Chapter 90: The Storm
"As we thought. Those aliens don't stand a chance against Sweetie Belle," says Apple Bloom.
"And the mecha she used helped a lot. Like, when she used it to fuse with the giant purple robot!" shouted Scootaloo. "How can she even do that?!"
"For the tenth time, Scootaloo, I don't know, and I don't think I want to know," says Twilight, rubbing her head. "No, I want to know, but with this crazy universe..."
Rainbow Dash rolls her eyes. "Just say 'it's magic'."
Twilight's eye twitch. "You know I hate when somepony answer 'it's magic'. It's never just magic. Behind each magical actions is at least one spell, and behind each spells is a casting that is the result of years of findings and knowledge. 'It's magic' is just a lazy answer."
"But this lazy answer stops your brain from overheating, so it's a cool answer."
Pinkie gives Rainbow a hoofbump while the others groan. "Great pun!"
"Thanks." The cyan mare then looks back at the portal as Sweetie Belle exits the forest, looking in worry as dark clouds are spreading in the sky. "But I don't like where this is going."
Sweetie Belle finally exits the artificial forest at the base of the mountain range as the sky is darkening. She looks at the sky as she advances, jumping on some platforms to traverse another river. Black clouds are spreading, blocking the already little light the surface of this land is getting because of the alien mothership, Access Ark, blocking most of the sunlight.
And their origin is that tower she can barely see among the mountains.
Already, the wind is starting to blow stronger and stronger, and it's a question of time before it starts raining. And Sweetie Belle is a little worried. This tower is creating a storm, that's obvious, and it started just after her fight against Susie. It's not hard to put two and two together. After her spectacular demonstration of power against Susie, the Haltmann Works Company activated this tower as an answer to create a storm to stop her.
And to stop her, it will not be just a storm, it will be a hurricane.
She can hear the thunder started to roar in the clouds, with occasional flashes. By now, the top of the tower couldn't be seen anymore, hidden by the clouds.
So, first, climb the mountains in the middle of a storm. Second, climb the tower creating the storm and destroy whatever is generating it, probably at the top.
And then, blow up the tower.
She could blow the tower first, but she is curious to see what kind of technology can create storms without the need of magic. Unless it's some kind of storm monster/robot, then it will be another occasion to show her superiority to those aliens before scaring them by blowing the tower with her Ultimate Doom Laser. If she could get her hooves on another armor, it would help greatly in making the aliens poop in their pants, and maybe they would be smart enough to leave Popstar before her or Kirby end up blowing the mothership.
But... wouldn't blowing something this size risking to blow also Popstar, with how close it is? They may need to find a way to launch the ship back into space before blowing it.
As Sweetie Belle passes a black door leading a little higher in the mountains after some walking and jumping, it finally starts raining, and the filly decides to run, wanting to reach the tower as quickly as possible.
She reaches a cannon that propels her higher toward a pathway among the rocks of the mountain. She has to jump above a few gaps while fighting some of HWC's minions, brainwashed or not, before she crawls in a pipe that leads her at the other side of a wall, where another cannon is waiting for her at the start of a series. For some of them, she has to wait for the right time as the cannons and some obstacles move to avoid being propelled against spikes or Gordos at best, or to avoid being crushed at worst. At the end of the series of cannons, a pipe leads her to a different path where she has to destroy a boulder about to roll on her.
The storm is gaining strength, and lightning bolts starts raining here and there, and the wind is becoming strong enough to push her if she doesn't walk fast enough. To avoid that, she covers her hooves with her spiked horseshoes shield to keep a foothold on the floor. But now, she has to watch out as more boulders are starting to fall, and to avoid the many objects and beings projected in the air by the wind, mainly Bronto Burts and other flying enemies along with the smaller rocks and plants.
After climbing a series of slope with many Rockys, she one-punches a Blocky before reaching another series of cannon. However, after three cannons, the wind is getting so strong that even the cannons are projected in the air, and Sweetie finds herself being blown far in a wide arc toward another mountain.
