//------------------------------// // Chapter 109: Heroes in Another Dimension! Part 4-Otherworldly Dark Liege: Parallel Dedede // Story: A Sweetie Dream Land // by Lucar //------------------------------// "I'm ready to bet that the next parallel bad guy will be Dedede," says Rainbow Dash. "Come on! It's given this'll be him!" shouts back Applejack with a laugh. "I'm surprised this will be him the last fight before Hyness, and not Meta Knight. I mean, isn't Meta Knight the strongest among the two?" wonders Rarity. "Normally, yes, but who knows what the parallel version will have in stock against them," says Twilight. "It will be hard to surpass Meta Knight dividing himself into 49 clones," says Scootaloo. "Didn't Dedede say that he got buff when corrupted?" asks Starlight. "Even if they fight a Bulk Biceps version of Dedede, this won't be enough to surpass what Meta Knight did," says Rainbow Dash. Slash! Suddenly, the point of a spear appears out of nowhere and slashes a hole not far from them, taking everypony in surprise. Many quickly recognize what it is, knowing only one being who can open a hole in space this way. And indeed, out of the hole comes Galacta Knight himself. "Galacta Knight!" shouts almost everypony. Almost all the colts and fillies plus Fluttershy jump to hide behind the princess and even Discord, the spirit of chaos only raising an eyebrow in surprise at the appearance of the powerful warrior. "Well, what a surprise to see you," he says. "Never expected you to show up here." Celestia nods with a smile. Even if the warrior in front of her could slice Equus in two in a matter of seconds, he seemed genuine when he accepted Sweetie Belle and Kirby's friendship and when he said that he would help them save the universe. "Hello Sir Galacta. As Discord said, we were not expecting you. Welcome to Equestria. I am Celestia, one of the princesses ruling this land. What is the reason for your visit? Does it have something to do with what you are planning to help Sweetie Belle defeat Void?" Galacta Knight doesn't answer directly, taking first some big breaths as he looks at everypony. He then spots from the corner of his eyes the portal that they use to watch Sweetie Belle and her friends, seeing that the heroes are now using big rising platforms to reach the next step of their adventure through the other dimension. He immediately understands how the ponies know about him, and so, doesn't ask anything about this. So he directly answers her question with a "Yes," before adding "Your help will be needed." "How?" asks Luna. "With this," says Galacta before he throws a pink heart at Celestia. "I can feel that Sweetie Belle has many friends in this room, and some more here and there in this world. Spread this power to all of them and be ready. Once the time comes, and you will feel when it will be time, send all this power to the heroes. This will help them to definitively defeat father." Finished explaining, Galacta Knight sits down, sighing. "Now, my job is done." Twilight looks briefly in wonder at Celestia as she creates a pink heart before she looks back at Galacta Knight and asks "So, will you return to help Sweetie Belle and the others now that you are done?" Galacta shakes his head. "I would slow them down. Going from one place to another, opening portals again and again, almost drained me of the few energy that I had." At this, Celestia smiles. "Then you should go to the spaceship of Magolor's clan-" "The egg people. Their spaceship is shaped like a star," informs Pinkie. Celestia nods. "Yes, them. They have a means to get your energy back rapidly. They used it for Sweetie Belle after your fight, or else, she would have been too tired to participate in the assault of Jambandra Base." "I see... Yes, the Ancients had technology like that." He gets up. "Thank you for informing me of this. I'm going right away." "Wait! If you see Sweetie Belle again, tell her that we are with her. All of us," says Rarity. Galacta nods to her before he opens, with some difficulty, a portal to return to the Dream Universe. After a moment of silence, Discord looks to the others and asks "Do you want me to bring all of Sweetie Belle's friends that aren't here?" "Make sure that they aren't busy, and to warn them before teleporting them," says Celestia. Pinkie suddenly starts bouncing around. "Oh my goshohmygoshohmygosh! We will help save a whole universe and defeat a God! I am so super duper excited! We will finally have a real role in this story!" Before, the other dimension was very dangerous. Then, it was extremely dangerous even after the near extermination of the Doomers. Now... Now, there are just no words to describe the huge level of dangerosity it possesses. Ah yeah, the sun and ice meteors were dangerous beyond anything they could think of, but it was a walkover compared to what's going on now. At first, it started innocently, riding on elevating platforms to reach the black