Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a lovely day in Dreamland as Elfilin excitedly floated his way to Dedede’s castle. Kirby had talked about how the Star Allies on Popstar often had difficulty reaching the Jambastion, and Elfilin wanted to help!

The Waddle Dee guards waved to him as he navigated his way to the courtyard, finding it near the back of the castle with an open arching doorway leading to it.

“Kirby!” Elfilin exclaimed in joy, hugging the puffball.

“Elfilin!” Kirby patted him on his head, “Thank you for even trying this, but are you sure this is a good idea?”

Elfilin’s plan was to attempt a permanent portal to the Jambastion, he made one between Dream Land and the Forgotten Land, so it was in realm of possibility, but that’s not to say it wasn’t very difficult and it took Elfilin multiple tries.

But he was determined to help his friends! “I’m not sure, but I'll give it my best!”

“Don’t worry, The kid’s got it!” King Dedede reassured both of them.

“Still doesn’t mean making a portal to a place he’s never been to isn’t a risk…” Meta Knight muttered under his breath, with Dedede elbowing him right after.

“H-how about we just get this started?” Bandana Dee asked nervously, attempting to get everything back on track while twilling his spear.

Elfilin giggled at the group’s banter, “I’m on it!” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on finding reality’s weak points and ripping them apart until he finds the Jambandra.

Unfortunately, Marx had decided that it was a great day to prank Dedede and was hiding in a bush, waiting for the perfect moment. So giving him an intense moment that is just waiting to be ruined? How could he let this pass!?

Marx flew out of the bushes, dividing in two and letting out an ear-splitting scream. Everyone reached to cover their ears, completely forgetting about the portal.

Marx laughed all way back down to the ground, “Oh Nova that was great!” he pointed at the group with his wing, “You guys should have seen the look on your faa… whAT IS THAT THING DOING?!?”

Everyone turned to see a star-shaped rift, pulling everything towards it; with the strength of its vacuum increasing rapidly.

Marx darted out of its range, Elfilin following suit and holding onto a sturdy tree. Meta Knight was taken almost immediately as the rift had appeared right behind him. Kirby, Bandana Dee, and Dedede being taken soon after, and the rift closing behind them.

The remaining two came out of their spots and back to where their friends once stood.

“We need to fix this.” Elfilin started.

“We are not telling anyone,” Marx added, “Mags and Susie would create a way to kill me.”

—————————————————————————————

Meanwhile, it was a normal day in Cappy Town, or at least as normal as it could be considering that their king routinely attacks them with monsters and their hero is a kid from the depths of space.

So of course, when a bright, blue flashing starts coming from the forest, everyone assumes it was just Dedede and Escargoon plotting for the second time that week.

Tiff watched the flashing from a nearby hill and sighed, “Seriously? What are they even doing this time?” she asked to no one in particular.

“Well, there’s no better way to find out then checking it out!” Tuff excitedly prompted, jumping to his feet.

“Poyo!” Kirby seemed to agree, running outside and off in the direction of the woods.

“Wait for us!” Tuff jumped to his feet and followed after Kirby, with Tiff following close behind.

As the trio got closer to the source, the flashing quicken and Tiff swore she saw some kind of stray lightning. Finally, they came across a weird blue glowing thing, it looked almost star-shaped but was too bright to be certain, and it was floating above the ground. The three just stared at it, hiding behind a tree just to be safe.

“What is that..?” Tuff wondered.

“How did it even get here?” Tiff asked, tightly holding Kirby's hand.

“Why don’t ya throw Pinky at it?” Tokkori suggested, catching everyone off guard.

“Wha- Where you following us the entire time?!” Tiff almost yelled.

“Well what else was I suppose’ to do? I can’t just you kiddos run loose in the woods.” Tokorri countered.

That was… surprising reasonable, at least for Tokkori, although Tiff wasn’t sure how she didn’t notice him.

Tuff on the other hand, wanted to call Tokkori out for spooking them, but just as he was going to, the flashing-thing started rapidly shooting lightning in all directions. Tiff, Tuff, and Kirby hid back behind the tree, with Tokkori getting hit by a bolt, then ducking with the others.