As soon as she lands, the part of the mountain she's on disappears in a huge mudflow, and she has to run as the rocks and other platforms she's on slowly sink in the mud. Many structures of the HWC build on the flank of the mountain are destroyed and taken away by the mudflow, creating many obstacles and platforms for her to pass and use as she climbs. A black door carried on a rock lead her further up on another rock that is, thankfully, on the part of the mountain out of the mudflow. However, as she starts advancing, a cannon carried by the wind collide with her, making the filly entering it without her wanting to, and again, Sweetie Belle finds herself blown in the air again right toward a metallic stairs leading to the entrance of a tunnel.
Entering it, she reaches a big artificial black door just beside a docking station with an armor in it.
Yes!
She climbs in the armor's cockpit, and like before, the armor transforms to become another Sweetie Bot.
No wait... This is Sweetie Bot! Somehow, Sweetie could feel it, the data of the first Sweetie Bot have been transferred to this one! So, an armor user keeps the data of their armor with them, and when they change armor, data is transferred to the new one?
Sweetie is glad for that, because, for some reason, Sweetie Bot feels like its more than an armor.
It's a friend. Maybe even... a twin sister. She can't explain why she feels this way. There's something with those armors. She feels really close to it.
Maybe like the robots of Shiver Star, Sweetie Bot is somehow... getting a soul? A soul right from her? This... feels like it. In this universe, machines can get souls. Probably something to do with the Great Energies. Soul Energy comes to mind, but Dream and Heart can help too, and she's certainly getting very powerful with Soul and Dream. A little with Dark too. Gosh, she should start training to use Heart.
Wait, if Sweetie Bot is getting a soul from Sweetie Belle, does this makes her its mother?
Wohohooo! No need to start thinking that deeply yet about her potential relationship with Sweetie Bot. She has a storm tower to destroy!
So she simply says with a smile, "Welcome back, Bot. Now, let's destroy that tower," before they pass the door.
They enter what can easily be described as a technologically advanced mine. Automated minecarts and wagons are transporting tons of precious metals and other things toward conveyor belts that transport them to who knows where, probably to containers to be stored and transported either to the Access Ark or to other places like forges or factories.
Those aliens are emptying Popstar of its natural resources for their benefits! No doubt once the planet is nothing more than an empty rock without interest, they will leave it and pass to the next world!
Well, this means only one thing for the Sweeties.
Sweetie Belle puts protection goggles on her eyes. "Time to blow more stuff."
They start advancing while firing lasers left and right at the conveyor belts, wagons, minecarts, and everything not natural in those tunnels. And now, Sweetie Belle understands why Tirek loved blowing stuff so much. It's fun! And very cathartic. She can feel her anger toward the aliens disappear a little.
Oh! She's still very angry at them! But now, at least, she isn't thinking anymore about beating this Haltmann into a pulp before going to Aqua Star to let Acro deal with him and show him what it costs to screw with nature. Now, she's just thinking of beating him into a pulp and hope that he will stop and leave. And if he doesn't, then she will destroy the Access Ark, no matter if he dies in the explosion or not.
She enters the biggest tunnel, then gets the idea to turn Sweetie Bot into a minecart on one of the railway, the one most in the middle, and use it to rapidly roll down the tunnel. However, not long after they have started rolling, the tunnel starts to collapse behind them!
Maybe she should have gone easy with the lasers...
With Sweetie Bot rolling at max speed, they continue down the tunnel until they reach a huge cave with many railways going to all directions and many more tunnels. Only, the railways are breaking to pieces! They have to jump from falling railway to falling railway until they reach one of the tunnels. This tunnel separates into many smaller tunnels where she can see giant drills on wheels digging in the mountains searching for every last drop of resources. Of course, with the tunnel still collapsing behind, Sweetie Belle doesn't take time to destroy them, instead destroying some minecarts on the way rolling toward them. Some creatures that can dig and armors with their screwdrivers on are also trying to stop them.
And then, one of the giant drills gets out of one of the tunnels and starts chasing them! And it's fast! Rapidly, Sweetie Belle fires at it her Ultimate Doom Laser (Wow, she's using it a lot in this adventure!), and the drills explodes in a huge explosion, blowing a huge hole in one of the walls! And from this wall, magma suddenly flows out!
And they're reaching a dead end!
