Tears came to Magolor's eyes as he once again failed to detect the unmistakable energy signature of his friend. King Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Waddle Dee had all but given up hope completely as the rioters grew more and more violent outside.

They were all doomed. They were going to break in and kill Magolor and everyone else, and Kirby would never come home. He'd failed.

"Ohhh Maaaaggieee!" A familiar peppy voice said from behind him. Magolor startled, then turned to see Pinkie Pie standing there, smiling like she hadn't just warped into the plane out of nowhere. It still made Magolor's head hurt thinking about how in the hell she did it with no Magic.

"What is it, Pinkie?" He sighed dejectedly. "I found him, Maggie! I found Kirby!"

Magolor froze. Then, he turned and held her face in his hands tightly as he looked seriously into her eyes, trying to ignore her muffled attempts at speaking with her scrunched-up cheeks.

"What?" He demanded, trying not to get his hopes up.

Was there hope, after all?


Kirby didn't awake with a start. He simply drifted into awareness, in a black void. While one might think he should have been scared, he was anything but.

The being known as Nightmare had been vanquished a decade ago, but, even in Dream Land, nightmares did not simply 'go away'. Kirby still remembered Nightmare's last words, spoken directly into his mind as Kirby fled the exploding moon on his Warp Star.

"True to my name, I am a Nightmare. I am that little voice inside your head, the one telling you that it's hopeless. While you may have rid me of my physical form, Puffball, I'll live on forever in the minds of every Popstarian; you included, as that little voice..."

As it turned out, Nightmare had meant that quite literally. As in, anytime someone in Dream Land was overwhelmed with dark thoughts, Nightmare himself would literally begin speaking to them in their heads. True to his word, he really did live on in the hearts and minds of all Popstarians; disembodied, but very much alive.

Whenever Kirby's thoughts and fears managed to completely consume him, like earlier that night when El's leg began acting up, Kirby would find himself here, in his own mind. Never for very long, but just long enough to meet up with his old foe.

Said old foe was always limited to his shades and intimidating, fang-filled maw, which leered at Kirby from the shadows but never touched him. Said maw opened as the vanquished Nightmare began speaking to Kirby.

"So, then, you've done it. You've saved this world and put an end to Zero--or, more accurately, his evil self--once and for all."

Kirby maintained his usual neutral expression as the sound of slow, sarcastic claps echoed from Nightmare's general direction. The key was to not let him get to you. It only made him stronger.

"But, my dear old friend, shouldn't we address the Phan Phan in the room?" Nightmare asked, giving off the feeling that if he still had hands he'd be shrugging innocently.

"What are you talking about?" Kirby asked, forgetting all about not displaying his emotions as he openly glared at his old nemesis with disdain. Nightmare let out an echoing chuckle, and Kirby felt disappointed in himself for letting his emotion show.

"I believe we both know full well what I'm talking about, Kirby," Nightmare said, shocking Kirby with the rare use of Kirby's actual name. "You did it. You stopped Zero, you saved the locals of this world, you got the girl, yadda, yadda, yadda," Nightmare snarked lazily, gaze now facing upwards, as if he were lying lazily on his back with his hands behind his head.

Abruptly, his 'face' was suddenly right in front of Kirby's.

"But how are you going to get yourself and your colorful little companions back home?"

Kirby frowned in concern. He hadn't exactly... ironed that out yet.

"I'll figure something out," Kirby said with determination. Nightmare 'tsk'd'. "Oh, will you?" The disembodied wizard drawled. "You do know all the 'hope'--" Nightmare spat the word like it disgusted him--"--in the world isn't actually going to open a gateway in space-time, don't you?"

Kirby's nubs were clenched at his sides, tears in the corners of his eyes as he glared to the side.

"I know," he said weakly. Nightmare said nothing in response, but Kirby could feel satisfaction emanating from him.

"Why do you even care?" Kirby asked bitterly. Nightmare chuckled quite loudly at that. "I believe you know the answer to that as well, Puffball. It is in my nature to crush hope. I am a living nightmare. I thrive off fear and misery, even in this disembodied form you have reduced me to."

Kirby held back a smirk. Nightmare could deny it all he wanted, but the past decade had mellowed him out a bit. Sure, he was still genuinely malicious, but Kirby got the feeling his interest in Kirby's next move may not have been entirely out of getting some sick satisfaction at Kirby not knowing what to do next.

Something started happening around five years ago, during Kirby's Mirror World adventure. Nightmare began to speak up from Kirby's mind without having to first feast on negative thoughts. He only ever did it during particularly tough battles, or if Kirby was about to suffer an extremely debilitating blow. He would speak up specifically to warn Kirby.

Whenever Kirby brought it up, Nightmare always insisted he only helped out because he wanted to keep Kirby around for future torment. However, Kirby got the feeling that, after a decade with almost no one to mentally torment, Nightmare was beginning to like Kirby. It was slow-going, and Nightmare was still malicious through and through, but the guy wasn't grumpily giving him pointers during battles or pointing out more efficient methods of attack because he didn't care.

"However," Nightmare said. "I am genuinely curious."

He tilted his head.

"What is your next move, Kirby?"

Deciding it couldn't hurt to return that genuineness, Kirby shrugged and admitted the truth.

"I don't know."

Nightmare chuckled as he turned away. As he began to fade back into the shadows, however, Kirby managed to catch his parting words.

"You forget that at this very moment, I am technically in Dream Land, as well, in your friends' minds, able to see all that is going on. Remember this when you wake up, Kirby..."

"Oftentimes, help comes from unexpected places."


This time, Kirby awoke with a start. The second he jumped awake, Nightmare's cryptic parting words still echoing in his mind, a row of Humans in odd green, beige, and black outfits and decked out in armored helmets tensed and trained utterly massive guns on him. Kirby wasn't fully awake yet, but sheer panic made him alert enough to speak.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" He screamed, nubs held up in surrender. "Don't shoot! I didn't do anything!"

Where was he, anyway? Whatever structure he was in was rumbling, and it was a small, metallic space. The row of Humans were sitting on a row of low, red, makeshift seats, strapped in securely by multiple, heavy-duty seatbelts. Kirby noticed that he wasn't strapped in; probably because he'd have to be laying down for the seatbelts to properly fit around him.

'Luckily' for him, though, two particularly strong-looking Human men were sat on either side of him, and Kirby had the feeling that they, for better or worse, weren't going to let him go anywhere unless they wished it.

Kirby gulped. This small vehicle seemed to be an aircraft of some sort, considering that the small windows above the rows of seats showed only a night sky, no ground of any sort. The rumbling of this craft felt more like... what did Meta Knight call it? Kirby had experienced quite a bit of it on the Halberd, especially once he'd begun to damage it. Ah. It was called turbulence. The way this vehicle was rumbling felt far more like turbulence than the shaking a ground-based vehicle would experience due to a bumpy road.

Plus, Kirby was a Puffball; a creature of the air. He could float indefinitely by filling his body with air, spit solidified air, generate small whirlwinds by inhaling and even increase their sizes if he tried hard enough, and would likely develop the same Tornado and Mach Tornado attacks Meta Knight could use once he grew wings. He knew when he was high up.

Considering the heavy-looking uniforms and armaments these guys were sporting, and the loud aircraft Kirby was currently in, he could only guess that he was currently in the custody of the local Human military.

And that was not good. Not for him, and not for...

"El!" Kirby suddenly cried out in realization. Forgetting all about self-preservation, the Puff glared at the row of Humans in front of him, all of whom had stern faces, yet eyes that conveyed hints of curiosity and shock, likely at his seeming ability to speak their language. "What did you do to her?!"

"Calm down," a (hopefully genuine) friendly-sounding man's voice said. Kirby looked toward the front of whatever aircraft he was in, seeing a stout man in a black suit with a white, button-down shirt visible underneath. He was in what Kirby guessed was the pilot's seat of this aircraft, as he was sitting in front of a variety of buttons and lights; likely the control scheme for the craft.

"We're not after Jane. As a matter of fact, we protect her from those that are."

"Huh?" Kirby asked. Then, he remembered El and Will's recounting of their past experiences with Zero from a few days ago. "Oh! Are you Doctor Owens?" Kirby asked, all hostility rapidly draining from his body as he was filled with relief and happiness. Thank NOVA he'd ended up with the good guys.

"That I am," Owens said. Though his eyes, for obvious safety reasons, remained fully trained on the large window in front of him (which did, in fact, confirm Kirby's suspicions about being far above the ground), Kirby could see his easy smile. "Though, I don't exactly hold the whole 'doctor' title, anymore. Not in any publicly-acknowledged capacity, anyhow."

"So, um, just checking... you're not going to turn me into a science experiment, right?"

Kirby would be rather disappointed if he had to kill Owens, but he could not end up like El. No way. He'd blow up this whole aircraft if he had to.

Owens chuckled. "You, my friend, are a powerful alien being that, according to your friends and my charges, hails from another dimension, quite similarly to a certain entity that's been making all our lives quite difficult for a while now. The one that just caused the mess I have to cover up. The one that, I'm told, is of the same species as you."

Kirby would've gulped if he had a throat.

"By all means," Owens began, still in that friendly tone of his, "I should be putting you somewhere where you can do no harm to the American--hell--the Human--population."

Kirby looked downward sadly. Looked like he'd have to fight his way out of here, after all...

"But I'm not going to do that."

"Poy?!" Kirby gasped, looking back up at Owens.

"You see, little Kirby--that's a rather nice name, if you don't mind me saying--" Owens said, with Kirby smugly remarking that he did not mind in response "--I don't know if you were told about this by your Human friends, considering you seem to know who I am, but I was once in a tight spot thanks to the monsters your, ah, arch-nemesis, I hear?"

Kirby nodded with an affirmative "Poyo."

"Well, Kirby, thanks to one of the monsters he created, I have a permanent limp. To tell you the truth, though, I wouldn't ever have walked again were it not for Cheif-O--Hopper, that is--the very same man that vouched for you back at the mall. As a matter of fact, I'd have gone nowhere but the grave--or, more likely, a top-secret crematorium--had Hopper not saved me that night."

"Oh," Kirby said. He hadn't heard that part of the tale. "Yes, indeed," Owens chuckled, sounding nostalgic. "As you can probably tell, I owe Cheif-O quite a lot. As a matter of fact, it was because he saved my life that night, and because Jane closed the Gate afterward, that I not only pulled strings to make Jane legally exist, but continue to keep her and all those other poor kids safe from those who would rather see Jane back in their custody and those other kids silenced."

Kirby felt a strong feeling of dread at those words. At the reminder that the people affiliated with Brenner were still out there, somewhere, looking for El. Mike and Lucas had admitted that they hadn't actually seen Brenner die. They just chose to believe he had. And apparently, so did the government at large.

But what if he was still out there, somewhere?

He wouldn't be getting his hands on El as long as Kirby was around, that was for sure.

"The point is, little guy, I trust Chief-O's judgement. And I trust Jane. God knows she hasn't failed us before. And neither have all those other kids, either. And you know what? All of those people vouched for you. As a matter of fact, Mike and Max were rather... shall we say... reluctant to entrust you into my care."

Kirby smiled. That was just like those two.

"You've got a lot of people in your corner, Kirby. It's frankly impressive, considering you've only been here a week. And I trust them all. They say you won't hurt anyone? That you're a good version of that evil entity? I'll believe them."

Owens' voice soon grew more grave, though. "However," he said warningly. "Know this. As previously stated, I've made it my goal to keep this town safe from extra-dimensional entities. And I've made it my goal to protect Cheif-O and those kids. If you make me regret trusting their judgment concerning you, I promise, you will never see the light of day again."

Owens caught Kirby's reflection in the window in front of him.

"Are we clear, little guy?"

Kirby's face was stern, expression set in the way Meta Knight had taught him was proper when interacting with authority figures; especially foreign ones. He gave a crisp nod.

"Yes, sir. I won't hurt anyone; that's a promise!"

Owens nodded, easy smile returning.

"I'm glad we've reached an understanding, Mister Kirby. Now..."

"I suppose I should drop you off at Cheif-O's place, eh? Everyone's still being looked over at the mall at the moment, and your colorful friends are en-route to where we're going in one of my vans, but the Chief should be home soon enough."

"Yes, please!" Kirby chirped. "And... Doctor Owens?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you."

Owens nodded, smile significantly more relaxed now that he'd said his piece. "You're quite welcome."


Kirby sighed as he looked across Hopper's "yard" (more of a forest floor than anything else) from where he sat on the front steps. It was a beautiful morning. Birdsong echoed out through the forest, sunbeams filtered in through the trees, the temperature was perfect, neither too hot nor too cold. It was a truly serene moment.

