A/N: I apologize for slacking off for god-knows-how-long, but here's something I did when I got bored. It's part of my headcanon for Meta Knight's past, so it's probably not going to appeal to the majority of people who read this.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the rights to Kirby, nor am I trying to profit financially from this fic. All canon characters belong to HAL Labs of Nintendo.
Darkness. Ash. Unnameable charred remains. That was all that was left of one of the first battles between the Dark Matter and the Dreamlanders.
A young Meta Knight raised his head out of the burnt, black, soft ground he must have landed face-first in. He had no idea where he was, or what had just happened. He knew he'd been unconscious as the result of being in a fight, but couldn't imagine why everything seemed as though the life had been burned out of it. Moving his back, he realized that at least half his cape had been singed off. Slowly, he opened his eyes, blinked once, twice, but the scenery around him was still blurred. Reaching out in front of him with arms that were burned and scorched so badly they seemed as though they'd fall off, Meta Knight felt a cold, metal hilt amongst the airy hotness. He grasped the hilt and pulled his sword, Galaxia, close to him and held it tight. After a couple seconds, the world came into focus, and he found himself surrounded by what could only be described as a dying hell.
All the agonized wailing of what would have been the survivors had been silenced, and most of the flames had gone out, but the sparks and the ash still blew upward in a helpless, lethargic breeze and filled the air, making the sky nearly impossible to see. Frightened, Meta Knight sharply drew in a breath and quickly paid the price for that: the ash filling his mouth. He coughed violently in attempt to clear his throat of the chalky charredness, his body lurching forward as he did so. He stretched out his right arm to stable himself and found himself grasping a huge lump of branching charcoal, one of the branches of which horribly resembled a hand. As the coughing ceased, young Meta Knight slowly removed his arm from the charcoal and saw that it was, in fact, a hand. He whipped his own hand back, and the realization hit him that the lumps of burnt blackness around him were not charred wood but bodies. He was surrounded by corpses...the corpses of his colleagues and fellow star warriors. Breathing heavily, Meta Knight frantically whipped his head back and forth, searching for a survivor, even one. But the only movement he saw was that of the flying ash. He opened his mouth to call out, but his voice came out in all but a pitiful crack.
He got up off his knees - with difficulty, for his legs had been burned and scorched, too - and realized the air was much clearer above the ground. Now, at least, he could breathe easier, and his vision was no longer blurred. Trying his voice again, it slowly became less cracked and more even as he breathed. "Is anyone there?" the young knight called as loud as he could.
There was only silence in return.
"Anybody? Please, answer me!"
Silence.
His burnt legs shaking, Meta Knight tried to walk, taking care not to step on the charred remains of his comrades. "Is anyone there?" he called again. "Sai?... Fracta?... Silvris?... Bow? Anybody?! It's me, Meta Knight! If you can hear me, say something now!"
Nobody responded to their names.
"They can't all be dead, they can't. They can't!" Meta Knight told himself. "Surely, if I'm alive, somebody else must be, too! It isn't possible for the enemy to eradicate all except me! Somebody has to be alive!" But even though he said this, deep down he knew it was a lie. He was the only one left, but he didn't want to acknowledge it. Didn't want to know it. Somebody had to survive besides him. If they didn't, Meta Knight didn't know what he would do. As he roamed the sea of burnt blackness and flying ash, he called the names of everybody he knew in the regiment. Nobody responded.
As he staggered through the ash, Meta Knight felt himself trip over something. He fell through the dry, chalky air and face-first into the ash. It didn't hurt much, but for some reason, when the young warrior once again raised his face from the ash and looked upon the milkshake-thick sky and the blackened corpses of his friends and allies, he burst into tears. Crawling and shaking about, he reached behind him for whatever he had tripped on. Clearing his face of ash and tears, he saw that it was a mask. Still intact, except for the fact that the bottom part of it seemed to have been cut away, still shining with its silvery lustre - the only thing besides he that had survived the hellish attack. Whose mask it was, Meta Knight did not know. He raised it to his face and saw that it fit perfectly. Whoever had worn this must have been his age. He fitted it to his face and stood up, and the dry air greeted him once again. In a flash, Meta Knight began to remember exactly what had happened.
