Let's take our story now to a simpler land, far far away. The world of miracles, Planet Popstar. The star shaped crust was filled with whimsy, and whirly double rainbows twisted its atmosphere. At the heart of Popstar's surface was a peaceful little country called Dream Land. Its air was clean and its water was fresh. And atop a discreet hill in Dream Land lived a happy go lucky creature named Kirby. Kirby's squishy pink body was no more than 8 inches tall, and the eggshell dome he called home wasn't much bigger. Kirby was sleeping on his comfy bed one quiet night when he was awoken by a loud pounding on his door.
"Kirby-I say Kirby, open this door!"
Who could that be at this hour? Stretching out his little nubs, Kirby rolled off the bed and plopped onto the floor. Opening the door, he saw a blue bird-like thing standing in the doorway. He was at least three times the size of the pink puffball, and dressed in velvet finery. He looked like his head might have exploded from beneath his own beanie. Kirby smiled and waved at his visitor, in spite of the latter's fuming scowl.
"Oh don't give me that, you sneaky little punk! No one pulls a fast one over King Dedede!"
Kirby cocked his head at the king in confusion.
"You know what I'm talking about, boy! You stole my cake! The Popstar Artery Popper!"
While still confused, Kirby's eyes widened at the thought of cake.
"Son, don't tell me-I say don't tell me you scarfed down my cake so quickly that you can't even remember it! It was a 6 layer cake, alternating between layers of peanut butter pecan brownie and blueberry cheesecake made with three different creams! Each layer was separated with chocolate ganache, and the whole affair was lined on the side with caramel glazed graham cracker toffee! Then there were strawberry slices thrown on top all decorative like, and a bunch of chocolate curls sprinkled all over. And right smack dab on the summit is an ice cream macaron made to look like my face!"
Kirby drooled at the picture the king had painted. His mind was lost in this sugary speculation - so much so that he didn't even notice the king walking right into his house.
"Step aside, Kirby; I'm gonna find that cake!"
Once Kirby realized that Dedede had let himself in, he sat himself on his bed and waited for his friend to finish his search. Dedede began sifting through Kirby's drawers and throwing around whatever was inside, which mostly consisted of his own merchandise. One item Dedede flung - a handheld telescope colored a Kirby shade of pink - landed on the foot of Kirby's bed. Kirby, figuring the king would take a while, picked up the scope and turned to his bedside window. The sight of stars and galaxies brought a smile to Kirby's face; he felt warm thinking of all the friendly people that might be living somewhere out there.
It looked as though one of those people was living closer than Kirby expected. Moving his scope down, Kirby noticed an orange little spaceship floating over the horizon. Kirby thought it looked somewhat like a stingray, with three jets of fire shooting out of the bottom. He couldn't quite make out who was inside the ship, but it looked as though it was headed towards a nearby mountainside.
"Poyo poyo!" Kirby called out, trying to bring his friend's attention to the ship.
"Don't try to distract me, Kirby, I don't care about no satellite!" King Dedede refused to give up his search. By the time he turned to face Kirby, the ship had moved out of sight. "Huh. I guess you really don't have it after all."
Kirby shook his head, which also happened to be his entire body.
"But if you don't have it, where did it go? I reckon-I say I reckon I've already torn up my whole castle trying to find it."
"Poyo!"
"What's that? You'll help me look for it? Well, I guess one more look can't kill anyone."
And so Kirby and Dedede hopped into Dedede's car, a rickety old white limousine. Dedede drove the puffball to his hillside castle, where Kirby waved to every single one of Dedede's soldiers - from the squishiest Waddle Dee to the most rugged Buggzy, they all waved back. Dedede led Kirby over to his kitchen; a kitchen certainly fit for a king. There were - among other things - several cabinets stuffed with spices, two ovens, a skillet, an ice cream machine, a few pressure cookers, titanium cookware, diamond cutlery, and things that Kirby didn't even know what they did. The King probably wasn't much more familiar with any of them than Kirby was.
"Take a good look, son," Dedede said, "because I looked around here for at least an hour. It should be sitting all cozy in the fridge, bu there's not even a chocolate curl to be found."
Before the king could finish his spiel, however, Kirby's attention was pulled away from the enticing kitchen set. He couldn't help but notice a faint glow emanating from underneath the king's massive refrigerator.
"Poyo poyo!"
"Behind the fridge?" Dedede burst into laughter, nearly falling onto his back. "Kirby, you silly little dummy, why would I check behind the fridge if the door's on the front? I say, Kirby, you may be the strongest there is, but you're sure not the brightest."
