Kirby's POV:

Grinning, Topaz asks, "Hey Kirby. Got any 4's?"

Shaking my head, I giggle, "Nope. Go fish."

It's late afternoon here at the shelter. When Geo announced that the move was just a drill and that everyone needed to relax, me and some of the other Star Warrior kids started playing cards. Bandana's watching me like Sakura told him to, but you can tell he wishes he didn't have to. It makes me feel kinda guilty, even though I've done nothing wrong. I guess I just feel bad that he's stuck here with me.

Suddenly, though, I get a bad feeling. "Bandana, why do you think Geo said the move was cancelled instead of Sakura? And why haven't we seen Sakura or Meta Knight all day? They were there when we fell asleep..."

Frowning, Bandana seems to start to wonder that himself. Grabbing the pad of paper we were using earlier to keep track of who won what, he snaps up the pen and scribbles down, "Yeah, that is kinda weird, isn't it? Where would they have gone?"

Closing my eyes, I think about it. I have a sneaking suspicion that if I go trying to find them, I'm gonna get stuck being a hero again. And I'm really enjoying just spending some time being a kid and playing... Grr. I know what the right thing to do is, but it's not what I want to do.

Finally, I throw my cards down and sigh, "I have to go, guys. Deal me out."

Giggling, the other kids attack my pile to see if I have any matches for their cards. Crossing my arms and pouting a bit, I lead Bandana to the room where Geo and the others were talking earlier. But now, it's empty.

Blizzard walks in suddenly. "Kirby? B-Dee? What are you doing in here?" You can tell by the face Bandana makes that he doesn't like that nickname at all.

Trying to sound grownup, I tell Blizzard, "We're wondering where Meta Knight and Sakura are, and why the move has suddenly been called off."

Looking concerned himself, he says, "Well, the rumor is that MK and Tenshi no Sakura are tied up at NYU. I don't know what's up with the 'move cancelled' thing, though. It makes no sense. And now Geo, Terra, and Solar are gone..."

"Solar's back?" I groan. I've never even met the guy, but if he can rope my sister into starting some sort of world-ending spell, he's a jerkapottamus and I don't like him. "Well, I have to go save my sister and Meta Knight, I guess..."

Shaking his head fiercely, Blizzard disagrees, "No way, man. You wouldn't stand a chance against the dudes there, number one, and number two, if you get hurt your sis is going to eat me alive."

Giving each other weird looks, me and Bandana roll our eyes at that suggestion. "Sakura doesn't even like eating monsters alive. Why in Dreamland would she eat you?"

Rolling his eyes, he mutters, "It's a figure of speech, kiddo. But trust me, if you got hurt, she'd go on the warpath."

Growing determined, I tell him, "Well, trust me, Blizzard, I've never 'stood a chance' against any of the badguys I've beaten before. I'm small, and out here I have no powers, but I'm gonna go try anyway." Walking over to the weapons on the wall, I think hard about which one to choose. I can't inhale any of them, so I'd wouldn't really be any good with any of them, but I finally choose a small sword, just for the sake of being like Sakura and Meta Knight. Let's just hope I've learned enough from watching them over the years to actually be able to use it for something.

I wait a second for Bandana to grab a spear, then go to lead him out of the shelter. "You're going to be seen," Blizzard groans, but I don't listen to him.

My sister and the Star Warrior I most look up to are in trouble, and I'm the Warrior of the Stars. It's my job to save the day.

Heroically, me and Bandana rush out of the shelter and find a box to hide under like Sakura said they do sometimes, then start walking to the nearest 'fast-train' station. Then, we both realize something: We have no idea how to get to NYU, or even where the nearest 'fast-train' station is.

"Um," I mutter, while Bandana frowns and kicks at the sidewalk. "We can't exactly bring someone else along with us, there's no more room in the box..."

Suddenly, someone picks up the box, flips it over, and closes it with us still in it. "Great," I mutter with a sigh.

"Shush," someone orders. "I know you're in there. I'm going to go get your sister and friend out of this, but I'm gonna need your help. I've already got a way to turn the security cameras off, and I'm sure that we'll provide enough of a distraction on our own, but I need you two to wait outside and be ready to fight if there's trouble. Got it?"

Crossing our arms, me and Bandana make annoyed faces. So much for taking care of all of the heroics ourselves. "Who are you, anyway?"

"It's me, Clerk," he answers quietly, probably not wanting to look like a weirdo to the rest of the Humans walking by. Even among Humans, I'm pretty sure talking to boxes is considered weird. "Now, shush."

