Kirby didn't know where he was for a spell, as everything had blacked out on the star warrior following his battle against "Mario". He could feel something earthly and soft underneath him, and for a time he wondered if he had truly died and gone off into some heaven of sorts, free from that monster's control—he perished the thought very quickly, pointing out that if a benevolent goddess of light was one of the many casualties of this battle, on top of this monster messing the entire world up, there'd really be no safe haven away from it unless Kirby forcibly took a stronghold from the enemy forces. It took the lad some time, but he finally realized that everything was so dark because his eyes were closed, so he sat himself up and wiped away whatever debris was on his face before slowly opening his eyes. When he did, he found that he was actually where he first met "Mario" rather than where he thought he would land after plunging off of the hilltop—speaking of which he noticed that everything seemed to be back to normal in that the hilltop wasn't so high up above the ground anymore. If Kirby had any doubts that this was the work of that monster, they were henceforth banished from his mind, though a part of him wondered if it was all a dream. He didn't see the Smoky Progg that was controlling "Mario" anywh—

'…' Right on cue there was that familiar humming sound that Kirby recognized, and he looked around to find the source of it. Not having to search for much longer, Kirby had found his target: the Smoky Progg creature he had battled against earlier. Now it was unbound from "Mario", more than happy to have its freedom once again. With it no longer in an apparent fighting mood, Kirby had approached the creature with caution hoping to get some sort of explanation from its forced aggression toward him. Though initially startled by the star warrior's presence, the creature had steadily calmed itself seeing how Kirby was not there to fight—and if it remembered correctly then Kirby was the one who had freed it from its prison. Slowly, it nuzzled against Kirby's frame to find any sort of resistance in him, and it was pleased to see that Kirby liked the feeling; now it knew it could trust Kirby and circled his tiny body in joy, knowing that he had indeed come to help it.

' !' The ghastly little ball of light within Kirby rejoiced in kind, happy to have found a kindred spirit. Now that Kirby had earned the trust of the Smoky Progg, Kirby decided to ask it a few questions, namely how it transformed into the state that it was in. Said question had noticeably saddened and angered the creature Kirby had noted—not at him he knew—but he could tell that it still upset it greatly. Perhaps "Mario's" aggression was partially in part due to the Smoky Progg's anguish seeping into him. Regardless, the Smoky Progg had allowed its thoughts and feelings to flow into Kirby and give him an understanding of what had happened to it.

There Kirby had learned of it suddenly being trophied at the hand of Master Hand like he and many others had witnessed earlier that day before the monster's attack, and when it did all those who were trophies had their bodies annihilated, leaving such bystanders of the battle unable to return to their worlds of origin at will. It is here that Kirby had also finally learned of their ultimate enemy's title from the Smoky Progg: "Galeem, Lord of Light". This Galeem thing had taken express liberty in stuffing the now disembodied spirits into copies it had created of all the fighters at their painful and torturous expense, all for the sole purpose of killing Kirby because he survived the initial onslaught—though the Smoky Progg could recall perhaps two fighters who never went through that horrific experience. As for what Galeem had in mind, it sought to eradicate all darkness in reality and recreate it in its own orderly image, instantly reminding Kirby of the tyrannical Queen Sectonia who was one of the very few light-aligned foes he had faced. Sure the darkness was often scary, chaotic, and destructive, but it could also be a force for good if handled by the right person, and Kirby knew that light without darkness would just continue to burn everything until nothing was left. Now knowing what he was up against, Kirby resolved to save his friends to free more spirits from Galeem's control and ultimately defeat the mad god of light. The star warrior's determination was quite infectious, filling the two spirits with him full of hope that this world and everything in it could be saved, and they endeavored to help Kirby along every step of the way. Not to be cocky and overconfident, but with two allies at his side and knowing what he must do, Kirby now felt ready to take on just about anything. On the note of his new allies, he never did catch the name or identity of the spirit that had joined him in battle against the false Mario, yet he found reluctance and very slight resistance when he asked. Maybe it was too personal for the spirit to tell Kirby, so he didn't complain about it or press the issue further; all that really counted was that the spirit trusted him and he trusted them. Alone no longer, Kirby set off to descend further down the hill, ready to take on the next challenge that came his way.

