Seeing that what he had guessed had indeed happened, Marx celebrated, “Ah, there it is! Mission completed! So then…”
Anny, still in utter shock, continued, “You mentioned how we were useless and how you would probably throw us away, but that simirror tried to argue against it. You decided to ask the white kirby if they could do something, and they managed to bring out some sort of scanner visor. And as you two were trying to make sense of it…”
“Kirby escaped!” Marx completed.
Anny continued once again, “He managed to finally break the glass tube he was in. He questioned you about something, and was ready to beat you, when you panicked: you grabbed some sort of machine that had a gun attached to it and fired it in Kirby’s direction… But it also hit me and some others.”
“Yes, yes!” Marx said, happy to hear all that.
“And that… is all I remember.”
Anny was still with her eyes wide open, looking as if she had just seen a ghost. She had narrated all these events out of shock of her memories coming back all at once suddenly. Now that she was finished, she was trying to understand what had just happened. Even though she had suspected all that just a minute ago and wasn’t completely surprised, she didn’t want to truly believe it.
“There is no way…” Anny said, still in shock. “But this is all in my head… And you didn’t do anything…”
“It is all true!” Marx reaffirmed. “And now you understand how this all has to do with you!”
“B-But… How did I forget all of that until now?” Anny asked, still confused.
“Simple: I attacked Kirby and you all with none other than the machine that created these photos I showed you! It’s a memory machine,” Marx explained.
“…Memory machine?” Anny said out loud, while she tried to remember about it.
“Yeah! It can do some stuff with memories… I didn’t really know back then, but it looks like when I used that attack on you all I basically suppressed your memories of the whole event.”
“So, Kirby’s too!” Anny realized.
Marx nodded. “Yup! And I didn’t hit Panee because he wasn’t in the way, but all other kirbies were…”
Hearing that name, Anny said, “So that was Panee after all! But anyway, how did we leave from there? I woke up in a different part of Bubbly Clouds…”
“Well, the blast from the attack threw you around, so I guess that’s why,” Marx explained. “You were also unconscious after from what I know.”
“Okay but what happened after?” Anny wondered.
Marx looked at Anny angry, and said, “After? Well, you remember everything now.”
Anny shook her head. “No, I mean, like where is Simis? And what about Panee? Also, why were we transparent? We aren’t anymo—”
“We are done,” Marx interrupted her promptly.
“Huh?” Anny said, confused at the interruption.
“I told you enough,” Marx said with a disappointed face. “This is as far as I will go. I mean, you wanted to know about your life before one year ago, right?”
“Yeah…” Anny answered. “But I only got some extra minutes of memories.”
“Some extra minutes that change everything!” Marx exclaimed.
“Sure, I guess, but still… That is not quite enough.” Anny looked up, thoughtful. “You left me with even more questions…”
“Well,” Marx smirked, “if you want to know more…” He opened his wings, and shouted, “Join me!”
“Wait, what?” Anny looked at Marx, confused.
“Yeah, join me!” Marx reaffirmed. “I mean, I created you! It’s only fitting!” He looked down. “I accidentally threw you away, so…”
“But… You mean work for you?” Anny asked.
“Yeah, like Panee does!” Marx explained. “He really enjoys it, in fact.”
Unsure of what to answer, Anny got in a thoughtful position, and said as she thought about it, “…I don’t know…”
Noticing Anny wasn’t so sure, Marx thought, “Well, she is undecided, like Panee suggested she would be… And what did he tell me to tell her if this happened?” Marx stopped to try to remember, and then he succeeded, “Oh, right, I remember now! Let’s do this.”
“Oh,” Marx spoke up, “speaking of Panee, he told me that if you joined me, he would teach you how to teleport in like two days! Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“WHAT?!” Anny screamed, the most shocked she had been that night.
“Yeah, yeah!” Marx said happily, content to see Anny’s reaction. “He can do it with Mirror, it’s so cool… He can teach you his secrets!”