Sighing, I agree, "Fine," and Bandana closes his eyes in mute acceptance.

Let's go try to help this guy out. (Not that we really have a choice...)

Sakura's POV:

Welp, this isn't exactly the way I had hoped this was going to go. This isn't at all the way I had hoped this was going to go, actually.

Sure, we were able to make it out of the building safely with Landia's help, Snake-Lady following right behind us, but then things got... complicated.

"Hiya, Sakura! Hiya, Meta Knight! Ooh, and Landia! Awesome!"

Groaning, I exclaimed, "Kirby? What the heck are you doing here?"

Grinning, he answered as he waved a small sword over his head, "We're here to help Clerk get you guys out!"

"We?" I moaned, then noticed that Bandana was also there. "Why couldn't you guys just stay at the shelter, where you'd be safe?"

Sagely, Meta pointed out, "They are heroes. They do not need to stay safe, but rather they need to learn how to keep themselves safe."

"We're not heroes out here," I muttered, but ordered the two Landia-quarters that weren't taken to grab the cream puffs.

Tag-teaming, me and Meta managed to land a few attacks on Snake-Lady. And that's where we are now.

"Look out!" I shout out as Meta almost gets bitten by Snake-Lady as he swoops past her. Luckily, she misses, but so did he. This is going nowhere... Oh, did I mention yet that she can fly? One of the benefits of working in a college's science department is that you can play around with the engineering majors' final project: an operational jet-pack. Yippee, am I right?

So, as you may have guessed, we're nowhere near NYU anymore. So, on the bright side, at least we're not stuck there. Instead, we're flying over the city and we're about to- "AUGH! Watch out for the Brooklyn Bridge! Don't get run over!"

"The what Bridge?" Kirby yelps as his dragon barely avoids a tour bus full of people staring at us as we zoom past each other.

Tons of horns start going off. Bandana just squeezes his eyes shut tighter and hides his face in the back of his dragon's head, hoping that it can maneuver through the traffic without his help.

"Humans sure do like to make things very... large," Meta Knight comments as his dragon flaps right over a shiny red Hummer with a couple of surfer-looking dudes staring up at us. (Don't even ask me what surfer dudes are doing in NYC. Trust me, I've spent a lot of time in this city, and I've learned that you just go with it, 'cause a lot of the Humans here make no sense...) "What is the point?"

Rolling my eyes, I laugh, "The bigger, the better, you know?" Thinking hard, I try to think of a place where we'd have the upper hand... "Guys! Try to get the dragons inside the subway tunnels! Just don't let them hit the third rail or anything like that!"

"The third what?" Kirby hollers, obviously so confused by what's going on. I don't blame him, I would be too. Actually, I had never understood the third rail until I dropped a bottle of Coca-Cola off of the top of a subway train once... The light show that happened behind us as we sped away was actually kinda pretty.

Trying to think of an example that he would understand, I finally say, "You know what happens when you use the Spark Ability near water?"

Shuddering, he replies, "Um, yeah?"

Grinning at him, I explain, "Well, that's what the third rail is like. It zaps things. It zaps them very well."

Within a few minutes, we're in the subway tunnels, where the dragons' taking turns breathing fire is our only light source in most places.

Sounding genuinely curious, Meta Knight wonders, "So what is your plan?"

"Um," I start sheepishly, then scream, "We avoid the train!!!!"

"WWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW," the train says as we just barely fit over it with the dragons.

Shivering, Bandana stuffs his face farther into poor Landia's head. Sounding relieved, Kirby declares, "All right, we avoided the train. Now what?"

"Um, we wing it?" I suggest with a innocent grin. "I never really had a plan, other than to try and find someplace where we would have an advantage."

Rolling his eyes, Meta Knight points out, "And what advantage do we have here? She does not need to see or hear, remember?"

Groaning, I realize that he's right. He's always right. "Okay, so what do you suggest we do? I haven't really done any fighting over the past couple of decades, other than dueling the other Other Dimensioners, so I'm kinda rusty..."

Maskpalming, he sighs in annoyance and then suggests, "Should we try to get her to hit the 'third rail?'"

Gasping, I say, "Meta, you're a genius. We zap her, we don't have to deal with her anymore! Wait... then she'd end up derailing a train, or something... If only there was a way to send her back to the Other Dimension. Grrg."