After a short stroll down past a waterfall, Kirby came upon what looked like three smaller-than-usual Yoshis, with each one colored blue, yellow, and red with Tanooki ears on their heads and all had their original Yoshi tails replaced with a Tanooki tail; of particular note was that the blue Yoshi held a Poké Ball in its hand, the yellow Yoshi had a Screw Attack badge on its chest, and the red Yoshi seemed to be spewing small amounts of embers and smoke from its mouth. Kirby almost bemoaned his ill luck at not just running into another puppet fighter so soon but three of them. The Yoshis did not stray too far from each other and looking to what would be the center of each of them was a lone spirit with tendrils dug into all three of them: an Eevee. While the Eevee Yoshis seemed to be out on patrol, Eevee themselves looked very much scared as if watching out for danger, and it clearly showed on the Yoshis faces.

Kirby couldn't imagine what is was like being forced to operate three separate bodies at the same time, all while being frightened out of your mind at what was going to happen next, but he knew that it had to be stopped. If Kirby was being honest though, he didn't know how he alone could take on three opponents ganging up on him at the same time, let alone three fighters with abilities out of the ordinary, but he had to try anyway. Kirby decided that a sneak attack on one of them would be a good head start in gaining the upper hand for a short time, quickly taking one of them out while only having the other two to deal with in their shock. He very much didn't like scaring the poor pokémon any further, but just running at them guns blazing was clearly a bad idea. With so much open space between them Kirby didn't see much of a good ambush spot anywhere, but there was a bit of a ditch off to the right from where he looked. Moving slowly as to not create such noise, Kirby crept off toward the ditch and evade the pokémon's sight. However, much to his misfortune and by no fault of his own at that, a twig off to the side had been snapped by one of the inattentive Yoshi bodies, causing the Eevee to look toward all sides of it before spotting Kirby off in the distance. The next thing to happen took the young Eevee by surprise; with no warning control of the Yoshi bodies was suddenly yanked from it, and it could only watch, feel, and be pulled along as the three mutant dinosaurs sauntered up to the star warrior with murder in their blood-red eyes. The blue one out of them shouted some unintelligible (and likely obscene) babbling at Kirby before tossing the Pokéball it had in its hand to the ground, summoning a similarly uncontrollable Eevee duplicate to the field.

"Wooooaaaahhhhh!" And the first Yoshi was off, charging at Kirby with the false Eevee trailing behind it. Kirby threw up his shield to block what he thought was a flying stomp, only to feel the Yoshi's wet tongue slip right through it and drag him out of it into the dinosaur's mouth. He never did understand how anyone always magically shrunk to fit right inside Yoshi's mouth, but he didn't care all that much especially when he could feel teeth crunching on his soft body. He absentmindedly wondered if this was how it felt whenever he inhaled something and had it sit inside him—not that he had teeth to speak of for himself—and the next thing he felt was being harshly spat out at the ground right before a tanooki's tail whipped him into the air. The whipping did not stop as he felt two more lashes flinging him higher up, and when the first chance came he airdodged away from the Yoshi to give him some space; the star warrior landed safely on the ground, but it did not last long until a large head slammed itself into him, popping him back into the air for another harsh headbutt to slam him back down into a tackle. Kirby rolled away from his aggressors and found that he almost slid right off the ledge into a deep drop that was not there a minute ago. Looking behind him showed that the entire landscape had transformed yet again, this time being what looked like Yoshi's Island from the Tourney of Brawl. A familiar sight from below caught his eyes, and seeing the blue Yoshi ready to dunk him into the abyss made an idea hatch in Kirby's head. He had let go of the ledge and allowed the Yoshi to chase him offstage, and with his steering he landed on the rising Blarggwich, which by the time the Yoshi understood what had happened was now frantically fluttering itself back onto solid ground, but Kirby had other plans in mind for it. Allowing himself some airtime over the abyss once more, Kirby took his feet and drilled into the Yoshi trying to recover, squarely plunging him deep below the support ghost's ledge.

The last of the Yoshi that Kirby had heard was its frantic babbling before it disappeared from his sight, exploding into a colorful blast before his eyes soon after. Kirby could have sworn that he heard a sharp yelp of pain coming from the Eevee spirit back from the main battlefield, and Kirby couldn't help but wince at the pokémon's situation. Still, he had a mission to complete, and though he knew it would hurt Eevee more for the time being he had to go through with it.

