JMJ
Chapter Six: The Metallic Moan
Birds cried in the distance, taking flight as fast as they could away from the trees and away from Wispy Woods. The air seemed to have an ominous chill about it. It did not take a perceptive person to think that something was wrong, especially after the strange hallow sound, almost metallic, that moaned queerly on the wind.
Tiff who had been with Kirby all morning suddenly stopped eating her late breakfast of wild berries and looked.
"I don't like this," she said.
Kirby looked up at the trees as well and saw a pair of chipmunks hurrying away from the woods and crossing to trees scattered in the grassy hills.
"Poyo?' he asked slowly looking up at Tiff with concern.
From their spot on a hilltop, the pair stared up at the blowing leaves now seemingly vacant of any animal unless they were hiding in burrows beneath the trees. There was something obviously metal gleaming like a chromed sea monster poking up out of the sea of green and submerging again.
Tiff's hair stood on end and she cringed. "What's that?"
Kirby blinked and then frowned.
After a moment of silence, the strange metallic moan sounded again, but this time it sounded more like a growl.
Kirby darted suddenly towards the woods.
"Kirby! Wait!" cried Tiff scrambling to her feet and racing after him.
#
The queer moaning or growling had echoed to the castle as well, and although Lady Like and Sir Ebrum had to comment about it in whispers and some of the Waddle Dees looked over the parapet walkway, neither King Dedede nor Escargoon paid the least bit attention. It was hard to pay attention to the outside world when one's inside world was so at stake, after all.
"But, Sire!" Escargoon complained as he hurried to keep up with the king's quick defiant strides. "You can't be serious! After what just happened you want to get another mons—uh! I mean robot! Please, Your Majesty, I beg you, for once in your life have reason!"
"Reasoning's your deportment and for people like Tiff, and action's mine!" retorted King Dedede. "And right now I need action! I need something I can control every moment myself! Something I can make move and react exactly when I say so with my true precipitation of timing! There's gotta be a robot they got that's remote controlled or motion-centered to your body like those people on those computer characters in movies and I'm aiming to get my hands on one of them now."
"But Sire, think of your budget! We just fixed it! Think of your bruises! Think of the state of your family's castle! The Waddle Dees still have a lot of work to do to fix the walls and the balcony! The failure with the first robot was just last night!"
"I am thinking of my bruises and the state of everything and they need to be avenged!"
"Think of all the therapy tapes I had to watch to get myself to be as emotionally stable as I am!" sobbed Escargoon grabbing onto the back of the feet of Dedede so that the king began dragging him along the tiled floor, his bare snail skin squeaking like sneakers across the polished tiles. "I almost lost it after just one year of fighting Kirby!"
Tears gobbed his eyes and a choke grew in his throat as he tried to keep from bawling, but he did not get the chance to anyway.
"Get offa me, you wack job!" snapped Dedede shaking Escargoon off and then kicking him with his other foot when that did not work.
"Ah!" cried Escargoon.
Then Dedede went on at the same pace as before, "And it's been four years too long that Kirby's overstayed his welcome."
"Well, at least he can count when it matters," murmured Escargoon under his breath and wiping the tears away on his arm. Quickly afterwards, he chased the king down again on suddenly perceptible feet.
"Please, Sire!" he begged clasping his hands together once at his side again and he could slide along in his usual way. "If you value my work and all I've ever done for you even the slightest bit, please, or our relationship as master and servant, even—like…like Frodo and Sam. For old time's sake, O, Your Majesty, have mercy on my nerves. I'll lose it again! I just know it! I'm getting too old for this! The doctor says my blood pressure's just not what it used to be, y'know? At least find it in that ruthless wasteland that serves as your heart to wait another good week before—"
Dedede stopped so suddenly that Escargoon did all he could to keep from running into him.
"Grrr!"
Escargoon cringed and covered his eyes with his hands bracing himself for a smack, but Dedede had not been paying the least bit of attention to Escargoon.
"Where's that stupid Susie when I need her?" Dedede growled.
"She's in town helping one of the Cappies," said Escargoon with a sigh. "Kawasaki, I think."
"Yeah, well, there ain't no helping that loser!"
"You can say that again."
"There's no helping a wimp like you neither!" snapped Dedede.
"You don't exactly need her to order," Escargoon remarked after a pause still rather sulkily; he said it not to be helpful but simply because of a burst of annoyance against Susie and all the staff at Haltmann Works Company. "You can just use one of those virtual store visors. I'm sure she left you one here. They're not all in town, y'know?"
Dedede brightened and snapped his fingers. "Hey, you're right. Great thinking, Escargoon!"
Realizing what he had done, Escargoon moaned.
#
"Kirby!" called Tiff still racing into the woods.
