Chapter Text

Prologue

(*Sung to the tune of “Harry Houdini” from Ragtime.* Great musical by the way, you should listen to it.)

“Kirby, oh Kirby, Hero of Dreamland” Someone sang out.

“Hero of you and me.

Holding his breath, he dances with death,

As daring as he can be…” They continued.

A spotlight appeared, highlighting a pink-haired boy lying face down on the ground. Bandana Waddle Dee gasped and approached the boy.

“Enter the master, safe from disaster,

Again having saved the day…!”

Bandana Dee turned the boy onto his back. He was unconscious. Bandee leaned towards his face to examine him. Upon discovering that he wasn't breathing, Bandee opened his mouth to administer CPR. Then, he moved his body over the boy’s and began to pump his fists into his chest, attempting to bring back breath to the child. He glanced up to see if any life was rousing in the boy. 

The boy was looking at him, and instead of a face was one singular, gigantic, unblinking eye with black sclera and a red pupil. 

Bandee sat up in bed with a cry. Panting and heart racing, he put his face in his hands. 

“It's just a nightmare. Just another nightmare.” He thought to himself.

Bandee looked up and glanced around his dark bedroom, as if expecting a glimpse of a round red eye gazing at him from the shadows.

A shiver ran down his spine, despite him finding nothing. He adjusted his mask and cautiously laid back down, but found that he was unable to close his eyes to return back to sleep. Bandee’s mind raced with thoughts, rational and irrational, until eventually they turned toward a memory from several years ago, when he was only seven. He's had a lot of bad days in his life, but that day took the cake as one of the worst.

It was before he started wearing his bandana, so on the outside he was just any other ordinary Waddle Dee. It was also the same day he met his future best friend, Kirby. The two encountered each other, and what was likely to be a brief interaction turned for the worse when a piece of dark matter suddenly ambushed them and possessed Bandana Dee. Fortunately Kirby was able to beat the apparition before it could permanently change Bandee, but the experience still haunted him years later. The way dark matter turned his vision dark in one eye, the spark of magical energy radiating in his head, and of course the pain of being beaten up by Kirby in order to force the dark matter from his body. It was all so… horrific.

However, he was far more fortunate than other Waddle Dees who had encountered dark matter. Those who housed a piece within them for too long were permanently transformed into Waddle Doos and ostracized from Dee society. While some were able to conquer the dark, violent urges the matter gave them and live relatively normal lives, others were overcome by the evil of the dark matter and had to be incapacitated. Bandee was terrified of the idea of living life as a Doo, but he couldn't help but empathize with them somewhat, likely due to his own close encounter with transformation. Such a life of darkness is incomprehensible to the gentle, simple-minded, and rule-following Waddle Dee people.

Bandee tried to breathe deeply as he attempted to chase the image of Kirby with the infamous dark matter eye from his mind. “Such a thing is impossible,” he reminded himself. “Kirby is immune to possession by dark matter. He's literally its antithesis.”

Bandee knew that he was safe as long as he had his best friend by his side. And just as a life of darkness was incomprehensible, so too was the possibility of Kirby being affected by dark matter.

Chapter I: Patient Zero

It was a calm night at the Halberd. Too calm. Episodes of significant peace almost always succeeded some world-ending disaster or another, or at least that was Meta Knight’s philosophy. That's actually one of the reasons why the Star Allies were formed, so that there'd be a team of talented warriors to jump into action as soon as evil reared its ugly head. Ironic since a large portion of the organization are former villains themselves. That’s something Meta Knight still has yet to get used to, but Kirby, with all his child-like wisdom, insisted that all of the traitors, tyrants, and thieves could be trusted to protect their home alongside its traditional heroes.

It wasn't all bad, Meta Knight could rest somewhat easier knowing that there's always someone patrolling the intergalactic neighborhood to catch trouble before it gets out of hand. Tonight was Magolor’s turn, and since he had a flying ship that could travel through wormholes and teleport anywhere on a whim, he made a very effective scout.

