Chapter 13:A Challenge of the Woods
The day had been long and hot as they looked through the forest for whispy, the sun shined brighter than ever, she was so hot Francisca thought she was melting or just hearing things when she hard a strange voice in her head that called to her.
"Yggdrasil...." the voice called to her
But as she found herself floating up the hill her fatigue began to catch up to her and so she slumped close to the ground, her torso almost touching while dripping with sweat, her jambastion cult uniform was going to need a wash soon.
"dose the lorstarcutter have some kind of laundry spell?" Francisca asked herself as she struggled to hold onto her axe.
Her ice axe started dripping cold water onto the burning hot grass below, although the heat strangely subsided along with the weird voice as they made their way up the hill as if there was something here that was far colder temperature-wise and wasn't supposed to part of the regular steaming hot forset.
“This way everyone I’m feeling his presence coming from this way!” Magolor called as he hurried up the hill
Capper and Tempest followed closely behind him with Novo and Skystar galloping faster up the steep incline
“come on Francisca were nearing whispy!” Skystar and Novo called down to Francisca.
“Four hours we’ve been out here in this forest,” Francisca said between her breath as she stumbled up the hill at a slow pace “no food, no rest, blazing hot heat, this is really getting on my nerves!”
She hurried to the top of the hill to find Magolor staring surprised at the land he saw in front of him and Novo and Skystar were looking at him with tilted heads confused.
“I know this place,” Magolor said in almost exited shock as he continued to stare ahead of him “this is almost an exact replica of Cookie Country, Kirby and the others went through here to get energy spheres for me when the Lor crashed on popstar”
“how could it have possibly gotten here?” Novo asked.
“I don’t know but it's almost exactly as Kirby described it, people, weird tress, and all, look!” Magolor pointed to the land below where multiple waddle dees, sir kibbles, and poppy bros jr s were running about as if it was any other day in dreamland, “looks like we're going to have to get past them to get to whispy I’ll try to see if we can convince them to help out but don’t have hope wild beings on Popstar can be quite unruly” Magolor said.
“Well, what are we waiting for let's go!” Skystar said with a smile as she rushed in
“wait!” Magolor called pulling the hippogriff princess back with his telekinesis “stay behind me unless you feel like getting blown to bits” Magolor said as he and Francisca lead the way through Cookie country with Capper, Tempest, Novo, and Skystar following behind. They fought a few waddle dee’s and a blade knight before flying and jumping up a small cliff before dashing across a few gaps. They entered a cave then dropped down while Magolor shot some neutralizing energy balls at the waddle dee’s that followed. Francisca picked up a key and used it on the door that followed opening a large room with dirt everywhere and floating in middle of it, an energy sphere, Magolor pocketed it and they continued on running into a trojan dee a bigger waddle dee made of wood with three normal waddle dee’s hiding inside, Francisca blasted them down with her soda blaster and they exited the cave and they saw it. A Super Blade Knight, he had a star on his head and his power flowed so hard his sword turned to a pirate’s cutlass, Magolor used his energy rings to absorb the blade knight’s power allowing him to summon an ultra sword at any time, the blade knight astonished and saddened ran away. Magolor used the ultra sword on any unfriendly popstarians while tearing up the ground before something opened, an interdimensional rift in the shape of a star
“jump in” Magolor told them
“what! Why would we jump into that thing?” Tempest asked
“just do it Kirby said he usually found energy spheres in these things,” Magolor said.
They jumped in and found themselves in a monochrome ish area with weird patterns in the distance.
