Chapter Text
Unlike the two-body problem, the three-body problem has no general closed-form solution, meaning there is no explicit formula for the positions of the bodies. When three bodies orbit each other, the resulting dynamical system is usually chaotic.
For most initial conditions, the only way to predict the motions of the three bodies is to estimate them using numerical methods.
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For all of the knowledge that Magolor prided himself on possessing, most of it had been stolen from the exhaustive archive that his faraway home had once been widely known for. Years before his expedition to Halcandra, he had raided the library’s restricted section of everything he thought was valuable and absconded into the untouched wilderness, never to be seen again by any of his people. The blueprints for the Lor Starcutter, documentation about the Master Crown, and even the assortment of tomes he had used to teach himself magery had all been kept behind sealed doors. Always within reach, and always forbidden. Now, the books were within reach and forbidden to all but himself, sequestered in the levels of the Lor that required authorization to enter.
In the present, adding to the collection was something he considered to be both a relatively sane pastime and a benefit for his reputation as a jack of all trades. Popstar’s diverse geography and history provided a uniquely interdisciplinary selection of topics to research, but even so, he chose to steer clear of the more elusive and archaic ones. Though many months had passed since his first arrival to the brightest planet this side of the galaxy, betrayal was not an easy wound for some to soothe. It was better that he deny himself the temptation of pursuing ancient things best left alone after it had gotten him into so much trouble.
Well. He had chosen to do so up until now.
Since his escapade in Another Dimension, he had committed himself to learning how to wield a sword. The fear of losing his magic again was an ever-present concern that followed him wherever he went, a kind of vulnerability that could only be remedied by arming himself in other ways. He’d kept the blade that had served him well enough against the Master Crown, but no longer being pressured to survive a life or death situation meant that the best he could do was wave it around with the efficiency of trying to swat a bug with a zapper. Worse was that his initial plan to find some kind of manual or instruction guide for the basics had consistently left him empty-handed, Dream Land’s pacifistic tendencies meaning that very few people were proficient with any sort of practical weaponry. The few swordsmen who served the kingdom all belonged to Meta Knight’s entourage, and given Magolor’s apprehensive relationship with the Star Warrior, it was safe to assume that none of the other knights would be very keen on helping him.
This would be fine if not for the inordinate amount of crises that had struck the otherwise tranquil planet, to the point where he was beginning to reflect on the legitimacy of its reputation. It seemed like every other day brought about some sort of calamity that had to be solved by Kirby and his friends – much to his chagrin, Magolor being thought of as a “friend” again meant that he was roped into helping more often than not. He no longer had the free time to spend on performing regular maintenance for the Lor, or even to add new hardbacks to his ever-growing repertory. Specifically, though, he never had the chance to seek out someone who could teach him swordplay.
When the hubbub of their latest adventure involving flying aircrafts and sentient machines had finally begun to dwindle, a proposal had been given to him through an extremely unconventional source on one sunny day.
“You should look for the horned beast!” Marx had declared with a cattish grin, arms spread wide as he had balanced perfectly on his inflatable ball. They had been recording how long he could stand on it uninterrupted, apparently to claim some sort of world record on Popstar. Magolor hadn’t cared too much about the details at the time. He’d been more interested in seeing him eventually fall flat on his face.
It had been an unprompted suggestion, though not unfounded, as they’d spoken about his predicament a few times before. Still, he had been somewhat taken aback by the suddenness of it all. “You’ll have to be a little more specific than that. I’ve seen quite a few monsters that fit that description on this planet, let alone all the other ones I’ve visited.” Images of Landia’s four-headed sneer flashed before his eyes, and he suppressed the instinct to cringe.
“Oh, no no no,” the jester had tutted disapprovingly. “The horned beast isn’t a monster. At least, that’s not what Nova told me.”
“You heard this from Nova? The guy we just beat up pretty recently?”
Marx had shrugged. “Kirby and him worked it out, apparently! Besides, this was waaaay before. Like, right after I tried to take over the world and stuff, and I had to stay in Nova’s fancy-pants mansion for a while ‘cuz I almost died.” A treacherous wobble had nearly sent him straight to the ground, but he’d recovered just as quickly as it had come. “A star-child with horns and wings, so bygone that he was touched by the Ancients themselves...”
Magolor could never have hoped to disregard that name. “Really?”
“Oh yeah! I heard he lives in this place called Sacred Square, where a bunch of dusty ruins are. Old things are drawn to old things, I guess.”
From there, the rest had been effortless. Years of living in uncharted territory and actively volcanic hazard zones made the task of gathering necessary supplies so intuitive that it had only taken a day for him to pack a travel bag, and he’d already procured several different maps of Popstar for an occasion just like this. The only thing that was left for him to do was to find the exact location of Sacred Square, which was strangely absent in all of the diagrams, but he knew that it wouldn’t take much. Steering the Lor over the general vicinity would be enough for her external scanners to pick up on anything new.
The only snag in what was otherwise a perfect excuse to go looking into mysteries was that Sacred Square’s purported spot on the map was very close to Nutty Noon, which was filled to the brim with its own outworn towers and derelict vestiges of the past. The similarities made it arduous for the Lor to distinguish what belonged where, the line between where Nutty Noon ended and Sacred Square began blurred to the point of redundancy. There was nothing to point him in the right direction. The only reason he knew he was closer to the former was because of the overbearing dread that dug into him. Invisible scars were always left in the wake of a dimensional rift, leaving behind an echo of the one responsible for its creation until enough time had passed for the magic to dissipate. Until then, Magolor would always be able to sense Grand Doomer’s presence within the heart of the region. Almost like it was watching him.
Without thinking twice, he steered the ship away from its current course, hard veering it towards the right to make a long loop. It might take forever, but if he circled around long enough, he’d eventually find the right place. It was merely a process of elimination.
