Meta Knight's POV:

As a warrior, you learn to enter a certain mindset immediately before battle. You clear your head of all thoughts, worries, and distractions beyond keeping yourself and your allies alive while simultaneously dealing as much harm as possible to the enemy. You shove any fear you feel off to the side, leaving only enough to keep you alert, aware, and intelligent. You focus on letting your sword become a part of you, an extension of yourself, not just a sharp stick you hold in your hand, and you direct your adrenaline to making you run faster, strike harder, react quicker, and sense sharper.

As someone who was once a warrior like this, but who has since allowed some of their stoic demeanor to fall and permitted themselves to have friends and loved ones instead of just allies, you still try to do all this, but find it hard to get rid of any worries you have about your companions.

Unfortunately, I do believe that I have become one of the latter class of soldiers. While it certainly is not unfortunate that I have allowed others to become closer to me than I would have even just a handful of years ago, it doesn't help anything that I can't help but wonder what in Dreamland I'm going to do with myself if any one of my allies here falls.

Kirby is one of my most trusted allies, Dreamland's greatest hero, and for quite awhile, I thought he was the only other one of my kind who still drew breath. Even now that I know better, he is still one of the closest things to a dear friend I have, especially as he has aged and grown wiser (and easier to understand, speech-wise.)

Bandana Dee has become such an integral part of the team over the past few years that I simply can't imagine any of us attempting to go on a quest without him. It seems like more recently, especially, he follows Kirby around on all of his adventures, assisting from a distance, not unlike what I did sometimes when Kirby first started visiting Dreamland. Bandana Dee started out as a lackey of the king's when Dedede saw that I had 'stolen' one of his more self-aware Waddle Dees and added him to my crew (i.e., Sailor Dee). The king decided he also wanted a particular Waddle Dee servant who was somehow more important than the others, and since Bandana was one of the few Waddle Dees who exhibited signs of individualism and mischief, he was 'given' the job and thereafter served as a sort of 'captain of the guard' and personal servant to the king for several years, even though he was just a small child, until he grew tired of it and essentially just abandoned the king to go his own way after we defeated Magolor a few years ago, much to Dedede's annoyance. Point being, Bandana has a mind much sharper and more focused than the average Waddle Dee's, and is certainly always a great asset to have on one's side- not to mention that while he can be grumpy, he tends to have a healthy dose of Waddle Dee optimism, and is always ready to help out anyone he finds in need, even if he can't expect any sort of a reward in return for his services.

Shadow Kirby... He's so young, just a small child. He can't read yet, he barely knows how to fly a Warp Star, he still often uses his vocal tic, even if he has learned more recently not to use it as much, and he looks at the world so optimistically for one who was supposedly born from the dark side of someone's heart. He trusts and loves everyone unless they give him a good reason not to, and he is always quick to share anything he has with those around him. So much like Kirby, he's such a gentle, pure soul, even more gentle in some ways than his mirror twin. For him to be lost... it would be a travesty. No one that young should ever have to leave the world behind.

Magolor, I suppose I could care less about- meaning, if he were lost, I doubt I'd find it worth weeping over, but I know how much it would pain the others, who are all fond of him. Besides which, while I can't stand him and certainly wouldn't mind not having to put up with him anymore, I'd much prefer it if he just simply flew away and never bothered me again, rather than actually dying.

Clerk and Jiyuu I don't know too much about, other than that Clerk is a rung below Magolor currently on my 'people that I respect' ladder. Even so, I hope no harm has come to him... While I still don't fully understand why, I know that he is dear to Sakura, and therefore, I suppose I should try and give him the benefit of the doubt.

Jiyuu... She started out as the dark side of Sakura's heart, and so, at first, I could hardly stand her, simply because she had a tendency to taunt and tease me, not to mention that she kidnapped the Star Warrior who was (and still is) my best friend and sent me off on a painful quest to retrieve her. Now that she seems to have ended her Dark days, however, she seems like she'll make for a good ally, and quite possibly, a good friend for Sakura.

