Meta Origins
Chapter 9: Castle Siege

Late that night, at perhaps eleven PM, a button pushed itself.

The button was the one on the arm of King Dedede's throne, the one that activated the demon beast delivery system. The platforms and energy sources emerged from the already darkened room, and it seemed to be a repeat of the previous day. Only this time, the procedure followed through.

With a blindingly bright burst of light, something was transported into the throne room. Something that, though crouched on all fours, was easily big enough to crash through the ceiling of Castle Dedede should it stand up. Something with beady black eyes and a vaguely conical, open-ended nose. Something with long claws that scorched the very floor it stood upon. It opened its mouth and growled in a way that sounded like crackling fire.

King Dedede had been awakened by the sound of the delivery system going off, since the throne room and his bedroom were side by side. After dragging Escargon from his bed, the king rushed into the throne room, still in his nightcap and pajamas. Upon finding two pairs of eyes staring at him – one on a screen – he cried out, "N-NANI?!?!"

"Why, hello, Your Majesty," grinned Customer Service. "Did you sleep well?"

"Customer Service!" Dedede roared. "What's all this?!"

"It's the demon beast you ordered." The Customer Service man smiled seductively as he straightened his sunglasses. "Do you like it?"

***

After everything she had learned from Sir Meta Knight, Fumu was unable to sleep. Finally, she decided that a quick walk in the corridors might help to cure her restlessness. She unobtrusively left her room and began to pace feverently.

Not too long after, Bun poked his head out of the double doors. "Sis?" he said blearily.

"What are you doing up?" she asked.

"I had a bad dream," he groaned. "And then I saw you weren't in bed."

"I'm just going for a walk," she replied quietly.

Kirby, who was spending the night there, appeared by Bun's feet with a sleepy, "Poyo?"

"Great, you woke Kirby up, too," Fumu complained.

"It's not my – " her brother started, but was interrupted by an immense CRASH!

The three children, suddenly wide awake, huddled together nervously. "What was that, sis?" Bun whispered.

"I don't know…" answered Fumu honestly.

At just that moment, the demon beast barreled down the corridor viciously.

Fumu and Bun both cried out and rushed in to hide Kirby from the monstrous creature, but it didn't even spare them a second glance. It continued its erratic run down the halls, much to their confusion.

"Strange," mused Fumu. "Most demon beasts go straight for Kirby. Why didn't this one stop?"

"Maybe it's just stupid," suggested Bun.

"Or maybe…" Fumu paused as Sir Meta Knight's words repeated in her head: Something catastrophic will happen soon. I have no doubt about it. I fear for her...

"Or maybe it's not after Kirby!" she finished, feeling icy dread seep into her chest.

"Not after Kirby?" Bun repeated. "Then who would it be after?"

"It's after Chuva!" gasped Fumu. "Sir Meta Knight said so!"

Bun frowned. "What exactly DID you do today, sis?"

But she wasn't listening as she grabbed his hand and began to pull him along. "We have to go find them! There's not much time! You, too, Kirby!"

"Poyo!" squealed Kirby in agreement as he chased after them.

***

Chuva was on guard in the other side of the castle when she heard footsteps coming from some distance away. But these were not normal footsteps – each of these sounded like someone had dropped a stack of books on the stone floor.

She backed into the wall, apprehensive. Whatever was making those footsteps was running. At the rate it was going, it would catch up to her soon. Despite herself, she wondered what it could possibly be.

It was a demon beast.

Chuva cried out when she saw it – she hadn't had much experience with demon beasts before – then immediately drew her sword. Ten seconds later, she realized that this thing was huge, too huge to fight against in such a confined area. She only had one option left. She fled – still clutching the sword in her hand. And as she ran, she sent out a pang of distress to the only person who could possibly help her…

***

Meta Knight hadn't been happy about running a patrol away from Chuva, but she had said that she needed some time alone, to think. Since there was nothing he could possibly say to comfort her, he had been forced to agree. Hence, he was nowhere close to the throne room when the transporter went off.

Then, he suddenly felt what sounded like a high-frequency sound, but in his mind. It was accompanied by a pang of fear and distress, and he knew that something had gone wrong, that it had been wrong to part with Chuva tonight.

He paused briefly, got a rough edge on her location, and headed that way quickly – this was an emergency.

***

As Meta rushed towards her at a frantic pace, Chuva was luring the demon beast out into the courtyard. It wasn't difficult. Obviously, this thing had eyes only for her. What DID make her task challenging, though, was that the demon beast would suddenly spit out columns of flame from its hollow nose. But she was a professional at risky dodging. She jumped, ducked, and skidded to the side with a fluid ease. Oh, where the heck was her double?! This was NOT going to be easy to do without help…

But out in the open air, he somehow fell into step beside her.

