"In the far-off reaches of space, there exists a lone planet shaped like a five-pointed star. This was the planet Pop Star, where dreams and nightmares lived. On this planet was a happy yet sometimes frightening land that had the fitting name of Dream Land. The inhabitants were mostly innocent creatures, undisturbed in their eating and sleeping habits throughout the day and night except for when a nightmarish creature would come to sow sorrow and fear. It is when those events come to pass that the citizens of Dream Land turn to their hero, a pink puffball by the name of Kirby.
I know what you might be thinking. A pink puffball, surely he cannot be that threatening, right? At first glance, such an appearance dissuaded many a person from trusting this 'Kirby' fellow to be a hero, nonetheless their hero. The lack of a real origin for this supposed 'hero' was also a factor in their distrust. Nobody knew what Kirby was or where he came from, so he despite his cutesy appearance fitting in perfectly with the sweet dream theme of Dream Land, he was somewhat of an outcast.
The first time Kirby had to prove himself came rather quickly though, as the 'reigning' king, a penguin…eagle…ummm duck-like figure by the name of King Dedede one day decided to ransack the villages of Dream Land, taking all the food for himself. Kirby, who mostly spent his days eating and sleeping without much of a care in the world towards the opinion of others, pursued King Dedede to his castle and defeated him in arena combat, securing the food for the people of Dream Land and earning some of their respect.
The next time Kirby was called to action was when one day, he found himself unable to dream, a problematic conundrum that required the pink warrior to travel to the Fountain of Dreams to determine what the problem was. Once there, he found King Dedede bathing in its sacred waters, and was told that the King had split apart the fabled Star Rod into seven pieces. Six were in the hands of the King's pals, and Kirby was given no choice but to wander Dream Land to recover the parts so he and the citizens of the land could dream again.
It was during this adventure that Kirby first met Meta Knight, a stoic if somewhat enigmatic warrior that hid his true appearance, a blue creature similar in shape of Kirby, behind a metal mask and fought with the legendary blade Galaxia. But Kirby, with a blade of his own, defeated the powerful Meta Knight in single combat and secured the second to last Star Rod fragment. Returning to the fountain, Kirby fought King Dedede and defeated him, and reassembled the Star Rod. However, the King was frantic to stop him from putting it back in place, and there was a rather noble reason behind his actions this time…
Hidden within the Fountain of Dreams was Nightmare, a powerful entity born from the nightmares of everyone on Dream Land. With the Star Rod restored to its rightful perch, Nightmare was able to emerge from the fountain and declare his desire to spread nightmares across the land. Kirby was forced to take up the Star Rod, and with a little help from King Dedede the pink warrior was able to defeat the Nightmare and banish him from Dream Land for good.
Kirby had encountered his first nightmare that day, but managed to prove triumphant and earned his reputation as the mighty Star Warrior of Dream Land. With dreams restored to the land, Kirby could rest easy knowing that Nightmare would never return again.
Over time, Kirby came to encounter other powerful nightmares, some with dreams of grandeur that made them more threatening than Nightmare himself. There was Marx, who tricked Kirby into assembling the wish-maker NOVA so he could obtain ultimate power. There was Dark Mind, a devilish entity from the Mirror World that sought to conquer both his world and Dream Land. There was Dark Nebula, a…Ummm…Well actually, he kind of just showed up out of nowhere one day while Kirby was on a rampage to find his Strawberry Shortcake. Kirby killed him before he could say anything important, really.
Anyways, each of these nightmarish entities were soundly defeated before they could cause any lasting harm to Dream Land. Sometimes during these adventures, Kirby would lock blades with Meta Knight and either defeat or team-up with King Dedede to defeat a common foe. Kirby had other allies that were more friendly in nature though. Rick the Hamster, Kine the Fish, Coo the Owl, Nago the Cat, Chuchu the Octopus, and Pitch the Bird were only a few of Kirby's many friends. But out in the depths of space, there was one nightmare that greatly loathed what Kirby had…
Its name was Zero, a lonesome red-eyed white orb that created and spread about Dark Matter throughout space to conquer planets and rob the residents of free will. Zero was drawn to Pop Star in particular though, for one strangely defined reason. Zero was a stoic creature, incapable of expressing emotion, but a single glance at the happiness and friendships born in Pop Star gave birth to a loathing attitude towards its citizens. Casting aside Dark Matter from its body, Zero sought to conquer the planet and rob the citizens of their happy dreams and friendships forever.