And Sakura... My Flower, Sakura... Well, there's really not much needed to be said, there. Glancing over at my closest ally, who flies over the dark, cloudy, stormy plain alongside me, I feel a sharp pang as the mere thought of losing her crosses my mind. With a shudder, I shake that thought and any like it away. She notices my shudder, probably mistaking it for fear of our opponent, and offers me a small smile. A moment later, she flies slightly closer to me so the tip of her wing brushes against mine on the downbeat a couple of times, a small way of saying 'you're not alone; we're all in this together; don't worry.' After giving her a small nod of thanks, I turn my attention back to the quickly-approaching castle and take a deep breath.

This is it. This event that I've run through in my head a thousand times over the past week, picturing every possible scenario I could come up with, is finally here. In a way, it is distantly reminiscent of when I was young and would find myself dreading tests, imagining every possible question that could arise and figuring out the answer to every one ahead of time- which, of course, didn't always actually help and usually just made me spend an unreasonable amount of time worrying. The obvious difference is, people don't die in tests. (And, actually, if they do, most academic institutions have a clause somewhere in their operating code of conduct that says anyone else taking the test when one test-taker dies during the testing session automatically passes.) In battles, especially battles against a monster like the one we'll be facing, the event of someone's death is always a possibility, sometimes even a likelihood.

All too soon, we reach the castle, which really isn't that big. It's even smaller than the Castle on Mount DDD, I'd say, although I haven't been up that way in... well, a long time, that much is for certain. Kirby is the first to arrive and land outside of the open gate, lance drawn and ready to face anything that might come flying out at him. The rest of us arrive moments later, similarly armed and ready for battle.

Without further ado, Kirby glances around to make sure we're all here and beckons us to follow him with his lance, leading us into the castle grounds.

The whole castle seems to just be a wall surrounding a wide, open space, empty of everything except clouds. "Where is he?..." Sakura is the first one to break the speechless silence, under her breath, sword in a 'ready' position and wings still out behind her.

The answer comes in the form of the ground beginning to shake a moment later, throwing us all off-balance. "It's an earthquake," Magolor helpfully yelps, and then thoughtfully considers in a vibrating voice a moment after, "I mean, uh, a cloud-quake? Is that even a thing?"

"It is now, nya," Jiyuu offers her opinion, but they both straighten up when I shoot a disapproving glare both of their ways. This is no time to be jesting around.

A moment later, the castle gate swings closed, which I was expecting to happen. Little to my surprise, the ceiling also seals over, and the castle walls change to look more like a cloudy box that we're all sealed inside of.

A dark chuckle echoes around the room, making us all quickly grow tense. Sakura and I move back-to-back on instinct, something we've done ever since she was a Waddle Dee, even though in a situation like this where we only have one opponent to face, it offers little help. The others seem to pair off, too- Magolor with Jiyuu and Kirby with Bandana, the last two keeping Shadow between them for protection.

The laughter continues to bounce off the walls around us, seeming to come from all directions at once. With a swirl of Darkness, a dark yellow puffball with a monstrous, multi-fanged grin that looks nowhere near as smooth and 'charming' as his normal one does appears in the middle of the boxy room. His gloves don't look right, either- they're larger than normal, and multi-fingered rather than mitten-like. The fingers look less like fingers and more like claws, made of cloth along the sides like any Star Warrior's gloves but out of some sharp-looking Dark substance at the end.

"Finally ye arrive... I was growing rather impatient," he purrs in a voice that doesn't sound like his normal one at all. It's far too... raspy, rough, not carrying the normal refined cadence and annunciation that I've come to associate him with.

Sakura offers him a disgusted look. "Have you looked in a mirror lately? You look terrible. Of course, I can't say I'm surprised... No mortal could ever take as much Darkness being put into themselves as you dosed yourself with the other day and live to tell the tale- even someone supposedly 'immortal' is bound to have side effects."

"Side effects, my dear?" he grins at her, although only his two biggest eyes, albeit empty and without pupils, focus on her. The other six seem to dart in all directions, which even I have to admit is rather unnerving. "I'm afraid I don't know what ye are talking about... I prefer to think of these little changes as 'gaining power.'"