“Uhh, guys what's that?” Skystar asked nervously, behind them was a rapidly approaching void wall consuming all in its path
“run!” Magolor said. They hopped from dead platform to platform until their path was blocked by trojan dees and giant stone blocks Maglor used his black hole to suck them all up and into the void and shot his allies out forward to get them ahead due to his own low speed. They ran over many more gaps above the void below and while Magolor sucked up and shot up even more stone blocks with his black hole, they smashed their way through some yellow star blocks and a giant waddle dee and soon came to another star door their went through without much thought because of the rapidly approaching void wall. They came to an area with some food they used to heal up and copy essences that Kirby had used it seemed one was for fire and the other sword, and in the area beyond they spot both the next two energy spheres as well as some formidable foes, sphere doomers one was purple and one white and the other was green. The doomers started out by laughing then diving at them hitting those who failed to duck their heads, next the white one shot out some energy balls that appeared to have some kind of ice property to them while the green one surrounded itself in electric orbs and tried to ram them hard, Magolor got electrocuted stunning him briefly. The white one charged up while moving to the middle of the arena then shot out icicles in multiple directions knocking Novo out of the sky. The electric one then made itself the center of a huge line of electric orbs and tried to hit them with the longer reach while the white one flew above them and spat out ice orbs. It took a while but they managed to kill the doomers, they dispersed with a flash of light and a scream leaving behind to energy spheres which Magolor pocketed. they grabbed and "shared" the maximum tomato beyond and went back to Equestria. After exiting the other dimension they spotted a friendly waddle dee, Magolor floated in and began to try and talk it out with the waddle dee,
“Magolor!?” the waddle asked surprised. “what are you doing here?”
“I'm sorry to say it but this part of Popstar seems to have been teleported to another world, we could help you guys get yourselves and this land back to where it belongs if you can lead us in the direction of Whispy Woods” Magolor asked.
“Whispy?” the waddle dee said "he’s over that way" the waddle dee pointed to the edge of the grassland where the entrance to the second half of the forest was “he’s that way but be warned ever since that weird flash happened he’s gotten very defensive I wouldn’t mess with him if I were you” the waddle dee said.
“Can you rally all the people from Popstar in cookie country?” Magolor asked “maybe they can help us take care of Whispy”
“sure anything for one of the great star allies!” the waddle dee said
“star allies?” Magolor said “is that the name Popstar has given Kirby’s group?”.
“Sure is, you guys are known far and wide across Popstar all the way from green greens to nutty noon!” The waddle dee said, “alright head over to Whispy we’ll meet you there” the waddle dee said and he ran off to fetch all the other wild people across the field.
They continued on toward the area the waddle dee had directed them to and finally, they found him Whispy yawned
“huh who goes there?” he said as he opened his eyes.
“Hello Whispy!” Magolor said as he pulled out the hyperdrive “we need you to give us the mast for the Lor and stay still so that I can get you home”
“no!” Whispy replied, “if you want something from me your going to have to do it Kirby’s way, combat!” Whispy said as a mad expression spread across his face,
“alright Magolor were here!” yelled the waddle dee he was followed by around seventeen more waddle dees, five poppy bros jr’s, six sir kibbles, two popos, and one sparky, even a giant edge joined while struggling to drag his heavy sword across the dirt, Whispy narrowed his eyes and roared toward the sky.
VS Guardian of the popstar forests Whispy Woods
Francisca charged forward with her axe as Whispy shook his branches letting lose some apples and a few gordos small black balls with eyes and spikes, Francisca followed her charge up with an upward iceberg and then did a flip then slammed down destroying the ice and causing a large shock wave.
“A living tree eh?” Tempest said now becoming more motivated by the heat of battle as well as Capper “how about this!” she said her broken horn crackled with blue electricity and hit whispy dead on, then fell to the ground but lit a few of Whispy’s roots on fire.
