Harmony of Heroes: Ultimate Multiverse Explorers

by Lucar

Chapter 81: Fichina And Aquas

Thanks to Phantom and Star Fox having done most of the clean up, especially getting rid of the aparoid leader, the Cornerian Armada that followed had no problem eliminating the pests that remained on Katina while the heroes went toward Corneria to give the Core Memory to Slippy's father. Since Katina was a neighboring planet of Corneria, it didn't take long to reach it and the Great Fox soon enough landed in the capital, Corneria City.

Corneria was a planet like Equus or Mobius, with different climats and lot of farming soils, perfect for the growth of an advanced civilization. Thus, it was no surprise to see, sheltered among mountain ranges and not far of an ocean, a large city that would put Manehattan to shame. The city was beautiful, but the streets were almost empty. Obviously, most of the inhabitants had sheltered in case the aparoids invaded. They barely recovered from Andross' invasion all these years ago so they weren't willing to take any risk.

Not long after the Great Fox landed in the local spatioport and the members of Star Fox as well as Phantom came out, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom appeared beside the pegasus. Using the coordinates given by the Cornerians, the Unique Horn was able to open a portal to the space above the planet and Sweetie Belle then used her ability to feel energies to determine where Phantom was and teleported herself and Apple Bloom to her.

"Hey Scootaloo. So, how did it go?" the alicorn asked while the group walked away from the spatioport, following Fox.

"Destroyed a giant U.F.O.-like aparoid and blew up the head of a pig too greedy for his own good. Found out that they could reproduce very rapidly because of spacial aparoids that served as hatchers. Sadly no survivor in the base we were sent to. What about you?"

"We simply helped the Cornerians exterminate all the aparoids on a planet named Zoness." Falco stiffened at this. "It would have been simple, but these damn bugs then revealed to have the ability to turn machines and organisms into new aparoids like freaking zombies."

Everyone, even Phantom, stared at her in horror.

Apple Bloom nodded. "And Zoness' ocean had lots of strong critters, apparently mutants caused by the planet havin' served as garbage dump by Andross, and we'd to kill a few of them that had been turned. And even some that weren't turned were hostile."

"And all the while we also had to deal with the usual aparoids, including some of these giant wasp-like ones that were still present as well as many of these hatchers you talked about, and even turned Cornerian fighters, soldiers, and a few unlucky civilians," Sweetie Belle continued, getting a haunted look when she talked about the civilians. "At least, not many seem survive the process so their number was very limited."

"Small blessing..." Falco said. "So it means that for every thousand people killed, a couple dozens get turned into a monster?"

"It seems to have more to do with various factors, like the strength of their will or their physical condition. I'm not really sure. Trained soldiers seemed to have an easier time being turned into an aparoid. And said people first had to be infected, so it's more like for every thousand people killed, about a hundred gets infected. And among these infected, if they are simple civilians, only one or two seem to survive the process to fully become an aparoid. Soldiers seem more like nine times out of ten," Sweetie Belle explained. "As for machines? Every single times. If a ship gets infected, game over, abandon it before you become part of it whether you survive the process or not. I could still see the pilots inside the turned Cornerian fighters... It wasn't a pretty sight. Luckily, no battleships were turned."

With these revelations, the members of Star Fox understood how bad the situation was. This wasn't just an invasion.

It was an assimilation.

The aparoids won't stop until the whole Lylat system was either dead or turned into aparoids. And after that, they would certainly go to another system to repeat the process. The whole galaxy was threatened. Maybe even the universe.

And this also meant that they will have to be more careful in the future. They didn't know how the aparoids could infect someone or something, so they will have to keep an eye. The last thing they wanted was their own Arwings or even the Great Fox to be turned into aparoids.

With this in mind, they hurried to the research center where Slippy's father worked to end this nightmare as quickly as possible.

---

"You already got one?" the old frog asked in surprise while grabbing the Core Memory that Fox handed to him. "I guess that I shouldn't have expected less from Star Fox."

"Pigma almost got away with it, but one of our new friends stopped him before he could," Slippy informed.

"Yes. Without Scootaloo, I fear that we would have ended up in a merry chase across Lylat trying to catch him," Peppy added.

Krystal crossed her arms. "I don't want to think of all the time we would have lost. Of all the lives that would have been lost."

Slippy's father nodded. "I will start extracting the data from the Core Memory right away, but this will take some time. Until then, you should return to the fight against the aparoids. There is especially something that worries me. We have lost all contacts with our friends in the Climate Control Center on Fichina. We received reports of aparoids in the area so I fear that they were attacked. This may be too late to save them, but we must absolutely ensure that the center isn't destroyed. As you may know, the center regulates the climate to allow the planet to be habitable so we could colonize it. Its destruction would heavily set us back. So if you could protect the center and drive the aparoids back until one of our fleets could come, it would be very appreciated. This is, however, not as important as defending the populations of the other planets, so I won't hold it against you if you refuse to go there."

