The main thing Twilight felt as she, Kirby, and Meta Knight descended back to the ground was exhaustion. She wanted to be triumphant, and she honestly felt like she deserved to be after that ordeal, but she couldn't muster up any feeling other than the want to collapse into a soft bed and sleep for a week.

Even with the Element of Magic helping her out over the day, she had been throwing around a lot of magic lately. Was this mana burn? She didn't have the usual headache that went with it, but all in all she just felt sort of empty. She doubted that she'd even notice mana burn symptoms with how much her muscles burned, particularly around her wings, and the complete emotional exhaustion.

Then Kirby's rainbow sword pulsed, and some of that emotional exhaustion abated. Twilight blinked. Maybe there was some leftover apathy from the darkness?

At that point she looked down and realized that her front was utterly coated in residue from when the creature of darkness had exploded. Meta Knight had been spared from it by most of it splashing off of his mask, and she wasn't quite sure how Kirby had avoided getting hit, but Twilight had been splattered with the stuff.

Somewhat disgusted, she fired up her horn and pulled it off of her. Thankfully, it wasn't very sticky and the darkness's remains seemed to react negatively to her magic, destroying itself right there in the air. Fascinated by the display, she didn't notice a few strands of fur on her chest, in the exact same place that the darkness had scratched her earlier using Spike's body, turn a deeper purple than the rest of her coat.

She was still exhausted physically, but a proper triumphant feeling was starting to finally set in. They'd won. Spike was safe and sound, just unconscious alongside Dedede. Before she could really start to revel in the feeling, though, Kirby's sword glowed so brightly that she had to shield her eyes.

When the glow subsided and Twilight placed her hoof back on the ground, the rainbow sword was no more. It had destructed itself, the seven Rainbow Droplets once again orbiting around Kirby for a moment before they shot off. The violet one landed near to them, embedding itself into the ground just shy of where the doors to Dark Castle once stood.

From that point, almost like a plant growing from a seed, a Rainbow Bridge emerged once again, stretching longer and longer until it reached Cloudy Park in the distance. When it finally touched down and seemed to magically lock itself into place, Twilight felt it. And she was sure the others did, too; that blanket feeling of apathy, the overall dulling of their emotions that the Element of Magic had been working overtime to fight against, was finally gone. The air even almost tasted fresher, and Twilight could instinctively tell that the Rainbow Bridges had been restored.

The rubble shifted by the destroyed entrance to Dark Castle, and every conscious member of the group was immediately on guard and turning towards the sound. Thankfully, though, their caution was unnecessary; the rubble had just been shifted by a very confused cat and fish.

Nago unceremoniously spat Kine out as soon as he reached the ground proper, though Coo reacted quickly to pick the sunfish up. Carefully, Nago looked at the exhausted but triumphant group as they lowered their guard, and he let a slight grin slip onto his face. "So, Ah take it ye won?"

Twilight felt herself grinning. "Yeah."

No further elaboration was required.

The entire island they were on seemed to shake, which quickly snapped everyone out of it. Bandee was the first to speak up. "So, I don't think this island is supposed to be floating."

Everyone's attention snapped to the newly-reformed Rainbow Bridge, and Sunset said what they were all thinking. "Well let's get the hell off of it!"

Twilight quickly levitated Spike onto her back at the same time that Chuchu and Rick worked together to hold Dedede aloft. Everyone started running once their injured were properly secured, and they were quick to cross the bridge. Almost as soon as they had and they were safely back on the solid ground of Cloudy Park, the island that would likely be formerly known as Dark Castle lost whatever magic was holding it in the air. It crashed back down into the ocean with the mightiest splash Twilight had ever heard, though by some miracle it didn't form a tsunami.

It was at that point that Twilight, finally, felt truly free from this nightmare. The darkness was dead, the Rainbow Bridges had been restored, Dark Castle was back in the water, and Spike was back, secure with her, and seemed coherent, just too tired to stay awake at the moment. If it weren't for the hard ground underneath her, she would've just laid down and fallen asleep then and there from sheer relief.

Hay, she might've (she'd even sat down already), had Meta Knight not cleared his throat. "I do believe that, between King Dedede's castle and my own complex on Orange Ocean, the castle is closer. That is still likely several hours away by foot, though. Is there someplace nearby where we could spend the night before we debrief in the morning?"

"Castle Iceberg is pretty spacious, y'know!" Chuchu piped up.

Bandee nodded. "I know that there's a rather large conference hall there as well we could use for a meeting tomorrow."

"Ah'll hang around fer the night," Nago said, "but as soon as that meetin's over with Ah'll be headin' back ta Red Canyon ta check in with Shiro."

Pitch nodded with him. "Ah'm sure my mama's gonna be beside herself if Ah don't get home soon!"

Meta sighed wearily. "I do still feel that having your account of events would be best."

Pitch perked up. "Oh, Ah know! Ah'll fly home tonight an' ask Mama if Ah can come tomorrow morning!"

Before anyone could actually speak up about that suggestion, he'd flown off.

Eventually, Twilight stood up and yawned. "Let's get going to Iceberg already."

