Crownless Rulers
A sweet aroma brought Sectonia out of the most pleasant dreams she had had in many years.
She couldn't remember the last time she had slept so peacefully. While she appreciated it, she couldn't help but find the situation odd. With all the worries she had on her mind, as well as the bad memories Tar had unintentionally brought back, her dreams last night should not have been as nice as they were.
"I wonder if that relaxing tea that Tar made me before going to sleep has something to do with this. No, I don't think that's it. It didn't taste much different from the tea I used to drink in the past. Perhaps it's a thing of this world. I sense a lot of magic in the air..." the spider mused while she looked at the ceiling of the room.
Just as they had agreed upon that dimension's Taranza calling her Toni, they had also decided that she could call him "Tar". Using nicknames made their collaboration easier since it allowed them to see each other as different people from the ones they once knew, reducing the awkwardness that had reigned between them since they met.
Suddenly, something moved on the bed. Beside her, Kirby had also woken up due to the sweet scent that was wafting through the room. Tar had lent her and Kirby his bed (somewhat big for a person who lived alone) so they could rest properly, while he would surely have slept on the living room's couch.
"Mornin', Toni!" Kirby greeted her with a bright smile.
"Good morning to you too, little one," Sectonia replied.
Unless the part that was missing from her memory was actually an extended period of time, Sectonia had met Kirby a few hours before the beginning of the mission. Meta Knight had already informed her that the "legendary hero" who had put an end to eNeMeE's intergalactic tyranny a year ago was very young, but she still couldn't help but be surprised when she got to see him in person. It was hard to believe that a baby who had just learned to say a few short sentences could hide so much power within him!
Sectonia had never been good with children and often avoided them, but Kirby had won her heart with his cute appearance, his innocence and his kindness. Not to mention that, thanks to him, the being who had taken everything she had loved from her had been executed.
"I only wish that cursed wizard had suffered a little more. According to Meta Knight, it only took Kirby a single shot from the Star Rod to defeat him... " she thought bitterly.
"Toni angy, poyo?" the young hero inquired, concerned by the spider's frown.
"No, no. Don't worry about it. I was just thinking about a person I don't like," she replied with a nervous smile. "Are you ready for today?"
The Star Warrior enthusiastically nodded as he said "poyo" repeatedly before jumping out of bed and running towards the bedroom door. Tar had promised them the night before that they would meet the Meta Knight of that dimension later that day and that he could help them find the other members of her party.
"It was supposed to be just Meta Knight, Kirby, his guardian, and me. I hope we're not here because that idiotic king messed up the mission..." she growled, frustrated because she couldn't recall the circumstances that had caused them to take refuge in that strange alternate dimension. "Why did Meta Knight even pick this one?" she wondered.
Sectonia sighed before getting up from the bed and following Kirby. Tar's house was rather small. It had only one bedroom, one bathroom and a living room with an open kitchen. In another time, she would have laughed at the ridiculous size of that residence for someone claiming to be "Floralia's ambassador to Dreamland." She would have ensured that the ambassador of her land lived in luxury in an ostentatious mansion as an example of the wealth, power and beauty of the Kingdom of Floralia.
"What a fool," she scolded the arrogant and vain queen that she could have become but that, in the end, had only existed in her imagination.
"Oh, good morning. I didn't notice you two had already awoken," Tar's voice brought her out of her reverie. The other spider was making pancakes. "Good, because breakfast is almost ready!
Kirby let out more cheerful "poyos" as he sat down at the living room table.
"Good morning to you too," Sectonia replied as she sat down alongside Kirby.
"Did you get a good night's sleep? We have a long day ahead of us," Tar asked gently.
"We've both rested quite well," Sectonia replied. Kirby said a few more "poyos" in a cheerful confirmation.
It didn't take long for Tar to serve them their pancakes and sit down to eat breakfast with them. To the surprise of neither spider, Kirby finished off his plate in half a second.