Both Sweeties' horns lighten, and Sweetie Bot transforms back into its car form, with the screwdriver at the front acting like a drill. Making it work at max power, they rapidly drill their way through the earth and the stone to escape the magma, until they enter a huge magma chamber, destroying some pillar as the car jumps from the formed hole to land on a path formed by a succession of pillars.
The destruction of the pillar causes the chamber to start to shake before collapsing.
"OH, COME ON!!"
She can see the magma below starting to rise while the pillars are crumbling one after another, and before long, they ran out of pillar to roll on. Thinking quickly, she keeps Sweetie Bot in its car form while also giving it its ice form, the wheels turning into ice wheels. So when they fall on the rising magma, they roll on it!
Oh, Bandana will regret missing that.
Sweetie Belle steers the wheel to avoid the falling pillar as she looks for a way to get out of this mess. She then spots another stonepath that has not yet crumbled and that the magma is about to reach, and she rolled toward it. She has to jump a little to get on it, then follows it as the path climbs toward one of the walls of the chamber. So like they entered, they leave the chamber by drilling through the wall, the magma soon chasing them.
After about one minute of drilling, they reach the surface.
She rolls away of the formed hole to avoid the magma coming out, and stops on a rock not far, Sweetie Bot taking back its normal form while the filly looks around at the chaos that the surface has become.
The storm has become the most terrible hurricane Sweetie Belle has even seen in her life. If she didn't know better, she would think that it was the end of the world! If she wasn't in the armor, the wind would have blown her away without problem, and she would have been forced to change her body into metal to avoid this fate. And even then, she's not sure it would have been enough to keep her hooves one the ground, seeing the big chunk of metal that are now flying everywhere because of the wind, along with trees, boulders, and about everything that is on the surface. To make it worse, there are tornadoes everywhere! Some of them so big that they could probably blow away Twilight's castle without problems! It rains so much now that it's hard to see anything, not helped by the water falling constantly on her goggles. Thankfully, Sweetie Bot has an option roof to protect from the rain. Finally, dozens of lightning bolts are raining around them each seconds. And water is flooding the bottom of the mountains while huge mudflows and landslides are happening on said mountains' flanks.
Then, the mountain behind them, actually a volcano erupts, the top blowing, expelling fireballs all around.
But the tower isn't far now! At least, there's that... She just has to fight all the elements to reach it.
The Sweeties run down the flank of the volcano before spotting a boulder flying toward them. They jump on it, and let it carry them in the air toward another mountain where they jump on a landslide. Like with the mudflow, they climb it by jumping from platform to platform until they see a cannon coming. Once it's near enough, they jump in it, and it propels them toward one of the smaller tornadoes, landing on a boulder flying in it. More boulders are here along with some trees and building parts, and after some jumping, they reach a metallic platform with an artificial black door.
It leads them to another metallic platform sliding down a mountain on a mudflow, this one having many metallic pieces that are bombarded by lightning bolts, forcing them to watch out when they jump above them or walk on them. At the moment, they reach a giant metallic door blocking the way, only for a fiery boulder from the volcano to hit it as they start falling in this part of the mountain range, and the door falls to form a temporary bridge that the Sweeties traverse before it falls in the mud and is taken away.
And now, they have to avoid the fiery boulders and the lightning bolts while climbing the mudflow. Thankfully, the climb doesn't last long before another cannon blow them above the top of the mountain toward the opposite flank. They land on another mudflow, away from the rain of fiery boulders, and they find another artificial door about to sink further below.
However, the door leads them right at the flooded base of the mountain, on a platform floating on the torrent, and they have to jump to another to reach the right current moving toward the tower. Using the armor's swords as oars, they move the platform to avoid the many obstacles and projectiles falling in the water, Sweetie forced to explode some of them to open the path.
And they soon reach the base of the mountain on which the tower is built, and Sweetie can say that it will be hard to reach it. The tower is surrounded by a tornado, a very powerful one, many debris flying around it. And every now and then, a debris is propelled outward, becoming more or less big bullets. Of course, there's first the mountain to climb, with some landslides and mudflows here and there.