Yet, Kirby could only focus on the future.

Owens had lowered his aircraft (he'd told Kirby it was called a helicopter) into the clearing the cabin sat in last night. Kirby thanked him for the ride, Owens gave him one last reminder of their "arrangement", and then the two had bid each other goodnight as Owens took off again, the bemused Human soldiers within the aircraft still gazing curiously at him through the windows. Tuffy, Greeny, and Keeby had showed up not too long after Kirby had gone inside and collapsed into his nest beneath El's bed, exhausted.

Owens' men had given the three Puffballs the same ultimatum as Owens had given Kirby. They had all been quite reluctant to go with the G-men, but both recognized that they were vastly outnumbered and a fight wouldn't end well, and had been reassured by Hopper that said government personnel were trustworthy and wouldn't take them away or kill them on his watch.

So the reluctant Puffballs had gotten into the van, been threatened into good behavior on the road in the same manner as Kirby, and then dropped off at Hopper's cabin. They had all been bone-tired, but Tuffy had excitedly bragged about how awesome the mission to shut down the Gate was, and about how he, Hopper, Joyce, Greeny, and Tuffy had all fought a "six-foot-tall hitman guy", and soundly defeated the man, who had been utterly unprepared for the force of nature that was three Puffballs working together.

However, with all said and done, they still needed to sleep. And since Kirby had only summoned them to this world earlier that morning, there were no sleeping arrangements in place.

Thus, much to Tuffy's chagrin (even though he made no effort to stop Kirby) Kirby had bundled his three little brothers (they were the same physical and mental age as him, but Kirby was chronologically older, thus he insisted on calling himself their big brother) in a large blanket on the couch together, the three colorful marshmallows snoring softly, wrapped up together like a burrito.

At that thought, Kirby had then raided Hopper's fridge.

Kirby'd slept like a rock, and when he awoke the next morning, was hugged quite tightly by El. Kirby knew (or rather, he hadn't yet seen her be this affectionate with anyone else) that the girl wasn't very physically affectionate like that unless it was with Mike. She'd thanked him and told him she was proud of him. And to think, when they'd first met, she had attacked him...

It really was crazy how many friends he had made in just a week.

Speaking of which...

A week had passed since Kirby had been banished to this world by Magolor. It felt so surreal. He could only hope that while he'd been fighting for this world, his friends had managed to defeat Magolor and save Kirby's universe.

Honestly, he hoped that Magolor was okay and, perhaps unrealistically, he hoped his friends would give him another chance. Sure, Kirby was still mad at Magolor for picking the Master Crown up in the first place, but he knew Magolor. He didn't care how much Magolor had insisted it was all a front during their battle, he knew Magolor had genuinely enjoyed their prior time together. That he really did like spending time with Kirby and his friends.

But there was something wrong with that crown.

Kirby had seen it moving around on Magolor's head after he'd taken his EX form. It had even changed appearance. It was alive, and Kirby thought it had been corrupting Magolor.

He wasn't trying to say Magolor wasn't at fault, but he also didn't believe that Magolor had had necessarily bad intentions before he'd put the crown on and fallen under its evil sway.

In any case, it had been a total of two weeks since this whole ordeal began. Since the Lor Starcutter had first appeared in Dream Land's skies. Since Kirby and his friends had met the saddened traveler called Magolor. It had been two weeks since they had first departed for Cookie Country in search of the first part of the ship, the oars, which had been accidentally absorbed by Whispy Woods, who had then gone crazy from the power and refused to give the oars up. A week since Kirby and his friends had traveled to each of the five corners of Popstar, retrieving more parts and fighting more power-crazed baddies.

Cookie Country, Whispy Woods, Oars.

Raisin Ruins, Mr. Dooter, Right Wing.

Onion Ocean, Fatty Puffer, Left Wing.

White Wafers, Goriath, Emblem.

Nutty Noon, Grand Doomer, Mast. And all that wasn't even to mention the places and things they'd had to brave on Halcandra.

Egg Engines, the mechanical wasteland, guarded by the fearsome Metal General and HR-D3.

Dangerous Dinner, the treacherous home of Haldera Volcano and the matriarchal Guardian Angel of Halcandra, the four-headed dragon: Landia.

It had been one heck of a week, that was for sure. Kirby, Dedede, Meta, and Bandee had journeyed to all five corners of Popstar in search of those parts. It had been tough, but fun, and probably Kirby's biggest adventure yet. Bandee had provided conversation, Dedede had goofed around and screwed with Meta whenever the opportunity arose, Meta had been quiet, yet sarcastic and chided Dedede for his immaturity, and Kirby had led the way with an optimistic smile on his face.

All of them had been a little uneasy on Halcandra, just because the place (though mostly Egg Engines) was so... creepy. To think, a civilization advanced enough to have created both the Fountain of Dreams and NOVA had just... vanished without a trace?

Yeah. Spooky. Especially considering all the machines and empty, abandoned factories Kirby and co. had to explore somehow still ran automatically, without purpose, which reminded Kirby, Dedede, and Bandee of Shiver Star quite a bit.

If nothing else, the sheer contrast between their upbeat travels across Popstar the prior five days and the two days they spent trekking across the sparsely-inhabited Halcandra just made it all the eerier.

But it had been a week since then, and regardless of whether Magolor had been defeated or not, Kirby was still here. He wouldn't lose hope. He would have faith in his friends. Surely, they'd be able to get him and his three colorful siblings back. It would just take a while.

Didn't mean Kirby had to like it.

Kirby sighed once more. Hopper, leaning over the railing next to him while having a smoke, piped up, "What's eatin' you, Kid?"

"Nothing. Have you seen how deadly I am?"

Hopper raised an eyebrow, unamused. Kirby weakly chuckled at his own joke. He did love to poke fun at his own appetite and power. He sighed once more. "Well, poyo, I've been here a week."

Hopper let out an understanding "Mmm".

"I'm just... well, I'm homesick, poyo. Now that I don't have Zero hanging over my head, there's nothing to distract me from it. I mean; what do I do next, you know? I'm a sitting Twizzy! Me and Keeby, Greeny, and Tuffy!"

"I get it," Hopper said. "No one likes that kind of lack of control."

"I mean, what am I supposed to do, you know? Hope Dedede and the others can figure something out?"

"And, uh... who's... 'De De De' again?"

Kirby giggled. "His name's all one word. And he's the king of Dream Land."

Hop's eyebrows went up, and he glanced over at Kirby. "And, uh... how exactly did you become personal friends with your king, of all people?"

Kirby chuckled. "Ohh ho ho ho, now that is a long story," Kirby said with a grin. Hopper raised a brow. "I get the feeling I don't wanna know."

"I'd rather you meet him and see how great of a guy he is nowadays before I tell you who he used to be," Kirby said.

"I remember you said something about a knight when you first told me about how you ended up here? What was his name again?"

Kirby brightened up almost instantly. "Oh! That's Meta Knight! He teaches me how to fight!" Kirby said proudly. "He work for the king?" Hop asked. Kirby physically waved off the notion. "Oh, no. He would never. They get along nowadays, but Meta Knight's always been his own thing. Come to think of it, he never did tell me how he became a knight, or who he works for..."

Hop was silent for a moment. "Why does he teach you how to fight?" He eventually asked, sounding a touch concerned. "Oh, well, the two of us are the only Puffballs on Popstar besides Keeby, Greeny, Tuffy, and my old, mean crush, Susie. He's the only adult one on Popstar, so he decided to train me to become a warrior like him. It started after we first met when I went on this adventure to repair the Star Rod."

At Hop's confused look, Kirby told him that the Star Rod adventure was a long story.

"Meta's gotten nicer over time, but he's really mysterious and tough because he's half-Dark Matter." At Hop's alarmed look, Kirby rushed to clarify, "He's not evil, though! Just a bit more aggressive than most Puffballs. He tries to keep that part of himself under control with this code-thing he follows. He always gives me a sword before we fight so that it's fair."

Hopper narrowed his eyes in seeming suspicion toward Meta Knight as he looked back into the forest, but seemed to accept the explanation after a while with a grumble.

"He got as big of an appetite as you, then? I had to go restock my whole damn fridge after you raised it last night, you cream puff. I think you're forgetting that the whole gang's comin' over today."

Kirby laughed loudly. "I was hungry! It had been a long day! To answer your question, though, Meta tries to hide it to keep up his image, but I know he sneaks parfait every night."

Hopper chuckled.

Kirby continued to look out across the yard with a small smile, cheered up. However, something unusual quickly caught his eye.

Sitting there, on the forest floor, was a yellow-orange butterfly with red-lined wings.

It was sitting there, facing directly at him, wings idly opening and closing to absorb the sunshine and regulate its body temperature. It was a cold-blooded creature, after all. Hardly unusual.

What was unusual about the sight was that these were Dream Land's signature butterflies. Kirby had seen quite a few varieties unknown to him that day on Weathertop, likely native to this planet, but he had obviously never seen any like those native to Popstar. Not in this world.

He hopped up quickly and ran out to meet it in the yard. While butterflies tended to gravitate toward Kirby for reasons unknown to him (seriously, he'd once been chased by a swarm of the darn things in Green Greens, when he'd first arrived on Dream Land's mainland from Cappy Island eleven years ago) there was always one in particular he'd get odd feelings around. It hung around his house a lot and would often sit with him when he ate and napped under the tree outside his house. Kirby would always know it was that butterfly specifically because he always felt an odd... connection to it. Like they were related, somehow.

Kirby was getting those feelings again now.

When Kirby reached the butterfly, it softly fluttered off the ground and onto his head, much to Kirby's joy. He didn't know how, but one of his friends from Dream Land was here! He couldn't be more happy!

"Little buddy? Is that you? How'd you get here, huh?"

Kirby was overjoyed. Was this a gift from the stars? A way to have a little piece of Dream Land with him even when he was away?

Hopper watched from the porch as Kirby interacted with the odd, sunset-colored butterfly. Hopper was no lepidopterist, but he could almost swear that there was no such variety as the type of butterfly Kirby was currently talking to.

At least, not as far as Hopper knew.

Both he and the giggling Kirby were drawn from their musings by Steve, Nancy, and Joyce's cars pulling up, Steve's filled to the brim with teens (and Billy). Joyce's car held only Will and Jonathan, likely in an attempt to lessen Steve's workload at least a bit, and Nancy's held only herself and her little brother. Kirby moved out of their way as they pulled in, and the butterfly fluttered off of his head and high into the air. It looked to Hopper like it was just going to fly away at first, but as Kirby excitedly ran up to the cars, it just hovered in midair, its front still facing Hopper's cabin; more specifically, facing toward the cars that had just pulled up, and the pink Puffball excitedly jumping around them.

If Hop didn't know any better, he'd say it almost looked like it was watching them.


Hop had gotten some extra seats out so everyone could be comfortable, and the whole gang was gathered together in the living room, laughing, eating (Hopper had made lunch and set out a platter with meat, cheese, and crackers on it, which he instructed everyone else to guard so that the Kirbies didn't eat all of it), and having fun together, celebrating the defeat of Zero. Billy was... trying to join the fun, but was still understandably uncomfortable around everyone (and trying to get himself together after the week he'd had).

Kirby, Tuffy, Greeny, and Keeby were together. El, Mike, Lucas, Will, Erica and Dustin; and the chaperones of all the kids sans Will and Mike: Steve and Robin, were present. Nancy and Jonathan, the other two of the four older teens, sat contentedly next to each other, watching all the chaos unfold. Billy was in his own chair, with Will, Max, and El being the only members of the Party who were genuinely engaging with him. Mike, Lucas, and Dustin were still rather uncomfortable around him, but were weakly trying. Murray had gone home after the battle last night to, to quote Hopper, "probably drink himself into oblivion".

Mike had an ice-pack held to one of his sides. Two of his ribs had indeed been cracked by Phantom Dedede, but as long as he tried not to be too active and kept ice on them to keep the swelling down, all should be fine. The official cover story Owens had given everyone was that the mall had caught fire, the members of the Zeroed were casualties, and Mike had been hit by falling debris.

To celebrate the final defeat and purification of Zero, Kirby had decided to tell the tale of his previous incarnation's defeat at the hands of himself, Ribbon, the initially-reluctant-but-eventually-warmed-up-Dedede, the, at the time, bandana-less Bandana Waddle Dee, and Adeleine.

The older folks that hadn't yet heard the story were somewhat baffled by Kirby's mention of a heart-shaped planet inhabited by Fairies, but seemed to go along with it easily enough, considering everything else they'd seen from Kirby.

