Prologue

Meta Knight knew that he should probably be enjoying himself while he still could, but the dominating part of his brain wouldn't let it happen. He was no longer used to the idea of true peace, and the current spell of quiet made him uneasy, like the calm before a storm.

It was this unrest that put him outside on a balcony of Castle Dedede under the false pretense of getting some air. In truth, the warrior had been coming out to this balcony for days to watch the night sky, searching...

Waiting...

"There you are!"

He was brought out of his thoughts by a cheerful, boyish voice and turned to see Kirby jogging toward him with a smile on his face. The kid had grown a lot in the time that Meta Knight had known him; it had reached the point where Kirby was almost fully mature and could speak in full sentences with no impediment even if he still hadn't changed very much physically. He had, however, gotten somewhat bigger and was easily larger than the midget mentor before him. Right now, he was wearing a fighter's headband that showed he had been with Knuckle Joe and apparently making a conscious effort to not squeak while he walked.

When he reached Meta Knight, Kirby's smile faded a little as he looked to the stars the older warrior had just been gazing at.

"Still looking for That?" he asked, saying 'that' as though it were a title of some kind.

"It's always out there, Kirby," Meta Knight responded, turning back to face the open space above them. "And It's going to come back. It's a constant threat as long as Dark Matter fills the Universe."

Kirby nodded. "Like Nightmare?" he asked.

"Yes, but I really don't think we have to worry about Him for a while. After all, He must have been desperate to attack a Dream Spring directly, not to mention weak to blow up the moon within an hour."

Kirby nodded again, before turning back to the knight. "For a place like Dream Land, it seems like we have to worry about demonic takeovers a lot."

Meta Knight smirked under his mask and answered, "Kirby, you've lived here for almost all of your life, and you're just now catching on to that? As a land of dreams, yes, everything's ungodly."

Kirby thought about this before asking again, "I'm not from here, am I?"

The knight mulled this over before deciding it was safe to answer, "No. Neither of us is. By now, hardly anyone here is."

"Well, how did I get here? Do you know?"

Meta Knight stiffened. He'd been hoping he would be able to avoid this, but something in his brain seemed to have always known that it would have to happen eventually. With this in mind, he sighed and turned to the kid, who waited with bated breath.

"Not really," he said finally, "but I'll tell you what I do know."

[A/N: Hello, everyone! Just to let you know, this is my first fan fiction. To be published. I figured Kirby was as good a franchise as any to start with, nice and simple. This will probably be a threeshot, so I'll see you at the end. In the meantime, drop me a review!]

Chapter 1: The Crash

Meta Knight glared, deadpan, at the message he'd just received before crumpling it nonchalantly and half-heartedly tossing it over his shoulder. "Well," he decided, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "nice to know that I was recovering for nothing."

In the back of his mind, however, he knew he really shouldn't be upset. After all, the war was over and the galaxy was no longer in danger. Plus, he happened to be in a designated safe haven that he'd gotten used to. Sure, things were a little weird, but hey, the place was actually called Dream Land, and, well, dreams tended to be a little weird.

Still, he'd been sent here to recover from an injury he'd gotten months ago, and he had been promised that he would be back in the field as soon as his recovery was complete. Through the miraculous power of the Dream Spring, it was as though he'd never been injured – only for his army to not need his services anymore anyway. That was a little crappy of them, he thought.

But no matter – with the Second Galaxy War at an end, he and his squadron now had the right to relax, and there was really no better place to do it than Pop Star. After all, Meta Knight had nowhere better to go. Heck, he wasn't even sure if his home planet even existed anymore. It didn't have a Dream Spring like the planets in this solar system did. Not to his knowledge, anyway.

His disdainful tone had brought Sword Knight over. "Sorry, Sir?" he requested.

"We're done," the older knight answered. "The war is over. We can just stay here for the rest of our lives."

Sword looked surprised, then ecstatic, and replied, "Awesome! We can build new lives here! Hey," he said, turning to the rest of the team, "everyone, no more fighting! Yeah!"

This news was met with whoops of mild cheer. Everybody was rather too tired to respond properly. Javelin Knight was even asleep. Still, their commanding officer couldn't help but smile.

"Yeah. I'm..." Meta Knight said slowly, "gonna go outside."

Frankly, Meta Knight had been surprised that King Dedede had let him and his squadron reside in the king's castle, but he was thankful nonetheless. Perhaps the king simply didn't want any trouble where a Galaxy Soldier was concerned, or maybe, as the case was, he had been hoping for a military advantage to come from it should the war end early or the knight simply quit. The knight noted that becoming a leading personal member of the king's army would quickly put him and the others in a position of employment security and hadn't hesitated to ask for the job, a request to which the king happily obliged.

