Knights of the Stars (Worm/Kirby, Sequel)

[EternalStruggle]

Finding Exoa Knight and her friends turned out to be easier than I'd feared. I stood in the alternate dimension where I'd entered it, walking a large circle maybe ten meters in diameter and cutting open several other portals, not going through them for once. Each was a window into the normal world, and each was centered on a likely angle of approach. With a magical lightness to my step, I steadily spun around, all but hopping in place as my eyes crossed over each portal, hoping that a telltale sign would come into view. It wasn't what I'd call my finest bit of detective work, but I heavily doubted that the others would be far behind the Mage-Sisters, so going to the ruins of the Jambastion to search would likely just see me shooting right past them, which would be not only embarrassing but also very inconvenient.

Luckily, it did work out as I'd hoped. After around ten minutes of spinning, after which I was getting a bit dizzy, one of my open portals shifted its window. For a moment, I was worried that meant it was going to close again and I'd have to reopen them all, but then its shifting resolved into an image tracking a heavily loaded Warp Star. The group clinging to it was indeed Kirby, Exoa Knight, and Bandana Dee, but Ribbon was there too. The others hadn't mentioned her. I supposed she just wasn't that notable in a fight.
Soon enough, they settled on an entrance into the enormous bulk of Jambandra Base. An outlying entryway platform consisting of an open-air elevator that took you through the white, pristine and carefully stylized exterior into the more cavelike but functional interior. They crashed their Warp Star on the elevator, and it automatically began to descend. Couldn't have that.

I hopped through that portal, deliberately banishing my scythe and letting all the other portals close behind me as I reentered reality, dimensional tear snapping open and then closed next to the group. Before I even had a chance to land on the elevator, they'd responded to my arrival by leaping into a defensive formation. I carefully kept my hands open and in the air, and after a few tense seconds of glaring at me Exoa Knight put her sword away, turned and said something I couldn't make out to the others, and flew up to me, nodding up slightly as her consistent wingbeats took her above me. I followed until we were out of earshot of the group below. Ribbon flew up to follow, but Exoa Knight shook her head and pointed back down at Kirby when she saw. Ribbon pouted, then dropped back down to the others.

My opposite and nemesis folded her arms, wingbeats slowing slightly so that she was more or less hovering in place, bobbing up and down slightly. It was in contrast to my own ability to stay perfectly still in midair. "You want to talk? Then talk."

I huffed out an aggravated sigh, placing my hands on my sides and glancing down and away. The others were looking intently up at us, I noted. The issue was that I hadn't been sure exactly how I'd start this conversation, so I'd been hoping for some questions or accusations I could answer. By being given a completely open field to speak in, I found I was unable to say anything at all.

I decided I'd start by addressing the elephant in the room. The reason any of us were here right now. "We don't have much time left before Void Termina is summoned."

Exoa Knight's flat expression shifted into a grimace as she followed my gaze, clearly taking a moment to think. "Shit," was all she came up with after a notable pause. "Okay. Is this a next five minutes thing?"

"More like hours. Maybe a couple more days, but probably not." I didn't look up directly at her as I spoke, keeping her expression visible solely in the corner of my eye. She looked up at me, though.

"That should be enough time to have a conversation, then. Let's start with why the change of heart?" Her grimace turned into more of a frown when I chuckled at that. "Did I say something funny?"

I took off my hat and stared into the symbol printed on the front. "Anything to do with hearts is kinda funny to me now. You could probably rip mine out and show it to me and I'd laugh." I spoke with a voice so level and casual it surprised even me. Like I was discussing the weather, or ordering a cup of coffee. "You just see one too many cartoon hearts and the entire organ loses all meaning. It's stupid, isn't it? That we call this thing a heart even though actual hearts barely look anything like it."

Exoa Knight sighed. "Thought this might happen." I looked up, almost putting my head level with hers, and raised an eyebrow. She elaborated in response, or maybe just because she felt like it. "You're evading."

"Not evading," I countered, raising a hand with finger extended. "Just getting around to the question slowly. You said we had time, didn't you?"

"And we do, but you're still evading," she drily responded. "I know because that's what we do. Isn't it? If we don't like something, we pretend it's not a problem. Either because we can handle it or because it's just not true. Me and my burnout." She paused, tilting her head to one side. "The leadup to our trigger. I know you, because I am you, and I'm seeing it again. This is why I wanted us to talk alone. Those guys down there? We both know they'd accept you're one of the good guys again and move on to stopping this. But I don't want to be right back here, I don't know. Maybe a week from now, maybe a year from now. Doesn't matter. Either way, this conversation needs to happen."

I silently put my hat back on my head, adjusting it for a moment until it was both comfortable and had bought me some more time to think. "No change of heart. I was working against these guys the entire time."

"Then why the fuck did you fight me?" Exoa Knight shouted in an explosion of disbelief, throwing her arms down and out. "What the fuck was that for? Fuck me, I was prepared for so much bullshit coming here, but somehow not this. I was prepared for mind control, I was prepared for you literally just having turned evil, I was probably even prepared for, I don't know, blackmail or some shit. But you're telling me you just threw down the gauntlet at me because, actually, you haven't said why."

"Well, uh." My on the spot decision to go and talk to the group had been pushed forward for the sake of pushing me forward, meaning I hadn't exactly prepared for it. This was the most obvious sequence of questions I could have been asked, yet somehow I was entirely prepared to answer them. Probably because as I thought about it I realized there wasn't an answer that didn't make me seem incredibly petty or faintly ridiculous. I mean, it was obvious that I'd been kind of petty, but only now did the full magnitude of pettiness begin to sink in.

"I'm waiting," Exoa Knight, clearly annoyed, said after several seconds of silence, refolding her arms and beginning to tap out a steady drumbeat with her left hand. Tap-tap-tap, metal on metal.

"I wanted to bring you in to these people, then save your life at the last second by stabbing them in the back and saving the day." I finally said.

Her expression suddenly became much more understanding. "Oh, like a tactical thing? I guess that makes sense. But why not just tell me? I'd have been happy to help, and I'm not that bad at acting."

"Well, uh." I said again. "It wasn't a tactical thing. I could have done it without you. I just wanted to make you scared and then jealous of me."

She looked at me through lidded eyes. At least the tapping had stopped. There was silence for several more seconds before she leaned her head back and sighed. "Okay. That's very normal and understandable of you." She said with a tone full of subtle, highly refined sarcasm. "I'd thought to myself that maybe I could resolve whatever issues we had, but I have no idea what to say to that. Are we even now, or do you want something else from me?"

"We're even." I replied, half wanting to move past this as quickly as possible and half finding that I actually meant it. It's not like I'd ever really wanted to hold a permanent vendetta, it had just been something to hold on to while I worked out my anger. If the whole revenge plan was in the garbage anyway, may as well call the slate wiped clean.

Exoa Knight nodded, and then a look of sudden realization crossed her face. "Wait, does that mean you made me grab Kirby and take him away from that alien invasion for no good reason? He could have been fighting them and I could have gone home and this would have worked itself out?"

"Yeah. That's on you, though," I pointed out.

"No it really isn't," she said, sounding exasperated. "Do you want to tell me why you decided to try an elaborate revenge scheme on me? I get that you were pissed at my fuckup, and maybe saying sorry wouldn't be good enough by itself, but you had a ton of options that didn't involve whatever you call all that bullshit."

"I was too pissed for words back when I woke up a couple weeks back. Made the plan then. Met some people. They… kept me in that headspace, I guess." I realized how that sounded, so I automatically jumped to defend them. "Not in a bad way, though. More like they took my side, supported me. So, sure, I was planning to betray them, but they helped me think it was justified. And I knew they'd have my back until I turned on them if I went for it." And now that I was explaining it out loud, I began to think that maybe it hadn't been justified. Funny what a new perspective could get you.

"Huh. That's funny." I scowled, anger resurging somewhat after it had mostly died away.

"Laughing at me, now?"

Exoa Knight shook her head so quickly that her face almost blurred. "Not funny in a 'ha ha' way, funny in a 'that's interesting' way. I was just thinking, it's funny how love's such a problem. The little cartoon heart made me think about that."

What the fuck was she on about? "Love?"

"Think about it. Sure, most bad shit happens because of hate or greed. The worst shit, too. The Empire, Coil, the ABB. Dark Matter, in all its forms, and I guess the Haltmann Company. But think of all the people we've had to fight because of love. Brian was a supervillain because he loved his sister and thought being a villain would be best for her, and didn't give much of a shit if anyone else got hurt. The Travelers, as far as I can tell, became supervillains because they loved Noelle and thought that going villain was the best way to keep her around after she turned into a giant monster. Now this. You found some friends who loved and supported you, and it turned you into a raging bitch for a bit."

"Are you making a point?"

She shook her head, then had the audacity to crack a smile at me. "Nah. But don't you agree that it's funny? I mean, normally in this world it's simple. Love good, hate bad. Because they're cosmic forces, with physical effects. But when it's just emotions, it gets trickier than that. It's interesting to think about." When I didn't have a response, she nodded. "Okay. Want to head home?"

I blinked. "Just like that?"

Her wings slowed further, beginning a steady fall. I kept pace with her descent. "Just like that. I just came here to get you back, so there's no reason for me to stick around. And if you made some friends, not gonna comment on their quality, you probably don't want to help fight them. We can just head home, let these guys take care of it." She gestured to the rest of the group as we touched down.

"You're in a forgiving mood." I cocked my head to one side as I said it, staring her down. She returned the eye contact without flinching.

"I asked if we were even, you said yeah. That means we're even. I'm not interested in arguing who fucked up worse, or if you deserve to get arrested or whatever. That wouldn't actually help anyone. So yeah. In the interest of being the bigger person, I forgive you for fighting me. Honestly, it was kind of fun once I realized you weren't actually trying to kill me."

I grinned. "Hell yeah it was."

"Obviously we'll have to introduce you to Mom, we'll have to figure out how the fuck your living arrangements are gonna work, all that crap, but that's just, what's the word?"

"The small stuff?" I suggested, causing her to shrug but look not completely convinced.

"Logistics?" Ribbon, now back in earshot, suggested, earning her a crisp metallic click as Exoa Knight snapped her fingers. I was reminded just how dextrous her equipment actually was. Full armor shouldn't really move like that, but the Halberd's engineers had made it work anyway.

"Where'd you learn the word logistics?" I asked, causing Ribbon to splutter.

"Well, it's been a long four years!" She countered. Seemingly accepting that, Exoa Knight and I turned back to each other. She was giving me a meaningful look.

I answered her unspoken question. "Not yet. First of all, just to be safe I'd like to help get everyone in position, and I happen to have something that should be pretty helpful for the final fight. And I want to see this through. I kind of owe these people that much. They saved my life, I guess."

Exoa Knight nodded. "Okay. Well, if you're staying then so am I. I didn't come all this way just to let you out of my sight right before the finish line." She extended her hand. I paused, then shook it. Sure, why the fuck not.

As I pulled back, Ribbon spoke up with a fairly reasonable question. "So, what do we call you now? I mean, we can't just say Sophia, because you're both Sophia. Unless one of you is willing to change your name-"

"No," we both said at exactly the same time, before I added a second point by myself. "And we don't have a middle name either, so that's out. German thing. But if you need a name for me, hmm." I summoned my scythe to hand, and twirled it around thoughtfully. I'd gone by Shadow General before, but with my 'defection' I wasn't technically a general anymore. But I was still the Bringer of Night, so that meant…

"Call me Nightbringer," I settled on after a moment's thought. Maybe not perfect, but good enough for the immediate future. After all, if I decided I wanted to be a cape back on Earth after all this was over, I could take a different name if this one didn't sit well with me.

A few seconds of silence passed before Exoa Knight spoke up. "That makes sense. If I didn't have Meta Knight give me my cape name, I'd probably have picked something like that."

My eyes narrowed. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means our naming sense hasn't changed since we were twelve."

Before either of us could say anything else, Ribbon interjected, a slight note of pleading in her tone. "Please, everyone, can't we get along now that we're all back together?" She was technically addressing all four of us, but with Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee still not having said anything it was pretty clear which of us she was talking to.

Instead of addressing it directly, I stamped my foot once. The elevator had long since reached the bottom of the shaft, and I set it back into motion again in the opposite direction. It slid roughly a floor up, then stopped. I tapped my scythe against a carved piece of wall, and stone doors ground open, disappearing into the parts of the wall on either side. "Secret passage. If I'm remembering right, it should take us right to Hyness and his ritual. Any questions?" I looked back to see a quartet of shaking heads. "Then let's go."

 

[Redshirt Army]

"Call me Nightbringer," I settled on after a moment's thought. Maybe not perfect, but good enough for the immediate future. After all, if I decided I wanted to be a cape back on Earth after all this was over, I could take a different name if this one didn't sit well with me.

A few seconds of silence passed before Exoa Knight spoke up. "That makes sense. If I didn't have Meta Knight give me my cape name, I'd probably have picked something like that."

My eyes narrowed. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means our naming sense hasn't changed since we were twelve."

Click to shrink...

fucking incredible

 

[EternalStruggle]

We almost moved in silence. The group was focused and determined, ready to do what they'd come here for, and I wasn't sure what to say, or even if there was anything I could say. The only noises were footsteps and my instructions, when we hit a fork in the road or I needed them to wait while I did something. I led them through empty corridors and tunnels, through internal transit systems, past secret walls inside the secret passage, and then after only a surprisingly short few minutes back out and up with another elevator. Having slipped behind the entire garrison, all we had to do was march across the floating bridge to the Divine Terminus.

I paused outside the doorway into the room, the group coming to a halt behind me. "Not too late to head home," Sophia said. I considered the option again, and shook my head. No point in putting up some ridiculous lie over what I'd already done. That wasn't true to myself, and as fellow fighters the Mage-Sisters deserved better than that.

It was bullshit that I'd found myself here, with no options I was happy with. But it was bullshit I'd done to myself. I could so easily have nodded along when I woke up here before heading out on a Warp Star. I'd have been home free, able to return to Earth two weeks ago, the literal day after I left. I'd have gotten an apology, and if I gave a heads-up about these guys I'd have been hailed as a hero. Not my first hope, but way better as a consolation prize than what I was actually getting. There had been no good reason for me to stay.

