I was recently thinking about how the Kremlings haven't shown up in any main DK games since DK64, about 15 years ago, and I decided it might be interesting to write a story where Dixie, too, wonders what became of their longtime rivals. I actually went through a bunch of ideas before I finally settled on the story below.

Anyway, the Kongs, Kremlings, and anything else mentioned in this story are property of Nintendo and perhaps Retro Studios, as well. They also used to be property of Rareware, whom I sorely wish still made DK games.

She Never Could Forget

It was a miracle they had escaped when they did. No one had expected Krocodile Isle to sink. No one had even known about the existence of the Kremling Lifeforce nor had the time to comprehend its importance once it was discovered until the island was already quaking beyond help. Not that any of the three Kongs present that day would have tried to prevent the island's destruction. It was the home of their enemies, after all, with whom the apes of DK Isle had been locked in a fierce rivalry since long before anyone could remember.

Nevertheless, Dixie Kong had never intended their actions to have such grave consequences. She had only come to the island with Diddy to rescue DK from the clutches of the vile Kaptain K. Rool. She had not come to kill anyone. She would never destroy someone's home willingly. The reptiles would have had no such qualms if fate had been reversed, but unlike them, she was not a monster.

When Krocodile Isle did finally go down, they had just managed to return to the safety of their own island, and they watched from a rocky outcrop as the very sea itself heaved with such violence, she almost expected to see great, watery hands rise forth to drag the reptile's island down into the cold depths of the ocean. And then it was gone, as if it had never existed at all, as if everything they had been through was no more than a bad dream. The waves stilled, and all they were left gazing out upon was a sunset that only made her chest feel heavy despite how serene it was.

She couldn't be certain how many Kremlings had survived the calamity, for it was indeed a calamity, no matter who was on the losing end of it. But she knew one did. She saw his ship set sail, just before the island sank. And worst of all, she heard distant laughter, carried over to their perch by a wandering gust of wind. It was callously gleeful, despite the disaster it had so narrowly avoided, and it chilled her veins to ice water.

She was the last to return home, and when she did, her stomach churned and her legs quivered beneath her as if from some great exhaustion. She didn't sleep a wink that night. And she never did forget that laugh.

No one ever really expected much from her. To be honest, neither did she. She was not strong and brave like DK, nor wise like Cranky, when he was not in one of his cantankerous moods, that is. She wasn't funny like Diddy or motherly like Wrinkly or pretty like Candy, and she certainly didn't possess Funky's carefree spirit that aggravated her as much as she envied it.

She didn't have the power to make people listen, and that was the worst thing of all. Because there were times it felt like she was the only one who cared.

Dixie knew the crocodiles would return one day. Even after K. Rool's fourth, and seemingly final, defeat, she knew it, had felt it like an ulcer gnawing within her stomach. She tried and pleaded with the other Kongs to do something about it, to make absolutely certain he never came back to hurt them ever again, but they were too content to merely spend their days basking in the sun on their island's sandy shores and eating what bananas DK didn't feel the need to hoard under his hut. K. Rool was not dead, and he had not given up. She knew this.

And fifteen years hadn't changed her conviction.

Ever since discovering the continent several miles north of DK Isle, when her cousin and she went off in search of DK and Diddy after they had suspiciously gone missing one day, she could never get over how big it was. It felt like it could go on forever. In her mind, it did.

She had never believed herself to be the adventurous type, but faced with so many wide, open spaces and landscapes the island never had, she spent many a night just thinking about all the wonderful, new things she would surely discover out there. Who would have thought the island was so small, that the world beyond was so overwhelmingly big?

The longer she thought about it, however, the more Dixie began to fear this big, new world. For the Kremlings were here, too. Even the destruction of Krocodile Isle was not enough to rid the world of them, unintentional though it was. If the world really was as massive as it appeared to be, absolutely anything, or anyone, could be lurking out there, beyond the next mountain, beyond the very next hill. And if that was indeed so, they would never be safe.

They stopped K. Rool two more times after that, and he fled, as he always did, and their lives returned to normal, as it always did. Everyone's, that is, but hers. They could be skeptical of her warnings all they liked, but the world was just too big. It was too easy for him to hide. And she would find him. One day, she would stop him. She vowed to herself this very thing the morning she bid them farewell some years later, to go on her greatest journey yet. She had to keep them safe.

She would find him.

A total of fifteen years passed since she last saw the King of the Kremlings. The Kongs' ruler was chosen for benevolence, the reptiles' were not. He had earned the name K. Rool for a reason, and that was why he couldn't be left to himself in that big, wide world.

