Chapter Text
Time runs slower when Meta Knight is in space, and he spends much of it gazing out the ship window and into the wide expanse of stars shining beyond it. It’s fascinating, watching the cosmos gradually shift and new planets come into view. He wishes he could step out and glide through it himself, if only it were feasible.
His wings give a phantom twitch, hidden within the dimensional depths of his cape, longing to try.
Instead, he merely presses a hand to the cold glass, as if that might bring him a little closer.
“You’re looking a little down today,” Jecra pipes up from the seat next to him, arms crossed behind his head as he reclines. His mask is skewed sideways, only covering half of his face at the moment, but one of his eyes peaks open to rest on the knight. “Somethin’ on your mind?”
“I’m stargazing,” Meta Knight says simply, turning to the spiky-haired star warrior. He raises a brow behind his mask, yellow eyes bright. “It passes the time.”
“What—How? Everything looks the same for like, the entire time.”
“I find it interesting.”
“Well, that’s because you're a nerd,” Jecra declares, shooting him a wide grin, as if he’s gained something enlightening with that assessment.
“Maybe it's because he’s mature, and just understands the value of a little quiet,” Garlude says from across the side-table, gloved hands curled around a cup of still-steeping tea. Her eyes slide between both of them, a little exasperated, before settling back on Jecra. “Unlike you.”
“Aw but Gar,” Jecra whines as he sinks further into his seat, shutting his eyes as his mask starts sliding off his face. “This trip would be so much more boring if I wasn’t here. Right, Meta?”
The knight makes a thoughtful noise to himself, turning back to the window. A small, hidden smile slowly rises on his face, and his eyes flash a faint, mischievous pink. “It would be more quiet,” he concedes.
“Wh—I can’t believe you,” Jecra scoffs, prodding him in the side with his foot. “I take it back, you’re just a menace who pretends to be a nerd.”
“I can’t hear you,” Meta Knight says, making a point of sitting still. “I think the stars have moved an entire inch since I last checked.”
Jecra nudges him again, a little firmer, but doesn’t comment aside from a grumble.
“You’re both hopeless,” Garlude murmurs, though it’s softened with an amused smirk as she takes a sip of tea.
The three lapse back into a comfortable silence following it, and Meta Knight feels a sense of contentment settle over his shoulders like a soft blanket.
He should keep alert, senses sharp and eyes open for trouble, always, but sometimes it’s nice to lower his guard and take in the company of his friends for a bit. Besides, it’ll be several more hours until they arrive at the rendezvous point, where they’ll meet up with the smaller scouting units of the Galaxy Soldier Army that were sent before them. He can worry about the trouble he might find there when he has the chance to actually see it.
For now, Jecra, Garlude, and Meta Knight remain alone in this section of the starship. They’re taking up one corner of the small walkway lined with chairs and side-tables that are built directly into the floor, intended as a rest area. Other soldiers mill about beyond the two sets of double-doors at each end, but the three of them are the only star warriors of the bunch, designated by the emblems worn on their armor.
A star, stamped on the chest of Jecra’s jumpsuit, another emblazoned on Garlude’s shoulder guard, and at last the bright-yellow badge Meta knight keeps on his left pauldron. They’re the greatest line of defense against any demon beasts that might chance an encounter, though it’s unlikely all the way out here, fairly off-planet and in a more secluded spot of space.
In all, there are about thirty onboard the ship that’s been cleverly disguised as a regular commercial starcraft. Sometimes the best way to pass under Nightmare’s radar is in plain sight, and the skies are calm today. No sentries have stopped them. Turbulence has been near non-existent, and Garlude can even set down her cup without worry of it toppling over.
It should be smooth sailing from here until arrival, and Meta Knight lets his thoughts of stars and space absorb him in the meantime.
–
Another hour in, and the starship stops.
It’s unexpected, and the sudden, apparent quiet of the engine dying out and the lights dimming down to conserve power is enough to startle Meta Knight out of the daze he had slipped into while still watching through the window.
Jecra is asleep in his chair, mask haphazardly stuck on the side of his head and forcing his hair to stick out in every possible direction as he dozes on, oblivious. His pointed ears flick in response to the near-silent sound of Garlude straightening up and Meta Knight rising smoothly to his feet, already stepping onto the tabletop for a higher vantage.
The knight peers around the walkway in suspicion. No one else is in here but them, though that isn’t surprising. Meta Knight is aware of the intimidating effect he has on others, and he’s rather fine with it, for the most part. Most soldiers tend to leave him alone if the option presents itself.
He turns back to the window instead, a bit puzzled.
Nothing has changed outside, save for the soft blue glow of a nearby nebula taking up half the view. Gentle starlight beams in, illuminating the curve of his mask and the sapphire of Garlude’s golden-banded tiara.
The knight draws his cape over his arms amidst the lasting pause, and Garlude narrows her eyes, wary of sitting back down.