As trepidation ebbed away and the sky transitioned from hazy oranges to murky greens, so too did the architecture finally change into something unlike the rest. The structures became less whole and more dilapidated, overrun by unpruned vines and vegetation. The terrain sharpened as a reflection of the alteration, tall mountains forming teeth that surrounded the still-standing remains of an unknown civilization. And yet, despite the pieces that seemed to be missing, there was a surprising level of durability that allowed some sections to remain mostly untouched. They were congregated towards the center of the valley like Nutty Noon, but instead of spires and steeples, rocky temples and raised platforms dotted the scenery that the Lor recorded from above. A perfect dwelling place for those who didn’t want to be seen.
Out of nowhere, a blip on the radar appeared for a split-second, gone so fast that Magolor might not have noticed if the Lor hadn’t captured the coordinates in that transient instant. A spike in magical energy had alerted the detectors, positioned in the bowels of Sacred Square. What a wonderful place to start.
Careful not to bump into any formations, Magolor landed the ship at the southern edge of the area. To dock her anywhere closer would be inviting would-be thieves to try their luck at breaking in, or natural disasters to topple buildings over her. Given that he wasn’t sure how long he would be gone, playing safe was the most rational move. With all of his supply pouches clipped to his belt and his larger provisions stored in a pocket of subspace, he double-checked the security measures and ensured that they were operational before pulling out his map and marking down where the pulse had come from. Now equipped with some sort of destination, he lowered the gangway and stepped outside.
An empty wind howled around him, carrying with it a foreboding loneliness that warned him of the isolated bubble that he was about to enter. He was on his own this time. No friends. No allies. Only a half-baked goal and all the determination in the world to find what – who – he was looking for.
Automatically, the ramp folded back into the ship, and then he was off.
While he was tempted to look back upon his interdimensional odyssey as a comparison of sorts, there wasn’t anything that could really hold a candle to losing his legs and powers in one go, yet still having to beat back packs of lunatic birds on a regular basis. Still, the eerie silence and forlorn ambience lent itself towards the idea anyway, and it made him overly cautious. Magolor never had been the same after escaping Another Dimension. How could one hope to be whole after an ordeal like that? It was a fact made most apparent in how often he felt like toeing the line ever since, unwilling to push the streak of rotten luck that always found a way to put him in a corner. To be here now made him feel no different. He could cling to pride and ego all he wanted among others, but it did nothing for him when there was no one else around.
Exhaling unevenly, he forced himself to walk. If he could keep a decent pace, it would only take half an hour to reach the site of interest, a tangible goal that served to drive him onward. Early daylight helpfully illuminated his path, throwing a blanket of heat over the land that not even the bitter draft could peel away. It was a pleasant hike if he ignored the reminders of a once upon a time that hadn’t been too long ago. The stone hallways that began to fence his route were just as warm to the touch and inscribed with all sorts of enigmatic symbols that he just had to stop for, scribbling them all down in one of the empty notebooks he always brought for outings. He could recall seeing a few of the runes from other places on Popstar, but without a proper alphabet or cryptograph to interpret them, he didn’t know what community they belonged to or what they meant. That was fine. He could compare notes later, when he was back on the Lor.
Hours passed and evening colors had already begun to settle over the horizon, all of which Magolor realized far too late to do anything about it. Such was the cost of curiosity, in which many cats were killed. He was, at the very least, able to resign himself to the possibility of camping rather swiftly. No point in crying over spilt milk. Besides, spending a night out here wasn’t wholly unappealing. The layout of certain edifices gave him several spots to use as an improvised shelter, dense enough to protect him from the elements while still providing ample space. The Lor was comfortable and all, but a break from the routine was something he welcomed every now and then.
The ground began to shake as soon as that thought had been finished. It was too small to be an earthquake, but pebbles rose into the air and fell back down all the same. Magolor was ready to teleport somewhere safely before he worked out the cause of the tremor. It wasn’t internal. It was because some of the edifices were moving.
A few feet away from him, a steep staircase made of large cuts of stone began to sink in on itself, the columns of smaller bricks they had been standing on disappearing into a hole that was soon covered up. Now all that remained was an elevated walkway, a former corridor whose walls had succumbed to deterioration. Fascinated, he treaded through the cloud of dust that had been stirred to life. Delicate fingertips touched the slab before the rest of the hand was pushed level against it. As he suspected, the thrum of magical-fueled machinery lingered deep within the rock, teasing him with the prospects of cracking it open to uncover just what kind of technology was hidden from the naked eye.
He refrained, however, choosing instead to wager that this kind of activity was what the Lor’s radar had picked up on. A part of him remained skeptical, though; a contraption like this probably implemented a basic recognition spell that functioned like an invisible tripwire, lacking the magnitude that would tip off the ship’s sensors. Perhaps, if enough devices of a similar nature went off at the same time, that might have been the cause, but that put forward the notion of this entire landscape being what was essentially an ever-changing maze. He did not want to consider that. At all.
Returning to what he had come here to do, Magolor continued to chart his way across the realm. Without any notable landmarks to keep track of where he was, getting lost was as simple as losing sight of where he was on the map, and that did his sensibilities no favors whatsoever. Occasionally, the ruins would shift in response to his movements. Other times, the fluctuations seemed like they had come out of nowhere. If he was being followed, he couldn’t tell.
Eventually, right as his back was starting to feel the consequences of walking for hours on end, the breeze that had been following him became charged, no longer hollow. He whipped around, drawing his cloak across the front of his body as he took in his surroundings. Shadows of the canyon he stood at the foot of played tricks on his mind, dancing in his peripheral and growing still whenever he turned to examine them clearly. Pillars took shape over him in all directions, and at his rear was a shrine carved into one of the many crags that were removed from the rest of the mountain range. He knew that he was no longer alone. But what exactly that entailed, the jury was still out on.
A glint of metal peeked out from the darkness of the gorge’s depths, and when his eyes snapped over to it, ruby red dots peered back at him.
