It has been one month since the Dark Matter incident. Kirby had attended other speaking lessons, and could speak mostly proper English, except he still spoke in third person. He still said everyone's names instead of saying 'he' 'she' or 'they' because he insisted that, "If Kirby doesn't say everyone's names. Everyone will forget everyone's names." Fumu thought this was ridiculous and tried to reassure him that everyone wouldn't forget their names or Kirby's. However, considering some of the people in the village he might be properly paranoid.

It was a beautiful day. Rick, Coo, and Kine had come to visit on the beach. They had come to catch up on each other's lives. Rick had recently found a girlfriend. Coo had been living peacefully in Big Forest since Nruff had been taken down from his pedestal. Kine had the most exciting news.

"Can you believe it?! I'm married!" The ocean sunfish jumped up from the water.

"Oh, that's great!" Fumu clapped, remembering Kine's silly crush on her a while back.

"Wait, you mean in the one month you've been gone, you've already got a girlfriend and got married?" Bun scratched his head.

"I know it seems too soon, but we actually knew each other for a while. Suddenly, we just decided we were meant to be together."

"Aww!" Fumu blushed while Bun snickered in the background.

Kine sang, "Out of everyone in the sea, she's the only girl for me!~"

"Anyway, there's another reason we've come here today." Coo cleared his throat. "Some friends of ours are going to be staying in Dreamland until we can find other residence for them if they want it."

"Okay, who are they?" Fumu crossed her arms.

"I would like to introduce Pitch the bird." A small greed bird with a white stomach stood next to Coo.

"Nago the cat." Nago was light orange on the head and tail, brown on the back, and white on the stomach. He was also a bit portly.

"and ChuChu the flapjack octopus." A pink octopus with large purple eyes and a red bow on her head waved. She was eyeing Kirby cautiously.

Kirby waved back at ChuChu, causing her to giggle lightly. Her red cheeks brightened.

"Okay, now that everyone's introduced where are we supposed to stay?" Nago inquired.

Coo thought for a moment. "Pitch can find a tree very easily, ChuChu can stay at the beach, and Nago can bunk with Gooey."

"A cat staying in Gooey's house, the place where he fishes, doesn't sound like a good idea." Bun pointed out.

"Just because I'm a cat and chubby you automatically assume I'll eat everything? Typical." Nago grumbled.

"It's okay. Gooey already agreed that Nago could stay for the time being." Coo said.

The sun was beginning to set, so the group went their separate ways. It was just another normal day.

Fumu woke up in the middle of the night, feeling as if something wrong was in the air.
She hadn't slept well that night anyway. She continued down the hallway until she saw Dedede on the balcony? What was he up to this late at night? She tiptoed closer to the king only to see a very unusual sight.

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Dedede suddenly floated off the ground and straight across Dreamland. His eyes were tightly closed. Fumu had heard of sleepwalking, but this was ridiculous.

Fumu raced down the hallway waking everyone up. Fumu explained what was happening to Dedede. Everyone including Escargon, Bun, her parents, and the Waddle Dees could only watch in astonishment as their king was floating away like a stray balloon only in a vertical line.

"Your majesty, please wake up!" Escargon called.

"If he wakes up, couldn't he fall?" Parm said.

"Do you think if I hit him with a rock he would come down?" Bun suggested.

"Bun, that's a terrible idea!" Fumu shouted.

They could only watch as the king floated away beyond the horizon.

The next day the Waddle Dees and Commander Waddle Doo were sent on a search party to find Dedede. They hadn't seen hat or beak of the king. There were no traces of the penguin king.

Kirby was puzzled by Dedede's disappearance, but thought maybe it was something the king spent his money on. Paying someone for the power of flight didn't seem to out of character for Dedede.

Gooey and Kirby were fishing on this bright and sunny day. Kirby suddenly looked up to see a dark cloud sweep over the sky. The ground began to shake and a loud crash was heard. Fumu was running towards them in a frantic pace.

"Popstar's rings! They're broken!"

"No, not again!" Gooey cried.

"Not again? What do you mean, not again?" Fumu eyed Gooey suspiciously.

"Nothing! Anyway, we should take cover." The blue blob hopped into the castle with Kirby and Fumu behind him. Kirby's animal friends, new and old, were here too.

