Chapter 17: Setting Things Right


"Do you think... you think he's gonna be okay?"

"I don't know, Mike."

"Shit. What if he's, like, seriously hurt, or... shit, what do we do?"

"I don't know, Mike. All the skateboarding accidents in the world won't teach me how to care for an injured alien. I'm sure he's just tired from... whatever that was back there. We just have to hope he'll be alright."

"Fuck..."

Kirby groaned as he came to. What... what on Popstar happened? Mike and Max's voices slowly guided him back to reality, like his consciousness had been a ship previously adrift at sea, brought safely back to harbor.

"...irby? Kirby, are you awake?"

He opened his eyes slowly. Blinked a few times. Shelves. El was propped up against the shelf next to him. Mike was to her and Kirby's right. To their left was Max.

Was this a... convenience store? Kirby didn't visit Dream Land's larger villages often, so the only other convenience store he'd been to before was the one Tuggle owned in Cappy Town.

"Poy-poyo..." Kirby groaned as he leaned back, kicked his feet fruitlessly in the air for a few moments, then managed to roll his round body forward into a seated position.

Wait... El was laying next to him. Why was his mind flagging that as important? What were they doing here, again? Why weren't they in...

The cabin.

The cabin. The Zero-Monster. El; her leg...

El!

"Ah! Poyo poyo!" Kirby yelped as he jumped, flailed in the air longer than what should have been possible, and landed, now wide awake.

"Shit!" Max yelped, flinching away. She'd been looking right down at him, after all. She took deep breaths and calmed down once she registered that it was just Kirby. "Jesus, Kirby," she panted. "You've seriously gotta stop waking up like that."

Kirby ignored her and turned to look at El. "El! El, are you okay, poyo?!" He asked, gently tapping her shoulder with his right nub. "Fine," she growled through gritted teeth. It was only then that Kirby noticed Mike was pressing a cloth directly to her wound. He winced. NOVA, no wonder she's so short of breath.

"Hey, Kirby," Mike greeted. "Finally decided to join us, huh?" Max muttered. Kirby walked over to her. Both she and Mike were down on their knees on the floor with Kirby and El. "Max, what happened, poyo?! Why are we here?! Where are the others?! What happened?! I-"

Max covered his mouth with her hand, abruptly shutting him up. "I need you to take deep breaths and calm down," she said in a very no-nonsense tone, her sapphire blue gaze cutting piercingly into his darker, azure one.

Kirby nodded with a small whimper and obeyed to the best of his ability. It was hard containing his panic and questions. NOVA, where were Lucas, Will, Jonathan, and Nancy? How about Keeby, Greeny, and Tuffy? Were they all okay? Had they made it? Were they unable to escape the cabin? WHAT HAPPENE-

Take a breath, Kirby mentally reminded himself. He did as Max asked and slowly felt himself calming down. No, if they hadn't made it out, Max and Mike wouldn't be so... okay right now. Well, as okay as they could be, that was. Relatively speaking, they were acting fine. That meant everyone else had probably made it out. They were probably just walking around or something.

Once she saw that he was no longer about to have a panic attack, Max removed her hand from Kirby's mouth.

Nice going, Kirby. You almost made everything worse for them again. El isn't in any kind of condition to watch you have a breakdown. You're everyone's best hope. The protector of their dreams. What will they think if they see you lose hope?

Kirby was pulled from the brink of tears by a strange recognition in the back of his head. Had he had this same dilemma not long ago?

Hope... dreams... protection... something about those words felt familiar. But why...

"So... uh..." Mike began awkwardly. "What exactly was that, back there?" Max asked a lot more forwardly. This was one of the few times Kirby appreciated Max's assertiveness.

"Huh?" Kirby asked, tilting his head. He had no clue what she was talking about.

Wait!

My Matters were going completely bonkers--pun intended--and all I could think about was protecting my friends and their dreams... and then... that power...

"Oh!" Kirby exclaimed. "I remember now!"

"Yeah. What was the deal with that?" Mike asked. "Did you know you could do that? It was awesome."

"Also would've been really helpful earlier," Max muttered with crossed arms.

Kirby shoved down the returning feeling of crushing guilt so he could explain himself.

"No, poyo. I never knew I could do that, and I've never done it before."

He looked thoughtfully down at his nubs, feeling a bit of wonder, too. "That power, poyo... it was my Matters. I just saw El get hurt, and I got so mad and-"

He cut himself off before he could devolve back into hysterics.

"I felt... really bad. I'm made of Heart and Dream Matter. That means I'm supposed to be a good friend and help my friends achieve their dreams, poyo. I thought I'd been a bad friend, that El wouldn't--wouldn't be able to see her dreams through because I let her get hurt so bad."

Kirby sniffled and wiped a tear from his eye with a nub.

"And then, everything got... weird. It was like all I could think about was doing what I'm supposed to do as a Puffball with Heart and Dream Matter. All I could think about was being a good friend and protecting you all, and bringing you all hope. And then... my Matters... normally they're just... there, in my body and Copy Palette. But they... came to the surface, and I could attack with them directly."

Kirby frowned in thought. If his nubs were hands, they'd be clenched.

"I'd never felt so powerful before, poyo, except for whenever I used Super Abilities." Kirby paused thoughtfully. "By the way, I think the sword I created looked just like my normal Ultra Sword," he said. "Whenever it isn't a fish, that is," he added.

