Chapter 16: BEFRIEND. LOVE. PROTECT.
A/N: Aaaannd we have now reached Episode Seven: The Bite. Get ready, because the tension only keeps rising from here! Welcome to the finale arc!
"You knew?!" Mike asked incredulously. Kirby looked downward in shame and scuffed the carpet with his foot, feeling very similar to how he felt whenever Meta Knight scolded him. "I'm sorry," he said helplessly, albeit genuinely. "Sorry?! Sorry isn't gonna fix my girlfriend! Sorry isn't gonna fix Will!"
"Mike, c'mon, man..."
"No, Lucas! They knew! All four of them knew! And they didn't say anything! We could've stopped that! What if she'd melted like Bruce and Tom?!"
"I knew, too," Will piped up from within Jonathan's crushing, protective embrace on the couch. Mike, having been pacing in front of the couch, abruptly stopped and slowly turned his head to look at Will.
"Why?" He asked, sounding more hurt than angry. Kirby noticed Mike tended to be gentler with Will than with anyone else. "Why didn't you tell me, then?" He asked, a bit of anger bleeding into his tone.
Will remained silent for several moments, and Mike actually waited. Kirby had a feeling he wouldn't have waited for anyone else; unless it was El. Finally, Will began slowly, "If we called attention to it... El would have lost Billy. And we all agreed we didn't want to waste any more time finding Zero than we absolutely had to."
Mike scowled, looking extremely ticked off. "Well, I think El's life was more than important enough to warrant a break!"
"Mike, she's fine! The Kirbies took care of it! She's fine now!" Will protested, letting some anger enter his tone, as well. Mike's face scrunched up even further, if that was possible. "Well, she might not have been, okay?! What if she melted, too? Then there'd be no time to waste because we'd be fucked either way!"
"Um," Tuffy began. "Dude. We're right here. If worst really came to worst, we could take care of Zero."
"That's not the point!" Mike protested, glaring furiously at Tuffy and the other Kirbies. "And stay out of this!"
Tuffy bristled. "What, you think we didn't know the risk?! We didn't want to let this happen, but if we hadn't, we wouldn't have found Zero! And the longer we leave him alone, the longer he's killing people!"
Mike's blazing glare turned into a simmer. Somehow, it looked even more dangerous. "Next time," he quietly seethed through gritted teeth, "gamble with your own life."
Tuffy returned his glare while the other Kirbies (especially Greeny) and Will looked away in shame. "Alright, stop!" Nancy said, ever the voice of reason. "Fighting is going to get us nowhere."
Mike turned to look at her.
"It happened, Mike," Nancy said firmly, unapologetically. "There's nothing we can do about it. We just have to wait for El to wake up so she can tell us what she saw."
Mike sighed and paced some more, fingers tangling anxiously through raven locks, before he made eye contact with her and nodded with a breathy, "Okay."
"Okay," Nancy agreed, nodding back.
Mike walked away from the couch so he could address both Will and the Kirbies at once. "Look," he began. "I'm sorry for snapping. Just..." both his voice and face took on a pleading tone, his eyes wet with stubbornly unshed tears. "Don't take risks like that again... alright?"
The four Kirbies responded with sheepish 'poyo''s, while Will gazed back at Mike with a strange, unreadable expression on his face. Finally, he sighed and looked away with a mumbled, "Yeah. Sure."
Groaning and shifting sounded from El's room, where she'd been laid on her bed to rest. Everyone looked toward the open doorway, and she stumbled out a few moments later, groggily rubbing her eyes, as if she'd just woken up from a deep sleep and not a possession and subsequent beating.
"El!" Mike exclaimed. El's eyes widened as she spotted him. Then, her face crumpled, and she broke down sobbing.
Mike ran up to his distraught girlfriend, and hugged her like he never wanted to let go again.
"He said he was... building something," a haunted El said on the couch, eyes still red and puffy. "That it was all for me."
"Building something..." Max mused. "Is he talking about the Zeroed?" She wondered aloud. "He must be," Nancy responded. "So, he's building an army, just like we thought," Lucas said, pacing behind the couch where Max, El, Will, and Kirby sat, hands crossed behind his back.
"Yeah, but he's not building this army to spread," Mike emphasized urgently. "He's building it to stop Eleven," Will said in realization, causing Kirby to once more bristle at the use of her numerical name.
"Last year, El closed the Gate on him," Mike said. "And before that, Kirby killed him. Twice. I have a feeling all that really pissed him off."
