A True Hero

34 - ...On the Other Side

I landed on coarse gray sand of the Mirror World with a thud and crunch. Nicolette managed to right herself halfway through her fall and teleported down to the ground, landing in a warrior stance. Her bewildered face said it all.

"Are you alright?" she asked, offering me her arm. I took it and painfully pulled myself up. My energy was still zapped from the battle.

"Yes, I will be," I replied. Looking at her scared face, I reached out and touched her arm. "Are you alright?"

She blinked away a tear. "We failed," she whispered. I looked away and wiped the sand from my mask. We had fallen onto a purple and gray copy of the beach we had been on. The world around us was sad and gray. It looked just like a black and white version of Popstar. It seemed like the bright, vivid colors of the planet had been toned down in hue. They were dismal colors for the once bright landscape. In the distance, out over the edge of the ocean the mirror had copied, there was a bridge. It looked like it was once a rainbow, but the color had been sucked out of it. On the other side was a wall of dark gray and the outlines of some buildings.

My back and head hurt from the fall, and a dark, spooky laugh echoed around us. Dark Meta Knight had disappeared. I turned in a circle, examining the strange land, but my counterpart was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the reflection of Nightmare or Nicolette.

But Jecra and Amai were gone, too.

"I had no idea that was what he looked like," Nic continued nervously, rubbing her arms like she was cold. "You and Arthur said he was terrible. I tried to imagine things about him, but nothing I ever dreamed of was that scary. And his hands..." She shuddered and pulled her arms tight across her chest like she was trying to hug herself. "I really had no idea. Remember when you told me about your past when we were fighting the Captain? You mentioned his terrible hands?" She squinted her eyes shut and seemed to ball up inside herself.

I pulled her into a hug and stoked her long, sandy hair. My eyes turned a vivid green as I thought. "Don't beat yourself up," I said gently.

"I'm so sorry you had to endure him, Meta."

I pulled the sand grains out of her hair, sticky from rain and sweat, and gave her a squeeze. But I kept my mind closed off to her, for the whole experience had awakened dark memories inside of me. Shutting my eyes, I locked them away in my deep memories and felt numb.

Suddenly, I felt Nicolette tense up and squeeze me harder. Her breathing came in gasps, and I knew instantly who had finally joined us.

"Aww, aren't they cute," said a snake-like voice from behind me. It sounded so similar to the voice I had heard once from Nicolette when she turned into a dragon-beast. It sounded so much like hers...but darker.

"Yes, and the girl is almost as annoying as you," said a voice all too similar to mine. It carried the same inflection and accent, but it was slightly deeper and sent chills down my spine. I peeked around Nic and saw Dark Meta Knight holding a silver version of Galaxia against Nic's back. Nic's eyes squeezed shut as she felt the sharp point.

I groaned at our luck.

"I don't think we've formally met," said Nicolette's copy, and I felt the cold sting of metal on my arm. I let go of Nicolette and slowly turned around.

Nicolette's copy had a black Bushido katana in one hand and had her other hand planted on her hip. Aside from her different colored hair, skin, armor, and eyes, she looked exactly like Nicolette. She even had the same scar across her right eye.

"No, I don't believe we have," I murmured. Then to Nicolette, I said, "Meet your copy. Dark Nicolette."

"Copy?" Dark Nicolette exclaimed, moving her katana so it was in between my eyes in the slit of my mask. She kept her dark purple eyes focused on Nic. "I think I'm the better version, thanks. Have you looked in a mirror recently, chica?" Then she turned back to me and winked. "Between the two knights, though, you, Sir Meta Knight, are definitely the better version."