//------------------------------// // Chapter 107: Heroes in Another Dimension! Part 2-Unearthly Storm Front: Parallel Twin Kracko // Story: A Sweetie Dream Land // by Lucar //------------------------------// Things are rather chaotic now in the Jambandra Base. Galacta Knight warned the friendly cult members of what may happen and advised them to escape as quickly as possible. Problem: all the Jambastion are destroyed, and the cult members have nothing else. So Galacta simply destroyed ALL the cannons protecting the station before leaving, letting the Halberd and the other ships approach to help. However, things got complicated when the friendly cult members tried to convince the others that haven't been befriended to join them because they don't want to leave them. Some of them accepted, but most of them remained true to their convictions that the Dark Lord will lead them to a better world and don't want to leave. As a result, some kind of 'civil war' has started where the cult members wanting to escape are throwing pink hearts at the others to convince them to leave, only to be attacked back by them. However, this has caused a problem to appear: there is not enough space in the ships for all the cult members as more and more of them are befriended. To solve this, Paint Roller and the other students of Adeleine's school are painting more ships to receive them. They just hope that they will be able to get away from there in time before the Dark God appears. Galacta Knight is now leaving Popstar, this planet having taken more time than he thought. Kirby and the others have friends absolutely everywhere on this planet, whole armies, in fortresses dispersed, in the sky, under the sea, in archipelagos, and even in a space resort! He had to repeat what he said to those living eggs at least ten times to make sure that everyone here would get a heart. But now, he's done, and after slicing a hole, he jumps in it to join his next destination, hoping that the next planets won't take that long. The heroes come out of the second rift in what seemed to be a room without any exit, only to quickly discover a part of the floor moving down when they step on it. More lowering pieces of floor follow this one. "Hey, Magolor, you said that there would be at least one descendant of the Ancients in this Jambastion Religion, right? So, is it Hyness?" asks Prince Fluff before he turns to Kirby. "Unless you encountered them before." "Yup," confirms Magolor with a nod. "He is a descendant." "What?" asks Sweetie Belle in wonder. "But he doesn't look like you! He's not egg-shaped, and I don't think you have a big nose hidden under those clothes. The only things you seem to have in common are the ears." "That's because the civilization of the Ancients was composed of different species, including mine and Hyness'. Of course, with such a big civilization spreading to the whole universe, it's only natural that there would be more than one species, and the main ones forming its core had in common those ears. And you can guess from which clan Hyness is descending. But now, the question is 'Is he the only one?'" "We haven't encountered any other like him," says Dedede. "Maybe those three mage girls? I don't think I have seen what their ears look like." "Their hats were big enough to hide ears like that," remarks Elline with a nod. "But definitely no big noses," says Yin-Yarn, laughing. "Oh, the image!" "Speaking of them, I wonder what happened to them," says Bandana Dee. "They're probably searching Hyness, or are already with him wondering what to do to get him out of the Jamba Heart," guesses Daroach. "And they're certainly getting themselves corrupted by the negativity in this universe," says Meta Knight. "We will probably end up fighting them one moment or another," he finishes before they pass a black door revealed by a rising wall. "As if we didn't already have enough on our plate," says Adeleine with a sigh once they come out at the other side of the door. In this new path, they have to deal with shallow bodies of water with strong currents and Gordos. The bodies of water aren't big, so there aren't much place to swim between the Gordos, forcing them to either use platforms above them to pass or to quickly jump out of the water just after diving in it. However, some risk has to be taken to obtain the hearts. For the first one, they have to electrify the water to destroy an otherwise unattainable bomb block and open the way to the heart. For the second heart, it's at the bottom of a deep pit under the water, and Kine has to go in it, being the best among them to swim against the current (without having Elline turning the others into submarines). Two more hearts are then found in an underwater tunnel, again for Kine. But this time, they have to open the way for him by destroying a bomb block, which also causes a chain reaction starting for Kine a race against time for the hearts... and his life. Indeed, the bomb causes the ceiling of the tunnel to start to drop, forcing Kine to swim as quickly as possible while fighting the current and avoiding the dozens of moving Gordos on the way to not get crushed. When Kine reaches the two hearts, he has to destroy another bomb block to open the exit and leave the tunnel, joining the others. The black door is just after, leading to an area that has, this time, strong air currents, forcing them to run to not be pushed back (spikes being present on the wall right behind the door). Again, Gordos are present, and as if this is not enough, pieces of the ground and the ceiling are lowering and rising to become crushers. And the first heart turns out to be in a small tunnel right between two crushers, and right at this moment, the heroes regret to not have a wheelie with them. That is until Marx teleports between the crushers to take the heart before he teleports back. Later, the Sir Kibble uses his cutter to reach and cut a rope behind another crusher, causing a wall to