Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee both jumped out of the way as the dragon lurched, but Nem, on the other hand, jumped upwards with a flap of her wings for extra height and slammed one blade of her axe down while the dragon's fangs dug into a tree trunk behind her. The outer wood layers cracked and splintered from the bite's force, but the heavy scales on the dragon's head cracked too, the blade of Nem's axe getting buried slightly in its brow. Brownish pieces of hard scale plating fell off their foe's head, but the dragon hadn't been felled by such a hit- no, it looked more annoyed than anything as Nem landed on its snout.
WHAM!
The forest's devourer headbutted the tree it had bitten, smashing Nem into it and toppling it over with a ruckus. Nem's armor clanked, both as she hit it and as she dropped back onto her feet, axe still clutched and a smile on her face, but she couldn't help but to blink her eyes for a moment. The rock she'd put in the left socket had become dislodged and fallen out, split into a few pieces after the hit. There was just an empty hole in her head, and a fairly big one, it seemed- her empty socket held the shape of her other eye perfectly, and while it was dark inside, it seemed something inside of her was sparking to occasionally illuminate a metallic grey cavern with inner workings that they couldn't quite see.
Nem herself, however, wasn't too bothered. "I could feel that, gyahaha~! Oooh, I like you!"
It growled and opened its maw to bite again, but Bandana Waddle Dee jumping on its back and jabbing his spear down while Kirby took a swing at one of its forelimbs caught its attention better than anything. Rather than a bite, a bright sphere of green energy started to well up in the dragon's maw as its gaze turned on the pink puffball, its wings flapping haphazardly in an attempt to throw Bandana Waddle Dee off. It became blatantly obvious that the forest's devourer didn't have a clue how to use its wings, for the way it beat them with them still folded up or, if it did unfold them, didn't raise them up all that much wasn't going to throw anyone off, much less get it off the ground had it needed to fly. Clearly, the thing was a baby- a very destructive baby with questionable tendencies- that hadn't quite figured out how to use its body yet, but with its size and power, that didn't matter much. It shook and twitched, taking a second to figure out why it was uncomfortable.
"Don't fall off, Waddle Dee!" Kirby called as the dragon fired its attack.
"Trying my best!" Bandana Waddle Dee called back, clutching his spear tightly and trying to shove it further down between their foe's scales for leverage as it flailed.
With a swing of his axe, Kirby deflected the green energy burst and whopped the dragon upside its head, making the thing growl and snap some more. He inhaled some air and floated slightly upwards to miss its jaws, but the dragon turned its attention to getting the one jabbing it off of its back. It folded its wings in again and rolled sideways, battering its back against some more tree trunks around them.
"Wagh-!" Bandana Waddle Dee cried, getting slammed into one.
Nem, though, despite her wild smirk, appeared to be concentrating as her axe's edges started to glow slightly again while she stood relatively still, and when the dragon appeared to have dazed itself for a moment, she made her move and sprang, slashing for the creature's underside. Her target, though, wasn't intent to stay laid out for long and started scrambling to its feet again, one of its wings fluttering a bit as it did so which got in the way of her aim. With embers glowing in the air around her, she left a burning gash through the membrane of the dragon's wing and into its side, the edges of which were singed and didn't bleed despite the blatant damage. The creature obviously wasn't happy nonetheless, roaring and snapping at her moments later, to which she jumped backwards with a flutter of her own wings.
The armored lass giggled. "Oh, you think I'd let you run wild~? Not a chance, you fool.~"
Bandana Waddle Dee, though, was picking himself up and brushing himself off with Kirby giving him a hand, the two of them jumping back to avoid the dragon's tail thrashing around as it snapped at Nem opposite them.
"This guy needs a name," the pink one mused, taking a swing at the dragon's tail.
"Well, it's in the forest and it wants to-!" his spear-toting friend started.
