A/N: And with that, we have hit finally hit the double-digits, my friends! I apologize for my long absence, but I needed the break. The chapter's title is a reference to the Factory Inspection/Investigation theme from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, of course. WARNING! WARNING! EXTREME GORE AND GROSSNESS (you know what scene I'm talking about) IN THIS CHAPTER! I'm assuming you've seen Stranger Things season 3 if you're reading this, so I'm assuming you can take it. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. With that (finally short) Author's Note out of the way, welcome to Chapter 10: Hospital Investigation.
Enjoy.
Kirby had promptly been rushed into the backpack by El as everyone, at Nancy and Jonathan's direction, began scrambling out the door. Nancy and Jonathan had seemed uncertain about Kirby coming along, but El and Max assured them that Kirby would stay in the backpack until they were away from sight.
Well, and Kirby insisted he wanted to help. Nancy was quite like Meta. Quite like Dedede, in fact, too. Well, she was quite like everybody.
Because nobody could resist Kirby's Sparkly Eyes.
Lucas had then told Kirby to refer to them as puppy-dog-eyes, because that was what it was called around here. Regardless of the name, it had the same affect. Nancy uneasily agreed to let Kirby come along, as long as he stayed in El's backpack while they were outdoors.
They had all ran out of the house and into Nancy's car. Or, rather, her mother's that she was borrowing. El had taken her backpack off and set it by her feet so Kirby wouldn't be squished while she sat, she told him. Kirby was a bit disappointed he wouldn't get to sit with the big kids and see what the inside of a car looked like, but he figured he'd have his chance eventually.
In any case, he had settled down at the bottom of the large backpack, and got comfy for the ride.
It wasn't long before they'd arrived at their destination. They were back at Heather's house. Back where Kirby, even if unknowingly, had gotten his first (auditory) glimpse of this newest revival of Zero. If Kirby had anything to say about it, this would be Zero's final return, at least as a Destroyer Void.
With that said, though, it still made Kirby shiver, being here.
The fact that the house was freezing probably had something to do with it. For stars' sakes, he could feel it through the zipped backpack. He'd dealt with worse, of course, having travelled to places like Iceberg; but still, for a house? This was freezing.
The door to the house had been locked, of course, but El had used her powers to unlock it. Kirby still couldn't get over how cool that was. Idly, he wondered if he could somehow inhale El's psychic energy and get an awesome Copy Ability.
"Tom?" Nancy called once they were inside. "Heather?"
"Jesus, it's freezing," Max said. "You can say that again!" Said Kirby. El unzipped the backpack slightly, allowing Kirby to force his way out. He landed on the floor with a bounce, rolling onto his feet. Everybody else briefly glanced at him. Nancy and Jonathan were staring at him. He raised himself onto his tip-feet and waved with both nubs. "Hi!"
Nancy almost hid her smile before turning back around and continuing on her way through the house, everyone else following. Kirby puffed his chest out proudly. The "Hi"'s worked every time. Well, except for the first times he'd said it to each of these Humans, which was usually followed by an attempt to kill him.
They all eventually reached the living room, and Kirby smelled something funny. It kind of... burned his nonexistent nose a little bit. "Aachoo!" He sneezed. "Jesus, does every noise you make have to sound adorable?" Max muttered under her breath. "Awww, Max!"
"Guys, focus," Nancy said quietly. Looking uneasy, she wandered toward what looked like a kitchen, Kirby and the others following her. "Oh... God..." Nancy muttered. Everyone else made similar noises of shock. Kirby was behind all of their legs, so he could barely see anything. What was going on? Kirby wanted to see! "Poy-Poyo!" He said in distress and slight panic, waving his nubs. He inflated himself and Hovered up to almost the ceiling, allowing him to see what was on the kitchen counter.
Just a bunch of scattered bottles. Nothing special. Goodness, they'd had Kirby thinking there had been a dead body or something! Hearing the sound of Kirby's Hover, Nancy and Jonathan turned around and looked at him. They looked shocked.
"What the... w-what the fuck?" Jonathan shakily asked. "K-Kirby?" Asked Nancy, looking both frightened and concerned. "It's cool, it's cool," Mike assured them tiredly. "It's something Kirby can do. His body's like a balloon."