“It could just be a precaution,” she says, but her voice remains lowered. Unease starts to trickle in the longer it goes on, and the starship drifts idle. They’ve been trained to instinctively be cautious, even at the slightest oddity. “They may have spotted something.”
Meta Knight lets a hand stray to the hilt of his sword, assuring himself it’s there. His eyes tint green in deeper thought.
Briefly, they flit over to the far door across the hall, which leads towards the front of the ship.
“I’ll go check with the pilot,” the knight says, equally as quiet.
“Wait another minute first,” Garlude warns, putting a hand in front of him as she keeps her eyes on the window, picking through everything in the visible patch of space. “You’ll end up putting everyone further on edge if you go barging in at the first hint of—”
Thunk.
Jecra blinks awake at the dull noise, echoing from somewhere beyond the room. He looks to both of them with confusion, as if they might have made it on purpose.
Meta Knight and Garlude share a long look, their concern beginning to ball itself up into a palpable sense of dread.
“Did you do that?” Jecra asks blankly, swiping over his nose in a familiar tic. When they don’t answer right away, he frowns.
Thunk!
The sound comes again, more insistent, and before they can react a shadow skates past the window, briefly cutting out the stars.
The trio swivel around just in time to catch the fleeting image of feathers trailing upwards and over the window’s edge, slipping right out of their line of sight.
Above them, the lights come back on.
And then they start to glow brighter, stronger, turning unexpectedly harsh as Meta Knight hisses in discomfort and squints, feeling his eyes strain to adjust. The bulbs start crackling from the overabundance of energy, letting out a thin, reedy whine.
All three of them tense, sensing the abnormality of the situation and bracing themselves when one bulb at the far end bursts with a loud crack, dripping sparks and shards of glass.
“Okay, okay that’s definitely not good,” Jecra says, rising to his feet. He flings his mask down over his face and edges away from standing directly beneath the still-shrieking lights.
The doors closest to them, just a few paces behind and carrying into the back end of the ship, let out a buzz of error as someone tries to open them several times in a row, and fails.
A circuit must have burnt out. Meta Knight wonders if that means they’ve just been locked in.
Regardless, the attempt is followed by a quick, frantic knock, and a recruit shouting something indecipherable through the metal walls.
Jecra begins muttering about the lights and explosions before hoisting up his shield and holding it over his head, hurrying towards the back doors as his cape flutes out behind him. He tries jamming a few buttons on the control panel, pressing his ear to the crack between the doors when nothing happens.
“Are we under attack,” Garlude calls over the rising cacophony of electricity, shielding her eyes and in case another light explodes.
“Something’s messing with the electricity,” Jecra shouts back, relaying whatever is being said on the other side.
“Well I can see that, knucklehead,” Garlude counters, ducking on instinct when a second bulb bursts. “What about using back-up power to move the ship again and get away from—whatever this is.”
Meta Knight remains rooted strictly in place, trying to listen for anything beyond the hissing current of static. He doesn’t know what they’re up against, or who, but he will find out. He can’t make a proper assessment until then, but he assures himself that whatever it is will be in for a nasty surprise if it thought this spaceship was going to be an easy target with him onboard.
His eyes stray back to the window, to the stars, just in time to see a figure dive down and smash face-first into the glass with another thunk.
The knight stiffens along with Garlude, flinching back slightly as his mind grasps wildly for as much information in the short span of time as possible.
He takes in a mass of shimmering, blue-green feathers, and a pair of thin-slitted yellow eyes that are narrowed in irritation, focused directly on him.
It's a creature of some sort, and his first assumption is that this is a demon beast, but there’s no brush of hatred against his senses, no glaring red eyes, and nothing to signify a direct declaration of Nightmare Enterprise’s involvement. It looks organic, yet unlike any species he’s sure he’s encountered before now.
The creature shrieks, rattling the glass as its mouth opens in a wide zig-zag to reveal a translucent, gridded sphere that makes up its central body. It flares out two feathery wings that extend from either side, beating them against the window, and the electricity responds in turn.
Static fills the air within the ship, and there’s a sharp drop in pressure alongside it, shattering another row of bulbs. Garlude draws her cape over her arm, gritting her teeth.
Searing, green-blue bolts of plasma begin forming around the vaguely bird-like creature, and its feathers reflect an otherworldly pattern of swirls. It’s stunning, far more elegant that something Nightmare should be able to create, and frightening all the same.
“What is that,” Jecra practically shrieks, looking up, and Garlude makes the ultimate decision to unsheathe her sword and prepare for a fight. She looks to Meta Knight, they both do, expecting him to answer with the depths of knowledge he always seems to have at his disposal when it comes to their enemies, but—
“I don’t know,” Meta Knight answers, and they falter.
Nearly every demon beast they’ve come across is recognizable to him. To most, it appears as if the knight has researched it beforehand and meticulously assembled a catalog of every monster somewhere in the back of his head to call upon when needed, and though that’s false, he doesn’t dispute it. It’s a sense, but not one he can explain without sounding absurd, and a twinge suspicious.
It’s not a good sign when he reaches for such an explanation now, as he always does, and finds nothing in response.