Shaking his head, Shadow timidly murmurs from where he's ducked behind Kirby, "You're not even a Star Warrior anymore, are you? You don't even look like one."

"He hasn't been a Star Warrior for centuries," I scoff, finally speaking for the first time since before we left the earlier clearing behind. "He gave up that title the day he sold his own kind."

Shadow just glances at me in confusion, but Dark Solar shoots me a glare of intense hatred. "Ye are dead- or, I suppose, ye aren't. Ye are supposed to be dead, there. How are ye here?"

Before I can answer, Sakura mutters bitterly, "'Bout time someone pulled his own favorite trick on him." With a sudden frown, she adds, "'Bout time someone did something else, too." Shoving her sword at me, she order-requests, "Hold a lady's sword, will you?"

"Sakura, what are you-" I start to demand, wondering why in Dreamland she's disarming herself, but then she warps away. When she reappears just in front of Solar, I very nearly shout after her that she's being insane, but suddenly understand her plan when she punches him squarely in the side of the face, hard, her thumb kept on the inside of her fist and her knuckles striking him first, just like I taught her how to hit someone years ago.

In shock at the sudden, non-sequitur action, he holds a 'glove-ish object' to his face and stumbles back. Before he can immediately retaliate, Sakura vanishes and reappears next to me, dusting her gloves off against each other and then taking her sword back in satisfaction. "Man. That felt good." To him, she adds, "Let's see, who all was that for?... Stellar, Twill, Allister, all the girls whom you made nervous and/or uncomfortable by calling them terms of endearment even when they asked you not to, everybody who ended up dead because of your poor leadership, if not your actual, intentional malevolent actions, and, not to be selfish, but also for me. It's really not cool framing people for killing people you killed and then going on to stalk them for a good chunk of their early lives. It's also not cool convincing a naive young girl that the current head general of the SWA is an evil wacko and trying to get a bunch of people killed for that. Neither is it cool to open an interdimensional rift that tears the fabric of time and space, ruining a bunch of people's lives and getting them trapped in hostile territory. Oh, and we haven't mentioned how extremely uncool it is to SHOTZOING ABANDON someone in hostile territory with THIRTY-PLUS mouths to feed and then going on to try and KILL THEM and create a way to destroy every world out there, effectively enslaving and draining one planet's populace of everything that makes them who they are along the way. It's also beyond uncool to prey on a girl's motherly instincts in order to get her- and an ally- kidnapped and/or killed by hostiles. Last but not least, it's so not cool that it's off the official scientific uncool scale abandoning someone as stated above in a way that makes them spend several weeks mourning your 'death' and feeling terrible about how it's 'their fault' that you're dead for years afterwards. Come to think of it, that's an awful long list of crimes..." Shoving her sword back at me, she warps back over and punches him again on the other side of the face, even harder, before warping back and grabbing her sword again. "There. That's slightly more close to even."

While he silently seethed his way through her whole rant, he finally waves a glove at her in rage, producing a cloud of Darkness that slams her against the nearest wall once before dropping her back down to the ground, from which it takes her a moment to get back up. As his grin comes back, he assures her, "Love, ye punch like a girl, offense absolutely intended. And additionally, regrettably, I still find no guilt or shame in anything either I or my predecessor ever did... All of those things, to tell the truth, were quite fun, actually... especially the part where I left ye mourning me for years. That was adorable, really, not to mention absolutely hilarious."

With an angry grunt, she picks herself back up and narrows her eyes at him. "I punch like a girl, huh? Trust me, bozo, no offense taken... After all, I am a girl, and you punch even worse than I do, if your old hand-to-hand combat report cards from the Academy know anything on the matter."

Solar's wicked, gaping grin is subsequently wiped right off his face while Magolor whoops, "BUUUUUUUURRRRRRNNNN!"

"Are you all right?" I ask her in concern as she joins us again.

Nodding, she agrees, still obviously riding an adrenaline high from punching Solar (which he entirely deserved, and I have to admit that I found the sight rather satisfying, myself), "Never better."

Growling, Solar narrows ell eight of his eyes at us, Sakura in particular, and hisses, "Let us begin, rather than just fooling around... There's a lot of Galaxy out there that has yet to be crushed under my iron fist."

