Chapter 4: Jailbreak

“Yo… ink… he one…?”

Some muffled voices could be heard as a puffball groggily opened his eyes.

“Well… Pa… cia… sai… was the destro… pla… ts… in the prophe…”

Kirby was a bit dizzy as he woke up. For some reason, he felt that in his sleep he moved a lot more than usual. But that didn’t matter, because once his vision focused again Kirby realized that the floor was different than when he went to sleep. The floor was made out of bricks, and he wasn’t even lying on a stack of hay anymore! 

Kirby frantically looked around, wanting to find out where in Banny’s bedroom he was. The walls were fully made of bricks and in one of the walls, there was a window covered with wooden planks, barricading it. Kirby got up with a jump and looked around a bit more before turning behind him to find sets of iron bars instead of a wall. Wait a minute… this ain’t a bedroom. “Where am I…?”

After putting the puzzle pieces together, while shaking the sleepiness away, the puffball realized that he was in a place that he would have never expected to be in… a prison. Kirby walked to the iron bars and looked around outside his cell. There were two Pokémon with golden badges on their torsos standing on each edge of the cell. One was a bipedal blue otter-like creature that had white whiskers and a shell on each leg. The other Pokémon was a gray bipedal creature that seemed really muscular and had four arms. However once Kirby got a good look at their face, he flinched. “Buff Dedede!?”

The muscular Pokémon looked at Kirby with a confused look before looking at the otter. “Hey, dat thing woke up.” Oh wait, it isn’t Dedede, but the mouth looks a bit similar to his beak. “Should we call the mayor or…” 

“No, wait.” The blue otter spoke next. “If it hasn’t tried to attack us on sight yet, it might be intelligent. Maybe we should try to ask it a few questions first.” The muscular Pokémon nodded in agreement and the otter Pokémon turned to the puffball. “So destroyer of worlds, do you have a name?”

Kirby tilted his head in confusion. “Des-… destroyer of worlds?” Wait a second… the only being with that title that he met before was Void Termina…? Have they met Void Termina before!? 

The two Pokémon looked at each other in confusion before looking back at the astrali, the gray Pokémon speaking this time. “Uh… yeah. The one from… the prophecy dat said one was comin’.”

Welp, fortunately, they haven’t met him. Kirby sighed in relief, however, something was a bit off. What prophecy were they talking about? Before the puffball could speak again, the otter spoke while punching the wall. “Alright you pink freak, enough games! What’s your goal here, destroy our planet and move on to the next!?”

Kirby waved his nubs in front of him defensively. “Wait, you got it all wrong! I’m not a destroyer of worlds!” He then rubbed his side and answered sheepishly. “I’m actually a Pokémon just like you guys!”

The gray humanoid Pokémon clenched two fists in front of him. “Don’t play dumb with us! Dat mayor’s secretary or somethin’ saw ya powerful aura, it literally surpasses all common Pokémon and even mythicals! … or she says…”

Kirby realized that trying to defend himself wouldn’t work with these guys. He would’ve waited for his sentence patiently if it wasn’t for the fact he remembered something. Wait! Treth was gonna introduce him to the guild today so he could get somewhere to live, he needed to be there in time! 

The puffball squeezed through the bars and looked at both Pokémon guards who were looking at him in utter shock. Well… the iron bars were really spaced out from each other, it was really easy for someone like him to just pass through them. “Sorry, but I need to go. I have something really important and I need to go to find a Lucario-”

“He’s escapin’!” The muscular Pokémon shouted before punching the puffball towards a wall. The astrali slumped to the ground and shook his body, getting up and into a fighting position. The gray Pokémon turned to the otter. “Call back up! I’ll hold it off from esca-”

Kirby opened his mouth and started sucking up everything in front of him. Fortunately for him, the muscular Pokémon got caught in the vacuum and started being pulled towards the puffball. He tried resisting, stomping on the ground trying to stay in place, however, it was all for naught once the puffball raised the force of the vacuum, swallowing him whole. The astrali glowed with star power and his body changed.

The blue otter stumbled on his back as he looked at Kirby’s new form with horror, his whiskers dropping as he began trembling. “W-what did you…”

The puffball now wore a gray beanie-like hat that had three brown ridges at the top, and coming from his back came four gray muscular arms with clenched fists on them. Kirby looked at his back and his new arms and his eyes sparkled with wonder. “Woah…!”

