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autisticshadowthehedgehog · 7 months

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i was supposed to die (you were supposed to live)

It's a cross-dimensional problem, so it requires cross-dimensional heroes to solve it.

He gathered the very best, everyone he's fought and bled with. The princess of flames and oceans. The genie who binds her own book together with page tears and grieving tears. An angry little brother who raised himself in a world that could never be whole. Girls who flew through worlds on a whim, hand-in-hand, only to return home in time for New Year. Rockstars, reapers, elves, cyborgs. Versions of him, too; one with sparks of chaos glittering off his fur and lightning in his soul, one with a backpack of rings and feet that didn't know how not to run, and one with a darkness inside he would never call upon and a brilliant, dazzling light he spread around him to make up for it. She recognized that in his eyes even if he didn't say it. It wasn't hard to do so.

She saw a similar spirit in the newcomer's eyes, too, and that was the first thing she saw of him. She recognized the eyes, then– the color, the shape, the way they darted side-to-side when he entered a room to assess what was inside. That feeling wasn't in the eyes she knew. She looked over the rest of him, then, seeing the familiar quills, the familiar way he crossed his arms when he didn't want to talk, the way his tail held stock-still assessing for threats. He had the same rings, she noticed, as hers; she wondered if they did the same thing. There was same red paint splashed on his shoes.

He looked up at her, then, and she saw that flash of painful recognition in his eyes. At her own steady blue gaze, at her skin, pale from lack of sunshine, at the way her hair curled around her ears. She knew from that look, then, that he was from a world without her. There were a lot of worlds without her, she'd found whenever she looked into them. People she'd lost lived instead. And if she lived, they died. It wasn't fair. Neither were any of these worlds. No world was fair towards anyone.

She looked back to him and held his gaze this time. He'd finished his shocked stare, and a block came over his expression, trying to block his emotions from everyone else in the room. It happened fast enough that she was probably the only one to see it. But she knew. Even in another world, she knew him. She knew him too well.

As they looked at each other, she tried to let her gaze soften, but she found herself holding strong to that same shielded look. It was probably because if she broke now, she'd break completely, and think about her version of him, left behind in her world which threatened to crumble. Everything dies, but not today. She'd think about them trying to kill each other, loyalties divided and bonds broken. Everything dies, but not today. She'd think about something small, like them at five and seven quarreling over what was best to put in stew. Or them at six and eight sleeping under the stars, naming them and wondering what could make them shine so bright. Everything dies. Or at nine and eleven getting stuck in a tree, waiting to be found and blaming each other, and then sitting and watching the sun set together. But not today.

She knew this wasn't her version of him, the same way he must have known instantly that she was different from whoever he knew. She didn't know this boy standing in front of her. He didn't know the girl in front of him. They knew nothing about each other and yet they knew absolutely everything. They had no relation to each other, no paths that had ever crossed, and they were family all the same. She wondered if siblings could recognize each other in every reality, or if it was just them.

"Shadow! There ya are!"

Sonic slid across the table, leaping down to tackle-hug the boy in front of her, who immediately shrugged him off and elbowed him to the floor. She glanced briefly towards the blue blur as he got up, dusting off his shoulders.

"Shoulda expected that, yeah. I see you just met Merlina! She's gonna help us out, too."

Everyone dies.

They knew each other.

Not today.

#merlina is maria propaganda lmaooo #sth #sonic fanfiction #shadow the hedgehog #satbk #sonic and the black knight #merlina #merlina the wizard #ark siblings #mine

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icedragonlizard · 1 month

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Kirby AU talk: "Memories Still At A Halt"

Susie stumbles upon an active clockwork star that then invites her to make any wish that it'll be more than willing to grant.

This was by complete accident. She didn't at all plan on activating a clockwork star. She was just taking a vacation on Planet Popstar, and when she ended her vacation and flew across the cosmos on her way home to the Haltmann Work Company's headquarters, this clockwork star seemingly comes out of nowhere.

Some planets definitely had their energy used to activate this comet somehow, but it's not known who did this, or if it was even anyone that intentionally did this because they wanted to make a wish.

Regardless, Susie would've never expected this to happen in a million years. She's completely astonished and bewildered by this occasion.

READY. ->

I WILL GRANT YOU ONE WISH... ->

OK. -> 3... 2... 1... GO! ->

Susie is initially a bit reluctant, but she then decides to make a wish.