Clearing my throat, I inform him in what is probably a dangerous show of biting 'impudence,' "I'm sure your iron fist over Star World will promptly disappear as soon as they see what you've turned into."

With a dark laugh, he disagrees, "Oh, the ruse of having them on my side? I only needed that long enough to chase all of ye around. Now, I can go back and rule them however I please, as soon as I rid myself of ye insects. I won't need popularity or a good reputation... I'm thinking more along the lines of 'ruthless monarch who executes anybody who disagrees with him.' I'm sure thy little friends, who are still in custody, will be among the first to meet that lovely little fate."

While I'm half-tempted to offer him my assistance in dealing with Geo, I keep my mouth shut for Sakura's sake, who is currently glaring at him with a gaze that could melt iron. "You're a real pile of space junk, ya know that? I'd even go so far as to call you a... something, but there are children present and I'm a lady."

"What she wants to say is that you're a Batamon," I interrupt helpfully, only to have both Sakura and Magolor give me horrified glances while the tenderer ears among us stare at me in awe, apparently having never heard that word before. Well then. Maybe I should have just stayed shut up.

Apparently that was the last straw for Solar, who disappears in a swirl of Darkness with a guttural growl and turns into a spider inside. "There was a reason I didn't say it out loud," Sakura scolds me, even while she tries to keep from smirking. "Last thing we need is for the younger ones to pick up that kind of language."

"Well, it was what you were thinking," I shrug in reply, somewhat smirking to myself.

"You're incorrigible."

"Thank you; I do try."

A moment later, all levity vanishes as the room dims and the Darkness clears, only to reveal that Solar is gone. "Which one of ye insects should the spider devour first? Or would I rather use more lengthy tactics? Oh, this really is quite the dilemma... I wish to hurry up and deal with ye, and yet, hearing thy screams would be so much more entertaining."

An instant later, a still Elf appears in the floor, seemingly asleep. "Oh, well. While I ponder over that matter, we'll do first things first, I suppose."

"Clerk," Sakura cries out, running over to him and starting a standard army basic emergency medical exam. A moment later, she glares up and around the ceiling. "His heart's barely beating. What did you do to him?!"

While she prepares her Light to heal the Elf with, Solar answers, "Same thing I did to Kirby, only for a bit longer. He refused to betray thee again; I made him pay the price I had always promised. I only kept him alive so I could do... this."

Just before she can touch her Light to the unconscious Elvin boy, a hole appears in the clouds, which Clerk goes falling through, her Light falling after him. Just as fast as they opened, the clouds seal again, leaving Sakura staring down at them in horror.

Chuckling at the anguish on her face, Solar growls, "Well, then, now that that's taken care of... Shall we get started?"

Sakura comes over and joins us, a mixed look of sorrow and utter hatred on her face. I place a glove on her shoulder for a second, and she doesn't shrug me off, but goes on to mutter to the open air in front of her, "You never trusted him, and he gave his life for us. At least forgive him now."

Hesitant, I nod, wishing I knew what to say. "It seems he was capable of being far better than I realized."

Sour, she nods once, cold, although I know the majority of her current anger is directed at Solar. "We have to stop him. We just have to."

While all seven of us left gather together, ready to fight, I agree quietly, "We do, indeed."

At instant later, a Dark spell comes at us from all sides, but before it can reach us, Sakura and Magolor both simultaneously cast a shield spell around us, the layers of light blue and pink overlapping each other in places as they wrap around us, protecting us. The spell shatters the shield, but also dissipates when faced with it, leaving us safe.

"Upsy daisy, did I leave the Lights on? My bad," Solar taunts, but then gives a grunt of frustration. "Why isn't it working? Why can't I block it?"

For a long moment, we hear nothing, but finally, the spider reappears not far from us. "No matter. Light can't do anything against Darkness anymore, even if ye can use it."

While Solar makes that snide comment, Kirby warps behind him and delivers a sneak attack of using his lance to try and knock one of the spider's legs out from under him, but it only results in the spider using that leg to kick him away into one of the walls. Kirby gives a grunt of discomfort, but picks himself back up, mostly unharmed, a second later.

