Here I am at last. School has been keeping me busy lately, so add that to my laziness and you get a waaaaay overdue chapter of Kirby 64. Also, I'd like to point out that in my fanfics, the anime, Hoshi no Kabii, happened before the games, which would explain why Kirby seems so much weaker and less mature. It's likely that this will have a few anime references in it, so it's good to get that out of the way early on. This is also where my fic starts getting a bit different from the rest. Enjoy.

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Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards

Chapter 2: Merciful

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The round pink creature walked serenely through the crisp green grass. His big red feet crunched softly with the light steps he took, the plants pleasantly crackling in a peaceful way. His dark blue eyes, blue as the night sky above, and wide black pupils were looking upward at the stars. Noting what a beautiful night it was, he continued on his way.

He sure was right, Kirby thought to himself as he strolled along. It really is a good night for stargazing. A few days ago he had been speaking with his friend Waddle Dee, who had informed him that tonight would be clear and cloudless, and that if one were to look hard enough, they could see nearly every star in Dreamland.

Kirby was no astronomer, but even he could see them stretching from one side of the horizon to the other. The night was thickly dotted with the white sparkles like sequins on an endless strip of fabric, a beautiful sight to the Dreamlanders below.

In particular, the pink puffball was heading toward a favorite spot of his a few miles from his home outside of Cappy Town - a small hill in the middle of the field he was currently traveling through. It was near Waddle Dee's house, and it was again the orange puffball who pointed it out to him. Unlike Kirby, the Dee was an astronomer, mostly studying in the field of stars and constellations. It was from him that Kirby had learned many interesting - and often stellar - things.

In the short time of a few minutes, he was able to finish his walk as he reached the hill, a rounded ten foot protrusion of ground and grass that was fenced in at the edges. It was a popular stargazing spot for many, but surprisingly it was deserted tonight.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was about four in the morning, Kirby reminded himself as he yawned. It wasn't exactly a stargazing night, but again, Waddle had said it would be best at this time. Yet, despite having gotten a few hours of sleep before he set out, the puffball was still sluggish.

At least, he was until he looked up. His mouth opened into a perfect "o" at the beauty of the dark blue sky. The stars were sparkling even more brilliantly than before - it seemed that almost any change in altitude made them even brighter. He remembered why this was a favorite spot of his as he walked up to the top of the bump - no difficult task - eyes glued to the heavens the entire time. He took a seat in the middle of the patch of grass across the top as a smile began to form across his face.

Kirby didn't know exactly how long he sat there for, but he was certainly no longer tired. He was instead doing a wonderful job of amusing himself by picking out constellations, something he often did on uneventful nights.

"Hmm... oh, there's the Little Dipper!" he said to himself merrily, pointing with a stubby pink arm. "And there's the Big Dipper not too far away! And that's Orion! And that one's... moving?"

Indeed it was. The little sparkle, barely visible but definitely there, was streaking across the sky, darting through the other balls of light at a swift pace. It left a thin trail behind it. Soon, others were following, adding to the mass of trails that now graced the canopy of the sky.

Kirby found it a bit odd, though. Waddle would have told him if there was going to be a meteor shower. And these were a bit fast for meteors, weren't they? Of course, he knew meteors were very fast, but these just seemed... faster.

He dismissed it. They were probably just closer to the planet than most meteors got. In fact, he could have sworn he even saw some land in the distance on Pop Star, but he couldn't tell. His eyes focused on the shiny objects as they continued to travel effortlessly through space.

Eventually, the spectacular shower seemed to be slowing. With disappointment, Kirby realized it was probably done for the night. "Well, that was pretty cool," he said to himself. He rocked backward before hopping to his feet, his round body helping the motion. "I just wish Waddle had told me about that meteor shower. I'll have to ask him about it tomorr -"

His words were abruptly cut short by the ground suddenly flying up to meet his face. He indignantly wondered why a slab of earth had come up and smacked him like that, but then he realized it was because he had been knocked over. With an inward chuckle, he rubbed his hand behind his head at his stupidity, feeling a lump as he did so. A shot of soreness spread through his body.

Yowch. Where did that come from? As he righted himself, pushing himself up with his short arms, he mentally asked, What hit me?

()()()

Ribbon's eyes barely fluttered open, giving her a blurry view of the landscape. Land... so that piece of the Crystal she had clung to must have been protecting her as she fell through the atmosphere. Which meant that star-shaped object she had seen before was the planet she was currently resting on top of.

She assumed it was a planet, anyway. Her eyes didn't feel like giving her a clear view at the moment, so she just lay down in stillness and waited. She could distinguish the color green - lots of it - and a dark blue void above. She nearly snapped to attention and ran at the last sudden realization, fearing it was the dark cloud from earlier, but slightly closer inspection revealed it to be the night sky - nothing more, nothing less.

