Chapter 17: Waddle Doo

One day, Kirby was coming home from a day of visiting King Dedede. He had left a bit early after the monarch threw him out the window while yelling at him to get out. By the time he got home, he saw that his friend, Waddle Doo, was waiting for him.

"Ah, Kirby. I'm glad you're here." His friend said, sitting on a chair in the middle of his house.

"Hi Waddle Doo! Why are you in my house?"

"That's not important right now. What is important is that I have a job I need help with."

"A job?" Kirby asked, scratching his head.

You see, Waddle Doo was a detective or as he preferred to be called, a private eye. Normally most of the cases he gets are fairly simple, so for him to need help must mean it's something serious.

"Ok, what do you need help with?" Kirby then followed as Waddle Doo handed him a file.

"It's a missing persons case. I managed to track them down already, but they're trapped in a cave. You have experience with traveling through caves, right?"

"Right."

"Excellent. So can you help me out with this?"

"Of course! What are we waiting for?"

In an instant, Kirby ran back out the door.

"...I probably should've told him where to go...oh well..." Waddle Doo gave a sigh.

After an hour of traveling (and several wrong turns), the two finally made it to the cave.

"Ok, Kirby, before we head in take a look at this." Waddle Doo said while handing Kirby a picture.

The picture was of a small Waddle Dee wearing a sideways baseball cap.

"So, this is who we're looking for?" Kirby asked.

"Yup. His family told me he's been missing for three days since leaving on a hiking trip. As I told you before, I concluded that this cave is where he is. Truthfully speaking, I could've done this alone, but I'd rather have a companion for something like this."

"It's alright! Come on, let's go in already."

Immediately, Kirby ran off into the cave.

"Wait a minute, Kirby! This cave is called the Bread's Labyrinth! If you're not careful, you can get lost in here forever!"

The puff turned back to him.

"Oh please, it doesn't look to be as bad as the last cave I explored, so it should be fine!" He then trotted back off.

"Yeah, but what if we still get lost? You've never been in this cave before! You're gonna get lost!"

This made the child think for a moment.

"Oh! I know! Did you bring a rope? If you want, we can tie that to something outside of the cave! Then when we find the kid, we can easily follow it back to the surface!"

"I was going to do that, but then you quickly ran off!"

He then tilted his head. "Were you really going to?"

"Yes, I really was going to!"

"Then do it already! We gotta help this kid, right? I'm sure he must be starving and thirsty! I know I would be if I was stuck in a cave for several days!"

"That's because you'd eat everything on the first day of being trapped!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"I'm not arguing with you anymore! Let's go find the kid!"

"Ah! Right!"

After Waddle Doo finished tying the rope to a stable boulder, the two reentered the cave. Now that Kirby turned on his headlamp, he really could see that it was a labyrinth.

"I have an extra rope. If you want, we can split up and try to find the kid that way."

"No, that's not a good idea."

This made Waddle Doo a bit confused. "Why's that? Wouldn't that be a good idea to expand your search range?"

"That's true. But I think it'd be better to explore a maze as a group. This isn't like that time I went to the Mirror World."

Understanding what his friend was talking about, Waddle Doo had to agree. After all, Kirby was the expert here.

As the two were walking through the caves, Kirby got an idea and stopped.

"What's wrong, Kirby?" Waddle Doo asked as he turned back.

"Oh, nothing. I'm just going to try something. What was the Waddle Dee's name again?"

That was when his friend realized. "Huh... I guess I never told you. His name is Bit."

"Thank you."

Kirby inhaled a bit and then yelled out the Waddle Dee's name.

"HEY, CAN YOU HEAR ME!? BIIIIIITTTT!" He shouted.

"Wait, isn't that going to cause the whole cave to collapse on us!?"

"No, it should be fine." The puff turned back and continued to shout. "BIIIIITTTT! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, SHOUT!"

No response. Suddenly, there was a loud roar of various sounds. Then, the source came when several enemies came chasing after them.

"GAH! YOU JUST CALLED SOME MONSTERS TO ATTACK US!"

"Don't worry, I can handle it!"

After Kirby said that, he got in his stance and inhaled one of the attacking monsters, and copied the Animal Ability.

"Kirby, what ability is that!?" Waddle Doo said in shock.

"Oh, this is my Animal Ability." He said with a smile. "Though I can't blame you for not recognizing it. It's been a couple of years since I last used it..."

Suddenly, three of the monsters jumped at Kirby, only for him to cut them down easily with his claws.

"Thankfully, it doesn't seem like I've gotten rusty with it." He said with a feral grin. Something about the way he said that made Waddle Doo shiver.

"Now, let's try that again... HEY, BIT! ANSWER ME! WE'RE HERE TO RESCUE YOU! IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, SAY SOMETHING!" Kirby yelled, making his friend panic.