Kirby's axe connected with their foe's tail and broke some of its scales off, making the dragon growl again and back up, its eyes staring them all down in rapid succession as if debating who to crunch first.
"Let's call it 'Devourer of the Forest,'" Bandana Waddle Dee said quickly.
Kirby smiled. "That sounds good!"
"C'mon, you runt! Try devouring me!" Nem taunted, drawing her axe back.
It seemed like the forest's devourer was going to try, but seeing as it was looking at three potential targets, it decided against such and instead opened its maw for another green energy attack- or rather, three of them fired in quick succession. Nem parried the one directed at her and Bandana Waddle Dee whacked the one aimed at him with his spear to make it fizzle out, but Kirby appeared to concentrate for a moment, not moving just yet. In moments, a little green shoot sprouted up from the ground that quickly blossomed into a sapling that acted as a shield.
"Oooh, I like this copy ability!" Kirby exclaimed happily, giving a swing of his axe to immediately chop down the sapling.
The sapling fell towards their foe, who tried to dart out of the way and put more distance between them, but it just couldn't pull it off in time. Another growl followed as the sapling fell onto the dragon, whacking it over the head and knocking it sprawled on its belly. Maybe the sapling didn't stay pinning it down for long, as it dissipated in a flurry of yellow star-like particles shortly thereafter, but its target was stunned nonetheless from the hit.
"Waddle Dee! Let's get it!" Nem cried, rushing.
"Behind ya!" Bandana Waddle Dee called in affirmation.
The two of them ran and sprang, Nem slamming her axe down and Bandana Waddle Dee ramming his spear down on the dragon's head. More of its scales shattered and broke off, and a snarl, albeit a faint one, came from its maw while its eyelids fluttered for a second. The force had to count for something- surely, the troublesome devourer was going to go down soon. Nem looked to the one across from her and held a hand up, which Bandana Waddle Dee would've high-fived, but the dragon let out a mighty hiss and shook its head moments later, opening its maw to go for another energy attack, one larger than the last. Fairly quickly Kirby was looking at a bright green beam of energy rocketing towards him, and he let out a cry of surprise while swinging his axe. He couldn't fully parry the hit, but it certainly weakened the blow, a little cry of dismay escaping him as he felt the energy's sting. Shortly thereafter, the dragon realized the sapling had dissipated and it was no longer pinned down, to which it started to shake itself off and pick itself up.
"Damn!" Nem cried, jumping off as the dragon started moving again. "You still kicking?! I have really fallen, haven't I?!" She looked upwards for a second, calling to seemingly no one seeing as the dragon wasn't growling, "Oh, shut the fuck up! Not in a million years!"
"Hey!" Bandana Waddle Dee called, jumping off likewise. "Don't cuss in front of Kirby!"
"Gyah-! Sorry!"
Kirby was taking his turn running at the dragon and jumping while slashing for its chest, but he too hit scales and broke a few off as the forest's devourer turned its attention on Nem. It sprang, claws flashing and jaws snapping. Nem of course was ready to strike with her axe and gave a hard swing to its forelimbs that sliced their undersides to keep them off of her, but the dragon's maw hadn't been part of that blow at all, and it snapped down on her moments later.
Clang!
"Nem!" Bandana Waddle Dee cried, glancing at her in dismay.
"Oh, no!" Kirby too exclaimed, jumping on the dragon's head and bashing it with his axe. "Hold on, Nem!"
Her armor was durable, but surely, Nem herself wouldn't want to court a bite from such a large creature regardless… or at least, that's what the other two present would've thought, until they heard a jolly "Gyahaha~!" along with the metal clanking as the dragon's teeth tried to crack her armor. The other two paused in surprise, Bandana Waddle Dee darting closer to see better what was going on and jab at the dragon's underside, while Kirby stood atop the dragon's brow and peered down at its maw. It was trying to chew her up, alright… but two black and gold mechanical hands reached out, one grabbing the upper half of its jaw while the other flung her axe backwards and into the air before grabbing the lower half. The clanks and clangs came to a halt, her laughter becoming much clearer.
