13. Dark Reaper & Twin Woods (1/2)

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"amazing! totally... amazing!" said tiff.

kirby couldn't believe it either... the tower was impressive from the outside... but never had he suspected that the inside would look like this. it was as if they had entered a whole new world...

the hall was going on further than the horizon and the ceiling was so high up that kirby tought that he could see the clouds...

"such an unreal sight... most obviously, this place was created using very powerful magic." stated metaknight, who was trying very hard not to let himself stare in awe at the surroundings...

serty approached the purple walls... "it's so... beautiful and strange. it looks like crystal and yet... it's more like glass..."

"bah! those drawings on the walls and the weirdness of it all is amazing and everything but well... we're here for a reason!" said knuckle joe, who unlike the others, was not impressed by some walls.

kirby approached the wall, joining serty as he stared at the drawings... "those were sculpted into the crystal probably long before any of us was born... i bet that many of the anwsers to the riddles of the far past are right there, in front of our eyes!" said the yellow puffball.

"puyo? pu?" asked the pink ball.

serty turned to face kirby. he was obviouslydisappointed. "i'm sorry kirby. i cannot understand what those drawings means either. i studied a lot of things back at home... but i did not study the symbols of the ancients. one can ony learn so much througbt ten days, you know..."

suddenly, there was a sound... like a drop of water falling to the ground... and in fact, a drop of water had fell just in front of metaknight!

"hey metaknight! why are you so tense all of a sudden?" asked sirica.

when she made it next to him and stared at the "water", she understood...

"what the... the water is black?" said sirica.

suddenly, a veil of darkness surrounded the group and a wall of dark liquid covered the exit!

"great! we're trapped!" stated tiff.

metaknight unsheated galaxia while sirica unsheated her own sword. serty and kirby retreated to the center of the hall, joining the others. everyone stood in a defensive position... but no one attacked. eyes appeared in the veil of darkness... but the darkness, whatever it was, did not attack either.

then, a large chunk of the veil separated itself and took the form of a large semi-liquid sphere. a single, yellow eye appeared in the middle and large

own spikes came out from behind. the sphere hovered in front of the group...

"so... i finally get to meet you, kirby!" said the black sphere.

"who are you?" asked tiff.

the black ball chuckled. "hehehehe! so, i see that i'm not very well know! well... that problem shall be solved right now. i am the great dark reaper, one of the three nme great generals."

upon hearing this, metaknight became all tense. his eyes widened and sirica noticed that he was trembling...

"metaknight? are you alright?" she asked.

metaknight stood there, completely paralysed by fear... and yet, he didn't knew why he was afraid. he felt as if he knew this dark reaper monster... and yet, he knew that this was the first time he met this monster. why was he afraid? this monster wasn't the biggest or meanest-looking monster ever and while he knew that a monster that calls itself a great general must be terribly strong... he didn't knew why just hearing about him filled his heart with a nameless fear.

"i... i am alright..." slowly whispered the blue knight, struggling against the urge to turn back and run away.

kirby stepped foward. "puyo! pu! puyo!"

dark reaper stared at the puffball for a moment... "heh! it's a bit hard to believe, when i look at you right now, that you were the one that felled great nightmare! but well... that was to be espected from the one who has the blood of the enemy who killed my ancestors flowing throught his veins."

"so... you're saying that kirby's ancestors killed your ancestors, right?" said knuckle joe, grinning. "i bet kirby can repeat the feat his ancestors pulled off!"

"you're confident... but i'm not a mere monster." stated the black ball. "as i am a good sportsman, i will give you the opportunity to give up now and join the nme. there is no meaning in fighting me. as much as i'd like to avenge my ancestors... there's still the fact that you are absolutely no match for me and that i would gain no glory from such a victory."

serty stared at dark reaper for a while... "dark reaper... you do not seem like such a bad guy. why do you serve the interests of a corporation which nightmare has no control upon? kirby and his friends are on our side! they, too, want to rid the universe of evil! good nme agents such as you and me should join with them and defeat the traitors that abuse nightmare's generosity to further their evil ambitions!"

dark reaper began to laugh!... and laugh!... and laugh!

"hahahahahaha! hahahahaaha! guwahahahahaahahaha! haaa... and i tought you were weak-willed! well, it looks like you were not weak... you were just a bit too idealistic."

serty raised an eye

ow (way of talking). "huh?"

