They all awoke that afternoon. Meta Knight passed out some bread he had brought from the castle, and after a quick breakfast/lunch, they all got back to work.

The rest of Cookie Country went by fairly quickly. The boss was a Poppy Bros. Senior with a chef's hat that threw cookies at them. It buried them all in the crispy pastries, except Meta Knight, who deftly evaded the attacks with his typical skill. "Give me your cookies! I fear them not!" he had shouted at it bravely, jumping up and slicing through it with Galaxia.

"Finally," Sakura sighed after he had defeated it, she had clambered out of the mountain of sugar cookies and shortbread, and had helped the smaller half of their party out as well. "Something cookie-related. I was beginning to think Cookie Country was completely cookie-less."

Meta Knight chuckled as he picked up a small pouch that had been left behind when the monster had faded away. "Cappys named all of the places in Dreamland, and they do not tend to be very literal."

Laughing, she agreed, "I'll say." Noticing the pouch in his hand, she asked, "What's that?"

He opened it, then told her, "Cookies, it appears."

"Yummy, poyo!" Kirby exclaimed, running over and grabbing the pouch, the contents of which he quickly started inhaling.

Sakura snatched it away from him. "Those are Meta Knight's, Kirby. He won them, fair and square."

Kirby stuck his tongue out at her. "Meh, poyo." He waddled off and started dancing with Bandana Dee.

"What are you doing?" she asked, amused.

"Always do this after boss, poyo!" Kirby told her gleefully as he did a cartwheel. Bandana Dee slid by, doing a moonwalk. "Dance, Sakura, poyo! Dance!"

She rolled her eyes and giggled, "All right." Spreading her wings, she did a sort of air-ballet over the little two. "Come on, Sir Knight. Join us, it's fun."

He watched them with amused green eyes, but shook his head. "No, you three seem to have the victory dancing taken care of."

"Stick-in-the-mud, poyo," Kirby rolled his eyes and finished off his part by holding his hand above his head. "Tada, poyo!" Bandana's finale was a headstand, and Sakura did a mid-air pirouette.

"That was fun," she admitted, landing on the ground and letting her feathery cherry-blossom-colored angel-wings return to being a cape.

Meta Knight shrugged, his attention elsewhere. "That is strange," he muttered to himself.

"What?" she asked, walking over.

"Before Kirby began to inhale them, there appeared to be four cookies. There are still four cookies visible in the pouch."

"Huh. Try dumping them out," she suggested.

He did so, and they quickly had a rather large pile of cookies at their feet, but the bag still didn't run out.

"Well, Sir Knight, you seem to have found a lifetime supply of cookies," she laughed.

Bandana Dee and Kirby eagerly ran over. Giving his buddy a sideways glance, Kirby announced, "Betcha Kirby eat more, poyo."

Bandana Dee shook his head in almost-offended disagreement, and the two quickly started devouring the pile. Sakura sighed and shook her head. "You two are bottomless pits."

"Yep, poyo," Kirby agreed, grinning at her with a chocolate-chip covered face.

After a few minutes, Meta Knight declared, "We need to keep going."

"Where to now?" she asked.

"How about the land of Green Greens?" he suggested. "We have clearly not found our ultimate foe here." She nodded once in agreement.

The two little guys were not happy about being dragged away from their snack, but Meta Knight eventually let them have the pouch to keep them busy.

"They're going to make themselves sick," Sakura scolded.

Shaking his head as they flew, Meta Knight disagreed, "I do not think so. As you said earlier, their stomachs seem to have no end to their capacity."

She shrugged. It wasn't worth having a fight over, and besides, Meta Knight was always right.

Days passed. The monster was in none of the worlds they visited. Green Greens, Float Islands, Onion Ocean, Raisin Ruins, Castle Lololo. All of these places passed by without any real event. They'd clear out the local monster infestation, take on a mid-boss or two and a main boss, and end up nowhere closer to finding the Monstrous Lightning.

Every day, the skies grew darker and darker, and there was less and less clear time at night.

"He grows stronger," Meta Knight worried late one evening in Nutty Noon, as a huge storm came up, halting their progress. They found a hut to weather it out in, but the two little ones were really scared. Sakura was nervous too. The lightning was brighter than any she had seen before, the thunder louder than any she had ever heard. The strangest part was, there was no rain, so the land received no benefit from this unnatural rage. The wind pounded against the hut, but thankfully, they were safe inside.

Kirby whimpered and snuggled close to her on one side, Bandana on the other. "Scary, poyo."

"It's going to be all right," she reassured them. As the storm started to calm down some, she started to sing softly in the Waddle Dee language. The two little ones quickly fell asleep, still snuggled so close she could feel their heartbeats. She let her cape turn into wings, curling one protectively around both of her small friends as a sort of blanket.

"That song was very pretty. Can you sing it again, in our language?" Meta Knight asked, his eyes a concerned shade of blue in the corner, next to a small window. She knew he wasn't going to admit it, but obviously, he had found the song soothing as well.

"Sure," she said softly, then began again,

"All have been well-fed, Rest has been well-earned. Close your heavy eyes, and sleep my child. When the sun comes back, we will rise again, so close your heavy eyes, and sleep till then.