"Some things don't change from one dimension to another," Tar chuckled. "Was it tasty?" Tar asked the puffball, who nodded happily.
"More, more, poyo!" Kirby demanded.
"Kirby, that's not polite," Sectonia scolded.
"More, pwease?" Kirby asked in a calmer tone.
"That's better, but Tar still needs to eat, and he can't stop to make more pancakes for you."
"Ah, but what you don't know is that I am a great magician who can do incredible things," the other spider stated, adopting a circus conjurer's tone. "Et voila! A second plate of pancakes for Kirby!"
As he said that, Tar made a second plate of pancakes appear with a flick of his hands.
The gesture brought a sweet but bitter memory to Sectonia's mind. Her Taranza had done similar tricks to cheer her up in the past. The former princess of Floralia sighed. No matter how hard she tried to separate her dimension's Taranza from that alternate version, whatever the latter did would always remind her in one way or another of the one she had lost.
Kirby, on his part, stared intently at the plate of pancakes that, in his eyes, had come out of nowhere and proceeded to clap excitedly before devouring them.
Upon observing the puffball, Sectonia decided not to delay breakfast any longer. It would be discourteous to allow the pancakes to get cold. It had been too long since someone had prepared breakfast for her, but she had not forgotten the etiquette.
"This flavour is fantastic. I'm not sure if it's because I hadn't eaten pancakes in so long that I almost forgot what they tasted like, but no wonder Kirby wanted to repeat," Sectonia thought, trying her best to keep her composure and not gobble up the pancakes like a hungry wild animal.
"What do you think? Are they any good?" Tar asked her. "I've been learning to cook, and I know that Kirby is not an objective judge since he eats everything put in front of him," he explained.
"It has been a long time since I last ate something so delicious," she answered sincerely.
"Really?" Tar replied with excitement. Sectonia nodded. "I knew Marx was lying when he tasted them the other day!" he exclaimed. "That mischievous imp said 'I don't know. I can't find a distinct flavour yet. I think you need to bring more'. And on top of that, Magolor agreed with him. All along, what they wanted was for me to prepare more food for them! You can't trust those two," he ranted.
In normal circumstances, a person would ask who Magolor and Marx were, but Sectonia would not. Even if there was now some normalcy between her and Tar, she couldn't afford to get to know him on a deeper level. She couldn't let herself be distracted. The less she knew of his personal life, the better. After all, once she was done with the mission, it was very unlikely that she would ever see him again.
"Were you able to talk to this world's Meta Knight after your conversation was cut off?" Sectonia asked in order to focus the topic.
"Yeah. If everything goes smoothly, we should be able to meet with him and King Dedede at noon," he confirmed.
"How long does it take to get from here to this dimension's Castle Dedede?" she inquired.
"It'll take a couple of hours unless we can find a lone Warp Star or a couple of Wheelies ready to give us a ride. I'll pack some provisions for the trip, and then we'll leave. In the meantime,why don't you take Kirby out into the garden? He looks kinda bored from sitting there doing nothing," he added, pointing to the young puffball, whose frown vanished as he heard that.
"Gaden, gaden, poyo!" Kirby repeated happily.
"Okay, but don't take too long," Sectonia agreed. "We don't have much time to waste..."
Kirby ran into the garden without further ado. Sectonia put on the hood of her cloak and followed him.
When they had arrived at Tar's house the night before, she had been so exhausted that she hadn't noticed how beautiful the garden was. Now that she could see it fully, she couldn't help but feel awed. It was like someone had taken a small piece of Floralia and put it in Dreamland.
"Has Tar grown all of this by himself? It is astounding. Taranza always had a good hand with flowers, but he never had time to dedicate himself to gardening at this level," Sectonia contemplated wistfully as she gazed around. There were plants and flowers that, in her homeworld, had been lost for years and that she was sure she would never see again, such as...
Sectonia stopped when she saw a flower bed filled with a specific type of flower. These were once the most beautiful flowers that had bloomed in her kingdom, the same ones in front of which she had confessed her feelings to the person she loved.
