Okay, you know the drill. You've read it about a million times already, so it should be a given that I, along with the billions of other people on this site, do not own Kirby [sighs dejectedly]. However, I do own Alexis, just because I'm awesome like that.
Also, please, no flames...
Chapter One
Alexis pulled back hard on the bowstring as she concentrated desperately on the target ten feet away from her, its obnoxiously clashing colors just about screaming insults at her. All around her was the conflicting personalities of the calming trees and the jeering teenagers around here. Whoever had the gall to call them her classmates was obviously too unquestioning for their own good. The term "classmates" just seemed to suggest a friendly atmosphere that was certainly nonexistent here.
"You're gonna miss!" A tall, thin girl, Ebony, screeched at her, her black hair tumbling over her shoulders in thick black coils. Alexis' grip on the bow and arrow tightened, and she wanted nothing more than to snap them both in half and throw them at the girl that seemed to have been sent here from her own personal hell. Alexis pulled back until the string was almost screaming in pain, then she let it go. The arrow sailed through the air for about a second before it fell short of the target by two feet. It was clear that it would have hit the target dead-on, but of course none of that mattered if it never hit. Alexis swore under her breath as the taunting intensified.
"What's wrong with you? Even a total archery beginner could've made that!"
"If you can miss that, you must be high or something!"
"Loser!"
"Failure!" Alexis glared at the sixty-something 14-year-olds in front of her; not one was ever on her side. They all joined in on the tormenting, either that or they didn't do anything to stop it. Then, before she could figure out what exactly she was doing, she ran over to Ebony and tackled her head-on. She was angry, she'd finally had enough, and this time she truly intended to settle the score. The two girls fell kicking and screaming to the ground, each trying to injure the other as much as possible. The gym teacher, Mr. Richardson, came over to break up the fight. Effectively pulling the two girls apart, he said, sternly,
"Just what happened here?" Alexis rolled her eyes; she knew all too well how this would end. Ebony would insist on playing the innocent victim, and Alexis would take the blame for everything. Again. It was almost like a soap opera; the only difference was that soap operas changed from time to time. This one was predictable to the last "e".
"I don't care what you think happened," she muttered coolly. "Because I know that you think the exact opposite of what really did happen. I know that I'm going to be faced with suspension or expulsion, and if you really want to know the truth, I honestly couldn't care less." Alexis watched as Ebony's extremely ugly brown eyes widened. Her eyes were the exact color of dried mud and just as appealing, but she tried to cover that up with a manner of eye makeup products too numerous for Alexis to even attempt to list. Mr. Richardson also gaped at her like a fish out of water. It was clear that what Alexis had done was impossible, yet here she was, saying right out loud that she didn't care whether or not she was kicked out of school and, even worse, meaning it.
"All right," Mr. Richardson said as soon as he got his breath back. "You just pack up your supplies and leave. You're done," A flicker of a smirk quickly flitted across Alexis' face, and everyone who saw it (basically just two or three other students) knew that this was exactly what Alexis thought would happen. It might even be what she wanted to happen.
"I get her bed," Kelsey whispered to her and Alexis' fellow dorm-mates, Veronica and Ivory, Ebony's twin sister. "I need another place to put my clothes." It was then that Alexis figured out the downside to getting expelled: without living arrangements provided by the school, Alexis was stuck out on the streets. But there wasn't anything she could do now except go with it. It wasn't like apologizing would get her out of an expulsion, after all. She turned and walked back towards the building to pack the few belongings she had. She was aware of herself sighing, but she turned her back, so nobody could possibly see.
As soon as she was out of range, she was running, her legs carrying her towards the school with a speed rivaling that of the best football players in the school. Without the taunting bow in her hand and with the burden of a quiver removed, she felt free for a second. Just for a second.