The campfire crackled merrily on nearby her tent as Adeline continued to paint. She'd already eaten her dinner, some canned fruit and vegetables she'd brought along for the trip, so now she was just working by the firelight, hoping to finish her work before the inspiration fled her and she retired for the evening. That inspiration that she'd felt seeing the purple horse creature take on Kracko hadn't lasted long, but a few minutes ago she'd been hit with a second wind and taken to the canvas again.

And now, after a few long hours of working and with some flecks of purple paint adorning her cheeks from when she'd gotten a bit too forceful with her brush, Adeline stepped back with a grin to admire her art. The canvas was vertical, about fifty centimeters across on its bottom and a bit less than a meter tall. The purple winged unicorn was standing resolutely on her painted recreation of the ground, the visible parts of her face twisted into a determined snarl. The blue and pink creatures stood next to her, and a shiny purple orb represented the shield that Adeline had seen the horse creature use to defend the rest of their group.

They were, of course, standing against Kracko, represented by the other half of the canvas being covered by a dark gray stormcloud, painted strikes of lightning jumping across that half of the painting. A single eye looked down on the group, though unlike Kracko's usual smugness, it was wide with shock and fear. This was, after all, a recreation of the moment Adeline had seen when the purple horse creature had taken down Kracko in a single strike, and the bright purple beam spearing up from their horn, even on the canvas, seemed to impart so much feeling.

It was, all in all, one of her best pieces, Adeline felt. Continuing to grin, she set up a tarp overtop of the canvas, allowing the paint to dry overnight but protecting it from any inclement weather that might pop up. She knew well how easily the weather there could flip on a dime—she'd come to Cloudy Park in the first place to really get a good look at Kracko for future references, after all!

Still, Adeline was rather giddy as she used a washcloth to wipe the paint off of her face, put out her fire, and entered her tent to settle in for the night. Getting that art out and onto the canvas had felt great, and even though she had gotten a good look at Kracko while he battled the purple horse creature, she was thinking of sticking around Cloudy Park for a few more days anyway. He might return, after all, and she had enough canned food to last for a week. Plus, the isolation was helpful for working on her technique to animate her art. She still had to work out some issues she was having with the magic that her father had taught her, and her paint golems were never quite as versatile or powerful as the real things they represented.

She frowned a bit at the thought of her late father, but that tragedy was in the past. He had told her to stay strong before sending her off to Popstar for her own safety, so that was what she'd do. She'd shake off these sad thoughts and focus on the future.

Quickly falling asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, Adeline's dreams that night were full of purple lasers and paint. The Fountain, though, prevented staves and skulls from invading her sleeping mind.

The waters of Secret Sea were rough under Popstar's three moons, but Captain Vul wasn't going to let that deter him from his mission. He'd already lost enough time wallowing in whatever it was that came over him and his crew, and he sure as hell wasn't going to lose any more. Especially since the wind and waves seemed to have snapped them out of whatever funk they were in, and the situation had gotten far worse than the fair weather they'd had in the morning.

"I am not losing another damn boat this soon," Vul growled, mostly to himself, as he stumbled a bit at the ship's rocking. "Mace Knight!" he barked. "Head belowdecks and check in with Axe to see if the scan's got any results! If this storm doesn't let up I'll have to turn this boat around and head back to port!"

Mace Knight, currently the only other occupant of the bridge, saluted. "Aye aye, Cap'n!"

Vul grumbled a bit at being called that, but Mace was gone before he could actually vocalize anything. His communicator beeping and a staticy voice cutting through distracted him, though.

"Vul!" Sailor Dee's voice rang out, though the storm was messing with the connection enough that Vul could barely recognize it. "Vul, come in!"

Vul yanked the device off of his belt and spoke. "Is something going on at the complex?"

Sailor was quiet for a moment, probably thinking on how to answer. "Not really. I don't know much, but Meta Knight flew off with Miss Shimmer in a hurry after we got news from Castle Dedede that Spike the Dragon had been possessed."

Vul sucked in a breath. "Was that where the whole…emotional funk was coming from? Did you all feel that, too?"

"I think so, but I will have to check with Sir when he gets back," Sailor said. "For now, it's good to know that you're safe."

Vul stumbled again as the ship rocked and something fell over on the bridge. "Sure, 'safe.' Let's go with that."

"I heard a crash," Sailor noted. "Are you certain that you're fine to be at sea right now?"

"I'm turning this ship around soon, anyway," Vul said. "Mace and Axe are just checking right now to see if-"

"Captain!" Axe Knight's cry cut him off, the man rushing onto the bridge with Mace right behind. "We've found it!"

He shoved a folder into Vul's wings, nearly forcing the captain to drop his communicator. Quickly, he peeked at the contents, and his eyes widened. "We'll be back in an hour, Sailor."

He clipped the communicator back onto his belt and looked again at the folder. It was a series of printed off sonar scans of the seafloor, a set of coordinates written across the top of one particular print. That scan had an unusual bump in the topography of the ocean floor, and its shape told Vul that his crew had, in fact, found what they were looking for.

They'd found the wreckage of the Halberd.

Now they just needed to get to work shoring it up.

Rainbow Dash yawned loudly, which seemed to trigger a series of other yawns all around Discord's living room. "Alright, I'm beat," she said, taking to the air and beginning to hover towards the filing cabinet.