With that out of the way, he strolled over to a small brook on the edge of Whispy's Woods and sat. In his time here, Meta Knight felt drawn to this brook, somehow. He almost felt like it had a connection to the Dream Spring in some way. Plus, he liked the Woods in a sense. In the times when he'd caught their conversation, he'd recently felt bold enough to join in and had made pleasant acquaintances with the trees, even if they were somewhat haughty. He would sit at the brook, leaning against one of the few trees who had decided that it didn't really mind being used as a chair back, and just listen. When the day was especially hot, he would almost think he heard the brook speaking just before falling asleep. This was usually the time when Sword Knight and Blade Knight would come find him there and ask for him back at the castle. Indeed, shortly after drifting off today, he heard their voices calling for him.

"Hey, Sir," Blade said, striding up with Sword close behind. "So the war's done, but Sword and I and the rest of the Meta-Knights are still doing combat practice just in case we still need to do something here."

Meta Knight blinked drowsily, still not fully awake, as he processed this information. Finally, he sat up and stretched.

"Okay," he half-yawned, "I'll come supervise you. Good thinking, by the way. One never can be too careful, after all."

After following the two of them back, however, the practice proved just how right he was by way of Mace Knight somehow managing to seriously damage Axe Knight's headgear within ten minutes, thus drawing the training session to an early close. That night, with nothing better to do, the squadron leader headed out to his bedroom balcony to do some stargazing.

The stars gave Meta Knight a sense of familiarity, having learned some of the constellations on his home planet and being surprised to find that Pop Star saw some of them from almost the exact same angles. There was the Archer, the Rider and Mount, and – one of his favorites – the Lancer. The Lancer was actually an age-old nebula that seemed to take the appearance of a winged, masked warrior wielding a spear and shield – though a few stars were visible in it.

The stars themselves, though, were what really urged Meta Knight to peer toward them tonight. Sometimes he just couldn't help but watch and wonder how other planets were doing in their solar systems, especially now with Nightmare gone. And sometimes he would watch for any spacecraft that would come to take him and his squadron back to the battlefield, a speck of light that not only moved among its immobile cohabitants, but also seemed to grow larger as it sped toward the small patch of stardust that held Dream Land, wasting no time in locating its quarry, searching...

Waiting...

...!

Meta Knight lifted his head up and stared intently at the patch of sky where he'd seen it – where he saw it still. Very clearly, he saw a speck of light that seemed to grow larger, a tail trailing behind it, as it moved about the dark blue expanse above. Had his imagination and concern taken its toll? No, it was still there, still heading for Pop Star fast.

The knight blinked several times, telling himself that it was probably nothing to worry about. A meteor, perhaps; yes, that must be it. He'd been worked up over the war for too long and was worrying about a simple meteor that would probably fry before impact and have no lasting effect.

But the minutes ticked on, and he knew that a meteor would have certainly disintegrated by now. It didn't help that the thing was growing larger unnervingly rapidly and was clearly headed directly for Dream Land.

Frantic, Meta Knight ran off the balcony, through his bedroom, and into the castle halls, looking and calling for Sword, Blade – anyone in his squadron. He had to warn somebody, and they were the first people he trusted. He didn't really find them as much as run into them, nearly bowling Sword over and startling Blade so that she yelped and fell backwards. He quickly got up from Sword Knight and looked around to see where they were. Near the training grounds. That was good, that was near his room.

"Dear Lord, Sir, what's wrong?" Sword demanded as he pushed himself off the ground and proceeded to help Blade pull herself up. "What's gotten into you?"

"There's a spacecraft...something...outside...coming down fast...gonna crash...," their leader explained as he tried to catch his breath and gestured toward his bedroom, to the balcony where he'd seen it.

Sword blinked and adopted what Meta Knight guessed was supposed to be a sympathetic look – it was hard to tell with the helmet. "Sir, the war was exhausting for everyone. But now we're done. You don't have to worry about this."

A ripple of anger bubbled under Meta Knight's confusion and panic. What, did his own minions think he was senile? "But I saw it! It's going way too fast and it's gonna crash we don't – Woah!"

A sudden, violent tremor cut him off as he fell, face first, onto the floor accompanied by a deafening Boom! When he lifted his face up, he saw that Sword and Blade had been able to steady themselves against the wall, looking stunned.

Meta Knight lifted himself up as quickly as he could and ran back to his bedroom, Sword and Blade hot on his heels. He saw other castle residents out in the halls, confused and wondering what in the world was going on, but he ignored them. He threw his bedroom door open and sprinted back onto his balcony.

He didn't look at the sky for answers, though.

To his right he saw very clearly a billowing cloud of smoke rising into the air, dense enough to block out the stars. A small ember of orange, fiery light glowed at its base. Worse still, he noticed as his minions caught up to him, the ember laid under a large, uneven area from which angry, confused voices could be heard shouting indistinctly as the mass holding the ember swayed restlessly.

Whatever it was had crashed into Whispy's Woods.