It was a very odd sensation he was feeling, it was like this weird mix of an out-of-body experience combined with a splitting headache. It was something he didn't want to experience again. He felt like a zombie—and practically acted like one too. Any creature, harmless or not, that stood in his way was electrocuted and shocked by his beam whip. His vision also increased a thousand-fold, but man his depth perception sucked. Bandana Waddle Dee or in this case, Waddle Doo sighed to himself. He was stuck like this for days and the Dark Matter controlling him had such a powerful grip on him that he wasn't even able to do anything besides think and endlessly suffer.
As his husk of a body mindlessly wandered the powdered snow, his eye picked up on a rotund creature. It was a bright orange and brown and it certainly looked bigger than any other Dee or Doo he's seen around. Carefully walking up to it, the features were clear and he could tell it was carrying something. Rick...? He thought to himself as he could already tell his husk of a body was charging a Wave Beam. No no no! Stop! He tried halting his body, but he only got a splitting headache in response. The Waddle Doo then shot the energy at the hamster who seemed to be minding his own business. He got shocked and his colorful fur was now charred. The hampster whipped his head around and got tunnel vision.
"Ay! What's your problem? Can't you see I'm busy here?!" He said dusting off his fur and trying to carry whatever satchel was on his back.
"Just following instructions." Waddle Doo said plainly. Rick! Help me! The trapped Waddle Dee begged.
"Instructions or not, I'd at least expect an apology from you zapping me like that." The Waddle Doo did another stance and launched another wave of plasma at the hamster sending him back into the ground. Rick was starting to get irate with the creature in front of him.
"Alright, that's it! If it's a fight you want, then let's have it pal!" Rick started to chase the little Waddle Doo around, attempting to Gobble him, but the Waddle Doo acted quickly and shot another barrage of beams at the rodent, but with quick thinking, Rick was able to eat one of the plasma projectiles and as a result his charred fur now turned into a golden yellow, now donning the Beam Copy Ability. "Yeah! Let's fight fire with fire!"
The hamster's superior size gave him the advantage in the beam fight, summoning a beam whip of his own. He was able to beat the Waddle Doo with a taste of his own medicine and gave a cheeky grin, but the grin was wiped off his face when the Doo realized Rick's inexperience he hopped into the air and blasted down several plasma explosions into the snow. Each energy-ball landed on the chubby hamster shocking him and the ground around him. Rick retreated for a second in an attempt to change his strategy but thought to himself. I don't know how to do any of that fancy stuff Kirby does! But after looking down at himself he realized that he was the solution to his initial problem. Discarding the Beam Copy Ability, he match the Waddle Doo's level and kicked him out of the air, and crushed him under all of his weight. Using this as an opportunity he pounded him in the snow with his little feet and nodded. "Well, that takes care-a that."
He walked over to his snow-covered satchel and placed it right on his back where it belonged. But everything around him exploded in a field of energy that paralyzed him. He fell over and the bag was basically scorched beyond belief. "No! The Maxim Tomatoes!" Rick's attempts to grab two heavily charred tomatoes were in vain as he could barely manage to even lift his arm.
The Waddle Doo towered over him, much to the inner Waddle Dee's dismay. Rick! I'm sorry! He tried his hardest to stall out the Waddle Doo's finishing blow, but nothing he was doing was stopping him. But it wasn't until there was a massive blow to the side of him that caused him and the Waddle Doo to get disoriented. With his burgundy hand resting on his face he awoke to see—
Adeleine?
She stood in front of the troublesome Waddle Doo. She knew that most weren't normally hostile towards people, but this one had some sort of vendetta against Rick. She brandished and opened her Parasol, anticipating a large blast of plasma to be sent her way, but that shot never came. Instead, the Waddle Doo simply stared at her, it was almost unnerving, but what struck her off guard when the Waddle Doo started fleeing from their fight.
She's okay! I have to try and get away from here! As he tried to flee, there was another skull-crushing headache, resulting in him falling over and cradling his head with his hands. "No." The booming voice rang in his ears, it was so loud it almost made his eardrums burst. "You shall obey." A sudden pain overcame the possessed Dee as he was still hunched over on the ground. "I don't recommend you fail this fight." The Doo's eye began to glow, its large pupil turning the ominous red that too many people feared. He raised up in the air and grew to an enormous size. His body was covered in black energy and Adeleine began to tremble in fear. As he rose to the ground and the black energy faded away from him, he grew three times in stature and his skin turned a golden yellow.