"Um... o-okay...?" Nancy said uncertainly. Jonathan just kept staring. Kirby stopped flapping his nubs, letting himself lower a bit before spitting out the Air Pellet, which Jonathan and Nancy's mouths hung open at the sight of. He landed on his feet and said, "What's so bad about a bunch of empty bottles?"
Jonathan and Nancy managed to pull themselves together a little and Nancy shakily opened her mouth, but Mike beat her to the punch. "Those are cleaning chemicals, Kirby. Mrs. Driscoll was eating fertilizer; so Heather and Billy were probably drinking those chemicals. They're super bad for Humans."
"Oh, okay," Kirby said. Jonathan and Nancy finally tore their eyes off of Kirby and turned back toward the counter full of empty chemical bottles. "More chemicals," Nancy said quietly, with Kirby suspecting it was meant for herself and not the others, since they all already knew about the chemicals.
Jonathan grabbed an empty bottle, before looking at Nancy. "You think they're guzzling this shit?" He asked in what sounded like a mixture of slight horror, disbelief, and a fair amount of disgust. "Yeah," Nancy replied. "Either that or they just went on a hell of a cleaning spree."a
"But... last year, Will didn't eat chemicals," Max began, then looked at Will in concern. "Did you?"
"No," Will replied. "This is something new."
"That's for sure," Kirby noted thoughtfully. "Zero obviously didn't make anyone do it back in Dream Land; since we don't have cleaning chemicals or fertilizer there."
"Mr. Clarke," Mike suddenly began. "Fifth grade. Posit. What happens when you mix chemicals together?"
"You create a new substance," Lucas and Will said in unison. Kirby snapped his nub. Somehow. "Oh! Just like I could combine my Copy Abilities to create new ones when the Crystal of Joy lended me its power! Or when I use my Copy Palette!"
Nancy and Jonathan looked at Kirby in confusion. "Copy Abilities? Copy Palette?" Nancy asked. "Long story," Kirby said. "What it boils down to is that I can eat things to copy their abilities. For example, if I ate a rock, I gain the power to turn into a rock whenever I choose."
"There's this pocket dimension inside my stomach I call my Copy Palette, and I can store up to five things I've swallowed in there, or combine certain things to get random abilities. The ability mixing with the Crystal of Joy worked a lot better, though."
Nancy looked at him for a moment, shook her head, and slowly, as if she was trying to wrap her head around her own words, said, "So, if the Mind Flayer's an evil member of your species, with the same powers as you, what's he doing mixing cleaning chemicals around inside himself?"
Kirby shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he wants the Bubble Ability?" He suggested weakly. "What if he's not eating and mixing it to get cool combo powers, but making something?" Mike suggested. "In themselves?" Max asked with what sounded like both confusion and skepticism. "I mean, come on, if you drink this crap, it'll kill you."
"Yeah... if you're Human," Lucas said while gesturing at Kirby. "He can eat anything and be fine, remember? That must mean Zero can do it, too."
"Zero is currently inhabiting a bunch of Human bodies," Max pointed out. "I doubt he can use his powers if his Human vessels still have Human limits."
"What if they don't?" Kirby suggested. Everyone looked down at him. "Remember Dedede?" Kirby asked, looking up at Max and the other kids. "Pretty sure his stomach wasn't meant to do what Zero made it do through the Dark Matter."
"Yeah, but... didn't you say he's some goofy penguin that abides by the same cartoon logic as you?" Max asked. "I mean, she's got a point," Lucas began. "We don't know how... De De De's? biology works as opposed to ours."
"Dedede," Kirby corrected. "All one word. It's a weird name, I know."
"Whatever; point is, there's too many unknown variables, here. I don't think it's safe to be betting our entire plan on a comparison between how possession works with a Human and an anthropomorphic penguin," Max said annoyedly. "He's got blood and physical limitations just like you guys!" Kirby said, feeling his familiar dislike of Max's stubbornness bubbling back up to the surface. "Just not... as many."
So absorbed were the kids in their little back-and-forth, that they didn't notice Nancy had turned around and walked away until Mike caught their attention. "Guys, Nancy and Jonathan are heading into the next room."
