Disclaimer: I do not own Kirby or any related characters, just Hikaru.

Chapter Three

Out In Pupu Village

Hikaru's POV

"How the heck do you guys run without legs?" I asked as I finally caught up to them. I didn't receive a response, which really didn't surprise me. We ran inside of the castle and made a whole bunch of turns until we came to a huge wooden door with a weird sign on it. Fumu pushed the door open and smoke came rushing out of the room and onto our faces. We all coughed until the smoke cleared out, and there standing in the middle of the room was an overgrown snail with a chubby duck...penguin...thing. There were bolts and metal material scattered all over the room, with little sparks of fire everywhere

"Can't you do anything right?!" the penguin yelled at the snail.

"It's not my fault it blew up!" the snail yelled back.

"Of course it is! You're the one who was fixin' it!" Before the snail could say anything else, the penguin took out a mallet out of nowhere and proceeded to beat the snail with it.

"What are you up to this time, Dedede?" Fumu yelled, interrupting the two.

The penguin stopped beating the poor snail and looked up at Fumu with a sour look on it's face. "It's none of your business, so go play with you dolls or somethin'!"

I heard Fumu growl a little, but she turned around and closed the door anyway. "Who were they?" I asked her.

"The penguin was Dedede, and the snail was Escargon," she huffed. "They're the worst!"

"Dedede orders Demon Beasts from time to time so he can get rid of Kirby," Bun continued. "And lately, even though Demon Beasts aren't supposed to exist anymore, a whole bunch have been showing up! We've been asking Dedede if he knows about it, but he doesn't know anything about this either."

I lowered my eyes. "Demon Beasts..."

"Uh-huh," Fumu nodded her head. "They're these nasty demons who were created by an evil creature of darkness named Nightmare. When we defeated Nightmare we thought Demon Beasts would stop appearing and life would go back to normal, but so far it hasn't worked...in fact, its gotten worse."

Well, it's apparent that they don't know about Dark Dream. "Oh...well, why does...Dedede...want to get rid of this little guy?" I asked, looking at Kirby.

"Dedede just doesn't like him," Fumu sighed, crossing her arms. "It's ridiculous..."

"Sounds like jealousy to me," I said, smirking a little bit. "Anyways, how did you guys get into this castle? Does the king of this place know you guys or something?"

"Yeah, Dedede knows because we live here," Bun said.

My eyes widened. "Whoa, you never said anything about that penguin being the king. Honestly, I thought he was a jester- wait, you live in this place?"

"I know, it's hard to believe that he's the king," Fumu said. "And yes, we live here."

"Wow. That's pretty cool- WAH!" I suddenly landed flat on my bottom and shook my head. "What the heck-?!" A whole bunch of little blob things that looked something like Kirby knocked me down while running and bumping into me. One little blob with a huge eye was walking behind all of the rest when he stopped to look at me before looking at Bun and Fumu.

"Have you two received a new pet?" he asked them.

I felt my face heat up with anger. "Do I look like some kind of animal to you?" I mumbled in an annoyed voice.

"Ah, it's a parrot!" the one-eyed blob squeaked. "I hear these creatures are very intelligent! Although I don't remember parrots ever looking as odd and bald as this..."

You could probably tell how much I struggled to keep myself from grabbing that little one-eyed thing and shaking him around. "Very well!" the one-eyed blob said as he walked away. "Take good care of it!" When he was out of sight, I turned my head towards Bun and Fumu and I could tell they were trying not to laugh at me.

"That was so stupid," I mumbled, crossing my arms. "Who the heck was that guy?"

"That was Waddle Doo, the leader of the Waddle Dees," Bun explained, chuckling a little. "They're Dedede's little slaves- I mean...helpers."

"Well remind me to give Waddle Doo a piece of my mind later," I huffed. "Who does that guy think he is, calling me some stupid parrot?"

"Well, I don't blame him," Fumu said, putting her hands on her hips. "I mean, you are new to Pupupu Land. It's only natural that people here would think you were odd-looking."

"Well then...is there any chance that you could give me a little tour of this place?" I asked. "I mean, I might be stuck here for a while."

Fumu looked up at the ceiling. "Well...I guess I can," she sighed. "Sure, why not?"

