Chapter 5: Fight Fiasco

The Armys didn't have much in brains or charm. They definitely lacked in construction and housekeeping skills. But it wasn't too long before the Kongs had something to be impressed by.

The battle pit was enormous. A diplodocus could sleep comfortably inside, provided it was comfortable curling into a ball. It was an irregularly shaped section of land that had sunk into the earth – probably from the collapse of a cave. Large wrinkles in the downslope created natural seats, smoothed out by years of use. The Armys were already gathering on these stands, sniggering excitedly about the upcoming event. The Kongs were prodded down the slope, turning into an aisle just before the bottom of the pit. Donkey was singled out of the group and shoved into the pit itself where King Army Dillo was waiting.

He sniggered, "Ready to taste the agony of defeat, eh, Donkey? Take a good look around you because this is going to be your grave!"

Donkey scowled and then howled and beat his chest in challenge.

Army Dillo sneered, "Oh, you won't be so confident when you see what I've got." He then barked, "Armys! Bring me my armor!"

Two Armys appeared at the top of the hill and scurried down toward their king. On their backs they carried what looked like an Army shell made out of metal with two attachments on either side of it. As they got closer, Donkey realized the attachments were cannons! Two guns with barrels as big around as watermelons. The two Armys quickly fitted it onto their king and then scurried back up the hill and took seats.

Army Dillo sniggered and then jeered, "What do you think, Donkey? Like my upgrades? They were gifts from the Kremlings. Twin cannons that launch fireballs! You love fireballs, don't you, dummy?" He was beside himself with glee.

Donkey shook his head and waved his hands fervently.

Army Dillo grinned wickedly. "You got it! Two giant fireballs coming right up!" and with a reedy snigger he opened fire on the hapless primate.

Cannonballs wrapped in flames zoomed past Donkey as he ran. He tried to charge up the slope, but a group of Armys scurried in to intercept him, using their heads to butt him back in the pit. A couple of explosions around him spurred him to jump back to his feet and run around the edge of the arena to dodge the cannon-wielding Army.

Up in the stands, the Kongs watched in concern. Cranky muttered, "He certainly wasted no time bungling it up. Terrified of a couple of peashooters!"

"Nah, man," Funky argued, "those are cannons that are firing flaming 300 mm round shots at 80 miles per hour, meaning those could pop Donkey's head off his shoulders!"

Cranky waved his point away. "An irrelevant point. All I'm saying is if Donkey doesn't beat this clown, we don't get Diddy back and this island goes kaput!"

"What can we do?" Candy cried, biting her nails.

"SQUAWK! If Donkey can dodge him long enough, maybe that Army fellow will run out of ammo soon."

Funky clutched his head in despair. "Ah man! No way Donkey can keep this up! We're toast!"

Candy leaped up from her seat and began screaming her heart out. "COME ON, DONKEY! YOU CAN DO THIS! BEAT THAT ARMY DILLO! GO, DONKEY!" She bounced up and down as she cheered, which attracted the attention of the Armys in the audience, who hardly ever had the chance to watch an excitable lady like Candy shake her thing. While she distracted the Armys, Cranky reached into his lab coat and pulled out a test tube of some sort of syrup. It was an unhealthy green color until the old primate sprinkled in some slimy orange pulp and then it became a toxic gray color. He gave it a shake and then it turned red.

Snide eyed the concoction warily and leaned away from it. "Should a brew be changing colors like that?"

Cranky held it up. "It's my growth formula. I planned to save it to grow giant bananas, but the way Donkey's handling things, it's obvious he needs a little intervention. All I need now is some way of getting it to him. Just splash this stuff on and he'll transform into Super Kong!"

Funky clapped his hands excitedly. "Hey now, if a peashooter's what you need…" He reached behind his back, pulled out a dart gun, and passed it to the old codger.

Cranky took it and grumbled, "That will have to do." He slipped the vial into the barrel and then took aim at Donkey, who was still running in circles to avoid the fireballs Army Dillo was launching at him. He took in a breath and raised the dart gun to his mouth.

An Army suddenly noticed what he was doing and he yelled out, "Hey! What are you doing?"

Cranky jumped in surprise at the same time he blew into the gun, throwing off his aim. The vial flew out of the barrel, tumbled through the air, and - instead of aiming for Donkey - arced through the air and crashed squarely on top of Army Dillo's head, sending red goop slipping down his long snout.

Cranky swore at the same time that the Army who had startled him starting yelling, "Sabotage! He's trying to poison King Army Dillo! Everybody get him!" Then there was a confused scuffle as the nearest Armys tackled the Kongs. Fortunately, they had forgotten their bazookas in their excitement; otherwise, the entire arena might have wound up a smoking crater and the story would have ended prematurely. But in the midst of the brawling, none of them noticed what was going on in the pit below.

