The sun was high that afternoon, a lone luminous orb in the empty sky. Fumu too, was alone, the only inhabitant of Cappy Town still within the town. Everyone was gone, leaving only her and the gentle afternoon wind as company.

"Go after them," a voice broke into the silence, and Fumu nearly jumped five feet into the air. She turned around in surprise, trying to find out who had so unexpectantly spoken. A pair of glowing yellow eyes met her gaze.

"Sir Meta Knight!" she cried, "Everyone from Cappy Town is going to overthrow King Dedede! They've got pitchforks and weapons and everything! What if somebody gets hurt?"

She stared at him, hoping that he would help to stop them, or go warn Dedede, or something.

But his eyes just glowed expressionlessly from beneath his mask. "Yes. Isn't that what you wanted?"

She looked away guiltily. It had been her words that had caused them to rise up against Dedede. "I didn't want them to use force!" she protested, but she was filled with regret. She looked up to Meta Knight, hoping that he would reassure her, but the masked blue ball just turned with a swish of his cape. He looked to where Dedede's palace rose out of the horizon.

"Then go to the castle," he said simply, "Quickly, before something bad happens."

There was nothing else to do but nod and run off. Fumu disappeared into the horizon and Meta Knight was alone in the town square. A brisk breeze blew across the town, and a few seconds later, the square was empty.

xXxXx

Meanwhile, Kirby was in the castle at Fumu's house watching TV. A loud rumbling sound interrupted the programming.

"Poyo?" he said. He went to investigate. As soon as he stepped out into the hall when he was swept away by an enormous stream of people (or cappies, or whatever)

"Poyo!" he shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the shouts and rumbling of the crowd. He tried to get back to his room, but everybody was pushing and running and shoving so that he could barely move. He gave up swimming against the current and was carried away by the tide.

Down went the people, shouting and yelling, down the halls, down the corridors went the Cappies, and with them, Kirby. They stormed through the castle like a hurricane, picking up heat as it travelled over the gulf and growing bigger and scarier. Down they travelled, with one intent and purpose, to overthrow the king! They reached his throne room, but the way was blocked by a large pair of doors.

"Open the doors! Open the doors!" came the shout, and they pulled and heaved until the mighty doors fell beneath their weight.

The doors tumbled open and in came all the cappies, demanding justice, demanding equality, demanding FREEDOM!

But the room was empty.

"Where is he?"

"Did he run away?"

"Let's look for him!"

The room fell into confusion as they searched for the missing king. Pots were smashed and furniture overturned as they looked for King Dedede.

Gus the gas station guy checked the garbage can.

"Nope. He's not in here," he said, pulling out an old banana peel.

Melman the mailman wanted to check beneath the rug, but Mabel was standing on it.

"Hey Mabel," he said, "Get out of the way! Dedede might be hiding under there!"

They promptly pulled up the rug to check, but Dedede wasn't there, even though they checked the floor very thoroughly. Then they checked behind the throne, beneath the couch, everywhere they could possibly conceive. But King Dedede was not anywhere in the room!

Where could that most tyrannical and evil king be?

Was he scheming evil plots? Was he laughing diabolically over his ill-gotten gains? Was he, in short, concocting any various manners of wicked acts of oppression?

No, our most tyrannical king Dedede was at this moment snoring very loudly in bed. It was time for his daily mid-afternoon nap.

ZZZ went Dedede as he lazily lounged on his large comfy bed and Escargon stood to the side, waving a large fan over his king's head. The fan moved slower and slower as the poor snail slowly ran out of energy.

"Aaaaah, his majesty's so lazy, falling asleep in the middle of the day…" Escargon sighed, "Aaaahh, this is so boring…"

He waved the fan listlessly. His arms were getting sore. Dedede hadn't told him to stop, but he was so tired…. The snail servant looked closely at King Dedede. His eyes were closed and he looked soundly asleep, so Escargon put away the fan and sat down.

"Phew…" he said, "That's enough of that…"

"Escargon…" came a growl, "Did I tell you to stop?"

Escargon whirled around in surprise.

"AH! Your majesty! I thought you were asleep!" he cried desperately. He grabbed the fan and pumped it up and down enthusiastically. A blast of cool wind blew over the king.

