Now possessing the power of all the Fountains of Dreams, Kirby and Sweetie Belle left the dark world behind, going deep into space. A few minutes later, they finally stopped in the middle of nowhere, and Kirby separated the Warp Star into eight stars of different colors of the rainbow that started to spin around both him and Sweetie as they floated in the void.
"Oh boy... Oh boy..."
The filly was beyond excited at this point. They were about to invoke Nova! A being so powerful that he could stop the fight between the sun and the moon! He will probably be as powerful as Celestia, maybe even more! She could feel her heart about to explode!
The stars then flew away far into space, until reaching a single point that illuminated everything around, almost blinding them. And then, with lightning bolts flashing around, he appeared, and Sweetie's jaw dropped.
He was HUGE!!! About half the size of Popstar! He looked like a giant yellow pocket watch, the center looking like a sun with a red shooting star above his right eye, while there was a hole above his left eye, showing a giant gear. All around him were various giant items, in clockwise: a weather vane, several gears, a telescope, a wind-up key, a drafting compass (beside his cat-like mouth), a globe, two atomic tubes, a grandfather clock pendulum (at the bottom), a pocket watch without numbers and its hands bent (at the other side of the mouth), a triangular ruler, a chain, several piano keys, a compass, and a light bulb. Sweetie would ask herself why there were all these objects, or why he had the mouth of a cat, but she was too occupied by being amazed to be concerned about this.
Because, this was him.
Nova.
A giant, planet-sized clockwork comet.
And he talked. "READY." He then looked at them. "I WILL GRANT YOU ONE WISH..."
Sweetie's jaw dropped even further. He can grant wishes? That's beyond powerful! He could help me go back home! But... We have to ask him to stop the fight between the sun and the moon... She sighed, only to smile just after. We can always invoke him again.
Kirby opened his mouth, about to make the wish in his poyo language, but then...
Someone came and kicked him into Sweetie, sending them away.
And they heard a familiar voice shout, "Well, I want to control Popstar!"
What?
They looked back at the being who kicked them away, stealing their wish, and saw than it was none other than him.
Marx.
"OK," Nova said, closing his eyes.
Oh no! He will grant his wish!
"3... 2... 1..." He started shaking before he opened his eyes, emitting a great light from them, saying, "GO!"
Everything flashed for a moment, and when they could see again, Nova was flying away, seeing that his back had four nozzles making him move. When they followed the direction he took, they recognized, far away, the star of Popstar.
"I did it!" Marx shouted, the jester floating beside them, watching them in victory. "It all went according to plan! I got the sun and moon to fight. I got you to go into space..."
"What?"
Light suddenly emitted from Marx, and in a few seconds, they could see him transform. Big yellow bat-like wings appeared at his sides with two sharp claws that looked like fangs jutting out of them and also a red heart. Rather than skin under the wings, there were flashing mirror-like, multicolored, hexagon-shaped scales. As for Marx himself, he was a little bigger, his eyes were now huge, with big black pupils that looked in opposite directions, and his mouth was larger with two fangs. His bow was almost undone, and his shoes were now round at the end.
"It was all according to my perfect little plan!"
Sweetie looked at him with pain and betrayal, tears in her eyes. How could he deceive them like that? So all this time, all those pranks, making them laugh, being friendly and all, it was false? Just him playing them?
Was it what Rarity and her friends felt when Discord betrayed them for Tirek?
He continued talking as he started to fly away toward Popstar. "So now Popstar is mine! All mine! Now I can cause all the mischief I want! Haha! See you later!"
Sweetie ground her teeth in rage. "We will stop you! You will pay for betraying us! You hear that, YOU JERK?! YOU WILL PAY!!" Sweetie shouted.
"I would like to see that!" he replied back, laughing crazily.
"What do we do Kirby?" she asked, looking at the pink ball.
