A/N: Wow, sorry for the lack of updating! School projects, district orchestra, and plenty of other excuses that you don't care about. Warning: contains some KirbyxJigglypuff flirting, but don't think much of it, MetaxJiggly fans! How DOES Meta Knight feel about this? Hmmm...
Jigglypuff had been away longer than Meta Knight had anticipated. He was almost certain that she would come back to his house, having no place to stay. Master Hand had dismissed the entire Brawl Stadium audience once Jigglypuff went unconscious, so they could get her to what Master Hand had told everyone to be a hospital. There were only two hospitals in Smash City, Toad's Clinic, for simple treatments, and DMM (Dr. Mario Medical) for aggressively attentive problems.
Meta Knight walked out of his house, called upon a carriage, and began to go near the heart of Smash City. Of course, Toad's Clinic was not far off from Brawl Stadium, just in case of accidents. Getting seriously hurt in a brawl was extremely rare.
Meta Knight had reached the clinic. He walked inside and headed toward the reception desk.
"Hello, may I help you?" a Toadette, with boredom, asked, not bothering to look up from her computer.
"I'm looking for the room of someone named Jigglypuff," he told her.
"Hold on," the Toadette replied, doing a quick search for Jigglypuff. "Her name isn't showing up, sir. She isn't with us right now."
"Can you tell me when she checked out?" Meta Knight asked.
The Toadette sighed, before punching more keys into the computer. "I have no history of anybody named Jigglypuff within the past month. Come again, sir," the receptionist said, shooing Meta Knight away. Well, not literally, but she strongly implied it.
Meta Knight walked out of the hospital. "There's no way that she was in need for Dr. Mario's hospital," he thought. "Where could she be?"
Just then, Meta Knight heard a familiar sound. It was Jigglypuff's voice! He hid behind a building, paying close attention. He could recognize another voice, belonging to... Kirby? Meta Knight's rival?
Meta Knight thought about interrupting their conversation, but decided against it.
"Hmm… Jigglypuff will get along fine with Kirby. They've seemed to become good friends... I'll keep an eye on them," Meta Knight thought to himself. He still wondered about the hospital incident. What was going on?
"Ace, are you awake?" Bruise said, shaking him. Ace groaned.
"Well, I am now, genius," Ace sarcastically said, with signs if tiredness in his voice.
"Oh, quit whining. We need to get a fresh start if we are going to make it to that city and back to our friends," Bruise said.
Ace stood up and sighed. The desert sand was warm. "Alright, give me a minute."
Ace walked off near a cactus. It would be a good excuse to make it appear like he would be examining this strange above land plant to Bruise.
He took his green ring and put it underneath his shell. Yoshis have small red shells on their backs that were used to carry water in the old days, but buckets were eventually used to carry more water.
He walked back to Bruise. "Alright, let's go."
Bruise smirked. "Interesting plant?"
"Uhh, yeah. It's prickly..." Ace replied, before the two took off.
Running was still hard to do in the sand, but the two pressed on. They finally ran into some blue figure.
"Sir? Excuse me, could you help us?" Bruise asked.
The blue figure turned around. "Erm, what's the situation?"
"Well... you probably wouldn't believe us if we told you the whole story, but basically our friends are trapped underground and we need help. We might need more help than just you, though..." Ace explained.
The blue figure chuckled. "Well, I think I could help. Follow me," he said, directing them to a large building.
Meta Knight went to CFV, a vehicle store, near the ocean. He walked inside, and was greeted by the store owner.
"Meta Knight, my favorite submarine renter! I assume you're here exactly for that," Captain Falcon yelled.
Meta Knight nodded. He paid Falcon a sum of money, hopped into the submarine, and closed the hatchet.
Meta Knight was now completely submerged. He took out a map which he had made, titled, "Possible Sunken Halberd Locations." He would be trying a new spot today.
Meta Knight travelled a good twenty minutes before the ocean floor rose up.
To his luck, there was the Halberd! Meta Knight marked a giant 'X' on this map location. He went to the water's surface and got his scuba gear ready.
Meta Knight gulped. The ship wasn't even that far down. He could do this. He's swam in tons of oceans before as a part of his training, without scuba gear! Oh well. Meta Knight wasn't a big fan of water. Well, in fact, Meta Knight almost feared water. No... that's not right. A Star Warrior, scared of a little water?
After hesitating, Meta Knight jumped into the ocean. He swam down, rested, swam down, rested, etcetera. He finally reached the Halberd. "Okay, time to check out the damage," Meta Knight thought.
To his surprise, it wasn't as beat up as he thought it was. Of course, it would need some major repair, but he's done it before, he can do it again.
He was about to swim back up, when he noticed a glistening blue ring; Meta Knight wondered how that could have ended up near his ship. It seemed to match his skin tone, so he grabbed it, intrigued by the thing. He quickly swam back up.
Meta Knight jumped back into his submarine. He placed the mysterious ring in his cape pocket, and drove back to Smash City. "Maybe this ring can be of use at my blacksmith shop," he thought to himself.
"So, what you're saying is, you can rescue the survivors of the earthquake, carry them back, and provide them with jobs?" Bruise asked, surprised.
"Of course. I probably can't hire them all... but I can definitely use a good five more employees," he said. "Erm, if it interests you, that five will include you two."
"Wow, thanks, sir!"
"Please, call me Lucario."
"What kind of business do you run?"
"Oh, mainly catching criminals. I guess you could call me the police, in a way. What are you two into?" Lucario asked.
"Farming," they both replied. The Green Yoshi race had always done that, but other tribe races would not reveal what practices they did.