Mike and Max looked at him in confusion. El's pained breaths had gotten a little less pained throughout the conversation as she listened, and although she still looked a bit distracted by the pain, she seemed just as confused about the fish comment as Mike and Max.

Now that he was done thinking about the strange new power, though, Kirby had nothing else to distract him from the other thoughts the novelty had been keeping at bay. The guilt and tears were creeping back and threatening to take over again.

Kirby turned to El. "I'm sorry, El. I know you said it was okay, but I let you get possessed, and then I had to hurt you. And then I let you get hurt again, poyo..." Kirby whimpered as tears broke free. He cried quietly into his nubs.

El's lips parted slightly, but she was never good with words, especially not in situations like these. "Kirby..." she began, but she couldn't finish. She had no idea what to say.

Thankfully, Max stepped in. "Hey. Hey," she said, putting a hand on Kirby's head. It was the closest to a comforting, grounding hand on a shoulder she could get, so it would have to do.

"Just because you're made of friendship or whatever doesn't mean you're a bad friend when bad things happen to the people you care about. Sometimes... stuff is just out of your control. But you tried. You and the others fought to protect us, and the fact alone that you were brave enough to try and protect us from that thing automatically makes you one of the best friends I think any of us have."

Out of the corner of his eye, Kirby noticed Mike nodding rapidly in agreement, that usual grounding expression that made him feel unconditionally accepted on his face.

Kirby wasn't sure he'd ever fully get over watching El almost get killed while he watched, but Max's words did make him feel a bit better. There was still something else he felt guilty about, though...

"Sorry for yelling at you, poyo..." he said as he stopped crying and looked up at Max, sniffling as he wiped stray tears away with his nubs. Max sighed. "Kirby... I... fuck," she began. "Look... I'm sorry. To you and Mike."

Mike looked up from El's leg, which he was still keeping pressure on, appearing genuinely shocked. Max smirked. "Yeah, yeah, don't get used to it, asshole."

Mike scowled.

"I've always been... well... a little less nerdy than the boys," Max began, causing Mike to scowl harder. She smirked, apparently relishing in the rise she was getting out of him. But Kirby could tell that, unlike earlier that day, during her massive argument with him and Mike, it was all in good fun.

"So, I've always been a more... down-to-earth-type person. Obviously, that all changed when I met the doofuses." Though Mike did his best to maintain his scowl, Kirby could see a corner of his mouth twitching upward. "But even after everything that happened the first time Zero showed up, which was my first encounter with weird stuff, by the way, I still have trouble believing it whenever supernatural stuff happens."

Max's smirk faded as she looked downward and fiddled with the watch around her right wrist.

"But that wasn't the only reason I didn't believe you and El about Billy. I didn't... want to believe it. He's a total dick but..." Max's voice got a bit softer. "He's still my brother. Stepbrother," she hastily corrected herself. "And in a fucked-up sort of way... I do care about him, deep down. And I know that even if he doesn't want to admit it, he cares about me, too. I know it's why he didn't like Lucas much back in the day. Billy's not a total asshole; it had nothing to do with Lucas's skin. He just happened to catch me while I was mad at him once and thought he was bullying me after that, and he thought I just didn't want to tell him. In his own, totally misguided way... he's really protective."

Kirby tilted his head.

"What's wrong with Lucas's skin?" He asked in genuine curiosity. "Nothing," Both Max and Mike simultaneously said firmly. Noticing Kirby's flinch at their sudden shift in tone, Max calmed down and looked away. "There's just... assholes out there who would think he's bad, just because his skin is darker than mine, Mike's, Will's, and Dustin's."

Boy! Every time he thought the Humans in this world couldn't get worse!

"But that's not fair! And it doesn't make any sense! Lucas is so nice! ... even if he thought I was evil for a little while..." Kirby said, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly as he said the last part.

"It's not fair," Mike agreed. "And it doesn't make sense, either. But some people are just raised to think like that and never grow out of it. It sucks."

"Not Billy, though," Max added. "He's just got some serious anger issues and tends to overreact to every little thing. Not that it's an excuse for how he treated Lucas, but I know him, and I know he's at least a level above the legitimately racist assholes in this town," Max said bitterly.

"Like that bastard Troy," Kirby heard Mike mutter. Kirby tilted his head curiously. He wondered who 'Troy' was.

"I still don't get why you fought us so hard on being worried about El, though," Mike piped up after the Troy comment. Max sighed. "Alright, I was a total ass about that, too," Max admitted. "Tonight is gonna be the most apologetic you'll ever see me, though, Wheeler, so you better savor it," Max finished with a pointed glare.

Mike gave her an unimpressed look.

Max sighed and continued, "I guess I got a little carried away with the 'let El make her own decisions' thing. It's just..." Max bit her lip, looking away briefly. "Well, you know how I feel about girls being themselves, right Mike?"

"Oh, yeah, you've made it clear," Mike said, still wearing that unimpressed look. Kirby reached over and smacked his unoccupied arm with a nub and a disappointed frown. "Come on, Mike, poyo. She's trying."

Mike sighed. "Sorry," he said. It might have been a curt response, but Kirby could tell he meant it. "It's... kinda warranted," Max admitted, sounding embarrassed. Kirby could tell Mike was trying very hard to be serious and not tease her about the fact that she was admitting she made a mistake.