Except, according to the person who maybe knew me best, I'd gone ahead and listened to people. Gotten attached.

"What do you think this says about us?" I said, looking over my shoulder to lock eyes with Sophia. "Does it say anything at all?"

"Maybe that you'll always choose to be good?" Ribbon suggested, raising a hand like she was in class.

Sophia snorted, obviously having barely suppressed an outright laugh. "More like we'll always find a way to burn bridges." I was surprised to see that earn her glares from the others. "It's true, you know. I didn't call my brother almost this entire academic year for no good reason, just because I'd fallen into a bad habit, and that's just the start. If that's not burning bridges, I don't know what is. I'm just surrounded by a lot of very patient people."

I rolled my eyes and groaned, mostly genuinely. "Don't fucking get weepy on me now. This is the last shit I need."

She shrugged, then smirked. "I won't. Just being honest." Her smirk softened. "Keep in mind that you're actually doing these people a solid. Even if they don't see it, it's still true."

"Obviously." I pushed into the Divine Terminus, returning to the dark rock of the chamber now with allies in tow. It was only now that I was an intruder that I realized how foreboding it looked, with the edge of the overall platform studded with natural-looking thick tentacle growths, and the only light was from the stars above and the dark radiance of the mostly complete Jamba Heart.

Hyness was there, of course, still performing his rituals before the Heart. Unpleasantly, Zan Partizanne was still here as well, on guard the moment we showed up. She'd have stayed behind to act as a final line of defense, and more practically because she was still clearly beat up from her fight with Kirby.

I was the first one to get a word in, seeing as I was in the front of the group. "There's a couple ways this can go down, Zan. You can still step aside. You know what Hyness is doing is wrong. And also fucking stupid."

Zan narrowed her eyes, called her weapon to hand, and leveled it at me. "And to think, I considered you my Sister. What is the meaning of this?"

I stared her down, not betraying any emotions. Barely feeling any as well. The time for that crap was over. Now was when the action happened. "I just told you. Big man over there?" I leveled my scythe at him for emphasis, pointing over Zan's head. "He wants to fight a war that ended before he was born against people who don't exist anymore with a weapon he can't possibly control. You want to know what happens when Void Termina comes out? Worst case, you die on the spot. That's how it always goes."

"We swore an oath-" she started, but I cut her off. Didn't have time for that bullshit.

"You swore an oath. And sometimes being loyal to someone means telling them when their idea is fucking moronic. You don't get that, it's your problem. Step aside. Final warning."

She closed her eyes, and took a deep, steadying breath. "I will not fail Lord Hyness. Even though you have dealt my heart a terrible wound."

"You'll live. That's better than the other option."

By some unspoken agreement, when I advanced I did it alone. Walking along the ground, I met Zan as she slowly moved forward to meet me. This was between us. I suddenly stuttered forward, shifting from a walk to a quick shuffle as I leaned forward and slashed, and Zan had to outright fly back to avoid my attack. She was downright sloppy from her injuries. And yet, she still wouldn't give up. She was that set against me now.

Guess I did have a talent for burning bridges, then.

After that exchange, the agreement was apparently broken, or maybe it was always just a first shot only deal. Kirby and Bandana Dee moved to flank her while Ribbon flew up above, hemming her in. Exoa Knight stepped to my side, Dominar ablaze and ready, and we closed in on Zan. Three to trap, two to go for the throat.

We worked together annoyingly well, which shouldn't have been surprising. I adopted a series of reaping strikes, wild swings that cleared a lot of space but would have left me open to retaliation if not for Exoa Knight's nearly flawless bladework, which manifested in swift, sharp, precision attacks. She darted in and out, moving forward to engage and then stepping out of range, timed to cover me as I brought my scythe around for another swing without ever getting in my way.

Leaving Zan no openings to counterattack and no room to maneuver, we advanced almost as fast as we could walk, moving from around the middle of the lower platform to the base of the stairs up in seconds. Step by step, she was losing.

I wanted this to be over, so I made it happen. After another swing, I flew forward, getting inside Zan's reach and moving to hit her with the backswing. Exoa Knight was with me, blocking the attempted parry that was honestly a bit too late anyway, and my scythe's rear spike slammed into her head, knocking her to the side. Bandana Dee moved forward, and pinned her to the ground with his spear. It was done.

"You left me no choice," I said.

"There's… always a choice," Zan replied, voice pitifully weak now.

"Then I wish you'd made a better one."

Rather than responding, she turned her head as best she could to look up at the Jamba Heart. "Heeelp…"

That seemed to actually get Hyness' attention. He turned slowly towards us, looking down at our assembled group. He seemed to completely ignore Zan. "Hmm. You appear to be interlopers. Well, I'm afraid you're much too late. Thanks to the help I received in the unsealing, and recovery the Jamba Heart should be repaired early. In fact, that will occur right about..." At that, a floating heart piece descended from somewhere up above, and drifted into the main Heart. With a brief flash of energy, the Heart was suddenly intact again. "Now. If you will excuse me."

No the fuck I would not. I summoned a Heart Spear from storage and flicked it over to Kirby, who caught it on reflex, discarding his staff when he did. "Go!"

Kirby shot forward like a cannonball, ascending the stairs in a blur of motion. Hyness quickly gestured, and pillars of flame erupted at several points on the stairs in quick succession, but Kirby wound his way between them without even slowing down. When he reached the top of the stairs, he stabbed the Jamba Heart through with his spear.

That turned out to be a mistake. A horrific animal wail emerged from the Heart, a deep, rumbling moan of what sounded like pain that caused Hyness to shield his face and almost bowled me over, preventing me from following up with the other spears like I'd planned. Apparently just stabbing the Heart with the right weapon didn't help seal it, or if it did then just one didn't do much.

The noise faded, leaving only silence in its wake for the briefest of moments. Then, a black smoke began to emerge from the Jamba Heart's core, coalescing into an almost liquid, shifting mass that stabbed out spikes in every direction at random, a core emerging that completely engulfed the Heart, a burning red color that remained despite the attempts of the liquid black to snuff it out. The entire Divine Terminus began to shake and tremble, as if it was suffering an earthquake. Whips of deep blue lashed out beyond even the range of the spikes, power bleeding off the dark edifice.

Kirby hopped away from it, then opened up his mouth wide and began to inhale. The heart spear that he'd stuck into the Jamba Heart was still in the same position, although it had slowly but surely begun to be absorbed. It shook like it was going to explode at any moment even as the manifestation that had taken over the Heart, which had to be Void Termina, began to grow in size. Suddenly, it was ripped free by the force of Kirby's alien lungs, and shot right into his mouth. He didn't waste any time swallowing it down.

The irritation had been removed, but it was too late for that. I really had delayed taking action too long. I summoned the other three spears, tossing one to Bandana Dee and taking hold of the other two myself. Void Termina had grown to all but cover Kirby with its main mass, making him visible only in fits and starts when it receded a little. Kirby struggled against it as it seemed to stick to him like containment foam.

Ribbon flew forward before I could. "Kirby!" she yelled, panic and worry as loud as gunshots in her voice.

"Poyo!" Kirby said back, alarm clear in his own voice, but it felt like it was aimed specifically at Ribbon rather than the situation. With a sudden burst of strength, he ripped free from his sticky bindings. When Ribbon flew straight into his arms, he grabbed her out of the air, did a complete spin, and threw her back into Exoa Knight, who stumbled back as she caught her. I'd been about to charge, but that made me pause. Was that just for Ribbon, or did he not want us to go in at all? I locked eyes with him, a question on my lips, and he quickly nodded at me. Hopefully that meant I was right.

The mass resurged, moving to engulf him once again, but a moment before it could he stuck his twin nubs up above his head, which brought into existence a small heart in a burst of pink light. It looked like the hearts on the butt of the spears, bright pink, smooth and rounded, and giving off a soft glow, entirely unlike the Jamba Heart or its pieces had been. More importantly, whatever aura it was projecting was keeping the body of Void Termina off of him, the shadowy liquid sliding off an invisible shield. A new copy ability? I supposed he had swallowed the spear. This would have been why.

Hyness, a bit off to the side, cackled like a maniac, which was fitting if nothing else. "Jahahaha! Fool, do you really think our Dark Lord can be forestalled by so meagre a barrier? No no no! No, I say! You will soon fall into His despair, as shall all who oppose me!" He turned to Void Termina, and spread his arms wide like he was continuing the ritual. The mass surged and surrounded Kirby again, although it looked like it hadn't penetrated the shield he was generating and had just gone around it. "Happy birthday, Dark Lord! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

As if in response, several of the spikes still coming off the mass morphed into tendrils and wrapped around Hyness. "Juh?" Before he could do or say anything else, the tendrils pulled back, dragging him inside. It pulsed, a sort of ripple spreading across it, before it retracted back to its original size, only slightly larger than the completed Jamba Heart had been.

Kirby wasn't left behind on the ground when it did.

Before any of us could do anything else, it lifted off into space, flying up and away. It rapidly gained speed, and quickly escaped past the point at which we could actually see it. The earthquake that had been going on stopped at last but that was too late as well. Cracks had formed in the ground, and the outer cage of the Terminus, even though it was separate from the main platform, began to crumble, causing a smattering of rubble to start raining down on us in the middle.

Fuck.

 

[EternalStruggle]

Something broke behind us, and the Divine Terminus began falling away into the abyss of space, felt as a lurch and a sudden tilt of the platform, not enough to send anyone outright tumbling but enough that we all instinctively leaned to one side to stay upright. I was frozen on the spot, any words I might have stuck in my throat. These, apparently, were the consequences of my own actions, all coming home to roost in one fell swoop. How wonderfully fucking karmic.

Well, there was nothing for it now. We'd have to kill a god by ourselves. I worked my jaw as I let two tendrils of shadow snake out from my back and wrap around the two heart spears in my hands, allowing me to let go and stretch, mind racing. First thing, transportation. I grabbed my scythe again, idly swung it a couple times, then looked over at the others.

Exoa Knight and Bandana Dee were looking up at the escaping Void Termina, backs turned to me. By their own lack of movement, it was clear that they didn't have any ideas on what to do. I was running pretty low on those myself. The situation was as grim as any I'd ever seen, which was saying something.

Ribbon, though, was in motion. The little fairy darted forwards, hovering over the spot where Void Termina, Hyness, and of course Kirby had been standing, then flew back towards us. She didn't have any more of a plan than the rest of us, she was just more panicked.

"We have to go after it!" she said, shouting, maybe out of fear or maybe just to be heard over the crashing impacts of the still-falling rubble. "Kirby's trapped in there, and who knows what it'll do if we let it get away!" That drew determined nods from the other two, although I paused and folded my arms even as a great crack in the floor ripped open between me and the others, threatening to rip the entire Terminus apart and leave us on two separate sides of it. She was right, but we couldn't go charging off immediately.

I was about to say as much when two new problems showed up. Probably having heard the commotion, Flamberge and Francisca came flying down from above, dropping next to Zan even as the Divine Terminus began to break into pieces. Exoa Knight turned towards them with a frown, Dominar lighting back up, but she didn't move to attack. "We don't have time for this." It felt like she was partly talking to the rest of us, partly talking to them, and partly stating a fact.

"You vile-" Flamberge started before cutting herself off and then yelling with fury and outright hatred in her voice. "What did you do!?" It was directed at the others, but I was the one who stepped forward and replied.

"Nothing." I said, and that both silenced her and drew her eyes to me. "Hyness summoned Void Termina, and then it used him as a wake-up snack. I brought the others here through a transit tunnel. I tried to warn people that this would happen, but none of you listened. You were too busy not questioning him, and he was so far gone that if it needed more energy he'd probably have tossed himself in and gotten absorbed anyway."

I was about to continue when sharp metal poked my shoulder. I glanced over to see Sophia looking over at me, having prodded me with Dominar. "I think they get it." Well, they got something. Flamberge looked about ready to explode at me, mostly because fire was coming off her in waves.

"Ms. Flamberge, please calm down," Francisca said, putting a furtive hand on her friend's shoulder. "Whatever the truth is, we need to help Lord Hyness." I didn't even bother suppressing my annoyance at her priorities.

"Well, we could start by fighting his enemies-" Flamberge began, but she was cut off by an unexpected source. Zan Partizanne had finally floated back upright, even more beat up than before but as determined as ever.

"She's telling the truth. I saw it with my own eyes, Berge. He did indeed summon Void Termina, despite Sophia's predictions that he would be unable to control it, and it did consume him." I'd heard her sound unsure or wary before, but this had to be the first time I heard her outright defeated. Hopeless, even. It almost hurt to see her like that. "There is no sense in opposing them now. There is no sense in anything at all."

At that, Bandana Dee cautiously took a step forward. "Actually, we could use your help. Fighting that guy without Kirby is going to be really hard, so if you could lend a hand, we'd appreciate it!"

"Fighting Void Termina? That would be sacrilege!" Francisca exclaimed, and then it was Sophia who took a step forward, sheathing her sword as she did.

"You care about your boss, don't you? If you ever want to see him again, this is the only choice you have." She'd only met them today, and already knew how to manipulate them. I guess they didn't make it hard to figure them out.

"She's right. Hyness got absorbed, but I don't think that killed him. Void Termina should be using him as a battery," I added. I couldn't be sure that was right, having only intuition and a skim of the relevant book to work off of, but it was my best guess, and that would have to do. "I don't know how much time he has left, but we should still be able to save him." Probably.

"You would truly save him, if you had the chance?" Zan spoke up, a note more of curiosity than hope in her voice. Annoyingly, she was asking the right question, because if she'd just asked if we'd help them we could have said yes, since then we'd have tricked them into helping us. Before I could think of a good answer, Ribbon spoke up again.

"Of course! I know that's what Kirby would do if he was still out, he doesn't hesitate to save people no matter who they are, so neither will we!" That was… true, actually. He was that kind of arguably stupid hero. It seemed to seal the deal, at least. The Mage-Sisters hesitantly looked between each other, then tapped their free hands to their chests in acknowledgement. Bandana Dee brought out a Maxim Tomato from nowhere in particular, and threw it over to Zan, who caught it and stuffed it into her face greedily. She straightened up a bit afterward, probably not all the way healed but good enough for a fight.

Sophia had crossed her arms and looked down at the Dee as that happened. "You just had one of those at the ready?"