Kirby had made it back to the stage, just in time for a yellow Yoshi to blindside him with a double screw attack combo and finishing it off with a tail whip; maybe Kirby was crazy, but he knew Yoshi's tail did not hurt as much as it did now, and he was quick to blame the Eevee's unwilling power boost for the small Yoshi and the tanooki tail that the Yoshi's tail had morphed into. When he saw the Yoshi rearing up for another tail whip, he acted fast and used his stone copy ability to plummet back down with a great thud, slamming the Yoshi back down with him before burying him deep into the ground. This was a tad strange for Kirby since the last he remembered he couldn't normally meteor smash or bury his opponent in this tournament, let alone doing both—those were features of that "Customization" fad from the previous tournament that ultimately proved unpopular so he was initially confused as to why it had returned here of all places. Either way he wasn't complaining—rather ecstatic that he had another way to deal with enemies. After changing back to normal he readied his hammer to smash the false Yoshi clear out of the sky like a golf ball, and he allowed himself a small smile when his hammer flip reached full charge. Just before he could swing it though he heard the Eevee's scared and panicked cries, causing to look up where the pokémon's spirit hovered and found it cowering in fear, and Kirby had remembered how the spirits could still feel pain even when they weren't in complete control of the bodies they possessed. He almost lowered his hammer in response before also remembering that the spirits would not be freed unless he forcibly beat them out of their prisons, and with grim determination on his face he raised his hammer back up and took aim at the buried Yoshi. Then out of nowhere he felt flames lick his backside and dropped his hammer in response from the sneak attack. The red Yoshi had gotten behind him while he was distracted by the Eevee's distress and he shot a dirty look at the puppet fighter for taking advantage of its captive's fear stoking the sympathy in him. Now the (pissed) yellow Yoshi had crawled itself out of the hole Kirby dug it in, and Kirby now knew that he had just dug himself into a hole of his own letting the two Yoshis gang up on him like this. In response Kirby could feel the power from his spiritual friend welling up inside him, almost as if it was ready to explode, but Kirby couldn't actually feel it coursing through him so he mostly put the feeling on the backburner while he stared down the two Yoshis. The red Yoshi ran towards him with flames spewing from its maw but stopped just short of Kirby while its fire breath would have kept Kirby from advancing to close toward it. Fortunately for Kirby he had his burning tackle that could plow through such weak projectiles; unfortunately for Kirby he had been sucked straight into the yellow Yoshi's mouth and was promptly laid into an egg. He struggled to break free from it before he felt something from the outside heating the eggshell up, severely cooking him. With a yelp he finally broke free, but only so that he could set himself up for a headbutt slam, tail swipe, and karate kick in that order.

Now Kirby was in critical condition for the second time that day, and it was worse having two fighters ganging on him, one of which was constantly spitting fire at him. Though he got to his feet he was woozy, and he could see the yellow Yoshi lightly dashing at him from afar rather than outright running. Kirby already knew that a smash attack was next and he didn't have enough time to turn himself into stone, so he tried to raise his shield to absorb the brunt of the move before he was launched far away and then it would be game over for everything.

'Share stock…!'

'…?' Kirby didn't know where that had come from, and in his distraction he had lowered his shield for the yellow Yoshi to attack him once it closed the distance; realizing his mistake Kirby desperately tried raising it up again but he felt that it wouldn't be fast enough to catch the Yoshi's attack in time, so he closed his eyes with his guard up and hoped that it wouldn't hurt as much if it hit, silently saying an apology to all his failed friends…

"Hiyah!"

*CLANG!*

Another foreign sound had caught Kirby's attention with the realization that he hadn't been hit, and he peeked one eye open to see what had happened and saw something he never expected; another "Kirby" had spawned out of nowhere and blocked the Yoshi's headbutt smash perfectly before launching it away with a smash kick. This "Kirby" had white skin and dark gray feet while being covered in a multi-colored aura but otherwise looked the same as him. The other Yoshi had also taken pause at this new challenger while the previous Yoshi that was knocked away was shaking itself out of its surprised daze. Just then the other "Kirby" had turned to look at Kirby and he could see that it had bright yellow eyes and a determined look crossing his features, similar to how he himself had looked when under the thrall of the Smash Ball's power, and he noticed that he couldn't sense the power his spirit friend was building up inside of him, let alone feel the spirit inside of him for that matter. Soon the realization dawned upon Kirby, and Kirby was wondering if this was the same spirit that had lent him its power against the false Mario from earlier. The answer he received was a nod from the other "Kirby", confirming to the star warrior that his friend had indeed transformed into a look-a-like of him, and the new fighter charged right at the red Yoshi with a burning tackle. Kirby gave a grateful nod of his own with a smile, and he leapt back into the fray to assist his new friend.