At first, she's unsure what to have her wish be. She still takes a minute to fully fathom the situation at hand, as her bewilderment isn't very quick to fade.

But she eventually thinks it up. She's made the decision on what she wants her wish to be. She decides that it's at least worth a try.

"I wish for Max Profitt Haltmann to be brought back to life!"

There's a huge amount of nervousness behind her wish. Deep down, she fears that it may go horribly wrong, but she still takes up the chance to finally be potentially able to fix things with her father.

The clockwork star grants her wish. It revives Max Haltmann.

At first, he's comatose. Susie gently grabs him with her mech's arms, and then carries him with her as she makes her way back home.

When he finally wakes up after they get home, he...

.... He still doesn't recognize her as his daughter.

This is why she was nervous while making that wish.

And it still makes her feel incredibly disheartened.

It also appears that he had no ghost in the afterlife and merely popped back into existence in his perspective after the clockwork star brought him back. And the last thing he remembers is Susie having stolen the Star Dream helmet from him when he tried to use it.

This comes off to an absolutely horrible start. After Max Haltmann processes the fact that he was dead and was then brought back, he then snaps at Susie and calls her an "insolent traitor" for getting him killed in the first place. She immediately swears that she never intended to kill him and she was just trying to get him to come to his senses, because Star Dream caused him to go off the deep end.

But he doesn't listen. In fact, he doubles down on his anger towards her. He complains about the "lack of infinite prosperity" because Susie reworked the HWC's practices and policies, as the company is no longer mechanizing planets. He accuses her of being a complete embarrassment that "ruined everything" about the HWC and "turned it into a shell of its former self". He's extremely harsh and rude to her.

Susie doesn't take it sitting down, though. Previously, she'd capitulate and yield to his demands, but now it's different. She now refuses to yield to him when he makes his vehement exclamations. She stands her ground and fights back against every single smear he flings.

The HWC can't even mechanize planets without Star Dream's presence anyways. Susie rebuilt the HWC without it. And she's refused to build another machine like Star Dream to make that possible again because she didn't want to deal with the risks that it'd bring. Plus, she's now friends with Kirby and wants to stay on his good side.

Initially, despite having internal anger at how rude and grating his voice is during his exclamations, she tries to be as calm as possible when she makes her counterarguments. But she eventually loses her cool as he then says something that's especially vile and disgusting.

.... He straight up calls her a wild savage at one point.

That right there caused her to lash out and attack. Immediately after he called her that, she then punches him in the face. There was more than enough strength behind that punch to knock him onto the floor.

Susie asserts her power over him as she's the current CEO of the company, and she has absolutely no interest in giving that up. It's so much easier for her to fight back now as he's not in a position of power to mistreat her. And he can't take back the CEO position because every employee in the company thinks Susie is a much better boss than he ever was. He will need to bend to her now.

Fortunately, things get better after that atrocity of an introduction. Max Haltmann eventually gets some sense knocked into him as Susie is able to convince him that Star Dream was a bad influence and that the company is in a much better place with her practices instead of the ones that were in place from before. He apologizes for being so vile to her as he comes to accepts the HWC's new practices.

... But he's still entirely unable to recognize her as his daughter.

This continues to distress Susie on the inside. It reopens old wounds for her. But at least she doesn't have to steal a supercomputer for him to get him to look her way. At least it's easier to reign him in.

At one point, she tries to explain everything to him. About how he's supposed to be her father, that she was trapped in Another Dimension for a long time and eventually came back, and she deduces that Star Dream tampered with his memories somehow. That the machine somehow caused him to forget about her. She doesn't know that he was trying to use Star Dream to bring her back, however.

How does Max Haltmann react to the revelations? It's... sadly not what Susie was hoping for. He's initially in utter disbelief. Although he does slowly come to understand that it "might" be the truth, but he's still incredibly reluctant to treat her like his daughter because he still legitimately can't recall ever having a daughter at all to begin with.

It's clear that he still doesn't actively remember.

He does become a lot nicer to her after the revelation, but she's still unsatisfied. Especially when he's still not willing to accept hugs from her yet. He awkwardly pats her back to try to comfort her when he catches her being sad, but he clearly still doesn't act like her dad yet.