"Like, royally," Lucas agreed.
"And Zero now knows that El and Kirby are the only things that can stop him," Mike concluded, then continued, "But if they're out of the way--" "--Game over," Lucas finished for Mike.
Kirby leaned back from where he sat (trying to comfort her) in El's lap, kicking his feet idly. He'd apologized profusely, both for letting her get possessed in the first place and for having to beat the Dark Matter out of her. She'd simply shook her head and said she understood. She'd tried to smile for him, but he wasn't fooled. He knew how horrible getting possessed was. He had quite a few friends who had gone through it before. When all this was over, he'd have to arrange a little chat between her and Dedede.
Kirby shook himself out of his thoughts and decided that now was probably a good time to contribute his knowledge to the conversation.
"He admitted that whatever it is he's built can't stop Tuffy, Greeny, Keeby, and I," Kirby began thoughtfully. "But he said if I freed El from his control that he would come kill her, that way she's out of the way and I'm too sad to stop him."
A stunned, horrified silence.
"Oh, and he said he wants to kill the rest of you when he's done," Kirby added like it was an afterthought.
Everyone looked off in a different direction. "Well, Jesus, that's nice," Max said, looking to be on the verge of vomiting. Kirby was distracted from wondering who in the heck Jesus was for nth time when Mike spoke up.
"So... let me get this straight, Kirby," he began, looking a bit angry. "You knew he'd come after us all if you beat El... and you didn't tell us this until now?! It's been, like, twenty minutes since the fight, dude!" Mike exclaimed, sounding both annoyed, panicked, and disappointed all at the same time.
Kirby raised his nubs in surrender. "Sorry! It didn't exactly come up..." he trailed off, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, with everyone else catching his implication and remembering the argument Mike started that kept the topic from coming up.
"Shit," Lucas groan-hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "He's probably at the damn front door by now!"
Right on cue, there sounded in the distance a strange, booming noise. There were fireworks going on all around them, because it was now the 'Fourth of July' everyone had told Kirby about. As usual, though he knew he couldn't, he wanted to go out there and have fun with the Humans. Seriously! A fireworks festival? He wanted in!
Kirby grabbed his train of thought and almost physically shoved it back on track. Stay focused, Meta Knight's voice echoed in his head. If you are distracted, your opponent will not hesitate to take advantage of it.
The boom they'd all just heard was a bit different than the others that had come before it. It sounded too... organic. As a matter (heh heh, Kirby mentally snickered) of fact, it sounded a bit like that meat monster from the hospital.
It sounded like a roar.
Nancy got up and walked over to the window. The fireworks continued in the background. The roaring had stopped... at least... as far as Kirby could tell. "Do you guys hear that?" Nancy quietly asked. Everyone strained their ears (both real and non-existent) and listened for the sound. Kirby, El, and Max all leaned forward on the couch, as if being closer to the window might help them hear it again.
"It's just the fireworks," Jonathan said after a few moments of nobody being able to hear the strange sound again. "Billy," Nancy suddenly began, before turning away from the window and looking at Kirby. "When he told you this, it was here, in this room?"
Both Kirby and El nodded, alarm blooming as they caught on to Nancy's train of thought.
At that moment, a booming sound, albeit definitely not a roar and much louder than the last sound, went off. And it didn't sound as distant as the earlier sound. The sounds continued. They were shorter-lived than the roar from before. It then occurred to Kirby: those weren't vocalizations, like the other sound.
They were footsteps.
Right on cue, Kirby noticed the telltale feeling of his Matters vibrating and being agitated by the presence of nearby Dark Matter. The other Kirbies clearly felt it, too, if the widening of their eyes was of any indication. Kirby noticed Will had lifted his hand to the back of his neck. He felt it, too. Kirby and Will made eye-contact.
"Uh, guys--" Greeny nervously began "--he knows we're here," Will gravely finished for his green companion.
Everyone filed out of the cabin, the Kirbies riding on the shoulders of their respective Human friends: Greeny with Will, Tuffy with Max, Keeby with Lucas, and Kirby with Mike. The fireworks and full moonlight in the sky illuminated a massive, spider-like monster that looked unsettlingly similar to the one from the hospital cresting a small hill not far from the cabin, directly in the group's line of sight. It screeched, stomped, and knocked down trees as it went.
Unprompted, Kirby shuddered at the morbid thought of it coming into contact with Whispy Woods. He may have had a habit of beating Whispy up, but that didn't mean Kirby wanted him getting cracked in half! The two of them were actually on pretty good terms whenever a misunderstanding, corruption, conflicting loyalties or possession wasn't forcing them to fight each other.