Zero was relentless in its pursuit of its goal, trying three times over to conquer Pop Star only to be met with opposition in the form of Kirby and his friends. One after another, Zero's Dark Matter agents were destroyed, culminating in the white orb dying once. But with such a strong desire, Zero was reborn as 02, a winged creature with an off-putting halo and demonic wings that still had the bloody eye and pale white appearance its original body had.
02 tried its hardest to devour Kirby's world and five other in the grasp of Dark Matter, but was ultimately destroyed in battle thanks to Kirby's use of the fabled Crystal Shards. Though Dark Matter was purged from the six worlds thanks to this act, the fact that Zero had already shown the ability to return from the dead meant that it was quite possible for him to return again…
But Kirby cared very little about such things. The pink star warrior was a laid-back hero, he didn't spend hours on end moping about terrible things that may happen. He was perfectly fine just lying back and letting the days go on by, with food and sleep usually being his primary focus until something exciting happens that entices his sense of adventure. And little did Kirby know, a new adventure would soon come his way, but not in the way he expected…"
Clash of the Elements Part 4, Story 3: The Return of Dark Matter
Chapter 1: Not a Good Way to Start…
It was a peaceful day in Dream Land, as it should be when the random monster isn't trying to conquer the world. The skies were crisp and blue, the clouds were their rotund little selves as they floated in the sky, and the flowers and grass were sickly sweet in their appearances as they danced back and forth in tune with the passing spring breeze. The rotund little pink warrior that everyone knows by the name of Kirby was resting on the branch of a lone tree that stretched above the confines of his domed stone abode, his eyelids closed as he snored in a cutesy manner, his mind adrift in the land of a dessert filled dream.
A thought bubble appears above Kirby's head, revealing that he is currently climbing a giant slice of chocolate cake with a pickaxe made out of a peppermint candy cane in an attempt to reach shiny cherry at the very top of the snow-represented mound of frosting. The pink warrior had sugar on the brain at the moment, but can anyone really be surprised by that? Its not like Kirby had to maintain a nutritious diet to say the least, so the more pleasurable treats are the subject of his dreams more often than stuff like fruits or vegetables.
As the dream reached its end with Kirby just about ready to dig into the sweet cherry at the top of the chocolate cake mountain, a bit of drool begins to slip out of the side of his mouth, his expression turning warm and fuzzy as he lets out a light-hearted squeak and the dream version of himself opening his mouth wide to eat the imaginary cherry. But before he take the triumphant bite, a large object falls from the sky and crashes down a fair distance away from Kirby's home. A tremor shakes through most of Dream Land, causing many a bird to take to the skies while Kirby's dream bubble is popped and with his blue eyes widening in blank shock the pink warrior is quickly dropped from the tree branch.
But with how round and soft he is, Kirby bounces off of the grass on his backside and is promptly flipped onto his face without any scratch marring his body. After a second of having his sleep interrupted, Kirby leaps onto his small oval-shaped feet and pokes his head up, looking in the distance to see a rising plume of smoke where the tremor creating impact occurred. With prior experience telling him that such crashes were either caused by a friend in need or a foe in waiting, Kirby rushes past his house with his stubby arms swinging as he goes to investigate the source of the crash.
At the smoldering crater where the smoke arises from, a mysterious shadow lies in the center. He groans inside of his head as he awakens from the impact, his consciousness apparently having been shutdown for quite some time as he immediately thinks to himself "Ugh…Huh? I'm…Alive? That's impossible…I was on the verge of death before, and the only one who could have given me my body back…" The thoughts of this mysterious person verged on utter confusion, but the daze of his awakening prevented him from getting too frantic for the time being.
Trying to get a feel for his surroundings, the figure looks up towards the sky and sees the clear blue air along with the massive crater surrounding his body. "Huh…So I'm on another planet…I guess I was expunged here after that last battle…But how long have I been out for, and why do I feel so weightless?"
It was hard for the person to feel their arms and legs, but nonetheless they tried to push themselves onto their feet so they could get a better feel of the environment standing up. Once the person was on their feet, they commented in their mind "Huh…The center of this crater is rather deep…That's curious. Still can't feel anything, that's even stranger. And the sky looks so bright and warm…Could this possibly be Heaven?"
The person shakes their head, thinking just a moment later "No wait, who would enter Heaven by creating a crater in a holy land?" in a logical manner.
After standing still for a few more seconds, the mysterious person looks up and sees the pink puffball warrior Kirby looking down at him while he stood on his tip-toes. Blinking twice in surprise, the mysterious figure stares blankly at Kirby and after a moment of confusion remembers the being and thinks to himself "…Ok, well that solves that. I've landed in Dream Land. And once again, the planet's hero has come across my body…Geez, how many coincidences like this are going to occur during my journeys?"