She was the first to recover from the stupor that witnessing that final battle had everypony in. It was…intense, Fluttershy felt was the best way to put it. She was happy that Spike was freed from that parasite (and, as terrifying a thought as it was, studying such a creature in a safer environment would likely be fascinating), of course. Immensely so, though she didn't have quite as intense of a reaction as Shining Armor, who actually broke into relieved tears.

Everypony, thankfully, was tactful enough to not mention it. Though Fluttershy did have to poke Discord a bit to make sure he kept his mouth shut.

Most of the others were fairly quiet as they dispersed, with it being so late and them having to get home. Applejack, Fluttershy knew, was probably feeling guilty over leaving the day's chores to Big Mac and Applebloom. Rarity had complained during their last spa day that her sales numbers were down a bit this quarter from what she'd predicted, so Fluttershy figured that she wasn't particularly happy about having to close the boutique for a day either.

Both of them were quiet while leaving, just offering soft goodbyes, and Pinkie followed after them after giving Fluttershy a quick hug. And at that, it was just Fluttershy, Discord, and the two royals in the room.

"Do you think," Cadance said after a moment, "that you might be able to contact us if something like this happens again, Discord?"

Discord stroked his beard, hemming and hawing. "I dunno…" he drawled. "That seems like a lot of work…"

Fluttershy gave him a look and let out a disappointed sigh. "Discord…"

He rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine." He snapped his paw, and suddenly the four of them were back in Fluttershy's cottage. Over her door was a light bulb, though oddly it was a heptagon. Discord snapped his tail, and it started glowing, though not the soft yellow of other incandescent bulbs that Fluttershy had seen and was subconsciously expecting; it instead seemed to cycle through a rainbow. Though, looking closer, Fluttershy noted that it was a minus rainbow; it started on cyan and cycled through magenta and yellow.

Discord grinned his snaggletoothed grin. "There! Now when something interesting happens on Popstar I can let Fluttershy know!"

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow at him. "And you want me to let the others know?"

Discord shrugged dismissively. "Well I can't go around and ask everypony if they want to watch Twiggles prance around on Popstar! So I'll…" he seemed to consider his words for a moment, "defer to you on who is best to tell!"

Fluttershy sighed and looked at Cadance and Shining. "That's the best we're going to get," she said, ignoring Discord's indignant "Hey!" in the background.

"I'll be back tomorrow," Shining Armor added, speaking more to Fluttershy than Discord. "Meta Knight definitely knows something about what was going on there, and I want to hear what, exactly, it was."

Fluttershy nodded with a smile, though Discord crossed his arms with a huff. "Well, I can tell when I'm not wanted. I'll see you then, McShieldface."

He raised his talon to snap, though just before he did, Fluttershy began to speak.

"Oh, Discord, before you go, I wanted to ask about somepony you mentioned named Har-"

The snap completed, and Discord vanished in a flash of light before Fluttershy could finish the question.

"Oh," she stated the obvious, "he's already gone."

Shining seemed a bit concerned at puzzling over the nickname. "'McShieldface?'" he asked. "Really? I feel like he could've done better than that."

Cadance giggled. "It'd be like if he called me 'McHeartface.'"

"Well, he's called Twilight 'McBookface' before, among other things," Fluttershy commented. "Maybe it's something that he saves for your family?"

They all shared a chuckle over the thought of Discord doing something predictable, which in itself wasn't all that far-fetched, in Fluttershy's opinion. She'd spent enough time with the draconequus at this point that she could tell that even he, in all his chaotic glory, had habits.

"Anyway, Fluttershy, thank you so much for having us today," Cadance said. "I'd thank Discord as well, but he's…not here, obviously."

Fluttershy smiled. "It was a pleasure. I'll see you tomorrow, I take it?"

Shining nodded. "Hopefully not as early."

"Well, after what they all went through, I hope they'll sleep in!"

They did not, in fact, sleep in.

This was mostly because Spike woke up at four in the morning and immediately panicked about the (from his perspective) sudden change in location. Twilight didn't blame him, of course—she doubted that many would be calm in his situation—but it led to everyone spending the night in Castle Iceberg being up relatively early.

The castle's kitchens hadn't magically restocked themselves from when they'd stopped there for lunch, so their breakfast that morning was far from hearty. It existed, though, and importantly the workers that Dedede had sent Iceberg's way had stocked it with coffee grounds and left a coffee machine there as well. Sunset praised it like a deity when she found it at four thirty, and according to Meta Knight's eyewitness account when he later recounted the event to Twilight, she downed three cups of the stuff before she let anyone else close to the machine.

She had still been working to calm Spike down at the time. And herself, if she was being honest; both of them took a bit to internalize that they were safe and that Twilight had her brother back. The darkness was no longer an immediate threat.

All in all, though, it took them a while to properly get themselves set up and for Pitch to arrive with his mother in tow. Their debriefing started at ten, and before they began, Twilight took a moment to look around the room. Castle Iceberg, thankfully, had a massive conference room with an equally massive table that could accommodate them all, though barely. It helped that Coo, Pitch, and Pitch's mother weren't sitting, and that Twilight had fashioned a clear container of ice to fill with water for Kine's comfort. Meta Knight sat at the head of the table, as one of the de facto leaders of this alliance that they'd started. Sunset sat to his left, followed by Twilight and then Spike. Kirby was next to him, though he was distracted making faces at Gooey across the table.

