#mirrormare

Mirrormare didn’t look fast enough to see Kirby in his full form, hide behind that rock. He did sense, sort of see that some orb-like creature was absolutely terrified of him. If he were some lesser being, he’d probably drool at the delicious fear just rushing to his tastebuds, but Mirrormare’d learned to control himself. He also learned to internally shun the sensation, no matter how nice it tasted.

..Not gonna lie, Mirrormare thought the scream was weird. He.. Sort of just.. 

“I-It’s okay, little Waddle Dee, I won’t hurt you. I promise I’m not actually scary, even if.. I sound and look scary.”

“I’m.. Metal.”

Mirrormare answered sheepishly. He was nothing but cosmic metal and fabric, just like his counterpart was. 

Mirrormare tries to think of the answer to this question, but he decided that if he answered it, it might.. Be wrong. Or this might be a joke and if he thought up the answer, he’d ruin the delivery.

“Um, I don’t know.”

He hummed.

Being yelled at was one of Mirrormare’s fears that made him cry, being screeched at.. Not so much. Sure, it made him shudder, but nothing much more than that. His cape flapped from the wind of her roar, and he backed off a bit because loud noises were bad.

He swallowed any lumps he had in his throat and tried to unwithdraw himself. Mirrormare rubbed the back of his hands quietly for a moment before seemingly mustering himself enough to not have both his hands glued together.

His claws were lightly out, spaced nicely to see the tips glow faintly white. That faintness was all he could muster with these magic-inhibiting bracelets on. It’d work, but it’d just take longer, with more scratches.

“It’s for their own good, it’s for their own good..”

What happened to you? What happened to you, Mirrormare? Yeah, dude, what happened? Plenty of things, but he wasn’t going to divulge with a random stranger and make them feel bad. 

“I-I uh..”

Mirrormare started, then stopped. He looked down at the little demons he was keeping close to himself without moving his head, then looked back at this woman.

“I don’t think I’m the person you- you want to.. Or uhm, think you’re talking to. I’ve been like this for years. Sorry.”

Mirrormare didn’t recognize this woman. Well, he’d seen someone like her in his friend’s memories, but she was green and wasn’t as outwardly friendly as this woman seemed to be. Mirrormare pulled any baby demons he’d let run around away from her, whether it was to protect them or to protect her was unknown, but he did it regardless.

He wasn’t used to people recognizing him, it made his skin crawl. The thought that people knew about him. But when she said that last part, not recognizing his yellow, he felt more at ease.

“I like yellow..”

He replied back, his voice deep and commanding by default, but the tone was meek and reserved, even almost guilty sounding. Like he had to defend his like for the color yellow.

There, in his dreams, he was still somewhat lucid. Barely, barely lucid, but somewhat. He felt like he couldn’t do much, but he could be present. He could say things. Sort of.

In said dream, he was in a clouded, grey room of discord. Of lightning and thunder which shook the clouds themselves, of aggression and loud yells. So he curled into himself, not enough to become a sphere, but to try and make himself smaller to avoid prying eyes. Distress from the loudness, the environment, made itself plain on him both in the dream and (though minorly) out of it.

And it didn’t stop. He couldn’t properly cover his horns from the noise because they stuck out of him. They weren’t like human ears, and even if they were he doubted just his hands would be able to muffle all this noise that burrowed into him.

He kept his eyes on the ground to avoid looking. He didn’t want to see, so he refused to. But then he’d looked up anyways, and he saw.. Someone.. Someone who he couldn’t pinpoint.

Three people. Three.

Kirby, Popopo, and Dark Meta Knight, at once, in a incohesive form he couldn’t exactly grasp. Like the difference between seeing a duck or a bunny. He wheezed and gasped like he was out of breath from just looking. He didn’t want to see those people, he never wanted to see those people. He wanted to avoid, avoid, avoid. He would be fine with never seeing them again after what he’d done to them, to all of them. 

“P-Please go away. Please..” He muttered.

They were gone when he looked again. He’d never changed where his head was, they were just gone. They’d listened, now he was alone with the thunder again.

“Ew, y’know, if I though the yellow was bad, look at you now. You look like a complete edgelord.”

Came the rasping voice of his counterpart. Mirrormare, confused, looked for him. He couldn’t have remembered, he.. He destroyed every single memory in Nightmare’s head. But sure enough, there he was.

Mirrormare trembled, remembering what an absolute mess Nightmare’d made of him the last time his dreams were invaded. Nightmare’s expression deepened into a frown.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing.”

