Heres the next chapter, and the beginning of Popstar, not much else to say but enjoy.

Running through the grasslands of popstar, our group of 5 were searching everywhere for crystal shards, well everyone but Eddy who was content on sitting on a rock.

Ed however got the idea to look under a rock and lifted it up knocking the short Ed off of it. "What's the big idea, monobrow!?" Eddy said cracking his back from his rocky seat.

"I thought I saw a crystal shard Eddy." Ed admitted sheepishly picking up a shiny rock.

Ribbon sighed at the aimless searching they were doing. "We're not going anywhere if we're looking like this."

Double D noticed the Crystal in Ribbon's hands for a second and had an idea. "Ribbon if I may, can you point your crystal west for a second,I want to test a theory."

While she was a little Confused on what the sockhatted boy asked she was a little curious, Ribbon decided to turn left for a brief moment when Double D noticed a change.

"Hmm the crystal seems to glow brighter when you turn in that direction I wonder.." Kirby ran over to where Ribbon was looking at and found something in the bushes.

"Found one!" He said picking up a crystal shard and taking it back to Ribbon as the crystal glowed stronger when he got closer.

Ribbon realized what Double D was thinking as the crystal she was holding absorbed the crystal Kirby found.

"Of course, I remember during my training the Queen mentioned that the crystal could find its shards if shattered!" She recalled gleefully.

Eddy walked over still annoyed from falling off the rock. "Great, we have a metal detector, now what?" He tapped his foot impatiently.

Pointing the Crystal around Ribbon saw it got brighter when it was pointed towards a nearby cabin. "It's possibly in that shack, we might as well check inside for it." Ribbon noted.

Ed pointed his finger triumphantly "To grandmother's house we go!" He called out as he trotted towards the cabin.

Kirby curiously turned to Eddy. "Is he normally like this?" He asked. "Eh you learn to somewhat tolerate it. Though barely." Eddy deadpanned.

Kirby however only smiled at this. "Well I think it's cool!" He said running off after the large Ed with Ribbon and the other two Ed's behind the happy go lucky duo.

The quartet soon entered the cabin with Double D looking a bit nervous about breaking and entering. "Why couldn't we just ask the resident of this cabin if they had the crystal inside their dwelling?" He complained.

Eddy shook his head. "Hey if I saw a free crystal come through my window I would keep it to myself!" He argued.

Ribbon nodded. "You're kinda both right, we should use diplomacy if we can, but if all else fails we'll have to fight to get a crystal." She explained to which the boys around her nodded.

Turning around a crate the quartet saw a large round creature with grey fur with two small tufts resembling ears wandering around.

Kirby recognized the creature. "I think that's an N-Z, they're pretty harmless… I think.." He said, shrugging.

The N-Z then saw the group and then immediately charged at them, thinking quickly the quintet dodged in various directions.

"Oh it's harmless!" Eddy sarcastically said recovering from that dodge while Kirby had a sheepish grin.

"Hold on I can stop it!" He said, trying to fix his mistake. Kirby then noticed a small square block with a star marked on it and quickly put the pieces together.

Opening his mouth he started to inhale creating a small wind vortex inside it as it sucked the star block inside his mouth much to the shock of his companions.

Kirby then spat out a small star projectile at the N-Z stunning it briefly before it charged at the puffball who quickly jumped and inflated his body to hover over the charging beast before landing back with the group.

Double D was amazed with Kirby's unique abilities. "I must ask, what was that?" He asked the puffball.

"That's my inhale, I can suck up items and spit them out as a star!" Kirby cheerfully explained.

Ribbon politely interrupted their small conversation. "Well that's pretty good, but it didn't knock out the N-Z!" She pointed towards the beast that shook its head in aggravation.

Noticing what Kirby did. Ed picked up a star block and tossed it hard at the N-Z. "Taste Star rock fiend!" He proclaimed as the N-Z was hit again turning its attention to Ed before being hit by another block.

Turning towards it's attacker the N-Z saw Eddy casually whistling innocently kicking a block away, before the N-Z could charge Kirby spat another block at it knocking it down.

When it got back up it had tears in its eyes and ran out of the cabin not wanting anymore pain. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" Eddy jokingly said out the window.

Searching the cabin, Double D found a small red chest that seemed pretty suspicious. Curious he opened it up revealing the crystal shard and some sort of painting set.