As her eyes came into focus, so did her sense of feeling; she was sore all over. The golden eyes from before had really hit her hard... she was reminded of the now shattered Power Crystal. What could she do now? It had been shattered hundreds of thousands of feet above this planet, and the fragments had been sent flying apart into deep space.

She was groggily able to pull back the memories of what the queen had told her. "Hang tightly to the Crystal, and take it to safety!" They began to play over in her head, each passing word reminding her how she had let that... darkness... get away with breaking it. Now it could do whatever it wanted with the Shards the moment it found them.

She couldn't let that happen.

With a grunt, Ribbon pushed herself up, her vision now much clearer and her determination reignited. For the first time, she got a good look at the foreign planet.

It reminded her, to an extent, of her own home of Ripple Star. The grass was a healthy green and crunchy beneath her shoes. The sky above was dark, but not too dark (she now knew the true meaning of the phrase "too dark"), with a bit of light peaking over the horizon. It must have been in the early morning hours here. It had been daytime when she fled Ripple Star, but she didn't exactly know how long she had been out for.

Some of that morning light was glinting off an object, shining in her eyes annoyingly. She squinted and tried to locate the source of the reflection. There was nothing around her, but as she took a step, she kicked something hard.

And... warm.

It could only have been the singular Crystal Shard she had managed to hold onto on her way down to this planet, which is why it didn't surprise her much to see that it was, in fact, the Shard, sitting silently on the ground right next to her.

The fairy lifted it off the ground and gently caressed the fragment. Despite the original Crystal being violently ripped apart, the Shard seemed to be a near-perfect replica, albeit much smaller. Its glow, which it still possessed in full, was soft and innocent.

Ribbon sighed as her face fell. It was as if the Crystal was reminding her of her failure, saying, "Nice going, you broke me and you let those guys get away with some of my other fragments. How does that make you feel?"

"Hey, excuse me, miss?"

Ribbon jumped upon hearing the voice, spinning around quickly as she searched for the source. She held the Crystal close to her chest, half-expecting something to jump out and attack her any second.

"Hey! Over here!"

She turned around once more and made eye contact with a round pink creature, who was waving its arms and calling out to her. His (apparently) voice didn't have anything threatening undertones or words, and it seemed relatively normal, if a bit squeaky. She dismissed the thought of him being a threat, trusting that he wasn't going to attack, at least for the moment.

"I think you dropped this," the creature called from where he was. He bent over, reaching down to the ground, and, to the fairy's shock, picked up none other than a Crystal Shard just like hers, deep purple and blue with a hint of green.

Ribbon looked on in disbelief. "Is that...?" she said mostly to herself. Her wings began to vibrate, lifting her into the air a few inches as she made her way over to the puffball. As she approached, the glow of the Shard in her hands began to increase in intensity, as did the radiance of his.

She stopped about two feet away from him. "W-where did you find that?" she asked, indicating the Shard in his hand (or rather, short arm) with a finger.

"Oh, this? It, uh... well, I think it kinda hit me in the head." He rubbed the back of his head, which doubled as his body, with his other short hand that somehow reached all the way back there. "So how did you get here? I was just sitting here stargazing and then - wham!" He spun in a circle to emphasize the action, briefly revealing a small lump on the back of his skull that Ribbon winced at.

"Are you okay?" she asked with mild concern. "I'm sorry if I fell on you..."

"Oh, so that's what happened..." he muttered to himself, apparently thinking. "But wait, what were you doing up in the sky?"

"It's a long story," Ribbon said, but before she could finish the Crystal in her hands began to vibrate violently and pull forward. The creature's did too, and it nearly knocked him over out of surprise. Both Shards wrenched themselves out of the hands of their holders and came together in midair. A white ball of light enveloped the gems, shrouding them from view. It suddenly disappeared, and the two beings watched as the Shards merged together into a larger piece, finally settling in the middle and retaining its usual glow.

"Huh?" the pink ball simply questioned as he watched the spectacle, completely confused by what was going on.

"The Crystal can fuse itself back together?" Ribbon wondered out loud. Suddenly, a smile spread over her face as joy bubbled up inside her. She zoomed forward and nearly tackled the jewel, flying in giddy circles and embracing its warmth. "Yes! I can still save it!" she squeaked in excitement.

The puffball looked happy for her, though still perplexed. "That's great, but uh... save what?"

Ribbon immediately halted and fell slowly back to the ground, sullen once again. "Well, since you've seen it I guess now you'll want to know..." She swallowed before continuing. "I live on Ripple Star," she started.

