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When Light Took Over

Chapter 6: This Jungle ain't Big Enough for the Six of Us

Notes:

Oh boy, it's been awhile. Sorry bout that. I lost interest in this fic for some time. It will probably continue to have slow updates.

Chapter Text

The group had a whole of two seconds to react, before Donkey Kong was charging towards them, trampling leaves and shaking the earth.

"Incoming!" Mario yelled.

Kirby didn't need to be told twice. As DK approached, he inhaled a gulp of air, kicked off the ground, and soared skyward, out of harm's path. Donkey Kong trampled right below him, leaving the others to scramble out of the way.

As DK skidded to a halt and whirled around to face them again, Marth charged forwards, body low to the ground, sword at the ready. With swift, decisive movements, the swordsman drove a snarling Donkey Kong backwards. Gradually, they moved closer and closer to a thick trunked tree with plenty of leafy coverage.

An idea sparked in Kirby's mind, and he quickly deflated to land a safe distance away. "Guys! I have an idea!"

"Let's hear it!" Marth yelled, raising his sword to deflect a punch that would have sent him flying.

"Right, uh, do you see that tree over there?" Kirby questioned. "The one with the really big trunk?"

"Yes!" Mario confirmed, rushing in to deliver a kick to Donkey Kong's temple. The gorilla barely even flinched.

"See if you can get him under it!" Kirby said distractedly, while he rapidly searched the floor for the object he needed for his plan to work.

"Why? What are you gonna do?"

"You'll see. Just do it!" With that, Kirby dashed across the battle field, dodging a poor Pikmin that went sailing by.

Slowing to halt by the item he needed, Kirby grabbed it with two hands and shoved it into his mouth, cringing at the earthy taste of the boulder.

It took a moment, but Kirby eventually felt the familiar weight of a rocky helmet settle onto his head.

Grinning to himself, Kirby inflated with air once again and hastened over to the chosen tree, sticking to the leafy coverage the jungle provided. If DK saw him coming, the plan would no doubt fail.

As he went, Kirby kept an eye on the battle below, hoping his plan was feasible.

Marth slashed at Donkey Kong's torso, forcing the ape to dodge and leaving an opening for Pacman to deliver a right hook. DK took the punch to the face without recoiling and threw one of his own. It collided with Pacman's jaw, sending the poor guy head over heals into the base of a tree thirty feet away.

Kirby felt his mouth go dry and heard Mario cry out in alarm. The Italian immediatly broke away to check on Pacman. Kirby let out a silent sigh of relief as he saw that Pacman was already trying to sit up before Mario had even reached him. He'd be okay, though his and Mario's departure left Marth and Olimar alone to deal with the dangerous gorilla currently beating his chest in triumph.

Marth took the distraction to rush in again, leading with a sweeping slash. It connected with DK's arm and the gorilla jerked backwards in alarm, dripping blood on the jungle's floor. Marth didnt let up, continuing the onslaught of swipes and stabs, slowly driving the gorilla into position.

Kirby landed on the branch of the chosen tree when DK's was only a few yards away. That's it...Just a little further...

Unfortunatly, Marth wasn't so lucky on his final swing. Donkey Kong must have managed to work out the prince's attack patterns as he managed to block the final hit with a precise forearm. Grinning something fierce, the gorilla knocked the weapon out of Marth's grasp, sending Marth tumbling to the floor. Kirby felt his heart leap up to his throat as DK wasted no time in advancing on the now defenseless prince.

"Olimar!" Marth screamed, eyes wide with terror. "I need a little help!"

With a tiny war cry, Olimar came to the prince's aid, a blazing red Pikmin in hand. Lifting it high in the air like a torch, he waved it frantically in DK's face. The gorilla shrieked and quickly backpedaled away from the flames, right into position.

Not wasting another moment, Kirby leaped off the tree branch and landed on DK's back. Predictably, Donkey Kong immediately let out a surprised cry and went to shake Kirby loose. The Star warrior held on for dear life as he focused on what he needed to transform into.

'Size, weight, density... Got it!'

With a brilliant flash of light, Kirby shifted into a huge stone slab with two long spikes on either end. Immediately, DK sagged under the immense weight, arm and legs muscles visibly straining to keep him standing. For a few heart thudding moments, Kirby worried his weight wouldn't be enough, but eventually, the gorilla went down, snarling and shrieking the whole way. As Kirby had hoped, gravity did the rest and drove his heavy spikes into the soft mud of the jungle floor, effectively pinning Donkey Kong.

"All right! Great work, Kirby," Marth praised, panting heavily. He pushed himself to his feet and trotted over to where DK was clawing and biting at the spikes. "Now we just have to bring him back to his senses."

Donkey Kong shrieked and lashed out at Marth's legs. The Prince quickly backpedled out of reach and regarded DK warily. "Somehow."

