Author's Note: And so, things continue to happen. ...What a boring note.
Chapter 2: Uncooperative Funtimes
"Have you seen a blue guy carrying around a sword?" Pikachu asked. For the last ten minutes, he's been running around both village halves, in search of Meta Knight (whom, if you somehow forgot, skipped out on everyone). Unfortunately, he was having varying results, none of which positive: some has seen Meta Knight but don't know where he is, some didn't, and the rest were too out of it to care.
"No, sorry..." a Waddle Dee coughed on the air as he went back to his business. Pikachu let out a scream of complete frustration; stupid Fox and Meta Knight, skipping out on him and probably breaking laws and shit. He swore that he would start stabbing everyone around him. Pikachu paused to get a grip back on sanity. He was honestly not sure why the evil polluted air hadn't driven him batshit yet. Ignoring his frustrations, he asked another passing person, a young Waddle Doo, about Meta Knight.
"Look, have you seen a short guy carrying a sword around here?" he asked again.
"Nope, I... big brother?" Suddenly, the Waddle Doo jumped on him. "Big bro! I knew you'd come home!"
""What the hell? We're not even the same species!" Pikachu shouted; the Waddle Doo took a good look at him and then decided to roll off; it looked like tears were coming to his one big eye.
"Sorry... this gas stuff keeps making me hallucinate... I thought you were my big brother..." the Waddle Doo said.
Pikachu's interests and pity was piqued. "...What happened to your brother?"
"It happened the day everything exploded and that weird gas appeared... he went off into the smoke and was never seen again..." the young Waddle Doo explained. "Maybe he joined Roy's army... I-I don't know..."
Pikachu looked at him solemnly. "I'm sure you'll find your brother, kid."
"Yeah... hey, if you ever see him, can you tell him that his brother, Lee, misses him?"
Pikachu agreed, even though he's never associated with Lee and his brother, nor did he know what his brother looked like. "Sure... if you see the guy I'm looking for though, can you tell him that I'll kick his ass if he doesn't come home?"
"The 'a' word is a mean word, but okay." the Waddle Doo set out again, presumably to run into someone else and mistake that sap for his brother, no matter what species the guy actually is. Pikachu usually never did this heroic kind of stuff anymore; most of the heroic stuff available on Pop Star would probably get him executed by Giygas' forces, so he usually sat back and watched other people suffer. However, he couldn't just ignore the kid. Feeling a bit happier with himself, Pikachu started walking back down the street, looking for someone else to ask about Meta Knight.
"Oh hey Pikachu!" Fox greeted as he ran past. Pikachu gave him a friendly wave and a smile before it clicked in his head.
"Fox? Where do you think you're going?" The rat Pokémon started to run after Fox, who was determined to keep whatever he was doing a secret and ran faster; Pikachu decided to give up the chase when Fox stepped onto the teleporter to the other part of town and disappeared. "Damn it. What's with everybody today?"
Pikachu continued his efforts of asking around, but after a few more minutes of getting negative responses, he decided that the whole thing was fruitless, and that Meta Knight was god knows where. He bitterly started to trek back to the house; on the way there, he saw no sign of Fox, which only added to the frustration. He opened the front door and froze when he saw who was sitting on his couch. "Oh hell no, not again."
"Hey." Roy greeted him. Pikachu started to discharge electricity before adding, "Before you attack your leader, I would like to mention that this is a hologram. If you want to set fire to your own couch though, be my guest." He made a smug smile that seriously tempted Pikachu to risk damaging the furniture.
He regained his composure. "What do you want now, asshole?"
"It's rude to call your leader that. I might have to burn down your front lawn, for that."
"This isn't even my house anyway."
"Then you wouldn't mind if I set this place on fire a little, right?"
Pikachu squinted at him angrily. "Are we seriously starting this again?"
"Fine. Killjoy." Roy sighed. "Look, word on the street is that Meta Knight bumped into a local resistance." Pikachu stayed silent. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you or Fox, but if you don't stop that knight from doing whatever the hell he's doing, he's dead."
Wow, it's only been about a day and Meta Knight's already stirring up trouble. "But I don't even know where Meta Knight is!"
"Too bad." Roy smiled. "I guess your friend is going to fry." And with that little line, the hologram of Roy was gone, leaving a shocked Pikachu behind.
