Kirby's POV:

Two things. One: I've officially decided that I am sick to death of clouds. Two: I've also officially decided that I am sick to death of rain. The next time I have a sunny day will be the best day of my life- that is, if I ever get to see a sunny day ever again.

Grunting at the annoying downpour that the four of us who aren't lost are stuck in, I keep holding my wings over my head like an umbrella and trekking onward through the squooshy-floored maze. Shadow is doing the same thing with a Wing headdress he got from a feather I gave him, and Bandana and Magolor put together Bandana's spear and a tarp from inside Mags' cape and made an umbrella-ish thingy, which they're huddled together under.

With a shiver, Shadow, who's right next to me right now, gives a giant sneeze. "I-it's so cold," he tells me as he tries to get his feathers to quit dripping cold water down onto his face and head. "I w-wish we could find someplace warm to stay until the rain stops..."

Making a face, I mutter, "I don't think it's gonna be stopping anytime soon, baby brother. Solar's probably the one making the clouds dump buckets on us, and he's probably not gonna stop it until he gets bored of us wandering around in it."

As Shadow sneezes again and then makes kinda-funny sniffling noises and silly faces trying to clear his nose up, Magolor offers his opinion in a shaky-from-the-cold voice, "We're all gonna catch ammonia and die at this rate!"

With a roll of his eyes, Bandana sighs, "It's pneumonia, not ammonia, Captain."

"Well, whatever it is, we're all gonna catch it and die! Knowing our luck, Kury and Meta-Not have already bitten the dust one way or another, wherever they're at. I give us maybe six hours, eight tops, before we're all deaded."

Sniffling, and not because of his nose anymore, Shadow whimpers, "But I don't wanna get deaded, and I don't want S'kura and Mister Meta Knight to be deaded, either!"

Hiding his face with his wings, he starts making quiet crying noises, which makes me turn and shoot a glare at Mags. "Great job, Magolor. What is it with you today and being such a meanie-mo jerk?"

"Just being the reality check of the group, thanksies just the samesies," Magolor grumps and goes floating off ahead of us, forcing Bandana to run if he wants to keep up with the rain-guard spear-thing that Mags is carrying. "Come on, you three; pick up the pace. Let's get out of this stupid maze as soon as possible, the quickest we can, before the cows come home, all that."

With a heavy sigh, I shake my head at him and mutter, "I don't think there's really a way out of this maze, or, at least, not one anytime soon. Solar's only made most of us fight one Kracko so far, and that's way too simple. There's gotta be something else showing up sometime soon; it's been a couple of hours since that Kracko, now..."

For about five minutes, there's silence apart from the pouring rain. "I wish I was a time-traveler like S'kura," Shadow pipes up out of nowhere, only to fall silent again. He's holding his feathered paws so low over his head and face right now that I can't even see his eyes.

Frowning at the odd statement, I push him gently, "Why do you say that? Then you'd have to always be disapoofing. I definitely wouldn't wish for that."

Shrugging, he kinda explains, "Well, I don't mean a special Time Traveler like she is; I just wish I could travel through time sometimes."

Still confused, I ask again, "Why?"

Finally, he lifts his feathers up and glances over at me. "So I could go back to yesterday at the Dreamspring, when everything was happy, and we were all together, and Magolor wasn't being mean, and S'kura and Mister Meta Knight were okay." Pulling his feathers back down over his face, he sniffles, "I miss them, a whole lots. Y-you don't really think they're deaded, do you, Kirby?"

Looking away, I don't give him any answer for a long minute. When I finally do speak, it's kinda quietly and thoughtfully. "I don't know, Shadow... After everything they've both been through, I don't think anything'd be able to get rid of them too fast. Sakura's off in time right now, so I guess there's no way to know about her, but Meta Knight's somewhere around here, I think. I'm sure they'll both catch up with us sometime soon, somehow."

The sound of Shadow breathing a sigh of relief makes it so that I can't help but smile a teeny-tiny bit. "That's good. I hope we find them really soon. I like it best when all of our family is all together."

Offering him a small smile, which I'm not sure if he sees, I agree, "Same here, little guy. Really same here."

