Aftermath

Prologue

It was all very unexpected. One second everything was fine. The next, chaos. She thought everything would be fine after Nightmare's defeat. She was wrong. Nothing would ever be fine again.

Chapter 1

Everything Was Fine

Tuff and Kirby were playing outside. Surprisingly they weren't playing soccer. Why? Well Tuff lost the ball. So they decided to play "Knights". They found some sticks and asked Sword, Blade, and Meta Knight if they could borrow some old armor of theirs. So there they were in the middle of the field in old ruffed up armor playing knights with some sticks they found. Meanwhile Tiff was sitting in a tree reading as normal. Kirby was winning the "duel" and Tuff unsurprisingly wasn't happy about it

"It's not fair!" Tuff said

"What's not fair?" Tiff asked as she hoped down from her place on the tree

"Kirby got training from Meta Knight and I didn't! He's only a baby, why is he getting special training?!" Tuff whined

"Well maybe it's because he's a star warrior and you're not!" Tiff retorted. Tuff threw his sword down and stomped away angrily. Tiff knew that he was most likely going to find his other friends. She also knew that Blade Knight wasn't going to get his old armor back. Hopefully he didn't mind.

Hours had passed and it was close to dinner time at the Ebrum's house. Tiff had invited Kirby to dinner. But someone was missing. "

Tiff, do you know where your brother went?" Lady Like asked

"The last I saw him he was playing with Iro," Tiff answers

"Hmm…Let's hope that he gets back soon. I don't want him to overstay his welcome." Said Lady Like. 'like he was ever even welcome' Tiff thought. By the time they finished eating it was way too dark for Kirby to walk back by himself and Lady Like didn't want Tiff going out in the dark so Kirby stayed for a sleepover.

"Hey Kirby, did you ever give Meta Knight his armor back?" Tiff asked as she and Kirby sat on the couch.

"Poyo…" Kirby said

"Well why don't we go give it to him?" said Tiff

"POYO!" Kirby said gleefully.

Meta Knight was in his room half asleep at his desk. King Dedede had handed him lots of paperwork to finish by tomorrow. He had been working on it since he had given it to him (lunch). He had almost fallen asleep multiple times within the last few minutes. He needed to finish these last few papers….Knock knock knock Tiff knocked on the door. She waited. Nothing. She knocked again. Nothing. She turned the knob…it was unlocked. Tiff and Kirby walked in. They maneuvered their way through the living room towards the hallway leading to the rooms of the three knights. The hallway had five rooms: the kitchen, the bathroom, Sword Knight's bedroom, Blade Knight's bedroom, and Meta Knight's bedroom which suspiciously had a light coming from under the door. Tiff went to Meta Knight's door and knocked and she heard a voice come from inside "Come in." Tiff walked inside with Kirby

"H-H-Hey Meta Knight" Tiff nervously said as she walked in

"Hello Tiff, do you need something?" Meta Knight said not turning around to face the girl

"Well I wanted to give the armor that you lent Kirby back to you." Said Tiff

"Ah I see you can just put it on my bed," Meta Knight replied. Tiff set the armor on his bed and noticed the big stack of papers on his desk

"What are you doing?" Tiff asked

"Paperwork it's due tomorrow and I need to finish it before then," Meta Knight said quietly

"Do you need any help?" Tiff said

"No I'm fine you should head back your mother is probably looking for you." He answers

"OK, goodnight Sir Meta Knight. Come on Kirby." Tiff said encouraging Kirby to follow her

"Poyo…." Kirby said walking up to Meta Knight and giving him a small hug "Poyo Kni-Kni," Kirby added

"Goodnight little one." Meta Knight replied (There is NO fluff between Tiff and Meta Knight)

Tiff and Kirby left the quarters and headed back to her room. Upon getting there Kirby headed straight for Tuff's room where there was a makeshift bed waiting for him. Tuff seemed to have come back when Kirby and Tiff left and was sleeping soundly in his own bed. Kirby drove straight into it and fell asleep a few minutes later. Tiff on the other hand stayed up. She sat on the balcony looking up at the stars. Time passed and Tiff eventually fell asleep on the balcony.

