Chapter Text
“I promise you, It’s real! I saw it with my own two eyes!”
The Waddle Dee cringed as she sunk into her chair, looking about as out of place as Meta Knight felt in the bar. Not that he was opposed to a drink (though the bitter swill here was something he wouldn’t drink if he was dying of thirst), that wasn’t the issue. No, this place was beneath him. A haphazard, falling-apart rust bucket far away from any planet worth caring about, somewhere for pirates and maybe the most desperate of mercenaries to drink away their meagre savings. Few of them knew how to fight against anything but frightened civilians and other thugs, and even fewer were even worthy of drawing his sword against.
His men hardly had as discerning tastes, though. Enough time on the ship without a fight, and they’d take whatever booze they could and draw blades against the first idiot looking for a fight. Hardly befitting a proper Knight, but they were the closest he could get after the age of Warriors had all but ended. He could put up with some less-than-noble behaviour for the few who cared about honour and chivalry, even in these dark days.
( It doesn’t have to be that way, my star-child, a familiar chorus of not-voices echoed in his head. You can live in that past-world of yours forever, if you want. You just have to give in.)
(Never, he instinctively thought, before he remembered that they were gone. Just a memory. Just a-)
“Yeah, right, girlie.” The Dee shrieked as another patron snatched her up by her paw, sneering. Tall, thin, holding a rusty dagger in his other pincer-like it made him somehow intimidating. Clearly inexperienced in fighting, if he didn’t realise he’d be better off with his bare claws. “And I betcha there’s a Star Warrior in this room, too, ain’t there? Shut up about things that don’t concern ya pretty little head before someone decides there’s better things for a stupid Dee to be doin’ with all that free time of theirs-“
“I swear on the Void itself! I- I was on patrol, and he- I- he- he fought the King! I don’t- everyone else thinks I’m making stuff up, but I’m not, I- I read about them-“
The patron crushed his grip down harder, causing the Dee to start sobbing as blood poured down her body. “See, there’s the problem,” he said, entirely uncaring to her screams. “You let Dees read and they get these storybook ideas in their head, ‘bout the way the world was s’posed to be. Well, you’re wrong! Ya ‘King’ shoulda had ya whipped before ya became such a whiner, tryin’ to swindle good, honest folks into your wild goose chase over a silly little fantasy. ‘Course, we all know why; everyone knows that fucker has some weird Dee f-“
“He could copy abilities! He- he swallowed Milord’s Hammer up whole, and he-“
Meta Knight didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. He didn’t have to; he’d heard enough. A Knight didn’t tolerate the bullying of an innocent, especially not a defenceless Waddle Dee alone surrounded by the worst scum imaginable.
Especially not one that somehow knew enough about Star Warriors to spin such a convincing tale.
(Or… or…)
(No. He couldn’t get his hopes up. He was, and always would be, the last. They’d made sure of that. He’d made sure of that.)
(Sometimes, things dying was for the best.)
One swift movement, and he stood in between the patron and the Dee, Master digging into that scumbag’s chin. Galaxia whined in the back of his mind, always hungering for blood, but she could wait. He couldn’t waste her on any petty criminal. She deserved far better than a witless bully to feast upon.
“I- I-“
“Put her down.”
The thug gulped and unceremoniously dropped the poor Dee onto the floor. “Y-yes, Sir M-M-Meta Knight.” So, the hatchlings still knew his name. Good. “Now, you see, t-this was all a big mis-misunderstanding! I- I wasn’t- I was just disciplining my Dee, see?”
“ Your Dee? From what I heard, she serves a king. Kings know better than to flail around that excuse for a knife like it’s a real weapon.”
A green blush ran to the youths cheeks, barely visible through dark carapace “W-well, then, she’s clearly a runaway, comin’ here! Spoiled brat, too. If I were a Dee, I’d thank my lucky stars I was one of that weirdo from Popstars lot. Everyone knows he spoils his Dees. Prob’ly cause he f-“
“I’m not here to listen to you gossip.” He let the blade dig slightly further into the scum’s neck, just enough to sting. Just enough to let reality slip in a little. “The business of pirates and thieves means nothing to me. Nor do the lives of those who drag innocents into it.”
