PART 19: Heat of Battle (Part I)
Nightmare Ribbon reared back and roared a roar so powerful that the grayish-brown wasteland that was the landscape began to crack underneath Kirby's feet. The cracks around Kirby then exploded, releasing volley after volley of two-feet thick fireballs, each one one flying toward the sky like rockets and sailing back down to Dreamland like air-to-ground missiles. And with a crackling of flames and a whoosh of wind that could knock a jet out of the air, every single fireball flew right past Kirby, who hadn't moved, missing him by inches and exploding in bursts of magma, rock, and flame.
Nightmare Ribbon's souless eyes were now different shades of orange, yellow, and red. It was as if it had a fireplace for an eye socket. It reared back again, and it's eyes flashed as it's entire body ignited, transforming it into a massive living fireball, with it's body and tentacles made out of pure skin-scalding flame. It took a step forward and punched the air with it's gigantic truck-sized fist and, as if on cue, it's hundred-foot long tentacles whipped out and swung at Kirby at the speed of a runaway locomotive.
Kirby slid under this attack feet-first, the tentacles missing his head by inches. The heat radiating from them alone could have probably turned an entire solid wall of titanium into ash. As Kirby jumped back onto his feet, he had to quickly duck a nanosecond later, for the deadly tentacles pulled back so quickly that he was thrown off his feet and almost incinerated by the speed and the heat of thier retraction. The star warrior regained his footing just as Nightmare Ribbon spoke in an undescribable voice.
"They call you a legendary hero?" it snapped icily. "Even when I use only the bare minimum of my power, you can't even touch me."
The best way to describe the voice was that it was feminine, like Ribbons, only menacing, powerful, and as icy as the coldest winter. It pounded against the confines of Kirby's mind as it seemed to speak to him from every direction, echoing in his ears like a loud voice in an empty cavern.
"You don't scare me." Kirby retorted, attempting to watch every move it made, from the tip of the claws on it's feet to the end of its tentacles.
The Nightmare Ribbon could have had the policy that actions speak better than words, for it retorted by swinging every single one of it's deadly tentacles at the star warrior, sending some just above his head and others straight across the ground. Unfortunately, the thick black fog kept Kirby from seeing the ones that were being swung just above him, and as he leaped over one of the ones on the ground, he was immediately smashed by one that had been just above it.
About the best way to describe the pain that came from this attack is that it'd be about the same pain you'd feel if you ran head-first into a gigantic oven. The force from the blast set Kirby on fire and sent him flying across the landscape while staying suspended a few feet in the air. Seconds later, he crashed right through the ground like a knife into a sheet of paper.
As soon as he stopped, the flames covering his body died down, and the weakened star warrior closed his eyes and coughed up ash and blood. When he opened his eyes again, he was greeted by an enormous fiery tentacle which had wrapped itself around his waist like an anaconda. Before he could think, it pulled Kirby out of the ground and back onto the surface, the heat from it's powerful grip burning his sides. At the speed of a bolt of lightning, the tentacle pulled Kirby all the way back to Nightmare Ribbon and threw him onto the ground.
"Sorry, Kirby, but I want to have the pleasure of killing you myself. It's much more fun that way." it sneered.
"How is killing your enemy fun when they don't even put up a fight?" Kirby retorted as he got on his feet, his eyes gleaming.
"I guess you're right. I should give you a fair chance..." it replied, grinning. "...IN HELL."
It reared back again and opened it's enormous jaws as it spit thousands of fireballs straight into the air, just above Kirby's head. In seconds, the fireballs fell back toward the ground, directly above him, falling like meteors. Kirby quickly walked a few steps backwards and took an enormous breath of air, pulling the fireballs straight out of the sky and directly into his open mouth. He swallowed them.
In a flash of flame and pyrotechnics, Kirby flipped into the air and began to glow. A fiery aura appeared around his hands, and a small tiara with a fire emblem on the front appeared around his forehead.
"BURNING!" the star warrior screamed as he turned into an enormous fireball and flew at Nightmare Ribbon like a rocket. To his horror, he passed right through it and flew straight out the other side. He turned back from a fireball into Burning Kirby and landed on the ground. Icy laughter echoed through his mind as Nightmare Ribbon began to burn brighter and started to become larger then ever.
"Fool!" it's voice laughed. "Do you really expect to fight fire with fire?"
Now that Kirby was behind the demonic monstrosity itself, he found himself face-to-face with every single one of it's thousand powerful tentacles. The tentacles flew towards Kirby and began to wrap around every part of him, until there was no sign of him behind the newly former fiery knot that surrounded him. As smoke rose from the knot of tentacles and the air was filled with an intense sizzling sound, they began to lift the star warrior into the air, wrapping themselves around him tighter and tighter, squeezing him like a mouse in the grip of an anaconda. The sizzling noise was joined by a sickening crunch.
A few seconds later, the tentacles stopped squeezing, and nothing could be heard but the sizzling and crackling of flames. Slowly, the tentacles started to untie themselves. In less than a minute, a completely limp arm could be seen hanging from a gap in the tentacle's knot. The arm was burned black, with small spots of pink in the places that had not been burned. Smoke rose from it into the sky.
Soon, a small charred body fell from the grip of the tentacles and hit the ground, bouncing off it like rubber.
It was Kirby.
Now that Nightmare Ribbon's work was finished, it transformed back into the shadow clone of Ribbon. The entire process, from the tentacles retracting into it's back, it's fangs disappearing, the flames going out, and it shrinking down to a size that was twice as large as Ribbon's own, took only seconds. Nightmare Ribbon became completely solid, something it had not done before, and it then proceeded to slowly walk over to Kirby and grab him by one arm, with one arm. It lifted Kirby off the ground until his face was level with it's own.
"How does it feel to die, Kirby? It's a feeling I'll probably never experience, so do be a nice corpse and tell me." it requested in a falsely polite tone.
Suddenly, Kirby's charred skin turned back to normal as his hand began to glow again. The tiara appeared on his head and he opened his eyes and grinned.
"It feels a bit like this." he retorted, escaping from Nightmare Ribbon's grip and turning into a living fireball.
He flew straight into it, setting it ablaze and knocking it a few feet backwards. He turned back to normal again as a drop of solid black mist fell from Nightmare Ribbon's mouth and hit the ground, instantly evaporating into the sky.
"Clever." it hissed as it regained it's footing. "Very clever. Apparently you do have a little fight in you yet."
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Thousands upon thousands of miles away, someone was waiting. Sitting on the top of a tower so tall that it was higher than the clouds was Meta Knight.
"Hurry Kirby." he whispered to the winds, his sword at his side. "The fight is only beggining."