"Oooh, you're wily~" she chirped.
Kirby didn't waste time bashing the dragon over the head again, going for the area the other two had cracked scales off before, and Bandana Waddle Dee's spear managed to pierce the hide on its chest. The dragon snarled some more, Kirby too nicking the hide underneath the scales on its head, and from both blows, a bright fluorescent green liquid started to trickle out slowly. Just as it snarled, though, Nem gave a shove with her hands and jumped out of their foe's mouth, first clutching her hat to her head and fixing it back in place, then reaching out with one hand and grabbing her axe. Her grip tightened around the staff right as her own feet touched the ground and right before the blades could stick themselves in the dirt. Kirby jumped off and Bandana Waddle Dee darted aside as the dragon swiped at him with its paws, and yet again their foe was staring down the three of them, albeit noticeably more disjointed in its movements.
"Nem, are you okay?" Kirby asked, glancing to her for a moment.
She was a scuffed up, sure, but she seemed fine for the way she was still smiling. Her hat was slightly haphazard in how it was positioned, but in a few moments, Nem had it fixed right back to normal. Her empty eye socket, however, was sparking even more obviously, some little flickering sparks even appearing to escape the inside of her head.
"Oh, I'm fine," Nem brushed it off. "A little rattled, but fine!"
"Is your eye okay?" Bandana Waddle Dee asked, likewise glancing over and noticing the sparks.
"My eye is fine! Matter of fact…~"
The dragon opened its maw and another energy projectile started to glow within it, but the moment it fired off, Nem appeared to fire her own from her eye whilst giggling, hers more resembling a miniature flamethrower than anything else. Nonetheless, it stood up against the dragon's attack, the two of them fizzling out against each other, which gave Kirby enough time to charge up another of his. A sapling sprouted and grew, the dragon growled and pounced, and quickly Kirby chopped the sapling down to topple onto their ravenous foe. Just like that, the dragon was stopped in its tracks, letting out a screeching snarl and sprawling on the forest floor with twitching eyes and shaking forelimbs that couldn't quite reach its targets.
However, the creature opened its maw even so, snarling out more sounds that were actually somewhat coherent. "Mama…! Brother…!"
Even as the sapling dissipated in a flurry of stars, the dragon wasn't getting back up, its eyelids fluttering for a moment before drifting closed and its claws ceasing to twitch. The three facing it were yet again somewhat taken aback by its words, Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee glancing around to make sure its 'Mama' or 'Brother' wasn't sneaking up on them to pounce, while Nem, on the other hand, snickered and darted towards it again.
"Nem!" Bandana Waddle Dee cried. "What're you-!"
She paused, for at that moment, a beam of light radiated down from the sky onto their worn-out foe and quickly sucked it up like a tractor beam from a UFO. The clearing was empty of ravenous dragons- their foe was nowhere to be seen.
"Wha-!" Nem exclaimed, holding her axe tightly before easing up and looking to the sky. "The hell- heck!- was that?!"
She darted right to where their foe had been, looking straight upwards, and the other two followed, doing the same.
"Where did it go?!" Kirby cried, looking at the clouds for any sign of what could've taken it.
"Did it just teleport…?" Bandana Waddle Dee's voice trailed off uncertainly.
The sky was clear and empty, no UFOs or bigger mother- or sibling- dragons to be seen in it. Just a pleasant blue hue, some clouds, the sun's rays… nothing of concern. The three of them haplessly looked at each other, not quite sure what to make of such.
"… Well, so much for mounting its head on my wall…" Nem's voice trailed off.
Before the other two could say anything, some more twigs snapping and underbrush rustling caught their attention, and the three of them held their weapons again in readiness. However, all but Nem quickly discovered that such wasn't necessary, for two familiar figures burst into the clearing, one masked and carrying a sword as he flew while the other wore a fanciful red robe and toted a large hammer. Rather quickly, the armored one was taking a battle pose and drawing her axe back, eyeing them and smirking, while Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee perked right up.