Kirby had grabbed the yellow Yoshi and quickly laid into him with vulcan jabs before tossing him underneath and trampling it with his fury stomps. Kirby then hopped to the platform above them and waited for the yellow Yoshi to try and screw attack him; the now furious Yoshi took the bait and jumped at Kirby, not realizing that Kirby was not where it thought he would be, waiting just a few feet away with a hammer flip ready for him. In record time the false Yoshi ate the flaming hammer and was sent hurtling like a burning comet, exploding in a bright blast once he was far out of sight. The other "Kirby" was being burned from the red Yoshi's fire breath, but that was about to change; Kirby had crept to behind the dinosaur and started charging his hammer flip, though the Yoshi had somehow noticed this and turned around to snatch Kirby up into its mouth. The star warrior was inside a Yoshi's mouth for the second time that day, this time feeling the wrath of fire and teeth crunching at him and with a harder time escaping the dino's mouth. Fortunately he didn't have to wait for long as his friend had smash kicked the Yoshi, forcing the dinosaur to spit Kirby out. Seeing no Blarggwich underneath it, it did its best to flutter back to the stage using all of its limbs to their fullest potential. What it did not count on was the second "Kirby" to fly up and meet it with a moon somersault kick, launching the dinosaur skyward and blasting off into the distance until it was but a mere twinkle in the sky.

"Owowowowowowowowowow…!" And with that the final Yoshi of the trio had been defeated, and in the blink of an eye the environment had changed back to normal. Kirby didn't think he'd understand why that had always happened, but he'd keep a close eye out for when it started getting screwy. Looking for his friend he could see them turning around to face him with a bright smile on their face despite their own exhaustion, one that Kirby found himself reciprocating.

'Restock!'

There was that strangely familiar voice again, and both of the Kirbys looked around to see where it had come from, but that wasn't as important as what happened next; the other "Kirby" was slowly shining until its entire body was engulfed in light, and when it cleared the spirit was back to its original form, apparently having burned through its transformation energy.

The wisp was quick to swarm Kirby with a warm "hug", causing the star warrior to laugh from the tickling experience, and his wounds were gone as if they were never there before flying back into him.

' !' Kirby very much liked the warmth his friend gave him while inside, and it made him think about it being a form of noble light: a glow that illuminates and warms against the cold darkness of the world, completely unlike Galeem who was only a burning light that threatened to sear everything in its path—Kirby knew it must be stopped.

With everything back to normal, Kirby had started to wonder about the Eevee spirit who had to have been freed from its shackles, and floating down from the sky was the little creature itself, laying on its side with its paws over its wettened face and crying from the fear and pain it was in. Kirby could feel his heart going out to the poor creature feeling sorry that he had to put it through such torture, and he slowly walked up toward it with his hands outstretched to receive its trembling form in his arms and comfort it however he could. Much to his surprise, he could actually feel its furry body and warmth emanated from it, being incredibly light because of its corporeal state, but this meant that he could at least gently pet it to soothe its shot nerves. The sniffling slowed down over the minute as it finally uncovered its face to look up at the one who held it. Kirby had the most compassionate look in his eyes that almost threatened to spill forth tears themselves, and he pulled the small pokémon into a hug. It took some time, but the small critter had hugged Kirby back, finally understanding that the star warrior had only meant to save it from being trapped. After a minute had passed and the pokémon had no more tears to cry, it floated to a few feet away from Kirby, finally able to smile for being free at last. Kirby nodded and gave the pokémon a bright smile of his own with a wave.

'Vee! Eevee!' The critter flew back to Kirby and nuzzled against his cheek in affection, earning a pleased laugh from the lad.

' !' Even Kirby's spirit friends could feel themselves being uplifted by the small pokémon's cheer, and Kirby held up his hand for a high five. This had confused the small critter at first, but it caught on quickly and patted its paw with Kirby's hand in joy. Kirby's group was growing ever bigger, and with it Kirby felt a strange need to ask what it was the pokémon could do. Eevee let out a small whine in that there was not much it could do and it wasn't super powerful, but being dictated as a primary spirit if it understood correctly, that meant that it could form links with at least three other support spirits. The Smoky Progg knew what this meant and flew out of Kirby, glad that the opportunity that it could finally be of some assistance to Kirby had come. Both it and Eevee exchanged thoughts and cheered after the talk was over, and then tendrils began to flow out of the Smoky Progg to attach to the Eevee spirit. The pokémon could feel new power coursing through it and jumped in happy response.