“Get to the door,” Garlude tells him, putting away her sword, but the knight draws his own instead, silver blade gleaming in the harsh, sputtering light.
He is not someone who backs down easily, if ever, not even as the creature dives forward once more, and something cracks.
–
In the span of a second, Meta Knight wonders if he’s just bit off more than he can chew. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d thrown himself head-first into a fight without thinking it through, without anything more than telling himself it’s a test of his abilities and that he will either win it, or learn something valuable enough from it to justify the expense, and his mind runs through all the different options he might have tried instead.
He could have gone to the back doors before Jecra did, and tried to pry them open before they were spotted by this odd creature. He could have ignored Garlude and stormed into the cockpit immediately, taken over starship controls himself and found a solution to get them out of here.
He could have even denied boarding this spacecraft in the first place, and just asked Sir Dragato for clearance to fly over on his own in a much smaller, solo ship. It’s what he might have done before he found his unexpected place with Jecra and Garlude. Before he began to see the importance in working as a team. Before he even wanted to try.
But he’s a star warrior, and if there’s one thing they’re known to do when faced with an unknown, it’s fight.
The thick glass of the window holds, but a crack splinters down the center, and the creature lets out another furious shriek at the obstacle.
It rams it again, and again, the metal frame shuddering and Jecra shouting something about standing back before bashing the edge of his shield against the seam between the two doors.
Garlude grabs Meta Knight by the cuff of his cape and yanks him off the table. “You are absolutely not going to stay and fight that thing right now.”
“Wait,” the knight protests, sabatons scrabbling for a purchase as he shoots her a stubborn look. “There aren't many other options, and I will handle—“
“There are better ones than just standing there staring it down,” Garlude snaps. “We don’t know what it can do, besides continue frying the whole ship. We’re getting out of here."
“Garlude’s right,” Jecra calls out. “Play it safe, Meta.”
That won’t ensure our safety, Meta Knight wants to hiss, but he bites down the argument in favor of remaining composed. Garlude has the most experience of all of them, and it’s wise to heed what she says to at least some degree—But then he’s distracted seconds later when the half-empty light sockets begin to brighten again, rising to their full capacity and remaining there for a few, perilous seconds.
He holds his breath, waiting, before the light falls back down in an uneven wobble. Jecra slams his shield into the door again, harder, denting the metal and parting it ever so slightly.
Then, at the other end of the walkway, the front doors slid open with merciful ease.
The three stop what they’re doing and turn, not even having considered that the other side would still work. A soldier stands there, clearly shocked about what's going on and watching them with wide eyes, before they start frantically motioning them over. “Get out of there!”
Before anyone has a chance to move, the feathery creature outside gives a shrill, mournful cry that sends the ghost of a shiver down the knight’s back—And then twists in on itself, disappearing in a wink of light and green-blue sparks.
All at once, the onslaught stops. The lights dim and flicker, clearly damaged but still clinging to the barest slip of functionally. The ship, though the engine remains dormant, drifts calmly through space.
It’s blissfully quiet.
Jecra, Garlude, and Meta Knight are all momentary at a loss for words.
That’s it? The knight thinks to himself, and he must look incredulous right now, adrenaline racing and the grip on his sword only tightening further. It just left? There’s relief mixed in there too, but he hasn’t yet grasped it. He can’t figure out why it would retreat so suddenly. What in the stars—
It doesn’t last long.
With abilities beyond their comprehension, the creature re-emerges before them, inside the hall, warping the very fabric of space in a show of what can be nothing short of true teleportation.
The hum of static returns with an added, cloying sense of distortion, the air growing thicker, nearly like honey, and Meta Knight notes that Garlude and Jecra start taking shorter, shallow breaths.
He’s mostly unaffected by changes in atmosphere himself, but that doesn’t mean everyone else here is. It’s dangerous, and although space is not truly deadly to anyone onboard, the longer it goes on the more at risk they are of becoming substantially weakened.
He’s stalled this long enough.
Meta Knight wrenches free from Garlude’s grip and charges forward, the clack clack of his sabatons echoing out across the floor. He dodges a spinning globe of concentrated electrical energy that’s thrown at his feet, side-stepping and twisting, lashing out at the creature with the point of his blade when he makes it within range.
A few, glimmering green-blue feathers are nicked off as it veers away from him with a garbled cry of alarm, causing more lights to fizzle in the chaos.
Glass crunches beneath his feet, making his path slippery, but the knight holds his ground, cape flaring out behind him. The creature flies upwards, towards the ceiling, and spins to face him.
The damaged window starts to creak, threatening to give way against the pressure pushing on it from the outside, and Jecra and Garlude join together to try wedging open the second pair of doors, given that the first remains blocked by the creature’s presence. The soldier there has ducked away, rightfully fearful of getting caught in any crossfire.
Again, the creature beats its shimmering wings once, twice, and Meta Knight doesn’t have time to look back as it dives into a tight spiral and he ducks, grabbing at the long, streaming tail feathers that flutter behind it.