Magolor had always been inclined towards flight when it came to precarious situations. It was an instinct that appeared at odds with his people-pleasing disposition, but when one grew up among those who denied themselves the utility of magic, leaving a bad spot had always been an option. All it took was one word, unspoken, and then he was gone. The others had always hated it – his peers, because it made him an unreachable target, and his seniors, because it was forbidden, or so they insisted. Now, though. Now, he was frozen in place. He couldn’t move. Feeling left his body, like his soul was drifting, unattached. The scrutiny of unblinking crimson was the only thing that kept him tethered.
A tall figure emerged from their hiding place like a predator stalking its prey, the light of sunset glazing orange hues over the pristine silver of their knightly armor. Long, ridged horns curled past a tousled mop of magenta hair, and a pair of angelic wings tinted slightly lavender were folded tightly behind them as they approached. Peeking out just underneath where their mask curved over the bridge of their nose were two overlapping scars, deep and discolored. The horned beast loomed over him, impassive. “You do not belong here.”
Behind the paralyzed shell, Magolor’s brain screamed for action, for him to do literally anything but stand there as though he was a target slick with fresh paint. His body, meanwhile, refused to listen. He was all but displaced in time and space, thrown across the universe and right back where his life had ended and began. The horned beast melted into an incomprehensible visage of the Master Crown, worn by him and not him at the same time. The blue of his reflection bled into something dark and mahogany, claws sharper, teeth pointier, a facsimile that was someone he didn’t recognize but who looked just enough like him to make the differences obsolete. As overlapping voices whispered callous cruelties into his mind’s ear, one stood out among the rest, carrying with it a tone of gentle familiarity before the illusion shattered like a broken mirror and everything returned to normal.
The numbness in his limbs receded. When he breathed out manually, it trembled like the rest of his frame.
Disdain engulfed what panic had managed to linger, sinking it under turbulent waves. It was pathetic of him to be spooked by the phantoms of his past that could no longer realistically reach him. His aversion to Doomers, to being dependent on his powers – these were things he could reconcile with because they were always a tangible possibility. Doomers were still alive and still a threat to his livelihood. Spontaneously being robbed of his powers again was still something that could happen and still a non-insignificant impediment he was not ready to handle. The Master Crown was none of the above. It wasn’t alive. It wasn’t a threat to his livelihood. It wasn’t something that could still happen and it wasn’t something he would ever have to handle again. It was gone.
Why, then, was he this hung up about it?
Balling his fists, Magolor tipped his chin upward, unflinching. “I came here looking for you, actually.”
It was hard to gauge what the other was thinking past the black veil his visor created. An irritating quirk that Meta Knight and all his lackeys flaunted, too, but here, it was made even worse by who exactly was being shielded. Unoccupied fingers twitched at the star-child’s side, a gesture that couldn’t possibly be interpreted on its own. “Why?”
Not the question that had been expected. Who are you or what were you standing around like a deer in a headlight for were the more predictable ones. “I need you to teach me how to use a sword.”
This time, bewilderment was patently written on the warrior’s face, the corner of his lip twisting up in a lopsided scowl. “I am not the only knight who lives on this planet.”
“Yeah, but the other knights don’t like me very much,” Magolor countered in a dry murmur, ears folding back. ”Figured I’d expand my options.”
Silent, the horned beast chewed over the request, his head dipped away to watch the sun’s gradual descent across the sky. “...do you even know who I am?”
“Sort of? I mean, I know that you’re old enough to have been alive during the time of the Ancients, but my friend is the one who told me where to find you, and he heard that from the Celestial Comet of this galaxy-”
“I will do it,” he interrupted, turning back to the mage with a renewed intrigue. “But only if you do something for me in return. A fair trade.”
Magolor blinked a few times in surprise, still somewhat on edge. That being said, he could respect the prudence of a fellow dealmaker, and he was more than happy to play along. “What kind of exchange are you looking for? If you don’t mind me asking, of course.”
Without looking away, the star-child pointed in the direction that Magolor had come, gaze hardening. “The flying ship that brought you here once belonged to the Ancients. For you to be able to pilot it means that you are knowledgeable enough in machinery to fix a different piece of Ancient technology. Do this, and I will mentor you.”
Marx being right about something this serious didn’t exactly sit well with Magolor, but that initial uncertainty soon melted into a sense of awe, because Marx had been right. This really was a knight from the time of the Ancients, alive and breathing and a veritable fount of information that he could ask questions of whenever he wanted. What had once been a wishful fantasy was now reality, and even better was that very same knight calling upon him to do repairs on Ancient artifacts. To get his hands dirty without the dangers of being punished.
It was everything he had ever begged for in life and more. How could he say no to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity like this?
He beamed, innocently as he could muster. “I accept your terms, but only if you promise to teach me to my satisfaction. It wouldn’t be worth all the effort on my end if your guidance wasn’t very effective, after all.”
“If you can defeat me, consider your training complete.”
The smile twisted with mischief, and he held out a hand. “Deal. My name is Magolor, by the way! Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“Galacta Knight,” the horned beast replied in turn, shaking his hand with an unsurprising strength surely meant to test his resilience. “The ship. Is it installed with warp technology?”
“That she is!” Magolor confirmed, clasping his hands together. Never a dull moment came when he got the chance to talk about the Lor. “Are we traveling interdimensionally or just using it to make things quick? Either way, it’ll work just fine.”
“The destination lies at the edge of this galaxy. Warping is preferable.”
The teleportation spell that he had woven, while reliable for most situations, was not suited for far distances. It relied on visible sight, since that was the best way to ensure that an incantation didn’t displace him. Because of that, Galacta Knight chose to fly to the Lor, holding the mage by the hand as he swept across the chasm with an alarming speed that placed them back before the vessel in no time flat. A few minutes at best. There was no room to complain, despite the new ache in Magolor’s arm.