"Floralia's Moonflowers," she said softly as she caressed the closed petals of one of the flowers. A mixture of feelings swirled in her heart. Was it happiness because she had found that small piece of her past, or was it sadness born from all the painful memories the flowers evoked?
Floralia's Moonflowers had disappeared along with most of the flora when eNeMeE's forces ravaged her kingdom and then occupied her lands. The only plants that thrived in Floralia after that horrid day were those that could be used to create poisons and other harmful substances. N.M.E. had forbidden the replanting of any vegetation that would not be useful to their cause.
What once was a beautiful kingdom, allied in secret with the GSA before the fall of the Star Warriors, had become a hostile, almost barren land. The forests and grasslands of the sky islands had either been turned into factories or completely destroyed due to excessive mining (the only place that had remained unchanged was the volcanic terrain of Endless Explosions). The survivors of both her kind and the rest of the People of the Sky had been forced to hide at the risk of becoming slaves, test subjects, or turned into monsters under the control of an intergalactic tyrant.
As for Sectonia, she ended up being the only person left with the power to protect her people, so she had not only become their guardian but also a direct target of N.M.E. The future ruler of the kingdom had been turned into a fugitive.
"We couldn't even prepare a proper funeral for all the people we lost that day..." she lamented. Sometimes she wondered why fate had chosen her to be one of the few survivors. "It wasn't fate, and you know that. You are still alive because of him. That's why you kept fighting on," she reminded herself.
Suddenly, something touched her back, startling her and putting her on high alert. She summoned her rapiers out of reflex, and in the blink of an eye, she turned on the aggressor and pointed her rapiers at their throat.
But what had touched her wasn't an enemy. It was Tar, who had closed his eyes and was shaking a bit.
"I'm sorry, your highness. I was merely concerned about you, and since you didn't respond to my call..." the spider apologised. Despite Tar's best efforts, Sectonia could feel his fear. "It was my fault. I'm sorry for interrupting you," he apologised once more. "I won't upset you ever again."
That reaction caught Sectonia's attention, especially since "Tar" had treated her with that forced adoring tone that he had used in their first meeting.
"It wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have reacted so harshly, being in a safe place," she told him in a conciliatory tone, trying to reassure him. Sectonia did not understand why he had reacted that way, but she knew that that kind of behaviour could not have a positive origin.
"Did the me from this dimension treat him with cruelty?" was the explanation Sectonia came up with. The thought of her doing something bad to Taranza made her shudder a little.
On his part, Tar opened his eyes again and stared at Sectonia as if it were the first time he had seen her. His fear quickly dissipated as he came to the realisation that he was not facing his world's Sectonia.
"It's all right, Tony. I don't know what happened to me," Tar answered awkwardly, rubbing his head with one of his hands as if dismissing the matter. "I suppose I reacted that way because I was startled," he lied.
"I'm sorry about that," Sectonia apologised, deciding not to inquire for the moment why Tar had reacted that way since he still looked quite nervous. "For your own safety, don't do that again," she warned him. "When someone approaches me behind my back, I tend to lose control of my instincts."
Tar looked at Sectonia with concern. He also suspected that something was behind her abrupt and excessive reaction when he touched her back.
"Why did this have to happen now that things were getting as normal as possible between us?" the spider rued.
A high-pitched cry broke the bitter tension between the two spiders. They both turned to see where it came from. It turned out to be Kirby, who had accidentally become entangled in some vines while playing. Tar hurried to get him out of there, more likely to preserve the integrity of his garden than because he believed that Kirby couldn't get out of there on his own.
"We should part soon, unless you want Kirby to destroy your garden," Sectonia told Tar once he returned with the Star Warrior in his hands. He did not argue.
It didn't take them long to begin their journey to Dedede Castle. After that unfortunate incident, a new tension had developed between the two spiders, and even if they both tried to ignore it, distracting themselves from it with banal comments about the geography of that alternative Dreamland, they couldn't.