"Always be prepared, that's what I say!"

"Right." She turned to me to say something, but the increasingly fractured platform finally gave up and just imploded, disintegrating into so much gravel underneath us. Bandana Dee flailed as he fell while the rest of us took flight to hover in space, ending up getting saved by Ribbon once again. I wasted no time cutting open a portal and ushering everyone onto the other side, where the land was more stable and there weren't any falling rocks. We were lucky that none had been on a path to land on us.

"Okay, let's not go running off right now." I said. I could see almost everyone else in our new combined group prepare to speak up with an objection, so I elaborated. "I don't mean we don't go after Void Termina at all, I mean that we can't just shoot off right this second, or we'll be caught fighting a losing battle with our dicks in our hands." I paused, thinking that over. "Not that anyone here has a dick, but… fucking forget I said anything. Look, my point is we need a plan if we want to win this. We can't rely on Kirby to just carry the day this time, for obvious reasons."

"If you have a plan, then I shall follow it. Perhaps if I'd done so before, we could have prevented this." Zan said, with the other Mage-Sisters seemingly falling in line with her. They looked a bit more hesitant, which made sense. They hadn't seen it all unfold with their own eyes, and my conversations on Hyness hadn't been as severe with those two. As long as they did their part properly during the actual fight, I didn't really care. That was a problem for future me.

I couldn't help a grin from forming as everything beyond the fight fell away. Sure, things were bad, and sure, maybe it was partly my fault. Or even a lot my fault. But that didn't seem to matter in the moment either, not compared to the fact I could face a fragment of god himself in a face-to-face knock-down-drag-out brawl in a fight that was as morally uncomplicated as one against the Empire. It was exciting stuff.

"The plan is that we're gonna do this one Hess-style. That means we hit it fast, we hit it hard, we take it by surprise, and we never let up." I raised a hand to preempt any objections. "That's the general idea. Obviously there's specifics too. First of all, the spears of heart. These are probably the only weapons that are gonna be worth a damn against Void Termina, so we need to distribute them carefully. One to each of the strongest three of us." I grabbed hold of one by me, and tossed it over to Zan, who dismissed her own spear and caught it. I pulled the other one across my back, and nodded to Bandana Dee, who was still holding one himself.

"There we go. The rest of you are gonna help us three or try to distract the enemy while we deal the real damage. There's also the details. I'm going to try and explain those and get everyone's opinions as we move, because we need a plan but we also want to be quick. The longer Void Termina exists, then the stronger it should get, and since we're not sure what Kirby's status is we can't take chances there either. Maybe he's fighting it from the inside and it'll be dead by the time we get there, maybe he's being fully absorbed right now. Doesn't make a difference to our plans. Alright, let's go. Don't fall behind!"

With that, I began to run, trying to find where the hell Void Termina had actually headed off to. The spear in my hand hummed slightly, a small vibration, that gave me an impression of a direction that I somehow knew was the direction of the foe. That at least meant I knew I was going the right way, but we'd need to drop out into reality at the right place to confront it. The others made a few comments as I tried to multitask explaining the details of the plan while also trying to figure out where I needed to cut next with my scythe, and I quickly ended up lapsing into silence so I could focus on the latter as the others talked tactics and I did my best to just keep up with their discussion.

After a couple intense minutes of split focus and rapid movement, I found a spot where the spear suddenly stopped giving me a direction. It was telling me Void Termina was nowhere, except it was also everywhere. Which, I hoped, meant it was here but on the other side of a dimensional barrier. I didn't bother saying anything, and instead just cut open a portal with one hand and hopped through, the others following me as I banished my scythe and gripped my spear tightly with both hands.

Gravity continued to assert itself, even though we were now back in normal space and nowhere near any kind of celestial object. Instead, we were falling through the void, surrounded on all sides by endless nebulas of red and blue. Massive dark orbs that looked like they were liquid or covered in liquid floated nearby, either planets a good bit away or smaller objects pretty close. I couldn't tell. I also couldn't tell why Void Termina had stopped here, over an enormous platform of cracked glass reflecting the stars and nebulae above, but it had. At least it had an atmosphere, meaning that Sophia wouldn't choke.

The fluid mass of red and black smoke concentrated and solidified, taking on a physical form. A long, sinuous silhouette became apparent for a brief moment before the smoke blew away to reveal Void Termina's appearance. It was a snake, as wide as I was tall and easily ten times longer, bound at regular intervals by maroon circlets edged and etched in gold, with gray scales underneath that each had a glowing purple hieroglyphic written on them. Instead of a face, the upper half of the serpent's head was a heart-shaped mask with two pitch-black eye holes, or maybe just eyes, and a pointed lower tip that resembled a beak, which combined with a few tufts of matted feathers gave its head an almost birdlike appearance.

Like most good plans, this one relied on teamwork. The exact first step, the others had agreed, was figuring out attack patterns and potential weaknesses, with the distraction team going in first while the spear-users hung back and analyzed. By the time Void Termina had finished forming, our improvised squadron was already on him, a fireball from Exoa Knight slamming into his back while Flamberge and Francsica closed to melee, striking its scales with their weapons.

Sure enough, Void Termina responded, coiling around itself with surprising speed, raising up the top third or so of its body, and then slamming it into the ground. When its head landed, a sphere of bright white energy emanated out just far enough to fully surround its body, which might have been lethally powerful if the two Mage-Sisters hadn't darted back away from it when it first began to move.

No damage as far as I could tell, but it was willing to react to opponents that weren't a threat. That was good news, because it meant our entire distraction strategy wasn't a complete waste of time. It also meant if we somehow failed here it would probably go on a rampage destroying everything in its path, but we kind of knew that already.

Void Termina began to slither in the direction of Flamberge and Francisca, who kept their distance as best they could. I began to move in, but it suddenly made a sharp turn towards me as I got close. Could it feel the power of the heart spears, just like they could feel it? Whatever the reason, I melted into shadow and retreated, turning back to normal only when I was at a safe distance. No sense in risking a head-on collision with this thing.

Luckily, that trick still left it vulnerable to other real attacks. Zan darted forward on a trail of lightning, crossing the gap in moments, and plunged her spear into one of the gaps between Void Termina's scales. In response, it stopped moving, reared up, and slammed its head down once again. The same energy came out, but Zan had already slid out of range again. Void Termina turned towards her this time, but Bandana Dee rushed in after he did and likewise stuck his spear between two scales. The same pattern repeated, with the little guy escaping just in time to avoid being blown away by the sphere of energy.

It had some cunning, but Void Termina clearly wasn't smart enough to leverage its enormous power fully. At best, it was acting like an animal, instinctively reacting to the nearest threats as best it could without an overall plan. If there was something particularly worrying, it was that when it had been stabbed the spears had come out clean. That was actually more worrying than any kind of blood or gas leak, because it meant I couldn't be sure we were even hurting it. I supposed we just had to hope this was working.

Regardless, the plan would continue. As I'd hoped, we were able to dart in and out, ensuring its attention was never on any one of us for too long while we hopefully inflicted a death of a thousand cuts. Not unlike how I'd fought with Exoa Knight against Zan, actually. Flamberge had gotten out some kind of squat old-fashioned cannon as big as she was, which was spewing a massive stream of fire down on Void Termina, which was getting its attention at least. It slithered towards her, and then it was my turn to strike, crashing down on its back and stabbing my spear as far in as it would go in yet another gap. I flew up again as it coiled up and turned back towards me. This time, though, it stayed upright, staring me down while looking almost confused.

On instinct, I raised my guard, preparing to dodge in potentially any direction. A moment later, two bright white outlines of what looked like wings manifested on the side of Void Termina's upper body, which then suddenly turned a soft pink and shattered into a storm of shards that quickly faded from existence. It turned its masked face to the sky and let loose an unsettlingly high-pitched roar. It could have been frustration or pain, maybe both.

I couldn't help but smirk. Having a bit of indigestion, were we?

Of course, just as things were looking pretty good for us, Void Termina decided or realized it had other tricks available. The wings weren't working, but nothing stopped It as it hunched in for a moment while a smattering of bright blue sparks appeared above its head. After a brief moment, it began slithering in a circle, chasing its own trail like that one symbol I forgot the name of, as what looked like a copy of Ripple Star's crystal the same color as the sparks manifested above the inside of the circle it was making. Almost immediately, a storm of energy beams as wide as a Waddle Dee fired off into the sky from the top of the crystal, quickly vanishing into the distance far above. I wasn't surprised when they reappeared going the other way, lancing down into the ground where they detonated in small explosions. I lazily hovered out of the way of one aimed at me, but the crystal was still firing.

Things got a lot worse very quickly as the beams fell at a faster and faster pace. More than that, their targeting looked to be getting smarter. Some were aimed straight at us, others in places where we might likely dodge, and they began to come in at weird angles. It felt like every star in the sky was coming down on our heads, and I soon lost track of anyone else in my personal struggle to dodge all this shit. And then I failed, hit dead on by an energy beam that engulfed my entire torso, pushing me down into the ground at breakneck speeds. It knocked the wind out of me, and more than that it hurt. Seriously, badly hurt for the first time in my personal existence.

Pain bloomed over my chest as I rolled to my feet, and I winced but endured it. I had memories of pain probably even worse than this from my other self, after all. This would definitely be a big, ugly bruise come tomorrow, but I'd live. I wasn't sure I'd live a second hit like that, though, and so I leaped out of the way of the next beam that struck where I'd been only a few seconds after my ungraceful landing. More pain from the sudden motion, and I shoved it down. I'd stop moving later.

Mercifully, the copied crystal winked out of existence not long after that, and its rain of projectiles swiftly followed it, giving us a slight reprieve. I glanced around at the others, and saw Exoa Knight on one knee nearby, with Ribbon nervously hovering nearby. I flew over, and as I arrived a few small hearts floated off of my spear, towards Ribbon, and then on to Exoa Knight, who I saw had wisps of dark purple gas coming off her that looked a lot like the stuff that the Jamba Heart shards had emitted. As the hearts melted against her armor, the wisps faded and she stood up, shaking her head.

"Thanks. It was trying to possess me. Started when one of those beams nearly hit me. Would have hit me, if Ribbon didn't put up a shield at the last second." I noted Ribbon's minor magical powers and the fact that frankly Sophia had just very nearly died, and kept in mind that Void Termina was a master on top of everything else, which at least wasn't a big surprise or anything. I'd already guessed it might have had that effect on Hyness, after all.

I'd have liked to talk further, review our strategy, but we didn't have that kind of time. Void Termina had exited its circling and was now crawling over the ground in no particular direction, heading this way and that seemingly at random, jerking its head around erratically. More notable was that its circlets started rotating around itself, half clockwise and half counterclockwise, causing electric sparks to start shooting out from where they ground against the floor. The leadup to another attack, had to be. If it kept this up, we'd be on the back foot until we lost or ran away, and I got the feeling it could probably keep this up as long as it wanted.

So when lines of lightning started to zip out from its grinding circlets through the cracks in the glass, coming to a stop seemingly at random, I decided to advance. I stepped through the starlight as a shadow, making my first move just in time to avoid being fried by a pillar of lightning that shot up into the sky from where one of the grounded lightning bolts had stopped. It was soon joined by a shitton of others, but the pattern they were following meant that if I kept to the middle of the various panels outlined by the cracks I was in less danger. Less, but not none. When the pillars shot up, forks of lightning blasted out in a pretty sizable radius from their base.

I finally got lucky when Void Termina turned in my direction during its erratic movement, and I didn't waste any time plunging my spear right into the bottom of its head, just below that expressionless mask. It ground to a halt, which thankfully stopped the lightning before it could fire too many times, and I felt a pressure settle on my shoulders. Void Termina's regard.

Rather than retreating, I pulled my spear out and stabbed it in again, sliding it in the minuscule gap between Void Termina's mask and its face, nothing but blind hope that the others would show up to assist me in my heart or head. Luckily, I was right. Bandana Dee, looking as good as ever, showed up and leaped atop what passed for Void Termina's neck, and joined me in slipping a spear underneath its mask. Zan followed soon after, clearly favoring her right side, and landed across from Bandana Dee. Her spear added to ours, making a rough triangle.

This hadn't been part of the planning, we hadn't talked about it at any point, this was just what we were doing now. A last, desperate charge to try and salvage this mess. As one, we pulled at the mask, using our unbreakable spears as levers. It was a little pathetic, but it was what we had. In response, Void Termina did the one thing that ruined the entire strategy, which was move forward. In an instant, we went from pulling to pushing, trying to get it to stop, but it was far stronger than the three of us, and Bandana Dee didn't have the leverage to help stop it anyway. My muscles burned as I tested the limits of my superhuman strength for the first time, but if I was slowing Void Termina down it was only by a fraction.

Then Flamberge careened into Void Termina's mask at what had to be her maximum speed, smashing her sword against it so hard that despite its magically reinforced toughness I was still surprised it didn't shatter into a million pieces. That stopped it in its tracks, either due to surprise or the sheer force of the blow. "Take that, beast!" She snapped angrily. "You are no god of mine!"

I wasn't sure it cared. Void Termina had godlike power whatever we said, and the blow hadn't cracked the mask or anything like that. We were stuck using ancient, powerful magical artifacts as sticks…

Which was incredibly fucking stupid of us. "Touch them together!" I shouted at the others. They hesitated for a moment, then either understood what I was asking or agreed to it. A moment later I felt the taps of two other objects on my spear, and then I let go and flew back. I turned to Zan as she zipped up to join me. "Do you know what the sealing technique they used on this guy back in the day was?"

"Broadly," she said, and I saw a light in her eyes that meant she was following what I was saying. "It was covered in the book of legend, unlike the technique for unsealing." She spoke quickly, but Void Termina still twisted around, flinging its tail at us. Francisca, with what looked like a fusion of a crystal bottle and a gun, sprayed a flood of freezing water in a long line across the ground, which rapidly turned into a solid wall of thick ice. The tail smashed the wall to splinters, but bled its momentum dry to do it. "I believe I can copy it here. Sisters, to me!" Zan finished saying, raising her voice to a shout with that last sentence. Dutifully, Francisca and Flamberge flew to her side. Zan put her hands together, lowered her head, and began muttering what sounded like a prayer as a steady stream of lightning shot out to the exposed butt of one of the heart spears. The other two followed suit, lines of their own element shooting out moments later.