She attempted to hit the beast with her Parasol, but he only smacked the object out of her hands and crushed the umbrella under his feet.
She ran for her life as the massive King Doo shook the earth as it ran after her. Though, while it was running, it appeared to interrupt itself. It seemed like it was struggling with something. Although she didn't want to, she had to resort to one thing. She took out a canvas and was painting while running. It didn't prove to be effective, since all of her strokes were rushed and wouldn't provide any help if they were just blotches of mess. If she were to put up her easel, she would've no doubt, been crushed. An attempt at an Ice Dragon did do something though. The ratchet-ly drawn Ice Dragon spit out an ice block which slowed the King Doo down, but he was able to kick the painting which exploded into a painty goop.
Then she was cornered. A large mountain was blocking her and the Doo slowed its run to a crawl, threatening her every step of the way. Adeleine began to frantically paint, hoping literally anything would save her. Unfortunately, all of the attempts of a savior were for naught as the hulking giant crushed every single thing that popped out of the canvas, from Bronto Burts to Scarfies, nothing worked.
She had her back against the cold wall and lowered her head. The Doo saw this as a sign of weakness and began to charge the largest Wave Beam it could. While the slow charging took place, Adeleine slowly accepted her fate and began to paint one last thing. One last stroke here. Some orange here...a sad smile there. She set the canvas on the ground and stopped her cowering. It popped from the canvas and walked over to the demonic Waddle Doo. It caught his attention and he stopped his devastating charge. He glanced at it.
And it brought a tear to his eye.
A tiny Deelight walked over to him, paired with a tiny Adeleine. They hugged and then dissipated into the cold air. The dark energy left him almost immediately giving him a second of free will.
"Adeleine! Please help me!" He cried out, hoping his voice would be able to reach her. She reacted and saw the giant Doo trying to restrain itself. He suffered another large burst of pain and cried out, before forcibly charging another plasma blast. It launched from his eye and barely missed Adeleine by a hair. The massive blast tore a chunk out of the mountainside and struck the King Doo. Dropping the ground completely.
The energy left its body completely and it shrunk back to regular size.
As Adeleine turned over the body, she saw it be a Waddle Dee, trembling from the cold and badly bruised, "I'm sorry." The voice squeaked. Disregarding her friend for a second, she saw the Dark Matter Sphere hovering in the air, attempting to get away, but with quick thinking, she used her brush and smacked the eyeball multiple times, resulting in it exploding in a dark cloud of energy.
She looked wistfully at her friend and began to draw Maxim Tomatoes on the canvas, hoping one would pop out, but all of her attempts were futile, except for one—she had to feed it to him. As she tenderly held the tomato in her hand a silly thought popped up in her mind. She never really thought about how Waddle Dees actually ate, but questions like that had to wait.
After years of seeing Kirby and Bandana Dee do this technique it was time for her to do it.
...
Thankfully, it wasn't long before Dee woke up to Adeleine propping him up. She smiled warmly, thankful that her tactic worked. As he fluttered his eyes open, he glanced at Adeleine and then back at his hands. "A-Am I me?" He asked dumbly.
"I hope you are." She looked down for a moment, before choking out her next words. "...You were possessed...I'm so glad you're alright!"
"You're not hurt are you? I would've never forgiven myself if I hurt you! I-I don't even know how it happened." Adeleine hummed to herself, before putting her hand to her chin.
"Can you remember what happened before you got possessed?"
"I can try..." He was able to detail everything, from when he was launched by Dedede, to where he was staying with Deelila and the fight with Meta Knight, "...then I saw Kirby," his voice was trailing off. "I saw him and then...I just..." He hesitated for a second, trying to remember all of what happened. "I think he touched me...but after that, I saw him fly south. Then...my vision was blurred and all I could hear was this subtle voice."
"Voice?" Adeleine could vaguely remember when she was possessed by Dark Matter and his distinctive booming voice. She shuddered from the bad memories.
