//------------------------------// // Halberd down! // Story: Invasion from Dreamland // by JeckParadox //------------------------------// "Captain Vul... are we ready?" "Yes sir Metaknight! We are a-ok and ready to launch!" "Good... soon, we will end Dreamland's lazy lifestyle, under the rule of the iron masked Halberd!" Metaknight brought his blue cape closer to him as he looked out over the distance. "Halberd... LAUNCH!" A thousand cheers marked the lifting off of the massive airship. "Straight ahead, Captain we-" "What are you doing Metaknight?!" Metaknight sighed and put a hand to his forehead. "Darn it Dedede... what does it look like!? I'm conquering Dreamland for it's own good." "But I'm the King!" "I gave you a list of things the King was responsible for, but seeing as you haven't marked a single thing off it, I'll have to take the ruling of Pop Star into my own hands." Dedede rolled his eyes, before pulling his giant Hammer out from behind him. "Oh? And what are you going to do if Kirby shows up again?" Metaknight narrowed his eyes and pulled the cloak closer. "I'm going to defeat him honorably in a duel!" "Both of us have been in that one-way street before." "Quiet! I am going to prove myself the greatest Knight in existence! And that includes being greater than Kirby!" Dedede raised an eyebrow. "I thought you brought Galacta Knight back to life a while ago and fought him..." "...I needed help from Swordknight to finish him off... I'm still too weak... so..." "So what?" "I let him go into space, I'll find him again someday, after I've beaten Kirby once and for all!" King Dedede rolled his eyes. "Bandana, go get me something to eat. I want to stay and watch Kirby beat up Metaknight." "Yessir King Dedede sir!" The Waddle Dee said happily, turning around on one foot, but he fell as the entire ship tilted. "Sir Metaknight!" The bird creature at the wheel shouted. "We're sensing a dimensional disturbance!" "We're going to crash!" Sailor Dee shouted. Metaknight facepalmed and sighed. ☆☆☆ "Oh... oh dear, uh... Kabi, stop, please, if you wouldn't mind, I still need to feed the other animals too..." The pink puffball was thoroughly going through the cottage, inhaling every article of food he found. He came to a bird cage where a pink bird was eating some seed. The puffball opened his mouth and started inhaling, a whirlwind appeared around his growing mouth, dust, dirt, nails, and birdseed all flew into his mouth, but the cage became unhinged and came off the wall. The bird inside squawked furiously before the puffball swallowed it and the cage whole. "NO!" Fluttershy screamed, running up to the puffball and putting her hooves in it's mouth. "Keetie?! Keetie?! Spit him out right now!!" But the puffball's mouth was empty, and considering his mouth was the entire inside of his body, she could only wonder where the rest of the food was. The ball saw her expression and inflated, it's face contorted in effort. He spit out a cage with a traumatized bird in it. "Keetie!!" Fluttershy opened the cage and nuzzled the little pink bird. "Oh thank goodness..." she turned to the puffball, who was beginning to look scared. "What do you have to say for yourself, how dare you try to eat Keetie. I know you're hungry, but there's no more to eat here if you're going to try eating my animal friends, I'm afraid I must ask you to leave!" The puffball lowered it's eyes and shuffled slowly toward the door. "..poyo..." Fluttershy's eyes softened somewhat. "I'm sorry, but you can't eat my animal friends, and you already ate most of my storage... and I still need to feed my animals..." Kirby nodded and walked toward the door, opening it with his stub and sliding out. He sniffed the air with his nonexistence nose, and finding a sweet aroma he knew well, took to the air after it. He sucked in a deep breath and inflated. He wiggled his arms and became airborne. Fluttershy followed out the door and her eyes widened as the puffball floated slowly toward Sweet Apple Acres. She winced as a strong wind came by and watched as he began panicking, blown off toward the direction of Ponyville. Her eyes widened. "Wait... oh no! It's like the parasprites all over again!! I can't let it reach town!" She galloped after him. ☆☆☆ The Halberd was going down. Again. "Metaknight!! What's going on?" "King Dedede, please be patient, my men are doing the best they can." "Oh my gosh we