In the brief ticks that passed between their arrival and activating the Lor’s motion sensors to lower the walkway, Galacta Knight remained at an awkward interval. Stealing glimpses allowed Magolor to observe the way his demeanor changed, switching from a rigid aloofness to a forlorn, distrait faltering that convinced him not to get too close to the ship. Without any sort of encouragement, he removed the mask, exposing the tired lines that bagged his eyes. The marks of war were easier to see as well, a missing portion of his left eyebrow pairing alongside the more prominent facial scar.
“Where did you find this one?” he asked once the track had been extended all the way, lowering a dubious boot against the planks to ensure their stability.
Unperturbed, Magolor sauntered past him with a swish of his cape. “I excavated her from the deepest part of Halcandra. She had been left behind, and she’d been completely defunct when I found her, too. Took me weeks just to get her back online!” Memories of a previous, but not quite better life had him wistfully caress the entrance to the Lor before he stepped inside.
The haggard warrior trudged in with him, somehow withdrawn and ominous at the same time as he easily overshadowed everything around him. “I don’t suppose the dragon made that very easy.”
“You–” A cough, discrete enough to go unnoticed. “Landia has lived as long as you have?”
Galacta Knight elected to pay that comment no heed, nudging his way before the Lor’s main console. Flexing his shoulders with a harmony of concerning pops, he reached out to touch the keypad.
“Woooah, woah, woah!” Magolor interjected, throwing himself in front of the dashboard with his arms flung wide. “Who said you could mess around with my ship?! Hands to yourself! You tell me the coordinates and I’ll get us there.” The last time he had let someone (Marx) drive (crash) the Lor, they’d gotten lost halfway across the universe. He couldn’t afford to suffer the cardiac arrest that had come with that again.
He had expected Galacta Knight, burly and imposing as he was, to object in some way. To insist that he do it, or to try forcing his way into doing it. Instead, a look of resignation softened his features as he stepped back, hands lowering to their natural places at his side. “As you wish.”
On paper, the edge of the galaxy was a two stones throw for a ship like the Lor, all thanks to warp technology. Well-estimated numerical values could place them virtually anywhere in the world, so long as there was enough energy to create a portal. In application, though, this occasion was apparently different – or so Galacta Knight insisted. Something about a home being obscured if it was approached incorrectly, which required them to be transported at a farther interval in order to pass through the veil. The description that Magolor had been given was vague, perturbingly so, but the thought of a palace existing in total isolation was captivating. Had it been built by the Ancients as well, or had it only acquired remnants of their society over time? Without knowing the identity of who the abode belonged to, and with the primeval warrior unwilling to tell him just yet, all he could do was guess.
As autopilot had them coasting across the empty reaches of space, Magolor took the chance to address the proverbial elephant in the room. Tearing himself away from the control panel, he saw Galacta Knight taking in the starlit cosmos through the rear window, the reflection on the glass revealing the listlessness of his resting face. “How long have you been living on Popstar?” the mage hazarded carefully, keeping the space between them generous.
The inquiry did invite a change in the warrior’s countenance, but one of wariness, the lines of his mouth stretching further into a confused little frown. “...I don’t keep track. I’m not used to lengths of time here.”
Had Magolor not been able to sympathize with that, he might’ve laughed. Or maybe not. Poking the bear here didn’t seem very wise. “The days seem to go by much quicker here than where I come from,” was what he landed on, hoping that small talk would let him ease into a more interrogative strategy. “Was anything happening when you moved here? Any major events? I have a pretty decent amount of historical knowledge to go off of!”
Galacta Knight scratched at his jawline, folded his arms over his chest, then tilted his head to the side in succession. “The jester. He made a wish before the Celestial Comet, and I came here soon after.”
“Wow, really? That was a while ago.” Magolor chose to bite his tongue and refrain from talking about Marx any further than that, because the familiarity was clearly not a two-way street. Although Marx sure liked to make things difficult for just about everyone, he wouldn’t have skimped out on details for something as important as this. A pattern was beginning to make itself known. The web of connections was growing larger, more complicated. “That was quite some time before I arrived myself, actually! You must not make yourself known very much, otherwise I would have heard about you sooner.”
“I dislike drawing attention to myself.”
A dead-end in the conversation. He glowered inwardly, trying to cobble together some way to segue back into what he wanted to pry out of the knight without it being too flagrant. “Well, being a star-child must make that rather challenging, huh?”
One of the wings twitched, a betraying tick. “Yes. It does.” Like the crack of a whip, Galacta Knight had spun away from the window and leaned down to face him, the sparkle of innocent scrutiny the only thing that kept the action from being perceived as a threat. “I also dislike people who dance around the point. What is it that you really want to learn about me?”
A prick of guilt had Magolor biting his lip, though it was easily disguised as contemplation instead. “As much as I can, if possible.”
The warrior sighed, a tiny sound that escaped past his teeth. “I can’t promise that you will enjoy hearing anything that I might have to say, but so be it.”
“Do you know what happened to the Ancients?” Quick and to the point. No more beating around the bush.
Galacta Knight’s eyebrows furrowed. Not out of anger or shock, but genuine hesitation. “I don’t,” he professed, hardly more than a mumble until he spoke up right after. “No one does. Not even the clockwork gods that they made. And I won’t be able to satisfy your desire for information about them in general, either. I never liked them that much.”
“But you’re familiar enough with their technology to recognize the Lor,” Magolor pointed out with a shrewd half-smile, “and you’re also familiar with aspects of Halcandra, too. That has to account for something, right?”
“Not really,” the other bit back, cushioned with tangible restraint. “I am nobody important, and nothing I know will be of value to you. You’re wasting your time.”
“Anyone who knows what the Celestial Comets are knows something worth my time.”
Galacta Knight paused, rearing back up as he perceived the slip-up. “...ah.”
