recommendations would be split into two stars attached in the middle with a central detachable pillar with ship parking and open areas surrounding it. Basically just a place to meet visitors, park smaller ships and hold parties if you don't want people walking around your ship unattended.
The forcefield that I should have put in is one of the things that I was scrounging about before. The only 'forcefield' is an atmospheric field that stops all the air from violently decompressing when there's a hull breach, like what happened before. Thank goodness that worked or I might have actually had trouble patching that opening.
Mama insisted on a quality forcefield and I didn't have the resources or know how to make it initially. I wanted to make this ship myself without any large amounts of help, and by the time I did have those things I just wasn't looking forward to rebuilding the ship so I procrastinated.
With my newfound motivation brought upon by being two people squished into one I have that now.
Another thing is I don't have an actual small personal vessel, well I did but I don't now. It um… may have been hijacked by some thieves that got on accidentally for a party I was hosting. The whole stopping people from getting into areas they shouldnt is much more prudent now isn't it?
I really need to stop dawdling and get to what I need to be doing because I've been landed for a few minutes now and I've just been lost in my thoughts.
Ok so I landed on Popstar already and I decided on a position on the other side from Dedede's castle. I'm only a few miles out at best and I can see other people approaching the ship on the sensors.
I can see people approaching the ship on the sensors? Wait, OH VOID. Better get on that!
I rushed my floating body toward the star's main exit ramp on one of the limbs and quickly shunted the command to open via magical energy into the console attached.
With a loud and entirely unpleasant groaning noise the ramp painstakingly opened allowing me to exit and greet my visitors properly, after all you need to use the front door to meet people not the side or back.
After it opened I tried my best to regally float down to greet, my… visitors? Looking around I didn't see anyone, it took me a few moments of looking around before I looked behind the ramp to see that they were still walking toward the ramp from the other side of the massive ship.
I parked the ship facing away from the village, I meant to do that I swear and you can't prove I didn't.
Anyway the visitors were a colorful bunch, and I mean that literally. Kirby's family came to greet me minus Kirby himself. They were green, red, and yellow. Do you need me to describe what a Kirby or whatever his race looks like?
Leading the charge was the green one who greeted me happily with a- "Kirby isn't here right now please don't start destroying stuff ok?" Oddly enough he was very happy in tone.
"W-What? I don't- what?" I was baffled by this odd proclamation. What did Kirby have to do with this? Does this happen a lot!?
"Yeah Kirby is off in space fighting some horror again and won't be back for a few hours, maybe a day or two, so could you not like, start attacking and stuff?"
"I-I didn't come here to attack you all! Why would you think that!?" I was blown away by this entire conversation right now.
"Most of the people that like come here are either evil or jerks who're looking for magical artifacts to conquer and/or destroy the universe. It's a bit of a thing ya know?"
"No I don't know! I came here to hopefully study the warp star and do an overhaul of my ship here. What even… I don't" I couldn't properly form words for this I don't- I know a lot happens in the games but I never put it into that kind of perspective before! How is this the response for anyone visiting this planet!?
"Oh I getcha now you're supposed to like guide Kirby or whatever on another adventure. You look the type so it makes sense," he said, nodding to himself as if he figured everything out.
"NO! I needed a place with large amounts of magic to keep the mana batteries charged while I do my rehaul of the ship and make a proper shuttle craft!" I said before pointing at the giant patched up hole on the bottom of my blocky star "All I got holding that portion of the ship together is hope and sad wielding!"
"Huh, really? You're like, not, going to make a giant murder ship and enslave people or whatever?" He said baffled as he looked toward his… brothers? Wait I think the yellow one is a girl for some reason she has the little eyelash thing people in this universe usually have to tell, so siblings.
"That's a real friggin' change of pace isn't it?" The red one grumbled, though he didn't seem unhappy. "Not too many land here without being jerks or damsels in this part of space. Always needing a hero" he said tiredly, his voice is just slightly lower and gravely then compared to the green one I guess.
"Er… Right so I wanted to study the magics of the warp star to help with my ship's propulsion and maybe make a shuttle based on it so do you people know where I can find one?" I said awkwardly trying to get to the point of why I'm here.
It was awkward enough with the mix up and I didn't want to keep going with that line of thought for a bit.
