The stormy winds of nightmare blew across the land in a ravenous lashing. Blue and black smog drifted from the shadow cast, splaying outwards to coat the land like phantoms and ghosts. The gale whipped the two on the platform, nearly blowing them all off. Tiff clung to the guard rail like it was a lifeline, Kirby holding it close all the same. Escargoon stood strong against it though, as though it were nothing but a slight breeze.
"Escargoon, please! You have to turn it off! He'll destroy all of Dreamland!" Tiff pleaded over the whirlwind's screeching in her ears. "Who knows what he'll do to the Cappys! If he's threatening you, we can help you!"
Escargoon had looked daggers into her that made her flinch. He looked away, almost dejectedly furious, before he dared to look back at her.
"I don't believe you." Escargoon dropped the glare if only for a second to sigh. "You're just some kid, you wouldn't understand why. You're lucky to not understand."
She just had to convince Escargoon to stop. Sure, no other problem had been solved by talking out before— in Tiff's lifetime or experiences— but maybe this could. She couldn't get close enough to shut it off herself anyways.
"I can understand, Escargoon! If you just tell me!"
Tiff grunted as the wind continued to try and push her over the rail to her doom. She heard eNeMeE's sardonic cackling in the distance. His darkness spread over the skyline faster than the night could've, only making the spotlight brighter. Soon he would swallow the whole horizon, and Stars only knew what would happen then.
If all went awry, Kirby had the Laser ability. Last resort, though, she'd prefer everyone in this situation escape unharmed. After all, what if the light simply exploded when Kirby damaged it enough? Would that be possible, considering the scale of it? She wasn't sure.
"No." Escargoon refused. "I won't. It doesn't involve you, and if I start saying something or other about it, it's going to sound like- ugh."
"You have to tell me! Please, Escargoon!"
"No! I'm not about to blame a child for what happened!" Escargoon stomped his snail foot. "You didn't even know what happened- you still don't know what happened!"
Tiff looked around desperately. Wherever Gryll had gone to, Tiff was certainly hurting for their presence now. Gryll probably flew away after Tiff and Kirby had been pulled into eNeMeE. Which was for the best, but oh man she really wished there was another adult around.
"Whatever's wrong, we can fix it! But not like this, I promise, Escargoon! There has to be some other way than allying with eNeMeE!"
Escargoon's rage faded once more as he dwelled on his obviously desperate situation. Whatever he'd gone through— though he refused to tell her— had affected him deeply enough to do this. He'd done some part of this willingly. She didn't want to believe he wasn't coerced, but considering his evident anger.. Well.
"You just have to reach out to us! Kirby, Meta Knight, me, we'd all help you!"
"Meta Knight." Escargoon scoffed quietly. She could hardly hear it under the brute wind.
eNeMeE giggled. His gaseous form appeared from the smoke and fog, swirling and circling into perfect shape. He looked almost like he did back when she first saw him. She felt the metal she was relying on creak as he'd appeared.
He was just as tall as Dedede had been, his essence drifting back into the cloud and wind. Most parts of him stayed sharp and poignant. Even though he'd been made of that deep inky cloud, she could still see the points of his teeth, the sharp tips of his horns, and that protruding, perfectly rectangular chin.
He was no shadow, now he was just a few steps away from being an actual physical being. If that made any sense, anyways.
"Oh please, you should know a lost cause when you see one." eNeMeE circled around to Escargoon's side, putting his claws around the snail's shoulders. Escargoon flinched, but stayed put.
"The unwillingness to talk, the anger, the desire to help me, I thought you would've seen through those sorts of things." eNeMeE purred maliciously. "You're talking to a possessed person, kid."
Tiff gasped in realization. Escargoon was possessed— just like he'd been back when he and Dedede kidnapped her and brought her to eNeMeE! How could she have not known it sooner? Was she really trying to reason with someone who had been pushed to the side in their mind, unable to truly say how they feel? Someone who was nothing but a puppet?
Escargoon had seemed just as astonished by eNeMeE's admittance as Tiff was, so she had her doubts. Plus, this possession didn't have any clear or subtle physical indications of it happening. She knew the previous one did, but she couldn't exactly remember what it was.
eNeMeE drifted his hand around to tap Escargoon on the cheek multiple times, like he were some dog or horse.
