“And that’s how we’ll go with that,” Kirby concluded. “Everyone okay?”
“Wait, so you just want us to tell you our whole lives?” Daniel asked.
“Huh,” Kirby took a brief pause, “to put it simply… Yes?”
“Well, that will take a while… But I guess that’s why this is starting so early in the day, uh.”
“And I will have lunch for us later!” Kirby licked his lips. “Anyway, who wants to go first?”
“Me.”
Without giving the chance of anyone answering before him, Matt volunteered to be the first.
“Alright! So tell us your name, and then your life story!” Kirby sat down, ready to pay attention to Matt.
Everyone else also directed their eyes to Matt. The only exception was Natty, who was next to him and had a very suspicious look on her face. “Oh boy, he is going to boast himself with this, won’t he?” she thought.
“Alright, everyone,” he looked at all the kirbies in the room, “my name is Matt. No, it’s not short for Matthew or another name, I’m just ‘Matt’. But ok, my life story. My earliest memory is waking up in the middle of a forest, hurt, like I had just fallen down.”
“Oh, you don’t remember a thing before that?” Kirby asked.
“Nope,” answered Matt. “Nothing at all”
“And how long ago was that?”
“I would say… Around a year ago?” Matt paused to think. “ Yeah, around then.”
That statement completely puzzled Kirby. Matt looked around his age, but could only remember as far back as one year ago? Something weird was definitely going on.
“Okay…” Kirby tried to keep a neutral face, hoping not to completely interrupt Matt. “You can continue now.”
“Alright.” He got in position again. “So, after getting up, I spotted someone approaching me, and it was a Capsule J2. We greeted each other, and he introduced himself: his name was Hank, and he was the leader of a group of Capsule J2s called ‘Team Rocket’. He asked me if I wanted to join it, and I said yes, since I had nowhere to go.”
“Hmm,” Kirby said. “But what is this group about?”
“Ah, simple: overthrowing the Capsule Js,” explained Matt. “He asked me to join their group because they needed help, and apparently I had the same set of powers as them or something like that.”
“Ah… I see.” Kirby couldn’t help but question certain details, but he decided to let that pass for the time being.
“So anyway, I joined them. Hank trained me over a couple of weeks, and soon I was close to being a master of jet powers.” Matt smiled. “And so the day came, we went to battle. It was surprisingly easy, so much so that I don’t remember many details, only that I did almost everything that led us to victory.” His smile grew even more.
“Suuuure,” thought Natty, with a suspicious face. “I still don’t believe all that.”
“And with that, we expelled them from Popstar,” Matt continued. “I don’t think they will ever return.”
“I see…” said Kirby. “I’m just wondering, why do all that with the Capsule Js? Did they do anything bad to the J2s?”
“Honestly, I think it’s just rivalry. I never thought of asking, honestly.”
“Okay…” It was then that Kirby remembered yet again that not everyone was like him: while he would never do anything like that without a clear reason behind it, others would, so he had to understand that.
“Anyway, after all that war stuff, I decided to leave the clan.”
“Oh, why?” asked Kirby.
“Two reasons: first, I wanted to take my own path in life, and being there as a part of the clan limited me. Second, after that war I realized they were all too weak when compared to me, so I wanted to find actual worthy opponents.”
“Take your own path in life…?”
“Yeah.” Matt closed his eyes. “I love to fly. It makes me feel free. Some days I just wanted to fly around, thinking of nothing else, just going fast, but I couldn’t due to clan duties. After I left, that changed, and I could do that, and whatever I wanted.”
“So you just flew around all day?”
“Pretty much. And during one of these flights I met no one other than Natty.”
“Natty…” Kirby wondered.
“Me!” Natty spoke up. “Yeah, we found each other like that one day. We were both just flying around.”
“And we… Huh…”
“‘Clicked’?” Natty attempted to complete his sentence.
“…For a lack of a better term, I guess.” Matt wasn’t satisfied with the help, but gave in regardless. “In short, we found out that both of us loved to race, and so we became rivals, and started to have multiple races.”
“Ah, that’s nice! Having rivals is fun!” Kirby said, thinking of his own.
“Indeed,” said Matt. “Too bad I could not find one on my level yet; I basically always win against her.”
Natty heard that and internally exploded: how could Matt say that in front of so many kirbies?! However, she did her best not to scream at him about that, since she didn’t want to show her anger next to so many strangers. But she was mad. Matt was lying: the two were very even in speed, and had about the same ratio of wins versus losses. It wasn’t the time to debate that, however, and so she did her best not to show her anger, but it certainly wasn’t easy for her.
“Anyway, nothing very interesting happened after I met her,” Matt continued. “I really was only invited to this meeting and here we are. That’s all.”
“Hmm, alright…” Kirby took a quick pause, and continued. “Well, thanks for your story, Matt!”
“Of course,” Matt replied proudly.
“Ok, that answered nothing,” Kirby thought, disappointed. “If anything, I have more questions now… Ugh.”
“So, just to confirm Matt:” Kirby spoke up, “you always had Jet? In other words, your hat and related powers?”
“Yeah,” answered Matt. “It has always been like this.”
“Okay…” said Kirby. He realized that, indeed, he had found no answers yet. But he couldn’t give up just yet.
“Alright, now who’s next?” Kirby asked.