drop and revealing another tunnel with a line of crushers dropping successively and a stake coming out of the wall at the end. At this, Rocky looks at Chilly who nods back before the walking stone starts running toward the tunnel. Chilly then breath ice at Rocky just as he transforms, turning him into a curling stone sliding into the tunnel just as the first crusher rises. Thanks to this, Rocky is able to pass under all the crushers before they drop, and he reaches the stake that he's able to push, causing the wall to rise and revealing a small room with another heart. Another stake rises another wall, letting Rocky exit the room and join the others. From there, small tornadoes start appearing on the path to make the heroes' life harder, the tornadoes throwing anyone taken in them right toward a spiked ceiling. But they then find a tornado right under a vertical tunnel of crushers. Not hard to guess what one of them must do. Gulping, the Parasol Waddle Dee approaches the tornado, waiting the right moment, before he jumps in it while opening his parasol, the strong wind rapidly pushing the parasol up through the tunnel without the Waddle Dee getting crushed. At the top, he finds a heart and a switch opening another tunnel to return to the others without taking the risk of being crushed. Another tornado, another tunnel, more crushers. But this time, there's a metallic door not far into the tunnel, and they spot a switch in a small hole in one of the walls. Parasol Waddle Dee has to jump in the tornado like before, and someone else has to cling to him to fire at the switch. If they miss, the door won't open, and they will both be crushed. bio Spark is the one who decides to come. They both jump in the tornado, and Bio Spark cling to his legs as they are both thrown in the air. Acting quickly, the ninja throws a kunai at the switch as they pass it, successfully opening the door. Three more doors, and three more switches, follow this one before they reach two pink hearts and a black door that brings them back to the others. A black door ends this windy path, only to bring them back in a path with water. Deep water. Actually, they have no choice but to jump in the water where they discover a small maze made of fire. Yes, fire in water. Currents, thankfully not as strong as before, are still pushing them, so they have to constantly against them to not be pushed toward the walls of fire. Every now and then, they have to press a switch or cut a rope to block a hole from which comes some fire and open a path in the walls. A heart is found in a very narrow secondary path in the maze, and with currents constantly pushing whoever takes it toward the walls of fire, they have had to take extreme caution. Not long after the heart, they find on the floor a metallic button with a cable, and they have to use a hammer coated in electricity to press it and supply the cable. They then start to quickly swim, trying to find the right path in the maze and reach whatever the button activates before the electricity reaches it, because they know that if they come too late, then something could happen to make the heart impossible to reach. They have to split up more than once when they don't know which path to take, and only a small group of heroes reaches the door that is opened by the button. They quickly pass it before a second door is closed just after it, and they are able to take the heart before leaving by pressing a switch. They are joined by the others, and together, they continue in this fire maze, the paths becoming narrower and some of them even moving back and forth. Here, they find another heart in the center of a small round fire maze divided into different levels, each level turning in a different sense at a different speed. After this heart, they finally come out of the water and reach a black door. They appear at the start of a very long and narrow bridge-like path above a huge pit with a wick at the start. They can see the wick move to a secondary similar path further to the right and continue along it for what seems to be some miles. It's hard to say because the paths just continue into the darkness, so they can't see how long they are. This path seems perfect for a Friend Train, and they will probably have no choice but to use it if they want to keep pace with the wick once they light it. "This will be a long train. What if we have to jump from falling platforms? The front will jump and run while the back will fall," wonders Dedede. "We can always divide, and whoever is falling will turn the train into the star," says Sweetie Belle. "Clever," says Daroach before he turns to Dark Meta Knight. "Nothing to say this time, mister I'm-too-serious-for-this?" Dark Meta Knight looks briefly at Marx smiling at him before he answers with a simple "No." Marx jumps in joy. "Yay!" And so, using the energy of the pink heart, they form the train, with Kirby at the head and Sweetie Belle just behind him, and just as they start running, Sweetie Belle lights the wick with a fire beam. At first, nothing happens. The train advances along the path at the same speed than the fire of the wick, until they suddenly see the path of the wick stopping while they spot a switch on their way. They run on it, and the switch causes a piece of path to come from the darkness and fill the hole of the path of the wick so it can continue burning. But to everyone's surprise, it also causes the piece of the path with the second half of the train to suddenly move to the left, separating the train in two. The concerned quickly use the power of the pink heart to create a second hat to fully form a second train, Chef Kawasaki at the head. The second train immediately starts falling, the newly formed path having a quick end, only to drop on another path further below where they find a first heart (they have to jump to reach it). More switches follow, each reforming the path of the wick, but each also causing one of the train