Deciding that it could be important he took both items and went back to the group. "I believe I found the crystal the N-Z was holding, it was locked in a treasure chest." He explained handing the crystal to Ribbon.

Ribbon pointed the crystal around and noticed it got brighter when it was pointed at a small pond outside.

"Looks like there's one over there, come on!" She fluttered out of the window with Kirby and Eddy hopping outside the window, with Edd politely taking the back door and Ed smashing through the wall.

Ribbon fluttered to the pond and frowned when she realized that the crystal was under some rocks.

"Great, how are we gonna get past these rocks?" She sighed as the group caught up to the fairy.

Eddy cooly snapped his fingers. "Simple Fairy Chick: Ed, go dig that crystal out!" He ordered his tall friend, who gave a small salute as he started to dig on the rocks.

"Dig a hole, Dig a hole!" Ed chuckled as he dug, though he was making little progress doing so.

As the group watched Ed dig Kirby noticed something nearby, it was a small humanoid creature hopping up and down with a small blue nightcap on its head.

"A Poppy Bro, this could help speed things up!" Kirby noted before running over to the small creature.

"Hey I bet you can't give me a bomb sandwich!" He taunted towards the Poppy Bro who seemed to take that remark as a challenge.

It pulled out a large black bomb out of hammerspace and tossed it at Kirby intending for it to blow up right in his face, Kirby then used his inhale to suck up the bomb.

Then Kirby swallowed it causing his body to glow as a small party hat appeared on his head with him now holding a lit bomb in his hand. "Bomb Kirby! Prep a huge bomb, aim it, and-KA-BOOM!" He announced.

Seeing how Kirby could easily blow him up, the Poppy bro. fled in a panic as Kirby looked towards the rocks where Ed was still digging and took aim.

Back at the rocks Ed was making little progress from where he started as Eddy and Ribbon boredly watched with Double D writing something in his journal. When they heard Kirby's voice call out.

"Look out guys!" Before they could ask a small black bomb landed on the rocks making everyone's eyes widen before they sped out of the way of the attack. With a small explosion resembling fireworks, the rocks were destroyed revealing the crystal underneath.

Kirby then walked over looking proud of his work and picking up the shard when his friends came over looking awestruck.

"How did you create that explosion so easily!" Double D said feverishly while writing down notes while Ed commented "Cool hat! Can I have one?"

Kirby simply shrugged. "That's my copy ability, I can use my inhale to suck up enemies attacks and copy their powers, in this case I swallowed a Poppy bros. Bomb and gained my bomb ability. As for the hat, it's just a neat bonus with that copy ability so I don't think you can have it, Ed sorry."

Double D finished writing down notes on the bomb ability and was still a little intrigued by the concept of Copy abilities. "I hope you don't mind me recording notes based on these abilities, any new knowledge is great."

Kirby simply shrugged. Ribbon however was happy to find out about the Copy Ability. "Well this will make our search for the shards much easier!" She smiled towards Kirby who blushed at the compliment.

Eddy was getting impatient so he called out to Ribbon. "So where's the next crystal, Fairy Girl?"

After pointing in a few directions Ribbon pointed east, "Over there, come on!" She directed the group as they headed towards the next crystal shard.

Meanwhile in a nearby clearing, a young Waddle Dee was walking around dismayed, he wanted to apply to be a part of King Dedede's royal guard but he was worried he didn't have what it takes and abandoned the interview.

Now he was just feeling embarrassed for himself about bailing on his one chance to be working for the king. As he was trudging along he felt something hit his foot. Looking down the Waddle Dee saw a small crystal on the ground.

"Huh what's this?" He poked at it twice before picking it up and inspecting it. "I wonder if the King would like this?" He mused as he then felt like something was behind him.

However upon turning around to see what it was he saw only his shadow. Shrugging and thinking it was his imagination he tossed the crystal in his other hand before happily turning around to go see the king.

When he turned he saw a round black creature with a glowing red Eye staring him down. "Uh… hi… was this yours…" The Waddle Dee nervously said, dropping the crystal.

The creature then floated up with the orange orbs around its body rotating around. Paralyzed with fear the Waddle Dee didn't escape as the dark creature swooped down onto him.

The Waddle Dee didn't have time to scream as darkness consumed him.