door to the next part of their path. No trace of the suns and ice meteors. And then, they passed the black door, and now, they are in something that would put to shame any hell or Tartarus or whatever else. They are in the dimension as it starts to really break apart. Black holes, random rifts to the Dream Universe, cracks in the space itself, the purple space erasing stuff spreading here and there, everything constantly shaking, the few platforms still forming the path separating and crumbling... Stars exploding, planets collapsing, energies becoming chaotic... And sometimes, the unnatural Light of Death appears... They are in The End. They don't have much time left. They don't know what will happen first, the Jamba Heart breaking or this universe breaking, but either way, they must hurry. As they run, they almost constantly have to fight against black holes attracting them while avoiding raining boulders either made of real stone or of solid space. The path constantly crumbling, they can't even stop. They have to escape more than once the purple space eraser, and once, they even have to use space walls to hide themselves as a nearby planet breaking apart causes millions of giant boulders to come their way. They traverse chaotic, dark replicas of many places from the Dream Universe, from the Rainbow Resort to the Jambandra Base, passing from one to another in just a few steps and/or jumps. The castle of Ripple Star, the temple where Sweetie and Bandana found Dark Nebula's prison chest, the Squeak Squad's old hideout, Sweetie Belle's castle, New Halcandra... But also unknown places that none of the heroes explored, from an ocean with a literal submerged jungle to a desert with giant round cacti looking more like hills. A real space mess. And while moving from area to area and avoiding all kinds of end-of-the-world class threats, they have to hunt for the pink hearts, and it's as much a mess as the rest. Whatever obstacles or puzzles were prepared to stop them from getting the hearts have been totally, or almost totally destroyed by what's going on. So they find a first heart in an area looking like the Sky Tower but totally ruined, behind a dozen doors. Whether they had to open those doors by pressing switches, using keys, or accomplishing special acts, they will never know, because all the doors excepted the last one have disappeared into the abyss, and the last one is just starting to fall too along with the pink heart, so Marx quickly teleports to absorb it. A second heart is found just before it gets absorbed in a black hole in a Green Greens area, forcing one of the heroes to take a really big risk, and a third one is caught in an unknown mountain area before the purple erasing space could erase it. Hearts four, five, and six also have to be saved from the purple erasing space, but for them, the heroes have to deal with some obstacles slowing them, like a door needing a key (the key almost falling into the abyss, of course), pieces of solid space falling on the way, and black holes. Passing a black door (just as a black hole appears beside it) changes nothing. It's even worse, because the purple erasing space is closing on them when they appear, and there's nowhere to go! Except into a rift. So, having no choice, they jump in the rift, appearing on a grassland full of star-shaped colored flowers with some giant flowers hundreds of feet tall here and there. They spot another rift not far and they quickly rush to it, not even bothering fighting the Vividria on the way. Back in the other dimension, in an area looking like this city of Shiver Star where Sweetie and the others fought HR-H, they spot a heart just beside them, but before anyone could act, one of those red Doomers that can use fire comes out of nowhere and gobbles the heart before it starts attacking them. Bandana Dee facepalms. "Of course we end up fighting a Doomer who survived." "It's even more surprising that Doomers are still hunting despite the universe collapsing around them," says Susie. Magolor sighs. "It's in their nature. They don't care about anything but hunting positivity." Against all the heroes, the Doomer isn't a threat at all. The main threat is the purple erasing space approaching as they fight, so they hurry to kill the Doomer and to absorb the pink heart it releases before they restart to move. To avoid a huge building falling on them, they are forced to take another rift transporting them to Iceberg. Here, they have to slide down a long slope and jump in the freezing water before passing another rift to return to the other dimension. They appear in a dark version of Dedede's Resort in the Popopo Islands followed by a dark version of some forest made of trees shaped like musical instruments. It's in this forest that they're attacked by more Doomers, and they're barely able to take a pink heart hidden in a pile of fallen trees before one of the Doomers reach it. More Doomers come, but the