Yayzers! I'm on a C2 thingy! Thank you Mirrorkirby3!

One thing before we start: This chapter is where the story gets kind of weird and less credible. My apologies if this ruins anyone's reading experience. But please don't let it stop you from reviewing!

-----

". . .and the next time you guys get into a fight like that," Kirby was saying as he and the others pushed open the hotel doors and walked back onto the pool deck, "you're buying your own antiseptic."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Waddle Dee and Adeleine muttered as they applied said antiseptic to their various injuries. Adeleine was so absorbed in it that she didn't look where she was going and bumped into Dedede, who had suddenly stopped dead. Along with Kirby and Waddle Dee.

"Hey! What's going – "

Adeleine looked up and saw what the other three were looking at.

"Hey, where's Ribbon?"

"Forget Ribbon," said Waddle Dee. "Where's everybody?"

The pool deck, which had been crawling with people when they had gone inside only a few minutes ago, was empty.

"Oh dear," said Adeleine.

"This can't possibly be a good thing," said Dedede.

"Ribbon?" Kirby called out, looking around in all directions. "Ribbon, where are you?"

All four of them immediately split up and searched all over for any sign of Ribbon, but she was nowhere to be found. Neither, for that matter, was anyone else.

"Everybody's gone!" Kirby cried once they had all met up again.

"Guys, I'm so freaked out," Waddle Dee whimpered. "I seriously think I'm going to lose control over one of my bodily functions."

"Well maybe if you didn't drink so much root beer – " Adeleine began sharply.

"Leave the root beer out of this!"

"Make me!"

"Guys, knock it off!" Dedede had to put an arm on each of them to keep them from leaping at each other again. "The last thing we need right now is you both fighting!"

"He started it!" said Adeleine, pointing accusingly at Waddle Dee.

"Oh yeah? Well, guess what? I NEVER LIKED YOUR ARTWORK!"

"I don't care – Waddle Dork!"

Kirby and Dedede gasped.

"Oh, that was low," Waddle Dee said darkly. "That was really low."

Kirby was desperate to end this argument before it got out of hand, and he quickly saw his chance.

"Guys, look!" he alerted, tugging on Adeleine's sleeve with one hand and pointing across the pool with the other. "Not everybody's gone! There's somebody coming!"

"It's Celia!" said Waddle Dee.

The little Bouncy was looking utterly frantic as she hopped all around the pool deck, looking for any signs of life. When she saw Kirby and the others, she bounded over to them as quickly as she could.

"Man, am I glad to see you guys!" she said. "But where's Ribbon?"

"We were just wondering that ourselves," Kirby said miserably.

"Kirby's really worried," said Adeleine. "See, he and Ribbon pretty much agreed to go steady last night."

"What? We did not! Look, Ad, for the last time, she's NOT my GIRLFRIEND!"

"Isn't she?"

"No! She's not!"

"Oh, I get it. Then your feelings for her are unrequited."

"Yes. My – my what?"

"Oh, come on, it's obvious you at least have a crush on her."

"I do not!"

"Kirby has a crush on Ribbon!" Adeleine sang tauntingly. "Kirby has a crush on Ribbon!"

"I'LL CRUSH YOU!"

"Do I really have to do this again?" Dedede asked impatiently, putting an arm on Kirby before he could throw himself at Adeleine.

"Well, you guys are obviously all okay," Celia observed. "But none of you know where everybody went?"

"We've got no idea," said Waddle Dee. "Is there anybody left inside the hotel?"

"A few people, yeah. But I don't think they realize what's going on."

"Well, then," said Adeleine, "it seems that once again, the responsibility to solve the mystery and save the day has fallen to us. Man, I never get tired of this."

"Well, where are we going to look first?" asked Dedede, trying to ignore the fact that Kirby was gnawing on his arm.

"What do you think, Celia?" asked Waddle Dee. "You're the expert on this place."

"Well," Celia thought, "if they're somewhere in the hotel, the only place big enough to hold all of those people at once would have to be. . . the basement!"

"Okay! TO THE BASEMENT!" Kirby declared theatrically, then turned and ran toward the doors. Everyone followed him until he scrambled to a stop right in front of the hotel.

"Wait – I don't want to be inside with whatever just kidnapped all those people! Isn't that a little dangerous and/or stupid?"