Void Termina thrashed and tried to break away, but as well as the lines pulling taut and keeping him in place he had the rest of us to contend with. Exoa Knight flew behind Void Termina, shooting fireballs from Dominar down at it as fast as she could manage. Bandana Dee was being carried by Ribbon and was using all of his own quite significant strength to try and smack Void Termina down or back towards the Mage-Sisters, Ribbon pulling him back when it thrashed unpredictably or moving forward to give him better leverage.

I joined them, limbs of pure darkness sliding out of my back and wrapping around the mass of Void Termina, trying to pull it up and deny it leverage. I dropped to the ground beside it and grabbed the bottom of one of its circlets and did my best to lift it up, adding my ordinary enhanced muscles to my magic. They burned with the strain, and worsened the pain in my chest where I'd been blasted, and god was this thing fucking heavy. A small part in the back of my mind was sharp enough to point out that no shit it was heavy, it was the size of a house. Then Bandana Dee was at my side, helping haul it off the ground by just the inches we needed to temporarily immobilize the thing. It certainly didn't seem to be moving, so it had to be working.

Sophia similarly dropped down next to me and held her sword high above her head, a heat haze settling around her. I felt the lurch to my right, towards Void Termina's rear, as it swung its tail towards us again. Sophia swung down, rather than launching a fireball smashing her charged blade into the earth and causing a wall of heat and force to momentarily spring up in front of her. Less explosive, but more directed. It slowed the tail, but didn't stop it, and I saw Ribbon fly in front of Sophia and raise a shimmering barrier of energy just large enough to cover the front of the two of them. She really could do that, it seemed. The remnant momentum of the tail was still enough to shatter it and send the two of them flying back, but it stopped just short of the two of us holding up the body of the serpent.

It began to try and thrash some more, but it was too late. All at once, it stilled, and the roar of elements to my left did too. I dropped the mass back onto the ground, not completely sure that I'd managed to lift it in the first place, and glanced over. While there wasn't a new seal or anything like that, the mask had popped off Void Termina's head, with the spears dropping to the ground. Close enough.

I walked over to Exoa Knight, who was worriedly glancing down at Ribbon. The fairy, for her part, was dusting herself off, clearly winded but okay. "You good?" I asked, getting a shrug.

"Basically. I'll definitely feel that one in the morning, but my armor took the worst of it."

I nodded, then quickly flew over to assess the damage. Underneath Void Termina's mask was nothing but pitch blackness, a swirling vortex having appeared now that it was uncovered. I could feel it pulling me in, but I resisted for just a moment, getting confirmations from everyone else that they were ready. Or I supposed as ready as they could be.

I sighed, shook my head, and flew inside. No sense in turning back now. If we were lucky, we'd be able to rescue Kirby and Hyness and then head back outside, and that'd be the end of this.

I was kind of hoping we were lucky.

 

[EternalStruggle]

Despite flying in horizontally, I was falling down when I landed, gravity having shifted under me. Void Termina was already massive on the outside, but its insides were somehow larger still, a massive cave stretching off all around us. Maybe it went on forever. The floor and walls were made up of interlocking red and purple hollow hexagons with bright yellow cores at their centers, reminding me a little of Dark Star from four years ago. Fitting, I supposed. Strands of organic matter criss-crossed up and down the hollow space, the same colors as the hexagons, looking for all the world like Void Termina's version of tendons and ligaments, even though they didn't seem to serve any actual purpose.

The narrow stretch of floating hexagons serving as a floor were right next to an orb of inwards-curling tendrils filled with a flowing red liquid carrying a procession of distorted yellow hearts, because why break with a good theme? More of the ropey flesh connected to it like tubes, stretching up towards the impossibly distant ceiling. Worst of all, it was pulsing regularly, like a living thing. A beating heart, which is what I realized it had to be. A vulnerability.

But vulnerable wasn't defenseless. As the others landed, a couple of seconds after I did, it expanded like a lung taking in air and roared, a cry so distorted and alien I couldn't even compare it to an animal's, let alone any sound a person would make. A sudden rain fell, the same color as everything else in here, each droplet half as large as I was, and something beyond just common sense told me I couldn't let it touch me, lethal intent making itself known psychically more than anything else, the pain in my chest flaring up in response. I almost felt nauseous.

I held my scythe high and looked up as a dark sphere of energy formed above it, evaporating the deadly raindrop before it could land on my head. As that happened, I couldn't help but process something at the edge of my peripheral vision, or more specifically two things. I'd seen them as I landed, giant seashells suspended by more of that tendril-thread, but now I recognized the upside-down occupants. Hyness and Kirby, alive after all. Hyness was just sitting there, swaying slightly in an unfelt breeze. It looked like he was out cold. Kirby wasn't, though, despite being just as trapped. "Poyo poyo poyo!" He shouted indignantly down at us, violently swinging his shell from side to side as he shook and squirmed as much as he was able.

"Yeah yeah, we're getting you down from there," I shot back at him. Void Termina's core briefly began, revealing an inner darkness of its own, and Ribbon flew up to grab one of Kirby's exposed arms. She began to pull as hard as she could, and I threw my arm out wide and unleashed my own power.

The world became pitch black, briefly blinding everyone, which hopefully included Void Termina. My crescent blade began to glow with soft light, and I held my scythe out before me and spun it once, tracing a large circle in the air. Then, I was in motion. Using my newfound speed, I slid across the ground to one end of the platform, ascended up into the air with a tilt towards the shells, and then in a pivot sharp and high-speed enough that it would knock out a normal person from the acceleration I cut a line straight across the strand holding up Hyness' prison.

Then I did it again, flying back the way and slashing above, then again, and again, and again as I made my way up a sizable chunk of rope. I was a blur of silver in the darkness for several seconds, even as Void Termina prepared its next attack..

And then, just like that, I ended it, returning to my starting position in a final burst of downwards acceleration. As the darkness dispersed, I was crouched down on one knee and breathing heavily. I'd set Hyness' cage swinging, lines visible on his suspension where I'd cut them in, and a moment later when it reached the end of its current swing the line shattered, the shell proper exploding into fragments that fell into the abyss as it catapulted its contents out onto the walkway.

"Lord Hyness!" Three voices yelled out at once as the Mage-Sisters rushed to his side. He was as unconscious as before, though. I looked over to Ribbon, who at this point had Exoa Knight helping her. In this case, helping her looked a lot like holding on to Kirby's other arm and just dangling there, providing extra weight to try and pull him free. Ribbon paused, flew over to Exoa Knight's side, and grabbed Dominar out of her free hand.

"Poyo-" Kirby said, eyes wide with alarm, as she stabbed the sword through a gap in the shell above him, or below him from his perspective.

"Sorry!" Ribbon apologized as she flew down with the sword as hard and fast as she could, smashing him full-force directly in the butt. This finally popped him free, his pliable body squishing out of its restraints, and Exoa Knight's wings snapped out as she flapped once, just enough to land on the main platform with Kirby. She took Dominar back from Ribbon as the fairy flitted over, looking as abashed as I'd ever seen, well, anyone.

"It's not so bad," Bandana Dee said as he walked over. "You know, the King said he once did pretty much the same thing! It's one of his favorite stories actually." Kirby turned to shoot him a look that started confused and quickly turned resigned.

As the others regrouped with their friends and leaders, my eyes turned towards Void Termina's core. I didn't get the impression we were done, now. Sure, Void Termina didn't have its two batteries anymore, but it couldn't be that easy. If nothing else, one of those batteries had just been doing probably more harm than good to it.

"Hey," I said to Bandana Dee, noting that my voice was audibly thick with tension. "Where are the Heart Spears?"

He looked over at me and blinked. "Uh, the mages made a quick magical circle with them to try and keep the exit open so we wouldn't be trapped. Is that a problem?" That was decent thinking, I supposed, but I couldn't help but feel like it was actually going to be a problem.

Especially as I saw what was happening to the heart, which quickly got the attention of the others. Each of the curling tendrils that apparently just surrounded it popped out and fell away, one after the other, revealing something unimaginably bright underneath. I raised my free hand to shield my eyes as everything briefly went white, worried about what the fuck was going down, frozen in place. By contrast, Exoa Knight moved to act before the light had even begun to fade. "Kirby, catch!"

When I could see again, Kirby was clutching Dominar tightly with his right nub, and the white glow had faded to reveal a sphere, the dark purple of amethyst around a faded orange glow, with rippling and shifting lines of dulled colors, constantly changing across the width of the rainbow, flowing over its body. Three black circles erratically darted across its surface, constantly changing size and shape. This, then, was Void Termina. The real thing.

Before any of us could say something or launch an attack, Void Termina made a strange noise that didn't even qualify as a cry or a roar anymore. The circles wildly smashed together on the side facing us before shifting into two large ovals and a small dot that made a face. A very familiar face, actually, but I didn't have much time to process that before the face turned into three equally sized circles spinning rapidly, again around the edge of the side facing us.

Then it slammed down almost faster than I could track on the walkway we were standing on, shattering it into its component hexagons and sending us all falling into the abyss. Gravity was quick to assert itself, and we began to fall down what I was pretty sure was a literally bottomless pit.

We reoriented in moments, stopping our fall only a bit below where the platform had been by taking flight, Ribbon once again holding up Bandana Dee while Kirby puffed up with a deep breath and started flapping his arms to begin an ascent. For their part, the Sisters were trying to figure out how exactly the three of them were going to carry Hyness between them. Meanwhile, Void Termina was a small blob far above us, and the hexagons of the walkway had rearranged to a series of floating platforms almost like a very disconnected set of stairs between us and it.

"I'd have liked to get out of here," Exoa Knight commented as she flew over to me. "But if I go home I'm not sure what happens when I come back. Don't suppose you have a trick to get us on the other side of that thing?" I scowled and shook my head. "Didn't think so. Let's just try not to get blasted."

"Sounds good." I looked up to see the dark purple of Void Termina shift somehow, and then spew out an entire wall of purple energy that began to shoot down towards us. From all the way down here, I got a bad feeling about it, which was notable. It didn't seem like a regular attack. An attempt at mass mind control, using its power of negative emotions?

I looked over at Kirby, who met my eyes. I nodded, he exhaled and began to fall. In seconds, I was beneath him and flipping my entire body over with flight so I could kick him up like a soccer ball. He went sailing up into the air above, end over end, and righted himself in time to pull out another one of those small pink hearts and toss it up into the wall. Where the two energies met, they canceled out, the heart dissipating along with part of the energy wave. It descended past him, but he threw some hearts at it from above, poking more holes. Enough for the rest of us to comfortably squeeze our way past without being hit.

Above us, Void Termina shifted once again, its underside turning into a singular enormous eye as petal-like structures sprouted around its midsection. An all too familiar look. Before I could fully process that, it fired a brief beam of yellow light down at us, an aura of shifting purple and white shapes surrounding it, flat as if printed on an invisible cylinder. It missed its first target, Kirby, by a hair as he flapped out of the way at the last second. Then it fired again, this time nearly scraping Hyness and the Generals of Magic.

I noticed a slight telltale sign the second time, a ripple in the air and a faint yellow haze appearing a moment before the beam itself slashed through the space in question. That definitely helped, but the timing was still tight. I grimaced, and kept pace with the rest of the group as we ascended. The beams continued to rain down on us without pause, Void Termina apparently determined to keep us down and out.

We did what we could to return fire, but it was pretty marginal. Most of the time, any attempted attacks were intercepted, and said attacks were only really energy spheres from me and Kirby taking a stop on a hovering platform to shoot up a fireball anyway. Whether the interceptions were deliberate or just the result of counterattacks in the direction of the shooter, I wasn't sure. Either way, progress slowed as we danced and weaved through the storm. If there was one minuscule upside to the speed of this new assault, it was that our time to react didn't get cut even shorter as we clawed our way towards the enemy.

It was a climb short enough to be counted in seconds, but it felt far longer, each moment stretching out as I stretched my spatial awareness as far as it could go, figuring out where it was safe to be and where it wasn't. Which is why I managed to see it before it happened. Exoa Knight had taken a flap back as well as up, away from a blast, and so ended up gliding backwards into the follow-up. Because her head wasn't turned the right way, she didn't even see it, and even though she began to turn and prepared to flap again it was too late. My already slowed perception of time slowed further for a heartbeat, to an outright standstill. I wasn't sure I was the only one close enough to help, or the only one who saw, but I didn't have time to do even the most basic check.

Luckily for her, when I moved on instinct it was to save. In a flash, I went from being where I was to where she was, stuttering in and out of my shadowy travel form. I wrapped my arms around her and violently hauled her out of the way with a sharp dash to the left while twisting to get her that little bit further out of the way. It was just enough to make the central beam miss entirely, but the way I pulled her had left her right arm extended outwards, away from her body. Around half of that arm was caught in the cylinder outlined by the distorted, flat shapes that surrounded the main beam.

For a moment, nothing happened, and I figured that the aura was just a strange visual effect. Then, her arm began to unravel. I didn't have a better term for it. Her armor was peeled from her skin, the various plates separating and slowly pushing off her arm in each direction, repelled by an invisible force. At first, I was glad that the armor had taken the hit, but then it continued, her powered undersuit unweaving into its component fibers and flying away, leaving her arm bare to the world. As each piece left, it folded itself away into nothingness.

An old memory came back to me like a hammer blow. Apparently, when I was very young, I'd somehow managed to almost take the phone in my house apart, it having been left out next to a screwdriver. Mom had told me years later, saying that dad had been more amused than anything else when he came home and saw me, especially because I'd laid out all the parts rather than scattering or breaking them, so he was able to put it back together. Apparently, I'd mumbled something about how I was just curious what the insides of a phone were like. I couldn't help but wonder if Void Termina was curious what the insides of a human were like.

Exoa Knight pushed off me as I let go of her, staring down at her arm in shock. My wondering furthered after the next layer, leaving me with something straight out of a biology textbook. I could see lymph nodes, muscles, sinew, and veins, all plucked out in rapid succession, each type taken separately. As the sinew vanished, the bones fell away, no longer connected to the rest of the arm, and as they fell I saw them disappear too.