"Poyo." Kirby didn't budge, tapping the fridge with his nub. Dedede sighed and pulled the fridge forward.
"Fine, Kirby, if it'll satisfy your morbid curiosity, I'll check behind the-sweet lord in heaven, what the hell is that!?"
The light from beneath the fridge turned out to be moonlight, seeping through what the two could now see to be a hole torn into the wall of the castle. They stepped through the hole to investigate, but found only three holes burnt into the grass. While King Dedede could only stare in disbelief, Kirby felt gears turning in the back of his mind. Three marks of fire seemed oddly familiar.
"...Poyo! Poyo poyo!" Kirby remembered! The spaceship he saw earlier! It must've been what left these burns in the ground!
"What? A spaceship!? Son, when did you see a spaceship!?"
"Poyo poyo."
"Back at your house!? Well why didn't you say something earlier!? We gotta go catch 'em!" King Dedede picked up Kirby and ran him back to the car. They sped after the ship, Kirby directing the king to the spaceship's mountainous destination.
Kirby and the king pulled up to the base of the mountain. It was peaceful at this time, with crisp air flowing gently past the two adventurers. The sky was empty, and anything alive on the mountain's colorfully striped side was long asleep.
"Looks as though we're off like a herd of turtles trying to find that extraterrestrial purloin." King Dedede rubbed his fuzzy forehead as he seized up the scenery. "Still, this is the only lead we got. Let's make like a Goodwill and get to hunting!"
So the two stepped out of the car and marched around the mountain for a while. They carried on mostly in silence. The snoring of the Twizzies and Tookies and Lovelies and Noddies living on the mountain was the loudest noise this late at night. The only thing they saw move was a nondescript Broom Hatter sweeping up the rocky landscape. The chill in the air made it clear that winter was well on its way. Snowfall would soon cover all of the Hatter's hard work, rendering it pointless just like every year beforehand. But he carried on. The Broom Hatter simply tipped his large witchy hat to Kirby and Dedede as they passed him by, and he kept on sweeping.
Kirby and Dedede stumbled upon a cave. Its entrance was dark and wide, practically begging to be spelunked. The two entered the cave, figuring that a thief on the run wouldn't be waiting out in the open. Cast into the cave's shadows, Dedede reached into his beanie and pulled out a glowstick. He cracked it, revealing the innards of the cave to them. The floor was a beautiful blue, and the walls were a rich brown like chocolate. As Kirby and Dedede trekked down the bumpy passages of the cave, the air around them seemed to get colder; the both of them could now see their own breath freezing in the air.
"H-hey, Kirby," Dedede said through chattering teeth, "when it's w-winter, ain't it s-s-supposed to get w-warmer underground?"
Kirby was thinking about what his friend said when a faint ringing interrupted his train of thought. It reminded him of a cat toy. It sounded like it was coming from farther away, deeper into the cave. Kirby pursued it, with the king following close behind. The further they got into the cave, the more they noticed patches of frost along its walls. Something about it didn't look natural, like it had been thrown on the wall deliberately.
Eventually, the two found the source of the ringing. A family of snowmen was huddled up together, shivering violently. The sound came from bells they all wore on their necks, ringing as their chubby snow bodies shook.
"Oh, I see! It's j-just a bunch of Chillies!" Dedede chuckled at their quaint little discovery. "Hmm...wait just a minute now. Are you-I-I say are you folk shivering?"
"A-Absolutely!" replied the patriarch of the Chilly family, "It's freezing in here!"
"Y-yeah, but...you're snowmen. Aren't you always c-cold?"
"Not t-this cold!" a snowlady answered as she clung to the other's side.
"So when'd it g-get this cold?"
"About when-achoo!" A little snowchild in the center of the snowhuddle sneezed as he tried to explain. "About when that g-giant ran into the c-cave."
Kirby and Dedede shot each other a look before continuing their investigation.
"A giant? Was it a giant alien?"
"Not that we k-know," answered an older snowchild, "Though now that you m-mention it, I think I heard some p-people outside talking about an o-orange spaceship."
"Ah hah!" Dedede jumped in the air, much to the confusion of the Chillies. "W-we were right! That alien is in here!"
"You're looking f-for that giant?" The Chilly patriarch slid up to the king. "M-maybe I could h-help you find it. If we g-get it out of here, maybe it'll go back to n-normal in here."
"Could you? That'd be great!"
"Sure thing!" The Chilly tipped the bucket on his head to his new allies. "You can call me Frosty."
After Frosty bid his wife Crystal and their kids a temporary goodbye, he led Kirby and Dedede down the caverns he saw the alien head down. As they continued down the cave, the patches of frost became entire stalagmites of ice. Maybe he was just getting hopeful, but Dedede swore he could smell the weakest trace of the peanut butter in his precious confectionery.