"I'm sorry Beltino, but the lives are more important than a center," Peppy said.

"Well then, we will just split again," Sweetie Belle said as she pointed at herself, at Phantom, and at Apple Bloom. "One of us will go alone while the rest of us will go to defend another planet."

"Actually, one of us should remain here, at Corneria," Phantom said. "The aparoids could attack at all moment."

"That's true," Beltino agreed. "With our forces stretched all over Lylat against the aparoids, a direct assault on the planet would be devastating."

"Then I will remain here," Phantom said.

"And Ah'll go to Fichina," Apple Bloom said.

"Then I will be the one continuing to help the Cornerian army defending other planets with the Unique Horn and Star Fox," Sweetie Belle said.

"Well, you should then ask the General where you should go," Beltino advised.

---

Leaving Phantom on Corneria, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom returned inside the Unique Horn while the Great Fox warped toward Aquas.

A quick call to General Pepper and the old dog told them that the aquatic planet was currently assaulted by the aparoids. While there were no civilization currently on it, there were still apparently many mutants created by Andross in the depth of its ocean and the last thing the Cornerians wanted was for these mutants to be turned into aparoids possibly along with the billions of fishes and other submarine fauna living there.

But before the Unique Horn could follow the Great Fox, they had to drop Apple Bloom on Fichina. So they used the coordinates given to them to open a portal to the icy world. Once they arrived, Apple Bloom then turned into her ghost form and descended onto the surface of the planet. Having been shown a map of the surface, she had no problem finding the Climate Control Center, which was a large circular building with a dome roof.

As they thought, aparoids were present everywhere around it, but the building itself was surprisingly intact. Well, from what Phantom said, the base on Katina had also been mostly intact, and the few buildings on Zoness had been mostly ignored, the ones that had been damaged being so because of collateral damage and stray shots or because the civilians had locked themselves inside them, so it seemed that the aparoids didn't care attacking the buildings.

Now, it was just a matter of eliminating the aparoids while trying to ensure that the Center wasn't accidentally damaged in the chaos that will follow. No problem.

At least, as a ghost, the extreme cold of the planet didn't bother her. And the aparoids present were all small fry. Nothing like the wasp-like ones or that U.F.O.-like one Phantom and Fox fought on Katina. It seemed that, because of the limited number of beings present on the planet, the aparoids hadn't bothered to send much of their forces.

Apple Bloom turned into a shadow and crept toward the nearest aparoid. Once she reached it, she attacked its shadow, killing it right away. Turning it into a zombie, she then went to the next aparoid and repeated the process. The only aparoids that were safe from this tactic were the ones whose shadow was hidden by other, bigger shadows like the one Center, the cliffs around, and also the three towers that surrounded the building. The flying aparoids weren't safe because no matter how high you were, your shadow always was present somewhere on the ground.

One by one, the aparoids were assassinated and turned into cybernetic zombies that then went to attack other aparoids. It rapidly turned into a slaughter, and it didn't take ten minutes for the bugs to understand that they could do nothing so they retreated.

But no matter where they will go on this planet cold like death, because Death will hunt them down to the last. The only ones that will live will be the ones smart enough to get away from the planet.

In the end, the Cornerian fleet that eventually came wasn't even needed.

Assassin and Necromancer. A scary combination, for sure.

---

Where Zoness had been an aquatic world with many islands popping up here and there, perfect for tropical vacations, Aquas was an aquatic world with almost no land above the water. No surprise then that Star Fox had to bring out their own submarine, the Blue-Marine, to go fight with the aparoids. The problem was that they only had one submarine, so while Fox was underwater blowing up bugs and infected fishes with torpedoes (thankfully in infinite quantities), the others were forced to remain patrolling the sky. The Cornerians had their own submarines, but they were far too much outnumbered in the ocean. Thankfully, Sweetie Belle was here.

The sky and above were already freed of aparoids. The Unique Horn, backed by the Cornerians and Star Fox, was pretty much invincible and the bugs quickly understood that it was no use. All that remained were the ones in the water who probably thought that they were untouchable down there, but they quickly learned that nothing was untouchable for a certain alicorn filly, and even Fox seemed to start to gain a reputation among the aparoids judging by how they were putting more efforts trying to stop him.

This fox was a demon in disguise. No matter if he was in command of a fighter, a tank, a submarine, or armed with just a gun, this guy was a terror. Krystal even told Sweetie Belle a bit about Fox's adventure on Sauria, a planet full of dinosaurs, where he had just been armed with Krystal's magical staff. Not even a blaster. No matter the weapon or the vehicle, it seemed that Fox learned to use it in one minute and mastered it in five. No wonder he won the war against Andross pretty much by himself.

