"What ARE you talking about, Krystal?" Falco shouted. "Use your goddamn psychic abilities or this place is done for!"
"Just drop it, Falco!" Peppy commanded. "Fox, I'm gonna try and find the Aparoid hatchers via radar. I'm transmitting their locations to you. The rest of you, distract the Aparoids long enough for Fox to find them."
"A... all right," Slippy croaked. He still could not believe what he just heard.
"Feh, for all I care..." Falco grumbled.
Rei just replied with a simple "Understood!"
"Okay, team, let's do this!" Fox said, throwing himself into battle. But actually, he tried to suppress the feelings of worry and confusion for Krystal.
Rei concentrated on her task at hand. Steering the Arwing and shooting her enemies was easy enough, but she started to doubt that all of this was a dream and a virtual reality. She knew the best option she had was just to accept the new role she had in this strange place and do her job. Maybe things would sort out themselves later on... But one thing was for sure, if she somehow managed to find a way back to where she came from, she would have Dr. Akagi make a complete analysis of her body... and sanity!
Just as a group of three Aparoid flyers appeared in the crosshairs of her aiming device, she focussed and charged the Arwing's cannons up for a shot that would take them all out at once.
It was then when she started to hear the voices in her head...
'REI... COME AND JOIN US...'
She winced. "What... what is that?" she murmured.
'JOIN US... YOU ARE ONE OF US... BE WITH US... ONLY TOGETHER WILL WE BE COMPLETE...'
"N-no..." Rei groaned. "Stop that... get out of my head..." Her hands started to shake and she was losing her grip on her control stick.
'REI... WE NEED YOU... JOIN US! JOIN US! JOIN US!"
Rei let go of her joystick completely and covered her ears to block off the horrible voices. "No! No!"
Slippy gasped when he saw how Krystal's Arwing suddenly tilted to the side and started to descend at an alarming rate. "Fox! Falco! Something's wrong with Krystal!"
Fox had just blown up his third Aparoid hatcher, which had been clinging to the vertical surface of the outpost's wall. He shot a few approaching Aparoids and replied: "What? Krystal, can you hear me? What happened?"
He winced when all that came through his communicator was a high-pitched shriek of agony.
"I got her!" Falco shouted as he made a nosedive with his Arwing. Ignoring the Aparoids that were in his way, he pushed his joystick forward as far as he could, while Krystal's ship continued to plummet towards the outer wall of the base.
Just before she hit the wall, however, Falco swooped in in time, catching her whole ship with his own Arwing. A loud screeching sound could be heard as his wings scraped against the wall. Falco gritted his teeth and activated his steering jets. Finally, the two Arwings landed on a relative empty space in the middle of the base, crunching a few small Aparoids underneath. A huge cloud of dust appeared while they skidded across the ground, before finally coming to a stop in front of the building.
"Falco!" Fox shouted. "Krystal! Are you all right?"
"I'm fine..." Falco coughed as he climbed out of his cockpit. "But my ship's a wreck. EAT THIS, SCUM!" he yelled as he pulled out his own blaster to shoot an incoming Aparoid.
"And what about Krystal?" Fox wanted to know.
Falco climbed down until he was next to Rei's cockpit. He opened it from the outside and saw the blue-furred vixen's unconscious form lying there. "She has a few scratches, but she passed out. We can't keep on flying like this. Slippy, can you do the job by yourself?"
"I-I-I'll try..." came the amphibians nervous response.
"Hang in there, only one or two hatchers left to take out," Fox told him. "Falco, stay with Krystal and protect her!"
"Got it!" Falco said, shooting a few other enemies that approached the two crashed Arwings.
Fox was now inside the base. He had taken an elevator to reach the lower level, where his radar was indicating the energy signature of another hatcher. He turned around a corner... and grimaced when he saw the grisly machine. Again and again, bug-like Aparoids were popping out of the hole on it's top. "I found the last hatcher!" he shouted.
He shouldered the rocket launcher he found earlier and fired a single rocket into the middle of the swarming masses. "Take this, blasted bugs!" he yelled as the Aparoid hatcher exploded.