At the mention of a Human, though, Steve, Robin, and an especially shocked Hopper and Joyce had outright stopped him in the middle of the story to confirm after that, and Kirby had indeed confirmed, while making clear that Humans were an elusive species on Popstar, and that their history and suspiciously small total population on the planet was, according to Adeleine, a mystery even to them.

No part of the story besides those that only Kirby had been present for came as a surprise to Billy. When he had been possessed, Zero had been confident he couldn't escape even with knowledge of his weakness, so he allowed Billy to see all his own memories, including the invasions of Popstar and Ripple Star. Billy had freely told everyone as much, and when all else present fell into an awkward silence, Will was the one who'd put a hand on Billy's shoulder and apologized for what he had gone through.

Everyone had seemed a bit uneasy after the whole 'Humans on Popstar' thing, but Kirby had cheered them up by bringing up Adeleine's unique powers. With Mike, Will, Lucas, Max, and El having heard only an abridged version of the story, they all seemed intrigued, and Will had perked up quite a bit, saying that she sounded cool. Dustin, having not heard any version of the story, was wide-eyed and grinning ear-to-ear the entire time, extremely jealous of the fact that Kirby had gotten to go on a planet-hopping adventure through the solar system. Since they were no longer on a time-crunch, Kirby took the time to recount all the silly shenanigans that had happened along the way.

About how he'd gotten hungry while trekking across the vast desert expanse of Rock Star and Adeleine had had to paint up a picnic, and about how he'd been so distracted with his strawberry shortcake that Dedede had had to drag him through the portal to the next planet before he could be left behind.

Kirby told them about how they'd all had a stone-skipping competition on the shores of Aqua Star, and of how Kirby had gotten caught in a giant wave and almost left behind as the others rushed off to the next planet.

Kirby told them about how they'd all had to outrun a mass-scale volcanic eruption on Neo Star, which had involved multiple volcanoes erupting simultaneously.

Kirby... very deliberately didn't tell the Humans much about Shiver Star, and his fellow Puffballs seemed to have come to that same silent agreement.

He told them about how Zero Two had had Miracle Matter pretend to be the one leading the invasion on Ripple Star, to throw Kirby off his trail. He told them about how all the Dark Matter on the planet had fled following Miracle Matter's defeat, and how Kirby and his friends, sans Ribbon, had been preparing to leave the planet onboard a ship provided by Queen Ripple when the repaired Crystal of Joy suddenly shot a beam of light at the Fairy Queen, revealing Zero Two and countless Dark Matter had been hiding inside her.

And Kirby told them about how, in the end, all of them had ridden a Warp Star into the heart of the Dark Star formed by Zero Two's legion of Dark Matter, where they used the Crystal Shard Gun to put a stop to Zero Two once and for all.

At which point, he'd reincarnated as the Mind Flayer in the Upside Down and stewed in anger for around five-and-a-half years until the Gate was opened for the first time and he'd sent the Demogorgon to Earth, at which time Will had been kidnapped and brought there, likely having been intended to become a new vessel for Zero so he could begin his new invasion.

And, well, the rest was history from there.

"You sound like you have a... really interesting life!" Joyce said with awkward cheeriness as she placed a grilled cheese in front of Kirby. While she was still a bit awkward around him--courtesy of the bad things in her life he was unfortunately associated with--she had been trying to look past that and treat him like she would any other kid.

She was honestly quite shocked. Zero's previous incarnation (minus the giant band-aid he'd worn to cover the spot where his eye had been gouged out, which sounded cartoonishly ridiculous) had sounded terrifying. And yet, despite facing both that and Zero's latest incarnation (and an existential crisis to boot, according to her kids) the little guy never seemed to stay down for long, always bouncing back with a cheery, childlike optimism.

She honestly envied him. Most in the room probably did. Although, the fact that he was literally condensed positive energy probably helped a bit.

"Thanks!" Kirby beamed brightly. "For the food and the compliment, I mean." He giggled, then bit the grilled cheese. He bit the grilled cheese. With no teeth. Joyce blinked, then plastered her smile back on, but was noticeably disturbed by the blatant ignorance of... well, logic. He... he only had lips. How did he...?

Unlike Joyce, Nancy hadn't even bothered to plaster a polite smile on. She was obviously trying her best not to snap at Kirby, her eyelid once more twitching in obvious frustration.

Take deep breaths. Don't... just don't think about it. Stop trying to apply logic to him. He doesn't abide by it. Wait. Why does he have a tongue if he just swallows his food whole--I said don't think about it.

Blissfully unaware of Nancy's barely-contained urge to pick him up and shake him, Kirby said, "Oh, hey! You guys wanna hear about how I got here? Uh, the ones who haven't already, I mean?"

Max snorted. "If I have to hear about that little traitor one more--"

"Hell yeah, I do!" Erica interrupted, receiving an elbow from Steve and reminder to watch her language in response. Erica rolled her eyes. Sure. Pretend to be all responsible around the real adults. Wouldn't want them knowing you let me curse when it's just us, huh?

"Alright!" Kirby cheered, unhappy with such a young child (only two years younger than him, but still) using such language, but appreciating the enthusiasm, nonetheless. "You know what, marshmallow? Sure, why not," Billy piped up.

"Oh man, this is gonna be awesome..." Dustin said, excited that he was hearing the story his friends had offhandedly mentioned Kirby telling them following the battle at Starcourt (which had been burned to the ground by Owens' soldiers to cover up the battle).

"Okay! So, it all started when one day, a light appeared in the sky and a big spaceship came through!"


"So then I shot Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Dee to safety, but fell into the rift and got flung far away, into this world. And the rest is history!"

"Huh. Kind of a downer ending, but... an ancient alien civilization! A four-headed dragon! And I thought my life was turning into DND!" Dustin exclaimed. "Hey, little guy! You've gotta take me to that Halcandra place someday! God, all that sounded cool!"

"Um, excuse me, am I the only one who's mad at the egg bastard?" Erica asked, arms crossed.

"Erica!" Lucas admonished. "Just the facts!" The girl protested. "He sounds like a bastard."

"I mean... she's definitely not wrong," Robin said. "I mean, yeah, he's a traitor and all that... but I kinda, like, really super wanna meet him," Dustin said, wanting to make contact with an extraterrestrial who... wasn't Kirby. No offense, little guy, but your planet doesn't sound half as cool as his.

"God, you are such a nerd," Erica said. "Upbupbupbup," Dustin said rapidly. "We already discussed this. You, Erica Sinclair, are also a nerd. Because you like My Little--"

"Kirbyyyyy!" A high-pitched, peppy-sounding female voice called from outside the cabin. "The hell?" Hopper muttered. "I'll go see who it is," Kirby said, hopping off his chair and walking over toward the door.

"Hey, hey, hey, hold on," Hopper protested. Kirby turned to look at him, smiling in amusement. "What, you think I can't handle whoever that is?" The voice hardly sounded like it belonged to someone threatening, after all.

Hopper briefly opened his mouth as if to say something more, then closed it. "Fair point," he conceded. Kirby smiled, then jumped up, twisted the door knob, dropped down and walked out as the door closed, much to the mild amusement of the observing Humans.

As Kirby stepped out onto the porch, he was met with the sight of a bright pink... pony? She had a poofy mane and had cupped her mouth with a hoof, head scanning her surroundings as she continued to call his name from the yard.

Kirby stood there in confusion until she noticed him, whereupon she let out a loud, over-exaggerated gasp and sped toward him in a pink blur. A blink, and Kirby had found himself (literally) face-to-face with the pink pony, who held him in her hooves, rushed back into the yard, and spun around excitedly with him still in her hooves.

"IfoundyouIfoundyouIfoundyouIfoundyouIfoundyou!" She babbled rapidly.

"W-whaaaaat?!" Kirby said, voice muffled by his scrunched-up cheeks. The pink pony let out another dramatic gasp before setting him down. "Oh my gosh! I just realized I haven't introduced myself! Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie, and I found you! How? Well, us pink characters have to stick together, after all!"

"Wh--" Kirby started.

Another gasp from Pinkie Pie.

"OhmygoshIhavetotellthemIfoundyou!"

She then ran toward a tree. "I've gotta go now, but tell Maggie to bring you to visit me in Equestriaaaaa!"

She ran behind the tree and... vanished. Confused, Kirby walked up to and looked behind it and... yeah. She was just... gone. Kirby had little time to ponder this, as mere moments later, he heard the familiar sound of a Dimensional Rift opening.

Startled and barely believing his nonexistent ears, Kirby looked toward Hopper's makeshift driveway where--yup, a jagged crack had just appeared in thin air. When it then warped into the shape of a five-pointed star, though, the expanse of Another Dimension wasn't seen on the other side. It appeared to be more of a direct warp, rather than the usual two rifts connected by a tunnel of Another Dimension.

Because beyond it, plain in view, stood the king of Dream Land, his number-one servant, the knight Kirby thought of as his father, and...

Magolor, with tears in his eyes.

Kirby had no time to process this before Dedede, Meta, and Bandana barreled right past Magolor and through the rift, and promptly dogpiled him. Kirby hadn't even consciously realized the tears were already gushing from his eyes. He was still struggling to comprehend what had just happened. It had all been so sudden.

"G--GUYS?!"

"KIRBYYYYYY!!!"

Hopper had just stepped onto the porch upon hearing the commotion with the female voice from earlier, followed by Joyce, Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, Billy, Robin and the kids, including the three other Puffballs. His brain briefly stopped working when he caught sight of whatever the hell was happening in his driveway. Behind the group of odd, colorful creatures, some green and white-dressed, egg-shaped, floating thing had crossed through into his yard as well, the star-shaped portal closing behind it.

When Hopper's brain came back online, the first thing he felt was alarm, considering Kirby was currently buried under the three weird creatures. Then, alarm shifted to confusion, as he realized the three creatures (he couldn't tell with the masked one, but it was probably safe to assume) were crying profusely, with literal waterfalls of tears gushing from their eyes. Confusion became realization once he actually took stock of what it was he was looking at.

A blue, penguin-like creature.

A masked figure with a sword and a similar body type to Kirby.

A tan creature with an eye-catching blue bandanna.

The penguin-like King Dedede.

The masked Meta Knight.

Bandana Waddle Dee, wearing his namesake.

These were Kirby's friends. They weren't trying to kill him. Hopper shakily sighed in relief, then watched the reunion unfurl. Keeby, Greeny, and Tuffy, though shocked and happy that they now likely had a way home, did so as well, not being close with Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Dee like Kirby was, leaving them content to simply watch rather than join in. Steve, Robin, and all the kids but Dustin and Erica weren't so content to just observe, however.

"Holy shit, it's the evil Dedede clone-thing!" Max hissed. Lucas, ever the brash one, rushed down the porch and toward the scene of the tender reunion with a... well, an almost intimidating battle cry (his voice cracking multiple times kept it from fully crossing the threshold), unable to hear Hopper and the Puffballs' protests over his own screaming.

King Dedede slowly raised his head in confusion, before his eyes widened as he registered the furious Human teen coming right at him. Meta Knight and Bandana Dee, situated in front of him, then lifted their heads, too, and jumped away in opposite directions as Dedede jumped away from the confused, teary-eyed Kirby, hands held up in surrender. Lucas screamed louder as he reached Dedede and started throwing rapid punches.

Eyes widened further, Dedede expertly dodged all of the strikes, before grabbing Lucas's wrists and trying to calm him down. "Woah, woah, woah! Kid, what the heck're you--"

"EVERYBODY. CALM. DOWN." Hopper's commanding voice boomed across his property, with those still standing with him on the porch flinching away in fright. Lucas immediately stopped struggling, and Dedede, Meta Knight, Bandee, and Kirby's attention was drawn to the porch.

Hopper was walking down the steps and making his way over.

"Look, I think--" Hopper said, shooting a glare at a wide-eyed Lucas as he said this--"--that there's been a bit of a misunderstanding. If we could all just calm down, and--"

https/youtu.be/f6DT9A5tOjg

The sound of a sword being drawn interrupted Hopper, and he stopped in his path toward the group. "Not another step," a smooth, Spanish-accented voice said. Hopper looked down to see the one who he knew must have been Meta Knight pointing his serrated, glowing yellow blade up at Hopper, standing in front of Kirby, who still lay confused on the ground.

Hopper immediately raised his hands in surrender.

"Identify yourself," Meta Knight commanded. "Jim Hopper," Hopper complied immediately. On the porch, everyone was stunned. "Holy shit, is that Meta Knight?" Max muttered, eyes wide. "Yup," Tuffy confirmed. "Shit. So then that's not the evil Dedede," Mike whispered. "Nope! That's the real deal, alright!" Keeby chirped.