"we cannot save everyone, young dream matter! sometimes, one must kill civilians and finish off an enemy's family. planets must sometimes be destroyed, serty!" said the black ball, speaking to serty as if he was talking to a kid.

"i'm not a young little dream matter anymore!" said harshly the yellow puffball, angered by dark reaper's speech. "i am mature now! i will receive no orders from the likes of you! you who are willing to throw your principles away to achieve victory!"

dark reaper hovered backward a bit and closed his eye... "well... too bad. kirby, metaknight, and all the others... do you agree with serty?"

sirica stepped foward too! "yeah we agree! you can shove your offer where the sun doesn't shine!"

"such crude language!" said dark reaper, with an annoyed tone. he slowly opened his eye... "soldiers... fire at will!"

the eyes begun to flash and then, black thunderbolts flied about from every direction, toward the group! kirby was shocked by several thunderbolts at once and screamed... and then, tiff's screams joined his as she was struck as well. sirica and knuckle joe tried to evade the attacks... in vain.

metaknight stood there, staring at galaxia's blade... and wondered why the thunderbolts were somehow rebounding off him... and then, he remembered how the legends spoke of galaxia...

"the holy blade surrounded by golden light. the holy sword that cleave the veil of darkness and repel evil."

the holy sword that cleave the veil of darkness and repel evil? then, he understood! those thunderbolts were not made of electricity but of dark energy! since the sword was made of the opposite energy, the two were repelling each others, causing the black bolts to harmlessly rebound off him!

he knew what he had to do! he grabbed kirby's hand and instantly, as the holy sword's power surged throught the pink puffball, the black thunderbolts stopped harmed him.

"kirby! grap tiff's hand!" ordered the knight.

kirby grabbed tiff's hand and the black energy was repelled from her body. then, tiff grabbed knuckle joe's hand and the same happened... then the same happened to sirica. finally, sirica grabbed serty's hand... and now, the thunderbolts were no longer affecting them.

"hold your fire!" ordered dark reaper, noticing that his soldiers' attacks were no longer working.

"sir! what's happening?" asked one of the eyes in the veil of darkness.

dark reaper didn't anwsered... he hovered there for what seemed to be an eternity and then... "very impressive! altought the holy blade lost a great deal of it's power over time... it seems that it still is strong enough to counter even the power of a group of highly skilled dark matters! well... sadly for you, the holy blade will not save you from my wrath. troops! get me my sword!"

a capsule that was looking like those serty carried was thrown above dark reaper. he closed his eye and concentrated... and then, an opening appeared in the lower half of his body, forming some kind of mouth and then, a long tentacle-like tongue came out of the mouth and grabbed the caspule! dark reaper swallowed it and then, he transformed!

his spikes vanished and he fell to the ground... but then, an arm spawned on his right side. in his hand was a fine-looking sword...

"what the... those things can use copy?" said tiff.

"the power of copy originally belonged to the dark matter specie. nightmare gave us, dream matters, the power of copy bygiving usdark matters characteristics." stated serty.

"that's right, fleshings... and now, i'll cut you down to size!" said dark reaper.

altought he had no feet, it didn't kept the dark matter from dashing foward and attempting to slice metaknight in two! he blocked the attack with galaxia!

kirby knew it was the opportunity! kirby and everyone exept metaknight and tiff darted into various directions and attacked the veil of darkness!

knuckle joe punched foward with a lot of strenght, sending a wave of energy into the veil of darkness! instantly, a few eyes exploded and an opening appeared in the veil!

sirica slashed horizontally into the veil, cutting down a few eyes. again, a hole was made in the veil.

serty struck without using an ability. he kicked one of the eyes!... and was surprised to see a black sphere that looked like dark reaper but smaller fly into the wall and slam into it! so... those were, in fact, tons of semi-liquid balls all lined together to form a wall of some sort!

kirby, him, tried to inhale the eyes in front of him... but for some reason, they did not even move an inch.

serty turned around and noticed that kirby couldn't do much without an ability... he also knew that as long as dark reaper was busy dueling with metaknight, the veil of darkness would not strike... but they needed to do something and fast! dark reaper could order the dark beings to attack any second...

tiff looked around. she was of no assistance while the others needed her but then... she had a weird idea. maybe she could call the warpstar for kirby to use on those freaks? it would probably not work but between that and doing nothing...

