Heroes of Dreamland Rewritten, Book 1: Stars Amidst Lightning

Chapter 35

Meta Knight|メタナイト

Sometimes I feel like every time I try to do what's best for everyone, I only wind up making everything worse. I mean, just look at earlier— I tried to make myself seem cold, distant, and uninterested, but I think I just came off as angry, bitter, and annoyed. While by the end I was actually angry— very angry, actually— I wasn't to begin with. I was just trying to be distant and aloof, not hostile. Evidently, I failed even at that.

I know that I need to keep myself unattached from the others; I know that I cannot allow any of them to grow close to me. But even so... There has got to be a middle ground where I can do so without causing them too much consternation. In the perfect scenario, they'd hardly even notice I was there or vice versa. Finding the formula that will lead to that perfect scenario, on the other hand, is far easier said than done.

Sighing heavily, I lean against my tree and lower my sword— I've been using it for light— once again. Before the sun set, I was too angry and upset to go looking for my three allies. Now that I actually want to find them, it's dark out, so finding them has become a much more difficult task. It would make it easier if I could fly above the treetops, but I've had next to no luck when it comes to finding clearings where the trees aren't so closely crowded together that there's no real way to fly up. While I suppose being in the deep Woods is a good thing in some ways— the others have most likely set up camp somewhere in the deep Woods, close to the river— it's bad in others, specifically the inability to fly upwards anywhere. If things keep going at this rate, I'll probably have to wait until dawn before I can find the others.

Just as I prepare to start hunting again one last time, someone zooms right past me so fast that I can barely see them, squealing in a squeaky voice the whole way, and then quickly disappears into the Woods. But as quickly as they passed, they looked awfully familiar... and not in anything even slightly resembling a good way.

Raising my eyes to the currently-invisible heavens, I plead under my breath, "Please don't let that be who I think it was. I really don't need that lying wizard around again, not ever but especially not right now."

Before I can decide whether or not to try and go after him, to verify that it is him and keep a promise I made him long ago if the speedy figure did indeed turn out to be him, a whole lot of explosions start very loudly going off back in the direction the figure came from. Well. That would explain what he was running from.

For another moment, I still consider going after the figure, but then realize that leaving a bunch of angry explosives-toting monsters alive in the middle of a mostly-dry forest-turned-matchbox isn't exactly a wise plan. With a sigh, I raise my sword for light again and head towards the sound of the explosives.

I can identify what kind of monsters are causing the noises long before I can actually see them— the sound of the bombs, once I get closer, is obviously the same sound made by the small, rapid-fire bombs Poppy Bros. Juniors carry. Still in no big hurry, I approach the edge of a small hill that goes down into the monsters' thicket, only to freeze in the middle of the rugged path and stare at the scene below me.

Alone, the Kirby Dee is surrounded by a huge horde of the tiny monsters, but she doesn't seem even the slightest bit frightened. Actually, her eyes are filled with a steely, steady determination I've never seen in them before. Executing a spin attack, she takes out a tight ring of about six monsters all around her, and then kicks another one that tries approaching her away into a tree, where it, too, vanishes with a small pop. Turning fluidly away from that one, she stabs right through another one that was approaching her from the side, backflips over one that tried to sneak up on her, and attacks it with a sword drive upwards, before changing the direction of her swing and slamming it down onto the ground, leaving a small crater where the monster once was after it vanishes like the rest of them. Once she's landed, she takes out a group of three monsters standing together with a multi-slash attack, and then, trying to catch her breath, she pauses for a second and stretches. "Anybody else want in on all this fun?"