"What's the plan? Please tell me we have a plan," Magolor demands, the glove holding his wrench shaking uncontrollably in fear. "This looks bad, this looks sooooo bad..."

Before anyone else can reply, Kirby answers him in a steely voice, eyes narrowed as he takes flight and focuses some Light at the end of his lance, "Squash the spider. That's the plan."

Even though the rest of us all run towards Solar, ready to begin our side of the offensive, Magolor just squeals, "That's really not much of a plan, Kirbs!"

As the two of us send twin Sword Beams at the overgrown arachnid in perfect unison, Sakura shouts back at Magolor, "You want a better plan? Here's a better plan. Find some way to take one of the legs out. Don't die. There you go. A better plan."

With a disbelieving groan, the Halcandran finally also launches into the fray, still seeming rather unsure of the whole thing. "Take out a leg. Got it."

A moment later, as Sakura and I soar sideways away from each other in order to avoid a stab from a pointy, jointed spider's leg and then fly back towards each other, I notice that Shadow is gone. "Where's Shadow?" I demand Kirby as he flies past, since the last time I saw the young one, he was at Kirby's side.

Kirby offers me a weak grin a second later as he uses his lance like a baseball bat in an again-failed effort to trip up the bug. "Don't worry; Shadow'll be dropping in any second now."

Sure enough, a moment later, a small gray stone with closed eyes slams down from the ceiling right onto the center of the spider's head and then goes sliding off sideways onto the ground. The stone is quickly replaced by Shadow Kirby wearing a Stone Ability helmet. "Thanks for the Ability, Kirby. Good thing you put so many in your cape back on the Lor." Vanishing into the floor, a silhouetted shadow begins making the trip up the high walls and back onto the ceiling again.

Jiyuu seems to be using more of a 'fly close and claw at him' tactic than a 'use the sword' strategy, but it seems to be working as well as anything else we're doing. For the most part, Solar is attacked by all of us like a monster trying to focus all at once on ten tiny Kirbies (albeit there aren't ten of us and only one of us is a Kirby), unable to do much harm to us, but after a few minutes, he shoots a Dark spell at all of us that sends us flying backwards, slamming into the walls one after another.

"Ye fools... Did ye really think thy pathetic excuse for warfare would really harm me? I've let ye have thy little try, but the ride ends here." Skittering up onto the ceiling, he laughs at us once more. "Now to show ye my true power... I am omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. There is no way for ye to even begin to stop me."

The Dark spell obviously did more than just shove us into the wall, I can tell by how fatigued I feel as I get up. Even so, I can't help but smile slightly in determination when the spider suddenly falls from the ceiling and onto its back onto the floor, all the breath knocked out of him by a living stone.

Shadow falls off and quickly vanishes into the floor again, and Solar hurriedly rights himself and stabs a leg through the shadow on the ground, but everybody knows that you can't hurt a shadow- except for this idiot, apparently. The shadow just zooms over to us and stays on the wall, where he'll be safe but can easily join the fray to help again.

The fall doesn't seem to have hurt Solar, but it's certainly enraged him even further. That's when I notice that he seems to have grown even darker in color, his dark yellow almost brown now. "Oh... Ye have all plagued me for far too long." Leaping over, he grabs Sakura by a wing without warning and goes leaping away again. "Time to say farewell, my dear. This time, I'm going to make sure there's no way for ye to return, ever again."

"Put me down!" she shrieks at him, practically spitting, and he does- but not before squeezing her wing so hard it makes an awful snapping sound. With a cry, she turns her wings back into a cape without thinking about it before landing on the ground, which will thankfully immediately get rid of any pain from the wing, but her cape is left with a ragged tear in it that will take it at least several minutes to repair and leaves her to faceplant into the (thankfully soft) floor.

Everyone else mostly just watched, unable to help, but Kirby and I both warped over to the beast as fast as we could.

Smacking the nearest leg with his lance as hard as he can, Kirby shouts, "Don't touch my sister, you Batamon!"

