Chapter 5: At First Dark

Popopo flew on the warpstar to Mt. Dedede in a very short time. When they were getting close, the warpstar tilted vertically. If Popopo's feet weren't attached to the warpstar, he would have fallen off. The warpstar slammed into the side of Dedede's castle and left a star-shaped hole in the wall.

Popopo was scared again. At this point, Gooey decided to speak.

"Don't you wish you had pockets?" he said, "If you don't want to have to carry that phone around all the time, just terminate the connection and the phone will disappear. If you want to talk to me again, just think about the phone and it'll appear. If I need to call you, the phone will appear and I'll just start talking. You got all that?"

"Uh, yeah," replied Popopo without bothering to try to cover the shakiness to his voice.

Down, down and down the warpstar went. Then, suddenly, it stopped. The warpstar disappeared and Popopo looked around the corner that it had stopped in front of.

There was King Dedede, but he wasn't acting like his normal arrogant self. Instead, a strange noise was coming from his mouth. He was muttering to himself.

"Yo, King! Over here!"

Popopo's heart went berserk. The voice had startled him so much that he almost screamed before he realized that it was Gooey talking.

King Dedede looked up. The pupils of his eyes were black slits like a cat's and he murmured, "Kill spare."

With that, King Dedede pulled out a huge mallet and ran towards Popopo while winding up to strike. Popopo screamed and started to run up the stairs behind him. Dedede was close behind.

"Popopo!" Gooey interrupted. "What the heck is going on?"

"King Berserk wants to kill me! HELP!!!!!!"

"I'll send a warpstar!"

Seconds later, a warpstar smashed through a wall and saved Popopo from becoming a pink pancake.

While on the warpstar, Gooey and Popopo had another little talk. That is, they had a talk after Popopo's heart and breathing returned to their normal paces.

"So..." Gooey prompted.

"What was that?!!"

"Dunno."

"You don't know?!"

"Did you see any characteristic of Dedede look a bit odd? Face, hands, suit, gut, anything!"

"The pupils of his eyes were like slits."

"Oh, no..."

"Oh, no?! Oh, no what?!"

"Heh, heh. I see the current situation has finally got you to stop talking in single word sentences. Okay. This is worse than I thought. With the info you just gave me, I can tell you what we're up against. It is called Dark Matter. It is a force in the galaxy that possesses beings in order to spread. It has decided to feed on your friends."

"..."

"Your silence is as much as I expected. The only way to defeat Dark Matter is to use the star rod. The star rod is an ancient relic that is an evil countering device. However, there is a problem. My sensors indicate that the star rod has been broken up into seven pieces and scattered across Dreamland. I'll bet anything that Dark Matter made Dedede command his underlings to break it up and guard each piece. It is your job to defeat these monsters, reassemble the star rod, and destroy Dark Matter!"

The warpstar flew on.