Bandanna Dee | バンダナディー

"Wh-what's there?" the She-Dee stammers. "Is that you, Meta Knight? Is this a test?" She gulps and grips her sword tighter. Nervous now, not having meant to make her angry or afraid, I take a few steps farther back into the bushes, swallow anxiously, and tighten my right paw's grip on my spear. I don't want to make her angry. She's a friend from my pre-Outcast days, not a foe.

While she continues to look around in fear, looking for what made the source of the rustling sounds around her, something jumps, cackling, out of a tree. "Is that you, Meta Knight?" it repeats snidely, then starts cackling again, now so hard it can barely breathe. Geez. Bronto Burt. What a jerk. Maybe I should step in?...

"What are you?" she asks the still-unseen voice anxiously.

The little red bird hops out of a shadow, its head cocked at her mockingly and a smirk on its stupid face. "Ooooh, is the weird little Waddle scared?"

She relaxes instantly, making it so I can't help but 'smile' to myself. Since I'd heard she'd changed recently, I was worried she'd be really different. Nope; she's still the same old She-Dee, just as Waddle Dee as the rest of us. Um, mostly.

Scoffing a bit, trying to hide the fact that she was ever scared, she huffs, "Oh. You're just a Bronto Burt."

Okay, She-Dee. That might have been just a bit too overconfident, there. "Just a Bronto Burt? I oughta have my friends come after you, Waddle Weird," it sneers, then begins flying toward her, poised to attack. She holds her sword up, ready to defend herself, but I have a feeling the Burt isn't going to take her threat seriously. And so, with a flash of blue and red orange, I take a deep breath and jump out of the bushes, spear brandished. All it takes is a sharp glare and a few swings of my spear toward it, and the Bronto Burt goes flying off, muttering the whole way about how obnoxious and rude us Waddle Dees are.

Not sure what else to do to introduce myself, I turn to the She-Dee and give an awkward little bow.

"Oh, Bandanna Dee," she greets me with the accompanying standard Waddle Dee blank stare, which I return. "Thanks. I could've taken care of myself, but thanks." I tilt my head and close my eyes in answer, offering her a friendly Waddle Dee 'smile.' Giving me one in return, she questions, "What are you doing out here? Patrolling?"

Shaking my head, I beckon her to follow me. Her reaction is to offer me a blank glance in reply. "What? Where do you want me to go?"

Slightly impatient, I roll my eyes, but then realize that there's no way for her to know what I'm here for. Guess I should probably explain myself. With an internal sigh, I waddle over and touch my forehead to hers. She's a bit taller than me, so I practically have to go up on tiptoe.

"What are you doing?" she questions aloud in slightly-freaked-out confusion.

"Can you hear me?" I think at her, just like Waddle Dees normally would. Then again, normally Waddle Dees don't have to touch heads to share thoughts, but at least I'm not left as a total mute in my Outcastness, especially not now that I actually have someone (hopefully) willing to talk to me.

She frowns and thinks back, "Yeah, but how are we doing this?"

Slightly impatient (we have places to go, dudes), I explain, "Simple. We're both Outcasts, so the only way we can be part of the One Mind is if our minds are close together. We can both do this with any Waddle Dee. Just... I wouldn't suggest trying it. They aren't exactly the best listeners to our kind."

For some reason, I kinda get the feeling she didn't actually hear anything beyond the first four words, just going by her resulting panic. "You're an Outcast? I'm an Outcast?! No, I can't be an outcast!"

"Calm down, it's not that bad," I comfort her. Truth be told, it really isn't... most of the time, anyway. "I got kicked out for being too independent thinking, like you probably would have been sooner or later. But since it didn't come to that, you got kicked out because you became like 'The Pink Devourer.' This whole 'Kirby Dee' thing really isn't going over too well with the greater part of the Waddle Dee population."

A look of deep sadness comes over her face. Well, I know I've never been that much of a comforter, but still. Seriously. It's not all that bad. "I'm an Outcast. No wonder I can't hear them. No wonder they won't talk to me..."

"Yeah. I don't think you realize how close you were already, though."

"What do you mean? I was nowhere close to being kicked out."

"Yeah, you were. Didn't you notice they weren't letting you help with the kids anymore?" I point out, my impatience starting to show in my voice. "Now come on. We gotta go."

"Well, maybe that's true. But so what? A lot of the Waddle Dees never help with the kids."

"And you weren't allowed to cook anymore, either."

Sighing, she finally starts to accept it as my words ring true. "Great. Thanks for making me depressed."

Well, that wasn't really the response I was going for. "Hey, no. Don't be sad." When she doesn't reply further, I try to offer some little comfort again. Again, it's the truth. "Well, if it makes you any happier, it's thanks to you I learned to think out of the box, not just be happy with the way things were."

"What?" she asks, confused.

Not wanting to take a long, boring trip down memory lane, and really getting tired of standing around here, I change the subject. "The reason I came to find you is me and Kirby are going to have some fun with Dedede and Escargoon. You wanna join us, or nah?"

Somewhat suspiciously, she inquires, "Have fun with them how, exactly?"