Kirby and Max glared at each other for a second before following Nancy and Jonathan along with the others, though Kirby's glare didn't have as much genuine annoyance behind it. Much as it was annoying, he kind of liked Max's stubbornness; it made her fun to talk to and argue with; just not when lives were on the line and she was downplaying his best buddy's suffering.
They all wandered into what looked like a dining room. Getting tired of bringing up the rear and ready to get to the bottom of all this already, Kirby ran around the mass of Humans and into a small sitting room, where a glass bottle that looked like the ones in Castle Dedede's wine cellar laid on the floor, at the edge of a nice rug. Kirby tilted his head as he looked down at it. Was that... blood?
On closer inspection, it was. Kirby picked it up, handling it as carefully as he could. He looked down toward where he'd found it, where the hardwood floor from the rest of the house met with the edge of the rug. There was blood on the rug. Kirby's eyes narrowed in determination. Zero wasn't just possessing people; he was hurting them. Kirby had to stop him. He was the only one who could.
It was his responsibility to destroy his evil counterpart not only as a Puffball Void, but as the one who had accidentally sent Zero here by killing him in the first place. He didn't think he'd be coming back in a negative form again, let alone in another universe. He didn't know that he had been choosing Ripple Star, Popstar, and the Gamble Galaxy over this world when he'd last killed Zero. He was the reason Zero was here, and now he had to do something about it.
He didn't even notice the others had joined him until Nancy, kneeling next to him, carefully took the bottle from his nubs and stood. Kirby turned around and looked up at the others, with the younger kids looking down at him in concern. "You okay there, Kirbs? You looked, like, really deep in thought," Lucas said.
"Yeah... I'm... I'm okay," Kirby said. "There was just... uh..." He trailed off. "Blood," Nancy finished for him, pointing at the blood on the bottle. The other kids, having probably been looking at Kirby the entire time, finally noticed the blood on the bottle and visibly grew even more concerned.
"Yesterday..." Nancy began. "Tom had a bandage on his forehead." Kirby tapped his foot anxiously as he waited for the others to catch up with the realization he'd already come to. "He was attacked," Nancy said. She looked toward a nearby hallway, where a rug was bunched up near a door.
Like someone had been dragged through.
Kirby followed them all into the hallway. Nancy opened the door. They all wandered into a spacious room that smelled funny, sort of like the hangar bay where Meta Knight kept the Halberd. Meta had always said it smelled that way because of the fuel. Maybe this room was where vehicles were stored, sort of like a mini-hangar? Maybe this was where the cars went?
Jonathan walked to the center of the room and crouched down. Kirby joined him, and Jonathan flinched and tensed at the feeling of Kirby's body brushing up against his arm, but soon relaxed, the brief fear seeming to leave him in a sigh.
Jonathan and Kirby were looking down at a pile of ropes, and any happiness Kirby may have felt at Jonathan warming up to him melted away as realization struck. "They must have tied them," Jonathan said, then stood up, looking at the younger kids. Kirby looked at them too, concerned. "They must have taken them somewhere," said Jonathan.
Nancy had crossed her arms.
"Mrs. Driscoll," she began, seeming to be coming to some sort of realization. "She kept saying... 'I have to go back'."
"What if the Flay-sorry-what if the Zeroing, it's taking place somewhere else?" Nancy suggested. "There must be a place where all this started, right?" She asked. "A source."
"Somewhere he didn't want me to see," said El. "Ahh, that's right," Kirby said quietly, remembering the fact that Billy had seen her when she used her powers to spy on him, and cut off their connection, like he'd been trying to hide something.
"If we can find the source, then maybe we can stop him," Nancy said. "Or at least stop it from spreading or doing whatever the hell he's doing with those chemicals."
"Yeah!" Kirby said cheerfully, jumping up in the air with his left nub pumped. "Slow down, Kirbs," Mike said. "We don't have a plan yet," he pointed out. "Oh," Kirby said as he landed, putting a nub to a chin that didn't exist in thought. "That's right," he admitted.
"How do we find it?" El asked. "Mrs. Driscoll," Will spoke up from the back of the room. "If she wants to go back so badly, why don't we let her?"
"Ahhhh yeah!" Kirby cheered as he jumped once more.