Zooming out at the next subway tunnel entrance, we keep flying in-between buildings and stuff while Snake-Lady keeps following us. At least she doesn't have a way to attack us from a distance, but problem is, the only way we have to attack from a distance is dragonfire, and 'baby' Landia doesn't seem to have the best aim.

As we keep flying, we whip past a building where a Comic-Con or something similar is going on. As I fly past a window, I see something that makes me pause. Was that who it looked like?... Nah. I'm seeing things.

*******************************************

Masahiro Sakurai's POV:

"And so that concludes this presentation. Please have a good day," I finish, then give a quick bow. Quickly, I gather up my laptop that I was using to do a PowerPoint slide-show about the next Smash Bros. game that's coming out next year, then hurry out of the room so that I can make it to my next presentation in time. But then, I could swear that I see something really odd out one of the windows of the skyscraper I'm in.

I thought I saw Kirby, Bandana Dee, Meta Knight, and Landia out of one of the windows. But I must be imagining things... Is this my subconscious haunting me for saying that I'm not going to work on the Kirby games anymore, but instead let someone else do them? I don't know.

But then, I see them again. And again. Finally, I stop by one of the windows and call someone over. "Do you see that?" I ask her in my fairly-good English.

Grinning, she agrees, "Yeah! They're really pulling out all the stops for this Con, huh?!? Look at how real those projections look!"

Frowning, I shake my head. Those definitely aren't projections, but it couldn't be... How on earth did they get out of the console? The console was stolen from our Kyoto headquarters years ago by someone who only left behind a cloth cherry blossom, and we still haven't found it, or them. And what the heck is that thing chasing them?!? And who's the puffball on the fourth dragon?...

"Please excuse me, but I must miss my next presentation. My sincere apologies," I call into the conference room with an apologetic bow, then rush to the nearest set of stairs. If they're out here, I have to help them. I designed them, after all. Well, most of them, anyway.

When I get out, I think I've lost them, but then they appear again out from behind another building. They seem to be alternating between chasing the lab coat-wearing person and the person chasing them. What on earth is going on? How can I get their attention?

Suddenly, the jet-pack thing that the person is using starts coughing and sputtering. Hm, it appears that she is out of fuel.

The four puffballs follow as she goes down in the Central Park area, and I hurry over there as fast as I can.

***********************************************************

Kirby's POV:

"But we can't be seen!" I squawk in terror as Sakura orders us to follow the crash-landing Snake-Lady.

Shaking her head, Sakura disagrees, "We have already been so very seen that at this point, it doesn't really matter. We have to get rid of her."

Nodding firmly, Meta Knight agrees, "I will fight her myself. I must avenge Joseph."

Thoroughly confused, I shout, "Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!? What does Knuckle Joe's dad have to do with any of this?!?"

Nodding once at Meta Knight, Sakura explains, "She's the one who turned him into a monster, under Nightmare's orders. This is Meta's battle, but we'll offer backup if he needs it."

After we land, Meta Knight rushes at her, sword drawn, but the battle only lasts a couple of minutes before someone rushes in shouting, "Tomare! Tomare!"

A thoroughly ticked (at the monster) Meta Knight ignores them completely, until they actually run over and pick him right up.

"Put me down! Let me go!" he shouts angrily, but the person holding him just starts laughing joyfully.

"You are real," he says in a thick accent that I think I recognize as an Ancient's accent. Turning to us, he goes on, "You are all real!"

Frowning, Sakura crosses her arms. "So I wasn't seeing things after all."

Looking between her and the new guy in confusion, I mutter, "Wait. What's going on here? Do you know this guy?"

Putting down Meta Knight, (who immediately goes back to fighting the monster,) he introduces himself with a bow. "Sorry to be a bother, but I am Masahiro Sakurai. This probably sounds strange, but I created you."

Growing even more confused, I exclaim, "Whaaaaaaaaat?!?"

Smiling a bit, Sakura explains, "You've heard of him before, mostly from Meta Knight. Over the years, his name has changed in our world to something that sounds like his name, but isn't quite the same. You know him as the Master-Hero Sakurai, author of many of the Dreamland code books."

"Hai," this guy agrees, giving us all an excited bow. "I did almost all of the programming for the Dreamland point. But how are you all out here?"

Nodding once, Sakura answers him, "It's a long, complicated story. Now, you can go back to whatever you were doing, we've got things covered here..."

Just then, Meta Knight yelps, making us all turn and look back at the battle. Grabbing at his arm, he grunts as he glares at the monster, which his sword seems to have little effect on.