Uneasy but somehow confident, weapons drawn, the regiment of warriors marched on to meet their enemy, the Dark Matter. Suddenly, an ominous humming filled the air, accompanied by a cold, dark smoke swirling overhead. Alarmed, the warriors raised their weapons. The smoke pulsed through the air and gathered a ways in front of the soldiers, and gradually dissipated, faded away, to reveal a lone, one-eyed man in a dark cloak lined with yellow and red. The soldiers became tense. To most of them, the man looked eerily familiar. Some even recognized him as one of their ranks. Only one of the warriors - Meta Knight - seemed elated. Without any hesitation or warning, the young blue-haired knight darted away from the ranks of his fellows and ran straight up to the lone stranger, shouting his name and things like "Is it really you?" and "I'm so glad to see you!" as well as "I thought you were dead!"
Before he had disappeared from their regiment, the one-eyed man used to be Meta Knight's closest friend. Only Meta Knight knew how he had disappeared - he'd been taken by Zero, the king of the Dark Matter, in the previous battle. Young Meta Knight was sure he'd never see his friend again, but here he was, appearing before his regiment. But something seemed...different. He seemed suspiciously more sinister than when he'd last been seen. Only Meta Knight disregarded this. "I missed you so much!" he cried. "Everybody doubted me, but I knew you were too strong to be taken by old Zero!"
The one-eyed man's expression darkened, but he said nothing.
"Oh, of course!" the blue-haired soldier realized after a silence. "I didn't have this mask on the last time you saw me. It's me, Meta Knight!" he said, temporarily removing his mask.
The one-eyed man's gaze seemed to drift from Meta Knight to the uneasy legion of soldiers behind him.
"I don't care what they think," the star warrior told him. I don't care how long you've been missing. You're coming back with us, and you'll join us again. Won't you? We'll fight together once again, and soon we'll be free from the Dark Matter once and for all!"
The man still made no sound, but drew his blade, which frightened all but Meta Knight considerably.
"That's the spirit!" Meta Knight said, and held his hand out to his old friend. "Now come with us!"
The cloaked man raised his blade...and with it, struck Meta Knight across the face.
The second the young warrior was attacked, a war cry rose from the ranks and all was perfect pandemonium. A group of soldiers rushed at the cloaked man with weapons drawn, only to be killed instantly by a swarm of Dark Matter that seemed to emerge out of nowhere. The part of Meta Knight's metal mask that covered his nose and mouth was cut clean away by the one-eyed man's sword, and once he'd stopped shuddering from shock and the sheer impact, he saw that he was surrounded by swarming Dark Matter and the burned, dismembered bodies of his comrades cascading from the sky. Horrified, he jumped to his feet and swung his sword erratically at any mass of darkness that came near him, but it got to be too much, and the next thing he knew, he was lying flat on his back and struggling to stand up again while the remaining warriors ran amok, some of them on fire, some bleeding, most of them both. It was a hellish, confusing scene that even now was blurry in Meta Knight's memory, but the last thing he could remember was his old friend with one eye standing over him in dark triumph, and Meta Knight holding his arm out to him in vain before something struck him, and he lost consciousness.
The scene replayed over and over in the blue-haired knight's mind, each time more and more vivid. Unknowingly, he sank to his knees in anguish as warrior after warrior was obliterated in that horrific scene that kept flashing through his head. Somehow, though...it didn't seem real. Or maybe, he didn't want to think it was real. As much as he knew it happened, he didn't want to know that it happened to him. But as he came to his senses and saw the burnt, blackened corpses of everybody he ever knew surrounding him, lifeless and brittle, Meta Knight began to know that this was all real, and none of his friends were alive. Even the one who was still alive was now under the control of the Dark Matter, so Meta Knight figured he might as well be dead. He raised his head and looked into the ashen air. He felt his mask begin to chafe as tears trickled down his metal-covered cheeks. He thought of how he was the only one left from his regiment, he thought of how he would never see any of his friends or colleagues ever again, and he thought of his one dear friend, now and forever beyond his reach, now and forever a part of the Dark Matter. If only Meta Knight had killed him, put him out of his misery. Why couldn't I do it?! Meta Knight demanded of himself. Was I so much of a coward that I couldn't bring myself to strike an old friend?! If that was so, then why didn't he kill me?! My life was his to take! He should have killed me! Didn't he know that I'd be the only one left if he let me survive?! Why didn't he put me out of my own misery?! Why am I still alive? Why are either of us still alive?! What should I do?!
Covered in ash, burns, and surrounded by scorching, dry, smoky air and the remains of his comrades, Meta Knight threw back his head, and through his tears, he screamed. Screamed for the friends and mentors he'd never see again, screamed for the battle that they had lost, screamed for the friend whom he should have killed, and screamed for himself. His pitiful self that had lost everything and would never find any peace again for all eternity.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Please review!