purple erasing space returns, erasing all of them and threatening again to erase the heroes from reality, forcing them to jump in another rift. They find themselves in front of Queen Ripple's castle, not far from a big group of fairies, including Queen Ripple herself, praying for the universe. They are very surprised to see Sweetie and the others come out of one of the rifts that have formed, but Ribbon shouts "No time to explain!" before the heroes jump in another rift. They appear, and immediately, they have to start climbing a space tower as the purple erasing space comes back from below. Again, Doomers are here, but not as much as in the forest. One of them still releases a pink heart when killed. That's when a Grand Doomer suddenly comes and starts attacking the heroes as they're still climbing the space tower. Fighting a Grand Doomer while escaping purple erasing space by climbing a tower? No problem. They just have to hurry killing it before they reach the top, because they can see that it possesses three pink hearts. The Grand Doomer puts up quite the fight, but many of the heroes are familiar with its attacks thanks to Magolor's training room, and so, have no problems fighting it even while climbing the tower. The Grand Doomer quickly starts using its most powerful attacks, like the one with the black holes or the one where it spins while firing many fireballs, but the heroes still manage to rapidly get the upper hand. When the Grand Doomer creates a shield of stone around itself, Magolor, Marx, and Sweetie Belle are able to destroy it thanks to an Ultra Sword, a giant beam, and an Ultimate Doom Laser. Kirby, now possessing the Cutter ability that he got by eating a Sir Kibble while climbing the tower, then uses the blade after jumping at the weakened Grand Doomer to slash at it a few dozens times at a speed that makes Meta Knight proud, killing the spherical being. Absorbing the three pink hearts, they reach the top of the tower not long after. They're forced to jump in a rift again, and they appear in the middle of space, forcing them to float toward the nearest rift. However, when they reappear in the other dimension, they see that no path is remaining. And the little platform they're on is also falling into the purple erasing space. So they quickly use the power of the pink heart to create ten Friend Stars, each containing a group of five except one containing only four, like with the trains earlier. Now flying, they quickly obtain a pink heart on a meteor before they have to start to fight their way through waves of Doomers while avoiding the now usual threats of black holes and so on. One of the Stars has to carefully fly between black holes to reach a second heart, and a third heart is obtained in a dead end formed by the purple erasing space after killing another Grand Doomer. More Grand Doomers come here and there with the small ones, each easily killed by the power of the Stars. One of the Grand Doomers among a group made of five Grand Doomers and at least fifteen Sphere Doomers releases two hearts. And then, after flying in a passage formed by the purple erasing space, the heroes find themselves face to face against a black and purple version of the Lor Starcutter. Gosh, even it. Thankfully, it's nothing too bad. The Parallel Lor Starcutter is pretty much the Lor Starcutter, but not controlled by Magolor (so the ship doesn't have to wait for the wizard to do moves with his hands to attack), faster, more powerful, and with a better resistance. Against the ten Friend Stars, this is not much. The ship still manages to get some hits thanks to its bullet hell-like attacks, but in the end, it is destroyed in a little less than one minute, three hearts escaping the wreckage as it falls into the purple erasing space. Not long after destroying the Parallel Lor Starcutter, the heroes spot a black door among what looks like pieces of Dedede's castle, so they land beside it. Passing the black door, they appear in a darker version of Dedede's throne room. Not far in front of them, they spot a grey Dedede in black clothes eating a pile of food, back to them. The fake king then seems to spot them, because he suddenly stops eating and turns toward them. He jumps away from the pile of food, then roars. Sweetie Belle thinks it's funny that the last fight before Hyness and Void happens in a dark parallel version of the room where she appeared first over one year ago against an evil parallel version of her kinda adoptive father. Through the windows, she can see that this is still the end of the universe outside, in contrast to the usually calm and beautiful view they have back on Popstar. Summit fights against a dark king in his throne room at the end of the universe before fighting a God. Nothing could be better to end this adventure. The fight starts with the dark king doing his Super Jump move, planning to land right in the middle of the heroes. They quickly separate