Meta Knight set aside his book, removed his mask, and finally turned off his bedside lamp. He tried to get comfortable underneath his covers so that he could achieve a restful sleep, should his insomnia allow it. He was about to do so when he was suddenly interrupted.

BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP! BEEP BEEP!

An alarm rang out overhead, startling Meta from his half-slumber. He immediately jumped into action, restoring his mask back to his face and taking his gauntlets from his dresser. He grabbed Galaxia from its spot next to his bed. Hopefully he won't need to use her since the alarm tone was signaling an incoming video call, but any call at 2 am is innately worrisome. He felt a strange sense of urgency, so he was only able to put on his armored boots over his pajama pants before rushing out of his quarters. 

He was the second to arrive at the helm, and found Sailor Waddle Dee yawning while absently pressing buttons to wake up the console. It made sense that she'd respond first, since her quarters were closest to the helm, but she could've made a better effort to not look like a zombie — she didn't even have her sailor hat on. She rubbed her eyes and put on her glasses (she typically wears contacts when on duty) and turned on the screen hologram. Meta Knight approached her.

“We don't have all night, Sailor Dee.” He said curtly. Sailor Dee waved her hand next to his face as if to tell him to be quiet, something she'd never be bold enough to do fully awake. Finally, as the other members of the Meta-Knights were stumbling into the helm, Sailor pressed the button to open the call. Meta Knight waited with anticipation as it loaded.

“HI! HELLO FRIENDS!” Magolor called out from somewhere off camera. The view of his side was tilted towards the floor and slightly askew. It was hard to tell, but Meta Knight thought he could make out a haze of smoke within the Lor Starcutter. He could also make out the sound of lots of beeping going off from the other side of the call.

“Magolor, it's the middle of the night, this better be good.” Meta Knight growled.

Someone grabbed the camera and adjusted it. The Halberd crew got a view of a Magolor also in his pajamas with messy hair and a somewhat pink sclera, giving his usually yellow eyes an almost orange look to them. He had a frantic look on his face.

“Oh my Void- are you high?” Meta demanded. 

“No! Well, maybe a little. But that's not what I'm calling you about!” Magolor responded. “This is an SOS call!”

“What's the matter?” Captain Vul questioned in his husky voice. “You got one minute to explain before we hang up.”

“No! Please don't hang up! There's…” Magolor lowered his voice to a whisper and got really close to the camera, standing atop his console chair to do so. “There's someone on my ship.”

“Yeah, you.” Sailor joked. Meta Knight shot her a disciplinary glance.

“No no no no, there's someone else. I know they're here, but when I surveyed the security cameras, I didn't see anything.” Magolor responded.

Meta Knight sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose through his mask's eye slit. “Are you sure you're not paranoid, or hallucinating? Also isn't cannabis illegal in Dreamland?”

Magolor gasped with offense. “First of all, I didn't smoke that much. Second of all, I'm not in Dreamland. But I will be. Soon.”

“How come?” Sailor Dee asked. 

Magolor seemed to remove the camera screen from the wall and pointed it towards the other screens.

Apparently, the beeping noise Meta Knight was hearing was the alarm of the ship being damaged. And from all the flashing red lights, Meta could tell that the ship was heavily damaged.

“Mother of Nova, Magolor, what did you do?!” Meta Knight cried out. Sailor Dee immediately jumped into action and started rapidly pressing buttons on the console, setting up a scan to locate the Lor. 

“I'm telling you, there's someone on my ship!” Magolor flipped the camera and showed off the rest of the Lor’s console room. Apparently, the smoke was not from burning marijuana but was instead pouring in from open doors and vents in the room. Things were on fire. 

“Someone’s inside the ship and is destroying everything!” Magolor continued. “I'm sending you my crash coords now!”