Sweetie Belle hunted the aparoids around the ruins of what seemed to be a temple. Surprisingly, a civilization did prosper in the ocean of the planet, but eventually disappeared for some reason. All that remained now were ruins around which the Cornerians were now battling the aparoids and their victims. It was a long and difficult hunt. The ocean was not only vast, spanning the whole planet, but could also go very deep in many places and they often had to move in darkness. There were also Andross' remaining mutants to account for, infected or not.

Thankfully radars helped them find where aparoids were hidden or they would have been at it forever and may have left the planet with one or two still alive which would have been a disaster.

They did eventually encounter the aparoid that seemed to be the leader of this bunch, some kind of giant aquatic beetle that could send waves through the water using its legs and that could fire torpedoes from the six holes on the sides of its shell. Like the wasp-like aparoid, its core was inside its mouth, but it refused to open it. Of course, Sweetie Belle could easily defeat it in five seconds, but she decided to let Fox fight it so everyone could see what strategy to use if they ever encountered more of these beetles in the future.

It turned out that it was a simple process. First, they had to fire at the holes in the shell. Fox fired a torpedo at one of the holes which caused a big explosion inside the shell, the hole thus becoming unusable as it smoked afterward. The process had to be repeated for each holes, Sweetie Belle deciding to help to make it shorter. Once all the holes were unusable, the beetle was forced to change tactic and had to open its mouth to charge energy and fire a powerful laser. This was the occasion to hit. The beetle also attempted to charge at them and even to throw boulders but it wasn't a problem to avoid them, or even to destroy the boulders with torpedoes.

Eventually, the beetle died in an explosion, and the Cornerians took note of how to kill it.

They did well, because it quickly turned out that there were a few more beetles hidden at different places in the ocean. Using Fox's example, the Cornerians had no problem killing them with minimal lost using their number. As for Sweetie Belle, she easily killed the ones she found.

The filly eventually received a call from Apple Bloom would told her that she was done with Fichina, so she sent the Unique Horn to fetch her. The Earth Pony filly Spirit of Death could open rifts to go from one planet to another, but like with teleportation, if she didn't know the place, it didn't work. So she needed to visit the planets first.

Maybe if she was shown images of the places... This will have to be tested.

So Apple Bloom briefly joined in hunting the few aparoids that remained on Aquas, and it wasn't long before the ocean was cleaned of all pests, and even of Andross' mutants while they were at it.

"So that's it? No more aparoids on aquas?" Fox asked.

"We get no more readings," an officer Cornerian answered. "All enemy forces were exterminated. The planet is safe. Thank you for your help Star Fox."

"Glad it's finally over!" Slippy shouted.

"We barely did anything," Falco said.

"Exactly! It was boring just flying in circle in the sky! I only got to shoot at two aparoids! Next time, remind me to build more Blue-Marines. And Landmasters too."

"We will need more place in the Great Fox before you can do that," Peppy reminded.

"I'm returning to the Great Fox," Fox informed.

"Very well. ROB, get the Great Fox on the surface of the ocean, near Fox's position."

"Affirmatif."

"Do you guys know if another planet is attacked?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Not currently, but we received reports of aparoids in Sector X," Peppy answered. "If nothing else comes up, this will be our next destination. If nothing is done, they could go to Titania or Macbeth from there."

At this moment, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom received a call from Phantom.

"Uh. One moment please," Sweetie Belle said before the call was answered. "Yes, Scoot?"

"Girls, we have a code "Get Your Butts Here Right Now". Corneria is attacked, and their number is unbelievable."

"What?!?" everybody shouted.

"They just came out of a portal. Millions of them. I think that they felt that vital information is being extracted from the Core Memory and they sent everything they could to stop this. Hurry up. They're too many for me to correctly defend the planet and the Cornerians will quickly be submerged."

"On our way!" both Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom said before they ended the call. "We will go ahead while Fox returns in the Great Fox," Sweetie Belle then added before the fillies returned inside the Unique Horn. The battleship then opened a portal and made sure to leave it open to allow the Cornerian ships around Aquas to come defend their homeplanet immediately.

The portal led them far enough from Corneria to ensure that they weren't assaulted right away. In the distance, they could see the planet with its surface partially obscured here and there by what were obviously swarms of aparoids. More aparoids were visible around the planet battling Cornerian ships and other defenses.

Already, it didn't look good.