Everybody else was considering it. They had a plan, now.
It was go time.
By the time they got to the hospital, it was dark. They had spent the rest of their afternoon planning.
They were going to see Mrs. Driscoll. They were going to free her so she could lead them right to Zero. Kirby had been uncertain from the start. He had no clue if Zero would fall for it or not. Zero was smart, and he was sneaky. Kirby and his friends had almost fallen for his little scheme when he'd possessed Queen Ripple, and almost left Ripple Star to its doom.
They had to be careful.
Kirby laid still at the bottom of El's backpack as they entered the hospital. El and the others were walking at a brisk pace, Kirby could tell. He soon guessed why, as he heard the voice of a woman, probably reception of some sort (Nancy had explained that hospitals had tight security) chatting away; probably on a phone, if the lack of response to all her statements was anything to go off of. Everyone's hope was to slip into Mrs. Driscoll's room unnoticed.
No such luck.
"Woah, woah, woah! Excuse me!" The woman said rather loudly. Kirby dragged his nubs down his face. They were busted. They were also wasting time. They needed to stop Zero and they needed to do it quickly! Oh, if only the other Humans in this world knew the danger they were in, maybe Kirby could do something.
The whole backpack thing was nice and all, but it was so different from his usual style of adventuring; running, jumping, and Hovering his way across landscapes, Inhaling and Copying and knocking aside anything in his way, living or otherwise. What he wasn't used to was stealth, especially when he was on a time crunch.
Kirby silently swore to himself that, when he made it back to Dream Land, he would never take being able to walk around in public for granted again. But he wasn't in Dream Land right now, and that was what mattered. What he should be doing at the moment is paying attention to what's going on and changing his plan. "Surmounting obstacles, rather than just fighting through them," as Meta Knight would say. Interestingly enough, Meta Knight had, much to Kirby's annoyance, been training him less in sword-fighting and combat and more in stealth lately. Perhaps, Kirby thought, he should have been paying more attention and listened to his older and wiser mentor when he'd insisted Kirby needed to be ready for any situation.
Kirby'd just never imagined he'd end up in another world where he couldn't walk around in public without being made a science experiment or killed.
Kirby shook his head, yanking himself out of his messy thoughts and back to what was going on outside his hiding place (prison).
"This... this is my family," Nancy said. There was a moment of silence. Kirby could only picture the look of disbelief on the reception lady's face. "I don't care who they are. You know the rules. Two visitors at a time," the lady said with a healthy amount of sass. Gee, was it just a rule in this world that all front desk employees had to be rude for no good reason?
"Yeah, but..." Nancy tried, only to be quickly cut off by Reception Lady's firm "Two."
"Girl, this child has lost her mind. She brought a whole zoo in here..."
Kirby began hitting the backpack with his head in disbelief at his unluckiness. This was going to be a long night, wasn't it?
Kirby waited impatiently within El's backpack. She'd gotten herself a magazine and asked if he'd wanted one, but he couldn't read English, so he'd politely, but grumpily turned down her offer of something to take his mind off the fact that Nancy and Jonathan had just gone up there to talk to Zero without him.
Something was going to go horribly wrong; Kirby could feel it. Mike had said he was going to something called a vending machine, which was a machine that literally dispensed candy and snacks. Now, Kirby was a big eater either way, but as he'd discovered in the early days of his training with Meta, during which Meta'd accidentally overworked Kirby (they'd since worked something out, of course), he was quite a big stress eater.
Right now, he was quite stressed, to say the least. So he'd asked El to ask Mike to get him something from the vending machine. Mike agreed, and Kirby's mood lifted a bit. Not only would he be getting a sweet treat, it was also his sneaky way of getting El and Mike to talk and work out the little thing they were going through.
After all, if Kirby and Dedede could become best buddies, why couldn't El and Mike make up? Granted, their situation was a bit different, because they had romantic feelings for each other; they weren't just friends. Still, though. It was the same idea; and if you asked Kirby, the reason El was mad at Mike was a bit dumb to be mad about for this long, especially if Hopper was the one who forced Mike to lie, under the threat of El and Mike having no relationship at all, rather than just the time they spent together being limited.