Next to him was Bandee, sitting at his king's right hand. Dedede had claimed the other head of the table, as the major political player in the group native to Popstar itself. Finally, the other half of the table held the aforementioned Gooey, along with Rick to his left, Nago to his, and finally Chuchu sat directly across from Sunset.

The silence at the table was palpable, as everyone had much on their minds but were unsure of how to put it into words. Eventually, though, Meta Knight broke it.

"I know you all likely have questions," he said, "but I believe that it would first be pertinent to get the full story out there. Princess, you were there when Spike was possessed, correct?"

Twilight looked up and nodded, launching into the tale. The others chipped in when relevant (mainly Dedede boasting about the fights that he participated in) or for a few parts that were a struggle to get through emotionally. All the while, Meta nodded and hummed in thought; clearly he was piecing together some sort of picture, though of what Twilight had no clue.

Once she was done, he asked those who had been possessed about their experiences, and it mirrored what they had told Twilight upon being freed. With the exception of Rick, all of the animals that they'd fought and recruited had been directly possessed by the darkness, and they all had the same sort of experience. Their memories were fuzzy, and they didn't really get any information from their time under the darkness.

All that took the better part of an hour, and when Pitch finally finished giving his account, Meta Knight turned towards Spike. "And what about your experiences, Spike the Dragon?"

Spike audibly gulped, and Twilight wrapped a wing around him to provide some comfort. She'd found that the reminders that she was there, that he was safe, helped keep him calm. He was shaking a bit, but he eventually spoke up.

"I…I remember a bit more than the others," he admitted. "It's not a lot, but the Darkness thought kinda loud whenever I was…awake? Is that the right word?"

Meta blinked, surprised enough that Twilight could tell even with the mask. "I was aware that you were fighting back against the Darkness, but for you to have resisted it even from the beginning…" he fell silent for a moment, before nodding, seemingly satisfied. "You did well, young dragon."

Spike preened a bit at the praise, but quickly fell back into a more somber mood. "It…kept commenting that I had Heart, and whenever I woke up it tried harder to push me back down." He paused for a moment, considering what to say. "I think it was right after it fought Twilight and whenever it stored a Rainbow Droplet away that I woke up, but I still remember some of what it thought about and what it did to me…" He shuddered a bit, but suddenly blinked in surprise. "Wait, can I still…"

He fell quiet for a bit, intensely focused on something, when suddenly some sparks of electricity jumped between his claws and he whooped in triumph. Twilight did quickly retract her wing when he inadvertently shocked her, though, and he looked sheepish.

"We'll, ah, work on that," Twilight said, not quite sure how to take the fact that her brother now had permanent lightning powers on top of his fire-breathing and natural magic resistance.

"Regardless," Meta Knight said, "do you remember anything else from your time under the Darkness?"

Spike looked down again, thinking hard. "I…I think it was trying to prepare something by breaking the Rainbow Bridges? It wasn't super clear in its thoughts, just loud." He perked up. "Oh, it kept mentioning something called 'the Whole,' though!"

Meta sucked in a breath, his eyes wide behind his mask. Twilight could feel her ears instinctively tuck back, and everyone else at the table felt the concern as well.

"That's…bad, I take it?" Sunset said.

Meta sighed, and seemed to prepare himself for a long talk. "Very. Most of what I know of the Darkness comes from the very few survivors of it that my colony has encountered. Usually, those survivors are just people that happened to be off-world when their planet was taken, but a precious few manage to sometimes escape their world's death."

Twilight's eyes went wide. "This thing takes out entire planets on the regular?"

"Entire worlds shrouded in darkness, corrupting all that it comes across…" Sunset whispered, looking directly at Meta. "That's what you said back when we took down the Halberd. The Darkness is one of the threats you mentioned."

Meta Knight nodded. "I had hoped we had more time before we had to deal with Zero, though."

Nago looked puzzled, along with most of the rest of the table. "Zero?" he asked.

Meta sighed again, looking distant. "The last time my colony encountered a survivor of the Darkness, I was nine years old, by our calendar. My parents attempted to stop me from trying to see him, but I was a curious child, and my great-great-great grandmother was happy to enable me," he said, some fondness dripping into his voice. "My grandmother, thankfully, had traded with his species before, and spoke some of his language, so we were able to translate his babblings after we rescued him from what would've been a slow death among the stars."

"Babblings?" Dedede asked. "So I take it he wasn't all there, then."

Meta Knight shook his head. "He was not. From what my grandmother gathered, he was one of the few members of his species still alive, and the only member of his ship's crew that had survived to when we picked him up."

Twilight winced. "That's…that's horrid. The Darkness just wiped out an entire planet, just like that?"

"It's…a bit more complex than that," Meta continued. "His planet had had an encounter with the Darkness before, but successfully drove it off, similarly to what we have just done." His gaze darkened. "Except a few months later, it came back with reinforcements. An entire army of Darkness descended upon his world, accompanied by what we think was the leader of all Darkness in the universe. He didn't give it a proper name; he just called it what it felt like to simply gaze upon it. He felt empty, hollow, nothing, Zero."

"Sacre bleu," Chuchu whispered. "And…you think that this Zero is coming here? To Popstar?"

"I think," Meta Knight responded, "that this 'Whole' that Spike heard about is Zero. It is part of why I was so insistent on chasing down the Darkness and killing it before it escaped, but if they can communicate telepathically like we suspect then we may already be on a strict timetable."