Anny just couldn’t believe it, and that was so tempting for her. Teleporting was one of the skills she most wanted to learn, but she had been told before that it would be extremely hard for her to learn, and all her efforts to learn it previously were in vain. However, after she saw Panee so effortlessly teleport earlier, she started to wonder how he managed to learn that move. If he truly had a secret regarding that move and could tell her, she could realize one of her dreams. It felt like a really good deal.
Realizing that Anny was deep in thoughts, Marx became satisfied. He guessed Anny’s mind had perhaps been made, so he asked, “So… What do you say, Anny?”
Hearing Marx’s question, Anny started to wonder about her decision; she was so conflicted. The offer to learn how to teleport from Panee was really tempting, but at the same time she questioned if she could even trust Marx and Panee, as Panee had tried to capture them earlier and Marx was his boss. Not only that, having Marx as her boss like Panee would likely mean she would lose her freedom, and most likely the contact with her friends. So, she just continued thinking about the options, over and over, for around a minute.
Not getting an answer from Anny, Marx repeated, impatient, “So what is it, Anny?! I haven’t got all day!”
Seeing Marx pressure her, Anny decided to just follow her instincts. She had thought about both sides, their pros and cons, and weighed them, finally reaching a conclusion. And so, after being quiet for a couple minutes, she finally spoke up with her decision:
“I… I can’t join you,” she said, closing her eyes.
“Huh?!” Marx exclaimed, surprised.
“I mean,” Anny opened her eyes, “sure, you created me, but I don’t really know you that well… And you wanted to conquer the world…” She closed her eyes again. “I don’t really agree with that.” She opened her eyes again, and looked up. “Even though learning to teleport is so tempting, I can’t just accept it just for that reason, that would be selfish…” She looked at Marx. “So yeah, thanks, but no.”
Hearing the answer he didn’t expect, Marx became disappointed. “She said no?” he thought, still surprised. But he quickly collected himself, realizing what he had to do next, and converted his surprise into anger.
“I see. Very well then,” he said out loud to Anny, with a grumpy face. “So I have no other choice.”
Marx turned back and went to grab something. However, this time around it wasn’t a picture like the other times: instead, Marx grabbed something that looked like a printer, but attached to it was some sort of cable that ended on something that looked like a pistol. Having grabbed that machine, Marx turned back to Anny.
“Wh-What is that?” Anny asked, noticing the machine.
“You know that memory machine I mentioned? This is it.” Marx pointed the pistol from it towards Anny. “I will erase your memory of all this! Just like I did right when you were born!”
“WHAT?!” Anny shouted, in a panic.
“Do you really think I will let you just say no and leave?” Marx said, pointing the pistol even closer to Anny. “I can’t let you do that now that you remembered the cloning event!” Marx’s eyes were burning with anger. “I will just make you forget this and call another kirby later and try this again with them, one of you twenty will eventually agree!”
“Huh…”
Anny stopped to think for a moment, wondering what she could do. She was in a dire situation, and Marx could shoot at any second, knocking her out. She knew she had to come up with a plan fast and, thankfully, she quickly had an idea.
“Well, fine…” Anny spoke up. “I admit defeat.” She crossed her arms. “Go ahead and do it.”
“Huh…” Marx was confused at her attitude, but he figured she had given up, so he accepted it, despite finding it strange. “Okay then?” He readied the pistol. “Well, that makes it easier for me.”
And so Marx, with Anny on his aim, pulled the trigger of the pistol, and fired a beam of energy at her. As soon as she saw it being fired, Anny closed her eyes and made a rainbow colored shield appear around her. The beam hit said shield, and it was reflected right back at Marx. He had no time to even react to it, and it hit him and knocked him out, making him drop the machine as well.
Anny opened her eyes and put down the rainbow shield, relieved to be safe. She looked at Marx and saw that he had fainted.
“Oh, phew, it worked!” she thought. “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to escape.” She looked around and continued thinking, “Well huh, now he is fainted, so I best leave before he wakes up…”
And so, Anny turned back to Marx and started running towards where she first arrived when she reached Bubbly Clouds, wanting to go home as soon as possible.
20 Times Kirby! 