"Help YOU??" Dedede bellowed. Shinji winced and covered his ears... well, the place where his ears were supposed to be.
The self-proclaimed ruler of Dream Land fumed. "Why should I EVER help you? You look like Kirby, you have the same annoying voice like him, you even have the same irritating way of asking people for help who want NOTHING to do with you!"
"Don't you see?" Shinji asked. "Dark Matter wants to have these crystals, and he's not gonna stop with you: He's going to turn anyone to his dark side once he finds one of the shards. Do you want all residents of this planet to become that evil creature's minions?"
"Better they than me!" Dedede huffed. "And now that we managed to chase that fool away, I doubt he'll come back to face me."
"Are you as stupid as you look?" Adeleine asked with disbelief in her voice. "Without Kirby's and Lucas' help, you would still be under that creep's control!"
Lucas blushed. He wasn't used to such words of praise, especially coming from such a cute girl...
"I'm still not helping you!" the king grumbled and turned his back to them. "I don't like him."
"But I am NOT Kirby!" Shinji shouted.
"You are worse than him, because you never shut up!" Dedede growled.
"Leave him be," Meta Knight sighed. "We're wasting our time..."
"Just a moment..." Waddle Dee said as he walked up to his king. "Please, sir... won't you reconsider? This world... it means so much to you, doesn't it?"
"Of course it does!" Dedede proclaimed. "Or else I wouldn't be the king."
"But if Dark Matter continues to send parts of himself to Pop Star, our whole planet will be in danger, and there won't be many people to rule over when they are all consumed by darkness."
"Well, that is true..." Dedede murmured. He shook his head. "But still, working with HIM? I mean, even if he's not Kirby..."
"C'mon, it's not like it's the first time you did that," Meta Knight muttered. "What about that time when you stole the Star Rod when the Nightmare wanted to claim it? Did you hesitate back then?"
"Oh, pleeeaaaaasssee..." Waddle Dee begged as he looked up at his king.
Dedede looked back... and froze when he stared right into the round eyes of his puffy, little minion. And the similar eyes of the pink puffball Shinji... and even the innocent faces of Lucas, Adeleine and Ribbon.
"S-s-so cute..." he murmured. "Dangit, I am surrounded by cuteness... s-stop giving me the puppy-dog-eyes, you hear me? S-stop it! Oh, dang... all right, all right, I'll help ya! Just stop it already!"
Waddle Dee smiled. "Yay! He changed his mind!"
"Well, whaddya say..." Meta Knight frowned. "Wonders do happen..."
Ribbon smiled. "I am forever grateful for your help, King Dedede! Really, I appreciate your help!"
"Okay, okay already!" Dedede grumbled. "So we're gonna search for those crystal shards, eh? So where do we start searching?"
"Let's see..." Ribbon murmured. She picked up the shard Dedede had dropped after he had been possessed by Dark Matter. "First, let me merge this one with the main crystal..." She produced the big crystal out of nowhere and touched it with the smaller shard. In a flash of light, they merged, making the main crystal a tiny bit bigger than before.
Ribbon hugged the crystal and closed her eyes. "Fairy Crystal, show me where your shards are..." she murmured.
And then, something unusual happened: Four images appeared in the air around Ribbon and the crystal, each of them showing a planet that was soaring through space.
Meta Knight stepped up to the 'windows'. "I know these planets," he said. "They are all part of our solar system. I see Rock Star, Aqua Star..."
"And there are Shiver Star and Neo Star," Adeleine said, pointing at the other images with her brush. "Wow, looks like the shards have been scattered over quite a few planets, huh?"
"Well, how can we reach them, then?" Kirby asked.
Waddle Dee snickered. "Dummy," he said. "You can always use your Warp Star."
"W-warp Star?" Shinji wondered.
Meta Knight sighed. "Waddle Dee, you forget that he is not Kirby and knows nothing about his unusual ways of travelling."
"There's a much quicker way," Ribbon spoke up. "Just jump through those windows, and the crystal will take you to the respective planet."
"Just like that?" Shinji asked. "Wow, that's convenient..."
"Well, since there are so many planets, why don't we split up?" Adeleine suggested. "This way, we can collect the shards much quicker."