"Shit," Sunset swore. "They're a hivemind?"

Meta shook his head. "It would be easier if it was—Spike would know everything about its plans, then. By my colony's best reckoning, it is more similar to an ant colony, albeit one that can communicate telepathically rather than chemically."

Bandee gave a weary sigh. "How long do we have?"

"Months, at best," Meta said.

"It won't be months," Spike spoke up, shaking a bit. Twilight once again wrapped a wing around him for some semblance of comfort. She needed it too; the thought that they weren't done with this already was disheartening, to say the least. "Popstar seemed important to it. It kept going on and on about Heart and Dream and for some reason it seemed afraid of Kirby and kept calling him a Voidspawn."

Kirby looked up at the mention of his name, but contributed nothing other than a reassuring smile.

Meta actually seemed taken aback by that. "I…do not know what that is. I had assumed that Kirby was an Astral, like me, but the Darkness called me an Astral, so Voidspawn cannot simply be what it calls us." He tapped the bottom of his mask in thought. "How curious."

"Back on track, we have what, weeks at best?" Sunset asked. "How the hell are we supposed to beat back this thing?"

"The Darkness reacts negatively to strong emotion," Meta Knight said. "Along with Galaxia, your magic, and-"

"Friendship!" Kirby cut in.

Meta nodded. "Yes, friendship is, at least minorly, a deterrent to the Darkness."

Twilight couldn't help but giggle at that. Yes, the Power of Friendship was quite useful. Her Element pulsed a bit as she thought of how she knew that first-hoof.

"So what can we do, then?" Pitch asked.

His mother huffed. "Well, you won't be doing anything. You're grounded from going on any adventures, young man."

"Aww, really Ma?" Pitch whined. "Ah can help!"

"The Darkness won't care about anyone's age," Meta Knight cut in, speaking to Pitch's mother. "If we run into him again, we'll try to keep him out of any active fighting, but I cannot promise that either yourself or your son won't fall victim to the Darkness. It would behoove you to at least be aware of our plans."

The pink bird huffed again, but didn't raise any further complaints.

"The Rainbow Bridges would help fight off the Darkness, right?" Dedede asked as they returned to properly planning. "That's why it wanted to destroy them. I can take a fighting force and station them out here in Castle Iceberg." He looked around. "It'd do well to establish a proper claim here, too."

"I'm alright with staying at Castle Dedede to defend that," Twilight added, gesturing to her tiara. "I don't think Castle Iceberg can take its full population, so someone needs to defend Castle Dedede. The Element of Magic will help with that."

Bandee nodded in agreement. "What about the Meta-Knights?"

"I will make sure to secure our base on Orange Ocean," the man himself said, holding up his sword. "Galaxia was originally designed to fight off the Darkness, or so our legends say. Unfortunately, the original records of its construction have been lost."

"Well, it definitely helped against the Darkness we fought," Twilight chipped in.

Meta Knight nodded, but he still seemed contemplative. "I fear that Galaxia alone might not be enough. Princess Twilight, if you feel that your Element is enough defense on its own, may I ask for Miss Shimmer to stay with the Meta-Knights for the time being?"

Twilight nodded in Sunset's direction. "I think that's her decision, first and foremost."

The mare in question just shrugged. "We still need to go over that book I found, anyway. Might as well stay there for a bit longer."

"Bandana," Dedede said, "could you return to Castle Dedede with the Princess and send Captain Montoya's force over here?"

Bandee gave his king a salute. "Of course, Your Majesty!"

"Well, dat's all well an' good," Kine spoke up, his voice a bit distorted by the water he was in, "but what 'bout da rest o' us?"

"You all should probably return home," Meta Knight said. "Return to your friends and family, and make sure that you keep your bonds with them strong. The Darkness will try to break them, but the stronger your relationships—be they platonic, romantic, familial, or otherwise—the easier it is to fight back."

Kirby cheered at that, reaching across the table to high-hoof (high-nub? Twilight still wasn't entirely sure what his appendages were called) Gooey. The blob, of course, responded by sticking out his tongue to meet Kirby's arm.

That, though, gave her a bit of pause. And she hated to think negatively about someone who was definitely solidly on their side, but he was still formerly part of the Darkness. "What about Gooey?" Twilight finally asked.

Meta Knight definitely frowned behind his mask. "He may be in even more danger than the rest of us," he said. "He was once part of the Darkness as well, was he not? The chances may be high that Zero will try to reabsorb him."

Kirby huffed and shook his head at the thought of Zero going after Gooey, and Gooey himself narrowed his eyes resolutely. "No!" he declared, and Twilight had to think for a moment to remember if that was the first word he'd actually spoken.

"It may still be something to strongly consider-" Meta Knight began before Gooey cut him off again.

He shook himself. "Nuh uh!" he said. "No Whole!"

Meta seemed deep in thought. "I suppose that it is possible that whatever happened to free Gooey from the Darkness and allow him to develop his own personality fundamentally changed him, and Zero would now be unable to absorb him…"

"Well, Kirby found him first, you all said, right?" Spike spoke up. "Maybe it has to do with why the Darkness was calling him a Voidspawn?"