Not wanting to show ill-well towards the star warrior, the mysterious person waves at Kirby from the bottom of the crater. Kirby pokes his right hand in front of his mouth in a curious manner and pulls his body back a bit, smiling and proceeding to say to the person "Poyo! Poyo Poyo?"
…Ok, we are going to need a translator to understand a single thing Kirby is saying. Give me just a moment to set one of those up…*Ahem*
Anyways, what Kirby said was "Hello! Who are you?"
The mysterious person looks up at Kirby, and though the star warrior spoke in a completely different language he knew exactly what was being said and was able to translate it into his mind. Much like a few other circumstances so far, this was a rather curious thing. Hoping that the pink puffball knew English, the mysterious person waved his hand Kirby, but what came out of his mouth was something he did not expect "Poyo! Poyo Poyo Poyo!" (Rough Translation: Hellium! I am a Rocky Maw!")
Blinking twice and freezing in place at what he just heard coming from his mouth, the mysterious person quickly tried to fold his hands in front of his mouth, only to find that they were barely able to cross in front of his lips. It was at this point that the person tried to look down at his body, only to be taken completely aback by a couple of oval-shaped feet at the bottom of his body. He then looked at his stubby hands in front of his body, noticed that he not only had no more fingers or toes, but his skin had become a slick red. He had also lost all of his hair and clothing, with the only feature remaining from his old body being his brown eyes, though the shape had become vertical ovals.
Standing still with mouth agape for a few moments, the mysterious person quickly raised his stubby arms into the sky and exclaimed with the utmost panicking tone "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUG HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
His cry was so loud that it even reached the depths of space, and for an area devoid of sound the scream managed to echo across many nearby planets. The scream lasted for ten seconds, but it felt as though it had prolonged for a much longer period of time before it finally stopped. The mysterious person was left in a huff in the center of the crater, but the unfazed Kirby merely blinked twice and said to the one who looked like him "Ummm…Are you alright?"
The mysterious being stood in place with hands touching the sides of his rotund body, his eyes twitching in panic as he thinks to himself "This can't be happening…This can't be happening…Why the heck am I a Kirby?! …Or whatever the heck species Kirby is…Oh goodness this is a nightmare…" Calming down for a moment, the person thought to himself "Hey wait a second, why are my thoughts in perfect English?"
Shaking his head and reverting to a state of panic, he continues to think "Never mind that, I need to keep panicking here!"
With a constant release of jumbled murmurs, the mysterious person grabs Kirby's attention, and the star warrior jumps down into the crater with a happy smile as he closes his eyelids and pats the person that looked like him on the side of his body and said "Hey, calm down there, there's nothing to worry about here."
The mysterious person leaped back into the incline of the crater, his frightened expression being very clear to Kirby as the person proceeds to say "That's Easter for you to say." Once again the person wasn't able to portray his message correctly with this new language, but he was starting to get a bit of a feel for the thing.
"…Easter? Huh, you look like me yet you seem to have a difficult time speaking. Maybe the impact with the ground jumbled up the old noggin?" Kirby says, swirling his left hand beside his body to represent the mix-up of the mysterious Kirby's mind.
The mysterious person calms down for a moment, finding a bit of logic in Kirby's words as he tries to gather his thoughts and thinks to himself at the same time "That's true actually…It doesn't make sense that I can understand what Kirby is saying if I didn't also have the ability to speak his language too…I just need to calm down and try to get my point across. No point looming on my changed appearance right now…"
Letting out a light cough, the mysterious person stands up on the side of the crater and says to Kirby in a more fluent voice "Sorry for my earlier freak-out. My name is Riku Mew, and I shouldn't waste any time in saying that I know who you are, Kirby."
The pink puffball flinches slightly in surprise, and after pointing towards himself he smiles and asks in return "Oh really? Who told you about me?"
Riku shakes his head and says to Kirby "No one. Its kind of complicated, but I just know about you."
Kirby shrugs, caring little about the reasons behind Riku's knowledge just as the boy expected, and Kirby proceeds to ask "So why did you have a hard time speaking to me?"
Riku nervously swerves his right hand behind his body and rubs the back of it, responding to Kirby's question with "Ummm, this may sound weird, but I don't usually look like this. I'm actually supposed to be a human, but for some reason I've been transformed to look just like you."
"Human?" Kirby pokes his hand against the front of his lips and tilts his head curiously, a glimmer of realization popping upon his face as he says "Oh! You mean like Samus and Mario, right?"
Riku flinches in surprise upon hearing Kirby mention those two particular names, and says with a bit of a stutter "H-Huh? You know those two?"