before jumping above the shockwave that he creates when he lands. When the shockwave passes, the heroes immediately start attacking Parallel Dedede, only for the dark king to start spinning around with his hammer, forcing them to move away again. After some seconds spinning, he jumps and smashes his hammer on the floor, creating a more powerful shockwave in front of him. The heroes not busy jumping above the shockwave quickly restart attacking him again until Parallel Dedede suddenly starts inhaling. The heroes in front of him roll out of the way before the sucking vortex forms, and the others further run to resist the pull. But to their surprise, Parallel Dedede is able to inhale thanks to it all the projectiles coming to him, and once he has inhaled all of them, he spits them all at the nearest hero, Beetley, who isn't able to dodge in time. With a speed and an agility that nobody would think of the king, he suddenly swings his hammer and moves his body, pushing back or avoiding all of Sweetie's swords only to get punched on the beak by her, followed by Kirby slashing him with the Cutter. Despite this, Parallel Dedede grabs Kirby and rams him against Sweetie Belle before he kicks the two of them away, only to be slashed in the back by Dark Meta Knight. As he gets attacked from all sides again by the heroes, Parallel Dedede Super Jumps again, then does move jumps around the room, creating a dozen shockwaves in total. The flying heroes aren't bothered by it and dearly make him pay this attack, only to be surprised when Parallel Dedede starts spinning before suddenly throwing his hammer. What surprises them is that the hammer does a full circle of the room, hitting many of the unexpecting flying heroes, before it returns in Parallel Dedede's hands. Dedede's jaw hits the floor. "I want this move!" "I don't think you can pull off something like that Your Highness," says Broom Sunglasses. "Maybe..." says Dedede as he sees Parallel Dedede jumping and ready to smash his hammer on the ground again. "But I can do this!" He suddenly grabs Broom Sunglasses and hits him with his hammer to throw him at Parallel Dedede. Broom Sunglasses quickly acts and is able to swing his broom to get soap water in Parallel Dedede's eyes, the grey penguin yelling in pain as his eyes hurt because of the soap. Marx and Magolor take the occasion to appear beside him before they both fire their giant beam simultaneously. Parallel Dedede is violently sent back on the floor, badly burned, but he quickly gets up with a jump, landing beside the pile of food. Then, he grabs some of the food and in one bite, eats everything, the food healing him to the heroes' dismay. "Hey! The heroes are the only ones who have the right to heal!" yells Marx. "Bad guys can also heal, you know?" says Magolor, sweating. "Well, thankfully, we can easily deal with this problem," says Sweetie Belle with a cackle. "Kirby..." "Poyo!" shouts Kirby happily before he starts running at the pile of food. Parallel Dedede gets ready to stop him only to suddenly be rammed from the side by a stampede made of half of the heroes. "Out of the way, fatso!" yells Gim among them. "What did you call me?!" yells Dedede. "Not you!" "He's me! If you call him a fatso, then you call me a fatso!" "Whatever!" Thanks to them, Kirby is able to reach the pile of food, and giving up the Cutter ability, he inhales the whole pile in a few seconds, to Parallel Dedede's rage. Surprisingly, Kirby keeps an apple, then runs back to Sweetie Belle to give it to her. "Oh. Uuh... Thank you Kirby." "Hey, you two! Stop flirting! The fake is going berserk!" shouts Broom Sunglasses. Kirby tilts his head, looking back at Broom Sunglasses in incomprehension. "Poyo?" Sweetie Belle sighs before she starts eating the apple. "Don't mind him, Kirby." Meanwhile, Parallel Dedede has started smashing around with his hammer, his fists, and his feet, becoming hard to approach. Having enough, Susie invokes her armor and starts spinning its arms while charging at the dark king. Parallel Dedede quickly uses his hammer to defend himself, pushed back a little by the force of the armor. Burning Leo then comes and charges like a comet at Parallel Dedede's head, stunning him briefly. Susie takes the occasion to get pass his defense and punch him in the belly, propelling him in the air. Elline draws a rainbow line in his way, making him change trajectory so he finds himself in the path of Knuckle Joe's Giga Force Blast. Bugzzy then comes from behind and grabs Parallel Dedede before he throws him toward Bonkers who smashes him against the floor with his hammer. Bonkers quickly jumps back as projectiles start raining on the grey penguin from all sides. He quickly escapes with a jump followed by a dozen Super Jumps around the room until Yin-Yarn has the good idea to knit some spikes where he's about to land. The spikes of yarn are destroyed, but Parallel Dedede is still badly hurt by them, stopping