"Huh? Oh yeah we can like, help you with that. Let me just call it up and you can take a look? I don't know why you want it though." Green said disinterestedly.
"Well, It's one of the few super small magical ships I know of that still have Intersolar speed and the durability to survive crash landings. That's a pretty rare commodity in the universe, and having a shuttle like it or adapting my main craft to follow some of the techniques of it might help a lot. In addition to this it could really help with having such a large central thruster along with the further secondary thruster. If I can help slim them down or even remove them entirely for a purely magical system that I can convert into magitech it would really open up space I could use to make my ship more aesthetically pleasing and maybe even finally get some REAL shielding on this thing!" I babble on about my ship for a while as they stood there awkwardly nodding along.
I noticed how long I had been talking and clamped down before awkwardly tapping my nubs together "I-I just think it would be cool is all." I mutter out as I notice I lost them, possibly a while ago.
"Yeah no I got it. Like I'm just going to call my star up and let you all have some fun!" Green says blatantly walking away to an open spot not in the shadow of my ship. They soon pulled out a phone and started pressing buttons.
"So, um, sorry but who are you anyway?" The yellow one said with no deficit of sheepishness
"OH I'm so sorry I'm Lumos! Explorer Luma and captain of the Journey 2! I Travel universes in search of fun, friends, magic, and technology to learn and experience." I proclaim proudly puffing out my chest/belly.
"Right, uh I'm Keeby, that's Rexy and over there is Mochi. Kirby's our other brother but he's not here right now," she said lamely
I nod in understanding as I wait for her to say anything else. They do not.
After a few moments I timidly ask them "So, uh Kirby then what's up with that?" I said, trying to break the silence.
Thankfully she takes the line of dialog without any preamble "He's the Hero, er well he's our Hero. I- uh we don't usually adventure with him due to- well" she tries to compile her thoughts but Rexy chimes in "He's too friggin intense for us."
"W-Well yes but we still help him with-" Rexy interrupts Keeby again "He's too intense for us and way too powerful for us to help much." He says lamely, it doesn't seem like he cares about the topic much.
Keeby sighs tiredly "So yeah, Kirby is stronger than us, but that doesn't mean we're weak!" Keeby proclaims before Rexy deflates her puffed ego "Do you have a universe for a stomach and the capability to swallow a planet?" He says sharply
Keeby draws in on herself "No," nodding Rexy turns back to me "Like she said we're not weak, Kirby is just an entirely different kind of strong. We can hold down the fort together without him just fine, but he is the Hero for a reason."
"Oh, how so? I didn't think the divide would be so different between you all. What can you all do anyway?" I ask curiously, I hadn't realized how different they all were before. Nor how often Kirby does things on his own without calling them.
"We can all copy abilities to an extent, Kirbys is just supercharged. I heard he pulled out a sword the size of a building once." He seemed to be off in memory lane.
Keeby chimes in as well "We can also all inhale enemies too, just none as big as Kirby can. We could inhale a van sized thing pretty well, but any past that would hurt a lot." She said sheepishly, as if the idea of ONLY consuming a creature the size of a van wasn't already impressive.
"Floating, fighting, and the ability to be squashed are like something we can also do, but Kirby can basically become paper thin and physically manhandle things as heavy as, like a car." Mochi chimes in while sitting on his warp star which had come in while we were talking.
Taking a moment to look at the star brings pause to whatever I was going to say.
She is a beauty.
Fawning over her I use every mystical sense I have and multiple sensors I hurriedly drag out of the ship to scan her with. She's so efficient, oddly shaped for riding but efficient nonetheless!
To start with, like my own craft she uses planetary and stellar magics to keep going, but how she does so is amazing! She has built in atmospheric controls that could allow basically anything to ride them into space to another planet with the speed to boot. Not only that but her thrusters can hide seamlessly too to give her a very smooth finish. Her shields basically stop wind resistance in its tracks and pretty much destroy anything too small and going at super speeds so no getting skin sheared off by dust!
You want a lift? SHE COULD HOLD UP A SMALL HOUSE! You want speed? Well buckle up, we're going to an entirely different solar system in just a few hours!