"We're almost there! I can s-smell it!" Dedede's eyes were closed as he relished in the nostalgic scent in the air.
"Dedede, was it?" Frosty said as he glid along the cave floor, "Open your eyes and put away the g-glowstick. I think we're getting close to an e-exit."
Dedede did just that. When he covered up his glowstick, the group realized that they could see even without its light. With a wider range of vision, they noticed that the cave had gotten wider as well. They found themselves in a gaping crater within the cave, coated with more ice than they'd seen so far. In the farthest wall of the canyon was a massive tunnel leading out of the mountain. Frosty noticed a faint green glow shimmering in the corner of his eye that the glowstick had been overpowering.
"And in the darkness, our path is illuminated." Frosty turned his friends to the source of the light; it was the spaceship Kirby had seen earlier!
"I-is that the one, Kirby!?" Dedede asked his doughy pink friend. Kirby nodded, and all three of them ran up to the ship. It was clearly on, but didn't seem to be doing anything. They looked into its window to see if they could get a glance at the alien, but the windows were covered in fog. Dedede tried to wipe off the fog with his mitten, but it was all on the inside of the ship.
"Hey, wait!" Dedede said, "If the f-fog's on the inside, that means the ship's w-warmer on the inside than it is out here! Quick, let's hop in before our feet f-freeze off!"
The three climbed onto the ship and found a hatch on the top. They scrambled to open it, but found it locked. Frosty blew his icy breath onto the lock, freezing it. They broke the lock off and leapt into the ship.
"Ah," Dedede groaned, practically melting in the warmth of the ship, "now this-I say now this is better."
"Poyo poyo." Kirby smiled, feeling as though warm gooey honey was being poured over his floppy little feetsies. King Dedede stood up and analyzed the ship's interior. It was sleek and metallic, with shiny crates and tanks strewn along its sides. Holographs were being projected around the ship, and a large dashboard stuck out in front of the windshield. Dedede meandered up to one crate and threw open its lid.
"Hey! No cake, but they've got soda on this thing!" Dedede pulled a small canister out of the crate. Dedede popped it open, revealing a fizzy blue liquid inside. The king chugged it without question, much to Kirby's disgust. "...eck! Tastes like tar! If only I had my luscious Popstar Popper to wash out this flavor. Why if that scoundrel were here right now, I'd clobber the little thief back to its planet!"
Dedede's rant was cut off by a thud on the outside of the ship.
"Oh lord, it's back! Hide!" Dedede hopped into the crate and shut the lid. Kirby looked around for his own hiding spot. Staring at the front of the ship, he noticed that there was a narrow crevice between the windshield and the keyboard. As fast as his feet could carry him, he crawled up the pilot's seat and hopped behind the keyboard. Just as he landed, he heard the hatch swing open again.
Something fell in with a loud clank. It sounded large, maybe large enough to see Kirby behind the dashboard. There was silence for a minute as the intruder observed the scene. Then there was a hard tap, a metal boot against the floor. Then another and another. Kirby could hear the sounds of circuits buzzing and machinery whirring as the alien got closer and closer to him. And when they stopped, he heard the alien speak out with a synthetic, muffled voice.
"Is someone here?" the alien rumbled.
"No," Dedede answered from inside the crate. Kirby then heard the pitter-patter of all the contents of the crate being violently dumped onto the floor, followed by King Dedede tumbling out. Kirby jumped out to aid his friend, and got a good look at the alien.
The alien was massive, well over twice Dedede's height. Its armor was frighteningly imposing, with massive shoulders and jagged joints. Its right arm was replaced with a sleek cannon, which it was currently grinding into Dedede's temple. The alien snapped its gaze towards Kirby, glueing the puffball in place.
"What are you trying to do to my ship?" the alien growled.
"We didn't do anything!" Dedede struggled to speak as the alien stepped on his chest.
"Then why did you dump a bucket of water on the floor?"
"I didn't-I say I didn't do anything like that! Did you Kirby?" Dedede turned to look at his friend. Kirby shook his head. "What about you, Frosty?"
Dedede looked around, but noticed he couldn't see Frosty. All he could find was the bucket he had on his head, sitting on a puddle of water underneath the entrance hatch.
"Huh, I guess he left." Dedede said.
"And now, so will you." The alien stepped off of the king and gave him a shove towards the hatch.
"Now wait just a second, you plundering punk! I'm not going nowhere until I get what you took from me!"
"I haven't taken anything from you."
