Nowhere To Go But Up

Rude Awakening

"I want to stop." Magolor pleaded with the abyss. The final strike of the Ultra Sword had damaged the crown enough for him to briefly regain some of his conscience. "I don't want to keep going. All I'm doing is hurting people I care about, this isn't what I wanted at all!"

"You say all this as though you have a choice in the matter."

"Huh? You can't control my body if I don't let you-"

"Of course we can. You have been considerably weakened, physically, mentally, and emotionally. You are in no position to resist us. We have a long standing grudge toward the residents of Planet Popstar, and now, with your body as a vessel, we can destroy it. Apologies for lying to you originally, but you should understand where we're coming from, yes?" Magolor had nothing left. He could observe the battle, feel the pain from the heroes' counterattacks, be disgusted by the grotesque husk his body had become, but he couldn't intervene. He couldn't stop the crown's influence. He tried to cry, but his eyes had no tears. He tried to call for help, but it must have fallen on deaf ears. Either that, or his voice was extinguished before any sound could escape. He tried to close his eyes, to ignore it all, but his body wouldn't respond. It wasn't his anymore. Maybe it never was.

.-. . .- .-.. .. - -.-- / -.-. .- -. / -... . / ... . . -. / .- ... / .- / -. .. --. .... - -- .- .-. .

The quiet dejection awoke him from slumber, subdued. He was still in that rust-covered shelter on the island in the sky. His body was what he was used to, and it responded to what he desired. Forget controlling the universe, it's enough of a miracle to be able to control my own body , he thought. The relief of waking up in reality faded immediately after he laid eyes on the entrance to the shelter.

It was Meta Knight.

Magolor quickly glanced down at himself, any chance he was wearing the Nix cloak? No, he wouldn't be that lucky. Realizing there was virtually no way out of this, he looked back at Meta Knight, who'd been staring at him since before he woke up. They stared at each other in silence for what felt like hours before Magolor tried to pad the conversation with words that didn't really mean anything. "You found me." It was an observation, and an incredibly obvious one at that, but he hoped it would prompt a response.

"That I did." The knight had wrapped his cape around himself so he could stand taller than normal without it being noticed. It was an amusing quirk of his, but in this moment, it was working. The staring continued. Meta Knight had said nothing that helped Magolor gauge the situation, and the mage was putting in a lot of effort to not let the fear show on his face.

"H-how've you been?" The stutter definitely didn't help, but he managed a feeble smile. Maybe that would cover up the terror that was growing more visible by the second? It couldn't hurt.

"There've been better days in the past." Meta Knight barely gave him anything to work with.

Might as well make a real move now... "If I may ask, how did you know I was here?" He hoped that opening a line of conversation that wasn't directly related to his betrayal would make this moment easier.

"Saw you fly up here last night while I was watching the mist." Probably should have seen that coming.

"Is there something interesting about the mist? Why were you watching?" At this point, Magolor was just trying to cover for himself being the cloaked figure in Castle Dedede the previous day.

"You were in the mist, were you not? I find it hard to believe that you've never seen Nix."

"Oh, you have too? They kept nagging me to leave while I was working. Eventually I just got sick of it and left."