"Coo, do you know anything about this?" Fumu asked the wise owl.

"No, I don't know what's causing it. This darkness isn't just here, it's all over Dreamland." The owl shook his head.

"What can we do about it?" ChuChu asked frowning.

There was a moment of silence.

"I think Kirby should go." Bun suggested.

"Alone? Bun. He just came back from one adventure last month." Fumu argued.

"He won't be alone. We'll go with him." Coo, Rick, and Kine stepped up.

"Us too!" Pitch, Nago, and ChuChu cried.

"Don't leave me here!" Gooey shouted. He wanted to help Kirby, but he also didn't want to get stuck with house-sitting Kirby's abode again. Fumu was also asking far too many questions out of Gooey's comfort zone. She was constantly asking where he had come from or what his species was.

"…Fine, but be careful!" Fumu finally agreed, then eyed Gooey. She had a feeling he was hiding something, but she just couldn't put her finger on what it could be.

It was agreed. Their system of travel would be that one animal would travel through a certain section of each land with Kirby and Gooey at a time. The others would travel separately on a different path to look for the king as well.

They had no idea what to do except look for Dedede. This plan was really dependant on flying by the seat of their pants, but they would figure out something.

Kirby, Gooey, and the animal friends headed off on another adventure. They would begin their search in Grass Land.

Fumu was letting Kirby go into danger blindly again. She knew he was a strong Star Warrior, but she couldn't help but worry every time he wasn't in the town or safe at his home.

"You know you can't act like his mom forever." Bun said.

"Shut up, Bun."

Unknown to everyone, under Dedede's castle lied a secret project. Only three knights knew about this project. Sword Knight, Blade Knight, and Sir Meta Knight.

Meta Knight glanced at the remains of the once powerful airship, the Halberd. The ship had been destroyed during the battle with Nightmare, but they were going to restore it to it's former glory.

"So, do you understand why you're here?" Meta Knight asked his two knaves.

"Yes sir. May I ask a question?" Sword asked.

Meta Knight nodded his head, motioning for him to continue.

"Why do we need an airship anyway?"

"Dreamland may need a source of heavy artillery one day." Was the dark blue knight's only response.

Blade and Sword shrugged their shoulders. If their superior wanted the Halberd fixed, he must have had good reasons for it's future.

"First, we should check under the hood for damage checks." The blue knight instructed.

Sword waved his hands, "Um, Sir Meta Knight? I may have forgot to mention-"

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Meta Knight lifted the hood to find no internal mechanisms of any kind. Instead, there were blankets, books, canned foods, a few utensils, and a ukulele. The knight turned towards Sword in slight puzzlement, Blade as well.

"Er, I didn't know we were going to fix it later. I thought it might make a good storage place."

"We spent money on this airship! We ordered supplies for repairing it a month ago! Why wouldn't we fix it?!" Blade threw his hands up.

"Well, I just thought that-"

"Is that my hairdryer?!" Blade sifted through the objects stowed in the airship.

Meta Knight began looking through the pile and pulled out a book titled, "Toxic Buddy: Coping With an Angry Friend."

"Why would you need this?" Blade eyed Sword.

Meta Knight continued to stare at Sword. "You could have hid everything inside the ship instead of the hood and there wouldn't have been a problem."

"So that means…"

"Remove everything from the Halberd's hood and engine."

"By myself?"

"By yourself."

Meta Knight tucked the book he took from the pile under his cape, deciding he would read it later.

There were a few questions buzzing in Blade's mind.

"Why are we repairing the Halberd now?"

"What is it going to be used for?"

"Who is Sword's 'Toxic Buddy'?"

"Why would Sir Meta Knight want to borrow that book?"

He eventually decided that these were questions that could be answered at a different time.

Author's Note: Now, I know that technically Kirby Super Star Ultra was released after Kirby's Dream Land 2, but for timeline purposes it occurs later. The chapters might not be the most exciting thing in the world, because Kirby's Dream Land 3 is basically Kirby doing community service for those familiar with the game. Meta Knight and his knights have finally made their debut! It's about time. Reviews are the fuel to this fanfiction rocket!