Victorious at last, Magolor twirled on his heels and returned to the center of the bridge. This guy was a real piece of work, but he could make do with that, now that he had the wiggle room. “Trust me, I can spot half-truths faster than you could hash them out. Like it or not, you’re definitely someone of interest – to me, at least! A genetic experiment gone wrong, perhaps? Or maybe a rejected Star Warrior?”
A barking, harsher kind of cackle cut through the tension in the air like a hot knife. It came one, then twice, until the swordsman was breaking into a fit of hysterics. In a way, it sounded wrong. The intervals were sporadic, uncontrolled, like Galacta Knight hadn’t laughed in ages. Maybe he hadn’t. When he eventually stopped, leftover amusement lingered across his face. “You don’t know when to stop, do you? Funny. I think I like you.” He ambled forward, so close to leaning on the dash until he evidently remembered the rules and pulled back. “I am neither of those things. I am simply an outlier among my kind, and I predate the Star Warriors. I like them even less than the Ancients.”
“You and I both,” Magolor said under his breath, filing away every single detail that was being told to him. A knight that predated both the Star Warriors and the exodus of the Ancients was an incredible find, to be sure, but there was an indistinct barrier between what he was truly looking for and what he was being given. Galacta Knight was hiding something. That was a matter of fact. There was no reason to believe that he was lying about the nature of his existence, but his ability to dodge precise questions paired rottenly with Magolor’s expertise in playing the long game. An immovable object versus an unstoppable force.
He was out of time for now, though. The Lor’s main display screen glared a bright yellow, informing him of the congregated land masses that had appeared out of the blue. Most were tiny, disk-like pieces of earth that drifted in space, but there was a central one large enough to support an entire villa and more. A disembodied continent. Despite all of the space, only the palace and the accompanying tower were of note, both tall and lofty, but deceptively modest from the outside.
The awe he felt from viewing the strange phenomenon from afar lasted for all of two seconds before Marx’s words from that very morning struck him like a jackhammer. Stiffly, his eyes darted over to Galacta Knight. “Is...is this the home of Nova?”
A flash of sharp teeth glimmered down at him. “That’s right.”
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Far, far away, in Magolor’s home galaxy, there was no Celestial Comet that lorded over the skies as their de facto god. Even farther away, Halcandra’s eleventh hour went unnoticed by any would-be idols that might have witnessed its descent into a blistering, desolate wasteland.
Even for a heretic like Magolor, whose devotion to nonconformity had led him down this turbulent path, wish-granting machines had never been anything more than an unreliable whisper. For a time, he’d believed in them, but only out of spite. To antagonize the council after they had refused to sanction him as an official mage. He hadn’t actually put much stock into their existence, nor their purported powers. The Master Crown had been a more realistic goal, one that hadn’t come with upfront stipulations like the Celestial Comets. One that he’d thought he could fully control. No strings attached.
When he’d been told that a Celestial Comet resided within Popstar’s solar system, and even when he had learned of the one that had been rebuilt by Susie’s corporation, he’d lacked the incentive to uncover more. His thirst for power had already wilted away, dried up by the promises of death that lurked in all of his future crossroads. A single bad decision was sure to be his last, and inducing the hands of fate with an ill-omened wish could easily be all that it took to tip the scale in the wrong direction, so he’d put that detail away with the expectation that it wouldn’t ever be needed. It had been stored in the very back of his mind as a fun little tidbit eclipsed by everything else he knew about this part of the universe, and he’d been happy to accept that it would remain that way forever.
But this had all been before he’d been whisked away to the home of one, and now he wasn’t sure what to think.
For a palace as old as this, it was surprisingly pristine, age and decay absent from every square inch of the interior. Magic was embedded all around, and Magolor wondered if that was responsible for the immaculacy, or if someone had actually scrubbed down the place before their arrival. Shapes and colors sparkled along the carpeted hallway that Galacta Knight ushered him through, the glass windows rendered with depictions of happenings that had occurred long ago. People using the Dream Fountains to call upon the Comets. Star Warriors fighting against monsters created by the unholy Nightmare. Someone traveling through the Dimension Mirror to reach the Mirror World on the other side. All things that Kirby had once been confronted with, one way or another, but long before his time.
Magolor still retained a pinch of salt when it came to these artificial deities, if only because that was exactly what they were. Artificial. Beings made by hands capable of mistake were surely able to make mistakes themselves, and that ruined any sanctity of judgement that he could have for one who was of an exalted status. The checklist of problems that Galactic Nova had caused for Popstar in the past embodied that principle perfectly, every time that he’d been summoned in recent years leading to a disaster of colossal, world-ending proportions. How anyone could still think of him as a god was beyond the mage.
Not that he was going to bow out, of course. History aside, Nova was still a Comet, and Magolor would never turn down the chance to learn more about what the Ancients had left behind.
He wanted to ask what he was like, to see what Galacta Knight thought of the automaton, but the corridor ended before he could even find a way to phrase it casually. They stepped into a sweeping and furnished parlor, well-lit by the rows of torches and the fireplace that crackled towards the back. Magolor’s eyes were instantly drawn toward the wide selection of hardbacks neatly arranged within wooden bookshelves, but they were soon forgotten in favor of the massive individual occupying the recliner near the hearth.
Many times had he heard Nova be described to him, but none could capture the sheer grandiosity that exuded from the living machine, covered from head to toe in elaborately patterned clothes and projecting eminence by sheer virtue of being in the room. That wasn't even factoring in how large he was, easily reaching twice Magolor's height. Even so, the recountings were still accurate, even down to the condition of his left eye – it was in such a state of negligence that it was functionally useless, the exterior cracked and the LED pupil dilated at its maximum capacity with dead diodes. Some of the skin around it had been torn away, too, his ivory complexion contrasting horribly with the silver endoskeleton underneath. Tiny ruptures reached even deeper, flecks of black that spotted around the socket.
The other eye was firmly closed, however, and Galacta Knight made a disgruntled noise when he saw it. “He’s asleep.”