Meta Knight considered that for a while, before seeming to realize that they'd gotten off-track. "Regardless, we have our plan." He took a deep breath. "It's hodge-podge, and I'm unaware of any planet that has successfully driven off Zero, but if Popstar is so important to it, we cannot afford to lose. The entire universe might be at stake. When the Darkness comes for us, remember that, and fight with all you have."

Everyone was silent for a few moments after that declaration. "Well, that was dramatic," Dedede said, getting up. "I'm off to check out the rest of Castle Iceberg."

At that, everyone else began to disperse, with Coo grabbing onto Kine and agreeing to drop him off in Ripple Field on his way back to Big Forest. Pitch and his mother were the next ones out the door, quickly followed by both Nago and Rick, who both had their own loved ones to get back to. Chuchu stuck around for a bit, meandering out the door with the others, who all left at around the same time.

"Ooh, I'll have to find mon amie Adeline and warn her about all of this!" she commented after they were in the halls for a bit.

Sunset blinked. "Adeline?" she asked.

Chuchu nodded exuberantly. "She's a friend I made when she visited Iceberg a few months ago! Apparently she's not from Popstar, and she's the one that's been teaching me some words in…I think she said it's called Français. It's her native language!"

Sunset seemed both alarmed and thoughtful at that, a fact that neither Twilight nor Meta Knight failed to notice.

"Cady," Shining said, turning to his wife with determination in his eyes. "We're staying in Ponyville until all that goes down."

Cadance sighed. She figured that her husband, as protective as he was, would want to watch over Twilight, even as she was trapped in another world. Unfortunately… "We still have duties in the Crystal Empire, Shining," she reminded. "We can't stay here indefinitely."

Shining grumbled. "Fine then, Discord," he said, startling the chaos spirit a bit. Clearly he hadn't expected to be addressed directly. "I'm giving you permission to kidnap me and have me as a guest to watch the goings-on on Popstar iff Twily is in danger from this Zero." After a moment, he added, "And that's an if and only if, by the way."

Discord waved him off. "I caught the double f in the first place, don't worry."

Cadance wondered if that was some joke that she wasn't privy to, given that Ponish didn't have a letter called 'f', but she attributed it to Discord being Discord. "Honey," she gently said, "I don't think giving a chaos god permission to kidnap you is particularly wise."

"Well I think it's reasonable," Discord chipped in.

Fluttershy, who had accompanied them into Discord's home (Cadance figured it was mostly to prevent the draconequus from trying anything), raised an eyebrow at him. "Yes, Discord, but your opinion is…" she paused for a moment, probably searching for the right word. "Biased."

"I said what I said, and I stand by it," Shining spoke up. "Just make sure you put me back when everything is over."

The journey back to Orange Ocean took the rest of the day, and Solaria had already set by the time Sunset and Meta Knight arrived. The rest of the evening was taken up by them debriefing the rest of the Meta-Knights and them, in turn, sharing that they'd found the wreckage of the Halberd and were planning on restoring it. Sunset wasn't quite sure what to think about that, given how much work she'd put into sinking it in the first place, but she did admit that having such a warship on their side would be useful.

The next morning, with her mana burn finally having fully healed (having alicorn-level casting ability sounded great on the surface, but it really just meant that she had to rest for even longer than before to recover. It was a pain, really), Sunset retrieved the book she'd taken from Aquarius out of her magical storage. She'd done this a few times since she'd gotten it, just staring at the foreign letters. Even years later, learning written English was still fresh on her mind, and she just couldn't shake how similar this script seemed to the Latin alphabet.

"Language on the mind?" Meta Knight's voice asked from above her.

Sunset glanced upward, at this point unfazed by the knight's propensity for silently flying above people before speaking. "I just…" she sighed, trailing off. Meta was definitely more trustworthy than Marx was, but she wasn't about to spill her entire backstory again. "I spent some time in another world before this one, and I had to learn the native language to fit in," she eventually elaborated. "And this looks so much like Latin, but it's all distorted and warped. And now Chuchu apparently knows someone whose native language is French of all things, and I can't help but feel that there's some connection."

Meta glided down to get a better look at the book, and Sunset could almost feel his contemplative frown. "Perhaps we could compare it to some modern Astral text? It might help you determine if that connection is legitimate."

Sunset shrugged. "Might as well. Lead the way."

The two began trekking towards the Meta-Knights' extensive records library, most of which was in Somnic (which Sunset had recently been putting in an effort to properly learn; if she was going to be stuck on Popstar she might as well learn how to read there), but some of the texts Meta had brought with him when he came to Popstar were in Astral. During the walk, though, Sunset couldn't help but notice that Meta Knight constantly had his right hand on the hilt of Galaxia—he really was prepared to begin fighting at a moment's notice.

It was fair, of course. None of them knew when, exactly, Zero would strike, but Sunset was hoping that they'd have a week, at least.

Those thoughts were pushed aside when they reached the library, though, and Meta Knight flew up to grab a book off of the shelf as Sunset made her way over to one of the tables in the room. Flying back down, Meta cracked the book open as Sunset opened up what she was almost certain was a journal of some sort. Getting a proper look at the headers for each section of the book cemented that thought even more.

Meta seemed to agree, peering at each of them. "These are definitely dates," he said. He glanced between Sunset's journal and his own reference text, considering something as she peered at his book. The letters looked different enough that Astral almost seemed to have swapped to a different writing system altogether, but a few symbols were similar enough to show that the two systems were definitely related, at the very least.