Meta Knight followed Ribbon and the Axe Knight into an old building, which seemed to have been scorched from the inside out; he really didn't want to question it. The Axe Knight walked over to a pile of rubble and lifted up a plank; underneath the plank was a ladder leading downward. "You first, boss and Lord Meta Knight."
Ribbon gestured at the ladder; Meta Knight went down first, followed by Ribbon, then by the Axe Knight, who closed the plank over the ladder before going down with them. They climbed for what seemed to be an eternity before they reached the ground. At the bottom of the shaft was a simple door. The moment Meta Knight opened the door, light flooded into the shaft as various Kirby universe creatures came into sight.
"They're back!"
"Wait - that's Meta Knight!"
"His friends were lying! He's not in a coma!"
"He obviously got out of it, you imbecile!"
"Woah, look at his face!"
"Wow, what a cutie."
"Now's not the time to be fangirling."
"You have to admit though, he looks pretty cute."
The initial shock and awe quickly turned into a discussion on how cute Meta Knight looked, which greatly embarrassed him. "Here, take my spare mask." The Axe Knight offered. Meta Knight quickly put the mask on, to save himself from the humiliation; he felt really weird with it on, and it reminded him to go look for his normal mask later.
The place was filled with various types of people handling weapons, working on computers, or was oogling Meta Knight. Ribbon dismissed the Axe Knight and led Meta Knight into a meeting room; the only occupants in the room were a Sir Kibble and a Sword Knight. As with everyone else, they were shocked by Meta Knight's appearance.
"Is that really Meta Knight?" the Sir Kibble whispered.
"I believe so. Wrong mask though." the Sword Knight commented.
"Meta Knight, this is Bruce and Lewis, my two helpers." Ribbon said, pointing to the Sir Kibble and Sword Knight respectively.
"Nice to meet you. Ribbon, quick question; why exactly am I here?" Meta Knight asked.
"Well, you are interested in helping Pop Star, right?" Ribbon countered.
"Not like your coward friends." Lewis said. Ribbon smacked him in the face for that comment.
"Rude." the fairy turned back to Meta Knight. "So, what do you have to say?"
Meta Knight pondered on this; he was duty-bound to Pop Star, but he didn't want to cause any trouble with Fox and Pikachu. Those two are his friends after all, and getting into some rebellion shit would likely get them targeted. However, they would probably be proud if he went to help the greater good (although they'd be a bit miffed as well)... and to Meta Knight, potentially helping millions to billions of people was a better choice. "Yes. I'm interested in helping Pop Star."
Ribbon nodded. "Good! You're just like Kirby, except way more mature." She paused. "...What species are you supposed to be anyway? You look like Kirby without the mask."
"Don't even start on that topic."
"Alright then. Bruce?" The Sir Kibble nodded and went to the front of the room, pulling down a screen from the ceiling. He then turned on the projector, showing an image of Ripple Star. "This is my planet, Ripple Star. When those Giygas people shown up, my planet was the only one that avoided getting invaded."
"How?"
She smiled and switched the picture to a giant crystal. "This is a giant crystal; a long time ago, it was broken up and I traveled across the universe with Kirby and friends to get its shards!"
"Thank you for this information, but, well, how is this relevant?" Meta Knight questioned.
"Shush, I'm almost at the good part! Okay, so after we got all the crystal shards on a planet and beat its boss, we used its crystal shard to create a portal. So, when the invasions started happening, my queen used the crystal's portal power..." She paused for dramatic flair. "...to teleport the whole planet somewhere else! Ripple Star isn't even in the same dimension anymore!"
"Interesting... Is it in the same place as Halcandra?"
"Nope. When Ripple Star disappeared in this ball of light and the light went away, we saw that we were in a place made of yarn!"
"You mean..."
"Yup, we teleported Ripple Star to Patch Land!"
Pikachu was scurrying through town yet again to find Meta Knight, this time with more worry and anxiousness. He did not bother asking around, knowing that no one would offer a good answer. Instead, he looked down every alleyway and in every nook and cranny, searching for a place a resistance could be hiding. "Meta Knight, where are you?" He scanned around again and saw someone tall poking out from above the usual Dream Land citizenry. "Fox!"
"Oh! There you are Pikachu! Remember that thing that I said I had no idea you were talking about? Well guess what, I'm finally finished wit-" Fox blabbered over the apathetic civilians.
