Hi! I'm here with a translation of another of my fics. Please note that this translation will be slower to update than the original fic, as English is not my first language. If you notice some major errors, please notify me of them, as I'm practicing.

I had been thinking about this project for a long time before I finally decided to start writing it. A lot of the anime/game crossovers out there right now focus on bringing the cast from the games to the animeverse, but I wanted to explore the other alternative. Also, I didn't want to have Nightmare as a main antagonist again: he is already in my other ongoing Kirby fic (Skybound Dreams). Both fics are totally unrelated, though.

As a non-English speaker, it is a pain for me to write accents, so I won't write AnimeDedede's dialogue implicitly accented (he still has the same voice as in the 4Kids dub because it is the version I had access to).

With all of this said, I hope you enjoy this story.

Characters and setting of this fic belong to Nintendo.

Darkness.

Everything around Tiff was just that: a dark, empty abyss. It was like reality itself had been wrapped in a cold, shadowy cloak. What had happened? She couldn't remember. The only thing that she knew was that her head was spinning. Her whole body felt numb and her heart was beating slower than it should. She couldn't move, she couldn't speak. She didn't even have the strength to call her friends for help. What was going on? Why was she so afraid? Was she dreaming?

"Tiff, wake up."

Someone was calling for her in the dark, a voice she couldn't recognise in her state.

"Come on. You have to get out of here."

Where was 'here'? She felt too exhausted and weak to even think about it.

"You need to find them. Seek the help from the ones on the other side."

Find who? And what other side? That voice in her head was only giving her more questions instead of helping her. She was so tired... She just wanted to sleep. To sleep and disappear in that darkness that was slowly devouring her.

"Tiff, No! You can't fall. He needs you. Everyone needs you!" that voice repeated, with urgency and anguish.

Those words woke up something inside her. She didn't know who that voice was referring to with everyone...

"Open your eyes. Wake up!"

... but if the people she loved really needed her, she had to listen to that voice.

Tiff was filled with renewed determination. She may not understand what was going on, but that wouldn't stop her. Slowly, warmth returned to her body, her heart returned to its regular beating, and, at last, she could feel the darkness receding.

"And, please: don't let..."

The last words of that voice were cut off by a flash of warm light.

Tiff's eyes snapped open as her senses came back to her. The first thing she noticed was a pleasant warmth running through her body. She was lying on a bed, and someone had completely covered her with a blanket (probably her mother). That person had also put a damp cloth on her forehead.

Apparently, she had had a fever. Tiff deduced that this was the cause of such a strange dream. A dream that she barely remembered anymore. The last thing she remembered clearly was what she was doing before feeling so ill: Kirby and Tuff had been playing in the rain, and she had told them to go inside if they didn't want to get sick. But life is often ironic, and in the end, the one who had caught a cold was her. Surely, those two were playing some board game or eating candy while she had been stuck in that bed.

Anyway, it seemed that the fever had already passed. She felt much better now, though still quite exhausted. Tiff removed the damp cloth from her head and pulled back the blanket that covered her, expecting to find her mother watching over her, as she always did when she was sick.

But neither her mother was there nor was she in her room.

That puzzled Tiff. The room she was staying on looked too much like Kirby's house, but there were differences too noticeable to pass up, and they were more important in her mind than how she had gotten to her friend and protegee's house.

"Since when does Tokkori have so many pictures of Kirby?" the girl wondered as she looked around her.

The walls of the room were filled with numerous photographs, all framed and preserved in an immaculate state. She didn't need to get close to them to know that Kirby appeared in most of them: his pink, rounded shape and his blue eyes stood out so much that it was impossible not to distinguish his silhouette.

Another detail that she could not ignore was a bedside table with a half-open drawer, which stood out in an otherwise tidy house. Tiff got up from the bed and, with the intention of closing it, approached the drawer to examine its contents: there was only a sock inside and a sign that said "do not close the drawer, please" in a letter that seemed very elegant and refined. Neither Tokkori nor Kirby could write so clearly (well, Kirby couldn't write at all), so, who had put that sign there and why? Anyway, it wasn't her house, so in the end, she decided to follow the instructions on the sign and not to touch the drawer.

"Maybe this is the house of a Kirby fan. One with an unhealthy obsession with him... If this is the work of some creepy stalker, I must tell Chief Bookem," the girl thought as she approached to examine the photographs' content.

The pink of the Kirby in those pictures seemed brighter than usual. In fact, everything captured seemed brighter, as if the colours had been saturated. But that wasn't what caught her attention: it was the pictured scenes.

In many of the photos, Kirby appeared with Dedede, but the attitude of the obnoxious monarch of Dreamland towards the pink puffball was strange. Even in the few photographs in which the king appeared angry, the malice and unhinged rage with which he usually treated Kirby (after all, he considered the baby a nuisance that he had to get rid of at any cost) were totally absent. Instead, Dedede seemed to regard Kirby with trust, respect, and... fondness? Tiff couldn't help but find it kinda unsettling. Who had modified those photos to make Dedede look like a different person.