"Hmm, good point. We should send someone expendable in first," said Celia. "You – the crazy one – Abercrombie!"

"Adeleine!"

"Whatever. You go and we'll follow."

Muttering very loudly to herself, Adeleine shoved her way past the others and stormed inside. The rest of them followed cautiously after her.

Inside it was nearly deserted, which made everyone even more nervous. The foyer was the only place that was still as crowded as it had been the day before, as all the people in line to check in glanced around in confusion, wondering where everyone was.

Celia led everyone past the foyer to a plain-looking door in the wall. "The basement isn't open to the public," she explained. "This is the only way down."

"But it's locked!" said Kirby. "We're gonna need some firepower to open it up."

"I'm on it!" said Adeleine as she grabbed her easel and started painting an atomic bomb.

"Not THAT much firepower!" Kirby screamed in panic.

Adeleine rolled her eyes. "There's no pleasing you."

"I'll take care of this," said Dedede. He walked up to the door and started swinging his hammer against it several times until it finally came free of its hinges and crashed to the floor. On the other side was a long staircase that descended into complete darkness.

"Uh. . . who wants to go first?" said Kirby after a moment of nervous silence.

"I think somebody had better stay up here and make sure we're not followed," said Waddle Dee.

"If it means I don't have to go down the creepy staircase, I'll do it," Adeleine offered quickly.

"No, I'll do it," said Celia. "After all, you guys are the main characters and I'm just an OC with little purpose except advancing the plot a little."

"What's she talking about?" Waddle Dee whispered to Kirby, who motioned him to be silent while he responded.

"Thanks, Celia. We'll be back up soon. At least, if we don't die."

"Wait – we might die?" said Adeleine. "Guys, are you sure you don't want another person to stay up here?" But Waddle Dee had already pushed her onto the stairs. Kirby and Dedede walked in after him, and all four of them descended into the darkness, Adeleine protesting all the way.

-----

They reached the bottom of the stairs after a few minutes, but only to find themselves walking down a seemingly endless hallway. Worse, the only light came from a few ceiling lights spaced every hundred feet or so, and it was almost impossible to see.

"Guys, we can't keep going like this," said Kirby. "We've gotta find some light, or else – "

He cut off abruptly. "Did you guys hear that?" he whispered.

"Hear what?" asked Waddle Dee.

"Listen! There it is again!"

Everyone listened. Sure enough, there was a barely audible sound that seemed to be coming out of the walls. It sounded like scuffling, or even pawsteps – coming from very large paws.

"That sounds like. . . ."

"A rodent problem. . . ."

Kirby swallowed hard. "I'm really scared now," he said quietly. "Dedede, would you hold my hand?"

"NO."

"Hey guys, I think I found a door!" Adeleine's disembodied voice came from several paces ahead of them. "And it's not locked!"

The other three quickly gathered behind her. "Just try not to be too obvious when you open it, Ad – "

Kirby was cut off as Adeleine loudly kicked the door open, causing it to slam against the wall, and then started waving her arms around in a series of karate poses while making what she hoped were threatening ninja sounds.

"Ad, do you have to do that every time we come to a door?" Kirby asked impatiently.

The four of them crowded into the room – and were completely unprepared for what they found. Kirby, Adeleine, and Dedede's mouths (and Waddle Dee's lack thereof) dropped open in shock.

The room they had just entered was huge, at least three hundred feet square. It did indeed look like a basement, since the walls were lined with stacks of discarded crates and cardboard boxes, but there was something else that was almost never found in a basement. Something alive.

"Holy cow!" cried Dedede. "It's an infestation!"

"An infestation of what?" Kirby asked frantically.

"Crazy purple aardvarks!" Adeleine screamed. "A bunch of them!"

Sure enough, there were hundreds of the strange purple critters crowded in the room, each one identical to the one that had attacked Adeleine. Some of them were perched on top of the boxes, some were preening off in the corners, but most of them were gathered in the large empty space in the middle of the room. Oddly enough, they were all lined up in very neat rows, and even more oddly, each one of them seemed to have someone pinned beneath them. The gang realized that each person was one of the missing hotel clientele, and they all looked unconscious. The most frightening thing of all, though, was that each aardvark had its nose latched onto its person's face, and was sucking at it.