"I am glad to have served you, and you are glad to have served me. If we all served one another, what a wonderful land this could be," she yawned as she finished. "That's an approximate translation, anyway. It's soothing, but it still carries an important message for the Waddle Dee children."

"It was lovely. It sounded familiar, like something I have heard before, a very long time ago," he told her, his eyes on the weather outside.

"I don't know, I thought I had written it myself. I came up with it years ago when I worked in the nursery, to calm the little ones when they cried," she told him.

He turned to her, his eyes a curious deep green. "Waddle Dee can cry?"

Nodding, she replied, "Of course. It's just that only the other Waddle Dee can hear it. Trust me, it might not bother any other inhabitants of the castle, but I've spent many a sleepless night rocking some little one who had had a nightmare, or something."

Turning away again, he mused, "That sounds like something you would be good at. You are very good with Kirby and his friend."

"Thank you," she 'smiled,' even though she knew he couldn't see her, then yawned again. "I was the only girl, so I worked in the nursery a lot."

"I have wondered about that. If you are the only girl, where do Waddle Dee come from?" he inquired. "If that is not too personal of a query."

"Don't worry, it's not," she reassured him. "Once a year, we have the 'Birthday.' If it's been a good year, around three hundred Waddle Dee participate, more if it hasn't been so good. All of the oldest Waddle Dee just suddenly disappear, and in their place is two new children. The two new ones share none of the traits of the old, so the original individual is lost forever," she explained.

"That is terrible," he said, his eyes a sad dark blue.

She shook her head. "Actually, for a Waddle Dee, it's the best way to go. 'There is no greater way to serve a friend, than to lay down one's life,'" she quoted from who-knows-where. "We haven't been having that good of years lately, I probably would've been one of the ones to go this past spring."

"Well then, I am even more glad that you received your powers when you did. It is good to have someone who matches me in skill. Life was very dull before," he shook his head sadly. "It would be a much darker world if you had not become what you are, Sakura."

She 'smiled' gratefully, then continued, "I always kind of dreaded the day when I'd be one of the ones leaving during the 'Birthday,' but it's easier when you remember that someone did that so there'd be a you. And like I said, most of us consider it an honor. It's just part of our life cycle. Besides, there's not that much individuality among the Waddle Dee. One leaves, two come, it hardly feels different."

He nodded, but disagreed, "Even so, I cannot imagine how they would be able to do that without any regret or fear. It would take a lot of courage, every bit as much as I myself possess."

"Like I said way back when we met, Waddle Dee are very brave, strong creatures. Others just don't realize that, because they don't really know much about us or our customs," Sakura murmured sleepily.

"There is one thing I do not understand. If you do not support the Waddle Dee being forced into slavery, why does your song speak of serving?" he pondered out loud to his friend.

"True, I don't support slavery, or the way the king treats us. But if everyone did serve one another, just with little things even, think how much better the world really would be. If people just did things like held the door for one another, helped someone carry a heavy load, listened when someone needed a sympathetic ear. That's something the Waddle Dee have gotten right that no one else seems to be able to. If a Waddle Dee sees someone, anyone, who requires assistance, they jump right in, without wasting half a thought on personal gain," she finished, then closed her eyes and drifted off, from one Dreamland into another.

He watched his three sleeping companions for awhile, then turned back to the window. Speaking to himself almost silently, he pondered aloud, "'There is no greater way to serve a friend, than to lay down one's life.' That sounds a lot like the Star Warrior saying, 'Greater love has no one than this, than someone who lays down his life for his friends,' only using 'serve' instead of 'love.' Interesting."

He then realized something. Whenever Sakura helped anyone back at the castle, by doing things like fetching Sword a candle when he was studying at night in the library, or giving a Waddle Dee a basket of pastries she had made to share with the others, she always told them, "I have served you." But, whenever she did anything for him, Kirby, or Bandana Dee, she always finished with, "I am glad to have served you," like in the lullaby she had sang earlier.

"I am glad to have served you," he whispered to himself. "Is that the Waddle Dee way of saying 'I love you?'" A warm smile spread across his face under his mask as he unraveled yet another mystery of the Waddle Dee and looked over at his friend fondly. "The Waddle Dee really are not just the simple creatures we have long assumed them to be, and Sakura is definite proof of that."

Over against the opposite wall, Kirby yawned and blinked open his eyes. Looking over at Meta Knight, he questioned, "Want Kirby take turn, poyo? Meta Knight rest, poyo?"

Meta Knight shook his head kindly. "You need your rest more than I need mine, my young friend. Besides, the three of you look comfortable."

Kirby grinned sleepily and nodded, then quickly zonked out again. Bandana stretched in his sleep, and Sakura sighed, deep in some hopefully-pleasant dream.

On every quest before, Meta Knight had felt all alone whenever he took watch at night while the others slept. But here, now, it did not seem like that at all. Now, even as one of the worst foes Dreamland had ever faced raged outside, he felt happy, and at peace.

A warm smile still on his face, he wrapped his cloak around himself to guard against the chill in the air. He then began to quietly sing Sakura's song to himself, his contently-glowing blue eyes the only light in the room between the many, many lightning strikes.