"Anyway," Max continued. "You know how I feel about that stuff. So when I found out that El didn't even know how to tell when she liked clothes..." Max looked away, seething. "That, and the fact that she's been controlled by another man her whole life... it made something in me just... break."

Mike poured just about all his willpower into not saying 'It's called a heart, Max.'

"And after that," Max continued, "I was, like, hyper-aware and couldn't control myself any time another boy tried to control her power usage. That's not an excuse, though; because no matter how angry I might have been at that Brenner asshole, I shouldn't have put you guys on the same level as that psychopathic dick. I'm sorry."

Mike wore a smug smirk, but after receiving a playful glare from Max, snickered as he toned it down to the genuine smile it really was. That was enough of a sign for Kirby.

"Yay! We're all friends again!" He shouted, jumping into the air and waving his nubs.

Mike huffed out a laugh. "We never stopped being friends, Kirby. Friends can argue sometimes, and that's okay, but they always make it right together. It's a party rule," Mike said.

"I'm... glad," El said, shocking everyone as she spoke up for the first time since Kirby had started crying a few minutes ago. When everyone looked back at her, she was wearing a soft smile. It was still pained thanks to her wound, but it was real.

"No more fighting, guys!" Kirby declared happily. Max and Mike blinked in surprise, but made eye contact and nodded in mutual respect and forgiveness, then put their hands on top of Kirby's offered nub.

"No more fighting," the three said in unison as they lifted their hands (and nub) triumphantly upward.

"Now let's go kick Zero's butt!" Kirby cheered.


"Hey, where'd everyone else go, anyway?" Kirby asked. Max hummed, "Nancy and Jonathan are looking around for anything that can help, and I sent Lucas, Will, and the other Kirbies to get a washcloth and bowl..."

Max suddenly scowled after a moment of thought. "Should have known better than to send six boys to do that. Will's the only one with a brain, so God only knows what the others are doing."

Right on cue, Tuffy's voice sounded on the other side of the small store. "HOLY FUCK! FIREWORKS! ME GUSTA, ME GUSTA!"

That was followed by what sounded like an attempted Inhale, only for a mighty crash that sounded like countless things breaking and Tuffy and the other Kirbies screaming to follow.

Max's scowl turned deadly as she shot to her feet and said, "Let me go take care of them really quick."

Max reached the other side of the store in only a few seconds. Kirby could gather that from the fact that the yelling had started hardly four seconds after she left the aisle Kirby, El, and Mike were in. The trio listened intently to Max's argument with the Kirbies and Lucas.

"WHAT THE HELL?! I TRUST YOU GUYS TO BE ALONE FOR FIVE MINUTES AND YOU'VE DESTROYED THE FIREWORKS DISPLAY!"

"But Ma-ax!" Tuffy whined.

"No! How the hell did this happen?!"

"Lucas said five of them could be as strong as a stick of dynamite! We could get the Crash ability from it and totally wreck Zero!" Tuffy explained argumentatively.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but I'm not letting this go. We need to be serious."

"This is serious, Max!" Lucas protested. "Tuffy said this Crash thing is like a Nuke!"

"I still don't know what 'nuke' means, but I'm assuming it's helping our argument," Tuffy said.

"It's not," Max assured.

"Come on, Max!" Lucas protested.

"Whatever. Oh my God," Max muttered as Kirby heard her footsteps traveling away from Lucas, Tuffy and the others.

A long moment of silence.

"Why were we so okay with getting on her bad side?" Kirby asked, sounding both genuinely curious and terrified at the same time.

"I don't know, man," Mike admitted, looking and sounding like he felt the same way.


"Why are they taking so long?" Mike piped up shortly after that. "Who?" Kirby asked. "Nancy and Jonathan," Mike said, somewhat annoyed. Then again, he usually was. "Hey, Kirb, can you go find them?" He asked. "Okie-dokie-lokie!" Kirby cheered before running off.

He turned back and made eye contact with Mike just before he left the aisle, winking at him. Mike's eyes widened, then he grinned goofily and winked back. El just looked confused. Kirby returned Mike's bright smile before skipping off.

Mike was not as subtle in his attempts to get some alone time with El as he thought he was. Considering El definitely overheard him saying he loved her earlier that day, he figured Mike knew that, and would try to broach the subject with her sooner or later.

That time seemed to be now. And that conversation wasn't one Kirby needed to be around for. They deserved to have such an important (and romantic, poyo!) moment to themselves.

As Kirby wandered the aisles looking for Nancy and Jonathan, something snagged his eyes with almost physical force as he walked past it.

He immediately began drooling dreamily.

Chocolate, poyo...

Kirby couldn't read English, so he had no clue what the brand was actually called, but it didn't matter. There was no image that necessarily proved it was a chocolate bar, but what else could it be? It was just the right size! Kirby knew standard package sizes for almost every type of snack there was.

The fact that this was chocolate from another universe was pretty exciting, but also a little scary. Chocolate was chocolate, though. He wasn't picky. He did have preferences, however, and it appeared he was in luck, for when he picked up the chocolate bar from the shelf it was on and felt it through the wrapper, it had the telltale bumps that signified it was his favorite type of chocolate.

The crispy rice kind.