"Oh enough of all this! I know you've got my cake! Your little UFO left burns in the dirt right next to the hole you tore into my castle!"
"Castle...the castle up on that hill? With the flags and the glass dome on top?"
"Yeah, that's my castle!"
The alien then sat down in the pilot's seat and typed on the ship's keyboard. Kirby hopped off the dashboard and stood by Dedede. A holograph popped up, playing a video recording of Dedede's castle. It seemed to have been recording from the ship, its view shaking and swaying until coming to a stop on the ground. The alien could be seen entering the frame and then climbing over the castle wall.
"I don't know what you mean by 'cake'," the alien said, "but I have an idea as to who stole it. Look at the upper right hand corner of the screen."
Kirby and King Dedede followed the alien's direction. Sure enough, they saw a little green creature float out of a window in the castle. It was too far away to make out any of its discernible features, but it could clearly be seen hovering around the castle before floating back inside.
"My name is Samus Aran, a bounty hunter," the alien explained, "and I'm here on Popstar to hunt Metroids. They're an invasive species of parasites. Five of them have been planted on this planet by the Space Pirates. They seemed particularly attracted to your castle, so I slipped inside to confront them. Unfortunately, the Metroids caught on and fled."
On the recording, five of the green Metroids floated out of the window. One of them was carrying a decorative golden platter with a matching dome cover.
"That's it! That's my cake! Them Metroids got it!" Dedede laughed at this new revelation. "So they took my cake. Did they bust the hole in my wall too?"
The video footage then showed Samus bursting out of the castle with a fiery explosion before hopping back into the ship.
"No, that was me." Samus stood from her chair and picked up one of the canisters on the floor, inserting it into her arm cannon.
"Oh well, water under the bridge! Now let's go get us some Metroids!"
"Us?"
"Well yeah. You're after them because they're all 'invasive' and 'parasitic' and whatnot, and we're after them because they've got that cake!"
"However good your snack was, it's not worth a run in with a Metroid. Frankly, you shouldn't even be in this cave at all with them running around. I'll let you two stay inside the Gunship until I wipe them out, but don't touch anything." Samus climbed out of the hatch to head back into the cave.
"Hah," Dedede puffed, "like we can't handle a couple of green little bean bags. C'mon, Kirby, let's go after her!"
So Kirby and Dedede waited in the Gunship for a few seconds before sneaking out and trailing after Samus. They made sure to hang back just far enough to keep her in their field of vision. Even though Samus wasn't hunting them down anymore, her rigid march was still terrifying. Seeing her come towards you must've felt akin to dying, complete with the sensation that your life is coming to a close. The two tried to shake off that feeling and continue down the cavern.
Eventually, Samus stopped dead in her tracks. Kirby and Dedede stopped as well, trying to understand her motives. She craned her head around, studying the crater. Out of nowhere, Samus ducked and rolled to the left. A Metroid swooped down out of the darkness, just nearly hitting the bounty hunter. Kirby and Dedede felt every muscle in their bodies fold inside out with what they saw; the Metroids looked far more flattering as a blurry image on a screen. Up close, you could see the bugs for what they were; oozing sacks of green slime convulsing through the air. A mound of flesh was stuck halfway inside the creature's underside. The mound's outer half was fitted with two sets of fangs, while four veiny buds throbbed off of its inner half. Dedede could hardly watch, but Kirby felt oddly intrigued by the Metroid - almost...reminiscent.
The Metroid screeched as it plunged at the bounty hunter a second time.
"Take this!" Samus aimed her cannon at the Metroid! But nothing came out as the gloopy monster latched onto Samus' cannon. One firm bash against the cave wall knocked the Metroid off, but Samus still looked shaken. She kept aiming her cannon at the Metroid, but the chamber remained inactive.
"C'mon, what's wrong with this thing!?" Samus popped out the canister she'd placed in earlier and inspected it. As she turned it upside down, its top fell off.
It was the canister King Dedede had drank.
"Uh oh." Dedede's whimper drew Samus' attention.
"You two! What are you doing here!?" While Samus was distracted, the Metroid jumped on her head. Losing her balance, the bounty hunter screamed as she tried to pry off the gremlin. The Metroid proved too fickle, however, digging its teeth into her armor. It flashed hypnotically as Samus grew weaker, her knees shaking. While Dedede watched in horror, Kirby jumped as he understood his reminiscent feeling. The flashing lights of the Metroid triggered a distant memory. Without a moment's hesitation, Kirby ran back into the depths of the cave.
"Hey, Kirby! Where are you going!? We need to get that thing off of her head!" Dedede didn't wait for his friend to turn around, simply running up to Samus as he reached up his robe. He pulled out a wooden mallet with a head bigger than his skull, and began pounding the Metroid with it.
