8. The Pink Threat (1/2)

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serty gazed at the sky one last time before making his decision...

72 hours had passed since he first arrived in dreamland... and he could no longer take it.

kirby... was not the pink demon. he had observed him and... he had seen the true nature of this town's inhabitants.

painting himself, serty walked trought the village, getting to know each inhabitant...

back at the base, he had used to think that the inhabitants of caapytown were seven feet tall monsters that wielded incredible strenght and eaten monster babies for dinner. kirby was portrayed as the reincarnation of the god of destruction, who had his same name, and metaknight's latest descendant was shown as the exact copy of his ancestor, complete with galaxia consuming all with destructive light and with long demon wings sprouting from his back.

this kirby and this metaknight... were not the same.

in two days, he would reach maturity... but serty no longer was sure if he wanted to live this long. he had accepted to go to protect his friends and family from the evil kirby... but in the end, this kirby revealed himself to be exactely the same as his father, nightmare.

just like nightmare, kirby was not evil, only misunderstood from his opponents.

serty couldn't understand... there was no evil in this war, no bad guys... and yet, destruction happens daily on both sides.

each day a monster is sent, each day the survivors grieve for a new fallen one... and for each new day, the inhabitants of popstar must rebuild their town and burry those that fell during the battles.

just like he did, kirby grieved his fallen friends... both young minds failing to understand the necessity of such sacrifices.

was this why he was born? so that he would die, along with all the others, in a war against of bunch of innocents who were just protecting their loved ones?

there was no point to this war. neither light or darkness deserved this.

however... the fighting wouldn't stop just becease he wanted to.

king dedede had contacted him... and ordered him to follow his new, clever plan.

king dedede seemed dumb at times... but in the end, he was just an average king trying his hardest to rise up to the reputation of his legendary ancestor. king dedede's name was a curse for whatever he did, he would always be inferior to king dedede the first... and this was mostly why he was so mean. he had gave up and seeing no point in being good, had turned to evil in order to accomplish his dreams.

since he was unable to gain respect, he decided that people would respect him... becease they feared him... and this was why he summoned monsters. kirby was a beacon of hope, a light that destroyed king dedede's dream of being respected throught fear.

serty refused to destroy this beacon of hope. doing so would make him, and not kirby, the reincarnation of the pink demon... he would be the one

inging death and despair.

what were his options?

if he returned home, he would most probably be punished... it was even possible that they would judge him a traitor and execute him!

if he remained but turned against dedede, his future wasn't much better. dedede would probably send him back for a refund, again resulting into him becoming a traitor and being executed... or dedede would simply execute him himself.

he also couldn't betray his father and family and join kirby. doing so... would be turning away from all those he love and cause aldeyl's and duales's death to have been truly in vain.

there was no way around it. soon... with dedede's plan in action, either kirby would die... either he would. two puffballs would fight... only one would walk out alive.

serty evaluated his chances of survival... aldyel was very experienced at fighting with copy powers and duales was extremely skilled with copy, being able to mix powers... he, on another hand, was a poor warrior and his only noteworthy power was his duplicate ability, which allowed him to sacrifice a copy power in order to create a monster.

kirby, on another hand, was a mere kid with no special abilities... but fate was mostly on his side and furthermore, metaknight was on his side and he feared the knight for he was a skilled warrior wielding an ancient, powerful weapon.

the combined might of kirby and metaknight would crush him easily...

there was no doubt about it. today... he would die, without never ever reaching maturity. he slowly die, surrounded by hundreds of beings who despised him, far from his home... far from his loved ones.

serty sobbed, his heart assaulted by despair... and then, there was the sound of someone knocking on the door.

"what's ya doing?" yelled king dedede. "get over here!"

this was the call... it was now, or never... serty wondered... what lies beyond emptiness? he hoped to find out in a few centuries... but it seems like he'll find out much earlier than planned...

king dedede's plan had been a cunning one... altought risky.

serty, however, knew it would work out perfectly...

serty would be disguised as kirby, once again and then... he would go on and meet tiff and tuff, who had planned to play with kirby.

he would play with the young children for a little while and then... he would do a mistake which would cause him to argue with his "friends". the argument would grow in intensity until it reached a venomous level... and then, serty would take on an ability and attack one or two of the children, causing serious but non-fatal injuries to them.

king dedede repeated it three times.