"He's been under my control for quite some time now. Since last night, actually. But you're too busy fretting over Meta Knight to have noticed anything wrong with him." eNeMeE sighed dramatically. "How unfortunate, huh? You thought you were doing everything right, but you let one mistake fly by; you forgot I can possess people."
"I didn't forget," Tiff grunted and put on a mean face to him, "I just thought you were too weak to do it. You were stuck in a room, you could hardly do anything in there!"
"Well, whatever."
eNeMeE floated closer to her. She could feel all of her senses suddenly light with despair, despite her. It must've been some magic thing, because even when she had been in his hand she didn't feel like this. A cold sweat appeared on her furrowed brow.
"I'll make sure to forget you when I'm done here."
eNeMeE's wind turned into typhoon-levels of harsh, lobbing her over the side of the platform. Kirby was rocketed with a huge arc, much farther away from Tiff. Tiff screamed on her way all the way down, scratching at the air as though it would help her.
Her vision span as she plummeted, and just as she thought she was about to hit the ground, as her world would turn black as the storm above, she exhaled and her body went limp in expectation. All that told her that she was still alive was the squeezing of her eyelids. When she dared to peek, she saw she was just a few inches above the hard ground, levitating right above it.
Kirby had caught her from above, and put her onto the ground gently. He exhaled out with relief as they were both unharmed. He really had come in for the save once more with that floating ability.
Tiff collected herself, checking her pulse to feel it going at a million miles per hour— a good sign she was alive right now.
"Thanks for the save, Kirby." She wheezed. Kirby 'poyoed' worriedly.
They both probably had the same thought. With Escargoon under eNeMeE's control, there was no way he could be reasoned with. They would have to beat it out of him.
However, with Escargoon, he wasn't like Dedede. He wasn't like Meta Knight, he wasn't like any other person who they'd beaten the possession out of. He was much more soft, much more squishy, and if Kirby went to town on him there was a good chance it'd be fatal.
Plus, that was only a symptom of the problem; eNeMeE. They needed to root him out, to chop the fish off at the head. If they couldn't help Escargoon through direct action to him, they could certainly stop his possessor. Plus, the demon took priority. He was much more a threat than Escargoon could be.
First, they needed to turn off that lamp. If they couldn't do it from the top, they could try from the bottom. There didn't seem to be any Waddle Dees around anymore— for what reason Tiff wasn't sure— but that just meant it was easier to do what they needed to do.
"We need to find a cable or some generators or something."
Tiff had leaned close to Kirby to tell him. With eNeMeE all around them as wind, the less she talked, the less chance he'd have to hear them. She hoped, anyways. She looked around, but a dark fog was rolling in fairly quick. Thankfully she spotted the lamp's gargantuan cords before they were swallowed whole by the abyssal smog.
She and Kirby sprinted over to it, and Kirby readied his laser ability to cut through a cord, but just as he did, he was picked up by the wind. He blew directly into the platform's metal beams with a loud clang. Tiff gasped as she was yanked by her ponytail up into the air by some invisible force.
As she looked around, she saw ghastly, noodle-esque spirits springing from the darkness. They looked like cartoonish angry snakes, with shark-ish teeth and glowing purple eyes. They hissed and snickered at the pain they subjected the two to.
She could feel their teeth dig into her, and she watched as they bit Kirby all over as well. Kirby kept shooting lasers in an attempt to free himself whilst Tiff swung her fists and feet to smash the chins and faces of the vicious spirits.
Tiff was dropped, and she clutched at her wound. She winced as she made her way back to the cord, the unhurt spirits dashing after her. Like a luchador with a bull, she used herself as a red cape to be pulled away at the last moment.
The spirits snapped onto the cord, their teeth sinking into the thick lining deeply enough to have them course with electricity, spasming and screeching until they faded into puffs of smoke. She wolf-whistled at the other creatures who were harassing Kirby, and they quickly did the same and poofed away as well.
Kirby was dazed for only a moment before he waddled with purpose to the cord. Hoping this would be it, Tiff held her breath.
Then she was grabbed like an ice-cream cone by a shadowy hand and brought into the smog, as was Kirby. He had fired prematurely in an attempt to get something done, but it wasn't enough to sever the thing, only fray one side. Tiff just hoped that would be enough to start a fire and destroy the whole thing.
As she and Kirby were pulled into the darkness, immediately Tiff felt as though she was having the worst migraine of her life. She held her temples with both of her hands and breathed shallowly, squeezing her eyes shut from the pain. Her ears were ringing horribly, and it felt like the very air was trying to destroy her.