Fifteen years, had it really been that long, Dixie thought as she peered through the underbrush one hot and humid summer day. The insects that enjoyed the heat buzzed a dull drone in her ears, an unassuming ruckus she scarcely acknowledged. Because she had seen him.

She scratched at a tickle on the side of her neck out of thoughtless instinct. A mosquito bite, no doubt. Normally, she would use the cloying nectar of hornet's bane to keep them away, but she had been preoccupied. She had only had time that morning for a hurried bath in the nearby river before she heard a rustling, the muffled snap of a twig somewhere beyond where her gaze could reach. Such noises were not out of place in a forest, not normally, but this corner of the woods she had so recently wandered into was quiet, lifeless, aside from the insects. The jungles of DK Isle had been filled with colorful birds and small animals, always the chatter and music of life, but not here. For the past three days, she had not spotted a single living thing, nor had she heard the footfalls or spotted the tracks of anything but herself.

It was an uneasy place she had discovered, that set her heart into a perpetually quickened pace. And that was not to speak of the moment she had heard something stir out there in the speckled light of the sun's rays filtering through a high canopy. Something, or someone, had passed by, and she had donned her usual pink hat and shirt as quickly as she could, without the time to waste on even wringing out her long, blonde hair or retying the ponytail she so commonly wore it in.

The sound did not repeat itself, but she had waited far too long for such a sign to allow it to be wasted. She knew what direction it had gone, and so she followed, even taking to the trees for a time to gain a better vantage point over the dense, half-lit terrain below. And that was when she had seen him, no more than an indistinct shape in the distance, but there was no mistaking it. They had struggled with each other too many times in the past; he would have crushed the very life from her if she had allowed her own, meager strength to falter. She would never forget the imposing form of the Kremling King.

She had dropped back down to the forest floor just as soon as spying him, to take cover herself, lest he became aware he was being followed. Such a move was risky, and indeed, she lost sight of him as soon as she landed with a muffled crunch upon the underbrush. But that didn't mean he couldn't be found again.

The small ape waited in the bushes. She had done this enough times in the past to know that she was nearly impossible to spot when she didn't wish to be, an ability gained from necessity and practice whenever there was need to take cover from those who wished her harm on her long and tiresome journeys. When no other sound presented itself, save for the hiss of a cicada in a nearby tree, she rose from her hiding spot and peered off through the trees. She swore she had seen someone, just beyond the rotted, old log some distance ahead. For the first time in too long, she knew where she needed to go.

Dixie padded through the woods for nearly an hour before quite another shape loomed into view, and it was here she stopped, to nudge aside a fern with one hand as she shooed away the mosquitos with her other. It was a curious structure she had stumbled upon, a stone fortress not of Kremling design, built nestled beneath a cluster of palms on a rocky and aggravated shore. She hadn't realized she had ventured so close to the coast, but perhaps she had mistaken the crash of the waves for the harsh song of the insects. She started as a stray gust of wind brushed through the palm fronds above, this disturbance enough to make them shake together to form a hiss that almost seemed hostile.

By the time the shadow fell over her, it was too late.

The piercing headache was the first thing Dixie took notice of as her eyelids fluttered open. The cold was the second.

She groaned as her eyes adjusted to the gloom of her new surroundings, for her head throbbed just as her body ached from the unyielding hardness of the ground beneath her. There was no doubt that she was no longer outside and the time of day had changed drastically, for the drone that seemed so recent had since been replaced by the slow and muted chirp of distant crickets.

She lifted her head and ran a hand over the rough surface of the stones she lay upon. The movement shot a needle between her eyes, and tired eyelids slammed shut as a nausea settled like a mass in her stomach. Dixie licked dry lips and, with a labored effort, pushed herself into a sitting position. Her head reeled from the sudden motion, and she clutched it between her hands and waited in tense stillness for the feeling to pass.

With a shaky exhalation of breath, the small ape forced her eyes open once more. She was in a cell, her first indication the metal bars, which were rusted and corroded with the sea air. Even the stone of the floor and walls seemed to glimmer with a moist sheen that made the air seem twice as brisk.

Dixie crept forward on her hands and knees as she took notice of a strange light reflecting off the wet stones outside her cell. As she peered through the bars, she looked down the corridor, to where a bit of the wall at the far end had collapsed. A stream of moonlight peered through the opening, taunting her with a reminder of the outside, while a spray of ocean water, a sure sign of high tide, made a fine mist through the damaged wall at uneven intervals that shone in the pale light.