"Oh fuck," she said, sounding more dazed than anything else. But the attacks hadn't stopped to give us a breather. Another ripple fell through the space between us, and we each darted away from each other to avoid it. Nothing followed. I frowned, narrowing my eyes as the distortion faded, only to feel a pair of hands on my shoulder that yanked me away as a beam came down on top of my own position. My heart skipped a beat as I saw the glowing death pass through where I'd just been thanks to my newfound reason to really avoid getting hit.

Then I realized what had just happened. "It's fucking feinting!" I shouted out, partly out of surprise and anger but mostly just to warn the others to be even more on guard. I quickly turned around to see Zan behind me, the one who'd pulled me out of harm's way. We shared a comrades' nod. There wasn't time for anything more.

Luckily, the new technique was too little and too late. We were already close to the top, and in a few seconds more we reached it. Void Termina reverted to its previous form now that we were up close, but before it could move away or launch a new attack Kirby was on top of it, Dominar a blur as he slashed into it repeatedly with all his speed, strength, and fury. Bandana Dee joined in, being tossed over by Ribbon and lashing out with his spear. I wasted no time joining them, and Zan and Flamberge were close behind. Francsisca joined a moment later, and I spared a moment to look up and see Exoa Knight carrying Hyness by the scruff of his neck in her left arm.

It felt strange, feeling anger flow through me. It hadn't been too long ago I'd been trying to take a form of revenge on Exoa Knight, after all. But this was something else. I hadn't meant for this to happen. It had, obviously, but I could still help stop it from going any further.

With a rain of blades descending on Void Termina, it was forced to lash out with a pulse of raw force, pushing us away but not much more. I was prepared to resume the steel tide, but then I felt my stomach lurch as gravity reversed itself under my feet, with an extra pull on top of that. Soon enough, reality itself distorted and then snapped into a new frame as all three of us came flying out of Void Termina, and not very gracefully. We all went tumbling through the air and only just avoided landing in a muddled heap, with Kirby and Bandana Dee bouncing while I skidded to a halt, crouched low to the ground.

Void Termina's core leapt out after us, its external body dematerializing in a flash behind it, but it ran straight into the magic circle Bandana Dee had mentioned earlier. The three spears floated in a triangle in front of the entrance, Void Termina's 'neck', projecting a pane of pink energy between them. While we'd gone through without issue, when Void Termina tried to leave the barrier turned into a bubble, trapping it. It thrashed, attempting to escape by pushing in various directions, but the bubble held. I could tell it wouldn't for long, though.

"Fucking hit it!" Exoa Knight yelled, and she didn't have to ask twice. Kirby and Bandana Dee charged forward, sprinting across to Void Termina and grabbing the spear down near the ground. I flew up to one of the aerial ones, Zan zipping over to me. The four of us pushed the spears inside with all out strength, breaking the circle but also impaling Void Termina on its natural enemy. Its attempts to escape came to a sudden halt, the black circles serving as its expression vanishing, and I felt a vibration run through me that felt a lot like an enormous exhale.

Zan and I flew back, but Kirby just looked up at it. "Poyo poyo, poyo." I felt the idea of a response come back, but at this point Void Termina seemed to be too out of it to make a physical sound, and I couldn't quite make out what it was trying to say. With that, Void Termina sucked the two impaled spears into itself, or they pushed themselves deeper into it, and it hovered slightly higher in the air for a moment before exploding into a shower of tiny shards, blasting off into the night sky above us, and not making any attempt to come back together.

A deep sense of relief flooded me, and my head drooped as the adrenaline began to fade. It was over.

I glanced over my shoulder and spotted Exoa Knight, sitting on the floor with Ribbon and quietly talking to her, knees up and one arm behind her to prop her up. Correction: it was mostly over.

 

[Ruby Boule]

So, just to clarify since there was so much focus on "disassembled without damage", did her arm come back together after it left the attack's AOE or is her right arm just straight up gone now?

(Epic fight, by the way. Very grippingly described.)

 

[EternalStruggle]

So, just to clarify since there was so much focus on "disassembled without damage", did her arm come back together after it left the attack's AOE or is her right arm just straight up gone now?

Click to shrink...

It's straight up gone. It left the AOE before the effect became visible, it was caught inside for just a moment and then got Termina'd over the next few seconds.

 

[Pinklestia]

Guess those prosthetics we saw in the first story will get used.

 

[EternalStruggle]

I walked over to Exoa Knight and banished my scythe, sitting down in front of and to the right of her while facing her, although my body was parallel to hers instead of pointing directly at her. The glass floor, despite being out in the middle of space, was warm to the touch, slightly more than was pleasant but hardly as bad as Sizzlai Moon had been.

"You good?" I asked, unsure how else to start the conversation. I got a smirk for my troubles.

"Aw, you care? That's sweet," she replied, and I just rolled my eyes before responding in kind.

"Not even slightly. I just can't go home if you bleed out on the floor," I said drily, causing Ribbon to gasp in shock. Exoa Knight just threw her head back and cackled, though, which actually made me frown slightly. Was she delirious or something?

"I'd say never change, but maybe change a little. Either way, don't worry about me. I'm not bleeding," Exoa Knight said, having come down from her cackling before she ran out of breath but with laughter still loud and clear in her tone. Then she briefly looked away from me, staring almost straight ahead. "Hey, Kirby, you mind?" He understood her meaning from where he'd been standing, looking up at the departed Void Termina, and walked over to Dominar before tossing it back to her. She caught it easily, reversed it in her grip, and slid it home into its sheath. "Thanks!"

"Are you really okay?" Ribbon asked, ever the voice of concern, getting a nod in reply as Exoa Knight vaguely waved her right arm around in the air as if to demonstrate it didn't bother her.

"Yeah. Doesn't even hurt. Otherwise I'd be swearing like a sailor, believe me. Just, I had an arm, then I didn't. Mostly it was just kind of a surprise. Don't worry about it, it's not a huge deal." With that, it was my turn to laugh, a sudden thing brought on by the sheer ridiculousness of the statement, a brief but genuine snort of amusement. This was almost as surreal as that strange attack itself had been.

"You are the only fucking person who would call losing an arm not a big deal," I said a moment later before I paused, cocked my head to one side, and reconsidered the idea. "The only one who can't regenerate, at least."

Exoa Knight shrugged and leaned forward, resting her one and a half arms on her knees. "What's there to get worked up about? I'm lucky you know. Most people lose an arm, that's that. Me, though, I can't regenerate it but I can still get it back in other ways. I don't want to bother Panacea for a non-emergency procedure, and she can't create mass from nothing, right? So she could stick my arm back on, but making a new one would be hard for her." She frowned, brow furrowing in thought. "I think. Shit. Not like I have an encyclopedia for what exactly her power can do. Point is, even without Amy, Adeleine designed those prosthetics. May as well make that not wasted effort, right?"

My eyes flicked over to where Ribbon was hovering, a look of ever-growing concern on her face, and I coughed awkwardly into my hand, viciously attacked by a sudden burst of empathy. I wondered if it was a consequence of holding onto that Heart Spear during the opening phase of the battle. "We can figure the details out later." I was almost ready to leave it there, but felt compelled to point out the obvious. "And you know it's really funny that you call getting a new arm 'a non-emergency procedure', right?"

Exoa Knight raised an eyebrow. "What? I'm not gonna die from it in the next five minutes, so it's not an emergency. That's what the word means." Ribbon at this point just sighed, finally earning her a direct response. "Anyway, thanks for coming out here, Ribbon. I know you felt you had to, but it still means a lot to all of us, especially me. I'll try not to be a stranger going forward, okay?"

"Okay! And I'm always happy to help," Ribbon said, a smile finally returning to her face now that she was back on firmer conversational ground. It quickly turned a bit exasperated, though. "But maybe next time you come to Ripple Star, it can just be to do something nice with us?"

Sophia smiled and nodded. "I like the sound of that, actually. Now, go on. I know you want to talk to Kirby." Ribbon blushed at that, and flew away towards the pink warrior without saying anything else. Sophia then turned back to me, the smile and sense of laughter dropping from her face. What was left behind felt like cool analysis. "Speaking of talking."

I sighed, bowing my head slightly. I had a feeling I could guess where this was going. "Spit it out."

"Trying to figure something out here. So, first off, because of the bullshit that you started I got pretty fucked up. I'll live, but I'm really not happy about it. Mom's gonna kill me if nothing else. On the other hand, I could have just left this behind when you turned back over to our side. Wasn't anything stopping me. And finally, you did just save my life in there by pulling me out of the beam. Am I right in thinking it would have fucked you up too, if you were caught in it while saving me?"

I paused for a moment to consider it, suddenly reminded of the pain in my chest, which at least had faded to a doll throb by now. "I was already beat up, so yeah. I think if I was caught in the outer attack, I'd have been better off than you but I'm not sure by how much. If I was hit by the main beam, I was screwed. Pretty sure."

She just nodded, processing the information without letting it visibly affect her. "Figured. So you went out of your way to save me, let's call it at a bit of risk to yourself. Way I see it? This is still shitty, but not more shitty than what you did before, because it's the same stuff. We agreed we were even for all that, so I guess that makes us still even now."

"You don't sound convinced," I pointed out, shifting a bit, preparing to stand up if I had to. She just shrugged.

"I'm still annoyed it all went down like this. No point in taking that out on you, though. Just don't do any of this shit again." She stood up and stretched almost lazily, apparently having worked out whatever problematic feelings she'd been having. I responded in kind, floating upright before cutting my magic and resting my weight on my actual legs. "Fuck, but it feels weird. Not even that there's a weird feeling, it's that there's no feeling at all. Just cuts off halfway down the arm. It's my goddamn sword arm too."

"Yeah, people always go for it, probably because it's the one holding the sword. It's definitely the one that Bitch's dog fucked up last month. Hey, wasn't it the one Crusader cut off as well? That's like the third time you've lost that specific arm."

Exoa Knight stared down forlornly at the stump. After a moment's silence, she exhaled sharply. "I just have really shit luck, I guess. Hopefully this is the end of me losing limbs, organs, and lots of blood."

"I don't think you've lost any organs yet?"

"And I really don't want that to change." I shrugged helplessly in response. Fair enough. "I think it's about time to head out. We'll bring everyone back to Popstar, let Kirby and Bandana Dee get back to work, see if I can't get that new arm, and then the two of us get to head back home. That sound good to you?"

I let the question hang in the air for several seconds, thinking it over before I gave my answer. To my surprise, it was different from what I'd wanted before now. "No." Sophia's eyes widened in surprise. "I mean, maybe. It's complicated. That's what I thought I'd do at first, but now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure."

To my own surprise, her expression became much more understanding as she nodded. "I get it. Same thing as when we had our first serious talk. When you do things differently, even if it's for the best, you have to check yourself. Reevaluate, that's the word. What do you want to do instead?"

I idly kicked the ground and its whole lot of nothing. "Not sure. Just, Earth's not my home. Not really. Sure, I was technically born there, I have your memories of it, but that's about it. I'm Sophia Hess, but I'm not literally you. 'Our' friends, 'our' family, they're kinda yours." I looked over at the Mage-Sisters, who were clustered around a still unconscious Hyness and now talking amongst themselves. "And I have my own. I'm not saying I don't want to go back to Earth, but I'm not sure I really want to live there. Give me another day here before I visit again? I should probably help get their affairs in order, anyway."

I paused, then looked back at Sophia, who's own face was a frustratingly unreadable blank mask. "Okay. I only kinda get it, but I don't have to. It's your decision. I'll head home by myself, then." With that, she let out an enormous breath, and then craned her neck upwards, looking at the sky. I followed her gaze and saw motes of falling light. The tiny shards of Void Termina that had been shot up into the sky earlier, finally coming back to land. The fact they were pink instead of dark purple made me think they weren't dangerous, though. "That's it, then. It's all over." She reached up with her left arm to catch one of the motes, and it settled on an outstretched finger for just a moment before dissolving. "Huh. It's a tiny heart. Weird." Of course it was.

"That's like the least weird thing that's happened all day," I pointed out, before gritting my teeth and saying something tricky. "And obviously, since I absolutely fucked up, if you need my help with anything Earthside, I'm completely at your service." I was forced to admit, at least to myself, that there wasn't anything to be gained from denying the incredibly fucking obvious.

She gave me a look, then opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again for a moment before actually speaking. "You know, I'll take it."

"I'll go let the Sisters know, you go tell the others?" I asked, getting a replying nod. With that, I took to a few inches above the ground and hovered over to the three. The three who had, in a sense, persuaded me to go ahead with my kind of ridiculous plan. It was still on me that I'd listened, though. No more bullshit. For better or worse, it was time for brutal honesty.

"Is he gonna be okay?" I asked, copying my previous conversation starter as I nodded down at Hyness. The others stopped talking and turned to me, Zan being the one to respond.

"Lord Hyness is well enough, just asleep. I am certain he will make a full recovery," she said, her voice having regained its elegance and poise now that all the fighting and questions were over. Then there was a brief moment of silence as we all looked at each other. I'd been around them while silent before, but there was a different feeling in the air now. It was much more uncomfortable.

No sense in beating around the bush, then. "I'm just gonna say it: I knew it would go down like this from the start. Maybe not the exact details, but the general shape of it. I was always planning on having to stop Void Termina, and probably fight you and Hyness in the process. It's just that before that happened, I was happy to try and use you for my revenge. A revenge which, now that I've thought about it, I realize was kind of stupid. If you want me to tell you about how I'd planned for this to go down instead of how it actually went down, I'll tell you down to the last detail.

"The only issue was that I really, actually started to like you girls a lot pretty quick. Meant that when the time came at the end, I ended up delaying things, trying to get you or Hyness to see that summoning Void Termina was a bad idea. The problem there is that I didn't push quite as hard as I could have until the very end. In a couple ways, really. I was too busy being a bitch and trying to avoid the problem. That entire fight? Kinda my fault. Yeah, Hyness pulled the trigger, but I gave him the ammo and time to shoot.

"None of us asked enough questions. Real questions, I mean. You didn't question my motives or Hyness enough, I let you talk me into going ahead with the revenge thing instead of questioning if it was even right, and I bet if we figure out what exactly happened to Hyness to get him to change so much it'd be the same kind of shit. We were all too focused on being friendly to be friends.