Kirby looked back at her for a moment before closing his eyes and taking her hoof. The next instant, the colored stars reappeared around them before engulfing them in a rainbow light, forcing Sweetie to close her eyes. When she opened them, she found herself now behind Kirby in a flying chariot with a yellow star at the front and white-blue streamers for walls. She was awed at this.
Immediately, Kirby took control of the starship and flew at the pursuit of Nova.
"How will we stop him? He is so big!"
"Poyo!"
It took them a few minutes to catch up to Nova close to Popstar, only to witness an unbelievable spectacle: the sun and moon working together to push him back! They stopped their fight to protect the world! They couldn't help but smile at seeing this, giving them the occasion to go in front of Nova and find a way to stop him for good. Kirby then led them inside Nova, passing by the hole above his left eye.
"We are going to destroy his core?" Sweetie asked.
"Poyo," he nodded.
"But... This will kill him..." she said sadly.
"Poyo..."
"We have no choice, uh?"
"Poyo." He shook his head, making Sweetie sigh.
Now in their way to Nova's core, they were attacked by many defenses trying to stop them, like cylinder-shaped blue missiles, some sort of discs with spikes and blue fins, or dome-shaped gun turrets, all coming in great numbers from all directions. Kirby did everything he could to avoid being hit by all these defenses, maneuvering to dodge them, or shooting them with star-shaped projectiles from the starship. Sweetie helped him, either by shooting beams, or placing a magical shield around the ship.
One wave of missiles came from below, and Kirby shot them while he dodged the projectiles from a turret that Sweetie destroyed. Discs came from the left, then the right, followed my more missiles from above. They slalomed between giant gears to avoid them, shot a few missiles coming from in front, shielded from a few turrets on giant cylinders left and up right. They were hit by a disc coming from behind, then they dodged the ones that followed, and Sweetie shot another turret and a few other missiles coming from up left.
They avoided things that looked like circular saws and passed beside giant ball-things with blue glowing lines on them while avoiding more missiles coming from up, down, left, and right by accelerating. Discs tried to force them to crash into the numerous obstacles in the way with more and more saws, and less and less space to fly, before they entered a small tunnel, leading them to their destination: the core.
They were now in a huge room where the main colors were grey metal and purple. The core itself was heart-shaped, spinning counterclockwise and floating inside a forcefield between two giant machines above and below, the machines themselves each surrounded by three rings parallel. All around at the edge of the room of the core were eight clusters of red, blue, green and yellow spheres floating up and down between moving pillars. Kirby immediately shot at one of the clusters of spheres, destroying them and a part of the pillars above and below them.
Nova didn't seem to like it because the pillars started to move faster, giving Kirby a hard time to target the spheres. Sweetie helped him again, shooting her beams at the spheres. A second cluster was destroyed, then a third. Nova suddenly stopped the pillars and made them move the other way, almost making Kirby crashes into one of them. Three more clusters were destroyed, and now Nova was getting desperate, moving the pillars erratically back and forth, making them unpredictable. But this just delayed the inevitable, because without anything trying to stop them beside the pillars themselves almost making them crash a few times, they eventually destroyed the last two clusters, destroying the forcefield around the heart.
The heart vulnerable, both Kirby and Sweetie shot at it until electricity surrounded it as the heart fell and hit the machine below. Seeing it was about to explode, Kirby did a U-turn and took the way back to get out of here, followed by the sound of the heart exploding, and the explosion itself following them, getting closer. Going as fast as they could, they were able to get out of Nova just before the explosion reached them, causing the hole above Nova's left eye to become bigger and sending the giant gear flying into space, forcing him to close his left eye and stopping his advance toward Popstar.
Outside of Nova, the starship disappeared to reform the colored stars, giving Kirby back his Warp Star. To Sweetie's surprise, they left her with her very own Warp Star, flying beside Kirby!
They had no time to wonder about it because they spotted Marx flying toward a giant asteroid, and they followed him, not taking long for Sweetie to understand that her Warp Star worked with her thoughts. However, she was flying slower than Kirby, not yet used to it and not wanting to take risks.
