A/N: Was playing Kirby 64 with the cousins yesterday so guess what I felt like updating? :D We also decided that the reason all the enemies on all the planets attack Kirby is because they're jealous of his swag.

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Even after the sudden disappearance of the two most prominent up-and-coming racers, the boat race was still as chaotic as ever. Boomer was still chucking bombs at anyone who got too close to him and Amp, and the other racers were resorting to rather unsavory tactics as well. As the majority of the creatures living here had some kind of elemental power, you can imagine how this was going.

At that very moment, Adeleine and Dedede stuck their heads out of the bushes lining the riverbank and got a good look at all the boats whizzing by.

"Okay Dedede! You remember the plan? Ribbon wants us to get rid of all these guys so our best pals Kirby and Waddle Dee have a fighting chance!"

Dedede kept looking out at the race. "Where are Kirby and Waddle Dee? I don't even see them. Maybe they got lost."

"Oh well, who cares. Anyway, time to get down to business!" said Adeleine, dramatically whipping out her easel and art supplies.

Dedede tried to follow her logic, and as is inevitable, he failed. "What exactly are you doing with that stuff?"

"I'm making something to get rid of those guys! Remember, my magical painting skills can create anything, even living beings! In fact, when you think about it, I'm essentially a god! Mwahahaha!"

"It's a wonder the fabric of the universe hasn't unraveled yet," Dedede grumbled as Adeleine quickly went to work painting something.

Meanwhile, Ribbon was still hanging back with the rest of the spectators gathered around the television screen. Unlike the others, though, she was far too distraught to watch anymore and was sitting with her head in her hands.

"Well folks, Kirby and Waddle Dee are nowhere to be seen, which means Boomer and Amp have taken the lead once again!" Mr. Gallant announced. "And it just keeps getting more and more exciting over here, ladies and gentlemen. We've got a five-boat pileup further up the river and two of our racers appear to have gotten into a slap fight…"

"I don't believe this. Kirby and Waddle Dee got blown up and sent who-knows-where, and nobody seems to care…" Ribbon cried, still unable to look at the screen. "How can this possibly get any worse?"

"What's this, ladies and gentlemen? There appears to be a small black-haired girl standing on the shore and holding a crossbow!"

"Oh, right. That's how."

"TASTE MY FURY, YOU ADORABLE LITTLE PUFFBALLS!" Adeleine shouted, firing a round of bolts at the racers zooming by. They all screamed in confusion as the bolts struck their boats in the side, sending them careening off course and crashing into the shore.

"YEAH! This is awesome! Dedede, don't you wanna try?"

"Oh, why not. Pass me the smoke bombs."

Back at the starting line, all the spectators were getting very confused. "Who gave that girl a crossbow?" somebody asked.

"Should we be panicking?" asked somebody else.

"I vote for panicking!" screamed a little Emp before racing frantically racing off into the trees.

Mr. Gallant frowned, looking concerned about something. "What is she doing? She's taking all of those racers out of the running! This won't do at all…"

He turned to his security detail, a pair of burly Nruffs wearing sunglasses. "You two! Get over there now and… rectify this situation."

"You got it, chief," said one of them, and the two brown warthogs immediately turned around and hustled off down the river. As Ribbon saw them go, she groaned and reluctantly followed after them, realizing it was up to her and her rare gift of sanity to save the day again.

––

Kirby and Waddle Dee huddled nervously in their little crate as they drifted through the cave. It was lit up slightly by what looked like huge glowing dandelions lining the shore, but it was still mostly dark and very spooky. There was no sense trying to backpedal, as the current was too strong for them to make it back the way they'd come.

"Great… where are we now?" Kirby groaned. "Waddle Dee, I think we'd better pull over."

"I hear ya," said Waddle Dee, and they quickly steered their boat onto the rocks and climbed out. As they looked around, it was quiet except for the trickling of the river, and they couldn't see anybody else… which naturally just made them more nervous.

"Well, let's review," said Kirby. "We're lost, we're stuck in here, nobody knows we're here, and we're probably going to have to resort to cannibalism in a few hours."

Waddle Dee stared at him. "What?"

"Uh, forget that last one. Anyway, we gotta work on finding a way out of this place."

"Good thing you have that Bomb power on you, Kirby. You could just blow a hole through the wall."

"Hey, good idea!" Kirby exclaimed, but before he could pull out one of his bombs he suddenly heard a noise that made him freeze up.

"…Did you hear that, Waddle Dee?"

"You mean that skittering noise?" Waddle Dee asked nervously. As they looked around, they were certain that they could hear something scuttling along in the shadows… or more accurately, a whole lot of somethings.

"Uh… hello?" Kirby finally called out. "Is somebody in here? Please don't hurt us… because if you do I totally have bombs I could kill you with…"

Waddle Dee glared at him. "You're not very good at diplomacy, are you?"

Surprisingly, though, somebody actually responded to Kirby. Both puffballs looked in surprise as what looked like a little red crab suddenly came shuffling out of the darkness, walking up to them and looking up at them with a curious expression.

When Kirby saw it, he immediately sighed in relief. "Oh, it's just a Kany," he said dismissively. "Ha! I feel silly. I can't believe we were so worried…"

Suddenly the Kany glared at them. "KILL THE INTRUDERS!" it shouted, and right on cue a massive wave of dozens more Kanys came swarming out of the darkness from every direction, shouting threats and battle cries at the top of their lungs.

