PART 20: Heat of Battle (Part II)

"But no matter how hard you try, you'll never make out of here alive!" roared Nightmare Ribbon as the tentacles, now much smaller and shaped like scythes, burst out of its back and arced towards the ground until they went straight into it, digging right through it like drills. Before Kirby knew what was happening, the ground was shaking underneath his feet.

Seconds later, the tentacles burst from the ground all around Kirby, surrounding the star warrior in what could be called a roofless cage, with massive scythe-shaped tentacles for bars, each one moving back and forth like cobras, as if daring him to attempt to get past them...daring him to move...to breathe...

No sooner had he breathed than the scythe tentacles struck, giving him no time to dodge. The sharpness of the "blade" sliced through Kirby's skin and knocked him into the path of another scythe tentacle, which immediately slashed him again into another one, until Kirby found himself in what was almost a deadly game of tennis...and he was the ball.

After a few more powerful slashes, Kirby managed to grip onto one of the misty blades and flip onto it, balancing himself on it's edge. The tentacles reacted by attacking him all at once, and he leaped away just as all the simultaneous attacks ripped through the place he had just been standing. The tentacles ran into each-other and became ferociously entangled to the point where they couldn't even cut themselves loose. Kirby landed safely a few inches away.

Nightmare Ribbon realized that it was now completely stuck. The tentacles were knotted so much that it couldn't retract them. Kirby realized this too, and took advantage of the moment to attempt to run at Nightmare Ribbon and smash into it with the Burning ability.

Nightmare Ribbon didn't have enough time to stop the attack and it was hit just as it was about to begin a transformation. Suddenly, it's eyes began to change all kinds of colors, from blue to red to green to black...

They began to slow down like a slot machine until they eventually stopped on blue. Nightmare Ribbon seemed to smile as it turned from gas to liquid, it's entire body becoming water and flowing across the ground. Kirby could feel it underneath his feet as it flowed past him, but it felt more like there was blood flowing against his feet instead of water.

It wasn't too long before the water stopped flowing, and Kirby found himself being pulled down, as if the ground beneath him had turned to quicksand. Looking below him, he discovered that the entire ground was completely gone. In seconds, it had been completely eroded. Grabbing onto him and pulling him under was a pair of misty blue hands that were reaching upwards from the depths of the newly formed canyon.

He struggled to escape from their grip, but it was impossible...they were too strong. Instead, he stopped struggling and took a deep breath as they pulled him the rest of the way underwater, the tiara and the power that came with it slipping off his head onto the water's surface.

Soon, he found himself on the ocean floor, and the hands released their grip. They were pulled back into an enormous shape in the water...an enormous sea serpent, completely blue down to the soulless eyes, and over twenty miles in diameter and fifty miles in length. It seemed to be made of both water and fog. Armless, legless, rows upon rows of incredibly sharp teeth, everything around it being sucked into what appeared to be a whirlpool that made up the rest of it's body.

Kirby began to swim, using his arms to propel himself back to the surface as quickly as possible. Halfway to the surface, the serpent's whirlpool tail swung just below him and then curved upwards in a sharp angel, hitting him from below and sending him flying straight up out of the water, where he emerged a few feet above it spinning like a top. Seconds later, he stopped spinning and began to fall as an enormous blue, fog-like sea serpent emerged from the water and opened it's wide jaws just beneath him.

It snapped it's enormous jaws shut right on Kirby's arm, the rows of enormous teeth piercing his skin like paper. His arm caught in the rows of teeth, Kirby was left dangling over the water, rocking back and forth from the wind from the serpent's cyclone tail. Kirby struggled to free his arm from the demon's powerful grip, but he soon realized struggling to escape it's teeth was like struggling to escape quicksand...you'll only sink deeper.

And the serpent's grip was getting increasingly more powerful, sinking deeper and deeper into his arm until it felt like it was going to be removed from the rest of his body. He closed his eyes and prayed, hoping that it'd eventually get bored and drop him...or swallow him. Hopefully not the latter.

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Curio inspected the security camera that had been installed in his room. After accidently knocking it off the wall, he had realized it had not been damaged. When he tried to pick it up, it felt heavier than a pile of bricks. There was definitely something strange about it, and as he opened it up, his suspicions were made clear.

A bomb. Small enough to be in the workings of a security camera, yet large and powerful enough to turn the entire room into ash. He was stunned. But before he could put 2 and 2 together, something flew from the workings of the bomb and latched onto his face. Something black and misty with a single red eye...

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The serpent was getting bored now, so it began to toss Kirby around like a toy, throwing him as high as it could and then catching another part of him in it's teeth easily. To the serpent, this was just a game.

As Kirby was tossed hundreds of feet into the air for the seventh time, he closed his eyes and prepared for the oncoming bite. Nothing happened. Seconds later, he hit the water with a splash. Looking around for the serpent, he saw a strange figure a few feet away from him. It was leaping on and off of a tall, thin boulder, attacking the nearby serpent in the eyes whenever it got the chance, and moving so fast that it was a blur. Kirby watched with interest as the strange figure skillfully leaped over the serpent's blows, and countered with attacks of his own, never missing a single hit, and always in the eyes. It wasn't until a few minutes of this attack that the figure saw Kirby floating in the water below him, and suddenly ran away, as quickly as it had come.

