Heroes of Dreamland, Book 7: Kirby and the Battle for Dreamland (OLD)

We've Got to Go See a Cat about a Spider

Jiyuu's POV:

"Gotcha," I smirk to myself in triumph as I manage to herd some more Dark Matter into a mirror prison I carefully carried down into Dreamland, and then cast a spell to temporarily seal it until I have some more of the gross goo to stuff in it. Of course I know that I could never get rid of all the Dark Matter around this way, but at least I've got a good piece of Cappy Town cleared out and have put a shield spell around it so people have a safe place to go to- for now.

Once the mirror is sealed, I sit down in front of it to catch a breath. Ever since talking to Dark Meta Knight day before yesterday night, I've been working on this- well, almost ever since. First I fixed his cloak for him like I said I would, but when I went to look for him so I could return it, I couldn't find him anywhere.

Honestly, I'm not too awful surprised. He sort of had the humiliation of a lifetime that night, although truth be told, he pretty much deserved it. I just hope he learns a lesson from all this. After all, I never would have believed there was a chance for me, and now just look at what I'm doing. I'm practically to hero status already! (That was an intentional exaggeration there, children. I can hardly call myself a hero for trying to clean up the mess I made myself.) Maybe there's hope for him too, although it definitely seems unlikely.

As soon as I've caught my second wind, I look up at the dreary, cloudy sky with a grayish rising sun in the east. It's sad, really, the way all the color is fading out of everything, and so quickly too... 

Obviously I know what's causing all the color to disappear; everyone's heard about it by now. Someone destroyed the Fountain of Dreams at some point in the past couple of days, and, well, everyone figured it out really fast. After a couple of nights of strange dreams had already been going on, the last two nights, people all over Dreamland, every world of it, have been waking up from awful nightmares. I guess the saddest part is that for some of the woodland animals, the youngest Cappy children, and the Waddle Dee, this was the first time they'd ever had to have nightmares. Most of the grownups have experienced them before during times when the Fountain was under the weather, whether because of the Monstrous Lightning's storms or the time when Dedede made a mess of things in an effort to stop Nightmare (who he later ended up actually buying stuff from anyway.) And of course, the older kids had run into nightmares when those Noddy-filled pillows came around some time back. (Where do I know these things? Meta Knight's carefully written 'Histories of Modern Dreamland.' Really interesting and informative volumes, those.)

Since I've been working so hard, I haven't dozed off once and therefore haven't had to deal with the nightmare effect yet, but it's easy to see how much is going wrong without the Fountain anyway. The Dark Matter seems to be multiplying at least twice as fast as it was before, and like I said earlier, the color is disappearing from everything, just like in the Mirror World... Unfortunately, all of that world's color is gone. Everything's gray or black, and something tells me that if something big doesn't happen soon, that's the way it's going to stay forever after.

With a yawn, I stand up again and dust myself off, ready and determined to go herd some more Dark Matter out of everyone's way, but I pause and look mournfully around myself again before spreading my wings and moving on.

Dreamland used to be so beautiful- and I hated it, I know. Nothing in the world disgusted me more than how bright and garish everything was around here. But now... now that it's all fading... I miss it, more than I'd ever have imagined I could. Maybe what they say about never knowing just how much you've been given until it's all gone is really true.

That's enough moping around, I chide myself and take off. No use crying over spilled milk; a cat knows that better than anyone else.