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The silence ringing out over their little battlefield pressed down on Meta Knight like physical weights. They knew. They’d all seen him. They’d all…
The Demon Beast was dead. It was a fairly weak one, all things considered, a large tick-like thing that had mostly just lumbered around and broke things that wound up in its way. It didn’t even attack so much as charge toward anything that moved, with no care for what was in its way or whether or not it hit what had caught its attention.
Unfortunately, it was also very, very tough, and simply hadn’t gone down no matter what it got hit with. Its chitinous hide had deflected blades and force alike.
It was almost pure luck that Kirby had been using fire on the beast’s underbelly; it had weakened the thing’s underbelly enough for Meta Knight to dart below it and slice it open.
He had hoped it would simply die the way any other Demon Beast would. It had not. The beast had let out a horrible insectile whine, and pivoted on its tiny legs until it was overtop of him, and then dropped.
Meta Knight hadn’t gotten caught under it. He almost wished he had. The Demon Beast… deflated when it hit the ground. Its bulbous abdomen had released a wave of thick, red liquid that had soaked Meta Knight.
“Red liquid” as if he didn’t know what it was the moment he opened the monster’s belly. He knew exactly why NME had sent this specific beast, and he’d played his part perfectly.
His mask normally protected him. It was specially designed to keep himself and everyone around him safe. It blocked most smells, a lot of light, and had a mouthguard that gave him something to bite when he needed to and wouldn’t block his speech when he didn’t.
The blood had gotten past his mask.
Meta Knight normally had excellent control over himself. He had to. The GSA wouldn’t have allowed him in if he wasn’t able to handle his nature. Demon Beast he may be, but he had enough free will to decide his own fate, and that included not giving in to the base, destructive instincts he’d been created with.
But he hadn’t fed recently; he hadn’t had the chance to go hunting or talk to the local butcher, and worse… worse…
Meta Knight was not an animal. He would not attack sapient beings to sate his hunger. But NME had made him with specific tastes, and the blood coating his body and still dripping from the fallen beast was not Demon Beast blood.
(How many people had died for this trap? How many prisoners had been sacrificed just to feed this beast, let alone glut it with their blood?)
Meta Knight had opened his mouth just a little, tasted the sweet blood still running down his face, and wrenched his mask off, panting. It wasn’t helping block the scent anymore. He closed his eyes against the sunlight, licked his lips, and then…
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that everyone who hadn’t already run off had seen him. The real him. No mask, no cape, just the midnight-skinned vampire who had gorged himself on the bleeding body of a Demon Beast. They didn’t even have the full horror of it; they probably thought the blood belonged to the beast. They didn’t know what it was. They didn’t know that he’d…
“Mety?”
His wings trembled.
“Mety?”
He glanced just far enough to the side to see Kirby, who looked worried. Just worried. Not horrified, not disgusted, just… worried. He must not understand what this meant. What he’d just seen Meta Knight do.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice choking against his will.
Meta Knight took off. His wings, invigorated by his recent meal, launched him skyward with ease, letting him climb higher and higher until he oriented himself and dove into the forest, vanishing into its trees.
He couldn’t go back to the castle. He certainly wouldn’t be welcomed in Cappy Town, not that he blamed them after that whole display. He… could still…
Meta Knight found himself trembling a little. He was supposed to take care of Kirby, to train him and raise him to defeat NME and save everyone, but…
Well, he tried to reason as he began walking deeper into the forest, Kirby was plenty powerful. He would have won that fight anyway, even if Meta Knight hadn’t shown up to help. He’d done his duty. Anything else he needed to teach Kirby…
Meta Knight swallowed against a lump in his throat. Anything else he needed to teach Kirby about combat he could teach as an opponent.
He would have to come up with a new plan for how to fully defeat NME now that he certainly wouldn’t be trusted to lead any sort of strike force against him, but he could manage it. Meta Knight was certain he could. He just… he just had to…
Meta Knight stopped walking. He just had to restart his life all over again. He ought to be used to it by now, it had happened so often to him, but…
A faint whistling noise was his only warning before Meta Knight was unexpectedly knocked to the ground.
He screeched and nearly had Galaxia unsheathed and ready when he realized his attacker was Kirby, who was angrily babbling into his front and clinging to him as tightly as he could manage.