"There's a demon beast chasing you?!" he shouted.

"Well, OBVIOUSLY," she yelled back.

"Didn't I tell you to be careful?! That you were under surveillance?!"

"I didn't do anything wrong!"

"In this castle, being near Kirby is a grave off – " Meta Knight gave a cry of exclamation as he rolled at the last possible second to avoid a fireball.

Chuva's heart sank. She had called her double here, and was now only endangering him. "Meta…it's obviously after only me. You should go back to the castle."

"I'm not leaving your side!"

She cursed. "Bakka. Okay, we can fight it together. But we have to draw it out to somewhere more open than this courtyard to defeat it!"

Meta Knight dashed ahead of her. "Follow my lead. I know somewhere we can use as a makeshift battlefield."

One foot, singing hot, almost slammed down on them.

"Hurry!" cried Chuva desperately, struggling to keep her balance after the close skid.

The race was on.

***

Fumu, Bun, and Kirby couldn't see Chuva. However, it wasn't exactly hard to follow a giant demon beast out of the castle. In addition, Sword and Blade also seemed to have joined the chase and were in hot pursuit right ahead of them.

"Why are you guys going after it?!" Fumu gasped out when her group got close enough.

"We have taken an oath to protect our lord and lady from such fearsome enemies!" declared Sword.

"And we can't let a demon beast go on the rampage in our castle!" added Blade.

"Man, you guys are really loyal…" panted Bun.

"I think they're leading it away from the castle, anyway!" Sword shouted.

"That's good, but where they think they're going?!" Fumu answered.

"We're going to find out," said Blade gravely, and then all of their energy was conserved for running.

***

Meta Knight managed to draw the demon beast to a valley not far from the castle. Even out here, it seemed utterly impenetrable. It no longer had to stoop to fit itself into cramped spaces, and was as huge and menacing as an erupting volcano.

"Do we try to attack?!" Chuva cried.

In a swift, rapid motion, Meta Knight yanked his sword from its scabbard. "We'll have to! Take the left leg, I'll take the right!"

Chuva obeyed, and the doubles lunged at their targets. However, the demon beast anticipated them, and swung out a viciously clawed hand to bat them away. Both were flung several feet through the air, coming to a landing in the grass in a painful skidding way.

Meanwhile, Sword and Blade made it to a hill overlooking the valley, as did Fumu, Bun, and Kirby. "I'm afraid we'll have to stay here!" Blade yelled.

"If they're trying to fight it, we can't interfere yet," agreed Sword.

"There's no way they can defeat that thing alone…" said Fumu worriedly.

The exact same thought was throbbing in the heads of Chuva and Meta Knight as they gazed up at their opponent. And then something else came, a revelation that wiped all thoughts of failure from their minds.

At this angle, Meta Knight knew that this was not the first time he had seen this creature. Sprawled out here, he flashed back to a time when he trembled from this very demon beast's gaze, shaking inside his oversized clothing as his mother was dying beneath the wreckage of their cottage.

The memory ended, but one consistent thing remained.

"I know that demon beast," he murmured.

Chuva, who had just experienced the same astonishing revelation, gasped, "It attacked our village."

"It killed my mother," said Meta Knight.

Chuva inhaled sharply and turned her head towards him, as if for a look of confirmation. But she never received one. At that moment, a fireball blazed straight at them, and they were both forced to roll off in opposite directions to avoid being fried.

As the pair scrambled to their feet, the demon beast lowered itself back on all fours and turned its colossal head to gaze at Chuva. Without missing a beat, she plunged her sword straight into its forehead. The monster's shriek resonated all over the valley, but unfortunately for her, the skin was too tough to be completely pierced by her blade. She yanked on the handle, pulling as hard as she could as she tried to get it out, but as she did so, the head began to rise again.

"Chuva!" cried Meta Knight. "Chuva, get on top of it!"

Chuva was not stupid, and she was definitely not stupid enough to dangle from a loose sword stuck in a demon beast's head hundreds of feet above the ground. So she did exactly what Meta Knight had suggested – she hauled herself right on top of the demon beast's head.

The demon beast screeched and bucked as it tried to remove its unwanted passenger, and Chuva was left clutching her vague handholds (and her now-freed sword) for dear life. Meta Knight felt positively stranded there on the ground, unable to help his double in any way as she desperately tried to keep from falling toward certain death.