"Kirby! Waddle Dee! Are you two alright?!" King Dedede exclaimed, darting over.
"Where is the beast?!" Meta Knight inquired, holding his sword in one hand and glancing around as he landed.
"Your Majesty!" Bandana Waddle Dee exclaimed, looking a bit surprised and running over to give the rotund hammer-toting one a hug. "Sorry to worry you! We didn't think we'd be gone this long!"
"Meta Knight!" Kirby likewise exclaimed, taking note of the other. "You're a little late- we just beat it and now it's gone!"
"Gone?!" the masked one cried, looking at the pink puffball. "Off to where?!"
"We don't know," Kirby answered. "This beam of light came down, and it was gone!"
Meta Knight didn't seem all that thrilled with Kirby's answer, letting out a heavy sigh.
"Okay, hold on!" Nem cut in, still gripping her axe as she looked over the two new ones to their circle. "Who the heck are you two?! Kirby, Waddle Dee, you know these guys?!"
"Oh!" Kirby piped up, giving her a glance. "Yeah! This is Meta Knight-" he gestured at the masked one, "-and he's the one I had mentioned swinging a sword around a lot! He's really strong and kinda scary but he's still really nice! And this is King Dedede-" he gestured at the hammer-toting one, "-and he's the ruler of Dream Land! He gets hungry like me sometimes and we've fought over food before, but we all love him anyways!" He darted over to Nem, who appeared to ease up, and turned to their company as he said, "And this is Nem! She says bad words, but she's really strong, she helped us fight that dragon, and-…" He looked to her for a second and inquired, "You're a robot, aren't you?"
"You could say that," Nem nonchalantly replied.
"And she's a robot!"
King Dedede strode right over, reaching a hand out that wasn't dwarfed like Kirby's or Bandana Waddle Dee's. "Nice to meet ya, Nem!" he said cheerily. "You're a new face around here!"
She chuckled, shaking his hand. "Yeeeeaaaah, I haven't been here all that long, never mind talked to someone who could actually talk back. Nice to meet you.~"
Meta Knight eyed her. "I sense strength in you," he said plainly.
She chuckled some more. "Well, if you're ever down to fight, I love to do it, gyahaha!"
The one she spoke to eyed her some more, as if debating whether or not he'd take her up on such later.
Kirby, though, looked back to Meta Knight and Dedede and inquired, "What're you guys up to, huh? Did you guys hear the dragon too?"
"Yes," Meta Knight answered. "A dragon had actually attacked a village near Castle Dedede. Of course I defeated it, but not long after, I heard the roars coming from the forest."
"And I heard the ruckus too after I went lookin' for ya!" Dedede explained. "It was getting time for a mid-morning snack and you two were nowhere to be found, so I got worried!"
"His Majesty always looks out for us," Bandana Waddle Dee softly noted to Nem, who perked up in what appeared to be surprise.
"So just what happened?!" the king pressed. "You said you beat it, right?"
"Right!" Kirby affirmed, grinning. "Me and Waddle Dee had been watching the meteor shower last night and one exploded and fell in the forest somewhere off that way!" He gestured at the direction he and Nem had come running from. "We wanted to go see its pieces, see if maybe it was made of rock candy or marshmallows or something!"
At that, Nem couldn't help but to burst into laughter, looking at the pink one as if he'd gone insane.
Kirby turned to her, amiable but slightly confused. "What's so funny? Wouldn't you like a giant chunk of rock candy too?"
"Well, they're not made of rock candy, that's for damn- darn!- sure," she replied. "I busted one open last night in that direction and something hissed at me from in it, if that's the one you're talking about! If you wanna see one of the busted meteors, the one I cracked disappeared late last night and I don't know where it went, but I actually have one laying around outside my house and I've been wondering about it ever since! I mean, it's not any normal chunk of rock!"