"Goddamn it, Stalker," Max sighed as she face-palmed. "'Scuse me? 'Scuse me," Dustin whispered. Max turned to him, annoyed. "Yeah, sorry, but who's Meta Knight?" He asked. "Uh, yeah, I kinda wanna know, too," Steve said. "I just wanna know what Lucas just got himself into," Erica said. Her tone was snarky, but she was failing to hide her underlying concern.

Lucas was currently in a rather precarious predicament, after all. Bandana was currently holding the boy, wrists still in a dazed Dedede's grasp, at spear-point, glaring at him. Were the king not so shocked and confused, he likely would have told Bandee to put the spear away. As it stood, though, he only had eyes for the other Human being held at bladepoint and thus hadn't realized his assistant was threatening a child. Seeing this, Hopper attempted to negotiate himself, "Hey. Bandana? I need you..." A breath. "--to put the spear down, okay?"

Bandana flinched. "How do you know my name?" He asked suspiciously, without a trace of his usual stutter. "Yes... how do you know his name... Hopper?" Meta Knight asked, yellow eyes glowing just a bit brighter than usual.

Kirby finally snapped out of his shock-induced trance and jumped up before the situation could escalate any further. "B-because I told him, Meta!" Kirby said. Meta Knight's eyes widened almost imperceptibly in surprise, having likely forgotten Kirby was there, locked in a stare-down as he was.

"My son, have these Humans been holding you captive?" Meta Knight asked. Kirby's eyes widened at both the suggestion and what Meta had called him. Kirby didn't ever think Meta Knight would be that affectionate! Had he really missed him that much?

Kirby shook himself out of his shock (and urge to tear up) and immediately rushed to clarify. "No, Meta! They've been taking care of me!" Bandee gasped and dropped his spear, and Meta's glowing eyes flashed in shock. He slowly lowered his sword until its tip lightly clanked against the ground.

"...I see," Meta said. "Please forgive the misunderstanding, Mr. Hopper." He then turned to Lucas as his bat-like wings, previously spread in battle-readiness, suddenly transfigured themselves into his cape, which wrapped tightly around him as his sword vanished into it. "My apology extends to you, as well, young man," Meta said with a nod.

Lucas's mouth fell open and closed like that of a fish as he struggled to keep up with everything that was going on. As quickly as he had attacked, he had become a hostage, and now the conflict had been settled.

Meta Knight turned to Hopper and bowed low once more. "Again, my sincerest apologies, friend. I do not know how much Kirby told you of the situation that landed him here, but the four of us have, eh, something of a history of blindly jumping to conclusions at the expense of innocent strangers, you could say."

"I-I'm so sorry!" Bandee said to Lucas, frantically waving his arms. "You attacked Great King and I thought you were evil, so--"

"Hey, uh, no, uh, no worries. No worries," Lucas said awkwardly, still a bit shaken. Since he was still standing right in front of Dedede, Lucas then jumped as Dedede let out a booming, but good-natured laugh. "Heeaah heh heh heh! That's just like our Kirbeh!" He said, wiping a leftover tear from his eye. "Only a week in another world and he's already made friends willin' to charge into battle if they think he's in danger!"

Dedede, with no one blocking his path to Kirby, then did his usual Head Slide move, but not as an attack. He merely scooped Kirby up in a tight hug on the ground. "Oh, you little buggah! You never change!"

Kirby smiled as he remembered the last time Dedede had hugged him with such joy: when the two had reunited and prepared to confront Tabuu in Subspace. Man, that Smash tournament had taken a wild turn...

Lucas stared down at Dedede as he continued to hug and nuzzle Kirby, tears of joy once more flowing freely from the both of them.

"Are they... usually this affectionate?" Lucas asked, looking down at Bandee. Said Waddle Dee chuckled. "Eh heh... G-Great King's just like that! Plus, he and Kirby's friendship took an awful lot of time to develop. T-they have lots of history!"

With this in mind, Lucas looked back at the tender scene before him with renewed appreciation, noting that Meta Knight's usually yellow eyes were now glowing pink as he stared down at the penguin and the Puffball in what Lucas assumed was fondness.

Suddenly, there was the sound of an enthusiastic, Elmo-like voice behind him, speaking a language Lucas had never heard before. He turned around to the sight of an odd, egg-shaped creature, which was just floating there. Two yellow-mittened hands floated animatedly around its body as it continued babbling on. It was clothed in a tight, green suit of some sort, with a white hood over its head. Its eyes glowed yellow, and what little of its face could be seen with the hood on seemed to be covered in short, soft brown fur. There were two protruding parts of the hood on the sides of the being's head, tipped with green. Lucas could only assume those were its ears, which, considering the brown fur and the shape of said ears, Lucas could imagine as feline.

The hood concealed the top of the being's head and face, and a large white scarf concealed the bottom, with a green belt with a gold buckle interwoven into it. Completing the creature's look was a white cape with dark tan trim trailing down a bit from under the scarf, giving a self-important flair. Or, at least, that was how Lucas interpreted it. Dedede was the king of Kirby's home, explaining his regal robes. Who the hell was this guy, a superhero?

Lucas hadn't realized Meta Knight had walked up to stand beside him until the dark Puffball's trailing cape ghosted across his calf, causing the boy to leap to the side with a small curse. Meta Knight paid him no heed, instead looking at the egg-creature, who had calmed down as soon as Meta Knight had appeared.

"I suppose that brings us back to the main problem at hand."

The egg-thing's body language had become suddenly submissive in Meta's presence. "Magolor," the knight said, causing the egg-thing to flinch. "Oh. Shit," Lucas muttered, eyes widening and eyebrows raising in surprise as he realized he was looking at the being who had betrayed Kirby, tried to conquer his universe, and sent him to this world. "He cannot understand you," Meta Knight said, once more ignoring Lucas. "Have you forgotten?"

Magolor's glowing eyes made an emotive shape that indicated confusion, before they widened and he sheepishly scratched the back of his head. Then, to Lucas's surprise, instead of the Elmo-like voice, the voice of an awkward young man issued from under Magolor's scarf, instead.

"Ah, my apologies, Human! You see, unlike the others here, I have to consciously focus for other people to hear me in their native language."

Lucas blinked. True to Kirby's recollection of what he was like before he'd betrayed them and stole that Master Crown thing, this guy seemed less like a universe-conquering villain and more like a hardcore nerd.

"Oh, this is so cool! I--I've never met a Human before! I mean, my people wrote about them a bit, but they're an infamously scarce species in our universe! So it's really awesome to meet you, and I hope we can be fr--"

"Magolor?"

Magolor froze in the middle of his excited speech, eyes going wide. Kirby was now standing next to Lucas and Meta Knight, eyes still a bit teary. "K--... K--Kirby," Magolor shakily acknowledged. The two stared at each other for what seemed, even to Lucas, like an eternity.

Kirby seemed a bit wary.

"Are you... are you back to normal?" He asked.

Magolor looked away, formerly excited eyes now brimming with tears. He looked ashamed. "I--I... yeah. Yeah, I don't... I don't wanna be like that anymore. I don't want to be like I was... ever again. I'm sor--"

He was cut off by Kirby lunging at him... and wrapping him in a tight hug.

"I'm glad you're okay, poyo," the pink Puffball muttered into Magolor's scarf. Magolor sat silent for several moments, before he wrapped Kirby in a hug of his own, and began to weep. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. I--I wish I hadn't done that. I'm s--sorry for lying to you. I'm sorry f--f--for betraying you," Magolor hiccuped. "I didn't mean for things to get that bad. When I said I wanted us to always s--stay friends, I--I meant that!"

Kirby was softly patting Magolor's back. "I know you meant it, Maggie. I know you did... I was mad. I still am, poyo, but I know the crown did something to you. You didn't really want to take over the universe at first, did you?"

"No," Magolor said with absolute certainty. "No, I didn't. I promise."

Dedede and Hopper, still behind the group of shorter beings, watched on a bit awkwardly. Dedede sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Y'know, I'm still pissed at that little egg, and forgiveness is 'prolly a ways off... but I can tell he ain't fakin', this time. That 'lil guy really is sorry." Dedede then scoffed and crossed his arms. "He better be; Mah subjects were just about ready to storm my castle and demand answers Ah didn't have not too long ago."

Hopper looked over at the penguin. "Hey. Your, umm, Majesty?" Dedede looked over at him. "Hm? Oh, don't gimme that!" The King of Dream Land said, grinning with his beak. "You just call me Dedede, 'ol pal!" He clapped Hopper on the back with a surprising amount of force, causing the man to actually stumble a little.

"I'll, uh... I'll keep that in mind, Dedede," Hopper said, still getting used to saying the cartoonish name seriously. "What I... wanted to say was, how about you guys all come inside? I get the feeling we've probably got a lot to talk about."

Dedede stopped grinning and got a bit more serious. "Ah, yeah. I figure y'all prolly wanna know how Humpty Dumpty over there's still alive, and how we got here."

While Hopper pondered over both how Dedede knew about that character and how Meta Knight had a Spanish accent, Dedede began to round up his gang, clapping a bit with his large, mittened hands. With his back now turned to Hopper, Hopper noticed for the first time the massive wooden mallet strapped to the king's back, with the yellow, five-pointed star emblem on its face. The back of his regal red robe held an emblem of its own, though this one was, oddly enough, what seemed to be two fingers held up in a peace sign.

Considering what Hopper had seen of the jovial king so far, it seemed fitting enough.

As everyone approached the cabin, a smiling Kirby hand-in-hand with a sniffling, but also smiling Magolor, the teens and young adults on the deck all tensed and backed up.

"U-um... hi?" Bandana spoke up, waving shyly. Erica's face burst into an ear-to-ear grin, but everyone else remained just as wary, their eyes, sans a confused Dustin's, still trained on Dedede; despite Mike, El, Will, and Max knowing it was the real deal, they still (Mike, El, and Max especially) couldn't help being afraid.

"S-stay back, man!" Steve said, positioning himself defensively in front of everyone else. "I--I've got my nail bat!"

That was something everyone on the porch knew to be a lie.

"I--I--I'll--I'll--!"

"Steve, calm down!" Kirby said. Pointing to Dedede, he smiled. "It's the real deal! He doesn't wanna hurt anyone!"

Dedede looked around, confused. He looked from Lucas, to Steve, then to the clearly terrified kids on the deck. His confused expression shifted into one of sadness and disappointment, and he looked at the ground.

"Guess my, uh, reputation precedes me, eh, Kirby?"

Kirby let go of Magolor's hand to wave both nubs frantically. "N--No, Dedede! I didn't tell them about that, I swear!"

"Tell us what?" Hopper asked slowly, both eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," Steve said shakily. "The hell'd you do, man?" Steve asked, looking Dedede up and down. "Did you kill someone?"

"It's none of y--your business!" Bandana shouted. "Y--you all just lay off G-Great King, g--got it?"

"Are you helping him cover it up?" Steve asked, body wired with tension.

"Enough."

"There's nothing to be covered up!" Kirby said, beginning to become upset. "So what aren't you telling us?" Steve asked, eyes flitting about his surroundings anxiously, as if waiting for Dedede's servants to come bursting out the woods and apprehend him and the other Humans. Hopper was now looking at Kirby and Dedede with suspicion, though it was concealed well.

"Enough."

"Look, Steve, I'm sure it's not as bad as you're thinking!" Max tried. "Yeah! Like, uh, maybe he just... uh... stole a candy bar, or something?" Mike offered, "What, are you all crazy?! He's here to kill us and the Bandana guy's gonna help him!" Steve said hysterically, now panicking. "Steve--" Nancy tried, but...

"Enough!" Meta Knight snapped loudly, causing everyone but Dedede (who was instead pinching the bridge of his beak in exhaustion) and Hopper (whose eyebrows merely raised further) to flinch violently. "That is enough. From all of you," Meta Knight said sternly, gaze scanning across everyone on the porch as he said this, before he then turned to Bandana and burned him with his gaze as well, causing the ashamed Waddle Dee to shrink back and begin trembling, on the verge of tears. Meta then looked toward Hopper, and then back up at the porch.

"If you lot are the ones who have acted as Kirby's guardians in my absence, then I am extremely disappointed." All the teens couldn't help but feel like they were being scolded by an angry father figure. Will was trembling especially hard, considering his... history with men yelling at him. Billy was also looking a bit shaky, though he was trying quite valiantly to hide it.

Mike, seeing Will's state, became angry. He pushed past everyone in front of him to lean over the railing (taking care not to hurt his injured sides) and scowled down at Meta Knight. "Hey! What's your problem, man?!" He said, face turning red. How dare this talking blueberry scare Will like that?! Mike didn't know what he was doing, all he knew was that he was seeing red.