Because now they knew something about the other but didn't dare ask about it: both had been through a lot of suffering in the past.
º.·º.·
The Dedede from Tiff's dimension had never had a dream as delightful as the one he was having that night. Everyone adored him, he had loads of money and was enjoying the most delicious food in the world. Everything in his dream was absolutely perfect!
Well, not everything. The first part of his dream had been very weird. He'd ended up in an alternate dimension, where he had fought another Dedede. Said Dedede not only got along with an older, more talkative Kirby and a way meaner, more intimidating Meta Knight, but he was also super strong (probably because he had cheated). Aside from that, all the other parts of his dream had been so perfect that he just wanted to sleep and sleep until noon. Perhaps even the entire day.
It was at that moment that someone began to play a tune very close to his ear with a trumpet, giving him such a scare that he jumped up from his sleeping bag a few metres, almost breaking the tent's ceiling.
"I'M SO DONE WITH YOU, SPOILED BRAT! YOUR PARENTS WILL HEAR OF THIS! YOU ARE GOING TO BE GROUNDED UNTIL THE NEXT CENTURY!" Dedede yelled furiously once he landed, looking to the sides in search of the usual culprit behind that kind of prank. But instead of finding Sir Ebrum's son laughing, the face that greeted him was his own, looking at him with an amused expression.
"Nice leap. You almost beat the galatic record for 'bed jumping due to a scare'," the other Dedede mocked him.
"Wait, so the alternate universe part wasn't a dream? That means I lost to this second-rate Dedede!" Dedede wailed internally, frustrated. "I must find a way to get back at him..."
"By the way, who did you call a spoiled brat? You weren't referring to me, right?" the other Dedede questioned him, visibly annoyed and even a bit angry.
"I mistook you for Tiff's annoying brother. He enjoys pranking me," he answered, quite irritated. "What time is it?"
"Nine in the morning."
"Meh, it's too early. I'm going back to sleep," he replied dismissively, laying back on his sleeping bag and turning his back on that alternate version of himself.
"No way! You have to work! If you wanted to sleep, you should have thought about it before destroying my castle!" his other self complained.
"Too late. I'm already sleeping," Dedede teased before starting to fake snore. He chuckled when he heard the second-rate Dedede growl.
However, his chuckle was cut short when the other Dedede picked him up and yanked him out of the tent. He then violently removed Dedede's sleeping bag, leaving him on the ground. Dedede looked up, only to discover that the Meta Knight from that dimension was staring at him not far from there, as if he were judging him. Or perhaps he found that situation amusing; it was hard to tell.
"How dare you humiliate me like this?! This is no way to treat a king!" Dedede yelled angrily at his other self as he stood up.
"And using a stolen robot to destroy his castle is?" the other countered.
"That doesn't count! I am the king of Dreamland in mine and any other dimension; therefore, that castle also belonged to me, and I had every right to claim it and destroy it at will!"
The other Dedede and his Meta Knight, who had approached them, exchanged a quick glance.
"I don't know how to argue that," the monarch of that Dreamland remarked, perplexed.
"Heh. So you admit I'm right," he bragged.
"No. That is just the most far-fetched reasoning I've ever heard. I don't know how your brain works for it to reach that conclusion!" the other Dedede exclaimed.
"It doesn't," one of the voices that most irritated him in the world said above him.
As if his day wasn't already bad enough, Tiff had to arrive to make it even worse. She was riding what looked a lot like Kirby's Warp Star, except it was larger than normal. The chatty Kirby, the bandana-wearing Waddle Dee (who likely was the lapdog of that dimension's Dedede), and the goofy-eyed blue blob accompanied the meddling girl.
"What exactly are you doing here, you bunch of brats?" Dedede asked them meanly. Then he noticed Tiff holding what looked like a thick tree branch with a carved handle and yelled: "and who in the world gave you a weapon?!"