"Thank you," I smiled and stood up. This way I can become familiar with this place. "Lead the way!"

***

"...and this is our house," Fumu said, opening the door and walking inside.

"Wow, this is pretty cool!" I said, stepping inside behind her. "So...how did you guys come to live in this castle?"

"Our dad works for Dedede," Bun explained. "The way he treats us and our parents really suck, but we don't really have a choice. If someone goes against Dedede, we'll get the "death penalty", or something like that, which usually means we'll get in big trouble...but we usually don't listen to him."

I looked down, reflecting on Bun's words. "Yeah...I know how you guys feel," I sighed.

Fumu turned around to look at me. "What do you mean by that?" she asked me.

Geez, I really need to learn how to keep my big mouth shut! "Er- oh, nothing," I said, trying to blow off the subject. "I was just...you know..." Fumu kept staring at me oddly, so I broke away from her gaze and walked towards the balcony, looking out into the distance.

"Your planet's really beautiful," I said.

"It gets kind of boring sometimes," Bun said, walking up next to me along with Fumu and Kirby. "But it's still okay."

My eyes wandered around until I spotted a little village. "Hey...what's that place over there?" I asked, pointing towards the village.

"That's Pupu Village," Fumu said. "That's where we normally go when we want to get out of the castle or see our friends."

"Can you take me there?" I asked, looking down at her. "I'd really like to see it."

"Okay," Fumu said, turning around and heading towards the door. "Follow me."

***

As we walked down the dirt path away from the castle, I saw something floating towards us in the distance. There were two of them and they were shaped like a ball, one blue and one pink with a bow on the top of its head.

"Fumu!" the pink one called out.

"Bun!" the blue one shouted.

"Kirby!" they both yelled.

We stopped walking and the little ball things floated up to us. "Lololo, Lalala, there you are!" Fumu exclaimed. "I was wondering where you two were."

"We were in Pupu Village," the pink ball began.

"...when the ground started shaking." finished the blue ball.

"That was Dedede working on something stupid again," Bun explained. "It's nothing we should be worrying about, though. It blew up in his face."

"Bun, it issomething that we should worry about!" Fumu suddenly spoke up. "Dedede's working on something bad again! Just because it was destroyed doesn't mean he'll try to get it rebuilt again!"

"You're being paranoid again..." Bun sighed.

"Um...guys?" I spoke up. "Don't forget about me."

"Oh? Who are you?" the two ball things asked together, as if they had just noticed me.

"My name is Hikaru. What's yours?"

"My name is Lololo," the blue one said.

"And my name is Lalala," the pink one chirped.

"Lololo and Lalala...it's nice to meet you," I bent down so I could whisper into Fumu's ear. "Can we go now?"

"Oh, right," Fumu said. "Lololo, Lalala, we're showing Hikaru around. Would you like to come with us?"

That wasn't exactly what I had in mind..."Yeah...sure, why not? The more the merrier..." I muttered. I was surprised that neither Fumu or Bun could hear the sarcasm in my voice.

"Sure, that sounds like fun!" Lalala said excitedly.

"We'll help show you around!" Lololo agreed.

***

Some time passed, and we were finally at the end of the village, when all of a sudden, the ground began to shake and tremble violently. All of the Cappies on the street screamed and ran for cover, ducking behind trash cans and running inside of their homes.

"Hey!" Bun shouted. "What's going on?!"

"Look!" Lalala cried.

"Over there!" Lololo finished.

A large mechanical monster that looked something like a bear with glowing red eyes and iron spikes sticking out of its back appeared in the distance in the direction of where the castle was. The metal material shone brightly, and it had extremely large claws. When it saw us, it growled and it's teeth looked like large knives.

"It's another Demon Beast!" Bun shouted.

"No!" Fumu disagreed. "I think that's the thing Dedede was trying to build eariler! He rebuilt it again!"

"Grrr..." the mechanical bear growled again, and quickly began to run towards us, knocking over random wooden crates that were left out on the street because of the Cappies' scramble. When the bear was close enough, he jumped and pounced at us, claws outstretched.