For awhile again, there's no sort of noise beyond the rain that keeps pouring down harder and the sound of two Star Warriors and a Waddle Dee squooshing their way through the almost-quicksand-y clouds. Every so often, Magolor starts making grumpy noises and floating faster again so Bandana has to run to keep up with him, but thankfully, he always stops before he gets too far ahead and lets me and Shadow keep up. I don't think he likes having to be the 'responsible' oldest person here, so that's probably most of his problem right now, although he's seemed rather mean all day today. I wonder what's bothering him so much.

It can't be the dreams he had last night; we all had sweet dreams. He's even already told me that his first dream last night was about him flying the Lor Starcutter in some kind of a race and winning, and that he's looking forward to it coming true. In a way, the first dreams we all had kinda promise that we're gonna make it, since otherwise, they'd never be able to come true, so I'm kinda finding hope in that. To tell the truth, I'm really looking forward to my dream of finding a huge Maxim Tomato patch hidden in a meadow clearing in Whispy Woods coming true sometime. As soon as things are back to normal, which'll hopefully be before too long, I'm going to search the Woods from top to bottom and back again until I find those beautiful, fat, juicy, yummy, oh-so-spicy-and-earthy-smelling tomatoes.

Shadow told me earlier that his first dream was about being curled up in a grassy field, snuggled up to a basket of strawberries he'd just picked, snoozing in the warm sun. That sounds like a really good dream to come true, too. Bandana's dream was about this Christmastime, with him, me, Shadow, and Sakura up in the Castle Observatory just like old times, drinking hot cocoa and eating Christmas cookies, and then Bandana waking up from the dream just as Sakura said she had something important to tell us. And Meta Knight dreamed about- Wait. He never told me what he dreamed about; Sakura either, actually.

"Hey, guys?" I call out to the other three, whether they're close by or a ways ahead. "Did Meta Knight or Sakura ever say what their first dream last night was?"

After glancing around at each other, we all four kinda shrug, but Mags suggests with the first smile in his voice pretty much all day, "No, but I bet they both dreamed about eeeeeeach ooooootheeeeer, heh."

Snickering a bit, Bandana agrees, trying and failing to copy Meta Knight's strong accent, "Sakura, my love, I love you almost more than cookies."

Even me and Shadow have to giggle a bit at that one, and Shadow joyfully squeals back at Bandana in a kinda-girly voice, "I love you almost as much as apples, Meta, so we're even."

His voice, which doesn't even sound a little bit like Sakura, makes it so that I just have to give a real, big laugh. "Do you guys seriously think they love their favorite foods more than each other?"

"Nah," Bandana and Shadow shake their heads, still laughing, but Mags shrugs and doesn't answer, having suddenly fallen silent. I don't know what's up with him, but he's suddenly not happy anymore.

Magolor turns out to kinda be the rain on our parade, making us all grow sad and quiet again. Even when Bandana starts helpfully poking him in the side and singsonging, "Kury and Meta-Not sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G," he still doesn't cheer up.

"What's wrong, Magolor?" I finally ask, a little bit worried about him. It's really not like him to be all serious and not-laugh-y like this.

Shrugging, he mutters, "I dunno; it just suddenly struck me that maybe they didn't tell us what they dreamed, because they didn't dream anything, because the Dreamspring knew they were gonna get deaded today."

Groaning, all annoyed again, I start walking faster and scold Mags, "Great, we find something to be happy about and you have to go and ruin it. Why are you so grumpy today, anyway?"

Crossing his gloves, he yelps back, much sharper than he normally would, "Sorry, kid. I'm just worried about my ship, my proverbial neck, my pals, and basically everything in this Galaxy that breathes, and you should be too. Maybe sometimes there's a time and a place to not be all awesomely random, epicly happy, amazingly amusing, all that."

Giving him a weirded-out stare, Bandana mumbles in shock, "Who the heck are you, and what did you do with the real Magolor? And how do you know how to do the 'all that' thing when you're definitely not the Captain?"

The only way Mags replies is with a grunt, and he suddenly goes zipping ahead of the rest of us again. This time, Bandana doesn't even bother to follow him. Instead, he falls back and walks beside me, and I help by holding a wing above his head like an umbrella.

