Work Text:
WHAM WHAM WHAM
"Alright already, I'm coming!" Magolor called out as he drifted across the Starcutter's bridge, even though there was no way whoever was banging on the hull of his ship could hear him. It would be nice if the reverse were true as well, but unfortunately for him the sound was reverberating throughout the entirety of Lor's interior, even in his living quarters. As much as he'd love to ignore them and go back to what he was doing, he had a feeling whoever was hammering away wasn't going to leave until they spoke with him.
Tapping Lor's controls, Magolor readied himself to chew out his guest as an opening expanded in the side of the ship, only to come face to face with King Dedede's scowling visage stomping toward him.
Magolor's own irritation quickly vanished behind a veneer of congeniality. "Your Highness! What a pleasure it is to see you! I should have guessed it was you from the percussive power behind those knocks." He examined his visitor more closely. "And I must say, I love the new outfit! Most people can't pull off animal print, but somehow you make it work! It really brings out your barbaric side."
"I'll show you barbaric." King Dedede growled, tightening his grip on his hammer. "I oughta pound ya into a pancake, y'smarmy little-"
"My King, please calm yourself."
Magolor looked over Dedede's shoulder. "Why, if it isn't Meta Knight as well! This is turning out to be a rare visit indeed. What brings you two out to my neck of the woods?"
Meta Knight's expression, as always, was unreadable. "Magolor. Your absence was severely felt recently."
"It was?" Magolor asked. "I didn't think I was so popular. Any particular reason why?"
Meta Knight glared at him. "The storm."
"The storm..." Magolor rubbed his chin.
If the howling winds hadn't already roused Magolor from his rest, being thrown out of bed would have certainly done the job. Groaning, he barely had enough time to lift himself off the ground before the Starcutter lurched to the side again.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Magolor went to one of the portholes to see what the problem was, only to be met with a terrifying sight. Popstar's idyllic blue skies were now completely black, and its pastoral rolling hills were being ripped straight out of the ground, spiraling up towards a massive star-shaped hole in the sky. Through the vortex of debris, he could just barely make out an unfamiliar planet looming closer by the second.
The ship shook again, and Maglor pushed himself away from the porthole and sped towards the Starcutter's bridge. He needed to act right away! This was an emergency!
"Lor!" He called out, the ship's computer whirring to life at the sound of his voice. "Activate all environmental dampeners! Divert all spare power to the antigravity anchors!"
The computer chirped in reply, and very quickly the shaking and noise of the storm died away.
Magolor let out a sigh of relief. "Much better."
With the ship quiet and still once again, he hovered back to his quarters. Pressing a button beneath the porthole, the window quickly covered itself, hiding the chaos outside. Laying back down, Magolor fluffed his pillow, tucked himself back in, and resumed his nap.
"Oh, right!" Magolor clasped his hands together with a nod. "That storm."
It was hard to tell behind the mask, but Magolor was sure he saw Meta Knight's eye twitch.
"Still, what does that have to do with me?" Magolor asked. "Surely this isn't just a courtesy call. After all, no one bothered checking in on me the other dozen or so times there was some planetwide disaster. You know, for such a peaceful-looking place it's awfully hard to relax around here sometimes."
"If you feel that way, perhaps you could assist us in keeping the peace here more often." Meta Knight said.
"Pff, I helped last time." Magolor waved him off. "I'm due for a vacation. As far as I'm concerned, that storm had nothing to do with me."
"Nothing at all?" The slightest edge came to Meta Knight's voice. "Do you swear on that?"
"Of course I-" Magolor's eyes narrowed with realization. "What, you don't think I'm responsible for what happened, do you?"
"Perhaps not directly." Meta Knight said. "But those rifts looked quite familiar."
"Looked just like th' ones your toy tugboat here can make." Dedede added, driving the point home with his usual tact.
"The resemblance was certainly uncanny." Magolor admitted. "But I promise, they aren't related to me or my ship at all! ...At, least, I don't think so."
"You 'don't think so'?" Meta Knight repeated. "Explain yourself."
"Ah, well," Magalor cleared his throat. "You see, I don't actually know how Lor's rift generator functions."
"You expect us to believe that? It's your ship!" Dedede scowled. "You've told some whoppers before, but this one takes th' cake!"
"You wound me, your Royal Rudeness." Magolor took on a hurt tone. "I dare say I've never said a single lie to any of you since the day we met."
"Indeed." Meta Knight deadpanned. "Your preferred method of lying is through omission."
