Chapter 1: The King of Dreamland
Bayonetta sauntered out of the Smash Mansion. It was one of those lazy days where no tournaments were taking place, everyone was engrossed in their own tasks, and Bayonetta couldn't find her favourite pink sphere. She couldn't find him in the kitchen, for once. She barely saw Kirby without food in his hands, or uh, his tumour-limbs.
The Smash universe was... interesting, to say the least. Bayonetta still found it difficult to grasp the concept of characters from various universes, all brought together by a pair of giant, floating, gloved hands, just to battle. Everyone was so different from each other that it made some of the match-ups really amusing. You could witness a dog-riding duck completely destroying an anthropomorphic fox, or an electric mouse obliterating a goddess. Or in Bayonetta's case, she could fire her guns at little children. Wonderful.
At first, it seemed like a messed up idea, since the hands were essentially taking them from their home world and watching them battle each other, but the tournaments held around here were such a unique experience that you could barely call it torture. The hands did provide adequate sleeping quarters and proper meals for all fighters, so you couldn't really complain.
The Umbra Witch wasn't familiar with the terrain outside of the Mansion. Heck, that place was already large enough. There wasn't any point in navigating since she had no idea where Kirby was, so she simply let her shapely legs take control. The trees spread evenly around the area soon became unnaturally straight and polished, like plastic, but still had a woody texture to them. It was like walking in a children's cartoon. Oversized apples hung from the branches, a bright contrast against the green leaves. "The little one would definitely enjoy those," Bayonetta thought fondly as she gazed at the bright red fruits.
"Ho ho, would you like some, Bayonetta?" a voice rumbled from one of the trees, its branches and leaves quivering slightly as it talked.
She turned around to face the tree addressing her, not without surprise, though. After all, it wasn't every day you'd meet a talking tower of wood and leaves. Playing it cool like she always does, she answered, "Well, I've had my breakfast. Though, I do know a certain puffball who'd be absolutely delighted to get his hands on them."
"Ah yes, Kirby. Always eating... It's a wonder how he's still a lightweight."
"Who knows? His stomach could be a whole other universe." The tree chuckled at that, and Bayonetta thought that she detected a slight tinge of knowing in his mirth. "Speaking of the puffball, have you seen him anywhere?"
"Yes, he's training with Meta Knight deeper in the forest," the tree told her, shifting its face to point in the direction of the Smashers, its pointed nose akin to an arrow.
"Training on a day like this?" Bayonetta tut-tutted. "Well, I suppose he does need to practice more often if he's always going to be in the kitchen. Thank you, talking tree. I'll be off to pay them a little visit."
"You're welcome, Bayonetta," the tree replied. It shook one of its branches, rustling its leaves as it quivered, making a bright red apple plunge down onto the ground. "Here, a little gift for Kirby."
"I'm sure the puffball will be thrilled," Bayonetta purred, picking the apple up by its stem. She cast a simple spell on it, causing the fruit to hover beside her and faintly radiate a purple aura.
I mean... C'mon now. You can't expect a lady like Bayonetta to simply carry a mere apple, would you?
"Have a great day, Bayonetta," the tree rumbled.
The witch glanced at the floating apple and replied, "I will."
With her usual swagger, the Umbra Witch strolled into the deeper parts of the forest. Despite being called 'the deeper parts of the forest', it was still fairly bright and shafts of sunlight could be seen filtering down from the gaps in the leaves above.
Soon, Bayonetta heard the sounds. Sounds that she had become so familiar with despite the rather short time she arrived in the Smash Universe.
"The sounds of smashing- I mean... 'battle'," the witch thought cheekily.
She came across a fairly spacious clearing with a large portion of land uprooted from the ground. The racket didn't subside, though, so she assumed she was heading the right way. Suddenly, she heard the most satisfying sound yet. A meteor smash.
Something similar to a blue orb plummeted down to the ground, smashing into the ground and creating another small crater beside the large crater. Upon closer inspection, Bayonetta realised that the orb was a dazed masked warrior, his glowing eyes yellow swirls.
Meta Knight groaned, then his eyes widened and flashed white as a pink rock came crashing down right above him. A hair's breadth away from crushing every non-existent bone in his body, the rock reverted into a much more familiar and puffy shape.