"Oh yeah, isn't that the fairy planet or something?" He seemed thoroughly curious, which she found a bit odd. Normally no one would be bothered to hear her stories.

"Yes, but..." She could only point up at a distant object in space, the expression on her face worsening. The ball followed her finger and his eyes locked on a distant sparkle that appeared to be a planet.

"What's wrong with it? I don't see any -" He stopped when the light flickered out for a second. When it reappeared, approximately half of it was covered by blackness. "Oh... I see..."

Ribbon looked away tearfully - it pained her too much to look at it again. She held back the urge to cry and continued. "It was attacked by a dark cloud that started spreading across the planet. I was the only one to escape. It... consumed them, and the queen told me to take the Power Crystal - the artifact that gives energy to all of Ripple Star - and protect it. But..." She looked away shamefully. "Parts of the darkness broke off and chased me through space, and they managed to... shatter the Crystal," she finished quietly, feeling like more of a failure than ever now. A single tear slipped down her cheek.

"Hey, don't cry!" the pink creature comforted. "We managed to put it back together, didn't we?"

"Yes, but..."

"And we can do it again, right?"

"But they all flew through space!" she protested. "I'll never find them!"

"Not by yourself." He smiled cheerily and beat his chest once with a paw. "But with two of us, there's no telling what we can and can't do!"

Wait... was he actually implying that he wanted to help her? No one had ever been so enthusiastic to do that - she was always helping someone else, but she was rarely offered any herself. Was he serious?

She shook her head. "No, you can't. I couldn't ask you to put yourself in danger like that. I barely know you, and I wouldn't want you to be responsible for -"

"Put myself in danger?" he interrupted. "Not me! You may not know it, but I'm Pop Star's resident pink hero!"

So she was on Pop Star, and this pink creature she had become acquainted with was a hero? This was a lot to take in, considering she had just been assaulted by dark clouds not too long ago. "Seriously, you don't have to," she persisted. "I'm completely capable of doing it on my own."

"Of course, of course! I'm not implying you're not, but if you run into trouble you'll need some help."

He posed a good point. "Still, it'd a lot of trouble for you to go to just for my planet. It's not yours, you shouldn't worry about it."

He laughed - a kind, goodhearted noise. "It's fine, I do stuff like this almost every day."

Ribbon's eyes widened at the thought of fighting dark eyeballs every day. "Really?"

"Yup, and it's no trouble at all!" He smiled and began to walk. "My name's Kirby, by the way."

"I'm Ribbon." Ribbon took to the air and followed next to him, her waist about level with the top of his head. "But you're sure -"

"Hey, helping people is what I do for a living. Quite literally, in fact." The two began to go down the hill. "At the very least, I'll be able to help you sweep Pop Star for some more of those Crystals. I know a few places where gems would be... likely to land."

"W-well..." She was almost at a loss for words as she smiled. "Thank you, Kirby."

"No problem, Ribbon. Here, let's head this way." They reached the bottom of the short hill and walked across the field. "First, we should stop by a friend of mine." As they continued on their way towards the horizon, the sun began to rise in a beautiful sea of blue and orange.

An adventure had begun.

But, even as Kirby walked, a thought was nagging him somewhere in the back of his mind.

A dark cloud spreading across the planet? Hmm... why does that sound so... familiar?

()()()

A single dark blast easily took out the last guard by the throne room door, exploding right in his face and sending him flying at the wall. The large fairy slammed into it and fell unconscious, slumping down against the floor.

As it slowly began to consume him, the leader looked on, inwardly smirking, towards the doors. He hardly needed to concentrate as another dark burst issued from his body, knocking them brutally from their hinges and causing them to completely dissolve, evaporated by his power.

A dark mass crept up along the walls as he entered the room, an eerie dark blue and black the swallowed up the castle's true colors. He looked around the room. It was wide and high, with finely crafted pillars and designs on the walls, but it was not what he was looking for. He paid it no mind as his darkness covered them, instead turning his attention to the large group of guards that had assembled before him. Their spears, weapons they had infused with some of their magic, were poised and ready to attack.

He merely let out a dark chuckle at their foolishness. "Take them out," he ordered.

Orbs of deep black burst out of the darkness covering the room. There were at least a dozen of them, and faster than the fairies could blink they flew towards the guards and encased them, rendering them helpless and visibly dissolving their spears into nothing inside their black bodies.

"Show them out of here," the leader commanded again. Silently, the orbs exited the room through the doors, their prisoners, already being put to sleep by their sinister powers, in tow.

"Now then..." He turned to the throne, where the queen stood, looking defiant. Black tendrils began inching closer to her, but she stepped away, even kicking one for good measure.

The leader only became more amused. "Good day, my queen," he mocked with a fake bow. "Or," he continued as he came back up, "as I should say: goodnight."