"But Adeleine, I... I can't defend myself against any bad guys by myself..." Waddle Dee protested. "N-not against most of them, anyways..."
"Ooooh, what is it with you useless minions?" Dedede grumbled. "All right, if it'll make you feel better, I'm coming with ya!"
"You mean it, sir?" Waddle Dee asked and hugged his king with gratitude. "Oh, thank you, thank you!"
"Gwah! Leggo of me!" the penguin gasped.
"And I'll just use my painting against anyone who wants a piece of me," Adeleine grinned and waved her paintbrush around like a sword.
"Um, I c-can protect you, too," Lucas meekly spoke up.
"Are you sure, Lucas?" Adeleine asked. "I mean, you don't have to come..."
"B-but I want to," Lucas said. "I can't go anywhere anyways... not until we find out how I got here in the first place."
"Sounds logical to me," Ribbon nodded. "Okay then... King Dedede and Waddle Dee, you two take care of Rock Star!"
"Sure thing!" WD smiled.
"If I have to..." Dedede grumbled.
"Lucas and Adeleine, you take care of Neo Star!"
Adeleine nodded. "Got it!"
"Um, no problem!" Lucas said.
Ribbon smiled. "And Shinji, how about you and me go to Aqua Star together?"
"Heh, sounds like a plan to me," Shinji nodded.
"And that leaves..."
"Me," Meta Knight stated. "And don't worry, I don't need anyone to accompany me. I am a loner by nature..."
Dedede grimaced. "You can always have my minion..." he muttered.
Waddle Dee grinned and hugged his king again. "Awww, I know he doesn't mean it..."
"What the hell are you doing?" Dedede shouted. "I thought I told you not to do that anymore! Let go!"
The others laughed.
"Boss, I'm don't like to say this, but we're outnumbered!" Pardus grumbled as he dodged another volley of shots from the Falcon Flyer.
"Dangit..." the wolf-girl grumbled. "If only that idiotic bounty hunter hadn't shown up... Okay, we'll retreat for now, boys! We'll come back for them some other time!"
Falco cheered when he saw how the three Wolfens turned around and flew away. "Whoo-hoo! Look at them run! Yeah, that's right, we're unbeatable!"
"The swift fist of justice has won once again!" Captain Falcon proclaimed. "Victory is ours!"
Fox smirked. "Thanks for the help, captain! I thought we were goners for sure!"
"It was my pleasure!" the captain grinned.
Rei didn't say anything. She just stared into the emptiness of space, where Lupe and her team had vanished. "That voice..." she murmured. "But that can't be..."
"Krystal, are you feeling fine?" Fox asked.
Rei shook her head. "Y-yes, commander, I am not hurt."
That wasn't what Fox wanted to hear, but he decided to drop it for now. "All right... Falco, you return to the Great Fox, your Arwing needs maintenance. Krystal, you come with me, Slippy's still waiting for us in the hideout. Captain, why don't you join us?"
"Sure, why not?" Falcon smirked. "A bounty hunter's work is never done, eh?"
"Oh shut up, you fool..." Falco grumbled as he flew back to the Great Fox. He really didn't like that guy... he was giving birds a bad name.
Later, Fox, Rei and Captain Falcon had joined slippy, who was guarding a few surviving members of Star Wolf's former gang.
"Make no sudden moves!" he warned them as he pointed his blaster at them.
The crooks would have loved to shove the weapon down that frog's throat, but they were smart enough to realize that they had lost.
Fox stepped in front of them. "Okay, what do you know about Pigma?"
"We already told that little toad!" one of the ruffians spat. "We don't know anything about that swine! He has never been here!"
"Yeah, the boss said he's not part of Star Wolf anymore," another one nodded. "But now that the boss is gone..."
"What happened to Wolf and his team anyways?" Fox asked. "Who was that girl in the Wolfen?"
The ruffian shrugged. "I dunno... she just said the boss was a goner and that she was the new boss. I was ready to accept that, since she seemed to be the only way out of this... but then she ditched us! Damn bitch!"
"What now, Fox?" Slippy asked. "With no clue on where Pigma could be, how can we retrieve the missing core memory?"
"Are you looking for the criminal, Pigma Dengar?" Captain Falcon interrupted.
"The very same," Fox nodded.
