In the interior of the Halberd, Kirby could be seen walking around its long corridors. Following him were three kirbies: Jake, Zan and Valoo. While Zan and Valoo were focused on following Kirby for that moment, Jake was looking around.
“So, where are we?” asked Jake.
“Well, I dunno where specifically, but we’re inside the Halberd…” answered Kirby. “And I know that if we keep moving forward, we will eventually reach the main cabin.”
“And you think Meta Knight is there?”
“Yup! And so is all our food…” Kirby drooled.
“Ah, right.”
“Kirby…” Zan started talking. “Do you think the others will be fine?”
“Huh?” Kirby looked at Zan, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you let them all explore the Halberd as they like, but… What if they get lost? What if anything attacks them?”
Kirby chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry! If they get lost, the whole Halberd is monitored by the main cabin, so we can find them once we get there. And if anything attacks them… Well,” Kirby put on a bold face, “they’re kirbies! We’re strong!”
Zan tilted his head. “…We are?”
“Yeah, of course!” Kirby said proudly. “Although, honestly, I doubt Meta Knight would have anything hostile around the Halberd if all he wants is to talk to me.”
“But then… Why did he ask us all to board it?” asked Jake.
Kirby took a brief pause. “…Well…”
Kirby honestly had no idea. But this wasn’t new: in the past, Meta Knight had made various odd requests that turned out to be important, even though Kirby didn’t understand them all at first.
“No idea…” Kirby continued, “…but we can trust him! Whatever he’s planning, I’m sure it’s for something good.”
“…If you say so…” Zan said, unsure.
Kirby pointed at an elevator. “Okay, now we all have to get in and go up. Let’s go!”
And so, Kirby and the other three entered the elevator, one by one. Kirby then pressed a few buttons inside, it closed, and started going up.
Jake looked around for a bit, and then asked Kirby, “So… Will this elevator lead us straight to the main cabin?”
“Not quite!” answered Kirby. “It is going to lead us to another room, then—”
Ding!
“Oh, we arrived!”
Indeed, the elevator had stopped, and its door opened. The four left it, and found themselves in a large room.
Kirby started walking, saying, “Okay, so here is the room I was talking about!” He pointed towards the end of the room. “On the other side of it, there’s another elevator, and that one that leads us to the main cabin.”
“I see,” said Jake. “I wouldn’t expect it to be that easy to reach the main cabin.”
“Yeah, it is not—”
“HALT!”
The four kirbies were suddenly interrupted by a group shout: various knight-like soldiers were standing in their way.
“…What?” Kirby was in shock. “Meta-Knights?”
“Yes, us!” said one of the knights. “And you aren’t going any further!” The four got in a battle position.
Raven was walking forward. She was somewhere inside the Halberd as well, but not quite where Kirby and the others were. She was really concentrated, and would not stop monologuing.
“Yeah, I know I was really stressed today… But it has passed now. But Larry…” She closed her eyes. “He was so rude just now, and I’m honestly so fed up with him in general.” She opened her eyes, and put on an angry face. “I want to get revenge on him somehow. But I’m not the best at battles, you know… But what if I can find another way to give him a lesson? That would be nice.” Her expression came back to a neutral one, and she streched out her arms. “But yeah, walking inside this giant ship and speaking my mind has kinda calmed me down a bit. Maybe that will make me forget all this bad stuff for now… Don’t you think so, Dana?”
Raven waited for a reply, but none came. She was sure Dana had been behind her all the time, so she looked back, but failed to see her friend.
“Dana? Where are you?”
Raven turned around and ran back from where she came from, in hopes of finding Dana. That was in vain at first, until she managed to spot her: she was running in Raven’s direction.
“RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!” is what she was screaming. When she saw Raven, however, she stopped running, trying not to bump on her.
“Dana, what is going on?”
“I… I am… running away…”
“Running away?” Raven stopped for a moment to think. “From who? Oh, wait…” she had a guess, “From Larry and the others?”
“No… I…” Dana was desperate, so she went straight to the point, “Look, I just wanna pass.” She looked frightened.
“C’mon!” Raven said, in high spirits. “This time we can deal with them!”
Dana realized her friend hadn’t understood what was going on, so she explicitly said, “Raven, I’m not running away from Larry and the others! Really, just let me pass!”
“Wait,” Raven became confused, “then who are you running away from?”
Before Dana could answer, Raven heard a faint metallic sound. But it wasn’t any ordinary metallic sound: it specifically sounded like the footsteps of some kind of robot. Another followed, followed by another, and another. In between a constant interval, the same sound could be heard, getting slightly louder each time.
“AHHH!!! IT’S GETTING CLOSER!!!” screamed Dana, as she ran away, bumping into Raven, making her lose her balance and fall down.
“…Dana!” Raven said as she got up. When she looked forward, she got shocked: a giant lobster-like robot was in front of her, slowly stomping its legs as it made its way forward. She didn’t think twice, and turned around, running in Dana’s direction, as scared as her.
“AHHHHHHHHH!!!” Dana would not stop screaming as she ran. Raven was following her, running as well, but not screaming.
“What the heck is that thing?!” Raven thought, as she ran. “Who on Popstar would have a giant lobster robot like that?!”
The robot was way slower than the two kirbies, so it was already very far away from the two after they ran for about a minute. However, both Dana and Raven, after taking a turn, noticed that the corridor they were in ended in nothing less than a dead end.
“WHAT?!” screamed Dana, even louder.
“A dead end?!” Raven followed, also screaming.
The two stopped, and looked at each other in panic.
“What now?!” Dana asked, extremely nervous.
“Well, huh…” Raven started to think as fast as she could, but no ideas were coming to her. Only one. “Dana, attack it with your parasol!”
“My… My parasol?!”
“Yeah! Destroy that thing with it!”
“But… That is a ROBOT! Made of METAL! If I hit it with my parasol… It’s going to get destroyed… My sweetheart…”
Raven looked at her friend. Dana was panicking, sweating bullets, and now was looking at her parasol. Although she could not fully understand it, Raven knew that Dana’s parasol was really important to her, to the point where she cherished it almost like a living being. Putting herself in her friend’s place, she grabbed her paintbrush and a bucket full of red paint, and said, “Okay, no worries.” She filled the paintbrush with paint from the bucket, and pointed it at the robot, that was coming in their direction. “Let’s see what I can do.”
Raven ran towards the robot and twirled her paintbrush a couple times, making paint splatter all over it. She repeated the twirls until she ran out of paint. The robot got all covered in red paint, but it didn’t react to her attacks at all: it was still moving.
“Eh…” Raven was surprised. She knew her paint attacks weren’t all that powerful, but she expected the robot to at least slow down or something, but nothing like that happened. The robot was still moving like it was before her attack, as if nothing had happened.
“Raven! Its eyes!” Dana pointed directly at the robot’s eyes.
Raven looked towards where she was pointing and, in fact, saw something strange. It seemed like she had directly attacked both eyes with strong paint shots, causing both to crack. “Hmm, did I at least blind it?” she said out loud.
“Looks like it… But why is it still moving?”
“Good question…”
The two looked at the lobster robot, as it continued to slowly approach them. Dana felt hopeless, as she didn’t want to attack it with her parasol, nor did she believe that would do any good to begin with, so she hid behind it, in hopes of being safer. Raven also felt hopeless, as she had tried to attack the robot, but had little success. Without talking to each other, the two seemed to have agreed that they were defeated, and shouted together a last appeal:
“HELP!”
20 Times Kirby! 