"Thanks," he mutters quietly, and then sighs. "Geez. We find something to be happy about, and then he goes and entirely ruins it in, like, the most depressing way possible. Who turned him into Meta Knight today?"

Rolling my eyes, I agree with a huff, "He's even worse than Meta Knight. At least Meta Knight doesn't go around trying to come up with every possible reason for how his friends might actually be deaded somewhere out there."

Suddenly, Shadow sneezes again and then coughs, shuddering quite a bit. Worried, I start looking around even more for a place we can get out of the rain. I know Shadow can be a little bit sickly sometimes, so the last thing we need is for him to get pneumatic or whatever it was Bandana said earlier, especially when Sakura's not here to make him better if he really does get sick.

A few more minutes go by with still no luck, and at some point, Magolor disappears into the rain-made mist a ways ahead of us. Finally, I turn my wings back into a cape and wrap it around Shadow to try and keep him a little bit warmer, but he still doesn't stop shivering. It really worries me. I really wish Sakura or Meta Knight were here; they would know what to do...

From up ahead, Mags' voice suddenly calls out to us from some thicker fog that begins to cloud the path up not far ahead. "Hey, guys! I found a place to get out of the rain! Come on, ya dawdlers!"

Something about it just doesn't seem right. Of course, something about Mags hasn't seemed right all day. After giving Bandana a worried look, I question, "What do we do?"

Before he can answer, Shadow coughs harder than he did the first time and then sniffles again. Even though the little guy gives us a weak smile and a wobbly "I'm okay, guys, really," I still think he needs to get out of the rain asap.

Sighing, Bandana pulls Shadow close between me and him in an effort to warm him up some. "If there's any chance of getting out of this stupid storm, I say we take it."

"Yeah," I agree with a nod, but pause just long enough to grab my lance out of the cape that's wrapped around Shadow. If there's another mid-boss ahead, I want to be ready for it.

Once we hit the thicker fog, it just keeps getting thickerer and thickerer. "Right up here! You're almost there, kiddos!" Magolor yells back, but his voice still seems a little off. The worst thing is, it seems to just keep getting colder and colder as we plow on through the downpour, and darker and darker too.

"We're never gonna get out of the cold," Shadow suddenly whimpers, using my cape to cover his eyes.

Kicking at the ground, Bandana agrees, "I hate to say it, but he's probably right."

Even though I wish I could disagree with them, this place makes it almost impossible to feel any sort of hope. "You guys are right; we're doomed," I sigh deeply, and then wince when Shadow coughs again right next to me. "Shadow's getting sick, we're freezing to death, Sakura and Meta Knight are gone, and Magolor's being weird. What should we do?"

No one has any ideas, so we basically just keep pressing through the fog and growing more and more hopeless, when I suddenly notice something weird about this fog. Most of it is normal foggy-gray, but every once in awhile, I notice a cloudy string of it that looks more... black. And the farther in we go, the more black I notice, and the more black I notice, the more hopeless we all seem to feel and the harder it is to keep moving.

As that part of things starts to make sense, I order in fright, "Everybody, turn around! There's Darkness in the fog; that's what making us feel so extra sad!" Shadow and Bandana ignore me, and instead continue to keep pressing aimlessly ahead. Shadow's actually quietly crying now and Bandana's looking rather like he wishes he wasn't too tough to do the same thing. The sight makes a lump grow in my throat. Grabbing their paws, I beg, "Come on, you two, we gotta go back! We just gotta! This's gotta be a trap that Solar's set for us!"

"No, it's not!" Magolor disagrees from a distance, seeming to get farther away from us all the time. "We're super close now! Soon you'll all be warm and happy again!"

Shaking my head at the other two as they just keep treading onward, I plead, "He's lying. I don't know what's wrong with him, but he is. Please, come with me; we gotta get outta here!"

"What's the point?" Bandana suddenly mutters, pushing me off of his one paw with the other. "It's raining just as hard back there as it is here. We're gonna be stuck in the cold no matter where we go."

Shivering so hard he can barely talk, Shadow cries, "Why c-can't S'kura be here? And M-Meta Knight? I just w-want them to be o-okay!" He follows this up with more coughing, harder now than it was before.