"We've come to report that we're ready to leave," Tiff replied, deliberately ignoring his question about the branch.
"Oh, you four are leaving? Will it be forever?" he asked excitedly.
"No, poyo!" the pink menace 2.0 exclaimed indignantly, as if he were offended by what Dedede had insinuated. "How could we be leaving forever?! Bandee lives in the castle, Gooey likes to visit once in a while, and Dedede is my best friend!"
A disgusted expression appeared on Dedede's face when he heard that Kirby refer to him as "his best friend". Yes, he knew the puffball was actually referring to that dimension's Dedede, but he still couldn't bear the idea of getting along with that pink menace in any world.
"We're on our way to pick up my brother. I'm not sure how long it will take, but we'll be back," Tiff clarified with a tone that implied that she knew that this answer was going to irritate Dedede a lot.
"Oh, great. Not only will they return, but they are also bringing Tuff back with them. This day is only getting better!" Dedede groaned.
"Are you carrying an airbag, Tiff? Kirby is a speed demon and more often than not he ends up crashing the Warp Star," the alternate Dedede mocked the pink menace 2.0.
"Hey! I only drive recklessly when I travel alone!" the older Kirby complained, puffing out his cheeks, making the lesser Dedede chuckle.
"Be alert in case creatures like the ones from last night appear again," Meta Knight warned the brats in a serious tone.
"Creatures like the ones from last night?" Dedede repeated in his mind, puzzled. "Did I miss something big?"
"Don't worry, Meta Knight, I won't let my guard down!" the Waddle Dee with the bandana claimed. Dedede still wasn't used to seeing the Waddle Dees talking and being moderately competent.
"How come mine aren't like that? Are they defective?" Dedede thought, feeling jealous because his other self's Waddle Dees were better.
"It's good to know we can rely on you, Bandee. Kirby and Gooey get distracted even by the flight of a butterfly," the other Dedede said.
"I don't get distracted by..." the talking Kirby began to complain.
"Look Kirby! A butterfly!" the blue blob interrupted him before pointing with his tongue at a butterfly with orange and yellow wings.
"Oh? Where? Where?"
"Ahem," the intimidating Meta Knight faked a cough to claim the pink menace 2.0's attention. "You should leave now. Daroach is waiting for you and you should waste his time."
"Hehe, sorry. See you later, Dedede, Meta Knight and Dedede!" The alternate Kirby waved them goodbye with a smile. The rest of the brats did the same before the Warp Star flew away at high speed. The last thing Dedede saw of the kids was Tiff's expression of fear as the star shot into the sky.
"And how come you don't go with them?" Dedede questioned his counterpart. "I thought that you and that pink menace were 'super duper ultra buddies'," he added in a corny tone, hoping to annoy the other.
"Kirby is first and foremost my rival," the alternate Dedede corrected him. Dedede rolled his eyes. That was an obvious lie. It was clear that between those two there was something more than rivalry, and, for some reason, that angered him. "Besides, if I left you here alone, you would take advantage of it to pin all your tasks on Escargoon. I can read you like an open book!"
Before Dedede could arque, his counterpart pulled a workman's helmet out of his coat and roughly planted it on his head before saying:
"What are you waiting for? The castle won't rebuild itself!"
"No! You can't force me to do anything!" Dedede flatly refused, aggressively removing the helmet and tossing it on the ground. The other Dedede glared at him. "I am a king, and I am above these mundane tasks!" he added, not letting himself be intimidated.
"In this world, you are not king of anything, but someone who has made a mistake and has to learn to deal with the consequences of their acts," his counterpart said with exasperation while he picked up the helmet and cleaned the dirt off it.
"Why do you even care? It's my life, not yours," Dedede replied, frustrated. "Also, this is all your fault! If you had let me take over your castle, you wouldn't have to live in a camp now!"
"The nerve of this guy!" the other Dedede exclaimed, angry.