Kirby shook his head rapidly. It was just like what Meta always chided him about. He had a tendency to get distracted by anything and everything in the middle of dangerous situations. He had to focus, here. This thing was here for El and her friends. Kirby and his fellow Puffballs had to stop him from hurting them!
Nancy and Jonathan went out to the shed to grab weapons while the younger Humans flitted about the house's living room, barricading the front door and windows.
While El, Jonathan, and Nancy wanted to help, the Kirbies insisted on doing most of the fighting. They each, thankfully, had stuff in their Copy Palettes that they had been able to manifest Copy Abilities from.
Keeby had stored a random "cool rock" he'd found on the ground some time ago back in Dream Land in his Copy Palette, which he summoned and used to gain the Stone ability.
Greeny had been practicing with the Water ability on his travels, and, the paranoid Puff he was, claimed he always kept some water in his Copy Palette to use in case he needed it, whether for quenching his thirst or for Copy Abilities. He used the water he currently had on-nub to acquire the Water ability.
Tuffy, ever the pyromaniac and daredevil, had stolen fire straight from a Burning Leo's head back in Dream Land and had stored it in his Copy Palette for NOVA-knew-how-long. He used it to arm himself with the Fire ability. Kirby had warned him to consciously focus on the ability at all times. While it could be controlled to the extent that it wouldn't burn anything the user didn't want it to, that took a lot of conscious thought, which worried Kirby, because Tuffy tended to kind of lose conscious thought while fighting.
Kirby had nothing to work with, but after being frantically questioned by all the Humans on what could give him certain abilities, Lucas had, reluctantly, yet knowing it would make the group safer, sacrificed his beloved bandana to give Kirby the Spear ability.
NOVA, he missed Bandana Dee.
As for Nancy and Jonathan, they had retrieved from the shed (respectively) a shotgun and an axe. El only had (and only needed) her powers.
"Hey, get away from the windows!" Nancy said upon noticing that Mike and Lucas had finished barricading the last window but were lingering near it regardless. Nancy and Jonathan made their way to the center of the room, followed by any kids who still hadn't. They stood on the outside of the group of younger kids, and around them were the four Puffballs, surrounding their Human friends of all ages in a protective perimeter.
The silence was deafening. There were small sounds here and there. The squeak of a dangling lamp. The creak of the house settling.
There was a rumble. It caused all the walls to lightly vibrate. The bulbs in the dangling lamp flickered. All the lights in the house began flickering. In the kitchen, plates rattled. Quiet gasps rang out from the kids, their breaths quickening. It made the Puffballs' protective instincts flare up all the stronger.
The Puffballs shuddered as they sensed the massive amount of nearby Dark Matter draw ever closer. The feeling was nearly indescribable. The energy composing the Puffballs' bodies was buzzing out of control in response to the Dark Matter in the vicinity, like water molecules vibrating faster and faster as they were agitated by heat. Much to their (unexpressed; now wasn't the time) horror, however, they didn't sense just Dark Matter in Zero's vessel, anymore.
They felt Soul Matter, too. The implications were terrifying, considering how the gory monster was created.
Will, as always, could feel it, too. "It's close..." he muttered.
There was the sound of cracking branches and thundering footsteps outside. Leaves rustled to the extent that it must have been entire canopies that were being disturbed. The vibrating of the walls became bad enough that hanging mugs fell and shattered on the floor, causing most present to startle and look in that direction.
Abruptly, all the sounds stopped.
"Where'd it go?" Max quietly wondered aloud. There was an agonizing silence that lasted all of five seconds before...
https/youtu.be/jC858aDQ6zY
A fleshy tentacle that terminated in a mouth that contained a familiar orange eye and teeth made of bone shards punched through the wall. Everyone screamed, scattered, and exploded into action.
The kids grouped up against a wall, with El protectively in front, though she looked just as terrified as they did. The tentacle immediately went for them, shrieking all the while. Kirby ran over and jumped between the mouth of the tentacle and El. "Pooyyyy-yo!" He cried as he stabbed the tentacle-mouth right in the eye with his spear. At the same moment, Jonathan hacked at it with his ax.