At first, it didn't seem anything was happening while Army Dillo shook his head, slinging the red goop in all directions, and spluttered. "Gah! What's this? It's… red! I've been hit! Why you dirty…" Then he glurped and convulsed as Cranky's concoction took effect. Donkey, at first a little bemused by this, quickly became horrified as the king of the Armys began to grow. His snout grew longer, his little clawed feet stretched out, his tail grew heavier, and his metal shell creaked as it adjusted to the growth spurt. He was soon Donkey's height, and he kept growing, becoming as large as Rambi – as a jeep – as a pirate ship – as a… well, at this point he was crowding out the sleeping diplodocus and giving the tussling team pause for thought – mostly, "How big is he going to get?"

"Cranky…" said Candy in breathless horror, "what have you done?"

"What have I done?" squawked the old primate indignantly. "It was this bonehead…" he rapped the Army on the head with his cane, prompting him to roll over onto his back with his legs sticking straight up, "who threw me off!"

Regardless of who was to blame, the fact remained that Army Dillo was now big enough to press them flatter than lily pads. He admired his new size for a moment before he located Donkey and pressed his snout up to him. He sniggered, and at this size the saliva came spraying out like a rainstorm, drenching Donkey and making him smell worse than a Kremling's tail. "Thought you'd get the best of me, huh? But it all backfired on you, didn't it? Now I'm going to squash you like a little ant, and after that, I'm going to take over the island!" He shook with hearty guffaws, great gobs of spit launching from his mouth between each one. Donkey scurried out of the way to avoid drowning, but Army Dillo didn't notice until he was about halfway up the slope.

"Oh no you don't!" roared the titanic Army and he stomped a foot against the ground, sending ripples up and down the pit, sending the audience tumbling from their seats and causing Donkey to stumble and land on his chin. Army Dillo scurried toward the fallen primate, sniggering greedily.

"Donkey!" cried a young voice, distracting the Army king. He twisted around to find the source and saw his little performing Kong, who scurried around him toward Donkey, dragging the leash behind him. Coming up on his friend, Diddy tugged on Donkey's arm in an attempt to help him up. "Come on, let's get out of here!"

"Where others?" Donkey asked as he struggled to his feet.

"Waiting for us at the top. They managed to give the other Armys the slip when the ground shook. That's how I escaped. Now come on!"

"YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!" roared Army Dillo coming up behind them with a murderous rage in his eyes. He stopped short and then fired the cannons on his shell.

His aim was a little too high and too far on either side of Donkey and Diddy though that didn't mean the primates were in the clear. The fireballs missed them but the blast hit them with the force of a barrel to the face and adding further to their injury were the little pellets of dirt and rock from the explosion. They were going to be black and blue in the morning… if they survived, that was. Because even before the dirt stopped falling, they all heard great echoing cracks, and dark, jagged lines streaked across the pit.

"Huh?" Army Dillo gulped, which made it clear he had no idea what he had just done.

Diddy spelled it out for him, "This pit's collapsing! Come on, Donkey! We've got to get out of here before we're all sucked under!"

"Wait!" cried Army Dillo and took a step forward. He never made it. In his last second, the earth opened its hungry maw and swallowed him whole. The only thing that remained of him was his terrified scream, growing fainter until it faded completely.

But the beast was not satiated. It wanted more food and so it sent a crack straggling its way up the hill behind the two Kongs, who were scrambling as fast as they could to get as far away as possible.

"Come on, Donkey!" Diddy cried, tugging on his arm to get him to move faster.

The earth stretched its maw, lapping at the heels of the two primates, making the ground they were running on like sponge. All it needed was for the two to take one wrong step.

It was disappointed. Both Diddy and Donkey escaped the pit and fled as far away from it as they thought was safe, which was about a gorilla's toss. They collapsed to the ground, gasping for air and relieved to be alive. They were even more relieved when they heard Candy call to them and the rest of the gang joined their side. Snide made it, too.

Candy snatched up Diddy and gripped him in a bear hug. "Oh, I'm so glad you're all right, Diddy! Did they hurt you at all?"

"I'm fine," Diddy wheezed.

Cranky tossed in Diddy's shirt and cap and then barked, "We don't have time for this! Diddy, take that ridiculous outfit off and put your clothes on. You look like a pansy in that. And when you're done, we need to head to the Kremlings' ship and rescue that idiot, Chunky, so we can shut down some doomsday device that brainless reptile, K. Rool, has somewhere on there."

Candy dropped Diddy. Diddy cried as he started changing his clothes, "But wait! We can't leave until we rescue Lanky! They've taken him to the ruins in Desolate Desert. They're going to use him to go into dangerous areas of the ruins to collect parts for their machines."

The gang gave a cry of outrage. Candy snarled, "Why those lowdown, dirty, stinking leatherheads! Making Lanky do the dangerous work for them!"

"Finding parts to repair the Blast-o-Matic, no doubt," Snide added, giving his nose a wipe and a sniff.

Cranky slammed his cane against the ground. "Bah! It's always something! Is there anyone else we need to worry about while we're here?"

Funky spread his arms and rolled his shoulders. "Well, hey, if you dudes need a ride to the ruins, I could take you there."

"Great," said Cranky. "But if you lead us into another trap, Funky, I'll dump this growth formula all over your head until it's so big you'll need a crane to hold it up!"

Funky chuckled nervously and gave him a thumbs-up. "Roger that."