The serpent, with it's blue eyes slightly faded and the whirlpool spinning less violently, turned toward Kirby and glared. It began to swim towards him, but suddenly, laser blasts seemed to rain from the sky, some going right through the creature, others hitting it directly in the eyes. Kirby looked up and saw what looked like Waddle Doos with jet-packs flying above him.

"What..." Kirby wondered, as they made a V formation and swooped down upon the serpent, blasting it with a barrage of lasers from thier jet-packs and powerful beams of energy from thier eyes.

The serpent responded to this assualt by leaping out of the water and swallowing one of the Waddle Doos whole. The formation scattered like a group of mice, and made a fruitless attempt to make a new formation. They zoomed around the serpent's head as it swallowed another one and smashed another one with his tail, sending it flying into a rock. The attack caused the jet-pack to explode, and the rock collapsed onto the head of the last Waddle Doo.

After this, another strange figure, wearing what looked like a jesters hat, leaped out of nowhere onto the serpent's head. There was a flash, and the serpent began to shake and rumble as it was engulfed in a black hole.

The figure jumped away as quickly as it had came, and the serpent shrunk. In seconds, it turned from blue to black, and the shape of Nightmare Ribbon appeared and fell towards the ground calmly and easily, as if it was jumping instead of falling towards the water below.

Seconds before it hit the water, it's entire body froze. It had become an enormous glacier that would have been shining had the black fog not been blotting out all the light. As soon as the glacier hit the water, the water began to freeze as well, and Kirby jumped onto the sheet of ice just before the place he was just floating in froze solid.

Kirby tried to move, but found himself slipping on the frozen water. The ground was cold beneath his feet, and the ice was beggining to crack. Seconds later, the ice shattered like a rock against a glass window, and Kirby was left standing on a glacier that was rising out of the water.

Looking at the ice-cold, spiky, frozen glacier, he saw a huge red eye frozen inside it. He put two-and-two together just as more glaciers rose from the ice-cold water and the one he was standing on began to crack. Quickly, he leaped onto another glacier as the one he had just been standing on shattered. The frozen eye appeared for a split second before it plunged into the water. An arrow sailed through the sky a second later, barely missing it. The glacier he was standing on began to crack as more glaciers rose from the artic waters. He jumped slightly too late, and was forced to hold onto the edge of the glacier as it continued to rise.

The other one shattered, and another arrow sailed through the air. It completely missed it's target, and the arrow hit Kirby in the arm instead, throwing him off balance. Ignoring this, he grabbed on again and attempted to climb onto the glacier, which was beggining to crack.

"Focus, men! Aim! Release everything you have! Don't let it escape!" ordered a voice so far in the distance it was barely audible. "It's almost dead! Just a few hits and we'll be finished with this thing once and for all!"

The glacier shattered with Kirby on it, sending him tumbling toward the ground, surrounded by shards of ice. Barely a second later, arrows rained from the sky again. A few of them hit the eye before it plunged into the waters again, but most of them missed thier target and hit Kirby instead. He hit the freezing cold water like a doll against a bed of knives. The cold was incredible, but the pain as the force of the water ripped the arrows from his skin was undoubtedly a lot more unbearable.

"You idiots! Hit the eye!" ordered the distant voice. "THE EYE!"

Kirby tried to swim through the ice cold waters, but he was lifted into the air by another glacier forming just below him. In exactly three seconds, the glacier shattered instantly, and Kirby fell towards the water again. Another downpour of arrows fell from the sky, but seemed to make sharp turns and hit Kirby instead.

As soon as Kirby hit the water, another glacier formed so quickly that it launched Kirby into the air. As soon as Kirby hit it, it shattered again, and the arrows fell. Kirby reacted quickly. In mid-fall, he took an enormous breath of air and swallowed one of the arrows.

With no time for poses, Kirby transformed in a flash. A sling of heart-shaped arrows appeared over one shoulder, a bow and arrow appeared in his hand, a pair of wings sprouted from his back, and a round, golden halo appeared over his head.

"ANGEL!" he shouted, as he flapped the newly-formed wings and flew high into the air. The glaciers stopped forming, and Kirby prepared an arrow.

The eye shot out from the water, and Kirby zipped away with his wings and fired an arrow, then prepared another and fired it as well in quick succession, both arrows hitting the eye directly in the center. A downpour of arrows from afar also sailed towards the eye, and Kirby zipped away from them at the last second. Every single arrow hit the eye.

There was an earth-rocking explosion as the eye shrunk into itself and imploded in a flash of light. Kirby could have cheered if he wasn't so weak. His mission accomplished, he fell toward the water below.

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The rest of the black fog screamed. A large section of it had gone into making that demon, and it had been defeated. Half of his power was completely destroyed.

"So...the...Star...Warriors...have decided...to join in this little..game..." it snarled weakly. "No matter...I've still got half of my power left. And he doesn't..have..any time...left...at least...not enough...to destroy..me..."

The eye turned towards a strange tower that stretched above the clouds.

"Go...to the...dream fountain...now...Do not fail me now..." it ordered.

A figure jumped from the edge of the tower. The black fog watched it fall towards the ground below and stop itself by forming a pair of black wings. It flew away.

"Excellent...now...all I have to do is...wait..."