The glowing-thing started to expand, forming a rough and sharp star with a white center and a blue outlalmostine. It started blowing a strong wind, before launching out four people and disappearing completely.

Tiff cautiously stepped over to the group, who were lying face-first into the ground. She let out an audible gasp at the sight of them, motioning for the others to come look.

“No way..!” Tuff whispered in surprise. Three of the four looked  exactly like Kirby, Dedede, and Meta Knight, just with slightly different cloths, and even more confusing was that the last one seemed to just be a Waddle Dee with a bandana around their head.

“Do you think they’re actually real?” Tiff asked, she had trouble believing it, but she could deny what she was looking at.

“Poyo?” Kirby, well, their Kirby walked up to their look-alike and started patting their head, seemingly trying to wake them up.

“I think Kirbo has an idea here, just wack ‘em til they wake up!” Tokkori announced a bit too loudly, before flying over to the Meta Knight and pecking him on the head.

“Stop that you two!” Tiff tried to whisper, “We don’t know if they’re dangerous or not!”

“Don’t worry, they can’t be anything that we can’t handl- Ahck!” Tokkori was swatted aside by Meta Knight’s gloved hand.

The four replicas slowly started to sit up, the Dedede coughed up dirt, “Everyone ok?” he quickly asked.

“Well a bird tried to eat me.” the Meta Knight responded in a very matter-of-fact tone.

“I think I might have lost my spear…” the Waddle Dee stuttered, full of worry and panic.

“At least we’re all together this tiiiime…” the Kirby’s voice ran off and they stared at the two Kirbies just stared at each other. Also, the other Kirby talked.

“ What is even going on here?!” Tuff asked out-loud, “ Who are you and Why do you guys look like our Kirby, Dedede, Meta Knight?!”

The four allies shared a look, today was going be one of those days, wasn’t it?

At least explaining dimensional travel and multiple universes to a group of kids (and their bird) was easier than defeating a god-like creature.

Chapter Text

“We scaled up the mountain, navigating its caves and dodgin’ lava allll the way to very tippy top, where we confronted the four-headed Landia that donned the powerful Master Crown.” Dedede told his story with plenty of passion, which he had been doing for the entire forest trip.

During said trip, Tiff picked up on subtle differences between his voice and the one that her world’s Dedede had. The portal-rift Dedede had a clearer voice with a lighter accent, but you could really only hear the difference when listening closely.

“Wow…” Between Dedede’s story and learning about the Star Allies, it was easy to say that Tiff and Tuff were amazed. Tokorri on the hand…

“I doubt it would be that difficult!” Tokkori claimed, overly proud considering that he had no evidence, “I bet you're just exaggerating cause ya got burnt!”

Meta Knight stared down Tokkori like he had just insulted his very livelihood and attempted to draw his sword in front of the pesky bird, only to come out empty handed. “You are very lucky I don’t have any weapons on hand.” he threatened. Tokkori begrudgingly backed down, grumbling as he turned the opposite direction from atop Tuff’s head.

“Meta! Don’t threaten him,” Kirby said, “It’s probably a bit… difficult to believe some of the stuff that happens back on our Popstar.” they suddenly turned quieter as they mumbled, “Even I can barely believe it when it's right in front of me…”

Judging from their sudden face and tone, Tiff guessed it wasn’t a pleasant memory Kirby was recalling, which was only supported when Dedede and Meta Knight shared a concerned look.

“Poyo?” This world’s Kirby caught on to the sudden unease, but didn’t seem to understand what happened.

Luckily the weird silence didn’t stay for long as Bandana Dee exclaimed, “Hey! I think I can see the town!”

“Come on!” Tuff yelled behind him as he ran towards the town “I’ll introduce you to everyone!” Meanwhile Tokkori was hanging onto his hair for dear life.

“Heh, guess I’ll have to finish my story another time.” Dedede laughed.

“Yeah… just be careful when we get to town,” Tiff warned, “Our Dedede doesn’t exactly take ‘Potential challenges’ very well.”

“...What’s his opinion on Kirby?” Dedede asked with a hint of nervousness.

