Chapter 2: Cortisol
It was another, boring day in Dreamland, though for a certain masked knight, it was quite eventful.
"No abnormal changes in your reflexes. In fact, they seem to have improved quite a bit."
The one who stated that was Bio Gale, ninja, medic, and doctor (or nurse as she preferred to be called) of the Meta-Knights. He only shifted uncomfortably, further crinkling the paper on the examination table until it ripped. Yes, today was Meta Knight's monthly check-up. Personally, he didn't see the point to them, especially when it was done by someone as overly meticulous as Bio Gale. He was, admittedly, the perfect example of peak health for his kind. Though, it was never a bad idea to get examined once in a while.
"The same can be said about everything else. There's nothing abnormal, just evidence of near-perfect health. However, there is one aspect of your dietary habits that is still quite... concerning."
The pen's clicking only continued to make him even more uncomfortable, causing him to reach for his cape and wrap it around himself to hopefully hide his uncovered expression.
"This might require a bit more investigation... you should not be in such a shape if your diet is as you tell me..."
"Nurse Gale, this examination is over, correct? Then I can get dressed and leave." The knight suddenly spoke.
The kunoichi silently looked over at him. "Not yet. I am still awaiting the results of your laboratory tests. You refused to tell me anything about your family medical history, so I've required you to take those tests."
"I did tell you my family medical history, you told me you would be doing them anyway."
"Ah...that's correct."
He could only respond with an irritated groan. "But you don't need me to remain undressed for that, do you?"
There was a pause, as if the nurse was thinking about that statement. "...it would be a hinderance if I need to investigate further." She uttered aloud, continuing to stand in deep thought, much to the other's annoyance. "But if I had already thoroughly examined you..."
"And you have been doing so for three hours."
She went back to thinking for only a few minutes before giving a response. "Very well. You may get dressed, but do not leave yet. Your laboratory tests should be complete in a few minutes, and I have a few questions to ask you before you leave."
The knight responded with a slightly relieved sigh as the head nurse checked the computer. After a couple of minutes, a sheet of paper printed out of the machine.
"Ah. Your test results have returned."
She took the sheet and carefully read it over. "Everything is perfectly normal. That is quite strange, considering your dietary habits. My only recommendation is that you decrease your intake of sugar and increase your intake of fruits and vegetables."
He tried not to roll his eyes at that, at least when Gale was not looking at him.
"The examination is almost complete, sir. I just have a few final questions." She turned back to him, holding a pen and paper.
"You did this at the beginning of the examination, haven't you?"
"That was about family history and your diet, things that are of immediate concern to me. This is about yourself, as there are some things you cannot tell based on physical examinations alone."
Of course, someone like her would do the full examination out of order, but she was at least doing her job.
"Have you felt unwell in the past few weeks?"
"No."
"Have you had any unexplained aches or pains?"
"Negative."
"Have any accidents happened during training? This includes accidental twisting of body parts and sudden fainting."
"No."
"Last question, have you been getting the right amount of sleep each night?"
"Yes, I have."
"Well then, as usual, Lord Meta Knight, you are in perfect condition. You are free to go. Though if anything happens, I expect you to come here right away." She said with an obvious edge to her voice.
"Understood. Thank you, Nurse Gale."
After replying with that, the knight took his leave.
While walking down the metallic hallways of the main base, he heard a voice from behind him.
"Ah! Good afternoon, sir! How was your checkup?"
Meta Knight turned to see Sailor Waddle Dee, a new member of the Meta-Knights. While he wasn't physically strong like the other members, he was extremely helpful in other ways such as being Meta Knight's assistant, cooking, and housekeeping in general. When asked why he wanted to join, the only thing he responded with was "I'm tired of serving a king that doesn't appreciate me and the other Waddle Dee's hard work.". Upon hearing that, Meta Knight felt that such a determined soul's efforts shouldn't be wasted on someone as lazy and hopeless as King Dedede and accepted Sailor into his knights.
"It was quite alright, Sailor. Long and tedious as well, but that's to be expected from the head nurse."
"I guess it is. What were the results?" the two continued their discussion as they walked down the hall. "Is there anything left on my to do list?"
"Not at all, sir. That was the last thing on it." There was a brief moment of silence as the duo continued walking.
"I see. Then I'm going for a walk. I might as well check up on the other knights while I'm thinking about it."
"Ah, do you mind if I come with you, sir?" The Waddle Dee questioned.
"Not at all."
With a relieved sigh, the Waddle Dee followed after him into another room. The moment they entered; they heard another voice call out to them.
"Ah, there you are, sir. I was looking for you."
"Good afternoon, Vul."