"And... Game! That was quite the risky move, Kirby!" boomed a new voice with a heavy Southern accent, seemingly emanating from above.
Meta Knight clutched his mask and shook his head briefly, his eyes turning from white to yellow again. Once Kirby shrunk to his regular height, he bounced around in glee, making adorable noises while celebrating his victory, completely oblivious to the fact that he nearly turned Meta Knight into a blue pancake.
Bayonetta watched curiously as a blue penguin clad in a red robe descended on a warp star next to the puffball. No, not a bathrobe, but a majestic red robe; the ones that were worn by stereotypical medieval kings. As he landed on the ground, the star exploded into countless smaller ones, and eventually disappeared into thin air. He was carrying a hammer almost as large as himself, with ease at that. Bayonetta hadn't encountered this Smasher before, but she had fought angels with much more dastardly hammers than that, so she was rather unconcerned. But still, a chubby, goofy-looking penguin handling a hammer did pique her interest.
"Hey Whispy! You can come down now!" the penguin called out towards a large chunk of ground steadily floating in the air. It was large enough to be a stage, so Bayonetta guessed that that was the place where the puffballs battled.
The stage descended gradually and fixed itself into the crater in the clearing. A tree larger than all of the others in the woods was on the stage, accompanied by two smaller inanimate trees. Unlike the other trees which bore apples, this one bore different coloured stars instead. Patches of flowers, along with a few bushes and even a pond could be found on the stage. It was certainly fitting for Kirby.
"Dedede... Where are the healing items?" Meta Knight asked as he got up, slightly smoking from the battle. Kirby snapped to attention upon hearing those two words. Healing items, he knew, was just a code name for food.
"Heh, right over..." Dedede pointed a gloved hand close to an area where Bayonetta was watching, her arms crossed and leaning against a tree, her usual smile plastered on her face, "...there?"
Kirby immediately recognized the figure in the woods. "Bayo, Bayo!" the puffball exclaimed cheerfully, hopping towards the witch in excitement.
"Bayo?" Dedede asked and glanced at Meta Knight. Strangely enough, the self-proclaimed king seemed uneasy.
Meta Knight willingly explained, "That's Bayonetta, an Umbra Witch, and the latest Smasher. An extremely skilled one, too."
"A witch? With guns?" he gulped. "They're on her heels, too! Is she insa-"
The still smoking Meta Knight coughed.
"Oh, uh, right... The healing items," Dedede mumbled, took one last glance at Bayonetta and waddled towards a sack hidden in the trees.
Meta Knight's eyes glowed pink in amusement when he walked towards Bayonetta, who was taunting Kirby with the apple that the tree gave her, lifting it slightly out of reach from the little one as he jumped and clawed at the fruit.
"What's with the penguin?" she inquired, lowering her arm to finally let Kirby have his prize, which he eagerly inhaled.
"Oh, Dedede? I'm not certain. He isn't usually like this," Meta Knight paused and glanced at the self-proclaimed king, who was hauling the bag of treats towards them. "Do you need help, your majesty?"
"Huh? No, no, I got this," Dedede blundered. "Wait, when do you ever call me 'your majesty'?"
"The masked one figured that you needed some moral support to speed things up," Bayonetta quipped.
"Oh, uh, sorry 'bout that," the penguin spluttered and tossed the sack into the air, giving it a mighty whack with his mighty hammer. As it flew towards Bayonetta and the two puffballs, Kirby's eyes sparkled and he opened his mouth in silent excitement. He took a running start, but before he could inhale the treats, Bayonetta grabbed him from behind and lifted him from the ground. The puffball let out feeble squeaks of protest, squirming around in her grasp.
"Go on, masked one. I can't contain this puffball for long," she stated calmly, stroking the over-sized marshmallow in her arms.
The marshmallow practically melted in her touch. Unfortunately for Bayonetta, she didn't have any crackers for s'mores. Kirby exhaled an adorable sigh of content; or was it a yawn? Meta Knight's eyes glowed pink for the second time, before he opened the bag to fish around for the items he needed. Meanwhile, Bayonetta watched fondly as Kirby's eyes drooped, and eventually fell asleep in her arms.
"It seems as if you could contain him, after all," Meta Knight murmured with a slight chuckle.