Meta Knight had just a few papers left and was barely awake. All he had to do was read them, make a few changes (grammer, punctuation, spelling),and sign them. Then he could fall asleep. 'Just a few more minutes' Meta Knight thought. Knock knock "Sir Meta Knight? Are you awake?" He heard a voice come from behind his door.

"Yes, come in." The door opened revealing Sword Knight and Blade Knight.

"Sir How long have you been up?!" Blade Knight exclaimed

"A few hours why? What time is it?" Meta Knight asked, his voice slurred and hoarse from lack of sleep.

"6:30 Sir." Blade Knight answered

"Wha-What?" Meta Knight realized just how long he had been up. If no one had been watching him he would have slapped himself for being so irresponsible.

Meta Knight made himself some coffee, finished the paperwork, and got ready for the day (he already had his armor on by the way), and headed off for the throne room to hand the King his paperwork.

"When is dat metalhead gonna get here?!" King Dedede screamed

"I don't know, sometimes I wonder how people think he's smart. Because he's really not, we told him to meet us here at 7:30, it's 7:50." Escargoon replied.

"Ya right. He ain't smart not no bit." Dedede said as he slumped down in his chair.

Meta Knight heard the whole conversation. He was of course angery at what King Dedede and Escargoon were saying but they didn't know anything! He opened the door, bowed, and walked in slowly.

"Finally ya here. Wat took ya so long?" King Dedede asked annoyedly,

"I apologize for being late. I was up all night finishing these for you." Meta Knight said handing the king his paperwork

"FINALLY! Ok so I got some more paper for ya, some other kingdom wanna meet with meh and I need ya to set up time and list the stuff for the party meet thing and buy it. NOW GO DO YOUR PATROLS!" King Dedede demanded

"Yes your majesty." Meta Knight bowed again and left. Meta Knight sighed as closed the door 'King Dedede can be the most annoying person sometimes. No not sometimes all the time' He thought as he walked through the halls heading towards his quarters. He needed to grab something before he left.

Tiff was leaving the castle when she saw Sir Meta Knight walking through the halls and thought 'Hey why not go say hi he's always so lonely' so she walked up to him.

"Hey Meta Knight!" Tiff greeted

"Oh hello Tiff I'm sorry I didn't see you there." Meta Knight was genuinely surprised at her sudden appearance.

"Did you finish your paperwork?" asked Tiff.

"Yes I did." Meta Knight answered simply "Well uhh…I was headed to the field to play with Tuff and Kirby do you wanna come, you're always so how do I word this…" Tiff said

"Alone." Meta Knight finished for her

"YES! Alone, so why don't you join us?" Tiff asked

"I would like to but I have to do my patrols, If I have time I will join you." Meta Knight said "I shall see you later Tiff" he added

"…Bye…" Tiff said softly. She never really understood Meta Knight; he was a weird one always watching, never really talking. He always appeared out of nowhere, and if you needed to see him he would find you…you wouldn't find him.

Tuff was running through Cappy Town chasing the ball that Spikehead kicked.

"HEY NO COME BACK!" Tuff yelled at the ball

"POYO!" Kirby added. They continued chasing it until it hit the big tree in the center of the town.

"Hey Kirby I have this new recipe, wanna try it?" Chef Kawasaki asked as he came out of his restaurant.

"Poyo!" Kirby said, moving his attention to the chef as he happily walked over to the restaurant.

"Yes! Kirby's gone, we can finally play the game properly" Tuff said quietly

"That's not very nice Tuff" Someone said from behind. Tuff knew that accent and he was very lucky it wasn't Spanish.

"Yeah what if Kirby heard ya?" Another accented voice said

"Well he didn't so I'm fine!" Tuff replied, turning to see Sword and Blade. "Well here you go, We gotta go Sir Meta Knight's probably wondering where we are at." Sword said, handing Tuff the ball.

It had been 3 years. 3 years since the attack on NME. 3 years since their last demon beast attack. 3 years since Kirby's victory. Yet Tiff still felt as though some sort of monster was still here. But how Nightmare was defeated?! She had to go talk to Kabu about this. But first go check on Tuff and Kirby.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S NOT WITH YOU?!" Tiff screamed at Tuff.