This new voice belonged to Captain Vul, another member of the Meta-Knights and the crew's second-in-command.
"Oh, good afternoon, sir. And good afternoon to you, too, Sailor Dee."
"Good afternoon, Captain Vul."
"You said you were looking for me. Was there something you needed?" the knight asked.
"I'd like to give you a progress report from some of the workers. She's almost done, sir. Just a few more adjustments and she'll be good to go."
Meta Knight's eyes seemed to brighten a bit, as if pleased by this news.
"Excellent work, Vul. I trust that you and the others can get it finished by the end of the day?"
"Not a problem, she'll be airworthy before you know it."
"Thank you, Vul. By chance have you seen the rest of the knights?"
Vul took a moment to think. "Hmm. Oh yeah... I think they went to the cafeteria."
"I see. Thank you."
After saying that, Meta Knight left the room with Sailor Dee following behind him.
When Meta Knight entered the cafeteria the knights immediately stood up in attention.
"At ease, everyone." Their leader said, causing everyone to relax and go back to what they were previously doing. In this case, it was an argument between Axe Knight and Trident Knight.
"I'm telling you; it would be more effective like this!" Axe Knight yelled, slamming a hand down on a large sheet of blueprint paper between them.
"No, it wouldn't. It needs more length to be useful." Trident Knight replied, slowly losing his temper.
"Who cares about that if it can't hurt anything?!"
"It doesn't have to hurt anything; it just has to pin the enemy down."
"Why bother with pinning them down when you can just go for the kill?"
As the duo's stalemate kept going, Meta Knight walked up to Mace Knight, who was doing his best to ignore the argument and eat lunch.
"Mace Knight, what are they fighting about now?"
Mace Knight gave a sigh before responding. "They want to make some kind of mechanical weapon, but they can't agree on what to do."
The moment that Mace finished talking, both Axe and Trident turned to Meta Knight.
"Sir, which do you prefer, lobster or crab!?" They both asked at the same time.
"...lobster."
Their leader's blunt reply made Axe happy and Trident... quite the opposite, even causing him to lose his temper.
"Well if that's all, I'll see you later. I'll be taking a walk outside."
"...shouldn't we stop them, sir?" Sailor Dee looked at Axe and Trident with a worried expression.
"Once those two start, they can't be stopped. You'll get used to it, Sailor."
Mace nodded and added. "The boss is right, kid. Those two have been like this for as long as I've known them. Best learn how to drown them out."
And with that said, Meta Knight left before he could be asked more bizarre questions.
After Sailor went off to do some housework, Meta Knight decided to take a walk outside. There were honestly two things about the location of his base that he liked. The first thing was how remote it was. The second was the fact that he could walk outside at any time to a beautiful sunset due to being located on one of the islands in Orange Ocean. He honestly couldn't figure out why, but he just found this particular area calming to his soul. While walking on the shoreline, he began to hear twinkling sounds, like starts hitting the ground.
"What could that be?" he thought, beginning to walk in the direction of the sound, which was further up on the shoreline.
Upon reaching the source, he noticed that it was a familiar face.
"...Kirby?"
It was indeed Kirby, but now he was a light blue color and wearing a crown made of ice. But the second thing that hit him was the entire area Kirby was in. It was now completely covered in snow and ice, even part of the sea was frozen over. In fact, Meta Knight had to wrap his cape around himself to guard against the sudden drop in temperature. As for the child himself, he appeared to be playing around with this Copy Ability, sprinkling snow, and turning objects into ice cubes and knocking them away. He decided at that point to watch a bit. Some of the movements and attacks Kirby was performing with the Copy Ability were...different. When he first saw this ability, it was nowhere near as developed, but there was no doubt that it was the "Ice" ability. From what he could recall, Kirby could only use ice breath with this ability, at least from when they last met. This was him using various other means to sprinkle ice around himself. The child could even mimic the Freeze ability's attack, and that was at one point its own separate ability. Has he truly grown that much since they last met? Has he grown enough that he has developed the ability to merge two separate Copy Abilities into one brand-new ability?
Shortly after that thought, the child seemed to notice him and turned in his direction.
"Ah! Mister...I mean, Meta Knight!" he used his Copy Ability to skate over towards the knight. "It's been a really, really long time, hasn't it!"
From what the knight could remember, it had only been about five months since they had last saw each other during the Fountain of Dreams crisis.
"What are you doing here, Kirby?" he asked, looking around at the now-frozen area.
"I was just practicing one of my Copy Abilities!" Meta Knight looked behind him at the now-frozen beach area.
"I can see that. But why are you on this island? I'm sure you have better places to practice."
"Poy...I went swimming today but was so tired that I fell asleep and washed up on this shore."