"The puffball's just tired from that match you had with him. It's only natural that he'd fall asleep," Bayonetta cooed. "So, where is 'your majesty'? I'd like to meet him," she added with a smirk.
Meta Knight looked around and managed to catch a glimpse of Dedede behind Whispy Woods, who instantly ducked out of view. Bayonetta, too, noticed the penguin. She laid Kirby gently against one of the trees, careful not to wake him up, and sauntered over to Dedede's hiding spot. Her heels didn't make any sound as she sneaked beside him, who was a trembling bag of nerves at this point. Bayonetta leaned against the tree and simply said, "Hey."
Dedede let out an ear-splitting shriek, swinging his hammer at his startler.
Bayonetta was caught by surprise, but she managed to trigger bat within just in time. The bats reformed, and the witch landed elegantly on her feet.
"Now, now, is that the way to treat a lady? Don't tell me I've got another angel to deal with. That one's already very jumpy whenever I'm around."
"I... You- I mean... Uh..." Dedede stammered. Wanting to avoid eye contact at all costs, he glanced around frantically, pushing himself against Whispy to stop himself from trembling. He eyed her pistols in terror. One shot from either one of them could easily delete him from existence, he realised with a pang.
Much to his horror, Bayonetta equipped one of her handguns with a quick gun-flip and pressed the blue pistol against the underside of his beak. Dedede gulped.
"Come now, you can't let my little toys frighten you that much," she teased.
"Toys?!" Dedede wanted to screech, but dark blue eyes met grey, and the next thing he knew was that he was being enchanted by Bayonetta's gaze; friendly and alluring despite the gun still against his beak. He couldn't deny it; the raven-haired woman was dangerous. Dangerously beautiful. It was probably her witch powers or some other sorcery, but Dedede didn't care. After all, he had already made a fool out of himself.
Finally, Bayonetta lowered her pistol, making Dedede shudder and sink down to the ground. Technically, he was sitting, but the witch was still a head taller than him. He eyed her suspiciously.
"Did you really have to do that?" the penguin huffed and clutched his head.
"I can't help it, dear," she replied with a grin, "I'll take any opportunity to get a rise out of people."
Dedede let out an exasperated sigh as a response.
"Well, no point sulking about it now," the witch quipped, outstretching a hand. "It's almost lunch, and I doubt you'd want to be late for that."
Dedede looked up, albeit with a little bit of uncertainty, but a single glance at her eyes told him that he had nothing to worry about. He didn't need additional support to stand up, but he took Bayonetta's hand anyway as a gesture of acquaintance.
"Let's take it from the top, shall we? So, penguin, who are you, really?"
"If you really need to know..." Dedede took a deep breath and puffed out his chest, "The name's King Dedede, the one and only King of Dreamland!"
From the top of Whispy Woods, Meta Knight watched the scene unfold silently, his eyes glowing pink in amusement. With a swish of his cloak, he vanished out of sight.
I don't ship Dedenetta.
...Or do I?
You'll never know... (loL IM JoKInG)
Author Notes,
-Yeah, I know Kirby's regular down B (Stone attack) doesn't meteor. They were having a custom move battle. Filthy casuals...
-The Dreamland stage wasn't too high in the sky because MK and Kirby weren't having an official tournament. This is also why King Dedede is the announcer for this battle instead of whoever the usual announcer is. Edit: The Sm4sh announcer is Xander Mobus, you uneducated swine.
-In this world, King Dedede is an admin of sorts that has access to stages and items. The other admins being Mario, Samus, R.O.B., Fox, Falco, Robin, Shulk and Mewtwo. I don't know (yet) how this will have any relevance in the future, but here ya go.
-I don't want Bayonetta to be an antagonist, as I've read plenty of Smash Bros fics which depict her as the "bad guy", along with the Kid Icarus cast tied closely with her story. You probably won't see much of the goddess, angel and his edgy twin in this fanfic, so if you're unhappy with that...
Deal with it.
-The Kirby Crew's personality mostly originates from "Kirby: Right Back At Ya!". Purely because I want King Dedede to have that brilliant Southern accent, but he won't be as douche-y as he was in the cartoon, and Meta Knight also won't be as edgy and brooding as he was in the Smash universe. He'll still be Meta Knight, but his mysteriousness will be toned down a little. Edit: It's toned down a lot.