Still, though, Kirby hadn't been lied to and manipulated by mad scientists his whole life, so as much as lying was a super mean thing to do, he guessed it just didn't bother him as much as it did El. He'd certainly gotten a bigger appreciation for how much it hurt after what Magolor'd pulled only a few days ago.
In any case, El and Mike had exchanged only a few, tense words. Kirby's candy request hadn't sparked an emotional conversation. Oh well. He figured he'd get another chance to fix their relationship and friendship soon enough.
At the moment, though, he had bigger things to worry about.
(He figured, though, that they may have been getting somewhere, if El using her powers to help Mike with the malfunctioning machine was anything to go off of.)
A little while later, Kirby had finished all his candy, and it was, obviously, just as good as he'd expected. El had, by now, sat down, and all had been quiet and calm, except for Lucas and Max's game of tossing candy in each other's mouths in the background.
"Hey," Mike's voice eventually said, sounding like he was right next to Kirby, and El by extension. "Hi!" Kirby said cheerfully, hoping for some good conversation to take his mind off of all that was going on right now. "I was, uh... talking to El, Kirbs," Mike said awkwardly. "Oh. Whoops!" Kirby said. Sweet! Now they'd talk! Oh yeah, Kirby was more than happy to stay quiet and let them have their moment. With their problem solved, all his friends would be happy!
Well, except for Nancy and Jonathan, but he'd figure out how to help them soon enough, once they had a solid plan of how to take down Zero. For now, though, it was time to sit down and enjoy the show that was happening in the present! He'd worry about the future... well... in the future.
"Hi," El said in response to Mike's earlier greeting. "Does your species like MnM's?" Mike asked-slash-offered. They were the candy Mike had given Kirby, and they were good. But more importantly, awww! Mike was being such a dork! If this couldn't convince El to lighten up, nothing could.
Kirby heard the gentle crinkling of the candy wrapper as Mike probably poured some into El's hand. Kirby did his best to restrain it, but a tiny coo slipped free from his mouth. He was doing all he could to not burst into giggles at how adorable they were being out there.
"I like the new look, by the way. It's cool," Mike said. Kirby let a small giggle escape this time. "Thanks," said El. They were still dorky sweethearts, after all, it seemed. Kirby's mood had lifted greatly.
So when an overwhelming feeling of negativity that could only be Zero began quickly flooding his senses, he understood what Meta Knight had meant all the times he'd said "No good thing lasts forever."
It seemed Will felt it, too. Kirby felt El stand up. He could hear the lights flickering through the backpack. "He's here," Will said. "El?" Asked Kirby.
"Yes?"
"Let's go."
Nancy Wheeler was a learned young woman. She was studious; she did her homework, she studied tirelessly and pulled all-nighters if need be. She took truly gigantic exams and she passed with flying colors every time; and she did it all without complaining.
As a result, in her years, she had read much literature. School aside, she simply enjoyed reading. So it should have been no surprise that she'd read one of the most well-known short stories around;The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell.
One of the musings of Sanger Rainford that had stuck with her since her middle school years, when she'd first read the story, was his realization of what it must feel like to be an animal at bay.
It was a term Nancy had heard before, of course. For an eighteen year-old, she had quite the vocabulary of obscure and occasionally even archaic phrases stored up in her memory. And yet, just like the proud Rainsford, just like the Hunter becoming the Hunted, she was beginning to realize that despite her pride and confidence in her own knowledge, she had actually never truly known what that phrase meant, what it was truly like to be a beast at bay.
Now and only now, backed into the corner of an unfinished room of an unfinished and remote wing of a hospital by a monster made out of the melted remains of her douchebag bosses from the fucking Hawkins Post, did Nancy realize what that term truly meant; what it truly must feel like for the animal caught in the trap, helplessly waiting for the doom it knew was inevitable as the seconds ticked by agonizingly slowly, and yet somehow not slowly enough.
The monster crouched over her form, lying on the floor after having taken a swipe from one of its tree trunk-sized limbs directly to her midsection. It opened its mouth, hundreds of tiny bone shards repurposed as teeth glistening in the flickering lights and the gooey saliva inching ever close toward her face; as its unspeakably foul breath engulfed her face in wet warmth and unholy stench.
It roared.