“Kirby?!” Meta Knight yelped, then quickly tried to wriggle away from his grasp.
Kirby wailed at him and somehow gripped him even more tightly.
“Kirby, let go! I’m filthy!” he snapped.
“NOOOOO!!!” Kirby screamed petulantly, making Meta Knight flinch at the volume, “MEEETTTTYYYYY!!!”
“Kirby, you’re getting blood all over yourself!” he yelled back, albeit more quietly.
Kirby scowled at him.
“Mety STAY. Mety STAY with ME!” Kirby growled.
Meta Knight blinked at him.
“What?” he asked.
Kirby was still scowling.
“Mety stay with me! Mety stay! Friend!” Kirby shook Meta Knight a little. “FRIEND! Stay. Stay with me. Mety stay.”
There was no way Kirby knew about Meta Knight’s plans. Perhaps one of Kirby’s friends had tried to warn him off, and Kirby, in his typical fashion, had decided he wasn’t going to listen and would remain friends with the revealed Demon Beast anyway.
“Kirby-”
But Meta Knight was cut off by the sound of several sets of approaching feet. He looked up in alarm, trying to discern if the approaching group were an angry mob (unlikely but possible and something he should run from) or Dedede and Escargoon (more likely but odd and something he would remain with Kirby for to make sure nothing happened.
Tiff and Tuff ran into view, waving at him and calling for him as soon as they saw him. Meta Knight still wasn’t sure if he should run or not. He also wasn’t sure he could break Kirby’s grip, if he were being honest.
“Why’d you run off?!” Tuff yelled as he reached them.
“Kirby, I told you to wait!” Tiff yelled at nearly the same time, grimacing when Kirby looked at her guiltily, and groaned, “At least the blood was mostly dried before you hugged him.”
“Tiff, Tuff, what-”
“And YOU!”
Tiff pointed at Meta Knight, who couldn’t help the way his wings flared a little in alarm.
“I know vanishing mysteriously is your thing, but we were all really worried! You aren’t hurt, are you?”
Meta Knight slowly shook his head. This was not the lecture he’d been expecting.
“Good. Then we all need to get back to town and help clean the place up!”
Meta Knight glanced at Kirby, then looked at Tiff, who looked nothing but determined.
“Are you sure bringing me back to town is a good idea?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” she asked in return, lifting her chin a little.
Tuff scoffed and raised his fists into a boxing stance.
“We’ll fight anyone who says you’re not allowed!” he said, throwing a few punches that could really use some refinement in their technique.
Tiff shot him a dirty look, then looked back at Meta Knight.
“I think,” she said firmly, “That if you had any intention of hurting us, you would have done it before now.”
“I could be a spy,” Meta Knight countered.
Kirby whined and buried his face in Meta Knight’s front again, making him sigh.
“You’re going to have to take such a bath after this,” he warned.
Tuff snickered and pointed out, “Awful dedicated of you to keep pretending after your cover was blown.”
Which… was a point, admittedly. Meta Knight looked at Tiff, who met his gaze evenly.
“Do you… not have questions?” he asked.
“I always have questions about you. Are you going to answer them?”
Kirby whined again, much louder this time. Meta Knight sighed and rested a hand on Kirby’s head.
“I cannot promise a full disclosure. But I will tell you more if you would like. Let us head back to town, first.”
That made Kirby let him go, although Kirby then latched onto his hand. Meta Knight flexed his wings closed, then open again in confusion. Tiff and Tuff watched him work them open and shut over and over, clearly fascinated.
“Something wrong?” Tuff asked.
“My wings… Hmm. Tiff, could you come here, please? I need help,” he said, closing his wings again with a frown.
Tiff approached him without hesitation. She walked to his side, eyeing his wings curiously as if their proximity held no danger. Meta Knight almost wanted to snap his fangs at her, just to see if she would jump, but he ignored the childish impulse.
“Do you see the first joint where my wings connect?” he asked.
Tiff nodded.
“Press down hard on it please.”
She did so, standing on her tiptoes in such a way that her throat was practically bared to him. Meta Knight felt his wings fold into his cape with only a short jolt of pain; he wasn’t designed to hide when he was as well-fed as he was.
“You really shouldn’t put yourself in that position around something like me,” he warned.
Tiff grinned at him in challenge.
“I made myself vulnerable to a friend. That’s what friends are for.”