He panted and stared through the dust. The only thing that remained were strewn parts of mechanical creatures.
"Destruction of hatcher confirmed!" ROB's voice came from his communicator. "No hatchers left to destroy!"
"Great job, Fox!" Peppy said.
"Thanks," Fox sighed. "Now let's get out of here so we can take care of Krystal... wait, what about the distress signal?"
"Hmmm, that's strange..." Peppy murmured. "The signal's not transmitting anymore..."
"What?" Fox asked while taking the elevator back upstairs. "But why? Shouldn't the survivors be still in the base?"
"I don't know, but I really have a bad feeling about this..." Peppy said.
"Um, Fox?" Falco suddenly spoke up. He sounded very worried. "You should come out and take a look at this..."
"I'm on my way," Fox said as he stepped out of the elevator. "What's the... matter...?"
His jaws dropped when he saw the enormous Aparoid that was coming down from the skies. It had a flat, circular body with several, spider-like legs on the underside. It's mechanical head was tiny in comparison to the rest of it's body.
"Yeowch!" Slippy shouted. "That thing's huge!"
"And ugly!" Falco commented. "Think you can handle that one, Fox?"
"Gotcha!" Fox replied. "I'm on my way to the Landmaster!"
"Fox, that thing has a core memory inside!" Peppy called. "YOu have to retrieve that thing! It could tell us more about its homeworld."
Meanwhile, the colossal Aparoid turned around its tiny head until it was looking directly at the two crashed Arwings and the two figures next to them.
'JOIN US, REI! WE ARE LIKE YOU... WE NEED EACH OTHER...'
Rei shuddered. She was haunted by nightmares.
"Shinji..." she muttered. "Shinji..."
Shinji blinked. Meta Knight noticed his hesitation. "Is something the matter?"
"I'm not... sure." Shinji shook his head. "For a while, I thought that someone was calling my name. So, what were you going to say just now?"
"Right, about the Dark Matter... Well, it is an entity that feeds on planets. It tries to consume them whole to strengthen its own powers. But it rarely is strong enough to do so at once. Travelling through space is very tiring for it... but do not let yourself fool by that. It is still an incredibly strong entity. So to get strong enough to consume a planet, it seeks out the most powerful source of power from that planet, so it can make it its own. And when its power has risen high enough, it will take on its ultimate form. And when that time has come, the planet it is looming over is doomed."
Shinji gulped. "Sounds like a bad guy, all right... So, is it close to this planet, then?"
"Not exactly! You see, the last planet Dark Matter visited was a small planet called Ripple Star. And to regain enough power, it wanted to absorb the energies of the Fairy Crystal, the main source of power for Ripple Star's capital, which is inhabited by fairies. The queen realized the danger they were in and sent her closest confidant to take the Fairy Crystal away. The courageous young fairy obeyed and flew off into outer space. But Dark Matter wouldn't give up that easily... therefore, he sent three fragments of himself after the heroic fairy, attacking her while she was fleeing. And when one of his smaller selves struck the crystal, it shattered into dozens of pieces that rained down on the different planets of the solar system. And Pop Star is one of these places. And just when Kirby found out about that, he started to collect all of the crystal's shards. Just before he left, he asked me to train with him so he would be prepared for his task."
"Ah, I get it," Shinji nodded. "But... how did Kirby know about all of this?"
Meta Knight was going to answer, a pink and red-colored shape came zipping through the air, tackling Shinji with a fierce hug. "KIRBY!" the fairy with the pink hair and red ribbon cried. "I've been so worried... where have you been?"
Meta Knight chuckled. "Shinji, this is Ribbon! Ribbon, meet Shinji, our Kirby replacement for the day."
Ribbon let go of Shinji in confusion. "Huh? You mean he's NOT Kirby? Oh, s-sorry about this..." She blushed in embarrassment.
"Uh... that's okay..." Shinji murmured while stars were spinning around his head.
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(Posted Sat, 19 Jan 2008 15:51)
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