“Y-you monster…” The otter said shakily as it backed away further from the puffball that turned to him. “Y-you… a-ate him with no remorse…”

Kirby waved his nubs in front of him along with the muscular machamp hands. “W-wait! It’s not what it looks like, he’s fi-”

The blue otter threw one of his shells at Kirby like a boomerang, unfortunately for the Pokémon, the puffball blocked it. Although, that was the time he needed to get the heck out of there as the shell returned to him. He tapped his badge and started shouting. “GUARDS, GUARDS! THE THREAT ESCAPED AND IT ATE ONE OF OUR OWN!!!”

“Wait!” Welp, that is unfortunate. The otter Pokémon was gone and it just left Kirby staring at the hallway with two of his machamp arms stretched out. The puffball sighed, he didn’t have time to explain, he needed to get out of there fast to go back towards Banny’s house! 

“Huh?! What am I doin’ ‘ere!?” 

Kirby looked at one of the cells and saw the machamp he swallowed. “Sorry for that, gotta borrow your power for a bit!” 

With that, the puffball dashed off, not leaving any time for the machamp to protest. “Come back ‘ere, ya pink monstah-! I’m gonna clobbah ya so hard dat-” 

Before the puffball reached the stairs, he looked to see a window with thicker iron bars than his cells. That surely puts a dent in his plans of just flying away. Although he could just punch the bars with his new ability, he didn’t actually want to cause issues for the construction team who repaired the place. Nonetheless, he jumped and looked out the window to see where he was.

It was daytime and it seemed that he was still in Agyneastra town by the giant rock formations surrounding the buildings. It looked like he was in a pretty high place since he couldn’t really see the ground level of the town in much detail. Guess he gotta overcome a lot to leave this place-

“Freeze!” The puffball looked away from the window and saw two other Pokémon with the same golden shield badges on their torsos. One Pokémon was a bipedal canine with red and white fur, red eyes, and a white mane with black tips acting as a kind of hair. The other Pokémon was a black and yellow feline with a star-shaped tail that had yellow eyes and a small black-furred mane. The female canine spoke again with a gruff voice. “Go back to your cell, or else we’ll be forced to use force!”

Kirby knew there would be no use talking to them, so he started dashing towards the stairs. “Hey!” The feline started running towards the astrali, coating his own body with electricity as he tried to tackle Kirby. The puffball dodged, however, the small lion was in front of Kirby now. “We’re not gonna let a monster like you escape!” 

Kirby sighed. It seems they were dead set on capturing him, after all, they think he ate one of their own. He had no other options, he had to fight to the exit! “Sorry for this!” Kirby apologized before clenching one of his machamp arms and punching the feline a distance away. While focusing on the feline, the puffball failed to dodge a rock thrown at him, making him fall to the ground. “Ah!”

“We warned you!” The canine said before slamming a paw on the ground. Before Kirby could get up, a stone pillar came out of the ground below him, launching him into the air. “Now you will pay the price!”

Kirby recovered his stance midair and looked back at the pillar of stones. With his four arms ready to go, he started punching the pillar consecutively with his machamp arms as he fell. Once Kirby reached the ground, he dashed towards the bipedal wolf and grabbed her with the gray arms, spinning rapidly before throwing her into a wall and knocking her out.

Before the puffball could dash towards the stairs again, he saw that the black and yellow feline was dashing towards him with an electrical current dancing around his body before growing into a yellow electric aura.

The astrali dodged the electric tackle before running after the small lion and started to punch him repeatedly with his four arms as Kirby screamed while attacking. “Hoaaaaaaaahh!” After the barrage of punches from the Close Combat attack, the feline was launched into a wall, making a small crater around him before slumping to the ground, knocked out as well. “So sorry…”

Kirby sighed in relief before running away to the stairs. While running down the stairs, he thought about something off-putting about the previous floor. There were a lot of empty cells on that floor. Maybe it was because there weren’t a lot of criminals in here? Yeah, that was probably it.

After skipping some floors, the stairs stopped on a certain floor. The puffball would’ve liked it if this was the main floor, but unfortunately, on another window, he had seen that he didn’t even descend through half of the building. However, it seemed that this floor was the halfway point. “Just gotta hang in there a bit more!” 