They both reached the asteroid and crashed on it, Sweetie now understanding that it wasn't easy to land with a Warp Star. She could forgive Kirby for all the times they crashed.
"You have been able to stop Nova," the voice of Marx said behind them, causing them to turn around to face him as he flew, glaring at them. "But I don't need him anymore. With the power he gave me, I will be enough to control Popstar. But first, I will show you that you can't stop me ! Prepare to die!" he shouted, following that by a crazy laugh before disappearing.
Kirby readied the wand of his Mirror Ability while Sweetie took her whip and lit her horn to charge a beam, both of them looking around. Marx reappeared not far at Sweetie's left, and she shot her beam at him, only for him to teleport above her and Kirby and send crescent blades that Kirby countered with his mirror. Marx teleported again, avoiding the projectiles sent back to him, and threw more blades. Sweetie ran between the blades and cracked her whip, but Marx teleported again, this time behind Kirby, and threw a third wave of blades. One of them cut the puffball only for him to counterattack, turning around and sending mirrors, some of them hitting Marx before he teleported away.
Marx reappeared between them and flew up in the sky, suddenly making raining a dozen seeds all over the battlefield. Sweetie and Kirby were able to dodge them only for dark branches of energy to sprout out of the ground where the seeds planted themselves, almost hitting Sweetie Belle who had been about to walk on one of these spots. Sweetie then saw a big shadow appear under her, and before she could understand what was happening, Marx popped out of the shadow and sent her flying. Marx came back only to be hit again by more mirrors of Kirby, and he counterattacked by sending a stream of arrows at him that he ran away from, the stream following him with Marx laughing.
The whip hit him from behind, stopping his attack, and he turned around to see Sweetie before he teleported one, two, three times around her and threw more of his blades at her, then at Kirby, then at Sweetie again. Dodging the blades, Sweetie was able to hit Marx with a beam before he teleported above Kirby, spitting some sort of bomb on him. Kirby ran out of the way only for the bomb to explode and send ice balls all around it, one of them hitting Kirby and freezing him while Sweetie jumped above. At least, Sweetie was able to hit him a few more times with her beams.
Two teleportations later, he appeared farther away, and his eyes suddenly became all black, and black blobs fell of them and bounced from the floor toward them. They dodged them only for the blobs to follow them, forcing them to run around a few more times. Sweetie wrapped her whip around Kirby and sent him toward Marx, but the jester disappeared just before the puffball reached him, and he reappeared beside his trajectory, spitting a giant laser right at him, badly hurting Kirby and knocking the Mirror out of him.
While Kirby recovered the Mirror, Marx went back to Sweetie and shot more arrows at her, only for her to jump and send a Force Blast at him, sending him back. He then teleported a dozen times around both Kirby and Sweetie Belle until he stopped, facing both of them. His eyes suddenly grew bigger, to the point that they protruded out of their pockets, forming big white balls with many pupils appearing all over them, and they shot small lasers all over the place, the lasers moving around. Sweetie and Kirby were both able to dodge the lasers, jumping between them, slightly disgusted by the attack, and they reached Marx before attacking him with the whip and the mirrors until he teleported away again.
He teleported once and spat another ice bomb, and the two jumped above the ice balls. He teleported again and he flew up, sending his seeds to the floor, only for it to be for nothing. He then teleported between them, and he suddenly retracted his wings, spreading in their places countless red veins, one of them grazing Sweetie and burning her a little while Kirby counterattacked by throwing mirror images of him at Marx. Sweetie attacked him too a few times with her whip while sending a beam.
Marx ground his teeth and teleported away, making a shadow appear under Kirby. The puffball ran around, followed by the shadow, but he was able to avoid Marx getting out of it, and Sweetie punched him just as he got out, sending him back on the floor where he took a charged beam from the filly and some mirrors from the pink ball.
"RRAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!" he suddenly yelled, the area around them glowing red, blue, and green a few times until it stopped. Marx then teleported again and reappeared between the two heroes. "Why..." He threw his blades that were dodged, and teleported. "Won't..." He spat his laser at Sweetie, here again dodged, the filly seeing it coming. He teleported. "You..." The black blobs. One of them hit Kirby from behind, but Marx took damage from a beam. He teleported. "DIE?!" He split himself in two, to both Kirby and Sweetie's surprise, and A BLACK HOLE appeared between the two halves. They ran away from it as it tried to suck them in before it disappeared and Marx reappeared. Seeing that the black hole hadn't worked, he started shaking in rage.
"Because we will not fail!" Sweetie shouted, wrapping her whip around him and pulling at it, forcing him to approach her, right into her hoof, sending him back. She pulled again, and Marx took another punch, another pull, another punch, until he had enough and was able to teleport away, only to be attacked almost as soon as he reappeared by Kirby's mirrors. Flying away, he threw blades at him only for Kirby to deflect them with his mirror shield, getting Marx hit by his own attack, before taking a Force Blast in the back. He then started teleporting erratically everywhere, throwing one attack after another, turning the battlefield into chaos as it flashed red, green and blue again and again, showing how much Marx was now straining his power to the maximum to beat them. Dodging all these attacks was almost impossible, and Kirby and Sweetie were hit many times as they ran left and right.
"You have to fail! I have been given the ultimate power by Nova himself! I can't lose to simple beings like you! You will die! And the whole world will become my playground!"
Seeing the battle getting desperate, both for them and for Marx, Sweetie quickly got beside Kirby and whispered something to him. Kirby nodded at her idea and he jumped on her back, giving her the Mirror Ability. Jumping out of the way of a laser, she then threw a Force Blast at Marx, only to miss him as he teleported. But then, a mirror appeared in the way of the blast and deflected it. Dodging some blades followed by a stream of arrows, Sweetie shot another blast right at the first one, the two blasts fusing to get bigger and more powerful. Kirby made another mirror appear in the way of the blast and deflected it again.
What followed was Sweetie throwing dozens of blasts everywhere, trying to hit Marx, only for him to teleport out of the way, but each times, she and Kirby would make a mirror appear and deflect the blast. After a moment, dozens of blasts were flying around the battlefield, deflected by mirrors, merging, or hitting Marx even if he tried to teleport to avoid them and attack Sweetie and Kirby again. One of the blasts eventually became really huge, result of the fusion of many blasts, until it became four times bigger than Sweetie. The filly then charged a Giga Force Blast.
She shouted, "Hey Marx! I have a question!"
Marx stopped teleporting, curious. "Yes?"
She jumped right beside him, smirking. "Why did you stop?"
And she threw the Giga Force Blast at him at close range, hitting him and sending him flying. Before he could recover, he found himself in the path of the giant Blast, deflected by another mirror below him created by Kirby, and he impacted it, the giant ball of energy flying up, up, up into space, carrying him with it.
The ball, with Marx, flew right toward Nova's hole, and the planet-sized clockwork soon exploded in the biggest explosion ever, illuminating the sky for almost a whole minute as the various objects composing him were blown away into space.
Seeing they won, Kirby and Sweetie hugged each other, jumping, and the filly shouting, "We won! We did it!" and the ball shouting, "Poyo! Poyo!" before they let themselves fall on their back on the floor, looking at the sky that became little by little black again.
They remained here, just laughing, for a few minutes, before Sweetie finally talked. "That was the craziest thing ever!"
"Poyo," Kirby said, nodding.
"We... We beat... This guy had powers that could have rivaled Princess Celestia, and yet, we beat him! In a fight! Not even using an artefact like against Dark Matter!"
"Poyo."
"And we caused the destruction of a machine the size of a small planet! Kirby, am I dreaming?"
Kirby punched her on the foreleg.