"Fox, I'm not worried about your dumb whatever! Look, Meta Knight got involved with this rebellion thing, and if we don't stop him from doing something stupid, then he's going to die!" Pikachu exclaimed.
Fox immediately dropped the issue. "Meta Knight? Wow, he's only been awake for a day and he's already causing trouble."
"I know. Which is why it pisses me off so much." Pikachu growled. "Quick, we need to find him!"
"Um, do we have something that's important to Meta Knight, so that we could like, attract him like a wood to a beaver?" Fox suggested.
"That's a weird metaphor, but I see what you're getting at... what does Meta Knight like, though?"
"Wait... I've got an idea..." Fox immediately turned tail and started sprinting for home, with Pikachu following after him.
"...so the crystal teleported the whole planet to the Patch Land realm. Okay, I can definitely see that happening." Meta Knight said. He was not too knowledgeable in the field of Kirby's Epic Yarn, considering that he was either brainwashed or doing something else during its span.
"When we met up with Prince Fluff, he agreed to let Ripple Star hang around his universe. When we told him about Pop Star and how it was broken up, he proposed an idea-" Ribbon elaborated.
"He offered to give her a strand of magic yarn to connect Pop Star back together!" Lewis finished. Ribbon slapped the knight yet again.
"Lewis, it's rude to steal other people's lines while they're still talking! So, Prince Fluff offered to donate one of the magic yarn strands to us, but he said that the sock portal between Dream Land and Patch Land had to be in a safe place first, so he and my queen sent me through the portal to see what's happening." Ribbon clicked and the picture changed; Link was on the screen. "When I came out of the sock, I found that I was in this crazy guy's bedroom! He thought having the sock would be neat, so he kept it in his bedroom... which is weird. So he woke up, screamed at me, and tried to murder me; not bad for being out for only a minute. So I managed to escape that psycho and then the next part came into play. Bruce, would you like to explain?"
"Certainly, miss."
"How come he gets to explain stuff and I don't?" Lewis asked.
"Because you're rude." Bruce responded. "Anyway, Miss Ribbon was found by some of your knights and they rallied around her; honestly, your knights could have fought back against the Giygas threat themselves, but there was so much confusion after Pop Star split up that they were easily overwhelmed. Anyway, Ribbon decided to start up a rebellion, to fight against these wicked people and retrieve the magic sock; she started a resistance cell on many landmass pieces, this one included. She did so because if someone were to get the magic sock and bring it to a safe location, the magic yarn would start sewing Pop Star back up, and in the confusion, the warriors all over the reformed Pop Star can rally attack the warring leaders; it's a nice bit of irony, isn't it?"
Meta Knight nodded, believing this to be a good plan. "I see... Well, what do you want me to do?"
"Alright, since no one would think you're Meta Knight, especially with that mask on, you'll be sneaking into Roy's army." Ribbon continued the slideshow, showing Roy's war propaganda clip Meta Knight saw; minus the incessant arguments. "Then, you'll be heading toward where Link built his capital, which is on one of the Pop Star pieces. Since you'll be accompanied by people in Roy's army, they'll be too busy fighting off Link's guys, and while that's happening, you'll sneak into Link's palace, steal the magic sock, and leave."
It was a lot to digest, but Meta Knight saw that it was all in the realms of possibility. "I'll do it then. Right now, even."
Ribbon looked surprised. "Are you sure you want to do it now?"
"You've only woken up recently, haven't you? You still need to gather your strength." Bruce advised.
"I want to help Pop Star as soon as I can." Meta Knight said, his resolve not weakening.
Ribbon sighed, half in bemusement and half in annoyance. "Okay, if you're really sure about this..."
Over in Neo Star, Roy was in his control room, where two giant screens were set up. The whole room was deserted, leaving the flaming prince alone in the technological heated room. He sat in front of a webcam, impatiently tapping his fingers on the desk. Finally, one of the giant screens swtiched on; Link's face appeared on the screen. The guy was clearly sitting on a throne in front of a pane of glass windows, clearly enjoying himself.
"This was a pleasant surprise, Roy. Are you finally going to surrender your pathetic lands over to me?" Link sneered.
"Like hell I will."
"Oh, I'll end up getting it soon regardless."
"Not unless I go to your palace and fuck you up!" Roy yelled. Then, the other screen switched on, showing a yawning Porky. He was in a different universe entirely (which one, they were not sure), wearing a set of pajamas with a tie on.
