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Kirby loved this planet.
It was so... different.
Everywhere you looked, there was something new to see. Everywhere you went, there was something new to do. Even the vast plains that surrounded the city they landed in had some sort of mystery attached to them that made Kirby want to understand why they were there. Did the city folk think that that land was important? Is that why they didn't build over it? Or, was there something there that was simply overtaken by nature? It was a very fun puzzle to ponder over indeed. He'd even asked Dee for his input a couple of times, and while his answers were... questionable, they kept spurring Kirby's curiosity.
It wasn't just the environment either, nor the people that lived in those cities long ago. He adored the technology that these cities contained. Screens and lights that never seemed to turn off, giant vehicles that could take you anywhere, and most interestingly enough, phones. Now, he knew what a phone was, most people in Dream Land had one. However, it took serious effort to get those devices, and it took even more effort to get them connected to the Standard's universal internet field. However, on this planet, they seemed extremely common. They weren't from any companies he knew of and they definitely were not connected to the Standard's field.
(He'd tried with several of the ones that still worked, and they never connected.)
It made him wonder more, it made him dangerously curious. Were they even near the Standard's space in the known universe? The Standard was an organization that sought to connect intergalactic nations using a standard set of rules left by the pre-ancients. They were known quite well by almost everyone in the known universe but beyond that? In the unknown part of the universe? They had no power whatsoever. And maybe he was overthinking it, this planet might've just never reached space or something. But the constant imagery of rocket ships and other planets made that theory kind of moot. They must've had some influence over the space around them, or at least had started to get some influence before the people disappeared to explain their knowledge of space.
So the only explanation was that they really were far away from the Standard. Far enough that they couldn't contact anyone in it. Far enough that no one knew just where they were. Far enough that their influence was completely nonexistent.
It was simple. They were stranded.
(Dee confirmed it eventually in Waddle Dee Town, they truly were stranded.)
Kirby didn't care though. He missed his friends sure, and everything he'd left behind would surely make him feel a bit sad, but...
This planet was filled with adventure. It was filled with new things to explore and understand. He adored this planet, and he was certain Dee loved it too! There was no reason to return home at the moment anyway. There were no threats, no dark overlords that needed extermination, Popstar was peaceful.
That would never change. Popstar would always be, as Marx described it, 'way too boring for its own good.'. And he was right, it was too boring for its own good. A couple of incidents here and there might change the landscape or so, but nothing ever felt 'interesting'. The 'Planet Robobot' incident was cool and all, but when everyone started to get mechanized, the coolness of it sort of fell apart. The 'Dreamstalk' incident was beautiful and probably the closest comparison he could think of to this planet, but it didn't take long before he completely mapped it out.
Maybe he was finally hitting that rebellious phase everyone was claiming he would hit eventually. But he was going to turn 17 in less than a month, so that didn't make much sense. Teenage rebellion wasn't really teenage rebellion anymore once you hit 17, right? At that point, you're just considered a young adult, shy one year of legal adulthood. It explained why he couldn't handle the calmness that he thought he loved so much before, but at the same time, it didn't make sense. Maybe he should just talk to someone like Meta Knight about it, or maybe even Marx, he could spout some ridiculously good wisdom every once in a while-
Ah, wait, he couldn't.
At the end of the day, he (And all the waddle dees, he supposes) were stranded, stuck on a foreign planet with no understandable name.
He would likely stay stranded until they found some kind of rift. He, Dee, and everyone else who got caught.
Really, when he thought about it, the idea kinda sucked. It didn't even fit his whole shtick. He was the friendship loving hero, Kirby! Not a thrill-seeking, friend abandoning, adventurer. Yet, the more he thought about it, being an adventurer wouldn't be too bad. He'd get to travel to other planets and meet new people. Really, the only reason he hadn't gone down that path already was.. well...
Kirby was bad at letting go, but not in a normal way. When it came to things like grudges, he could never forget them. Yeah, he'd forgive the person and makeup, but that grudge would be permanently glued into his brain. It was like that for a lot of things too. He'd hoard items, friends, ideas... That was likely the reason he couldn't stop thinking about this, and why he hadn't tried it yet either. He wanted more, he wanted to leave, but his time in Dream Land was a large part of him that he could never leave behind. So now he was stuck. Shackled by the things he loved the most.
