🌸Lost in Memories🌸

Chapter 7: Ambitions thriving

It was late by the time Taranza and Susie stopped chatting. The sun had already gone down and the field was now shined upon by the moon and a few fireflies. "Feeling better?" Susie asked. "Yes, actually. You were right, it really did help." Taranza responded with a weak smile. "What helped?" Magolor floated over to them. "Oh, Magolor. What are you doing here?" "Looking for someone to talk to. Metaknight is quite the buzzkill, I'll tell ya" he explained with a somewhat sour look on his face. "But anyway, what were you talking about? You've been here for quite some time." "Nothing all too important." Taranza said as he gently turned the flower he had picked from around him. Magolor realized what was going on after that gesture. "Oh... still thinking about Sectonia, huh...?" Taranza was shortly taken aback by this immediate correct guess. "How did you know?" "Oh Taranza, I know everything." Taranza frowned. "I'm not in the mood for your jokes right now..." "Right, sorry. Well, I might have talked to Kirby a lot and he just loves to go on and on about all the adventures he had." "Wait, Kirby can talk?" Susie asked confused. "You need listen to the tone of his poyo, then it's almost like talking." "I'm pretty sure you just stole Dedede's diary or something." Taranza mumbled. "...I will neither confirm nor deny the possibility that I might've done that." Magolor chuckled. "No but seriously, it's fine if you're still sad. Nobody can just quickly move on from something like that." "Thanks, buddy." Taranza responded. Magolor just nodded reassuringly. "We're going to face Hyness soon, right?" Susie asked. "That's the plan at least. We're going to rest here and then invade their fortress tomorrow. That's gonna be fun." Magolor chuckled. "Don't know why that's your definition of fun, but fair enough. That reminds me. Why are you helping Kirby anyway? Didn't you sort of let them do the dirty work for you before betraying them and attempting to destroy Popstar?" Taranza asked quite bluntly. "Yes... Yes I betrayed them. But when I failed, that cursed crone took complete control over me. I think dark matter was involved but I'm not sure. What I am sure about is that that wasn't exactly pleasant... and I did get slashed by the Ultra Sword, so I learned my lesson the hard way. And just building amusement parks got boring, so I thought I'd help out." he explained. "Makes sense I guess." Taranza replied. "But it's getting late. We should probably get some sleep if we want to win tomorrow." The other two agreed and they all went to bed.

The next day Taranza was the first to wake up and quickly left the tents they set up. Still thinking about what happened the previous day he went to the tree once more and looked at the flowers, finding himself admiring them like he used to do together with Sectonia.

"I get that they're pretty, but we have other things to take care of." Taranza flinched and turned around to see Metaknight walking up to him. "Oh, good morning Metaknight. . . . didn't see you there." "I can tell." Taranza sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "I'm sure whatever's on your mind, is important as well, but please  try to focus on taking down Hyness once we get there. If you're distracted, he'll likely take advantage of that and strike before you can react." Metaknight advised. His tone was a bit softer than usual, he seemed genuinely worried about Taranza. "I.... I'll keep that in mind. Thank you Metaknight." "No problem. Let's wait until the others wake up and then get going." "Right." Taranza looked at the flowers one more time before following Metaknight back to the tents.

Soon they arrived at Hyness's fortress. "Well, I can't say it's disappointing." Magolor mentioned. "Agreed. Can you teleport us inside?" "Of course I can, but I'll have to teleport everyone in seperately otherwise we could cause space and time to collapse." . . .Silence. . . "I was joking, obviously. Geez, not so much as a smirk." Magolor rolled his eyes and teleported Metaknight inside, then Susie, then Taranza and lastly himself. Once he got there, the others were already fighting off guards. "Do you think they already know we're here or is this just how they welcome guests?" he muttered before joining the fight. Slowly making their way through the fortress they eventually arrived in a rather unusual area. Aside from a few huge covers, the entire area was being shot at by small cannons from a different hallway. "How unusual. This design seems rather pointless, doesn't it?" Susie pointed out. "For now let's just focus on moving forward." Metaknight declared. Neither of them noticed Taranza becoming slightly pale the further they got. Upon entering the next area, they were greeted by more spear and staff enemies. "What's the deal with those? It's getting pretty monotone with these guards." Magolor stated, turning around to his allies to only now notice Taranza's pale face. "Woah, what's wrong buddy?" "I....I know what they're doing. The layout, the enemies... they are recreating Sectonia's Palace..." Taranza barely managed to get his words out and just stared at the floor. "This is an almost perfect copy of it, no doubt. I'd recognize it out of thousands..." "I'm so sorry..." Susie started. "No no, it's... fine. Don't know how or why Hyness did this, but.... now we have it easier. I know a ton of shortcuts to get to Sectonia's room. We can use one of these, assuming Hyness is hiding there. It'd make sense at least." Taranza explained by a bitter tone in his voice. ". . . alright then." Susie said. "Let's try that then. But if you need a break, just let us know, ok?" Taranza looked up to Susie, Magolor and Metaknight, all worried to a certain degree. "Sure, but I'll be fine, don't worry." Thanks to Taranza's very sharp memory they managed to get to the throne room in no time and as suspected they found Hyness performing his rituals.