"Something hissed at you when you opened one last night?" Meta Knight inquired, studying her again.
"Yeah," Nem said simply. "Honestly, it had beady little eyes kinda like-…" She paused for a second. "… Kinda like that little runt whose butt we just whooped."
The others there perked up, save for Kirby, who still looked inquisitive. The meteor showers were a relatively new occurrence, and the dragon attacks certainly weren't any routine occurrence, so if a creature like the ones fought that day had emerged from a meteorite…
"Are we thinkin' those meteors are actually eggs?" King Dedede inquired, getting an awkward look.
At that, Kirby perked up too. "Dragon eggs?!" he exclaimed. "Awww, and not even the kind of eggs you can eat…"
"Oh, this is not good…" Meta Knight's voice trailed off as he shook his head dismally.
Bandana Waddle Dee, though, turned to Nem. "You have one?"
"What's left of one, at least," Nem easily replied. "I woke up and-!" Suddenly she paused, looking upwards and balling up her fists that she shook at nothing any of them could see. "Oh, would you shut the fuck up while I'm trying to talk to other people?! You had a captive audience for how long?!"
The sudden outburst caught them by surprise, Kirby again looking like he wanted to scold her while Meta Knight blinked under his mask, King Dedede looked concerned, and Bandana Waddle Dee eyed her awkwardly.
"Excuse us?" King Dedede asked with pointed uncertainty.
Nem opened her mouth, but at the king's inquiry, she froze with her fists still in the air and looked back to her company, smiling again and giggling awkwardly. "Gyah, sorry about that…" her voice awkwardly trailed off. "I, uh…" Another awkward laugh followed, and she eased up. "My hat is my friend.~ It's a long story, but I got locked up in a room with this thing and no one else for way too long so we, uh… talk to each other in ways no one else can understand.~" She smiled haplessly, grabbing the brim of it with one hand and nestling it down a bit further on her head before her smile became a bit more… unhinged. She looked upwards again and promptly burst into a rant. "And some friend you are!" she hollered, balling up her fists again. "I could've left you to rot in that hellhole, but then that'd probably mean you went and inflicted some other poor sucker with your miserable presence, you soulless leech!"
She shook her fists and started pacing back and forth, yelling all sorts of insults while her company watched with stunned expressions.
"Oh, wow," King Dedede said flatly, unsure what to make of the scene unfolding.
"This doesn't sound like a friendly relationship," Bandana Waddle Dee said haplessly.
"She sounds disconnected from reality," Meta Knight said matter-of-factly, his eyes following her as she paced. "She mentions being in a room with no company for a long time… That does terrible things for the mind. Depending on how long she was there, she may have gone mad."
"So she thinks the hat is talking to her and it's not," Kirby wondered, likewise watching the armored lass pace and yell. "And she thinks it's not being nice to her so she's not being nice to it either."
"Most likely," the masked one replied.
The pink puffball appeared to be thinking it over. "So she just needs someone to keep her company and be nice to her and maybe that'll help," he mused simply.
Maybe- and perhaps likely- it wasn't so simple to anyone else there… but Kirby was certainly going to try regardless.
"Oh, yeah, sure!" Nem hollered sarcastically, making wild gestures with her hands and wearing an amused snarling expression as she traipsed around. "What the hell good are you gonna do?! You sure haven't been good for anything for the last-… fuck, I lost count of how many years! Fucking lucky-ass me, getting stuck with you after the dumbass stars aligned and you graced us with your presence because you are such a-!"
A smaller hand suddenly grabbing one of hers made her stop, and instantly she turned and looked to see a pink smiling face looking up at her. Her expression turned less mischievous and more awkward, an uncertain giggle escaping her.
"If that hat is being mean to you, let us be nice to you so it's easier to ignore," Kirby said nonchalantly. "C'mon, it's a nice day out! We can go catch butterflies and watch the clouds and enjoy ourselves, no matter what your hat says!"