Kirby and Waddle Dee spent a second or two watching this in bug-eyed horror. "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" they finally screamed, spinning around and scrambling across the rocks back to the cave entrance, only to be accosted by a group of Kanys almost immediately.

"You're not getting out of here!" one of them shouted, snapping its claws threateningly at them.

"Uh sorry but I kind of beg to differ!" Kirby shouted back, frantically picking it up and using it to repeatedly bash another one over the head.

"Kirby, just use your bombs!" snapped Waddle Dee, who was swinging his arms around like crazy and fending off three different Kanys at once.

Kirby pondered this for a moment. "Oh yeah, good idea." He pulled out an explosive. "All right, you punks asked for it!" he shouted, hurling it at the attacking crabs. The ensuing explosion sent several Kanys soaring high up into the air, and the rest of them immediately scrambled backwards and out of Kirby's reach.

"The intruders must be destroyed!" one of them shouted at the others. "They must pay for their crimes!"

"What crimes?" Kirby demanded, defending himself against the group of Kanys who were trying to attack him from behind. "We haven't done anything wrong! Unless you count that semi, but that was totally unrelated!"

"Kirby, we don't have time for this! Just hurry up and get rid of these guys!" said Waddle Dee, who appeared to be in some kind of boxing match with a big Kany. As he leapt back and forth and punched it in the face, it responded by clamping down on his arm. "AAAHHHHH! OW OW OW BAD IDEA!"

"Hey! Let go of him!" Kirby snapped, rushing forward and chucking a bomb at it. Then several more Kanys began forming a circle around the two of them, and it was all Kirby could do to keep them at bay by throwing bombs as fast as he could. Unfortunately, he was quickly running out of energy.

"Waddle Dee, I hate to say it, but this might be the end," he finally said, looking very pained and sad as the Kanys surrounded them. "I'm sorry I couldn't save us."

"It's okay, Kirby," Waddle Dee sighed. "I'm just glad you were able to face the end with dignity, especially since you never got to show up Boomer like you wanted."

Kirby's eyes bulged. "Crap, you're right! WE CAN'T DIE NOW! THESE PUNKS ARE GOING DOWN!"

"I really do hate my life…" Waddle Dee groaned.

But then something very strange happened. Instead of attacking them, all of the Kanys at once suddenly froze, seemingly staring off at something behind Kirby and Waddle Dee. Their eyes grew wide and they immediately scrambled backwards, vanishing back into the shadows as quickly as they had appeared. Within moments, Kirby and Waddle Dee were alone again, very confused indeed.

"Uh… what just happened?" Waddle Dee asked after a long moment.

Kirby thought about it. "Well if I had to guess, I'd say my highly concentrated aura of awesomeness has made the atmosphere around us inhospitable, so they had to get away from us to avoid suffocating to death."

Waddle Dee looked at him incredulously. "Where do you come up with these things?"

"Sometimes I stay up at night thinking them up, to be honest."

Suddenly there came a low, extremely foreboding shuffling noise from directly behind them, telling them that they were now in the cave with something very large. Both of them immediately grew stiff, their faces growing pale. They warily exchanged a glance before they both very slowly and reluctantly turned around, finding themselves face-to-face with the thing that had scared their attackers away.

It was a huge Kany, far bigger and stronger than any of the other ones, towering over the duo's heads as it glared down at them, brandishing its massive and lethal-looking claws.

"GIANT ENEMY CRAB!" Kirby shrieked in fear, instantaneously hurling a volley of bombs at the enormous crustacean. To his and Waddle Dee's horror, though, they did nothing but bounce harmlessly off its carapace and splash into the water.

"What's this? Two little racers have come wandering into our lair?" it sneered in a very low, powerful voice, snapping its claws in anticipation. "How serendipitous. I think it's time… for a little discussion."

The two little puffballs cowered together in fear, powerless to do a thing as the Kany advanced on them and its shadow fell over them.

––

The competitors making up the tail end of the race still didn't know about the fiasco that was going on further downstream. So when they got there, they were completely unprepared for a huge golden lasso to suddenly come flying out from the shore, tightening around the Kapar and Chilly's boat and yanking them off to the side.

"What in the – what's going on?" the Chilly cried as they skidded onto the shore, revealing Adeleine holding the lasso and Dedede standing next to her with an evil grin.

"Hello, gentlemen. Allow me to introduce you to my good friend Mr. Hammer. Hammer, chumps. Chumps, hammer," he said, promptly whacking them both over the head and leaving them dazed and confused.

"Dedede, we already took them out of the race, you didn't really have to do that," Adeleine said in confusion.

"I'm the hammer guy. I see a chump, I use the hammer. Neither you nor I can change this."

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" came a voice from behind them. They both turned around to see the security Nruffs standing on the shore behind them, looking very angry indeed.

"So you're the ones sabotaging the race and interfering with the racers!" the first one snapped. "Who's responsible for this?"

The Kapar and Chilly pointed at Dedede, Dedede pointed at Adeleine, and Adeleine got confused and pointed at the Nruff. "…Wait, that's not right."

"Mr. Gallant is not happy at all with the two of you," the Nruff growled, advancing on the penguin and the painter. "He has a very specific plan for this river. Anyone who interferes with the race interferes with the plan, and anyone who interferes with the plan must be… taken care of."

Dedede stared at them in surprise. Adeleine gasped and cried "Woah! Dramatic reveal!"

That was the last thing they remembered before they were both knocked out cold.