"I MEAN HE'S NOT WITH US! LAST TIME I SAW HIM HE WAS WITH CHEF KAWASAKI!" Tuff screamed back

"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO WATCH HIM WHAT IF HE WANDERED OFF SOMEWHERE AND WE CAN'T FIND HIM!"

"WELL I DON'T KNOW JUST GO!" Tuff said as he ran off. Tiff was worried, Kirby was like her brother; she loved him as family. If he got lost and they couldn't find him she would never be able to forgive herself. She headed to Chef Kawasaki's restaurant and asked him if Kirby was there. He told her that he left just about fifteen minutes ago. Tiff was even more worried now. Where could he have gone?! He couldn't have gone far right?

"POYO! KNI-KNI! HIII!" Kirby screamed happily as he walked up to his mentor. Meta Knight just continued walking "Poyo?" Kirby asked. Meta Knight just continued walking. This continued until finally Kirby had enough he jumped up and tackled Meta Knight to the floor!

Sir Ebrum and Lady Like were taking a nice walk in the halls when they heard screaming. It sounded like a girl and Sir Ebrum thought it might have been Tiff so they ran towards the sound. When they got there they were surprised to see Kirby tackling Sir Meta Knight. They thought that the screaming must have come from Kirby but no Kirby's mouth was closed. That only left one person… "SIR META KNIGHT?!" Both Sir Ebrum and Lady Like screamed.

"GET HIM OFF ME!" Meta Knight screamed. But something was wrong with his voice. It almost sounded like two people were talking. One voice being Meta Knight's, the other sounding dark and controlling.

But Sir Ebrum and his wife obeyed and went to get Kirby off of the knight. Kirby at first resisted but gave in when he noticed who it was.

"Kirby why were you attacking him?" Sir Ebrum asked while Lady Like helped Meta Knight up

"Poyo…Poy poyo Medi Kni…" Kirby tried to explain himself

"Are you ok Sir?" Lady Like asked

"Yes I am fine. A little shaken but fine." Meta Knight said while brushing the dust and dirt off himself

"Now if you don't mind I would like to speak with Kirby privately." He added.

"Oh yes of course! We don't mind, do we, Ebrum." Lady Like said whilst grabbing her husband's arm

"Yes, well take care!" Sir Ebrum shouted

Tiff had made it to the castle. She brought Tuff and the others. They were going to find Kirby whether it took the whole day or not!

"OK Honey, Spikehead you take the bottom floors, Iro, Tuff you guys take the top I'll take the middle floors." Tiff instructed

"Got it!" They all said

Honey and Spikehead headed for the basement. The basement was dark with the only light coming from a torch that Spikehead took from the wall.

"Sp-Spikehead…I'm scared." Honey said while moving closer to him

"It's ok Honey I got you." Spikehead said. They continued walking through the dark halls of the castle. They walked for about seven more minutes until Honey found some sort of machine in one of the rooms.

"H-He-Hey Spik-Spikehead l-lo-look over th-the-there," Honey pointed to the machine

"What's that? Let's go check it out!" Spikehead said pulling Honey towards the machine

"N-NO! I DON'T WANNA GO!" Honey screamed. When they got closer they saw that…It…was…covered…in…blood…

Tuff and Iro were on their way to the top floor. So far they had gone up five stories and only had one more set of stairs. Tiff had told them to check the top floor and the three floors under it. They were chatting about the soccer game they were playing before this and how their team totally won. When they got to the top floor they found King Dedede's ENORMOUS telescope. It was bigger than King Dedede himself!

"Hey Iro, why do you think he has this?" Tuff asked, "I don't know, maybe it was an impulse buy." Iro replied

"Most likely" They continued walking and walking. Until they found something.

"HEY TUFF!" Iro screamed

"Yeah?!" Tuff replied just as loud

"There's something you might wanna see!"

"Coming!" Iro was bent over looking closely at the thing on the ground. "So what'd you wanna show me?" Tuff asked,

"Look." Iro pointed to the thing.