"Ow! No, I'm not dreaming..." She giggled before stopping, losing her smile. "But this also means that I killed someone... I don't think that Marx survived such an explosion." She took Kirby in her arms and hugged him. "I killed him... Kirby... What does that make me?"
"Poyo..." Kirby looked at her sadly, before pointing at himself. "Poyo."
"That makes me... like you?"
He nodded.
"Right... You killed Dark Matter back then. Even if he was a being of darkness, he still was someone. So... Is it part of being a hero? Sometime having to kill the bad guy for the better of everyone?" She then remembered something that Meta Knight said. "Having to take hard decision, to do what is right?"
He nodded.
"Will I have to kill again in the future?"
He shrugged.
She looked back toward the sky.
Sweetie was walking on a road, exploring some part of Dream Land a little farther of the castle. Sometime, an inhabitant of Dream Land, half the time a Waddle Dee, would pass beside her, some of them waving at her, and she would wave back.
"Hey, hey, hey! Are you new around? I never saw you before!" a new voice said behind her. Sweetie turned around and discovered a strange little guy hopping on a ball and wearing a jester hat.
"Yes. I arrived in Dream Land not long ago after an accident, and I now live in Dedede's castle. My name is Sweetie Belle, what is yours?"
"My name is Marx, nice meeting you. I would like to shake your hoof but like you see, I don't have a hand to shake it."
This made Sweetie giggle.
"What are you doing Marx?"
"I'm about to do an imitation! Look!" He took a balloon and inhaled the helium in it. He then started to talk in a squeaky voice. "Hello everyone! My name is Sweetie Belle, and I'm adorable!"
This caused Sweetie's cheeks to puff, trying to hold back her laughter. "S-stop it!"
"S-stop it!" he repeated.
"Stop talking like me!"
"Stop talking like me!"
Sweetie thought a moment, before saying, "I'm stupid!"
"You're stupid!"
Sweetie glared at him before laughing loudly, followed by Marx.
"Woah! You can really give life to your painting!" Sweetie Belle said, seeing the painted Waddle Dee moving around.
"That's right!" the human girl with a green smock and a red beret, Adeleine, replied. "I can paint anything and make them real!"
"That's so cool!"
"I have the same power!" a familiar voice shouted.
Adeleine facepalmed. "Oh no... Not him..."
"Oh! Hey! Marx!" Sweetie shouted, waving at the approaching Marx with a paintbrush in his mouth.
"Look! With this paintbrush, I can make a red Adeleine!"
"Really? How?"
"Like this!" He jumped toward Adeleine and swung his brush a few times on her face. When he jumped back, Adeleine had now a black mustache, black fangs on her mouth, and black big eyebrows that frowned above her eyes.
Adeleine took a mirror and saw what Marx did. Her face immediately turned red and she screamed, "You jerk!" before chasing Marx who was running away laughing loudly.
Sweetie rolled on the floor laughing.
Sweetie started to cry. "Why... Why has he done this? Why did he betray us? Why did he try to take over Popstar? He was my friend... Kirby... It hurts... It hurts..."
"Poyo..."
One hour later, the two of them were flying back toward Popstar, each on their own Warp Star, Sweetie getting used of it. Any other time, she would laugh and have the time of her life.
But now...
They passed the atmosphere of the planet, seeing the sun back at its place, about to set, and no moon trying to push it away. They flew above Dream Land, taking in the view, taking their time to return home. Kirby then saw his house and waved at Sweetie, and she waved back at him, saying goodbye to him with a small smile. The ball then dove toward his house... and crashed beside it. She giggled a little. At least, she could count on Kirby.
It wasn't long before she reached Dedede's castle. She went down toward the entrance, only to not stop in time, and she crashed through the doors, startling the guards beside them as she ended up on her face. She groaned, slowly getting up, and looked around her at the guards with a sheepish smile.
"Sorry everyone. I'm getting used to my new Warp Star."