You got yourself into this mess,she thought to herself. Now you gotta find a way to get out of it. She ran across the street, noticing a black car parked by the sidewalk but paying no attention to it, instead unlocking the wrought-iron gates that lead to the school. Cars like that were pretty common; Headmistress Delila was always seeing someone from the board of education or something like that. She slipped into her dorm quietly, making sure not to attract the attention of anybody in the building. Expulsion or not, none of the teachers would tolerate a student wandering around during classes. Alexis looked at the small pile of things that were shoved into the corner between her bed and the wall; with the explosion of clothing on the floor she had to learn to contain her own belongings or else risk losing them. She debated for a bit, then grabbed her extra casual outfit, her notebook, sketchpad, and bag of pencils (both regular and colored), and shoved them all into a small, drawstring bag that rested right between her shoulder blades. Walking out the door to her previous dorm, she couldn't help but laugh at both her circumstance and her peer's reaction to it. She ducked back inside so nobody could hear, shutting the door silently behind her until she could pull herself back together. Running her fingers through her chin-length, caramel-brown hair, she tried to make it look like it wasn't just randomly sticking out and didn't do a good job of it. Not that she really cared...that was how she liked it, anyways. Hasta la vista, suckers, she thought, still chuckling all the while.
He had watched the girl run into the school, and he couldn't help but wonder just why in the world she, of all the humans on this miserable planet, was so important. Still, he knew better than to question Nightmare's methods. He had seen too many do the very same thing, and it all ended the same way; with them writhing in agony on the floor for the last five or ten seconds of their pitiful lives, a blade piercing through their throats.
So he had obeyed. He had watched. Now it was time to act. It was better to eliminate enemies before they even knew they were a threat, and since nobody was around they'd have no choice but to call it an accident. A tragic hit-and-run incident, with the crazed lunatic of a driver mysteriously disappearing, leaving noting behind but a girl who would be dead in the next five minutes. Maybe even sooner. He saw her exit the building, and, he turned the keys, the engine roaring into life. He smiled. It sounded like a demon, crazed to the point of madness with bloodthirst and fighting the restraining chains holding it back, eager to kill.
Who was he to deny such a powerful beast its request?
Alexis fumbled with the lock on the school gates, cursing every time she failed to get the combination right. Groaning, she finally punched in Ebony's combination, which she had committed to memory should this ever actually happen. Ebony was going to have a difficult time explaining that she'd never left the building unauthorized. As Alexis walked down to the sidewalk, trying to find out what she should do next, she heard the screeching of tires against the pavement. Whirling around, she saw the same black car barreling towards her at an impossible speed. Frozen in time, three different things seemed to happen. While they were certainly bordering simultaneous, to Alexis they each took a separate, agonizing five seconds.
First, what seemed to be a large whirlpool on its side erupted right behind her. It didn't try to suck anything in, and its presence was more like an open door than a threatening black hole. It was translucent; the only reason Alexis knew it was there was that everything immediately behind it was blurring and spiraling around in an almost hypnotic fashion.
Secondly, two figures dressed in what seemed to be full body armor came charging towards her. Alexis didn't know whether they were friends or foes, but if they were here to help her avoid ending up as roadkill that was a risk she'd gladly take.
Third, she felt herself being knocked into the whirlpool behind her, and in her last seconds of consciousness she saw the face of the man who had surely tried to kill her, his face blazing with rage and disbelief behind the orange lenses of his large sunglasses.
Alexis woke up in a plain room with nothing more than a bed, a nightstand, and a couple chairs. Rubbing her forehead, where a slight headache had decided to gather, she absently looked out the window and froze.
All she saw was pink clouds set in an orange sky, signaling that total sunset wasn't that far away, a situation that wouldn't have been nearly as scary if it weren't for the fact that she saw nothing else. Stumbling over to the window, she looked out and gave out a small gasp of surprise. The reason that she didn't see the landscape was because it was directly below her, the grass was an emerald green and, oddly, the two small lakes she saw were shaped in the exact shape of a five-pointed star. Alexis fell back on the bed with more force than necessary, covering her eyes with the palms of her hands. I was almost hit by a car, she thought, remembering that afternoon's occurrences that had undoubtedly lead to her lying here, in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar region. There was some kind of portal behind me, and I was pushed in before the car could hit me... Alexis recalled that she couldn't quite describe the two figures that had probably saved her life. I'll know them when I see them. She thought. Both them and the driver.
Alexis' string of thoughts was cut off as she heard arguing voices coming from outside. Alexis decided that they weren't exactly outside her room, but were instead down the hall from it and staying in one place.
"You opened a portal?" a voice screamed. It sounded like, Alexis thought with a slight smile, a voice a bird would have if it could speak.
"He tried to run her down with a car, Vul. Although we didn't actually open it..." a voice replied, comparably quieter. At least one of them was trying to talk calmly.