Even as she entered she felt the dead chill around her, and a metallic smell on the dead breeze that tried to whip her back onto the grassy sunny hills still visible behind her as though entering a very strange world in which she did not belong. But this was Wispy Woods. She had gone into them her whole life. What was going on? Dedede again? Haltmann Works Company? Nightmare Enterprises?
This certainly felt like a nightmare, and for the first time she seriously had a terrible chilling feeling that NME was not dead, and that feeling filled her with such a hopeless dread that she staggered suddenly and tripped along the path flat on her face.
She clutched at her stinging cheek and then her elbows.
What if Haltmann Works Company had only the same master in the end as Nightmare Enterprises? What if Mr. Haltmann was just a monster in a new line created by NME better and stronger and smarter than before?
"Poyo!" she heard Kirby yell out in the distance through the trees blocking the sight of him.
Tiff shook her head and dragged herself to her feet. She could not think about all that now. Nor did she physically have time, for it was at that moment that she saw it as it rumbled towards her, using its metal-plated roots to grind through the ground and move forward. It was a giant metal monstrous tree!
"Ah!" she cried and just barely got out of the way of its grinding gleaming roots, but as she lifted her head, she saw what it was.
"Wispy?" she gasped out loud to herself.
Or was it just a copy of him. Either way Wispy was in more danger than he had ever been.
And Kirby?
He was coming in at the mechanized Wispy, and unless someone like Rick in the woods had told Kirby to suck something up, Kirby had actually done so on his own this time. He was Rock Kirby, but Tiff was not sure if Rock Kirby would be enough to stop such a beast as it stormed out onto the hills beyond the border of the woods.
Quickly, she ran out of the trees after them.
#
Cappy Town heard the noise now of the metal monster in the hills. Some people on the outskirts could see it. Even Escargoon in the castle suiting up King Dedede in his motion-capture gear thought he saw something out a window, and both heard the noise.
"Come on! Hurry up! The party's starting without us!" snapped Dedede.
"But whose party is it if we aren't starting it?" Escargoon could not help but ask.
Nevertheless, Dedede finished getting ready himself and then began putting his robot into action. Once it was turned on, Dedede could downright feel the power he had in controlling the robot with his own actions, and he grinned with fire in his eyes that made Escargoon shudder. With the visor over his eyes, Dedede could see through the robot's eyes, and as he stood on the motion senor pad, he tried it out. Taking one dangerous step forward he nearly crushed Escargoon with a big robotic foot.
"Charge!" growled Dedede and as he began running in place on the sliding pad, the robot charged forward and rammed right through a wall.
"Oh!" groaned Escargoon.
Dedede's new robot ran along the parapet outside of the castle and then with a giant leapt he made it land with force on the ground.
He roared, "Lower that bridge, you Waddle Dees!"
"Quick, before he stampedes through!" snapped Escargoon through a megaphone out over the grounds.
Faster than usual the Waddle Dees lowered the bridge and just barely was it low enough for the robot to run out without crashing through the boards. It took another leap over the moat and onto the road on the other side. Quickly it then made for the grassy hills, and Dedede could see dirt and dust flying as it approached. He saw Rock Kirby suddenly in front of him, and he laughed.
"At last! Let's blow that Kirby into a pile of rubble!" he cried, and he made the robot's arms turn into laser cannons.
The only funny thing was that Kirby, floating on the Warpstar, was looking behind the robot rather than at it after a few seconds.
Dedede made a face.
"Huh?"
CRASH!
"Iiiaah!" cried Dedede.
Something giant, something deadly, and something beyond what Dedede could actually perceive rammed right through him—or the robot anyway. Lurching forward with the motion of his robot against its will, he was not sure if he felt actual pain or if it was just so much of a shock. Either way he fell over in his surprise and onto his back. The robot's vision pixilated and went out.
"You're Majesty!" cried Escargoon running to his side.
He could feel Escargoon shaking him before he took off the visor, and he shoved him away as he threw the visor off.
"What happened?" demanded Dedede.
"I don't know, exactly. I was about to ask you the same thing?"
"Come on, we're going to the roof!"
Grabbing Escargoon he pulled him forward still in full gear. Their balcony was not fixed, so the roof would have to do, and with binoculars in hand King Dedede and Escargoon looked out in the direction of the hills and saw the fight.
"It looks like Wispy is fighting Kirby!" exclaimed Dedede.
"But why would Wispy do that?" demanded Escargoon. "Besides look at him, he's lost all his color and he's shining like he's got a tinny coat of paint."
"What's that mean?"
Escargoon removed his binoculars and closed his eyes pompously, "My guess would be Haltmann Works Company."
"They're trying to defeat Kirby before me?" growled Dedede removing his binoculars and glaring at his servant.
"Looks that way, Sire," Escargoon remarked. "Duped again, as usual, but look at the bright side. If they fight Kirby instead of us, then we don't have to get involved, and then goodbye Kirby without any pain and suffering on our part!"
