King Dedede was having a pretty crummy week.
For starters, he had gotten possessed for the billionth time by that creepy ball of Dark Matter.
Dedede was just relaxing and sitting on the castle wall, looking out at his kingdom. The skies were blue, the grass was bright green, Bronto Burts were flying merrily through the fluffy clouds – hell, everything was as it should be in this happy-go-lucky world. Then something sparkly had caught Dedede's eye. And lo and behold, a small crystal thing was just lying there on the floor, waiting for someone of the king's status to take it. And foolishly, he had rushed up to it and inspected it, seeing if he could sell it for a price or just keep it as an ornament.
Then several things happened at once.
Firstly, Kirby, a Waddle Dee and two kids burst through the door leading to the castle roof.
Secondly, the crystal gave off a warning glow.
Thirdly, the Dark Matter appeared.
It had just suddenly materialised out of nowhere as that god-forsaken pink puffball was trying to reach for that sparkly shard thing he had rightfully earned. (Okay, maybe earned was a pretty strong word, but you know…he was the king, after all!) Its horrible red eye had completely passed Kirby's and instead settled on Dedede's. He's weak, the floating sphere seemed to mock. He'll be easy to take over.
Then it struck and Dedede's world went black.
Dedede woke up to find a small Waddle Dee nudging his arm. Struggling (a lot, Dedede noticed), that same Waddle Dee helped him to his feet.
"What…What just happened?" Dedede asked the Waddle Dee, not pausing to think about why the Waddle Dee and the others were there or the fact that Kirby was celebrating with the shard and the two other kids.
On closer inspection, one of the kids had wings. And was flying.
"What the hell…" the king muttered. He was tempted to ask about that fairy kid, but he had more important things to deal with- namely, that Waddle Dee he was glaring at. "Feel free to answer my question at some point."
"S-Sorry, sir…You were, um…"
"Possessed." Dedede had meant to ask it like a question, but it had come out as an accusation. The Waddle Dee faltered, then nodded meekly.
"Oh, joy" was Dedede's sarcastic response. "And I suppose Wonder Kid over there," he hitched a thumb towards the dancing puffball, "saved me again."
"Mhm-hm"
"So what are you all here for, anyway?" Dedede had meant this question to be answered by the whole group (if you could call it a group), but instead of answering his question, the girl with the paintbrush had merely said "We had better get going", and then they had to do just that.
"Fine, don't answer my question. I'm only the king of your freaking country" the penguin murmured. Surprisingly, the Waddle Dee had stayed behind, and was now looking at Dedede with the dark, soulful eyes the king recognised from all his Waddle Dee servants.
"…Why don't you come with us?"
The question had shocked Dedede. He, Kirby's rival and self-proclaimed King of Dreamland, come along on a trip (which would be no doubt fraught with peril) with said rival?
"No." The reply was almost instantaneous. It wasn't like Dedede was scared – okay, much, - but seriously? He had better things to do. He had a kingdom to run.
"…I think it would be helpful for Kirby…"
No response.
"…Y'know, I think you do owe him a favour, at least…"
Now, this new statement completely threw the king. Help Kirby? Do him a favour? Do I actually want to? He couldn't believe he was actually asking himself these questions.
But then again, Kirby had saved his life quite a few times.
"…Fine. Whatever." Dedede answered. But there was no reply. The Waddle Dee had run off, presumably to catch up with the others.
"I should really discipline my servants more" Dedede sighed as he followed suit and jumped off the castle wall to catch up with the others.
Another thing that was crummy about Dedede's week- the fact that, once he had caught up with the others and all those crystal shards – the reason Kirby and his pals were messing up Dedede's castle, apparently – had been collected in Pop Star, they had to move on to Rock Star.
He had never been before, but the penguin king could safely say he hated it.
"…Dammit…" Yet again, sand had got into his eye.
Adeleine, the painter girl (who he swore he had met before), tutted at him. "You should really watch your language, Dedede"
Dedede harrumphed.
They were in a vast desert, stretching as far as the eye can see. Humongous sand dunes rose up out of the ground, the yellow-orange sand absorbing the heat of the sun and making Dedede's feet hurt. The cool blue sky beckoned for the group to give up looking in this desolate, empty wasteland, but due to Kirby and Ribbon's persistence, they had to stay down here and "travel like peasants", as Dedede had so kindly put it.
"Ugh…I hate this place. It's far too warm, we've been out here for hours…" Dedede's miniature tantrum was really starting to pick up the pace. "…and to top it all off, we haven't eaten any food for who-knows how long!"
Adeleine shot a quick glance at Kirby who was trailing behind, too busy in his thoughts to pay any attention.
"Don't mention the F-word, Dedede. You know that." Adeleine stage-whispered. If Kirby hadn't heard before, then he would probably know what they were talking about now. Luckily for them though, Kirby still hadn't heard a single word.