The irate tentacle switched targets and used itself as a whip as it smacked Jonathan into the wall on that side of the room. He dropped the ax as a result, with the wooden shelf he'd been flung into being completely destroyed on impact. The creature shrieked as it went for him while he was down, but Keeby ran up with an enthusiastic cry of "Din't worry; I'll save you!" jumped above the tentacle, turned into a brick block that was a homage to Kirby's fellow Smash Bros. competitor and good friend, Mario, and slammed down, effectively severing the whole front half of the tentacle (including the deadly mouth) from the rest of it.
The "head" of the tentacle squirmed out from under Keeby, getting some more of itself torn off in the process, and fled, with the rest of the tentacle whipping out of the house through the hole it had originally punched through.
A brief moment of peace.
"Holy shit," Max breathed.
Nary a millisecond later, another tentacle punched through the wall near Max and made straight for El, who caught it with her powers, stopping it in midair. On the opposite side of the house, another tentacle burst through, and El caught it with her other hand.
Tuffy pounced on the opportunity with gusto, jumping into the air, curling up into a ball, engulfing himself in flames, and shooting forward as a ball of flame with Burning Fireball. He struck the tentacle, which shrieked in agony as fire spread across its entire length. It squirmed and wriggled in El's grip, but remained suspended in midair.
The other tentacle was struck by Greeny's Wave Surf attack. Zero and other things from the Upside Down were weak to both fire and water, after all. Both tentacles writhed and shrieked in agony, in a vain attempt to escape their psychic restraints. El took the opportunity while both were weakened and distracted, and flung both of her arms downward at once, instantly beheading the two mouth-eye-tentacles with an enraged cry.
She stood panting for a few seconds, before...
The ceiling exploded and another tentacle shot down, grabbing El by the ankle and yanking her up toward the hole in the ceiling.
"El!" Everyone simultaneously cried in dismay and horror. Will, Jonathan, Mike, and Max darted forward and grabbed both of her arms as she screamed and thrashed in the monster's grip.
The face looming above the hole in the roof was terrifying. It was just like the one at the hospital, but so much worse. All four Puffballs grunted as they felt the sheer amount of Soul Matter present in the beast. It had two verticle oval-shaped eyes made of swirling white energy; mockingly similar to a Puffball's eyes. Its mouth was a very large crescent; A smile, Kirby realized with horror. And within it sat that NOVA-damned red eyeball Zero always seemed to have, the one he used as his symbol. Snaking out of the mouth like some messed-up tongue was the tentacle pulling El by the ankle.
Much like Zero's last form, Zero Two, the eye within the friendly mouth gave off a completely different emotion, appearing to be glaring due to the mouth's smiling shape. Needless to say, it was probably the single most disturbing thing Kirby had ever laid his eyes on, possibly barring the scene of Zero gouging his own eye out in a storm cloud-sized spray of blood.
The Human kids were shouting, Mike being the loudest voice among them. Neither of the four Puffballs knew what to do.
If Tuffy used Fire, it would likely ignite El, too. In the emotional state he was in, he would undoubtedly be unable to control it safely.
The tentacle wasn't at the right angle for Keeby to crush it straight downward. He'd slide and probably get El's ankle, too.
Greeny could hit it safely with Water, but with the way it was shrugging off Nancy's gunshots at the moment, as weak as Zero was to water, it likely wouldn't do much good.
All the distraught Kirby could do was scream in despair as he threw expertly-aimed spears at the eye in the beast's mouth. It let out roars of pain as a response to both that and Nancy's gunshots, but it still wasn't letting go. In fact, its mouth was opening wider, making it look like the smile itself was getting bigger. The eye stayed trained solely on Kirby the entire time.
It was a message.
I warned you, Puffball. I warned you that if you defied me I'd kill her and make you watch.
"Zero!" Kirby roared in anger and anguish. "Stop it! Let her go!"
Zero didn't let go.
"Stop!" Kirby cried as he continued lobbing spears at the uncaring eye in that mouth.
Zero didn't let go.
"This is going too far! Stop it!"
Zero didn't let go.
"Stop it now!"
Zero. Didn't. Let. Go.
Zero suddenly bellowed as the tentacle gripping El was severed. Kirby snapped out of his trance; his hazy vision (eyes clouded with tears) and brief slip from reality having prevented him from seeing that it was Lucas, wielding Jonathan's discarded ax, who had chopped the tentacle in half.
El and the group of kids pulling her collapsed to the ground, Mike shushing and whispering sweet nothings to his girlfriend as she sobbed and they clung to each other on the floor. Mike sat up and grabbed the mouthed head of the tentacle still attached to her ankle with both hands. He gritted his teeth in guilt and rage as he yanked it off with a sickening tearing sound and a splatter of blood.