All of this commotion had attracted the natives of the cave. Scarfies and Rockies had all come out to stare, but Kirby had his eyes fixed on an unsuspecting Chilly. Without any warning for the poor snowman, Kirby opened his mouth and inhaled. It was no ordinary breath either; it grew to the strength of a hurricane, causing a tremor throughout the whole cave. The Chilly was sucked into Kirby's mouth and Kirby swallowed him whole! After his taboo feast, icicles erupted from Kirby's head. With his new form, Kirby bolted back over to Samus. She had fallen onto the floor by now, as Dedede's hammer bounced off of the Metroid's elastic body.
"Nothing-I say nothing I'm doing is hurting the little slimeball, Kirby! I don't know what to do!"
"Poyo!" Kirby pushed Dedede aside and opened his mouth again. This time, an icy wind bellowed out. The mist poured over the Metroid, freezing it solid! Kirby turned to his friend and nodded.
"Here goes nothing!" Dedede swung his hammer at the Metroid one last time. The frozen Metroid shattered into pieces, releasing Samus from its grip.
Kirby and Dedede dragged Samus back to the Gunship, propping her up against the wall of the ship. After a few minutes of gasping for air, Samus brought herself back onto her feet.
"You," Samus said to Kirby, "How did you know Metroids are vulnerable to freezing temperatures?"
"Poyo poyo!"
"...What?"
"He said he's m-met you before," Dedede explained as he began to shiver again, "Kirby, can you d-ditch the copy ability? It's c-cold enough as it is in here!"
In response, Kirby regurgitated the Chilly onto the floor. The icicles on Kirby's head disappeared, and the Chilly ran away screaming.
"Incredible," Samus said, "So you can absorb another lifeform, copy its attributes, and release it harmlessly?"
"Sometimes he does. The other times he just digests them and they don't come back up."
"Jesus...wait...your name's Kirby?" Samus felt gears begin to turn in her head as she stared at the plump little boy. "Hey, wait, I know you! You're Kirby!"
Kirby nodded and hugged her ankle with his nubs. Samus reached down and patted him back.
"So you do know each other," Dedede said.
"Yes. A long time ago, I was on this planet hunting Metroids. That time they weren't planted; the Metroid population was drastically higher back then. I met Kirby in a volcano, and he helped me wipe out the invading Metroids. I guess you two are equipped to handle them after all."
"You've got that right!"
"I don't remember meeting you before. Who are you?"
"You're talking-I say you're talking to King Dedede, the rightful ruler of the prestigious country you've found yourself in!"
"King? I see." Samus bowed her head. "I'm sorry for my hostility, your highness."
Dedede leaned over to Kirby and whispered, "Heavens to Betsy, someone actually bought it."
"So it sounds like we both have a vested interest in the eradication of these Metroids. I take it we'll be pursuing them together from here on out?"
"Are you kidding? You couldn't keep us from those Metroids if you tried!" Dedede wrapped his arm around Kirby's hypothetical shoulder and playfully punched Samus. "With your fancy spaceship, Kirby's appetite, and my astounding tactical genius, we'll make the perfect extraterrestrial exterminating aggregate! Hunting down aliens across the stars...we'll be known as the Star Allies!"
And so, the Star Allies hopped inside the Gunship, ready to carry out their mission against the Metroids. Samus crouched by the canisters she dumped on the floor and began to place them back in their crate.
"Before we continue, I need to figure out what went wrong with my arm cannon," Samus said.
"Oh yeah, about that," Dedede explained, "I drank your soda, sorry about that."
"Soda?"
"Yeah, the soda you slapped into that fancy cannon of yours."
Samus froze in place, turning to stare at the king. She held up a canister for display.
"...You...you drank one of these?"
"Unfortunately, yeah. It tasted horrible."
"This isn't soda, it's a battery. I use it to convert my cannon fire into an ice beam."
"Oh then I guess for battery acid, it tasted pretty good!"
Samus dropped her head into her hands and sighed.
"King Dedede, in half an hour, that 'soda' is going to start giving you fatigue and nausea. Your heart rate will pick up in 12 hours, and in a few days time you'll fall into a coma."
"Well that's just no good. You wouldn't happen to have a remedy for that, would you? Maybe a healing item I can eat, or some cough syrup or something."
Samus got up and pressed a button on her dashboard. An operating table rose out of the ground, with some leather straps and a tube to boot.
"Have you ever heard of a gastric lavage?"
"Nah, I ain't that familiar with French cuisine, but I'm sure it can't be that bad."