"I should've expected it wouldn't kill you, but hindsight's twenty-twenty. Besides, you deserve a better send off than that, I bet. You conspired to imprison me. A little more suffering is in order, I believe."
Tiff's whole body turned frigid cold from fear. She could feel her joints stiffen from paralyzation, her cold sweat returning in abundance. She'd whimpered beside herself, her mind going nearly blank with terror.
"Are you enjoying it so far? That's what's going to happen to all your little Cappy friends." eNeMeE's voice was like a paramount example of her horror. "I really shouldn't explain myself, should I.. Oh, but it's so fun, and you're not really listening anyways so who cares? Your town, this planet, it'll be a battery for me. Fear, horror, terror, whatever you want to call it, I'll keep your little home shrouded in it to feed me. You'll live the rest of your short lives in my darkness, starving, scared.."
eNeMeE chuckled maddeningly. Sadism wracked the darkness around her, as if to tell her what was to come next if she hadn't been listening.
"It'll feel like a dream, or, well.. A nightmare. You see, the worst nightmares aren't the ones you have when you sleep, no, it'll be the one you have in every waking moment of your life. For me, though, ohhh, for me.." eNeMeE hummed sweetly. "Real dream come true. Meta Knight is mine alone for me to torture, I've got a good foothold.. Yes, a real dream. My dream.."
"Then I'll make your dream a real scream." Tiff managed through grit teeth.
eNeMeE paused, then laughed uproariously at her determination despite her fear. Even though her whole body was locked up, even though she could hardly think through her haze of fear, she still had to stand up and not give in. Even if his magic was trying to silence her.
"The audacity of this kid!" eNeMeE spoke through his humor. "You and what army? You and what knights? You and what friends ? Everyone useful to you is dead, passed out, or I've absorbed them. There is no one to help you now. You are in the thick of fear, nowhere to go."
"I will rid the universe of you, eNeMeE!"
She cried out, hoping it would help steel her nerves further, but this was looking to be more and more hopeless. With her being held so tightly, with the inability to see Kirby anywhere, with the overwhelming power he'd displayed.. No, she couldn't think like that, Kirby had destroyed a demon of planetary destruction with the power of friendship— some smoke cloud was completely beneath him!
"Kirby, shoot your lasers to get us out of here!" Tiff cried out, and Kirby did. The lasers cut through the smog, and for brief glimpses she saw his outlines in the light. eNeMeE continued to laugh from the seemingly fruitless attempt at struggle.
But thankfully, eNeMeE had monologued for long enough and hesitated enough to allow Tiff's hope's to come to light. Suddenly, his grip had disappeared entirely and she was once more plummeting to the ground— this time from the cloudline. Then she was grabbed again, by those dark talons, then dropped again, and grabbed, and dropped, as though eNeMeE was having trouble grabbing onto her.
His laughing had stopped as soon as his difficulties started, a wild roar of exasperation thundering across the land.
"Escargoon! Fix that light, now!"
As eNeMeE's butterfingers became increasingly apparent, Tiff turned her gaze light-wards to see exactly what she hoped. It was flickering, and below it, there was a fire. Even though there were multiple cords, a fire like that would be enough to destroy it. The grass around the volcano hadn't been the most wet, after all.
eNeMeE's threatening, domineering smoky body was switching between being non-existent and present as the light's flickering dared to destroy his whole plan. In the distance, too, she could see that the Cappys were paying more than enough attention to the disgusting demon cloud. He'd ripped off roofs with his wind, and seemingly even tore down a few houses. She couldn't tell from her height.
Seems she was going to be getting a closer look, though, because eNeMeE's grip slipped for the last time, and she was once more rushing through the air like a skydiver. Kirby followed her shortly after, and dove after her. The two grabbed hands as they continued down.
eNeMeE thundered above them, his blinking and wavering talons outstretching to bring them back to him. Yet, his movements were rubberbanding back, and he couldn't manage to keep up with gravity due to the lag.
Tiff held Kirby close to her as they fell together. Kirby puffed up once they got close enough down, and the two managed a safe descent and landing rather elegantly considering their circumstances.
They watched as the demon above them disappeared for the last time, and the light had shut completely off. The sun had gone down, leaving the faint glow of dusk in its wake. If there was any time to maim this demon into being completely incapacitated, it was now.
