Title: curious little pink thing
Fandom: Kirby (series) + Project Hail Mary (2026), as a crossover between the two. Please tag as Kirby and Project Hail Mary (film) respectively, mods 🥺
Rating: PG-13
Length: 2557 words
Content notes: Part of the same AU as theseworks, but like. Is an AU of that AU where Project Hail Mary happened prior to Kirby and the Forgotten Land's events. Also ALL of this silliness is taking place post-Star Crossed World so pls don't yell at me about Star Crossed World spoilers if they come up. I swear this fic was finished just today and not started during the amnesty!

As for actual content warnings: Rocky swears a couple times and so does Mahoroa lol. And kinda blatant spoilers for PHM due to the premise.
Author notes:So the premise of this fic may have happened purely because the AMC Theatres location I went to when I first watched PHM had these little claw machines with Kirby figures......... and then after the movie I thought "oh hey this movie would be perfect with Kirby involved because they have similar hopeful vibes :)"

Written for: The prompt Gentle for Fan Flashworks.
Summary: Long after Grace dies, Rocky decides to seek out one of the refuges of what remains of humanity, and instead meets the universe's pink puff of a hero and his weird family.

--

Earth has.. changed, for reasons the aging Grace never got to tell him. Another terrible threat from the stars did put him in contact with wonderful little things that, while like him in ways of communication, he can still understand. 

Earth, despite its best efforts during the Astrophage blight, is abandoned to the wilds, the threat – or species of Chaos as he understands it – sealed off in a crystal. Yet, life and humans persist elsewhere in the universe, and most luckily, mostly stable wormholes are child’s play to the Eridians now, the little starry things directing him to one of the planets humans found solace on. 

In this lonely corner of the universe, the humans fucked up a second time, as Grace might have put it had he not died, but they still found solace, on the planet shaped like the little stars on Grace’s clothes. 

Sadly, he has to retain the bubble suit. But thankfully, the gravity is agreeable to him, so he builds a bridge between his new ship and a mountain, and slides down carefully, readying his suit in case he has to touch things. The creatures of the planet are round, “cute” might be a Grace word to use for their soft shapes and even softer, higher pitched vocals as they waddle around him. 

He.. thinks the main sounds are a wawa, a wanya, a wan-wa.. So, nothing he can work with. Longer phrases are broken up this way, and their faint slits for eyes act like Grace’s frowns when he tries to introduce himself. 

The Eridian moves across the small archipelago, finding dirt and sky, flowers and sun, not unlike the things Grace used to show him in the Hail Mary back before Earth and that other, suspiciously terraformed Earth-imitating icy place got fucked up. There’s way more plant life here than even what Grace showed him, wow.. Did that tree just move? He steps gently across the roots, because all of it looks “fragile”, another Grace word to possibly use. 

Ah, he recognizes the starship now circling the next-nearest mountain, the other place he saw when he landed. The Eridian remembers seeing it before, from around the time of his flight to the star planet when roars of agony and growing hope rang through the galaxy. 

(A dream to live again)

That phrase is full of Grace words. And yet.. That starship.. 



He approaches, thinking maybe there might be humans close by, but there aren’t. There are more gentle beings with soft edges, but this time some of the smaller ones use “cameras” – the things Grace used once upon a time to take “videos” and observe the Petrova Line and even take “pictures” with his old students. He chirrups happily at those particular memories, glad that he became Grace’s roommate.

That must mean the smaller soft beings can’t be so bad. But he can’t entirely understand them now, only how they move. Fascination, nervousness. Grace moved that way when they first met.. 

Not too long after, the curious little pink thing arrives. 


“Oh, you must be the owner of that ship Dad found.. Poyo, is this glass? It doesn’t feel like it..”

Ah, Grace words! The pink little thing knows Grace words! The friendly voice even is kind of like Grace’s, but small and curious. The Poyo part probably isn’t Grace words .. maybe the pink thing picked up Grace words as a secondary sound? It wouldn’t be a surprise, because there aren’t humans here. 

“Ohh.. No, wait, Maho told me this yesterday. It’s uh.. A spacesuit thing, right? Humans wore those, he said.” The pink thing smiles with no teeth, and he does his best to thumbs-up like how Grace showed him.. after turning himself over a tad to make his thumb go up. “Cool..! I haven’t got to meet new people in a bit.. Uh, not after Elfilin, at least. Wanna go meet with Dad? He probably wants to know why you’re here.”

He glances up at the structure beyond the pink thing, a “castle” is what Grace called it. Fortress might be the word he prefers, not unlike the Eridian outpost, a planet over that he’ll have to go refuel at once the visit is over. 

“Come on!”

To his surprise, the pink thing begins manually rolling his suit forward, making his sight blurry, but the little pink thing’s soft nubby appendages aren’t too rough on the xenonite. Not unlike Grace.. 