The moment of contact, when his hand clamps down on one and he yanks it, several things happen.
A bolt of awareness races down through him and up to his wingtips, and the fabric of the Dimensional Cape begins to feel heavy, a solid, condensed weight clinging to his back.
His senses seem to wake up and a name sneaks into his mind that wasn’t there before. Doomer. Somehow, he knows this thing is a doomer, though not what that entails or where it could have come from.
Its attention is still on him, burning into his back, and he can feel its intent to lash out and take something he has, though he can’t place what. It’s not like his usual sense of knowing that he gets from demon beasts. It’s foreign, intangible, and—
Meta Knight comes to the abrupt realization that this creature is also very, very magic.
He’s about to be in a lot of trouble.
The doomer cries out as he flings it sideways by the tails, causing it to smack into the wall with a splash of green feathers. Sparks jump to life and bite at his skin, lightning crackling in the air, and Meta Knight hops back to put some space between him and it, though he’s not fast enough.
His hand is numb with pins and needles where he grabbed the creature, and a wave of disorientation is dredged up and slammed over him without warning.
It feels as if the floor is yanked out from under him. The knight starts to teeter, and someone calls out his name. He hears glass scraping across the floor, and he tries to raise his sword, to keep standing and fight it off.
He’s been struck with some sort of effect that’s rewiring his sense of direction. Up is down, down is up, and he should be falling, yet he’s stuck to what's now the ceiling and he’s too confused to make any sense of it the longer it goes on and the harder he tries.
He attempts to turn towards his friends, opening his mouth to say something about the name he’s just learned, when a warning shout rings out and a shadow rises over him.
The doomer scoops him up with its jaws, bristling with distortional magic, and clamps down on the knight before he even has the sense to start thrashing.
The fabric of space shifts, the air squeezes itself out of his lungs, and for his first known experience with teleportation, Meta Knight blacks out.
It isn’t pleasant.
–
The knight wakes sometime later to find himself suspended in a clear, luminescent sphere, confined to what he initially thinks must be the belly of a doomer.
He’s still alive, which is good, but that’s not exactly doing much to comfort him the longer he sits there, regaining awareness, taking in the full scope of the situation.
He’s not being digested, which is an immense relief, but he certainly is… Trapped. Maybe it isn’t that the doomer has eaten him then, so much as it's managed to lock him into an incredibly small, round storage compartment, and is now using it to carry him through the cosmos at high speeds against his will, while he can do little more than peer out its zig-zag of a mouth much like he did with the starship window earlier.
His head is fuzzy, and he learns soon enough that he doesn’t have his sword with him. He lost it, or dropped it back on the ship. The ship he was taken from. The ship Jecra, Garlude, and everyone else was on.
The ship is nowhere in sight.
Stuck with a flash of helplessness, Meta Knight starts hitting the sphere shell, pounding with his fist and then kicking it as hard as he can in the cramped space. He’s nearly weightless here, buoyed by some magical force or the lack of strong gravity, and he feels as if every strike rebounds with only a fraction of the force than he intends.
The doomer chitters irritably at his attempts, and after a few more useless strikes, the knight gives in, more willing to conserve his energy than waste it so fruitless.
Besides, he reasons, fighting off panic by focusing on what he can do right now, no matter how small. This is time I can use to think. To plan.
He slides a hand under his mask briefly, rubbing his eyes and forcing his nerves to settle down. He knows where the GSA’s starship was heading, and he knows how to garner an idea of his own location based on what planets and stars are closest to him. He’ll escape, and if it’s necessary, fly himself there with his own wings.
It’ll be tricky to pass off how he could manage that to one of the generals, who know nothing of them and for good reason, or even Arthur himself, but Jecra and Garlude can help cover him. He’ll be fine. This’ll be like any other misadventure he’s gotten himself into. He has experience to draw from.
So long as he keeps his wits about him, he can get himself out of this and reunite in no time.
Begrudgingly, he starts to back settle down, waiting for signs of any change.
It’s odd, he thinks, that this doomer would attack the starship so vehemently, only to leave it be in favor of taking him away. This doesn’t have any of NME’s usual flourishes.
Had the doomer even known the ship was being operated under the GSA’s forces? If it did, does that mean Nightmare has found a new type of ally? Was it just lucky?
Or, did the galaxy just decide to have a grudge against Meta Knight specifically today.
The power of teleportation is concerning, too. It’s not something easily possessed—Supposedly, magic used to be something that could be learned, in the era centuries before Nightmare’s reign, but now it’s usually stumbled upon only by chance. You either developed the abilities, or didn’t.
Meta Knight sighs, feeling the presence of his own magical cape more strongly than usual, dragging at his shoulders. It’s a comfort to have and a necessity beyond that when it comes to hiding the secret of his wings, but he can’t help getting a strange sense that it has a few similarities to the doomer’s abilities.
The Dimensional Cape is essentially a wearable pocket dimension, capable of warping space to store just about anything inside. If it's damaged, the fabric will just magically mend itself back together with time.