She eased up, giggling a bit and sounding less uncomfortable. "Gyah, I guess you're right…~" she acknowledged, grinning. "But I should probably show you guys that meteorite while we're out here. I've been living in this forest and it's not too far away."
"How about we have a mid-morning snack first?" King Dedede piped up, reaching into his coat to pull out a bag of cookies. "I know I'm not the only one who's hungry."
Kirby certainly broke into a huge grin, and the king himself was eager to partake too. Nem didn't take one, but the rest of them didn't have much trouble, though watching Meta Knight try to slip a cookie under his mask without actually showing his face was entertaining in its own right. Kirby, Bandana Waddle Dee, and Nem told the other two the happenings of the morning while they snacked, from hearing Nem and Whispy Woods getting into a tussle, to the 'Devourer of the Forest' making off with Bandana Waddle Dee, to the Slashies, and to the fight they'd had with the 'Devourer of the Forest.' Nem was fairly animated telling them, mimicking her axe swings (albeit minus most of the force behind them), and King Dedede was fairly animated reacting to it, getting big eyes or giving a hearty laugh here and there. Meta Knight just sat there in silence, eyes darting between whoever was telling the story, and while not quite as animated as Nem, Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee too made gestures of their own and scurried around.
Once the cookies had disappeared (most of them between Kirby and the king), the five of them set off, Nem leading the way and skipping while slinging her axe, even if there was nothing to sling it at.
"It was right here," Nem said flatly, gesturing at a sizeable crater. "I literally walked right past it this morning! It was right here!"
Her dwelling was… something. She had apparently been trying to construct a modest log cabin judging from the ramshackle shack composed of split logs haphazardly fitted together with vines and carved divots, but some more littered the ground that hadn't been put in place yet, and some even already made part of the cabin still had limbs and canopies attached on the outside portion. There wasn't even a door, just a haphazardly big opening hacked into one wall that anyone or anything could wander through, and the roof was composed of branches and twigs thrown across the top of the walls that didn't even cover it all the way. Apparently she'd been trying to make a table, but the legs were uneven and propped up with rocks to keep it from falling over. Axe marks littered the walls of the inside as if she'd just gotten mad at them and started whacking, some of which looked singed.
The outside of it wasn't much better off either- several bushes appeared to have been set on fire at some point, a few pieces of logs had been reduced to charcoal, and the ground was similarly littered with axe marks, albeit… very much more deliberate ones. She'd apparently used a blade or the end of its staff to scratch pictures into the dirt, and none of them were particularly welcoming. One appeared to be the face of a corpse, complete with X's for eyes and a despairing frown, and another appeared to be people of all shapes and sizes running as fireballs fell from the sky. Not a single one of them didn't involve destruction- towns and cities on fire, people getting mobbed by winged creatures… Thankfully it didn't appear Nem herself was a character in any of the drawings, but nonetheless, the content of them was rather… alarming.
Still, their main focus was a large crater out front, clearly bearing the indent of a large object that had come crashing down, but that large object was nowhere to be seen.
"And you said the one you cracked last night disappeared as well?" Meta Knight inquired, glancing between her and the crater.
"Yes!" she affirmed in exasperation, strolling into the crater and throwing her hands out in frustration. "The other one, I couldn't care less, but this one going missing really pisses me off! And it's not like I just misplaced it or didn't remember where it was, either! You really can't miss it!"
She traipsed to the bottom of the crater and let out a howl of frustration, flopping down on her back with a clank.
"Awww man, I really wanted to see it…" Kirby's voice trailed off, his face falling a bit.
"Well, there's only so many places a giant space-rock-egg could've ended up," King Dedede noted, looking pensive for a second before perking up. "We can always have the Waddle Dees search! There's enough of 'em- we can cover some serious ground!"