On cue, even more dark orbs flew in through doors, coming to his side instantly. They suddenly slit through the middle to reveal the whites of golden eyes, which all stared down at the queen frighteningly. Despite this, the fairy did not flinch.

"You think you've won," she spat, uncharacteristically bitter. "But, as you know, one of our fairies escaped with the Crystal. You haven't got what you've come for."

"Oh, I do know that." He seemed uninterested, but the tone of his voice betrayed some sick, sadistic sense of enjoyment. "But you should also know that we have sent agents after her. And when Dark Matter hunts, it does not let its prey escape."

The queen looked like she didn't fully believe it, but for a second, her expression faltered. Suddenly, her eyes flashed red and she deadpanned, but it barely lasted a blink of an eye before she returned to normal.

"Hmm?" The leader cocked his head - or rather, body - to the side. "Oh, so you still think you're strong enough to resist." The queen only responded with a grunt, the presence of so much Dark Matter putting some kind of strain on her.

The leader laughed maliciously. "Well then, allow me to help you." With that, the eyes at his side dove straight at the queen and were absorbed into her body. She let out a pained cry and grabbed her head, struggling to drive them out. But alas, the force of the numerous Dark Matter was too strong for even her to bear. Her eyes flashed red once more before they closed and she passed out.

The leader watched this as his darkness finally spread throughout the entire room and headed for the rest of the castle. Now, with the fairies of Ripple Star prisoner and their queen subdued, there was nothing that could go wrong...

Three Dark Matter suddenly rocketed into the room, flying as fast as they could. The one in front stopped abruptly, and the other two bumped into him, forcing him closer to their commander by default.

The one in front looked nervous. "S-sir!"

The leader did not even need to turn around - he had already seen them. "What?" he said coldly.

The single orb gulped. "Th-the fairy with the C-crystal, she..." He gulped, despite lacking a throat.

"Out with it!"

"She escaped!"

He winced. The leader hovered completely motionless for a few long, uncomfortable seconds. Then, without warning, he exploded at them.

"SHE ESCAPED!" he roared. The Dark Matter inched back away from him, trying not to seem too afraid... needless to say, it was an act they could not keep up.

"W-w-w-well, y-yes, s-s-sir," the first one stuttered, his single eye darting around nervously. "We d-did manage to s-s-s-save the Crystal, th-though... by shattering it..." he muttered quietly.

"SHATTERING!" His underlings drew back significantly. "IDIOTS!" He pressed uncomfortably close to the first Dark Matter, backing him up until he was against a wall. "Did you not have three - three - Dark Matter pursuing the Power Crystal and yet you failed?" he bellowed.

The Dark Matter merely whimpered in response.

The leader growled. "Consider yourself fortunate that I am merciful enough to revive you later."

The orb caught the meaning of this instantly, but before he could even think of protesting, an enormous pillar of fire slammed into him, crushing him against the wall and incinerating him completely.

With that done, the leader turned to the other two offenders, who were quivering violently. "Now... tell me why I shouldn't destroy both of you right now." One of them was shaking so badly he couldn't respond, but the other fearfully piped up, "We know where the Crystal Shards are!"

The leader paused from charging another attack. "Oh? You do?" he questioned, his tone a bit more calmed.

"We do?" the more frightened Dark Matter sighed in disbelief.

"Y-yeah! It split into, um, uh..."

"Seventy four!" the second recalled.

"Yeah, seventy four pieces! And they flew to the planets, um, Pop Star, Rock Star, Aqua Star, Neo Star, and Shiver Star! A-and some landed here on Ripple Star!"

The leader thought about this. "Hmm, although we need the Crystal intact, this turn of events could prove... interesting." He returned to his underlings. "Scout the planets for Crystal Shards. Take a squadron with you if you must, but do it immediately."

"B-but sir, what about Rock Star?"

He suddenly scowled again, which made the second Dark Matter flinch. The first, who had been speaking, however, continued. "Don't we have to worry about -?"

"He is preoccupied," the leader spat. "He is being held down by our other forces. As for Pop Star..." He turned. "Beware the pink hero. As it has come to my knowledge, he has stopped us twice before."

The Dark Matter duo nodded fearfully. "Sir!" they saluted, before they both rushed off, glad to have made it out of there alive.

Once they were gone, the leader's many red eyes fell on the queen's motionless body in a blank stare as he chuckled. "Yes, pink hero," he mused. "This should be very interesting."

()()()

Again, I'm lazy, and school's been eating my time like midmorning brunch on Sunday. I also, once again, rushed a bit to get the chap up by today. Not to mention a bit of writer's block thrown in there. Oh well. I'll be back next week, I hope (this will be my main story from now on). Ciao.