Meta Knight looked to the other knights, absolutely flabbergasted. It seems like they couldn't quite believe what they were seeing either. Vul, concerned but not entirely convinced, ordered the rest of the knights to prepare for a rescue operation. They all scattered except for Sailor, who continued to try and find the Lor’s location.

After they left, there was suddenly a loud boom from Magolor’s end.

“I'm sure that was just the ship settling.” He said nonchalantly.

Meta Knight sighed. “And remind me why you were doing weed at 2 am?”

“It helps my anxiety.” Magolor shrugged. The lights in the console room started to flicker and he turned his attention towards them.

“Oh no oh void oh void oh void-” Magolor mumbled after a few moments. 

“What happened?” Meta Knight asked.

“They got to the core.”

“Who's attacking your ship? Kirby?” Sailor Dee suggested jokingly, attempting to make light of a severe situation.

“Oh he BETTER not!” Meta Knight responded furiously.

The video call started to buffer as Magolor’s lights flickered more intensely. In the background, Meta Knight spotted a pixelated, black mass that wasn't there before. 

“Not enough… can't… crash coords… forest…”

With each frame that came through Meta Knight could see the mass getting closer to Magolor. 

“Rescue…”

 It was right behind him.

“MAGOLOR, BEHIND YOU!” Meta Knight shouted.

The next frame Sailor and Meta received was Magolor with his head thrown forward and the black mass, which appeared to be some sort of ooze, latching itself onto his cranium. The image was accompanied by a cut off scream. Then, the signal was lost and the projection went blank.

Meta Knight blinked a few times as he processed what he just saw. 

“...Sir?” Sailor began hesitantly, also in shock. “...What was that?”

Meta had no idea.

The Meta-Knights weren’t able to help the Lor make a crash landing at all, but fortunately Sailor was quickly able to locate it within Whispy Woods.

“Whispy Woods, of course it's Whispy Woods.” Meta Knight muttered when he heard the news.

The Halberd made a quick journey to the crash site while Meta notified the other Star Allies. The ones to respond were Kirby, Bandana Waddle Dee, and a very irritated King Dedede. The Halberd was unable to land among the trees, so they parked the skyship just outside the woods and Meta Knight swiftly flew to the coordinates Sailor Dee had given him after changing into his armor.

Kirby flew in with his Warp Star rather quickly, and he and Meta Knight were the first to arrive at the scene. He brought with him a bag of copy ability essences. 

There was a long trail of fallen trees where the Lor had crashed into the ground. Eventually the earth stopped it and it was now lodged into a mound of dirt, still burning and with no signs of life. All of the lights were off and the ship pieces that Kirby and his friends had once painstakingly retrieved from across the country were heavily damaged and unusable. The back of the ship was entirely covered in flames.

Kirby quickly poured out his bag of essences and watched them bounce out and around until he spotted ice, after which he inhaled deeply. The orb disintegrated into many small stars and was sucked up into Kirby’s mouth. In a swirl of gold stars and a magical girl-esque transformation, a crown of ice appeared on Kirby’s head while his hair suddenly gained frosty tips and his clothes magically changed into a pink and blue winter outfit. Once the transformation was complete, Kirby glided towards the back of the giant flying ship to put out the fire. As he did so, Meta Knight once again took flight to survey the damage.

“Magolor is in there somewhere!” He called out to Kirby, who was puffing ice onto the flames. 

“I'll go get him!” Kirby answered. He skated around the ship in search of an opening into the hull. He came across the main door. It was stuck in a partially open position that allowed him to snugly slip through to get inside. “I'll put out the fire inside too!”

“Wait, there's something else in there! We don't know what it is!” Meta Knight landed back onto the ground to catch Kirby before he disappeared into the ruins of the ship. However, it would seem that he was too late. He managed to get a glimpse of a hot pink ice skate in the doorway before Kirby was out of view.

Meta Knight’s heart began to pound anxiously. He rushed up to the broken doorway and tried to force his body through, only to find that he was too big. 