his series of jumps. A magic shield then slams him from above, crushing him between it and the floor. At this moment, ChuChu is able to approach and grabs Parallel Dedede's hammer before she throws it at Kirby. The puffball inhales it, gaining the Hammer ability just as Parallel Dedede is able to break the shield. Suddenly, Parallel Dedede starts growling as he flexes his arms, his chest starting to expand. In a couple of seconds, his body becomes extremely muscular to the point of tearing his clothes to shreds around his arms and chest. He is now almost two times his original size with arms as long as his body is tall and as big as tree trunks. The only part that hasn't changed is the bottom of his body because he doesn't have any legs, just feet. Despite already knowing that this would happen, everyone from Team Sweetie Belle and some from Team Kirby who weren't present in the fight against Dedede are quite shocked. "Woah! That's some muscles alright!" says Magolor in wonder. "That's Dedede's muscled form?!" shouts Sweetie Belle. "Oh my..." say Adeleine and Susie, blushing. "Yeah! Admire my godly body!" shouts Dedede proudly. "Watch out everyone!" shouts Cape Knight. "Those arms put to shame any hammer!" "I know I know, aren't they beautiful?" says Dedede while flexing his arms. "Shut up, fatso!" yells Adeleine. "What did you say?!" They are interrupted by Parallel Dedede roaring, the force of the roar enough to push the closest heroes back and to make the room shake. And without warning, Parallel Dedede jumps forward at the speed of a rocket, taking his victim, Marx, totally by surprise, the jester not able to dodge the mighty headbutt in time, and he is sent right through the wall! Parallel Dedede then uses his arms against the wall to bounce back toward the heroes, ready to smash them. They quickly separate, then jump above the two powerful shockwaves created by the arms slamming on the ground, creating some cracks. He then starts walking while continuously smashing his fist on the ground, each time creating a shockwave. Again, this doesn't scare the flying heroes who just continue to attack from above without getting worried. Parallel Dedede proves them wrong by rolling into a ball before he starts bouncing around using the floor, walls, and ceiling, ravaging the throne room. He eventually stops in mid-air and smashes his arms on the ground again before he jumps back toward a wall and hits it, causing cracks to spread to the ceiling until pieces of it fall and threaten to crush the heroes. Avoiding the falling pieces, the heroes restart attacking him. Coo flies to him with Sweetie Belle before he releases her above him. The filly turns into metal and drops on Parallel Dedede's head like a heavy weight. Parallel Dedede barely flinched at receiving a weight on the head, and is able to grab and throw Sweetie Belle as if she weighed nothing despite her metallic body. This still opens him briefly to the others who use the occasion to greatly hurt him until he pushes them away by spinning. He then jumps and smash the ground in the center of the room, totally destroying it! They fall to the room below the throne room but they don't remain here long because of Parallel Dedede jumping through a wall. They try to follow him in the hallways of the castle only for Parallel Dedede to suddenly come out of a wall like a train and to ram some of the heroes before disappearing through another wall. Again, they try to follow him, only for Parallel Dedede to suddenly come out of the ground under Bandana Dee, crushing him against the ceiling before he smash the ground again with his arms to destroy a part of it and cause some of the heroes to fall to the floor below. Because of this, the battle spreads to the whole castle, walls, ground, and ceiling being destroyed one after another. It becomes hard to avoid pieces of the ceiling constantly falling as it starts crumbling, and Parallel Dedede even uses the furniture as weapons, chairs and tables to smash, candlesticks to pierce, statues to crush... But, despite being more or less separated, the heroes resist and continue fighting, Adeleine, Yin-Yarn, and Claycia using again their creative powers to spread minions to the whole castle to attack Parallel Dedede no matter where he is. Eventually, some of them are able to find Parallel Dedede in the main hall of the castle where, after being rolled over by a big ball formed of half of the heroes, he stops moving, a dark aura surrounding him. As the heroes assemble and circle him, they look in wonder at Parallel Dedede, wondering what the heck will happen now. Most of them refuse to wait and continue attacking the dark king. After a few seconds, Parallel Dedede then starts to grow, and grow, and grow, his head passing through the ceiling of the main hall, his clothes totally turning into shreds, nothing covering his body anymore except his hat. When he stops growing, he must be now over