Tiers and Hopes, Book 2

What is Dead May Never Die

The Smash World was being turned on its ear.

Round little Kirby, who'd spent the majority of Melee being belittled and tormented over his low ranking, who'd come so close to being dragged under, was coming back with a vengeance. Fueled by nothing but positive thoughts and the support of friends old and new, the Star Warrior faced off against those who'd laughed at and sneered at him and effectively silenced those sneers and that laughter. Spectators were stunned into silence as he soundly thrashed his opponents using his abilities, his sword skills and his cleverness, turning the weaknesses that had sent him to the bottom of the tier list into strengths. And if someone tried to get on his case about his ranking, then he'd just ignore them. Gone were the days of sitting in his room and moping, or trying to drown his sorrows by carving into his skin with a shard of glass. All of that was over for him. Socially, he opened himself back up, inviting people to share a cake or two. He talked about his situation with DDD, Meta Knight, Tiff, Tuff and Luigi—especially Luigi. The man in green was the one who'd pulled him out of the water, patched up his emotional wounds and gave him a reason to fight another day. He'd also shared Kirby's suffering, and while the verbal and physical attacks against him weren't as severe, they still left a mark on him. Now, he was using his own experiences to help Kirby survive his own proverbial trial by fire.

What of him and Pikachu? Well—the electric mouse knew how to melt Kirby's heart all over again. Two days after the pink puff's release from the infirmary, Pikachu rented out the ice cream parlor and recreated their first "date", banana split and everything. Then, the Wireframes brought out a big cake with pink and yellow frosting, with figurines of Pikachu and Kirby on top and at least four sparklers. As they ate, Pikachu apologized to Kirby, in his own language, of course, for being too ensnared in a petty feud to pay attention to him, promising to help him through future hardships from that day forward. It was an exquisite—and yummy—gesture, and it was enough for Kirby to let Pikachu back in. They waited for about a week before publicly announcing their reconciliation, though.

Fox, Falco and Marth continued to demonstrate remorse for their actions, voluntarily deleting all of the hurtful posts about Kirby on the Smash Blog and sending him cards, flowers and slices of cake. Kirby knew that they were genuinely sorry, but they could expect him to just turn around and throw his arms around them after what they'd done. They deserved to squirm and sweat for a bit before he even entertained the idea of renewing his friendships with them. He needed to face them on the battlefield, or watch one of his friends face one of them on the battlefield. And just like Luigi before him, while he'd eventually forgive his tormentors for what they did to him, he'd never forget it.

But—

They weren't his top priority right now. His current focus was pulling himself out of that rut and playing with the big boys once again. He took more pages out of Luigi's playbook and took to the blog to vent his feelings. He sparred with Wireframes and Smashers alike or pounded Sandbags. He invited Pikachu, Luigi, Jiggs, Pichu, Ness, the Ice Climbers and others on regular lunch dates. And he cooled his heels in the Gaming Area, where he learned to play games like Scrabble and taught his friends to play Kirby's Air Ride on the GameCube.

Through his hours in the Training Room and his tenacity, Kirby developed a groundbreaking technique that soon became his signature. When his opponent was on their last stock, or at a high damage percentage during a one-stock match, Kirby would maneuver himself toward the edge of the stage, grab the foe, pummel them a few times and then perform a back Suplex into the blast zone, taking the opponent with him. It was a high risk, high reward move which had tongues wagging at the brazenness of its execution. Who would've thought that a Smasher would choose to deliberately sacrifice a stock to try and win a match? The move also grabbed MH's attention, and he acknowledged that this was the first time one of his Smashers thought outside of the box. Once he got over his surprise, the Hand of Creation gave Kirby the coveted Thumbs Up for this amazing new move, which would eventually be dubbed "Kirby-cide".