"Real friends knock sense into each other's heads when they're being fucking stupid." I paused and looked over at Kirby and his own allies for a moment before turning back to them. "Or when they get possessed or mind controlled. Fuck, you know what I mean. The point is, yeah, I was planning on using you this entire time, even though I really did like all of you. If that, or anything else I tell you about the past two weeks, means you hate me, that's whatever. What I care about now is making sure none of us do anything this absolutely boneheadedly fucking moronic again."

There was no immediate reply, my eyes meeting each of theirs in turn. They looked hesitant, unsure of what to say. Full seconds passed.

"I guess you're right. We all made a major mess of things, didn't we?" Flamberge finally said, not able to muster up a big, emotional response like I might have expected but at least able to say something. She took a deep breath, then extended out her right hand. "Heya, I'm Flamberge. We could be friends."

I reached out my own hand and shook hers. "Sophia. Hopefully." We withdrew our hands, and I moved on to the conversation I was supposed to be over here for. "Anyway, I know that one of the reasons Hyness said you should summon Void Termina was to find a new home, so if you all still want that you could come with us to Planet Popstar. Nice place, at least it will be once we clear out the corporation squatting on it, and the people there would be happy to have you. Especially if you helped evict that corporation."

Francisca shook her head morosely. "Yes, it was supposed to be that the avatar of Void would lead us to the promised land and our bright future. Oh, how that didn't happen…"

"Hey, sometimes prophecies are just bullshit. You want my advice, don't worry about it. Focus on the things you can actually affect." She nodded, and Zan then spoke up.

"We shall accept your offer. At least for now. We must discuss it with Lord Hyness when he awakes." Hopefully only if he'd had some sense knocked back into it, but that worked for now. I nodded, and dropped to the floor as I jogged over to the others, who seemed about wrapped up with their own conversation. As I did, I realized I had actually said all that sappy bullshit about friendship. Ugh, I was gonna be sick. I supposed I said what I had to to get my point across. And I supposed that, technically, I hadn't really been wrong. Maybe I'd use some slightly different words if I had to give that talk again, though.

"Ready to go if you are," I said to the group, which practically bounded forward to meet me as I slowed to a halt in front of them, Bandana Dee cheering as he jabbed his spear skyward in triumph.

"Then let's all go home!"

 

[Ruby Boule]

Francisca shook her head morosely. "Yes, it was supposed to be that the avatar of Void would lead us to the promised land and our bright future. Oh, how that didn't happen…"

Click to shrink...

Heheheh... funny how things work out sometimes...

A good bit of wrap-up and emotional growth all around. Since things seem to be winding down, I wonder if we're getting near the end of Book 2, or if it will continue on into the next Kirby game or possibly swap back over to the Bet side of things.

Who knows what the future may hold (beyond it being a great journey).

 

[Pinklestia]

Well yeah, maybe if things had been different someone would have died or maybe things woyld have gone better and Sophia wouldn't have less armless. Who knows?

 

[EternalStruggle]

We'd made it safely back to Popstar and landed in Floralia, which had managed to avoid the bulk of the alien attack for the time being, mostly by being located in the clouds rather than on the land. There were skirmishes in the outlying regions between local forces and the invaders, but forward deployment of Lolipop Land's heavy tanks supported by elite Sectran forces had kept the front line far away from the central castle of the kingdom, where we'd come to rest after skimming in past a gap in the enemy's defense lasers.

There, we'd met up with Adeleine, who was present to keep working on Noelle after she moved the poor woman up here to better help her along with Taranza, and explained everything that had happened as best we could. She hugged everyone, especially me and her good friend Ribbon, and said she was glad we'd gotten it all sorted out, then went to work on giving me a new arm, painting it into existence with a paintbrush, ink, and canvas. While that was ongoing, Kirby and Bandana Dee had gone off to fight the invaders, the Mages had left Hyness here and were apparently split between helping in the fight and organizing an exodus from their home space station to Popstar, Hyness was still unconscious, and Nightbringer had gone off somewhere. Knowing her, it was almost certainly to either brood in a corner or help in the fighting.

Now the three of us were alone again, with Adeleine trying to actually make it work while Ribbon floated beside her, hovering in place instead of flitting all around with a visible effort. Personally, I'd sat down on a chair Adeleine had painted on the spot similarly to the mechanical arm and did my best to stay still while she fiddled and hummed. She was brilliant, but mostly she was a brilliant artist and person. Surgery, as it happened, was a bit outside her skillset.

The strange hard line the attack had left that stopped any bleeding made things both simpler and more difficult, she said, but eventually she figured out a way to make things work involving a metallic cap over the wound that adhered itself tightly to my skin and also served as a base to attach the artificial limb to. It was a bit of a hack job, apparently, but according to Adeline it should stop me from bleeding out if the 'pseudo-hypercoagulation, but don't worry, that's good' ever turned off for some reason, which was good to hear.

After that, it was only a bit of adjusting the arm itself, making sure it was an acceptably exact copy of my left, and then actually fitting it on and making sure it was secure. "And connection is good. Okay, let me turn it on!" Adeleine took a step back, adjusted beret, and snapped her fingers. With that, feeling returned to my right arm. Before, there had been nothing, and then nothing with a weight hanging off it. Now it was like I'd never lost it.

I raised it up and experimentally formed a fist, noting the stiffness in my new fingers. Maybe not entirely like I'd never lost it, then. "I'm having a slight issue with fine motor control," I said, settling in to diagnostics. I'd never exactly done it with my armor, but I'd sat around and listened to the Halberd's mechanics during my early career enough that I knew what to say. With maybe ninety percent of my functionality restored, I felt a small weight that I hadn't even realized was there lift from my shoulders. This was gonna work out at the very least okay.

"I was worried about that," Adeleine said, frustration leaking into her normally perpetually perky, carefree voice as she began to analyze the problem. She irritably wiped a line of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "The nature of art magic is that it's always the fine details that suffer. Even though I've gotten a lot better over the years, when I'm trying to make really real items like this stuff still slips through the cracks. You'll probably have to get it adjusted by an actual robotics engineer to work on that."

"Anything else I should know about this thing?" I said, not taking my eyes off it as I flipped it over to look at the other side. Moving it felt normal, aside from the new stiffness in my digits, but it did feel a tiny bit weird when I was actually looking at this shiny black plastic thing and seeing it move on its own, just because I was thinking about it.

"There's a few caveats, yeah. Probably the biggest is the power supply. Since I want it to work on its own, that means I can't power it with my own magic, so it works on a mix of energy your own body is supplying it and internal batteries that you'll need to replace occasionally. Once every day, maybe every few days if you don't use the arm for much. You can open up a hinged panel to get at the batteries if you focus on it, if I've done it right it shouldn't open by accident.

"It'll wear and won't repair itself like a normal arm, so you'll have to get it maintained to keep it working. I can do that. There'll be some problems for you in extreme temperatures, and if we don't figure out something better then in a year or so you'll have to get a new one to match your growth, and it's the same deal for every year after that until you're finished growing. Also, it is waterproof, and so you can use it in the rain just fine, but just to be safe please don't go swimming or taking a long bath with it, okay?" I nodded. All things considered, it could have been much worse. A few small restrictions and slight inconveniences were much better than not having an arm.

"How strong is it?" I asked, preparing to ask final questions and then probably head home.

"Really strong, actually. You'll have great grip strength. But it's attached to your normal human body, so you can't actually lift anything you couldn't lift before."

I raised a finger, instinctively resorting to my more cooperative left hand. "But if I got more robot parts-" I was cut off by Adeleine and Ribbon shaking their heads in simultaneous silent condemnation. "Right. Got it."

"If you want a benefit from it, it should be immune to ordinary humans with knives, and maybe even resistant to small guns. I don't know about that second part, I've never actually seen a bullet-gun before, but I think it should be. It's not as tough as your armor, though. And you really should work on something better. Are you sure your friend Panacea can't help here?"

I shrugged. "Like I said to Nightbringer, that depends on how exactly her power works. I need the rest of my body, so I can't have her taking too much to regrow an arm from scratch. Plus, I know you've called her that before, Panacea's not exactly my friend. She's half a friend of a friend and half something like a coworker. She's not a big friend maker. Same as me, I suppose, which is probably why we get on okay. No pretenses.

"But at the same time, she has her rules. A couple of them, actually, but this one is that she doesn't take requests. It's how she tries to keep things fair and make sure she doesn't get too much pressure on her. So it's one thing if I'm bleeding out or am covered in burns, but it's something else if I ask for something when it's not an emergency. She might say no. I could lean on Victoria to ask for me, improve my odds, but that feels, I don't know. Wrong."

"But there's no harm in asking." Adeleine said, folding her arms and cocking her head. "At least, I think so. I'm sure if you explain, then the worst thing that'll happen is she politely says no. It's not like you're just asking for a cosmetic treatment."

"Guess you're right," I conceded, lips twitching into a smirk. "Don't know what I'd do without you, Adeleine. I'll ask her after school tomorrow." I paused, something about the words seeming funny to me. I looked down at my shiny, visibly plastic arm. "Oh. School."

Adeleine slapped her palm into her forehead. Ribbon looked between us for a moment, confused, and then seemed to get it as she copied the motion in miniature. "Don't worry about it," I said, waving them off, again with my left hand. "You've done more than enough. I'll see what I can do about that myself."

"If you're sure," Adeleine replied, sounding very unsure herself, which admittedly only caused my smirk to become even wider.

"Yeah. I'd also offer to come running if you ever asked me for help with literally anything, but you know I'd do that anyway, right?" That put a more positive expression back on her face, just as I'd hoped. "Thought so. I'll try to visit more often."

Adeleine nodded, and Ribbon cheered. "Okay! Come on everyone, group hug!" I did roll my eyes, but still went along with them, coming in for the embrace and adjusting for the floating fairy half my size as best I could. Whatever made them happy.

After a few seconds, we separated again, and I shot off a lazy salute. "See you around. You can talk to each other, and I'll head home."

Then it was back to the Halberd on a Warp Star. It turned out that the invaders' long-range defenses were mostly either pointed up into space or connected to the extended legs stabbed into the planet, meaning that I could fly through the air in the area near the one Kirby had destroyed yesterday without any problems. The Halberd was finishing up repairs after having been damaged in the initial attack, and I said hello to everyone, as well as sorry for taking Kirby away from them to do something else. When I said it was important, they replied that it was fine in that case, and Captain Vul agreed to repair my armor and replace my mask when he got some spare time.

I also asked him to maybe consider a helmet instead of a mask. Mark out my own identity from my tutor a bit more, and better protect the back of my head at the same time. He said okay to that too. Everyone was very nice about everything, actually, quite possibly because of the whole arm thing. I definitely got a lot of sympathetic looks, which wasn't my favorite but I didn't really dislike it either, not anymore. Speaking of my tutor, I asked for Meta Knight's whereabouts since his last stand, and apparently they hadn't seen or heard from him since he'd acted as their rear guard. That was a bit worrying, but with Kirby and plenty of help on the case I was sure that wouldn't last much longer.

After having been stuck in a suit of sealed armor since yesterday evening, I was glad to be able to get out of it and then use my power to return home. Home, with hot running water and my wardrobe, so I took a shower and then changed into fresh clothes. It was now mid-afternoon on May 14th, and Mom had been nice enough to let me get settled in before she came up to my room to have a chat.

As I heard her come up the stairs, a twinge of something almost like guilt caused me to shift my arms behind my back as I stood in front of my bed. Since my upper right arm was still flesh and blood, that hid the prosthetic from view. I didn't regret anything I'd done, but she had asked me to be careful, and I hadn't exactly done that. I'd mostly tried my best, but there had definitely been points where I could maybe have taken a step back and didn't, especially when it came to Void Termina itself.

When she finally knocked on my door and I told her to come in, I actually felt worse when I saw she was slightly smiling, honestly looking less tired than I'd seen her in a while. Something to do with her getting paid time off while the company she worked for got investigated for suspected connections with Coil, she'd said. "Well, I'm glad you're back in good time," she said. "How did it go?"

"Well," I replied, not meeting her eyes. "Went out, talked to my clone. Cleared up our problems. She's staying in the other dimension for now, but she'll visit sometimes. Everything's good."

Mom put her hands on her hips and affixed me with the full intensity of her gaze. It was almost a glare. "Sophia Hess, you look as guilty as sin." Considering this was the woman who hadn't realized I'd had power for four years and had been going out as a cape nightly for a bit over a year and a half before I'd told her myself, that meant I was making it really obvious. I silently swung my right arm around from behind my back.

I wasn't meeting her eyes, but I could still see her expression, specifically as it went through a few distinct stages in rapid succession. First was her stern glare, then a momentary confusion as her arms locked on to my arm, and then she went through all five stages of grief in fewer seconds, mouth hanging slightly open but nothing coming out until finally she let her hands drop to her sides and spoke up, voice gentle. "What happened?"

"I found her and talked to her, but then something happened and we had to fight a really powerful enemy. I helped, and even though I tried to keep my distance I did end up getting hit by an attack. My arm got completely removed from existence, so I can't get it reattached, so I got a replacement. But don't worry about it, I'm completely fine."

"Sophia," she said flatly, gesturing at my arm. "That is not fine."

A wide variety of responses entered my mind, like 'it's not even the first time', 'it could have been a lot worse', 'Terry liked that one TV show about that one cyborg', and 'at least I'll never lose an arm wrestling contest ever again', among others. There were so many options that I couldn't pick a single one to actually say, which was good, because I recognized that they were all incredibly stupid.

After a moment's awkward silence, I eventually managed to settle on something that was at least somewhat less stupid. "I get that you're not happy about it. I'm not thrilled about it either. And I'm sorry. But is arguing about it gonna help?"

She sighed, expression saddening, and moved to sit down on the edge of my bed. We basically swapped positions, since I turned around to keep facing her and ended up leaning back against the wall, folding my arms. "No, I'm sorry. I'm not upset at you, Sophia, and I don't want you to feel like I am. I'm just worried about you, and for you. You've been seriously hurt, and it hurts me to see my daughter like that."

"And you don't want me promoting violence, I get it." In my hasty attempt to reassure her, I missed the mark a little, and she visibly cringed.

"You're right, but that's not what this is about. Right now, all I care about is you being safe and well." She stood up and reached out to grasp my right hand with her left, then paused. "I was expecting it to be cold."