"Great, now he's saying it," Sakura groans below in frustration and tries to get away from the spider, who has her blocked by a few legs, while I stab my sword at the thing's abdomen, which unfortunately seems to have a strong exoskeleton, and growl,

"I told you to stay away from her, and I meant it."

Giving an odd skree noise that doesn't sound like a Star Warrior at all, Solar knocks Kirby away from him with a leg and shakes me off by spinning around and bucking at me, getting me away from his back. "I don't care what ye say. It's hardly as if ye have enough strength or bravery to back up thy strong, brave words."

While we were attacking Solar from above, Jiyuu snuck in underneath and warped away with Sakura, using her cape for the both of them and taking them both back to 'our' side of the battlefield. Kirby and I both join them there a second later.

Glancing at Solar, I can see that he's grown even darker, now almost black. Scowling to myself, I try to figure out a way in my head that we can attack him, but come up empty. Regular attacks obviously won't work, even a Light-enforced attack like Kirby has used several times does nothing... Suddenly, a thought strikes me. Even with Dark Solar, the Darkness would never allow him to really rule over it. Chances are, it's only leading him on to his doom. As Sakura said, no one could take on the power of every single Dark being or artifact Kirby's ever faced, letting all that pure (for lack of a better word) Darkness into themselves and their soul, and not face some sort of consequences. For Solar, I am sure, the consequences are going to be very dire, and as his color continues to darken, I get the feeling that he might very well be about to be defeated by an enemy far worse of a threat than he could ever hope to be himself.

And so, determined to keep fighting him for as long as it takes him to self-destruct, I shout out moments after I reappear on our side, "You say you are unbeatable, but it's hardly as if you are causing us much harm, either."

Everyone gives me a 'what, are you crazy?!' sort of a look, especially Sakura, who just had a wing broken by him and all, but Solar simply chuckles cruelly.

"That was certainly a very poor choice of words, boy. Ye and thy infantile friend like fighting with rocks, eh?..."

A moment later, a Dark spell carrying a storm of small stones strikes at us, quite effectively leaving us with plenty of bumps and bruises and rendering all of our capes tattered and torn. As soon as it dies down, all of us coughing from the dust, Magolor smacks me on the back of the head with a glove. "You just had to go and say something like that, didn't ya?" When I glare at him, he adds, "Better be thankin' your lucky stars that that wasn't my wrench just now, SW."

Turning my gaze back to Solar, I grunt at the others, "Trust me. I have a plan." Raising my voice again, I shout at Solar, "Is that really all you can do? Any villain can throw rocks at people. I can hardly say that I'm impressed." While the spider narrows its eyes at me, I swing my sword out to one side and focus on him as intently as I can. "Show us how far your power really goes; wow us before we're gone, because I find it extraordinarily hard to believe that you are really anything more than a showoff with a lot of big talk and nothing to back it up with."

An enormous cloud of Darkness begins gathering around the spider's eight legs while everyone gives me a bitter glance. Shaking her head, voice still rough from the dust, Sakura coughs, "Now you've done it. Great time to have a pride episode, Meta."

Glancing over at her, I murmur quietly as I hold her gaze, "Trust me."

She continues to glare at me for a moment but finally sighs, stands down, and takes a place right by my side, reaching out and giving my glove a quick squeeze. "Always."

With that, the spider directs the spell towards us, but skitters back slightly in shock with another skree when it just dissolves away less than halfway towards us. He gives another skreeeee of fear when his legs begin to tremble and give way underneath him. "Wh-what's happening? What is this?"

"The Darkness never has allies," I inform him, not feeling the slightest bit of pity as the spider collapses, twitching sporadically. "It only has enemies- those whom it fights, and those whom it uses."

Out of nowhere, the clouds fall open again, and the spider goes falling away, but leaves a cloud of Darkness behind it. The clouds seal again an instant later, and the Darkness clears to show a single small, weak-looking yellow Star Warrior with rusty, jagged black armor and a tattered black cape collapsed on the clouds like they've just been knocked over.

Seeming frail, they try to pick themselves up, but fail. Instead, they hold themselves up with frayed gloves that are dripping with Dark Matter, just enough to look up and try to stare at us, lost, with faded green eyes that look blind.