Perhaps the doomer was only drawn to something reminiscent of itself.
Unfortunately, it won’t get him out of here any faster.
–
Jecra is taking this well, all things considered. It’s not the first time Meta Knight has been captured by something sinister, and he’s not jaded enough to think it will truly be the last. The knight is tough, and for every instance he’s gone down, there’s ten more before it where it’s apparent he’s succeeded, and even come out unscathed.
This will be no different.
It used to be a normal occurrence for Meta Knight to disappear on missions like this, though back then it was usually on purpose, and ended with the knight strolling back into the panicked company of his fellow star warriors several hours later like nothing even happened, surprising them all by having taken care of it on his own. It drove Arthur up the walls, but even the commander couldn’t deny that he was capable of holding his own when necessary. And when it’s unnecessary, too.
Besides—What’s a little dimensional kidnapping every now and then? Really keeps Jecra on his toes. Really makes him wish he had sat by the window and told Meta Knight finders-keepers if he tried to challenge him for the seat, as if that fact alone would have kept him out of the fight.
It’s not uncommon for star warriors to get restless when they’re kept from action, and it was a long trip—it still is, technically, nevermind that Jecra is currently pushing this starship to its limits given the fried electronics and lack of light-speed thrusters making them travel so, so slowly in his mind. The poor pilot assigned to this mission is looking at him with an equal mix of hope and fear, glad that a star warrior has come to take over, yet clearly terrified that Jecra is going to do something rash that ends in an explosion stranding them across space until someone else more responsible picks them up.
That, or it’s the look of murderous intent on Garlude’s face.
Her lavender hair is tied back and she’s leaning over the back of the pilot’s chair to glare at the radar, cross-checking it with the star maps that are on-hand and tapping her fingers against the screen with impatience. The creature that took Meta Knight teleported outside the ship, and then flew off with him just like that, heading in a single direction that both star warriors currently hope to track down and follow as soon as possible. There is a chance this is not even NME-related at all, and they can potentially strike that name from the list with a sigh of relief. There are planets out there that the knight may have been taken to instead, they only need to look.
But they can’t start just yet.
Jecra and Garlude have a duty to the rest of the soldiers onboard to get them safely to their original destination before they can turn around and go after a single, rather disaster-prone and arguably independent star warrior. They won’t abandon the others, and they’re under basic orders to stick in a group unless under direct attack. They’re holding themselves to that, even if something screams to Jecra that at this rate, it will be far too late to go after the knight with any real chance of success in mind.
Once arriving at the scouting camps, both of them should have more free reign on how to approach Meta Knight’s capture—but that’s still a deceptive thing to say out loud, so he doesn’t. Neither of them do, and they won’t so long as there's an audience to hear them. Their options change, but not exactly into something more inspiring.
The fact of the matter is, when they get there, Jecra and Garlude will have an important choice to make.
GSA protocol demands they notify one of the higher-ups—which typically means the generals—about this as soon as possible, but doing so means agreeing to stay put and wait for one to actually show up first, especially if they can’t get a message through right away. They can’t use the communications on this starship to contact the main base, as that can be seen as suspicious to NME, which often monitors the broadcast of long-range transmissions that aren’t their own.
They’re supposed to be a normal, commuting starship with nothing odd going on, and no relations to a certain on-going galactic war. Can’t risk it.
That leaves the option to do it manually by flying a shuttle back to a base in-person, or relying on something else to cover up the signal's true origin, but—regardless, they would need to wait for approval to act, and there could be several more unseen hoops to jump through and hurdles to cross that take far too long to complete before it’s decided that yes, it’s reasonable to go after Meta Knight at the risk of drawing NME’s more extreme attention.
It’s risky ignoring that in favor of acting of their own volition. That’s not how the GSA really works. It’s a system with a chain of command for a reason. The processes and safety nets are put in place to protect, and Arthur will argue for them time and time again.
Even with all of that in mind, Jecra knows what he wants to do, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to pull off with what’s at his disposal.
Meta Knight is his friend, his companion. He has been for a while now.
The knight is cold at times, he’s seclusive, and it took a long time to break through that barrier and actually get to know him. To learn a few secrets, a few stories. To see his softer side, and his smile without his mask in the way.
To learn that at his heart, Meta Knight wishes to find the strength within himself needed to defeat Nightmare, and that he puts everything he has into reaching that goal. Training hard, resting little, and being the first to throw himself into whatever fight is set before him—and Jecra truly believes that Meta Knight will be the one to do it. To end Nightmare’s reign. It’s an unshakable sense that’s only grown stronger the longer he’s known the knight.
It’s insane watching Meta Knight in battle sometimes, to witness the lengths he’ll go to in order to protect his friends from the brunt of an onslaught, no matter how much of it entails sacrificing himself.
No matter if it leads to situations like this, where the rules, no matter how well-intended, may need to be bent just a little to accommodate his actions.