Meta Knight merely narrowed his eyes in response.

"It's not our fault an evil clone of your friend attacked us and broke my ribs!" Mike said, causing everyone who had been present for that event to wince at the memory. "What?!" Dedede cried, beak dropping comically.

"Hey! Can we go inside now?!" Kirby asked, finally losing his patience with everyone. His face had even turned red. "This isn't how I wanted things to go! I wanted all my friends to have a good time when they met, not... this!" The child shouted, throwing his nubs out to his sides to gesture at the sad scene of distrust, anger, and hurt feelings all around him.

The redness in his face faded, and he lowered his gaze down to the ground sadly. "I'm so disappointed in you guys." He looked apologetically at Joyce, El, Robin, Erica, the Kirbies, Jonathan, Nancy, and Will, and then to Lucas, Dedede, and Magolor. They were the only ones who hadn't helped the exchange spiral further out of control. Kirby then looked back down at the ground, wanting to disappear.

Several moments passed in silence, with everyone feeling quite disappointed in themselves, as well. Getting scolded by someone essentially made of love and patience never felt good.

Suddenly, Kirby gasped as he felt himself himself scooped up into someone's arms. Kirby looked down and quickly realized they belonged to Lucas as the boy sighed. "C'mon, Kirbs. Let's go inside."

"Poyo..." Kirby sighed defeatedly, letting Lucas carry him past the still-stunned people on the porch and into the house. After the boys had disappeared into the cabin, Nancy glared at Steve. Steve looked down, clearly feeling guilty.

"I was just asking a question..." he mumbled.


Everyone else had eventually filed into the cabin. First, however, apologies were exchanged. Hopper and Steve still may not have fully trusted Dedede and Bandee, but in the wake of Kirby's outburst, realized that they had been unfair, practically accusing them like that.

While Dedede and Bandee talked with Hopper and Steve back at the bottom of the porch, Meta Knight walked up onto the porch itself to speak with the younger kids, Robin, Jonathan, and Nancy. They all turned to face him as he walked up, a few even stepping back a bit in fear. He had, after all, threatened Hopper with a sword and yelled quite loudly.

However, he surprised them all by bowing his head low, then rising. "Please forgive my outburst, young ones. It was rather unbecoming for someone of my station. I offer not an excuse, but an explanation."

His eyes abruptly turned from their usual bright yellow to a shimmering, thoughtful green, then to a vibrant purple as he appeared saddened, causing the younger kids' fear to be replaced by wonder and Nancy to become quite curious.

"This past week has been... quite the ordeal, as I am sure you can imagine."

His eyes then turned back to yellow. "I did not mean what I said earlier. For what it is worth..."

He bowed his head low once more.

"You all have my thanks for looking after my charge in my absence." He then walked toward the cabin door, removed his sabatons, revealing dark purple feet, and walked inside.

Everyone sat in silence, with the younger kids still stunned that they had finally met the cool-sounding sword-fighter Kirby had spoken of.

"So he is Kirby's guardian," Nancy mumbled to herself. "What'd he mean by 'charge'?" Erica asked. Nancy turned to look at her. "It means someone you're supposed to watch over," Dustin answered. Nancy supposed it made sense. If Meta Knight was the only adult of his kind on Kirby's planet, and they really were that powerful a species, he'd obviously want to keep an eye on and train Kirby himself, explaining the whole 'swordfighting teacher' part.

Still, though, something was telling Nancy there was something more to Meta Knight than just that.

"Who cares what he does, though? He's awesome!" Dustin said. Max turned to him, amused. "You do know he looks just like Kirby under that cool mask, right?"

Dustin's brow furrowed. "Wait, what? Are they, like, the same species?"

"Yeah," Mike answered. "Woah... I mean, Kirby's awesome and all, but I don't think he could reach the level of coolness that Meta-guy has. Just look at him!" Dustin said.

"I'm gonna pull his mask off!" Erica suddenly declared proudly.

"What? No! No way!" Mike protested. "Did you see the sword on that guy?! Lucas would kill me if something happened to you!" Erica rolled her eyes. "Please. He just apologized for yelling at us. I'll just sneak up behind him, and..." She mimed unhooking his mask.

Nancy rolled her eyes fondly.


With Hopper's extra furniture, getting everyone seated in the living room was no problem. Kirby was perched on Dedede's shoulder, and despite the previous misunderstandings outside, the penguin king was happy as could be.

"So, y'all've been takin' care o' our Kirbeh, huh?" Dedede said. "Ah can't thank you folks enough, and I speak for all'o Dream Land when I say that," he said, being uncharacteristically proper as he bowed his head in respect.

"Well," Nancy began, having been acting, along with Hopper, as the Humans' representatives during the conversation, "He's really been the one taking care of us."

"What do y--you mean?" Bandee asked with a tilted head. All the Humans, sans Hopper, Steve, and Jonathan, had immediately allowed their hearts to melt around Bandee.

The Humans exchanged nervous looks with each other, though Hopper's was considerably more calculating, as if weighing the pros and cons of revealing their history with the Upside Down to the Popstarian newcomers.

"Ah, lemme guess," Dedede said with a smirk. "The 'lil marshmallow--" he looked toward and remembered the existence of Kirby's three colorful counterparts. "The 'lil marshmallows saved this world from a dark god 'o some sort."

Everyone was briefly surprised at how casually Dedede brought up the possibility, but then recalled the history Kirby had said he had with such things. "Yeah, you could say that," Hopper said, stroking his beard as he stared at Dedede, seemingly still trying to decide whether or not to regale him with their own messy history with dark entities; a history the newly-arrived Popstarians were unaware that they, in fact, shared with their new Human acquaintances.

"O--oh no!" Bandee said, waving his nubs in concern. "N--none of you are hurt, are you?"

Everyone had (civilly, this time) exchanged introductions before the conversation began, so Meta Knight knew just who he wanted to speak to. "Micheal," he said, looking straight at the boy. Mike snapped to attention at his name being called. He'd told the newcomers that they could just call him Mike...

"Uh, yeah?" He asked. "Earlier, you said an 'evil clone' of King Dedede broke your ribs." Meta Knight pointed to the ice packs Mike still had pressed to both of his sides. "Oh. Yeah," Mike said, figuring that there was no way out of explaining things now that Meta knew Dedede, who hadn't yet been to this world, was somehow directly connected to the situation that had gone down.

Meta Knight then looked to Hopper. "Ordinarily, I would not pry for any more information than what confirmed Kirby's safety and the evil's eradication. However, with the king, and by extension, Planet Popstar, seemingly involved in some way, I hope you will understand my and my companions' desire for further information."

Hopper stared back at Meta Knight for a while, before sighing and straightening in his seat. He looked at everyone else in the room, El, Joyce, and Will especially, in a silent request for permission. When they all collectively nodded (and offered a small smile, in El's case) Hopper looked back at the Popstarians (and the single Halcandran among them, who had been trying to not draw attention to himself ever since introducing himself to the others and receiving several hostile glares and suspicious looks from the younger kids, especially El, and a cautious but curious look from Dustin).

"This all may sound hard to believe," Hopper began, "and will probably also be very upsetting. Let me know at any time if any of you want to take a break. We'll be here when you're ready."

Dedede, correctly assuming Kirby had already heard all this, turned to the Puffball on his shoulder, concerned. "Is it really that bad, Kirby?" Kirby looked at all the Humans, El especially, with a sad expression on his face, then looked downward in sorrow. "It's... I won't lie, guys, it's pretty bad, poyo. But I want you all--"--he looked pointedly at Bandee as he said this--"--to try and stay calm, okay? Remember, you can take a break whenever you need to."

Bandee, Meta Knight, and Dedede looked at each other in varying degrees of concern, but all eventually nodded to each other determinedly. Dedede looked back at Hopper. "We've been through some pretty bad things, ourselves. Now, I dunno what y'all've been through. Maybe it's worse than the stuff I've seen. But with the scary stuff us four--"--he winced as he looked over at Magolor, who stared back--"--with the scary stuff us five have been through, I'm sure we'll be able to push through and stomach it."

Hop nodded. "Alright, then. We'll start from the beginning. Years ago, there was this... government program called MKUltra..."


By the end of the tale, which included the stories of the Humans' first two encounters with the Upside Down, the Dream Land gang was... shocked, and not just in the sense of surprise. Their minds were struggling to take in all the information. Meta Knight wasn't in as frozen a state as Dedede, Magolor, and Bandee, but was still rather unhappy with what he had been told. All of them were shocked at the sheer cruelty and horror they'd been told of.

Bandee had valiantly tried to remain strong, and so far, no tears had fallen, but he had gradually become increasingly fidgety, and his eyes were watering. Magolor's eyes were wide with shock, and Dedede's beak had long since dropped comically, and though he kept picking it up, it continued to fall with each horrible new revelation.

Almost every Human present (sans Robin and Erica) had received heartbroken looks from Dedede; El, Will, Joyce and Nancy especially. However, things got exponentially worse for Dedede when they had gotten around to explaining the Mind Flayer (who Dedede was still unaware was Zero) and Will's possession. He'd actually interrupted at that point, face both sympathetic and filled with deadly intentions toward the force that had possessed Will. Magolor, on the other hand, had begun trembling at Will's description of being trapped inside his own body, only able to watch as it did things like attempt to strangle his mother.

"Ya alright, kiddo? He didn't rough ya up too bad, did he?" Dedede had asked. Will had briefly frozen in surprise, still trying to get used to Dedede not being evil and breaking Mike's ribs. "Y-yeah," he'd answered shakily. "I mean... I still think about it... all the time. But... I'm getting better."

Dedede had nodded at that, grateful that Will had been honest and not tried to say that he had completely moved past it. Dedede knew from experience that one could never just "get over" that sort of thing.

He'd then apologized for the interruption and allowed everyone to continue explaining.

When the story finally finished, Dedede was grim. He took a long look at all the Humans, and said, "I'm real sorry y'all went through that. But the Mind-Flamey thing's gone now, right?"

"Flayer," Dustin mumbled, causing quite a few people to roll their eyes.

"Well, that's what we thought," Hopper said quietly. "Eh?!" Dedede said, sounding truly baffled. "This is where it gets crazy, Pengi," Tuffy said with a smirk.

"The Mind Flayer..." Kirby began, troubled. He psyched himself up, then continued, "The Mind Flayer... was actually Zero."

"W-whaaaat?!" Bandee stuttered, waving his nubs about frantically.

"HUH?!" Dedede's jaw was dropped.

Meta Knight hadn't met or fought Zero, but had done his best to fight off the invading Dark Matter during their second invasion, and because of that he had never ended up meeting up with Kirby and helping him out during that particular catastrophe. Having heard of him, though, Meta's stare was far more intense, now, eyes shimmering white, then green as he stared at the Humans. Magolor looked confused.

"Yo, Kirbeh, is this some kinda joke?" Dedede asked, horrified. "Yeah!" Bandee agreed. "W--we helped you and Ribbon t--take down Zero o--once and for all six y--years ago!"

"He came back as the Mind Flayer after that," Will spoke up, shocking the newly-arrived Dream Landers, who were so used to him staying quiet. "And... he came back again just this week," Nancy said. "People came and opened a new Gate."

"W--why in the hell--" Dedede glanced at all the kids, both Human and other, in the room and corrected himself, "Why in the heck w--would they do that?"

"Wanted to study it, according to a... friend of mine," Hopper said, with Joyce visibly becoming even more solemn at the mention of said "friend".

"How can you be certain that this is, indeed, our old foe?" Meta Knight finally spoke up. "He told me," Kirby answered. "H--huh?" Bandee asked. "O--oh right. A n--new Gate opened..."

"When did this new Gate open?" Meta Knight asked the Humans, deathly serious. "If that massive power outage was any indication... it would have been the night Kirby got here," Nancy provided. Everyone looked unsettled at that particular bit of information.

"Kirby, dude, listen. I know I've already said this, but I am so sorry. I'm sorry for trying to kill you and then sending you here. There was a Destroyer Void inside the Master Crown, I--"

"What?" Kirby and Meta Knight asked in deadly unison. Magolor paused, looking between the two of them as they trained their gazes on him. "Y--yes, there was a Destroyer Void inside the crown. It was what warped me into that Soul form after King Dedede cracked the gem at the top."

"Wait, what?!" Kirby interrupted, alarmed. "Maggie, you went Soul?" He asked, shocked and alarmed. Suddenly, Kirby was all over Magolor, checking his body out from every angle. Magolor weakly chuckled.

"N--now, now, Kirby. I--I'm p--perfectly fine..."