"Anyway, if it's too warm, then why don't you take your robe off? It's surely too heavy to wear in this heat"
"…I'd rather not." Dedede simply replied.
After ten minutes (or close to) of silence, the fairy girl – or Ribbon, as Dedede knew her now – had scouted the area and come back with some good news.
"There's some old ruins that we can explore around an hour north-west from here. It's infested with enemies though, but I'm sure it's nothing Kirby can't handle" The pink-haired fairy had smiled at Kirby, and the puffball had replied by grinning back.
"What are we waiting for, then? Let's get the hell out of this desert!" Without waiting for a response, Dedede had set off…in the wrong direction.
After giggling to herself, Ribbon had chased after Dedede and informed him of his mistake. Dedede said nothing but had turned around to march in the right direction with two puffballs, an artist and a fairy trying to keep up.
"Well, here we are!" Ribbon announced to the world. Dedede slow-clapped. Ribbon had shot him a glare, but had proceeded to go through the small gap that nearly everyone fit through alright.
Kirby had laughed to himself when Dedede had finally had enough of the wall and started to repeatedly whack it with his hammer.
"Sir…please calm down…" The Waddle Dee had quietly said, but the king was too busy taking out his frustration and anger out on the wall. With each blow of the hammer, more of the decrepit wall came tumbling down. Eventually, Dedede was left with a hole a tank could comfortably stroll through. Smirking, Dedede had strutted through the hole to everyone's astonishment -and come face to face with a two-way corridor.
"…Great"
After much ado, it was decided that Ribbon and Kirby would take the left path, whilst Dedede, Adeleine and Waddle Dee would take the right path.
"Why can't we all just stick together?" Adeleine asked.
"If we split up, then there's more chances of finding more shards" Ribbon replied. "It would be a pain to all go down one corridor and find out there's more in the other" This seemed like a good enough explanation for the gang.
As they split up, Dedede stuck his tongue out at Kirby and pointed towards Adeleine. Kirby got the message instantly. Dedede would be able to have food whenever he wished (although he would have to beg for it), whilst Kirby would have to wait until they met up again. After a couple of glares, one insulted painter and a peace-keeping Waddle Dee, the two groups eventually split up and went on their separate ways.
"Is there anywhere on this planet that isn't boiling hot?" Dedede complained within a minute or two of wandering down the dark, desolate hallway. Adeleine, who would have usually tried to give a comforting word or two, was too annoyed at Dedede to give him anything but a glare. Waddle Dee shot the king a concerned stare, but he too said nothing.
After a long, awkward silence, the little Waddle Dee piped up. "Surely we must be meeting up with the others soon. How long have we been wandering down here, anyway?"
It had been a quiet journey. No shards had been found. There were a few enemies scattered here and there, but nothing Dedede couldn't take out with his hammer. Adeleine realised with a wince that Kirby and Ribbon must be getting the brunt of the enemy-infested ruins.
"I hope they're alright…" Adeleine said, more to herself than anyone else.
"Don't worry- they have the second-in –command asskicker, Kirby, on their side" Dedede commented.
Adeleine glanced at the king, who smirked back.
"…Second-in-command? Then who's first?"
Adeleine should have known the answer before she asked the question.
"Yours truly, of course!" The penguin king pointed at himself.
Waddle Dee facepalmed. Adeleine could only sigh.
"Of course. It was idiotic of me not to know." Adeleine muttered, actually meaning that second comment.
They trekked down the dark corridor, keeping a look-out for the shining purple-blue shards that were the sole purpose of their journey. Waddle Dee was wondering whether the other half of their group was having better luck, until the group could faintly see a light at the end of the corridor.
Muttering something about salvation, Dedede walked faster, urging the others to keep up with his long strides. On closer inspection, it was just a well-lit room, with well-worn ropes hanging down from high platforms that the group had to look up to see.
Kirby was lying in the middle of the room, out cold.
"Oh, thank god you're here!"
As the three-member group entered the room, Ribbon had stopped flying frantically around Kirby and had started to fly frantically around the group.
"What happened?" Waddle Dee asked, getting directly to the point.
"No idea, I think it was because Kirby had inhaled that creepy spider enemy…"
Dedede snorted, but pulled his face back into a frown after he received a glare from Ribbon.
After a moment, Adeleine smiled and got out her paintbrush and easel. "I was saving this for an emergency, but now's a good time as any," she commented as the group stared at her. With a few strokes of her paintbrush, a 1-UP and a Maxim Tomato had appeared. She then opened Kirby's mouth and fed them to him.
"Mind you don't get sucked into the bottomless hole" Dedede quipped. No one laughed.