An old, shaking voice wonders aloud, "What?... What is this? This isn't how it's supposed to go..." Coughing several times, hard, he somehow manages to stand up and then glares in our general direction. "Where are ye? Where did ye all go? What's happening to me? Why is it so... dark?..."

"Orion," Sakura states quietly, almost pityingly, making the old, withered Star Warrior flinch in what almost seems like horror at hearing his old name. "I told you something a long time ago... Star Warriors are the souls of stars. What happens to a star that's died and quit giving off Light?"

He growls weakly, blindly reaching out and around in front of him for his old, still-radiant clear magic glass sword, but a moment later, a pitch-dark vortex opens up in the floor beneath him, swallowing up the sword in the blink of an eye. The Star Warrior grabs onto the side as it starts to suck him in, he trying desperately not to be swallowed up by its unforgiving, merciless claim on him. "No! Help me! Please! No!" As the Star Warrior is caught up by the Darkness and dragged away, he gives a final, anguished scream of "NO! NOOO!"

In the next moment, the vortex seals, leaving no noise but the monster's final screech echoing around the room in a haunting manner... over and over... quieter and quieter. In less than a minute, even that last remnant of that foul being leaves the universe forever. In its place falls a quiet, unbelievably-calm stillness.

Kirby's the first one to begin celebration as he starts turning cartwheels all over the place while Bandana helpfully sings the little victory tune Kirby wrote for himself years ago and that eventually wore off on all of the rest of us and thumps his spear along. Shadow claps and giggles and turns a couple of cartwheels too, having just phased out of the wall again. Jiyuu sits down and watches them in mild amusement, ears pricked towards them.

Meanwhile, Magolor floats over next to me and Sakura. "He was only like 630-ish, right? He shouldn't have looked that old."

Shaking her head, solemn even after how determined she was to get rid of him, Sakura disagrees, "To quote a Human phrase, 'It's not the years, it's the mileage.'" Rubbing a bump on her head and turning away, she mutters to herself, "That was way too easy. I'm certain he's gone, but something's still not right..."

"Mm," I agree anxiously, feeling the exact same way. To the children, I quickly order, "It's not time for celebration just yet. Things aren't over."

Giving me a disappointed and irritated look, Kirby whines in exhaustion, "But Solar's gone! The Galaxy's safe again, right?"

"Wrong," a quiet, friendly voice breathes from somewhere around us in disagreement, involuntarily sending a shudder through all of us. "No, slime, I'm afraid that playtime is over. The last battle of your lives is just getting started."

Kirby sighs in strong exasperation, even while seeming extremely nervous. "There never can be just one, can there?"

Me, Jiyuu, Magolor, and Sakura, however, all recognize the voice instantly, somehow, and all clench our swords (or wrench) harder while a powerful surge of terror runs through us. That voice... It sounds just like everything I've ever wanted on a silver platter with a big bow on top, but with a horrible price. There's something terribly wrong about it, but even though I've never heard it, per se, I know how I've felt it before, and so, I know what it is.

"The Darkness," Jiyuu whispers hoarsely, her ears flat against her head and her fur all on end.

Staring at her, Kirby frowns. "But the Darkness isn't alive. It can't even think for itself."

A soft, soothing laugh echoes around the room, only making us all shudder harder. "I'm afraid that little fool was never meant to be a true opponent, although it would have been ever-so-nice if he'd already destroyed you. I hate you little Light things so truly, so madly, so deeply. No, you see, he was only ever my slave, blindly serving me nigh every moment of his laughable, tiny, insignificant little life, and now that I have no more use for him, now that he's given me both a mind and a physical body, I've disposed of him, sending him to enjoy his due reward for all of the rest of time, and then some."

I'm the first to get a word out, as all the others remain frozen in fear. "What do you mean, a physical body?"

Sakura suddenly gives a tiny gasp and clutches onto my glove for dear life. "I know you..." the odd voice purrs right next to me, to her, and a second later, a cold feeling seeps all through me. "I know you, too," it breathes in my ear, and then lets go an instant later, taking away the cold feeling but not the terror. "I know all of you." Everyone else freezes for a second just like Sakura and I did, and then relaxes infinitesimally when it leaves them (for now) soon after.