"The scales block the swords," Sakura murmurs in worry, then rushes over to him. "She bit you, didn't she? Oh, no..."

Meta Knight nods once, but refuses to quit. "I must defeat her. Joseph must be avenged."

Shaking her head, Sakura reminds him, "What was it you were saying about how you can't hate anything too much? She'll get what's coming to her sooner or later. You need help." You can tell by the expression on her face, though, that she has no idea how to treat a monster-snakebite without magic.

Snake-Lady, of course, doesn't acknowledge that there's a time-out. Leaping at the two of them, she almost gets them, but I run in just in time to block her.

Mr. Sakurai suddenly shouts out, "You don't have to worry about being unethical or violent by attacking her. She's from the console, even out here she will only dissolve into static like any other monster."

Looking confused, Sakura disagrees, "But there's no magic!"

Nodding once, he assures her, "Trust me, I know what I'm saying."

Tense, Sakura looks at me, at Sakurai, and then at Meta Knight, who's now moaning. The poison is gonna start making him hallucinate or something really soon. Scared, I finally decide to attack back instead of just avoiding her, but that's when someone comes in to interrupt.

"What in da name of Mikey is going on heh?" some police officer with a really nasally accent breaks through the totally-lost crowd that's been collecting around us and demands.

Terrified, Sakura doesn't say anything, just shakes her head. Scared ourselves, me and Bandana join her, and Landia makes a sort of protective circle around the four of us.

We're just four puffballs (one injured) and four dragons surrounded by a bunch of freaked-out people, an angry police officer, and an evil monster. What can we do now?

"We're doomed," Sakura whispers, trying to hold Meta Knight up as he starts to become unable to hold himself up. "What do we do?"

"My apologies," Sakruai says just then, giving a bow, then starts speaking like a salesman. "Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the next generation of video gaming: 3-D Holographs! They look real, they even feel real, but in reality these are all just extremely-high-tech projections. You see before you beloved video game characters such as Meta Knight, Kirby, Bandana Dee, and Landia the dragon, and this fourth one is the player character, which is controlled by me!" He pulls a box out of his pocket that I'm pretty sure is actually just a wallet, but he starts waving it around excitedly. "This woman, however," he goes on, pointing at Snake-Lady, "is not supposed to be involved in this demonstration, but she is the perfect example of one of the bugs in the programming: right now, the holographs can be used to attack real people, but I was only doing so out of self-defense. She is disturbing the peace. Officer, please arrest her."

All of the people start applauding, and he moves the wallet around while looking at Sakura, who gets the idea and gently sets Meta Knight down, then starts jumping around, waving at people, and blowing kisses, which makes everyone laugh. She then gives a bow, and he beckons the rest of us to follow him while the officer arrests the Snake-Lady. Sakura snickers a little bit, probably thinking that the monster's gonna end up getting a taste of her own medicine when they take her in for study.

We all quickly grow concerned though, because Meta Knight is doing worse and worse. Concerned, Sakurai picks him up and hurriedly leads us to a yellow car.

*************************************************

Sakura's POV:

Growing a bit irritated, I snap, "What are you thinking? We can't get in a taxi!"

Looking down at me, Sakurai pleads, "Please, trust me. Meta Naito-kyou needs help."

Hesitantly, I nod in agreement. Sakurai sits down in the front of the car, but first sets Meta Knight down in the back to ride with us. He moans again, and I curl up next to him and take his paw in mine. "It's gonna be all right, Meta. We're going to get you some help, uh, somewhere."

The cabbie starts asking questions, (I don't blame him, there are three Star Warriors and a Waddle Dee in his backseat and four dragons in his trunk,) but Sakurai just hands him a fifty, which ends any interrogations. After a minute, Sakurai slides the glass separator open and asks me, "Sorry to be so forward, but who are you, ma'am?"

Smiling a little, I reply, "I'm just a random program the console made on its own. My name is Sakura Dee."

Nodding, he inquires, "So how do you know these three?"

Eagerly, Kirby answers for me, "She's my sister! And Bandana's adopted sister! And Meta Knight's girlfriend!"

Blushing, I nod a bit, then look up at Sakurai shyly. I'm not sure how he'll react to a Random being so involved with his main characters. "Yeah. That's all true."

Grinning, he laughs, "That is wonderful. The console wasn't a failure after all. We wanted it to be able to generate characters of its own, but our projections showed that it would only be able to make characters similar to or exactly like the ones we had provided. But if it can come up with a completely original character whose life is so entwined with the provided characters, then it really has gone above and beyond what we ever expected it to do."