I shrugged. "It's a machine. It gets warm. That's how that works, I think. Anyway, I really am fine. It doesn't hurt or feel funny. Probably because I'm used to controlling artificial limbs, that's what my wings are. And I should still be able to write and do everything normally. The only issue is hiding it at school, and I'm going to call some people about that."

She nodded. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

I tilted my head to the side slightly, lips pursed. "Don't think so, but if there is, I'll let you know. Also, I'll probably be a bit more low-key with the cape stuff for a bit. Want to make sure this isn't gonna stop working in the middle of a fight first. Well, low-key except for any Class S events." If looks could kill, it would have been like if I was caught in one of Void Termina's blasts. I raised my free hand in a placating gesture in response to Mom's sudden withering stare. "As in any local Class S events. At least for a while." That seemed to work for her, and she pulled back from me, folding her hands in front of her.

"I'm glad, really," she said, speaking slowly and carefully, picking each word with precision. "But I'm still going to worry about you for as long as you keep going out there at all. I hope you can understand that"

"I get it. You're my mom. It's your thing." I inclined my head towards her. "I don't want to upset you, it's just that these things happen sometimes. That's life as a cape. It should be happening less from now on, though. Just trust me on that." She did not look convinced. "Please?"

That got her to finally relent, her expression softening again. "Alright. I'll leave you in peace so you can make those calls you mentioned. Dinner's going to be in two hours or so, so try to be done by then."

I gave her a lazy salute with my mechanical arm. "Sure thing. Love you, mom." With that, she left the room. I still got the impression that she didn't exactly understand or agree with me, and honestly the same was true in reverse. But she at least respected where I was coming from, and honestly that was all I really needed from her right now. I'd go into more detail on what had happened later. Or I'd get the other me to explain and push any awkwardness onto her. One of the two.

For now, it was back to more immediate concerns. I grabbed my cell phone from its place in a dresser drawer and turned it on, going to manually input a number I'd memorized. Back at the conclusion of the whole Coil and Noelle and Dark Matter series of events two weeks ago, Armsmaster had given me his name and personal number if I ever needed any help in response to me giving him my own name. It had been a pretty stressful situation up to that point, so emotions might have been running high. It was useful in this case, though.

Tapping in a phone number with my right hand was almost as fast as it had been before, but not quite. I noted the minute difficulties in maneuvering my thumb to hit the numbers in the proper sequence efficiently. Something to adjust to or finetune in the future.

For his part, Colin Wallis picked up after only a couple of rings. "Armsmaster. How'd you get this number?" His voice was clipped and professional, almost cold. Right, because this was my cell phone he didn't actually know who I was.

"It's Sophia," I replied, collapsing onto my bed and swinging my legs up as I fell back and twisted so I was lying down while I talked, resting on top of the covers and pillow.

"I see." In an instant, his entire tone changed completely. Now he was warm and conversational, almost like the voice I'd heard him use in his interviews but audibly more relaxed and casual. "First off: is this an emergency? Do you need immediate assistance?"

The words took me back, but it made sense. He had no idea what was going on, after all. "Nah. I'd call the PRT if it was."

"Good call," Armsmaster said approvingly. "The main line is there for a reason. It can organize the best available response because it goes to the people with the best overall picture. Why did you call, then?"

I rolled my eyes, not that he could see. "Not to get a pat on the back for how good I am at comms protocol." I could somehow sense that a rebuttal was swiftly incoming, so I pressed on. "I've got a robot arm now and I need advice on how to go to school without it being super obvious."

Several seconds passed in complete silence. "I see," he finally said before waiting a few more seconds, speaking up again when I didn't elaborate further "I'm not sure how good a source of advice I can be, here.".

"Well, who the fuck else would I call? You're the only cape who's number I have except Glory Girl, and Victoria's never had to hide anything because she's with New Wave."

"Fair point," he conceded, still sounding a bit surprised, probably from how blunt I was being. "I'll give you my thoughts. I was only doing some maintenance on my equipment, so you're not interrupting anything. The main issue would be timing. Responsive prosthetics aren't unheard of, but they're not common without some kind of Tinker being involved. In your case, you had your biological arm on Friday afternoon, or if you didn't then you're calling me a bit late. Then you lose it, then you get it replaced, then you're back in school on Monday. That's a very short time for all that to happen, with no kind of recovery period. It'd certainly draw eyes.

"If you were a Ward, the PRT would step in, but because you're not that'd be difficult. And the type of stepping in could well be that you'd be moved to a different school, if not a different city. It would depend on the circumstances of the injury, I suppose. In any case, hmm. The simplest option would probably be to just attend school without the prosthetic. A severe injury without much recovery time would still draw attention, but not the kind that makes unfortunate connections. Or you could tell the school about the injury and use that as an excuse for time off, then come back with the arm later."

"I'm not sure my mom would love it if I tried to use this to get a couple weeks off school. I mean, she might actually ground me."

"For the duration, that would actually be wise. If you were outside while allegedly recovering from a serious injury and someone saw you, it'd raise questions. Both the unfortunate kind and the regular old truancy kind."

"Sure. In any case, I was actually wondering if you had any bright ideas on how to hide it or something." His ideas were a lot more straightforward and practical than I'd been expecting. Real world problems sometimes needed real world solutions, I supposed.

He paused and I heard him mutter something under his breath before speaking up again. "A sheathe, maybe? Think of it like a glove that mimics your skin in appearance. I don't know who gave you the device, but you could ask them about it. For the most part, it would only have to stand up to casual examination, so it doesn't have to be perfect. You could also wear an actual glove, or gloves if you want to be symmetrical. It would be an odd fashion statement and more prone to questions or something going wrong, but it could work as a temporary solution if nothing else. And of course, there is the obvious solution-"

"Which has obvious problems. I'll try and ask her about it, but I'm not assuming it'll work.

"You've clearly put some thought into this already. I think I've said all that immediately comes to mind. If you don't mind me asking, how'd this injury happen, anyway?"

"Long story short? I met my clone again, we fought, we made up, we fought god. Everything's cool now, though." I was definitely making her recite this story going forward.

"...I see. Well, I'm glad she's alright, I suppose. I know that was weighing on you. I'd love to help with this personally, it sounds like a fascinating project, but I'm always busy. Good luck with finding a solution.

"Thanks." I hung up, the given ideas in mind. No immediate brilliant ideas I hadn't thought of, unfortunately, but I had options at least.

Options and time. I could start working on a solution right away, but I honestly wanted to unwind a bit first, and I had a fair amount of time before I needed to do anything else. I opened my phone's contacts and lazily picked out Emma, texting her. Admittedly, mostly to do my due diligence.

Sophia: Have time?

Emma: sure. what's up?

Sophia: Might be coming to school with a glove or something.

Emma: ?

Sophia: It'd be to hide a robot arm.

Emma: wut

Sophia: I got my old one deleted. It happens.

Emma: u worry me somtimes

Emma: also i mean r u ok?

Sophia: Fine. Like I said, it happens.

Emma: it doesnt but sure

Emma: what can i do 4 u?

Sophia: Just don't draw attention to it. Or draw attention away from it.

Sophia: Hopefully it doesn't come up, but just in case.

Emma: i got u i guess

Moments after her final message, my phone rang, and I picked up only to immediately hear her actual voice. "Seriously, Sophia, what the fuck?" She was clearly more exasperated than angry, though.

"Just wanted to give you a heads up."

"Can we talk about this?" She asked, and I didn't bother suppressing a groan.

"Can we not?" I shot back. "I've just talked about this literally three times. Now that I've told you what I have to, can we talk about anything else? Like, normal teenage girl bullshit. I'll even talk about cape bullshit, just so long as it's not arm related."

"I mean, it sounds like it's kind of a big deal?"

I let out an aggravated sigh. "Yeah, no shit." I glanced at the glossy plastic currently holding a brick of less glossy plastic to my ear. "But I've dealt with worse and weirder. I'll be fine." It was far from perfect, but I'd deal with it anyway. That was my generally favored approach, really. And honestly, there were worse things in the world than having a pretty sweet robot arm, when it came down to it. I'd gladly have this, if it was between this and not getting my other self back safe and sound.

"Well, sure. I'm not sure what I can talk about with you, though. You're just not a normal teenager."

"I'm not that bad," I said, actually slightly offended.

"You're not bad at all, but seriously, it's not like you go out with boys, or gossip about boys, or have any fashion sense whatsoever. You do sports, but I have to be the least physically fit person you know. Taylor's more fit than I am."

"We watched that detective thriller movie last month."

"Yeah. You wanna talk about it?"

"...not really. Just saying, we did it together." There was suddenly silence, excepting the faint crackle of the phone line. "I mean, I saw myself in a dress today, if you want to talk about fashion."

"You finally wore one?" She said, sounding downright surprised. "How'd it feel?"

"Well, not exactly. It was actually a clone thing."

"Not gonna ask!" I could hear the almost forced pep in Emma's voice. "So, how'd it look?"

"Kind of dumb, honestly, but that was mostly the hat. It was a weird shirt-dress hybrid, sleeves went down to the elbows and the skirt went down to the knees. It wasn't terrible, actually, but I don't know if I'd go for it myself."

"Okay, you want to know what I think?" There was a grin in her voice now that she was on her home turf, and so stayed silent and let her continue. "Obviously, you wouldn't wear it casually, but I've always thought that your thing would be a sleeveless floor-length dress. Hear me out."

"I'm hearing you out." And with that, Emma was off, going on about aesthetics and who could pull off what, soon diving into color theory and hairstyles, and I was content to let her talk. It was nice, actually, to finally return to normal ground after so long off it followed by two weeks of reopening old connections, settling into a more relaxed routine, and most recently going on an adventure in the Other Worlds. Emma had clearly been thinking about this for a long time, and if she was happy to talk about it to me at length I was happy to listen.

I'd be back in the field before long, of course. Sure, Brockton Bay was as peaceful as I'd ever known it, with downtown clear of bad guys, the ABB not interested in expanding, and the various smaller gangs too weak to do so, but that was temporary. People from outside the city would fill the empty space, just like in Boston a few years back, and while I'd much rather have any villain group around instead of the Empire Eighty-Eight most were still pretty nasty in their own right. When they showed up, I'd be there to meet them, and even if somehow they didn't I still had a rematch with Lung I wanted to fight. This was far from the end for my hero career. It wasn't like I'd solved all the world's problems, or even all of my personal problems.

But at the same time, I felt like I was in a good place. I was, honestly, happier than I'd been in years. Nothing was really hanging over me from my past, I'd done a lot of good work helping create the peaceful downtown I was currently enjoying, even if it had been a bit rough at times. My friends were still my friends, and I didn't think anything huge was about to happen to me.

It was freeing, really. To know that this chapter of my life had gotten a happy ending.

 

[Pinklestia]

So... I wonder what Shadow Sophia is doing? Fighting a wishing machine?

 

[EternalStruggle]

Floralia was located above the clouds, so it had long days. That might have been why the sun was already visible well above the horizon, having started to rise what felt like two hours ago, even though it was six-something in the morning. Seven AM, maybe. I hadn't exactly been keeping count, just like I hadn't exactly been able to sleep.

Which wasn't to say I hadn't tried. Hell, I'd even managed to nap for a few hours after midnight, leaving me still a little groggy but not exactly dead on my feet. The issue was restlessness, a lot of boiling up inside of me to the point where it was starting to affect me. At this point, I'd spent the time since I woke up pacing around the silent yards and halls of the castle. Everyone else here had to be asleep, because I didn't encounter anyone. I knew there were guards manning the tall, fairytale towers and outlying battlements, but I wasn't going that far out or that far up.

The trip back had been fairly uneventful, and everything had been put back in its proper place. Everyone had gone home, except me, because I still wanted to see things here fully play out first, and it was also as close to a home as I even had now. All good and well. I'd talked to Adeleine, helping catch her up on the past two weeks while she caught me up with her work on Noelle. It was the first time I personally had talked to her, and she was a bit skeptical due to what we called my recent history but otherwise we seemed to be getting along fine. She was asleep now, of course, and the Sisters were either likewise, fighting, or organizing an exodus.

I'd honestly wanted to join them, at least for the fighting, but I'd ended up staying here because someone had to watch over the still-sleeping Hyness. Theoretically, to bring him up to speed when he woke back up after his long, Void Termina-induced nap. I'd volunteered to be the one to stay behind because I wanted to have the first crack at him if he turned out to still be insane, some sense of responsibility at just all of this spurring me on. So I paced and paced.

At first, I'd tried to experiment with the fourth Heart Spear, the one that hadn't been eaten or destroyed, that we'd brought back with us. No sense in wasting a perfectly good magical superweapon, after all. But the problem there was that I was still a novice at the theoretical aspects of magic. I instinctively had some pretty potent powers, but that didn't mean I could do jack or shit with the spear except stab someone with it. So it was that I'd left it stuck in the ground in a central courtyard and began my aimless pacing, counting down the seconds to an inevitable confrontation.

So I wasn't particularly surprised when I came to the end of my rounds and saw Hyness floating at ground level, having finally woken up from his deep slumber. But I was a bit surprised by the actual words that then came out of his mouth when he saw me.

"Ah, there you are. I believe thanks are in order." With that, he lowered the hood of his robes, something I'd never seen him do before. I wasn't sure what I was expecting his face to look like, but it probably wasn't this. It was a darkish blue, with pointy, almost catlike ears with orange stripes covering the top halves. His eyes had looked small under the hood, but that was apparently just his pupils glowing, because his actual eyes were massive and without any lids, now staring me down. He also had a comically large nose, and I had no idea how that hadn't poked out from his hood when it was still up. Magic, probably.

I paused my steady pacing and took to the air, at least by a couple of inches, floating over to him. My arms were held loosely at my sides, hands open, but I was ready to clench them into fists with a moment's warning. We were in a courtyard, Heart Spear off to one side in the center, stabbed into a floor of brightly colored geometric shapes on a black background that looked kind of like stained glass, with plants and low benches occupying the edges. "They are," I replied, wary. A lot depended on what exactly he was thanking me for. He didn't sound outright sarcastic, sure, but since I'd never heard him be sarcastic before that meant relatively little. I wouldn't know what that sounded like.