Dedede sighed and rolled over in his bed. "Much better."

Suddenly the doors to his room burst open and Fumu ran in.

"Dedede!" she yelled, "Quickly, get up! You're in trouble!"

Dedede didn't budge from his warm comfy bed, in fact, he only pulled his blankets up even further. Fumu tried to wake him up, but Escargon grabbed her.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" he asked, annoyed that this little girl had invaded the royal bedchambers. "The king is taking his mid-afternoon nap so you better stop shouting!"

Either Fumu didn't hear, or she didn't care. She started shouting even louder than before.

"Dedede! Wake up! All of Cappy Town is coming to overthrow you! They don't want you to be king anymore! It's a revolt!"

This caught the king's attention. His eyes widened and he quickly jumped out of bed.

"No way!" said Dedede. He couldn't believe it. He grabbed his hammer and charged towards the door. "Well, I'll show them who's king!"

Confidently, he pushed past Fumu and opened the door.

Only to be met by a huddle of cappies waving torches and pitchforks.

"Look, it's Dedede!" someone cried, as they immediately spotted him.

"Get him!" another yelled. A great roar came up from the crowd and the scattered crowds of citizens pushed their way through the castle until they reached the door to his bedchambers, which had been promptly slammed shut by Dedede.

The distraught king stood panting on the other side, feeling the door rocking and creaking behind the weight of hundreds of Cappies. His teeth chattered worriedly.

"What am I going to do?!" he groaned, "Where's Waddle Doo? Where's Meta Knight? We need to assemble an army immediately!"

But Waddle Doo, like the rest of the Waddledees, had been drowned beneath the tide of cappies and could offer no help. Nor was the castle's main protector, the brave Meta Knight, anywhere in sight. Dedede was alone against the powers of the mob.

The crowd surged and grew. Kirby, who had been in the throne room still, found himself being carried away down the halls like a tiny little boat caught in a storm. He bobbed up and down as everyone moved toward the door to Dedede's bedroom.

"Poyo?" he said in confusion and the crowd pushed against the door, trying to get it.

Bam! Bam! The noise echoed through the hallways. Dedede could feel it.

Back in the room, Fumu preened triumphantly. "I told you Dedede!" she crowed, "You didn't believe me, but I was right!" She was feeling rather proud, even though she knew this wasn't the time for it.

"Yeah well," said Dedede, grimacing as he tried to hold back the door from the ever increasing pounding it received from outside, "What are you gonna do about it?"

Fumu's triumphant grin faded. If the crowd broke open the door and got into the room, who knew what could happen? Everyone was acting crazy! Somebody might get hurt!

"Dedede, you have to abdicate!" she said firmly.

"What?" he said, "No way!" But from outside the door he could hear the loud cheering of the crowd, and their deathly sentiments, and he was afraid.

"On, uh, second thought…" he said slowly, and just then the door shook violently.

"Alright!" he blabbered, "I'll abdi…abduuu….um…"

"Abdicate," said Fumu impatiently, "It means to quit your job as king."

"Okay, okay, just as long as the people don't hurt me!" cried Dedede, throwing up his arms in the air.

Fumu's heart felt light with success. The tyrant had been overthrown! Now everybody didn't have to act all crazy and bloodthirsty! She needed to tell everyone the good news.

Swiftly, before anybody could realize what was happening, Fumu opened the door just a tiny little crack and slipped outside. She did it so quickly and so subtly that nobody noticed, but as soon as she got out she was immediately pressed against the door by a million bodies.

"Everybody, listen to me!" she shouted as loud as she could, but her voice was barely more than a whisper over the noise of the crowd. Everybody else was shouting even louder than her, screaming "Death to the tyrant!" and "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity!" at the top of their lungs, stomping on the ground, waving pitchforks, and basically acting quite out of control.

Fumu tried again. "QUIET!" she bellowed, but even her loudest bellow could barely be heard over the crowd.

"He abdicated!" she announced, "We're free!"

But nobody heard her.

"Everybody, listen!" she cried.

Nobody listened.

"Poyo?" came a voice next to Fumu's ear. It was Kirby.