“Kirby! Wait! Come back!”

Meta Knight continued to try to push through the small opening. His thoughts turned back to the strange black ooze that had attacked Magolor. Kirby was an exceptionally capable child, but there was something about the strange entity that had Meta Knight very anxious. Perhaps it was the prospect that the ooze had caused the ship to crash all by itself, or that it was able to sneak up on the usually astute Magolor. Then again, Magolor was obviously under the influence when it attacked, so it’s impossible to gauge just how sneaky it really was. 

A few more unsuccessful attempts to get through the doorway led to Meta Knight being frustrated and at a loss. He gave up on the endeavor and attempted to slide back out to wait for the others, but found that he was stuck. 

Meta pulled onto the wall, unfurled and refurled his wings, and even used Galaxia to try and dislodge himself, but he was thoroughly trapped in a very embarrassing and uncomfortable position. He would have to wait for help to come. In the meantime, he worried about Kirby and what he might be encountering within the Lor Starcutter.

Kirby crept through the partially caved-in halls, blowing out fires when he spotted them. He was smart enough to remain on guard as he explored the ship, but didn’t think much of the internal destruction it had suffered. 

“Magolor…? It’s me, Kirby! Where are you?” He called out. 

No answer. 

Kirby furrowed his brows. He already tended to get lost within the Lor when it was fully functioning, but with the destruction that surrounded him he had no idea where he was going. He eventually found his way to the console room, where electrical wires were hanging from the broken ceiling and smoke floated in from side doors. Kirby peered through the darkness and haze, trying to spot his cat-eared friend. 

“Magolor!” Kirby gasped. 

The young man was collapsed on the floor in front of the console. At a glance, Kirby could tell that he was burned and bleeding. Furthermore, one of his giant monitors had fallen onto his right leg. Kirby rushed over, climbing over parts of the ceiling that had fallen and avoiding sparking electrical wires. 

“Magolor! Are you okay?” 

Obviously, he wasn’t. Magolor stirred a little but was unable to respond to Kirby directly. He coughed and groaned as he moved his hand closer to the pink hero.

It wasn’t often that Kirby dealt with significant injuries. Most of the time he would be able to incapacitate his enemies without permanently harming them. And while he had walked in on a crash-landed Magolor before, that situation wasn’t nearly as bad as this one. Kirby felt genuine concern for the magician’s life, a feeling that was unfamiliar and made him sick to his stomach. 

Kirby knelt down beside Magolor, unsure of what to do. First, he removed the monitor and tried to help him up.

“Meta, whatcha doing all the way over there?” Dedede called out. He and Bandana Dee had finally arrived, with the king pretty irritable about being called to duty at such an hour.

Meta Knight pursed his lips as his cheeks flushed, an expression that was thankfully hidden behind his mask. 

“I was trying to get inside the ship.”

King Dedede put his hands on his hips. “Is that so?” A cheeky grin formed on his face as he began to realize the situation Meta Knight was in.

“Where’s Kirby?” Bandana Dee asked anxiously.

“He’s also inside the ship.” Meta responded.

Bandee rushed up to the Lor’s entrance to get inside. He stopped in front of Meta Knight. 

“Excuse me.” The boy requested meekly.

Meta Knight shifted uncomfortably in his position.

Dedede approached the pair. “Ya heard the kid, move out of the way!” He commanded deviously.

Meta Knight took a deep breath in and once again tried to push himself out of the doorway, but still to no avail. He made tense eye contact with Bandee.

“I can’t.” He muttered quietly.

King Dedede folded his arms and stroked his chin in mock thought. “Ooh, is the gallant Sir Meta Knight stuck? Whatever shall we do?”

“Just get me out.” Meta Knight hissed through clenched teeth.

“Mm, I don’t know… he doesn’t seem very nice.” Dedede lamented.