He started to run through the hallways while looking at his surroundings. He saw that in certain cells there were Pokémon inside them. Well, at least there were criminals in this place. However, it seemed that time slowed down for a moment as one of them caught his eye. It looked to be a hooded bipedal Pokémon, and the hood they were wearing had a three-eye pattern on the head, and multiple eyes on the rest of the cloth. For a split second, Kirby saw the figure look at him before time resumed again as the puffball continued to run-

Just to be stopped by a ball of electricity hitting him in the face and knocking him to the floor. After a second of recovery, the astrali opened his eyes slowly to look at the source of the ball of electricity. It seemed the source was an orange mouse-like Pokémon with yellow ears, a white belly, and a thin tail with a lightning-shaped tip. This Pokémon also wore a white cap, with the same golden badge in front of the cap, that was obscuring his eyes. The mouse tipped off his cap. “I heard a monster was causing some trouble in the upper floors…”

Kirby recovered his composure and jumped back up again. The puffball had a determined face as he clenched the fists on his machamp arms.

“Mark my words, destroyer of worlds… my name is Kotaro, warden of the Agyneastra Prison…” The mouse Pokémon lifted his cap, revealing his black and white eyes as his cheeks started letting out small sparks of electricity. “And I’m pissed off by your rampage!”

The electric mouse started creating a ball of electricity in his paw and disappeared in an instant, letting out a lightning effect. “Wha-” Kirby looked around in shock before he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back as an electrical current ran through his body, getting launched away and sliding on the ground with his face. ‘So fast!’ Kirby thought before getting up again and looking back at the fast Pokémon. 

The mouse started to do some fast zigzags with his lighting speed, only leaving speed mirages as he reached the puffball. However, the astrali focused on where the mouse stopped after each turn of the zigzags, and when he was close enough, Kirby clenched two of his machamp fists and punched the electric rat as he tried to attack Kirby with a point-blank ball of electricity. Both moves clashed as Kirby received a bit of small electric damage, forcing him to retreat a little. 

The rat grinned. “What is wrong, destroyer of worlds? Why don’t you release your full power already?”

Kirby was starting to get a bit angry. Hope he doesn’t start to sound like a broken record soon. “I already told you guys that I’m not the destroyer of worlds of some prophecy!” 

“Your actions up until this point say differently…”

Welp, no convincing this guy either it seemed. The puffball looked to the side and saw the stairs in another hallway. He doesn’t have the time to explain, he’s in a rush. “Sorry, but I gotta go, it’s important!” 

The puffball started running towards the stairs but a small bolt of lightning appeared in front of him, revealing Kotaro with his cheeks releasing small sparks and another ball of electricity in his paw. “Where do you think you’re going!?” The orange mouse tried pressing the ball onto Kirby’s face, however, Kirby managed to dodge it and deliver a two-punch blow on the raichu’s side, launching him onto the iron bars of a cell and bending them a little. “Why you little…”

Instead of slumping on the ground, Kotaro swiftly jumped up and readied two electric balls on his paws, avoiding the grabs of angry Pokémon prisoners as well. With a grunt, he launched the two balls directly at Kirby. However, the mouse would have never expected Kirby to discard his ability and open his mouth to suck the electric balls. In his moments of surprise, Kirby shot back the two balls in the form of a two-star projectile, circling around themselves before hitting Kotaro in the belly.

“Gah!” He shouted before being launched away, falling on the ground on his back along with his hat beside him. The mouse grunted in pain, having difficulties sitting up with all the bruises on his body. “This… this power…”

“Sorry again! I promise that I’m not evil!” Kirby said after getting close to Kotaro. Before the mouse could protest, Kirby started inhaling the mouse. He grunted, trying to maintain his ground, but unfortunately for him, the vacuum was too strong and he got inhaled. 

The puffball glowed with star power again, and he got a new change to his body. The color of his skin became orange, with some yellow stripes on his back. He grew two pointy yellow ears and a long thin tail with a curved lighting-shaped tip, while his eyes changed to black with white pupils and his cheeks changed to yellow as well. Kirby inspected his new body and was mesmerized by it. “Woah… so cool! And these electric moves look awesome as well!”

“Wha-…? I’m… not dead…?”

Kirby looked back and saw Kotaro sitting in the hallway a distance away from the puffball. Kirby smiled and shouted. “Nope, you’re completely fine! I would give you an explanation, but I’m short on time, so see you!” He then started dashing towards the stairs once again, leaving the raichu hanging once he called out to the astrali.

The puffball started descending the spiral staircase while thinking about the horrible scenarios that could happen once he found Banny and Treth again. They’re gonna be so mad at him for ditching them as he was about to get assigned as part of the guild! He couldn’t just see Banny’s sad face again, absolutely no way! 

Before Kirby could go faster with his new abilities, he saw more guard Pokémon going up the stairs. “There it is!”

“Get it!”