“He has tried to get rid of Kirby at least…” Tiff took a moment to count the many schemes of the king, before answering “twelve times, some on the same day. Why?”

“No reason, just… oh sweet Nova this is gonna be embarrassin’.” Dedede mumbled as he buried his face into his hands, with his face turning a noticeable purplish red.

Tiff desperately tried not to question his embarrassment, summing it up to having to see a bratty version of himself. Luckily for everyone except Dedede, they had finally arrived, “And here we are! Welcome to Cappy Town!” After she said that, Tiff swore she could see Kirby’s eye twitch for a moment.

Tuff ran over to them along with a large hoard of Cappies following him, many of them gasped and wowed at the sight of the group. “Everyone, meet the Kirby, Dedede, and Meta Knight of another dimension!” Tuff announced proudly, “Oh, and Bandana Dee too.” he briefly mentioned much more calmly and quietly.

All of the Cappies surrounded the Star Allies, each talking over everyone else and asking a bunch of questions like “How did you get here?” “Are you really from another world?” “Are you friends?” “Are you evil?”; the last one was mostly reserved for Dedede.

“Hey! Calm down and back away a bit! Don’t any of you know how overwhelming you guys are making this? They just got here! Show them some respect!” Tiff scolded the townsfolk.

“Aw, calm down sis!” Tuff said, “They’re meeting heroes from another world! Why wouldn’t they be this excited?”

“That doesn’t mean they’re not-” Tiff was about to counter her brother’s claim when unfortunately, a weirdly-colored boxy car with a long cannon came racing down the road. Everyone jumped out of the way before they could be ran over by the king they tolerated.

“All right what’s this here gatherin’?” Dedede of Cappy Town bellowed as he looked down upon the townsfolk, then he spotted his other-worldly counterpart, “An’ who’s this imposta’?! Are ya to replace me!”

“Ugh… just hearin’ and seein’ this is worse than any possession…” The other Dedede groaned.

Escargoon snickered, “Well if you’re enough to give him a headache I bet a town of lunatics won’t do him any better; not that I can’t blame him though…” That last bit earned him a whack on the head with his king’s hammer.

“AN’ ARE THOSE TWO KIRBEHS?!” Dedede screamed at the top of lungs; pointing to the Star Allies’ Kirby “ONE’S ALREADY ENOUGH! DID YA HAVE TO GET A SECOND!?”

“You know we wouldn’t need a hero in the first place if You Stopped SENDING MONSTERS TO ATTACK US!” Tiff shouted back.

Dedede looked just about ready to swing at Tiff too, before he seemed to get idea and grinned, “Escargoon, take us back up to the castle, I have just the perfect gift for our visitors.” He laughed as Escargoon drove the two of them off, and the crowd dispersed.

“That doesn’t sound good…” Kirby muttered.

“It’s not. If he wasn’t already up to something, he definitely is now. He’s probably going to order another monster,” Tiff sighed and looked down, “I might have accidentally given him that idea…”

“Don’t worry Tiff,” Tuff reassured her, “We both know he would have done that anyway.”

“Um… If I can interject for a moment,” Everyone turned to Bandee, “I left my spear on the other side of the portal…”

Tiff stared at him, trying to comprehend that yes, these are heroes who have saved their world multiple times over, and yes, at least one of them somehow left his weapon on the other side of a mysterious portal. “... How did you even lose it?” She hesitantly asked.

“I tried to use it to anchor myself and avoid getting sucked up by the portal, but it didn’t work.” Bandana Dee mumbled, blushing with embarrassment.

Tiff sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, “Does anyone else not have a weapon?” she asked a bit louder than intended.

“I do not know how I lost my sword, Galaxia,” Meta Knight explained, “but I will admit that even the strongest warrior can be scared by that troublesome jester…”

“If I’m being honest, I didn’t bring mine!” Dedede laughed, “I don’t expect to go on big adventures when we’re supposed to just be going to where other Allies live!”

“But with how much multidimensional mayhem surrounds our lives, you should expect it by now.” Meta Knight ‘advised’ him, before looking over to Tiff and Tuff “Would either of you know where we can find a spear for Bandee, or a sword for myself?”