are all going to die." A waddle dee with a blue bandana said, looking out the window. "And we're crashing onto solid ground." "What?! We were over Orange Ocean a minute ago!!" "I believe it has something to do with the dimensional disturbance a few seconds ago..." a bird creature in an admiral's uniform responded. "We aren't even on Pop Star any more, let alone Dreamland." "What?!" Dedede shouted. "Where's my Castle?! Where's my precious Castle." "SHUT UP." Metaknight shouted to everyone on the bridge. The blue puff gave a deep 'huff' before continuing. "Now then, the first order of business is saving the Halberd, it's our only way home. The only way you'll see your Castle again, Dedede." Dedede nodded. "What do you need me to do?" Metaknight turned toward Bandana Dee , "Take the wheel, me and Dedede need to get to the engine room. Try to restart it... if we crash..." "Yes?!" "...it was great knowing you." Metaknight bowed and dashed to the door. "What does that mean? What does that mean?!" Bandana shouted. Dedede hurried to the elevator and waited for them to descend down to the engine room. Crazed monsters paraded back and forth, panicking at the alarms. "Metaknight, what do we do!?" Cried one, who looked like a skull with a viking helmet. "Ax, calm down. Tell me, is something wrong with the reactor?" He brought his voice lower. "Did Kirby break in again?" "I don't know sir!! All the Wheelies started panicking, they're no longer powering the ship!" Metaknight nodded and followed Axknight down the hall to the massive generator. The single floating gem in the central conduit was working, transferring all the energy that passed through it... but there wasn't any energy. He saw the Wheelies, wheel-like monsters that could spin forever, panicking, bouncing in place as the ship crashed. Metaknight cleared his throat while flaring his wings and the monsters turned to him. "Ahem. Start spinning in the right direction, or we're going to crash." The Wheelies hesitated a few more seconds, but they started spinning again. Metaknight listened carefully to the hum of the engines below, satisfied that the ship had enough power he called the bridge. "Bandana, Captain Vul, we have the reactor working again, have we stabilized?" "We lost both wings, but we might be able to cushion the landing!" Vul shouted into the radio. "That will have to do." Metaknight said simply. "Prepare a lifeboat, we need to test the conditions in this dimension. Dedede, you're going down with the scouting party." "What? But..." "The sooner we learn more about this world, the sooner we can find a way out of it..." "...Alright, but only because I'm allowing it!" "..Of course... my er... 'king'..." Dedede nodded and marched toward the lifeboats. He turned to Axknight. "If the team has any problems at least they'll have someone as strong as Dedede with them to get them out of a jam." "Ah." ☆☆☆ "Look everypony! We caught a Shooting Star!!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "Dash!" Twilight whispered. "I want to study it in peace before announcing our discovery!" "Why? I mean look at it, it's not going anywhere." Applejack tied the star to a fencepost and frowned at Rainbow Dash. "Don' jinx it." "Whatever. Nopony's here anyway..." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "That's a good point... where is everypony?" "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, THE OMEGA PARASPRITE IS COMING!!" A stallion shrieked, leading a stamped past them. The five mares watched as the stampede shrank into the distance. "omega-" Twilight began. But then a familiar sound interrupted her thoughts. "Poyo!" Exclaimed the puffball, running towards them. It jumped forward and landed on the star. It glowed, but the Applejack jumped forward and grabbed the rope in her mouth before it could get away. The star pulled her as well, but Pinkie grabbed her tail before she took off, and Rainbow Dash did the same for Pinkie. She pumped her wings back managing to let out a groan. Rarity and Twilight flared their horns and pulled on the rope with magic, but they were being pulled along by the Shooting Star as well. The puffball turned around, confused as to why the star wasn't shooting forward, but seeing the chain of struggling ponies, smiled and let out a friendly "Poyo!" He jumped forward and walked over the rope, deactivating the star and letting all the ponies fall back to