It’s worth it, Jecra thinks, a hand briefly straying to the pendant hanging around his neck. Someone like Meta Knight doesn’t just drop into his life every other day. Someone who can inspire him to hope for the future, and to not give up in the present, as it’ll pave the way for others to live a better life beyond them. Someone to stand by his side until the very end, and make the sacrifice feel worth it.
So, Jecra won’t waver in his convictions. Neither will Garlude. He’ll nudge aside the doubt and the worry, throw on a smile as if it were as assuring as his own shield, and get right down to work.
Even if it means testing the boundary of what they can realistically get away with.
–
Meta Knight is unsure how much time has passed since his initial capture, but he assumes the starship should have made it to its original destination by now.
In the meantime, he lays on his side in the sphere, eyes half-shut, just waiting. The stars of Gamble Galaxy have all started blurring together in his head.
The sticky sensation of distortion the doomer throws off is messing with his mind, making it difficult to think clearly. He thinks he knows what direction they’re heading in, and approximately where to go to end up in the general vicinity of the place he has to be, but it’s equally likely that he’ll end up flying in circles if given the chance to try.
It turns out, as the doomer veers towards a floating, mechanical structure, one of the many that populate the galaxy, this may be the least of his problems.
Meta Knight feels his stomach drop before the recognition registers, just before the dread then hits and pulls him from delirium. A low panic churns beneath it, and after another moment of shock, brings with it the ever-present embers of hot, simmering anger.
He shoots up, smacking his head against the top of the sphere, but he doesn’t even wince.
The station is large and tipped on its side, wrought out of dark, smooth metal and strung together with several connecting hallways. Windows glow with a low, eerie light, and a single sentry ship circles around the top of the structure, automatic lights flashing.
Rubble, broken bits of meteoroids, and larger space rocks all surround the structure in a chunky ring as a natural barricade, and at its front is an empty landing pad with the main entrance doors wide open, and seemingly unattended.
Yet, even with the darkness and distortion, nothing disguises the silhouetted logo painted onto its walls, marking the station for what it is.
It belongs to Nightmare Enterprises, and likely serves as a stronghold where demon beasts would be kept and trained, tested, then ultimately deployed.
It’s the last place Meta Knight ever wants to find himself in.
“No,” the knight says aloud, because this is not good, and he starts to pound on the walls of the sphere once more with a far higher level of urgency. “No, turn back. Turn back.”
Arthur makes it well known that he does not allow anyone under his command to travel this close to NME’s clutches alone, especially not star warriors, and not ever unless it’s under intense circumstances. That doesn’t completely apply right now, as Meta Knight, with all his ambitious feats, would not have sought such an encounter out anywhere but in his wildest dreams, as it’s a ludicrous idea to believe that one soldier can survive storming a stronghold alone.
Besides, the consequences of capture can be immense. Any information about the GSA is valuable information to a company like NME, who would find it in their best interest to exploit and eradicate them, to squash the rebellion before it spreads far enough to become the formidable threat Arthur is slowly shaping. It’s why they must sneak around, always acting cautious and watching their backs, because when facing a threat with a hold over the entire galaxy, the only choice left is to hide within it.
But he can’t hope for stealth now, even if he were to pry off his badge and tuck it safely away into his cape. Just as some star warriors can sense demon beasts, some demon beasts can sense star warriors in turn.
His presence is traceable.
As soon as Meta Knight is brought in there, it’s only a matter of time before something detects what he is. He’ll be taken hostage, questioned, and potentially killed for his troubles. His mere existence might compromise the GSA’s presence in this sector.
He might have made a far greater mistake than he thought challenging that doomer.
Or, he’s tremendously overthinking this, as Garlude might’ve helpfully pointed out and then gone about steering him back into a less serious realm of sanity, but he’s in no position to reflect now.
The doomer flies on with its glittering, green-blue tails trailing behind it, oblivious to this, even as the knight shouts and fights and slams into the sphere with all his weight, which is admittedly not very much given his small size.
The most he does it cause it to tip one way or the other slightly, and irritatedly correct its course.
The panic deepens.
If only I had my sword. Meta Knight wants to smack his head against something other than this star-cursed sphere until he thinks of a feasible plan.
If only he had moved faster. Struck harder. Fought better in the first place.
He doesn’t know how to get through a magical barrier like this, he’s never encountered such a thing and it should be simple but it’s not. Even if he did have a sword, there’s not enough room in here for him to swing it. Using a Sword Beam might prove catastrophic if it reflected off the inside, and struck him instead.
He’s trapped.
The doomer falls into a dizzying, spiral dive as it approaches the station, disorienting him all over again yet drawing no attention from the sentry above. It glides past flecks of space dust with surprising grace, and swerves to avoid a large, cratered rock.
There’s a slight hitch as the atmosphere transitions to something more easily breathable, and gravity settles over Meta Knight, confined to the station like a bubble. He’s crossed the entry point. His doom is practically imminent.
Maybe this is why they’re called doomers.