'Vee, vee! Eevee!' From what it told him the Eevee was a primary spirit, and that meant it could lend its power to any fighter of its choosing now that Kirby had freed it from Galeem's bindings. To demonstrate, it flew behind Kirby and allowed spiritual tendrils to flow from it, attaching themselves into Kirby. The star warrior was amazed at how much more powerful he had become thanks to having what was ostensibly three spirits lending their power to him, and not long afterward he could feel what felt like an unira spawning in his hand. He remembered the false Mario having one in his hand earlier, and he guessed that it was the power of the Smoky Progg coursing through him. He was confused as to why his currently unnamed spirit friend couldn't do either of what Eevee or the Smoky Progg could do; he could sense its distress, however, and that likely meant that it couldn't even if it wanted to, although he did note that it became stronger from the few battles it had fought with him, so ultimately he didn't mind all that much. Now that he was more well prepared for the road ahead, Kirby marched forward, nearing the bottom of the hill and approaching a great cloudstorm barring his path further in. Before it stood another fighter he was familiar with, one he shared a few similarities to; a Jigglypuff puppet fighter was up ahead, though from what he could see it was actually fast asleep. This made Kirby wonder if he could simply sneak past it and dive through the clouds; slowly and carefully, he (and the Eevee spirit not entirely remembering that it didn't need to) crept along the ground and tiptoed up to the sleeping pokémon, behind it being the similarly sleeping spirit of a female red owl he didn't recognize, and when he walked past it suddenly it sounded as though it was waking up, making him freeze on the spot. Thankfully it only stirred for a bit before dozing off again, and with a relieved sigh Kirby continued on towards the clouds. They were brightly colored from what he saw, almost as if there was a storm raging in them, yet he continued to attempt passing through them. He could feel the clouds whoosh past his hand, but when he walked in he found that he was being constantly blown back, and no matter how fast he ran he couldn't get through. This must have meant that the cloudy barriers stood so long as the spirit guarding the area they concealed was trapped. Granted, he was going to free the spirit anyways, so he left the clouds alone for the time being and went back to the sleeping Jigglypuff. An idea hatched into his head to see if he could knock out the fighter in one blow and spare the spirit (and himself) the trouble of having to fight. Taking out his hammer he charged up the hammer flip and was ready to strike, then all of a sudden the environment began to shift once again, this time to the Smashville town that the villager kids hailed from. Eventually the Jigglypuff had stirred from its long nap, yawning away a little of its exhaustion. To its surprise, the entire location had changed, and the spirit within it had wondered if she had just woken up from a bad dream and was back home where she belonged. Sadly for her, the moment she laid eyes on Kirby, her hopes and dreams were dashed.

Control of her body was promptly snatched away from her and the bow-wearing Jigglypuff who she was forcibly lending power to had puffed its face up in anger before going in for the attack. Both balloon-fighters ran toward each other, and while Kirby made for a grab the Jigglypuff with his free hand while it had taken to the air. Of course it would take to their air Kirby had thought—it was a bird-possessed Jigglypuff after all, and he admitted that said pokémon was annoying to fight at times, so he simply waited until it had stopped floating around the arena and came back down to fight him. After spending as much time in the air as it could, it was finally falling back down to the battlefield and Kirby was ready to kick into it, at least until it literally fell asleep on him—launching him high up into the sky and forcing him to drop the unira he was carrying with him. Being so high up, Kirby's fastest course to get back down was to use his stone copy ability to plummet and bury the sleeping pokémon, but continuing his poor string of luck was a platform passing underneath him and over the Jifflypuff, basically protecting it from his attack. By the time he changed back the pokémon had already woke up and slapped at him with a few strikes as it rose to the air. He once again turned to stone only for the pokémon to dodge him at the last second. Quickly changing back, he felt something incredibly prickly slam straight into his face and send him flying quite a ways. After regaining his bearing, he saw that the Jigglypuff had taken the unira he had with him and used it against him after knocking it out of his grasp, and boy was that annoying. He could just reclaim the unira he had dropped, he just had to hit it hard enough and it'd retract its spikes; he went up to it as the Jigglypuff took to the skies once again and he whipped out a smash kick, but to his agonizing surprise he discovered that that trick did not work anymore, meaning that the unira would stay like that and continue to harm him as long as it stayed out, making Kirby go from zero to pissed in a moment; goodness did this fighter have talent pushing his buttons, and it was about to see just what happened to whoever pushed his buttons. As the Jigglypuff stuck t the air as much as it could, Kirby merely waited for it to come back down and try to bean him with that rest crap again. Sure enough, the fighter started getting tired midflight and began descending back to Kirby, where he waited for it to attack. It didn't, instead airdodging out of his way past the unira it had laid down. Kirby was really trying not to explode as he slid his hand over his face and took a calming breath, jumping over the unira to land on the platform over it, and that was where the Jigglypuf jumped up to him out of nowhere and landed another rest on him when he least expected it, sending him flying high up again and almost knocking him clear off the battlefield and having the nerve to taunt him afterward as if it was bored. It Kirby could speak English he would be yelling all sorts of profanities at the false fighter; "pretty jolly guy" his nonexistent pink ass—his friends are all fucking dead, this Jigglypuff keeps using fucking rest on him, and he was fucking pissed.