One Pokémon was a blue snake-looking Pokémon, with two orbs at the end of his tail and close to his head, a small horn, and two wing-like parts on each side of the head. The other Pokémon was a red reptile with a singular horn on the back of the head and a flaming tail tip. The two Pokémon were quickly climbing the stairs, trying to reach the puffball.

Kirby acted fast, jumping from where he stood and using the Iron Tail move to coat the tip of his raichu tail in pure iron. The astrali spun in the air as he fell on the blue serpent, hitting its body with the iron-coated tail tip before bouncing off of him and avoiding a fireball shot by the flaming lizard. While in midair, Kirby zipped to the ground and formed an Electro Ball on one of his nubs, before throwing it at the dragon that kinda gave small flashbacks from Landia. 

The ball hit the lizard, shocking him and making him fall to the ground unable to move. “Dang it, not a paralysis!”

The puffball took that as a sign to leave, so he continued making his trek down the stairs a bit faster than before, not bothering to hear whatever it was that the guards shouted. He needed to get back to Banny fast!

Kirby picked up the pace and used the ability Volt Tackle to increase his speed while descending the stairs, looking like a giant orb of electricity doing spirals. 

After a small while, the puffball reached the end of the stairs, the lighting orb around him disappearing. “Nice!” Kirby looked around the place. It seemed there were no other prison cells on this floor, meaning one thing, he managed to reach the first floor! He could already see the feel of the floor being much different than before, the walls were more polished, the floor looked clean along with some carpets, and the rooms had better-looking doors in general.

However… something was off. There were no other Pokémon visible on this floor. The astrali tilted his body in confusion before walking, cautiously, forward. As he walked, he couldn’t hear any sound whatsoever, unlike the previous floors, like no one was there at the moment. Well… he did take out a few of the guards. “Well, that means no more obstacles! Banny, here I come!”

Kirby started dashing through the main hall of the place, his face coated with excitement as he ran past the many closed doors, except for one. But that didn’t matter, he was free! Kirby went through a set of double doors and found out that he was on a less fancy imperial staircase. The puffball was pretty sure Dedede had one on his castle. But that didn’t matter at the moment. 

The astrali jumped from the elevated floor and landed on the ground level. Kirby looked around and saw that this place was also empty, but it did look beautiful. There was a drawing of that same golden badge on the ground, and behind him, there was a reception desk that was also empty. Kirby looked at the exit, seeing the sunlight pour into the building. Kirby smiled and started walking towards the exit.

“Halt!”

The puffball stopped as his raichu ears perked up at the sound of a male voice, starting to look around to find the source of the voice. His eyes locked onto a figure that was standing on the handrail of the elevated floor. The figure was a bipedal-looking Pokémon with gray and white fur, two gray horns curling upwards, and a small fluffy gray and white tail. It seemed to be wearing rectangular glasses as well. “Do not go any further, pink shapeshifting destroyer.” 

The goat-like Pokémon jumped from the handrail and landed on the ground, slowly rising up from their landing. He folded his arms behind his back as he opened his eyes again. “We finally meet… the being from the prophecy that I held onto for many decades…”

Kirby looked aside. “Uh…” He looked back at the Pokémon with a sheepish shrug. “You got the wrong guy.”

The newcomer Pokémon narrowed his eyes. “You do not fool me that easily. My secretary has seen how monstrous your aura looked as she walked into this town that I own.”

Kirby tilted his body. “Wait, you’re not a guard?”

The Pokémon shook his head. “No, I am not.” He put a paw on his chest. “My name is Shitsuji, an indeedee, and I am the mayor of Agyneastra town.” 

Kirby flinched in surprise. “The mayor!?”

Shitsuji nodded. “Indeed.” He walked a bit to the side, looking away from the puffball. “Now you may be wondering… what am I doing in a place like a prison? The answer is really simple.” He looked towards the ceiling as he folded his arms behind his back again. “As the mayor of this town, I must assure the safety of it. If there is a dangerous threat, I will try my best to deal with it as my last stand, no matter what.” He lowered his head, looking forward again as a purple aura started to appear around his body. “In case you did not get it by this point…”  The indeedee gave Kirby a menacing side-eye. “You are a dangerous threat to this town…”

Right as he said that a purple shockwave came out of him and stopped around the edges of the room. Now the main hall was coated in a swirling purple dome with some yellow and blue particles floating lazily around the terrain. Kirby looked back at the indeedee who extended his arm forward as his glasses reflected the light of the dome. “Come!”