The distance is long, but the little pink thing keeps talking. Friendly, like Grace! He gets a name (Kaabii? Kirby?), the little pink thing, is a planetary hero, responsible for the end of the threat that cried out for a “dream” (Void Termina), and that his Dad is a “knight”. That Maho is a “big brother”, that he has two Dads! How nice, two Dads weren’t common even among Eridians back when Grace lived, although he was a dad for one of Grace’s students for a little while along with his first mate.

Eventually, Kirby .. or Kaabii.. He’ll stick with Kirby, the little pink thing pauses at a gate of some sort, waves at some of the stubby no-mouth things with spears, and the two enter the fortress. 

“Uhh.. Dang, I forgot to ask you your name, poyo! What’s your name?” Kirby asks, still excited, still grinning as he waits right outside the suit.

Rocky

Kirby’s face does a variation of the initial reaction Rocky got. “...Mm, nope, I didn’t understand that. Maybe Dad might? He’s super old and lived through this big universal war, poyo..”

Ah, the reason for the second human fuck up. Nightmare Enterprises. Rocky thanks everything in the universe that his fellow Eridian scientists did not believe their lies. So at least one of Kirby’s Dads lived through the war.. Interesting. Rocky had a feeling there had to be other species that live very long, in Grace’s terms. 

Rocky wiggles a little, and Kirby sets his suit down, and Rocky points forward.

Take me to him. Your dad.

“Okay.. Okay! Let’s go see Dad.”

–

That Meta Knight is freaking out is quite the understatement – he has to rush to dock the Halberd after all the alerts in Cappy Town about the alien that showed up. The puffball is about two seconds from losing his mind when a Waddle Dee approaches, bowing their little head. 

“Sir Meta Knight, Kirby has come by with the alien. According to him the alien .. likely does not know Common. I would ask Roa..”

“..Send for Mahoroa, then. I’ll do my best until he arrives.. He said he was out in the New World studying some of their old tech. The portal should still be open.” After Meta says this, the guard departs from the castle roof, and a few moments later, is replaced with his son Kirby. 

His delightful son is accompanied by an Eridian, that is clear from the bubble-like suit and odd movements and rocky exterior. The issue for Meta Knight is that Eridian as a language is painfully difficult to translate - for some it is painful simply to listen to. For those like him and Kirby, it’s more like listening to a song you can’t quite figure out the instrumental of, and that’s how it is right now. Still, he can tell the intent of the middle-aged Eridian in front of him – curious, gentle, overjoyed. 

(..He probably came to Popstar on his lonesome,) Meta observes. (Or he more likely just.. Is a little awkward with communicating with others.)

Kirby waits until the visitor’s done for the moment, and then he interjects. “Oh, hi, Dad! I found this guy walkin’ around Cappy Town earlier after Bun got me, poyo. I .. uh… can’t understand what he’s saying, but he seems neat, poyo! He can do a thumbs-up and everything! I dunno what his spacesuit’s made of but it can wrap around stuff when he puts his hands through!”

“..Oh.. Kirby, the suit is made of xenonite,” Meta explains with a nod. The Eridian nods too, bending slightly in the suit to make his hand resemble a thumbs-up. “There’s only one planet that uses that material for suits - they’d be from Eridiani A b. Erid for short.”

Kirby’s eyes sparkle in response, and he waves his nubs a couple times. “Whoa… That’s so cool, mister! …You are a mister, right?”

The visitor nods again, warbling gently in Eridian language, and Meta chuckles as Kirby begins a stream of questions. “So, why’d you come visit us anyway? Do you like food? Oh, oh, my friend Elfilin brought over a CD from their world recently, do you wanna listen to it? The lady on the CD is super cool - Elfilin calls her Neichel! It’s a New World word for “nature”, that’s what they told me and Maho anyway..”

Much like himself, the visitor slightly shies away, probably surprised at Kirby’s endless amount of excitement and joyful energy, though eventually the visitor taps a couple of times on the xenonite before slipping a hand through.

“Uhhh.. One second.. If we’re gonna listen to music I gotta get the.. CD thingy out..”

Kirby pops the old human CD player out of his mouth, and he hands it over.. Although, Meta notices a hesitance in the Eridian visitor’s movements in the moments before he accepts the CD player and clicks a button.

That much alone tells Meta the Eridian in front of him beginning to sway slightly to Twinkling Star Showers has to at least be old enough to have been around for the so called Astrophage Incident that one of his old friends looked into ages ago.. Last Meta Knight remembers, not a lot of Eridians interact with human tech due to some sort of grief involving the humans’ near-extinction, or how his old friend had put it at the time. 