"kirby!" she turned to kirby, who stopped inhaling and turned to face her. instantly, he understood what he had to do... "warpstar!" yelled tiff!

"warpstar." repeated a loud voice, back on popstar...

tiff stood there... and nothing happened. well, it was worth trying at least... but then, suddenly, there was that familiar sound...

wizzz... zzzz... zzzzzzzz...

flash!

the warpstar knocked down the wall of darkness covering the exit as it entered, scattering dark matters everywhere! it passed throught the veil of darkness and stopped in front of kirby.

everyone stopped fighting and dark reaper turned to kirby... the pink puffball was grinning... "oh no..." said the black ball.

"puyo!" replied the pink puffballbefore proceeding toinhale the warpstar... and in a flash of light, he was grasping a familiar weapon...

dark reaper stood there and all the eyes in the darkness widened...

kirby swung the star rod with all of his strenght and then...

flash!

a hurricane of stars and light filled the room and the darkness was totally consumed. black liquid was splattered over the walls everywhere... even dark reaper exploded.

however, unlike his troops, dark reaper would not die. he would not be defeated so easily. the black liquid gathered and dark reaper reformed, this time, back in his original form.

"so... the rumors were true.youcan wield the star rod... impressive. however, the star rod's power is limited. you can maybe inflict pain on me and the great nightmare using it... but the star rod cannot kill us. well, i guess this means that we shall meet again!... should you survive that long, that is! as fornow... goodbye!"

the black sphere flied throught the door and escaped, leaving the group there...

serty turned to face the legendary weapon kirby was wielding... "it's weird... i tought that according to reports, the star rod could only form if it had a matching opposite force nearby like nightmare..."

"dark reaper said he was a great general." stated tiff. "maybe this was enough to trigger the star rod's power?"

"maybe..." said sirica. "but i believe that our first priority should be to rob serty of any maxim tomatoes he may be carrying. those black thunderbolts did not feel good."

"hey! it's my stuff!" replied serty quickly, panicked at the idea that metaknight might steal his stuff again!

kirby laughed upon seeing serty's expression. sooo funny!

nightmare stood in front of a small bunny-like creature, holding a strange clawed tool.

"oh! don't be scared cute little thingy! the analysis will not hurt!... well... not until i put that thing in your body!" stated the caped villain, grinning evilly.

he was about to pierce the creature's skin with his tool when...

"master! master!" screamed a purple waddle dee.

sweeeeeees!

srrrrrrr!

nightmare was startled and cut the creature's head off with his tool unstead of just making holes into his skin! nightmare's face had turned red with rage as he turned to face the tiny servant before him.

"i hope for you that you have a good justification to bother me, worm!" screamed the tall nightmarish villain.

the waddle dee made a few steps backward, terrorised. "so... sorry master..." he whispered. "i... i just wanted to give you a report on that dark reaper guy..."

nightmare instantly cheered up. his face returned to it's normal color and his anger was replaced by a nice smile. what was the death of a single experiment compared to the destruction of the last great threat to the nme's reign?

"so... great dark reaper finally destroyed that pink marshmallow, didn't he? i hope that his end was "not too horrible"! heh! give me the juicy details! like when his

ain went boom and splattered all over the walls!" said the caped evil mastermind.

the servant hesitated... instantly, nightmare suspected the worst... and unfortunately, his suspicion was correct.

"errr... well... something was splattered over the walls... but it was not kirby's

ain, sorry. kirby summoned the star rod and well... he downright crushed dark reaper and his troops." said the waddle dee, his voice filled with terror as he knew that he would take the rabbit's place should nightmare be angered against him...

... and angered nightmare was! his face turned red again!

he turned toward the torture table where the beheaded corpse was and then screaming in rage, banging the table with his right hand and crushing the small body! instantly, blood, bones, and organs were sent flying about, making nightmare's cape all dirty!... which angered him even further!

"aaaaaaaaaaarg!" screamed the villain. "i cannot believe this! get me a clean cape... now!"

the waddle dee ran for it's life! nightmare stood there and relaxed...

"man! i should try and get rid of that stupid habit! i'm lucky i only got my cape dirty this time! last time, my hand got stuck in the trash compactor and... errr... i just don't wanna think about it..."

nightmare did not notice the waddle dee spying on him, just outside the room...

waddle doo was inspecting the ship that the waddle dees had built...

"hmm... interesting technology! i'd better note all this down so that we might build it back at home..."