"Can you tell what those dates are?" Sunset asked.

"Just the years, probably," Meta Knight said. "Or what I think are years. These are certainly numbers, at least." He carefully took the journal in his hands, flipping to the first entry. "It looks like that, in whatever calendar system they were using, this first entry was written in the year two thousand, two hundred twenty-one, and the final one…" he flipped the pages to reach that final, dreaded page marking the writer's death, "was in two thousand, two hundred twenty-eight."

So that ruled out the likelihood of this being some childhood diary that they'd kept into adulthood, given that they'd apparently only been writing in it for seven years. At least, she hoped that it wasn't a childhood diary. No child deserved a fate as grizzly as what she'd found under the waters of Aquarius. That led to another thought, though. "Hey, out of curiosity, what calendar system do you use?"

Meta Knight blinked. "Well, Popstar's is currently in the year one thousand, five hundred twenty-four, and uses a system of three hundred seventy days in a year, where one day is a period of twenty-four hours. The Astral calendar is similar, though its years are slightly shorter at three hundred sixty-five days, with the technical definition of a day being eighty-six thousand, four hundred seconds. It's currently in the year two thousand, one hundred thirty-seven. Why do you ask?"

Sunset shook her head. That was another set of strange coincidences. Why in the world would a species that traveled the stars use twenty-four-hour days, let alone three hundred sixty-five-day years? With Astral script seemingly related to Latin, French apparently existing in this universe, that entire experience on Halfmoon, and now Astrals apparently using the Gregorian calendar, she had to think that humans existed in this universe. Or at the very least, some version of Earth did.

Shaking that thought away for the time being, though, she continued with some questioning about the journal. "What about the other words you said you recognized?" she asked. "'Star' and 'dream,' right?"

"Those two appear rather often, yes, but I'm not well-versed enough in Ancient Astral to tell much more than that." He seemed to consider something for a moment, scanning the pages. "Though, the word 'heart' has stayed rather consistent as well, but it doesn't show up nearly as often." Flipping back to the first entry, Meta Knight pointed out a particular pair of words. "Here, for example, 'star' and 'dream' show up right next to each other. I'm unsure of its significance, though; the author may just have been poetic." His eyes narrowed as he caught sight of something else, though. "But this is concerning, especially since it's the only number in the text itself."

He pointed to a particular character that showed up a few times throughout the journal, a sort of vertically elongated spiral. Its bottom right and top corners came to right angles, though, making it look like it should have fully enclosed itself. And since Meta Knight called it a number, her mind jumped to a numeral that she was aware of. A particular Arabic numeral, to be exact, one that this character greatly resembled.

And the more she stared at it, the more Sunset realized that she was looking at a stylized 0.

"SIR META KNIGHT!" Sailor's voice rang out from behind them as she sprinted into the library, and Sunset forced the journal back into magical storage on reflex. "We need you outside. Now."

Doors were flung open with wild abandon and left that way as they charged through the complex to the nearest exit. Upon reaching the outside, Sunset glanced around at nearly every member of the Meta-Knights staring up at the sky. Warily, she looked up as well, and immediately felt her ears fall back at what she saw.

"By the stars," Meta Knight said, his voice wavering with fear that Sunset had never seen him display before. "It's here."

In the heavens was a giant blob of Darkness, almost as large as the Galactic Nova had been, staring down with a single, blood red eye.

"Oh. Oh dear," Discord noted, staring at the screen and jamming his talon on the button to light up the warning over Fluttershy's door. Feeling this much concern that he was almost afraid for another being…it was an almost foreign feeling to him, but the Darkness was bad news all around and Fluttershy would be sad if Twilight died. Yes, that had to be the only reason he was this concerned. He couldn't be getting invested in the life of somepony other than Fluttershy—that would be preposterous!

He had to hope that they'd pull through, though.

And almost absentmindedly, he snapped his tail to pull Shining Armor directly from the train he was on, which was heading back to the Crystal Empire. He'd asked for it, after all.

Bandee shuddered as he readied his spear, staring up at the sky. Spike was shaking as well, but he had resolutely stood his ground and demanded to help when the time came—it was all hands on deck against the Darkness, after all. Twilight had, eventually, relented, on the grounds that she would be with him at all times and would be using the Element of Magic to protect him.

Staring up at the eye in the sky, though, even with Twilight next to them and with her Element pulsing, Bandee could still feel terror and despair clawing at his heart. He'd thought they'd have more time!

"I thought we had a week!" King Dedede shouted incredulously, staring up at the Darkness as he and the rest of Castle Iceberg readied themselves to do their damndest to fight it off.

"The damn thing's already here," Rick noted, staring up at the sky.

Pick shivered in their shared burrow. She'd heard her boyfriend describe the Darkness when he came back after helping fend it off, and the idea of it already being back for round two was horrifying.

Unfortunately, that horrifying thought was also reality.

Perched on a branch in Big Forest, Coo narrowed his eyes at the sky. "Whispy," he said, waking the tree he was sitting on. "Get ready for the fight of our bloody lives."

"Mine, get da family ready; it's here," Kine said after diving back down from his watch on the surface.