"That's Captain Vul to you, Sword, and I swear I'll make sure you...wait. The portal...opened itself?" Vul replied, almost achieving a quieter tone and, in the end, failing.
"We think it was the girl," another voice replied cautiously. "Even thought she didn't know anything about a world outside hers, she has to be the one Nightmare's after." Alexis raised an eyebrow in response to this. A world outside my own? She thought skeptically.
"No, really, all that happened was that she almost got run over!" Vul replied sarcastically. "We've already established that, Blade! Unfortunately for us, Nightmare isn't the one to make mistakes like this. If she almost got killed already, then she's the one he wants gone." Alexis silently opened the door and crept down the hallway towards the source of the argument. There were the two that had saved her, as well as what looked like a large, tan-colored bird wearing a sailor outfit.
"Should we go get her? I suppose she deserves an explanation for this..." one of the armored figures said. From the sound of his voice, Alexis decided that this one, with the green armor, was what they called "Blade".
"Yeah, you definitely do." she agreed, leaning up against the wall, her arms crossed and her blue-green eyes colder than ice. Vul jumped; even though he'd been facing her general direction the entire time, he had been so caught up in the argument that he hadn't seen her.
"Aagh! How long have you been there?"
"Just for a minute or two. But I heard the whole thing from my room." Sword and Blade exchanged glances.
"She appeared out of nowhere...!" Blade whispered.
"Just like...wow. That's a little creepy," Sword replied at equal volume, not bothering to finish his first sentence. They both knew what he meant. To Alexis, he said, "We're sorry that we had to take you here without any explanation ahead of time, but considering the circumstances that wasn't exactly possible..."
"It's fine," Alexis said dubiously. It was scathingly clear that she didn't know whether or not it was "fine". "But now I want some answers, starting with the obvious: Where in the name of all things sane did you send me?"
About 45 minutes passed. Quickly for some, agonizingly slow for most. A regular Q and A session had been set up in the hallway, and by this point nobody was standing around. Alexis was sitting up against a wall, and Sword and Blade were across from her. Vul had slipped back onto the bridge, but he occasionally made a brief entrance every 15 minutes or so.
"So...did you know about my world before? Obviously you were there when I was, but did you ever go...before that?" Alexis asked. Quite frankly, she was running on her thinning curiosity alone; she'd gotten bored with asking questions and was now only trying to ask the ones that could be answered in under a minute. Why she was continuing to ask was a mystery in itself...the truth was, she was fascinated by the prospect of being in a different world.
"We went there a few times," Blade said. "Once we found out Nightmare was searching for someone from your planet, we were sent to try and find out who the target was before he or she had already been...well, you know."
"So there isn't just one portal?"
"There's more than you'd think," Sword murmured. "We found the first one up in the sky about a week ago, and from there they just kept popping up at random moments. Almost like they were waiting for someone to find them." Alexis traced random patterns on the floor with her finger, although it was impossible for them to actually be seen. From what she'd gathered, she was on a flying battleship called the "Halberd", which she actually thought was pretty cool.
"So...am I just supposed to stay in this hallway the whole time?" she asked, semi-innocently.
"What? Oh, no! You can...wander around, just try not to break anything," Sword said quickly. Alexis stood up.
"Okay," She said, a bit miffed by Sword's insinuation that she would break something the first chance she got but determined not to show it. "I'll head to the bridge with you guys, if that's okay." Sword and Blade looked at each other and shrugged. There was no reason to argue with such a simple request, and even if there was it would be an incredibly stupid one.
"All right. This way," Blade said, heading down another hallway, followed by Sword and Alexis. Pushing open a large door, he said,
"How's everything holding up?" Sword Knight whispered quick names to Alexis, hoping that she could either remember them or come pretty close. Not that they were too complicated...their names were the same as the weapons they wielded, with the exception of Waddle Dee.
"Well, the portal really banged up the left wing this time around. The damage is at around 75%." Ax Knight said from a large keyboard.
"Why is it that always the left wing that gets beaten up?" Mace Knight sighed, falling backwards into his chair, which rolled across the room for a few seconds before stopping. "First Kirby took it out, and about two months later it nearly gets blown off in a wormhole." Noticing Alexis for the first time, he exclaimed, "Whoa! Is that the reason we were there in the first place?"