The rescue party's mission had begun. Lucario had fetched his three workers, all Riolu. They were smaller than Lucario, but still looked strong and determined.
The Yoshi duo was surprised. He only had three workers, and they were all fairly small. Lucario told them not to worry, rocks are weak against fighting and steel, but Ace and Bruise didn't quite understand what he meant. [*1]
They travelled fairly quickly, with a few small stops here and there. Sometimes at night, Ace would wander off and make sure his ring was safe.
The group had finally reached the hole where Ace and Bruise had escaped out of.
"Here it is, Sir Lucario," Ace told him.
"Just Lucario, please," he reminded him, before directing the Riolu to jump into the hole.
Ace and Bruise followed suit. When they reached the bottom, they saw Lucario giving commands to his assistants.
"Alright, use Force Palm! Give it your all! No mercy!"
The Riolus continually used some attack with their hands until the rock was about to crumble. Then, Lucario dashed toward it at a blinding speed, smashing it all. He signaled the two Yoshis to come on.
When Ace and Bruise walked through the crumbled remains of the rock, they saw a despairing site. Their friends were dead. And they both knew why; the rock cut off entrance to the watering hole.
"Sir Lucario, sir, this Yoshi is red, and unconscious!" a Riolu shouted.
The news was alarming to Ace and Bruise, and they both dashed over to the red Yoshi.
"Oh my... Ace, this is Susie! She somehow turned red!" Bruise shouted. "Go get some water!"
Back in record time, Ace got the water and gently poured it over Susie's face. She twitched, and opened her eyes.
"Oh thank goodness... Susie, it's Ace and Bruise! We're here to rescue you!"
"Oh, and also, you've turned red," Bruise pointed out.
Susie sat up. Ace gave her some more water, and she quickly drank it.
"Please get me out of here..." she whispered.
Ace and Bruise nodded, and Bruise carried her to the above land, with Lucario and the Riolus not far behind. They set her on the desert's now cold sand, since it was night.
She sat up and looked at her skin tone with a puzzled look in her face. "I always suspected that all Yoshi color races had very close links..." she spoke, for the first time.
"How do you suppose this happened?" Ace asked.
"Survival. Red Yoshis don't need much water intake."
He nodded. They were all very tired, so they decided to rest. Soon, everybody was asleep; they needed their rest for the return trip.
[The Next Day...]
"Wow, thanks for taking me to the beach, Kirby!" Jigglypuff exclaimed.
"Yeah. If you'd been here ten years ago, the beach would have looked a lot better. Now, it's really polluted out in the distance, but the shore isn't so bad."
"Really? Why does it get polluted?" Jigglypuff asked.
"People like Meta Knight; they drive their little marine vehicles all the time. The gas gets in the water and pollutes it." This made Jigglypuff confused, since airship travel used wind currents. She decided to dismiss the issue and ask him something else that caught her attention.
"How do you know Meta Knight?"
"Well... it's complicated. I don't know if I should trust him or not; sometimes, he's kind of evil, but other times, he'll teach me something about myself."
"Yeah, I've met him," Jigglypuff began, "but he doesn't seem that evil. He was actually pretty nice to me."
"...Maybe he likes you," Kirby teased.
Jigglypuff blushed. "Naw, I've known him for like a day. And, might I point out that you're being a lot more friendly and attentive than he was being," Jigglypuff smirked.
"H-hey! Well, that's not fair, because Meta Knight's usually not that friendly..." Kirby said, with rosy cheeks.
Jigglypuff laughed. "Oh, you know I'm teasing. Hey, why don't we go swimming? You said the... pollushin... wasn't that bad."
"Pollution, Jiggly," Kirby winked. "And, alright, let's go!"
The two new friends played in the shallow water, splashing water in each other's faces and attempting to body surf with the round bodies. The two were having a great time, until they heard a shrill call.
Kirby and Jigglypuff gasped. It was a small baby bird with its feet tangled in plastic. Kirby ran over to it, and Jigglypuff watched him.
Kirby calmly approached the baby, but it couldn't run our fly away with its feet in the condition they were in. He gently worked the plastic around its legs until he could pull off the plastic, setting the small bird free.
"Aww, that was so sweet!" Jigglypuff exclaimed.
Kirby blushed. "Well, I'm pretty involved in beach cleanup. It's good publicity for my restaurant, too! But yeah, I hate people who leave things like that on the beach!"
"I'm sure it'll get better some day," Jigglypuff said.
"I hope so," Kirby replied. Then, he noticed a silver ring, halfway buried in the sand. "Hey Jiggs, check it out!"
He picked up the silver ring. "It kind of looks like your red one," he remarked. "I'll keep it, just for that."
Jigglypuff smiled. "Just don't let Master Hand find out about it."
The two briefly laughed, before they sat next to each other by the setting sun.
"Jigglypuff, this is officially the best beach day ever," Kirby said.
"I agr-" Jigglypuff was cut off by several people surrounding her.
A blue figure stepped up in front of her. Jigglypuff gasped, it was the same man she had seen from the ship. To keep them from escaping, he had the Yoshis and Riolus form a circle.
"Hello, Jigglypuff," Lucario said.
A/N: Gasp! Our possibly too friendly friends have been surronded. Don't kill me, MetaxJiggly shippers! This will only add to the drama... hehe! Also, yay for Susie! No, she's not a main character, so yay for no Mary Sueage!
I wanted to try a more casual narration style… so here it is!
[*1 – Pokemon types! I don't know all that much about Pokemon, but rock is weak against fighting and steel, which Lucario and Riolu are.]