"Kirby, what are you doing!? Do you want more monsters to attack?"

Before he could complain even more Waddle Doo heard a faint sound that sounded like "over here!" that instantly caught his attention.

"Ah! He's that way!"

His friend then looked worried.

"Yes, we have an idea of where he is now, but which direction should we go? There's no doubt he'd have much food, water, and oxygen left right now after being stuck down here for several days, so we have to try to find the quickest path to him. The question is which is the one...?"

As he looked at the branching paths with even more worry, Kirby immediately got an idea.

"I think I have something! Good thing I have the Animal Ability!"

Immediately, the puff began to dig through one of the walls.

"Wait, be more careful! Do you want this whole place to collapse?"

"It'll be fine! It's not like I'm using Bomb to blow a hole in the rocks!"

Waddle Doo then paused, as if to think for a moment.

"Ok, but what if we get attacked by more monsters?" He then said, receiving a look from Kirby in response.

"Waddle Doo, not to be rude, but did you forget about your eye lasers?"

"...less talking, more digging."

As they continued to dig through the cave, Kirby began to make some small talk to help the time spent digging pass by.

"So, Waddle Doo, what made you decide to become a detective in the first place?"

For a moment, his friend was concerned that talking would slow the pace of their rescue, but it then seemed to be that he realized it was the puff's way of staving off potential boredom.

"Well, you know how the rest of my family is in the news business, right? Like my father's a weather reporter and my mother's a newscaster. So, I wanted to do something different. Be something different. I spent years analyzing what career would be best for me and then the answer came to me."

"So, I guess you wanted to be the one making news instead of reporting on it?" Kirby asked in between digs.

"That's one way of putting it. Though being recognized for my work is nice, my favorite part of the job is helping people. Though not every part is great. Some witnesses are a pain to deal with but it's ultimately worth it."

"Yeah, I know how that can be! It's nice to help people!" The puff said with a smile.

"It sure is. You know, Kirby, you're always welcome to join me on a job if you want. Though detective work really is a lot different from you're normally used to. Then again...you're also a natural born problem solver, so who knows?" He uttered as he thought aloud.

"I'd be more than happy to join you, but let's finish this job first!"

As Kirby continued his digging work, he tried to think of more questions. It was then that one came to mind.

"What's the most interesting case you've worked on?"

There was a moment of pause.

"Well, let me think... ah, there's one case that fits that description. There was a robbery, and the suspects were quintuplets."

"Ooooh... what happened?" The puff uttered with interest in his voice.

"Well, the stolen item was a piece of jewelry, a ring to be specific. Now none of them was wearing the ring and it wasn't on any of them. To make things harder, all of them were pretty similar personality-wise. By which, I mean they were all uncooperative. Except one. One of them told me that they came to the jewelry store with an uncle of theirs. He had apparently entered the store briefly and quickly left it."

"Were you able to find where the ring was?"

"Yes, but it wasn't where you'd think it was. The uncle didn't have it. The store clerk had it on them the entire time and they were trying to frame the family in an attempt to sue them for damages while not actually losing anything."

That honestly surprised Kirby. "Huh? But why would he do that?"

"Some people let greed consume them. Remember how Dedede used to be? And that's why it's important for people like us to be around. To stop those greedy individuals."

Kirby fully understood what he meant by that. Though it wasn't just Dedede. He had met several other greedy individuals on his various adventures. Many of them have at least been reformed like Marx, Daroach, and Magolor. Others ultimately were done in by that very greed, such as Queen Sectonia and President Haltmann. Admittedly, he didn't like to think about it too much, especially since certain incidents were still pretty sensitive subjects to him, so he decided to just change the subject.

"Do you have any questions you wanna ask me, Waddle Doo?"

His friend took another moment to think. "I know you can combine abilities together, why don't you do that more often?"

Kirby knew exactly what he was talking about. During the Crystal Shards incident, he had suddenly developed the additional ability to combine Copy Abilities to create completely new and unique combinations.

"As silly as it might sound, I kind of just forgot about it." Kirby replied with a sheepish smile. "I can still do it, it's just that many of my abilities are powerful enough already so I don't really think about it."

It was also because some of those abilities, especially the ones that involved transformations were uncomfortable, but the puff didn't say it.

"I see." Waddle Doo replied simply.

Whether he figured out what Kirby wasn't telling him or not, the puff wasn't quite sure.

"Well, do you have any more questions?" The child then followed up.

"Yeah. Are we there yet?" Waddle Doo asked in amusement, clearly just playing around.

Kirby responded with a slight giggle.

"We should be there soon! Just a few more minutes!"

Eventually Kirby and Waddle Doo reached the end of the makeshift tunnel, revealing a rather beautiful sight.

