Preparations for the Lor were swift. The group hastily gathered all available supplies from the castle—food, medicine, weapons, and more—ensuring they were well-equipped for whatever lay ahead. Magolor wasted no time in piloting the ship out of the atmosphere.
Despite the lack of incoming signals, Magolor persisted in his search for the Halberd, clinging to a sliver of hope amidst the uncertainty that a sign was out there somewhere that could lead the ships to each other.
Meta Knight stood silently behind Magolor, his gaze fixed on the screen as Popstar gradually receded into the distance, eventually obscured by a cascade of error-ridden windows. His heart sunk, weighing heavily in his gut. Without a word, he turned away from the helm room, leaving the others behind as he retreated into the depths of the ship.
"Are you planning on keeping your injury secret?" Dark Meta Knight asked with a sharp look. Meta leaned against the wall, not facing Dark as he addressed him.
"It'll heal. They needn't worry."
"And if it doesn't? What use will you be?" he huffed, arms folded in a clear show of his annoyance. Meta shook his head and pushed away from the wall, wandering further down the hall.
"I can handle it myself."
Dark's armor clanked noisily as he trailed behind Meta, a string of angry curses escaping his lips. Meta didn't have the energy to tell him off or send him away. He was followed all the way to a quiet room in the back of the ship where they stored their medical supplies.
"Since you're following me, are you planning to help?" Meta asked, unlatching his breast plate and setting it aside. Dark folded his arms, pausing in the doorway.
"No."
"Then leave."
Meta Knight worked in silence, tending to his wound with practiced efficiency. The pain was constant, gnawing at his nerves with each heavy pang. As he wrapped fresh bandages around the injury, he couldn't shake the feeling of impending doom that lingered in the air.
Dark Meta Knight remained in the doorway, his presence unwelcome and heavy. He refused to do more than watch as Meta dressed his wounds. He seemed lost in his own head. There was a lot of that going around.
"Why didn't she kill you?" Dark asked. Meta looked over his shoulder and cocked a brow.
"How am I supposed to know?"
"She keeps insisting you know each other. We have some down time. Think," he huffed and folded his arms, leaning on the door frame. Blunt as always. Meta turned back to his bandages and finished patching himself up. It wasn't worth telling Dark how many times he had tried to figure out what she was talking about only to come up with nothing. He had no more info about the past than before. Nothing but the familiarity he had since the beginning.
He leaned against the table in the medical bay with his hip and rested a hand on his bandaged stomach.
That fight… he had turned it around in his mind a dozen of times by now. Her cryptic words and the burning in her eyes. The aggressive attack pattern. She was formidable, everything pointed to that fact, but she almost refused to actually strike him. And once she did it was like something stopped her. The fire died in her eyes. But what replaced it, he couldn't say.
"She's holding back," Meta decided finally.
"Mhm. Why?" Dark urged. That was the question hanging over everything. Why. Meta shook his head and removed his helmet, dragging a hand over his face and sighing.
"I don't know. So we'll be under-prepared?"
"Don't guess. We can't convince ourselves of something just because we have no other answers," he turned his gaze down the hall, straightening his back against the door frame. Meta raised a brow at him. He had a point, getting complacent with a suggestion would stop them from really figuring it out. Meta dropped his hands in his lap, his dark blue hair falling into his face.
"Do you remember anything?"
Meta Knight lifted his gaze to Dark, the question catching him off guard. He hummed in confusion before Dark clarified.
"Your past… do you remember it at all?"
Meta paused, considering the question carefully. Memories flickered at the edges of his consciousness, elusive and fragmented.
"…Some of it. Some things are more faint than others," Meta said, carefully choosing his words. There were events he preferred not to dwell on , as well as memories he revisited often. But he never intentionally buried them. Not even the one that haunted him the most.
"You're avoiding it," Dark's accusation halted Meta's train of thought. He tightened his jaw and frowned, glaring at him.
"I have scoured every inch of my mind; I found nothing of any Arcta Knight," he insisted.
"Forget the name," Dark huffed in annoyance. "She's not a real Knight, right? Then Arcta never existed before. She was someone else once."
Meta's gaze softened, a hint of uncertainty creeping into his expression.
"You're caught up in the mask. I think you forgot we're looking beneath it," Dark stated as he stepped away from the door frame. "You could do with some rest anyway. Take a nap or something."
Meta nodded silently, acknowledging Dark's suggestion with a faint sense of gratitude. Despite his reluctance to admit it, fatigue weighed heavily upon him, the strain of their investigation taking its toll on both body and mind. Dark departed, leaving Meta alone in the medical bay for a much needed moment of rest.
Hours passed with agonizing slowness, the silence broken only by the hum of the ship's engines and the occasional static crackle of the communication system. Magolor meticulously tapped at the keyboard, his eyes fixed on the monitors in a vigilant search for any sign of the lost ship. Marx had succumbed to sleep during the lengthy wait, while Dark stood at a distance, his gaze flitting disinterestedly over the screens.
Meta's return to the room after his rest brought a furrow to his brow as he surveyed the lack of progress. The monitors displayed nothing but the vast expanse of empty space and the twinkling stars beyond, intensifying the palpable sense of anticipation in the room. Yet, beneath the surface, a growing unease gnawed at Meta, a foreboding whisper in the depths of his mind.
Magolor's ears twitched anxiously at the long silence. Until, finally, a faint blip appeared on the ship's radar. Magolor's eyes widened in disbelief as he frantically adjusted the controls, his fingers flying over the console with practiced precision.
"I've found it!" Magolor exclaimed, his voice tinged with relief. "The Halberd!"
A surge of adrenaline flooded through Meta as he rushed to Magolor's side, his heart pounding in his chest. The sight of the familiar ship hovering in the distance filled him with a sense of hope and determination. However, as they drew closer, he couldn't ignore the distressing state of the vessel. Its wings hung limply, the mask was marred by deep cracks, and an engine dangled precariously from its housing.
"Let's go," Meta said, his voice firm with resolve. "We must rescue the civilians."