"It was giving commands, saying stuff like: 'Eliminate everything in your path' and that's what I was doing. For days, until now." Adeleine gave a concerned glance and Dee noticed. "I mean—I was really trying to stop 'myself', but I don't think anyone was seriously injured, just the stray Scarfies and Chillies."
"I'm just glad you're okay...I missed you too much."
"I missed you too." They both stood up and hugged each other, Adeleine copping a small blush on her already rosy cheeks.
The two of them quickly rushed over to Rick who still happened to be beaten and bruised. As the Painter and Warrior approached the chubby rodent, he turned around and sighed when he realized it was his two friends.
"Man, am I glad to see you guys!" After the pair helped him up, he was finally able to feel his body and did a massive stretch. "My stuff!" He looked on the ground and saw the damaged satchel and looked inside to see the juicy fruit still fine. One in the bag got smushed, but the other two looked to be okay. "Phew..."
"What's in the bag, Rick?" Bandana Dee asked opening up the aforementioned bag, basically answering his own question. "Maxim Tomatoes? Why do you have so many?"
"Well it's a long story," he said scratching his belly, "Well...it's long enough to fill up this chapter at least."
"What?"
"Ever since Kirby used that supernova attack on me I was sent thousands of feet into the air. I remember waking up and seeing all white which was pretty appropriate since I landed in Cloudy Park. When I woke up I saw King Dedede looming over me and he had this bizarre grin on his face—it kind of spooked me actually. So I tried to run as fast as I could, but I knew I wouldn't've been able to outrun him, so he beat me with his hammer and smacked to an area I'd never even seen before..."
As the hamster lifted up from the ground, he landed miles and miles away from Cloudy Park. Although he knew he was still in the skies of Popstar, nothing remotely seemed familiar to him. As he continued walking though, he saw a flock of Birdon flying away, one carelessly bumping into the hamster and squawking wildly.
"Ahhh! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" The bird screamed at him, shielding her face from the large animal's wrath.
"Woah, woah, settle down! I'm not gonna hurt you, buddy. What's the problem?"
"I-It's happening in Nutty Noon! The King of Dreamland has been terrorizing us and stealing our crops and food! We were planning to ask the 'King of the Skies' for help, but we haven't seen him anywhere!" Rick looked at her oddly.
"Don't worry, I'll help you find where your King is AND I'll put a stop to King Dedede!"
"Really?! Oh, thank you, kind stranger!"
"Now I know how Kirby feels. Someone has a problem and it's just too hard to refuse when you know you're doing something good. But either way, this Birdon—she told me her name was Donna—so Donna led me through Coco Constellations. Adeleine I know you've lived in Cloudy Park for a while, but the view in Coco Constellations was even more breathtaking if you can believe it. The heights were so high I could basically see all of Popstar. But as Donna and I were properly introducing each other, we eventually made our way through the brown and tasty clouds to get to Cloudy Park and try and find the 'King of the Skies'."
As the two animals were walking—or well Donna was flying—Rick started to get slightly nostalgic, like seeing the Grand Strawberry Cloud palace or remembering the hops, skips, and jumps, he had to make to visit Pick during his and Kirby's adventure. When all of this was over, he figured that he might as well swing by and say hi. But their trek was put to an abrupt halt as Dynablade was perched on top of one of the mountains and started doing her large cries. Donna flew up to the metal bird and bowed, her pilot gear slipping off her face slightly.
"Ma'am! What brings you here in Cloudy Park?" Dynablade gave a few squawks and caws to her supposed bird companion, resulting in the violet Birdon jumping in shock. "K-King Dedede took your children?!"
"He what?!" Rick said, jaw basically dropping to the floor. The sad mother started having tears in her eyes, as she thought King Dedede was only going to help feed her children, not take them away and injure her wings with his mighty hammer.
"Don't worry ma'am. We'll be sure to fix your wing and bring your children back safe and sound!"
"After some more walking, we finally got to this massive tree. It housed all kinds of birds, but the famed, 'King of the Skies' flew down and greeted the both of us personally."
"My, my. What a sight for sore eyes," the owl cheerfully chirped, greeting his old friend.
"Coo? You're the 'King of the Skies?'" The purple owl chuckled again.
