Chapter 24: The shortest victory
On the field, Link, Dedede, Escargoon, Kirby, and Sonic were celebrating their victory over the Dragonoid army. Their strategy worked and Dedede was happiest of all.
"I told you those dopey dragons stood no chance against me." Dedede said, his chest puffed out in pride.
"Yeah, no one stands up to you, Triple D." Escargoon said, assuring the king with false cheers.
While the others were celebrating, Metaknight was just standing there. His eyes were just staring far to the north. Link took notice of this and looked where Metaknight's yellow eyes were focused on. What he saw horrified him.
"GUYS! Look to the north!" Link shouted.
Sonic and Kirby stopped and so did Dedede and Escargoon. And when they saw the thing that Metaknight was watching, they all froze as though exposed to subzero temperatures. Sonic's eyes widened in surprise, Kirby gasped, and Dedede and Escargoon's jaws dropped as their eyes bugged out.
King Dedede's castle was billowing a large trail of smoke and some flames were licking its bottom. Above the roaring flames, one could hear frightened cries in despair as troops were trapped in the inferno.
"MY CASTLE!" Dedede shouted, hopping in his car, quickly followed by Escargoon.
Just before the vehicle started, there was an earthshaking roar and part of the castle's east side got blasted into pebbles. Then, Link saw it. Something like a black, scaly bat was crawling up one of the castle pillars. The spikes down the neck and on the tail were noticeable anywhere and even from many yards away, Link saw its burning eyes.
"It's Ryu!" Link said, pointing toward the thing on the tower.
"You mean the leader of these lizards?" Kirby asked, curiously.
"Link, you actually saw this guy?" Sonic asked.
"Yes. He defeated Ganon, the man that Concolor failed to revive, and he emerged from his battle without even a scratch. It took me and Fox hours to beat that guy, but Ryu did it in just a matter of seconds." Link said, reminded of the day he first met the Dragonoid overlord.
Sonic stared as Link told his story, though he had already heard of this, Kirby and Metaknight didn't. After a bit of an awkward silence, the blue hedgehog glanced at the vehicle racing for the castle.
"Knowing the strength of these Dragonoids, those two don't stand a chance!" Sonic said before racing off.
Kirby quickly seized Link by the shoulder before the Hylian took off with speed to rival Sonic's. It was like being on a racecar with at least three or four times the speed.
Ryu searched the windows, scaring the life out of Waddle Dee soldiers everywhere. Every once in a while, he stuck his large hand into a window and tried to feel around for it. If the key item wasn't in this room, he would set it ablaze. Every now and then, some of the soldiers would have the nerve to spear his fingers. That proved to be a mistake for all of them, because every time they did, the Dragonoid King would reach in with his hand, take them out and drop them a good ten stories to the ground.
"Pathetic." Ryu said with what could only be described as pride.
Ryu had burned just about every room when he finally came across one he didn't check. He was about halfway to the window when something shot him in the back.
"A challenger? I can't resist." Ryu said as he turned to see who would do such a thing.
Ryu laughed an almost silent laugh as Dedede and Escargoon raced at him in their old-fashioned car. He opened his mouth and belched a fireball at them, but they swerved and it missed.
"HA! Ya' missed us, you fire-spitting salamander!" Dedede shot at Ryu.
The "king" of Pop Star pushed a button on his control panel and a missile shot out and pelted at the black Dragonoid. Ryu simply laughed at their attempt.
"Perfect." He said with a toothy grin.
When the missile almost hit him, Ryu jumped off the wall and spread his massive wing to pull out of a dive bomb that would have crushed every bone in his body. The missile missed him and hit the part of the building he was on as well as revealing the one thing he wanted: the Key Item was in that room.
"Nice work, sire. You just destroyed your room." Escargoon commented.
"Thanks for the support. Don't make me salt you." Dedede threatened.