"they must be hurt really badly. something that will horrify the whole town!... but no death! i repeat it again! do. not. kill. i only want the people to realise how dangerous kirby can be! i don't want to lose those two children, understood? they'll probably be good servants once they'll be adults... and i certainly don't want to forever feel guilty becease you killed them! understood? injure, do not kill!"

king dedede continued on. he was so hesitant... that serty began to wonder if kind dedede himself was thinking it was a right idea. obviously, he was desesperate. none of his plans had ever worked and he seemed to consider serty in a different way from the other monsters he had met before...

serty knew that dedede was just sick. sick of seeing kirby being the perpetual glory hog. sick of never being noticed exept in negative ways. sick of being unworthy of the legendary name that was his own! he would chase kirby out of town and finally prove that he's worthy of being named dedede!

serty had heard of such cases before... the children of legends that had grown insane in their mad quests to gain respect... and in the end, unable to reach their parents' fame, they became insane...

serty had not paid much attention to the nme reports about king dedede at first... he simply tought that the more dedede tried, the better the monsters he used... but sadly, this was not the case...

king dedede was growing to hate kirby more and more... he was seeing him as an obstacle to his hapiness. every waking moment of the king was now used solely to think up plans to get rid of the pink puffball. every victory, every time the town was saved... it was a taunt. king dedede was becoming... insane.

before, his plans had been to scare the population and show kirby wasn't such a big deal... but not anymore. he was ready to injure and even cripple his people so that he could banish or kill kirby! humiliating him or showing that he wasn't a hero was no longer his priority. he hated kirby so much now that he had almost ready to kill when the opportunity to get him out of his life presented itself... and serty feared that things would only get worse...

in fact, everything was seemingly growing worse and worse... the war against the star warriors was over but the battles raged on. encouraged by kirby's victories, various demon hunters had gathered, forming some kind of new star warriors movement... and as such, the battles raged on. on many worlds, the rivers were red with the blood of the innocent, the town covered with the bodies of soldiers of both sides...

the same was happening on popstar, when you look beyond the initial impression that dreamland was spared from the onslaught...

many times cappytown was destroyed, many times there were victims... and the "kill or being killed" case was a weekly, almost daily event... exept that unstead of battlecruisers delivering the warriors who would kill and be killed, they came via teleportation, from dedede's castle...

"are you listening to me?" asked dedede.

serty looked up to face his "master". altought he hadn't been listening, he already knew the entire plan. dedede had repeated at least two hundred times at least by now...

"i understood." said flatly serty.

the fat penguin noticed that there was something wrong... his monster... he had changed somehow... must be nothing!

"now, get on it!" ordered the king.

serty turned around and headed toward his room in order to paint himself pink and red...

tiff smiled... it had been a while since she had played with kirby.

ever since the battles with aldeyl and daules, kirby had been depressed... but it seemed that the reactions of the people after kirby stopped plasma wisp's attack had been a good cure to his depression and he was as cheerful as ever...

...in fact, he was a little too happy. it was a bit weird... he was just like usual... exept that he seemed even happier, as if it was his first time playing ball...

while they played, kirby would keep on gazing on the ball, completely hypnotised... and then, when he set his eyes on her or her

other, he would become hypnotised by them unstead.

still, this wasn't surprising. people act in a strange way when they recover from a depression...

plaaaaf!

"ow!"

tuff screamed as the ball passed right next to him and as, by mistake, kirby kicked him in the face!

instantly, kirby stopped upset...

"hey! what was that for?" tuff asked. he didn't seemed happy at all!

"i'm sure kirby did that by mistake..." said tiff, trying to calm her

other.

"jerk!" said tuff to kirby.

it was now kirby's turn to be angry. "puuuuyo!" he said, in an angry tone.

"huh?" tuff was confused.

"hey! calm down!"

kirby did a rude gesture toward tuff!

"hey! you're mean!" yelled tuff.

"kirby! apologise now!" demanded tiff.

"puyo! puyo!" yelled kirby, pointed tuff.

"what? you're implying that i am the one to blame?" tuff was now shocked!

kirby nodded.

"why you!" tuff was literally enraged!

"stop it you two!" screamed tiff, trying to get them to stop arguing.

"stop taking kirby's side!" tuff got enraged toward his sister as well!

"puyoo!"

the three began to yell louder and louder and louder... and then, tuff picked up a rock and thrown into kirby's eye!

tiff and tuff stopped instantly.

"i'm... i'm... i'm sorry... i didn't meant to..." began to apologise tuff...

kirby didn't said anything. he just stood there, his face red with rage... and then, he screamed "puuuyooo!" once and kicked tuff in the stomach using his full strenght!

tuff was sent flying and was slammed right into the nearest tree!... which was split in two becease of the sheer speed and power at which tuff had been slammed into the tree!

"tuff!" yelled tiff as she ran toward her

other.

kirby looked down and frowned, sad...

"what did i done?" asked himself the disguised serty...

metaknight felt uneasy. king dedede had asked him to escort his car while he was taking a tour in the middle of the city.

he suspected that the king didn't wanted him to watch over the car becease that he appreciated metaknight's presence...

then, suddenly, there was a deafening sound, like an explosion, as well as a scream... tiff's voice!

tiff came running into town, her eyes covered with tears!

"it's... it's... it's terrible!" she said.

metaknight approached the hysterical tiff.

"what happened?" he asked, trying to calm her down... not to avail.

"kirby... it's kirby!" she said quickly.

metaknight's eyes widened. did something happened to kirby?

"did something... happened to kirby?" he asked, worried.

"no!" she replied almost instantly.

metaknight sighed, relieved...

"kirby slammed my

other into a tree!... he's bleeding pretty badly!"

metaknight became tense. this was impossible! kirby would not harm tuff, never ever!