"I've never seen someone come back from that!"

Kirby pulled Magolor's hood back briefly to check over his face, allowing the Humans to see, for the first time, the adorable creature beneath. Though the adult Humans didn't trust Magolor for a second and the younger ones were legitimately angry with him for betraying Kirby, all of them took pause upon seeing his face.

He was, somehow... a cat. He still had glowing yellow eyes, but brown fur, large, catlike ears, and even whiskers. If he had a mouth, it was still covered by the scarf, though. Magolor let out a surprised, catlike mewl as he pulled his hood back over his ears and head, shrouding everything except his eyes once more.

Huh. Guess he did have cat ears... Lucas thought, recalling his earlier speculation.

Kirby looked relieved upon seeing nothing was visibly wrong with Magolor, though, for he giggled after the Halcandran pulled his hood back on. "Yep! Just as cute as ever!"

"Kirby..." Magolor whined, sounding incredibly embarrassed. "You know I don't like when you do that..."

"You two," Meta Knight suddenly interrupted, causing Kirby and Magolor to snap to attention. "Stop that. Kirby, please, tell us what happened this week. Every detail."

Kirby gulped as he returned to his seat. Every detail? He glanced over at Bandee and Dedede, who were gazing at him in curiosity and worry. He briefly had those familiar doubts, wondering if the two wouldn't want to be his friends anymore if he told them, but...

He glanced over at the kids next.

He'd only been friends with them for a week, yet they'd more or less accepted him after he explained himself. He had only known them for a few days, at that point. Kirby and Dedede were the best of friends, a friendship formed through a former rivalry that had spammed years. Bandee believed in everyone, as long as they were willing to try, and was also Kirby's best friend.

Unlike the kids, Kirby had known them for years. He was sure they'd accept him. He took a deep breath to get himself ready, then glanced at his Human friends and fellow Puffballs.

He took Meta Knight's gloved nub, earning him a confused glance from the dark Puffball, and faced Bandee and Dedede.

"Hey, Bandee? Dedede? Meta Knight and I have something to tell you..."


Meta Knight had clearly not been happy when Kirby started explaining, but Kirby had made sure to get Dedede and Bandee's attention before Meta could stop him.

And from there, he just... told them everything.

"Wait, hold on. So you mean to tell me--" Dedede began, pointing at Kirby and Meta Knight with a dropped beak, "--that you two are, like, good versions of Zero?!"

"That is a bit of an oversimplification, especially in my case," Meta Knight said dryly. Kirby was just looking down at the ground. "I understand if you guys don't wanna be friends anymore, poyo," he whimpered.

Dedede snorted.

Kirby looked up, confused.

Dedede was openly pointing at him and laughing. Meta Knight's eyes briefly flashed red, and Bandee was looking up at his king in wide-eyed disbelief. "G--Great King?!" He said.

All the Humans were also confused, and El, Max, and Mike were starting to get angry. Was he seriously laughing at Kirby? "S--heh!--sorry, it's just--"

He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, seemingly calmed down, and looked at Kirby with a grin... then immediately burst back into laughter, but this time it was full-bellied and boisterous.

"Heh heh! I love you, Kirbeh, but sometimes you act like a damn fool!" Dedede cackled. "I... what?" Kirby asked helplessly, feeling completely lost.

Dedede finally calmed himself down and pulled Kirby into a giant bear hug. "You've been protectin' mah country since before I was a real king. You were nice to me when no one else was--even if you still assumed I was causin' trouble for a bit afterward. You're my best friend! You think I'mma drop you just 'cause you an' Zero are the same species? That don't mattah one but to me, 'ol buddeh!"

Mike, El, and Max felt their anger dissipate. They still had... hard feelings around King Dedede, considering what his evil replica had done to them. They knew he wasn't the same as that thing... but those feelings were hard to shake. But seeing him so easily reassure Kirby that nothing had changed between them, as if he hadn't just dropped a huge revelation on Dedede...

It was proof that he would never hurt them.

"B--but... but I... I lied to you!" Kirby weakly protested, face squished by Dedede's hug. Dedede snorted again. "You an' Meta didn't lie, you just didn't say anything at all. There's a difference. And even if you had lied, you just forgave 'ol Maggie for doin' the same thing, like, thirty minutes ago, so why wouldn't I forgive mah best buddy?"

Kirby was stunned into silence. Then, he hugged Dedede harder. He didn't really start crying, but there were tears in the corners of his eyes.

"Thanks, Dedede."

Tuffy, Keeby, and Greeny all let out simultaneous sighs of relief upon seeing that Bandee and Dedede seemed to think no differently of Kirby and Meta Knight even in the wake of all they'd just been told. And that meant, by extension, that they wouldn't be thought of any differently, either.

Dedede smiled gently down at the Puff, who couldn't see it, since his face was buried in Dedede's robes. Still, though, everyone else saw it, and any remaining distrust of the penguin king simply melted away.

Bandee sidled up to Meta Knight, nudging him gently. "You know you c--could have told us, right?"

Meta Knight's eyes briefly shimmered pink, indicating he felt heart-warmed. Still though, he protested just as weakly as Kirby with, "I did not... wish to risk our alliance."

Kirby, having been let go by Dedede at this point, giggled at Meta Knight's continuous refusal to call it a friendship. Dedede took notice, too, but actually teased Meta Knight about it. "Oh, stop 'bein such a stick in the mud and just call us your friends, already!" He laughed jovially while patting Meta on the head. Meta Knight's happiness vanished as his eyes narrowed. "Do not touch me."

"HEH--HAH--HEH HEH HEH!" Dedede laughed as if Meta Knight was just a stubborn child, and gave him another condescending head-pat, while Bandee giggled next to Meta. Kirby smiled, but eventually coughed to get their attention. Once they were all looking at him, he began to explain why, exactly, he had needed to tell them about Voids.


So, Kirby had then opened by revealing that the Mind Flayer was, in fact, Zero. That had gotten Dedede's attention well enough. There was no comically-dropped beak, or noise of surprise. Just simple, deadly precision as he listened to every single word out of Kirby's mouth. Kirby had explained his week from the moment he had arrived.

Hopper had looked embarrassed upon it being revealed to everyone who hadn't been present at the time that he had tried to shoot Kirby. This had earned him several deadly glares from the kids, sans El, who had been the one to stop him from doing that in the first place.

It was the kids' turn to look embarrassed upon it being revealed that they had all but interrogated Kirby after a Zero-possessed Billy had revealed that they were of the same species. This earned them all a disappointed frown from Bandee, which strangely made them all feel probably more crushed than it should have, considering he was still pretty much a stranger. Billy simply gave them a raised brow, but looked like he understood.

Dedede had also looked understanding, and Meta Knight's eyes shimmered purple. Though the Humans didn't know what it meant, Kirby and the others knew that he felt pained that he hadn't been there for Kirby; that he hadn't been there to help him clear things up. Kirby l, seeing this, simply gave Meta a smile and a side hug to reassure him, causing the dark Puffball's eyes to shimmer pink again before returning to their usual yellow.

Then, they had gotten around to explaining what exactly Zero had done to his hosts, and Bandee had ran outside to throw up. Kirby followed and comforted him on the porch, telling him he didn't have to hear the rest, but Bandana had insisted, so Kirby had then brought him back in and continued.

When Kirby brought up activating Matter Mode, Meta Knight had actually stopped him, eyes white with shock and concern. He reminded Kirby that Puffballs generally didn't discover how to use their Matters so quickly, and all Kirby could do was weakly shrug. Meta Knight had then apprehensively warned Kirby to prepare for horn or wing-growth in about a month, seeming concerned about Kirby growing wings, horns, or both so early; almost scared.

Kirby wondered why, but that was a question for another day. The kids, Erica and Dustin especially, were all just excited about the possibility of him growing wings, which he had only told Nancy and Jonathan about before that point.

Billy simply tried his best to hide the wince that crept onto his face as he thought of the twisted wing-growth Zero had forced him through. Kirby had caught him warily glancing at him. He could guess what they were both thinking.

Hopefully, the growing-process of Kirby's wings and possible horns wouldn't be nearly as grotesque and painful.

Billy and Kirby had worked together to explain Zero's plan to transfer himself out of the Upside Down using Soul Matter, making Meta Knight disgusted at his "deplorable tactics". The two had then explained that they had battled and Billy had been freed as a result.

And then they revealed Zero's scheme; how he had attempted to further delay Kirby and co's escape from the mall by creating an evil clone of Dedede from his memories of the previous times Zero had possessed him.

At that, Dedede had had to calmly step out. Everyone heard and felt a large boom shortly after that. Dedede had walked back in afterward, still visibly angry, but clearly trying to reign it in. His hammer had some dirt and a few blades of grass still stuck to it.

"Sorry 'bout'ya yard, Chief," he'd mumbled to Hopper, who could only guess Dedede had made a large crater in it. "So that's why y'all were so afraid 'a me, huh?" He'd asked in a more defeated tone as he looked at all the Humans. "Ya met my bad side first."

Everyone looked a bit guilty at that; Steve especially, as it was a feeling that resonated with him quite a bit.

Nevertheless, though, Kirby and the others detailed the defeat of Zero, with Tuffy, Greeny, Keeby, Joyce, and Hopper explaining how they'd closed the Gate. Hopper had had to reign Tuffy in when he began excitedly ranting about how he'd been "an awesome badass", and helped take down the Russian hitman that had been targeting Hopper that whole week and who Owens' interrogation had later revealed was named Grigori.

Meta Knight's eyes had turned pure grey in utter fear for Kirby's safety after he'd mentioned Zero's transformation into an Astral Birth, but had then transitioned back to white when Kirby had proudly explained that in the end, Billy had been the one to deal the finishing blow. Meta Knight hadn't even been aware that Puffballs could temporarily bestow the powers of Matter Mode to other beings.

Having explained it to Hopper, Joyce, and everyone else with the help of Tuffy, Greeny, and Keeby, Kirby then explained to Dedede, Bandee, Meta Knight, and Magolor the terms by which Owens and his faction would allow Kirby and his fellow Puffballs to remain free. Meta Knight's eyes had hardened at the idea that his pupil (and the one he had accidentally admitted to thinking of as a son earlier) and his colorful siblings had been threatened by government personnel, but seemed grateful enough that they were allowed to remain free instead of being kept locked up as threats to national security.

Dedede had merely been jovial. "Well, that ain't gonna be no problem now, 'cause we're here to bring you home, Kirbeh!"

Kirby perked up. "Oh, yeah! That reminds me, how'd you guys get here, anyway? There was a Dimensional Rift. Did you repair the Lor? I mean, again?"

"U--um, Kirby?" Magolor suddenly piped up. "Yeah, Maggie?" Kirby asked cheerfully, none the wiser. Magolor spun his hands a bit once he had Kirby's attention, and a tiny Dimensional Rift appeared right in front of him. Several of the Humans, despite their misgivings toward Magolor, gasped and let out 'woah's.

"Whoa!" Kirby exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. "How'd you learn to do that?!"

"Yeah, how did you?" Max asked sharply, filled to the brim with suspicion. "Yeah," El parroted, glaring at Magolor, who felt himself freezing under the intense glare given off by her dark, honey-brown eyes. "How did you, liar?"

"Woah, now," Magolor chuckled nervously. "T--there's no need to be so hostile, I assure you--I can only guess Kirby told you all about my, erm, past actions?"

Everyone except Joyce, Will, Jonathan, Billy, and Dustin glared at him and let that be their answer.

Steve clicked his tongue, narrowed his eyes, and pointed at Magolor with a finger gun. "Yeah, I don't trust you, dude."

Magolor sighed. "That's only understandable, I suppose. I presume Kirby also told you about the Master Crown?"

"The one you tricked him into giving you? Yeah, he did," Mike snorted. Magolor flinched a tiny bit, but continued on nevertheless. "Well, by the time I was eventually defeated, the crown had been using me long enough for some of its power to become permanently bound to my soul. I, uh... was born with a rare Magic deficiency, so I--I've always been pretty weak... b--but when the crown took me over it expanded the mana paths in my body by force, allowing me to use my newly powered-up Magic better."

"Wait," Will held a hand up, looking at Magolor with concern. He seemed to be the only one in the room besides Kirby that was willing to give the Halcandran the benefit of the doubt. "It... took you over?"

Magolor looked downward sadly. "Yes, it did."

Max scoffed. "Like we're supposed to believe that! You didn't sound very taken-over from what Kirby told us, and even if you were, you were still the lying asshole that tricked him and the others!" Max said, gesturing at Dedede, Meta, and Bandee.