"Kirby!" cried Fumu, "We need to do something to get the people to listen! Dedede abdicated!"

"Poyo?" said Kirby. He didn't know what abdicated meant. But he knew that Fumu needed his help, so he started running up to people and trying to get their attention. Unfortunately, nobody listened to him. Everyone was yelling and shouting. Everyone was pounding against the walls so heard that it was shaking, and rocks were coming loose. It was chaos!

Fumu shook her head. She needed to find a way to catch there attention. She looked at Kirby and suddenly had an idea. She beckoned for him to come, picking up one of the rocks from the rubble that lay around.

"Here Kirby, inhale this!" she said. Kirby nodded and opened his mouth wide. The intense gust of wind that followed was nearly enough to suck Fumu off her feet. But Kirby inhaled the rock, and suddenly there was a blinding blue light. Kirby started floating up into the air; suddenly everything around them seemed to turn into outer space, and a helmet appeared out of no where and attached itself to Kirby's head. Everybody stopped and watched this amazing sight.

"It's Rock Kirby," announced Meta Knight, then promptly disappeared. (Where had he been this entire time, Fumu thought)

"Poyo!" cried Kirby. He turned into a rock and slammed loudly into the floor. Everybody was paying attention now. Kirby walked up to Fumu.

"Everybody, please stop!" she cried, "Dedede abdicated, so we don't need to overthrow him anymore!"

"Hurray, he abdicated!" cried Bun and all the Cappies cheered. There was a pause.

"Uh, what does abdicating mean?" asked Bun.

Fumu face-palmed. "It means he's resigned!"

"Ooooh, he's resigned!" said Bun. He turned to his neighbour. "Dedede resigned."

"Dedede resigned?!"

"Wow, he resigned!"

The rumour spread like wildfire through the endless crowd of Cappies and soon everyone was talking about how Dedede had resigned!

But then, near the very back of the room, Kawasaki raised his hand.

"Uh…." He said, "What does resigned mean?"

Fumu face-palmed.

"It means he's not king anymore." she said, "So we're free!"

"We're free?"

"We're free!" said Fumu.

"Poyo!" added Kirby.

Everyone cheered.

XxXxX

The next day there was a great celebration in the castle. Working all day and night, Kawasaki managed to make an enormous cake, three cakes high, one blue, one white and one red. It was strewn with decorations; flowers, patterns, ribbons, and at the top was written: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity! It was a beautiful cake, almost too nice to eat. But of course they ate it anyway.

Because that night was a night of eating! It was a night of drinking (grape juice, of course) and a night of being merry! And cakes were just the beginning of things. There were tarts and chocolate, and strawberries and watermelons; piles of melting fudge and all sorts of delicious goodies! Noodles, salad, crème brulee! Everything you could possibly desire!

Everyone rejoiced, because they were free!

At long last, freedom! Liberty was theirs! No more shackles of tyranny! Only glorious, glorious freedom! It was like something heavy had fallen from their backs, like when you arrive home after a long day of school and throw of your backpack and you are free, free to play video games and read fanfics or whatever you like to do.

It was this joyful, exhilarating freedom that they felt, and to celebrate they threw themselves into the air, dancing and cheering, feeling suddenly light and glad. Some brought out instruments and they began singing and twirling about, so glad they were to be released from Dedede's terrible rule.

They leaped, they frolicked, they capered through the halls. They gambolled and cavorted, all happy, all merry.

"Hurray!" cried Gus.

"Hurray!" cried Mabel.

"Free at last!" exclaimed Melman.

"Poyo!" agreed Kirby, as he was thrown up and down in the air. He was giggling and laughing, inhaling all the food, just as merry as the rest of them, although he had no idea what was going on. But everyone else was glad, so he was too.

"That's right Kirby," laughed Fumu, watching him bounce up and down, up and down. "Poyo!"

They were free!

And as they ate and drank everyone laughed and talked together, they were all happy, they were all glad, and they were all free. One people, indivisible, united in freedom.

Everyone was euphoric, drunk on freedom, intoxicated from doing what they willed, and although at this time nobody noticed, the seeds of destruction were already being planted.