Finally, the spider from earlier phases back into existence a moment later, only now, it's black all over, including its glittering, beady eyes and sharp, dripping-with-Dark-Matter pincers. "I am going to dispose of all of you star slimes soon... but first, I am going to go take possession of time. Every ounce of Darkness in the universe that has ever existed will soon have my mind, my will, and then... Then I will devour everything that has even the slightest reek of Light to it, until all that is left is beautiful, glorious me." The spider laughs again, such a friendly, soft sound, and yet it renders me unable to move or even breathe, more endlessly terrified than I ever have been in my life.

Again, the caress of cold travels around us. "Don't get too impatient, however... I'll spend some special time with each and every one of you, since you've proven to be such impudent little problems. You'll bow to me one way or another, before I leave you to your forever fates." With that, he fades away, down through the clouds.

"It still has the Core," Sakura croaks weakly. "It's headed for the Time Pedestal."

Taking a deep breath, Kirby declares in a shaking voice, "We have to stop it."

Shaking my head fiercely, I turn around to look at him, utterly hopeless. "Kirby... That's the Darkness. Darkness with a mind. There's no possible way for us to stop it."

Narrowing his eyes even though he still trembles uncontrollably, the young one disagrees vehemently, "We're Star Warriors. We were born to stop it."

Desperate to make him understand, I shake my head again. "Kirby, yes, we are Star Warriors, but that is the Darkness. The Darkness. We're mortal; nowhere near enough to take it on."

Giving me a glare, he mutters, "That's just the Darkness talking. We have to stop it, no ifs, ands, or buts about it."

I know he's right, but even so, I know that against this enemy, there is absolutely no chance of victory. "How would we even get out of here? We're all mildly injured as it is, and our capes are all wrecked," I start to argue, but Sakura interrupts with a glance at me.

"We're all that's left to stop it; not another soul knows. The rest of the Galaxy is still reeling from Solar's damage. We have to try and keep it from taking over the Time Pedestal; if that happens, all will be lost. Every heart that's ever beat, anywhere, will be doomed to Darkness. We have to try."

Even though I know she is right, I truly wish she wasn't. With a sigh, I hesitantly agree, "Very well. We must do our best, for the Galaxy's sake."

Nodding, Kirby looks around at the rest of us, and takes a deep breath, trying to shake all of his nerves off and failing. "Well then, first things first. We find a way out of here, and fast."

Clerk's POV:

Falling. I'm falling. This is it, isn't it? This is the end. It's not such a bad end... I mean, after all, I finally stood up for myself. I even managed to hold my own with a sword for a few minutes. I'm dying a hero who fought rather than a coward who betrayed. This is okay. This is end that maybe, someday, the people I love'll be able to be proud about.

But just as I let go and accept my end, there's a feeling of warmth, hope, safety that I've never felt so grateful to feel as I do in this moment. She's always looked out for me, made sure I was safe, healthy, loved. It's about time I return the favor.

A moment later, as my eyes shoot open, I feel an odd shiver of stellar energy go through me, and right after, I spread out a pair of wings I didn't have until this very moment...

And I fly.

DING DONG THE SOLAR IS DEADED! WHICH OLD SOLAR? THE WICKED OLD SOLAR! DING DONG THE WICKED SOLAR IS DEEEEEADED! WAKE UP YA SLEEPY HEAD RUB YO EYES GET OUTTA BED! DING DONG THE WICKED SOLAR'S DEEEEEEEEADED!

AND FOR GOOD TOO. BOOYAH. THAT LITTLE JERKFACE IS NEVER COMIN' BACK Y'ALL. NOT EVEN FOR TEA AND SCONES. NEVER GONNA HAPPEN. BOOSH.

And things just got even worse. Yeah. You're welcome.

NOW WE'RE ABOUT TO GET TO THE PART WHERE SOMEONE'S GONNA END UP CRYING. WHAT?? WHO'S GONNA BE CRYING??? NOT ME NOPE NOPE NOPE BAI

*cries*