The wrapper itself was what caught his eye. A dark blue, and (what Kirby presumed was) a bright, eye-catching logo, consisting of red text on a white backdrop. Kirby knew lots about the visual aspect of food advertisement. It was one of the only things he actually liked to study, if only because it was food-related. He knew those bright colors were designed to snag eyes as they roved over shelves. It was devious, but at the end of the day, it put money in the business owner's pocket and chocolate in his mouth, so everyone was happy, as far as Kirby was concerned.

Hey, come to think of it...

Kirby set the chocolate bar down (but never let it leave his sight) and deviously rubbed his nubs together.

While he was on the topic of win-win deals and trades...

Kirby may have been pure of heart, but he was still a child and very much not above bribing people to get what he wanted. Meta Knight hated it, but it was just one more thing he couldn't train out of Kirby, and he always gave in, anyway, despite always claiming he was superior in that regard to Dedede.

Kirby's voice legitimately deepened as he chuckled deviously, eyes becoming red and curved cartoonishly upward at the edges along with the corners of his mouth, forming a demonic smile.

Oh, yeah, it was all coming together.


Shit. El was waiting on them and here they were, getting distracted as they kept chatting away about plans to stop the Mind Flamer--wait, Mind Flayer--no--Zero--(Jesus fuck). Nancy had picked up the peroxide forever ago, and they still hadn't returned to El with it. Nancy always had a tendency to get lost in thought and ramble. She had a habit of getting carried away and hypothesizing, usually about the more logical outcomes of the shitty stories her bastard superiors picked up at Hawkins Post (glad that shit's over) and listing all the reasons why their takes on them didn't make sense, to the point that, when she finally came back to reality, she'd find fifteen minutes had gone by of her ranting like a lunatic to whoever was currently unfortunate enough to be listening (usually either Jonathan or her mom).

It was a product of a life spent as a logical person that loved to learn and study. She was built for investigation and logical thought (General Zaroff's 'God makes some men (list profession here)' speech came to mind), and this habit was one she was used to.

It was safe. So, she had a habit of retreating to it (a very common, very comprehensible psychological function the mind triggered to help keep stress levels at bay and the organism functioning, you see) in moments where she was under great stress, like, say, currently. Seeking comfort in the familiar. A very straightforward reaction of the Human mind to extremely stressful and terrifying situations.

Nancy brought her tense discussion with Jonathan to a close, and the two began making their way back to the aisle El, Max, Mike, and Kirby were holed up in. Thank God, too, because she'd almost gotten sucked into the black hole that was trying to figure out what made the biology of the meat-monster Zero had created tick. Jesus, El's damn leg would have rotted off by the time Nancy escaped that thought-spiral.

That was a road she was nowhere near ready to go down. She didn't do well when she couldn't figure things out. It was why she had such a hard time with Kirby, because he made no damn sense. Nothing had, this past year and a half, ever since Will disappeared, but Kirby and Zero made even less sense. She just had to trust Kirby on everything he said, which all sounded extremely illogical. He was the best source of information they had, though, and if he'd passed Will's apparent evil-detector and El's wariness, then he was probably trustworthy enough.

Why the hell else would some random-ass pink... thing show up out of nowhere right when Zero came back? Logic would indicate the two had to be connected, which Kirby had admitted they were. If he was willing to admit it, then he probably didn't have anything to hide, unless he was just stupid, which she wouldn't put past him, but he quite clearly didn't want to hurt them, not after he flipped his shit about an hour ago after El got hurt, and he couldn't have been from the Upside Down.

She'd been to that place and seen its creatures firsthand, remembering more about them than she wanted to. Logic told her that he couldn't be native to the Upside Down. He stood out like a sore thumb; how was he supposed to hunt?

And she knew he was a predatory creature meant to hunt; she'd been told about the bottomless (in more ways than one) stomach stuff, and had seen his ability to inhale things with the force of a small whirlwind with her own eyes. Hell, the ability itself generated a small whirlwind. There was no reason to lie about being a member of Zero's species; because he admitted to knowing it made people afraid of him.

It would make no sense to needlessly lie about that if it was something he knew would create needless tension between himself and his friends. Therefore, all logic pointed to him telling the truth: he was of the same species as Zero, just a friendlier subspecies that hailed from somewhere that most definitely wasn't the Upside Down.

She could buy the alternate universe stuff, because if Zero attacked from another universe back during Nancy and her loved ones' first encounters with him, it only made sense that, as Kirby had claimed, he, a member of that same species, also hailed from another world, especially if what he said about Voids being able to exist in all worlds was true.

She could even buy his insane story about lost ancient civilizations, dragons, spaceships and Magolors, but a planet shaped like a fucking star and filled with food that healed mortal wounds, and which also housed a magical fountain that allowed everyone to dream (which made no sense because he said he and most other inhabitants of "Planet Popstar" lacked brains)?

That sounded like complete bullshit.

She'd tried to chock it up to 'different universe, different rules.' After all, no one yet fully understood how even the Upside Down worked. For all she knew, the laws of physics could be fundamentally different in Kirby's world, but, even after all she'd been through, after a life dictated by logic and millennia worth of recorded knowledge that served as the foundation of all Human thought, it was still hard to completely suspend her disbelief, even concerning multiple different aliens who were, in more ways than one, not of the world of Humans.

It was scary to think there were things out there that were much bigger than her. Things stranger than she could ever imagine; things she'd never fully be able to understand (back in her middle school days, she'd enjoyed the works of H.P Lovecraft with the security of knowing it was just fiction. She was proven wrong that night she'd almost been trapped in the Upside Down with that thing after investigating that God-forsaken tree, and discovered for the first time that that world was not as fictional as she would have liked to believe).