“If that’s unusual, it could be a sign of internal damage. Do you know what kind of power source is installed in him? Electrical? Solar? Magical?”
“I am unsure. But there is still a solution.” With long strides, he walked up to the chair and leaned back, head angled down toward the resting Comet. Almost conspiratorially, he held up a hand that shielded his mouth from Magolor’s line of sight. “The silver one has come back for you.”
At the drop of a hat, Nova jolted to alertness with a strangled yelp, lurching forward with the inflexibility of a rusted doll as he rose to his feet. A horrific orchestra of grinding gears and whirring mechanisms rang out from somewhere inside of him, escaping through the punctures around his optic. His good eye swept over the room until it landed on Magolor, whose instinctually pleasant front caused him to relax. “...m-my dear Galacta,” he stuttered with a strained rictus, turning to the knight in question, “I am fairly certain that we’ve discussed the consequences of holding Star Dream’s name in such bad faith?”
Magolor’s ears perked at the name. That was the other one, who had once belonged to Haltmann Works Company. Celestial Comets being able to come into conflict with each other was interesting, and he mused on whether that was somehow relevant.
“You said that you stopped being able to feel things a while ago,” Galacta Knight retorted, wings sprawling behind him before they snapped back in place. “How else was I meant to get you up?”
“I said that I had started to experience a decline in that regard. A significant difference!”
He scoffed, shaking his head in exasperation before sweeping his hand toward the mage in the room. “Well, no matter. He can fix that problem for you.”
A spotlight had been thrown over Magolor, so bright that he could feel goosebumps peppering across the length of his arms and the back of his neck, his short coat of fur rising like bristling hackles along the way. It was as if all of his reservations were being dismantled in real time by the way Nova studied him, peering through the layers of compulsion and cunning that, at the very core, made the far-flung traveler who he was. He wasn’t used to being on the other end of a microscope. That was usually his job.
“Ahh,” the Comet hummed after a moment. A tall cane appeared beside him with a flick of his wrist, the curved handle embellished with the same triangular pattern that had been sewn into his top hat. With it, he drew closer to the newcomer in his home through a cumbrous shamble. “I remember you! Yes, I remember you quite well. The one who reignited the life of the Master Crown...Magolor.”
Magolor’s practiced grin tensed ever-so-slightly, and he bowed lightly. “That would be me, yes. And you must be the one who was causing trouble with the Air Ride machines! I’ve heard much about you before from Marx,” he bit back. It wasn’t astonishing for a Comet to have known about that, but it didn’t make him feel any better about hearing it out loud.
The lack of a provoked response from Nova was irritating, even more so with how he simply laughed at the jab. “I am happy to hear that Marx is doing well. That being said, I must apologize on behalf of Galacta. I can only imagine what he did to get you here for my sake.”
“We just have an arrangement. Quid pro quo and all that!”
A strange look was exchanged between Galacta Knight and Nova, infused with restlessness. “Well,” the latter went on, “if that’s the case, then I suppose I shouldn’t postpone your side of the bargain any further. I have everything you need in my workshop, if you’re prepared to begin now.”
“Of course!” Magolor agreed earnestly, more eager than ever to see what he was working with.
As he was led away, he snuck one final glance toward the warrior who had brought him here, only to see that he had already broken off into a completely different direction. Not back the way they had come in, but toward some other sector of the manor, an uneasy crease to his brow that stayed with him until he vanished behind the eventual door. Reawakened anxieties nipped at the edges of Magolor’s mind now, enkindled by the realization that he was on his own, with no real contingency plan in his back pocket. He was running on pure intuition now.
Trying to mitigate the urge to go over all of the ways this could possibly go wrong, he focused on what was ahead of him. The home contorted in ways that defied the laws of space, no doubt due to the enchantments that were present everywhere, but the deluge of magic made him feel somewhat at peace. Rooms appeared and changed every time he blinked, always so close together that it didn’t seem possible for there to be much volume to the actual chambers. Some had markers that defined them, little aspects that hinted towards their purpose – a doorway stained with paint here, another with scorch marks burned into the wooden frame there, and so on and so forth. It was impossible to ascertain the importance of each, but most were forthright.
“I have no plans to take advantage of your aid, if that is what you’re concerned about,” Nova said at one point, stopping before a steel-cased door. “You are doing me a service I couldn’t possibly hope to repay you with a meaningful equivalent.”
“Even if you granted me a wish?” Magolor questioned, both joking and not.
The door clicked open. “There is no wish that would be of equal value.”
He was thankful that the other’s back was turned, otherwise the disturbed grimace that parted his lips would have been on full display. The atrium suddenly seemed cramped and sweltering hot, hemming him in with incorporeal teeth embedded in the atmosphere like he was in the maw of an angered animal. Desperate to maintain his composure, he tore his gaze away from the hallway at large and entered the newly available room, hoping that the feeling of being caged would go away.
It was a capacious, all-encompassing garage, filled to the brim with every kind of tool and appliance that Magolor could think of off the top of his head and more. Through the disorganized clutter that had overtaken everything, he could see sections dedicated to particular projects, corresponding appliances gathered together so they were more easily accessible. Most of the unfinished gadgets were objects that he could recognize as well; a pendulum clock that tracked the time on multiple planets, a type-writer that was speech-to-text operated, even a diagram of the galaxy that captured the rotation of the individual planets around their respective suns. He understood the usefulness of some less than others.
Nestled in the very back of the room was a long work table, fitted with mechanics that could lift it higher into the air and rotate it in different directions. Nova swiped a finger across the edge, stared at the spot of grey discoloring his glove, then leaned down to blow the dust off the surface with a single exhale. “I’m sure you must be wondering why I have burnered your friends so many times, especially in recent days.”
Magolor folded his hands together and cracked all of his knuckles simultaneously, wandering over to the control panel for the bench and getting a better look at the software. It was a rudimentary console, with buttons that exhibited the motions each one performed. “Maybe.”
