Meta Knight was dashing through the forest with speed one would not think a ball would be capable of. He had not wanted to flee like that, but it had been his only choice. That was a battle he could not win, especially not in the state he was in right then. No arms, feet, or weapons? That was more than enough reason for him to leave. Of course, he had to find Kirby, who had once again become the strongest warrior in the land now that Meta Knight was handicapped.

Meta Knight stopped and turned around, already getting used to the old form he had taken on so long ago. Wait a moment... Meta Knight felt different than the last time he had gotten transformed into yarn. He realized he had been feeling the ground as it bumped underneath him in his flight. Seeing a sparkling pond just within sight, Meta Knight carefully rolled toward it, lest he fall in.

The reflection in the pond was different than what he had been thinking it would have been. Meta Knight's mask was denim, but his round body was... A literal dark blue ball of yarn.

Similar to the last time he was yarn, there was a lot of silk included in his body, only now it was somewhere around ninety five percent silk and five percent cotton. That monster! He knew he hated his soft skin so he made him out of silk!

He rolled back with a red stain on his concealed face. A ball of yarn. If he was the kind of person who did Halloween, there was his costume, but that was not until spring ended.

Meta Knight shook his body and continued rolling swiftly out of the forest.

At one point, Meta Knight had gotten distracted by a Yin-Yarn-shaped shadow and had fallen into a pit of spikes which jabbed into him, making him grunt in surprise and surprisingly, only a minor amount of pain to course through him. He wiggled himself off the spike and carefully but painfully bounced across the other ones out of the pit.

Meta Knight was one tough piece of string, but he had not done too well in that spike pit. He was covered with slight tears and punctures that stung every time he rolled on them. Luckily, there was not much more forest left for him to bumble through and all he had to do was hop over a bush to skid to a stop on the path. He dearly hoped Kirby would not take it too hard when he told him Drawcia and Yin-Yarn were still alive.

He glanced around at his surroundings. His cape, armor and sword were on the path some fifty feet away, but Meta Knight set off without them, having not the proper appendages to pick them up.

In the times where he could see where he was going, he could see Kirby's house on the hill. He fought the slope to reach it, and slowly but surely, Meta Knight was stopping himself at the front door. Knowing not how to knock, Meta Knight body-slammed into the door repeatedly in an attempt to knock it.

"Kirby! Are you in there?" Meta Knight went over to the window and jumped as high as he could to see if he could look in. The house was empty. Meta Knight, figuring that Kirby must have been at the castle with Fumu and Bun, raced away from the house, only slightly noticing the shadows behind him.

Forgetting about gravity, Meta Knight was going full-speed down the hill, but he could feel himself starting to wobble uncontrollably. Before he could react and readjust his rolling speed, a small cliff that was slanted at a forty five degree angle at the bottom of the hill caught his attention just as he soared off it, flying completely over the town in an instant and landing at the base of the path leading up to the castle.

Meta Knight skidded and bounced from his rough landing and his cuts burned, but he continued searching out Kirby. He could really only be found in two places, after all.

The hill got steeper and steeper and Meta Knight got slower and slower, but soon enough he dragged himself to the bridge that crossed the moat. The road from here was much faster as Meta Knight traversed the halls of the castle, going to the first place that came to mind; the courtyard where the fountain was. Seeing no one was there, he quickly got agitated and spun off toward Fumu's and Bun's apartment, thinking that Kirby and Bun must have been watching television.

Meta Knight hesitated when he got to the stairs that led up to the floor the apartment was on, but took a breath and hopped up three stairs, then three more, then- Smack! Meta Knight fell back a few steps when the crown of his head rammed against the next stair. It took him a moment to recover, but when he did he stopped himself from falling any further.

Seeing that hopping up the stairs would not be getting him anywhere, Meta Knight reluctantly rolled up the stairs one by one; putting all his weight on the next stair as he propelled himself up on the last one. After what seemed like an hour he flopped on his mask at the top of the stairs, wishing he had never taken a break from work in the first place, but if he did not, Dreamland would be at risk of turning into paint and fabric all over again.

There it was; Fumu's apartment! He dashed toward it and body-slammed it and immediately Fumu opened the door. He could see her confusion as she looked around for a few moments and her shock when she looked down and saw him. "M-Meta Knight...? Is that really you?"

Meta Knight, not thinking about how others would react if they saw him in the "ball of yarn" state, immediately blushed dark scarlet behind his mask and considered leaving. He instead bravely hopped forward. "Yes, it is me. Do you know where Kirby is? I must tell him something."

"Uh, okay..." Instead of showing Meta Knight inside, she scooped him up and carried him in her arms but stopped after she closed the door, looking down at him in shock.

Meta Knight realized why she had stopped and tried hopping out of Fumu's arms after he got over the fact that she had so nonchalantly picked him up. He tried hopping out of her grasp, but she squeezed him a bit, one of her fingers rubbing against one of his frays and stinging a little.

"You're so... Soft..." Fumu muttered as she rubbed her thumb against the side of Meta Knight's head, making him blush so red it came out of his mask and she could feel the heat in her fingers. So unknightly!

"Please put me down. I cannot help but find this situation to be increasingly awkward."

Fumu blinked and reluctantly and gently set Meta Knight back on the floor where he thanked her. "Right, Kirby. And... Just why are you a ball of yarn again?"

Meta Knight sighed. You will hear the entire story later. A threat has come to Dreamland. Now that I have been handicapped, Kirby must go fight some old enemies I thought were long gone."

Fumu nodded importantly. "Okay. They're in Bun's room."

"Thank you for understanding." Meta Knight rolled deeper into the apartment with Fumu following close behind.

Just as Fumu's hand landed on the doorknob to her brother's room, she saw some strange things on Meta Knight that concerned her. "Uh, Meta Knight? You're all frayed looking. Do you want me to go get some first-aid supplies?"

Her sentence reminded Meta Knight of the pain of falling into a pit full of spikes, getting launched over a town and getting all bruised trying to climb the stairs had caused him, and an unnecessarily large puncture- the one from the first spike- throbbed uncomfortably. "Yes, please."

"Okay, be right back!" Fumu opened Bun's bedroom door so Meta Knight could get in and dashed off to the bathroom.