They start jumping up the flank of the mountain, stopping a few times to let a debris slam further up. A cannon stuck helps them rapidly gain some height, only for them to reach a landslide, boulders raining here as they jump from platform to platform to get out of there. They exit the landslide just in front of the entrance of a tunnel, and they enter it, climbing some slopes in it with the help of some ladders before using some cannons to gain more height. After jumping up a few more platforms, they reach a part of the tunnel that starts to be flooded by muddied water, with a waterfall.
They start climbing it by using another ladder toward a cannon blowing them to a higher platform. Here, they use some boulders falling down the waterfall to reach a platform at the opposite side where there's another cannon. After more jumping using falling boulders, they reach the top of the waterfall, and they follow the water toward the exit, where a torrent is separating into two, a part of it entering the tunnel while the other continues down the mountain to join a mudflow.
Following a small path, they reach a succession of platforms between two walls and start climbing them, only for a huge boulder to ram one of the walls and breaking it, creating a bridge with it at its extremity falls on a rock. So they continue this way as another path starts from the rock to climb, and climb, and climb, the Sweeties having to jump more than a dozen times above gaps while avoiding many debris, before it finally leads them to the tornado around the tower.
There's still some climbing between the tornado and the tower, the tower being at the top of a huge column of stone, so Sweetie gets the dangerous idea to jump on one of the passing debris in the tornado, then jumps from debris to debris until reaching the entrance of the tower, Sweetie Bot however getting hit a few times by some of the debris.
Beside the entrance of the tower is a docking station with an armor that has clearly seen better days before the storm. Sweetie quickly destroys it before entering the tower.
Sweetie Belle breathes a huge sigh of relief once inside, before laughing. "I got through jungles, ice mountains, deserts, volcanoes, even space, and in the end, the thing that gave me the most problems is an end-of-the-world class hurricane created by aliens. I underestimated them. Kirby, you really owe me one." She looks up at the hallway forming a slope to climb the tower. "Okay, let's destroy that tower."
Not surprising, many enemies are guarding the tower as Sweetie climbs the floors one after another, alternating between sloping hallways and big rooms full of all kinds of enemies, including many big ones like Bonkers, Blockys, Dubiors, and much more, without forgetting many Invader Armors. But they are all easily taken down by the Sweeties, and before long, they reach a door that leads them to an elevator. However... The elevator won't activate while there's an Armor on it, if what the little drawing on the sign next to it says is true. So Sweetie Belle has no choice but to leave Sweetie Bot in a docking station beside it.
The elevator leads Sweetie Belle to a huge domed room, and just above them is none other than Kracko.
Of course it would be Kracko! But he's different...
His eye is now a cybernetic one surrounded by a black cloud of smoke, the kind that comes out of factories, and instead of spikes surrounding the cloud, there are giant screws. From those screws, electricity comes out, surrounding the cloud in a field of electricity connecting to prods all around him, alimenting the tower, and the storm outside.
Sweetie Belle looks at him in sadness. The most powerful lieutenant of Dedede, one of Kirby's greatest rivals in his army... reduced to this... But she can't remain here having pity too long, she must stop him, and if possible, help him.
So she takes her whip, puts it into staff mode, opens one of its extremities, and fires a laser from it toward the eye of Kracko, the laser casing a small explosion upon impact. This has gotten Kracko's attention, and he looks down at her, expressionless because of his cyber eye.
Then, the roof opens, and the prods around Kracko start to rise along with the one eyed cloud. Sweetie Belle follows him with a shield, the two facing as they rise toward the sky in the tornado. She makes sure to avoid the electricity connecting Kracko to the prod behind her as they have extended outward.
Then, the prods reach the tornado around them, and expel electricity at it, filling the whole tornado with electricity!
Then, lightning bolts start to come out toward Sweetie Belle, and she quickly flies around to avoid them while the prods start circling around Kracko who remains at the center of the tornado, eye always turned toward her. Then, he fires a laser from his eye, and again, Sweetie Belle quickly flies away before firing back her own lasers and other projectiles, both from her horn, her hooves, and the ten cannons. Kracko returns with more lasers, then spins while firing yet another laser, sweetie dodging it simply by moving up.