Soon our group of five arrived at the clearing and immediately noticed the Waddle Dee's body lying on the ground.

"Huh, what's wrong with that Waddle Dee?" Kirby asked as Ed noticed something on the ground next to him.

"Crystal Ahoy!" Trotting over Ed was about to pick up the crystal, the Waddle Dee's body sprung up, kicked Ed away and grabbed the crystal.

The Waddle Dee's appearance had changed to now have a grotesque large eye on its body along with 3 strands of hair in its head.

"Oops my mistake, It's a Waddle Doo!" Kirby said as the "Waddle doo" started moving around in strange ways.

"It looks like it's kinda drunk." Eddy commented as Ed picked himself up from being kicked.

"I doubt it could drink due to its mouth being a giant eye Eddy." Double D countered.

Kirby concentrated and suppressed his bomb ability in his stomach. "Well I suppose I could use the beam ability.." he noted as he started to inhale but the Waddle Doo noticed this and fired a powerful beam from his eye knocking Kirby back, shocking his friends.

Ed immediately got up and picked up the Waddle Doo as it struggled to get out of his hands. "Stop harming my friends cyclops!" He said before Slamming the Waddle doo into the ground embedding it headfirst in a small crater.

"Nice one lumpy!" Eddy cheered as both Ribbon and Double D looked disturbed as Kirby picked himself up and saw the damage.

"Woah, good job Ed! But I think you overdid it there." Kirby nervously chuckled as Ed just gave a small salute as he picked up the crystal shard the Waddle doo had.

He gave it to Ribbon who was still disturbed by Ed's brutal strength. "Here you go, young fairy!" Ed said smiling with his previous anger pretty much gone.

"Uh Thanks Ed… remind me not to make you mad.." She shuddered as the crystal shard was absorbed into her Crystal.

The quintet left the scene as the Waddle Doo's body turned a murky black as the dark matter Solider left its puppet clearly dazed from the powerful hit it just took before flying off.

After a few seconds of wiggling the Waddle Dee popped out of the hole. Looking around he saw the quintet leaving the small clearing and put the pieces together.

"They saved me?" He asked himself before gaining some courage to catch up to them. "Hey wait up!" The Waddle Dee called out to them.

The group turned around to see the small Dee run up to them. "Hello Waddle Dee!" Kirby smiled.

"Uh, I wanted to say thanks for saving me…" He shyly said, making the group confused.

"What do you mean save you? This is the first time we met from my understanding ." Double D asked as the Waddle Dee decided to clear things up.

"Well I found this shiny thing on the ground and it looked like that thing the fairy is holding." He started his story pointing at Ribbons crystal.

"Then this weird black monster attacked me and the next thing I know I was face down in the dirt and you guys were leaving." He finished, but his story made Ribbon pale.

"Dark matter is here…" She said almost in a trance like state, snapping out of it, Ribbon decided to elaborate on what was going on to the three Ed's and the Waddle Dee.

"What probably happened to you Waddle Dee was that you became possessed by dark matter, and that Waddle doo we fought was you under their control." Ribbon explained.

The Waddle Dee rubbed the back of his head. "Gee Sorry about hurting you, I guess if it's alright.. can I come with you guys?" He asked.

Ed immediately vouched for the Waddle Dee. "Can we keep him Eddy! I can feed him and walk him!" He begged.

Kirby didn't seem to mind either. "An adventure is always better with more friends! So I'm for it."

Eddy rolled his eyes. "Alright he can come, where's the next crystal fairy girl?" He asked Ribbon who pointed her crystal around before it became brighter near a forest.

Waddle Dee spoke up. "It's in Quiet forest, it isn't as big as Big forest in the Rainbow islands but it still got massive trees that almost block out the sun." He described the area ahead.

"Well that's where the next crystal shards are I suppose, let's make haste!" Double D said as the now expanded group of six headed towards the forest.

Before you ask, yes Waddle Dee is that Waddle Dee, the games have hinted towards it, so I'm gonna hint a little bit towards it as well. But here's something that the Kirby series has done a lot in the modern era, Pause screen boss lore!

Vs Waddle Dee: This dejected Waddle Dee became the first victim of Dark Matter's attack on Popstar, it was attracted to his sadness towards being worried about his lack of identity.

Anyways Please Read and Review!