And at the exact same moment, behind it, something blew the door off its hinges.
https/youtu.be/9ehM3l20ZgU
Kirby heard a truly chilling roar at the same moment as El psychically blew the door to the room Nancy was trapped in off its hinges.
He soon found out why.
And in that moment, Kirby knew fear. It was something he'd thought he'd known before. It was something he thought he'd known when Dedede had propelled him into the atmosphere to defeat a living Nightmare. It was something he thought he'd known when he'd faced Marx in all his insanity; it was something he thought he'd known when Zero had gouged his own eyeball out to kill Kirby.
Kirby did not, in fact, have any clue what fear was. In fact, as he stared at the...the... thing in front of him, looking like it was about to eat Nancy, he realized he'd had no fucking idea. The sheer wrongness emitting from that twisted avatar Zero was using, it was like absolutely nothing Kirby had ever felt before. Something that could have only come from a creature that was never supposed to exist, that had been created through the most vile possible method, that the very universe itself rejected.
Kirby didn't know what Zero did, but if Kirby thought he'd had some issues with his view of himself before, ohhh boy did he really have some now. The sheer idea that he was of the same species as the being that had created and was inhabiting and controlling that monster made him want to stop existing.
The extension of Zero turned around and roared at them.
"Jesus," Mike said, sounding appropriately horrified and about ready to puke and faint at the same time. "What the fu-" Max began, only for the monster to roar again and lunge toward them. Kirby quickly Super Inhaled the discarded door and some nearby debris and shot out a massive Star Bullet orbited by two smaller ones, its familiar and comforting yellow light bringing Kirby relief as it blocked the monster from view.
Kirby could still hear it scream as the Star Bullet smacked into and shot out the window behind it, shattering it as the bullet made a sharp turn downward, taking the monster with it as it plummeted to the parking lot below. With a determined glare, Kirby inhaled a nearby chunk of cement, swallowing and gaining the Stone Ability. Stone Kirby determinedly charged forward, ignoring the concerned cries of his friends, and leapt straight out of the window, before transforming into a weight and plummeting straight downward toward the weak monster below.
With a mighty boom, Stone Kirby impacted, and the monster shrieked as Kirby felt it splatter into gooey chunks. In no mood to make himself vulnerable to the horror he'd just crushed under his own body, Stone Kirby held his invincible form and waited until he felt the puddle the monster had melted into completely slighter out from under him, leaving some very hard solids behind. Stone Kirby turned back to normal and ran toward the drain the meat monster's remains were slithering toward. He heard the doors to the hospital slam open behind him, turning around briefly and seeing his friends, led by El, rushing toward him.
He turned back around to face the retreating puddle of gore as it finally vanished through the metal bars of the grate, leaving one last solid behind, glistening white in the faint light from the hospital. Stone Kirby walked up to it curiously, tilting his head as he looked down at it. He recognized it as a bone.
Kirby instantly felt more sick than ever before. His love for food was probably permanently ruined now. As Kirby heard his friends grouping up behind him, he came to one last realization as he stared down at the bone.
He'd reached his limit. It was time for outside help.
It was time to call the Kirbies.
A/N:
https/youtu.be/wp0DW7YEX4Q
And there you have it, folks. We are officially on to episode 6 of season 3 and are entering the final phase of this fanfic. Don't worry, though. It'll take several chapters before this bad boy is over, even after the season 3 plot ends (gotta have a couple chapters of the characters dealing with their trauma and an epilogue, after all!). And after that ending cliffhanger, I'm sure you know just as well as I do that the ride is far from over. Return to Dream Land Deluxe released today, and I couldn't be happier. Consider this my gift to you all. If you have the money, go buy that game. It. Is. A. Blast. Sorry for the weird way I had to spell THE CHOCOLATE CANDY BRAND THAT STARTS AND ENDS WITH 'M'. I'm writing this in-app and it won't let me use non-letter characters. On another note, The Most Dangerous Game is my favorite short story. With how studious Nancy is, I figured she'd know about it too. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to reference it, and I'm happy with it; it worked pretty well as a segue, I'd think. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. As always, please give me a review and tell me your thoughts! It helps me get better, makes my day, and keeps me motivated!
With that said, have a great day/night, and as always, I will see you guys...
Next time...