Tuff chipped in, “I'm pretty sure there’s a storage room for the Waddle Dees in the castle! That will have plenty of spears! Although I’m not sure about swords…” he then asked “But about what Dedede? Doesn’t he use a hammer, like in the story he was telling?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout me,” Dedede reassured him, “I can fight with just ‘bout anything!” he boasted.

Tiff gave the king a questioning look, before Kirby backed him up, “He’s not wrong about that, he even once stole a brick pillar from an abandoned castle-thing and used to fight me before!”

“Heh, what can I say? I learned it from the best.” Dedede patted Kirby on their head, who giggled with pride.

“Well let’s get going then!” Tuff announced when Tiff grabbed his shoulder.

“And you need to stay with the group this time.” Tiff reminded him, “We can’t have anyone getting lost if a monster gets loose in the castle.” Tokkori had already decided to leave; judging from how he wasn’t with Tuff. He probably went back to take a nap at Kirby’s house.

“Right, got it.” Tuff replied too quickly to have actually listened. The group left for the castle, which wasn’t exactly far as it was just up on the hill at the top of Cappy Town.

And of course, there was a lack of guards at the entrance that made it ridiculously easy to just walk into Castle Dedede. “Seems like every version of Dedede lacks proper castle defenses.” Meta Knight commented.

“Hey! It ain’t like any of ‘em are completely defenseless!” Dedede argued, “All my Dees are trained to fight and they're all over my castles!”

“Only after you got kidnapped by a magician spider.” Bandana Dee reminded him.

“Which was also after you got possessed by the same thing 3 times in a row, had been robbed of a cursed treasure chest, and when multiple of the dees were kidnaped then replaced by yarn replicas.” Kirby added. Dedede grumbled something under his breath, but no one could hear what.

“Is your Dreamland under threat all the time?” Tiff decided to ask, “Although it’s not like I can’t say that isn’t the case here, thanks to all of Dedede’s; our Dedede’s, scheming.” she thought.

“Not all the time, just every other month or so.” Dedede; the other Popstar’s one, answered.

Tuff followed up with another question, “What about when it isn’t? Do you guys still adventure like with Magolor?”

“Sometimes, but things are mostly calm there.” Dedede replied, “Also, why is it so… green in here?”

“I dunno, it’s always been like that.” Tuff shrugged when a loud yell rang from a near-by door. The group paused for a moment, and opened the large door to peek inside the throne room.

Dedede was sitting on his “throne” with Escargoon by his side, but the throne was turned around, facing a large TV that both wasn’t there before, and was showing a human-like man that none of them recognized with gray skin, a large chin, semi-fancy hair, yellow-lensed glasses, and black suit. Despite how large the TV was, only his shoulders and face were shown.

“A monster to deal with imposters, huh?” The man said, “We mostly make those that do the opposite, but I think we have one who’ll work well.”

An image of a strange being who seemed to be made of bubbles appeared in the upper right corner of the TV. “This is Buboo,” The man explained, “it has the ability to trap people within its bubbles. It should be able to get rid of these duplicates and might quell any other ruffians you have. And it will only cost 24.9 million deden!”

Dedede of Cappytown grinned, “Perfect! I’ll take em and give ya the money latter!” He exclaimed and moved his throne back into place. The lights turned off and two holes opened up in the floor and ceiling as a large machine decorated with flashing lights came out.

A small orb of blinding light formed between the machine’s two halves as electricity shot off of it and throughout the room. The orb expanded, causing everyone to close and cover their eyes. When it disappeared, they looked back to see that atop the strange machine was the very same bubble monster shown on the TV; which was now gone, and the room's lights had turned back on.

“So that’s how he’s been getting so many monsters this quickly!” Tuff whispered, “The lower part looks… breakable.”

“If that wavy-web thing can hold up Blocky, then it must be stronger than how it looks.” Tiff shook her head, “He’ll probably find a way to repair anyways.”

“But he can’t repair a monster,” Kirby stated, “What do you say little me? Are you ready to take this guy on?”

“Poyo!” The younger Kirby agreed.