Being this far away from the lamp once more lent Tiff to some new revelations. One, specifically, being the imperative matter of the Star Rod. Its familiar glow stood out on one of the hills in the darkness of the night. It'd brightened up her hopes, but they sank just as quickly. It was snapped into two pieces.
Tiff lamented the Star Rod quietly, then looked to Kirby hopefully. Kirby discarded his Laser ability into a Ability Star, then inhaled one of the two halves. With just one half, he'd produced a brand new Star Rod. He waved it around, like he was testing it. Tiff gasped then smirked confidently. She pocketed the other half, and the two were back on the case.
The fire raged around the entirety of the unpowered lamp by the time they'd gotten there. Tiff could see Escargoon looking over the edge of the platform, and eNeMeE's smoky body on top of the actual body of the spotlight. It was hard to see him against the night sky, he was blending right in. He seemed to have noticed that too, and floated more down to the fire's side.
Then he noticed the Star Rod, and retreated back upwards.
"I think we should get a few shots in, don't you, Kirby?" Tiff suggested. Kirby nodded and smiled, jumping and floating using the power of the Star Rod.
eNeMeE growled, flicking his claws out and crackling electricity between them. Oh yeah, he was definitely getting his powers back. He shot bolts of lightning directly at Kirby before he could even get a single shot in, and Kirby dodged it with expert precision. Then, as soon as Kirby had moved, he shot at Tiff instead. Tiff gasped and dodge-rolled the best she could, but thanks to her injuries from before, she ended up getting zapped, and collapsed.
Kirby shouted for her, forgetting about his battle for only a second.. Until his eyes narrowed with a wild, untameable desire for revenge. A barrage of stars headed directly for the wizard in return now, as Kirby sought to turn him into no more than a gasp of air.
Tiff recovered slowly but surely, hearing the battle overhead turning telling tides over the loud crackles of fire. Lasers were fired, stars were shot, and eNeMeE was being beaten to a pulp just like she'd asked.
She sat up, slowly, holding her bite mark with one of her hands. As Kirby continued to beat eNeMeE, parts of him had turned back into that black liquid again. They were reducing him back into a slime monster.. If they were going to trap him, that'd probably be the best way to do it out of all three forms he'd displayed.
It would've looked close if Kirby hadn't been absolutely relentless. He was tearing eNeMeE goo from goo. It came to its apex when Kirby cried out, and split eNeMeE clean down the middle with the rod. A multitude of things spilled out from him other than screams of agony— that being knights and onion-people.
They dropped directly into the fire, but regained panicked consciousness upon hitting the ground and quickly got themselves out of there. They joined Tiff, and seemed a bit out of it. Barby seemed to have been crying from whatever horrible nightmare eNeMeE had subjected him to.
They watched the spectacle of Kirby's curbstomping with awestruck silence. Like watching a train crash, it was mesmerizing in some horrible way. After a few more seconds, eNeMeE had shrunk decently in size, and parts of his tar had lit up in brilliant cyan at the edges.
On top of that, he couldn't seem to stray as far from Meta Knight anymore, and held tightly to the lamp bulb to keep from falling off. If he did, no doubt he'd take the both of them into the flames.
"Kirby, stop!"
Tiff commanded, hoarsley. Kirby shot her a furious look that immediately melted into a babyish wide-eyed near-bawling one. He rushed over to her side and hugged her tightly. He sniffled and poyoed into her stomach as he hugged her, babbling in baby.
"Barby, ugh-" Tiff winced, aching all over. She felt like she could faint at any moment. "Get- get him, while you still can, this is our only chance to get him!"
Tiff couldn't surrender to her injuries yet. Sword and Blade pulled Kirby off of her and tried to see what had happened to her. Sword put pressure on her bite wound, whilst Blade kept an eye on the currently incapacitied demon.
"EIRUGheiurghuierhtgeuritghiuertgiuhIUERHgtg!" Blade pointed as eNeMeE sprung himself from the lamp, over the fire, and into the grass below with a loud splat. Meta Knight landed soon after with a dull thud. The demon tried to squabble away, but the fire's light had both been a blessing and its very own trap. eNeMeE couldn't venture too much into the night's darkness without losing himself.
"We've got him stuck so long as we have the fire. You need to imprison him, Barby, we're all relying on you right now." Tiff winced again, grunting audibly. "This is the best chance we have.."
Oh wow, she is really sleepy. More sleepy than usual.
Everything's black.