Heroes of Dreamland, Book 5: Nintendo World: The Fate of All Worlds (OLD)

Half of the Points' Heroes are Here; Betrayal

Sakura's POV:

"Welcome to the research center," I declare proudly as I open another steel lead-lined door and lead Meta Knight in. (All of the doors here have had an extra doorknob added to them about two feet above the ground, for the Toads, Star Warriors, etc. to use, per my request.)

Seeming interested, he goes to draw his cloak around himself yet again and yet again finds he can't, making me laugh. Among the winged Star Warriors, there seems to be two kinds: the ones like me who are very conscious of their wings the whole time, like they've always been there, always been a part of them; and the ones like Meta here, who always forget that the wings are even there.

Sighing and just crossing his paws the way he would if he had a cloak, he questions me, "What sort of things do you research here?"

"Ways to get home, like I said," I answer, then grow quiet. Before I can explain anything else to him, I have to do the not-fun part, the part I have to do with every new arrival. I hate this piece. With a sigh, I lead him over to a glass case, where a starry-yellow star-shaped console is sitting on a little platform inside, a couple of lights flickering on its sides to let us know it's working. "And this is home."

Looking back and forth between me and the box several times, he finally just gives a single, harsh laugh and states, "No."

Shaking my head mournfully, I disagree, "Yes. We're all just programs when we're at home. None of our adventures have been real. Not even the war was real. Nothing is real. It's all just so much code playing out a story."

Growing quieter himself, he murmurs, "I have had my suspicions, ever since I found out Nintendo World's original purpose back during the time of Tedium."

"I guessed that you probably would have," I sigh back, then shake my head again, looking down at the ground, one of my paws still on the glass case. "Is it crazy of me to want to go back more than I've ever wanted anything before, even when I know that it's all just imaginary, pretend?"

Wrapping a wing around me, like the way a Human guy would put his arm around a girl's shoulders, he reminds me, "It is real to us, and it is home to us. Of course you want to go back."

"But it's just a computer, just a game," I sigh, then force a smile onto my face. "Well, let's go see if any progress has been made." Leading him further into the room, I flip on one of the computers and pull a pair of plastic cups with a pencil taped to the end of each of them over my paws.

Giving me a strange look, he wonders dubiously, "Why are you wearing cups on your paws?"

Giggling, I tell him, "You try hitting the keys with your paws and see if you can actually get anything done. These are typing gloves. Geo's invention, actually."

"How long have you known Geo?" he inquires curiously.

Little sneak, trying to get me to tell him how long I've been here. Well, two can play at that game. Grinning at him, I answer, "About three quarters of the time I've been here."

He glares at me, making me laugh again. Actually, this is the most I've sincerely laughed in a while. It's nice. "Anyway," I go on, turning to the screen, "Would you be so kind as to click on my account square for me? It's hard to run a mouse with these things."

After he's obligingly done so, I type in my crazy-long password, then hit 'enter.' The screen pulls up the last thing I was viewing, which just happens to be an episode of Hoshi no Kaabi on YouTube. Hey, it's a good show, and the fact that I know the characters just makes it even better.

Meta Knight, though, is confused. "Kirby of the Stars, Episode 30," he reads, then frowns. "There is a show now?"

"And there has been since the early 2000's," I grin, closing Internet Explorer and clicking the 'Start' button, then waiting for the ancient Windows ME operating system to get its act together. "I wish we had money in the budget for even just an XP laptop. This is ridiculous."