“I-I-“ The boy's eyes widened. “But sh-she started it, Sir! I- I promise, I won’t e-ever drag anyone inta this who d-doesn’t deserve it, long as I live! But that bitch, she was tryin’ ta scam me with some fake bounty! You know Dees, r-right? I’m sure she woulda robbed us blind!”
“Rich, coming from a thief like you. No, you’re just looking for an innocent life to ruin . Now, go, if you value seeing another day, and never act so cowardly again. I’d rather not waste my time slitting your throat.” Tears in his eyes, the youth took a step back, looking half-ready to jump into space, before he fainted. Meta Knight had been so fixated on getting him to leave that Waddle Dee alone that he hadn’t even noticed the crowd that had formed until they burst into laughter at the sight. They must have been expecting a fight- no, that’d be too nice a word for the one-sided slaughter they’d been thirsting for- but the humiliation had mollified their bloodlust just a tad.
None of them cared for the girl lying on the floor, sobbing quietly as she stared at her bloodied, twisted paw, of course. To them, she was just a Dee. More of a thing than a person. Even his men saw the Waddle Dees aboard the Halberd more as well-trained pets than fellow crew members- they’d never even dream of hurting one, Meta Knight had standards, even if they couldn’t be as exacting as he wanted, but while they’d give Dees spare rations and let them play while they weren’t working, they’d take the idea of them being as much a Knight as the rest of them as an insult.
As for pirate crews? They already took joy in hurting the needy and helpless. Creatures like Dees, from a time when loyalty and kindness and innocence wasn’t a weakness? Who took joy in helping others? They were perfect targets for the rest of the crew, day after day after day. He’d heard enough horror stories from those they’d rescued to have more of an idea of it than he’d like. A broken paw was nothing- men like this hurt Dees for sport and dumped the remains like useless refuse. You could always hatch more Dee, after all, so it didn’t really matter if you broke a few. And as long as you fed them, they’d let you do anything.
That wasn’t true, of course. People weren’t born as fawning servants, or remorseless pirates, for that matter. That was how they survived. Few had the privileges to claw out anything more than mere existence, not now the stars themselves were dying. Food, water, even light grew more and more precious a resource as the universe took its death rattle, and that wasn’t even getting into the things that feasted upon its corpse. There was no room for a Waddle Dee that didn’t earn their keep anymore, just as there was no more room for true Knights.
In that way, perhaps Meta Knight was kin with them. They were both relics of when the universe was kind.
He jumped off of the table, rushing to the side of the injured Dee. She looked up from her injury and yelped, looking almost more afraid of Meta Knight than she was the patron harassing her. “I-I’m sorry for getting in your way, Sir! P-please, I’ll-“
“Don’t apologise. I’d like to look at your wound.” Meta Knight was hardly a doctor, but he’d learned some basic tricks on the field over the centuries. Normally, of course, playing nurse wasn’t his job, but he doubted anyone here would so much as bandage her wounds without coercing the sun and moon from her as “payment” for that basic decency.
(Plus, she was the one who deserved payment, and no amount of gold could be enough for a bounty on something able to reach even a pale imitation of his kind. He’d missed sparring with equals.)
She looked at him with wide eyes for a second, before scrunching them shut and holding out her injured paw shakily, like she was afraid he was about to hurt her worse. He could hardly blame her for that, really. He knew, from the sudden silence, that more violence was what the crowd was waiting for, and while his men knew to expect an honest fight, most of the scum in this bar probably hadn’t seen an honest fight in their lives, if it was even a fight they were expecting. He didn’t want to think of what worse ideas they had cooked up in their head.
Gently, he reached out to examine further, making sure to keep the gloves far from the cut. She cried out still, her cheeks turning red as she kept her eyes stubbornly closed. He could feel even from the back of her paw where the bones were out of place, and looking closer at the wound made it clear it cut deep, enough that without proper treatment, it’d be unlikely she’d ever be able to use it properly again.