The delinquent duo were about to continue when Ryu flew up close to them and unleashed a blast of fire strong enough to level a forest. Dedede and Escargoon dove out of the car just when the flames hit. For a few seconds, the flames continued to lick the car and when the fire died down, the car was now no more than an red-hot molten metal and the dirt underneath it was now muddy glass. Dedede and Escargoon weren't in the blast, but they were still black from the soot and Ryu towered over them, laughing at their cowardice.
"As you can see, you have no chance of overcoming my power." Ryu said, glaring down at them with his orangish-yellow eyes.
"Ever hear of the word 'challenge'?" Another voice asked.
Ryu looked up and saw Kirby on a Warpstar racing toward him. Ryu chuckled at this and flapped his wings many times, creating a large gust of wind. At the same time, he breathed fire, causing the flames to grow into an enormous wall of fire. Kirby went over the fire, but when he cleared it, Ryu was there to meet him. Ryu performed a vertical spin forward and brought his foot smashing into Kirby's ride. Kirby's Warpstar fell to the ground, but Kirby landed on his feet and he quickly ran to the side to avoid Ryu's dinosaur-like foot from crushing him like a grapefruit. However, when he got a reasonable distance, he looked behind him and Ryu was gone. However, he didn't have to look long, seeing as Ryu was now right in front of him. Ryu lashed out with his foot and kicked the puffball like you would a cockroach. Kirby flew through the air and bounced several times until he came to a complete halt and lay on his front.
"Pathetic puffball." Ryu growled.
Suddenly, something pierced the scales on his right shoulder and shone like the sun. It stung like a hornet and Ryu actually winced as he tried to block out the light from his eyes. However, Ryu recovered from the pain, yanked the arrow out of his arm, and tossed it to the ground like a useless toy. The Dragonoid leader looked around and saw Link with his bow out and a Light Arrow cocked in his bow. Ryu growled and knew that he didn't want another light arrow in his chest, so he blasted fire into the air similar to the fire pillar he used on Ganon. The sky turned from blue to blood red and, instead of a huge column of fire, a rain of fireballs fell from the sky. Link quickly ran from side to side to avoid getting his tunic scorched. However, he wasn't expecting the thing that Ryu did.
Ryu knew that Link would now be moving as fast as that "blasted hedgehog" and exhaled through his nostrils. Instead of fire, out came a cloud of pitch-black smoke that left Link momentarily sightless. Link couldn't see, but he was sure he was racing straight at Ryu. However, when he cleared the cloud, Ryu was gone and when Link heard the sound of flapping wings, he knew where the giant dragon was.
"What the?!" Link shouted as he looked up.
In the sky was something like a giant bat from below, but it was actually Ryu. The Dragonoid lord then fell, feet-first and landed with a crash. His feet missed Link, but his massive hand didn't. When Ryu landed, Link leapt to the side to avoid the feet, but Ryu's massive hand swatted him away. The Hylian flew through the air and landed on his stomach. He tried to get up, but lay back down in sheer agony.
Ryu knew what would happen to this boy's colleague and quickly turned around to create a ring of fire. The circle's radius was fifty meters long and right in the center of that circle was Sonic, who screeched to a halt. The wall of flame was not just wide, its flames reached up over a hundred feet high and Sonic couldn't clear something of that size without getting his feet scorched. Ryu grinned at the hedgehog, but was more than cautious enough to look at him for too long. In one movement, he spun around and caught Metaknight in midair with his tail. The spikes along the tail actually pierced Metaknight's armor and sent the professional star warrior hurtling to the ground like a cannonball.
Ryu grinned as he took off and headed for the castle to claim his prize. He looked into the huge hole that Dedede created with the missile and saw a kind of staff with a large star on the end. He inserted his large hand through the hole and grasped it with his fingertips to take it out.
"At last, the Star Rod is mine." Ryu said, his grin broadening by the second.
Without further hesitation, the black Dragonoid flew off and created the red portal to take him home.