to be divided in two until there's ten trains of five heroes (four for one of them) each running on a different path. Each trains have to quickly act to get all the switches they spot, sometimes having to jump, sometimes having to change path, running up walls, doing loops... Some of the switches allow the wick to continue to burn while others open ways for another train to reach another switch or a pink heart, like by moving a piece of path, opening a door, getting them out of a loop... Obstacles, mainly Gordos, eventually start appearing to force the heroes to time their jumps. So of the switches also eventually reveal to be traps causing pieces of path to drop, forcing the heroes to be more careful. After getting two more hearts this way, the paths start to converge, leading the ten trains to reform a unique train as the wick reaches its destination a pile of explosive barrels under the path they would normally take if they failed. The barrels explode, and the heroes let themselves drop on the new path where they find four more hearts before they climb a wall bringing them back to the original path toward the black door in the middle of what looks like ruins. They still crash against the wall after the door... "That was one heck of a roller coaster..." says Sweetie Belle with a groan once she recovers of the crash. "A roller coaster of doooom!" shouts Marx with a cackle. "We should put one in Kirbyland!" "Are you crazy?!" yells Dedede. "Wait, yes, you're crazy." With this, they pass the door... And appear right in front of a big black cloud dividing into two clouds. They immediately understand who they're up against even before the eye and spikes appear on the clouds. "Wait, two Krackos?!" asks Sweetie Belle in surprise. "Oh yeah, that was Kracko's trick when we fought him," informs Broom Sunglasses. "But right at the start of the fight?!" says Bandana Dee in panic. The first act of the Krackos is to make rain litteral waterfalls on the heroes, not hurting them, but greatly wetting the ones who hasn't gotten away, and knowing that Kracko mainly uses electricity to attack, this is VERY bad. And indeed, the Krackos immediately follow this with their usual electric whips as they fly back and forth. It wouldn't be so hard to avoid if the arena wasn't so narrow, more like the top of a thick wall or a bridge, so there aren't many places to go, made worse by their number. So the heroes can only spread out along the path, the ones able to fly flying above the pit at both sides to give much needed place to the others. This is still not enough for some of them to avoid the electric whips and lightning bolts that follow. The worst still is when one of the Krackos sweeps the floor with a charge while the other sweeps the air just above, there's almost no place to dodge, even by jumping. The the Krackos reveal to have a big weakness, exactly the same than Meta Knight and Dark Meta Knight when they divided: when one of them is hit, the injuries spread to the two of them. Also, Sweetie Belle is pretty much intouchable to them. Whenever they use lightning bolts, she just deflect them back at the clouds with her mirror-shields, and when they try more physical attacks like the ramming, she just flies away. Not that much can be said of the others, sadly. The ones flying fare much better because they have an easier time to dodge, but for the ones stuck on the ground, they have to run and jump a lot. Thankfully, they manage to avoid getting in each others' way so this is nobody else's fault if someone is hit. They even try to help each others, pulling arms to brings friends out of the way of an attack for exemple. Sweetie Belle also put shields around the ones that have no choice but to get close and personal to attack, like Beetley. Sometimes, friends throw friends to get them out of the way of an attack, or so the thrown friends can attack the Krackos without having to lose too much time approaching. This also let said thrown friends ram the clouds and deal huge damage. After a moment, the Kracko restarts raining waterfalls on the heroes to get them wet again or to wet the ones they missed the first time. However, this fails when Parasol Waddle Dee is able to enlarge his parasol, sheltering everyone around him from the water. Kirby does the same thing with Prince Fluff, the puffball grabbing the prince of yarn as he turns into a parasol of yarn before being enlarged too, sheltering everyone from the second waterfall, the water somehow not passing through Fluff. Logic can buck itself, worst things happened in those universes. This clearly angers the Kracko who start acting more brutal, using more lightning bolts, sweeping the floor and the air more often, and they even start using lightning balls homing in on the heroes. A thrown ice spear on the eye by Bandana Dee is the last straw for the Krackos as they start getting dizzy. They then merge, and frowning in anger, the eye disappears before the cloud starts growing, and growing, and growing! AND GROWING! Until it becomes at least twice the size of Kracko. And the eye and spikes finally come out of the cloud as it stops growing, the giant Kracko now looking at the heroes with all the wrath of a thunder god. "Uh... And he did that, Kracko, when you fought him?" asks Yin-Yarn. "Not at all! That's a first!" shouts Bandana Dee in total panic. To everyone's horror, Kracko's cloud then spreads in the air all over the arena, lightning rumbling in it. Uh oh... The cloud goes too far to run away in time. Only the ones who can teleport or fly very fast can hope to avoid what's coming. But then, Sweetie Belle extends her staff and plants it on the floor while the Jammerjab does the same further away. Understanding, everyone moves away from the staffs, but not too far. Then, all hell breaks loose as Kracko rain a real waterfall of lightning bolts all over the area. Thankfully, the planted staffs play the role of lightning rods, bringing any close