Her eyes scanned the corridor, lined with more cells like her own and a doorway at the far end leading upstairs. She frowned at the distant staircase. It was a mocking presence, as much so as the bars. She had not come all this way, and waited this long, only to be locked away in some dungeon.

"K. Rool!" Dixie said, "K. Rool, I know you're listening! Let me out! You can't keep me in here!"

Her voice reverberated down the narrow corridor a hundred times until the words had been lost, this utterance from her own lips the only response to her plea. She pursed her lips, her nostrils flaring, and sucked in air for another attempt.

"K. Rool, get down here right now! I-" She raised her fists to pound them against the bars, but her words became caught in her throat when the door opened with an agonized creak. Her entire body stiffened. To be certain her eyes were not deceiving her, she reached one hand forward to grasp the bars, rough with their own decay, and pushed the door open further.

Dixie stood and slipped through the opening to emerge out in the corridor. As her first perusal had believed, she was the only one here. It was a lonesome feeling, but a welcome discovery at the same time. Sparing the other cells no more than a passing glance, she began to creep down the hallway with a practiced air. She shivered as she stepped into the puddle left by the ocean spray, and she lifted her gaze to stare up at the moon. Surely she could squeeze through that hole if she tried hard enough.

Her fingers curled into fists, and she turned to head up the stone steps to her right, which would have surely been steep for even someone of a grander stature than her. When she reached the top, all she found was another empty hallway, with wooden doors, all of which were rough and worn, and one of which was splintered beyond repair.

Before she had much time to ponder over which to try, she spotted one in particular that had been left open just a crack, as if waiting for her to do the rest.

Her resolve faltered at the mere sight of it, and her heart developed a heaviness that seemed to weigh her down. She swallowed.

She had never faced him alone before.

With a final, deep breath, Dixie stepped forward and pushed the door open. The room that lay beyond was large, with a tall ceiling and a wooden floor covered by an expansive and intricately designed rug that would have been elegant if it hadn't been tattered and threadbare, just like the furniture and the curtains that were parted at even this late hour on either side of a massive and many-paned window that spanned nearly the entire wall.

She remained in the doorway, for as quickly as her mind took in the details of the room, they fixated last of all upon a large form sitting in an armchair by the glowing fireplace.

K. Rool did not look up, but continued to sip tea from a delicate, but chipped, white cup with his eyes closed. The massive lizard looked as out of place as he did at home. His green scales appeared as if they had seen better days, aged beyond his years, and the long teeth that protruded from his snout were as crooked as ever. And yet, what Dixie could never deny, even as he reviled her and sent goosebumps prickling up beneath her fur, was that he was no mere brute like the others of his kind.

Even after he had aged and had his title stripped from him, he had not lost his regal air, and his golden belly still shone with the same radiance as the crown he once wore. His tattered and worn crimson cape, the last testament to his expansive power, hung about him in a manner that seemed entirely unaware of its rough condition.

Even now, after all these long years, he was, and always would be, the Kremling King. And that was the very reason she was here.

A crooked grin cracked upon his wicked features, and she resisted the urge to step back as his eyelids slid open, revealing the swollen eye that always shone with the glint of a madman. A deep chuckle escaped him.

"You figured out the door to your cell quicker than I expected," K. Rool said. "I suppose I was correct in thinking you were the least idiotic of your lot." The crocodile arched a scaled eyebrow at her when she remained rooted to the spot. "You can sit, you know. That's what chairs are for." He indicated the armchair across from him with his free hand.

Dixie steeled herself and forced feet that did not wish to cooperate forward, but she did not venture beyond the middle of the room. "I searched for you," she began, and she swallowed when her voice shook, "for-for years—"

"Yes, I'm flattered."

Her words faltered at the interruption, but she merely sucked in a deep breath and began again. "And then, y-you lock me up, only to set me free. Do you really feel so secure? What makes you think I won't finish you off once and for all?"

The Kremling barked with laughter, and he was forced to set his teacup upon the saucer to prevent any more liquid from spilling onto his claws. He rubbed his forehead with a thumb and forefinger as his mirth faded into chuckles. "My dear, if I didn't even end your life when I had the chance, you certainly aren't capable of such an act. I should think you would be grateful I haven't harmed you. Must we begin our conversation exchanging hostilities?"

Despite his words and the toothy grin that twisted his long snout, there was a glimmer in his dark eyes Dixie didn't like, and she kept her gaze fixed on him as she sidestepped in the direction of the window.

"What is this place?" she asked.

He sniffed and gave a haughty toss of his head. "This hovel? It was like this when I found it. Did you know that I, too, spent much of these past years travelling? And what I found during that time was most disturbing. The hairless apes called…mankind, they have taken over much of the world, you see. They must have left this little fortress behind when they no longer had any use for it."