Nancy shook her head. She was lost in thought again. At least she knew she was heading the right way; Jonathan didn't get lost in thought like she so often did, so he wouldn't have let them walk past the aisle El was in. Jonathan always helped to keep Nancy from losing herself in thought. He helped keep her grounded (a logical paradox, because, loathe as she was to admit it, she was aware that Jonathan was more sensible than she was, so who was really more logical? It hurt her brain trying to wrap her head around that one, so she always tried not to think about it).

She may have been hard on him lately because of it, and she shouldn't have said those things to him during that argument (Jesus, I treated his family's money issues like they were nothing. Oliver Twist Routine? C'mon, Nance, you're better than that), but it was something she was grateful for (at times).

Ah. Once more, she digressed. They were still walking, though, which meant they hadn't yet reached El's aisle, so at least it hadn't cost them.

As they walked past aisles, however, none other than Kirby suddenly strolled casually out of one and into their path. Nancy stopped dead in her tracks, surprised.

That was another thing she didn't want to think about. She had no clue what he did back at that cabin, but it took a lot out of him, and she was scared he may have even been injured or something, and she knew jack shit about his alien biology (as much as she'd love to, but he supposedly didn't have organs, anyway) so she was scared that, unlike El, she wouldn't be able to treat what may have been a serious problem. Like his other abilities, she wanted to know what made... whatever the hell that was back at the cabin work.

Beneath all the admittedly selfish reasons she was glad to see him in good health, however, there was some genuine relief. She had to admit, frustrating as his enigmatic existence was, he was adorable and had grown on her a bit.

"Kirby!" She exclaimed in shock. "Oh. Uh... hey," Jonathan shakily gave his awkward greeting. Then again, that was how he always sounded when he spoke, not that Nancy would have him any other way.

Pretending like he hadn't known they were there, Kirby turned around to face her and Jonathan fully. Nancy's eyes narrowed. He was clearly trying to hide it, but he looked... smug. Mischievous. What the hell was he up to? He looked the same way Mike did whenever he discovered something Nancy didn't want their parents knowing (back in the days immediately prior to Will's disappearance, it would usually have been Steve's existence) and used it as leverage against her.

Nevertheless, he visibly pasted his normal bright smile onto his face.

"Hiii~" He said in his usual (admittedly cute) greeting, raising himself onto the tips of his feet and waving both nubby little hand-things. She could still see that odd glint in his eye, though.

Fine, he wanted to play like that? She knew how to play that game. Mike had given her plenty of experience. Younger kids couldn't keep secrets to save their lives, so she'd always had plenty of dirt on him, especially because he was a young boy, and there was always some crush he had or something embarrassing she could threaten to leak to his friends, who he always tried to look cool in front of back in those days.

Nancy had to admit, he'd probably learned the leverage thing from her. It just so happened he had honed his skills by messing with his own friends enough to actually be a threat to her once Steve came around.

Nancy plastered a surprised smile of her own onto her face to hide the fact that she was on to the little marshmallow.

"It's... good to see that you're okay!" she said pleasantly, if a bit awkwardly. Even if she was great at every other aspect of this type of game, she was never great at masking her emotions; just in general.

"Thanks!" Kirby said cheerfully; smile, for once, actually a little too bright. Forced.

Wanting to broach the topic subtly, Nancy went for, "You were, like, really knocked out. Are you sure you're alright?" She asked, faking most of it but still feeling genuinely concerned.

Luckily for her, the scheming little pink balloon took the bait; hook, line, and sinker.

"Yeah! I didn't even know I could do that stuff back at the cabin!"

Nancy's eyebrows raised a bit in (more than she wanted to let on) interest. So he hadn't used it before... that would make things harder, but she'd still pry all the information out of him that she could, and she'd be sneaky about it, too. She desperately wanted to decipher the mysteries of at least one of the cogs that made the alien child tick.

"Huh. Really?" She asked. "Yep!" Kirby said. "I think it had something to do with my Matters," he said thoughtfully, putting a nub to the bottom of his head in a surprisingly Human gesture of thought that reminded Nancy of a hand pensively stroking a chin. She blinked. Were some gestures of certain emotion just (literally) universal? Her eyelid twitched. How the hell was that possible?

"Your Matters?" She asked in completely genuine confusion. What the hell was he talking about? He blinked, the glint in his eyes briefly vanishing, hinting that he hadn't been expecting her confusion.

"Remember when I told you and Jonathan about Voids?" He asked. Nancy's eyes widened as she recalled that conversation. Amidst the sheer whirlwind of craziness that was and the stories of his own encounters with Zero he'd given after that, as well as the tornado of chaos that the last few days had devolved into since then, she'd forgotten. But as she remembered, the wellspring of information rushed back the forefront of her mind in perfect detail, as if a physical floodgate had been unlocked by her remembrance.

"Oh!" She said in recognition. "Yeah," Kirby said. "I think it had something to do with those, and I think I might even know what triggered it," he continued, his smile having returned, and the glint in his eye with it. Both were noticeably sharper than before.

Nancy made a dangerous mistake; a rookie one in this type of game. In her excited desperation to know more, she pressed on with her questions and barely took heed of the fact that the glint had returned. She let him know her weakness, the thing he was going to use as leverage to get what he wanted from her, rather than sneakily securing it before he could use it against her.