Kirby hummed. It would probably end up being more trouble than it was worth to knock the gorilla out. He'd fight and scream and Kirby would rather avoid having anyone else injured today. Normally, Kirby would be able to shift some sort of handcuffs to solve the fighting issue, but he was concentrating on staying heavy in this form. He'd never shifted into this shape before, and distributing the weight evenly throughout it was proving to be a tad difficult.

Could they subdue him another way? For everyone else, some kind of blunt trauma had done the trick, but perhaps there was another way to release a puppet fighter from Galeem's control. Maybe something of familiarity would be enough? Like if they had Diddy Kong here, DK would be able to snap out of it. Or maybe... they just needed to find something that Donkey Kong loved more than anything else in the whole universe...

Suddenly, an idea popped into Kirby's head and he smirked to himself. Marth and Olimar were about to go on a little scavenger hunt...

-

Thirty minuets later, everyone was sat around munching on bananas, including a now delighted gorilla.

"I'm rather surprised that worked," Marth admitted, scraping seeds out of his banana.

Kirby shrugged, peeling another banana for himself and popping the whole thing into him mouth. Another banana soon joined the first.

"I'm not. We kinda did the opposite for Olimar." Mario piped up. "You weren't there, but basically we threatened one of his Pikmim, and the guy went nuts. So, I guess you don't have to necessarily get a good hit on the person for them to be released."

At the reminder of his fight, Olimar lifted his nose and threw a glare in Mario's direction, clutching his Pikmim close.

Mario smiled nervously at the Pikmin captain. "Guess I'm still not forgiven for that, huh?

Olimar shook his head. A firm no.

Mario sighed.

"What about Pacman?" Marth asked.

Pacman looked up from disposing a banana peel, eyes curious.

"We kinda just beat him up a lot," Kirby admitted, glancing in Pacman's dirrection to see him rapidly going pale, no doubt reliving the memory. Kirby winced and gultily added, "Sorry about that, by the way."

Donkey Kong suddenly huffed to gain everyone's attention, the first sound he'd directed at them since he started eating. After throwing his seventh banana into the growing pile at his feet, DK tapped his temple with a finger, shook his head, and shrugged with great exaggeration.

Kirby blinked slowly, then comprehension dawned. "Do you not remember what happened?"

At the gorilla's affirmative grunt, Kirby felt a frown work it's way onto his face. That couldn't be good.

"You don't remember anything at all?" Mario prompted.

A head shake.

"How strange," Marth remarked, tapping a finger against his lower lip. "I'll admit my own memory of my fight is a tad smudged, but I at least remember the important bits."

Olimar and Pacman added their agreement.

"If you don't remember our fight, what was the last thing you recall?" Marth asked.

Donkey Kong contemplated this for a few seconds, thinking hard. He then picked up a nearby stick and brushed away some of the leaf litter on the ground, before he started quickly etching something into the dirt.

Kirby watched as more and more lines appeared in the earth. By the time DK had set the stick aside with a grim expression on his face, Kirby had worked it out.

Displayed at DK's feet was a drawing of a shaky circle surrounded by several rectangles with little lines inside them. Branching out in random directions from the circle were dozens of lines. One of the lines ran all the way down to connect with a crude drawing of a gorilla with 'Xs' for eyes.

"Just to be sure, this is showing when Galeem--that strange being with the glowing wings--came down and-well, you know..." Marth trailed off, watching as Donkey Kong nodded.

"That's strange. I wonder why you only remember that," Mario said to DK.

The gorilla shrugged.

Mario hummed. "I guess I should probably fill you in on what's been goin on then. So, after Galeem--the glowing thing with the wings--released all those beams of light, everyone disappeared except Kirby over here." Kirby grinned despite himself. "He managed to escape..."

-

"And now we're trying to get everyone back to normal," Mario finished.

Donkey Kong had been rapt with attention during the entirety of the tale, listening quietly. He'd winced and grimaced at all the bad moments and smiled or snorted at the good ones. Who knew the giant gorilla was such a great listener?

Once he was certain Mario was done talking, Marth spoke up. "You will assist us in finding everyone, yes?

There was no hesitation when Donkey Kong nodded his head.

"Great!" Kirby smiled at the gorilla, pleased with his enthusiasm. "We could definitely use the help. Welcome to the team!"

Donkey Kong returned the smile with one of his own.

Marth got up to stretch. "Well then, if that's all taken care of, we should probably get a move on. I think we've sat around enough."

Kirby was about to open his mouth to agree, when Mario beat him to it.

"Not long enough if you ask me," the Italian huffed.

Kirby looked at him funny. "What do you mean?"