"To think there would be a waterfall inside a cave..." Waddle Doo uttered.

"Wanna go for a swim?" Kirby asked excitedly, to which his friend just stared at him in response.

"After finding Bit, of course..." He sheepishly added.

Upon exiting the hole, they noticed a familiar orange blob close to the water.

"Speaking of which..."

The two ran over to the Waddle Dee.

"Hey, are you ok?" Kirby asked, noticing that the child hadn't even attempted to stand up since they got there.

"He's likely injured. I'll take care of this, Kirby. You keep an eye out in case any monsters show up while I'm treating him."

The puff nodded in response. Then there was one thought that came to mind.

"Alright, kid, can you tell me what happened?"

The Waddle Dee seemed to jump at that question.

"I was hiking through this area because I always wanted to explore what Dreamland's wilderness had to offer. Well, as I was walking, I was attacked by some of the nearby monsters. I managed to get away and escape into this cave. Though I'm pretty sure I busted up my foot pretty bad. I can barely move it."

"Did anything else happen? These injuries don't look like they're only from escaping from monsters." Waddle Doo said, causing the young Waddle Dee to jump a bit.

"I also got distracted by some shiny stones and decided to go back from them! Then by the time I was done collecting them, I realized I was lost and didn't know how to get back!"

"Did you do anything to provoke the monsters?"

Bit seemed to panic even more.

"If I did, it was completely unintentional! In fact, I tried to stay out of the monster's way!"

Well, Waddle Doo could at least tell the kid wasn't lying. He just had some extremely horrible luck.

"Alright... well, anyway, let's get you out of here."

The moment he said that, the cave began to rumble, and a large boulder fell from the roof of the cave. Then it started rolling slowly towards the group and began to gradually pick up speed.

"Run!" Kirby yelled.

"You really do have the worst luck don't you kid?"

"You think I haven't been told that?!"

"Both of you, less talking and more running!"

The boulder began to approach them faster and faster.

After a few more seconds of running, Waddle Doo suddenly got an idea.

"Kirby, catch!" He yelled while throwing Bit at him, ignoring the screaming from the Waddle Dee in the process.

"Take him to safety I'll deal with the boulder!"

Without a word, Kirby nodded at his friend and ran off as fast as he could.

As for Waddle Doo, he turned back towards the boulder and began to shoot off beams from his eye at it. The beams were able to slow it down but not stop it completely. If he stopped firing for even a second, that would be the end. Then he got an idea. He briefly stopped his attack on the boulder and instead fired at the ceiling, causing the rocks above to come crashing onto the boulder, stopping it in place. Though that solved one problem, it caused another one as the cave began to collapse.

Waddle Doo ran as fast as he could towards the exit, then he felt something pulling his body towards it. It was Kirby, who was inhaling as hard as he could. Right before he could get crushed by the rocks above, Waddle Doo successfully escaped.

Thanks to the sudden inhale, Waddle Doo successfully made it out of the cave, only to end up in a different kind of cave. He was then quickly spat out by Kirby.

"Sorry about that, Waddle Doo. It was the only way to get you out quickly." The puff apologized immediately.

"No, no, it's fine. Better than being crushed by a boulder at least..." His friend uttered as he wiped off some spit.

They then turned to the Waddle Dee.

"Are you alright, kid?"

They received an enthusiastic nod in response.

"Yup! I'm completely fine thanks to you guys! Well, I guess I should head home now!"

"Hold on a minute. Let's take you home ourselves..." Waddle Doo then looked at Kirby. "If you don't mind joining us."

"Of course! I'd be happy to join you!"

Bit tilted his head in confusion.

"Why?"

"Do you really need to ask? Your luck is absolutely terrible! Who knows what will happen if we leave you be?"

After a moment of thought, it seems like the Dee had to agree with him.

On their walk back, Bit asked a question.

"Hey, Mr. Detective. How did you know I was in that cave?"

"That was the easy part of this case. Your family told me that you were heading towards this area. I just searched around for footprints and found yours. They stopped right at the entrance of the cave. Easy deduction."

After hearing that explanation, the Dee's eyes sparkled in amazement.

"Wow! I wanna be a detective now!"

Waddle Doo chuckled. "Well, you can discuss that with your family. Now let's keep moving. We should be at your home in a few minutes."

After reuniting the Waddle Dee with his parents, Waddle Doo explained everything that happened. Not long after that, he exited to see Kirby waiting for him.

"Is everything fine?" The puff asked.

"Yeah. His parents are just worried, that's all. Thanks for your help, Kirby. I really appreciate it."

"No problem!" He replied with a smile before running off.

Another short but simple chapter. I think those types of chapters seem to be best for this series. Though I might still write the occasional longer chapter. Both are fine regardless, as long as I'm happy with the chapter itself.