The doomer swoops down as he’s tumbled around inside and scrabbling for a surface hold, arms snapping out to brace himself on either side. It flies up in a wide loop, before slipping through an open vent on the side of the structure, and disappearing into the dark with Meta Knight.
The knight’s eyes glow a soft amber, adjusting quickly behind his mask, and the faint light from the doomer’s swirling, magic-dusted feathers is more than enough to see by.
It travels through the vent tunnel with confidence, as if it knows where it's heading, and he watches as the walls transition from the reflective sheen of metal, to the dull surface of stone.
Meta Knight counts the seconds that pass, trying to remain calm, to steady himself and prepare for an encounter where he’ll need to fight. Where his life will depend on it. Where he must win.
He doesn’t need a sword to do it. He doesn’t even need to risk direct conflict if he can manage to get himself out of here, and flee.
If the opportunity to escape presents itself, he’s taking it and not looking back. Nightmare is not to be crossed unprepared.
About a minute passes before the walls dip away and he’s brought out into a dim room filled with metal scraps, bright beakers, and all sorts of technical equipment he can’t even begin to untangle. It's not tidy, and papers rustle and scatter across the floor when a gust of air follows the doomer inside.
It’s unfazed, flapping its wings loudly, hovering for a few indecisive moments before settling on a small perch jutting from the wall—which alarmingly, is right beside two more of the creatures also residing in the room.
A red doomer, and a second, purple-colored one watch him in vested interest with the same yellow eyes and open, zig-zag mouths.
This is fine, Meta Knight tells himself as he stares back, throttling his sense of shock, pretending it’s not a big deal that he’s trapped in a strange magic capsule and unable to get out of it. This is fine.
He’s close enough to see that the red doomer contains nothing but air, however, fragments of a mechanical, golden gear are held by the purple one. Its sphere reflects a faint, iridescent sheen, and the doomer’s swirling feathers seem a bit more vibrant because of it. Almost as if it’s being fed energy from it.
Perhaps that’s what it eats? Are these secretly mechanical, clockwork-like creatures? Though, from inside, he’s seen nothing of the sort.
Meta Knight moves to pull his cape around himself, struck with the intense urge to hide away and think to himself for a while. That’s impossible, of course, but telling himself to be rational about it doesn’t help.
His pulse is thundering just beneath the surface of his forced calm. He fears this is only delaying the inevitable.
The two doomers chitter curiously and shuffle closer—only for the green doomer to snap at them and ruffle up its wings, jostling him slightly. A few electrical sparks ignite the air, but snuff out within moments.
Meta Knight frowns, sinking further into his cape. Magic. They’re magic, and seem to like magic things. He has the inklings of an idea as to what it is they might be interested in, remembering the flash of intent he noticed earlier when trying to fight.
Is that what they eat, then? Magical items? They can clearly contain other things.
He doesn’t recognize what that gear is exactly, but that odd, rainbow glimmer is unique enough. It might have once belonged to something magical, the same way his cape is considered magic.
It’s… Possible he wouldn’t have even been stolen away if the article hadn’t been attached to him.
But there’s something worse that lies beneath the surface of this discovery. These… Well they behave a lot like birds, but these doomers could be used to seek out all sorts of things if that was the case. Artifacts, trinkets, and weapons.
Magical things like the Star Rod, a fabled relic lost to time, and one which Nightmare hopes to find someday, and destroy.
–
Garlude is going to find Meta Knight, and then she is going to punt him into the nearest sun so he understands just how badly his decisions can get him burned.
“I’m going to strangle him,” she says calmly, glaring a hole into the shuttle’s radar system. “I’m going to throw him out an airlock and tell him he can walk the rest of the way home.”
“I’m sure he’s doing fine,” Jecra responds, though he seems to be trying to reassure her as much as he is himself. “He’s tough. He knows how to get back home.”
“He knows how to test my patience to its absolute limit.”
Garlude is worried, and when she is worried, she starts making threats about it. The galaxy can taunt her and test her and take away her friends, but that does not mean she won’t hesitate to roll up her sleeves and dive right back in after them.
Meta Knight is no exception. In fact, he’s usually the main focus of her efforts, and she fears that one of these days, she will fail to fully estimate just how much the universe wants her to leave him alone.
That reckless little punk. Someday he will learn that fighting his way through everything is not the only option, no matter how tantalizing and overwhelmingly correct it may seem at the moment. No matter if he acts as if that is all he was ever meant to do.
Meta Knight is Garlude’s friend, but early on, it became clear to her that Meta Knight did not know what a friend was, nor that it was anything different than allies with a shared goal. He was distant and acted on his own. He did not talk unless he felt something was necessary to say, and it seemed that all he would ever be was a loner who happened to gravitate into the GSA’s vague realm of influence. He was a star warrior, and he was there to fight. Nothing more.
Until one day, when Jecra called out his name, waving to him from the end of the hall for what must have been the thousandth time without any prior luck, Meta Knight turned around and answered.