Dixie merely frowned at him in puzzlement as he went on. "There is very little room left for your kind anymore, yours or mine, but I don't intend on getting pushed out. Do you?"

"K. Rool," Dixie began, "I-I don't understand. Why are you telling me this?"

K. Rool snorted. "Never mind. I'm sure such matters are beyond your comprehension anyway. Besides, the state of the world is not the only thing weighing on my mind lately. Nothing is as it was. And I'm sure you'll remember your lot are…partly responsible. But," he shook his head, "that is neither here nor there."

He grinned at her, but it was not at all a comforting expression. "You look at me as if I've spent the last several minutes spouting nonsense, when you are the one who has sought me out. You should be explaining yourself. Have I not left your lumbering, harebrained race alone all these years?"

Dixie retreated further from the Kremling until her back touched the cool glass of the window. Even then, she remained at a loss for words.

The massive crocodile knitted his fingers together over his ample stomach and widened his already swollen eye. "Well?"

Dixie turned away with one smooth motion, and her breath began to form a cloud of vapor on the windowpane. She could just make out the reflection of the room and her own face staring back at her. She could only hope she didn't look as lost as her duplicate did.

"Can you really blame me for being suspicious? You came after us relentlessly for years. You even managed to capture some of my friends and lock them away. And then…you just disappeared. How can I believe you've really given up?"

"Have these past years not been proof enough?"

The moon cast a long, white reflection over the darkened seas, and she could imagine her own island lying out there somewhere. An overwhelming longing welled up inside her, and she looked away. "What did you ever want from us? Why couldn't we ever live in peace with the Kremlings?"

The crocodile's mouth twisted into a smirk, his only response a question of his own. "Did it really never occur to any of you that you could have simply picked more bananas?"

She frowned. "So you've just been living here, then? By yourself. Forgive me if I don't buy it."

K. Rool yawned and rested his head on his fist with his elbow propped on the armrest. "Then, don't. Again, you followed me."

Dixie's gaze dropped to the floor, and the room fell into silence. With a sigh, she trudged over to sit in the armchair across from him. "I guess…I don't know why I'm here. I just want to go home."

"So do I, but my home is gone, swallowed up by the ocean."

"We didn't do it on purpose. It was all an accident," she told the floor. The chair smelled old and musty, decayed by ages of neglect, but it was a welcome rest for her tired back and sore feet.

"You might have been my most competent nemesis. I hardly expected it from someone who seemed so inconsequential, but you only proved to me the opposite by being the only one to hunt me down. And for that, I congratulate you."

K. Rool's voice had dropped to a hiss, and Dixie's head jerked up to watch him with widening eyes. The firelight played with the shadows on his face in a perplexing fashion, but alternations between darkness and light had no effect on the hungry look in his mismatched eyes.

Her heart leapt in warning as he lunged for her with an unearthly growl, uncaring of the small table that stood between them. It splintered before him, and though she had sprung to her feet with a simian agility, she couldn't prevent herself from being caught in his sharp, outreached claws. With mere instinct the only thing guiding her actions, she thrust one hand up towards his face, to press it against his snout in a desperate attempt to keep his glistening teeth at bay.

"You took everything from me! Don't think I've forgotten! Not a day goes by that I don't dream of bring about your end!"

Dixie jerked free of his crushing grip and yelped as one claw tore a gash in her arm, but she would not allow such a minor wound to slow her. She should've known a reptile could only be civil for so long.

She grabbed the only thing within reach, a cracked vase that had lain forgotten upon the floor, until now, but froze when the monstrous crocodile pulled from beneath his tattered clothing his blunderbuss. He aimed the weapon at her, a frightening relic from years past she could hardly be certain would still function, but was in no hurry to find out.

K. Rool cocked the weapon, but did not fire it, his massive chest heaving as he looked down at her. "You're smart, girl, I'll give you that. That's the only reason I won't kill you. Not today. Go and tell your kind that I will come back for them one day. I want them to know and be afraid, because this time, they won't be able to stop me. Understand?"

Her response came in the form of a desperate dash for the doorway behind him, and she sprinted down the hallway that lay beyond as fast as her short legs would allow, her pace doubling as laughter pursued her, the same chilling cackle that still gave her nightmares on dark and lonesome nights.

She never could forget that laugh.

You know, I think this actually turned out much better than I originally expected. Dixie and K. Rool are my favorite characters from the series, so it was pretty fun writing about them. Please review and let me know what you think, dear readers.