Heroes of Dreamland Rewritten, Book 1: Stars Amidst Lightning

Chapter 1

Hi. I'm a Waddle Dee. To be specific, I'm a girl Waddle Dee, and the only girl Waddle Dee as far as I know. What's a Waddle Dee, you ask? Well, I'll do my best to explain us, but I've never been a real expert at descriptions. I know what I see, I just have trouble putting it into words sometimes, you know?

Waddle Dees are short creatures, to start with. Even the tallest ones only get to be about two feet tall. I'm about a foot and a half tall myself, so I'm pretty short, especially when compared to other Waddle Dees my age. We're shaped sort of like playground balls and are very bouncy and elastic, and we don't have hands like many beings have. Instead, we have short, stubby, rounded... paws (that's the best word I can think of to describe them) with no fingers. They work for everything we need them for, so they're fine. Oh, and we don't have mouths, at least not that you can see on our faces. Don't worry; we can still eat through our faces. We've been told that it's kind of creepy, so we always eat in a room away from everyone else that lives here in Castle Dedede with us. Where's Castle Dedede? Well, we'll get to that. Just hang on and enjoy the ride.

What about our color? Um, let's see... We're usually red-orange all over most of our bodies, although we can rarely be found in green, purple, or even gold. I'm just a red-orange one, so don't get all excited hoping that I'm gold or anything, 'cause I'm not. Our feet are a little bit too big and therefore kinda awkward, forcing us to waddle everywhere, hence our name. They're almost always yellow-orange in color, although there are other possibilities out there, and they're kinda oval in shape. Our faces are a round peach-colored spot with rounded cheeks that stick out a little bit farther than the rest. We also all have a small, oval, pink-ish blush spot on each of our cheeks. Most of us have chestnut-colored eyes (including me) but some of us are black-eyed or even blue-eyed once in a blue moon. (Ha, get it? I said 'blue moon,' because 'blue-eyed' came right before. Yeah, sorry, lousy joke, I know... Ahem.)

So now you know what we look like, and you'll learn more about how we act as we go on. So in the meantime, I guess I'll tell you a little bit more about myself.

I'm one of the weirdest Waddle Dees you'll ever meet, first off, so don't take me as a good example of the species. Secondly, you'll want to know my name, I'm guessing. Well, I'm known by some as the Kirby Dee or the Super Dee. My real name is Sakura Dee, but my friends just call me Sakura (which is definitely my favorite.)

Now, I know that a lot of people seem to think that we Waddle Dees are pretty stupid. I can tell you that this really isn't true. Of course, if you're completely new to our world, then you probably don't have any opinion at all about Waddle Dees. Well, if you're the latter type, then just know that we Waddle Dees are actually quite an intelligent race, even if we can't talk like most of the beings in our world can. We're telepathic, for one thing, but only with each other. For another, we're very talented household servants, as Dedede (or King Dedede, as he calls himself) has demonstrated quite well. The only real reason the first group of people can call us stupid is because we don't talk, and also because we can't write or read, but that's only because Dedede won't ever let us learn. After all, that'd mean us having to take time off from work to go to school or whatever. How terribly inconvenient would that be?!

Anyway, we all follow that rule, no reading or writing... Well, all of us except for me, and I only got to break it because of the extraordinary events that happened in my life.

This is the beginning of a story about me and my friends. I don't really know where we'll end up, because I'm still fairly close to the start myself. This tale might not be perfect, but it's the truth, and it's your choice whether or not to read it. Of course, I hope you do, although considering the fact that you've picked up whatever book this has ended up in, I can probably assume that you're intending to read it.

So, um, where to start... Oh, I know!

Once I was just a normal Waddle Dee.

Yeah, I know that sounds kinda lame, so let me reword that: Once I was just an almost normal Waddle Dee. (See? That one word made it so much more interesting! Or I think so, anyway.) So why did I say 'almost normal' instead of just plain 'normal?' As stated above, all of the others were boys, for one, and for two, they just accepted life the way it was. Not me. I was curious. I was stubborn. Escargoon (or Slug Boy, as I've always mentally called him,) couldn't stand me. Yeah, although the king's chief advisor (who's a gray snail with a dull greenish-grayish shell, dull green eyes, and an equally dull greenish-grayish mustache and goatee) never knew I was just one of the 3,452 Waddles living here at the castle, he really disliked me because I had trouble obeying. Honestly, I don't think the king ever once noticed me, even at times like when I was told to stand guard and ended up pondering a butterfly instead, just as an example.

All of the other Waddle Dees couldn't understand me. "Why do you do that?" they'd always ask me in a dubious way. "Why can't you just be the same way we are, content with your life like we're content with ours?"

And I always answered the same way every single time, no matter how many years went by: "I don't know."

All I did know was that if there was something out of the ordinary, I wanted to understand it. And if someone treated me unfairly, I wanted them to know about it.

But for the first seventeen or so years of my life, I couldn't really do anything about it. It didn't really help anything that even though I wanted to understand things, I could really be a bit of an airhead at times.

But all that changed one day.

Far off in space, a great force was awakening. This force (who was called the Monstrous Lightning on our planet, since that's what the Ancients called him) wanted to have the universe as his own. And like all badguys, it seems, he chose to start his conquest on Planet Popstar, or to be more specific, here in my home country of Dreamland.

What did he look like? Oh great, more describing... Well, he looked something like a great spark. Floating listlessly in the vacuum of space, he slowly pondered over the years where his quest to conquer all should start. One day, this centuries-long puzzling and thinking was suddenly cut short when a meteor bumped into him without warning. With a huff of impatience, this spark bashed it away from him and into space, sending it hurdling, electrified with a terrible power, right to my planet. In a lazily evil sort of way, he decided to slowly follow. And so for the first time in the history of our world, he actually became a real threat instead of just an obstacle for the occasional passing spaceship.

Yes, he really did become quite a threat, and right away. Later that very day, a horrible storm came upon the planet. It was a storm worse than any recorded in our history books, or so Meta Knight claimed. To tell the truth, I only know this ever happened because I was guarding the King at the time. Official proceedings are never recorded in Dreamland, although they probably should be.

King Dedede just huffed and sent him away, then continued stuffing his face with snickerdoodle cookies. I think Meta Knight might have stolen one, but that's not important, at least not at the moment. The only reason I even remember it happening is because that seemed so out-of-character for the adamant, always-stoic, and intellectual knight. (I know you're probably asking 'Who are Meta Knight and King Dedede, and what are they like?' Stick around, all will be explained in time.)

Late that following night, I helped with the seemingly-limitless laundry under an overhang that was part of the brown stone castle wall. While I was trying my best to stay mostly dry and completely non-fried, a tiny star appeared in the sky, a star that immediately seemed special to me. And because it was a special star, I decided to make a wish on it, as silly as that seemed.

So I wished with all my heart to be able to speak my ideas aloud and to learn more, to actually begin to be something special instead of just a servant. All the other Waddle Dees just laughed at me in their minds.

But the star wasn't laughing. It seemed to instantly change directions in the sky as soon as I finished thinking my wish and started coming closer and closer, growing bigger and bigger with every passing second. The others that were outside with me began to get nervous, finally scattering as it hurtled towards us through the sky and past the castle wall. Maybe that's what I should have done, but instead I just stood and watched, admiring the intricate craters and cracks on its surface... right up until it crashed into me, that is.

Everything went dark.