"As much as I hate to admit it, our little fight has my shoulder aching," Mario sighed, hand pressed against the offending wound. "And, I haven't had the chance to check Pacman over more thoroughly." He paused. "Honestly, it'd probably be a good idea for me to take a good look at everyone."

"No need! I'm good!" Kirby immediately chirped. Really, he was. The food had done wonders for his injuries. One of the many bnefits of being a magical being.

"I second that," Marth added, then looked a bit wry. "Though I could definetly do with some water. I don't suppose you could help with that."

Mario threw him a flat look as he began making his way over to where Pacman was leaning against a rock. "What do I look like to you? I'm a plumber, not some sort of-" Mario stalled, wrist rolling in thought, "-magic rain summoner."

No sooner had the words left Mario's mouth, a rolling wave of thunder rumbled in the distance. Everyone's heads shot skywards to see dark clouds steadily consuming the fragments of light peaking through the tangled branches high above.

"Could of fooled me," Marth muttered, a bit awed.

"That looks like a pretty bad," Kirby fretted, not at all liking the looks of the dark, heavy clouds looming above. Now that he cared to notice, the jungle had gotten significantly more humid, and the ambient temperature seemed to be rising with the incoming tropical storm.

Mario sighed a long, long sigh, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "Okay!" He said with forced-very forced- enthusiasm. "Since apparently I am a magic rain summoner, we need to change our plans a bit."

Kirby took another peak at the dimming sky. "What do you think we should do, then?"

"Well, let's see...Shelter should be out first priority," Mario did a sweeping glance around, furrowed eyes searching. "Maybe there's a cave or something similar around here..."

Mario put a hand to his mouth, eyes darting first towards Pacman, who was sitting on the ground and pressing the heel of his hands into his tightly shut eyes, then towards DK, who was staring at the blood matting the fur on his hand in agitation.

Kirby frowned at the stress creasing Mario's eyes.

"How about me and Marth go look around for a bit-" Kirby glanced at Marth to see the prince nodding "-That way, you can check everyone over while we look cause, ya know, both of us are okay right now."

Mario gave Kirby a thankful smile, and some of the tension in his shoulders softened. "Yeah, that's probably the best option we have right now. Go ahead and take a look."

"Roger that!" Kirby grinned and began leaving the group with Marth in tow.

"Oh! Two more things!" Mario called, stopping Kirby mid stride.

"If you find something that could be used as a container for rain water, that'd be great. Also!" Mario caught Kirby's eye and held the contact for his next words. "If you find another fighter, do not fight them."

"What? Why not?" Marth demanded.

"Because we barely took DK down with all five of us, and, honestly, we really don't need anyone else injured right now."

"Okay," Kirby said with a sigh. Personally, he felt raring to go! He could take on anyone right now, as long as--as long as it wasn't another powerhouse like Donkey Kong...or Bowser...or-or Ganondorf... Okay, maybe he could understand Mario's reasoning.

Marth cocked a hip against the truck of a tree. "So what do you suggest we do should we run into someone?"

Mario shrugged. "Doesn't matter as long as you don't directly engage them. Now, go on! The point is to find shelter before it start raining."

As if to remind everyone, the sky rumbled ominously, and Kirby chanced another look to see that more clouds had gathered, forming a dense gray blanket as far as the eye could see. Kirby and Marth hastened to leave the clearing, leaving Mario and the others behind. There was no time to waste.

Kirby flinched when a fat rain drop landed on his cheek. Another soon joined the first, the droplets rapidly increasing in numbers.

-

"Well this sucks."

"No duh, Marth."

"Can it, puffball."

"You can it!"

"No, you can it!"

"No, you-"

"Both of you, shut it!" Mario snapped, voice echoing in the hollow space.

Kirby grudgingly fell silent, not wanting to test Mario's patience any longer. It was already at its limits.

Kirby was at the end of his ropes too. After spending a few hours trekking around the jungle looking for some kind of shelter, they'd finally stumbled across a small cave. It was more just a sandy stretch of land with a large overhang, but Kirby supposed it counted.

Kirby watched Marth take a sip of water out of half a coconut. During their search, they'd been lucky enough to run across a grove of coconut trees, standing tall by a shore. Kirby had floated up to grab some of the fruits, having Marth slice them in half for makeshift bowls. They weren't perfect, but they did the job.

The sky rumbled again, and Kirby frowned up at it, watching rain decend in sheets. It had gotten significantly darker since the clouds had first made their appearance, a sign that night would soon decend upon the group. Hopefully the storm wouldn't worsen by the time everyone went to sleep.

"Do you think the others are okay?" Marth piped up, knees pulled up to his chest.

The prince had his chin cushioned on crossed arms, gaze casted downwards at a few plants peaking through the sand. His mouth was pulled into a frown, eyes shadowed by his hair.

"I hope so," Kirby mumbled.