"What the hell did I just walk into? Is this some sort of yaoi thing? This dialogue's really suggestive." Porky said.
"Oh shut up you!" Roy yelled.
"Why don't you two just kiss already? That would make a lot of fangirls happy. Heh heh..."
"Are we here to talk about Roy and I's relationship? Why did you call us, Roy? Are you here to gloat about your stupid Mr. Bright Cannon again? Because I've got people to kill, and I don't have time for your bs." Link questioned.
"It's not stupid! Anyway, I called you because Meta Knight finally woke up." Roy said; Link's face remained passive while Porky only raised an eyebrow. "Lord Giygas told Mewtwo to tell me to tell you guys to be careful of him."
"...You're lying." stated Link.
"What? I'm not lying!"
"You just want to get us paranoid enough so that we'd be looking around for Meta Knight; all while you're moving your army into position to kick our asses! Isn't that right? I FUCKING KNEW IT!" Link shrieked, putting his face really close to his webcam so that the others could see his glaring.
"You conniving son of a bitch!" Porky was on Link's side.
Roy was in exasperation. "Guys, I'm telling the truth! And why are you worried, Porky? You're not even in this universe right now!"
"I have my own priorities, so shut your face! Besides, since I'm not there, it'll be easier for you to jack my shit while I'm too busy looking for Stupid Knight!"
"I-"
"This conversation's over. See you later, loser!" Then, something grew out of Porky's back: his spider leg implant. It reached over to the webcam and struck it, taking Porky off of the air.
"I'll be watching for you. I can't wait to gut you like a fish." Link threatened with glee before leaving as well.
Roy slammed his head on his desk. "You guys suck..." He said to the blank screens.
"Yes... this will attract Meta Knight..." Fox murmured as he rifled through the drawers at Kirby's house. He saw what he was looking for and grabbed it before running out of the house; Pikachu, who had finally caught up to him at the house, was less than amused to see him heading back to the village.
"Damn it Fox." Pikachu said scathingly as he turned around and ran after Fox; the Pokémon took a short break, due to all the running he's done today before continuing to follow Fox. As he got back into town, he saw Fox disappear on the teleporter to the other section. Pikachu jumped onto it and when he materialized on the other landmass, he saw Fox standing on top of a cardboard box, holding something in the air: Meta Knight's mask.
"Hey Meta Knight! I got your mask! Come out come out wherever you are!" Fox shouted throughout the entire village. Some people passing by merely spared him a glance. Fox looked around, a bit disappointed by the lackluster results. "...Seriously Meta Knight, I have your mask. ...Aren't you going to beat me up?"
"This isn't working, Fox."
Fox ignored him, continuing to scream out loud. "Meta Knight! If you don't come out, I'll pee on your mask!" This time, the looks he got were that of amusement; those looks quickly turned into horror as an axe flew out of an alleyway and nearly missed Fox. The bystanders were quick to run off as the Axe Knight walked out of an alleyway.
"You better not plan on taking a leak on Lord Meta Knight's mask!" The Axe Knight yelled, waving his axe around like a crazy person.
"I only said that to call him out." Fox said, eyes fixated on the weapon. "...So, do you know where Meta Knight is?"
"Hmph. Meta Knight is meeting up with the resistance heads. You ain't getting in unless you're a member."
Pikachu, finally having enough of these Meta Knight antics, stomped up to the knight and grabbed him by the hand. He conducted a light charge through the Axe Knight's body; it wasn't enough to hurt him, but it was certainly enough to scare him. "I swear, if you don't bring us to Meta Knight, I'll be conducting 200 volts of electricity through you. Got that?"
The Axe Knight was completely terrified. "Alright! I'll bring you to your mate! Just don't shock me!" Pikachu let go of him. The Axe Knight started to lead them toward the entrance of the resistance stronghold, fearing the Pokemon's rage...
To be continued...
Author's Note: Remember kids, if you don't get your way, threaten people with electricity! I'm mentioning once again, I have a fictionpress account, and I would appreciate it if you guys read the dumb thing I'm writing.
Anyway, question time! Will we see Lee's brother? Where in the world is Porky Minch? Seriously, what the hell is Fox working on? How will Ribbon's plan turn out? Find out in the next (maybe) exciting chapter of The War Against Giygas!