That’s about when Mahoroa arrives, floating and looking like he’s just had to rush to Castle Dedede directly from bed.. His fur is all tousled as he pauses on the edge of the castle roof.

“...Uncle Iris? What’s going on?”

–

Rocky thinks it’s a little weird that he’s having to endure scientific study again like in the days of Grace when Maho arrives – as he learns from Kirby’s excited introductions, the odd floating creature that looks about as soft as everyone not called “Uncle Iris” is indeed the Maho. Rocky realizes just from the soft Grace words being spoken that this has to be God-Shattering Star, the one who helped defeat the starry things’ worst enemy shortly before he’d checked in on Earth. 

Yet God-Shattering Star Maho isn’t really.. Er.. god-shattering, right now, as he’s muttering seemingly to himself while slowly drifting around Rocky’s suit, poking with a few familiar scientific instruments and some unfamiliar ones as well. Eventually, Maho pauses again and holds up a “tablet”. 

“Conversation might be a little busted.. But you at least seem to hear us, and see some stuff.. I’m going to try something.” After a moment, Maho turns the “tablet” around and Rocky is relieved to see familiar words on it. 

(Welcome to the planet of Popstar. I understand from Uncle Iris that you can read things this way?)

Yes I can! Rocky replies immediately, reminded of the memory of when Grace had messed with the clock during their first docking of the Hail Mary and his first starship during their shared mission. Can you understand me?

After a few moments, Rocky hears the tell-tale signs of the translation machine doing its thing, though with way less rough edges to it as Grace’s version. He can faintly see Mahoroa’s expression change to something like gentle amazement, before it shifts again to joy.

“Now I can, yes! .. I .. actually rigged this up from my great-grandfather’s ship.. Uncle Iris mentioned your homeworld and there seems to be some archival data - including a translation key for Eridian chord language, as my great-grandfather called it.” Mahoroa excitedly sits close by to Rocky’s suit. “You wouldn’t happen to know someone called Ryland Grace, would you?”

I know Grace, yes, he was my friend, a friend of the Eridians.. Rocky replies, moving with a little more excitement now that he can talk smoothly. He loved to listen to the same music Kirby gave me. 

“Oh, Neichel’s music.. Kirby’s been listening to that so often I’m sick of it.” The fuzzy god shatterer laughs, and Kirby just makes a silly face somewhere in the “ballpark” of embarrassment. “I suppose I ought to explain what was up with the Cappies and Waddle Dees down the mountain.. We don’t typically get visitors to Popstar, especially from star systems past the Gamble Galaxy – so I apologize on their behalf for their odd reactions.”

..It’s not too bad. I like them otherwise. They’re soft like Grace’s old clothes. But I had no idea others out this far knew about Grace! He taught lots of children back home. 

“I guess in a way, he was one of the more important humans my own family wanted to be like..” Maho seems to muse, his ears twitching, and he then smiles. “But you are right about the people of the kingdom - we have something of a reputation for being kinda peaceful and boring, even with my little brother and I here.”

Kirby puts his face on Maho’s side, waving a nubby appendage. “Yeah, and if somebody does come bother us, me and Maho usually take care of it so fast that everyone can start relaxing again! Me and Maho are Star Warriors!”

Oh, those are your words.. The starry things called Mahoroa “God Shattering Star” when they told me to come here. Rocky twitches a little and just idly pokes at the now quiet CD player with his fingers. I don’t see “God Shattering Star” or “Star Warrior” though. I see curious little pink thing and … cat? 

Mahoroa’s ears lower a little with an embarrassed smile to add to the expression, not really disproving that Rocky just called him a cat. “..Okay, maybe we’ve.. Defeated a lot of god-like beings over the years.. But I promise we’re friendly.”

Thank you for the welcome, the Eridian says, feeling some amount of warmth in his possible new friend’s voice. Oh! My name is Rocky. Grace calls me that in his words. 

“Rocky.. Yeah! I like that, poyo!” Kirby cheers, smiling bright and standing on his odd nubby feet before turning to his older brother. “Hey, Maho, why don’t we actually introduce him to the Cappies? I bet Fumu’s gonna be super excited to meet Rocky, right?”

May I? It wouldn’t hurt to explore the planet a little more.. 

Not that Rocky figures he actually has the time to spare given he came to Popstar first and foremost to find a human settlement.. But, Rocky likes being a friendly scientist, and not a surly scientist like the lady he thinks might have been Grace’s mate before Grace had to leave home for their shared mission.. 

It’s strange for the Eridian visitor, but on the walk back out of Castle Dedede, followed close by Meta Knight – Iris, but with a title – and following Kirby and Maho, it’s almost as if Grace never left his side. Almost like Kirby has Grace’s bright spirit, bright words, and like Maho has Grace’s bright mind. 

Rocky hums, and continues on in his bubble suit, perfectly content.