Did he love them though? His friends were great, they helped him a lot, and the last incident would've ended in failure if they didn't support him. But somehow, he couldn't say he actually loved them. It was weird. He thought of it as a wall. A large, glass wall that while thin, still separated him and his friends. The more he thought of it the more he realized that that wall wasn't something recent. It always had existed, hidden, but obvious in hindsight. When he thought about his friendship as a large web, the problem became even clearer. His friends weren't exactly friends with him, no, they were friends with 'Kirby'. The hero 'Kirby', the 'Kirby' that helped them become slightly better people, the 'Kirby' that always valued friends above all else. They were not friends with the 'Kirby' who was currently reconsidering his life in a jungle.
And Kirby didn't want that to be true, but the more he looked over it, the more he reconsidered and thought about their actions, the more he realized that they were just attached to an idea of him. That wasn't the worst part about that realization though, no because when he rethought his friendship web, he realized his friends didn't care about each other. Yes, there were the obvious groups like the Animal friends, or Meta Knight's and Dedede's... friendship? But when it came to everyone as a whole, he realized that they didn't hang out willingly. It typically took Kirby or Dee to get them all together. Really, he should've noticed it ages ago, with how Dedede acts around the Animal friends. They weren't rude to each other, they were friendly enough, but their relationship was basic and barebones. Without Kirby, it would fade always rather quickly.
The only exception would be Dee. He was his best friend, and arguably the only true one he probably had. They'd known each since they were little kids and were together regularly, so he knew Dee was a trustworthy ally. He was also likely the only other person who would still be friends with everyone even if Kirby had disappeared. But even then, they all just weren't close enough.
So, he couldn't leave them. Not only because he himself was attached to them, but because they were attached to him.
And then Kirby realized that he had just left them. He and Dee were light-years away weren't they? Far from the Standard, Far from home.
Stranded.
...
That word was starting to make him dislike the planet a bit. A shame, he really didn't want to hate this planet, especially for such petty, circumstantial reasons. It wasn't just the planet he was starting to hate though, no, it made him dislike a good couple of things alongside it, but the planet was of course the most relevant and prominent. It made the thought of permanently staying a bit of a nightmare.
But he couldn't get rid of it.
He could think about something else though!
"Kirby!"
...Or talk to Dee!
Kirby opened his eyes and turned toward his friend's voice. Getting off the wall that he was leaning on originally in favour of walking, Kirby put on his signature smile as he waited for his friend.
"Kirby! Where have you been!" Dee shouted, exasperated as he jumped down from a roof a couple of meters away. "I thought we were going to meet up at the tunnel?"
"Hmm.." What to say, what to say... "I was looking for something."
He tilted his head slightly, "Did you find what were you looking for?"
"Yep!" Kirby made his smile extra bright, "Sooo, I came back here to wait for you."
"Despite the fact we agreed on going to the tunnel?"
"Mhm!"
Dee sighed, "No harm done I guess, I don't think I even want to go to the tunnel right now."
"Yeah..." An idea suddenly popped into his brain. "Hey! why don't we have a car ride back to town?"
Another head tilt, "But the warp star is faster? Waddle Dee town is kinda far.."
"But that's a good thing! We get to see the sunset!"
"The sunset? Hm.." Dee brought a hand to his face, considering the option carefully.
"And," His smile turned into a tricky grin. "It allows us to do some extra recon."
Silence.
"Fine. We can drive back home." Dee relented.
Kirby's bright smile returned as swiftly got to the car and opened the door to the driver's seat. His friend in contrast merely walked to the other side, opening the door carefully as if he was unsure. It didn't matter to him though, grabbing the special car keys out of his pocket, he turned the car on.