"Exactly!" Magolor nodded emphatically. "So you can trust me when I say I have no idea how those rifts are created. As I'm sure I've told you all before, I didn't build the Starcutter, I salvaged it. Everything I know about how Lor works, I know from the documentation stored in its databanks." He hovered back over to the ship's main computer and tapped a few keys, bringing a list of items up on the screen. "Here, this is a catalog of each individual part used to build the Starcutter. They have schematics for every single one of them, in case they need to be replaced."
"If you could build new ones, why'd ya make us run around and get th' old ones when you crash-landed here?" Dedede interrupted.
"Because it would've been faster to fix the old ones than fabricate new ones." Magolor explained. "Plus, I needed to test all of you to make sure you were strong enough to take down Landia, so I figured reclaiming the parts was as good a trial as any. Work smarter not harder, that's my motto. Now as I was saying, there's a detailed blueprint for every single part of the ship." He highlighted an entry in the list. "Except this one."
The screen flickered, then displayed a jagged cube that appeared to be made entirely out of some sort of dark material. Its appearance stood out against the sleek and silvery aesthetic found in every other part of the Starcutter. In fact, it looked more like it had been removed from some other larger device, and judging by its uneven exterior the removal hadn't been a clean one.
"Part number eighty-six." Magolor said. "The ancients called it the Dimensional Diviner, and it's what lets the Starcutter travel through spacetime. They have plenty of information on how to use it, but nothing about how it actually works. It's almost like they built the ship around it."
"They didn't understand the technology behind their own ship?" Meta Knight asked, with the barest hint of incredulity.
"Oh, they understood it well enough." Magolor clarified. "They just couldn't replicate it. It is, in every sense of the term, a black box. Someone else made part number eighty-six, and then the ancients salvaged it, just like how I salvaged Lor."
"Then what would happen if it broke?" Meta Knight asked.
"No idea!" Magolor shrugged. "I'd be stranded forever, probably. Thankfully, whatever it's made out of is nigh-indestructible. Good thing too, otherwise it probably would've been destroyed thrice over from the abuse you lot and Landia piled onto it."
King Dedede rolled his eyes.
"Anywho, as flattered as I am that you think I'm capable of doing so, the amount of power needed to create a hole in spacetime increases exponentially as it grows in size. Not that I'd expect you to know that." Even though he wasn't sure if they could understand them, Magolor brought up a few graphs to prove his point. "At full capacity, Lor can generate a rift just big enough to fit itself through. And if it used all reserve power, it could maybe double that size. Certainly not big enough to fit a planet through. Whatever made that rift is far beyond me, loathe as I am to admit it."
Meta Knight as was unreadable as ever, but the glazed look in Dedede's eyes told Magolor everything he needed to know about how much of his information had been absorbed.
"So?" He looked between his two guests. "Have I exonerated myself, or am I guilty until proven innocent?"
"I... suppose your answers are satisfactory." Meta Knight turned away. "We shall take our leave of you."
Dedede lumbered toward the exit with a sigh. "I'ma go check on th' repairs to my castle."
"Sorry to disappoint you two!" Magolor called after them. "It was nice seeing you all the same! Maybe next time you stop by you can bring Kirby." He paused. "Say, where is Kirby, anyhow?"
"Kirby is having a well-deserved vacation of his own." Meta Knight said sharply before he began to follow the King.
"Oh fine, if you're going to pout like that, the next time some cataclysm comes to Popstar I promise I'll do my best to be right there beside you and the others fighting the good fight to save it." Magolor placed his hand on his chest in a mock pledge. "There, happy?"
"I notice you gave yourself plenty of wiggle room by saying you will 'do your best'."
"What, you don't trust me?"
Meta Knight said nothing as he left, the entryway sealing behind him.
Magolor let out a small huff of annoyance. Honestly, the lack of respect he got around here sometimes! If they wanted his help so badly they could be a little nicer about it.
Still, he had to admit he was curious. Someone or something else capable of making rifts like the Starcutter, on a much greater scale... it was worth looking into. Maybe it was someone else who got their hands on a remnant from the Ancients. Maybe it was the Ancients themselves, or their direct descendants, preserved in some far-flung corner of the universe.
Or maybe it was something completely different. Something even older.
Whatever it was, if there really was some sort of connection to him or Lor, he would have to take responsibility, one way or the other.
Rummaging around in his robes, Magolor withdrew a decrepit old sword, its blade dull and chipped. Something he kept around as a reminder of what it took to fix his mistakes, and a promise not to make any more.
He turned the weapon in his hand for a few seconds before putting it away. It wasn't like him to get all maudlin; time to get back to what he was doing before he had been so rudely interrupted.
Hovering back to the Starcutter's living quarters, Magolor settled down onto his bed. Laying back down, he fluffed his pillow, tucked himself back in, and resumed his nap.