"I had been blinded, you see. By hatred, by taking what I had for granted, by greed. And yes, by madness born of darkness too. I thought us the masters of the matter most dark, but instead we were its servants. The hatred came first, of course. Hatred built upon ancient stories of betrayal and exile, which delivered my heart into the clutches of the demon-god, Void Termina. Only now, thanks to you and your friends, do I see clearly again. Thus, I lay my gratitude upon you." He paused, staring me down. I got the impression he'd have blinked if not for the lack of eyelids. "I fear that you're not following me."

"No, I am," I said, folding my arms in mild dismay. "I'm just processing the fact that even when you're not insane, you still never shut the fuck up when you get on a roll. I mean, it makes sense. Why would that change when you went crazy? But I admit, I'd kind of hoped you'd be a bit more… concise? That's the word, right?" Hyness nodded, his entire head practically flopping down and up like it was on a spring. More likely, he was just being very enthusiastic.

"Anyway, I wasn't all that." I looked up at the sky and away from the conversation, and since we were high enough and facing the right way I could actually see the stars instead of a big dumb metal sphere. They didn't really hold my focus, though. As I'd mused before, the stars were a lot less interesting when you'd been to some of them. "Things worked out more in spite of me than because of me?"

"Eh? You refuse credit for your accomplishments?" Hyness jerked his head to one side, raising up his hands, or whatever were inside his overly long sleeves even as the ends drooped down. Even though it was in my peripheral vision, I could easily make out his wild movements. Another area where he had nearly the same quirks as before. No wonder the Mage-Sisters hadn't realized how bad things had gotten, he'd barely changed when he went crazy. Gotten a little less focused and a lot more evil, but that was about it.

Outwardly, I shrugged. "Again, not sure they're my accomplishments. Nothing personal, just don't want to take credit for shit I didn't do. Dishonesty makes me feel weird. If anything helped, it was Kirby showing up, and I didn't even mean for that to happen."

"But, ah," Hyness crowed, satisfaction twinkling in his voice. "It was you who gave them the Spears of Heart they needed to win, was it not? And even if you did not mean to bring them to Jambandra, it was still your actions that started their journey, no? So in fact, it was your accomplishment all along!" He paused as I continued to look up, visibly not convinced. With a sigh, he performed a theatrical flourish, gesturing off to one side. "Come, sit! Sit with me! Something still troubles you, I can tell."

Grudgingly, I looked back down as he floated off to the side of the courtyard and sat down on a bench, smoothing out his robes as he did. I followed, collapsing onto the bench beside him. Since it was low to the ground, I put my legs out straight in front of me, one crossed over the other, while I leaned back and spread my arms out to either side of me. At least the back was a good height. I looked over at Hyness, who was looking intently over at me with those wide eyes of his. I could easily imagine how they'd have come off as completely crazed if I'd seen them before, but now they instead radiated a strong sense of earnest openness.

So this was the Lord Hyness that the three Mages had dedicated their lives to serving. The wise and noble leader. Their savior, literally and metaphorically. I'd finally gotten to see what they'd seen, and yeah, I could see the appeal. I figured they'd be happy he was back.

"It just feels weird. Let's say you're right, that I played my part in all this. Even if I did, nothing went the way I planned it. I nearly got Exoa Knight killed. Now I get to clean my hands of it and act normal?"

"Do you?" I was momentarily annoyed, then I realized it was as much a legitimate question as anything else. Of course, he'd been unconscious for that entire thing. When he mentioned the heart spears, that was based on raw intuition and an expectation that I'd correct him if he was wrong instead of hard facts that he knew for sure. He was smart, then, on top of everything else.

"Yeah," I sighed, pulling up my left hand to rest my head against, fist pushing against cheek. "I mean, not completely normal. The Mage-Sisters all agreed that we'd try for a fresh start, so that's new. I'm here instead of Earth on purpose, that's new. But overall? I dunno. Feels like I got off easy. Weird thing to complain about, right?"

Hyness continued to look at me silently, lacking a lot of context. I didn't feel judged, but for some reason I kept talking anyway, maybe because of that. "I'm just used to consequences. Fuck, if all this had gone down back home, no way I get out of this without being tossed in jail. Probationary Wards membership at best, and that's basically the same thing. But because it happened over here, and because Sophia felt like making peace, nothing. It's simpler in this world."

"Kyahahahaha!" Hyness cackled, throwing back his head as his entire body shook with intense laughter. I scowled, for all that it sounded good-natured. "After everything I've seen in my many years of exploration, the one thing I wouldn't call this world of ours is simple!"

"But you know what I mean, right?" I said, irritation mounting. "Things have a tendency to work themselves out. People have a tendency to be forgiven."

His robe shifted in a way that suggested he'd shrugged. "I would not be so sure. For my own people, that wasn't always the case." I nodded. The whole ancient exile thing. Even that had apparently worked out in the end, with him being here and alive, but I supposed that there had been countless generations between now and then, so I took his point. "And as for us? Forgiveness is not forgetting. I was corrupted by the Jamba Heart, yes. I see that clearly now. But as I said, it was only able to do so because of the darkness in my own heart. That, and the most extreme and dire consequences that followed, are not changed, even though we are allowed to move on. We are not so different in that."

"If we're similar, do you have any advice?" Not that I was sure what I would even want or need advice on, but I figured if I asked I might at least get an interesting answer.

Hyness paused to give a thoughtful hum before responding. "If you were let go, then it means they trust in your ability to change. Or that you have changed?"

I shrugged. "Probably a bit of both."

"I see. Then, consider this our very own rebirth of sorts. I am saddened by the failure of the prophecy and the loss of what could have been, but the prophecy was only important because of the hope for the future it gave. If it was only ever a fairy tale, then the important thing is that we move forward, changed. Better than we once were. So long as we hold true to that idea, those who have forgiven us should have little cause for complaint. Don't you agree?" Hesitantly, I nodded, causing Hyness to throw his arms wildly up into the air. "Then I bid the two of us a very happy birthday!"

"Thanks. I guess." I stood up from the bench, smoothing down my skirt and taking a couple of steps away. Hyness followed, politely folding his sleeves in front of him. "Feels easy for you to say, though. You're already there."

"Only somewhat." He bowed his head, face wearing another new emotion: something between remorse and shame. "When I awoke, I felt purified of all corruption, it's true. An infusion of positive energies, I believe. But I still must address my inner thoughts, and make up for what I have done to my beloved Mages, especially Zan…"

He trailed off, and I folded my arms, eyebrow raised in surprise and frankly a bit of annoyance. "You forgot her name again." It wasn't a question.

"Could you, ah, perhaps remind me?"

"Partizanne. Remember it, for her sake."

"Of course. And you have much to do likewise, I'm sure."

I shrugged again, thinking things over. I liked the idea of actual goals, something to make me feel less adrift. If I was actively doing stuff, I wouldn't feel like I was wasting my time or any benefit of the doubt that had been shown to me. I didn't need some big redemption, I just needed to get back on track. At least, that's what I thought. The only real question was what those goals were, and as I figured them out I realized something. "We both do. Not me and you, me and Exoa Knight. We both need to rebuild relationships, extend our training, and fight bad guys. Probably some other stuff too."

"Pass on your gathered knowledge to others, perhaps?" Hyness asked, sounding curious. I waved a hand dismissively in response.

"At some point, but not yet. We gotta finish putting our own shit in order first." I was just about done receiving pearls of wisdom for the day, so I pushed on. "And you. Do you know what your own issues are?"

Another hum, and his right eye swiveled so it was pointing almost straight to the side, towards the heart spear, while his left eye stayed locked onto me. Eugh, he could do that? "I believe I do, now. We fought a great and terrible war. Our former allies sealed us away out of fear that our enemies would use their vast intellects to study our magic, and with it become invincible. Now I am reminded of the danger that uncontrolled magic can pose, and I see the sense in it. I disagree with their methods, but I hope I can abandon my hate for those who were once our brothers and sisters. Now that I know their own civilization did not survive the aftermath of that nightmare, I hope I can abandon my envy."

Something twigged as a bit funny about that. "Actually, there's one thing I don't get about that. Didn't you, you know, win your war? Why would they exile you out of fear of what people studying your magic could do afterward? Kinda hard to study something when you're dead."

"We won, yes, but we fought only a tiny fraction of their numbers. Our dimensional observatories saw that there were more of the enemy than there are stars in the galaxy, and we defeated not even a hundred. That was the reason we sealed our dimension from yours."

"Right, which means these incredibly powerful bad guys are all where I'm from," I grumbled. "That's fucking terrifying, by the way. I hate knowing that. I guess at least I know who to ask if they show up."

Hyness gave me a firm pat on the back, letting his hand rest on my shoulder a moment before I shrugged it off. "Indeed. Until and unless they do, we might be better served by speaking of other things." I quickly nodded in agreement.

Other things, like what I was actually meant to talk with him about. I'd kind of forgotten in the midst of the spontaneous dialogue. "We're on Planet Popstar. The others are off helping fight some invaders on it, and they're considering moving everyone from Jambandra Base to live here. The locals would probably be happy with it, especially if they get help evicting the bastards on it right now, and we all thought it would be a good idea to get people off the station. Make a clean break, and living down here would probably be a lot nicer for everyone."

His eyes did another disjointed swivel as he moved around me, this time his right eye focusing on me while his left looked up and slightly to the side. I followed its gaze, and saw it was pointing straight at the alien mothership. "Yep, those are the bastards."

"I see! Well, I pledge my aid to their removal, and I think I agree that a move might be best. I shall discuss it with the Mages upon their return. Alas, I am still somewhat drained from my time within Void Termina. I may have to leave the fighting to them for now."

I shrugged. "Up to you. But if you still wanna be helpful, you could help with Noelle. That'd be nice of you." Between Hyness' magic and the remaining Heart Spear, Adeleine's hoped-for breakthrough might become a reality.

Of course, Hyness had absolutely no idea who Noelle was. Or Adeleine, for that matter. So we stood there and talked, me explaining that situation as best I could and filling him in on the details of what else he'd missed while he was unconscious as best I could. Soon enough, he'd taken the last heart spear and was wandering off to find Noelle, vowing he would do his utmost to aid her, as she was another wounded soul in need of his help.

I watched him go and prepared to try and get a couple hours more sleep, but before I could find a good place to settle down a familiar but unexpected face appeared, a shadowy figure emerging in the early morning light. Sophia Hess, dressed casually. I'd say normally, but the robot arm kinda made her appearance not that normal. She held Dominar loosely in her artificial hand, and a Warp Star trailed behind her, apparently separate from the one she must have used to get here. "Got an emergency. Wanna help?"

I paused and lowered my head slightly, steeling myself. Based on our last discussion, if she was calling this an emergency it probably meant this was actually really serious. Despite the fact that we'd agreed to a peace between us, I might still have wanted to talk with her a bit first, but this probably took priority. "Depends. What's up?"

"Leviathan. Got woken up by a call to my cell phone, lucky thing that I kept it on. Apparently we know in advance this time that he's hitting Miami." My already still form found a way to freeze, becoming even more of a statue. She was right. That was an emergency. "Not a lot in advance, though. Dunno how much time we have, but it's apparently not long, and it already took me a bit to get up here."

Well. I had said that I'd help her with anything on Earth she needed help with, and I absolutely wasn't about to make myself a liar. Not about that. Hadn't exactly expected to be fighting an Endbringer the very next day after I said that, but it had been around three months, so I'd honestly walked right into this. "Alright. Aren't you gonna suit up?"

To my surprise, she actually shook her head. "Nah. I kinda promised mom that I wouldn't go to any big fights outside the city for a bit." Then she fixed me with a harsh stare. "And also my gear is still getting repaired. But hey, I figure if you have my sword then they're only missing so much from me not being there."

I raised an eyebrow as I processed the implications. "You're giving me Dominar?"

"I'm letting you borrow it. No one else can use it, and I trust you with it in a fight. You know how to use a sword, obviously. You're basically me and all that." She was speaking in a clipped, tense voice, which fit with her pretty stiff posture now that I was looking closer.

"I dunno, I'm thinking of growing my hair out, so maybe we're not that similar," I replied, trying to break the tension, and also because I actually was thinking of doing that now that I didn't have to worry about stuffing my hair into a powered suit..

She rolled her eyes, but visibly relaxed a little. "Funny. Now, let's go."

"Right." With that, Sophia placed her hand on my shoulder and closed her eyes. Five seconds later, I was back on Earth once again. In my former bedroom. I almost took a moment to take it in, but I didn't have the time.

I stepped away from Sophia as she pushed the Warp Star in my direction, and my face snapped into a cocky, savage grin. "I didn't go through all that shit just to die here. See you in a bit." I shifted into shadow and slipped through her barely open window, a very familiar feeling. After all, she'd done it every night for over a year. I pulled it wider from the outside, letting the Warp Star emerge, and stood on the softly glowing platform as it took me up and away, headed south.

Off to another fight. I was comfortable with that, because it was what I did and who I was. Making new friends and settling old scores hadn't done anything to change that. Neither had nearly messing up everything because I was too close to the problem, or then taking a step back and realizing I'd been dumb.

Funny that I'd just called the Other World simpler, when stepping back here to do this suddenly felt like the simplest thing in either world. Not easy, never easy, but simple. Instead of wondering or brooding, there were just the actions I had to take. Fitting, really, that it was like that when this whole thing had begun with playing around and ended with duty. I'm sure Meta Knight was pleased, wherever the hell he was right now.

As I flew high in the sky, racing to meet an uncertain deadline and fight a monster, I felt free despite the fact I was responding to an obligation. Before my mind narrowed down to focus entirely on the task at hand, something I had to do if I wanted to survive the coming fight, it noted that it was because with everything resolving, this was now the first day of the rest of my life.

And it was a life I intended to make full, good use of.

 

[MilitantBird]

Reborn and fighting an Endbringer. It's still a little hard to believe that I'm saying this, but go Sophia Hess!

On a different note, EternalStruggle manages to complete yet another full novel-length work of fiction! Congratulations!

I'm gonna miss seeing this fic pop up in my notifications, that's for sure.

 

[Pinklestia]

Did Shadow Sophia remember to wear a mask or something to the Endbringer fight? Because otherwise she is outing the original Sophia.