El screamed a bloodcurdling scream.
Kirby stared blankly and uncomprehendingly at the wound on her leg.
My fault.
Dedede locked Nightmare away. I let him out. He could have killed all my friends.
My fault.
I didn't even think about what could have happened; I just knew Dyna Blade wanted to help me. They shot her. She survived, but she had chicks. What if she hadn't survived? I would've killed a mother. I would've killed my friend.
My fault.
I didn't hesitate at all with Marx. I gathered all the Summoning Stars like a good little puppet and nearly screwed over Popstar and all my friends.
My fault.
All I cared about was that stupid cake. I shouldn't have let my anger control me like that. We weren't super close yet, but we were still friends, and I hurt him. I hurt Dedede. I hurt my best friend. I hurt my best friend over a cake. Because of what I did, Dark Nebula escaped and almost destroyed Popstar and all my friends.
My fault.
I listened to him. I did everything he told me to do. Went everywhere he told me to go. Trusted him. He was my friend. But he threw me away like I was nothing, and went off to conquer the universe, to conquer Popstar, to hurt my friends. To hurt Gooey and Rick and ChuChu. To hurt Nago, Pitch, Coo, and Kine. To hurt Whispy, Pon & Con; to hurt Dyna Blade and her chicks. To hurt Axe Knight and Mace Knight, Sword Knight and Blade Knight and--
Ribbon.
My friends are always getting hurt because of me. What kind of hero am I? What kind of hero lets his friends get hurt? What kind of friend am I? I'm supposed to be a friend...
Kirby panted with increasing heaviness as he stared at the sobbing El. Her dreams... what if she never got the chance to see them through because of him?
Friend. Hurt. Couldn't stop it. Hurt because of me. Crying; because of me. I made her cry. I made my friend sad. Dreams. Over. Because of me. I'm a Dream Matter Puffball. I protect people's dreams and do my best to help make them come true. I'm a Heart Matter Puffball. I stick with my friends and protect them until the end.
Friend. Hurt. Cheer up. Snuggle. Hug. Love. Protect.
Protect.
Protect.
PROTECT.
Kirby felt a feeling unlike anything he'd felt before swelling within him. He could feel his Matters all the time, but never this clearly. Normally, he felt them like Humans felt their hearts; only when they were agitated by external stimuli.
But this time was different.
They weren't just dispersed evenly throughout his body right now, like they were normally. They were concentrated thickly at the tips of his nubs; swirling pink and yellow like a whirlpool in a previously calm pond as they rushed up to his nubs from the depths of his Copy Palette, his core; the infinitely deep well containing his infinite power.
He reached out to it. Grasped it. His whole body ignited. His nubs especially were ablaze with swirling yellow and pink energy, yellow stars and pink hearts popping periodically out of the swirling, glowing energy.
Give hope. Defend dreams.
Give love. Make friends. Love friends. Protect friends.
PROTECT. FRIENDS!
Heedless to everyone's dropped jaws, Kirby leaped into the air with a cry louder than any he'd ever let out before, flashed out of existence, then reappeared right in front of Zero's open, roaring mouth, punching him right in the eye with a nub alight with Heart and Dream Matter.
"Haaaaaaaaaa-a!" Kirby cried, focusing and letting the Matters flow from his nubs into the air. The ethereal, glowing tendrils of energy swirled and weaved themselves together into a pink and yellow version of an Ultra Sword. It hovered just above his nubs, just beyond his touch, yet he commanded it regardless, and with a swinging motion, more of the cabin's roof was blown off and Zero's head was instantly split in half. He didn't even have time to roar in agony.
Kirby immediately fell unconscious and plummeted back to the floor. Mike gently scooped him up and, taking the opportunity Kirby had provided, rushed out of the cabin and into Nancy's car with the other Puffballs and Humans.
They peeled out of the driveway and flew out onto the road as El moaned in pain in the backseat with the other children. Kirby breathed gently in Mike's lap. His sleeping cap hadn't appeared, and bubbles weren't emerging as he snored.
He wasn't asleep. He was unconscious.
Ignoring Zero's agonized, enraged roars in the distance, the kids-even the other Puffballs-gazed in awe at the exhausted creature in Mike's lap. Not even the other Puffballs knew he had such abilities. He truly was something else.
He truly was a Hero of the Stars.
A/N: ;)
I'll see you all... next time...