"You didn't have to come. Technically you weren't supposed to," Sword said. "Whose idea was it to follow us in, anyways?" The whole rest of the crew looked over at Vul, who seemed to be trying to hide behind Waddle Dee and, of course, failing.
"Remind me again why you're in charge when Meta Knight isn't around," Sword sighed.
"Wasn't it because he's just about the only one who can't swing a sword when he has to?" Ax asked. Everyone burst into laughter. Alexis could tell it wasn't the first time that they were having fun at Vul's expense. Waddle Dee looked around the room.
"Where is Meta Knight, anyways?" When Blade responded, he sounded puzzled.
"We thought he was in here,"
"He went to go find you,"
"Well, we haven't seen him."
"Don't worry about it," Sword interrupted. "It's not like it's the first time he's disappeared." Everyone nodded in agreement.
"More like the hundredth,"
"Or the thousandth."
"So, what do we do until he gets back?" Waddle Dee asked.
"Stay on course." Vul replied, as if it were the most difficult question in the world and he just answered it.
"Which would be going where, exactly...?" Alexis asked. Vul shot her a dark glare.
"That doesn't concern you," he said, adopting the tone he got when he was getting impatient. That was usually enough to stop questions such as these.
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm on this ship too, birdbrain. I'm pretty sure wherever it's going is my business, too." Alexis snapped, crossing her arms in front of her chest and firing back a glare of her own. Vul spluttered, looking for a good comeback. He wasn't used to being back-talked, especially not by 14-year-old girls.
"She's right. It is," an accented voice said from the doorway. Alexis whirled around, her hands curling into fists which hovered at her sides. It was a stance she had learned to develop when the kids from her school would ambush her in the woods, looking for a six-against-one brawl. Hearing the laughter coming from the crew members, Alexis unclenched her fists, her face a slight pink. She looked down at her shoes for a second, not wanting to look anybody in the eye.
"Sorry," she said at last, biting her lip. It was a habit that kicked in when she was trying not to get upset, and although it could be annoying at times, more often than not it worked.
"No, you have excellent reflexes," it was an odd thing to say, and it was clear that he was just saying that to make her feel a little better.
"Meta Knight! Could you please tell this kid that she needs to respect authority?" Vul asked loudly, having not registered a thing Meta Knight had said.
"Tell her where we're going. We dragged her into this; it's only fair that we let her know what's going on," Meta Knight's tone suggested absolute authority. Vul opened his mouth, as if wanting to object, then finally closed it again.
"Fine. Okay, kid..."
"Alexis," Sword cut in. Vul looked at him oddly, a mixture of annoyance and surprise.
"Okay, Alexis, we're heading to a place called Orange Ocean, which of course means nothing to you..." Vul looked as if he had no intention of elaborating, but a glare from Meta Knight urged him to do otherwise. "We keep the Halberd there in a special storage garage when we're not using it, and we're just going to stay around there for a few days. You'll have some homework to make up when we send you back."
"No, I won't." Alexis said.
"She got herself expelled," Sword explained bluntly, noticing Vul's reaction to the objection. Alexis couldn't decide whether or not to be annoyed with this. While she was thankful that he was helping her with Vul, she didn't like the idea of being spoken for. Especially not when it came to that topic...
"Great. Troublemaker..." Vul sighed.
"It's not like that. Not entirely, anyways," Alexis spoke up. "I was planning on leaving, anyways. It would've been better if I had time to figure things out a little bit more, but that can't be helped at this point."
"'Figure things out'? Like how you were going to tell your parents?" Waddle Dee asked.
"I...don't think they'd care," Alexis hedged. "They wanted me to be happy, and that school wasn't helping." Alexis noticed the mood in the room change almost instantly as soon as the word "wanted" slipped out.
"They're...not around, are they?" Waddle Dee asked, almost sympathetic, but in a sweet way.
"Not anymore," Alexis nodded. "The only thing keeping me from Social Services was the fact that I had residence at school. Now I'm out on the street there. Or at least I was, before I was almost run over by a car." Meta Knight quickly turned to Blade and Sword, muted urgency in his voice.
"You didn't tell me about this. About how he'd make a move so soon..."
"We didn't know he was planning anything. At least, anything that would be put into action this early...we figured he'd wait for her to actually do something..." Sword replied, shooting a quick glance over at Alexis over Meta Knight's shoulder. She simply watched, unable to make out what they were saying but knowing full well that it was about her. After a few moments, she looked away and started talking with Waddle Dee again, as if the two were long-lost friends of some sort.