Shuddering in the cold, I can see that most of the fog is black now, not to mention so thick that you can't see through it at all. With a determined grunt, I turn around and start tugging the others back the way we came (thankfully they don't fight me much), but we run into a cloudy wall almost as soon as we start going backwards. It doesn't take me long to realize that the stupid cloud is moving toward us, forcing us to keep going the way we were going a minute ago. "Stupid Solar," I can't help but cry myself, hoping the other two think that it's all just rain on my face and not part tears like it actually is. "Why's he gotta be such a jerk?"

"Hurry up, we're almost there!" Magolor calls back, sounding impossibly cheerful for someone who's been a grumpbucket all day and is stuck in Darkness right now. "Just a leeeeeetle beeeeet farther, and we'll be out of the rain!"

Angry and sad because of the stupid Darkness, I shout ahead, "You've said that like five times already, liar! We're never gonna get out of this stupid place!" Little to my surprise, he doesn't answer at all. For some reason, I barely even care; I mean, Bandana's right. What's the point?

"For fools who claim that Darkness is something weak to be laughed at and spat upon, ye certainly do all fall prey to it in a way that is almost disappointingly simple," Solar suddenly laughs from somewhere far ahead. Just the sound of his voice fills me with fear. He made Sakura a badguy and he made Meta Knight disappear, so who's to say that he can't do something to hurt us?

Trying to make myself sound brave, but coming off more as a terrified little kid, probably, I demand, "What's wrong with Magolor, and where's Meta Knight?"

With a dark laugh, the scary jerkface seems to walk closer to us, squooshing his way through the clouds like we have been all afternoon. Before long, I can see eight eyes, six small and two regular-sized, glowing at us through the Darkness. "Thy Halcandran friend has been playing host to a tiny amount of Dark Matter hidden in the collar of his cloak ever since I accidentally woke him with it this morning, which fills him with just enough Dark suggestions to make sure that he's there to dishearten all of the rest of you. By the way, I just so happened to add a bit more- only like a large-book-sized amount- to once he got to be here in the Darkness. Of course, the mind control I'm using on him at the moment through the Dark Matter probably has something to do with why he was so eagerly calling you to follow him, even when the Dark Matter should be making him bitter. Just a thought, there."

Growling a bit, I demand in a quiet voice, trying to sound like Meta Knight when he's angry but still only sounding like a scared little kid, "You still haven't answered about Meta Knight, and why isn't the Darkness bothering you, stupidhead?"

As he moves towards us just enough for me to see his scary fangs, he tells me in a dark voice, "Oh, don't be silly, pathetic child. The Darkness can't harm me any; it's like my loyal pet, after all. It does what I tell it to do, whatever I tell it to do. It's mine to control, now that I have all the power in the universe for my own, and right now, I'm telling it to take all the joy, hope, faith, love, and Light out of thy hearts. After all, that's what Darkness does best."

Even though he's really kinda freaking me out, Bandana and Shadow are just standing there, all of the light gone from their eyes, like they either can't hear him or are hardly even alive. Shadow suddenly coughs again, really hard this time, but still doesn't show any other signs of having any idea of what's going on.

With a soft chuckle, Solar reaches a black, tattered glove out toward Shadow. Ugh, every time I run into this guy, he's always even creepier than the last time I saw him. "Ah, has the poor boy come down with something? I'm sure I could put him out of his misery, and so very easily, too... Easily for me, that is; for him, I'm sure it'd be rather... unpleasant." Apparently he thinks I've already lost all will to fight, because it actually surprises him when I hit him over the head with the side of my lance as hard as I can and then swing it at him like a baseball bat. It misses, but it still gets him to back off some, which is what I wanted, anyway.

With narrowed eyes, I tell him in a voice that's weak and shaky but still my own to talk with, "Keep your stupid gloves and your stupid self away from my brothers, stupidhead."

"Stop calling me that," he hisses angrily. Even though I hit him with my lance really hard, he acts like it didn't hurt him at all, just surprised him. "Ye are all going to fall, child, just like thy knight friend did not long ago, and just like thy sister is sure to now that she's forever lost in time with a Darkened heart. I've already taken down two of thee, three if you take into account the fact that the Dark Matter is slowly going to devour all the Light in thy friend until he's nothing more than Dark Matter himself, and there is nothing between me and destroying ye and thy pathetic, childish little companions. It doesn't matter, Warrior of the Stars, how many times ye have won before- ye are still never going to win against me or anything else, ever again."