“We’ll take care of this thing then!” Kirby said, “You guys should continue to find that closet.”

“What?! But I need to stay to support our Kirby!” Tiff exclaimed, “I’m the only one who can summon the Warp Star, what if Kirby needs it?”

After she said that, Kirby a look of complete shook plastered on their face. “Oh… you should stay then. Tuff, you’ll still be good with the closet, right?”

Tuff nodded, “Yep! It should be… That way!” he sprinted off, with Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Dee following close behind.

“Well, let's fight that monster!” Kirby pushes the doors wide open, just in time to see the other Dedede and Escargoon getting trapped in bubbles by Buboo, with the former dropping his hammer.

Both Kirbies rushed up to Buboo, who released a swarm of bubbles throughout the room. Allies’ Kirby dived under them and over to the throne, they grabbed the dropped hammer and almost instantly a braided headband appeared on them, with a few small stars shining around them. Young Kirby on other hand had gone straight to inhaling any bubbles that flew at them, before jumping up via many backflips and freezing in mid-air. A blinding light encased them and when it faded Kirby was now a pale blue and slightly transparent with a tiara of bubbles and a blue three-circle bubble wand, which they somehow managed to hit themselves in the face with while trying to make a cool pose.

“Wow, that's very flashy.” Allies’ Kirby commented; impressed but stunned in confusion, allowing Buboo to almost get a hit in before Kirby dodged at the last second.

Young Kirby released a wave of bubbles back at Buboo that went through the monster’s protective barrier, causing it to recoil backwards, and revealing a red thing at the center of it. Buboo quickly reformed the bubbles in the area that Kirby hit.

Allies Kirby jumped up and slammed his hammer down on Buboo, knocking them into the wall while Allies Kirby landed safely. Young Kirby continued their onslaught of bubbles as they waved around the wand like a mad man.

Buboo desperately kept up their shield as they released their own bubbles over the Young Kirby. The two sides kept it up with no bubbles managing to make it to the other side before colliding and getting popped. Allies Kirby ran over to Buboo and with two swift smacks of a hammer, the beast’s barrier was gone, and Young Kirby was able to trap them in a bubble.

Tiff cautiously walked over Buboo and stared at the now trapped creature, “Is that… a crab?” she questioned. All that there was in Buboo’s bubble was one small, red crab with pincers that were barely bigger than its eyes.

“WHAAAAAAAT!!!” Tiff and the Kirbies looked up to see Dedede; who was now stuck to the ceiling, “Those goons gave me a crab? I was promised a sup’per strong monstar!”

“Well, it was a monster that got us up here.” Escaroon commented from the opposite of the ceiling.

Tiff laughed at the two, “I think it serves you right!”

“We’re back!” Tuff announced, running into the room, “I see you already beat em’...” he sighed with disappointment.

Dedede walked over to the Kirbies while twirling a ‘hammer’ that seemed to be tapped together from spears, swords and shields. “I see that the other me got trapped by his own monster.” He said, staring at his counterpart and Escargoon, who were trying to break out of their bubbles, but just ended up flailing uselessly.

“Yep! It was actually fairly useful.” Kirby responded, “This world’s me also managed to get our little crab.” They pointed towards Buboo, who was being admired by Young Kirby with pure wonder in their eyes.

“Wait, are those two new copy abilities?!” Tuff rushed over and looking all over both Kirbies, “Now I really wish I could have seen that fight!”

“Judging from your descriptions of this world, there’ll probably be more chances in future,” Meta Knight reassured him. He was also now carrying a new sword, which was an extremely simple yellow sword that stood in high contrast to Galaxia.

“Umm… Should we do anything about that?” Bandana Dee asked and pointed up towards Dedede and Escargoon with his new spear, “Shouldn’t we save them?”

“No, they’ll manage to get down eventually.” Tiff responded.

Dedede stretched, “I think I could take a little break now, although I assume that we won’t be staying here; judging from how much other me seems to hate us already.”

“Poyo! Poyo!!” Young Kirby seemingly volunteered as they grabbed onto their counterparts’ hands and attempted to bring them along.

Allies Kirby smiled, “I think that’s already taken care of.”