Once he stops spinning, Kracko charges at her, and she lets herself drop from her shield to avoid him before creating another shield to land on, deciding to use what she learned from Magolor to gather electricity from the tornado before launching it at Kracko. From his screws, Kracko then fires balls of electricity that home in at her, and she uses a mirror to deflect them back before slamming the mirror against Kracko.
The electricity connecting Kracko to the prods then seems to double in intensity, and more lightning bolts start coming out of the tornado, getting a little more random, which makes them more dangerous. To not help, small tornadoes also comes out of the big one and a group of them fuses around Kracko before it starts to expand. Sweetie Belle quickly surrounds herself in a shield to not be blown away, then once it passes, she restarts firing at the cloud.
By then, before her eyes, the electrified field around Kracko enters his cloud, and the damage she has done to Kracko disappear! Once Kracko is fully regenerated, the electrified field comes out, and Kracko restarts attacking while the electricity connecting to the prods becomes even more intense, the tornado closing a little around them! More lightning bolts and more small tornadoes come out of it, along with debris, and Kracko himself is becoming more aggressive with his own lightning bolts and lasers.
And each time she damages him a little, he immediately heal!
Understanding that she will not win this fight this way, Sweetie Belle turns to one of the prods approaching her as they are still circling, much faster than at the start. Then, she fires at it, and destroys it.
Kracko doesn't like it, because suddenly, he starts gathering electricity in front of him from his screws, then unleashes it in in a wide cone of electricity that would have gotten the filly if she hadn't quickly accelerated! While Kracko continues spamming this attack, Sweetie Belle destroys one by one the prods, not stopping to not get caught in the attack. Then, the last prod is destroyed, and the electrical field around Kracko disappears.
In the following seconds, the tornado also loses strength, before disappearing, and the storm is starting to calm.
Kracko's eye starts glowing red, and he suddenly expends above Sweetie Belle. The filly rapidly create a shield around herself, just in time as Kracko rains lightning on her for a couple of seconds before stopping. Now that it's her turn, Sweetie Belle charges toward Kracko using her Giant Fiery Comet on his eye before unleashing a barrage of Shield Punches all over him. Despite the storm of punches, Kracko starts spinning rapidly, creating a new tornado around him to push away the filly before he starts firing lightning bolts all around him.
Frowning, Sweetie Belle flies up until reaching the top of the tornado, then plunges in its eye, charging right toward the still spinning Kracko. She rams him, and they crash in the room at the top of the tower with such strength that it destroys the elevator, and the two land in the room below.
Kracko doesn't lose his cloud form like all the time he was defeated before, but he stops moving, electricity coursing him while his eye is now very badly cracked.
Sweetie Belle looks at Kracko in sadness, regretting not being able to free him from this state, but then, she looks at the docking station with Sweetie Bot, and smiles.
Maybe...
She climbs inside Sweetie Bot, then does what she has done with the giant purple robot: they light up, and Sweetie Bot separates into pieces flying toward Kracko before merging with him. Kracko then light up too, and when the light disappears, his red eye has been replaced by a green eye while the cloud has been turned white again, with a white horn coming out of it above the eye. The screws are still her, but are now alternatively pink and purple like Sweetie's mane, and on top of him, there's now a cockpit with Sweetie Belle inside, smiling.
"Hopefully, when we defuse, you will be returned to normal, but until then..." Her smile grows wider. "Why not enjoy it?"
Now piloting the Sweetie Kracko, Sweetie Belle makes it fly up in the sky before making it look down at the tower. She then light up both the eye and the horn while surrounding them with her ten cannons, and fires an extremely more powerful version of her Ultimate Doom Laser at the tower. The tower disappears in a huge explosion the next instant.
The filly is bouncing in excitement in the cockpit, almost screaming. "They are SO doomed now! I will reach the area under the entrance of the Ark in no time!" She turns toward the right direction as she sees a third foot of the ship exploding. "But before, maybe I should search for the Halberd. I worry about them... Alright, let's go!"
And so, the filly soars in the sky on her robotic cloud, searching for Meta Knight's battleship, and ready to give Tartarus to any aliens that cross her path.
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awesome!!
If you're trying to overload me with references, then you failed. Watch this, I'm going to catch every single one of them:
Donkey Kong Country Returns (minecart levels), Sonic Lost World (rail riding levels), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (where they free the slaves and crush the slave driver), and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (Drilldiggers).
