11. Departure (1/2)

copyrighted characters belongs to their rightful owners blah blah blah...

i know that this chapter is quite short and all but well...

"so... you are leaving..." slowly stated tiff's mother, lady like.

"yes..." repeated the young girl.

tiff had espected her parents to be upset, to say that it was too dangerous, that type of stuff... but strangely enough, altought they did looked sad... they had accepted her decision.

they had told her the reason why they let her go... throught the three years kirby was here, they had aknowledged the fact that she was able to take care of herself. in fact, they knew that there was more to the young girl than just hanging with kirby. the fact that she was able to summon kirby's warpstar already had gave them a hint that maybe, just maybe, their daughter wasn't quite as normal as they had first espected...

tuff too, had wanted to come. he too, wanted to help... but both his parents and tiff had explained that it would be best to remain here... and altought he hated it and complained, he didn't really took action to convaince his parents or leave by his own.

during this time, metaknight had tried to convaince sword and blade from remaining on popstar to guard dreamland while he, and the others would go look for the legendary weapons... but his efforts had been in vain.

"stay back, when our good sir need us the most? don't even think about it!" said blade.

"altought we may not be the most skillful warriors... you will still need our help, now that the demon hunters were defeated too!" said blade.

metaknight stared at the two... they seemed kind of clown-like and weak at times... but they were right. with the star warriors defeated in the last war, only the demon hunters stood in the nme's way... and now that they're gone too, their group remain as the last independant force to oppose the nme. they will need all the help they can get.

waddle doo entered the room...

"i heard everything, sir metaknight! do not worry! if those nme goons return, we'll beat'em up again! we will not be caught off guard again!" stated the on-eyed soldier.

metaknight stared at waddle doo. he had always tought that the inhabitants of dreamland were all just naive, laid back innocents that were easy to fool and crush... but during that attack from the nme, he saw a side of dreamland which he had never seen before... the people of dreamland was far stronger and

aver than it appeared at first... while he still felt uneasy doing so, he would leave the task of protecting dreamland to the inhabitants of dreamland...

outside the castle, cappytown was already almost rebuilt. it shocked serty so much... the people of dreamland... they were just like kirby himself; there was more to them than meet the eye. altought they grieved for the lives lost during the attack, the town was almost back to what it used to be... already, children played around, adults minded their business...

serty followed the pink puffball as he met each of the persons which had influenced his life before, so that he may translate the puffball's words to each person.

altought kirby still tought that he would return, serty knew otherwise... the legendary weapons were not found in ten millenias and finding such weapons will be a long, long task... and furthermore, the nme will probably hunt them down and attempt to kill them at every corner.

their chances of success are very slim... and as such, it was very probable that they would never return to popstar. still, they had to go... remaining there, waiting for the nme to crush them was out of question and with the nme back to full power and no army, attacking was not an option either.

as the two puffballs returned to the castle, serty got lost in his toughts...

he was about to fight his own family... the nme. could he truly do this? could he truly turn his powers against his loved ones? if he ran into father nightmare of uncle yamikage, would he have the courage to fight? he didn't wanted to think about this... and doing so was meaningless anyway. he had to focus on the present! on their task! they must find the legendary weapons and defeat the source of corruption within the nme!

"finally! it is completed, as you can see!" announced proudly nightmare to the gigantic army standing in front of him.

he pointed the large robot behind him...

"this is the hr-h mk-iii, my latest creation! this robot was built using the best materials and latest technologies! it can morph between humanoid and spaceship mode at will to face any foe and can either be piloted manually or be controlled by an advanced artificial intelligence! weapon systems include tactical and strategic nuclear and fusion missiles for orbital bombardment, various laser and plasma cannons for air-to-air fighting, a powerful aray of missile and rocket launchers for dealing with small targets... and many more, including titanium scissors, heavy auto-cannons, ultra-high pressure fists, and even, take that, a pulsar generator!"

all of the demons, monsters, and dark matters began to whisper. behind nightmare was the largest robot ever built. it was about as large as king dedede's castle!

dark metaknight, however, was not impressed.

"your technological toy does not impress me." stated the black knight. "it's power is far inferior to the copy ability. a skilled dream matter could nuke it very easily."

nightmare seemed angered by this remark. "what are you implying, great dark metaknight? the hr-h mk-iii is the most powerful war machine in the entire universe! even if all of the dream matters were to unite, the hr-h mk-iii would crush them all in seconds!"

nightmare approached and bent down, his face being rrrreally close to dark metaknight. he stared into the knight's eyes in a threatening way...

"fear! fear will keep the worlds under the control of the nme! the fear of the hr-h mk-iii!" he slowly said, making sure that each word would be heard clearly and loudly.

dark metaknight smiled under his mask. "you know very well that empires that rely on fear never last. your toy won't impress people for long. it is the honor and power of our army that allowed us to gain and keep control of more than half of the universe for ten millenias, not your stupid mechanical toys!"

nightmare backed away, grasping his head and red light erupting from his mask! he was not happy!

"you... how dare you? we would have never conquered so many worlds without the mad mechanism! without the teleportation network! without our ability to create and train soldiers within days! heck! the star warriors would still be terrorising the world if it wasn't from my inventions!" yelled the raging general.

dark metaknight seemed amused... "heh! isn't freeing the world from the terror of light our main goal? i believe that switching the element of the terror is a weird way to free the world."

nightmare frowned... and admitted defeat to the black knight. he was right...

"alrighty then! but remember that until light's influence is gone, we'll still need the hr-h mk-iii to control some of the more violent worlds, like popstar!" stated nightmare.

with that said, dark metaknight decided to stop speaking. nightmare sighed, relieved when he saw that dark metaknight stopped making remarks. he turned to the army.

"anyway... any questions?" asked the caped villain.

in the destrayar's

iefing room...

"so... where do we go? any idea where the closest legendary weapon may be?" asked metaknight.

both serty and joe tought for a while... the two had discussed back on popstar, before departing.

serty had heard that two artifacts were held on the closest planet to dark star, ripple star... and the description of the artifacts matched those of the legendary weapons!... however, ripple star was heavily guarded and as such, the two agreed that those two weapons should be obtained last, when they will have obtained the other legendary weapons and got a better ship.