"Saving Popstar countless times with our Pink Friend gets you that reputation. Haven't you heard that Kine and Mine are part of the royal guards of Ripple Field?" The hamster deadpanned. "You'd probably get more notable attention if you weren't just lying around all day eating apples in Whispy's Woods." The hamster growled already knowing that he got figured out.
"Like you're any better! How could you never tell your best friend about your royal status...you visit me all the time!"
"I have told you! Several times! But you always thought I was joking!"
"Can you blame me? An—"
"Your majesty, we need your assistance!" Donna interrupted the two. "King Dedede has been terrorizing the locals and stealing our crops. We need to do something!" Coo hummed to himself before nodding.
"I heard about Dynablade's chicks being kidnapped too." He flew away for a second before quickly returning with a satchel full of Maxim Tomatoes. "These treats are for her chicks, me and the other Birdons will try and repair her wings while Rick, you stop King Dedede." Rick put the bag on his back and nodded
"You can count on me!"
"With that, both me and Donna were able to make our way back to Nutty Noon and we went inside one of the palaces where we saw a lot of Waddle Dee and Waddle Doo soldiers. Donna carried me on her back, and we were able to fly inside one of the windows without being detected. After some walking around, we saw the supposed throne room and spotted Dyna's chicks." He stopped his memory and sighed sadly, "Well. We were GOING to sneak behind King Dedede, snatch the chicks and go, but..."
"STOP! What are you doing in the name of Lord Dedede?!" A Waddle Dee soldier screamed, carrying a spear several sizes too big for him.
"Well, nothing. I just wanted to umm... complain. About. Taxes."
"You should know better than to complain about taxes to Lord Dedede. He can't count very well." Rick started sweating.
"Well, I wanted to ask him about the property tax in a certain area in Dreamland. He had an appointment with me earlier, but said he had to 'steal some grub, and he'd get back to me after the fact'." The Servant Dee lowered his spear and sighed.
"That sounds like him. You may enter the royal throne room to discuss your matters."
After making their way inside, Dedede was lazily snoring and sitting on a throne, which had lazily placed Dedede stickers and posters on them to seem more personalized. The three bright yellow chicks were stuck in a cage, chirping at each other and trying to break the cage with their wings, but they simply weren't strong enough. "Follow me," Donna whispered as she silently flapped her wings over to the cage. After throwing out some sharp feathers from her flapping wings, the cage's chains were able to split into three and freed the birds, but the cage itself was another story. As the cage clattered to the ground, King Dedede awoken with dark pupils and an angry glare.
"whhaaAAAAT ARE YOU DOING?!" He shouted to the heavens, already reaching for his mallet. "I already whacked the stuffin out of you, rodent! I told you to stop trying to steal my food!" With angry stomps and angrier hammer swings, King Dedede was in a rage, Dark Matter being able to possess him and have full control over his strength and power. Donna was able to grab the cage with her talons and lift off with the three heavy chicks, taking them straight out the window. Rick was trying to follow, but several of the King's men stood in his path. He couldn't defeat them all AND King Dedede in one fell swoop.
"I closed my eyes, already knowing I was going to get smacked into next Tuesday, but just then this SHIIINK noise echoed through the room and Dynablade burst through the room and took the whole room off the building! All of the Waddle Dees and Waddle Doos fled and Dynablade smacked King Dedede with her talons and ate his hammer right in front of him. He immediately turned back to normal and apologized profusely to her. She didn't like his apology, but she flew away anyway. Everything happened to be okay since then, but then I remembered that I had to figure out where you guys went too. Since Dynablade's chicks appeared to be healthy, they didn't need the Maxim Tomatoes, so as a token of their gratitude, they let me keep them! I've been saving these for emergencies just in case, but now I'm down to two tomatoes."
...
"And that's why I have so many Maxim Tomatoes," Rick finished, both Adeleine and Bandana Dee on his back.
"Woah..." Dee said in awe, hearing about the many legends about the mythical Dynablade. "So then the Great King is back to normal! Now the only one that we know is possessed is Kirby!" As he fist pumped, happy about all of the Dark Matter takedowns, one thing finally stuck out to him. "Kirby..." She turned towards Adeleine and realized, "Where's Ribbon?"
"I'm not sure. I was with her ever since we all separated, but I haven't seen her in ages. We all need to regroup." Everyone nodded in unison to the painter's advice. "Rick, do you think Dedede made it back to Dreamland?"