And she was about to pay the price, more literally than she probably would have thought.

"Really? Well, what was it?" She asked, accidentally letting some of her excitement bleed into her tone and realizing her mistake too late. Fuck, the glint in his deep, azure eyes had sharpened, like he'd just won the jackpot.

They were now locked in a stalemate; the power shifted evenly. He now had something she wanted, and vice-versa. She had intended to make sure it remained with only him as the one wanting something from her, but now he had leverage. It was just a matter of who cared enough about getting what they each wanted from each other.

And Nancy really wanted to know more about that power of his.

Kirby whistled the extremely recognizable whistle of a child who had only recently learned to do so (she knew what it sounded like thanks to Mike several years back) and turned to the side, nubs behind his back and foot kicking innocently at the ground. Another unmistakably Human pose. One that reminded Nancy of how a younger Mike tried to look whenever he was standing next to the pieces of something he'd clearly just broken.

It was a pose of highly over-exaggerated innocence. It grated on Nancy, and her eyelid twitched again. She was irritated that she'd slipped up in this little game of theirs; that a child, an alien child, had beaten her. The little shit knew damn well that she wanted to know what made him tick and was using it against her. And she was also starting to get rather impatient. The four factors of grating curiosity, wounded pride, increasing impatience and frustration were aggravating her irritation.

"Well, I'll tell you," Kirby eventually said playfully, but there was still that impish glint in his eye. "But?" Nancy asked impatiently. "But," Kirby emphasized. "You have to do something for me in return, poyo!"

Nancy crossed her arms, glaring at Kirby to get him to spit it out already.

She did not expect he'd take it to the literal extent he did mere seconds later.

He inclined his head skyward, his body puffed up as if a larger mass had just appeared inside it from nowhere, and he spat... a Nestle Crunch bar encased in a large bubble into the air. Nancy and Jonathan both looked on in utter confusion as it drifted gently back downward and into Kirby's awaiting nubs.

Nancy's eyelid twitched much more noticeably this time around. Perfect. Now there was yet another aspect of his biology she wanted to know about. If he was smart enough and kept busting out new abilities, he'd be able to just keep bribing her for all she was worth. She wouldn't be able to stop herself from giving everything she had in return for answers, and that scared her.

Nancy really hoped he wouldn't realize his potential and start employing it to get more out of her.

Annoyingly enough--impossibly enough--the damn bubble didn't pop, and if that wasn't bad enough, Kirby started tossing it gently up and down, catching it every time it descended and throwing it back up. It seemed to behave less like an actual bubble and more like a balloon without a string.

Idly (ignoring the part about the bubble) Nancy wondered if that 'Copy Palette' thing that was supposedly located inside his stomach he mentioned yesterday afternoon at Heather's house had something to do with how he'd burped up a bubble with a completely normal, completely undigested chocolate bar inside from seemingly out of nowhere; a bubble that was big enough to fill up his entire body. She could see no other way it could have possibly been able to escape his body unless he actually had summoned it from a separate pocket dimension inside him, which would explain how it appeared to suddenly just... spawn into his mouth.

"I'll tell you how I think I activated that new power... if," he emphasized, "... you buy me this chocolate bar."

Nancy's brows furrowed in confusion and... relief? She didn't know what she thought he would ask for from her, but she didn't think it would be something as inconsequential and childish as candy.

Well, he was actually a child, or so he had said. He certainly acted like one, and certainly, if this situation was anything to go off of, had childish priorities (setting aside the whole 'saving the world from a rogue member of his species' thing).

"Seriously?" Nancy asked incredulously. "That's it? You wanted a Crunch bar? A Nestle Crunch bar? You're taking advantage of my curiosity because you want candy?"

Kirby shrugged nonchalantly.

"Whatever works," he said, clearly feeling no remorse about the fact that he was extorting her for a chocolate bar.

"Wow," Nancy scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Some embodiment of friendship, or whatever you said it was."

Kirby appeared somewhat hurt by this, but quickly masked it beneath his returning cocky businessman attitude. "Enough talk, Nancy," he said, causing Nancy to nearly burst into laughter at how miserably he was failing to intimidate her. This was a chocolate bar they were haggling over, and his high-pitched baby voice nothing close to intimidating. "Do you wanna know how I did it, or not, poyo?"

Nancy raised her eyebrow. What was with the poyo stuff? It made her even more unable to take him seriously. Was it a verbal tic? If it was, that was none of her business and could be a sore topic, for all she knew. She wouldn't pry, but it was yet another thing she was dying to know, and she couldn't take much more. The marshmallow was really starting to grate on her, and he knew it and was using that to milk her for all she was worth.

Because he wanted candy.

That was another infuriating thing about him. How was he so powerful, such an apparent world-saver, so serious at times--how could he have such a dark, complicated history, yet also be a child with childlike priorities all the same? His whole existence made no sense.

Why was a pink balloon with feet so infuriatingly complicated, yet somehow still so simple, which, in the process, looped back around to making him complicated?

It reminded Nancy of El.

Nancy felt her frustration wane a bit. Kirby and El weren't so different. They both had dark pasts they didn't like to talk about, both had powers beyond--apparently-- even their own comprehension, but were both still kids that could be mature beyond their years and still have time for their favorite snacks.