That's not even getting into the fact that it's damn near the opposite of Magitech. I can tell it's basically a magical construct that emulates technology instead of the other way around! It has starbursting WIRING inside of it for stars sake! Magical wiring made of magic instead of outright matter.
The fact this thing works so efficiently is a testament to how much you can compress down into magical matter. Though this does mean that any sufficiently dense anti magic coming into contact with her will basically result in her near immediate depowering and possible violent explosion.
I continue to ramble, apparently out loud, about her before I hear "What was that about a violent explosion?" and turned to Keeby who was now wide eyed and looking at the star concerned.
"Huh? Oh uh yeah if someone drives an antimagic rod through this thing it'll explode with enough energy to cause a small crater half a mile across." I said waving a nub dismissively
"Not likely to happen though, firstly because those kinds of rods are absolutely stars be blessed hard to keep together without dispersing into space and creating a much weaker null magic field to form that's like 5 ft across for a few years. Those kinds of tools are hard to come by, hard to maintain, and have little use outside of making some kind of weapon against magics." I said shrugging before going back to the warp star.
I have so many ideas for new magical materials I can try for a new hull material since the techniques used in the star-
I'm startled again as she interrupts me "So we're safe then?" She sighed in relief.
"What? Oh yeah, honestly if you see someone with one I'd be more concerned with the guy holding it than the rod itself. It takes a lot of willpower and psychic energy to keep together."
"Send Kirby after them, got it." Keeby nods satisfied
"Um, yeah I guess so." I was kind of confused as to where this was going.
Rexy decided to chime in to help with the confusion "Keeby is a bit of a worry wart with what could go wrong." He says smirking at her.
" I AM NOT. I just want to know what could go wrong so I can stop it from happening!" She said indignantly.
I let their squabbles take out the other background noise before going to the star. "This could really speed up my ships production, I'm going to need a lot of gold but that can be mined and fabricated using alchemy pretty easily in the fabricator."
"So, like whatcha thinking about?" Mochi said curiously as he hopped down off the star to let me get a better look at the seating arrangement, honestly one of the worst parts about it- wait he said something.
"Oh! I'm going to need to upscale this a bit to make the shuttle. I'll probably give it a proper cockpit in the middle along with more than just mental controls and some autopilot, that'll help if I'm ever hurt or something."
"Will you make em faster then? What with being bigger and all." He said curiously
"Yeah probably, but speed isn't really what I need most about it in all honesty. Safety and maneuverability are key to what I need with it." I said sketching out a rough design on a large board I commandeered from the engineering bay. I think he followed me as I went there, I was a bit out of it babbling off ship ideas
"Are you going to put any weapons on it? What if, like, wherever you go is hostile or something?" He said curiously
"Probably going to need to add some laser ritual circles onto it. It's just a ritual circle supplied by the craft that shoots lasers on a maneuverable mount." I said sketching out where they could go.
"Those seem a bit flimsy," he said looking at the mount, "Are you sure they won't just come off by accident?" He said pointing to the mountings, to his credit running the numbers meant the shields couldn't project over those areas well due the increased energy demand in that specific area of the ship.
"Maybe use some, like, smaller drone craft if you're going into an area like that?" He said mused before pointing to the nose of his craft "I installed a central cannon on mine because it was easier to keep covered and fire in a pinch. Fly at target, shoot. It can even turn a good amount of turret turning to shoot in any direction labeled 'in front of the craft.'"
The cannon itself looked like a divot on the corner of the front of the star but looking at it again does show that the rounded edges of it allowed it to turn more than originally noted.
"I also modified mine to have straps because I can't breathe in space like Kirby and if I get knocked off I'm done." he said pointing to what I had originally assumed were the base parts of the construct.
Wait, these things don't normally have seat belts!?
Further note that could work, though it gets closer to being a fighter craft than a shuttle craft. Maybe having a fighter would work better on new planets? I can always make a shuttle based around gathering and moving people and material if needed.
I guess I'm making three ships now, wonderful.
Either way I keep working to design this new craft with him for what seems like hours before needing to come to a break.
Apparently Mochi really knows his reverse magitech.
To save on time and energy it will have taken us months to come up with a final design for all three crafts, but that is my day to day life as normal.
It was what happened the next day that shook me the most, Kirby came home. He was not at all how I assumed he would be like.