"No! They can't defeat Kirby without me!" snapped Dedede glaring into the binoculars again. "That Kirby's gotta defeat their fake Wispy Woods just like he always does."
"Hmph."
Dedede shook his fist angrily. "You better kill that phony Wispy, Kirby, or else!"
Escargoon put his binoculars to his eyes again too, and it did look like Kirby had the upper hand now, for he had turned into the form he had taken last night again. He chased after Wispy, or whatever it was, and spat out some acidic substance from his mouth.
"Yeah! Get him good, Kirby!" snarled Dedede.
It was not much longer before Wispy was defeated, and Escargoon despite himself smiled almost as smugly as Dedede when he saw that beneath the metallic coat really was a part of Wispy's wooden hide showing through.
He saw Tiff running to an exhausted Kirby, but Kirby would not rest yet. Both hurried to the wounded Wispy Woods that now somehow had to return to his spot in the middle of the forest and be replanted as the metal coat slowly but surely slid off of him like a slippery slime.
Escargoon chuckled, a very vile and mean little laugh.
"Oh, Haltmann Works Company is in for it now," he sneered, and removing his binoculars he looked up at the king in quite good spirits; he said very cheerily, "Maybe we should go into town and ask Susie what that was all about, huh, Your Majesty?"
#
Tiff was already in town by the time King Dedede and Escargoon arrived in the hovercraft, which Escargoon had mastered by now. Just as Escargoon had hoped the loud-mouthed girl was yelling at everyone in town about what had just happened. At her side, Kirby was even a little wounded and had a bandage around one arm and over his brow.
"Oh, this is rich, Sire!" Escargoon laughed.
"I knew that none of this would end well!" Tiff was yelling at the wide-eyed Cappies in the middle of the town's fairy ring of building around their tree. "I knew something like this would happen! That was Wispy Woods up there, and now we have to help him! He's stranded up in the fields and can't get back into the woods where he belongs! He had been taken over by some kinda metal shield that dragged him through the woods and out of them to fight Kirby!"
King Dedede opened the hatch of his vehicle and marched onto the scene. Sniggering, Escargoon hurried after him.
"Oh, what does he want?" said Tuff crossing his arms.
"I say Wispy and Kirby got what was coming to them!" retorted Dedede then forcing his presence over all, "But that sure doesn't explain you, Susie!"
He thrust a finger at Susie among the people in the crowd, and as the king pointed everyone else backed away. Susie's brow puckered.
"Please, Your Majesty, I was just trying to explain—"
"Explain? Hah!" said Escargoon. "I always knew there was something too good to be true about you! Now say what really happened to everyone in town!"
Tiff was taken aback. Of course, she had assumed Dedede and Escargoon in on this.
Susie cleared her throat, "I was trying to." She bowed to Dedede humbly and said, "With your permission, You're Majesty."
"Oh, cut the act!" snapped Escargoon.
Tiff glared at Escargoon.
"You have my permission," retorted Dedede. "In fact, on behalf of my kingdom, I demand to know what really happened!"
The Cappies murmured in agreement.
"Well," said Susie calmly. "First I would like to say that although you have a right to be concerned, we at Haltmann Works Company can only humbly apologize for the freak accident that happened. It appears that when His Majesty's robot last night exploded some of the volatile core pieces of it flew far from where it could be picked up and properly disposed of because of the power of Kirby. Our staff has been diligently searching for the missing pieces to break them down safely. Unfortunately one got into the woods and somehow in its instability affected Wispy Woods and drove him insane when it coated his body in an unfortunate mechanizing process. Fortunately Kirby was there to free him, but I believe the only reason why he attacked Kirby was because he was there and no other reason than that. After all, it also unfortunately destroyed His Majesty's replacement robot. Right, Your Majesty?"
"Uh, right," said Dedede, confused as to why he suddenly was not so angry at Susie even if he was still angry in general.
"But how would you know that?" demanded Escargoon.
"Yeah!" snapped Dedede.
"When I heard the commotion, of course, I used my binoculars to see what was happening. I quickly alerted the mother ship about the horrible predicament of Wispy Woods and that the piece was in him. We have recovered the piece now, however, and we are more than willing to use our technology to put Wispy back into his proper site if someone goes to direct me where that is.
"That sounds reasonable," the Cappies said to each other. "What a kind person Susie is!" "Yeah, we were just all overreacting again." "We're so sorry, Miss Susie for thinking badly of you."
"Oh, no it's quite understandable, and the fault is all mine," said Susie humbly bowing to everyone. "I do not deserve such kind words or your forgiveness."
Tiff pouted. "But you said that your technology was clean and—"
"Oh, not at all," the Mayor interrupted. "You are the most welcome visitor we've had in years! We will be most grateful if you return Wispy Woods to his proper spot."
"Yeah, then I won't have to see him from my castle!" laughed Dedede, but no one thought his joke very funny.