In the silence of the room, the sounds of mishmashing gears was deafening. “It’s not as complicated as most would think.”
He smirked. “Trying to guilt-trip me into not sabotaging your innards isn’t going to work, just so you know.”
“I figured!” the Comet retaliated with that vexing niceness Magolor was starting to despise whole-heartedly. He’d begun to peel off some of his clothes, the trenchcoat and hat now lost in the chaos of equipment, with his tie soon to join the rest. “But it’s the truth. Beseeching higher powers to grant wishes has always come with risks. Somehow, the world is only just now beginning to understand this.”
“...yeah,” Magolor agreed, teeth catching the inside of his cheek. “Yeah.”
Nova finally sat down on the counter, folding his glasses and sticking them into the front pocket of his pants. Innocuous movements that were heavy with finality. “Admittedly, I may have let this latest affair get out of hand.”
“Then why do it in the first place? Just a thought,” the mage hedged. “From what I’ve been told, you didn’t have to actually grant Zorah’s wish. It didn’t have the power of the stars needed to summon you.”
A menacing tick reverberated across the room, almost like a bomb had just been set off somewhere in the relic’s body. “There are rules that every Celestial Comet must follow,” he said slowly. “One of those rules is that I must ensure every wish that is given to me is fulfilled to a certain extent. It doesn’t matter how. The wish that Marx wanted me to grant...it had been left incomplete, so I used Zorah’s wish as a way to circumvent that failure.” He paused, closing his good eye. “But things turned out the way they did because I had hope that Kirby would be able to stop it.”
Magolor’s discontent began to wane with the explanation. Before, he’d been satisfied with the presumption that Celestial Comets lacked the kind of ethics that mortals had. To create something with the power of fathomless potential, and then to give it a sense of right and wrong, was dangerous. Whatever it decided was morally just would have shaped its entire thinking process – and how it chose to interpret wishes. To be without standards meant that the machines could grant them as they were, without the possibility of their nature being twisted into something that had not been intended. But now, with that concept so thoroughly challenged, the first impression was questionable at best.
Nova didn’t offer much time to dwell on anything before he slid out of his button-up shirt, uncovering the massive dent that gnarled his chest’s left side, where most of his deformities had congregated. “My self-diagnostic system lets me know what is missing and what isn’t working properly, but I can’t assess the actual hardware damage. I can point you in the right direction, but you’ll have to decide what the best course of action is.”
“Galacta Knight isn’t tech-savvy, is he? Otherwise you could have just gotten him to do it.”
“Unfortunately not.”
“Odd,” muttered Magolor, who picked up a pen-shaped flashlight off the nearest desk. He clicked the end several times, watching as the bulb on the other side swapped between on and off. “He recognized what the Lor Starcutter is, and I don’t doubt that he could get her to run. I have yet to meet a star-child who couldn’t tell that she’s of Ancient heritage.” Except for Kirby, but he was too young and inexperienced to have known beforehand.
With unsteady hands, Nova traced a large rectangle across his front, leaving behind visible seams that gave way to a removable panel that he handed to the mage. His inner workings were laid bare now, the robotic skeleton that served as his core frame fashioned very similarly to most evolved vertebrates, ribcage and all. A replica of living matter. “He isn’t built for that kind of fragile labor. It would only frustrate him, and I don’t want to put him through that.”
Setting the sheet aside to hammer out later, Magolor slumped into a nearby chair, wheeling it over to the desk and shining the light into the new cavity. Already, he could see the frayed wires and broken apparatuses that needed to be replaced. It reminded him of when he’d first discovered the Lor, imprisoned in the core of a dying planet and succumbing to the rot that she had been condemned to by the mass departure of her creators. Though compassion was hard for him to summon, it came to him freely this time, now aware that it was an outcome not even the Comets could avoid.
He didn’t need to ask if they were somehow prohibited from fixing themselves. The implication was as clear as day.
Ever on the alert, he began to further inspect the faulty cables, memorizing how many there were to come back to later. “Who is he?” he demanded, tired of waiting for the right moment to strike. “He’s older than the Star Warriors, he was around during the time of the Ancients, and he reeks of powerful magic. I refuse to believe that he’s just some nobody who managed to survive for this long.”
Nova’s smile fell for the first time since he had arrived. It pressed into a fine line, accompanied by the shift of his eye as he remained still against the table. “Are you aware of the greatest warrior in the galaxy?”
Magolor pulled out a fragment of metal and tossed it somewhere behind him, then froze. “I’ve...heard whispers about someone like that. Someone so strong that they had to be sealed away, or else they might destroy everything around them. Are you saying-?”
“Yes. He is that very same warrior that was once trapped in crystal. Eons ago, the Star Warriors wished for it to be so.”
Even though the truth made sense, it didn’t stop him from recontextualizing all of their previous interactions that day. The constant sidestepping, the way everything felt guarded and on edge, even where Galacta Knight had assumedly been living since his emergence on Popstar. He had to have realized, then, that his strength was mighty and terrible, and that was why he had hidden himself away in a labyrinth that would forever see itself remade. A star-child in retreat and a Celestial Comet exiled to the end of the nebula.
Red and orange filled his thoughts with the memory of a ghost he couldn’t recall in full, and questions stopped being asked after that.
Without any way to keep track of the minutes that passed, Magolor had no idea how long he’d spent hunched over and absorbed by the job at hand, going back and forth from the worktable to all of the electrical tools nearby. Time blindness always struck when he was invested in a project, and this occasion was no different. He knew, if nothing else, that many hours had been spent trying to restore Nova’s functionality. Like building a computer, trial and error was necessary to rectify the things that malfunctioned – and, honestly, that was basically what he was doing anyway. Robots were just highly sophisticated computers. Ones that required far more effort to put together correctly, but computers nonetheless.