Even back in the days where stars shined and Warriors fought against the darkness, something like this would have been life-changing. There were treatments, temporary ones that dulled the pain but didn’t fix the stiffness, and replacement limbs of steel and wires that served a warrior just as well, but whenever a Warrior got hit that bad and didn’t limp back to a healer in time, that usually marked the beginning of the end. Some would quit, convinced that they couldn’t match up to a true child of the stars. They were the lucky ones.
When they’d had to deal with a corrupted Computer Virus, those who’d chosen to take prosthetics to fight as they always had, they’d…
No. There was no reason to think of that. Why was he thinking of that? He’d seen it replay enough in his head. It didn’t need to distract him now.
“You’ll need to get that looked at unless you want that to get infected. There’s an infirmary on my ship.”
“U-um, I don’t have enough gold, Sir. Just enough for- for- I c-can’t pay you back-“
“Your word is payment enough. I’ll even pay that bounty of yours back twofold, if you have more information.”
There was murmuring from his crew at that. Captain Vul, especially, he could hear already squawking in disapproval, ready to debate about how that was their money too, and it wasn’t fair to waste all the crew had on some fruitless lead. Meta Knight’s men trusted him enough not to blindly follow him, and that much he was proud of them for. In this new world, blind obedience to one’s liege would be a worse betrayal of any vows you’d taken than being a kingslayer, and they were wise to question their commander, even if he was almost always right.
But he could not let this opportunity pass by. The tiniest sliver of meeting another of his kind, after so, so, long- someone who’d put up a fight like a true warrior, someone who’d share his code of conduct, someone who wouldn’t quietly think he was insane no matter how much they trusted him… he couldn’t pass that up. Not for anything.
He wasn’t tall enough to glare at Vul, not on the floor like this, so he glared in his general direction. “Do you want to pass up on the opportunity to fight someone as strong as me?” His men fell silent. Despite it all, they held onto that much- that drive to improve themselves, to be the best Knights they could be, even if that was a pale imitation of the Star Warriors of old. That was more than enough to make them worthy of bearing the title and fighting in his name. In times like these, it was braver to be an imperfect Knight than a perfect one millenias past.
“Y-you don’t have to pay me, anyway. Getting rid of him is payment enough.” There was a quiet determination in the Dee's voice as she opened her eyes, staring through Meta Knight with a conviction as strong as any Warrior. “I can’t let him hurt my King. I can’t. As long as Milord is safe… that’s payment enough.”
Once, maybe, a statement like that would have been mundane, but that was long enough ago that it seemed more like a distant dream, half remembered at best. The age of Knights was long since over, and even its remnants could not hold onto those ideals. When faced with a world of tyrants and petty dictators, the choice between turning your blade onto your liege or breaking the vows you made to strive for justice was one you couldn’t avoid, and Meta Knight had always chosen the same answer time and time again. If he could not avoid it, breaking one oath was better than betraying the rest.
He’d given up on those who called themselves kings in this new age long ago. Perhaps that made him little more than a glorified mercenary, but better to hold your ideals than to lose yourself to naked banditry. Compromises had to be made, no matter how much it ached.
He’d almost forgotten the loyalty he’d once felt for the kings of old until he saw it reflected in the Waddle Dee's face. There was no doubt she’d lay her life down without question for his sake. With the fierce determination blazing in her eyes, like she did not know fear, she looked more like a fellow Star Warrior than anyone he’d met since he’d seen the last die in front of him.
To inspire such loyalty even now, when the stars were dying and every man was out for himself… King Dedede must have been an impressive man indeed. He’d heard rumours, of course- a beast with the audacity to name himself a king was enough to entertain those who had the time to care about such petty things, but when ships that went to raid his land of dreams never came back, that was news enough that it even reached the Halberd. Most were mocking, of course- a penguin who took on a Wanyan name and acted like royalty for holding onto a small slice of a nowhere planet was sure to be seen as insane.
But so was a Knight who claimed to remember the fairy-tale days of the star-children, who talked about honour and chivalry like they were anything but cruel jokes.
Meta Knight grinned underneath his mask. “Then I think we have ourselves an agreement.”