Mine swam up a bit to give her husband a peck on the cheek. "Dat Darkness best be prepared if it wants ta get through us!" she claimed, before swimming off to warn the rest of Ripple Field.

It was finally time to mobilize.

Chuchu gulped looking up, swimming between the waters of Iceberg and Red Canyon. She still wasn't quite sure where Adeline was, and now she was alone in the water.

Glancing around, she made a decision to swim for Ripple Field as quickly as she could. There were safety in numbers, after all, and Kine was there!

"Oh ye've got ta be kiddin' me!" Nago roared up at the sky, Shiro looking at the giant eye there and paling as well. "It cannae have waited more than two days?"

Pitch stared up at the sky from behind his mother's wing. He was scared, sure. Terrified, even. But he knew what it was like to be under the Darkness's control. And he would do everything he could to help fight back and prevent anyone else from falling prey to it.

Adeline dropped her paintbrush mid-stroke when she happened to look upward. Her crude, practice painting of Kracko was left half-finished in the process, as her mind tried and failed to comprehend what she was seeing. She knew that this universe was full of eldritch beings that her mortal self was ill-suited to fight against (the Skull Gang's raid of her home and her father's subsequent death still weighed heavily on her mind, as much as she tried to ignore it), but she had thought that Popstar would protect her. That's what her father had told her when he sent her away.

So why did it feel like one of those eldritch abominations was here?

"Uh, Boss?"

"What is it, Storo?" Daroach snapped, looking up from his work. "I've almost figured out our next heist!"

The big blue mouse pointed upward, where Spinni and Doc were already staring, mouths agape. Daroach turned around to look, and almost dropped the Triple Star Cane (an artifact he had stolen from a temple in Jam Jungle ages ago while Doc fended off some Noddy in a jester hat who had the same theft idea) when he did.

"What in the world is that?"

"Taranza, take Princess Joronia to one of the saferooms and hide!"

Taranza jolted away from staring at the giant eye in the sky and looked to his sovereign. "But, Your Majesty-"

King Araneus IV of Floralia cut him off by drawing one of his sabers. "I don't know what that thing is," he said, "but if I die today, Floralia will still need its leadership." He looked down at Taranza, offering a small smile. "I know my daughter wishes to choose Sectonia as her regnal name, and it would truly be a shame if my grandmother's name doesn't live on. Please, protect her."

Taranza only hesitated a moment before saluting with two of his hands. "With my life, Sir."

King Araneus gave him a pointed, knowing look. "I don't need you to die for her, Taranza. I need you to live for her."

Despite the direness of the situation, Taranza felt himself blushing when he got the king's implication that he approved of his and Joronia's (currently secret) courtship.

"Now go!" King Areneus barked, and Taranza quickly floated towards Joronia's quarters.

As nearly every being on the side of Stellarium facing away from the Heavenly Light gazed upward, the Fountain of Dreams almost audibly whirred with how much magic it was putting into fending off the Darkness. But the Dreamwater could only do so much, and Zero had been strategic about shutting down the system's defenses. The Fountain's seven brethren had all gone dark before it could organize a pulse to push away the Darkness.

Had it just been an advancing force on its own, it could still force the Darkness out of the system (and probably destroy quite a bit of it in the process) as just a single Fountain, but Zero being here in the flesh (for a given definition of "flesh") was complicating things. Oh, it was trying to force the Darkness away, but all of its attempts were directly countered by Zero working against it.

That, at least, would keep Zero itself occupied for the time being. The Fountain of Dreams now just had to fall back to Stellarium's last line of defense: the Voidspawn inhabiting the planet.

With the Dreamwater sufficiently neutralized, there was only one last barrier that the Whole had to break before the Darkness could properly invade Stellarium: its rings.

The rings of Stellarium were rather different than those of other planets. Firstly, they were young, a mere two thousand, one hundred thirty-seven years old by the Whole's count. Secondly, they defied the laws of physics as much as the rest of Stellarium did. Thirdly, they were solid. Fourthly, they were intensely magical. And fifthly, they were intensely magical because they were a corpse.

Lunaris's mother was long dead, of course; Selene had been slain millenia prior by an enraged, fallen hero (if the Whole could feel proud about that parting shot it'd gotten at that particularly vexing Voidspawn, it would). But some vestige of the magic she'd used in her final moments remained, acting as a final shield against the Darkness trying to invade the system.

CRACK

If it weren't for the Dreamwater's interference, the Whole would have just forced its way through already with brute force. But it was occupied with Dream (one of the real antitheses to Darkness, along with Heart and Soul) at the moment, so its minions would have to do the work.

CRACK

It truly was unfortunate that Nebula had failed in its mission, or else the Darkness would have claimed Popstar centuries ago. The amount of effort the Whole had had to put into designing a piece of itself that could effectively use and circumvent Dream had set its plans for universal domination back a few centuries, since it had failed to take Stellarium.

CRACK

But it was no matter. Stellarium's rings had finally shattered, and though the Whole itself remained in space, held back by the Dreamwater's shield, the rest of the Darkness eagerly descended upon the planet.

Author's Note:

The Dream Land 2 arc has ended.

But since when am I one to give our heroes a break? Dream Land 3 has already begun. They best hope that two days was enough time to prepare.

And, well, this is a planet-wide event, too. The heroes are far from the only ones affected by Zero's assault.

Good luck, Planet Popstar.