On the hillside, Fumu gasped, "Is she on top of the demon beast?!"

"Looks that way," responded Sword strenuously.

"But how can we help her now?" Bun demanded.

***

The demon beast was more intelligent than any of them had reckoned, and now decided to take a new approach. It pumped heat to its head, so much that Chuva could feel it even through her thick gloves. She was forced to stand up now, which made balancing even more of a challenge. Even using all of her experience to shift her feet and tilt her body in the correct ways, she knew that she wouldn't be able to stay on for much longer.

"This is bad!" Bun shouted.

"What can we…" Fumu began miserably, then cut herself off. "Wait! Kirby, YOU can go get her!" And without stopping to survey the others' reactions, she clasped her hands together and pleaded, "Come, Warp Star!"

And she imagined that, from somewhere across valleys and canyons, she heard an answering, "Warp Star!"

A few moments later, the gold vehicle was whizzing through the air. In a practiced maneuver, Kirby jumped up and landed upon it. He guided the Warp Star around the demon beast's head and…

Caught Chuva just as she was bucked off!

Chuva's feet planted firmly down upon the Warp Star's surface. She looked at Kirby incredulously for a second, then began to laugh in stupefaction and relief and the wind blew her cape and short blonde hair out behind her. "Drop me off with Meta," she told Kirby. "I think we can be of some help to you."

Kirby did just that, angling the Warp Star down to where Meta Knight stood waiting. Chuva extended her hand, and he swung her off of the Warp Star and down to the ground. Suddenly relieved of most of its weight, the Warp Star shot upwards, which was exactly what Kirby wanted. He was now hovering directly in front of the demon beast's face. It hissed, releasing a stream of flame at his face, but he took a step back and inhaled the attack.

There was a burst of light too bright to look upon. When it subsided, Kirby was once again on the Warp Star, but this time, there was a flame shooting up from his head.

"All right!" exclaimed Fumu.

"It's Fire Kirby!" cheered Bun.

On the ground below Kirby, Chuva gaped at this astonishing transformation. "THAT'S his ability?" she asked Meta Knight, who nodded. She frowned. "Sure puts all of ours to shame."

"We don't have any time for that," Meta Knight said, reaching for his sword once more.

She nodded, her bright yellow eyes narrowing. Somehow, she had managed to keep hold of her own sword as she fell. Holding it up at shoulder height, she commanded, "Meta…let's go!"

***

In an immense collaboration of teamwork, Kirby somehow understood that it was his job to bring the demon beast down so that Meta Knight and Chuva could finish it off. So he kept up with a relentless stream of fire attacks, never allowing his opponent to get an opportunity in. Eventually, the demon beast was reduced to a cowering wreck from its own power, scorched all over – and that was where the waiting doubles stepped in.

They attacked from opposite sides, but fought as if watching each other's every move. They targeted the beast's vulnerable spots, slashing and piercing with perfect synchronization, much to the amazement of the company on the hillside.

"Chuva is acting like she's fought demon beasts as much as Meta Knight has," gaped Fumu.

Sword and Blade exchanged a knowing glance but didn't say anything.

They continued to watch as Chuva brutally stabbed out the demon beast's eyes, marking the perfect opportunity for Meta Knight to end the battle. He leapt on top of its scalded hide and plunged his sword straight into the beast's heart.

It lay still.

"That was for my mother," said Meta Knight, resheathing his strangely clean blade.

Kirby came to a landing on his Warp Star, his flame reduced to nothing. "Poyo!" he declared.

There was a hint of a subdued smile on Chuva's face, and Meta Knight stepped down to her.

"That was an amazing show of fighting," he told her.

"It's only because of you," she replied.

"Nonsense. Chuva, you're finally putting all that training you had to use." He glanced at the smoldering carcass of the demon beast, and sighed. "Although I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't want to stay."

"What do you mean?"

"This place doesn't hold an easy life for you. There's a tyrannical king and a constant threat of demon beasts, and I'm afraid you'll find it hard to maintain the side you really want to be on."

She breezed a little closer to him.

"Be that as it may, there's something that will keep me here no matter what."

"And what," asked Meta Knight, "is that?"

She rolled her eyes. "My double. Bakka."

"I'm…I'm glad to hear that," Meta Knight admitted. "Believe it or not, I'm not so strong without you."

"I believe it. I can see inside your head."

Two things happened then, behind his mask. The first was that his eyes dampened, just a little. And the second was that he smiled.

"I missed you, Chuva."

"You'd better have, because now you're stuck with me. Forever."

THE END