twenty feet tall! Then, the giant Parallel Dedede jumps high in the sky, destroying anything in the way. Understanding what he's about to do, the heroes start flying away, the flying ones carrying the others. But they aren't able to get out of the castle in time when Parallel Dedede falls back, his titanic arms smashing the ground. This creates a dozen giant shockwaves to spread all around him, and the whole castle is destroyed with this attack, tons of debris falling on the heroes who do their best to not be crushed. By the time this ends, all that remains of the castle is a field of ruins and rubbles all around the giant grey penguin. One by one, the heroes come out of the rubbles, all managing to avoid the worst. Some of them still got badly hurt, and the healers start working hard to heal them. Now, they can see that they haven't much time left to defeat Parallel Dedede. Here and there around, the purple erasing space is spreading, and some close black holes are already starting to suck the rubbles. More black holes and webs of cracks are spread everywhere in the sky, and the Light of Death has appeared. And in the middle of all this, the giant Parallel Dedede gives a mighty roar before he starts advancing toward the heroes, each step causing the mountain they're on to shake and parts of the edge to crumble into the abyss below. The giant reaches the heroes and gets ready to smash them, but the heroes run between his legs and start attacking him from behind. Parallel Dedede answers this by sweeping the ground with one of his arms while turning around, knocking away most of the heroes. He then grabs some of the rubbles around him and forms a ball with them before he throws it at the recovering heroes. Sweetie quickly uses her magic to form an ice hammer, and then, her, Kirby, Dedede, and Bonkers use the power of the pink heart to merge the hammers into a giant one that they use to knock the ball back at the giant, hitting him on the face. The others start bombarding him with hundreds of projectiles all over his body, but despite this, Parallel Dedede is able to jump toward them, ready to smash again. They all move away to avoid the fists before they have to jump above the dozen created shockwaves. While Parallel dedede has his fists on the ground, some of the heroes take the occasion to jump on them and run on the arms to reach the head. The flying ones simply decide to fly toward it. Parallel dedede moves his arms around to get rid of them, the attacks on his head not making him flinch. However, the damage have some visual effects, Parallel Dedede having now an eye closed and many injuries from cts to burns. Como then gets an idea and creates a long rope of web that he gives to the others who have remained on the ground. Understanding, the heroes carefully start running around the feet of Parallel Dedede, wrapping the rope around them. Once they think it is enough, they pull hard, causing Parallel Dedede to fall on his belly. They then climb all over his back to attack him without respite. Parallel Dedede quickly manages to destroy the rope around his legs and gets back up roaring. He lets himself fall on his back to get himself rid of the heroes here, then jumps high in the sky to violently drop on the ground, causing the majority of the heroes still on him to lose their grip on him. With another roar, he starts smashing the ground around him, forcing the heroes to run away. He ends up getting an Ultimate Doom Laser on the face, prompting him to attack Sweetie Belle. Marx suddenly teleports in front of her and splits in two, creating a black hole. As Sweetie Belle quickly flies away to escape the hole, Parallel Dedede isn't able to stop his fist in time, and he finds himself with half of his arm stuck inside it. As he tries to free his arm, the heroes all fly above him before doing like earlier: the hammer users use the power of the pink heart to form a single giant hammer. But this time, the others joined in, causing the hammer to grow even bigger, getting half as big as Parallel Dedede! They then swing the hammer down on Parallel Dedede's head. Already strongly weakened by the many attacks he received, the hammer immediately knocks out the giant, making him release the ten pink hearts he has been guarding. He then returns to his normal form, causing him to get sucked inside Marx' black hole where his arm has been stuck. The purple erasing space approaching, the heroes quickly absorb the hearts before they jump in the opening rift leading them back to the Jamba Heart's alta, or what remains of it. Without surprise, not much remains. Only the pond, still showing the red background of Zero Two's battle, is still intact. A giant black hole has formed up in the sky, starting to suck everything. The other dimension is visible all around it. Without losing time, they jump in the last rift near what remains of the staircase. The rift that will lead them to the Jamba Heart.