"I don't think he wanted to give her the chance. Which means she's in more danger than we thought before," Meta Knight replied thoughtfully.
"But what do we do about this? If we send her back now, it'll be equal to a death sentence," Blade said.
"She'd be safer here, as long as one of us is around...in one way, I suppose." Sword said, noticing the look in Meta Knight's eyes.
"If she stays with us, she'll be safer from Nightmare than she would be in her own world," he agreed. "But at the same time, he could easily use one of us in order to find her. Or attack us and get her caught in the crossfire,"
"Lesser of two evils, right?" Blade asked, looking at Sword, who nodded.
"This world would probably be the lesser...at least here, we won't have to worry about being inconspicuous. It got way too close back there; if we hadn't been around when we were, then she probably wouldn't be here right now."
"Nightmare's being a bit more hasty than usual. Have you noticed that?" Meta Knight asked. He suppressed a sigh as both Blade and Sword shook their heads. Of course, they didn't know Nightmare's tendencies as well as he did. "He's trying to get rid of her now, instead of toying with her a bit like he usually tries. Which means no matter how little she knows, he sees her as a genuine threat."
"...Which actually comes with a few advantages...if Nightmare wants her out of the picture so bad, then she must be able to do something that puts him at risk." Sword said. Their conversation was interrupted by Waddle Dee's sudden exclamation of, "Wow! Can you teach me to do that?" The three knights turned around as Alexis turned from the main computer.
"Later," she said. Looking over at the three, she explained, "Your computer was freaking out. It wasn't showing the right measurements."
"How so?" Vul asked sulkily. Alexis looked out the window meaningfully.
"Well, unless we're really flying through a thunderstorm thirty feet off the ground, upside-down, with three-fourths of the fuel tank gone and half the engine stalling..."
"Okay, okay, I get it!" Vul cried, exasperated. Alexis chuckled, a crooked grin spreading across her face.
"My question is, how did it wind up like that?" Sword asked. Alexis shrugged.
"Your guess is as good as mine. Well, probably better, but you know what I mean." Meta Knight took a few looks over the computer screen, as if wanting to make sure every letter was where it was supposed to be. Not looking up from the screen, he said,
"I'm going to go check the main engine, just to make sure everything's okay. Alexis, you come with me,"
"Okay," Alexis said in slight surprise, following Meta Knight out the door towards the engine room. The room remained completely silent until the door closed behind them.
"All right. Something's not right here," Vul declared. Mace rolled his eyes.
"Like what? We already figured out that the computer's bugging out."
"Not the computer. Her," Vul sighed.
"What does Alexis have to do with this? In five minutes she did more than you've done this entire trip!"
"Yeah, but I just get this weird vibe from her. Almost like she's not supposed to be here."
"Technically, she isn't supposed to be here. But between that and letting her get run over, this was the better of the two options." Sword said. Again, Vul shot a surprised look in his direction.
"Did you hit your head while going through the portal? Because you're just acting really funny whenever we bring her up..."
"I think you're the one who hit his head," Sword said dismissively, grateful for the fact that his full armor covered his face. "Because you don't know what you're talking about. As usual,"
The engine, although sounding just fine from the control room, was revealed to be just the opposite as one approached the engine room. If an engine was the heart of a machine, then this was a failing heart, possibly with arrhythmia. Something was wrong, a fact that was glaringly obvious from the start. And, Meta Knight thought with a grimace, if they couldn't fix it, then the ship was going down, something he would not permit to happen again. That would be two times in just as many months. The Halberd crew had barely been able to make repairs in the one-and-a-half month deadline that it had become necessary to set, and saying so it was clear that they had had some extra hands helping. A lot of extra hands.
A loud bang coming from the other side of the door cut off Meta Knight's thoughts, and he saw Alexis jump slightly out of the corner of his eyes. Something was in there, something that wasn't supposed to be there.
"Should I go first, or you?" Alexis asked quietly, as if unsure whether or not it would be acceptable to ask him a question. Meta Knight's strategic mindset settled over him. If there was really something in there, and Alexis went first, she might not be able to react in time to avoid what could be a fatal attack. Then again, if he were to be engaged in combat, and this "visitor" wasn't alone...