"He had to. All of what I told you happened just the other day. If he was smart, he would've realized that Dreamland would've been in trouble by now."
"Then, how about this:" Bandana Dee started, getting everyone's attention. "Let's go ahead and go back to Dreamland. Then, once we're there, we'll split up and try to find Ribbon and King Dedede."
"What about Meta Knight?"
"I actually know where Meta Knight is. He's in this igloo me and him saw earlier, he stayed behind to warm up while I went out searching for you and Ribbon."
"An igloo?"
Everyone was at Deelila's igloo. Several of her Gaw Gaw were hurt, but the rest of them managed to be unscathed by the harsh conditions of Meta Knight's Blizzard everyone was inside having a small talk about their plans and regrouping to find everyone else in Dreamland, Adeleine was outside, painting. It was such a beautiful sunset outside, that she excused herself to go draw. After some time with her landscape drawing, she was finally starting to get the hang of drawing with her left hand. It was no longer uncomfortable to her, and she was able to get faster swipes out by the Dee was the second to head outside and brandished an axe.
As he greeted Adeleine he started getting some of the leftover lumber from the shed and started splitting them. The noise proved to be calming for Adeleine, the mix of the calming evening wind and the small grunt from the Waddle Dee put her in a cathartic headspace. She snapped out of that state however, when Dee threw a couple of logs on the ground and lit a fire, by using the lighter Deelila gave smiled at his gesture and stopped painting for a second to sit down on the snow and warm herself up. Dee decided to do the same thing.
"Y'know," he spoke softly, "I wanted to say, thanks. For saving me."
"You would've done the same for me." He nodded profusely.
"Did you have a Maxim Tomato too? I know Rick didn't give us any."
"Hm? I didn't why do you ask?"
"...I remember seeing that you only had one Maxim Tomato. Did you eat something too?" Adeleline started blushing.
"Well...I—yeah I did eat one. And I also healed you too! I just um. You know. I did Face-to-Face." The Waddle Dee blushed alongside her.
"R-Really?" He scratched the back of his head, "I-I see. Thank you regardless Adeleine."
"Y-Yeah..." It wasn't long until the pair scootched closer to each other when the winds started to blow a little more violently. Although it was silent, the two of them knew they were comfortable with each other.
"You've been getting a lot better." He said, admiring her painting skill and also admiring her skills in combat. "I'm sorry I messed up your hand, that was the last thing I wanted to do to you..." She paused for a second, not expecting the sudden apology.
"It kinda helped me in a way. It made me less reliant on my paintings and more reliant on actual combat skills. I feel like I'm useful now—"
"Don't say that." He hushed her quickly, "You've ALWAYS been helpful. Giving us food and refreshments, giving us great morale, and being an amazing artist and friend! I mean, what else couldn't you do? You helped us save the whole Solar System at one point, despite it being scary and daunting, but you did it with a smile on your face and that's great!" He gave her a side-hug and she reciprocated.
"I just always want to make sure I help you guys."
"Trust me, you do a lot more than you think!" The Waddle Dee beamed at his companion to the point Adeleine almost thought he smiled at her. "I couldn't ask for a better partner," he said genuinely, getting up from the ground and getting all of the chopped lumber. "Welp, I gotta go ahead and take this stuff inside." He was about to enter the door, but turned around, "You're not coming inside?"
"I'm just going to paint some more outside, thanks to you, I've got a fire to keep me warm." He nodded, opening and closing the door behind him. Adeleline got out a new canvas and started painting only things coming out of the canvas were her Waddle Deelights and several with her and Bandana Dee either hugging, holding hands, and one particular pair doing Face-to-Face.
Enemy Index:
Chilly: Chillies are snowmen enemies that first made their appearance in Kirby's Adventure. Once inhaled, they give Kirby the...Freeze ability. However, starting with Super Star, Freeze, and Ice have combined abilities, similar to Plasma and Spark. They usually skate around and of course, are more frequently seen in colder areas.
King Doo: A King Doo is a golden-colored Waddle Doo that's able to shoot out massive Wave Beams from its eye. They've started appearing in Kirby's Return to Dreamland as a mini-boss and have been a reoccurring one in the franchise.