Holding my lance tighter and standing in front of my two entranced brothers, I disagree, "That's what you wish... stupidhead."

With a hiss, he throws a Dark spell at me, but I just focus some of my red Light at the end of my lance and swing through it, making the stupid Dark stuff vanish into thin air. When I point my Light at Solar, though, he just smirks through the Darkness at me and throws another spell at it, which makes it shrivel up and fall down to the ground from the point of my lance, left as nothing more than dust.

"Shoot, no," I whisper, but then glare at him as a sudden idea strikes me. Pointing my lance down, I shove it into the cloud below me and focus on making a large sphere of Light appear from it, which expands to surround me, Bandana, and Shadow in its warm, protective shield.

My actions and the Light seem to strike Solar as being funny, almost even hilarious. "I just blew right through thy Light, boy. Do ye really think more will protect ye anymore than less did?" The stupid meanie smile on his face turns into a scowl as the next spell he casts struggles to get through my Light. Of course, I'm struggling on this end to stay in the 'flow of munchkin' or whatever it's called and keep focused on keeping my Light sphere from falling against his spell, but at least it's a fight on both sides.

While I strain to keep my Light alive around us, I beg the other two, who are slowly blinking and coming back to their senses now that they're not surrounded in Darkness, "Would you two please add your Lights? I kinda need a little bit of help here!"

Bandana's the first one to shake himself out of his lifeless trance and see what's going on. "Well, if it isn't Sleazy McGeezer," he mutters and raises his paws, adding a layer of his red-orange light under mine. As soon as he does, he starts making a face of struggling to keep it up just like I am.

Managing a half-smile, I agree, "Yep, it's Generally Such-a-loser."

Narrowing his eyes in focused amusement, he agrees, "Dark So-last-year."

Smirking slightly, I suggest, not about to be bested, "Dumb for So-long."

"Dork So-lame."

"General No-fair." After I say that one, Bandana seems to run out of ideas, although our taunting has done what we wanted it to- Solar's having trouble concentrating against two Lights while also resisting shouting at us for being annoying little kids.

Suddenly, another little voice and Light join in with a, "This Guy Who's Really, Really Dumb and Stupid and Not Even as Smart as a Shotzo!" Grinning, I take in the sight of Shadow, who still doesn't look too good, glaring at Solar through our Light-shield and adding a really pretty snowy-white Light to the mix.

"I've had just about enough of thee," Solar hisses like the vampire in the monster movie that me and Bandana watched late at night one time when we were younger, even though we weren't supposed to. The spell he was using against us fails, and he spins around and stalks away as if to leave, but suddenly turns around and throws a much bigger Dark spell at us, which surrounds our little Light-shield on all sides.

All of three of us instantly go back to focusing on keeping our shield up, but then the Darkness of the spell starts squeezing against it as hard as it can. Outside, Solar jeers, "I'm afraid, children, that no matter how hard ye try, ye will not be able to find a way to best me in the end." Even though I struggle, my Light, the outermost layer, shatters with an awful sound that sounds like a breaking window, only quite a bit louder. Right away, I try to make one to replace it, but can't, which makes me about ready to panic. Where the heck did my Light go?! Is the Darkness around us making it so it can't get to me, somehow?!

Seeming almost excited by this turn of events, Solar continues as the Darkness keeps fighting against Bandana's layer of light, "Ye know, thy fighting me and insulting me really doesn't make me feel very disposed to do any of ye any favors. I'll make sure to give all of ye a slow end, and Kirby can go last... Won't ye simply adore watching the rest of thy allies die slow, painful deaths, my little Warrior of the Stars?" While I give a grimace at the awful idea and brandish my lance, ready to hit him with it the instant he tries to come close to us again, he manages to get Bandana's light to shatter just like mine did. Bandana also finds he can't make his light anymore, just like me.

Meanwhile, poor Shadow looks like he's about to explode from fighting against the Darkness so hard now that he's the only one left. "Just let it go," I tell him, not wanting him to make himself any sicker than he already is.