Author's Note:

The mission on Fichina in the story is much different from the one in the game. As I said previously, in the game, Pigma escapes with the Core Memory and Star Fox is forced to chase him. After encountering Star Wolf, a tip from Panther leads them to Fichina where they discover that Pigma has deactivated the Climate Control Center, causing a blizzard to appear. Because of this, the members of Star Fox couldn't use their Arwings and Fox was forced to go on foot. The first objective was to enter the Center to reactivate it, but the center was protected by a shield that Pigma probably activated previously, so Fox had to deactivate it by firing at the generators in three towers around the Center. Then, once inside, after reactivating the Center, Fox was attacked by defense drones turned into aparoids by Pigma using the Core Memory and was barely saved by Falco who was able to come now that the blizzard was gone. After that, Fox climbs on Falco's Arwing's wing and has to fire on the aparoids targeting the fighter until Pigma reveals himself and uses the Core Memory again to turn one of the towers into an aparoid, causing the Center to enter a critical state. So Fox had to let Pigma escape to destroy the new aparoid before the Center was destroyed. But now, in the story, with Pigma dead, the mission was much simpler, consisting just of eliminating the aparoids around the Center. No tower-turned-aparoid, no shield to deactivate, and no rail shouter section surfing on the wing of a fighter.

Also, before the aparoids' assault on Corneria, there was a mission on Sauria to defend the planet from them. This doesn't happen here thanks to the time gained by Phantom killing Pigma.

Fun fact: until now, almost every civilizations encountered used the same language, English or equivalent, so the translators hadn't been needed excepted to understand Pokémon or the Space Pirates between some others. But here, in Lylat, the inhabitants have their own language that would have been absolutely impossible to understand otherwise. I'm serious. The Lylat language could be selected in the PAL version of Star Fox 64 on Nintendo 64.
I'll let you admire:
Link
I loved to select it. It made the game funnier.

Comments

[Kichi]

Apple Bloom don't use or wear the ghost sucker anymore, right? Because suddenly I imagine a Aparoid using it and becoming a mid-boss

[Lucar]

11173468
No, she doesn't use it anymore. It's now unnecessary. She can still go fetch it with just a portal to her home if needed.

[ANerdWithASwitch]

Power-wise, Apple Bloom may be the weakest of the three, but honestly I think she's the most terrifying. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo have overwhelming force at their disposal and are utterly terrifying in their own right, sure, but the former will attempt negotiations before resorting to lethal force, and the latter'll just kill you and be done with it, and in both cases at least you know what's killing you.
Apple Bloom, on the other hand, has a Vashta Nerada zombie virus at her disposal, which is horrifying on a primal level. An entire army could be felled in one swoop via exponential growth and attacking the shadows. A necromancer's army only ever grows, after all.

[Kichi]

11173506
Could a Aparoid infect Sweetie Belle ship?

[Lucar]

11173796
Uh. Having not watched much episodes of Doctor Who, I had to go and see what is a Vashta Nerada and darn, these things are chilling. But a better comparison would be a Daeva (without the light weakness, instead having a darkness weakness) with necromantic powers. And I guess that we must not expect less from the avatar of Death.
11173946
Yep, they could. Thankfully, the force field around the Unique Horn protects it from any attempts.

[herobrins mom]

WOOOO!!!!
NEW CHAPTER!!

also..are we gona see something op for the BIG fight that's going to happen next chapter?

i ask cause i wana request that sweetie belle uses my move atleast once?

pleeeeeeaaaaase?

and if not please make whatever she does is AWESOME plz
and thank you

[Lucar]

11174857
The Dynamax, right? Sorry, but no. The bugs are numerous, but they are still bugs. They won't need such power to be crushed.

[herobrins mom]

11174892
nonnononononononononoononono

that would be TOO op

was talking about the laser wing blade thing

..aaaand maby also pulling a sonic and bouncing off ships while doing the screw attack plus laser wings.

i mean...the dynamax part was like..for a solar system destroyer type move cause the laser wing blade thing's are WAY bigger than her and i think it would be the same if she was dynamaxed...just tone it down with no dynamax

shouldn't be to op for a swarm of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of bugs that are about to be squashed like ants going up against an ant eater that is not hungry

[Lucar]

11174898
Ah yeah. Yes, she will do that in the next battle.

[herobrins mom]

11175026
YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!

THIS IS GONA BE AWESOME!!!~

[DockingWater17]

11177079
There is a copy ability exclusive to Super Star and it's remake named Copy, which allows Kirby to copy foes without eating them with a scanner of some kind.

[Lucar]

11177990
I totally forgot about it. Thanks.

[DockingWater17]

11178035
I'm curious what he would look like when he would copy them. I guess Apple Bloom would just be a far more powerful version of Ghost from Squeak Squad, but Phantom would be something brand new.

[Lucar]

11178042
I guess that for Apple Bloom, he would take the appearance of a ghostly lich. As for Phantom/Scootaloo, the only way I see him change appearance would be by getting Infinite's mask.

[Cyrus Colter]

11178236
Trying to use the ability on Sweetie Belle would break the scanner.

Change my mind, I invite you.