Smiling a bit, I nod at him thankfully, but I still feel kinda weird. All of these other guys were made up by this guy, but I'm just a Random. He even just said it himself: I'm a successful experiment. I'm not real to him like the other three (probably) are.

Meta groans again, now completely unconscious. I'm really worried about him. He's made it through a war, but at least he had magic on his side then. Out here, the odds are definitely not in his favor. Sadly, I press his paw to my cheek and whisper again, "You're going to be all right, sweetheart. I promise."

Sakurai takes us to a hospital, where he somehow convinces some of the staff to help us out. One of the nurses recognizes Kirby and Bandana, so after she asks, we agree to go visit the kids stuck here with various health problems, like cancer or even something as 'simple' as bronchitis. Like I've said before, I love kids, even Human kids, so I enjoy myself, but we're all still really worried about Meta. I'm not sure if I trust the Humans to help him, but I don't really have any better options, now do I?

It grows late, and Kirby and Bandana fall asleep curled up with a little boy who has leukemia that loves Nintendo games. Being here, seeing all these kids suffering... It really makes me wish that I had my Light. Think of how much I could help, how many lives could be made so much better, or even saved... But all I can do is watch with sorrow.

I'm not a hero here.

One of the nurses comes and talks to me for awhile. She's actually really nice, and I enjoy our chat. It really makes me feel super guilty, though. I've always avoided people, but now all of these Humans are actually helping us. I really shouldn't have hated them all these years. Well, now I'm turning over a new leaf. Humans have their problems like everyone else, and maybe I was a little bit right when I said that they're too quick to try to break things they find scary. But not all of them are like that, and besides, I know some Other Dimensioners who are a bit too quick to use violence as a solution too...

Finally, Meta Knight is let out with orders to not to do anything strenuous for a few days. They say that it's lucky he made it out all right, (especially seeing as how they've never treated a Star Warrior before,) but I don't believe in luck. I'm so overjoyed to see him all right again that I rush over and kiss him on top of his head, right in front of everybody. Surprised at first, he then holds me close and tells me he loves me too.

After we're let out of the hospital later that night, we get another cab, which this time takes us close to where the shelter is. (Maybe I'm growing to trust Humans, but I'm still not gonna let all of them know where we actually are.) Sakurai comes with us, and we enter the shelter to find Blizzard busy reaming out Clerk, who has come back in defeat. However, everyone cheers when they see me and Meta Knight alive, but then grow scared when they see our Human companion. I don't blame them, I'm still made a little bit nervous by his presence too.

But everyone warms up to him quickly after I tell them that he's safe, the kids especially. He's excited to meet Link, and Ash, too, who apparently arrived today. He's sans Pikachu, which he's pretty worried about. I have to admit, I am too. A little bit, anyway.

Clerk apologizes to me profusely, and I forgive him. I know firsthand how 'persuasive' Solar can be, although I still wish Clerk had just talked to me about his fears rather than going and getting Solar to help him. Things aren't perfect between us now, but at least they're better than they were.

Blizzard tells me that Byte emailed us from the future with instructions on how to send ourselves forward in time, and I freak out in excitement, hugging anyone I can get my paws on. I even hug Sakurai's leg in my excitement. Finally, finally, we'll have a way to go home.

But then I remember that Geo, Solar, and Terra are on their way to Washington state with Mr. Tedium, and I tell Sakurai so fearfully. He tells me to relax and that he'll get us on the next flight to Seattle. ('Us' being him, me, Meta, Kirby, and Bandana.) I nod and get ready to go. Maybe we can trust Sakurai, and I'm way more willing to trust Humans now than I was when I woke up this morning, but I'm still having us ride in the cargo hold. Sakurai unwillingly agrees.

Before I go, I command Blizzard to start sending everyone forward in time, except for himself. He agrees and starts doing so. I can't help myself, I have to smirk a bit when I think of some poor Human lady suddenly finding herself with over a hundred houseguests. Sakurai says he wants to come along, and we agree. After all, if they how to get us forward, they'll also know how to get him back, right?

So now, here the four of us are, in the cargo hold of a plane on the way to Seattle, Washington. It shouldn't take us too long to get NoA from there.

All righty, Solar. Now it's time to deal with you.

Sorry, but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to this a little bit. Seeing the astonished look on his face when we show up is gonna be awesome.