Mirrormare had no response for Nightmare’s question, voice a mere hiss stuck in his throat, and he straightened himself up slightly as to try and back away. Show himself to be reclusive, incapable. But Nightmare didn’t seem to move towards him. Mirrormare just couldn’t move back.

“What’s with the getup. Why do you look like you crawled out of a tarpit.”

Nightmare’s question was a horrible, sour question that suddenly triggered a gunshot in Mirrormare’s head, making him look to his cape. His black cape. His black tears, his black morality.

Mirrormare didn’t want this. He knew what it was, it was bad. He was lucid enough to know that this was bad, and that he could get out of it if he tried hard enough to think about leaving. So he made out a sob and forced his cape back to yellow. 

But Nightmare stayed.

The place faded.

He’s at the fountain. Popopo and Dark Meta are here. Nightmare’s tiny, Mirrormare’s large. And Nightmare’s in his hand, with a sun rod. Mirrormare was able to scream before he was hit.

The shift to the fusion, the first form, was instant. The floating goopy hands grasped at his face as he screeched and sobbed, his surroundings shifting and swirling into a torrent of blackness of his own design, where only he and Popopo were. 

Pain and hatred and sadness split his eye open in an array of vibrant colors to the second form, screaming through detached jaws and debatable tongue to lash.

His thrashing took him as Popopo just watched him, as he struggled with himself, struggled to try and break free of Nightmare’s control over him. Of fusion, of fusion, of hellish forced fusion which hurt every second he was in it. He wanted out and it only caused him to scream more, pouring obscene noises of distorted wailing for Popopo to hear.

Then Popopo was swallowed by the darkness, and Perfect was alone. Or perhaps Perfect wasn’t alone, it was two people as one, after all. But it felt lonely, it felt criminalizing and awful. A prison, a prison, perhaps that’d be the worse of it.

But it wasn’t.

“Hello.”

Said Dark Mind. A orb of red flame and a slit-like eye, glowing like it should as it burned into Perfect. Perfect sobbed, tears to drain from its singular eye but not to ever drop off as drops.

“No, no, I don’t want this. I want this. I don’t. I don’t, I want this. I want people to forget me. I don’t want to be hurt. It hurt. It hurt so much, I don’t want it.”

Perfect babbled, crying more infront of the motionless, power-hungry creature. It gripped at itself, tearing what it could with its razor sharp liquid claws. 

“I don’t want this. I want to be forgotten, it’s better. It’s better. I don’t want to be used. I don’t want it. It’s better to be hurt to get what I want. I deserve this. I want this. No. I’ll be forgotten and used.”

The two voices of Perfect’s fought and fought and fought. Unorderly.

“No. No. It’s good, it’s good, I need to be. It hurts, it feels so horrible I need to be, it’s good. I need it. I need to be. Don’t touch me, please, please, I don’t want it. I don’t want this. I don’t want to again. I’m scared. I need to be forgotten.”

“I can make sure everyone forgets you,” Dark Mind spoke softly, “you just have to let me into your body.”

Mirrormare shook his head, unable to process what was going on or what was being offered. He wanted to be forgotten. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. It was like running from responsibility. He couldn’t, especially not to him.

“No?” Questioned Dark Mind.

“N-No, no, no, I-I don’t want to. I-It’s not right, I-I..”

“You’re a masochist.”

“I-I’m not.. I’m not..”

“I give you a new leaf and you just throw it away so you can live life in suffering. I’m not going to let you do that. Just relax. I’ll teach you how to have some fun.”

Dark Mind’s body turned into flame and scorched itself into his metal, shooting into his mouth, his nostrils, his eyes, and searing him from inside. The orb blended into his magic and needled itself into his brain in an all consuming wall of fire.

It broke his body, it destroyed his arms and parts of his face. It cracked his metal into softer skin, it forced his eyes into uncomfortable yellow shells, and retracted his teeth into the gums until they were nothing but mere stubs of what they once were.

Then as soon as it was done, Dark Mind’s orb appeared underneath him physically, displacing his tornado and shoving it up into his armor and ripped cape. The shell couldn’t move his mouth anymore, or cry. Not on his own accord.

“Telling from that other abomination you were, you must’ve missed being me.”

Said Dark Mind.

“...”

Compsys watched his boss sleep a lot. Just came with the job of being a robot with a lot of eyes. He really wished he had some robotic hands right now, though, he’d love to put Mirrormare on a couch.