"Poyo!" Kirby swiftly jumped in front of us and took the blow, but he ended up being pushed back into us, and we were all sent flying in different directions. While in the air, I managed to do a back-flip and I landed safely on my feet. I looked up in time to see Fumu, Bun, Lololo and Lalala crash into the ground, but I saw Kirby standing up again with a bold, challenging expression on his face.

"Poyo! Bwing it!" he said, taking a step forward.

The mechanical bear roared fiercely and lunged forward towards the little puffball. Kirby jumped up and dodged, landing behind the bear, but the bear unexpectedly turned and hit Kirby with its paws, sending the pink puffball flying through the air. When he hit the ground, he made a sound that immediately made me feel somewhat guilty that I wasn't trying to help him. I was about to take a step forward, when a thought suddenly passed my mind: Wait...what if that thing could kill Kirby? That would mean one less creature that I'd have to kill myself...

I exhaled slowly and sat down on the ground, watching as Kirby slowly stood up, trembling a little.

"Poyo!" he regained his stance and watched the bear carefully as it began to circle around him.

"Grrr..."

"Poyo..."

"Grrrargh!" The bear pounced towards Kirby again, and he dodged, landing safely on the ground. He bear turned and growled in a low tone. It stepped back a few feet before standing on its hind legs and outstretching its arms towards Kirby. Its claws began to extend until they were about five feet long, and then they were shot out of their position like missiles. Kirby dodged a few of them, and when they hit the ground they burst into flames.

I then saw movement where the broken crates were. Fumu stood up along with Bun, and together they yelled, "Kirby, inhale it!"

My eyes then turned to Kirby, who stopped dodging and began to open his mouth...

And that's when I opened mine: "What the hell?!"

He began to suck up the missiles and when the bear stopped firing, he swallowed them. He swallowed them. I watched in complete astonishment as he jumped into the air and began some kind of transformation. It started with an emerald jewel forming, then a crown followed it, and it was placed on Kirby's head. Flames suddenly burst from the crown, and Kirby's skin was colored a faint red. He landed back down on the ground and faced the bear again.

"What...what just happened?" I asked no one in particular.

"He has transformed into Fire Kirby."

"Who said that?!" I looked around frantically. "W-was I just imagining things?"

"No, you did not."

I felt something brush past my side and I looked down. There was a short, round creature standing right next to me. It had some kind of mask on with armour and it looked like it had a cape wrapped around it. It suddenly looked at me with extremely intimidating (and just a little bit scary) oval-like amber eyes.

"Holy crap!" I quickly scrambled backwards, and felt a rock while doing so. Without really thinking, I picked it up and threw it at the creature, who easily dodged it, just by leaning to the side a little.

"Care to tell why you did that?" it asked me.

"You scared the crap out of me!" I responded, standing up. "Now who are you and why did you-"

Without warning the creature suddenly lunged towards me and pushed me, knocking me to the ground. I grunted and slowly sat up, looking at the creature angrily, who had its back turned towards me. "Hey! I know I threw a rock at you, but you didn't have to push me down!"

The creature turned slightly and pointed ahead. "Look."

I looked in the direction of where he was pointing and saw the mechanical bear lying on the ground, in flames. It began to shake violently before exploding.

"Wait...you pushed me out of the way so I wouldn't get hit?" I looked back down to see the creature again, but it was gone. "H-hey! Where did you go?!" I quickly stood up and looked around. "Sheesh...was that thing really there?"

"Yes, I was."

I gasped and turned around quickly to see the same creature standing right behind me. "H-how...but you were just..."

"Sir Meta Knight!"

"Meda Knigh!"

Fumu, Kirby, and the rest ran up to the creature and I.

"Did you see where that mechanical bear came from?" Fumu asked.

"Yes," the creature replied. "I was in the room, when Dedede and Escargon had successfully repaired it."

"I knew it! I was right!" Fumu said.

"Wait a minute!" I said, waving my arms in the air. Immediately everyone looked at me. "Who is this guy?" I asked, pointing at the creature.

"Oh, right," Fumu sighed. "Hikaru, this is Sir Meta Knight. He works as Dedede's soldier along with Sword and Blade, but they don't seem to be here right now...anyways, Sir Meta Knight, this is Hikaru. We found her lying in the field when we were outside playing."

I felt myself tense up. "So you're Meta Knight..."

End of Chapter Three