"Hey…." Tuff started

"Is that?" Iro added

Tiff was frantically running through the halls knocking on every door she found and asking if they had seen Kirby. She even knocked on her OWN DOOR! Although she knew that her parents would have sent Kirby to her if they saw him. She was getting worried. 'Where could he have wandered off to?!' she thought. Then she remembered what her parents told her

"Last time we saw him he was with Sir. Meta Knight, maybe he knows where he is." Then she thought a bit more 'What would Sir Meta Knight want with Kirby?'

"Eh, probably nothing." She said out loud

"What's nothin?" Tiff turned around

"Sword Knight! You scared me!" Said Tiff

"Oh! Sorry Tiff I was just walkin by and happened to hear that you've been looking for Kirby." Sword replied

"Yeah I have, have you seen him?" Tiff asked

"I have actually, he should be in our quarters with Blade." Sword answered

"THANK YOU!" Tiff screamed

"You're welcome." Sword replied a bit surprised by Tiff's outburst. On her way back to the meeting spot Tiff heard something. It sounded like…a… "DEMON BEAST!"

Honey, Spikehead, Tuff, Iro, and Tiff all ran back to the meeting spot to see if any of them had found Kirby.

"So…I'm guessing none of us found him…" Spikehead said

"Actually I ran into Sword Knight and he said that Kirby is hanging out with Blade so…I guess we succeeded!" Tiff said, forgetting about what she heard.

"Hey so while me and Iro were in the attic we saw something." Tuff started

"What did you see?" Honey asked

"Did you grab it?" Tuff whispered to Iro

"Yeah." Iro whispered back. He grabbed the item from his pocket and showed it to everyone.

"Hey now that I think about it, we also saw something weird when we were in the basement." Spikehead commented

"What'd you see?" Tiff asked

"There was….a machine-"Honey was cut off

"And it was covered in BLOOD!" Spikehead screamed

"I'm sorry what." Tiff said

"Interesting….very interesting." Tuff said suspiciously

"TUFF!" Tiff screamed at her brother

"What?!" Tuff screamed back. While Tiff and Tuff argued the rest of them were looking at the picture Iro was holding.

The picture was missing some parts of it and was old…really old. The paper was yellowed, wrinkled and stained. But they could make out that the photo had at least four people in it. Yet they could only see three. One was a guy, he was tall and had spiky hair not unlike Knuckle Joe, he was wearing a necklace the exact same one that Meta Knight said that his friend ,Jecra, gave to him. The one next to him was a girl just a bit shorter than the guy and had her hair in a ponytail, on her head was a headband with a jewel in the middle she also had a cape. The last one that was fully visible was a puffball like Kirby, He had a helmet, shoulder armor and overall looked like a knight. He also had a green ponytail-like thing coming out from his helmet.

After Tiff and Tuff finished arguing they went over to where the rest of the group was and gasped. "SIR ARTHUR?!" Tiff and Tuff screamed in surprise

"Who's that?" The rest of them asked

"Sir. Arthur is one of Meta Knight's old friends and is the leader of the whole GSA. And he was Meta Knight's mentor." Tiff explained

"And how do you know that?" Spikehead asked,

"He told me." Tiff answered.

"And why would Sir Meta Knight tell you? He tells no one anything. That's like his thing!" Iro screamed

"What's my thing?" They turned around to see Meta Knight right behind them.

"Hey…Sir uhh we were just talking about how-" Iro got cut off by Tuff "How you like using swords instead of fists when you fight yeah!"

"…I see…And what is that in your hands?" Meta Knight pointed to the photo in Honey's hands

"Oh this, Tuff and Iro found it in the attic." Honey said while she handed the photo to Meta Knight. Meta Knight's eye visibly twitched as he looked at the photo,

"Wh-What…I thought I-" Meta Knight whispered to himself before putting the photo in his cape and turning to leave.

"HEY! We were looking at that!" They got no response.

AN: HEY! So uhhh I edited it and hopefully it's easier to read. Honestly the only reason I put the dialogue in the paragraphs originally was because my friend was like "Hey you should do that it's how grammer (Did I spell that wrong...eh who cares!) works" (I don't think that's how grammer works) but I fixed it and yes Chapter 2 will be coming out soon I have been working on it in school cause why not! I hope you are liking this story cause it gonna be long! Also this story will not include the games cause i'm too lazy!