Bandee pulled Dedede’s sleeve. “We need to get inside, your Highness!” He stated genuinely. 

“Well, I know that, but I’m not doing anything ‘till Meta Knight here asks nicely.”

Meta Knight glared at the king coldly. “Get. Me. Out.”

“Nuh uh! What’s the magic word?”

Meta narrowed his eyes, which seemed to glow brighter than usual with fury. 

“...Please.” His voice dripped with venom.

Dedede’s face broke into a big smile. “You heard it here first folks, Meta Knight asks me for help!” The king grabbed the edge of the door that was currently trapping Meta Knight and gave it a hard tug. With his practically superhuman strength, he easily forced the door off the frame, freeing the poor knight from its grasp.

“Gracias.” Meta muttered as he finally broke free of his prison. As soon as he did, Bandee slipped around him and rushed into the Lor, anxious to find Kirby.

“No problem!” Dedede responded, smacking a huge hand onto Meta Knight’s shoulder, nearly knocking him over. “Call me anytime!” He said with a wink. The soldier rolled his eyes in reply.

Kirby cradled Magolor’s head on his lap, careful not to move his neck around too much. 

“What happened?” He asked gently.

Magolor let out another cough, but did not answer. He was able to open his eyes fully and looked up at Kirby. Blood trickled down his nose.

“Here, lemme get that for you.” Kirby pulled his sleeve over his hand and carefully wiped Magolor’s face. “Gosh, Mags, you really gotta stop crash landing all over the place.”

Magolor’s eyes widened and he sat up suddenly, startling Kirby. Magolor pulled down his scarf, something he rarely did, and put a hand over his mouth. Kirby watched with astonishment as Magolor suddenly lurched forward and vomited right into his lap.

“...Oh.” Kirby said hollowly. Magolor coughed again before wiping his mouth and looking up at Kirby.

“S-Sorry.” He whispered. “I don’t…” His eyes fell back down to Kirby’s lap and he went silent.

Kirby waited a moment for him to finish before also following his gaze to his lap. His eyes grew wide when he realized what Magolor was looking at. His friend’s vomit was pitch black. 

Magolor grabbed his mouth again before turning away from Kirby and vomiting a second time. Kirby grabbed Mags’ shoulders in an attempt to comfort him but was just as unnerved as he was. It wasn’t long before Bandana Dee stormed into the room with Dedede and Meta Knight in tow.

“Kirby! Are you okay?” Bandee rushed to Kirby’s side with an uncharacteristic level of anxiousness. Meta Knight and Dedede quickly joined their sides.

“I’m okay, but I think Magolor is sick.” Kirby responded.

The three others all looked at Magolor, who was crouched over the ground and heaving.

Dedede and Meta Knight each took an arm and helped him up. However, upon seeing that he was unable to walk, Dedede took his legs and picked him up bridal-style. 

“Is there anyone else on the ship?” Meta Knight asked as the party started to leave the room.

“N-No… just me…” Magolor murmured. His head rolled around in the crook of Dedede’s arm. 

“Kirby, what’s all over your clothes?” Bandee asked, pointing to the vomit that covered the lower half of Kirby’s coat.

“Magolor threw up on me.” 

Meta Knight and Dedede both looked at the black stain, and then to each other. Meta Knight retrieved his radio from his side. 

“Meta Knight to Halberd, we need emergency medical.” He said. Dedede picked up the pace with Magolor in his arms.

“Why? What’s wrong with him?” Kirby asked, concern and emotion rising in his voice.

“Black vomit is a telltale sign of internal bleeding, which needs to be treated as quickly as possible.”

“Internal bleeding? But isn’t that where the blood’s supposed to be?”

Bandee took up the mantle of answering Kirby’s question. “No Kirby, it means you’re bleeding on the inside. Which is bad. Really bad.” 

Kirby was still confused but decided not to ask any more questions. What he did understand was that they needed to get Magolor to a hospital as soon as possible.