The Butler Mayor
Shitsuji

Kirby did as he said and started to do something quick and simple. He used the move Quick Attack to get a surprise attack off the Pokémon, however, once he got centimeters close to Shitsuji for a small punch, he suddenly stopped moving. “Huh?”

“What is wrong? Scared all of a sudden?” The indeedee said before forming an orb of darkness in front of his extended paw, hitting the ball of darkness point blank at the puffball. Kirby was launched backward and slid across the floor before getting up quickly with a backflip. “If you still have some common sense, I would recommend giving up.”

Kirby threw his nubs in the air.“I basically told almost all the guards here, I swear I’m not your enemy!”

“Tell that to the guard you swallowed, you hungry destroying monster…” Shitsuji launched another ball of darkness directly at Kirby, however, the puffball dodged the attack and readied his Electro Ball on a nub, running at the indeedee while shooting it. The mayor simply sidestepped away from the ball before raising his arm to block an Iron Tail that followed the electric move. Since it was skin and bones against pure steel, Kirby won the clash and pushed the emotion Pokémon a distance away. After recovering his composure, he brushed off some dust from his shoulders. “Impressive… but…” He then adjusted his glasses. “That was weaker than I was expecting…”

“Because I’m not your-”

“Silence! Do not waste your breath, monster!” Shitsuji dashed kinda slowly towards Kirby, almost as if he was walking as his paw began to glow green. The orange puff dodged the strange punch really easily by crouching, delivering an Electro Ball at point blank at the mayor, directly hitting him on the chest and launching him into the air as sparks of electricity began to dissipate close to the goat-like Pokémon. 

Shitsuji recovered and landed on the ground safely before a white purplish glow started forming on the tip of his paw. “Die!” The indeedee released from his paw a purple beam of psychic energy.

Even though Kirby managed to dodge the initial blast of the laser beam, the Pokémon moved the beam where Kirby was standing, forcing Kirby to run around while avoiding the laser. ‘I didn’t know Pokémon could reach this level of strength!’ He thought before he did a backflip, avoiding the beam before it disappeared. ‘In that case, I gotta use the stronger moves too!’

Bolts of lighting started crackling around the orange puffball making Kirby glow with electricity surrounding him. The astrali then enveloped himself on an electric yellow ball with the move Volt Tackle and charged towards Shitsuji, literally flying with the move. “Cease this worthless effort!” The indeedee said before firing more balls of darkness at the puffball. However, as the orbs made contact with the electric sphere, they dissipated. “How-”

The Pokémon interrupted himself, crossing his arms in front of him to defend against the attack. Once the Volt Tackle made contact, they clashed, sparks of electricity flying out in every direction. They stayed like that for a couple of seconds before Kirby put a bit more oomph in the attack as he shouted. “Hoooaaaaaaahhhh!!!” 

After the clash ended, Shitsuji was pushed back a little more, his feet sliding across the floor. Meanwhile, the electricity surrounding Kirby disappeared, and Kirby retreated with a jump, getting more distance between him and the Pokémon. The indeedee started panting a little bit as he adjusted his glasses again. “You are… quite the trouble are you not? But still… I was expecting more from you. Are you perhaps simply toying with me?”

Kirby sighed and responded, tapping his feet anxiously. “No, I’m giving everything I got. I’m really not the guy you think I am.”

“Well then, why should I believe you? You ate a civil Pokémon right in front of a guard and somehow got their appearance, along with the fact there’s an emotion dancing around your very being at the moment… desperation, am I right?” Kirby tilted his body in confusion. “Know this, I am a Pokémon that can read emotions and even feed off of them. Depending on certain emotions in certain situations, I can tell when someone is lying.” He then narrowed his eyes. “And this desperation of yours, clearly means you are in a rush for something really important…”

Kirby frowned. “Look, it’s important to me, and I don’t have time to explain it! So please let me go and-”

The indeedee started chuckling before laughing a bit loudly. After a small moment, he calmed down and smiled a little. “You expect me to let you go, after the chaos you caused, and ate two Pokémon? Yes, the warden counts as well, judging by your current appearance. Even if your claims about not being the creature from the prophecy are true…” Before Kirby could protest, Shitsuji spoke again, his smile fading as a more menacing look settled in on his face and he started glowing again.  “If you think that you can go free of charge after doing something despicable like that… you really are an idiot.”

The psychic Pokémon extended his arms sideways with a shout as another shockwave came out of him. Kirby looked around and saw that the strange purple dome had disappeared and was replaced with a blocky dome, space twisting and swirling around the new room. Well phase two, time to hit even harder! 