The machine growled before lowering its noise to a simmer. Kirby pressed down on the gas pedal and slowly began to turn around. Would it be weird to say he liked driving? Despite the initial difficulty curve (And that horrendous manual that he had to translate in order to figure out what did what.), driving was fun. He didn't understand why it was so enjoyable, but it just was. It was one of those things that you could simply do and relax. Or at least that's how he saw it, the amount of cars in the city implied that there used to be many on the road at once. Strangely enough, though, he couldn't imagine it. It seemed so needlessly complicated. He'd studied the way the city worked, so the roads made some sense, but he couldn't make sense of car traffic. There were definitely better ways to design the roads, but whoever built the city must've not cared for efficiency.
It was a shame. Getting things done quickly and cleanly was something that he prioritized above all else. Although, he was kind of betraying that by going on this car ride wasn't he? Then again, he wasn't contradicting the normal, lazy, 'Hero Kirby' with the trip. Him appearing efficient would probably look more like a contradiction than this really.
"Kirby?"
Snapping out of his thoughts, Kirby glanced at his friend. "Hm?"
They were now driving on one of the city's many 'highways' at a good speed of... 65 miles per hour! Or alternatively, 104.6 kilometers per hour! (Ah, the ability to do mental conversions, so convenient!). It was risen up a bit, so there was a good view of the outskirts and the ocean as well. Quite the peaceful view really. Dee looked anything but peaceful though, he stiffly sat on his side with his head slightly turned towards the window. His discomfort radiated throughout the car.
"It's just..." Dee's voice was a bit strained, "This world, It feels.. strange."
"Strange in what way?"
"Like, it's cool to explore, but it feels like I'm somewhere where I shouldn't be."
That sounded a bit.. inconvenient. "So, you don't want to explore it..?"
Dee instantly turned around, a vaguely stressed expression on his face. "No! no, I promised that I'd help you, so I will help you, it's just that..."
Kirby stared at him inquisitively.
"All this technology, doesn't it make you feel uncomfortable?"
Eh?
His face must've had some kind of strange expression on it because Dee quickly backtracked, "M-maybe not uncomfortable, but like.. uh.."
Kirby eased in a small smile on his face, "Does it make you uncomfortable?"
"Well," Dee sighed, "A bit, I think. I haven't quite figured it out yet. I'm in between uncomfortable and fear right now."
"Fear?"
"Yeah, but I'm still not sure yet."
And silence. Kirby looked back out towards the road in front of them. They still had a good couple more miles to go until they reached Waddle Dee Town, and sunset had begun to drape over the landscape. It was picturesque. The sky faded from cool blue to orange without any fuss. It was an easy transition, it was easy to look at. Easy to lose yourself in it too...
"Hey, Dee."
"What?"
"If I disappeared one day, would you take care of everything for me until I came back?"
"Huh..?"
"..."
"What kind of question is that?"
He looked back at Dee with an expression of hollow surprise.
"You wouldn't disappear." He stated it as if it was fact, "You'd just be somewhere we can't quite reach. But it doesn't matter where you are because we will find you. I promised you that I'd help you no matter what, so that's what I intend to do."
Kirby could only look at him unchangingly as he continued, not hesitating with words whatsoever.
"If you ever disappeared, I'd help you get home, doesn't matter how long it takes, or how far the journey.
I will find you."
A shame, a bloody shame.
"Ah, I guess I have no reason to worry then!" He faked a small laugh.
Dee smiled brightly, "Of course! What kind of friend would I be if I didn't help you at all?"
Kirby pressed on the gas pedal once more, the car starting to accelerate back to its original speed. His smile was tight but somehow unchanging.
It was truly a shame that Dee thought this way. To try and find him no matter what, it sounded ridiculous but plausible. Maybe he should've expected this answer. Dee isn't just a guard to King, he's more than that. He's many things, one of those things was being too caring. In any case, it was highly unlikely he could change Dee's mind. He seemed very sure of himself. It confirmed the idea that leaving everything on Popstar to him was impossible. A complete shame. Kirby hoped that maybe, his doubts were wrong, but no. He wouldn't be able to stay on this planet, and there was no other person he could ask.
All because he was stranded.
A stupid, stupid shame.
Kirby hated this planet.