"No. I'm a hero too," he grunts as he stares up at his Light, fighting as hard as he can against the Darkness just outside of it now. "I'm not gonna let This Guy hurt you guys. I'm just as strong as the rest of you."

While Shadow continues to struggle, even though I keep telling him to stop trying so hard before he really hurts himself, Solar tells us in a low, super-happy-with-himself voice, "Meta Knight has already fallen, as I already told ye. Sakura and Magolor will soon join him. What is the point of fighting me, when there is no way to win? Ye are all doomed to join them, first of all, and secondly, the more ye fight, the worse it will be for ye in the end."

His words about Meta Knight being gone, although I don't completely believe them, make Shadow squint his eyes to keep from crying and lose focus on his Light. The Darkness shatters through it and quickly wraps around all of us like a cold, evil blanket, separating the three of us from each other. Although the Darkness around me makes me want to cry, I don't. I'm not gonna let it win. Whether Solar likes it or not, this isn't over yet.

With a shout, I struggle to make it out of the Darkness around me, only to suddenly have someone reach a glove in and yank me out of it. "Kirbs! Are you okay?! Please, please, please tell me you're not deaded!"

Back out in the rain and Dark fog, it takes me a minute to find my balance and thoughts again. "M-Magolor?" I stutter at the voice in confusion. "B-but Solar said you were possessed by Dark Matter..." When I blink my eyes at him, I can suddenly see that the cape he always wears around him is gone, although he still has his hood on.

With an angry growl, Solar agrees, "He was possessed by Dark Matter."

"Yeah, about that," Mags mutters in annoyance to the wrench that he holds in the glove that he didn't just pull me out of the Darkness with, "thanks for telling me where the Dark Matter was, so that it was just a simple fight of finding the will to push through its Dark Matter-y jerkiness and get my cape off. All I gotta do now is get an SW to give my beloved, totes swagolor hood the Light treatment for me, and it'll be good as new." With that, he lobs his wrench straight at Solar's face and reaches into another floating cloud of Darkness, pulling Bandana out.

Solar warps out of the way of the wrench, which isn't really a surprise, and quickly reappears right next to us, standing between us and Shadow's cloud prison, which he places his greedy gloves on and grins evilly at us.

"How about the darling little one is the first to go? I would simply adore seeing the looks on thy faces as I drain every last ounce of lifeforce from him, making sure to make it as agonizing as possible for him and ye..."

With a shout of anger, I swing my lance at him again. This time, I don't hit him, but it does get him to back just slightly away again. That's enough for Mags to reach in and pull Shadow out, thank goodness.

While Solar growls at us angrily and Darkness begins to swirl around his gloves as he prepares to cast another spell at us, I decide to chance making my Light again now that we're not surrounded in a shell of Darkness.

Even though all I meant was to make a simple sphere of Light, there's suddenly a fireworks-like explosion of it that goes zooming and zipping around the room, shooting through all the Dark fog around us and sending it away. Thank goodness, the chilly downpour finally ends too.

Solar scowls at the clearing-like room around him that's now just as bright as the rest of the maze was earlier, and then suddenly warps away. Just as we all start to relax, happy that the rain's over and that he's gone now, he reappears just in front of me, grabs one of my paws so tight it hurts, pulls me closer to him, and glares into my eyes as his begin to glow an awful red, leaving me feeling really tired and weak all of a sudden.

"This isn't over, Warrior of the Stars," he hisses at me, as a twisted smile worms its way onto his face and I start to feel really woozy. "Ye may claim the victory of this little standoff, yes, but I haven't even truly started to fight yet. Ye are still two heroes short, and ye are still going to soon taste eternal defeat." As he just blinks once when Shadow coughs really hard again and doesn't budge as Magolor comes over and starts to try really hard to push him away from me, he adds in quiet, evil happiness, "Yes, boy... Prepare to experience loss like ye have never known. It awaits ye eagerly, truly excited to play host to thee. In the meantime... Ye have fought lightning and Darkness during thy time here; what do ye think will come next?" With that, he finally lets me go and disappears again.

"Kirby? Are you okay?" Bandana's voice asks me, sounding scared. That's the last thing I hear before I find myself without any more strength to stand, and fall over onto the soaked, cloudy ground, tireder than I've ever felt in my entire life.