Kirby responds with "Of course I do! We met during this Smash tourney thing a while ago. They were pretty nice people, even if Samus mostly kept to herself. Were you a part of one of those tourneys and I just never noticed you?"
Kirby's question was direct but filled with relaxed innocence, which caused Riku to freeze in place for a couple moments before he went on to say "Not at all. Trust me, in my human form I'd stick out like a sore thumb amongst everyone else. Its kind of another complicated affair, but I'll try and run you by the gist of it. Basically, I'm an Elemental Overlord, a powerful being capable of naturally controlling all of the elements. I am able to travel through space thanks to one of those elements, and my goal is to help out worlds that need my assistance."
"Ah, well that makes a ton of sense." Kirby takes all of that news in stride. Riku actually looks at the pink puffball in an awkward manner before realizing that this was probably not the strangest thing the star warrior had ever heard about in his entire life.
"So how did you end up here? From the sound of things you didn't intend to come to Pop Star." Kirby proceeds to ask.
"There's a really long story behind that one, and it actually involves an adventure I just had with Samus…Basically, I was thrown unconscious after a final battle with a powerful entity, and I guess my body drifted through space for a while and I ended up here, where…" As Riku speaks with his hands folded as best as he can manage, a rumbling can be felt coming from his stomach that disturbs his concentration and makes him quickly feel weak.
"Ugh…My stomach…It feels so empty…" Riku notes, his right hand rubbing against the part of his body where he feels his belly might be.
"Hehehe, you probably just need some food. A good feast can ease your mind off of any tension too. Luckily I have a bunch of food over at my house, so just follow me and we can curb that hunger of yours." Kirby says in a laid-back tone of hospitality.
"Heh, you're perfectly fine inviting a total stranger to your house?" Riku says with a smile on his face.
"Of course! You don't seem like a troublemaker, so I don't see any reason to think you are a bad guy." Kirby says, and with a turn of his body and a sealing of his mouth the puffball inflates his body and slowly floats out of the crater with a delicate swing of his arms.
After landing on the edge, Kirby turns back at Riku, who is pushing his hands into the air with a struggling expression on his face as he even steps onto the tip of his toes to try and give himself a boost. Kirby looks at Riku with a puzzled glare and says to him "What are you trying to do?"
Riku, with a grunt preceding his sentence, says to the star warrior "I'm trying to use my flight…But for some reason I can't take off!"
"Huh? You can fly? But you don't have the Wing or Jet power-up…" Kirby notes in a tone of curiosity.
"…Power-ups?" Riku opens his eyes and states blankly for a moment before widening his vision in a panic and blurting out in anger as his feet drop against the ground "Oh don't tell me!"
Thrusting his hand against the air, Riku tries to launch a fireball at the side of the crater, but comes out with not even a single spark of flame. Glaring forward, the boy tries to at the very least summon his double-helix bladed sword, and is able to successfully do so in front of his right hand with ease. However, the weapon had shrunk in size to accommodate his new form, and seemed to have a more colorful gleam to it. But nonetheless, none of the elements were attached to the sword, which only caused Riku to groan and say to himself quietly "You have got to be kidding me…"
Kirby asks "What's up Riku?" and the boy looks up at the pink puffball with a disgruntled expression on his cutesy face.
"Ugh…I can't believe I'm going to say this, but whatever caused me to transform into a creature like you must have also caused my elemental powers to be expunged from my body. Something similar happened when I was with Samus, but this time I've lost all of my elements…And since for whatever reason I can't seem to fly without the Wind power on certain worlds, it seems I'm stuck here until I can recover my powers…Wherever all of them might have fallen to, anyways." Riku says to Kirby.
"Huh, so you'll need to go on a power-up collecting hunt?" Kirby says as a reiteration of what the teenage Overlord stated, but in a more concise form.
With a smile on his face, Kirby says to Riku "I actually did something like that a long while ago, so perhaps I can help you out in finding your lost power-ups."
"Really?" Riku says, letting out an exasperated sigh of relief not long afterwards as he proceeds to mimic Kirby's actions and puff up his body so he can float out of the crater, since he has no other means of aerial movement for the time being.
Once Riku lands beside Kirby, the pink puffball taps his right hand against the back of the boy's body and says to him "Sure thing, I'll be glad to help out a fellow hero. But first off, lets get you some food at my place."
Thus Kirby and Riku walk off across Dream Land to go back to the star warrior's house, on what would be the start of a lovely adventure for the two of them…
Next Time: Unsurprisingly, Whispy Woods is the first boss