Nancy's heart softened a bit. He was just a more complicated version of El. Beneath all the strange, godlike power and complicated, admittedly terrifying and eldritch origins, he was just a child who wanted some candy.

Who was she to deny him?

"Alright," she sighed. "You can have the chocolate. I don't understand why I have to pay, though. We already broke into this place and stole medical supplies for El's leg, and that thing was already in your stomach. Why not just eat it, at this point?"

Kirby's cockiness and mounting glee at her agreement vanished as he frowned. It looked a bit like a pout. He looked oddly... disappointed in her. She didn't know why that idea bothered her so much. Was he really just that cute?

"El's situation is an emergency, poyo!" He said. "But this chocolate bar isn't! If we have to steal so much, I want at least one thing we're taking to be paid for!"

Again, Nancy's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. So he was above stealing unless it was absolutely necessary, but not above extorting people for the same candy he had too much integrity to steal?

Yet another maddening contradiction to add to the pile.

"Alright, y'know what? Whatever," Nancy said, giving up on trying to understand Kirby. "I'll leave the money on the counter when we leave, or something."

"Yay!" Kirby said like the apparent child he was, twirling on one foot in joy. Nancy wasn't sure why, but she felt a smile pull on the corners of her mouth at the sight. Making Kirby happy made her feel happy, even though he was of the same species as the thing that created the monster that killed her best friend; even though he was maddeningly, infuriatingly difficult to understand.

It felt almost like how Mike had reacted five years ago when she'd finally caved to his begging and agreed to dress up as an elf for one of his DND campaigns; Eldritch Tree, she believed he called it (then again, she didn't care enough to remember it correctly).

Kirby pressed with both nubs on the sides of the bubble containing the Crunch bar, and it popped and dropped the (how is it intact) candy bar into his nubs.

"Alright," Nancy said, shoving aside the strange fuzzy feeling Kirby was giving off and standing her ground. "Now, hold up your end of the bargain. How did you do that stuff back at the cabin?"

Kirby stopped twirling and looked at her as he answered, mischief gone and eyes sparkling with genuine curiosity of his own.

"You remember what I said about Heart and Dream Matter? How it's what I'm made of?" He asked.

Both Nancy and Jonathan (the latter of whom had watched the entire interaction between Nancy and Kirby with bated breath and barely-contained amusement at the absurdity of it, as well as Nancy's steadily increasing agitation) nodded.

"Well, the Heart side of me is what makes me love my friends so much and defend them with everything I've got, and the Dream half is what makes me want to cheer them on and bring them hope."

Kirby looked downward with a faraway, guilty, and sorrowful look in his eyes. "When El got hurt, poyo, I felt like I failed her as a friend, like I failed to take care of her and protect her, like a friend should--like a Heart Puffball should. I was worried she..." Kirby looked away and sniffled, eyes now glistening not with curiosity, but moisture. "... was worried she wouldn't get the chance to follow her dreams, either. It made me feel so mad and helpless, and I wanted to make sure it wouldn't ever happen again. Then, I felt both of my Matters shoot up from my Copy Palette. They're what make me who I am, they're what I'm made of, so they're always there, but never like that, poyo. This time, for the first time ever, I could actually use them; I could use them as power. I know older Voids can do it, but... Meta Knight says it usually takes at least a thousand years for most Voids to learn how to use their Matters like that."

The tears seemingly vanished from Kirby's eyes, and the sad expression from his face.

"I guess I learned early, poyo," he chuckled. Then, he perked up, looking the most excited Nancy had probably ever seen him. His eyes sparkled as brightly as Hawkins' mostly light pollution-free night sky.

"Hey! That means my wings or horns will probably grow in soon, poyo!" He exclaimed excitedly, jumping up and down. Still absorbing the other (admittedly neat and rather touching) information she'd just been given, Nancy quirked her brow in curiosity. She could see Jonathan echoing the gesture from the corner of her eye. "Wings and horns?" They both asked in unison.

"Yeah!" Kirby said as he stopped literally jumping for joy, though the bright, childlike excitement on his face hadn't dimmed at all. "Meta said that when Puffball Voids learn how to use their Matters, they grow either wings, horns, or both! Destroyers just get bigger and stronger, though."

Huh, Nancy thought. Well, at least now there seemed to be some sort of physical aspect to their life cycle. The mature ones (of one of the two subspecies', anyway) had wings, horns, or both. Physical features that grew in when they were (as far as she could tell the species worked) fully grown. Interesting.

She briefly wondered who this 'Meta Knight' character was, then remembered from when Kirby had first introduced himself that Meta Knight was Kirby's mentor, and seemed to act as a guardian figure of sorts. He was an older Void, and was half-Dark Matter--half-Zero. Kirby had even said that the Dark half of Meta Knight could make him aggressive at times, and had said that Meta Knight also had a wild side he repressed beneath his discipline and code of honor as an apparent knight. Honestly, the idea of him scared Nancy a little, but half-evil meant there was still half-good, right?

He sounded like he was good to the fully-good Kirby, after all (aside from the time he apparently tried to take over Kirby's country with a battleship because he was, apparently, also a militant extremist) so he sounded... okay, in Nancy's book. It was at least good that Kirby had another member of his species (besides the completely evil Zero) in his life to guide him. She couldn't imagine being the only Human on Earth. She'd just have to remember not to get on this "Meta Knight"'s bad side, as Kirby had advised her, assuming she ever met him; that was, which, she hoped, for Kirby's sake, she did.