"Actually," Dedede interjected, holding a hand up tiredly, "Ah think he was taken over by that thing. It was only after he sent Kirby away, though, so Ah'm still holdin' him responsible for that and everything else he did prior to that thing takin' control."

Max blinked, but Meta Knight spoke up next. "Yes. He is still a liar and a schemer, but he is telling the truth, this time. When King Dedede cracked the jewel on the crown that was keeping the Void contained, it was free to take over and alter Magolor's body as it saw fit, rather than simply leak its corrupting influence into his mind."

Everyone went silent in concern at this new information. That something like Zero had possessed Magolor, too...

"Hey. Egg bastard," Billy spoke up. He met Magolor's gaze. "You okay?" Magolor blinked for a few seconds, eyes widened as he was caught completely off-guard. "O--oh! Yes, I'm fine, now."

Will began, "If they had to..." Will gulped. "... stop you... how did you survive?"

Magolor raised a finger, as if eager to educate. "Well, I was definitely way too injured to survive after my defeat, but the small fraction of power I retained made me just strong enough to where I didn't die. So instead, I ended up in a place... beyond space-time as we know it. A place between life and death."

Everyone stared at him with varying degrees of shock, confusion, and disbelief... but Kirby was simply concerned. He laid a nub on Magolor's back. "I'm glad you came out okay in the end, Maggie."

Then, Kirby hugged him.

Magolor gasped harshly, once more sounding choked up. Before things could go any further, though, Dedede pushed the two apart with both hands. "Ah, right, that reminds me."

He glared down at Magolor, then broke into a smug smirk. "You said you'd tell us everythin' about that once we found Kirby. We found him," Dedede gestured to the confused Puffball, "so fess up."

Magolor sighed. "Ah, right."

Max crossed her arms, seemingly intent on trying to pick out any inconsistencies or signs of falsehood in the coming story, Will looked worried, Mike looked like he couldn't care less what Magolor had been through, Lucas looked like a combination of Max's suspicion and laser-focus and Mike's apathy, Dustin looked curious and excited, and El still just looked plain mad.

Hopper, of course, was also glaring suspiciously. He addressed Dedede, Meta, Bandee, and then his fellow Humans, "Don't worry. I know the signs. I'll let you all know if my bullshit detector goes off."

Magolor once more winced at the blatant distrust, but then looked downward resignedly, knowing he deserved it. However, his expression then grew determined, and he looked at his floating mitten-clad hands as he clenched them, before looking back up at everyone.

"Alright. Well, to start, I was drifting in and out while flying through this odd void, and I swore I saw the pieces of the Master Crown and its dark energy still swirling around me before there was a bright, white light..."


From there, Magolor told the group about his entire adventure. About how he'd lost almost all of what little power he had retained and that had barely saved him in the first place. He told them about how he'd woken up, battered and tattered, in a new place resembling Another Dimension, even inhabited by Doomers, yet different all the same.

He told them about how he'd found orbs of magical power scattered all over the place, and about how he slowly regained his strength--made it another inch closer to returning to life and thus escaping--with each one he'd collected. He told them about the Fruit Fragments, pieces of a crystalline apple overflowing with life-restoring power, and about how the Master Crown wanted its power to--presumably--create a new vessel that wouldn't rebel against it. To that end, it created magical monsters resembling creatures Kirby and co. had fought on their quest to repair his ship and sent them out to collect the Fruit Fragments.

However, with his recovering powers, Magolor managed to triumph over each of these creations, and collected the Fruit Fragments they'd stolen for himself, before placing them atop the Ethereal Alter and becoming all the more powerful for it.

And he told them how, in the end, the Master Crown had become a behemoth that he'd slain, leaving behind seeds of the magical Gem Apple.

He told them that with himself now more alive then dead, he was finally able to escape that purgatory through a rift that brought him straight to Popstar, perhaps as a first step to redemption, still holding with him one of the seeds, having already started to grow into a new Gem Apple.

And that was when Dedede had arrested him and he'd set to work on trying to find Kirby. He'd been unsuccessful, but stumbled upon a pink pony from another world, one who had a similar personality to Kirby, and one who had been instrumental in finding him in the end.

Dustin had perked up at that.

Everyone else besides him and El, on the other hand, turned to Dedede, Meta, and Bandee for confirmation of that ridiculous statement, to which they all, including Kirby, who had just met said pony, to nod solemnly.

Nancy looked to be in desperate need of an adult beverage.

When Magolor had finished his story, everyone looked to Hopper. "So, Chief, ya think he's tellin' the truth?" Dedede asked. Hopper stared long and hard at Magolor, who began to fidget nervously under his gaze, much like Kirby had the day he'd first met Hopper. Eventually, Hopper said...

"Yeah, I think so."

Several people looked at him in surprise, but seemed to accept his judgement well enough. Mike and Max didn't look completely convinced, but both visibly forced themselves to trust in the Chief's judgment until it was proven false. They both glared heatedly at Magolor, who fidgeted under their gaze, too.

"Y'know, I do have the crystal apple seed-thing," Dedede said. "Like Mags said, I confiscated it when he showed up. I don't think he's lyin', either. I know," Dedede glared threateningly at Magolor, "that he knows better now. Don't ya, Maggie?"

Magolor nodded rapidly.

"Well, if you're sorry, then that means I can call you awesome, now! You slicing the Master Crown in half with a giant sword sounds, like, pure awesome," Dustin chimed in. He flinched backward when El flung her head around to glare at him, however.

El then turned back to Magolor, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. Magolor squirmed under her gaze. "You lied," she said simply. "You lied to him," she continued, pointing at Kirby, voice trembling, now. "Why?" She demanded tearily, yet angrily all the same.

"I--I'm..." Magolor looked downward sadly. "Look, I'm not gonna make excuses. I'm not gonna expect you to feel sorry for me. But I am going to tell you why I did what I did, if you must know."

Max snorted, crossing her freckled arms. "Yeah, I sure as hell wanna know."

Magolor began, "I and a... friend of mine... are the only Halcandrans we know to exist in the modern day. We both woke up from stasis pods around eight or so years ago. They'd been incubating us for millennia. I can only assume we were placed there in a last attempt to somehow preserve the species, but since we're both male, it's just prolonging the inevitable."

Magolor looked... even sadder than usual as he admitted that last part.

"I... just--" Magolor stuttered. "If my race really is gone forever now, I wanted to at least know more about it. The ancient tome I found that first mentioned the Master Crown mentioned it being a source of limitless knowledge as well as power. I swear on my ancestors that I only wanted the crown for a bit, just for its knowledge. I wanted to know what happened to them. But once I put the crown on and felt that power... I... I lost control. I stopped caring about the knowledge I had sought. I just wanted to test my newfound capabilities. I wanted to have it all, and I... lost what was right in front of me in the process."

Magolor looked guiltily at the four Heroes of Dream Land as he said this.

Everyone went silent for a bit at that, trying to discern his sincerity. He sounded genuine and remorseful enough, but they all knew well it could always be an act, so they all kept their guards up.

All of them, except for Kirby and Will. "I forgive you, Maggie. What you did was still wrong, but I understand," Kirby said with a bright smile, patting Magolor on the back. "I... well, you already heard about it all," Will chimed in. "I was possessed by a Void, too," Kirby rubbed the back of his head sheepishly when Will once again reminded him of his kind's bad reputation. "I know what it feels like to be... trapped... inside your own body. If you're really sorry, and you really destroyed that crown, then... I think you deserve another chance."

"Yeah, me too," Billy suddenly piped up, shocking several people. "From one asshole to another. Good luck getting your shit together, 'cause I know I'm gonna be a goddamn mess for a long-ass time."

Max looked at her brother incredulously, and Mike was simply looking at Will closely. However, Max eventually gave in and decided to give him a chance, clearly trusting Hopper's judgement and Billy's intuition as a fellow asshole enough. "Alright, fine," Max muttered, before glaring daggers at Magolor. "But one slip-up, one mistake, and you're done in my book, got it?"

Magolor nodded rapidly, clearly relieved she'd give him a chance, even if she didn't trust him. Mike simply nodded at Will, then, though not quite glaring, looked at Magolor intensely, conveying that he trusted his friend's judgement but would remain just as on-guard as Max.

"Don't fuck up, man," Mike warned. Magolor nodded, still giddy with relief. "Yeah! Yeah, I promise! I won't let any of you down, least of all--" he turned to Kirby, Dedede, Bandee, and Meta, "--you four."

Dedede nodded, Bandee squinted suspiciously, but looked downward, started fidgeting with his nubs, and eventually gave a shy nod, and Meta Knight did nothing but stare into Magolor's soul for several moments, before giving a curt nod. "Do not make us regret this," Meta Knight warned.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it!" Magolor said, now quite cheery all of a sudden... and perhaps somewhat mischievous, too. He hugged Kirby tightly, much to the Puff's surprise and delight. "Now, shall we return to Dream Land? I have to get to work on a little apology gift for you all!"

Hopper blinked, immediately going on-guard. "A gift?" He asked skeptically, clearly wanting more details. "Oh, don't look at me like that!" Magolor waved a hand at him, grinning with his eyes as if he hadn't just been deathly afraid of almost everyone in the room. "It's a completely normal, completely safe gift, I can assure you."

"No offense, but your assurances don't mean much to us," Lucas said, rubbing his temples tiredly. "I swear that the only way someone could get hurt is through some sort of technical failure, and I'm a master of mechanics, if I do say so myself," Magolor replied arrogantly.

"What are you planning that's mechanical?" Dustin asked, interest peaked. "I'm glad you asked, my curly-haired friend! I--" Magolor abruptly cut himself off, his hooded, cat-like ears drooping as he averted his previously confident gaze self-consciously. "Well, this gift would be both an apology and the fulfillment of a lifelong dream of mine..."

Erica raised an eyebrow, clearly eager for him to get to the point. "Well? Spit it out, egg-man!" She said impatiently. "Well, i--it's kind of silly..."

"Just... say it," El said, clearly confused and irritated by his inability to spit it out. In the end, for some reason, it was El's demand that finally caused Magolor to give in.

"W--well, I--I've always dreamed of b--building my own t--theme park!" Magolor said, eyes now shimmering innocently. Just about everyone in the room blinked. They had been expecting several things between them all, but... that definitely hadn't been something any of them had considered.

"A theme park? That's your dream?" Max asked incredulously, now sounding even more disappointed in Magolor's existence. Magolor looked down sadly. "I--I warned you all that it was an... unconventional dream..."

"I think it's pretty cool!" Kirby said cheerfully, causing Magolor to visibly perk up, ears raising a bit. "You really think so?" He asked hopefully. "Heck yeah!" Kirby confirmed. Magolor perked fully back up, slight haughtiness returning as his ears raised themselves back up fully.

"Then I'll make it the best amusement park you've ever seen!"

"Great!" Kirby cheered. "I just have one question."

"That being?" Magolor coaxed. Kirby smiled innocently. "What's an amusement park?"


After the explanation of amusement parks, Kirby noticed El beginning to act odd as mentions of Kirby's impending return to Dream Land (via Magolor's newfound ability to open Dimensional Rifts) kept coming up. Her smile got a bit brighter, but somehow dulled all the same. Almost like... like it wasn't real. Her brown eyes sparkled just a bit more than they usually did. Kirby swore he saw her wiping her face at one point, attempting to be subtle. While everyone was busy talking, she got up and slipped quietly into her room, muttering something about being tired to Mike.

Kirby, of course, followed a few minutes later, when an opportunity to slip away presented itself. Her door was cracked just a tiny bit, he noticed. He slipped in, and heard light sniffling. He frowned. What was wrong? Was her leg hurting again?"

She was laying on her bed, on her back, so she hadn't seen him enter. Thinking for a moment, Kirby thought of a possible way to surprise and cheer her up. He puffed up and hovered into the air, allowing him to see that her hands were busy wiping tears from her eyes, meaning she still hadn't noticed he was present.

He positioned himself directly over her, yet slightly behind, emulating the position he'd been in when they first met. She finally stopped wiping her eyes and brought her hands away from her face, allowing Kirby to see that her face was red and her eyes were puffy.

And allowing El to see that Kirby was there.

Her eyes widened, but she hardly had time to even gasp before Kirby spat out the air in his body and fell down toward her. "Hiiiiii!~"

El gasped when Kirby landed next to her, quickly sitting up. "K--Kirby!" She stuttered, hurriedly wiping her eyes some more. It was to no avail, though. Even if he hadn't heard her sniffling or seen her wiping her eyes, the redness of her face and puffiness around said eyes told him all he needed to know.

"I... didn't hear you come in," El said. Kirby smiled sadly. "Yeah... hey, El?"