After a few seconds, Kirby had opened his eyes and got up. Ignoring the watchful stares he was getting, he looked up and proceeded to try and grab onto a rope that was dangling down, as if nothing had happened.
Dedede came up with a prank.
"Adeleine, do you mind painting an ice-cream?" Dedede asked, as innocent as could be. It was Adeleine's turn to snort.
"I was saving this paint for after we had found all the crystal shards on Rock Star, you know that!" Indeed, Adeleine had made it well known to the guys in the group that though they may get hungry, she wasn't painting any food until they had found all the crystal shards on each planet. This had sounded daunting to Waddle Dee, Dedede and Kirby especially, but Ribbon had cut in, saying that there was only around ten shards on each planet, and they were usually close to each other. After that, it didn't seem as bad.
"…So deal with it" Adeleine smiled. There weren't many opportunities where you could snub the mighty King Dedede, so she took each opportunity and relished it.
Dedede ignored the comment and instead picked up Waddle Dee, who had a nonplussed expression on his face.
"Puppy-dog manoeuvre" Dedede whispered into what he assumed would be the Waddle Dee's ear. Each servant of the king was taught in the ways of this debilitating and devastating move. It crushed hard-hearted warriors. It made even the coldest soul thaw.
Waddle Dee looked up at Adeleine, using his eyes to make the most adorable expression known to man.
"O-oh…"Adeleine faltered. Dedede knew she was under the Waddle Dee's spell. If he didn't know better, he would have thought that Waddle Dee enjoyed this moment of affection.
"You know he loves you, and you love him," Dedede launched into a well-rehearsed speech. "But the one thing that would make him happy is to give his awesome and manly king a cool, refreshing ice-cream. Could you possibly deny his cute, emotional eyes?"
This was Waddle Dee's cue to widen his eyes and tilt his head ever so slightly.
As Adeleine stared into the brown puffball's eyes, Dedede could swear it was working. Hell, girls liked cute things. Just look at the success Kirby and Meta Knight had gathered. But then again, Meta Knight wore that mask all the time…
As Dedede was debating Meta Knight's cuteness factor, Adeleine chipped in.
"Fine. I'll give you that ice-cream if you shut up."
Okay, Part 2 of the plan, Dedede thought to himself. He had the ice-cream, he had Kirby on his back, and he had told the others he would help Kirby travel up the rope-strewn area, "for there may be a crystal shard up there". The others were (understandably) unsure about this, but it was decided that Adeleine and Waddle Dee (who was perched comfortably on the artist's shoulder) would leave through a small gap Dedede himself had created with his hammer. Ribbon would follow the two gourmets to make sure nothing happened.
Dedede was already struggling with the ropes- climbing with one hand full wasn't a particularly good idea. It didn't help that Kirby was playing with the crown-shaped pompom on the back of his hat.
"Kirby, stop it" Dedede growled. Ribbon looked at the pair, concerned, but stiffened when the large crystal shard she carried around glowed with a pale purple light.
"There's a shard around here!" Ribbon exclaimed and took off, leaving the two on their own. Dedede, to quote Adeleine, thought it was "a good time as any".
"Hmm, I have an ice-cream here," Dedede said, making a huge show of examining it. "It's so nice and cold in this boiling room in this boiling desert" Dedede then started to show the ice-cream to Kirby, almost shoving it in his face. "And it's mine, all mine! Not yours, Adeleine didn't paint you any, did she? I had better eat it before it melts in this heat- it would be a shame to deny a gift from a lady…"
Dedede kept on rambling in this manner, but there was one thing he had completely forgotten about.
Kirby's powerful lungs.
Dedede was starting to swing the cone around now- he had swung it close to his face when Kirby opened his mouth and inhaled.
The ice-cream splattered across the king's face, mostly ending up in Kirby's mouth. Dedede was just left with a cone and several moments of embarrassment.
"Damn pink puffball! Was that really necessary?" shouted Dedede. Kirby smiled as if to say, yep, and I loved every second of it.
Ribbon had come to see what the commotion was about, and arrived to find Dedede, with some ice-cream still on his face, trying to put Kirby into a headlock. The puffball in question was having a whale of a time, doing impromptu bouts of celebratory dancing every time he escaped the king's grasp.
"Uh…huh…" was all Ribbon could say. She floated there, silently cheering Kirby on, until Dedede managed to catch Kirby and throw him into a crystal shard that was floating in the top right-hand corner of the room. As Kirby peeled himself off the corner wall and fell towards the platform the king and fairy were standing on, Dedede laughed.
"And who says I don't do anything to help?" After receiving another glare from Ribbon (boy, he should really start counting these), Dedede just smiled and walked towards Kirby, who was getting up off the floor. Ribbon flew over to stop him, but all the penguin king did was lift Kirby up and place him on his back.
"I think I've been cruel enough for now" Dedede smirked as he grabbed onto a nearby rope and started to pull himself up.