lightning bolts to them and creating safe areas around. Again, the heroes avoid getting too close to not be electrified by the electricity running through the staffs or spreading in the floor. Just in case, the heroes still get the idea to climb on each others (in small groups), to spread, and for the heroes at the bottom, to raise a leg so the electricity in the floor wouldn't run through them. The lightning rain eventually stops, and Kracko returns to his more normal shape before he starts attacking with huge lightning whips while flying against the ground. With his size, there's no way to dodge. All they can do is running away, teleport, or fly out of the way. Darn, dodging him will be even more of a hell than before. As for him, he doesn't even need to dodge. It's as if he doesn't feel the attacks hitting him! They're more like insect bites! This forces the heroes to bring out their strongest attacks, giant lasers, black holes, giant swords, Susie's armor, Taranza's fake Sectonia, Adeleine's Painted Kracko, and so on. A storm for a storm, even if one of the storms is actually a storm of all kinds of giant attacks while the other is a more regular, still very brutal storm with hundreds of giant lightning bolts and wind going at around one hundred miles per hour. Kracko shoots out of his body smaller storm clouds also firing lightning bolts while the wind starts to form a tornado around all of them. As the small storm clouds enter the newly formed tornado, they somewhat merge with it, turning the tornado into some kind of storm cloud tornado, darkening the area but also regularly flashing it with the many lightning bolts fired from Kracko or the tornado. Despite the strong wind and the constant lightning bolts punctuated by tentative to body slam them, the heroes doesn't stop attacking, not a second passing without Kracko being covered in explosions, streams of fire, ice, lightning, and whatever else. But after a moment, Kracko rises into the sky, and the next instant, a huge column of electricity strikes the arena, creating a huge hole in the center. This causes the structure to crumble into pieces, but instead of falling into the pit, the pieces are carried up by the wind with the heroes on them, turning the battlefield into a field of floating platforms of various sizes. "By the stars! The gap between this Parallel Kracko and the Parallel Whispy is as big as the gap between our Kracko and our Whispy!" shouts Dedede. "Kracko has always been more powerful than Whispy. It's not a surprise," says Meta Knight. "The power of a tree is nothing against the power of a storm." "Especially when that storm can throw boulders the size of houses at you!" yells Poppy Bros Jr as he points at such a giant boulder flying right towards them. Looking at it in a panic, they quickly jump on another platform before the boulder rams it. They have to climb up a little, jumping from platform to platform, to join Kracko in the sky. The one-eyed cloud restarts spreading, ready to rain more lightning bolts all over the area, and with the tornado surrounding them, there is no way to escape. Since they are all spread on various platforms, the staffs can't even be used to save everyone. However, some platforms above the others can be used as roof to shelter from the lightning, so the heroes quickly jump and fly under them before Kracko unleashes the waterfall of lightning bolts. Once the lightning stops raining, they restart attacking Kracko with everything they have, some heroes who can't fly even riding on others who can not be limited by the lack of space given by the platforms. NESP even levitates some of them toward Kracko so they can attack him directly if they don't have any way to attack from a distance. And then, Sweetie Belle grabs Jammerjab and puts him on her back before flying toward Kracko. Once close enough, she plants her staff in Kracko's cloud, and the Jammerjab does the same thing. The planted staff start acting as lightning rods, bringing hundreds of lightning bolts fired by the tornado to Kracko. Plugg and other electricity users add their own part to this, filling the cloud to the brim, supercharging it, until even for Kracko this becomes too much. The cloud turns into a giant ball of electricity, growing and growing again, until it just explode in a huge explosion of electricity that clears the tornado. Nothing remains of Kracko. However, with the disappearance of Kracko and the tornado, the wind disappears, and the platforms start dropping into the pit. Grabbing the two falling staffs in her magic, Sweetie Belle quickly absorbs the ten pink hearts released by Kracko while a rift opens where the arena was before being destroyed. With the help of the flying heroes, they all enter it, returning where they fought Hyness and Morpho Knight. But now, it's different... It's more... corrupted. The Jamba Heart's pedestal has disappeared, the staircase leading to it is half destroyed as well as a part of the structure, the horn-like structures are taking weird colors, and more of those flowers have bloomed. Also, some weird pond is now present in the center, and they can see reflected in it the inside of the cloud of darkness in which Kirby and Sweetie fought Zero. Also, the sky... It's... as if they aren't in the Dream Universe anymore. The sky now possesses an unnatural brightness that comes from nowhere. There are even clouds! With the strong feeling of negativity in the air, it's not hard to imagine what's going on: the boundary between the Dream Universe and the other dimension is disappearing. But they just can't understand what's going on with the sky. It seems so peaceful, and yet it is so wrong... It feels dead. Yes, that's it. It's dead. Everything around them is dying. Reality is dying. This light, this sky is just... Death. They must not remain here, they must immediately stop this. After recuperating their breath, without a word, they enter the third rift. They have to hurry.