the ground in an exhausted pile. Fluttershy came along soon after that. "Oh! Oh dear.. what happened?" "Th-the star..." an exhausted Twilight managed. "Oh! You got it out, could I see?" Fluttershy flew up to it and put a hoof on it, causing it to glow again. Five shouts of "WAIT!" shocked Fluttershy off of it. "W-what's wrong?" "When Pinkie stood on that thing she shot around across the sky uncontrollably. "Rainbow Dash summarized. "Oh! Is she alright?" "I'm great! It was really fun, you should try it!" "So, Fluttershy what was that bit about an omega parasprite?" "Oh... um... Kabi was eating all the food he could find... he emptied the farmer's market already..." "Yum!" the puffball agreed. Applejack narrowed her eyes. "That thing better have not touched my stand or It'll find out why I've won all those blue ribbons in the rodeo..." The puffball stepped away from Applejack nervously and spied the rope. He opened his mouth and Fluttershy pushed Applejack away from it. He sucked in the rope, freeing the star, and swallowed it. All six mares' eyes widened as the puffball became a bright white, when the glow disappeared it was wearing a stetson hat and was carrying a whip. "Whip!" the puffball shouted cheerfully. Applejack pulled out another length of rope. "Is that a challenge... puffball?" "....Poyo." "Ah'll take that as a yes!" She threw the lasso forward, trying to rap it around the puffball. At that moment it inhaled, becoming twice as big. AJ caught him, but he let go of the air, escaping the rope and throwing a lasso of his own. Applejack dodged and began twirling her lasso again. 'kabi' ran forward, and whipped the rope to catch AJ's leg, but she jumped out of the way and caught the puffball's whip in a knot with her own rope. She yanked on it, sending the puffball under her. Less than twenty seconds later she managed to completely tie up the puffball. "And that's what ya get." She said with finality, spitting to her side. "ooh... don't hurt him.. he's just hungry..." Fluttershy said, picking up the tied-up puffball and cradling him in her hooves. "He just needs to be taught a little restraint.." "Poyo." 'kabi' agreed. Spike ran toward them as Fluttershy untied the puffball. "Twilight! Letter from the Princess!" "What?!" Twilight flew toward Spike and grabbed the scroll with her magic. Dear Twilight Sparkle, You have probably found the meteor shower last night to be unexpected, but Luna and I have recently found that it represents a grave threat. Apparently these 'shooting stars' are vehicles used by a race of savage warriors, and they have used the meteor shower to flood Equestria with strange, alien, monsters. As of the moment Luna and I aren't sure of how to handle the situation yet, but we are contacting the guard and mobilizing the army... just in case. Our source of information is a creature who was a former victim of these 'star warriors'. He said to look out for two in particular, one named Metaknight, and an even more dangerous one named 'Kirby'. I'd like for you and your friends to come to Canterlot with the Elements of Harmony, so that we can plan on what to do with this threat. Your teacher, Princess Celestia. Twilight read them the letter, when Rarity frowned. "...did she say that the most dangerous one was named 'Kirby'?" "Yes?" Rarity turned to the puffball. "What's your name again... darling?" "Kabi!" "Do you mean... 'kirby'?" "Poyo!" Kirby said with a happy nod. Twilight looked at the puffball and glanced at the rope. "Fluttershy... you might want to start tying him up again..." ☆☆☆ "Come!" Metaknight shouted to his legion of monsters. "...The breach has closed... and until we can figure out how to open it again... this is our new land... our new Dreamland." Dedede frowned. "Waddle Dees! Begin work immediately on constructing our new Castle near the Halberd, recruit as you go along. If anyone meets up with any locals, inform them of their new benevolent ruler King Dedede the great!" "Yessir!" came a cry of high-pitched voices. Metaknight stepped forward to stand next to Dedede. "All leads into possible replacements for the wings need to be reported to me! Metaknights, we will fly again!" "Yes Metaknight sir!!" came a stream of replies. "Go!" Shouted the blue puff, his cape spreading into huge bat wings. "We shall take this land for the glory of the Star Warriors!" "You mean the Dedede kingdom... right?" "...sure."