"Not to mention how ugly your castle was. I've done you a favour by destroying it!" Dedede continued. "How could you live in a place with such a shabby facade? And all that unnecessary lighting... Are you afraid of the dark or something?"
A grim expression crossed the face of the alternate Dedede. It was very brief, but still, Dedede noticed it. "Aha! That must mean I've got it right! I finally have something to use against him," he thought wickedly.
The second-rate Dedede was about to say something, but he stopped himself at the last second. Dedede took the opportunity to continue attacking him.
"Is that it? Can't you sleep without a light on like a small kid?" Dedede insisted, in an offensive tone.
"You don't know what you're talking about. My patience has a limit, and you're crossing the line," the other Dedede warned him, in a tone that sounded somewhat threatening.
Dedede, however, decided to ignore the warning. He was having so much fun pissing off his other self that it was worth the risk. What's the worst he could do to him?
"Anyway, where did you get those idiotic Waddle Dees? They may be able to speak, but if they don't know how to appreciate my greatness, it means they are very stupid. Not to mention..."
Dedede didn't get to finish that sentence because his counterpart almost jumped on him like a rabid animal. The only thing that prevented that from happening was the intimidating Meta Knight getting between them at the last moment.
"Dedede, calm down," the menacing Meta Knight asked the other Dedede.
"LET ME AT HIM! I won't tolerate any insult to my Waddle Dees from this moron!" the other raged.
"I'm not going to move until you calm down!" the knight refused. "You're better than this!" Don't let this guy lower you to his level."
The other Dedede growled, but finally stopped. Dedede breathed a sigh of relief.
"And you need to understand that your title is meaningless here. There is only one king in this Dreamland and it's definitely not you," that Meta Knight said to Dedede. "Or is your behaviour due to your desire for a rematch? I warn you that the outcome would be even worse than yesterday's," he threatened.
Faced with the fury of his counterpart and the menacing aura of that Meta Knight, Dedede had no choice but to give up.
"Tchht, you guys are so annoying. I'll work just so I don't have to hear any of you," he reluctantly relented. "What do I have to do?"
"Escargoon has been working inside the castle for a while, along with several of my Waddle Dees. Meet with him and help him lay the groundwork," his counterpart instructed. Next, he called some nearby Waddle Dees and said to them, "Keep an eye on him so he doesn't slip away. Also, I order you to poke him with the spears if he is mean to any of you," he added.
"Don't even think about it! I am a king, and you must respect me! If I mess with you, you have to put up with it without retaliation!" Dedede screamed at them.
The Waddle Dees looked back and forth between the two Dededes. After murmuring between them for a few seconds, the closest of the group turned to that dimension's Dedede and said in a slightly doubtful tone:
"It will be as you ordered, Great King."
Dedede glared at his counterpart but didn't have time to say anything else because the Waddle Dees began to harass him, forcing him to move towards the castle. If he had his mallet, he could beat them as soon as no one saw him and run away, but he lost it when the intimidating Meta Knight's fan club captured him. He had no choice but to do as he was told until he could find the slightest opportunity to escape. Maybe Escargoon already had a plan.
Dedede turned for a moment to look at the lesser Dedede. He was now conversing with the intimidating Meta Knight, who had grabbed him by the hand. For some reason, seeing that gesture of trust and closeness between the two filled him with rage. Dedede didn't understand why everyone seemed to respect and adore his counterpart while he was ignored and mistreated. That Dedede even had that more intimidating version of Meta Knight and the pink menace 2.0 eating out of his hands! With those two on his side and without Sir Ebrum's children to bother him, no one could oppose the whims of that world's Dedede.
"If we are the same person, what does he have that I don't? It must be money. I bet he's got everyone bribed," he deduced. "Or maybe he has a monster hiding somewhere that has hypnotised everybody into worshipping him! Maybe even…"
As he walked towards the castle, Dedede continued to wonder about that issue (with increasingly absurd ideas) until he made a decision.
"I'm going to find out his secret, and when I do, I'm going to make everyone adore me instead of him!"