I really, really don't understand that guy, Ribbon silently mused to herself as she followed swiftly behind.
At long last, Ribbon, Dedede and Kirby made it out of the ruins. Kirby had gotten bored of playing with the crown-shaped pompom and decided to walk around on foot, to Ribbon's relief. There were plenty of enemies to worry about, but Kirby took care of them with the exploding shuriken he had gained by inhaling two enemies at once, back at Dedede's castle. Speaking of Dedede, he was alright with just letting Kirby defeat the enemies, but he wasn't afraid to beat an enemy up when they got on his nerves.
"…And that's the last time a Bumber makes fun of my hat" Dedede announced to the world. Ribbon shivered.
The group had decided to wait for Adeleine and Waddle Dee. They had eventually come out, with Adeleine laughing and Waddle Dee munching on a chocolate bar. Dedede was just about to raise his voice in protest but thought better of it. Maybe the 'puppy-dog manoeuvre' had worked better than he thought.
The reunited gang had been travelling for a little while, collecting each shard they could find. Waddle Dee was having fun messing with the angle of Adeleine's beret. The artist herself was giggling and trying to get the Waddle Dee to stop. Ribbon was flying close to Kirby as he took out enemy after enemy with exploding ninja stars. Dedede briefly wondered whether he should ask Kirby whether he knew anywhere he could buy shuriken, but then he decided not to. After all, he had his pride as king to uphold.
After some time though, Kirby started to lag behind again. No-one paid any mind, though Ribbon urged him to try and keep up. Eventually, the hero of Pop Star tripped over.
Adeleine was the first to turn around.
"Kirby! What's wrong?" asked Adeleine. Waddle Dee had stopped clowning around and just stared at the pink puffball. Dedede said nothing.
Kirby looked up, then collapsed again.
"Oh joy. If the main character can't survive this place, then what hope do we have?" Dedede moaned.
"…Maybe we should have a little break and count up the shards we have…" Ribbon suggested.
Counting up all the shards they had collected, both in the desert and in the ruins, the group found that they could now move onto the next planet. But first…
"Tea party!" Adeleine said as she got out her paintbrush and easel. Dedede couldn't wait, both to get the food and get out of here. "So, what do you all want? Bear in mind that we've got to save the paint for the other planets too…"
"Chicken" Dedede butted in. Waddle Dee briefly wondered whether this could be called cannibalism.
Kirby had managed to get up, but, according to Dedede, still looked "out of it." Adeleine took pity on the pink puffball, and offered him an apple and some cake. Somehow, Kirby had made a full recovery just by seeing the food tumble towards his mouth.
Waddle Dee had just asked for a strawberry, nothing too complicated. After all, Adeleine did make him that chocolate bar earlier.
Ribbon just stared in amazement as Adeleine swept her paintbrush over the canvas only to create an apple, which bounded out of the easel and bounced towards whichever person wanted it. As for Adeleine herself, she was munching on a sandwich.
The crystal shard, which had just been floating next to Ribbon all this time, suddenly sparkled and floated towards an empty area of the desert. With her attention taken away from the apple, Ribbon looked on as it transformed into the familiar star-shaped portal.
Within that portal, there was a planet shaped like a water droplet. Predictably, it was mainly water.
"Sweet, sweet water!" Dedede could only stammer. Before anyone knew it, he had bounded in.
"Whoa, wait up!" yelled Adeleine as she attempted to pack all her painting equipment as fast as she could. Waddle Dee waited patiently then stepped in after her. Lastly, Ribbon flew in.
"Everyone here…?" she murmured as she scanned the group. Predictably, there was one member missing. Kirby was still out there in the harsh desert, munching his way through a slice of strawberry shortcake.
"Oh, for crying out loud…" Dedede muttered. He reached over and dragged Kirby through the portal. In the shock, Kirby dropped his strawberry shortcake.
Kirby glared at the king, then looked away into outer space.
"Who knows what you've done to his psyche?" whispered Adeleine. Dedede's face was a question mark. Adeleine sighed and continued, her voice taking on a scary edge. "One day, you'll live to regret taking that cake from him. One day, a great evil will come. You will manage to seal it away, but a gang of mice will show up, steal Kirby's shortcake and pin the blame on you. And then…" Dedede was starting to fear for Adeleine's sanity. "…Kirby will kill Dreamlanders aplenty on his mission to get that yummy piece of cake back. He will beat you up, he will beat up Meta Knight. No one will be safe on his crusade to retrieve that slice of strawberry shortcake. He will release the great evil you and Meta Knight tried so hard to confine. All because you denied him that strawberry shortcake."
"…What the hell" Dedede muttered. "That sounds completely stupid."
And so their journey continued to the wet wonderland known as Aqua Star.