"...yeah?"

"Why were you crying?"

El's eyes widened. "I don't like to see you sad. But if you tell me what's wrong, I'll do my best to help!" Kirby said, jumping to his feet and tapping his stomach. El looked at him for a bit, several emotions going through her dark eyes. Finally, though, her face began to crumple. She fought it. She fought it hard, Kirby could see; but nevertheless, she had no choice but to hide her face in her hands again, looking ashamed.

"I'm..." she sniffled. "S--sorry. I'm so sorry."

Kirby's previously hopeful smile, having faded when he saw her beginning to cry again, transformed fully into a frown. "El, what are you sorry for? Please don't be sad, poyo..."

"I--I... I just..." she was clearly struggling to find the right words. "I'll... I'll miss you."

"Huh?!" Kirby startled, eyes briefly comically widening and gaining pupils. They quickly went back to normal when it hit him, though. How could he have been so stupid?

She was sad because he was leaving.

"Aw, El..." Kirby said, ashamed, as he walked up to and laid a nub on her back. She drew away, and Kirby, in turn, drew back, feeling hurt. "I'm sorry," El sobbed. "I shouldn't... I shouldn't be feeling this way. I should be happy. Why am I not happy?"

Kirby's frown deepened. "El, you're allowed to feel however you feel. If you're sad, it's okay. You can be sad sometimes."

He walked around to stand in front of her, and hugged her. Her sobs petered out in confusion.

"You don't always have to be the strong one."

And then the sobs returned in full force, but they felt oddly... freer, now. Like El was finally just being herself. He hadn't seen her like this since that night she'd accidentally forgot him at Max's house. After that night, everything had started going down, and she'd put on this... mask. She looked so strong. Kirby had looked up to that. But he... he understood now. Inside, she had been feeling far more than she let on.

How long had she been sad, and how long had she been keeping it hidden?

"You're alright," Kirby assured. "You're alright. You don't have to be strong for me." Tears began to appear in Kirby's own eyes. "I wanna know how you feel! I wanna know if you're sad, or angry, or scared, or anything else, so I can help you through it! What kind of friend would I be if I didn't do that for you?"

As if spurred on by those words, and touched by Kirby's compassion, El began to sob harder. "Kirby... I don't want to... say goodbye to you..." she finally admitted. Kirby tightened his hug as the tears built in his eyes. "I know, El. I know," Kirby reassured. "I... I don't want to say goodbye to you, either."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want you to know... I didn't... I didn't want you to feel bad. You've been so good to me. More than I..." she searched briefly for the right word, "...deserve. You deserve to go home, and I don't... want you to! That's so... doesn't that make me... a bad friend?"

Kirby hugged her tighter. "No! Of course it doesn't!" El gasped and looked up at Kirby, surprised at the ferocity with which he'd answered that question. "If anything, I think it shows how much you care about me! Maybe I'm a bad friend for thinking this... but I'm... kinda glad you don't want me to go?"

El let out a sudden, watery giggle. "Oh, NOVA, that's kind of an embarrassing to say, huh?" Kirby chuckled.

El suddenly scooped him up in a tight hug. "I like that you're being honest."

Once Kirby got over the suddenness of the hug (and his natural blushes deepening briefly) he mumbled, "Y'know, this doesn't have to be goodbye."

"What?" El asked, sounding genuinely confused. Kirby giggled. "C'mon, El, just think! If Magolor got here once, he can come back again, and he can bring me with him!"

El seemed genuinely shocked at that. Then started laughing.

And Kirby laughed with her.

When the two kids were done, Kirby quietly spoke up, "And, y'know, even if we couldn't see each other again, we'd still always be best friends, right?" El smiled softly, honey-brown eyes sparkling. "Always," she promised. "Well, since I kinda am friendship, as long as you never forget that we're friends, I'll always be with you in a way!" Kirby assured.

El smiled softly.

"But, again, thanks to Maggie, I don't think we'll have to worry about that."

Kirby got up and offered a nub to El, playfully pulling her to her feet as she giggled. "Alright, now c'mon! Maggie's gotta get to work on that amusement park!"


"Yeah, hell no--'scuse mah French, kiddos," Dedede said, with Max simply snickering in response. The kids had relaxed around Dedede, by now. "I'm not doing that, either," El agreed, putting her hands on her hips as she and Dedede stood side-by-side, glaring down at Magolor. Magolor visibly shook a bit under both of their glares, but afraid he may have been, he knew he had all the power over the situation.

He sweatdropped, waving his hands almost dismissively as his eyes conveyed the broad Cheshire smile hidden beneath his scarf. "Well, those are my terms, I'm afraid! If you all," he gestured to the Humans, the group all standing outside the cabin, "would like to continue seeing Kirby, or vice-versa for us Dreamlanders and you Humans, you'll have to say the magic woooords!~" Magolor singsonged.

When Kirby and El had come to Magolor with their dilemma, he'd readily and cheerfully offered a solution. He could place a dormant Dimensional Rift in Hopper's cabin, and could place similar rifts anywhere in Dream Land, with his Magic. No government folks from Earth would get suspicious, and the portal could be activated by just four simple words.

"'Magolor is the best', that's all you have to say!" Magolor said, as if Dedede and El were looking forward to it. "Yeah, not happening, dude," Tuffy huffed, he and his yellow and green counterparts standing with their fellow Dreamlanders. Just about everyone present was unhappy with this arrangement, and Max had started making culinary threats concerning Magolor's egg-shaped body, but everyone had eventually caved and decided to let the Halcandran have that little ego boost. It was a small price to pay if it meant they could all continue to see Kirby--and they all wanted to pay Popstar a visit, too, and get to know Kirby's friends more!

"I take back my agreement that you deserve another chance," Billy deadpanned, causing Max to snort and slap him on the arm, earning her a tender smile she was still trying to get used to.

"Fffffine," Dedede grit out in acquiescence to Magolor's terms after taking a glance at El, and then at the other kids.

"GREAT CHOICE, my avian friend! Now, off we go!" Magolor exclaimed, opening a star-shaped hole in space with a few motions of his hands. Kirby stared in wonder as it opened, for on the other side...

Was home.

There it was. Dream Land. He immediately recognized the specific location he was looking at, too: Cookie Country, with its chocolate chip-filled rolling green hills and the windmill-like tree spreading its roots throughout the land. Every single Human behind the Dreamlanders gazed at the paradise beyond the rift in wonder and awe. Something about that place just felt... unbelievably perfect and magical--with two individuals in particular noting that it felt like the exact polar opposite of the Upside Down.

Kirby relaxed immediately upon laying eyes on the familiar sight. Dream Land. Home. I'm going home!

Kirby couldn't help it. He was overwhelmed with joy--he had to bleed some of it off somehow.

So he danced.

Losing himself in the tune he'd made up for his victory dance long ago, Kirby danced all his joy out, striking a pose at the end, smiling brightly as the night sky. His joyful smile softened when he spotted his Human friends, the younger ones all sporting eyes that were misty in some way.

He walked over to them. "Hey, why the long faces? You all know we can keep visiting each other, right? Dream Land's right over there!" Kirby giggled, pointing to the portal showing Cookie Country on the other side. Magolor had to use a great amount of power to open a rift directly to Dream Land, rather than being connected to another Dimensional Rift on the other end of a tunnel of Another Dimension. Luckily, the portal in the cabin was the same way, but was permanent, so Magolor wouldn't have to tire himself out repeatedly opening Rifts. Once he recovered his strength from creating the one currently open, he'd set a few up in Dream Land, too.

Mike was smiling down at Kirby, eyes watery but proud. Kirby jumped up and the two best friends high-fived (partially, anyway). "See you later, man!"

Lucas kneeled down and offered Kirby a (again, partial) fist-bump. "Don't worry, I'll have a new bandana for you the next time we see each other," Kirby giggled, eliciting a clipped snicker from Lucas. "See you around, Kirbs."

Kirby moved on to Will, hovering up onto his head and ruffling his hair--which still made his head look like a coconut, in Kirby's opinion--eliciting a laugh and a pat from the quiet boy. "Bye, Kirby. And thanks."

Kirby nodded to Will and jumped into Dustin's arms next, nuzzling his forehead. Dustin was the most visibly emotional of them all regarding Kirby's departure, and sniffled as Kirby did so. "I'm gonna come visit you all the time, little buddy," Dustin giggled tearfully. "Hmm..." Kirby playfully mock-thought. "Then I guess you won't mind me taking... this, poyo!" Kirby exclaimed as he snatched Dustin's cap off his head and cackled, causing Dustin to visibly cheer up as he snatched it back and put it back on his head. When Dustin's own laughter petered out, he set Kirby down with a, "Bye, buddy."

Kirby moved on to Max next. He saw her quickly swipe away some tears as he walked over to stand in front of her. "I saw that!" He teased. She kneeled down and playfully punched him, then glanced away, presumably embarrassed if the blush dusting her freckled cheeks was of any indication, and pulled him into a tight hug without warning.

His back felt damp, but Kirby knew better than to mention it.

When Max pulled away, she didn't make as much of an effort to hide her tears this time, openly sniffling. "Thanks for saving our asses, you dork." Kirby smirked. "Any time," he winked. He walked away, but then came back a few seconds later and playfully punched her in the leg, earning him a surprised huff of laughter.

He was intercepted as he walked off, however, by Erica, who scooped him up and squeezed him tightly. "Poy..." Kirby managed to whine. "You better keep your promise and come visit me, Mr. Marshmallow!" Erica threatened. "Al--Alright!" Kirby said, suffocating, and Erica finally dropped him. Kirby took a moment to catch his breath, everyone chuckling a little at the scene Erica had made.

Kirby turned and gave all the older ones a good, long look. Steve, Jonathan, and Robin gave him hesitant waves, though Jonathan was less awkward and had a smile on his face, for once. So did Nancy. Joyce, even if awkward, gave him a small wave and a genuine smile, and Hopper was smiling with the most warmth Kirby had ever seen him show. His eyes were filled with gratitude for keeping El safe. He gave Kirby a nod, which Kirby returned.

Billy walked up to him, looming intimidatingly above him... then knelt down and flicked him in the forehead. "Poy!" Kirby cried, startled, stumbling backward. Billy barked out a laugh, but was shut up by a sharp glare from Max.

"Alright, shitbird. Ruin my damn fun..." Billy mumbled as he stood and walked back toward the house. He briefly turned his head just enough to side-eye Kirby, though, gave the tiniest nod, and smirked, before turning completely away and pulling out a cigarette.

Kirby tilted his head, a bit confused. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that display, but he thought Billy didn't mean any real harm by it. Internally resolving to properly figure out and befriend him someday, Kirby turned to the last person, the one he had yet to say goodbye to.

El.

Kirby shared her soft smile. As he approached, she knelt down and gave him a tight hug, one he returned wholeheartedly. He felt a bit of wet warmth on his back once more, but they both knew they would be able to see each other all the time. That didn't make their farewell any less emotional, though. When she eventually began to pull away, Kirby stopped her by taking hold of her face, a nub on each cheek, and nuzzled her forehead.

He turned and bounced off toward the portal afterward, but hesitated as he approached; he turned back one last time and gave everyone, including El, who was now crying happy tears, one final wave and a "Byyyeee!~"

He then turned back toward the Rift. Toward home. Dedede smiled down at him. "Ya ready, Kiddo?"

"Yep!" Kirby answered.

"Hell yeah!"

"Yes, please."

"Yeah, let's go!" Tuffy, Greeny, and Keeby each called out respectively, having already said their goodbyes prior to Kirby having said his.

"Excellent!" Magolor clapped as they began to walk into the Dimensional Rift, the bright white light enveloping them all. "I have a theme park to plan!"

"Oh, and Kirby? I think I have a title! What do you think of 'Merry Magoland?'"


He didn't know who he was, he didn't know where he was, and he didn't know what he was. All he knew was that he... was.

He was happy. He felt almost as if he'd woken up from a long, bad dream. He felt like he'd been sad for a long time before, but there was no before. At least, not one that he could remember. But if there was, he was glad it was over now. He felt better, and he felt... free.

The newborn white Puffball turned his head up to the sunny sky and smiled.

Yeah, everything was going to be just fine.


A/N: Hiya, folks! KT here! Been a while, huh? I apologize for the wait. This chapter, as you can see, was a 20k-word BEAST. So yeah. It took a while, but I truly hope it was worth the wait! I'd like to take a moment to thank you all for sticking with me this long. The ride's not quite over yet, though! We still have one chapter left: a short epilogue. I have no idea when that's coming out. It likely won't take as long as this monster did, though.

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

Next time...