The captain smirked. "Well, then you are in luck. You know, I am really just following the trail of an old 'friend' of mine, the rogue hunter Samurai Goroh and his gang... I kinda lost track of them in this sector, but when I was near Fichina, I saw a yellow ship that was approaching the planet. I tried contacting him, but the pilot just told me to get lost. It was just an hour later that I remembered where I had seen his face before: It was back in Mute City, when I looked at the files of wanted criminals."
"Fichina, huh?" Fox murmured. "I wonder what he wants there... there's nothing there but snow and ice."
Slippy snickered. "Maybe he wants to build a giant snowman."
"I doubt that, Slippy, but let's hurry and get after him. Slippy, you go and lock this scum into a secure room. Then you go back to the Great Fox and tell Peppy to call General Pepper, so he can take care of these guys. Captain, thanks for your help again!"
"No problem!" the captain saluted by putting two fingers on his helmet. "I think I'm gonna be in this sector for a while until I found new hints to the whereabouts of Goroh and his gang, so if you need my help again, call me! See ya later, McCloud!"
When Slippy and the captain left, Rei wanted to go as well, but Fox held her back.
"Krystal? I need to talk to you."
Rei sighed. "As you wish, Com... Fox!"
Fox sat down on a crate and crossed his arms. "So, you're finally starting to warm up? Good to hear it! But I still want to know what that talk with Falco was all about."
He looked at her sternly. "Tell me the truth... are you really Krystal? Falco called you by some other name... Rei, wasn't it?"
Rei stayed silent for a moment. "That is true," she finally said.
Fox sighed. He looked down at the floor. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?" he asked. "Why did you do this? Where is the real Krystal? Are you her twin sister or something?"
"Fox, I..."
"That's 'Commander McCloud' to you!" Fox growled. Rei was taken aback. She had never seen him this angry before.
"I... don't know where she is," she finally said. "I have never met her. I don't know why I look like her. Two days ago, I was a human on a planet called Earth, and we never heard of your planets before... we don't even have the technology to travel through space like you..."
She looked up at him. "I can't say why I took over her place. At first, I thought this was a dream. That's why I tried to act normally."
"But you found out that it wasn't a dream, right?" Fox asked. She nodded. "Then why? Why didn't you tell us earlier?"
"I don't know..." Rei was confused now. "It felt... right. I felt like part of our team. I've never felt like this before... not even when Commander Ikari..." She stopped herself in mid-sentence.
"I should have known..." Fox grumbled. "Krystal would have never treated us in the same way as you. Your cold voice... your emotionless stare... and you want to tell me that you felt like you belonged in our team?"
"I... I have never been a very social person," Rei admitted. "I only followed my orders..."
"So, that's it?" Fox asked in a bitter voice. "You thought you could just take over Krystal's place, just like that?" Fox noticed how his voice was getting louder by the second, but he didn't care. "Do you have an idea what could have happened to her? We could have tried to find her! Instead we had to settle with... with a replacement who doesn't even know what friendship is!"
"Commander, please, I..."
"YOU ARE NOT KRYSTAL!" Fox barked. His loud yell echoed through the huge hangar of the hideout.
Krystal looked down again. "You... liked her, right?"
Fox looked away from her. "Why do you care?"
"I... have no excuse for not telling you earlier, but... I must admit that I was... afraid."
"Afraid?" Fox asked.
Rei nodded. "Yes. Afraid you wouldn't believe me. And I don't know if anything I do can bring her back, but... now that you need another pilot on your team, I would gladly offer my services to you."
Fox looked at her in surprise.
"You don't have to accept if you hate me..." Rei said.
"I... don't hate you..." Fox said in a quiet voice. "It just... hurts when I look at you. Knowing you look like her... but yet, she's not around." He sighed. "I know you're a good pilot, Rei. And under normal circumstances, you'd be a welcome addition to the team. Did you ever fly an Arwing or a similar craft before?"
"I... was the pilot of a mechanized unit," Rei tried to explain. "Its controls are a bit different, but it helped me to adapt."
"Well, then you must be a natural. All right, I've decided: I will ask the others. We are a team! If they can accept you, you'll be welcome to stay!"
Rei lowered her head. "I thank you for the offer, Commander McCloud!"
He smirked. "Call me Fox!"
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(Posted Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:02)
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