Galrude does not know exactly how it happened, what caused the knight’s walls to give way and why he changed his mind about staying separated from all that was around him, but she knows that something better has come from it, and that she will fight to keep proving it.
Meta Knight has heart, and though he hides it, he has an immense capacity to care for those he wishes to protect. He did not know friendship before the GSA, but he learned it, and he’s chosen to protect it as well. He throws himself into battle in hopes he will always win, and though he inevitably ends up beaten down time and time again, he just gets back up, and always tries again. It’s admirable. It’s terrifying.
It’s Meta Knight, and Garlude will do all she can to protect him when he needs it, as he always tries to protect them.
Even if it means putting herself on the line.
As a star warrior, Garlude has a level of clearance given to her by default. All of them do, as they serve as the front line of defense, and were born with certain resistances and abilities that aid them greatly when fighting demon beasts. It’s more dangerous, but they’re used to the risk. It’s often in their drive to seek it out.
Garlude is also well known, and not just for the Star Trio she makes up with Jecra and Meta Knight at her side. She has been with the GSA a long time, and she’s friends with two out of the three generals. They trust her judgment, and usually her actions.
They will very likely think harder about that when they learn she has commandeered one of the scouting shuttles with light-speed capabilities, and is racing through an entire quadrant of Gamble Galaxy on a hunt for their star warrior prodigy that just barely keeps proving he is worth the trouble he keeps getting into.
In total, it has been as little and as long as six hours. Jecra flew them to the rendezvous point, they met up with the scouts and the small handful of star warriors that beat them there, and then they told the abridged version of what happened.
Meta Knight was fighting a creature they’ve never seen before, and he needs a little back-up. Don’t worry. She’ll take care of it. Jecra will help. It’s Meta Knight, you know how it is.
It’s true that there’s a protocol in place for what to do when someone is captured and needs help—but when it is a star warrior, and there is even a small, slight chance that Nightmare is behind it, the rules become something much, much stricter, and many are inclined to play it safe.
First and foremost, it requires that a general must be present for any discussions and all planning. Details must be gone over very closely. Further yet, for a rescue operation to be approved, Dragato, Falspar, Nonsurat and Arthur must all come together and decide unanimously.
As with everything Arthur does, it’s for a reason. It was implemented after Nonsurat, first general and second-in-command to the entire GSA, was captured and held in containment for months, facing Nightmare’s wrath and holding out against revealing all there was to their army. It was a rough time, where they were frantically moving from place to place, unsure if they’d been compromised or if Arthur could hold out without the aid of his closest confidant to rely on.
It was years ago, when they were less than half the size and before Meta Knight had even stepped into the picture, but changes were made upon Nonsurat’s eventual rescue. Arthur will not lose someone again so easily, and he will make hard choices to protect the many over the few.
Given that, discussions could take a long, long time.
Too long for Garlude’s tastes, and so she is going to weasel her way through on technicalities, feigned ignorance, and all the wit she can muster.
That creature was not a demon beast, therefore it was not NME that did this, don’t consider anything otherwise. She made a casual point of it to everyone there, buoyed by Jecra’s easy-going air and genuine confidence that they'd even be back before dinner.
No one truly batted an eye when she announced she was taking this shuttle, and under jurisdiction of her status as star warrior, deeming this a star warrior problem for her and Jecra, star warriors, to solve. She was going to go find that creature, fight it, and bring Meta Knight back here before anyone else with the power to gainsay her argued otherwise.
She is going to ask for forgiveness rather than permission if one of the generals wants to push it.
Dragato is probably going to kill me for this, and Falspar is going to apologetically watch.
The things she did for her idiot friends.
“We’ll get him back, Gar,” Jecra assures, a little softer this time, his mask resting on his forehead. He has Meta Knight’s silver sword strapped in beside his own, secured safely along with his shield. “You know he wouldn’t want to be kept away from us for too long. He’d miss us.”
The star warrior pauses, a considering look on his face as he thinks on it further. “Eventually.”
Despite herself, Garlude snorts. Meta Knight likes his alone time, but when it’s forced upon him, he does tend to get a bit snarky. Like when he spent an entire night locked in one of the pantries, unwilling to admit he had snuck in there to find something sweet, and proceeded to throw several bread rolls at Jecra the next morning when the taller star warrior sappily told him if he wanted sugar, he could have just asked him for a hug.
Leave it to him to find a way to lighten her mood, albeit briefly.
Maybe it's since Jecra knows what Garlude is really upset about, and that all the anger she’s throwing off, the scowl on her face and the harshness of her tone, is a defense because she’s doing all can in the moment and fears that it just still won’t be enough by the end. It’s how Jecra is, the knucklehead. He can tune into the wavelength she’s on like it’s something he just happened to pick up on the side, and make her feel relieved when everything else seems insurmountable.
They are a team, seeking out the last troublesome member of their trio. And really, without Jecra, without Meta Knight, Garlude doesn’t know if she’d ever manage to feel at home like this, even if her original was left behind halfway across the galaxy.
“We better,” is all she says, and returns to the task at hand.