Whispy realed from the attack then shrugged off the fire and grew to the size of a castle! Whispy then began to inhale at a rate that would give Kirby a run for his money, the Poppy bros tossed some bombs toward Whispy’s mouth with him accidentally inhaling them stunning him briefly. Magolor keep on shooting is energy balls and followed it up with a revolution flame, Whispy then jumped into the air and separated the group from each other while roaring like a manticore, he shook his branches again and a hail storm of apples began to drop! Magolor countered it by summoning a mini black hole via his spike rings to stop the apples from reaching them, on the other side Tempest was only briefly able to hold a shield spell until another parasol waddle dee came in and popped his umbrella open and with a pinch of his love he made his parasol into a chumbrella! The apples fell but with they merely bounced off the chumbrella, with the apple storm gone Capper slashed at Whispy with his claws slashing off a bit of Whispyś bark
“OW!“ Whispy yelled in pain as he spit multiple puffs on strong cloud air hitting Skystar in the paws and wings, “wait a second why do I smell smoke” Whispy thought to himself as he looked to the other side to see what had hit him, it turned out to be none other than Magolor firing revolution flames and the three popos blowing a cloud of fire at Whispyś stump, “NO!“ Whispy tired to yell but he never got the chance, from the stump up he soon lit on fire! “AHH!! HOT! HOT! HOT! HOT! HOT! HOT! HOT!“ Whispy yelled in pain
“that's it everyone hit with fire attacks!“ Magolor yelled over Whispy’s repeated cries of pain and agony, Tempest aimed her horn toward whispy’s leaves and lit them up causing his head to turn into a bonfire! Whispy shrugged off the fire and fought through the pain as he got up on his roots and began to chase the group through the plains while spitting puffs of hard air at them along with some purple poison apples, they ran as fast as they could while also occasionally turning around slightly to fire projectiles at him,
“Get back here!” Whispy yelled through the flames, a couple of magic lasers, revolution flames, and feather firing later Whispy collapsed defeated. Soon the fire poofed away and Whispy shrunk back to normal size his body now scorched with black ash and he shed a tear as Magolor floated up to the now blackened Whispy
“Sorry buddy but you left us no choice, now hand over the mast and energy spheres!“ Magolor demanded
“fine“ Whispy said through his tears and out of the now Embery branches of Whispy popped out the mast shrunken and placed in an energy ball, which thankfully it protected it and the energy spheres from the fire. Magolor and the rest of the residents in grasslands walked in front of Whispy and struck a pose before they… started dancing, they did flips, rolls, jumps, and moonwalks before striking a final pose,
“what did you just do?“ Novo asked,
“its something Kirby has us do, I thought why not try it myself and it feels really nice!“ Magolor said
“it thinks it best to not question it“ a nearby Poppy bros jr said.
“We did it!“ Magolor said “all right let's get you guys home“
“no!“ the waddle dee they first met said “Andrew and his mighty bandanna have inspired us over the years and we would be honored to serve you in an amazing adventure!“ a Poppy bros jr said,
Magolor sighed “fine“ “but on one condition, only one of each you can come“. The Poppy bros jr raised his hand as well as the first waddle dee and the parasol dee who helped them against Whispy, although no popo or the one sparky raised anything, the gigant edge simply snored, they all lifted each other off the ground so they were all in the air
“all right lets see...“ Magolor said as he powered up the hyperdrive soon a beam of light shot out of the hyperdrive engulfing whispy as well the land under them and all of the surrounding creatures that were touching the ground. It soon disappeared and left them all in the dense forest again, “alright everyone let's go!“ Magolor announced, “if we're gonna get the Lor up to full power by the end of today we're gonna need to move quick!“. Tempest screamed in pain as she performed a teleportation spell landing them at Lor again with Tempest catching her breath after the hard spell, “where was that earlier!“ Magolor said his eyes narrowed in anger,
“my horn doesn't have much power after such a fight, I can barely even perform simple spells without a painful drawback” Tempest said.
Magolor sighed, he walked up to the Lor and tossed the energy spheres and the mast at it, the mast grew back to full size and attached itself to the Lor and the energy spheres went into the engine,
“Alright everyone one place left to go and get energy spheres and thanks to the mast the Lor can now fly again!”Magolor said as he jumped for joy
“well what are we waiting for let's go!” Skystar said a happy smile. They hopped in and Magolor booted up the main computer,
“hey you three how did lookout go?” Magolor asked Burning Leo, Nesp, and Gim who were playing cards in the corner,
“good” Leo said, “nothing came though which is a good sign”. The Lor took off high and fast and began to fly towards Ponyville,
“one more collectathon, let's get this over with!” Magolor said with impatience as he kicked the Lor’s speed up a notch they shortly flew over the desert and the badlands, and toward the ever-free forest. But something looked strange out of the window, out of the corner of his eye something was there or it could have just been the sunset playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn when he looked down at the border of the Badlands and the Everfree forest he saw silhouettes of black creatures, rainbow shapes, and a glowing crown of water flying low to the ground toward the city on a mountain in the distance “I got a bad feeling about tonight….” Magolor said.