'…?!' Kirby's spiritual friends were not liking the mood he was in; now triggered beyond reason he forwent all pretenses of staying calm and dropped down in his rock form to crush that hapless little shit. He predictably missed, and after changing out of his stone form he was met with a harsh kick that nearly knocked him out of sight, realizing the serious error in his judgment, Kirby hurriedly tried floating back to the stage, and he found the Jigglypuff running to meet him, most likely with another rest or some edgeguarding scheme, but he was not having it.

Celeste could see how angry this fellow was and was hoping that the fighting would end soon, not just for her sake but also for this lad. She could feel herself flying toward him, feel the exhaustion and drowsiness setting in, and she knew that either way this fight was over; she hit him and he was done, and if she missed she was done. Now she had gotten above the pink creature and felt sleep quickly taking over before she blacked out completely—she couldn't tell if she had hit him or not, but she got her answer soon; the next thing she felt was a blade slicing her up to the sky before that same blade slammed her down with it, and opening her eyes she saw that she was headed straight to the ground from high in the sky. All she could do now was close her eyes and wait for the inevitable end, and when she felt herself impact with the ground the next thing she felt was an explosion. After that everything faded to black for the museum owl, likely for the last time…

Kirby almost didn't feel any remorse for that fight; had it not been for the fact that an innocent spirit would feel the pain he was putting it through, he'd have went full ham on the Jigglypuff. He was starting to think he had some repressed aggression toward the fighter herself, but at least it wasn't wearing the green headband from that one Tourney of Melee incident (that he had yet to forgive himself for taking it out on Gooey, or was that actually a dream…?). When he looked up from where he slammed his final cutter sword, he saw that everything was back to normal, the battlefield he had fought in having vanished completely. Thinking back on that fight, he had never been that mad in a long time he had noticed, and he hoped that it would not resurface again in the near future.

'…' The spirits had to agree with Kirby on that one—it was a pretty scary change from the "pretty jolly guy" they all know him to be. Kirby was just about to give them lip for calling him that (one of his least favorite nicknames back when Masahiro Sakurai still directed the Arenas on Popstar before he moved away after the Air Ride Tournament), but he held it in to keep a cool head.

'Hoooooooot…' Kirby heard the sound of another spirit nearby, and he looked up to see a red female owl descending from above. She was about the villagers' size and looked a lot like them, and Kirby made his way over to greet her.

'Oh, hello dearie… Hmmmmm…' She was a sleepy soul Kirby could tell, and that was clearly reflected in the battle against her possessed fighter. 'Thank you for saving me. My name is…Celeste…' At least Kirby recognized the name before, having heard it from one of the villager kids talking about "the sleepy museum lady", and he didn't want to bother the dozing bird any further. The star warrior had Eevee brought out to see what power Celeste would add and simply leave her be to allow her some rest. Once Eevee had established that her power was something called "Item Gravitation" (which probably explained why the Jigglypuff fighter was able to quickly snatch the unira he had dropped), Kirby decided to let the spirit rest for the time being—she clearly needed some shut eye. Soon Kirby heard a rumbling sound, and the clouds that had been barring his path were gone, revealing the path ahead for him. Now he could finally get down from the hill's road and continue on ahead.

Having obtained four spirits granting him pretty decent power (three really if excluding Celeste), Kirby felt some of his confidence starting to come back after the gang up that was the false Yoshi trio and the arresting power of the false Jigglypuff. Up ahead Kirby could see a crossroad of sorts and maybe a giant robot or something near the middle, but more than that was a familiar face he didn't expect to run into again so soon; he wore a bright red cap and shirt that was framed by a pair of blue overalls, his feet were clad in brown work shoes and his hands were wrapped in white gloves. Kirby knew exactly who this was, blocking his way further into the road…

Mario