It gave him the breathing room to dwell on all that had happened thus far. He’d discovered the lair of an ostracized legend, somehow persuaded that same legend into teaching him the art of swordplay, and then he himself was lured into renovating the most beautiful and complex machine he had ever laid his eyes upon. He remained reluctant to define his opinion of Nova as a person, but his frame was truly a marvel, so painstakingly constructed that its ornateness was in contradiction with how basic the repair process was. There was so much to his systems, yet so little needed to fix them.
Every now and then, he thought about how easy it would be to kill a god like this. To stab the core. To snap the wires connecting his processor to the rest of his body. Would he be venerated for that? For removing a chess master who had once not had their hand over the pieces on the board? Or would everyone be afraid of him, his hands blackened with the destruction of two almighties?
One was enough. Yes, one was indeed enough.
“Why are you like this?” he posed aloud at some point, only registering the ambiguity once it had been spoken. “Why would the Ancients give you a conscience for a position that necessitates impartiality?”
In return, Nova folded his hands together over his waist. “Why did the Ancients do anything they did? Why did they feel the need to create an heirloom that corrupts by design? Why did they construct fountains that were destined to awaken a nightmare incarnate?” A lengthy interlude choked the air with grief. “I ask myself why they even bothered to create me in the first place every day.”
Magolor had nothing to offer in terms of comfort. All he could do was keep working.
Out of all the overhauls that had to be done, the eye was the trickiest to get right. The glass material that had been used to make them was as durable as diamonds and just as hard to reshape without it breaking under pressure. According to Nova, the stability of his hands had given out right before he could begin making the replacement, but his instructions were meticulous enough for the mage to be able to do it himself. Mold the glass. Insert the LED board. Drill a hole through the backside and insert the connector through it. Put it in the socket. He’d had a more stressful time recalibrating the anti-gravity mechanics on the Lor than anything he’d had to do for Nova thus far.
In the middle of tweaking the pain receptors linked to the knee, he gathered up the courage to introduce a new topic of conversation. “There’s something I was hoping you might be able to tell me.”
Nova, who was now sitting with his legs over the edge of the table, beamed inquisitively. “What might that be?”
“Is the Lor sentient, too? I mean, I’ve heard rumors about it, but none of the blueprints that I found on my home planet said anything definitive about Starcutters being self-aware. I thought you’d might know since you were made by the Ancients as well! That’s, ah, assuming you were made before they went out of fashion. Not that I’ve seen another Starcutter before, though that would be awesome. Anyway.” Magolor stopped, squinting. “What was I saying? Oh, right, the Lor.”
Unbothered by the rapid-fire expositing, Nova held his chin in one hand with a thoughtful sound. “The Ancients created us Comets towards the tail-end of their existence, so I can’t say for sure if that’s true. I certainly wouldn’t put it past them.”
Always such non-answers with these people. Not that someone like Magolor had any room to talk. “I’ve done everything I can think of to find out,” he confessed, staring down ruefully at the diagnostic tablet in his lap. “I’ve tried being nice, I’ve tried being evil, I’ve tried being honest when no one else was around. I even dug through as much of her code as I could, and I’m still no closer to finding out.” Wordlessly, he brooded over how getting a straight answer about anything always felt like pulling teeth.
“Sounds to me like she’s waiting for the right moment to tell you.” The reignited twinkle in the Comet’s eyes turned playful. “If your theory is correct.”
Magolor rolled his eyes, gently tossing the device onto the bench with all of the other discarded instruments he’d been using for the past hours. “Sure. Anyway, your knee is all good, so everything ought to be back in order. Wow, that took a lot faster than I thought it would, now that I think about it.” It was almost a little disappointing, but maybe he could squeeze himself into a regular schedule of maintenance. That would give him something other than the Lor to tinker with.
An unusual quiet befell the room as Nova, despite no longer needing to be on the worktop, remained exactly where he was. Vacancy neutralized his expression into something thoughtless and bordering on frightened, fingers curled so tightly around the edge of the surface that they only barely shied away from denting the metal. Aside from that, he was stationary. No more arbitrary ticks or pops came from within, and he could almost pass as a statute if not for the occasional blink. A true machine.
“Is something wrong?” Magolor asked nervously, fidgeting with his hands.
It took the other several moments to respond, the emptiness disintegrating into a sheepish smile fraught with distress. “I’ve lived most of my life broken, and now I am afraid to put pressure on my leg in order to stand. Isn’t that ironic?”
A prickly sensation began to upset his legs from where they were connected to his prosthetics, and a sourceless heaviness weighed down against his chest. “...no. I get it.” Pivoting away from the desk, he rummaged around the accumulated mess of objects and items until he found Nova’s walking stick, carrying it with diligence back to its owner. “It may take time before you get used to being whole again.”
With gentle hands, renewed with strength, Nova took the cane from him and rose to his feet. “Thank you,” he offered sincerely. Gesturing towards the door, he began to walk forward with hypervigilance, habit manifesting in the limp that remained with him. “You must be starving. Why don’t I make dinner while you’re here? I’m sure Galacta will be happy to join us as well.”
“I’m not really that hungry.” A gnawing in his stomach had Magolor quickly back-pedalling. “Okay, maybe a little. No idea where Galacta Knight went, though.”
“Knowing him, he’s probably outside. Never did like to be cooped up for too long.”
As they exited the room together, Magolor was content to allow Nova’s long-winded diatribe fade away into background noise. He wondered if he could be happy were life to continue like this, Popstar’s lazy lifestyle intermittent with new adventures and discoveries. Every day on his home planet had been a bore, and every day on Halcandra had been a fight for survival, but so many things that he had learned were wholly unknown to everyone else. He now probably knew more about Nova than Marx did, despite the strange relationship that the jester and the clockwork god had. Was the in between be ideal, then, if he could find purpose in bridging the gap between the past and future?
His name rang out from where Nova had already roamed far ahead of him. With a quick apology, he ran after the Comet, and his wonders were left unresolved for now.