Bane's drilling machine.
Mario Kart 8 (the beanstalk track's storm portion, with the platforms that lightning tends to strike).
Squeak Squad (Kracko's new design is likely inspired by Mecha Kracko).
Nicktoons Unite! (versus Crocker; he uses a mechanical suit that heals with help from the various signal towers around the arena, and the gang can destroy the towers after knocking Crocker away by freezing them with Timmy's Freeze Glove before striking while they're frozen.)...
...and the fact that Kirby bosses always seem to turn red or something after they lose a certain amount of health!
Now for the typos and mistakes...
Blow up the tower.
HWC. And you may want to fix the rest of the occurrences of the word.
Emptying Popstar of its natural resources.
The plural form of stuff is stuff. Also, I'm glad you put those goggles to use. Kirby didn't even use his once!
To make it worse.
Blocking the way.
Try 'until then' instead of 'before.' I think that's about it for typos and mistakes. Last, my personal comments.
Yeah, that's a pretty... ice pun.
The Ultimate Doom Laser: Hyper Beam with no recharge and more PP.
When you play Super Mario Odyssey and realize you get to capture Bowser...
9884246
The worst is that I didn't know that I made most of those references.
However, you forgot one. The passage about Sweetie climbing a mudflow/landslide was a reference to the avalanche level of DKC Tropical Freeze. 
All corrected. Thank you!
When your energy/magic reserve is boosted thanks to an armor, then why not enjoying it? Beside, it's the most effective attack to blow stuff.
That's exactly that!
9884293
I never played Tropical Freeze; the only Donkey Kong games I ever played are Barrel Blast, Jungle Beat (Barrel Blast and Jungle Beat are my favorites), and Country Returns (I was never able to get past that giant bat in the cave level where you use the jetpack and try to avoid the ceiling, floor, and sound waves).
Also, I literally just told you that it's 'blow up stuff,' or 'blow stuff up.' Did someone pile-drive your head or something? (That wasn't an insult; try to guess what I was referencing with it!)
9884369
As for the reference... It... reminds me of something, but I don't know what. 🤔
I never understand when to put the 'up' and when not to.
Oh yeah, now that she's going off the canon paths, you can have levels that are actually designed for her. On the flipside, you actually have to design the levels.
Incidentally, I suspect canon!Kracko just buggered off to the Mirror World or any other place with a sky until all of this blew over. Because that's a thing he can do, hinted at in Amazing Mirror by way of his being in it and confirmed in Star Allies. It's possible that even Parallel Kracko is just the same guy in a more tricked-out cloud.
9884369
Oy, that level gave me a hell of a lot of trouble, but I managed to beat it after losing like a hundred lives!
9884612
Which I don't mind.
It's fun to imagine the levels for Sweetie's adventure.
Excepted that they had to take the data for Holo-Kracko from somewhere. If Kracko had buggered off to the Mirror World, then how could they have known about him and his attacks?
9884675
And it was so good to see him trapped in ice in Tropical Freeze. If I wasn't busy trying to survive with the rocket-barrel, I would have done like Nelson from the Simpson, pointed my finger at it before saying "Ah Ah!"
9885228
Yes it was. That bat gave us so much trouble in Returns, it was truly satisfying to see that bat get iced in Tropical Freeze. Heck all of World 4 overall gave me trouble. Heck I think it gave everybody trouble.
Speaking of the big ape...
Lucar, remember back in chapter 79, I made a comment about how this story gave me ideas for my own story and I thanked you for it?
9885516
I just saw it. I'll wait a few more chapters before giving my opinion, but it's a good start.
9885560
Alrighty then. I'll get straight to work.
9884387
(He hatched from his egg in Glitzville, where the team takes on various opponents in a boxing arena.)
Okay, it's from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. At a certain point in the game, Professor Frankly breaks the fourth wall by speaking to the viewer. Depending on the ally Mario has with him, the ally will make different comments. Baby Yoshi will say something along the lines of "Did someone pile-drive your head or something?!"
9885835
Ah yeah, no wonder it reminded me something. I haven't player this game since... forever!