“Me,” someone answered: Larry.
“Ah, of course! What is your name?”
“Larry. Anyway, I will be brief.”
“Huh… Alright,” Kirby agreed, despite feeling that something was up.
Larry started, “So I exist somehow. One day I met Leo, then I met Luke. We became friends. Then we decided to bully a girl with a stupid cap and her friend, since they deserved it for being idiots. They are—”
“LARRY!!!!!!!!” Larry was promptly interrupted by no one other than Raven. She was furious, and tried to run in his direction, but Dana, who was right next to her friend, stopped her with her parasol.
“Raven, please, no!” she begged. “I get why you’re angry, but…”
“THEN YOU KNOW WHAT I NEED TO DO!!!” Raven continued screaming. She was blinded with rage.
“Please, this will only make things worse…” Dana was almost at tears. “Can we go outside to talk?”
Raven noticed the tone of her friend’s voice, and realized that Dana was in much pain. Deeply worried about her friend, she stopped pushing Dana, and turned around.
“Alright, I will be outside,” she said, and left the house.
“Ah, wait!” Dana ran in her direction.
Kirby, who had just watched the whole thing unfold in shock, was very conflicted. He was very worried about what had just happened, and was extremely upset at Larry, but he also didn’t want to interrupt the meeting like that. He had no idea what to do.
“How rude of this guy…” he thought. “But should I scold him or something?”
That was when Kirby realized that Larry was about to get scolded by someone else already. Predicting the chaos that could unfold, he jumped in without thinking twice.
“Hey everyone!” he called their attention. “Due to what just happened… we are having a quick recess! You can all go outside to get some fresh air, and we will resume as soon as everything has been resolved!”
The many kirbies looked at each other, and seemed to agree with what Kirby had just requested. And so the various friend groups started leaving the house, each talking about what had just happened. Percy and Yan in particular followed Larry, keeping a close eye at him.
Everyone had headed outside, no exceptions. They all continued near Kirby’s house, since soon they were supposed to head back inside. Percy and Yan were near Larry, and were interrogating him.
“Why did you do that?” asked Percy.
“Do what?” wondered Larry.
“You know what I’m talking about. You decided to tell your story like that to provoke Raven, didn’t you?”
“What? Why would you think that?”
“Look,” Percy got really annoyed, “I’m not an idiot. It was way too obvious; don’t play dumb.”
“I was just telling the truth, you know.” Larry shook his head. “Maybe I summarized too much, but I just wanted to tell you all how stupid Raven and her friend are for everyone’s sake.”
Percy was speechless. Larry’s train of thought was extremely unusual, and cold to put it lightly. He backed out, and turned his attention to Yan.
“This guy is nuts,” he whispered to him.
“Indeed,” Yan whispered back. “We need to keep an eye on him.”
“For sure…” Percy closed his eyes, disappointed.
Meanwhile, Kirby was with Raven and Dana, making sure the two were recovering steadily.
“How are you feeling?” Kirby asked.
“Well, I’m calmer now,” Raven said. “Sorry about all that.”
“Don’t worry!” Kirby said, in an encouraging pose. “You had all reasons to get mad at that time, so don’t feel bad.”
“I guess, but everyone there…”
“It’s all fine! I bet they understand.”
“I hope…” Raven closed her eyes. “You have no idea what Larry has done to us.”
“Huh?” Kirby got worried.
“But we can tell that when our time for the story comes up…” She opened her eyes. “In fact, I am okay with going back inside now, as long as Larry doesn’t open his mouth again.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Kirby said. “I will let him go last now, and you don’t have to be around when he speaks up.”
“Good. Thank you.” Raven smiled.
“But anyway, before we go back inside…” Kirby striked a pose. “Who wants lunch?”
“Lunch?” asked Dana. “It’s still morning.”
“Oh, then not lunch…” Kirby tried to think of something. “A morning snack! Yeah! Whatever you want to call it!”
“I want a chocolate pie!” Valoo shouted, and ran towards Kirby.
“Chocolate pie sounds good!” Kirby could taste one in his mind. “Alright, I gathered some, let me—”
As Kirby went behind the house, however, he realized it was now empty. The giant pile of food he had gathered for everyone was just completely gone.
“WHAT?!” Kirby couldn’t help but shout. “Where did it all go?!”
While Kirby continued panicking, various kirbies went to see what was going on. Anny was one of them, and approached him. As she did so, she noticed something on the ground, where the food used to be.
“Huh… Kirby?” she called his attention.
“Uh?” Kirby looked at her, in confusion.
“There is… something on the ground here. A paper?”
Kirby then realized that, yes, there was a paper left behind. He ran to grab it, and noticed there was something written on it.
“It is a note… OH!” Kirby recognized the handwriting immediately.
Dear Kirby,
Forgive me for taking such actions, but this was the quickest way to grab your attention. Yes, I took all the food you gathered for this meeting, and it is now with me. I have a very simple condition for giving it back for you:
Guide the kirbies that are with you to the Halberd. That is all.
After you do so, come find me inside, and I will give it all back to you.
And don’t worry, the kirbies can also go back with you after they visit the Halberd and you get your food back, but I want them all to board it and stay there until we’re finished. If they don’t all do, I won’t give it back.
Don’t make haste,
Meta Knight
20 Times Kirby! 