When Susie left Another Dimension, all she wanted was a hug from her dad while reuniting with him. She still doesn't get that even now. It makes her feel heartbroken. And it also makes her feel awful for him as she's increasingly convinced that Star Dream stole his memories. Even as he gradually becomes nicer, he's still stubborn, easily confused, clumsy and easy to lose focus. It saddens her to see it.

She takes care of him. She's his caretaker. She gets her employees to work on necessary treatments for his health problems. With how much he's struggling, she's pretty much having to babysit him. Imagine a young woman babysitting her own father. That's lowkey what's happening here.

She puts a lot of time and effort in taking care of him.

But he just... seemingly doesn't reach the line. They're able to have a good relationship, but he's still unwilling every time she tries to lightly gesture for a hug. He seems to view her more as a friend much younger than him than as his daughter. That's... not what she wants.

Susie tries to keep it to a minimum around Max, but she's internally depressed over this. She finds herself weeping at times when she's alone, worrying he's never going to remember her as his daughter.

She vents this to her friends: Taranza, Magolor, Kirby and the Mage Sisters. Her father is back and alive again, and she's still having to get hugs from her friends because her senile father is still not willing to accept hugs from her. It makes her friends really sad, especially when they meet her dad in person and see it for themselves that he's still not acting like a real dad to her. Magolor was the first one to see her dad brought back when he visited the HWC's headquarters by getting there with the Lor Starcutter. He was initially excited to meet Haltmann and humorously even try to insert himself as a nephew figure, but that fell apart after he saw how the man acted.

The Mage Sisters, alongside their patriarch Hyness, especially feel terrible at this. Even when Hyness was in his bad phase of madness, he never forgot his daughters entirely. It made him feel bad for Susie for still not being recognized by her dad, and it also made him feel bad for Haltmann as he agrees with Susie's claim that Star Dream wiped his memories, as he was able to deduce that's what happened.

Susie's friends try to comfort her and tell her that at least her dad is still alive again, and they're proud of her for at least being able to make amends with him at all even if he can't wholly remember. They all admit they can't be sure whether or not he'll ever come around to truly remember, but they tell her to not give up. She doesn't give up, although it's still internally hurting for her.

There are moments where it seems like he's so close to finally remembering, with the more recent kind-hearted interactions that the two have. But sadly, he just doesn't ever seem to get there. She is at least happy to see him being nice to her and that they're able to get along perfectly well, but it's just... not enough. She wants more.

It's probably greedy on her behalf, but he's supposed to be her father.

Is it possible him to ever remember her? He does come to "understand" that he "might" be, but he doesn't take it too seriously. At least for a long while. It still truthfully doesn't sit that right for him.

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Thank you so much if you've taken the time to read the synopsis for this AU! This is yet another Kirby AU that I've had in my mind for a bit.

It's also funny because... don't I literally have another AU where Max Haltmann gets brought back? That I literally wrote into fanfiction? "Lost Miracles That Finally Become"? Indeed! But that one's completely different. In that one, Haltmann gets brought back alongside Sectonia, as they both come back in their right minds.

But in this AU, it's different. Haltmann is brought back not in his right mind. At the beginning, his mindset is exactly the same as he was at the time of his death in Planet Robobot, and while he does become nicer to Susie over time, he doesn't ever truly get to remember her as his daughter like she hoped, much to her grief and disheartenment.

I'd like to point out that I normally headcanon Haltmann having a ghost, despite seemingly having been erased from existence. I just like having that as a headcanon so he can feel grief and misery by watching over Susie without being able to interact with her. But this AU fully goes through with the "erased from existence" thing, as it mentions that he had no ghost and just popped back into existence after the clockwork star grants Susie's wish to bring him back to life.

Allow me to link another Kirby AU that I made a synopsis for; Dark Stormy Matters, a story where Kracko goes off the deep end and makes a wish to a clockwork star to revive Dark Matter and then fuses with it to cause wide-scale destruction. Unfortunately, it seems like that post is not viewable in its respective tags when clicking on them and looking at the recent ones! I don't understand that at all. That's partially why I'm linking it here so it hopefully gets seen more.

But anyways... thank you for reading! See you all later.

#kirby #susie haltmann #susie kirby #kirby susie #susanna patrya haltmann #max profitt haltmann #max haltmann #president haltmann #star dream #robobot armor #haltmann works company #access ark #kirby planet robobot #magolor #taranza #the mage sisters #hyness #king dedede #meta knight

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