And one of the aardvarks' victims, lying just a few yards away from Kirby and the others. . . .

"RIBBON!" Kirby cried.

"Are they making out?" Waddle Dee exclaimed in disgust.

"Kirby, she's cheating on you with an aardvark," said Adeleine.

"SHE'S NOT MY $&!#ING GIRLFRIEND!"

"And those aren't aardvarks!" came a voice from behind a stack of boxes. Kirby and the others whipped around and were astonished to recognize Browning stepping out.

"It's that guy!" Adeleine gasped. "That one guy. . . what's his name. . . I forget. . . ."

"Horatio Q. Browning!" he snapped.

"No, that's not it. . . ."

"Wait a minute – I know all of you!" Browning exclaimed. "You were those weirdos I ran into when I first got here! And now you've discovered my secret underground lair? Who are you people, anyway?"

"My name is Kirby," Kirby declared valiantly, "and we are the Interplanetary Defenders of Awesometude!"

"I still don't think 'awesometude' is a word," Waddle Dee muttered.

"I DON'T CARE!" Kirby shouted before turning back to Browning. "Now what the heck are you doing to Ribbon?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"I already said what it looks like," Waddle Dee said impatiently. "It looks like she's first-basing it with that aardvark over there."

"Well, number one, you're completely wrong, you dumbass. And number two, those are not aardvarks! They're extremely rare creatures called Bazui. It might help you understand if you know a little about them. First of all, they have spark power."

"We know that already," Adeleine said grudgingly.

"Well, I'll bet you don't know the other interesting thing about them. These little guys really are fascinating – they actually get their energy by feeding off people's hedonism. They eat it up like candy. So if they were to come across, say, a hotel, where everyone is stuffing themselves and lounging around in fancy beach chairs, what do you think they'd do?"

"Make reservations?" Dedede guessed.

"They'd suck everyone dry, that's what they'd do!" the hotel owner bellowed. "Which, obviously, gave me an idea. Why not open up a hotel right in the middle of the Bazui habitat, turn everyone who visits into a spoiled do-nothing, and then have these guys suck out all their lifeforce? The more they do, the more powerful their spark ability becomes! And I can use that to power the building, and use the excess electricity to power more televisions and insanely addictive video games! Then even more people will come, and the process starts all over again!"

Kirby could hardly believe what he was hearing. "But what happens to all the people you suck dry?"

"I don't know. They either die or become empty shells, I guess. I haven't really reached that point yet. But who cares about that? It's a self-fulfilling cycle, and it leaves me with wads of cash – without even having to pay an electric bill!"

"Wow! I should have thought of something like that!" Dedede exclaimed, to be greeted by three very angry glares from Kirby, Waddle Dee, and Adeleine.

"I mean. . . uh. . . forget I said anything."

"Right! Let Ribbon go right now, you homicidal maniac!" Kirby shouted at Browning.

But he just scoffed. "And what if I don't?"

"I'll give you an inferiority complex by mocking your obvious inability to get a girlfriend!"

"Kirby, I don't think we have time for that," Waddle Dee whispered.

"Fine. Then I'll just kick his ass."

"You really think you can do that?" Browning jeered. "You really think you can defeat me, when I have all this power? I'd like to see you try!"

"Are you asking for a fight?" Kirby demanded, throwing up his fists. "'Cause we'll take anything you can dish out! Right, Ad?"

"Uh. . . yeah, sure."

"Right, Dedede?"

"If it means getting to smash stuff, then I'm in."

"Right, Waddle Dee – WADDLE DEE!"

He had just turned around to find Waddle Dee sucking the root beer out of a keg that was being stored down there.

"Knock it off, Waddle!" Kirby shouted as he and the others rushed over and tried to pry him off of the keg. "Knock – it – off!"

"Okay, this is just getting embarrassing," said Browning. "Bazui, do me a favor and kill these guys, will you?"

That got everyone's attention. All four of them gasped and spun around in time to see each and every Bazui in the room stop what it was doing and turn an evil-looking glare on them. Then they all hopped down from where they were perched and started charging at our hapless heroes, faster and faster, sparks flying madly from their fur, until they were bearing down on the foursome in a massive wave of electricity-spewing death.

"Well, this sucks," said Kirby.