That was...quite unusual. Why would he go swimming if he was that tired? "You seem to have quite a lot of energy despite being so tired."
"Poyo...I think I'm still tired from the past few weeks...like two days ago Dedede challenged me to this thing called the Gourmet Race. It was fun, but tiring, since we got to eat a lot of yummy food while running!"
The puff couldn't see it, but the knight frowned upon hearing that.
"So that foolish king has time for games but when his own kingdom is in trouble, he's too much of a coward to do anything..." He thought to himself, but then continued to listen.
"Last week, I went exploring in a cave. Then two weeks before that, I went to fight Dyna Blade because she was ruining all the crops! Turns out, that was 'cuz she had babies, so I had to help raise them for the next few weeks until they flew off yesterday."
And no one else batted an eye to that? Meta Knight did his best to suppress his slowly rising frustration as he continued to listen.
"Oh, and last month, there was this incident at the Rainbow Islands with a guy called Dark Matter!"
The knight froze a bit upon hearing that. "...Dark Matter?"
"Yeah, Dark Matter! He possessed Dedede and some other people and was doing a bunch of mean things to others!"
That was...one way to describe Dark Matter. There was more to it than that, though. The knight had remembered hearing about Dark Matter quite some time ago. Not too much was known about it except that it was best described as a sentient ball of negative emotions and energy. By that logic...why would such a thing be on this planet? No, that wasn't important right now. Dark Matter was an extremely dangerous enemy that no one should be able to reasonably handle alone, at least without proper assistance. Hell, even Kurabe said that she needed an entire nation's army backing her unit up to defeat one. Just one.
"Kirby, did you receive any assistance during your fight with Dark Matter?"
"Yup! My friends Rick, Kine and Coo!"
"...I see." The knight quickly turned away, hiding the fact that his eyes were beginning to flicker to red.
"Oyo?" Kirby uttered in a worried tone.
"Only 4 people actually did anything about Dark Matter!? Only 4!?" He barely managed to discreetly slip a lemon drop under his mask. "And one of them was a literal child!?"
"Meta Knight, are you ok, poyo?" The pink puff questioned in a tone more increasingly worried than the last.
"Goodbye, Kirby."
"Wait, Meta Knight...!" before anything else could be said, the knight wrapped himself in his cape and vanished. Slightly panicked, the child looked around the area for a moment, but gave a sad sigh when he realized the knight was now gone.
Meanwhile, Meta Knight had begun his trek back to his main base.
"...next time we meet, I do not doubt that it will be as enemies..." he uttered under his breath.
Upon returning to the main base, Meta Knight ordered Sailor Dee to gather everyone to the furthest part of the main base. Once everyone had gathered there and the chattering died down, the knight wasted no time getting into business. The way he stood told the gathered crowd that this matter was quite serious.
"I was told that Dreamland is a land of many possibilities, a land that could offer me plenty of challenges. Not only that but was a peaceful land of beauty and prosperity. Indeed, its appearance is befitting of that title, but there is one thing that was never addressed. Ever since we've arrived here in Dreamland, I've noticed a growing issue everywhere I look. This planet's inhabitants are too lazy to effectively defend themselves and this planet. This planet has already been attacked by two of the most dangerous beings in the galaxy, Nightmare and Dark Matter. If not for Kirby and his small number of allies, this planet would have been destroyed twice over, or subjected to an even worse fate. The self-proclaimed king is too incompetent, too irresponsible, and too lazy to correctly protect his kingdom, even becoming a puppet of Dark Matter! The citizens rather ignore whatever problem they have rather than tackling it! I say no more! It's clear that many powerful beings have already and will continue to come here to Planet Popstar, for what reasons I am unsure of. But what I am sure of is this: as long as this inherent laziness exists, this planet is doomed to meet its end. This entire planet only has one champion defending it. This champion isn't even native to this planet and is still risking his own life to protect it. Yet the actual residents can't even be bothered to care? I say no more. I'm going to give Dreamland the wakeup call it needs. I won't allow such a beautiful planet be destroyed by sheer incompetence. Are you with me!?"
The crowd roared back with a common response. "YES, MY LORD!"
A slight smile formed under his mask. "Then, follow me, as we shall to the skies and conquer what lies beneath our feet."
Meta Knight and his crew walked onto a large metal battleship, equipped with wings and advanced weaponry of all kinds.
"Welcome aboard, everyone. You are all now the crew of the Halberd."
Honestly, I hope this isn't progressing too fast for everyone. Let me know if you have any constructive criticism!
Omake (Bonus)
(On the Battleship Halberd)
Captain Vul: What a week, huh?
Sailor Dee: Captain, it's Wednesday.