"Double-edged sword?" Alexis guessed, seeing the conflict in his eyes. Her usage of the expression was slightly humoring despite the situation.
"Yes," Meta Knight replied. Two bangs were heard in quick succession, followed by a low moan from the engine. Whatever it was, there was more than one and they were trying to sabotage the ship. Meta Knight quickly reached up to the door handle, pushing the door open with more force than necessary. It flew back on its hinges and collided with the wall with a metallic clang that echoed through the room, even over the dying engine's futile attempts to keep itself running. All was quiet in the room as the echoes died down. Too quiet. Meta Knight looked around, trying to find out where the saboteurs were hiding.
"Split up," he said at last. While he regretted having Alexis wandering around by herself in what had become hostile territory, if there was any chance of catching whoever did this it was a necessity. Alexis nodded once before creeping to the left of the room, picking a wrench up off the floor to use as a weapon as she did so. Meta Knight watched her until the shadows in the room completely concealed the girl from sight, them turned to the other side of the room.
As he did so, he was met by a floating black mass of darkness, a single red eye hovering in the sphere's insubstantial body. Without thinking further, he whipped out his sword and plunged it right through, hoping as he did so that this one and its companion were relatively close together and, preferably, away from the left side of the room.
Alexis crept silently down the narrow passage between the engine and the wall. She could feel its dwindling heat radiating off as she moved on, its heat helping to calm her restless nerves. So much had happened so far today; before she knew it this series of turning events had landed her here, trying to find a potential saboteur with only a wrench as a weapon.
Alone. The sensation of loneliness draped over her again, familiar and, at the same time, slightly oppressive. It was both a constant comfort and a constant threat. Alexis had been alone practically all her life; she was a little too used to just hiding in the background, hoping the people up front wouldn't notice her. The shadows were a quiet sanctuary, but here, with an unknown threat looming over her shoulders, they seemed like the perfect place to ambush her.
Alexis whirled around to face a small space between the engine and the floor. Something had moved down there, she was sure of it. A wad of fear constricted her throat as a large red eye blinked lazily at her, as if wanting to taunt her. Suddenly, it burst out from underneath the engine it had been trying to destroy. Long, black, vine-like structures flew out of its body and began wrapping themselves around Alexis. While they seemed to be mist-like shadows, they were as solid as could be as they tightened themselves around her, creeping up from her feet to her torso before she could think anything that would make sense. It was as if the shadows were looking to completely immobilize her before eventually suffocating her in their iron grips. Alexis' call for help came out as nothing but a strangled cry of surprise. With the last part of her mind still thinking logically, she flicked her wrist towards the floor, sending the wrench plummeting towards the engine. A loud bang rang out, and as the vines held her arms to her sides, all she could do was pray that it was loud enough.
Meta Knight had just finished with the first Dark Matter when he heard a quiet, barely audible cry of surprise coming from behind the engine, followed shortly by a louder clang. His eyes widened as he made his way over to where Alexis had vanished, running as fast as he possibly could and tightening his grip on his sword as he did so. His mind, caught off guard, processed the only thought it could: Alexis was in trouble, and if he didn't get there in time, she'd pay for his slow reaction with her life.
Alexis had never thought much about how she might die, but it was certainly nothing like this. She was trapped in a living shadow, fighting to get out but doing just as much damage to it as she would if she was running her nails down a brick wall. For every attempted struggle, the iron darkness would tighten its grip, barely allowing her to breathe. The only thing keeping Alexis holding onto consciousness was the fear that if she didn't, she'd never wake up again, and the last thing she'd see would be this shadow's merciless gaze looking at her with an air of deliberate amusement. As if it enjoyed what it was doing to her.
She would give no one that satisfaction. But she couldn't hold on forever, and the prospect of just letting go and never having to worry again was quite the temptation. She felt the shadowy vines reach her neck, and her hopes of being rescued were extinguished quickly as she felt them wrap around her neck and pull tightly. Her head was swimming almost immediately afterwords; the lack of air mingled with her terror to make a fatal combination. She heard Meta Knight call her name as the world descended into blackness, but he could be miles away for how well she could hear him.
Suddenly, the bonds were cut loose, but Alexis could not keep conscious long enough to get her breath back. Half-falling to the floor, the world went completely black. Her last coherent thought had been something about how Meta Knight had just saved her life, and how much trouble she was truly in.