Furthermore, although Meta Knight and some Waddle Dees (especially a recurrent one with a bandana on its head) were also present in many of the photos, there was no sign of her, Tuff, or any of the cappies. Instead, there were many beings she didn't know, some more similar to the monsters Dedede had ordered in the past to get rid of Kirby than to the inhabitants of Dreamland she knew. Some included Knuckle Joe, as well as Kine and Rick! Why were those three pictured and yet she and her brother were nowhere to be found in those photographs?

And then there was Kirby himself, who was bigger in those images than he was in reality, being about the same size as Meta Knight. In many of the photos, he looked more confident, though his friendly expression and love of food (he was eating in more than half of them) were unchanged.

"This is so weird. These photos must be a montage, but who would do such a thing and why?" Tiff wondered. "Maybe this is some sort of plan made by Dedede, but how has he managed to do this without me noticing? It can't be the work of a monster. With N.M.E gone, it's impossible for him to order one."

eNeMeE, the terrible villain and feared inter-galacic tyrant who had been behind the company Dedede had bought the monsters from, had been defeated a year ago. But even after the fall of the terrifying wizard and his company, the king of Dreamland had not ceased at all in his efforts to defeat Kirby. He had replaced the monsters with robots built by himself and Escargoon, his right-hand man, who, curiously, was also absent from the pictures. Meta Knight had said that the creations of those two were not only less dangerous than eNeMeE's monsters to the population of Cappy Town, but also provided good training for the young Star Warrior, so he had never done anything to stop them.

"I must be still dreaming. There is no other explanation for this," Tiff finally decided, in a final attempt to give sense to those nonsensical images. "That fever hit me badly."

"You're finally awake, poyo!" she heard someone say behind her in a surprised but joyful tone, snapping her out of her thoughts. "How are you feeling?"

Tiff turned toward the person that had spoken. She could recognize that voice and that peculiar "poyo" in any place and time, although she had never heard him express himself so clearly.

Behind her stood the little pink puffball that she loved as if he were a member of her family. That baby had turned her life upside down, filling it with adventures beyond her imagination. He was carrying a big red tomatoe over his head.

"Kirby!" Tiff greeted him. "You just spoke! Also, is it just me or do you look older? This confirms that I am indeed dreaming." Then, in her mind, she added: "Any second now, either mom, dad, Tuff or the real Kirby will come to check on me and wake me up from this fever dream," she assured herself.

"Dreaming?" Kirby asked, visibly confused."Ah, you must still be a bit dazed. You were unconscious and had a very high fever when I found you."

Tiff found it weird that those words made way too much sense for a dream, but she decided that the best thing for her health was to go along with it until it was over.

"Oh, so you brought me here?" she asked. Kirby nodded in response. "Where did you find me?"

"In the middle of the path, near to the forest, poyo. I was on my way to Dedede's castle with Gooey when we ran into you."

Gooey? Tiff had never heard that name in her life. She wondered if it belonged to one of the strange creatures that appeared in the photos. "But wait, aren't dreams supposed to be based only on things your brain already knows? How can this dream invent names and characters out of nothing?" she realised.

In addition to that, as time passed since she had gotten out of bed, her head regained more clarity and her senses perceived everything more solidly. And that scared her, because that could only mean that she was awake.

An older Kirby, faces and names she didn't know, those photos of Dedede acting out of character... If it wasn't a dream, there had to be some logical explanation for all of that. Had Dedede and Escargoon somehow invented a time machine and had sent her into the future? No, that was not only insane but it also didn't explain the absence of the people she knew from the images. Also, if she was in the real world, shouldn't Tokkori be already there complaining? That mean bird had taken over Kirby's house as if it were his own, and even if over time his attitude towards the little Star Warrior had softened a bit, it was very strange that he wasn't yelling for them to leave and play outside because he wanted to take a nap or something like that.

Tiff didn't know what to think anymore. The only logical explanation she could figure out was that she was dreaming, but her senses said otherwise. A contradiction that was starting to anguish her.

"I'm sorry I left you alone while you were sleeping, but I ran out of Maxi Tomatoes and had to go out and get one," Kirby suddenly apologized, breaking the awkward silence that had formed. "They are my favourite food. Once you eat it, you will feel better in no time!" he claimed.

No, that was wrong. Kirby's favourite food was watermelon. Tiff knew that better than anyone because she was the one who knew Kirby the best. The more time passed, the less things made sense. The more time passed, the feeling that something was wrong grew. The more time passed, the more certain she became of one thing: she wasn't home.

"Hey Kirby, where's Tokkori?" Tiff asked her friend, her voice a little shaky.

"Tokkori? Who is that?" he asked back. "If he is someone who was traveling with you, I'm sorry, but I haven't seen him."

Kirby did not know Tokkori. Tokkori was not in the photogrphs. She was not in the photographs.

"Kirby, do you know who I am?" she finally asked, even though deep down she already knew the answer. An answer she dreaded to hear.

The look of sadness that crossed Kirby's face before he even began to answer was enought to confirm her fear.

"I'm sorry, poyo. It seems that you know me well... "

Tiff felt reality slam into her chest before Kirby finished speaking.

"...but I don't know who you are."