Internally smirking to myself a bit, I shrug mysteriously. "You'll see. You in?"

She thinks about it a second, and then shrugs back. "Sure."

Finally. Pulling away, I offer her another 'smile,' then start off, pausing a moment to see if she follows. When she does, I start to lead her to a dusty, unused, furniture-less room close to the throne room.

In case you're wondering who I am, allow me to introduce myself properly. Sorry I haven't yet, by the way. My name's Bandanna Dee, I'm a Waddle Dee, and I'm probably somewhere around ten or eleven years old. Once upon a time, I was one of the normal castle Waddle Dees who just wandered around the castle keeping things clean and stuff, but a few years ago, the King suddenly pulled me out of regular duty and named me Chief Assistant to the King. Maybe Escargoon just got sick of taking all his orders; I dunno. Whatever it was, Escargoon got bumped up to Royal Chief Scientist and Chief Advisor (Dedede really likes 'chiefs,' I guess). Thankfully, he also remained the unofficial Chief Punching Bag, rather than that title passing to me.

Anyway, after a brief period of time where I was trained by Meta Knight in how to do a few royal-assistant-y things, I started doing the job. Basically, I was a glorified go-fer and occasionally a pretty lousy spare shield for the King whenever Kirby or whoever attacked. The reason the King picked me was because since I was already on the verge of Outcastdom (even if he didn't know that part), I was smarter than most Dees, quicker to learn, and also more likely to stray from the group. That's probably why, now that I think about it, I ended up being the one grabbed up off the castle grounds by Escargoon, stuffed in a sack, run to the throne room, and given my trademark blue bandanna and red-flagged spear to set me apart from the others.

At first, I wasn't sure what to make of the new job, but I got used to it and even learned to love it. Even after I officially became an Outcast a few weeks later and didn't have any friends other than the occasionally-visiting, mischievous, always-busy Meta-Knight, Sailor Dee, it still beat what I'd been before, which was nothing more than a slave, really. (And yeah, the hyphen in Meta-Knight is intentional. See, Meta Knight has this small army-ish thing of a bunch of guys who have sworn allegiance to him, and Sailor Dee's one of 'em. MK calls 'em the 'Meta-Knights.')

So, yeah, the job was cool, life was cool, etc. About a year or so ago, though, Kirby, Meta Knight, Dedede, and myself wound up on a sort of grand heroes' quest together (and trust me; that was just as interesting as it sounds, probably even more so). During that time, even though Kirby and I had kinda been halfway-enemies before (he'd tried to eat me more than a few times whenever he got irritated at the King and I was told to protect His Royal Flabness), we became best buds. Nowadays, I tend to follow him around everywhere around the castle during this beautiful peacetime we've had ever since that quest. As for Dedede, I don't really help him out anymore. On the quest, I guess I finally realized what a jerk he really is, and I decided I'd had enough. Kirby's a lot more fun to hang out with, anyway.

So, there you go. That's my life story. Hope you liked it!

When She-Dee and I get to the room I mentioned earlier, Kirby's waiting there for us, just like he was when I left him awhile ago.

Sitting down next to him, I look up at She-Dee expectantly. I've been waiting forever to have another Outcast Dee to hang out with. Sailor Dee's always busy, so I never get to spend time with him. Now that She-Dee is here, I'll have someone who can understand me, and translate for me to Kirby. This is gonna be great.

Apparently, mine and Kirby's excitement starts to rub off on her, because she starts to act kinda excited too. Sitting down across from us, she asks, "So what are we doing here? What's the plan?"

"This, poyo!" Kirby giggles mischievously, pulling a piece of paper out of Hammerspace and setting it down on the floor between her and the two of us. On it are three stick figures, one pink, one with a blue hat, and one just-plain one. Pointing slowly to each of the three and then to different locations on a map of the castle, Kirby slowly, painstakingly, explains the glorious prank.

Once he's finished, the two of us look up at her eagerly. The disbelieving look on her face kinda kills our joy momentarily.

Shaking her head, she clarifies, unimpressed, "So we're going to have Kirby go in and act like he's looking for treats. While Dedede and Slug Boy are distracted, you want me and Bandanna Dee, acting like regular Waddle Dees, to come in and put sneezing powder in their tea? Isn't that... juvenile?"

Only semi-seriously, wondering if maybe we shouldn't have shared our plans with her after all (I mean, now she might go and rat us out to Meta Knight or something), I lean over and ask, "Well, Kirby Dee, you got a better plan?"

Much to my surprise, she actually pulls back and thinks for a moment, and then narrows her eyes mischievously and leans in closer toward us, as if about to share a secret. "Actually, I think I do. It'll be a fun little way to help get a bit of revenge for seventeen years of servitude, right?"

Not believing it'll be any fun, Kirby and I wait until she's told us to pass judgment. Truth be told, though, it's actually good. Really good.

After she's finished telling us, she leans back and watches us expectantly. Kirby grins over at me. I 'smile' mischievously back.

Nodding to her, Kirby declares, "Let's do it, poyo."