"That's interesting," Nancy said honestly. "Yeah!" Kirby agreed, then shivered. "I sure hope it doesn't hurt, though, poyo." Kirby then perked up again, as if he hadn't just started physically trembling in fear of something that hadn't even happened yet. "Hey, y'know what?" He asked cheerfully. "I think I'll call this new power... hmm... oh, I know! I think I'll call it Matter Mode!"

Nancy allowed a small smile to slip at his childish excitement. He really was just like a younger Mike after he'd just come up with a new story idea for a campaign. At least they'd both gotten what they wanted, in the end. Nancy had her answers, and Kirby had his chocolate. Everyone was happy. Except for...

Wait...

"El!" Nancy exclaimed. "Oh, shit," she hissed. In between all the negotiating and her curiosity, she'd completely forgotten about where she and Jonathan been heading when Kirby had first confronted them with his trade offer.

"What?" Kirby asked, tilting his head in curiosity. Then, his eyes widened in realization. "Wait, you were looking for stuff for El's leg-!"

Nancy and Jonathan quickly ran around him before he could finish coming to his realization, running back toward the aisle El was in. Nancy couldn't believe she'd forgotten about her!

She'd gotten lost in her damn head again!

She heard Kirby's cartoonish-sounding footsteps pattering quickly after her and Jonathan as she approached the aisle. She heard Mike's voice shouting, and she was at first worried that El's leg had gotten worse because of her, but she realized it was Dustin's name he was calling in concern, not El's.

She, Jonathan, and Kirby reached the aisle and found El completely okay, now seemingly well enough to have sat up and leaned closer to Mike, who had his back turned to her as he leaned over his supercom.

"What is it?" Nancy asked in concern.

Mike turned to look at her, Kirby, and Jonathan, and she could see plans forming in his head.

God, what now?


A/N: Not really a fan of the way that this one ended, but oh well. I really enjoyed writing in Nancy's POV for the second time (the first time was so short, after all). In Kirby crossovers, I always do love logical characters tearing their hair out trying to figure out Kirby; adorable Kirby; who's so complicated yet so simple all the same. World-saver by morning, snacker and napper by noon. Even I have to admit he makes little sense, but he's a reflection of his series. It's serious and dark, yet charming and simple in a childlike way all the same. That concept, a character with dark origins and a complicated story, but who's a childishly simple person who doesn't let it bug him (too much) all the same, is just so neat to me. Kirby is definitely one of the coolest video game characters ever, and it's all because of how simple he is. Seriously, how neat is that?

Anyway, Kirby getting red eyes in this chapter is, of course, a reference to his infamous evil face when he's possessed by the Demon Frog in Right Back at Ya! I needed a way to get him away from El and Mike so they could have the private chat they deserved, and Nancy and Jonathan were the perfect escape for that. It's not like Kirby knew Mike was gonna mess up his chance to confess to El, anyway. I was originally going to have him just spill to them about his new power, but I got the idea of him taking advantage of Nancy's curiosity to bribe her into buying him a Crunch bar out of nowhere and just couldn't resist. I love the idea that he's perfectly okay with that, but outright theft, unless it's for an emergency, is out of the question. Forgive the blatant product placement, but I just really like Crunch bars. Not really a fan of straight chocolate bars (more of a Reese's guy) but if I had to have one I'd choose Crunch. It's also a giant reference to the memefied image of Kirby holding up a chocolate bar in Tuggle's store from Right Back at Ya! It's commonly shown as him holding a sign, instead, which can say, well, whatever the person who used the template wants it to.

I hope the new Void lore I inserted was interesting. Meta Knight has a cape that can transform into bat wings, and Galacta Knight has angel wings and golden horns, so I thought it would be cool if Puffball Voids grow wings, horns, or both when they "come of age", so to speak. In the--likely countless--one-shots that will be written in this universe after this fic is done (which, again, will only be available on Ao3 and Quotev under my same account name as here) the Void lore will be expanded on and Kirby will grow wings (possibly horns, too. I haven't decided yet) I really want to put a personal spin on this AU, and I just really love the idea of Kirby having wings. Meta Knight's cape-tranformation ability is (at least, as far as he knows, and he doesn't know everything about Voids because he's only seen a few, not counting Galacta Knight) unique, but perhaps something Kirby could learn, too.

Also, I know it's what the Internet likes to think, and I understand why it thinks that, but as far as we know, Billy wasn't intended to be racist. Dacre Montgomery himself said so, and while the Duffers haven't confirmed that, it's what I like to believe, since I think that even if his behavior toward Lucas in season 2 was unwarranted and inexcusable either way, he is a good person deep down, and with the most official source we're going to get backing that interpretation up, I'm going to die on this hill. The poor dude just needs some love, and I'm gonna show it to him with this fic and the ones to follow that are set in this universe. Don't like the sound of that? I respect that, and I'm glad I could entertain you this far, but if you're not a fan of Billy redemption, then now's your cue to leave.

I originally planned to include them finding Dustin and leaving the supermarket in this chapter, but it's long enough as-is. That will be their mission in the next chapter. Until then, please comment any thoughts or questions you may have! I'll be happy to answer them, so long as they won't spoil the things I have planned for the finale, that is ;)

I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you all...

Next time...