Nem perked up, moving into a sitting position. "Hold on! You guys would actually help-"
FWOOM!
A loud burst from someplace above them cut her off, catching their attention. Fairly soon Nem was on her feet, all of them clutching their weapons and looking up, but in moments, there was something else to catch their attention- a giant chunk of rock falling through the tree canopies right above the crater where Nem was. A cry of surprise escaped her, and the chunk came crashing down right on top of her.
CLANK!
Alarmed looks graced everyone else's faces, and shortly they were rushing down to move it.
"Nem! Hold on!" Kirby cried.
"We'll get you out!" Bandana Waddle Dee shouted in dismay.
When they got close, however, they found that the chunk wasn't touching the ground entirely… and that Nem was perfectly fine underneath it, her hands holding it over her head and a smile on her face.
"Found iiiiit~!" she chirped as if nothing was amiss.
"Are you okay?!" Bandana Waddle Dee worriedly asked.
"Perfectly fine!"
Nonetheless, the other four spread out around it and grabbed part of its perimeter so she could get out, after which they set it back down in its rightful place. It certainly wasn't an ordinary meteorite- it was split open like a geode, the outside composed of a metallic gold-tinted layer, under which was a thick, rocky layer of black stone… but that black stone certainly didn't seem like ordinary stone. Ornate runes were carved into the inside that none of them could read, along with pictographs that appeared to be of stars orbiting a large celestial body with wings, all of which glowed with a bright fluorescent green color very much akin to the Devourer of the Forest's eyes. The thing looked ancient, like some treasure that belonged in a museum.
Why it had fallen from the sky again, though, was a completely different matter.
"The he-eck-" Nem started, pausing herself before saying 'hell,' "-was it doing up there, though?!" she wondered with her intact eye narrowing as she looked upwards. "If this thing can fly, then that's cool, but-!"
"Major system error! Altitude dropping! Impact inevitable in five, four-…!"
Another voice entered the mix coming from above, followed by the rustling of tree branches as something small and on fire crashed through them. Kirby quickly ditched his Woodsman ability with a poof and opened his mouth, inhaling whatever the object was right as it dipped below the branches. Without saying a word, Meta Knight spread his wings and took off through the branches into the sky, ostensibly to check on the situation that was surely unfolding above them.
The other three looked to Kirby, who had his mouth rather full and rocked around a bit while whatever he'd swallowed pitched a fit and made muffled cries from inside. Nem's expression was still upbeat but clearly awkward, while Bandana Waddle Dee and King Dedede simply watched. The pink puffball spit out his hapless captive, and the fussing continued.
"-By an unidentified organism! Initiating-…!"
What he'd inhaled was less an object and more a tiny critter stuck in- or piloting- one. A small mouse, hardly half the size of Kirby and with green fur the color of healthy leaves, glanced around at them all from a tiny red UFO with yellow underglow lights and a clear domed top to cover his head. His eyes themselves were covered by a white eyepiece with a red lens to see through and a red plus sign on the left side, an antenna sprouting from the right side. A pair of black headphones with a red swirl design on the outside of the speakers rested just under his ears on the side of his head, but with how close they were, surely he could still hear whatever went through them.
His eyes paused on Kirby. "… It appears none other than the pink demon spoken of in legends of Planet Popstar attempted to ingest me into the black hole known as his belly," he said matter-of-factly. "… I was almost swallowed by Kirby."
He looked oddly familiar, like someone Kirby had run into before… but even so, not the same as anyone that came to mind.
Nem, however, wasted no time in pouncing on their company, her hands immediately grabbing him up and dwarfing him within them. "And just who are you?! Did you try to steal my meteorite?!" she demanded, staring holes through him.
Maybe none of them could see his eyes to tell for sure, but the way he twitched and the words that came next certainly gave away that he was frightened. "Escape systems rendered useless as a result of an unidentified hostile mechanical organism… Oh, heavens, I've been grabbed by a madwoman!"