Kirby rushed in, only to… walk instead? Wait, something wasn’t right, he knew he was running, but… why was he so slow? Kirby looked down and saw that he was in his usual stance from how he runs, however, he was slower than usual. “Huh? What is happening-?”

“This is… Trick Room.”

Kirby flinched as he heard the voice, it was almost like it was behind him. However, when he looked behind… no one was there. “What?!”

Shitsuji’s voice was reverberating around the room. “You must be confused. Allow me to explain.” He appeared in front of the puffball. “In this dome that I created, dimensions twist and turn around us.” The indeedee disappeared in a blink of an eye, only leaving behind dust and rubble. “This unstable room switches the speed of each Pokémon caught in it.” He appeared on the right side of Kirby. “The fastest becomes the slowest.” He then appeared on the left side of the puffball. “And the slowest becomes the fastest.”

Kirby tried to concentrate and hit him with a slow point blank Electro Ball on his side, however, he hit nothing but air as the ball hit the wall, making a small crater with some sarks.

“In easier terms for you to comprehend…” Shitsuji appeared behind Kirby, looking down at him with a condescending look. “You are too slow, and I am too fast.” Kirby slowly turned around, just to receive a hit on the face by a glowing green paw, being launched backwards. Before the puffball could reach the ground, in an instant, the indeedee dashed where Kirby was about to land and leaned his body downwards, delivering a kick that sapped Kirby of his energy as he was launched in the air.

“Waaaaah!” Kirby screamed as he was launched into the air. But before he could recover again, Shitsuji jumped in the air and charged on both of his paws another beam of psychic energy. Once he was above Kirby’s slow-moving body, the indeedee released his beam, launching Kirby to the ground and burning his entire body with the amount of psychic energy on the beam. Rubble and dust flew around the attack.

After the laser dissipated, Kirby was left on the ground with bruises all over his body, dust settling around him as he was back to his pink old self. Shitsuji landed a small distance away from the puffball. “This is what the guards were struggling against?” 

While the indeedee was approaching Kirby, the blue otter guard stood behind the handrail on the elevated floor, quietly muttering. “Please mayor, destroy this pink abomination…”

Shitsuji looked down at Kirby before crouching a little. “This is honestly so pathetic… it seems you were right… you are clearly not the being from prophecy. However, the crimes you have committed shall not go unpunished.” 

The goat-like Pokémon started charging another beam on the palm of his hands. Kirby coughed a little. “Please… let me… explain…”

The energy started to glow even more brightly. “I shall not hear any further words from you-”

“Yeah, mayor! Clobbah dat pink hungreh monstah!”

All the attention was directed towards a machamp who was resting his lower hands against the handrail while his upper hands were punching the air in excitement. The blue otter’s eyes widened as his jaw slowly dropped. “Y-you’re… alive?”

“Hm?” The muscular Pokémon looked to the side and nodded. “Yeah, ‘course I am! Once dat thing ate me whole, I suddenly appeared ina cell ‘stead of bein’ in some kinda weird stomach! After bustin’ outta there, I came chasin’ for dat thing, but at least it was bein’ handled by the mayor!” 

The shell Pokémon started tearing up. “I-I…”

As the blue otter started crying while hugging the confused machamp, who pat him on the back a bit sheepishly, Shitsuji dissipated his laser and looked back at Kirby with a confused look on his face. “How…?”

Kirby sat up slowly and rubbed the side of his head. “That’s what I was trying to tell you… once I inhale someone, I don’t actually eat them, I just absorb and copy their abilities and they are… ejected from my body. The same happened to uh… Jotaro? No Kotaro, yeah that raichu.” Kirby looked aside. “Don’t ask me how it works, it just… happens?”

Shitsuji looked away deep in thought, before deeply sighing. The blocky dome around them slowly dissipated as the indeedee bowed to Kirby. “I am… truly sorry for using my blind sense of justice against you. My actions have been rash and thoughtless, driven by the mere belief of some prophecy. I would understand if you do not forgive me.”

Kirby smiled. “It’s fine, don’t worry! I’ve been through worse than this. I forgive you!”

The emotion Pokémon looked aside. “I… do not believe that a simple apology is enough to make it up to you…” He folded his arms behind his back as he looked back at Kirby. “If there is any request you want from me or anything from Agyneastra’s town hall, I will happily accept.” 

Kirby waved him off. “Oh don’t worry, I don’t need anything!” Suddenly, he remembered something really important. “Actually… I do need something!”